Chapter 6: Digging The Damned Hole Deeper
"Two more pieces of WHAT? This is dumb." –Roronoa Zoro.
Law appeared in the kitchen, only to find it devoid of any life. There was, however, a mess; some shattered plates and a large pot of water boiling over on the stovetop. He flipped the stove off, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation as he went searching for the source of the cry.
Finally, he found himself in the men's quarter's where Chopper had moved the chef after whatever ridiculous incident had befallen him.
"Oi, how's Black-leg ya doing?" He asked, peering around the large humanoid form of Chopper before the reindeer poofed back into Brain Point. "I heard some yelling."
"Oh, that was just Sanji being dramatic," Chopper sighed. He adjusted the stand that held a bag of blood, which was hooked up to a catheter in the cook's arm. "He'll be alright, but he needs to stay away from females until his blood supply has recovered."
Sanji moaned, throwing his free arm over his forehead. "Stay away from women? Why don't you just kill me?!"
Law snorted, noticing that Kade's friend Jess was at Sanji's bedside. She was clutching at one of his hands for dear life, and Law thought that surely such a gesture wasn't helping his condition. He muttered under his breath about what a total idiot Sanji was before getting a good look at the man himself.
Sanji looked quite pathetic at the moment. Dried blood had left a trail from his nose, down his chin and spattered all over his otherwise crisp blue dress shirt. He looked dazed and weary, although his eye was focused on Jess at the moment and had inexplicably taken on the shape of a fucking ridiculous pink heart, so one couldn't be sure if his weakened state was actually due to blood loss or simply infatuation.
A mournful look crossed Jess's face, and she bit her lip apprehensively. "I'm so sorry, I…almost killed you…again."
"OI!" Chopper gave her cutest stern look in the history of medicine. "I said he needs to stay away from women!"
Jess looked as if she might shed a few tears. "But…but I don't want to leave him…"
"Sorry, but he needs to rest! He's lost too much blood in one day. Anything more will definitely kill him!"
Law shook his head with an air of repugnance. "I'm a doctor too. I agree with Tony-ya."
With a sigh, Jess pulled herself away from the bloodied blond man and followed after Law as he turned to leave the men's quarters.
"Your friend tried to kill herself as well. Thought you might want to know," he said in a deadpan manner, not even glancing back at her.
"WHAT?!" Jess was alarmed. "What do you mean?"
"She was exercising and she fell off of some kind of suspended ladder in the gym. She sustained a rather large gash on her arm. I patched her up, but she's supposed to be resting right now." He stopped in the kitchen to pour a glass of water for Kade. "Let's bring her this and make sure she's actually listening this time."
He finished filling the glass of water, and then without warning, he used his 'Room' to teleport the both of them back into the infirmary.
"KADE!" Jess cried out the moment she laid eyes on her best friend. "I didn't know you were hurt!"
Kade had jumped in surprise when she heard Jess's voice, having not expected anyone to just appear out of fucking nowhere. Damn, she was not used to that at all. She turned, her eyes moving from Law to Jess, and did her best to downplay the incident.
"Oh, that... Well, you know, I was just...working out with Zoro and it's really not a big deal. My hands just kind of slipped. My palms got too sweaty," she remarked with a slight cough, feeling more embarrassment creeping up on her.
Jess stepped closer, hugging her carefully. "Poor homie... But working out with Zoro?!" She practically had stars in her eyes as she thought about it.
"Yeah, and he tried to get me to use his weights. Yeah right!" Kade scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Does he really think I can lift five fucking tons, or however much those things weigh? I mean, I appreciate the vote of confidence I guess, but seriously..."
Law interrupted them by practically shoving the glass of water at Kade's face. "Drink this."
Kade blinked. "Oh..." Surprised, she accepted the glass from him and gave him a lopsided grin. "Thanks."
Jess also grinned, nudging Kade gently when Law looked away. Kade responded by making a motion as though she were fanning herself, but stopped quickly when he turned back to look at them.
"UH, SO...I heard you almost killed Sanji again," Kade said, rushing to change the subject.
"Oh, you heard about that, huh?" Jess averted her eyes momentarily, feeling her own face growing hot upon being reminded of the most recent incident with the blond chef.
Kade shook her head in mock disbelief as she teased, "Seriously, Jess, what do you have against the guy?!"
The curly-haired woman hid her face, which was becoming redder by the moment. "All I did was kiss him," she said, as if that weren't something that would turn a man like Sanji into a hemorrhaging mess. She sighed and let herself fall over backward onto the bed.
Law couldn't stop himself from rolling his eyes even if he'd bothered to try. "You really need to stop doing that," he remarked, although his tone remained apathetic. He wasn't really sure why he was still standing there, actually. Probably because the infirmary was, at the moment, the only sort of solace he could find from the increasing amount of noise outside.
Kade snorted. "Oh yeah, all you did was kiss him? Please. The man can't even look at a pair of boobs without losing half the blood in his body!" She said, prodding her with her good arm. She happened to glance up at Law just then, noting the surgeon's raised eyebrow, and immediately realized she'd made a mistake. "Ah...well anyway, that's what Nami told me," she hurriedly added.
Jess sat up and leaned in closer toward Kade, speaking in a low voice. "I had to... How long have I wanted to do that? And that really made it hit home, that this isn't a dream, you know? When I woke up this morning and Sanji was still there, I honestly thought I must have still been dreaming..." She dramatically threw one arm across her eyes and giggled like mad.
"Yeah, you're exactly the same as someone else we know of," Kade remarked in amusement.
Jess jabbed her playfully. "Man...Chopper kicked me out of the men's quarters," she said in a mournful tone. "Now I can't even see him...my baby," she pouted, letting out a long and forlorn sigh.
Law uttered a small noise of disgust, deciding that he'd much rather listen to Caesar's blathering and the Strawhat's antics than to continue being subjected to such talk. "I'm going to go," he muttered, tugging down the brim of his hat as he strode toward the door.
When the door shut behind him, Kade gave Jess a look. "Aw, damn, you made him leave with all your gross fangirling!" She made a teasing face.
Jess shrugged innocently. "Well sorry, but you know how much I love Sanji! Like I'm ever gonna keep my mouth shut about that."
"Eh, whatever, I guess...I didn't really know what to talk to him about anyway, and he's a pretty quiet person to begin with."
Jess gave her a mirthful grin. "Bet you're jealous! I already kissed Sanji twice!" She held up a peace sign as Kade scowled.
"Oh yeah, I am so jealous that you can't even make out with him without having him lose a SANJI amount of blood and then being told that you can't go near him." Kade rolled her eyes. "So what happened this time, anyway?"
"Well," Jess began, a dreamy look covering her face, "I know it sounds weird, but I convinced him to brush his teeth to see if he'd taste any better. He, of course, complied readily, not knowing my ulterior motive. He just thought it was super romantic that we were brushing out teeth together."
"He would," Kade remarked.
Jess's cheeks tinged pink again and she let out a little giggle. "So then our eyes met over the sink and I just couldn't help myself. I grabbed his collar and kissed him... Ah, it was so magical!" Stars sparkled in her eyes momentarily before she came back to earth. "And then the blood-gates opened…" She threw her hands up in the air, letting her arms come back down slowly.
Kade snorted, then let it become full blown laughter as she slapped her friend on the arm. "Good for you homie, hahaha, good for you!" She huffed out a sigh a minute later. "Man…I don't think I have much of a chance with Law…he's so hard to read in the first place. You, on the other hand, couldn't have picked and easier guy to bag."
"Hey…you never know about Law. Maybe he thinks you're hot? Maybe you could try asking him out? Not like today or anything," she added, catching the look that Kade was giving her, "but…a little later…" It was Jess's turn to sigh now. "I just can't help how I feel about Sanji, and I know this is all crazy...but the truth is, we really haven't had much of a chance to talk yet. I'm just kind of…in awe of him right now.."
Jess paced back and forth a few times in front of where Kade was resting, bringing a hand to her head. "But then I think about his track record," she continued, "not to mention what's about to happen in…" her voice lowered to a whisper, "Dressrosa."
She and Kade shared a look.
"I guess what I'm trying to say is… I know him, but he really doesn't know me. I'd like to go on a proper date once he's recovered and, you know, just spend a regular day with him... Do you think the others are going to think this is weird?"
"The others already think it's weird," Kade assured her. "I mean, to them you've known him for only a day, but by the way you're acting...they probably think you have ulterior motives."
"I don't have ulterior motivessss," Jess whined, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I just love him..."
"Well they don't know that," Kade pointed out. "All I'm saying is that you need to be more careful not to give them any reason to think that you're taking advantage of Sanji, because you know how often that happens to him.
Jess sighed. "Yeah, I do know how often that happens...my poor, stupid baby...but I'll prove to them that I'm genuine and that I'd never take advantage of him!"
"Good luck with that. In the meantime, I think Law is onto us. I...may have slipped up and let him see me smart phone earlier, and I really shouldn't have done that because now he's probably wondering who the fuck I am to have that kind of technology." She groaned into her hands upon recollecting the awkward-as-fuck exchange that had led to her slip-up. "Yeah, so...we really need to be more careful. This isn't like our RPs where we just wander in and everything goes exactly how we want it to, you know. Otherwise I'd be riding off into the fucking sunset on a certain submarine. So if things go wrong, they can REALLY go wrong. We'd be up Shit Creek with a hole in our canoe and no bucket. And we don't even have a way home..."
Jess nodded. "Yeah, you're right about that... Jesus, I can't believe your phone survived all that water! So I'm guessing Law didn't scream 'witchcraft' when you let him see it?"
Kade snorted. "No, he didn't. He was kind of quiet about it, but I could see the gears turning. I...had to delete all my Law pics first, though..." She let a moment of silence pass for the loss of her great library of Trafalgar Law screen captures and silly Tumblr memes.
"Awwww maaannnnn! All those Law pics! What a waste." Jess shook her head sadly. "Well, tell me you took some new ones with your camera, at least!" She said with a wink.
Kade couldn't help but grin back at her. "Well, since you brought it up..." She showed Jess the selfies that she took with Law and giggled as she recalled those moments. "He was all like, 'I don't look like that!' Haha!"
"Oh that's so cute!" Jess barely held back a squee. "Too bad you can't upload that onto Facebook, eh? DAT GRUMP FACE, SON!"
"Yeah, shit, I guess we'll just have to survive without the internet somehow..." She made a pained face, thinking about all the Tumblr memes she would be missing out on.
Jess grinned. "Hey, who needs the internet when we're finally living our pirate dream!" She busted out her and Kade's secret homie gangsta handshake.
A contemplative silence fell over the room for a minute or two. Kade chewed on her lower lip, anxiety twisting up her insides. Law definitely didn't trust them, and while she wasn't terribly worried about him voicing his suspicions to the rest of the crew, she was concerned about keeping all of her body parts intact. And also she really just wanted him to like her, damn it all...which was a lot to ask for, considering the fact that Law didn't particularly like very many people to begin with.
Meanwhile, Jess was contemplating the way Sanji's ass had looked in his perfectly tailored trousers.
"Man…" Jess said after a moment, "I just thought of something. Now Sanji won't be able to cook for us!" A single tear slid down her cheek and she didn't bother to wipe it away, drama queen that she was.
Kade rolled her eyes. "Why don't you just cook then? I was just telling Law all about your mad gumbo-stirring skills." She snickered.
"Uh, DUH, because I don't have the password to the fridge! And like hell Nami and Robin are just going to give it to me!"
"I'll ask Sanji for you. I'M not going to kiss him, so maybe they'll let me talk to him."
"What?!" Jess was appalled. "Like I'm going to just go in there and start kissing him without a word!"
Kade laughed and snorted in response, "Hell homie, they don't know that! You did it twice already and almost killed the guy!"
The curly haired woman was thoroughly abashed as she jutted her lips out and folded her arms tightly against her chest. "Yeah, yeah, Chopper already lectured me before he kicked me out. I can't help it! It's SANJI, and he's so mellorine!" She clasped her hands together.
"DOWN GIRL!" Kade clapped her hand on Jess's shoulder and winked.
"BAH! Like you wouldn't do the same to Law if he would allow it."
A faint blush made its way across Kade's cheeks and she sighed. "Yeah, whatever…"
Jess patted her shoulder sympathetically and whispered, "You should sit next to him at dinner!"
Kade had opened her mouth to reject that idea when all of a sudden, a loud whining erupted from elsewhere on the Sunny, effectively disturbing all of the ship's occupants. Jess hurried out onto the deck, almost tripping over Law and Caesar on her way to see Luffy and Chopper arguing near the mast.
"I'M HUNGRY, WHAT DO YOU MEAN SANJI CAN'T COOK?!"
"Sorry Luffy," the adorable reindeer responded sternly, "but Sanji is no condition to cook! He's barely able to stand, so I have to forbid it!"
"DAMMIT!" Luffy shouted in frustration, his pouting going into overdrive.
"Didn't you hear?" Usopp piped up as he joined the conversation. "Jess kissed him again and he lost so much blood he nearly died, AGAIN…AND GUESS WHO HAD TO MOP IT ALL UP?!"
"Well it's not like I was going to do it," Nami remarked from nearby, crossing her arms indignantly. "Besides, you owe me...consider it a down payment on your most recent loan," she added with a sly smirk, causing Usopp to groan and slap his forehead.
Jess jogged over to them, feeling guilty. "Hey! Hey Luffy!"
Luffy grinned and pointed her out. "HEY! IT'S NOSEBLEED GIRL!"
She rubbed the back of her head, looking away momentarily, "Ehehehe…you can just call me Jess!"
Nami's gaze turned toward Jess. "What the hell is WRONG with you, doing that to him?!"
Oh no they were ganging up on her. She hung her head, flushing as bright red as Buggy's nose. "I…uh…I don't know what came over me…"
But Nami was not buying Jess's claim of innocence and adorable blushing. She put a hand on her hip, narrowing her eyes. "Riiiiighhhttt…"
"See!" Usopp pointed a finger at Jess accusingly. "I TOLD you it was a bad idea to say, I TOLD YOU! They're going to try to kill us one by one! She found Sanji's weakness and now she's using it against him!"
Jess held her hands up. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, no! Listen, that's the last thing I want. I don't want to kill Sanji!"
"What DO you want then?" Nami demanded as she continued to glare. "I mean, it's not like we have any gold or anything on this ship that's of value, nope! Sure don't!"
"Well, I just heard that Luffy was hungry, so…as an apology for knocking out your chef, I'd be happy to cook for you all tonight."
Usopp vigorously shook his head, grasping Nami's arm as he hissed, "NAMI, don't listen to her! She's probably going to poison our food! She started with Sanji and now she's going to finish the job with the rest of us, and what if she's working for the enemy? Our posters say dead OR alive! OR!"
"THAT'S A GREAT IDEA!" Luffy shouted happily, bouncing back over. "Nami, open the fridge!"
Nami balked, halfway convinced that Usopp's paranoia might actually be justified. "WHAT?"
"NO, LUFFY!" Usopp argued. "I'm putting my foot down on this one. I want to survive! Isn't there anyone else on this crew who knows how to cook? How did you all survive on your own without Sanji?! I've have you know, I can put together a mean grilled cheese sandwich."
"NOT MORE CHEESE," Luffy whined loudly.
Shaking her head, the navigator looked from Luffy to Jess and then sighed. "You know what, this is ridiculous. I'll just supervise her while she cooks for us! I won't even give her the combination to the refrigerator," she added as Usopp opened his mouth to protest. "I'll just open it up myself."
Usopp made a face. "FINE, but I'm going with you. To supervise your supervising."
Jess grinned at this turn of events. "Alright, fair enough."
"Follow me, then." Giving the newcomer one last look, Nami turned and headed toward the kitchen.
Meanwhile, Kade had been looking on from the door of the infirmary. Watching Nami and Usopp lead Jess off toward the kitchen, she decided to venture back out as well, but stopped short as a tall figure caught her eye near the door.
She felt her heart do a backflip all of a sudden, her eyes traveling up Law's tall form to pause on his scowling face. "Oh, hey…"
Shit. How long had he been standing there? Had he been able to overhear any of what she and Jess had been not-so-quietly discussing within the infirmary? Just how insulated were those walls, anyway? Crap. What was the best course of action here? Kade held back a grimace and decided to go with pretending as though nothing was wrong. What could possible go awry there? Hm. Best not to think about it...
She cleared her throat. "Uh, so...you just kind of hang out over here?" Oh, yeah. Real subtle, Kade.
Law peered down at her, his expression unreadable. "I don't have a room here," he simply said. He nodded toward Jess's form just before she disappeared within the Sunny's kitchen. "The two of you should really be more careful...the Strawhats may look like idiots, but they are dangerous pirates." Law's eyes locked onto hers in that moment, giving her a look that seemed to say, 'as am I.'
Oh, yeah. He'd definitely overheard something. She had a feeling by the especially hostile look on his face. Shit, shit. She'd really messed up by letting him see her damn phone! What could she do to fix this? It wasn't as though she could just ask him what he'd overheard. There was no clever way to find out without him catching on.
Kade clenched her jaw, feeling a headache pulse its way to life. All this damned secrecy was getting too stressful. It would be far easier to just tell the truth...but the truth was crazier than any lie she could possibly come up with! He'd never believe her. He'd throw her off the ship. He'd cut her head off and attach it to her ass, and THEN throw her off the ship!
She sighed inaudibly, shuffling off to see what Zoro was up to. At least the swordsman didn't ask questions, other than "Are you going to drink the rest of that beer?"
Drop into the world of One Piece, they said. It'll be fun, they said...