Work Text:
“What did they do to you?”
“Huh?” Sanji turns to glare at the idiot swordsman. It was a lazy afternoon on the Sunny and Sanji had shut himself up in the kitchen to work on an impressive dinner that would hopefully satisfy everyone, Luffy especially. It had been a while since he’d truly felt invigorated by his work and now Zoro was ruining it, distracting him and disturbing his flow.
“I said, what did they do to you?” Zoro says. He’s leaning against the doorframe to the kitchen, arms crossed and glaring right back at Sanji. His earrings catch the sun as it prepares to set and Sanji is momentarily stunned as he watches the tiny flickers of gold dart around his kitchen. “You deaf?”
“What did who do to me? You’re going to have to be more specific, marimo.” Sanji turns back to his work with a scoff, pointedly ignoring the whole deaf comment.
“Tch,” Zoro snaps and falls silent.
“Well if you can’t be bothered to get specific, get out,” Sanji says. “I have work to do.”
Zoro’s entire jaw clenches in anger and Sanji braces himself for a verbal retaliation, or maybe even a physical one, but instead Zoro just seems to swallow back his momentary rage. “Fine,” he says. “Be that way. I’ll ask later.”
“Will you remember to actually give me any specifics?” Sanji yells after his retreating figure. Zoro shoots him the finger without even bothering to turn around.
With a scowl, Sanji lashes out and kicks the door shut, sealing himself once more inside his kitchen. Hopefully Zoro’s brief interruption hadn’t impacted Sanji’s vigour too much. He needs to do something really, truly nice for the crew and the subpar food he’s been serving lately isn’t cutting it. Too much time has passed since that and Sanji hasn’t even begun to make up for the hell he put his friends through. Hopefully a five-star banquet fit for a king will start him on the path to making amends.
It’s not that Sanji thinks the others are angry at him. Well, not much at least. From their end, everything is probably forgiven. The only thing is, Sanji has done nothing to deserve that forgiveness, and that’s why he has to truly earn it, even if it kills him, even if his heart is still tearing itself apart from the pain and shock his family put him through.
A meal isn’t much, but it’s one of the only things Sanji can bring to the table (heh) and so he’ll try.
“Really,” Zoro says, when the crew has settled down for the night and even Luffy is full and content from the massive dinner Sanji prepared. “What did they do to you?”
Sanji raises an eyebrow at him, lips twitching into a displeased frown around his unlit cigarette. He’s on watch and for some reason Zoro’s decided to bother him again even when he should be sleeping in preparation for his own scheduled look out time. “I thought you were going to give me something to go on this time,”
Zoro huffs and scowls and refuses to elaborate like the stubborn asshole he is.
“I’m not a mind reader,” Sanji snaps. “If you want a straight answer, give me a clear question. If you can’t even give me that then piss off.”
“What did they do to you? Your family. What did they do?”
Sanji stiffens. The cigarette falls from his mouth and into the ocean below.
“They,” he says, voice trembling from poorly disguised anger. “Are not my family.”
Zoro opens his mouth, maybe to apologise, maybe to not, but Sanji ploughs on regardless.
“And whatever they did to me is none of your business. Besides, haven’t the others filled you in yet. Told you what happened.” Sanji stares down at his wrists where the physical proof of what he went through lingers. He flexes his fingers, takes simple pleasure in the fact that he still can.
“I didn’t mean what they did to you then. I want to know what they did to you as a kid.”
As…a kid?
Zoro wants to know happened to Sanji as a kid?
“W-why do you care?” Sanji hates the stutter that slips through, hates the mere thought of appearing even the slightest bit weak in the eyes of the swordsman.
Zoro shrugs, the bastard. Why does he get to act so casual as he pulls the very world out from underneath Sanji?
“Well if you can’t give me a reason then I won’t tell you,” Sanji says. It’s a fight to keep the wobble out of his voice. “Since you don’t seem to care.”
“Wait,” Zoro says. His hand reaches out and catches the sleeve of Sanji’s jacket. “Wait, I…I do care.”
“What?” Sanji splutters.
“I do care,” Zoro stares at him, eyes just as intense as they are when he’s staring down an opponent or talking about his dream.
“But why?” Sanji says, because that’s what he’s caught up in. He can’t seem to work out why Zoro suddenly seems to care about him.
“Because,” Zoro looks away finally, clearly embarrassed. “Because you’re part of this crew. Because…because you’re my friend.”
Duh, Sanji almost says, because they might fight constantly but everyone on Luffy’s crew is friends with each other regardless of any personal beef. He stays silent though, because it’s one thing to know you’re friends with someone and another thing entirely to admit it. He and Zoro don’t call each other friends, it’s not a thing that they do. Now though…now Zoro’s saying it.
“I want to know what they did so I can understand,” Zoro says, voice gruff and awkward and yet he continues anyway. “Like…like how knowing about Kuina helps people understand me. I want to understand you.”
“Idiot,” Sanji whispers. “Like I’m that easy to understand.”
“What did they do to you?” Zoro asks, and there’s this finality to it, as though if Sanji were to deny him one last time then he would never ask again.
Sanji reaches a hand up and runs it through his hair. It’s such a simple movement and yet every time he goes to do it, there is this brief yet heart stopping beat of fear where he expects his fingers to meet metal. Every night when he falls asleep, there is this horror lurking on his subconscious, this deep, primal dread that maybe he’ll wake up and everything has just been a dream, a fevered hallucination conjured up to attempt to deal with his imprisonment.
Sometimes, when one of the crew reaches out for him, Sanji will flinch away.
“What did they do to me?” he echoes, staring out over the ocean. “They did enough.”
“Enough?” Zoro’s voice is rarely soft and yet never a quieter word has been spoken.
“Enough to fuck me up for life,” Sanji says, and there’s a laugh at the back of his throat, bitter and all too easy to choke on. “And don’t tell me I’m not, cause I am.”
“But-”
“But nothing, Zoro. It’s just a stupid fact of life. Luffy wants to be the pirate king, Nami loves gold, Sanji Vinsmoke is kinda fucked up.”
Zoro flinches and Sanji stares at him, confused.
“Their name,” Zoro says, and there’s something in his eyes that Sanji can’t place. “Why are you still using their name?”
Sanji’s heart stops. His mind drags up the past ten seconds, plays it on repeat for him time and time again even as his body shuts down.
Sanji Vinsmoke is kinda fucked up.
Sanji Vinsmoke is kinda fucked up.
Sanji Vinsmoke is kinda fucked up
Sanji Vinsmoke is kinda fucked up.
Sanji Vinsmoke is kinda fucked up.
Sanji Vinsmoke is kinda fucked up
Sanji Vinsmoke is kinda fucked up.
Sanji Vinsmoke is kinda fucked up.
Sanji Vinsmoke is kinda fucked up
Sanji Vinsmoke is kinda fucked up.
Sanji Vinsmoke is kinda fucked up.
Sanji Vinsmoke is kinda fucked up
Sanji Vinsmoke is kinda fucked
Sanji Vinsmoke is
Sanji is a Vinsmoke
Sanji is a Vinsmoke
Sanji is a Vinsmoke
Sanji Vinsmoke
Sanji Vinsmoke
Sanji Vinsmoke
Sanji Vinsmoke
Sanji Vinsmoke
Sanji Vinsmoke
“No!” he yells and the world snaps back into action. “No, I’m not one of them. I’m not a Vinsmoke!”
“Then why did you call yourself one?” Zoro asks, and oh, Sanji had almost forgotten he was there.
“I didn’t mean to, obviously,” Sanji says, trying to get angry and yet clearly failing miserably, only succeeding in sounding more pathetic than usual. “It’s…it’s not an easy habit to shake.”
“Sure it is,” Zoro sounds confused. “None of us ever knew your last name until all that shit went down.”
Sanji laughs, because that’s certainly one way of putting it. “Well, by then, I hadn’t been a Vinsmoke in a long time. And I’m still not a Vinsmoke, don’t get me wrong. It’s just…fresh.”
Surprisingly, Zoro nods in acceptance. “Makes sense,”
“Good,” Sanji turns back out to the ocean since hey, he’s meant to be on watch.
He and Zoro manage to stand in peaceful silence for a while and it’s sort of nice. The sound the Sunny makes as it carves a path through the water is soothing and Sanji lights another cigarette, breathes in the calming smoke and almost, nearly, not quite but kind of smiles.
“You still haven’t told me what they did to you,” Zoro says and ruins whatever it was they had going on.
“Do you really want specifics?” Sanji snaps. “Isn’t it enough to know that they were dicks and leave it at that? Are you gonna get off on my pain or some shit?”
“No,” Zoro snarls right back, almost sounding hurt. “Fuck, Sanji, weren’t you listening to a word I said before? I want to understand.”
“Weren’t you listening to me?” Sanji yells. “As if I’m that easy to understand!”
Zoro slams a fist against the railing, and it splinters upon impact. “Can’t I try?!”
What?
“What?”
“I said,” Zoro tugs his hand free and cradles it, an uncharacteristic moment of vulnerability. “Can’t I at least try?”
Try?
Never one for putting in less than a hundred percent, why would Zoro ever have any reason for wanting to do things unless he’s sure it’ll go the way he wants it to. Doesn’t matter if things turn out bad, it all started because Zoro was entirely sure he’d get what he wanted.
So why now would he try so hard to understand Sanji even without any guarantee that it’d ever happen?
“I just want to be better,” Zoro says. “Better at this.”
“This?”
“This, us,” Zoro gestures between them.
“Don’t be stupid,” Sanji flicks ash from his cigarette. “We’re fine.”
“We could be better,” Zoro says earnestly, and Sanji would find it almost endearing if they were talking about anything else at all.
“And hearing about my tragic tale of woe would do that?” Sanji drawls. “Fat chance.”
“Stop being so stubborn.” Zoro growls.
“As if I’m the only one being stubborn here.” Sanji shoots back. “Why can’t you let this go?”
“Because it clearly matters!” Zoro cries. “Because you still carry them with you and I want to know how someone could hurt you so much that you stop being you! God, Sanji, is it really so hard to accept that I care about you?”
Sanji recoils. “I…”
Yes…yes, it is hard to accept that Zoro cares about him. He and Zoro have a thing and it works, damnit. After all this time of being rivals, of constantly clashing and butting heads, Zoro can’t expect Sanji to just turn around and start acting like they’re close enough to get deep with each other.
Can he?
They’ve been through a lot and it’s been hard, but they’ve always had each other’s backs. At the end of the day, Sanji would die for Zoro, and Zoro would do the same for Sanji. That sort of trust just doesn’t stop when the battle is over. Or, if it does, it shouldn’t.
Keeping secrets was what got Sanji into this whole mess in the first place. Maybe if he’d been more open with Luffy, maybe if he’d explained who he was back when he first joined the crew, none of this would have happened.
Maybe, if he tells Zoro what they did to him, he really will understand Sanji better.
“I was meant to be emotionless,” Sanji says, and is surprised to find saying so doesn’t feel like a defeat. This is not a fight and he’s not losing anything. “Judge wanted perfect little soldiers, see, and so he gave mum this drug that would mean me and my brothers wouldn’t feel things like love and kindness and would instead give us enhanced abilities and shit. Mum found out though and took a different drug to try and stop it from happening. It only worked for one kid though.”
“You,”
Sanji nods. “Me. The third son of the Vinsmoke family. Sanji. Creative name, I know.”
“I never thought of it like that,” Zoro offers.
“Well, duh. It’s not like you knew I had other siblings.”
“…tch.”
“Because I was soft,” Sanji says. “Or at least, soft in their eyes, they picked on me. Or maybe bullied is a better word. I got beat up a lot and that made me cry and then they’d beat me up even more for crying, because crying was weak, and I wasn’t meant to be weak.”
“You’re not weak-”
“Don’t!” Sanji cuts in. “Don’t, Zoro, or I’ll just stop, okay?”
“Fine,” Zoro looks away. “But you’re not.”
Sanji sighs, and if it’s a fond one, well, hopefully Zoro doesn’t realise.
“Judge had high hopes for all of us,” he continues. “We were going to be the leaders of his perfect army. With our superhuman abilities, we would have been unstoppable. The thing was, I was still just an ordinary human. I wasn’t good enough for him and that meant when the others hurt me, he just let them. Maybe he thought it’d toughen me up. It didn’t, though. I’d just cry harder. Well, I guess eventually he finally realised I was never going to be like my brothers and decided to get rid of me. He locked me away in the dungeon and told everyone I had died. He put this metal mask on my head,” here, Sanji reaches up once more to run a stressed hand through his hair, checking yet again that the mask was well and truly gone. “and left me there to rot. My brothers found out eventually and they’d come to see me so they could beat me up. I lived like that for six months, in utter hell, until Reiju helped me escape even though she apparently ‘wasn’t on my side’. Judge caught me on the way out but he let me go on the condition that I never called myself his son.”
“And you didn’t,” Zoro finishes.
Sanji clenches his fists around the railing of the Sunny and turns to stare at Zoro.
“Don’t you get it?” he says. “I kept my end of the deal. I left there and I tried to forget it and I got a new dad and I found you guys and I did what he told me to do and he still thought he could come back and make me his again. That’s not how it was meant to go. I was meant to be free!”
“You are,” Zoro says.
“Yeah, for now,” Sanji huffs. “But who knows. Maybe this will happen all over again because it doesn’t seem like my stupid blood relatives are capable of learning from their mistakes.”
“Hey,” Zoro says, and he reaches out and places a hand on Sanji’s shoulder. “We won’t let them. I won’t let them.”
Sanji stares, first at the hand on his shoulder, and then at Zoro. He almost expects Zoro to hit him, because that’s the only contact they ever willingly make with each other.
“So, understand me any better now?” he says, trying for a sneer and failing. It’s a stupid attempt to regain a sense of control, because it’s not like he got too specific, but he had still just poured his soul out to Zoro in a way he has never done with anyone else every before. There’s another fear inside him now, and it’s the fear that now that Zoro knows all this, he’ll treat Sanji differently.
“No,” Zoro says, surprising Sanji yet again. “You were right. I don’t understand.”
“Told you,”
“I don’t understand why they did that to you, and I don’t understand why you’re still letting it get to you. It’s over. You’ve proven you’re stronger and they’re finally going to leave you alone. Why are you still scared?”
“The same reason you still think about Kuina every day,” Sanji says. “Because it’s not that easy to let go. Because I can fight them and beat them all I like, but I’m still going to carry what they did to me wherever I go. Like it or not, I’m a different person because of what happened to me as a kid. They did that to me and it’s not something I can just let go. Every day I am a living reminder of Judge’s apparent failing as a king. Do you think I could just forget all that?”
“I guess not,” Zoro says slowly. “I can hope though.”
“Huh?”
“I can hope, can’t I?” Zoro says, a challenge if ever there was one. “I can hope one day you won’t carry them with you. I can hope one day you’ll finally realise you can let them go.”
“I guess,” Sanji says, because he’s twenty-one and nothing feels like it’s changed, not when his family can apparently show up in his life again whenever they want.
“I heard you told Judge to never call you his son again,” Zoro says.
“So?”
“So that’s good.”
Sanji snorts. “Whatever you say, marimo.”
This time when they fall silent, Zoro doesn’t ruin the mood. Instead, they stand there side by side, scanning the endless ocean around them as the Sunny cuts a relaxed path through the water. It’s a calm night and it almost feels as though they’re tempting fate, asking for an attack or a sea monster or something else that will wake the others up and send them scrambling.
Nothing happens though, and eventually there’s a sound from below and Brook emerges to have his stint on watch. If he seems surprised to see both Sanji and Zoro up, he doesn’t voice it.
“Don’t worry,” Sanji tells him. “We’ve got it.”
“Really?” Brook’s voice is as smooth as always.
“Yeah,” Sanji turns and meets Zoro’s eyes. “I don’t think either of us will be sleeping much tonight. Might as well spend it on watch.”
“Well if you’re sure,” Brook says. He turns on his heel, only pausing briefly as he does. “It’s good to see things are back to normal.”
Yeah, Sanji thinks. It is.
“Oi, cook,” Zoro says when they’re alone again. “Thanks.”
“I thought Brook said things are back to normal,” Sanji flicked Zoro in the head. “What’s with you suddenly thanking me? Feeling sick?”
“Geeze, can’t I say something nice for once?” Zoro grumbles. “Why do you always think I’m being a dick?”
“Cause you usually are.”
“Only cause you’re a dick first.”
“Touché,”
“Thanks,” Zoro says again, and there’s no room for arguing so Sanji decides not to. “For telling me that. It can’t have been easy.”
“No,” Sanji rubs one of his cuts with the other hand, barely keeps a wince back from the pain. “Though, nothing ever comes easy with them, why would talking about it be different?”
“One day,” Zoro reminds him.
“Sure,” Sanji says, though the bite is gone from his words. “One day.”
One day everything you took from me will be mine again.
And with Zoro at his side, that day is sure to seem closer than ever.
“Thanks,” Sanji says. He doesn’t elaborate but he thinks Zoro understands all the same. He’s weird like that.
They both are. Can’t fit in on Luffy’s crew if you aren’t.
Yeah, Sanji thinks, inhaling deeply and then exhaling. There’s no weight on his head, on his arms. The wind tosses his hair and his fingers hold steady to the railing. Zoro is soft at his side in a way he rarely is but Sanji appreciates it. Below them, the crew sleeps, gaining strength for whatever new adventure they’re sure to face tomorrow.
This is Sanji’s home. This is his family. This is where he belongs.
What did they do to you?
Nothing I can’t beat.