thank you's to these rookie supernovas going apeshit against two emperors: Lucinda M. H. Cheshir, Leynadoodles, shethoughts, ansegiel, unknownher, DancingCoffinMeme, TaintedLetter, Alkitty, Velonica14, Misaki, and sarge1130!
notes: fruits are the fic's brand so here's where i put my lemon emoji warnings. enjoy! you pineapple harlots! (credit to tumblr user jazzinjuke for a very specific joke in here.) i should also add that please don't ever expect normal hot sex scenes from this fic. they're both freaks and sophie is nutty and inexperienced. also sex is hilarious. SORRY i just write what makes me laugh!
—
methyl nitrate pineapples
hypothesis #41
as certain dark things are to be loved
(sword x gun part ii)
—
Here was a new normal. It turned out that making a timetable for all their makeout sessions was not even remotely feasible, so, with great difficulty, Sophie decided she could forego a detailed schedule and roll with the punches, as heretics would say. They kept their new… Whatever discreet, even though the crew was well aware so there was no need to be clandestine. Sophie preferred privacy because romance was deeply weird and embarrassing for her, and she was sure it was also deeply weird and embarrassing for Law, and plus he was Law, so he was probably having five existential crises about it a day.
From the outside looking in, it seemed like nothing had changed. They bickered over protein design and the origin of life, same as always, and he didn't go any easier on her during training. (Not even when she batted her eyes!) Law did, however, let Sophie kiss him before he had his coffee, and when they studied together in his cabin he would sometimes brush his fingers through her hair.
She still slept in the engine room, and that was why she woke up shivering, huddling against a heating vent for warmth. Her teeth clacked together. An investigative hand left the protective bubble of her blanket and touched a pipe. The metal of the Polar Tang was far colder than usual. Which meant…
She shot up. "A winter island!"
"Crisp weather wakes the spirit, does it not?" Jean Bart stretched and rolled out his shoulders; miraculously, the floor did not tilt under his weight. Sophie whooped and raced to get dressed in her boiler suit, thick socks, and a fluffy yellow scarf.
"Rise and shine, sleepyfucks!" Anko kicked open the engine room's door, bundled in a heavy coat and mittens. "Do you want to build a snowman massacre? We can use ketchup and pretend it's blood."
"Hai Xing'll get mad if you waste his food." Kamasu was walking around barefoot in his underwear as he brushed his teeth. Like the other North Blue boys, he didn't mind the cold.
"True… let's use real blood, then!"
Sophie rubbed Anko's hair as she passed by, reminding him that Law would get irritated that Anko squandered good blood instead of giving it to him to play with. Outside the portholes was a coastline blanketed with white and shaded with thick conifer forests, which sloped up and vanished into the fog of high alpine tundra. Bepo was diving for fish, sweeping them up in a big net. It had been a long while since their last winter island. Lunetuktu felt like eons ago.
A parade of puffer jackets and thick scarves shoved into the galley for breakfast. The North Blue boys were planning a long day of ice fishing, sledding, and coming back to warm soup. Everyone was excited to be on a winter island, except for Uni, who had lived for many years on a spring island and grumbled, "Yep, nothing like the sight of watching your piss freeze in the toilet."
Sophie waited until Penguin and Shachi were messing around with the sink's pipes—they were having some hot water problems—sidled over, and rudely squished the three of them together in a huddle. There had been something she wanted to ask them, and she hadn't earlier because it was deeply weird and embarrassing.
"Bepo," she added, "please get your furry white butt over here."
Bepo stopped snacking on the ice fish he caught and got down to his belly, shoving his face in beside Shachi's. "Is this a secret meeting?" He dropped his voice to a stage whisper. "Should we use our secret meeting voices?"
"This is a secret meeting and I have a super-secret serious question," Sophie said to the OG Pirates of Heart. Hai Xing, rinsing fish in the sink next to them, rested a colander on Bepo's head. She summoned her bravery. "We're not going to have that awful 'best friends-versus-lab partner' dynamic, are we? You guys like me, right?"
"Don't be stupid, you're our friend too," Penguin said. "We've been through too much shit together. And we missed our chance to throw you overboard. The poison's set in and it's fatal."
"Actually, in my head, I consider us polar covalent bonded! Because we're all a big happy molecule in the Polar Tang and also I'm holding your electrons hostage in my orbital. But I'm happy to be poison! Is it cyanide or—you know what, doesn't matter. Things aren't going to be weird?"
"You know, it's almost concerning how you and Cap are so different and yet so similar," Shachi remarked. He gave a slight chuckle and waved his hands. "'Course we'll be nice. We outnumber you three to one. Wouldn't be a fair fight."
Sophie scoffed. "Bepo Mepo, if I give you grilled fish and eternal friendship, you'd be on my side."
"I am no selfish bear, Sophie Loafie," Bepo replied. "I would do it just for the grilled fish."
"Fine. Anyway, you three are his oldest friends. This… whatever with me and our captain doesn't, like, change anything."
The OG Hearts shared a glance. "That's hilarious," they said in a voice that was anything but flattering. "Are you worried we'd be insecure? We've known him for ten years!"
Relief spread through Sophie, untangling the knots of anxiety in her chest. "Oh. Okay. I'd be horrible and mean and insecure, so you're all way better friends than me."
"Are you kidding?" Shachi lurched to his feet. "Listen, Cap's been the strongest guy around since forever." His smile stretched wide in glee, and he and Penguin chanted in devious unison, "But he got his heart kicked by a giiiirl!"
"…And we mean that super respectfully," Penguin added.
"Thanks for that," Sophie said dryly.
Shachi shook her by the shoulders. "Cap spent so long trying to kill you. I cannot emphasize enough how much you fucked him up. And now even your bounty's higher than his! I say this with love, but god, what a sucker."
"Man, this is just too good," Penguin laughed, wiping his eyes. "You topped him, Sophie."
"Oh," Shachi realized. "You top him."
"Ha!" Penguin leered. "When you top him, are you above the Law?"
Shachi pounded the counter. "Above the Trafalgar D. Water Law!"
Normally, Sophie would've joined in the teasing, but ganging up on the guy she smooched with semi-frequency no longer felt right. On behalf of her poor, defenseless lab partner, she lectured, "Don't make fun of him over something he can't control! It's not his fault his mama named him something weird!"
"Good morning, crew," said Law, standing right behind her.
…Oh. Oh, no. He looked cool. His black coat whipped open around his legs, his shirt was half-tucked in his jeans, and his fuzzy hat sat askew over his head. Was it just the winter lighting, or did he look particularly handsome in a diabolically greasy sort of way today?
Sophie coughed. "You, um, h-heard all that? I was about to say bounties aren't always about power. Mine is really about what Blackbeard said in the war, so…"
She was very aware of their smirking crewmates watching their interaction. She wondered how she looked. If she seemed—horribly in love, or what.
Law's grin was a careless, crooked thing. "No need to defend my ego. I don't mind." He tilted his head back, looking down at Sophie with complete self-assurance. "My lab partner having a larger bounty than me isn't… unappealing."
Law was a slick man, but thank god Sophie kept her cool by super casually choking on her own spit.
"Captaaaain! So cool!" The Hearts came to a new consensus. "There's nothing more badass and manly than having a girl with a higher bounty than yours! What a trendsetter! Damn, I'm blushing!"
"Tch," Sophie grunted. Why had she defended this cunning scumbag in the first place?
Law whistled as he poured himself a cup of coffee.
They docked in a port town in the south of Fensalir, the nation of evergreen holly. It was a large island, populated with traders and merchants and all sorts of commerce businesses. But Fensalir was also currently deep in winter, and there were few other ships in port.
There was no particular reason why they docked on this island. On Sabaody, Law had bought several Eternal Poses to the various islands throughout Paradise. Since they were going to stay on this side of the Red Line for a while, they had to find some way to get around, and sometimes getting around meant aimless sailing and exploring.
Sophie glanced at him as they walked out on the deck, making footsteps on the light dusting of snow. Law had a habit of wandering, which she'd known ever since she bumped into him in the swamps of Gator Town. He was probably thinking about where to explore today. Wandering around like an aimless bum cleared his mind, and lately he'd been consumed with thinking about how to get the World Government's attention and take a Warlord seat.
"Forty mil is high when you think about it," Law said, breaking her train of thought. "There's quite a large gap between us."
Oh. That tone. Sophie gave her legs a stretch. "Feeling competitive, Captain?"
"How's your Haki today?"
She'd been waking up every day with a heaviness in her chest. Lately it eased throughout the day, but it always came back. Maybe it wasn't ever going to leave. Hai Xing said cooking was how he meditated. Anko liked to sail. There were many ways she could tidy up her abyss and make it livable.
"Ready for anything," Sophie said firmly, because exhilarating, heart-pounding activity was her preferred form of meditation. "What are you thinking?"
"That mountain. See that ledge above the frozen waterfall, about halfway up? Let's have a race there."
"No Ope powers."
"No flying rifle."
She made a mental note to apologize to Anko for missing out on his snowman massacre.
—
Sophie collapsed on the snow and rolled over with a small, exhausted moan. She laid there shoulder-to-shoulder with her captain, both flushed and catching their breaths.
"I felt charitable today," she announced. "That's the only reason why I let you win."
"Felt charitable before or after you tripped over a log?" Law's grey eyes reflected the silvery sky, pale and bright against his nut-brown skin. He was so pretty she wanted to bite his face off.
"Shush. Let us continue to enjoy the beauty of this natural vista and this lovely powdery snow."
He made a noise of derision. "Grand Line snow cannot be compared to real North Blue snow."
"You purist snob."
"You say that because you've never experienced a real North winter."
Smiling, she listened to the owls hooting, the big winter sky above shot through with dark birds and plumes of smoke from faraway towns. She wondered if Ace had ever visited Fensalir. Maybe this was a new sight for Perihelion, and if it was, she was glad. The air was crisp and hurt her lungs in a good way, and her skin prickled with the awareness of her own thumping heartbeat, how it sang when she looked at the pirate beside her.
"Sure, but Grand Line snow still has its uses." Case in point, she hooked a finger around the collar of his coat and dropped a handful of snow down his neck.
"Hrghh—" Law seized up with a big, shivery flinch. But Sophie's evil giggles died out fast, because her captain beamed her with a snowball made by professional North Blue hands. As she screeched, Law rolled on top of her with a much larger handful of snow in his much larger palms.
"Hold it! You have a big, fat crush on me, remember!? You like me, you bastardious son of a fruit loop!" Sophie gurgled, double-chinned, eyes bulging like a frog's. "You think my darling face is the h-height of beauty and you would n-never hurt it, right!? Noooo!"
Arsenic was an inch too far away, so she seized Kikoku. Its soft, malevolent hum could be mistaken as part of the forest ambiance, but she could hear it clearly now when she concentrated. She grasped the polished black scabbard and tried to fend away Law with it. The hum softened… and seemed to purr, almost.
The ledge they were lying on collapsed.
They toppled into a snowdrift below, with much graceless, undignified yelling. Sophie landed flat on her back. Above her, Law caught Kikoku as it somehow glided out of its scabbard, its point aimed at Sophie's heart.
Law stabbed the blade in the snow beside her head. He leaned over her, growling, "What did we say about you touching Kikoku? Your bad luck is like ambrosia to curses."
Pine needles stuck out of Sophie's hair, and her cheeks were nipped pink, scarf coming loose around her shoulders. All traces of irritation at yet another one of her brushes with death vanished from Law's face. His mouth parted, then clamped shut, a different sort of vexation shadowing his eyes. She blushed. It was a warm, deep blush, spreading outwards from her nervous, squirmy guts.
"Are you ready to head back?" Law asked quietly.
Her answer was this: she pulled him down by his coat and drew his mouth to hers.
—
Her boots came off two, loud thump-thumps against the creaky wooden floor. Law stumbled backwards in the dark, hitting the jut of his hip against the shitty bedframe, the entirety of his attention currently occupied by the warm body in his arms.
It was the first disreputable inn they saw in Holly Town, with the rowdiest yells and shadiest clientele. No one glanced twice at the two bundled-up, snow-flecked strangers coming in from the cold. Paid for a room, then up two flights of rickety stairs, passing by closed doors noisy with laughter, music reverberating through the walls hung with fur pelts.
The tiny, one-bed room they bought smelled like old burned-into-the-walls grease, freshly-washed blankets, and the ocean, for the window overlooked the port. Sophie lit the half-melted candles on the bedside table, trying to keep her hands steady because Law was making it as difficult as possible. Now that her hair was chopped off, she had a neck. A long, sloping neck with the skin behind her ears visible, and the jut of her vertebrae prominens at the base, and those thin baby hairs that all stood up on end as he ghosted his fingers up her spine.
It would cause a ruckus if anyone here learned the Surgeon of Death was among them. If they learned the Alchemist was here, getting undressed with her flushed cheeks and her huffing, embarrassed glare as she popped off the top button of her boiler suit, it would cause a riot.
But no one else knew, and the sight of this internationally-wanted criminal wriggling out of her clothes was his alone.
"Don't s-stare," Sophie scolded.
Right. Not his. Law got it. Female emancipation from the male gaze and all that. He went back to kissing her extremely prudish mouth, and from the corner of his eye watched her reflection against the dark window. A sliver of her lower back peeked out below her black thermal shirt, then she tugged off the boiler suit from the waist down and stepped out of it. Bra, off. Socks and gloves, too.
Sophie made fascinating noises when she was turned on. Some of them were hilarious, like when Law deposited her on the bed and followed while yanking his shirt off over his head, and she squeaked so violently she went into a coughing fit. She'd seen him bare-chested plenty of times before. But they were on a bed now, in a dimly-lit room of an inn where no one knew their names, and her darkening eyes raked over him and she bit her lip.
Law gave her a stern kiss and said, "Don't stare."
"Yes, sorry, can't help it." Her hands explored his ribcage and ran over the inked hearts that curved around his deltoids. Her lashes fluttered up as she met his eyes, and she cupped his face and said with complete earnestness, "You're so pretty, Law."
…Well. No, Law wasn't going to examine the pang of warm, aching agony hitting him right between the ribs. He looked at her and felt his chest beginning to hurt again with the depths of affection he saw there. There was nothing he could say that wouldn't make him sound like an incoherent fool, so he went back to figuring how to make her make more fascinating noises. The ones that sounded like she was both immensely pleased with what his mouth was doing, and also maddened at how much she liked it. He pushed her shirt up over her breasts so he could kiss them and suck little marks on the skin.
Sophie flinched. "Ouch? Are you biting me?"
"These hickeys are for science," Law said seriously.
They admired the small bruises blooming across her chest. "I suppose I f-find the results agreeable," she sniffed with fake nonchalance.
Superb. Now to find out what else was agreeable. His hands on her waist and his lips running down her stomach and her body squirming beneath him. Serratus anterior, obliques, abdominals. So many scars. The freshest ones were from Impel Down and Marineford, and she trembled when he touched those. The bullet wound she took for him on Machinastein. He paid extra attention to that, and was rewarded with a long sigh and her fingers threading through his hair.
Her underwear was as neat and practical as the rest of her, navy and patterned with blueberries. Was her thigh missing something? Ah, yes: his hand. Trailing on the outside of her stretch-marked thigh, down her muscled calves, and then up to slide around the curve of her rear, slipping beneath her panties. Much better. Both hands, squeezing her glutes. Symmetry. Sophie should be proud of him.
But instead, she nudged him away. "Wait," Sophie said, and Law stopped and set his hands on the bed. "Ground rules. I don't want you inside."
"Right, no penetration." He rubbed his chin with a grave look. "I need to be careful because you're at a very fertile age."
"My god. You couldn't have said that in a less creepy way?"
Law went back to his business.
"Waitwaitwait—I haven't, um." Her voice cracked. Her face was a delightful shade of crimson. "I haven't… showered today."
"Hm," Law said, licking his lips. "Good."
He kicked his Observation into gear just so he could feel the exploding mess of her mortification. There was horror, bewilderment, a dash of puritanical outrage, a heart-stopping flutter of what may have been curiosity, then swiftly replaced by even more embarrassment. Law watched her patiently, savoring all of it.
"…I—I—I see!" Sophie posed like an errant, small-breasted, cross-eyed worm. "Has my v-v-voluptuous body bewitched you, Trafalgar Law? Have you fallen for my b-b-bosomy charm?"
"You don't have to deflect with humor. Just say you're nervous."
"M-m-maybe I am! What about it!" Sophie jabbed him with one burnt finger. She was going nonlinear now. "You know what, I made out with you before knowing you are quite possibly the devil's spawn. Do you exude some kind of seductive D pheromones? It would explain so many things! I, a chaste and innocent maiden, lured in by the noxious fumes of your lusty stench! This cannot be overstated! I might be doing it with a demon." If possible, she turned even redder. She hissed, "Again."
His heart began to race, as it did whenever she glared at him, rosy with the amount of exertion it took to spit out a relentless stream of quibbles from her soapbox. She was so close she could pin his arms over his head, burning with indignant, barely-repressed heat. His dick twitched at the thought. He was quite fucked, wasn't he? Law cleared his throat and pointed out, "Consider this. If I was truly demonic, would I let it stop there?"
"I need holy water and an exorcism," Sophie snapped.
He pitied her. "As if that could help you now."
She covered her breasts in despair. "You're right!"
Law had some experience in fucking, and it wasn't a crazy amount, but it was enough to bring him to the conclusion that sex was generally a waste of time. Not too different from jerking off in the shower, but jerking off in the shower was better because no one ever asked to bum a cigarette off him. The guys he met in bars around Lvneel, the older brothel women, all of them uninspired, transactional, and left him feeling worse than shit when he woke up from his hangover. But he went back whenever he got the itch, growing up in North Blue as a vagrant, angry young man. Maybe this time would be different. Maybe this time he'd stumble upon something real. Maybe he was searching for something more than a moment's distraction, but whatever it was, it vanished with the long-gone faces like smoke, like nothing at all. Useless to want, anyway. He was living on borrowed time.
He couldn't say when Sophie changed things. Was it during a slow dance beneath St. Poplar rain? Being carried in her sturdy arms on Kunlun? Even earlier? He slid down her panties, taking in every gold-dusted inch of her, every hard slope and scarred curve and her grey-flecked wheat curls.
His mouth felt thick suddenly. He could smell her scent, her sweat—the hitchhiker he couldn't kill, who cleaned his ship with obsessive routine and committed regicide for fun and she was the only one who could debate him on his theories regarding epigenetics. He had buried bodies for her. Her eyes watched him in tense anticipation, bluer than a sea he wanted to pitch headfirst into.
But before Law could fit himself between her thighs, her legs clamped tight together. "You can, um, stop anytime," Sophie mumbled, hands bunching in the sheets. "I won't mind, so, just, don't… don't do anything you don't want to do."
He looked at her in disbelief.
Then he surged forward, kissing the skin where her pelvis met leg. There was a younger Law, a Law who thought the pinnacle of strength was invulnerability, who sneered at him for this. With his Devil Fruit, godlike power crackled at his fingertips. No king on earth could ever make him kneel. He had lost his faith a long time ago, but here he was again at a place of worship, on his knees in surrender.
He was shit at words—so he'd prove it. He'd show her a fucking revelation.
He hoisted her legs over his shoulders, kissed up the inside of her thigh, and readied himself to drown.
—
There was a boy between her legs, and he was doing some very inappropriate things to her. Her captain, lab partner, almost-murderer's shoulders were bunched up, and his head moved between the juncture of her hips, and it was so strangely appealing she almost reached down to grip his hair. She caught sight of her burned hands and lowered them.
Sophie focused on getting off. She tried very hard on focusing. She focused on the ceiling, then the candles, then on the neurons firing around in the pleasure centers of her brain, then on what the crew was eating for dinner, and then on the never-ending buildup of tension inside her that wasn't going anywhere.
"…Am I taking too long?" she finally burst out.
"Relax," came the muffled reply.
"Am I choking you? Are you comfortable in this position? Is your jaw getting sore?"
"Can't talk. Kind of busy."
"Am I moaning weird? I'm moaning weird, aren't I—"
He pinched her on the butt.
"Ouchie!" Sophie spluttered. "I am having a crisis here, you jerk!"
Law emerged from between her thighs. "Look," he said, and Sophie did not need to be asked twice. His mouth was shiny and wet, and there was a dark flush to his cheeks. Even oxygen-deprived, he looked menacing. "I'm having a great time. Can do this all night."
That was a small comfort. But then Sophie felt a different kind of frustration. A tall, tattooed pirate being totally composed while she was consumed by delirious, inexperienced panic—it grinded her gears. There was so much difference between them. And when she thought about their difference, she thought about all her failures, which made her think of the world waiting for them outside of this cramped little inn bedroom with its candles and indistinct noises coming in through the walls, and then she remembered the weight of everything she was holding.
"Okay," she huffed, her face hot, eyes pricking with unexpected tears. "Go b-back to doing that thing with your tongue."
The bed creaked as Law sprung on top of her, his body heat and lightly teasing smirk so very close that Sophie wanted to hide her burning face behind the pillow. "You could stand to sound more appreciative," he chided. "Aren't you lucky I'm such a generous giver?"
Sophie sniffled. She blew a raspberry at him.
Law calmly wiped his forehead. "There is so goddamn much of you on me right now."
"But y-you still think I'm a brilliant genius chemist who can moan very s-se-sexy, right?"
He smoothed her bangs back, the curls stubbornly resisting gravity, and held her like that until the heavy anxious feeling in her gut subsided, along with her twitches. "With extremely nice feet."
Sophie trailed her toes down his chest. "And do you… sometimes still dream of chopping this foot off?"
He groaned. "You don't have to seduce me, I'm already eating you out."
Trying to smother her giggles, she gave yet another contemptuous sermon about his body parts fetish.
"It's not a fetish, it's a kink."
"There's no difference!"
"There is." Law jabbed a finger in the air and said seriously, "One is respectable."
She didn't know how it happened—one moment, she was rolling with laughter, and Law was sighing all pained and long-suffering—and the next, they were twisted together and her hips were rocking against him so sweetly that he rasped, "Knees. Open." Somewhere between here and there, she let go. The only thing that mattered was the fever grip Law had on her thighs, holding them tight over his shoulders like a lifeline to the shore. She grasped the back of his head, the scratch of his goatee somehow both soft and prickly at once. She felt her back arch, her hips lifting up off the bed, and that had to be some other girl's desperate pleading whimper because it was the most un-Sophie-like noise she'd ever made in her life.
She crested over the wave. It swelled deep and high and roaring in her ears, then crashed into a surge of salty sea-foam and breathless, shaking gasps. Her mind went clean—all the noise, gone. When Sophie came to, she was so oversensitive it hurt, and she had to push him away. Law wiped his mouth, and he was grinning, the sweat glistening on the sides of his brow where her thighs suffocated him. He looked so pleased with himself that it was a little shocking, and she adored him so much she wanted to tear him to pieces and stuff them in her mouth.
Instead, Sophie tried giving him a hickey—just to prove she could do it too—only it was a full-on chomp and Law's neck started bleeding. Not a lot, but enough for her to want to melt through the floor. But he got a look in his eye as she stammered apologies and gingerly touched the blood, and his gaze followed the bead of red running down her knobby, wrinkled skin. He took her finger on his tongue and Sophie couldn't believe that she got to watch this, his eyes half-lidded, his hot mouth panting and sucking on her grotesque scars as his hand jerked. And as Law came on her stomach, she could swear the dead nerves in her hand felt tickled by his breath.
Sophie was so flustered she could only gape. I made him—he'd gotten off by—oh my god, I'm covered in—and sex was gross. It was dirty, and sticky, and filthy, and she had no idea what was wrong with Law and also would he do it again? No, darn it, that wasn't what she wanted to ask. What she wanted to ask was… "Why did you do that?"
"Sorry—" It came out with the slightest tremor. "Sorry, I couldn't wait."
"No, I m-meant… my hand." Her fingers were still wet.
He looked at her as if he didn't understand. "They're beautiful." He dropped his eyes to the mess on her stomach. "Was it disgusting?"
She shook her head. That was the second time he'd called her beautiful. Law couldn't see her, because he was still looking down, so she lifted his chin to meet his eyes and shook her head again. She started squirming. Pointedly, this time, for attention.
He reached between her legs and a laughing noise hissed out of his mouth. "Ready again? I'm at your service, 260 mil."
She shivered. "Don't say it like that," she snapped, blushing and angry, "or I'm going to start liking it."
"Tell me what you like. I'm paying attention."
There was no shame or solemnity here. There was only touching, deliberate, ceaseless; Law's messy hair sticking up like wayward crow feathers; the lazy tangle of their legs; the profound feeling of yes. "Like this," she breathed, guiding his wrist. "I want it like this."
He said, "That's what I thought, you little pervert," and she laughed as she crested the wave again.
—
Afterwards, when they were lying side-by-side in bed, he said, "If you want, I could make us contraceptive teas. We'd have to take them regularly."
"Okay," Sophie said, and promptly dozed off.
Law didn't sleep. Outside the window, snow flurries danced and frost flowered on the glass. There was a naked girl snoring next to him. Once in a blue moon, when he indulged the fleeting daydreams of Sophie's ears, ribcage, and knees, it had always ended here. A naked girl snoring next to him, who was made of honey and octane, her burned hands tucked beneath her chin, wisps of messy curls still damp from the shower falling across her forehead. He didn't know what happened now.
He'd been prepared for not knowing, of course. He'd stepped into the biggest miscalculation of his life with the fearless dumbassery one would only expect from a man attempting to fly with nothing but a book of prayers in hand and a knack for finding very tall buildings. He could come up with a plan later; he was good at that, at improvisational thinking under extreme, diamond-forming pressure.
And now Law was here, and the ground was rushing up to meet him, and he was breaking out in cold sweat because there was no fucking plan. He couldn't stop looking at her, with her dusty lashes and caterpillar-thick eyebrows and her cheek squished up against the pillow. Couldn't stop listening to the sly, greedy voice in the back of his head that muttered maybe, maybe it was acceptable just this one time for there to be no plan, no backups, and no break-in-case-of-emergencies. Maybe he could have her, and his memory of Cora-san, and his vengeance, and his family, and he never had to sacrifice anything ever again.
A painful feeling like—like terror, like guilt rose inside him. Law ran his hands over his face, feeling the muscles of his clenched jaw jump, his headache pounding behind his eyes. He was doing what he despised the most: he was being hopeful.
He sat up. Fire Fist's knife was smooth and polished as Law turned it over in his hands. For all of Sophie's irritation about things like destiny, and D's, and inherited will, she had inadvertently picked up some of her own. Ace's knife was heavier than it looked. The handle was meant for a bigger palm. Her body was mapped with scars from the war Blackbeard began, and Law's blood boiled as he thought about what that fucker had done to her. Was this their curse, the bearers of the name D? A thought shivered through him: Have I been poisoning her since the day I met her?
He tapped her name on her arm. So-phie. So-phie. Her breathing shifted. She was awake, but ignoring him. "I need to tell you something. Wake up."
"This better be important and not like, some angsty dramatic thing," she said, voice woolly with sleep.
"I don't believe I can love you," Law rasped, "the way you want me to love you."
"Nrrrghohmygod," Sophie whined into her pillow.
He brooded in silence, steeping himself in self-hatred the way one would steep tea leaves. He could already see it: the way she would try to take care of him, to get him to eat or sleep or bathe, to fuss over him and kiss away all of his aches. And the worst part was, he felt no shame about it. He only felt defiant and remorseless, ready for it; fucking enthusiastic, even. He was an iron fetter circling her ankle. He'd hold on for as long as she was foolish enough to let him. That was the problem.
Eventually, there was a sigh. "You don't know how I want to be loved," she mumbled. "You can't know, because I don't even know."
"A love you deserve. Someone that isn't… someone that's better than me."
"You're an idiot."
If she kept talking like that, Law would never say a word of warning again. Through sheer will, he said, "When the time comes, the right thing to do is to let someone finish their story. I want you to remember that."
Sophie opened her eyes. In the dark, he saw the flutter of her lashes. He could imagine her sadness. He'd seen it often, that still, haunted look that sometimes crossed her face while she was lost in thought. Her sadness didn't start with Ace. He'd seen it on Machinastein, on Kunlun, on Cat's Eye. When they talked about G-13, or Vira, or why she put so many burns on her body. She'd always had a terrible sadness in her. It ebbed and flowed, but it had never gone away.
She said quietly, "When a pirate becomes a Warlord, their crews are untouchable by the Marines. It's how Boa Hancock protects Amazon Lily and how Jinbe protected Fishman Island. Even when a Warlord leaves their territories for whatever reason, their people still receive the same protection. Your plan is so obvious."
"Answer me honestly. After what you've been through, do you think our crew could match up to that level? Could they have fought Magellan in Impel Down, survived Blackbeard, survived Aokiji, fought Mihawk and only got a broken gun out of that?"
"Yes," was her stout reply.
"I don't want you to die because of me." The you wasn't directed towards just Sophie. It encompassed all of them.
"Law, no one will—"
"You can't promise me that."
"…I know," she whispered. "But that doesn't mean…"
"Listen. Please." This was why on Noctiluca he told himself this couldn't go further. She was going to cry over him. "This will end," Law promised. "And it will hurt. I may destroy you."
She smiled in the dark. The bed shifted as she rolled over him, a shadow outlined by moonlight. "A lot of people have told me that."
"We won't have long together."
But Sophie had an answer for that, too. She always did.
"Right now," she said, "there's you and me. The rest is stardust and entropy."
—
The tilt of the planet's axis had changed forever.
…Or so Sophie would like to think, because there was something quite wondrous about the idea of love utterly transmuting one's perception of the world, but she woke up with a stiff neck, uncomfortably warm despite sleeping in the nude, and her foot was digging into Law's cheek as he grumbled. Her captain was shivering, half a butt cheek exposed. He cracked one eye open and grunted, "You're hogging the blanket."
"Good morning, lover," she returned, and burrito'd herself in as much blanket as she could. This mischief did not last long, for two broad hands ripped her toasty burrito open and shoved themselves beneath Sophie's warm armpits with the spite of a professional avenger. The rest of his body followed, draping over Sophie as she cursed North Blue boys at the top of her lungs.
"You know they're going to make fun of us for staying out all night," he said into her neck.
"We're never going to live it down. But you must already be used to that, Trafalgar D. Water Law."
He stuck his cold feet against her legs. Sophie shrieked.
It had stopped snowing, and she agreed when Law mentioned they should leave before anyone recognized them. She busied herself with finding her clothes and a warm flush creeped up the back of her neck. The ritual of getting dressed in the morning-after was almost as lewd as the act of sex itself. Her chest was covered in small love bites, and zipping up her boiler suit over it didn't help at all, because the knowledge it was still there, that she could peel the zipper down and see the evidence of Law's touches, was somehow even more indecent.
She considered the turn of the planet as she watched him tug on his shirt. Whatever had broken last night had now been patched up by his perpetual, heavy-lidded look of sarcastic ennui. It would come back, Sophie knew, but she'd be ready for it. He motioned at her to stay still and combed out the tangles in the back of her hair with his fingers. They picked up Kikoku and Arsenic, and laced up their boots while making fun of each other for silly, stupid things that didn't matter as much as their shoulders knocking against each other as they said it.
No, the world wasn't spinning backwards. Things hadn't changed. They were both alive, and the darkness was held at bay for a while longer. It was a good, sharp feeling, better than the smoke of dynamite clearing a stuffy nose.
They slipped out of the inn and into the cold winter morning. Law pulled his hood up over his fluffy hat, which looked ridiculous. Sophie wrapped her scarf around her lower face. Holly Town was waking up, so they went the long way through the forest. They ambled down a long, quiet path to the pier, lined with fir trees.
"Have you come up with any other ideas?" Sophie asked. "The World Government would commonly invite pirates who cause the most trouble, but that won't be a good look for you."
Law crooked a brow. "Because the Alchemist is on my crew."
"Bingo. It looks messy, parlaying with the Heart Pirates with a well-known traitor standing next to you. Your route to Warlordship can't be burning Marine bases and causing even more damage." She added, sing-song, "Besides, I've already done it and I know you're a stickler for originality."
"It needs to be something helpful," Law said. "I need to prove my worth."
"And what about Joker? How are you going to find out what he's up to?"
"We already know someone," he began slowly, "who may have made contact with him. If we could lure out one lost princess, we could figure out how her, Joker, and the logs we found in St. Poplar that talked about SMILEs are connected."
Sophie glanced to the side. "And how would we lure her out?"
A beat, then: "You still have the number of the woman from Crawfish Island. The one who now pilots a flying kingdom."
"Oh," she said.
"It's very likely coming back down to the Grand Line will put them in danger." Law didn't need to say that, but acknowledging it was the least he could do.
"Yes. I'd have to ask Nellie if they'd go along with it."
"You'd ask?" He sounded surprised, but grateful.
Sophie had grown up watching military commanders making plans for war, and she could recognize when one sounded feasible. "They might pity our situation. Ours and Lisbeth's. Plus, I'd like to see her again."
"Thank you," Law said, which made her shoot him a wry grin.
"If we do this for our own selfish ends, that means no one from Cat's Eye can get hurt, okay?"
"Ideally," he said, and then corrected when he saw her brows drop, "Of course." His hand brushed against hers. She pinched him, though it was very light and he probably didn't feel it because he took her hand and gave it a tiny squeeze.
Sophie was startled by such a public display of affection. "You know we're still being followed, right?"
"I think he's trying to find the most opportune moment to make a dramatic entrance," Law replied.
"Surgeon of Death! Alchemist!"
The bellow was followed by a pair of spiked gauntlets that smashed down two massive fir trees. There in the sudden clearing stood an equally massive man cloaked in thick furs. He had a receding hairline, a heavy orange stubble, and a loud, barking laugh that reminded Sophie somewhat of a chihuahua.
"Myayayaya!" He pounded his gauntlets together. "My name is Hirsute the Insatiable, for I am never sated! Twelve cities I've burned in my wake! But I want more! I want to test my strength against real violence! Fight me, Supernovas!"
Sophie cupped her hands around her mouth. "Hellooo! Are you a fan?"
"We're not signing autographs today," Law said flatly.
"No—what—how do you not—my bounty poster was plastered all over the inn!" Hirsute the Insatiable roared, jabbing his finger at the town. "That inn! The one you guys just came out of! Pay more attention to your surroundings, damn it!"
"That reminds me, we're running low on funds." Law rubbed his chin. "If I turn him in, would I get paid?"
"Hustling the World Government?" Sophie stifled her giggles. "Imagine Sengoku's face if you rolled up with a bunch of pirates in tow."
Hirsute bashed his gauntlets into Law, but only caught his shadow. "You're quick, little doctor! Is dodging all you can do? No wonder your maid has a bigger bounty than you!"
Law straightened up, unsheathing Kikoku. "Is that supposed to offend me? Should I tell you she has a bigger dick, too?"
"I'm offended!" Sophie snapped, and Hirsute staggered backward as she caught his fist and neatly twisted. "Call me a janitor or a sanitation worker, you lout!"
Law angled his sword. "Mes."
In the blink of an eye, as his opponent collapsed to his knees, Law appeared behind him, holding a beating heart in a clear cube. The sight was framed perfectly by the empty square cavity in Hirsute's chest. He gaped for one shell-shocked moment, and then his eyes rolled back into his skull.
"Well… met…" Hirsute the Satisfied wheezed, and passed out in the snow.
Law tossed the beating heart up and down, grinning. "I just had an idea."
"Let me guess," Sophie said. "You're actually going to hustle the World Government."
"The Warlord system is rife with corruption, so really, they only have themselves to blame."
Law was right on both accounts; the first about Warlords and the second about getting made fun of for staying out all night. When they returned to the Polar Tang, the crew were waiting with plenty of jokes to crack about their captain and janitor.
—
Shakky tapped her fingernails on the bar counter, the beat steady and pensive.
They were back in the Rip-Off Bar. Shakky's glossy bob was obsidian-black against the shelves of amber rum bottles. With her heels, she was taller than Law. She called Bepo Bear-chan and patted the pompom on Penguin's hat and offered them all overpriced cookies with milk. Sophie wasn't sure if the boys were flattered or horrified by this treatment.
And now Shakky was tapping her nails in thought, musing, "Recent sightings of notable pirates, including their movements on Sabaody… this will cost you an exorbitant fee, kiddo."
Kiddo. Shakky called Supernovas kiddo. Actually, Sophie supposed she'd be more stunned had Law not received the same exact treatment from three older lesbians on Machinastein. There was something about him that ladies loved to make fun of…
"I have a better idea," Law said, and opened up the collar of his jacket.
"Oh, how bold," Shakky flirted. "Perhaps if I were twenty years younger…"
"Law, you know your sex appeal only works on a very niche group of weirdos!" Sophie wailed.
"How dare you brush off our captain's sex appeal!" the Hearts fumed, and Shakky laughed.
"I was pulling out bounty posters, you idiots." Punctuating the retort, Law slapped down the posters. "These pirates are big importers of Sabaody's slave trade, yeah? Tell me where they're hiding and I'll clean up your backyard a little. How much will information about these shitheads cost?"
It was a good suggestion, if mostly for the fact that the Hearts were nearly broke after their latest grocery run. (Hai Xing, understandably, was determined to keep the kitchen stocked full at every opportunity after floating weeks through the Florian Triangle with barely any food.) Human traffickers were excellent targets. It wasn't unusual for them to keep stockpiles of treasure on their ships, which Law would prefer to secure for himself.
"My, my. I'll give you lads a discount, then." Shakky blew out smoke, and said after a moment's consideration, "Five thousand beli."
The Hearts sighed and began emptying their pockets, hats, and shoes for stray coins.
—
The way she'd smiled and said they used to call me a witch too had stuck with Sophie. She hadn't spoken to Whitey Bay at the funeral, or any of Whitebeard's angry, grieving nurses. She talked to Nellie, and that was all good and well, but Nellie wasn't a pirate. There hadn't been anyone truly like her, who'd experienced something like this, that she could talk to.
That was why, after they'd stolen the second and third hearts, Sophie went back to the Rip-Off Bar. The Polar Tang was docked on Sabaody for the night. She peeled some (newly-acquired) cash out of her pocket for a juice box and thanked Shakky for her help.
Then, shuffling the melon-flavored juice box between her hands, Sophie managed to stammer out a few questions about the female pirates active in Shakky's time. "I w-wanted to ask if you had any stories about other pirates like us. Maybe I could learn something—ah! If th-that's okay! I mean, I don't mean to overstep, um, that is to say, if I'm not being too bold…"
Shakky was among the more intimidating people Sophie had ever met. Perhaps was her proximity to Silvers Rayleigh, and thus Gold Roger himself. Perhaps it was how she presented herself as an ordinary, unassuming bartender as if she had no interest in either. The older residents of Grove 13, back when they weren't nearly so old, had woken up one morning to a young woman with two big suitcases in each hand, investigating a run-down building among all the other run-down buildings. She opened one of her suitcases and took out a large toolkit, a large hammer, and an even larger saw, and she told her new neighbors on Grove 13 she'd be opening a bar here, and smiled a vague, mysterious smile.
With that same vague, mysterious smile, Shakky lit her cigarette, then lit the chamomile joint Sophie set between her lips, and all of a sudden it felt like they were two co-conspirators, trading secrets in a dim bar.
"I like bold women, myself." Shakky surveyed Sophie's excited fidgeting. "My, I can tell Trafalgar has fun with you."
Sophie gaped. She pulled herself together and said primly, "Shakky-san, I must insist you not define me by my relationship to a man."
Shakky beamed. "Oh, you're adorable."
Sophie gaped again. "Excuse m—are you making fun of—"
"I could tell you a story or two," Shakky said. "But I don't give them away to just anyone, so I expect you to be a good audience."
Sophie caught herself mid-rant and swallowed her words, clutching her mouth and sweating with the effort not to go on a righteous tirade. Shakky booped her on the nose, and she fell off the bar stool with a toad-like, "Gwah."
Teasing aside, the truth was that Shakky had been expecting this. In fact, it'd be accurate to say she'd been waiting for it. Most visitors these days were only concerned with her man's whereabouts, but a long time ago, things were different. She could barely close the front door before another girl came knocking, seeking her help—not her husband (who hadn't been her husband yet, only a stray alley cat with a fondness for being swindled by a pretty bartender), but her. Once, she found three straggly sisters outside, Boa Hancock's fist still raised from banging on the door. Something about Shakky's Rip-Off Bar drew others to it, whether it was rumors of Shakky herself, or the sight of her throwing out slavers who had come to search her backroom for runaway cargo.
So. Because there was a young, reckless, foolish girl listening eagerly, and because she said pirates like us, and because it had been a long time since that happened, Shakky told her about Charlotte Linlin in her prime, riding thunder and lightning into battle. (Sophie's eyes widened in awe.) Caterina Devon of the Crescent Moon hunting for the hot hearts of beautiful women. (Sophie's eyes narrowed in remembered distaste.) Portgas D. Rouge wreaking havoc across South Blue, a bloody cutlass in each hand.
"…Portgas? …Wait, Ace's mom was a pirate? And a D?"
Shakky leaned forward, the smoke from their cigarettes mingling together. "Of course."
Those were the glory days. Tsuru and her girls chasing them down, and everyone knowing this wasn't a world for them, but they'd make it theirs. Hungry and young, foolish and immortal. Everywhere you looked, there'd be another girl striking out for the sea, searching for her fortune. An hour passed, then two, and Shakky's pauses were growing longer. The ashtray between them had built up a small pile of cigarettes.
"Then what? What happened next?"
Shakky blinked, her chin resting on her hand and glancing at Sophie like she just remembered the younger woman was still there.
"Well." She began counting off on her fingers. "Tsuru was passed over in favor of Sengoku for Fleet Admiral. Whitey Bay and Elmy gave up their armadas and swore oaths to Whitebeard. Devon was thrown in Impel Down. Rouge chose Roger, and accepted everything that would come with that choice. And now with your generation, Jewelry Bonney is the only woman among the rookie Supernovas." Shakky shrugged. "Though, I suppose you're included now. Nico Robin and Nami-chan of the Straw Hats are also promising. But there used to be so many more of us."
Sophie was speechless. Shakky laughed.
"Oh, perhaps I'm just jaded," she said, blithe as a warm summer day. "I've been retired for decades now. What can I say about people like you and me that hasn't already been said to death?"
"No, no, it's not—this is so valuable," Sophie insisted, shaking fuzz out of her head. "I know how heavy legacies and histories can be. They blister your fingers when you carry it. But I'd rather have those blisters and know about everyone who came before me and fought and died, than think I'm the first person ever who's gone through… well, you know."
"That's a relief." Shakky winked. "Don't want to scare you off—"
"But you're wrong about one thing. We're still out here. We've never gone away, and we're dreaming of oceans freer than the Pirate King." Sophie grinned, wide and earnest, clenching the green dagger on her hip. "I'm not—I've never been alone! If I hadn't come back from the New World, I never would've known. That's pretty cool."
Shakky exhaled smoke, one delicate brow arched, her cigarette burning down to nothing between her fingers.
"Oh!" Sophie's hand shot in the air. "I have one more question! Ace told me something about Armament Haki, how it's actually all about breath and flow. But I still can't figure out what he meant by that. Do you have any advice about that?"
"Another good question," she approved, putting out her cigarette.
Sophie sheepishly rubbed her neck. "Quite shameless, aren't I…"
"The opposite, actually. Most rookies of your caliber think true strength is never asking for help and doing everything on their own. You're sensible."
"Ohoho! As we scholars like to say, we can only see this far because we stand on the shoulders of giants!" Sophie preened at the compliment and pretended to flip her too-short hair. "Maybe I'll use your knowledge and improve upon it and teach you something new, Shakky-san! …Gwah."
Shakky booped her on the nose again, and Sophie fell off her stool.
"You're a bit too young for that," she informed cheerily. "Come outside."
The back of the Rip-Off Bar was overgrown with wild grass and lit in swaths of sunset-oranges. Sophie watched as Shakky formed a fist and punched. Above, every single soap bubble up to the canopy of the mangrove trees popped as if a great force blew right threw them. Sophie stared as the wind died down and her hair swept across her forehead. Shakky felt like some dust had shaken off her shoulders.
"Armament can flow beyond your own body," she said. "You can emit it outwards. You can even force it into something else and destroy it from the inside."
Sophie slapped her battered journal down on her knee and yanked out her quill from behind her ear. "How fascinating! Can you do that again, Shakky-san? I didn't catch it the first time!"
After the young rookie left with a wave and a journal bulkier with new knowledge, Shakky wandered back inside. She picked up a broom and tidied the empty bar, cleaned up the ashtray, and poured herself a whiskey sour before she picked up a Den Den Mushi.
A voice like rich, aged bourbon came from the other end: "Rare of you to call."
"Rare of you to answer." She dropped into the circular bar booth, thinking of stupid girls and impossible dreams and gambling on an upstart rookie that reminded you of women you once knew. She didn't say any of that. What she did say was, "I figured I should warn you, my dear, that I'd prefer it if your legs didn't fall off in the next two years."
"The warning is appreciated, but unnecessary. Were both my legs gone, I would find a way to return to Sabaody even if I'm forced to construct an air balloon out of dirty shirts."
"Maudlin humdrum. I'm still waiting for you to pay your bar tab."
"On second thought, being stranded on a deserted island might work in my favor. How deep am I, ten million?"
"Sly dog, it's at least fifty by now. I've been keeping my books in order since the day we met."
A low chuckle tickled her ear. "So sentimental."
"It's the whiskey," Shakky assured, leaning her head back and closing her eyes.
"Save me some. Save me the stories you'll make over the next two years. And the bar tab."
"Hm."
"Shakuyaku."
"Hm?"
"Nothing. Just wanted to say it."
Shakky smiled. She pressed her mouth to the receiver and hummed, "Rayleigh," in a voice low and scintillatingly heady, then dropped the receiver down without another word. She dusted off her hands, sipped her whiskey, and began reading the evening news. Shakky had a feeling the Hearts would be back soon for more information and she wanted to be prepared; the Pirate King's right-hand man wasn't the only one with front-row seats to a grand adventure.
—
Operation: One Hundred Hearts had commenced. The Hearts had big plans in store for the world, but frankly all Sophie hoped for was another woman joining their crew. Any sort of non-man entity, really, to share feelings about being grossly outnumbered in the unisex bathroom would be nice.
She did her breathing meditations. With the rest of the crew, she studied the principles of flow that Shakky showed her. Her stubborn, temperamental Armament didn't budge an inch, nor did it remember how to imbue a weapon. There was no guarantee it would ever again be as strong as it was during the war. She worked harder. Ace said that her Haki was like a masochistic mad scientist's, searching for pain so it could learn from it. But he also told her to live. Between one extreme and the other, she'd find the answer.
Law was progressing so rapidly it was like he was born for this. He took out a Sea King with an Armament-imbued Kikoku, the stroke so clean it was practically surgical. Hai Xing was grilling it for dinner.
"Hah!" Sophie sliced the air with as much force as she could muster.
Perihelion glistened, silver, Armament-less.
She exhaled, no longer feeling humiliated by the trace of Law's eyes as he watched her fail again. She blew a raspberry at him and planted her feet back into position. This was nothing to feel humiliated over. Again.
In the evening, she dialed Nellie's number. They kept three normal Mushis and several baby ones, but this guy in particular bore a strong resemblance to the Heart captain. It was actually kind of cute. Sophie didn't think the service would reach whichever part of the sky Nellie was in, but after the sixth try, she picked up and Sophie told her everything, patting the sullen, sleep-deprived snail for a job well done.
"Coming back down to the Grand Line is risky." Her voice crackled with static. "But it's true we owe Trafalgar Law a large debt."
"You can say no," Sophie told her honestly. "Not that I want you to, but—whatever debt there was, he'd consider it even because you brought me back."
"Ah." A significant pause. "Well, I'll let the others know."
"Boo. You can't decide on your own? Use some good ol' fashioned tyranny?"
"These are the pains of livin' in a hard-won democracy, hun."
"A democracy? Bleh. If I was still in the World Government, I'd laugh. Anyway, let me know how the people vote, or whatever it is you guys do." Sophie softened her voice to let Nellie know she truly appreciated this. "Thanks for considering it."
"That poor girl, still alive and in pain after so long…"
She spun Perihelion around her hand. "Yeah."
"I wish I could've told her it wasn't her fault that she was born the child of a monster." Nellie was quiet for a moment. "I think we should close this chapter of the story."
"I think so too."
—
The next day, every Heart pirate well-accustomed to the sounds of the Polar Tang woke up and knew immediately that something was off.
The engine room was… quiet. Well, no, that wasn't right; it was never quiet anywhere in the submarine. Jean Bart was snoring and the engines were running as usual, and the ambience of creaks, whirrs, and hums that came with living in a giant piece of machinery were each in its rightful place. But there were no footsteps on metal floors, or the faint thumping of someone climbing a ladder to repair an air filter. Law felt the absence of it as he sat up in bed. So did Bepo, who's ears perked up. And Sophie, who clambered out of her corner in the engine room, was the first to check on the mechanics.
She found Kamasu's den beneath the pipes and crawled inside, accidentally hitting her foot against empty beer bottles. The bottles rolled to a stop beside four lumps shivering beneath a big blanket. They had a late night playing cards and Kamasu had told the others to crash down here with him.
"Oh, so you're all sleeping in." Sophie brusquely rearranged Kamasu's porny magazines. "I was worried for a moment! Taking it easy today, my petite strawberry shortcakes?"
"I feel like shit," came Valross's muffled groan.
A weak cough alerted her to another lump. "Kamasu, what was in your beer?" Penguin whispered, kicking the blanket over Shachi. Their hats had slipped off, and both of them wore a pale sheen of sweat.
"Don't blame me for being pussies," Kamasu tried to growl, but it ended on a pathetic sniffle. "Fuck, I've never had a hangover this bad."
Sophie had a sinking suspicion. She should've backed away, but she'd been raised by a doctor. She knelt down and touched their flushed foreheads. "Oh my god. You're hot, all of you."
"We won't tell Cap you said that," they muttered.
Shachi lifted his hand. "I might," he croaked.
"This is bad! I'm going to get Law! Nobody move—"
Sophie broke off, because, as if on cue, all four mechanics sneezed on her.
to be continued
notes. YES I WROTE MORE SMUT. please roast me now.
trivia
chapter title: the title is from a section of pablo neruda's sonnet xvii: "i love you as certain dark things are to be loved / in secret, between the shadow and the soul"
fensalir: named after a location in norse mythology; fruitpunched readers may recognize this island...