"SANJI! MEAT!"
He sighs with a faint smile and flips the kabobs one last time. The aroma wafting from the skewered meats and vegetables is positively mouthwatering. After another minute he plates all of the food up and carries it out onto the deck. Plates of lighter, tastier food are handed off to the ladies of the crew first, with some swooning on his part, followed by the plates of kabobs to the male members of the crew.
His arms quickly emptied, save for the plates that are to go to the three on the figure head, he starts making his way up to the Captain and his brothers when a hand ghosts up his ass. He immediately flushes a bright red and spins around to yell at the perpetrator when everything around him vanishes, and is instead replaced by the dark, stormy sea around him. When had he fallen into the sea?
He frantically tries to swim up to the surface before he runs out of air, but something is caught on his foot. Sanji begins to panic when his vision starts to worsen and turn black at the edges. He is barely aware of an arm wrapping around his tiny body and his leg quickly being freed before the darkness takes him.
"C'mon kid, breathe!"
Large hands carefully press down on the center of his chest, forcing him to expel the water from his lungs. His nostrils are pinched closed and there is a pressure on his mouth before air is forced into him. He comes to, coughing and hacking, and the hands shift to help him sit up.
"There you go. Easy."
Sanji gazes blearily up at the pirate that had led the crew in the attack on the ship that he had been working on as a scullion. He coughs a couple more times, with the pirate giving him a couple hard thumps on the back, to clear out the rest of the water.
"Take a moment and get your bearing, kid." The pirate speaks in a gentle tone as he pulls away.
Sanji calms his breathing after a few more moments and finally looks around. They are on a rocky outcropping elevated high above the sea. There is no way for them to get off, from what he is able to see of this side, and he looks to the pirate for answers. "Where…?"
"Don't know, kid, but from the looks of it we're stranded up here." It will be a slow death, but he can't bring himself to tell the kid that. Some rations had washed up with them, though he isn't sure if it is such a fortunate thing, not to mention a huge sack of treasure. The rations themselves will last someone like the kid, if he spread the out wisely, a small while. For himself… Well, he is used to going hungry for stretches of time, so giving the kid the food will be better.
"Why did you save me?" Is Sanji's next question, and the old man gives a weary smile at it.
"Because you have the same dream as me, kid." The pirate picks up a piece of fruit that is nearby and gives it to him. "Here, go ahead and eat." He pushes the fruit into the boy's hands then goes about gathering the rest of the food up into a small sack.
Sanji eats the fruit quickly without any care, eying the pirate as he puts the small sack of food by him before going over to the larger sack. Once he finishes the morsel of food he frowns, picking up the sack meant for him. "Why's your bag bigger?"
The pirate looks at him for a long moment before smiling benignly. "Cause I eat more. Now go over to the other side of this outcropping and watch for any-"
"Ahoy there!" A voice calls out, making the pirate pause in his instructions for the kid.
Sanji and the pirate both look out and see a man with fiery blue wings instead of arms hovering out over open sea. "Wha…" The boy faints at the unexpected sight.
He comes to in a warm bed, memories of everything he'd been through rushing into his head. Sanji sits up fast, causing a momentary bout of dizziness that forces him to lay back down just as quickly.
"You're up!" A stern looking woman appears in his line of vision and she presses a hand to his forehead. She seems satisfied after a moment then moves on to checking him for bruises or other injuries. "Are you hurt anywhere?" He winces when she gets to his ankle on the leg that had been caught under something when he had been underwater. "Here?"
"Yeah… A storm sank the cruise ship I was on and I got stuck on something underwater." His voice comes out weak and he speaks very softly. The woman seems to hear him, however, because she nods and produces a roll of linen to wrap his foot up.
"You seem to have sprained your ankle. You're going to need to rest this foot until it's healed up so you don't agitate it and make it worse." She makes quick work of wrapping his foot then turns to go write something down in an open book on her desk. "Do you have a name?"
"Sanji." He sits up and watches her now, wondering what had happened to the pirate that had saved him. "Where's that…old guy that had saved me?" A glance around what he supposes is an infirmary is enough to let him know that he is the only patient.
"He insisted on going to the galley and fixing you something to eat." She turns back to catch the look of relief on his face and smiles faintly.
"Did he… What's his name?" Sanji fidgets with the covers on his lap, his gaze going to a frayed edge on the sheet.
"Zeff. My name is Zeff," the man himself says as he walks into the infirmary with a tray of hot food.
The scent of it wafts over to Sanji and one sniff of it makes his stomach give an embarrassing gurgle. "Ah…"
"Looks like someone is hungry." Zeff carries the tray of food over and sets it over the boy's lap, using the built in legs to keep it elevated off of Sanji.
Sanji hesitates in picking up the spoon for his soup, and sends a nervous glance towards the pirate. "Thank you," he says in a timid voice as he dips the spoon into the broth. He brings it to his mouth and gives it a small taste, his face lighting up before he digs into the soup in earnest.
"I really should take a look at you," the nurse harps, approaching Zeff with a dangerous look in her eyes. "The two of you were stuck up there with very little food between the two of you."
"Huh?" Sanji stops eating as he hears that, then looks to Zeff, who has his hands up to ward off the nurse. "You had that big ol' bag of food, so it was fine. We weren't up there for very long."
"That big ol' bag held nothing but treasure in it, Sanji-chan," the nurse bites out, her eyes narrowing as she stares down Zeff.
"What? But… Is that true?" Sanji gives Zeff an imploring look and the pirate gives a defeated sigh before he stiffly walks over to one of the bedside chairs and sits down.
"It is, kid. I gave you all of the food." The admission comes in a soft voice.
Sanji looks stunned, the spoon in his hand slipping from his grasp and landing with a loud clatter in the bowl. It sends broth all over the tray, but thankfully that is it. "Why? Why would you do something like that?" Zeff could have split the food between them and he would have been none the wiser. Instead, he had given him all of the food.
"Because I know what it's like to go without food… It's rough when you're out on the high seas with a shortage of food and no land in sight." Starvation is a terrible thing, and it makes people do terrible things too. "I didn't want you to experience that."
Tears comes to Sanji's eyes and he stares down at the meal the man had prepared for him.
"Go ahead and eat, okay?" Zeff gets up from his seat, the nurse having thankfully backed off, and walks out of the infirmary.
Sanji picks up the spoon and takes his time with finishing the rest of his meal.