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A cigarette trembled between Sanji’s lips.
He didn’t light it right away. It sat there, dry and waiting, like a question he wasn’t ready to answer. His fingers hovered near the flint, motionless. The lighter clicked once, twice, until finally the flame caught and the paper hissed to life, curling like a whisper. Smoke rose and the scent of burning tobacco filled the quiet night, too gentle for what was clawing inside him.
He didn’t drag. Didn’t need to. Just watching it burn was enough.
The fire at the end reminded him of him; how Ace had always been in motion, always bright, always burning, even when the rest of them were drowning. He’d never asked to be looked at like that, Sanji knew, but it was hard not to.
Fire drew people in.
It was beautiful.
And it hurt like hell when it touched you.
They hadn’t had time to become anything. Sanji didn’t know what to call it— what they were— what they might’ve been. A flame and a fuse, maybe. Two stubborn souls who talked too loud, laughed too hard, and kept everything important hidden behind teeth and smoke.
But they had something.
A charged silence.
Loaded glances across the table at meals.
Little kisses and breaths against warm flesh.
A kiss— a stupid, impulsive thing. Ace had shoved him against the counter in the middle of a playful fight, half furious and tired and drunk off cheap island liquor; Ace had kissed him like he was a man made of flame and knew the whole world was soaked in oil.
Afterward, they hadn’t spoken about it. Not really. Ace had just grinned that cocky, golden grin and said, “Didn’t think you liked it that hot, Sanji boy.”
Sanji had laughed. He remembered the way Ace’s shoulders had looked in the moonlight through the porthole. He remembered the smell of firewood and salt and burning sugar.
He remembered, because he couldn’t forget.
Because hadn’t been there when it happened.
He hadn’t made it in time. The crew had barely heard of Marineford’s threat of war when the news hit like a cannonball to the chest. Fire fist Ace, son of Gol D. Roger, fleet commander of the Whitebeard pirates, dead. Executed in the middle of a war. Gone, just like that, turned to ash in his brother’s arms.
Sanji couldn't cry at first. Didn't even speak. He just walked off the grassy plane of the island, lit a cigarette, and stared at the sky like the clouds might part and give him a reason.
They didn’t.
And now, two years later, he stood alone at the edge of the sunny, the wind tugging at his coat and the sea stretching out like an answerless grave. The cigarette burned lower, shrinking into itself, and Sanji finally took a drag — slow, deep, full of everything he hadn’t said.
“I should’ve been there,”
Smoke curled from his lips.
“I could've done something.”
Something burned in his eyes.
That's when Sanji decided that fire burns fast. At least, Ace had always burned fast. Too fast for the world to catch him, and too bright to stay.
He remembered how comfortable Ace’s hands has been the last time they touched. He had leaned in, placing a gentle burn to Sanji's lips and held his body in a warm embrace. How he laughed like he had the sun in his chest. How he never stayed still— even when his smile turned sour, even when he slept— always shifting, burning, flickering.
Now, there was nothing left to flicker.
He had left Sanji a small transponder snail, offering a smug smile when Sanji had said he could not ensure a call would ever come for him. Ace could've been mad, could have rudely refused to leave until Sanji promised to speak to him soon.
"That's okay, too." Ace had smiled, placing a small kiss on Sanji's cold knuckle.
And he had winked, offering a simple, "I'll hope to see you soon, hot stuff," something Ace had found hilarious the first time he fondly called Sanji by the name, and likely still felt the same way the last time he had called Sanji the name.
The cigarette reached its end. Only a stub now. Cracked filter, blackened ash, ember fading to grey.
Sanji didn’t put it out— didn’t stamp it under his heel like he normally would. He let it die in his fingers, let it shrivel and cool and fall apart, a brief shock of heat went through his body as the ash crumbled under his touch.
The burn would normally hurt, but Sanji found the burn pleasant. Like a kiss from a man who weld the power of fire.
A last wisp of smoke drifted upward, twisting into the night air before vanishing completely.
That was all he had left of him. Smoke. Memory. Burned fingertips and an ache that could never dull.
Sanji didn’t light another.