DANCES WITH DEVILS

Chapter 1: Luck of the Devil

"Is everybody hanging on tight?" asked Franky, as a giant bird from a faraway island blocked the sun overhead and cast a deep shadow over the assembled Marine vessels.

"Ready when you are!" Nami gave the okay from the helm.

"All right!" The ship began to thrum and vibrate. "You're about to taste the romance of a SUPER cyborg for the first time, and it's going to blow your tops! SUPER COUP DE BURST!"

Luffy stretch-hugged his comrades close to his side, gums flapping so violently he was forced to gulp down balloon-fulls of air, and little Chopper flew into his mouth, stretching out his head so it seemed like he had antlers.

"GRRRMM!"

"Nami!" wheezed Usopp, whose face was smushed uncomfortably close to Luffy's crotch since he flew into Luffy's arms upside-down.

Nami nodded and clambered up over Brook to slap Chopper out of Luffy's throat.

Brook opened his mouth, doubtless to wax lyrical on the splendid serendipity of Nami's panties, but Zoro gave him a stoical glare: the last thing we need is an agitated Nami.

"Pah!" Chopper emerged, gasping for breath in Nami's hands. "Holy...What have you been eating, Luffy!" he spluttered.

"Shishishishi. Oh you know, tiger meat, gorilla meat, leopard meat, crocodile meat... uh... did I say gorilla meat?"

Usopp's nose twitched. "Stuck on an island of nothing but wild animals, eating nothing but meat, and never taking a bath. I guess that explains that mystery."

"His stench isn't bothering you, is it, Robin-chwan?" huffed Sanji, who, regrettably, was back-to-back with her in Luffy's arms.

Robin was typically inscrutable, but from the look on her face she was none too fond of the current situation. "Franky, when are we going to level off?"

Franky was frantic pushing buttons and toggling switches at the wheel as Sunny sailed across the skies so fast, the Junior Division of the Saobody Marine Detective Corps would spend grueling nights interrogating a mindless Pacifista over his involvement in the second suspicious escape of the Straw Hat Pirates from the archipelago before they would be debriefed in full by the top brass.

"Right about now!" he yelled over the rapid whooshing, and indeed the ship was reaching the apex of its trajectory.

"Great job, Franky!" Luffy enthused. The future Pirate King launched his neck over to one side and sank his teeth into the railing so that he may survey the great waves of freedom. "This is so awesome!" came his muffled cry of joy.

"All in a day's work," Franky grinned. "Or two years' work, I suppose. By the way you can let go of everybody now."

"Oh. Yeah." Luffy relinquished his death grip hug, to a chorus of relief.

"Amazing!" cried Brook, clasping together his bony phalanges together in awe. "Gorgeous! That sun! It's so close I could-"

"Get a tan?" Chopper interjected.

"…Cure my rickets!" Brook came up with a new punchline on the fly. "YOHOHOHOHOHOHO! Skull jooooke!"

Sanji watched the smoke of his cigarette whip away behind him. He too had missed that stupendous sensation, of flying recklessly towards the sun, just like that kid in that storybook who dreamed too big. He didn't know if he was lucky, to be a pirate for whom blasting off at breakneck speed for miles above the crashing blue had been commonplace enough to get nostalgic over. But he did know one thing: he would have to hold the hair over his right eye now, lest the wind expose his… ahem.

"Not for nothing, but this is quite some ship you've built here, Franky," said Sanji. "She's so sturdy. I feel like I can rely on her no matter what."

"Yeah, it's not bad at all," said Zoro, in a rare moment of agreement. Which he ruined in no time with: "I bet I could slice it up though."

"She's Adam Wood, baby." Franky affectionately patted his ship with his huge cybertronic hand, in between bouts of guzzling cool fizzy cola. "Aaaaah. No other material like it. Not even crashing down from this high up will put so much as a scratch on her SUPER hull. So you can forget about your smacking your silly sticks against Sunny having any effect-besides exhausting those wimpy little arms, of course." Franky popped off his sunglasses and grinned at Zoro provocatively.

To which Zoro, without a word, picked up Franky and began to do curls with him. Naturally the whole crew exploded into a frenzy of laughter.

"Bye everybody!" screamed Usopp, holding on to his hat and waving sayounara over Sunny's stern. He knew full well Heracles couldn't hear him, as they were all already out of sight… but he waved anyway. Chopper soon joined him.

"Robin-chwan, could you conjure up an eye in the aquarium? I forgot how many salmons I managed to keep alive in there." Back on the job after two years, Sanji felt as natural as ever, and was already thinking of dinner.

Robin closed her eyes. "Seven," she said. "No, eight."

"And… how pink are they?"

"…Not very."

"Shit. I knew it was too manly in here, what with this idiot walking around like he's the king. Of Retardia," he clarified, pointing at the marimo. Zoro ignored this.

"A fish that loses its flavor…"

"…Based on 'manliness,' yes."

"Where on earth?" Robin started.

"So what else would you like for dinner, Robin-chwan?" said Sanji, desperate to change the subject. "I've still got tons of—"

"If you'd just let me go fishing earlier, I could have carried aboard a way bigger haul than you've got stocked in the aquarium," said Zoro, unruffled.

"What is it with you and fishing all of a sudden, is it because you're a marimo or–"

"FOOD!" Luffy zipped towards Sanji so instantaneously he could have sworn he'd shifted gears for a split second. The drool cascading down Luffy's chin at the stimulus of the word "food" escaping Sanji's lips rather flattering… if gross.

"Luffy, Luffy, Luffy," he shook his head. "Now that I've honed my culinary skills, I'm going to have to cook with more finesse than ever. That means no slobbering over my workplace and absolutely no touching ingredients as they're being prepared. Is that 100% clear?"

"Sure! Now let's GO! Ugwa!—"

Sanji held Luffy back by the collar. "I don't believe you."

Luffy pouted and scrunched up his fists, imploring: "But I understand now! Two straight years without your food… I'm dying for it, Sanji! Make me some meat NOW!" Luffy decreed. "Please!" he added, as an afterthought.

"Then do you promise not to inhale my dish in two seconds?"

"Yeah, no problem!"

Sunny had reached the zenith of her trajectory and she would soon begin to drop down. Before they knew it, they would be touching water once more. Sanji used the temporary lull to light another cigarette, while holding Luffy by the chin.

"Let me rephrase that," he said sternly. "Do you solemnly promise not to inhale it in under two seconds? No, Luffy, look me dead in the eyes and say it. Say it. Ehm, dead in the eye," he corrected, patting down the hair over his right eye some more.

Luffy looked him dead in the eye and took a deep breath. He could do this. His brows furrowed. Sweat began to drip from his every pore, and he gleamed shinier than in Gear Second.

"U-Usopp, I need you to tell Sanji something!" he shouted, hands cupped over his mouth.

But Usopp just doubled over guffawing at Luffy's utter inability to lie.

"Wind's sort of weird today…" said Nami, more intuitive than ever. "Sunny's going to careen starboard, so move to port, everyone!" she ordered.

"We'll be heading inside, Nami-swan. All right wise guy," said Sanji, now grasping Luffy by the cheek, "I'm going to teach you how to savor your meals. Let's get to the kitchen and pound some manners into this meat head of yours. I'll bring back some snacks, everybody!"

"I'm so glad you're the real Sanji!" Luffy beamed. "That other one was boring." He nodded sagely. "And he smelled like bad perfume, yuck."

Sanji started up the stairs, carrying Luffy in tow. "This ought to shut your mouth. Actually come to think of it I ought to sew your mouth shut between meals…"

"Whoa, you know how to sew now?"

"…Shit."

"Shishishishishishishi!"

Mere minutes after Luffy and Sanji left for the kitchen, Sunny splashed down tumultuously, and almost sank deep enough under the surface to prematurely activate the coating mechanism. As soon as each Straw Hat's wits returned and they picked themselves off the floor, Nami set to work using her new climate baton to reinforce Sunny's jelly coating, applying just the right number of bubbles precisely as Rayleigh had instructed her. Meanwhile, Sanji got Luffy talking about Rayleigh and his training in order to distract him from the fine aroma of filet of gorilla emanating from the skillet (which thankfully triggered a nostalgic response in Luffy that outmatched even his most gluttonous urges.) It wasn't exactly actively teaching Luffy to keep his grubby hands off, but Sanji would have to settle for even the most minimal of baby steps for now, and distracting Luffy with discussion of the good old days would suffice.

Luffy clapped his sandals in his seat. "…And that's how I got that giant cheetah to agree to fetch my lunch for me every afternoon. Old man Rayleigh was pretty impressed."

"That is pretty impressive. How big are we talking again?" said Sanji, absently scrubbing his cutting board under the running water of the sink.

"Little Garden big," he said, stretching his arms out a little to each side. "Strong World big. HUGE."

"Acha, the memories," Sanji schmoozed, somewhat dreamily, as he slipped on his oven mitts and knelt down to check on the various confections baking in the stove. "Come to think of it, that haki would have really come in handy back in Little Garden, considering it was essentially just dumb luck we managed to get our hands on an Eternal Pose. Otherwise we would have been stuck waiting for the regular log pose to set for an entire year, remember?"

"Oh yeah! That was the island where Mr. San painted candles and, and that little girl exploded, right? And Zoro had a tea party...?"

"…Close enough," said Sanji. The smell of the cookies was snapping Luffy back so he elaborated on to keep Luffy distracted. "And if we had been stuck there for a year, that bastard Crocodile would have become the invincible tyrant of Alabasta and Vivi would be dead. Can you imagine?"

"Huh. Wow." It was beginning to dawn on Luffy just how lucky they'd been all these years.

"Not only that, but Skypiea would have been completely decimated by that humongous thundercloud had that psychopath Eneru decided to fly off and deliver that lovely final hurrah before we arrived. Forget a desert kingdom, two whole civilizations, just annihilated, with nary a trace of their existence surviving-not to mention the good name of Montblanc never cleared. And you were the only guy who could stop him! Just think about that. Makes me wonder how many more people we could have saved from various calamities if we had still been streaking across the Grand Line these two years," said Sanji seriously.

"Well, I think in the end people have got to look after themselves and their own families,' said Luffy. "Lots of times when people get beat up it was them who picked the fight in the first place; sometimes you've just to go with the flow and follow destiny. And besides, I've never wanted to be a hero anyway. I help who I want and that's it."

"I don't think I've ever heard you speak so eloquently, Luffy," said Sanji.

"It's what Shanks told me, so yeah. Actually no, that last bit was Rayleigh… uhhh… Who said what again?" Luffy regarded the ceiling and crossed his arms, a bit confused. Then the confusion rolled off as the smell of the cookies got sucked up into his nostrils. "By the way, what are THOSE!"

Sanji spun on his heels that very fraction of a second and brandished his butcher's knife at Luffy's wandering hands just in the nick of time. "They're for the others, Luffy. You just wait for your filet."

Luffy shoves his hands in his pockets and whistled unconvincingly.

"We're a family, right?" said Sanji, sprinkling light dashes of oregano on the gorilla meat with one hand and chopping onions with the other hand. "Sharing is what families do. Food. Struggles. And whatnot."

"You're right!" said Luffy; with this extremely simple insight the rubber pirate's own philosophy—which he, of course, was not aware he held—expanded significantly. "Where did you learn that?"

"Nowhere." Sanji arranged neat baskets of each batch of cookies.

"Oh come on, you still haven't told me about your two years! I know you're trying to hide something…" he said, narrowing his eyes to slits of suspicion.

"I was on a very normal island with normal folk who taught me some fantastic recipes," said Sanji. "Grilled panda shark, crabcakes a la mode…"

"Who's the liar now, huh? Idiot," said Luffy. "What about that okama who winked at you then?"

Sanji blanched. He hadn't expected Luffy to be so observant.

"Don't be a liar, like those fakes from before!" Luffy continued, almost pontificating, as though he was enjoying being on the intellectual high ground for once in his life. "Family should be honest, right? Whatever happened before, it doesn't matter now…. Unless you're a bad guy."

Sanji withered. Luffy defeated him in a battle of wits. "All right, all right, I'll share…

"You should share. Everyone should share!" Luffy jumped to his feet on the counter, hands on his hips.

"Later," Sanji promised. "Everybody will share. Now shut the hell up."

Luffy was about to say something, but Sanji ditched the plate and utensils altogether and simply pulled Luffy down and shoved the filet into Luffy's gourd. Luffy was mollified and munched with unmatched zeal for Sanji's cooking.

"I'm lucky I found you as my chef!"

"I'm lucky you're my captain," said Sanji. "Even if you're an idiot."

Luffy laughed, and then belched.