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On days like this—days of fresh, clean air, with no rain or smoke or stinging sleet to obscure the endless blue sky—Sanji likes to keep the kitchen portholes open. The galley gets stuffy after a long afternoon of cooking: too many scents mingling together into a fog of mismatched flavours. The crisp breeze, laced with tangerine and oak, is like a cool sorbet, cleansing his nose and his palate till he can taste food properly again. It’s also good for keeping him awake after a night of bad sleep, so that he doesn’t nod off over the hot stove and singe his sleeves.
He feels a soft peck on his cheek, just below his ear, and he smiles fondly. Not much chance of that with Linnette around.
“Are you bored, sweetest?” he murmurs. His cheek tickles as the little bird ruffles her golden feathers.
“Don’t call me that,” she says, annoyed, and hops down from his shoulder to the counter, eyeing the open window. She’s been eyeing it all morning, restless and irritated every time he tries to check in.
When he was younger, even the smallest hint of disapproval from Linnette would send him into a panic. Zeff cuffed him more than once for stealing poppyseeds in his desperation to win back her favour. He barely remembers what she was miffed about so often, those days on the Baratie, only that she always forgave him when he presented the handful of seeds—only how relieved he was to tuck her safely inside his apron again.
As an adult, he’s grown used to her flighty moods. Like most daemons, she never strays far from his side, no matter how frustrated she gets with Sanji: the distance would pain her as much as him. He’s always a little anxious when she’s out of sight, but it’s not a constant source of stress anymore. And he can’t pretend he’s always the easiest person to get along with, though he’s as gentle with Linnette as any lady he knows. Better to let her have her moments of solitude when she needs them.
“Don’t fly too low,” he reminds her as she flutters up to the window, craning her short neck toward the sunlight. “Nami said we might see some swells today.”
“I know,” Linnette says, puffing her chest. “I was there for that conversation.”
“And remember—”
“I’m going now,” she cuts him off, though her riled feathers deflate a little when Sanji’s face falls. Careful of the steam rising from the pot of potatoes on the stovetop, she wings her way back to his shoulder and butts her small head against his chin.
“Sanji,” she chirps softly. “Stop worrying so much about me.”
“How can I not?” he says, brushing a finger over her head, and though she leans away, scoffing, her feathers still preen at the touch. “I can’t let another man snatch you up.”
If finches could roll their eyes, he knows Linnette’s would vanish into her head. “Narcissist. How can you be jealous of yourself?”
Sanji laughs. “Because you’re the best part of me,” he says, then nudges her towards the window with his finger. To his quiet disappointment, she goes easily from his shoulder, but she hovers for a moment on the threshold, looking back at Sanji.
“That’s not true,” she mutters. Then she flits off, over the deck and out of sight.
He takes a deep breath, steeling himself against the subtle gnaw of absence in his stomach, and picks up a fork to check the potatoes. Almost done. He decides to give them ten more minutes before turning off the heat, then he walks to the window and sticks his head out. No sign of yellow wings, but Usopp’s a few feet away, fishing at the rail with Beetle curled around his feet. Sanji doesn’t manage to duck back inside before the pangolin notices him and chitters something to Usopp, who turns to look as well.
“Hey, Sanji! What’s up?”
“...Tell everyone that dinner’s in a half hour.” Usopp gives him a thumbs up, and Sanji sheepishly pulls his head back inside the kitchen.
The sky was clear: no wheeling, darkened shadows on the horizon. She’ll be fine.
The rest of the dinner preparation goes smoothly. He finishes the potatoes and makes a quick mash, then sets the pot aside while he works on the rouladen. There’s not much left in the icebox, but they’ve still got some steak trimmings from the pie he made yesterday. He wraps the thin strips around pickles and caramelized onions and sets them in a tray to bake. Hopefully the taste of meat, even if the larger part of the dish is vegetables, will keep Luffy off his back until they can restock. They’re scheduled for landfall in two days according to Nami’s log pose: he can make what they have stretch till then.
Linnette’s probably testier than usual because she knows they’ll be in a new harbour soon. Sanji can’t blame her for it: no matter how soft and roomy he tries to make the inner pockets of his suit jackets, she doesn’t like being cooped up in the dark. Her frustrated pecks against his chest become a second heartbeat on exploration days, more vicious still whenever someone mistakes Chopper for Sanji’s daemon in passing and Sanji lets the misconception stand. They’ve had too many run-ins with villains who will happily send their daemons after the easiest visible pickings, and a little goldfinch doesn’t exactly strike fear in the heart of a Grand Line pirate. At least if someone decides to pick on the cute ‘tanuki,’ Chopper can pack a hell of a wallop in return.
He stirs the potatoes one last time, tastes, adds a pinch more salt, then pulls the rouladen out of the oven. The salad’s already on the table, and he can make gravy once everyone is shuffling in. Time to ring the metaphorical bell.
He walks over to the galley door and pushes it open. Or at least, he tries to push it open. The wood only swings about a half inch forward before lodging in a heavy, furry barrier. Sanji grits his teeth.
“I told you to stop blocking my door,” he grumbles. “Move your ass, Riki.” Through the crack in the door, a low, lazy rumble drifts back.
“Sun’s nice here.”
Sanji shoves the door harder. It’s like waging a strength contest with a sandbag: all he gets is a sore shoulder for his trouble. “You’ve got a whole deck full of sunshine to choose from. Go sleep somewhere else.”
“Mmm,” Riki purrs, “you’re in a bad mood today. Should I tell Zoro to play nice at dinner?” Sanji can just barely make out the ripple of orange and black fur as she stretches her massive paws past the gap.
“You can tell Zoro to keep his daemon away from my galley unless he wants me to take sake off the shopping list.”
“Threats already? How dramatic.”
Sanji’s pondering how annoyed Franky will be if he puts a foot through his own galley door when Riki’s weight finally shifts, scooching away just enough for Sanji to shove the door the rest of the way open. The unexpected momentum almost sends him stumbling into the tiger’s wide flank, but he catches himself just in time. Unbothered by the near miss, Riki arches her back into a long stretch before standing. At full height, her broad shoulders come up to the middle of Sanji’s chest; she barely needs to look up to meet his eyes.
“If you want Zoro to do something, tell him yourself. I’m not a snail.” She shakes her fur dismissively. “Try talking to each other for once.”
“I talk to that idiot too much already,” Sanji says. “In fact, I’d love just one day where I don’t have to listen to him spout whatever dumb shit he’s got going through his head.”
“I said ‘talk,’ not ‘yell at’. But I think you already knew that.” Riki turns and slouches down the steps to the lower deck before Sanji can think of an appropriate comeback. He clenches his fists at his sides, debating if he has time for a calming cigarette before the food gets cold. Probably not, now that he’s wasted this much time getting Riki to move. Ugh.
It figures that Marimo would have a daemon just as obnoxious and overbearing as he is. Everywhere that Sanji turns, it feels like his stupid cat is there too: laying in Sanji’s path, barricading his kitchen, like she’s determined to trip him up. One of these days he’s going to accidentally touch her and it’s not even going to be his fault, though Zoro will probably still kill him for the transgression.
(In fairness, he knows there aren’t many places a full grown tiger can go on an enclosed ship and not be in the way, but he’s just saying: she could try a little harder.)
He fidgets with the lighter in his pocket before sighing and giving up on the idea. He’ll have his smoke once everyone is fed. Sanji calls out the five minute warning for dinner and heads back into the kitchen to start on the gravy.
After a few minutes, he hears the galley door swing open and closed, but he doesn’t look up to see who the first arrival is, too busy searching for final ingredients in the pantry. When he finally turns around, cornstarch in hand, there’s an ominous shadow hanging over the stove, its long tail curled around his pot rack and one tiny hand reaching down towards the pan of rouladen.
“Oi!” he shouts, dropping the box and grabbing the broom from the wall. “Don’t you dare touch that!”
Two giant, round eyes turn to stare at him as the hand slowly continues its descent towards the food. He raises the broom in warning and the lemur squeaks, swinging up to perch on top of the rack.
“Just one?” Pirate says, big eyes darting down to the pan and back up to Sanji.
“Just nothing,” he says. “Out.”
“But Sanjiii,” she whines. “I’m starving!”
“Daemons don’t need to eat.”
“Yeah, but... it looks so goooood, Sanji.” She crawls forward a few inches, the pots below her loudly clattering. “You always make such amazing food. And Luffy never shares! Just a taste?”
He knows he shouldn’t let the blatant flattery sway him, but he can’t help but soften a little at her compliments. If daemons eat, they do so for pleasure rather than sustenance, so it always feels extra rewarding when one of them enjoys his food.
“...Just one. But it’s coming out of Luffy’s portion. If he complains, I’m not covering for you.” Pirate grins and snatches the fattest roulade from the pan.
“Thanks, Sanji!” she says through full cheeks.
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles as he sets the broom back against the wall. He shouldn’t have bothered in the first place: Pirate knows that he’ll never actually swat her. “Get out of here, you little scavenger.”
She does, but unfortunately she chooses to go by way of his body instead of the miles of available counter space. He’s too slow to move out of the way, and he freezes as her little toes dig into his shoulder through his suit jacket. Her wiry tail brushes against his ear, sending wary shivers down his scalp.
She doesn’t know any better, he reminds himself for the hundredth time. Don’t make her sad.
Wherever Luffy grew up, either he and Pirate never learned about the taboo against touching another person’s daemon, or never cared enough to follow it. He still remembers how alarmed he was when, in the Baratie dining room, he first saw the lemur clamber off Luffy’s head and into Zoro’s lap. A lot of rough folk came through the restaurant, but what kind of freakish pirate crew touched each other’s daemons so casually, especially in a public place? Zeff would have beat him bloody if he’d ever so much as breathed on a patron’s daemon, let alone stroked their head absentmindedly like Zoro did with Pirate.
But he’s since learned that, just like Luffy, his daemon has little care for social norms. She happily bounces between the crew, wrapping herself around any available crewmember and begging for a belly rub as often as treats.
Sanji wishes he could be as unbothered about her behaviour as the rest of his friends. Both Nami and Zoro have at least some smidgen of rearing (moreso in Nami’s case than Zoro’s) so they’re aware that she’s crossing a line not typically crossed, but neither seems put off by Pirate’s clinginess. As a reindeer, Chopper didn’t grow up in a society with daemons, so he doesn’t have the same innate aversion to the idea as most humans do. Robin was surprised at first, but as in all things, she adapted quickly once she understood the new paradigm, and Franky just finds the whole thing hilarious. Of the crew, only Usopp seems to share Sanji’s discomfort, but he’s better at pushing through it. He still gives Pirate the affection she demands, even with nervous sweat rolling down his neck. Sanji is the odd man out: the one traditionalist in a group determined to break every rule he’s ever been taught about the world.
Zeff would nod approvingly at Sanji’s restraint, so he knows he’s doing the right thing, but he still feels a pang of guilt at Pirate’s disappointed sigh when he doesn’t reach up to give her a head scratch. Thankfully, the galley door bangs again as the crew starts to arrive for dinner. She leaps off his shoulder to join the others at the table, and he shakes himself and gets back to work.
All through dinner, Sanji stubbornly ignores the anxious flutter in his chest, reminding him that Linnette hasn’t returned. She’s probably just taking the chance to stretch her wings while the deck is relatively clear. The crew’s all inside now, along with the majority of their daemons, so she’ll have her privacy.
(Not all of the daemons partake in meals: Riki turns up her big wet nose at all human food and rarely bothers to join them in the galley—yet another reason she’s on Sanji’s shit list—and Ko, Robin’s black mamba, only likes to eat when he’s assured of multiple rest days to properly digest. But the others usually enjoy the company, even if they only pick at their human’s plate.)
He makes it till dessert before the worry finally starts to boil over and he can’t stand it anymore—he just needs to see her once, to make sure she’s alright. He sets a huge platter of lemon tarts down in the centre of the table and announces that he’s going for a smoke, which is a common enough excuse that nobody looks at him twice, but he abandons his nonchalance the instant the door closes at his back.
She must be nearby. He’s close enough now to feel little twinges of new emotion in his chest: muted, as Linnette’s so often are when she goes away for some private time, like she doesn’t want Sanji to know that she’s upset. She’s protective of Sanji too in that way, but he wishes she wouldn’t mask her feelings so often. It makes it so hard to tell if the anxiety he’s feeling now is hers or his own.
He cranes his head towards the bird’s nest, hoping to spot her perched on the rigging, but no luck. The only daemon in sight is Riki, batting something between her paws on the lower deck. He hurries down the staircase towards her: ordinarily he’d never ask, but if he starts shouting for Linnette, he’ll bring the whole crew out in a panic, and he already gets teased enough for how overprotective he is. At least Riki doesn’t have any respect for him to lose. Might as well find out if she’s seen a goldfinch fluttering around.
“Hey, Riki,” he says, sticking his hands in his pockets so she can’t see how his fingers keep nervously flexing. But Riki, fully engaged with whatever game she’s playing, doesn’t seem to hear him. Her rump waggles back and forth before she does a little pounce, shaking the planks as she lands and traps the toy beneath her paws. “Have you seen—”
He can’t finish the sentence, not when Riki’s toes splay and he sees what’s between them: yellow feathers and a tiny body, made even more tiny by the massive claws caging the little bird. Sanji’s entire body goes cold, the sky bleeding all colour as he stares down at Linnette, his daemon, the best thing in his life, trapped beneath a tiger’s vicious fangs.
“Let her go,” he breathes with what scant air he can gather. Riki finally looks up, blinking at him without remorse, like she couldn’t care less that what she’s toying with is a living creature.
He promised Linnette that she would never go through that again. He promised she would be safe, and the burning self-loathing is almost overwhelming but he can’t afford to be frozen when Linnette is in danger. His pantleg ignites as his leg bursts into flame, hot as the rage coursing through his body. Zoro can run him through later if he wants: he’d rather die than let anyone, even a crewmember’s daemon, hurt her.
“Let her go!” he shouts, and raises his leg as Linnette starts to frantically beat against Riki’s paws, trying to get to Sanji. He can feel her flurry of alarm like a panicked drumbeat against his ribs, mingling with his own into a cacophony of fear. Riki’s eyes widen, but instead of letting go she drags Linnette closer to her chest, sheltering the bird against her fur in a mockery of protectiveness. Both Linnette and Riki are shouting now too, but he can’t hear anything except the pounding of blood in his ears. He spins on his heel, gathering momentum for a roundhouse kick, but before he can complete the turn, something knocks him off his feet. He barely registers he’s been hit before he’s flat on his back on the deck, Zoro’s furious face filling his entire vision.
“You’ve got three seconds before I cut your throat,” Zoro growls through bared teeth. A line of cold steel nips at Sanji’s jugular, but Sanji is too enraged to care. He shoves against Zoro’s chest, pressing up into the blade until their noses are almost touching.
“You better call off your fucking cat or you’re the one who’s sleeping in a body bag tonight,” Sanji spits. For a flicker of a moment, Zoro’s eyes narrow in confusion, and he turns his head to Riki for an explanation. But it’s Linnette who speaks first, hopping into Sanji’s eyeline: ruffled, but no sign of blood.
“We were just playing!” Her little head darts back and forth between Zoro and Sanji so quickly that her feathers seem to blur. “Sanji, it wasn’t—”
“Get off of me!” Sanji says, shoving Zoro as violently as he can in an effort to get to her, and this time Zoro lets go, sitting back on his haunches as Sanji scrambles out from under him and gathers Linnette into his chest. His heart rate only quiets when he can feel hers beating its rapid patter against his own.
“It’s true,” Riki says, though she doesn’t move any closer, staying hunched in a defensive posture with her shoulders low to the ground. “Nothing happened.”
By this time, other members of the crew have started to arrive in a torrent of hurried feet. Sanji pulls himself up into a sitting position, still cradling Linnette, as Luffy skids to a halt beside Riki with Usopp and Nami close on his heels.
“What’s going on?” Nami says, twisting her head as if searching the deck for an unseen attacker. “We heard you yell, and then Zoro just ran out of the room—”
“Who got hurt?” Chopper says, a little out of breath as he finally catches up to the others. Robin and Franky hang back on the upper deck, watching with twin looks of uncertainty .
“No one,” says Zoro darkly, “but our fucking asshole of a cook was about to hurt Riki.”
“Sanji wouldn’t do that,” Luffy says with a little smile, no trace of doubt in his voice, though his eyes still flicker across the scene, pausing on the tiger’s hunched form. Pirate clambers off his shoulder and darts over to Riki, blinking her big eyes until Riki chuffs and lets her head dip for a short forehead nuzzle.
“Of course he wouldn’t,” Nami says. Ordinarily Sanji would be ecstatic to have her instant faith, but when she looks at him for confirmation, he can barely hold her gaze. “Sanji, you wouldn’t—”
“She was hunting Linnette,” he says through gritted teeth. Usopp gasps and Luffy’s expression tightens, but he forces himself to meet Nami’s eyes, pleading wordlessly for her to believe him. Kallik is the smallest of the other daemons on the ship: the hedgehog peeking out of her front pocket is just as vulnerable as Linnette, even with the bristles. If anyone would understand, it would be her.
Nami looks unnerved, faith flickering, and his heart sinks into his stomach.
“They were playing!” Zoro snarls. He still has Wado unsheathed: the tip of the sword trails restlessly along the planks as he rocks on the balls of his feet, like he hasn’t decided yet whether to go to Riki or to lunge at Sanji again. Sanji scoffs and rounds on Zoro, all too eager to avoid Nami’s doubtful look.
“Linnette and Riki don’t play together, idiot. They’ve spoken, what, three times since we joined the crew?”
“Sanji,” Linnette protests into his shirt, but he hushes her with the stroke of a finger. He looks around at his friends, expecting to see a host of expressions just as disbelieving as his. Linnette was just saying that to calm Sanji down, but even Zoro can’t be stupid enough to actually believe their daemons play.
But nobody’s looking at Zoro. Every disbelieving eye is turned on him, every mouth agape in his direction.
“Yeah—yeah they do, Sanji,” Usopp says tentatively, like a nervous doctor breaking bad news. “You didn’t know?”
“The little bird is quite agile,” comes Ko’s sultry voice: at some point, unheard and unnoticed, Robin must have joined the others. “She puts up a fine chase.”
“It’s just like Susanna and Beetle’s ball game,” Franky adds with an encouraging smile as he lumbers down the steps, significantly less stealthy in his approach than Robin. The giant bullmastiff at his side nods her agreement, tongue lolling out in happy memory of all the time she’s spent batting the rolled-up pangolin around the deck.
“I actually don’t like that game very much,” Beetle mutters quietly, and curls herself into Usopp’s neck.
Overwhelmed by this onslaught of new information, Sanji turns his head back to Zoro, hoping at least their perpetual animosity can be a centering pillar of truth. Everyone else might be mistaken, but Zoro knows as well as Sanji that their souls would never gravitate to each other like that.
But Zoro only shrugs and stands, leaving Sanji the only person on the ground. The weight of the entire crew staring down at him is unbearable, and he scrambles to his feet as well.
“Figured Linnette would have told you,” Zoro says with a disbelieving snort. “Not my problem if you can’t keep track of your daemon.”
The last shred of Sanji’s hope crumbles away: Zoro knew too. Zoro knew, and everyone knew, and nobody told him.
Not even Linnette.
“Great, we figured it out!” Luffy says, smacking his hands together with a relieved grin. “Just a misunderstanding! You won’t be upset with Riki anymore, right, Sanji? Because she was just playing.”
“Yeah,” Sanji echoes hollowly. He’s abruptly worn out—exhausted, every emotion drained from his body. All he can feel is the burn of Linnette’s remaining frustration and anger. It’s a relief, that she’s unhurt and breathing and fine and nothing was wrong to begin with, but he can’t feel that relief with everyone still watching him warily, like he’s the one who might turn aggressive without warning. “Sorry for ruining dinner.”
“Maybe you should be apologizing to Riki?” Nami says, more gentle than her typical rebuke, and so he swallows and turns to the tiger. She’s pressed up against Zoro’s side now, her posture strong and confident once more, but her ears still slightly back as Sanji starts to speak.
“...I didn’t know.” The words are forced, he knows—knows he can’t look at her properly and see those claws and remember how they were wrapped around Linnette and actually mean it—but the apology eventually crawls out. “Sorry,” he mumbles.
She stares at him silently: like Zoro, she rarely says more than she needs to, but she watches everything, cataloguing every muscle movement, every detail, every weakness. It’s a terrifying brand of attentiveness, and Sanji abruptly understands why so many of Zoro’s opponents turn and run when Riki sets her sights on them. There’s no escaping her keen gaze once she’s chosen a target.
But whatever she’s looking for, she must find it, because she snorts and stalks away. Indifference is as close to forgiveness as he’ll probably get.
Zoro follows after her, sparing one last glare at Sanji before all his attention returns to his daemon. His fingers trail over her head and she pushes up into his hand: a reassuring motion, like when Linnette butts his chin. Sanji didn’t think his stomach could sink any lower, but for a moment, he can’t help but imagine how this all must have looked through Zoro’s eyes—to see his daemon cowering on the deck with a man looming over her, ready to strike—and it makes him ill.
“Hey,” he calls out, and both Zoro and Riki turn back. “I’m sorry,” he says, and really means it this time. Zoro looks away again immediately, but Riki watches a moment longer before calling back.
“Maybe instead of talking to Zoro, you should try talking to yourself.” Then she and Zoro disappear into the ship, plunging the rest of the crew into uncomfortable silence. Nobody seems to know what to say, so Sanji decides to leave before they can make up their minds. Usopp reaches out a hand as he passes, opening his mouth, but he brushes him off and heads back to the galley to start gathering up the remains of dinner.
Sanji tries not to look at the half-eaten plates as he scrapes leftovers into containers: he’ll make something else later if people are still hungry, and Luffy will eat what’s left of the rouladen by morning. Nothing will go to waste. He reassures himself of that while he fills the sink with soapy water, chewing the inside of his lip and waiting for Linnette to finally break the stony silence. Only when it becomes clear she has no intention of doing anything to end the stalemate does he finally gather the courage to speak.
“So you and Riki are...” he says, trailing off when he can’t figure out what word could describe such an impossible relationship. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I knew you’d be like this.” Linnette weaves in and out between the bottles on the counter, glancing at the labels, though Sanji knows she’s not really reading any of them. She’s just too angry to look at him. “Because you hate the idea of me having friends.”
“That’s not true,” he protests. “I love seeing you and Kallik spend time together, and Beetle’s alright—”
“But Riki’s off-limits,” Linnette says coldly.
“It’s just not safe. Even if she’s not trying to hurt you, she’s so much bigger. What if she stepped on you, or didn’t notice that she was playing too rough?”
“Zoro could cut you in half,” Linnette retorts, “but you still play with him.”
“That’s—that’s not playing, that’s fighting,” Sanji sputters, “and I can stop him if he takes things too far.”
“Right,” she says bitterly. “But I can’t be friends with anyone who could hurt me. Even if they don’t mean to. Even if I know the risk.” She pecks at one of the glass bottles: the sound is sharp and hollow. Even though the only weapon she has is her little beak, she still finds ways to voice her defiance.
“Linnette, I’m sorry that things are different for you—” Sanji tries to comfort her, but Linnette cuts him off a flurry of feathers.
“Sanji, I am you,” she says, landing on the faucet so she can stare Sanji directly in the eye. She’s not trying to disguise her overflowing frustration anymore: there’s nothing muted about the wave of anger pouring out into Sanji’s chest.
“I know that, but—”
“Do you know? Do you really know? Because you don’t act like it. You give me these cutesy nicknames, you hover over me like I’m Nami or Robin, but no matter how much you don’t like to admit it, I’m you. And I don’t want to live in a cage anymore just because you’re scared of getting hurt.”
A flood of emotion crashes through his chest: Linnette rarely shares her thoughts so clearly, but now he hears her calling out in his mind like a cry she can’t control.
Talk to me.
Talk to me.
“I have to keep you safe,” he forces out. The water is cold around his hands; he hasn’t washed a single dish. “I can stop with the nicknames, but you can’t ask me to stop protecting you.”
If I don’t keep you safe, who else will?
“I’d rather be free than safe,” she says quietly. The anger fades from her voice at last, replaced with a tiredness he knows too well from his own sleepless nights: there’s only so far that anger can carry you when the exhaustion finally reaches its height. “But you can’t be free either if you keep hiding me away. Both of us need to live in this world, together, or what’s the point? We might as well have stayed on the Baratie.”
There’s another place they might have stayed, but neither will mention its name aloud: better to leave that place in the all-too-frequent nightmares, where it belongs.
Sanji swallows, then pulls his hands out of the water. He dries them on his apron before extending them to Linnette. To his relief, she doesn’t hesitate to hop into his palms, and as she leans against his fingers her softness and body heat bring feeling back to his cold skin. He can’t tell who needs comforting more right now. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it only matters that after every hard day, they still come back together like this, both needing the other to feel whole.
“I do want you to be free,” he says. “I’ll... I’ll try to relax. Let you make your own choices.”
Linnette looks up at him, cautiously hopeful. “No pockets when we get to port?”
He sighs. “Alright. No pockets.” She fluffs her wings, pleased, and he taps her head to get her attention again. “But if we get in a fight, you have to promise me you’ll fly somewhere safe.”
“Trust me,” Linnette says, “I don’t want to fight any more than you do.” She nips his finger playfully. “Unless it’s with Zoro.”
“Oi,” he says, but she wings out of his reach and onto his shoulder, snickering. “I think I know who’s to blame now for turning you into such a smartass lately.”
“Don’t blame Riki for your terrible personality,” Linnette says breezily, but she visibly brightens at the insult. “I’m perfectly capable of being a smartass all on my own, thank you.”
He smiles and starts to refill the sink with warm water. “Don’t I know it.”
He loses himself in the easy repetition of the task and the simple relief of having Linnette back at his side, and he almost forgets the calamitous nature of the day until he’s finished tidying up the last of the dishes and heading for bed.
Nami waves him goodnight from the crow’s nest, but the rest of the ship is quiet. The sun must have set hours ago. He climbs down the ladder into the boys’ bunkroom by the glow of his open lighter. There, he finds every hammock already occupied save one: Zoro’s.
The heaviness of their earlier confrontation suddenly comes crashing back down and Sanji looks around nervously, wondering if Zoro is lying in wait somewhere to confront him now that he and Riki have had time to mull the matter over. They’ve probably decided that an apology isn’t a weighty enough pound of flesh, and honestly, he can’t blame them. Zoro can be unreasonable at the best of times, but for once, Sanji wouldn’t protest if Zoro wanted to deck him a few times to settle the score. But then his eyes land on the huddled bodies on the couch, and his nerves fade into a different, equally uncomfortable feeling.
It’s hard to distinguish flesh from fur, but he thinks he sees Riki’s paws hanging off the cushions, Zoro’s hair sticking up from between her legs. Zoro often sleeps sitting up against Riki’s flank when they’re both napping on the deck, but there’s an intimacy to their jumbled limbs that makes Sanji’s heart clench.
It’s not that he didn’t think Zoro cared about Riki before today. Of course Sanji knew: only the worst sort of people feel nothing for their daemon. But he always thought his love was a utilitarian sort of affection, like for the swords Zoro adores so much: that Riki was prized for her sharp teeth, her unrelenting spirit, her deadly effectiveness. She was one more weapon to hang from Zoro’s belt, as cold and unfeeling as steel. But there’s a softness between them now, only visible here in the dark, that’s undeniable. Sanji wonders if they’ve been like this since they left the deck, finding their own sort of solace after a stressful day.
He flicks off his lighter, not wanting to wake the pair, and relies on touch to find his own way to bed. But as he closes his eyes, a sleepy Linnette nestled into his chest, he sees the afterimage of their tangled shape, chests rising and falling in perfect unison, both strong enough to bear each other’s weight.
Landfall on Cricket Island is uneventful: so uneventful that Sanji almost lets his guard down. Almost.
Linnette circles around his head as they wander through the market, flitting from colourful stall to lamppost and then back to his shoulder with a delight that leaves Sanji grinning, though the happiness is tempered by a gnawing guilt for having ever denied her this freedom.
To his surprise, nobody seems put off by her sweet appearance, even once they realize who she belongs to. Old women selling fabrics and apples and piping hot pastries coo over her pretty feathers. A girl in a lilac dirndl stops him in the street to ask her name, and she giggles when Sanji calls Linnette back to say hello, her own ferret stretching his long body out of a woven bag to join in the conversation. Only one person makes a comment about her size, but it’s just a drunken man outside a tavern who leers at Linnette and mutters something about pretty boys and their prissy daemons before stumbling back inside.
They’ve just finished up a third day of shopping and are heading back to the Merry, Sanji’s arms full of last minute treats to stash in the pantry for special occasions, when he spies Zoro’s green head above the crowd. Pausing, he briefly debates whether to find another route back to the ship or to try bashing his head against that particular wall one more time.
While his and Linnette’s relationship has markedly improved in the last few days, things between him and Zoro have been awkward. He didn’t think he’d ever miss Zoro starting brawls over the smallest of slights, but his teeth are on edge without the release of their typical twice-daily spats. Riki hasn’t even blocked his galley door once since the incident, and he doesn’t know what to do with all the empty space. He’s getting close to doing something drastic, like spilling wine on Zoro’s haramaki or bribing Franky to hide all his training gear in the engine room, just to see if it will end the silent treatment. They’re going to have to keep living together, and he’d rather have the spitting, fiery version of Zoro’s hatred than this cold and distant kind. At least it’s familiar.
But his decision is made for him when Nami’s shout rings from somewhere in the distance. He and Zoro both wheel towards the sound, taking off down towards the square where Sanji did most of his shopping the day before. The crowd parts quickly to let Zoro (and more likely, Riki) through, and Sanji follows in their wake, sprinting through the wide gaps they’ve left behind until he arrives at the scene of a battle already in progress.
He doesn’t have time to wonder who started what, who pissed off who: the encounter is already too bloody for it to matter. A man he doesn’t recognize has Nami in a chokehold while Luffy rains down fists from the sky, unable to reach her through the horde of opponents. Pirate bites and claws at the back of a warthog daemon, making slow progress against the tough hide, but as Sanji watches in horror more creatures stalk from the alleys through the fleeing crowd, more men and women with vicious grins and weapons to match. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Zoro rush in front of a little girl and her mother with two of his swords already in hand, standing firm against the advancing line of mercenaries.
Linnette hovers by his ear, her head bobbing as new shouts of terror arise from all directions. He wants to pull her into his suit jacket, but he’s a close range fighter, and the thin fabric won’t stop a sickle blade or an iron mace. Nor can he stay out of the battle for her sake alone: he's got more people than just Linnette to protect.
“Get somewhere safe!” he yells over his shoulder as he takes off towards Nami, her clima-tact a whirl of blue as she fights to get herself free. “Go, Linnette!” She flits out of sight, and he plunges into the fray.
It’s a drawn-out, grueling affair. Sanji barely downs one opponent before another springs up in their place. All around are the snarls and whines of daemons engaged in their own fights. He catches a glimpse of Susanna with her teeth clenched around an alligator’s jaws, so Franky must have heard the commotion too. Nami’s managed to electrocute her opponent into submission by the time he reaches her, but he still stays close to her side, keeping the closest mercenaries off her back as she spins a hailstorm down on the rest.
By the time the storm settles, the battlefield is littered with unconscious bodies and the broken remains of whatever carts and stalls once stood in the square. After checking on Nami—bruised and shaken, but uninjured—and Luffy—significantly more injured, but still grinning about the victory—Sanji picks his way through the rubble, shifting broken bits of wood carefully in case Linnette chose any of the carts as her refuge during the fight. He can feel her nearby, anxiety lacing her thoughts, but no pain. He wants nothing more than to go to her right away, but as long as she’s unhurt, he better help any injured townsfolk first.
He’s pulling an old man from the wreckage of his shattered livelihood when Zoro’s voice breaks over the din of pained groans. Sanji ignores him out of habit, but as the voice grows louder, his ears perk to a familiar word, shouted in an unusually worried tone.
“Cook!”
“Over here!” he shouts back as he dusts the man off. To his annoyance, Zoro’s voice immediately starts moving in the opposite direction, and Sanji runs around the rubble, hoping to catch him before he inevitably wanders off into the ocean in his search.
“Hey!” he yells at Zoro’s retreating back. “I said I’m right here, lunkhead.”
Zoro spins and Sanji finally catches sight of his face: his cheeks are flushed, like he’s been hollering for minutes straight. There’s a rivulet of blood dripping from a cut across his temple, but other than that minor injury Sanji can’t see any problem worth yelling about.
“Where the hell have you been?” Zoro says. His voice sounds like he’s swallowed sand—couldn’t the idiot have just come and found him before shouting himself hoarse?
“Helping?” he says, incredulous. “Or did you think all those mercenaries were beating their own heads in before they got to you?”
Something heavy hits the cobblestones behind him, followed by a landslide of clattering debris. He turns to see Riki shaking the dust off as the broken cart she leapt from disintegrates completely.
“Zoro, I found him—” she starts to call before she spots Zoro walking in their direction.
So apparently they’re all back on speaking terms now, though Sanji has no idea what caused the switch. He’d be relieved if he wasn’t so fucking confused.
“Can you two just tell me what’s going on?” A flare of worry strikes Sanji: he hasn’t seen any sign of Robin or Usopp since the fight began. “Is someone hurt?”
Zoro’s face remains dark and silent, but Riki murmurs, “We thought you were.”
Only then does Sanji notice the incongruence of colour on Zoro’s approaching shoulder: a splash of yellow against the green fabric of his robe.
“Linnette,” he breathes, and Zoro pauses, staring off to the side as he shifts from one foot to the other. Sanji has rarely seen him look so uncomfortable in his own body.
“I didn’t do shit to her, ok, Curly? She landed on me and she wouldn’t leave. Thought you got knocked out or something.” He starts to reach up to scratch his neck, but thinks better of it at the last moment. “So can you take your bird back now?”
Sanji nods, stunned, and Zoro pulls down the sleeve of his robe over his fingers and lifts his clothed hand to his chin. Linnette delicately hops onto the waiting fist and Zoro carefully extends his arm to Sanji. He lifts Linnette from Zoro’s hand, pinkies skimming the softness of Zoro’s robe as he gathers her up in his palms, and Zoro awkwardly drops his arm to his side.
“Why didn’t you fly to a rooftop?” Sanji murmurs to Linnette, not accusing but bewildered.
“There were hawks on the roof,” she whispers back. “Daemons. It wasn’t safe.”
Sanji looks back up at Zoro. He’s still dishevelled from the battle, faint imprints of fabric visible at the edges of his mouth. Did Zoro fight the entire time with Linnette on his shoulder? He can’t imagine the amount of control it would take to slash and whirl and cut through the air like he does while not so much as jostling Linnette. If he’d touched her, even to check that she was still clinging to him, Sanji would know it.
He should be horrified that Linnette went to another person for protection. That it was Zoro of all people that she was forced to rely on. But his eyes keep tugging back to Zoro’s sleeve, still lopsided from the careful way he covered his skin to prevent even an accidental brush.
He was furious with Sanji this morning. He had every excuse in the world to use this chance to teach Sanji a lesson. And yet he returned his daemon to him: untouched, unharmed.
“Okay,” Sanji says quietly, turning not to Zoro but to Riki. She swivels her head, confused at being suddenly addressed. “We’ll talk.”
He’s started to open up about some things to his new friends, these past few months at sea, but there are stories Sanji will never tell to anyone, names he’ll never speak again. His own last name is locked away in a past he’s fought desperately to leave behind, but at night, he still dreams of dark wings swooping between grey spires, razor-sharp beaks trained towards a fledgling goldfinch who searches endlessly, fruitlessly, for a place to land.
In those dreams, the name he cries out in terror is not Linnette, but Kiiro.
Training, his father called it, whenever his brothers’ daemons cornered the little bird on the slanted roof of Germa’s castle. The heartstopping fear, amplified twice by Sanji’s helplessness to reach her, would persuade her to take a form more fitting of their family’s legacy: a carrion-eater, like Niji’s vulture Ao, or an enormous raptor, like the white-crowned eagle that glared imperiously from his father’s shoulder and from every banner in the castle’s massive halls. Any bird of prey would do.
But no matter how much Sanji pleaded with Kiiro to choose a shape that could at least outrun her pursuers, her wingspan never grew beyond a few inches. His soul remained a songbird, fragile and delicate, with bones that snapped easily under the crush of heavy talons. He felt every break, the pain doubling with every bruise and broken bone his own body sustained. The only relief came on the nights they spent together in his mother’s hospital bed, where she stroked Sanji’s hair and her duck’s wide bill preened the little bird and whispered another name, one that Judge had never sullied with a barked order or a sneering dismissal.
Linnette. Your name is Linnette.
That’s the name they carried out of Germa together: not a call sign, but a real name, all her own. Since then, he’s done everything in his power to bury the memory that she ever had another. She shouldn’t have to think about it—shouldn’t have to be reminded of all she’s been through.
Which is why agreeing to this conversation was such a huge mistake.
Sanji paces the floor of the bunk room, ducking his head to avoid the hammocks that jut out over the cramped space. He’s got maybe five minutes before Zoro finishes his watch shift and heads down, leaving Robin to guard the deck from any mercenary stragglers who might be stupid enough to attack the ship while Luffy and the others are tying up loose ends in town. Turns out they’d stumbled into the midst of some kind of civil uprising, the politics of which he’s happy to leave to the rest of the crew to sort out while he battles his own inner crises.
Theoretically, he’s had the whole day since the fight to figure out what he’s going to say to Zoro, but his brain keeps looping back through all the things he absolutely cannot say, refusing to move on to more productive lines of thought.
Did you know I had a brother with green hair like yours? His condor loved to play with Linnette too. Her favourite game was pinning her down and pretending she was going to eat her. All in good fun, of course—at least for the carnivore in the room. But Riki doesn’t play like that, right?
He winces, the flash of memory suddenly real and vivid in a way it hasn’t been in years, and he squeezes his eyes closed to force Yonji’s cruel smirk back into the recesses of his mind. Linnette flits nervously from hammock to hammock as Sanji’s pacing quickens.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. I’m pretty sure Zoro’s not even mad at you anymore.”
“He’s always mad at me for something—you really think Riki is the line where he decides not to hold a grudge?”
She shakes her head. “Riki would tell him not to.”
“And why would she do that?”
“Because she knows you didn’t mean it.”
Sanji runs a hand through his hair. “I did mean it, Linnette. If she’d hurt you...”
“She’d do the same to protect someone she loved. So would Zoro. You know that.”
Well... he can’t argue with that line of reasoning. He might not be as loud about it as Sanji, but Zoro’s always right there beside him on the front lines whenever someone threatens the crew or any of their daemons.
He still intends to try, but the loud creak of the roof hatch preempts whatever counter argument he might have made next. Shit. He still has no idea what he’s going to say, and Zoro’s already climbing down the ladder into the bunkroom. Riki follows a moment later, landing gracefully on the floorboards despite the long jump. Both turn to stare at Sanji, standing awkwardly in the centre of the room in his rumpled suit and mussed hair and utterly failing to look like he was doing anything other than waiting for their arrival.
“Isn’t it a little early for bedtime?” Zoro says, eyeing Sanji sidelong as he passes, before opening his locker and crouching to rummage through the wad of wrinkled clothing at the bottom.
“I’m not here to sleep, dumbass, and you’re one to talk. Some of us have better things to do than nap for half the day.” He can feel his temper rising as Zoro continues to ignore him in favour of sniffing shirts to find something clean in the pile of unwashed laundry, but he can also feel Riki’s chiding eyes on the back of his head as she settles down onto the couch to watch.
Talk, not yell at.
He takes a breath.
“So are we going to talk or not?”
Still a little accusatory, but less outright hostile. That’s the best he can manage.
Zoro swivels his head around, a black t-shirt in his hands that Sanji’s pretty sure he’s worn twice this week already.
“What?”
“‘What’ what? Riki said we should talk, so we’re talking.” He turns to Riki for support, but she barely looks up, busy licking her paws clean of the day’s grime. If only the human side of Zoro cared so much about hygiene.
“Leave me out of this.” She flicks her eyes up to the tallest hammock, and a moment later Linnette comes fluttering down to perch on the cushion beside her. “Linnette and I have said enough, and I want to finish my bath.” She bobs her head in a ‘go on’ motion and returns to her grooming.
Zoro’s shucked off his robe and pulled on the somewhat-cleaner t-shirt by the time Sanji turns around again. “Can we get on with this,” he grumbles as he shoves the robe into the locker. “You wanna talk, Cook, just talk. I’m not stopping you. Don’t see why you have to make a big production out of it.”
Sanji wants to protest that it was his daemon that insisted they have a conversation even before this whole mess started, but if he keeps arguing they’re going to keep going in circles and he’s going to be stuck in this hell of a ‘talk’ forever, so he takes another deep breath and tries to be the bigger man.
“I just wanted to say that I’m not going to get in Riki and Linnette’s way anymore. If they want to spend time together, fine. That’s their choice. Doesn’t mean either of us has to like it, but I’m not going to try and stop it either.” He pauses. That should be enough, right? No need to say anything else. He literally doesn’t need to say anything else, except— “Just... keep an eye on Linnette,” he can’t stop himself from adding. “If I’m not around, and it ever looks like Riki’s getting too rough—”
“See, this is what pisses me off,” Zoro interrupts, slamming the locker shut and turning back to Sanji with a glare. “You want to shit talk me or Riki, fine. We can take it. But I don’t get why you’re such an asshole to Linnette.”
“Excuse me?”
Zoro barrels onward, anger picking up steam as he stalks towards Sanji. His frustration is potent and immediate, like this is an argument that they’ve had a hundred times before, though they’ve never once discussed their daemons that Sanji can remember.
“You should respect her more. You’d kick my ass if I ever said you needed someone to keep an eye on you, so why the hell should I look after Linnette? I’m not a babysitter, and she’s not as fragile as you think.”
Sanji takes a step forward, meeting Zoro halfway with a scowl. “What the fuck would you know about it? It’s not like you have to worry about Linnette hurting a fucking tiger—”
Zoro grabs Sanji’s collar and pulls him in with a sneer. “Nope. Just you.”
So, they’re talking about this. Really talking about what happened, not just leaving it to fester, one more drop of bad blood in the bucket. The realization is sobering enough to knock the wind out of Sanji’s retort.
“I didn’t want to hurt Riki,” he says quietly, hyper aware of the tiger at his back, no doubt listening to every word no matter how softly he speaks. “But I don’t see the point in grovelling, since you obviously won’t accept my apology no matter what I say. I can promise I’ll never even think about touching her again, but that’s the best I can do.”
Sanji can feel his own heartbeat where Zoro’s knuckles, still clenched in Sanji’s jacket, are digging into his breastbone. It feels shameful to ask for forgiveness, even obliquely, and his face heats as Zoro continues to stare, torturing Sanji as he mulls the words over, because of course this is the first time in his life he would actually bother to listen to what Sanji has to say.
“You can touch her,” he replies at last. Sanji’s mouth falls open. “That part doesn’t bother me.”
“...What the hell are you talking about?” Sanji snarls. If this is a joke, it’s moronic even by Zoro’s standards.
“If you kicked her, I’ll disembowel you,” Zoro says matter-of-factly, as though that’s what Sanji’s confused about. “But I think all that taboo stuff is stupid anyway.”
Sanji gapes at him. “You can’t be serious.”
Zoro shrugs, finally letting go of his lapel. “If people are weird about it, that’s their problem. Don’t see why it’s mine or Riki’s. Haven’t you ever touched someone else’s daemon before, Shitty Lovecook?”
The question wallops Sanji in the stomach: it feels like Zoro’s asking, without a trace of embarrassment, whether he’s ever participated in a public orgy.
“Of course not,” he hisses, lowering his own voice since apparently Zoro is too shameless to do it himself.
“Right,” Zoro says, rolling his eyes, “because you wouldn’t want to sully your precious hands?”
“No, because I’m not an asshole who’d do that to someone else!” He’ll never forget the one and only time someone else had touched Linnette. Judge had grabbed her in a bare fist and dragged her three rooms away, a last-ditch effort to force Sanji to master the separation that came so easily to his brothers, who never had any sort of emotional connection to their daemons to sever. The agony was exquisite, but the lingering feeling of wrongness hadn’t left his skin for weeks, though Judge returned her on the advice of his staff physicians after only a few minutes. Any longer might have killed them both. “You might be a masochist, but I’m not interested in hurting people like that, even you.”
“You actually believe that bullshit propaganda? I know what the World Government put in their pamphlets, but touching someone’s daemon doesn’t have to mess them up. When Luffy pets Riki, it just feels tingly.” Zoro brushes his hand over his hair. “Like right here. Kind of weird, but not bad.”
“You let Luffy pet Riki?” Sanji says faintly. He’s so far afield from any direction he expected this conversation to go that he can’t even summon up the energy to be shocked: he’s just trying to keep up with all the nonsensical revelations pouring out of Zoro’s mouth.
“Yeah, of course. Told you, it’s no big deal. And fair’s fair: he lets me hold Pirate too. You’re the only one who’s hung up about it.”
Sanji’s certain that’s not true: Zeff wasn’t much for parenting talks, but he at least made sure Sanji got the basics about why you should never, ever touch someone else’s daemon, usually in the same grunted breath as why you should never, ever lay hands on a woman, and everyone he’s ever met seemed to be in agreement on the point.
Well, except Luffy. And apparently, Zoro.
With a creeping sort of dread, he lets himself consider, for a fraction of a moment, that there might be the smallest bit of truth to what Zoro’s saying. That other people in the crew might think it’s no big deal to touch each other’s daemons. That Luffy and Pirate aren’t the strange ones, and that all along, it was him and Linnette who were the odd ones out.
That... that can’t possibly be right.
“You’re fucking with me,” he says, but even he can hear the note of uncertainty in his own voice.
“Wanna bet?” Zoro smirks, leaning into Sanji’s space again. He can never resist pressing an advantage. “You can’t even throw a punch. You really think you’re going to hurt me just by touching my daemon? I’m not that weak.”
“I’m not going to force your daemon to let me touch her just so you can win a petty argument,” Sanji says. He looks backward at Riki, desperate for some voice of sanity to back him up, even if that voice also technically belongs to Zoro. She didn’t want to be involved in this conversation, but surely she also doesn’t want to be a prop for Zoro’s insane experiment.
But she only blinks back at him, utterly unconcerned. “I don’t mind.” She snorts at Sanji’s dubious expression. “You have long fingers. And you take better care of your nails than Luffy.”
Linnette, sitting primly between Riki’s paws, also doesn’t look as disturbed by the idea as she should be. If anything, she looks curious about the proposition. He’s outnumbered three to one.
“Fine,” he bites out, and stomps past Zoro to steal his bottom hammock. If he’s going to do something so profoundly uncomfortable just to prove a point, he’s not going to do it sitting on the floor.
Riki jumps off the couch, brushing against Zoro’s hip as she passes, and Zoro takes Franky’s opposing hammock so that he and Sanji are facing each other. (They used to rotate beds, but they’ve had one too many incidents of strained hammocks crashing down in the middle of the night, and by unanimous agreement both Franky and Zoro are now forbidden from sleeping on the upper level.) Linnette flutters over to land on Sanji’s shoulder and gives him a little peck on the cheek.
“You don’t have to do this,” she says again, a soft trill meant only for his ear. He feels childish for needing the reassurance, but he can’t deny that he’s nervous, even if Zoro and Riki are the ones who actually stand to get hurt. What they’re doing feels clandestine, illicit. Wrong. He keeps wanting to twist his head up towards the hatch, to make sure it’s still closed, that nobody’s come back from town early to catch them in the act. Chopper might keep his mouth shut, but if Luffy or Usopp saw then the whole ship would know within hours, and Nami would never look at him the same way again.
He regrets choosing the low hammock when Riki pads over and sits at his feet. She’s too big to fit comfortably in the narrow space: her head is nearly level with his, and they’re so close that he can see the glint of sharp fangs poking out through her lips. A sentient, soul-bonded tiger she may be, but she’s still a goddamn tiger, and though he hides it as well as he can, a part of him still desperately wants to shrink away from the predator looming before him.
Zoro might have been right about one thing after all: if Linnette’s been cuddling up to Riki all this time, her courage deserves every bit of respect he has to give.
But then Riki bows her head, letting her shoulders sink down and her paws slide forward until her chin hovers just above Sanji’s knees. On any other animal, the posture might read as submission, but there’s still a keenness to her gaze, fixed firmly on his, that brooks no misunderstanding. She is allowing him to do this, but that doesn’t make her tame.
He glances at Zoro one last time as he raises his hand above Riki’s head. A part of him is still waiting for Zoro to call his own bluff, to laugh at Sanji for ever thinking he was serious about the offer. But Zoro leans back on his hands and raises an eyebrow, waiting for Sanji to make the next move.
There’s a familiar goading challenge in the look, but something else familiar too: a certainty, like when Zoro glances at Sanji on the battlefield and they both instantly know the other has their opponent fully covered. They might argue about the specifics in the aftermath, but in the moments that really matter, they trust each other to make the call.
Sanji lowers his hand to carefully brush the fur between Riki’s ears.
The shock is immediate, though not as intense as Sanji expected. Like the first plunge into cold water, it douses his entire body in shivers, but the tingling soon fades into a strangely pleasant warmth as his hand settles on the crown of her head. Sanji keeps his eyes focused on Riki’s expression, watching for any sign of discomfort or pain, so he can’t see Zoro’s full reaction, but he hears the hammock ropes creak as Zoro shifts.
No audible protests yet, so he dares to sink his fingers a little deeper into Riki’s fur. The tingling intensifies again as his fingertips brush the soft undercoat beneath her thick outer fur, spreading down his arm and into his shoulder, his jaw, until he can taste sparks on his tongue. He swallows and Zoro makes a soft noise at the same time, like a grunt of surprise.
Riki’s eyes drift closed, her chin sinking down onto Sanji’s knees as she drapes herself over his lap. He couldn’t move if he tried with the weight of a full-grown tiger resting on his legs, so he lets himself enjoy the change in texture as he strokes his fingers back and forth, revealing patches of lighter fur beneath orange and black camouflage. He’d expected her coat to be wiry and rough, but her undercoat is almost fluffy, like a tabby cat’s. It reminds him of the mousers who sometimes skulked through the castle kitchen, avoiding his brothers’ kicks but willing to accept a head scratch from Sanji’s gentler hand.
He’s always had a fondness for soft, small creatures, but there’s an unexpected benefit to Riki’s size: without any fear that her massive skull will break beneath his touch, he can pet her with his whole hand, not just the light press of fingers he allows himself with Linnette. He tries adding a bit more pressure and Riki responds with a pleased rumble, her breath blowing hot against his stomach. Despite the warmth, he shivers again, but his hand keeps moving with a newfound compulsion, back and forth, stroking, stroking—
Zoro clears his throat, the sound loud and unexpected enough to startle Sanji out of his trance. He jerks his hand away from Riki’s head as his eyes fly up to meet Zoro’s. Shit, he probably went too far—but then why the hell didn’t Zoro tell him to stop? His face is flushed and red, like it always gets when he’s truly pissed at Sanji, but he’s not yelling or storming over to drag Riki away: just staring at the two of them, white knuckles clenched into his pantlegs just above the knee.
Riki lifts her head from his lap, huffing her annoyance before drawing back entirely, and Sanji feels the absence of her touch beneath his skin, a prickle that’s less intense than when Linnette leaves his side, but still uncomfortable for the few seconds it lingers. He almost reaches for her again, an instinctual pull that his common sense only overrides at the last possible moment. Instead, he mirrors Zoro’s posture, shoving his hands into his pockets before they can act without permission.
“So,” he says roughly (when did his throat get so dry?), “how’d that feel to you?”
The question is more genuine than Zoro probably realizes: he doesn’t care anymore about their stupid argument or who was right or wrong, he just wants to understand what the hell just happened. He wants to know if Zoro’s skin is still itching like his, for something it wasn’t lacking before.
“...Different,” Zoro says at last, no longer quite meeting Sanji’s eyes as Riki settles back down by his feet. He pats her head, and for the briefest of moments, Sanji’s scalp tingles. “Yeah, different. Huh.”
Zoro scratches behind Riki’s ears, looking thoughtful as his fingers pass through the same mussed patches of fur Sanji’s left. His tan skin isn’t as flushed as it was a minute ago, but there’s still a faint line of red running over his nose, like a sunburn that refuses to fade. He clears his throat again, then looks back up at Sanji.
“How’d it feel for you?”
Sanji blushes, caught off guard by the question. He doesn’t know if he can put what he felt into words, much less words that he could bear to say aloud to Zoro. How do you explain what it feels like to touch something that could tear you to pieces and to know, more and more intimately with each passing second, that it won’t? The exhilaration of danger mingled with the unfailing certainty that there’s nothing to fear: an impossible contradiction that barely makes sense to Sanji, let alone something he can explain.
Good, is the simpler answer. It felt good.
But instead, what comes out of his mouth is, “See for yourself?”
Zoro’s eyes widen in shock, as do Riki’s, but the words just slipped out and they feel... right, somehow. Fair’s fair, after all.
“You’d let me?” Zoro says with something between wariness and anticipation as he leans forward, and the reality of what Sanji’s just offered hits him all at once. He turns his head to Linnette, still perched on his shoulder.
“It’s not up to me,” he says softly.
Linnette doesn’t answer immediately, but he can’t feel any fear, or betrayal, or even nervousness wafting from her. Instead, there’s a peace in his chest: not the numbness of exhaustion, but the quietness of relief.
“I’m not scared anymore,” she murmurs. “I was just waiting for you to notice.”
He closes his eyes, and she leans her head against his check. When he opens them again, Zoro is still exactly where he was: sitting forward on the hammock, arms bare and palms open.
He takes Linnette from his shoulder and gives her one last squeeze of reassurance. Then he whispers, “Go,” and unlocks his fingers. As soon as she’s out of his grasp, flitting towards Zoro’s waiting hands, he wants to reach for her, to call her back, but he doesn’t.
They both deserve to live, after all this time.