Chapter Text
Bepo liked to think it was a great compliment to them all that it was easy to forget sometimes that Sanji wasn’t like them.
For one thing, the Hearts stood their ground when adversity rose and they cackled, howled, bit, barked, and growled when someone so much as looked at them wrong. It wasn’t uncommon for them to fight - mostly with others, but sometimes with each other.
Sanji, however.
Bepo had never seen the kid fight once. In fact, he saw the back of Sanji’s head more often than not when the going got rough. A flight instinct so intense that when voices rose it wasn’t unusual for a small boiler suit to disappear in the blink of an eye. A tragic game of hide and seek that was far less about being hidden than it was about disappearing. It was the type of flight that ‘fight or flight’ was made of, something Law told them often and in that weary, old man tone of someone having to repeat the same lesson once again. They all knew the term by heart by now, and most times they remembered it.
But even though Sanji had more good days than not, where his eyes didn’t flash into fear at all and he didn’t flinch or hiccup at the slim form of a needle and he didn’t jump two feet up and to the side at a sudden hiss, bellow, or ping. The bubble of laughter had started to become a welcome, commonplace thing around the Tang. Enough so that Sanji’s smile could fool them all into forgetting just how hard these victories were won.
Bepo’s instincts flared, nonetheless, when he walked into the mess hall and immediately smelled fresh, wet iron in the air. Metal crunched in his paws.
When he turned to find Penguin and Shachi behind the counter, looking down right guilty as they ransacked the galley he knew that what was stirring in his gut was bordering uneasy, even as he barked a rushed, “What’s going on?”
Penguin opened his mouth to answer, but saw the moment the smell sunk further into Bepo’s awareness. Bepo knew that iron smell intimately. And what had once been in question was now full blown alert. “What happened?”
Things clicked then, the memory of what he had expected to find here suddenly sharp and laser focused in his mind. Sanji, not allowed to chop or dice or slice without supervision, waiting for Bepo to come back with the towel warmer from the infirmary. What the kid had needed it for, Bepo didn’t know, but Sanji was clever when it came to the kitchen. He’d learned not to question Sanji’s resourcefulness.
That towel warmer was starting to dent under Bepo’s claws, something Penguin seemed to notice if the concerned flick of his eyes toward the device was anything to go by. “I need you to calm down, Bepo, or Law’s going to have both our heads.”
Only because Penguin had the grace of years did Bepo not snap at that ask. Instead, he took a deep breath in, doing his best to block how the smell of blood only intensified.
His eyes snapped back open at the click and crack of ceramic under rubber soled boot. Shachi was in the middle of a wince, regret etched deep into his face, even as the too loud whisper slipped from him, “Scheit.”
There it was, suddenly in Bepo’s vision. One of the bigger plates in pieces on the ground, the tiled floor spotted in blood and dust. A carrot from above rolled with a soft rock of the Tang before losing out to gravity, sending up a small shower of ceramic bits with a dull thud. Shachi slowly rose both hands up in silent surrender as Penguin kept his lavender eyes fixed firmly on Bepo.
“It was just a scratch, he’s ok.” The pom on Penguin’s cap bobbed with each word. “I promise, it was an accident. Sanji is ok.”
It was a good damn thing he and Penguin had seen the insiders of each other. That kind of thing awarded a certain amount of trust that made vagueness classifiable as an assurance. Still, Bepo felt his ears twitch and his claws didn’t retract from the towel warmer’s metal. “Where is he?”
“We don’t know,” Shachi blurted, ignoring the sharp glare Penguin shot him at the directness. “He, uh, kind of ran from us,” Shachi went on, and even when angry and scared Bepo’s rational brain picked out the confusion that still lingered in Shachi’s voice.
That was enough of a statement to poke a wider hole through the fog of Bepo’s own panic. So with another deep breath, he focused on the bewilderment shared between his two brothers and reminded himself that they were on the same team. They wanted the same things when it came to Sanji. They were on the same side.
Granted, it was still going to take him a moment to forgive them for the scare.
“Maybe you should start from the beginning,” Bepo finally settled on rather than the less kind Mink and Northern alike that came to mind.
He looked between Shachi and Penguin enough times for Shachi to finally break with a slump of his shoulders, “We were just out there planning how to best change out the solar panels-” Shachi’s hand gestured vaguely at the mess hall.
Bepo felt a muscle in his muzzle twitch. “You mean arguing.”
Which the two had been all week.
It was common knowledge that those who knew the sub best outside of Law were Shachi and Penguin. The two had been there when they’d first ridden within the Tang’s walls, long before she’d been the Tang at all. They’d also been there to help make the changes after she had taken on her new name, and through every renovation, upgrade, and repair since then. The Polar Tang was a third home for the two, and the one that they held dearest, which meant they both had opinions on how best to maintain her as such.
On good days, it was endearing. On others, it was cause enough to institute time out for two grown adult men who brought out only the worst parts of their teenage selves during conflict.
Their arguing didn’t always escalate, however, and Bepo hadn’t sensed a higher peak than they’d been at when he’d left for the infirmary. He’d certainly heard them at far worse this week alone.
“It was just disagreeing-” Shachi grimaced through his teeth.
“-we might have taken it too far,” Penguin corrected with an equal suck of breath through his teeth.
Silence dripped between them for a few beats.
What was it Ikkaku said? He could hear her say more words in his mind. Bepo felt his heart thud in his chest a few times, painfully so. “Ok. What do you mean?”
Shachi at least had the wherewithal to look remorseful. “We got caught up in it and might-”
“-definitely,” added Penguin, looking no less contrite.
“-have been going for each other a bit hard.” Shachi swallowed, eyes looking down to crunching ceramic underfoot. A finger picked at a larger shard, a wince flowing over Shachi’s face as the edge threatened to cut. “I mean, how anyone thinks silicone is going to cut it-”
“-oh right because welding into the base isn’t going to just melt half the panels!”
“Why do they have a melting point?!”
It was starting again, a spiral, and this time Bepo could hear it. Those tones getting sharper, tones higher, timbers just a bit more accented and thick. Left unchecked, it became something uncomfortable to witness, too deep and guttural and just this side of too scathing. But this was just a ramp to the tipping point and he was well versed in how to handle this. Nothing unusual or unorthodox, and certainly not something that resulted in blood on the floor.
“Hey!” Bepo said, firmly, loudly, with the crack of a tooth and the creak of metal begging to break under his tightening claws.
And just like that, irritation blossomed again in him. As the two pulled away, penitent in the way their shoulders dropped again, Bepo wondered just why they’d decided to do that in front of Sanji when sudden, cold reality hit.
His own heart sank at his own suddenly bottomless stomach. Even as the rational part of him pointed out that this hadn’t been present before. Even as he reminded himself that mistakes were just that, honest mistakes. He’d never knowingly leave Sanji with raised voices.
It didn’t erase the fact that he had.
And any blame Bepo had for the two in front of him died in his throat. His claws retracted and slowly the towel warmer slipped from his paws to thump unhappily on the floor.
The sound was enough to make all three of them wince, and with it went the tension of the moment. Leaving behind the frayed ends of concern.
“Penguin did his whole emphatic hand on the table thing,” said Shachi with a roll of his wrist at the other next to him.
Penguin sighed, guilt in his voice. “I really wasn’t thinking about it. But it definitely spooked him, and he dropped the plate.”
“You know how the kid gets,” said Shachi, daring to glance Bepo’s way. Bepo was careful to keep the suck in of his breath level and even. “Squirrely.”
For every time Sanji fled a scene of conflict, he tended to freeze as well. Both responses always saw a come down off an adrenaline high that often led to shaky limbs and a sensitivity to loud noises that lingered long into the night.
Shachi kept going, nerves having his words spilling out a mile a minute, “We tried to get him to stop trying to pick up the pieces-”
“-but he kept insisting he would fix it,” continued Penguin, unhappily. His own eyes were near luminous in the shadow of his hat as he stared down at the mosaic beneath their boots. “I tried to tell him we break far more plates than this on a weekly basis-”
“-wouldn’t listen though,” sighed Shachi. Tongue licking over a sharp tooth, nervous, Shachi finally snapped the nearby dishtowel down to sweep the shards into a contained pile.
With it went the blood, starting to fade just a bit, just enough for Bepo to breathe a little easier. He could already picture it all going down though, even without the muted smell. The way Sanji would stiffen at the fighting, listening with a narrowing focus until his eyes were a thousand years away and his shoulders harder than the hull and more fragile than a bird’s bones.
One noise is all it would take for that line to shatter.
Slowly, the weight of the rest of everything else began to seep in. The dripping of the sink, the soft bubbling of vents, how the Tang had entered a current that was sweeping along fast enough for the engines to lower to a murmur. Wrinkled tomatoes rolled on the countertop and Bepo caught one before it could find a new life on the mess hall floor.
The tomato smushed up against the cage of his claws, bruising against their bars. A metaphor that was perhaps a little too close to being on the nose.
“He bolted when we came in trying to help,” Penguin finished, sighing as he stood. Bepo didn’t miss how his hand fiddled with the ends of his cap.
“We really, really didn’t mean anything by it, Bep,” said Shachi, miserably, standing as well and running a hand through his own hair, sunglasses askew.
Bepo added to the exhale of the room, stepping around the fallen towel warmer and heading back for the door. Ignoring the pneumatic hiss of the door as he raised his nose, scenting the air. “You can tell him that when I find him.”
It wasn’t hard to find the scent; Sanji was still new to the ship, and as such he was easy to pick out from the older, more familiar smells of the Tang, the Captain, the crew respectively.
Penguin’s voice followed him down the hall. “Thanks, Bepo.”
Bepo didn’t need scent to know Sanji would head away from the infirmary, and he wasn’t wrong. There was no blood to follow on the floor, but in the air it lead down the hall, skittish as a rabbit zig zagging from spot to spot. Past the catwalk and hatch leading down to the lower floors, away from the Common room, and curiously not towards the moonpool.
For a half second, Bepo wondered if he’d come across a too thin, too small body at the bottom of a tunnel, or find Sanji lost in a panic attack, or any number of worsening thoughts and scenarios. His mind screamed even as he scented again and again, double guessing his own instinct. It had already happened once today.
(Even if he hadn’t meant it. Even if he knew better. Even if he could give a thousand excuses; none of them made up for the damage done and Bepo knew better than most how difficult it was to repair what was broken with a blind eye.)
Eventually, Bepo paused in front of a door he knew well, one with a festoon of mementos and omimari and hand made blessings inside. It was a warm little space within the cold precision of the Polar Tang and one Bepo was intimately tied to well enough to know what lay within. A drafting table currently reanchored and restracted, a stack of shelves, and little else.
He knew exactly where Sanji was within.
It was easy to open the door and step inside. What was less easy was to admit that the sweaty smell of iron and fear and the immediate quiet that seemed to leech into the air around him was because of the too small, too thin body pressed tight against the wall and underside of the table, hidden within a warren of shadows - out of the way, out of sight, out of danger.
Bepo took another step forward, but heard more than saw the tightening of limbs against the tatami mats and the catch of breath in a fluttering throat. He froze, immediately, as did the only other soul in the room, still as the prey that sensed an ending and was trying to dredge out the last bit of hope from a dry well.
Swallowing tightly himself, Bepo considered closing the door, before remembering that flight was very much still winning here. To close the door would be a betrayal of a magnitude that made Bepo dizzy just to think about.
So instead, he switched the automatic door off, and let the iron sky of the hallway dominate.
“You ok, Sanji?” Bepo asked gently into the air between them, reminding himself that anger was only beneficial to him in the moment. It was useless to the barely breathing boy he was trying to reach. “I saw the blood and got worried.”
Silence met Bepo and he tried his best not to take it personally. New trust, as precious as it was, still had a limit; instinct was a nasty thing to learn to let go of.
“I just wanted to make sure you weren’t bleeding too much or in too much pain,” Bepo went on. “Tiny cuts can still be really scary.”
There was the slightest scrape of a sock against the worn tatami mats. Bepo’s ear twitched, but he did his best to not acknowledge it with anything more than that. Eyes resolutely looking over the scrolls that catalogued everything from the North Blue to the Grandline to what he remembered of Wano. In that moment, he wished there was a scroll that mapped out the complicated, mystifying ordeal of a highly traumatized eight year old.
In the end, Bepo landed on another option that wasn’t ‘continue to make worried noises’. “If you’re ok, though, I can leave,” and ok, maybe he wasn’t entirely able to keep the concern from his voice. “I don’t want to scare you more.”
He waited another few long minutes, letting the option sink in. When no answer came, however, he found he was less surprised and more resigned to actually leave and wait for Sanji to calm down enough to accept his presence didn’t come with conditions.
Yet as his paw moved to engage the auto switch again, he heard a timid, tiny sound in between snatches of breath. “Oh.”
Bepo paused. “Oh?”
A swallow, then that voice came again, a bit steadier, but only marginally less of a whisper, hare soft and a hop away from something unintelligible. “I wasn’t sure you’d…you’d actually leave.”
The frown that found its way to Bepo’s muzzle was lightning quick and he was grateful his own instinct had him slapping a hand over his lips before a growl came out. It gave him the half moment he needed to compose himself. “What did you think I would do?”
The shifting under the desk, this time, was louder, underside creating a tunnel of darkness from the drawers that buffeted the sides. Bepo half expected to see a blue eye come into view, or even a few golden strands of hair. Instead, however, Sanji simply murmured, “Make me come out.”
Bepo huffed a bit, more so to hide the disappointment in what was rapidly becoming a depressing series of answers. “I won’t. I promise.” He hesitated. “Can I stay? Is that ok with you? It would make me feel better.”
“Ok,” breathed Sanji, quietly.
With another soft whuff of air, Bepo sat, doing his best to try to leave enough room for an exit. From his angle he could finally see Sanji. The boy was pressed into a corner, chest rising and falling in staccato bursts, eyes wide and darkened, every inch on alert and feet planted to do his best to tunnel through the wall to the sea beyond. There was blood spotting from where his hand was wrapped in the front flap of his boiler suit. It would take some aggressive washing, Bepo noted, but it still did wonders to his own panic to see how little the cut had bled through the fabric.
“There,” said Bepo, with a kind smile. “That’s better.” Sanji swallowed, and nodded; more of an answer than Bepo expected given the tremors that still trembled limbs and the sheen of sweat on the kid’s face and neck. Pleased, Bepo let his smile soften. “How bad does the hand hurt?”
“‘S ok,” said Sanji, quieter still, eyes glassy and only half there, fixed to something Bepo couldn’t see.
Wrong point to poke, got it. Bepo wasn’t above changing tactics, “Did the plate scare you?”
Sanji’s mouth twisted and he hesitated in his answer. It gave Bepo the opportunity to look over the boy, check for any other scratches or bits of microscopic ceramic. Instinct in more than one ways: the Hearts were notorious for downplaying their own injuries. Like Captain, like crew.
Bepo nearly missed Sanji’s answer. “I thought they were going to hit each other.”
The quick, cracked tone made Bepo wince, he couldn’t help it. Even under those critical blue eyes he could hear how it sounded and his own guilt flared, bright and hot and wicked in his chest. “I’m sorry, Sanji, I bet they sounded like they would.”
Sometimes it amazed him how the tone he took with a drunk Shachi was the same that he took with a trembling, scared to death eight-year-old. It likely said a lot, but Bepo’s brain cell resolutely refused to think of anything that wasn’t the still quickly breathing Sanji.
“I just-” The cut off sentence was certainly still not new, and still no less frustrating. But this time Bepo felt like he could hear the tears being held back. Sure enough, when he tilted his head a bit, the light hit just a bit more of Sanji’s face, illuminating something sparkling at the water line of his eyes. “I’m sorry about the plate. I’ll replace it. Or fix it.”
“It’s really ok, Sanji,” Bepo soothed. “We break more than that in-”
“-a week, I know,” said Sanji, suddenly sounding just a bit more like the little smart ass Bepo had gotten a glimpse of in the kitchen earlier this week. But whatever small fire in the kid had sparked died with a near wet hiss. “I’m not you all though, I’m not-” Sanji licked his chapped lips. “-I’ll fix it. I swear.”
“No one is asking you to fix it, Tiny Chef,” Bepo said, slowly, deliberately. Keeping the frown off his face and his own voice even.
(Even if he really, really just wanted to talk to whoever had taught Sanji only cruelty.)
“I’m sorry,” wheezed Sanji, again, and Bepo didn’t need to look to know that Sanji’s good hand had crawled into his hair to grip and tug.
He opted for giving Sanji privacy rather than confirm his own theory. Shifting a bit as he looked at his boiler suit leg instead, picking invisible dust from the knee. “I know you are, Sanji. It’s ok, you don’t have to apologize anymore, all right?” Bepo smiled to himself, if only for the fact that this circular path Sanji was taking was familiar to him. “Accidents are called that because they’re really just accidents.”
Even as he said it, however, Bepo knew that there was work to be done. Miles to go in teaching Sanji how to not get stuck in what was clearly an automatic response. There was bitter work ahead to find the edges of what constituted danger and slowly teach Sanji which demarcation was real and which was a false positive. The Hearts, well meaning as they were, certainly were not perfect people. Bepo knew this.
But evidence of their own shortcomings was still a hard pill to swallow, including now as he picked at a bit of mat that was already halfway to splintering.
Beneath the desk, Bepo heard Sanji finally take a real, proper breath. Then another. A bit louder each time, a near gasp. Limbs finally stilling and hand falling from hair to circle around a too thin stomach, chest near heaving now with the sudden presence of enough oxygen.
Still, Bepo waited it out. Feeling the soft rock of the Tang in the current, feeling the minute pings of a shift in depth, still smelling iron in the air and one single frustrated tear that made a path down a cheek.
And only when Bepo could see the tension ebb from Sanji’s shoulders, small rabbit moon face painted in extremes finally loosening, did he ask, “Do you think I could see your hand now?”
After a few, long moments, Bepo heard more than saw Sanji shuffle. A small hand was thrust out, lone blue eye twitching in the dark. “It doesn’t hurt much.”
Bepo let Sanji’s hand rest in his paw, glancing over finger pads and palm until the cut was found; on the underside of the pointer finger, by the second knuckle. A slice, nothing more, oozing sluggishly. Still, Bepo huffed gently, “Ouch. Right on the crease, too.”
Sanji’s face screwed up into something indescribable. “It’s nothing. I-” Sanji swallowed. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Still deserves at least a band aid,” said Bepo. He didn’t need to look to know which drawer to open, metal making a grating scrape of a noise that had Sanji withdrawing with a violent flinch. “Sorry, the drawer gets a bit rusty because of the moisture.”
Inside, Bepo fished out - sight unseen - a fresh cloth and the small first aid kit. Sanji watched him with the cautious eyes of what Bepo remembered being at eight years old and newly fished from a cruel ocean.
It was to both eight year olds that Bepo spoke to when he said, “I promise, it’s just something to help,” the point proven when he tugged open the kit to show the neatly ordered packets of pain killer, ointment, gauze swabs, and bandages.
Sanji swallowed, audibly, mouth clicking shut, nose wrinkling. But Bepo considered it a miracle when he uncurled and extended his injured hand in silence.
In truth, the small kit was mainly used by one person and one person alone. It was well stocked for all manner of paper cut, accidental pencil pokes, and sextant scrapes. The small bottle of alcohol still made Bepo’s nose wrinkle when he uncapped it and he knew he wasn’t the only one to react when Sanji twitched, face withdrawing into the shadows. Yet it did its part, and soon enough the cut was cleaned, treated, and bandaged with the smallest bandage Bepo could find; the ones he normally used on his own knuckles.
Through it all, Sanji remained waxen and quiet. A secret third thing shifting through the air that Bepo was having a hard time placing, but saw in the way that Sanji seemed to shudder, just once or twice, every so often.
Worry poked its way to the top. “Does anything else hurt, Sanji?”
Sanji glanced up at him through gold hair, and after a moment the fight died. “No.” His shoulders sagged and Bepo watched Sanji age five years right then and there.
(The kid was giving Law a run for his money.)
Exhaustion slithered into Sanji’s eyes then, however, and whatever had been lurking deep below the churning waters went with it. Replaced, instead, with the crystal clear crash of adrenaline.
Something sour trickled down Bepo’s throat. “Ok.” A beat passed. “Are you ok?”
Sanji gave him a look, but swallowed again and nodded. Which seemed like it was the best Bepo was going to get. So he let the silence wash over them again, watching from the corner of his eye as Sanji seemed to slump against the cabinet, eyes hooded and exhausted.
Bepo couldn’t find words to say until several minutes later, “Shachi and Penguin want to apologize, when you’re ready.”
Most times, when the crew spooked Sanji, forgiveness was easily given. The kid was remarkably understanding of the blusters they made and each apology was taken with a grace and aplomb that belied Sanji’s years. Just last week Sanji had comforted Clione after the man had forgotten the kid’s aversion to bugs and tried to show him a captured crimsonfly.
So why Sanji stiffened at Bepo’s words and tilted his chin until his profile was lost to shadow but Bepo on his metaphorical back foot. Why the kid wasn’t readily jumping at the opportunity to smooth it over, Bepo didn’t know.
“They’re waiting for us,” he added, doing his best to keep his tone soft, not demanding, not ordering. There was no hurry.
Yet Sanji’s knees came up to his chin, arms circling bony knees to hide his mouth within the scuffed boiler suit knees. (Try as they might, Sanji always managed to get the knees of his white uniform dirty, without fail. Always by accident. It warmed Bepo’s heart, seeing something so childlike to Sanji that was only just now showing itself.)
Bepo wondered if Sanji hadn’t heard him. “Sanji?”
The corner of Sanji’s eyes crinkled, eyes narrow slits now mostly hidden behind hair. The expression was so oddly foreign on Sanji’s face that Bepo found himself asking, immediately, “Sanji, are you sure you’re ok?”
Sanji’s look was downright dour. “I told you, I’m fine.”
There it was, that third thing rearing up. Whip thin and brittle in the kid’s voice. A tone Bepo had never heard before in that accented lilt.
Anger.
His eyes widened at the same time as Sanji’s did.
Sanji’s hands slapped over his own mouth as he drew back with a full body wince that looked as pained as his eyes. “I’m sorry!”
Two words and Bepo didn’t need anymore evidence on what he had missed earlier. How he had, he didn’t know, though even as his mind noted that anger was so absolutely out of place with Sanji his other half a brain realized that own realization was messed up in more ways than one. In the month or so they’d had Sanji, he’d never once been angry, had he?
Bepo wondered when the last time Sanji had felt the emotion. When he’d last been allowed to be so.
Bepo’s voice went low, sad, “Sanji…”
Sanji stared at him, near tears again, though it was fear of an entirely different kind that coursed through stormy blue eyes and twitching, long limbs.
Bepo licked his lips and was careful when he asked, “Are you upset at Penguin and Shachi?”
“No!” Which was just proof to the contrary, but Bepo wasn’t about to correct Sanji on this point. “I-I’m-” Sanji’s eyes pinwheeled. “M-My ankle just hurts!”
“You just told me nothing else hurt,” Bepo said, doing his best to not seem like he had snared Sanji in a lie. Even if he had. Even if they both knew it.
“I-I-I-” Sanji’s stammering became course, staccato paced and high pitched. Working up into a perfect spiral that would see yet another fall that Bepo wasn’t sure his underfed frame could handle again today.
As much as Bepo wanted to do things gentle, easy, he opted instead to pull the emergency brake.
“It’s ok if you’re angry at them.”
Sanji went still. That lone blue eye fixed on him in wild disbelief. But the attempt at lying stopped and Bepo knew he had the boy’s full attention. Bepo rubbed the back of his neck and ignored the stress shedding that showered fur onto the floor.
“I’m angry at myself,” Bepo went on. Finding more sure footing the more he spoke. Letting his gaze shift away to an omamori hanging on the wall, tied to the sea rose wreath Clione had made on a grey spring morning. “I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
Sanji’s expression curdled. “I-I’m the one that got scared.” His words hissed, “I was weak-”
“No, you weren’t,” said Bepo, automatic, harsh enough that Sanji’s jaw clicked and Bepo was certain his little heart thumped too hard a few times. “Let me rephrase.”
He took in a breath, and remembered what Zepo had said once, when their playing had resulted in a hole in the shoji screen. The nice one painted by their great-great grandmother, by hand, in the bitter nights of a harsh winter. They’d stood side by side, staring at a ripped crane rising in curled tatters.
“W-We don’t have to tell anyone!” Bepo had cried, on his knees, as if he knew the first thing about repairing the delicate material.
“No, we do,” Zepo had said, kneeling down to Bepo’s level, gently grabbing a paw before he could worsen the damage.
“But why?” Bepo had sniffled.
“Because cowards lie about their mistakes,” said Zepo, like it was a well known fact in the world that Bepo had just conveniently forgotten. “And you’re not a coward, right?”
Bepo’s tears stilled. “N-No!”
He’d been all of four and it was one of his more faded memories of Zepo in terms of what the mink had been wearing or if the jasmines had died out already or why they’d even been playing that close to the house. But he still remembered the words that had come next.
“Bravery means admitting when you’re wrong.”
Bepo let his eyes find Sanji’s. Shachi and Penguin know better than to argue like that in front of you.” When Sanji swallowed, he went on, “And I shouldn’t have left you alone when something I knew was scary was happening.”
The silence between them was an anchor, sinking and heavy.
Eventually, Sanji spoke, quiet and yet his question thundering. “Why did you?”
“I wasn’t even thinking about it,” Bepo said quickly before taking a breath. Slowing down. Showing intent and understanding, because Sanji deserved that validation. “You had every right to be scared. Shachi and Penguin get scary when they fight.”
“You can handle it,” said Sanji, darkly, as if that were reason enough for Bepo’s argument to be invalid.
“I’ve lived with them since I was basically your age,” said Bepo, simply. “I’m used to it. You’re not. I know you’re not, and no one is asking you to be. It wasn’t fair to make you witness that alone.”
“But if I wasn’t weak-”
“It’s not weak to be scared.” Sanji made a face, but Bepo pushed on, “Being scared helps you find danger and avoid it.” When Sanji didn’t say anything, Bepo cleared his throat. “Sometimes, when you live in a place that is constantly dangerous, you start being scared of a lot of things. It takes time to learn what’s safe and what isn’t.”
Sanji chewed on his chapped lips, as if trying to equally pick apart the logic. “Then shouldn’t I be mad at…myself?”
Bepo huffed, soft puff of air sending the gauze paper fluttering. “No, not at all.” Leaning back against the wall, Bepo idly picked up empty packets, letting them hit the bottom of the metal garbage bin with a soft ting. “You should be mad we put you into a position where you felt so unsafe you had to run.” Bitterly, he added, “Where I left you because I wasn’t thinking.”
Frowning, Sanji surged forward before realizing what he was doing. “But what if I forgive you?” Pausing mid way of touching Bepo’s knee. The two looked at each other for a long minute before Sanji put his newly bandaged fingered hand down.
It was too rushed, too earnest. Bepo gave another softer, sadder smile. “I haven’t even apologized yet. Do you actually forgive me? Or are you saying what you think I want to hear?”
Sanji couldn’t answer that.
Bepo sighed, putting a paw out for Sanji to take if he wanted. “You’re allowed to be mad, Sanji. At me, at Shachi, at Penguin, even at the Capitan. Fear is useful, and so is anger.”
Sanji’s lips twisted into an ugly frown.
“Anger,” Bepo went on, quickly. “Can help us grow by figuring out what we don’t want to be like.” He watched as Sanji’s hand crept back into his hair, twisting in the strands, tugging, then tugging again, as if enacting his own punishment on himself. “It’s also a sign that we value ourselves enough to know when we’ve had a misjustice happen to us, like today.”
Sanji’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Just a ragged, uncertain breath that couldn’t decide between breaking into tears, breaking open, or just breaking down into a tired heap of limbs. Bepo knew better than to rush Sanji; sometimes he needed a minute. So he sat, quietly, and let Sanji’s rabbit quick heart beat slow just a fraction more, until that hand stopped trying to tug out a clump of golden strands.
I took far longer than a minute, but eventually, it came.
“I don’t want to be upset at anyone,” whispered Sanji, voice plaintive and upset at the entire concept of having to admit it to being upset or having to be it, Bepo wasn’t sure.
Either way, he hummed. “The easiest way to stop being upset is to recognize you’re upset to begin with.”
Sanji, who had slumped a bit back into shadow, couldn’t even hide his skeptical look in shadow. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Stretching his arms, Bepo let them fall onto his lap. Watching Sanji eye the movement with far less wariness than earlier. Progress. Slow and steady but certainly a step forward nonetheless.
“My mom always told me that resentment is the enemy of love,” said Bepo. “And resentment is anger that we keep inside instead of acknowledging or working to use.”
“You can’t use anger,” said Sanji with a small scowl. “It just gets you in trouble.”
Bepo didn’t need another reminder as to why Germa was at the top of his shit list, as Uni would call it. He didn’t think any Heart would deny the chance, however, to help him make his point to the place that had tried to crush Sanji under so many misguided beliefs.
“If we lash out in it, then yes, it can,” admitted Bepo. “But it can also motivate us to work toward something that much harder.” He side eyed Sanji. “Like how those too starchy noodles last week made you make three more batches until they were perfect.”
Sanji pursed his lips, considering that. “Ok, but what does being mad at Shachi and Penguin do?”
Astute, and Bepo had to think for a moment. As he did, he pretended not to notice how Sanji scooted closer under the pretense of shifting. “It can help you tell them to stop. Or tell them to knock it off.”
“But I’m just-”
“If you say weak I’m gonna be very sad!”
Sanji’s jaw clicked shut.
That was what Bepo thought.
“Family works best when we’re honest with each other,” Bepo went on. “We’re all going to hurt each other, whether we want to or not. Sometimes without meaning too.”
Ikkaku’s blunt teasing came to mind, as did Shachi’s biting wit, and even Hakugan’s tendency to give the cold shoulder. They were mortal souls, doing the best they could. And sometimes your best just wasn’t enough. That was difficult to put into words, however.
So Bepo just went on. “And those are the most dangerous ways to hurt each other, because if we don’t know something we do makes someone upset we might keep doing it unknowingly.”
Sanji let out a soft, shaky breath. As if the words themselves were obstructing his own breath. “But it was still an accident.”
“Accidents can still hurt,” said Bepo with a shrug. “You’re still allowed to be angry it happened.”
Bepo wasn’t sure when Sanji had gotten close enough to lean against him. But a small golden head found his arm and Bepo let his paw lift to wrap around Sanji’s thin frame. He felt tension leave with a shudder. The soft sniffle didn’t come with more tears.
“I am sorry,” Bepo finally said, after they’d both listened to the Tang hum through the current and into another. “For not realizing Shachi and Penguin had gotten that heated. For leaving you alone when I know better.”
The apology still felt paltry to the damage it had done. But Sanji just sighed and let his head lilt into his orange boiler suit, bandaged hand coming up to curl on top of the arm Bepo had around him. “It’s ok.”
Bepo side eyed him. “Is it?” Sanji bit his lower lip as Bepo squeezed his arm, just a little. “Because you’re allowed to hold it against me, just a little.”
(Which was a big ask, Bepo knew. But at least he knew that he needed to start asking that.)
Sanji squirmed a bit. “I think…it’s ok.” Halting words followed, but for all the space in between them it still sounded like a victory. “But I don’t like feeling like that.”
“Like how?” Bepo prompted.
“Like everything is too big but also like I’m too small for my skin.” Sanji stuck his tongue out a bit as if that would rinse the taste of panic from his tongue. Bepo put a mental reminder to talk to Law about teaching Sanji how to handle an anxiety attack. “I don’t like being angry.”
Bepo chuckled, gently. “Well, that’s not really angry. But Law and I can help with what to do when you feel like that.”
Sanji gave him a look then, as if Bepo had just said something revolutionary. “That’s not just…how it feels? Every time?”
“No, that’s not how it always has to feel,” said Bepo, patting Sanji’s shoulder gently. “There’s tricks we can teach you to make everything not seem so hard to deal with.”
Sanji settled against him at that, quiet once more. Though this time the tension didn’t come back and Bepo watched as one leg, then another, fell into a more relaxed bend.
Eventually, Sanji wiped his good hand over his eye and stood. With no prompting, no nudging, no urging on Bepo’s side. He lumbered to a stand as well, and met Sanji’s stormy blue eyes with his own black ones. “Well?”
“We gotta get the stew on, or it won’t be done in time for dinner,” said Sanji, and it was perhaps missing the verve from before all this. But there was a determination there that Bepo recognized.
“Yes, chef!” said Bepo, and his own heart skipped a beat or two when a smile fluttered onto Sanji’s face.
Shachi and Penguin were scrubbing the galley down when they finally ambled in. Sanji held back at the twin eyes finding him, and Bepo grabbed the back of their collars before the two could crowd the kid. “Nope, back, sit! Sanji has something to say to you two.”
Three faces turned to him, with varying shades of shock. Shachi found a seat on the counter, however, and Penguin thumped back onto the step stool. Bepo glanced back at Sanji who had started to fiddle with the edge of his blood stained boiler suit.
“Sanji?” He urged, gently. “Did you have something that you wanted to tell Shachi and Penguin about what they did?”
Sanji’s face nearly blended in with Bepo’s fur. But the boy swallowed, and at the twin paws on his shoulder that gave an encouraging squeeze, he stuttered out, “I-I don’t like it. When you fight.”
Penguin and Shachi exchanged a look, contrition clear. It was Shachi who spoke first, “Tiny Chef, we really didn’t mean to scare you-”
Penguin’s elbow cut off Shachi. “We let ourselves get heated and didn’t think about how it would look.”
Together, both men said as they bowed, “Please forgive us!”
Sanji hesitated. Bepo could see instinct in the boy’s face as sweeping it under the rug began to look far easier than saying anything at all. But when Sanji looked up at Bepo, he gave the boy a gentle smile. Knowing internally that even if Sanji fell back on his old habits he’d support him.
Sanji licked his lips. “I’m…I’m…”
Bepo saw Shachi open his mouth and snarled silently, lips rising over his canines. Shachi got the point and fell silently, fidgeting with the sunglasses over his eyes instead. Even Penguin shifted, boots squeaking on the overly clean floor.
They all watched as Sanji’s throat bobbed from the strength of his swallow. “It makes me…upset. When you fight.” That was putting it mildly, but fortunately Bepo didn’t need to snarl to get Penguin and Shachi to wait out Sanji’s uneven breathing. “When you do I feel like you’re going to turn around and…”
Sanji didn’t finish, but he didn’t need to. Even if the entire idea was lunacy, Sanji had far more experience with anger turning on him, and the crew knew it without needing the specifics. For their part, Shachi and Penguin seemed to shrink a bit at the very idea of the notion.
“Sanji…” Shachi said, plaintively, though he didn’t try to deny the idea, which Bepo liked to think was just another good influence from Sanji. The man had also started brushing his teeth more.
“We really sounded that scary, huh?” Penguin said, quietly, knowingly.
Sanji nodded. “It makes me feel…too small and too big. And…and I…” This time when Sanji petered out Bepo didn’t try to urge him on. Already he was immensely proud and it felt like steps in the right direction. “I’m upset that I had to feel like that.”
It sounded uncertain, the way Sanji said it, but Penguin flashed Bepo a look and Bepo didn’t miss the way Shachi’s jaw dropped open, just a little.
Sanji shifted under Bepo’s paws and this time Bepo did let the weight of his paws press down, just a little, just to let Sanji know he was still there. He felt Sanji take a breath in and let it out. “I don’t like feeling like that. Not from my…my family.”
This time Bepo didn’t need to look to know Shachi’s chin was wobbling. Penguin’s eyes were hidden in shadow, always a sure shine he didn’t want anyone seeing them. Pride exploded in Bepo’s chest like fireworks, pops, fizzles, and all.
“I hope you’ll trust us when we say we’ll be more conscious of it,” said Penguin, thickly.
“And that if we aren’t you won’t be afraid to tell us,” added Shachi, equally as thick.
The two of them spoke as one, “We care about you, little brother!”
Sanji, his own eyes wet, rushed forward suddenly and Bepo couldn’t begrudge him diving into Penguin’s arms. Shachi jumping down to join the small group hug, Sanji nearly buried by the other two in a sea of white.
From the middle of the pile, he heard Sanji sniff, “I don’t like being mad at you.”
“We don’t like you being mad either,” said Penguin, equally as quiet.
Shachi was less demure. “But we’re glad you told us so we can do right by you!”
Sanji somehow managed to turn in the pile and sad eye Bepo, who couldn’t handle the look. With a huff he lumbered over, picking up all three of them as he crushed them in a hug until Sanji began to giggle.
The air broken of tension, Sanji pulled away, hair unkempt, and found three willing sous chefs ready to do his beck and call. And as Penguin and Shachi set up the newly dented towel warmer - to keep rice warm, apparently, while their big pot was in use - Bepo leaned down over Sanji’s shoulder to watch him chop.
“Proud of you, little brother,” he said, ruffling Sanji’s hair affectionately. “That turned out well, right?”
Sanji’s cheeks reddened and he didn’t look up from his task, but Bepo was close enough to see the pleased smile on his face. “Yes…”
Forgiveness, he was finding, was well and good but somehow watching Sanji speak from his heart - tentative and unsteady as it was. That was the thing about the Hearts, though. They beat steadily, had learned to do so with each other, and Sanji would get there in time.
For now, however, he ruffled Sanji’s hair again just to get a baleful look from the other.
And the next week, when Uni and Ikkaku’s arguing had Sanji in tears, Bepo found he held his breath not in worry but in the same implosion of pride as he had in the galley days earlier as Sanji told off Uni and Ikkaku in the worst shake down he’d ever heard in his life. No one learned how to be assertive in a day, certainly not an eight year old, and certainly not Sanji.
They’d get there.
Bepo was sure of it, just as sure as they all were that Sanji was theirs. Even if he wasn’t like them. Not yet.
(But someday.)