Work Text:
“Should be a quiet night for you. No other ships around and we’re on a pretty steady current,” the navigator reveals, dropping the thick blanket into the sniper’s arms, instantly missing its warmth in the frigid air.
“Get some good rest, Nami. Big day tomorrow,” Usopp gently says, referring to Robin’s birthday festivities.
It would be the archaeologist's first birthday married to Zoro, so everyone is hoping for and expecting the swordsman to go all out. Nami may have helped in the execution of some of Zoro’s plans, but the red-haired navigator would never reveal that to Robin, as Zoro did put an incredible amount of effort into planning his wife’s birthday. She can’t wait to see the smile on the archaeologist’s face.
Nami softly opens the door to what was once her cabin she shared with Robin, but after Zoro married the raven-haired archaeologist, Sanji moved into the room permanently with Nami after having to sneak time with her in the months before. Robin’s bed was then moved to the crow’s nest to give the married couple a bigger bed since Nami and Robin were the only crew members with king-sized beds. Not wanting to wake Sanji, Nami takes her shoes off at the doorway before she softly walks in her socked feet. Having grown accustomed to traversing this room in the dark, the navigator quietly pads over to her dresser, searching for some warm winter pajamas to combat the chill in the air.
“Nami,” comes Sanji’s voice in the darkness, his voice sounding slightly strained.
“I’m right here, Sanji,” Nami whispers, climbing onto the chef’s side of the bed since they both love to cuddle at night, particularly during the cold of winter.
“Nami!” Sanji’s voice calls, more desperate and louder this time as Nami feels her lover and closest confidant blindly grope the sheets to try to feel for her in the darkness.
“Shh, Sanji. I just got back from night watch. I’m not leaving,” she explains, reaching for Sanji’s muscled arms. “I’m not leaving,” Nami repeats, reaching out to brush Sanji’s bangs out of his face, having become extremely familiar with how to locate him in the dark.
“Nami, look out! He’s heading right for you!” Sanji suddenly yells, the chef beginning to thrash wildly in the bed, his feet kicking in every which direction, one catching Nami in the stomach.
When Nami pulls her hand off Sanji’s forehead, a substantial amount of sweat comes back with it.
Nami is no stranger to nightmares. She has woken Sanji up more times than she can even remember with her trauma surrounding Arlong Park and Bell-mère’s death at the hands of the fishmen. The navigator knows just how terribly frightening and real the nightmares can seem, almost as if she is re-living them in the real world.
“Sanji,” Nami begins to try to wake the anguished cook, shaking his shoulders firmly. “Sanji! Sanji, it’s time to wake up!” she continues, shaking him harder and turning to bedside lamp on.
Sanji suddenly bolts upright, clawing at the blanket and sheet that are now twisted around him. An anguished scream exits his lips, sounding so broken and raw that it breaks Nami’s heart. Tears well in his sea blue eyes, a few of them spilling onto his face, though he quickly wipes them away with the back of his hand.
“Nami?” Sanji questions in a broken sob, reaching for his lover and requiring the physical affirmation of her touch. “Love, is that you?” he queries, rubbing a hand down Nami’s cheek with the desperation of a man needing water in Alabasta’s desert.
“I’m here, Sanji,” Nami firmly says, not wanting Sanji to believe for a fraction of a second that she is a mirage. “I’ll always be here,” she promises, brown eyes holding Sanji’s gaze as she pulls him towards her body.
With them both sitting upright, Nami pulls Sanji to her, nestling Sanji’s head between her breasts.
Sanji instantly surrenders himself to Nami, nuzzling his face between her breasts before letting all his emotions out. Due to his current position against Nami’s chest, his sobs are muffled, but Nami can tell her lover is crying because her long-sleeve shirt is growing wetter by the minute.
“Shh, Sanji. It’s alright, darling,” Nami whispers, stroking Sanji’s hair and scalp tenderly, the cook instantly calming to the physical contact. “I’m here. I’m here, love,” she croons, softly humming one of the songs Bell-mère used to sing to her and Nojiko when they were children.
“Nami,” Sanji whispers, so much love and admiration present in just her name that Nami wonders why for all the Grand Line’s riches it took her so long to view the man before her as the truly amazing partner he is. “You’re safe,” he sobs, pulling his face away from her chest to press a soft, longing kiss to her lips. “You’re safe, thank the angels in Heaven.”
“I am. I am, Sanji. You keep me safe every day by just loving and caring for me.”
“I was… I was so damn scared. I thought… I thought he had gotten to you.”
Sanji doesn’t have to specify who the “he” refers to. Nami knows that it means Sanji had a nightmare about Vinsmoke Judge, the man who just so happened to father Sanji solely in the biological sense of the word.
After returning from Whole Cake Island, Sanji’s nightmares returned with the intensity he had not seen since he and Zeff first built the Baratie after nearly starving to death on that rock. For the first several months after he was reunited with the Straw Hat crew following his time trapped with the Big Mom Pirates and Germa 66, Sanji had at least one nightmare every night, although more often than not he usually had two to three times he woke up crying, screaming, or with a cold sweat running down his back. Once he and Nami decided to become a couple and they began to spend the nights together, wrapped in one another’s embrace, the nightmares would happen rather infrequently, as Sanji is able to wake up and find comfort in the woman of his dreams, the love of his life as she lies in bed beside him. However, in the past few months, since Sanji has been thinking more about the future and how he wishes to spend forever at Nami’s side, the nightmares have returned, threatening to forever lurk whenever he is about to obtain true happiness. If he ever sees Vinsmoke Judge again as well as his brothers, Sanji can’t guarantee that he won’t slaughter them all on sight, just to know that the sadistic men could never hurt him or anyone he loves ever again.
“Sanji?” Nami’s voice comes again, one hand resting on Sanji’s chin as she tilts his face up to meet her gaze, her arms still tightly and tenderly wrapped around her lover. “You went far away again,” the navigator says, hugging Sanji with all the ferocity she can manage before pressing kisses on nearly every square inch of the cook’s face.
“Apologies, dearest,” Sanji softly sighs, wrapping his own arms around Nami as he squeezes her as tightly as he will allow himself to. “I didn’t mean to zone out there. I was just….thinking, I guess.”
Sanji soon scoffs, his blue eyes still brimming with tears. He pulls himself slightly out of Nami’s arms, placing his own hands on either side of Nami’s face, tenderly cupping her cheeks between his palms.
“I’m pathetic. I’m supposed to be the strong one here, the one protecting you from your demons and the darkness. I shouldn’t be the one needing to be comforted from a nightmare,” he angrily remarks, his voice barely over a ghost of a whisper.
“Where the hell did you ever get an idea like that?” Nami demands, gently slapping Sanji on the back of the head for good measure.
“What? Nami!” Sanji winces, rubbing the spot on his head where she slapped him.
“Have I ever made you feel as if having emotions make you weak, undesirable, or unable to be my protector?” she firmly questions, trapping Sanji’s wrists within her own hands as she traces their initials on his skin.
“No,” Sanji barely says, the tears beginning to well up in his eyes again.
“Where I can hear you, please, Sanji.”
“No, Nami, sweet, you haven’t.”
“And do I seem as if I would ever say that to you? How could I ever say something like that and then dare to still be someone who would claim to love you?”
“Well, no, but…”
“There are no buts, Sanji. I love you,” Nami reminds, pressing a sound kiss to his lips, laying all the passion possible into that one kiss. “I love you more than tangerines, than money, than anything else this world has to offer. And to love you more than anything else in the world means that I accept you for who you are. I accept every flaw, every scar, every small piece of yourself that you may find to be shameful or imperfect because it’s what makes you yourself, Sanji,” the navigator passionately explains, and Sanji can feel the tears starting to come as they did when he begged Luffy to take him back home to the Sunny while on Whole Cake Island. “You wouldn’t be the man I love if you weren’t so selfless, so caring, so giving so loving, and so in-tune with your emotions. I’m grateful every day for the type of man you turned out to be, despite the cruelty of your upbringing,” she begins to sob, just wanting Sanji to understand. “Just let me love you in the way you deserve. Whether you’re feeling ten feet tall and feel as if you can touch the stars themselves or feeling as if you’re trapped back in that hell you escaped with your brothers, let me show up for you. If we continue on the path I think we’re progressing towards, don’t the marriage vows say ‘in sickness and in health, for better for worse, in good times and in bad’? I think this more than qualifies, Sanji. Just, please, let me love you for all the shades of you that exist, not just your perfect, flawless ones that you think you must work so hard to uphold. You will never have to hide your true self from me because it’s your true self I fell in love with.”
“Marriage vows, you say?” Sanji says, cracking a smile as he lies beside Nami, resting his head on top of her chest and listening to the steady rhythm of her heart beating reassuringly.
“Of course that would be what you would take away from that. I would expect nothing less,” Nami teases, rolling her eyes playfully. “I love you, Sanji, and I always will. You can always tell me anything, just like you expect from me. It’s a two-way street, ya know?” she reminds.
“Yes, ma’am. I love you, too, Nami,” Sanji agrees, the softness in his voice returning as he cocoons further under the sheets and blankets while wrapping himself tightly around Nami.
“Now, would you like some chamomile tea?”
“Food’s not usually your love language, Nami.”
“No, but it’s your love language and you always make it for me after my own nightmares.”
“Chamomile tea sounds wonderful, then, love.”