Chapter Text
The first time Zeff compliments Sanji on his work, the kid almost spills salad dressing all over the prep station.
The kitchen finally quieted down after a particularly hard lunch rush had everyone in a state of stress-induced focus. At least, it was, until everyone rested enough to argue. The lounge filled with the aggravated shouts of cooks blaming each other for slowing down the line, and the aftermath of the battle was left mostly unattended. Except for the kid without an assignment, who straightened out the stations just in case, before taking the opportunity to work on improving his prep.
“It’s about time that you made yourself useful,” a gruff voice sounded behind him.
It almost makes him fall from the wooden stool he’s standing on, and he feels a hand brush against his shoulder as if to steady him, before the old man disappears as quickly as he showed up.
Sanji’s usual comebacks are stuck in his throat, and for a long moment he completely forgets what he was doing.
In the time it takes for him to recover, the other cooks have returned to the kitchen, and he’s being shoed away by Caprese to “leave his station right this moment, or he’s gonna get it”. Standing back at the sink, washing potatoes, Sanji can’t stop thinking about it.
And before long, Zeff is back to doing rounds around the kitchen, barking at a junior dessert chef to get his act together, before he passes him again.
“Keep washing, little eggplant.”
“Shut up, shitty old man.”
He washes those potatoes in record time.
That was a week ago, and now the old man hardly ever looks at him.
Ever since the announcement that Baratie signed a contract for hosting their biggest feast yet. The deal was lucrative and exclusive enough that after initially protesting the prospect of extra work, Patty grabbed the signed paper, took one look at the sum at the bottom, and never complained since.
It was a chance to get the business going for a bit longer after the first year wreaked havoc on their finances, Sanji heard, but nobody needed to convince him that the event was a big deal - seeing the veracity with which everybody threw themselves into the preparations convinced him outright. It didn’t hurt that during these past few days, the entire place transformed from a run-of-the-mill watering hole into a meticulously cleaned and maintained dining experience.
Yes, everything had to be perfect.
Food suppliers were contracted. Every pantry had to be inventoried and cleaned. Whole crews of men were sent to nearby islands with lists long enough to drag across the floor. Every plate and glass had to be inspected and polished, every storage room emptied, reorganized, and squeaky clean.
A whole new menu was written, then promptly rejected by the old man, rewritten, argued and shouted over, taste-tested, simplified, rejected for being too simple, rewritten again. He demanded that the dining room be shining, floor to ceiling and between the cracks. He wanted the tiles to be reflective enough for old saps to be able to see every wrinkle on their crusty faces, and after the cleaning was done, he screamed endlessly because, can’t you see it, idiots, there’s dust on the chandelier!
Nobody could escape, not when there was still so much to do, and Sanji was sent everywhere.
During these past few days, the amount of running he did while carrying things, dragging things, and pushing things must have been enough to satisfy even the craziest athletes.
He was included in everything, from counting the tablecloths to whipping cream for a new cupcake recipe, and the weirdest thing about it was that everyone was way too busy to tease him anymore. Nobody complained that he was too young for something, and even while he was running around, nobody ever told him to get out of the way. It was absolutely bizarre, to the point where he started worrying about the crew and their hyper-focused expressions.
Sanji just kept his head low and in the game, and when asked to do something, he did it all without complaint. And then some.
If he could help by carrying six crates instead of one, or scrub the whole pantry instead of just sweeping, he would do it. It was important.
And somewhere deep, he wanted Zeff to notice.
The man didn’t acknowledge anything, despite being everywhere, always. He was like a big, bearded ghost with an ever-steaming mug of coffee, pale and stalking, rushing through like the wind itself and barking orders left and right on the way. Whenever Sanji entered a different room, the old man would already be there, personally checking deliveries or ripping someone to shreds for being too slow on the line.
Was he going through walls? He might be. No human being could be everywhere, all the time.
Other cooks seemed to take notice of the worrying paranormal activity and, seemingly, its draining effects, because Patty was seen periodically sneaking meals into the man's vicinity. Though the spectre man obviously didn’t have time to eat.
Nobody slept much either.
Sure, when the sun set and Sanji lay in his hammock, it was quieter than during the daily ruckus, but it was never completely still anymore. He was woken by raised voices in the dead of night, and judging by the pale complexity of some cooks in the morning, there was now an unofficial night shift in their restaurant.
On the first sleepless night, Sanji sneaked down the stairs, carefully avoiding a few guys engaged in a hushed conversation at the kitchen counter, and followed the long shadows cast by lanterns to the office. It was an advantage of his height - he knew that the glass in the door wasn’t tall enough to reveal him. Here, he could listen to everything they said inconspicuously, and since they wouldn’t tell him the gossip outright, eavesdropping was the moral choice. Only, his delirious plan crumbled as soon as he realised that he wasn’t alone in the room.
“Oi, you’re still awake?” he yelped, startled.
The old man was sitting in his chair, hunched over a barely lit candle.
“You should be in bed.”
“You too!” Sanji protested, flustered.
“No discussion, Brat.”
The chef didn’t turn as he waved a hand in the general direction of upstairs. Sanji waited for him to call him a spoiled kid. A baby eggplant. An idiot sandwich. Only, the usual banter seemed entirely absent.
He just wordlessly turned a page and resumed working.
The message was clear. Instead of arguing, Sanji went back to bed, and when he came down the next morning, the chef was nursing an even bigger cup of coffee. There were shadows under his eyes as dark as his black boots, and when running around the kitchen, it seemed like he was listening to the side. It wasn’t hard to notice the slight winces on his tired face.
It was a week of frenzy.
It seemed like every night was a night Saji couldn’t sleep properly. The closer to the final day, the worse it got.
Waking up hazy three days before the feast, he could feel the ship shaking from anticipation. He managed to grab a brioche bun from the breakfast table and bite into it before Patty and Macron got into an argument over who should stack the new shipment of flour. Of course, the sacks then stayed right where they were, in the middle of the hallway and in everyone’s way.
Sanji managed to drag a few to the storage room before a crash and a roaring Sanji!! sent him running to the dining hall with a hammering heart.
The floor was glistening with the shards of a whole crate-full of now shattered wine glasses. The unlucky cook was being reprimanded with the force of a sea hurricane by the old man, whose tone was now barely recognisable, something new and uncomfortable peeking through the shouts. Sanji carefully watched as Zeff stormed off, ignoring him as he swept pieces from the floor.
It made him feel weird.
He couldn’t stop thinking about it, not when cleaning up that mess, passing information to and from the storage room, polishing plates, chopping carrots.
“What are you doing?” A voice next to him asked, and he jumped.
Carne was frowning and pointing at the cutting board.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with these?”
“I’m doing your prep, as you asked.“
“I asked for onions,” he grunted, turning his head to the side as if to peer under his hidden eye. “Are you okay?”
“Sure,” He starred.
He made a mistake. Probably because he was tired. Everybody was.
Carne looked like he wanted to say something else, a question lingering in the air, before another cook dragged him away, concerned about the water system making strange noises. The pipes above them groaned and whined, but the restaurant thankfully didn’t explode and didn’t flood. Only when the chef returned to his station, a new mountain of diced carrots decorating the counter, did he say anything at all. Sanji didn’t try to ask, but the man’s long stare said volumes.
Sanji was stumbling more, running slower, forgetting his tasks, and it wasn’t hard to notice that weakness. Patty saw it. Carne saw it. Zeff saw it and maybe finally realised that he wasn’t worth keeping.
After all, he ate food, took up a bed. He was small and scrawny, not strong nor as smart as the adults, not to mention his still-lacking culinary skills. He was always sent to do the easy work, because that was all he could really help with. Just because Zeff took him in after the rock didn’t mean that the arrangement was permanent.
Maybe he’s tired of me.
It was such a simple answer, one that explained the lack of smiles and the coldness growing with each day. It got bigger when the chef shouted at Patty, but didn’t say a word to him, or every time he addressed the kitchen in their morning briefing without once meeting Sanji’s eyes.
He supposed that there was nothing he could do but try harder and not irritate him. If there was something to help with, he was the first one to offer assistance. He ducked away from arguments, nodded silently at complaints, promised to be better. And when Patty complained about his unusual lack of brattiness, Sanji swallowed back his snarky comeback and went back to work. That certainly earned him a strange look.
He ignored everyone, focused on giving his best, and it was easy with everybody too preoccupied to pay him any mind. Although his eyes started burning constantly and a strange feeling of cold followed him everywhere despite the steamy kitchen temperatures, there was a helpful lack of hunger whenever he was busy. Meaning always.
Eating felt uncomfortable, so he did it less - there really wasn’t any more time to sit. His throat hurt when swallowing, and the taste became strangely bland, so avoiding it was convenient. Eating meant precious time and food wasted.
The feast was tomorrow.
His muscles ached as though he spent the whole night hauling crates instead of staring at the ceiling, and when he sat upright in his hammock, the world swayed and blurred. Dressing took him longer than usual, and the entire time his nose was annoyingly blocked, so he ended up panting his way down the stairs.
The kitchen was too loud to distinguish individual voices, but the only thing Sanji really cared about was the bucket and brush he was handed. The ambiance of arguments and discussions, sometimes genuine and sometimes mocking laughter, was like the sound of waves hitting the hull, strangely meditative, and as he washed the hall, it slowly started to drag him down under.
With a metallic bang, someone stumbled on his bucket and for a second he couldn’t really remember his task.
“Watch it!” he snapped instinctively, before pressing his lips together in fright.
Zeff straightened back up and walked away.
Sanji looked down, frozen for a moment that seemed infinitely stretched in time.
Floor. Right.
His hands shook as he gripped the brush again and went back to scrubbing.
It was getting dark when he finished.
“Kid.”
Carne’s voice almost made him jump out of his skin. Uniform dirty head to toe as if he just crawled out of the oven, the man was standing tall before him in the relative silence of the evening. The light hitting one side of his face also illuminated the deep frown on his face.
“You look like shit,” He said, staring at him.
“Thanks.”
“No, seriously.” The frown deepened. ”You look sick. Are you feeling okay?”
Sanji lowered his eyes to the oily spot closest to him, willing his heart to calm its nervous hammering.
“I’m working,” He explained.
“It’s late already.” The man shook his head, voice surprisingly soft. “You should go to bed now. I’ll find someone who can finish this.”
“It’s not a problem; I’m almost finished.”
“Carne!”
The shout ran out from the refrigerators, immediately followed by a curse. Carne turned towards the sound even before the person called him again.
“I’m busy!”
“Get your ass over here!”
“Piss off!” He shouted back.
“The shelf broke!”
Carne looked away from the refrigerators, and before his eyes met Sanji’s again, the boy summoned his most intense glare. It probably wasn’t very intimidating, considering the shakiness of his limbs and the truth in the chef’s words, but whatever was happening with the refrigerators seemed more pressing.
“Ten minutes and you’re in bed!” Carne shouted as he took off running.
Sanji stayed for another twenty, and when he made it into his hammock, sleep evaded him. It seemed like hours before his eyes finally closed, and by then, the moon was no longer out, and the sun was rising again.
One blink and it was morning.
The day of the feast.