A/N: Whoops, I said something about the fun of Water 7/Enies Lobby then went MIA for 9 months. Well, that's life for you. Apologies for the wait. But I'm back with a very long chapter for this (Sanji took over) and have at least the next two chapters mostly planned, so should be up soonish.
As ever, thanks for all the favs and follows.
Minecraft Guardiansaiyan: Thank you.
RRina: Thank you. I certainly think so.
Waterwomen1414: This one is a lot longer. I do write these while going through the series, the little moments between the characters are just as interesting to me as the big battles.
ilovecartoonsgirl: I'm glad I managed to convey the emotions well, hope I did the same thing here. This one was an emotional rollercoaster to write.
ShamelessYeXiu: Thank you so much.
Black' Victor Cachat: I feel that Nami is kind of done with the randomness and inconstancy of peoples' actions on the Grand Line. I don't think I picked up how many times he does things like that until going back over the series for this. He shows himself as capable of it but never does unless he has to.
Rajo: Thank you so much, I hope you continue to feel this way about it as I go on.
Guest(chapter 18): I feel the same way most of the time when I get to that point.
Guest(chapter 23): Thank you.
Language warning: Sanji.
Was it possible for a day to be any shittier than this one, Sanji thought as he stared up at the ceiling of the room he was sharing with Chopper at the inn they had booked for themselves after the shitstorm that was the day. The tiny reindeer hadn't moved from where he had curled up on his bed after setting the last of his belongings out of the way. Partially muffled sniffs regularly interrupting the cook's reflections.
It was hard to believe that that morning they had all woken up happily in a regular Straw-Hat routine. It had started so well, randomly running into the lovely station lady who was nice enough to give them both directions and an introduction letter to a badly needed shipwright on a nearby island.
The possibility of getting another lovely babe on the crew to fill the empty place on the crew-roster had brightened Sanji's morning even more. Even though the idiot Captain's ideas of a 5-meter-tall guy and his attempt at sketching who he wanted for their shipwright, which looked part octopus, making the Moss-head's comments on the subject seem sensible.
"None of that matters. The only thing we need to worry about is that their good at their job and want to join a group of pirates."
(Thinking about the way that Usopp had acted so nostalgic about the Merry's many metal plates and repairs just caused another lightning strike of pain and anger to shoot through his chest. How could it have come to that.)
The buoying feeling had continued, with the people of the island welcoming them and pointing to where they can safely anchor, then the knowledgeable merchants of the market being willing to explain both what their produce was and how to make best use of it. It wasn't until he ran into Chopper alone, and realising that he was supposed to be with lovely Robin, that it had begun to fade.
Going back to the ship to hear the Moss-head explaining that Merry was dying hit him in the chest. They were losing a nakama here, there was nothing they could do.
"A person grows stronger with wounds, but for a ship, the wounds only stack up and weaken it more and more."
Then, beautiful flower Nami running into the ship to tell them that Usopp was injured trying to protect the money they had gained. Finding only a pool of blood where she had told them she had last seen them had been unnerving, particularly with how injured their flower had reported him being.
The blood trail, Luffy finding them, finding the sniper like that.
The walk with the others to the Franky House from his crewmates battered and bloody form had felt good. Nostalgic almost, like it had felt on the walk to Arlong park all that time ago, when he had still been new to the crew and learning what it meant to be a Straw-Hat. A reminder to himself even in all the chaos of the day that this was the Straw-Hats, they were the Straw-Hats.
(They hurt one, they hurt all of them, and we will damn well show you the door to hell for it.)
And it had felt even better to let loose all the pain, grief, worry, confusion and anger that had been building in the blond since finding Chopper out on the morons who thought they could mess with this pirate crew and get away with it.
Sanji smirked as he remembered the way the idiots had gone on yelling that there were only four of them, that taking them out would be easy. They hadn't even needed all four to take on that house, any one of the four of them could have taken them all by themselves (he would have been a little more skeptical about Chopper doing so, but the doctor had been sufficiently pissed to do it), but they had all wanted blood at that point and none of them would have stepped aside to only watch the beat-down.
The fact that the Moss-head was capable of having a logical conversation in what they had left of the Franky House after they had finished with it hadn't seemed odd at the time. He had seemed to be having one of his rare fully logical days since the morning, not having his stupidity getting on the cook's nerves as much, even before the day started to go to shit.
He had thought on the way back to their dying ship with a badly injured sniper, a missing flower and hard gathered money stolen that that was the worst that the day could get. Surely, he had thought at the time, there was no way for it to get worse.
He'd been wrong.
Usopp was leaving, he was challenging Luffy for their dying home and leaving the crew.
Just thinking of the events strengthened the storm of emotions again.
Why did the stupid Moss-head just stand there during the argument? Surely, if he had just tried he could have done stopped it from getting that far. At least, should have had a better chance that he, the worried reindeer and the beautiful Nami would had. But he had only tried once before Usopp had been told of Merry's fate, then just standing there silently.
In fact, if he had just taken out all the Franky Family that had come to the ship when he had the chance, they could have avoided the Usopp mess with them to begin with.
No, Sanji shook his head at himself as these thoughts came back to him. This is just emotions taking over and wanting someone specific to blame. You know that they wouldn't have sent the entire family at the ship, and just because he didn't try to stop it didn't mean he wanted it to happen. He probably just realised that there was no way to stop it at that point.
For all his stupidity the Moss-head had never done anything that the blonde could recognise as wasting effort.
The duel had been hard, Usopp had seemed like the Captain's best friend for years when he had met the crew, like they had always known each other, even though he had been corrected on that by the other two members of the crew. To watch someone that had been a part of the crew longer than him leave had been difficult, to think that anyone would try to leave was hard. They were going to lose two members of the crew on the one island.
He had stood slightly behind the others on the ship to watch, a position that allowed him to see not only the duel itself, but the way that the rest of the crew watched. Had seen Chopper and Nami leaning on the rail, crying out to the fighters, looking as if they were one second away from jumping over the side and rushing between them to stop it. The only thing that seemed to keep them there the vague feeling in the back of all their heads at the idea of a serious "Captain's order" and the Moss-head standing beside them who they all instinctively knew would make sure to enforce said order if they forgot.
"None of you come down!"
The Moss-head himself had stood there at the rail, arms crossed and eyes forward to the battleground. Not once did the shitty swordsman take his turn his eyes from the fight, moving to stay steady during the explosion. The sight forced Sanji to do the same, giving the duellers the respect of watching it all, even if he couldn't keep himself as neutral as he did.
The time the shit-head had spoken was to bluntly call the duel.
"You stupid asshole! There was no way that you would win!"
If it hadn't for the green-haired asshole, Sanji didn't think they would have been able to do anything after that. He just calmly outlined what they had to do then got them moving. Abandoning the nakama that had been their home since the East Blue.
As much as Sanji wanted to be angry at the bastard for the way he dealt with the issue, his conversation with the Captain after still circled in his head even hours later. Reminding him of things about their way of life he would rather forget.
"Heavy."
"That's what a captain is. Don't hesitate. If you can't be decisive, who can we believe in?"
A/N2: Sorry again for the wait.
