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highvern · 1 year ago

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Heart of the Sea

Pairing: Jeon Wonwoo x fem!reader

Genre: angst, romance, adventure, pirate!au, royalty!au

Content Warnings: weapons, graphic depictions of violence, blood, mentions of drowning, prostitution, depictions of parental abuse, torture, drugging, alcohol, death, eventual smut, unhealthy relationship dynamics/toxicity, they're pirates and not the peter pan silly goofy kind.

reader warnings: reader has breasts, long hair but i try not to describe more than length, she/her pronouns, and referred to as "princess"

Length: ~22k

Note: ITS FINALLY HERE!! longest fic I've ever written. my pride and joy. this is a dark fic and i tried to make the warnings as clear as possible. the romance is a slow burn. please do not interact if you may be triggered! take care of yourself first!

extra warning: MINORS DNI! 18+ ONLY! You will be hard blocked!

read more here

Old Friends

Salt water on the stale air caresses your senses awake, rousing you from your deep slumber as the gentle rocking of the tide tempts you to return to its depths. In the belly of the ship, only the gentle flame of an oil lantern hanging from the ceiling illuminates the dark closet you call your room. Just wide enough that your palms lay flat against each wall when your arms are extended, deep enough to hang a hammock for restless dozes through the night.

Something is wrong.

A ship full of thieves, criminals, and other degenerates never quiets to an eerie silence such as this. The lap of the ocean at the wooden sides of the vessel drowns most noise but she seldom comes away with a clean sweep like she does currently.

Something is very very wrong.

Twisting out of the hammock, your feet hit the floor with a slash. The black oily surface of water reflects in the dim light, consuming the entirety of your boots, soaking up to the middle of your shins. A quick survey of your space shows your only possession, a small leather trunk, bobbing in the corner.

The real prizes decorate your figure. Daggers tucked in their sheaths, littering their usual hiding places: one tucked under each cuff of your shirt, the largest one strapped to your thigh, one in the lining of each boot, and several strapped to the leather belt across your chest. Your revolver sits on your hip, golden neck polished, loaded like you left it before dozing off.

The door to this room is one of the few that sits less than an inch off the ground. Meaning the water in here is likely nothing compared to what's beyond the thick piece of wood. You need to get out of here. Out of this room and out to the deck.

Steadying yourself, you plant your feet in a fighting stance, preparing for the force that will race in once the door opens. Barely a turn of the knob, a click of the latch and the door is blown wide; smacking into the wall behind as the sea rushes in, informing you that the water beyond is up to your thigh as it threatens to knock you off your feet.

The worn wood of the threshold threatens to rip your nails as you hold on for dear life. If you fall into the flood, it's over. You won’t be able to get back up, crushed under the weight of the ocean’s will. It's the first thing you learn on a ship: the sea takes and takes and she doesn’t return what she’s claimed no matter how much you plead. And if you do get away, she’ll come to collect eventually.

Arms straining and thighs burning, you force forward against the onslaught. By the time you exit the confines of your room , the water is at your chest. Caressing your collar bones, lapping at your neck like a crude noose. The jostle of your movement claps waves into your face.

I’ve got you now. The sea whispers. Finally ran out of borrowed time, little bird.

Salt water burns your nose with each bob of your head as you work towards the stairs leading up and out. The tang floods your mouth, pooling in the back of your throat; choking you, silencing your scream for help.

Give up. The seductive voice purrs in your ear. Come to me. Let me give you oblivion.

When the ocean finds home in your lungs, you let her take what she’s owed.

A knife to the throat is a less than friendly way to greet your second but Wonwoo should have expected it. His mistake for standing too close to wake his captain.

Wild eyes stare up at him, cataloging his features as the cool metal point pinches his airway. Sharp eyes, firm mouth, scar from temple to chin. He doesn’t flinch as you press a little firmer, forcing the dagger into the pale skin of his neck. Finally, safe triggers in your head.

Still, it takes a few seconds before your muscles relax enough to let you retract the small piece of steel.

“You’re needed on the deck.”

A shuddered breath is all the response he gets before you wave him out.

Wonwoo refuses to move, pointed gaze burning yours.

“Handle it.” You bark.

“Told me not to make deals in your name.”

That peaks your interest.

“Who is it?”

“Stragglers from a sinking ship.” He reports. “Seokmin pulled them from the wreckage.”

“Of course he did.”

If Wonwoo was a stupider man he’d mistake the exasperation in your tone for fondness. But he’s not. If Seokmin was less valuable then his ass would have been at the bottom of the sea months ago. But the strikes against him are stacking higher and higher, and your goodwill is running out.

Today, you’re in one of your better moods. Seokmin will probably end up back in the wreckage with the sorry sailors he saved if none of them prove to be of any use. That is, if you let them take a breath after finding out just who exactly is standing above you.

“What colors?”

Their allegiance. The flag had been long gone by the time the three men were pulled from the chilly depths. But the brands on their necks tell it just the same. A circle with a vertical line through the middle.

“Krakens.”

You're out of your bed and up the stairs before Wonwoo can blink.

Face cold as the winter wind that screams from the north, you hone in on your target the second you're in the daylight. Seokmin doesn’t see it coming as you round on him. The brass knuckles swirling around your fingers rips a sizable gash across his cheek as the crack of your hand rings out, silencing your audience.

He falls to his knees as his own hands move to protect his face, a pained “Fuck!” leaving his lips.

“You’re lucky I don't shoot you!” You spit, lips curled and teeth bared.

Garnet blood dripping from his chin to the wooden planks only furthers your disdain for the man in front of you. The gun on your hip sings like a siren but you have bigger problems to deal with. Seokmin won’t get the bullet with his name engraved on it today but tonight he should pray to whatever powers be that it finds another target first.

Whirling to the three strangers backed against the main mast, you eye them up and down. Wonwoo was right to wake you, because looking you in the eye with a shit eating grin is the demon you’ve been avoiding for years. The reason for your nightmares. The reason for the lump of hardened charcoal where a beating heart should be.

“Miss me?” he smirks.

In a flash, the revolver is in your hand. The shot hits dead center of the scant inches between his feet, smoke rising from the hole embedded in the surface of the deck. Whisps still rise from the muzzle of the gun as you cock the second bullet and raise your arm to aim for his heart.

His cocky facade slips for a fraction of a second, but it pulls the infamous bloodthirsty smile to your lips.

“You’re a dead man, Jeonghan.”

The hesitant rap at the door rips your attention away from the creased parchment sprawled across your desk. Tallies of loots, debts, bribes, and more litter the ledger in tight neat script; providing nothing more than a swelling vein throbbing across your temple.

“Come in.” You beckon, eyes glued to your ledger.

Tracking his movements in your peripheral, Seokmin’s entire presence screams terror. He doesn’t dare look up when he cracks the door to your office open, barely enough for him to slip inside. Even the click of the latch is silent as he shuts it, releasing the twisted knob once it’s back home; attempting to make himself as small as possible, like a mouse trying to escape a snake’s nest. He knows it’s judgment day and he’s been found wanting. The weight of his sentence hangs around his heart where he just might find a bullet in the next few minutes.

“Sit.”

He isn’t a horrible crew member. Bad pirate? Absolutely. But he’s loyal as they come, works hard as anyone else with something to prove to the world.

Seokmin was a farmer's son. One of several and the last in line to inherit any crumb of wealth his family could ever offer. At least that's what he told everyone. On the Hydra, a person’s story was their own. You didn’t care who they were before they inked their loyalty onto the base of their skull, just that no one would come for them with a debt to settle while aboard your ship.

The farm hardened his body but his heart was soft as wax under a flame. In spite of the obvious flaw, it’s why he’s the best at collecting information. Pure face and a familiar warmth, naivety rolling off him in waves. A few cheap secrets swimming out his mouth, misinformed beliefs regarding the way the world worked spoken a little too loud and viola! Some fool would step up to the plate to correct him, spilling their guts on the table just before Seokmin’s knife spilled them on the floor.

Despite what he cost you in sanity, he’d been worth his weight in gold when it came to finding leads on loose lips. Sometimes even loose legs. The women at brothels adamantly refused to take the coin you padded his pocket with. Always sending him back hours later than expected with the familiar jingle of a full purse and an unmistakable swagger in his step. You swear the velvet pocket is sometimes heavier than when it left.

You deliberately drag your gaze up to Seokmin’s face, unhurried in pace, blinking lazily, almost sleepy. Jaw relaxed, and shoulders loose; your entire posture screams threat. Each of your crew needed a different captain when it came to reprimands. Soonyoung, eager to please and prove, suffered most with silent dismissals. Jihoon, the rare times he earned your ire, only responded to direct threats.

Seokmin’s master and executioner was guilt.

“Do you know how Wonwoo got his scar?”

Schooling your face into a neutral expression, you wait for his response. Providing nothing, refusing to allow him comfort in this moment.

Seokmin doesn’t raise his gaze from his worn leather boots as he mumbles, “No.”

“It was my fault.” You share, picking your nails as the weight of your admission settles. “I thought I was helping a kid escape some cons. Told her she could follow us to town but after that, she was on her own. Turns out she was leading us into a deathtrap. One of her little gang took a swing at Wonwoo’s face and almost took his eye with him. Luckily, Wonwoo got him first.”

Apparently, this was one of the rare instances Seokmin had the sense to stay quiet.

“He’d thought it was a bad idea, but I tried to help her anyway. Didn’t listen to his advice that some things need to be left to the fates.”

Standing from your desk, you snag the bottle of whiskey resting on the cluttered bookshelf behind you. One of the few luxuries you afford yourself. Pouring two glasses, you slide one across your desk to the frightened man before continuing.

“I didn’t listen, and he got hurt.” Your tone so sharp it bites with blood stained teeth. “Wonwoo almost lost his eye, Min. Tell me, what kind of shooter would he be with one eye?”

“Not a very useful one?”

“Just about as useful as a spy you’d be without your tongue.”

Seokmin’s pale face balks at the implication. Hands wringing in his lap, you think he might piss himself.

“I’m not in the business of charity so I say this once: pull another stunt like you did today, and I’ll have Shua make you wish I killed you this morning.” Sitting back into the ancient leather chair, you jut your chin hauntingly. “Understand?”

“Yes, captain.”

“Get out.”

The door clicks shut before your next breath.

Your head drops with a heavy thud against the wooden trim of your seat, eyes sliding shut. Holding the stretch of your lungs as you inhale, attempting to do the same to the stiff muscles corded around your shoulders as a squeak alerts you to a new presence.

“That went well.”

You don’t have the patience for Wonwoo's taunting tonight.

Sprawling in the now abandoned chair, he leisurely sips at Seokmin’s untouched glass of amber liquor before speaking again..

“I didn't almost lose my eye.”

“I fail to see how that's of importance.”

“Too many rumors flying around means someone will eventually ask for the truth.”

“Do let me know when they approach you, I’d pay good money to watch you stutter your way through the story.”

In truth, Wonwoo’s trademark scar came as the result of too much lager and a very short pier. You both were still fresh as spring lambs to the cruel world beyond the high walls of the marble palace, but quickly figured that anything you could use to your advantage needed exhaustion. The rumors you’ve stirred up around the jagged silver mark spanning half his face granted him a reputation beyond the edges of the ship, carried further by those who managed to escape your wrath.

Legends across the seas of the Viper’s second painted a terrifying character. Wonwoo’s quiet nature and intimidating features served to fan the flames further. He was mean with a blade, even meaner with a gun. Only those with a deathwish knowingly went toe to toe with him. Those unfortunate enough to cross his mark were dead before they could even hear the cock of the pistol.

When Wonwoo doesn’t answer, you continue. “If anything, you should be thanking me.”

“Oh?”

“How many fights have you gotten in since I started telling people your scar was because you made a deal with a daemon?”

“Several.”

“Which is certainly less than otherwise.”

“Certainly.”

“And I don’t even get a thank you.”

“Thank you, Your Grace.” He grovels, cocking his head forward.

“I’m not in the mood for your poor humor.”

“You seemed to be generous with Seokmin.”

Knocking back the remnants of your cup before pouring another drink, you respond. “When he fucks up and I let Shua cut him to a million pieces he’ll see generous as I am, I’m good on my threats.”

That’s why they called you the Viper. Lethal. Calculating. Even when things don’t appear to be in your favor, luck seems to find you as a friend. Everything could be a lesson or another method for you to strengthen your alliances.

Even Seokmin’s fatal mistake of pulling Jeonghan on board would serve a purpose.

“Speaking of threats. What are we doing with those Krakens?”

“Eager to take a swing?” You jest, ignoring the sheen clinging to his lips.

“I have no interest in hearing them screaming at all hours for the next week. Kill Jeonghan, dump the other two and let the sharks claim them.”

“But then Jeonghan won’t see how we greet old friends. The other two are insurance.”

There isn’t enough time in the universe for you to deal Jeonghan what you owe him. The hunger to see him suffer would have terrified you in a past life. Even the hit on Seokmin this morning came with a swallowed trickle of sympathy after your rage cooled to a smolder, but no room for regret on the sea. Strike first and strike hard. You’ll pay for it all in the end and guilt wouldn’t spare you.

But what grows in you now isn’t concerned with what you’ll face on the other side of the light. The poison you’ve collected in your veins for years pleads for the chance to fruit in his blood and stop his cold heart.

“You think he cares that much?”

“He’s captain, they’re his crew.”

“So you’d squirm if Seokmin got under the knife?”

“Ask me in a few days.”

Silence finds the space between you like a familiar companion. Wonwoo is the last piece of home you have. You’d grown up together, run away together. Found each other again and again, no matter how long you ended up separated. A friend like him was difficult to come by when everyone had a price. Wonwoo’s turned out to be too high to ever hang you out to dry, and you the same.

“Tell Jihoon I want us at port by midday tomorrow.”

A humorless breath leaves his nose, “Oh, he’ll be thrilled.”

“I don’t pay him to be happy, I pay him to get my ship where I want it to go.”

You’re snappier than usual. The fury you feed in front of the crew protects you from the whispers and speculations. You’d won the vote fair and square when your processor had been ousted, a man nothing more than a relic from the old days, lazy and more than willing to let others do his dirty work while he soaked in riches. You’d sewed patches of discontent after years spent aboard, earning favors and friends along the way, mastering every job to be done on the once dingy ship.

Tentative friendships were easily gained, but respect? Respect was on the bidding block everyday. It wasn’t enough to stain your hands whenever needed; the price for respect was razored words and padded pockets.

Unfortunately, Wonwoo earned his fair share of both.

“When we get to the pier, we’re dropping Chan.”

“What?” Now anger heats his tongue.

“He’s not making progress.”

“Guns take time.”

“I've got enough mediocre gunslingers, I don’t need another.” Your focus is on the parchment again, searching for the cost the youngest member of your crew is having you foot. “He’s wasting ammunition and gunpowder as if it falls from the sky.”

“No.”

Occasionally Wonwoo argued with you, pressed you to see different perspectives but rarely did he disagree completely. Even more rare was flat out refusal.

“Pardon?”

“We’re not dropping Chan. He’s better than Vernon, and better than I was when I’d been doing it as long as he has.”

Your eyes slink to his, slow and purposeful. A lioness toying with her prey, gaze sharp as the knife you raised to his throat earlier that morning. Head tilting to the side, you open your mouth with a venomous smile.

“So when he catches up, I drop you?”

The threat is empty as the decanter perched on your desk, but there is always a sliver of Wonwoo’s heart that freezes at the possibility you’ll make good on it.

“You’ll never drop me.”

“After today, I might.”

The charade drops in an instant. Eyes closing once again, you scrub your face until stars burst against the black backdrop of your lids.

Nights like these rip open the place in your mind that rains endless questions. What if you remained in your little piece of the world? What if you accepted the frilly dress and silly parties? Allowed your father to make your marriage match as he saw fit for his own gains, a marriage to the cold Duke of Nas-Shost’s son or one of the brutish princes of Uspar. Perhaps you’d only be subjected to the violence of one man rather than dozens. Certainly there'd be less blood, fewer scars climbing your body like grotesque ivy. The warm arms of lavish life would embrace you, dull your mind till you were pliant as your peers. Produce babe after babe for whatever loveless man you’d been bound to, allowing nannies and wet nurses to care for your children while you indulged in cards and gossip like your mother.

Destined to be a mirror image of her dreamy smiles and distant eyes. A glance at your mother’s face showed her spirit miles away, blissful nothingness constantly clouded her features. Perhaps it was her own method of surviving your father.

She mindlessly prattled in the few hours you spent with her as a child, typically spewing tattles of the neighbors and other society ladies as if it was of great importance. Laughing at her own quips and snarks that you couldn’t quite grasp the humor of. Only one conversation of substance ever occurred amongst dainty tea cups and porcelain plates of biscuits and cake.

During one of the numerous lessons with your pious governess, Madam Atina, a hunched woman with a face like an old leather satchel; she’d hauntingly informed you everyone was born in the world with a cardinal flaw sealed in their soul. You’d run right to your mother, sharing the new knowledge with electrifying excitement. Her jeweled fingers brushed your hair as you sat in her lap, recalling the seven faults like it was an examination.

Your governess is right. She smiled.

What’s father’s? Pride. And yours? Envy. And me? You, my little bird, were born greedy as they come.

Barely seven at the time, you squealed as her fingers tickled your ribs, joyously unaware she bared your deepest secret so easily. But now, you understood why she always had a heavier hand in your upbringing than she had in your older sisters’.

From the moment you left the womb, you’d wanted. Even with every luxury available, any whim granted, you’d always been greedy for a different sort of satisfaction. A different life. What use was having anything if you needed the approval of another to get it? Even as a child you’d resented the way your father had the final say on your mother’s choices. On your sisters’. On yours.

Imagination taking you to the stables every morning, pulling the shy stable boy from his chores to appease your need for a new identity. Finding freedom in the far edges of the palace gardens, pretending you were soldiers on the front line between roses, using the bushes as cover before shooting make believe pistols at a fictitious enemy. Or two warring monarchs set to duel, branches becoming gilded swords as the day lilies provided their rapt attention. Sometimes you played pirates, forcing each other to walk the plank before breaking into maniacal giggles at the ridiculous accents you donned by the crystal lake.

The garden’s behind the estate remained a stage until your mother had you moved out of the nursery at twelve and into a private room down the hall to prepare you for balls and parties. New lady’s maids combed your hair up and tailored the hem of your dress down to brush the ground, signaling to everyone in court you were now of age. And then you were tasked with mastering a new kind of performance. The type that ends with your hands, neck, and crown covered in diamonds and your name on a contract to the highest bidder.

You and Wonwoo didn’t play anymore after that.

But now, even as misery loomed like a cloud over your head, at least you were alive with the knowledge that you created your own destiny. Now, the entire world is your stage, the gods your audience.

Wonwoo crosses to the door with a few long strides, the shuffle of his feet intentional to alert you to his movement.

“Make sure Hoshi checks on Seokmin. Don’t need his face getting infected.” You mumble into your glass, attention on the flame jumping from the black candle to the left of your desk. “And no food for our guests.”

“How long?”

“Three days, longer if they start fighting. Only enough water for them to stay alive.”

Wonwoo’s exit is silent but his absence prickles the back of your neck, threatening to rip you to shreds. You try to focus on the pop and crack of the fire burning in the hearth across the room. How your throat burns raw with another swig of booze. Even the habitual press of your thumb across the silken abalone handle of your revolver does nothing to numb the world inside your head.

Waves crash below the windows of your office as you cut through the endless sea, pounding surf singing their nightly hymn of the souls you’ve banished from this world. The haunting tune echoes louder with the knowledge that their master is shackled in the belly of your ship. An atonal ballad filled with the ghostly rattle of the chains crossed around his wrists and throat.

Ventparsk

Sunlight glares from the vast waves, the harsh beams attempting to blind you, as an infinite blue sky supplies nary a cloud of reprieve from its brutal warmth. You’d never speak ill of a scarce blessing such as the weather of today. Glittering open sea as far as the eye could see, not a single blip in sight save for the dark mountain rising from the horizon.

Your crew has stripped their torsos down to their scarred and inked skin, only keeping the dignity of pants as they trudge back and forth below your watch from the quarterdeck. Braving the threat of a scarlett backside rather than risk fainting over the sides of the ship and into the depths. The roughspun linen of your undershirt tears across your skin as wind breathes and snaps into the white sails above, propelling the vessel closer to the crowded harbor of Ventparsk.

Weeks at sea had depleted the stock of provisions and riled the crew. Only so much entertainment to be had when surrounded by nothing but endless ocean and air. Even you found the monotony of the days tiresome despite the never ending responsibilities of being captain. Drinking and merriment kept everyone content enough, card games as well before Soonyoung inevitably ran his mouth directly into someone’s fists. He might have maintained a tight ship under your command but when everyone gathered at night to loosen their limbs and cheer their minds, a hit on Soonyoung was fair play. Sometimes encouraged.

But the typical vices were no longer keeping their grumbles quelled. The gash on Seokmin’s cheek only fanned the flames higher. It was understood why you dealt him that hand, but their fondness for the newer member of your crew bred unconscious resentment. You’re not a physician but even you knew if you let the disease of discontent fester, it’ll kill the entire body.

The cure was simple enough. A few days wreaking havoc across dank gambling dens, cramped taverns, and numerous brothels in the great pleasure city would easily alleviate the tension rankling on board. Ventparsk opens its doors like an old friend to anyone with a few coins in their purse and your latest voyage ensured each of your crew would be welcomed like an emperor.

Ventparsk marina is a hodgepodge of every style ship and boat imaginable. Steel military ships from the cold north of Uspar tower above humble longships no doubt belonging to eastern traders of Truyso. Even oared ships from the dark days speckle through the thick rows of docks, Proera’s trademark. Your ship resembles one of the military fleet from Nas-Shost, swift and agile unlike the large square-rigged ships flying the blue and silver of the Islearain navy visible on the opposite end of the marina.

A cacophony of colors sail high above. The privateers and pirates aren’t stupid enough to announce their colors so boldly, but the armies foam at the mouth for a chance to intimidate the easily impressed. Amongst the other sheets flying in the wind, you recognize ally as well as foe. The sullen gray of the Usparian army here, a sheet rich maroon from Proera’s northern waters there. A rare flash of orange announces the Gulls, a band of Shostian mercenaries, are a long way from home. Even the maroon flag of the Seven Sirens flies high. If the Krakens had a ship to sail, the royal purple complete with a white circle and vertical slash would snap in the wind above all others. Cockiness bordering on stupidity, a bold challenge to anyone willing to follow them out of the harbor borders. But that tacky piece of cotton had been returned to the depths of the sea, finally resting where a Leviathan belongs.

The lush green flag with a golden ouroboros is hidden in the navigation room of the Hydra, far away from any prying eyes that may look your way. Men may be eager to have a public pissing contest, but you appreciated the fine art of minding your own business. The element of surprise and stealth could never be undervalued, only underappreciated.

The hodgepodge of pirate crews, merchants, and soldiers neighboring one another along the decrepit docks only exist in the assumed neutrality of the city. If you’re caught fighting in Ventparsk, breaking the delicate truce that exists within its borders, there is no trial. Your entire crew is sentenced to hang as gull food above the gate that separates the docks from the city; staked with an iron rod through one end and out the other. And anyone is willing to sell out those that defy the rules, eager to abide by the code for the guarantee of a good time without the cold sweat of a knife to the back.

After securing the Hydra, a portly man with watery eyes and a thick mustache waddles aboard. The worn olive green of his wrinkled uniform means he’s the customs master of this section of the marina.

He sidles up to Wonwoo, assuming his status of captain based on who can say what. Frustration lights a flame to simmer your blood, but it's better this way. The old men who run the ports won’t respond to a female captain, and if they do they’ll rip you off before finding a reason to banish you back to the open water.

“Cargo?”

“Nothing to sell.”

“Crew?”

“20.”

“Captives?”

“No, sir.”

“What’s the purpose of your visit?”

Wonwoo gives a lazy charming smile, “Just some men looking to enjoy the unique pleasures your lovely city has to offer.”

“Seems like you have something already on board.”

The desire to send a bullet through his skull swells riots but you reign her in. Last thing you need is to get your crew barred from the island city. Wonwoo would kill you himself.

Ignoring his comment, Wonwoo tosses the bag of coins at the officer. The old man fumbles to catch them but his assistant, a nimble tawny skinned boy who can’t be more than eleven, snags the jumbling coins before they hit the deck. In silence, they count and mark the toll in their book before smiling at the crew.

“Welcome to Ventparsk.”

You’ve tasked Wonwoo and his first mate, Seungkwan, with stocking up at the trading post. The younger man could barter with anyone and you only trust Wonwoo with the extra store of coins. It’ll take them the better part of the day to haul the crates down the docks and oversee the other crew organize them in the hold.

The night crew remains on board, dozing in hammocks strung between heavy cannons below deck in the berth to avoid the blaring sun. Jihoon remains on the quarterdeck, straw hat tucked low to cover his eyes; content to stay in his corner of the ship while others explore, never one to be tempted by the pleasure houses or bidding halls. The rest of the crew looks at him with pity for not lacking the desire to hand over his time to the intoxicating pulse of the city, but you know better.

Back home, Jihoon has a lady. He hasn’t seen her in years but sends her a stiff share of his wage at the end of every job. The few letters he’s received during his time on your ship are kept in a wooden cigar box tucked under scrolls of parchment in the navigation room just above your own quarters. You’re only aware because the box was stashed with an abandoned codex you’d needed regarding the islands dappling the eastern waters of Truyso. In haste, the small wooden trunk clunked to the floor, spilling several envelopes stamped with a teal wax seal. Skimming the first few words of swirling script, the woman was rather…descriptive in how much she missed him. Jihoon chose that moment to shuffle into the space, fuming as you gapped over his private collection of personalized smut.

Leaving the treasure of your heart in his capable hands, you stride through the rusted iron gate welcoming you to the much tamer southern district of Ventparsk.

Rickety buildings line the streets, each advertising their services. Thick crowds bubble out of rowdy taverns and into the street, patrons unashamed to imbibe so heavily under the midday sun. The mismatched symphony of music pouring from open windows and crevices in the slats to greet them, seduce them back inside. Scantily clad brothel workers curl around banisters and press out windows, beckoning customers with a curl of a finger and twitch of the lips. The independents work hard to lure those with less pocket change to the shaded alleyways for a quick tryst against the dirty walls. Perched on the corners of cross streets, conmen rob those stupid enough to get tangled in their cheap card tricks.

The kid pressing past you barely makes it a foot before you snatch their wrist in an iron grip. Whipping the little pickpocket back to your person, you twist their arm at an angle that’ll force it to break if they so much as breathe the wrong way. Anyone looking, and no one does, will see a dotting sister ushering their younger sibling through the crush of the crowd.

“Where I’m from, thieves lose their hands.” You snarl down at the grubby face glaring up at you.

“I didn’t take anything!” She cries, voice thick with faux tears under the tattered hood of her cloak.

Your other hand reaches into her pocket to retrieve the polished silver dagger usually kept strapped to your side, flicking it into view between you. The cheap piece of steel was worth next to nothing. Best way to keep your coin is to let a thief think they bested you by giving them an easy target, too hard to resist.

“Liars lose their tongues.”

The fury at being caught brands her features. She’s barely skin and bones, moth eaten velvet cloak weighing more than her but blazing in her eyes is fire. The same fire that burned in your own as you learned the ways of the streets when you’d first left the cushion of your father’s kingdom.

If you rat her out to the city guard she’ll be used as fish food. Or worse, one of the brothels will bid on her bond.

“Next time you wanna lift something, think about why it’s so easy before letting your hands get sticky.”

Retching her hand away, you brush her to the side, refusing to look at her face as you slip back into the crowd. She’ll find the coin you slipped in her pocket quick enough.

Each room of the Lion’s Den is draped in tacky swatches of gold and all variations of red. In this particular keep, a plush mattress is perched in front of the blazing fireplace. The garnet velvet bedspread trimmed with gold tassels clashes with the blush pillow cases, both jarring against the white oak bed frame and sheets of pale silk floating down from the bars. But the design of the room interests Wonwoo far less than the woman who inhabits it.

“How’s our little friend?” Yeseul calls over her shoulder.

She’s perched at her vanity, using the light of an oil lantern to carefully fix the greasy smudges of red staining her lips. Wonwoo isn’t sure why she’s bothering with it. He’s paid for the entire night, she might as well remove wretched stuff. Laying back in the satin sheets of her bed, he lets one arm prop up his head as he watches the woman he’s visited for years tsk over her reflection. The swirl of smokey incense hazing her figure.

Yeseul was a few years older than he, versed in the ways of the world and determined to educate the once bright eyed boy he’d been. She’d imparted him with the knowledge of how to pleasure a woman even though he’d only fallen into bed with one other person. Taught the value of secrets in this world. Most importantly, Yeseul was the one who let Wonwoo know that the desire and devotion he feels towards Y/N was love, not just friendship.

“As pleasant as a spring breeze.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Wonwoo.”

“That gunk doesn’t suit you either but I settle for it.”

“You don’t pay enough for me to remove it.”

“And that’s my fault? You try to send me back with half every time I visit.”

“You’re more of a friend than a customer at this point.”

“You’re growing soft.”

“Mingyu says the same.”

“He wrote you?”

“Bribed a guard to get a letter out. Probably had to bribe him to write it too since he never learned to read.”

Wonwoo doesn’t ask if Mingyu will get out of the Iron Isle. Even with the guarantee of a fair trial, it takes years, sometimes decades. More men die waiting than in the gallows at the base of the prison.

Yeseul isn’t a fool but she is a romantic. Consumed too many novels where ill suited love wins over all and anyone can be together if they just believe it. All wrapped up in a couple hundred pages. Her way of dealing with the ugly truths of the world. Yeseul is chained to the Lion’s Den the same way her lover is chained in prison. The same way Wonwoo’s heart will always be chained to his princess. Useless in hoping to be free.

“But she’s well?”

“A stretch of the word but I guess as content as she can be.”

“So you still haven’t told her.”

“If I was, do you think she’d allow me to run to your bed?”

“With how quiet you were earlier, I assumed it went poorly.”

“It would go poorly. Especially now.”

“Perhaps it's best to give her time.”

Wonwoo knows time isn’t what she needs. The only hope for anything beyond swift rejection would be a miracle performed by the gods themselves. If he were a smarter man, a stronger man, he’d stay away. Wouldn’t submit himself to the torture of her presence, her trust and reliance. But he’s not. Wonwoo is weak in all the ways it matters when it comes to Y/N. Ever since she walked into the stables when they’d both were barely knee high and demanded he submit himself to her friendship. He’s listened to every command since.

Few things in the world were certain but the one constant Wonwoo relied on was the sure way to lose Y/N was giving himself permission to want. Want her the way he has since they were teenagers, running away from curses of her father and his servitude and towards the unknown. Since she’d pulled him down into the hay in that dilapidated barn after too many swigs of the wine swiped from a merchant stall. Wonwoo never saw the smile she’d flashed him that night again. Bright and hopeful, a little shy as he covered her mouth with his own. Now the only stretch of Y/N’s lips carried a coldness, the gleam of teeth sadistic and sinister.

Hope is a fragile thing. Like a blooming spring flower just before the last frost, or a house of cards. Delicate. It has no place in this world he’s landed in. So Wonwoo doesn’t let himself hope for a chance to be free of the love in his heart. Accepts that in this life, there was never a chance for him to have Y/N the way he wants. Because the way he wants her fundamentally opposes who she is.

So Wonwoo allows himself the memories of before. Before they became Serpents, matching stains of ink at the base of their skulls. Before Jeonghan snatched her away; the scars marring her body nothing compared to what he’d done to her mind. Before Y/N found her way back, to him, to the crew, to the world of the living.

Memories of the palace and her uncanny talent for finding him wherever he was on the grounds. The way she snatched him away from whatever task he’d been charged with to play her silly games, allowing him to be a boy instead of an indenture. How she snuck into the servants quarters and into his bed the night Jeonghan finally came to visit the kingdom. When she called him her friend for the first time. When she’d let Wonwoo hold her to his chest, warming them both against the frigid air after laying each other bare.

“Time won’t change anything.”

Wonwoo can never have anything more than what he has now. So he settles his heart at Y/N’s feet, and lets his body find distraction in another.

Always privy to his moods, Yeseul crosses back to where he lies. Perching herself in his lap, her ebony robe splits open to show the creamy skin of her stomach, the soft swell of her breast peeking out from behind honey waves of her hair, long neck split with the ruby choker all girls at this pleasure house wear.

Maybe in another life, Wonwoo would still be a stablehand. In that life, Y/N would have married Jeonghan and the childhood friendship between a stable boy and the youngest princess of Iaslera was nothing but forgotten memories.

Yeseul’s finger traces from his lips to his chin, following the dip of his scar to his ear. It had taken him years to stop flinching when someone touched it, the sting of that rusted blade still haunting him. When her nail scrapes the hollow of his throat, Wonwoo shivers for an entirely new reason.

Flipping her beneath him, Yeseul’s flit of laughter tickles Wonwoo’s lips as he claims her mouth.

“Another.” You beckon the woman behind the mahogany counter, tilting your empty cup her way.

“What’s a lady like you doing in a place like this?” A disconnected voice murmurs too close to your ear, a waft of booze and snuff slipping around your cheek.

Rolling your eyes, the same dagger the orphan girl tried to claim is in your hand and pressed to the soft wood in a second. The presence behind you disappears when it catches the lantern light.

The Twin Star is one of the better taverns in this part of the city. Drinks are cheap enough, other patrons keep their heads down and the barmaids tend to turn a blind eye when one needs to implement less than friendly means to ward off drunkards.

“Keep it up and I’ll have to cut you off.” Inri snarks but fills your cup with brandy all the same.

“You’re a cruel woman.” You mutter, cradling the cool glass to your chest.

“They say the same about you.”

“I’m flattered.” you mumble with a mock salute, loopy smile splitting your mouth.

She leaves you with a sigh. You’ve been here all afternoon, hoping to drown your dread at the bottom of a bottle. So far, you’re failing.

For the first time in years, you have no desire to return to your beloved vessel. The warm fondness for the Hydra replaced with frigid unease. A drunken stupor is the perfect excuse not to go back, at least for the night. Even with the unbending laws of the island, an unaccompanied woman roaming the streets of Ventparsk was unlikely to make ten paces before she ended up pushed into an alley. One under the influence of several hefty pours of whiskey might make five if she’s lucky.

“There’s my favorite captain.”

You’re in no mood for company. Soonyoung must have been born under unlucky stars.

“Can a woman not enjoy a drink in peace?”

He’s in the chair next to you before you can object, signaling Inri to bring him a glass as well.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you this drunk before.”

“What are you doing here, Hosh?”

Soonyoung has the courtesy to look bashful. Just down the street is the theater you know he favors, the Temple, with dark mahogany walls and swaths of dark blue silk curtains hiding what takes place beyond the doors. The shanty building housed dozens of artists, dancers, and singers. Acrobats and fire tamers. Entertainers and actors. He had been one of them before you'd lured him away with promises of adventure and riches unknown to a poor merchant’s son. Everytime you stop at the isle he walks right back home to greet his brothers and sisters.

“In the neighborhood.”

“Your family?”

“My ma is finally speaking to me.” He lights up. “Something about a fortune teller telling her to let go of old grudges or some other nonsense. But my sister is starting to do high ropes without a net! And my younger brother, San, he’s gotten better with the knife throwing and—

Soonyoung continues to ramble as you tuck your smile into your cup. At least one person has a good relationship with their family. If someone asked, you couldn’t confidently say which of your sisters were still breathing; only aware your mother and father were alive from the whispers of Iaslerian merchants complaining about royal levies to pay for the queen’s jewels.

“One of the younger kids showed me some slight of hand with a coin and it looked alot like the ones we lifted from those traders in Uspar.”

Swallowing a mouth full of liquor you stay quiet. The little bastard just had to be one of Soonyoung’s kin because why not? The gods had a strange sense of humor.

“Strange.”

“I thought so too. Probably just a coincidence.”

“Probably.”

“Would my captain do me the honor of escorting her back to the ship?”

Pointedly ignoring the knowing smile Soonyoung flashes, you take the arm he offers.

Nightmares

The three days in Ventparsk pass quickly. More booze, a tumble with a nameless man at the Winter Garden, and enough snuff to kill a horse provides a blissful mindless haze. You even managed a quick scrub down at one of the bath houses. Soaking in the heated tub for hours, muscles loose and pliant from the herbal steam and hot stones. Jeonghan’s rotting body in the moldy damp brig of the Hydra is nearly forgotten.

Nearly.

Dreams always have a way of reminding us of the realities we wish to forget.

“You’re a dead man, Jeonghan.”

The bullet is screaming to make a home in between his ribs. Every muscle in your body pleading for the same. Sink the shot in Jeonghan’s heart and be free from him forever.

“Take them to the brig.” You instruct Jun.

“Never could just get on with it, could you?”

The next sound from Jeonghan’s mouth is a shrill scream as blood gushes from his thigh. It swirls with the sea water still dripping from his soaked clothes, scarlett inking through the growing puddle, opaque tendrils soaking into the wood.

“Shua’s gonna have fun with you.”

Finally skating on the waves of the vast ocean, you descend into hell.

The consuming stench of stagnant water and mold invades your nostrils as you transverse through the cargo hold to reach the brig. A rat squeaks as it scurries past, looking for its next meal no doubt. You loathe this part of the ship. Too deep, not enough exits, no clear path up and out. Just another gift courtesy of Jeonghan.

Three bodies hang from their hands, bound up and over their heads, feet barely brushing the ground as the sway with rhythm of the tide. Burlap bags obscure their faces but you know which lithe form belongs to him.

Shua sits at his desk, a collection of mismatched knives organized in neat lines like soldiers prepared for battle on one side. Jars of different poisons clink against one another in the wooden tray in the middle, the rainbow array of liquids each lapping at the sides of the vial for the chance to escape. On the far corner rests crude torture devices he’s collected over the years. Thorned strips of leather, several cat-o-nine-tails, and a lump of metal looking like a fruit with a knob attached at the narrow end.

The entire aura of Joshua’s corner of the ship screams anguish. A slaughterhouse for those unfortunate enough to stumble his way. It’s why no one visits him of their own volition. Not that he seems to mind, more than content to study the ways of the body than talk to one.

You take a seat across from the man dangling in the center of the room, nodding to Joshua to remove the sack from Jeonghan’s head.

Dark circles shadow his bloodshot eyes, cheeks sullen and pale, chapped lips bleeding. Nearly four days on board without food and possibly longer before they were rescued from the hunk of drift wood they’d been floating on while waiting to die has certainly done a number on him. You’d ordered Shua to provide the barest sips of water, just enough to keep them on this side of consciousness.

A metal goblet brushes against Jeonghan’s lips, urging him to tip his head back and swallow the cool liquid. Gulping down the contents without a thought, Shua refills it as fast as he can from a crystal pitcher. After a few shuddering breaths, another full cup is brought to his mouth and he downs it as well.

Idiot.

When Jeonghan eyes finally adjust to the pale light of the solitary lantern illuminating the cramped space, he sees you. Raising your chin, you know he won’t resist the opportunity to try and knock you down a peg despite his compromised position.

“Just couldn’t stay away.”

Joshua busies himself with arranging the necessary odds and ends on an empty wooden tray. He’s meticulous in his grisly craft, hands sure and perfunctory. The jostle of metal fills the room as he sets down the curated set on a stool next where you sit.

Not deigning to respond, you simply flash a sweet smile. The kind of smile a girl throws a man she wants something from, woefully out of place in the dark room you're standing in. But that’s precisely what throws Jeonghan off.

Standing, you snag one of the smaller double sided blades glimmering like a prized jewel amongst the collection. The ring at the bottom sits loosely around your pointer finger as you spin it round and round. Your steps are slow and calculated as you circle him, surveying his form from head to toe. Jeonghan is smart enough to try and keep his eyes on you but the metal collar around his neck prevents him from turning his head as you round him. Someone had the sense to remove his shirt before tying him up. Even if the shirt he came with was tattered to gossamer shreds, the fabric would find a use somewhere amongst the crew.

A clammy sheen glosses his dull skin, the ring of red around his bound wrists blistered and raw. Curls of dark hair stick to Jeonghan’s forehead and the column of his neck, matted to his scalp with sea water, sweat, and blood. A spray of dark bruises along his ribs are slowly healing, no doubt from whatever destroyed his ship. They labor his breath, his chest barely moving with the shallow swallows of air. The dark stain of blood is dried near black around the hole in his left thigh.

As you stand back in front of him, toe to toe, your gazes meet. Frigid steel tip of the dagger dips into the valley of his throat before you trace it down his sternum to the soft flesh of his belly. Muscles twitch as he clenches away from the sharp bite of the blade, freezing his breath to avoid pressing into it.

Slowly blinking you don’t turn away as you ask, “Shua, how long did you say it takes for the draught to take effect?”

“At least a few minutes, but on an empty stomach much less. He should already be feeling it start to kick in.”

“Do you Jeonghan?” Digging the knife in the soft flesh just above his naval, “Can you feel it?”

Shua had explained the effects when he brought the vial to your office. An oily concentration of some exotic herb from the deepest reaches of the Proera, tasteless with only the faintest smell of damp earth. Typically used as a mild sedative, fond amongst those looking to see beyond the veil of reality and into the curtain between worlds. But a heavy enough dose tortures whoever ingests it with terrifying visions, nightmares come to life. Not fatal in the slightest but after the walls melt and the person in front of you turns into a demon, one might wish it was. Unknowingly, Jeonghan took a large enough dose to incapacitate a third of your crew.

An emotion you never imagined he felt takes root on his face. Eyes wild as he focuses on the copper cup now sitting at the corner of Shua’s desk, before they flash back to yours. You can see his brain turning, attempting to decipher what you’ve slipped him, how long he has before entering the unknown.

Jeonghan’s shuddering breath puffs against your cheeks, a small whiff of the herbaceous tincture carried along it. His feet roughly scrape against the floor as he tries to maintain his footing, chains around his wrist and neck relaxing for a moment before pulling taunt again as his damaged leg buckles under his weight.

Jeonghan quakes with the effort to remain quiet. Even with poison flooding his veins, he clings to years of training to resist succumbing fright. But nothing has prepared him for this.

A crack in the facade spreads soon enough. Broken pleas force past gnarled lips, chest heaving as he struggles to inhale. Soon he’s nothing more than a child lost in a crowd. Frantic, panicked, desperate.

Horror consumes his face, the whites of his eyes visible as his eyebrows arch to his hairline, mouth opening to scream. Air rushes from his lungs as he wails, thrashing in his shackles without concern for the way the bitter metal rips into the flesh of his wrists and neck.

You’ve already pocketed the knife that was pressed into his stomach. No satisfaction in killing him when he’s out of his mind, but watching him descend into madness will bring its own pleasure.

“What the fuck did you do to me?”

Turning to return to your seat, he screams again, “What did you give me?”

Jeonghan’s voice is shredded and raw already.

In the corner, Shua is rapt with macabre attention. Carefully jotting down notes in his journal for later examination. If one person on the crew terrified you it was the fawn eyed man sitting next to you. Being handy with a weapon was nothing when someone knew how to destroy your spirit by barely lifting a finger, dead before you knew what happened.

You observe as Jeonghan’s expression grows distant. Fear festers along the surface, bubbling under his skin. Muscles flex and twitch painfully. Ugly fat beads well in Jeonghan’s eyes to spill down his cheeks, wads of snot dripping from his nose. Splotchy red patches bloom across his pale skin, fevered flesh prickled with goosebumps. The rusted shackles bite into his skin again and again as he attempts to shake free, nearly strangling himself in his effort. Silent pleas for relief, for mercy from whatever phantom of his subconscious haunts him now.

The two other men in the back of the room thrash in their chains as well, bashing their skulls back and forth to cast off the hoods over their heads. Frenzied as their brave captain’s curdled screams pierce their ears.

The nightmares chasing Jeonghan follow you up to your room that night.

“My little bird tried to leave the nest, did she?” Your father snarls.

The piece of cloth tied around your head doesn’t allow you to answer beyond muffled groans as you struggle.

“Perhaps I should teach you what happens when a bird leaves its cage.”

“Captain!”

You wake with a gasp, the sound of gunfire and cannons shaking your core. Jun stands in your doorway, soaked to his skin with soot covering half his face.

“Captain, we’re under attack!”

The deck is a flurry of activity. Bodies running to and fro, some headed below for the gun deck to return fire. Walls of water pour from the sky, obscuring the view beyond the corners of your ship. In the distance, flashes of light from cannons on the ship attacking yours is the only indicator of a presence beyond the moon and tide. They’re running diagonal to your port side, that much is clear. The mainsail is shredded to pieces over head, damp canvas whipping from cruel winds. The Hydra won’t outrun the ship attacking, the only end is to fight.

Scrambling to the quarterdeck, you join Jihoon at the wheel. He does his best to steer clear of enemy range, careful to maintain momentum you can’t afford to lose.

“Cut the wheel!”

“Are you crazy?”

“They’ve got too much speed, they can’t turn. Cut the damn wheel!”

Jihoon launches the wheel clockwise, shifting the rudders to turn starboard. The attacking vessel continues their path straight, unable to correct in time to cut you off as you slip behind them. But a second too late you both realize another ship lies in wait.

The second enemy ship attacks from behind, capitalizing on the attention monopolized by the first ship. The crew launches grappling hooks tangling around the Hydra’s rigging for them to swing aboard. They flood the deck like ants emerging from their hill, easily out numbering your crew.

You pick off two swiftly, bullets wedged deep in their skulls the second their feet land on the quarter deck. Rain stings your eyes, blurring your surroundings. Friend and foe indecipherable as you jump to the fray on the main deck.

Chaos runs free as blows are exchanged back and forth. It’s impossible to tell in the crowd of bodies who has fallen and who remains below deck to continue cannon fire.

Wonwoo and Soonyoung are back to back, facing off against five enemy fighters. Soonyoung nimbly dodges the swords aimed at his throat, returning his own killing blows with incredible fluidity. Charges of gunpowder sting the air as Wonwoo deals his own damage, sinking the shells into hearts and bellies before moving to the next.

Whipping around, you catch sight of Seokmin pinned down against the main mast, a giant of a man exhausting him with a sword. On reflex, you duck under a swinging arm as you charge forward. Sinking your dagger between the oaf’s shoulder blades you drag down with all your strength, ripping through the muscles tethered to his spine. The scorching gush of blood slips between your fingers, freeing the handle from your grip. Kicking out a leg, you land your foot along the back of his knee and bring him down. Over his head your eyes meet Seokmin’s. You barely catch the flash of horror on his face before the crack of a fist lands against your temple.

Blood and rain and sea water soaks the deck, nearly sending Wonwoo to his knees. The wretch of death fills his nose, sulfurous gunpowder and bile sharpening his mind. He’s surrounded on all sides, the glint of steel flashing as lightning splits the sky. The teeth of a sword split his side open from the bottom of his ribs to his navel. Wonwoo can tell the damage won’t kill him but he’ll have a hell of a time recovering. The sting only dulled by the rush of a fight flooding his veins.

Soonyoung is on his left, picking off enemies one by one, dodging the most damning blows and weaponizing their momentum to his benefit. Wonwoo would stop to watch if he wasn’t busy preserving his own life.

Pushing his way to the center of the ship, he spots the door below deck fly open; Jeonghan and the other two prisoners ushered out by a small group armed to their teeth. In the same second, Wonwoo locates Y/N in his periphery; just in time to watch her crumple from a cheap punch to her head.

Rage thunders through Wonwoo’s veins. In a flurry, he cuts his way to the main mast, prepared to kill whoever he needs to. Seokmin rips his knife out of the person who knocked Y/N out but another of the enemy crew manages to drag her body over to the side where their ship is latched to the Hydra. They rush to get her aboard their ship, sensing the change in tide of the fight behind them.

Clearly they’d been hoping to have the entire ordeal dealt with swiftly, not prepared for the force the Serpents are capable of. Minghao is already working to cut the ship away from the Hydra, nimble feet carrying him along the thin bulwark as he slashes the ropes snaring them.

Jeonghan and his cellmates are already securely on the opposite side of the gangplank, but the man holding Y/N’s body hasn’t crossed yet. If Wonwoo can provide enough of a delay, then Jihoon can get the Hydra back to the open sea.

In this moment, Wonwoo decides to commit the most ill-considered act of bravery he’s ever mustered. Launching himself on to the enemy ship, he lands with a thud on their deck, guns blazing. He’s able to pick off one, two, four crew members before they realize what’s happening. Bodies dropping to the floor around him in quick succession.

A final shot rings out before his ammunition runs dry and he switches to his dual swords strapped to his back. Wonwoo swings in wide arches, forcing his opponents back and away from the side of the ship to avoid the tips of his blades. Using the brief reprieve, he turns to kick the plank away, sending it to the crevice between ships just in time for Jihoon to tear free. Leaving his captain and her captor on the Hydra, and Wonwoo marooned with the enemy.

Saying a silent prayer, Wonwoo turns back to the crowd of what are no doubt Krakens, only managing to sink his sword's edge into one more before he’s overwhelmed.

A Tale of Two Ships

The Leviathan

“Wonwoo, Wonwoo, Wonwoo,” Jeonghan says, shaking his head. “Always running to save the princess, aren’t you?”

Standing before him, Jeonghan resembles a rotten pile of horse shite. Y/N’s torture strung him out, made him weak and unstable. Wonwoo watched the strain in his muscles, the moisture on his brow, the labor of his breath. Fresh, angry halos circle his neck and wrists, blisters drying and scabbing to an ugly assembly of yellows and browns.

With his hands shackled above his head and his feet chained to the floor, Wonwoo attempts to calm his breathing. Jeonghan wants him worked up, wants him to slip and play right into his hand.

“What she sees in you is beyond me. Bastard stable boy, with nothing to his name except a whore mother and drunk father.”

In four beats, hold four beats, out four beats, hold another four. Repeat.

“She’d sell your soul the second it became advantageous for her. You know that, right?”

In four beats, hold four beats, out four beats, hold another four. Repeat.

Wonwoo desperately tries to zone in on the lantern, to let his mind wander in the vast recesses of emptiness. Anything to spare him from the lies Jeonghan spews.

“I know you love her. Pathetic how obvious it is, Wonwoo. Reminds me of a story actually. Once upon a time, there was a stable boy who fell in love with a princess. Now the princess was clever and made the stable boy believe they were equals, friends even. Can you believe that?”

Jeonghan rounds to face Wonwoo, a sickening smirk spoiling his face.

“She knew the stable boy cared for her and would do whatever he could to protect her. So when it was time for her to stop playing make believe, she let the stable boy take her punishment. She let him die for her and the princess never lost a second to sleep. Because the princess, no matter how she sullied herself, knew he wasn’t worth the dirt under her fingernails.”

In an effort to stay quiet, Wonwoo grinds his teeth so hard they are on the verge of shattering.

The defiant tilt to Wonwoo’s chin sends a flash of fury across the shorter man’s face before a serpentine smile curls on his lips.

“You don’t need to speak, stable boy.” Plucking a knife from his belt, Jeonghan flashes it into Wonwoo’s view. “But you will scream.”

And Wonwoo does.

The Hydra

Crowded around the large oak table of the Hydra’s navigation room, Jihoon, Soonyoung, Jun, and you spread over the atlas of the world. Attempting to decipher what Jeonghan’s plan for Wonwoo proves to be more difficult than anticipated. Even more so when you refuse to provide details on why Jeonghan would stage such an elaborate effort to capture you.

Your crew knows he’s disavowed and wanted by the Atterast, Nas-Shost’s military. They know you’re the reason why but you’d carefully smothered any true details of how you and Wonwoo were involved. Rumors of Jeonghan being a disgruntled lover, while half true, were enough to satiate their curiosity.

“He hates Wonwoo but he hates me more. If his desire is to torture me then he’ll leave Wonwoo alive somewhere I’ll never get him.”

“Iron Isle?”

“Do you think he plans to have himself arrested too?”

“Nas-Shost is unstable. Would he take advantage of that?”

“They’ll kill him before he speaks.”

“He’s in no shape to attempt crossing to Uspar or Truyso.”

“What about Iaslera?”

Iaslera.

Jeonghan isn’t a fool but he is ambitious and vindictive. If your father promised him something in exchange for his original target then Iaslera is a likely place for him to go. And Jeonghan knows you’ll fall right into his hands.

The knife you’ve been spinning into the wood grain digs a fraction deeper.

“How many days till Iaslera?” You ask.

“With the damage…at least five.” Jihoon breaths.

“Five?”

“At least. And that’s assuming it’ll only take us three to patch the hole in the sail and get it rigged again.”

Five days. Wonwoo will be Jeonghan’s captive for five days.

“Set course for Iaslera.” You bark, “And I want every spare hand helping patch that hole!”

The days of skidding across the ocean proved fruitful. If you didn’t keep yourself busy then a rut would wear into the wooden planks of your office from the endless pacing.

If Jeonghan is truly in your father’s court then you owe the crew an explanation of what exactly the Pearl Palace of Iaslera holds. You were no artist, but luck shined on you once again with Minghao. Even the barest memories regarding the servant’s quarters or the stables were included. He sketched every detail, every crevice you could remember with shocking clarity. Reworking sections over and over until the proportions equaled out. Finally, the drawings resembled your home.

Home.

No, not exactly home. Maybe when you’d been a child, when the pearl and silver tiara felt like magic instead of a lead weight; eager to spend days lounging in the library, mind lost to far off lands and tall tales; riding along the familiar beaches, outpacing your chaperone; hiding in the gardens with Wonwoo, playing whatever new game your imagination supplied you two with.

Iaslera was the place you grew up, but the sandy shores and rolling hills only held beauty, not familiarly, the sleek marble walls bearing no warmth or fondness. It wasn’t the place you longed for when out at sea or deep inland.

Home is the worn wood and white sails of the Hydra. Home is your mismatched crew of criminals, ex-soldiers, circus performers, and farmhands. Home is a stable boy who has been by your side since you decided Iasleria was home no longer.

Hours spent in the navigation room, your best fighters and strategists circled on either side of the heavy table, scanning the map detailing each floor of the palace.

“What do you know about the guard rotation?”

“Nothing. Princess, remember?”

“Hard to forget. Can’t believe we didn’t realize before.”

“The way you strut about the deck did always seem particularly royal.” Jun scratches his chin, as if picturing you flouncing about with a tiara on your head.

“Would you like to know what princesses do when they’re angry?”

“Huff their nose in the air?” Soonyoung laughs.

“Maybe if I didn’t have a gun.”

“The guards.” Jihoon reminds.

“I don’t know. My father knows we’re coming and he’s cocky. He’ll probably let us walk right in and assume we’re weak.”

“Sounds like an idiot.”

“So if we walk right in, what do we do?”

“Kill them.” Enea offers from her end of the table.

“If he hasn’t killed Wonwoo already he could have him hidden.”

“If he’s cocky enough to let us walk through the front door, do you really think he’d go through the trouble? He obviously isn’t thinking you have a chance of walking back out.”

“We probably don’t.” You say solemnly.

“What?”

“Best case scenario, my father dies and we walk away wanted by the throne. Most realistic outcome is I’m captured. If that happens, you grab Wonwoo and leave me behind.”

More than a few voices protest as the room descends into yelling.

“I’m your captain and you will listen!” You roar, silencing any objects with a swat of your hand. “Either we all die or I do. I will not pull you into this mess.”

“Not to seem uncaring but do you honestly believe we want to deal with Wonwoo with you not here?”

“He’ll be fine.” You assure.

Wonwoo would have to be whether he liked it or not.

“He won’t.”

“The month the Krakens had you? Wonwoo shot me. Twice.”

“He got into a brawl with Soonyoung.”

“He didn’t talk for two weeks.”

“We leave with both of you. Or we die trying.”

“No one is dying for me! This isn’t some silly brawl in a washed out tavern or a rival crew we’re ambushing. My father is capable of suffering worse than anything you can imagine.” You pause, nearly choking on the horror twisting out of your stomach as you remember the king's most egregious acts. “When I was a child, I spoke out of turn at dinner once. Would you like to know what my punishment was?” Circling your gaze around the room. “He put a poker into the fire until it glowed red—”

“He hit you with it?” Seokmin opens his mouth in horror.

“No,” you swallow, “He couldn’t do anything that might leave a mark in case it made us…undesirable. We had servants assigned to take our beatings while we watched. I was five, and so was she. He hit her across the face with that poker. When I cried, he did it again. When I screamed, he hit her harder. Even if he can’t touch me, he will make sure someone suffers and I watch. I will not damn any of you to the cruelty he’s simmered on in the past ten years. Am I clear?”

The wooden door claps shut as you exit without waiting for their response.

The King of Iaslera

Wonwoo doesn’t remember summers in Iaslera being so cold. Perhaps the bloody purple bruises blooming like a grotesque garden across his flesh have made him susceptible to the biting chill clogging the air. Or maybe the blood coating the inside of his mouth and nose. Or the cold dig of gray stone in his side.

He recognizes the damp dungeons of the king’s palace from the guards uniform, pale blue smocks with a silver lotus blossom embroidered on the back. They haven’t chained him to rings jutting from the floors or walls. Unnecessary given that Wonwoo’s right shoulder is dislocated and his ankle is broken, jutting his foot out at an awkward angle. Even if the planets aligned and the gods blessed an escape, he wouldn’t make it three paces before collapsing onto the ground.

Wonwoo doesn’t have enough knowledge of anatomy to set his shattered bones, likely to do more harm than good if he makes it out of this cell to see another day. Perhaps he should have paid more attention to Shua’s ramblings on the intricacies of the human body when he had the chance.

But he knows his arm can be saved.

The webbed pain coming from his shoulder is familiar enough. When Wonwoo turned thirteen he’d been assigned with helping break a new stallion for the captain of the guards. The stable master only let Wonwoo watch from the fence of the ring, eyes locked on the magnificent midnight steed. Proving to be a fatal mistake when the horse, Balius, charged right at Wonwoo, knocking him off the fence, down to the hard ground below. Once wind returned to his lungs, Wonwoo got a taste for the pain of a dislocated joint for the first time.

It'd happened twice since. Once thanks to the same dock he owed his scar, and another courtesy of the first time Jeonghan tracked Y/N across the waves to Uspar. Wonwoo knows what he has to do, but he craves to postpone the inevitable until the last possible moment.

The guards patrol in front of his cell every time the clock in the palace yard gives a large chime to signal the top of the hour. Shuffling to the bars on his bum, he uses his good foot to push himself across the weathered stone of his cell, before leaning his damaged arm between the thick shafts of iron.

Folding the bottom of his shirt between his teeth, Wonwoo prepares for the sear of pain. Even the faint memory of agony shoots gooseflesh down his spine. No matter how many times he’d done this, tears stung his eyes for hours till the pain sent him into a dark abyss.

Wonwoo knows if he screams, the guards will come running and eagerly dole more damage. A deep breath to corral any rogue shout that may escape his throat, and then he gives a sharp twist at his middle till he hears the sickening pop! A hefty grunt escapes into the fabric as fat pearls well in Wonwoo’s eyes, leaving clean streaks down his filthy face. Vomit rises in his throat as his vision blackens and whisps float through the haze. The surging throb curdles through his blood in time with his pulse as it rushes through his veins to every inch of his body.

The pain eclipses any of the other injuries he’s sustained so far but he tries to count his breaths, sucking in four beats and trembling out another four. His jaw feels as if it might break from how hard his teeth clench, fighting to keep the groans of agony on his tongue at bay.

Folding in on himself, Wonwoo attempts to focus on how he will survive. At least he has the advantage of secrecy on his side. Perhaps he can get in a surprise swing if it comes down to it. Wonwoo won’t die without a fight. He’s come too far.

“I brought you the boy, now give me what you promised.”

“Our deal was for you to bring my disgraceful daughter, not some pathetic peasant.”

“If he is here, she will come.”

“You better pray to the gods she does, boy. Because if she doesn’t, I will show you there are worse punishments than death.”

Two days pass before a soul outside of the guards visits Wonwoo’s cell. A fever claimed him yesterday, sending his body into a fit of chills and muddling his brain. The thin fabric of his bloodied shirt and trousers stick to his clammy figure like a second skin. Wonwoo figures it’s finally gone for the kill when Y/N appears in front of the bars. Back in the finery of court, gown and jewels pristine. Hair tamed on top of her head in a style Wonwoo knows she hated, beautiful face weathered with age.

No it wasn’t Y/N. It was her mother, Queen Demetria.

Wonwoo had no quarrel with the Queen. She’d been as powerless against the king as everyone else. But even in her limited ability, she’d cared for him and his plight. When his parents dumped him at the palace gates as an infant and allowed him to find refuge within its walls. Tasked a maid, Miss Ele, with his care. When he turned five, Wonwoo was brought back in front of the queen. He remembers how the queen asked him his name, told him it was the name of a boy who would grow into a strong man. And she let him stay, working in the stables to earn his keep.

There were worse fates for orphans.

With great effort he tips his head in a bow, nearly toppling over as his balance abandons him. “Your Majesty.”

“Is she alive?”

“I—”

“Please, is she alive?”

“Yes.” Wonwoo breathes. If Y/N was dead he’d like to think he’d feel it somewhere in his gut.

“What is she like?”

Wonwoo isn’t sure what to tell her. Few things are as solid as his loyalty to Y/N. But he owes the Queen his life. If she hadn’t been there, he'd have been dead long before he’d met her daughter.

“She’s,” he pauses, trying to figure what he can say without telling too much. His mind working at half speed under the fever, thick as molasses. “She’s incredible.”

The Queen gives him a watery smile, prodding him to continue.

“She’s brave, and smart. And she looks just like you. She’s a lot like you actually.”

“Really?” She swallows thickly.

“She tries to be like the king, but she… She’s…”

Good? Wonwoo knew the extensive lists of crimes and cruelties Y/N committed, the unknowns easily assumed. Good was a stretch but she wasn’t bad. She fell somewhere in between, beyond an easy answer. It's the only way to describe the princess turned pirate. A low bar to say she hadn’t been as cruel as she could have been but it's true. She’d done horrible things but at her core she was as good as someone in her position could be. Like a flame. Able to burn down villages if left unchecked, but eager to keep a freezing family warm if given the opportunity. Fire burns because that's its nature, but you can’t damn candle for the crimes of the pyre.

“I remember when you were brought here, Wonwoo. Just a baby. I’d still been carrying my daughter at the time. And I knew once Y/N came, she’d find you. A mother just knows.” The clamor of keys tickles his ears. “Your mother asked me to protect you and I promised the gods I would. She risked her life to save her child. She inspires me to do the same.”

The door to his cell swings open, ear splitting as rusted metal scraps against stone.

“I can’t walk,” Wonwoo pants. “they broke my ankle.”

The Queen pauses at the sight of his foot and Wonwoo can’t help but stare at her. The furrow of her eyebrows and twist of her lips remind him of her daughter.

“I have several guards that are loyal to me, not the king. I’ll try to have one fetch you and help you through the tunnels.”

“I don’t know where I’ll go after.”

“Even when she was little my daughter had a talent for finding you. I’m sure she’ll be here to collect you soon enough.”

“Thank you.”

“I should be thanking you, Wonwoo. You’ve taken care of Y/N all this time.”

“She makes it easy.”

“Love has a peculiar way of doing that, doesn’t it?”

Before he can say anything else, she’s turned to exit down the same hallway she’d come, heels echoing as she goes.

Jeonghan paces in front of the cell like a tiger circles its cage, like he is the one trapped inside and not Wonwoo. His hair is disheveled, eyes wild, tension stringing his muscles tight. Agitation consumes Jeonghan, even Wonwoo’s infection riddled mind can see it.

The sting of vomit and other refuse in the corner of Wonwoo’s accommodations stains the air. This morning, his urine was tinged pink. The sliver of hope of seeing anything beyond these walls ever again left when the Queen turned her back to him yesterday. No guards came to help him. Only ones providing small buckets of water for him to clean himself and drink from.

“She’s going to let you die in here.”

No reply. Not that Wonwoo has the energy to open his mouth, let alone goad the man. Let him drive himself mad for all Wonwoo cares.

“It was supposed to be her!” Jeonghan’s nostrils flare as he presses his face between the bars. His hands shake as they squeeze around the biting steel. “You ruined everything, you stupid piece of filth!”

The pieces of the mysterious puzzle click. Perhaps its infection induced delirium but Wonwoo finally understands why Jeonghan despises him so.

Jeonghan hates Wonwoo because he has what Jeonghan can’t get. No matter which way Jeonghan tried to rub his unworthiness in his face, she didn’t want him. Y/N chose Wonwoo, or that's what Jeonghan believes. A peasant-born bastard beat the son of a Duke. In Jeonghan’s world it was unimaginable.

In Wonwoo’s world, it's unimaginable too.

He can’t help but laugh. Scratchy and unpleasant given his condition but full bellied laughter fills his mouth, splitting the silence of the dungeon.

“You think it’s funny? You’re going to die here and no one is going to care.”

Snorting around caked blood and snot, Wonwoo’s hysteria continues at Jeonghan’s words. Wonwoo is laughing at his own funeral. Wildly inappropriate, but the irony of the gods sends him into a fit.

Jeonghan turns to the guards, furious at Wonwoo’s inability to respond to his attempts to instigate a fight. “Move him to the throne room, the King is waiting.”

The guards manhandling him upright might have hurt if Wonwoo’s body wasn’t begging for death. He’s slipping away into the recesses of his mind, barely able to snag the thread of reality that continues to unravel before him as he giggles manically. The jostle of his ankle sends bile to his mouth, acrid burn flooding his tongue.

Spots paint his vision, the movement fatiguing him quickly. His head lulls to and fro, muscles retired as they carry Wonwoo out of the dungeon and through the palace. Wonwoo’s eyes refuse to open, but he can listen. Every footstep thuds like a pulse, whispered words coming to him as if he’s deep underwater. A sharp gasp greets him when the guards finally pause.

The crack of his skull on marble is the last thing Wonwoo registers before he returns to darkness.

Onyx skies weep as a small dingy enters the harbor of Amesstino, welcoming the long lost princess home after years of separation as angry waves attempt to claim her for the tide.

Disguised as a gang of traders, you and your crew silently dock and flee the tiny craft. Thick sheets of rain provide plenty of cover to sneak to the palace unseen. No one speaks, crashes of thunder shaking the earth and bolts of lightning splitting the sky. Even the wind whips against your body, lashing at your back. The gods are angry.

Your fury is more dangerous.

The King anticipates your arrival, welcoming you with abandoned guard posts and open gates. You walk through the front door with baited breath, not even a servant ghosts through the empty quartz hallways.

Several pairs of eyes take in the finery that is the Iaslerian palace. As if sculpted from a single piece of white marble, smooth ornate columns support the massive structure, free from any blemishes or ware. Pale blue tapestries embroidered with silver lotus blossoms hang from the ceiling in even rows like icicles. Exactly the same as the day you left, frozen in time, eagerly awaiting your return.

Imposing silver doors seal off the throne room, gleaming like two teeth waiting to bite. Their thickness prevents any sound from breaking free, leaving you woefully unprepared for what will greet you on the other side.

A single beat of breath passes before your crew heaves the doors open to meet your maker.

Guns cocked and teeth bare, your eyes quickly scan the throne room. In the center, your father lazes in his throne, eyes alight with cruel mirth. Your mother is poised next to him, mouth wide in shock, face pale as if she’d seen a ghost. Guards line the walls, swords drawn; tense for a fight.

But the heap sprawled to the right of the lotus emblem on the floor stops heart. The familiar mop of hair inkling across the braided silver and blue veins of the seal. His chest doesn’t move, almost unrecognizable through bloody bruises swelling half his face.

Denial shrouds your mind. Wonwoo isn't dead. You’d feel it. In your gut, in your heart. Somewhere, you’d feel his soul leave this world and escape to the next.

“I gave you the princess, now give me back my title!” Jeonghan demands, emerging from the line of guards to the left.

“You’re as much of a fool as your father Jeonghan! Did you truly believe I’d let you roam Iaslera? You ruined any chance to return to civility when you took that brand on your neck!”

“You said—”

“Silence!” Carnos bellows, voice echoing between the walls. “My dear daughter has finally returned.” he smiles, “I wish to welcome her back.”

Your breath stutters in your lungs. You’ve had countless knives to your throat, guns to your back, brawled with the rowdiest of thieves and criminals. But the bravery curling around your edges shrinks back in the face of your father.

Suddenly you're five again watching Dirce cowering on the floor, with a bloody welt across her face. Helpless as your father unleashes the monster that lurks under his skin. It’s all your fault. Your greed. Your pride. Your envy. No one is to blame but yourself.

“You wanted me here.” You manage to steel your voice. “ He’s of no use now. Let him go and I’ll do whatever you want.”

If your father wants your submission, to see you beg, you’ll do it. He can break you if it means your crew will be left whole.

“What I want is for you to finally learn your place. And you will, in due time. But first, you’ll watch your little bastard lose his head.”

“No!”

“Be silent!” He demands, guards taking a threatening step forward. “You insolent little bitch! You thought you could escape me? I am a King! You are nothing. Less than nothing. You couldn’t even escape that pathetic excuse of a pirate on your own! You needed a peasant to—”

A gunshot rings through the room. A hole in the king's chest releases a trickle of blood down his front, staining the creamy linen shirt. King Carnos shakes as he dips his chin, mouth open in shock as he realizes he’s been shot.

The smoking revolver in Jeonghan’s hand quivers, his eyes wide at what he’s done.

An eerie smile creeps across your father’s face, blood staining his teeth. His last words are indecipherable as he chokes on the next rush through his mouth.

Not even a mouse squeaks to break the fragile silence hanging in the air, bodies frozen to the floor as the great King of Iaslera falls.

Then chaos explodes.

Your mother wails as she registers what's happened, guards rushing in an attempt to aid the king.

Every muscle in your body screams to flee but your mind keeps you on your knees. The king is dead. Your father is dead. Mouth slack, you shiver as death brushes past you, her chilled hand resting briefly on your shoulder before she steps forward to claim his soul. The once faint whispers of the sea trickling into your ears again. I’ll collect you eventually, princess. But not tonight. Death will have to wait once more for you to trail behind her.

Soonyoung drags you by your armpits, screaming something in your face that you can’t hear, the ring of the bullet replaying over and over; as if you’re under the waves and life is happening far above on the surface. Wonwoo’s limp body still rests in the corner, face bruised and caked with flaking patches of deep maroon.

Everything rushes you at once.

“Come on Y/N!”

“Wonwoo, get Wonwoo!” You shriek hysterically over Soonyoung’s shoulder as he pushes you out.

“We’ve got to get back to the boat!”

“Please!” You beg, voice horse as tears streak your face.

Hand iron tight around your wrist, Soonyoung doesn’t let you break from his grip. You barely make out Jun and Jihoon carrying a third body before you’re outside and nearly falling down the cliff to the shore.

Seokmin fights to keep his hold on the dingy as it batters against the sand. You and Soonyoung are the first to make it. Minutes pass by as you watch the remaining members of your crew fly down the stairs, slowed with the added weight of another. You can’t breathe.

Jihoon hauls Wonwoo into the ship first, followed by himself and the other men.

Nothing else matters, just the weak rise of his chest. It’s the tether your sanity latches on as you return to the sea.

Dreams

In the liminal space between life and the abyss, Wonwoo dreams.

He dreams, and he remembers.

The first time Wonwoo meets the princess, he discovers she’s insufferable.

The little girl glides his way, the self-righteous air of importance swirling her stiff shoulders. “What is your name?”

Wonwoo just gives her a slow blink, she’s woefully out of place amongst the smells and sounds of the stable.

Turning to the older woman, the snobby girl asks, “Is he simple?”

“I’m not simple!” Wonwoo objects.

“Then what is your name? You have one don’t you? Or do you prefer I call you ‘stable boy’?”

“My name is Wonwoo.”

“Nice to meet you.” She says, nose high in the air as she extends her hand.

Wonwoo hesitates before shaking it like he’s watched the older men do when they settle a deal.

“No!” She objects, snatching her palm away. “You don’t shake a lady’s hand.”

Her scolding confuses him, twisting his face.

“You do know what a lady is?”

“Of course I do!” He stomps. “You’re just a girl!”

“Ladies are girls, you idiot!”

An older woman steps in, “Ma’am, your horse is ready.”

Huffing indignantly, the little girl twirls to flounce to the other side of the stables. She walks as if the ground only exists to rise and meet her foot with each step. The princess is headed where the caramel colored mare that bit Wonwoo two days ago waits. Figures. Crazy horse for a crazy girl.

—

“Would you like to play with me?”

“I have chores.”

“They can wait until after we play.”

“Go on, son.” urges the older groomsman Wonwoo assists. “I’ll take care of your stalls.”

His eyes shift as he stammers for another excuse. Play with the crazy girl? He’d rather shovel the entire stable twice over.

Wonwoo doesn’t get the chance to speak before she snagged his wrist, pulling him towards the wide entrance. “Come on!”

Once tucked away in a secluded corner of the garden, both panting, Wonwoo looks at her. She looks about his age, only an inch shorter than he is at seven years old. Wisps of loose hair float around her face with a few tiny braids and twists pinned here and there. Delicate threads of silver intertwined throughout. Her dress is simple stormy blue but the fabric clearly indicates it isn't a hand me down like all his torn and patched clothes are.

“Do you know how to play soldiers?”

“Yes?”

“Teach me.”

“Huh?”

“My sisters don’t know how and when I ask the boys in court they won’t play with me.”

Wonwoo spends the rest of the afternoon running around the garden with Y/N. She’s decided they’re nations are at war, and this is the final battle.

“Yield!” She cries.

“Never!”

“Your majesty! What are you doing?” The shrill voice of an older maid rings out. “Young ladies do not roll in the dirt with servants! Certainly not princesses!”

The wrinkly woman grabs Y/N’s wrist, shooting a glare at Wonwoo.

“And you! Don’t you have chores that need finishing?” The maid spits before whipping around towards the palace.

The little princess mouths a silent apology over her shoulder, remorseful round eyes only leaving Wonwoo when she’s dragged behind a hedge.

“No way to behave! Your governess will have my head when she sees you…”

—

“Do you like burnt sugar cake?”

Wonwoo continues to ignore any effort for conversation, focusing on raking the new hay he’s laid down in the stall. Now that he’s twelve he’s given more responsibilities than just tossing the soiled hay into a cart.

“How long will you be angry with me?”

More silence. It’s the only thing Wonwoo can control in the unbalanced dynamic between himself and the youngest princess of the court. If she wished, she could command him to do whatever she wanted, the threat of whips at his back. But she allows Wonwoo to be angry. To be silent. She’s sat and mopped for the past two hours, huffing and sighing as Wonwoo refused to acknowledge her bids for attention. He ducks into the next stall and begins the same repetitive steps he has all morning, allowing the sweat on his brow and pull of his body to dull his mind.

What business was it to the princess that he couldn’t read?

When he exits, he finds the piece of confection wrapped in a silk handkerchief on the wall of the stall, Y/N nowhere to be seen.

The stables aren’t warmed with her presence again. Wonwoo never admits to missing it.

—

“I’m going for a ride!”

“My lady, Muriel has oyspox and there is no one else to escort you.” A stammering maid attempts to placate the fuming princess.

“If my mare is not saddled this instant I will take someone’s head!”

“You cannot ride without accompaniment!”

“He will escort me.”

Wonwoo knows she’s referring to him without looking away from the saddle he’s rigging onto one of the guard’s horses. A rambunctious sandy colt named Athos with a penchant to buck at strangers. He’s one of Wonwoo’s favorites.

“Ma’am, he is a stablehand!”

“Which is of no concern to me.” The rich timber of her voice is decidedly royal. “He will be my escort and that is final.”

Handing over the reins of the stallion to another servant, Wonwoo sets towards the tack room for the appropriate gear. The dark leather saddle and matching bridle is in perfect condition despite going years without use. Wonwoo would know, he’s the one charged with oiling them.

The familiar caramel colored mare is clearly excited for a ride, baying over the door to her stall. Wonwoo can’t stop the grin from spreading to his lips. Over the years, Kalsta had become as familiar as the back of his hand, only nipping his shirt when he refuses her a treat.

Once Kalsta and another stone gray mare are prepared, the fuming princess mounts her and dashes from the stable. Her hair blasting behind her as she pushes into a dead sprint across the hills leading to the coastline below the cliff housing the dazzling white palace.

Wonwoo’s eyes roll, but follows nevertheless; careful to remain several paces behind, even when the horses tire to a trot. From this distance, Wonwoo catches a few muttered words about some royal from the next continent over the crashing waves.

“If you were to marry a girl, wouldn’t you care to know more about her than which season she prefers?”

It takes Wonwoo a moment to realize she’s finally addressing him directly. When he does, he fumbles for an appropriate answer.

“I–,” he stammers, “I don’t know. I guess.”

“Then it is of no coincidence if you disagree with her about other more important topics?”

“Such as?”

“Such as… well I’m not quite sure but certainly there are more important things than my preferences in tea.”

“Surely there is, Your Grace.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“A humble servant would never mock their sovereign.”

“Humility is a virtue you lack in spades, Wonwoo.”

The grin pulling at the corners of his lips wins the tug of war with his mind. “Ahh, so she does remember me.”

Rolling her eyes, the first smile Wonwoo has seen all afternoon blooms on her face. “Of course I remember you. A girl never forgets the first boy she beats up.”

“You didn’t beat me up!”

Her warm chuckle brightens the atmosphere despite the nipping autumn breeze.

“So you’re to be married?”

“If my father has his way, yes.”

“What’s he like?”

“My father?”

“No, the prince you’ve been mumbling about.”

“He’s not a prince, he’s the son of a duke in Nas-Shost.” Y/N picks at the seam of the saddle. “We’ve been engaged since I was twelve, but I’m not sure what he’s like. We’ve only written a few letters.”

“A few letters since you were twelve?”

“Marriage wasn’t as looming when I was a child.”

“And you haven’t learned anything about him in all that time?”

“He tries to charm me but I find it quite dull.”

“Picky princess.”

“Is it so wrong to want a man of some substance?”

“Like what?”

Wonwoo hadn’t thought much about marriage at all. He’d caught a few of the younger maids staring at him when he worked without his shirt on but paid them no mind. No one ever gave him reason enough to think of anything more than some lighthearted touching. He was barely sixteen after all.

“I don’t know. His words tell me nothing about who he is or what he enjoys. Only that he is an incorrigible flirt who takes interest in trivial matters of taste.”

“You don’t want a man who charms you?”

“I want a man who has meaning beyond a made up title.”

“‘Made up title’,” he rolls the words around his mouth. “I believe that borders on treason.”

“Does it count if I’m referring to myself?”

Wonwoo continues to ride with you in silence, this time matching your pace.

—

Wonwoo wakes to whispers of his name, urgent calls for him to break the delicate surface of dreams. He fights a shout when he finds Y/N hovering over him, hand covering his mouth. Brushing it aside, he throws his gaze around the tiny space of his quarters before returning to her.

She’s cloaked in a gauzy dressing gown, the thin cream cotton of her nightgown peeking out between the deep blue lapels where the soft skin of her chest disappears; bedraggled tendrils of hair curled around her shoulder. The gentle flicker of candlelight casts her face in a hazy glow, flame reflecting in the dark center of her eyes. The princess is in his room, perched on the side of his bed, face inches from his own. Wonwoo must still be dreaming.

“He’s here.”

Wonwoo’s brain is thick as cold honey, the day in the stables more grueling with the additional horses the king’s guest brought. “What?”

“Jeonghan. He’s here.”

“And you’ve come to my room to tell me this?” Wonwoo turns his back towards her and closes his eyes.

“He’s horrible.”

Her admission gives Wonwoo pause. Glancing over his shoulder, he catches a wet trail of tears glossing Y/N’s face, chin tucking to her chest to hide her visage amongst her hair. Pitiful whimpers spill from her lips. Wonwoo nearly chokes when she throws herself into his chest, hot beads streaming onto his bare skin as the walls of control crumble.

“He’s awful, Woo.”

Wonwoo has never navigated such an emotional response from Y/N, from any woman really. When they’d been children, she’d stomp her foot and storm away when upset. Or sometimes tackle him to the dirt and pin him under her till he apologized and begged for mercy. He’s completely out of his depth..

Remembering how his mother would comfort him, Wonwoo lifts a hand to stroke the top of her head. A fresh round of tears erupt, shaking her against him. A loud bawl escapes Y/N, freezing Wonwoo’s blood. He cannot get caught with the princess in his bed. Not in this state; thin cover pooling around his waist, his chest bare and her’s barely covered by thin scraps of fabric. Both states of dress were courtesy of Iaslera’s brutal summers. But a coincidence wouldn’t save his sorry hide if another servant walked in.

“Y/N,” Wonwoo whispers gently. “It will be okay.”

The lie does nothing to stifle her sobs.

Trying again, “It will be fine, I promise.”

Wonwoo has never been a master of words.

“It won’t!” She shudders. “He’s awful, and rude. And he looks at me like nothing more than some prized horse.”

“They’ve only arrived today. Surely he cannot be that bad already.”

“He’s exactly like my father.”

Y/N’s father. Less of a man and more of a waking nightmare. Wonwoo barely interacted with him but the King’s reputation was well known across the kingdom.

Any words of comfort die in his chest. There’s nothing Wonwoo can do. That anyone can do.

“I wish I’d never been born.”

If Wonwoo had been born in her position, he’d wish the same thing.

“You’ve always wanted to see Nas-Shost.”

“How wonderful it will be from the confines of a palace.”

“Perhaps he’ll allow you to travel. You said the King hardly visits the Queen since you came about.”

“So I’m to pray he takes up a mistress after he’s had his fill of me?”

Telltale signs of her fury take root. Huffed breath and shaking hands, a husky scoff punctuating each sentence. Perhaps anger is better than sorrow. Wonwoo has placated her many times when the princesses' temper emerged. This would be no different.

“I’d pray he takes up several, then he’d be too busy to bother you, and let you do as you please.”

“I’d do as I please anyway. He’s barely a duke and I’m a princess.”

“Yes, as you’ve reminded everyone with every breath you take.”

“Jeonghan is the one who acts like his title is of importance! ‘Future Duke’ this and ‘when I am Duke’ that. He squawks like a bird.”

“You’re not quite dazzling to be around either so he might bore quickly.”

“I could have you arrested for speaking ill of the royal family.”

“And what do you plan to tell the guards, your highness?” Wonwoo smirks. “That you forced yourself into my chambers past midnight for some gossip and found yourself offended?”

Wide eyes glace down to his naked chest, jumping to her own as she pulls her dressing gown around herself tighter. The apples of her cheeks warm enticingly as she realizes the precarious position she’s arranged them in, still half in Wonwoo’s lap, perched between his legs.

As if burned, you jump away from his bed to the wall only a foot away. “I—. I didn’t, it isn’t.”

“Isn’t what, princess?”

A pause before indignation takes flight. “You truly are insufferable!” She quietly shouts. Spinning to exit his room with a dramatic sigh.

—

“I wish for a ride.”

“I’m occupied, ma’am.”

“Well make yourself un-occupied.”

“Her Majesty wishes it, so it will be.”

“How I hate when you call me that.”

“What would Her Royal Highness prefer?”

“For you to shut your trap!”

“Such foul words from a lady.”

“I have several more for you if my horse isn’t ready soon.”

“Your Highness, would you mind if I accompany you for your ride?

“I prefer to go alone.”

“You’re going with the stable hand.”

“It’s required that I have a chaperone. Since he’s a servant, he doesn’t count as company.”

Wonwoo tries not to take offense to the subtle insult to his station. He knows she doesn’t mean what she says but the words resemble the same ones he’s heard from other, less friendly, lips many times before.

“I see. Well, I hope to speak with you when you return.”

“Of course, Jeonghan.”

—

“You want to what?”

“Leave. Go somewhere else. Anywhere else.”

“And just how do you expect to do that? You’ve never left these grounds.”

“That’s a lie! I visited Anlehm when I was thirteen!”

“With a royal escort! A girl on the road by herself is completely different.”

“I won’t be alone.”

“And who will join you?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“Please keep up Wonwoo, we don’t have much time to discuss.”

“Why me?”

“You are the only person in the world I trust.”

She speaks as if the admission is little more than declaring the day's weather, but the weight rests heavy on his shoulders. The only person the princess of Iaslera trusts is a bastard stable boy with nothing to his name.

“And as such, I will need your assistance.”

“I’ve never left the palace.”

“But you understand peasant things like money.”

It’s not a slight, simply the truth.

“So I am nothing more than a guard for you?”

“Of course not, you’re my friend.”

Friend. Friends with the princess. Gods help him.

“A friend would tell you your plan is madness.”

“And you?”

“You’ll do it anyway.”

“You know me well.”

“If we’re caught, I’ll hang.”

“Then we won’t get caught.”

“Because it is as easy as that.”

“‘If her majesty wishes, so it will be.’ Remember?”

“So it will be.”

—

“What do you know about sex?”

Wonwoo chokes on the large bite of apple he’d been munching on. “Pardon?”

Rolling to her side next to him under the shade of the lush fruit tree, Y/N starts again. “Sex. What do you know about it?”

“I— This isn’t an appropriate conversation for a lady.”

“Well I’m no longer a lady, considering I’ve run away with a servant. I’m thoroughly disavowed from the crown. No need to worry about corrupting me.”

Corrupting her. Him corrupting Y/N.

Oh.

The thoughts were already there, smothered by his own guilt of imaging his friend in that way. Wonwoo suddenly pictures the first time Y/N wore trousers, the roughspun fabric hugging her rolling hips as she glided by. Worse, she didn’t even realize what she was doing, having his tongue nearly hung out of his mouth like a panting dog. And now she’s asking him about sex? Perhaps leaving the palace was a bad idea.

“It's something people do to pass the time.”

“I know what it is, Wonwoo. What is it like?”

“I don’t know. Probably like kissing I suppose.”

“And what's that like?”

“You’ve never?”

“Princess, remember?”

“Well it’s…sort of wet? And feels nice. It’s hard to explain.”

“Show me.”

“What?”

“Show me what kissing is like.”

—

“Wonwoo.”

“Yes?”

“You’re really quite handsome. Do you know that?”

The burn of whiskey on an empty stomach loosens even the lips of royalty, it seems.

“High compliment coming from a princess.”

“I’m not a princess.”

Y/N huffs, stumbling back into the mound of hay Wonwoo collected for sleeping. Fall looms on the horizon and the chill of the evening air requires sharing the ratty blanket. Wonwoo would happily sleep in his own pile but her disposition after a cold night left much to be desired.

“You’ll always be a princess. You still walk like a princess, talk like one, even order me about like we never left the palace.”

“I do not order you around!”

Shrilling his voice in mockery, he does his best impression of what he dubs her ‘princess voice.’ “Wonwoo, fetch us breakfast. Wonwoo, teach me to fish. Wonwoo, show me how to use a knife.”

“Well you listen so well it’d be a shame to waste a talent.”

A pause.

“I like when you order me about.”

Perhaps he’s indulged too much as well.

“Wonwoo.”

“Yes?”

“Will you teach me about kissing now?

That night, Wonwoo teaches you everything he knows. He also learns sex is much more than passing time.

The Edge

Dark. Wonwoo registers darkness and warmth first. As his soul slowly returns to his body he realizes he’s laying down in a cot, the unmistakable sway of the sea rocks him to consciousness. And then, Wonwoo realizes he hurts.

A sharp pounding echoes through his bones in time with his weak pulse. Each breath stretching his lungs to the point they feel as if they’ll shred. One of his eyes is swollen shut and the other waters uncontrollably under the pain.

A squeeze around his hand anchors his attention. Using whatever reserve of strength he has left, he tries to squeeze back.

“Wonwoo?”

The voice is familiar, buttery smoothness pleasant to his ears. Wonwoo hopes the Voice will continue saying his name. Maybe it will lull him back to sleep and away from his torment.

“Wonwoo?”

How lovely the Voice is. Perhaps he is still dreaming, the smooth slide of a warm palm against his forehead comforts him before the roughness of a damp cloth wipes at his brow.

A pause before the Voice removes what Wonwoo assumes is her hand. He calls on the reserve of strength again to protest, coughing a weak groan into the space above him.

“You’re awake!” She says, as if it's some marvel.

When she dives into his chest, Wonwoo nearly screams. His ribs protest her weight, his lungs on the verge of collapse. But on his skin he feels her hot wet tears, her nose digging into his breastbone. Even her lips brush against the sensitive flesh as she cries his name over and over. The desire to wrap his arms around her is quelled by protesting muscles. It feels as if he’s wading through wet sand.

She must sense his pain because she removes herself from his person and coos for him to sleep, raking her fingers across his scalp gently as something foul and oily slips between his lips. Sleep, what a wonderful idea.

The shallow rise and fall of Wonwoo’s chest has been the subject of your attention for three days. A part of you fears that the moment you look away it will stop.

He’d woken for the first time in the early hours of the morning a few days ago, the sun barely rising from his bed beneath the horizon as Wonwoo breached consciousness. Shua lectured on and on regarding the significance of rest to healing. Better for Wonwoo to sleep fitfully than wake in agony. But the more frequent he broke the surface of slumber the more anxious you became.

A brief shift of your focus to the vial of murky sedative Shua left for you to administer gives Wonwoo enough time to wake with a heart wrenching groan.

“Shhh,” you coo, settling the cool cloth back on his forehead. “You’re alright.”

“Y/N?” Wonwoo mumbles, eyes firmly shut but his eyes moving rapidly behind his lids.

“I’m here.”

You move your free hand to his own on the side of the bed, thumb stroking the backs of his fingers in an attempt to sooth him.

“Princess.” he slurs.

The pained sobs you’ve released quietly over the past few days return, watering your entangled hands as you rest your forehead against them.

Even in death, your father still torments you.

Wonwoo becomes fully sentient after a week. Weak from hunger and dehydration, but alive. Shua fusses over him at all hours like a mother hen, mixing vials and brewing all types of teas to speed his recovery along. Luckily, with all of the commotion from the crew to see Wonwoo with their own eyes, you’ve been able to fade to the shadows.

Taking the wheel yourself gives Jihoon a chance to descend below deck. Or offering Soonyoung the opportunity to share a meal with Wonwoo as you man the rigging. Anything to stay away from the room next to your own.

Somehow Wonwoo awake and aware is worse.

But only so many distractions exist in such a small space as your ship. The crew begins to brush aside your offers of assistance, urging you to have time with Wonwoo now that he’s healing. You’re at the end of your rope when Seungkwan informs you of Wonwoo’s request to see you.

You can feel Wonwoo’s eyes watching you in the corner of his room, your own tracing the whorls in the wood grain of the floors, walls, and ceiling.

You break the silence first, “Are you angry with me?”

“When have I ever been angry with you?”

“I’m angry with myself.”

“That’s why you’re you and I’m me. I chose to go on his ship.”

“It’s my fault he was here in the first place!”

“Do you think I’m incapable of making my own choices?”

“I’ve never,”

“If given the same chance, I’d do it again. I don’t regret it.”

“I—”

Wonwoo cuts you off before you can protest. “Why have you been avoiding me?”

This is the start of the conversation you’ve been running from.

“I haven’t.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

He’s right. And rather than continue to lie, your feet carry you out the door and back in the safety of your office.

Two more days pass before you gather enough courage to brave him again. You’ve never been afraid of Wonwoo; never shied away from his presence. Even after tense moments, having him around was a comfort and he indulged your desire to ignore whatever bubbled between you two. But not anymore. Wonwoo is demanding answers you don’t have to questions you're terrified of asking.

He sleeps thanks to the sedative Shua slipped in his tea before re-sewing some of the garish stitches along his ribs.

Resting in the chair next to the top of his bed, your eyes catalog his features. Even through the swelling and bruises, Wonwoo’s still handsome. From the sharp tilt of his jaw to the gentle pout of his lips, even his scar warms your heart as he dozes. It's hard to settle the panic hanging over your shoulder, a swirling mass of fear and dread.

So lost in your own mind, you don’t realize his good eye is open and glaring straight at you.

“You’re back.”

Jumping at the rasp of his voice, you launch to your feet. “I was just leaving.”

“Of course you were.” He scoffs.

The venom in his tone freezes you as your fist clenches around the doorknob.

He continues, “I asked Jihoon to take us to Ventparsk. I’m going to find a new crew.”

“What?” You’re trembling.

“You don’t want me here.”

“I never said that!”

“You don’t have to! You can’t even look at me without running in the other direction!”

Wonwoo just stares. He’s patient in the worst ways and the injuries littered across his face obscure any emotions he may be experiencing himself.

“I don’t know how to do this, Woo.”

“You’re too scared to try.”

“Maybe I am! But if I’m a coward, what does that make you?”

“A fool.” he spits. “I can’t pretend to not feel for you. Not anymore. If you truly do not want me then I’ll make it easier for the both of us and allow you freedom from any guilt.”

What can you say? The man you’ve bound yourself to in mind, body, and spirit, who has risked his life for you more times than you can count, is willing to walk away for your comfort; unconsciously taking half your heart with him. The idea saps the oxygen out of your lungs. You without Wonwoo. Like a flower without the sun. The sky without stars. Ocean without a tide.

Wonwoo has never asked, only allowed you to take endlessly. Perhaps it’s time you give something to him.

Tears are welling in your eyes before you can speak. “I don’t want you to go.” Shaking your head, your voice breaks as you cry like the little girl you were so long ago. “Don’t go.” Quivering like a leaf in a storm you beg. “Please.”

Through the blur of tears you can make out Wonwoo attempting to rise out of his cot. The extensive wounds and injuries make it a Herculean effort, causing him to nearly topple to the floor before you approach him. Strong arms tangle around you as you bury your face into his neck, pleading for him to stay.

“I don’t know what else to do.” He whispers into your hair.

You continue to bawl, plagued by images of your lonely figure, missing the better half of your soul. The only steady presence in your life, the one person who played witness to your weakest moments. Months of separation at the hands of fate were child’s play considering the bleak future Wonwoo suggested. Nothing sacrificed or gained would be worth the pain if he isn’t there to share it with you.

“Please.”

“You’re being selfish.”

“If this makes me selfish then yes I’m selfish! I’m selfish and I’m cruel because I can’t imagine a world where we separate. Please!”

“You’ll make do.”

“No I won’t.”

“So you ask me to stay by your side, knowing how I feel, and do what? Ignore it? Pretend it doesn’t exist?”

“When have I ever asked you not to feel?”

“When have I asked you for anything? Any wish or whim in my power I do. Why can’t you try?”

“I do not know how.”

“That’s a lie.”

“What do you want me to say?” Your voice cuts like glass, tears of sadness transforming into tears of frustration.

“I want you to tell me the truth!”

“I am! I have no idea what any of this means!” Your back up and pacing, hands nearly ripping your hair out in an attempt to ground yourself. “I thought you were dead Wonwoo. I thought my father killed you! And for a moment it felt like I died too.”

“And you don’t think that means something?”

“My apologies that I’m not able to write sonnets about feelings I don’t understand!”

“You refuse to even try. I nearly died and you can’t even stand to be in the same room as me!”

“Because it’s my fault! I decided to leave the palace! I decided to pull you into my mess! How can you even look at me?”

“Because I love you.” His eyes burn. “For years, I’ve loved you and I tried not to but—” Wonwoo swallows roughly. “It’s become something I live with.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“Because telling you served what purpose? You had one of the crew tortured and tossed overboard because he guessed we rolled around in some hay when we were children. Didn’t inspire confidence you’d be receptive to the idea!”

“So you decided for me?”

“Impossible as it might be, please attempt to consider how I felt.”

“And now I’m selfish? You decide to keep secrets and it’s somehow my fault?”

“Then it's my fault for not being brave enough to face your rejection?”

“I wouldn’t—. I haven’t rejected you.” You blink. “It’s terrifying. Want you the way I do. I can’t think, I couldn’t breathe until you woke up. What happens to me if I let myself have you, and you disappear?”

“I would nev—“

“What if someone comes for you again and this time they do kill you? When I saw your face at the palace, I felt…” Another hot wave of tears emerges. “I couldn’t do anything. All I saw was you. I begged my father to kill me so I wouldn’t have to live without you.”

Silence.

“Did it feel like no matter how many breaths you took there wasn’t enough air? Like you were drowning on dry land?”

“Yes—“

“Like the sun fell out of the sky and the tides stopped? Because that’s how I felt. When Jeonghan took you. My body was here but my soul was with you.”

Of course the one person who understands you is Wonwoo. He sees and he knows. And for all his claims that words aren’t his strength, he gives you courage.

“I wasn’t raised to understand this. My mother told me the most I could hope for with a man was friendship, maybe fondness. Love isn’t a privilege I’d learned to understand.”

A pregnant pause passes.

“Then we learn together.”

Sitting back on the cot, you allow the warmth of Wonwoo’s calloused palm resting on the knobs of your spine to calm you. Sniffling pathetically, you listen to his heart drum in his chest. It reminds you all the times you pressed against him for warmth when you first ran away. The beat of his heart lulling you to rest better than any lullaby your nanny sang in the nursery.

Wonwoo breaks the delicate silence shrouding his room.

“A liar and a coward. What a pair we make.” He chuckles, humor in the irony.

Releasing your own puff of air, you hesitate before asking.

“What do we do about it?”

“About what?”

“These… feelings.”

“I don’t know.”

From all the stories you read as a child, confessions of love and wanting meant joy and happiness. But in its stead is something like sorrow, a firm pain of a crossroads without a clue where either path led.

“Wonwoo?”

He hums.

“What do you want to do about it?”

Wonwoo is silent as he ponders.

“Right now, I want to hold you.”

Moments pass as you trace shapes along his chest, careful to avoid the bandages crossing over his shoulder. The pressure of his lips against the crown of your skull turns your head up.

Wonwoo’s face is soft, staring at you with undeserved fondness. The same way he did that night in the barn, the same way he has always done in private when he thinks you aren’t looking. If Wonwoo is brave enough to tell you, then you owe him the same.

Tracing his features with your fingers, you carefully avoid the wounds still dappling his face. Starting at the temple where his scar begins, you follow it to the plush of his lips, the skin chap under your touch. Before following the loop of his nose and the curve of his brow.

“I love you.”

Your whispered admission floats in the air above your heads.

Wonwoo shuts his eyes and lets you do as you please, leaving a gentle kiss to the pad of your pointer finger as it returns to his mouth.

The smooth slide leaves you craving the contact across your own mouth. Rising up, you gently brush your lips across his. Barely a ghost of flesh but Wonwoo chases the contact. Lips slip against one another, soft passes filled with tender longing.

One the next stroke, you suck his lower lip between your teeth and allow the tip of your tongue to trace it. You faintly register the copper taste of blood and the salt of the sea. The drag must ignite something in his blood because Wonwoo attempts to twist you underneath him before he yelps in pain.

“Stop! You’ll tear your stitches!”

“Damn the stitches,” he grits, claiming your mouth again.

Carefully maneuvering out of his reach, you break the kiss as you rise from his cot. A genuine smile of joy returning to your face after years of drought.

“When you’re better,” you whisper.

“You’d have us wait?”

“I’d rather have you when your face no longer resembles the wrong side of a horse.”

He fails to make a grab for your sleeve, huffing as he rests back into the mattress. “I thought I charmed you with more than my looks.”

“Unfortunately, I’m quite shallow.”

“There should be an old scarf in my desk drawer, perhaps that can be of use?”

“Woo,” you gently coo. “You can’t even sit up straight.”

“I believe that’s a matter of opinion.”

You chuckle. “When you’re well enough, I’ll lock us in here for as long as you wish.”

The simmering displeasure is clear on his face. Wonwoo isn’t angry with you. He’s angry with his injuries. With Jeonghan and your dead father. With the fates.

“As long as I wish?”

Humming in agreement as you rest one knee onto the bed, you lean over his form before whispering.

“You should try and listen to Shua so I don’t have to wait much longer.”

“Fine.”

“It’s a deal.”

Three months.

Three months of silently mourning the death of your father in the dead of night, when you’re safe from prying eyes and your mind wanders free. You hardly knew him, he was as much of a stranger as a merchant you stumbled passed in a busy market. Guilt whispered across your mind as each tear slipped down your face. Mourning the man who terrorized a nation and his family, who paid for your execution, who tortured Wonwoo.

Three months of Wonwoo downing every greasy concoction and bitter remedy Shua prescribes. One month for the bruises to yellow and fade into memory, for his cuts to scab and scar. Two months for his shoulder to cease its insistent throb. Two months of keeping his body firmly planted in his cot until he’s cleared to rise with the assistance of a mahogany cane courtesy of Jihoon. Another month of hobbling along the deck, relearning his center of gravity under the threat of toppling into the sea.

Ninety two days of heated gazes and longing brushes of hands in passing, conversations littered with double entendres verging on obscenity. More whispered confessions and declarations. Twenty four nights of you visiting his room under the cover of the moon, sitting by his side, clasping his hand while he slept fitfully, administering more oily sedative when the nightmares chase him awake and one night he pulls you down beside him. Then seventy two mornings blinking wake, curled against one another under the thin sheets like you had all those years ago, whispering promises in the gentle dawn.

The first night Wonwoo shuffles across the deck without the assistance of the familiar piece of wood, you nearly take him against the main mast. Instead, you settle for pulling him to your cabin as the oil lantern begins to burn low, when the eyelids of the crew droop from exhaustion and their heads turn away in consideration.

A choked groan leaves your throat as his hips settle between your thighs, molding together so tightly there’s no deciphering where you end and Wonwoo begins. Mouths refuse to separate as you roll against one another, a cacophony of breathless whimpers and husky moans blending between lips.

Your bodies burn with the inferno of a pyre, every hair stands on edge like lightning is about to strike a hair width away. There’s no air to breath, but the space you’ve descended into thankfully requires none. Only you and Wonwoo exist, not time or the sea or the stars.

“Say it again,” he whispers into your mouth.

“I love you!” You gasp back, eager to seal the words with another suck of his tongue.

Calloused hands palm your chest, breasts heavy and full, nipples growing to stiff peaks as deft fingers brush and pluck. Wonwoo laps at the smooth dip between before latching onto one, nipping and sucking as you writhe in the sheets, thrashing wildly against him. Your own hands make busy twisting and pulling his hair, nails scraping against the dip of his neck and across his broad shoulders.

“Again.” Wonwoo bites into your skin, punctuated with another harsh curl of his hips into yours, so deep he’s in your lungs.

Sobbing your reply, eyes closing as your forehead presses to his, you nearly choke on air as he drives into you again and again.

“I love you.”

“Again.” He pants desperately.

“Wonu!” You keen, back of your head pressing into the pillows as your chest collapses from his precarious rhythm. Streams of light rupture across your vision, tension swelling in your veins and ripping you apart.

“Love you, I love you,” He mutters like a prayer into the crease of your shoulder, face buried in your neck as he snatches your wrist, twining your fingers with his next to your head, grip so tight nails sting into the back of each other's hand.

Another prayer of his name rips from your throat, cannoning Wonwoo into a frenzy. He pummels into you with such force the crown of your skull knocks into the headboard. His hips stutter as he finds his release, filling you with his seed as he cries your own name into your lips.

Stuttered breaths settle for a moment.

“Again, Woo.”

He eagerly follows your orders, just as he’s always done.

Epilogue

Once upon a time, an unlikely friendship between a princess and a stable boy bloomed in the gardens of a king’s palace. The stable boy followed the princess wherever she decided to go, and the princess knew that if she ever needed to turn back, the stable boy would welcome her with open arms. Even when age led her to the other side of this life like an old friend, the stable boy couldn’t help but follow. Though he was eager to return to her side once more, the princess had remained behind to welcome him with a smile when he walked over the hill.

Some say that when the moon dips below the horizon of the sea each day, it's the princess returning to the warmth of her lover's embrace. Always destined to find one another in each life, never to be kept apart, no matter what came between.

#svthub #svt x reader #svt imagines #svt fanfic #svt wonwoo #svt jeonghan #svt angst #seventeen fanfic #jeonghan x reader #jeonghan angst #wonwoo x reader #wonwoo angst #seventeen angst #svt #wonwoo smut #🫡 highvern

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osamufication · 6 months ago

Text

he's a pirate

pairing: pirate captain!atsumu x fem!reader

wc: 2.8k

warnings: nsfw, porn with some plot, wax play, impact play, degradation, dom!atsumu, sub!reader, general threats of violence, a sprinkle of authority kink, reader is choked once, fluffy ending

a/n: for the love of FUCK this is not accurate or realistic wax play. please do NOT pour wax from random ass candles on any part of your body thank u

Isn’t this just perfect, you had to get caught didn’t you, you chastise yourself.

“Unhand me at once you pathetic, filthy pirate!” you screech at the wretched man holding your arms.

“You say pirate like it's a bad thing.”

You stop thrashing, directing your attention up to the quarter deck. There stands a tall young man with tufts of blonde hair sticking out from under his preposterous hat. He looks down at you and an amused smirk tugs at his lips. “We’re not all that bad.”

The man holding you shoves you down to the floor. You barely keep yourself from falling face first onto the deck.

You glare up at him, flipping your hair out of your face, “I’ll kill you.” you spit.

The man laughs. “We both know you’re not capable of killin’ me, love.” He walks up to the railing, leaning against it. “I’m much too handsome.”

“Give me a break.” you huff.

“We caught ‘er tryin’ to steal some of our supplies, capn’.”

“Oh? You’ve got some nerve sweetheart,” he chuckles darkly. The blonde makes his way around the railing and down the steps. You watch him carefully, trying to guess what he is playing at.

He stands before you, and unsheaths his sword. His expression is unreadable as he fits the tip of the blade beneath your chin, tilting your head up to meet his eyes. You clench your jaw, trying to keep yourself from saying something idiotic.

“Do you know how I punish thieves, poppet?” His voice is sickeningly condescending.

You keep your mouth shut, refusing to give this moron the satisfaction of following along. By now, a small crowd of crew members had formed, all of them enjoying the free entertainment.

The captain rolls his eyes, looking around at the rest of his crew, “How should we punish her, eh boys?”

A mess of responses comes from the men.

“Throw ’er overboard!”

“Strip ‘er and tie ‘er to the mast!”

“Slit ‘er throat!”

You’re sure the fear is visible in your eyes. The captain looks quite amused by the whole ordeal.

“True, I usually just throw thieves overboard. But,” he leans down, his face a few mere inches away from yours. “I think I should handle yer punishment a little more... personally.” He turns to face his crew again, “I’ll handle this myself, get back to work ya morons.”

The crew disperses, groaning in disappointment. They were hoping for a much more entertaining conclusion. But you know this isn’t over for you.

He finally withdraws his blade and pulls you up to your feet, “Follow me love. Let’s discuss yer punishment in private.” he whispers into your ear.

As soon as the door of the captain’s quarter’s clicked shut he broke the silence.

“y/n.”

“Miya.” you growl. “I meant it when I said I’d kill you.”

“Tch, don’t be like that poppet-”

“Don't call me that.”

“Right. Forgot ya hated that name.” Atsumu sighs, “Love, I know I was a dick. I don’t expect ya to just let me back in, but please give me a chance.”

You sit down in a chair. “And why would I do that, Miya?”

He leans over you, hand on either arm of the chair, trapping you. “Ya know ya miss me. Us.”

You scrunch up your nose. “That’s awfully arrogant of you.”

He leans in further, nose bumping against yours. “C’mon love. At least stay the night, for old time’s sake.”

You don’t know what possesses you at that moment. This is the man that had left you behind, without so much as a proper warning. He told you in passing he wanted to leave one night and never return. The next day you had woken up to a cold bed and a missing ship.

You had every intention of chopping off his dick and shoving down his throat if you ever saw him again. But here you are, kissing him as though you still needed him with every fiber of your being.

He grazes your lips with his teeth, hands wandering your body freely.

“Fuck, I missed ya so much love.” Atsumu’s leg slips between your and bumps against your sensitive core. You whimper against his lips, hating how easily you slip into a submissive state for him.

Atsumu pulls away and boasts a dangerous smirk on his lips. “I’m supposed to be punishing ya darlin’, the men won’t believe I kept my word unless they hear some screamin’.”

He grips the front of your blouse, pulls you out of the chair and shoves you onto his bed. He climbs on top of you, easily tearing the fabric between his fingers. His eyes roll back when he’s greeted with the familiar sight of your bare breasts, barely biting back a groan as he eagerly gropes them. You wrap your legs around his waist, grinding up against his hardening cock. Atsumu kisses you sloppily, teeth roughly clashing against yours. You reach up to throw off his stupid hat and thread your fingers through his hair.

“This is,” you gasp as Atsumu drags his thumb around your nipple, “quite the punishment, Miya.”

In an instant, Atsumu ceases all movement. “You’ve forgotten who yer dealin’ with, princess.”

He unhooks your legs from around his waist and gets off the bed. You start to sit up, but Atsumu quickly shoves you back down, his massive hand wrapped almost entirely around your throat. “Did I tell you to fuckin’ move?”

“N-no,” you choke out.

He raises an eyebrow. “Ya seem to have forgotten your manners as well, what a damn shame.”

Before you can react, he releases your neck and slaps you across the face. The sound of the impact echoes throughout the room and rings in your ears.

Atsumu grips your face tightly and forces you to face him. “Let’s try again shall we?” He leans in, his lips ghosting over your own, so close that you can feel his hot breath mingling with yours.

“Did I give you permission to move?”

You swallow, trying to speak without trembling, “No, s-sir.”

There’s a satisfied glint in his eyes as he releases you. You make sure to stay perfectly still. Without a word of acknowledgement he walks over to his desk, shrugs off his coat, and removes the pistols you were mortified to realize you hadn’t detected.

From your spot on the bed you get a perfect view of the wonders his pants do for his ass. You're so distracted you don’t notice Atsumu lighting a candle before walking back over to the bedside.

“Clothes off.”

Once you’ve stripped bare, Atsumu lays you on your back and spreads your legs. Your cunt is already glistening from the heated kissing and grinding.

“You’re positively drenched, darlin’.”

He reaches over to grab the red candle from the table. He holds it over your stomach, before grinning again. “You’re not allowed to move, but screaming is highly encouraged.”

With that he tilts the candle, letting a drop of wax plop onto your stomach. You hiss and squirm, the heat almost unbearable for a moment. You’re ashamed to admit the sharp pain goes straight to your twitching pussy. Another drop falls a bit higher up your torso. It takes all your willpower to keep still.

To only make matters worse, as Atsumu drips the candle wax onto your breasts he uses his free hand to start teasing your clit. You mewl as he rubs up and down your slit, inserting a finger as wax lands on your hardened nipples. His fingers graze against that tender spot inside, you arch your back, grinding on his hand.

“F-fuck, right there!” you choke out. Your eyes are screwed shut, but you feel the drips of wax traveling further down your body.

“Yer movin’ again,” Atsumu leans forward, the candle flame licking the skin of your side, “Are ya this desperate for me? All that time on your own really did make ya a whore, hmm?”

You shake your head, “No, I didn-”

Before you can finish, Atsumu quickly removes his hand and slaps it against your cunt, hard. You can’t suppress the screech ripped from your throat.

He sits back between your thighs and sets the candle on the floor by the bed. He nods to your legs, “Grab ‘em and hold ‘em to yer chest. Now.”

You do as he says, feeling your face get hot again. Atsumu’s view must be entirely obscene. If someone were to walk in now, there would be no saving your dignity.

Atsumu’s eyes are dark and hungry, he hits your cunt again with more force than before. A loud and wet slap echoes in the room along with your shriek. You heave, trying to catch your breath.

He lowers his face between your legs and licks a stripe up, leaving a kiss on your clit. “Such a filthy little whore. Yer really enjoying this aren’t ya?”

You nod your head rapidly, “Y-yes sir, I am.”

“So ya haven’t learned yer lesson about stealin’ from me?”

Oh shit. That’s right.

“I, uh...”

Fuck, you can’t think straight with his tongue grazing against your soaked hole.

“No? Well I’ll have to really punish ya then.”

He holds the candle directly over your pussy, eyes gleaming.

“W-wait-” You’re interrupted by your own scream as the first drop of wax hits your clit with a plop!

“That’s what I like to hear, darlin’.” Atsumu’s face boasts a sadistic grin as he continues his assault on your cunt.

You keep screaming with each drop, the stinging only making you wetter than you already were. Your fingernails leave bright red crescents on your thighs as you grip them to your chest, using all your strength to stay still. There’s wax all over your swollen cunt and you’re sure it must look like an absolute mess.

“I think yer ready now.” Atsumu mumbles, undoing his pants and taking out his cock. He readjusts himself and teases your dripping pussy with his impossibly hard length. You whimper every time he slips just the head of his cock in.

“Fuckin’ hell, doll yer still so tight.” He groans, finally pushing all the way in.

Your vision is blurry from all the overwhelming sensations. Atsumu pulls out almost completely before ramming his hips back against yours. Your mouth drops open as he sets the brutal pace you were so familiar with from all those years ago. You whimper and whine with every wet slap of his cock drilling into you.

Without slowing his pace, Atsumu picks the candle back up. He grins down at you, tipping it over again and lands a particularly large glob of wax on your clit. Your scream is guttural, the feeling of Atsumu hitting your g-spot while the burning wax stimulates your swollen clit entirely overwhelming.

You start to feel a familiar tension in your stomach. Your cunt clenches around Atsumu’s cock, making him throw his head back, eyes screwed shut. He takes a ragged breath before looking you in the eyes and presses his thumb harshly against the wax on your clit.

“F-fuck! Sir, I’m cumming!” You scream, legs shake so violently you lose your grip on them. Before they can hit the bed Atsumu blows out the candle and throws it to the ground. He uses his free arm to hold them back up against you.

“That’s it darlin’, just like that, keep cumming for me.” Atsumu presses himself harder against you as his thrusts get sloppier. He groans loudly as he cums inside you, his grip on your legs loosening.

He lets out a ragged breath as his movements come to a stop and he helps you lower your sore legs to the bed.

He leans over you, his strong arms on either side of your head. He kisses you the way he did earlier, as loving as ever. He pulls away from your lips and presses his forehead to yours. You both stay there in comfortable silence for a moment.

Once you’ve caught your breath, you whisper, “I think we should clean up.”

Atsumu sighs, but reluctantly moves off of you. Dry wax on your body uncomfortably cracks with the movement.

You scrunch up your nose, how the hell are you going to get this off of you?

“Well then? How was that?” Atsumu asks.

“I suppose,” you turn your head to the captain, “that was satisfactory.”

Atsumu snorts, “Just satisfactory huh? I’ll go harder next time then, princess.”

You shiver, knowing full well he will keep his word. You also don’t fail to notice his choice of words.

Next time.

You watch as Atsumu stands up and starts pulling his pants back on. The thin sheen of sweat covering his back makes him almost glow in the sunlight shining through the window. He pulls his cotton tunic over his head and turns back to you, a soft look in his eyes. “Let’s get ya cleaned up shall we?”

He opens a cabinet to pull out a cloth and bottle. He places them on the bedside table before situating himself beside you. He douses the cloth with a thick liquid.

“What is that?” you ask, watching as he starts rubbing it into your skin and over the wax.

“Olive oil, it’ll get the wax right off of yer skin. I don’t wanna hurt ya or let ya rip the pieces off.” Atsumu dutifully works at your skin, slowly but surely getting all the wax off, and leaving you very oily instead.

“Miya?”

“I think we’re a bit past the formalities dontcha think?”

You smile sadly, “Atsumu, why are you here? You said you weren’t coming back.”

Atsumu sighs, “I know what I said. And I meant it when I said it, but I was an idiot.”

“Not surprised.”

“Watch it.” Atsumu pinches your leg playfully. “I didn’t realize that what I was looking for wasn’t on the other side of the world.”

He puts down the rag and walks over to his coat. You sit up against the headboard as he rumages for something in its pockets. He pulls out a little brown box with gold detailing around its borders. He circles the bed, taking a seat beside you. He meets your eyes, “Can’t believe I needed this thing to realize what I really wanted.”

You frown as he opens the box, expecting to see a giant diamond or aztec gold.

“A broken compass.” You say, unimpressed.

Atsumu groans, “I’m trying to be dramatic here and yer ruining my moment.” He takes a deep breath, “Yes, it's a compass. But it’s not broken, it points toward whatever it is you most desire.”

The needle spins back and forth for a split moment before picking a direction. You twist your head back to look behind you, “You want the rum on the table?”

“For fuck’s sake y/n and ya say I’m dense.” He runs a hand down his face. “It’s pointing at you.”

You freeze for a moment. He can’t possibly mean that.

“Atsumu I swear to god if you're messing with me...” your voice trails off.

Atsumu puts the compass down and takes hold of your hands, “I swear on my life, yer everything I want in this world. I’m fully prepared to sell the ship and stay with ya on dry land if that’s what ya want.”

You blink back tears, “There’s no need to be so dramatic.” You move over so he can take a seat beside you. “I don’t want you to give up sailing. I never did. All I wanted was for you to take me with you, to be with you.”

Atsumu shakes his head, “I was so fuckin’ stupid.”

You smile and curl up next to him, “Not as stupid as I am giving you a second chance. Don’t make me regret this.”

Atsumu drapes his arm around you, planting a kiss on your head, “I’ll make you a pirate queen, darlin’. Just you wait.”

You giggle, “So where are we headed, captain?”

Atsumu grabs the compass again. With his arm secured around you, the needle starts spinning again. It settles in the general direction of the island.

You raise a brow at him, challenging him to explain why the needle was pointing toward the village.

Atsumu grins like an idiot and reaches over you to snatch the bottle of rum. He rips out the cork with his teeth and spits it out to the floor. He takes a swig before holding it up to your lips, carefully pouring some into your mouth.

Taking the compass back into his hands it finally settles, pointing out to the open ocean.

You smile, “Looks like we have a heading. Any idea where it may be taking us?”

Atsumu is quiet for a moment, before turning back to you. In his eyes is a glimmer of adventure. Those are the eyes of a troublemaker you fell in love with oh so long ago.

“Ever heard of the fountain of youth?”

#link can write #haikyuu x reader #atsumu miya x reader #atsumu x reader #atsumu x reader smut #atsumu smut #haikyuu smut #haikyuu x reader smut #pirate au #technically a repost of an old fic

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fanaticsnail · 10 months ago

Text

When You Had The Chance

Masterlist Here.

Word Count: 3,830

Plot: Serving as first mate to the Buggy-Pirates, it was your job to keep your captain grounded and uplifted. When tempers flared, he decided to confront his childhood rival once and for all - pulling out all the stops to finally lay their feud to rest. Crew against crew, Captain against Captain, First-Mate against First-Mate - will you win, or lie at the mercy of the man you once loved. The man you will always love.

Themes: Angst, pining, war, fighting, guns, blades, blood, unrequitted love, age-gap (19-37, 23-41, 32-50: Maths made me work today) f!reader, pet-name used, enemies to friends to enemies to lovers.

Song Suggestions: Let Me Down Slowly, She Used to be Mine

Tag List: @sordidmusings, @writingmysanity, @gingernut1314, @feral-artistry,

Destruction, chaos, blood and bones litter the splintered hull of the ship. The air was tinted with the scent of cinders, flint and ignited powders. Another cannon struck the top-mast, this time severing the link and reducing it to shredded planks. Everything was happening both too fast and too slow. Buggy was flying through the air, untameable as the sea and as chaotic as the storm rocking the ship against the thrashing waves.

A clap of lightning cut the sky, the sound of rumbled beaten-drum thunder reverberated and shook against your rapidly reducing vessel. You shook your nerves away from your hands and leapt into the air, holding your breath as you propelled yourself onto the enemy vessel.

You had no idea that a night of drinking and reminiscing with your captain and crew would lead you here. It started with ale, pale to start and ending with stout. Then you switched to ports and honey-mead to cleanse the palate and continue the merriment. Music, lividity, gaiety was where you started - singing heartily to the shanties of old.

And then they brought out the ouzo.

Ouzo, your one weakness, had memories spiraling and your heart swelling in love-stricken grief. It started with each of you recounting your places at the time of Gol D Rogers execution. Buggy could barely choke back his tears, almost coherent with words he left unspoken as he witnessed his heart stop as a fifteen year old. You confessed you were in a place you knew you shouldn't, a child of barely eight witnessing the death of someone you had adored from afar as king of your kind.

From listening to the recounts of the crew, anger began to fester below the surface. Tales of how Captain Shanks ruined the life of your beloved clown had your heart beating heavier - swelling with the thinning blood infused with a high percentage of alcohol. You had only then begun to uproot the prior stifled feelings regarding the redheaded captain’s first mate.

You thought you repressed them enough, compartmentalized enough. But the bile began to form behind your lips as your heart jumped into your throat as the memories found themselves within the forefront of your eyes.

He had every right to turn you down. You respect him more for it now than you did back then, that was for certain. You were barely nineteen, making a name for yourself as one of the most nimble-footed, light fingered thieves in the east blue. “Get in, get on with it, get it done, and get out,” was your motto; and a motto you managed to execute with the highest amount of competency and skill.

Stealing from a red-haired captain? An easy task you were commissioned to do. Having your heart stolen from your chest, lungs compressed of all its oxygen as your eyes met with the steel gaze of the first mate? Not something you had ever accounted for. But you fell first, and you fell hard.

You disregarded your mission, bullied the captain immediately to take you under his wing aboard the red-force and served with them for little over four years. In those four years, your heart was longing, craving affection from the first mate. Yassop gave you hell for it. Lucky Roux attempted to join in on the teasing - only for you to teach them both a lesson by misplacing and claiming objects very near and dear to them.

Each time you set to dock at port, you witnessed the love of your life take another to his bed. You drew attention yourself, and easily took a fling here and there. But in doing so, you were always longing to be the one chosen good enough - special enough - to warm the sheets beside Benn Beckman. To be the face he’d lie next to in the night, and the smile he awoke to in the morning.

At twenty three, you confessed. A night not unlike the one here amongst the red-hair pirates had you singing, swaying and dancing to the fingerpicking of a guitar. Ouzo drove your words, an apprehensive and innocent smile dancing on your lips as the warm alcohol flushed your cheeks. You laid it all out for him; from the moment your eyes first met, to the way you altered your entire life for the opportunity to be by his side - you risked it all at the beachfront fireside with the crack of warm flames dancing in your eyes.

As you leant in to place a soft kiss against his lips: he turned away from you with his eyes tightly shut. His hand clapped over your shoulder, as he kept you an arms length away and reopened his eyes.

“Darlin’, I’m flattered,” His voice drawled, brows furrowed in a deep frown as he held his eyes away from yours, “But I’m a little old for someone like you.”

Someone like you.

That phrase had all thoughts sour, all emotions and tempers running high as you hastily sprung to your feet and marched back towards the Red Force. Knowing now what you knew then, he had every right to turn you down as you confessed to him. You were young, a fool only in love; never unsound in mind.

Was that how all of the crew thought of you? An infatuated, love-sick, and thieving child following blindly the orders of your captain, under the watchful eyes of a first mate you’d come to love? You gave up everything to be by his side; your career long since forgotten as you worked yourself to the bone for the chance to be on the receiving end of a small smile from him.

You hastily packed your belongings, leaving no trace nor whisper you had ever served among this crew, and crept back into the shadows where you once more found yourself again. Thriving in the reignition of your skillset, you had managed to acquire a fair amount of wealth for yourself. Feeling in a celebratory mood after a successful solo heist, your eyes met with the hunched over figure of a sad clown.

Feeling content and pleased with yourself, you decided to buy him a drink. And then another.

And then you decided to join him for one.

When you met Buggy, you knew this was the crew you were always meant to serve with. Your skills as a thief had you perform in his circus as his prized assistant. His coy volunteer within the stands, his enchanting assistant showcasing his grandeur, his leading lady in the ring - his loyal First-Mate as he made a name for himself through fame and fortune. Never once did you feel the desire to romance the clown, keeping the need to express such feelings for another hidden well below the surface, but you loved him as one ever could love an older sibling who acted like the younger.

After slamming down your upturned, empty shot glass for the umpteenth time; you lulled your head atop his shoulder and nonchalantly raised your voice in question.

“What if we just,” your speech slurred as you looked over the back of your nails, “killed him?”

“Killed who, Doll? Who we killing?” Your captain asked, looking over your head to nod in appreciation of your painted fingernails.

“Shanks. The Red-Hair pirates. All of them.”

Buggy leant down into your ear, holding his glazed over eyes and a rumbled growl of anxiety laden excitement purred against your skin.

“I love it when you talk dirty.”

And this is where your booze-filled suggestion had you. Rifles drawn, cutlasses brandished and fists meeting flesh as you tore each other into ribbons of littered and battered skin. Teeth gnashing, throats growling and brows furrowing; the tension was being cut with layers of destruction. Two crews you had served with, the former being on the winning side of the fight as the latter began to perish. Your current crew were being annihilated, only very few remaining now standing as the Big Top was slowly sinking beneath the icy-cold water.

As another cannonball was fired from the end of an iron circlet, you fell to a crouched position and barely managed to cover your ears to stifle the ringing within. As you withdrew your ears and turned, you opened your eyes to a sight you never thought you would see again.

Facing down the barrel of a rifle, your eyes first met with the cold circlet of doom pointing at your head. You smelt the warm familiarity of tobacco first, your heart pounding harder than it ever did within the battle prior.

Glancing up past the barrel, you met with the cold and calculated stare of the first-mate of the red hair pirates. His eyes were wide and wild, his lips curled back into a grimace with the grinding of teeth, before the cruel twist of fate had his eyes stagger under recognition.

The warm hot flush of angry tears began to sting at the corners of your eyes as they continued to bear into his - his own raw emotion being depicted on his own face.

Beckman’s heart stopped, his breath hitched and cigarette fell from his parted lips as his jaw fell slack. Never once had you reached out. Not after all this time did he know you were even alive, let alone serving amongst the rival crew of the one you had come to know prior. He never should’ve let you leave - not like that. Not knowing how he truly felt for you and choosing to restrain himself from your alcohol-induced confession.

He loved you. He loved you so desperately, he could not see his life complete without you. And when you severed from the crew and left no trace, Beckman became a shell of a man he once was. Faking smiles, forcing laughter, joining himself with pleasurable company no longer on his agenda as all he could picture was your face. Your eyes: filled with such sorrow at his rejection, that was all he came to see behind his closed eyes as he lay to sleep.

"You gonna shoot me, Becks? Is that what it all comes down to?" Your taunt broke him away from his looping thoughts, his battletorn face alert to the woman he had come to long for. Your sinister and malicious smile was never something he ever foresaw being on the receiving end of, and it startled him.

"I don't want to, Darlin'. But if it'll stop you from fightin’ us and leaving with the clown again, I'll see it done,” he responded, clicking back the ignition on his beloved pistol.

The roars of battle fleeing from the lips of your Captain, his malicious cackles of rage-filled laughter hurtling towards Red Haired Shanks. Echoes of taunts and insults hurled into the air regarding the betrayal of one captain against another, all of which were met by an uproar of apologies from your former captain as he blocked every assault thrown his way.

Although you were a faithful first-mate, knowing it was your role to serve and protect your captain, you were struck down by your own swollen emotions within your heart. No longer filled with the taste and hindrance of alcohol, your once hidden thoughts and emotions began to swell of their own accord in front of the silver-haired first-mate.

You couldn't tear your eyes from Beckman’s, unable to break the spell of longing you felt for him. After all these years, he was still the man your heart cried for in the lonely hours of the night, as you lay in crew quarters aboard the enemy’s ship. The first man you ever loved. The man you would always love. The man who still held the pointed tip of a gun at your head as you scowled into his face, masking the pain his absence had drawn to you.

His eyes, his hair, his soul: all once held secret and safe with your adoration for him protected and refused to be spoken. Those words turned to broken mirrors, refracting light away from your eyes as they held firm against his own.

"You going to cut me down just like that? I thought you were a man far more dignified than all that," you huffed with a humorless laugh. His jaw clenched tightly shut, his eyes narrowing at you as you snarled at him beneath the barrel of his gun.

"And I never thought I'd see you again, let alone blindly serving the enemy,” He growled, dragging his eyes over your war torn clothes and battleshaken face for any semblance of injury.

Another cry from the clown in rage had your ears pricking at the sound, but eyes fixed on the expressions the man in front of you were holding. You saw the masking emotions slip, his eyes begin to glaze as your own mask dropped completely.

After all this time, he was still the man you loved. You loved him so desperately, so deeply, that you almost forgot the reason you were here in the first place.

He dropped his gun from your head and fell to his knees in front of you, reaching down his left hand to seek out your chin and cradle it beneath his thumb and index finger. You keep your eyes fixed on his as you allow the luxury of a hot tear to roll down your cheek, gritting your teeth in wordlessly reprimanding yourself for such an action.

“Benn,” the whisper of his name from your mouth had his body surge towards you, taking your lips beneath his in a long, bruising kiss.

His left hand removed itself from your chin to take your cheek into it, his right hand circling your waist as he cradled you against himself. You whimpered against his lips, feeling everything you had once felt for him simmer and boil to the surface.

You clenched your eyes tightly shut, brows furrowing as he reflected everything you had tangibly felt in yearning for him for all of these years. You felt the stubble of his chin scrape against yours, the taste of his final cigarette on his tongue as he deepened the oscillation. He growled as you finally gave in, hooking your right arm over his shoulder and placing your left hand atop his right cheek. You felt the etchings of his healed over scar dancing beneath your fingertips, an angry whisper of a tear leaking down to press against your thumb.

"Please don't leave with him. I couldn't bear the thought. Stop all of this,” he whispered against your lips, “Please stay,” he uttered, breaking the kiss to brace you against his body, “Stay with me on the Red Force. Serve Shanks once more. Please . I'll do anything-."

At that, you circled your chin around, breaking the embrace while rotating your hips away from him. You danced your body around his, placing a firm kick to the side of his head; successfully knocking the first-mate of the Red-Hair pirates to the ground and rising to your feet in one swift movement.

Benn was on his side, staring up at you with a mixture of shock, fury and pride.

"Good bye, Benn. You should've shot me when you had the chance."

At that, you ran fast as your feet could carry you towards your blue-haired captain. You quickly sought him out as he lay punch after punch against the face and torso of red-haired Shanks, who looked to just be sitting there and taking them. He easily could defend himself and thwart the rage of the clown by pushing him backwards into the sea water, but he just stood and took everything Buggy was throwing at him.

Buggy, your beautiful captain, was crying. Hot and angry tears were pouring without any semblance of stopping, as fatigue from the fight slowed down his rage-filled hits. His white gloves were stained red with the blood of the man who betrayed him, a man who appeared to be whispering in a voice so low only Buggy could hear it.

Your sprint drew you close, just off to the side as the punches slowed to a lull; Buggy’s shoulders shaking as he continued to sob.

“It’s okay, Buggy,” Shanks whispered, allowing another hit to land against his chest, “It’s okay. Everything is okay.” Buggy’s head hung low, his knuckles pressed firmly against Shanks’ torso as he continued to cry into the air.

Shanks hooked an arm over his shoulders, pressing Buggy’s sweat-smeared forehead against his own, as he embraced him with his battered remaining arm. Shanks’ eyes were closed and a whisper of a boyish smile was stuck to his face as Buggy’s sobs began to shake violently under his arm.

“I’m sorry, Buggy. I’m so, so sorry,” Shanks whispered, nuzzling his head against Buggy’s as he drew his head into his chest. Buggy’s eyes continued to remain wide and unblinking as he stiffened in the embrace.

You felt the presence of both the Red-Hair and the Buggy-Pirates at your side; battered, bruised and broken as they watched their captains embrace against one another.

“You can keep hitting me if you want,” Shanks smiled, placing his chin atop the blue hair of the captain you serve, “But know I’ll never hate you. I’d rather die.”

You felt an overwhelming sense of both panic and relief as Buggy circled his arms around Shanks’ waist and buried his head into his chest. Sobs from the clown and laughter from the redhead began to echo against the deck of the ship, confusing all those surrounding.

“Lay down your arms, boys,” Beckman’s voice rumbled from your side, prompting you to freeze in place. To your surprise, the Red-Hair pirates sheathed their swords and disarmed their pistols. Silence aside from the whimpers from your captain in the arms of your former were the only sounds gracing your ears, until they met with the flick of a lighter and a deep inhale of a cigarette.

You looked over to the silver-haired man beside you, watching as he took the back of his hand and wiped the small trickle of blood from your prior kick from his lips.

“And bring out some Ouzo, would you, Roux?” Beckman’s eyes upturned. You watched as that smile you so desperately craved began to draw up onto the lips of the man you loved, causing your heart to swell.

“Me and this one got a lot to talk about,” he stooped down, resting his forehead against your own as his charming smile began to grow, “Don’t we, Darlin’?”

The battle died down, your current and former captains sitting together in the middle of a table of the tavern as the Red-Force tethered and chaperoned the Big-Top into port. You were sitting at the bar, refusing to acknowledge any member of your former crew, nor your current. Cabaji and Yasopp were heavily engaged in a dart-throwing competition at the far end of the tavern; Roux and Mohji were talking about food in heavy detail, with Richie curled up at their feet.

And Beckman was sitting atop the barstool beside you, patiently watching and waiting for you to engage him in conversation. You continued to sit in silence, sipping at the small glass of ouzo first before downing the liquid and signaling for another.

“Someone like you,” you mocked him, tutting out a venomous reprimand before throwing back another shot of the burning, liquorice-flavored liquid as soon as it was placed in front of you, “Darlin’ this, Darlin’ that.”

“Is that what this was about?” Beckman chuckled, leaning his elbow on the bar as he took his cheek beneath his fist, “After all this time, you think-.”

“-You know what, Benn? Fuck you,” you spat, turning from him and signalling for the bartender to leave the remainder of the bottle, “Fuck you and your stupid ‘someone like you’, Benn. You should be so lucky, you arrogant prick-.”

Your words were stifled by the firm grip pulling at the back of your hair, immediately molding his lips over your own in a long, passionate kiss. He circled his chin, parted his lips and claimed more of your heart with each brush-stroke of the portrait he painted against your mouth. He bullied you, bruised you with his intensity; cradling you against his body with each motion he made with his lips.

Wolf-whistles and cat-calls were thrust into the air by the two pirate crews once sworn in hatred, now allies. Benn smiled against your lips, continuing to press more of himself into you before he broke away from claiming you against his mouth.

“Someone like you,” Beckman whispered, his breath tickling your lips with the former memory, “Someone as young as you. Someone as stunning as you. Someone that could have any man they wanted fall on their knees and beg for you to send a single look their way.” Your breath hitched, eyes wide at his confession.

“Is that what you’re doing, Benn?” your eyes dropped to his lips, processing every word relayed onto you, “Begging?”

“Pleading,” he confessed further before he claimed another kiss from your lips that ended as briefly as it began. You allowed the small break of a smile chip and whittle away against your prior stoic and aggressive demeanor.

“Why didn’t you say so when you had the chance?” you asked him, shaking your head at him and drawing up your palm to cradle his cheek within its warmth. He closed his eyes, leaning into the small gesture and kissed your palm.

“I wanted you to have the chance to do better, Darlin’,” he uttered, placing his hand atop yours and withdrawing it from his face, “Better than me.” You sought out his meaning behind his gray orbs and clicked your tongue at him.

“Why would I ever have wanted anyone else?” you whispered, shaking your head at him. He chuckled, turning back and poured two glasses of the burning, translucent liquid into the shot glasses.

“A guy like me doesn’t get someone like you,” he sighed, his smile still present as he downed his ouzo, “Someone like you goes for someone like Shanks.” He poured himself another and danced his glass rim against yours remaining unclaimed atop the bar. You took the hint and raised your glass within your hand, rolling your eyes at his comment.

“Someone like me changed their life to follow someone like you,” you quipped in return, downing the liquid and placing your glass back atop the bar, prompting Benn to do the same. “I gave up everything I was for you, Benn. I wanted you,” you took the neck of the bottle and began pouring the liquid into both of the glasses, “And I still do.”

“After all that fighting?” he asked, nudging you with his shoulder, “You still want me, Darlin’?” You sighed, a smile dancing on your lips as the crew around continued their merriment and conversations.

“Of course I do.”

#one piece #opla #x reader #opla fic #one piece live action #buggy #shanks #benn beckman x reader #benn beckman #benn beckman op #benn x reader #beckman x reader

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twit-ter-pa-ted · 1 year ago

Text

Yes, Ma'am. – Final Part

pairing: Vinsmoke Sanji x afab!Reader

warnings: flirting, kissing :O, swearing, reader lore, mentioned events from the anime/manga

overview: 5 times you accidentally run into sanji, and 1 time you plan to meet; or – 5 times you rejected Sanji and 1 time you finally gave in.

a/n: this has about an 8.3k word count! ⊙⁠.⁠☉ i tried revising and making it shorter and wound up with more words instead,, anyways, eat up! <3

p.s. requests are open for anyone interested!

part one — part two

You drank your fifth bottle of beer despite not having enough Berries for even one. It had been a bad day – the worst, you think. It had been less than a year since you started as a sea merchant, and here you were now, not a Berry to your name thanks to a band of thieves. Thankfully, they left most of your products alone, only grabbing what they needed.

You tugged your father's jacket closer to your body and pulled out the stack of wanted posters that a News Coo bird had dropped off for the town you docked at. Most were new faces, some were pirates whose bounties increased.

You had asked for another bottle when the bartender questioned how you would be paying for it. You didn't answer. He rolled his eyes and muttered as he moved onto the customer a few seats away from you.

As you looked through the bounties, someone's booming voice chuckled as they entered the pub.

"Hey! Bartender, give us your finest liquor. Today is a day for celebration!" You turned to glare at the cause of loud noise when you realized at first glance that he looked familiar. You quickly whipped your head around to look at the posters again, shuffling through them.

Just as you found the one of the pirate that had just entered the pub, someone snatched it from your hand.

You turned to find that you had caught the attention of the pirate, Nepto Edda.

You saw the poster long enough to know his bounty would be more than enough to pay for your bill and get you back up on your feet.

"Looky here, men!" He chuckled again, showing his wanted poster to his crew with pride. They laughed as well.

Edda turned to you. "What are you planning to do with these, girl? You shouldn't be messing in these parts of the turf."

He slapped the posters off your hand, causing them to scatter on the pub floor. The bartender was too intimidated to reprimand the pirate.

Despite your recent loss, you held your chin high. You turned to completely face him.

"I'd love to hear you say that after I turn you in to the Navy."

He laughed before he swung to hit you, which you quickly avoided, sliding off your seat in the process. One of his crew was about to reach for his sword when you kicked his hand down and took the sword for yourself.

He and his crew kept his distance as you held the sword between you and them. At the last second, you sensed someone behind you. Before you could turn around, their blade was to your neck, their arm around your waist to keep you in place.

You clenched your jaw hearing their captain chuckle.

Your arms quickly fell to your side as a plan came to mind, though you were surprised to find the other person at the bar jumping into action.

He had taken one of his three swords and sliced at one of Edda's crew, catching everyone's attention.

You took the chance to slice the person behind you by their leg, the blade barely grazing your neck as you got away and sliced towards their chest.

The rest of the fight was a blur with the rush of adrenaline, though you had taken out your hidden gun at some point and pointed it to Edda.

His chuckle was nervous now, unlike how it was full and confident just moments ago. Who wouldn't be nervous, being at the mercy of a gun and a katana?

"Hey, back off, he's mine." The man that had jumped into the fight was first to speak.

You let out a surprised exclamation. The man certainly had the audacity. "How is he yours? I found him out and did the hard work, I didn't even need your help."

"I've done more damage to him than you have. It's only right that I'm the one to take him in," the green-haired man justified.

"Bullshit. I don't abide by that logic."

"Well, that's not my problem."

"I need to pay for my bill," you reasoned.

"So do I," he retorted.

"Please, it's both on the house if you just leave," the bartender, already sick of the bickering, pleaded with the pair of you.

Still, you continued even as the bartender spoke. "You wanna take this outside?" You said in a flurry of anger.

"Fine." He started to head out. You watched as he did, hitting Edda's temple with the butt of your gun to knock him out. You tied the pirate up before you quickly followed.

You settled right outside the pub, readying yourselves for a duel.

You recognized from his Three-Swords Style that you had challenged Roronoa Zoro, the notorious pirate hunter. Still, you did not prevail, taking out your own sword and placing your hand on your gun.

Before taking on the business in the seas, you had mastered the skill of swordsmanship and marksmanship, at least to your own extent.

"No guns," he announced.

"What, afraid you'll be at a disadvantage?" You knew he could most likely deflect bullets just as you could, but that couldn't stop you from taunting him.

"Fine. Do whatever you'd like."

Still, you obeyed, crouching and throwing your gun to the side. You instead equipped brass knuckles onto your now free hand.

You were now both ready, observing each other, waiting to see who would be first to offend and defend. Getting impatient, Zoro charged towards you.

His right hand rose to strike, which you quickly blocked with your sword. He pressured his sword forward, grunting when you didn't even seem to struggle upon keeping his blade away from yourself. You deflected it and stepped away as the blade swiped downwards, leaving a trail of dust as its trajectory hit the ground.

Your duel had caught the attention of a crowd, though it slowly depleted in size as your fight went on for hours.

Though you were exhausted, sweating and panting, the fight went on. You had both grazed each other multiple times, your knuckles even inflicting bruises onto his face, but neither cut a wound too deep into each other. The pub was closing and the moon had long risen by the time the bartender from earlier called your fight off, announcing it as a draw.

Reluctantly, and because the bartender had run his mouth off with scoldings, you split the bounty and parted ways. You never saw him again after that, and you were glad you never did.

* * * * * *

Once is an accident.

After leaving Baratie, you pulled out your map to head for Cocoyashi Village. It was under Arlong's reign but he allowed you to make trades with the village. As long as he got a share of your profit, of course.

You arrived every midweek to trade with the fruits they bore, most specifically the tangerines one villager named Nojiko grew. In return, you would give a few of the fruits and vegetables you traded from other villages. You would also give a few Berries to Genzo to help them pay for their monthly tributes.

For sailors and pirates of the sea, at least those with common sense, fruits and vegetables were essential to have on board to avoid getting scurvy. Naturally, you had to get the best of products to have a greater profit.

It took a few days for you to arrive. Though it was night when you did, the village seemed livelier than you had ever seen before.

Genzo greeted you as you docked your ship. He seemed to be in a bit of a drunken stupor as he called your name with joy. "Welcome!"

"Genzo, what's the occasion? I'm surprised Arlong let you have any fun," you remarked as you placed an arm around his shoulders to support him.

"You came at the right time! This marks the start of a new age in this village. We've been set free!" He announced, your eyes widening in disbelief.

"Coco's free?" You questioned for confirmation.

Genzo nodded with the grin that has remained on his face since he began to approach you. You had never seen him smile this much.

"This kid named Luffy beat Arlong into a pulp!" He then chuckled.

"Luffy?" You repeated. Genzo laughed again.

"And he had the nerve to challenge Marine's Vice Admiral Garp!" He said through his laughter.

"He fought Garp?"

Genzo nodded enthusiastically. He had begun leading you into the village at some point. "The Marines left without arresting them, though. Even if Garp could have completely beaten the kid."

"The village has been celebrating for four days now. Especially those pirates, they never seem to get tired!"

Just as he said it, you caught sight of Zoro sound asleep with a bottle of beer by his side.

"Oh. I guess it's just their captain that has endless stamina," Genzo concluded.

"Nojiko is resting, you ought to wait until tomorrow comes before you can trade."

You nodded in understanding.

"Have you eaten yet? You should try tonight's dish – tangerine garlic chicken." He grabbed you by the shoulders and led you to where the food was.

"Oh? Sounds interesting." You turned to face the person serving the food, your heart jumping in surprise as you did.

"Sanji!" Genzo had walked away to conversate with Luffy.

He had been keeping his eyes on the pan of cooked chicken as he scooped up a serving, his head suddenly whipping up to look at you as you called his name in surprise.

His eyes lit up as he called your name as well. "What are you doing here?" He was too shocked to tease you with something along the lines of, "how did you know where to find me?"

"I'm here for business, I trade for tangerines and other fruits with Nojiko. What are you doing here? What happened at Baratie?" You asked with confusion.

He shook his head and smiled, scooping a serving larger than usual to put on your plate. "I was, but I quit. I was too good for that place, anyway. I joined a pirate crew."

"You joined Luffy's crew?"

"You know him?"

You shrugged. "He pestered me at Baratie."

He chuckled as he looked away to find his captain, shaking his head in disapproval. "That idiot."

Usopp suddenly approached them, "Say, Sanji, have you eaten? Maybe you should take a break," he recommended, and something in his eyes told Sanji he was not taking 'no' for an answer.

"Hi, nice to see you again, miss Trader." He held his ground and stood with confidence beside Sanji as he greeted you with a grin.

"Likewise, I suppose, Usopp."

Usopp's confidence and courage seemed to crumble in less than a second as he cowered behind Sanji. "She remembers my name…!"

You fought an amused smile off your lips. "I'm not an ally to the Marines, there's nothing to worry about."

He didn't seem at all convinced, yet decided to trust you anyway. "A-Anyway, you should take that break, Sanji. Don't worry about the food, I'll handle it."

Sanji looked at him for a few seconds, almost reluctant, before taking a plate for himself.

"Make sure Luffy doesn't get near it – the village needs it more than he does, especially when he's had five servings and he's still starving," he instructed as he scooped himself a serving and took utensils for himself and for you. He handed you a fork and a spoon.

"Yes, sir!" Usopp saluted the chef before the latter gave him a grateful smile and began to walk away, a hand gently on your back to lead you along.

"What really happened?" There was silence on his end for a moment, so you spoke again. "I went back to Baratie the other day."

He chuckled. "Missed me that bad?"

You rolled your eyes yet a smile was on your lips. "The owner said you'd left. Figured that since I was a sea merchant, I'd be bound to run into you. That's all he said."

"Well, the old man's an idiot, he knows I'm headed for the Grand Line."

"You are?" You asked before taking a bite out of the chicken.

"Good?" He asked for your feedback.

You closed your eyes. You hated raising men's egos but you also couldn't lie. "It's the best I've had," it almost pained you to admit.

He couldn't help but chuckle at how cute you looked as you blurted it out, almost as if it were against your will that you did.

A somewhat comfortable silence fell between the two of you.

"I left Baratie because I wanted to find the All Blue." He looked at you and, as expected, you gave him a puzzled look. "It's a place where all the Blue Seas meet. You can find fish from all seas there."

You hummed with interest and intrigue. "Sounds like quite a chef's paradise."

He only smiled at you for a moment. He liked how you understood how he felt in an instant. "Exactly."

"So you're setting off to the Grand Line?"

"That's where we're headed. We just came here to get Nami." Your brows raised in surprise as you looked around.

"This is Nami's hometown?" He nodded.

"Turns out she joined the Arlong Pirates to buy her village back," he explained, "He set the price to a hundred million Berries then cheated her when she was about to reach that goal."

You couldn’t help but chuckle in disbelief. "A hundred million?"

"It's hard to believe, isn't it?" Sanji laughed as well just thinking about how Nami collected a hundred million Berries in eight years. "Luffy beat the shit out of Arlong for that. Now we have our navigator back, we're headed for the Grand Line."

You could listen to him talk for hours, and so you did just that. You and Sanji talked for the rest of the night. Next thing you knew, Nojiko had awoken and approached you to trade.

Sanji helped load the crates of tangerines onto your boat, despite him usually refusing to use his hands for anything other than cooking.

"Come with me," he offered as Genzo loaded the second crate onto your boat. "Come with us."

"The Straw Hat Pirates?" You asked for confirmation. He nodded. Genzo left the two of you to talk.

You smiled and shook your head as your eyes avoided his gaze. "I'm a merchant, not a pirate."

"We're headed for the Grand Line."

"All the more reason not to go. That place is treacherous," you retorted.

Sanji suddenly had a cocky smile. "You'll miss me."

You matched his smile. "I'll live."

"You'll miss my cooking," he rephrased. You rolled your eyes again, unable to respond.

Sanji, dejected, forced a smile despite the rejection. "If your mind's set."

You only watched as he departed, hands in his pockets as he watched his feet with every step he took. You, too, watched his feet as he left. You felt like you should be doing something to get him to stay – maybe change your mind and come with him, become a pirate.

It was the first time you had made a real connection with anyone. Even before entering the business of a sea merchant, you never really clicked with anyone, platonically nor romantically. Sure, there were people who were there, but they never really felt right.

As you watched his feet, you looked curiously as they stopped, then turned around. Your eyes travelled up to his eyes when he turned.

"Maybe I'll come see you once we've left the Grand Line – once I've found the All Blue."

He spoke as if he was confident that he would leave the Grand Line. You knew the chance was small, but you decided to hope that he would leave the Grand Line, too.

"I'll look forward to it."

* * * * * *

Twice is a coincidence.

"Zoro, what's the deal with you and that merchant from Baratie?" Usopp had been the one to ask this time. The whole crew was curious, they just didn't want to pry, but the questioning and the lack of answers was getting to everyone.

"Please, just answer them. The asking is getting irritating," Nami complained as she looked at him.

They were currently strolling along a village they had come across while on the way to the Grand Line. They decided to stop by only with the purpose of buying supplies for the kitchen, yet everyone decided to come along. Everyone reckoned they needed a walk around for what they had gone through in just less than a month – what they had gone through ever since they became a part of Luffy's crew.

Zoro rolled his eyes and gave in. He told them the story of how he and you fought for a bounty, only for it to end in a draw.

Sanji smacked him upside the head as he finished telling the story of your first interaction. "You don't have a single ounce in you that's a gentleman, do you? How dare you fight her?"

"She was the one who challenged me," Zoro defended himself, facing the blonde.

"That's not an excuse." Sanji faced the moss head.

"She pissed me off."

"She had every right to after you tried claiming her find."

"You wanna take this somewhere else?!"

"Hey! Don't you dare fight or I swear, I'll knock you both out myself," Nami threatened.

At that, both men went silent. As they both turned to face the main street forward again, both pairs of eyes landed on you.

Sanji called your name again, in confusion and in surprise.

You hadn't heard, as you were in the market where all voices overlapped with each other.

"Oh, it's the bounty hunter!" Luffy exclaimed with a grin.

"Shh…! She might hear us!" Usopp covered his captain's mouth as they all kept their eyes on you.

"Her again?" Zoro groaned in frustration.

"Shut up, moss head." You were picking out fruits, picking the best ones then asking for their prices.

As Sanji watched you, a cigarette between his lips, he saw your eyebrows furrow, your eyes darting between the fruits in your hand and the merchant. Upon seeing the conversation begin to get heated, he quickly made his way to you without second thought.

The rest of the crew watched as Sanji spoke to you, still with the cigarette in his mouth. You had been surprised at his seemingly sudden appearance, though your anger quickly returned.

You spoke to him, though the crew wasn't near enough to hear exactly what you said, but all they knew was it was enough to rile their cook up as well.

Luffy scratched his head as he watched you and Sanji argue with the merchant who began to sweat anxiously. Sanji had approached you with the purpose of diffusing the tension, though he seemed to only add to it as he, too, became frustrated with the merchant and his product's pricing. His cigarette almost fell from how much he was yelling at the merchant.

"They're a perfect match," he concluded. The others agreed with hums.

"Zoro, you said you fought and it ended in a draw?" Luffy affirmed, his first mate nodding.

"Great! She's joining the crew."

"What?!" Everyone exclaimed at his quick decision making.

* * * * * *

Sanji found that the village they were now docked at was your hometown. You visited every once in a while to check in on your parents, who Sanji offered to cook for as the Straw Hat Pirates resided in your home for the day to rest.

You were one of the first to receive their captain's wanted poster, being considered an ally of the Marine despite you denying it time and time again. It was yet to be shown to the public, but you knew it was bound to appear in newspapers. It wasn't often that someone's first bounty would exceed the former highest's by 10 million Berries.

You would depart the next day and so would they, just in time to avoid having your parents seen as associates of the pirates.

Sanji offered you to join them again, telling you the captain's decision to invite you along as well.

You declined, again.

Sanji could see in your eyes that you wanted to, and not just because you wanted to join him. There was another reason that wasn't there the first time he gave you an invitation. Still, he knew he was in no position to pry.

You parted ways once again despite the both of you knowing you wanted the exact same thing.

* * * * * *

Third time's a pattern.

Only a few weeks passed when you saw each other again. You saw him first this time, almost thinking your eyes were deceiving you as he shopped for kitchen knives, while you searched for a better sword.

This village was known for their blacksmith being the best in the East Blue, so you knew to head here after earning just enough Berries.

You slowly approached him as he examined knives. He caught sight of you from one's reflection, his leg swinging towards you in defense as he was surprised. Only halfway through his action did it process in his mind that it was you.

Still, though he couldn't stop himself, you deflected his leg with your forearm. You knocked him upside the head afterwards.

He rubbed his head to ease the pain. "You are good."

You didn’t ask how he knew of your abilities when he had never seen you fight. "Thank you."

You already knew he would ask what you were doing here. "I'm looking for a better sword," you answered his silent question, "I'm thinking it's about time. I recently turned in a million bounty, anyway."

"Good job, darling." Your eyes darted to his with surprise at the pet name, a chuckle leaving your lips as you looked away from his eyes that bore into yours.

"Thank you." He smiled as you tried to hide your flushed cheeks.

"Have you eaten? I'd love to cook lunch for you." It was comedic how he didn't trust any restaurant, only offering his own cooking every time you ran into each other. He knew you only deserve the best in everything, so he always offered you his cooking.

Still, you never really refused.

You had to admit that he had every right to be cocky about his cooking skills – he wasn’t just all talk, anyway. You do believe that he was the best chef in the East Blue – maybe even of all the Seas.

After finding the right sword for yourself, you walked through the market to buy supplies for lunch. Sanji couldn't help but complain to you how Luffy had consumed a month's worth of food in less than an hour just as they had left the village prior to this one.

You couldn't help but laugh as he told the story, imagining Sanji chasing Luffy around their ship and pleading to Nami for a lockable fridge. After buying meat and vegetables, you started to head back to the boat.

Luffy was more than delighted to see you, Usopp still a bit skeptical (it was only in his nature), and Nami welcomed you aboard. Zoro was asleep.

Sanji cooked lunch for you, making something special for you and Nami as well as dessert, staying by your side as you ate your food.

You stayed with them for dinner, as well, finding that you made a connection with the rest of the crew as well.

"Do you really not want to join?" Sanji asked for the third time, you only chuckled as you already expected the answer to pop up at some point. You sat with the crew on the main deck's floor, deciding to dine under the night sky instead of inside the cabin.

"Yeah, it’ll be fun, come on!" Luffy urged you on before stuffing his mouth with the contents of Usopp's plate.

"Hey!" Usopp scolded him as soon as he noticed his plate empty again.

"I thought you were heading for the Grand Line, what are you doing here?" You asked while Usopp stood and went to the kitchen.

"Don’t change the subject." Sanji caught your attempt, causing you to give him a sly smile.

"We were, but Luffy can’t keep his hands off our fridge.” Zoro glared at the oblivious captain who only continued to eat.

Nami hummed in agreement. "We keep needing to stop by islands to restock every other day, even if we stock a month's worth of food."

"Your turn to answer," Sanji urged, leaving you no choice but to do so.

"I’ve told you – I’m a merchant, not a pirate. I’m not in these seas for gold or adventure, I’m here to make a living."

"You’re a negotiator," Nami chimed in.

"And a good fighter!" Luffy exclaimed with a full mouth. You could only assume that Zoro had told them of your first encounter.

"Pirates don't negotiate," you chuckle out.

"Usually not, which is why we need a great fighter if things go south," Luffy explained persuasively.

"You already have good fighters on board," you motioned towards everyone.

"It wouldn't hurt to have one more."

You ran out of rebuttals.

"Still, I’m not joining a pirate group with him." You cocked your chin towards Zoro's way. He had finished his dinner and shut his eyes to go to sleep while still sitting with his arms crossed.

"Done, he’s off the group," Sanji concluded in a heartbeat.

"You don’t get to decide that," Zoro reminded him without opening his eyes.

Usopp had returned with a plate full of food while you had started rebutting. He kept his eyes on it the whole time, yet it disappeared the second he looked away to listen to what you were saying.

"LUFFY! Stop eating my dinner!"

* * * * * *

Fourth time's a sign.

It was less of a surprise than a concern, the fourth time you ran into each other. You headed to Loguetown not long after you left the Straw Hats again. You arrived at the town and stayed for a few days.

You were currently in Captain Smoker's office. Usually, it was pirates that passed by Loguetown, as it was the island closest to the Reverse Mountain in the East Blue. He wasn’t expecting that his ex-subordinate’s merchant of a daughter would be found in a place such as this. He knew this was your father's hometown, but you being in his office told him you weren't here for family reasons.

"Will this take long?" You asked impatiently.

"Not at all." He pulled out a piece of paper. You waved your hand around the air in front of you, trying to swat away some of the smoke to see even a little bit of the writing on the paper.

He flipped the paper and slid it towards you. "State your purpose here, write your name here, sign here." He pointed at different lines on the paper.

"You will not be permitted if you’re after the One Piece," he informed you before you started writing, "You’ll be considered a pirate and arrested, effective immediately."

"And if my purpose is private?" You questioned.

He only sighed before replying, "You have to put something down."

At that, you began to fill up the details. "Your father, how is he?"

Your brows raised at his decision to make conversation. You knew he wasn't the best at it. "Fine. Better since he finally retired."

It was difficult taking care of your father. Once an ex-marine, then a merchant, his life had always been on the line especially in this age of pirates. You always worried and wondered whether or not your father would come home. It was only four years ago that he retired at the age of 71.

"And your mother?"

Your mother had been supportive of every decision you and your father made, finding that it would be difficult to get either of you to change your minds anyway.

She always wanted at least two children, though fell ill and became unable to before she could. Your mother always assured that you were enough, though she never really said it.

She was remorseful that you grew up alone, and you were sad that she never got to completely have what she wanted.

However, she had recently begun teaching art class to the children of your village as a way to pass the time. You were happy she did – it made her happy.

"She’s fine, too. Dropped by for a bit before I head for the Grand Line."

Silence filled the suffocating atmosphere that wasn't even as severe as when Captain Smoker would be alone in his office. As you finished filling up the form, you flipped the paper again to face him.

"I'm not going there for the One Piece, by the way."

"I thought you weren't," Captain Smoker affirmed, as if to elucidate the trust he had on you, despite your father's other connections.

He read your reasoning and seemed to be stuck on it. He glanced between you and the paper multiple times before he put out his cigar on the paper, putting out the fire so it didn't completely burn. That served as his seal of approval.

You left his office afterwards, and you couldn't help but scan the streets as you walked. It had become somewhat of a bad habit, looking for Sanji in every village you visited.

As if fate was on your side, maybe even rooting for you, you heard the certain North Blue accent of a certain blonde haired chef call out your name.

You cannot hide the smile from your face as you turn to face the source of his voice, and it is evident by the grin on his face that he was all the more elated to have been able to run into you just before he entered the Grand Line.

"What are you doing here?" You asked, though you already knew the answer.

"Heading for the Grand Line," he answered as if it didn't need to be questioned at this point, which it really didn't. "You?"

"Heading for the Grand Line," you mimicked with a grin.

Though you expected him to be joyful, his face fell with confusion. "What?"

"There's something I have to tell you," you admitted sheepishly. "Lunch?" You offered before you gave him the news.

He couldn't help but smile at your offer, knowing he couldn't refuse it.

* * * * * *

Sanji found out your favorite food in your hometown. Given that, to your parents, it was a blessing for you to come home, they had decided to cook your favorite food for you. It was a simple tonkatsu, yet he wanted to make it perfect for you – just the way your parents would make it.

You learned that every Straw Hat had gone to different parts of the town, looking into every shop and spoiling themselves for as long as they could before they entered the Grand Line.

Meanwhile, Sanji set aside the task of buying supplies to cook for you instead.

"Why are you suddenly going to the Grand Line?" He asked while chopping up a cabbage. You sat at the dining table of the place you rented for a few days.

"It was never my intention, I always planned to stay in the East Blue," you admitted. "But my father, he…" you couldn't help but chuckle at how ridiculous it was.

"He and an old friend hid their family treasure in the New World – swore to one day come back for it."

"Your father entered the Grand Line?" You nodded.

"He really did make the most of it during his golden age back then," you remarked.

"So now, you're going to the New World to get your family treasure back?" You nodded again.

"And his friend's. After everything my parents have done for me, I think this is the only way I can repay them. Especially since my father grows weaker everyday now."

He nodded in understanding. He moved to sit next to you while he waited for one side of the tonkatsu to cook. He usually wouldn't, but he wanted to savour the moment he had with you – to be as close as he could to you.

"So, would you want to join us, now?" He offered again.

He noticed you took longer than usual to respond.

"I can't."

Sanji chuckled, unable to feel gray by the fourth time you rejected him. "Do you at least think about it?"

You couldn't help but chuckle as well. "I've always travelled alone," you reasoned, "and I think this should be something that I do alone."

"Agree to disagree," Sanji decided.

"I'm still not changing my mind." He raised his hands in surrender and he stood to turn the tonkatsu to its other side.

"So, I guess this is the last time we see each other," you deduced.

"Unless we run into each other at the Grand Line," Sanji added.

"Right." You looked at each other for a moment, and being under his gaze suddenly made you feel small, so you straightened your posture as you and he made sure to take with you every detail of each other. You weren't even sure either of you would be able to enter the Grand Line safely, yet somehow you were both still confident that you would.

"There's different islands and different paths to take in the Grand Line," you brought up, implying that your paths may not cross again.

"Well, if it's our fate to meet again, I will continue to ask you," Sanji reassured.

You chuckled. "Your captain has the highest bounty in the East Blue, you might not even leave the town."

"Please, our captain's an idiot. People, even in the Grand Line, will underestimate him and end up regretting it." His tone was distracted as he spoke, his eyes darting between your eyes and your lips.

Your corner of your lips knowingly curled up to a smile, "You might meet other women."

"I will meet them, but I wouldn't pursue them – can you please just let me kiss you?" He asked impatiently. His eyes had settled on looking only at your lips by now. He knew by the smirk on your lips how you knew about his growing need to kiss you every time you two saw each other.

"Yeah, alright," your answer was all the more casual as if it didn't make your heart skip a beat to hear how desperate he had sounded. The words barely left your mouth before he had gently cupped your cheek and his lips met yours.

A groan left his lips and vibrated against yours as your hand tangled in his hair, his hand now resting to cup your jaw so he could feel how fast your heartbeat was from your pulse point.

You soon pulled away for air, your hand still in his hair and his on your cheek. Your foreheads touched as you leaned onto each other, both panting. You smiled and soon chuckled, pressing a kiss on the apple of his cheek.

"The food might burn," you reminded him that he was cooking.

He panted out a few more breaths and savoured the moment. It seemed as if the sentence you uttered took a moment to process in his brain after you had stupefied him with your kiss.

"Shit."

He quickly left your side, disconcerted as he overcooked one side of the tonkatsu.

Oh, well, he thought. He supposed he would have to endure eating this one if it meant you would have a perfect meal.

* * * * * *

Fifth time's an obstinacy.

It was as if your fates had been intertwined the moment you two first met.

You glanced at your Log Pose every once in a while as you waited for your order at the restaurant. As you did, you couldn't help but wonder where Sanji was at this point and time. It was taking quite some time for your Log Pose to record the direction to the next island with the path you chose to take, so you wondered if they were already far ahead of you.

"Man, I'm starving!" A familiar voice exclaimed upon entering the restaurant.

"You just finished eating every free sample at the market," another familiar voice responded, his tone nonchalant.

"Yeah, those were the appetizers!" You turned to face the entrance with a confused look, both heads immediately turning to face you, too.

"Oh, hey, it's you again!" Luffy walked towards your table, his first mate reluctantly following suit.

"What are you doing here?"

"We got lost, I think!" He announced as if it were something to boast about.

"Don't say it so confidently," Zoro scolded.

"Good to see you, moss head," you greeted with sarcasm.

"Hey, don't you start, too." You were about to give a snarky remark when Luffy spoke again.

"We just came from an island called Little Garden! We're planning on heading to Alabasta since we have their princess on board," Luffy explained, unknowingly preventing another duel between you and Zoro.

"For the record, we didn't kidnap her for ransom," Zoro cleared up due to the nature of Luffy's odd way of phrasing.

"Technically, we did, because Nami's asking for one billion Berries in return," Luffy argued.

"That's Nami we're talking about," Zoro retorted.

"Oh, waiter! I would like to order, please!" Luffy's voice boomed at the restaurant.

"Where's Sanji?" You asked. Your eyes had scanned around in search of the chef the moment you saw Luffy and Zoro, though you knew deep down that Sanji would only trust his own cooking. He would probably even scold you if he caught you dining here.

"Buying food supplies," Luffy responded while still eyeing the waiter who was serving another table.

"You ate it all again, didn't you?"

Luffy grinned at how well you seemed to know him. "I did!"

He was an open book – he seemed oblivious of the fact.

The waiter soon arrived with your food and Luffy took the chance to order every dish on the menu.

"Oh. Zoro, do you have any money?" Luffy had asked in the middle of his fourteenth dish. Zoro only looked at him, then they turned to you in unison.

Your eyes widened at the pair. You had finished your meal by Luffy's eighth dish, yet you stuck around both because of your amusement and manners.

You cleared your throat and looked away from their gazes, slowly taking out a few Berries that were enough for your meal before you stood and fled from the restaurant.

You could hear Luffy's frantic exclamations from outside the restaurant, growing distant as you continued to run.

You let out a surprised exclamation as you ran into someone upon your lack of focus. They had stopped you from completely crashing onto their chest by grabbing you by the shoulders.

He called your name and your head whipped up to face him.

"Sanji!" You grinned and threw your arms around his neck in an embrace, glad that he had entered the Grand Line safely. He wrapped his arms around your waist as well, lifting you off the ground as his grip tightened a bit.

He placed your feet back down on the ground a moment later, pulling away from the hug.

"Glad to see me again?" You teased.

"Very much, darling," he didn't attempt to deny, a wide grin now on his lips.

You noticed that he was with Nami, Usopp, and an unfamiliar woman with blue hair. You greeted the pair and gave the woman a puzzled look.

"This is Vivi," Nami introduced her, telling Vivi your name as well.

"It's nice to meet you," Vivi uttered sheepishly.

"Oh, are you the princess?" You presumed, panting from your running.

"Wait, you know?" Usopp questioned with confusion.

"I ran into your captain and swordsman. They almost trapped me into paying for their lunch at the restaurant." You pointed your thumb over your shoulder at the restaurant ahead of them.

"That's our captain for you." Nami shook her head in disapproval as she looked at the restaurant.

"Would you like to join us for lunch?" Sanji offered, smiling. "I'd be delighted to cook your favorite for you again."

You gladly accepted.

You were once again found boarding the Going Merry. Luffy and Zoro were yet to return, and presumably got lost, so Usopp volunteered to return to the village to search for them.

Once Vivi and Nami retreated to their shared room and left the two of you alone in the kitchen, you couldn't keep your hands off each other.

Your lips met again and things turned heated until you soon had to stop yourselves and let Sanji prepare the crew's lunch.

Sanji had a sly grin on his face as he buttoned back up his top button that you had unconsciously unbuttoned.

"I'm still not becoming a pirate." You could see the question coming from a mile away now.

Sanji clicked his tongue in playful annoyance. "Think about it."

"I have!" You chuckled as you spoke.

"And do you see yourself coming with us?" It took you a while to respond, contemplating whether or not you should tell the truth.

"I do," you admitted.

"So why don't you want to?"

"Because I feel like I'll forget what my goal is when I'm with you." He seemed taken aback by your response. "I forget about everything else when I'm around you. I forget there's a whole world with real people beyond that door and that it's not just you and me."

"I won't let you forget it," he reassured you, "I'll be there to support you, to help you."

He took your hands in his. "It pains me to be parted from you."

You rolled your eyes at how cheesy he sounded. "You'll live."

"I'll live in agony." You couldn't help but chuckle despite how serious he sounded. You squeezed his hands in comfort.

"Well, I do recall my father telling me that his friend left a clue somewhere in Alabasta." His eyes lit up at the thought of seeing you again, of having certainty of when and where you'll be able to meet again.

"Suppose I head there next; are you willing to find me?"

"I would scour all of the Blue Seas to find you."

Your heart jumped. "Then it's a date."

* * * * * *

It had only been two weeks since you last saw Sanji. You had encountered one more island, an autumnal kingdom, before you arrived at Alabasta.

Your father and his friend had made a riddle. It was almost as if you were on a scavenger hunt on the world's most dangerous land and waters.

In a desert land where droughts hold sway,

Soon an oasis, you'll find me one day.

But don't expect to see a mirage's grace,

I'm real, with life, by North's palace.

Rainbase. It had to be. It took days for you to travel to the location, the desert just as deadly as the open waters of the Grand Line.

You looked at the map of Alabasta, with it the piece of paper with the riddle your father had given you. In the event that neither he nor his friend would be able to return to their treasure, they decided to mark their clues with their initials.

And so, the paper was signed 'A.P. & G.D.R.'

Though there was commotion near the casino, you scoured the streets and alleys of Rainbase to find any sort of clue. Once you were sure to have checked every alley, your shoulders sagged as you failed to find the clue. It was only when you entered the pub that you found what you were looking for.

There was a wall of photographs in the corner of the pub. You drank a bottle of beer as your eyes scanned the unfamiliar faces of the pub's patrons.

You almost spat your beer out when you found one of your father and his friend. You unpinned it to take a closer look, noticing that it was slightly indented at some parts. You turned the picture around and found another riddle written with messy handwriting. It matched that of the riddle in your possession.

Way up high a place God is resided,

On stolen land from which its people are prohibited,

With fate and luck you will reach this land of Vearth,

Found far within the clouds where you will prove your worth.

– A.P. & G.D.R.

…What was that supposed to mean?

Rainbase was a piece of cake to decipher, but this one seemed to be utter nonsense.

You supposed it was up to par with how the Grand Line was. Nothing made sense and everything made you clueless.

You walked away from the wall, glum as you headed for the exit, when the bartender called for you.

He had been bartender long enough to recognize your father's face and your resemblance of him. He gave you something your father and his friend had left – something they entrusted to him to keep until someone came looking for clues.

Your eyes widened as you looked at the gold coin with Gol D. Roger's Jolly Roger. His flag had long fallen, yet the coin still assured your protection so long as you had it on your person as you continued in your journey.

And so, you left the pub with a photograph and a rare treasure.

"Oh!" Someone called your name just as you were walking back to the inn. You lifted your head off the ground to see Sanji up ahead.

A smile immediately found its way to your lips as you began to approach him, his arms raising as an invitation to an embrace.

You burrowed your face into his chest as you hugged him, his chest vibrating as he chuckled upon seeing you again.

"I hope you didn't miss me too much," he remarked.

You shrugged with nonchalance. "I survived," you retorted.

He had a cigarette between his lips that curled up at your reply. His hand took yours. "Come on."

Your eyes widened as he began running, leading you along. "Where, exactly?"

He forced a laugh to lessen your soon-to-be anxiety. "Err…Me and the gang are sort of on the run from Crocodile."

"The Warlord?!" He nodded.

"We got split up, but we're headed towards Alubarna to stop a war," he said too casually. You sighed exasperatedly.

"Nothing's ever dull with you guys, is it?" He only laughed.

* * * * * *

You successfully helped stop a war.

Luffy had fought and successfully defeated Crocodile. Unfortunately, he had been poisoned in the process, though was quickly given an antidote. This caused him to be in a three-day coma which fortunately left the rest of the crew to rest as well.

Since the last time you first saw them, you found that they recruited a reindeer doctor that had eaten the Human Human Devil Fruit.

You and Sanji decided to go out for dinner during those three days. By that, it means that Sanji cooked a five-course meal for just the two of you. You insisted that he didn't need to, but he insisted otherwise.

You both had taken hits and gained wounds during your attempt at preventing a war, so Sanji made sure to implement food that would help your wounds heal faster and give you more strength.

He told you the story of how they had met and recruited Chopper, the reindeer doctor. Nami had fallen ill days after their stay at an island called Little Garden. He also told you how the island had dinosaurs and two giants who had been in a century-long fight for a reason they didn't even remember anymore.

He told you of Baroque Works and the members they had come across and defeated, and how Crocodile had secretly been the organization's boss.

You noticed that he was yet to ask you the question that came every time you came across each other. Throughout your night, you waited, and it never came. You supposed he had come at peace with your seemingly compelled answer that never changed every time he asked you.

By the third day of your stay in Alubarna, Luffy finally woke. His crew was quick to devise a plan to leave the kingdom before the sun rose to quickly get back to your ships.

Vivi was torn between staying for her kingdom or joining the Straw Hat Pirates, so they had given her twelve hours to decide, which was just enough for their ship to pass by the eastern part of Alabasta and let Vivi board if she ever decided to join them.

Vivi chose her kingdom. She bid the Straw Hats farewell during her coming-of-age speech, staying by the coast as she showed off her 'X' tattoo that matched the others. It was a symbol that said no matter where they were, they would always be a Straw Hat Pirate.

The others had shown off theirs, too, while they sailed away from Alabasta.

Now, you remained on the Going Merry. Your boat was connected to the ship by rope. You were lounging at the main deck with the crew.

"We'll untie your boat from ours once we get far enough away from the Marines," Nami explained.

"Alright…" You replied, seemingly distracted.

Naturally, Sanji was the first to notice this. "Something on your mind, love?"

You had gotten used to the pet names at this point. You looked up at the ship's Jolly Roger as you rethought your decision one last time.

You closed your eyes. "Fine," you started.

You opened your eyes to see everyone looking at you curiously and expectantly.

"I'll join your crew," you clarified.

In the blink of an eye, Luffy lifted you to your feet and began to dance you around in celebration, Usopp and Chopper joining in. You couldn't help but chuckle at their delight.

Once the moment passed, Sanji approached you and held your hand.

"Are you sure?"

You smiled up at him. "I've thought about it a lot, like you said."

You looked around at the faces you've come across multiple times already. "And I guess I wouldn't mind being with a few friends – the journey to the New World is long, anyway."

You turned to Sanji. He had been looking at you with a smile.

Then, he suddenly swept you up into his arms and kissed you right there and then, finding himself too overwhelmed with emotions to say anything – so he just kissed you.

Most of the crew let out a surprised exclamation while Luffy began to laugh gleefully.

Nami was about to scold the cook as she saw your flushed face when you pulled away and chuckled sheepishly.

"Not in front of the crew," you spoke through gritted teeth as you gently smacked him upside the head.

He chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry, I got carried away."

"Sanji! This calls for a celebration! Cook something for us!" The Straw Hat Captain boomed.

"Aye-aye, captain!"

The door to the cabin swung open just as Sanji began to approach it. He halted in his steps.

"So, we've finally left the island?" Nico Robin, Miss All-Sunday, seemed to have snuck on board.

"...AAAHH!"

* * * * * *

a/n: i wonder if anyone figured out reader's father's friend was roger before it was stated…?

taglist: @inf4ntdeath @x-uno @miloonmetis @angeli-fucking-cat @zzbloody-animezz @watercolorskyy @saltyfriendsaladbandit @mbekgsv @mischiefmanaged71 @leslielovestedalot1 @theamazingtrinitysky @stevenknightmarc

#one piece #one piece live action #opla #opla sanji x reader #opla sanji #vinsmoke sanji x reader #vinsmoke sanji #sanji x reader #sanji #taz skylar #taz skylar x reader

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writtenbyjeanofarc · 10 months ago

Text

‎ ‎‎Honor Among Thieves

Captain Hook x Fem! Reader | 2.5k

⎯⎯ summary ‣‣‣ “On an ordinary summer day my friends and I are having fun at the beach when suddenly Captain Hook and his pirates come seemingly out of nowhere and attack, causing chaos. I try to escape, even so much as to reach the car my friends and I used to get there, but I get caught and by one of the pirates and taken.”

⎯⎯ content warnings & tags ‣‣‣ dubcon, penis in vagina sex, creampie, fem! oral receiving, dom! Hook, body worship, fingering, breast kink, praise, dirty talk and pet names.

⎯⎯ requested by ‣‣‣ the wonderful @disney-girl67.

⎯⎯ banner credits ‣‣‣ the lovely @cafekitsune.

The intensifying heat of the sun today was rather unbearable for my liking—I had to make sure the amount of sunscreen I applied was just right for my skin in regards to basking in the summer heat. Thankfully, my best friends had some spare bottles of lotion perfect for our trip to the beach. We’ve packed just the best meals suitable for our picnic date; it’s been a while since we’ve taken a week off of an exhausting day of work, and an opportunity arose when we were given a discount to a beach getaway!

I drew a satisfying breath, taking in the fresh breeze that blew from the east side of the coast. Apart from the overwhelming heat of the sun, it was quite refreshing to take a time off of the monotonous city where industries and businesses collided in chaos. The palm trees danced lively by the breathtaking view, the birds chirping happily as we booked a stay at the chalet nearby.

“So, Ashley, what do you think of this spot so far?” I asked.

“It’s perfect,” my friend smiled. “Summer is a godsend, especially these days. The weather may be humid, but other than that their services are properly managed. I can’t stand always having to work under our boss lately. So I’ve decided to take a leave!”

“May I add that this particular sea stands out because there’s lots of treasure underneath.” my other friend commended. “Rumors say there used to be pirates here, but I believe they’re long dead after getting shipwrecked.”

“Pirates?” I asked, sitting upright, fixing my bikini. “Wait, are you saying, this place isn’t safe for visitors like us?”

“Relax, friend,” my other friend spoke, laughing. “It’s just a scary story spread all across this village. I’m sure that with all the legal authorities becoming more aware of the troubles they cause, they're probably thrown into prison by now.”

“Good, good.” I replied.

“Anyways, I think now is the right time to go in for a dive! The deeper, the better!”

“Wait, guys, but-“

My friends ignored me this time. They left me without any explanation to stay, leaving me to rot in my own thoughts of whether there were potential thieves roaming around the place. But I’ve decided I won’t back down. I left the patio, without any other reason to make excuses for why I refused to go in for a swim. Out of guilt, I just kept on going, leaving all my worries behind.

My friends and I ran towards the seaside, happy and carefree of the world’s stressors. We even threw some handfuls of sand at each other and splashed some seawater the moment we went for a swim.

I found it difficult to keep up with my friends this time, the way they swam around the beach and took pictures of the glittering waters. But I dared not to be a killjoy as of this moment, I complied with their requests to have fun regardless.

As we swam recklessly by the sea, I noticed the sight of a large, wooden ship approaching from a distance, seemingly approaching towards us. I felt all along that my gut instinct was right. I tried my best to not falter at first, but knowing they could kill if we didn’t surrender our belongings was something I was truly terrified of.

“Ashley! Lottie! Mary!” I called out. “There’s a ship approaching! Let’s gather around and leave!”

“[Name], you’re being incredibly ridiculous.” my friend Mary laughed. “Those can’t be pirates! It looks like a normal ship!”

“But-“

My friends ignored my pleas, so I had no other choice but to leave the seaside. I was deathly worried about their wellbeing since pirates aren’t to be trusted regardless, but I started to give less fucks about others and focus on my own needs. This is it. I left my friends and made my way back to the beach house, running half naked and sweaty from the intense blanket of heat that filled the air.

“Take a closer look, Murphy,” scoffed a pirate from the ship as he used his binoculars to zoom into the sight of my friends swimming. “We eating good tonight, aren’t we?”

“Damn right. Nothing more than a bunch of bombshells worth taking in for the night.” Black Murphy laughed loudly. “James will surely be having fun by the end of the day. From what I understand, he’s already by the shore holding some random bitch hostage.”

“Right! Hah. The Captain should consider himself lucky.”

And there I was. I finally arrived at the beach house, surprised to find the door to our room locked. Pleas of someone could be heard from inside, and I didn’t know what to do other than bang the door from outside. The voice was muffled, which made me realize that whoever the captor was turned out to be someone not to be messed with.

My heart raced upon this discovery. Who could have possibly thought there was someone else inside the compound? I tried using all of my strength to open the door. I tried, and tried, and tried…..

And with all my brute force, I managed to successfully pry the door open. I was then met with an unexpected scene.

There in the corner of the room stood a tall, dark figure dressed in red, while his other hand was replaced with some sort of hook. He apparently was holding some sort of knife with his other hand, and it turned out that the identity of who he just killed was the manager of the beach house me and my friends stayed in. The figure took a step forward, revealing himself to be none other than a pirate captain.

I tried to leave, but another one of his pirates grabbed me by the wrists from behind, pushing me to the ground and swiftly locking the door from outside. It was unknown as to how this happened, but I knew from the bottom of my heart that this was coming.

“Looking as gorgeous as you always were, lovely stranger.” the pirate spoke softly. “Say, are you perhaps here for a trip?”

“Um, yes?” I hesitantly replied. “Who could you be?”

“That doesn’t matter, my dear. In fact, your name doesn’t matter to me either. Say, what are your thoughts about a relationship of give and take? Worry not, for I won’t harm you, as long as you do exactly as I say.”

“Huh????”

“I came here to claim five million bucks from this entire resort. Provided you and your friends do exactly as we please, your lives shall be spared.”

“What???!!!” I protested, attempting to get up and reach for the door behind me. “No, I must have known…!! You-you must be the captain!!! Please, captain, spare our lives!!!”

“Why, if it isn’t the right answer, hm? My name is Captain Hook, I also go by the name James. Though this info won’t matter by the time I’m done with you.”

I froze, unsure of how to react in the face of such a threat. I attempted to stand up, only for the captain to kneel on one knee and unfasten my bikini straps.

“Please…..” I begged. “Let me go! I’ll do anything!!!”

“Is that so? Why then, don’t resist.” Captain Hook smirked.

I frankly hated how this was turning me on.

He moved his hook down my breasts, groping it with the thin piece of metal while his other hand caressed my cheek.

“Such a beautiful, sensitive little thing.” he cooed. “Gods must have sent you to serve as my personal pet.”

Tears formed in my eyes as I disobeyed his request and resisted the captain’s touch, only for him to pull me inward. He kneaded on my breasts gently and leaned closer to suckle on my nipples, which was already hard at the sight of his tall stature. He swirled his tongue around it, moaning gently as the sounds of sloppy slurps filled the room.

I hated how good it made me feel. I shivered at the thought of a random stranger’s face up my breasts, but there was no denying that he was extremely good at it. A part of my mind wandered on the scenario where he claimed a number of bodies. From the charm of his facial hair surrounding his features, to his enigmatic smile, it left me with chills—and they weren’t exactly that of the bad type.

He didn’t stop, oh, he didn’t. The more I held back a moan, he just kept sucking in long slurps that left me soaking in my arousal. My breath hitched at the sight of his unshaved face lapping and salivating against my breasts, carefully caressing it as he pulled away.

“Mmmmmhhhh~”, I groaned in frustration.

“What a cute, desperate pet.” Captain Hook whispered. “If all it takes for you to grow wet is to have someone suckle on those stress balls, then you must be a really needy whore after all.”

“Please……I need it….I need it so bad!!!” I protested, desperate for release.

“Eager for my cock?” Captain Hook asked. “Well, you might want to exercise a little patience, my dear. Good things don’t always come in easy packages. Now, let’s take this off from you, shall we?”

With that, he tore my panties off with a clenched fist, leaving my naked form to sulk in hopelessness and frustration. He wasn’t the type to give warnings, for he was quite straight up with what he wanted to do. He was all powerful. That only gave way for me to feel worthless and pathetically needy for his touch.

“Mmmmmm……already this wet? Hah. How pathetic.”

He didn’t give warnings, indeed. I knew he had it in him when he dove into my cunt, kissing the nub gently as he rubbed his finger against it. I felt as if I was about to squirt too early, but I held it in. Then comes the hard part. The fingers. He stuck two fingers in me, forcing his way in without any form of lube or prep. With the burning pain slowly melting away into pleasure, I let him swirl his tongue around my clit without any form of inhibitions after all. The captain yapped and lapped at my vaginal fluids, overflowing to an extent of it streaming down my cunt. It felt warm, pleasurable, and on top of all that, I felt like I was about to catch feelings for the man.

His digits began curling upward, making me wince at the length of his fingers, yet still aroused. The slight curve didn’t bother me in the slightest. It felt so good, and I for once didn’t mind squirting and cumming all over his face for all I cared.

“Ahhhh, I’m close,” I moaned. Captain Hook drove his mouth deeper, giving my clit a rough suck before pulling away. Leaving my entrance gaping with fluid, he chuckled smugly.

“You taste divine, pet. Hmmm….I think you’re ready to take all of me now. Just relax.”

Captain Hook let go of my figure, turning to his pants as he pulled the upper section down. I wasn’t expecting the sight of at least ten inches of trouser action, and I grew hopelessly frustrated by the fact that it still wasn’t shoved deep in me.

“Now, now, dear.” Captain Hook spoke. “This won’t be lasting quite long. After all, you’re already this close.”

Spreading my legs wider, the captain rubbed my clit with his cock, enabling me to make use of my energy in humping right back. I held the throbbing length, and felt its texture before he slipped it right inside me with force.

”AGH!!” I squealed.

“What, don’t you like it?” Captain Hook asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Keep going….It burns, but, keep….going!”

“I see. Well, then who am I to deny you what you want.”

With one thrust, he drove his cock inside me and started to slowly rock in and out of my cunt. It felt euphoric, really, the way he handled me roughly and recklessly without any filter. To compensate for his efforts of ramming through my walls, I fucked him back.

My breasts wobbled as my body grew used to the pleasure judging from the growing speed of his thrusts. He was brutal, violent, just like any other pirate would be when faced with an incoming threat. Gripping my cheeks tightly, Captain Hook used his superior strength to lift my limbs upward to gain a better access towards my core. He kept hitting, and hitting the spot, so much that I could feel myself cumming in less than five whole minutes. I arched and mewled against his grasp, the sounds of skin slapping against skin becoming more apparent. I began to develop no care for whoever overheard our little affair going on. All I needed was to reach completion at the hands of this charming stranger.

Captain Hook was also growing desperate over time. His moans grew more animalistic, muttering a ‘yes’ repeatedly as he was about to lose composure. When I felt a tinge of pleasure spark from within my heated core, that was when he chose to pick up speed. He then leaned closer to feel my neck with his face, leaving hickeys all over as he continued to bite down the layers of thin skin. I yelped in pain for a moment as the sensation slowly turned into pleasure the way he bit on the right spots.

If only he could see my face right then and there, I would have been humiliated from that point onward. Then he did.

“Ah, ah, ah, no looking elsewhere.” Captain Hook muttered under his breath, panting hard. “Eyes on me. Show me how much you crave this feeling.”

“I—Mmmmmmhhhh….!!! Please, I’m….I’m gonna…..”

“Hold it off, little one. Have your master do all the work.”

With all his strength, Captain Hook grabbed my hips tightly, the hilt of his cock ramming in and out of my heat. The slaps against my ass were wet and loud, our moans matching each other like a symphony.

“Agh!!!! Captain!!!” I trembled in excitement. “Ahhhhh~”

I wailed his name (James) as Captain Hook thrusted so deep into my core. My walls fluttered and throbbed hard that it was almost a crime for him to pull out of me. I shook against him, crying like a bitch in heat as I felt like the whole world had just shattered before my eyes. Captain Hook spurted his seed balls deep in me, his cum surrounding itself all over my dripping cunt. I let out a deep sigh, realizing the whole mess I’ve been engaging with in the company of a complete stranger.

“Hah……Hahhhhh……..”

Captain Hook didn’t even budge, his cock already retreating from my walls in a slow, yet steady fashion.

“Such a filthy, disgusting little mutt.” he said, putting his cock back in and leaving me to sulk by the edge of the doorstep. “Get up.”

Captain Hook grabbed my cute, pink bikini, tossing it before my face.

“What is your name?”

“[Name].”

“You did well, [Name],” he said. “Judging by the looks of it, you owe me several nights of complete entertainment. Come outside when you’re ready. I’m more than willing to bring you into my ship.”

#captain hook disney #captain hook x reader #captain hook x you #disney villain x reader #x reader #dubious consent #disney x reader #disney smut #peter pan smut #captain hook

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alexa-fika · 8 months ago

Note

Hi Alexa! I've been obsessed with this idea but haven't seen enough of it going around on Tumblr especially for the one piece crowd.

So can I have a borrower!reader getting caught by the red hair pirates?

Reader is borrowing and on there way back to the walls they get caught by Shanks and Benn. Reader is scared of the two as Shanks gathers the rest of the crew to discuss the "mouse issue" It's up to you how it ends whether they drop Reader off at the next island or let them stay with them on the ship

As always remember to take care of yourself before accepting any requests, you come first ♡

Pest Problems ( Benn Beckmann x mouse!gn!Reader x Shanks)

A/N okay I just noticed that you wrote that they were scared but I din’t really have them be afraid more like feisty im sorry if this was not what you were looking for but I think I COOKED but thank you so much for requesting I had so much fun with this one!

Reader here is replaced by Dokucha which stands for Reader in japanese

Dividers by @/saradika

“Man, these guys sure are loaded,” Dokucha mutters, looking through the supplies of their latest target, trying to decide on what they would take

“Maybe I should go for gold this time… I did make quite a food haul last time,” they said, flickering one of the golden coins they had found up in the air

“Gold it is!” They said, bending down and looking through the treasure

They stop rummaging when they feel cold metal making contact with their head, their ears flickering around once they hear the ominous sound of a gun being loaded, the smell of cigarettes filling the room

They slowly raise their hands at the silent threat

“Hands up and no sudden movements, understand?"

The figure stood firm, staring down at them; they were very tall with a muscular upper body that seemed to have almost doubled in size compared to their current form.

His hands were gripping tight around the barrel of his gun as he prepared it at the slightest motion.

“Knew our resources were running out too fast.”

“Hey… I'm sure this is just a big misunderstanding.”

"Misunderstanding?

I just saw you rummaging around our storeroom, and the supplies seem to have decreased drastically. How can it be a misunderstanding?" He said narrowing his eyes and blowing a thin wisp of smoke leaving his lips.

“Well, when you put it like that, it makes me sound like a bad guy here.”

He rolls his eyes at you before speaking again.

"I mean, isn't that exactly what you are right now? Stealing from our storage room."

He sighs slightly, and his grip on the gun seems to loosen slightly; however, he was still keeping the gun aimed at you.

“Turn around.”

They sighed, following his command and slowly turning around. Keeping their hands up

He begins to rummage through your pockets and belongings. Pulling out all of the coins and supplies that you had found and taken in the storage room.

“Gee, is that how you treat everyone you just met?”

He puts his hands in his pocket and lets out a chuckle.

“Haha, no.. just thieves.”

Finally, after he had taken everything, he turned you around to face him again.

The gun was still aimed at you, but his body language had drastically changed as he lowered his hands.

“You have balls for coming to a crew’s ship and simply stealing from them.”

He looks you up and down before speaking again

Dokusha narrow their eyes at him until a smile grows on their face

They quickly shift into their mouse form and scurry past the First mate

Shifting back to their human form as they reach the door

“Toodles! No hard feelings, just living life!” They laugh, running out the door only to be stopped by a sword blocking their way out of the storage room

“Woah there, sorry, but I'm going to have to stop you right there,” A red-haired pirate says with a small smile as they block their escape

“Come on!”

“No, you can’t just steal from the supplies and then make a run for it” he says blocking your way out while still keeping that light smile.

“Now if you could follow me that would be much appreciated”

They grumble, brushing off his approach with a flick of their tail and a small mutter of ‘I can walk on my own,’ leaving their lips

“Is this really necessary?” They said, pulling at the rope now keeping them tied to one of the masts next to the stirring wheel of the ship, within eyesight of both the Captain and First mate

Shanks just gives the mouse-hybrid another small smile

“Sorry, lil Mix, it’s been three times you have said you will stay still and three times you have tried to run off; we just need you to stay still till we figure out what we’re going to do.”

“We are in the middle of the sea; where would I possibly go?”

“Haha, I know, but I can never be sure. I don't want you turning into a mouse and scurrying off somewhere. That's why I've tied you up properly this time."

“Ugh”

“Are they real?” the Crew’s doctor, who had been called along with the rest of the officers to discuss their latest infestation, said, rubbing one of their mouse ears

“How rude! Of course, they are real; what kind of question is that!” They said, slapping Hongo’s hand away

Hongo looks offended as his hands are slapped away.

Yassop snickers at this

“Hey, boss, can we keep them?”

“The hell do you mean to keep me? Come over here, and I‘ll show you something about ‘keeping me!��They said, pulling at the ropes trying to lunge at the sniper

“Woah there!” He says with a laugh backing up away from their range

“Now, Now my men are just joking; we won’t keep you here if you don’t want to; the ropes are there because although I don’t mind you running around, I also can’t have you stealing supplies and stirring trouble.”

“What a gentleman.”

He chuckles at you again, not seeming to mind your sarcasm or attitude.

“Listen, we don’t mean any harm; no one here does, but we also can’t have you just take away our supplies.”

“Okay, I get it. I won’t run away so can you please take them off?”

“Said that last time,” sighs Beckmann

“Okay, I mean it this time, though!”

Benn glances at his captain, getting up and approaching the uninvited visitor when the latter gives him a confirmation gesture. He easily cuts through the ropes, holding them still and backing down, waiting to see their next action

They rub at their hand, glancing up at them

“Are you going to let me go?”

“Where will you go?”

“Fail to see how that is any of your concern.”

“We have a few days till we reach land, so until then you are stuck on this ship, so I think it is my concern,” Shank says, shaking his head

“Regardless, since you decided to board the ship, then you are also expected to help around here,” Beckmann says, glancing at them

“What if I don’t.”

“Then we have to assume you are here for malicious intentions and deal with you accordingly,” Benn states, simply wiggling the rope that he had removed from them a few minutes ago

They grimace at the thought of staying in the same mast for days. These people did not seem the type to starve them or let them suffer from the elements, but the thought of having to spend days with one hand tied to a mast, unable to leave and under the vigilant eye of the captain and Vice-captain did not sound fun by any means

Im sorry I think I really lacked with the interactions of the other pirates I kinda wanted to center on shanks and beckmann for this one

Taglist:

@imaginarydreams

@amethystviolin

@h0n3y-l3m0n05

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redriotinggg · 10 months ago

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You know what I need? Strawhats raising a child, could be shippy or not, but I need them finding a baby and Luffy being like "I WANNA KEEP IT! How hard can it be to raise a child?" (Famous last words) This is less about wanting to be a father and more about thinking about this as another great adventure and experience for Luffy (besides if its a situation like finding a baby in a treasure chest they cant exactly leave it... tho I imagine Nami seeing Luffy with a baby in arms and being like "wtf, where did you get that???" Luffy: "I found it in a treasure chest :)" Nami: "WELL PUT IT BACK ITS NOT YOURS!")

Of course raising a baby in a pirate ship is bound to be dangerous, so most of the crew is like "lets find it a good family in the next island" so maybe it's more of a Tokyo Godfathers situation.

Who are the better parents? Who absolutely suck at parenting but want to help regardless? Are any of them like "I absolutely don't want any part in this" but end up being roped in regardless and end up getting attached to the child? Does the child end up being raised by Strawhats or they get them to a nice family somewhere safe?

If you know of any fanfics that are like this (if they're gen/Nakamaship the better) please reccomend them to me I'm in desperate need to see that, child raised by a village trope my beloved

Pffttt a baby should definitely NOT be aboard the Sunny but if it happened I can imagine that yes, Luffy found a baby in a treasure chest and by the time they realized what happened, they were already on the open water headed to the next island.

However, the first thought that came to my head was that Zoro was sleeping while guarding the ship and someone managed to dump the baby onboard. He wakes up and there’s a baby—just under a year old—sitting across from him, fist in their mouth and a note on their forehead that says, “YOUR PROBLEM NOW”. There’s nothing left for him to do other than wait and pray that the kid doesn't start crying or pooping.

The rest of the crew comes back like Uhhhh Zoro???? When did you give birth????? To which he yells that he didn't, you idiots!

Now they don't know what to do because they can't bring a baby on the seas in the New World, but the island they're docked at wasn't very welcoming and likely wouldn't care about an orphaned child.

Luffy makes the decision easily--they'll bring the baby with them and they'll be an honourary Straw Hat! If they get their adventure started now, the baby will be at a huge advantage when they become a pirate when they grow up. Raising a baby must be easy if so many people do it! But it doesn't take long for the others to convince him that keeping a baby abroad for an extended period isn't a good idea, so they decide to keep the baby until they can find them a good home.

Luffy is not so surprisingly great with the kid, although he's not allowed to be left alone with them. The crew freaked out when they found him and the baby asleep on the head of the Sunny. It would've been a sweet scene if they both weren't at risk of falling and drowning to death. If the baby starts crying and Luffy can't get them to stop in 2 seconds, he dumps them off to the nearest crewmate--he usually deals with crying kids by beating them up, but the baby's too young for that. Plus, the noise really hurts his ears!

Nami canonically loves kids and babies!! She doesn’t mind taking care of the baby until they can find somewhere safe for them. Except this baby is getting on her damn nerves because, for some reason, they don’t like Nami. At all. Every time she tries to hold them, they cry bloody murder. To add insult to injury, the baby absolutely loves Zoro, who still wants nothing to do with the baby. But she is nothing if not stubborn, and eventually, she and the baby are thick as thieves.

The baby loves Usopp because he’s so silly! He makes the baby laugh by playing peekaboo and he even whips up little toys for them to play with. He flails dramatically when the baby grabs his nose or pulls his hair, both of them laughing without a care in the world.

The baby is too young to be scared of Brook, so they just laugh as he dances and sings nursery rhymes from all over the four seas. His lullabies are very effective in calming the baby's crying fits or getting them to sleep.

Sanji prefers dealing with children when they’re old enough to speak, but he’s not immune to the effects of an adorable baby. If it’s a girl she gets the absolute princess treatment, complete with baby talk and compliments of how cute she is. A boy baby gets his hair gently ruffled. Either way, Sanji happily admires Robin sitting with a baby in her lap before he’s off to puree some fruits and veggies.

Chopper loves babies and thinks this one is so cute!! But he’s embarrassed by how jealous he is of all the attention the baby is getting. He can’t help it! He’s used to being the one taking naps in Zoro’s lap and being fawned over by Robin. He’s happy to have the baby with them, but he wishes he got some more attention, too.

Jimbei and Franky don’t dislike babies per se, but they’re just so small and fragile compared to them. They mostly watch the other crewmates interact with the baby from the sidelines.

Franky’s nerves aren’t helped as Robin keeps coming up to him while holding the baby and talking about how cute they are and how parenthood is such a privilege, don't you think, Franky? She manages to convince Franky to hold the baby and when he does, he bursts into tears. Overwhelmed, he passes the baby off to the closest person, who happens to be Jimbei, whose eyes also fill with happy tears when the baby snuggles up to him. Both of them stop keeping their distance after that.

Robin reads the baby bedtime stories! But the crew have also walked by and overheard her reading books about death, disease, and war. She speaks to the baby in all of the languages she knows and tells them all the secrets she's learned. It's too bad the baby is too young to retain all that knowledge, but she's more than happy to share anyway.

Zoro doesn't like kids in general, but kids love him, including this baby. The rest of the crew find it hilarious how awkward he is with the baby. You'd think he'd be used to holding a small being considering how often he carries Chopper around, but no, he's hopeless. Zoro is teased relentlessly for the way he talks to the baby. He talks to them like a grown adult and it's both endearing and ridiculous.

Absolutely nobody wants to change dirty diapers. There are physical altercations, manipulation tactics, and an abundance of tricks used as each Straw Hat tries to avoid diaper duty. (Usopp uses dirty diapers as canon fodder and ammo when they run into trouble on the water.)

Most, if not all, of the Straw Hats have mommy and/or daddy issues, so raising this baby gives them all a chance to heal, whether they realize it or not. It also gives the crew an excuse for group cuddles, not that they ever needed it.

The crew have all grown very attached to the baby by the time they reach a safe place with people they trust to raise them. A few crewmates (Usopp, Nami, Robin, Brook) want to keep the baby around--it's too cruel to leave them, now! But Luffy has made his decision. It's too dangerous for the baby out on the seas of the New World. But once they've found the One Piece they'll be back to visit.

Usopp made the baby a teddy bear and dressed it as Luffy, complete with a straw hat. Sewn to the red fabric of the hat is a note written by the crew, a photo of them all, and a piece of Luffy's vivre card. If the baby grows up and ever wants to come sailing with them, all they have to do is ask.

AAAHHH this was so fun omg!! I love babies sm and there'd be so many antics if a baby was on the Sunny. I doubt I'd ever write a fic myself though, but I'd be happy to think up more hcs in another ask :)

I don't know of any nakamaship fics like this, so if anyone does please link it in the comments. But! KazimaKuwabara has this FANTASTIC fic feat. the Straw Hats taking care of their de-aged nakama. I've read it so many times, it's great.

Thank you for the ask! Keep em coming y'all, I live for this.

#one piece #strawhats #monkey d luffy #roronoa zoro #cat burglar nami #god usopp #black leg sanji #nico robin #cyborg franky #soul king brook #jimbei #tony tony chopper #one piece au #red's asks #red's writing #nakamaship

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xomakara · 4 months ago

Text

Passion On The High Seas

(re-posting from my old account seulrinnie-rinrin/xomakara-secondary)

SUMMARY | After running away from your life as a noblewoman to become a pirate, you meet Yunho, a handsome pirate who has an equally shocking past.

PAIRING | Yunho/Reader

GENRE | Pirate!Yunho, smut with no plot, unprotected sex (wrap it up everyone!), oral, fingering, vaginal sex,

RATING | Mature

LENGTH | 4758 words

AUTHOR’S NOTE | Might make this a series or something LOL. Here’s to my first Ateez fic!

You stretched your limbs after you had finished loading cargo onto the ship earlier that day. Your hair was tied up in a messy bun so that it didn’t fall onto your face as you worked.

Your clothes were tattered, stained with dirt and grime and most likely smelled horrible due to you wearing the same clothing for days on end. But despite all that, you felt pretty damn happy at that very moment.

Happiness. Something that you hadn’t felt in a very long time.

You were the daughter of one of the peninsula’s most prestigious families that served the king. You grew up in a gilded cage with servants attending to your every whim. You went to fancy balls with nobles and royalty. You wore dresses that cost thousands of gold coins each. Every evening, you went to parties hosted by important merchants or dignitaries where you drank the finest wine and ate the most delectable foods. And yet…despite all that, you never felt happy. Not once in your life.

Until now.

You smiled to yourself as you thought about what it would be like to live life on your own terms. No rules. No laws. No royal decrees preventing you from doing what you wanted. Just you and the sea. The only one that cared whether or not you lived was you. And you loved that feeling. More than anything.

And as far as you knew, it was that feeling that had drawn you to the life of piracy.

You’ve been living life on the seas for a few years already, rising to the ranks of Captain through sheer determination and blood, sweat and tears. It wasn’t easy being an outcast among the noble classes but you never let that get you down. There was no place else you’d rather be than here: sailing around the world, exploring new lands, making friends, conquering foes and seeing sights no one had ever seen before.

The wind blew gently against your face as you looked upon the island that stood in front of you. Sails flapped lazily as the pirate ship moored itself to the shore and as you gazed out over the horizon, you could see your next destination appear in the distance: the City of Thieves. A land filled with thieving pirates and thieves where anyone could do whatever they wanted without fear of punishment or retribution. Where there were no constrictions, no boundaries, no restrictions. You couldn’t wait to get there. You grinned wickedly as you imagined running wild and free amongst its teeming streets and crowded alleyways, laughing and partying until the sun came up again.

No more dresses. No more high heels. No more boring noble gatherings. This was going to be a life of pure pleasure, no holds barred. If you weren’t having fun, then you weren’t doing it right. This was what freedom was all about!

With a chuckle, you hollered to your crew as the ship was preparing to dock. “Looks like we’re finally here!” You said excitedly. “Open up those cargoes so we can sell them off. Check in with the Quartermaster to see what jobs he has for you and once work is done, and I really mean done, then you are free to do as you please! Huzzah!”

The men cheered in excitement as they began working on the tasks that were given to them, shouting out commands to their colleagues as they continued to unload crates and barrels onto the dockside. While this was happening, however, you were busy thinking about how you were going to spend the rest of the day. What would you do? How will you spend your day? All these questions swirled around your head like the churning waters of the ocean.

Once the ship was docked, work was done and you had distributed everyone’s pay, you led your crew towards the nearest tavern. Once inside, you ordered some food and drinks and made your way to a secluded table where you watched your men frolic about. Soon enough, a buxom waitress came over and placed your order down before giving you a warm smile. You noticed a few of your fellow men giving her a wolfish grin but you paid no mind to it as she left.

You weren’t looking for female company but rather the company of men. But all the pirates you knew were old, young, drunk, had missing limbs or were not that attractive to look at, which means you wouldn’t be able to pick any of them as potential mates. And as much as you loved taking lovers, nothing quite compared to a cold, hard drink with a handsome man who knows exactly how to treat his woman right. Or maybe someone who had nice eyes and lips? You did like a man with nice features. You wondered if you’ll ever find a man like that. Maybe you won’t. Either way, you didn’t care. You didn’t need a man. Not even if you found one. You’d be fine on your own. Better than fine, in fact.

“I hear you’ve just returned home from a voyage.” Said a familiar voice.

Your ears perked up as you turned around and saw another pirate sitting at the table beside you. You immediately recognized him as one of your regular drinking buddies and a captain of his own right. “Are you keeping tabs on me, Hongjoong?” You asked, sipping your drink.

“I just got into town a few days ago. Leave me alone.” Hongjoong laughed as he ordered a bottle of rum.

“Oh come on! Aren’t you curious about my latest adventures?” You questioned, playing along.

Hongjoong let out a laugh. “If it doesn’t have pretty woman involved, then no thank you.”

You scoffed and pointed at yourself. “But I’m a pretty woman.”

“You’re a whole different story, my noble lady.” Hongjoong chuckled, finishing his drink and ordering another one. “You’re out of my reach.”

“Too bad, my friend.” You replied, sipping your drink. “Anything new happening with you these days? Got any juicy stories to tell?”

“Apart from recruiting new men?” Hongjoong teased, winking at you.

A frown formed on your lips. “What does that mean?”

“I got a few pretty boys on board.” Hongjoong said as he gestured to a few men that were engaged with talks with a few of yours. “Snagged them before you could, so I’m feeling lucky. Are you jealous?”

You shrugged. “Don’t care.”

“Why don’t you join us later tonight?” Hongjoong offered, turning towards you. “We can grab a few bottles of wine and then go somewhere quiet and intimate.”

You arched an eyebrow at him. “So now you’re interested in me?”

“Nah…you know my type.” He chuckled. “But I do know the type of guys you like. I can guarantee you won’t be disappointed. Like that one over there.”

You looked over to where he pointed and noticed a rather tall, handsome man talking to a few of your crew members. Your eyes trailed downwards to take in the sight of his well-built body and those long fingers that rested upon the wooden chair. God, what you could do with those fingers. They would feel good wrapped around your throat. But more importantly, those legs. Long and strong. Perfect for fucking.

That, and his eyes. Those beautiful dark eyes…they almost hypnotized you.

A low growl escaped your lips before you looked at your friend. “Damn you, Hongjoong. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but for once I’m glad we’re friends. I’ll join your party as long as he’s there.”

“Good girl.” He grinned before he drained his glass. He called out to the tall man. “Yunho!”

His name was Yunho. You liked that name.

Yunho approached the table and turned to Hongjoong. “Captain.”

Hongjoong clapped the tall man’s back as gestured to you. “Say hello. This is my good friend, Y/N. She’s the captain of ’The Aurora’.”

Yunho gave you a friendly nod before turning his attention to you. “Hello. Pleased to meet you.”

You nodded in return. “Likewise.”

Yunho opened his mouth to say something but was cut short when you waved to the others, signaling for everyone to join you.

All the men eagerly moved towards the table and took their places as you pulled up a chair and joined them. “Let’s get to know each other, shall we?” You suggested as you raised your glass and gave a toast. “Here’s to better opportunities, a brighter future and everlasting friendships.”

After you had finished your drink, you signaled for a waiter and ordered two bottles of wine before moving to sit next to Yunho. He immediately leaned towards you and whispered into your ear. “You’re awfully forward, aren’t you?”

“Can’t help it. You’ve caught my eye.” You whispered back. “There’s something intriguing about you. What’s your story? You seem different from all the pirates I’ve met.”

Yunho smiled as he tilted his head to the side slightly. “How so?”

“You just have a different air about you.” You stated. “Not as cocky as the others. More mysterious.”

“I could say the same about you, Captain.” Yunho let out a laugh. “It’s not everyday that I get to meet a female pirate, much less a female captain. You’re different from all the women I met. You sit differently, talk differently. It’s as if you were born into a different life than the other women.”

“I’ll tell you my story if you tell me yours.” You countered.

“Alright.” Yunho muttered, eyeing the group of men across the room. “Do you want to walk with me? We can exchange stories as we go.”

“Sounds good to me.” You agreed. “Lead the way.”

As you and Yunho headed out of the tavern, the men gave you knowing glances knowing that you wouldn’t be returning any time soon. Some smirked, wondering what the attraction was between you two while others winked. You ignored them and allowed Yunho to lead the way as you followed behind him. His movements seemed so smooth, almost as if he was dancing with the night breeze as he walked along. With each step he took, you felt like your heart skipped a beat. Just watching him made you weak in the knees.

Damn it, why am I like this? It’s not like I haven’t fucked hundreds of men already. Why do I feel so drawn to this one man?

“So what’s your story?” Yunho inquired, stopping near a tree as he looked at you.

“Tell me yours first.” You commanded, still unable to hide the obvious longing that shined through your gaze.

“Would you believe me if I told you that I was the son of a noble? One that went through a lot growing up because of the rumors about his father’s involvement in treason?” Yunho asked, giving you a sad smile. “Of how my family had been stripped of our title and exiled instead of executed for being traitors?”

“So you’re Minister Jeong’s son.” You said as you sat down by the tree.

“Do you know of my family?” Yunho asked in surprise.

You gave him a sad smile in return. “Would you believe that I was the daughter of a noble as well? Raised in a gilded cage, unable to live freely as she waits for her father to marry her off for his political gain? A noblewoman who ran away during a shopping excursion when a riot occurred?”

“So…You’re the missing daughter of Minister Yoon.” Yunho surmised, studying you carefully. “It explains why you’re different from all the other women I met.”

“Does it?” You questioned as you furrowed your brows.

“I think you understand what I’m trying to say.” Yunho said, his eyes gazing into yours. “You and I lived the life of privilege and even though it looks like we’ve adapted to the life of being a pirate, there are things that only people of nobility would understand. Things we both experienced. Things that we know about each other.”

“Yes.” You admitted. “I agree with you. In many ways, we do understand each other.”

“Then why did you run away from everything you know? Don’t you miss the life you once had?” Yunho asked as he pulled a few leaves off a branch and handed it to you. “Have you forgotten all about it?”

“I was raised to be a dutiful daughter and if I stayed, my fate would be to marry some powerful man for his wealth and political power.” You explained. “I didn’t know it at the time but I hated my life back then. I wanted to live freely. To be free. To be myself. So I ran away and never looked back.”

“And here you are now, living on your own. No one to guide you but yourself.” Yunho added. “Surely that must be lonely.”

“At times, yes. Sometimes I miss having someone to talk to.” You admitted as you watched Yunho pull a few leaves from the branch. “My crew are great men but sometimes it’s hard to talk to them about my life considering we all had different pasts. If they found out that I was a noblewoman, who’s to say that they wouldn’t look down on me or treat me differently?”

“I get it.” Yunho looked up at the night sky. “I haven’t told Captain Hongjoong my identity as well. But I’m sure he already knows. The man seems to always be able to read me like an open book.”

“He’s quite gifted in that area.” You mused as you turned to face Yunho. “He found out about my identity the first time we met. But you can count on Hongjoong to keep your secret. That’s one thing you can trust in him.”

“Now that you mention it…” Yunho stared at you intently. “Why do I feel like I can trust you?”

“Maybe it’s because you want to trust me?” You suggested with a soft chuckle.

“Perhaps.” Yunho sighed as he stood up and started walking towards you. “However, that doesn’t explain why I suddenly became attracted to you. I’ve had my fair share of lovers in my life and yet I find myself wanting to know you.”

“I feel the same. Strange, isn’t it?” You smiled at him. “Normally, I would sleep with someone and then leave the next morning without giving them any thought. Yet with you…it feels different.”

Yunho returned your smile and bent down so that he could whisper into your ear. “Me too.”

As you glanced up at his lips, you wondered how such a large man like him could make you feel so small. As his breath fanned against your skin, you could feel your heart beating faster and harder. Before you knew it, you found yourself leaning closer towards him and slowly moving your body closer towards his.

Your lips parted and he placed his finger on your lower lip, coaxing you to close the distance between you. Instinctively, you leaned forward and closed the gap between you. His tongue swirled around your bottom lip and for a moment you thought he was going to kiss you but instead he nipped lightly on your lower lip.

You pulled back slightly, your hand reaching for his. “Do you want to continue this somewhere else?”

“Wherever you wish.” Yunho answered, his voice thick with desire.

“Come on.” You grabbed his hand and tugged him in the direction of the inn. “I rented a room earlier and we don’t want to waste any time, do we?”

Without waiting for an answer, you led him inside and led him straight to the room you rented. Locking the door, you removed your jacket and tossed it onto the bed as you kicked off your shoes. When you reached for the buttons of your shirt, Yunho stopped you and helped you remove it. He tossed it on top of your jacket before placing his large hand on your naked skin.

Yunho inhaled deeply as he ran his hands up and down your torso, enjoying the smoothness of your skin beneath his fingertips. Suddenly he leaned forward and captured your lips in a searing kiss as his hands explored every inch of your upper body, gently caressing you. “Yeah, you’re definitely a noblewoman with how soft your skin is. So supple and smooth.”

As he continued kissing you, you lost yourself in the sensation of his touch. One hand reached up to grab hold of his hair, entwining your fingers within it as you held him tightly against you. He pressed himself against you as his long fingers trailed down your body, pausing briefly at the hem of your pants before gently sliding underneath it.

A shudder ran down your spine as he touched you intimately, softly brushing over the sensitive spot below your navel before tracing the outline of your sex. As you arched your back, pushing yourself further against his hand, you moaned as you realized that you were getting wetter with each passing second. A loud moan escaped your lips as he slipped his middle finger into you, exploring every nook and cranny as you grinded your hips against his hand.

You grasped at his shirt, tugging it upwards so that you could feel the warmth of his bare chest against your own. Pulling his shirt over his head, you tossed it aside and cupped his face in your hands, kissing him passionately as you moved his hand away from you.

“Too much clothes on.” You murmured as you pushed Yunho backwards onto the bed.

He let out a laugh. “I could say the same since you still have your pants on.”

“That will come off later.” You teased as you dropped to your knees and began unbuttoning his pants. “For now, you can enjoy my mouth first.”

Yunho’s hands gripped the sheets as he watched you strip him of the rest of his clothing piece by piece. Taking a deep breath, he allowed himself to get lost in the sensation of your warm breath upon his skin. Your hair brushed against his stomach, tickling him as you slowly worked your way downwards.

When you finally reached his crotch, Yunho gasped as you wrapped your fingers around his hardness. Slowly running your hand up and down his length, you smiled as he visibly shuddered under your touch.

“Just like I expected.” You whispered as you lowered your mouth and licked the tip of his cock. “Very stiff and very hot. Very big.”

Licking the underside of his cock, you continued stroking him until he was panting heavily. He bit his lip, trying to remain silent as you feasted on his cock. With each flick of your tongue, you drew tiny groans from him. Unable to control himself, he thrust forward and hit the back of your throat.

Moaning as you took his entire length into your mouth, you loved the feeling of his dick slipping in and out of your throat. Squeezing your eyes shut, you imagined him buried deep inside you. Imagining his hands caressing your skin while your breasts filled his palms. Without warning, you felt his cock swell in your mouth as he shot his cum right into your waiting mouth.

Swallowing every last drop, you pulled your mouth away and kissed his thighs before standing up. Grabbing the waistband of your pants, you quickly removed them and threw them onto the floor before sitting back down on his lap. Leaning forward, you pulled him towards you and passionately kissed him again.

Yunho took the chance to flip you on the bed and cover you with his body. Grasping the back of your neck, he gently massaged the base of your skull as he kissed you more intensely than ever. “Your turn to enjoy my mouth.”

His lips traveled down your neck, nibbling and sucking every part of your flesh as you arched your back and purred. Pushing you further down on the bed, he took your left nipple into his mouth and sucked on it gently. He flicked his tongue against it causing your body to jolt slightly.

“More.” You breathed out, needing more of him.

“If you insist.” Yunho answered as he lifted your right breast into his mouth.

The sensations coursing through your body intensified as he sucked on your nipples, gradually increasing his speed. He took turns licking and sucking each one of them, paying special attention to your left nipple. It wasn’t until he finally reached your other nipple that he paused momentarily. Gazing into your eyes, he licked his lips and gave you a sexy smirk before trailing his lips further down your body.

Inch by inch, his tongue traced your skin until he reached your belly button. Placing his hands on your legs, he spread them apart before gently grazing his lips across your sensitive skin. You cried out as you felt his teeth scrape against your skin.

Kissing the outside of your pussy, he slowly slid two fingers inside you. He heard you moan as he moved his fingers in and out of you, sliding them deeper with each thrust. The sounds of your wetness echoed in his ears as he tasted your sweetness with his tongue. When he finally reached your inner walls, he inserted another finger and began thrusting his digits in and out of you, creating a rhythm that was driving you mad.

He thrust his fingers in and out of you, pulling your clit into his mouth and gently suckling on it. As you bucked against his hand, Yunho could feel your juices flowing freely from your slit. “God, you taste good.”

Leaving his fingers inside you, he dipped his head between your legs and slowly moved his tongue along the length of your slit. He flicked his tongue against your clit, drawing small whimpers from you.

Yunho lifted his head and watched you squirm beneath him. “Can I?"

You nodded and silently prayed that he didn’t stop. Taking a deep breath, he opened his mouth and engulfed your clit into his mouth, sucking on it gently as you cried out in pleasure. Every single sensation heightened tenfold as his lips made contact with your most intimate areas.

You arched your back, moaning loudly as he gently tugged on your clit. Overwhelmed by the waves of pleasure washing over you, you lost all sense of self. Nothing existed except for the feel of Yunho’s warm tongue dancing against your most intimate parts.

Suddenly he pulled away, leaving you panting for air. Looking down at you with hunger in his eyes, he sat back up on the bed. With one hand, he caressed your cheek while using the other to grasp his cock.

"Please.” You begged. “I need you inside me.”

With a look of pure lust in his eyes, Yunho positioned himself at your entrance. Pressing forward, his thick cock plunged inside of you, filling you completely.

Clenching your eyes shut, you bit your lip as he stretched you wide open. “Oh god…” You groaned as he entered you further. “It’s so big.”

Yunho placed his hands on either side of your head, locking his gaze with yours as he began pumping his cock into you. Each stroke made him go deeper into you as he enjoyed watching your reactions.

Each thrust drove him deeper inside of you, making you cry out louder with each thrust. Reaching up, you placed your hands on the sides of his face, holding him in place as you gazed into his eyes. You could see the heat radiating from them as he stared at you hungrily.

“Fuck, Yunho.” You moaned as you felt his hard dick sliding in and out of you. “You fill me up so well.”

Taking a deep breath, he placed his forehead against yours and let out a shaky sigh. His breathing was ragged as he savored the sensation of being buried deep inside you. Looking into your eyes, he knew that there would never be another person like you. Someone who understood him without saying a word. Someone who finally knew his identity and did not judge him for it. For some reason, he knew that nothing was more important to him than this moment. Nothing could ever come close to the feeling of having you wrapped around him. Nothing could possibly come close to what he felt right now.

Pulling back slightly, he stared deeply into your eyes before meeting your lips with his in a heated kiss. His lips crashed against yours as he deepened the kiss, exploring your mouth with his tongue. Pressing harder against you, he rocked his hips against yours, grinding his cock against your swollen clit. Both of you moaned loudly as he thrust faster and harder, intensifying the feeling that was building up within you.

Grinding his hips against yours even harder, he could feel his balls tightening. He let out a low growl as he slid his hands up and down your thighs, gripping your ass as he rocked into you faster and faster. You moaned into his mouth as he pumped into you harder, hitting that magical spot that sent fireworks shooting through your body.

“Oh fuck.” You whimpered as you arched your back, pressing yourself against him. “Yes, yes, yes. Cum in me, Yunho.”

Gripping your hips, he slammed his hips against yours as his cock exploded into your tight pussy. Warm cum flooded your depths, spilling over his shaft and causing both of you to cry out in pleasure. He stayed motionless within you, letting the pleasure wash over him as he slowly slid his softened cock from your body.

Unable to move or breathe, you laid there, trembling in ecstasy. The aftershocks of the orgasm were still coursing through you when he lifted his head and looked at you.

“Are you okay?” He asked you softly, his voice full of concern.

You smiled weakly. “More than okay.” You answered as you reached up and kissed him softly.

Yunho laughed quietly, kissing you once more before pulling away. Laying next to you, he stroked your hair as you snuggled against him.

“Remind me to thank Hongjoong later.” You said as you ran your fingers through his messy hair. “If he hadn’t convince me to stay and join his party, I would have missed the oppurtunity to meet you.”

Smiling, Yunho closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of you. “We would’ve found each other eventually.” He mumbled as he nuzzled your neck. “We’re pirates that are secretly nobles. How could we not find each other?”

Chuckling, you laid your head on his chest and sighed contentedly. “True.”

Yunho rested his chin on top of your head as you lay next to him. “Can I ask you something?”

You turned your head and looked at him. “Of course.”

He hesitated for a few seconds before continuing. “If somehow my family still had our title and status, would there have been a chance that we would have met? Would things have turned out differently?”

“If you were still Minister Jeong’s son and I was still Minister Yoon’s daughter, there would definitely have been a chance.” You answered honestly. “Who knows, our fathers would probably marry us off to each other.”

A slight smile appeared on Yunho’s lips. “Maybe they would have. Do you think you would have accepted an arranged marriage if it was me?”

You let out a laugh. “Maybe… if I liked you.” You teased him.

“Ah… that might be difficult then.” Yunho laughed. “Because I’m pretty sure I would have ended up trying to win your heart.”

“That’s possible.” You agreed with a nod. “But that’s just wishful thinking. The past is the past. All we can do now is make our future bright.”

“You’re right.” Yunho replied.

“I always am.” You grinned.

Yunho chuckled. “Just promise me one thing.”

“Anything.” You replied immediately.

“If one day, you or I, were to return to face what we left behind… will you return with me?”

Startled, you looked up at him, surprised by his question. Your first instinct was to answer no. After everything that had happened, you wanted to forget about the world of noblemen and their royalty. But looking into Yunho’s soft eyes and sincere expression, you knew that you couldn’t say no to him.

You grasped his hand tightly. “I promise. If we get the chance to return to that life, I’ll return with you.”

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