Category: Mild Romantic Fluff

Characters: Sanji, Nami

The smile on Sanji's face was serene as he took a long drag from his cigarette, facing the sapphire sea and the parallel aquamarine sky. The sun shone brilliantly in the heavens to bathe the tranquil waters in its warming glow, but the salty breeze sweeping over the gently frothing waves prevented it from becoming overwhelmingly hot. A few puffy clouds trawled along the endless expanse of the sky like they were sailing their own reverse Grand Line. It really was a beautiful day.

"O-kay!" Sanji grinned and rolled up the sleeves of his dark suit. He spun around on his heel, crushing the end of his cigarette between his teeth to keep it from flying out of his mouth, to address the crew of the Thousand Sunny (plus Law, Kine'mon, and Momonosuke). "What does everyone want for lunch today?" The smile was blasted off of the cook's face as everyone began clamoring at once, and he lamented not choosing to just cook something and surprise them with it like he normally did. Just underneath Luffy's incessant demands for meat, Sanji surveyed the various requests until he landed on something that caught his fancy. "Rice bowls? Yeah… With fried eggs and meat and vegetables…" he murmured while rubbing his chin thoughtfully, ingredients dancing around in his mind as a vision formed in his head.

"Woohoo! Rice bowls for the win!" Usopp crowed victoriously, as it had been his idea.

"Just make sure that there's plenty of meat, okay, Sanji?" Luffy insisted with a concerned frown. Sanji placated at him with assurances that he would never deny the captain his daily allowance of meat. However, Sanji didn't immediately move for the kitchen, as he had the unshakable sense that something was wrong. He swept his gaze across the gaze and immediately realized why.

"Where's Nami?"

"She has yet to come out of the room today. She was still asleep when I woke up," Robin reported matter-of-factly from where she was stretched out in a lounge chair studying a book. Sanji scowled and whirled around to march to the stairs.

"And no one thought to check on her?" he accused, spitting out the words with every stomp on the stairs, before mumbling under his breath about the incompetence and blatant rudeness of the other crew members. He stopped in front of the door to the girls' room and instantly changed his bitter tone to one of saccharine chivalry. "Nami-swan?" he trilled. He made no move to enter the room, as he wasn't going to do so without her permission under the probable circumstances that she was sick or otherwise indisposed. "I'm making lunch. How does a rice bowl sound to you?"

"I'm not hungry." He heard her voice float through the door, and his frown returned even deeper. Her voice wasn't necessarily sickly, but still frail and thick. It certainly didn't sound like his usual Nami. He lingered outside the door for a moment, debating on what to do. On the one hand, he wanted to know what was wrong with Nami and potentially comfort her in some way, but on the other, he certainly didn't want to cross any boundaries by invading her personal space if she wasn't feeling well for whatever reason. She must've known he was still there, because she called, "I'm all right, Sanji, I'm just really tired from all that business at Punk Hazard the other day. I'm just trying to sleep it off."

"Okay," he answered, but wasn't especially convinced. Chopper had seen to her wounds and she hadn't been terribly injured to start with. He decided to investigate more later, because Luffy had stretched his head down the hall to yell at Sanji to get started on cooking, and was making such a ruckus that Nami wouldn't be able to rest at all. He had to appease the hungry scoundrels abovedecks first. "All right, I'm coming, so stop making all that noise!" he growled as he walked by, shoving Luffy in his disembodied head hanging off his rubbery neck. With a "Shishishishi!" he snapped his head back to wait for Sanji up above. The cook tossed one more unsure glance over his shoulder at the closed door. Nami-swan… What's wrong, my dear?

"Yep. Something is definitely up," Sanji grimaced as he crouched down to stare intently at the rice bowl, now cold as ice, sitting untouched beside the closed door to the girls' room. He had brought it to Nami after feeding the rest of the crew, because of course he wasn't going to leave her hungry, and had very blatantly announced his intention to leave it outside the door for her. It was unlike Nami, even when sick or moody, to ignore his cooked meals for any reason; if she had denied crawling out of bed for it, that meant that things were drastic. Sanji had elected for some simple hot soup for dinner because he had suspected Nami must be ill or hurting after she had refused to come out of her quarters all day and held a bowl of the steaming concoction in his hand for her. He shoved the rice bowl aside with his foot to deal with later before knocking loudly on the door for the third time that day. "Nami?" he called, dropping his personalized honorific for her to show that he was serious this time. "I'm coming in." He waited for a second still to see if she instantly began refusing, but only silence greeted him; he took that as permission and turned the doorknob to enter.

The room was dark as night, though the sun still had yet to set. Nami had drawn the curtains to cast the bedroom in the crushing blackness. Sanji blinked repeatedly for a moment as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, until he could make out her form curled up beneath her comforter on her bed. She had her back to him, or what he surmised to be her back; she was buried beneath the blankets to have become basically a fluffy blob. "Nami?" he asked tentatively as he treaded lightly across the room, bearing the steaming bowl to her bedside table. "I brought you some soup," he added with a light-hearted, inviting tone. The blob of blankets and pillows jiggled as he assumed that she shook her head. "Nami, you haven't eaten anything all day. I'll make you anything you want, if you don't want soup."

"I don't want anything." A jolt immediately shot through Sanji as pain bloomed in his heart. Her voice sounded so pathetic and miserable; it didn't take a genius to know that she had spent all day in bed weeping rather than sick. What reason would his beloved Nami have to cry?

"Nami," he whispered as he kneeled down at her bedside. His hands hovered over the edge of the comforter, debating on whether to pull it back; after a moment of mental debate he decided that he wasn't going to back down until he knew what had hurt his Nami so, and so his fingers gently teased back the edge of the comforter to reveal the roots of her unwashed tangerine hair, tangled and matted from a night of obvious tossing and turning. She made no move to resist. "Nami, you haven't been yourself. Please tell me what's wrong," he asked her imploringly. Nami let out a small whimper, shifting around a little in the covers to stifle a sob; Sanji took this as an appropriate sign to pull the covers down below her face, and it damn near broke his heart when he did.

She had turned on her side to face him, and he had never seen her look such a mess. The tear stains had driven stark lines into her unwashed face. Her eyes were red and puffy and swollen from a day of intermittent crying, and her lips were all chapped and dry. Her brown eyes, fixed on his alarmed, surprised face, were flooded with a fresh wave of tears. "Nami…" he breathed in pure pain and sorrow, and he swept one of his fingers across her cheek to catch the tears that began rolling down her flushed cheeks.

"Bellemere," she choked out, and it all clicked like a puzzle piece into place in the riddle in Sanji's head. What other reason would Nami have to cry in bed all day besides the anniversary of her mother figure's death? Even just whispering the woman's name sent her into a fresh crying fit. She buried her face into the mattress, already puddled with her tears, as poorly suppressed sobs wracked her body. Wordlessly, Sanji got up and walked across the room to close the door back and switch the lock for good measure, then briskly walked back across the room to once more be at her side. As he kneeled down on the floor again, really only planning to comfort her with his presence, she pushed herself onto her hands and looked at him pitifully. "S-Sanji… Will… Will you hold me?"

The moment was so serious that his goofy little side of him didn't even rear its ugly head. He didn't even bother to confirm aloud or with a nod; he just slipped one arm beneath hers to grab her gently but firmly around the waist, and the other slipping underneath the covers to find her legs and tuck it behind her knees. With one fluid motion, he pulled her from the bed to situate her in his lap, pulling down the comforter with her. Nami waited until he had turned around to prop up against the side of the bed to curl up into a ball to bury her face into the crook of his neck with a mixture of a contented sigh and a miserable whine. As she set to softly crying again, Sanji used one hand to fix the comforter around her to make sure she was cozy and warm; the other was wrapped around her in a tight, reassuring hug. He then just sat there, head leaned back against the mattress as he felt her bitter tears painting patterns all across his neck before absorbing into his clothes, and he wished to God he had the words to say to make her stop hurting. He didn't, and he knew that, and he hoped that holding her so would be enough.

He wasn't sure how long she cried in his arms. Long enough for him to get drowsy and began to nod off. Her hoarsely murmuring his name jerked him out of semi-consciousness, and it took him a minute to regain his bearings.

"Nnh? Oh, Nami, are you all right now?" he asked as he picked his neck up to look at her, wincing at the uncomfortable pop that cracked in his stiffened joints. She was sitting up slightly so that she was eye-level with him.

"Mhmm. I feel much better. Thank you."

"Anything for my beautiful Nami-swan," he purred, but with feeling, and swept a few stray strands of her orange hair from her face. He halted his motions as she leaned into his hand, grabbing it with hers to press it against his cheek. Her brown eyes closed for a moment, then flickered to his, bearing an alluring, inviting fire that set his heart to hammering in his chest. He had spent so long wishing for that look in her eyes, and yet, now that the moment was here, he was trying to convince himself that he was delirious or imagining it. Seeing his hesitation, Nami decided to take the lead, her other hand twisting into the fabric of his shirt to pull herself forward. Her eyes bore into his all the while her face neared his, until right before their lips met, where she closed them and pressed their mouths together.

As his brain registered the impossible softness of her lips meeting his, the switch finally flipped. He immediately captured her mouth in his, claiming her lips in passionate, repetitive kisses while his hands itched to roam her body. Her fingers slid from his to settle lightly on his elbow as he slipped his hand to the back of her head, teasing into her orange tresses; his other hand tracked a continuous course from her hip across the small of her back up her spine and back down again. He felt her other hand playing with the ends of his blonde hair, twisting it round and round her finger. He almost died on the spot and achieved nirvana when she let out a small, contented hum against his mouth; he felt it pulse through his entire body to pluck his heartstrings just so in an overjoyed melody bursting with all the love he had ever felt for her and more. When she pulled back, he grabbed her face and kissed her again lightly, once, twice, three more times, before he finally convinced himself to stop. When he opened his eyes to look at her, she was giving him a tiny but overwhelmingly overjoyed smile. Now that the moment was over, Sanji reverted back to some stunned schoolboy in a amazed stupor.

"… So, about that soup-"

"Thank you, Sanji," Nami chuckled. Her slim arms appeared from the blankets to reach up onto the nightstand and retrieve the meal, delicately bringing it down so as not to spill any of the still-warm concoction. It seemed she had no care to remove herself from his lap, so he just enjoyed the closeness as she spooned some of his hard work into her mouth. "It's delicious, as always." Complimenting him stoked the fires of confidence within him.

"I'm not sure. Mind if I have a taste?" he asked in a husky whisper while leaning forward. Nami picked up some of the soup in the spoon for him, but he lightly pushed it aside with his finger, instead opting for the lingering hint of the flavors clinging to her lips. Faint traces of various spices mingled with the haughty tomato base complimented by the just barely detectable acidic tang of tangerines graced the tip of Sanji's tongue as he drew it across her bottom lip. He dared no further, and he couldn't tell if she was frustrated or embarrassed when he pulled back to eye her in amusement.

"You fiend."

"I'm your fiend, Nami-swan," he replied with a devilish grin. He took one of her hands, warmed from pressing against the ceramic of the bowl, to lightly kiss her palm. "Your fiend… Your prince… Your devil… Your knight in shining armor… I'll be all those for you and more," he whispered, his lips blooming with the warmth of her soft skin as they brushed patterns into it. Nami hitched a slight breath at his ministrations, and another when his glittering eyes flickered upwards to meet hers.

"… Just my Sanji is enough," she said finally, a smile with a warmth that rivaled the blazing sun gracing her face. The corners of his mouth inevitably eased upwards into a smile of equal emotion, and he kissed her palm once more before dotting several kisses on her wrist, up her arm, over her shoulder, across her neck, trailing her jawline before finally finishing once more at her just impossibly decadent lips. After another minute of long, passionate kisses, he retreated just slightly.

"Then that's what I'll be. Anything for my Nami-swan," he mused again. She snuggled close to him as he drew his fingers through her hair that burned with the orange hue of sunset, settling her head into his chest to continue consuming the soup he had been so gracious to bring her. With no care to venture outside the room at all or even abandon the hard floor for the soft embrace of the bed, the two continued to trade sweet nothings and titillating touches long after Nami had finished and the bowl had been cast aside for the lingering droplets of soup to crust over and harden, conversing deep into the night as lovers so often do…