Work Text:
Kachack
The den den mushi sputters to life as Sanji, in the damp darkness of his prison, fumbles for the on button.
“Cook?” A gruff voice answers, and the rumble in the bottom of his stomach spreads warmth throughout his weary bones.
“Marimo.” He smirks for no one to see. “How are we feeling?”
“Blackleg-ya, we’ve extracted your location. Hang on.”
“Look at that, Torao’s here, too.” Someone screams in the background – faint, yet primal, like a wounded animal. “What’s that?”
“Luffy…” Zoro hesitates, but that was all the cook needed to hear. He chuckles, feeling blood trickle into his lungs, poisonous drop by poisonous drop. “As rambunctious as always.”
Seconds pass.
“Always thought if I go out, it’ll be with a cig between my lips.” They’ve been confiscated long ago to Sanji’s annoyance. “It’s a little lamer now.”
“Sanji!” Zoro uses a firm voice, as if to reprimand. He can hear the sound of wood breaking, thrashing, and Law’s yells in the background. “We’re on our way. Wait,” It almost sounds like a plea. “Wait for me. Wait for us .”
“You know,” Sanji heaves a breath, taking in the stale cold air. He unconsciously brings his fingers to his lips, only to scowl at the absence of relief. “I think you’re right, Marimo. I think I am a little bit too much of a romantic.” He continues after coughing, near retching at the taste of bile in his throat. “I feel childishly giddy when Luffy needs me, or when you let me patch up your wound even when it wasn’t serious.”
The sound of screaming filters through the den den mushi with eerie consistency. Zoro has become quiet, and the cook chuckles. “Thanks for letting me have my piece, you lovable little moss brain.”
“...Then Law came along and I thought that was it. That’s the sign I’ve become too greedy. Retribution’s going to come any day now. I know, I know. It’s useless thinking…
“But I’ve really gotten too greedy this time.” He laughs quietly, tinged with something bitter – he convinces himself it’s the gunpowder. “Do you know what I thought? I thought, yeah, this is going splendidly well. We’d stay together until the end and nothing was going to come between us. Everyone would always have a room in my restaurant, they only needed to show up. I could be that little lighthouse in the storm. What a grand, grand dream…
“I’ll smoke, Luffy will eat, you will drink and Law will stand there disapprovingly. It’ll all turn out well.” He examines his own precious hands, clenching and unclenching them as if the conclusion to this conversation would miraculously appear.
His eyes wrinkle in happiness, ignoring the dust settling on his lashes. “It did, of course. What Luffy wants, Luffy gets, right?” The next words struggle to find their way to the surface. “Sorry I had to ruin that.”
“Blackleg-ya, you should save your strength.”
“What’s a couple of words to a dying man?” He mutters. “Law,” he hears a shuffle on the other side, “don’t blame the kid too hard, he did what he had to. You know I don’t regret feeding those in need.”
There’s no answer, and Sanji smiles despite that. It means he’s heard, means his wishes will be honoured.
“Did Zoro leave?”
“Strawhat-ya has gone on a rampage. He’s not himself anymore. There wasn’t much I could have done.”
“Bastard’s tagging along, huh?”
“We’re all on Zeus right now, heading in your direction.” Law’s voice lacks the subtle brightness he has acquired after years of the four being together. “I was a step too late again.”
“That’s hardly fair, I was doing my best to not get caught sneaking past curfew.” Sanji smirks, then realises the surgeon couldn’t have seen it. “Don’t blame yourself. After all, if the Pirate King’s cook has committed to something, few can stop him.”
“I’d like to believe we could.”
Sanji falls silent, listening to the drip of water slowly hitting the ground beside him. “Hence the sneaking.” he mumbles, feeling the sharp edges of stone dig into his back.
“Did you know they have me surrounded in water? Isn’t that something? Spent my life revolving around the ocean and her everything. Going to spend eternity in her embrace. Isn’t that just poetic?”
He spiralling, slurring his words a little. Whatever strength he had at the beginning of the call, it’s dwindling. However, the cook’s stubborn, in the worst way or so many who he has loved and lost have argued.
“I’m not much for poetry,” Law says, sounding a little far away. “But I like the ones you’ve always read.”
“About a woman’s beauty or about her intelligence?”
“About pirates and the stars. Do you remember? It’s strange how humans cling onto the smallest speckles of light for guidance. I’d sooner look at a compass.”
Sanji snorts, then winces at the way his ribcage hurts.
“There’s something to it, I suppose.” The cook hears more screams and strains his ears just in case it has been anyone he loves. “Drunken sailors spouting love letters to those tiny balls of light before falling overboard… dying in the depths of her majesty. I do relate to those reckless men now and then, thanks to a selfish, selfish cook.”
“Law,” he musters an amused exhale, “are you suggesting the ocean is a monarch? Perish the thought.”
“Save your strength, love.”
“That’s a low blow.”
“That’s me extracting my revenge.” Law’s voice shakes. “I can feel him, you know? That idiot. It’s near suffocating.”
“Tell Luffy the food I made him is in the pastry fridge in the right corner.”
“Tell him that yourself.”
Sanji’s finger runs over the receiver. It would be merciful to cut the line now so Law won’t have to hear his laboured breaths any longer.
“Don’t be cruel. Not when you’ve been too kind all this time.”
He wants to laugh. He really does. Isn’t that how it should go? A hero smiling even in the face of death. Well, there are outliers , Sanji thought, the Pirate King would rather die than be called a hero.
The cook fumbles in the dark once again, for the den den mushi he knows is connected to the sound system on the island above from the pocket of his captor. An eye for an eye.
“Can I ask for a favour?”
“Sanji–”
“I wrote letters for everyone. It’s in the second drawer of the table, under the documents in my office. I’m about to do something selfish again. Forgive me.” Sanji taps the button, cutting off his connection. It feels like minutes before he turns on the other den den mushi.
“Is this thing on?” He says, with as much gusto as he could. “If it’s not, it’s about to be very embarrassing for me, talking to myself in a special-made cell. Very thorough research by the way. Who’s the devil now?”
“Luffy. Hear me out, love.” Sanji wipes the blood from his mouth, the metallic taste has long become as familiar as air. “After… this, go home and eat your fill, alright? Go to sleep at a normal time, wake up and watch the clouds fly by. Go travel around the world again, see what’s changed. Give everyone hugs for me.”
It’s about time.
“All I ask, promise me,” his fingers are already poised to severe communication at any moment. “is for the sun to never truly set over All Blue. Keep that ocean alive for me, promise me, alright? Promise. ”
Kachack