Chapter Text
“Eggplant, your friends are making a ruckus out there. Go and fix it.”
“They’re customers! What do you want me to do? Kick them out?!” Sanji, 21 years old, sous chef of the Baratie, is in the process of popping a vein. “I’m busy, old man.”
Zeff smacks the back of his legs with his prosthetic leg. “You don’t have to personally make everything you serve them. Get Patty to take over and go control your friends before they disturb more customers.”
“Patty can’t do it even if he tries.” He chews on his cigarette, deftly chopping some spring onion and adding them on top of a steaming plate of food, then just as quickly turns around to flambé some orange sauce.
“I HEARD THAT-”
“Whatever,” He dodges another kick from the old man, aiming for his lower back this time. “I’m practically finished anyways.”
Emerging into the dining area, Sanji almost smacks someone with the door. The person is quick, though, jumping out of the way immediately and lunges at the plates on the cook’s hands with unbridled eagerness.
A hand yanks him back by his collar.
“Luffy, we do sit right next to the kitchen doors.” Nami — the beautifully decorated cup of shaved ice and fresh fruits placed furthest away from the damage zone is reserved for her — pushes the troublemaker down to his chair.
“But I smell food!”
“It’s alright, Nami dearest!” Sanji twirls to the table, serving the lady first. “I’ll just kick him off me next time.”
He runs his gaze over the members at the table. “Robin-chan’s not coming today?”
“She’s got some work to do, so we’ll be taking her portion to-go.”
“Of course! Anything for the ladies!”
“Hey ladies’ man, what about us men over here? We’re starving.”
Sanji gives the offending presence a good scowl as he places Luffy’s plate in front of him, who immediately digs in like he’s never eaten a day in his life. He makes a point to linger for a good minute before speaking.
“Marimo, you come last. Keep waiting.”
“You know what, Usopp?” The person in question flinches slightly and frantically shakes his head at the expression on the cook’s face, as he places his portion down with surprising gentleness despite that. “The customer service here is subpar. I should make a complaint to Perona when I see her next.”
“Your ass is grass if you think you can talk smack about me to your lovely sister!” Sanji slams Zoro’s plate down on the table with all of the murderous intent he possesses. “Eat your damn food!”
Irritating asshole and his poor fucking manners! The cook plops down on the only chair available, between Luffy and the green-haired menace, then proceeds to scotch over to the younger one. He watches as the whole table enjoys his cooking with visible satisfaction – except for Luffy who has moved onto licking the plate. That he watches with slight disgust.
“Don’t you have work to do at the docks?” asks Sanji, using the cleaner part of his apron to wipe the sauce smeared on the black-haired boy’s forearm. “Nami-san and Usopp I get cause they work remotely, but last time I checked, you got that gig with Franky.”
“I’m working right now!”
“Sure you are.” Zoro snickers. “And I’m a food critic.” The cook whirls around to poke at his chest. “You’re no better. Go get a job.”
“I have a job!”
“Right, I forgot you swing a wooden stick around for money.”
“You–”
“You don’t have any more Kendo tournaments this summer, Zoro?” Usopp cuts in, before things could escalate any further. Sanji forces himself to calm down.
The swordsman shakes his head. “Just got off a huge championship, so the teams are resting and preparing for next year. You interested in Kendo?”
“Wanted something to watch while I do my commissions and got a little hooked on the technical aspects of the fights. Any recommendations on what tournaments I should watch?”
The first time Sanji met Usopp was on the doorstep of the Baratie a couple of months ago. Luffy had bumped into him on the docks earlier that day and made it his mission to follow him back, wreck carnage to his meal planning and tell him he has gills growing on the side of his neck.
An absolutely exhausted Usopp, with Nami-san arriving a little later, had to pull the black-haired boy off Sanji and since the both of them had looked so haggard, he figured the damage was not worth their trouble.
Nami-san then all but promptly adopted him into their gang of friends, to the delight of Luffy’s stomach, since he now spends all of his lunch time here. He doesn’t like to admit it, but the boy’s enthusiasm for food is contagious.
An eager finger pokes his neck. Speak of the devil…
Dark eyes examine him with glee. “Your gills are showing!”
“Sure, sure.” Sanji waves his hand dismissively. “You don’t have to keep calling me a mermaid or whatever just because I saved you from the water once.”
“You’re not a mermaid though. I mean not really, Law told me the word but I don’t remember what it was.”
That’s new. “Who’s–”
A loud scream draws everyone’s attention to the entrance of the restaurant. Sanji excuses himself to check out the growing crowd of onlookers obscuring the subject of interest while the rest crane their heads to look as well.
It’s a woman with pink hair, lying face down on the pavement, her dress caked with dirt and ash. There’s no sign of blood or scuffle on her limbs, although that has yet to placate Sanji’s increasing feeling of dread.
“Clear the room, please.” He hears himself say. Gently turning the woman over, he inspects the state of her face, only to freeze up at what he finds.
Curled eyebrows. Pink hair. A familiar face.
Charter surrounds him on all sides from frantic customers and curious onlookers alike. It feels suffocating, like he’s once again not allowed to take up space. Honey, that’s absurd , a familiar voice breaks through the fog and his heart squeezes itself into a small ugly mass.
“You heard him,” Zoro’s voice booms out from above, towering over Sanji and the lady. Her head is cradled in his hands now, he realises, with his fingers running themselves obsessively over the curves of her brows. “Get lost! Give them room to breathe.”
Sounds of weak protests ring out and he hears his friends pushing back the crowd. A warm hand rests on his, prompting him to look up, feeling lethargic. Zoro’s expression is unreadable.
“Eggplant, what’s with all the commotion?!” Zeff arrives, his arms crossed. He assesses the situation, then softens. “Bring her upstairs. Do you want your friends with you?”
Sanji nods slowly, still a little numb from sitting in an uncomfortable position. He swallows the lump in his throat and tries to find his words again.
“Yeah, I’ll uh- I’ll come down once we’ve checked her condition.”
“What kind of tyrant do you think I am? You’re off for the day and that’s an order.” The old man glances at Zoro. “Keep a close eye on him.”
Had it not been for the state he’s in right now, Sanji would have protested at the blatant disregard for his own decision-making skills.
“Not a child…” he mumbles weakly, clutching the woman in his arms.
.
.
.
“Sister?!”
“Not so loud!” Usopp shushes Nami with his whole palm. “I mean, did you see her eyebrows? They’re like Sanji’s but the other way.”
“I thought he was an only child?”
“I don’t know?! Maybe they became distant at a young age because his father was a controlling asshole who decided that a macho environment was the best basis for child-rearing, prompting him to become a runaway at a young age and had to learn to fend for himself or something.”
“That’s so specific!”
“What do you think then?”
“A divorce, maybe?”
“Ok, Miss Divorce. Incredibly informative.”
Nami flushes and poses to hit him. “Shut up.” Usopp shrieks.
“He can hear you, you know?” says Zoro, with an equal volume. Half of his body peeks out from the opened door and the pair winces apologetically at the statement.
Luffy stalks towards him, food in hand and a sandwich in his mouth. The fridge’s door creaks open from the half-hearted attempt to close it and Ussop has to get up from his seat to push it close. “What’s Sanji doing?” He peers behind his shoulders.
“Staring out the window.” He replies, closing the door with a soft click.
“He looked like he lost something.”
Zoro regards him with an unusually solemn gaze, but breaks into a half-smirk. To an onlooker, it appears he has decided to stop scowling for a couple of precious seconds. “For someone who’s only got eyes for food, you’re surprisingly observant.”
“You’re one to speak,” the witch has a devious smile plastered on her face and Zoro returns to his scowling immediately, “Mr. I-can’t-take-my-eyes-off-the-cook.” He jolts, acutely aware of their proximity to Sanji – only separated by a door.
“Nothing shameful in that.” Usopp sticks his head into the fridge, unknowingly shielding himself from the swordsman’s cold stare as he continues. “Doesn’t he get a roundabout marriage proposal every other day of the week?”
“ Thank you , Usopp.” purrs Nami, leaning on the counter and levelling a look at Zoro like a cat that caught a whole family of mice. The green-haired in question, face burning, has managed to escape the witch’s grasp and settled himself onto the sofa, arms crossed. “Sanji is pretty popular, isn’t he? Oh, and what will happen when his guard dog inevitably goes away for some big tournament for a couple of months and someone decides to take advantage of the situation to weasel themselves into this rock-solid relationship?”
“Speaking of weasels,” Usopp – absolutely sick of living – proceeds to provide Nami more ammunition. “There was that guy that lingered around the restaurant a couple weeks ago. What’s his name again? Ugh, I don’t remember because Luffy called him weasel-guy and it stuck!”
“His face looked like a weasel’s.” Luffy laughs, spewing crumbs everywhere. “I once saw a weasel that held flowers in its mouth just like he did!”
“Guys, I think we need to spare poor old Roronoa here. He’s about to have an aneurysm.”
“Witch–”
“Don’t call Nami-san that, moss brain.”
The door to Sanji’s room clicks and he emerges into the living room, hair a little ruffled but looking no worse for wear. The swordsman resists the urge to run his hands through them, smoothing out the kinks, as the cook plops down next to him and rests his head on his shoulder.
“How are you feeling?”
“Nami-san’s worried about me. I’m so happy.” Sanji smiles, takes a deep breath, then slaps his face from both sides with a loud thwack. “Alright, what do you guys want for dinner?”
“Meat!” Luffy yells enthusiastically, while Zoro stares at his face.
“Don’t look at me like that Marimo. I’m not that fragile.”
The swordsman scowls, turning his face the other way so the cook won’t be able to see his ears burning. “We can just feed them cup noodles.”
“Not in this household.”
Usopp sheepishly looks up from the fridge. “Luffy ate all of your leftovers.”
“We only have leftovers in there anyways. I’ll take a quick trip to the market for some ingredients.” Sanji moves to stand up and Zoro follows. “I’ll come with.”
“Of course, whatever will I do without my pack mule.”
“Sanji,” Luffy calls to the cook, gazing out the window with his back to the gang. “Bring an umbrella with you.”
Nami approaches the window as well. “I can’t see any rain clouds rolling in,” She must have seen something in the boy’s expression because her next words contradict. It’s a little odd, but Zoro doesn’t question it. “Bring one just in case, though. You know how fickle the weather gets.”
“If you say so, Nami-san.”
.
.
.
Two figures walk on the concrete pavement in comfortable silence. Each of them sports quite a few bags of groceries in hand.
“Cook–” Zoro starts. “Marimo–” Sanji says at the same time.
The blonde moves his hand up half-way to his head to scratch out of habit, before lowering it again, as if suddenly aware of the multitude of bags weighing it down.
“I don’t think I’ve ever told you about my… family background.” He sighs. “Never thought it’d come up.”
“It doesn’t seem like something you wanted to talk about.”
“It doesn’t, but you gotta rip the bandaid off, right?” Sanji smiles a smile that looks as forced as his words have sounded. Zoro is about to protest, but stops short at the cook’s expression. “Didn’t I tell you to stop coddling me? Now,” He swings the bags in his arms back and forth. “I should probably start with the elephant in the room. She’s my… sister. Unless curly eyebrows have become the trend these days, I’m pretty sure about that. I haven’t seen her in forever, ever since mom and I ran off.”
His mom… The swordsman tenses, which is unfortunately caught by Sanji.
“Stop acting weird whenever I mention my mom. You couldn’t have known, alright?” He chuckles weakly. Zoro fails to find any words in disagreement and resorts to pouting instead. “I’m fine, just processing everything. Now that I’m an adult, those fuckers can’t do anything to me even if they manage to find me.”
The cook bumps him with his shoulders, knocking the air out of the swordsman for completely different reasons. “If you worry about me again, I’ll kick your ass. We should hurry back, maybe Reiju’s awake by now.”
Doused in the dying light of the day, Sanji looks almost fragile, and Zoro has to remind himself of all the time he has thought something similar, only to stand in awe at the resilience confined to one man.
The two met for the first time as snot-nosed children running around the forest like it was their playground. Sanji was picking mushrooms and Zoro was, in the cook’s own words later on, “assaulting a tree with its own decapitated limbs”. The green-haired had called him ‘Curly brows’ and he had retorted with calling him ‘Marimo’ (children weren’t known to be terribly eloquent with their insults), thus beginning a long-winded battle that started every afternoon and ended when the sun dipped below the horizon.
They grew close, and Zoro almost confessed after he got his first big win when Sanji broke the news about his mom. “She passed away.” he said, voice shaking. He coughs, like he has been smoking 3 packets of cigarettes in one sitting. “Sorry for not telling you, I didn’t want to distract you from the competition.” The swordsman’s heart tears itself open every time he sees the cook’s expression whenever Sora comes up.
Sanji continues walking ahead, only to halt and turn around to quirk his head at Zoro, who has decided to stand rooted in his spot.
“Sanji,” I want to stand alongside you. “I–”
He hears the sound of roof tiles falling before he sees it. A huge shadow falls over Sanji, something heavy-looking and dangerous, hands ( claws? ) posed to slam down. Zoro’s hackle rises and he chucks the bags in his hands at the creature.
“Behind you!” he screams. The cook whirls around, dodging at the last second. Packages of meat and vegetables hit its face, doing little to no damage except for disorienting it.
“What the fuck is that?!” Taking a few steps back, Sanji lowers himself into a fighting stance, eyes following the creature’s movement as it claws at its face for a couple of seconds, then zeros in on the blonde.
Without thinking, the swordsman grabs Sanji’s umbrella, dropped on the ground nearby, and swings at the creature’s outstretched hand. The collision knocks him on his back, the umbrella snapping in half.
He looks up to see Sanji being lifted up by his foot, cursing and using his free leg to kick the creature’s head repeatedly.
“Why is there a giant sloth here?! What the fuck is going on?!!”
The kick manages to blind the animal momentarily and it drops Sanji to scratch at its own eye. Roaring, the giant sloth raises its claws again.
Time slows as Zoro trips over himself to half-run, half-crawl over to the blonde as he rubs his head, no doubt hurt from the impact with the concrete ground. The swordsman screams for his feet to work, feeling his back burning, the wind whipping in the air and feeling himself lifted off the ground. He makes a last ditch effort to throw his body in between them, with his back to Sanji and his face towards the incoming attack.
The blow connects with a sharp crack and red fills his vision. Sanji must have screamed his name because he could recognise that anywhere, even when sounds of ringing dominate the surrounding, like he's been dunked under water. Warm blood trickles down.
“Get them out of here!” Somewhere, someone yells and the beast’s roars seem to be dying down.
Something soft hits the back of his head, and he realises he’s seeing blue. It’s not the sky, he thinks, the sky will never be this blue. Water droplets hit his cheeks, running along their curves, some reaching his mouth. It’s salty.
“Kff,” he coughs dry air. “crying?”
“ No, I’m just allergic to idiots— Yes, I’m crying! ” Zoro feels his eyelids drop. “ Fuck! Okay, marimo, try to stay awake, please, please. I know a bit of first aid so you need to hold on until we get you to a hospital— Zoro, hey, Zoro!”