A/N: I can't write accents. Deal with it.

I promised myself I wouldn't work on this until after I handed it in, and yet here I am, typing the night before the biggest project of the year is due. Damnit, inspiration! Why can't you pick more opportune moments?

YOU GUYS. YOU GUYS ARE SPOILING ME WITH ALL YOUR REVIEWS. Seriously, This fic has like five time the reviews of another of my stories, Fishtail, as of writing this, when Fishtail has the same number of chapters (excluding the one I'm writing now) and has actually been around for longer. Makes you wonder.

Law had been watching them for all of five minutes now. He couldn't help it, he was just too curious.

He had come across the strange scene quickly after finishing his work for the time being. When he made his way to the kitchen to fetch himself something to eat (you know, sustenance and all that) he had seen Ace on the couch watching television and Luffy behind him, doing… something… else.

For the past few minutes, Luffy had been working his way up to the back of the couch. Normally, it wouldn't be a very difficult task, but he was trying to do it silently, which, for Luffy, was a feat in and of itself. Surprisingly, he actually was doing so slightly (slightly) effectively — probably would have been more effective if he would stop giggling every so often — but Law suspected the only reason he hadn't been caught yet was because Ace was playing along and pretending not to notice. When Luffy actually reached the back of the couch, he crouched behind the back and smothered his laughter in his hand. Habitually, he would peak over the top of the couch at Ace every few seconds, grinning maniacally as he did so.

Luffy had a plan of some kind. Law wanted to know what it was.

Unfortunately, right when Luffy seemed to be preparing himself to do… something, a knock came from the door. Ace hopped up and hurried himself to the door right as Luffy hurtled himself over the couch with a war cry. He landed with a bang on the floor.

"Curses!" he yelled emphatically. "Foiled again!"

"Are you implying that you have tried this multiple times?" Law asked as he approached to help Luffy up. "And that you have yet to succeed?"

Luffy just grinned at him.

Meanwhile, Ace opened the door to an unfamiliar head of blond hair. "Hello. And you are?"

"Sanji," the man said, looking him over. "I guess you're his brother, then?"

Ace nodded in recognition of the name. Luffy's friend, right? But what was he doing here?

Nonetheless, he invited Sanji in immediately. The man was carrying quite a few bags and Ace couldn't help but notice that he was surveying him suspiciously from the corner of his eye.

"Sanji!" Luffy cheered as he came up to greet him with a flying tackle hug. "You're here!"

"Hey, shit-for-brains," Sanji responded complacently. "What was that holler I heard just now?"

"You foiled my plans," Luffy accused, taking one of Sanji's bags from him and directing him to the small kitchen. Sanji rolled his eyes but followed.

"Ah, Luffy," Ace called after them, "did you invite him?"

There was a slight pause before Ace faintly heard their two voices squabbling.

"What do you mean you didn't tell him?"

"He didn't ask."

Luffy had run off to find Law at some point, leaving Ace alone with Sanji as the blond prepared to cook. He cleared his throat nervously.

"So, ah," he drew Sanji's attention easily. The perpetually pissed look on his face was a little daunting. "It's great to meet you. I'd like to thank you for being such a good friend to Luf—"

"Stop. You won't win me over with shitty flattery."

"Win you…" Ace blinked perplexedly. "…over?"

"If you want my permission to keep Luffy," Sanji took out a cloth and spray bottle and began wiping down the counter. "then you better prove yourself."

"W- Permission?" Ace sputtered. "What do you- wait, what are you doing?"

"I'm disinfecting your shitty counter, got a problem with that?"

Ace could overlook the 'shitty' comment. For now. He didn't want to make Sanji any testier than he already was. "Nah, it's just…" he shrugged noncommittally, "we don't normally wipe down our counters before cooking."

"You don't?" he sounded absolutely scandalised. Something screamed at Ace that that was the wrong thing to say. "How could you be so careless with your food? Don't you care whether the shit you put in your body is clean or not? That's horribly unsafe — do you ever clean your countertop? That thing is probably crawling with bacteria! What if you gave Luffy food-poisoning, huh? What would you do then? Because if Luffy gets food-poisoning here, I will hold it against you."

Ace felt more and more ashamed as Sanji continued to rant about the dangers of bacteria-infested cooking areas and the effects of food-poisoning. When he finally finished, Ace bailed as soon as possible.

"I'll, ah, I'll just go find Luffy, then." And he was off.

After Sanji divided up the food among serving plates, he set to drinks. For Luffy… Luffy likes milk, so that should be fine.

He opened Luffy's 'brother's' fridge to look for a carton of milk. When he pulled one out, words written on it in black ink caught his eye. I drank from this, along with an arrow.

Well that was just plain disgusting.

He put the milk back. He sincerely hoped that was just some prank, but just in case, he probably shouldn't serve the milk. Water would do just fine, and it was pretty much guaranteed no complaints.

It took him a few tries to find the cupboard with cups in it, and when he opened it, only three cups sat waiting for him. He called over his shoulder to the other room, "Don't you have any more than three cups?"

"Hm?" Luffy's voice replied. "I'm pretty sure we had four. At least, I remember seeing four all at one time, so… Let me think."

"Never mind, I think I found it. It was on top of the windowsill," he said, reaching up to take the cup down from the windowsill above the sink. It already had water in it, but that was no problem because he could just clean it out. Wait, what was that… green… thing inside of it? He would have to wash that out, too, whatever it was, and make a note of the mouldy things growing inside Luffy's brother's dishes.

"On top of the windowsill? Why would it be… oh!" Luffy's voice lit up in realisation. "Wait! Nooooooooooooooo!" He dove into the kitchen and caught Sanji's hand just before he could dump the cup's contents into the sink. "Not Zoro-pi!"

"W- Zoro-pi?" Sanji sputtered. "The hell is a 'Zoro-pi'?"

"Zoro-pi is my pet marimo," Luffy explained. He took the cup into his hands, holding it gingerly and tapping the lip of the glass with a fond smile. "Nii-chan gave him to me."

"Wonderful," Sanji drawled. "But can't he… live somewhere else? I need a cup to drink from, you know."

"But… but…" Luffy's bottom lip was quivering and the pleading in his eyes shone like from a lighthouse. Absolutely typical.

"Alright, alright, fine," he conceded. "I'll find something else to drink from."

"You will? Thanks!" Luffy nudged past him and carefully put the moss ball back on the windowsill. He gave Sanji one last appreciative grin before trotting off.

Sanji sighed. What the hell was he supposed to use if not a cup? Luffy didn't expect him to use a bowl, did he?

He fixed the cup of green moss a glare. Faintly, he heard muffled snickering.

He scoffed. "Oh, are you laughing at me now?"

"No, no it's not," an amused voice came from the doorway. Sanji looked over to see a dark skinned man about the same age as Luffy's brother. "But I am." He extended a hand. "Name's Law."

"Sanji."

"So I've heard." He cocked his head at Sanji's bags, which lay on one of the counters. "They tell me you're a chef. Those ingredients? You chef-ing it up in here?" Sanji didn't get a chance to make a reply to that before Law changed the subject. "And you disinfected the counters! You know, it's good to meet someone who has a proper respect for hygienic environments." He stopped to consider. "Although I have to say such lengths are unnecessary. Perhaps a tad… overkill?"

When Ace deemed it safe to come out again, he found Law and Luffy sitting at the dining table already. Law, strangely, was pale-faced and horrified.

"Disinfecting the counter was a perfectly rational thing to do," he repeated to Luffy weakly. "Perfectly rational."

"You got a lecture too, huh?" Ace asked as he took a seat.

Luffy hummed. "He explained it to me, too, a long time ago. I'm used to it by now."

"Really?" Ace inquired.

"Uh huh. He said monsters would invade the food, and the spray-stuff was like the dragon that defended the food from them, but I don't get why he would want to use another monster to protect from monsters, or are dragons even monsters in the first place? I'm not sure…"

Ace listened fondly to the childish explanation, which only stopped when Sanji entered with the meal.

"Steak au poivre," he announced, "with crushed peas and potatoes."

Luffy cheered and Ace smiled in thanks. Law was brought back to the land of the living by the smell of food. Sanji served each person before sitting down himself. Ace couldn't help but note that he had a bowl in place of a cup.

Small talk was exchanged over the meal as the present company ventured to know each other better.

"You sound Irish," Sanji observed with some interest.

"I am," Ace replied heartily. "Moved there when I was five and spent most of my life in that beautiful country, bless it."

"He used to sound even more Irish not long ago," Law supplied, "until he got it his thick head that I had no earthly clue what he was saying. He got to working off the slang words and such after that, and now he's understandable to the majority of people. Still got the accent, though."

"It matches your freckles," Luffy giggled. Ace resisted the urge to slap him over the head.

"You should have seen him on Saint Patrick's day," Law informed conspiringly. "Got him drunk, dyed his hair red, dressed him up as a leprechaun. He was on the news."

"I saw that!" Luffy squealed. "That was Nii-chan?"

Sanji cleared his throat. "So, if you loved Ireland so much, how is it that you moved back just in time for Luffy's blood test?"

Law knit his brows together and Luffy gave Sanji a smouldering look that just said don't you dare. Ace merely blinked. "Well, I wouldn't say it was just in time… I mean, I had been living here for a couple years by the time I met Luffy. It wasn't exactly a simultaneous thing."

Sanji nodded, satisfied.

Before anyone could get another word in, Ace's head landed in his peas.

"What the hell?" Sanji stammered.

"He has narcolepsy," Law explained.

"I get his steak!" Luffy declared.

"So," Ace began as he leaned over the sink, washing some steak sauce out of his hair, "what do you have against me?"

"Pardon me?"

"I said," he repeated firmly, "What's your problem? What did I do?"

Sanji paused from re-packing his supplies into his bags. "You didn't do anything."

"Then what is it? What's your problem with me?"

"I don't have a problem with you," Sanji said quietly, resuming to put his things away.

"You obviously do," Ace insisted.

"I don't have a problem with you, I—" Sanji inhaled slowly and turned around to look Ace in the eyes. "I have a problem with… with people who want him in their care for the wrong reasons."

Ace felt something thick and sickening rise to his throat as he wondered what Sanji could mean by that. "What exactly do you mean, wanting him for the wrong reasons?"

Sanji leaned against the counter and ran a hand through his hair. "…The last person who wanted to adopt Luffy was this guy named Shanks. He was friendly enough, and Luffy simply adored him, but the Centre wouldn't let the adoption go through. I never understood why, until I learnt the truth about him," he paused. Ace wasn't entirely sure whether he was collecting himself or whether it was for dramatic impact. "He always wrote off not being able to adopt Luffy because it was too dangerous to drag a little kid to places like Egypt and the rainforest. He told us he was a world traveller. He was a wanted felon."

Ace sucked in a breath. To even consider that his little Luffy might have been placed in the hands of a criminal…

Sanji continued, "We never saw Shanks again, but Luffy still mentions getting letters from him sometimes. I make sure to rip them up every time I find them. I just know that if Luffy had been adopted by Shanks, he would have been… He would have wound up in a bad place. So I need to be careful, make sure he doesn't wind up in the care of anyone like that. It's my responsibility."

"I… see." Ace was still reeling slightly. "Ah… Do I pass your test then?"

Sanji smiled. It was a surprisingly pleasant expression, for the blond. "You do." He produced a slip of paper he had prepared in advance from his breast pocket. "And here's your report card."

"Report card?"

"Just take it."

He took the sheet reluctantly. Looking at it, it was just a bunch of incomprehensible strings of numbers. Sanji pointed at one of them.

"That one's my phone number; call it if you need me. This one is his doctor's phone number and address; he has a check up with her next week. That's the backup doctor's number; call it if the first doctor doesn't pick up when you try her. This one's Makino's and that's Marco's, they're good if you need advice or if I'm not around to help. That's the Baratie, I work there, and it's where you can reach me during work hours most days. That's the address to the Thousand Sunny, he's signed up for some classes there, so…"

Ace felt exasperation roll off him in waves as he tried to keep up with the amount of numbers Sanji was giving him. He really did care about Luffy, didn't he?

Well, at least we have something in common.

A/N: I've always had it written that Ace was Irish, but I never found a good spot to include it. This is good enough, I suppose. Anyhow! Thoughts?