Thanks to everyone who is reading!
Sanji POV:
His stump is hurting. Well it always hurts, but the meds are wearing off again and it really, really hurts. Sanji is used to pain. He has a pretty high pain threshold all things considered, but this is like nothing else he's had. It's a sharp, aching thing, that's quite literally bone deep.
Chopper had warned him. He'd told him it was going to be bad for the month or so it took the various tissues to heal. The little doctor would be giving him medication for it of course, but he'd also told Sanji that they would have to manage that medication carefully to ensure that Sanji didn't become dependent on it. Which was fine by him, one addiction is quite enough thanks.
But it hurts in a way he can't quite verbalize; a flavour of pain he's never encountered before.
He grips at his upper arm, kneading the muscle there as if it will help, jaw clenched tight. He knows Chopper will come in soon, to give him his next dose, so he doesn't bother to call for him. Besides.
He needs to be able to bear this. He needs to get used to this pain so that he can forget it like every other kind of pain he's encountered before. He needs to be able to throw this away when necessary, to do what's necessary.
He can't forget Chopper's gentle warning that sometimes the pain never goes away.
He can't let this stop him. Not on the Grand Line. Not when his friends might need him.
So he endures, mapping the pain in his brain and telling it, 'So the frick what?' So it hurts. Big deal.
Chopper comes in a few minutes later, takes one look at his face and shrieks at him for not calling for him.
"It's fine," Sanji tells him.
"It's not fine!!!!" Chopper yells back at him, mock-swatting him on the head with a hoof. He goes for the bottle of pain medication, drawing the next dose into the syringe, muttering under his breath about idiots with monster metabolisms.
He sticks the dose into the IV that Sanji still has to have and soon enough the pain dulls enough for his shoulders to release. Sanji gives a little sigh and leans back more comfortably on his pillows.
Chopper presses a hoof into his forehead.
"Bad Sanji," he says sternly. "I told you to call me if it got bad."
Sanji kind of wants to laugh because Chopper is equal parts adorable and terrifying when he's serious but refrains.
"I knew you would be coming soon," he tries.
Chopper glares at him. "Do not make me have Nico Robin leave a literal eye on you," he threatens.
"Chopper!" Sanji protests.
"Be good!" Chopper says.
"I'm always good," Sanji says innocently.
"Lie to me again and I'll tell Luffy he needs to stay with you twenty-four, seven in order for you to get better."
"You wouldn't!" Sanji says in horror.
"I would," Chopper says. "I know how to use my powers of deviousness for the betterment of my patients and I will not hesitate."
Sanji opens his mouth, remembers that Doctorine was Chopper's mentor and closes it with a snap.
"No one will ever believe how evil you can be," he tells the little reindeer sullenly.
"I know," Chopper says serenely. "Now, is the pain dulled enough that you can do your exercises?"
Sanji mentally checks in and nods.
Chopper checks the stump over first. He'd explained that he was making sure that the wound healed over properly, that there were no spots on infection trying to bloom, that there was enough blood circulating there, and to ensure that the swelling stays down. Making sure that the stumps shrinks is important apparently, to the healing overall.
"You're doing really well," Chopper tells him, examining the stump. "Your swelling is going down and I'm not seeing any inflammation or infection." He puts back on the tight compression sleeve and replaces the bandages. "Good job!"
"I'm not doing anything," Sanji huffs. His head is turned away. He really doesn't like to watch when the bandages come off. Maybe that's cowardly of him but he thinks he can be allowed this one thing, for now.
"Of course, you are," Chopper says. "Your body is doing a lot of hard work and it's doing it well. Now come on, exercise time."
They run through the gamut of physical exercises Chopper has devised for his arm in order to work it back up to strength. It was depressingly simple. Sanji hates how much it takes out of him. But the exercises have been increasing in difficulty and complexity over the days, so tries to take some kind of satisfaction out of that.
He fails mostly, but works hard to keep his frustration hidden. Chopper doesn't need more of his temper, not after everything he has done and is still doing.
They finally finish the exercises and Chopper releases him from his hooves, with a glass of water and an admonition to call him if the pain gets bad.
A couple hours after Chopper leaves, Sanji is lying in the bed, tracing the by now, all too familiar seams of the infirmary's ceiling. He wants to move. He wants to get up and pace the deck and feel the wind and see his galley.
He wants to be able to cook. To make boeuf bourguignon and salmon en papillotte and bouillabaisse. And a stupid amount of meat for his insatiable captain. And drinks for the girls. And whip up another batch of cotton candy for Chopper. And simply feel the joy from doing something he's good at, something he enjoys.
It grates at him. Even more than not being able to smoke and not being able to get out of this stupid bed except for bathroom breaks.
It terrifies him that he might never be able to do that again, to move with the same ease, half-on instinct from how familiar it all was.
He knows his nakama are building him an arm, but there's no guarantee that it will have the same range that his own flesh and blood one did. There's no guarantee that the pain will ever stop, even with a prosthetic.
It makes him want to cry. But he's cried too damn much already so it makes him want to scream. To lash out and hit everything, to jump into the ocean and simply float beneath the waves where everything was simply and calm and blue.
He wants to strangle his past self. Sometimes he wants to strangle his nakama, scream at them, asking where the hell were they??? Why hadn't they come on time?
Sometimes he wants to kick himself for everything he is feeling. He knows he wouldn't be here if they hadn't come for him. Sometimes all he wants to do is sleep until everything gets better again and he doesn't have to endure the doing of it all.
The downward spiral of his thoughts is broken by the infirmary door cracking open. He expects it to be Chopper, coming in to check on him. Instead, orange curls poke in. Nami smiles when she sees he is awake.
"Nami-san!" he says, struggling to inject his usual amount of cheer. She knocks a finger against her lips quickly and then, looking around, slips into the room.
Sanji struggles to sit up, only for her to thwack him slightly on the head, a poor parody of her usual hits, before helping him sit up and stuffing a few pillows behind his back.
"What is it?" he asks softly, still flush with the pleasure of Nami assisting him.
"I snuck in," she says back in a hushed voice. "Chopper said to let you sleep, but since he's asleep right now, he probably wanted to rest without having to fend of the others."
Sanji lets out a huff of laughter. "Is Nami-swan breaking the rules to see me??!"
He gets that light cuff to the back of his head again and she says, "Behave, or I won't share any of this with you."
Curious, Sanji looks to see what it is she takes from her pocket and makes a delighted sound when it turns out to be a tangerine.
"Nami-swan!!!" he says overcome.
"Hush!" she shushes him. She sits in the little chair next to the cot and begins peeling off the rind with practiced motions.
She peels off a section and hands it to him before taking one for herself. They don't say anything, simply sitting and eating alternate sections of the delicious tangerine. Its one of the things Sanji likes best about his nakama, that sometimes silence is okay, that they can simply exist in each other's company with no need for small talk; each doing their own thing at times but in the same spaces.
It's not quite something he'd had back at the Baratie. He treasures the easy company.
There's an uneven number of tangerine sections so they split the last one, giggling about the juice spilling down their fingers, trying to lick it up before it gets too far.
Nami-san eventually gets up to get a wet cloth to wipe off the residual stickiness. Once they're both clean and all traces of the illegal tangerine visit has been disposed of, Nami-san unceremoniously pulls away the pillows from under his back, forcing him to lie back.
"Nami!" He protests as he goes down. She snorts with laughter at his no doubt surprised face before, replacing one of the pillows behind his head.
"Chopper did say you need to rest," she responded with a wicked grin.
Sanji groans and throws his remaining arm over his eyes.
"I am so tired of lying down," he grouses.
He hears a little sigh and then Nami's fingers are combing through his hair.
"I'm sure you are," she says. "I think even I would be. But you got really hurt this time Sanji-kun. You're much, much better now, but you did not see yourself when we first got you back. I'm afraid you'll have to forgive us for being protective a bit longer."
Sanji groans again but sighs. "I'm sorry, Nami-swan, I never wanted to put you in distress."
He gets another light tap on the head.
"You can't apologize for that you idiot," she snaps. Then sighs. "It wasn't your fault Sanji-kun. And…we do what we must for our nakama. There's never any apologizing for that."
And she's right…but Sanji has never been able to put the same logic into play when it comes to himself. He can't explain why though, so he doesn't, simply leaning into the feeling of Nami's fingers tugging lightly through his hair.
After another long moment of peaceable silence Nami asks, "Did Usopp talk to you?"
"Mmmm?" Sanji has to rouse himself out of the relaxed stupor he'd fallen into.
Nami is grinning at him when she repeats her question. Flushing Sanji says, "He did."
"So….What do you think?"
"About the arm?"
"Uh-huh," she nods.
"I'm glad," he says, honestly. "I didn't even think of it. And if it's even half of what they say it might be, that'd be more than enough."
"Oh please," Nami says, "As if they'd settled for half." And Sanji can't help but huff out a laugh. She's so smart and beautiful, their Nami-san. She always knows what to say.
"Franky and Usopp are building me an arm," he says. Nami tilts her head at him a little confused by his almost non-sequitur.
"My nakama are building me an arm," he tells her. "That's insane."
Her expression clears as she understands and she laughs.
"You cook multiple exotic dishes for a captain that eats as much as ten men and a crew that's not that much better, along with snacks, drinks and the occasional new dish that you wanted to try that day and still manage to have time to play a round of cards. You're not any more normal Sanji-kun," she says patting his cheek.
"Hey!" he protests but she ignores him with another laugh. That's okay, he can listen to Nami-swan laugh all day.
Zoro POV:
The days pass slowly.
Franky and Usopp spend most of it in the Franky's workshop working on the prosthetic for the dartbrow cook. Zoro's hung around enough to know he doesn't understand a word that they're saying. Neither can he figure out a single thing that's on the diagrams they're constantly redrawing and referring to, besides the fact that they are very, very complicated.
He knows that they consult the cook on every stage not only so that the design suits him as best as possible but also because Robin had said that having some input in it might help the swirlybrow to accept the prosthetic as a part of himself. The cook, despite saying that he wanted something pretty simple, was giving their resident cyborg a headache with the number of sensors he wanted. Franky keeps mumbling under his breath about how absolutely insane the human sense of touch is and how replicating it mechanically is a pain not only in the aft but in the starboard and port sides too. Zoro had slipped out of the workshop and went to find someplace quieter to sleep after the fifteenth repetition of that one line.
The cook on the other hand seems to be healing up a bit faster than he had been at the beginning of this whole fiasco, finally trending towards his usual rate. It seems like his body is finally starting to regain the upper hand over his injuries.
Zoro knows this because Chopper had come out of the infirmary and had collapsed face-first into his stomach and cried tears of sheer relief due to the fact that the cook's chest wounds were finally closing up and that most of the bruising on his legs were gone.
In fact, with the dartbrow becoming more ambulatory, sterner measures needed to be enacted to keep him from trying to get up and move around before Chopper said he could. Zoro plants himself outside of the infirmary door as a last resort while Robin, with her usual penchant for subtility, picks out the most interesting novel she can find and reads it to the cook.
This manages to keep the cook abed for two whole days which, honestly not surprising considering it was Robin and also the book was very, very good. Zoro is kind of mad that the stupid love cook interrupted the scheme with a well-timed escape attempt because he really wanted to hear the end of the story.
But alas, ero-cooks would apparently always be a pain in the neck because around three o'clock one morning, Brook, on watch, finds a somewhat shaky cook sneaking out onto the deck.
Being that it was three o' clock in the morning, with a light to medium fog combined with the cook's pale complexion, Brook had thought he'd found a ghost instead and the resulting scream had woken up the whole ship.
They'd stumbled out of the cabins ready to fight only to find Brook and cook screaming at one another because apparently having a skeleton screaming at you at three o'clock in the morning in light to medium fog wasn't any less terrifying for knowing the skeleton.
Chopper had taken one look at the situation, changed to heavy point and had thrown the cook over his shoulder. The dartbrow had cussed out not only the reindeer but also Chopper's mother, Chopper's antlers, his rumble balls and the entirety of Drum Island the whole way back to the infirmary.
It was kind of impressive, Zoro had to admit, since he didn't repeat himself throughout the whole tirade. In fact, the swordsman had turned to find Usopp mouthing some of the more esoteric curses to himself to commit them to memory.
Unfortunately for the cook however, his little escape attempt had had the unintentional effect of garnering Luffy's attention. Not that the captain hadn't been paying attention to the curly brows but he'd let up on the suffocating hovering, giving the cook some space. After the escape attempt though, Luffy had thrown himself bodily over the cook after breakfast and then proceeded to say, "Hi Sanji," every five minutes or so.
The sheer torture of this had the desired effect of keeping the stupid ero-cook confined to bed long enough that the scabs around his ankles wouldn't break open if he tried to walk. Which, to Zoro's infinite amusement, only took another day and half, which meant that the idiot cook had subjected himself to torture via idiot captain for almost no reason at all.
But finally the stupid cook was cleared to leave the infirmary for short walks on the deck. He was to be accompanied, Chopper had warned both the crew in general and the cook in particular, because the ero-cook's stamina was not what he would expect it to be, and also because he was still on pretty strong pain medication and wouldn't know how badly he overextended himself until the drugs wore off.
Zoro, parked outside the infirmary door, watches as Sanji listens to the entire lecture Chopper is giving him. He nods at all the right times during it and, sure that his recalcitrant patient understands what he can and cannot do, Chopper finally releases the chef from the infirmary for his first walk.
The stupid cook pauses outside in his first patch of sunlight, seemingly soaking up the warmth and light, face upturned to the sky. Then, after another moment to gain his balance on the gently rocking deck, he promptly sprints barefoot down the deck towards the figurehead.
There is a moment of absolute silence on the deck before Chopper is hollering after him at the top of his lungs.
Luffy and Usopp are chortling and cheering him on while Nami shrieks "Sanji-kun what are you doing?!"
Brook is staring, jaw comically agape and Robin is giggling behind a palm looking like she knows she shouldn't laugh but can't help herself.
"That idiot!" Zoro says hypocritically, watching as the dartbrow makes a turn and charges back to the stern of the ship still at top speed. Chopper is hot on his trail but his little legs in brain point can't keep up.
Franky comes out of his workshop, clearly drawn by all the commotion, blinking in the sunlight as Sanji charges past him.
"Cook-bro noo!" He says belatedly when he finally registered who had run past.
Sanji goes all the way up to the forecastle before stopping and doubling over breathing hard. His right hand is braced on his thigh, his left is still strapped to his chest, where Chopper had immobilized it earlier.
And he is laughing. Stuttering laughter in between his gulps for air, but laughter nonetheless. He straightens up, turning his face up to the sun again, looking so openly happy, Zoro almost can't begrudge him his stupid actions.
The cook gets a second of peace before Chopper lands bodily on his shoulders, still shrieking at him.
They rock precariously for a second before the cook regains his balance, clearly still thrown off by the lopsided way his body is balanced now but still stupidly skilled enough to keep his feet in the force of a furious doctor.
They aren't alone for long though. Luffy rockets up to meet them, landing smack in front of his cook, and grinning up at him, his familiar 'shi shi shi' echoing around the ship. Usopp is right on Luffy's heels, and Nami right on his, screeching something around raising the cook's debt for stupidity.
Zoro huffs and follows them. It had been getting a little too quiet here without the curlybrow to provoke.
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