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Chapter Text

They've been trading kitchen work for room and board at the inn they've been staying at. Zeff has plans for that treasure, he tells Sanji, and those plans don't include covering the stay at an inn for however long it takes them to recover from the rock. Anyway, he might not be mobile, but as long as everything he needs is laid out within reach he can still cook just as well, and Sanji is happy to be his legs and fill in whatever gaps he has, as well as do any other work that's called for.

"Your little boy is a game worker," the head cook says, watching Sanji haul a bag of potatoes as big as he is up from the cellar. It's taking awhile, because Sanji is still on the puny side after the rock, but the old woman who runs the kitchen is right, he is a game worker.

Zeff doesn't bother to correct the other notion, just grunts in agreement and reaches for the bag as soon as Sanji is near enough.

Later, when it's just the two of them, Sanji peeks up at Zeff from behind his bangs.

"Why don't you ever correct people when they say stuff like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like when she called me your little boy. I'm not."

"Tch." Zeff reaches over to rough up Sanji's hair. "Who says? You're my responsibility now, and you're a little boy. Sounds like a pretty accurate description to my ear."

Sanji sticks his tongue out, and gets back to work cutting up potatoes. "You know what she meant. Like you're my dad or something."

Zeff looks sidelong at him, searching for something in his face, and then gives him a little grunt.

"I don't see anyone else lining up to do the job, do you? Someone's gotta make sure you grow up, haven't they? Might as well be me as anyone."

This gets Sanji's attention, head whipping up to stare at him so fast it's a wonder he doesn't get whiplash. He slowly looks away, hunching over his potatoes.

"Shitty old geezer," he says, voice wobbly. "You can't just say things like that."

Chapter Text

They're at the inn for a little less than a month when the hurricane hits. At the first sheets of rain that begin to pound the glass, Sanji is immediately tense, movements jerky and stilted as he works to cut a seeming endless supply of vegetables that will go into the stew that will be tonight's dinner at the inn.

Though they've been tight-lipped about the details of their time on the rock, they did tell their hosts at the inn about their ship going down during a storm, and washing up on a barren rock until they were rescued. As such, it takes no trouble at all for the head cook to guess where Sanji's thoughts are going as the wind and rain rattle the inn down to its foundations.

"Don't worry, lad, this place has weathered many a storm over the years it's stood," she assures him. "You'll come to no harm from the storm here."

Sanji mumbles something he doesn't even bother to attend, but beside him, Zeff reaches over with one broad hand and catches his shoulder, scooting Sanji- knife, vegetables, step-stool and all- closer to him, letting the boy lean into his hip briefly before letting him get back to cutting, Zeff's arm still planted around him.

It should be mortifying, and later Sanji will decide that it is, but right now it's all he needs, and he lets the warmth of Zeff's enormous hand soak into his shoulder.

"'nks," he mumbles, barely audible over the storm.

-/-

The storm is still raging by the time they finally stagger to bed late that night. In deference to Zeff's missing limb, they've been given a ground floor room; it's tiny, barely big enough for the single bed, the wardrobe, and the plain wooden chair that are the only furniture in the room. When Sanji pulls his little trundle bed out at night, there's barely a strip of floor left to walk between the beds and the door.

It is, however, much better than that thrice-damned rock, and the linens, while nothing to write home about, are at least not scratchy, and the thin mattress on the cot is soft enough to get comfortable on. Perhaps his bar is low, but it is better than the rock, better than the threadbare hammock in the cooks' bunkroom he'd slept on back on the Orbit, and heaps better than the cell.

Normally, Sanji has no trouble sleeping- between the comfort, such that it is, and how tired he is after a hard day's work, he normally tends to stay awake just long enough for Zeff to crawl into his own bed and wish him goodnight with a reminder that they've got another long day ahead of them.

Tonight, though, is another story. The storm won't let him sleep: he swears every time he closes his eyes he can feel the waves crashing against the walls (the hull) and any minute now dreads that he'll feel the icy cold water washing him out to sea, dragging him down, and this time Zeff won't come for him.

A crack of thunder booms overhead, enough that Sanji squeaks and tries to burrow into his mattress, pulling his suddenly-too-thin quilt over his head as terror rocks through him. Then, without warning, a large hand works its way under the quilt, finding where Sanji's hands are buried in his hair, and gently pries them free before folding around them. He peeks out of the shelter of the quilt and finds Zeff sitting up on the big bed, leaning over to reach for him.

"C'mere, Eggplant," he says once he has his attention, and coaxes Sanji up beside him. "It's alright. It's scary, isn't it? But this place is built pretty far inland, and built up on a slope. We haven't got anything the worry about from the sea up this far."

"That's what Cook said," Sanji says. "But it's- it's really loud."

He sniffles, but nonetheless puffs himself up manfully, trying to make it seem like he's not terrified. This lasts all of the time it takes for another thunderclap to rock the entire inn, and he yelps before huddling into Zeff's side.

"I don't wanna be washed away again," he admits.

"I won't let that happen," Zeff says, like it's nothing.

"You're so weird, old geezer," Sanji mumbles, still trying to save face, but the attempt is rather lost in the way he curls up with his head pillowed on Zeff's thigh, that broad hand still curled protectively around his back.

Like this, it's easy to think of the storm as something distant, especially with Zeff sitting up staring out the window. It makes him feel safe in a way he's not sure he ever has before.

It's only as sleep finally steals up on him that it occurs to him to wonder if maybe Zeff had been scared by the storm as well.

-/-

Chapter Text

The storm has blown itself out by the time Zeff wakes up the next morning, late-morning sunlight pouring into the little room. Zeff takes note of this, and then takes note of several more facts.

1, there is a little hand slapped over his eye, the arm it's attached to shunting his nose ever-so-slightly aside, just enough to be uncomfortable.

2, there is a small body starfished over his own: he assumes he eventually laid back down in the night, and brought Sanji with him. (2b: Sanji is currently drooling on the neck of his undershirt.)

3, there is a tiny knee digging with lazer-guided precision into his bladder.

That last one is causing a problem that is presenting itself with growing urgency, so he wraps his arms around Sanji's sleeping form and sits up, adjusting his hold so he doesn't wake him up. Now that he's ended Sanji's malicious assault on his bladder, though,  he gives himself a moment of pause, staring down at the little boy cradled asleep in his arms. God knows the kid's not going to give him many chances to indulge these fond feelings of his awake.

He looks like a little angel when he's sleeping. So innocent and pure and soft.

Fortunately, Zeff's known him long enough to know that that's a crock of shit. This boy he's for some reason taken on to raise is a mouthy little shit, cocky, headstrong, and stubborn as hell. He's ready to fight at a moment's notice, and he can swear up a storm that would make even some of the most hardened pirates Zeff's ever sailed with blush and suggest maybe he ought to tone it down. He's loud. He's annoying. He's a brat.

He's also a fighter, clinging to life with both hands and all of his teeth, and, paradoxically, effortlessly kind. Even setting aside his eager helpfulness in the inn's kitchen, Zeff's also watched him bustle around in the rest of the inn, lending a hand here, offering a little aid there. He likes talking to the patrons about their travels. He likes listening to their stories. He likes taking care of their needs.

While he stares down at his little charge, at the tiny little loud-mouth who has somehow become the gravitational center of Zeff's universe, Sanji stirs, eyes opening to stare blearily up at him.

Knowing the kid won't thank him for the gentleness, he nonetheless reaches over to brush his hair a little from his face while his vision comes back into focus.

"Old geezer?" Sanji asks. "What are you staring at me for? S'weird."

"You know you actually look like a nice kid when you're asleep?" Zeff asks, smirking down at him. "I'd almost think I'd saddled myself with a completely different brat. One who wasn't such a walking headache."

Sanji's adorably sleepy look immediately swaps to a glare. "I'm a fucking delight!"

"Watch your fucking language," Zeff scolds, reaching over to drop the kid back on his trundle cot. "And get dressed, we slept through breakfast."

Sanji squawks in protest at being unceremoniously dumped into his own bed, but his gaze immediately turns to the window and his expression brightens. "The storm stopped."

"That it did."

Sanji stares out at the bright morning light, then slides to the floor and rises up on tiptoes so he can hug Zeff's arm where it's sitting at the edge of the bed. He gives Zeff a sunny smile of his own, then kicks his cot back under the big bed and trots over to the wardrobe to grab his clothes for the day.

Zeff watches him disappear, listens to his little footsteps as he trots down to the washroom, and his own face softens as he flops back onto his pillow, giving himself just a few more minutes to indulge his fondness before he has to get up and get to work for the day.

Chapter Text

Zeff doesn't really know anything about Sanji's history before the storm.

Once he was recovered enough, Zeff decided to go up to the local shrine and light a candle for his lost shipmates, and offered Sanji the chance to do the same if he'd like. When he'd asked if Sanji had any family he'd lost when the Orbit went down, Sanji'd explained that he was alone, and had convinced the captain to let him stay on board in exchange for doing kitchen work.

"Staying" on board implying that he was already on board at the time, but attempts to inquire further, to find out if maybe he had some family back on land that he might like to get back to, had seen him clamming up faster than a- well, than a clam. So Zeff had left that topic by the wayside. For whatever reasons of Sanji's past, the kid is alone, and all the more reason he's Zeff's problem now. As he told the kid already, it's not like anyone else is lining up to do it.

The first time he gets a hint at what exact the kid might have left behind is a few days after the doctor has fitted him with a peg to replace his dearly departed (and worryingly delicious, but he's chalking that up to the starvation) limb, when he doesn't realize the kid came into the walk-in behind him and let it close on his way out, accidentally leaving him trapped.

It takes him a few minutes to realize he's sans one eggplant, and he initially assumes the kid simply left the kitchen- it's a good ten minutes before the inexplicable dread in his middle has him hurrying over to the freezer and hauling it open with a franticness he can't explain.

He'd expect that, if the kid got trapped in the freezer or anywhere else, he'd pound and bang and yell and scream and shout and cuss and cause a ruckus until he's brought the entire inn down to get him out. Or, at very least, he'd expect some kind of call for help, probably rife with profanity, some indication from the boy that he needs freeing.

What he isn't expecting when he yanks the freezer door wide is to find Sanji crouching into a little ball, hands tangled in his hair as a tiny, barely audible stream of "I'm sorry" and "I'll be good" falls from his lips with the same rapidity as the tears currently pooling around his feet.

Something inside of Zeff starts boiling with rage at the sight, and really if he wasn't already aware he was absolutely gone on this kid that would be the moment he knows: he's bombarded with thoughts of raising a new crew, setting sail, and finding whoever it was who could reduce this loud-mouthed little shithead eggplant of his to a whimpering mess and burning everything they hold dear to the ground.

This is of course extremely impractical, so he settles for scooping the kid up.

"Sorry, Eggplant," he says. "Shoulda checked."

For some reason this only gets the kid sobbing harder. He thinks he can hear some garbled denials, attempts to take the full blame onto himself, and more apologies, and worryingly the kid hasn't stopped yanking on his hair- it's more worry he's going to start pulling it free that Zeff shifts his hold to one arm and reaches up his free hand to oh-so-carefully loosen and extract to kid's grip, first one hand and then the other, brushing his own fingers through the kid's hair himself.

This seems to have some positive effect, and Sanji slowly untenses, though one tiny hand is still fisted in Zeff's apron like a lifeline.

If Cook thinks anything about Zeff doing the rest of dinner prep one-handed because he refuses to put Sanji down until he stops crying, she doesn't say it to his face. The kid does eventually wriggle free on his own, though, scrubbing his sleeve over his messy face.

"Next time that happens you holler for me," Zeff says sternly. "Now go get washed up. You're gonna get snot all over the kitchen and contaminate everyone's supper."

This gets a loud huff from the kid, who flips him off before going to do just that. Zeff grins.

That's more like it.

Chapter Text

Zeff has known since the moment they set foot on shore that they would have to move on sooner or later, likely sooner. Even laying aside that his plans don't involve work for board in an inn kitchen indefinitely, he's a pirate with a hefty bounty on his head- a Grand Line bounty, too, far bigger than the paltry sums the East Blue normally produces, and the only reason his face isn't plastered on every tavern wall in the entire sea is that his ship went down about five minutes after he left the Grand Line and the Marines of the East Blue don't know to worry about him.

In any case, Sanji has bounced all the way back to the condition he was in before they met, and while Zeff suspects he himself is never quite going to be back at fighting weight, he's got his mobility back and the lingering exhaustion has begun to wear off, which means it'll be time for them to start looking for an island with a proper shipyard soon, so they can get started on those plans.

So, yes, Zeff knew they would be moving on soon.

What he wasn't expecting, what he could never have predicted, was to come back from an evening walk to the park and back only to be shushed and dragged into the alleyway and around to the back door and into the kitchen before he could reach the inn, and have the inn's matron shove his own wanted poster into his hands.

"Ah, hell," he says, staring down at his own face grinning up at him.

"A bounty hunter came by earlier," Cook whispers to him. "He heard you were staying here, but we told him we'd never seen you and he left. That won't work for long, though."

Not the usual line. They all glance up as the door creaks open and the innkeeper slips into the room. He looks relieved when he sees Zeff. "I just came from the docks," he says, equally hushed. "I reserved passage for two on a ship leaving at dawn. You should have time for a night's rest and to pack some provisions, and you'll be long gone before that bounty hunter loops back around."

"Um," Zeff says, because this isn't even remotely what typically happens when people realize they've been playing hosts to pirates under false pretenses.

"We know it's sudden, but it's not safe for you to stay here anymore," the matron says, and then she and her husband exchange a meaningful Look and Zeff suspects he's not going to like what she's about to say.

"We also," the innkeeper says carefully, taking his wife's hand in his own, "Would like you to consider leaving Sanji here with us."

Yeah. He was right. He doesn't like that. His mustache bristles, and it's only the fact that these people have been so kind to them that keeps him from lashing out there and then and telling them exactly what he thinks.

"We're thinking of the boy's best interest," the matron says. "Being on the run is no life for a little boy. Here he could have a life here- a life of hard work, sure, but he could get an education, and make friends. He wouldn't be dragged from island to island avoiding bounty hunters and marines. He'd have a stable, loving home. We would take good care of him. He's a sweet, dear little thing..."

This last part is what cuts through his disbelief at their proposal. He snorts, explosive enough to rattle his mustache. "He's a damned demon child sent straight from hell to destroy every last nerve I've got," he says, "and he'll be staying with me until he makes the choice to leave. He's my son. Like hell I'll abandon him."

"But he's not your son, is he?" Cook asks gently. "Not really. I've heard you two talking- you just shipwrecked together, and then let him stick with you after you were found."

"And what of it? I don't-"

And breaks off, because his usual refrain, I don't see anyone else lining up to do the job, isn't true, is it? That's exactly what they're doing. They're offering to do the job. And they're way better equipped to than he is.

"Let me think about it," he says weakly, and turns to stump into the little room he and Sanji share.

Sanji is already asleep, sprawled out on the trundle cot with his legs hanging off either side and his arm splayed out, a book laid open on his chest. A gift from Cook when she'd found out how much he liked fairy tales. He'd been so happy...

"Dammit, Eggplant," he grumbles, making his way to his own bed as quietly as he can under the circumstances. He drops onto the end and sits staring down at the kid.

The trouble is, he can't think of a single good reason for Sanji to stay with him instead of here at the inn. The innkeeper and matron are good people, he knows they mean it when they say they'll take care of him. Cook is a wonderful woman, and good at her job, so he'll have someone to teach him his trade as well. There's a public school in town, so he'll be able to get an education, and there's plenty of children for him to make friends with. He'll get to be a normal kid with a normal life, exactly what he should have.

But he won't be with Zeff, and Zeff is selfish enough that he'd prefer that to leaving him behind. The simple fact is that as far as he's concerned, the sea gave him a son and he has no intention of giving him up.

Unfortunately, he also has no intention of making the kid do anything he doesn't want to do. Bracing himself for the worst, he reaches over and shakes Sanji awake.

"Whaddya want, old man?" Sanji grumbles once he's awake. He squints upside down up at Zeff, and the flips up to sit facing him. "Zeff? What's wrong?"

"Bounty hunter found me," he grunts. "Time to move on. The innkeeper booked passage on a ship leaving in the morning."

"Oh. Well, I only have the one set of clothes and my book and my knife, so it's not like it'll take long to pack."

"No," Zeff agrees, and sighs. "Listen, Sanji," he says. "The innkeeper and the matron... they've offered to let you stay here with them."

Zeff is pretty sure he can literally hear the kid's heart shattering as he realizes what Zeff is proposing.

"What?" he says, voice oh-so-quiet and broken.

"It's not a bad opportunity. You'd get to grow up around here, get to be a normal kid."

"No no no!" Sanji wails and flings himself at Zeff, clinging to him. "Please don't leave me! I'll be good! I'll stop swearing so much and I won't call you old geezer anymore and I won't get underfoot or ask too many questions and I'll stop picking fights and- and- and whatever else you want! I'll be whatever you want me to be but please don't leave me!"

Someone out there, and Zeff doesn't know who, is going to die if Zeff ever learns their name. He pries Sanji off of his front and holds him out at arm's length, affecting a scowl.

"Would you calm down? I'm not going to leave you here if you don't want me to. I was just trying to give you a say in the matter. It's your life. I'm not gonna force you to stay with me if you'd rather stay here, that's all."

Aaaaaand there come the waterworks. Zeff stares at the big globs of water tracking down Sanji's face, and well, in for a berry, in for a bounty.

"And all of that nonsense about being whatever I want you to be can just go out the window too," he goes on. "I don't want you to be anyone but Sanji, you hear me? I knew you weren't a well-behaved child when I took you to raise and I intend to make you a good man, not a nice one. So you just be whoever you need to be and I'll figure out the rest. That's the job I took on so you just leave it to me."

Sanji sniffles. "So I can really stay with you? You're not going to get rid of me?"

"It won't be an easy life," Zeff says. "It won't be anything fancy, and it'll be lots of hard work, and I'm not an easy man to get along with at the best of times."

More tears. "I don't mind. Just don't leave me."

And, well, maybe it is selfish of him. Maybe it'd be better for Sanji in the long run if he'd just left him here anyway, without consulting him.

But hell, he's a pirate. Being selfish is kind of in the job description.

Chapter Text

The Baratie is as beautiful as Zeff imagined it would be.

He's been by regularly to check on progress, but after it started to be more than just a frame he stopped bringing Sanji. There's been an itch in his heart at the idea of letting the boy see the construction of the ship: he wants to present it to him at completion. Wants to make a big production of it. He wants to show it off.

Zeff is so far gone on this kid it's unreal. Grand Line who? All Blue what? His whole life is this little boy now, this little boy and the restaurant they're going to create together.

(And he knows, oh yes he knows, that one day Sanji will leave him and seek out the All Blue. He'll find it, too. And Zeff will watch him leave and his heart will break, but it's only true and proper that it happens that way. Whatever this kid's been through has taken enough of his life from him. Zeff has no intention of taking more.)

Anyway. There's the ship.

Sanji has been a huge grouch about not getting to see the Baratie while it was being built, brushing over Zeff's excuses about the shipwrights not needing some little eggplant brat underfoot while they work, but watching him run up and down the deck, in and out of the floors, throwing open doors while his cries of "wow!" and "so cool!" and "look old geezer, this kitchen is HUGE!" get louder and louder, he thinks it was worth the way. Worth the reveal. Zeff stomps after him, taking in the details of his ship with a much more adult calm, but just as awed as Sanji is.

It's a beautiful ship. It's a beautiful restaurant.

"Amazing, old geezer! So this is the Ocean-Going Restaurant the Baratie?" Sanji turns and beams at Zeff. His smile is so bright, lit up with wonder and awe and everything good that the future can hold. The Baratie is a wonderful backdrop for that.

Zeff matches his grin. "That's right! I sank my whole fortune into it, and I still owe a heap. Are you ready? Cause we're gonna be busy!"

Sanji just laughs. "It won't be a problem with me around! Have no fear, Sanji's here!" He runs over and, in a rare display of affection, leans against Zeff's side, still beaming up at the Baratie. Zeff rests a fond hand on the kid's head, not quite roughing up his hair, and stares up at it as well. For a moment, just a moment, calm settles, the kind of calm that makes him think that he made the right choice taking on this little baby eggplant after all.

Chapter Text

The cooks they hire don't quite know what to make of Sanji.

Oh, it's easy enough to see what they're assuming, when they excitedly throw open the door to the kitchen waving around that help wanted posted and find their potential new boss and a kid who has just enough superficial similarities to him to write off without a word.

(Sanji doesn't look like Zeff, but they both have blond hair and blue eyes and that tends to be enough that no one would even think to ask questions.)

But it all goes out the window at the first interaction. Patty, the bigger of the two, the more blustery, the one who responds favorably when being told that working front of house is part of the job, clearly wants to be friends with his boss's kid. He crouches down next to him and fixes him with a too-wide grin when Zeff grunts an introduction without looking away from the work he's doing.

"Hi there, Sanji," he coos. "My name is Patty. I'm gonna be a cook in your daddy's kitchen! I'm sure we'll be best friends, don't you agree?"

Zeff had to turn away immediately to hide the laugh trying to rip itself out of him- there's so much in that sentence that Sanji is going to object to- and so he doesn't see when Sanji lashes out with a kick that cracks Patty's kneecap and knocks him back on his ass.

"Are you stupid or do you just think I am?" Sanji snaps. "You just stay out of my way, you hear?"

"You little brat!" And, ah, yes, there he is- Zeff suspected there was an attitude under that bluster. Patty grabs Sanji by the back of his tiny little chef's whites and holds him up, ignoring the flailing limbs as Sanji tries to get near enough to hit him again. "Hey, boss! This chore boy of yours is fucking feral!"

At the words, Zeff turns and lashes out, cracking Patty's other knee with a kick that echoes and sends him sprawling, Sanji landing lightly on his feet as he's dropped.

"That feral brat is my sous chef and I expect you to act like it," he says, looming over the man with a scowl. Beside him, Sanji is mirroring his position with a scowl of his own. It is unfortunately adorable.

"Sous chef?!" Patty stares at Sanji. "That little shrimp is your sous chef?!"

"Yes," Zeff says, while beside him Sanji sticks his tongue out because he's ten. He then sighs when Patty repeats the motion, because Patty is apparently also ten. To Carne, who has been behaving himself so far, he adds, "He always like this?"

"What, a huge pain in the ass? Yeah."

"Great. Well, we might as well get to work. Grand opening is soon. Eggplant! Stop picking a fight with my employees and get back to work."

"Humph!" is all the response he gets, but Sanji does as he told while Carne offers a hand to haul Patty to his feet.

"What a little brat," Carne says, the pair sending a dark look at Sanji's back.

-/-

Patty doesn't know what to make of Sanji.

If it wasn't for the fact that once he'd tasted Sanji's cooking he'd had to admit that it was better than a lot of grown-up chefs he's known, he'd say that he was only sous chef because of nepotism. He's not disinclined even so, since being able to run a kitchen is a different skillset than being able to cook, but Zeff just brushes him off when he points this out.

At least respecting him as sous chef doesn't seem to require he not pick fights with the kid in Zeff's eyes; the first time he'd plonked the kid on the head for being a brat he'd glanced warily over at Zeff, expecting to feel another lash of that peg, only for Zeff to not even turn around while growling out a reminded to Sanji that he wasn't allowed to fight with his hands. Of course, this had just earned Patty a shin-kick that left a bruise he's still feeling days later, so not much of a victory, really.

Anyway, if he feels even a little pathetic about out-and-out brawling with a ten-year-old, that goes out the window the first time they actually do come to blows, when Patty gets an eyeful of the way Sanji carries himself in a fight.

So, it's like this: Patty grew up in street-wide brawls, territory disputes with other gangs of street brats, and then he spent a few years working in the galley on a pirate ship before deciding he'd rather be an honest chef. He's spent his entire life fighting, against other kids and against adult fighters and against trained marines, and he knows the difference between the way a kid fights and the way a man fights and the way a soldier fights.

Sanji doesn't fight like a kid, but he doesn't fight like just an adult who's had the benefit of experience, either. He fights like someone who's been trained in it. Oh, his style is still new, and his form is still sloppy, but he rolls into blows and watches for openings and does combat math with the ease of someone who has been taught how. He can see the kid watching his movements, can see him planning his own in that split second. He just... he can tell, okay?

It's weird. The kid is weird. Is this Zeff's doing? He knows Zeff has started passing on his kicks.

"Noticed it too, have you?" Zeff asks, when Patty comes to sit beside him on the back deck, watching over Sanji going through his forms, and just decides to ask.

"Did you teach him that?"

"Nah, he was like that when I got him."

"When you-? Oh, sorry, I thought he was your son."

"He is my son," Zeff says firmly, and adds, "Now."

"So who taught him, then?"

He glances aside at Zeff, who is watching Sanji with a dark look in his eyes.

"Someone with a death wish."

-/-

The trouble with beefing with a ten year old is that at some point, something will happen to remind you that you're the adult in the room and then force you to act like it.

Patty doesn't mean anything with the bug, not really.

So, it's like this: Patty and Sanji are bringing in some produce they've just been delivered, and Patty has just dropped an enormous crate when he hears Sanji squeak from where he's carrying a bag full of carrots. When he looks over to see what could get the kid to squeak of all things, he sees a large, absolutely beautiful praying mantis perched on the leafy tops, watching Sanji carefully.

"What a beauty!" he says, and then notices the way Sanji has gone absolutely rigid. He grins. Bugs? Really? The kid can crack a grown man's ribs with one of his kicks but bugs get to him?

He reaches over and coaxes the mantis into his hands, cupping them around it to hold it in place. "What's the matter, brat? I thought all little boys like bugs!"

"Um, not me," Sanji squeaks, more subdued than Patty's ever seen him as he tries to edge away from where Patty's hands are still cupping the mantis near him. 

Patty's grin widens and he moves it closer. "Oh go on, take a look! I've never seen a mantis this big! Just look at those claws!"

Really, he doesn't mean anything. He's trying to tease the kid, and is just assuming he doesn't like bugs, not that he's scared of them. And, too, he's never seen Sanji express his displeasure in any way that isn't violence, so surely he's just repulsed? Surely he's not afraid?

He is summarily corrected by Sanji lashing out and smashing Patty's wrist with his heel (okay, that was expected) before the kid tucks himself into a ball in the corner that Patty has unintentionally backed him into, a litany of pleas falling from his lips, begging Patty to get it away and even apologizing if he hurt him and please please please please please don't put it on him this time and and- and-

Something unfamiliar rockets through Patty's middle: a sense of responsibility, Carne will call it later when Patty tells him about this, and sure, maybe. All he knows is that he's crossed a line he didn't even know was there, and beefing with a ten year old is one thing but hurting that ten year old is another.

Without quite thinking about it, he rises and stomps over to the door, making as much noise as possible as he opens it and tosses the mantis through it. They're still docked; the thing will find its way back to land easily enough, though he doesn't really care much. Patty has other things to worry about.

"Hey, Sanji," he says, coming back over to the kid. "It's gone. I tossed it outside."

Sanji just whimpers in acknowledgement, but doesn't come out of the tiny ball he's curled himself into. Patty notices his hands tangled in his hair, white-knuckling the locks, and if he listens, he can hear tiny little sniffles.

Alright.

He moves over beside Sanji and lowers himself to sit with his legs folded in front of him, back leaning against the wall. "So, bugs, huh?" he says.

Sanji sniffles an affirmative. Patty gives him a tiny smile.

"Yeah, I get it. I don't like dogs much, myself. Some smarmy shit back in my village used to set his dogs on us kids for a laugh. Never really got over it."

Sanji peeks over at him, eyes red-rimmed and damp.

"My- um- s-someone I knew used to hold me down and put bugs in my shirt," he says. A shudder rips through his tiny frame and his head disappears back into the hollow created by his knees. "I can still feel their little legs all over my skin."

"That sucks," Patty says bluntly, and falls silent.

He doesn't really know what to make of Sanji, he really doesn't. But he's the adult here. He can spend ten minutes acting like it.

Chapter Text

Zeff finds out when Sanji's birthday is through the extremely dirty tactic of asking him while he's distracted, and then says nothing more about it after that, drawing Sanji into a false sense of security over why he wanted to know in the first place. 

Anyway, his birthday's months out at that point, so he figures Zeff will probably forget by the time March rolls around.

Sanji certainly does, paying no attention to the calendar as he drags himself sleepily from his bed and down to the main deck of the ship for his shift-

"Surprise!!!"

-only to be immediately slammed into reality as hits the employee dining room to find that someone seems to have set up a surprise party for him.

"Morning, Eggplant," Zeff says, scooping him up and bringing him over to plunk him down at the head of the table. "Happy birthday."

Unfortunately, Sanji then proceeds to subject Zeff and the rest of their little family to a truly horrifying display, yelling at all of them for a solid ten minutes about how he doesn't need their stupid birthday wishes or their shitty cake or some dumb party just to celebrate being a year older, and then follows this up by bursting into tears and absolutely bawling when they completely ignore his ranting to set a cake in front of him with 'Happy Birthday, Sanji' written in elegant script. The cake is ocean-blue with icing fish piped around the side and it's the most delicious thing he's ever tasted and he leaks big ugly tears the whole time he's eating it.

It's been over a year at this point. By now, everyone at the Baratie has figured out that there's something wrong with Sanji. He guesses this is just one more drop in the bucket overall.

Anyway, it's a nice birthday. They got him presents. They looked up party games to play.

They made him a cake with fish on it...

"Did you have a nice birthday, Eggplant?" Zeff asks as he carries an exhausted Sanji up to his room that night. Sanji wouldn't normally let him do this, but he's so tired, and it is his birthday after all...

"It was nice," he mumbles sleepily into Zeff's shoulder. "Beats getting kicked around the training grounds to test our progress by miles for sure."

He realizes as he's said it that he shouldn't have- Zeff stills on the stairs.

"Sanji," he says, big hand coming to rest protectively over Sanji's back, and then he sighs. "I'm glad you're here. I'm glad the sea saw fit to give me a son."

Sanji didn't think he had any tears left after today, but he's proven wrong at Zeff's words and clings to his jacket.

"Why are you so nice to me, you shitty old geezer?" he sobs. "All I do is cause you trouble. You'd be better off if you'd never met me."

"That's not true," Zeff says. "If I'd never met you, I'd never have got to raise you. How is that better?"

"You'd still be a pirate. You'd still get to sail and look for the All Blue. You'd still have both legs."

"Maybe. But I wouldn't get to raise you. Tell me how that's better."

Sanji just sniffles and clings tighter. "How can you say that? I'm worthless, I'm a failure, I fight customers and I yell at your employees. The first time we met I bit you and you still threw yourself overboard to save me! Don't say it's cause we have the same dream, I refuse to believe that's enough for everything you've done for me! I can't even have a birthday right!"

"You're also bright and curious and constantly trying to learn more about your profession. You're passionate and you bring joy to your work- when you're not mouthing off anyway. When customers aren't disrespectful you're the picture of helpfulness, and you're a perfect gentleman to every woman I've seen you talk to, not just the pretty ones." Zeff sets him down and lowers himself to sit wearily on the stairs. "From where I'm standing you're growing into a good man, just like I said. And a good chef, too, even if you're not there yet. What else is there that I could care about?"

Sanji sniffles. "I just don't want to disappoint you..." Tell me how not to disappoint you. Tell me how to keep you.

"The only way you could disappoint me is if you became the sort of person I despise."

There, now they're getting somewhere. Sanji presses close. "What sort of person is that?"

Zeff watches him curiously, and then gives him a cockeyed shrug. "The sort of cruel person who delights in hurting people for its own sake. The sort of man who would mistreat a woman. The sort of person who would starve a man, or a town, or a whole country. The sort of person who breaks a promise. That's the sort of person I despise, Eggplant. Don't become that sort of person, and you'll never disappoint me."

"That's it?" Sanji asks, scrubbing tears and snot away with his sleeve. "But that's so easy..."

"Then we shouldn't have any problems, should we?" He grins again and roughs Sanji's hair, hand stilling as he gazes fondly down at him. His expression fades into something more serious. "I don't regret you, Sanji. Not for a minute, not ever. If you sent me back in time to that night, I'd make the same choice to save you, over and over again. Don't ever doubt that."

Still feeling a bit of an emotional wringer, Sanji nods. "Okay," he says weakly, and is rewarded by Zeff standing and scooping him up over his shoulder. He squeaks. "Hey!"

"Hm? What's that? Got something to say, brat?"

"I'm not a sack of potatoes, crap-geezer! Put me down!"