He lights another cigarette as he dances in the kitchen, here to there, to the fridge, then the stove, selecting ingredients, turning dials, preheating the oven to a toasty 400 degrees. Milk, eggs, cinnamon, flour, vanilla extract, and sugar stand at their stations on the counter, a whisk is at the ready, an empty bowl-more like a bucket, really-waits with hungry anticipation.
Classic rock pours guitar rifts and the heartbeat of rhythmic drums from the speakers of a borrowed radio. Franky's, if the painted blue stars weren't enough of a hint. The music tastes are borrowed from him as well, or his to be thanked for. Before the introduction, Sanji preferred to listen to the calming call of violins and pianos-the type of music that reminded him of the Baratie; the dining hall, especially, where the live bands would sometimes play for the guests.
Sanji would miss it at times, the rush-and-bustle of the restaurant, the constant arguing with the other shitty chefs, the pretty ladies that would come in to eat. And Zeff, too, the bastard. But it was a good kind of missing. One that made him cook his best for the crew that had become his family, despite the nostalgia it would bring for the times before he had met them.
Like now. He's woken up an extra hour earlier than usual to prepare a treat for them, a recipe he learned on that damned Hell of an island. High in nutrients and tasty too, Sanji can't deny the effects of it, even something as common and familiar as Monkey Bread. A comfort food, but with his new knowledge, it would ready them for whatever the day decided to bring.
Wet ingredients go into the bowl first. Eggs, vanilla, milk. A splash of bourbon for taste. Whisk, whisk, then again, the opposite way. Flour next, a tiny pinch cinnamon too, a dash of salt, white and brown sugar both, baking soda. Stir it all into a lumpy wad of dough. He covers it after, sets it aside for a few minutes to rise, then heads to the tank to watch the fish swim about as he finishes his cigarette.
As he's snuffing the butt out on an ashtray, the galley door opens up unexpectedly, and Usopp strides in, yawning loudly.
"You're up early," Sanji mutters, stepping back to the counter to check on his dough, ignoring the surprised noise that squeaks past Usopp's clenched teeth.
"S-sanji-You're awake all ready?" His arms are up at a ridiculous angle-but only for a moment. They fall back to his sides, then jump up to cross his chest, unsure of themselves.
Sanji looks at him, cocking his one curly brow. "A chef's duty starts at dawn," he quips, though the statement is entirely true. "Besides, I needed the extra time before the Bottomless Pit wakes up to prep breakfast. Ever had Monkey Bread?"
Usopp shakes his head, waits an uncertain moment, then joins Sanji at the counter to inspect the risen dough. "No. What is it? It doesn't actually have-"
"No," Sanji interjects before Usopp has the chance to finish the ridiculous accusation. "It's a pun, because you tear it apart with your hands. It has other names: Bubbleloaf, African Coffee Cake, Sticky Bread."
Usopp still regards the dough a touch more skeptically than Sanji would have liked. "I smell cinnamon."
"At least that nose of yours is good for something," he laughs good-naturedly, unwrapping the bowl. "It's in the dough. A bit of it, anyway. More will go on top later. . .You'll see."
"Huh. So it's just a breakfast cake, pretty much?"
"Mh-hm." Sanji wanders off to wash his hands, returning in a moment, methodically drying them on a towel. "Care to grab me a pan? The round, dark one in the back. Hard to miss."
"What?" It's Usopp's turn to cock a brow. "You're asking me to help? That's a first!"
Sanji smiles to himself. Then hides it a moment after with an irritated frown. One of his hands is in the flour bag, taking a bit to dust the counter. "Just get the damn pan, would you?"
Usopp lifts his hands up, but goes to get the pan anyway without further comment. That is. . .until he brings it back-the right one, too, unsurprisingly since Usopp isn't an idiot and Sanji's organization is top-notch. "I'm serious. You never ask anyone to help."
"Yeah, well. . .It's been a few years," is Sanji's reply. He takes the dough from the bowl and smacks it down on the counter, beginning the task of kneading it out. "Why are you up anyway?"
"No reason," Usopp is quick to say. "Just couldn't sleep."
Sanji shrugs, not one to pry, too busy kneading, pounding the dough over and over, across the floured counter-top to bother with more questions.
"W-well, if you must know," Usopp speaks up when Sanji doesn't make a further comment, "there was this huge spider in the room, right above my bed. It was watching me with a hundred eyes and I thought to myself, Usopp, you have to get out of here or you'll become its breakfast, so I got up, grabbed the largest shoe I could find, and tossed it right at it. It didn't see it coming; I blinded it, then ran out of the room before it noticed." A well placed pause as he takes a moment to suck in a breath, chest swelling out. "I hate to say that I left the other guys in there. But I'm sure they'll manage themselves. Hell, I probably killed it dead, so they don't have to worry. Yeah, you'll see, they'll wake up any minute and come in here thanking me for saving their lives!"
The smile creeps back the longer the tale goes on, though he's inwardly disgusted that, of course, it had to be a goddamn spider. His hands spread the dough, bring it back, over and again, and he listens with a quiet appreciation for the lie. It'd been too long since he'd heard one of Usopp's off-the-top-of-his-head bullshitter stories, and truth be known, Sanji had missed hearing them while stationed in his personal Hell.
"That big, huh," he asks, playing along now, egging the story on.
He knows the real reason Usopp is up so early, in the galley no less-of course he knows, he is the cook after all, and besides that, a friend. So whenever food started to vanish sometime during the night, with Usopp too, Sanji realized what was going on. He might not get why but he understood that along with higher tales and an upgraded weapon, Usopp had returned with more habits than he'd probably like to confess to.
It was a reminder of the hardships all of them had faced, whether physical, mental, or in the nostalgia for the Sunny and the kinship company of their lost Nakama.
"Yes, it was that big!" Usopp titters off, hands spread wide and out, gesturing excitedly, alluding to the make-believe size of a pretend monster bug. "Terrifyingly huge!"
He goes on for minutes, continuing the tale. And Sanji listens to him, laughs at parts, but pretends to believe without actually coming out and saying that he does, all while putting together breakfast.
Usopp doesn't mind that he's in second focus, spurred on by those tiny slips of attention. He talks, the story grows as big as a mountain, pebbles of details now surfacing on the facade of something that, in the distance, had once seemed so small.
"And instead of eight legs, it had double that! A good sixteen! It wasn't a spider, not really, but a-a. . .King Araneae and it was after me, the Great Usopp! Damned thing didn't know that I'm a revered warrior of the seas! It didn't stand a chance against me!"
Sanji stuffs the dough into the well-greased pan, then pops it in the oven. He sets a timer for twenty minutes, walking away from Usopp without saying anything. Only planning to be gone a moment, to fetch molasses from the pantry, he doesn't expect Usopp to notice, as deep in the shit as he is.
But he does. And he follows, a hiccup appearing in his fabrication.
"Wait! Where are you going?" he asks, at Sanji's heels.
With free hands, he lights up a fresh smoke, lifts his shoulders in another nonchalant shrug, and goes on his way. "Pantry. Need something. I can get there by myself, Great Warrior, you don't need to escort me there," he tells him, grinning around his cigarette back at him.
Usopp blinks, confused. When he gets it, it's all at once, a slap, and he perks up, puffs out his chest again, his hands in fists on top his hips. "I'm only making sure the King Araneae doesn't eat you unawares."
Mirth colors Sanji's laughter. "I'd be doomed without you, really," he jests, stepping into the pantry. He holds the door for Usopp, who comes in on the curve of a smirk all his own.
"No need to worry! That damned beast won't come near while I'm around!"
Sanji plucks the jar of molasses from the shelf, hardly needing to find it amongst the other preservatives and glass bottles. It feels comforting, really, being back in his element, his own kitchen, his own organized pantry of goods.
While he's there, he snags a few other things, like apples, and butter from the fridge once he's heading back through the kitchen. He sets two of the apples down on the counter, and tosses the third to Usopp just as he's about to continue his tale.
With a nimble ease, Usopp catches it in his hand and reflexively takes a bite before he even realizes it. He flatters, stares incredulously at the fruit, then at Sanji. Swallowing hard, he turns the bitten apple in his hand, quiet for once.
"That's why you got up, right?" Sanji sets a pot on the stove. In goes the butter, more cinnamon, sugar, and a healthy dose of sticky molasses. "For food?"
He takes another bite instead of talking-but after, he speaks up, voice quiet, devoid of its earlier playfulness. "You knew?"
"'Course." Ashtray at the ready, Sanji takes the cigarette from his lips and flicks the ashes into the ceramic dish. "Not that it's exactly hard to notice that when you leave the room at night, food is gone from the pantry when I get up in the morning."
Usopp opens his mouth to say something, to defend his honor or maybe even hastily apologize. But Sanji cuts him off before he can form the delicate first syllable.
"Which is fine-as long as you're fine." He takes a drag, checking the state of his melting glaze, and finally turns to look at Usopp full-on. ". . .So are you?"
"Am I what?" He's eating the apple again, freely now, chomping the sweet flesh down to the hard core. "Fine?"
Sanji nods, inhales, breathes out a cloud of smoke.
"Yeah, of course I'm fine, I'm the Grea-"
Sanji narrows his eye. "No, really. Are you okay?" He tosses all earlier pseudo-disinterest overboard in favor of seeking questions. "You don't talk about it much, you know."
"That's because the same thing happened to me that happened to the rest of us-that Kuma bastard sent me flying for three days and I landed on an island, far, far away from everyone else. Nothing different than with you or Nami or Luffy or Zoro or anyone else." He's on the second apple now, chewing it inbetween words.
"And I went to Hell, Luffy went to Amazon Lily, that lucky prick-but you don't talk about where you fell."
"Nami and Zoro don't talk about where they went either, why's it such a big deal when it's-"
Sanji watches as Usopp starts on the third apple, biting huge, nervous chunks out of it. "It's fine, you know, I have nightmares too-"
"Who said anything about nightmares!" His words weave inbetween his mouthfuls, apple already very nearly gone.
"So you don't have nightmares about wherever, then sneak up here to eat away the anxiety?"
"No!"
He eyes the abandoned cores on the counter. Inhales another bitter hit of tobacco, and lifts his shoulders once more. "Right then."
He turns after, leaving Usopp to his dreams, nightmares, or whatever else really plagued him, and stirs the butter mixture some, cranking up the heat beneath to speed up the process. The buzzer goes off, and the warm invitation of cinnamon commands the air as Sanji pulls the cake from the oven. A few gentle prods with his fingertips, and he knows it's fully cooked.
All it needs is the glaze, which is slowly reducing in its pot, nearly done itself.
And just as simple as that, he falls back into his own habits. Habits of stepping around the kitchen, starting on the rest of the breakfast foods. The eggs, the bacon, the fresh-squeezed orange juice. Bread too, for Nami's toast, with whatever jams or jellies she favored that morning (he'd wait to ask before preparing her plate). He sets Robin's coffee on to brew. Checks to make sure there is cola chilling in the fridge for Franky, and double-checks for the sweet berries Chopper likes to nibble on. For Brook, Sanji only needs to make sure to serve him a glass of milk with his meal. Zoro prefers a tankard of ale, of course. Luffy comes as the easiest request though equal as hard to satisfy-meat, and a lot of it-so Sanji adds an entire string of fresh sausage to the menu, especially for him.
All that in check, he glances back at Usopp, who has moved to the table to sit. He is playing with his fingers, twisting them, weaving them together, ignoring the stare sent towards him.
"Hey," Sanji asks across the galley. "Want anything specific?" He figures he should ask since Usopp is in there with him, though he usually doesn't have any unique requests of his own.
Usopp is quiet as he thinks it over. But finally, he speaks up, just as Sanji is brushing the buttery, cinnamon-y syrup over the cooling Monkey Bread. ". . .Do we have any tea?"
He doesn't have to look to know that they do, in a handful of varieties as well, mostly green and Earl Grey, but a few others that Nami had requested. "Yeah. What kind do you want?"
"Chamomile."
Sanji fetches the kettle, fills it with water, and finds room on the stove to set it. He takes a box from the cupboard, extracts a single teabag. He places it in a mug he pulls from the glassware shelf, then only has to wait for the water to boil.
It doesn't take long for the kettle to whistle, and he's soon tipping a splash of water into the mug, which he takes to Usopp right after. He places the mug in front of him, reminding him to wait three minutes for it to steep.
He's about to leave when Usopp asks for another favor-honey, if he would. Sanji complies, fetches it, and brings the jar back with a spoon.
"Thanks."
Sanji's quiet for a moment, contemplating over the dying length of his cigarette, watching Usopp methodically prepare his tea-three spoonfuls of honey, taste, then another before he sets the spoon down against the saucer.
"You know, wherever you were sent, it obviously made you stronger, right?"
Usopp looks up but doesn't comment.
"Every one of us is stronger because of where that Kuma guy sent us." He glances back at the stove, making sure nothing is burning. Nothing is, of course nothing is, the sausages still have four minutes before they're cooked all the way through and the bread is already out of the oven, soaking up the glaze he'd brushed on top.
"Yeah, so?" Usopp's brow furrows, unsure of where exactly Sanji is going with all this.
"So. . ." He takes the cigarette from his lips once again, leans across the table to ground it out on an ashtray. "You don't have anything to be afraid of, since we're all back home."
Usopp starts in his chair. His hands curl around his mug, so tight that Sanji can see the veins jump up in his arms. His eyes widen, too, as the words sink in. And when he fully grasps them, he looks away from Sanji, around the galley-not the Merry's galley, which had been far more familiar, but the love-labored walls of the Sunny-to the floor, to the kitchen alive with smells and hissing pans and boiling pots, and once more back to the cook still leaning against the table.
The tension eases some from his shoulders. It's such a profound action that Sanji witnesses it as it takes place, and feels compelled to reach across and pat him lightly on the shoulder.
"See, nothing to fear. If we can't stop it, you sure as hell can." Sanji lifts a corner of his mouth, standing straight, standing tall, standing alive and well and there, actually there, in his kitchen, on their ship-home, home, home after two years of Hell, of running, of growing stronger and better just for them. "Right, Usopp, Great Warrior of the East Blue?"
This time, when he swells out his chest, Usopp accepts the title with a shared smile all his own. Not a teasing play on his mouth, confessing the falsehood of the oncoming words, but a smile wide and true as anything he could reach and touch at the very moment.
"Right," he declares, seeming for all the world better than when he'd walked into the galley early that morning, mere hours that had passed between them, shared in a comfortable understanding.
Sanji returns to his stove as Usopp returns to his tea, sipping down the over-sweet liquid until nothing remained.
And though Sanji knows-and can see, as well-that Usopp had grown into nothing less than the Warrior he boasted to be, he refills the kettle and places it back on its burner, in case he might need another reminder that he's survived just as well as the rest of them.
A/N: To be honest, this is probably the first One Piece thing aside from tiny drabbles I've finished-and I have Nicole to thank for it. This is for her, who wanted Usopp/Sanji companionship. But to whoever else, I hope you enjoy it too.