Chapter Text
The late evening air passed by in a muffled roar outside the truck. Koby took his time driving to the jail. You caught the way his gaze absorbed into the rear view mirror, challenging his green eyed stare with your own. The whites of his eyes sparkled like a restless sea crashing in waves.
You straightened your back, mustering a posture with what you hoped look like pride and indignation, when in reality this was utterly humiliating. Blackened frustration bit the back of your tongue. The fresh magic staining your hand itched and burned. Your chest twisted itself into knots as you tried not to scratch your hand into a bloody pulp.
Regret chased the truck. You should have stayed. You should have pulled on the heart strings until you found Sabo and broke out of there with the power of fire and brimstone.
“Koby,” you rolled his name with your tongue, pushing it between the grooves of your teeth. “You said the others are fine. Tell me what that means.”
“Oh,” he said, gluing his eyes back to the road. “The marines want to recruit Luffy and Zoro, so they’re in an admin office. They’ll run every test imaginable on Luffy’s wrist until he says yes.”
You chuckled, only able to imagine Luffy in a uniform if it’s when you’re in the process of peeling it off of him. Zoro’s tan skin flashes in your mind too- and you dissolve that image away in an instant.
“That’s not gonna happen,” you replied with a smirk, and Koby laughs too.
“I know.”
A long list of every asshole cop and marine you’d encountered in the smoke shop loops like a mini movie reel inside your mind. The way they looked down their noses at “civilians,” always in a hurry to go nowhere, giving deference to any man in the vicinity over you. Luffy and Zoro were more of men than the marines in this entire base. And you begin to wonder why Luffy would call one a friend.
The old you would have given Koby credit for his lack of violence. And the magic in your blood growled low at the thought. He was compliant, fair and gentle as sakura petals, and the magic in your blood liked it immensely.
There’s an ‘old you’ now. Someone before the magic. Someone you wanted to forget.
“Shit.”
“What?” Koby jerks the steering wheel, making you curse again, braced against the driver’s seat in front of you.
“Eyes on the road, fuck!”
Buggy’s package was still in your bag. The boys didn’t even know about it, and you almost forgot to deliver it. And you wanted the infernal, stinking energy of whatever that thing making your skin crawl gone.
“Koby, my boss has some kind of connection to the marines. I was supposed to deliver a package for him.” You say, scratching the mark, but the itch only got wilder, and you hissed as an awful heat splintering across your hand.
“You probably shouldn’t come back to the base,” he added.
“That’s what I’m saying, kind of,” you sighed, “we’re staying in that nasty motel outside of town, can you grab it and deliver it for me?”
The only response you got was hearing Koby swallowing a lump in his throat.
“You said that you wanted to help me right? I really need this.”
He sighed, “ok. I want to make sure Luffy makes it back okay. Tomorrow.”
A familiar warmth bloomed in your chest at Koby’s statement, the heart strings tied to Luffy feeling secure.
Along a back alley of downtown, Koby pulled up to a tall, windowless building on the end of the block with more lights than the entire street combined, so bright it might as well be daylight around the perimeter. The sound of metal clinking in the front seat raiseed your hackles, and you tried the handle in the back seat. Locked, of course.
“They won’t stay on,” Koby held up two round metal cuffs linked by a tiny chain. Despite the rage-induced bile rising in the back of your throat, playful little thoughts tried to break through the cracks of your resolve.
Stupid pervert magic, you cursed mentally. Cutting off the engine and stepping out of the truck, Koby opens the back seat and stood there expectantly.
But not in the way of your path.
You leveled a careful look at him, eyes darting between the darkness surrounding the jail and Koby standing still, handcuffs dangling from his hand. Slowly, with wolfish grace, you stepped out from the truck and stood before him, meeting his gaze. The mossy green of his eyes sat like a quiet barrier over a river between two worlds, your senses dipped past it and to hear a lovely howl.
Split in your resolve, you let the magic guide your hands up, nodding to the handcuffs. He slid them on, and they hung loose around your wrists as he walked you into the jail.
Some whining drunks are already passed out in large cells. You mumbled out one last Forget Me spell, and drop the pebble at Koby’s feet. The guard doesn’t question him when he flashes a marine badge, and asks that you’re held overnight. Eyeing the tear in Koby’s collar, the guard makes a face at you, hesitating before taking off the handcuffs once you’re behind bars.
At least you got to keep Zoro’s jacket on. So, you curled up on the cold plastic bench in the cell, wrapping yourself in the scent of sake and oak, the amulet vibrating against your ribs where you’d slipped it beneath your breast.
-
“No one’s here by that name sir- sir, don’t get in my face-”
For a moment you feel the bathroom floor and wonder what made you pass out, and why had you dreamed of such an awful space at a hospital? Maybe it was trauma flashbacks.
“She’s right there, moron!” Zoro’s voice booms from the guard’s desk.
You sit up on the bench and remembered last night was not a dream at all, and touched the side of your rib cage.
“The name you gave me and the one I have on file don’t match. I can’t just let a criminal go because you say she’s a friend of yours,” the guard responds in a nasally, muffled tone.
You approached the bars and braced yourself against them, the guard notices but Zoro’s honed in on the man’s neck, his fists clenched, jaw screwed shut.
“I don’t understand, sir. I must have been drunk last night, why am I here?” You asked, hearing jeers from the nearby cells and you scowled at them.
“Well uh,” the guard scratched his head as he replied, “you got brought in by a marine and I was told to hold ya. So I am.”
“You didn’t ask why?!” You yelled, remembering very clearly ‘why’ now.
“Quiet, you don’t run things here,” the guard waved you off.
“And neither do you apparently,” Zoro grumbled and reached over the desk, swiping the keys faster than the guard could stop him.
“Sir! Sir, give those back!”
“Not until I find the one that opens this door,” Zoro said, flipping through the key ring casually as he walked over to your cell door, easily brushing off the much smaller man trying to block the path.
“I’ll have you arrested!”
Zoro scoffed, a mean grin stretching his lips and showing teeth.
“Good luck with that.”
He struggled with finding the right key, and with a huff of impatience, you yanked the ring from his hand. The first one you tried opens the lock. It swung open with a loud creak, the other folks in the jail begging to be let out as well. And when you and Zoro walked out, your purse slung over his shoulder, they jeered and cat called at you.
Not that it mattered. Not when morning rays highlighted every even-toned muscle of Zoro’s face, neck, and arms. A chilly wind prickled goosebumps along his flesh.
“Want your jacket back?”
He slowed down, looking at you over his shoulder with that same smirk. A bronze, sinewy arm wrapped around your back and he pulled you into his body.
“Nah,” he replied, walking the rest of the way like that, letting go right as you two approached Sabo’s truck.
Zoro tossed the truck keys in your hands and climbs in the passenger seat. Excitement flared, heating you up in the places left freshly chilled in his absence, and you jumped into the driver’s seat trying to ignore it. The engine roared to life, and downtown disappeared in a cloud of dust within minutes. It didn’t take long for a wheezy snore to start ringing in your ears, and you laughed.
He grumbled, arms crossed, inadvertently flexing his chest and arm muscles, or maybe not. And you kept driving, taking it easy and slow, feeling each pang of vibration from the amulet like it was scanning your insides. And finding a feral desire that it did not mind.
Meanwhile, you couldn’t help but wonder why it was Zoro who came to the jail, and not the others. But that also meant Koby kept his word, the others must be safe. Luffy and Sabo could have pulled the heart strings to find you, but somebody had to tell Zoro where to go. And shown him the way personally, now that you thought about it.
“Koby’s coming by the motel later,” you said to, possibly, no one.
“Hm? Koby, sure. Yeah,” Zoro mumbled, eye still closed.
“Did he tell you where to find me?”
“Like it was hard to guess where you went? Always ending up where trouble makers go, I just followed my nose,” his eye opened, a crimson spark glittered in the corner of your vision.
The thought made your nose crinkle, “you sniffed me out? Blegh.”
“Smells like whiskey,” he replied, leaning in, hot breath drifting over the soft shell of your ear, fruity sake in your nostrils, “and self pity.”
“Shut up,” you took a hand off the steering wheel to push his face away, and he swiped it in his much larger hand.
“I could,” he said with a low gravel that made your treacherous stomach clench, running the tip of his nose just barely above your knuckles, teeth grazing the hairs on your fingers and making them stand on end. “But I need to do something with my mouth.”
Shameless. You ripped that hand away, wiping the taste of him on your dress before placing it back on the wheel.
“Gonna make me get in another wreck.”
You weren’t looking for any more repeat performances this weekend. But you couldn’t help weighing the thickness of Zoro’s thighs, wondering how they would have felt between your legs in place of Koby’s hips. And replacing the image with Zoro, imagining what he would have done instead.
A little drop of interest greeted the inside of your panties, and then you thought about ice. Thought about stealing Zoro’s power, and how you’re going to bring a dead man back to life with it.
By the time the motel comes into view, Zoro had fallen back asleep, and you could feel a nasty hangover threatening to fuck up the rest of your day if something wasn’t done about it quickly.
Standing in the parking lot next to a beat up mini van was your pink haired marine, a living dichotomy to the man you’d been comparing him to with filth and hunger. What you really needed was your coven, not these imposters. Parked next to the van and dashing up to the door, you waved Koby over, not bothering to wait for Zoro before opening the lock and going inside.
Luffy ripped the door away from your hands and threw his arms open, and you leapt into his chest, planting a sloppy kiss on his lips. He returned the affection like a man starved, dragging his hands up and down your dress, fingers pulling at the fabric. You giggled and pulled away from him, nuzzling his neck.
You caught a glimpse of Sabo over his shoulder and jumped down to run into his arms and give him the same greeting.
“They were horrible without you,” Zoro grumbled from the doorway. “Sabo almost set the place on fire.”
When you pulled away from Sabo’s lips, you noticed he was soaked to the bone, and hastily threw on clothes that were damp from his skin. He laughed, stepping away, your dress a little damp now too.
“Zoro made me sit in the tub until you got back,” he showed his hands, the skin pruned and bone white.
“Don’t leave us again,” Luffy tucked his face into your hair, standing behind you, arms wrapped around your waist.
“Horny fucks,” Zoro cursed, laying back on one of the beds, hands behind his head. “Whatever magic shit you’ve got going on was making them freak out.”
“Um, sorry to interrupt,” Koby was standing in the doorway, sun highlighting his angelic stature. “Y/N, I can take that- thing- for you and I’ll go.”
“Oh!” You broke free from the boys, hearing a low whine from one of them. The package was packed under some skimpy clothes, and an over sized black and yellow hoodie. The brown satchel snarled in your hands.
All four men glued their attention to it. Luffy snarled back at it, his hands clenched. Sabo scowled, damp hair falling in his face, chin tucked in. Zoro sat up on his elbows, his sword somehow suddenly by his side.
Koby wiped a bead of sweat under his headband, and held out his hand. The moment you put the package in his reach, a loud growl rippled through your mind. A black lightning strike whipped back, roaring up your spine and bursting white sparks over the package, silencing it. An audible whine emitted from it that everyone heard.
“My boss didn’t tell me who to deliver the package to,” you start, and Koby interrupts.
“No, it’s fine. I know exactly who this is for.”
You were so over it with this mission that no further questions were asked. You didn’t feel like doing a verbal dance around Koby’s vague answers either.
“Thank you.”
Koby gave a long, sentimental goodbye to Luffy. You crawled onto the bed, relishing the give of the mattress, the warmth of the man to your side. The door closed, leaving the room finally free from the rank aura of Buggy’s delivery.
“Gonna be okay?”
Leaning over Zoro, your eyes roll over the soft planes of his face. He followed your gaze with his own. You placed a hand on his chest and lean over him, pecking a little kiss on his cheek.
You pulled the amulet of life from under your breast and brandished it before the boys. The red light shimmering on their faces, highlighting their awe.
“I’m great, thanks to you guys.”