Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/213529.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      One_Piece
  Relationship:
      Portgas_D._Ace/Smoker
  Character:
      Smoker_(One_Piece), Portgas_D._Ace, Tashigi
  Additional Tags:
      Smoke_Trumps_Fire, Logia, Sometimes_Old_Cliches_Are_True, Backstory,
      Devil_Fruit, Son_of_a_D, Pre-Canon
  Stats:
      Published: 2011-06-20 Words: 8045
****** Once Burned ******
by irrelevant
Summary
     Loguetown stank of pirates.
Notes
     driftingforward wanted virgin!Ace who wants to lose the virginity,
     but loses control of his fire when he tries. I'm pretty sure this
     fits. [written wayyyyy back in '08 before the Marineford shit hit the
     fan]
Loguetown stank of pirates.
Dock after dock groaned under the weight of moored ships. Gaudily dressed crews
swaggered the streets half lit and looking for trouble, and finding it more
often than not. One group of drink-sodden sailors had staggered up from the
wharfside pubs and was mapping an unsteady route through the waterfront
district. From half a street away Smoker briefly observed its weaving, swaying
progress before crossing to the opposite side of the street. On a normal day
he’d have arrested the lot of them. Today was not a normal day.
Pausing beside a weathered street lamp, he touched flame to the end of his
unlit cigar and squinted at a blue-painted sign hanging over a plain wooden
door. White Wake Inn. Typical. The name on the sign didn’t matter. He’d seen a
hundred variations on the theme on almost every island he’d ever docked. Though
this place’s owner had as little imagination as that of any harborside inn, the
building looked well maintained. He’d stayed in worse. “Tashigi.”
“Y—yes, Commander, I’m… here?” Smoker’s newly assigned adjutant tripped over a
katana nearly as long as she was tall and stumbled to a stop beside him. She
saluted, a parade ground effort guaranteed to bring a tear to the eye of the
most psychotic drill sergeant, and also annoy the hell out of Smoker.
“I thought I told you to knock that off,” he said, then had to resist the urge
to shock the confusion right off her face with some creative profanity. “Forget
it. I’m staying here tonight. You’re at liberty until tomorrow, eight-hundred,
same as the rest of the crew. Meet me at the base, front gate.”
The girl’s eyes, already magnified by her spectacles, widened even further.
“But—but, sir. Shouldn’t we report in? This is your—”
“Did I ask for your opinion, Chief Petty Officer?”
“No sir, but—”
“Tashigi.”
She looked down at her feet. “Permission to report in tonight, sir.”
“Permission denied. When you’re at liberty you get drunk or laid or something
along those lines. You don’t ask for duty.” Smoker studied the top of Tashigi’s
dark head. The tips of her ears were bright red.
Smoker glared away a curious passerby then looked back down at Tashigi. What
the hell. “Chief Petty Officer.”
“Sir?” She pushed her glasses into place and blinked at him.
“Secure rooms at this facility for both of us, then go find a bookshop or
polish that sword or do whatever it is you do in your spare time.”
“Yes, Commander Smoker!” Now smiling, she ripped off another salute and
advanced on the inn door with a determined expression. This time Smoker gave in
to profanity, albeit under his breath.
The door closed behind Tashigi and Smoker chewed on his cigar some more while
he eyed the inn’s facade. He could find a tavern easily—he could think of five
off the top of his head—but this place was only a couple of streets up from the
wharves, in a busy area. Smoker was betting on it having a taproom.
He hoped to hell it did. Tashigi might not need a drink, but this was his last
night of freedom before his feet got officially nailed to the ground of the
East Blue hellhole that’d spawned him. Alcohol was definitely in order. He
tossed his cigar into the gutter and followed in Tashigi's footsteps.
He passed her in the inn’s front room. She was at the main desk, haranguing the
innkeeper, shaking her finger at him and pointing over his shoulder to a sword
mounted on the wall. Smoker ducked into the taproom before either of them saw
him.
On second thought, he didn’t need a drink. He needed a goddamn bottle.
--
South Blue single barrel: finest poison known to mankind, and at least one
woman’s preferred method of self destruction. Smoker lifted his glass and sank
half the contents. He dropped it on the bar, hunched his elbows to either side
of it and stared at the liquor bottles layering the far wall. Typically he’d
have been on hyper-alert, keeping an eye out for pirates, but his mind felt…
empty. Apathetic.
He found himself almost enjoying the sensation.
Blank thoughts, numb mind. Weird state for him and his suspicious bastard
mentality to be in. That’s why he was here though: to stop thinking for one
damned day. Or in this case, night, since that was where day was fast heading.
The sunlight slanting through several small windows lay differently on the
floor than it had when he’d entered. Afternoon had given way to evening. Behind
Smoker, the taproom was sluggishly coming to life. He tuned out the noise and
concentrated on the amber colored liquid in front of him.
He wasn’t a drunk—nothing of his deceased, lush of a mother in him—but when it
came to bruised pride, Smoker believed in generous alcoholic plasters. God knew
the past month and naval High Command had been hell on his dignity.
There’s a great deal of unhappiness with the way you handled the Tarrant
situation. The Admiralty favors an insubordination charge, but Lieutenant
Commander Hina spoke for you, and it’s understood that there were extenuating
circumstances. However, your current tour of duty on the Grand Line is
terminated. You’re being reassigned.
Not his first time up against a charge of insubordination, and it wouldn't be
his last. He didn't necessarily see that as a bad thing, but then he didn't
consider exposing a corrupt superior’s corruption insubordination, either.
Bastard had been a zoan, too—neko neko fruit, model: lion. If Smoker hadn’t
taken him down, the body count would have been a lot higher than it ended up
being.
Insubordination, my ass.
Well, it had been his ass hanging out there, skin to the breeze, while his CO
pussyfooted around and the Admiralty fingered him for its whipping boy. Tarrant
was dead and so was the better part of two squadrons. Somebody had to take the
public fall, and Smoker had been convenient.
As you know, Loguetown is the last major port in East Blue before Reverse
Mountain. The island and city itself, as well as two neighboring islands, will
come under your jurisdiction. It’s hoped that you will accomplish what your
predecessor failed to do, and clean the area out. There’s a deal too much
riffraff entering the Grand Line through the Blues. High Command is
understandably unhappy with this state of affairs and, recent incident aside,
your record is impressive. No other marine or bounty hunter has better. The
navy has faith in your capabilities along those lines.
Along those lines. More like, read between the lines. Stay inside the lines.
Play nice with the higher-ups or your ass is grass and the Admiralty is the
lawnmower.
They’d known he was from Loguetown. They’d also known he had a standing request
not to be assigned there. Loguetown was the kind of cushy command many officers
would have given an arm or leg for. For Smoker it was nothing short of corporal
punishment, and his superiors knew it.
A fresh stream of bourbon topped up his glass. It winked at him, mellow gold in
fading sunlight. He tilted the glass, deliberately spilling a few drops in
private salute to the ex-whore who’d borne a pirate’s brat then washed the
memory of both child and lover away in a flood of whiskey, before downing the
rest.
The old saying was only half true. You could go home. You just couldn’t go
back.
“Another?”
He shoved the tumbler towards the barkeep. “Leave the bottle.”
“Commander?”
Smoker looked up. Tashigi was standing at his elbow, staring around in
bemusement. You’d think the girl had never been in a bar before. Hell, maybe
she hadn’t. “You get the rooms taken care of?”
“Um, yes sir.” She tugged something from her uniform pocket and laid it on the
bar. A key. “You’re in number ten.”
“Thanks,” Smoker grunted. “Lose the uniform and go find something to do. No,
belay that a minute.”
Pulling his jitte from its loop, Smoker shoved it into Tashigi’s hands then
shrugged out of his coat and yanked off his gloves. He stuck the gloves in the
coat’s pockets and tugged two cigars free of the jacket. After a brief
hesitation, he took two more. If this year got any worse, he thought wryly,
he’d end up smoking two at once.
Hefting the coat’s heavy leather weight, Smoker heaved it at Tashigi. She
caught it, barely, trying not very successfully to balance jitte, sword and
coat. “Sir, what—?”
“Put them in my room. We’re all off duty tonight.”
Tashigi looked back and forth between the White Hunter’s regalia and Smoker’s
bare chest. Her glance passed over the half full bottle of bourbon in front of
him; paused, and flickered back. “Sir, are you sure that’s—”
“I’m sure it’s time for you to follow through, Chief Petty Officer.”
“Yes sir.” A not very well disguised sigh. Smoker let it slide (this time) and
reached for his glass. When he lowered it, Tashigi had gone. He refilled the
glass and lit a new cigar. It wasn't all the way dark yet and already he felt
like the ragged end of a long night. He took another drink.
--
The last of the bourbon sat in the bottom of Smoker’s glass. Shards of
lamplight glittered, caught in liquid amber. How long had he been sitting here?
“Get you something else, Commander?”
The hand holding Smoker’s glass stopped midway to his mouth. He raised his
head, his scowl colliding with the bartender’s bland gaze. They stared at each
other over the raised tumbler for an uncomfortable moment. Smoker looked away
first. “Don’t call me that,” he muttered. Then, “Why did you call me that? Is
it engraved on my forehead?”
“The small girl with the large sword referred to you as such. Additionally, the
garment you arrived in has your marine creed inscribed on it in large, legible
characters.”
“Right.” Smoker glanced at the glass in his hand, then set it down. If he was
forgetting details like that, he’d had enough.
“If your business precludes using your title, you might want to ask your
subordinate to be more careful.” Smoker shot a ‘don’t go there’ look at the
bartender, but the guy smiled back, unfazed. “You’re somewhat more conspicuous
than the average operative, you know.”
“I’m not a damned spy,” Smoker gritted out, “but I get the feeling you already
know that.”
The bartender shrugged. “Maybe I do. But then, it’s rare for a ranking marine
not to throw that rank around.”
There was enough truth in that statement to shut Smoker’s mouth on his retort.
Like much else in this life, rank was a tool. You pulled it when you needed to
and forgot it when you didn’t, or at least that’s how Smoker had always
operated. A number of officers liked the obedience and fear their positions
generated too much; many of Smoker’s issues with the navy stemmed from that
pervasive attitude, which seemed to be more the norm than the exception lately.
His own recent promotion was three weeks old, and the reason for it had left a
bad taste in his mouth. Following the official inquest, they’d thrown a
‘commander’ at him like a bone to a pariah dog. An afterthought, designed to
pacify. To keep him towing the line. They wanted him broken to their harness,
not broken for good.
Fetch. Heel. Sit. Stay.
Smoker’s mouth twisted in disgust, though with High Command or himself, he
wasn’t sure.
“Going to be in town for a while?” The barkeep was leaning against the far
counter, polishing a beer tankard and eyeing Smoker sidelong.
Smoker grimaced. “Define a while.”
“Longer than a week?”
“You could say that. What is this, twenty questions night?” he asked. When the
other man didn’t answer, he turned to see what the hold up was.
The glass tankard dangled, forgotten, from the barkeep’s hand. He was staring
past Smoker’s shoulder, mouth slightly open. Smoker started to follow that
fixed stare—if he was about to be attacked he preferred to know—and that’s when
he smelled the fire.
There was no mistaking the char of burnt leather and wood. The shouts came
next, along with the sounds of tables being overturned and general panic. The
barkeep ducked out from behind the bar, and Smoker turned the rest of the way
around.
It looked worse than it was—the flames hadn’t yet caught hold—and Smoker
guessed it wouldn’t take much to stifle the blaze eating busily away at a
corner booth. Extending one arm, he sent a smoke stream towards the booth,
blanketing red flame in white-grey ash. In his peripheral vision, Smoker could
see the taproom patrons who’d retreated to the doorway gaping at him. Inside
his smoke, somebody coughed, and then long, bare arms appeared, waving away the
billows.
“All right, all right—enough already! It’s out, I swear.”
Smoker’s gaze snapped back toward his smoke, his eyes narrowing. What the—
The hidden speaker was right. The fire was out. Smoker pulled his smoke back
into himself. Released from its grip, a body tumbled out of the booth and lay
flat on the floor, panting.
Young, skinny, tanned. Black hair, shorts and boots, and not much else besides
the log pose strapped to one wrist. That was Smoker’s first, fleeting
impression of the kid sprawled across dirty tile. His second was more prosaic,
and a lot more to the point.
Mera eater. Wonderful. Just what he and the rest of this island didn't need.
His interest in devil fruits was limited to understanding his own—its
advantages as well as its limitations—and learning as much as he could about
the other abilities he might come up against in a fight. The year after he’d
eaten the moku moku, he’d joined the marines. For most of that year, he’d spent
his spare time in the Academy library, reading everything he could find on his
particular fruit. In the process, he’d memorized the list of other known logia
fruits; out of all of them, it was the mera mera that had caught and held his
attention.
According to various naval records, it was over a hundred years since a mera
eater had been abroad in the world. What with the sheer destructive force its
eater wielded, Smoker considered the long interregnum a damned good thing. The
last known eater of the mera mera fruit had—so far as witnesses could
tell—either lost control of his power or lost his mind shortly after the act of
eating. Half of North Blue had been burnt to the ground, everything living
consumed, before sentient flame had been extinguished.
In the end, it had taken five other logia eaters almost a week to track down
and kill the rogue user. One of the five had been Smoker’s devil fruit
counterpart of the time. Last century’s moku eater had tamped down the flames
long enough for the other users to finish the mera eater off, but his personal
price had been high. He’d died in the process.
Looking down at the sweating, shaking kid in front of him, Smoker figured that
if he didn’t want to end up in the same sinking ship as his predecessor, he’d
better get a handle on this situation now. Pushing himself off his stool, he
stood up. He retrieved his last cigar from the bar, clamped it between his
teeth, and felt through his pockets for his lighter.
“How long since you ate your fruit?”
A tremor ran through the rangy body on the floor. Eyelids gummed with smoke-
induced tears slitted open. “How’d you know?” the kid croaked.
Smoker snorted. “Not a mark on you.”
“Oh yeah.” The kid opened his eyes fully; he ran a cursory glance over his
unsinged body before turning his gaze on Smoker. “That was you?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Well... thank you.” The kid hesitated, chewing on his lower lip. “That
could’ve gone bad pretty fast.”
“Understatement of the year, kid.”
“Don’t call me kid.” He shoved into a sitting position and wrapped his arms
around his knees. Tilting his head back, he stared up at Smoker with
undisguised interest. “I’ll be eighteen in a few months.”
Same age Smoker had been when he’d eaten his fruit. God save him from arrogant
morons like his younger self. “How about I call you guilty of recklessly
endangering the lives of this town’s citizens?” Cigar smoke trailed from
Smoker’s mouth with every word, hazing the kid's face. “That work better?”
The kid flared up again, fire sparking in his hair and licking along his arms
and torso with his rising anger. “This is the first time something like that's
happened! I just—”
“Sure it is,” Smoker interrupted. “Bet you don’t flame every time some idiot
pisses you off, either,” he added.
The kid flushed dull red. He opened his mouth, looking like he meant to let
Smoker have it with both barrels, but by then Smoker’s smoke was wrapped around
him, stifling incipient flames and pulling him in.
“Hey!”
Smoker hoisted the kid up and over his shoulder, holding on through the
whipcord lash of surprising strength. He glanced at the barkeep, who’d gone
back to cleaning glasses and filling beers as soon as the fire had gone out.
“Is there a runoff barrel on the premises?” Smoker asked.
“Through there.” The man jerked his thumb towards a door set in the wall the
bar abutted. “Go left—it’ll take you around back.”
“Let go, asshole! I'm gonna kick your ass so hard!”
“Thanks.” Ignoring increasingly violent threats, Smoker shifted his cigar to
the other side of his mouth and hitched the kid higher over his shoulder.
“Put me down, you bastard, or I’ll—damn it, put me down!”
The barkeep was watching Smoker manhandle his prisoner through the door. “Need
some help, Commander?”
“Not for this.” Smoker let the door bang shut behind him.
“Ow!”
If the kid didn’t know enough to duck, that was his problem.
--
The rain barrel was tall, wide-mouthed and almost full. The kid made a nice
splash going in. Smoker let him sit on the bottom for about five seconds before
hauling him out.
He surfaced fighting—thrashing and sputtering, his lungs heaving to choking
life. Smoker held him up by the back of his neck, hooked his hands over the
sides of the barrel, and let go. He hung there, fingers clutching at rough
wood, gulping air like he’d been without for a week instead of a couple of
measly seconds, and glared at Smoker.
If looks could kill, Smoker would have been dead and buried. The kid hacked up
some more water. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“It should be pretty hard to light anything up from in there.” Smoker crossed
his arms and met the kid’s furious eyes. “Can’t even move your legs, can you?”
“I know what water does to a devil fruit user. My—I lived with someone who was
one for years. I don’t need an object lesson.”
He was already moving before the kid finished speaking. He braced his hands on
the rim of the barrel and bent over until there were maybe six inches between
the kid’s face and his. “I don’t know what you think you know, but I’m willing
to bet it’s close to nothing. What type of fruit did your friend eat? Zoan?
Paramecia?”
The kid jumped a little at the second. Grim satisfaction filled Smoker’s mind.
“That’s what I thought.” He straightened, pulled the half-smoked cigar from his
mouth.
“Kid,” he said, “you’re logia. Unlike paramecia, logia doesn’t mean a few
interesting side effects. Logia means you are your element. Unlike a zoan, you
don’t have the basic connection humans share with animals. You’re fire."
"No shit! I-"
Smoker didn't let the kid finish, overriding whatever he'd been about to say
with, "No, you know shit. You think fire gives a damn what it burns? When your
fire is all there is of you, when it’s all that’s left of your mind, you won’t
care either. Learn to control it or it’ll control you.”
The kid's mouth was still half open. His eyes had gotten wider with every
sentence. Now they were black holes in a face white under its tan. He looked
scared shitless.
Good, Smoker thought. Time for him to wake up and realize what he was capable
of before he lost it and took an island along for the ride.
“I told you.” The kid’s voice was low and scratchy from a combination of smoke
and water. “I’ve been logia for almost six months and this is the first
something like this has happened. Yeah, things were kind of weird for a week
after I ate it, but I’ll swear to whatever god you want, I was fine
afterwards.”
“Sure about that?”
“Yes!”
Frowning, Smoker studied the kid’s face. That desperate, almost feverish look
wasn’t feigned. He was telling the truth, which meant—
“You did something today you normally wouldn’t.” It wasn’t a question. Smoker
expected confusion, maybe even protest, so he was slightly surprised when the
kid turned beet red from neck to hairline and mumbled something Smoker didn’t
catch.
“Say again?”
“All I did was kiss the guy!”
Ten seconds was all the time Smoker’s brain needed to add here, multiply there,
then divide the result by the kid’s age. Damn it. He squeezed his eyes shut
against a vision he didn’t want, but it just sprang to full, explicit life on
the backs of his closed lids.
He didn't need this. Not right now and not later. Not ever. “Is this the first
time you’ve tried since you ate your fruit?” he said aloud, already sure of the
answer.
“…Yeah.”
Smoker took a last drag from his cigar and dropped it onto stone cobbles,
grinding it out under his boot. With one hand and a coil of smoke, he hauled
the kid out of the barrel.
The kid looked more like a drowned rat than anything human, but his fire was
already drying him, waves of steam rising off him like heavy mist. The flesh
under Smoker’s hand was hot enough to burn normal skin. They looked at each
other: the kid’s hand on Smoker’s shoulder, Smoker’s fingers wrapped around the
kid’s wrist.
Smoker read the question clear in the kid’s eyes. His mouth thinned around
nothing; his lack of cigar bothered him more than it should have. “This is a
bad idea.”
“I know.”
“I'm not stupid enough for this.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
Smoker’s fingers tightened on the kid’s wrist. “Blackmail is an ugly word,
kid.”
“Who said anything about blackmail?” There was nothing but straightforward
innocence in the kid’s eyes. Then they narrowed. "I told you not to call me
kid."
“I make a point of not taking advice from mouthy punks. And you didn’t have to
say anything. That’s my other point,” Smoker said, and then he backed the kid
up against the inn wall and kissed him.
When Smoker lifted his mouth from the kid’s, they were both breathing hard. The
scorch marks on stone and wood would have been a lot worse if Smoker hadn’t
been what he was. Thin, bony fingers had dug themselves into Smoker’s biceps;
the kid’s erection was a hard demand against his thigh. Smoker’s own cock
throbbed like a deep bruise—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted
inside another person as much as he did this stupid fire eater.
He wondered momentarily if that was a side effect of matching logia, then
decided it didn’t matter. He was past caring. If he didn’t have the promise of
a bed upstairs, he’d have fucked the kid staring at him out of lust-black eyes
through the wall.
“Got a room?” A hoarse croak, the kid’s voice rubbed Smoker’s ears the wrong
way and his hormones exactly right. His fingers clenched on prominent hipbones.
“Yes.”
“What are we standing around out here for, then?”
--
They almost torched the inn on the way up. The kid’s back hit the stairwell
wall and Smoker shoved him flat against it—took his mouth without leave or
apology. The kid sunk his fingers into the bare muscle of Smoker’s back and
pushed into the pressure of Smoker’s mouth on his. Just as hungry. Just as
demanding.
The smell reached Smoker’s nose first. He jerked his mouth free and dragged the
kid away from the wall. They studied the burnt outline of twined bodies.
“Still think you’ve got your fruit handled?”
“Shut up.” He got a quick view of gritted teeth and angry eyes and then the
kid’s mouth was back against his. The kid bit down on Smoker’s lip hard enough
to draw blood, then abruptly let go and shoved Smoker into the hall. Smoker
wrapped his fingers around one bony wrist and yanked.
Flame crackled angrily. “Damp it down,” Smoker growled, towing the kid after
him down the hall. He stopped in front of a door whose number matched the ten
on Tashigi’s key, pushed it to and pushed the kid through. The stupid brat
landed on his ass on the floor, laughing breathlessly. No light was on, but
someone—either the cleaning staff or maybe Tashigi—had left the curtains open.
Moonlight drenched the room.
“You’re the same color as your smoke, you know that?”
Smoker’s gaze fell from the window to the attitude problem on the floor. The
kid had already kicked his boots off. He was unfastening the log pose from his
wrist and staring quizzically up at Smoker, his head cocked. “You always been
that way, or did it happen after you ate your fruit?”
“Both. You want to tell me what an East Blue brat is doing with a log pose and
a devil fruit power?”
“Nope.” Chucking the pose at the room’s central table, the kid went to work on
his belt and shorts. “Should probably lose the jeans. Even you can’t fuck
somebody through that much denim.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“I doubt it.” The kid pushed himself up off the floor. The shorts stayed where
they were. Bare feet kicked themselves free of dark material, and Smoker was
suddenly looking at almost six feet of unashamedly bare-assed probably-a-
pirate.
“Oh yeah,” the kid bent over his discarded shorts, providing Smoker with a view
that could’ve given a dead man a hard-on. He tugged something free of the cloth
and tossed it onto the bed.
Smoker glanced from the white tube lying on dark blankets back to the kid’s
face. “Just a kiss?”
A slight shrug. “When I go after something, I don’t fuck around.” He walked
towards Smoker, polished boards creaking under his feet, only stopping when
Smoker could feel radiant heat. His eyes searched Smoker’s face. Smoker had no
clue what he was looking for, but he must have found it, because between one
second and the next, the heat grew in volume and intensity.
Smoker watched the kid’s fire pulse under his skin, too close to the surface
for comfort; his smoke seethed in response. You damn fool.
“You can’t get your head around me, can you?” said the kid softly. “Can’t shut
your brain off and let go for ten minutes at a time. Or did you use them up
outside?”
One finger at a time, Smoker unclenched his fists. He lifted a hand, settled
his open palm on the join of neck and shoulder. His thumb brushed the kid’s
pulse. “It'll be more than minutes,” he said evenly.
The body so close to his stilled, aside from beat of life against his thumb.
The kid smiled at him. Not the smartass grin the brat wielded like a knife, but
a real smile, freely given, and Smoker looked down into a face that was both
too young and too old and… let go.
Smoke poured through denim and leather. Smoker’s clothes joined the kid’s
shorts on the floor, and then he was flesh again, toppling the kid onto the bed
beneath him.
Immediately, long legs and arms wrapped themselves around him. The kid's hard
slick cock slid and rubbed against his erection, and a warm mouth opened under
his own. The kid kissed like he meant it—like he expected this to be the last
thing he’d ever do and intended to make every breath of it count—and his mouth
and tongue and hands demanded equal reciprocation.
He had just enough sanity left to hesitate. Bracing his hands against the
mattress, he pushed himself up, pulled his mouth free of inhumanly hot lips and
propped himself over the kid splayed out beneath him.
For a moment Smoker held himself there, not moving. Just looking. His gaze
drifted over half-lidded eyes, kiss-bruised mouth and freckled cheeks. The fire
deep in the kid’s eyes flared, flame rippled over smooth skin, and Smoker
decided that this right here was going to be one of the biggest mistakes of his
life. The few times he’d done something purely for himself it’d always turned
out wrong, and this kid was an unquestionable self-indulgence. Because the kid
was… he was… hell.
Yeah, hell was about right. He was hell—fiery hot, searing hell and Smoker
didn’t give a damn. “Done this before?”
The question stretched out between them, growing tenuous with expanding
silence. The kid grinned crookedly. “Nah. That’s okay, though.” Strong hands
grasped Smoker’s forearms. “I learn fast,” he said, and pulled Smoker back down
on top of him.
If learning fast meant the willing arch of the kid’s body into Smoker’s hands;
if it meant hands unafraid to touch whatever part of Smoker they came across,
then Smoker had to agree. If it meant the strangled sounds that poured out of
the kid when Smoker pushed his legs up and back, then sucked the kid’s cock
into his mouth, the kid had the art of fast learning down to a science.
And when Smoker reached for the white tube stuck beneath bunched sheets, the
kid met his eyes fearlessly and spread himself open even farther, exposing the
tight pucker beneath drawn-up balls.
“Turn over.”
No hesitation. Up on knees, bent forward; head bowed, resting against forearms.
Smoker ran a hand the length of the kid’s spine, watched the almost feline arch
of muscled back and the rise of flame. It flared under his hands and died
beneath his smoke. “Control, brat.” He sat back on his heels and popped the cap
on the tube. “Isn’t that what this is about?”
“No, this is about me finally getting laid,” the kid’s voice sounded strained,
even through muffling arms. He shot a brief, frustrated look at Smoker over his
shoulder then dropped his head back down on the mattress. “I’m on my knees with
my ass in the air. How much more of an invitation do you n—ah!”
“That works fine,” said Smoker. He pressed his lube-slicked finger deeper into
the grudging give of the kid’s hole. His free hand gripped the kid’s hip,
holding him in place. “Keep your fire tamped, and I’ll keep doing this.”
“God, you’re a bastard,” the kid whined. “Shit!”
Two fingers, a tight fit even with lube. Smoker twisted them together and
pushed in deeper, curling them slightly upwards as he pulled them out. He
pushed back in, repeated drag and curve, and beneath his hands the kid twisted
and panted and choked on breath and stifled groans. Hot red licked the set of
rigid shoulders; Smoker slid his fingers all the way out.
“Bastard.”
“Yeah, but I doubt you mean it the way I do,” Smoker slicked his cock and
tossed the lube away. He leaned down over the kid, hands cupping hips, thumbs
first grazing the crease between tight ass cheeks then spreading them wide.
Lining his cockhead up with the kid’s hole, Smoker pressed in. Not much. Just
enough for the kid to feel it. Just enough for the tip of his cock to feel the
clench of resistant muscle. He waited, not pushing forward but not pulling back
either; waited for the kid’s body to open up and let him in.
The dark head still rested against the mattress. Smoker saw the clench of the
kid’s fingers into the sheets. “All right?”
“Sure,” rough and hoarse. Muscle strained and bunched under Smoker’s hands.
“Come on, old man. I’m a virgin, not a freaking girl.”
Push, pull. Slide forward an inch, two inches, and keep sliding forward, all
the way inside.
Smoker watched his cock disappear slowly inside the kid’s body and slide back
out just as slowly. He did it again, still slow, but not as, and the kid’s
whole body seemed to convulse around him, muscles expanding and contracting in
on themselves at the same time.
“Please!” The body pressed against his was shaking. He wrapped an arm around
the kid’s waist and straightened up, pulling until the kid’s back was resting
against his chest. Long legs splayed themselves open over his thighs.
He rubbed his palms over taut inner thighs, pressed the pads of his fingers
into quivering muscle. The kid muffled a groan against Smoker’s skin. He was
completely hard, his cock jutting up and slightly out, the head glistening with
clear fluid. Smoker wrapped a hand around the shaft and slid his thumb over the
head, spreading pre-come evenly. The muscle gripping Smoker’s cock spasmed--
“God! I just—I can’t—I need to—just fuck me or jerk me or do something before I
lose it, okay?” the kid gasped.
Smoker didn't laugh. Maybe he smiled. Whatever. The kid couldn't see. "Okay."
He stroked the kid’s cock once, twice, and felt the tension in the kid’s body
ratchet up another notch. His free hand dipped between the kid’s thighs. When
he cupped the tight-drawn sac, the kid’s cock jumped against the pull of his
fingers—a new drop of fluid beaded and leaked from the slit. He reached farther
down, past the kid’s balls, down to where his cock stretched him open.
Smoker traced the penetration of cock into hole with one finger. He could feel
the throb of both their heartbeats in the connection, and he almost wanted to
press a finger in alongside his cock, to touch from the inside.
The kid’s breath sped up, coming in short, hard bursts. His cock jerked in
Smoker’s hand. Smoker leaned down and in until his mouth was touching the kid’s
ear. “Come.”
He didn’t move. Neither of them did. His hand tightened around the kid's cock
again and the kid’s head dropped back against his shoulder, mouth open silent.
No sound but the harsh mix of their breathing, no movement but the rippling
clench of the kid’s ass around Smoker’s cock, the dig of the kid’s nails into
his thighs.
Semen spilled hot and wet over Smoker’s fingers. Flame tracked from the corners
of the kid’s open eyes and down his cheeks, was reabsorbed into inhuman skin.
Smoker laid his forehead against the kid’s shoulder and let the kid’s orgasm
pull his out of him. Let the weight of shared release drag them down together.
--
“Are those something else that happened after?”
Smoker glanced at the cigar in his hand, then down at the kid lounging beside
him. He'd buried his face in a pillow, but now he raised his head and flipped
himself onto his side, one eyebrow cocked in question.
The movement exposed the left side of the kid’s body; Smoker could finally make
out the tattoo on his arm. “I’ll tell you when I started smoking if you tell me
why you’ve got a crossed out S inked into your hide.”
The kid laughed. “It’s a short, boring story, believe me. Tell you what,
though—next tatt I get, I’m doing it sober and alone.”
Smoker mentally subtracted the S and fit the rest of the letters into a spoken
word, “Ace. Your name?”
“Yeah.” Ace raised his arm, twisting it and looking down the outward curve of
bicep into deltoid. He traced a finger over the tattoo. “My real one. Dunno
what I was thinking." His smile flickered oddly. "Maybe that I was so drunk I
figured I’d need the reminder next morning. Maybe it was something else." He
shrugged, and the strange expression left his face. "Next one’ll be for my
captain.”
“You’re a pirate.” Smoker was very sure of that.
“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.” Moonlight glittered pale in black eyes. “Does it
matter?”
Right now? No. Tomorrow would be a different story. “If being sworn to bring
every pirate I can to justice means something, then yes. It matters.”
There was a long beat of silence. “I guess that’d make you a marine.”
“Most of the time.”
Ace’s grin nudged the corners of his mouth. “Not tonight?”
“I’m off duty,” said Smoker, irony edging his tone. “In the morning I’m taking
command of this town, and after that you’d better watch yourself, pirate, or
I’ll be all over you.”
“Biggest balls in the Blues, eh?” Ace’s voice was ripe with laughter. Smoker
clamped a hand over his nape.
“Don’t get smart with me. You’ll be wrapped in seastone before you can pull
your head out of your ass.” He was only half kidding.
The laughter running through Ace’s voice erupted, and then Smoker was on his
back, Ace’s hands pinning his shoulders, Ace’s mouth hot on his skin. “Dawn’s
still a ways off, old man,” Ace breathed against Smoker’s neck. “Don’t count
‘em before they’re hatched.”
“Not if you’re the one keeping an eye on the damned things.”
Ace nipped at Smoker’s skin then licked the bite. “Coming from you, I’ll take
that as a compliment,” he snickered, but Smoker—tired of pointless back and
forth—firmed his grip on the back of Ace’s neck and dragged Ace's mouth down to
his, shutting him up before he could say something even more annoying or
disconcerting than he already had.
--
“Commander Smoker! Commander! Sir, wake up sir!”
Smoker opened his eyes. It wasn’t like he could avoid it—impossible to sleep
through all that pounding and shouting. For a skinny runt, Tashigi had a
surprising amount of lung capacity.
“Commander!”
“I’m up. You can stop yelling.”
“Yes sir. Sorry to wake you, sir, but there’s fire in the town. They say it’s
contained, but I thought you’d want to know.”
Smoker threw back the sheet and swung his legs out of bed. “I’ll meet you
downstairs.”
“Yes sir,” was Tashigi’s subdued reply. Smoker listened to the thump of her
retreating footsteps for a second, then glanced at the other half of wrecked,
slightly-singed sheets. They were empty, not unexpectedly.
He was surprised by his faint feeling of regret, as well as unsure if he
considered the abnormal emotion a good or bad thing. He shrugged both reactions
off as irrelevant and reached for his jeans.
Sticky skin adhered uncomfortably to denim; Smoker would have liked a shower,
but didn’t want to waste time. He settled for shifting to smoke then back
again, which got rid of the worst of the dried sweat and come. He pulled his
jeans the rest of the way on, stamped his feet into his boots and looked around
for the remainder of his gear.
Thankfully, Tashigi was nothing if not conscientious. Smoker’s jitte leaned
against the far wall; his jacket hung from the back of the room’s single chair.
Jeans, jacket, jitte… gloves. Right. Smoker shut the door firmly behind him and
shoved his hands in his coat pockets. He was halfway down the inn stairs when
he realized that the smoke smell lingering in the air wasn’t coming from him.
--
The burn area covered about twenty square feet by another twenty square feet.
Twenty square feet (length and width) of cobbled stone. The lines of it were
precise, as though drawn by a professional. Only, no professional artist Smoker
knew of used charcoaled stone as their medium. And no professional artist was
going to splash Edward Newgate’s insignia across the same town square
containing Gol D. Roger’s execution scaffold.
No artist had curled that arrogant ‘A’ around one bone of Whitebeard’s Jolly
Roger either. Smoker had been right: last night had made the top ten of his
personal all-time-stupid list. The proof was spread out at his feet,
smouldering sullenly.
Sending just enough of his smoke to blanket the black design, Smoker smothered
the last glowing embers. When he could no longer feel even the flicker of fire,
he drew the smoke back into himself and stared some more at the mera mera
version of graffiti. The damned thing was perfect down to the last detail; it
had been burnt into the stone with careful precision. Smoker guessed that was
the brat’s way of thumbing his nose at Smoker for all but calling him a
criminally careless punk.
See, old man? I can be careful. If I feel like it.
His gaze fixed on the still hot symbol, Smoker stuck the cigar he held into his
mouth. After a moment’s consideration, he pulled out a second and bit down on
that as well, then said to the silent woman beside him, “Tashigi.”
“Yes sir?”
“Get back to the ship. Grab Marston and Takashi and then the three of you head
for the base and tell them that their commander expects two full squadrons
assembled at docks nine and ten on the double.”
Tashigi bit her lip. “Sir, I—”
“That was an order, Chief Petty Officer, not a request.”
“Yes sir!”
Smoker ignored Tashigi’s salute and subsequent retreat. He dug his lighter from
his hip pocket and, for the first time but probably not the last, lit paired
cigars.
“Um, excuse me?”
Smoker turned his head. A woman hovered a few feet away from him, a solemn-eyed
child clinging to her hand. She smiled nervously at Smoker. “Is it safe to go
across?”
He followed her gaze to the mark that covered a good portion of the square.
“Walk around it.”
"Thank you." Another smile, brighter and more natural. “For putting it out.”
Smoker nodded curtly. He hadn’t really, just beat back some of the heat, but he
didn’t feel the need to explain. The thing had been well on its way to cooling.
The kid had been careful—proving a point as well as making a statement. Goddamn
pirate brat.
A thin trickle of humanity followed the woman and her child, and soon the
square was full of foot-traffic. At first, Whitebeard’s symbol was given a wide
berth, but either the heat wasn’t bad enough to register or the burnt area had
cooled down fast because within ten minutes people were tromping over it like
it didn’t exist.
Smoker leaned against the brick wall of a patisserie, smoking and watching
charred lines blur under uncaring feet. A squawk of gulls flew overhead and
Smoker’s gaze tracked them towards the harbor. In the distance, a forest of
ship masts rose, one after the other. He could see three Jolly Rogers from
where he stood.
He had no doubt there were more where those had come from. By tomorrow, there
wouldn’t be any. He’d stake his somewhat shaky reputation on it.
Time to clean house. He'd start with his.
 
somewhere down the Line…
“What’s Whitebeard’s second division commander doing in Alabasta, Portgas?”
Ace sets his coffee cup down on the Spicebean’s counter with a decisive thump.
The smile he just conjured up to charm the proprietor twists into a grin, and
why not? He’s in a good mood. His stomach is pleasantly full, he’s going to see
his brother sometime soon, and on top of that there’s the echo of a familiar
growl in his ears.
Ace knows that growl well enough to qualify for intimacy. It's been a while
since he last heard it, but he’s jerked off to the memory of it more than once
over the years. He's... intimately acquainted with it and the person attached
to it and also with that person's reactions. So he turns slowly—slow enough to
piss the guy off worse than he probably already is—swiveling the stool around
to face his past.
“I’m searching--” he tilts his hat brim out of his eyes-- “For my kid brother,”
he finishes, and for the first time in two years, he gets a good look at the
marines’ White Hunter.
He hadn’t known who Smoker was that night in Loguetown, hadn’t even gotten his
name. It would have been kind of superfluous, given the circumstances. It was
only after he’d left the island that he learned just who he’d tangled with—in
more ways than one.
Looking back, he’s surprised Smoker didn’t take one look at his sooty message,
hunt him down and nail his hide to closest wall. At the time, in some sick
twisted corner of his soul he was almost disappointed Smoker hadn’t done either
of those things. To this day the seastone cuff/smoke tentacle fantasy works
almost as well as someone else’s hand.
Today Ace won’t need a few charcoal lines scrawled over stone to get his point
across. This time the lines are etched into his back in glowing color, and
Smoker has already had an eyeful.
Propping his elbows on the counter behind him, Ace gives Smoker a leisurely
once over. He wonders how long it took him to match Portgas D. of the
Whitebeard faction up with the cocky pirate kid he fucked through a Loguetown
inn bed. Not long, probably. He was too smart for Ace’s good then, and Ace has
no doubt he’s only gotten smarter with time.
Damned if the old bastard didn’t go and get hotter, too. Or maybe that’s just
the jacket and jitte effect, which Ace missed out on three years ago. That plus
the snarly expression. It ought to be illegal for so much pissed-off to look
that good. It's a good thing Ace likes his shorts baggy.
Shifting slightly in his seat, he leans to one side, exposing more of his face.
Smoker’s eyes narrow. Oh yeah. He’s been choking on this mouthful of burnt crow
for a long while.
Ace feels his grin widen. “So. What am I supposed to do now?”
“Sit tight and let me arrest you.”
“Re-jec-ted. Sorry, no can do.”
“That’s what I expected.” Smoker breathes out a stream of exasperated smoke and
briefly shuts his eyes. He looks, Ace thinks, like he wants to grind his teeth
and pinch the bridge of his nose out of sheer aggravation.
“Right now, I’m after a different pirate,” he says instead. “I’m not that
interested in your head.”
Ace shrugs—arms spread, hands open. “So let me go.”
“I can’t do that.” One gloved hand clenches. Smoke billows out around it. “Not
as long as I’m a marine and you’re a pirate.”
“What a dumb reason.” Ace tilts his head back and raises an eyebrow. “Lighten
up, old man,” he says, and then he shuts up before he chokes to death on his
laughter because he’s already ass deep in bananawani and the look on Smoker’s
face says he is so going to get it. Which sounds good to him, but then—
But then Luffy happens the way Luffy has been happening for as far back as Ace
can remember.
Ace loves Luffy. True story. The brother thing aside, they’ve got a lot of
shared history and lot in common. They’re also friends, the very best kind, and
Ace has missed having Luffy to play and laugh and get into trouble with, and
sometimes just to be quiet next to. Still, he does wish Luffy would work on
this screwy timing thing he’s got going. After three years it still bites the
big one, and in that only-Luffy way.
On the other hand, Luffy is apparently the impetus that got Smoker off his butt
and back on the Line. In Ace’s book that evens things out considerably. He
doesn’t need Luffy’s timing or time. He’s good at making his own.
Which is an excellent thing, because Smoker’s? Just ran out.
[begin]
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