"Why is it when something happens, it's always you three?" Tashigi asked as she rubbed her temples and frowned at the three young men that leaned against her squad car. Smoker was down the street a bit with the other offenders of the late night, booze fueled brawl; he'd called for another squad car. Curious party goers and bar patrons skirted the squad car as they craned their necks to see who'd been arrested before they returned to the crowds of the infamous party street.
"Don't look so stressed, Four eyes." Roronoa Zoro said with a lazy smirk, "We didn't start the fight." They never started fights and if they did, it was for a good reason.
"Don't call Tashigi-chan that, Marimo." Vinsmoke Sanji said viciously, cigarette dangling from his lips. Tashigi wondered how he'd lit it with his hands cuffed. "She is a lovely lady with glasses."
"I appreciate the complement, Sanji-san." Tashigi sighed, "But frankly he's given better nicknames." She turned to the green-haired man. "Are you drunk, Roronoa?" Zoro rolled his eyes.
"Shishishi, silly Tashi," Monkey D. Luffy chuckled and stuck his face close to the bespectacled policewoman, "you know Zoro doesn't get drunk. Why isn't Smokey over here? I wanna talk to him." The younger black-haired man bounced excitedly on the squad car, as if his hands weren't cuffed behind his back.
"Tashigi." She corrected halfheartedly. He never remembered, but she tried anyway. "Yes, I know Roronoa doesn't get drunk, but the alternative is that he's off his game."
"Highly unlikely, Officer Glasses." Zoro snorted and settled more comfortably on the squad car, adjusting for the three swords at his waist. Tashigi hadn't bothered to take them, that was one more headache than she wanted.
Sanji slammed his foot in the swordsman's face.
"Detective, Roronoa, if you're gonna tease me do it properly." She huffed, adjusted her glasses, and placed a hand on Shigure's hilt. "Luffy-san, the Sargent is down there waiting for the other squad car. He's making sure those men don't run off or try to fight you again."
"Why can't you do it?" Luffy pouted.
"How dare you?" Sanji raged and tried to kick Luffy around Zoro. "Tashigi-chan should have to deal with those lowlife scum." Tashigi felt her eye twitch.
"Sanji-san, I really appreciate the sentiment, but I can take care of myself." Deep nose sigh. "In fact, I actually lost the coin toss. Loser had to watch you boys."
Luffy's horrified and betrayed look made Tashigi instantly regretful.
"Not that Sargent Smoker doesn't love hanging out with you, Luffy-san." Tashigi covered hurriedly. "It's just that we're very stressed these days and you guys are a little more excitable that we're used to." She focused on the Strawhat leader as Zoro and Sanji stifled snickers in her peripheral vision. "Maybe after we get off the night shift."
"When's that gonna be?" Luffy whined.
Tashigi wanted to whine with him. She and Smoker—her Sargent and partner—had been punted to Night Duty. Lieutenant Hina and Captain Garp had tried to stop it, but Deputy Chief Tsuru couldn't even stop it, so really what could they have done. They had to wait on night shift until Chief of Police Sengoku could convince Police Commissioner Sakazuki that Smoker's attitude hadn't been directed at him personally, but rather at everyone all the time. Garp had asked Captain Fujitora to put in a calming word to the Former-Captain-Akainu-current-Police-Commissioner, but it was a poor choice given their animosity.
Tashigi did not like being grown-up grounded for her superior's sass or having to arrest drunk party girls and frat boys outside of clubs every night. She knew Smoker liked it even less, but it was his fault, so she was unsympathetic.
"I don't know," Tashigi muttered darkly, "however long it takes for Fujitora-san and Smoker-san to apologize or for Police Commissioner Sakazuki to forget."
"Sakazuki?" Zoro questioned, "Is he new?"
"Akainu." She answered shortly. All three boys winced and Luffy curled in on himself a little, as if trying to protect the scar tissue they all knew rested at the center of his chest. "Suffice to say it might take several months." She tried to make her voice lighter, like it absolutely didn't bother her.
"Or a miracle." Sanji huffed, "How dare he make such a beautiful woman suffer?"
"It's only suffering if you think of it that way Sanji-san." Tashigi said mildly.
"That's some inner peace bullshit." Zoro snorted. Tashigi wanted to kill him. Everything she did was a spectacle for this man.
"Don't you meditate, Zoro?" Luffy asked. Zoro scowled and head butted the shorter man. "Ow! Zoro! That was mean."
"It's not the same." The swordsman hissed, "I listen to the breath of all things." He must've known it sounded hippy-dippy, meditative because his cheeks colored. Tashigi thought it sounded fascinating and wondered if this was the type of training one received in the tutelage of Dracule Mihawk.
"How is that not the same, Shitty Swordsman?" Sanji snickered and Zoro kneed him in the ribs.
Sanji retaliated with a kick towards Zoro's shoulder.
"It's not the same." Zoro snapped and dodged the kick. "Glasses is just lying to herself."
"I resent that, Roronoa. I'm repeating it over and over until it's true." Tashigi said as she pushed herself between the two men and halted their fight.
If she didn't intervene Zoro would break his own thumb to get out of his cuffs to attack the blond cook with his swords. She'd learned about his reckless disregard for his own body the hard way years prior. How many times a man could break his own thumb just to aim a slash at the same blond cook was mind boggling to Tashigi. Then again, didn't she challenge him to a fight almost every time she was on or off duty? However, he'd busted out of his cuffs for actual serious reasons too, while Tashigi's challenges where almost starting to feel childish in her mind, serious reasons nowhere to be found.
"Roronoa, no." She ordered, "I am not in the mood to give you another lecture on the way to the hospital." She turned to the source of the green haired man's ire. "Sanji-san, no throwing kicks in hand cuffs. Wait until you're in the drunk tank to fight."
"We're staying in the drunk tank?" Luffy complained, "I thought you were going to let us go once the other police car showed up?" Tashigi resisted his pouting puppy dog eyes. "They don't feed us there."
"Sorry, Luffy-san. Smoker-san is having a bad week."
"What about you, Tashi?" The black-haired boy looked hopeful.
"As we have established Luffy-san, I too am having a bad week." Ah, the pitiful pout, Tashigi was not going to cave. She already folded like a cheap table when it came to Koby's quivering lip and she wasn't going to add collapsing under the weight of the Straw-hat's large eyes to it. "But perhaps I could convince Smoker to order a pizza for you."
Damnit.
Tashigi pressed a thumb between her brows. Luffy's delighted cheers added to her headache. A headache she'd had for three months now since the beginning of night shift. Perhaps longer, considering her experiences since moving to the G-5.
She glanced over at the three young men. Luffy, grinning, rested his chin on Zoro's shoulder, the pizza had brought him over the moon. Zoro, used to the younger man hanging off him, adjusted his stance against the squad car so the smaller man wouldn't have to strain. He listened halfheartedly to Sanji discuss his preferred type of pizza; booze wasn't involved so he didn't care. Sanji leaned eagerly towards Luffy, the discussion of the best pizza in town (besides his own) washing away the serious lines of his face.
Tashigi wondered why their delight came so easy, handcuffed and sitting on a cop car, and why hers' seemed so far away these days. It was stress, no doubt, and the source a myriad of reasons. Smoker said she needed to reorient her sense of justice, her decision to play jump rope with that line regarding the Straw-hats was clearly eating away at her. Koby and Helmeppo thought she should work less, even though working less made her more stressed because she had no personal life. Hina said she needed a boyfriend and offered her the numbers of several good candidates. Jango and Fullbody dropped it one bar lower, stating the stress could disappear with a quick fuck.
The idea of a stranger between her legs sat uneasy in her stomach, but she wasn't opposed to sex in an unattached relationship. It probably would take her mind off literally everything. Too bad the only men Tashigi knew were her coworkers or criminals.
Her eyes drifted to the green haired swordsman. Despite her best effort to keep a cool head, her attraction to Roronoa Zoro was slowly killing her. More so now than ever before, as she and Smoker had arrested various trios, pairs, and quartets of the Straw-hat gang almost every night for the past three months. Perhaps that is also where her headache came from.
"Head out of the clouds, woman." A gruff voice ordered and Tashigi snapped to attention. Smoker stood behind her.
She glanced behind her. Martinez and Smith were wrangling the three other men into the back of their car.
"Sorry, Sir," she mumbled, "I was thinking."
"You're doing that too much these days." Smoker huffed around his two cigarettes. The man usually smoked cigars, but he'd sworn off them until they were reinstated to the day shift. Tashigi's lungs didn't thank him.
"Smokey!" Luffy crowed and bounced off the squad car. "Tashi said you didn't want to hang out with us."
"She was correct." Smoker growled as he pushed Luffy's head down to wrangle him into the back of the car. Tashigi hauled Zoro off the squad car, ignoring the warmth of his arm underneath her hands.
"Be gentle with me, Glasses." Zoro teased as Tashigi pushed his head down to avoid the edge of the door. Tashigi grimaced as her mind immediately focused on how unfairly soft his hair was.
He settled comfortably next to Luffy and smirked out at Tashigi; sadistic glee danced in his eye. Face red and ire raised, Tashigi huffed and stormed away so Smoker could put Sanji into the car.
She slid into the passenger seat as Smoker closed the door to the backseat.
Luffy babbled excitedly as Smoker dropped behind the wheel.
"I really want off night shift." Smoker snarled and started the car.
Tashigi was having a pure garbage day.
Technically it was a pure garbage night bleeding into a pure garbage day.
After depositing the Monster Trio into the drunk tank, her and Smoker's shift had deteriorated quickly. She'd been thrown-up on, punched, liquor spilt on her, and been shoved by aggressive drunks all night. The few serious felonies she and Smoker had caught had been terrible.
When they chased a jewelry store robber Smoker had taken a turn too close around a corner and now their squad car had a massive silver scrape along the side. Tashigi had chased and tackled a perp in a shoot-out, only to have a buddy of the other guy involved shoot her perp in the shoulder after she'd gotten him in handcuffs. He'd gotten away because her perp passed out and toppled backward onto her. Her final serious collar was a drug bust that ended with Smoker tackling both perps involved and Tashigi taking a kilo of cocaine to the face. It was wrapped so she inhaled nothing, but her glasses were knocked off her face. On her knees in a dark alley, scrambling for her glasses was not how she wanted to spend her police career.
A deep sigh dragged from her lungs and she hunched over her paperwork covered desk.
Her glasses lay abandoned on a stack of finished reports. There was a large coffee stain down the front of her baby blue dress shirt and dried blood splatter on her shoulder—this was her back up shirt, the pink floral one she'd been wearing at the beginning of the shift ruined by beer and vomit. At least her pants were black, which made it hard to see the gross water and vomit stains below the knees.
For three months she ended almost every shift covered in stains.
She just wanted to go home, shower, and sleep, but she wasn't going to get that today. She'd get off work at 7am, and then, instead of going to gym and then sleeping, she and Smoker would pump themselves full of caffeine to stake out a suspected sex trafficker, called Mr. Baines, for the day shift. It was the only way they'd thought of to get off night shift.
They did this only when everyone else couldn't, but it was happening too frequently for her to be happy. Tashigi was sure her blood was like 75% coffee, 15% energy drink, and then 15% red blood cells. Maybe some second-hand smoke in there from Smoker's chain smoking.
Hina rolled in at 7 AM on the dot. She dropped a kiss on Tashigi's head before she headed toward Smoker's haze covered desk. Tashigi knew Hina was going to circle back after chewing her boyfriend out. Tashigi dropped her head in her hands and groaned. She'd hear about this later.
Smoker had never been upfront about his personal life with the Lieutenant, but night shift had clearly been hard on them. She'd never wanted to hear her superior sleepily mumble his relationship problems to her as they languished in the squad car. It'd make life easier on Tashigi if Smoker could swallow his pride and apologize to the short-tempered Police Commissioner, just so she could stop hearing about his lack of sex life. She didn't want to think about it like she was working with her parents, but it sure felt like it and one didn't want to hear about parents' sexual problems.
"Yo, Tashigi, you look like shit." Fullbody cackled and dropped his bag on her desk. Despite his rough remark, her pink haired weird uncle sat respectfully on the edge of the desk, as not to interrupt Tashigi's mournful slump onto the paper covered surface. Fullbody pulled his name plate from the drawer and switched it with Tashigi's.
It was his and Jango's signal that she was to stop working. Which they would enforce with perverse glee, considering the time they'd thrown her and Smoker onto the sidewalk at Hina's command.
"Shove it, Assface." She replied grumpily and, for good measure, pushed his name plate into the garbage. The normally sweet and shy Tashigi had taken a bit of a hike due to her current predicament.
"Poor Goody-Two Shoes," Jango sighed as he set a cup of coffee down in front of the groaning Tashigi. "Rough shift? And aren't you and Sarge gonna stake out that asshole trafficker Baines again today?" For the third time this week was left out. The cigar smoking Sargent's drive was only matched by their pink haired Lieutenant, which is why they made an amazing couple and why Tashigi was currently dying of sleep deprivation.
"Why can't he just, I dunno, turn himself in?" Tashigi grumbled tiredly, "I want to go back to sleeping during the day and working at night." She paused and tried to unscramble what was wrong in that sentence. "Wait, wait no…"
Jango and Fullbody cackled and patted Tashigi's messy black hair.
"Cut it out." She whined and swatted their hands away. "I want off the night shift. I'm too tired to think straight and I miss you guys so much, the Night Shift is kinda mean." Tashigi was exhausted and rambling.
"What'd ya mean 'kinda mean'" Fullbody asked as he pushed the cup of coffee into Tashigi's hand; Jango helped her raise it to her lips.
"Last week, I asked Johnson to stop clipping his toenails in the bullpen—"
"SO, IT IS HIM."
"Jango, focus, and he left a pile of toenail clippings and beard trimmings on my desk." Tashigi continued hurriedly, as she could see Fullbody fuming because he'd been pulling trimmings from his keyboard for weeks. "Wexler and Yato got into an argument and then broke the printer and microwave in retaliation. Don't even get me started on all the drunk people I've had to arrest. They're so mean when you're trying to book them for assault or belligerency."
"They can't be that bad," Jango said, "I thought drunk girls were the nicest people?"
"They are," Tashigi assured him, "until you have to arrest them for drunken disorderly. You have never been hurt until a drunk college girl tells you your glasses are tacky and you're going to die alone for arresting her." The young woman slumped over the desk again. "I apologize when I arrest them and tell them that they're only going to spend the night in the drunk tank, but I still get insulted."
"Looks like the coffee is getting you back to normal." Fullbody said and Tashigi sat back up, lips pursed.
"Was I not normal before?" she asked.
"Not gonna lie," Fullbody said with a pout, "You were a little snappy."
"Sorry," she apologized, "my life is going to pieces, but I shouldn't take it out on you."
"Hina is concerned for your health." Hina's delicate hand came down on Tashigi's non-stain covered shoulder. They'd all gotten used to Hina's interesting habit of speaking in the third person. "You should take some time off."
"No, no, I'm fine," Tashigi said quickly, standing at attention as Smoker came over, "Besides if I took time off all I'd do is go to the gym and watch TV in my apartment. Working is better."
"See Hina," Smoker said, "She's fine."
Hina looked at them both. They had bags under their eyes, reeked of cigarettes and coffee, and their hair was a mess; Smoker's ruffled and askew, while Tashigi's messy bun was greasy and limp. She knew it was no use arguing. Smoker was a stubborn old dog and Tashigi would follow him into the fucking ocean if she could.
"Hina won't press the issue." She said, throwing her hands up in defeat. "Now, go. You have work to do. Koby and Helmeppo are already on their way back from their shift staking out the trafficker."
"Don't need to tell me twice." Smoker ground out. Tashigi was sure the suggestion for time off had been offered to him more privately and he'd turned it down. She was sure that harsh words had been traded and by the vein that jumped in Hina's temple, the Lieutenant was about initiate one of the couple's many infamous shouting matches.
"I'm going to release our most frequent guest from the drunk tank." Tashigi said hurriedly and grabbed her glasses from the desk.
"Take your time, this is gonna be a good one." Jango smirked and settled into Tashigi's vacated chair. Fullbody ripped open a bag of chips. Her two weird uncles adored Hina and mildly loathed Smoker. For them, the couple's shouting matches were blackmail fodder against Smoker and a chance to cheer on their beloved Hina.
Tashigi bolted as Hina opened her mouth to unleash a tirade.
She blew past Garp and Tsuru as they entered the main lobby.
She skidded to a stop in front of Pike's desk by the holding cells.
"Hey, Pike," she wheezed, "could I have the Straw-hat's phones and wallets?"
"Of course, Tashigi-chan." He cooed and pulled a small basket with the Monster Trio's things. Tashigi gratefully accepted the basket, as well as the cell keys, and tried not to cringe at the gooey tone in Pike's voice. Much like Jango and Fullbody's dedication to Hina, the officers of the G-5 had a strange devotion to Tashigi.
Tashigi chalked it up to being one of the only single women in the precinct.
She strode down the hall of holding cells until she reached the Straw-hats.
The three boys shared a cell with several other men, but those men looked a little roughed up and were crammed into one corner while Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji stretched out languidly on three benches. Tashigi had, again, not taken Zoro's swords. The precinct really couldn't afford to lose another cell door to the Straw-hats.
"Picked a fight you couldn't win?" Tashigi questioned the wide-eyed men crammed into the corner. They nodded vigorously. "Well, I'm here for them now."
Tashigi unlocked the holding cell door and Zoro's good eye slid slowly open.
"Glasses." He rumbled with a smirk. "Is it time to go already?"
"Well, it's 7 AM and my shift is over." She said shortly. "So, unless you want to stay longer, I'd leave now with me." The grin that stretched across Zoro's face was joyfully feral.
"Oi, Luffy," he jabbed the sheath of Wado into Luffy's side, "time to go." He then turned and smacked Sanji in the face.
"Eh?" The black-haired boy mumbled sleepily and sat up. He rubbed his eyes and fixed his Strawhat on his head, before he focused on Tashigi waiting in the cell doorway. "Tashi!" He bounced to his feet. "Did you bring food?"
"Sorry, Luffy-san, but no." She handed him his worn brown leather wallet and red encased phone. "You could go to Moda's Dinner next door and get breakfast on Garp's tab. He won't notice a few more meals added."
"Shishishi, that's a good idea, Tashi," Luffy grinned, "We can wait there until 8 AM too, then Nami can come pick us up."
"You idiot." Sanji grumbled, cigarette already in mouth, and accepted his navy wallet and bright blue phone from Tashigi. "We shouldn't wake Nami-swan for this. Let's call Usopp or Franky or Jinbe, the ladies shouldn't be bothered." His only exposed eyebrow furrowed at the dried blood on Tashigi's shirt. "Tashigi-chan, have you been injured?"
"It's not my blood." Tashigi said, brushing off the man's concern.
"But that is most definitely your coffee." Zoro chuckled as he accepted his black wallet and dark green phone and glanced down at the exceptionally large coffee stain on her front.
"Maybe." Tashigi gritted and closed the cell door firmly.
The young men followed her as she stalked back toward Pike's desk. She practically slammed the little basket down in front of him.
When she entered the main lobby, she saw Koby and Helmeppo standing nervously at the entrance to the bullpen. That and the audible shouting indicated that Hina and Smoker were far from done. The bespectacled pink haired boy caught her eye and tugged his blond partner over to her.
"Tashigi-san," Koby said in his soft voice, "what is going on? Good morning, Luffy-san." He added politely as the black-haired man latched onto his back. Helmeppo pursed his lips, Koby was his best friend, Luffy could hang off his own friends.
"My hypothesis is that Hina tried to persuade him to take time off to get…" she paused and looked between the two younger men, they already stuttered and flushed when Fullbody and Jango talked about sex, did they really need to know exactly what was causing the tension between their superiors? "…reacquainted with each other and he said no."
"Why would he say no?" Helmeppo asked. "Also is that blood on your shirt?"
"Not my blood." She dismissed. "Smoker-san thinks all his problems can be solved by getting off night shift. He can't understand that problems in relationships need to be addressed immediately before they fester."
"Like you would know." Helmeppo scoffed.
"What'd you just say?" Tashigi hissed and Helmeppo went pale.
"That you have had many successful relationships and know exactly what you're talking about." The blond stuttered. Normally, such a jab would fluster his older sister figure and she'd stumble over herself explaining her logic. He hadn't taken into account the steaming trash pile that was her life.
"That's what I thought." She hummed, the urge to take his knee caps had lessened.
"You had that coming, Helmeppo-san." Koby said with mild amusement. "You know Tashigi-san has been more tense since night shift."
"Who's tense?" Tashigi snapped. The pink haired boy yelped and dove behind Luffy.
"Tashigi-chan," Sanji crooned, "if you're tense, I can give you a back rub or a shoulder massage." She could almost feel his loving aura at her back. It made her cringe.
"Don't offer that kind of garbage." Zoro snarled and wacked the back of blond cook's head with Enma's sheath.
"The hell, Shitty Swordsman!?" Sanji growled and aimed for Zoro's head.
"This is fun." Luffy laughed and clambered onto Koby's back. The pink boy adjusted naturally to Luffy's sudden piggyback and smiled at the arguing duo.
"Oi, Straw-hat, that's my best friend." Helmeppo squawked indignantly and began to try and pry Luffy of Koby's back. This started another shouting match.
Tashigi sighed as she stood amongst the arguing men. This really should be her daily life, just by the headaches it caused alone.
She dodged an errant fist swung by god knows who and entered the bullpen.
Hina and Smoker shouted at each other nose to nose, well nose to clavicle. Garp and Tsuru were bunched around them, trying to get the two to stop yelling like children. The entire precinct watched in resigned amusement. Several Beri changed hands, but what had been bet about this time Tashigi couldn't say.
Jango and Fullbody had finished their bag of chips. They shouted encouragements at Hina and heckled Smoker from the desk.
"If Smoker-san ever stops shouting, please tell him I'll be waiting in the car." She told them as she gathered her things into a duffle and strapped Shigure to her belt, service weapon having been stowed safely in her desk hours before when she started paperwork.
The two older men ruffled her hair and said they would.
Tashigi returned to the main lobby to find Koby had assuaged Helmeppo's rage and Luffy stood sandwiched between his two snarling friends; Tashigi was sure it was Koby's clever way to halt a brawl.
"Koby," she said as she stood before them again, "Do you have a spare shirt?" The boy always carried three.
"Absolutely." He answered genially and reached into his own duffle to get it.
"Don't you usually have an extra shirt?" Helmeppo asked, brow quirking behind his sunglasses.
"This is my extra shirt."
"What happened to the first one?" Zoro asked with a smirk. "Coffee again? Spaghetti sauce?" He had never let her live that down. She spilled lunch on herself one time while with his crew and he holds onto it forever.
"Vomit and beer." Tashigi scowled. All five male faces twisted into looks of queasiness and revulsion. Koby handed her a white dress shirt without comment. Not the best color for her to wear, given her track record, but she would take anything stain free at that point.
"Tashigi-chan," Sanji crooned, "You can have my shirt if you want." He was already reaching for his collar, before Zoro smacked him in the face with Sandai's sheath.
"Stop being gross." He hissed.
"I'm fine with Koby's shirt, Sanji-san." Tashigi said, rather glad Zoro stopped the overly affectionate cook from stripping.
"I'm okay with it too, Sanji-san." Koby said and ignored the blond man's snarls of 'no one asked you'. "Tashigi-san uses nice smelling detergent so getting shirts back from her is always a treat."
"I could just tell you what detergent I use."
"That makes it less special." Helmeppo argued. "On really bad days we wear them to make us feel better." Koby turned pink but nodded. Tashigi swelled with affection for her pseudo little brothers and she was certain that sticky softness they invoked in her was written all over her face.
"You guys sound like little kids." Luffy said, like he wasn't the biggest child himself. "What you're supposed to do is get her to put perfume on things, like Nami does for me, that's being an adult."
"Nami-swan does what— "Sanji's horrified gasp was cut off by Zoro's chuckle and Koby's honest voice.
"Tashigi doesn't own perfume, Luffy-san."
"Damnit, way to expose me, Koby."
"Honestly, I'd been more surprised if you did own that stuff."
"Shouldn't you be going, Roronoa?" Tashigi gritted and glared at the one eyed swordsman. He shrugged and gestured towards Luffy.
"Up to him."
"Luffy-san, I thought you wanted food from Moda's Diner?"
"Yosh! Thanks for remembering, Tashi. C'mon guys." Luffy dragged Zoro and Sanji towards the entrance, with the cook berating Luffy all the while for abusing Nami's perfume.
Tashigi sighed in relief. Even while Zoro smirked at her over his shoulder, the worst of her problems were behind her. She would just change her shirt and wait for Smoker.
"Damnit, woman!" A particularly loud yell of Smoker's drifted from the bullpen. "What do you want from me?"
"Hina wants you to do what Tashigi-san's been telling you to do for three months." Hina screeched. "Take time off to fuck me!"
Whether from the absence of third person or the complete horror of hearing the words out loud, Tashigi stilled. The entire floor had gone dead quiet, everyone stared in mute shock at the bullpen.
"Gods no." Koby whispered, horrified and red faced.
"My innocent ears." Helmeppo moaned.
Tashigi looked up from her disturbed gaze on the floor, only to make eye contact with a pink cheeked Zoro. Unbidden, images supplied from various fantasies crossed her mind connecting Hina's desperate words with Tashigi's hidden attraction to the swordsman.
She turned completely red.
"What the hell—TASHIGI!"
Her Sargent's enraged and booming yell snapped Tashigi's gaze from Zoro's. The bespectacled policewoman felt Smoker's killing intent and made the decision to save herself.
"Tactical retreat." She shrieked and bolted out the precinct doors, just as everyone else in the lobby made themselves scarce as well.
They had not spoken since he'd gotten in the car.
From the precinct to the office park where the sex trafficker's front was Smoker had not said anything to her, just hunched over the wheel and filled the car with smoke. Tashigi had played with the hem of her borrowed shirt and accepted the secondhand smoke as a kind of punishment.
Tashigi managed to last an hour of stake out time before the fumes got to her. She cranked the window of Smoker's white Hunter muscle car and gasped as the haze trickled out.
"Sir, I'm sorry." She began quietly. "I shouldn't have told Hina what we talked about in confidence. I just didn't want her to misunderstand you and think that you didn't want what she wanted. Also, I'm really tired these days and you are really stressed out and I thought that—"
"It's fine, woman." He interrupted. "She would've shouted something like it anyway. Hina's probably the only person that doesn't misunderstand this situation anyway."
"Then why do you shut her out, sir?"
"It'd be a distraction. We need to focus."
"I don't know, sir," Tashigi murmured and thought about his reasoning and her own, "wouldn't taking a break and focusing on something else allow fresh ideas to circulate? We might even find the trafficker's main holding location or think of a different way off night shift."
"Maybe for you," he huffed, "but for me the only way to do anything is in a relentless pursuit. Same with Hina."
"Don't you think that Hina even suggesting you take time off is an indicator that her priorities have changed?" Tashigi asked sourly and watched smugly as her superior's brow furrowed.
"Hm." Smoker considered the possibility.
"The last time something like this happened, you and Hina weren't even dating." Tashigi pressed. They might've not been dating but Tashigi knew her superiors' relationship had been more than friends. "During that time didn't you go out of your way to be with her? Isn't that why you are dating now?"
"Yes." Smoker answered stiffly.
"I just think Hina sees this as something like then." Tashigi continued, "When it didn't resolve itself the way you thought it would, there was enough affection in your relationship to give Hina a reason to follow you, even though it sidetracked her career greatly. Hina doesn't know if night shift is permanent or not and she's gauging your treatment of your relationship in this time as an indicator as to whether or not she should join you on night shift or dump you and fast track herself back to Marineford."
Smoker's eyebrows climbed into his hair.
Tashigi hated to reveal the speculations of her pink haired superior, but she rather liked them together and with her in the G-5. Despite his gruff demeanor, Smoker was the romantic it the relationship. He was ride or die with Hina, career be damned. Hina was the practical one, if she felt her time was being wasted, then she would put herself first. Smoker had proved before that their relationship could weather rough patches, now she was waiting much longer than usual for him to do it again.
"I've gotten complacent." He said suddenly and Tashigi scrunched her nose in confusion. "Three years in a relationship and I thought I could half ass it through big problems. I just thought other things were worse."
Other things, like him getting eviscerated by Doflamingo or the Marineford riots.
"Nothing is worse to a relationship than misaligned priorities." Tashigi laughed quietly. "Just kiss your girlfriend and stop taking extra day time stake out shifts. We might be on night shift longer, but you'll still have a girlfriend when this is over."
Smoker squinted at her, trying to find his awkward subordinate underneath the visage of a confidant woman. At twenty-six, Tashigi seemed to have finally come out of her shell.
"You've been reading the advice section of the Revolutionary Rag again, haven't you?"
Tashigi turned scarlet.
"They have really good tips!" She stuttered.
"You better not be trying to use any on that green haired punk"
"Smoker-san!"
The silence that rested between them was amicable. They watched their purple haired target talk to some shady looking dude in a dark blue car. Tashigi pulled out the camera and snapped a few shots of the license plate and the man's profile.
"Here." Smoker's large hand reached over and took the camera. "Get some sleep, I'll take pictures and notes. I'll wake you up later when it's your turn."
"Are you also gonna use your phone to put in time off requests?" Tashigi asked as she reclined the seat all the way back and removed her glasses.
"Texting Garp right now."
"Thanks, sir." Tashigi yawned. "I hope you and Hina-san make sweet love and I never have to hear about how you two aren't boning ever again."
"Gods, woman, go to sleep."