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o1. bloodline
“I’ll tell father!”
They laugh. Nasally, high-pitched, and mean. “You think he doesn’t know?” Niji snorts. “Oh, that’s so sad!”
Sanji feels like he’s been drenched in ice water. “Wh-what?”
“You retard,” Ichiji says, approaching him. Sanji flinches and takes two shaky steps backwards, but his back hits the damp stone wall and he can’t back up any more. Ichiji looms closer. “He gave the order to put you down here. He told everyone you’re dead.”
Something heavy falls on him, a massive, hefty stone in the pit of his stomach that forces him to his knees. He feels the tickle on his chin before he even realises he’s crying. And then his nose blocks and his vision blurs and he can just make out the blurry red of Ichiji’s shoes.
“Oh my god, stop crying. You’re such a worthless loser,” Ichiji snaps, kicking him in the stomach.
“Dad would be happy if you did die,” Yonji says, stepping on Sanji’s hand and grinding his heel into it. It stings and he feels the skin tear, but he’s more upset that his hands are dirty now and he won’t be able to wash them until the guard brings a basin this evening. He won’t be able to practice cooking all day. Fresh, hot tears spring to his eyes and drip out from beneath the iron mask. He wants to wipe his eyes and dry his nose but he can’t get his hands underneath it.
Niji joins in, slamming his foot against Sanji’s side. He curls into himself and shields his head, trying and failing to grab fistfuls of hair in his hands. Instead his stinging fingers slid over cold iron and he just clenched his fists and clenched his eyes shut, wishing he could hold onto something.
It’ll be over soon.
o2. sacrifice
“Oi.”
Sanji jolts, heart shooting up to his throat. He wrenches himself away from Zoro’s bedside to see his eyes open—just barely, tiny little slits. His head is wrapped in bandages, and so is his neck, and torso, and arms, and legs, and—everywhere. Blood has seeped through some of them, mostly the ones enveloping his abdomen, but there’s not nearly as much of it as when – when Sanji had… found him. Standing in a pool of his own blood, dripping it, shaking, only standing because he couldn’t move.
He wants to grab him by his shitty collar and shake him. He wants to kick him in the head and call him a fucking dumbass. He wants to scream—“I’ll get Chopper,” he mutters, moving to stand.
Only – Zoro grabs his arm in the weakest grip Sanji’s ever felt from him and that’s what makes him stop. His heart’s not slowed at all and bile rises in his throat. “Didn’t you let your ass get kicked enough?” Zoro croaks. It’s hoarse and sounds like it hurts, but Sanji doesn’t give a shit.
“Fucking—look who’s talking. You’re a fucking mummy,” Sanji bites out, voice catching at the end. He swallows back the weird, garbled hitch in his breath, hoping Zoro’s too doped up on painkillers to hear it. “You suit this shitty island, you should stay. Cause me less damn stress.”
A bandage-swathed hand grabs his wrist. “That why you’re pulling your hair?” he mumbles.
Sanji feels his shoulders jump. His hand stills where it’s tangled in his hair and he drops them. His heart’s thumping erratically and it hurts, but he doesn’t have any cigarettes left to stop it. “No, dumbass,” he mutters, “I’ve not been able to wash on this disgusting island. It feels gross.” He tugs weakly at his arm and Zoro lets go. He was probably numb – a blessing, no doubt, after that… clusterfuck. “Go to sleep, idiot.” It comes out too soft and he grimaces after the words leave his mouth, and stalks away before Zoro can work up the strength to respond.
o3. distance
FIRE FIST ACE: DEAD
Sanji stares at the paper in his hands, fingertips turning white from the pressure. He clenches his fists without meaning to, crumpling the paper, but quickly unhinges his tight-knuckled grip to preserve it.
He thinks someone says his name, but all sound blurs into a cacophony of indecipherable noise and all he can hear are the words FIRE FIST ACE: DEAD reverberating around in his skull.
Luffy.
He has to get off his hellhole, has to find Luffy, and beat the shit out of that fucking bear—
FIRE FIST ACE: DEAD
FIRE FIST ACE: DEAD
FIRE FIST ACE: DEAD
He remembers meeting him. “I hope my brother’s not caused you too much trouble,” he said, ruffling Luffy’s hair, and Sanji was… surprised. He didn’t think Luffy had family—didn’t think many of them did, really. Nami had her sister and that old man, but… Sanji didn’t expect Luffy to have a brother, and he didn’t expect him to be so… nice.
He got along with Ace better than he did with Zoro. Ace was barely any older than the two of them, but he acted more mature—maybe because he was an older brother? But no, Sanji had thought with a scoff; being an older brother didn’t make you anything.
But Ace was—pretty amazing. Luffy was lucky to have an older brother like him.
So he must be hurting.
Something touches his hand and he flinches, hitting his head against the wall behind him and—when had he sat down? He looked up and Ivan was kneeling in front of him, all the other okama a few metres away, giving him far more room than they had so far. Ivan pried Sanji’s hands away from his hair and winced. Sanji blinked down at his hands and saw some tufts of blond hair and blood under his nails. He must’ve… been pulling it.
“Sanji-kun,” Ivan says, like he’s talking to a wounded animal. “Luffy-chan doesn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
It’s only that evening, while he’s holed himself up in a kitchen, feeding a piece of cheese to a tiny mouse, that he sees Luffy’s arm:
3D2Y
o4. reunion
“You pull your hair a lot,” Zoro says the day they meet up at Sabaody. Sanji’s hands twitch before he jerks them away from his head like they burn. He looks at Zoro, whose neutral expression morphs into something like surprise. He hadn’t realised; he’d just been lamenting his last two years surrounded by okama while Zoro had, of course, been doing something relevant and useful and amazing.
Sanji stuffs his hands in his pockets and fishes out a cigarette and lighter, just for something to do. He has to flick his lighter three times before it lights, which Zoro definitely noticed. But he acts casual anyway, sticking it back in his pocket and breathing in the smoke and feeling the old familiar burn in his throat. “Didn’t know you looked at me so much, marimo,” he finally says in lieu of an answer.
Zoro’s good eye twitches in annoyance and Sanji smirks. The shitty swordsman thinks himself unflappable; for some reason, other people do too. But he’s actually really easily riled up and people seem to either make no impression on him except making him fall asleep, or piss him off enough to warrant a blade to their throat. Sanji’s found a perfect middle ground, although sometimes he seems closer to the latter option.
But then Zoro smirks, like he’s suddenly got the high ground again, and he says, “Is it just your masochistic side?”
Sanji breathes in too fast and nearly inhales his cigarette. He coughs and pounds himself on the chest, eyes and throat burning. “Wh-what?” he sputters.
Zoro barks a laugh. “For such a perverted cook, you sure can blush a shit tonne.”
Sanji glares, shoulders hunching. He drops his cigarette on the ground and stubs it out with his foot, stuffing his hands back in his pockets, and then launching a kick at Zoro’s fat ugly head. He blocks it with Wado, the blade unsheathed almost too quickly to see it—almost, for anyone else, but Sanji saw it coming and lifts his leg over Zoro’s head. Zoro shifts (nearly imperceptibly, always nearly but not enough to hide it from Sanji) to block it, but Sanji retracts his leg at the last second and kicks him square in the chest. He staggers back, only an inch, but grunts – which really, from Zoro, is a lot.
“What’s wrong, marimo? For someone watching me so much, you can’t see my movements very well.”
“Shut it,” he snaps.
Sanji smirks and leans in closer over his leg still pressed against Zoro’s chest. “Ooh, scary.”
And then Zoro’s hand is wrapped around his ankle and he yanks him by it. Sanji loses his balance but he’s ready to catch himself on his hands and reposition himself—but then he’s stuck, wrist caught in Zoro’s grip, and he’s pulled backwards again and Wado is at his throat.
“Yeah,” Zoro mutters, a grin in his voice, “I am.”
And it’s annoying, but it distracted Zoro from the hair thing, so Sanji bickers with him until he forgets about it.
How did he remember that? They hadn’t seen each other in two fucking years.
o5. guilt
Luffy’s laughing at Momo, who poofed into his dragon form after Nami hugged him to stop his tears. (How lucky that little brat is, too.) Robin takes a seat beside Franky, who beams at her and she winces like he’s the sun. He shows her this little mini mecha he created recently and Sanji thinks it follows the colour scheme of one of Robin’s favourite outfits: blue leather cropped jacket, pink floral serape, and coral heels, which is—really quite sweet and she looks torn between being unimpressed and flattered, so she settles in-between and huffs a little laugh, taking it and resting it in her lap and then offering to read her book together.
Usopp and Chopper are listening to one of the samurai Sanji hasn’t been introduced to yet telling a fable or legend – or something like that, Sanji’s not really listening. But their eyes are wide and they occasionally make ‘ooouuuh’ sounds, so he’s guessing it’s a riveting enough story that Usopp will be taking ‘inspiration’ from it. Brook is hovering nearby, chuckling as he plucks at his violin in a kind-of-tune, like it’s an idea he’s not written properly just yet. Sanji… Sanji can’t wait to hear it.
And god, that’s. Something. He almost never heard Brook’s music again, after Luffy hunted so long for a musician for his—their crew.
He almost wouldn’t have found another ponyglyph that Robin would translate; he wouldn’t have learnt another piece of lost history.
He almost wouldn’t have seen Nami draw a map of the world.
He almost wouldn’t have seen another Sogeking propaganda poster or a weird invention that sometimes made weird plants come to life that were occasionally edible and amazing.
He almost wouldn’t have seen Sunny receive new upgrades, almost would’ve never seen Sunny again like he’d never see Merry again.
He almost wouldn’t have seen Chopper eat his cotton candy ever again or craft new medicine whenever he discovered a new illness.
He almost wouldn’t have seen Zoro become the world’s greatest swordsman—although he would’ve definitely seen him in a paper, years from now, with that very title.
He almost…
He almost wouldn’t have seen Luffy become king of the pirates.
He almost would never have cooked for them again.
He almost wouldn’t have ever seen his family again.
His breath catches in his throat and his eyes burns and stings and he can’t reach them so he just buries his face in his hands—realising that if he could do that, he could touch his face.
Something rests lightly on his head and he flinches, immediately embarrassed for the instinctive action that he’d spent years forcing himself out of. Years of Zeff reaching out to pat his head and him jumping so hard he’d knock pots and pans over. (He privately always wondered if he’d started training Sanji to kill that habit.)
It’s Luffy grinning at him when he looks up, and he realises a bit belatedly that he’s rested his straw hat on Sanji. “If you wanna touch something, touch that,” he says, still smiling, but with that uncomfortable severity in his gaze. The kind that promises he’ll take out whatever’s hurting you. It makes Sanji’s breath hitch, but there’s too many people around to—to let that happen, and he hadn’t done it in so long—and Zoro was around, somewhere, and even if his eyes were closed he was definitely listening. “Sanji,” Luffy says, quieter than Sanji thought him capable of, “I won’t let anyone hurt my nakama—not even themselves.”
And he remembers Nami’s tears bubbling over and falling down her cheeks, eyes wide and shocked when Luffy stilled her hand, bloodied knife poised to keep tearing out the stain on her arm.
“Keep my hat safe, okay? I want it back after I eat!”
He runs off like he’d just told Sanji something about the weather, like he hadn’t seen Sanji at his weakest, like he hadn’t kicked him hard enough to knock a tooth out and hurt him enough that he lost to Big Mom’s army, like he hadn’t—
“Oi, cook.” Two hands grab his wrists and he looks up to find one sharp golden eye boring into his, a disapproving scowl marring his features. “Captain’s orders: stop that shit.” He tugs Sanji’s arms away from his head, looking somewhat embarrassed.
Sorry is on the tip of Sanji’s tongue, but seeing the anchor that is Zoro kneeling in front of him reels the instinct back inside. He grimaces, hoping he won’t have to relearn not to do things, hating that he’s weak enough that it took almost a decade to lose old habits and only a couple of weeks to get them all back.
“I guess you were right, curlybrow,” Zoro mutters, frowning through the awkwardness but not looking away, “I guess I do look at you too much.”
Sanji looks away, letting Luffy’s hat fall enough to hide his face because suddenly his cheeks felt too warm.
“Don’t leave again,” Zoro grunts, a little gruff and quiet. Sanji glances at him through his bangs and squirms uncomfortably, wrists sizzling and tingling weirdly where Zoro’s hands are wrapped around them. “Those’re the captain’s orders too.”
“You—” A gold eye shoots up to his and he winces at his too-soft voice. “You worried, marimo?” He means it as an insult, a taunt, and he hopes it sounded like one.
But Zoro holds his gaze a little longer than necessary. “Don’t be an idiot,” he finally says, but his hands tighten around Sanji’s arms before finally, slowly letting go. He’d gripped them so tight that Sanji’s arms had white marks where his fingers had been. Sanji looks up and Zoro flicks the hat down over his eyes again.
He sputters. “What the hell, shitty swords—man…”
When he peeks through his hair, Zoro’s settled himself against the tree trunk beside him, leaning against it and shutting his eyes with his arms folded.
Sanji tears his eyes off of him and unfurls his fists, dropping them into his lap and ducking his head. I might as well, he thinks, suddenly weary. He’s thankful for the hat masking his face, because he can watch his nakama dancing and laughing until he falls asleep.