3. Don't Eat the Pie

Setting: Modern day mafia AU

Warnings: Implied violence, death, and cannibalism. And Sanji's mouth, I guess.

Disclaimer: If you recognize any names, terms, or concepts, that's because they don't belong to me.

It was midnight at the All-Blue, and head chef Sanji was laboring the night away. Or trying to, anyway.

"Damnit, shitty boss, you can't just come barging in here like this! I've gotta prep for tomorrow's rush!"

"But Sanji~ I'm soooo hungry! I've been working really hard, you know? Traffy can be a real stick in the mud when he's with his own family, and I had to support them for the whole week to make up for the thing last month!"

"Then maybe you should've considered not blowing up their favorite supplier lab," Sanji barked, entirely unsympathetic. "And don't touch those meat pies. They're special."

"Ah." Luffy slowly retracted his hands. "How old are they?"

"Two days. Haven't found a dick customer to foist 'em off onto yet, though."

"Mm. They're from Robin's job, then?"

"Nope, Franky ashed Robin-chan's leftovers. Those are from that shitty marimo's job. I gotta say, the only good thing about that moron is that he cuts 'em up when he brings 'em down. Less work for me, you know."

Luffy's face fell blank. "But Zoro was supposed to take care of his problem four days ago."

Sanji gulped shallowly, wary of everything he couldn't see in his boss' eyes. "…There were complications. Smoker's boys interfered in the first attempt. It's handled, though. Brook provided a distraction for a second chance, and Usopp wiped the CCTVs. Tch, but even with their help that shitty marimo couldn't keep it clean."

The chef released a silent sigh of relief when Luffy's face lit up with a grin, cheerful again.

"Nami's team's already wiped the area though, right? She's good about that. No evidence, and Zoro's okay, and the mark's taken care of. It's all good!"

"Yeah, Chopper's fixing him up now. Bullet came in from his blind spot, the moron."

"Eh? I thought this was two days ago, why didn't Chopper help Zoro right away?"

Sanji pursed his lips, watching the younger man from the corner of his eye.

"…Conflict of interest, apparently. He was busy picking bullets out of one of Wapol's Iron Bellies at the time."

"Oh, that's okay then." A pause, a glance. Shrewd. "Don't worry, Sanji, he's not two-timing. I told him to work with Wapol for now. I wanna know what mystery metal he uses in those armor vests so we can get Franky producing them."

"Yeah, that's what he said. Just wanted to, you know, confirm." He rolled his neck as his shoulders settled and he slouched forward, the nervous tension from the past two days dissipated.

"Shishishi, you should trust your nakama more, Sanji!"

"What else could we do, with you as the boss?"

"Heh, right. So is there anything I can eat here?"

"Yeah, how about a knuckle sandwich?"

Not exactly great characterizations here, but let's blame it on modern technology forcing them to be a subtler, more paranoid illicit bunch of hooligans.