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What once existed on paper as a solo mission behind the closed borders of Wano snowballed rapidly into a multi-piece plan spanning several fleets. As much as Drake’s first instinct begged to scrap the plan and disappear within the borders before anyone grew the wiser, it was, all together, the best bet the country of Wano had for a future beyond pollution and starvation.
It was also the most convoluted logistical nightmare he'd seen in his life. And naturally, as a Marine, he'd seen plenty.
In pre-planning, Ace handwaved Drake's concerns, roiling with confidence. “Koby’s a famous officer. Law’s a Warlord. No one is going to believe all three of you just magically aligned in the same direction, but totally not with each other. It’s too suspicious. Now look at it from Special K’s point of view—” The young man’s casual disrespect toward the Emperor never failed to lighten an otherwise dour discussion. “Instead,” he gestured to Drake, “—here’s a guy with a pedigree of family traitors. Barrels to the Marines, Rosi to his brother’s crew…”
With Dressrosa behind them, from time to time, Drake swore he was still picking pink feathers out from between his teeth. What a bother. Still, good riddance.
Ready and raring to make landfall ahead of the team, Ace continued, “No one would think twice if you whipped around to the guys you were spotted with while tearing Doflamingo apart and went, ‘You know what? I’m getting shafted in this deal. This is way dangerous to my crew! Change of plans! I’m the boss now!’ —then bam!” He clapped his hands loud enough to make Drake flinch, the man’s ginger brows sternly furrowing. “Now Koby and Law are your little trophy wives. So once you're in and settled, they'll have access to everywhere below your station, so you can focus on everything at eye level and above. Meanwhile, the Big Man in charge’ll still be so high off his own azure farts, he won't see you as a threat and the plan’ll go as…well, as planned! It’ll be fine! You get Good Boy Marine Points. I get to keep my promise to a friend. Where’s the problem?”
As per the plan, when Ace sauntered in with the loaned naginata of Whitebeard in hand and the harrowing lie that he’d killed his captain and struck out on his own on his lips, his ascension into the Tobi Roppo made the ordeal look agonizingly easy. When Drake strode in less than a month later, his own practiced lie worked like a charm, but all it took was a handful of lines pushed too far, and suddenly the slip painted him as a violent sexual deviant—and that was before he started picking fights. With all seats closest to Kaidou filled, need dictated he boot another out…
In the end, he shot for a seat he knew he could take, choosing Page—the lesser of two evils—for his brawl of succession. But once defeated, Page One, while not without his own strengths, found himself severed of the protections that the younger man gained from his old position. With little fanfare, the loss sent him crashing straight to the bottom of the pecking order. With Ulti seething in rage and Page outnumbered and unready for a potential second round from any who’d resented his former rank, cold logic reared up in Drake, its fang sunken deeply into him. It bolstered his voice, booming as he embraced his facade role:
“HE’S MINE!”
…And just like that, X Drake stole a title and, much to his own horror, another lover (if only in name).
It worked, though. Sort of. In desperate need of allies, of another drilled hole to bring low the unsinkable Azure Dragon, he still needed to convince Page, who’d only known violence and anxiety, that he meant well. But considering the methods chosen to shoehorn Law and Koby in at his side, Drake wasn’t even certain he could…
Drake’s most recent efforts in assuring his own relative harmlessness didn’t so much take off as roll lamely downhill. He struggled, grasping at straws through each new effort, but when all seemed futile, Page finally accepted a gift. Immediately, he insisted he’d only done so to maintain the illusion of Drake’s control, but that lent some hope, didn’t it? If Page trusted Drake’s vows of safe haven enough to disrespect him through multiple dismissals… Even if Page claimed all he wanted to do was prolong his newer, quieter status quo… Didn’t reason dictate that, though small, those cracks provided enough leeway to push for a break? Maybe, with just a little more—
As Page disappeared into the bathroom, Drake nearly caught him with another word, but Law interjected, ruining the attempt with a teasing, “Maybe you should kill him something next time. It worked on me.”
The same deeply-set frown that adorned all of Drake’s old service paperwork tugged sternly at the corners of his lips. A lot worked on Law that Drake wasn’t nearly ready to attempt, again, given his falsified status of glorified twink collector. Still, given Page’s zoan side… Drake didn’t see the harm.
Less than a week later, under Page’s curious gaze, all forty feet of convoluted allegiances, over-thought plans and neurosis, topped by a pleasant wrapping of dusky forest green scales stood proud (but sopping) at the shore of a secluded beach. Waiting on bated breath for Page’s reaction, Drake held his place, withdrawn a respectful distance from the massive carp he’d tempted in and gored in the shallows.
The telltale tickle behind his eyes of a presence both apart and separate from Drake tugged at his attention, heralding the call of a ‘voice’ he’d only recently fully deciphered.
[Pretty,] it hummed, content in their shared space.
As Page’s form warped and changed, he allowed his other half—literal, not figurative—to survey the kill more directly, and plunged snout-first into the torn viscera. Though joined in Drake’s mind, the Allosaurus felt like an unseen body standing alongside his own—like a shadow laid thick at his side, with the creature’s voice at home alongside Drake’s thoughts, its gaze led by Drake’s own.
This was clever, Drake offered. I’m almost ashamed I didn’t think of it.
Satisfied by its contributions, the predator preened. [Some fish have to make it to the top. No poison on new arrivals.]
Together, they breathed deep, their huge barreled chest swelling with the intake. Behind them, their massive tail gave the slightest bounce as they shifted in place. The Allosaurus didn’t mind the gritty push of wet sand between their feet. Drake did. In compromise, they stepped gingerly through the wet surf—the sloshing water and sparse foam washing away the last of the blood mottled high up their legs. The urge, all human, to splash their muzzle clean gnawed at the edges of their consciousnesses, but the Allosaurus pushed the dismissal into physical reality with a huff.
When it pushed again, Drake ceded, allowing it to lead them higher up on the shore and into the dirt. In their inner space, Drake lent a quiet gratitude to the other, acutely aware the move served only to soothe his over-ragged senses. Any earlier in their union and Drake would have felt condescended to. Now the comfort felt genuine. With naught to do but wait, they hunkered down onto the sun-warmed earth, soaking in the heat.
[She cannot finish that entire carp,] it noted. [No way to take it back. We’ll be next to eat.]
He, Drake corrected. He’s a man. An uncompromising protectiveness steeped into his thoughts as he levied them at his other half, not unlike a warning flash of teeth. Page’s former position afforded him the ability to lash out without repercussion to anyone beneath his station that dared argue otherwise in efforts to pit Page’s body against his identity. Now without, Drake’s moral code demanded to keep that line drawn. Goals be damned. It was the right thing to—
[No.] The Allosaurus tugged with almost brutal insistence and focused their gaze sharply on the form of the Spinosaurus, commanding, [Shut up. Smell.]
Though not the strangest thing Drake had ever been told to do, it definitely sat near the top. He complied though and in the lingering swirl of scents—the drying blood that clung stubbornly to their nose, the cleaner waters ready to race down the falls, the distant taint of poison…something else, faint, reached him.
Receptivity. Or something close to it.
Pupils blew wide and a swirl of foreign memories and tangled instinct clouded Drake’s sense like a descending fog bank. The overlap wasn't perfect. Eons separated the two species, but…
[She’s comfortable, grateful,] the Allosaurus nudged, goading Drake to rise, even as their joints locked, overridden by his sudden rush of trepidation. [She’s giving us a chance. Take it.]
Forward. He had to keep moving forward—for everyone involved. And the moment he thought to beg direction, Drake realized everything he needed already sat at his disposal. For a start, he knew the call that sent his lovers shuddering, turning any precursor expression into one of dazed anticipation. Before falling into step properly with the Allosaurus, he’d been triggering it on and off accidentally practically since casting off from the North Blue.
Drake loosed it in a short burst—a low infrasonic rumble that started bone-deep, only to punch out of his throat, loud enough to interrupt any self-indulging glut. And when her long neck reared back, blood-soaked and lipless jaws showcasing an expanse of dagger-sharp conical teeth, Drake froze, heartbeat in their throat as he prayed something would carry in his favor. Knowing two minds watched him now, he grasped for any shred of knowledge he carried: his own stockpile of reptilian husbandry, of Lind’s overflowing fixation of the avian, and now, an instinct older than civilization itself—
Immediately, a memory over three years old crashed through his skull—of Lind, twenty feet-plus of fool-ass theropod darting across the sand, all feather and claw as he tried to woo his captain with a crane’s mating dance. Applying the memory to himself drenched Drake in mortification. Lind had looked a bloody lunatic then, but at least he’d agility on his side. Still…a chance was a chance. It was time to get stupid and impress a girl.
Back and tail stretched long, poised to showcase Drake’s sheer size, he turned circles, rigid and slow to flaunt musculature and bulk easily overlooked in a wild brawl.
Eyes on me—I’m as big as you are.
He held pause, rising high on his legs, head and neck tipped back to demonstrate not just height, but submission and trust through the blind show of his throat.
[Colored lizard throats—] the Allosaurus interrupted, aware of where Drake had really stolen inspiration, and irate for the misrepresentation. [Show her something we actually have!]
Without hesitation, Drake threw himself low, gouging the earth with claws, rending deep. Strength! he shot back. We have strength! Ramming himself head and shoulders first into a nearby tree wouldn’t do him any bodily favors tomorrow (nevermind the new throbbing in his skull), but when the trunk trembled and cracked, splintering as he bodied it to the ground, catching her gaze still pinned to him, to them—Gods above, it set off something rattling in Drake’s brain, buzzing like a swarm of hornets as it drowned out every other thought and worry.
[Good! Good! Reliable nest builder! Keep going!] He’d already hunted for her. Between the show of gouging hard earth soft and loose, as well as the ability to clear unforgiving brush, what else was there?
What’s the next closest we can work with here after A. fragilis and company, anyway? His eyes darted from along the bold curves of her sail, repeatedly drawn back to the slow and punctuated drip of blood from her maw. Crocodile or gharial? —Heron, maybe? Woefully understudied on birds, Drake’s thoughts raced, tripping over one another as he nearly did the same on foot. He’d have to keep taking pages from Lind’s book…
The ground shook as he landed a short jump, tail sweeping in a wide arc through a turn. Low punches of sound rumbled out: warnings for enemies, entreaties for kin—
A desperation not all his own bled in—a sensation nearly missed in the frenetic energy. When she interrupted his song and dance, Drake caught it in the heartbeat after, as an ache in the same place where he buried all his anxieties. In all his existence as a zoan, before Wano, Drake had only met one other theropod outside himself. And now chained here by responsibility, that same person was gone, drawn away by his own missions.
With no Utahraptor…the Allosaurus was lonely.
Breath caught in their sturdy throat as her vocalization continued to click out, soft and inviting. As the stunlock ebbed with their shock, Drake and his passenger-partner stumbled forward, her call returned with their own. So strange it was, knowing the words of a song you’d never heard. Such was instinct, Drake supposed. Muzzles glanced, then lingered, scale against scale. And though she pulled from the touch, it wasn't for long, returning with gentle preening nips, teeth mindful with each little scrape, tidying his throat of dried blood.
He'd earned her approval.
Fraught with relief, a rushing boof of an exhale escaped as Drake let his other half lead, guiding the contact into a full nuzzling bunt. Rumbling happily, the Allosaurus splashed imagery across their shared space of tidy nests dressed in fallen foliage, laden with— Oh. Oh no, that wasn't good.
[So many hatchlings,] it crooned to him, already lost in the daydream.
Suddenly sweating, Drake realized they might have needlessly overcomplicated things by mistake.
So, he elbowed in. On the way back, we're going to have a little talk about expectations, you and I…
As boundaries had fallen away between Drake and the Allosaurus, shed like an old skin as they deepened their means of communication, growing from brief flashes of memory and emotion to complex conversation, Drake expected plenty. He foresaw exchanges of philosophy and lifestyle, of long discussions involving the strange ties that bound him—them, technically—to those kinder hearts surrounding them.
What instead came for Drake like a flurry of knees to the groin was the creature's week-long insistence, self-satisfied and anticipatory, that, [We will be DILF.]
Drake didn’t bother to correct its grammatical form—too horrified that it had picked up the term at all.
“…You didn’t have to.” Seated stiffly next to Drake, a skewer of grilled fish in hand, Page hadn’t aided the situation either.
Since the…incident, the younger man leaned more heavily on Koby and Law—anything to draw him away from talking with Drake. But like the kill Drake had brought Page before, food still served a good enough snare to keep him planted on a bench for a few minutes, while the other faux harem boys milled their way through local shops without either zoan.
Drake sighed quietly, a smile nearly invisible haunting the curve of his lips as he picked over his tray of street food. “You looked like you needed it.”
Unable to let it go to waste, Page begrudgingly tugged his mask down, sharp teeth snapping into the well-cooked meat. While the marketplace around them hustled, silence settled between them. Then, nearly underbreath—
“You’re a terrible pirate.”
“Old news.” Laden with suspicion, Drake nudged a fried dough ball and hunched forward to sniff it. “And really, I’ve been called worse.” His nose wrinkled when he caught wind of the cooked octopus within, and passing on it, moved onto the next item in his platter.
Not yet outspoken enough to ask, Page eyed the dismissed octo-orb with an aggressive intent impossible to miss. Drake skewered it with a toothpick and paused as something danced by on the edge of his peripheral.
“Some of Maria’s girls are on their way back to work. Open wide for the spectators, darling.”
With a small startle, Page pushed himself into Drake’s space, mouth open. With an ill-practiced ease, in popped the takoyaki ball. The moment the women disappeared from view, both men recoiled back into their original places.
“The point is…” Page tore another chunk from his skewer, shoulders hunched defensively as he stripped it clean. As he swallowed down both the food and the lump in his throat, he pushed himself to speak. “Your big plan. All of it. It’s…going to get you all killed.”
Drake begged to differ—he had to or the anxiety would eat him alive. But this time, he allowed the notion to rest, implied but unspoken.
Brows furrowed, Page fixed his stare at a distant stall. “…Still, she trusts you for whatever reason,” he mumbled. Partially obscured by the shade of his hat, Page used its cover to his advantage, watching for reactions through fleeting side-eyed glances. “I can’t promise I’m all-in. But I’ll keep hearing you out. If anything changes…” He turned the barren skewer over, rolling it between his fingers, “…well. I’ll let you know.”
Though semantic, Drake thought himself an excellent pirate. What was more cutthroat than backstabbing one’s way into a coup of a crew that lorded its rule over an entire nation? He’d made it this far, backed flawlessly by so many others, and given Page’s admission and promise of patience, Drake would make it another day.
“That’s all I ask. Thank you.”
