Confusion
Zerina groaned slightly as her mind started to wake up and registered the hard ground she was laying on. She cracked her eyes opened and looked around the Solider Dock System. She blinked in confusion while trying to remember why she was here instead of her bed in Robin and Nami's room. She shifted and felt a strange mass lying across her stomach. Pushing up on her arms, she looked down to find an arm lying across her body. Turning her head, she found Luffy lying right beside her, snoring softly and completely oblivious to their current position.
"Crap," Zerina hissed under her breath. Her memories of last night hammered her brain. Luffy had kissed her. And not just any normal, simple peck on the lips or cheek he does occasionally, he had seriously kissed her. A deep kiss with tongues, moans and everything. And she had kissed him back. Running her hand over her face, she groaned. They didn't just kiss, they had a full blown make out session.
She strummed her fingers on her forehead and tried to remember what exactly they did last night. She looked down at their bodies. Their clothes were still on so she knew they didn't cross the line. But what happened after their make out session? She knew she didn't tell Luffy the truth about Hydra. She ran her hand over her face again with another groan. Maybe we just kissed until we fell asleep? But why? I didn't even know Luffy knew how to kiss like that.
Zerina pressed her fingers to her lips. She felt her face and chest grow warm at the memories of his kiss. I wasn't going to kiss him. I was going to push him away, but I stopped. I stopped when I heard a little voice. That voice sounded familiar. But where have I heard it before? And why would they want me to let Luffy help me? Are they insane? Luffy could get killed if he helped me with Hydra.
Zerina scratched her head. She winced when pain shot through her hand. She looked down at her black, blue and red knuckles. "Well, I remember that clearly."
She sighed and looked to the spot she had punched. There was no damage. She sighed with relief. "At least I'm not strong enough to do damage to the ship with my own hands. Franky would not have like that. Let's see…"
Zerina took a deep breath and closed her eyes. With several deep breaths she cleared her mind and started to recall everything that happened last night.
They broke apart for a few seconds before locking their lips back together. Luffy circled his hands on Zerina's hips before pushing her back against the wall. He squeezed her hips while shoving his tongue back through her lips, searching all the dark corners of her mouth before retracting his muscle and began trailing kisses down to her neck. Zerina bit back a groan as he landed on her sensitive spot. She dragged her nails over Luffy's shoulder, wanting to dig into him, but she didn't. She just rubbed her hands on his shoulders while trying not to let herself fall into a groaning mess. Suddenly, Luffy stopped sucking on her neck. She shivered as his warm breath washed over her skin.
When he tugged on her hips, she followed his lead. The two laid down on the floor. Luffy wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer to his chest. Pecking her forehead, he said, "I told you to come to me. I'll forgive you this time. But the next time, you better come to me."
"Sorry, Luffy…It's just…" Zerina whispered. She closed her eyes. Breathing in his scent, she took the time to notice how safe she suddenly felt lying in his arms like this. She took a deep breath. She opened her eyes and looked at him. A sweat drop slid down her head when she noticed he was sound asleep.
"Oh." Zerina opened her eyes. With a frustrated growl, she rubbed her now throbbing forehead. "Of course. Leave it to Luffy to fall asleep like that."
"Shut up. I'm sleeping," Luffy whined, making Zerina jump. She turned to look at him from over her shoulder only to find he was still asleep.
"Luffy?" Zerina tapped his arm that was around her. "Wake up."
More snoring was his only response. She struggled against his hold until she was finally sitting up. She tapped his arm again. "Come on, Lalu. Wake up."
"No," Luffy grumbled. Zerina gasped when he wrapped his arm around her three times and pulled her down to his chest.
"Luffy! Let go of me!" Zerina demanded. She grabbed Luffy's hand and tried to pry it off of her. "Wake up!"
"My meat!" Luffy mumbled back, tightening his hold even more on her.
"Luffy, I'm not you-Eek!" Zerina squeaked when Luffy ran the tip of his tongue along the back of her neck. "L-Luffy!"
"Mmm…You taste good, Rina," Luffy said before licking her neck again. He then started placing kisses along her neck, making her shiver.
"Ugh! Luffy!" Zerina snapped, trying not to let herself get lost in how good it felt for him to touch her like this, to hold her the way he was. But she knew he had no clue what he was doing. He was a sleep and thinking she was a piece of meat.
"I think I heard something in the Solider Dock System," Usopp's muffled voice said from the hall.
"Maybe it's Luffy and Zerina," Chopper's equally muffled voice said.
"What would they be doing down here?" Usopp asked.
"And now I'm going to get caught," Zerina grumbled. She tried to free herself from Luffy's grasped, but had no luck. The guy just wasn't going to let her go no matter what she did or said. "Thanks a lot, Luffy!"
She froze, her face grew hot, when Usopp and Chopper opened the door. Her heart pounded hard in her chest with sharp jolts. She had no clue what they were going to say or think about her bring wrapped up in their captain's arms. Chopper smiled. "There you two are. We've been looking all over for you."
"What are you two doing down here?" Usopp asked.
"Hey! What happened to your hand?!" Chopper shrieked. He ran over to Zerina and picked up her right hand in his hooves. "Oh my gosh! Did those snakes do this to you?! I didn't see it before!"
Zerina swallowed hard. Time to fess up. "Well, no they didn't do it. I did."
"What? Why would you do that to yourself?" Usopp asked.
"I was…upset." Zerina turned her eyes away from the pirates. She bit her bottom lip and tried to get herself to just tell them.
"Oh, I get it," Usopp then said. Zerina looked up at him. He was nodding like he really did understand her, but she knew that was impossible. He had no clue what she was talking about. "You're upset because of that whole wish mess yesterday."
"Yeah." Zerina nodded. At least that part he did understand and know about.
"You don't have to worry about it," Usopp said with a smile. Zerina watch him while Chopper bandaged up her injured hand. "We all know you didn't mean it. We also gave Zoro one heck of a talking to about making accidental wishes like that. It won't happen again."
"That's right. We're all going to be a lot more careful from now on." Chopper smiled at her. "And if Zoro ever speaks before he thinks again, I'll sedate him for an entire month."
"Uh…" Zerina blinked in confusion.
"And let me guess…" Usopp leaned over Luffy's still sleeping form. "He came to check on you, you two talked about it and he was being stubborn about something and refused to let you go causing you to sleep down here with him."
"Yeah." Zerina nodded. She glanced at Luffy from the corner of her eye. Her mind and heart racing over their kiss last night. She hoped her face wasn't red anymore. "Something like that."
"That figures." Usopp sighed. "He's got such a one track mind."
"That's Luffy for you," Chopper added with a small giggle. "There. Your hand's all bandaged up. Just don't punch anything or anyone with that hand for a while."
Zerina glanced at her now bandaged hand. She wiggled her fingers. The bandage was comfortably hugging her hand. She lowered her hand to the floor. She surveyed Luffy's arm around her then looked back at the other two pirates. She said, "Thanks a lot, Chopper. I'll try not to hit anything for a while. Uh…Do you think you two could possible wake him up? I really, really would like to get up from the floor now."
"Oh sure. I know just the thing to get him to let you go," Usopp replied. He stepped over to the pirate captain. Zerina watched as he cupped his hands over his mouth. He then shouted, "Hey! Luffy! Sanji made meat for breakfast! You better get up if you want some!"
"Meat!" Luffy bellowed as he bolted right up. His arm unraveled from Zerina's body. He then jumped to his feet and ran out of the room, leaving a trail of dust in his wake.
"Why didn't I think of that?" Zerina grumbled to herself. "That was the obvious solution."
"Don't worry about it. Luffy often has the ability to drain comprehensive thoughts from people," Usopp said. Chopper nodded wildly in agreement. "Sanji's about got breakfast ready. Let's go. I bet your hungry."
Zerina only nodded. She had to admit that she was hungry. She pushed up to her feet and followed the two pirates out of the room. She headed for the bathroom. "I'll be right there."
"Okay!" They called back before going their separate ways. Zerina hurried up towards the bathroom to preform her morning routine. Before leaving the small room, she splashed water on her face. Dabbing her face with the towel, she paused to look at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks flushed when her mind slipped back to their kiss.
"This is just so messed up." Sighing, she hung the towel up and left the room. She slowly made her way to the galley where all the Straw Hats were happily chatting, partly arguing, while eating breakfast.
"What's the big deal?" Luffy asked. "She needed me last night! And I was there for her!"
"Being there for her is one thing," Usopp said.
"Squeezing her half to death while sleeping is another," Chopper added. "Be more careful next time. Her hand is injured."
"I didn't squeeze her that hard!" Luffy protested with a mouthful of food.
"Don't talk with your mouth full!" Sanji shouted with a smack to the captain's head. Zerina flinched when the cook turned his eyes to her. She shifted on her feet and wondered if he knew that something else happened between her and Luffy last night. He was more observant than the rest of the crew. "You better hurry up and grab some breakfast before this boneheaded captain eats it all."
"Uh, right." Zerina nodded. She walked over to the table and sat down. She glanced around at the pirates before her eyes settled on Luffy. She wondered what he thought about last night. She wondered why he did that last night. And she wondered if she should talk to him about it. She blinked when the Straw Hat captain smiled brightly at her. Despite her worries, she smiled back.
"Hey, Zer!" Nami called.
"Hm?" Zerina pulled her eyes from Luffy and looked at the navigator.
"We're going to be docking at an island later today. Robin, Chopper and I are going to go shopping," Nami said with a smile. "Do you want to come with us? You still need to get some new clothes, right?"
"Yeah." Zerina looked down at her Amazon Lily bikini. She had expectantly grew accustom to the outfits, but still wanted to be back in regular clothes. "It'll be nice to be back in clothes that's more suited to my style."
"That's great," Nami said while Robin and Chopper nodded.
…
Zerina sighed to herself. She was staring down at the ground as she walked long the small town they were in. Robin, Nami and Chopper were beside her talking about what she wasn't sure. The doctor was in his full reindeer form and carrying some of the women's bags and boxes. The three friends were chatting happily. She tried to focus on the things they were saying and tried to interact with them, but it wasn't coming naturally today.
It didn't help her that she hadn't been able to focus all day anyway. All she could think of was her make out session she had with Luffy last night. Part of her wanted to talk to him about it. She felt so confused about everything. She thought that it would help to talk about it. Surely these two women could give her advice on the kiss and Luffy, even a little bit would help, but she couldn't bring herself to do so. She had watched him secretly all day long, until they got to this island and split up that is. She could tell at all what he thought about the kiss. Did he regret it? Did he want to talk about it? Did he want her to talk about it? Did he want to do it again? She couldn't tell what was on his mind. He was just the same old Luffy happily bouncing around the ship and causing problems for his crew. It was almost like he forgotten he kissed her.
"Zer, are you okay? Hey! Zerina?!"
"Huh?" Zerina looked up when she finally heard Nami's voice breaking into her deep thoughts. "What?"
"Are you okay?" Nami asked again.
"Of course. Why?" Zerina blinked.
"You've been in a daze all day long," Nami said.
"Are you still worried about that wish incident?" Robin asked before Zerina could say anything. Chopper looked up her with his curious, innocent eyes and blinked.
"No, not really." Zerina looked away from the three pirates. She could feel their stares on her. She gripped her bags tightly, sighed and turned back to them. "Maybe I am still a bit worried. It's just a natural thing for people to say I insert that word and insert whatever they want. If I could stop this ability of mine, I would do it. I don't want to hurt any of you."
"You're not going to hurt us," Chopper said. "If it happens again, which it won't, we'll take care of it just like we did that last time. We're a tough crew. And Luffy's the strongest of us all. He won't let anything happen to you or us."
"Yeah." Zerina dropped her eyes down to the ground. Without realizing it she started to chew on her bottom lip.
"Was there something else you wanted to talk about?" Robin asked. Zerina looked up at the older woman. Like always, the dark haired woman held an unreadable smiled on her face.
"Uh." Zerina felt her body twitch. Robin, without a doubt, was the smartest Straw Hat. It made Zerina wonder if Robin made a simple guess at what happened between her and Luffy last night. But was that even possible? All Usopp and Chopper knew was they were asleep together on the floor. And there were no marks on her skin, other than her damage hand, to reveal that something did happen last night. She wondered if she was just imaging things because she was so worried about it all.
"There is something, isn't there?" Nami asked.
"What is it?" Chopper asked. "You know you can talk to us about anything. We're very good listeners."
"Oh, well…" Zerina chewed on her lip. She narrowed her eyebrows. Her mind spun wildly to the point it almost made her nauseous. She could handle Hydra on her own since she lived there. She knew what to expect from them. But this whole thing with Luffy was too much, too new, too confusing. She couldn't take it anymore. She wanted to tell them, about the kiss at least. She was going to tell them. She parted her lips to ask them about Luffy and the kiss. "Well, there is something-"
Wham!
Suddenly, something huge dropped out of the sky and landed right in front of them. Whatever it was, scattered up the dirt. When the dirt settled, people paused to look at the unexpected intruder. It was around ten feet tall, sleek, purplish silver in color, human shaped, but no human features like eyes, nose, mouth and ears.
"What the heck is that thing?!" Nami demanded.
"Is it a human?" Chopper asked with wide, scared eyes. "Or is it a different kind of Pacifista?!"
"Pacifista?" Zerina asked. "Oh, that robot type thing that attacked you all on Sabaody."
"Yeah. But this doesn't look like it's either robot or human," Robin replied. "We don't even know if it's friendly or not."
"When has anything that's dropped out of the sky like that ever been friendly?!" Chopper shouted.
"Well, maybe its-" Nami started to speak. She was cut off when the thing, with striking speed, through a punch at the group.
"Move!" Zerina shouted. They all dodged out of the way, but just barely.
Nami rolled to a stop. "Not friendly! So not friendly!"
The group dropped their shopping bags and pulled out their defense weapons. Zerina reached behind her when the creature turned to her. She gasped. "Oh crap! I forgot my weapons were broke! And Usopp hasn't finished up with my new ones yet!"
The creature threw another punch at her. She jumped away from it, but it clipped her hip, sending a sheering pain of heat through her skin and sent her spinning. She crashed to the ground. Before she lifted herself up the creature had charged at her again. Summon all the speed she could, she forced herself to jump to her feet. She barely dodged the thing as its fist came down on the spot she was just laying. She tried to look around for a possible weapon, but there was nothing. All she had was her body and her haki. She knew that wasn't going to be enough. This creature's speed was too fast. Still she tried. She embedded her fists with haki while she dodged the creature's punches. When she got the chance, she jumped towards the creature's head and slammed her fist into it.
"What the heck?!" Zerina gasped when her punch didn't even move the thing's head at all. A shiver ran down her spine when the thing looked at her. Or when she assumed it looked at her. It was hard to tell when it didn't have eyes. She pushed off of the thing just before it could grab her. She gasped when it swung its leg at her. She didn't have time to dodge it.
Suddenly, a lightning bolt stuck down on the creature, seemingly freezing it in place. Zerina took the time to quickly move away from it, silently thanking Nami for the assistance.
"Zerina! Look out!" Chopper cried out as he ran towards Zerina and the creature. The lightning bolt didn't stop it at all.
"Gigantesco Mano!" Zerina heard Robin call out seconds before the giant woman's hands grabbed the creature. She heard faint sizzling while steam rose off the creature where Robin's giant hands were. "Ouch! It's so hot!"
Robin, against her will, released the creature. It continued its assault on Zerina. Hitting her with its large hand, sending her flying backwards. Zerina heard the faint cries of the three Straw Hats just before she felt something digging into the scar on her back and her right wrist snap. She crumpled to the ground.
"Zerina! Kung Fu Point!" Chopper shouted. Zerina struggled to lift her eyes to the reindeer. She watched him transform and attack the thing before her. He landed several blows to the thing, none effective, before getting swatted away himself.
The creature turned back to Zerina. Pain shot through her back and arm when she tried to move. The creature pulled back its fist. Zerina closed her eyes as it swung at her and screamed. "Luffy!"
Suddenly, a loud crunching sound filled the air. She opened her eyes. A small gasp left her lips when she saw Sanji's foot was embedded into the creature's head. Its head was smashed several feet into its body. Sanji jumped away from the thing and landed right in front of her. With one hand in his pocket and the one on his cigarette, he asked, "Someone wanna tell me that heck that thing is?"
"Sanji!" Chopper and Nami cried with tears running down their cheeks. Robin was standing beside them with a calm expression on her face.
"Sanji…" Zerina whispered as she stared at his back.
He tossed her a look over his shoulder. "You okay?"
"Uh." Zerina blinked, almost unaware that he asked her a question. "Yeah. Sorta. I think my wrist is broken."
"Don't move then," Sanji said, turning back to the creature. "I'll take it from-Huh?"
Zerina pulled her eyes from the blonde man. She narrowed her eyebrows in confusion when the creature turned into a sparkling dust and just disappeared before their eyes. Sanji turned back to Zerina. He asked, "What the heck was that about?"
"Uh." Zerina blinked. She didn't have a clue.
"Sanji!" Nami cried as they ran over to them.
"Are you all okay?" Sanji asked.
"We're fine," Nami replied. "We're so glad you're here."
"Zerina!" Chopper ran over to her.
"Chopper," Zerina said, "I think my wrist is broken."
"Yeah." Chopper nodded. He looked over her body. "I smell blood too. Did you get cut somewhere?"
"No. It did burn my skin, somehow," Zerina said. She looked down at her left hip. The skin was wrinkle, red and oozing blood. I'm also bleeding on my back. But how can I tell him that without having to explain my scar? I'll just have to take care of that injury later. At least my hair is long enough to hide the blood dripping down my back.
"Someone wanna tell me what's going on?" Sanji asked.
"I'll explain on the way back to the Sunny. I need to tend to Zerina's wounds properly," Chopper said. He looked over at their scattered shopping bags. "We also need to pick up our stuff."
"We'll do that, Chopper," Robin said. "You take care of Zerina for now."
"Right." Chopper nodded. He then looked up at Sanji. "Can you carry her?"
"That's not necessary," Zerina said. She wanted to stand up, but Chopper was splinting her wrist with two sticks that he found nearby and bandaged her wrist the best he could.
"Listen to the doctor," Sanji said in a sharp, warning tone. He kneeled down. Zerina shifted when she felt his eyes inspecting her injured hip. "You're bleeding. That needs to be taken care of before it gets infected. It's no problem at all for me to carry you. You ready, Chopper?"
"Yeah." Chopper nodded. "Just be careful. Try not to jostle her around too much."
"Right." Sanji nodded. Zerina opened her mouth to protest, but quickly closed it. She knew it wouldn't do any good. So she let him pick her up, wincing at the pain in her body as he did. "Sorry."
"Don't worry about it," Zerina replied, keeping her eyes from his. The group of three then proceeded to head back to the ship. Zerina looked back over Sanji's shoulder as he moved her away from the area and as Chopper filled the blonde cook in on what just happened. What was that thing? And why did it constantly go after me? It couldn't have been from Hydra. There are no creatures or machines like that back there. So where did that thing come from? Was it just a coincident that it kept coming for me?
…
"Zerina!" Luffy shouted when he busted into Chopper's small doctor's office. Zerina barely got a chance to look up at him, and the rest of the crew who followed behind him, before the young man plowed into her, knocking her back onto the bed and causing pain to shoot through the stab wound on her back that she successfully hid from Chopper. Tears streamed down the captain's face as he rubbed his cheek against hers. "Nami and Robin told me you were hurt!"
"I'm okay, Luffy," Zerina gasped out from his tight hug. "Just a broken wrist and some burnt skin. Sanji arrived just in time to stop it before it did any real damage."
"I'm so glad!" Luffy pulled away from her.
"Be careful, Luffy!" Chopper shouted. He whacked his captain over his head. "I just bandaged her up! She needs time to heal!"
"It's fine, Chopper," Zerina replied. She patted Luffy on the head when he tucked his face into her shoulder. "The painkillers you gave me are working just fine."
"Well, all right." Chopper nodded. "If anything hurts, or if anything else pops up, just let me know."
"I will," Zerina nodded.
"Sorry," Usopp suddenly said. "I didn't get your weapons done on time. This wouldn't have happen if you had them. I'll be sure to finish them tonight."
"No." Zerina shook her head at the upset sniper. "I don't think they would have helped anyway. That thing was crazy strong. None of my haki embedded attacks did anything. I'm just glad that Sanji showed up in time and stopped it."
"And no one has a clue as to where this thing came from?" Franky asked. "It just up and appeared then disappeared once Sanji smashed it?"
"It was weird," Nami said.
"Perhaps it was just some new Pacifista design," Chopper suggested.
"With no one from the navy watching over it?" Brook asked. "That doesn't seem right."
"It doesn't," Robin said. She crossed her arms over her chest and raised one hand to her chin in thought. "Perhaps it belong to someone else, broke free and just attacked Zerina at random? Maybe it was preprogrammed to go after someone else and thought Zerina was its target?"
"Does it really matter?" Zerina asked before more questions could be asked. They all turned to her. "I mean, it's over, right? And that thing disappeared. It's not like we're going to get answers here anyway."
"She's got a point," Franky said. "Let's just let it go instead of obsessing over it. If it happens again, then we can obsess over it."
"Might as well," Brook said as he and the others agreed then left the room. The only ones who remained were Zerina, Luffy and Sanji.
Zerina raised her eyes to the cook. She could tell his mind was going over the events of the day, but she couldn't tell exactly what he was thinking. Before she could say anything, the man headed for the door. He turned his head a bit. "Take care of those wounds like Chopper said. Luffy won't be happy if you get an infection."
"Uh, right." Zerina nodded. Sanji nodded then left the room. She looked down at the black haired man who was still clinging to her and crying. "Geez. Come one, Lalu. I'm fine. How about some meat?"
"Yeah!" Luffy pulled off of her shoulder with a smile. "Rina! I wish for meat! Just make it one large one this time!"
"You got it." Zerina laughed. She started to glow and granted his typical wish for meat. He grabbed the bone sticking out of the steaming meat before grabbing her hand. She had no choice but to follow him. So she pushed off the bed and left the room with him. He led her out onto the deck and pulled her down beside him when he sat down on the bench around the mass. Guess I'll just have to take care of my back later. At least it stopped bleeding. Any blood Chopper might smell can be attributed to the wound on my hip.
Zerina sighed. She looked up at the blue sky just as the wind started blow. Her mind going over and over that creature they just fought and wondering where it came from. Things just keep getting more and more confusing.
…
Shadowlein: Glad ya like it. It's only a matter of time before they find out everything. Sorry it's taking so long to update this story. It just doesn't want to be written. And it doesn't help I get too distracted by my Neo x Law fic.
MacheSalas: I suppose he is a bit out of character. But it does work within the story so I'm good with it. He needs to be that way ;) Hee hee. This whole OC keeping a secret is harder to write than I thought it would be.