Chapter Text
“I Asked for a Cook, Not a Crisis”
—as told by the Pirate King, who is clearly not in control anymore
The first time you met them, you thought they were a plague.
Not metaphorically. Not dramatically. A genuine, loud-mouthed, sunburnt infestation with too much gold and zero sense of portion control. The kind of pirates who walked like the world was theirs by default, and anyone not handing them a drink was an obstacle.
They arrived in the middle of the lunch rush, clattering down the dock like the worst kind of omen. You caught the sound of them first: boots on splintered wood, laughter far too confident for a group that had evidently just rolled off a ship. They smelled like the sea, sweat, smoke, and freshly acquired trouble.
Your stall wasn’t much. No sign. No clever name painted on driftwood. No chalkboard menu with quaint little sketches. Just a rusted stove, a chipped wok, and your cutting glare, which you used as both weapon and deterrent. You weren’t running a restaurant so much as defending a sacred outpost of sanity. And then they showed up.
The one in the straw hat— Roger, though you didn’t know it yet —flashed a grin like a man who thought charm could substitute for manners. He leaned across the counter and tried to flirt, completely undeterred by your dead-eyed stare.
Scopper Gaban followed suit, slinging his arms onto the counter and asking, with all the self-satisfaction of a man who’d never been hit with a ladle, whether you were on the menu.
A red-haired child knocked over an entire pot of soup in his enthusiasm, scrambling to apologize while slipping on spilled broth and yelling about how it wasn’t his fault.
The blue-haired one took a single bite, declared the seasoning overrated, then immediately choked on a rogue pepper flake and turned an impressive shade of crimson. You stood there, arms crossed, watching him wheeze with complete disinterest.
You didn’t say a word. Just kept stirring, your ladle scraping the bottom of the wok in slow, steady circles, like a countdown to something unfortunate.
And while the others filled the space with noise and ego, one man said nothing at all.
He sat at the far end of your stall, elbows resting on the counter, and ate like he had been starving for something specific and had finally found it. No commentary. No swagger. No smug remark.
Just silence, and eyes that didn’t leave you once.
He didn’t smile. He didn’t flirt. He didn’t ask for anything.
He simply ate, slow and careful, like the food you’d made deserved reverence. Like you did.
And when he looked up, it wasn’t with surprise or delight. It was with something heavier, like recognition. Like he was seeing something he hadn’t realized he’d been missing.
You should have kicked them all out. Should have dumped the pot, closed up early, and let them find someone else to bother.
Instead, you slid another bowl toward the quiet one.
He called himself Rayleigh.
You should have known better than to appreciate a pirate. But gods, you looked.
Tall and broad, weathered skin weathered by sun and salt, golden hair falling over sharp eyes like something out of a myth. He wore his confidence like it had been custom-stitched to his bones, every movement unhurried, every breath measured. Swagger poured into sinew and sin.
His voice hadn’t even touched your ears yet, and already your knees were whispering mutiny.
He leaned close once, reaching for a spice jar above your head. His arm brushed your back in passing. The contact was brief, almost careless, but your soul immediately exited your body and filed for early retirement. You didn’t even pretend to be composed. Just stood there, blinked once, and tried to remember what your own name was.
Then he called you “sweetheart.”
You nearly dropped the cleaver.
Your brain hiccupped so hard it forgot how to form opinions. It was less a reaction and more a full-body short circuit, the kind of internal meltdown that made you question if years of self-discipline could be unraveled by one word in that tone from that man.
And the worst part?
He didn’t even seem to be trying.
Rayleigh just ate. Quietly. Slowly. Every bite unhurried. Like the food in front of him was sacred. Like he wasn’t just refueling after a fight or soaking up rum with starch, but discovering something rare. Something real.
He didn’t say thank you. Didn’t praise the flavor. Didn’t lick his lips and wink like the others.
He just looked up when he was finished, eyes lingering on you, and in that moment, the world seemed to tilt slightly off its axis.
He stared like a man might look at a storm rolling in over open sea. A storm he’d already decided to walk into. Calm. Certain. Almost grateful. As if he knew exactly what it would cost him and had made peace with it.
You told yourself you weren’t flustered, and that your hands that didn’t tremble a little when you turned back to the stove. That you weren’t tracking the sound of his breath behind you with every move you made.
You should have known then. Should have locked the spice cabinet, packed up your knives, and vanished before anything could slip beneath your skin.
But instead?
You fed them.
And that was the first mistake.
The next time they showed up, they were half-dead.
They staggered in just after dusk, trailing blood and seawater, limping like they had fought the ocean and lost. Clothing torn, weapons missing, one of them missing a boot. They smelled like smoke and brine and something far too close to cannon powder. You weren’t sure who was supporting who, or if they were all just leaning on each other out of stubborn pride.
Roger was shouting something incoherent about Marines, sea kings, and a completely unnecessary bet involving dynamite and a pack of wild dogs. Buggy was pale and wheezing, clutching his side like he was holding in his own liver. Shanks looked like he’d fallen off a cliff. Twice.
You didn’t ask.
You just sighed, kicked open the door to the back of your stall, and started dragging them in by the collar one at a time. You swore the entire time. Loudly. Fluently. With real creativity. Muttered something about pirates being the worst kind of customer and demanded to know if anyone had filed a damn insurance policy. No one answered.
You threw them onto spare cushions, slapped bandages over whatever was bleeding the worst, and brewed a broth so potent it might have been considered medicinal in certain parts of the world and outright illegal in others. You shoved ladles of it between cracked lips and threatened to strangle anyone who complained about the salt.
Rayleigh was the last one through the door.
He leaned against the frame like he wasn’t entirely sure it was real. His shirt was soaked through with blood, half of it his, the rest probably someone else’s. He had a deep cut along his ribs, a fading bruise across his jaw, and the same calm expression he always wore. Like none of this was urgent, like pain had agreed to wait until he was done with whatever he had to finish.
You cursed under your breath and caught him just before he slumped to the floor.
It took effort to drag him across the threshold. He didn’t resist, only blinked at you through the haze, unfocused and slow. You dropped him onto a pile of laundry that hadn’t made it to the basin yet and crouched beside him, already reaching for clean bandages and your strongest antiseptic.
The steam from the broth curled in the air between you. Rayleigh turned his head slightly, eyes half-lidded, and looked at you like he couldn’t quite believe you were real.
“My sea-blessed angel,” he whispered, voice warm and wrecked. Then his eyes rolled back, and he passed out in your laundry like he had just found heaven.
You sat back on your heels and stared at him.
And then, instead of shoving him outside or pouring cold water over his head, you exhaled slowly, pressed a hand to your temple, and muttered a curse you hadn’t used in years.
You didn’t kick him out. You didn’t even try.
That, as you would later learn, was your second mistake.
He woke the next morning to the scent of citrus soap and the low clatter of pans from the front of the stall. The light filtering through the warped wooden slats was soft and golden, catching on the fresh bandage wrapped snug across his shoulder.
Then your foot nudged his ribs.
He blinked up at you, still groggy with sleep and blood loss, and watched as you dropped a hunk of bread into his hands without ceremony.
“Eat,” you said, voice flat. You looked like you hadn’t slept, hair tied up, sleeves rolled, apron already stained from a morning’s worth of effort. You didn’t wait for a response, just turned and walked away.
Took his time, too, like the food owed him something personal.
Then he wiped his mouth, looked up at you with that smug, sea-worn grin, and said:
“So, you spoken for or did I show up right on schedule?”
That smile did something awful to your spine. You felt it crack straight through your resolve like pressure on thin ice. You cursed yourself, turned away, and made the mistake of speaking.
“I’m not interested in pirates.”
Rayleigh didn’t miss a beat. “Liar.”
You scowled. “I like smart men.”
He took another bite and shrugged lazily. “Darling, I’m the reason maps have warnings.”
You hated how that made you pause. Hated that your heart skipped, just once. He wasn’t even trying, and he still knocked the wind out of you with a single sentence and that half-lidded grin.
He was the worst kind of man: sun-gold and storm-silver, sharp-eyed and slow-moving, like the floorboards were lucky to have him. He didn’t walk so much as saunter. Leaned on doorframes like they owed him rent. Stared at you like he was letting you in on a secret just by breathing in your direction.
He didn’t talk often, but when he did, it was in that velvet-wrapped drawl, the kind of voice that made you want to spill a drink just to shut it up. Or maybe to hear more.
Once, he passed behind you to reach for the spice rack. Didn’t say a word. Didn’t touch you.
But you felt him.
The shift of air. The warmth of his arm just behind yours. The slow certainty of someone who knew exactly how close he could get without crossing a line. You burned the rice, and then glared at the scorched bottom of the pan like it had personally betrayed you.
Later, he called you “sweetheart” in passing, his voice soft and wicked, as if he were whispering something.
Your knees betrayed you. They actually did the thing .
You told yourself it was just the voice. Just the swagger. Just the smell of rum and sea wind and the kind of bad decisions that involved midnight walks, stolen kisses, and regrettable mornings.
You weren’t going to fall for him.
You weren’t.
You may have admitted, once, very privately, that you might sit on his lap. Hypothetically. For scientific reasons. But only with limits.
And then, that afternoon, he walked by shirtless again.
You dropped your knife, cursed under your breath, and seriously considered throwing the entire stove into the harbor.
He glanced over his shoulder and smiled.
Of course he did.
Roger just wanted to eat.
That was it. That was the whole goal.
A good, solid cook. Someone who wouldn’t poison the crew. At least not on purpose . Someone who understood the difference between salt and sugar, unlike Buggy, whose last attempt at stew had turned into a war crime in liquid form. Someone who wouldn’t serve the same bizarre, spotted fish four days in a row and claim it was gourmet just because it “tasted fine grilled,” as Shanks so valiantly insisted.
Someone like you.
He showed up one morning grinning like the sun was in on his joke, boots loud on the planks, hands on his hips in that ridiculous Captain Pose you’d come to associate with either disaster or persuasion. Or both.
“Join the crew,” he said, beaming. “We’ll give you treasure. Fame. A room with a locking door so men stop trying to sneak into your hammock.”
Rayleigh, standing just behind him, immediately turned away and pretended to be highly interested in a barrel. He wasn’t subtle about it. In fact, he somehow managed to radiate guilt without changing expression, posture, or tone.
You looked between the two of them.
Then narrowed your eyes.
“I already told you,” you said, wiping your hands on a dishcloth and leveling a flat look at Roger. “I’m not a pirate.”
Roger opened his mouth.
You cut him off with a raised finger. “And before you say whatever reckless, golden-hearted nonsense you’ve got chambered in there, let me clarify. I cook . I keep my head down. I like quiet. And I don’t want to be kidnapped by lunatics who chase sea kings for fun, and apparently, how to bandage a wound without using someone’s shirt.”
“That was one time,” Shanks mumbled behind him.
“Twice,” you corrected without looking. “You used Buggy’s cape the second time.”
Buggy’s voice shrieked from offscreen. “You said you liked that cape!”
“I lied.”
Roger laughed as if it were the best day of his life. “You’d fit right in!”
You stared at Roger for a long, unimpressed moment. He didn’t flinch. Just kept smiling like the sheer force of his enthusiasm might eventually wear you down.
It wouldn’t.
Probably.
And yet, somewhere in the quieter part of your brain, your eyes had already flicked toward the spice rack. Just once. Just long enough to wonder if it would travel well. Most of the jars were sealed tightly, but the cinnamon always leaked. You could fix that. Maybe.
“You’re worse than a pirate,” Scopper muttered around a mouthful, clutching one of your fried rice balls with both hands like it was sacred. “You made food taste like feelings. I cried twice.”
“That sounds like a personal problem,” you replied, folding your arms.
Scopper took another bite and muttered something reverent under his breath.
From the corner of the stall, Shanks chimed in through a mouthful of dumplings. “But what if we make it your problem? Like, permanently?”
You turned your glare on him, slow and deliberate.
He blinked, swallowed, and offered a grin so wide it was nearly apologetic. Nearly.
You didn’t answer right away. Just wiped your hands on your apron and looked at the half-devoured chaos of your lunch service, the ridiculous crew sitting elbow-to-elbow at your counter like they’d always belonged there.
You should have said no again.
Should have kicked them all out and barred the door.
Instead, you reached behind you and adjusted the spice rack. Just a little. Just in case.
After that, the crew continued to come back. Not every day. Not with announcements or fanfare. Just every so often, like a tide returning in its own time. Sometimes it was Roger, booming with laughter and trying to barter sea stories for seconds. Sometimes it was Shanks and Buggy, bickering their way through your lunch line. Sometimes it was Scopper, grumbling about something you had no context for while devouring half your stock.
But more often than not, it was Rayleigh.
He never said much. Just showed up near closing, pulled up a stool at the far edge of your stall, and sat there. Quiet as sea mist. He’d watch the wind for a while, gaze trailing out over the harbor like he was tracking something far beyond it. Then, eventually, his eyes would drift back to you.
He never asked for anything.
Sometimes he cleaned. Silently wiped down tables, stacked bowls, and swept where you couldn’t reach. Once, when your hands were trembling from exhaustion, he took the knife from you with a touch so light it didn’t feel real, and chopped the vegetables without a word.
He even took over the stove once, when you were too tired to argue. He’d watched you enough times to know the basics. Or so you thought.
He burned a rice ball so thoroughly that it resembled a fossil.
You raised an eyebrow. He stared at the blackened husk in his hand for a long moment, then turned and bowed his head in shame like he had dishonored the gods themselves.
The laugh that escaped you was loud, sharp, and completely unguarded.
It startled even you.
Rayleigh looked up as if that sound had broken something open inside him. He didn’t smile, not quite, but there was a shift. A softening in the lines around his eyes, a flicker of something quieter than joy but deeper than amusement.
From that day forward, he never tried to cook again. But he stayed longer.
That was how it was with Rayleigh. No declarations. No promises. Just presence.
And maybe a little jealousy.
It wasn’t intentional. You hadn’t flirted. The merchant had only winked. Just a passing compliment about your hands while paying for lunch, something about how they looked too soft for kitchen work.
Rayleigh hadn’t spoken. Hadn’t interrupted.
He had simply appeared behind the man. Silent. Solid. Eyes unreadable.
The merchant took one look at him, went pale, stuttered something incoherent, and practically sprinted down the dock like he’d seen a ghost in broad daylight.
You turned, arms crossed, and narrowed your eyes at Rayleigh.
“Was that necessary?”
He tilted his head, utterly calm. “They’re mine.”
There was a beat of silence.
“…My hands?”
He didn’t clarify.
He just turned away, reached for a rag, and began wiping down the counter like he hadn’t just claimed ownership of your limbs and scared a grown man out of his shoes.
You stood there, staring at his back, half-annoyed and half-flushed, and realized with quiet horror that you didn’t mind it nearly as much as you should have.
One morning, you decided to wear one of your favorite shirts.
It wasn’t a statement. Not a plan. Just a choice made halfway through wiping your forehead on your sleeve for the third time before noon. The kitchen was sweltering, the stove was relentless, and your usual apron felt like a wool blanket soaked in steam. So you reached for something lighter. Breezier. A sleeveless, low-cut shirt that clung in all the places heat liked to settle. It wasn’t scandalous. Just comfortable. Practical. Your own little mercy.
Rayleigh did not handle it well.
He bumped into three walls before noon. Missed a step on the stairs and nearly took out a barrel. Forgot how to ask for tea halfway through the sentence and had to restart twice. At one point, he turned to say something, looked directly at your chest, and went completely silent.
Ten full seconds passed.
Then he blinked. His eyes darted away like he’d been caught in a crime scene photo. And then, without meeting your gaze, he mumbled a soft, “Apologies, love,” to your sternum like it was a sentient creature he had just deeply offended.
You stared at him in disbelief.
Then you handed him a drink to shut him up.
He took it gingerly, fingers brushing yours, and stared down at the cup in his hands like it was something sacred. Something far more than citrus and ice. As if you’d just proposed. Or wrote him poetry. Or handed him a deed to a quiet little cottage on the sea.
All because you wore a shirt.
You told yourself not to read into it. Not to linger on the way his hands tightened just slightly around the glass. Not to notice the way he hovered near the stove that day, silent and watchful, like he couldn’t decide if you were real or dangerous.
You told yourself it was just the heat.
But he never took his eyes off you for long.
Even when he tried to be subtle, even when he turned his back, you could feel it. The quiet awareness, the magnetic pull of his gaze like a tide tugging at your ankles. And he bumped into one more wall before dinner. Didn’t even try to explain it.
You figured the two of you could use a little breathing room. If a glimpse of cleavage was enough to compromise the composure of one of the most infamous pirates on the sea, perhaps some temporary distance would help recalibrate whatever strange, unspoken thing was blooming between you.
You weren’t even gone.
Just slipped into the next market stall over for half an hour to help a friend clean and season a fresh catch. It wasn’t anything dramatic. You were still within shouting distance, still in view if someone had bothered to lean out far enough.
And yet, when you stepped back into the main thoroughfare, Rayleigh looked like a man who had survived three wars, a personal betrayal, and seven days of nothing but hardtack and spiritual erosion.
He turned toward you with a sharp breath, shirt halfway unbuttoned, hair a wreck from where he’d raked his fingers through it too many times, pupils wide like he’d seen God and she had refused to season anything.
“Where were you?” he asked hoarsely, like he hadn’t been sure you’d ever return.
You blinked. “Helping a friend. Living a normal life. Cooking, once again.”
Rayleigh exhaled so hard his shoulders dropped. He looked genuinely relieved.
“Thank the stars,” he muttered. “I almost had to eat something Buggy cooked.”
From somewhere across the deck, Buggy screamed, “IT WAS JUST SPAGHETTI!”
“IT WAS SWEET,” Shanks hissed, clinging to the hem of your apron like a starving child. “LIKE. ACTUAL. DESSERT. SPAGHETTI.”
You didn’t ask for clarification. You didn’t want it. The horror in Shanks’ eyes told you everything you needed to know.
Later that night, just after the lanterns had been dimmed and the waves had quieted into their usual lull, Rayleigh knocked on your doorframe. He leaned against it like he wasn’t entirely sure how to stand anymore.
His shirt was still open. His hair was still a mess. He looked like he’d been dragged backward through a wind tunnel of domestic chaos and existential dread.
“I will literally wash every dish on the Oro Jackson with my tongue if you join.”
You stared at him.
He blinked. “Okay. Maybe not with my tongue. That’s… not sanitary. But—look.”
He stepped into the light, looking tired and profoundly sincere.
“They’re trying to replace you with me.”
You raised an eyebrow. “And how’d that go?”
He held up a scorched pan with both hands, as if it were damning evidence. Something black and grainy clung to the inside like the remains of a failed summoning circle.
“We had to bury it,” Rayleigh said again, holding the scorched pan like it was a war memorial. His voice was grim. Quiet. The kind of solemn usually reserved for funerals or broken swords.
Before you could respond, Roger appeared beside him like a human avalanche of good intentions and poor impulse control.
He was holding three things.
A friendship bracelet, frayed and crooked, made of mismatched string and probably tears.
A crew application form that looked suspiciously hand-drawn and entirely unofficial, signed by what appeared to be half the ship in various levels of spelling competency.
And a crayon portrait, bright, clumsy, and endearingly awful, labeled in oversized lettering: Best Cook Ever (pls don’t leave us).
Rayleigh stood beside him, arms crossed, still shirtless, radiating dignity as if this entire scene wasn’t unfolding next to a glitter-glued drawing of you holding a spoon.
“If you don’t join,” he said, voice flat and heavy, “I will die.”
You stared.
“Possibly dramatically,” he added. “Possibly on purpose.”
You squinted at him. “You’ve survived the Grand Line. Sea Kings. God Valley. An actual volcano.”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “But not without your cooking.”
You frowned. “That’s not a compliment.”
Rayleigh tilted his head, that slow smirk just beginning to curl at the corner of his mouth. “It’s a threat.”
There was a beat of silence.
You blinked.
He smiled.
Somewhere behind you, Shanks tripped over a mop bucket while trying to rewrite the last line of the crew song to include your name.
You exhaled slowly. Not quite a groan. Not quite a sigh. Something between surrender and acceptance.
Because this wasn’t a crew.
It was a goddamn circus.
And somehow, without your permission, they’d made you the main act.
You sighed. “I’ll think about it. Maybe .”
Rayleigh’s grin nearly split his face. Roger threw the bracelet like confetti.
Technically, you said maybe to joining them.
Not yes. Not yet. Not even close.
Just a vague, tired murmur at the end of a long day, muttered more out of exhaustion than intent. You’d been wiping down the stall when Roger caught you off guard, elbow propped on your counter, voice soft and far too hopeful for a man wanted on every sea.
Maybe, you said. Perhaps you’d think about it. Maybe you’d consider sailing with them. Maybe you’d figure it out tomorrow, after a night of sleep and some time to weigh what it would mean to leave behind the one small corner of peace you’d built for yourself.
You had meant to take your time.
They didn’t wait.
They took your maybe as a yes, a declaration, a done deal.
And so you woke the next morning not in your cot. Not in your stall. Not to the familiar creak of the shutters or the hiss of your stove warming up.
You woke up on a ship.
Their ship.
The Oro Jackson.
You sat up slowly, blinking in disbelief, surrounded by the unmistakable scent of sea air and aged timber. The room swayed gently beneath you, hammocks creaked somewhere nearby, and seagulls cried in the distance.
There were sacks of flour stacked neatly near the wall. Your spice rack had been bolted to a shelf with what looked like hand-carved brackets. Your knives were lined up in a row, gleaming and familiar. And your best apron (washed, pressed, and folded) sat neatly beside a tin of your favorite tea leaves, tucked into the corner like a quiet apology.
Someone had even left you a cup of warm sake.
When you stormed above deck to confront Roger, he greeted you with a wave and a grin like this was all perfectly reasonable.
“You belong with us,” he called, as if that explained everything.
You stared at him, stunned. Furious. Confused.
He beamed harder.
And when you turned, slowly, toward Rayleigh, your breath caught in your throat.
He didn’t grin. He didn’t speak.
He just looked at you.
Softly. Steadily. Like you were already home. Like this had always been the end of the road, and all your resistance had been nothing more than a scenic detour.
You should have yelled. Should have demanded they turn the ship around, dock immediately, carry every damn sack of flour back to your stall by hand.
But instead, you stood there in the morning light, the wind pulling gently at your shirt, and didn’t say a word.
And, well… they had brought your knives.
They had packed your spices, folded your apron. Tucked your good ladle into your satchel like it might be needed on the road. You’d told yourself it was practical. A precaution. A habit.
But maybe it had been hope.
Maybe it had been instinct.
Or maybe it had always been him.
Roger stood at the helm, one hand on the wheel, grinning like a man who had just won a game no one else knew was being played. He waved when he saw you on deck, beaming, as if you hadn’t just woken up to find your entire life shifted under your feet.
And Rayleigh?
He was already watching.
Leaning against the mast with a calm that didn’t quite reach his eyes, arms at his sides, shirt half-unbuttoned from the morning sun. He didn’t smile. Didn’t move. Just stood there, quiet and waiting, gaze steady and unreadable.
Like he’d been waiting for you to open your eyes and finally see the truth that had always been there. Not a choice, not a trick. Just something old and simple. Something that fits.
Slow. Certain. Already home.
You stared back.
And you didn’t say no.
Because, if you were honest… The decision had already been made the moment you looked up and saw him in your kitchen, eating your food like it meant something.
Maybe it wasn’t a kidnapping.
Not really.
Maybe it was fate.
Or, worse.
Maybe it was Rayleigh.
That smug, maddening bastard with a voice like honey and a smirk that promised back pain, bad decisions, and a long, glittering trail of beautiful regrets. The kind of man who didn’t steal hearts so much as unlace them slowly, carefully, with velvet hands and wandering eyes. Then pretended he hadn’t done a thing.
The kind of man who made surrender feel like your idea.
So you did the only thing you knew how to do.
You turned on your heel, marched into the kitchen, and started to cook.
Your hands found rhythm in the familiar: chopping, stirring, seasoning. The motions were grounding, automatic, built into your bones. The scent of simmering broth rose around you, thick with spices and something a little like pride.
Rayleigh was nearby.
Suspiciously still.
Too still.
You heard him sigh behind you. Deep. Long. Heavy with something that was definitely not culinary despair.
Then silence again.
And then, another look. You could feel it, that slow, deliberate glance.
Because he was middle-aged, not dead.
You tried to ignore him. Truly, you did. Focused on the stew, the pot, the way the spices bloomed in the heat. But Rayleigh was still standing there. Quiet. Too quiet.
That was never a good sign.
When Rayleigh was that still, it meant one of three things: he was calculating, remembering, or fantasizing. Possibly all three.
You glanced over your shoulder.
He wasn’t moving. Just watching you, arms folded across his chest, one brow slightly drawn like he was thinking very hard about something he shouldn’t be thinking about in the galley.
Your ladle slowed in the pot.
His eyes didn’t leave you.
Neither of you spoke.
And beneath all of it— the soft hiss of the stove, the gentle creak of the ship, the low, steady bubbling of the broth —there was heat that had nothing to do with fire.
You recognized that look.
It wasn’t curiosity. It wasn’t idle thought.
Rayleigh wasn’t thinking about navigation. He wasn’t calculating coordinates or weather patterns or where they’d be by sunrise.
He didn’t blink.
His jaw tensed, ever so slightly.
And just like that, you knew: he was losing the battle with his imagination.
You let the silence stretch, then glanced over your shoulder with one brow raised, ladle paused mid-stir.
“Rayleigh?”
He snapped out of it fast. Too fast.
Looked startled. Looked guilty. Shrugged like the answer didn’t matter, like he hadn’t just mentally undressed you six different ways and married the idea for good measure.
You rolled your eyes and turned back to the pot.
Kept stirring.
And the next morning, your name was on the crew ledger.
Scrawled in someone’s best attempt at fancy handwriting, ink still drying, written directly beneath the official line for the quartermaster.
It read: Ship’s Goddess, Culinary Class . DO NOT ANGER HER.
Right where Rayleigh insisted it belonged.
Roger claimed it was a joke. Shanks swore it was a sign of respect. Buggy tried to add “Also immune to mutiny laws” until you threatened to feed him to a sea king with one hand tied behind your back.
But the truth was more straightforward. You cooked.
Not just food. Real food. Edible. Hot. Properly seasoned. Something with texture and flavor and love in it, even if you’d denied the last part.
You had made the stew.
And nobody cried. Well, Buggy cried a little, but that was more from emotion than spice.
You didn’t flinch when Gaban called you sugarcakes for the third time in a row. You didn’t bat an eye when Roger stole the entire tray of dumplings, shouted about divine revelation, and proposed to your curry. You just cooked, sighed, and kept moving, the same way you always had.
And for Roger, that was it. That was the win. The victory. The final proof that bringing you aboard had been the right call.
Until he looked up mid-meal and saw Rayleigh staring at your chest like it held the coordinates to Laugh Tale.
Not subtly.
Not briefly.
Roger dropped his spoon.
Rayleigh didn’t even notice.
He just kept looking, like your neckline was whispering secrets, like your collarbone had started a treasure hunt, and he was already halfway to drawing the map.
Roger cleared his throat. Loudly.
Rayleigh didn’t blink.
Shanks leaned in and whispered, “Should we… stop him?”
Roger just sighed, long and defeated. “He’s too far gone.”
And you?
You kept ladling soup.
Because someone had to.
It started with a look.
You were reaching for a spice jar. Nothing scandalous. Nothing theatrical. Just stretching toward the top shelf like any normal person trying to make dinner on a ship full of unsupervised pirates.
Your shirt rode up slightly.
Rayleigh choked on air.
You turned, jar in hand, eyebrows raised. “Are you dying, or just perving?”
He coughed once. Tried to recover. Failed. “Both,” he rasped. “Respectfully.”
You stared. Rayleigh looked away, as if the basil had personally betrayed him.
Rayleigh, for all his composure, had a mental list.
Not a vague idea.
Not a loose collection of thoughts.
A list.
Cataloged. Prioritized. Updated nightly.
- If she trips and falls into my arms, marry her.
- If she kisses me over soup, retire immediately.
- If she moans while taste-testing: abandon all morals, sail directly into temptation.
- If Gaban flirts again: duel to the death, consequences be damned.
He also had a backup hammock built.
You’d never seen it.
No one had.
It lived somewhere deep in the storage hold, hidden behind barrels of rum and denial. Carefully tied. Weatherproofed. Reinforced.
He called it The Matrimonial Option.
He’d told Roger once, offhandedly, during a storm.
“I’m not a complicated man,” he’d said. “I just need her, a skillet, and one flat surface big enough to build a life on.”
Roger had taken a long sip of his drink.
Then muttered, “Shouldn’t you be going a little slower?” before walking into the rain.
Rayleigh hadn’t answered.
He was too busy carving your initials into the frame of the spare hammock.
Captain’s Log: Subject: First Mate is Down Cataclysmically
Symptoms include:
– Eye contact paralysis
– Selective hearing when boobs are present
– Full-body flinch response every time she says his name in that sweet voice
– Butter knife threats at Gaban levels of violence
Roger stared down at the page, then slammed the logbook shut like it had personally insulted his leadership.
“This is stupid,” he muttered.
Gaban leaned back in his chair, arms folded, sipping something with far too much rum and even more judgment. “He’s in love,” he said, entirely too smug.
“He’s in lust,” Roger shot back.
Behind them, footsteps echoed across the deck. Rayleigh passed by in a loose shirt and sharper frown, one hand outstretched to shield your body from a gust of sea wind like it might bruise you. He didn’t even break stride.
Roger watched him go, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “See? That. That right there.”
Gaban raised his drink. “Still in love.”
Roger shook his head. “He’s just in it for the boobs.”
There was a pause.
Gaban tilted his head thoughtfully. “I mean… they are pretty nice boobs.”
Roger hesitated. “Yeah. They are.”
Both men nodded, solemn.
“But someone’s gotta tell him to stop staring,” Roger said after a beat.
Gaban took another sip. “You.”
“No, you.”
“Not a chance. He’s been sharpening that cutlass.”
Roger stared at him.
Gaban shrugged again. “I like my limbs.”
There was another silence.
From across the deck, Rayleigh paused mid-step and glanced over at you again. The same look. Soft. Starstruck. Catastrophically doomed.
Roger sighed so hard it became a prayer.
Rayleigh was doing his best not to be a lech. Women didn’t like that, so it was of the utmost importance that he showcased his other skills to entice a mate.
Truly. With every ounce of discipline honed over decades at sea, he was trying.
And you were talking about something important, probably even urgent. But he couldn’t focus. Not when your shirt had all the structural integrity of a loose sail in a storm.
Who designed that thing? Was it legal? Was it certified to be worn in the presence of emotionally compromised first mates?
He rubbed the bridge of his nose like he could massage the filth out of his brain.
It didn’t work.
You leaned forward.
The neckline shifted.
He looked away so fast that his chair tilted. One leg lifted off the floor before he righted it with a grunt, fingers tightening on the armrests like he was bracing for impact.
You, oblivious or not, continued. You were holding a map, damn it. A map. Pointing to wind currents and pressure zones, and how the Grand Line bent physics over a table and made it beg.
And he was staring at the topographical miracle of your chest.
Not even intentionally. That was the worst part.
It just… pulled his eyes. Like gravity. Or divine punishment. He tried to focus on the latitude line. He really did.
But all his brain could think was: Those aren’t just mountains on the map.
He coughed violently, trying to cover the sound of his soul short-circuiting.
You paused mid-sentence.
And caught him.
You didn’t say anything.
You just looked at him. One brow lifted, hand on your hip, the other still holding the map like it was a fan in a play, and you were definitely using it as a weapon now. A prop. A trap.
Rayleigh stared at the ceiling. Then the floor. Then closed his eyes like a condemned man making peace with the gallows.
“Sweetheart,” he said slowly, voice low and rough, scraped raw from the weight of restraint, “I have fought emperors. I have out-drunk fleets. I have escaped execution naked and barefoot in the snow.”
He opened his eyes.
“But if you don’t put a different shirt on, I am going to sin so profoundly the sea will split down the middle just to avoid watching.”
You smiled.
Didn’t move.
You were doing it on purpose.
Absolute menace.
It didn’t take long for word to spread across the Grand Line.
You had legendary tits and could make a stew that made hardened pirates weep like children.
Naturally, this was a problem.
Not for you, of course. You were fine. Thriving, even. But for everyone else— specifically, anyone with the misfortune of standing too close, staring too long, or daring to compliment the way you stirred a pot —life had become significantly more dangerous.
Because Rayleigh had entered what the crew was now referring to, in hushed tones, as feral husband mode.
It had started subtly.
A glance here. A hand resting at the small of your back when another captain passed a little too slowly. A smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes when a merchant offered you a “free sample.”
But subtle didn’t last.
Not when he realized other men were looking at you the same way he looked at dessert, like you were a rare indulgence, warm and soft and just waiting to be devoured.
One poor bastard in Water 7 asked for your recipe and your measurements in the same sentence.
Rayleigh didn’t speak.
He just handed the man a spoon.
Then took it back.
And bent it in half.
With one hand.
You hadn’t even noticed the offense. You were too busy yelling at Shanks for stealing dumplings again.
But Rayleigh?
Rayleigh was watching the world like a man prepared to kill for love and soup in equal measure.
And heaven help whoever thought they could separate the two.
Exhibit A: Buggy
“Wow,” Buggy said brightly, leaning across the table with the most respectful expression his face could manage, “you’ve got a great—”
Clink.
Rayleigh didn’t even look up from his map. He simply reached out and placed his sword on the table. Calm. Precise. A gentle tap of steel against wood. The kind of motion that didn’t scream threat so much as whisper it with murderous confidence.
Buggy froze mid-sentence.
“…smile,” he finished weakly.
Rayleigh raised one eyebrow. Slowly. Deliberately.
Buggy backed away with the careful movements of a man realizing he had just complimented the moon in front of a werewolf. And the werewolf was holding a blade.
Exhibit B: Gaban (Again)
“I’m just saying,” Gaban mused, leaning lazily against the ship’s railing as you bent over a basket of spices nearby, “if she wanted to lean over me like that in the kitchen, I wouldn’t mind.”
He grinned to himself. It was a very self-satisfied kind of grin.
Rayleigh appeared behind him like a spirit summoned by lust and poor timing.
“Funny,” he said, tone pleasant, almost conversational. “I was just thinking you looked flammable today.”
Gaban turned.
Saw the look in Rayleigh’s eyes.
And promptly excused himself to go fall off the ship on purpose.
Exhibit C: A Bounty Hunter Who Looked for Too Long
He didn’t say anything.
Didn’t whistle. Didn’t catcall. Didn’t utter a word.
He just stared. A little too long. A little too low. While you were hauling in a crate, bouncing slightly from the effort, sleeves rolled up, neck glistening with sweat and sea spray.
Rayleigh didn’t make a sound.
He didn’t speak.
Didn’t warn.
He just picked the man up and dropped him into the ocean like a sack of potatoes that had committed a felony.
Splash.
Roger leaned over the railing, tankard in hand, and shouted cheerfully, “She’s taken, mate!”
Rayleigh didn’t look away from the water. “She’s mine—ours..”
You, five feet away, still holding the crate: “I’m literally right here. Do I get a vote?”
Rayleigh: “No.”
You: “Rude.”
Rayleigh: “Correct.”
And then he handed you a clean rag for the sweat on your brow, kissed your cheek like a man unbothered by legal definitions of ownership, and went right back to charting a course like he hadn’t just waterboarded a stranger with possessiveness.
The Grand Line got the message.