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Sanji always loved the sea.
He grew up in a castle that never left the waves. If he thinks back, it was always eerily still and never rocked in the same way, the waves did against the sides like the boats he would sometimes catch a glimpse of from a far. He was born on the sea but it was always grey all around with bricks of the castle they called home and every inch of their seafaring kingdom. There was the green of plant life but the grey seemed to overshadow it all.
He loved cooking too, so he never got to see the sea much- always hiding away in the kitchen trying to learn from all the cooks. It was hard because they weren’t allowed to teach him much. He was royalty and royalty did not cook or serve but it was what he liked and what he loves so he never cared.
He did not care when his brothers beat him black and blue after stealing something he had worked really hard on. He did not care to stop even if his father never stopped them from crushing his skull into the hard floor and his head got all heavy and there was blood staining stone. He never stopped making food even if his sister would only watch and never said a thing. She would patch him up sometimes if it got really bad and that had to count for something. It had to. He didn’t stop cooking for the little animals even when he was six and would hide in the densest patches of forest he could find for a day or two before they found him again.
Sanji grows up knowing his mother is the best. She’s beautiful, with the same hair colour as him and she always eats what he makes even if did not come out like he wanted. She always smiles when he comes to visit to her- she’s pale but she always looked like the sun to him. She tells him stories of the sea, of pirate adventures and the wonders of the deep with her eyes closed like she could picture it all if she thought hard enough. There are some stories of how amazing it is to feel a boat rock beneath your feet with adventure in your heart, feeling as flighty as a bird that she tells with very sad eyes and he hopes his mother got to have those adventures before everything.
His mother is sick, he knows, that’s why she can’t be in the castle and stop them from hurting him but it’s fine. She always holds him extra tight in her weak, frail arms when he comes in with another patch of bruises over his face and it’s okay. Everything is okay because his mother had once told him that Family is supposed to love you and he never lived any differently than this so this must be what family is.
His family loves him, even if they’re harsh about it. They have to.
Sometimes he can see the sea when they’re training- when they want him to jump off impossible heights for a seven-year-old or when they dump him into it expecting him to know how to swim already like Ichiji can, like Niji can, like Yonji and Reiju can but he can’t yet no one ever taught him. The sight of the sea is beautiful but he’s scared to jump and he’s scared to drown but he can force himself to swim because he loves the sea and he doesn’t want it to lose its beauty. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if he loses the sea.
Sanji is different- he knows. When he is too prideful- and he deserves to be, he worked hard- of one of his perfect creations in the kitchen and his brothers steal them and yell cruel words in his face that feel so much like the nicks he gets from cutting with a knife that’s too big, sometimes he fights back. When he tries to hit them with all the hurt they give, it never works- their skin is metal and Sanji’s isn’t. He’s different and it always ends with his head somewhere buried between brick and blood and his brothers’ laughter and his father’s disappointment and his sister’s silence.
He’s different because every time his father comes into his room and sees him feeding the mice or the birds- they’re his friends and he likes to give- he destroys his room and comes very close to destroying him and Sanji tries to remember that family loves you. But it hurts when all his father says to him is that he’s a failure and a disappointment while he hugs his brothers tightly and they’re never hurt by those hands. Sanji does not like carrying swords or guns and it makes his father mad and it makes him scared when they practice because he can swear one of those swords is going to pierce his heart.
Sanji is scared a lot when he grows up. He doesn’t see the sea or his mother enough like he wants to. The guards who all looked to eerily similar would manage to stop him.
He’s scared because he’s weak and he loves the sea but then his mother dies and it gets worse.
Father gets angrier with every shaky step he takes in his vicinity and every training session ends with irritated glares all over his back. He still cooks though because his mother loved his cooking and he promised he would be the best at it and she had smiled so warmly he wished he never had to leave her side.
He likes to go pick flowers and set them by her grave- all bright and colourful ones because she deserved some colour for how pale she had always been. He cries every time, his chest shaking painfully because he feels empty without her and he can’t help it. Body shaking when his father comes to stomp on the flowers he got just for her and drags him away by his hair.
He’s a failure, he knows but he loves his mother and his mother had eyes blue like his and blue like the sea. So, he’ll come see her as much as he can because he loves the sea and so did she.
Her name was Sora like the sky but she was beautiful like the sea. She was a kindness.
+
One night, they come to take him after a gruelling day with his brothers’ versions of playing. Men- the guards that look all the same after a while, they take him from his bed as he kicks and screams for his father to help him. They bring him far away, hand over his mouth and below ground, somewhere in the castle he had never been. While he is disoriented, a heavy weight is settled over his head and he can barely move his lips to scream as the iron helmet is locked in place.
He begs and screams for his father but the weird men tell him this is what his father has ordered. When they leave he bangs his head against the bars and it echoes painfully in his ears but he doesn’t stop. He keeps hitting and hitting and hitting and hitting himself as he cries himself hoarse because he’s scared. Sanji is terrified- trembling because he is a failure and now his father has thrown him away. Then he settles in within the first week and tries to ignore the good feeling of not having to see his father or his brothers or his sister. He gets to read and sleep without wondering where the next hit is coming from and he feels a little happy to be alone. He doesn’t know if that is sad or not but he doesn’t care- he’s happy.
He still cries when he thinks about his mother. He cries even harder when his brothers find him after half a year and the pain is back and he hates how he can’t fight back not when they’re still so strong- even stronger- and he is a failure. He cries when he silently asks Reiju to be free because he can’t live like this anymore. He cries when he confronts his father and pours all the hate he can in his eyes and it does nothing to move him. He cries when his father says he does not want him as a son but he still can’t kill him- too human for his or Sanji’s good. He cries when Reiju pushes him away and tells him to take to the sea. She cries for him- he loves her.
Run!! Don’t look back!! Run, Sanji!!
Those words echo in his mind for a very long time and he wishes he had taken his sister with him but she had stayed even when she could leave and he doesn’t understand why. Never will. He hates his brothers and his father but she cried for him so he thinks he loves her.
He gets to cook now and feel the waves beneath his feet.
Well, he does not get to cook and only works as a bus boy and cuts enough potatoes most of the time but he feels the waves beneath his feet for once and it is so so good. Their castle on the sea was always so stiff and unnatural and never moved with waves not even in a storm that gave him nightmares- but now he can sway, can lose his balance and it’s okay. It’s not weird because it’s the sea’s work and the sea is everything.
Maybe it’s because it’s the East Blue’s sea and this sea is different than the North Blue- maybe things are more alive here. He’s heard some people call it the weakest of the Blues even back when he was there but he’d rather stay away from the strong- strong people are terrifying and they hurt people. He feels safe here- he never knew what safe felt like beyond the fragile embrace of his mother.
There are still the nightmares- the phantom sensation of his father’s hands in his hair, dragging him from his mother’s grave, his kind sea loving mother and his brothers’ fists digging into their favourite spots of torment and it hurts, it hurts so bad.
It’s hard to forget even after two years but maybe he deserved to live the way he did. He was a failure after all.
Sometimes, the cooks eat what the customers leave behind, instead of just throwing it away. They say why throw away good food- he doesn’t care about the answer. He finds it gross.
+
During his two years on the passenger ship- Sanji learned about the All Blue.
He had worked hard and scraped enough money together to buy himself a book about it. He had heard about it before but never paid enough attention to remember it. They call it the miracle sea- where all the world’s fish and sea creatures live together in one giant myriad of endless blue. It’s a cook’s paradise- it is paradise. Everything the sea has to offer in one beautiful space that no one in the world had ever touched. A place that no evil, no bad people with too strong fists could get a hold of. It had to be the only untouched paradise left in the world.
Everyone says it’s not real when he asks. Sanji does not care- he wants to find that paradise more than anything else in the world.
When he finds out about the All Blue, Sanji starts to dream again.
+
He had never met a pirate before- not in his two years alone.
They try to raid the ship- they raid the ship in a freak storm that turns the sky grey and the wind hurts. Sometimes the sea bites back and he gets it. Sanji can’t let them sink the place. How is he supposed to grow up and become a cook his mother would like- how is he supposed to find the All Blue if he drowns? The waves are turbulent and strong all around the ship and he does not think he can swim in those waters- had not had the time to properly learn how to swim.
He fights back against the captain- cries out his dreams because what else is there left of him- the failure of a child. He’s weak, he knows and he’s bleeding because these people are strong and strong people can hurt others but he has to fight back with everything he has- he can’t give up now.
He only has his dreams of the All Blue and nothing else. He just wants to live. He has to live.
+
Sanji does live and maybe not for any longer than that. They had survived- only two of them- him and the captain of the pirates. Stranded on an island so small and fragile the waves had eaten up at the sides and made it impossible to swim and fish or do anything but wait.
The bad man keeps more food than him but it’s fine he has his own and he can ration it just until someone finds them. Someone will find them soon enough and he’ll find the All Blue.
No one comes- not soon- not a month later, not two or three. Sanji does not have any more food left- not even a crumb of mouldy bread that had not fallen into the ocean. He must look as weak as he has always felt- with ribs taking too much space against his skin. Some days are a blur of dry painful heaving, others are as blank and stagnant as the rocks beneath his body. He can barely see the sea stretched before him sometimes. All of it hurting and he is so, so hungry.
He can see the cooks from the passenger ship eating the leftovers in some sort of hallucination- he sees himself throwing it all away in disgust and he wants to kill himself for being so stupid. Some days with his little, faltering strength he pulls on his hair hard enough some patches go with it because he was such a failure- a failure who couldn’t even live past ten. A failure who couldn’t become a cook for his mother or for himself- a failure who never got to see the All Blue. So if there is no one else to hurt him and remind him of just how low he is- he’ll do it himself.
Something flies by in the sky that day- a bird, its pink and small and it reminds him of his sister. His silent sister who would sometimes help him with his wounds- his sister who had pushed him towards the passenger ship with tears in her eyes but had not taken a single step forward herself. Maybe it was what they wanted- maybe they knew he was going to die anyways. His father certainly never cared. He thinks his family hated him and there had to be a reason. Right?
Maybe he deserved to die slowly, surrounded by the lovely sea.
On another day, craze hits him and he goes to fight the old man for his food. What he finds is nothing but gold and jewels and rubies. No food, nothing. When he finally looks hard enough he can see just how small that big bad man had become- his bones being almost all there is left of him- it’s a terrifying sight and Sanji is sure he does not look any better but he at least had had food- this man gave it all up.
The old man doesn’t have a leg anymore and Sanji tries not to vomit at the implications at how he had survived just enough.
The old man has the same dream as him, and Sanji does not fear this strong person anymore.
A strong person saved his life. It’s weird to think about.
+
They get saved.
Sanji lives- his body would never be the same but he lives and Zeff opens a restaurant right on the sea. He gets to cook now- properly cook and learn and become good. The old man is like a dad he never thought he could have but Sanji never tells him that, doesn’t have to- Zeff would kick his ass if he ever got that sentimental but he stills calls him Eggplant with a little too much fondness so Sanji wonders who is the most sentimental one between them.
He grows up- finds cigarettes help him destress and is addicted by sixteen- learns to never, ever waste his food, to never let others grow hungry and to never hit a woman. He grows up and learns to never use his hands to fight. He becomes strong- strong enough to actually fight back properly and he’s not that afraid of the strength. He does not need to hurt people who don’t deserve it- he’s different than them and he does not think about them anymore anyways. Pushes away any nightmare they appear in and moves on, grows stronger- tries to. He places their memories somewhere far away in his mind and tries to live out his life to repay the old man that saved him. He still wants to find the All Blue but he has a debt to pay so he guesses maybe dreams are overrated.
(Does not stop him from dangling his legs over the side of the ship, smoke lazily drifting away from his mouth and he dreams of how blue the water would be there, clear too- like a river. It’s a shame.)
He might be a failure but he is strong enough to mean something.
One day, at seventeen, as he’s on his break and reading the newspaper as the sea gently rocks the Baratie, he hears about the Demon of the East Blue. They speak of him dangerously, like something to fear even though he’s after pirates. There’s a picture him- blurry and all he can see is one eye peering dangerously down at someone- it’s a vicious, intimidating stare from someone that does not even look to be any older than him that sends a shiver down his spine and he remembers how strong people can do whatever they like to people. He’s almost envious of the presence of the man he has never even met- probably never will.
The Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro, Sanji doesn’t think he could ever be like him.
At nineteen, a boy with a straw hat crashes into the restaurant and his entire world is thrown off.
He’s a stick figure of a boy- dumber than rocks and working for them as their chore boy to pay off his debt. He finds out that this idiot boy who does not know how to clean dishes without breaking them is the captain of his own pirate crew. He finds out that Roronoa Zoro is a part of his crew- the Pirate Hunter, the most feared bounty hunter in the East Blue is the first mate to a barely rookie pirate boy.
Sanji thinks life is weird.
Sanji also thinks that he has a lot of issues- with power, masculinity and self-esteem. He ignores them like he ignores the nightmares because at least he knows he can cook better than anyone in all the East Blue and that is enough. It is enough to let go of his own ambitions- he tells himself. He is fine where he is- secure in his restaurant on the East Blue so he calls Zoro an idiot for trying to get himself killed, he calls his dreams as stupid as the odd colour of his hair.
Zoro does not even waste a second to call him a coward. To place Sanji below himself because apparently men like him who aren’t willing to die for their dreams have no room to speak to those who do. He calls him a coward like his dreams aren’t just about strength for the sake of strength and Sanji remembers why he hates powerful people. They hurt because they can and Zoro wants to defeat the Strongest Swordsman in the world for no other reason than because he thinks he can. He wants a title just to say that he has it and he thinks maybe Zoro would fit right in with the Vinsmokes.
Zoro jumps out on the other deck to fight his so called rival- Luffy makes sure no one interferes even as his first mate is sliced open willingly. He still screams though, with enough pain to think that they’ve known each other for far longer than they actually do. Sanji thinks they’re watching a man die but the look in Luffy’s eyes though desperate and hurt seem to say otherwise.
Luffy eventually jumps down himself- body stretching over the sea as Zoro is pulled out of the water. His rampage is halted by Zoro’s choked breathing as the water leaves his lungs. Luffy declares he’s going to be the Pirate King and he says it without taking breath- like it’s easy to dream and to want and to believe.
Sanji watches as Zoro holds a shaking sword- the only one that not been broken- to the sky and promise his captain to never lose again. He calls Luffy Pirate King like it’s the only title he can go by. His dream had just crumbled before his eyes and in the next breath he rebuilds it- makes it indomitable with so much willpower one would think it’s suicidal. Luffy just laughs and Dracule Mihawk calls them a good team and somehow even though he does not understand it quite yet- it seems right.
Sanji has his issues with power and he realizes that he is impressed and that Zoro is not like his brothers.
+
Luffy stays as the ship Zoro is on sails away. Luffy stays and makes himself the new center of attention. He stays and fights one of the East Blue’s most dangerous men. Luffy stays with his straw hat firmly attached to his head, body seeming so skinny but as he fights anyone can see how those punches and those kicks could crack bones.
Luffy stays and Zeff tells him to watch as he fights- tells him that men like Luffy are rare and Sanji just thinks he’s an idiot.
Don Krieg has weapons and armor all over his body and Luffy is fighting with only his hands and whatever brain he must have up there. Luffy stays and defeats him with his bare hands and stretching limbs and never ending charisma. Luffy says that he has ambition and maybe that’s what makes him so damn insane.
Sanji has his issues with power and people and himself. He can’t let people starve even if it comes back to bite him in the ass- Luffy does not fault him for it. Sanji asks him if he knows about the All Blue and Luffy doesn’t laugh or hint at a snicker. Sanji thinks about how this small, too kind captain has someone like Roronoa as his first mate. He thinks about how Zoro apologized for worrying him and how Mihawk called them a good team with only a vignette view into their dynamic and he kind of gets it.
Luffy asks him to join his crew and Sanji thinks about his debts and his love for the old fucking man and realizes that he can have all of that and still live a life for himself. Zeff smiles at him one last time as he leaves and tells him to not catch cold.
Say do you know about the All Blue?
Sanji joins Luffy’s crew and promises to keep warm.
+
(Very early on, once Arlong Park is falling and they set sail with the lovely Nami as their navigator. He thinks back to himself wondering how someone like Zoro can become the first mate to someone like Luffy and he laughs- he can laugh after watching a skewered Zoro fight for his life against fishmen. He can laugh after seeing him sit and wait and sleep for Luffy to get into action. He laughs to himself because the only answer to that ignorant version of himself is
Because it’s Luffy and because it’s Zoro.
That’s all there is to it.)
+
Luffy’s crew grows and they grow stronger- climbing mountains of rocky ice with bare hands and coming back down with a loveable reindeer of a doctor. They grow stronger- crossing deserts, defeating men made out of sand and saying goodbye to a loved friend- they leave the deserted country with a beautifully mysterious woman who condemns Luffy for saving her life.
(By the time Skypiea is high above them and the marine base far behind them and the ocean a sight to see from the sky- when no one is on deck and the dark shadows on the sunset set everything blue-
Zoro tells him he loves him.
After months of whatever the hell is they were doing- Sanji kisses him and Luffy cheers from the galley door.
Nami tells them it’s about time.)
They grow stronger and stronger- surviving a ship eating storm, declaring war on the foundation of their world and losing another loved one- they come back with a beautiful wooden lion companion and the amazing shipwright of a cyborg that made her.
(That experience had reminded some of them that they were indeed pirates and Zoro made sure no one ever fell out of line in that regard. Sanji is reminded of why he is in love with the son of a bitch.)
They grow stronger and stronger and stronger- fighting zombies and shadow stealers and centuries old continent pullers- come back with an old soul of a mad skeleton. Luffy finally has his musician.
(And Zoro is a fucking idiot and Sanji does not like to think about Thriller Bark. No one does.
Sanji can still feel the shock and pain of finding his body, standing stiff and wounded with so much blood covering him and everything around him. Sanji can still remember how his already weak body wavered as Zoro the self-sacrificing motherfucker of a swordsman let out a Nothing happened like it would not rip at his heart. He could still close his eyes and hear Luffy’s horrified scream as he managed to bring Zoro’s collapsed body to the rest of the crew.
He can still see Zoro lying there, unconscious with Luffy’s treasured hat on his chest as he held his limp, always too warm hand and cursed the moss-headed fool for being so damn noble. Vivi used to call him bushido, he should have known.
When he makes those two pirates tell him what happened he hates the feeling curling in his chest. He knows Zoro would never honestly think him weak- for all the insults they trade there’s a kiss in the corner of his mouth waiting for him. He knows that Zoro is as loyal as his hair is green and he will always be so for Luffy. He knows that if platonic soulmates were a thing that’s what he’d be for Luffy and Luffy would be for him. He’s an egotistical bastard who should have let Sanji sacrifice himself.
Sanji knew that if lives could be measured his would amount to nothing compared to Luffy- to Zoro. He was the failed son of his father who tried to pretend he didn’t have nightmares anymore of giant hands grabbing and crushing his small head. Sanji was just a cook who had a lot issues with power and people who had it. He was just a man who pulled on his hair too hard and went through too many packs of cigarettes when he was stressed.
When he learns that Zoro had let himself be tortured with all the hurt that only someone like Luffy could sustain- he can’t help but hurt all the more inside because Sanji knows he would have never been able to live through all of that but Zoro could.
Because at the end of the day Sanji, Vinsmoke or Black Leg- was a failure.)
+
They keep sailing- Zoro makes it up to Sanji. Sanji still knows he’s a failure and they keep sailing. They had grown stronger.
It just wasn’t enough.
Sanji watches Zoro disappear and then Brook and Usopp and hears Luffy begging him to run but he can’t just do nothing and then he’s gone.
And he’s alone again. It feels cold.
+
Sanji had thought he was in hell- he was not only wrong but frankly insulting. While he had been running around on this pink fucking mess of an island his captain had broken into the world’s most dangerous prison- had broken out of it. While he was complaining- Luffy was fighting in a war with the world’s best on each side- fighting along monsters Sanji could only dream of becoming. Sanji has to read in a newspaper that Luffy lost his brother right before his eyes. He has to hear it again from Iva who had been there alongside him- Iva who had been there, Iva who had made sure Luffy did not die.
He can still see him- that young, polite man calling himself Luffy’s brother. He can still see the way Ace and his freckled face would look as he watched Luffy being the idiot that he was in the middle of a desert. Remembers how they looked so much alike and yet not. He can still feel the love and adoration he had for Luffy with each word he spoke. The way at night Luffy and him would huddle close and discuss in hushed voices- the way Luffy looked up at his brother like he was the greatest person he knew.
Sanji remembers wishing he could have been that person for Yonji, wishes he could have looked at Ichiji and Niji that way- with no fear in his eyes and maybe have someone to visit his mother with. Wishing he knew how to feel about his sister once and for all.
Take care of him for me.
Sanji’s hands dig so far into his scalp, when they’re pried off him blood trickles down his forehead and he can barely hear Iva asking him if he’s okay.
He’s not okay. He’s a failure who could not even sacrifice himself right. He’s a failure who wasn’t there when his captain lost one of his greatest treasures. He’s a failure who can’t even be there for him now when Luffy- Luffy with his endless kindness, impossible smile, Luffy who never laughed when he talked about the All Blue- when Luffy, his own selfishly selfless little brother needs him the most. Sanji is a failure a failure a failure a failure.
He’s pathetic and his family had been right to hate him.
He’s shivering with the cold.
+
When Luffy appears in the newspaper- accompanied by the First Son of the Sea and the Dark King- bandages wrapped around his body and giving his brother and everyone else who lost their lives his respect- he feels like crying because he’s alive and he feels a prickle of warmth settle in his ribcage.
He sees the message and promises to grow stronger for him- stronger to support all the dreams Luffy will ever wish to carry on his shoulders- the careless Atlas that he was.
(He’s sure wherever the idiot is- Zoro might be chuckling- he had already made that promise long before any of them. Sanji smiles a little to himself for the first time in a long, long time- he misses him terribly.)
+
Two years later, they’re stronger. Sanji’s hands shake more than they pull and he considers that progress. Two years later, he’s stronger- properly strong to support his captain without the creeping feeling of inadequacy. The nightmares don’t come- not about then- and if they do they never stay long enough to be remembered throughout the day.
Everyone is stronger now- more mature and lovely in all their quirky ways. Zoro is bigger and stronger and quieter and as much of an idiot that he had always been. (He’s kissed by him before they even step foot on the ship.)
Then there’s Luffy. Luffy is as sunshine as he had always been, greeting them with the type of smile that made Sanji hold back tears because he had missed his captain terribly and he still felt guilty. There was no way of taking the guilt from him- he would just have to live it. Luffy has a scar on his chest, thick and red in the shape of an X and he doesn’t say anything about it and anyone can see it came from a war that they didn’t even know was happening. Luffy walks as airily as he always did- tells Zoro his scar is cool with sparkling eyes- but the aura around him is vastly different- heavy and commanding proof of someone who was made to rule- at least in his own unique way.
Luffy is back, immensely strong in a way that feels like comfort and does not terrify him. Luffy comes back with no regret in his eyes, no shaking hands or weakened will. He comes back with the warmth of the sun and Sanji isn’t alone anymore. Luffy comes back and gives him the sea.
Luffy doesn’t talk about Marineford- or his past and Sanji knows all they have to do is ask but fear is one hell of a thing. Maybe Zoro, if he cared enough to would bite but they all know he would never.
No one wants to be reminded of how they let down their captain in his greatest time of need.
Sanji is stronger now- properly strong and he is still a failure.
+
As they approach a new island, Luffy smelling adventure in the form of a distress call- Sanji almost wishes they could spend one more day together before it all really starts in the New World.
He wishes- honest and truly- for a day with Brook’s violin waking them up peacefully without any haste, of the never ending vibrations of Franky’s tinkering below deck. He wishes for the sound of Nami’s pen scratching against paper when he gives her a drink as she works on her dream, of Chopper’s awed sounds from listening to Usopp’s fabulist stories. He wishes for Robin’s light voice and laughter as she reads Luffy stories and their captain makes his adorable commentary. He wishes for calm days where Zoro doesn’t train as much- where he naps on the grass and Sanji will unashamedly lay on his outstretched arm and nap himself. He wants to wake up from those naps with Luffy’s rubber body napping over the both of them like the clingy boy he was and would always be- Chopper nestled somewhere in their pile of sleepy limbs because they’re the only ones who can and would dare.
He wishes and wishes and wishes for easy days of waking up from naps like that with the sun setting over the sea and the waves rocking them in their sleep because that’s how a ship is supposed to feel. He wants them all bundled up under the open night sky, on their darling Sunny who waited as well, watching a meteor shower in the area and Zoro’s got him in his arms and the sound of the crew chatting merrily wraps warmth around his heart- the feeling of the sea guarding them in her embrace keeps him at ease and he just wants one more day like that.
It’s been two years and he’s missed the adventure without a doubt but it’s been two years- he’s selfish and just wants them to be happy- to be safe. Just for one more day- but things don’t usually end up the way we want them to.
+
When they come for him- the world goes grey and he can’t pretend he doesn’t think about his family anymore.
Standing aboard Big Mom’s flagship- marked Vinsmoke and the name Germa 66 in every whisper as he walks by- he can’t pretend he doesn’t think about them anymore. His hands haven’t started to shake yet at least and there’s only half a carton of cigarette smoke caked up in his lungs- it’s progress, right?
He feels terrible knowing he left Nami, Chopper and Brook with the responsibility of telling Luffy- of telling Zoro. He feels terrible knowing he left when he was supposed to be there to protect them. He feels terrible because he has to leave Luffy again. He feels terrible because he didn’t have the time to say goodbye to Zoro- to apologize for leaving to go after a woman after every promise he’s made.
The regret curls with a vicious burn as they enter Big Mom’s territory- candy falling from the sky- Chopper and Luffy would love it. It seers at his insides with the cruel promise of more pain to come and every second that brings him closer to them feels like he’s burning coldly from the inside out- hallow and voided. Yet not even being empty stops the hurting. Every breath feels like he’s paying for it with his life.
Maybe he hadn’t grown so strong after all.
+
They say time heals all wounds and Sanji doesn’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse at this point. Perhaps it’s something about memories becoming old and forgotten, fogged away by time or something else entirely but all Sanji knows is that the Vinsmokes are even worse because of course they are.
He’s back on their seafaring kingdom that is so unnatural with the waves and his hands have started to shake so hard he has to hide them in his pockets- it’s not a new habit not in the least. He’s almost afraid to breath- doesn’t know the price that comes with it. The first person he meets is Reiju and she looks like his mother if she had pink hair and Sanji wants to vomit at how wrong it is. He still doesn’t know if he loves her at all.
Sanji sees the broken bricks where his brothers had beaten him merciless as a child and his father and sister had only walked by- he sees it and tries to wonder why he ever thought they loved him. Yonji comes up to him and tries to show him he’s a big boy now but Sanji’s pissed and traumatized and shows him he’s still his pissy little brother.
Judge comes next- all dominating presence and insecurity almost as loud as Sanji’s- maybe he got it from him. His father uses a human shield like it’s nothing but scrap food because scrap food is something that exists in their world and he wants to vomit. Reiju watches them from his balcony and he realizes some things never change- they do a little, at least now she shows her amusement.
He sees his older brothers arrive and he starts pulling on his hair again- he blacks out for a moment body filled to the brim with anxiety.
Niji beats a woman half to death because he knows it’ll hurt Sanji. Then all his brothers beat him half to death because they can- because they have his real father pressed against the barrel of a gun and Sanji is a coward who’s not willing to risk it- not for the man who saved his life. Even after growing up with men like them- Sanji never liked playing with people’s lives.
The doctors around him call him Sanji-sama- and he’s reminded that here that’s what he is. He’s power and more power and only power- nothing else and it makes him sick. Sanji has a lot issues with power and people and himself.
There’s blood on the floor and it just wouldn’t be his family if it wasn’t his. Watching his brothers walk away- he wonders if they had ever even visited his mother.
+
They end of shackling him- Reiju’s hands do the job- and it feels like the iron mask all over again.
There is no turning back.
+
Luffy is an idiot.
He is an idiot with limitless love and trust and Sanji has a feeling he might soon die with the way his heart clenches painfully on itself. Luffy just had to be that headstrong, Atlas boy diving head first into the jaws of a beast for his pathetic excuse of a life. Luffy is an idiot and he hates him- hates him for being someone that he can’t let die. He hates Luffy for every act of violence he’s brought upon himself for the sake of someone as useless as him.
Every word feels like a stab to the heart and each fiery kick sets his own skin ablaze but he still feels so cold. Every time Luffy stands up and his eyes never die- the one time he’s sure they did Sanji hadn’t been there and it’s another painful reminder that does nothing to help him now. He wants Luffy to hurt him, to fight back to just open his big round eyes and see that he’s not worth anything Luffy can give him. Sanji can hear Nami’s horrified sobbing screams to stop but Luffy had told her to not move- he can hear her loud and clear and it eats away at his heart- he had never wanted to hurt her so. He wishes Luffy would just hurt him- just once with his comforting godly strength. It’s the only type of pain he’ll gladly take upon himself because maybe if he sacrifices himself he’ll earn his right to live in this world.
When he walks away he has to will himself to not pass out from the heartache. When Nami slaps him with tears in her eyes for the man lying behind her- Sanji’s surprised he’s still on his feet.
Luffy is an idiot- who makes too many promises.
+
The rain won’t let up and his lighter won’t work.
Sanji has always loved and honored women- maybe wrongfully at times but he’s always loved women. His lighter won’t turn on and the constant flick, flick, flick feels like his own heartbeat.
Flick and there’s loud, obnoxious laughter behind him and his weakness for women is mocked and made parody. Pudding isn’t even wrong- men are dumb.
Flick and he’s not even a half decent prince. He can remember the number of times Zoro calls him that teasingly but the irritation never came then. Zoro never called him a failure.
Flick, flick and they’re still laughing and Sanji still loves women, wrongfully so. Zoro wasn’t a romantic like he was but he loved him, Sanji knew that the same way he knew his mother was gone and dead. The rain won’t let up.
Flick, flick, flick and there’s a gunshot, he barely hears it- apparently he’s going to die. Finally, there’s a flame but all light is ephemeral after all and a drop of rain comes to extinguish the fire and the darkness reveals his tears better than the sun ever could. Zoro doesn’t ask for much but his heart because their lives belong to their captain.
Flick, men are really dumb. Flick, the rain is starting to blend with his tears, it’s pissing him off- he doesn’t want a companion in sadness. Flick, Zoro didn’t come and he’s glad- he would never live it down. Flick, Sanji still loves women, he has to. Sanji has to love women and he has to treasure his hands and he has to appreciate all food or else he might become like them with nothing but vengeance and power and violence to control him.
Sanji’s heart isn’t breaking, only growing- he doesn’t know that yet. It hurts too much to tell.
Flick, his eyes are burning with tears. He wishes Zoro came.
+
Luffy is an idiot who keeps his promises.
There’s the awful sting in his cheek from the punch he had been given, he relishes in it. He has to crane his head up to look him in the eye- Luffy is usually so much shorter than him but it doesn’t feel wrong, not with the comforting power that surrounds him. Luffy is properly angry now- he hates being lied to by his crew and he hates when his crew lies to themselves- he had seen some of it in Enies Lobby. But Sanji does not want to be saved.
(It’s a lie but looking at Luffy’s bruise riddled body- Sanji can still see his face as he finally passes out and blood had pooled all around him. He hates himself he hates himself he hates himself and he fucking hates himself)
Luffy knows them better than they know themselves and demands him to want.
He thinks about lazy afternoons sitting on the deck of their precious Sunny with tea and Zoro’s head in his lap, Luffy and Chopper all entangled with his body as they nap as well- he plays cards with Robin, Nami and Brook; Usopp and Franky sit beside them tinkering away as the sea rocks their Sunny with love and he can almost think to himself that it’s his mother.
He swallows the bile in his throat because for so long he had wanted to be like his family- had wanted to fit in with their metal reinforced skin and fearless minds. He had wanted to understand what allowed them to be so cruel. It feels wrong to call them family now- he had already found a new one.
I want to go back to the Sunny.
He can hear his own voice blubbering out but Sanji has always tried to act like he wasn’t sentimental but it’s just not true. He tells Luffy he wants to save his family- the family that doesn’t care if he lives or dies, the family that he hates and just wants to forget- he wants to save them and maybe it’s to prove himself or maybe it’s because he’s weak and walking away is too hard. He doesn’t want to think about the reason.
Luffy- Atlas like Luffy- just smiles. Well, that’s how you are. He had always been good at giving out compliments and even with those few words Sanji knows they’re there to erase the failure etched into his mind. He can feel his body shaking as the rain stops and Luffy’s smile- chipped tooth and all- outshines the early morning sun.
His hands stop shaking and he can’t help but smile back.
Luffy’s grin grows to half his face and he’s reminded that this is the man that gave him the sea.
+
He gives his thanks to the lovely Pudding and Zoro is still the only person he has ever been in love with.
+
When Whole Cake Island’s territory can no longer be seen, and their ship is carried away by the supporting waves and wishes of all those who lost their lives for them. (Pedro- determined, unshakeable Pedro; Pekoms, loyal, loyal Pekoms). When it is all finally behind him, Sanji sits himself on one of the unbroken railings of the ship- letting the others eat inside and watches the waves below him.
He’s surprised when he feels a body join him and sees Luffy to his left, hands wrapped around his middle and cheek on his shoulder. Luffy doesn’t say anything just holds on with his warm rubber arms and Sanji lets him.
He thinks about how being around the Charlottes and their pirate loyalty like love that didn’t seem genuine beyond years of fear did not change how he saw the word family for his own crew. He thinks about how for a split second as Niji called him an idiot for the last time it almost felt fond- almost like everything he had ever wanted from a big brother- he feels only slightly pathetic for holding it close to his heart. But he still can’t forget it all- too many times, Sanji could feel it all around him. His brothers' laughter, his father's disdain for his existence and his sister's silence. All of it is there buried in his chest and he can't let go of that or else he might convince himself he loves them just so it would stop hurting.
In the end he doesn't want to know if he loves Reiju or if he hates her either- doesn't think he could handle any of those emotions whole heartedly. He'd rather stay in the in-between of confusion. Bliss is ignorance after all. She looks too much like their mother but then again so does he.
Sanji is going to keep on loving women and his hands and all food or he’ll lose himself. He’ll keep on grieving his mother by serving only the best meals that she would never get to eat. He’ll keep on being in love with Zoro and doting on Luffy and admiring the strength of his crew. It’s the only type of power that makes him feel like he belongs.
For the first time, since he first left them, he doesn’t feel a weight over his chest and the light sensation of his body brings him to silent tears. There’s movement beside him and then suddenly something over his head- he looks up and it’s Luffy’s treasured hat sitting there to envelop him in comfort. He can’t help the shaky grateful smile that makes its way over his face- Luffy must see it with the way he laughs joyfully. He brings a hand up to settle comfortably in Luffy’s deceptively soft hair.
There is no one- not truly- who can make him believe he deserves a place in this world but himself.
However, Luffy sits with arms wrapped around him gently- comfort boy that he was- like he was worth a lot and he starts to believe him. His presence reminds him to breath in the air- it’s fucking free.
Sanji’s Sora blue eyes watch the way his beloved sea blends with the endless sky. It finally feels like healing.
Sanji never catches cold again.