And there is more of the same.
Mar. 3rd, 2006 05:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chibi_trillianHoly shit, we've actually got a name for this blasphemy upon the name of One Piece fandom (I'll go back and retconn it in on the other chapters, because I'm evil like that). And an icon. Who loves Smoker-kins?
Title: Acquired Taste, Chapter Four: Simmer
Series: One Piece.
One Piece: Not mine.
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Smoker and Zeff suffer the consequences of stupidity. Namely, shouting and death threats.
“You had him and you let him GET AWAY?!” Hina was absolutely rigid with rage, and Smoker halfway didn’t blame her. Only halfway, though.
“What the hell else was I supposed to do? He wasn’t doing anything legally wrong, someone came out of the restaurant looking for him, and I was off duty and technically didn’t have the authority to arrest him anyway! Besides, how was I supposed to explain me being out in the streets with him instead of between the sheets with you?” he snarled, grinding his teeth around the end of his cigar. He wondered if smoking two cigars at once was feasible, because after this argument he was certainly going to feel like he needed another one.
“Hina is so Hina-angry with you that Hina can’t find the words!” Hina shrieked, voice reaching a pitch that should have had dogs all over the base howling (including Major Grawp). Roughly translated from Hina-ese, that meant “You have made a logical argument that I cannot find any holes in, but I am still irrationally upset with you. Give me a moment to smoke a cigarette and calm myself.”
Hina’s next-door barracks-neighbors, who either spoke Hina-ese very poorly or (more likely) hadn’t heard actual words, only volume, thumped on the wall. A door banged open, and someone across the hall shouted, “Will you two make up and have sex already so the rest of us can sleep?”
Hina, wrath turned towards a target she could actually kick the shit out of without it turning into smoke every time she tried to smash its nose in, stomped out to go put a hurting on some poor stupid soul who hadn’t given her her five minutes and a cigarette so she could calm down. Smoker could hear shouts of “Hina’s personal life is Hina’s business!” and “Hina will be angry if Hina wants to be!” between cries of pain. Smoker would have felt sorry for the poor girl, but she’d really brought it on herself.
After Hina had come back looking much calmer and had had her requisite cigarette, she finally asked, “If you knew you couldn’t do anything to him, why did you bother using your Logia to capture him? So desperate for dates you have to hunt them down and catch them?”
That had come a little too close to the truth. It really wasn’t encouraging when the first words that someone you fancied spoke to you were “You taste like shit.” Especially when the person complaining actually tasted really good, and you could almost feel the prickle of his goatee around your lips…back on topic. Hina was starting to look at him funny, and Smoker wondered if his eyes had actually glazed over.
“Nnn. It was stupid.” It retrospect, it really was. That wasn’t an answer, but it was all the answer he cared to give right now. “But at least I know his name now.” Onwards, to a new subject of conversation.
“Oh? Tell me.”
“His friend called it when he came out of the restaurant. It’s ‘Zeff.’ And if I know his name, I can find him again.”
****
“And where exactly were you again?” Captain Lawson was not a happy man. Actually, from the neutrality of his tone and the utter blandness of his face, he was contemplating shooting Zeff and throwing him overboard. Damn, but Zeff hated those stupid sunglasses. They kept him from getting a proper read on the man and also kept him from anticipating what he’d do in a combat situation—which was precisely what they were supposed to do.
“I was investigating a possible threat.” Investigating the inside of a Marine’s mouth, more like. Captain Lawson wasn’t finding out about that little feature of Zeff’s evening, though. “It turned out to be nothing. I wasn’t gone longer than five minutes.”
“Five minutes can make a world of difference as to whether we stay alive and free or arrested and dead. If Marines had come into that restaurant during the ‘five minutes’ you were gone, I’d be in irons and facing trial, and where would you be then?”
“Anluan would be captain, and we’d all be doomed. But it didn’t, and he’s not.” The navigator slammed her pen down. “If Zeff says he thought it was important, you should leave it be. Nothing bad came of it, and the ‘what ifs’ don’t matter. You need to trust other people more.” The special emphasis she put on the word “trust” told him that this was a longstanding argument that definitely predated his time on the crew.
Captain Lawson looked at the navigator, then back at Zeff. Zeff met him, glare for…sunglasses. Stupid sunglasses. They were mirrored too, so all you got was yourself glaring back at you.
When Lawson finally said, “Fine,” it was so quiet that Zeff almost missed it. He wouldn’t pretend that he wasn’t relieved, though—he didn’t relish trying to swim back to shore, especially if he was as perforated as things that Captain Lawson got angry with tended to be. He shot a quick look of gratitude at the navigator (who winked at him) and went to go work on lunch.
Even as he stood in the kitchen, hands dancing around the flashing glitter of a sharp blade as he diced onions, he couldn’t get his mind off of the Marine boy. Why had he bothered catching him only to let him go when Lawson came looking for him? Why hadn’t he used his cursed abilities the first time he’d fought Zeff? What was his name, anyway? And why the hell was the boy such a good kisser?
Zeff shuddered at the last question and looked down at his onions. They were a bit past diced and well on the road to puréed. Ah, hell. The Marine brat was a pain even when he wasn’t present.
Zeff wanted to see him again. Just so he could try and land a kick on him, that’s all.
But for now, he had meals for five—no, six, the captain had managed to acquire a new crewmate from the man he’d been meeting with last night (by winning him in a poker game, of all things!), and Zeff had to remember to make more food. He also had to actually talk to the new meat and find out what he liked and didn’t like, food-wise. And he had to figure out how to make these rather sub-par vegetables into dishes that were up to his usual four-star standards.
Zeff was too damn busy right now for weird baby Marines, even if they did kiss well. He threw himself into his cooking, and almost managed to not think of him at all.
Chapter Five: The Taste of Revenge
Chapter Three: Contact
Title: Acquired Taste, Chapter Four: Simmer
Series: One Piece.
One Piece: Not mine.
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Smoker and Zeff suffer the consequences of stupidity. Namely, shouting and death threats.
“You had him and you let him GET AWAY?!” Hina was absolutely rigid with rage, and Smoker halfway didn’t blame her. Only halfway, though.
“What the hell else was I supposed to do? He wasn’t doing anything legally wrong, someone came out of the restaurant looking for him, and I was off duty and technically didn’t have the authority to arrest him anyway! Besides, how was I supposed to explain me being out in the streets with him instead of between the sheets with you?” he snarled, grinding his teeth around the end of his cigar. He wondered if smoking two cigars at once was feasible, because after this argument he was certainly going to feel like he needed another one.
“Hina is so Hina-angry with you that Hina can’t find the words!” Hina shrieked, voice reaching a pitch that should have had dogs all over the base howling (including Major Grawp). Roughly translated from Hina-ese, that meant “You have made a logical argument that I cannot find any holes in, but I am still irrationally upset with you. Give me a moment to smoke a cigarette and calm myself.”
Hina’s next-door barracks-neighbors, who either spoke Hina-ese very poorly or (more likely) hadn’t heard actual words, only volume, thumped on the wall. A door banged open, and someone across the hall shouted, “Will you two make up and have sex already so the rest of us can sleep?”
Hina, wrath turned towards a target she could actually kick the shit out of without it turning into smoke every time she tried to smash its nose in, stomped out to go put a hurting on some poor stupid soul who hadn’t given her her five minutes and a cigarette so she could calm down. Smoker could hear shouts of “Hina’s personal life is Hina’s business!” and “Hina will be angry if Hina wants to be!” between cries of pain. Smoker would have felt sorry for the poor girl, but she’d really brought it on herself.
After Hina had come back looking much calmer and had had her requisite cigarette, she finally asked, “If you knew you couldn’t do anything to him, why did you bother using your Logia to capture him? So desperate for dates you have to hunt them down and catch them?”
That had come a little too close to the truth. It really wasn’t encouraging when the first words that someone you fancied spoke to you were “You taste like shit.” Especially when the person complaining actually tasted really good, and you could almost feel the prickle of his goatee around your lips…back on topic. Hina was starting to look at him funny, and Smoker wondered if his eyes had actually glazed over.
“Nnn. It was stupid.” It retrospect, it really was. That wasn’t an answer, but it was all the answer he cared to give right now. “But at least I know his name now.” Onwards, to a new subject of conversation.
“Oh? Tell me.”
“His friend called it when he came out of the restaurant. It’s ‘Zeff.’ And if I know his name, I can find him again.”
****
“And where exactly were you again?” Captain Lawson was not a happy man. Actually, from the neutrality of his tone and the utter blandness of his face, he was contemplating shooting Zeff and throwing him overboard. Damn, but Zeff hated those stupid sunglasses. They kept him from getting a proper read on the man and also kept him from anticipating what he’d do in a combat situation—which was precisely what they were supposed to do.
“I was investigating a possible threat.” Investigating the inside of a Marine’s mouth, more like. Captain Lawson wasn’t finding out about that little feature of Zeff’s evening, though. “It turned out to be nothing. I wasn’t gone longer than five minutes.”
“Five minutes can make a world of difference as to whether we stay alive and free or arrested and dead. If Marines had come into that restaurant during the ‘five minutes’ you were gone, I’d be in irons and facing trial, and where would you be then?”
“Anluan would be captain, and we’d all be doomed. But it didn’t, and he’s not.” The navigator slammed her pen down. “If Zeff says he thought it was important, you should leave it be. Nothing bad came of it, and the ‘what ifs’ don’t matter. You need to trust other people more.” The special emphasis she put on the word “trust” told him that this was a longstanding argument that definitely predated his time on the crew.
Captain Lawson looked at the navigator, then back at Zeff. Zeff met him, glare for…sunglasses. Stupid sunglasses. They were mirrored too, so all you got was yourself glaring back at you.
When Lawson finally said, “Fine,” it was so quiet that Zeff almost missed it. He wouldn’t pretend that he wasn’t relieved, though—he didn’t relish trying to swim back to shore, especially if he was as perforated as things that Captain Lawson got angry with tended to be. He shot a quick look of gratitude at the navigator (who winked at him) and went to go work on lunch.
Even as he stood in the kitchen, hands dancing around the flashing glitter of a sharp blade as he diced onions, he couldn’t get his mind off of the Marine boy. Why had he bothered catching him only to let him go when Lawson came looking for him? Why hadn’t he used his cursed abilities the first time he’d fought Zeff? What was his name, anyway? And why the hell was the boy such a good kisser?
Zeff shuddered at the last question and looked down at his onions. They were a bit past diced and well on the road to puréed. Ah, hell. The Marine brat was a pain even when he wasn’t present.
Zeff wanted to see him again. Just so he could try and land a kick on him, that’s all.
But for now, he had meals for five—no, six, the captain had managed to acquire a new crewmate from the man he’d been meeting with last night (by winning him in a poker game, of all things!), and Zeff had to remember to make more food. He also had to actually talk to the new meat and find out what he liked and didn’t like, food-wise. And he had to figure out how to make these rather sub-par vegetables into dishes that were up to his usual four-star standards.
Zeff was too damn busy right now for weird baby Marines, even if they did kiss well. He threw himself into his cooking, and almost managed to not think of him at all.
Chapter Five: The Taste of Revenge
Chapter Three: Contact
