Hello.
Yes, I am still alive.
After being swallowed by the swamp of the end-of-semester essays and exams combo.
So actually I wrote the chapter in like two weeks, but the weeks before that I wrote absolutely nothing because I was spending my days writing in academic mode, and then at the end of the day I couldn't go back to fanfic mode (or keep my eyes open really). Very annoying.
Anyway.
I guess this is mostly a filler chapter, but there's a lot sugar-y fluff and uh, jokes (as long as you don't identify too much with Zoro), so… please forgive me?
And I hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece, so anything that you see in this fic and that you can recognise as belonging to One Piece is not mine. If I did own it, I wouldn't have to write fanfiction. Duh. Also, I don't own the picture. Should have said that earlier.
Part One - Dive|rgence
TEN
The music curls around me
and drowns the dissonant sounds of this world
fills me
and drains away the wisps of nightmares in my head
and the sobs in my chest
leaving a clean, blank slate
where I can
write my laughter without any chains
to keep it locked in my throat
and make me choke
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"So." Elynna mutters quietly as she adds her -much smaller- share of peeled potatoes to Sanji's in the boiling water. "Why is that imbecile still here?"
"Elynna-san, your savagery only adds to your beauty!" The blond cook exclaims enthusiastically as he stirs the sauce that is thickening in a smaller pot.
"Oh, I like that one." She mumbles with a smile, focusing on peeling the tomatoes in the way he told her to.
She thought that she would feel uneasy, or that she would die of second-hand embarassment from being that close to someone who can spout things this cringe-worthy, but because Sanji behaves like this with just about every woman, and his attention is currently divided between her and his recipe, she actually finds it so exaggerated it is pretty funny.
He smiles at her. It's a wholesome smile shadowed with a child's pleased eagerness after being praised. Not quite as bright as Luffy's, but it definitely comes close.
She clearly has to start investing in sunglasses.
"The rate of imbecillity among our clientele -and staff- is rather high, I'm afraid that I don't quite know who you're talking about."
The response from the other cooks in the kitchen is an impressive show of unity.
"You wanna fight, Sanji, you little brat?!"
"Did they train to do that, or are you just impolite so often that it has become a reflex?"
"The second."
"The second."
"Totally the second."
"Yup, definitely."
This time Sanji is the one to offer free glares over the dancer's head as she narrows her eyes at a particularly stubborn tomato, huffing to evacuate her frustration and not crush the tomato into a literal pulp.
(Being a perfectionist and working in a restaurant with no previous experience is not a good combination.)
"I was talking about the Marine guy."
"Who?"
Her lips twitch at his careless irreverence.
"The guy you beat up yesterday… Who came in with a pretty blonde dressed in red." She adds for good measure because there's a high chance that the latter element will jolt his memory much more easily than the first.
"Oh, yes! Apparently he called his superiors to report what happened and is waiting for them to arrive."
She looks up from her task at that.
"I thought it would be problematic, but you don't seem very worried."
She steps back to give him more space to collect the tomatoes, and nods at another cook who brings her a part of his carrots to peel so as to hasten the preparations of his recipe, if only incrementally.
"Well…" Sanji begins, knife spinning skillfully between his long fingers and oh dear, she doesn't know if hand kink is a thing, but she definitely has one for his and Rain's hands -especially if he adds the knife trick. "There are a lot of pirates in the area who come here, so we have an… agreement with the Marines to give them information, and stall some of the more highly-wanted ones here, as long as they don't interfere with what we do to some extent."
"At most, we'll get a slap on the wrist." An older cook with round glasses and hair like a mad scientist adds.
She blinks, and laughs.
"I'm looking forward to seeing that idiot's face when that happens."
Snickers run through the little group.
"By the way, time for our usual betting pool, guys."
"Twenty berries on five."
"You little wimp. Fifty on seven."
"Where do you even get so much money from? It's downright suspicious you know. Eighteen on four."
"What the hell are they betting on?" Elynna whispers through her teeth as she unconsciously gnaws at her lower lip, mouth unattractively twisting this way and that to tug at small patches of skin.
"The number of times that Marine will ask his superior to repeat their order to leave us alone."
She snorts.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
She raises her eyes to the sky, and pr-
Ah, no, it's just the ceiling.
…
Praying to God, or gods, or whatever it's supposed to be called would be much more dramatic when staring at the sky than the ceiling.
She sighs, and looks back down to the two customers she was just serving.
Who are staring at something behind her back.
She sighs again.
Because she knows, she just knows that the cacophony behind her is caused by her crewmates, whom she just looked away from a minute ago, damnit!
She really does not want to know what they have been up to in the last sixty seconds.
She takes a deep breath, feeling a sudden but strong sympathy for those imbeciles in horror movies who (allegedly, because she never actually watched any of those) explore haunted houses and open doors even though they know a serial killer is behind it, and turns around.
Luffy rolling on the floor and apparently trying to cough his heart out, she was kind of expecting. Or more like, she didn't expect him to behave in a manner considered proper by general society throughout the entirety of their stay.
Zoro yelling at him and looking an inch away from unsheathing his sword to bring it down on his Captain's neck, she's not surprised by. Honestly, the guy has some serious anger management issues.
Usopp and Nami laughing their ass off so hard that the table is under threat of destruction by their pounding fists, she could do without. She thought these two at least would behave relatively normally.
Clearly, she forgot that the word 'normal' is about as unapplicable to these guys as the word 'impossible'.
(She can only hope that she'll be able to keep up.
Otherwise she'll either get killed or left behind.
The fact that she's already attached enough to be unable to say which one would be worse makes her want to laugh and cry until her muscles burn and red streaks are left permanently imprinted upon the too-white skin of this face.)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"What the hell is this."
Nami chokes on another giggle at the sound of her roommate's voice, which is already so flat and exasperated before even receiving an answer that she wonders if today will be the day that the hitherto astoundingly patient First Mate will snap and wring the neck of this ridiculously childish Captain.
(This ridiculously childish Captain whose eyes and back looked nothing like a child's in the little village razed down by Buggy,
whose childishness makes Nami want to punch either him or herself because how dare he steady her trembling grip in battle with so much trust and respect, how dare he drape a blaket of warm, ridiculous security around her caving shoulders in the space of a few weeks
when he's nothing but a damn pirate-)
Between wheezing chortles, Usopp sets out to explain to Elynna how Zoro relentlessly teased their Captain for getting them stuck in this situation, which led to Luffy putting a booger in the swordsman's drink as soon as the latter's back was turned, booger that Zoro promptly shoved down the throat of the straw-hatted boy.
When the long-nosed boy finishes, Luffy has finally sat up and is now regaining his breath, hand closed carefully around his throat made raw with all his coughing and dark glare clashing with that of his swordsman (whom he is now seriously considering putting on permanent cleaning duty in retaliation -Captain's orders).
Then a shadow looming over him makes him look up.
And freeze.
Because his First Mate's head is slowly, almost robotically turning towards him in a way that he would find absolutely cool if it wasn't accompanied by the slight downward turn of her lips and the kind of distantly disgusted gaze she's pinning him down with -the one people usually reserve to an insect's remains splattered under their shoes.
He promptly throws himself at her feet and ensnares one of them in his grip, looping both arms around several times to be a hundred percent sure that she won't get away.
"I'm sorry Ann, please don't leaaaaaave!" He wails loudly, bursting into mostly nonsensical babble.
Elynna almost staggers in surprise, and realises that just about the entire restaurant is looking at them. Her cheeks and throat suddenly turn an embarassed, horrified lobster red, so quickly that Usopp almost gets whiplash.
And then her entire face twitches in discomfort in a way that is strangely reminiscent of a mouse, and the three other members of the crew start laughing all over again because she can crack the most embarassing jokes straight-faced, but somehow she can't handle her Captain making a scene, and it's hilarious.
(Elynna thinks that the only thing hilarious here is that Fang spends so much time trying to make everyone believe that he's a tough guy and then he goes and laughs that laugh, a free and open and wild thing that comes out of a smile that can only be called boyish.
It ruins the whole image, and she's going to blackm- um, tease him about it for days.)
"Shut up, Sea King!" She hisses, jostling the leg he seems to have riveted himself to. "I'm not going anywhere, okay?!"
"Really?" The rubber boy sniffles, looking up at her with teary, pleading puppy eyes and a jutting lip.
Elynna abruptly covers her eyes to try and shield herself from the power of that triple combo.
"Yes, really. Now if you could please experience social shame right about fucking now, it'd be much appreciated."
"Aw, don't be so mean, Elynna." Nami snorts as she knocks back her drink. "Isn't innocence supposed to be cute?"
"Yes, well I prefer it when they have experience, thank you oh so damn much."
The navigator almost chokes on her drink, and Usopp makes a retching sound.
"Don't make that kind of joke about your Captain, woman." Zoro groans exasperatedly, because Luffy is just blinking at her in confusion so apparently it's up to him to defend the idiot's dignity.
"No one will be spared." His sparring partner answers flatly. "Besides, I have to regain my composure one way or another."
"Of course we had to get the one First Mate who makes that kind of joke to 'regain her composure'." Usopp grumbles quietly, cheeks still blazing as bright as his eyes when telling a story.
"I heard that, Hawk."
"It's kinda the point."
"Are you getting sarcastic with me?"
"It's your fault." Usopp and Zoro counter simultaneously.
Luffy's eyes bounce between the three of them as he stares up at his crew from his place on the floor.
Suddenly Nami's giggles turn into a confused noise halfway up her throat, causing the four others to turn to her.
The noise becomes understandable when they spot Sanji on one knee in front of their navigator, a rose in his hand (wherever the fuck it came from).
He's flirting.
Flirting, as in a waterfall of compliments that sound like glitter and sugar and taste like roses, and they can almost see the little hearts coming out of the man, as if his body can't handle all the affection of this love-at-first-sight syndrome.
It makes them shudder.
Nami forces down the peals of laughter that are piling up like feathers, tickling the inside of her throat at the sight of her four temporary partners (the reminder has become automatic, but the pain isn't lessening and she hates it), who somehow pull a face with varying quotas of confusion and disgust at the same time.
(She shouldn't laugh,
because if she does, then this boy with hair like sun rays and eyes like pieces of sky, this boy who looks like an angel and yet is kneeling before her and looking up at her with the adoration of a pilgrim setting his sight on the sacred -tainted- relic he walked days on end to see,
this boy might stop giving her all these compliments and they feel-
nice
nicer than you're dead, brat and catch me that little bitch and cut off her hands, see if she'll keep stealing what belongs to others and I can't believe she's working for him, she really has no shame-
he's looking at her like she's a goddess, who can't do anything wrong, because even if she does something wrong it will be right and
she likes it)
"Even you, Elynna?"
Her roommate blinks at her, somehow managing to make the gesture look offended, and sniffs.
"I mean, I totally agree with his taste in women on this one, but- This is cringy as hell. Not my thing."
"And what's 'your thing'?"
"So glad you're asking. Scoot over, lover boy."
She shoos Sanji away with a gesture of her hand and a nudge of her foot, leaving her tray on the table as she steps closer to Nami.
She extends her hand.
Obligingly, the tangerine-haired girl places her own hand in hers, lips already twitching at the temporary waitress' grin (the one with the dimples that makes her squeal in her own head like a fangirl).
"Hey, you're totally gorgeous. Wanna fuck?"
Sanji promptly faceplants against the floor, where a slightly worrying pool of blood soon spreads.
Usopp, who was munching on his fried shrimps like popcorn during a show, chokes.
Zoro facepalms.
Nami gives up on the is that even flirting that is teetering on the edge of her lips and starts cackling immediately, bending forward to relieve the ache of her midsection and almost falling out of her chair if not for the warm, solid grip on her hand.
Luffy joins her soon enough, more because of the sight than the words.
(and because his First Mate's grin has gotten even wider despite the fact that the whole restaurant is looking at them and he likes that she doesn't care about it for once
-Ace cared too much about others too but he got better)
Zoro glares furiously at Elynna, hand twitching like crazy around the hilt of his katana. The murderer kind of crazy.
"I'm going to cut you down, I swear to-"
"Uh, I mean I like it rough, but not that much?"
He lunges with a growl, and is rewarded by Sanji's foot in his face before his fingers can even graze the arm of his First Mate.
Nami laughs even harder, hands grasping for Elynna's waist and pressing her forehead against the other girl's ribs to balance herself better.
Her eyes are burning, but for once it's not because the shards of her heart are set loose in her chest and are prickling and cutting and stabbing at her skin.
(and her throat and her lungs-)
"Oh my god," she wheezes. "Please have mercy on my abs."
"What abs?" Zoro grits out as he swats the dumb cook's leg aside and straightens up with a huff, deciding that he should probably try and be the bigger person, since apparently even Elynna has decided to be an idiot.
"I like abs." Elynna informs them candidly, absolutely unhelpful and unprompted.
"We don't want to know." Usopp voices for both himself and Zoro, words flat but left eye twitching like a nervous tick.
"Is that why you keep putting your hands under Zoro's shirt?" Nami asks amidst another fit of giggles with absolutely no regard for the previous comment.
"Got it in one, babe."
Usopp does try to lock his arms around the swordsman when the latter steps forward again, but he weighs about half as much and ends up being dragged along instead until the green-haired man ends up forehead to forehead with Sanji, locked into a round of insults whose ridiculousness borders the level of Grey and Natsu in Fairy Tail as far as Elynna is concerned and oh hey, she never thought about it, but it kind of looks like they're going to kiss.
Obviously having lost any kind of self-preservation in that moment, she opens her big mouth to say exactly what she thinks of the situation, but is interrupted by a pan flying through the air that she spots from the corner of her eyes.
She ducks.
Sanji follows up without even looking, and she would bet money that he's used to it.
The pan slams into Zoro's face.
Luffy, who was finally getting to his feet, flops down on the floor again, face split in two with the giggles tumbling out of his wide, wide smile.
"Sanji! Newbie! Get your asses over there and back to work, you shitty brats!"
"Yes, Boss!" She calls back with a wave of her hand.
She bends down, picks up the pan and her tray, blows a kiss at Zoro's thunderous face, and turns around.
Suddenly she can feel the weight of all the stares, some amused and others contemptuous or exasperated, but for once she can't quite find it in herself to blush and almost-cry, because Sanji is walking at her side and lighting another cigarette, his body hiding half of the room, and Nami's laughter is still taking up the silence of the room behind her, when she has been strangely silent since they arrived here (since she saw the picture of what something bottomless and gaping and foreign inside Elynna tells her is a Fish-Man).
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
She's breathing in lungfuls of sea-scented air and massaging the cramped muscles of her neck after hours spent preparing food for the lunch hours' rush when the lavender-haired Marine and one of his men run and trip past her, the former still dressed in bandages and band-aids from his scuffle (more like one-sided beating) and the latter looking freshly beaten up and scared out of his wits.
Her first reaction is to freeze, her stomach tying itself into a knot so painful she wants to gut herself so that maybe she can finally think and do something other than just stand there.
Then her mind sighs inside her body, soft and tired and amused in a drained kind of way.
This is her break, damnit. Can't whatever shitstorm is coming wait for, like, five minutes?
She sighs aloud this time, hand falling away from her still-sore neck, and walks in the opposite direction the two men ran in, back into the restaurant.
She finds all the customers stuck to the walls of the restaurant and staring at the two men in the middle like they're animals who were let out of their cage to roam freely in a zoo.
One of them is the shaved-headed man with absurdly large forearms that got into an almost-fight with Sanji at least five or six times since they started working this morning.
He's standing near the only table that is occupied.
Occupied by a man who has no notion of hygiene judging by the foot he's putting on the table, and who looks like shit.
(pale, sick, tired down to his bones and bleeding out blood and the last bits of his energy, looking ten, a hundred times weaker for all the strength that intermittently stills his trembling muscles and the pride that keeps his shoulders thrown back)
She doesn't get why they all seem so afraid of a cook that they've been seeing since they arrived (although, admittedly, he's weird as fuck), so she turns her attention to the gossip mill that is already working full force.
"... been coming here for three weeks to try and see a fight! I was beginning to think I was very unlucky-"
"Darling, let's leave right now, please? It's one of Krieg's men-"
"Shouldn't the other cooks step in too?"
"-all fine, he's already on his last leg anyway, just look at him."
"Fullbody said they didn't give him anything to eat for three days, how's he even walk-"
The quiet click of the gun's security coming off has a very similar effect to that of a gunshot, and the whispers come to a screeching halt, along with Elynna's breathing.
Her eyes are refusing to unglue themselves from the sickly man's somehow steady grip on his gun and the barrel of said gun grazing the skin of the cook's forehead.
(and she's so sick of her body not working the way it used to work, not working the way it should be working-)
"You take lead?" The zombie rasps, and she can barely hear him over the pounding of her heart in her throat or maybe behind her ears because it's so loud but she's pretty sure it's not where it should be.
"So I take it you don't have any money?" The cook retorts, unfazed by the gun, before he slams both fists on the skull of the other man.
The chair breaks, and Elynna realises as cheers follow that her blood is still roaring and beating against her temples to getoutgetoutgetout.
She breathes in, and the black spots fade from her view.
It's the end.
Or it would be, if Krieg's crew member had enough self-preservation to use whatever pride he had left to get the hell out of here instead of running his big mouth.
The cook doesn't seem to take kindly to the high and mighty attitude the pirate dishes out (even though it's so painfully fake, and the rumbling of his stomach is so painfully louder than the thinness of his voice-), and proceeds to kick him in the ribs.
Then in the stomach (that rumbling, howling, dying stomach-).
Again.
Again.
Again.
And again.
And again.
And people keep cheering cheering cheering, and Elynna keeps flinching flinching flinching with every hit and every hacking sound of the pirate (because he doesn't even have the strength to scream anymore).
She had enough spars with Zoro and Luffy and enough run-ins with other pirates or Marines in the last few weeks for the first blow to not faze her much. No matter how weak that pirate was, he still had the physical and moral capability to pull the trigger and blow the cook's head up.
But this-
This is beating down someone who can barely move anymore.
This is hurting someone for the sake of hurting them, without anger and without hate.
This is people looking on and laughing because another living being is in pain, and maybe some of them were his victims, but they can't all be and-
She wants to sock the cook in the face and stomp on the foot that he's burying in the pirate's stomach until every bone in it breaks.
She wants to kick every person who's standing there and laughing in their stomach until they puke all the food they've eaten in this restaurant and laugh in their face when they start crying and begging her to stoppleasestop.
(-it feels like the only way to make them understand-)
And she can't do anything, because sparring with Zoro or Luffy and defending herself when she's attacked is one thing, but getting into an actual fight is another thing entirely, and her hands are trembling so hard she can't even form a fist and she's not sure she can actually walk without looking like she's drunk and she can't see any of her crewmates in the crowd and she's scared-
Black moves in the corner of her eyes, and she barely registers it before she moves towards it, stumbling over her own feet and her own fears, each step jostling her stomach and the tight, ticking bomb of screams and swears and tears at the base of her throat.
She steps into the hallway, where the air is dark and cool and the cheers and the jeers and the rasping coughs are muted.
Her thoughts stop ramming themselves together in her brain in a frenzied, voracious cacophony that puts her teeth on edge and breathes violence into her blood, sleek like razors and splashing like lightning inside her veins.
She crouches down, places both hands across her mouth, and closes her eyes, focusing on forgetting where she is, forgetting the bile sloshing in her stomach until she's dizzy, on dragging every breath past the ticking bomb and hanging on every shuddering gasp (muscles seizing and nails shredded) that make it to her trembling, sweaty lips like it's a victory.
When she can hear herself think without sounding disjointed and half-mad, she stands up, and resumes her walk towards the sliver of golden light left by the ajar door.
Sanji says nothing when she comes to a stop beside him, simply waits for her to wash her hands and then places a good handful of shrimps to shell in front of her.
She works, staring at her task until everything else fades away and her shoulders slump.
Have faith in humanity, they say.
Everything will be just dandy, they say.
Brainless motherfuckers.
Her eyelids feel heavy.
(and sting, but that's just the onions)
Suddenly, she wants to take a nap.
A long nap.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"I refuse!"
"...What?"
"I refuse your refusal!"
Oh boy, there he goes again.
"Now hear me out, here."
"Okay! What's your reason?"
"... I don't have to tell you."
"You just told me to listen!"
"It was a figure of speech, you idiot!"
"I'm afraid that kind of thing goes right over his head. He's only wired for first degree speech." She drawls as she opens the door to the back of the deck.
"Ah, Ann! I found a cook! Well, he doesn't make sense, but otherwise he's great!"
"You're the one who speaks nonsense! And get your finger out of my face before I chop it into pieces! You're being rude in front of a lady!"
Her head throbs, skull suddenly feeling too heavy for her shoulders and mind filled with too many things with no exit.
She presses a finger between her brows.
Fuck, she needs stress relief. Dancing. Something sweet. Sex. A hug. Whatever.
And she needs them to stop with their antics for five goddamn minutes.
Otherwise she'll keep feeling like a torrent of tears is going to rip her throat apart for no reason for the rest of the day.
"Okay, Sea King. Let's calm down." She sighs, grabbing her Captain by the collar and dragging him out of Sanji's kicking range.
Then she plops down on the deck, half-collapsing because she has one arm around Luffy's shoulders and another around his waist, and leans back against the wall.
Meh, not a hug, but good enough.
Asking for one would be too embarassing.
Luffy relaxes into her, using her thighs like armrests and still glaring petulantly at the cook until she abruptly pushes his straw hat down over his eyes.
"Ack! Ann, I can't see anything!"
"That's the point. Just… Calm down a bit, okay? Tempting him to murder you isn't the greatest recruitment strategy out there."
Grumbling something unintelligible, he grasps her wrist to force his hat back up.
She tilts her head on the side and-
Yep. Still pouting.
Though it seems to be more for the sake of having the last word at this point.
It's more annoying than anything else at that moment, but she's pretty sure that future, less-tired her will find it cute.
In the meantime, she places her hands on his shoulders and digs her thumbs into the wiry muscles of his upper back, rubbing small circles because she sure as hell doesn't know how to do a massage, but she used to do this with her grandmother when she was little and the woman never ended up in the hospital, so it should be fine…
Probably.
Her Captain's grumbling turns into a series of weird moans and grunts as he slides down against her bonelessly.
An image of an ice cream cone in a sauna jumps into her brain from nowhere, and she finds herself giggling.
Luffy blinks, and then follows, because the sensation of her body shaking in mirth against his back is pretty funny, and soon enough they're both laughing their asses off over nothing.
Shit, her Captain's idiocy is contagious.
This time it's Sanji's turn to glare as he watches that annoying guy sit so casually between his temporary coworker's legs.
"Uh, sorry to butt in, but…"
Elynna and Luffy settle down, the former's arms slipping back around the shoulders of the latter.
"What is it?" Sanji huffs, turning towards the other pirate as the duo's laughter calms down.
"I'm Gin, a member of the Krieg Pirates. Thank you again for your help."
"Don't worry about it, we did it because we wanted to."
"We?"
"Elynna-san helped me." Sanji explains with a wave of his cigarette towards the only female of the group.
Gin stares at her for a moment, and eventually nods.
"Thank you, miss."
Luffy beams, eagerly nodding along.
Elynna returns the nod, unsure of how to behave with the other man. She saw enough about the Krieg Pirates in the last few weeks' newspapers to know that they aren't really the same kind of pirates as the Straw-Hat Pirates, and she helped him more for the sake of her conscience than anything else, but he behaved decently up till now.
Somewhat.
If you forget the gun he pointed at Patty's head.
So decently for a pirate.
Talk about an oxymoron.
"You two are pirates, right?" Gin goes on, still looking at Luffy and her.
"Yup!"
"Can I… ask what your objective is?"
"I'm gonna find the One Piece and become the King of Pirates! So we're heading to the Grand Line!"
Elynna winces when Sanji coughs on his cigarette smoke as the ever loud declaration resonates in her own bones through Luffy's body, and mentally pats the blonde cook on the back.
Then she watches as Gin's thick lips twist downwards and his back slouch, as if her Captain's answer dropped a weight on both his body and his mind that is just a little more than either can handle.
"If you're still looking for a cook, you probably don't have many people in your crew for now, right?"
"With him we're six!" Luffy beams proudly, pointing a finger at the cook (thankfully not within chopping distance, because Sanji looks seriously tempted).
"Why are you including me, dumbass?! I already told you no!"
Luffy answers by sticking out his tongue in a way that clearly says how little he thinks of the older boy's opinion on the matter.
"You seem like a decent guy, so I'm going to give you a piece of advice…"
Elynna's lips twitch, as if unsure whether to bend upwards or downwards.
Why, thank you mister 'I'm a pirate from the worst pirate crew of East Blue reputation-wise'. So flattered by that opinion. Especially coming from you.
"Give up on going to the Grand Line."
This time she can't really help the snort that escapes her, because she's pretty sure that any sentence that begins with those words is automatically tuned out from her Captain's brain. Or isn't computed.
"Do you know something about the Grand Line?" Luffy asks with a tilt of his head, carelessly cutting off the older pirate who is still going on about how he has all his life to go there and other oceans to discover.
"... No. I don't- I don't know anything about it. That's why it's so terrifying."
Suddenly the man looks worse than when he stepped into the restaurant after three days at the hands of the Marines. His skin is grey like he's half-way through the process towards becoming a ghost, and he hunches over himself in an effort to form a ball, as if not being able to see the outside world would protect him from anything in it that would want to harm him-
She blinks.
Hard.
Stop projecting, you dumbass.
Do you want to experience a(nother) panic attack that much?
Look at the sky, all blue with fluffy white clouds and pretty birdies that hopefully will play nice and not shit on you at any time of your life and oh, man, the beauty of the sun is so blinding that she's starting to see black spots-
…
She frowns pensively at the sky.
Why do people keep bothering her about her lack of desire to drink alcohol when she can spout that kind of bullshit while being sober?
Well, okay, she generally keeps it to herself with most of said people.
She's already bad enough at making friends and social interactions in general (which may or may not have something to do with the above-mentioned lack of desire to drink alcohol). It probably wouldn't help.
"You don't really look like a member of Krieg's crew right now. More like a scaredy cat." Sanji observes bluntly.
"What?! You don't know anything? That doesn't help me at all!" Luffy crosses his arms with a frown.
"Give the guy a break, boys. They went from the weakest of the four seas right into the one sea that is known to be the most dangerous. It's a given that it wasn't a walk in the park. And it does help, because if he doesn't know anything, then that means that navigation rules and natural environments in the Grand Line probably don't obey the norm either. It's a good thing to know."
"You're so smart, Elynna-san!"
"Navigation what?"
Oh god, all the boys in this crew are stupid. She needs to have a nice, sophisticated talk with Rain.
Well, at least the incoming maybe-maybe not panic attack was averted. She'll probably freak out enough when she will be in actual danger. She should probably avoid it before that -or at least as much as possible for someone prone to overthinking and overplanning.
Not surprisingly, her Captain goes back to the conversation to assert loud and clear that he (and all of them shit-out-of-luck crewmates) will still be going to the Grand Line.
As he jumps down into the rowboat that Sanji brought along with the meal, Gin chuckles in a way that is more weary than amused, more 'I'm telling you "told you so" now because you'll be dead before we see each other again' than 'oh my god you're so funny (LOL)'.
"Well, it's your decision. Who am I to go against it? And Sanji, Elynna. Thanks again for the meal. It was the best I've ever had. Really."
"Don't worry about it." Sanji grins, and should she call him Golden Boy?
"What he said."
"And… Can I come back to eat here? With money, this time."
Sanji's grin widens, and he chuckles out a breath of cigarette smoke.
"Anytime. Feel free."
"Tha-"
The emotional scene is shredded in tatters by the voice of the Head Chef above them.
"Sanji. And the two pirate brats, too. Do you think you're being paid to sit around?"
"Well, technically I'm not being paid." Elynna mutters into the cover of Luffy's (unfairly fluffy, and yes she's holding a grudge about this) hair.
"I heard you, girlie! Show some respect to your elders if you don't want me to add another week to your time!"
Makes it sound like she's in prison. And aren't old people supposed to be half-deaf? Or maybe her grandparents are just plain stubborn.
"Sorry, Sanji. You guys are going to get scolded for giving me food, right?"
"What are you talking about? There's no proof." Sanji smirks as he walks closer to the railing with the tableware in his hands.
"He did pay, though?"
The cook freezes, turning around to see his co-worker holding a couple of bills between her fingers after having fished them out of the pouch tied to her waist.
"You should tell that Patty guy to take etiquette lessons. Some pirates have so much pride that they would rather take a beating than pay someone who's looking down on them."
The older man's eyes narrow, his weird mustache twitching.
(Is that a lie detector?
...
She should probably try not to laugh in his face at the moment.)
She grins a shit-eating grin, wide and toothy because it's not like he can prove her wrong anyway.
(And she might be so pessimistic that all her energy goes into not diving head-first into depression because of how shitty the world is rather than acting to make it better,
but she feels guilty enough about it to do what she can so her future crewmate doesn't throw tableware into the ocean.)
"... Get back to work, lass. And remember for tonight's show: I don't want any of my customers coming out half-depressed."
"Sure thing, Boss."
Canting his head back against her collarbones, Luffy stares at her pensively -or as much as a literal airhead like him is able to.
And then he grins.
"I kinda agree! The dance you did for us was much more fun!"
She stares at him for a moment.
He stares back.
She suddenly tightens her hold on him until her forearm is loosely pressing against his throat instead of his shoulders.
He flails, and devolves into a series of weird noises that lead to an actual coughing fit because her Captain is a goddamn dumbass, and she rolls her eyes, vainly fighting the laughing smile that struggles to overtake her face.
Usopp's storyteller dramatics are getting to him. God helps them all.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"So. What kind of dance are you planning tonight?" Nami asks curiously, flirtingly batting her eyelashes in the way she spent years perfecting in front of the mirror for added effect.
(She still doesn't know if she loves or hates the way these people are making her use her usual tricks for fun rather than survival.
She only knows that, during that one evening a week ago, her roommate spent an entire half an hour complimenting her eyes, makeup and eyelashes included, which devolved into herself explaining how the style and colours of makeup one uses have entirely different effects
and during these few hours she didn't think of the reason she had to learn this, nor did she feel the stomach-churning heat of ghostly hands and lips on her)
"Secret." Elynna grins, keeping her eyes on the glass she's pouring wine into, because she just knows by the tangerine-haired girl's tone that if she looks at her she'll be done for.
She twists the bottle slightly, smile softened and melted into dripping satisfaction as she catches the last drop and finishes the action cleanly.
This looks ridiculously classy, and she's ridiculously glad she asked Sanji to teach her during their last break.
(also because he wrapped his long fingers around her wrist to show her, and she absolutely has a thing for this guy's hands -even though he almost fainted again when he realised what he did)
"Though, I guess I can tell you that you'll probably like the second more than the first. Also, we'll have to see if I can weaponise it." She adds, pointing a finger at both Zoro and Usopp.
"Uh? Why do you want to talk about that with me?" The latter blinks.
"Because you're one of the most crafty and creative members of this crew when it comes to using what you have at your disposal in battle, because I suck at that particular exercise, and because your ideas are more likely to fit my actual skills than the stunts of this madman I call my personal coach." She answers prompty, ticking off a finger for every element and the amusement digging her smile further into her face for every degree of red her crewmate goes through.
Secretly, she acknowledges that making him blush by praising him is about as satisfying as making him blush by teasing him.
"Now, if you'll excuse me-"
"Ann! Come on come on come on! I wanna know!"
"Yeah, don't leave us hanging like that!" Nami laughs as she casually punches their Captain upside the head to force him back into his seat before he causes another scene.
"No can do, I have other customers to attend to. You'll always be my favourites, though, don't worry."
And with a wink, she escapes before her Captain can remember that his arm can actually reach over the table to grab her.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Blindly, Zoro reaches for the last piece of meat in his plate, eyes still following every move of his long-haired crewmate on the stage, which this time is set in the middle of the room.
As she said, her first dance is very similar to that of the day before, with movements that flow and cut through the air along the curves and peaks of the high-pitched, throbbingly lilting music. Despite the plumpness of her body she is so weightless and airy she might as well be dancing on clouds, and her clean, clear-cut moves are so precise it's like she carved the memory of them into her every cell.
This degree of body awareness is impressive even for him, and he guesses that's why she has become good at avoiding his strikes and Luffy's blows relatively quickly, especially considering that she told him that morning that she is used to dancing with others, which has also probably given her a good awareness of the space around her.
But he hasn't seen this style of hers during their training yet, and he makes a note to talk to her about it, because she definitely has the capability to build a defence style with minimal movement, and switching styles during a battle is a good way to throw off an opponent.
(She needs all the advantages she can get, because no matter how much of a quick learner she is, she's still weak compared to the enemies they are likely to meet later on,
and no matter the fact that she had no problem kicking that hypnotising dude in the face, she still hesitates to attack him or their Captain,
and on the occasions she does hit him, her face looks like she's the one receiving the blunt edge of her fist in her heart whenever her eyes brush against his bruises,
and she leaves just a little more space between their bodies when she draps herself over him for what has become their habitual afternoon sun nap.)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
When the time of the second dance arrives, the music starts abruptly, vibrating and circling through the room in wide, crazy loops, like the heart of a hummingbird running madly on the edge of its fluttering wings.
Elynna stalks onto the stage slowly, smiles coy and slow with the flirty amusement melting over it like lipstick, fingers curling teasingly towards some of the customers.
And then she starts dancing.
Her fingers flutter and her wrists spin and twirl through the air as they chase and race the melody, a tempest of butterlies and a rain of falling flowers, delicate and fickle and gauzy like remnants of a dream.
Her shoulders shimmy along the music rolling against her back, and her body bends abruptly and twists slowly as it allows the music's every whim to string her body along, hips stuttering in accordance with the cascading sounds bouncing against the walls.
They bounce in Nami's heads too, shattering temporarily the worries and nightmares and thoughts and plans that mixed and spun into a rising, laughter-sucking swamp in her mind (but it will always come back until she drowns it in his blood).
She laughs as her dark-haired roommate (friend is a word too dangerous, for her heart and their life and her sanity) teeters and spins around the edge of the stage, quickly enough that she should fall but somehow doesn't (as if she actually has wings to keep her steady), and steps down from her stage, low heels clicking against the ground and thick legs meshing together madly.
She teases everyone on her path, white, crooked teeth laughing and fingers waving like starry nights and hands melting against her curves with light-hearted flirt.
And then her eyes clash with Nami's
(dark like the ocean's bed where sailors will keep dying forever
twinkling like the constellations of stars Nami taught her about on the nights they kept watch together
and warm like the mellow heat of a body against hers and a hand rubbing her back and petting her hair when she would wake up with her heart shriveled and spent within her chest that caved under the weight of her tears)
and suddenly Elynna is waltzing towards her, her laughter bouncing over the music and the accompanying clapping of the audience.
Suddenly Nami finds herself standing too, because she might not be as good (-blindingly and heart-wrenchingly and explosively beautiful-) as the other girl, but she's no slouch herself (it would mean her death-).
So she spins and twirls and laces her fingers with the terrifyingly familiar ones of this other girl so that her own laughter doesn't send her body toppling forward because there are too many light, light bubbles inside her and it's making her drunkdrunkdrunk-
(too much light in her eyes and too much air in her lungs and so much laughter in her throat
that she wonders if it's possible to die from this-
this thing that she thinks people call happiness
she presses down on it and drowns it in the bitter aftertaste of this morning's tears and nightmares and the memories of his face on Johnny's wanted poster
because she can't be happy, doesn't have the right to be when so many are still suffering because she has yet to save them, when so many died because she was too slow and too dumb and too weak, when she died-
so she drowns it and focuses on Usopp's clapping rather than Luffy's because that idiot obviously only has ears for show or is just that clumsy
The only time he isn't is when he's beating someone's face in, and for a moment she's high enough on the light around her and inside her to wish that he would beat his face in too.)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Elynna sits -more like collapses- in her chair, and reaches for the glass of water Sanji brought her (after he woke up from fainting again during her dance, according to the younger boy who came along).
Her muscles are burning and heavy, she's too hot, probably looks like an ugly, smelly mess, and her hair feels disgusting where it touches her skin, but she doesn't care because she's high on the music still thrumming under her skin and the pain that stretches along every muscle.
She sighs aloud and gives up on trying to restrain her smile as hot water dribbles down her body and drums against her skin.
She has to be quick, because both boys told her that some customers asked to talk to her.
Ordinarily, she would refuse, but Gin's presence earlier in the day and his story on how Krieg's whole crew fled the Grand Line tell her that, considering the world she's in, there is absolutely no way that her Captain, and her in the process, will not end up facing the crew that has the reputation of being the strongest in the East Blue (because hello, shōnen plot there).
So.
They need information.
She won't get access to any newspaper archive anytime soon, so she'll have to rely on the next best resource she has at her disposition.
People.
She throws a glance at the mirror to check that her appearance is acceptable, and exits the bathroom provided to her, nodding at the restaurant's employee who is standing at the door.
A couple enters, a thin, tall woman with severe features smiling timidly at her from behind her fan, and the small, portly man that is probably her husband (and a decade older than her, but the twinkle in his eyes is like a child waking up to Christmas presents when he looks at his wife) pats her hand rassuringly before grinning widely at Elynna with so much energy that his generous moustache seems to vibrate with it.
"Why, good evening, Miss! I hope that we're not bothering your rest too much, but I just wanted to come and thank you for your performance tonight! My sister was present last night, and she insisted that we simply had to come knowing our shared love for performing arts -my wife and I met at a theater play, you see, and-"
The man's wife blushes an embarassed red as he devolves further into unrelated chatter, and Elynna flashes her an equally embarassed smile.
She never knows how to deal with people who talk that much (it feels rude to interrupt or ignore them, and the idea of having to deal with someone displeased by her keeps her mouth sewn shut), but this time around she can only be relieved she's facing that man.
He will be much easier to pry information out of. As long as he doesn't stray off topic, that is.
She twists her face into something half-contrite and half-pleased, although the second is not that hard, considering that she still doesn't know how to deal with compliments.
"I'm happy that you enjoyed the performance -it's not everyone's style. And thank you for staying after the incident earlier today. With all the fuss the newspapers kicked up about Krieg and his ilk going into the Grand Line, I had hoped we had gotten rid of them for good."
"Oh yes, it was all rather… dreadful." The woman murmurs with a shudder. "But I'm glad we stayed. Our day ended on a much better note thanks to you."
"You praise me too much. Such a level of savagery…" She reminds herself of the day she emerged in the ocean to find her world gone (her family gone, her body gone, her life-), of the sound of the Buggy Ball wrecking her insides, of Patty kicking Gin againandagainandagain, and gives a very realistic shudder, followed by a small smile brimming with excuses as she rubs the corner of her eyes. "I come from a rather… remote place, you see, so I had only heard about this crew through newspapers."
"Oh, not to worry, Miss! I understand perfectly! These ruffians were really worth their reputation! I myself had the same reaction as you when I first was confronted with these criminals. It was still the beginning of their crew, but they were already no better than demons! I was having a nice outing with some business partners, you see, and…"
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
And voilà!
#FTSFact3: … If Zoro wasn't an outlaw, he would probably sue Nami and Elynna for harassment. As it is, he just imagines their faces when slashing away at dummies (and Marines -the poor guys' faces don't even register in his radar).
Anyway, I know it's pretty much a filler chapter, but the next chapter is the big battle, and the one after Nami's arc starts, so it will compensate. I wanted to get some fluff in before going to that particular arc because my heart.
Thank you to everyone who left comments, it never fails to give me a big boost of amazing motivation to power through my workload and get back to writing ^^!
See you next chapter!
P.S.: here are the two videos I used for inspiration...
watch?v=FYL8r6auZhU&list=PLBPTyr5BEnlLYAZqwaMhA19_6qMdBvYgo&index=72 (Olivia Bevilacqua YAGP NYC Finals 2019 - Impromptu)
watch?v=XrYMgrOrqzM&list=PLBPTyr5BEnlLYAZqwaMhA19_6qMdBvYgo&index=46 ([WAACK JUDGE] LIP J KEEP DANCING THE ORIGIN vol.14 | LB-PIX)
P.P.S: waacking is cool.