The Puppet Master [One Piece]

Tides of Change

~Echo's POV~

I woke feeling like there was a tiny construction zone inside my head. Everything hurt, my head was pounding, the small amount of sunlight filtering in through my windows was too much. It looked as if someone had tried to block out the windows in an effort to comfort me, but it was still too bright for my liking. The smell of alcohol permeated off of me making me feel sick to my stomach.

Rolling out of bed, I crawled to the bathroom as it was too much effort to try to stand. I glanced down at my current attire to find myself in a simple nightshirt and nothing more and struggled to remember how I'd gotten home, changed and gotten into bed. As I crawled into the dark bathroom and quietly shut the door behind me, I vaguely remembered throwing up in the middle of the night and talking to Shanks. He must have taken care of me. My face flushed scarlet, I'd probably made a fool out of myself. Why did I let that idiot Sniper talk me into drinking?

I flopped into the tub and kicked on the faucet wincing as the pipes groaned to life, it sounded like everything was attached to an amplifier and at ten times the normal volume. Cold water rained down on me from above drenching my nightshirt. The cool water felt good on my hot sticky skin. I laid back and closed my eyes.

There was a soft knock at the door though in my currently altered perspective it sounded more like someone was trying to bust the door down and made my head throb. "Shhh!" I attempted to shush whoever was knocking.

"Echo?" Shanks' voice sounded from the other side of the door. "Are you okay?"

"Everything's too loud." I groaned and covered my ears.

The bathroom door swung open letting in a small sliver of light. I could feel it on the backs of my eyelids and cringed. Why did people drink? If this is what hangovers were like, I was never drinking ever again. Everyone else on the crew couldn't possibly be human with as much as they drank, I'd rarely seen any of them even slightly hungover. They were all monsters.

"What are you doing?" He asked with a smile in his voice as he knelt next to the tub.

I slowly opened my eyes happy to find he'd left the lights off and had closed the door. "This doesn't hurt." I said simply as I met his gaze.

"You'll feel better after you eat something and drink some more water." He smiled, "Did you still want me to punch Yassop?"

"I asked you to punch him?"

Shanks laughed at this, "You don't remember?"

I shook my head, "It's all kind of a blur. Did I do anything embarrassing?"

"You tried your hand at drunken teleportation." Shanks chuckled.

"What?!" I winced at the sound of my own voice, "That explains why I feel like death." I slid further into the tub and closed my eyes again.

Shanks turned off the faucet and managed to scoop me up with one arm and carry me out to my room. He attempted to set me on my feet next to the bed and try to find me some dry clothes. My body suddenly decided it was no longer going to support itself and I flopped onto the bed with a groan of pain as my head began to pound again.

"Echo?"

"Just leave me here to die and tell everyone to be quiet." I groaned as I flopped over onto my stomach pulling the blankets with me into an awkward soggy cocoon.

Shanks's soft warm chuckle sounded near the dresser. "You'll feel better after some breakfast." His voice sounded like it was getting closer and the next thing I knew he was gently tugging at my cocoon trying to unravel me.