A/N: LOL

: Never Let Me Go :

Sanji returned home later that night, feeling exhausted. The first thing he did was collapse onto his couch without taking off his shoes or changing out of his restaurant uniform. He stared up at the ceiling for awhile, his thoughts running rampant. After he'd left the kids' apartment, he'd walked all the way across the island, to Area 24, to stare out at the sea. He struggled to remember the feeling of his future; to remember how excited he'd felt finding All Blue, to adventuring with the kids.

While the feeling was gone, Sanji knew it was in there, somewhere. But this thing with Zoro, with the kids – it muddled his very soul. Sanji felt guilty because he'd started to think Zoro was right – when he left, Sanji had, too. But most of his adultish life he'd searched for love because he had so much to give. That's what it had been – he'd struggled to find attention with the ladies, failed at that; followed Ace's suggestion and realized he was absolutely awesome with being gay; then falling for his very best friend, whom he'd imagined the very future being with; then having that friend up and leave him and taking with him Sanji's very heart and soul.

The numbness had been expected – he'd given his heart to everything in life, and when it was taken so suddenly, there was just no possible way to feel the same way, again. Zoro had killed everything in Sanji that made Sanji, well, Sanji. For him to come back and things would resume was absolutely horseshit. To think that Sanji himself would just suddenly be himself again was just…

Sanji had come to the conclusion that maybe leaving was the best thing to do. He wasn't himself. He wasn't going to magically come back together again after all that, and while he'd found his voice, it just wasn't the same. Zoro still had the power to stir things up inside of him, but it was at a dangerous rate. Zoro made him hurt and not in the romantic sense – far from it. It was almost as if Zoro were using one of his damned swords to make minced meat of his heart again, before it could even heal.

Zoro was right, through – Sanji had left the kids the same time as he did. He was there physically, but spiritually? Sanji was no longer there.

He'd found his own place, he'd found his own life, and just wasn't the same, anymore. He mothered the hell out of those kids from his own space, but he still felt empty sleeping alone, at night. He was still lacking in something and Zoro just wasn't helping. Zoro salted the wounds and played in them like Luffy in a mud puddle, damn him. Sanji had the feeling that the longer he stayed, the more messed up he'd become.

He rubbed his forehead, then ran his fingers through his hair, and finally just flung himself back against the couch cushions, sliding his shoes off with his toes until his legs hung over the couch arms. He figured he'd sleep there for the night – no rush to get up, considering he hadn't a job…

Which made him sigh heavily because if he didn't have a job, then he hadn't a source of income, and there was no way to pay his bills. It made him physically ill to consider going home. But at the same time, it made him wonder if that was the 'going away' trip he needed to put himself together, with. Nothing like working hard in a very busy and infamous restaurant with a backbreaking father figure whose frank and blistering attitude had the power to force some healing inside. It wasn't as if it were the Grand Line – it wasn't a dangerous (considerably) profession. He'd be nearby. The kids could find him easily. He could find his dream again.

The more he thought about going home the better it began to sound. He heard the approach of footsteps to his door, and called out an invitation before the knock even hit. He watched as Law walked in, giving him a quizzical look, carrying a bakery bag.

"Where've you been?" he asked curiously.

"Sorting my thoughts," Sanji answered, not bothering to sit up. "It's been a long day."

He couldn't help but cringe as Law tossed the bag somewhere in the direction of the kitchen, Kikuko given all the consideration as it was laid against the wall. "What are you, one of the kids, tossing food around like it's nothing?"

"Listen, Sanji, I'm going to be straight forward with you," Law said, waving off his scolding. "I received confirmation of the transfer of my credits this morning – "

"So you'll be leaving soon?" Sanji asked, rising up with a huff to go chase after the bag. It was a nice box, and there were donuts inside – with one bite in each. He shook his head in exasperation as he set them out into an airtight container of his own, muttering.

"Oh, yes, well, yes, I'm ready to go, but this situation had me thinking," Law said, making a face at the treats Sanji had saved. He watched what he was doing for a few moments, thrown off track. "Honestly, they're ruined, why even keep them?"

Sanji bit into one of them before saying, "I'll eat them! Quit wasting food! If you're not going to eat it, why even bother buying it?"

A little taken back by the scolding, Law frowned at him. "Don't talk to me like I'm one of the kids! I bought it, it's my wasted money, there's no need to be lecturing me about my own wastes!"

"It's perfectly fine food! Don't think you can come into my place, waste this shit and think I won't throw a fit about it, you shitty adult!"

"I didn't come here to get lectured!" Law argued with a huff. "Look, enough about the stupid donuts – I heard about your stupid job, today. Now what are you going to do?"

Sanji shrugged, sitting the container aside and throwing away the trash. "I don't know. I just know I can't get another job here. I've been fired from most of them – "

"Because of the kids."

"Not only that, but I can't help it when my leg starts twitching and finds the nearest idiot mouthing off. And if that green haired bastard is back, I doubt I'll find anything else. It'll only be a repeat."

Law looked at him with disgust, pulling off his hat and tossing it aside. "How can you live like this? Don't you see for yourself what sort of a situation you're living? With all the efforts you put into others, why did it take you so long to put any into yourself?"

"It used to be peaceful. Now it's just…" Sanji waved at the trash can, and leaned onto the counter with a hand supporting his chin. "I was thinking of going home. I think that'd straighten me out. It's close by, it'll help get my head back on."

"Anything's better than here. Unless that mess follows you."

"It'll try, but the old man would put a stop to it. It feels like I'm running away, though, and not in a good sense," Sanji said with a sigh. "It feels like I've failed. I don't run away from most things, and I'm still trying to work the nerve up to do it."

"Well, would you like me to come with you?"

"No. I can do things on my own. Besides, I haven't talked to the old man in a few, he doesn't even known I'm gay. Bringing another man with me instead of a woman would probably put him in the floor. Especially one that looked like you," Sanji added.

Law scowled at him, reddening. He adjusted the light sweater he wore with self conscious action, then looked down at himself with Sanji finished the donut he'd started.

"Well, I was going to come over here and ask that you go with me, but since you're set on leaving anyway, the effort feels forced," he then commented with clenched teeth. Sanji straightened up and frowned up at him.

"Why do you say things like that, dammit? Do you not understand that when you talk down to me like that –"

"I'm not talking down on you, asshole, I'm just saying – I thought about it all day, but I'm relieved you came to a conclusion of your own," Law said with a frown of his own. "You'd only reject my offer anyway."

Sanji stared at him, then set a hand on his hip. "Oh, so you know what I was going to say before you came here? What's the point of you being here, then? Did you come over here to start a fight?"

"If I wanted to start a fight, it wouldn't be with words," Law said with a frustrated expression. "Your temper is all your own. You're turning everything I say into a damn argument."

"So, you're saying that you're 'extending your efforts to being nice'? I know you were using me, but to still be doing so? I don't need your fucking 'efforts'!"

"Sanji, all I'm saying is if I extended my effort to take you with me, take you away from here and from that mess, I would be the only one insisting on it. You'll find every excuse not to, and I'd have to argue my point, and you'd only turn the situation around so that I was the dumb ass trying to be nice about things, and - ! That's the reality of the situation, that's all I'm saying!"

"Well, I figured out my own solution, I don't need yours!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

Law scowled at him, drumming his fingertips on top of the counter while Sanji scowled back, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I apologized for what I did! Why are you still holding it against me?" Law then asked impatiently.

Giving him an incredulous expression, Sanji asked, "If it were the other way around, wouldn't you be angry, too?"

"That would mean you'd have feelings for me, and you said you didn't! You never returned any of my efforts! Besides, you said you were cool with the situation! Which made my deception okay!"

"Well it's not okay! Okay?" Sanji growled, turning away from him and walking to the other side of the kitchen to somehow calm himself down. He realized he was growing unreasonable, but he couldn't seem to stop himself. He felt a slow panic build in the pit of his stomach, and he didn't know how to identify it.

"Why? You knew on an instinctive level what I was up to, and you kept yourself safely guarded! For you to still go on about it is just a foolish waste of time! I'm struggling to be a goddamn friend – "

"Well, maybe I don't need a goddamn friend like you!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

"Sorry I wasted your fucking time, asshole!"

"I didn't ask you to waste your time on me!"

"Don't you know how humiliating it is being this dumbass for you? And you're still being a shitty person to me!"

"In the end, you were the one using me and it doesn't matter because you don't think highly of me, anyway! You think I'm weak!" Sanji spit, hurling a bag of bread at him.

"You are if you let that fucker get to you the way he did!"

"That's what it means to feel something, asshole! That's what it means to have a heart, and you obviously removed yours a long time ago! I'm not apologizing for being a man with goddamn emotions, and I won't feel bad for feeling what I do! You should, for lacking any!" Sanji shouted, gesturing wildly.

"Hell with that, emotions get you no where with people but trouble! Look at you! You're a fucking fine example! Why would I want that?" Law snapped back, slapping his hands on the counter.

"Then why are you so fucking butt hurt about me not wanting you?"

"I'm not!"

"You are, too!"

"I am not! Hell with you, Sanji, fucker, wallow in all this shit by yourself! You absolutely cannot stand there and say I didn't try – you want to keep this shit to yourself, you can have it! I don't need to be here for this! This is bullshit!" Law snarled, throwing the bread back at him.

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!" Franky shouted from his apartment.

Sanji pointed a finger at Law instead. "Goddamn nerd! I could have had feelings for you! You're bullshit for ever thinking it's okay to treat someone like this!"

"Goddamn asshole, you don't know what you want!"

"Not you!"

"Then I don't want you either!" Law shouted back.

"Why would I even want you anyway? You're just an insomniac fucker only involved with himself!"

"I didn't want a needy twenty-two year old cancer-seeking virgin anyway!"

"You're the virgin!"

"You are!"

"You!"

"No, you!"

"Both of you virgins, shut up! Some people are trying to sleep!"

"Well, good luck with your shitty life, asshole!" Law snapped at him, snatching his hat and Kikuko. "Hopefully you figure out what you want and actually do something about it!"

"Yeah, well, I don't need your goddamn advice, jerk. First order is getting rid of my goddamn baggage! Get the hell out of here!" Sanji snapped, pointing at the front door.

"Hell with you!"

"Hell with you!"

"You!"

"You!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

The door busted in, Franky barging in with a manic look to his face, causing both men to recoil at the sight of him standing there, naked. His sleeping mask was atop of his forehead, and his socks were halfway pulled on. "BOTH OF YOU, SHUT UP! For the love of all that's holy, what the hell is wrong with you? Are you guys, five? Argue like goddamn men! You're pissing me off!"

"Sorry," Sanji and Law apologized at the same time, both of them averting their eyes with horror.

"I was just leaving," Law then snapped, slapping his hat on.

"I was just walking him to the damn door!"

"Don't follow me!" Law growled at him.

"I'm going to help you out!" Sanji snapped back.

"I don't need your goddamn help, fucker!"

"I didn't want to help you anyway!"

"I didn't want your help!"

"I didn't want you!"

Franky pulled his own hair out of frustration.

"I didn't want you, either!"

"You faker!"

"You're a faker!"

"You!"

"No, you!"

Franky growled, grabbing both of them and hauling them out to the front door. After tossing them outside, he slammed the door shut and locked it. Moments later, he unlocked it, barged out, and returned to his own apartment with the same fanfare.

"If this is how you treat guys, then it's no wonder you're alone," Law snapped at him.

Sanji reached over and pushed him. But it wasn't a push. It was more of a grab, where his fingers didn't pull away, so Law ended up pushing him away. "I liked you better when you didn't butt your bushy head into my business!"

"Isn't that what friends do, asshole? They butt into friends' business when they think they need help?"

"You're not my friend!" Sanji shouted, grabbing his sweater with frustration.

Law huffed, yanking himself away. "Well - ! Fine! Nice to know that, now!"

"You should've known that when you started using me!"

"I knew I shouldn't have bothered with you!"

"I knew you shouldn't have either!"

"Why do you keep grabbing me?"

"I don't know! I want you out of my goddamn face! Out of my life!"

"Fine!"

"FINE!" Sanji reached out and grabbed his belt. "And another thing - !"

"ARGH! That's it!" Franky screamed, jerking the door open. Both men hurriedly ran down the stairs as he chased after them. "Take your stupid argument elsewhere!"

"Don't follow me, dick head," Law snapped at Sanji, stalking off down the sidewalk. "I'm going to be happy I don't have to deal with this shit anymore!"

Sanji grabbed his hat, forcing Law to go after it. He held it out of reach until Law yanked his arm over to yank it out of his hands. "Good! Because at least I've got a family, and what do you have? Stupid nerd, you've got nothing to go home to! That's why you've stayed for so long, you think you have one here!"

Sanji knew he crossed a line, instantly regretting his words. Law's shoulders tensed, and he looked back at him with betrayal. But then he scowled, turned and continued walking off. Sanji felt like an ass, reaching out for a moment, then hurrying after him.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry that was - ! Law, I'm sorry, that wasn't - !" he stuttered, feeling like a fool, grabbing a hold of his sweater.

Law pushed him away with a furious expression. "Fuck you, Sanji. I'm out of here."

Sanji grabbed a hold of his arm, yanking it forward so that Law stumbled off balance. In fast action, Sanji jumped onto his back and curled both arms and legs around him, in case he tried to teleport away. He pressed his face against the back of Law's neck, squeezing with all limbs as Law tried to pull him off. "NO! No, I'm so sorry, I'm such a fucking asshole, I'm so sorry that just – don't go!"

"What are you, a fucking octopus? Get off!"

"I'm begging you, fucker, I'm fucking begging you to stay!" Sanji exclaimed, tightening his arms. Law pulled at him, struggling to breathe, lunging about as Sanji continued to squeeze him.

"It doesn't help, now! Get off!"

Falling onto his knees, Law managed to pull one arm just loose enough to breathe, gulping in air in a loud gasp and then launching into a coughing fit that ended abruptly as Sanji squeezed his legs more tightly. Both of them rolled off the sidewalk and into some bushes.

"Can't – breathe – fucking – hell -!"

"If I let you go, you're going to disappear!" Sanji cried into his neck, straining to hold on with both arms as Law struggled. He squeezed his eyes shut, tears beginning to build. The words escaped him in a muffled whisper. "You're going to leave me, too!"

"You - ! Wanted – me to!"

"I changed my fucking mind!"

"Can't change your goddamn mind –!"

"I need you here! I take it back!"

"Never! I – can't – breathe - !"

"This is just so sad," Franky muttered himself, observing from their stairway with a shake of his head. The bushes rattled, there were muffled words, and a shoe flew, but he wasn't sure whose. He started to walk down to assist when Law clawed his way out of them, Sanji still clinging to his back. Both of them were still cursing each other, the taller man rolling until they hit a patch of grass, then finally disappeared out of view. Franky paused in place, hands on his hips as he shook his head again.

When they finally emerged, Sanji was dragging Law with him. The man was clearly unconscious.

"So, that's how it is, huh?" Franky commented.

"Shut up and come help me!"