Chapter Text
Sanji cooks pike for dinner again.
There’s a groan among the few sat at the table when he brings it out, setting down the plates. Not everyone comes for meals any more, more often than not asking Sanji to just cover their plates and leave them in the fridge; initially, some members of the crew had tried to skip meals altogether, saying they weren’t hungry. Sanji had let it slide once or twice; he’d lost his appetite, too, in the wake of what had happened. But once Luffy had gone a full day without eating anything at all, he’d put his foot down — you don’t have to eat together, but you have to eat. No exceptions. Sanji wouldn’t be able to call himself a cook if anyone starved on his watch.
The crew hadn’t all sat down together for a meal since before this had all started; not once. Sometimes only one would be absent; others, Sanji would come out to an utterly vacant dining room, his arms loaded with hot, unclaimed plates.
It had made him lose his temper, once or twice; Luffy despondently telling him to throw his dinner away, Nami pushing a piece of potato around her plate like she was hoping it would disappear. It would always make him angry, historically, but now his rage is unpredictable and unmanageable. He’d snapped. He’d shouted at a woman. Everyone had left the table unhappy, and Sanji had sat alone at the empty dining table, his head in his shaking hands, and chain-smoked. Zeff would kill him if he saw him now.
The crew has all but checked out, avoiding themselves and each other, avoiding thinking about what came next. There didn’t seem to be a next. They were suspended in a snowglobe of inaction, sinking themselves deeper and deeper into their collective depression.
Sanji didn’t have that option. Sanji’s job wasn’t one that depended on action or environment. Sanji’s job was long, and consistent, and couldn’t care less what the circumstances were. It was a basic need for survival, one that Sanji had always shouldered, and taken pride in; without him, they would die. It’s that thought that keeps him standing on the days he wants little more than to throw in the towel and act like the rest of them, sit and sulk alone in some quiet spot of the ship; it’s that thought that gets him out of bed like clockwork, each and every morning, before the sunrise. He takes the responsibility like it’s his reason for breathing.
The others can’t be strong right now. Sanji has to be.
Sanji has to be the core pillar for them. Sanji has to be the caretaker for them. Sanji has to be okay, for them.
But he’s made pike four times this week.
“Again?” Nami asks, her bottom lip pushed out slightly. Sanji had apologised to her after his outburst, but she was still careful not to seem ungrateful around him. Zoro, not so much.
“Is this a joke?” His voice is cold and incisive, but there’s that anger stirring beneath it, ready to flame accusatory in a moment.
“It’s dinner,” Sanji responds flatly.
“You’ve got to be joking.”
“No one’s laughing.”
Zoro shoots him a look of disgust, but says nothing. Sanji looks away, setting down a plate in front of Chopper, and Nami fidgets with her fork, eyebrows furrowed nervously.
“Sanji-kun, maybe it’s not such a good idea to—”
Abruptly she stops, because Chopper has started to cry silently, his small shoulders hitching up and down. Sanji’s eye twitches.
Chopper cries a lot now. Anything and everything sets him off, from jokes to the sight of their Jolly Roger, and it’s unbearable. At first, it had just hurt, just a voice for what they were all feeling; they all wanted to cry. After the first week, it became tiring. Now it just made Sanji annoyed.
“Stop crying already!” he exclaims, slamming down the last plate with enough force to make the cutlery jump. Obviously, Chopper only cries harder in response, the silent tears going to a full wail. Sanji wilts immediately, hating himself, and freezes for a moment before crouching down beside Chopper.
“I didn’t mean that,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry. It’s okay if you need to cry.”
Chopper looks at him with those big watery eyes, his lip quivering, and Sanji holds his hand out, expecting Chopper to rush into his arms like he normally did; instead, Chopper just holds his gaze a moment longer, then hops off the bench and runs out of the kitchen. Sanji’s stomach tightens, and he hangs his head, hand still hovering awkwardly in the air.
“Shit,” he mutters. Nami bites her lip and quickly stabs a piece of broccoli with her fork, not wanting to say anything; Zoro shakes his head.
“If you’ve got something to say, spit it out,” Sanji says, rounding on him. Zoro just shrugs, avoiding his eyes.
“I’ve got nothing to say.”
“Yeah, I bet you don’t.”
Sanji runs an agitated hand through his hair, and curses again.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” he mutters, and chases after Chopper, letting the door slam behind him.
Sanji doesn’t like how short his temper’s becoming. When he’d made his resolution to keep his head up for the rest of them, he’d pictured endless patience and compassion; the face of his mother. He hadn’t wanted his emotions to get the better of him. As it turned out, trying to bottle them had only made them worse; surprise, surprise. Now it all came out of him in bursts of anger, like a pot boiling over its lid. Sanji had never been the type to chastise others for emotion; that had always been Zoro’s territory, part of why he got on Sanji’s nerves so goddamn badly. But Zoro had been keeping to himself, his temper low, and meanwhile Sanji was here at breaking point; snapping at women and crying children. It was everything he stood against, but there he was.
He wonders, sometimes, with a sick stomach, if it’s in his blood. If it was his father living inside him.
Judge wasn’t his father. But Zeff, too, for all the wondrous things he’d done for Sanji, for all the countless ways he’d saved him— he too was a harsh man, a man with a temper. Kitchens always ran hot-blooded. Sanji feels it sometimes, creeping up, that urge to snap; over the years it had become something he was good at recognising and shutting down before it crowned, before he let it hurt anyone other than himself. But right now he was a mess, and he wonders if he should’ve just let his despair be despair, instead of leaving it to ferment into something uglier.
He wonders if that’s just something innate to men.
He sees it flash in Zoro’s eyes too, a brief and intense shadow cast across his features; that look always stood out more to Sanji than Zoro’s usual glares, because that one seemed to have real rage behind it. He said rage; in its nascent form, perhaps it was sadness, or confusion. Distress. Fear. Zoro hated seeing people cry, that much was clear.
It all came out as rage, though.
(He wonders, too, if that was what had happened to Usopp. If that unspecified period of time for which he felt weak and worthless, gone unspoken, crammed behind corners and under carpets, had calcified inside him until the tears became a fist.)
Sanji understood what it was like to feel weak. To constantly feel like he was struggling to keep his head above water; to trip and fall and watch his siblings’ backs retreat further and further into the light while he sat behind in the dirt, a failure. Left behind.
Sanji had been stronger when he knew Usopp was cowering behind him. He’d hit harder, moved faster, sure, but beyond all that he’d felt stronger. He’d felt more the man that Zeff wanted him to be; not the hero, not the savior, not the white-knight fantasies that perhaps he’d let himself get carried away with every now and then. Simply a good, decent man. The way, Sanji thought, all capable men ought to be. Protecting women and those weaker than him not for want of reward, but because he should, and he could. And in Usopp’s case, there was nothing he could’ve given Sanji as reward, anyway, nothing Sanji wanted from him but his safety.
Sanji had simply been stronger when Usopp was around. Stronger when he knew there was someone behind, believing in him.
And occasionally after they’d been in one scuffle or another, had Usopp charged into danger or Sanji left him unshielded a moment and left him with some bruise or bandage to show for it, Sanji might’ve approached him afterwards, when no one was around; sorry I couldn’t protect you. And Usopp would just grin and wave his injury proudly (because he’d take any opportunity to try and look the tough guy) and say cheerfully, hey, man, it’s not your job. Thanks for looking out for me, though.
The thing is, that was rare. More often than not Sanji didn’t have the balls for that kind of sincerity; instead, he’d slip into the mode of action that was so, so much easier around other men, and just get angry. ( Why’d you go running into the fight like that? Idiot. You’re lucky you got away with just that, y’know, next time they’ll take your whole dumb nose off. To which Usopp might’ve got defensive, or gone on the offense— aw, were you worried about me?— and the argument would escalate, sometimes into something real, sometimes into one of the crew’s generic over-reaction theatres.)
Sanji would feel low, though, on the times he shouted Usopp down. It was weak of him, he thought, to turn to misdirected anger when the alternative was too much; when the thought of showing vulnerability, of being seen vulnerable was so abhorrent that he’d rather make others regret getting that close at all. That was just one more thing Sanji hated about men.
(Except for Usopp. Usopp hadn’t done that. Usopp hadn’t been afraid of crying, of telling people he was worried about them, and in that sense he’d been braver and more honest than any of them. Until the day he broke.)
Chopper is in the infirmary as Sanji suspected, sat crying on his chair in the dark, his back turned on the door. The door was a little ajar, but Sanji knocks lightly anyway, announcing his presence, and goes in with soft footsteps.
“Go away,” Chopper hiccups, not turning around. “I’m mad at you.”
Sanji sighs, eyes dropping to the floor, and he crouches down beside Chopper’s chair, spinning it around so they’re facing each other.
“Okay, but is that what you really want?”
Chopper sniffles and blows his nose, drawing in sharp, shaky breaths. Then his face crumples into fresh tears.
“No,” he wails, lip trembling. Sanji exhales with a soft smile, and takes a seat on the examination bed across from Chopper, resting his elbows on his knees.
“Chopper, I’m really sorry I yelled,” he starts, staring at his feet. “I was just annoyed at Zoro, and—”
“No, Zoro was right! Sanji, you’re messing with us!”
Sanji frowns, looking up at Chopper in surprise.
“Chopper, I’m not messing with you, I wouldn’t do that. Not now.”
“So why do you keep m—” Chopper stops to hiccup. “Making his favorite food? All the time? You’re trying to punish us, aren’t you?!”
Sanji’s startled by that, his fingers gripping at his knees.
“Of course I’m not trying to punish you, Chopper, I swear.”
Maybe he was trying to punish them. In honesty, the thought hadn’t occurred to him until now. Until someone said it out loud.
But Sanji didn’t think that was it.
Sanji-kun, this is like heaven, I swear. You outdid yourself this time.
You really think so? It’s nothing special, I just grilled it with salt.
But it tastes so good! I could eat it every day and I’d die happy!
It’s the most simple thing in the world. I’m sure you could make it just as good.
No, it’s not the same… it just tastes better when someone else makes it.
Your mom didn’t make it for you before she got sick?
Nah, she hated cooking. And cleaning… and shopping. I would just go fishing and grill it outside. But there was only really pike in the river.
Aren’t you sick of it, if it’s all you ate growing up?
Maybe if I was the one making it... I’d never get sick of it if you made it, Sanji-kun.
“...I’m sorry,” he murmurs, glancing at his hands. “He said once that he wished I’d make it every day. I didn’t make it that often, since no one else liked it that much. I guess I was just… subconsciously trying to rectify that.”
Chopper wipes his eyes with his wrist, fixing Sanji with a wide, teary look.
“Sanji,” he says softly, “It’s… it’s really nice that you’re doing that for him. But Usopp— Usopp isn’t here anymore. It’s just us.”
Sanji feels the tears well up, stinging at his eyes. It’s good. Like he’s clearing a pipe, a blockage somewhere. Chopper shuffles off his chair and climbs up to the bed next to Sanji, touching his knee sympathetically, and Sanji puts his arm around him.
“It’s just that— I don’t think anyone knows why you’re doing it. It’s making us sad, having to think about him every time we eat…”
Sanji bites his lip, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’d rather we stomach a painful memory than just forget about him.”
“No one wants to forget about him, Sanji. No one’s going to. There’s… there’s no way any of us could.”
“...I know,” Sanji whispers, and bows his head. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“And I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
“It’s okay.” Chopper nestles into his side, sniffing noisily. Sanji hugs him back, sighing, before opting to cut out the awkward height difference between them and pulling the reindeer up onto his lap, resting his chin on his forehead. The act of affection seems to trigger something new, because Chopper tenses, burying his furry face into Sanji’s chest, and clings at his shirt.
“I miss him so much,” he mumbles into the fabric, his voice breaking.
“I know,” Sanji says softly, blinking away his own tears. “I do too.”
“I feel so dumb.” His shoulders tremble under Sanji’s hands. “I keep crying all the time. And I think I woke everyone up last night because I couldn’t stop, and…”
“It’s okay, Chopper. No one minds. It’s okay to cry if you’re sad.” A deflated sigh. “No one can really sleep right, anyway.”
Chopper just sniffs quietly, clinging tighter to Sanji’s shirt, his tears making a damp patch on the fabric. Sanji strokes at the tuft of fur on his head softly, and tries a different tack.
“He wouldn’t want you to be sad, though. He probably would've said something like, shaddup, you damn reindeer! I’m trying to sleep! ”
Chopper laughs in spite of himself at the impression, that small, adorable, childish little laugh, though it doesn’t last long. Humour always managed to pull him back, if just for a moment. He breaks away from the hug gently, all cried out, and knocks his feet together idly.
“You’re really kind, Sanji,” he says, one little hoof coming up to wipe his eyes. “But don’t pretend like you’re not hurting, too. I think you’re hurting more than the rest of us.”
Sanji doesn’t know what to say to that, fixing his eyes on Chopper’s ears as they twitched about. Chopper’s quiet a moment too, then hurriedly leans back in, giving Sanji a last quick hug.
“Okay. I’m… I’m going to go ask Robin if I can sleep in her bed tonight. Thanks, Sanji.”
“...Okay,” he says slowly as Chopper hops down off his lap and waddles towards the door. “Thank you, too. Hope you feel better.”
Chopper gives him a big smile, and then he’s gone, leaving Sanji alone in the dim infirmary. As he leaves, Sanji catches a glimpse of orange hair quickly disappearing around the corner, and smiles, letting her go.
The dining room is empty when he gets back, but the other plates are gone from the fridge, so Sanji assumes the others must’ve came and went. He finishes his own abandoned plate and Chopper’s leftovers, opting to fix up something fresh for him as an apology— or as thanks. Both. He’s sure Robin has her own secret stash, but he throws in some candy on the side anyway for dessert, and leaves it outside the girl’s dorm with a note, knocking twice on the door and announcing it before he goes.
As he’s making his way back to the kitchen to clean up, he spots Franky up on the helm deck, sat dangling his legs over the side of the ship, and decides the dishes can wait a little longer.
“I’m sorry,” he begins, taking a seat beside Franky casually. He lights a cigarette and offers the pack over, which Franky wordlessly declines with a small flick of his hand. “For punching you.”
Franky snorts, that grizzled old chuckle; the laugh of a veteran. “You’re kidding, yeah? I practically made ya do it.”
“Yeah, well.” Sanji exhales, the smoke streaking off downwind. “I don’t like to get mad, so… today’s about making amends. I’m apologising to him for it, too.”
“To him?”
“Usopp didn’t want us to fight,” Sanji says. “Remember?”
Franky laughs tiredly. “Like I could forget that dumb little face pokin’ out of a sack. Imagine if he could see us now.”
“He’d hate us for this,” Sanji remarks. “All this fighting over him. Conflict. He hated all that macho bullshit.”
“Nah. That kid didn’t know how to hate. Not really.”
Sanji swallows, and nods. Nothing except himself, anyway.
Franky seems to think for a moment before sighing, and holding out his hand. Sanji just looks at it in confusion for a moment— does he want me to hold it?— before realising he’d changed his mind about the cigarette. Sanji smirks, and fishes the carton out of his pocket, slapping it into Franky’s open palm. He watches the cyborg pick one out with his comically massive hands, holding it between thumb and forefinger like a joint. It occurs to Sanji he needs a light, and he’s in the process of grabbing it to hand it over when Franky opens his mouth wide, chest tensing, and Sanji thinks he’s about to belch before a small streak of controlled flame streaks out like a blowtorch, neatly singeing the end of the cigarette.
“That’s handy,” he says with a bemused smirk, pocketing the lighter. Franky shrugs, sucking in smoke; burning through about an inch of the cigarette in one inhale.
“I ain’t much of a smoker any more,” he says, talking on the exhale, his words coming out muggy with smoke. “Body’s a temple, ‘n all that.”
“A temple that you demolished and replaced with a brutalist high-rise factory, you mean.”
Franky smirks. “Yeah. A cool ass temple.”
“A temple that takes no shit.”
“Hell yeah.” Franky pauses, taking another drag, and then coughs. “Shit. Sorry about your hand, on that topic.”
“My hand?”
Franky pats his jaw. “Metal. I forgot.”
“Tch.” Sanji exhales with a chuckle. “It’s not all that. I didn’t even notice.”
“Ooh, fightin’ words.”
“I’m a cook. My hands get damaged by me on accident worse than your puny jaw on purpose.”
“Smack talk from the baker! Colour me impressed, bro.”
“I’m not just a baker.”
“But you do bake.”
“...Yes.”
Franky laughs, burning through the remainder of the cigarette on his third inhale, and flicks the butt into the sea.
“You’re a good friend, y’know,” he says, exhaling through his teeth. “You’re doing a lot. Best you can, with what you got.”
“...Thanks?”
“Oh.” Franky chuckles, clarifying. “I meant for him. And them. But yeah, sure. Me, too.”
Sanji watches him for a moment, then mirrors his laugh, the smoke streaming out with it.
“You’re one of us now, like it or not. Best get used to it.”
“Aw, man. Don’t remind me.”
Sanji just laughs, and flicks the remainder of his cigarette after Franky’s, the sparks flickering down the side of the ship on their way to the water.
***
“I’m sorry,” Sanji announces, slamming his fist down on the table. He doesn’t know how, but he’s managed to score a full house in the dining room, every table setting occupied by a similarly dull, gloomy face of a crumbling family member, and he’s not about to let the moment slip. He’d locked both doors so no one could slip away while he was out of the room, and poured out everyone’s favorite booze (except for Chopper, who would just have a sugar rush in a glass) to get the tension a little less palpable. Admittedly, he himself is already a little drunk, which is probably why he feels so little shame in addressing them all like a maître-d.
“I’ve been making pike every day because I wanted to do something for Usopp, but Chopper let me know how everyone felt about it, so I realise now that was a dumb… dummy thing to do.”
“Hey, man, I liked all the fish,” Franky starts, but Robin elbows him.
“So, to say sorry, I made everyone’s favorite food.” He starts to circle the table, laying dishes out as he goes. “Franky, you’ve got gourmet burgers and triple-cooked hand cut fries. Robin- chan, a selection of sandwiches, bruschetta and a light soup… Chopper, it’s not nutritious but tonight is an exception, so you can have cake. But you have to eat all of this fruit, too.”
“Okay!” Chopper sings, ecstatic.
“Nami-swan, my mellorine, for you I have roast aromatic duck with a sweet orange sauce and citrus summer salad… for the mossball, a sashimi platter with sesame rice on the side. And for Luffy, uh… well, it’s just meat.”
“Meat!” Luffy snatches a piece off the plate before Sanji’s finished setting it down, chomping furiously. Sanji sighs and takes his own seat, gesturing lightly to the rest of them to start; immediately the table’s awash with approving noises and various compliments, someone whining about Luffy stealing food, another hissing about being kicked under the table. Sanji smiles, watching them for a moment, because it’s a sight that he’s missed desperately, truth be told, even if there was someone missing.
“Sanji-kun,” Nami says through a mouth of duck from across the table, peering at his plate. “What have you…?”
“Pike,” he answers with a smile, and sips his wine.
“Sanji…” Her voice is sad, sympathetic.
“I know.” Sanji gives her a gentle look, breaking off a piece with his fork and stabbing it against some potato. “But I thought I’d have it one more time.”
Nami pauses, looking at him with concern in her eyes for a moment longer; then it melts away into a smile, and she gives him a small nod.
“That was nice, Sanji,” Chopper says with a satisfied sigh, as they start to filter out of the dining room one by one. “I’m gonna have good dreams tonight.”
“Yes, it was nice,” Robin adds warmly, and leans down to pick Chopper up. “Even if you did have to pen us in like farm animals beforehand.”
Sanji shrugs, smiling. “I don’t know when we’re all going to have dinner together again, so I figured I’d make it count.”
Robin smiles back, her eyes soft. “Well, thank you. It was kind.”
Sanji pauses a moment, feeling a little embarrassed, but meets her gaze. “...You’re welcome.”
She smiles again, like she knows something, and nods. “Goodnight, then.”
“Night-night, Sanji,” Chopper says, waving over Robin’s shoulder.
“Don’t forget to brush your teeth,” Sanji calls after him, wiping his hands with a tea towel. The rest follow suit after Robin and Chopper in a similar fashion, thanking him and bidding goodnight, Nami complaining that she was going to burst.
“Jeez,” Zoro says to no one in particular as he goes, tutting. “So dramatic.”
“Oh, of course you’d find fault,” Sanji grumbles.
“Not complaining. I’m just saying, that was a pretty grand gesture.”
“All the fish I gave you was off. Hope you’re shitting all night.”
Zoro rolls his eyes, not rising. “Yeah, right. ‘Night.”
“Night.”
Luffy’s the only one still sat at the table, pressing his cheek against the wood beside his plate, drawing circles in the leftover sauce with his finger. Sanji takes the plate away before he makes a mess, eliciting a whine.
“What’s the matter?”
“Still hungry,” Luffy mumbles.
“Yeah, figures. That’s why I made you two more plates.”
“...Oh.” He sounds uninterested. “Really?”
“No. But that reaction told me you’re not still hungry.”
Luffy groans, rolling his head over to crush his face flat against the table; Sanji takes a seat.
“Y’know, food can’t fix everything,” he says, handing Luffy a napkin.
“Normally it does. Normally meat makes me feel better. But I feel worse.”
Sanji sighs, scratching idly at his jaw. He knew all too well what that felt like, but Luffy wasn’t good at dealing with negative emotions; this was the most normal Sanji had seen him in… well, since it happened.
“You seemed happy at dinner,” he offers lightly, hopeful. Luffy rolls back onto his cheek, picking at the grain in the wood with one idle finger.
“I think I was pretending.”
Sanji blinks, surprised. “I didn’t think you could pretend.”
“I don’t know.” Luffy exhales, continuing to fidget. “It’s not like I was faking. It’s just… easier. I don’t know how I’d act at dinner, if I didn’t act like that. I just wouldn’t have come.”
“Sorry for making you come,” Sanji says weakly. “I didn’t want to make things worse.”
“You didn’t. It was tasty. Everyone was happy. It was good.” Luffy’s face is stone. “It hurts.”
Sanji watches Luffy’s finger as it digs in and out of the wood’s grooves, and sighs. He pulls out his cigarettes, and lights one.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I know.”
Luffy sighs, and gets to his feet like a corpse, arms limp at his sides.
“Goodnight, Sanji,” he says, and he goes, placing one hand on Sanji’s shoulder as he passes.
Sanji understands. The night had been an act on everyone’s part; a brief respite from the tireless monotony of grief. At some point, suffering became exhausting. You wanted it to stop. So they had all pretended, for a couple of hours; they had all exaggerated their every reaction, their sincerity, their happiness. Playing house, where once they had simply been house. It was forced, everyone could see, squinting through their drunkenness. Nami’s laugh was a little too high and a little too loud; Zoro’s smile didn’t extend to his eyes. Through the warm orange glow of evening, it had felt real enough, though. If you shine a harsh light on anything, the cracks will start to show, just as sure as the wood grain in the table’s surface now had trapped droplets of sauce in it, darkening the pattern.
Usopp had loved to overreact, though, loved to exaggerate. It was almost like he couldn’t understand nuances, or perhaps he’d understood them so well that it scared him. He preferred things to be cartoon-like, loud, colourful; spelled out in theatrics, like how you taught emotion to toddlers by hugely overperforming every one. Usopp laughed way too loud and way too easily, at virtually any joke; he’d screamed and enacted panic even when sometimes, Sanji thought, he probably wasn’t even really that scared. Force of habit. He did it because he wanted others to do it, too; he provoked, annoyed Zoro on purpose even when he knew it’d get him chased around the ship for an hour, talked Nami’s ear off about his own imaginary achievements until she got bored and slapped him; stole spices from the pantry or hid inside a cupboard just to jump out and scare Sanji.
In truth, Sanji had stopped being surprised by Usopp’s pranks after pretty much a day of knowing him. But he’d still jump, shout, pretend to be angry and chase Usopp around the ship while the latter half-giggled, half-shrieked in terror. Usopp liked reactions. He was scared of being ignored.
Sanji supposes that’s why, as Nami had told him, Usopp had relentlessly spent every day of his youth purposefully drawing the ire of his entire village, calling catastrophe, vandalising their houses ( Usopp-was-here) even when they chased him down with sticks and bats, saying each time that it was the final straw. Even that sort of treatment, to him, was preferable to being forgotten.
A compulsion. Like watching a fly crash into a glass window over and over again.
So Sanji had played along. Like a lighthouse, signing back to a ship lost out on the waves. I am here , the ship’s signal blinked, flashing again and again into the dark, bellowing into the void for anyone who could hear; I exist .
I know , Sanji had blinked back. I can see you. It’s alright .