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Three men and a dog sit round a fold-up card table in a small apartment. The man with DEATH tattooed on his fingers shuffles a ratty deck of cards.
"We're in," Law says, starting to deal out the cards. "Beach trip to the Vinsmoke's private island, which coincidentally is where they host their private servers."
"Coincidentally," Shachi echoes with a huge grin. "Not like you were dating a Vinsmoke the last few months aiming for it."
"Give him some credit," Penguin says, taking the cards as they're dealt, glancing down at them before keeping them face down on the table, gloved hand protectively over them. "The only other thing he puts that much effort into is ROOM."
"Haha yeah. 'S still for ROOM, though."
ROOM. The reason they were all squeezed into a too-small apartment, working 16-20 hour days. The operating machinery would revolutionise non-invasive surgery and diagnosis, but the kind of data they need to feed the algorithms that calibrate it are only something a biotech-pharma giant would have.
Biotech-pharma giants like the family-owned corporation, Germa 66.
"Invitation is on behalf of Sanji, to one master Donquixote?" Penguin asks conversationally.
"Plus three," Law confirms, nodding to each place at the table as he dealt the last round of cards. "One hacker, one lookout, and one smuggler."
They all laugh, even the Samoyed, Bepo, whose pink tongue lolled out of his mouth as he smiled brightly.
"So," Shachi says, "is Bepo the smuggler or the lookout?"
"Either, but if I let him be both, then I'd have to leave you behind," Law jokes. "Why? You have a preference?"
Shachi makes a face.
"When you say smuggle, do you mean—" Shachi points down his own throat. Law snorts.
"If you feel like going through your own shit, do it on your own time. I was planning to hide it in Bepo's microchip."
Law pats Bepo, over the thick white fluffy fur of his neck, just over where his microchip was. The movement shook Bepo's bright orange collar so it jingled.
"Yeah," Penguin agrees. "No-one thinks to check the dog's chip. Most of the time, the chip wouldn't be big enough to contain that kind of volume in the first place."
"Even this one isn't. We'll train the AI there and be selective about what we take back." Law points out.
"I think we're missing the most important point," Shachi says, tone serious and they all turn to look at him and he has a shit-eating grin wide on his face. "Hullo, free beach getaway on a private island? That's sweet. I ain't been to a beach in forever."
They all laugh and continue the game in earnest.
Later, when folding up the card table to put to the side so there's enough room for Penguin to lay his mattress down on the floor, and Shachi is in the shower, Penguin puts his head low so the brim of his ever-present hat nearly brushes Law's beanie.
"You gonna be okay, boss?" he asks lowly.
Law startles, looks at his friend.
"Where did that come from?" he asks instead of answering. Penguin's dark eyes are earnest in the shadow of his hat and they meet Law's for a long moment before he averts them, looks back down at the folded card table like it actually requires his attention.
"Sanji's a good guy," Penguin says, talking sideways like he always does when he's trying to avoid starting a fight. Law feels on edge anyway. "We like him, y'know."
Sanji. After seeing him for several months, courting him, gaining his trust, Law couldn't avoid him spending time with Law's closest friends. It was unfortunate that the person he'd used as an in was actually decent.
"ROOM is important," Law says defensively and thankfully, Penguin drops the issue.
Sanji picks them up at the coast in a speedboat to bring them to the Vinsmoke's private island. It looks like a travel brochure cliché. Vast blue skies, deep blue sea, golden beaches and palm trees.
A trio of jetskis zoom past, sending a sheet of cold saltwater into the speedboat, turning only at the very last moment, dangerously close. Sanji's brothers, shirtless and in swim trunks and life jackets and sunglasses, laughing as Bepo barked at them.
Sanji frowns and Law goes to put a hand around his waist.
"Want me to do something about that?" Law asks, glaring through his sunglasses at the jetskis circling round to come back and harass their little speedboat again.
Sanji snorts but gives him a little sideways smile.
"What can you do from here?" he asks rhetorically. "You sink when you hit water."
"I can swim," Law protests.
Sanji's ribs hitch under Law's hand as he stifles a laugh.
"Law," he says, turning fully to grin brightly in Law's face. "What you do? Isn't 'swimming'. It's 'not drowning'. Barely."
At this, Shachi breaks into laughter and Penguin hits him, but then doubles over laughing as well. Even Bepo barks, smiling and Law pouts.
"Watch where you're driving this thing then, so you don't have to fish me out of the water," Law concludes, noticing that they were approaching the pier, rolling his eyes and detaching himself from Sanji's side to give him space to work the wheel.
"I've got it," Sanji assures him, skillfully bringing the throttle down and manoeuvring them round into a little pier. He gives Law the wheel as he hops out with the line in hand and ties it to the cleat, Shachi doing the same for the stern line. Penguin gets to work immediately, helping to lift the bags out and pass them to Sanji, and Bepo eagerly hops off the boat and races to the shore.
Law kills the engine and places the keys in Sanji's outstretched hand. Sanji pockets them with a smile, before offering Law a hand again.
"Monsieur Law," he says exaggeratedly, flourishing from his wrist to emphasise his offered hand to Law.
Law takes his hand, lets Sanji help him out of the boat, and lets the momentum swing them together, body pressed against body, and wraps his arms around Sanji, on the way his spine and the strong muscles of his back transition smoothly into the curve of his ass.
"Merci," Law replies softly, mimicking Sanji's tone, and they laugh together in the small enclosed space of their bodies. The world closed off, the sounds of the waves, the caws of gulls circling overhead, the scent of the salt sea, all of it became distant in the closeness to Sanji's cologne.
Law leans in, and Sanji's eyes are half-lidded, and—
— Bepo yelps in the distance.
They pull apart in alarm, searching the scenery for him.
On the nearby beach are Bepo and Niji, his shock of electric blue-dyed hair making him identifiable even at a distance. Law's blood rushes hotly to his face as he sees the distant figure raise his leg and kick at Bepo. From this far, Law can't tell if he made contact, but Bepo yells for help, cringing and running away, his big fluffy white form moving quickly.
"Did he just kick my dog?" Law seethes in fury and disbelief. Sanji swears, a soft "shit " under his breath and he starts towards shore, breaking into a run. Law runs after him, but Sanji is faster, long powerful steps over the wooden boards of the pier.
"Hey!" Law shouts, trying to get Niji's attention. "Hey!"
Sanji suddenly banks left and jumps off the pier, landing just where the waves push up onto the beach. The impact sends up a splash of water and disrupts the sand under the water, turning crystalline-tinted green-blue into a golden cloud.
He sprints without concern that that jump could have broken a leg — Law certainly wouldn't risk that move — and he gets between his brother and Bepo, looking every bit as furious as Law feels, and in that moment god Law does love him.
The sea breeze sweeps whatever words Sanji has for his brother away, but Niji's responding laugh is loud and contemptuous. Niji aims a kick at the sand towards Bepo anyway. This time, Law is close enough to see it happen. It's only sand on the topmost layer of fur, and Bepo dodges perfectly, still smiling. As soon as he sees Law approaching though, he starts yelping and whining and making sad faces.
"Watch it," Law cautions, coming up behind Niji, flanking him at his unguarded back. His voice is low and threatening. "I've killed a man for that dog."
Niji starts a little, surrounded, and sneers. But then, after a moment of looking at Law and then at Sanji, and then back at Law, he abruptly starts laughing.
"You must have a good lawyer on retainer if you're not afraid of saying that aloud to me," he laughs, clapping Law's shoulder as if they were friends. Law glares. "Introduce me, I could use a better one."
"Touch my dog again and your introduction will be a court summons," Law says and Niji frowns.
"Hey now, it was a joke," Niji says, dropping his hand off Law's shoulder. He backs up but still has to take the parting shot, addressing Sanji. "Your boyfriend's got no sense of humour, Sanji."
He yawns, pretending at boredom, addresses both or ambiguously one of them. "Anyway, I was in the middle of getting a drink before dinner. Have fun with your bitch."
He saunters away laughing loudly and obnoxiously, and Law has a really nice vivid vision of Niji being sliced cleanly down the middle with the pseudo-scalpel of ROOM.
He takes a breath and turns back to find Sanji crouching in the sand and dusting sand out of Bepo's fur as Bepo whines and limps. His leg is perfectly unaffected.
"There, you're alright, don't cry," Sanji is telling Bepo, who continues his Oscar-worthy performance. Law kneels as well.
Bepo holds out the paw for examination.
"You're not hurt, silly bear," Law murmurs, but he still takes the paw and examines it very seriously and after he gives it back, Bepo puts weight on it perfectly fine. "Attention seeker," Law scolds affectionately.
Sanji sighs in relief.
"I'm glad he's alright," he says. "Sorry about that." He casts a dirty look in the direction Niji went.
He goes from his crouch to stretch his legs out in the sand, and there's a smile on his face. His shirt is a very high quality white cotton, and it bounces light back up to his face. The collar frames his neck and collarbones. His eyes are not quite the same blue as the sky or the sea but something of the same kind, bright.
Law just sits back in the sand where he is, lets his eyes roam Sanji's long-limbed dancer form for a long moment before following Sanji's gaze out into the open ocean, past where the ships are docked.
The ocean air is salt and iodine, a cure for many ailments, but not the impending betrayal Law knows he will choose. He closes his eyes at the twang his heart makes at that thought. He… doesn't go into this with a clear conscience at all.
It's forecast to rain, and the clouds reflect that.
The sun bleeds a brilliant red into the sky, lighting up clouds in fiery colours — red and orange and gold— and then wreathing them in heavy purple in the north where the wind comes in from. It'll bring the storm upon them soon enough, the mistral wind.
"I love the ocean," Sanji murmurs, breaking Law from his reverie. "That's why I agreed to come on this trip, despite y'know. My family being unmitigated assholes. Between the mountains and the oceans, I'd always choose the ocean."
Law shifts in the sand, lets his knee touch Sanji's crossed ankles.
"When I was younger, I read a lot of sci-fi, still do, and there was one which had research facilities investigating animals where the researchers and zoo animal collectors lived underwater, breathing nitrogen-heavy air," Law volunteers. "I thought that'd be cool to do one day."
Sanji considers this.
"Like an aquarium?" he asks.
"Yeah, or a submarine but with clear panels to see out from. Like some 2,000 leagues under the sea shit."
"That'd be nice," Sanji decides. "Imagine the fish just swimming by."
"Yeah."
"Let's do it when we get back," Sanji suggests.
"The aquarium? Sure." Law agrees easily.
Belatedly, he remembers that he shouldn't be making promises he can't keep. Not this late in the game when he's already achieved his objective as far as Sanji is involved. It would just add to the coming betrayal.
"Obviously. It would be a little harder to get a submarine," Sanji pointed out, smiling.
"I'm resourceful," Law replies. He really is, and he's underhanded to boot. He wants this. He didn't expect how much his heart would get tangled, he never expected Sanji to be a good person, with smiles and warmth and a surprised look every time Law does him a small kindness.
Well, maybe the broken promises are okay if Law means them. Sanji is the one who probably would not want those promises to be followed through on. Law fully expects that, and is already mourning the loss to be, at least a little bit.
He is going to miss this. The smell of Sanji's cologne, too fine, too expensive for a mere cook. The silk-soft blonde hair. The scratch of someone else's stubble in a kiss. The fragrant aftersmell of cigarettes after the bitter choking ash is gone and only the sweetness of the tobacco lingers, tempting him to taste.
He'll take this as much as he can before it's gone. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow, we die. Or something like that.
He leans into Sanji's space.
"Pick up where we left off?" Law offers.
"You're going to make us late," Sanji says, but he leans in a little too.
"Let them wait," Law grins a devil's grin, he knows it makes him handsome and Sanji laughs.
"Alright," he says.
So Law kisses him.
Law and Sanji are late for dinner, but the Vinsmokes clearly didn't deem them important enough to wait to start. The soup had already come and gone, with two bowls growing cold at Law and Sanji's set places at the table.
Dinner is in a standalone gazebo on the beach, and there is a kitchen extension where the private chefs and wait-staff bustle about at the pretentious as fuck task of serving fine dining on a beach in the middle of nowhere. The silverware is actual silver and the food is very good but wastefully extravagant, featuring foam and gold leaf and truffle that costs a thousand dollars for a shaving.
Judge Vinsmoke is clearly showing off, all new money and no connections. Law already knows all this is to impress, but there is a limit. Judge can't look desperate, especially since Law is not Doflamingo. It's fine, Law excels in the tricky rules that let him be rude, to see how far they let him go before they call him on it. Law knows how to play this game. He grew up being dragged to fancy political dinners.
The Vinsmoke sons (Sanji excepted, obviously) clearly didn't get the memo. It's fine. Law gives as good as he gets.
"So, Law," Ichiji says conversationally in the lull between the third course and the fourth. "You couldn't take it either, huh. You and Sanji meet at a university dropouts club or something?"
Niji and Yonji laugh like it's a great joke, and Law smiles, all teeth and no humour.
"I knew everything they had to teach me and I didn't need the debt," Law says, affecting a bored voice and generously ignoring the obvious insults. "And I already had a sufficient network."
"The Donquixote heir surely doesn't need to consider petty debt for his education?" Judge interrupts, frowning.
"I don't need his money," Law snaps, the comment coming too close to home. Doflamingo would gladly pay and then gleefully hold that kind of debt over Law's head. It's why Law is doing all this instead of just giving the pink bastard a phone call and getting his entire startup funded tonight.
"Well, at least you're doing a proper business. A Med-MBA dropout and an Arts dropout aren't the same thing."
… And the thing is, Law is fine with people taking shots at him. He always takes the bullet for his people, in the little startup with him, Penguin, and Shachi. But for them to keep making sideways snide remarks at Sanji when Law had been the one playing this game, and Sanji has barely said a word, steadily becoming more sullen beside him… That's not fine.
Law sets down his cutlery, making a loud clank on the table and silencing the conversation like a guillotine.
"Sanji is the talent, he's the unique aspect that draws people in. You're not trying to get a bigger market, it's a different strategy. Watch, he'll be the one hiring the MBAs and accountants and whatever."
"There are a million chefs with talent," Judge frowns. "Realistically, against those odds, he won't make it."
"When the top chef in the world handpicks someone, those odds are just a tiny bit better, don't you think?" Law asks scathingly. He's about to say something even more blatantly insulting, but there's a brief touch on his arm, Sanji leaning in sideways.
"Law," he says quietly. He doesn't add, 'Stop. Please.' but he might as well have.
Law draws up short at that, anger abruptly clamped down. He looks at Sanji who glances at him, mouth a grim line as he shakes his head.
"Could you pass the salt, please?" Reiju asks. Law is obliged to stop and reach over to pass it to her. It makes him turn away, break eye contact and physically bar the conversation with an arm over the table, blocking line of sight. It's the most masterful stroke of negotiation and subtle mediation technique that Law has ever been subject to.
And that ends that conversation topic.
Later, in the room they are sharing for the night, Law has to ask, mind buzzing with Sanji just. Sitting there. Unlike any other time Law has known him, clever and bold and snarky.
"What was that?" Law asks. Sanji gave him a tired smile.
"Dinner as usual, unfortunately. Sorry about them."
"No, I know your family are a raging bag of dicks. I'm not talking about that. I mean you. You weren't yourself."
Sanji sighs and doesn't answer, elegant hands picking at his buttons as he changes for bed.
"They aren't any better than you or me, Sanji," Law continues lowly. "They might pretend they are, but no man is an island. I'm just refusing to play the game on their terms."
"'Game'," Sanji says softly to himself, shaking his head. "I know you were trying to defend me. You didn't have to do that. I'm used to it, it's easier to let it blow over."
Law takes his hand, but Sanji is still looking down.
"Sanji," Law says. "Look at me."
He waits, gently draws circles on the back of Sanji's hand with his thumb until Sanji gives a fond-exasperated sigh and looks up.
"I'm looking," he says pointedly, but Law doesn't take the pointed hint to let the conversation go.
"That was as much for me as it was for you," Law says, as gently as he can. It's even true. "You think I like seeing people talk trash about you? You think I like seeing you let them? You never allow that from anyone else. When we met you went all smarmy 'hiiii mister customer, oops my hand slipped, oh no I was just stretching my leg'."
Sanji can't help but laugh a little at that, and he squeezes Law's hand.
"It's different when it's family," he says. "But… if. If I could get away, I would. It's part of what I admire about you."
"You can," Law insists. "You're not wrong. No one is wrong for trying to survive."
"Just… leave this one to me, okay? They're family."
And suddenly, Law is furious again, because it's the same trap he'd had with Doflamingo a long time ago, elevating the people who raised him when they're just people, just mortal. He grips Sanji's hand tightly, about to argue, when the letters on his hands suddenly catch his eye. DEATH. Memento mori.
He takes a breath. He can't afford to get into this now. He has to make his difference before his time runs out.
"Yeah, alright. Sorry."
ROOM is too important.
They run the job that night.
Law takes the time to put a pillow against Sanji's side and pull the blanket up so the cold air doesn't wake him. A sliver of moonlight carves a luminous line across Sanji's cheekbone, lighting up his hair from inside to make it silver-gold. Law steals a moment, looking at him to carve the sight into memory, before quietly, quietly slipping away.
The clouds that had threatened earlier have blown in from the northern sea, and cold rain is just about to come down. It's good for additional cover and hiding their tracks, so Law can't complain. He just motions for Bepo to follow and starts jogging towards the server facility. To anyone else, it looks like a nighttime run for his well-known insomnia.
Penguin and Shachi had already gone ahead, and when Law and Bepo reach the facility entrance, Shachi is already there in a Vinsmoke guard uniform, unruly red hair tied back, sunglasses on even at night. He nods to them politely.
Law hands Shachi his raincoat, motions for Bepo to follow and walks in. He navigates the facility from the carefully memorised map and timetables, and knocks on the door of the server room. Penguin lets him in.
"Oh good," Penguin says the moment he sees Law. "I've already found the data, but you're going to have to tell me what I'm looking at here."
He slides back into his chair and Law leans over Penguin's shoulder to read and quietly give yes/no answers as Penguin works. They've been friends for a long time. Penguin's cursor hovers over something and Law already knows the question he's trying to ask, so they progress quickly and quietly. Bepo yawns but sits still like a very good boy, ears swivelling to catch the noise of any approaching personnel.
Penguin passes the device to transfer the information to Bepo's microchip, does a reading, then nods to Law. Penguin sets everything back the way it was and they wipe everything down and leave the way they came.
At the entrance, when Penguin knocks on the inside of the door, Shachi whistles low, hard to hear over the wind and the rain, now coming down in earnest. The coast is clear.
They step out and walk calmly to the nearest line of tree cover, where Shachi changes back into casual clothes and Penguin resets the cameras. The glare of his phone is painfully and alarmingly bright in the darkness.
"There," Penguin says, after a long, tense moment. "Like we were never here."
Law nods.
"'S too easy," Shachi says, shoving clothes into his backpack. "Gives me bad vibes, boss."
"Don't curse us," Penguin hisses.
"Let's go," Law says.
They make it back half-way to the beach houses in the blinding rain without incident when suddenly, Bepo stops and Penguin trips over him. Shachi walks right into Penguin and grabs him. They stumble in the sand but manage to regain their footing. Law looks round for what alarmed Bepo and then he sees.
Like an apparition, pale, on the rise of the hill stands Sanji with a clear umbrella. The umbrella does nothing in rain of this sort, heavy so it splashes up where it hits the ground, driven hard by the northern wind. He's dressed, he never leaves the house in pyjamas, but it's more rumpled which implies a hurry.
His face is cold, blank and partially obscured by the rain.
Somehow, he knows. Law is convinced of it.
"Go," Law tells his people in a low voice. "I'll see if I can talk our way out of this."
"You?" Shachi asks. "By talk I hope you mean fuck because you're shit at lying, boss."
Law hisses at him, it's not the time for jokes. "Go."
Shachi and the others hurry away, leaving him alone with Sanji. Law walks to him like a king to his executioner's block.
"You said it yourself didn't you," Sanji says as soon as Law is within earshot. He is trying for a light tone. Under the umbrella, his hair turns from gold to simple flax as the rain catches it. "I'm not wrong. No one is wrong when trying to survive."
He holds a hand out and when Law reaches a palm out, Sanji drops a couple of memory cards into them.
"These are?" Law asks.
"There are other security systems, besides cameras," Sanji says. "You couldn't have known."
Law blinks down at the memory cards getting ruined by the pelting rain in his palm, and then up at Sanji. He pulls down his hood to better see and hear, and the cold rain hits his head, runs down his neck into his collar and he shivers.
"And what do you want for these?" Law asks, stepping closer. Sanji doesn't retreat.
"I trusted you," Sanji says, instead of answering. "I didn't want anything from you except you, whatever part of you you were willing to share. Asshole."
A drop of water runs down his face, indistinguishable from tears, down his throat as he swallowed and shook his head.
"I still like you," Sanji says, voice taut.
"I still love you," Law replies.
There's a moment of just wind and cold rain on sand, and then Sanji moves.
His hands are in Law's coat. The umbrella is snatched by the wind to hit Law in the face, and then across a shin before flying away. Law looks to it and then back. Sanji is so close, so close and teeth bared.
"Don't you dare," Sanji says, voice rough and low.
"I'm sorry," Law says. "But it's true."
He really does love Sanji, his kindness, his bright smiles, his big dreams. He really is sorry that Sanji is hurt. Law would do the same all over again if he had to, but if he could have spared Sanji, he would. He doesn't say that though, it's a useless platitude and inadequate. He deserved any scorn Sanji had for him.
"What do you want from me?" Law asks a slightly different question this time. His glance flicks from Sanji's mouth to his eyes, the blue dulled grey by the dark. Sanji's fine white shirt is already soaked through, clinging to his skin fetchingly. Law's hoodie is just sodden and uncomfortable.
"The first time we met," Sanji says instead of answering, again. "What was that thing you said about the Cold War?"
Law remembers.
"The threat of mutually assured destruction was a kind of peace," he says.
"I remember thinking it made sense. Even if I hated it," Sanji says. The grip he has in Law's collar softens, changes to him just holding Law in place, fingers smoothing over the waterlogged fabric. "I remember thinking it's not so bad if I let you destroy me. If I risked destruction with you."
"You and me against the world," Law says, repeating his words from then.
"What you've been promising," Sanji agrees. "But for real this time."
Law is daring, so he dares to bring his hands up to rest chastely on Sanji's slim waist. After a moment, Sanji's hands shift down to his shoulders, no longer holding him in place, just holding him. Just holding each other in the rain, the water sapping warmth from their bodies except where their hands rested on each other, where their bodies pressed together. Law lets his head drop forward and Sanji bites his lip briefly but lets Law touch their foreheads together, and turn his head slightly, telegraphing his intent.
"Alright," Law promises and he seals it with a kiss.
===/END\===