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There’s a notable difference in the rocking of the waves on a standard ship as opposed to a submarine - Law is becoming painfully aware of this, even if it’s been a little while since he was on his own ship - enough that it’s making it damn difficult to sleep, even when exhaustion is present deep in the core of his bones. Perhaps it’s the hammock, too, that doesn’t help, but he’s slept in worse places. The combination of the hammock and the waves, plus the heavy breathing of everyone else in the room, leave Law tired, slightly irritable, and pulling his long coat on to cover himself from the chill of the wind over the waves as he paces the deck.
He managed to sleep for an hour, at most, and he’s feeling the need for it as he pulls fabric tighter around himself, his deep breath of the salty air icy down to his lungs. The air is noticeably still, otherwise, not wintery in the temperature so much as the chill is thanks to it being late in the day; and Law is grateful for the solitude save for whoever the hell is on watch. Night watch is, as far as he can tell, always taken by either Roronoa Zoro or Nico Robin, both of whom are more than capable of leaving him well enough alone, able to read the tension that thrums through him and knowing that he’s not searching for company. God forbid they try to start a conversation with him. At this level of sleep deprivation, which is undeniably what he’s suffering from, he thinks he might just snap at them and tell them in no uncertain terms to fuck off.
So, he’s a little rude. They’ll have to all get used to it, for this short journey, because it isn’t as though he can easily discard all of the stress that weighs on him in favour of being polite, even if the people he’s around are now his allies.
Solitude, though, it’s nice. Something he’s granted often, even among his own crew, clingy as they are, and that he’d been given plenty of on Punk Hazard, but this is the first time he’s had an opportunity to indulge in it and relax even a little - and he has, he is, at least until he notices a faint light through one of the kitchen windows.
It isn’t the cook, it can’t be the cook, because he’s dead asleep. Law has to admit, he feels more than a little apprehensive as his feet lead him towards the door, as his hand reaches out for the handle, entirely of its own volition and without any real input from him. He half-expects to see one of the women on the Strawhat crew there, possibly the archaeologist brewing herself a late-night pot of tea, but he stops dead in the doorway when he sees the carnage inside the walls.
Kitchens can get messy, he knows this. Hell, he’s been responsible for many a mess in a kitchen, before he’d been summarily banned from making meals on his own aboard the Polar Tang, but he’d never expected the domain of someone so strict with hygiene and cleaning as Sanji to be in this state. The problem, chiefly, is that there’s a teetering and lopsided pile of dishes on the countertop, all of them dirtied and with something thick, brown, and oozing, for some damn reason. The unidentified substance is on the countertops themselves, viscous and… well, Law hesitates to use the word sloppy, but it’s the best description his brain can manage, mid-processing as it is. It certainly isn’t something that would be even remotely acceptable to one of the cooks on a crew like theirs.
(The only crew he thinks it might be acceptable on is the Kid pirates, which is mostly just saying something about how Law feels about their captain, but that’s neither here nor there.)
This substance, though, the one he hasn’t quite managed to find a name for - he suspects it might be something either sweet, given it looks like it could be chocolate, or it’s simply horrifically burned, truly is everywhere. Not only is it on nearly every surface and dish, it’s coating the hands, forearms, and face of the man standing in the centre of the chaos, looking more than a little sheepish once he realises that Law is there, witness to this.
Strawhat turns, slowly, his hat held on by its string at the back of his head, hair sticking up in every direction like he’s run his hand and, consequently, whatever it is he’s trying to make, through it. Law doesn’t envy him, because he thinks that it’s going to dry hard, difficult to get out; he thinks it’s going to dry in a way that it needs to be slowly picked out, scrubbed away. The last time he’d had to experience something similar had been the fault of Shachi during repainting of one of the outer sections of their submarine.
“Torao,” Strawhat says, almost all traces of embarrassment gone as he beams, head cocked slightly to one side. His face twists briefly into a frown, something more contemplative. “I thought you were sleeping.”
The kitchen is bright, a stark contrast to the night past the walls, and Law finds that he’s squinting a little as his eyes adjust. It’s fitting, in a way, because he’s heard stories about Strawhat, the light he carries with him - and, oh, God, but he must be exhausted, if he’s starting to think in such flowery language about a man he barely knows.
“Yes,” Law says tightly. “I was. I guess it didn’t really… stick.”
It’s easier than explaining the roots of his insomnia, he supposes, even if it leaves Strawhat looking at him like he’s a little bit insane, before laughing anyway, attention back on the bowl in front of him. The bottom is filled with a congealed and hardened mass, smeared across the sides with streaks cut through it, in the path of the spoon that sits beside it. Law would really like to know what, exactly, has possessed the other captain to do the things he has, to come up with whatever he’s been working on while left alone.
Strawhat snickers a little bit. “Franky snores,” he says, sagely, as though that’s going to be the only thing that means Law can’t sleep. In return Law nods, looking around the room pointedly. “Ah! You weren’t meant to see this. It’s a surprise.”
“A surprise.”
He could be surprised at how flat his voice comes out - but he isn’t, and Strawhat only looks slightly mortified at his being caught this way, most of the obvious emotion on his face reserved for irritation at the fact he’s been caught in the middle of whatever the hell it is he’s trying to do in the first place. Bake?
Law thinks that this might be an attempt to bake something, which has clearly gone horrifically, terribly wrong, because he can’t see any sign of something having been made, more just the residue of failed attempts.
“A surprise,” Strawhat says again, decidedly, shaking his hair out of his face where some of the loose strands have fallen to brush his forehead. “I’m gonna need to try again someday, ‘cause I didn’t get it right, but I gotta clean up…”
He trails off, clearly realising exactly how much of a mess he’s made. It’s a daunting task, Law has to agree, and he thinks it’s pity that mixes with his sleep deprivation to lower the filters and guards he’s erected around his thoughts enough to let the idea slip through in the first place; that pokes holes in his verbal filter so he can offer.
“If you need help cleaning up,” he says, “I can help. It’ll go faster with two of us, so long as you remember where you got everything in the first place.”
Part of the offer is selfish, he’ll admit, because he really doesn’t think that he has it in him to listen to the cook lecturing Strawhat about cleanliness and that tidying up after yourself is the bare minimum level of human decency, something that everyone else seems to be lacking. He’s heard enough of the man’s ranting and raving about something or other to wish to spare himself at least a little bit. The ire is most often turned on Roronoa, and the subsequent fights are loud, undeniable, and impossible to ignore. Law would much rather avoid all of that, and leave everyone unaware that they’d just visited on their own.
Strawhat looks at him with disbelief clear across his features, a badly muffled laugh escaping him. “You don’t need to do that!” he says cheerfully, reaching to wrap an arm around Law’s shoulders that he neatly and carefully avoids by side-stepping out of the path. It earns him a pout, because his ally is childish, is immature, and he offers a flat look in return.
“I like to be busy,” he says, instead of explaining the truth behind his sudden offer to help out on the ship. Like all good lies it does have some basis in honesty, at least, because Law has to admit that he does like to keep busy; it’s just that ‘busy’ usually means he finds himself keeping someone else company, letting them direct him to do whatever they need him there for. He doesn’t claim to be an expert on everything that goes on around the Polar Tang - how could he even pretend that’s the case, when he can only barely keep up with the real experts on a good day? He has no complaints about it. It’s what they’re there for, after all, or so he claims on the days when admitting how deeply he cares for each of them stings.
“Oh,” Strawhat says, then “ohhh” with an air of knowing about it that Law doesn’t particularly like. Being a guest means he can’t complain, though, and he just ducks his head instead of pulling his hat further down over his face. The gesture would be too obvious in that it’s him trying to hide his expressions, and he just shoulders past the other man to get a better look at the carnage before them.
It seems less daunting, as he breaks it down. The main problem will be removing the residue where it’s hardened onto the various bowls and dishes Strawhat had seen it necessary to use, but that’s likely just to take a good bit of elbow grease.
“Strawhat-ya,” Law says, “what is all of this in these bowls?”
Strawhat pulls a face. “You can call me Luffy now we’re friends,” he says, which Law will absolutely not be doing. “‘s chocolate. Some of it has other stuff in it, though.”
Law dreads to think what has been added, but he can guess it’s probably a fairly large variety of things, if they’re earning the description of just stuff. Vague is… fine. Exactly what he likes, in fact. It’s definitely not irritating as all hell, and taking a lot out of him not to snap at the other captain to be more specific, for fuck sake.
He’s done far harder things than a little cleaning with much less information than he has at the moment, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it.
Law rolls up his sleeves - ignores the ooh it earns him when Strawhat sees his tattoos, although he will begrudgingly admit to feeling a little smug about the appreciative way the noise is made - and folds the overhanging fabric into the tighter cuffs to hold them out of the way and ensure they won’t get wet as he cleans. It isn’t something he particularly enjoys doing, but he knows the necessity of it, and he’s been called something of a neat freak before, even if it was jokingly.
“Pass me some of the bowls,” he says, nudging Strawhat out of the way to turn There’s no need for him to be doing this, of course, no reason he should be risking the clammy discomfort of wet clothes against his skin, but he’ll do it anyway. It marks him and Strawhat as equals, in a way, the two of them doing easy, basic manual labour tasks together.
It isn’t quiet - Strawhat talks, of course, more than happy to chatter away about whatever it is that’s come to mind for him; he, apparently, isn’t sure of how to stop talking, how not to fill the silence with his own voice. Law isn’t going to complain about it at all, more than used to inane chatter he can tune out into a background hum. If anything, it reminds him of what he’s come to think of as home over the years, all too able to let voices fade into simply noise as he keeps himself busy.
“I don’t understand how you made this much mess,” he says, when there’s a natural lull in the noise, Strawhat taking a moment to breathe as the glares at a particularly stubborn spot of something that seems to have cemented itself to the bowl he has in his hands. “I mean, I’m not about to say I keep everything clean all the time Strawhat-ya, but…”
“Well,” Strawhat says, face screwed up as he scrubs - Law has to look away, mildly concerned that the bowl’s going to break - “I was trying to make snacks. Y’know how they make those little… fancy things? I don’t remember where they’re from, but Sanji made them for us before Sabaody, ages ago…”
“What, like… sweets?”
“Mm.” Strawhat sticks his tongue out between his teeth as he thinks for a few seconds. “Truffles?”
I thought that was a kind of fungus, Law doesn’t say, but Strawhat must see the lack of recognition on his face, if the frustrated noise he makes is anything to go by. “Chocolates! I thought it’d be fun!”
“Hang on, you managed to make all of this mess by trying to make chocolate?”
“Yep.”
“Did you… you said that you put… things in them?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Nuts ‘n things.”
Honestly, that explains some of the chunks of previously-unknown substances that Law’s been finding as they clean, the flashes of something lighter amidst the sticky brown. It is, perhaps, the sleep deprivation that reminds him of things from years ago - of four kids trying to stay quiet while they did similar to what Strawhat had been attempting to do in the first place; although they hadn’t been running the risk of the wrath of the chef, only an inventor who would be more likely to see the funny side in their failure.
If he remembers correctly, and he might not, given it was so many years ago, he knows how to get them to set, which appears to have been the majority of the problem Strawhat was having, if the fact everything’s still wet and, frankly, gross, is anything to go by. It’s been a while, sure, but he remembers Penguin’s directions to each of them, and how he had managed to make it all work out.
“Okay,” Law says, because his exhaustion has led him to a point where he’s beginning to make some spectacularly bad decisions, “let’s get this all clean enough to actually work with, and I’ll give you a hand.”
Something in Strawhat’s expression shifts, then, a light in the depths of his dark eyes that’s sparked and begins to shine - his smile is wide, when he turns to Law, and it strikes him very suddenly that this might not be the best idea. It’s too late to take it back and, well, it’s really all Law can do to hope that they have the stuff to actually go through with this half-formed plan.
“You’re really gonna help?” Strawhat looks excited, as if this is the best news he’s heard in weeks; it’s an expression that Law has a suspicion frequents his face, if his enthusiastic and emotional responses to everything that happens around him are anything to go by. “Ah, Torao’s the best!”
“Just remember that I’m not a chef,” Law says a little hastily. He’s not sure why reminding Strawhat of the fact is so important, but he at least needs an excuse to fall back on in the event everything goes wrong again. He’s resigned himself already to not sleeping, at least, and keeping himself busy overnight might mean any naps he takes during the day are deeper and come easier.
“Yeah, yeah,” Strawhat says, waving a hand in the air distractedly, apparently occupied with hunting for ingredients - of which there appear to be some left, the Thousand Sunny’s supplies not entirely decimated by his attempts at creation. “Torao’s a captain! But it can’t be that hard now you’re helping.”
Well.
Law doubts it, but he’s tied himself to seeing this project through, now, and he’s damned if he’ll back away from it. Sure, it might just end in another mess, but that’s neither here nor there.
It doesn’t take as long as he suspects it had taken Strawhat to get through all the basic steps, thanks to the extra pair of hands. Admittedly, Law thinks that progress is being slowed somewhat by the other captain’s insistence on tasting things; at that point, his attention has to be turned towards batting the wandering hands away from bowls and scowling at the other man until he shrinks away slightly, pouting all the while.
Pouring the melted chocolate into the moulds Strawhat had found somewhere after being banished from the double-boiler on the hob requires at least a semi-steady hand, and it’s a job Law takes on without complaint. He is a surgeon, after all. If he didn’t have steady hands, he’d probably be out of his livelihood. His crew, at least, would have a hell of a lot more complaints about his patching them up, and nothing would be neat; instead they would be uneven and sloppy. He takes more pride in the things he does than that.
“Huh,” Strawhat says, back to hovering over his shoulder and frowning at the evenly-filled tray Law’s tapping on the counter in hopes of clearing any air bubbles, “it didn’t look like that when I did it.”
“You probably rushed,” Law says as flatly as he can manage. “Because you’re impatient.”
Strawhat laughs, ringing out in the way it always does - shi-shi-shi - and doesn’t look chastised or even remotely ashamed. Law doubts that he is, really, but he sighs anyway.
“Now you have to let them cool down and harden.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.”
“Which means leaving them alone.”
“I know.”
Cleanup goes much faster when it doesn’t require scraping half-solid chocolate from counters, as it turns out, and Law has to admit, there’s something amusing about the way Strawhat’s head keeps turning towards the things as they cool, seeming genuinely pleased with them, if nothing else. The kitchen looks clean once more fairly quickly - or, at the very least, nothing seems out of place enough that there’ll be hell to pay for it. Law can only hope that they’ve put everything back in the right place, given that the kitchen is almost-exclusively the cook’s domain, and he has very little idea as to how that man prefers his organisation.
“Thanks, Torao,” Strawhat says. Law ducks his head again, hat slipping and hiding more of his face in shadow.
“It’s nothing,” he says. “Just don’t make it a nightly thing.”
Strawhat laughs once again, which is hardly a surprise with how easily, how naturally it seems to come to him, and it doesn’t fill Law with much hope that he won’t find himself caught up in another harebrained scheme to try and make food with a man he suspects would be perfectly to eat the ingredients for anything raw.
Law naps, during the day, the distant sound of the Strawhat crew and their everyday chaos fading into the background as he finds himself a quiet spot to doze in. He was right in his guess that being up for most of the night would lull him into a deeper sleep during the day and, thankfully, the childish fact of the sun chasing away nightmares holds true. He wakes a few times; once for tea, the cup offered out to him by the cook - he feels only the barest twinge of guilt at the intrusion into the man’s space last night - and again for lunch, onigiri, the fish inside salty and a little smoky. The third time is with the afternoon sun, his legs stiff from rest, imprints of Kikoku’s scabbard in his palms where he’d been clutching her in his sleep.
“Torao sleeps like Zoro,” Strawhat declares when he sees him.
“Hm?”
“Naps,” he says vaguely, and Law supposes that’s as much explanation on the topic as he’s likely to get. He knows what’s meant by it, if only loosely, and so he doesn’t push. All he does is nod, and go back to what he’s now begun to occupy himself with - staring out at the horizon, lost in thought, counting down the minutes that pass as they sail over the calm waters.
Strawhat fidgets, leaning against the side of the ship and shooting him a look that tells Law he’s half-dying to say something, but has somehow managed to master the skill of holding his tongue in the hours since they’d parted last night. It’s half-tempting to make him squirm as he waits, but he isn’t that cruel - and he had been left alone to sleep, if nothing else.
“What is it, Strawhat-ya?” he drawls, eyes flicking to the side.
“Everyone liked the chocolate,” he says, bursting out of him in a rush, as if the dam holding it all back had been leaking before the rushing wave made it through. “But not everyone got theirs.”
“Oh?”
Really, it isn’t surprising that Strawhat probably has some secret extra crew member somewhere. What is surprising is that there’s a hand being held out to him - not just a hand, Law realises after staring in slight surprise and bewilderment for a few seconds. A plate, one with something on it.
What it is takes a second for him to work out, but the sugary smell that hits him first aids him in it. The shape is lopsided and with some dents that looks like something with four legs, with other misshapen attachments that might be ears, and a tail, and…
“Are those… stripes?” Law asks, a little bewildered. “Did you - was all that mess because you were trying to make shapes by hand?”
“They’re stripes!” Strawhat says, laughing, ignoring and breezing straight past the question Law had asked. “It’s a tiger! A tiger for Torao!”
He laughs again, clearly not above making it obvious that he’s amused by his own joke. Law isn’t entirely sure what to say, now he’s taken the plate and now that he’s looking down at the wonky little creature sitting on it. The legs aren’t even, and it’s got fingerprints all over it.
Something warm is sitting in his chest, just behind the sternum, and - oh, he hates it, but Law’s pretty sure there might be a slight flush across his cheeks. It’s touching, to be thought of like this, even if the shape of the thing is based on the fact that the captain he’s allied himself with refuses to learn how to pronounce his name properly.
“Do you like it?” Strawhat asks. His eyes are wide beneath the brim of his hat, something searching in them.
“It’s - fine,” Law says.
Strawhat laughs again, shi-shi-shi, and before Law even knows what’s going on he’s gone, leaving nothing but laughter echoing in Law’s ears and the gift that he has in his hands. Unwatched and unseen, he lets a smile grow and spread across his face, clearing his throat to muffle the chuckle that tries to escape him.
The tiger stares right back at him, still sweet, still striped, and though Law might not necessarily consider himself someone with a sweet tooth - despite what some might say - he breaks off the end of the tail and takes an appreciative bite anyway, letting it melt on his tongue. It’s sweet, but not so much as to be sickly, and that heat in his chest is still burning as he turns to stare out at the ocean once again.