#feral girl who felt she was beyond saving. and for that she is eternally grateful. but they also bonded over their passions and things they

[tierra-paldeana]

// keeping my ramblings in the tags to protect ppl from my infodump ❤️

[kamuwrites]

In the Bag - Ch 4/10 - a One Piece gen cat fic

Fic Summary: 

All pirates have hordes of treasure. It just so happens in this life, cats are the treasure in Luffy’s.

Chapter Title: Premium Food Things

No pairings/General

Word count: 2138

read on ao3

He stretched out on the sole couch of the Kamabakka Kingdom staff break room after a long night of front door guard duty.

Ten minutes into his break, a weight settled on his chest.

He lifted the magazine from his face and smiled. “You tired of the girls already, Sanji?” Gin asked after the longhaired blonde cat.

Sanji continued to purr, ignoring Gin in favor of keeping his engine going.

Gin chuckled and let the magazine shade his face again. They both had a long night.

Luffy found them like that later, napping at the peak of dawn.

“Sanji!” Luffy was considerate enough to make it sound like he was whispering, when his whispering voice was more like a less loud yell. “Time to go home! Say bye to Bandana Guy!”

Sanji yowled grumpily in protest, hating to be handled by men even half-asleep.

Luffy somehow managed to settle Sanji into the cat-safe bag he kept with him at all times. Gin blinked up blearily to witness Sanji curled up like a cranky, growling croissant, curly whiskers and all.

“Alright, alright. Yes, I know, you don’t want to see Zoro or leave Bandana Guy, but your grooming appointment is coming up. Yeah, you can hang out with Nami for a bit.” Sanji meowed and Luffy laughed. “Oi, oi, that’s not nice to say.”

Gin followed them out and dazedly watched Luffy saunter out the club and into the dimly lit streets. Day had yet to break over the rise of the surrounding buildings.

“Watch out for dark alleys,” Gin warned.

“Sure!” Luffy practically shouted and waved over his shoulder.

Gin waved back, yawning from the doorway of the club.

Seriously. He wasn’t certain if he was expectant or dreading the days Luffy and Sanji came over for their twice weekly visits.

Gin stepped aside as a few club members scrambled to bid farewell to Sanji and Luffy with airborne kisses while the two departed for the station. The place was certainly more lively when they were there.

Their story was odd, even by his standards. What they did at a transgender-friendly club was beyond his comprehension until he got the answer from the owner in person.

“He’s our delivery boy,” Ivankov said. “Luffy-chan is also our benefactor’s son. The two facts are completely unrelated, though! The real reason lies with Sanji.”

“The cat?”

“Yes! The dear was a part of the local feral cat colony until Bon-chan found him caught in a raccoon trap near the Baratie. Turns out he had a chip and was part of that busted drug trafficking business under the guise of a kitten mill from a few years ago. I take care of human beings, but I have no expertise in animals! So we almost turned him into the shelter, but I heard about the dreadful things they do to unwanted cats. And there comes Luffy-chan, sweeping us off our feet with his generous offer of a foster home.”

He had stiffened at the news. It turned out he and Sanji were more connected than he had realized.

Gin confronted Luffy later that week. Luffy had to know his involvement in pushing Sanji to the streets.

It was his fault the drug cartel got busted in the first place. It was in his power to stop what Don Krieg was doing to those poor kittens who were only bred for their pedigree and looks. All those cats, rescued or released to streets ravaging garbage because Gin had decided to follow the direction his moral compass pointed. Betraying Don Krieg was worth the relief his conscience felt at seeing those cats up and about outside the confines of their cages.

Even if that nearly came at the cost of his life.

“I believe Sanji was one of those cats. I couldn’t save him or the rest of his siblings. I’m glad someone did,” Gin finished, head hung in guilt.

Luffy was silent for a moment, the only noise in the room being the brush against Sanji’s thick coat.

“That was almost three years ago,” Luffy said. It was worded like a question.

“Yes. Don Krieg decided to...punish me in the following months after my screw up.” Gin hated to talk about the specifics. Only Ivankov and her right hand Inazuma knew. They were the ones to save his life and provide a safe place to recover.

Luffy nodded thoughtfully. “So you released all the cats? Even though they could have died on their own in the streets without their mothers?” he asked.

“...I didn’t think about that at the time. I only had time to release the dozen cages near me before the police arrived.” He remembered he was too busy wrapping his mind around freedom and I need to get (them) out of there.

“That was reckless!”

“Hi pot, I’m kettle,” Gin muttered.

Luffy snickered. Sanji protested his person’s inattention by batting at his hand. Human continued to brush cat.

“Your heart was in the right place,” Luffy said, scritching Sanji under the chin fondly. Due to the distraction of brush on fur, Sanji allowed it. “You’re kind of like Sabo. Selfish and selfless for other people.”

“Maybe not selfless,” Gin said.

“Hmm, sure.” Luffy didn’t sound like he agreed with that, but let it go.

Gin bit his lip. “Fuck,” he said. To be comforted by a near kid was a near low for him.

His mind flashed to Don Krieg and the dark room which he-would-not-speak-or-think-of.

No. Receiving verbal comfort by Monkey D. Luffy was leagues better than that.

“Yup,” Luffy agreed. “By the way, I help because I want to, not because I have to. I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse, but it’s still better than doing nothing, you know?”

“Yeah...You’re right.”

“Don’t worry too hard over stuff that happened back then. We’re all here now,” Luffy said.

He was eternally grateful to so many people; Gin couldn’t possibly pay them all back for what they had done for him. Couldn’t any one of these kind people realize that?

“What can I?” Gin gestured to the space between them, words failing him.

“Good timing! Can you take in Sanji on Thursday? I’m introducing a new cat to the house,” Luffy requested immediately, shaking Sanji off.

Sanji landed on his feet and skulked out of sight.

“Sanji gets territorial?” Gin had read up on cat behavior once he learned he was the most tolerated person in the building on nights Sanji stayed at Kamabakka Kingdom.

“Nah. It’s weird, right? He used to be part of a feral colony but he’s not like that. He’s only aggressive to guy cats.” Luffy snorted and brushed the cat hair on his jeans off onto the floor.

“So why?” Before Luffy opened his mouth, Gin knew the reason would be simple yet ultimately ridiculous. Maybe it was a sixth sense he had developed due to knowing the likes of Luffy, Ivankov, and even briefly motherfucking Dragon himself.

“Weeeell,” Luffy grinned, extending the word out. “The new cat? She’s a girl.”

When Luffy said no more, Gin blinked. “And?” he prompted.

“That’s it.” Luffy popped his lips. End of that trail of conversation.

Gin pinched the skin between his eyebrows. Ivankov warned him Ds had a tendency to explain without explaining anything at all. This had all the signs of such a thing.

“Luffy. Why can’t Sanji be in a house with a female cat?” Gin asked carefully.

“Oh. Sanji goes WILD over females. You have no idea, man.”

“But he’s…” Gin gestured vaguely down to his family jewels.

Luffy’s grin widened. “Yup. Doesn’t matter! The heart wants what it wants! Cat or human, LOVE stops for no one!” Luffy declared, making an unusual stance Gin knew he definitely learned from Bentham.

So. Knowing Sanji went into immediate heat when getting a whiff of a female was definitely feral cat behavior, according to PAWLEASEHELP DOT ORG. Good for future reference.

He was also 99 percent sure Luffy got that last phrase wrong.

“It’s not just cats, though. Sanji LOVES girls.” Luffy tilted his head. “I don’t get why he doesn’t like some of the girls here? Is it because their leg and facial hair itch? I’m kinda envious though…”

Gin strongly suspected the reason was that some of the members were simply crossdressing.

“Yes, I can take Sanji,” he said quickly.

Key to stopping a D tangent: answering to the whim that seemed like the top priority. If the top priority seemed like a near impossibility, he was instructed to make it happen, at all costs. Ivankov stressed this very seriously.

“Great!” Luffy nodded and patted Sanji’s head. “Sanji, we’re late for that grooming appointment. Hopefully Doctor Hip Lady lets us in for a quick snip.”

The following weekend, Luffy had dumped Sanji on him and promised he would be back for him on Monday. That Monday Luffy asked (ordered) Gin to babysit Sanji again on Thursday, when Luffy had his job at the Red Hair in the evening.

The visits rinsed and repeated until Gin felt they had established a schedule. Sanji would hang out at either Gin’s apartment or the club on Mondays and Thursdays.

Gin felt comfortable and brave enough to ask Luffy where he could find discounted cat beds and food.

“I was thinking, if Sanji needed space to cool off from Zoro or the girls, he could crash at my place,” Gin offered, a tad nervous Luffy would say no.

“I don’t like isolating any of the cats, even if they do get feisty,” Luffy said, frowning. He whipped out a sticky pad and the tiniest pencil from one of his many vest pockets and shoved them into Gin’s face. “Sanji likes you, so I think this is perfect! Do you have a cell?”

The catification was cool. The apartment was meant as a housing complex for the nearby chefs of the professional Baratie. It was through Sanji’s charm that Gin managed to get one. The cat was a favorite of the restaurant, having been deemed the unofficial mascot, so he was cleared for entry on the apartment grounds. Catifying his apartment was given grudging approval by the owner and head chef, Red Leg Zeff.

“That cat and I have deep set history,” the man with an impressively large hat and braided mustache (?) relayed after Gin gaped a bit too long at his quick agreement. “The spoiled yam gave me a reason to keep living. Almost died a homeless nobody in the rain when this mangy puke colored thing hops on my chest and starts rumbling louder than a Lamborghini racing down the freeway.”

“That’s—” Gin was shocked.

“Fucking stupid. I knew that lemon was waiting for my corpse to rot before digging in. But the thing was, I had already broken my leg beyond repair.” Red Leg Zeff chuckled and patted the metal limb. “I said, ‘Here, take this useless limb of mine, brat’ and you know what the drenched rug did? He dug his claws in and purred louder. After taking a piss in a puddle a few feet away, of course. Little did I know that he just about near saved my life.”

“No way.” Gin looked to the cat in question. Sanji was currently cuddled up in the lap of a female customer. Her date sneezed away on the other side of the table. Sanji ate up the attention while looking simultaneously smug about it.

“Yes. I never did manage to get a collar on that one. He kept to himself and the ferals that live around these parts. It didn’t feel right, leashing him and tying him down.” Zeff sighed and got up, striding toward Sanji’s table. “I thought, ‘the least I can do is provide him a safe place to come back to’. Should’ve acted faster, frankly.”

Gin grinned. Luffy was certainly someone known for direct and immediate action.

“Ah.” Zeff addressed Gin, Sanji meowing crankily in his arms. “Boy, don’t bring him into the restaurant when you come. The yam is unpredictable for business, as you can see.”

The male customer was yelling about hazardous restaurant etiquette and the woman was flushed happily, obviously enjoying her brief experience with a loving cat. The Baratie chefs were curiously slipping out of the kitchen. A few noticed Sanji in the head chef’s arms. The rest headed over to take care of the dissatisfied customer.

Gin watched their expressions brighten as they hesitantly approached the cat. They reached out and patted Sanji on the head. A few even blushed as they proceeded to enthusiastically kick and beat the crap out of the man.

“You,” Gin said later, “are a very spoiled cat.”

Sanji yawned and continued his 18 hour nap, presumably dreaming up a paradise of beautiful girls and female cats.