Chapter 4:

Sometimes You just Can't Help It


A week back on deck with the G-5:

The mechanical clock hanging on the wall of Smoker's office told him it was 10PM. Smoker rubbed his eyes tiredly, then glanced back down at the papers in front of him, but the words on the papers kept blurring together. He sighed, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. He needed sleep, or at least a break. The intel he and Tashigi had collected could wait till the next morning. While they hadn't figured out the suppliers of the drugs, they had determined the primary pirate crew in charge of the distribution, the Rooster Pirates. He would hunt them down and take them out, it was just a matter of time.

Smoker had to get used to a ship's schedule again after being undercover for so long, and he had a huge mountain of paperwork to get through. Being a Vice Admiral was great, except for the paperwork. He imagined Tashigi had even more to deal with though, as all the ensigns and Lieutenants reported directly to her, and she had additional reports from the main base. Only after filtering through them would she give him her report with the salient bits.

He hadn't seen her for the last few days. They'd gone separate ways after managing to get the information they needed about the supply chain, and had to pull out of undercover work separately so as not to raise suspicion. He was supposed to have a meeting with her and the other officers on board tomorrow at 0600. The thought of seeing her gave him a strange feeling and Smoker frowned. Tashigi's face inches from his own, her eyes wide, blush visible even in the dark suddenly accosted him and Smoker sucked in a breath. Yep, he needed to sleep.

Standing up, Smoker grabbed his coat and strode towards his office door. He yanked it open with more force than necessary and nearly collided with someone. He grunted in surprise, arm shooting out to steady his unexpected visitor as they stumbled backward. She yelped in surprise and Smoker recognized her voice. Tashigi. He stared at her for a moment, and she stared back, brown eyes wide and flicking between his hand on her shoulder, his face, his chest, and quickly back to his face again. Pink was rising quickly on her cheeks and the last time he'd seen her blush flashed before his eyes. He snatched his hand from her shoulder like he'd been burned.

"T-thank you, Smoker-san," she tucked an errant bang behind her ear, pointedly looking away from him. He grunted in response. "What is it, Captain?" he asked, and he could have sworn she flinched slightly. "I um, do you have a moment?" she squeaked. The errant bang slipped back in front of Tashigi's face and for a moment he had to fight the urge to tuck it back behind her ear. God, he needed a smoke.

"Can it wait?" he asked, his voice sounded a little strained. Tashigi looked at him quickly, biting her bottom lip, indecision warring across her face. "Y-yes, Sir, of course! Um, have a good night!" she saluted him. He nodded, and immediately headed for top side, listening to her footsteps fade away as she walked quickly down into the belly of the ship.

1.5 weeks back on deck with the G-5:

He was speaking with Ensign Lao about a problem with the ship's cannons when Smoker saw Tashigi approaching him. It was raining, her hair stuck to her neck, her pink coat, heavy with water, clung to her curves in a way that made him clench his teeth. Suddenly his paperwork was calling to him. He directed Ensign Lao to Tashigi instead and stalked back down below the deck to the sanctity of his office. Smoker didn't miss the strange, anxious expression on her face though.

2 weeks back on deck with the G-5:

It was late afternoon when Smoker left the Bridge, heading for the Mess Hall. He planned to eat, then get right to the pile of papers on his desk in his office. He was making real progress on figuring out the next drop point for the Rooster Pirates. The moment he stepped outside, a gust of icy wind cut right through him, making his thick coat seem paper thin. He was lucky his power kept his body running at a higher temperature than the average human.

The weather had been downright miserable for the last week, rain, thunder storms, big waves, the works. At least they hadn't had to deal with water spouts. His navigator had just mentioned that they were likely entering a winter zone over the next couple of days, which he vastly preferred over constant rain.

Smoker strode quickly towards the Mess Hall, the sound of laughter and warm food wafting out of it. Entering the hall, the heat from the ovens and bodies packed into the room made his jacket now feel too heavy. It was packed more than usual, the weather preventing other usual topside activities. Every table was crowded, and Smoker could see that one of the tables in the back was engaged in an arm wrestling contest.

The moment he walked in, there was a chorus of "Smo-yan!" and "Sir!" from a bunch of officers and they moved out of his way as he went to grab a bowl of soup. Only a few minutes after he'd grabbed his food and settled at a table, came another chorus of greetings, these ones much louder than the ones he'd received. "Tashigi-chan!" Smoker flicked his eyes toward the entrance. Tashigi walked in, wearing a scarf and gloves to match her pink coat. Despite the extra layers, she looked frozen.

She sighed with visible relief as she entered the hall, making a beeline for the food counter. Smoker looked back at his soup, taking a few sips, watching her out of the corner of his eye.

The cooks were always quick to serve her, the crew practically falling over backward for her.

He snorted quietly, knowing that she hated their fawning attention. Most of the crew meant well, but he knew she saw it as sexist. There weren't that many women in the Navy to begin with, and he could count the number in the G-5 on one hand. Once she got her food, it appeared that he wasn't the only one watching her. "Tashigi-chan! Sit here! We'll keep you warm!" shouted one of the men and Smoker grit his teeth. She glared out at the room, looking for the offender, a blush creeping up her cheeks. Her eyes landed on him, and their eyes locked for a moment. She went a deep shade of red, and Smoker looked away from her, lips suddenly tingling from the memory of how warm hers had been against his.

The room was suddenly far too warm for his tastes, his quiet office calling to him like a siren. He eyed his soup, downed it in a few gulps, and stood to leave. "Sir?" came her voice from behind him. The moment their crewmates had seen her go towards him, they'd stopped trying to get her attention. He turned to look at her. "Can I, can I talk to you for a moment?" the tip of Tashigi's nose and lips were pink with cold and his throat went dry.

"Later," he grunted, and ignored the flash of hurt in her eyes as he headed back outside into the icy wind and rain.

2.5 weeks back on deck with the G-5:

His navigator had turned out to be correct, they had indeed entered a winter zone. But on the upside, it had stopped raining. Smoker was up early, walking the deck, thinking about the Rooster Pirates. He had worked out their route, and was now trying to put together a plan of action for intercepting them. His office had a stale smell to it, making him crave the fresh air. As he headed towards the back of the ship, the sounds of quick footwork, and the unmistakable sound of metal flashing quickly through the air reached his ears. Below him, on the main deck, in a large open space cleared of snow, Tashigi was going through her sword practice. She was breathing heavily, wearing lighter clothing despite the cold. Smoker came to a stop, watching her. She went through her katas quickly and efficiently, but he could tell something was on her mind because there were little mistakes in her stances, in her thrusts. Her weight was slightly off center, her movements lacked focus, and the way she wielded her sword was off.

What was she doing training this early? It was practically the crack of dawn, she didn't need to be up for hours yet. She was also training alone. Normally she either practiced with a few other swordsmen or with him. Most often with him, but he hadn't sparred with her in weeks. He pulled out a cigar and took a long drag on it.

The wind shifted, blowing the scent of tobacco down towards her. Tashigi froze suddenly, turned and looked straight at him. Her face was flushed, chest heaving from exertion. She bit her bottom lip. Smoker's heart skipped a beat. If she wanted to train alone, he'd best leave her to it. He turned and headed back towards his office. Tashigi resumed her training with a yell.

3 weeks back on deck with the G-5:

He'd had a breakthrough. Smoker knew where and how he wanted to engage the Rooster Pirates. He took a long drag on his cigars, staring out at the gray ocean from the Crows Nest, his breath a plume of mist in the cold air. The ocean was calm in the barest dawn light, the last stars just starting to fade in the periwinkle sky. He'd radioed to headquarters with his updated plan an hour prior, and figured he would catch the messenger bird and the News Coo since he was up. He hadn't slept at all, too focused on his plan. They should be in route towards Red Skull Island, and if he could catch them at their drop point before they reached the island, then the drug ring would be thrown into chaos, exposing their big players in the panic and scramble. He hoped that the messenger bird would have the intel on the Rooster crew members numbers and abilities. In a few hours time, he'd have the navigator chart a new course.

Footsteps on the ladder behind him caught Smoker's attention. "Oh!" came her little exclaim of surprise. Tashigi. "You're up early Sir," she said quietly, climbing up onto the platform. He grunted in response. She stood quietly behind him. They were alone, like on New Years Eve. His heart gave a painful thump. Movement in the distance over the ocean caught his eye.

"Vice Admiral Smoker...Sir, can we...can we talk?" her voice came out strained.

The shape of the messenger bird materialized quickly. "One second," he muttered. He hadn't looked at her, but that didn't stop him from picturing how she had looked on New Years Eve. The softness of her lips, the blush on her face.

The bird landed with a squawk and Smoker hastily took it's package, opening it and scanning over it. Yes, this was the intel he was waiting for. He needed to review it. "Sir?" came Tashigi's voice. "Not right now, Captain," he growled, then quickly turned to smoke and made for his office. He hadn't looked at her, not once, and pretended he hadn't felt a pang of sadness over it.

3.5 weeks back on deck with the G-5:

The sun was bright above the deck of the G-5 warship, but the temperature was mild. There wasn't much of a headwind, the weather down right nice, and better still, stable for the moment. Smoker breathed out a puff of smoke from his cigars, watching it trail lazily upwards and disappear. He'd set course to intercept the Roosters, and the G-5 had been following that course for a few days now.

He leaned back in his chair on the deck, the empty seat beside him nagging his peripheral vision. His eyebrows drew downward into a deep frown, the good weather doing nothing to alleviate his sour mood. Now that he'd caught up on paperwork and concocted his plan for the Roosters, he had some free time to think.

Thinking brought him to the issue . The Tashigi issue. It had been a few weeks since he and Tashigi had returned to their real, regular lives. He had thought (hoped) that returning to their normal routine would have stopped the awkwardness that hung between them, but it hadn't. Something had shifted, and it hadn't shifted back.

Tashigi. He could picture her clearly, black hair pulled back, shoulders straight, pink coat wrapped around her shoulders. She was cordial to him in meetings, but the familiar camaraderie between them was absent. He blew out another plume of smoke. He turned the last few weeks over in his mind, starting with catching her looking at him (more than once) with an anxious expression out of the corner of his eye.

Of all the ways he could have handled their close shave with being caught nearly a month prior, Smoker had chosen the most awkward one. He pictured her underneath him again, the way her tongue had darted out to lick her lips inadvertently. How the shadows played across her skin. Her soft lips beneath his. Smoker shook his head, crossed his legs, glaring out at the ocean. He was old enough to know better than this. What the hell had made him do it? He grit his teeth, grinding into his cigars. He shouldn't have danced with her either. Being so close with her, the strange, but comfortable feeling of intimacy. The way she bantered and smiled at him. He had no one to blame but himself for this.

Smoker felt stupid as he wracked his brain to figure out how to fix this. Because he missed her. He felt an ache when he looked at or spoke with her. He knew what he did was awkward and inappropriate, but he had hoped that she would have stopped avoiding him by now. They were adults, they could talk about this right? His eyebrow twitched and Smoker sighed. He needed to speak with Tashigi. He could take that first step fo- wait. Something niggled the back of his mind, thoughts flashing quickly, connecting the dots. Tashigi outside his office, Tashigi early in the morning, the looks . Shame filled his chest and he smacked the palm of his hand against his forehead. He, White Chase Smoker, a Navy Vice Admiral, was avoiding her , not the other way around.

He took another deep drag on his cigars, letting the nicotine fill him up. Smoker closed his eyes and focused solely on the sounds of the ocean, the breeze, his own breaths. Soft, somewhat shy footsteps approached from behind him. It was Tashigi. He knew her too well.

"Vice Admiral? Am I interrupting you?" Tashigi's voice asked softly. It was Vice Admiral now? That bothered him, when had that started? He ran over their recent interactions quickly. She had tried to talk to him last week outside the Mess Hall, and a week before that he'd nearly bowled her over when he'd come out of his office late in the evening, and she'd tried to speak to him a few days ago early in the morning, far earlier than she was normally up. And every time he had rebuffed her, holing himself up in his office, or having to meet with their lieutenants, or...shit. He really had been avoiding her. It wasn't her this time, it was him.

He turned to look at Tashigi and felt like he was truly seeing her for the first time in weeks. She had dark circles under her eyes, an anxious look to her lips. Tashigi always worried the hell out of her bottom lip when she was nervous about something. She was looking at him in sneaking glances, keeping her eyes downcast. She'd been chewing her nails too. Guilt stabbed through him. She probably thought he was angry at her.

"Everything alright?" Smoker asked. She opened her mouth, shut it, then opened it again, and bit her lip. He sighed. "Spit it out Tashigi," he muttered. He heard her suck in a breathe then "I was wondering if you had time to help me with my sword technique? I've been trying to work something out for a while and you're better at this than anyone else on board an-and it's fine if you don't have the time, I understand, I just-" Smoker held up a hand to stop her. She was rambling, a sure sign of her anxiety if there was any. Guilt stabbed him again, sharply. He was a bastard.

It wasn't her fault that he couldn't get her out of his head, and she deserved better, far better. He was the one being an idiot and catching some... minor infatuation. He'd had enough girlfriends in the past to recognize the signs. But Smoker couldn't let his feelings get in the way of his relationship with Tashigi. Not with her. She was different, she always had been.

"Yes, I'll help you," he stood up from his chair. Tashigi stared at him for a second and a tiny hopeful smile appeared on her face. It made his heart do something weird. "Thank you, Sir," she whispered. They headed for the back of the ship, where it was less crowded and they had a bit of space to spar properly. She pulled her jacket off and placed it down a little ways away from them, Smoker did the same, pulling his jitte out and taking a defensive stance in front of her. She unsheathed her blade, and looked at him intently.

"Don't hold back," he growled at her and she frowned, then nodded. Was he seeing things, or did her brown eyes hold a bit of anger in them? Tashigi rushed him, and he met her first thrust with a loud clash, the force reverberating up his arm. She dropped suddenly and went to kick his legs out from under him but he turned to smoke and she rolled away from him, dodging his jitte's downward swipe. She came up and charged him again. No, he wasn't imagining it, Tashigi definitely looked angry.

This time she focused on attacking him directly, forcing him on the defensive. They met strike for strike and Tashigi snarled at him "Don't hold back!" as she knocked his jitte out of the way, and punched him in the jaw with haki. He staggered back a foot from the blow. "Thought you wanted to practice sword fighting?" Smoker growled, as he turned to smoke and surged towards her, now forcing her on the defensive. The sound of steel on steel reverberated around them, and Smoker saw an opening when she parried him. In smoke form, he kicked Tashigi's legs out from under her. She went down, barely blocking Smoker's jitte with her sword as he aimed for her head. She glared up at him and twisted, forcing the tip of Smoker's weapon into the deck while she scrambled away.

They squared off again, Tashigi's face tight with anger. Both of them breathing heavily. They circled each other slowly, Smoker's eyes narrowing. What the hell was she doing? They both knew he was stronger than her, he had a decade of experience on her, more powerful haki, and his devil fruit abilities. With a shout, Tashigi charged him again. Smoker dodged her sword swipe at his face, turned to smoke and kicked her, hard, in the solar plexus. She skidded backwards, gasping for breath, but stayed on her feet. Irritation prickled across the back of his neck and his jaw clenched.

He wasn't normally this rough with her, Smoker realized. He didn't pull punches, but he would correct her stances, or offer advice, strategy. Whatever they were doing right now, it wasn't normal. This was a brawl.

Tashigi looked up at him from under her bangs and something in her stance made him wary. She tightened her grip on her sword, looked him dead in the eye, and shot towards him with a yell, slashing at him so quickly he didn't have time to dodge. It was instinctively turning to smoke that saved him as the power of Tashigi's slash ripped through him and exploded over the ocean, the water erupting in a spray, the energy from her blade visible in the sunlight. She stared at him, eyes wide with shock, before turning slowly to look at her sword, the metal steaming. He reformed a foot away from her, heart pounding, pride bursting in his chest. That was new. Tashigi turned slowly to look up at him, a smile brighter than the sun breaking out across her face. Everything faded away except for her and her utterly breathless smile. She was stunning.

Smoker was moving before his brain could stop him, pulling her close and crushing his lips against hers. The world went quiet. Her lips were soft, and warm, her chest pressed against his as Smoker's arm curled around her small waist. A moment passed before Tashigi gasped into his mouth and suddenly his brain caught up with him. Smoker you fucking idiot. He started to pull back, but she came with him, her arms wrapping around his neck, her fingers slipping into his hair. Tashigi looked into his eyes, as he froze in place. Her pupils blown wide as she pressed her lips to his gently, hesitantly. Kissing him back. Brain on autopilot, Smoker brought his hand up and tentatively cupped her face. She leaned against him, and his other hand landed on her waist. Tashigi's eyes fluttered closed.

They broke apart and Smoker rested his forehead against Tashigi's as they both breathed for a moment. Something inside him eased and he wanted to laugh. Or run. He wasn't sure. A small smile appeared on Tashigi's face, her eyes flicking to his lips. "S-Smoker-san..?" Her cheeks were pink and she looked at him with an expression somewhere between disbelief and joy. "I…" for once Smoker was at a total loss for words.

Right at that second, the alarm klaxon on the warship went off and Smoker felt like he'd been doused in ice water. They both stepped away from each other as an ensign in the crows nest shouted "PIRATES STARBOARD!"


Notes:

Writing Smoker is fun because he is dumb but has enough self awareness to recognize when he is being dumb. That's rare folks.

The next few chapters are a bit dramatic. I'd love some feedback on the fight scene, I haven't written many of them before.

As always, thanks for reading! Also, you can find me on twitter buggyisbest
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