Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Come on. Please? Ya gotta help me. I can’t ask anyone else.”

Coby held up his hands in a warding gesture. He’d seen the other marine around here and there -- he thought he was one of Hina’s crewmen, and a lieutenant commander even after some sort of spat that earned him significantly more than just a slap on the wrist. Coby could sympathize with that, and even admire rising to such a high rank twice. 

But right now, he would really rather Fullbody back off about six inches. 

“I get it, it’s important,” Coby said, taking a surreptitious step backward and sliiiiiding a bit of personal space between them. “But why me?”

Sweeping his hat off, Fullbody scrubbed his fingers into his unruly pink hair, leaving it standing up in all directions in untidy tufts. “Mostly, it’s this. If I’m getting someone to pretend to be me, well, this is the first thing they’re going to notice.”

Coby glanced again over the bulky marine with the bolts on his knuckles and thought that might not be as true as Fullbody believed. But clearly he did believe it. So, placatingly, he said, “What about just getting someone on your crew to dye their hair, if it’s that important?”

“Do you know how hard it is to get dye in this color?” Fullbody asked, settling his cap back on his head. “Because I do. Jango tried it once. The result was … woof. I won’t forget the result -- can’t forget, really -- but it wasn’t anything close.”

Which left one more obvious question. “Why not just ask Hina for some time off?”

For a moment Fullbody looked cagey, glancing around quickly. He’d caught Coby in a mostly empty hallway, and so far no one had walked past during their brief conversation, but Fullbody seemed like he expected it. 

Then he slumped forward, narrowing that personal space again unconsciously. “Because of who I’m going to meet,” he said, his posture suggesting that admitting this, even to someone he was asking a huge favor of, felt like some sort of massive failure on his part. “He was an instructor, back when I was an ensign. Got word he’s visiting an island near here for a few days, so I wanted to go while he’s here. I owe him a lot.”

“Then the Rear Admiral would definitely-”

“And then he was just discharged, about a year and a half back. No word or nothin’ just gone,” Fullbody said, eyes narrowing and looking to the side, in clear ire against … Someone. “And not the honorably discharged kind of gone. The kind where one day your name’s just off the door and when people ask about you, everyone walks the other way. So for someone like me to go meet him… you see why I can’t ask her, right?” and he was back to the shameless appeal that started this whole conversation. 

“I guess,” Coby said doubtfully. He didn’t really. From what he knew of Hina, as long as there weren’t direct orders not to let her crew talk to this instructor and as long as he had some shore leave coming, she wouldn’t have a problem. But he supposed someone on her crew would know better than he.

“What do you think he did?” Coby couldn’t help but add.

Fullbody shrugged. “I dunno, but knowing him, I bet it was something like calling the celestial dragons shit-eating parasitic wastes of oxygen.” He smiled ruefully. “He always did have a way with words when talking about them. Mostly vulgar ones. Almost all vulgar, actually.”

Coby cracked a small smile. He didn’t know the instructor in question, but he could appreciate that personality trait, after what he’d seen at Reverie. “Shit-eating parasitic wastes of oxygen” sounded pretty restrained, all things considered. 

And Fullbody just seemed so earnest. This was important to him. And if he was right about the hair, who else could he even turn to?

Coby admitted defeat. “Yeah, okay. What do you need me to do?”

As it turned out, the answer was “not as much as you’re thinking.” 

Hina’s ship had been dry-docked for some significant repairs to the hull. It should be out of commission for two weeks, and while the trip would be cutting it close, Fullbody expected to be back to HQ a couple days before they returned to normal duty. So basically, Coby would be participating in dry-land drills and making appearances at meals and such disguised as Fullbody. Nothing too serious. Fullbody even arranged for most of the training drills to be with smaller groups, to make things easier on him. 

Still, he spent a couple days working with Fullbody to make sure he could make his impression of the man as good as possible. Now that he’d committed, he wanted to make sure this all went off without a hitch. No problem. If he just focused and kept his mind on keeping up the act, Fullbody could see his old instructor and get his answers and no one would be any the wiser.

Besides, Coby admitted he was a little curious about what life was like among some of the other crews. Not that he had any intention of changing from his own position, but there was always that little question -- how did Hina run a ship? Or Smoker? Or Tsuru? (not that he had any chance or intention of getting near that crew.)

He wouldn’t get to see the whole thing, but he bet mixing with the crew would give him some fascinating insight. 

There wasn’t time to learn the entire crew, but Fullbody gave him the rundown on the officers and the men he’d be training.

“Don’t do anything too fancy,” Fullbody said. “Just run them through basic drills. They’ll complain about it, but that just gives you an excuse to make them keep doing it until they stop grumbling.”

The fond smile on his face as he said this actually caused a little pang in Coby. He’d be giving his crew some well-earned shore leave, with approval from the higher ups. This whole exercise was new and exciting and kind of terrifying, and a part of him missed the comfortable familiarity of his own men and women. 

“Think you can handle that?” Fullbody asked, not in challenge but in earnest concern.

Coby nodded. He wasn’t worried about running drills. More bothersome was the heaviness in his arms. The bolts Fullbody wore seemed to somehow actually be …. Bolted on? Which was an idea that kind of horrified Coby. Luckily, he had a set that just slipped over his palms, but he had to consciously keep them in place, and they were more weighty than he expected -- like carrying a pair of weights around at all times.  

They didn’t really go over fighting much, which made sense since Coby wouldn’t be doing any of that. But just trying to imagine how one would fight like this felt a little overwhelming. Sure it would add weight and power to a punch, but how would you make sure the punch was arriving on time? His arms felt like they were dragging his hands along.

But honestly, the hardest thing was trying to move like the older marine -- a much more vital thing to get right, since walking around was basically the one thing he’d be expected to do a lot of. Coby could be a bit of a klutz, but in the last two years he’d learned to walk straight and tall, to shift weight and stance depending on the need of the moment. As he observed Fullbody and tried to mimic him, as with the metal knuckles, he couldn’t shake the feeling of how heavy it all felt. 

In the end, he sort of got there by imagining he was trying to be Garp. Both the vice admiral and Fullbody carried themselves differently from the more finesse-based fighters in the corps. Those folks, and Coby himself, carried themselves on the edge of movement, ready to look for an opening and exploit it.

But Garp carried himself like a rock. That was where the feeling of heaviness came from. But it wasn’t about the weight. It was about being … solid. About planting yourself before your opponent, secure in the belief that your strength primarily was going to be enough to put the person down. It wasn’t that they couldn’t move around or be more nimble. That just wasn’t their focus.

After that, it still felt awkward, but at least Fullbody stopped cringing every time Coby tried to copy his gait.

There were a few other things. After trying for a couple days, Coby dejectedly conceded that he’d need to fake the stubble that seemed to appear on Fullbody about two minutes after shaving. And dropping his voice to a lower register took some getting used to. As did answering to a name that wasn’t his own. 

But after a couple days, they both declared him ready.

“So what’re you going to use your leave for?” Coby asked over lunch on his last day of being himself for a while.

Helmeppo chuckled. “Use it for? Staying in  bed until noon, mainly. Somehow when we’re on duty, trouble always shows up at the worst time. I have like a year’s worth of interrupted sleep to make up for.”

“Ah. Sounds nice.”

“Right. How about you?”

“Ah, I’ll be … around. Doing stuff.”

“Stuff huh?” Helmeppo didn’t bother hiding the suspicion in his tone. “What kind of stuff?”

Coby cursed himself for mentioning it. But some part of him wanted to tell his best friend. What off he worried when he couldn’t find Coby for a few days? He didn’t want to cause problems for anyone.

But he’d promised not to say anything about this plan -- not to anyone. And anyone included Helmeppo.

“Just stuff,” he said.

As much as he hated it, he managed not to crack under the silent stare his second in command fixed him with. He held out until Helmeppo sighed and changed the subject.

Coby had been mildly nervous from the moment he agreed, but the real nerves started once Fullbody booked passage on a ship heading off island (under a false name, just in case). From there on, he’d be someone else. The trip should take Fullbody five days, getting him back two days before the ship got repaired. That meant five days of making appearances and two days holding drills with a strange crew.

Well, he’d practiced. Fullbody gave him the go ahead. 

He could do this. 

He checked himself in the mirror one last time before heading out for the day. The particular shirts Fullbody favored weren’t normal Marine issue, so finding one himself had proved impossible. No problem -- Fullbody had loaned one of his. If Coby really puffed out his chest it didn’t sag too much, so that was fine. 

Less fine was the hat. His bandanna did a great job keeping his hair out of his face, but the brimmed cap Fullbody wore didn’t fit quite tight enough, and wisps kept escaping and flopping down into his face. A bit irritating, but it would have been fine if he could wear his glasses.

But of course real Fullbody didn’t wear glasses, so Coby-Fullbody couldn’t either. At least I’m farsighted, he thought as he squinted at his newly applied chin stubble. There wasn’t a lot of reading involved in the stuff he’d be asked to do. 

At last, satisfied with the fake Fullbody that looked back at him from the mirror, he headed out the door to put his new skills to the test.

Breakfast felt like the longest meal he’d ever eaten.

He’d wandered over to the part of the mess where part of Hina’s crew sat eating. He’d taken a seat nearby, curious to see who normally ate with the lieutenant commander. And he could see some of the men -- more and more of them as the meal went on -- glancing in his direction and talking to one another in low voices that they didn’t want him to hear. But none of them came over. Were they talking about him? Did Fullbody not normally eat with the crew?

Or … Coby blanched at the thought. Did Hina’s crew not like the lieutenant commander? Gossiping about him but not talking to him? Was that an extension of whatever had gotten him demoted? 

“Um…”

He looked up to see that while he’d been lost in thought, A familiar one of the men had come over. Coby smiled. “Hi, uh…” his mind scrambled for the name to go with this face. “Davies! How can I help you?”

“Er, well, we were actually wondering if you needed something. Sir.” He fidget in place, and looked over his shoulder as if seeking help from some of the others. No help came. 

“Ah, no. I’m-” Coby realized he was using his normal voice, cleared his throat, and adopted his best Fullbody impression. “I’m just enjoying a nice meal while we wait for our ship to be repaired. Can’t want to get back to it though. Right?”

“Um… right.” Having apparently said his piece, Davies whirled and fled from the encounter, and more surreptitious whispering followed. 

Coby felt a stab of pity. Fullbody could be a little bit intimidating if you weren’t expecting him, but the guy seemed earnest and dedicated from the little he’d seen. How sad that his own crew was scared of him like that.

He hurriedly finished his meal and left the mess hall, so he wouldn’t stress them out any more. 

The second day of the charade was his first set of drills. When he arrived, the ten crewmembers he’d be working with first had already arrived. And since Coby himself was a couple minutes early, that was remarkable punctuality. Hina must run a tight ship. 

As he walked up, they gave precise, uniform salutes. But they relaxed from those salutes into a vague air of uncertainty. 

“Good morning, everyone! Ready for morning drills?” Coby asked.

The group exchanged looks. Then one of them -- a woman named Relina, he recalled -- said, “Yes sir, uh… Lieutenant Commander Fullbody?” 

‘Good, good,” Coby said, a little curious about the way the woman made the name a question. Maybe she was new and still getting used to the command crew? Fullbody hadn’t talked much about seniority. 

Still, once they got into the rhythm of the drills, it went pretty well. The crew seemed well trained and threw themselves into the work with enthusiasm. Coby paced among the ranks, checking their form and correcting posture here and there. The time veritably flew by, and soon the bells were marking the end of this particular session.

As Coby watched them leave, he couldn’t help but smile. This was a nice change of pace, he had to admit.

And things went even better with the rest of the day’s sessions. It seemed most of the rest of the crew had been around longer, because there was no more confusion about his name. A couple of the crewmates even asked him after the formal drills about some specific aspect of their stances or movements. Coby started to revise his estimate. No crew would so openly ask advice from someone they didn’t trust, right?

That night, he chanced the mess hall again for dinner, and the difference was night and day. Several of the crew plopped their meals down near him at the table, chattering casually with him and each other, mostly about the day’s drills or the food at HQ or other fairly banal things. Occasionally one of them would bring up something the crew had gotten up to  on previous missions, but inevitably, when that happened, someone would elbow that person and someone else would change the topic. 

Coby kind of liked it. It kept the crew focused on the here and now or on the future instead of rehashing past victories and mistakes over and over again. As they cleaned up their empty plates, Coby decided to consider trying to fold that into his own leadership style more clearly. 

At breakfast the next morning, Coby got approached almost immediately -- but not by one of Fullbody’s crewmates. Instead, a familiar blond form strolled over and settled his tray kitty-corner to Coby’s, across the table.

Well,, this was awkward.

“Good morning,” he said, making sure he had his proper Fullbody voice on. Of all the people, why was Helmeppo here?

When he chanced a glance, he could see his second in command was trying to fight back a grin. But whatever was so funny, he apparently didn’t want to share it with Fullbody. “Morning,” he said. “How’s your week been going?”

Coby blinked. Were Helmeppo and Fullbody acquaintances? Maybe even friends? Why else was he over here and talking so casually with him. “It’s been fine so far,” he said, trying to keep his tone normal. “Just waiting for the ship to be done. How about you?”

“It’s been a little rough to be honest.” 

What? “What’s been happening?” he asked, averting his eyes.

Helmeppo sighed theatrically. “It’s our captain.”

Coby felt a chill. 

“What about him?”

Leaning forward a little, Helmeppo said in low tones, “to be honest, I think he might be missing.”

The chill went bone deep. “Oh. That stinks. But I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.”

“Oh, you’d think so,” Helmeppo said dismissively. “But he’s kind of hard to miss, with the pink hair and all. After all, there’s only a few people with that particular feature around here, present company included.” He gestured in Coby’s direction. “So if he were around people would notice.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.“ Was Coby sweating? He felt like he might be sweating.

“And I mean, he hasn’t taken care of his paperwork in a couple days. But he also didn’t tell us anything about where he’d be going. And Coby is a very conscientious captain.” Helmeppo said dramatically. “He’s definitely not the sort of person who would leave without letting his crew know he’d be gone.”

“Maybe he had a good reason?” Yeah, Coby decided, he was definitely sweating. Would Helmeppo notice?

When Helmeppo didn’t immediately answer to that, Coby looked back toward him again. But immediately he regretted it. Helmeppo was staring at him, one eyebrow raised. When he saw Coby looking, he finally said, “I was wondering if maybe you might know where he was, Lieutenant Commander? I understand you’re an observant fellow.”

Coby didn’t like the way he said “observant,” like the one word was a riddle. And he couldn’t handle overall how uncomfortable this conversation was making him. 

“No idea, sorry,” he said, gathering up his half-finished meal. “I’m sure he’ll turn up in a few days though.” 

And with that, he fled the dining room.

The third day was supposed to be a pretty low-key one -- just putting in a few appearances. So when Davies came running up that afternoon as he sat outside watching the sunlight that filtered through the leaves of a tree, he felt the first stirrings of concern.

“Cap ...er ... um ... Lieutenant Commander Fullbody, Sir?” Davies said, pulling to a stop and saluting. “You’re needed at the dock! I think...”

The dock. “What for?” he asked, getting to his feet. 

“We’ve been called back to active duty effective immediately. There are several pirate ships in the area pursuing a merchant vessel  and we’ve been asked to render aid. And the lieutenant commander is needed.”

The poor man seemed flustered. Well, so was Coby. “But I thought the ship wasn’t done for another couple days,” Coby protested, even though he was already starting to follow the man as they headed for the docks. 

“The remainder of the work is cosmetic, so they can finish it after the merchants are safe,” Davies said, matching pace with Coby. “We’re the closest active ship.”

Because mine is on shore leave, Coby thought helplessly.

Well, this just got a lot more complicated.

Chapter Text

As they neared the docks, Coby could see some of what they meant by cosmetic. Large swaths of the side of the ship, disappearing under the water line, were the color of bare wood instead of the white and blue paint of a Marine vessel fully ready to sail.

He didn’t want to get on board this ship. They hadn’t gone over any of this. But on the other hand, refusing to get on board would make him -- and by the transitive property of false identities, Fullbody -- AWOL, which would be a Big Deal. That might be especially true for someone who already had a history of insubordination. 

He couldn’t run the risk of tanking someone else’s career just because he was uncomfortable, right? So he followed Davies up onto the deck.

At least the needs of a ship about to leave port were very similar from one vessel in the fleet to the next. Coby fell into a rhythm, getting the sails positioned and running safety checks with the rest. They’d just finished up preparations when a whistle pierced the air.

“Rear admiral on deck!” someone shouted. And nearly all work on deck paused, as most of the crew turned and saluted. Coby followed suit with what he figured was perfect Fullbody form.

The rear admiral walked across the deck, shouting orders. “Weigh anchor! Double check the patches and keep an eye on them while we’re under sail! Let’s get those pirates locked down. Hina wishes to get back to her book.”

While some of the crew peeled off to follow those orders, one person broke ranks to dash toward their commander. 

“Hina!” Jango sang as he slid to one knee in front of the rear admiral, holding out a bouquet of yellow flowers. “I picked you flowers to celebrate our reunion!”

“Don’t need them,” she said dismissively, stepping past him. But then she stopped. Looked back at him, eyes narrowing. Looked at the empty deck next to him. Then her eyes swept the crew slowly. 

And came to a stop on Coby. 

Her eyes narrowed further and she started walking directly toward him. The crew parted to give her a clear path. Coby pulled his cap down, trying to hide his face as much as possible.

Well, this could be bad. 

She stopped directly in front of him and stared at him for several seconds, smoke drifting lazily from her cigarette. Coby couldn’t bring himself to look up. Did she know? The way she walked over here with such purpose, she had to know, right? Even though he’d worked so hard on his disguise. She was sharp. He should have known he couldn’t pull this off in front of her. She had her rank for a reason. He sensed her drawing breath to speak, to ask why he was on her ship, to let him know exactly how much trouble he was in...

“Lieutenant Commander Fullbody?”

It was getting entirely too familiar, hearing that name said in the form of a question. “Yes ma’am!” he said, snapping off a salute. 

“No overblown antics today, Fullbody?” She leaned on the name again, a one word interrogation.

Oh, that was right. He’d seen Jango and Fullbody pull that move more or less in tandem before. He hadn’t really paid it much attention at the time. Now, he wished he had.

“No ma’am.”

Another long pause as she inhaled on her cigarette and blew out a lazy cloud into the sky. “And you are prepared to do your duty on Hina’s ship, Fullbody?”

Again, the emphasis on his name. Coby’s mind raced. Did Fullbody have some deeper history of insubordination or something? Some offense to her in particular? They hadn’t talked much about Hina. They hadn’t expected Coby to actually have to deal with her face to face. 

“I am!” He saluted again out of nervousness. Then, realizing he’d let his tone slip back up, he coughed and added, “I mean, yes ma’am! Ready and willing.”

She raised an eyebrow and gave him another long, uncomfortable look. Then, blessedly, she turned on her heel and headed back toward her cabin. “Very well. But first, make sure that facial hair is appropriate for Hina’s ship. Helmsman, you have our heading! Full speed.”

The crew broke up and went to their stations. Coby hurried below decks, hoping to find a mirror.

Hina had been right -- he’d somehow smudged his “stubble,” probably while prepping the ship. He rubbed it off and reapplied it as best he could, but the mirror was mostly a blur and he had to squint to bring anything into focus. He thought the result looked better, but he couldn’t be sure. 

Just as he finished, he heard feet pounding on the deck, coming closer. He turned to see another of the crew running up, a couple papers in hand.

“Lieutenant Commander!” the woman said, holding a couple papers out to him. “The dossiers on the pirates we’re after.”

Coby took the papers and looked down at them. Without his glasses, it was little more than a watercolor blur of gray lines and squiggles. He let his eyes drift down the page, flicking them back and forth a little, hoping it looked like he was reading. Did Fullbody read dossiers like this? His first though from the man’s physical appearance had been no, but after talking to him, he thought that he just might be wrong about that. 

The woman who brought the papers saluted and started to turn to go. But then she stopped. He redoubled his efforts to look like he was reading, frantically hoping she hadn’t noticed anything wrong.

“Um, sir?”

“Yes?” Nothing wrong here, just totally natural reading, just reading…

“If it would help you to concentrate, maybe I can read it to you? So you can focus on your plans?”

Relief flooded him. “Yes. Yes, that would be great,” he said, handing it gratefully to her.

He’d totally reversed his initial opinion of Fullbody’s relationship to this crew. They really were very thoughtful and helpful. It felt strange that the woman would think better if he weren’t reading at the same time, but it wasn’t the weirdest thing Coby had encountered in the marines. Probably didn’t crack the top thousand.

And whatever the reason they did it, it worked for him.

“On your left!”

Coby turned to his left at the shout, just in time to block an incoming punch with his crossed arms. He almost fired off a blast of rankyaku, but stomped down that instinct and drew back a fist. The weight on his knuckles made the punch slow to get going, but when it connected, it carried a heck of a … well … punch. The pirate spun around, the prints from the bolts dented into his cheek.

“Behind you!”

He spun and ducked at the same time, his observation haki telling him a strike was coming in high. He swept out a leg, catching  his opponent across the knees and knocking him to the ground.

“Woah, nice new move!” One of the other Marines called.

Coby screamed at himself internally. Acting like another person was easy enough, but fighting like them? It was like trying to walk around on your hands while pretending everything was normal. Everything felt awkward and off-kilter. Did Fullbody really just wade through a fight punching every opponent he came across? How did that possibly work for him?

Luckily, the pirates weren’t too difficult. They had a couple really skilled members and one devil fruit user, all three of whom Hina had locked down at the beginning almost without breaking a sweat. The crew was just cleaning up the rest. Nearby the bedraggled merchant vessel listed in the water -- a selection of Hina’s crew had begun preparations to go help shore it up so it could limp to a nearby port for repairs. 

As his metal-encased fist connected with the jaw of the man he’d tripped, a cheer went up across the crew. Glancing around, Coby saw that was the last one.

All in all, despite the awkwardness, the fight had gone better for him than he’d dared hope at the beginning. While he’d slipped up a few times, he hadn’t done anything that stood out as too much or too strange. And the crew remained as helpful as ever. A little group of them had fought nearby, shouting helpful suggestions to him, since the pirates seemed to have some idea who he … er, Fullbody was and had tried on several occasions to gang up on him. But the crew wouldn’t let them.

It was pretty heartwarming, actually, the way they looked out for each other. 

As the cheering subsided, a pounding beat started from somewhere up on the poop deck. At first Coby thought the crew was stamping their feet, and sure, some of them were. But after a few seconds he realized the sound for what it was -- the driving rhythm of some sort of music. 

This crew really likes to celebrate their victories, Coby thought as he leaned against the railing of the ship and watched the mass of people reorganizing themselves, clearing a spare around the raised boxes of weapons storage on the deck. Jango, another lieutenant commander on the ship, hopped atop the boxes and executed a perfect one-footed spin, ending on a dynamic pose that saw one hand pointing dramatically toward Hina. She rolled her eyes. 

Coby grinned at the display. But the smile faded when he felt hands plucking at his shoulders, at his arms, pulling him insistently away from the railing. He looked around to find the marines around him were all grinning a little bit wickedly at him, and carefully but insistently pulling him closer and closer to where Jango still posed. 

“What?” he asked, allowing himself to be pulled forward as he tried to figure out what was going on.

“It’s tradition. This is how we celebrate a victory.”

“You can’t leave Jango hanging!”

“You’ve got to dance. I need to see this.”

Dance? They wanted him to dance?

He could, in theory, dance. After all, dancing was just moving your body to music. Physically, a very easy concept. Very attainable.

But this seemed almost ritualistic. Like it wasn’t just the act of dancing that the crew theoretically wanted, but some sort of specific victory dance. Fullbody had definitely not briefed him on any sort of victory dance. 

“Um, I’m not sure-” he tried to protest. But there were so many hands and so many excited, hopeful faces that in the end he let himself be shoved forward and up on the makeshift stage.

Jango shifted to a new pose, this one directed in Coby’s direction. Coby looked around nervously but, getting no clues from the watching crew, tried to mimic the same pose and prayed.

Next to him Jango frowned. His head turned in a quick, sharp movement. His eyes widened.

“What are you doing here?” Jango demanded.

Coby grinned with what he hoped was a confident, swaggery, Fullbody-esque look. “Dancing?” he ventured.

“Since Hina never joins us, my dance partner is Fullbody,” Jango said, leaning in closer. “And you’re not him. Why are you in his shirt?”

For a few seconds silence fell over the crowd, letting the question hang in the air with a heavy bass backdrop. Coby tried to think of something to say to smooth this over. Fullbody had talked about Jango, certainly. He’d come up a lot over their two days of training. But he’d never talked about his relationship with the other man at all. He just came up casually -- like the bit about the hair dye, or the reason they weren’t allowed to have music during training drills, or the way he didn’t like eating in the mess at HQ. How would Fullbody actually try to talk to Jango? And would it help? For the first time in this entire venture, Coby lamented, someone had seen through his disguise.

A voice piped up from the crowd. “What are you talking about Jango?” the person shouted.

Jango turned to the heckler. “What are you talking about?” he shot back, gesturing at Coby theatrically. “Look at him! Did he get hit with a shrinking ability while the ship was being fixed?”

“It’s pretty rude to talk about how someone looks like that,” another voice called from the crowd.

“He’s supposed to be your friend.”

“You’re making Fullbody feel bad, look!”

“Come on Jango. That’s him.”

Jango stared at the grinning faces of the crew, dumbfounded. Then looked at Coby once again, pulling his glasses down and peering at him over top of them, giving the fake Fullbody a careful once over. Finally, he spun to where Hina watched the proceedings from afar.

“Hinaaaaa! Is this a joke on me?” he appealed to her. “This isn’t-”

“What is the problem?” Hina asked, interrupting him. “If you and Fullbody-” she leaned on the name yet again. “Wish to engage in your normal shenanigans, get it started.”

With her dismissal, Jango seemed to sense there was no winning the argument. Turning to Coby, he said, “We’ll hash it out later then.” Having accepted defeat, his tone was light, unconcerned. Raising his voice, he shouted, “Let’s gooooooo!”

The crowd cheered. The music grew louder. And next to Coby, Jango started dancing.

He knew Jango’s epitaph used to be “the hypnotist” and Coby wondered if that had something to do with his dancing. It certainly felt mesmerizing. He seemed to know exactly where to plant his foot, move his hand, swing his hips to get maximum impact out of every beat and note of the song. Coby’s instinct was just to move aside and let him do his thing. But after a few seconds, Jango shot him a warning glare over his glasses.

Coby could read it loud and clear. If I need to pretend you’re him, the least you can do is try.

So Coby tried.

 Dancing was just moving your body to music. Physically, a very easy concept. Very attainable.

In reality, it turned out to be a lot more complicated. 

At first he tried to emulate Jango again. But the movements that looked so natural on him felt uncoordinated and awkward in Coby’s body. He stopped, then tried to bring it back to basics. Just move to the music. He stepped to one side. Stepped back. Almost on the beat. Tried again. Back. Forth. Out in the crowd people were cheering him on, but it started to feel like jeering, because whatever he was doing, if it could technically be called dancing, it could not be mistaken for good dancing. 

Jango shot him another, less clear look, then sighed and turned to face Coby. His feet stepped back and forth, but the movements were smaller. The rest of his body followed the movement in a smooth wave.

“You’re thinking too much,” he said in low tones.

“How do I do this if I don’t think?” Coby replied, plaintively. He was not getting this.

“You feel it. Like fighting. Come on. Watch my feet. Follow.”

Coby looked down. This step seemed simple enough. It looked like what he’d been trying to do, but a little more precise, and a little less heavy. A little like fighting, Coby repeated in his head. He started stepping back and forth again, this time matching Jango’s movements, and after a moment, it felt a little more natural. 

Once he was sure Coby had that down, Jango said, “now add the arms.” He started moving his own arms, not in the wide, sweeping gestures of earlier but smaller, more contained gestures. Again, Coby followed it. And once he got into the groove, he found that dancing -- like this at least -- didn’t have to feel awkward.

“Okay, now close your eyes and…” Jango paused, reconsidering, then amended his statement. “Get down on the deck, then close your eyes so all you can sense is the floor under you and the music running through you. Move your feet. Move your arms. Let everything else move how it needs to to connect the two. Then follow where they lead you.” He gave Coby a shove -- perhaps harder than necessary -- to get him to hop down to the deck.

With his feet back on the deck, Coby did as he was told. Closed his eyes. Moved his feet. Moved his arms. Noted the pulse of the music thudding through him. And suddenly he could feel it -- the rightness of the movements, the way they connected to the music, and the way the rest of his body connected to it all. He found himself trying a little more daring moves -- two steps in a row to one side and two back. Larger arm movements. Finally, he chanced a spin -- it just felt right, and when it ended, he posed.

“Haha! There it is,” Jango said, and Coby realized while his eyes were closed, the other man had hopped down next to him. Coby started moving again, and Jango effortlessly copied him but in mirror. The music picked up the pace, the crew clapped along with the beat, and Coby got more and more caught up in the moment.

Despite himself, Coby grinned. 

OK. He’d changed his mind. Dancing felt amazing.

It took over twenty-four hours out and back. As the ship neared HQ once more, Jango sauntered in to where Coby was helping run maintenance on the cannons.

Of course, he’d asked to help run maintenance on the cannons because he figured he’d be less likely to run into Jango here. The one person who seemed to have truly figured out Coby’s identity just grooved on into the room without a care in the world and gestured for Coby to follow.

“Got a message to pass on,” he said, as Coby followed him uneasily deeper into the ship. This area would be mostly storage. A small blessing. If he was going to start asking Coby about what was going on, this would mean fewer people to overhear. Coby wasn’t sure what the penalty would be for impersonating an officer of lesser rank than one’s own, but he was starting to feel a little bad about deceiving the crew. Everyone had been so nice and helpful. 

Finally they stopped in a large room full of canvas patches for the sails. Jango gestured Coby in first and followed, closing the door after him.

“All right, Fullbody my friend.” He said this with such pleasant malice that abruptly Coby remembered this man, in addition to being a marine, also used to be a pirate of some repute. “We had a misunderstanding on board the ship last night. I’d love if you could clear it up for me. As a friend.”

It seemed like they were friends -- fairly good ones. Jango knew right off about the deception, and the way Fullbody naturally dropped his name in conversation made it seem like they were important parts of one another’s lives. To the point where dancing after a victory was some sort of ritual.

But he’d promised. Not a word. Not to anyone.

“Can you come find me after dinner tomorrow?” Coby asked. “I can give you an answer I think you’ll find complete then. Before that, it’s not really mine to clear up.”

Jango stared him down for a few seconds, then shrugged. “Tomorrow then,” he said, turning and opening the door. “Oh, and Hina was looking for you. Said to report to her immediately.” Coby thought he heard a hint -- just a hint -- of jealousy in the delivery.

Meanwhile Coby, who wasn’t sure exactly how immediate Hina’s idea of immediately might be, scrambled out of the room and headed for the top deck.

When Coby reached Hina’s workroom, he found her bent over some papers, scrutinizing them with a fierce attention. She seemed to be comparing two nearly identical ocean charts, and carried on doing so for a while while he waited.

When she apparently thought he’d sweated enough, she finally looked up, face stern and another cigarette perched between her lips. “Lieutenant Commander. Your behavior on this trip has been noted by several members of this crew as…” she shuffled the charts to the side and picked up a smaller paper with neat handwriting. “Unusual. Unexpected. Out of character. And … kind of adorable?” Her voice dropped into something close to disgust for that last. 

Setting the paper down again, she regarded him with those hard eyes. “These seas aren’t predictable. Hina prefers the workings of her ship, therefore, to be as predictable as possible. Which means this needs to be addressed.”

“Yes ma’am,” Coby said miserably. He thought he’d been doing well.

She scrutinized him a few more seconds, then her face softened. “Report back here once the final ship repairs are complete in a few days to discuss it. Hina hopes to see the old Fullbody back in action by then. Understood?”

Coby managed another “Yes ma’am.” The way she worded that … did she know too? Or was it just a coincidence? He wasn’t sure. He kind of thought the former. But if so, why was she letting him off?

Hina, meanwhile, had pulled the charts out again. Taking that as a dismissal, Coby fled for the door.

Chapter Text

After dinner the next day coincided with when Fullbody should be returning. Once more back in his own, comfortable clothes, Coby waited near the docks as the sun started making serious inroads toward nighttime. 

As ships arrived and left, and thin flows of people came into and out of HQ, he kept an eye out for a by-now familiar head of pink hair. 

“So, it was you. ”

He turned to his left, toward the voice, to see Jango approaching. Coby nodded, in answer and greeting both.

“So are you going to tell me what that show was all about?” Jango asked, stepping up next to Coby but slouching against a signpost rather than standing straight up.

Looking back toward the new arrivals, Coby said,  “I was just waiting for Fullbody. I think he’s better to answer your questions than me.”

Jango inhaled, maybe ready to argue or question or something. But then he just turned his attention down the road as well. “That so?”

“Assuming nothing went wrong.”

They didn’t have long to wait. A couple minutes later, Fullbody came trudging up the path. He caught sight of the two of them waiting, looked slightly worried, but continued up to them.

“Hey,” he said.

Coby raised his hand in greeting, but before he could get a word out, Jango stepped in front of him.

“Wait, you were actually completely AWOL? This wasn’t some kind of performance art?” he demanded.

Fullbody responded, “Jango? Of course not. You think I’d do something like this just for fun?”

“I didn’t think you would do something like this at all!”

“It was important, OK?”

“You could have told me! I made a fool of myself because I pointed out that that kid was clearly not you.”

“What? We did an excellent job on his disguise,” Fullbody argued back.  The pair of them were right in one another’s faces, so close Coby thought either a brawl or a kiss was imminent.

“Your eyes must be going if you thought that was remotely close to-”

“I’m sorry, all right? I should have told you. I was just worried about you getting dragged in if I got caught. You can’t afford that!”

“And you could?”

“... yeah. That’s a fair question.”

“...”

“Jango?”

“...”

“Are you sulking?”

“No!”

“Come on. Why?”

“...you know I could have hypnotized him to think he was you, right? It would have been better than that dreadful performance he put on.”

Fullbody crossed his arms. “Sure, but this was for a couple days, and you could have had him thinking he was me forever. That’d be a whole mess…” he trailed off, as he realized that his friend didn’t actually seem all that upset about not using his admittedly unreliable abilities. His stance relaxed. “Jango, really, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what we were doing.  I’ll make it up to you. Barbecue?”

“... only if you buy all my booze.”

“What am I, your date?”

“...”

“Yes, fine, all your booze. Anything else?”

“Swear not to pull this sort of thing again?”

“Deal.”

Turning his attention to Coby, Fullbody asked, “Everything go OK?”

“I think so,” Coby said. “Find out what you needed to?”

“Yeah. I was right, but it feels better to have heard it from him, you know?”

Coby nodded, then something occurred to him. “Oh. And Read Admiral Hina wants to see you once you’re all back on the ship.”

He couldn’t miss the way a small grin passed over his expression at that. Huh. Maybe it was good he didn’t know more about what he thought of Hina.

“Well, thanks. I owe you one.”

Huh. That… might actually open up some possibilities, Coby thought.

Maybe the thoughts showed on his face because Fullbody added in a hurry, “Well, I’m exhausted. Good night.”

“What’s this party?”

All three men turned to see Helmeppo wandering up. He nodded amiable greetings to the other two (Fullbody returned the gesture tiredly. Jango, for some reason, took a long step in the other direction) then addressed Coby. “Here you are. We’ve been wondering where you were.”

Behind them, Fullbody and Jango wandered off, beginning to bicker again. Leaving them to it, Coby turned to his second in command. Now that the whole ordeal was over, he felt worn out, like he’d spent a week in training with Garp. But he probably needed to head this off.

“Sorry for making you worry,” he said. Helmeppo turned as Coby walked up., and the two fell into familiar step side by side. 

Helmeppo raised an eyebrow, but otherwise his expression betrayed nothing. “What made you think we were worried?” he asked. “You had shore leave, same as the rest of us.”

Well, that wasn’t what he expected, especially not after the conversation at breakfast a few days ago. “All right,” he said slowly. “But still. I let the paperwork build up-”

“Nah, I took care of that,” Helmeppo said dismissively. “There wasn’t anything that needed your signature so I just took care of things as they came in.”

Huh. Coby got the distinct feeling he might be being made fun of by his friend. “Well… if you’re sure.”

“Positive. I appreciate you worrying about the busywork even in your downtime.”

“You too.” 

They walked on in silence. The pair of them hung out most evenings, chatting or  reading or training. Coby assumed they’d do so tonight. Maybe even work on some of the logistics of their next mission, if they knew where they would be sent ahead of time. But since they were on shore leave for another day yet, he assumed they’d do something more laid back.

Oh. Which reminded him.

“Hey Helmeppo. Maybe we should go to one of those dance parties sometime.”

“Dance parties?” Helmeppo didn’t sound as enthusiastic as Coby hoped.

Still, he forged ahead. “I think it’d be fun.”

Helmeppo thought about it a minute, letting the crunching of the gravel underfoot be the only sound between them. Then, finally, he said, “If you want. But only if you buy my drinks.”

Maybe because he was tired, or maybe because he’d just heard it, Coby replied “What am I, your date?”

He regretted it as soon as it came out, but it was too late to take it back. The words were already out there. The blond turned a calculating, sidelong look at him. He just had to hope that it wouldn’t be taken wrong. 

But then Helmeppo shrugged. “I don’t care what you call it as long as I don’t have to pay to get drunk while the rest of you dance or whatever,” he replied breezily.

Coby breathed again. “Deal.”

But then he caught the calculating smile as Helmeppo turned away again.

Oh jeeze.