Thanks to everyone who subscribed! The 6th prompt is "Blue"... and I don't know what I just wrote but I kind of love it.

Rating: T
Genre: Angst, gen
Word count: 2,610
Warnings: spoilers for the most recent chapters (especially chapter 833!)

Sanji knew there was something wrong with him. He knew it from the beginning, mostly because his siblings made that very clear, but also because no one else was like him so he had to be a freak, right?

He wasn't strong like his brothers nor did he have his sister's talent for voracious and wicked smiles that appeared polite and sweet to those who weren't aware of her need to make people suffer. He wasn't like that, he was weak, his fists didn't carry enough strength and his spirit wasn't fierce enough to make their father proud. And Sanji was even more of a monster because he didn't see colors like he was supposed to.

You see, in this world, anyone was born with a soul mate or more. Platonic or romantic, it didn't really matter, but they were supposed to be the other part of your soul, people that you couldn't live without. Until meeting them, you could only see the world in shade of white, black and gray. Then, if you were lucky enough to cross paths with them, the colors would suddenly appear to you. Some people pretended they didn't care, some others didn't have to pretend and lived their lives without thinking about such a trivial thing, some others went mad with desperation and the feeling of emptiness.

The Vinsmoke family had themselves for soul mates except Sanji. He wasn't theirs and they weren't his.

He was a monstrosity after all. Didn't he deserve all those beatings and hours spent in the dark? Why did he even bother with begging his father to let him out (It's so dark here, Father! Please let me out! It's scary, please let me see the sun today!)? He was broken, maybe his father was only trying to fix him.

Despite muttering this to himself when he only had the shadows of his now so familiar cell for sole company, Sanji knew it was hopeless. He knew it deep inside because he could perceive colors. Only one to be more accurate. He could see the cruel blue of his siblings' eyes and the rare times he was allowed to sleep in the room he shared with his brothers, he could see the blue of his own eyes when looking at a mirror. He could see the warm blue of their ties when they got dressed, of some of the expensive curtains of the cold corridors of the mansion. He could see the bright blue on the covers of the book he liked to read at night when he stealthily went to the library even though he knew his brothers would find out and mock him for it. The book was named "All Blue", he had curiously picked up because the title reminded him of his condition.

Above all, he could see the deep blue of the Northern Sea. For that, Sanji loved the sea with all his heart. It had so many different shades that he could see all at once and although it was unusual, he liked spending his time wandering on the shores of their island during his spare hours, dipping his feet in the cold water. No one bothered him. (A little voice inside him told him it was because they were just glad you're not around to be a burden because you can't see colors like they do and you're weak, fragile, do you even realize how worthless you are.) The sea was a quiet one, never telling him he was bad company. Even during storms, the harsh and dangerous waves didn't seem to want to harm him, as the heart of the storm always avoided him. At least it was a little fantasy he allowed himself to have, it was a pure hazard if they never got close to him.

He envied his family because they could see all the colors that existed. Because he was broken, he would never experience that. It seemed to be hilarious for Reiju as she kept mocking him ("There he is, little blind boy!"). As for his father, he only mentioned it once, the first and only time that Sanji confessed that he could discern blue. ("Father! Father! I can see blue! I couldn't yesterday! I can be part of the family now, I am like Ichiji and Niji and Yonji!") That moment was engraved in his memories.

"You don't have a soul mate, boy. You are not worthy enough to be considered as our equals."

The fact that he could only see one color made it worse somehow. He thought he was just a bit late, he was going to catch up and see everything like they did and he would finally walk next to them and not behind. Obviously they didn't feel the same. Silly boy that you are, the Vinsmoke family only needed themselves, the siblings were each other soul mates and never experienced a black and white world. You are not theirs, you failed.

So one day, he ran away. He ran as fast and as far as he could, sneaking past the guards, boarding the first ship he saw. He was scared, so scared, he was alone and he could only run, run because he knew they were after him and he had to reach the Red Line, get to the other side. Maybe they would forget him if he was on the other side of the world. Every time someone approached him, asking what a nine-year-old kid was doing on his own out there, he ran. But every time he did, he glanced at the sea and its immense stretch of blueness and somehow it gave him enough strength to keep going. It was everywhere, no matter where he was but it was what comforted him. No matter what happened, the ocean was with him.

Yet, there was one time he hated the ocean with all the power he had left in his almost dead body. He wanted to scream at it, it was supposed to help him, not trap him on a goddamn rock and make him starve. Well, it's not like he could scream, that would probably kill him.

It took months to recover from this ordeal. Zeff told him he would just drop him on a random island once they were both healthy enough, but getting rid of the kid was impossible at this point. So they built a restaurant floating on the sea and Sanji forgot little by little that his soul was broken, forgot his burning passion for the ocean and didn't pay attention to the only color that existed for him. At least not until a boy with a straw hat proudly perched on his head destroyed his home and took him on an adventure.

Soul mates were a sensitive subject among the Straw Hats. Zoro never spoke about his but there was one night where he opened a bit and said she was dead but she was the reason he fought. Chopper didn't have one either, but he assured them it was because he was born animal and not human, and thus not feeling like a part of him was missing. Brook once sang about his own soul mate that he had left on an island decades ago because they couldn't follow him and he confessed that he was glad they didn't. He wouldn't have been able to watch them die alongside his former crew mates.

They met Nami's soul mate at the beginning of their journey in the person of Vivi, sweet Vivi with her blue hair that Sanji couldn't take his eyes off because her hair was stunning, a shade of blue he had never seen. Sweet and gorgeous Vivi, who decided to stay in her country that she loved so much even though her soul mate would be continuing her adventures on the other side of the world. The last time they saw each other, there were tears and smiles on their faces, because they knew they would see each other again. No one doubted it.

Robin and Franky completed each other. They realized it the moment Robin cried out and told the entire world of her desire to live. That's when the colors appeared to them and it was probably the reason why they both fought so hard to get to each other during the battle at Enies Lobby, destroying anyone that was on their way.

Luffy was a mystery in himself. He said that all eight of them were his soul mates and his world had never been more colorful than now, despite the fact that he wasn't theirs. At that, when anyone would have felt hollow or at least disappointed, he just gave them his trademark laugh. "I'm the captain, of course I'm nothing without my crew! It's not a big deal anyway, I know it doesn't mean that you love me less." So they nodded, erasing all feeling of guilt. If the captain said that there was no problem, it was true.

Sanji told them about his damaged soul and his almost colorless vision of the world at some point. He told them how he could see Franky's light blue hair and dark blue underwear color ("No, Franky, for fuck's sake, it doesn't mean that I approve the fact that you don't wear pants, please wear pants I'm begging you."), the shade of blue on one of Zoro's swords, on Nami's swimsuits. Chopper even started crying when he told him that his blue nose was adorable because it was one of the only thing he could see perfectly. A dumbfounded swordsman only asked "Then how the heck do you know that my hair is green, shitty cook?" and Sanji answered with "Look, we all know that the plants are your long-lost family and even I know that they're green and wow, I was right, isn't that amazing?" and they would have got into a fight if it weren't for Nami.

None of them pitied him. They didn't say that he would find his soul mate one day. Luffy suddenly broke the silence, laughing proudly like he had just found the answer to Sanji's existential problem.

"You're not broken, Sanji! The colors will appear one day, you're just a bit slow!"

At that, Zoro laughed (of course he did, grassy bastard), Sanji kicked him, almost destroying a wall in the process, Franky went mad and started to throw barrels of cola at them, Nami threatened them to raise their debts, Luffy took advantage of the confusion to steal everyone's meat, Usopp cried asking why the hell he was part of this crew of monsters, Chopper went mad as well trying to calm them down. Brook and Robin just took a sip of their tea. Duh, this happened every day.

The subject was not brought up again, not so seriously at least. However, they all made an effort to give Sanji a bit of blue in his life. If Sanji noticed Robin lending him books with blue covers, Chopper requesting blueberry desserts or even sometimes asking him to use blue food coloring, Franky putting on even more blue shirts (and shit, how many blue underwears did he have?!) or Nami sometimes dragging him to go shopping and forcing him to buy blue clothes, he didn't say a word.

They were at the top of the world now. The crew of the Pirate King. They had even beaten up his fucked up family during the journey. Most of them had realized their dreams, but they kept traveling, going to places that no one else had witnessed.

"Sanji! Sanji! Wake up now, you're missing something huge!"

The cook had been on watch during the whole night, then had made breakfast and lunch before collapsing on his bed, politely asking his ladies to wake him so he could make dinner. He intended to sleep during the whole afternoon, but apparently Luffy didn't agree with this. His loud voice woke him up and what kind of Pirate Lord behaved like that for fuck's sake? (Luffy. The answer was Luffy.) Groaning, the cook got up, swearing that he would kick that rubber bastard all the way to Raftel in a few minutes and then go back to sleep.

"There you are, c'mon! You're wasting time!"

An extending and never-ending rubber hand grabbed his shirt's collar and threw him on the ship's deck.

"Pirate King or not, I will fuck you up, you shitty-"

"Sanji, that's not important now, look!"

So he did.

His hands were shaking. He couldn't close his mouth, he couldn't breathe and his eyes were becoming dry and stung because he couldn't just close them or even blink.

From all sides, hundreds and thousands of fishes were jumping out of the sea and falling back in. Sea Kings were swimming, following the course of the ship but never threatening them. Species that no one else had seen before were all dancing together in the water, like they were greeting them. A few miles away, a gigantic whale, way bigger than Laboon cried out, falling down on the surface of the sea. There was no blank spot, anywhere they looked, they saw another fish, another animal, another Sea King.

Then Sanji realized. All around him, the world was only color. Red, purple, orange, crimson, green, fuchsia, yellow, gold, lavender, pink, everything was a mess and it was beautiful. He only knew the names of those colors, he didn't know what they actually looked like, but he was seeing all of them at the same time. It was overwhelming, frightening and he was crying because-

His soul mate was All Blue.

He was loudly sobbing now, not even bothering to hold back his tears, holding his arms and shaking, but never closing his eyes because everything was beautiful. His crew was all around him, smiling and holding him and telling him that he had finally done it. His dream.

He heard Robin's voice among the other's and the noise of the waves, his dear Robin that had found the Rio Poneglyph and now he understood the few glances she gave him afterwards because she knew thanks to the knowledge of the true history of the world that she had acquired.

"It is said that the All Blue has been waiting for centuries for the person that would complete its soul and that sometimes, the storms that we can behold on the other seas are just a manifestation of its pain."

It was surreal, crazy, but somehow it all made sense. Of course he had always been able to see a bit of blue, because All Blue was made of the four other seas and they had always been here with him. He had just needed to find the core.

Someone gave him a slight push towards the edge of the ship. Turning around, his whole crew was grinning at him. Usopp was pretending he wasn't crying, Chopper, Brook and Franky weren't not even able to pretend, Robin gave him a knowing smile and even Zoro was doing the same. Luffy was literally beaming. He was sure Nami had a small tear at the corner of her eyes, but she pushed him again. "Now go," she said.

So he smiled like he never had and jumped over the railing. The waves went up, higher than it should be possible as if All Blue was greeting him. He broke the surface, shoals of fishes danced around him and the whale cried out again in happiness.

All Blue was all around him, it was a part of him. Sanji felt whole. He wasn't broken.

I don't know what I just wrote. Soul mate AU with a little twist? I don't know, I just share Sanji's love for the sea. (Is it bad if I cried a bit when he did) I just love the sea so much and I needed a bit of happiness with that last chapter, someone protect this boy.

Reviews are appreciated, thank you for reading!