I don't own anything but my ideas.
Gilded Jagged Edges
Sanji was sitting quietly at the table, arm draped over the back of his chair and cigarette held loosely in between his fore and middle finger, a thin wisp of smoke drifting up to the ceiling. Beside him, Chopper was waiting, eyes flicking anxiously between him and Law, who was taking a couple manila envelopes out of a black bag and laying them across the table in a certain order. Zoro sat across the table, as removed from the conversation for Sanji's sake as he could be but still present enough to be able to keep a sufficient amount of surveillance on the blond. Off on the stovetop, a pot bubbled quietly, just hot enough to keep from losing heat as it waited for Sanji to finish and resume cooking dinner.
Only Zoro could see the slight tenseness he'd come to notice in Sanji's shoulders when the cook was agitated. And even as he looked over to see if Sanji had reacted to Law setting the bag on the ground and preparing to start, the cook raised his cigarette to his lips to accommodate the extra jolt of tightness in his shoulders and hide it from the rest of the room.
Zoro wasn't sure if Sanji knew that he knew this tell.
"So, from what I've gathered from your samples, Killer's samples, and whatever data I had from the records of the research facilities, it looks like there are three types of NSPH, as opposed to the two I'd previously thought."
Sanji blinked up at him with one eye in question, cigarette still held firmly between his lips.
Law leaned forward and pushed one document toward Sanji, who spared it a glance but other than that didn't seem too interested. He would have had the quintessential calm down, were it not for the tension in his shoulders, and Zoro knew that Law was too meticulous not to notice it.
"Negligible senescent porphyric humanoids, or NSPH," Law supplied, "as the military have named them, have been documented in three classes. The first is NSPH minor. Their body is left almost completely unchanged except for minor muscle growth acceleration and healing acceleration. There is a slight jump in speed, agility, senses, that sort of thing, but for the most part they look and behave like full-blooded humans. Their blood deteriorates the slowest, meaning they only have to ingest blood once a week, or take in four pints over the course of one week as you've been doing with Killer. NSPH minor also isn't venomous; Killer's bitten us enough times to know, but you are venomous, aren't you?" he looked up as he said this, but Sanji made no move to show that he'd heard.
"There's a toxin I don't recognize in your saliva," Law continued. "It's present in Killer's blood but not his saliva."
Sanji was silent. He let out a slow breath of smoke, not meeting anyone's eyes as he waited for Law to continue. Law took that as a yes and moved on, making a small note as he did on the paperwork in front of him.
"The second class is NSPH major, which is what you are. Your speed and strength are, or should be, at a higher level than NSPH minor. For whatever reason, presently you seem to be at minor level, though your body has the capability to be major."
Sanji remained mute and motionless, leaving Zoro to shift uncomfortably with the distinct feeling that he was intruding on something Sanji didn't want to be a part of anyways, so he sure as hell didn't want anyone else privy to it.
Law sighed quietly to himself. "Your blood deteriorates twice as fast, so eight pints a week, meaning that with the rate your body intakes blood, you could survive entirely on that if you chose to forgo human food. Your instincts and senses are heightened, and it seemed the first night you were here that you could sense that Killer was an NSPH, yes?"
Sanji finally brought the cigarette away from his lips and blew out another stream of smoke, barely nodding a yes.
"Killer can't do that as a minor from what he's told me, which means his instincts are probably not as keen either. Aside from that, NSPH major is venomous and seems to be able to inject the "vampire gene" into other hosts. Have you ever experienced this?"
Sanji was still for a long time before taking another drag, eyes closed to keep himself calm before he turned slowly to face Law for the first time since the doctor had walked in the room.
"Are you asking me," Sanji said dangerously, "if I've ever bitten anyone with the intent to infect them and possibly subject them to what I've been through?" Zoro felt his muscles tense at Sanji's tone, ready to knock the cook back in his seat if his anxiety toward doctors got to be too much for the small room. There was sharp knives and flames and dangerous cutlery in here, and Chopper too. Law, Zoro had no doubt, could handle himself; Chopper and sharp knives and flames and an out of control Sanji was a bad combination.
Law was fearless, looking straight into Sanji's one good, gleaming eye. "Purposefully or non-purposefully."
"…No," Sanji spat. "When I drank straight from humans, before I could get blood from other places, I always drained them because I was near delirious with hunger. I didn't eat often because killing people fucked with me, so I put it off until I went crazy. They weren't alive enough to survive and turn."
Law nodded and Chopper reached forward, scribbling something down in a notebook. The pen scritching over the paper made Sanji twitch, and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Zoro grimaced, trying for the umpteenth time not to imagine how much Sanji had to have been through just for a doctor taking notes to trigger something from his past.
"NSPH superior are what we dealt with when the city was being attacked," Law continued without missing a beat, ignoring Sanji's discomfort and the way he was puffing on the cigarette twice as much as he had been before. "The virus in their blood is so strong that not only does their blood deteriorate three times as fast as NSPH minor, but it overruns the brain as well. Any dose of the virus mutates the DNA slightly when the blood is being brought throughout the body, but this change is multiplied exponentially with the added dose. Their entire blood supply deteriorates on that triweekly basis, so drinking four pints three times a week is pushing it for survival and they will generally drink more—sometimes even up to twenty-four pints a week, or three people. They are faster, stronger, more instinctual, and generally more physically capable than minor or major, but the virus takes such a toll on their body that they have no thought capacity beyond finding their next meal to keep from drying up. NSPH superior are also venomous."
A pregnant silence filled the space as Sanji smoked quietly to himself and Chopper and Zoro twitched, not really sure what to do in this situation. All of this information was very new to Zoro, he only knew what Law had found before the city had been destroyed.
"…And?" Sanji asked finally, his voice heavy. "So what? I know how much I need to eat and I know I'm venomous. What's the point of telling me this?"
Law leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, meeting Sanji's glare head on with an almost uncanny calm demeanor. "NSPH superior is what most of the files from the research facilities consist of. There are a couple major, most of the ones left over are minor, which made me wonder where the jump came from. All vampires except minor are venomous, however without the venom there is no way for a second or third class of vampire to develop, because the venom isn't strong enough in NSPH minor to be transmitted. In order for a minor to become a major and a major to become a minor, a second and third dose of venom needs to be added to the system. So I compared yours and Killer's blood down to the tiniest molecules, and I started to notice more and more how perfect the vampire gene that comes from the venom is. And then upon further inspection, I discovered that the venom is actually a virus. Despite the fact that it doesn't replicate on its own, it still attaches, penetrates, synthesizes, and assembles the living cell for itself just as a virus does. It's also strong, so it bypasses all forms of the immune system. It seemed to skip natural selection and evolution, because the samples taken from the first vampire found in the 1500's and ones taken today are almost identical, meaning that it didn't evolve with humans and there are no records of it being seen in animals, so it only targets humans and popped up literally out of nowhere as a perfect organism with no biological enemies. There isn't a single pathogen in the history of existence that behaves like that. Viruses especially are constantly mutating and changing to accommodate immune systems evolving. This one seems to have no capability to evolve, but also no need to because it is completely impervious to the human immune system."
Zoro blinked, looking back and forth between Chopper and Law for some kind of elaboration, which finally came from Chopper.
"…We… we think the virus, and via it the vampire gene… was manufactured. By humans."
Zoro's mouth dropped open and Sanji choked on a slight cough, recovering quickly to suck in another breath from his cigarette like he hadn't heard anything. He pulled the filter back in disgust when no smoke came out, grinding it out on the heel of his shoe and reaching into his pocket for another one.
"When we were studying the venom in Sanji's saliva…" Chopper continued slowly, looking down at the documents he was shuffling through, still nervously waiting for Sanji to do something rash. He'd noticed the cook's uncomfortable reaction when he was taking notes, and the more information the doctors gave them, the tenser Sanji got. "It's odd… it's like the nor—well, "normal""—he made air quotes with his fingers—"toxin in Killer's blood, but more strongly concentrated, so we kept looking at it until it just… hit us. The venom looks like a double dose of the virus in NSPH minor, but squished together so it will still fit inside the host without damaging itself."
"Which, if you factor in the possibility that the virus may be manufactured," Law finished for him, "would account for the fact that vampires without venom or the ability to pass the gene on—like NSPH minor—could suddenly contain twice the toxin and in a much concentrated form, even though the virus does not multiply on it's own and had no way to transmit itself. The virus is like a steroid, and the more doses you take, the greater effect it has on your body. Because it doesn't multiply on it's own, it must come from an outside source. Taking into account the fact that one dose creates a minor, and two doses creates a major, we'd surmise that three doses would create a superior. And due to the fact that there are no files whatsoever on a fourth class, and considering how much damage to the human body and DNA three doses of the virus does, it's our theory that four doses is simply too much for the body to handle. The blood would diminish almost instantly. The brain would be entirely overrun by all of the incoming stimulation from heightened senses and would be unable to make or process outgoing information, so directions from the brain to the body would cease. Things like accelerated muscle growth and healing multiplied exponentially would expend so much energy that the body would simply shut down. The physical form can only handle so much alteration and at such a rapid rate before the quickly changing form stresses it too much to stay intact."
Zoro blinked as Law shifted suddenly to watch Sanji closely, frame relaxed but controlled enough to react in an instant. Whatever he was about to say to Sanji, he wasn't expecting a good reaction.
"When this city was first falling to NSPH superior, their numbers spiked hugely in a couple of months, and then suddenly took a nosedive for no explained reason. Nothing the military did was working, they hadn't had a new idea to try in weeks; no one from this city had enough information to make a big enough impact; and yet they seemed to vanish. At first, we thought it was because the human population had dropped and there was nothing to feed on, but almost no NSPH bodies were found—none from the superiors, none from the fourth class that had been bitten and died, none. Not too long after that, their numbers rose again, and then dropped without explanation, also without leaving any corpses behind."
He hadn't looked away from Sanji a single second during the spiel, watching and waiting for Sanji to react badly. "This is why we're telling you this: you were born, or perhaps created, in a world of studies and experimentation revolving solely around your mutated DNA and how it could be improved to be stronger. For whatever reason, NSPH superior was being created by the dozens, and considering that only bloodshed can come from them, the reason for that cannot be good. I would bet my life that that wasn't the last time we see the numbers rise. If spikes in numbers keep happening—regardless of the fact of if it happens in this city again or somewhere else in the country—it's only so long before the military declares NSPH superior a biohazard, a severe disturbance, and a threat to the foundation of the country—and us a consequence, because we are patient zero for NSPH superior. Their next step would be to nuke the entire city, and anywhere else NSPH superior had been seen. You have the inside view, and no one else as far as we know. We got Killer out too soon for him to remember anything and we have yet to come across another vampire aside from you. You had to suffer through years of their treatment, and for that you are the only one who may have inside awareness on what's happening currently, what may happen in the future, and why."
Sanji had been staring at the wall this entire time, hands slid loosely into his pockets as he traced patterns in the spots on the walls with his eyes. Finally, after what felt like years of silence, he pulled himself to his good foot, balancing on the cast, and hobbled over to the stove to continue with dinner.
"And?" he repeated finally, voice weak and tired. The sound barely traveled the space to where the other three were still sitting at the table.
"If they are weaponing humans," Law replied easily, maybe expecting Sanji not to comply so easily, "which it's looking more and more like they're doing, there is no reason to believe it could bode well for any of us. The virus takes a huge toll on the body, so I don't see how this could be a medical breakthrough in the making. No one would agree with the side affects and it would never be approved outside of very specialized groups underground."
Zoro was still sitting at the table, pathetically trying to keep up with the conversation while also watching the slight twitch Sanji's shoulder had taken on. Voice calm or not, Sanji was going to snap if this conversation didn't end soon. They waited patiently as Sanji picked up a knife and began to chop, the methodic chunk chunk chunk echoing across the room.
"…I wasn't a tactician," Sanji said finally. His voice was almost inaudible over the sounds of the kitchen buzzing around him. "Or a scientist, or a pet, or even really a prized possession. I was a test subject, and I was seen as such and treated as such. I never saw other children, and if I did, they were dead before I even knew their names. I was six before I could really talk—if it hadn't been for my strong body I would have never learned to walk. They didn't talk about anything like that around me, and…" his voice cut off suddenly, knife clacking down in an uneven schunk through the food and disrupting the beat. "…And even if they had… I don't know how much of it I'd remember, or how much would be reliable information with… everything they were doing to me."
Law nodded to himself and Sanji resumed his chopping, beat steady again. Zoro eyed the thick tension in his shoulders as it rolled off of his back in waves.
"In any event," Law started again, and Zoro stood up at the visible jolt in Sanji's neck. The cook's nerves were stretched about as thin as they could get. He motioned for Law to stop, but the doctor waved him off and stood, Chopper scooping up the papers on the table.
"We found another agent in your blood. And from the looks of how it reacts to the vampire gene, this is the drug that is causing your decelerated healing. It seems to have been developed to hinder your body and basically put you back on NSPH minor level. Probably to keep you more manageable. Chopper and I have synthesized an antidote and we can administer it at any point, but keep in mind that the sudden jump in blood deterioration and physical improvement might be a lot to handle with your condition now. The amount of blood you've been drinking will probably return to normal overnight, if it doesn't spike from the lack of blood in your system right when the antidote is administered. We can monitor you during administering, and it is your choice whether you want it or not, but it's something to keep in mind." With that, he strode calmly from the room, Chopper toddling after him with one last sad look at Sanji's overwrought figure.
Zoro stood uselessly on the other side of the kitchen, weighing his options and trying to decide whether or not Sanji was so strung out that he'd attack Zoro at the slightest provocation. They weren't on the best of terms at the greatest of times.
"You… uh, wanna cut out for a little bit and fight?"
"Thank fucking god," Sanji snarled, wrenching the towel off of the wrack by his hip and drying his hands as he whirled to face Zoro, eye deathly black. "I thought you'd never ask. Get over here and help me get to the dojo, I can't walk fast enough."
-oOo-
Zoro sat heavily in the chair he'd flopped into after helping Sanji hobble back into the kitchen and hadn't moved since Sanji had started cooking. He had a sneaking suspicion that he'd fallen asleep at some point from how much more amazing the food smelled now than it had just a second ago, but the cook didn't seem to mind for once.
Zoro slid himself farther up in the chair and pulled the neck of his collar up to wipe his damp brow on the inside of his shirt. The cook made no motion to show that he knew Zoro had woken up and sprinkled something into the concoction in the pan in front of him, giving the contents a quick toss before he grabbed a knife and a couple of vegetables. Sanji used to be so jumpy when Zoro had first started sitting in here, no matter what time of day it was or even if he was here for food at all. It probably had something to do with the fact that Sanji couldn't see what Zoro was doing while he faced the stove, but for whatever reason, he barely seemed to notice that Zoro was there anymore.
It almost felt normal. Like they'd had this routine in place for three years instead of weeks. Not even, actually; Sanji had only been here seventeen days.
Zoro eyed the cast hindering Sanji's every movement. On top of that was the awkwardly big shirt and shorts the cook had been borrowing just so he could have on some clothes at all. Nothing fit over the cast. Zoro didn't honestly have enough clothes to give him, so some had come from Franky and some from Luffy and some from Usopp—maybe Sanji had one or two of Zoro's shirts—but the rest of it Shanks had sent him out to pick up at a thrift store somewhere. Zoro had really thought Sanji was going to cry when he saw them, but they were really the only things that fit over the cast.
"Why aren't you letting Law give you the antidote?"
Not that he really expected the blond to answer. Three weeks Sanji had been there, and they hadn't found out a single thing about him beyond his name. The cook wouldn't even tell Chopper how old he was, though the young doctor had guessed early twenties. Sanji was like a lockbox, bound and determined to do its job correctly. So he was surprised when Sanji, instead of glossing over the question like he normally did, paused slightly before he continued to grate the cheese in front of him, and then suddenly spoke.
"…I don't… know if I want to."
Zoro was afraid to speak and disrupt the moment; him talking might have meant that Sanji would stop, but it seemed a question was necessary to spur the conversation forwards. And what was the harm? If he didn't talk, it wouldn't be any different than it normally was. "…Yet or at all?"
Sanji sighed heavily, thinking about the question much more intently than Zoro had expected, or even intended. Zoro sat up straighter in his chair, eyeing Sanji with a mixture of confusion and… excitement?
Ridiculous.
"I don't know," Sanji admitted finally, reaching into the cabinet over his head to pull out a mortar and pestle. Zoro had never met someone that insisted on grinding their own spices, but Sanji knew what he was doing when it came to food, so Zoro left it alone.
"…I mean," the blond continued after a moment, "if they gave me the antidote I'd start drinking the normal amount of blood I had been before, which could draw more attention to the area. Especially because the truck was lost so close to Shanks' territory and being driven by Shanks' personnel."
Zoro gave Sanji's back a flat look and sank back down in his seat. Even he could tell how blatant of a lie that was. Sanji had been gunning to leave the second he could from the moment he woke up, and now that he had something to speed up his recovery he was hesitating? And he wasn't talking anymore.
Got excited for nothing.
Except, you know, not excited.
"…And…"
Zoro looked up again, waiting for Sanji as the cook seemed to fight with himself, still debating talking at all.
"…I guess… I've just never had a moment where I hadn't felt dependent on my… "condition", as the doctors at the facility used to call it. It's… nice," Sanji shrugged, "not to have to worry about… killing someone every time I get hungry."
"…We have enough blood here; we have direct access to the hospital and lots of fights, so there's no need to worry about an alibi or anything like that. An extra four pints a week is nothing."
Sanji nodded, maybe to himself, maybe to Zoro, and then he was quiet for so long that Zoro had given up on him continuing the conversation and settled back into his chair.
"…I know that Law and Chopper do it for Killer."
Zoro cracked one eye from where he'd been about to fall asleep. Good thing the blond hadn't waited five seconds to say that or he'd have missed it.
"…I know Law is curious about me, as I'm sure all doctors would be, and I know they're working hard to keep Killer safe and healthy, but…" he paused in his preparations to take the pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his pocket, a telling tenseness rising again in his shoulders.
He lit it, inhaled deeply, held the breath in, and then let the smoke out in a slow stream over his head. "I've never been in a situation like this. This is really fucked up to me, that I'm not in a cell somewhere with an IV sewn into my arm, and Killer is running around and you all probably don't even know where he is. He goes out, and goes to school, and—" his voice hitched and he took another drag. "And this is all really fucked up to me."
Sanji leaned heavily against the counter, lifting his cast off the floor as much as he could to rotate his stiff hip. Zoro wondered if it was actually healed all the way or if the blonde had just been done with having on that many casts and braces at once. Thinking of Sanji's temper had him guessing the latter, though he wasn't sure how the cook got Chopper to agree to that one.
"…I want to help. I want this to be a good thing, for whatever reason down the road. But any changes made to my body are…" Sanji let out an annoyed huff, trying to find the right wording. "It feels like experimenting. And I know it's not—I fucking know—but—" he stopped again to take the cigarette out of his mouth and raised his head. "It feels like it."
Zoro couldn't think of a single thing to say in return. What are you supposed to say to that? He had nothing to compare or relate it to.
"The idea that testing could be a decent thing has never occurred to me before." For some reason Sanji's voice sounded stronger now, and he placed the cigarette back in between his lips to pick up the pestle again. "But you all really care about Killer, and it's obvious, so I want to help. And my body is… fucked up, and taking a shit ton of time to heal, and healing the small potato shitty injuries first instead of the big ones, and for some god unknown reason I just… don't… want to take the antidote."
Zoro watched the smooth movements in Sanji's frame, the slight undulations in his neck when he spoke, the ease in which he held his instruments in the most efficient manner; everything about Sanji was like a wave. A cool, blue, ocean wave lapping at the bayside in a mesmerizing rhythm, but still with the potential to turn dangerous if the conditions around him changed. Sanji was something else, and Zoro barely even realized that no part of him was thinking about the vampire gene.
He decided to try his luck again, as long as Sanji was in the mood. Had it been the sparring session earlier? Had it really helped to loosen Sanji's tongue that much? There was no way half an hour of falling on his ass could put Sanji in this good a mood. The cook was still struggling pathetically to figure out how to do anything with the cast.
…But still…
"There's no one wondering if you're dead back home?"
There was the stillness again. But Zoro was patient. Meditation was something Sanji could seriously use. He was like a firecracker on the end of a flimsy stand, waving in the wind with a bunch of candles lit around him just waiting for him to blow in the right direction so they could set him off.
"…Maybe," Sanji admitted, quiet and guilty. "…It's not like they can't figure out more or less what happened though. My old man is probably just about now starting to worry, old geezer."
Sanji has parents?! Law had file after file after file of NSPH and not a single one had parents—
"But he only took me in a couple of years ago, and he's not stupid, so he probably thinks I either wound up back where I started in the research facility and is keeping an ear out for rumors, or that I'm lying low because it's too dangerous to come out yet. I don't really know if he'd consider that I was dead until months after I disappeared. As far as I know, no one saw me get taken."
Zoro sank back down in his chair, puzzling over Sanji's words to himself.
"…How long were you in a facility?"
Sanji's head twitched as he smiled to himself, watching what he was cooking with that far off expression no doubt, like he always did. "Um," he reached up and rubbed his forehead uncomfortably with the back of his wrist, pestle still in hand, "…eleven years."
Zoro's mouth dropped open.
"…When I was about nine I broke out once, but other than that I was in there my whole life. …There was a huge commotion that night, all of the guards kept yelling about a security breach, and they were in the middle of transferring me back to my cell from the medical room, so I just attacked the bodyguards focused on me because the rest were so distracted and ran."
Zoro blinked, the sound of tires peeling against the ground and Kid and Law screaming flashing through his head. He had the distinct feeling that it was dark, and that he was being thrown threw the air, but the thought halted there and he had nothing else, so he shook it off and tuned back into Sanji's story.
"They kept sending guards out into the woods, screaming for whatever got out to be brought back at all costs, so I waiting until the next time they opened the doors and bolted. I ran for so many miles that it took my feet six hours to heal, even with how strong my body is. At the first town I hit, I was scared and drugged and disoriented and I'm pretty sure I was in clothes for testing so I looked bloody and pretty fucking messed up running down the street. Some guy tried to come up to me and ask me if I needed help, and I panicked and attacked him. I couldn't even drink, I was so scared. But my old man—well, not my old man at the time—was across the street and saw everything. He took me to the police station. Stupid luck that they were the only two on the street. Anyone else around and I would have been found out a lot sooner; you can't keep something like that under the radar if there are a lot of spectators. A nine-year-old slaughtered a full-grown man in less than ten seconds; it's definitely not something you see every day."
Sanji talked about killing so easily. Whether it was because it'd become so normal over the years or he had forced himself to come to terms with it—being that he really couldn't change who he was, and unless he wanted to kill himself, he couldn't just stop eating. Zoro knew well enough how crazy and instinctual NSPH went when they were too hungry, Sanji could only hold out for so long before he attacked someone. He also didn't seem like the type to bite someone and not kill them; he'd been through too much to put the vampire gene in another person and leave them to fend for themselves.
Sanji stopped for a moment to hobble over to the fridge and take out some more vegetables. Zoro debated helping him, but he was honestly so worried that any movement on his part would break the spell and Sanji would clam up again. But once the cook was back and had taken another deep breath off of the cigarette and let it out, he seemed fine to talk again.
"I was taken into custody because I couldn't tell them anything about where I came from, and no one called for me and my description didn't match any profiles of missing children so they put me with a foster family for the night. …Huh," he mused to himself with a small chuckle.
Zoro cocked his head slightly to the side. "…What?"
"I was just… I hadn't really realized before, but that was the first time I'd slept in a real bed."
Something cracked painfully inside Zoro's chest as his eyes found Sanji's sad smile, and then the blond started talking again.
"The next morning the old man who had brought me into the station called in some favors with a couple friends in the higher ranks of the police and had me brought over to his house. He used to be a foster parent years before and the paperwork was easier for him because of that. Shitty old man never really told me why he did it. Something about the look in my eye drawing him in or some bullshit. I stayed under the radar for two months there. He put up with me through my withdrawal period coming off of whatever drugs the scientists had been giving me; didn't put up with my aggression or paranoia, so I got over most of it; started teaching me to cook at the shelter he worked at to give me something to work off my energy on… and the first time he caught me after I got unbearably hungry and attacked some woman in the street"—Sanji shivered thickly at this and Zoro rolled his eyes at the fact that that was the only time killing bothered him—"he kicked the shit out of me for touching a woman with anything less than respect and just called in more favors and started having blood shipped in. All he focused on was teaching me how beautiful women are and how you have to respect them simply because they're easier pray." Zoro felt his eye twitch again.
"He didn't flinch once at what I was doing, even if I did kill someone, so I have to give him credit for that. I think he put together pretty quickly what I was and where I came from after that, especially with the military facility up the road."
The far off look had returned to Sanji's eye. "…He was really great. I went from having nothing to everything overnight; he even gave me a stupid nickname to really drive the point home."
Zoro smiled to himself at this, only to realize that he'd been smiling the whole time and the last part had turned it into a full-blown grin. He scowled and shifted, crossing his arms tightly over his chest.
In an instant, the tightness had returned to Sanji's shoulders and he was chopping with much more fervor than before. Zoro pushed himself into an easier position to jump to his feet, not sure where the change had come from but knowing that Sanji could do enough damage if he really wanted to not to be late on a response. Chopper wouldn't be happy if he injured himself again, and he'd be even less happy with Zoro for letting him.
"And then one day two huge men showed up on our doorstep with a badge, the means to wipe me from the local record all together, and a sedative." His voice was thick, like he just recently been pulled from a near-drowning experience and was still trying to convince himself he was alive. "Dragged me kicking and screaming from my old man's house with a clamp over my mouth so I couldn't bite them. I was so crazed that the sedative didn't work at all. I've never wanted to kill anyone so badly in my life."
Zoro's chest had gotten progressively heavier and heavier as words tumbled out of Sanji's mouth, guilty thoughts of the innocent and petty things he did at that age running through his head, which of course brought him to Killer, who had joined them right around that time; thoughts of what would have happened to them if they'd been found with Killer, who couldn't have escaped by himself; thoughts of what would have happened to Killer if they'd never gotten him out. He looked up uncomfortably to the bandage still covering Sanji's eye, thinking of how similar he and Killer looked with the blond hair and the hidden eyes. Sanji was Killer's future, and they'd gotten Killer out, but no one had been there for Sanji and he'd still found the will to fight back, even after knowing nothing else his entire existence.
"The second I was back in the lab they strapped me down and did some of the most painful experiments I've ever been through." Sanji had forgone the meal he was finishing at this point to lean his back up against the counter and let his leg rest. His arms were folded loosely and smoke danced up from the cigarette caught between his lips. Strangely enough though, the telltale tension in his shoulders wasn't there. "I was just coming up on when puberty would hit, meaning I would be reaching the end of my rope and they wouldn't have kept me around any longer anyways, so they figured they might as well do the experiments they wanted to but couldn't for fear of hurting new subjects. …It was blind luck the old man found me before I died. At that point they weren't even trying to keep me alive. They were just running test after test. If I lived, they'd do another one; if I didn't, they'd get another kid. …And I just wouldn't die."
Sanji took the cigarette from his lips, one good eye still locked on the ground. Zoro couldn't feel his body anymore. He felt like an entity, an audience watching Sanji, and any part of his physical form being in the room with Sanji could destroy what was happening. The horror of learning what had happened to Sanji was helping him disconnect from his body, and he wasn't sure what to make of it really.
"I lived for two more years after that. …Not sure how much longer I could have made it." Sanji kept talking, but the more he said, the weaker his voice got. Every few words, his voice would crack or he would have to clear his throat, and for some reason he kept continuing. "There wasn't a single moment I wasn't in pain… even with the constant healing. I hadn't talked for months, and my eyesight… or maybe the way my brain processed light was failing… I wasn't able to move nearly as easily as before, but I was always strapped down or in straight jackets so my muscles could have been atrophying, but I don't know how long it would have taken to get to that point."
Zoro waited, panicking slightly when Sanji turned back around and resumed putting the finishing ingredients out on the counter into the pan. Zoro was sure the delicious smell tasted even better, like it always did, but the idea of Sanji stopping was making his heart jump. This was the most Sanji had said in weeks, and Zoro was damned he was going to let it end now.
"How… how did your dad break you out?"
"…How did you get Killer out?"
Zoro shrugged. "Law and Kid did. I never asked them. I was just along for the ride." He could feel Sanji rolling his eyes from across the room, even turned to face away from him. He could just hear the blond screaming at him, That's a huge part of Killer's history! Idiot marimo!
"…Uh, well," Sanji started, still slightly uncomfortable at talking about this for what Zoro was almost sure was the first time ever. "So… I was back for two years and… I really, you know… thought I was finished… and then out of nowhere my old man showed up at my cell one day and broke me out. He didn't have blood because he thought they'd be feeding me, but I was so starved and out of my mind that he had to carry me and was slowed down, so he was seen. They chased him into a storeroom, which the shitty old man thought was another room or hallway or something with an exit, and locked us in. Rather than fight us, especially with how strong and ravenous I was for blood, they figured they'd leave me in there with him, I'd drain him, and then starve to death and they'd be rid of both problems."
"Starve to death?" Zoro repeated stupidly. How long had they left him in there?
"…Sixty days," Sanji answered, voice barely over a whisper. His hands never stopped moving over the meat he was shredding as he tried to find something to ground himself, no doubt thousands of triggers battering at his mind, but he hadn't stopped talking.
Zoro forgot that they spoke a language with words. There was nothing he could say anymore. He was almost at his limit of how much atrocities he could take in. While they were fighting with Killer's terrible twos, his incessant questioning as he learned to talk, and finding him a preschool, Sanji had been living in his very own personal hell with no way out. The entire world had turned against an eleven-year-old boy and deemed him a threat to their existence, and it was literally a miracle—and no small one at that—that Sanji was alive.
The fact that it wasn't fair paled astronomically to Sanji's story. It wasn't fair that Sanji, and Killer, and every other NSPH out there—turned into a NSPH, if Law and Chopper were correct—faced the angry faces of the entire world just to survive. And it sounded like most of them didn't make it to puberty.
"My old man could see how hungry I was, so he went to sit on the other side of the room near a vent in the ceiling to try and keep his smell away, but after five days I had completely lost it. Every single thought I had was how his blood would taste, how beautiful it would look dripping down his torn open throat, how much food he contained inside him, how hot and soothing it would be inside my icy veins, how it would make me better, how it would make my brain work… I needed it. I was withering away and I needed it so badly, and he must have been able to tell, because he started looking around for anything—an IV, a bottle, a box—something to hold blood so if he cut himself to feed me so I wouldn't turn him. …Being venomous and all," Sanji shrugged, stating the last part quieter than the rest of the story.
"I was about to attack him. I was standing next to him and I couldn't remember getting there and I couldn't believe my legs were working, but I was standing and he was less than ten feet away, and out of nowhere he tosses me a bag of blood he said he'd found in one of the boxes. I drained it in seconds. I was so hungry it didn't even occur to me that if there had been a bag of blood in the room I would have smelled it right away the first day we'd been locked in."
Zoro's eyebrows furrowed. But… it was in the room…
"After that, we made it another fifty days. I was lying in a corner just convulsing and trying to keep down the horrendous thoughts of how many different ways I could kill him and not waste a single drop of his blood. He'd done everything for me and possibly lost everything for me and I couldn't allow myself to hurt him. And then I started to rationalize that he'd already lost everything and we were dying anyways, it wouldn't hurt if he died a few hours earlier and I could just not be a starving animal when I was killed; that he'd given up everything for me and would have offered me his blood if I wouldn't have turned him into a vampire; that if he came after me in the first place he must not have been sure of the fact that he was going to make it out alive anyways, so it wasn't like there was anything waiting for him. I was up and across the room in seconds, drooling even though I had no fluids left in my body, fangs extended even though my skin was tight and it was making my gums tear. I was standing over his shoulder, realizing that he wasn't trying to defend himself but not caring why, and then as I went in to bite him, I finally noticed that one of his legs was missing."
Zoro's brows deepened, confused at the turn in the story.
Sanji's voice was quiet again. "I'd been so delirious with the lack of blood… that I hadn't even smelled the blood gushing from his leg when he cut it off and collected the blood for me. I was so wrapped up in my own pain that I'd entirely missed him eating his own leg to keep from starving."
Every time Zoro was sure this story couldn't get any worse, Sanji proved to him time and time again how cruel and heartless the world was. All he could do was imagine an eleven-year-old boy, turned to stone from years and years of no one caring for him, watching the last remaining shreds of his world be ripped apart as the one person that ever cared for him sacrificed himself to keep Sanji alive.
"All desire to have any of his blood vanished in that instant. I was dying and deteriorating from the inside out and out of my mind with pain, but the old man was too and he'd still literally given a leg to keep us alive for just a little bit longer. I was starving, but the thought of eating any other part of him made me so sick I would have vomited if up I had drank anything from him. For some reason, after realizing I'd already eaten part of him, eating more of him… made me hate myself more than I ever had before."
Sanji sighed quietly to himself, breath hitching in his throat as he swiped a wrist across his forehead to move a stray hair from his field of view. "So I just sat down next to him, twitching and choking like a mental patient… and he just held me. He was a little touchy at first, and I don't blame him, I'm sure I looked as fucked up as anyone could and like I should have snapped years ago, but he ignored all of that and just held me. I kept instinctively leaning in towards him to eat, but no matter how close I got I couldn't bite him. …We stayed like that for five days, just trying to sleep through the pain, and after sixty days the guards assumed I'd have died long ago and flung the door open. My teeth were in their jugulars before I even knew consciously that the door had been opened, and the ones I let go because I was so distracted by the blood of the two I'd killed, the old geezer somehow got to them and killed them. I was full but I was crazy with the smell of blood after not eating for so long, and when he grabbed me to get the hell out of there I almost bit him. Realized at the last moment who he was and stopped. He only had one leg, so I had to help him the whole way out, and I held my breath the entire time to make sure I wouldn't do anything even though he kept telling me he knew I wouldn't."
Sanji took another deep breath and began moving his utensils into the sink. He was too tense to worry about keeping them from crashing against each other, so the racket nearly drowned out the next thing he said.
"And then we skipped town. Crossed the world, came here, and no one had found me until recently. I got a good ten years of the old man fixing me before anything happened, which I guess I really have to be thankful for." He was puffing like a smoke stack, but still managed to calmly pick up the two plates he'd laid out on the counter and hobble over to Zoro with the cast. Inwardly, Zoro wondered if Sanji looked anything like the old man had when they'd broken out, what with his leg and all. Zoro didn't even bother asking for the man's name. If Sanji hadn't said it up until now, he wasn't going to.
Zoro realized something else with a start, going over the timeline again and what Sanji had been telling him. Ten years with his father meant that Sanji was twenty-one years old. Same age as Zoro.
Sanji slapped a plate of food down in front of him and another at an empty chair for himself and gave Zoro a tight smile, like he was just realizing how long he'd been talking for and what he'd divulged. The butt of the cigarette in his lips had gotten crushed during the time he'd been talking and was littered with nervous teeth marks, smoke still spewing from the end as Sanji kept puffing like a steam engine, every word punctuated with a cloud of smoke.
"So." His voice was clipped. "What's your story?"
-oOo-
Sanji was amazing.
Zoro was staring.
Maybe gaping was a better word.
Zoro was sitting stupidly off on the side of the dojo as Sanji beamed, body twisting gracefully as he showed off the myriad of moves he hadn't been able to when he was laden down by the cast.
And Sanji was amazing.
Watching him was like watching a dancer who's true passion was fighting, or maybe the other way around. Sanji's seamless unification of the two arts made it seem as though there was only one, and that fighting and dancing had never existed as separate ideas. He was a tiger, impossibly fast and nimble, overflowing with tremendous waves of power. The things Sanji was showing them now made the flip and spin he'd been struggling with only days before look like child's play.
Zoro's fingers twitched, and he swore he could feel Shusui and Kitetsu humming excitedly at his side, itching as desperately as he was for a fight. The pleasant humming was Wado, pleased with the vitality in the room, always so calm—just like she'd been.
"Wow," Nami breathed beside him. Chopper and Luffy had yet to put their tongues back in their mouths. Usopp had yet to find his eyes to put them back in his head. Law looked pleased at his handiwork, considering the fact that he had developed the antidote that Sanji had suddenly decided he wanted to kick his body back up to NSPH major level. And how much Sanji's body had fought him originally on healing. Every once and a while he and Kid would look down proudly at Killer, who was standing between the two, looking on in awe at what Sanji could do. Zoro could feel the growing energy from Killer's realization of the power he contained. Sanji was Killer's future. After years of running and hiding, getting that strong had not been a top priority on Killer's list, due to the fact that it may call more attention to him. But seeing what Sanji had been through and could still do with his body… Zoro wasn't sure they'd ever be able to keep Killer from fighting after this.
"Wow," Nami repeated as Sanji landed perfectly again before launching himself back into the air. She took a seat next to Zoro, her voice still breathless. Sanji shone from across the room and blew her a couple of dramatic and exaggerated kisses before resuming with his whirls and kicks and missing the roll of her eyes.
Zoro felt the exuberant grin stretch across his face, for once agreeing with the redheaded witch.
Wow.
-oOo-