Can I Steal Your Heart? - A LawLu fanfic

(Law) Chapter 47 - Storm

The storm thrashed against the Polar Tang, raging loudly. Thunder pounded overhead, the Tang was knocked about by the waves. But Law couldn't find it in himself to be too concerned. His crew could handle the Tang for a half-hour while he talked to Luffy, storm or no storm. Probably.

Luffy's litany of daily escapades poured out of the speaker, a sweet symphony in his ears that reminded him exactly how bad he had it for this man. When had he started to love listening to Luffy ramble?

"...Man, you should've seen it, Torao! It was so cool! And then Robin-" Luffy was interrupted by the kshshkshkshshksh of static, but after a moment his voice returned.

"I missed that, Luffy. The storm's getting pretty bad here. What'd Nico-ya do?"

Luffy laughed, that beautiful carefree laugh that Law loved so much, and retold that part of the story happily. Then he continued telling story after story about the island they had landed on that day. Law only half-listened to most of it, if he was honest. He didn't mind hearing the stories, in fact it was kind of nice to know what Luffy was up to during these times they were separated. But mostly, Law wanted to hear the other's voice, whatever he was saying.

Another roll of thunder and another period of static, but this time when Luffy came back, he didn't ask him to repeat the part he'd missed, just made the occasional affirming noise as Luffy chattered on. Something slammed against the ship, causing an alarm to go off. That, unfortunately, was cause for concern.

"What was that?!" Luffy asked.

"I don't know, but I better go find out. Sorry, babe. Love you."

But the snail had staticked, then turned off before he'd finished the words. Connection lost. Law swore, and decided he'd call him back once they were clear. He stormed out the door to his room, almost running into Uni.

"I - Sorry, Captain..."

"What hit us?" Law demanded, speedwalking down the narrow hallway in a manner that his crew knew to follow.

Uni was no exception, falling into step beside him fast enough to make the edges of his balaclava-like mask flutter. "We're not quite sure what, yet, but we know it knocked off at least one of our diving planes and messed up our sonar systems."

Another creative swear fell out of Law's mouth as they turned a corner. "So we can't go under?"

"No, Captain."

"Why didn't we get down before this storm damaged our ship?"

They were close enough to the bridge now that Bepo heard the question and answered. "There's a strange current beneath us, Cap," He said as Law stepped in. "It's almost coiled, from what we could tell, and fast, like a horizontal underwater tornado. Who knows what that would've done to our ship. It was my call to stay on the surface. Sorry."

Law nodded his agreement. It would've been a tough call, but he probably would have made the same choice if he'd been on the bridge."That's fine. But now we're stuck here, so we need to figure out a way to keep the storm from breaking off more pieces of our ship."

"Working on it!" Shachi called, frustration evident in his voice. He turned to the ship's intercom system. "Ikkaku, Jean Bart, meet me in the engine room!" He stalked out.

"Do we still have radar, at least?" Law asked, turning to Clione, whose specialty it was.

"Yes and no. No indication the system's been damaged, but the storm's interfering like crazy. We're not getting anything useful from it."

Law managed to resist the urge to swear again. "What information did we get on this storm before it began messing with our equipment? Do we know how long it'll last? What direction it came from? Can we make our way out of it, in any direction?"

He listened to the various reports, face growing grimmer at each one before he turned back to Bepo. "The current. Is there any way to drop anchor between the coils?" If they could, it could stabilize them against the storm. Keep them from getting blown any further off track.

"Sorry, Captain, can't advise trying that. They're pretty close together, and it's hard to drop the anchor with the precision we'd need. Especially now that we don't have sonar."

Law sighed. "Then we just need to stay afloat long enough to wait this out." He stood. "I'll be on deck, trying to prevent more impacts. Bepo, you have command here. If Shachi, Jean Bart, and Ikkaku finish whatever he's got them working on, send them up to help me."

"Aye Captain."

He grabbed his sword and one of the rain ponchos they kept for times like these — not that it would be very effective against a storm like this one — and made his way to the deck to protect the ship.

And nearly twelve hours later, with his ship mostly intact, an exhausted, drenched, and half-frozen Law made it back to his warm, comfortable room, where the snail still sat on his desk. But before he could pick it up to try to call his boyfriend, Bepo's nervous voice sounded over the ship-wide intercom.

"Captain! We're about to get eaten!"

Law sighed despite the adrenaline that started shooting through him, and ran back to the control room to hear about the latest situation.

Never a dull moment on the Grand Line, Law thought. At least he'd have stories to tell Luffy later.

A/N: A short chapter today, but one I at least feel proud of. And the next two chapters are long and longer, so maybe I'll be nice and you'll get both of those this week, too. We'll see.