So it was supposed to be 30 word prompts, then 50 word prompts, now it's just a random poke in the dark. Hope you enjoy it, scarlet - thanks for the artwork!

Alvida x Cabaji - sorta.

They had left him. Buggy. They'd left the only captain he had known, one whose ship and lifestyle and costume and bloody well nose had fit to a tee.

All for a woman. That woman. That damnably beautiful, reasonable, logical, vengeful, slick-talking woman.

Slick all over. Everywhere. Frictionless, especially when wet.

Oh hell, not that thought again. It was what led him to this great sin in the first place. That wet, frictionless heat that had made him rabid, worse than Mohji and Richie, an animal of the basest sort as he fought to hold her strong, writhing, grinding body down with a snarl across his face and just finish them off!

Cabaji rolled out of his bunk, grace unhindered by his fifth bottle of rum for the week. He drank one bottle a day, even now, more than three months after they left Buggy to his fate in that horrible hell-hole they called a prison, more than who knows how long since they last saw Buggy alive at Marineford, fighting with that obnoxiously strong Luffy kid, of all people. Even now, he kept trying to drown the sin of abandonment, of saving his own skin, of wanting to stay alive.

Stay with her. In her. For her.

Rolling only slightly, he made his way to the captain's quarters with his heart heavy and his eyes sharp, his sword keen and bright in the dark. He had to find a way to stick a pin in the insidious worm in his traitorous heart. He had to find the slippery worm and pin it in place, dissect it and discard of it so he could be who he once was, Buggy's first mate.

Not Alvida's mate.

He didn't need to worry that the door was locked; it never was at this time. His raised his foot and kicked the door in, causing it to ricochet off of the wall and bounce close behind him. He was panting, adrenaline slamming his body so hard, so tight, stretching him so thin he thought his anger would burst through before he could even speak.

"You are a witch," he hissed at the dark, tantalizingly, half-dressed succubus stretched out on the bed.

"Am I?" Alvida answered coyly, now rolling up to look at him, his dark, green-tinted hair sweaty and damp and falling into his left eye. He shook it impatiently.

"You made me leave him!" he spat out. "You made me leave Buggy behind!"

Alvida sat and observed the acrobatic pirate, her skin pale and luminescent in the middle of the shadows crowding the room. The light dusting of pink flushing her cheeks was the only hint of her anger.

He wanted her to feel more. He wanted her face to be red.

He took a swig of the rum in his bottle then threw it just to the side of her head. She didn't even move as it shattered behind her. A shard flew past her left cheek and a thin ribbon of red followed.

He was on her before the blood could flow, teeth and hot, scorching, burning tongue on her face, her neck, her ears, her bre-

Yes. Yes, now her face was a fetching shade of red.

"Why?" he asked suddenly, quietly. Alvida frowned. This was not part of their normal act.

"Why?" he asked again as he stood up and stepped back, slipping his vest and pants off before rejoining her on the bed.

"Why?" he asked once more as he took his time removing her translucent red nightdress - ever the sign of the temptress, the seductress, the devil.

"Because I had something to protect."

He watched and watched and there, there it was. Her dark eyes shone with that strange light and all he could see reflected in them was himself. Her hand tentatively rose up and drew one smooth nail over the shaved stripes in his hair. He shuddered, harder, the answer crushing him. And then he slipped, slipped and fell down, headfirst into her secret.

Love is not frictionless, but Cabaji decided the next day that being Alvida's mate was indeed greater than being Buggy's first mate. The rum supplies were depleted at a far more reasonable pace.

[~~~]

In the New World, surrounded by hardened, gullible, criminals, Buggy read the message silently to himself.

"Forgive us, Buggy. He would have thrown away his life for you but I wanted him more than Capt. John's treasure."

Chuckling, Buggy gave the message bird a ring from his latest raid - green like his first mate's hair, smooth and ivory like her skin.

Bastard did always have good luck with the ladies.

Read and review! AlvidaxCabaji might need more love.