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Over the years, the three people referred to as “the terrific trio” (by themselves), “the terrible trio” (by Law), “one person's worth of neurons split between three bodies” (also Law), and “the worst people I know, now go away, no not you Bepo, you stay here” (most definitely Law) have established a system. It is now one of the most important processes that keeps the Polar Tang in good working order, though it predates that craft and her crew.
The system goes like this: every morning, the three most senior officers of the Tang meet and plan the day. They do not plan where they’re sailing--Law decides that--or the course--Law and Bepo--or what’s for chow--all of them are a little pissed they don’t get to decide this more often, but their lack of skill in the kitchen being what it is, that decision rests in safer hands that haven’t given anyone food poisoning. Instead, they plan for the most important duty of all: ensuring their captain doesn’t finally snap. No, their friend.
This plan follow a three-step process for simplicity’s sake. Observe:
Step one. All personages in attendance gives a current ranking on a scale of 1-10 of how close Law is to throwing himself into the ocean, 1 being “he’s so deliriously okay that he denies ever being suicidal in his life, which is patently untrue” and 10 being “Bepo has already hauled him out of the drink three times today, can we please just tie him up already.”
Step two. If the rankings differ by two points or more, the person with that highest rank must provide their reasoning and justification, mostly to ensure that the entire team is operating on the same intel. This is often required, given that their target is a notoriously secretive bastard.
Step three. Depending on what exactly is making Law consider the sweet embrace of saltwater, they figure out how to handle it. They’re fixers. Obstacle removers. No, they can’t remove obstacles as seamlessly as Law can remove parts of your body from other parts of your body, up to and including your personality and/or life, but they’re still brutally efficient at clearing all sorts of problems in a way that Law never finds out about, even if it gets a bit messy along the way. Jean Bart’s magic stain remover recipe gets blood out of just about everything, so getting rid of the evidence is usually not a problem.
This particular meeting does not start auspiciously. The halls of the Tang are dark and silent as the rest of the crew squeezes out every possible second of shuteye before morning chow. The shadows are disturbed by Bepo anxiously washing his paws in the air, his ears low and his mouth tugged into an unhappy slash. Shachi and Penguin’s distress is not quite as visible, but those familiar with them both would notice Shaci’s occasional deep inhales followed by measured exhales and Penguin’s fingers flipping a pen around despite not having any paper in his vicinity.
All three stare at each other for a long moment. The hull creaks. Bepo’s ears droop impossibly lower. Penguin breaks the silence: “Eight.”
Shachi fires back, “Eight and a half.”
Bepo whimpers.
Penguin interprets, “That’s at least an eight.” He closes his eyes for a second. “Okay. This is a mess. How many hours to rendezvous?”
“Three.” Shachi’s glum as he says it.
This opens the dam on Bepo’s words. His paws move faster as he fretfully says, “What if he’s late! He didn’t even take a baby den-den. Maybe something went really wrong and he needs the crew now--”
“BEPO!”
Bepo ducks his head and pinches his eyes shut at the combined shout. Shachi takes pity on him and gives him a hearty slap on the back. “Come on, buck up. Law needs us, don’t you spiral on us too. Then we’re really in the shitter.”
Penguin trods unsubtly on Shachi’s foot as Bepo gives the tiniest whine. Shachi gives off the air of a glare despite his eyes being hidden, and Penguin somehow glares back before saying to Bepo, “Roci’s good at what he does. He was undercover with the Family for how many years? He can do a three day no contact intel gathering mission no problem. Probably a total snooze-fest for him. He’ll be there on time, no need to worry at all.”
Shachi finally picks up what Penguin is putting down and adds, “You think he’ll disappoint Law by being late? Fat chance.”
Bepo raises his chin and opens his eyes at that, and they all stare meditatively at each other.
“There won’t be an island left once Law’s done if Roci’s late,” Penguin says.
Cheery, Shachi says, “See? It’ll be fine!”
“It’s still an eight though… sorry…” Bepo looks a little less doom-and-gloom as he says it, so one mission accomplished.
Penguin takes command. “Okay. Strategies. Shachi, you first.”
“What?! Why me first?!?!? How about you go first if you think you’re in charge here!”
“You’re the ideas guy.”
Shachi mutters, “You only ever say that when you don’t have any ideas.” He sighs and tips his head back to stare at the ceiling as Penguin and Bepo stare at him in turn. “Fine. Okay. Survival protocol, then seven minutes in heaven?”
For those not part of the exclusive group that understands exactly what this means, a translation. Survival protocol entails quietly spreading word around the Tang that if anyone brings anything to Law’s attention that isn’t an adorable fluffy animal, they’ll be dealing with more than just Law’s wrath. All information is to flow through Shachi or Penguin, while Bepo is under standing orders to entice Law into a cuddle and/or nap at least once an hour, and the kitchen has to make onigiri to go with every meal until told otherwise. Survival protocol has been in place for many, many years, starting back on Swallow Island when sometimes Law wasn’t in his bed when they woke up and they’d find him standing out in the snow, barefoot and crying and practically catatonic with grief of some kind.
Seven minutes in heaven, however, is only six months old, as it’s tied directly to the arrival of Roci on board. It is exactly as the name suggests, although seven minutes is a rather misleading timescale. Once it took Law and Roci nearly seven hours before they emerged from the auxiliary control room, even though the door had been unlocked the entire time. Ikkaku nearly had kittens from not being able to replace a faulty relay until they were done. However, Law literally took the entire crew for ice cream after they reappeared, so its effectiveness in lifting Law’s mood to heretofore unseen levels is unmatched.
The point being, these are the two most serious protocols to be involved at the daily meeting, and yet Shachi’s suggestion receives two immediate ayes, because it’s an eight day and they need all the help they can get. Plan duly made, they disperse to whisper pointed threats in seventeen other pairs of ears before Law emerges from his fucking arctic tundra of a captain’s berth.
Preparations are complete by the time Law strides into the mess for chow, and the kitchen even had enough time to slap together a few tuna mayo onigiri. They stand innocently at Law’s empty spot, in between Bepo and an even emptier spot and across from Shachi and Penguin nearly sparkling with innocence as they pretend they haven’t noticed Law noticing the onigiri. Law stares at them for a long beat as the sound in the mess hiccups and then recovers, then up at Shachi and Penguin’s shining and innocent faces, and over to Bepo’s grimacing smile that is not exactly concealing his worried expression, and says nothing.
“Morning, captain!” Shachi and Penguin chorus.
Law makes a vague noise of acknowledgement as he sits. Despite his obvious suspicion over the onigiri, he picks one up to eat. Shachi gives Penguin a celebratory kick under the table, because they can’t exactly high-five about their plan going off without a hitch and keep Law from getting suspicious. (Law is already suspicious, being a suspicious bastard in addition to a secretive one.)
Penguin grunts and returns a less celebratory kick, and a game of violent footsie is about to break containment when Law says, “Bepo, have you plotted the course to the rendezvous yet?”
“Yes, cap’n!”
“How long will it take?”
“Seventy minutes, based on the last current report.”
“When you’re done eating, give control the course and an ETA once underway.”
Bepo opens his mouth to say something unfortunate like but we’ll arrive nearly two hours before rendezvous time, which puts the mission at risk. He immediately shuts it as Shachi and Penguin glare and a questing foot finds his shin under the table and gives a pointed nudge. Shachi tips his head to the side in a gesture not dissimilar to a raised eyebrow and mouths, well? Bepo scrambles. “Sorry-- aye-- sorry, captain! Aye-aye!” He disentangles himself from the bench and scuttles off to the control room as Law finishes his first onigiri.
Law eats in complete silence and disappears to sequester himself in his office for the next hour. That means it’s up to Shachi and Penguin to deal with everything that comes up, from Ikkaku reporting that tube one is down, again (why do they even bother to keep tube one if it can’t keep itself together? One of many questions that Shachi may never have the answer to), to the kitchen reporting that the cabbage has gone off and is making an unholy stench and what can they do about it (put it all in tube one so it can make itself useful, an idea so genius that even Shachi is impressed with Penguin for it).
Bepo sidles into the mess where Shachi and Penguin are holding court as Azarashi speedwalks out, having just received a stern lecture on how his concerns about the low levels of the chemical components used to make Jean Bart’s magic stain remover are not exactly a top priority right now. Unless Azarashi was planning on going on a bit of a murder spree, in which case cleaning up the evidence is still a lower priority than attacking his crewmates.
“We’re at the rendezvous,” Bepo says. “Am I allowed to tell captain?”
Penguin and Shachi exchange a glance. “Yeah, ‘s fine,” Shachi says. “We need you to be perpetually in his good books, or else we’re screwed. He’ll be giddy as a schoolgirl and you’ll get all the glory.”
Giddy as a schoolgirl is not the phrase most people would use to describe the thunderous expression Law has as he sweeps down the hall with Bepo bobbing along in his wake. Shachi and Penguin lurk unsubtly next to the mess door, lying in wait for this exact moment, and they both straighten and give their best approximations of a salute.
“Quit that shit, you’re not in trouble.” Law doesn’t slow down as Penguin sags with a relieved sigh. “With me.” The scramble to catch up with Law, and he has a merry little train of ducklings as he strides into the control room. Law’s barely through the door when he snaps, “Periscope up!”
The entire room waits on bated breath for the report. Penguin and Shachi exchange a glance without eye contact behind Law’s back, one that no one else can interpret but both of them know to mean Law’s showing a shocking amount of self control when we both know all he wants to do is climb up that periscope and yeet himself to shore.
“Contact confirmed!” the deck officer reports. Law doesn’t so much as twitch. “No signs of distress and giving the all-clear signal.”
“Surface and prepare landing craft.” The terse order has the control room bursting into activity. Bepo goes to leave, but Shachi makes hissing noises as he flaps his hands and Penguin makes an X with his arms. Bepo comes to a stop, gets two pairs of thumbs up, and watches somewhat forlornly as Shachi and Penguin hustle out to follow Law’s order while the surface alarm kicks on.
The landing craft is a weighty appellation for what amounts to a dinghy, and a slightly raggedy one at that. Still, Shachi and Penguin dutifully check it for seaworthiness, track down the oars (one gets regularly stolen as a poking implement, usually to recover whatever Law has shambled into an inaccessible part of the ceiling as punishment), and haul the damn thing to the aft deck doors so it can be pushed out as soon as the surface alarm stops.
The klaxons stop, leaving behind a slightly deafening silence. Shachi sticks a finger in his ear and wiggles it around as if it’ll get rid of the lingering tinnitus. “Oi, you gonna make me carry this myself?” Penguin bitches. Shachi leaves off his ear canal spelunking and helps get the dinghy ready for their departure.
Just as it splashes down in the water, Law comes sweeping out of the doors via a… well, it’s technically a walk, but there’s an air of desperation about it not normally reserved for the motion. He gives Penguin a tight nod before bodily throwing himself overboard into the dinghy, showing very little care for a man that is incapacitated when damp.
He’s jaw-clenchingly silent as Shachi and Penguin jump down with slightly more caution and take up the oars. The waters surrounding the island are too shallow on the draft for the Tang to sail on for a good half a nautical mile, so it takes a lot of fucking rowing. Shachi and Penguin are sweating as they fight the tide going out, and they’ve struggled to get a third of the way to shore when Law holds up a hand. They’re panting too hard to say anything as Law flips it palm-down and then back up with three fingers raised to Shamble away.
“Fuck’s sake!” Shachi barks. He looks over his shoulder to find-- yup, Law standing on the shore, next to someone so tall they could only be Roci. “Bastard couldn’t take us with him?”
“If we leave and it capsizes, we’re all fucked.”
Shachi elbows Penguin for his crime of being annoyingly correct for the ten millionth time. “Shut it, mister logical. Have it your way. Keep rowing.”
“Why? Captain will just Shambles them both back here when he’s ready.” Penguin’s not pouting, because that would be childish.
“Eight, remember? Last thing captain needs is to spend all his energy. So keep rowing.”
It’s only a few minutes later that the empty space on the dinghy that Penguin and Shachi face abruptly becomes un-empty. Law’s clinging to Roci like a koala--no surprise there--and thankfully Roci doesn’t lose his balance and drop two devil fruit users overboard far enough from the Tang to be a real problem.
There’s a brief, confusing moment as Shachi tries to turn the dinghy around to port and Penguin to starboard, which has the unfortunate result of the dinghy coming to a churning stop. A brief hissed argument and three rounds of janken later, they’re turned around (port-wise, thank you very much) and headed back to the Tang bobbing brightly on the swells. The wind’s on their side in this direction, as is the tide and the current, so it’s much easier rowing, which leaves Shachi and Penguin with a few spare seconds to observe the reunion of their captain and his Cora.
They’re suspiciously quiet, enough so that some worries might emerge on the part of the other parties aboard. Penguin tries not to stare, while Shachi stares unabashedly. Therefore, he’s the one to notice that Cora’s lips are moving, even though the only audible sound is the waves. “Fucker has a Silence up,” he declares in full confidence that he can’t be heard.
“Probably for the best,” Penguin says pragmatically. “I don’t want to hear what they’re saying to each other.”
Shachi thinks about that and decides that he agrees. This is the longest that Law and Roci have been separated since Roci joined the crew, and surely there’s a lot of pent-up, uh. Pent-up-ness going on in the other half of the dinghy. “We’re lucky they both still have pants on, really.”
Penguin’s timbers are shivered at that. They row in silence until they’re about a cable length from the Tang, which is abruptly broken by Law saying, “As soon as we’re on board, Shachi, sound a dive alarm. Penguin, I need you to work with comms to distribute a message to our allies.”
Shachi yelps in surprise at the abrupt return to audible speech from the rest of the dinghy; he can see the shit-eating grin on Roci’s face, and he knows he’s being laughed at. “Would it kill you to warn a guy first?!”
“Yes,” Law says. His face is still hidden in Roci’s chest, but the flat tone adequately communicates the unimpressed expression surely pressed into the rather grubby and unhygienic fabric of Roci’s disguise.
“Aye-aye,” Penguin says, to save their bacon, and they both should’ve expected what happened next. Alas, they did not.
“WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT WARNING ME?” Shachi shrieks as the dinghy, Shambled out of the ocean to balance perfectly on its keel on the Tang’s aft deck, concedes to the re-establishment of gravity, lists to one side, and dumps them all ungracefully onto the boards.
“Dive alarm,” Law reminds Shachi sourly.
Shachi cusses under his breath, scrambles to his feet, and starts running.
The next several hours are best described as chaotic and more thoroughly described as a complete assfucking of unlikely coincidences coinciding to create a perfect storm of hell. The next step in the terrific trio’s plan was supposed to be seven minutes in heaven. Instead, it’s turning out to be a fucking eternity in hell.
Penguin makes the first attempt; he tells Law that there’s something going on in the auxiliary control room that he should check out, and oh why doesn’t he take Roci with him, and shuts the door and leans on it. Unfortunately, a heavy fist immediately starts pounding on it because there actually is something going on in the auxiliary control room that should be checked out, namely, a short that immediately plunges half the sub onto emergency power. Once Ikkaku and her engineers are corralled and sent in, Law and Roci emerge with something approaching sex hair, but from electruction. Apparently.
Bepo tries next by telling them to go cross-check Roci’s intel against the nav maps while he’s in the control room assisting with the dive. Unfortunately, they all pass the control room on the way, so Law is right there when the dive alarm cuts over into a contact alarm, and the comms officer yelps loudly enough to be heard in the hall, “Marine chatter intercepted!”
So that happens. Shachi’s teeth are grinding the entire time, because Law’s teeth are grinding too, loud enough that it can be heard from four paces away. But there’s no time for it, not in the midst of a mad scramble to evade three Navy frigates armed with torpedos while limping along with half their systems down while--oh, great, Roci’s intel is also extremely time-sensitive as well as sensitive-sensitive, so only he can attend to dealing with it, leaving Roci at one end of the Tang in the comms office and Law at the other in the control room.
They get away from the frigates, but not unscathed. A lucky shot from the Navy clips the primary engines, so half the crew, Shachi and Law included, end up in the engine room dutifully following Ikkaku’s strained orders. She’s pulling out every trick in her book to keep the primaries going, because if they default to backup, the Navy will be blowing them to Skypeia inside of half an hour.
Bepo comes crashing in with his ears flat to his skull to yank Law away because their heading got fucked for some reason. Then there’s an alarm for tube two going the way of tube one, and Ikkaku’s still got her hands tied up barely holding the engine together, so Law and Shachi and Penguin end up in the missile room. There isn’t even time to think up a new excuse to try to get Law and Roci trapped in a closet somewhere, because they’re all just holding onto their butts and hoping they make it out of this one alive.
When Law’s sprinting back to the control room because there’s no senior officers on the bridge and something has happened requiring an officer, Penguin grabs Shachi’s boilersuit and shoves him backwards down the hall into the map room, where Bepo’s muttering frantically to himself.
“This is a shitshow,” Penguin declares.
“Hear, hear,” Shachi says. “Can we get back at it before we go from submarine to sunken ship?”
“Shachi! Don’t wish ill on us!” Bepo’s lips tremble, and the whites of his eyes are visible; he’s not doing well at all, definitely at least an eight as well if he isn’t even saying sorry after scolding someone.
“Sorry. But seriously, if we don’t get Law and Roci alone soon, one or both of them is going to explode and that’ll be the end of the Heart Pirates.”
“I don’t think we have seven minutes for them to spare, let alone seven hours.”
Shachi points at Penguin. “Stop being all reasonable and shit!” he cries. “Law needs us! Didn’t we promise we’d be there for him? Today, that means making sure he gets time alone with his boo! He needs his wingmen and we’re failing!”
“I told you to stop calling Roci captain’s boo,” Penguin mutters.
“My point still stands, dammit!”
Bepo moans, low, with his paws over his head, to distressed to even form sentences.
“Shit,” Shachi and Penguin say in tandem, and then still in unison, “Sorry.”
“I’ll deal with the lovebirds. You take charge until I can get back to help,” Shachi tells Penguin. He doesn’t even wait for confirmation before turning and sprinting out into the hall. Not for the first time, Shachi wistfully dreams of how much easier his life would be if he could open a Room like Law and immediately find whatever he needs. Unfortunately, he’s left with the tedious reality of scrambling around the ship, asking if Law’s been seen lately, and retracing his own steps a million times.
He finds Law with his entire face, too distracted by looking through half-open doors to notice that he’s on a collision course. Law catches him as he bounces off Law's stupidly muscly chest and drags him back down the way he came. “Shachi, come with me so you can help me--”
Shachi digs his heels in and yanks Law to a complete stop. “No!” he shouts. It’s unusual enough that Law freezes and then turns to look down at Shachi.
“What?”
“I said no,” Shachi says desperately. He’s fully out of options and taking his life into his hands with this one, but fuck it, they’re Law’s crew and sometimes that means doing their best for a captain who’s avoiding what he needs. “I will take care of whatever it is. You are coming with me.”
This is apparently so shocking that Law follows without a single protest as Shachi hustles them both down to the comms room. When he slams the door open, Roci’s head jerks up to stare at them, not in alarm but in a stone-faced threat assessment that relaxes when he clocks Law.
Shachi’s looking around the room, and--ah, just as he remembered. Good. He points at the door on the left wall and says, “If you both do not get in that closet right now and do--whatever, and for the love of all things holy do not give me any details--for at minimum seven minutes, so help me, I will attempt to force you both in there myself and nobly fail against you violent freaks of nature.”
This is met with consternated stares. Roci asks, “What’s so important about the closet?” like he doesn’t want to get his damn rocks off with Law.
“Nothing!!!” Shachi’s going to murder them both. Screw being a wingman, he’s ready to be a pallbearer. The absolute lengths he’s going to for these two, and they are not just wildly underappreciating his effort but not even understanding it--!
“Then why--”
Shachi whirls on Law before he can get any further into his stupid-shit question. “Because,” Shachi says, threatening, and Law’s head jerks back in surprise, “I am not an idiot! I mean, I am,” he amends, because he knows better than to try to have that argument with Law again, “But in this case, I am not. I know both of you are being all gross and full of squishy feelings that you haven’t had any time to do things about. You’re about half an hour away from needing a serious attitude adjustment, and I remember what happened last time you were a little baby bitch to the crew.” Law’s eyes drop to the ground briefly, confirming that he also remembers how he snapped at three separate members of the crew in quick succession and caused a minor ruckus until he apologized. With cake. “So if you don’t get in that closet and let Roci fix your damn attitude, we’re going to have to munity until you get laid and then collectively scrub the horrifying memories from our brains.”
Roci makes some kind of a noise behind Shachi, but when he whirls around, it’s to find a perfectly neutral expression staring guilelessly at Shachi and Law behind him.
“Shachi,” Law says lowly, and fuck, that’s the voice, that’s the bad voice, Shachi is so screwed, “Have you forgotten that I’m your captain?”
“Absolutely not!” Shachi says as he turns back, and then amends at Law’s narrow-eyed stare, “I mean, absolutely not, captain!”
“Then why exactly are you managing me, if I am the captain and you are my subordinate?”
Sweating, panicked, and fully out of options, Shachi fucking goes for broke. “Because you like to think you’re immune to Roci being away, but we all can see that you’re not!” There’s another muffled sound from Roci, but Shachi is so focused on the roaring in his ears and how he’s counting down the seconds until Law stops his heart once and for all. He hopes Penguin will settle his affairs for him adequately. At the very least make sure he gets a nice grave and some flowers for the sacrifice he made for the entire crew. “So get in that fucking closet, captain, and start fucking!”
That’s it; Shachi has signed his own death warrant. Bepo’s usual strategy of closing his eyes, covering his head, and holding his breath is all Shachi has left, so he does it. It takes everything he has to not start moaning about his own imminent demise, but he manfully does his best to retain what little dignity he has left before he’s cut down in the prime of his youth, reducing the terrific trio down to two.
“Fine,” Law barks, short. “If you insist.”
Shachi winces, and--wait, what?
“Aww, your crew is looking out for you, Law!” A hand slaps Shachi’s back so hard it throws him to his knees. “Whoops,” Roci says, cheery, in the way that Shachi still hasn’t figured out if he’s actually sorry or if he’s just fucking around. “Up you go!”
Giant hands hook under his armpits, and Shachi flails with a shriek. Suddenly, all those times he laughed at Law thrashing in the air and yelling are a lot less funny than they used to be. Roci lands him on his feet mostly successfully and says, “I’m not fitting in that closet, though. Is it really only there for fucking? A fucking closet?”
“Out, Shachi,” Law says, low and threatening, and Shachi flees.
He runs directly into Penguin, who says, “Oh, is captain in there? I need to--”
“No you fucking don’t,” Shachi says as he grabs Penguin’s boilersuit and drags him down the hall.
“But it’s important--”
“Important enough to interrupt seven minutes in heaven?”
“Oooooh,” Penguin says, and then, “Oh! You did it!”
“Damn right I did,” Shachi says, because he’s proud of himself. “And captain didn’t even murder me a little.”
“Captain thinks revenge is a dish best served cold,” Penguin observes.
“Come on, don’t say that!” Now all Shachi can think about is his imminent demise once Law gets un-pent-up, his rocks off, and whatever other euphemism applies for the legendary fucking occuring in the comms room, and decides it’s time for a little light murdering in the afterglow.
Said demise becomes more imminent and less delivered by Law as the Tang shudders ominously and the surface alarm starts. “Shit!” they cry together, and off they run to the control room to solve the next problem so captain can have his seven minutes in heaven.
---
(“It’s sweet that your crew looks after you,” Cora murmurs to Law.
“Meddling bastards,” Law says after a kiss, and it’s followed by the long hiss of a zipper being pulled down.
“We can stop, if you--ungh!”
Law’s mouth is too occupied to speak for a moment. He pulls off with a slurp just long enough to cough out, “I’m not stopping.”
“Can we at least go somewhere more comfortable? My knees can’t take this shit, Law.”
“Then don’t get on them.”
There’s a skeptical silence. Cora breaks it. “You sure about that?”
Law grumbles, annoyed, and says, “No.”
“Let’s go. You can always Shambles us back once we’re done if you want to keep up the illusion. I still can’t believe they thought we stayed in there for seven hours--”
“I can. They’re a bunch of ignoramuses.”
“Be nice. They’re making sure you get laid right now.”
“And you’re doing everything you can to prevent that. Now shut up. Room. Shambles.”
The contact alarm echoes through the now-empty comms room.)