This chapter honours Cassia, Lisafor and Legitrashspeckledust over on AO3 for their lovely comments: wihtout them, it would have taken even longer.
For TiffieBooFanGirl, for your comment in December: I'm so happy you like it! I don't have any set update schedule since I'm writing as I go, but the story is plotted and the next three chapters are almost done :)
There are many benefits to being a marine biologist, as Shachi would gladly let you know. Why he had changed to data science was therefore a mystery, until he told you, in excruciating detail, about the marine datasets on kelp he was working with.
There are, unfortunately, fewer benefits to being a forensic entomologist, or adjacent pathology-focused researcher.
But Trafalgar Law did not let this beat him down - he let life do it instead. It was much easier to accept things in a stoic way rather than to try and change them. Thus far the strategy had served him well and left well enough alone and him to his work.
There had however been some worrying signs recently, small indicators that his hard-earned cynical carapace was cracking like a coconut.
The small muscles in his cheeks were unfamiliarly sore, something Bepo attributed to an increased frequency of 'smiles' or somesuch.
He held the door for professor Nico last week.
And he had lately been plagued with whisperings of 'but what if you tried a bit…'. He had hitherto managed to drown them out with a combination of hard work and loud metal polka.
It didn't work quite as well with the incessant chattering of his friends, mainly because they said nonsensical things like 'protecting you from permanent, completely avoidable hearing loss' and then actually turned off his music.
And then threatened him with a salad fork if he tried to turn it on again.
"—and that's when Ikkaku made the train stop at the station for an additional ten minutes so she could make it. It was glorious, although the other passengers sounded really annoyed when we dropped her off," Shachi said from his spread-eagled position on the floor. "And then Hakugan proved that although some people doubt it, Penguin, it is possible to go over 215 kilometres an hour on the Autobahn, because we needed to be back by six. And did you know that—"
"Five minutes," Law groaned, burying his head in his hands to keep it from being overwhelmed by Shachi's ramblings. "Just give me five minutes of blessed silence and this paper will be done so I can submit it."
"That's what you said half an hour ago," said Penguin from his laid-back position on the sofa where he was busy trying to finally get the damn flower to the sad lady across the barren virtual wastes of Dirtmouth. "And I've seen you do this enough to know that you'll be stuck on the submission site, crossing every 'i' and dotting every 't' until the cows come home and the cocks start crowing. If we don't do anything, you'll be stuck here forever."
"No, I won't, and just because it happened that one time—"
"Yes, you will," Penguin cut through Law's excuses and explanations. "And that means you are making us all miss the beautiful, and, let me stress this—" he gestured to the window above which let in a pure beam of sunlight which seemed happy enough to end its cosmic journey by illuminating his jeans and white hoodie, "—sunny day." He changed the directory of his arm to point an accusing finger at his friend, seated at the small writing desk neatly tucked into a corner of the living room and, for some reason, crowned with a small ornate brass candelabra. "Whence you have come, all the way from distant lands, to spend some well-deserved time with us, your bosom gal pals. And yet here you are, locked in a musty cave of research notes and despair, nose buried in your research while we languish—"
"And it will be sunny in five more minutes, when I'm done," Law cut off his dramatics and turned back to his laptop.
Shachi sighed forlornly from his perch on the floor where he was trying his half-hearted best to solve the crossword in the paper he'd found under the sofa. "I wish Bepo was here to talk some sense into you. We've lost our edge during this forced separation. Now you just ignore us and the promises we make, and do boring stuff instead, like bettering mankind and advancing science." He crossed out a word despondently. "Oh, bother."
"You can swear, we won't faint."
"No, it's the word. 'Trouble with a washing person' - I thought it was 'bather', but it's actually 'bother'."
"And I—" Law muttered, ignorig Shachi's crossword concerns and correcting the final red squiggly line in his document "—am done." He leaned back in his chair, stretching and wincing at the loud cracks from his spine. "And you," he continued, turning to Shachi and Penguin who perked up at the tone of his voice, "might be right in the fact that I can wait a few hours to send this in. And you are right—" he cracked a smile at the small impromptu victory dance the pair burst out in at this rare admission, "—maybe we should go and enjoy the sunshine."
A sunny day in Munich is a true test of priorities: should you soak up the centuries-old architecture by the means of a stroll; try to find a free table at a beer garden (answer: no, you should have been there earlier); sample all the pretzels in the local bakery; or enjoy an ice cream by the river?
Answer: all of them. This was accomplished by walking to the shop (stroll, check), buying pretzles and beer (check) and enjoying an ice cream on the way back (check).
Since the trio had a goal, Penguin harried them straight to the grocery shop to complete their shopping for the evening's revelry, but on the way back he allowed them to meander along the Eisbach for a bit, enjoying the sunshine and an ice cream.
Munich was beautiful in the early afternoon light and while Law had managed to live up to his German genes (being terrifyingly efficient before noon), he was, maybe, unwittingly, accidentally also slightly pleased with the fact that they had managed to get outside for a bit.
The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and the city was stretching in the warm air like a cat.
People were airing out their apartments and so mats, curtains, and other assorted pieces of household textiles draped over balconies and windowsills all around them while the distant noises of familiar discord indicated ongoing negotiations on whose turn it was to wash the windows this time, with the occasional scream declaring the winner.
The trees were adorning themselves in gossamer greenery, the air smelled of newly awakened flowers and there was, against all probability, a scent of hope in the air rather than the general odours of exhausts, people and wet stone you would normally expect in a major city.
Maybe the sunshine really did do him some good.
Oh, bother, to borrow Shachi's words.
They'd never let him live it down and so Law wisely decided to never mention the fact that his two oldest friends might have been right.
"—and tonight, we'll have so much fun," Shachi continued, gesturing wildly as he walked with their grocery bags dangling from his arms and almost bumping into an unfortunately placed lamp post.
"I am highly sceptical of how you pronounce 'fun'," Law said drily, letting the inverted commas fall into place neatly and neatly shambling the bag of apples that managed to escape from the bag onto its proper place on top of the pile.
Yes, it'd probably fall off again in a moment. But they had time.
"It's not a big deal!" Penguin grinned beside them, happily munching away at the first ice cream of the season. "There'll be some food, some drink, you'll meet some of our friends," he continued in a hurried stage whisper. "See? Nothing to be afraid off!"
"I said 'sceptical about', not 'afraid off'," Law said. "And I did notice that little addendum, thank you very much. I don't need to meet anyone else; I have already met my yearly quota of new people."
Shachi and Penguin turned to him as one at that, stars in their eyes. "You have friends?"
"You haven't told us anything about them!" Shachi started, clasping his hand which led to the need for another shamble as a block of cheese made a bid for freedom from his multitude of bags.
"We've just had to decipher your increasingly incoherent ramblings in the group chat, although I do appreciate the effort someone has gone through to teach you to use emojis and gifs properly," Penguin continued.
"I resent that implication," Law huffed. "I just adapted my communication strategy to get my point across with Straw Hat, and I might have realised the similarities with the language used in our discussions. That's all."
"You're not in either linguistics or communication, so why do you sound like the first year's course book?" said Penguin.
Shachi had meanwhile obviously been mulling over something. "Why you call someone 'Straw Hat'?" he asked with a curious tilt to his head.
"It's my thesis student," Law sighed, adjusting the canvas strap over his shoulder. "He wears a straw hat round the clock and so that's what people call him around campus." He thought for a moment. "And in the underground fight scene, actually."
"Why do you know what he's called in the underground fight scene?" The disbelief in Shachi's voice would have been amusing if it also wasn't slightly insulting.
"You know I contain multitudes."
"Yes, but I just don't see how." The strand of genuine hurt in Penguin's voice almost made Law crack. Almost. "You swore that you'd quit—"
"Let's not get distracted," Law interrupted and shambled a new ice cream into Penguin's hand as a temporary non-verbal pseudo-apology. Somewhere behind them, an ice cream salesman looked at the dent in his ice cream and newly appeared coins in bafflement. "You asked about Straw Hat, not his extracurriculars." Law gathered his thoughts, wondering how best to explain the experience that was Straw Hat Luffy. "Now, imagine working with completely civilized, responsible, and mature people."
Law could see his dynamic duo hadn't forgotten about the underground fight scene but had decided to drop it for now. With any luck, they'd forget about it completely after they heard about Luffy. "Alright?"
"Now throw that idea out the window. During our meeting last week, he jumped out of the window because he thought he saw a cool bug whizz past."
Penguin started to choke as he managed to snort ice cream down the wrong pipe while Shachi merely sighed and looked up at the blue sky above, a plaintive 'Oh, Captain…' the only sign of his feelings.
"But we know, Captain. We know!" Penguin managed to choke out in-between
Shachi perked up and turned to him, the sudden change in trajectory sending a bag of chips tumbling into the air (and then shambled back with a sigh). "Oh, yes! You have met more than one new person. Tell us everything!"
"Don't forget our man on the inside! We all know thesis students, new colleagues and visiting faculty doesn't count, and—" Penguin draped a friendly arm around Law's shoulders, mindful of his slowly melting ice cream, "—Bepo told us all about your new friends! Well done, Captain!"
If his hands wouldn't be occupied with shopping bags and shambling various back into Shachi's bags (the eggs were in the danger zone at the moment, being born to the surface by the bag-created grocery currents), Law would have rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. "You should know better than to trust Bepo by now."
"The one who doesn't trust Bepo doesn't know what they're doing," Shachi scoffed. "Bepo is the embodiment of honesty."
"No, he's the embodiment of meddling nosiness," said Law, holding the door open as Shachi balanced past him with arms full of groceries. "What have you heard this time?" he sighed.
"Something about a couple of lovely young gentlemen called Eustass Kid and a certain Monkey D. Luffy?" said Penguin in a sing-song.
Law sighed again, as the first sigh had obviously not done its duty. "That Straw Hat-guy that I mentioned? Also known as Monkey D. Luffy, chaos incarnate. And we are not discussing Eustass Kid today."
"But one day…"
How Penguin managed to make three small words so menacing, Law would never know and eternally want to find out.
"Those two are the farthest from gentle you can get," continued Law as he started putting his share of the groceries away into the neatly arranged, familiar cupboards. It was good to see that a few scant months of living apart hadn't managed to completely upend the way his crew organised their kitchen; the result of several years spent living together (and many a shouting match and re-organising shamble in the dead of night). He thought for a moment, and added, "And we are not friends."
"Too slow." Shachi's grin could match the meanest of card sharks or most determined of tween girls. "You are friends."
Wait, what?
"We- no, I'm not going to argue about this with you."
"Double submission! He accepts defeat!"
"You are incorrigible."
"And you are meeting our new friends once we get the Rösti done and the beer cool enough." Penguing's cheerful countenance turned serious. "You are going to like them—"
"—we promise!" Shachi continued, having taken over their shared braincell. "There's this nice exchange student we found, and her friends who've been visiting for the week. We haven't met them yet, but they sound really fun! One of them apparently saved a baby blue whale once."
"New people, how scary," Law groaned theatrically, throwing himself down on the sofa in a swoon. Unfortunately, he landed face down, which muffled his next words somewhat. "I'll have to become a hermit and live in the woods when you're out there, enjoying better company."
"Oh, no, good sir. You're coming with us!" said Shachi, shaking an admonishing finger in his general direction. "No hermiting."
"Not a sir, not coming with you," Law said, his voice drowning in the sofa cushions.
"No matter who you are, you're coming," said Penguin. He looked thoughtful. "Or staying, since they are coming over."
"Fine." Law heaved a heartfelt sigh, which was a feat in itself through half a metre of polyester. "I might as well fulfil my yearly quota of new acquaintances to keep you vultures happy."
"We know you usually don't meet people, so look at it as an opportunity to exercise those atrophied social muscles of yours."
"I'm retired," Law announced from the depths of the sofa which tried its best to swallow him whole.
"From meeting people?" asked Penguin incredulously.
"I know enough people already," came the muffled answer.
"It's just dinner," laughed Shachi. "What can go wrong?"
Everything, that's what could go wrong, Law realised as he stepped into the kitchen and saw who the new friends of his so-called friends were.
There was no mistaking hair that exact shade of burning embers, or the shape of that arse in jeans, after all, which he glimpsed for a fraction of a second before his sight was obscured by a flying mass of black hair and an excited 'TORAO!' hollered straight into his brain, bypassing all audio organs in his possession.
He swallowed.
Hard.
Nami loved her friends dearly and would gladly help them either create or hide a body, but blessed distance had made her forget a few tiny details.
Like how Luffy managed to find her snacks anywhere, no matter how well she hid them.
Or Zoro's uncanny ability to spot the tiniest mistake in her finance calculations with a mere cursory glance.
Or exactly into how much trouble they could get on their own.
Thus far, they had arrived only two days late (there had apparently been a gang of elderly nuns terrorising a biker club in Bruges) and managed to find their way to two separate police stations in the five days since: once for disturbing the peace (although that particular brawl had been instigated by the other party, as the myriad of suspiciously supportive witnesses affirmed) and once to give a statement in connection to a runaway car they stopped, saving a slightly confused young woman (she had no idea who she was, where she was, or what year it was) who had been found in the back seat in the process.
And of course, there's just something special about sharing your tiny little student room (six square metres) with a snorer (Zoro) and someone who thought dawn or 5 o'clock was a suitable time to wake up, whichever came first (Luffy).
Penguin's dinner-invitation had consequently been accepted with alacrity and Luffy and Zoro both forced first into the shower and then into some clean clothes, before the neatly paved streets of Munich took them towards the spacious apartment her new friends shared.
"Hello there," she beamed at a blushing Penguin as he opened the door, giving him a passing hug before she toed off her shoes and stepped aside to reveal her accomplishes. "Here are the friends I promised you; the green giant is Zoro, and the one with the straw hat around his neck is Luffy— are you all right?"
Penguin had suddenly choked on something and stood bent double, coughing and wheezing with his hands on his knees. He waved her concerns away, tears streaming from his eyes. "Sorry, just managed to get something down the wrong pipe. How utterly lovely and absolutely delightful to meet you both," he continued, greeting both men. "So, Nami tells me you had a soft spot for a whale—"
After the first hiccup the trio got on like a house on fire. Nami didn't know what sort of omen the easy chatter that soon filled the apartment constituted, but it had a certain spark to it.
"Where's Shachi?" she asked once she'd put away the snacks and dessert that had fallen on their lot for the evening and got settled with a beer in her hand on one of the tall bar stools next to where Penguin was busy chopping onions.
"Just out to get some things we forgot earlier," said Penguin said. He turned to Luffy, now perched on the kitchen island, happily munching on a pretzel he'd found who knows where. "And I'm sure you'll like them! They'll be back in a jiffy, they just—"
"They?" Nami cut off, a sense of foreboding filling her soul. "Who's 'they', Penguin?"
"Oh." Penguin's grimace was half contrite shame, half mischievous delight and fully fake. "I'm sorry; it completely slipped my mind. Shachi's out with—"
"TORAO!" Luffy's delighted shout cut through the sentence with the force of a brass band and delicacy of a jackhammer.
And Nami's heart dropped through her stomach, the four storeys below, and into the molten depths of the Earth itself.
Oh, no.
"Do you still think this was a good idea?" Shachi hissed as he pushed past Penguin to get the newly purchased cheeses acclimatised to their new home in their fridge.
Penguin shrugged. "We'll just have to wait and see."
For some good metal polka-adjacent music I can recommend Finntroll and Gogol Bordello