"W-what happened?" a reindeer stammered, his voice louder than it should have been.
"Nothing," a blond replied, his voice calmer than it should have been.
"B-but your eye! How did this happen?"
"It didn't."
A stream of smoke slid out of Sanji's lips, almost seductive in how smooth it was. It was cool, casual. He was cool, casual. Or at least he seemed to be. He body relaxed, his gaze no where in particular. Until you noticed his hand shaking a little, his breath overly even, concentrated, his eyes staring at something, the gears in his head almost visibly working. His lips quivered as he tried to breath the smoke from his lungs evenly. Then he started to pull the cigarette back to his lips and he breathed in jaggedly for a second. Quick and hard and uneven. And it hurt. Fucking ribs.
"How can this not have happened?" Chopper screamed, not lending confusion to quiet thought, "Something happened to your eye!"
"No, nothing happened," Sanji said, his voice betraying his anger at the situation, "There is no reason. There never was."
Chopper looked onward in utter confusion. He didn't understand the meaning behind Sanji's words. The context of memories long past. He still didn't know how Sanji's eye had gotten like that. He was at a loss for words, and merely stared at his patient in awe. His jaw dropped, his eyes wide, gibberish rolling out of his mouth.
"But what? How? This isn't... I don't... Huh?" he was very loud about being speechless.
Blood ran down Sanji's face, onto his eyelashes and pooled there. He blinked and it continued its path down his cheek. The cleaning Chopper had done was for naught. When his eye opened again, it could be seen that a drop had made it into his eye itself. The edge of his eye was ringed in red, and a thin veil of blood was smeared across the white and milky blue. It was not a pleasant sight.
"Chopper," he said, ignoring the blood dripping down his face, "it doesn't matter. This is how my eye's been since I was born. I was always like this." And then, almost like an afterthought, a voice low and filled with contempt, "I've always been a freak."
Chopper gasped as a sharp pang of emotion hit him. Freak. He knew everything that word meant. To be rejected, excluded, ridiculed, loathed. He knew how much it hurt for those around you to hate you because you're deformed, abnormal. He knew how it felt to realize that part of you shouldn't be. That you aren't right. Tears welled up in the reindeer's eyes and his signature blue nose started to run. He was overcome with emotions, with understanding. He knew what it meant to be a freak.
"Oi, oi!" the bloodied man started saying, "don't cry about it, alright?"
Sanji suddenly felt a new level of awkward and embarrassed as the tiny ball of cute clung to him crying and wailing out phrases like, "I'm so sorry!" and "That's so sad!".
"Oi, it's okay, alright?" Sanji said as he patted Chopper on the back, trying to ignore the distinct pain of an antler against broken ribs, "No one knows anyway, okay?"
Sanji looked a little confused, himself as he tried his best to comfort his companion, though a moment ago it almost seemed like he needed the comforting. He had never really known how to deal with Chopper's outbursts until he had spent nearly two months with him and him alone.
"I'm alright, okay?" he said again, his voice warmer than usual, almost patronizing, "So stop crying, alright?"
Chopper backed away and sniffed. He tried to stop crying and wore a sheepish smile. With tears still pouring from his eyes, Chopper managed to push a response from his throat, lumps in it and all.
"Alright."
"And look," Sanji said, pointing to his bleeding brow, wearing a small smirk, "you still have to patch me up, alright?"
Chopper nodded and suddenly felt very good about being helpful. A melancholic grin was across his face, and he agreed, he had to help his friend.
"Alright!"
The tiny doctor almost jumped at the chance to help his friend as Sanji leaned over to him. He'd been through a lot with this crew, and out of all of them, he learned to trust this spazz. This little furball who had stood there clutching him while he wept. He never meant to be so close to this rag-tag crew, this cast of hopeless dreams that they were sure to make come true, but he had made a friend of the doctor who was scared of everything. It made him happy to think that Chopper wasn't crying about him. He didn't want anyone to cry over him. And it made Chopper happy to know that he was helping patch him up, make him feel better. So, with blood and pain and smoke filling the room, they both smiled, and they both meant it.