The Price of Things
Dec. 2nd, 2004 12:24 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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onepieceyaoi100Title: The Price of Things
Rating: PG
Pairing: Smoker+... (only not really)
Wordcount: 298
Initially tried to do this for last week's topic, didn't quite manage it, then or now, but I needs to be to bed so what is here will have to stand. Takes place at the end of ep 109, a personal favorite of mine.
Pirates have tried to negotiate with him before. "If I tell you where to find my captain, you won't hang me?" or "I surrendered when I could've killed half your men, isn't that worth something?" And maybe it is, but that kind of pathetic, sniggering bribe is not even a dint in the price of justice. Still, he's repaid every debt he's ever owed. Every debt but one, in his thirty years.
There is something that may supersede justice, there is honesty to one's self, to where one owes one's honor. But that's a debt can never be bought or bargained for; never be demanded, never be connived. Never be repaid, not to a man long dead, who made him everything that he is; but what he is now, he is sure to never earn another.
Or was sure, but now he should be dead and instead he's coughing up water, furious, because the price of his life is a high thing, one he shouldn't spend so casually. Better to drown, than to owe these wild young monsters. What recompense will they demand, what further humiliation--
"Just his whim," the swordsman says. "Forget it."
Impossible; no pirate takes less than everything he can grasp. But then the captain is awake, ready for battle, and in his eyes no acknowledgment at all, no expectation, no demand. He's immature and imprudent and quite mad, but he knows too well the price of things.
He lets them go, but it's too little, too late, not enough to settle the score. Far too high a price--that which is priceless cannot be bought, but can be owed all the same. Two debts on him now, and staring into the setting sun he wonders if he'll ever manage to repay this pirate king.
Rating: PG
Pairing: Smoker+... (only not really)
Wordcount: 298
Initially tried to do this for last week's topic, didn't quite manage it, then or now, but I needs to be to bed so what is here will have to stand. Takes place at the end of ep 109, a personal favorite of mine.
Pirates have tried to negotiate with him before. "If I tell you where to find my captain, you won't hang me?" or "I surrendered when I could've killed half your men, isn't that worth something?" And maybe it is, but that kind of pathetic, sniggering bribe is not even a dint in the price of justice. Still, he's repaid every debt he's ever owed. Every debt but one, in his thirty years.
There is something that may supersede justice, there is honesty to one's self, to where one owes one's honor. But that's a debt can never be bought or bargained for; never be demanded, never be connived. Never be repaid, not to a man long dead, who made him everything that he is; but what he is now, he is sure to never earn another.
Or was sure, but now he should be dead and instead he's coughing up water, furious, because the price of his life is a high thing, one he shouldn't spend so casually. Better to drown, than to owe these wild young monsters. What recompense will they demand, what further humiliation--
"Just his whim," the swordsman says. "Forget it."
Impossible; no pirate takes less than everything he can grasp. But then the captain is awake, ready for battle, and in his eyes no acknowledgment at all, no expectation, no demand. He's immature and imprudent and quite mad, but he knows too well the price of things.
He lets them go, but it's too little, too late, not enough to settle the score. Far too high a price--that which is priceless cannot be bought, but can be owed all the same. Two debts on him now, and staring into the setting sun he wonders if he'll ever manage to repay this pirate king.
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 06:02 am (UTC)Lovely writing.
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Date: 2004-12-02 05:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 06:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 06:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 11:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 11:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 05:41 pm (UTC)love Smoker most muchly, am hoping he'll be returning soon! (as a card-carrying member of Koby's club, "Marines in love with Mugiwara no Luffy"...)
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Date: 2004-12-02 05:59 pm (UTC)And, am I just imagining things, or are you refering to Gold Roger here...?
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Date: 2004-12-03 12:03 am (UTC)Smoker is such a complicated character. He chases our heroes, but he is NOT a bad guy. He is actually a really really good guy who lives by what he thinks is right, just like Luffy and the crew. So the debt/bond that he forms with Luffy at that moment was just perfect.
And then they have sex. ^_^