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After the dust settled – coasting on the combined adrenaline of one seismic shock after another, Hachi’s wounding and Rayleigh’s relevation and Luffy punching a Celestial fucking Dragon – they’d sat together in the unlikely sanctuary of Shakky’s bar, and she’d poured each of them a drink (on the house, she’d insisted, the absolute angel), and Sanji had gazed contemplatively out the window at the gauzy bubbles drifting languid into the sky.
As circumstances went, he thought, things could be an awful lot worse.
“There’s got to be somewhere we can lay low,” mused Nami, idly stirring her drink with a straw. “We can’t exactly go strolling into town. What are our options?”
Luffy’s hand shot into the air, still clutching a half-chewed ham hock.
“NOT you.”
The hand retracted.
Behind the bar, the industrial chorus of Luffy’s bottomless appetite resumed in earnest, like a threshing machine in a very small room. Nami steepled her fingers against her forehead, perhaps mentally calculating how many beri’s worth of food Luffy had inhaled. Always sanguine until there was money involved.
“Aren’t there supposed to be like, a bunch of crazy high bounty dudes just walking around out there?” Usopp’s offhanded casualness barely hid his trepidation; the nervous dance of fingers across the tabletop. Not that Sanji could reasonably blame him. They’d all seen firsthand how formidable the so-called supernovas could be, and Usopp’s self-preservation instinct always had been the healthiest on the crew. “Let’s maybe head in the general direction of away from them.”
“Bro’s got a point,” Frankly supplied. “I mean, I am kinda curious, but we’re gonna be sitting ducks out there. Y’know, since our captain recently committed high treason or whatever.”
“Ah. Yes.” Shakky’s mouth curled upwards, a wry smile. “You caused quite a stir. Word travels quick on Sabaody.” She stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray, lit another before Sanji could offer; a fluid motion, the way lifelong chainsmokers moved, like force of habit. “I heard about it long before you turned up. Figured you’d be back here sooner rather than later.”
“We are terribly grateful for your hospitality,” Robin said, and Shakky shot her a gentle smile. Understanding between outlaws. People on the fringes. It was how you survived out here, Sanji thought, swirling his drink contemplatively; you took your allies where you found them. In out-of-the-way bars on strange islands. In the back row of auction houses trading in human misery. Or…
“Hey, Shakky.” Gazing up at her over the rim of his glass. She met his query with attentive eyes, and he found himself wishing – not for the first time – that they’d met in better, more date-conducive circumstances. “You’re familiar with those guys, right? The supernovas or whatever you called them. Who’s the guy with the…” indicating a vague, circular shape around his midsection “…smiley face looking flag? Furry hat, kinda scowly, travels with a polar bear that does kung fu?”
She smiled. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were hallucinating. That sounds like Trafalgar Law. Captain of the Heart Pirates. The bear is his navigator, believe it or not.” She paused to pass Brook another dish of edamame beans, which he received with a grateful yohoho! “He’s notoriously brutal. I’d steer clear of him, especially if you’re trying to stay on the down low.”
“He took a guy’s head off!” Luffy interjected, with great enthusiasm. “There were arms everywhere.”
“What he means,” Nami said, with the endless patience of a seasoned Luffy interpreter, “is that this Trafalgar guy helped us out. Back at the auction house.”
Shakky raised an eyebrow. “That’s not something you hear every day.”
“Hey, but what about the other dude? He had all this hair, like-” Usopp grabbed a spider plant from the windowsill and balanced it on his head, causing Chopper and Luffy to dissolve into giggles. “Real angry looking. I think he’s magnetic or something?”
Sanji shrugged. It sounded vaguely familiar. “I guess?” he said, frowning around his cigarette. Truth be told, he hadn’t been paying an enormous amount of attention to anything besides getting the hell out of there, which obviously had included keeping a close eye on the guy with the whole “ludicrously big sword/head-severing ability” thing going on. Also, he had a fucking kung fu polar bear, which was obviously far more interesting than how his ass looked in those jeans, or the way he smirked like he was about to swallow you whole. Not that Sanji had noticed either of those things.
“He was wearing lipstick,” Usopp emphasised, as if they hadn’t all met Pell in Alabasta, or Mayor fuckin Iceburg, or any number of lipstick-wearing men on the Grand Line; after a while, it ceased to be a distinguishing feature. “Teeth like a bear trap? His bestie had knives for arms? Seriously?” Leaning over, incredulous. “You really don’t remember him?”
He swatted Usopp away irritably. “I guess he just didn’t stand out to me.”
“But the guy in a freakin’ hoodie and jeans did?” Usopp threw his hands up in frustration. “That’s weird. You’re weird.”
Shakky leaned on the bar, resting her chin on the shelf of her hand “Well,” she said, contemplative. “Trafalgar is pretty easy on the eye, particularly if you’re into the tall, dark and tattooed type. He’d turn my head in a crowd. Not that I’m implying he turned yours.” She quirked Sanji a smile; part impish, part apologetic, as though she’d fully intended to sow chaos, and Sanji fought off an indignant flush, fully intending to supplant it with a smoothly-delivered and very offhanded denial…
“Oh,” Robin said instead. Her smile might be reasonably described as knowing.
“Oh,” Nami concurred, declining to elaborate further, though a silent chorus of enquiring eyebrows had sprung into spontaneous being, and Sanji wondered, as the indignant flush fought, won, and ran a victory lap across his entire face, if it was too late to hand himself over to the marines willingly. Why, he lamented – frantically cobbling together a plausible denial in spite of his excruciatingly obvious flusterment – were the women in his life as cruel as they were beautiful?
“It’s not…” he began, but Usopp, the traitorous bastard, was not done dragging his dignity through the mud.
“Ah.” This delivered with such solemnity that one might be forgiven for thinking Usopp had just diagnosed Sanji with something terminal. Perhaps it was, Sanji thought; perhaps it was actually possible to die of embarrassment. Shit, even fucking Rayleigh was staring at him with intrigued amusement. Only Luffy had foregone the Sanji spectacle in favor of swallowing another oversized ham hock whole, bones and all.
“This is super and all,” Franky ventured, “but would any of you clue a guy in, cuz I feel like I’m missing something real important here.”
“You’re not missing shit,” Sanji muttered.
“No, no.” Nami waved her hands, though her smirk was barely suppressed, and Robin had merely moved hers behind a demure hand. “No, we all agreed we’d stop teasing Sanji-kun, didn’t we? If you were there, you were there, and if you weren’t, too bad.”
“I was there,” Usopp said, with funereal gloom.
“Bro,” Franky sighed, “you are killing me here.”
And then Zoro – because it would be Zoro, because Zoro sulked every fucking time this conversation came up, because he couldn’t pass up an opportunity to give Sanji hell over it, the fucking sadist – lifted his scowling face to the perplexed-and-or-smirking crowd. “Usopp walked in on the cook and Luffy’s older brother,” he said, deadpan. “In the pantry.”
A half-second of excruciating silence. Sanji contemplated throwing himself through the window.
“You mean like…” Franky searched his undoubtedly gargantuan vocabulary for the perfect word and settled on “Boning?”
“Yohoho!” Brook interrupted, spinning gleefully on his chair. “I’ll drink to that!”
“It wasn’t…”
“It fuckin was,” Zoro snarked, and Sanji added that to his mental tally of scores to settle with extreme violence, to be addressed just as soon as this extended and utterly unfair walk of shame was over.
“Aughhh,” Usopp groaned, clutching his chest dramatically; he swooned sideways, landing in Nami’s lap. “My if-I-have-to-relive-the-pantry-incident-I’ll-die disease has come back. No more, no more…”
“Yes. No more.” Nami held up a stern hand, quieting the discussion instantly. She shot Sanji a sympathetic glance, which might have carried more comfort had her eyes not been sparkling with amusement. “That’s enough,” she said, haughty. “It is none of our business if Sanji-kun is hot for tall guys with shitty tattoos, okay?”
“Nami-swan,” he protested weakly.
“At least this one isn’t anyone’s relative,” Usopp muttered darkly, head pillowed on the throne of Nami’s thighs; truly, insult to injury.
“Or likely ever to end up in our pantry,” Robin mused. “One has to be thankful for small mercies, wouldn’t you say, Sniper-san?”
A large drink appeared in front of him on the table, followed by a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. He’d kill Usopp later, he thought.
“For what it’s worth,” Shakky said, as he gazed miserably up at her, “I’d climb Trafalgar Law like a tree too.” And then, with a conspiratorial wink, she sauntered unhurriedly back to the bar, where Luffy had finally collapsed into a blissful food-stupor, flourishing and utterly unbothered by all lurid mention of his brother’s sex life. Oh, to be so innocent, Sanji thought, downing his drink in a single, fatalistic motion.
#
On the other side of Sabaody, in the relative safety of a deliberately crew-less submarine, two supernovas lay sprawled side by side on a bed too small to comfortably accommodate them both; sweat-sheened and panting, basking in the combined satisfaction of having wrecked both a small squadron of marines and, subsequently, one another.
Law shamblesed a washcloth from the bathroom, propping himself lazily up on his elbows; squinting down at the sticky mess of his abdomen with an exasperated sigh. “Every fucking time,” he said, wiping himself down as Eustass looked on, indolent in his satiety. “You know, I never once said you have to pull out.”
Eustass shrugged. “I like it that way.”
“You just like inconveniencing me.” Dropping the cloth off the side of the bed. He’d deal with it later. Fighting and fucking back-to-back had just about left him running on empty.
“Quit bitching.” Eustass slung a lazy arm over his forehead. His pale skin was flushed, still; the purpling moat of Law’s teeth imprinted in a dozen different places, which pleased Law perhaps more than it should have. “Don’t seem to recall you telling me to stop.”
“Yeah, well. It’s been a while.” Law collapsed back onto the bed. The not-unpleasant burn of thighs which hadn’t been propped up like that for far too long. Bruises in the shape of Eustass’ fingers splayed like a sunburst over the crest of his hipbones.
Eustass snorted. “Yeah, well whose fuckin fault is that?”
“I’ve been busy.” Which was true, but Eustass seemed to take it personally that Law wouldn’t drop everything and divert the Tang every time he wanted his dick sucked. “And before you start bitching at me, I feel the need to remind you that you only showed up this time because you thought you’d get to kick the shit out of Scratchman-ya.”
Eustass smirked. Savage. Too many teeth. “It’s not always about you, Trafalgar.”
“Likewise.” The bed felt claustrophobic all of a sudden. Law got up, swinging long legs over the edge of the bed; sifting through the miscellaneous debris strewn across the floor for his boxers. He found them hanging from the ceiling fan. Pulled them down with a tut and switched the fan on. You could never really air the smell of sex out of a submarine, but he considered it a courtesy to at least try. Thank the gods he’d given the crew pocket money and sent them out into town.
He felt Eustass’ eyes on him as he dressed, ever hungry. “Never thought I’d see the day you’d step in to help a rookie,” he said, propping himself up against the headboard. “What’s your interest in that crew?”
Law affected a scowl. “Can’t a guy just be fuckin nice for once?”
“Not when it’s you.”
All right. He’d have to concede that one. “The kid punched a Celestial fucking Dragon, Eustass-ya. You can’t buy that kind of entertainment. Least I could do was make sure they got out of there in one piece. Who knows what other wild shit they could get up to?”
“Oh yeah, who knows? Maybe they’ll draw the Admirals’ attention and get us all fuckin killed.”
“Since when were you afraid of Admirals?” He turned, taking in Eustass’ glower, and there weren’t many people in the world who could manage ‘bitchy’ and ‘stark naked’ quite as well as he did. “You’re full of shit, Eustass-ya. As I recall, you were the one who offered to take the marines out first.”
He rolled his eyes. “On my fuckin own. I wasn’t gonna let you take all the glory, but you never could help yourself. Anyway, it’s been a while since I had a good fight.”
“Yeah, well I guess we both had frustration to work out,” Law muttered; scanning the floor once again, sorting mentally through Eustass’ discarded clothes and frankly unreasonable number of weird accessories for a glimpse of his hoodie. It was fucking yellow. How did you lose a yellow hoodie?
“Which one was it?” Eustass asked.
Law frowned. “Which one was what?”
“The Strawhats. One of them must’ve caught your eye.” He fixed Law with sharp eyes; curious, and apparently unperturbed by the possibility. His possessiveness lasted exactly as long as it took him to come, and dissipated just as quickly. He’d always liked that about Eustass.
He raised an incredulous eyebrow. “You think I helped them because I wanted to fuck?”
“You don’t do nice things for no reason.” Eustass gave a crooked grin. He always thought he had Law all figured out. If he had a beri for every incorrect assumption Eustass ever made about him he’d be able to buy the fuckin one piece by now. “They must’ve had something you wanted.”
“Like I don’t already have dick on tap?” He snorted. “Some of us understand the benefit of making allies. That’s all.” He gave up on the hoodie. Perched on the edge of the bed, glancing at Eustass over his shoulder. “But I’ll entertain this line of questioning, since you clearly think you know me. So shoot. Which one do you think I’m into?”
Eustass mused on this for a second. “Well, you ain’t into women,” he said, with absolute certainty – another fuckin beri for the one piece fund, Law thought, but said nothing – “And I know you’re into some freaky shit but even you’d draw the line at skeletons and cyborgs. Straw Hat ain’t your type. So…I’m gonna say the swordsman.”
“Interesting. Show your working.”
He shrugged. “Huge tits, runs around with his shirt open, looks dangerous. Also definitely into dudes.”
“You just described yourself, Eustass-ya.”
A bark of laughter. “Maybe you have a type.”
“Or maybe you are an exception.” He ran his eyes over Eustass’ bare chest, the thick musculature. The constellation of bitemarks tattooing him from neck to thigh. There was a lot of Eustass. It worked for him, in a way it didn’t for people who weren’t Eustass. “If I wanted a titfuck I’d just call you. Try again.”
Eustass looked nonplussed. “You ain’t leaving me many options.”
Law rolled his eyes. “If I were into any of the Straw Hats – and this is purely hypothetical, by the way – if you held me at knifepoint and forced me to pick, it would be Blackleg-ya.”
“Blackl- wait, the fucking cook?” He sat upright. A kind of mildly appalled incredulity, as though this were the worst possible choice he might have made, including the goddamn tanuki.
“The fucking cook,” Law agreed. “How many ship’s cooks have you heard of with a bounty of 77 million? It’s interesting. He’s interesting.” And pretty, and blond, with legs for days, he did not add; Eustass would only roll his eyes. “I saw him fight back there. By all accounts, he’s perceived as a non-combatant. But he was on the front line right alongside the swordsman and Straw Hat-ya. Kicks like a fuckin mule. I’m telling you. He’s not an average cook.”
“Holy shit, Law. You sure you’re only hypothetically into him?” Eustass’ eyebrow had arched so high it had almost disappeared into his hairline.
“I’m not going to go chasing after him, if that’s what you mean.” Ah, he thought, spotting his hoodie half-buried under Eustass’ coat; bending at the middle to snag it from the pile, leaning halfway off the bed. “But if the opportunity ever came up…”
He felt warm hands on his waist. Sharp fingers pinching, tugging him back; he let out an indignant growl as Eustass hauled him up, manhandling him until he was sprawled on top of Eustass, meeting him scowl for scowl, as much as one could scowl when trapped between the naked thighs of a man you’d recently fucked stupid. “You’d snap him like a fuckin twig,” Eustass said, almost approvingly; he ran a hand down Law’s back, pausing at the curve of his ass, such as it was, though Eustass had never complained.
Law smirked. “Be a nice change, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, whatever.” He tugged urgently at the waistband of Law’s recently-replaced boxers. Law made a show of disgruntlement, which was undermined somewhat by the fact that he was already half hard. “I’m bored of this,” Eustass said, with finality; raking his nails down Law’s thighs in a way that made him shiver. “Let’s go back to the bit where you were gonna titfuck me.”