Chapter Text
“Well, well, Sanji’n,” Heracles said. “Lookin’ spiffy, lookin’ spiffy! You’re gonna knock the ladies dead, I can tell.”
Cheeks red, Sanji cleared his throat and nodded. There was something about Heracles that reminded him of Zeff -- if the old geezer’s kicks were replaced with a withering lack of social graces.
“Thanks,” he said. “Only I’m not sure -- I mean, do you really think I don’t need a tie? Because I could definitely--”
“Sanji’n.” Heracles’ voice was resolute. “It’s not the tie you wear that counts, son. It’s the tie around your heart.”
Sanji slowly nodded and let that one slip by. Then he stiffened, barely holding back a retch as the towering beetle behind Heracles flapped its wings and buzzed.
“Right, right,” Heracles nodded, reaching back to give the… horrible thing a pat on the horn. “Best be going now, Sanji’n. Don’t worry! I’ll stick around in case the Marines’n give you any trouble. And, hey, feel free to come back to Boin! We’ll always have some food that needs eatin’ up, if you don’t feel like cookin’. And you don’t mind the island tryin’ to eat you back.”
“Right.” Sanji paused, and gave Heracles a genuine smile. “Thank you. For everything.”
And then he walked out into Sabaody.
The archipelago was awash with noise. All around, voices spoke and shouted, twining together into a pulsing thrum of excitement, anger, commerce, romance. The wind rustled the mangroves. Below it all, the sea drummed the roots, a constant drumbeat behind the din.
Compared to Boin, it was a library at midnight to Sanji’s ears.
He strolled between the groves, eyes scanning the crowds. He didn’t see any of the crew immediately. But then, who knew how they’d changed? He knew he had…
He had only just resolved to head toward Rayleigh’s and hope to find some of the crew there when he felt the fight start. Sanji’s head turned. He paused, staring northwest, and concentrating on that rising sense of danger…
He felt the fury like a flame roaring over him. Sanji’s eyes widened. On the Boin Archipelago, he had awakened what he would come to know as Observation Haki to detect carnivorous plants lying in wait, and more importantly, tiny bugs trying to crawl into his nostrils while he slept. Both had something in common: their presence was miniscule, barely a trace of a human’s, and required enormous sensitivity and acuity to pick up on. He’d gotten very, very good at it. What he was feeling now was orders of magnitude bigger. He’d felt something like it only once before: when he’d managed to identify the massive, ravenous presence that was the island, burning with a bottomless, thoughtless hunger…
Sanji’s legs carried him without a thought. He kicked off from the ground and leapt from trunk to trunk, crossing the distance of four groves in as many strides. As the scene came into view, he saw the woman.
And, unfortunately, that was when his brain stopped working.
Sanji dropped into an earth-shaking landing, interposing himself between fair maiden and foul brigand. Arms crossed, he faced down the evil bastards and declared: “You want her? You’ll have to go through me.”
About this time his brain started to work again, and he realized two things.
First, the trio facing him looked familiar. But, like, weirdly familiar. There was an old man in sunglasses with a limp slick of blue hair and a Hawaiian shirt, a portly man with green hair and swords, and… oh, god. Was that really what people thought Sanji looked like? It didn’t take a genius to see a gang of Straw Hat impersonators.
Second, they looked absolutely terrified.
“Sanji?”
And there was the damn mosshead’s voice. Sanji gritted his teeth, counted to five, and turned around.
But there was no mosshead. Just an audience of shocked people standing back from the action at a safe but still viewable distance, and the woman, who was --
“Sanji. That’s you, right? You look a lot more real than those dickheads, anyway.”
And the woman’s mouth was moving, and oh god she had green hair . Sanji’s brain kicked into high gear, and he started to notice other things: like how the woman’s modest kimono was secured with a familiar haramaki, and how she just so happened to be holding a sword with two more at her hip, and how although her garment was cut to conceal the wearer’s curves, it didn’t, in point of fact, seem to have to work very hard at all…
Sanji’s mouth caught up faster than the rest of him and coughed up a slightly strangled “Zoro?”
“Oh, it is you,” Zoro said, and looked Sanji up and down. “You gained some weight, huh?”
At once Sanji’s mouth went dry. He blinked rapidly, and --
Behind him. “Behind you,” Zoro called, but Sanji was already raising his right foot and bringing it down with a stomp.
The ground slid. There was a shriek and a clatter of metal as the fake-Zoro lost hold of his swords, and his companions tumbled over as the shockwave swept their feet out from under them. The crowd of spectators gasped, some turning to run, but the landslide stopped perfectly a foot short of them. Sanji didn’t really notice.
“I… well… I…” He couldn’t stop his hands. They went to the hem of his shirt, pulling it down -- had it ridden up? No! No, it hadn’t, it just felt like that, god damnit, why had Heracles let him off the island like this, he knew he was making a mistake, and now he could feel every too-small inch of fabric against his too-large body, and it was getting harder to breathe --
Zoro was next to him. Right next to him, so close Sanji could smell his perfume. Perfume! Roronoa Zoro, the Pirate Hunter, wearing perfume? And one that complimented the ever-present tinge of blade oil, and the light hint of sweat from the archipelago’s tropical heat?
Sanji felt the fingers on his bicep. He looked down. Zoro was squeezing gently.
“And muscle,” he said. “Impressive. Might be bigger than me, now.”
Sanji managed to string three words together. “I doubt it.” He paused, working on another sentence, and twitched his head to the right just in time to let the bullet pass. Too late, he realized he probably should have pulled Zoro out of the way, or maybe warned him. But, as he watched, Zoro’s neck twisted, sending his hair flying out in a horizontal sheet -- and then it froze midair just in time for the bullet to meet its edge and split cleanly in two, one half spiraling up into the air, the other deflecting down into the earth.
Sanji watched Zoro’s Armament relax, and his hair drop back to his shoulders. Then a realization tickled his brain. He sighed.
“Don’t tell me… Four Sword Style.”
And then Zoro gave him something he had never known him to give so freely: a smile and a laugh.
“You like it?”
“I--” Sanji was cut off by the shouts of the spectators to the east.
“Marines!”
“Maybe we should continue this… discussion later.” Zoro leaned to the side, peering over Sanji’s shoulder, and grimaced. “At Rayleigh’s?”
“Yeah.” Sanji nodded. “Sure. Only--”
Again , he was cut off, this time by Zoro putting a finger over his mouth, actually touching Sanji’s face, which would have been, well, unthinkable in the first place two years ago, but also a fighting offence if it did happen, and yet somehow Sanji didn’t feel even the slightest need to throw a kick. And it wasn’t that Zoro looked like a woman, because this close, he didn’t. He looked like, well, a man with long hair and makeup wearing a kimono. And he looked very, very good.
“Rayleigh’s.” And Zoro actually winked . “Don’t keep me waiting, cook.”
And then he turned and melted into the crowd.
Sanji stood stock still for a few seconds. Then, as the approaching Marines got close enough to shout, he pushed off the ground and ran through the trees, mind buzzing with the shock of new ideas.