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The rocks have been cutting into his back these past ten minutes.
Sanji decided that it doesn't bother him.
He's been counting all this time. It’s the only thing he can do to preoccupy himself, as the frigid rain pours over the edge of the small canopy he hides under, and steadily drips onto his face.
The stony roof doesn't help much against the wetness. Besides the dripping, the water pools underneath, leaving any hope of a dry spot well and dead. He's completely soaked through, shivering and with little energy to move into a more comfortable position. Not that he thinks there is one.
He knows - this is how he will die.
He hasn't made his peace with it yet, but out of all the ways to vanish from the world, Sanji supposes a worse fate could have him. At the very least, he can go out on his own terms.
Dying alone will be terrifying, he thinks. The pirate Zeff is just on the other side of the rock, probably similarly wet, cold, and miserable as Sanji. Imagining him shivering as he does carries a great sense of retribution, but some part of him, despite the hate of the man, wants to force his tired body to crawl over there, seek some kind of comfort. Even if comfort doesn't seem all that real right now.
Closing his eyes, he can see the Orbit.
The night before that horrible storm, as he lay in a real, soft bunk, he had the most wonderful dream. Custard with hints of papaya, an untypical touch of sea salt and mango, lemon juice as an accent. This tart would have been the greatest pastry ever made. So perfectly arranged and so delicious that the head chef would put him in charge of the desserts on the spot.
And after that, he’d make a hundred more recipes, each better than the last. Finally something to be good at.
Tears spill over his cheeks. At least, he thinks they do, because yes, everything is sopping wet now, but his lip is quivering, and his chest is tight, and oh god, he doesn't want to die. There is a small voice in his head, claiming that he deserves a place in this world when he’s useful. When he’s cooking. He can create and serve.
Right now, it seems fate has decided Sanji will starve in the cold rain.
The night doesn't cast shadows, but when he next opens his eyes, there is one towering before him. How he recognizes the shape among the curtain of rain, he's not sure, but there it is - the moment he has feared since leaving home.
Involuntarily, his breath hitches.
“Please,” He stutters, so quiet that his voice surely isn’t loud enough against the storm. “I can be useful.”
If the figure hears him, they don’t seem in the mood for pleadings.
They reach out a gloved hand, which, despite the darkness around them, seems to reflect non-existent moonlight. It hurts his eyes, so he shuts them close and tries to scurry away, but his back is already pressed against the rugged wall. The hand comes closer, hovering above his head and then…
The sounds of the world around him become strangely muffled, and the rain dripping on his face is no longer a gentle pitter-patter, but continuous, loud clangs of thick metal. The weight of something heavy resting around his face registers not long after and he feels his chest constrict painfully.
He tries to scream, but his jaw is stuck in place. He wants to cry, but there's not enough air for him to breathe.
Judge looks at him.
His mouth opens, like he’s about to say something, and he doesn't.
His shadow disappears into the storm, leaving him alone in the night, shivering, starving, and no longer free.
With the last of his strength, he lifts a shaking hand up to grasp at the metal mask, desperation clawing at his lungs to rip the thing off, save himself, but…
When his hand reaches his head, instead of the metal mask, all he’s met with is a mop of hair.
The storm twists and turns around him into strange shapes, and when next he blinks, it’s gone entirely. Its only reminder is the shaking of his hands, the shiver running through him, and the shortness of breath, as he desperately tries to understand.
“Hey, hey…” a voice says. “Little guy.”
He recognizes the edge of the hammock at his head, the sway of his bed, and a familiar gruff voice somewhere below him. His chest constricts painfully again, all breath escaping in fast huffs. His gut twists in fear. Was he careless enough to wake someone with his nightmare? Are others soon to follow? Will he be in trouble?
“You’re breathing all quick,” Carne mutters, sounding half-asleep. “You okay?”
He desperately tries to quiet down.
His heart is hammering. He forces himself to a chest-full of air.
“Mind your own damn business,” He gasps.
Carne stills for a moment.
It seems like he’s going to prod him for answers, but as minutes pass and the boy’s breath continues to even out, the man lets out a sigh and turns in his hammock, seemingly giving up on interrogation.
Sanji can’t help but sigh too, relieved.
He stares at the ceiling.
The shadows stretching between the planks form strange shapes - like hands.
He decides to get up early that morning.
There were many things that set Sanji apart from other children, Zeff muses.
Living in a restaurant, in the middle of the open, pirate-ridden sea, the restaurant didn’t get a lot of young guests. And still, compared to what few kids Zeff knew, the little eggplant was acting seriously strange.
For one, Zeff has never seen anyone that tiny work with this kind of veracity.
Bright and early, before any of the staff are awake, he often finds him already dressed in uniform and scrubbing the galley floor. Late in the evening, after the cooks have all vacated the kitchen, and the stations are all squeaky clean, he peels extra potatoes for hours into the night without being asked to, or even, disobeying orders to go to sleep. He helps with deliveries, by insisting on carrying crates too heavy for him, and refusing help even when his legs shake and his tiny face turns red.
The kid knows every order by heart, polishes knives until they shine, cleans fish like a true master and takes banter, jokes and insults with his chin lifted and a snarky comeback ready to embarrass any fool who dares to try and outwit him. If Patty shoves him aside, Sanji shoves back. If Carne laughs at his thin arms, Sanji calls him a stupid cow.
Zeff likes to believe that the boy was born to be a chef, and these kinds of things come to him naturally, but really, it’s hard to overlook that Sanji is just a child eager to prove himself, and reluctant to admit he’s just human.
It's hard to overlook, when thunder rolls over the restaurant, heavy rumbling shaking the air above in the dead of night, and Sanji sneaks into the office long after hours. Lingering at Zeff’s side, scrubbing the floor exactly where the man rests his wooden leg, the kid seems to think he’s being inconspicuous.
“Either scrub it properly, or stop scrubbing.” He says, trying to appear concentrated on paperwork, rather than the little scared boy next to him.
“I am scrubbing it properly, shitty old geezer.”
Sanji snarls and huffs for several long minutes, but doesn’t move away. Thunder rolls, and he flinches, then remains stubbornly quiet, practically hidden under the table at that point.
He doesn’t cry, except when in pain. He doesn’t whine, except to annoy the other cooks. He’s clean and organised, and conspicuously obedient, despite having a nasty attitude. Zeff is obviously no expert on parenting, feeling wrong for the role on the best of days, but there is undeniably something wrong with this kid, and he has no idea what.
Things eventually come to light one day, when he sends the boy out to tend to the guests.
It’s a rite of passage in a way. Zeff is always training him to be more attentive and mannerly, since the boy has a tendency for clumsiness, the results of which could one day bode very badly for the whole establishment. Serving guests, especially ladies, whom the kid is irritatingly smooth with, will hopefully get him to be more careful.
Sanji takes the orders of two tables without trouble, charming the lady at the third and convincing an older gentleman to buy another bottle of their most expensive red wine. An empty table fills up in the time he’s delivered the orders to the kitchen, and he walks back with an excited stride out into the dining hall again to serve the newcomers.
There is a towering man among the three guests. He sits with two women at his side, listening to them jammer, but seemingly bored by the interaction. Sanji, all confidence snapping away in a second, looks at the long, voluminous hair flowing like a cape down the man’s back.
He drops the serving tray to the ground.
It’s only after the dining room erupts with alarm, chairs dragged back against the wooden floor, cutlery clacking on plates and tables, that Zeff turns away from the usual chaos of the kitchen and allows his eyes to linger at the scene outside.
His little sus-chef is sitting with his butt in a puddle of red wine.
He storms out the door, pushing it aside so hard that the resulting bang against the wall startles a bloke sitting closer to it, and marches towards the little embarrassment as fast as the damn wooden leg allows. Head hazy from searing anger, he grabs the kid by the shoulder and wrenches him back on his legs, only, the little shit is too shaky to stay standing.
He ignores the gasps and murmurs of the guests around him, flashes a nasty pirate smirk at the most noisy, and forcibly drags the brat through the kitchen and into his office. It’s enough of a scene that Carne bursts in through the door right after him, and immediately starts laughing.
“Did our second in command make a mess, chef?” He cackles, grasping the doorframe like the laughter is enough to throw off his balance.
Through the red haze, Zeff barely registers how fast that laugh fades, and how fast Carne turns, uncharacteristically serious.
Because Sanji has fallen to the ground again, his hands gripping at blond hair and breath coming out in ever quicker gasps.
“Oy, Sanji,” Carne says, the bravado gone in seconds.
Zeff watches through his own frustration as the chef crouches down to try and meet the boy’s eyes. Breaths heavy, the little one ignores him entirely, not reacting when Carne calls his name again, or when he snaps his fingers right in front of his face. After screwing up so badly, the little shit should at least obey.
“Stop it, brat,” Zeff growls.
“You stop it,” Carne growls back. “He’s having a panic attack, you dipshit.”
What?
He swallows a well-deserved comeback, stomach involuntarily performing a salto at both the audacity of the lower-ranking chef and what Carne is trying to convey. Reluctantly, he looks down again at the little eggplant, at all the drama of his tantrum.
The anger searing in him goes out in a second, and a heavy guilt replaces it in turn.
His boy really seems out of it, - he’s staring into the wall in front of him, with eyes glossed over and shoulders rapidly rising and falling with every wheezy breath he takes, and as gods bear witness, Zeff has seen this kind of panic before. Not from the boy, for that, they haven’t spent that much time together, but from the men sailing his bygone ship? Constantly. A sickness of the mind that made people confuse the present and whatever horrible things gawked at them from the past.
It’s as if the boy isn’t really here with them.
“No,” he whispers wetly. “I worked- I worked hard, I tried-“
“Kid…” Zeff starts, but Sanji continues murmuring.
The boy’s stare goes right through him, and the words slur together between desperate gasps of air.
“Kid.”
“I won’t do it again. Please… I’ll- I’ll stay quiet,” he hiccuped, fresh tears glinting in his lost stare. “Please don’t lock me down there.”
Zeff blinks.
A new surge of anger swallows him, but this time, it takes on a new shape. He isn’t familiar with this feeling.
Through the red, he thinks of the man in the dining hall, lunching with his two tall ladies, and the anger solidifies into the shape of that cascading blond hair and a disinterested posture. Whoever this man is, a criminal, abuser, or just a normal kind of prick… he can kindly piss off his ship and never come back.
“Down where?” Carne asks, all color seemingly drained from his face at his own realisations.
“I’ll be good.” Sanji’s words come out faster, and the question goes unanswered. “Please- I can’t breathe- please, don’t leave me-“
Overwhelmed, Zeff instinctively reaches towards his tiny shoulder, to ground or just comfort, stop this panic from continuing, but the reaction to the gesture isn’t what he expects.
The little eggplant screeches, voice pinched and hoarse, caught between one desperate breath and the next. He jerks back, hitting his head and back hard against the side of the metal desk with a bang, and his little hands shoot up to clutch at it in shock. The way he grabs a fistfull of the blond strands and pulls, has Zeff instinctively yelp in protest and immediately regret it when Sanji shouts again, scared.
Watching him press his back even harder into the desk, Zeff realises he’s entirely out of his depth.
“How about we slow down a bit?” Carne says calmly.
The chef looks both to the kid and Zeff as he says it, and silently, Zeff thanks whatever fate send this man to him.
“Sanji, you are in the office. You’re with Carne and the old man, kid” He explains slowly.
He receives no answer, only the sound of his labored breathing, but the kindness and concentration visible on his face don’t fade. He gestures down to the ground.
“The floor underneath you is cold. The old geezer likes to keep this place freezing when he works. Sure is annoying.” He mumbles, before joking: “Makes sense for someone so hotblooded though, right?”
Even with Sanji actively tugging at his hair in a painful grip again and not calming one bit, he continues:
“You called me stupid cow yesterday, remember?”
Another weak shudder shakes Sanji’s tiny frame.
“And don’t think I’ll forget that you stole credit for that sauce I made in the morning.”
That finally gets a response, if only the tiniest flicker of his eyes lingering instead of dashing all over, and looking somewhat aware.
“You like to pretend like you invented the entire menu.”
“Liar,” the boy says, so quietly that the voice barely sounds like him.
“So you can hear me,” Carne smiles fondly, moving just a tiny bit closer.
“It was- it was my recipe.” Sanji gasps, between one breath and the next.
“It sure wasn’t. I made it first, and you copied my method instead of doing the dishes. Didn’t even bother to ask for permission!”
The meat cook is sitting close enough to brush shoulders with the boy, and while speaking, his hand wanders over to his shoulder, carefully resting on it. Despite his best intentions, Sanji stiffens again, gasping as he tries to back off some more.
“Breathe, kiddo,” Zeff says.
“Yeah, slow down. Just follow me.” Carne takes a big breath and gestures for Sanji to follow along.
The boy can’t seem to do it. His eyes darting between their faces, he presses a hand against his chest and whines: “I can’t- I think…”
“You can. Come on, inhale slowly…”
“I think-I’m…”, Sanji mumbles, voice quickly fading.
It is as if all energy leaves him.
Seconds later, breath suddenly seizing and body falling forward and towards the floor, he passes out.
Both Carne and Zeff lean to catch him, almost bumping their heads together, before Zeff grabs the kids’ scrawny frame and the little eggplant melts into his arms.
His chest is rising and falling quickly still, but there are no more gasps and the shaking stops.
Carne signs where he leans back next to him. He seems similarly distraught by the whole situation, but doesn’t offer any more reassuring words, only a lingering look at the bundle of messy blond hair.
Zeff feels his own panic somewhat melt away. Cold, pooling worry slowly swallows his heart whole.
He looks at the unconscious boy, who just begged not to be locked away, who just promised to be quiet and then flinched from a simple gesture of comfort. A boy with a sharp tongue, too much pride, and so much will to prove himself that he worked harder than any other on the ship.
There is something wrong with Sanji; Zeff is sure of it.
And he has no idea how to help.
It must be close to dawn already, because the cool light of the moon no longer lingers on the cracked windowsill, instead casting long, distorted reflections on the floor. Despite being only specks of light in the otherwise dark captain's quarters, the gentle change was enough to wake Zeff from his sleep.
For a moment, he lets his eyes linger on those lines of white traveling across the wooden boards, before he realises a different change in the room.
The spare bed next to him, the one he folded out and left Sanji in hours ago, is empty.
He raises slowly from his own bed, dragging his lefty leg along, and stares at the neatly folded blankets and perfectly placed pillow. While putting on his own, he notices that the kids’ shoes are gone as well, unsurprisingly.
He lights a candle. One hand holding the light, and the other following the panelled wall, he walks down the stairs. To the kitchen.
Sure enough, lighting up the room is not only the same moonlight that roused him from his sleep, but also a lantern sitting on a counter, as Sanji, fully uniformed, hunches on a little stool and peels a big bag of onions.
“Brat,” Zeff says.
Walking closer, he immediately notes how the boy jumps up, despite the older man being entirely loud in his descent down the stairs before.
The way he looks at him… Zeff shudders at the wild eyes that can’t decide where to go, darting frantically from the bag of vegetables, up and away at the wall, anywhere but in the vicinity of Zeff’s face. The tension in his shoulders, and by extension, the room, is so dense it could be cut with a knife. If only a knife wouldn’t scare the kid right now.
Careful, maybe more careful than he has ever been with him, he grabs one of the few wooden chairs around and sits down as well.
Without a word, he grabs an onion and starts peeling.
The little eggplant freezes for a moment, and Zeff can feel his eyes linger on him as he tosses the thing into a nearby bowl and grabs another. Four in, as careful as the older chef's own movements, the kid lets go of the vegetable smothered in his hand, and continues the work, saying nothing.
They stay like that for some time.
The light seeping in through the window slowly changes hues, going from a deep blue to pale, and then the room seems darker than the world outside. As the colors of dawn finally set in and the sea lights up like dazzling treasure swaying to and fro, Zeff stops peeling.
Sanji is crying.
It would be really hard to tell if he hadn’t looked up, barely a sound escaping the kid as his shoulders shake and big, shiny tears drop down. His hair covers his face, and Zeff resists the urge to peek beneath that protective mask.
Sanji finally lets out a sob, still quiet, but loud enough to hack his heart in half.
“We’re not cutting onions, we’re just peeling them.” He scoffs.
The sob after that is halved, as a tiny hand pushes at the tears, as if to force them away.
“Sorry…,” The kid mumbles, voice quieter than the waves pushing against the hull, and the word dissolves into another sob, loud enough to fill the room.
“Come here.”
Zeff opens up his arms, the unspoken question audible in his words, and Sanji sniffs before his eyes peek out underneath the golden hair. It’s four, five seconds before he tosses himself into the chef’s arms, and holds onto his dear life.
The sun crests in a fiery line on the horizon, cutting through the blue of the sea. On a morning like any other, coffee-hungry cooks will descend from the sleeping quarters, stumbling down the stairs half-awake and disgruntled. Few customers will get out of their own ships to order an early breakfast, and the dining hall will fill with chatter again.
This is a different kind of morning.
Zeff stares out at the orange sky and hugs the kid a little tighter.
The restaurant is closed for today.