(One Piece) Disciple
February 20th, 2011 17:41![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
salmon_pinkTitle: Disciple
Fandom: One Piece
Pairing: Smoker/Bellemere
Rating: PG-13
Words: 1329
Timeline: Pre-series
Notes: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
100_women, prompt "past".
A/N: More old fic. I really, really need to force myself to write new One Piece stuff...
Summary: Soldier, student, lover. Memory.
A discipline case, he’d been told. Some rogue brat with a loud mouth when it came to authority.
Not a problem, Smoker had broken plenty of those before.
The only problem he could see was that it was always him that was called to deal with those hotshots who thought they were too good to follow orders.
Probably something to do with how, once upon a time, he’d been just like that.
It hadn’t been an attitude problem, or any of the other labels that were thrown at him. He’d just despised the weakness and ineptitude of several of his superiors, the corruption and the skewed politics of their world.
Nobody really knew what had turned him, what had made him start to apply himself with a vigour that seemed to frighten them, but they all tried to take credit for it.
Smoker didn’t particularly care about them, or their opinions, by that point. The only reason he could see for pressing forwards, for proving himself, was to surpass them.
The brats they sent to him in recent times were mostly spoilt, mostly self-absorbed and pretentious, and mostly seemed to think they could climb in rank through the reputation or finances of their family.
Smoker looked at them and could already see them terrorising the villages they were supposed to protect, striking deals with pirates, selling innocent lives for gold.
Several people were in awe of his ability to tear them down from their laurels, to rip them apart and piece them back together as respectable officers with an understanding of justice born from an understanding of suffering.
Nobody seemed to realise Smoker wasn’t trying to turn them. He was trying to scare them away.
The latest brat was supposedly in the kitchens, elbow deep in potato peelings. A pathetic punishment, and the boy had better prepare himself, because the gently-gently soft-touch approach was over.
Only it wasn’t a boy, it was a young woman, her chair tilted back on two legs, feet resting arrogantly on the counter, steadily dropping potato peelings into a bucket.
Nobody had informed Smoker he was dealing with a woman, most likely on purpose. Not that it mattered to him, but if he cared about their opinion he might almost be insulted that they would think he’d have a different set of rules for women.
There was a dried stick of pasta sticking out of the corner of her mouth, and Smoker could guess that her cigarettes must have been confiscated.
Her eyes turned towards him, and he saw no rebellion there, no sense of self-importance. Just fierce intelligence, and he could feel her assessing him, sizing him up.
He already knew she was going to be different than the others.
Bellemere. The name rolled easily on his tongue, like the taste of his cigars.
He worked her hard, because she could take it. She never questioned his orders, not from that first meeting, and she may have occasionally smirked or made the odd sarcastic comment, but he found he actually appreciated her sense of humour. Still punished her for talking back, but could snort and smile to himself about it later.
The whispers didn’t take long to reach his ears.
Of course they would assume there was sex involved. Bellemere had already gained a reputation for sassing her superiors and disobeying direct orders, deeming them unworthy of her time, only to suddenly become a perfect soldier under Smoker’s teachings.
It was a matter of respect, although there was no point in trying to explain that to them, and she reminded him entirely too much of himself sometimes. She had no problem badmouthing people to him, and she accepted the consequences of her actions, because she had to learn her place, even if he already knew her place should have been above them all, and she had no right to criticise her superiors in front of a ranking officer.
There wasn’t a day that went by without her doing something that made him pinch at the bridge of his nose and growl out a punishment, and she would chuckle and salute and fulfil her duties. It almost became a game, trying to find something she couldn’t do, something that would wipe that grin from her face, but she consistently impressed him.
When sex did enter their relationship, it was her doing. There was no seduction, although in hindsight Smoker could admit that their dynamic and banter had been an interesting kind of foreplay. Just blunt words, and that damned smirk on her lips, and she somehow managed to work in an insult to his pride whilst still making it clear nothing would change if he refused.
Of course he wouldn’t refuse, and she only laughed against his mouth when he tried to kiss away her arrogance.
She was hungry and rough and determined to push him beyond his limits, and it was oddly fun to watch her try. Testing him in the same way he had tested her so many times before, and it never spilled beyond his room, never affected their working relationship.
Still, on those nights together she was utterly shameless and so powerful in that, and he could never touch her enough, waiting for that moment when words left her and she was most open, most exposed, most honest with herself and with him.
It wasn’t unusual for him to be called away on various assignments and missions, and he grew used to returning to news of her smart mouth and the trouble it had gotten her into in his absence, and he grew used to the fevered passion of her hands in that first night of reunion, and the way he could never quite get enough of her skin.
The day he returned to find her gone, he just shrugged and returned to his room, all too aware of the eyes watching him and waiting for his reaction. He never asked, but he listened carefully, and slowly pieced together a picture he didn’t want to see.
She wasn’t supposed to be part of the battalion that had been sent into battle, but somehow her name had been added to the fight, and he imagined her pride wouldn’t allow her to step down, to question the decision. Working with a large group of Marines she would never have even met before, but he knew she’d take that in stride.
What couldn’t be ignored was the hopelessness of it, and they all must have known that. An island overrun by pirates, locals slaughtered, men and women and children alike, and a whole fleet should have been dispatched. They had the rough numbers, they knew what they were up against, and yet the Marines gathered and sent out represented only a fraction of the pirates’ total number.
It wasn’t justice, it was suicide, orchestrated by men who rarely ventured from their offices and treated soldiers’ lives like playthings.
Smoker kept his disgust to himself, and acted no differently where he could be seen, but privately he allowed himself to think of her in those few moments rage and frustration didn’t feel as though they might devour him whole.
He found out her fate quite by accident.
She had survived somehow, and had returned to her home village. The idea of her living and yet not returning to his side filled him with a feeling of dread he couldn’t shake for days, because he knew her, understood her, and could only imagine her reason for discharging herself being a crippling injury, or something equally terrible.
He learned the name of her home, committed it to memory, so that he could never find himself visiting by accident. She would not want him to see her injured or in pain, she would not want him to see her weakness, and Smoker’s life and his career continued, and he allowed his memories of her to grow hazy, and never again let her name roll across his tongue.
Fandom: One Piece
Pairing: Smoker/Bellemere
Rating: PG-13
Words: 1329
Timeline: Pre-series
Notes: For
100_women, prompt "past".A/N: More old fic. I really, really need to force myself to write new One Piece stuff...
Summary: Soldier, student, lover. Memory.
A discipline case, he’d been told. Some rogue brat with a loud mouth when it came to authority.
Not a problem, Smoker had broken plenty of those before.
The only problem he could see was that it was always him that was called to deal with those hotshots who thought they were too good to follow orders.
Probably something to do with how, once upon a time, he’d been just like that.
It hadn’t been an attitude problem, or any of the other labels that were thrown at him. He’d just despised the weakness and ineptitude of several of his superiors, the corruption and the skewed politics of their world.
Nobody really knew what had turned him, what had made him start to apply himself with a vigour that seemed to frighten them, but they all tried to take credit for it.
Smoker didn’t particularly care about them, or their opinions, by that point. The only reason he could see for pressing forwards, for proving himself, was to surpass them.
The brats they sent to him in recent times were mostly spoilt, mostly self-absorbed and pretentious, and mostly seemed to think they could climb in rank through the reputation or finances of their family.
Smoker looked at them and could already see them terrorising the villages they were supposed to protect, striking deals with pirates, selling innocent lives for gold.
Several people were in awe of his ability to tear them down from their laurels, to rip them apart and piece them back together as respectable officers with an understanding of justice born from an understanding of suffering.
Nobody seemed to realise Smoker wasn’t trying to turn them. He was trying to scare them away.
The latest brat was supposedly in the kitchens, elbow deep in potato peelings. A pathetic punishment, and the boy had better prepare himself, because the gently-gently soft-touch approach was over.
Only it wasn’t a boy, it was a young woman, her chair tilted back on two legs, feet resting arrogantly on the counter, steadily dropping potato peelings into a bucket.
Nobody had informed Smoker he was dealing with a woman, most likely on purpose. Not that it mattered to him, but if he cared about their opinion he might almost be insulted that they would think he’d have a different set of rules for women.
There was a dried stick of pasta sticking out of the corner of her mouth, and Smoker could guess that her cigarettes must have been confiscated.
Her eyes turned towards him, and he saw no rebellion there, no sense of self-importance. Just fierce intelligence, and he could feel her assessing him, sizing him up.
He already knew she was going to be different than the others.
Bellemere. The name rolled easily on his tongue, like the taste of his cigars.
He worked her hard, because she could take it. She never questioned his orders, not from that first meeting, and she may have occasionally smirked or made the odd sarcastic comment, but he found he actually appreciated her sense of humour. Still punished her for talking back, but could snort and smile to himself about it later.
The whispers didn’t take long to reach his ears.
Of course they would assume there was sex involved. Bellemere had already gained a reputation for sassing her superiors and disobeying direct orders, deeming them unworthy of her time, only to suddenly become a perfect soldier under Smoker’s teachings.
It was a matter of respect, although there was no point in trying to explain that to them, and she reminded him entirely too much of himself sometimes. She had no problem badmouthing people to him, and she accepted the consequences of her actions, because she had to learn her place, even if he already knew her place should have been above them all, and she had no right to criticise her superiors in front of a ranking officer.
There wasn’t a day that went by without her doing something that made him pinch at the bridge of his nose and growl out a punishment, and she would chuckle and salute and fulfil her duties. It almost became a game, trying to find something she couldn’t do, something that would wipe that grin from her face, but she consistently impressed him.
When sex did enter their relationship, it was her doing. There was no seduction, although in hindsight Smoker could admit that their dynamic and banter had been an interesting kind of foreplay. Just blunt words, and that damned smirk on her lips, and she somehow managed to work in an insult to his pride whilst still making it clear nothing would change if he refused.
Of course he wouldn’t refuse, and she only laughed against his mouth when he tried to kiss away her arrogance.
She was hungry and rough and determined to push him beyond his limits, and it was oddly fun to watch her try. Testing him in the same way he had tested her so many times before, and it never spilled beyond his room, never affected their working relationship.
Still, on those nights together she was utterly shameless and so powerful in that, and he could never touch her enough, waiting for that moment when words left her and she was most open, most exposed, most honest with herself and with him.
It wasn’t unusual for him to be called away on various assignments and missions, and he grew used to returning to news of her smart mouth and the trouble it had gotten her into in his absence, and he grew used to the fevered passion of her hands in that first night of reunion, and the way he could never quite get enough of her skin.
The day he returned to find her gone, he just shrugged and returned to his room, all too aware of the eyes watching him and waiting for his reaction. He never asked, but he listened carefully, and slowly pieced together a picture he didn’t want to see.
She wasn’t supposed to be part of the battalion that had been sent into battle, but somehow her name had been added to the fight, and he imagined her pride wouldn’t allow her to step down, to question the decision. Working with a large group of Marines she would never have even met before, but he knew she’d take that in stride.
What couldn’t be ignored was the hopelessness of it, and they all must have known that. An island overrun by pirates, locals slaughtered, men and women and children alike, and a whole fleet should have been dispatched. They had the rough numbers, they knew what they were up against, and yet the Marines gathered and sent out represented only a fraction of the pirates’ total number.
It wasn’t justice, it was suicide, orchestrated by men who rarely ventured from their offices and treated soldiers’ lives like playthings.
Smoker kept his disgust to himself, and acted no differently where he could be seen, but privately he allowed himself to think of her in those few moments rage and frustration didn’t feel as though they might devour him whole.
He found out her fate quite by accident.
She had survived somehow, and had returned to her home village. The idea of her living and yet not returning to his side filled him with a feeling of dread he couldn’t shake for days, because he knew her, understood her, and could only imagine her reason for discharging herself being a crippling injury, or something equally terrible.
He learned the name of her home, committed it to memory, so that he could never find himself visiting by accident. She would not want him to see her injured or in pain, she would not want him to see her weakness, and Smoker’s life and his career continued, and he allowed his memories of her to grow hazy, and never again let her name roll across his tongue.
