She loved her friends; they weren't just friends, they were family. She loved their kid just as much and since she knew that the stupid marimo had not one romantic bone in his body, she had deemed it her mission to get Robin the romantic rendezvous she deserved, which meant taking care of her child in the meantime. No big deal she had thought, the kid was a troublemaking whirlwind of dirt when awake but she never ever had any trouble sleeping through the night. Her plan for the night had been to take a long relaxing bath with one to seven cocktails and ignore any and all dumbassery around her while she knew her friend had the most romantic date a woman could dream of, apart from her oaf of a partner but that had been completely out of her control. How had she known that it was great? Because she had planned it, down to the last miniscule detail. Under threats of electrocution and a steep increase of debt she had even gotten the marimo into one of his incognito dress up suits. Yes, she'd tried it before and failed miserably, but this time they were already used to having a child, this time would be different. This time she had threatened to quadruple his debt so this time it would definitely work!
And what was her reward? Calm relaxation? No, no of course not. The one night her parents were off the ship the fucking brat had decided to not sleep through the night.
They had tried everything. Brook had sung to her, something that always lulled her to sleep. Usopp had tried to tell her a story, a classic fairytale, but apparently he told it all wrong and 'Mommy tells better'. Sanji had made her hot cocoa even though she wasn't allowed to have sweets after brushing her teeth and Franky had built her a little katana to stop the tears. Chopper had cuddled her until he had to retreat for medical reasons, mainly because his ears probably started bleeding and now she had tried to bribe her and even that had failed.
She leaned against the kid's door that just barely dulled the shrill wailing from within.
"Guys we need to do something, we can't call them back, they haven't even finished dinner and aren't even close to the moonlight stroll through oldtown and probably haven't even thought about the midnight concert. We have to calm her down," she sighed pinching the bridge of her nose. She loved the brat but she was definitely giving her a migraine. She didn't even have the energy to fight Usopp for voicing that their friends probably didn't care for moonlight serenades and were probably just out boning somewhere. That idiot, Robin was a sophisticated woman that enjoyed the finer things in life, wasn't their fault that all the men on this ship were so fucking crude.
"Come on Sanji, fry me a steak!" Luffy whined for the umpteenth time. For fuck's sake! Just why was the one who deserved it the most immune to her lightning?
"Any ideas?" She asked around and when Luffy raised his hand she immediately whacked him over the head with her climatact. "If I hear you say steak one more time I'll tell Zoro and Robin that you let Tori fall in the ocean to teach her to swim."
At least that shut him up for now.
"I don't know, I checked her, she's not teething, it's not colics, medically she's fine, though I might have to check her hearing and vocal cords tomorrow… I think it's just the first time she woke up and Robin or Zoro aren't here. I read somewhere that children her age react to smells? Maybe if we get her something they wore?" Chopper suggested over the raising volume of shrieks coming through the closed door. Ok these were desperate times, if it would shut her up she could definitely manage one of Zoro's smelly clothes. "Luffy, go get something of Zoro's from the hamper, shouldn't be a problem for you since you bathe even less," she ordered while bracing herself to get back inside the room of chaos and despair.
"I'll only go if Sanji can cook that steak"
What the… The gall of that bastard, couldn't he see they had a crisis to deal with? "Fucking fine, Sanji get the glutton his steak, one crying kid is enough for this evening, I can't handle any more"
Just when had been the last time she had given up like that? Never is when, but 2 hours of constant nonstop heart breaking wails tend to do that to you. She pinched Zoro's worn robe between her fingers, getting enough grip to keep the heavy material from falling but keeping the exposure to the vile thing as minimal as possible. One deep breath away from the offending garment and a last glare to her thumbs ups giving crewmates and she pushed the door open, truly glad for the earplugs Franky had handed out about an hour ago. She grabbed Robin's sleeping gown from the hanger and draped both fabrics around the crying kid. And, oh, she shut up? Yes! Yes! The girl finally snuggled into the smelly green and- as soon as she noticed the person the stench belonged to was missing she hiccuped once and started crying again. Oh why did she have to be this difficult?! She left the clothes on her bed and ran for the exit, one stuffed animal just so missing her head as it donked against the wall next to the door. Fucking brat!
"Damn, for a moment I had really thought it would work," Usopp sighed after she had safely closed the door again.
"Oww, maybe it's just not enough? Chopper-bro, what else do they smell like?"
"Um, Robin smells like books and coffee and Zoro like steel and sake. And cloves, too, maybe that can help?"
Oh she really had to be desperate if she was honestly considering letting the kid get a whiff of sake and coffee. Fuck it she was desperate. She turned to Sanji who just returned from the kitchen, "Sanji-kun, could you bring some fragrant coffee grounds and sake, please?"
He was agitated, she could see, but he complied with a happy dance and the usual swooning nonetheless. When he returned with the items and an even more clenched jaw and a vein ticking over his eye she had to ask. Usually it was only Zoro who could rile him up like that, to get him quietly steaming, this wasn't because Tori, was it? Despite his everlasting feud with her father, she was his little angel!
"That bastard, first crying for a steak, not any steak mind you, a juicy one, had to be perfectly medium, and absolutely flawless and also not that thin cut, get me the good one the expensive one. And now that he got it does he eat it? No! The fucker just stares at it and pokes it! Too hot, he says. Fucking bastard!" The chef roared his frustration, switching between shouts of anger and an impeccable imitation of their captain. It did explain the mood, if there was something the man was truly passionate about it was food and the one thing he hated most was to waste it. She smiled at him when he opened his mouth to undoubtedly apologize for talking like that. "I understand, we'll deal proper punishment when we get Tori under control .. I think she just threw her Kung Fu dugong toy after me."
The blonde gaped at her, sake bottle almost slipping from his grasp. "She loves that plushie," he exclaimed and she nodded in response.
"Aye, the situation is dire. We need a proper plan of attack. We tried singing and cuddles, stories and toys. We also tried her parents' scents, but we haven't tried all of it together!" She stood proud, fists stemmed into her sides. The morale was down, she knew, saw it on their defeated faces. "We will all get in there, together, as a family and we will calm Tori's tears and if it's just so we can rub it in Zoro's stupid face!" Ha, that at least caught Sanji and Usopp! "Brook, how can you call yourself the soul king if you can't sing a little girl to sleep? You'll never get to see Robin's panties like that!" Whoop, three down! "Chopper, this is your duty as a big brother, you know she sees you like that and so do Robin and Zoro." Should she feel bad for aiming for his feelings? For making him tear up? No, this was war, and everything was fair in war. She turned to Franky, held his gaze. "This is the manly thing to do. Real men dry little girl's tears and even drink imaginary tea from ridiculously small teacups if it makes the child happy."
He gave her a stern nod, not even trying to keep his manly tears at bay.
"Alright men, equip your earplugs and follow me!" She turned, hand already on the handle when she halted. Something was wrong. Something… it was quiet? She pulled out the earplugs, yes quiet, blissfully quiet quiet. Just the soft waves rocking against the ship and… And snores? She turned to the others and they seemed to listen equally baffled into the night. One finger to her lips she implored silence as she carefully pressed down the handle and opened the door.
Her gaze immediately fell onto the girl's bed. "Well I'll be damned," she mumbled as she shuffled to the side to let the others see. There on the bed lay Luffy, snoring loudly and little Tori on his chest sleeping soundly, tiny hands clutching a thick, expensive cut of expertly medium cooked beef with little bite marks all around.
"Ow! Our captain doesn't deserve punishment, he deserves a barbecue," Franky whispered behind her and she wanted to strangle him when four eyes immediately snapped open.
"Barbie cu?"
Hope you enjoyed, let me know in a comment if you'd be so kind.
I'll be taking a bit of a break. I actually wanted to have the other Shoganai sequel out next week, but since I've just finished a writing marathon for the Setsail gift exchange (You can find my entry for that on my ao3) I'm a bit exhausted. Once it's done the Sequel will be posted in the Shôganai Series on ao3, so if you subscribe to that you won't miss it. Once that's up I'll continue with our lovely demon-spawn.
Also, the other Shoganai sequel I'm talking about won't be posted on ffn. It's ao3 exclusive because let's be honest ffn is quite shitty and I'm sick of jumping through hoops every time I want to post something. I do hope a lot of you will follow me there because I would really miss the interaction, but I've seen myself dreading posting here so I'll just stop. I'll continue the already posted stuff but there won't be any new fics on this site. I've been told people prefer ffn for dark mode, but you can completely customize ao3's design, whichever colours you want so that really shouldn't be much of an issue.
Take care of yourselves!