Story set: Timeless


I'm monetizing this beer

It is not rare for the Strawhats to eat in a restaurant, a café or a bar of sorts. It's a good excuse for the following three things: 1) For them to try local cuisine, 2) for Sanji to absorb new cooking methods and recipes and 3) make Sanji take a goddamn break. On this particular day they were in a small restaurant, though Sanji didn't really want to call it that. Restaurants had professional chefs, welcoming waiters and a wide menu. This place had none of those things. The place was much smaller than the Baratie, it only had one waiter, who did not know what she was doing (poor girl) and the chefs... Well, let's just say that Sanji was keeping an eye on what they did and what they were serving, because what the hell? He wasn't too sure how they had ended in this place to begin with. It was something about Nami finding it cheap, Luffy meeting a nice old man and Brook feeling sorry for the waitress, when they were about to turn down her offer of them dining in the 'restaurant'. Either way, here they were and Sanji decided just to roll with it for now.

The starters were not as bad as Sanji had expected them to be. Half the crew (Luffy, Zoro, Usopp, Franky and Brook) had ordered the soup and the rest of them had ordered the salad. Sanji had made sure to taste Brook's soup for a sample and it was all quite okay, but there was nothing special about it. It was still lunch though, so he just had to make sure to find a better place, when dinner came about.

"Nami-san?" Sanji asked lovingly and she just looked coldly at him, detecting that he was about to ask for a favour and it was going to involve money, and more precisely, spending money.

"What is it, Sanji-kun?"

"Can I be in charge of our dinner reservations?"

"No." She immediately answered and continued her conversation with Franky. Though Sanji loved Nami, he was not about to give up his little quest and decided that as a pirate, it was okay to play dirty. So he pulled the Captain card.

"Luffy, don't you want to eat a really good meal tonight? With lots of meat, lovely drinks and sweet desserts?" Sanji felt Nami's burning eyes on him, but at least that meant that she was paying attention to him.

"That sounds awesome! Let's do that!" Luffy cheered and Sanji turned back to Nami with a victorious smile. Just because he didn't want to physically fight a woman did not mean that he couldn't take them on in battle and win.

"You hear that Nami-san? Our Captain wants a fancy dinner with lots of food and who are we to disobey?"

"You're going to hell," she said annoyed.

"Of course~, I wouldn't want to be away from you, my sweet Nami-swan~" Sanji almost sang and he noticed from the corner of his eye that Zoro was observing them, smiling. Sanji and Nami were the two people Zoro fought the most with and watching them argue meant that one of them eventually had to lose, so he was quite content with the current events. Especially since Zoro, more often than not, would lose in his arguments and fights with Nami, so seeing her defeated and forced to use her precious money made Zoro smile.

The main course went by in a blur and honestly Sanji would not have been able to tell you what anybody had eaten, just that they had eaten a lot of it. He did remember that he had had a lot of water for some reason, but water was a good thing... and a cheap thing, so whatever.

Despite this being their lunch, they decided to order some desserts just because they had heard the waitress being yelled at for not attracting enough customers and they couldn't help but feel sorry for her as she frantically apologized.

She took their orders and offered them drinks made by the establishment. They accepted and it wasn't long before the food and drinks arrived. It was then that Sanji noticed that something was wrong. This was a peaceful island and the few pirates they had spotted had acted very civil just buying supplies or enjoying some of the local attractions, but when Sanji looked around this 'restaurant' he got the feeling that these people did not have peaceful intentions. Sanji had also noticed that as people had existed the 'restaurant' no one had entered in quite a while and the people who were left had been there suspiciously long with nothing but a cup of coffee or a bottle of beer. The only voices to be heard were the Strawhats and the cute waitress who constantly wanted to know if they were comfortable and enjoying themselves. As Sanji didn't want to start looking suspicious himself he just activated his Haki and decided not to act unless someone could be confirmed as a threat.

When Sanji turned his attention back to his crew, they had been served a few bottles of beer, which the waitress was explaining were local delicacies. Zoro was of course the first person to reach for the beer, but was it normal for restaurants to serve bottles after they had been opened? Normally the waitress would open the bottle by the table to prove that it was new and had not been replaced with something else... Sanji shot a quick glance to the chef behind the counter and the smile he wore sent a chill down Sanji's spine.

"Don't drink that," Sanji yelled and smacked the bottle out of Zoro's hands before he could drink anything. The bottle smashed on the floor and for a moment the crew just looked at the spilt beer.

"What the hell did you do that for?" Zoro said annoyed as he turned his attention towards Sanji, who just gestured to the people behind him. Zoro immediately understood and a fight followed soon after. It had only been Sanji and Zoro who had been participating in the fight, while the crew had just cheered them on, but it did not last long. Their opponents really hadn't been anything but scrubs, which was probably why they had resorted to poison, since they would not have been able to take them on otherwise.

"Nami-san," Sanji said after the fight, which had left the whole building in a terrible state, "If we take all of their money, I can use that for dinner and we won't have to spend any of ours."

"What a good idea, Sanji-kun," Nami beamed and her eyes shone brightly.

"Does that mean you love me~?" Sanji responded lovingly and was half expecting a punch that never came.

"Yes, yes, I love you very much," Nami sighed, obviously just saying whatever would please him, and gathered her things. They left the restaurant and Sanji made a mental note to always be alert when they were eating out. They had just become to infamous for no one to recognize them and try to take those sweet bounty money for themselves. The world really was made of greedy people and this did not exclude the Strawhats.


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