Can't sleep, and just started typing, so it's short, pointless, and almost 1 am musings of an author.
Smoker's opinion of Luffy, as of the ending of Punk Hazard.
What is this?
Smoker stares at the Strawhats, and can't decide what he's supposed to feel. They're pirates, he should hate them, but he's watching their doctor fuss over children and his own men, Blackleg scold a marine for not washing his hands, and the Burgular Cat showing the same maternal instincts as Tashigi, so he can't bring himself to hate them like he should.
(It's been like this since Alabasta, he admits only to the darkest corners of his mind, when the damn pirates stopped a problem the Marines hadn't noticed, maybe even ignored.)
Trafalgar Law is watching them as well, and Smoker wonders what is going through that bastard's mind. Strawhat said they were allies, and Smoker knows the Surgeon of Death is quite possibly the worst ally for them- he's cold and calculating, and Strawhat is far too carefree.
(He insists he isn't concerned about Strawhat and his crew, but even in his head the words are hollow. He cares, because fate keeps pushing him either out of the way or to help the damn pirate.)
Their sniper and shipwright are telling stories as Blackleg dishes out seconds. Strawhat's laughter mingles with the skeleton's music, to the point where the moment he stops is jarring to the marine. No one else notices, though, because Strawhat is still smiling and moving, mingling with children and marines.
The brat could have been a marine, Smoker knows, and he can see it- the brat could easily have become a captain or more likely a vice admiral, (if he'd learned to control his haki) based at G-5, easily surviving scrutiny of those who had known his father's full name. Smoker would have called him a friend, then. If Smoker had ever escaped his dead end assignment to Loguetown, that is.
But here in reality the brat is against the World, has released prisoners from Impel Down to save the life of one man (his brother, and most of them were released by that Buggy and Blackbeard in reality, he knows, Aokoji told him, before ...) and has formally declared war on the World Government.
(Smoker still can't bring himself to hate Strawhat. Can't bring himself to arrest the boy (young man, now, some of the softness has been chipped away, there's an edge to him now, making him more dangerous) because once again, he exposed a mess the Marines were partially responsible for.)
Marines were supposed to uphold Justice, protect the weak. But Vergo was a plant by a damn Shichibukai, and no one knew. Smoker wasn't naive enough to think he was the only one- he'd seen and disagreed with the corruption in the Marines. (Why he'd been assigned to Loguetown, why he'd ignore an order he didn't like.) But Smoker was still a Marine, despite it all, still held onto the creed he swore to follow- not the twisted orders he was usually given.
(So he'd let Strawhat and Trafalgar go, this time. Because Pirates or not, ulterior motives or not, they had taken down a mad scientist who experimented on children and a plant inside the Marines. Both things Justice had demanded, and once again, pirates had done the job Marines should have done long before.)
He doesn't hate Strawhat, he respects him, because under that carefree and childish exterior is a man worthy to be called a king, even if it was King of the Pirates. Smoker sees flashes of that man, and feels something that makes his heart race. It's not love or loathing, but something else that means he'll chase Strawhat until the day one of them dies- and if it's Strawhat, he knows he's going to mourn the loss. (Something whispers he'd do the same as Garp, granting Strawhat some stupid last request.) Strawhat was the reason he left his post and finally moved up in rank enough to hunt without a leash, afterall.
(He still doesn't know what the hell to call this odd emotion, though.)