One Howling Adventure! 6 (Patreon)

Chapter 6: Of Grog & Food

Well, that island of freaky animals was certainly an interesting diversion. We’d left yesterday, and while Luffy was disappointed that Gaimon had decided to stay on that island, I couldn’t bring myself to feel too bad about it. After all, I’d managed to talk him into letting us spend a day smoking the meat from one of the bigger animals that had broken a leg and gone into shock. So we had a couple hundred pounds of tiger-elephant jerky in the hold alongside the two sacks of limes I’d gotten. Even with Luffy’s appetite, that would hold us for a while.

One lime in particular I immediately locked in a box, once I saw the neon colors and swirls. I’d see about getting a book of Devil Fruits when we got a chance, figure out which one it was. Of course, I couldn’t keep something like this secret, that only happened in stories for stupid drama, which led to my current situation.

“No Nami, I’m not teaching you my cipher key. The only people I plan on teaching it to are Katara and Kya once she’s old enough,” I firmly told the once again topless Nami. I could tell that there was makeup on her shoulder, probably hiding a certain tattoo, but didn’t mention it. If it weren’t for the enhanced senses my hybrid form gave me, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

“So you want it to be a family thing?” Nami asked from where she was kneeling between my spread legs, her massive mammaries wrapped around my red rocket.

“Yup, fuck you know what you’re doing,” I groaned and threw my head back as she did… something. I don’t know what it was, but it made her titfuck shoot from a 9 to a 12.

“Shame,” was all Nami said before she leaned down and took my tip into her mouth and gave it a suckle.

That was it, I barely resisted the urge to grip her head or carve gouges in the ship as I came. Nami swallowed a large amount of my cum, before pulling back and letting the rest of it paint her face and breasts. I leaned back against the wall, my tongue hanging from the side of my muzzle as I panted. Nami chuckled at the look on my face, before giving a long, slow, sensual lick from my base to tip before tucking me back into my pants and licking her lips.

“What was it you wanted to talk about, by the way?” she asked as she pulled a rag from… somewhere and started to clean herself off.

“Found something interesting in the limes. Figured I should tell the entire crew and I’d rather do it once,” I answered the downright evil woman.

“You wrangle Luffy, I find Zoro and Usopp?”

“Giving me the hard one? Sure.”

About five minutes later, I had the lockbox with the Devil Fruit in front of the crew, and explained my thoughts: unless Nami, Usopp, or Zoro wanted to eat it now (three firm nos), we keep it locked away in case of an emergency (either for someone to eat or to sell for quick funds). Nami was certainly in favor of selling it now, but pointing out the relative difficulties in transporting a single lime versus the storage space of all that money. Despite her money-lust, the sheer practicality won her over. Luffy didn’t really care (her exact words were that she trusted whatever I chose), and neither Usopp nor Zoro had any arguments either, so back into the hold the lockbox went.

[hr][/hr]

I swear, I didn’t plan this. But here I was, in full animal form being used as an oversized teddy bear by a still crying fast asleep Nami. She’ll skin me in the morning, but I could smell the tears from her nightmare as I got up to take a leak. That would not stand, and since I am quite literally a big dog, I figured I could give her some fluffy therapy.

Carefully, I leaned my head down and tried to wipe away her tears. Only to freeze as her eyes opened. Well, it was nice living while I got the chance.

“I’m going to be generous, you have ten seconds to explain why you’re in my bed,” Nami growled, one hand slipping to her opposite shoulder.

“You were crying,” I said as an explanation.

Now it was Nami’s turn to freeze, “You… you heard…”

“Ah, no. No, whatever that nightmare was, you weren’t making any noise, but, well… tears have a distinct smell to them.”

“That doesn’t explain why you’re in my bed, as an oversized fur bag.”

“I’d heard about therapy dogs, and while it’s not the same I figured it couldn’t hurt?”

Nami stared at me, her gaze iron, before sighing and saying, “If you tell anyone about this, I will make sure that Kya remains an only child. Am I clear?”

“Crystal,” I responded before curling around her and letting myself drift off to sleep, Nami not far behind me.

That was how Nami and I ended up sleeping in the same bed. There wasn’t any funny business that happened in it, but I gave no indicators that I’d seen that more vulnerable side of Nami. The rest of the crew noticed that I wasn’t sleeping in my bunk, so they had to know where I was spending my nights, but no one said anything, not even No-Brain/Mouth-Filter-Luffy.

We stumbled across a few small ports over the next two and a half to three months, restocking on the bare essentials but nothing exciting happened on them. Nami still pestered me about my cipher, but there was now a playfulness to it, and she admitted to me one night before we went to bed that she wasn’t expecting to get it, but it was fun teasing me about it. She also continued, ahem, “helping relieve stress.”

It was nearly four months since I’d seen Katara when I had to deal with a particular annoyance.

“IF YOU’RE GOING TO CONDUCT TARGET PRACTICE WITH THE CANNONS TELL ME FIRST! YOU TWO IDIOTS HAD ME THINKING WE WERE IN A BATTLE!”

Yes, Luffy was captain, that doesn’t mean she’s exempt from me calling her out on being an idiot. Especially when I was working on my scrimshaw and in my surprise I snapped the first good enough tag for Katara’s proposal necklace in two. Pissed off, me? What possibly gave you that idea?

I couldn’t do much to Usopp, but my shouting seemed to have terrified him enough to prevent him from repeating this horrendous mistake. Luffy, however, could take all the punishment I could dish out so long as I kept it limited to blunt force trauma. So she got my fist to the top of her head.

I underestimated how hard I hit her though, since her head dropped down into her torso, a small mop of black hair being the only thing above her shoulders. The ensuing flailing from our rubber captain led to a bit of a wardrobe malfunction. Which in turn led to the reveal that Luffy apparently didn’t believe in wearing bras. She wasn’t small, not really, but she was smaller than Katara and Nami (though comparing her to Nami was unfair, I’d never seen a woman with Nami’s proportions before in my life). Best guess from the short time her chest was visible before she got her head out and her vest straightened, I’d say she’s a large B/small C-cup.

“COME OUT YOU DAMN PIRATES!”

Oh yeah, there was something that happened when Luffy and Usopp tested out the cannon. From the sounds up on deck, we had a visitor. Her curiosity peaked, Luffy raced out of the galley I’d been shouting at Luffy and Usopp in to investigate. Turning back to Usopp, I pointed at my remaining eye before turning to point that same finger at him.

Making my way to the top deck, I quirked an eyebrow at the pale man swinging a sword around. Rolling my eyes, I made my way back to the galley and started preparing a batch of fresh grog, doubling the amount of lime juice. I had a feeling it was going to be needed. Plus it was one of the easiest ways to get Luffy to get something other than meat in her.

Sure enough, in a few minutes Luffy and Usopp came barreling in asking where the limes were. I in turn pointed them to the lime-rich grog I’d just made before taking a sip of my own. It wasn’t Earth-grog, since I hadn’t found any rum, but it worked just as well at both helping preserve water and ensuring that we didn’t run the risk of scurvy.

“As entertaining as watching the two idiots force feed someone, who are you?” I asked as I joined the rest of the crew, Usopp and Luffy all but drowning a second person with the grog.

“HOLY ALE!” the lunatic guest shouted as he frantically drew his sword and pointed it at me. Despite the fact it lacked a tip. I continued to stare at him, before lifting my mug to my mussel and taking a slow, and very loud, sip. Our stand off continued for a few minutes, before the guy that was a sneeze from death’s door stood up and the two started dancing. Then, they stood solemnly like they were edgy badasses and we hadn’t seen them dancing worse than Commander Shepard ever could.

“Sorry for the late introductions, the name’s Johnny,” the lunatic who pointed a sword at me said.

“And I’m Yosake. Zoro used to bounty hunt with us in the past. Nice to meet you all,” the other one finished.

The rest of the conversation I didn’t bother participating in, plus Nami had “assigned” me to put Yosake into one of the bunks to make him rest. Once that was done, I went back to my quarters/office to recalculate how long our supplies were going to last, what with two additional mouths. To be on the safe side, I ran the two of them as equivalent to one Luffy on a hunger binge. About an hour later, I had a visitor…

“I swear if I have to listen to that idiot call me ‘Sis’ one more time I’m going to hurt someone!” Nami shouted as soon as the door was shut.

“You sound tense, have you been relaxing?” I snarked as I set aside a piece of paper with various notes on it.

“Oh shut up Logan. Anyway, we’re heading to a floating restaurant to see about recruiting a cook for the ship. Johnny figures we’re a week away, can our supplies hold out that long?”

“Well, assuming that the two of them combined use up the same amount of supplies as our beloved Captain, we’re good for another month. So unless something goes horribly wrong, we should be more than fine. Now, I was serious about you sounding tense, would you like a massage?”

Nami just stared at me blankly for a moment, before sighing and responding, “Shoulder massage, my shirt stays on.”

“As you wish.”

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True to the prediction, we arrived at the fish-shaped restaurant ship a week later. In that time, they’d decided that I wasn’t going to, quote, “eat our faces off if we look at him wrong” and warmed up to me. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Especially when the only thing they’d call me is “Brother Logan.” I think the scurvy went to their heads, because they were calling everyone on the ship that.

“Who am I ‘brother?’” Nami growled as we arrived.

“I think it’s because you threatened to pull their spleens out through their esophaguses if they called you ‘Sis’ one more time,” I answered, making her chuckle at the memory.

We weren’t the only ones pulling up to dock, there was also a marine ship. With a pretentious looking man who mumbled about not recognizing the ship’s flag, “I am the Lieutenant of the Marine Headquarters known as ‘Ironfist Fullbody.’”

“Sounds like you’re trying too hard,” I snarked, throwing him off his game.

“Are you the captain of this… dingy?”

“Me? I’m the quartermaster.”

“I’m the captain!” Luffy shouted, grinning the entire time.

“I see… as I don’t recognize your flag, I must conclude that you have just set sail,” Lieutenant Try Hard drawled, only for a woman to step out from the below deck and start dragging him towards the restaurant.

“That’s right, you better run from the Great Captain U…” Usopp trailed off as I grabbed his head and turned it so he saw the cannons being rolled out onto the deck. “THEY’RE AIMING CANNONS AT US!”

“I got this,” Luffy said with a laugh as she took in a massive breath that inflated her like a balloon.

I blame the internet for the thoughts that popped into my head when she inflated, a few artists in particular. But, she blocked the two cannonballs that were sent at us. One was sent back into the marine ship, snapping the main mast like a twig. The other… went into the top floor of the restaurant.

“Luffy… as grateful as I am at not having to calculate the cost of repairs, would it have killed you to send both cannonballs into the marine ship?” I asked while shaking my head in exasperation.

“Sorry, that was my bad,” the sheepish Luffy apologized after she shrank back down to her normal size.

“I’m not the one whose ship you sent a cannonball into,” I pointed out.

“Oh, right. I better go apologize to them, otherwise they might not give us a cook.”

Before any of us could say anything, Luffy shot herself over to the restaurant like a slingshot. Nami just gave me a blank stare before saying, “If they charge us for damages, you’re going to be paying for it.”

“I never had any doubts. But let’s be honest, by the time we leave here, Luffy will have managed to not only weaseled her way out of any debt, but she’ll have charmed one of the cooks into signing on one way or another,” I defended myself.

“… I want to argue with you. I really do. I hate that I can’t.”

I chuckled as I joined the others in lowering the gangplank. I wasn’t the only one eager to try out the food here.