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Assistant: Title: Language of Loss, Language of Love
        Author: 8ball 8ball 
        Chapter: 1/2 
        Summary: Here’s the thing he quietly decided long ago: he will forget his native tongue in favor of common words, and leave the past in the past.
        Contents: Chapter 1: 1
    

    


  

  
  
    
    
  -o-




  “You say funny words in your sleep.” Is the first thing Sanji wakes to, eyes flying open and then closing as the ache in his head dulls to a steady pound. Dehydration pain in the back of his f@ck@ng skull, he realizes. He blindly reaches out for a water cup, hand flapping over the weirdly soft skin of Luffy’s face. Luffy just laughs, as if Sanji hasn’t just woken up from whatever his latest life threatening injury was. 
 
  “Like what?” Sanji croaks, finally grasping the cool pitcher of water Chopper always keeps for reawakening patients. The whole crew has a neat little regime for the critically injured, but the cook always feels like he’s scr@w@ng it up by not being the one ready to prepare the iron and protein rich meals. Whatever, he thinks. It’s his own blood loss at least. 
 
  “You said-'' and here Luffy pauses, makes a face like he's trying to use his brain cells, god help him. “It sounded like 
  
    Beeth-oo
  
  .” 
 
  Sanji is very careful to put the jug back down, swallow the water, look anywhere but his captain. He knows the dream he was having, an unsavory loop of chasing after his not-brothers, begging them to let him join. A time when he’d been young enough to seek inclusion over safety. He knows what he had once cried out. 
 
  “That’s weird.” He replies, thinking of that word. 
  
    Bittu, bittu, bittu. 
  
  How often had he gone running down hallways, shouting that word for 
  
    wait. 
  

  It makes him nervous, a little sick too, to think that he was letting the old North Blue words slip out of a place in his mind he kept very carefully locked. He glances cautiously at Luffy, but the boy is fiddling with the edge of the blanket, head lolling to one side and then the other. Somehow it feels like Sanji has contaminated him with that one word, like he’s thrown up on him or something else vile. 

  Luffy just keeps looking at him, waiting for god knows what. Or maybe he’s just looking the way Luffy does, the way children are allowed to and the way Sanji will always let Luffy look, because you don't tell the sun to turn it's head. A part of Sanji wants to look back, and the other part wants to close his eyes for a long, long while. Instead he looks down at the bandages taking up space on his skin, some still tinged with a little red. 
 
  “Do you-,” Sanji begins, cuts himself off and rethinks the question. Asking Luffy if he knew any other languages feels ridiculous, and would accomplish nothing in the end. Feeling blinded by how white the bandage on his arm is, he goes ahead and blurts out the only other thing on his mind. “Are you sure about- me? As your cook?”
 
  He’s not sure why he wants the answer now, when he’s been living in a state of blissful ignorance for a nice couple of weeks. It could be because ever since they left the restaurant and got Nami back, he’s been thinking about life- without. The Baratie and Zeff’s existence without the whole of him, Sanji, running around and being so much of too much. A him without home, or a home without him. 

  But it could just be that Luffy’s weight on the side of the bed is like a stone in his pocket, and drowning in the abyss of all that confident power is actually a gentle, kind thing. Luffy looks up at him with those enormous, child-like eyes that have a depth no sea could match. He leans in on his elbows, chin in hand as he seems to take the entire existence of Sanji in.
 
  “I wanted Sanji.” He says, very simply. Then he grins. “And I have Sanji.”
 
  Sometimes it's like Luffy could tear open the fabric of the universe and pick out the answer to all of life, simplifying it to the core of existence. It’s an ability that terrifies Sanji some days and p@ss@s him off others, and at the end of all hours it will be yet another of the thousand millions billion reasons he walks in the boy's shadow. But that’s all just logistics. What matters is this; the captain’s word is gospel truth, and his cook is a devout follower. 
 
  “Yeah,” He says, brushing his thin fingers adoringly through the soft black hair. “You got me.”



  -oOo-



  
    What is the heaviest thing you carry?
  
   He wonders about the weight a language holds. The weight of his own debt wedded to the weight of his past. The weight of his dream measured by his lifespan. Fruit is usually heavier than vegetables because of the water density in the juice. Meat with higher protein will tip the scales more. The average medium-sized cast iron skillet is 3.6 kilograms, but he likes his to be an even 4. How much does his own body weigh when it's lost more than a fourth of its blood and limp like a rag doll? How much would it weigh dead? 

  Morbidly, he thinks about that. About how one day, no matter what, someone will be forced to touch his decaying, cold body. Maybe it will be Luffy, or Chopper, or Zeff. Maybe they’ll have to peel a bl@@dy shirt from his gray skin and dress him in cotton or linen or silk. Maybe they’ll have to place coins on his eyelids to weigh them shut, deceiving the funeral goers into an image of slumber. Or maybe he will die on an enemy ship and be tossed overboard like a spare thought, and he will sink into nothing and exist as a memory. Is he supposed to come up with his own burial rights? He should tell someone he never wants to be buried in the dirt- that if he wakes up on the other side in a coffin in the mud with insects eating his eyes, he’s going to scream for the rest of eternity. 

  He gets out of his bunk and makes his way to the galley, not even bothering to change out of his pajamas. It’s 4am, no one else will be up anyways. 
 
  Here’s the thing he quietly decided long ago: he will forget his native tongue in favor of common words, and leave the past in the past.
 
  There are layers to this the way there are layers to everything, starting with the foundation of wanting to 
  
    forget
  
  . When he hears Judge’s voice it’s not in the common tongue, it’s in the North Blue language, and so closing off those particular sounds to his ears is like closing a door, desperate and easy all at once. He hates the language because it reminds him of his not-father shouting order after order, demanding 
  
    faster
  
   and 
  
    stronger 
  
  and 
  
    better
  
  . All the things Sanji couldn't be. The children grew up speaking the new dialect, the one that sounds clipped and was mutated by the world government into a more universal alphabet. Like a child stolen away to be raised by people who didn't even want it. So Sanji speaks the common tongue with everyone else, and the old b@st@rdized language dies in his memory. 

  He grew up on a ship that spoke nothing more than a regular dialect and plethora of curses anyways. Anything more does not exist. 

  But the language was also his mother's language, and when he thinks of her he hears her too, and it’s a painful thing. She made the hard cut words seem soft, and so even though the truth is that the language is ugly and harsh and cold, Sanji remembers bits of it as perfect. So try as he might to forget every noun and verb and adjective, they haunt him. He wakes to words like 
  
    ekki 
  
  and 
  
    tala
  
   and 
  
    smjor. 
  
  More than one occasion he’s had to bite his own tongue, fatigued and forgetful on the verge of blurting words he half knows. What if people can hear it in his voice, the way smells linger on his clothes? What if he wakes up one day forgetting how to communicate with everyone because all the words get scrambled? What would happen if he asked Chopper to pass the salt in a language he himself barely knew? 

  The galley door creaks a little when he opens it, and he starts gathering ingredients by the light of the open window. In his hand the smoothness of an egg feels forgin and disturbing, as if his own body 
  
    knows
  
   they're supposed to be warm little things instead of cold. 

  Is he even allowed to forget an entire language? If he forgets all the words, does the common tongue still hold all the 
  
    meaning
  
   he grew up learning? He’d secretly afraid that if, one day, he finally lets go of every North Blue word he’ll end up struck dumb without any reference to the other language he knows, and from then on he’ll struggle around the ship like a child, pointing at objects as if to ask 
  
    what is that? A-pple? Is that right? That's an apple? 
  

  He makes panna cotta. He makes white chocolate truffles with raspberry puree. He makes tiramisu. He’s in the mood for the food of indulgence, for that which is not necessary. He wants excess and lavishness. He wants proof of life in the form of overabundance. 

  
    I could eat as much as I want
  
  . But he doesn't. He puts the truffles in little separate boxes and labels them, puts a ribbon on the one for the Nami. Pauses and puts a ribbon on all of them for everyone. He cuts the tiramisu into perfect, even squares and puts a sprig of rosemary on each plate. The panna cotta is really only meant for one or two people, and he tries to look inside himself and say 
  
    just f@ck@ng eat it
  
  . It's almost 6am. 

  Instead of eating he goes back to the bunk room and changes, taking aside three shirts that look like they could use ironing. Across the room he takes careful note of the rise and fall of warm bodies in beds, safe and secure. The slight light from the half moon reflects in his locker mirror, and a haggard thing stares back. Sanji pulls his tie right up against his throat and then pulls it a little tighter. This is how he remembers to breathe. 

  When he returns to the galley the panna cotta is gone, and he finally feels his heart slow to a steady rhythm. 
 
  -oOo-



  “Aren't you p@ss@d at your dad for leaving?” 
 
  Maybe this isn't a conversation to have while drunk. Then again, maybe it's a conversation to have 
  
    because 
  
  he’s drunk. Either way, Usopp doesn't look offended and even swings an arm over Sanji’s shoulder, leaning in like he’d got a secret to share. 
 
  “Oh, I was. Like when I was 13? It was like one day I just woke up and was so 
  
    angry
  
  .”
 
  Sanji remembers being 13. Finally feeling a little 
  
    correct
  
   in his skin after years of being too thin, and then suddenly being forced to deal with the betrayal of his body going through 
  
    changes
  
  . He’d been angry too. 
 
  “And now you’re not?” Sanji doesn't remember why he wanted to know. Possibly it's because he looks at Usopp and sees a really genuinely 
  
    nice
  
   guy, and he wants to know how that happened. Did some higher power decide that Usopp would be compassionate and likeable no matter what, or was it some great choice on the younger boys part, and why did that make Sanji so 
  
    sad
  
  ? 
 
  “Now I’m older.” Usopp corrects, taking a sip of beer like it was hot tea. “And I get it, because I left too.”
 
  
    How the f@ck are you like this? 
  
  How did he just brush it off like dust and then 
  
    smile
  
  ? They called you a liar, he wants to scream, 
  
    we
  
   call you a liar, doesn't that make you mad? 
 
  “Besides, it's not like my mom would’ve actually gotten better if he came back.” And the guy just 
  
    shrugs
  
  . 

  Sick moms, Sanji thinks. 
  
    Oh god. 
  
 
  “What the f@ck.” He pauses and scrubs at his face, steals Usopp’s beer and chugs half of it. “Does anyone on this ship have a mom who’s still alive?”
 
  It sounded a lot harsher out loud, and he winces. Beside him Usopp just makes a 
  
    pshhh
  
   sound with his teeth and just shrugs.
 
  “Sorry. Bad memories?”
 
  That's one way to put it. The cook shakes his head with a clumsy motion fueled by the beer, as if he can deny the whole thing. He wants to go back to Usopp and his sad but not 
  
    tragic
  
   life story, where the simplicity of a boy on an island making up tall tales is quite honestly beautiful. Questions burn in the back of his throat like 
  
    do you carry her in the way you pronounce certain words? 
  
  Did she use a silly voice to tell stories too? And why do these kind, patient women keep enduring the love of foolish men? 
 
  “Do you know any stories about the stars?” Sanji asks instead. 
 
  Come winter in the North Blue the night would stretch on for a few extra hours, resulting in daytime starlight. It had an odd sadness to it, distant in his memories of that particular time. Still, Sanji likes the stars and all their unreachable light, existing a million years away from him and his silly little existence. Beside him, Usopp grins. 
 
  “Do you know the story of the twin constellation, Castor and Pollux? You can see them holding hands if you look right.”
 
  Usopp goes on, launching into a tale about mortality and loss, two brothers separated by their father's blood. Sanji looks up, drawing the imaginary lines in the inky sky, putting the images into the great nothingness. 
 
  “I always wanted a twin. Like can you imagine all the pranks? I bet it’d be the 
  
    best
  
  .” The younger man smiles over at Sanji, the previous anxieties long gone in the wake of a new topic. Beside him, the cook plasters a thin smile on his face and bites the inside of his cheek.
 
  “Sure.” He whispers. “The best.”
 
  -oOo-



  After Drum he writes a letter to Zeff. After Alabasta he finally sends it. Half of the whole thing is just scratched out lines, because it occurred to him somewhere after getting his fifth set of stitches removed that maybe the old man didn't want to hear about his many, many near death experiences. That saying 
  
    dear sh@tty geezer, today I learned that it really f@ck@ng hurts to get caught in an avalanche 
  
  was quite possibly insensitive. He honestly isn't sure if Zeff would be concerned or not, and he’s a little afraid of the answer.

  So instead he writes 
  
    dear sh@tty old man, 
  
  and he makes lists and lists and lists of food he’s cooked out of ingredients he’s bought and mentions the deals his sweet Nami-san got at the market just for him. The better part of it is dedicated to the elephant tuna he’d procured, and he’d made his hands stop writing when he reached the edge of the paper. One single page of his slanted, slightly messy handwriting, thrown into an envelope before he could regret even putting the pen to paper. He pretends to forget about it, having crammed it behind the extra silverware in a drawer he hardly opens. Islands become ways of tracking time, and by the time they say goodbye to Vivi he knows he’s going to mail it like he knows Luffy will ask for food at 2:30pm. Written in the stars, as they say. 

  For some reason he never expects a reply. It's strange to think, but he’s lived and known Zeff for a rather good chunk of his existence, and he supposes that gives him 
  
    some
  
   right to care for the man. Reciprocated feelings though, he didn't sign up for that. It feels 
  
    presumptuous 
  
  to assume Zeff might like him more than a toleration, and if he dared to actually possibly care for Sanji? Disastrous surely. Dear god, what was he supposed to do with feelings of affection thrown his way? Accept them? He’s prefer a bomb. And anyways wouldn't it just be cumbersome if Sanji grew even more attached to the guy who saved his meager life? Not that the young chef had ever had any control over what he did and did not feel. God help him, he really did love too easily and he couldn't even bring himself to wish he didn't. Something about giving and being a little addicted to giving too much.

  All that to say the reply came and Sanji couldn't open it. The letter went right back into the extra silverware drawer and he made up it's contents ten times over. He made up the words like he’d made up food to eat on that rock, picking at the bones of a fat bird as if his ribs weren’t threatening to break through his skin. Maybe it said things he wanted to hear. Maybe one day he’d know what those things were. 
 
  -oOo-



  The romantic side of his brain wants to say that he and Zoro fell madly in love with each other, started dating, had s@x, and discussed sailing off into the sunset together and adopting whole crates of little orphaned children. Being 19 year old boys that didn't happen because they were too busy figuring out if the blood pumping through their veins wanted them to f@ck or fight. In the end they did both. 

  That's not to say Sanji didn't fall in love. Or, he developed a very unique love just for Zoro out of the neat, enormous space in his heart where all his Nakama resided, and it was a bit terrifying. On one side, it wasn't like it was a hard step to move from 
  
    I would die for you
  
   to 
  
    I would die for you and also I want to hold your hand, 
  
  but on the other it was definitely a 
  
    new
  
   step. It was all encompassing and a hard type of sweetness that cracked teeth and left Sanji drained, and somehow always always craving more. Zoro fits in the space against him the way no one else had before, and Sanji decided it was love before he even fully understood that kind of love. At some point he had looked over his shoulder and the swordsman was simply there, and it was immediately understood that not only did the cook 
  
    want
  
   Zoro there, but Zoro 
  
    would
  
   be there. 

  The b@st@rd still drives Sanji crazy. He has gross morning breath, but Sanji excuses it because Zoro kisses him very sweetly in the mornings, and who’d have thought sweetness would come from such a man? Zoro is not a soft and pretty woman either, but Sanji excuses this too. Love is blind and all that. More like his love is bound, gagged, and held at gunpoint by the unwashed mess that is Roronoa Zoro. Sanji doesn't really care though. The idiot makes him happy. 

  And that's strange too. It's all very strange. Sanji wasn't supposed to live outside of a prison cell, and then he wasn't supposed to make it off that rock, so to be sailing on the Grand Line in pursuit of his dream with the man he loved? Preposterous. Maybe he’d starved to death after all. 
 
  “Calm down.” Zoro says, when they’re lying in his or Sanji’s bunk and the blonde can't relax his shoulder muscles and feels like a body going through rigor mortis. “Calm down.” He says, brushing his thick, calloused fingers through Sanji’s hair and kissing the pounding vein in his temple. “Calm down.” He whispers against Sanji’s neck when they’re curled around each other on the medical cot, no doubt doing harm to fresh wounds but 
  
    god
  
  . Sanji is just happy to be alive. 
 
  “Don't tell me what to do.” Sanji replies, his heart rate already slowing, traitorously in love. 



  -oOo-



  Sometimes he has panic attacks and that's just a thing that happens. He gets so used to it that he forgets other people 
  
    don't
  
   have them, and the first time he has one in front of Nami she makes it spectacularly worse. Chopper explains it much better than he ever could, and once the navigator understands that Sanji 
  
    isn't dying
  
   she handles it a whole lot better. Luffy gets it in his head that food is the answer to all things, either because he strongly connects food to the cook, or because food always works for his own unusual body. This doesn't bode well for the blonde, and he’s very careful to explain to the captain that he needs space to breathe when he gets ‘extra stressed’, not a f@ck@ng eclair shoved in his face. He loves Luffy, but sometimes. Jesus. 

  Usopp, Chopper and Zoro handle it the best, unsurprisingly. Usopp knows things about anxiety and stress and kind of sort of hating himself sometimes. Chopper’s a doctor and pulls the professional card when he needs to, despite his age. Zoro meditates himself into a half comatose state of calm on the daily. Now that Sanji thinks about it, maybe that's why he has the ability to fall asleep at will. 

  He doesn't want Robin to see him like that. He knows she’s nakama and she is soft spoken and beautiful behind all the psychopathic tendencies, but he’s afraid of disappointing her. It's ridiculous, but there's something about her that makes him feel like he could be doing 
  
    better
  
   and he doesn't know why. Maybe he should talk to her about it. 

  It's not like he makes a habit of losing his sh@t in front of everyone, but it's a small ship, things happen. He’s not going to go scitter off into the storage hold every time he feels one coming, and 9 out of 10 times he can just go to the pantry and take inventory, which eases him into a better mentality. No one cares anyways. Everyones got their own sh@t. The sun rises regardless. 
 
  “Do you need- can I get you some tea?” Nami says, grimacing. She is incredibly bad at this and they both know it. Sanji loves her all the more for her well-meaning failure. 
 
  “I’ll be fine, Nami-san.” He says, breathing in for 3 seconds, out for 6. He smiles at her despite the tremor in his body, because he knows he 
  
    will
  
   be fine. Just 3 more seconds. Just 6 more seconds. Breathe out. 
 
  -oOo-



  Who do the stars fall for, the song goes. It’s in the North Blue tongue, the old dialect, and it sounds like someone clearing their throat in a way that shouldn't be beautiful but is. He thinks of his mom and the lullabies she used to hum but not sing, because Judge had forbidden her to teach his children the outdated old words. 

  The stars fall for us, upon us, the song continues. He doesn't understand how he understands it. Maybe it's something ingrained in the dna he didn't ask for. Maybe his mother had slipped the words to him in secret as a baby. Chopper and Luffy sway to the music and he wants them to stop. But they don't know the lyrics are about war, and he’s going to make sure they never do. All the North Blue songs are about death or waiting for summer or both. He’s glad he didn't grow up on some frozen island up there, but then again maybe it would have been preferable. 

  Who do the stars fall for, the song asks again in the refrain, and Sanji gets up. He needs to either not be here to listen or drunk enough that the words stop registering. His pale skin and pale hair and pale f@ck@ng eyes feel like open wounds he can't hide to these people. They’ll spot him in a moment, he’s sure, drag him down to be a part of something they think he wants but he doesn't. They’ll pretend to offer community for a family he’s far away from and he will absolutely throw up if that happens. 

  He catches Zoro’s eye from across one of the many giant fires, the light glinting off his earrings and making him look like something parents warn their children about. Sanji grins, tilting his chin in the direction of the black forest. 

  He smokes 4 cigarettes while he waits with his back against a tree, and Zoro ambles up beside him, steals the half finished stick and crushes it against the tree. It's a mutual collision when they kiss, like they both put in the usual 100% instead of the 50 and 50. 
 
  “I need you to f@ck me.” They’re far enough away from everyone else that he doesn't bother whispering. Zoro, the @ssh@l@, doesn't deliver right away. He likes to draw things out and work his way up and down methodically. He's clumsy like the concept of tenderness is new to him, and Sanji loves the idea of Zoro figuring it out on his own body. Of a man so dedicated and loyal as the swordsman committing himself to Sanji’s flesh and figuring out how to touch. He seems to find his rhythm, and kisses Sanji’s ears, brow, throat, and then murmurs the cook’s name like it will guide him away from death itself. 
 
  “Yeah,” he bites his lip, because there’d been an accent on the 
  
    ea
  
   sound, a 
  
    yah 
  
  instead of 
  
    yeah
  
  . Old dialect. A language of loss. He closes his eyes. 
 
  Zoro won't f@ck him. Zoro wants to have s@x 
  
    with
  
   him, and he drawls Sanji out of his shell, back to the real world where he doesn't want to be. But the swordsman translates him, writes his needs and wants and dreams out with his tongue. Reads him, not like a book, but like a mural. Holds his hand and says 
  
    I love you
  
   with the way his thumb brushes over Sanji’s knuckles. 

  Behind them the songs ends with a final 
  
    the stars fall for us, for us
  
   and Sanji thinks 
  
    shut the hell up. 
  
  Maybe the stars are f@ck@ng tired. Maybe they never wanted to fall at all. 



  -oOo-



  The first thing he does when he moves into Sunny is tuck Zeff’s unopened letter in the back of yet another barely used drawer that he will no doubt fill with paperclips and dented forks and one-use sauce packets. He unpacks his favorite dish set, then the sturdy Luffy-proof set, then the fine china teacups reserved for Nami and Robin. There's plenty of room for the seemingly hundreds of coffee cups that everyone in the crew has acquired over time. They should probably edit down their collection, but Sanji loves looking up and seeing all the worn colors and chipped ceramic and ugly logos. It's proof of durability. It's home. 

  Zoro sits at the new table and helps him sharpen knives. They’ve been spending a lot more time together recently and Sanji doesn't hate it. The new ship is much larger but they naturally move like it's still small, pressing their shoulders together in a hallway that could fit three of them. Sanji feels like a snail that's been dumped out of its shell. He can only imagine how Usopp is feeling. Zoro holds up a knife to the light, inspecting it critically and going back to the whetstone. He’s the only one Sanji’ll trust to do this, and it nearly makes him blush. The kitchen knives are not anywhere close to as sacred as the katana blades, but the crew has a funny way of tucking bits of their soul into the objects they carry. Would it be so unbelievable to believe his favorite fish knife had a little of 
  
    him 
  
  inside of it when Nami’s maps were always so warm to the touch, and Luffy’s hat seemed to glow in the evenings? It doesn't weigh more than a kilogram, he thinks. How does any of it even work. 

  Franky comes bursting in, loud and big with a louder shirt, and he’s so very odd. Sanji had hated him 
  
    so much
  
   when he’d learned it was this man who had hurt their sniper, and even now he’s working on unclenching his teeth around the guy. It’s a process though. His anger sticks to him like dried blood and he 
  
    wants
  
   to wash it all off, but he keeps missing spots. Luffy wanted him though, and he has to remind himself that Luffy does not make mistakes, despite the fact that Luffy chose Sanji. And then there was Robin, who seemed so fond of the strange, blue haired man, and who was Sanji to deny her anything in the whole world, when it made her smile? She was human now, finally. He could see through her skin. They were communicating in the same language for the first time. 
 
  “Yo cook-bro! I got an electric knife sharpener if you-
 
  “Absolutely not.” Sanji says, at the same time Zoro says “No.”
 
  Franky looks back and forth between them, and then grins like he just figured out the most obvious secret that the two men have never once tried to hide. The shipwright chuckles and slips out the door, wiggling his eyebrows at them over his shoulder. 
 
  “If I ever catch that pervert putting my sheet-folded serrated stainless steel fillet knife in a 
  
    machine
  
  -” He’ll finish what Robin started and castrate the bastard. He’ll cook his cyborg testicles in a parsley and cream sauce and serve them pan fried. Or f@ck it, he’ll throw all his genitals in a blender and make a f@ck@ng smoothie. He’s really got to address some of his anger issues. 

  Zoro’s smiling at him. It catches the blonde off guard, because it's a very open, fond smile, and it's not 1am and they’re not naked on the floor. It shouldn't be so surprising that the swordsman expresses his love in these occasional small ways, and yet. And yet. 



  -oOo-



  The thought process goes 
  
    I could die
  
   and then 
  
    that's ok
  
   and then 
  
    maybe it's not ok
  
  . 

  He does not not want to die. This is important. Maybe he’s never known this before. Maybe he’s known this the whole time and been pretending. He didn't have to run when Reiju pushed him, he could have just laid himself down in the middle of that civil war, buried himself under all the other nameless children whose people were becoming dead history. He didn't have to ration the food on that god forsaken rock, and he certainly didn't have to scream himself raw when the ship passed by. He didn't have to practice the kicks that Zeff taught him and he didn't have to clean all his wounds to prevent infection. These were his choices. He has always chosen to live. He has always chosen to 
  
    fight
  
  . 

  Now he stares at his hands and the small cuts on his palm, the bruise forming on his wrist. It’s been a long time since he’s been so weak on his feet that he had to push his body up with the strength of his fingers, pulling the full weight of his hideous self to a presentable height. The last thing his fingers had grasped was the skin of Zoro’s arm, warm and dirt-coated. Would his fingers always remember that feeling, that memory? Like a last kiss almost. 

  The mosshead is alive, he reminds himself. No one on the crew died, and they can't possibly continue to be so lucky. Sanji still doesn't know if he’s more scared or sad, so he decides to be angry above all else. Zoro’s not getting laid for a f@ck@ng 
  
    while
  
  . 

  Brook joins him on his seat in the rubble. Sanji likes Brook and his neat courtesy and soft voice. He likes that Brook takes pride in a pressed shirt and cravats and is never intentionally abrupt with his long, white fingers. A chef and a musician share the value of every bone in their hand, every movement. So what if Brook looks like death walking. He’s 
  
    nice
  
  . 
 
  “If you’d like to talk about it, I’ve been told I’m a marvelous listener.” Brook hums. “Even though I have no ears!”
 
  Sanji doesn't really want to talk about it though. What happened happened, and it was just as out of his hands now as it had been when Zoro knocked him out. Yes, there are things to unpack, but he’s tired. For once, he justifies his fatigue. 
 
  “What’s your favorite food?” He finds himself asking, reaching for a cigarette in his hoodie pocket. If Brook is joining the crew then Sanji will cook for him, and he will cook what will be wanted. 
 
  “Quite honestly, Sanji-san, I do not remember.” He says quietly, staring at Sanji. Or maybe starring off to the side. Sanji can't tell. “And I’m sure food is quite different now that I cannot taste, so please do not trouble yourself over me.”
 
  
    How dare you
  
  , Sanji thinks, nearly biting the cigarette in half. 
  
    You haven't eaten in 
  
  decades. 
  
    You have no idea how f@ck@d up that is. How much it's f@ck@ng 
  
  me 
  
    up.
  
   He wants to pry Brook’s mouth open and shove a roast turkey in there or some sh@t. Oh god, he thinks. I want to fill a skeleton with food. I’m losing my sh@t over a lack of digestive tracts and stomach acid. 
 
  “No one skips a meal on my watch.” Sanji says, maybe a little harshly. Brook’s eye sockets are enormous, devouring things. It might take some time to get used to them.
 
  “Of course not,” Brook backpedals, hands fluttering a little nervously. “I merely meant, perhaps, it might be 
  
    wasteful
  
  -
 
  “Feeding a person is not a 
  
    waste
  
  .” He snarls, fingernails biting his palm. “Even if you don't need it, even if you don't think you 
  
    deserve-
  
 
  He cuts himself off and tries to breathe, tossing the cigarette away into the terrain. There's a stain near his foot that’s probably blood, and he wonders if it's his or Luffy’s or Chopper’s or- inhale for 3 seconds. Exhale for 6.

  There are people starving somewhere and everywhere in the world. There are cruel people who do not deserve to live, but Sanji would feed them, he knows he would. He kills and will continue on killing, but he will feed and that's who he is. Is he doomed because he can't change this or is he forgiven? Who is the god of feeding enemies and hating themselves? 
  
    I deserve to live, 
  
  he reminds himself. 
  
    I deserve to 
  
  eat. 

  Tell me about yourself, Robin had asked, and Sanji had said 
  
    I’m a cook
  
  . He hadn’t said 
  
    I like the color blue
  
   or 
  
    I want all the spiders in the world to die
  
  , he had said he fed people. Because before he’d been a fighter, before he’d been a survivor, before he’d been a real son, he’d been a cook. Some people spend their whole lives trying to figure out what they want to be. Sanji had known before he’d even had a proper life to live. 

  If there are hungry people he feeds them, but what about the people he’s killed? What about the people he’s pushed aside and cursed at and left behind because it wasn't his problem? He’s become something so mixed with apathy and compassion and anger- a pirate for god's sake- he can't 
  
    afford
  
   to be kind to every single person. And anyways he doesn't want to save the whole d@mn world. He’s been over this; he just wants to feed those who are hungry. 
 
  “Are you alright, Sanji-san?” Brook asks, and Sanji wrenches himself violently back into his own body with the nicotine and the castle debris. Where had he gone, so deep inside his own head that he had forgotten that there was a talking skeleton beside him? Forgotten Zoro, fighting his way back from death. 
 
  “I’m fine.” He whispers, because if he says it any louder someone might call him out on it, and he can't have that. 
 
  “I didn't mean to-” But Sanji holds up a hand to silence him and leans forward like he’s trying not to vomit. 
 
  “It's fine.” He says, which is a lie. “As long as you eat.” Which isn't the whole truth. 



  -oOo-



  It takes days which accumulate to what feel like years for Zoro to properly wake up. Sanji’s there, waiting, so full of new curses and threats and most likely held-back tears that he’s ready to explode. He’s a f@ck@ng bomb ready to go off, and he kind of wants to go off, but then Zoro’s eyes open slow and steady, and thats it. Bomb defused. 
 
  “Elska thu.” Sanji whispers in the dark, and it was absolutely not what he wanted to say. But he feels the weight of each syllable in his throat, each word of that 
  
    love you
  
   on his tongue, and it all comes together to be the only words that are left, so he lets them crawl over his skin and hide in the corners of the room. He’s not even just saying it to Zoro, he's saying it to the ship, the ocean, the days gone by. He’s trying very hard to say a little of it to himself, because Luffy once told him to do so. 
 
  “Love you too.” Zoro croaks, sounding thoroughly damaged and broken, probably already half unconscious. Probably not even knowing what he’s saying, probably just letting the beat of his heart carry a sound, and isn't that a romantic little thought. 



  -oOo-



  
    Eggplant,
  
   it reads. 

  
    Glad to know you’re not dead. Patty says he saw your captain in the paper, got himself a wanted poster. Looks like it was just him and that fellow with the nose, and the swordsman who got filleted. I thought that broccoli head died. Make sure you tell your doctor you’re a stupid sh@th@@d who’s been smoking for a decade so he can yell at you. Get some proper rest. Don't die. 
  

  
    Zeff
  
 
  Sanji folds the paper into a tiny, bulging square and then tucks it in his breast pocket. Then he takes it out and stares at it for a moment before putting it right back in the drawer. That’s where it's been for two years anyways.  

  He makes seared tuna. He makes braised ribs. He makes a honeyed ham out of a sea pig that's so large it won't fit in the oven and he has to slice it up. He tosses 4 salads; a spinach with feta cheese, a raspberry vinaigrette, a sugared pekan and olive oil, sesame oil and seaweed. He makes twice baked potatoes and his favorite seafood fried rice. He makes salmon onigiri. He makes artichoke and veal ravioli. He makes a three tiered chocolate rum cake with clementine zest. He wants to feed the entire world, and he wants it to taste like home. 

  Luffy is drawn by the smell of the ham, and Sanji only has to kick him twice to get him to sit down and sit still. He looks at the scar staring back at him from Luffy’s chest, screaming at him that the world is bad and wrong and dark. He looks at Luffy’s face and his eyes which are saying the world is good and warm and bright. He gives Luffy the ham. 

  Sanji finishes the dishes at midnight with Zoro’s help, and then sits down at the table. Zoro kisses his cheek very gently, a hand warm and large on his shoulder, and then retires for the night. The cook picks up a quill and dips it in ink and sits there. 

  
    When the ship picked us up
  
  , he wants to write, 
  
    do you remember-
  

  How I held onto you and wouldn't let go until I passed out and the ship's doctor had to uncurl my fingers from your filthy, torn clothes. How I couldn't stop shivering when I woke up again and the captain came down and said 
  
    it's ok son, your dad’s going to be fine
  
  . How I was physically unable to step foot on dry land for months and how you never once sent me on supply runs because you understood that. How you taught me some f@ck@d up things and some really important things. How I had nightmares for the rest of my life. How I really did love you like a father this whole time, even if you never wanted me. 

  Sanji cannot bring himself to write such things though. Words like that require honesty and courage and he is afraid of very peculiar things like a father's love and gentle words. He is made of tender skin that was never meant to be thick and hard, and he made it so anyways. He has had to relearn the simplest ways of life through counting the calories of every meal and counting the inhale of each breath and counting the years he still owes to others. When he is tired he does not sleep because that feels like giving up. When he is sad he pretends he isn't because he does not have the right. When he is in love he does not know how to process. 

  
    Dear Zeff, 
  
  he writes. Maybe he’s not mature enough for that yet. He crosses it out. 
  
    Dear old man. 
  

  
    Still alive on my end. The crew keeps getting bigger, we’re up to nine right now. Franky and Brook don't have taste buds and Usopp accidentally inhaled so much pepper dust he probably lost all of his. Do you remember how much Luffy can eat? Heres a hint; it's a f@ck@ng lot. You never met Robin-can but you’d like her. She and Nami-san are the only crew members that eat normally. Our doctor eats more sugar than anyone I have ever met. Franky says it's ok that he eats lug nuts because he’s a cyborg but I think it's b@llsh@t. What's a metal nut gonna give you nutrients wise? Zinc? Chopper doesn't know either. Chopper is the reindeer who is also the doctor by the way. I cut back on smoking because someone told me they wanted to grow old with me, and I thought, why not. It sounds nice. 
  

  
    Don't die either you old sh@t,
  

  
    Sanji'
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