A/N: Hi, peeps! So this chapter will finally go into Sanji's past...it's definitely the heaviest chapter I've written so far, at least in the emotional spectrum. I'm unfortunately not very kind to Sanji, but it'll hopeful clear up some of the things that didn't make sense before.
Warnings:
Childhood Trauma, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Prejudice, Suicidal Thoughts, Cannibalism, Heavy Angst
Sanji decides to take a leaf out of Zoro's book and sleeps through most of the day. He did stay up through the night and that, coupled with the empty feeling left behind after the night's adrenaline fades, lulls him into a heavy sleep.
Hunger wakes him up before dark and, after checking his bandages to make sure he didn't start bleeding again, he heads to the kitchen to make himself something light to eat. He doesn't feel like putting on a shirt when it's only going to scratch his wounds, so he brings up the central heat and decides to stay bare-chested and barefoot.
He's almost done making himself a sandwich—not everything a cook makes has to be fancy—when he hears the elevator doors open. Only Zeff and Zoro have copies of the elevator key, and he's sure Zeff wouldn't leave the Baratie alone during evening rush.
He smiles to himself and starts making a second sandwich, taking out the mustard he hates but Zoro loves. Sure enough, the sound of light footfalls reaches him, and Sanji looks up to the hesitant expression in Zoro's face. He looks okay, except for the dark bruise on his jaw and the hint of bandages under his shirt.
"Sandwich?" he asks, smiling.
He sees the relief flash behind Zoro's eyes before it falls and it's replaced by a different expression. Is that…anger?
"You look pretty roughened up," Zoro says, his eyes trailing over his body.
Sanji looks down at his bandaged chest and shrugs. "They look worse than they are. They're mostly just annoying, to tell you the truth. What about yours?"
Zoro makes a face and shrugs his shoulders. "Stab wound on the leg, a couple of bruises, and a sprained shoulder. Nothing major."
"So… voulez-vous manger?"
"What even is that!?" Zoro suddenly shouts, startling Sanji enough that he drops the bottle of mustard.
"What the hell?" Sanji exclaims. "I'm just asking if you want to eat. Geez."
"It's just…you!" Zoro yells. "I mean, you're always saying these weird words and phrases, and I don't even know what they mean!"
Sanji stares at Zoro, incredulous. What the hell is going on here? What's with the sudden change in mood? "O…okay? No need to blow a fuse, it's just French, marimo. My native tongue."
"That's what I mean!" Zoro snaps. "I didn't even know that! French? Isn't that from like, North Blue? All the way across the world in the Red Line?"
"Uh, yeah. That's where I was born," Sanji shrugs, returning the mustard to the fridge. "Why are you so pissed all of a sudden?"
"Oh nothing really. I mean, it's not like I just found out that my boyfriend is part of some secret World Government Agency that takes down entire drug-and-weapons trafficking organizations at the drop of a hat!"
"Oh. Well, and here I thought our biggest problem was the supposed infidelity."
"This isn't a joke, Sanji!" Zoro yells. "I wasn't the one who did anything wrong!"
"And I did?" Sanji shouts back, suddenly pissed off. What's with Zoro all of a sudden? Zoro knows he works with Robin. Zoro isn't all that innocent either, Mr. Demon of East Blue. "What, you think Chopper's kidnapping is my fault?"
"What? No!" Zoro takes a deep breath and Sanji can see him struggling to calm down. "That's not what I meant. I mean…you trust me."
"I do," Sanji says quickly.
"Yet you thought I cheated on you."
"Because I saw it," Sanji rolls his eyes. "I mean, it's not like somebody told me you were cheating. I saw an exact replica of you kissing someone else. The fact that I trusted you and you—or your copy, whatever—still cheated, is probably what hurt the most. But you didn't cheat and now I know that, so what's the problem?"
"The problem is I don't trust you."
The words pierce through him, leaving him stunned for a moment. "What?" Sanji gasps, staring at Zoro with wide eyes. "You don't…trust me?"
"How can I?" Zoro exclaims. "I mean—shit, you know I'm not good with words—."
"Well, you fucking better start learning, because you're making a fucking mess of things," Sanji growls, angry. When did he ever give Zoro a reason to distrust him?
Zoro curses and runs a hand through his hair. "Okay, think of it this way: I trust what I know about you. But what I know about you only makes about ten percent of who you are. I mean, don't you think it's sad that I didn't even know where you were born?"
"Oh." That…that makes sense. Sanji knows he has a lot of secrets, and a lot of his past relationships have ended because of them—at least, all of the ones that didn't end because of infidelity.
But he doesn't like talking about his past. He's buried it, along with his last name and his heritage. The only thing he still has left from that time is his money—and his stupid eyebrow. Not even Robin knows everything—not even Zeff. He hates his past, he hates the person that he was, the person that died eighteen years ago.
"Sanji?"
"I don't like talking about it," Sanji whispers, looking down at his hands. He's surprised they're not shaking.
"Well, I…I want to know," Zoro murmurs. "I think…this whole thing…I think it's important. And I understand if there are some things you can't talk about right now, but I still want to know other things—I want to know something."
Sanji nods hurriedly, wracking his brain for some tidbit of information that isn't dangerous. "I…I'm not a member of Cipher Pol," he says quickly. He continues working on Zoro's sandwich, just for something to do. "I met Robin when I was in high school—I think I'd just barely turned seventeen. Mmh, she had me fighting underground at the beginning, but when I graduated, she let me work on missions. I never officially made it to the roster because Robin wanted me stay anonymous."
"So you're like a secret agent or some shit?" Zoro asks, confused.
Sanji laughs, the sound sharp and slightly panicked. "Ah, not really. I mean, it's not like I spent my life going on secret missions or whatever. Robin, she, uh, she's a member of the Revolutionary Army? And, uh, she's double-crossing Cipher Pol. So I'm like the guy that can travel between the two. Her middle man. She gets information from the World Government, and I act it out for the Revolutionary Army."
"Huh, that makes sense."
"It does?" Sanji asks distractedly, bringing out a bag of lemons to start a simple lemonade.
"Yeah. I mean, the only reason why I listened to Robin is because Luffy said he trusted her—and now that I know Robin is in the Army, it makes sense. Luffy's father is Dragon," Zoro adds when Sanji still looks confused.
"Dragon?" Sanji gasps, momentarily shocked out of his autopilot mode. "Like the Dragon? Leader of the Revolutionary Army, Most Wanted Man in the World, Dragon?"
"That's the one," Zoro grins. "He may not look it, but Luffy is a force to be reckoned with. His grandfather is a Vice-Admiral, one of his brother is the second commander of the Whitebeard Syndicate, and the other brother is the number two of the Revolutionary Army. Not to mention Luffy is a power all on his own."
"Holy shit." Sanji takes a moment to let the words sink in. He would have never imagined that rubbery glutton to be so well-connected. He's always sensed that there was more to Luffy than met the eye, but he'd never expected this. So this is what Robin meant when she said Zoro was so well connected. He's startled by his own laughter.
Zoro chuckles and—finally—moves forward to sit across from Sanji. He takes the sandwich Sanji offers.
"Say something in French."
"Vous êtes un salaud de merde."
"That sounds hot," Zoro says, words muffled with food.
"If you say so," Sanji shrugs, smirking. He adds some sugar to the lemonade and after some slight hesitation, decides to put some vodka in there, too. Why the hell not?
Zoro smirks at him and nods when Sanji offers a glass.
"What's your favorite color?"
"Blue. And my favorite number is 32, in case you want to know that too," Sanji snorts.
"I'm being completely serious here," Zoro snaps. "People are supposed to know these things about each other, you know. Do you know how fucking hard I struggled to buy you a Christmas gift? And I'm not even sure you're going to like it."
"I'm going to like it," Sanji murmurs, not meeting Zoro's eyes. He grabs his sandwich and takes a large bite out of it, waiting for Zoro to ask another question. This isn't so bad—it seems like Zoro is only interested in personality stuff. He can do these types of questions easily.
"When did you move to New World?"
"Like eight years ago?" Sanji shrugs. "I was born in North Blue, but I…moved to West Blue when I was nine. Stayed there until I was ten, then I moved to East Blue. I moved to New World right after graduation, when I entered NWU."
They somehow end up talking about everything and anything. They quickly eat their way through the sandwiches, and when that's done, they grab the pitcher of lemonade—though since Zoro refilled it, it's like fifty-percent vodka now—and move to the living room. Sanji is a little tipsy already, so he grabs all the cushions and puts them on the floor, laying on top of them with Zoro sitting on top of just one.
Zoro tells him about his childhood, too. He talks about growing up in the dojo, about meeting Luffy and the others in high school. He talks about losing Kuina, about struggling to live with the guilt. He tells him how his parents abandoned him. How they took him to a park and simply left, leaving him behind. He confesses that he thought for a long time that he had gotten lost and his parents were still looking for him, but after years passed, he accepted the truth. Zoro admits the fear he felt the first time he fought Mihawk, the pain he went through recovering from his scar. Nobody but Luffy—and now Sanji—knows how he got it, though the others know about the scars around his ankles and a few others. He tells Sanji about growing up on the streets, fighting to survive in a dog-eat-dog world, about how Koshiro finally took him in. Sanji isn't surprised to hear that Zoro skipped classes most of the time, and the only reason he passed high school was because Usopp let him copy every time they had a major test. He was always too busy living the life of an adult to really be a kid.
He talks about the first time he saw Chopper; suddenly, he felt like his world revolved around his son. Zoro's voice is thick as he remembers the first months with Chopper, how he had been so afraid of messing up. He knows he couldn't have survived without his friends there to help him.
Sanji talks about his past, too—parts of it, at least. He tells him how he lived in poverty worse than Zoro's when he was a kid, how he would steal food so Zeff wouldn't have to spend so much money in groceries. He smiles when he talks about the Baratie's grand opening, how they had to fight tooth-and-nail to get it to its current fame. He scowls when he remembers how mad he was when Zeff started him off as a dishwasher, even though the Baratie was supposed to be theirs.
Zoro laughs when Sanji shares stories of chasing after girls in grade school, how the teachers would have to call Zeff almost every day because he had punched some boy trying to defend a girl's honor. He tells Zoro about Zeff finally teaching him how to fight with his feet after he broke his hand punching a much bigger bully who wouldn't stop pulling on a girl's pigtails.
He doesn't lie when he goes over meeting Robin again. He tells him about all of the underground work he did for her, about the couple of people he killed for money, about the countless of fights he won. When Robin found out about his interest in cooking, she had offered him a job at Galley-La, though he only lasted there about a year to help pay his way through New World before he started working for Ivankov during his second year.
Zoro is a lot more interested about his time at Kamabakka Kingdom, and he pushes Sanji until the cook confesses that yes, he did sometimes enjoyed the dancing, but he never stripped or participate in the more physical work.
"There is a lot more money to be made there, but I've never been interested in guys, and all of the girls there are not looking for men," he says, his voice slurring. "Though I did get a lot of offers. Iva would've fired me because of all the ass I kicked, but those kinky fuckers actually liked it."
"It's because you look like sex incarnate when you fight," Zoro grins. "The way you stretch out and flex. Fuck, I know it gets me going."
"Shut up," Sanji says, smacking him in the arm.
"Did you ever know your parents?" Zoro asks after a while. The pitcher of lemonade is empty, most of it drunk by Sanji since Zoro grabbed a bottle of whiskey, complaining that the lemonade wasn't even giving him a buzz since it was so 'watered down'. Fucking alcoholic.
"Yeah," Sanji shrugs, frowning when he tries to remember their faces. "They were…blonde. Yup. And…they had the curl."
"You mean, there're more people with those curly eyebrows of yours?" Zoro mocks, snickering.
"Shut up!" Sanji snaps—it's his preferred insult when he's drunk, even though it's not really an insult. "Only my mother had them. My dad had that stupid curl in his hair—though he stopped using it when they moved out of Mariejois."
Sanji scowls when he remembers that stupid hairdo. Shit, it had been so ridiculous. He snickers, trying to imagine himself with the same haircut, and turns to tell Zoro.
Zoro is staring at him, eyes wide and mouth open. "Mariejois?"
Sanji frowns, his intoxicated brain trying to figure out why that word sounds so wrong.
"Your parents…you're a Celestial Dragon?"
Oh no. Oh shit no. Fuck please no. "Zoro, I—it's not what you think—I don't, my parents—please let me—." His stumbling over his words, scrambling to get closer to Zoro before the other man bolts.
"Holy shit, you are," Zoro gasps, moving away from Sanji's grasping hands. "You're a World Noble! Oh my fucking god!"
"Zoro, please, you have to listen to me!"
"I don't fucking have to do anything!" Zoro yells. "Holy shit. God—did you fucking own slaves? Oh god, this is all blood money, isn't it? It all makes sense now! I'm so fucking disgusted right now!"
"Zoro—."
"Don't touch me!"
Sanji drops his hands and stares at Zoro with wide eyes. He can't fucking believe he said that. He's never told anyone that. Not even Zeff knows—oh, he knows Sanji's parents were rich, but he never guessed they were World Nobles. It was a secret Sanji's parents took to the grave—something he'd planned to do as well.
And now Zoro knows.
"…so fucking wrong," Zoro is saying, his words echoing the thousands of people he's heard before. It's not uncommon to hear this from people in East Blue. Even in New World, where things are better off, people think like this. "People are dying, they're being shipped off as animals for your fucking amusement. Do you know how many people I've met that have lost family members to your sick auction houses? You fucking have everything, and there're people out there that have nothing! You think you can just buy people—holy fuck, you were buying me! All that money you spent on me and Chopper, all the favors and the gifts—like I was your fucking whore! How in the fuck can you even call yourself a person? I can't fucking believe I let you touch me!" Zoro spits, disgusted. His hands are scrubbing at his arms as if trying to scratch off the imaginary stains Sanji's touch left behind.
The action makes Sanji's heart ache, and he bites his lips to keep from letting out the ugly sound that threatens to spill.
"Shut up!" Sanji shouts. He's breathing hard, and he can feel his hands shaking. He's heard people talk about Celestial Dragons before. There are very few people in the world that don't think like Zoro. But Sanji doesn't consider himself a World Noble. He killed that part of him—and he did not go through hell trying to rid himself of the filth of Mariejois for Zoro to attack him so harshly.
"Is that an order?" Zoro snarls, contempt and disgust dripping from his every word. Sanji didn't notice when Zoro stood up—shit, he didn't even notice when he stood up himself.
"You don't get to fucking judge me based on your own shitty prejudices!" Sanji snaps, with less heat than he would want. His heart still feels like it's breaking into a million pieces, and he's choking up. "I'm not a World Noble! My parents left the tower before I was born, I don't even use their last name anymore—."
"But it's in your blood—."
Sanji lashes out before Zoro can finish that sentence. He may be intoxicated—and Zoro might actually have a chance of beating him in a fight like this—but he has surprise and desperation on his side. He's too quick for Zoro to react, and he takes him down with a sweeping kick to the back of the legs. Zoro lands painfully, gasping as his injured shoulder slams on the ground harshly, but Sanji is already straddling him and holding him down before he can move.
"Get the fuck off me!"
"No!" Sanji yells, squeezing Zoro's waist with his thighs when he tries to move . He's not as strong in his upper body, but he uses his hands to hold his chest down, too. "You can't fucking ask about my past, then run away as soon as you hear something you don't like! You know I'm not a bad person! I'm may not be a saint, but I'm not bad. Zoro, you have to believe, please—I'm not bad!"
Sanji is surprised to see Zoro crying. The man's eyes are wide, looking up at him with a shocked expression, and his face is wet with tears. Another drop falls, and Sanji realizes Zoro isn't the one crying.
It's him. He's the one sobbing, his tears dripping down to splash on Zoro's cheeks.
He takes his hands off Zoro to wipe away the tears angrily—damn, this is the last thing he wanted. He hasn't cried since he was ten and experienced his first panic attack. He's too busy berating himself to realize Zoro is still under him, looking at him with that same strange expression.
It's not anger anymore, it's more like…confusion? Apprehension?
Sanji moves off Zoro and sits cross-legged next to him as he continues to try and stop his emotions from getting the best of him. The tears have stopped now that he realized he was crying, but his chest still hurts and his eyes still burn. His lungs are screaming at him for a cigarette, but he can't remember where the hell he left his pack.
"How did they die?" Zoro finally asks, sitting up.
"Hmm?"
"Your parents," Zoro elaborates. "If you grew up with Zeff, then you're parents are dead, right?"
Sanji smiles despite the blunt wording, but there's no humor in the expression. So Zoro really wants to know everything, huh? He never thought he would have to speak of that time, and part of him wants to tell Zoro to fuck off, but…he knows that if he stays silent, this whole thing will end.
Zoro will leave, and Sanji will go back to way things used to be.
He hesitates even as he stands up and walks towards the only painting he keeps in the living room. It's a dark work, something he picked up during one of his visits in West Blue. Robin found it first, and her morbidity found it appealing. She found it amusing that Sanji ended up buying it, despite his vocal hatred for the thing.
"Do you know the name of this painting?" Sanji asks, tracing his fingers through the lines of a wave. He can feel the bumps and grooves of the textured oil paint under his fingers, giving life to the painting itself.
"No," Zoro answers, a bit confused. "I like it, though."
Sanji snorts. It figures. "It's called Orbit. You've heard that story, right? They teach it to kids in high school, the story about The Orbit."
Zoro frowns. "Uh, yeah. Wasn't that the last ship to set sail in All Blue? Before the banning? It sank or something like that. Happened like twenty years ago."
"It'll be eighteen years this upcoming February," Sanji corrects softly. He gives a last, slightly nostalgic, look at the painting and joins Zoro on the floor. The man looks more in control now. He doesn't seem as angry, just confused and a bit uncomfortable.
It's better than the open disgust he showed before.
"My parents never talked much about the tower," Sanji begins hesitantly. He doesn't remember much from that time, but he does remember that he loved his parents very much. "I think they left after they married. They didn't agree with their way of life—the slaves, the corruption, the god complex—so they renounced their heritage. Still, I grew up pampered and lavished in wealth. I have to admit, I was a spoiled little brat. I had a fancy house, fancy clothes, servants—we were Nobles in all but beliefs. I guess despite their compassion, my parents still enjoyed the better things in life."
Zoro makes an angry sound, but Sanji ignores it. Not every rich person in the world is a Celestial Dragon—take sweet Vivi, or even Franky and Robin—and his parents at least tried to be better people. Yeah, they were pompous and a bit stuck up, but they didn't agree with the uglier side of the Nobles.
They didn't think they were better than others—they just very much enjoyed their wealth.
"The Orbit was the biggest passenger steamship ever built—large enough to carry over three thousand passengers, not to mention all of the crew," Sanji continues. He's not eager to tell this story, but he's willing to do it. "It was the epitome of luxury, a ship of dreams, and the largest movable, manmade object in the world. Only the wealthiest, most powerful people in the world where allowed to step foot in it, and when it departed from North Blue on February 10th, the whole event was televised."
Sanji is silent for a moment, remembering how loud it had been, how all of the people had stood at the pier and waved as they departed. There had been so much noise, so much color. A complete contradiction to the way things ended.
"I was so happy when my parents told me we were going," he continues. "It was supposed to be an early birthday present, since The Orbit was scheduled to pass through All Blue, and I had always wanted to see that ocean. Zeff was one of the crew members, Head Chef and in charge of over one hundred cooks. I remember my parents talking about him, saying how they couldn't believe they had hired an ex-con as a cook—but nobody could deny that his food was amazing. The first time I met him, he kicked me in the head because I ordered a strawberry parfait and left most of it. It didn't even hurt that much, but I just started screaming and crying out for my parents—needless to say, he was fired and commanded to get off the ship at the next stop."
He laughs, but there is no humor in it. Zoro still hasn't made a sound, but Sanji can tell by the expression in his face that he knows where this is going—or at least, he thinks he knows.
"I'm sure you know that ships aren't allowed to sail through All Blue, but you probably don't know why. Everyone will tell you All Blue it's a magical sea because it connects to every ocean in the world—and it does. But people tend to forget that seventy percent of the world's oceans are infested with Sea Kings…and All Blue is their preferred nesting ground. When you look at it, you would never think it's the deadliest sea in the world—but there hasn't been a ship that has successfully sailed through it. The Orbit was no exception."
"Sanji, you don't have to—."
"I need to," Sanji interrupts, meeting Zoro's eyes. "You told me about your parents and about Kuina. It's only right that I tell you about this."
Zoro looks like he wants to argue, but he knows this is Sanji's decision to make, so he simply nods and waits for him to continue.
"It happened in the middle of the night. The crew had encountered a smaller Sea King before nightfall and were able to kill it. Usually, a regular ship would never leave the meat behind—food is precious in the ocean—but The Orbit had enough food to feed a small city for months. Zeff always blamed himself for what happened next—he was the one who ordered for the Sea King to be left behind, but he couldn't have known that the carcass would attract an ever bigger monster.
"I didn't know what was going on at first. My parents woke me up in the middle of the night and told me to hurry up and move; I was only wearing the clothes I slept in, didn't even get the chance to put on my shoes. I had—I think I had a sister. I don't remember the gender very well, but I know I had a baby sibling, just two months old. There were so many people out on deck, screaming and crying that I quickly lost sight of my mother, but my father held me close. The Sea King was huge, a mix between a squid and whale, the mouth of a shark. It was freezing outside—we were in the middle of the ocean, in mid-February, at night. My father was trying to find my mother and get me to the lifeboats, but the other passengers wouldn't let him. All of them were fleeing for their lives while the crew tried to hold the Sea King at bay, but they were failing miserably. They weren't trained to fight that kind of animal—they hadn't allowed Marines to board the ship, since despite their authority, they were considered commoners."
If he closes his eyes really tightly, he can still picture that night. The feeling of cold seeping through his wet clothes, the icy wind slashing at him. His father's desperation at not finding his wife. He remembers being pushed and shoved as people rushed to escape. And the sounds of the monster roaring, louder than anything Sanji had ever heard in his life.
"People that had once been claimed as the highest form of sophistication acted like nothing more than animals. I saw fathers abandon their wives and children, people fighting each other for a spot on the measly fifteen lifeboats. There were so many vile people—fuck, Zoro, they just killed each other right there and then trying to escape. There were those that couldn't take it, a lot of people just jumped into the ocean to drown. Some just gave up and sat down, right there on the deck. Most of them were trampled by the crowd. There were a few brave ones that rushed the women and children to the lifeboats and tried to help the crew fight the Sea King, but they weren't much help.
"By that time, the Sea King had managed to wrap its tentacles around the entire ship—the damn things was just so fucking huge. It broke the first funnel off, and when it fell into the ocean, it crushed those that had escaped. Anybody that had eaten a Devil's Fruit was thrown overboard—nobody wanted to be around the Hammers. We found my mother near the life boats. She was looking for us, the baby in her hands, but she had gotten caught in the middle of a crowd trying to rush to the stern. A swipe of a large tentacle crushed them. Just fucking took them out in one fell swoop. One moment she was there, screaming my name, and the next—nothing but a stain on the deck. But I didn't have any time to mourn; the weight of the broken funnels was dragging the ship down—shit, the stern wasn't even touching the ocean anymore and the Sea King was more interested in swallowing down the swarm of people unfortunate enough to fall into the ocean—and I felt like I was climbing a mountain as my father keep pushing me forward, yelling at me to move, to just move faster and get over the railing."
Sanji stops as a particular violent memory raises. Everything is become sharply clear now that he's talking about it, and he's glad Zoro hasn't said a thing. It feels like he's taking out a deeply buried thorn, and it hurts just as much coming out as it did going in.
"The Sea King hadn't forgotten about us, though. It broke the third funnel—just ripped it out of the frame and send it crashing miles away. The deck trembled under my feet and the wood splintered where the frame had been damaged. I was frozen, the ground breaking in half under me, so father picked me up and threw me. I landed painfully on the other side, and I had the gall to yell back a complaint, but he was already gone. The first half of the ship was sinking into the ocean, and my father was falling—it was such a fucking long fall, Zoro. I couldn't see him, but I could hear him, just screaming until he hit the ocean. I was frozen on the spot, people were hitting me, but there weren't as many people onboard anymore so I wasn't too hurt. But the ship was still sinking and I could feel the floor moving so I started running towards the poop deck. Someone pushed me and I fell against the last funnel—the second part of the ship was already perpendicular with the ocean, and that funnel was the only thing keeping me from following my father into the ocean floor. There was furniture falling all around us—the galley was right in front of me, and the doors were open, and everything was falling right on top of me. I just remember closing my eyes and thinking I was going to die. I was a few weeks shy of nine years old, and I was facing my own mortality—no wonder I'm fucked up.
"Someone grabbed me and pushed me forward. He was so strong, Zoro, I had never in my life seen someone stronger. The man carried me to the top deck and over the railing. But there was nowhere else to go after that. We were at the very top, watching the ship sink ever so slowly into the gaping mouth of the beast underneath us. People were falling like my father, hitting the ocean with such a loud noise—there was blood everywhere, even in the dark, you could see it since All Blue is so fucking clear. I turned to look at Zeff and he was screaming something at me, but I couldn't hear him over the sounds of the Sea King screaming, the other passengers dying. They were being eaten alive, some of them still breathing even as they went down its fucking throat. It wasn't until I felt my world shift again that I noticed that we were no longer sinking—the Sea King had let go of the ship, and without its support, we are falling back towards the ocean.
"It was like...like you're at the very top of a fucking huge roller coaster, you know, when you're totally still and then you start falling? That sense of vertigo that you get? It felt like that, except so much worse because most of the lifeboats that the Sea King had miraculously spared were below us and I could tell we were going to hit them. They could tell, too, and they were screaming at us, but what could we do? When we hit the ocean, I didn't feel any pain. The water was too fucking cold for that. It felt nice, for a moment, when the ocean blocked out the sounds of people screaming and crying—but Zeff pulled me out and held me while I shivered."
Sanji is trembling now, his memories are so clear, so vivid, that he can feel the icy fingers of the ocean prodding at his bones. At one point in the story, Zoro moved to wrap himself completely around him now, and Sanji knows that the man is a furnace, but not even his heat can keep the cold at bay.
"Sanji, everything's fine," Zoro murmurs into his hair. "I'm so sorry, Sanji. You're okay now."
Sanji shakes his head because his story isn't over. It's so fucking far from over.
"They said there were no survivors," Sanji goes on. Now that he's talking, he needs to get everything off his chest. He needs to remember this, to feel what he felt back then—it's like he's been numb for the longest time, trapped in the freezing ocean, and he's finally starting to swim upwards. "People didn't start looking for The Orbit until, what, maybe five days? By the time they found it, everyone was dead. They spend a couple of weeks scanning the area, picking up the bodies that were still afloat, and keeping up the pretense of looking for survivors. But they never found any.
"Zeff and I floated off. Everything was fuzzy, since I spent most of the time asleep, but when I finally regained consciousness, we were on a rock, in the middle of nowhere. I was so fucking mad, so pissed that he had saved me. I just wanted to die in that ocean with my parents, fall and hit the sea and sink. But Zeff just threw me a bag of food and told me to go to the other end of the rock and look for a passing ship. He had kept a much bigger bag for himself, but when I complained, he told me he had more food because he was bigger. And since I wasn't even nine years old at the time, and scrawny as hell, I could do nothing but obey. The rock was too high, the shoreline down below lined with jagged rocks. No fish would dare to swim within ten miles of it, no Sea King would ever attack. It was just the two of us, alone."
Zoro is quiet once more, willing to hear this story until its end. Sanji can barely feel the soft touch of his fingers on his arm, the pressure of his hard chest on his side. It's the only thing keeping him from totally losing it.
"There have been plenty of people that have wondered just how long the human body can go without food and minimum water. Most scientist seem to agree on forty-five days—at least no more than two months. After that, organs start to eat themselves, the stomach gets bloated as it retains liquids, you lose control of your bowel movements, and your testosterone levels hit an all-time low. But it's so much fucking worse than that. Because you don't lose your mind, at least not until the very end. You can feel your muscles deteriorating, your body eating itself. You feel fucking disgusting because you can't even control when you got to the bathroom anymore. You spend all of your days thinking about food, obsessing over it, craving it. There is such a deep hole inside yourself that you know you'll never fill and you just want it to be gone.
"I got so hungry, I just wanted to eat something, anything. I was starving and even a fucking bug would have looked like a delicacy to me. I couldn't help but remember all of the times I wasted food. Back at home, it had never been a problem. Every meal was a luxurious event, we were served until our plates were stuffed—and we didn't even eat everything. I was such a picky eater as a child, I used to just eat a bite or two of every dish and leave everything else behind. Mother didn't allow the servants to eat our leftovers, so they were just thrown away. I remember dreaming about stuffing myself in that trashcan, just eating until I exploded and died.
"It could've taken a week or maybe a month, but I broke. I started thinking of the bag of food Zeff had with him and I started planning his death. I spent another week trying to cut a rock into something resembling a blade. My plan was simple: I was going to kill Zeff and take his food and just stuff my face until I died. But when I approached him, he didn't stop me from getting that bag. He just watched me while I ripped it open—but there was no food inside. It was only treasure. That night in The Orbit, Zeff had been planning to run away on one of the lifeboats with all of the money. He had only ever gotten on The Orbit because he had heard it would travel through All Blue, and he wanted to visit the ocean. He was out on deck when the Sea King attacked, and was one of the first people to reach the stern. But when he saw me on the funnel, he risked his life to get me. And then he gave me all of the food he'd saved."
Sanji takes a deep breath, preparing himself for the next part. He owns so fucking much to Zeff—more than his life, more than his sanity, he owns his very reason to live to the other man. He was the one who made him into a cook, he was the one who gave him a skill and a life. A family and friends. Zeff is the only reason why Sanji is sitting right here at this moment, and Sanji will never be able to repay him for any of that.
When he speaks again, his voice trembles slightly. "He cut his fucking leg, Zoro, right at the knee, and ate it. He was feeding off himself, instead of taking my food. He decided to save my life, even when I had gotten him fired, when he didn't even know who the fuck I was. And when I asked him why, he said it was because he'd heard me talking about All Blue, and he knew that I loved that ocean as much as he did. I cried for so fucking long…I probably lost another couple of pounds right there. Zeff sent me back to my end of the rock and told me not to contact him again unless I saw a ship, but weeks passed and I saw nothing. I no longer had any food, and I just couldn't help but think about Zeff, about how he had cut his own leg. I was so hungry, I thought I could do it, too. Just saw off my leg or my arm and eat it. I was going to die anyway, why would I need my limbs, right?
"That night, I was preparing myself to do it. I knew I would bleed, maybe enough to die, but the bag that Zeff had given me was cloth, so I could use that to stop the bleeding, maybe for a little while. I was about to do it, had the jagged rock pressed to my knee—and then, I saw it. The All Blue, lit up bright blue and glowing like lightning. Do you remember that night during the party, Zoro? It was so much more beautiful out on All Blue, where the whole ocean is glowing bright enough to make it look like daylight. The water was so clear and the light so bright that I could look down miles and miles, but I never actually saw the ocean floor. I fell in love with All Blue all over again that night.
"We stayed on that rock for 109 days. My food ran out after about a seven weeks. My body gave out after maybe the third month. It took so long for someone to find us because no one was looking for us. Everyone thought there had been no survivors. Seventy-eight World Nobles had died in that accident, and everyone was appalled. They didn't even care about the crew that had died in battle, or about the hundreds of other lives lost. The little caravel that rescued us was a Revolutionary ship carrying cargo to one of their bases in West Blue. They took us in and fed us. Nobody could explain how we had survived for so long and they all wanted to know how we'd done it. But I was just hungry. I stayed hungry for so fucking long; I never thought I would make it out of that fucking rock alive."
Sanji finally stops talking and takes a breath that rattles his bones. Oh god is he...no, he's not crying again. But he's hyperventilating a bit and his eyes still sting. He's hiccupping, dry sobs escaping him, and Zoro is just holding him. Sanji turns to face him, and buries his face in the men's neck, breathing in his scent. Zoro's hands go to his back and hugs him so tight that it feels like they're going to melt into each other. He needs to finish the story, though. He has vomited all of the toxic in his soul, and he feels that if he doesn't finish, the toxic will just fester and return.
"They wanted to contact my family, but I was afraid. All of my life, my parents had told me to be afraid of the Revolutionary Army. They wouldn't understand that my parents had given up life in Mariejois. If they knew who I was, they would kill me. So I told them I had no one else. Zeff took me in after that, adopted me and gave me his last name. We stayed in West Blue for about a year, then moved to East Blue after I'd turned ten. When I met Robin and found out that she was a Revolutionary, part of me agreed to join her because it felt like I could repent for what I was. I had never understood why my parents left the tower before, but living with the Revolutionaries in West Blue for a few months, and then growing up in poverty with Zeff, made me realize just how horrible World Nobles really are. I was always so afraid that someone would discover my secret, or that Zeff would find out who I was and would hate me for it. Working for the Revolutionary Army was my way of cutting every tie I had to Mariejois."
"Robin dug a little into my past and she found some things about my parents. She doesn't know they were World Nobles—they covered their tracks very well—but she knows about the life I lived back in North Blue. I only ever accepted the inheritance my parents left behind because the Baratie wasn't doing all too well. Zeff put up a fight, but I was able to convince him to use some of the money to give the Baratie the renovations it needed. The rest went to some bank account. Robin takes care of it, for the most part."
There's only silence after Sanji finishes his story. He can feel Zoro's heart beating rapidly against his own, but his breathing is slow and calming. His arms are still wrapped around Sanji, and if he doesn't look the man in the eyes, he can almost pretend that nothing has changed between them.
"I'm sorry for what I said."
Sanji bites his lower lip and holds on to Zoro more tightly. "You were right. Celestial Dragons are horrible people."
"But you aren't," Zoro murmurs. "You're not a Dragon. You never were." Zoro's hands touch his jaw softly and lifts his head up to meet his eyes. Zoro's expression is sad, but there is no pity in his eyes.
Guilt claws at Sanji and he moves his head when Zoro leans in for a kiss. He remembers the revelation he had yesterday when he thought Zoro had cheated on him. He remembers the words Zoro shouted at him before his story.
You were buying me!
"Sanji, what's wrong?"
"You were right," Sanji repeats, horrified. "When you said I was buying you…you were right."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Zoro growls, his voice going from soothing to vicious in a moment.
"When I thought you'd cheated on me, I was so worried about what was going to happen to you and Chopper," Sanji explains quickly, spitting out the words and averting his eyes. "It made me realize that I had tied you down to me, Zoro. I took away your home and forced you to live with me. I made you quit your jobs and gave you work in the Baratie. I forced myself inside your family. I thought I was helping you, I told myself that my intentions were nothing but good, but I was wrong. I was alone, always keeping people away in fear that they would discover who I really was, and I was growing tired it. And then I found you—a good father, a good friend, a good person—and I just needed you to be around me so that I could make myself think that I was a good person, too. Because if somebody like you could be interested in me, then I couldn't be as horrible as everyone says I am, right? But I am—you were right, it's in my blood."
As he speaks, everything starts to make sense. The reason why he helped Zoro so much without knowing him. The reason why he felt so upset when Zoro kept him away. The need to be around the small family, the hurt he felt when he realized he didn't mean anything to Zoro. He thought he was such a good person when he paid off over half of Zoro's debt, but that was what had made Zoro sleep with him in the first place. That's what happened right? Sanji doesn't remember ever thinking Zoro would like him for his money, but that's what happened, right? Because what other explanation is there?
He's such a fucking bastard, he didn't even realize what he was doing.
"Sanji, look at me!"
He shakes his head but Zoro grabs his face and forces it up until he's meeting Zoro's eyes—those fucking eyes that see too much, look deep inside to his very core. He feels like Zoro can see him more clearly than anyone before, including himself
He doesn't expect a kiss, especially not one as soft and tender as the one the swordsman gives him. In that moment, he feels like he's anchored to a rock again—a rock as solid and perpetual as the one that almost took his life.
It gives him an entirely different feeling.
"I was wrong," Zoro says, quickly shushing him when Sanji tries to deny the words. "You're wrong too," he continues. "Don't fucking give yourself so much credit—you're not the evil mastermind you think. You helped me out even before you knew what kind of person I was. You offered me your home when mine was overtaken by Amiudake—and unless you planted that mold there, that had nothing to do with you. And no matter how fucking stubborn you are, I would never have accepted you as a friend if I didn't think you were a good person, got that? I love my son too much to let just anyone into my life."
Sanji nods along to Zoro's words, grasping at them to pull himself afloat. Zoro's right. He didn't know about the Amiudake. He didn't know Zoro when he first offered him food. He didn't know Robin would tell Zoro he was the one who paid Crocodile.
"This is good," Zoro says, and a small smile lifts his lips. "This is what people in relationships do. They argue, they fight, and then they talk."
"I always knew you would instigate the first fight," Sanji mumbles, and Zoro bursts out laughing. It's a pleasant sound that warms Sanji and slows his rapid heartbeat. "Now what?"
"We keep on talking," Zoro shrugs. "Nami says communication is key."
"If Nami says it, it must be true," Sanji says and Zoro rolls his eyes.
"Complete honesty Sanji," Zoro promises. "At least, when it matters."
Sanji nods. He feels drained, like he just ran for hours. It feels better to just let Zoro take over, since he's the only one sober right now. Hopefully, when all of the alcohol leaves his system, he'll be able to get a better grasp of everything that is happening.
But for now, he's just going to trust Zoro and hope the other man wants to fix this relationship as much as he does.