The collector

Marco entered the Commander’s lounge, where everyone was already waiting. They did have a meeting right now – everyone was gathered to watch you make your escape. It was almost like a live event, with multiple lenses on multiple screens tracking you as you moved down the hallways. Marco made his way to the front of the chairs, plopping down just as you were rounding the hallway towards his room. 

Marco was curious about your plans to “get away,” even though they were helping you to escape. The other Commanders wanted to watch as well, and were also interested in seeing Lafftale, the nearly fantastical location so close to being found. Everyone knew it would take some time to get to, but the excitement was nearly palpable as the Commanders gathered round to watch the screens.

“Right on time for the show,” Ace said, slinging an arm around Marco’s shoulders. Marco shrugged him off – he wanted to watch you every second to make sure you weren’t harmed. 

“He’s not in the mood, Ace,” Izou chided, sitting down primly next to Marco. Izou was sipping on a cup of hot tea, like he was watching some vid on the screen.

“Nothing’s happened, though,” Ace said, his tail flicking.

“It’s about to, look. She’s entering Marco’s room,” Izou said, a tentacle pointing towards the largest screen.  

“Are you sure she’s gonna escape? She seems so chill right now, maybe she’s just gonna relax,” Thatch said, already on the edge of his seat. If there was someone who was more anxious than Marco, it was Thatch.

“I’m certain. Watch –” Izou encouraged before taking another sip. Marco watched you as you moved through his room with familiar ease, stopping for a moment to press your small hand on his bed. You made a wistful sigh before making your way to the small container of your belongings that Marco had given you. Rifling through it briefly, you grabbed the satchel that Ace had given you, checking its content before slinging it over your shoulder. 

“Aw, she’s taking the bag I gave her!” Ace said happily, bouncing in his seat.

“And the flower I gifted her as well. And a feather from your plumage as well I see,” Vista said with approval as you shoved the Eternal Romance flower he had given you into your bag along with the feather Marco had. Marco hummed, pleased to see you taking a reminder of him with you. At least now he knew you’d be thinking of him, not just hoping.

“Aw, but not any of the bows. Maybe she didn’t like the colors. I tried so hard to guess what she would like, but I musta guessed wrong,” Jiru said sadly as you rifled through the contents of the box, tossing out the myriad bows you’d been given over the weeks. “Didn’t you give her one too, Izou?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t surprise me she isn’t taking them,” he replied with a smile. “Oh? What’s that she’s grabbing?” Izou asked, his tentacles wriggling. Marco licked his lips as he watched you delicately put the rose toy on top of everything and patted it gently. You were much more careful with the rose than you had been with the priceless flower Vista had given you.

“What is that item?” Izou asked, his eyes flashing with amusement.

“It’s a toy yoi,” Marco replied, trying to keep interest to a minimum. Izou hummed as his tentacles curled tighter, but Marco ignored it for the moment. 

You grabbed a containment cube and tapped on its screen, making it follow behind you. There was a clear plan in your mind as you worked quickly, taking item after item and putting it in your container. You took the protective suit Marco had given you for Kyuka, as well as your red blanket, and Marco’s pillow. Your eyes flicked to Marco’s blanket, and you paused in your motions. Seconds ticked by before you rolled it up and put it inside the container. 

After a few moments, you gave everything in the room one last look before nodding to yourself and heading out the door. Marco’s heart fell in his chest – you really were planning on leaving. At least you would have something that smelled like him, Marco thought to himself.

Next, you headed towards Marco’s lab. Marco wasn’t surprised in the slightest, he knew you would want the vaccines and medicine. There was chattering among the Commanders, but Marco could only focus on you. And just as he had anticipated, you beelined for the cabinet that held the syringes and vials. You scanned the vials slowly, your finger under each word as you sounded it out. You licked your lips and nodded before carefully wrapping all the vials in your blanket and putting it back in the cube. It seemed you took every single vaccine and treatment Marco had left out for you. You didn’t know they were fake, but it wouldn’t matter. Marco would be there with you to treat all the humans, and it wouldn’t hurt them if they received a shot anyway.

“She learned to read!” Blenheim exclaimed. “Good job, Luna.”

“Yes, she’s been working quite diligently at it yoi,” Marco said absently. He watched you take your Eurt glass and wrap it in his blanket with a small smile to yourself. Marco would have to get more glasses made, since you liked them so much. Even though you were trying to leave him, Marco couldn’t help but think of ways to make you happier upon your return. Once all the humans were safe and secure, Marco was sure you’d settle down. With no more worries about your friends and companions, you’d be much more open to living on the Moby, far from the harsh conditions of Lafftale.  

“Learned faster than me,” Ace said, like he was proud of your achievement. 

“It’s not a competition. You already knew some other language, but not Common,” Curiel said consolingly. Ace just laughed. You continued raiding his cabinets, taking nearly all the supplies within them. Gauze, bandages, salves, thermometers, wound cleaner – anything that you thought might be useful was tossed into your container. It made Marco wonder – what was going on in Lafftale? He supposed he would find out soon enough.

“But what’s she up to now?” he asked, his ears perking up. 

“I’m not entirely sure,” Marco replied honestly. You were rummaging around in his cabinets, clearly looking for something. You quickly placed gauze and bandages on the counter, but you continued to search for something else.

Suddenly you stood up straight, pleased with yourself. Marco strained to see what you had in your hands…it was the fabric cutter he had used on your original Wapolium suit. Without hesitation, you turned it on and began slicing off the protective youngling suit that Marco had put on you all those weeks prior. To Marco’s growing horror, you were naked within moments, the suit falling to the floor in shreds.

“Woo hoo! Go Luna!” Namur exclaimed. Marco’s face flamed  – what on Eurt were you up to?! You needed the suit! It was both protective and soft against your skin, how were you going to cope without it? 

“Alright, I don’t think we need to watch –” Marco stood up to block some of the screens, not wanting everyone else to fawn over your nude body. Yes, he had sent a video of you nude before, but that was different. That was scientific, whereas you being nude now was lewd torture for everyone. You put away the fabric shears but were still nude as you shuffled around, looking for something else.

“Move, Marco,” Rakuyo muttered, shoving Marco back to his seat with a heavy hand on his shoulder. Marco grumbled, but didn’t really have a rebuttal. Everyone was there to watch your escape, and he supposed this was part of it. Marco crossed his arms and looked away – this wasn’t how your escape was supposed to go. 

“Aww, her pussy hair grew back,” Thatch cooed, looking up at the screen.

“It’s called pubic hair,” Marco grumbled. 

“It’s quite sweet,” Izou chimed in. “I would never shave it off if I had a human. Perhaps trim it,” he said speculatively. 

“Oh, but her foot-fingers aren’t painted anymore,” Thatch pointed out with a sad sigh.

“Toes,” Marco supplied. “And no, it wore off.”

“Her tummy is rounder now,” Vista commented. “She looks much healthier. Great work, Thatch.”

“Thank you, I’ve been feeding her meat non-stop –” Thatch responded happily, but Marco was still annoyed that you were nude on screen for everyone to see. You were now bent over, looking at something in a lower cabinet, and Marco didn’t think he’d seen the Commanders paying such rapt attention to anything since they fought the Roger pirates. 

“It’s not a tummy, she is an adult human female yoi. It’s her stomach,” Marco tossed out petulantly. Secretly, he did think of it as your tummy, but that was private! 

“I love it. It’s soft and squishy and cute. It’s definitely a tummy,” Vista retorted. 

“What about her ass? Much rounder,” someone pointed out, to a round of general approval.

“I’m lookin’, but not at her tummy. Look at that sweet cunt, doesn’t it make you want to bury your–”

“ENOUGH,” Marco barked, completely unwilling to listen to any further commentary on your body. By now, you had moved on to doing something else. Marco frowned, you had already surprised him by cutting off the suit, what else could you have in store? Hopefully the rest of your plan aligned with what they had laid out for you and he could stop stressing so much. 

Now you were prodding and squeezing your shoulder blade, right where…your tracker was…. But you couldn’t be thinking of doing that, could you? Marco exhaled a shaky breath, he needed to compose himself. After all, there was no way for you to get it out from underneath your skin. Marco had purposely taken all sharp objects out of the lab in order to prevent you from obtaining a weapon. Marco didn’t think you could hurt any of them, but he didn’t want to risk the possibility of you hurting yourself either.

“Ooh she got one of your talons, Marco,” Atmos squealed. Marco’s attention snapped to the screen, his sulk gone. And indeed, you had pulled one of his talon ends out of your satchel and set it on the lab table. Marco’s mouth hung open, that was what you wanted his talon for!? Had you been planning as far in advance as Kyuka? His hand itched to spank you on the spot for being so naughty. 

You wiped your skin with rubbing alcohol, like you’d done this action hundreds of times before. Marco watched in growing horror as you squeezed your skin and tapped the middle of the area with your finger. You kept your eyes on the spot, grabbed Marco’s talon and took a deep breath. You wouldn’t…. you couldn’t… Marco couldn’t tear his eyes from the screen as you exhaled, your eyes filled with determination. 

“HELL YEAH LUNA!” Haruta cheered as you sliced into your skin with Marco’s talon. You had unerringly cut right where the tracker was. Red blood immediately welled from your wound as you pushed your finger into the incision, digging around for the tracker. The crew applauded you as you mutilated yourself, your precious blood running in rivulets down your arm.

“She really is like one of us –”

“Whoa, her blood is red. So weird –”

“LUNA!” Marco yelled, his mouth open in abject horror. How could you do this to yourself? You were hurt, you’d get an infection, you would – he need to get to –

“Hold him,” Izou said calmly,  still drinking his tea. Ace’s warm limbs were immediately wrapped around Marco, pulling him back down onto the soft couches. Marco hadn’t even realized he had stood up, he was so engrossed in watching you. 

“Stop it!” Marco barked, trying to push Ace off him. But for all his faults, Ace was one of the best grapplers on the ship, and frankly better than Marco. Marco could not disentangle himself from Ace's capable limbs, no matter how hard he tried. It felt like the more Marco struggled, the more entangled he became. 

“Nah, Izou warned us this might happen,” Ace said cheerfully, his tail shifting positions to wrap around Marco more securely. “You need to relax - we want her to get away, right? To find the other humans, yeah? She’s got a small cut, she’ll be fine,” Ace said, his voice calm. 

“But she –”

“But she’s fine. We’re all watching her. If something goes wrong, we can help her. Nothing too bad has happened. I even made that new pod look like her old one for her. 10-5 is ready and able to be controlled remotely,” Ace reasoned with Marco. 

“Chill, man,” Ace said as you finally pulled the tracker out of your shoulder with a shudder. You held it triumphantly before your eyes before narrowing them at the small device. Frankly, Marco was surprised you remembered about the tracker. He purposefully hadn’t mentioned it to you in a very long time, hoping you’d forget all about it. It was one of his failsafes to ensure they never lost you completely, that there was always some tether between you and him. Luckily, your controller was still locked on you, and he didn’t think you’d figure out a way to get it off. It was only a pressure lock, but still, you couldn’t produce enough force to make it unlock.

You held the tracker between your fingers for a moment, as if you were considering what to do with it. Setting it down on the table, you put a medical patch on your shoulder and allowed it to adhere to your skin. At least you were taking care of yourself a little bit, Marco thought, slightly mollified by the self cleaning patch. 

Next, you reached for the secondary suit Marco had given you for Kyuka. You pressed the textile disc onto your chest and waited for the tougher suit to wrap over your body. There were manifold groans in the room as your body was soon covered and no longer available for their visual perusal. Marco groaned because he was concerned the Wapolium suit was going to shred your sensitive skin. It was of a higher quality than the one he had found you in, but was still too rough for you to wear directly on your body. Why would you do that? You weren’t going to be able to sit for a week after he got you back.

You grabbed the tracker and left the lab, the containment cube following closely behind you. Passing by Marco’s room once again, you opened the door and tossed the tracker in without a second glance.  By now Marco had calmed down enough that Ace had loosened his grip. Ace was now leaning on Marco, and Marco looped an arm around Ace. Maybe he did need a little bit of emotional support.

“Clever. So if you were tracking her, it would show she’s in your room. She’s doing really well,” Blamenco praised you. Marco frowned, he didn’t want you to be doing well, he wanted everything to go smoothly so there were no hiccups. Still, it did give him some measure of pride to see you accomplishing your goal so intelligently. 

The Commanders watched eagerly as you made your way to the kitchens, stopping momentarily when a crew member hailed you. You pretended nothing was amiss, smiling but quickly walking away. Marco gritted his teeth, the crew had been explicitly told not to bother you, but you were too interesting for your own good. Soon you made your way into the kitchen, going straight for the cupboard that Thatch had shown to you. 

“Oh! She remembered! I’m so glad,” Thatch cooed as you piled all the food trays into your container. Unbeknownst to you, they’d also stocked pod 10-5 with human safe food, but Marco was glad to see that you were seriously preparing for your journey. Lafftale must be quite far, because you were taking every single human-safe item that was in the cabinet.

“Tch. ‘Course she remembered, she’s not an idiot. She’s smarter than y’give ‘er credit for. She made it in space by herself for a while before we met her,” Fossa grumbled. You’d spent more time with Fossa recently, Marco had heard about your forays into the engineering bays. Apparently you had a keen interest in the workings of the ship and had quizzed Fossa about the ship for a few hours. You must have made quite the impression on Fossa, Marco reflected. The Commander was known to be fair and reasonable, but not always so lavish with praise.

“Barely,” Marco muttered, watching you close the door to the cupboard again. “She was quite sick when I found her. Nearly dead. I worry she may be nearing that state soon yoi.”

“She will be completely fine. Release and catch,” Izou assured Marco, a tentacle patting Marco’s knee. 

“But where’s she going? The escape pods aren’t that way,” Ace commented, his ears twitching. “She’s going more towards the center of the ship, but how’s that gonna help her?” And, indeed, you were walking closer and closer to the central spoke of the ship. Since the kitchen and dining hall was designed to be accessible, it was located in the middle of the ship. You walked with purpose to the main mast from which all other levels and floors emanated, your fingers trailing along the wall as if looking for something.

Everyone fell into silence as they watched you stop, feeling the groove of where the maintenance hatch was. You looked up and tapped at your controller nonchalantly, like you were sending a message to Marco. Perhaps Marco had been correct in his initial assessment of you – humans were excellent liars it seemed. 

“What’s she –” Jiru’s sentence was cut off as you brought up a picture of you and Fossa standing next to each other on the engineering deck, both of your hands up in the air facing the camera. You were smiling brightly and Fossa was allowing the picture to be taken, so he must have been in a fabulous mood. Using your nimble fingers, you zoomed in until Fossa’s hand was the only image available on the picture. Tapping on the hatch had a screen popup asking for authorization. You held up the picture to the scanner. Everyone leaned forward in their seats, watching you attempt to override their complex security.

“Tch. This little liar told me it was a human gesture,” Fossa grumbled, crossing his arms. 

“Me too. I took one just like that with her,” Ace commented, scratching his chin. 

“What she’s doing won’t work,” Jozu stated as he watched you intently. “The tech is advanced, it will recognize that it is an image of Fossa’s hand, not his actual –”

“It didn’t,” Izou noted cooly as the scanner chirped happily. The hatch popped open, granting you access to the main spoke of the ship. Jozu’s mouth hung open as your hand went into your satchel.

“But - it  - I -” Jozu stammered before typing on his controller, presumably to his division. “That’s not - she –” Outwardly, Marco was shocked along with the rest of the crew. Inwardly, he was both proud as well as felt a growing sense of vindication. Now the crew would see your ingenuity and cleverness, how much trouble you really were. 

Marco watched as you threw a few handfuls of something from your satchel down the mast. Afterwards, you also tossed one handful up, small tinkling sounds resounding as whatever that was spread through the main mast.

“Ugh foreign debris is so annoying to get out of the spoke. And Fossa’s spiderlings can’t always understand what we’re looking for. I bet we’re gonna have to go in there,” Ace whined. “Whaddya think she threw in there? Incendiary material?” You shut the door to the hatch carefully and patted it twice, like it was a friend to you. Shortly thereafter you walked away, your cube still trailing behind you. 

“Is that her whole distraction? I don’t think that will –”

Loud booms resounded through the ship, but nothing strong enough to trigger any kind of panic for the general crew. There was always something happening on the Moby, and these explosions weren’t particularly strong.

“Heh. Smart, but not gonna work. The masts are fire resistant from the inside. Actually, they’re designed to snuff fire out. So if she put some kind of bomb –” but Fossa’s words died as he started getting pings on his Controller. The Commander bit his cigar as he started reading. His compound eyes moved rapidly, his satisfied grin quickly changing to a scowl.

“Fuck,” Fossa swore, swiping through rapidly incoming messages.

“Those aren’t bombs, those are –”

“FUCK!” Fossa repeated, puffing on his cigar furiously.

“Ace, come with me,” Fossa ordered, despite being of equal rank. “It’s fucking pop green. Massive vines are rapidly growing in every power shaft on the ship. We need to clear them out before they choke out the tech. They’re not going to damage the power or air, but they’re currently expanding at an exponential rate in the main drive of the ship. As I just said, we can’t use fire to get them out and apparently they’re hearty and still fucking growing,” Vista explained hurriedly to the assembled Commanders.

“Oh, fuck. That’s actually – wow, good for her, but this is like, actually bad. If there’s no main drive, the ship can’t move –” Ace exclaimed, running after Fossa. Marco raised an eyebrow. A warning signal went off in the ship as Fossa’s gravelly voice resounded through the ship.

ALL ENGINEERING CREW REPORT TO THE MAIN ENGINEERING DECK REPEAT ALL ENGINEERING CREW REPORT TO THE MAIN ENGINEERING DECK

“She’s –  that’s  – d’ya think she’ll actually get away?” Haruta asked, admiration in his tone. 

“No,” Izou and Marco said simultaneously. Marco’s nerves were frayed, but he could calm down by reminding himself there were still many safe guards to make sure that you remained under their supervision. The warning alarms and lights didn’t phase you at all as you made your way down to Navigation. The crew was swarming around, almost completely ignoring you as you walked… right past the new escape pod deck. 

“Ace did destroy her old pod, correct?” Izou said, putting down his tea as his attention remained fixed on the screens. Was Izou getting nervous? Marco nodded, he had made sure that heap of junk was destroyed. Marco’s heart rate quickened as you swiftly made your way to the old escape pod bay. His eyes narrowed – you’d been in there before. How had you known what was there? You quickly opened the door and darted inside, looking wildly around the bay before running to an old pod in the back of the bay, starting and stopping in the shadows as if someone was lurking there.  

“Hey, her running is better. She’s not as out of breath,” Thatch pointed out. Marco resisted the urge to preen. See? He knew you needed cardiovascular activity. 

“Wait, why isn’t she using the new ones like Ace told her to?” Atmos asked, tugging on one of his horns. “Aren't they safer?”

“She’s likely suspicious we would track her. That, or is more familiar with the old tech. We will destroy all of those pods shortly,” Izou said primly, already tapping on his own controller. Marco’s lips pressed together as you rounded on one of the pods, still trying to stay in the shadows. Your running may have improved but luckily your hiding hadn’t. At least they’d be able to find you easily if they needed to.

“Yeah, but they’re better. And the old ones don’t work,” Atmos continued.

“Mmm. Most of them do, actually,” Izou corrected, sitting on the edge of his seat. “But I don’t think she’ll be able to start them. They’re complicated to operate and besides, she would need someone’s biosignature –”

“Like the one from Ace she just used?” Blamenco asked, pointing at the screen. You were now in the pod, gearing it up to fly. Jozu swore loudly, standing up to stride quickly out of the room. 

“I’m dealing with it now,” he gritted to the assembled Commanders. “She won’t be able to do that again –” a cacophony of responses burbled from the crowd, everyone tossing in their opinion on your escape.

“If there is a next time -”

“Shut up. She can't outrun us-”

“She's already outsmarted us–”

“She’s amazing!”

“We shoulda let her be on the crew, I’m telling you –”

“Thatch and Izou, let’s go yoi,” Marco ordered, already halfway to the door. The three Commanders already planned to follow you in a smaller ship, but the stakes were higher now.  The pod you had selected wasn’t trackable, and wasn’t able to be controlled remotely. Therefore, they’d have to follow you directly if they wanted to know where you were going rather than the remote capability the 10-5 offered. And if the Moby was unable to move, they couldn’t follow you once you were off the ship. Marco rubbed his temples. You had created enough of an issue to where it wasn’t completely unfeasible that you might escape them for a short time.

Fuck.

Luna POV

You had been sweating bullets as you flew away from the Moby, the giant ship receding from your vision. Your biggest gamble when escaping was using one of the old pods rather than the one that was obviously able to be tracked. Yes, the features on the new pods were cool and yes you really wished that you had cloaking capabilities, but it wasn’t worth the risk. You didn’t put it past these fucks to make the pod able to be controlled remotely. Besides, you had trained on a pod almost exactly like this one so the tech was familiar to you.

You had immediately plugged in the coordinates of the ponyglyph that you’d memorized, the ship now on autopilot until you got there. You were going the fastest speed short of hyperdrive that the ship could handle.  Luckily, just as you had suspected, the Moby had been headed the right direction, so you would be there in a matter of hours. 

Even so, now that you were in the pod you were still sweating, and it wasn’t just because the stupid suit was chafing your skin. There was one more piece of your plan, and it was the most nerve wracking part of the whole thing. Everything else had been a cakewalk. You’d planned everything down to the very last detail, completely sure that your plans would work. 

And they had. 

Actually, some of what you planned worked out even better than you had anticipated. The pop green really seemed to like the environment of the ship and had grown much larger than you had predicted. Not only that but the tracker wasn’t as difficult to remove as you thought it would be and the hand photo trick had worked on everything you had wanted it to. Really, the Whitebeard Pirates weren’t as formidable as they thought they were if one small human female could escape without much trouble. Sure, they were in part allowing you to escape, but those alarms had been real. Even so, you were thankful they were letting you leave the docking bay, because that would have been a real bitch to figure out yourself.

There were a few pieces left in your plan that still needed to be enacted, and that was what was causing you the stress. The final pieces were the most risky and once you left, well, you were severing your connection to the Whitebeard Pirates and to Marco permanently. You were absolutely sure they were following you right now (and maybe even watching you), just as you had been sure Marco was watching your escape attempt. It had been a fun game of cat and mouse but it was time to get back home. A sickening feeling was growing in your stomach – something was happening on Lafftale and it wasn’t anything good.

You took a deep breath, ready to enact the final parts of your plan. But first things first – you wanted to be comfortable while you were actively destroying the peace. Pressing on the textile disc removed the protective suit, something you relished in. You never thought taking off your own clothes would be a big deal, but nothing in your life had prepared you for the experience of being with Marco. 

You tutted as you looked over your poor skin, nearly all of you red and raw from the harsh material of the suit. If Marco saw me like this… you let out a snort imagining the apoplectic lecture you would get. The healing would have been worth it, you thought wistfully, rubbing your backside. You did like that soft suit, but there was probably some kind of tracker in it. Even if there wasn’t, you weren’t going to continue wearing something you couldn’t take off yourself. 

After wrapping yourself in Marco’s blanket, you synced your controller to the ship. Marco’s scent tickled your nose as you began looking through the modules on your controller. The thick, large blanket had been a last second decision to bring, but you were glad you did. Not only was it comfortable as fuck, but you’d gotten used to his scent. The smell would fade in time, but at least you had it for now. Not that you needed it, of course, but it was definitely better than the smell of the engines.

You patted your controller fondly as you began working. It was too bad you had to get rid of this thing, it actually was pretty cool once more features had been enabled. You flicked through the screens quickly, selecting your own medical examination vid and uploading it into the pod’s computer. That was really all you needed before you dumped the thing into the airlock and shot it into space. 

But as you flicked through the screens, you saw the picture of Marco you’d taken on Kyuka. Unlike all the other photos, which had mostly been means of access to the ship, this one had no ulterior motive. You were smiling, the real light hitting your skin giving you a lovely hue. Marco looked surprised but happy, his arm wrapped around you. You thought about the feeling of safety, his warmth, the fish, the sunset… it was a fond memory of a life that you could no longer access. Licking your lips, you made the split decision to upload that pic into the computer as well. You could always delete it later, but you wouldn’t be able to get it back. There would be ample time for reflecting over all your actions, but it wasn’t now.

Now that the video was on the ship, you pressed on the small area on the underside of your controller as you had seen Marco do before. It was tricky and took a lot of tries, including you trying to step on your own arm but eventually the controller popped open like it had for him as well. You chucked it into the airlock and promptly shot it off into space. You rolled your head on your shoulders – now the real fun was about to begin.

Marco POV

Almost immediately after you entered your pod, Marco, Thatch, and Izou were in one of the smaller ships, following you while cloaked. Thankfully, the older pods weren't able to cloak, so they would be able to follow you while you navigated to your next destination. Izou had somehow been able to wrangle a low quality audio / visual feed of you inside the pod, but that was about the extent of their ability to see where you were going. They couldn’t even read your computer screen since the feeds coming in were so poor.

“Now we'll be able to see if she was lying and does know where Lafftale is. She certainly input her coordinates quickly,” Izou huffed. Marco hummed but didn’t reply. He knew Izou was already upset about Luna escaping and causing unforeseen problems. Izou prided himself on knowing all information pertaining to the crew, and yet Luna with her limited resources had somehow managed to outsmart him.

“I don’t get why we’re going this way,” Thatch said, tugging on his goatee. “There’s nothing out here.”

“I don’t know. I suppose we’ll find out. Like Izou said, Luna has a clear direction of where she’s going yoi,” Marco mused, his stomach already twisted in knots. He had a feeling something bad was going to happen, and he didn’t like it one bit. Frankly, he hoped Lafftale was wherever you input the coordinates. He wanted this adventure to be over as soon as possible, and you back in his room on the Moby. 

Marco crossed his arms as he watched remove the protective suit you were wearing. Not only were you nude in front of other Commanders again but your skin was irritated, chafed, and even bruised in some places. He wished he could heal you, the blooming marks already marring your lovely skin. Marco was never going to let you out of his sight again he decided, independence be damned.

“What is that? Why’s she mottled?” Thatch asked as you rubbed your bottom.

“She’s not mottled, she’s bruised. It indicates she has mild internal bleeding yoi,” Marco remarked as you took his blanket out of storage and wrapped it around yourself. At least you weren’t naked anymore. He had long known humans didn’t prefer nudity as a general rule, and he was glad to see that at least that was still true.  Marco kissed his teeth as he watched you sync your controller.

You plopped down in the chair in front of the computer, rolling your head on your shoulders. After so much time together, Marco knew that meant you were tense, and he wished he was there to heal you and massage you, no matter how much havoc you had wrought. At the end of it all, you were still a vulnerable human no matter how smart or capable you proved yourself to be.

Marco struggled to make sense of what he was watching you do. You uploaded your medical examination? You knew it wasn’t the only copy, so why were you taking it with you? To show the other humans? His heart surged as you flicked to the photo of the two of you on Kyuka, your eyes lingering over it. Marco’s heart soared as you licked your lips and uploaded it to the pod as well. He hadn’t been wrong, you did harbor feelings for him. His intention to become yours had come to fruition as –

As you pummeled your controller with your small fists in an attempt to take it off. The three Commanders watched as you struggled to open it, even trying to stomp on it with your foot. To Marco’s horror, the controller eventually opened with a small pop, your arm now naked as the day he found you.

“I thought you said it was locked,” Thatch said as they watched you triumphantly smile.

“Much will have to change when she is recaptured,” Izou said stiffly, his tentacles curling and uncurling as you nonchalantly tossed your controller into the airlock and sent it into space. You stretched, the blanket falling momentarily before you tucked it around yourself. 

“I’m scared to ask what she’s doing now,” Thatch mumbled as you sat in the singular seat and began typing on the computer. You were working on something for a while, clicking and watching intensely on your screen, only pausing to change positions so your legs were tucked under you. Marco remembered the many times you’d sat that when immersed in your Common lessons – whatever you were doing had your full concentration. Finally, you reviewed your screen for a moment before nodding and… hitting the distress beacon on your pod. As was intended, a blast went out from your pod to all nearby ships. But what they heard wasn’t a distress signal.

It was a call to action.

The Whitebeard Pirates have a 100% fully human fertile female aboard. 

The Whitebeard Pirates have a 100% fully human fertile female aboard.  

The Whitebeard Pirates have a 100% fully human fertile female aboard. 

The Whitebeard Pirates have a 100% fully human fertile female aboard. 

The “distress” beacon continued to sound in their ship, along with a short clip of your medical examination, showing you naked and squirming on Marco’s examination table. You were completely bare, all of you on display to the entire universe. Izou’s tentacle snapped the button to turn off the beacon so harshly the button broke.

The cabin was silent. 

You had leaked the information of your own existence to every single ship that its signal could reach. Even if they deleted the distress message now, it would be too late. The information would be shared rapidly throughout the galaxy no matter what they did.

What had you done?

The only sound that could be heard was the humming of the ship’s engines.

“I – I –” Izou was at a loss for words, his body looming over the control panel. Izou’s tentacles were wild, spreading and snapping every few seconds. Marco couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Izou this angry, perhaps not since Ace ruined his fine silk kimono. Izou’s fingers balled into fists as messages began flooding all their controllers. 

This was bad.

More than bad.

This was a catastrophe.

“Oh my fuck. Why would she – why would she do that?!? Doesn’t she understand she’s in danger now?!” Thatch roared, finally upset with your actions. 

“She absolutely understands. That’s why she did it. She’s no longer there but now we have to go deal with the fallout. We’re about to have to fight off any crew that thinks they can take our human – and there’s bound to be many. She wanted us to be unable to follow her. Not only that, I’m not certain the main drive is operational yoi,” Marco explains, completely taken aback by your actions. In all his wildest dreams, he could have never imagined you would leak your own video to the public.

“We gotta go back to help. We’re gonna be swarmed with shitty crews, it’s gonna be non-stop,” Thatch said, already reaching for his twin swords.

“No. We must continue following her. The crew is strong enough to take on any current dangers and once the drive is fixed, they’ll go into hyperspace. The Marines will likely not engage at this point. We’ve fought in more challenging situations. Right now Luna is our priority.  She cannot be allowed to evade us,” Izou hissed, his tentacles pressing more buttons on the ship’s computer than Marco’s eyes could follow.

The ship remained tense as they followed you hurrying through space towards some unknown destination. Marco, Thatch, and Izou were kept abreast of all the happenings on the ship, including the number of ships that had come to try to claim the human for themselves. Luckily, there were no casualties on the side of the Whitebeard Pirates, but the sheer number of challenging crews had threatened to overwhelm the crew. Pops had stepped in and settled a few matters, and Fossa had finally been able to clean the engines and tech of all the pop green. Everyone exhaled a sigh of relief as the ship entered hyperdrive, evading all the crews who would try to take them on. It would be a consistent problem, but Marco couldn’t concentrate on any of that. Right now you were his sole focus. 

“I will have a few things to say to Luna upon her recapture,” Izou intoned, his shoulders finally relaxing from around his ears.

“I don’t think my current punishments are enough yoi,” Marco chimed in. His own hand twitched at the thought of spanking you for your disobedience. But this wasn’t disobedience, this was sedition. He would never hurt you, but perhaps some back to back sessions of orgasm denial and overstimulation – over the course of days – would help you rethink some of your actions. 

“I assure you, they are not,” Izou hissed, exhaling out his nose. Marco wasn’t sure what Izou had in mind, but he was sure it would be an experience you wouldn’t forget.

“But really, you were the ones helping her escape. And she told us she wanted to go home, many times. We underestimated her, that’s on us,” Thatch said, ever ready to rise to your defense. 

“By quite a bit,” Izou gritted through clenched teeth.

“You’re right Thatch. We should have been more diligent yoi,” Marco sighed, rubbing his temples. Of course he was angry about your actions, but he reminded himself you were acting in the best interest of your fellow humans. They were sick and dying and you wanted to save them, it was understandable that you’d do anything for them. He would have done the same for his brothers.

Suddenly, your ship stopped… in front of nothing. There was one of those enigmatic ponyglyphs, but that was about it. Other than that, there were no planets, no stars, nothing that would indicate they were at Lafftale or any location whatsoever. 

“There’s nothing here yoi,” Marco said, more perplexed than anything else. They watched you squint at the ponyglyph, circling it several times slowly in your ship. You kept looking up at the ponyglyph and back down at the keyboard to type into your computer. Were you… getting coords from the ponyglyph?

For the thousandth time that day, Marco wished he would have never agreed to this foolish plan.

“Oh my gods. The ponyglyphs are written in human. They have the coords to Lafftale. It was in front of everyone the whole time,” Izou whispered, his hand over his mouth. “Marco, was human ever translated into any other language?”

“No, it was never formally recorded yoi,” Marco said as your ship changed the direction of its boosters. His breath caught in his throat, he was struggling to breathe. “She’s preparing for hyperdrive yoi,” Marco croaked, his head whipping around to look at his brothers, his eyes wide.

“If she goes into hyperdrive, we won’t be able to follow her,” Thatch said, your full plan finally dawning on them. “She – she got everyone busy and found a way to leave. Luna won.”

“Get her coords. GET HER COORDS YOI –”

“You can’t get coords from an escape pod! They’re for escaping! It doesn’t –”

“The feed! Use the feed!” Marco yelled, grabbing his brother by his upper arms. Marco’s vision was swimming, he felt like he was waterlogged and drowning. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t – they had made sure – you were supposed to – this wasn’t going to happen –

“The feed can’t see the computer, Marco! Luna’s – she –”

Marco’s mouth hung open in shock as his hands pressed impotently on the window of the pod. 

“LUNA!” Marco yelled at the top of his lungs. There was no way for you to hear him, but that didn’t stop Marco from pummeling the ship’s window with his fists. “LUNA!” he bellowed again, followed by a shrill screech of panic. 

Your ship powered up to its full pwoer and shot to an unknown location, leaving behind only a small cloud of exhaust. Into the vast universe, where Marco would never be able to find you. To Lafftale, the mythical home to the last of the human race.

You had escaped. 

You finally hit Marco’s room, tired and sweaty. Thankfully you were wearing your normal soft suit that sort of cleaned you while you wore it so you didn’t smell too bad. You ran a hand up and down your stomach – you’d miss this baby suit when you were back on Lafftale. But sacrifices had to be made and if your suit was one of them, so be it. Thinking of Lafftale had you wondering about Sol and how she was faring. 

Your jaw tensed as you thought of Sol and her health. Only her lower leg had been paralyzed when you left, but Oro’s Virus had surely progressed since then. You gnawed on your lip in thought, your foot bouncing as you worried. Was she still able to walk? To use her arms? To chew and swallow? Oro’s progressed more quickly in women than in men since it traveled on the X chromosome. Once a woman got it, both chromosomes were affected and she deteriorated rapidly, and Lafftale didn’t have anything near the medical equipment that Marco did. 

Your breathing was rapid again, and this time not from walking. You wished you could contact her somehow, but there was no way to know what was happening there. Suddenly, you felt completely pent up again despite all your previous exercise. And what helped your restlessness? Masturbation, you thought sagely, nodding to yourself. Not only did the pirates underestimate you, but they also didn’t understand how brilliant you were. 

You hiked yourself off the bed and started for the small container that Marco had given you for your belongings. Rifling through the myriad bows that kept accumulating, you found the little rose that brought you so much pleasure. You smiled at it – maybe you could convince Marco that since your heart rate climbed as you used it, it should count as exercise. Your head turned as you heard the snick of the door, only to see Marco leaning against the wall.

“Going to have some fun yoi?” he asked with a mild raise of his eyebrows.

“Yes. I’m going to relax by myself,” you said acerbically. You were still mad about the walking thing, and besides, masturbation was a solo activity. There was little hope in your mind that Marco would actually listen to you, but you felt like being bratty all the same. 

Whenever sex was involved, Marco was always a pest, and you didn’t think now would be any different. Sure, he’d left you alone the one time, but you didn’t think it was going to be a recurring pattern. Honestly, you thought that Marco was going to demand to stay with some flimsy excuse about making sure you weren’t ill or going to faint or something. Then he’d probably make you use it in front of him, sitting himself in front of your open legs. Or maybe pry your legs open and use it on you himself, making sure you knew how to operate the machine properly. 

Actually, he would probably want to punish you for mouthing off. He would hold you down, spread your legs apart and tease you with the toy, turning it off when you came close to coming. Marco would do that until you cried from frustration, licking the tears off your face. Or maybe instead he would use it on the highest setting, making you writhe in his hold but not stopping as he overstimulated you. Maybe he’d make you come over and over, since you had the impetus to start masturbating yourself. It was impossible to know what Marco would do, and if your nipples were puckering with your thoughts, well…that wasn’t on you.

Marco considered you for a moment, his mouth opening briefly before closing again. He swallowed and took a deep breath, his teal eyes flashing. Oh boy, here it comes…

“Very well yoi. I’ll bring you a beverage after you’re done. This much exertion means you’ll need more electrolytes,” Marco replied, pushing off the wall. Your eyebrows hitched as your hand curled around the rose.

“You’re not going to stay?” you asked, trying to make sense of what was happening. Marco shook his head.

“You specified that you wanted to be alone. I’m honoring your wishes,” he replied, crossing his arms. He was gripping each opposing arm tightly, but other than that he looked like the same Marco you had always known. The same perverted, lecherous, seductive, and deviant Marco….who wasn’t going to be with you.

“Oh. I - uh. Thank you,” you said, forcing down your shock. Maybe he really was changing, you thought as the door closed behind him. You kept watching the closed door, sure that it would open again in an instant. But nothing happened other than the sounds of Marco’s feet treading down the hall. You had gotten what you asked for – Marco had left you alone to your own devices.

So why did some part of you wish he had stayed?

It was actually insulting to see just how stupid the Whitebeard Commanders thought you were. Either that, or these infamous pirates with bounties in the hundreds of millions (and sometimes billions) were the worst bunch of actors you’d ever met. Because they were clearly pushing you to escape. 

And it wasn’t like they were subtle about it. If you had to rank them, Izou was the best at hinting at potential methods and strategies for you to escape, followed by Marco. Ace was alright only because he couldn’t focus on more than one thing at once and thus constantly forgot that he was supposed to be getting you to escape. Thatch, however, couldn’t keep the ruse up for longer than a minute. You felt like if you gave him your best puppy eyes, he’d tell you their whole plan in under a minute. 

It wasn’t a particularly difficult plan to decipher, either. It took you about three minutes to figure out that they wanted you to escape so that they could follow you to Lafftale. According to their plans, you were going to lead them to the human colony where they would then kidnap all the humans and take them aboard the Moby, like Marco had done to you. It would be the end of all human freedom for the rest of time, and they were going to use you to accomplish their goals.

Or so they thought. 

For now, you were going to play their game. If they wanted to make it easier for you to escape, you’d take all the help you could get. They would be patting themselves on the back, pleased they tricked the idiotic human right up until you slipped away from under their noses. They still underestimated you, and you were going to use that to your advantage.

And you really had no time to lose. Despite having no contact with Lafftale, you had the unshakable feeling that you were running out of time, and that you needed to leave the Moby immediately. Nothing good had been happening when you left and you were sure they were in greater dire straights than last you saw everyone. 

So a few days later, and you were about as ready as you could be to escape. Between your work and the Commanders helping you, things were falling into place rapidly. You had to keep pretending you weren’t planning anything, they had to keep pretending they weren’t trying to help, it was all a lot of emotional labor you wouldn’t miss once you made your way back to Lafftale. 

To that end, Marco had brought you to the infirmary and showed you where things you would want were. He did it under the guise of showing you where things were so you didn’t injure yourself, an excuse so flimsy you nearly stopped him halfway through his explanation.There were vaccines and cures ready to go in vials, as well as some electrolyte mixes that would be added to water, and some more advanced bandages and braces. You feigned general disinterest, though of course you noted where everything was for your needs.

Beyond that, you had also convinced Marco that you didn’t need to go into the stupid wheel again. It had been beyond humiliating walking on that thing. Not only that but you didn’t want to hear grown beings hundreds of times stronger than you saying versions of ‘you go girl’ when you were walking. Of all the tortures Marco had foisted upon you, that one was surely the worst. So instead you had talked him into walking the ship with you, which was beneficial in a few ways.

For one, unfortunately Marco was correct that your cardiovascular health was poor. He had told you that humans were long distance runners on Eurt, and that some humans could run for hours on end. You didn’t think that would ever be you, but you should be at least able to walk for a while without having to stop for breaks. You needed to be able to run for short distances without feeling like you were dying for your escape, and this was helping a little. But more than the increase in your stamina, your walks around the ship were yielding critical information.

Marco allowed you to set the route of your walks, ambling alongside you slowly as you huffed and puffed. Sometimes you talked a little bit, but he mostly left you to your own devices. That was fine by you, you were trying to memorize different pathways on the ship. You wanted to be able to get around without your digital map, so it was imperative you could navigate the ship on foot. You had also walked with Marco back towards the hangar that contained those old pods you had seen briefly before that freak threatened to eat you. Just being in the area had your pulse quickening, but you doubted that homicidal weirdo would do anything when you were with Marco. 

“What’s in there?” you asked, stopping in front of a set of doors. It still wasn’t on your map, but you wanted to see what Marco would say.

“Nothing interesting. Second Division storage yoi,” Marco lied easily. If you hadn’t been in there already, you would have believed him completely. 

“Like old ships and pods?” you prompted, trying to keep your tone neutral. It was a reasonable question, everyone knew that the Second Division was in charge of the smaller ships.

“Hmm. I don’t think so, I think they dispose of older equipment regularly. Do you want me to ask Ace yoi?” Marco asked, turning to look at you. You shook your head, aware that this was some kind of trap.

“No, I believe you. Doesn’t sound interesting,” you replied with a shrug as you continued walking.

“I would agree,” Marco agreed with a smile before tapping a message on his Controller.

The next day, Ace miraculously offered to teach you how to fly one of the new escape pods. He said it was “in case of extreme emergency.” You were barely able to control your eye roll before nodding and accepting his offer. 

“See? Isn’t this better? These new escape pods are great,” Ace said, taking the sim goggles off you. 

You licked your lips – the newer pods were easier to maneuver, sure. But you’d been trained on the old kind, that was your comfort zone. Not only that, but older pods seemed to be more modifiable, more able to act as autonomous small ships rather than just escape pods. These new ones couldn’t even send custom distress signals, they only used canned ones. Ace said it was so pirates wouldn’t be obliterated on sight by the Galactic Government with a distress signal.

“It’s different,” you concurred, standing up to walk back with Ace to the pod dock.

“These newer pods are awesome. They can contact other pods of the same variety, they can cloak, they have so many new features. You’ll love it,” Ace said, smiling broadly. His eyes looked to the side, like he was remembering something last minute. 

“Haha! Of course not that you’ll be flying! You’ll always be with Marco! Or me! And we would help you! And we never have to evacuate the ship!” Ace said, his tail flicking. God, they needed acting lessons. Maybe humans were the only natural actors in the universe. Or maybe all these pirates sucked at it. Either way, you pretended you didn’t notice anything amiss in Ace’s comment.

“By the way, where’s my old pod?” you asked, shifting the conversation. If possible, you were going to fly that one back since you knew it the best and you had quite a ways to go. Obviously you didn’t believe Marco that there was only storage in that pod hangar, you wanted to know if yours was still there somewhere. 

Ace’s brow furrowed as he pushed his orange hat off his head. His fuzzy ears popped up, making you want to rub them between your fingers. Based on some books you’d read on Lafftale, Ace looked like a giant Eurt cat. Apparently, cats had been companions and pets of humans, enjoying a life of leisure and luxury. You didn’t know if it was something innate in your human DNA, but you wanted to rub and scratch his ears so badly whenever you saw them peeking out of his hair. Ace frowned at your question.

“Oh, we destroyed it a few days after we recovered it. It was too old and worn to use even for spare parts,” he explained, scratching his chin. To your surprise, tears pricked at your eyes with the sudden news. You blinked rapidly to make them stop, but something in you had cracked with Ace’s statement.

And really, it was stupid. You didn’t care all that much about the pod itself. It was Terra’s originally, from back when she had first made contact with Lafftale years prior. You knew it was a hunk of junk and that it was old and difficult to work, that didn’t hurt your feelings exactly. Hell, you had shouted the very same statements at it while you were flying it. But hearing how easily they disposed of something so valuable to you and the others had you kind of messed up. 

They didn’t know how hard everyone had to work, how much effort it was to make it through every single day. Living cost so much on Lafftale – endless hours of sweat and blood and tears for life to continue. For these rich pirates, it was just a useless old pod. But for you and the other humans, it had been the only lifeline left in the universe to save everyone from dying. And they threw it away like trash.

“Hey, are you ok? Did I say something bad? You’re not hurt, are you?” Ace asked quickly, pulling you closer to the wall and away from other Second Division crew in the area. It wasn’t Ace’s fault, he hadn’t meant to upset you. You shook your head, wiping away a tear that fell down your cheek. Your face burned with the added humiliation of not being able to stop yourself from crying, but Ace had seen that before too. 

“ ‘M not hurt,” you said, trying to quell your tears. If you cried too much, Marco might come and interrupt your lesson with Ace. Though, given how disinterested he had been in you lately, that might not be true anymore. Even so, you didn’t want to take the risk. 

“I’m sorry, Luna. I didn’t know you would care so much. We can build you one that looks the same on the outside. I know humans care a lot about how stuff looks,” Ace offered. You shook your head again, ignoring the annoying human comment. 

“No. It’s fine. I’m fine,” you reiterated, crossing your arms. 

“But really, Luna, if you ever need to fly an escape pod, fly the new ones. The modules I used to train you were based on pod 10-5, so if at all possible, use that one. It’s safer and more reliable than anything you’ve flown before. The kind you flew before are prone to malfunction,” Ace said seriously, giving you a small nod. Right, back to the charade. You sniffled and dried your eyes, shifting back into the role you needed to play. After all, there would be endless time to cry once you got back to your home. 

“Will do. But I hope that never happens,” you agreed with a watery smile. 

Marco wasn’t the only liar on board.

Marco POV

Everything had been working out for the most part. You were planning your escape with their help, and were nearly complete in your preparation. The Commanders had thought about everything you needed and guided you to be able to acquire all your goals without being overly obvious. You hadn’t suspected a thing, much to Marco’s delight, and were nearly ready to make your “escape.” 

Just the thought of you leaving the ship was filling Marco with anxiety, and he couldn’t do anything about it. Even now he was pretending to work while remaining in your presence. Since he couldn’t touch you without your initiation, he settled for anything he could get. He tried to hang around you without being obvious, lingered a little closer than he should at times, and even “forgot” to warn you about a change in flooring on the ship so you’d stumble and he could right you. Everything about you called to him, but he had to keep himself on course in order to help save the humans. 

The small amount of comfort he received from your presence wasn’t enough. You were so weak and vulnerable and space was a brutal place for delicate things like you. Marco wished you would just tell him where Lafftale was and how to help you, but that ship had set sail long ago. And yes, they would be able to track and control the pod remotely from the Moby but the idea of you navigating those tiny pods had him spending his nights awake, yearning to touch you from his side of the bed. 

Marco sighed as he discreetly watched you lying on his bed on your stomach, kicking your legs up in the air. Based on what Izou believed, you were likely going to try escaping tomorrow after your big sleep. Marco frowned at the thought – you didn’t appear to be distressed about anything, not even escaping an Emperor’s crew. Instead, you were chewing on your lip as you reviewed a Common lesson, your eyes narrowing as you considered the information in front of you.

“Wait, Marco. This says - hold on,” you said, sitting upright on the bed. You hopped off and walked over to him, your Controller displaying information from your lesson. Marco pretended to break his concentration – he’d been looking over the same report for half an hour and didn’t even know which patient it was about. You walked over to him, your brows knitted together.

“This lesson says that this is the word for ‘Prince,’ you said, pointing to a word on your screen. Marco looked over and nodded. Marco supposed you were doing a module on addressing beings with hierarchical societies and learning vocabulary related to that.

“Yes, that’s correct yoi,” he agreed, unsure where you were going with this. 

“But – I thought it meant  – when I was calling you Master, that’s– that’s what I was using,” you said, bringing up one of your old messages. “See? Here I used this word, but doesn’t it mean master?”

“No, it means ‘prince,’ like your lessons show. In retrospect I should have corrected you at the time, but I found it endearing yoi,” Marco said with a mild smile. In truth, he had saved every single message and reread at them when you weren’t around.

“Oh my fucking –”

“Luna,” Marco warned as your face flamed.

“I’VE BEEN CALLING YOU PRINCE THIS WHOLE TIME?! THAT’S SO EMBARRASSING! IT’S WORSE THAN MASTER!” you yelled, throwing your hands out to the side. Marco chuckled, he would miss your antics for the short time you were gone from his side. 

“Not the whole time. Now you call me by my given name,” Marco explained calmly. “Is there anything else yoi?” he asked, though he was loath to end the conversation. Every minute with you was precious and the closer you came to making your getaway made Marco want to embrace you all the more.  Who knew how long it would take to retrieve you from your mission? They were going to have to follow you to Lafftale, and since no one knew where it was, it was impossible to determine how long he would be without you in his arms. Once he got you back, he was never letting you out of his sight again. 

“Whatever. I’m going to bed,” you said flippantly, as if it could cover the evidence of your still hot face. Marco looked at the time – it was early for him to sleep but he wanted to spend as much time in proximity to you as possible.

“I think I will as well yoi,” Marco said, turning off his computer screen. “That is, if you don’t mind.” You frowned at him and Marco’s heart clenched. He hoped you weren’t going to ask him to leave. Of course he would, he had to continue the plan, but it hurt like tearing a limb away every time you asked for private time. You were lucky he wasn’t keeping count of the times you rejected him so that he could make up for it later once he had you permanently in his care.

“I don’t mind,” you said in a stilted tone. Marco kept calm but felt like sagging with relief. A few moments later and the two of you were in bed, laying side by side, each on your own backs. Marco ensured that none of his body was touching yours, even as he yearned to pull you to him and kiss you once again. 

The room was silent as you laid there, though your eyes were open and your breathing wasn’t evening out. If Marco had to guess, you were thinking about your escape plans. He couldn’t bear the secret keeping between you, after this he would have to ensure that you never lied to one another again. You were already trusting him more, surely that meant that you could promise never to lie to him again. Could mates even lie to one another? Marco pondered the subject as you fidgeted next to him in the bed. 

After a few minutes, Marco turned on his side away from you. You needed to sleep well and get intense rest for your upcoming trip, so if his presence was disturbing you, he’d try to keep it to a minimum. He was selfishly staying when he didn’t need to rest just to be near you, so the least he could do was to allow you some relaxation. A moment later, he felt your fingers lightly pressing on his back before receding immediately.

“Marco, do you…do you not like me anymore?”

Your POV

Maybe Marco wasn’t acting.

Maybe Marco didn’t care if you got away.

Well, you were sure he generally cared in some kind of clinical way. He still made you walk and drink water and eat and rest like he always had. And you were still valuable, so it wasn’t like he could get rid of you completely. But he no longer doted on you, or watched you doing mundane things, or told you little facts he thought you might find interesting. When you walked the ship, he mostly kept his thoughts to himself unless you asked him a question – and even then he didn’t seem keen to keep the conversation flowing.

But ever since you asked Marco for space, it seemed like something had shifted in him. Maybe you requesting autonomy had made Marco realize that you weren’t just some mindless pet, and he wasn’t interested in being your friend anymore. Not that you were friends, but…well, you didn’t know what you and Marco were but he seemed disinterested in you as a whole. You weren’t his pet and you weren’t his friend, not crew, not a subordinate, and certainly not his equal… any way you sliced it, Marco didn’t seem to care much about you any longer.

When Marco turned his back to you in bed, you felt your heart break apart. Surely it was just your ego, but still, how could he treat you so coldly when he used to pull you close to his chest every night? Was this really the same being who had forced you to sit on his lap at every turn and wanted to preen you himself? The one who had fished for you and brought you rare Eurt items because he thought you might enjoy them? The one who flustered you for fun and turned humanoid for you? 

Maybe your novelty had run its course and Marco was ready to move on. Before you could stop yourself, you touched his broad back with your fingers, wanting to feel his warm, muscled, soft back one more time.

“Marco, do you…do you not like me anymore?” you asked, pulling your fingers away just as quickly. You wished you could take your words back as soon as they left your mouth, shame washing over you. There had been times when you sincerely wished Marco dead, and now you were practically begging him for attention. Maybe you really were the stupid, emotional creature that Marco thought you to be.

“What?” Marco asked, turning immediately to face you. “What are you talking about yoi?” His face was drawn in concern, looking into your eyes like he did when trying to determine if you were injured. Now you really wished you could unsay it as you shifted uncomfortably in the bed.

“I, um…you don’t have to like me, of course. It’s not like that, I get it. But, um, no – no, it’s ok,” you stammered, holding up a hand in front of you to try and show you didn’t mean what you had said.

“How could – why would you think that?” Marco asked, reaching for your face. But his fingers never made contact, fluttering back down to the empty space between you. You shrugged and looked away from him, unwilling to verbalize the competing feelings within you. It was pathetic to admit that you felt his absence, that you wanted more of his attention. You didn’t want all of the old Marco to return, but the way he was treating you now didn’t feel great either.

“”Do you really think I don’t like you anymore yoi?” he repeated, his eyes softening. You didn’t reply, which was answer enough. Silence dragged on between you for a single moment before he sighed.

“Oh, Luna,” Marco cooed sadly. He looked down for a moment, before pressing a button on the top of his controller. He then pushed his talon into the bottom, making it pop open. Marco removed it completely and tossed it off the bed, like it was a weight dragging him down. 

Marco’s focus returned back to you, his hand reaching for you once more. “May I?” he whispered, his hand so close you could feel the warmth. You nodded weakly, unsure where this was going. Maybe this was going to be the final letdown where he told you that you overestimated your worth or value to him or that someone else was going to be your master now. He finally made contact, cupping your cheek gently and turning your face to his.

“Luna, I cannot describe how much I yearn for you,” Marco said quietly. “I have heeded your words and have been attempting to give you the independence you seek, and it has been an unbelievable challenge for me. Nothing could make me not lo– like you. I want your time, your attention, your laughter, your conversation, everything you are. I want it all yoi.” Your mouth hung open with Marco’s words. You swallowed thickly, unsure of how to answer Marco’s confession. 

“I’m trying to be better for you, to give you what you asked for. I haven’t been touching you unless you touch me first, or without your express permission. I’m trying to give you space for your own thoughts and experiences,” he continued. “Is that why you felt that I no longer liked you? You missed my attention?” he pressed, the pad of his hallux rubbing your cheek. 

“I don’t feel ignored,” you mumbled, even as your heart skipped a beat. Marco definitely didn’t need to know that you felt that way. Marco smiled indulgently, his eyes dancing with mirth. 

“I am glad. I would never want you to feel that way. You are the most special, wonderful, interesting being on this ship yoi,” Marco continued, his words making you flush down to your chest. You almost felt like you did on the wheel, his compliments making you want to slink away. 

“Because I’m human?” you groused, trying to stymy your emotions.

“Because you’re you. Even if I had been on Eurt and met all the humans there, I would still like you the most yoi,” Marco assured you, his hallux rubbing over your bottom lip. You didn’t really know what to say to all that – you had assumed Marco only cared about you for your fertility or for your humanity, or novelty, but never because of who you were as a person. Maybe you had misjudged him a little. And truthfully, you were feeling giddy now that you knew he did still want you. 

“You’re just saying that. You’ve only met one human,” you said, giving him a sly smile. Marco shook his head.

“No. I know it for a fact,” he said with complete certainty. OK, he was really making you feel wanted with all his talk about enjoying your company.

“So…out of curiosity, what would you do if you could touch me again?” you asked, trying to shift the conversation a little. Sure, that rose thing was fucking great, but it was different than the touch of another living being. And once you got back to Lafftale, it wasn’t like any of the men were interesting to you there so you’d be back to the celibate life. Marco laughed, his fingers lightly pinching your cheek.

“Mmh. Naughty little human tempting me, knowing I cannot act on my urges,” Marco purred. 

“You can tell me, it’s ok,” you assured him, eager to hear what he would do. Marco shifted slightly closer to you, his body nearly touching your own. 

“I will be honest. There is something I have always wanted to do together that we have not yet attempted yoi,” he said, his gaze boring into your own. You felt like you couldn’t tear your eyes away as he began painting a scene in your mind.

“I would love to train your throat to accept my cock,” Marco husked, his hold on your face shifted so his hallux was now pressing lightly on the front of your throat. Your breathing picked up as Marco continued talking, the rest of his fingers loosely circling your neck.

“H-how?” you breathed out. You’d heard of oral sex before, people did it on Lafftale all the time. You never personally felt compelled to try it yourself, but you weren’t completely unaware of what it entailed. Still, you wanted to hear Marco’s take on the situation. 

“It wouldn’t be all at once, of course. I would not overwhelm you, I am not a cruel master to you yoi.  I would guide you, telling you exactly how to please me. I would have you naked between my legs, your body still shivering from the orgasm I would have already given you on my own tongue. First, I would have you licking my cock like the treat that it is, your warm, pink tongue flicking out of your mouth all over my shaft. You would be hesitant at first, unsure if you were doing it correctly, but I would assure you that you were. You are always a good little human for me,” Marco purred, his fingers gripping the column of your neck a little more strongly.

“Next, you would wrap your warm little mouth around the tip of my cock, swirling your tongue around me. Your hands would rest on my thighs, your fingers curling as the tip of my cock hit the back of your throat for the first time. You would take me deeper and deeper into your mouth, the sounds of my pleasure increasing your own desire yoi,” he rasped, his words creating a hypnotic effect over you. 

“I would praise you as you took me down your throat, acclimating yourself slowly to my large cock. It would be a challenge for you, tears leaking down your sweet face and drool down your chin. I would wipe your tears away as my hands wrapped around your head, guiding you up and down my shaft as I shallowly bucked my hips. It would be at your pace, but I would not be able to stop myself from enjoying the sensations yoi.”

“Soon, I would come undone under your ministrations, keeping your head in place as I came down your throat. Afterwards I would pull you off my cock and into my lap, ready to repay you handsomely for a job well done,” Marco said, his eyes flashing. You nodded mutely, unable to summon a single word as a reply.

“But, that would only be if I could touch you. Which I cannot. Not without your permission,” Marco said easily, removing his hand from you entirely and shrugging. He rolled over onto his back, resting his hands behind his head and sighed, as if he was ready to go to sleep. You narrowed your eyes – he knew exactly what he was doing.

Meanwhile, you could feel your own slick between your thighs. Marco’s words had something to you, something wicked. You licked your lips, weighing your options. Really, you should go to sleep and get rested for your escape the following day. It would be long, challenging, and anxiety producing. There were many moving parts in play and everything needed to line up exactly right in order for you to actually get away from the Whitebeard Pirates and not just lead them to Lafftale. 

On the other hand, when you succeeded you would once again be stuck on Lafftale. No one would think you were unique or interesting or sexy or smart, or any of the things that Marco saw in you. You would go from being someone special back to regular old Luna. And there would be no one who would want to pleasure you like Marco did, that was for sure….Oh what the hell. You might as well get some while there was a hot being who wanted you and thought you were the greatest thing in the universe.

“I guess we could try it. If you think it would be fun,” you said as indifferently as you could. Marco’s eyes snapped to yours, his grin widening. He rolled onto his side, holding his head up on his palm. 

“I would ensure it would be fun yoi,” Marco said, his fingers creeping on the bed towards you.

“You said I would get to come first, though,” you pointed out, thinking about the fantasy he had woven for you. Marco’s fingers stopped their approach as he leaned over to whisper in your ear.

“So I did. Do you give me permission to push my tongue so deep into your sweet cunt that you scream?”

Sol POV

Sol looked at the sky, just about the only thing she could now do from her bed bound position. She was thankful that at least the pain had stopped, the paralysis now up to her shoulders. Once Oro’s virus ate through enough of the nervous system, the numbness and sudden pins-and-needles feelings gave way to nothing. Frankly it was a relief after living with the debilitating pain Sol had been in for months even if it meant that death was near. 

There was no denying that Sol was in the final stages of Oro’s virus – she had seen it happen to so many on Lafftale by this point. There was nothing to do other than accept what was coming for her. In her heart, Sol had held out a shred of hope that Luna would return. In her dreams, she sometimes saw Luna running to her, a syringe with a cure in hand. Luna would save her in her last moments, snatching Sol away from death’s door. They’d cry and laugh as Luna held Sol, the feeling returning to Sol’s limbs so she could feel her sister’s touch once more.

But that was never going to happen. Luna wasn't coming back, and Sol would never feel Luna hugging her or brushing her hair. They would never meet again in this life, never travel to Eurt, never eat chocolate, never go swimming in water. 

Sol smiled to herself, hoping Luna was faring well wherever she was. Since no one knew what became of Luna after her escape, Sol liked to imagine Luna met someone who loved her and was taking care of her. Someone who protected her, gave her water, food, love and anything else Luna could ever want. 

But that was merely another childish fantasy. Sol didn't dare think of what actually happened to Luna, this time preferring to keep her delusions.

Sol closed her eyes, ready to sleep once again. She was so tired nowadays, so tired. But at least Luna was with her in her dreams.

Which was enough to help calm your very mild irritation at the fact that he nearly folded you in half and put you through his mattress after you told him you needed to open the shop.

You weren’t complaining, but you weren’t going to send him away. 

You’re sore, but not so sore you can’t walk and move around. Marco gave you a few aspirin during the car ride over to your shop, and offered his assistance for the day. It’s recompense for nearly going against your requests earlier.

“Have you ever worked in retail?” You question and he laughs.

“No, I don’t think I’ve had what anyone would consider a normal job.” He admits. “But I’ve assisted people in several different kinds of work, I take instruction well.”

“You do?” You question, giving him quite the side-eye.

“You’re walking, yoi.” He replies evenly.

You give him a look, but he’s not really looking at you. After a beat you sigh, and then grin. “So you’re volunteering to be my assistant today then?”

“I am.”

Sitting behind the main desk, you straighten up. “Farm boy,” you glance from him to the broom resting right beside you. “Fetch me that broom.” 

The sure grin on your lips fades a little with the look on Marco’s face. It’s not that he doesn’t seem to get the reference, it’s the way he looks like he’s willing to bend you over your own counter top. You lean back enough when he leans over you, reaching past you for the broom, that his other hand is at the small of your back.

Steadying you before you lean too far back and risk falling.

“As you wish,” he says the words, his lips by your ear. Warm breath before he presses a kiss against your neck, brief and nearly chaste if he wasn’t being so clear about his intent, before he leans back, holding the broom out to you.

“Th… thank you.” You manage to mumble the words. Your heart is in your ears. You spend hours tangled up in him last night, you should have more defense against something like this.

“Do the display cabinets need unlocked?” He questions, pulling you out of your daze enough you can actually think about work.

“Oh, no, there’s a button latch, so you can pull the heavy plastic up into the top. Like a pull-blind.” You make a motion of tugging down and lifting up. “Just don’t let go right away, it can get violent.”

“Noted.” Marco says, releasing the first one and taking care not to let it snap up to the top. He leans in, looking up at the roll that it tucks up into. “Huh.”

“Neat isn’t it?” You muse. “There’s a squeegee thingy in there that scrapes the condensation off and runs it down the pipe.”

“You recycle that?” 

You nod. “There’s a mini water filter system in the back, so it clears out the dust and plant bits, and then puts it back into the system. Usopp designed it, him and Franky put it together.”

“I’ll have to thank them some day, yoi.” Marco hums, pulling another one while you check and set the till. “Maybe hire them for work on the grounds.”

“They could end up being rivals,” you point out.

“Nah,” Marco grins, pulling another one up. “Ace and Luffy are brothers. Ace is the hot-head I mentioned earlier, yoi. My Family is already looking out for the Mugiwaras, once Ace steps up it’ll be a full alliance.”

“That explains why you celebrated Newgate’s birthday in Sanji’s bar.” 

“Ah-yep,” he murmurs, pulling another one up and craning to watch the process work as best he could. His height was the only reason he could pull it off and not crush your flowers. “Most of the Families get along well enough. Border disputes are rare, so long as business is conducting within the lines, it’s not like I couldn’t walk through Linlin’s territory if I wanted, yoi.”

“But you wouldn’t celebrate a birthday there.”

“Not unless we’d made a deal, or got clearance ahead of time.” He explains. “But I could send someone into her territory for cakes or candy, yoi. The island’s commerce would break if we didn’t interact at all.”

“When it comes to her immediate family, she’s really hard up about the border.” You say, closing the till and getting up so you can unlock the door and turn the sign to OPEN for the day.

Looking up after you flip the sign, you see someone you did not expect standing at the curb, waiting to come in.

“Shit.” You swear under your breath. When you open the door the chime rings, and Marco stills over by the display cases. He’s out of sight of the door at the moment, but you don’t know how long Katakuri was standing outside.

“What brings you here?” You question, your voice full of confusion, not hostility.

“Flowers.” Katakuri replies bluntly. You tilt your head, but don’t say anything else. “May I?” 

You step back and gesture for him to come in. “Certainly.”

He ducks a little to step inside, it reminds you of Marco and Thatch, though Big Brother Katakuri has a couple inches on both of them. He glances over at Marco and offers a nod that isn’t returned. Marco has his arms crossed, standing over by the flowers, and out of view of the door, while you seat yourself behind the counter.

“What else are you here for?” You question, pulling out your flower sheet and turning it toward him. “I’m certain you’re not just here for a bouquet, even if you’re going to leave with one.”

“Allmeg saw you at the pier. She was keeping an eye on Anana, and saw you.” He explains, looking down at the paperwork. His words are relaxed, his tone neutral. The only time you’ve heard him speak differently was when you were both pretending to argue. He could be terrifying when he raised his voice.

“Did she recognize Marco?” You question and Katakuri shakes his head. 

“No, but it’s just a matter of time.”

“Time won’t be much of a concern, yoi.” Marco says, speaking up. “What do you think she’ll do when she learns it’s me?”

“Press to convince Apple she’s… important family.”

“I’m not—.”

“I know,” he interjects. “But I don’t want to know your new name. Not yet. She’s got to find you first.”

“And you’re here…?” You prompt.

“Flowers. For Brulee.” He asserts.

You step out from behind the counter and look through your own stock, pulling flowers while you talk. You know it’s not her birthday, and if she was getting married the entire island would know, so he’s getting her flowers as a cover. Just because. Well, just because it’s Brulee, he always had a soft spot for his sister.

“So what am I supposed to do? Not go out on dates?”

“Avoid Charlotte territory. Maybe consider more private date locations. No one knows you own this place but me, and I’m going to have Brulee help me obfuscate that.” He explains. “It’s more likely that a representative will end up going to meet with Marco.”

“Well, I was already avoiding that place,” you admit, half your mind on the task of flowers, the other half paying attention to Katakuri. “You’d think all those fights we had would have her thinking that I’m not loyal.”

“… Family ties are immutable to her.” Katakuri says. “You are family, you are loyal.” 

“I’m not family though, I was legally removed from being family.”

“There is the law, and then there is Mama’s will.” He says and you roll your eyes.

“What does she think she’s going to get out of it?” You question, handing off some flowers to Marco and pointing to the count before you turn back to the displays.

“An alliance.” Katakuri answers. You don’t see his brows raise at the interaction. You don’t even think how surreal it would look to someone else to have Marco following your orders. “A real, solid alliance between two of the strongest Families. The kind of power that wipes out the competition.”

“She’s delusional, yoi.” Marco’s brow furrows, unloading the flowers onto the papers set on the counter. “We’d be willing to be peaceful, but even if we formed an alliance, I’m not starting a war.”

“As an alliance, her capacity to convince you would be far improved.” Katakuri replies. He seems mostly unconcerned about the prospect, understanding Marco and his Family more than Linlin obviously does.

"A ten percent increase of zero is still zero, yoi.” Marco grumbles back, but he’s not really arguing with Katakuri. You can hear the irritation in his voice, and the sour look on his face when you take the last of the flowers over to the counter and start arranging them.

“She can assume all she wants,” you assert, your hands and eyes focused on the flowers. “I’m not her daughter, and she’s not going to use me. If she sets my shop on fire after I tell her where to stick it, she’ll be declaring war with the Whitebeard Family, and honestly I think it would be a declaration whether I was sleeping with the head of the family or not.”

“You’re not wrong, yoi.” Marco admits. “We’d retaliate for anyone under our protection.”

“It might be enough to hold her back.” Katakuri says. “Unlike Kaido, who only hungers for the glory of battle, Mama wants victory. But, if she doesn’t align with the Whitebeard Family, she may decide to align with Kaido.”

“That’s still a risky gambit.” Marco frowns. “The next generation is rising up, yoi. Her and Kaido need to step down and step back.”

Katakuri grunts, a sound as close to a laugh as you’ve ever really heard from him. You pull the bouquet together, tying it with purple ribbon and taking a moment to fuss over the paper and add in a little more until you’re satisfied with it.

“Here you go.” 

Katakuri looks at it for a moment. “I am not complaining.”

“Okay.” You nod. He’s always been like this, clarifying his meaning because he tends to speak so flatly as a matter of course.

“I expected bigger.”

“A common mistake.” You inform him. “In this case I know Brulee well enough to help you avoid such a pitfall. Too large and ostentatious and she’ll doubt you’re being sincere about getting her a bouquet just because. Excess flattery sours. This is well-balanced, it’s a subtle collection of scents, visually pretty blossoms, and it’s not too big. It’s more than just a single rose, a good choice when you’re not family, and less than something that puts an uncomfortable spotlight on her.”

“Hm. Very well. Thank you.”

“Of course.” You smile. “And thank you. We’re not strangers, but you’ve done a lot for me, and don’t owe me more. I appreciate all this.”

“…We might not be family, but you’re still my little sister.” Katakuri says after a moment’s consideration, before he turns and bids his farewells. 

Everything ached.

After the watch, it was his shoes, his tie, the vest, his belt, and you took his shirt off during the next round, asserting that you wanted to see more of him.

Tattoos curled around his biceps, ending before they reached his elbows. The patterns and colors whorled and shifted beneath the A-shirt he had been wearing underneath the suit. You called him a cheater, he asserted that he had simply dressed properly for the proper date.

When he took the A-shirt off, he had you in front of a mirror, angled so you could see his back in another one. You didn’t have sense enough by then to ask if he had planned the mirrors in advance. Exhaustion and pleasure had begun to addle your senses, but you were determined to strip him bare.

The tattoos weren’t going anywhere, you could admire them another day. You only knew in that moment that they were intricate and beautiful and you didn’t have the focus to properly admire them, or his back muscles. Not while you were nearly drowning in the euphoria of a man who knew what he wanted.

You didn’t think he was twice your age or anything, but you knew Marco was older than you, and your youth did not save you last night. He had put you through the mattress a half dozen times, and had you nearly screaming each orgasm until your throat started to give out.

You were only mostly aware of him helping you get cleaned up at some point. You didn’t manage to strip him bare, but he was down to his boxers and socks by the end of it. Somehow that felt like an incredible result, even if you had been determined to manage more when the evening started.

The soft dance of post-fuck aftercare rolls around in your head as you practically swim through the covers to get out of the notably empty bed. 

Marco had taken great care of you last night. Before, during and after. The date had been fun and the sex had been incredible, and the clean up and snuggles afterward had pulled you into the deepest, sweetest sleep you’d had in a long time. 

When you reach the edge of the bed to sit up, the door to the bedroom opens. It’s habit that causes you to pull the sheets up to your throat. He may have seen as much of you as was possible last night, but in the soft light of mid-morning, you’re feeling a little exposed.

Marco is pushing a cart that looks to be covered in breakfast food, and a fresh pot of coffee. He’s wearing sweatpants you recognize, and a pair of penny loafers.

No shirt.

“Good morning,” he hums. 

“It certainly is.” You reply, openly leering.

“You slept well, yoi.” He says, warm smile on his lips. 

“Indeed.” Stepping out of the bed, you let the covers slip away. It’s sweet that he doesn’t return your open staring by staring at you. To be fair, he’s not naked like you are. 

Leaning down you pick up his dress shirt, and slip it on, taking time to roll up the sleeves. You don’t have to look at him to notice the tension pulling tighter in the room. It wasn’t that you were less interesting to him nude or anything, it was a bit like the hat rule. When you take the cowboy hat and put it on your head, you’re basically declaring your desire to ride him.

When you wear someone else’s clothing, it’s a statement of intimacy. Maybe you’re choosing to tease him in a very dangerous way, or maybe you’re saying you’re willing to be more than just a sweet distraction to him. No matter what the reason was, the point was something heavier than simply being bare, or choosing to grab one of the nearby robes that were folded neatly on the nightstand.

Marco stays still when you walk behind him. 

The tattoo on his back is immense. From shoulder to shoulder, and disappearing down into his pants, the massive phoenix is so finely detailed you almost expect it to blink. The flames of its wings wrap around his shoulders, and the golden rings of tail feathers hug his hips before slipping beneath the sweats. Teal, blue, gold. It’s not the colors you usually think of with a phoenix, but it suits him well.

Running your fingers down the phoenix’s belly you watch goosebumps roll down Marco’s back. You can feel his muscles beneath the skin, and the rough dance of scars too. Letting your hand drag around his waist, you step in front of him, clear eyes taking in the full sight of him. 

Last night by the time he’d been stripped of his shirt, sweat and ecstasy had stripped you of your finer senses, and you hadn’t really noticed - or remembered - the fine lines of scars on his body. The round knots of bullet wounds.

The longer you looked, the more you saw, and he said nothing while you ran your fingers over some of them. Marveling silently at his survival. Grateful that he was here, now, beneath your fingers.

“That’s my shirt,” his voice is quiet, but it still shivers against your fingers.

“It is.” You agree, stepping forward and kissing the round knot of a scar that is far too close to his heart for your comfort.

“You should eat first.” There’s a teasing lilt in his voice, something that’s gently pulling your thoughts away from his near death experiences and back into a warmer moment.

“I have a shop to open today,” you reply, kissing the scar by his heart, before you step back and sit in the seat he’s offering. “Marco the Phoenix.” The words catch his attention and he stills for a second before joining you by the cart, removing the dome over the platter and revealing the breakfast beneath it.

“I haven’t heard that one in a while, yoi.”

“I’m surprised you don’t hear it all the time with that tattoo.” You smile. “I was, until I turned seventeen and was legally emancipated, adopted by Linlin.” 

Marco’s eyes shift to you, but he doesn’t show anything else outwardly in reaction to your statement. You may never ask, and he may never say, but you wouldn’t be surprised if he already knew. Maybe not the entire tale, but parts of it at least. It was important to have intel on other Families, if you wanted to keep yours safe.

The idea of him knowing before you tell him, doesn’t bother you. 

“Big brother Katakuri helped me,” you continue to explain. “But for a little over a decade I was educated, protected, and controlled by a Family.” You work on making your own little breakfast plate while you talk, trying to keep your tone neutral.

“I’m sure you know Linlin enough to know why she would adopt orphans despite having eighty children of her own, and I was well aware of my position as a tool, even at a young age.”

Marco pours you each a cup of coffee, nodding along at certain points.

“I grew up hearing about other Families. Linlin wasn’t subtle or quiet in her opinions, and her children built up their opinions similarly. With a few exceptions.” 

Putting your elbow on the table you look over at Marco. “Big Brother Katakuri had a lot of respect for you. Said you were indestructible. Unkillable.” Your eyes shift to his chest and then back to his face. “I can see why he would think that.”

“I got the tattoo after the bullet.” He says, hand moving just a little to indicate the one specifically by his heart. “Pops said I was either cursed or lucky, yoi.”

“And you went with possessed?” You tease. The smile on his face is full of quiet delight and he nods.

“I suppose so.” Marco hums. “Are you worried about Big Mom?” 

You think on it for a moment, chewing on a piece of toast while you consider it, and then shake your head. “I was one of a dozen adopted orphans, and before I was emancipated Big Brother Katakuri and I got into a lot of big fights. I was just a troublesome thing in her eyes by the time I left, and that was years ago.”

You take a drink of coffee and look at him. “Are you?”

“Afraid of Linlin?” He doesn’t answer immediately when you nod, but eventually shakes his head. “She might have something to say at some point, if she cares enough to put it together, but if things go according to plan, I won’t be the head of the family in a few years. So it’s effectively moot.”

Your eyes go wide and you nearly drop your cup of coffee. Of all the things you expected him to say, that was not one of them. Marco smiles in response to your shock.

“You took that better than most, yoi.” He muses. “I’m only holding down the fort until a certain hot head becomes old enough to take over. I intend to retire a lot sooner than Pops did, yoi.”

You poke at your plate and breakfast for a few moments, and Marco eats quietly beside you. 

“What’cha thinking?” He questions, the words soft and mumbled as though you’re welcome to ignore them if you want.

“I feel bad,” you admit, nervous laugh escaping you when he looks up at you. “I’m relieved, because I don’t really want to get tangled in Family Business, y’know? It’s part of why I was desperate to leave the Charlotte Family and name behind. No Charlotte Apple, just me. 

“Someone with a name no one would give any concern to, working odd jobs, staying on the edges of an upcoming Family. Busting my ass and begrudgingly - happily - accepting their help as I got my own business up and running.

“My money. My effort. My strength, y’know?” 

Marco hums, but doesn’t interrupt you as you keep talking.

“Then one day I run into this really handsome fella while running from some assholes who wanted to treat me like a commodity, and here we are.” You pause, taking a few more bites and a drink before continuing. “I fell asleep last night accepting the fact that I was going to be pulled right back into this life because I didn’t want to let go of you, and now there’s a light at the end of the tunnel I wasn’t even looking for.”

“Truly?” Marco questions, and when you look up at him you can feel the blood rushing up to your own face. He looks surprised and relieved in equal measure, and so deeply smitten it’s making you feel flustered.

“I - yes, but, I have a shop to open today,” you assert, not sure if you’re trying to keep him from ravaging you, or trying to change the subject.

“I’ll get you to your shop on time.” Marco promises, dusting crumbs off his hands and standing up.

You’re laughing even as he scoops you up from the seat. “I need to be able to walk!” You’re still laughing when he tosses you onto the bed, letting you bounce and settle before he crawls in after you.

“Maybe,” he teases, pinning his shirt beneath his hands and nuzzling his lips into your neck. The taut pull if his shirt keeps your arms firmly in place, even as your legs tangle up in his. Some of your laughter is from the scruff of his face tickling your neck.

“Don’t - don’t maybe me,” you squeak, a shivering moan escaping you when his thigh rubs against your pussy. “One,” you gasp, slipping an arm free of one of the sleeves of the shirt and grabbing onto his shoulder.

“One round,” you assert, and Marco grins.

When your second orgasm starts to build, several moments later, you realize that you don’t really know what constitutes a single round. 

He did look as good as you expected in a t-shirt and some sweats. Sadly the sweatpants fit too well and didn’t hang alluringly off his hips, but you did find a basic pineapple t-shirt that was accepted begrudgingly. All of it would look even better tossed about on your floor, but you spared him that thought while you were still at the store.

The topic of what to do next hung unspoken between you both, the slow meander back to your shop feeling like the inevitable end of the date. You were hopeful you could invite him inside, but someone was waiting outside the shop when you got there.

Not one of yours, and not one of hers either. You weren’t sure who it was at first until Marco sighed beside you. The young man waiting for your return perked up once he spotted Marco, and froze on the spot when Marco put a hand up to motion for him to wait.

“My apologies, it seems I’m needed.” His fingers tighten against yours, and honestly you hadn’t even realized that you’d been holding his hand on the walk back.

“You’re wanted too,” you tease, watching him fluster for a split second. He kept his composure well in general, but you appreciated seeing this extra effort with one of his people nearby. It meant that during other times he was actually letting his guard down around you.

If only a little.

“But I won’t try to keep you,” you say, lifting his hand up to your mouth and kissing his knuckles.

“It seems I’m the princess in this fairy tale,” he muses, leaning down and tilting your face up so he can steal at least one more kiss. “I’ll find more time soon, yoi.”

“I look forward to it.” You hum, a smile on your lips as he kisses you once more. 

There’s something that keeps your fingers together until he finally steps away enough to break the grasp. You could put a pretty word to it, but right now you’re pretty sure it’s just because you’re enjoying the view of that incredible ass in sweat pants.

“If this turns out to be something Izou or Thatch could’ve handled, I’m throwing you all in the sea.” Marco grumbles, jolting the messenger boy out of his statuesque pose.

“I don’t know, brother, I was just told to, ah, re-request you come back.” He replies even as Marco drops his mostly dry clothes into his arms.

“Come on then.” 

You give one last wave to Marco when he glances over his shoulder to look at you, and then head into your shop and up to your loft, alone. You wait until you’re in your own space before you let your shoulders drop, and your disappointment come to the surface.

You were really hoping for some good, hungry, rough sex. Maybe even earning yourself a punishment from Marco for scaring him at the docks, and all the pleasures that went along with that. Not that you had been angling for that when you pulled your prank. In the moment you had only been wanting to shake that unshakable vibe of his.

It took a couple days before Marco was back in your shop. 

“Did you have to drop anyone in the sea?” You question when he steps inside and he hums.

“I wanted to, yoi.” He admits. “But everything’s been settled, and I wanted to see you again.” 

The blunt honesty of the words gives you pause for a second, but you do your best to recover quickly. “Have you already decided where we’re going to have our second date?” 

“I’ve narrowed it down to two options.” He replies, sitting down on the stool like he already owned the space as much as you did. 

You weren’t going to argue, the comfortable air between you both was too nice to ruin for an easy jab.

“Oh? Am I deciding between them?” There’s a teasing lilt in your voice, knowing full well that was likely his intention. You lean over more than you need to while working on a display, happy to wiggle a little for him.

“Mm.” He hums, pausing for a second before continuing. “I thought we could do a more traditional dinner and a show, or I could cook dinner for you,” you can’t help but perk up at this offer, turning to look at him as he finishes, his eyes meeting yours with a look that hitches your breath. “And then enjoy a private show after.”

There’s no saving your composure entirely, not with his eyes on you like that. Your lips press together and you try desperately to keep from sounding as horny as you currently feel.

“How’s your cooking?” You finally manage to ask, as though you’re still weighing your options and not struggling to keep from closing the shop early.

“Well, compared to Thatch’s, it’s pretty bad.” He admits with a chuckle, getting up and walking over to you. All 6’8” of him standing over you, one hand braced against the top of the flower case, the other brushing softly across your cheek. “But if I’m not trying to compete with a world-class chef, then I’d say it’s pretty good.”

When he pulls his hand back there’s part of a stem and leaf before his fingers, and he doesn’t even say anything about it when he steps back. Smooth bastard. Absolutely, horrifically, unfairly smooth bastard.

Marco’s tossed the pruned leaf aside and seated himself back on the stool, still waiting your decision as if he doesn’t already know what it would be. 

You almost want to pick the dinner and a show just to keep him on his toes. To have him endure taking you out on a traditional, proper date, with loads of people around forcing him to behave himself even though you both want more. To drag out the inevitable tangle of bodies, making him half-mad with need by teasing him the entire time.

Almost.

“I’d… love to try your cooking.” You decide.

“Perfect,” he shows no sign of relief, standing up and straightening his suit. “Tomorrow night then? I can pick you up at six.” 

“Six, sure. Tomorrow?” You question, a mischievous smile on your lips. “Not tonight?” 

“Absolute as my will might be as head of the family, I still need to give some notice when I’m effectively kicking everyone out for a night.” He admits, kissing the top of your head before heading to the exit.

“I look forward to your performance, pretty bird.” Marco says as he walks out of the shop.

You blink.

“My performance?” There’s no one left to answer your question, and it’s only a moment later before someone comes into the shop. Shifting away from your thoughts and into business mode, you don’t end up really chewing on it.

The way he said it kept tickling at the back of your thoughts, but every time you tried to puzzle it out someone would come in, or something else would need your attention, and your train of thought would be derailed again.

Thursday night and Friday during business hours were both a little hazy. You had enough sense in you to adjust your Saturday hours, delaying the shop opening until noon. You might not want to come into work that day, but you didn’t want to close the shop entirely on one of your busier days.

You closed the shop a little early Friday, putting up the sign for the adjusted hours for Saturday, and got ready for your date. A quick shower to exchange the smell of the shop with something that didn’t smell like damp grass and wet dandelions. 

Thigh high stockings, heels that were enough to lift your ass and easy to take off, and a black dress that was modest enough to look professional, and slinky enough to give the right impression. You probably could’ve worn a t-shirt and jeans, however, since Marco had said he was basically kicking everyone out.

The impressions were already there.

It was 6:03pm when you were trying to keep yourself from rushing down the stairs to reach the front entrance. When you came out the front, Marco was already waiting for you, leaning up against the side of a dark baby blue 1972 Mercedes 300 SEL with a metallic finish. You get a better look after you lock the front door to the shop, your eyes moving away from Marco to admire the car.

He was in a suit that matched with the car, though the jacket was a darker blue, but the cream tie was certainly meant to go with the white leather interior.

“Wow,” you murmur, leaning right past him to peer into the car in open admiration.

“Do you want some privacy, yoi?” Marco questions, a subtle grin on his face when you look up at him. 

“I’d ask for the keys, if I thought the answer would be anything but a firm no,” you admit, turning your attention away from the beautiful car to the beautiful man. “But I’d rather take you for a spin, honestly.”

You can see the teasing grin turn into something a little more self-assured before he clears his throat and opens the car door for you.

“Dinner first, young miss.” He hums, leaning down as you move to step into the car, accepting the kiss you leaned up to offer him. “You look lovely.”

“You look delicious.” You reply, enjoying another shift in his grin before getting in the car.

The car ride itself was pleasant, if not a little tense. 

“You really kicked everyone out of your house?” 

“It’s an estate, technically, I only kicked everyone out of the main house. There’s family houses and guest spaces on the grounds.”

“You could’ve just used one of the guest homes.” Your tone is teasing and Marco grins.

“Izou said the same thing, but I like the acoustics in my room, yoi.”

“The… a-acoustics.” The realization dawns on you even as you were beginning to ask, and you can feel the blood rush up into your face. “I’m sure we could skip—.”

“Dinner first,” he interrupts, giving you a sideways glance, smug smile on his face.

You thought it was going to be the longest dinner of your life, but Marco hadn’t been cruel enough, or patient enough, to make you sit through a full 5-course meal. There was a bar along the edge of the kitchen, as the space shifted into a proper dining room area, and he pulled out one of the seats for you there. 

Standing on the other side of it, he made a proper Caesar Salad, talking about his brothers more. Mostly the one that had been with him the first day you ran into one another, Thatch.  This brother wasn’t just quite the chef, he was an incredible bodyguard too.

“So that day?” You prompt, enjoying the crunch of the fresh salad. 

“I decided to help you, Thatch let me, yoi.” He answers. “But also he’s not my bodyguard, or at least he wasn’t that day.”

“So he is now?”

“Much as I have one, yes.” 

You tilt your head, but Marco doesn’t elaborate, giving you a quick look before he turns away and starts pulling things together for the main course. His jacket’s been draped over the counter since he started on the salad, and it’s been your treat to watch him work.

Even more so when he rolls his sleeves up before he starts cooking. You knew he was built, you’d seen the effects of his build long before now, but it was easier to admire his forearms when you weren’t distracted by the sweat pants from Tuesday.

The food was delicious. You were certain that it was delicious. You remember clearly savoring the flavors on your tongue, and even praising Marco for it.

But somewhere between the meal and right now had been a space of time you couldn’t hold onto. Not in the warm shrouded light of his bedroom. Not with a sturdy oak-framed bed before you, and a tall, assured man standing behind you, one hand on your shoulder, the other slowly easing the zipper down the back of your dress.

“Am I going to be the big, bad mafia boss who takes what he wants?” he questions, his voice sweet and low by your ear.

You turn around, your zipper and shoulder slipping from beneath his hands easily, your fingers moving down his shoulders and tugging on his tie.

“Maybe I’ll be the powerful business owner who has you begging beneath her heels.”

You tug at his tie playfully, turning your back to him and walking over to the bed. Sitting down on the edge of the bed you motion for him to follow, a smile on your lips.

“Don’t make me wait, good sir.” You hum, testing how much authority you can get away with. 

The subtle smile on his face sends a sweet chill down your spine. Leaning back, hands behind you and sinking into the bedding, you lift one foot, letting your foot sway back and forth playfully. Your dress is loose from him unzipping it, but not enough that it was in danger of slipping off on its own.

Still the pretty blue bra strap stands out against the black dress, as the low collar shifts enough to show it off.

It’s that same graceful strength you saw at the amusement park, that moves him like someone made of a liquid more than a solid. Easing down onto one knee while his hand cradles the heel of your foot, taking the work of lifting it off your shoulders carefully. His other hand is hot against your calf, the toe of your shoe pressing into his shoulder. 

A kiss on the inside of your ankle parts your lips in a silent slip of a gasp. Something in your mind hiccups as his eyes meet yours and he begins leaving a hot trail of kisses up your leg, his hand leading the way, slipping past the band of your thigh highs and making you gasp more vocally when his fingers caress your bare skin.

He doesn’t say anything, you can’t even bring yourself to praise or tease him, and when your leg is left braced against his shoulder you don’t consciously move the other aside, creating more space for him between your thighs. One hand locks your leg against his shoulder, the other pressing the inside of your thigh, letting your knee bend. You tap your heel against his shoulder, enough to loosen the dress shoe’s delicate hold on your foot, before leaving it to fall to the floor, your silk clad foot wrapping around him and pulling him in closer.

His tongue slips between the fabric of your crotchless underwear, and your head rolls back with a deep satisfied moan, your hips rolling up and his hands hiking your dress up more as though he was waiting for you to move that way. One hand planted in the bed, the other raking through his hair, pushing him into you deeper and making sweet sounds for him when he obliges by shoving his tongue inside your pussy.

“Sweet hells,” you sigh, grinding into a face that was already trying to go deeper. Legs wrapped around a body that was pressing up against you, hands sliding up your back to pull you out over the edge of the mattress. 

There’s a soft yelp from you as you fall back onto the bed, fingers tangling between his, holding on as he eats like a man starved. As though the meal before was nothing but smoke and dreams and his real hunger was ravenous beyond measure.

He moves your legs, pulling the flimsy material away and knocking your other heel off your foot in the process, before lifting you and setting you further onto the bed. You laugh, a teasing giggle that dances over his skin and makes his ears turn red.

“Impatient are we?” He pulls the question into a moan, teeth nipping at your hips. His hands are pushing your dress up, ready to bring it up over your head, heated kisses against your stomach as he moves toward his goal.

“I’ve been patient,” he hums against your skin. 

The dress is set free, pulled up over your arms and tossed aside. Marco loosens his tie, ultimately leaving it in place when you use it to pull him down into a kiss. He shifts, kissing along the line of your jaw, biting at the skin of your neck until you’re squirming and moaning from the sweet pleasure.

“This hunger began weeks ago.” His voice is heavy, rough against your skin. 

He leans back, looking into your eyes. “Tell me you wore this during the first date, yoi.” Marco tugs at your bra, and you nod. You can see the information tense through his shoulders. The idea that you were ready, willing and wanting days ago.

The fact that he made you wait.

He doesn’t unhook your bra, pulling the silky straps down and lavishing kisses on your chest until he gives focus to your hard nipples. Teasing the sensitive flesh with his mouth and fingers, leaving your hands to trail over him as you pleased, body shifting and sighing beneath him.

You could feel the truth of who was under whose control shift with the weight of his cock settling between your labia. He was almost fully clothed, you were nearly naked save a pair of stockings and a bra that wasn’t hardly on anymore.

You could feel how wet you were with each twitch of him against you. 

“Marco,” you whine his name and feel his entire body tense for a second. “Don’t make me beg,” you pout as his kisses travel back up your chest to your neck. They’re not rushed, but he’s not dragging out the shift.

“I bet you beg well,” he taps his nose against yours before kissing you. “But I want to hear you sing, yoi.”

“Mm, I am supposed to perform for you,” you agree, teasingly.

He hooks your legs with his arms, pushing them back with ease. He’s caged over you, hands on your forearms, using his height to his full advantage. 

“I’m sure you sing beautifully, pretty bird.” He assures you, lining up with you.

“Oh gods,” you breathe the words when he starts to push in. You’re trapped beneath him, arms and legs held in place where he wants, there’s no escaping the sensation of his cock pushing in deeper and deeper. “Fuck.”

He’s careful, not pressing in too fast, easing back when he feels your body tense, watching your face as you realize your situation. You keep looking down as though seeing what was happening would help you in some way. 

Or maybe you were admiring the view.

“You-you got th-that snaaaaatched waist, so I, I, didn’t think you’d be so tha-thick.” You ramble the words, feeling a little overwhelmed by the sweet stretch. 

Your eyes catch his just before he leans down and kisses you, snapping his hips against yours at the same time so the sounds you make are devoured by his lips. The combination has you wriggling beneath him, toes and fingers flexing, your hips shifting, grinding into him.

When the kiss breaks you’re panting, body hot from the rush, smiling up at him while your body shivers. He starts to move, slow and steady and you whimper. The easy pace has him rubbing against your clit, the angle drags out the sensation and it sends a shiver all through your body.

You swear, looking at him pleadingly.

“I have-have a thing, think, I — fucking hells that’s feels so good,” you finally manage to form a full sentence, throwing your head back into the bedding and moaning in pleasure loudly. 

“Something else to say, yoi?” He hums, rolling his hips in against yours and grinding against you. Your fingers flex against his, though it’s hard given the difference in size between you, and you nod.

“Sorry, I’m sorry.” You laugh nervously. The oral sex had been incredible, but it was nothing compared to whatever the hell he was doing to you right now. “I didn’t… I didn’t expect this!” 

“Didn’t expect what?” He prompts you, slowing down a little bit more so you can focus.

“How are you not already married?”

“… Huh?” Marco’s movement’s actually stutter, but he chuckles when you whimper.

“You’re handsome, built like a, like a, I don’t know, shit, like a hot guy, and you’re—sweet gods—really good at this, so how?”

“Never proposed,” he answers, the words making you laugh. It was delivered so dry you didn’t know what to make of it. The giggle of laughter that escapes you turns into more sweet moaning.

“You’re wearing too much,” your voice is breathless, you can feel the pleasure coiling in your stomach and it’s already intimidating.

“I’ll take something off,” Marco promises, those bright blue eyes grabbing your attention. “Every time you cum for me, pretty bird.”

“K-keep up, old man, I’m going to strip you bare.” You promise, the sure grin on your face breaking into a different expression as your first orgasm really started to tighten its grip on you. “Gods I’m going to scream, you’re not fair, you’re—!”

The kiss interrupts your words, and the pressure of his body against yours is enough to tip you over the edge. The start of your orgasm swirls around Marco’s tongue, but he breaks the kiss and lets you cry out into the room before you even start to come down from the peak. Twitching and trembling beneath him, your fingers and toes flexing, it’s like being up against an immovable wall.

He doesn’t let up for the entire time your body shivers in pleasure, riding you through the entire thing until you start practically babbling.

“Incredible,” you gasp, catching your breath now that he’s had mercy enough to stop moving. “I needed that, hells.” 

Marco releases you from his hold and sits up enough to take off his watch. Setting it down on the nightstand by the bed he looks back at you with the most devious grin you’ve seen him flaunt so far.

“That’s one, yoi.” 

You tilt your head until the light comes on and then give him a good and proper look. Vest, shirt, tie, belt, pants, boxers, shoes, socks. That you can see, at least.

“Shoes and socks come in pairs,” you assert and he laughs. 

“Negotiating already?” His voice dances around you and you grin back at him.

“Asserting my dominance as the powerful business owner.” You retort, tossing your bra aside before you beckon him back with a finger. “We’re just getting started.”

“You said nothing fancy, yoi.” He says, tugging neatly at the sleeves of his blazer. “It’s just cotton.”

“Off the rack?”

“Close enough,” he replies, giving you the look of a man who needs everything altered at the very least. He’s 6’8”, with a waist that god would bite his knuckles over, broad enough shoulders you know you could sit on them most of the day before he’d really mind, and what you’d seen of his arms was enough to know he could lock you up against a wall until you were satisfied.

“Do you even own sweatpants?” You tease, stepping up next to him, before taking just enough of a lead he could follow you easily.

“Yes,” he says it matter of fact, and you’re not sure you buy it.

“Probably silk pajama bottoms or something.” You scoff and he laughs.

“I’m not actually a big fan of pure silk,” he explains. “If it makes you feel better, most of my suits are gifts.”

“Gifts in a appreciation sort of way, or in a ‘please wear something other than sweatpants’ sort of way?” You question, wide grin on your face.

Marco rolls his eyes, but smiles. “One of my brothers was… compelled to adjust my wardrobe when we were younger, yoi.” He admits. “That was years ago, and I’ve just gotten comfortable in suits.”

“I see.”

“Your sun dress is cute.”

“It is, thank you.” You reply, taking a couple steps to spin around for him and show it off a little bit. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it made the day feel more like a date, and even if he had shown up in sweats, you wouldn’t have looked too different.

“There’s a nice little bistro just down the block, a good place for businessmen to have breakfast,” he rolls his eyes at the jab, “and then I was hoping to drag you to the amusement park down by the docks.” You look up at him, trying to use your cuteness to your advantage, or your cleavage if that was going to work, you weren’t picky.

You can see his eyes shift away from the pair of distractions, to your eyes with less delay than you expected, and the grin on his lips knows enough to be dangerous.

“Drag, huh?” He muses, pointedly keeping his eyes where they belonged. “Going to see how well I fare at the games and rides?”

 You laugh. “Not like that. If you want to show off at a stall in the town you grew up in, I won’t stop you, but it’s Tuesday.” 

Turning around, you walk backward, arms behind your back to play up the levity of the situation. “It’s gonna be all old people and moms with kids too young for school. But there’ll be things we can do, things we can ignore, food we can eat if we get hungry, and plenty of space to walk, sit, and talk, and no worrying about cars or whatever from walking around town instead.”

“I can work with that,” he hums, holding the door open as you step into the aforementioned bistro.

Breakfast is easy, and maybe just a little awkward. The morning bright lights and well-lit café are different from the low lighting and heavy scent of liquor that was in the bar. You aren’t employee and customer, but two people on a date, one that’s likely to end up resolving in someone’s bed.

So maybe it’s the anticipation that makes you both just a little nervous. The small fear that something will be said that will sour the moment or even the entire day.

The excitement of learning more about one another, slowly, carefully, and at the same time with almost reckless abandon.

Marco talked about his Family the way someone would speak about their brothers. Carefully, but with love. Not giving away too much to someone that he didn’t yet know well, but not hiding the fact that they were important to him. 

You spoke of your family with all the grace of someone who wasn’t sure if family was really worth all that much, but did appreciate the support of the people who you chose to be around.

You didn’t mention the Charlottes. Didn’t put a name to the ties that made you uncomfortable when it came to Mafia. That wasn’t your concern right now. You weren’t thinking about wedding bells and the pitter patter of little feet.

You were thinking about the sound of the hiss escaping between his teeth when your lips are at the base of his cock, and how good your legs will tremble when he braces you against the wall while you cum for him. The details of life and all its complications were for the spaces after that. The moments that were only going to be a concern if the sweet sound of his voice haunted your thoughts in the early morning hours.

When he danced with you by the taco stand, an easy little salsa that went with the song playing from the tin kitchen, you were pretty sure he was going to haunt your mornings. The soft smile on his face, as he leaned against the wooden horse of the carousel, listening to you talk about the odd bits of carnival trivia you knew, almost made you stutter over your words. It was going to take time to get used to being looked at like that, but for the moment you were willing to consider that investment.

The stubborn way he absolutely refused to get on the wooden rollercoaster, moss, seawater and sand ground deep into the wood, as close to oil and care as the beams would ever see, made you laugh. It wasn’t the concept of rollercoasters he was against, it was that specific one, and you were fairly certain there was a story to go with it.

Maybe one a little too dark for the light of a first date, so you didn’t press it.

Kebabs, corn dogs, and funnel cakes. The two of you meander the paths and planks of the amusement park for hours, enjoying the occasional snack in lieu of lunch, and probably drinking more tap beer than was advisable for a Tuesday mid-afternoon.

The soft buzz of booze got you both loaded into the tilt-a-whirl, with you doing all you could to try and crush kind, sweet Marco, who had voluntarily taken the outside seat. The lesson you learned was that he was even more solid than you had assumed, the soft plush of skin giving way to a wall rock beneath it.

When he’d offered to go again, seats switched, you accepted the challenge. It was only fair, after all, but you didn’t know what to do when the ride started up, and Marco didn’t budge.

He didn’t slide into you. He didn’t even budge. You could feel the force of the ride pressing you against the outer corner and he just sat there. When you started accusing him of gluing his ass to the bench he finally moved.

The controlled shift was so smooth. He braced himself against the ride, caging over you. There was no saving face at that point, you could feel the heat burning against your skin, and you were certain your expression was speaking on your behalf. Not just because your flabbers were ghasted, but also because the knowing grin on Marco’s face was enough to nearly make you whimper.

It took a few minutes after that ride before you look up at his face without immediately needing to look away and recompose yourself.

Those few minutes were enough for you to come up with a revenge all your own. Maybe one you shouldn’t spring on a poor unsuspecting victim during your first date.

You thought that talking about how good of a swimmer you were, and finding out how good he was, would be enough to put him on alert for the impending prank. You had assumed that the meandering dance and silly teasing was going to relax him enough that you’d have a few seconds to spare, or that the fact that you admitted to growing up and coming to this park as often as you could would give it all away.

However, the genuine look of surprise on Marco’s face as you “lost” your balance and slipped off the pier made you feel bad about your prank after it was too late to stop your fall. When you caught yourself on the ladder like you always did, you were trying to give up your ghost, but Marco was faster.

“I’m —!” You caught his gaze just as he leapt over your head. 

He hadn’t even bothered to take his jacket off, leaping after you the second he saw you drop off the pier. The surprise of seeing you, fine and dry, on the ladder leading back up to the pier was almost enough to break his dive, but fortunately practice and skill kept him in the right form and he slipped into the waves with barely a sound.

You waited, ready to dive in after him if he didn’t surface quickly, and were relieved; seeing him pop back up from the water, and trying really hard not to laugh. He looked ready to pull you off the ladder and toss you into the ocean.

“Are you okay?” You call out.

The look on his face, irritated as it is, seems to assert he’s fine. “Yes!” The word is the angriest thing you’ve heard come from him so far, and the annoyance on his face is unfortunately enough to tip over your control.

You’re laughing as you climb up the ladder, looking over the edge to make sure Marco’s not struggling to swim in that suit.

“I’m sorry,” you press your lips together when he glares up at you. “I am! I didn’t expect you to react so fast.” 

His hands are on the ladder already and the look on his face has you nervous, but you still can’t help the laughter on the edges of your words.

“I saw your shock and was going to call out that I was okay, but you were already in flight.”

“A bird joke right now?” You hear more than irritation in his voice. Relief, probably.

“I can’t think of a pineapple related one.” You admit, stepping back from the ladder as he got closer to the top. Glancing around, you see his shoes on the pier, slipped off with enough speed to almost send one sliding off the side of the dock.

You gather up the shoes and set them on a bench as Marco hauls himself onto the pier proper. His jacket’s a mess, his tie’s loose, and his hair is plastered to his head. He doesn’t look like a businessman anymore, but even with the twitch in his brow, he still looks hot.

“Don’t move.” Marco growls the words, and you honestly expect him to pick you up and toss you into the water himself. A fate you’ll accept, it’s much easier to swim in a sun dress than a suit.

Instead he hugs you. 

It takes a second for the action to sink in and you start laughing. “Oh gods, you’re soaked!” You wriggle, but Marco’s not letting you get free. You’re still laughing, even as you can feel your own clothes getting drenched.

“I thought you actually fell,” you can hear his voice rumbling in his chest. Relief and aggravation in equal measure, and the aggravation is probably because he’s wet.

“I’m sorry, I am!” you assert again, still laughing as he pulls you in and nuzzles his wet face into the top of your hair.

His hands are on either side of your face, leaning you back and meeting your gaze. “Don’t scare me like that again.”

There’s no anger in the words. The irritation at his own situation is replaced by genuine concern and you aren’t sure what to do with it. There’s a weight there that sits heavy on your heart, but you don’t know why. The laughter fades from you, your hands over his and you nod. 

“I won’t,” you promise, rubbing your cheek into his palm before giving him a reassuring smile.

The water was cool, not yet fully warmed by summer, but no longer painfully cold from winter. The cool water had actually felt good in the midday sun, but the heat of his lips against yours was driving away what little effect the water had in the first place.

The kiss was wet because you were both wet. The heat rushing up to your face felt strong enough to make steam, and you could feel the warmth from him in return. The salty bite of the ocean water didn’t matter, just his tongue heavy against yours, just his hands holding you right where he wanted you.

Right where you wanted him.

The sweet moan that popped between your lips was followed by your hands tugging at his jacket. Not to remove it, just to pull him closer, to have him a little more forcefully against your body. Enough to loose the hum between his teeth and let it roll between your tongues, sweet and heavy, and barely controlled.

You wanted to pull his jacket off, toss the tie aside, and get his belt out of your way. You wanted to pull away every damnable thread between the two of you and kiss far more than just his lips.

However.

“Public,” you sigh, the word finding its way past a part of you that wasn’t sure it cared. Marco stops kissing you enough for you to say more. “We’re—ahem—in public.”

There’s a devilish look in Marco’s grin, seawater still dripping down his face, and you realize that being in public is not what’s going to save you. Either he would order everyone to look away, or do as he pleased despite the audience.

What saves you today, is because you said something.

“So we are,” he says quietly, one more soft kiss, brief and sweet and full of a longing that almost makes you lean toward him when he leans back. 

“I didn’t see a place to buy dry clothes inside the park,” he says, pulling his jacket off and wringing it out as much as he can before he drapes it over your shoulders.

“I don’t think there— uh?” You had been starting to answer him when the damp jacket was put around your shoulders.

“White sun dress,” he says looking around and not directly at you. “Pretty blue bra.” 

You look down and realize your sun dress had gone quite sheer. It was one thing to give people a show up on Iva’s stage, it was a little different to be showing off your underclothes randomly. Marco was tall enough the jacket was nearly a dress for you, the bottom of it going to almost your knees as you slipped your arms down the sleeves.

“How even are you?” You grumble and Marco looks down at you.

“What?”

You look up at him and lift your arms. The sleeves drop at the end of your hands, and dangle a good six inches beyond your fingertips.

“How do you function at this height? This is bonkers.” You assert, flapping the arms a little to illustrate your point.

“I’m only 6’8”, yoi.”

“Only, and 6’8” cannot be legally said next to one another like that.” You huff. There’s a strange sound from Marco and then he laughs. It’s only for a second, but it’s clear and full before he grins.

“There’s a plaza just outside the park, we can find a clothing store and change into something dry, yoi.”

“We’ll be dry by the time we get there.”

“So you don’t want to see me in sweats and a t-shirt?” He prompts.

You look off toward the horizon for a moment, picturing him in a snug t-shirt and sweats that are barely hanging on, and then start walking. 

“I’m going to find a t-shirt with a pineapple on it.”

Marco laughs. “I’m going to decide where we have our second date, yoi.”

You grin, spinning around again to face him while walking backward. “I have some fancy clothes, but nothing made of like qiviut or shahtoosh, so don’t get too fancy on me in revenge.”

Time was going to be what brought him low, and nothing less but the single most unavoidable primal power in all the Universe. But between his age, his supposed health, and the size of his Family, you had expected that it was going to take time for the head of the Family to end up at your shop.

Instead, your first customer of the day was tall, blonde, and just as surprised to see you, as you were to see him.

Mr. Ananas and you stared at one another in stunned surprise for a few solid seconds. There was no trying to hide the fact that you were fully caught off guard, and the single motion of a blink had been enough to break the spell.

The suit was nice, but not as nice as it had been during the party. He wasn’t trying to flaunt his wealth in the face of a small business owner, but he hadn’t arrived in casual attire either. Everything about him was flawless as far as you were concerned, but there were bags under his eyes and you worried briefly that his father had passed and his nights were restless.

You weren’t sure what to say, honestly, so you fell back on your greeting.

“Welcome to Flower Power, where the power of flowers compels you,” you smile, seeing his own expression soften and relax.

“I had no idea.” He says, his eyes sliding away from you and looking around the shop finally. There was a lot in those few words. The fact that you hadn’t said anything while serving him drinks about wanting to own your own business, or a passion for flowers.

“You aren’t listed as the business’ owner, yoi.” It’s not an accusation, just a statement.

“Oh? Robin helped me with the paperwork, and offered to deal with the tedious details. Is it her name?”

He shakes his head. “A shell company that, I imagine, is registered to you. But the shell corp is private and finding out specifics takes more than just a little research.” 

“I’m surprised you don’t put together a complete dossier of the businesses in your territory.” Your smile fades a bit and you level a look at him. “Or is that handled by ‘patronizing my business’?” 

He sighs in defeat, reaching over and grabbing your infamous broom. There’s a second where you wonder if he’s going to set it up on the top of the displays so you can’t reach it to use it, but he holds it out to you instead.

“Give me a chance to apologize, and a few minutes of your precious time, and if you aren’t satisfied by the end you can shoo me out of your shop the same way you did Thatch.”

Putting your hands on the broom, you squint at him, and you can see him smile.

“I’m asking as the head of the Whitebeard Family,” he clarifies. “Edward Marco, at your service.”

Taking the broom, you incline your head, inviting him in as you go and step behind your counter. Setting up on your stool, you pull another into view, and offer it up as a place to sit. He acknowledges the stool, but bows first. It’s not a deep one, but enough, considering it’s coming from a man who doesn’t bow easily in the first place.

“My apologies for my brothers’ inconsiderate words.” Straightening up, he sits easily on the stool. You have to hop up a little bit from the bottom rung, but he did not have to do anything except sit. “Thank you for giving me your time.”

“Thank you for giving me your name.” You reply, trying not to let his height ruffle your feathers. “And… apology accepted. I will admit I was giving Thatch a hard time on behalf of the first young man,” you shrug. “I was still sour about the audacity of mentioning protection fees to a brand new business. I don’t have enough information to forecast possible revenue, let alone figure out how much I could afford in,” you wave your hand a little dismissively. “Fees.” 

Marco nods. “He went about everything the wrong way, yoi. But that’s part of why I’m here.” He admits. “The other part is because you made a good point. You are the owner of this business as I’m the one responsible for my Family. It would be rude of me not to meet you as an equal.”

“Even if I wasn’t the one that got away?” You prompt, a mischievous grin on your face.

“I think that remains to be seen,” Marco answers easily, and you can feel the heat rush up to your face. “But, to answer you, yes. It’s a partnership in a way. Businesses provide us the money they would otherwise pay to an insurer, sometimes less, oftentimes more. We use that money to create a collective pot, and use the funds to cover the costs of patrols, maintenance, renovation, and reconstruction costs.

“A portion of it is used for investments and to fund our own ventures, and the same percentage from those events are then put back into the pot.” He explains, slipping easily into his business lecture while you were stunned by the earlier flirting.

“All that aside, we don’t accept fees from new businesses like yours. Cornelia didn’t know that, but it was no excuse for him to make that statement in the first place. When something becomes common practice like that, it’s easy for people to forget how much weight it carries.” 

“Then I should keep the current insurances I have,” you say, trying to keep your mind focused on the business at hand.

“If you want.” He answers. “I think given the circumstances, we can offer you protection without the fees. Not just as an apology, but also as a gift to the territory’s first new business in nearly a decade, yoi.”

“A decade?”

He nods. “At least in this territory. I can’t speak for the other areas of the island, but things are pretty stable here. The Family has its share of risks and fights, and it has spilled into the streets before, but Pops also prioritized keeping the territory safe. 

“The Family comes first,” he explains. His words aren’t harsh, but they’re said like a mantra. “But only because it’s on us to keep the peace for the people, yoi.”

“And the fees from the businesses pay into that peace.” You say. There’s a brief pause from Marco, but then he nods.

“A compromise then, between full assessment, and a free ride,” you suggest. “I’ll pay you the monthly rates I’m currently paying the insurance companies for the flowers, shop, my loft, and the greenhouse. These are rates I know I can afford, so it’s not going to risk breaking me or the business. After a year we can sit down and reassess what the shop can afford to pay.

“If you find that amount to be less than the flat rate, I’ll happily accept a refund,” you add with a grin, causing Marco to chuckle softly. “But otherwise, we’ll shift to the assessed rate at that point.”

“You’re being more reasonable than I was being led to believe you were, yoi.” He says, straightening up on the stool and showing off as far as you were concerned. How he flirts so effortlessly, is almost as irritating as the advantage his height gives him.

“I’m talking to someone who can make decisions,” you shrug. “And I requested the head of the family, and got the head of the family. If I chased you off with a broom now I’d really be unreasonable.”

The door chimes, and you turn away from Marco and toward the sound. You don’t recognize who’s come in, and they’re not in a suit, so you don’t think they’re with Marco.

“Welcome to Flower Power, where the power of flowers compels you,” you greet, a little more song in your voice than you had used earlier. “Would you like the guided tour, or did you have something in mind already?” 

The young man looks a bit nervous, glancing from you to Marco and you wave at Marco dismissively.

“Don’t mind him, he’s just here to help me today,” you assure him, getting up and coming around the counter. “Are you looking for something for family, friend, or beau?” 

Marco says nothing as you immediately shift gears. He’s fairly certain the young man recognizes him, a good bit of the territory knows him and the other main commanders by sight, if not by name. His recent promotion isn’t news that will travel quickly, but you’re more of a torrent than his presence, and it takes you less than a minute to get your customer talking.

The entire process takes you maybe ten minutes, and despite everything Marco could be doing right now, he’s actually enjoying watching you work. There’s bits of the bartender, dancing someone through a social interaction with ease and practice, and maybe it was easier here because people weren’t coming in for a drink.

Grief sought flowers and booze for different reasons. Love and celebration too, and maybe that’s why you wanted your own flower shop, instead of your own bar. Though, maybe you didn’t want to become competition against Sanji after the help you’d received from the Mugiwaras.

With the customer gone, bouquet in hand, Marco smiles when you look back at him.

“You peddle flowers even better than drinks,” he muses and you start laughing. 

It takes you a moment to compose yourself, apologies breaking through the fit of laughter. “Petal.” You finally gasp, “I thought you said ‘petal flowers’ and it just,” giggling, you wipe a tear from your eye, “struck me so hard. Sorry, haaa-ah, ahem, sorry.”

Clearing your throat you press your lips together, catching the bemused look on his face and needing to turn away to get yourself under control again. 

“Apologies, aah,” you sigh, fanning your face with your hand and trying to keep yourself from falling into giggles again. “And thank you, for letting me take care of that.”

“It was my pleasure, yoi.”

“Mm,” turning, you bring up a thermos and uncap the top, pouring a cup and handing the steaming coffee to him. “You look like you could use a few minutes to just sit and relax.”

“She says as she hands me coffee.” He muses, taking the cup and taking a drink before you can try and take it back. “You’re not wrong.”

“Then… maybe I could offer up a chance to truly relax?” You prompt, drinking straight from the thermos. You didn’t have a spare cup, since you hadn’t expected company, but you also weren’t expecting to share more than a cup anyway.

“What did you have in mind, yoi?” He had been ready to invite you out dancing, but that might have been a little too old fashioned of him. 

“When’s the last time you’d taken a whole day off?” You question. His eyes go wide for a second before he looks away from you. The answer must be long enough he’s feeling self-conscious, or long enough ago he can’t really remember.

“It’s… been a while.” He finally admits.

You look like you want to press for specifics, but instead you give him a smile. “Alright then. Tuesday, 9am? My treat, and my plan. All you have to do is show up here at the shop at 9am. Nothing fancy.”

“Tuesday?” You aren’t sure if he’s confused by the day, or amused by it.

You nod. “Perk of being a small business owner is that I can take a day to relax whenever I feel like it. Why wait until the weekend? Why share the day with the highest density of people per inch? Tuesday we’ll have all the best places to ourselves, mostly.”

You grin, teasing him openly. “Plus, I bet you’re itching to get back to your office and overwork yourself, so it gives you a few days to work before taking a proper break.”

“Oi,” he starts and you put a finger up.

“I don’t want you thinking about work when you’re supposed to be relaxing.” You interject.

“I’m not that bad.” 

“You didn’t have those bags packed when you were at the bar,” you say, pointing to his eyes. “If you want those unfairly beautiful blues to stand out, use eye-liner, not sleep deprivation.”

“You’re worse than Izou,” he grumbles, taking another drink of coffee.

“Yeah, well, Izou’s probably not trying to see how good you are in bed,” you retort, and he chokes on the drink with slightly less elegance than he’d managed at the bar. Handing him a towel to clean up with, you’re already walking by him as the door chimes.

“Welcome to Flower Power, where the power of flowers compels you.”

As you went through your process, Marco mopped up what little coffee had gotten away from him,  wondering if he was actually still young enough to keep up with you.

Which is why you’d bought your own insurance to cover any legitimate accidents in the meantime.

You had almost considered reaching out to Luffy to make sure everything was good with the Whitebeard Family, but you weren’t worried that they were going to burn your shop down. The Beast Family might, and the Charlottes would the second they realized it was you running the shop.

But the Whitebeard folks were far more reasonable. Probably the most predictable and reasonable Family on the island. Luffy was just too unpredictable himself for his Family to be ranked at the top in your mind, and Akagami was ruthless in his own way. That Family was small, though, so they needed to be a little heavier handed to keep things in line compared to other major players.

Still, two weeks was enough to make you nervous. If it went another two weeks you were going to have to reach out yourself.

The chime of your door grabs your attention, but you’re elbow deep in rearranging a section of the display.

“One moment and I’ll be with you,” you say over your shoulder. “You can look around if you like.”

“No rush.” Comes the reply. There’s something about the voice, or actually more about the tone of it.

Confidence that isn’t borrowed.

You borrow a moment to compose yourself while buried in your stock, and then finish up what you were doing. It only takes a moment, but you can feel the man who came into your shop waiting, patiently, by your door. He hadn’t come around the cases to look at you, hadn’t leaned around the first bank of flowers to leer.

He was simply standing by the door, waiting.

Pulling yourself free of the work, you dust the dampness off your hands against the many pocketed apron you wore during work hours, and give everything one last quick review.

“There we go.” Straightening up, you turn toward the entrance, ready to step behind your counter and face the second messenger. “Welcome to Flower Power where—.”

You can hear the record scratch as your eyes meet his. The same sound must be playing in his head, because while you don’t know his name, and he doesn’t know yours, you both recognize each other at the same time.

“Pompadour?” He’s pointing at you as the word comes out of your mouth.

“You’re that brat!” He declares.

“I was that bartender during Mr. Edward’s birthday, too.” You point out, a smug smile on your face. “You didn’t notice at all that night, did you?” You’d made him at least four drinks, and there wasn’t a flicker of recognition on his face the whole night.

Pink dusts that large man’s face and you think he’s almost as cute as his buddy. “No, I didn’t.”

“Well, you’re definitely a few steps up from the messenger boy the other day.” You admit, sitting on the tall stool behind the counter that almost made it look like you were still standing. 

He clears his throat. “Sorry about him. He was supposed to come in and make a purchase and then leave.”

You open your mouth, and then close it, crossing your arms across your chest. “Oh, so he was just supposed to be casing my shop, huh?”

“What? No!” The expression on his face is caught between embarrassed and insulted. To be fair, a Family wouldn’t case a place and then steal from it, they wouldn’t need to be so subtle.

“You sent him in to buy something for shits and giggles then?”

His mouth opens, but then he closes it. “The point was to patronize your business.”

“You were going to buy flowers you didn’t need, to build rapport with me?”

The concern on his face is reassuring, at least he’s aware he might be walking into a trap. “Effectively.” He admits.

You roll your eyes, unsure of what to do with that. At least this man had sense enough to stop and think before he spoke, so he wasn’t babbling his way into another insult before he could even say what he meant.

“What’s your name?” You question finally, and he flinches.

“Thatch!” There’s almost a crack in his voice and you’re trying not to grin at the idea of this massively tall man being at least a little afraid of you. He’s broad shouldered and at least 7-foot, though the pompadour might be giving him more height than his height, but you can’t tell from your angle.

You nod. “Thatch, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, uh, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Are you the head of your Family?” You question. He’s off-balance from the one-sided introduction, and it takes him a second to really process the question but he shakes his head.

“No, I’m—.”

“Then get out.” You interrupt, already stepping out from behind the counter. Thatch, tall and big as he is, takes a step back. “I’m the owner of this business, if I’m going to get in bed with a Family for any reason I expect to speak to someone ranked similarly.”

“Huh? I mean, Izou can come by he’s—.”

“Not the head of the Family.”

“He’s not, he’s the accountant though, he’s—don’t-pick-up-the-broom,” he pleads, the words rushing out of his mouth as fast as he can manage. “Look just let me finish explaining!”

“Out I said!” You say, already brandishing the broom in his direction. “You can come back with the head of your Family or not at all!”

“No one’s ever requested—ow!” Thatch takes a prod right into his hand, shaking away the sting, “The head of the family has a lot to—ow! Dammit, stop!” 

Thatch tries to grab the broom but you pull it back and quickly jab it into his pompadour. The strike’s too shallow to break the hairdo, but it’s enough to muss it up. 

“I’m busy too!” His hands are guarding his hair more than anything else at this point, hastily trying to smooth the loose strands into place. “He’s got a whole crew of people to pick up his work!”

Thatch starts to say something but you smack him full on in the face with the broom. It’s obvious the bristles stung, but he doesn’t even try to say anything, ducking your broom as he’s run out of your shop. 

“Get!” You holler, swinging harshly and thwacking his rear as hard as you could muster with the broom.

“I’m getting, I’m getting!” Thatch is nearly in tears, and you almost feel bad. For such a big guy he seems like a softy, but that’s no reason for you to go easy on him.

He could’ve been terrifyingly intimidating if he had wanted to be. The hair style wouldn’t have been enough to offset his height. That scar on his face probably had a pretty amazing story to go with it as well, you had no doubt he could fight. 

Even so, he accepted the fury of you and your broom without any anger. He could’ve snatched it up and snapped it in half without breaking a sweat. You caught him off guard with the jab to his hair, but the rest of the stuff he stood there and took with the patience of a saint.

You had almost hoped that Mr. Ananas was going to be the next person to come through the door, but he wasn’t the head of the Family. He might be with Newgate when he arrived, or he might be the person who offers you an invite to the Family’s manor so you can meet Newgate there.

The man was in his 70’s, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to go to him if invited.

-:-

When Thatch returns to the manor, Izou reaches up and pulls a straw out of his hair very carefully. Neither says anything, but Thatch sighs as he goes inside, and Izou smiles, tossing the straw into the grass before following him.

“She’s feisty.” Izou says after a moment, the two of them heading up the stairs to the main office.

“She’s dangerous.” Thatch looks ready to sob, so Izou doesn’t press him. “If she had a quarter staff and not a broom, I think I’d need medical attention.”

“Your hair wouldn’t have survived.” 

Thatch reaches up at the words and makes sure his hair is still in place, and sighs again, head hanging down as he makes his way to the boss’ office.

It’s Marco sitting at the desk, glasses on, going over more paperwork. Thatch thinks he did less when he was the second in command, and for any other family that would make sense, but Marco had been doing his and Pops work for the last year at least. He could delegate more, but now that Pops has stepped down, he’s been wanting to go through everything with his own two hands.

It wasn’t a lack of trust, it was maybe fear, if anything. Marco didn’t want the Family to crumble because he missed something, so he was going to at least review it all first. He hadn’t had the time for an in-depth review before, and he was over-working himself forcing the time now.

“How’d it go?” He asks without even looking up.

Thatch glances down at Izou, who’s glancing up at him, and the split second of silence is enough to pull Marco’s attention away from the paperwork.

“She wants to speak with the head of the Family.” Thatch says, sitting down. Izou sits as well, his eyes going wide for a second before he presses his lips together. 

“I’m busy, yoi.” He says it automatically, there’s no irritation or any emotion in it really.

“Says she’s busy too, and...” Thatch clears his throat, struggling to look at Marco who was glancing up at him at the moment. “That you have a whole crew of people to pick up your work, and she does not.”

Izou chokes, Marco makes a face, and Thatch turns pink.

How much work Marco had been doing without leaning on other members of the Family had been a small bit of contention lately. When he explained his reasoning, there was more understanding, but he was still working too much, and everyone else knew it. If he went much longer Izou was going to have Pops come back from the villa and sort him out, but he wanted to give his brother plenty of time to come around on his own.

He understood what was driving Marco, so it was hard to hold it against him.

But it had been over a month since Pops stepped down and Marco stepped up, and if he didn’t take a proper break soon, he was going to die before he could finish his review. Even a man as strong as Marco needed to rest properly.

“What do we know about her?” Marco asks, setting the papers he was reading down entirely.

Thatch shakes his head. “Not much. She opened Flower Power with a little help from the Mugiwara Family, but she’s not a part of that group. Up and running for five weeks, but she’s already got an ad to hire a delivery person to help with orders.”

“No one else in the shop?” 

Izou shakes his head. “She’s literally running it on her own so far.”

“It’s no wonder she chased Cornelia and Leonero off.” Thatch admits. “I wouldn’t be giving anyone from any Family so much as an inch if I was on my own like that.”

“She chased you off too?” Marco questions and Thatch nods.

“Didn’t even give me her name.” He sighs, his hands automatically going back up to his pompadour to make sure it was still holding its shape. 

“Did she threaten to cut your hair or something? You seem concerned, yoi.”

“Huh? No, she… she’s just kind of scary.” Thatch puts his face in his hands. “Tiny angry woman with a broom.”

Everyone was kind of tiny from Thatch’s perspective, Marco muses, since he towered over most people at his height. The shop owner would’ve been more likely to break her broom, than to really hurt him, but then he’d have felt bad for breaking the broom.

Thatch could snap both the shop owner and her broom with hardly any effort, but that was part of why he left before sorting everything out. Not that there was anything left to sort out. Thatch staying wouldn’t have changed the fact that Marco’s presence was being requested.

Required.

Not exactly demanded, but necessary for things to move forward. 

He’d rather wait until his review of everything was complete, but Thatch being turned away was going to create a lot of curiosity in the Family, and Marco didn’t want the headache. His commanders had been trying to get him to take time off since he started this new job, and it was a flower shop owner who was going to get him away from the desk before he was done.

You couldn’t yet say that you had regulars, beyond the Mugiwaras, but you were at least starting to feel like you really did actually own a business. Everything leading up to it had been daunting, and there were a few days where you weren’t even sure that you’d be able to put up a “We’re Open” sign.

But now here you are. Putting the education you resented when you had to go through it to use for yourself. You weren’t going to celebrate being successful until you’d made it at least a year, but the start was looking good, and you allowed yourself to enjoy that much.

With all the good, however, you did have a new issue waltz into the shop that afternoon.

He wasn’t in a suit, but he was wearing a dress shirt and vest, slacks and a decent pair of oxfords.  Bright purple flowing hair, and smooth skin, if he wasn’t part of the Family you’d think he was trying to be an idol. There was an air of confidence about him, but it felt borrowed.

“Welcome to Flower Power, where the power of flowers compels you,” you say in greeting. He looks around, taking off a pair of sunglasses and tucking them into the front pocket of his shirt, beneath the vest. “I can give a guided tour, or space to browse, as you please.”

“I was hoping to talk about something else,” he says it a little absently, as though his attention is just starting to be directed at you. There’s a small concern that tightens up in the back of your neck as you realize that there’s no one else in shop, and it seems to be what he was checking for himself.

“If it’s not flower related, there might be a surcharge,” you reply, trying to sound as calm and relaxed as possible. The response gets him to look at you. “Consultations would need to be rated on a case by case basis.”

He snorts, and you’re relieved that he has a sense of humor. He doesn’t get any closer to you than he is already, leaving the counter between you both. 

“I’m here because I represent the Whitebeard Family.” He begins and you feel your stomach knot. You might have known he was from a Family, but you didn’t like the fact that he was advertising that fact. “Businesses in the Whitebeard area pay a minimal fee for the protection and safety of all. You’re a new business, so I’m not here to collect or anything like that—.”

“That’s a relief,” you reply. Your neutrality is slipping already, irritation clawing its way into your tone. “It would be poor practice to shakedown a new business and cause it to go out of business.”

The man puts a hand up. “Wait, uh, calm down ma’am, I’m just here to set up a meeting so that a reasonable fee can be assessed.”

You could feel your eye twitch. “A reasonable fee. You’re asking me to set up a meeting to let one of your people review my books, so that you can decide how much I can spare for your organization?”

“I - yes - no - look, wait, wait! The money isn’t used for the Family! It’s insurance for all the businesses and is used for —!”

“I already have insurance for the building and the business!” You bark, coming around from behind the counter. 

The messenger takes half a step back. “Y-you can cancel those, we offer—.”

“You want me to cancel the insurance I researched, vetted and decided on, in order to be at your mercy?” 

“No, no, I meant—.”

“Then you don’t want me to cancel that insurance? You want me to pay protection money on top of insurance fees?” You reach for the broom propped against the front of the desk. “Out.”

“Ma’am, please, I just want a chance to—ow!” You shove the broom bristles at his face, and when he raised his hands to block it the prickly bits of straw poked into his tender palms instead.

“Out!” Smack!

“Ma’am, wait—Ow! Ow! Stop hitting me!” Smack, smack, smack! 

“Out of my shop!” You start smacking him on top of his head, his hands and arms up high to try and block the broom. He’s not trying to wrest it from you, and you imagine he has very strict orders about not harming any of the normal citizens or business owners.

He’s just a messenger boy, and a few harsh broom swats aren’t enough for him to be allowed to get forceful.

“Please!”

“Out! Out before I turn this around and bonk you proper!” You nearly bellow the words, sounding more like an angry old woman, than a young shop owner. All you want is for him to leave, you’re not trying to actually beat him black and blue and start up any real issues with the local Family, but you’re not going to let him waste any more of your time either.

“Yes ma’am—Ow! I’m leaving! I’m leaving!” He’s nearly in tears before he finally turns and runs out and away from the shop. 

There’s another guy, dressed similarly enough you can guess he’s with the Family too, who was standing outside and watching his buddy go running. He turns toward you, a comically flabbergasted expression on his face, and you glare at him.

“Got something to say?” 

He vigorously shakes his head ‘no’, before turning and running after his buddy. You look around, to see if anyone else is loitering by your shop, and finally relax, letting your shoulders drop as you walk back inside. Setting the broom down, and going about picking up a few loose broom straws that broke and fell during your assault, you finally step back behind the counter.

The absurdity of the entire thing hits you and you laugh.

Asking for protection money was a fairly common practice. You weren’t surprised to have someone coming into your shop to talk about it, but you hadn’t been prepared for how angry it had made you. As far as you knew, The Charlotte Family just had a flat fee and left it at that, though people in that territory still needed insurance. How the Whitebeards were doing it made more sense, but the idea of having someone else review your hard work, assess how good it was, all to then charge you based on someone else’s opinion of your success, really pissed you off.

A couple months might have made a difference, once you had a couple more employees and it wasn’t just your effort, but your business still felt too new for it. Too undefined, even to you, to have some stranger waltz themselves into your store and declare a value for your effort.

The first thing you noticed was the blood.

Not because there was a lot of it, in fact there wasn't. Sabo had clearly cleaned himself up before returning to headquarters. But the dark stain spreading through the sleeve of his coat was impossible to miss.

"Sabo," you scolded.

The blond man immediately stopped trying to sneak past the infirmary door and looked at you like a child who had been caught stealing cookies. "I can explain," he started but you didn't want to hear another excuse.

Instead crossed your arms and glared at him. "You are bleeding."

"I have noticed that, yes," he said and offered you his brightest smile, the same one that somehow convinced strangers to trust him and revolutionary soldiers to follow him into danger.

Unfortunately for him, it didn't work on you.

"Sit," you commanded, pointing towards one of the beds, refusing to let him get away this time.

He huffed, and tried to downplay it. "Look it really isn't that bad—"

"Sabo," you said not raising your voice but but your tone made it clear you were serious and stepped aside to let him get inside.

A beat of silence followed and, with all the dignity of a man who knew he had already lost the argument, he sighed, dragged himself past you and lowered himself onto the nearest bed.

"You're scarier than Dragon, you know that?" He mumbled as he sat there on the edge of the bed, swinging his legs a bit.

You just gave him a tiny smirk. "Yeah I’ve heard that one before. Now sit still and let me check on your ‘not so bad‘ injury," you said. Your hands automatically went to his top hat carefully taking it off and moving it safely out of the way before you reached for his coat and carefully pulled it from his shoulders.

At first, you thought he might have been telling the truth. The injury couldn't be that bad. Then the coat slid free and your expression immediately flattened.

"Sabo."

"...Yes?"

"The shirt."

His shoulders visibly slumped.

"The shirt?" he repeated, pretending like he didn’t know what you meant.

"The shirt, it needs to go, I still don't have x-ray eyes."

For a second, he considered arguing. You could practically see the thought process happening behind his eyes. Then, deciding his chances of survival were better if he cooperated, he carefully began unbuttoning the bloodstained fabric.

The moment the wound came into view, you felt your jaw tighten and the room went completely still. The easy teasing and the playful glares vanished instantly, replaced by the heavy, sobering reality of what you had been dreading all week. The gash was deep, ugly, and angry-red, a stark reminder of just how close he had come to not walking back through those doors at all. Your chest tightened painfully, the breath completely leaving your lungs as you stared at it, frozen in a sudden wave of quiet, overwhelming dread before it turned into anger.

Sabo noticed the shift immediately. The defensive bravado drained from his shoulders, and he looked down at his own side, suddenly seeming to realize how terrifying it must have looked from your perspective.

You though stared at him and his gaze lifted from his wound to the opposite wall trying to act like he didn’t feel you glaring at him.

"Sabo."

"I know," he said raising his hands in defeat.

"This is your definition of 'not that bad'?" You asked staring at the wound then him a mix of anger, fear and worry overwhelming you.

"In my defense, it looked smaller earlier," he mumbled rubbing the back of his neck. Needing to break the suffocating weight before you burst into tears or screamed at him, he cleared his throat, offering a weak, lopsided little smile. "Okay. So... maybe it’s slightly worse than a papercut."

"An absolute moron. You're an absolute moron, Sabo." You pinched the bridge of your nose letting out a long, long suffering sigh. "I hate you."

"No, you don't." That counter came so quickly that you almost missed it.

When you looked up, he was smiling. Not the charming smile he used on strangers. Not the confident one he wore during meetings. No this one was a softer. One reserved for people he trusted and it made your chest tighten.

Unfortunately, that only made you more determined to be annoyed with him. "You reopened the wound," you scolded trying to hide your blushing face.

"A little."

"A little? You tore half the stitches," you almost shouted at him.

"A little more than a little," he grinned innocently.

You sighed heavily snd Sabo wisely chose not to say anything else. The silence stretched between you as you fetched clean supplies. Despite his attempts to appear relaxed, you noticed the slight stiffness in his movements and the way he occasionally winced when he thought you weren't looking.

Idiot.

He had probably pushed himself far beyond his limits just to finish whatever mission he had been assigned before finally returning home. Typical. Always pushing, always putting others before himself. You knelt beside the bed and carefully began removing the ruined bandages.

To his credit, he stayed still. Well mostly. The second antiseptic touched the wound, he hissed.

"Oh, now it hurts?" You asked angry with him because god you were worried, you were worried each damn time he left for a mission.

"That was uncalled for," he pouted but you ignored him.

A few moments later, you felt his gaze lingering on you but you focused on your work. Or at least that was the plan. His gaze remained though and you tried harder to ignore it. Still it remained.

Finally, you looked up. "What?"

Sabo blinked. "Hm?"

"You keep staring."

"Oh," he shrugged and to your annoyance, his smile returned. "I like looking at you."

Your hand slipped, the bandage you just held nearly ended up on the floor. "You can't just say things like that," you panicked.

"Why not?"

"Because normal people don't."

"Good thing neither of us is normal, then," he smiled.

You opened your mouth but then closed it again. There was no winning that argument.

Sabo chuckled quietly. God that sound, it was so warm, so comfortable and yet so dangerous. Not in the bad way but in a way that was dangerous for your sanity and……your heart.

You focused on securing the fresh bandages. "There," you said when you were done, wiping your hands with a clean cloth, trying to regulate your own breathing. But when you looked back up, Sabo wasn't looking at the wall anymore. He was just watching you, really watching you, with a quiet, unfiltered intensity that made your breath catch. All the teasing was gone from his blue eyes, replaced by a sudden, heavy vulnerability as he saw the lingering worry still written across your face.

After some time he glanced down at your work. "Looks professional," he teased.

"I am a professional."

"I know, that’s why I let you patch me up," he said with a cheeky smile. And something about the way he said it made your stomach flutter.

The room suddenly felt much smaller, much quieter. Outside, headquarters continued as usual. Voices echoed faintly through the halls. Someone laughed somewhere in the distance. Yet for some reason, it felt like the world had narrowed to just the two of you.

Sabo's gaze softened as his eyes locked onto yours. "Thank you." He said, the teasing was gone now. His voice carried a sincerity that caught you off guard.

You looked away first. "It's my job," you murmured.

"You sure?" He asked with a grin and you stared at him.

"Excuse me?" You frowned, feeling a tiny bit frustrated now thinking he was referring to your skills. But his gaze softened and you got confused.

"I think you'd take care of me even if it wasn't," he finally mumbled looking anywhere but in your eyes.

Heat immediately rose to your cheeks. Before you could formulate a response, Sabo reached out and gently caught your wrist. The movement was careful, as though he was nervous himself and giving you every opportunity to pull away. You stiffened for a moment because this came so unpredictable, it made your heart slam against your ribs and your stomach flutter yet you didn't pull away. You couldn’t, nor wanted to.

For a moment, neither of you spoke. His thumb brushed lightly across your skin, sending an electric spark thrpugh your nerves.

He took a deep breath and his beautiful face softened even further. "I know I worry you."

"Sabo—" you breathed as your heart skipped a beat.

"I do." His smile turned small, almost vulnerable and guilty. "I always tell myself I'll be more careful next time."

You couldn’t keep the snort from escaping you. "That's a lie."

He tilted his head slightly and then nodded. "It is," he admitted but at least he was honest. The laugh that escaped him afterwards was soft and sending another spark through you. God that disarming laugh and that annoying charm.

Before you knew it his expression settled into something serious. Something that made your pulse quicken. "I don't mean to make you worry," he said his voice now unusually soft and vulnerable making the room feel very still. "You're important to me," Sabo finally confessed with a small tremble in his hands.

You felt dumbstruck, swallowing hard and like breathing normally suddenly seemed to be a very hard thing to do. This was dangerous, really dangerous because he was important to you too. Far more than he probably realized, far more than just a friend.

"You idiot," you huffed before you could stop the words from slipping out.

Sabo blinked confused and surprised. "What?"

"You absolute idiot," you continued, your eyes stinging unexpectedly. "You disappear for weeks, come back bleeding, act like you're invincible and expect me not to worry?"

Understanding slowly dawned on his face and then something warmer followed. A mix of a huge grin and a blush appearing on his handsome face. "I was hoping you worried because you cared."

You laughed shakily. "Of course I care. I always do."

The words hung between you. Neither of you moved, neither of you looked away. The air between you two was electric, full of sparks that had been buried for so long.

Sabo's smile slowly grew. "Good."

Your heart threatened to stop. "Good?" you repeated weakly.

"Because I care about you too."

The confession was so simple. So honest, exactly like him. There was no dramatic speech, no grand declaration. Just the truth and somehow that made it mean even more. For the first time all evening, Sabo looked genuinely nervous, which was actually a rare sight because well, this was Sabo, chief of staff of the Revolutionary Army.

"I've actually been trying to figure out how to tell you for months," he admitted rubbing the back of his neck.

You stared at him, your heart melting so completely that any lingering frustration evaporated into thin air. A small, affectionate smile finally broke through your expression. "Months, huh? You really kept that quiet for a chief of staff."

Sabo groaned softly, burying his face in his hands with a rare flash of bashfulness. "Hey, facing down admirals is easy. Admitting I was completely gone over someone who patches me up like an angry nurse? Terrifying."

You couldn't help the soft laugh that slipped out, reaching forward to gently pull his hands away from his face so you could look right into his eyes. The teasing warmth was back, but it was laced with a quiet, fierce sincerity of your own.

"For the record," you whispered, your thumb gently tracing his knuckles, "if you had just told me sooner, maybe I wouldn't have had to yell at you quite so much."

His expression softened into something breathtakingly tender, his blue eyes shining with quiet relief. He leaned slightly into your touch, turning his hand to lace his fingers securely with yours. "Noted. I'll stick to verbal confessions from now on instead of getting stabbed to get your attention."

"Good plan." You laughed, a warm and rich laugh. The next thing you knew, Sabo was laughing too. And somehow, somewhere between the laughter and the relief, the distance between you disappeared.

"Do you know how much I hate when you leave?" you suddenly said.

Sabo stared at you caught off guard by your words.

"Every time Dragon sends you somewhere dangerous, I spend the entire time wondering if you'll come back," you mumbled, your voice shaking. "Every time someone walks through those doors injured, my heart stops because I'm terrified it'll be you."

Sabo's expression softened immediately as he leaned forward. His forehead rested lightly against yours. It was so warm and gentle, that you felt like you were engulfed in a bubble where only you two existed. It was exactly what your heart was aching for the most…..love and home.

You felt him tense up a bit, his body slowly succumbing to the exhaustion of the mission, the injury and the rollercoaster of emotions.

"You should rest," you whispered softly, your hands cupping his face.

"Not yet."

"Sabo," you sighed.

"Five more minutes," he murmered.

"You are literally wounded."

"And in love," he countered and you froze. That idiot.

Your touch softened, the smile that spread on your face was reaching a new high. And the flutter in your chest was making your heart melt and your stomach do flips.

"I love you too," you smiled and sat down on the bed next to him.

"Finally," he murmured.

"Finally?"

"Mhm," he hummed, his eyes closed. "Do you have any idea how long I've been in love with you?" A quiet laugh escaped him. "I've been dreaming of this moment for so long, everyone was already onto it and yet I couldn’t find the nerves to tell you. Though i have to admit in my dream we were having dinner together on a balcony watching the sunset not well.....not this." he confessed, voice getting softer and sounding almost a bit nervous and shy which was so cute.

Heat rushed to your face as you looked at him. "You stubborn idiot," you said, with deep affection, making him chuckle slightly.

For a moment neither of you spoke. The world outside continued on as always, voices echoing through headquarters, footsteps passing the infirmary door. Yet somehow everything felt different, better in the best way possible.

Sabo lifted his head and smiled at you, soft and warm and entirely yours. "So…"

"So?" you raised an eyebrow.

"Does this mean I still have to stay in bed?"

You immediately pointed toward the mattress. "Absolutely," you said, trying to sound as strict as possible without laughing.

Sabo sighed dramatically. "Worth it."

You smiled as Sabo shifted on the bed and leaned his head down onto your lap. Your heart doing a frantic flutter while you threaded your fingers through his soft blonde hair.

Within moments, you felt him relax beneath your touch. "Comfortable?" you asked quietly.

"Mhm."

"Good."

A comfortable silence settled between you. Then one of his. beautiful blue eyes cracked open. "You know," Sabo murmured sleepily.

"What?"

"Getting stabbed was probably worth it."

You immediately smacked his shoulder.

"Ow!" he whined rubbing the spot you just smacked.

"Don't say things like that!" you scolded.

His laughter filled the infirmary, warm and bright. For the first time since he had left for that mission you felt yourself relax too. You knew tomorrow there would be more missions, more danger, more goodbyes. But for now, Sabo was here. By your side, held by someone who loved him. For once he was safe and at ease. And as his eyes drifted closed beneath your gentle touch, that was more than enough.

The Cross Guild hideout was never truly quiet. Even when Crocodile tried to enforce silence. It still leaked in through the walls, Buggy’s voice, mostly…..especially to be honest.

“…AND THEN I SAID, ‘OF COURSE I DESERVE THE TREASURE! I AM THE FUTURE KING OF THE PIRATES!’”

A pause, no one wanted to say something at first before one of the crew decided to break the silence. “…Captain Buggy, that was not what happened.”

“That is EXACTLY what happened,” he insisted.

“It absolutely wasn’t,” Avlida sighed sipping from a glass of wine.

From the other side of the office door, Crocodile didn’t even look up from his paperwork. “Shut him up,” he said flatly to you.

You leaned against the desk, watching him with mild amusement. “You say that like it’s easy.”

Another crash echoed outside, followed by shouting. Then what sounded like several men arguing over a map that may or may not have been upside down.

Crocodile’s pen stopped when someoneknocked on the door. He was clearly annoyed by now. “…What now.”

The door creaked open slightly. One of the Cross Guild members peeked in. “Sir Crocodile… there’s been a situation.”

“I can hear that.”

“It involves… Captain Buggy,” the man explained with a shaky voice.

“I assumed,” Crocodile said rubbing the bridge of his nose. You were surprised that he wasn’t yelling by now and found the whole conversation rather amusing already.

“…He attempted to ‘improve morale’ by personally leading a treasure retrieval mission.”

Crocodile slowly exhaled smoke. “…And?”

The man paused for a moment and it was clear he was debating with himself on how to continue or if it would be smarter to sent someone else in and just run. “…He got stuck in a cannon,” he finally said.

Silence followed his word, you tried not to smirk and found a stain on the floor suddenly very important.

“…Again?” Crocodile asked, dangerously calm.

“Yes, sir.”

From outside Buggy’s shouting could be heard.  “UNHAND ME, YOU FOOLS! THIS IS PART OF MY MASTER STRATEGY!”

A second voice was sounding like someone was panicking. “He’s upside down.”

“Actually, he’s been upside down for ten minutes,” Galdino's voice added.

You though had started to press your lips together, you knew that it was kinda embarrassing thinking that the man that had become a Yonko, that was believed to be the mastermind behind the Cross Guild, the one leading Sir Crocodile and Dracule Mihawk was currently stuck upside down in a cannon — again.

Crocodile’s eye twitched slightly. “…Continue,” he ordered wanting to know what caused that mess this time.

“Well Captain Buggy wanted to fire a glitter bomb with the cannon but it didn’t work and… he tried to check why it didn’t work said something about disrespect and then he lost his footing and he slid into the cannon…” the man paused for a moment because that wasn’t even the worst part of it. “….apparently the cannon decided to put aside it’s protest of not working and so he got fired…..sideways…” the man finished and you were feeling so damn close to explode from laughter, that you were clawing at your own arm to keep you from it.

“…Toward what,” Crocodile asked clearly close to losing his shit.

“The supply warehouse,” the man stammered clearly regretting that he was the one to report.

You saw Crocodile’s eye twitch again and this time a bit more aggressive but he didn’t erupt not yet at least. “…And?”

The man exhaled and clutched at his sleeve. “…He broke through three walls.”

Crocodile finally set the pen down. Very slowly, very deliberately and very annoyed.  “…And ruined the map room.” He said more as a matter of fact.

“…Yes, sir.”

You made a sound, something between half cough, half laugh, and immediately tried to hide it behind your hand. Especially when Crocodile shot you a look that clearly meant 'don’t'. Which made it even harder. It was like a switch flipped inside you whenever you knew you weren’t allowed to laugh you felt like bursting out into it. But before that could happen you could hear shouting from outside again.

“I HAVE DISCOVERED A NEW CONTINENT!” Buggy’s loud and boisterous voice shouted.

“That’s a barrel,” Cabaji sighed.

“I NAME IT BUGGYLAND!” Buggy exclaimed totally ignoring Cabaji.

That was the final straw in your composure snapping. To hold back was no longer possible and you knew Crocodile would be scolding you for it but it just burst out of you. Pure, genuine and unfiltered laughter. Not loudly at first, just a small, incredulous sound that slipped out before you could stop it.

Crocodile’s gaze lingered on you, his eyes unreadable and you tried to recover but it didn’t really work. “I’m sorry— it’s just— Buggy calling a barrel a continent—” you stammered before another laugh escaped you.

Crocodile rubbed his temple and looked back toward the door. “…Idiots,” he murmured as he dismissed the man in the office who looked extremely relieved to get out.

“Complete idiots,” you nodded, still laughing before you managed to calm down again.

Your eyes locked with his and for a moment there was silence again, not the uncomfortable kind though.

He finally exhaled, low and deep. “…He called it Buggyland,” he said shaking his head slightly in disbelief

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, that was it again. Hearing Crocodile repeat it caused you to lose it and the laughter bubbled out of you again. “Sorry” you said but couldn’t stop yourself and simply let it out now. He could scold you later for it, right now it was just too funny.

Crocodile didn’t react immediately, he just stared at the paperwork. But then you heard it. Very quietly, a short rough sound was leaving his lips. Not quite a cough but not quite ‘nothing’ either.

You froze, your laughter ebbing out.  “…Was that—” you asked, eyes wide and lighting up at him.

“No,” he denied flatly.

You looked at him and pointed a finger. “It definitely was!”

Crocodile groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It wasn’t.” But his mouth had already betrayed him, just slightly. A faint crease at the corner, like the idea of amusement had forced it’s way through sheer pressure.

Before you could say something else you could hear Buggy’s voice again.

“DECLARE IT AS CROSS GUILD TERRITORY! I DEMAND A FLAG!” Buggy shouted and you felt your lips twitch again.

“…He’s asking for a flag,” Crocodile rumbled and leaned back in his chair, taking a drag from his cigar. “…Give him a flag.”

You stared at him with wide eyes and furrowing your brow. “You’re indulging him?”

“I’m ending the situation,” he explained.

You tilted your head slightly, still totally surprised by this. “That’s not how this sounds.”

“It is.”

You didn’t believe him but you knew that this conversation was leading nowhere and instead you smiled again, softer this time, watching him instead of the chaos outside.

“…You were going to laugh,” you said crossing your arms.

“I did not,” he said, his eyes meeting yours.

Your smile didn’t falter in fact it actually widened a bit. “You almost did.”

Crocodile glanced at you. “Don’t make it a habit of noticing things.”

“I already do.”

You kept looking at each other without any words being said and you saw his own gaze softening. Outside, Buggy continued declaring sovereignty over a barrel, he deemed a new continent.

Crocodile sighed. “…It is a ridiculous name,” he rumbled quieter than before.

Your grin widened immediately. “Oh my god — you are laughing,” you smirked pointing a finger at him.  

“I am not.”

“Come on you laughed over Buggyland, over the fact that Buggy got stuck in a cannon that sent him flying into the map room to ‘discover’ a new continent and demanding a flag to make it officially Cross Guild territory” you said, purposely repeating everything to see his lips twitch. “I knew it," you almost shouted as you looked at him.

“What."

“That,” you said pointing at his mouth. “That little smile right there”

“It wasn't a smile,” he frowned.

“It absolutely was.”

“I was exhaling.”

“That was not an exhale that was a smile.”

“It wasn’t,” he protested again.

This time though you didn’t let him off that easy. “It was.”

“...You're becoming insufferable.”

Your eyes remained locked on his. “Buggyland” you repeated again and then giggled yourself it was just too ridiculous. And just in that moment the chaos outside decided to reach it’s absolute high.

“CAPTAIN BUGGY! THE BARREL HAS ROLLED AWAY!” someone shouted.

“AFTER IT!” Buggy ordered.

“..Captain... it's rolling downhill.”

“...THEN DECLARE IT A COLONY!” Buggy screamed loudly and over the top and that was it. Crocodile actually let out a short laugh. Not because he wanted to but because Buggy and your laughter had defeated his self-control for good.

The sound made your heart swell. You looked at him with open delight as your laughter joined his. Not solely because of Buggy but because somehow Crocodile’s laugh was infectious. When his dark rumbling laughter stopped, he looked at you and then down at his papers as if he had been burnt and the sound of his own laughter had embarrassed him because it wasn't that villainous laugh you knew. It was lighter, more genuine.

“I like that sound,” he suddenly rumbled.

You were ripped out of your thoughts at his sudden words and you looked up at him and blinked confused. “What sound?”

He didn’t answer immediately and seemed to hesitate for a moment as if inwardly annoyed with himself that he brought that up. “Your laugh,” he finally admitted.

You were caught off guard and stared at him for a long while before he cleared his throat. “It suits you,” he said like a matter of fact and that didn’t make this moment any less shocking and surprising for you. In the best way though.

“Was that a compliment?” you managed to ask feeling your cheeks heat up slightly.

“No,” he lied.

“It definitely was,” you said grinning wide.

“I made an observation.”

“That's your version of a compliment.”

He didn't react on it and instead reached for a file on his desk and pretended like he was busy. “Get out,” he grumbled.

You though didn’t move. Instead you laughed again and this time, the corner of his mouth lifted immediately. You didn’t comment on it, you simply enjoyed seeing him like this.

Running a business was something every Charlotte child learned, even the adopted ones. It wasn’t that every child was expected to become a business owner, it was that the skills for running a business were transferable to a lot of other things. Like assisting other, better, siblings in running their businesses, or in helping to ensure that whatever family you married into had someone with enough education to do whatever Mama needed.

Be it making their own business successful, or driving it into the ground.

Because of that, your education wasn’t limited to the kinds of businesses that Linlin had, so you were able to turn your more generalized knowledge into something you wanted. You had narrowed things down to a few possibilities, and in the end you went with a flower shop for two main reasons.

First, you intended to continue going to Iva’s club, both as a patron and as a performer, as time and energy allowed, and Iva used a lot of flowers for a lot of different reasons. Having a direct line supply from you would help her cut some costs.

Second, this town was heavy with mafia. It was a massive city, and the boundaries were pretty well defined, but businesses were often neutral ground unless they were directly owned and operated by a specific family. Which meant that you could get business from several different families, despite being just inside the Whitebeard family’s borders, you were right next to Akagami and Luffy’s territories. It was a great location because those three were amicable to one another, and hostile toward the people you did not want to run into.

But Mafia had a tendency to go through more flowers than you’d expect. From sending threats to condolences to sometimes secret and nuanced messages depending on the flowers used. If someone didn’t know what flowers meant, there was certainly someone within the Family who handled it.

The location was also good for people who were just passing by and going about their lives. You’d already had several people stop and ask questions when you had been setting things up, so word of mouth had gotten to spread a little prior to the grand opening. 

You were fairly certain that you weren’t going to see any normal traffic today, however, since your shop was currently full of Mugiwaras.

None of Luffy’s people scared others away by default, except perhaps Zoro’s infamous resting bitch face, but the issue was more that your shop was not that large, and ten people plus you, were enough to really fill the place up.

“I meant to ask if you’re using the entire greenhouse.” Nami says, turning a few carnations aside to check stems and colors.

“Not yet,” you reach by her and pull out a white carnation with bright orange tips and a fresh stem. “I’ve got maybe 40% of it rolling so far. I was going to wait to see if I got any specialized requests before I plotted the rest.”

“Have you considered renting space?”

Grinning, you nod. “As of right now, actually. What were you thinking?”

“Mikan saplings can struggle through their first frost. I was hoping I could rent some space for maybe 3 or 4 saplings. I have space at the house, but,” she looks around to the others. “Sometimes it’s still dangerous. The boys aside, Usopp uses a lot of what space we do have for his work.”

You can imagine that the slightest bit of rough-housing can turn into a complete disaster from time to time, so the request makes sense. 

“I can definitely spare the space. Have you already worked on some numbers? Or do you want me to?”

Nami shakes her head. “I have some figures already, want to set up a meeting for it?”

Following her gaze you agree to the meeting and step away to go help Robin, and thank Jinbei for keeping Luffy from finding out which flowers are edible. By the time things started to settle down, you’d sold a good chunk of your stock, set up recurring deliveries for half the group, and realized you were going to have to hire someone to do the deliveries, because you weren’t going to be able to juggle that much on your own.

“Oi,” Sanji’s voice catches your attention as you’re tidying up a bit in the wake of Luffy and his group. His fingers twitch for a cigarette that isn’t there, since you told him no smoking inside the shop. He’d had his gaze on you while the others were around, but waited until it was just you two to speak up.

“Someone was asking about you, after you left,” he says, and you smile. You’re pretty sure you know who. “I told him your views on Mafia, and that you didn’t work for me anymore.”

“I hope you didn’t get too detailed.”

Sanji smiles at you, the boyish one you didn’t get to see often when you worked for him, but saw plenty otherwise. “Of course not. I’d never tell another man a lady’s secrets. I said you had your reasons, but you weren’t violent or hostile about it.”

“Obviously, considering.” You nearly snort. 

You pause for a moment, the weight of it all settling onto your shoulders. He was unfairly handsome, smooth in his actions and his words. Not a man who was going to make decisions quick, or judge anyone harshly. Dedicated to his Family, but you could see him being the type to put love above all that, the best he could while still remaining loyal.

Not the type to leave the life behind him for anyone, though, you didn’t think.

“Aside from you lot, I don’t expect to see any great personages actually coming into my shop.” You admit. “Gofers and the like, sure, but officers and such are going to send someone else to fetch flowers. Tall, dangerous blondes like him will have far more important things to worry about than running into me.”

“Mm.” Sanji hums and you narrow your eyes at him.

“Don’t get your romantasy thoughts all over my shop,” you grumble and he just smiles. 

“Would you say no?” He questions.

You open your mouth, close it, and cross your arms. Sanji gives you a moment of peace, without prodding or teasing you and eventually you sigh.

“… I’d give him a chance.” You grab Sanji’s collar and he lets you manhandle him almost gently. “Fate. I’d give fate a chance, so don’t you get in the way you damn cook.”

Sanji has his hands up in mock surrender before you’ve even released your hold. “None of us will interfere.” He promises. “Well, most of none of us. If Ace questions Luffy, your cat’s out of the bag and there’s no helping it, he can’t lie to save his life.”

Getting angry at Luffy would be pointless. Aside from the fact that you did not want to upset the head of any Family, you also knew that Luffy was just complete ass at lying. He wouldn’t spill the beans because he wasn’t loyal to you, he would spill them because he has the poker face of a five year old and Ace might not show him mercy.

But…

“I don’t think he’s the type to outsource looking for me like that.” You admit after a moment. “Especially since he’s not going to stop being Mafia. I’m sure he’ll write it off and move on.”

“You sound disappointed.” Sanji’s already moving out of your reach as he says it, so you throw a small vase at him. He catches the glass bowl with a laugh, your action having done more to prove his words than anything you could’ve tried to say.

“Are you going to buy something Casanova, or just torment me more?” You grumble. Sanji’s already set up a recurring order for the All Blue, as he’d been talking about using your flowers to spruce up the center pieces in the dining areas. It’s a deal that will help even out the ups and downs of your first year or two because it’ll be steady income for the shop.

“Tomorrow,” he promises, setting the bowl down on your counter. “Nami and Robin have more shopping today and I need my hands free.”

You’d call him a sucker, but after a couple years you do understand him more than you thought you ever would. Sanji when you first met him was barely 21, and sometimes you wanted to hit him with a bat just to get him to chill.

But his love for his friends, all of them, and his devotion to showing his love in his own way, was commendable. Aggravating, at times, but commendable.

Sanji pauses at the door, looking back at you.

“I could tell you about him.” He offers. “Name, rank, what’s known about his past far as anyone outside his Family would know.” 

You chew on his offer for a good minute, and Sanji gives you time, effectively keeping guard at the door so no one interrupts your thoughts. Eventually, you shake your head.

“Nah. It’s kind of like bird-watching, I guess. If someone tells you what you saw before you figure it out yourself, then that’s half the fun down the drain.” You offer him a wry smile, and he rolls his eyes.

“Bird-watching is an old man’s hobby.” He retorts, pulling out a cigarette.

You hum in agreement. “I’d be lookin’ at him if I was an old man, too.”

Sanji clicks his tongue, blowing the first exhale of smoke outside the shop before looking back at you. “You’re always the one saying you should regret what you do, not what you let pass you by.”

“Don’t use my own wisdom against me,” you tease, coming around the counter and shooing him away with your hands. “Get out of my shop you sap, come back tomorrow and buy as much as you can carry.”

He laughs, moving fluidly away from your door and catching up with his friends. Only you would insult an officer in a mafia family and then tell him to come back and buy your wares. But that was part of why you got along with all of them so well. The respect and honesty was strong enough you had considered joining them a few times, despite your disdain for the life.

You’d been mad at first, when Katakuri had given you salvation from Mama, only to drop you into the arms of a different Family. The best way for you to hide and be safe was to blend in with a family. A civilian had less protections when they didn’t have direct ties to a group. Less protection meant it would be easier for you to be found. 

There was no way for him to get you off the island completely, not without sending up a big red flag. Without money, just getting off the island wouldn’t be enough. You needed to be able to disappear once you left the Family, and the best way to vanish was to make small movements, and fade away inside someone else’s sphere.

By the time it was safe to leave the island, you’d be just as safe staying. You weren’t exactly overflowing with wander lust, and you did like plenty of things about the city. Linlin hadn’t paid enough attention to you for you to be worried about her recognizing your face, and for Katakuri’s sake she was more likely to just have written you off.

If your assumptions were wrong, you didn’t doubt that Katakuri and the Mugiwaras would both work to get you off the island, but that wasn’t something you were going to worry about right now.

The four around Sanji seemed to be the primary ones, and you hadn’t seen Ace as yet. Which was good. Ace was adorable, but also friendly, and there was no way you were going to avoid attracting attention with freckles the friendly puppy bouncing around you like a pinball. Though, without Luffy around he might be more mellow than the version of him you knew.

The other man staying nearer Sanji was shorter than the first two, though not by much, with the longest, silkiest black hair you’d seen any man flaunt. Or any woman for that matter. You didn’t know why he had so much hair, but the pride he took in it and his appearance spoke volumes. The other one with them had cheekbones that could cut glass, his hair pulled into a series of twists knotted against his scalp.

He looked like he could probably just lift the entire bar and set it down where ever he pleased, honestly. Not that anyone who was a part of this family looked lacking in terms of power. Most Family types were often in shape because fighting was part of the price you paid to be in such a position, but these guys look like they trained in their sleep.

You wouldn’t dare to use a term like “Military Precision” around people whose primary enemy were the marines, but the vibes were there.

It only took an hour to get everything locked down, and there was still a good bit of time before the party itself was going to begin. With the T’s crossed and the I’s dotted you and Sanji were grabbing beers, or pouring drinks for most of those who’d come to help with the setup. 

Tall, blonde, and full of choices you were going to regret, your involuntary savior was on his own, enjoying a bit of quiet at the far end of the bar before the festivities were going to begin. As the bartender you weren’t going to leave someone completely alone in the first place, but this time you showed up with a drink and a greeting you wouldn’t hand out to just anyone.

“Handsome drink for a handsome guy?” You ask, setting an Old Fashioned down in front of the man leaning against your bar.

He smiles, turning his attention away from the room and toward you. “Now what have I done to deser—!” His eyes go wide with recognition for a split second, but then his composure returns with such ease you aren’t sure you didn’t hallucinate his reaction.

You smile. “Oh good, you do recognize me. That certainly makes it easier to show my appreciation.”

A crooked smile crosses his face before he looks down at the offered drink. “An Old Fashioned, huh? What an interesting choice, yoi.”

He picks up the drink and takes a sip as you grin. “A fitting drink for an old—.” You pause catching the blue eyes that flit over to yours before continuing. “—Fashioned fella like you.”

You grin, wiping the bar top as he sets the drink down.

“It’s good.”

“Damn right it is,” you grunt, pretending to be annoyed by his lackluster praise. “I’m the best bartender in this place.”

“And who taught you how to bartend?” Sanji grumbles, coming up front with a scowl on his face.

“A fairy,” you tease. “Who made me the best in the whole of the Metro.” You push your luck and watch him roll his eyes.

Sanji snorts. “You wish. Is this him?” 

“Huh, oh, yeah. Yeah, my unfortunate knight in tailored silk.” You admit, giving the taller blonde a quick glance up and down. “Looks even better now than Sunday.”

Your savior sputters into his drink, grabbing a napkin to cover his mouth. He hasn’t really made a mess, so it’s probably habit more than anything. Ingrained etiquette is kind of sexy. The smooth way he moves even when he’s flustered is certainly motivation to keep trying.

No matter the risks.

“No flirting on the clock.” Sanji admonishes.

“You cannot be serious. You! Of all people!” You shout after him as he’s already walking away.

“I’m the owner.” He retorts, leveling you with a look that lets you know he is, indeed, being serious.

“Bloody - ugh, fine.” You sigh in defeat and straighten up, putting on your best professional behavior face. “Sorry, sir, is there anything else I can get for you? You involuntarily did me quite the favor, another drink or a meal is required at the least.”

“Oh I think I’m due more than that.” The way he says it sends a sweet chill down your spine.

“Oh?” You’re going to get into so much trouble, but it’ll be entertaining, you’re sure.

“When you barreled into me, my jacket got ripped.” He says evenly, his eyes shifting from the drink to you. “My silk jacket.”

You can feel yourself being herded into a trap, but it seems like a fun game, so you see no reason to argue. “Oh no.” You drag the words out a little bit, enjoying the subtle smile on his lips as you do so.

“I had to take it to a specialist to get it mended.”

“Mm-hm.” He was certainly angling to ask you out on a date for his troubles. 

“And those punks, who were after you,” he emphasizes. “Got blood on my shoes.”

You feel yourself flinch. “Your. Custom. Shoes.” You offer, knowing full well the shoes were nice enough you remember them clearly even in the midst of the commotion. You wouldn’t be surprised if the shoes cost more than the entire suit.

“Handmade. A gift from my father.”

“…Oh.” You actually feel bad about that. 

“Mm.” He agrees, taking another sip. “Oh.”

You lower your head in defeat. “It seems, good sir, I am at your mercy. Your, gods help me, very kind, and generous and understanding mercy.”

There’s a moment of silence and you peek up at him. Blue eyes, breath-takingly beautiful blue eyes, are looking down at you from beneath relaxed hooded lids. You thought he was handsome before you crashed into him, but now, composed like this, he looks positively delicious.

That’s dangerous, but you’re kind of in the midst of several varieties of danger. What’s one more varietal at this point?

“You work here, yoi?” He asks after a second.

You don’t know what’s with the verbal tick, but you’ll take a free syllable in that voice if the Universe is going to give it to you.

“More nights than not.” You answer, slowly straightening back up. It’s another reason you’re not worrying overmuch, since this is going to be your last night. “I don’t know how many free meals Sanji will let me give you, but—.”

He smiles and you realize that aside from the fact that he certainly doesn’t need anything for free, it’s not Sanji that he means to get his restitution from. That part wasn’t surprising, but you had thought he was angling for an excuse to come back to the bar to chat with you more, since he didn’t know this was your last night.

“You fight well, bartend well, I wonder if you can dance well?” He questions.

Your face sours a little but you recover quickly. “I am, regrettably, formally trained in several kinds of dancing.”

“Formally?”

“Eh, it’s a complicated story. Nothing an’ old guy like- er, I mean, nothing a gentleman such as yourself would be interested in.” You correct.

“How old do you think I am?” He questions. He’s fully seated at the bar, chin resting on his hand, regarding you comfortably.

“Older than me,” you state, and he inclines his head a little. “Still young enough to keep up with me, though.”

He laughs, his ears flushing red. “We may just have to test that theory at some point, Miss?”

You grin, giving him your name along with a small bow. “And you?”

“Not today.” He says, a lazy smirk on his face. “You’ll have to earn that right, young lady.”

You laugh at the jab. “Ah, it’s like that then? Well, I look forward to learning your name. For now I could call you Mr. E, eh?”

He rolls his eyes, wincing in pain from the pun. “That’s awful.”

“Alas. He’s got beautiful eyes, a smooth voice, and no sense of humor. What a waste.” You make a show of sighing dramatically. “Hm, then what do I call you in the meantime?”

“Hmmm… Mr. Ananas.”

“Muh - wait, you want me to call you the East Blue word for pineapple?” You question before looking up at his hair and taking a second. “I guess so.”

The look he gives you is of someone who has heard every version of his association with pineapples long before you came along. You grin, it’s low hanging fruit anyway, you wouldn’t want it to be so easy.

Still, he was part of the Whitebeard Family, whatever his name was. This was going to be fun for the evening, but you weren’t planning on leaving with his number, or leaving him yours. Which might be disappointing at the end of it all, but considering he was here pre-party and that most of the others were leaving him to his devices, you had no doubt he was pretty high up in the Family.

You did have fun, at least, within the lines of what you could get away with.

Putting pineapple wedges on his drinks, no matter what they were. Drawing pineapples on the appetizers and meals he ordered during the evening with sauces, or on a napkin, even though Sanji tried to stop you. It was enough to send laughter through the guests once the party had gotten into its full swing. 

The Whitebeard Family was a legitimately good family, at least as far as you could tell. The party was rowdy, but not destructive. The karaoke was a mix of surprisingly skillful singing and completely hilarious crooning. Ace was far from the most energetic person in the bunch, but the older members were better at tempering it, and so he was the only one falling asleep randomly throughout the party.

At ten the party was still in full swing, but most of Sanji’s own family had arrived to help out, and partake in the party, and you weren’t strictly needed.

So you left.

You did feel at least a little bad about it. Not because you wanted to exchange numbers with the handsome blonde Mr. Ananas, but because you really did mean to reimburse him for the damages to his clothes. Not that someone like that needed your money to set his stuff right. Chances were he got blood on his shoes because him and Pompadour Paul, or whatever his name was, beat the snot out of the guys that had been chasing you.

Or there was no bloodied shoes, and they just sent the idiots in the wrong direction, and he just wanted to tease you while you two chatted.

But somehow, even as you made it back to your loft, you were quite certain that neither one had even considered ratting you out. Regardless of the fact that you’d bowled one of them over.

Laying on your bed post shower, you stare at the ceiling, wondering if you should go by that tea house again or not. It was tempting when you didn’t know anything about him, but now you knew he was part of a very prominent family.

“I like it for one, and two it’s not my fault those guys were assholes.”

“That’s true, but more assholes are going to find you if you keep stripping.” Duval says, taking his bin into the back. You follow after him with some towels.

“It’s not stripping! It’s burlesque you uncultured lurch. And as long as they don’t keep coming in groups of four or more it won’t be my problem anyway.” You add cheerfully, throwing one of the towels at his face when he sets the bin down. “Even if it was stripping, they got no right to be like that.”

“You come in here with a shiner, and the crew’s going to flip.” He warns.

“Pish.” You dismiss his concern. “I’m not part of the Family, it’s not for them to worry about. Besides, today’s my last day.”

“You say that,” Duval says, setting the tub down and letting you dump the towels into it. “But you do realize that friends go to bat for one another, right? You can’t tell me you’ve been working for Mr. Sanji all this time and don’t think you’re friends?”

“I…” You let the thought drop and sigh. It’s not like you were against having friends, you just didn’t want to have friends who were in a mafia because you didn’t want to be involved with mafias anymore.

“I mean, Miss Nami bought that one dress, right?” He persists. “Mister Usopp made the tea set for you. Master Franky even-.”

“Alright!” You snap. “You’ve made your point.” Storming off, you bark at Duval over your shoulder. “Wash the damned towels for me, I’m going to set the prep for Sanji and check stocks before we open.”

“Sure thing, (Y/N).”

You had to admit that the Straw Hats were your friends, but setting it into words left you feeling uneasy. Friends, lovers, future plans; you didn’t feel like you had a right to any of it. It had been years, but if Katakuri showed up at your doorstep one day you’d be going back to Big Mom no matter what.

You weren’t strong enough to defy him, and he wouldn’t defy her, and the number of people who could stand against them weren’t your friends. It felt safer to hold everything at arm’s length, even if it was just a matter of semantics.

Maybe in a couple more years it will have been long enough that you’ll really be able to believe you slipped the crazy old bat’s grip. You hope, at least.

You get the prep set, silently fuming and lost in your own thoughts. You’re a little irritated because you hadn’t gotten a chance to get to the best part of your story before Duval pissed you off.

“Don’t prep too much,” Sanji says, patting your shoulder lightly as he passes behind you. “We’re going to close to the general public early today.”

“Ooooh, clandestine meetings tonight?” You reply, looking over at him. The bar only closed early when the crew was coming in to party, or something similar.

“Mm, not really. The Whole Bar & Grill has been bought out for the evening for Edward Newgate’s birthday.”

You let out a low whistle. “I knew you all had ties to them, given Luffy an’ Ace, but I didn’t realize it went that deep.”

“This is the first time we’re doing something like this, but it should go smoothly.” Sanji explains. “I can’t have Duval here, and technically, I can have you here either, but I need at least one bartender, if you’re up for it?”

You thought about it for a moment. You weren’t keen on Mafia Families as a general rule, but Ace wasn’t bad, and Luffy and his family were literally the reason why you’d been able to stand on your own two legs. Solo bartending an event like that would also get you a lot of tips.

“Sure, I’ll do it.” After a beat, curiosity compels you. “Why can’t Duval be here at all?” You ask, reaching deep into a cupboard to get something.

“Bounty hunter.” Sanji says and you nearly hit your head when you jolt from the news.

“He’s a what?!” You pull yourself out from the cupboard and look over at Duval. “Oi! When were you gonna tell me?”

He quirks an eyebrow at you, an action he does far more smoothly than whenever he tries to wink. “Whenever we became friends.”

You give him a deadpan look and then flip him off. “If you are a bounty hunter, how are you even working here?”

“I kicked his face in and he was grateful.” Sanji answers.

“Hah?!” You look back and forth between them in disbelief a couple times, but neither seems willing to elaborate, and Duval’s also not denying it. After a moment you just shake your head.

“When to when?” You ask, going back to the primary topic.

“Four ‘til ten.” Sanji says. “I’ll be around, and Franky’s volunteered to be the second bartender, so you won’t be flying solo the entire time, but he won’t be in until six or so.”

“I can do that. Actual party’s at six, I’m guessing.”

“Yeah, the Whitebeard family is pretty big though, so the officers and such will be in early to help get things secured and to bring in the supplies.”

“Our vendor not good enough for ‘em?” You ask.

“Nothing like that. Safety reasons, and it’s good for us too.” He admits. “I don’t want to lose my vendor over accidental food poisoning, and I don’t want to cause trouble for Luffy over something stupid either.”

“Fair point. Anything I should mind while I’m working?” You ask, finishing up prep and following Sanji to the front as he flips the sign to open and unlocks the doors.

“Treat them like you would any customer, and you’ll be fine.” He says, pausing a moment before looking at you sternly. “No flirting.”

You roll your eyes. “That is the most hypocritical rule you could have.”

“I’m the owner.” Sanji replies with a smile, patting your shoulder.

“Oh hey, let me tell you about the adventure I had Sunday.” You start, jogging a couple steps to catch up to him. You tell Sanji about the guys who came up to you while you were selling papers.

How they wouldn’t get the hint to leave you alone and when one had grabbed you, you’d retaliated.

“I’m pretty sure I busted his nose and his lip with the single hit, and the other guy took a kick in the stomach. Thank you, by the way, for letting me learn your style.” You add in. You’re happy because Sanji is listening like a proper captive audience and not interjecting like Duval.

“It turned out that there were actually four of them though, so I took off on a light jog through downtown.” You admit, shrugging off most of the weight of it. If any one of them had been fast enough to catch you, you’d still be recovering. “I did literally run into a guy in a nice suit. Custom shoes and everything, by the tea house, you know the one down Nimisila lane?”

“Mm.” Sanji nods.

“I didn’t really mean to body check a stranger like that, but it helped me out in the end. I don’t think he gave me up either, cause I didn’t hear or see those guys at all after that.”

“What did he look like?” Sanji asks.

“Eh? Who?”

“The rich bastard you ran over.” He clarifies.

“Oh, uh, well over six foot, middling build, blonde, blue eyes, probably, I don’t know, ten years older’n you at least.” You say. “Bananawani leather shoes. Custom too. Real dark blue, almost black.”

Sanji snorts. “Always with the shoes.”

You shrug. “Shoes say a lot. Sometimes more than clothes.”

“Anything else?” There’s hardly any interest in his voice, but you are always delighted that Sanji indulges your desire for chit-chat.

“Unique haircut,” you offer up. Taking a second to consider it you add, “Nice face.”

“Oh?”

You look up to see Sanji looking at you, and even Duval has poked his head out from the kitchen. Sanji looks properly interested in what you’ve been saying, but Duval looks completely surprised. You have no idea what prompted either reaction, it was a good story, but it wasn’t really that interesting.

“What?” You question looking back and forth between them.

“No, it’s nothing,” Sanji says smoothly, going back to his work. “We’ve customers anyway.” He says, just before the door chimes and the first group of the day comes in.

It’s enough to break up the conversation between the three of you. Professional voices, professional smiles, professional tones. All three of you shift into business mode easily. You appreciated the practice you got while working at the bar, since the flower shop was going to need the same kind of care.

You might be able to be a little more crass dealing with drunks, but not by much. Sanji’s bar and grill was a lot more than just a bar, and while the morning and early afternoon crowds might not take more than three or four people to handle, the late-evening and evening crowds required almost every staff member Sanji had.

It was a place that catered to everyone who walked through it’s doors. Sometimes someone would come in, eat, not pay and walk out, and you let them. All of them. That was the instruction from day one. Didn’t ask, didn’t argue, didn’t stress it. No one dined and dashed at the All Blue, everyone ate.

Some people who came through were almost difficult to look in the eyes. Strong, powerful types who reminded you uncomfortably of your own fears. People who could stand toe to toe with Big Mom in terms of power and money. They got the same food as the ones who walked out without paying, but left tips that were sometimes three times beyond the amount on the bill.

You weren’t here when the place was built, but you know Sanji inherited it from someone he considered family. The old guy who ran it before him was off on some other island, or running a really fancy place out in the middle of the ocean. Sanji spoke about him with such gruff fondness you were pretty sure he’d die to protect the guy.

All of that was nothing compared to when the Mugiwaras come into the place. It was like half the city followed them in, and there were never enough people to be able to keep up.

But no one complained. Not a soul. Luffy wouldn’t allow it. The staff did their best, and the All Blue would practically turn green with the amount of money it made by the end of those nights. 

It was an up and coming family, but there was no denying the power they held. You’d seen people around Luffy that had been whispers back at the Château. People who you couldn’t believe you were seeing in the flesh so casually. You were pretty sure that the Dark King alone would’ve been someone you knew even without being a Charlotte, but when you saw Akagami you knew why Katakuri had sent you into this part of the city.

No one from that family would come within miles of this place. They’d need to pass through Whitebeard’s territory in the first place, which was enough to give anyone pause. Katakuri traveled between territories because he never got into anything with anyone in the first place, but it could get tense fast if different Family members crossed paths.

The hours passed by without much incident. Most of the rest of your conversations with Sanji were in preparation for the evening.

You knew enough about the Whitebeard Family to know that as long as you weren’t disrespectful toward any of them, everything would be fine. They weren’t the type to expect people to treat them like nobility or anything like that. They just had a strong familial bond, kind of like the Charlotte Family, if not a little different. 

Lot healthier, as far as you were concerned. 

It was the head of the family’s birthday celebration, and probably his retirement. There’d been talk about his second taking over finally, but the only thing you could safely do was your job. An outsider having too much insider information could be seen as a threat, and you didn’t want to risk that. Sanji was adamant they were even more reasonable than Luffy, but you didn’t need to test that theory, frankly.

Once the last of the general pop was done and out of the bar, you went into the back to start organizing things. Without Duval to lug the heavy stuff around you just wanted to make sure you had plenty of things at hand until Franky showed up later. You weren’t weak, but those boxes got heavier and heavier through the course of the night. You needed your energy to take drink orders and keep the VIPs happy.

You could hear Sanji dealing with the officers that had arrived. He was relaxed, and so were they, which helped you relax, too. The relationship was between Luffy and his brother Ace, who was in a pretty high position in the Whitebeard Family, not between Sanji and the officers, so you’d been worried there’d be some tension.

Their conversation was in full swing when you came back out, and no one paid you much mind. 

You, however, were paying far more attention than before. You clocked the, hopefully minor issue quickly, and were able to play it cool, but you recognized at least two of the people that had come in ahead of the actual party.

One had an impressive pompadour, and the other was a blonde with a haircut that only worked for him. 

Both were dressed exceedingly better now than when you ran into them Sunday, and admittedly so were you. The dress code for the All Blue staff was nothing like what a Coo-boy wore. Your hair was still pulled back, but you were pretty sure neither one of them recognized you.

You weren’t normally running full throttle down main street at 9:42 in the morning on a Sunday, but today was shaping up to be unique. How unique was yet to be determined, but a brisk jog would do you some good, so you weren’t going to complain.

You had your hair tucked in a cap, and wore the somewhat plain, if not comfortable, attire of a Coo-boy. The Grandline Metropolis was simply too populated for News Coos to deliver papers like they did in the open seas, so the Metro had Coo-boys and girls. Some people delivered straight to folks’ homes, but on the weekends in the morning you’d stand on the busier street corners and holler headlines for a little extra money.

You didn’t need the berries, but keeping busy kept you, well, busy, and being still didn’t work out well for you. 

Coo-boy was one of three jobs you had, but only this one and another were scheduled and regular. The other was just as you wanted to do it and had time for it. It was also the reason you were currently running down the street.

Four full grown men were running after you, one with a busted face, one who might not have to worry about having descendants, and two who were, admittedly why you bolted instead of stayed and finished your fight. The first two had recognized you from amateur night down at Ivankov’s club, and decided to be complete dickweasels in public.

You had tried to explain that doing burlesque on stage wasn’t an invitation to be propositioned – either in the club or out on the street, but they had their own opinions. Much as you were certain that you could take all four of them in a fight, or hells even in bed, they didn’t look like they were particularly skilled. All bluster and bluff, you were sure.

Most creeps were like that.

You, however, had a long shift at Sanji’s bar, and you didn’t have time to risk bruised ribs or a fat lip while you were serving people drinks. Bartending at the All Blue was half flair, half socializing, and neither were fun to do when you were recovering. You only had a few more days working for him, and then you were going to be the owner of your own business.

It was going to take you from working several odd jobs, to probably just randomly crashing Iva’s from time to time. Maybe picking up bar shifts to help Sanji, instead of working for him simply to help yourself.

Darting between a couple of deliverymen, and leaping over a porter’s bike you slowed down enough to turn off Main street. You hadn’t ducked down an alley, but the side street was a little less packed. You could go faster, and your hope was that your pursuers weren’t in any shape to keep up.

Holding onto your cap you risked a glance over your shoulder and realized you were in the clear so far, slowing enough you took another turn, risking darting across the street. You heard someone yell, but they were a ways back, if you were quick you could lose them in the alleys and head home in peace.

The Sphinx Metro was, in fact, a Metropolis, but like any large city it had pockets of small businesses, sometimes residences, and even a few parks and gardens tucked away in the interiors of some of the larger blocks. People passing through in cars weren’t ever going to find these little nooks and crannies, they were the exclusive luxuries of the locals.

You weren’t expecting a lot of foot traffic down the alley in the first place, it didn’t matter if it was well paved, and clean, and obviously an entry way into a small fruit tree orchard that was used by a nearby tea shop. It didn’t matter, because most people didn’t have tea until teatime. So you’d been mostly paying attention to your six, hoping that you could make the next turn without being seen.

Looking back in front of yourself you realize the path was not as empty as you needed it to be.

Two tall men in really nice suits stepped into view. A blonde who had a hair style that probably only worked for him specifically, and a brunette with the puffiest pompadour hairstyle you had ever seen were talking amongst themselves. If they weren’t day traders, they were probably part of a Family. The suits looked to be bespoke, and the shoes; those shoes weren’t on display in a store, and custom shoes often meant money more than a nice suit did.

“Sorry mister!” You shout, not wanting to slow down any more than you needed to. The blonde’s eyes go wide, though not by much. You’re left with the distinct impression that he could’ve moved out of the way if he wanted to.

Instead, you’re left to effectively body check him, using him to slow yourself enough to scramble down the path.

“Hey, you brat!” The brunette yells and you wave your hand.

Turning on your heel, you bow deeply, before turning back around and taking off. You didn’t want to yell out another apology and give yourself away before you darted down a different alley, and so the brief bow was all you had available to risk.

Running for another couple blocks, you slowed your pace down to a jog when you didn’t hear any angry sounds bouncing down the walls of the alleyways. When you walked out onto a more crowded road you were walking along with the pace of the people around you, blending in for a moment and catching your breath.

You were Charlotte Apple, adopted daughter of Charlotte Linlin. Technically, at least. You went by a different name now, with no desire to be known as one of Big Mom’s kids if you could help it.

Despite the large number of kids “Big Mom” has had, she ended up in need of more brats to use, and that was your lot in life for now. Using her kids in political marriages – tying up officials, marines, and other mafia families alike with the tight bonds of familial alliances, has led to a strange shortage. With over 80 biological children she had realized at some point that the numbers weren’t in her favor. The Grandline Metro was just too big, and there were entirely too many moving parts.

Some alliances also hadn’t done her the kind of good she wanted, so those marriages were effectively written off. She wouldn’t dare to demand divorce, such a thing would lessen the strength of the other alliances, so she needed to replenish her stock.

But Big Mom was a few years past being able to give birth. She’d pushed out babies into her 50s, but everybody stops eventually, and so that’s where you came in. 

You and about three dozen kids from various other orphanages.

Seven of the eldest of her children had made the choices on Mama’s behalf. Be it luck or fate, Katakuri had come to your orphanage. Almost two hundred children, and only you and four others would even go near him.

In the beginning it wasn’t so bad. Most of the Charlotte children are kind, at the very least they are kind to other members of the family, and when you have 84 blood siblings, and 30-some siblings-in-law, you don’t split hairs about adopted siblings. There wasn’t any weird hierarchy stuff to deal with, and the elder siblings taught the younger ones.

You got a nice, useful, formal education, and you also got an awful useless Formal Education too. Etiquette, ballroom dancing, fencing, that sort of thing. Katakuri taught you how to fight, and some of the other siblings taught you useful things like mixing drinks, identifying edible mushrooms, how to paint, and a few dreadful months of piano lessons.

The fact was, you’d gotten more opportunity than you ever could’ve possibly had otherwise, but you also had spent a great many nights crying in Katakuri’s room because you didn’t want to marry for some stupid political reason. You weren’t like Linlin’s biological kids, you hadn’t lived your entire life having your fate drilled into your head, it wasn’t just something you weren’t looking forward to, it was, to you, terrifying.

When you turned seventeen big brother Kata and you began to have loud, tense and aggressive scuffles around the mansion. At first it was once a week, then it was every couple days. Once it was obvious that everyone else was either irritated or concerned about the constant bickering – and a few times Oven or Brûlée would step in and practically pull you two apart – Kata “kicked you out” of the Family.

There was no way to know for sure if the ruse was going to work how you wanted it to, but he tossed you toward the Straw Hats, and you got your first job by tending bar in Sanji’s All Blue Bar & Grill. It was little more than a front for the Mugiwara Mafia, but that twirly browed blonde put his whole soul into it.

They were all decent enough people, and after a short while you realized why Katakuri sent you in their direction over anywhere else. Their whole vibe was freedom. You weren’t a part of the crew, you had been clear you didn’t even want to be a part of any Mafia Family – you’d had your fill thank you very much.

But you were more than happy to work for compensation. Sanji paid well, and his patrons tipped just as good. You only slept on Robin’s spare couch for a couple months before you got your own place. The entire gang had celebrated, all ten of them cramming into your small apartment. It was roomy, for just you, but eleven bodies was most definitely enough to put it at capacity.

You’d also gotten a box of donuts a week after you moved in. Unmarked, but there was only one person in the whole world who would send you dark chocolate raspberry cream filled donuts with light, whipped, buttercream caramel frosting.

You were glad that Kata was looking out for you, but you were worried his quiet support was going to result in you being dragged back to the other side of town. That was all years ago at this point, and with each passing day you were beginning to think Big Mom really had forgotten about you.

Which assumed she paid much mind to you in the first place, but since you wanted to be on your own that suited you just fine.

Your current place was a large loft above what was going to be your very own flower shop soon. Everything was pretty much done. Thanks to some insistence from Luffy you had a greenhouse and garden plot just outside of town, a short twenty-minute drive from the shop itself, which was very prominently located. It wasn’t the middle of the city in the downtown district, but it was still on a main road that a good bit of the city used. 

You were a little nervous because it wasn’t inside Luffy’s territory, just nearby. 

Stepping into your loft you kicked off your shoes, took off the cap to let your hair down and started making some tea. A glass of water while you waited quenched the thirst your run through downtown had caused, and after a few minutes you were relaxing on the couch enjoying the peace of your home.

You wondered idly if the guy you ran into was alright, though you didn’t attack him, you did just plow right into him. He was a lot more solid than you had expected. The suit was a little formal, you were certain he’d look better in something more relaxed. Probably something blue or teal to go with those eyes.

Like gold body paint, or just golden chains with teal gems dangling off them. Against that perfect skin of his…

Grinning at the memory you drink more water, chiding yourself quietly for being far too thirsty. If not for that distinct haircut, you’d be staring at people’s shoes again, trying to find him. Your own tailored cinder-fella.

The Polar Tang had survived sea kings, Marine battles and storms that could have split lesser ships clean in two. What it hadn't survived, at least according to you. was the sudden outbreak of a mysterious, highly inconvenient illness.

You were on your way to the infirmary because that illness was simply getting worse and worse and you needed Law to check on you. Three slow knocks echoed through the infirmary.

"...Come in," came the deep and calm voice of Law from inside. He sounded as calm and level as ever.

You pushed the door open just enough to peek your head inside. Law sat behind his desk, one hand lazily flipping through a thick medical journal while the other scribbled notes into a folder, probably one of the crew's medical chart. The room smelled faintly of disinfectant, old books and fresh tea. It was quiet enough that the hum of the submarine's engines seemed almost soothing.

He didn't look up immediately. "What is it?" he asked sternly, gaze still fixed on the papers before him.

You dramatically grabbed the doorframe. "...Doctor," you huffed, trying to match your voice to your ‘pained’ expression.

Law paused and very slowly, he looked up from the files and to you. "...Yes?"

"I don't think..." You staggered one exaggerated step into the room. "...I'm going to make it."

He stared and raised an eyebrow in a mix of annoyance, confusion and a look that was clearly already questioning your sanity. "...You're walking," he countered flatly.

"Barely," you breathed over the top.

"You walked here."

"I crawled, emotionally," you groaned and a long silence settled between you before Law closed his notebook with a soft thump.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "...Explain."

You shuffled farther into the infirmary, pressing a hand to your chest with theatrical despair. "It started this morning," you recounted.

"What started?" he asked still not buying anything you were saying.

"The symptoms," you said waving your hands theatrically.

"What symptoms?"

"I fear..." You inhaled sharply. "...I'm dying."

Law leaned back in his chair. "I've heard more convincing performances from Penguin."

You gasped, your mouth agap as you looked at him. "I came here seeking medical attention, and you're insulting your patient?"

He groaned and decided to entertain your.....whatever it was you were up to. "You aren't my patient."

"I am now."

"...Unfortunately," he said and you feigned offense. Despite his dry tone, you caught the tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth.

That was progress and it made you want to go on. "You should really take this more seriously, Doctor."

Law folded his arms. "Fine." He gestured toward the examination table. "Sit down and let me check you then.”

"I knew you'd save me," you purred as you stepped closer to the table.

"I said sit. I didn't say I believed you," he countered as he grabbed his gloves to put them on.

The examination table crinkled beneath you as you hopped onto it. Law wheeled his stool over with practiced ease. "So," he started.

"So,” you repeated, trying not to grin too widely.

"...Symptoms," he ordered, a bit firmer like he would usual do with ‘real’ patients.

"My heart's beating funny," you explained clutching it dramatically to emphasize it.

"When?"

"When I see someone," you mumbled, trying hard not to chuckle.

"Who?"

"...Confidential," you answered after a moment of thinking.

Law gave you an unimpressed look. "Patient confidentiality works the other way around."

"Oh," you huffed "...well, then you."

He blinked once, there was a tiny reaction barely there and those who didn't know him would most likely have missed it but you saw it "Keep going."

"Gladly” you said and did as told. "My face gets hot."

He tapped his pen against his chin. "Hm"

"My stomach feels weird, like there's somehting inside it making it flutter"

He didn't comment on it just listened.

"I smile for no reason," you explained and locked eyes with him so he could see the smile that was currently on your face.

"Hm."

God how that ‘hm' was gnawing at you right now. But you didn't let it stop you, especially since you really liked it when he was being the doctor. "I also become incapable of acting normal."

"I noticed," he said and there was a small smile tugging at his lips.

"You're writing all this down?" you asked.

"I like documenting unusual cases," he told you but somehting in his voice made you question if he was being serious or just messing with you.

You leaned over, trying to peek at his clipboard. The paper contained exactly three words.

‘Patient is dramatic.’

You opened your mouth staring at him and wanting to reach up and nudge his arm but decided against it. "...Rude," you complained with a mock-hurt face

"Accurate," he countered flatly before he reached for his stethoscope. "Lie back."

You obeyed with exaggerated caution. "If I don't survive—"

He cut you off before you could even finish it. "You will."

You ignored him and didn't let him ruin your dramatic moment. "...if I don't survive tell Bepo I loved him."

He sighed and rubbed his temples. "I won't."

"And Ikakku," you continued nonetheless.

"No."

"And Shachi and Penguin."

"Definitely not."

You sighed dramatically, your arm on your forehead like you were going to wither away any second from how he ignored your wishes. "So cold."

"I'm a doctor, not a poet," he grumbled reaching up to remove your arm carefully.  

"You could be both."

"I'd rather not," he said and moved.

The moment the cold metal of the stethoscope touched your chest you jumped because in all your antics you weren't really prepared for this. "It's freezing!" you complained.

"It usually is," he said dryly.

"You could've warned me."

"I assumed you were familiar with basic medicine."

"I thought doctors warmed them up first," you said purposely exaggerating.

"Only in children's storybooks," he sighed and ignored your pouting, listening quietly.

The room settled into an unexpected silence. The joking faded as you watched his focused expression. The way his brows furrowed ever so slightly. The concentration in his beautiful eyes. The careful precision with which he worked, even though both of you knew this "checkup" was entirely fabricated.

He moved the cold stethoscope again and then with a thoughtful look paused. "...Your heartbeat is elevated."

"I knew it."

"You also ran down three flights of stairs before coming here," he assumed because your heart was still trying to come down from you moving so hastily.

"...That probably contributed."

"Probably." He removed the stethoscope. "But not entirely."

You blinked confused. "...What?" You were already fearing you were seriously having a problem.

"It increases every time I look at you," he said flatly and you felt heat climb onto your face. Sure you had said that before but hearing him say it was feeling differently.

You tried to stay cool and play it down a tiny bit. "...You're making that up."

"I'm a doctor I don't make things up, besides I didn't say why that is," he explained, making you pause for a moment, your brain needing a few seconds to process everything.

"...Doctor," you finally continued with a cheeky glint in your eyes.

"Hm?"

"You're flirting," you grinned at him.

"No," he protested but you weren’t having any of it.

"You absolutely are."

"I'm making observations."

"Observations that happen to make me blush."

"Interesting." He reached for his clipboard again, steering the conversation away from your teasing.

"What are you writing now?" you asked trying to get a glimpse.

"'Patient blushes easily.'"

You groaned, shaking your head slightly. "Seriously? That’s not even a real diagnosis," you huffed trying to force the smile that threatened to spread on your lips down.

"Yes it is, I’m the doctor whatever I write as a diagnosis is a diagnosis. Now stop whining at let’s move on," he said and held out his hand, making you furrow your eyebrows in confusion. "Your wrist," he added.

"Oh" you breathed and offered it without protest. His fingers wrapped gently around it, checking your pulse. Unlike your ridiculous performance, his touch was steady and careful. Professional, mostly at least.

"...Still fast," he observed.

"I told you."

"You also seem incapable of sitting still."

"I'm nervous."

"Why?"

"Because of you."

His thumb paused ever so slightly against your pulse. "...That's inconvenient."

"For who?"

"...Both of us."

A knock interrupted the moment. Before either of you could answer, the infirmary door slid open. Bepo poked his head inside. "Captain? We were wondering if—" He froze. You were sitting on the examination table. Law was holding your wrist while a clipboard rested on his lap. "...Oh."

Law didn't even look toward the door. "I'm with a patient."

Bepo glanced between the two of you before his eyes stayed on you, looking worried. "Are you okay?” he asked you.

You, obviously, let out the weakest, most pitiful sound imaginable. "I don't have much time..."

Bepo's eyes widened, there was fear in his eyes now. "What happened?!"

You opened your mouth to tell him how horrible you felt but Law didn’t let you answer and instead took over for you. "Nothing, no one’s dying, it’s just a case of severe theatrics," Law grumbled and you sighed.

"Oh," Bepo let out a deep exhale and relaxed immediately.

You pouted and ‘glared’ at your doctor. "I feel really offended. It seems my doctor lacks bedside manners."

"He still has better manners than you." Law countered.

Bepo meanwhile tried very hard not to laugh. "I'll...come back later," he said slipping back out.

"You don't have to—" But Bepo was already gone and the door had closed again.

You smirked sheepishly "...He believed me for a second."

"He's too trusting," Law said before he got up and decided to continue the ‘chek up’. "I should probably perform a neurological assessment." He raised one gloved finger. "Follow my finger."

You obediently tracked it as he moved it from side to side.

"Good." Then, very suddenly, he stopped moving and you continued staring directly at him. "You're supposed to follow the finger's movements."

"I am. I’m staring at it."

"My finger isn't moving."

"I know, that’s why I’m just staring," you deadpanned. "You forgot to tell me to stop looking," you added with a smile that was almost unfair and made Law sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose.

"...Neurological function appears intact," he wrote down.

"I passed?" you asked, almost beaming up at him with a pride.

"Barely," he replied and you pouted but he ignored it. "Now answer honestly."

"I always do…...mostly."

He gave you a look that was close to questioning all his life choices that led to this moment. "Then answer ‘mostly’ honestly."

"Fine."

"When did these symptoms begin? And no, I’m not talking about today."

You considered the question, thinking thoughtfully. "...Probably a while ago."

"Define 'a while.'"

You huffed. "I don't know." Which was to be honest a bit of a lie.

"Weeks?"

"...Maybe," you drawled.

"Months?"

"...Maybe."

He looked at you carefully. "You waited months before seeing the doctor?"

"I was hoping it'd go away," you said quietly, though you knew it wasn’t going away.

"And did it?" he asked already knowing the answer.

"...No."

"It got worse?"

"...Much," you agreed.

Law nodded thoughtfully as though considering an actual diagnosis. "I see."

"You do?" you asked surprised.

"I think I've narrowed it down."

Your eyes widened. "You know what I have?"

"I have a theory."

You leaned closer to him, eyes wide. "Tell me," you urged, your voice almost a whisper.

He set the clipboard down. "It's chronic."

Your stomach flipped. "...Chronic? Is it curable?"

"...Possibly."

"What's the treatment?"

"You'll have to follow instructions carefully."

"I'll do anything, though I have to warn you I’m not good at following instructions," you said.

"I know." The certainty in his voice made your heart skip, though you didn’t know if you should have be offended or feel....something else. He walked toward one of the medicinal cabinets. Instead of grabbing bottles or bandages, he returned carrying a folded blanket.

You blinked, now you were truly confused. "...Blanket?"

"Patients should stay warm," he explained simply.

Your brows furrowed, still a bit surprised. "I'm not cold."

"You will be."

"What does that mean? You made that up right?"

"I already told you, I don't make things up."

"You’re also a pirate," you countered and he gave you a small tug at his lips.

"Still counts."

Before you could protest, he draped the blanket around your shoulders. It smelled faintly like clean linen and lavender detergent. And it was so damn comforting.

"...You're humoring me."

"I'm preventing unnecessary complaints."

You stared at him, not believing him a word. "You care."

"I care about maintaining peace and quiet in my infirmary."

"Liar."

"I prefer selective honesty," he said making you let out a soft chuckle as your cheeks heated up.

A few minutes later, a steaming mug appeared in your hands.

"...Tea?"

"Hydration and it also works on dramatic patients."

You smiled into the cup, ignoring that he thought of you as being dramatic, which was definitely…..true if you were being honest. "You really are taking care of me."

Law busied himself reorganizing supplies, pretending not to hear you. The silence that followed wasn't awkward. It was comfortable. You watched him move around the room with practiced efficiency, every motion meticulous, every instrument returned to exactly the right place.

"You know," you said softly, "you can be really nice when you’re not scolding me or looking all grumpy."

He paused what he was doing for a moment. "I’m always grumpy."

You laughed at this while your eyes remained fixed on him. "You made me tea."

"...You're occupying my infirmary."

"You tucked me into a blanket."

"I threw a blanket at you."

"But it landed perfectly."

"That was coincidence."

You smiled knowingly. "I don't think it was."

For just a moment, Law met your eyes. The corners of his mouth lifted into the smallest, almost imperceptible smile. "Don't get used to special treatment."

"I was hoping you'd prescribe more."

"We'll see," he grumbled.

You took another sip of tea. "So..."

"So?"

"When's the next part of my examination?"

Law adjusted his heat, looking every bit the composed surgeon, you knew. "I haven't ruled out your diagnosis yet."

"And what's the leading possibility?"

He looked at you for a long moment before answering. "...I'm beginning to suspect this isn't a physical illness at all."

Your gaze softened. "No?"

"...No." He picked up the clipboard one last time and wrote something new.

You leaned over, trying to read it and this time, he didn't stop you. ‘Patient appears healthy. Cause of elevated heart rate remains... under investigation.’

You looked up from the clipboard, a smile tugging at your lips. "So, you're admitting you don't know what's wrong with me?"

Law slipped the clipboard from your hands before you could read anything else. "I said it was under investigation."

"You doctors always say that when you're stumped."

"I'm not stumped. I'm being thorough."

You hummed skeptically, taking another sip of the tea. "I've heard second opinions are important."

"You don't need one."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because I'm the best doctor on this submarine."

"The only doctor on this submarine. You've got quite the monopoly."

Law's lips twitched upward. "Occupational hazard."

The room settled into another comfortable silence. The submarine's engines rumbled softly beneath your feet, and somewhere in the distance you could hear the muffled laughter from Penguin and Shachi.

"You know," you said eventually, "It’s kinda nice and peaceful in here."

"It usually is."

You tilted your head. "Usually?"

"Until someone fakes a terminal illness."

"I resent that accusation."

"You admitted to it."

"I admitted to possible exaggeration."

"You announced your emotional death at the door."

"It was dramatic."

"It was exhausting."

"You still let me in," you said sticking your tongue out.

Law smirked, for real this time, still only a bit but you saw it. "Unfortunately I did."

Another knock echoed through the room. Before either of you could answer, Penguin cracked the door open just enough to poke his head inside.

"Captain?"

Law didn't even glance up. "Yes?"

"We were wondering if your patient is... recovering." His voice sounded suspiciously strained, as though he was trying very hard not to laugh.

You immediately wilted against the pillows. "...Tell my family I fought bravely."

Penguin bit the inside of his cheek. "I... don't think you're dying."

"You can't know that."

"I can literally hear you talking."

"Ghosts can talk too."

"They usually don't ask for tea."

"I needed one last cup."

Law sighed. "Penguin."

"Right. Sorry." He looked between the two of you. "...So... should we postpone card night?"

"Card night?" you asked.

"We thought the captain might be busy."

Law folded his arms. "I am."

Penguin raised an eyebrow. "...Busy treating a menace?"

"...Yes."

"Very serious case?"

"...Extremely."

"What've they got?"

Without missing a beat, Law replied, "Attention deficiency."

You gasped, shocked. "I've never been so insulted in my life."

Penguin burst into laughter. "I knew it!"

"Get out," Law deadpanned at Penguin.

"I'm going!" Penguin said hands raised in mock surrender, still laughing, as he disappeared down the hallway and called for Shachi.

You crossed your arms. "Your crew is mean."

"They learned from experience."

Once the laughter faded, you glanced toward Law. "You didn't have to play along."

"I know."

"But you did."

"I did."

"Why?"

Law busied himself cleaning the stethoscope. The silence stretched just long enough for you to think he wouldn't answer. "Because..."

"Because?"

"You looked like you wanted me to."

Your expression softened. "That's all?"

He paused and exhaled faintly. "Mostly."

A comfortable quiet settled over the infirmary. You swung your legs idly over the edge of the examination table while Law reorganized medicine bottles that were already perfectly organized.

"You know, I've never seen you take a break."

"I take breaks."

"Bepo says your idea of a break is reading different medical books."

"...That's still a break."

"You work too much."

"So I've been told."

You huffed and tilted your head at him. "When was the last time you did something just because it was fun?"

Law thought for a moment. "...I don't remember."

"That's sad."

"I don't need constant entertainment."

"I'm not talking about entertainment." You said and he looked at you curiously. "I'm talking about letting yourself smile. You don't do it enough."

He was quiet again. "You make it sound easy."

"It kind of is."

"For you."

You shrugged. "Maybe." Without warning, you reached over and gently poked his cheek. "There."

Law blinked a tiny bit shocked. "What was that?"

"A smile inspection," you grinned cheekily.

"I wasn't smiling."

"You almost were."

"I almost moved you into the hallway."

"But you didn't," you said triumphantly, feeling almost proud he didn't 'Room' you.

"No."

You liked the way he looked right now and the fact that you felt like you had him right there. "Because you like me," you purred boldly.

"I refuse to answer that."

"I'll take that as a yes."

"You'd take anything as a yes."

"Probably."

Law shook his head before reaching for the stethoscope again. "One final examination."

"Ooh."

"Don't sound so excited."

"I can't help it."

"You absolutely can." He placed the stethoscope against your chest once more. This time neither of you joked. The quiet was almost startling. You watched his expression instead. Focused but gently, almost fond. He listened for several moments before removing it.

"Well?"

"Your heartbeat's still fast."

"Oh no, and here I was thinking it would’ve slowed down after being treated so good by you," you breathed dramatically.

Law rubbed his temples and definitely tried to hide a grin tugging at his lips. "It increases every time you look at me," he observed.

You smiled sheepishly. "I can't control that....It's not bad though is it?"

"No." His answer came softer than before.

"It's actually pretty normal." He explained, making you blink up at him. "For someone who's..." He stopped himself.

"Who's what?" you asked because now you were curious.

"Never mind," he said brushing it off, but you weren’t having it.

"No, finish that sentence," you urged.

Law looked away, adjusting the tubing of the stethoscope with unnecessary precision. "For someone who's in love."

The room became impossibly quiet. The engines seemed farther away. Even the soft clinking of cups in the galley disappeared. You stared at him, your heart now definitely beating a lot faster. "...Doctor, I think you've accidentally diagnosed me."

"I know, it wasn’t an accident."

You laughed quietly, though your face felt impossibly warm. "I wasn't expecting you to actually say it."

"I wasn't planning to."

You slid off the examination table until you were standing in front of him. "So...does this mean I'm incurable?" you asked raising an eyebrow and looking a bit sheepishly at him.

"I didn't say that."

"No?"

"No.” He said as he met your eyes. "It just means the treatment is... unconventional."

"Like?"

"You'll need regular meals."

"I already do."

"Enough sleep."

"I try but I can hear Bepo snoring throughout the walls."

"Less unnecessary worrying."

"I'll work on it, though that one’s tough when you're surrounded by a very chaotic crew and a grumpy doctor," you chirped with an innocent smile.

"And..." He hesitated. "...someone who reminds you to take care of yourself."

You felt something tug in your chest. "That sounds suspiciously specific."

"It's medically recommended."

"By who?"

"Me."

"So your prescription is..."

Law folded his arms, looking so much like a stern and professional doctor. "Care."

Your heart did another flip, and your breath hitched for a moment before you tried to recover. "That's surprisingly sweet."

"It's practical and effective."

"I believe you." You said, your own warm eyes meeting his for a moment before you looked down at the mug still warming your hands. "Can I ask you something?"

"You just did."

You rolled your eyes and deadpanned at him. "You know what I mean."

He nodded once with a tiny smug smirk.

"Since when did you know?"

He leaned back against the desk, considering the question. "Probably before you did."

"What?"

"You've always found excuses to visit the infirmary."

You stared wide eyed at him. "I have not."

"You came in once because you got a paper cut."

"It was deep," you said voice dropping to a dramatic tone.

"It wasn't."

"I needed emotional support."

"You needed a tiny bandage."

"And emotional support."

"You claimed your shoulder hurt after carrying one box," he continued.

"It did hurt."

"You carried it for ten seconds."

You pouted at him and then let out a long deep exhale before you laughed softly. "I can't believe you noticed all of that."

"I notice more than people think." He said, his voice no longer teasing. "I notice when you're tired." You looked at him and your smile faded into something softer. "When you skip meals. When you're quieter than usual. When you pretend you're fine because you don't want anyone worrying."

You hadn't realized he paid that much attention. "Law, if anyone else would have said that I’d call that creepy."

"You take care of everyone else." His gaze finally met yours ignoring your habit of trying to brush it off. "Someone should take care of you too."

For a moment, you couldn't think of anything clever to say. The joking, playing the exaggerating patient, the fake illness, it had all quietly slipped away. A timid knock interrupted the moment.

"...Captain?" Bepo's voice asked quietly. "Can I come in?"

"You may."

The white bear peeked inside. "Is everything okay now? Is the examination completed?"

You looked at Law and then at Bepo. "I think the doctor figured out what was wrong."

Bepo brightened immediately. "Really? What was it?"

Your eyes remained on Law as you couldn't help but smile. "...Turns out my heart was just confused."

Bepo tilted his head. "Oh…..ooooh," Bepo said as he realized what you had meant. "I guess I'll... leave you two alone." He continued now feeling like a third wheel but before shutting the door, he paused. "...Captain?"

"Hm?" Law hummed.

"You're smiling." Bepo declared with a grin and a soft look.

Law instinctively touched his face. "No I'm not."

"You kinda are." The door slid shut before Law could respond and you couldn't help but laugh. "He caught you."

"He didn't catch anything" Law protested crossing his arms over his chest.

You placed a hand over your heart. "I'll treasure this moment forever," you said.

"I was never smiling."

"You absolutely were."

"There is no medical evidence."

"There was a witness."

Law huffed and tried to glare at you but it didn't work, not the slightest bit. "Witness testimony is unreliable."

You rolled your eyes and then stepped closer until only a small space remained between you. "So...am I officially discharged?"

Law pretended to think. "Not yet."

"No?"

"I'd like to keep the patient under observation."

"For how long?"

"As long as necessary."

"And how long is necessary?"

He looked at you with that small, rare smile that hardly anyone else ever got to see. "...I'm still figuring that out."

You reached for his hand, your fingers slipping between his tattooed ones. To your suprise he didn't pull away. Instead, he gave your hand the gentlest squeeze. Your heart immediately betrayed you again. "You know," you murmured, "I think my pulse just sped up."

"I noticed." His thumb brushed lightly across your knuckles. "And I think I've finally found the cause."

"And?"

His smile widened just enough to be unmistakable. "...I'd rather not cure this one," he diagnosed and you couldn't help yourself and leaned into him letting your forehead rest against his chest only to realize that his own heart was beating faster than usually.

For the first time all afternoon, neither of you were pretending. The diagnosis had never been mysterious. It had simply taken a very dramatic patient and a grumpy doctor to finally say out loud what had been blooming for some time now.

You had woken up with a strange feeling.

Not because of the Red Force’s rocking, nor the already lively voices on deck, nor even the sunlight filtering through the curtains of your cabin.

No.

You had woken up because an awful pain was shooting through your neck.

You had tried to move your head once, still half-asleep. Big mistake. A jolt of pain had shot all the way up behind your ear, and you had frozen instantly, breathless.

"Ow… Fuck…"

You stayed still for a few seconds, your eyes closed, as though the pain might kindly decide to disappear if you pretended you did not know it was there.

It did not disappear.

On the contrary, when you tried to sit up, your neck protested so violently that you let out a small, frustrated groan. You found yourself stuck, lying on your back, unable to turn your head without feeling as though someone were driving a knife between your shoulder and your neck.

It was ridiculous.

You had survived storms, Marine attacks, and a meal Lucky Roux had made with far too much chili.

But there you were, defeated by your own pillow.

"Are you planning on growling like that for long?"

You almost jumped.

Well… as much as your neck allowed you to.

Hongo was standing in the doorway, a steaming cup in one hand and his eternally far-too-calm expression on his face. He had probably knocked, but you had not heard a thing through the pain and your bad mood.

"How long have you been there?" you asked.

"Long enough to understand that you did not simply decide to sleep in".

You tried to shoot him a dark look.

The problem was, you could not turn your head toward him.

Hongo gave a small smile, very subtle, but you caught it out of the corner of your eye.

He set his cup down on the small bedside table, then slowly approached the bed. His movements were calm, precise, as always. Even after all those years sailing with the Red Hair Pirates, even in the middle of fights and chaos, Hongo always gave the impression that nothing could truly rush him.

He sat down on the edge of the mattress.

"Can you move your arms?"

"Yes"

“Your fingers?”

You moved them slightly.

"No tingling?"

"No."

"Dizziness? Nausea?"

"No, Doctor."

"Very well. So, you probably slept in a catastrophic position."

You narrowed your eyes.

"What a brilliant conclusion."

"Thank you. I studied for a long time to reach it."

Despite yourself, a smile tugged at the corner of your mouth. He noticed it, of course. Hongo always noticed everything.

He leaned slightly toward you.

"I’m going to take a look. Don’t move."

"I can hardly do anything else."

"I know."

His hand came to rest near your shoulder, warm through the fabric of your top. He did not force you to turn your head. He simply examined the line of your neck gently, his fingers brushing over the tense muscles.

You barely breathed, as though breathing too deeply might make things worse.

"Here?" he asked, pressing delicately near your shoulder.

You winced.

"Yes."

"And here?"

"Hongo…"

"So yes."

"You take far too much pleasure in being right."

"Not at all."

He said it with such perfect serenity that you immediately knew he was lying a little.

His fingers slowly moved up toward your neck, massaging with a light, steady pressure. At first, you tensed up even more. Then the warmth of his hands began to loosen something in your muscles. It was slight, but very much there.

You let out a trembling breath.

"Sorry," you murmured. "I know you have better things to do than take care of me because I slept in some shitty position."

Hongo paused for a second.

"You know," he said softly, "just because it isn’t serious doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve help."

You did not answer.

He resumed his movements, a little more slowly.

"And besides," he added, "you would not have come to see me on your own, would you?"

"I would have managed."

"Of course."

"I would have waited for it to pass."

"Which is exactly what I just said."

You let out a breath through your nose, offended despite yourself.

Hongo gave a small laugh. Then, with great care, he slipped one hand behind your neck and the other against your shoulder.

"I’m going to help you sit up. Tell me right away if it pulls too much."

"Okay."

He did not rush you. He guided every movement, supporting you with an almost tender patience. When you were finally sitting against the pillows, you kept your head slightly tilted, unable to do any better.

Hongo picked up his cup and held it out to you.

"Tea. And before you protest: there’s something in it to relax your muscles."

"You put that in my tea without asking me?"

"You were going to refuse."

"Maybe."

"There you go."

You took the cup carefully. Your fingers brushed against his.

Hongo did not pull his hand away right away.

"You’re staying here this morning," he declared.

"Hongo..."

"This is not a negotiation."

"Shanks is going to make fun of me."

"Shanks makes fun of everyone. It’s a constant of nature."

This time, you really laughed. It was another mistake: the movement pulled at your neck and you immediately winced.

Hongo sighed, feigning exasperation, before leaning toward you.

"Don’t move too much, alright?"

He gently brushed a strand of hair stuck to your cheek aside, then his thumb grazed your temple.

"Let me take care of you for once."

Your heart tightened a little too much over something so simple.

You lowered your eyes to your cup, unable to hide your smile.

"Alright, Doctor."

Hongo smiled in return.