You have hurt my head but I'm not denying
That I did not bring it on myself
I take pieces of myself from everyone around me
I'm not individual enough for you
I replicate the people I admire
But at least I'm not bitter and sad

-"Don't Apply Compression Gently" Courtney Barnett

XxxX

On Monday Sanji approached Nami about the Zeff situation and his plan to move back to Columbus. She seemed unhappy about it and Sanji hated to make a lady unhappy but sometimes people have to do things they don't like. He would be working for the next two weeks and then he would be leaving. It worked out well because Zeff didn't start any treatments for two weeks anyway.

Soon after that Luffy found out of his plans and, sure enough, he wanted to throw a going away party the following Saturday. It was a nice gesture, Sanji enjoyed the fact that he had friends here and he really did not want to leave. The party was again arranged at Luffy's although this time Sanji turned up early to cook in his house, which was even more difficult than he imagined it would be. His kitchen was small, there wasn't much in there, and Luffy was constantly being a counter shark, just waiting for something to be left out unattended.

Everyone was there; Luffy, Zoro, Usopp, Nami, Brook, Johnny, Yosaku, and even Chopper pulled himself away from school to say goodbye. Chopper obviously had a lot to talk about with him, seeing as he was becoming a doctor- he didn't want to be an oncologist, but he still found the situation interesting. Terrible, very terrible but very interesting as well. They talked about it for a while, while Sanji was setting out the food.

The idle conversation was interrupted when Luffy brought out the party poppers and began to pop them two at a time while he cheered loudly. Sanji's first worry was that he would set off the fire alarm but when that did not happen he was relieved. Also slightly worried that Luffy's fire alarm might not be one hundred percent up to code.

Then there were the streamers that were now all over his head, trying to fall into his food. He quickly snatched it off of his head and chased Luffy out of the kitchen, just to be safe.

Brook played music and everyone got drunk. Johnny and Yosaku started badly singing along with the guitar, even when they didn't know what was being played they made something fit. It was highly amusing. Usopp told outlandish stories about how the last boat he had fixed up (he had a hobby of fixing boats in his spare time) had been a ghosts ship and he had to exorcize the spirits away. Luffy ate the rest of the food and joined Johnny and Yosaku in singing. Nami told Sanji that she would miss him working for her because her last bartender was a douche and now she had to find another. Zoro watched from the couch with a sulky expression on his face.

At one point during the night Sanji had sat down next to him in an effort to start a conversation. His conversations with Zoro were something he looked forward to when he was bored. Not that he was bored now, right now he was the center of attention, right now he was looking for conversation as an attempt to get away from that attention.

When he sat down Zoro did not acknowledge his existence in the slightest. He just kept sitting there with that stupid scowl on his face, drinking his stupid alcohol, and poisoning his stupid liver. Sanji was tempted to just get up and talk to someone who would appreciate his conversation but he was feeling a little lightheaded so he should probably sit down anyway, or so he told himself.

Instead he took a noise maker that Luffy had insisted on buying a shit ton of, and set it in his mouth like a cigarette... More like a cigar but he would stuck with what he was used to. He waited a few moments, bouncing it up and down in his mouth so his plan was not totally transparent. Then he turned and promptly blew into the annoying party accessory, leaning in close enough for the end to unfurl against Zoro's cheek. Disappointingly, it did not make a sound beyond a pathetic hissing of his breath.

It didn't matter anyway because as soon as it had touched his face Zoro grabbed it and yanked it out of his mouth, tearing off the paper end.

"Aw, you broke it," Sanji pouted, staring sadly at the poor, colorful pieces of cardboard and paper. He was more upset that he had picked up a defective one in the first place.

"You blew it I'm my face," Zoro said through gritted teeth. He did not appreciate that.

"But it didn't make any noise."

"That's right, but if it had I would have shoved it down your throat, instead of tearing it in half."

At that moment a very drunk Nami leaned over the back of the chair. "That's not the only thing you want to shove down his throat, am I right?" She giggled hysterically.

"Nami, noooooooooo," Sanji said weakly, "Whyyyyy?"

"'Cause I'm a voodoo, romance wizard," she said with a dramatic flip of her hair. Then she got distracted by Luffy sucking air out of helium balloons and wandered off in that direction

While Sanji looked humiliated Zoro just looked like he was in pain. Not physical pain, the kind of pain one gets when witnessing something gross like parents making out with each other.

Sanji put his face in his hands. "Welp, now that I've been forced to imagine that scenario I feel like I should leave the bubble of awkward that just developed but I won't."

"Ugh, telling me that you just imagined it makes it about three times as awkward so I'm going to take the initiative and ditch you." He moved to get up.

"Wait, it only made it like twice as awkward, I swear." Sanji protested but Zoro had moved toward Brook and away from him. Whatever, he was no fun anyway.

Some time later Luffy found three cans if unopened silly string under his sink while he was looking for paper towels. He had pink, blue, and yellow. He took two cans for himself, shaking them heavily, and handed the third to Usopp.

Because Sanji would be leaving them the least they could do was shower him in their affections and by affections they meant a weird slimy sting made for children. They crept up on him casually. He was talking with Chopper. When Chopper saw them coming he knew something was up and Sanji noticed the strange look on Chopper's face in confusion. Before he could turn around he was blasted by silly string.

There were about fifteen seconds where his brain just could not compute what was going on but as soon as those seconds had passed he started chasing after them. They did not relent in their spraying and it was soon Sanji who was running away in search of refuge. There were many misfires and many onlookers were shot down in the line of fire but it was worth it to get Sanji's hair full of pink silly string.

Despite how annoying Luffy was being, how embarrassing everyone else was being, Sanji felt at home while he was there. Why did this suddenly have to be so hard? He should have thought about this before he decided to come here. Except he was happy with the choice he had made and he would be terribly upset with himself if he had stayed home. Who knows what would have happened? He could never find out unless he found a alternate universe portal or he used his imagination. He felt a lump forming in his throat. He would miss these people, he couldn't remember the last time he'd had friends he wasn't obligated to like.

When everyone decided it was time to leave it was around twelve thirty. They were all at least slightly drunk, more leaning toward very drunk to be honest. The goodbye was made all the more dramatic by the alcohol.

As they were all parting ways Sanji was enveloped in a big group hug. Even Zoro got involved. Mostly because Nami grabbed him by the neck and pushed him forward but he was still there and that was what's important, right?

He had to pry Luffy off of his shirt when he was leaving. He could almost forget that he still had a week before he actually had to leave. It made his heart ache to have to leave them just to walk down the road to his apartment, although it was also slightly annoying so he did kick Luffy in the head before Chopper dragged him off. With that done Sanji and Zoro walked in the same direction for a while. They were at first walking in silence, Zoro had been quiet all evening.

"Hey, moss head, sad I'm leaving?" Sanji jested.

"No, I'm glad you're going. You were always an asshole," Zoro grumbled.

"Yeah, but you're still going to miss me. I mean, look at the pouty expression on your face." Sanji grabbed Zoro's cheeks and squished them together, earning himself a very hard punch in the arm. Ouch.

"If it's any consolation I'll miss you too," Sanji said, rubbing his poor hurt arm. "We should have one last fight tomorrow, while Koshiro is out to lunch."

"Fine, let's do that."

"Geez, no need to sound so excited about it. You're being so grumpy about this, seriously. I can remember a time when you would have been excited for me to leave."

"Who says in not still excited?"

"Um, the expression on your stupid face, dick head."

"Shut up," Zoro shoved him, "You don't know my face."

Sanji shoved him back. "Oh yes, I do and your face is telling me 'Sanji, don't go! You are amazing and I'll die if you leave me.'" He flailed dramatically.

"Is my face a melodramatic teenage girl?" Zoro asked in suspicion.

Sanji shuddered at the throughout of a young female face on Zoro's body, "God, I hope not." It was then that Sanji realized that Zoro had followed him home. Really he should have noticed before but is observational skills were pretty lacking at the moment. Sanji shrugged to himself, grabbed Zoro by the arm and dragged him inside.

"Want anything to eat?" Sanji asked when they were inside despite it being so late.

Zoro shook his head, kicked off his shoes and laid on the couch, turning the tv on. Sanji pouted at the sight of a marimo taking up his entire couch.

"That's my couch," he whined, suddenly he felt like bursting into tears or throwing a fit like a small child.

"Don't care."

Sanji then decided that he really wanted to sit on that couch and sat down in the spot when Zoro's body dipped back. He leaned back, watching the little people run around on the screen. He sighed, he would miss this. Zoro crashing at his house out of nowhere, he really didn't even mind. Also, he would miss awkwardly touching him like this and pretending not to notice he was doing it. He noticed all right, he defiantly noticed.

"Hey, Zoro," Sanji said quietly, "I'll miss you." He had a strange expression on his face. "You and that stupid green hair of yours." He lifted a hand to those luxurious green locks, running his fingers through them. Weird, but Zoro did not protest.

"Yeah, me too."

"What, you're going to miss yourself or your hair? Because I think I might actually get upset if you dyed your hair a different color or if you went bald, just saying. Don't go bald, marimo, I will lose what's left of my brain."

"You know what I meant," said Zoro brushing away the hand.

Sanji hummed in agreement. "I guess, at least you don't smell like silly string unlike me," Sanji chuckled, sniffing at his hair. It had that weird silly string smell like paint and something wet. It wasn't exactly unpleasant but it was odd.

"You still have some in your hair," Zoro said, pulling at a strand of pink silly string tangled up in the back of Sanji's unusually messy hair.

"I should probably wash that out. Well, maybe not. I don't want it dissolving into my hair or something. I'll just brush it out," Sanji reasoned.

"Yeah, you do that," Zoro said sleepily.

Sanji gave a happily little sigh, getting up from his seat, "Right, well, I'm going to bed then." He preformed a sloppily carried out bow. "Goodnight to you, sir."

"Fuck off."

In the morning the smell of pancakes wafted heavily through the air and up Zoro's sleepy little nose. It seemed he only ever awoke to good things at Sanji's house. He sat up suddenly, at first not quite sure where he was. For half a second he considered the option that maybe he'd fallen asleep in a pancake house, honestly, it wouldn't actually be that surprising. But no, he was just at Sanji's. And oh look, Sanji was bringing him a plate of pancakes like any good housewife should.

"Have you ever considered becoming a housewife? Because you would be really good at it," Zoro said sleepily.

Sanji stopped walking and gave him a blank look. "I'm going to ignore that and not break this plate over your head because I am a very good person."

"Good," Zoro grabbed his pancakes and began to eat while Sanji went back to retrieve his plate, coming back to sit in the arm chair.

"Hey," Sanji said, "Next Saturday you should help me move."

"Why?" asked Zoro through a mouthful of pancakes.

"You are a strongman, right? I mean those muscles aren't just for show, are they?" He knew they weren't, those muscles were built for lifting rocks and punching faces. Just looking at them made him want to growl and jump around, flexing like an idiot.

"No, they are not, so are there any heavy things you want me to carry for you, little girl?"

Sanji winced. "Ouch, so many shots at my masculinity today, I don't know if I can take it. I'd probably be more upset if I wasn't going to kick your ass later."

"Sure you will." Zoro drawled.

"So you'll help me move then?"

"Yeah, I've been told that I make good manual labor."

"Great, you can help me load the moving truck, I already have pretty much everything in boxes, so it won't be hard. If you really wanted you could help me move back into the Baratie."

"Now I'm starting to think you just want excuses to have me around."

"Psh, whaaaaat? There's no way I'd admit to anything like that."

"Suspicions confirmed, I'm just too awesome to be let go of."

"Ugh, shut the fuck up."

That afternoon they had their final little training battle. Sanji won the fight making their number of wins tied.

XxxX

Zoro got up early on the next Saturday and went over to Sanji's, the truck was already outside the building. As soon as he was spotted he was handed boxes and told to load then up. It took less than an hour of mindless lifting to get everything out. It made Sanji realized that he didn't have much in the way of material things, but that was okay.

The two set out on the road by eight, Sanji driving. The drive to Columbus would be about two hours and thirty minutes.

"Are you sure you should be driving, what with the seizures?" Zoro asked.

"It's fine, I only had like one or two and I'm the one who knows where we're going. I mean, I should probably go to a doctor but, as you know, that's not happening. Besides, not having a license is annoying. I had to wait forever to get my driving permit, although that wasn't really what I was worried about then..." he trailed off with an irritated look on his face.

"High school suck for you?" Zoro guessed.

"It wasn't great, no." Sanji nodded.

"I bet you were one of the nerds," Zoro joked.

Sanji looked offended, "Do I look like a nerd to you?"

"Alright, no, maybe not in the traditional sense," he admitted, "Then what were you?"

"I was busy." Sanji stated "No time for friends outside school. I had to work at the Baratie when I got home and everything. I managed to keep my grades up, though."

"My grades were not great but I didn't fail anything, so I was a slacker but not the biggest loser. At least I did better than Luffy." Luffy was one of the kids who would distract everyone during class and get kicked out.

"You were in high school with Luffy?"

"Yeah, that's how we met. Ussop and Nami went to my high school as well. Nami actually moved here from Florida junior year." Zoro explained. He didn't have a bad time in high school, it was annoying but it wasn't bad.

"Really?" Sanji laughed, "Figures she would come from the sunshine state."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, she's just so dazzlingly gorgeous she could outshine the sun," Sanji gushed. Zoro was slightly worried that he would crash the car from all that noodling around.

"Shut up, she's not that pretty," Zoro scoffed, knowing he was asking for it.

"Take it back! It's treason, you will be hanged. Don't let yourself be hanged, take it back!"

"Stop being such a spaz. What is your deal with girls anyway?"

"I don't know, I just think you should appreciate her friendship more. At least you had close friends in school. Fuck, I don't even want to think about school. Why are we talking about this?" Sanji scowled.

"What, you didn't have any friends? Not one?" Zoro found that a little hard to believe given Sanji's people's person persona. Sure, he didn't have many friends now, but in high school you are surrounded by people your age. It's nearly impossible to have absolutely no friends. You have to actually put effort into it.

Sanji shook his head, "It's not that I didn't have friends. I just didn't have close friends. It was more like if they disappeared in a non-traumatic way I wouldn't really give a shit but while they were around they were okay. I was close with one guy for a while but then his asshole friends were assholes and some shit went down and I had to beat them all up."

"What the fuck did they do?" Zoro wondered aloud.

Sanji groaned, "Junior year was fucking sucky and horrible for me. I would not go back to being fifteen if you paid me."

Zoro felt like there was something more to that than just hating school. "Why's that?" Usually Sanji wouldn't answer questions like this but maybe if he was going away he would be more open.

Sanji's eyes did not leave the stretch of empty farm roads in front of him. "The summer before that year started some shit happened and when we went back to school everyone was weird around me. Plus, I was having some other problems."

"Wait, what happened that summer?" He was being cryptic and general, it was really annoying. He was such a tease.

"Uh," he hesitated. He really didn't want to talk about it but he had brought it up and this was going to be their final goodbye, at least for now, why not tell him? "Well, I sort of got kidnapped."

"You were- What the fuck? Life really likes to fuck you over. How the hell did that happen?" Zoro sputtered.

"I don't really remember how it happened. I remember bright lights and then darkness, but that's it. I don't even know." He averted his eyes like a liar. "It was the middle if the night and I was taken from a hotel room. The police said that someone must have been staking me, they knew how to get in without disturbing things-"

"Wait, hang on, someone? Are you saying they were never caught?" The police could seem astoundingly ineffectual sometimes.

Sanji cast him an irritated look, "I'm getting around to telling you, let me finish my story. It's very traumatic for me, asshole."

"Yeah, sorry, go on." Zoro waved his hand.

"Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted. I was taken in the middle of the night by someone. The Amber Alert went out, everyone was freaking out about it. As people do when shit like this happens. I was missing for twenty-seven days. By that time people started to think I was dead because most kidnapping cases end with death in the first twenty-four hours and there was absolutely nothing to go on. Then I turned up only about an hour and a half from home."

"Where was that?"

"One of the state parks down in Hockinghills, just in the middle of the woods. That I remember very well. I don't remember anything from the time I was missing. Suddenly, I was just standing in the middle of the woods in my pajamas. It didn't help that it was the middle of the night. It was probably the most terrified I've ever been in my entire life," he gave a slight shudder.

He remembered the cool night air around him and the occasional shuffling of leaves that would make him freeze in his tracks. Only a deer, he would tell himself but he didn't really know. It could have been anything, there were so many things out there, and none of them he could see. Everything looked the same in the dark and everything was terrifying, it seemed to go on forever. Eventually, he tripped over something and went sprawling onto his face, after that he curled up and didn't move until it was light out.

It was the worst night ever. Huddled up against a tree shaking in fright. Too afraid to move, let alone to open his eyes. Suddenly, every scary story he had ever heard was dancing though his mind; mocking him sadistically. The night lasted too long and by the time the sun came up his eyes were painful from the crying. It wasn't very dignified to be crying when you were nearly an adult, but that wasn't important in that moment. What was important was getting the fuck out of the dark and into the god damn light.

The day hadn't been much better. He still jumped at every little noise, flinched at every passing deer. He stumbled around blindly; tripping over roots, getting caught in thorns, running through nettles, and dragging himself forward. Everything was too quiet, it's like he was waiting for something, for someone, to swoop in and tear him away from this unfamiliar place. He knew he didn't want to go back but he didn't want to be here either. He didn't know what he wanted.

"You were missing for almost a month and you don't remember anything?" Zoro asked incredulously, startling him out of his thoughts. Could the mind really do something like that? Zoro knew it did mysterious things but that seemed absurd.

"Nothing, absolutely nothing." Liar. "That's why it was so scary; one minute I was in bed and the next I'm lost in the woods. It was two days before I even ran into anyone, I finally found a hiking trail and ran into some runner guy who brought be back down the trail and got me to a phone. His dog scared the ever loving shit out of me when it jumped on me. I started bawling like a little kid. Then the police took over everything and I had to tell them over and over that I didn't know what happened. The doctors said that I repressed my memories or something. I don't know, it couldn't have been so bad because I was in such good condition when they found me.

"I had to see a psychologist after that and everyone looked at me like a freak. It was just really shitty."

"Fucking hell, no wonder you're such a weirdo!" The swordsman exclaimed, a childhood like that was enough to fuck anyone up.

"Hey! That's a really insensitive thing to say. I haven't even told you the really freaky thing yet. They found me in the same place they found me in when I was five but back then I was actually on the hiking path."

"You're lying," Zoro accused, feeling the hairs on his arms rise at the creepy implications.

"Nope, I'm serious. That time they found me in the summer too. And I have to live in fear that it might happen again because they never caught whoever did it." Sanji said in a creepy voice.

"Holy shit, that is genuinely terrifying."

"I know. Life just kind of sucks a lot of the time. And when I got back to school there were a lot of rumors floating around about what happened. When the police first found me I was starving, thirsty, and confused so I said some weird things and it just wasn't good," he grimaced, thinking back to school.

"What the fuck did you say? It must have been something really weird because I feel like normal school kids would just feel bad for you." Teenaged were often portrayed as insensitive and self centered, and that was true to an extent but when something traumatic happens the kind majority step up.

"Nothing, I don't want to talk about it. I'd rather just forget about it. But this is the part where by friend's asshole friends come in."

"Great, this sounds promising."

"Shut up and listen to my depressing story, marimo, I'm only going to tell it once." Sanji snapped, "So my friend, Gin, used to sit with me at lunch and he was one of the kids who got the shitty free lunches because his family was poor and then his lunch was always stolen by this douche, so I brought him better food so he wouldn't have to stomach that shit if he got any at all. Anyway, after that summer I was getting harassed by people and Gin's friends happened to be some of those people. I was taking the bus home and they followed me because I guess they thought they were going to scare me or something. They had Gin attack me just to add insult to injury, which sucked. Anyway it kind of backfired because I totally freaked the fuck out and kicked the shit out of them. I didn't do much to Gin, though. I still think he's a good guy, he just had shitty friends and he was too loyal to them. He apologized afterward but we didn't hang out after that anymore.

"Anyway, on a less depressing note after high school I went to culinary school and here I am."

"After having a breakdown and moving way from home." Zoro finished for him.

"Yeah, everyone has their mental baggage, some more than others..." Sanji sniffed, fuck his nose was starting to bleed. "Fuck. I think I put tissues in your side door, can you get them for me?"

Zoro reached down and tossed over the package if tissues, which Sanji pressed to his nose. It was starting off heavy, not a very good sign. After a few minutes Sanji found a place to pull over.

"Hey, I need you to drive so I can stop this," he said with his nose pinched. They switched places, a move that made Sanji nervous for their timing.

The bleeding took thirteen minutes to stop and it was fairly heavy, by the time it was done Sanji felt slightly lightheaded.

"You alright?" Zoro asked glancing over at Sanji, who was holding his head.

"Yeah," Sanji said slowly, "I'm fine, my head's just swimming a little."

"Are you sure, because you look like you are about to pass out."

"I'm fine, don't worry. Just focus on driving," Sanji said resting his head against the window with his eyes half closed. He watched the flat land whizz by. All those big fields full of corn and soybeans. Sometimes Sanji felt like when he was in a car looking out the window he was actually just watching a projection and he wasn't actually going anywhere. Then people behind the scenes were changing the background to fit where he was going. He was just waiting for that moment where everything came together and he found out that really his life was a big Twilight Zone style experiment to determine a human being's capacity to... Something. There was always something they were testing for.

That is if he was even human. He could be some foreign being living in this for as part of the experiment. Maybe that's what they were testing.

All silly thoughts aside, Zoro and Sanji didn't talk much after that. When they got into Columbus Sanji directed Zoro around to the Baratie, a thoroughly frustrating experience.

As they neared their destination Sanji remembered that Zoro would be meeting Zeff. That could end up going very well or very badly, it would most certainly be humiliating for him either way. Should he have said something? Nah, this was sink or swim territory and Zoro looked like a pretty good swimmer. What with those big strong muscles of his, although swimmers seemed to be more slight than Zoro was. They also had long arms and large feet and hands, an odd looking lot. And muscle mass didn't have anything to do with whether or not one can swim, they just made people pretty to look at. Or disgusting. Zoro definitely did not fall into that category. What was he thinking about before Zoro's muscles distracted him? It didn't matter, probably not that important.

XxxX

A/N: The state park Sanji was found in is the fourth most popular tourist attraction in Ohio. It looks pretty from the pictures.

*giggles* and the plot thickens.

Thanks.