Phew! I've really been writing a lot on this story xD I'm glad i got my muse back for this one because i really like it haha. Anyways, here's the new edition
Elielephant - haha Yeah Sarin's a cheater - but she really can't help it lol And i'm glad you're excited to see Hawkins part - i'm excited to write it lol He's one of those characters that never really gets much face time, so i'm hoping i do him justice. Haha Jackal's the most fun to write, and i think you'll like him in this chapter ;) Thanks for all the awesome reviews!
Son of Whitebeard - lol not quite, but they do and will in future chapters get up to some serious shenanigans lol
Alright, here's Chapter 11~!
Chapter 11
Six shots of strong tequila, three "samples" of different types of softer beers, and two hours later, Sarin was well on her way to being completely shit-faced. Seko, who'd stopped the shots after two to start nursing a bottle of something milder, laughed as the drunken girl talked aimlessly with Penguin about his hat.
"I don't get it," she said with a slight hiccup at the end of her statement, "It's so…big and I can't see your face!" Her hand reached out and pressed down the top of Penguin's black and white hat. Her other hand came up and started jabbing at his nose.
Penguin – who'd already transitioned into his drunken-giggle phase – just laughed and started poking her forehead in return.
"Sarns," Shachi spoke jumbledly from the other side of Penguin, "You probably can't see cause of your blind-thing."
"But…but," The red-haired girl was obviously trying to say something, but couldn't find the word. Her hands had moved away from Penguin and were now waving in circles through the air as her brain stuttered silently. "OH! But your outline – I can see that usually. But his hat is just so BIG! Why do you all wear hats?"
Penguin burst into another set of giggles and let his head hit the table in front of him, "Why don't YOU wear a hat? You should wears one because then we'd all match!"
Shachi joined the giggles, "I'm a HAT pirate – hehe – get it? I said hat, not heart."
Seko rolled his eyes and left the trio to their giggling conversation. He gazed around the room with his calm brown eyes. The group had dispersed from the booth a little while ago to spread about the room.
Jackal was sitting with each arm tugging at the waist of a different girl – both of which were giggling constantly as he whispered naughty things in their ears – while Julian and Rice had taken to playing a game of cards, where you each stuck a card to your forehead and tried to convince the other player that theirs was lower. They both looked like idiots with playing cards tucked into their hats – but Rice particularly looked the part as his fuzzy orange hat with earflaps kept sagging down on his forehead, causing his card to keep poking him in the eye.
The door swung open, and the second half of the crew, excluding Kinney and Broth who'd been designated as ship-keepers for the day, walked into the dim atmosphere of the bar.
Seko wasn't the only one to notice, however.
Sarin suddenly shifted so she was sitting on the cushy booth seat with her knees and threw her arms frantically into the air. "TEAMER!" she shouted with a giggle trapped in her voice.
The navigator, looked startled at her shout and looked towards the table with a questioning look. The rest of the crew who'd come in behind him – Eli, Camin, Vic and Miles – all laughed at the girl's drunken state and gathered at the bar.
"Hey! Where'd you get your hat? They said I need a hat, so I need to know where to get one." Her arms suddenly stopped flailing about and she turned back to Shachi who had entered into another laughter attack, "Wait – what if I don't want a hat?"
Teamer came and stood at the end of the table, his eyebrows raised so much that they disappeared beneath the edges of his colorful beanie decked out with the bright yellow pom-pom. "Is she drunk already?"
"Pen and Shachi got her up to six shots and then they all got giggly," Seko smiled and sipped at his beer.
Teamer shook his head, "Damn that was quick. She probably won't make it till sunset before passing out." His fingers drummed against the table and he left with a laugh. He joined the group of four at the bar, leaving Seko with the three drunken laugh boxes.
Law walked into the shabby bar just before sunset. He had been back in the small town near his submarine for some time now, but had been checking out the status of the Marines on the island, and the rumors of a tough crack down on all pirates docked at the archipelago.
His cold eyes scanned the room, and immediately found Jean Bart sitting just inside the doorway, obeying his role as supervisor of the mischievous drunks that made up most of his crew. Next his eyes found a large group at the bar, nursing bottles of dark amber liquid and talking animatedly with each other.
In the center of the bar where a few tables had been pushed back, Shachi and Rice were dancing ridiculously with some local girls, and drawing a laughing audience of people. Penguin was nowhere to be found, but Law figured it was about that time of his drunken phase that he'd start to feel queasy and head to the bathroom.
Seko and Sarin were seated at a corner booth, the latter of which resting her head on her folded arms. Seko seemed to be keeping a close eye on her, and gave Law a nod of acknowledgment when he noticed the Dark Doctor looking his way.
Law, satisfied that his crew was all in one place instead of wandering about the town, stepped further into the shabby pub and made his way to the bar to order himself a glass of scotch, the oaky taste of which was always his favorite.
Seko looked down at Sarin as she hiccupped into her folded arms. "Sarin? You feeling alright?" The blonde felt buzzed but still sober enough not to lose any of his senses. Before Jean Bart had joined the crew – not even a week before Sarin did, though it felt much longer than that – Seko had always been the watch-dog for the crew. Even now that JB had taken the job, he couldn't bring himself to get completely smashed like the rest of his crew.
Sarin's head popped up suddenly and faced Seko with her scarred eyelids closed. "You know what?" She asked with a waver in her voice. After another hour of giggle-fits with Shachi and Penguin, she had tired out and calmed down. She was now in a more pensive state – though her drunkenness was still completely obvious by the strange breaks and disjointed syllables that plagued her sentences.
"What?" Seko asked calmly.
"You guys…all you guys are like my sis – wait…what's the boy-version of sisters?"
Seko gave a small laugh and answered, "Brothers."
"Yeah! You guys are like my brothers," She ranted, "I never had that. They never wanted to be my brot – I mean – girl brothers. They never liked me. You guys like me though. You let me keep my name. They didn't. They took it away. I am Sarin. My name is Sarin and that's who I am – but they wouldn't call me that. It was the only thing I had when I woke up – the only thing in all the darkness, but I couldn't keep it. And stupid Hancock gave me a stupid name. Everyone else was named after special flowers – like Poppy or Lily or Chrisanthenemum," She muttered vaguely through about ten different flower names.
Seko stared at her intently, interested in the strange topic, despite its incoherency due to her intoxication.
"But they called me Hana. Just plain Flower. They took away my real name and called me a stupid flower. I don't even know why all their names are flowers. It's stupid. Flowers are stupid. They smell nice and everyone says they're pretty, but I can't see them and I think they're stupid." Sarin pouted and reached for a shot glass that still had a little bit of tequila left in it. "But you guys call me Sarin. I can be Sarin again. All the time on Amazon Lily I was afraid I would forget my real name…who would I be if I lost my name? I'd have nothing. No memory, no sight, no name. I wouldn't be a person anymore. I'd be a stupid flower on Amazon Lily that no one liked to look at."
Sarin tipped over her shot glass and rolled it back and forth between her hands.
Seko stared at the girl, piecing together all of her words.
They'd tried to strip away the last piece of her identity on that island – the famed Isle of Women. They'd taken her in, just to ignore her, it seemed, and take away the only thing she remembered of her past.
Seko pulled off his plain black baseball cap, revealing a head of short and blonde hat-hair. He ran a hand through the hair, only making it messier, and then replaced his hat.
He leaned forward on the table and propped his chin on one hand, "So they tried to call you Hana?"
Sarin nodded at him, her eyes still closed. Seko still hadn't gotten used to the fact that she could see without opening them, and had often held back a natural response to tell her to open her eyes before she ran into something. "But Poppy would always use my real name when no one was around."
"Who was Poppy?"
Sarin smiled wistfully, "She was nice. She took care of me and never made me feel bad like everyone else." The red head sighed, "I wish I could have seen her face…I bet she was pretty – just like her voice. She used to sing to me and her voice always reminded me of birds tweeting happily in the morning or the whisper of the wind through the dry grass in the summer. You guys would have liked her."
"She sounds nice. I bet you miss her."
Sarin shrugged, "I do, but she's gone now…probably somewhere where it's always summer, and she can sing with the birds all she wants. She doesn't have to worry about taking care of me anymore."
Seko frowned and couldn't help himself from asking, "Did she die?"
Sarin nodded and yawned, "But people like to say on Amazon Lily that the spirits of the dead live on in the flowers that they were named after…I wonder how that would work for me, since they just called me Hana…would my spirit be spread through all the different kinds of flowers, or is my name so vague that my spirit wouldn't be able to stick to any of them."
Seko shook his head, "You won't be dying anytime soon, so you shouldn't worry about where your spirit will be."
"That sounds good," Sarin said letting out another yawn. "I think I'm going to sleep."
At her words, Seko was going to get up so that she could spread out on the curving booth seat, but before he could carry out his plan, her head landed on his shoulder and she folded her arms around his as if it were a stuffed animal of some kind.
He stiffened under her touch, unsure of what to do. As her breathing deepened and quieted, he could tell she'd fallen completely asleep. He felt awkward with the girl tightening her pale and freckled arms around his.
Seko thought about pulling out of her grasp and pushing her to lie down on the booth, but every time he tried to tug his arm out of hers, she would tighten her hold.
"You look cozy," Miles smirked as he came to the table with a beer in his hands.
Seko rolled his eyes, "Just help me get her up. I'm gonna take her back to the sub."
Miles laughed and agreed, setting his bottle down on the table and reaching over to get a hold of Sarin. He was able to get a hand under her arm and pull her out of the booth at the same time Seko stood up and pulled his arm out of her grasp, only to quickly grab her waist.
They tried to wake her up so that she could walk on her own, but she would just groan and loll her head to the side.
Miles laughed, "You'll just have to carry her, mate. She's completely out of it."
Seko sighed and lifted the girl off the ground, one hand beneath her knees and the other wrapped under her back and holding onto her arm for security. "I'll probably be back in a bit," the blonde said as he started towards the door.
Miles waved and laughed and went back to the fun that was staring up on the makeshift dance floor.
Seko finally made it to the door and stepped out into the cool night. Soft but salty wind came off of the ocean, and swept through the sleepy cropping of buildings. Seko felt Sarin shiver in his arms and snuggle into his chest, doing a great job at making him feel even more awkward.
He tried to walk quickly back to the sub, but found that the walk seemed longer in the dark. The only light giving him any help was that of the few stars that managed to shine through the thick treetops and yellowish light from streetlamps that lined the street at intervals of ten to twenty yards.
Occasionally Sarin mumbled incoherently in her intoxicated sleep, but otherwise was quite still and calm. Finally they reached the small natural harbor where Teamer had docked the sub, and entered into a patch of starlight that trickled through a gap in the trees. The faint light seemed to highlight the girl's scars that crossed both eyelids, somehow making them more visible than usual.
He wondered how she had gotten them, and realized she probably wondered this as well.
Carefully, Seko stepped out onto the reaching branch that made a small bridge to the main deck of the sub. He hopped across, trying his best not to jostle the girl too much, and quickly came to the hatch door that led inside.
With no free hands, he was left to kick at the thick metal door and hope that someone heard his knocking. Even though the redhead was thin and light in his arms, the constant weight was starting to pull at his shoulder muscles.
He was about to set her down on the dock when the door swung open.
"Oi! Quit yer bangin', yeh drunk bastard," Broth said irritably as he poked his head out into the night. He was about to continue his gruff lecture when he saw his kitchen helper in the arms of Seko, "Oh – what happened?"
Seko laughed quietly, "She just passed out. Too many shots."
Broth ushered the pair inside and closed the door behind them. Seko took off for the stairs, quickly followed by the burly cook. "Yeh let the girl get that drunk?"
"For her first time, she did all right. She was giggly mostly – and then mumbled a bit before passing out." Seko's boots thudded noisily down the stairs as he made his way down to Sarin's room.
Once on the low deck, Broth got ahead of him and pushed open her door. The two men set her down on her mattress and threw her thin blanket over her sleeping body. In response to the familiar weight of her own blanket, she murmured softly and buried her head into her pillow, also succeeding in burrowing deeper into her bed.
"It's weird and amazing at the same time how well she fits in with us all," Seko said amusedly. He smiled softly at Sarin's blanketed figure as she fidgeted in her drunken sleep. He left the room, followed by Broth. The men closed Sarin's door and left her to her sleep.
Broth nodded at the blonde engine mechanic, "Aye – but yeh guys better be keepin' her safe while I'm not there. And I don't mean Jackal's version of safe, either."
"Don't worry – I kept an eye on her, and JB watched us all like a hawk. He probably would have tossed any guy who even looked at her wrong."
"Good," Broth said gruffly as the duo started back up the stairs, "Cause she's still a kid an all. I don' want her bein' put into trouble by yeh all."
Seko only smiled, and the two disappeared from the stairwell onto the middle deck of the mostly vacant submarine.
I woke to a pounding ache in my head, and the sounds of snores coming from the hallway that added to my headache like constant pounds of a hammer.
I groaned and tried to burry myself deeper into my bedding, but had no luck drowning out the sound. I didn't dare shout at the criminal, figuring that my raised voice would cause me even more pain.
I sent out my shadowy haki-vision and found a sleeping outline of one of my crewmates sleeping propped up against the bottom step of the staircase. My vision, however, didn't stay focused long enough for me to figure out who it was and soon shot more lightning bolts of pain through my pounding head.
This must be what a hangover feels like, I thought bitterly to myself. Penguin didn't warn me how bad it would feel.
I cursed him in my mind – even my loud thoughts seemed to cause me pain – and pushed myself out of my bed. As I stood up and realized I'd slept in my clothes, a question bugged me…
How had I gotten to my room?
I searched my mind, but the events of last night were all blurry and plagued by laughter. I remembered something about hats, and then mentioning flowers a lot – but after that, nothing came to me.
I figured someone must have brought me back, and when I realized that both Prim and my satchel were missing from my room, I hoped that they were still at the bar with the few of the crew who hadn't come wandering in after their night of drinks.
My vision shot outward and upward, counting the number of outlines scattered amongst the ship. Though I counted at least ten people still in a sleeping stupor, almost none of them were sleeping in the hammocks of the men's quarters. I smirked when I recognized Bepo's overly large figure curled up just outside the hatch-door that connected the upper deck's hallway to the outer deck.
Finally I took a few steps towards the door, and shuffled my way towards the staircase. I stepped carefully over my sleeping crewmate on the bottom step, recognizing the sleep-talking voice of Eli, who'd probably come down here for whatever reason and passed out on the stairs before he could accomplish his initial goal.
I smirked and continued upward, rubbing my temples with my hands to hopefully massage away the pain of the hangover.
Almost zombie-like, I made my way to the galley, towards the smells of eggs being scrambled and toast browning in the oven. I was so distracted by the tantalizing smells of food that taunted my empty stomach that I didn't notice Broth until he spoke.
"Still an early riser – even with a hangover," Broth commented with his burly voice.
I flinched at the pain his voice inflicted upon my brain as it echoed through my aching head "Oww – not so loud," I moaned in agony. My temples threatened to explode at his responding laugh, and I cringed away from the cook even more.
"Better eat somethin' quick, then. Food's the best cure for a hangover – especially my food." Broth let out another laugh as he turned back to tend to the half-way scrambled eggs.
"Really?" I asked, leaning against the counter top beside the stove. I took a deeper breath of the food scents, and found that Broth had put something spicy into the egg mixture. Maybe hot sauce or something equally spicy.
My stomach growled greedily at me, and I suppressed the urge to stick my hand into the pan to grab some of it.
"Go sit down at the tables and I'll brin' yeh somethin' in a minute," Broth directed.
I nodded – which seemed to cause all my thoughts to roll chaotically through my head, causing more painful thunder to pound through my injured head – and pushed through the curtain that separated the kitchen and the galley.
I settled myself down at one of the longer crew tables and let my head fall on my crossed arms. I shut off my shadowy sight, to give my mental eyes a break and just did my best to relax.
For once I cursed my over-sensitive hearing – even though my "eyes" were turned off at the moment, I could still hear everything that was going on in the sub. Mostly it was a disarray of snores and sleep noises, but everything else seemed to be amplified. The constant whurring and grring of the idling engines, the sounds of steam being released into the cooler air of the boiler room, scrapes and bangs of metal on metal from Broth's station in the kitchen, the softer sound of the ocean current hitting the bottom of the sub. Everything was within my range of hearing.
It seemed that overly active senses and hangovers didn't mix very nicely.
I groaned and soon heard a pair of footsteps coming from the men's quarters towards me. I turned on my shadowy sight once again and recognized the small and mousy outline of Kinney. He shuffled quietly towards the galley, and as he stepped through the open doorway, I lifted my head to greet him. "Hey Kinney," I said in a loud whisper.
"Sarin," he said in a barely audible squeak. He tentatively moved towards the table I was at and sat down across from me. "How was your night?" he asked in that same painfully quiet voice.
I gave him a small smile and went back to massaging my temples, "Don't remember much of the details – but I remember laughing a lot."
"Bet you have a headache too," he added. He fidgeted with the sweatband he wore instead of a hat, tugging it upwards and downwards some to fix his unruly hair.
I nodded, "But Broth says he has a cure." I smiled and focused on Broth's outline in the kitchen. He seemed to be nearing completion of my breakfast, and I hoped it would work as well as he said it would.
Not much long after, Broth came out with a frying pan of deliciousness and piled it high onto plates for Kinney, himself and I. I scarffed it all down, not taking the time to actually figure out what he put into the eggs that made it so terribly spicy. I dowsed the fire of the unknown spices with toast and water and sat back while the other two ate through their plates.
After Broth's "Cure All" breakfast, I had to admit I felt a little bit better. The food in my system helped a lot, but Broth said that spices were the key to getting rid of a hangover. He said it was a secret he learned a long time ago and completely swore by it.
I wasn't sure about it, but I felt better none the less.
I helped him delve out helpings of spicy scrambled eggs and toast as crew members straggled into the galley one by one. Of the ten that were actually on the ship, only a few managed to make it to the galley.
It was probably close to eleven, but still only a small number had woken up.
I was practically force-feeding Julian when Jackal and his slightly square-ish hat – which he called his lumberjack hat – came whistling through the galley doors with a strange shadow wrapped around his neck.
He ceased his whistling and called to me, "I think you left someone at the bar, Sarin."
"Shut up, you dick," Julian groaned angrily at the honey-toned voice of Jackal which was being way too loud for the angry, hung-over member of the crew.
Jackal just laughed and pulled up beside me stretching out an arm.
The long shadow that was wrapped around his neck immediately gave a happy hiss and started slithering down his arm and towards my shoulder.
I smiled as Prim settled loosely around my neck and shoulders and flicked her tongue at my ear. "Thanks Jackal."
He leaned over and rested a bent elbow on the table in front of me, "So, I heard you left with Seko last night." His flirty voice sounded as though he was trying to imply something, but the intended message went completely over my head.
"Huh – so that's how I got back to the sub. Anyways, how are you so lively this morning? Everyone else has a hangover, or else is still trying to sleep it all off." I wondered vaguely if some people could be immune to hangovers – because if so, Jackal seemed to have this wonderful trait.
Jackal stood back up and gave a smirky laugh, "I have my own remedies for hangovers, which don't include salsa or hot sauce."
"Like what?" I asked curiously. Whatever he'd done, it seemed to have worked wonderfully.
"It's more of a…physical activity," he said, again with his flirty voice. His tone made me slightly less curious.
Julian sent out a back-handed slap into Jackal's gut. "He's talking about sex," Julian muttered bluntly, "I swear, that's his remedy for everything."
Jackal sent a smack back towards Jules, "Hey – it works doesn't it? I'm sitting pretty while you're still feeling the headache."
"I don't know how a manwhore like you gets so much action," Julian grumbled while rubbing his temples viciously.
"You're just too angry all the time to get any," Jackal mocked, not bothering to defend himself against the insult "manwhore" which I only had a vague idea of its meaning.
I shook my head at the both of them and got to my feet, "Well, this conversation has officially lost me. I'm going to find something for Prim to eat."
Julian gave me a vacant wave as he seemed to stare down at the plate of eggs in front of him, while Jackal gave a laugh and said, "You'll learn soon enough – feel free to ask me any questions."
I shook my head at his offer and sent him a wave over my shoulder. I disappeared into the kitchen, with Prim wrapped loosely around my upper body.
A/N: Hope you liked it xD Considering i've never been drunk before, i hope i did accurate guestimations. And i actually looked up cures for hangovers, and some guys say that sex really does get rid of it lol when i read that i immediately thought of Jackal xD
