Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He really doesn’t want to bother Zeff. He’s already missed most of the lunch service, and he owes the old man too much to burden him with more of his whining. He’s just never felt this sick before. His belly aches, and he feels hot, and he wants nothing more than to find Zeff and let him tuck him into bed again like a little kid. He’s thirteen now, though. He shouldn’t be such a baby.

Standing on the docks hasn’t helped as much as he hoped. The salty breeze does little to ease the hot flush of his body, and the sunlight is just giving him a headache. He’s going to have to find Zeff and bother him. Whimpering quietly to himself, he goes back inside the service door.

All the chefs are in the kitchen finishing up the lunch rush. He doesn’t expect to see anyone, and he’s so focused on making it down the end of the hall to the kitchen door that he doesn’t react in time to the staff restroom door opening. He runs bodily into the man walking out of it.

“Hey, watch it!”

Ugh, it’s Kenta. One of the newer line cooks. He doesn’t dislike him, in fact barely notices him, but he doesn’t want to deal with anyone right now. He just wants Zeff.

He tries to step aside and keep walking, but Kenta’s hand comes down on his arm with a vice grip.

“What’s…?” The man’s nostrils flare. He stares down at Sanji with a blank expression. “You’re serious? Little shit, you’re omega?”

What? He shakes his head frantically and tries to pull away.

“Let go,” Sanji says, trying to be firm and embarrassed when it comes out wobbly and unsure. “I need to talk to Zeff.”

He breathes in again, deeply, and Sanji feels the first stirring of unease when his eyes bore into him, pupils widening until they blend into the gray of his irises.

“Oh, you’re not going anywhere,” Kenta says.

Sanji tries to pull away enough to kick him, but he’s wobbly and off-center, and he doesn’t have the leverage to get away before a large hand clamps down on his neck and he finds himself scruffed, instinctively going limp. He’s panicking now, whining, as the alpha man drags him back towards the restroom he’d just left. He opens his mouth to scream, and a hand slams over it before he can, and he’s dragged into the restroom with a resounding bang of the door.

--

Something’s wrong.

Zeff sets his soup ladle down and frowns. He hasn’t seen Sanji since the beginning of the lunch rush, and he’d lost track of him in the chaos. Looking around now, he can’t see the head of blond hair anywhere. That’s unusual. The kid loves cooking more than anything, and he’s never missed a shift since the restaurant opened. Something’s very wrong.

Zeff wipes his hands on his apron and tosses it aside, striding through the staff door into the service hallway. He’ll start with the kid’s room and work his way out from there. Ship’s not that big.

He freezes halfway down the hall when the smell hits him.

He doesn’t remember running to the restroom, doesn’t remember throwing open the door. All he’ll remember later is the way his heart sinks in his chest when the smell hits him fully, and he finds Sanji curled up under the sink.

This close, it reeks of blood and alpha musk and the rancid smell of a terrified omega, barely the faintest trace of heat pheromones buried under the stench. Sanji – his kid, his boy, his son - is barely recognizable, curled into the tightest possible ball under the sink, wedged impossibly into the small space. He’s shaking, and his subvocal whine of distress has Zeff’s alpha instincts roaring.

There’s blood on the floor, red and pink smears, and it’s not all blood. There’s blood-streaked semen on the floor and his kid is whining and Zeff sees red.

“Patty! Carne!”

He doesn’t recognize his own voice, and he regrets it when the kid flinches and whines louder. He whirls on his leg and sticks his head out. The two chefs are running down the hall, and he sees it on their faces the exact moment they smell the problem.

“Nobody leaves this ship,” Zeff says, still in this voice that doesn’t sound like him. “You find him.”

Patty sniffs deeply. He’s an alpha, unlike Carne, and his face is slowly turning red with rage. “Is that – that’s Kenta’s scent.”

“Find him.”

They don’t need to be told twice. They run off, and Zeff turns back to his kid. He hasn’t moved. Still wedged under the sink. Still shaking. It doesn’t feel real. Since when was the kid an omega? He’d told him – he’d said – he thought he was a beta. But the smell is there, the scent of heat pheromones, and god, the kid’s terror and pain smells awful and Zeff wants to vomit. He doesn’t know what to do now. He needs a doctor.

“Sanji?”

No reaction.

“Little Eggplant?”

Nothing.

He kneels down, ignoring the filth on the floor, and tries to assess the damage. It’s impossible to tell like this. He can barely see any of the kid, just scraped elbows and the buttons hanging loose on his chef’s coat. He scoots closer, and the kid flinches again, ratcheting up the whining.

“Sanji. Hey, it’s me. Little Eggplant. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

He’s trying to be soothing, but he can’t let go of his own emotions. He must be reeking himself with his fury and disgust. It’s not calming the kid down at all, and he’s still not saying anything, just whimpering and whining to himself.

“Boss! Patty’s got him!”

Zeff jerks himself to his feet and turns away. He’ll deal with this first. Then the kid. Carne looks frazzled. He glances at the restroom door, almost afraid to look inside. Zeff pushes past him.

“Where?”

“East dock. He was trying to stowaway on someone’s yacht. Patty sniffed him out.”

The pâtissier has a nose like a bloodhound. Zeff hauls himself to his feet. “Stay with Sanji. I’ll be right back.”

In a daze, Zeff walks to the service door. Nothing feels real. He stomps over to the eastern side of the ship, ignoring any customers and curious employees he passes. The scene at the dock would be shocking anywhere else, but the Baratie is a rough place. Patty’s got the guy in a grappling hold, his huge forearms bulging with the force he’s crushing the guy with. A vein bulges in his forehead, and his teeth are bared in a full snarl.

“You don’t fuck kids you sick fuck,” he’s growling into Kenta’s ear.

Zeff says nothing as he walks up, just stares down into Kenta’s frightened face.

“I’m going to kill you,” he says with lethal calm, staring directly into his eyes, “and it’s not going to be fast.”

Patty drops him and backs off. Kenta stumbles, falls over, scrambles backwards on his hands and knees. He still smells like Sanji’s blood and the rancid scent of fear and pain. Zeff’s teeth touch the air as he snarls, a growl deeper and more horrible than anything he’s ever mustered before making the man in front of him cry out and piss himself.

It’s not fast.

Zeff knows how to target bones that won’t kill him. He breaks them methodically under his feet, losing himself in the violence and the satisfaction of the man’s howls and screams for mercy. Fingers, feet, a crack across his jaw that slurs his pleas. He hadn’t had mercy on Sanji. He won’t be getting any himself. He crushes soft tissue next, brutally efficient. By the time he kicks the man’s skull inward and puts him out of his misery, he’s a bloodied, twisted wreck barely able to whimper.

He doesn’t feel better.

He feels horrified eyes on him as he walks away, blood staining his pants legs up to the knee. He ignores them. He didn’t earn the name “Red-Leg” for his humanitarian efforts.

“Sink the corpse. Let the fish have him,” he tells Patty.

“With pleasure.”

At least Patty doesn’t seem too bothered by the violence. The younger alpha snarls at the corpse with grim satisfaction. Fuck, Zeff didn’t even know Patty liked Sanji – they certainly fight enough – but here he is, snarling and growling and lost in a frenzy of bloodlust.

“Restaurant’s closed,” he addresses the horrified onlookers.

He pushes back into the service hall. Carne’s sitting outside the restroom, doing his best to make soothing noises for Sanji. There’s a puddle of vomit a few feet away. Zeff doesn’t comment on it.

“I’m calling a doctor,” he tells him. “I’ll be right back.”

“Yes, boss.” Carne frowns and tries again to make some trilling, subvocal purr. As a beta, it doesn’t come as easily as it would an omega, but hopefully it’s helping. Zeff nods and keeps walking.

He grabs the snail in his office. He doesn’t sit down. He’s afraid he won’t get back up again. He rings the operator.

“Hello, how can I direct you?”

“I need a doctor,” Zeff says. He rubs his face, slumping. “I’m at the Baratie floating at these coordinates.” He gives them. “I need a doctor from the nearest island. An omega doctor. One who’ll make house calls.”

“Right away, sir. Give me a moment.”

He waits, focusing on breathing evenly. He’s not going to think about Sanji yet. He can’t. He’s going to lose it. He perks back up when the snail makes a noise.

”You’ve reached Doctor Toshiko. How can I help you?”

“I have an emergency, and I can’t get to the hospital. Can you travel?”

“…Yes, sir? What’s the emergency?”

“I’m on the restaurant Baratie. I have a kid here.” He squeezes his eyes shut and forces out, “He’s been raped. He’s omega. He needs a doctor.”

There’s a pause.

“Give me the coordinates. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Should I alert the authorities?”

“No,” he says shortly. “It’s taken care of.”

”…Right.”

He gives their information, including a brief overview of Sanji’s age and medical history, before hanging up. He takes one long, deep breath, and makes his way back to the hallway.

Carne’s on his knees now outside the restroom looking excited. “That’s it. That’s good.” He glances at Zeff approaching and holds up a finger for silence. “You’re doing great, kid. Can you come out from under the sink now?” He clears his throat and makes more soothing noises. “That’s it. Good job.”

Patty stands at the end of the hall with his arms crossed, still looking murderous. Zeff nods at him and follows Carne’s lead, dropping to his knees and awkwardly shuffling to the entryway.

The kid’s out from under the sink now, though he’s still curled up tightly around himself, still shaking. Zeff’s heart breaks all over again.

“Little Eggplant,” he says softly.

He finally gets a reaction. Sanji’s head lifts up minutely, and one blue eye peaks out over his knees.

“Hey, kid,” Zeff babbles, softer than he thought he could ever sound, “Eggplant. Sanji. You wanna get out of here? You want to come with me to my room? You can’t stay here on the floor, kid.”

“I don’t think he’ll be able to walk,” Carne murmurs too quietly for the kid to hear.

Zeff swallows and nods. “Is that okay, Eggplant? Can I pick you up? You want to get up?”

The kid clenches back up for a moment before he unpeels enough to nod. Zeff shuffles in closer, pleased when he doesn’t flinch away.

“I’m gonna stand up, and then I’m gonna pick you up, okay?”

He hauls himself up, almost slipping on his peg leg on the filthy floor before he steadies himself. Carrying the kid’s not going to be easy, but he can’t just hand him off to Patty. No telling how the kid will react to another alpha. He steels himself and reaches down. Luckily, the kid is lucid enough to wrap his arms around Zeff’s neck, and he’s able to haul the skinny kid up and get a hold on him, wobbling only a little. With grim determination, he starts marching for the stairs. Sanji’s limp in his arms, trembling minutely.

“Restaurant’s closed for the foreseeable future,” he tells Patty as he passes. “Feed anyone hungry who comes by but cancel all our reservations.”

Patty swallows heavily and nods. He can’t seem to look away from the kid in Zeff’s arms. He looks a little green. Zeff nods again and starts the long trek up the stairs.

His wheezing by the time they reach his room, but it’s an instinctive relief to get the kid over the threshold and lay him out on the bed. He still hasn’t said a word beyond the whines and whimpers he’s still periodically letting out.

“There’s a doctor coming,” Zeff tells him, keeping up a babble as he tries to arrange the room. “An omega lady. She’s gonna come fix you up. You just gotta be patient, okay, Eggplant? I’m gonna –“

He starts to leave the room and freezes when Sanji whines loudly.

“Okay,” he breathes, “okay, I’m not going anywhere. I was just going to get some water.”

There’s a knock at the door. He opens it, surprised when he sees Carne again. He’s got a basin of water and some towels.

“You’re a fucking godsend,” Zeff says, taking them.

“Just trying to be helpful.” He swallows again. He still looks peaky even after he’d thrown up in the hall, sunglasses askew and hair frazzled like he’s run his hands through it thoughtlessly. “It’s… Sanji’s a good kid. A brat, but… Nobody deserves that. Especially not a kid. I’ll keep an eye out for the doctor. Patty’s… he’s cleaning it up.”

Zeff wants to burn the entire restroom down, but he nods and shuts the door again.

“Hey, kid. I’m gonna help you clean up, okay?”

The kid doesn’t respond, but he’s not expecting much from him at this point. He pulls a stool to the side of the bed and starts with the kid’s hand, gently washing it before moving up his arm until he gets to the abraded elbows. He cleans them gently, babbling more soothing nonsense when the kid winces at the pain. He does the other arm next, then tugs on the shirt.

“Can I take this off you? It’s dirty and ripped.”

The kid turns his head at that and blinks blankly at him.

“You can keep it on if you want, or I can get you a better shirt. Your choice. Can I take it off of you?”

Seconds crawl by before the kid finally nods minutely. He pulls himself up a bit and winces. Zeff quickly helps strip it off so he can lie back down.

He has to take another minute to calm down, because the shirt was hiding more red marks that are turning into bruises. There’s fucking teeth marks. Shirt off, he looks even smaller and more underdeveloped than ever. He’s just a fucking kid. Sick bastard. He knows he made it slow, but maybe it wasn’t slow enough. He wishes he could kill that man again.

“Alright, Eggplant. I’m gonna keep cleaning you. You’re a good lad. You’re doing good.”

He takes care to clean the bites, though he knows they need proper disinfectant. He can’t leave the kid, though, not with him panicking at the idea of being left alone. So he does his best.

He’s too much of a coward to ask the kid about cleaning under his pants. He doesn’t want to see. He knows it’s going to be bad. He needs that fucking doctor.

He hums any tune he can think of to fill the silence. Sanji’s still not said anything or really responded much. He seems to be drifting in his own head. The only tiny bright side to any of this is that the stress seems to have abruptly ended his heat. There’s the faintest whiff of pheromones still rolling off of him, but it’s nothing like it should be.

God, if he’d only known he was omega.

There’s a quiet knock, and he gets up to open the door. A petite woman in her fifties stands on the other side, flanked by a younger woman carrying a couple of doctor’s bags. Carne stands behind them and nods at Zeff.

“I’m Dr. Toshiko,” the older woman says. “My assistant, Beatriz. The boy is in here?”

“Yeah.” Zeff steps out of the way, wringing his hands. “I’ve cleaned him up a little, but he’s not speaking.”

The doctor barely looks at him, sweeping into the room and zeroing in on Sanji. She lets out a whiff of her scent – a clean and sweet omega smell designed to comfort – and approaches the bed.

“Sanji? I’m Dr. Toshiko. I’m here to take care of you. Is that alright?”

Sanji turns his head and looks at her. Hesitantly, he nods.

“Good, thank you. Beatriz is going to help me, too. She’s very nice, and a very good nurse. Is that okay, too?”

Another nod.

“Thank you, Sanji. Do you want your father to stay in the room with you?”

Zeff opens his mouth to correct her, but Sanji’s already nodding. The doctor glances at him.

“Okay. That’s good. Are you in pain?”

A wobbly lip accompanies the nod.

“Okay, baby. I’m going to give you some medicine to help with that, but it’s going to make you a little sleepy, okay? I’m going to need to take a look at you where you got hurt, and it’s easier for you if you sleep through it. Is that okay?”

Sanji glances at Zeff and back at the doctor. He nods again.

“Can you talk?”

Lips pressed together. A shake for ‘no.’

“That’s fine. That’s just fine. Beatriz?”

The nurse brings over the bag, and they confer for a moment before the nurse readies a syringe and measures out the medicine.

“We’re gonna poke you, and then we’ll wait a minute for it to work. Your dad’s right here. He’s going to hold your hand,” she says pointedly.

Zeff can take a hint. He grabs the stool and pulls it to the head of the bed and takes the kid’s hand. He can’t help reaching out with his other hand to smooth his hair, and he’s gratified when the kid lets him, even leans into it. He flinches when they stick him with the needle. Zeff pets his hair as the doctor and nurse get their tools ready and Sanji’s eyes slowly droop.

“Is he asleep?”

Zeff pokes his cheek and he doesn’t move.

“Yeah.”

“Right.” The doctor’s snapping on some gloves now, moving efficiently. “Normally, I’d have the victim stay awake to answer questions, but you say he was in heat earlier? His first one?”

“Yeah.” His throat feels thick, and he swallows. “I adopted him only a couple years ago. He told me he was a beta, and I never thought to check. I took his word for it. I never thought he was an omega.”

The doctor makes a skeptical noise, but she doesn’t say anything else. The nurse brings her the other stool from his desk, and she takes a seat at the end of the bed. “Okay, we’re going to bring him down to the end of the bed here so I can examine him. I don’t want to cause him more distress. Beatriz?”

Together, he and the beta nurse maneuver Sanji down to the end of the bed and peel his pants off. Zeff recoils from the smell, and the quick glance he’d seen of the mess between the kid’s legs. He’s going to throw up.

“Breathe, Mr. Zeff,” the doctor says, not unkindly. “Beatriz.”

Zeff doesn’t watch as they start cleaning away the filth. He holds Sanji’s hand again.

“I’m beginning the examination now,” she tells him.

There’s silence as she pokes around. Zeff can’t look. He does look up when the doctor lets out a shaky breath.

“Bastard knotted him,” she says, breaking her veneer of professionalism for the first time. The nurse also looks pale and sick. “He’s just a kid… he’s tiny…”

Zeff’s stomach twists. The rape was bad enough, but his kid had gotten tied to his rapist? He can’t imagine. Being stuck there, unable to move or escape with the man still inside of him? He lets go of Sanji’s hand so he can shakily grab the nearby wastebasket and lose his lunch into it.

“What happened to the alpha that did this?”

Zeff looks up from the basket and says grimly, “He’s not a problem anymore.”

The doctor glances at the blood still soaked into his pants leg and his peg. “Good.”

It goes quickly after that. They disinfect his wounds and do their best for his torn and bruised birth canal, but ultimately all Zeff’s left with is a packet of painkillers, some antibiotics, and a topical ointment for Sanji to use.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Zeff,” the doctor says. She really does look sympathetic. “I’ll be back in a few days to follow up with him. He’s still in shock. Just be gentle with him.”

“What about the talking?”

“We’ll just have to wait and see,” she says. “Sometimes it resolves itself quickly, other times it takes months. We’ll just let Sanji recover at his own pace.”

He nods because he can do nothing else. The doctor pats his arm gently and leaves him alone with the boy.

--

Zeff stares at the snail in his office.

It’s been over a month.

A month of hell.

The restaurant’s still closed. Most of the staff’s left, though several of the old-timers stayed, and they still run the kitchen for any passing ships that need food. Zeff doesn’t have the time or will to try to reopen. He spends almost every minute of the day with Sanji.
It took a week before the kid could reliably get up and walk. Before that, he spent all of his day in bed, staring into space and refusing to try to read books or do anything other than blankly look around. He would eat if prompted, but without enthusiasm.

After he was able to get up, he’d taken to following Zeff around like a duckling. He still won’t speak, but he follows Zeff everywhere. Not doing much, just watching. Zeff doesn’t push him. Just narrates his day for him as he tries to act normal. Waits outside the bathroom when the kid uses it. Waits outside the shower stall when he bathes. Cooks with the kid perched on a stool, staring at him. It’s almost unnerving, but he thinks maybe it’s a good sign that the kid’s at least interested in following him around? He doesn’t know if the clinginess is an omega thing or a trauma thing or just a Sanji thing. There’s no guidebook for this.

Still, he hesitates, staring at the snail. Dr. Toshiko’s been amazing, coming out to the Baratie more than once just to check on the kid. Sanji seems to like her, perking up when he sees her. He doesn’t want to call her with this.

”You’ve reached Dr. Toshiko. How may I help you?”

“Doc, it’s Zeff.”

”Hello, Zeff,” she says, ”How’s Sanji?”

“That’s the thing, Doc.” He swallows heavily. The kid’s with Carne right now, just outside the door. He continues quietly, “I think he’s pregnant.”

--

Sanji’s not stupid.

Okay, maybe he feels a little stupid for never realizing he wasn’t a beta. In his defense, he’d never had reason to question it – Judge had been so confident in his genetic experimentation, bragging to the scientists about his perfect beta children all the time. Nobody had told him anything different. He’d just assumed.

Dr. Toshiko gave him some books. He’s read through them several times now, reading and rereading the pages. The first book was a picture book obviously intended for kids younger than him, but it was the first time he’d ever actually seen information about different sexes laid out plainly. The second book is more age appropriate. He reads it over and over. It talks more about something they call bodily autonomy. He’d never heard the word before.

“Your body is yours,” the book says, “Nobody has the right to touch it without your consent.”

He likes that chapter, though it makes him cry sometimes. He reads that one a lot, tracing his fingers over the words.

Still, he’s not stupid. He can feel that something is wrong. More wrong than the fact that he can’t seem to talk, or that he can’t sleep sometimes until he crawls under Zeff’s bed and curls into a ball even though he knows it makes Zeff upset, or that the restaurant’s closed because of him. He’s tired all the time, and everything smells strong and bad and he’s being picky about food, and he’s never been picky about food before. Zeff gave him a steak the other day, and he’d pushed it aside and thrown up on the floor when he’d cut into it and smelled the bloody juice coming out of it. Now he’s sitting on Zeff’s bed again, watching Dr. Toshiko mix together a blood test.

Neither the doctor nor Zeff speak. It feels dreadfully serious. Sanji kicks his legs lightly, bored and anxious and resisting the urge to climb under the bed or into the closet to hide. He looks up when the doctor sighs shakily.

“It’s positive,” she says.

Zeff makes a noise, something like a growl. Sanji shrinks on the bed, shoulders coming up to his ears. Zeff’s there instantly, rubbing his hands and making soothing noises.

“Sanji,” Dr. Toshiko says gently, sitting on a stool to meet his height on the bed, “Honey, your pregnancy test is positive. Do you know what that means?”

He nods, not looking at her. He rubs his hand over his belly, thinking.

“It’s okay, baby. Did you read about it in your book?” He nods again. “Good. You’re a good boy, Sanji.”

He smiles just a little. She’s nice. Much nicer than any of the doctors he’s ever met before.

“There’s drugs I can give you that can terminate the pregnancy,” she says. She takes his hand and makes him meet her eyes. “Is that what you want to do? We can make it go away.”

He hesitates for only a second before he shakes his head vehemently. Dr. Toshiko and Zeff both make noises of surprise and glance at each other.

“Eggplant…”

“I know it sounds scary, but I promise it won’t hurt you,” the doctor croons, stroking his hand. “Are you sure? You want to terminate it?”

Sanji pinches his lips together and shakes his head again. The adults look at each other again, silently communicating something. Sanji just presses his hand more firmly over his belly and frowns.

“You’re just a kid, Eggplant,” Zeff says. “I don’t think you know what you’re asking for. You’re too young to have a baby.”

Sanji shakes head harder.

“You’re so little,” the doctor tries. “If you try to have this baby, we’ll have to cut it out of you. Are you sure you want that?”

She sounds like she’s trying to scare him. He jerks his hand away from her and clenches his fists. He frowns at both of them in turn and scoots away.

He’s not stupid, and he knows enough to know he’s being irrational. He’s just still reeling, still thinking about it, but mostly he’s amazed. He looks down and pokes his flat belly again. A baby. It doesn’t sound real. Two months ago, he didn’t think he could even make a baby. And now, they want to take it away from him. He looks up and frowns at them again. He – he likes babies, is the thing. He’d never gotten to be around them much, but he liked looking at the passenger’s babies on the Orbit, and he likes seeing customer’s babies on the Baratie. They’re small and cute and soft, and his eyes are filling with tears now because he wants that. He wants something soft and good that he can love and that will love him, too. He shakes his head again and presses both hands over his belly protectively.

He hears Zeff make a pained sound, and the doctor’s gotten up to talk to him. Sanji listens, because now that he doesn’t talk, people sometimes seem to think he can’t hear.

“Just give him time,” she’s saying, “He might still change his mind.”

“He’s just a kid! He can’t…”

“I know, but it’s his body. We can’t just decide for him. Let him think about it. If it goes on too far, I’ll have to do the procedure on the mainland, but there’s still options, okay?”

Zeff nods and makes another sad noise. Sanji looks up when Dr. Toshiko comes back.

“Okay, Sanji. You’re okay, baby. I’m gonna write up some instructions for your dad so we make sure you get all the vitamins you need. And if you change your mind or you want to talk about it at all, you have your dad call me, okay?”

Sanji nods and lets her give him a quick hug. The two adults walk out of the room, still talking. Sanji takes the opportunity to get up and grab his body book and Zeff’s blanket and crawl under the bed, flipping open to the chapter about pregnancy.

--

He doesn’t change his mind.

Dr. Toshiko asks him again and again, and Zeff’s pleading at this point, but Sanji’s mind is made up. He’s going to have this baby.

He’s terrified, of course, but he’s excited, too. Before he knew about the baby, he was so scared and hopeless, and he didn’t have a plan for what to do next. Now, he’s got something to worry about that he can actually help with.

He knows it makes the other chefs uncomfortable. He’s so skinny that his belly starts to get round pretty fast, and most of the chefs can’t stand to look at him now. It is weird. He looks in the mirror, and he’s still the same kid he was, but his belly is getting bigger and it’s obvious there’s a baby in there, and even if he didn’t already know that everyone on the Baratie knew about him getting raped, there’s undeniable proof now in everybody’s faces.

Not that they’d been subtle. Zeff got upset one day and took a sledgehammer to the staff restroom, busting out the sink and toilet and half the tiles. Sanji had stood behind Carne, watching silently.

The chefs won’t look at him, Zeff tries not to look at his belly, and he still crosses his arms stubbornly and shakes his head. This is the one thing he can control. Nobody’s taking it away from him. He still hasn’t found his voice, still hides in dark corners and closets and under Zeff’s bed at the drop of a hat, still can barely sleep for nightmares that leave him curled up, shaking in Zeff’s arms until he passes out from exhaustion. He’s a wreck, and he’s barely even been cooking. He’s going to have this baby, though, and it’s going to be soft and sweet-smelling and he’s going to love it, dammit.

He hides in Zeff’s closet and cries about it for a while. Then he gets up, dusts himself off, and heads for the kitchen.

It’s probably eight in the evening now, and that’s where Patty finds him, frantically digging through the pantry and growling.

“What the – kid?”

Sanji freezes and looks over his shoulder. He doesn’t know what his face looks like, but it has Patty taking a step back before sinking to the floor and baring his throat a little.

“Hey, kid, you’re okay.”

Sanji’s shaking, still holding a bag of flour. He hasn’t been alone with any alpha besides Zeff, and he’s not scared of Patty, but Patty’s big and mean and has huge arms, and he could probably hurt him pretty bad if he wanted to. He sets the flour down and comes out of the pantry where it’d be easy to corner him, stepping around to put a work table in between him and Patty, who doesn’t move.

“What are you doing in here, anyway? Baking?” He cranes his neck and looks over the ingredients. “That’s my job, kid. You trying to steal my spot?” His voice is light, teasing. He stays down low, head still tilted to bare his throat, and he doesn’t make any movements or express any interest in him.

Sanji huffs and picks up the recipe book he found, edging closer to Patty and holding it up to show him.

“Muffins? You’re making muffins randomly at night.” His eyes flick down to Sanji’s belly and away again uncomfortably. “You having a craving or something?”

Sanji flushes but hesitantly, he nods. Everybody’s too scared to talk to him about the baby, and he can’t talk except by writing things down, so he hasn’t talked to anyone about his sweet tooth, but he’s dying for sweets, and he figured muffins would be easy enough.

Patty blinks at him for a second before he starts chuckling incredulously. “Wow, that’s actually… stupidly cute. But kid, you grabbed the wrong ingredients. That’s baking powder, not baking soda. And that’s the wrong kind of chocolate – look, baking’s my job here. Let me do it. You can watch and learn.”

He’s perfectly capable of baking his own damn muffins, but… Well, Patty’s the pâtissier for a reason, and it’s not often he gets to train with him. He nods and hops up on the counter to watch, still a wary distance away, but slowly relaxing as the alpha mostly ignores him to babble about the best recipes and techniques and why baking is more of an exact science than cooking.

That’s how Zeff finds them later. He stumbles into the kitchen, looking around frantically, freezing comically when he sees Sanji sitting on the counter with a spoon in his mouth eating raspberry jam straight out of the jar, swinging his legs happily with a plate of muffins beside him. Patty looks up guiltily to meet Zeff’s eyes, frozen in the middle of ranting about the proper way to make pain au chocolate as he demonstrates the method for Sanji.

“What…”

“Kid had a sweet tooth,” Patty says.

Sanji nods and sets the spoon down, trading it for his plate and holding the muffins up for Zeff to see.

“Kid had a sweet tooth, so you’re laminating dough at nine o’ clock at night,” Zeff says, deadpan.

Patty flushes. “It’s your fault for not teaching him pastries in the first place! Somebody’s got to do it, or he’ll think he can just throw lumps of butter in a bread dough and call it a day!”

Sanji snickers almost inaudibly and shoves a muffin in his mouth. He’s still smiling as he chews it, and he looks up to see both of them looking at him with the same soft expression.

“Fine,” Zeff says, pulling up a stool and sitting to rub his stump tiredly. “I’ll supervise, then, make sure you’re not teaching him wrong.”

Sanji chews his muffin and listens to the two chefs bickering, kicking his heels contentedly against the cabinet fronts.

--

Nothing’s normal, really, but he’s adjusting.

Zeff yawns and scrubs a hand down his face. He’s holed up in his office trying to balance the books. It’s been almost six months now since everything fell apart. They’ve had to open the restaurant back up to bring some money in – not only to pay the cooks still on staff, but Sanji’s list of needs has grown exponentially now. He’s not going to stress the kid out about finances, but the added cost of preparing for a baby to arrive is more than he’d expected. The kid got a pregnancy book from Dr. Toshiko, and it feels like he brings the damn thing over to Zeff several times a day, pointing insistently at the next random item he’s decided his baby needs.

He glances over at the kid. Sanji’s been a little less clingy lately, but he still doesn’t speak, and the nightmares and hiding and crying haven’t flagged much. He’s pretty sure obsessing over the baby is the only thing keeping the kid somewhat sane, though God knows Zeff still thinks this is a terrible idea. He’s curled up on an armchair now, reading that damned book some more. He’s snuck in another pastry from Patty, and he’s getting crumbs everywhere. Zeff’s not going to scold him, that’s for sure. Anything that makes the kid smile at all instead of wandering the ship looking like a frightened and lost ghost is worth the mess.

He looks back at the accounts and tries to make sense of them again. He jerks his head around when he hears Sanji make the tiniest sound of surprise.

The kid’s sitting up now, eyes wide, a hand pressed to his belly. He frowns, and gasps again. He jerks his head up to Zeff and frantically waves him over.

“What? What’s wrong?”

The kid grabs his hand and shoves it onto the firm, round swell of his belly. Zeff wants to recoil from the strange feeling under his palm, but the kid’s grip is strong. He waits, then, for whatever the kid’s trying to show him. His jaw drops when he feels something move under his hand.

“Is that…?”

Sanji nods, tears rolling down his face. His grin is huge.

Zeff stares down at the kid. A tiny foot pushes against his palm again, and he swallows around the lump that’s appeared in his throat. Well, god damn. Guess they are having a baby.

--

Sanji wants to be at home.

He’s sulking because Dr. Toshiko insisted he spend his last few weeks on the mainland where she can keep a closer eye on him. He doesn’t like being on land. He’s always clumsy because he’s a sea cook, dammit. He’s got sea legs, not land legs, and he’s even clumsier now that he’s gotten as big as a whale. He doesn’t like being on land, too, because while the cooks on the Baratie are used to him and he stays away from the customers, people on the mainland look at him in shock and horror. He knows it’s horrifying. He knows better than they do. He doesn’t want to be stared at, though. He hides in the hotel room and sulks.

He's terrified.

Zeff seems almost as scared as he is. He’s checked their bags at least thirty times, growled at one of the maids, and he keeps pacing. Sanji’s too fat now to pace, so he just sits on his bed and watches him. The baby kicks him in a kidney, and he winces, patting his stomach soothingly.

He’s really having a baby.

He turned fourteen two months ago.

He whimpers and pulls the covers over his head. Zeff’s heavy pacing stops.

“Hey, Eggplant, it’s okay.”

He shakes his head because it’s not. It’s not okay.

“Kid…”

He shakes his head again and lets himself start crying again. Nine months, and he still hasn’t wrapped his head around what happened, fully. He can’t even remember most of it. What he can remember is so bad that he wishes he didn’t remember anything at all. He’s put all his energy into thinking about the baby. He tries not to think about how he got it. He doesn’t want to remember Kenta or his hard, bruising hands and the tile under his fingers and how painful it had felt to be split apart.

He’s shaking now, and Zeff scoops him up, rocking him. The old alpha grumbles soothingly, and he whines some more, nuzzling into him for comfort.

“You’re gonna be okay, kid.”

He nods and tries to believe it.

Three days later, he lies on his back in a hospital room, staring at the ceiling tiles. They’ve put a curtain up so he can’t see what they’re doing, though Zeff’s standing and tilting his head to see, looking morbidly fascinated and horrified. It doesn’t lift Sanji’s confidence.

“You still with us, baby?” Dr. Toshiko is hard to recognize with her hair wrapped up and her face covered in a mask and a visor. Sanji can’t really feel his arms, and he’s loopy from drugs, so he just nods vaguely. “You’re doing great, honey. We’re gonna start now. You’re not going to feel a thing.”

He really doesn’t. He can’t even feel Zeff’s hand on his own. He listens instead to the murmur of the doctor and nurses, trying to parse it out. Zeff hisses in his teeth, looking pale and queasy, so he figures they’ve probably cut him open now. That’s weird. He’s never been disemboweled before. He laughs silently, though he doesn’t know why it’s funny. Then he hears it.

There’s a baby crying.

He makes a noise, and Zeff tears his eyes away from whatever’s happening. His face softens, and he brushes a hand through his hair.

“It’s alright, Eggplant. They’re just cleaning the baby up and checking it out.”

“Six point three pounds,” the nurse, Beatriz calls out helpfully, as if the number means something to him.

He makes another noise, tears pricking his eyes. He wants to see the baby.

“Just a minute, Eggplant. They’re sewing you up.”

He’d forgotten about that part. He lies there, paralyzed and upset, listening to his baby crying. Finally, Beatriz brings over a wrapped bundle, a big smile on her face.

“It’s a boy,” she says, turning to show them both the smallest, reddest, squashiest thing he’s ever seen. “Here’s your son, Sanji.”

He glances up at Zeff, inanely, as if looking for permission. The old alpha’s crying openly, looking stunned. He takes the bundle from Beatriz carefully and lowers it down so Sanji can look at it. He still can’t move, and he leans as far forward as he can until Zeff brings the baby close enough for him to nuzzle it with his face.

It’s – he’s – perfect.

Sanji’s lip wobbles, and he looks up at Zeff again. He’s looking down at Sanji and the baby with an unreadable expression, tears still pouring freely down his face.

“The kid’s gonna need a name,” he says, choked.

Sanji swallows, transfixed on the little red face. He whispers, “Sora.”

All motion in the room freezes.

It’s the first word anyone’s heard Sanji say in nine months.

“Sora?”

Sanji nods, repeats, “Sora.”

Zeff swallows and nods. “Sora, then. His name’s Sora.”

Overwhelmed, Sanji lets his head flop back and closes his eyes. Zeff will take care of him. He can rest.

Chapter Text

“Forget it,” Chef-guy says, “I don’t let alphas into the kitchen.”

“But you’re an alpha,” Luffy points out, confused, “and the guy with the big arms, too.”

Chef-guy makes a face. “Yeah, but I don’t let strays like you near my kitchen. You wanna work off your debt, you do it out there. We’re short on waiters, anyway.”

Luffy’s not sure he’s going to be any good as a waiter, but he nods. He does feel kinda bad that he broke Chef-guy’s room, but he’s not going to work here for a year to make it up to him. He follows a shorter chef with sunglasses on over to where the food’s coming out and tries to listen to him explain how to be a waiter, but it’s boring and doesn’t make that much sense, so he just shrugs and figures he’ll do his best. He picks up a tray of food and stops, confused, looking at all the tables.

“Hey,” he calls, “Who’s got the soup stuff and this saucy pasta thing?”

The customers just stare at him like he’s crazy, so he wanders through the dining room, munching on some bread from the basket on his tray. Someone ordered this food, right?

He perks up, because there’s another waiter, but that waiter’s dressed a lot fancier than he is, and he’s busy right now holding a Marine up by his face and yelling at him about spilling soup. Luffy tilts his head and watches. He’s never seen a waiter do that before. Is that what waiters do? The waiter throws the guy down and kicks him a few times for good measure, his face twisted in a snarl. The Marine crawls away, cursing something about omegas and pirates and getting vengeance, but Luffy’s more interested in the waiter, who’s apologizing to the lady like nothing happened. Now that’s a funny guy.

The guy turns and looks at him. He’s tall, and he’s got a funny curly eyebrow, and it raises up when he looks Luffy up and down.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Luffy! I’m a pirate!”

“And you have a tray of food because…?”

“Oh yeah, I broke Chef-guy’s house so I’m a waiter now!”

The guy blinks before his eye gets wider. “You broke his house?”

“Uh, yeah, I kinda did. Why?”

“Because I live in his house, you moron!”

The curly eyebrow guy runs off, looking panicked. He disappears into the kitchen. Luffy shrugs and turns back to the tables. “Anybody want this food?”

Chef-guy yells at him because he’s not a good waiter. Luffy’s pouting anyway because Zoro and Nami and Usopp are just sitting around laughing at him, and he’s really trying to be a waiter, but the other waiter left, and he doesn’t actually know what a waiter does. When he tries beating up a customer because he saw the curly eyebrow waiter do it, Chef-guy kicks him in the head and yells at him again. That’s not really fair, because nobody yelled at the other guy.

Well, they’re yelling at him now. This dirty guy came in for food and he had no money, and the big arm alpha kicked him out, and then the curly eyebrow guy yelled at the big arm alpha guy, and now they’re both yelling at each other. Curly eyebrow guy goes back to the kitchen, and the big arm guy just sighs and walks away.

Curious, Luffy follows the hungry guy. He’s surprised when he finds him on the side deck. He’s shoveling fried rice into his mouth and crying, and the waiter guy is standing a wary distance away, watching him eat with a smile.

“Thank you,” hungry guy says, “I thought I was going to die.”

“Everybody deserves to eat,” the curly eyebrow guy says.

Luffy leans over where they can see him. “You’re a cook!”

Curly eyebrow guy blinks at him. “Chef, actually. You’re the new waiter?”

“I’m a pirate!”

“Yeah, pirate, whatever.” The chef’s looking between the two of them and edging away. Luffy’s confused for a second, but then he sniffs again and realizes the chef’s an omega, and the two of them are alphas. He nods sagely to himself. Sometimes omegas get nervous around too many alphas. He hops up onto the railing and smiles his most harmless smile, which just seems to confuse the guy.

“You should join my crew!”

The chef gives him a strange look, pulling out a cigarette and a lighter. “Your pirate crew? You mean the three people you sailed up with?”

“We’re recruiting,” Luffy says, undeterred. “We need a cook!”

“Find somebody else.”

“But I don’t want somebody else. I want you!”

“I refuse.”

“I refuse your refusal!”

“That doesn’t work like that!” He takes a drag of his smoke and scowls. He does that a lot, Luffy notices. Scowling, baring his teeth, trying to look bigger. He’s kind of a weird guy. “Besides, I got good reasons I can’t.”

“Like what?”

He opens his mouth to answer, but they’re interrupted by the side door swinging open. A little kid runs out onto the deck. A little kid with dark hair combed over one of his eyes, and a curling eyebrow that perfectly matches the chef’s. A little kid that’s holding a crayon drawing and doesn’t slow at all, crashing into the chef’s legs to hold it up proudly.

“Dad,” the kid says, staring directly up at the chef, “look at my drawing!”

--

“So let me get this straight,” Zoro says, feeling a headache coming on, “You think you found your chef, and it’s some omega guy who works here, and, oh yeah, the guy’s got a kid.”

“Yep!”

“And you don’t even know his name or if he can cook.”

Luffy frowns. “Hm, I did forget to get his name… But he’s the guy with the funny eyebrow! You can’t miss it!”

“But you still don’t know if he can cook,” Usopp points out.

“He said he was a chef.”

“Right.” Zoro exchanges a look with Nami and Usopp. “Luffy, this sounds like a bad idea.”

“It’ll be fine,” he says with his usual confidence.

“But what about the kid?”

“We’ll take him with us!”

“Luffy, you can’t just take a kid on a pirate ship,” Usopp says reasonably.

“Why not? I wanted to join a pirate crew when I was a kid!”

“Well, so did I, but…”

“It’s fine! You guys should talk to him! He’s weird!”

The chef-owner bangs open the kitchen door and starts yelling at Luffy again, so he sprints off. The rest of the crew share a glance and a sigh.

“I don’t think he’s going to let this one go,” Usopp says.

“We’ll scope it out,” Nami says. “I’ll ask around and see what’s really going on. You guys see what you can find out, too. Maybe we’ll find someone else here who can be our chef.”

Zoro doesn’t feel confident about throwing Luffy off this new whim, but they split up anyway. He’s not sure where to start, so he starts with looking for a weird eyebrow. He finds it eventually on the face of a man serving pasta dishes to a group of women, smiling winningly and charming them with his fancy clothes and posh attitude. He’s tall and skinny with hunching shoulders and a hunted kind of look about him, like he’s living every second on edge. It doesn’t take long for him to clock Zoro watching him, and he bristles in a display of aggression that - to anyone who's used to combat and fighting enemies - is blatantly covering fear. He doesn’t take his eyes off Zoro as he scampers off back into the kitchen.

Well.

Zoro remembers the guy now. He’d been the one who picked a Marine up by his face and kicked his ass. Zoro hadn’t thought much about it at the time other than “Oh wow, that’s hot,” but his closer inspection has him concerned. He’d assumed he was alpha at a glance from the aggression, but he was close enough now to smell his scent, and he’s definitely omega, and he’s definitely some kind of messed up. The fear and aggression and obvious distrust of alphas don’t strike him as winning qualities in a crewmate. Factor in a kid?

Wait, a kid?

Zoro scrunches his face up and meanders out onto the docks. The guy hadn’t looked any older than him. How did he have a kid already walking around and talking? Didn’t it take a while for them to do that?

That’s an uncomfortable thought.

He waits on the Merry for Usopp and Nami to return. They both look grim.

“I saw the kid,” Usopp says once he’s aboard. “I’d say he’s about five? I didn’t get to talk to him – he was hanging around the owner pretty closely. Still, I’m not sure about a kid that little on the ship going into the Grand Line… Nami?”

Nami’s mouth twists. “I asked around. Nothing good. Apparently, the owner’s famous for only hiring betas. The only alphas on staff are him and the baker. I talked to this customer that’s been coming here for years. He says it didn’t used to be like that, but the restaurant closed for like six months a few years ago, and it was about the time the owner started carrying around a grandson. That’s when he stopped hiring alphas.”

Zoro frowns. “So the omega?”

“His name’s Sanji. He’s the owner’s son.” Nami makes an even grimmer face. “He’s nineteen.”

They let that sink in for a moment.

“I saw him in the dining room,” Zoro offers. “He saw me watching and freaked out. The guy’s a wreck. He seems okay around anyone else, but when he noticed I was an alpha? He looked like he thought I was going to jump him.”

“Yeah, there’s no way he had a kid when he was fourteen and it wasn’t some kind of crime,” Nami says with a falsely flippant tone.

They all share an uncomfortable silence.

“This is a terrible idea,” says Usopp.

Zoro can’t help but agree.

--

“Your room,” Sanji says, mouth twisted in almost a pout.

Zeff sighs and puts his hands on his hips, surveying the damage. “Yeah, that damn kid did a number on it.”

It’s completely ruined, but Sanji doesn’t say that. He’s too upset to really process it. They were lucky, and the damage didn’t extend to the room he shares with Sora, but he spends almost as much time in Zeff’s room as his own, and the wall being smashed in is giving him that horrible impulse to find a dark corner to hide in again. He’s not going to, because he tries not to let Sora see him like that as much as possible, but he still feels the urge. He makes up for it with another cigarette. He raises an eyebrow when Zeff gives him a look.

“What? It’s not smoking indoors now,” he says, gesturing to the open elements they’re standing in.

He can tell from the particular huff Zeff lets out that he’s reluctantly amused by the quip. He still puts up a front, complaining, “You shouldn’t smoke that shit anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

He starts helping recover what possessions they can to move them into Sanji’s den. He’s distracted, thinking about the pirate-waiter’s oddly sincere offer of employment. He’s not sure why it lingers in his head the way it does. He’d gotten a look at the kid’s cute little ship, and his weird little crew, and they seem like a sweet enough bunch. Probably going to be chewed up and spit out by the Grand Line, but he feels almost wistful thinking about it.

“You ever think about the All Blue still?”

Zeff pauses and throws him a sharp glance. “All the damn time. You?”

He shrugs and avoids eye contact. In truth, he still thinks about it all the time, too. In another life, maybe he’d be free to hop aboard a ship and go looking for it. In this life, though, he has a mountain of debt to pay to the old geezer, and he’s got Sora to worry about. He doesn’t regret having him – no, Sora’s probably the only reason he hasn’t offed himself before now, but raising a kid and helping run a restaurant doesn’t leave a lot of time for dreams. Not mentioning the inherent danger of an omega leaving home to travel the vast seas. Where would he spend his heats? How would he protect himself from stray alphas sniffing around? What would he do with Sora?

No, his dreams, one way or another, deflated when he was thirteen.

He shakes the grim thought loose and takes his armload of Zeff’s clothes across the hall. Sora looks up from his elaborate game of make-believe with his various stuffed sea creatures and grins.

“Daddy, you want to have a tea party?”

His heart melts again when he looks at that smile. He glances at Zeff, who rolls his eyes.

“I can get the rest of the stuff. You sit on your ass and have a nice tea party, you damn traitors.”

Sora giggles, and Sanji feels slightly guilty for abandoning him for all of a second before he plops down and accepts his empty tin cup and saucer, waiting patiently for his son to pretend-pour tea into it before making an elaborate pantomime of blowing on the hot tea and taking a sip.

“It’s delightful, Chef Sora. You simply must tell me the secrets to your delicious brew.”

Sora laughs again and sips his pretend-tea. “It’s a trade secret! Jiji said I can’t ever tell you!”

“Gasp! I am surrounded by cutthroats! Betrayed by my own son in favor of Jiji!” He turns beseechingly to the stuffed octopus to his right. “You are my only true friend, Mr. Takoyaki.”

Sora laughs harder and scoops up his stuffed shark. His smile widens as he watches his son – his perfect son. His son who’s never been hungry, who’s never been hit, who is hugged and cherished and told every day how much he’s loved. He can’t regret giving up his own dreams too much if he’s able to nourish this. To let him have the childhood he’d wished he had.

He could even give up the All Blue, even if it tears his heart up to think about it.

--

He keeps forgetting the pirate-waiter’s an alpha.

That’s terrifying.

Luffy. His name is Luffy. He’s bouncy and kind of annoying, but his grin is huge and something about him makes Sanji want to drop his guard. Which is disturbing, because even if he seems harmless, he’s still an alpha and he knows better than to assume any alpha is harmless. He hunches his shoulders more just thinking about it.

“So where’s your kid?”

An innocent question, but one that still sparks his anxiety. He doesn’t like alphas paying too much attention to Sora. He doesn’t like alphas at all.

“None of your fucking business.”

He’s said it with a full snarl, aggressive and baring teeth, but Luffy just shrugs it all off. He even laughs. Sanji’s foot twitches indecisively.

“That’s fine! So are you going to join my crew?”

“And what? Leave my kid behind?”

“Bring him with us!”

He says it so easily. He makes the decision to kick the guy sharply on the shin. His foot bounces back faster than he expected, almost as if the kid is literally bouncy. He files that thought away for later.

“I’m not bringing my son to be some kind of cabin boy.”

Luffy’s eyes light up. “Ooh! He could be a cabin boy! I don’t have a cabin boy yet.”

“And you’re not getting one! No means no!”

“But you’re not happy here!”

Sanji stops trying to organize the glassware and turns to stare, open-mouthed. “What?”

Luffy crosses his arms. “You’re not. I can tell. Isn’t there something you want to do?”

“I want to get the dining room ready for service,” he snaps.

“No. I mean it. What do you want more than anything? What’s your dream?”

He feels a sharp stab of grief in his heart. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Sure it does. Everyone has a dream, right?”

“Not everyone gets to follow their dreams.”

“They should.”

“Easy for you to say,” he bites out bitterly. “Strong, confident alpha, nothing tying you down? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Luffy actually pauses, assessing him. When he speaks again, it’s softer than he’s heard yet. “Is it because of your kid?”

“No. It’s complicated.” How can he explain anything to this idiot? Why should he, anyway? He’s probably never worried a day in his life. He certainly wouldn’t understand Sanji’s worries. Not only that, but it’s only a matter of time before he really gets to see him in all of his fucked-up glory, and he’s not naïve enough to think anyone would want such damaged goods on their ship except for some obscene reasons. Nobody would want Sanji just for Sanji.

“And if it wasn’t complicated?”

He’s not giving up. He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a shuddering breath. Against his better judgment, he says, “Have you ever heard of the All Blue?”

He shakes his head, says still in that soft voice, “Tell me about it.”

Sanji leans against a table and plays with his lighter, staring at it instead of this weird guy in a straw hat who seems to be compelling the words out of him. “It’s a dream that explorers and sea cooks share. A dream ocean where all four Blues – North, South, East, West – all of them meeting in one sea. Every type of fish from the seas in one spot. Nobody’s ever found it. When I was a kid, I wanted to be the first. But,” he says, tone sobering, “if there’s anywhere that could lead there, it’s probably the Grand Line, and I’m never going to sail it.”

“Sanji,” Luffy says again, “join my crew. We’ll find it.”

He swallows around the lump in his throat. “I can’t. You don’t get it.”

“I don’t. You want it that bad. Why don’t you go for it?”

He rubs unconsciously at the surgical scar hidden under his clothes and turns his head to hide his face from Luffy’s eyes with his bangs. “You don’t understand. The world’s a dangerous place for people like me. We try to follow our dreams? Bad shit happens. Really bad shit.”

He stands straight jerkily and snatches up the tray of glassware, stalking away before the kid can get another word in.

--

Zeff crosses his arms and glares at the tiny pirate crew hanging out on the east dock.

He doesn’t like going to this particular dock, anyway. The bloodstained patch of wood where he’d killed Kenta all those years ago has long since been scrubbed by salt and sea to be unrecognizable, but the memories of that terrible day always seem to spring up if he goes out here. He’d considered doing it in like he’d destroyed the staff restroom, but Patty had talked him out of it several times now. Still, the place has him on edge more than usual.

The crew looks back at him nervously in turn. They’re just a bunch of kids. Wet behind the ears with dreams bigger than their brains. He wouldn’t bother talking to them at all, except he’s overheard their captain needling Sanji, and he’s seen the way Sanji’s withdrawing again and getting quieter, and he needs to get to the bottom of this.

“I want Sanji to be my cook,” the fool captain says.

Tellingly, the rest of the crew doesn’t look convinced. The skinny long-nosed boy just looks nervous, and the girl makes a face as if she’s had this conversation too many times. The other alpha just crosses his arms as well, though his hands are close enough to his swords that Zeff keeps one eye on him in particular.

“And why’s that?” Zeff lets his eyebrows fall into an impressive glower. “I find it unlikely you’ve got pure intentions.”

“He’s a good person, and he wants to sail,” the kid says innocently, “and I’m gonna be the pirate king, so I’m gonna need the best cook. I’ve already got the best swordsman and the best navigator and the best liar.”

Zeff elects to ignore that odd piece of trivia. He doubles down instead. “And the fact that he’s omega’s got nothing to do with it? You’re not just hoping for some pretty piece of ass on your ship?”

The longnose turns bright red and coughs, and the girl’s eyes go wide. The swordsman twitches and blushes even as he’s obviously monitoring the situation to see if he needs to draw those swords. The captain blinks foolishly.

“What’s his ass got to do with anything? And why would anyone want a piece of it?”

The crew’s choking now, and Zeff feels his brows raising. He looks to the girl – the only sensible person here, “Is he serious?”

“Um, yeah… Luffy doesn’t really go for that kind of thing…”

“What kind of thing?”

“They’re talking about sex, dumbass,” the swordsman says.

Luffy makes a face. “Oh. Boring. Sex is dumb, and I don’t wanna have sex with Sanji. I don’t think he’d like that very much. I just want him to cook for us.”

Right. Zeff tries to sniff out any kind of deception, but the kid’s either a master manipulator – doubtful – or genuinely disinterested in the whole thing. He turns his glare to the swordsman. “And you?”

The swordsman makes a face. “I’m not trying to fuck your kid, old man.”

“You say that, but I’m not blind. I’ve seen you looking. What happens when he goes into heat? Or you rut? What kind of guarantee do I have that you’re not just another knothead asshole?”

“I don’t stick my dick where it isn’t wanted.” The swordsman gives him a shrewd look. “Guess that ship’s already sailed for him, though, huh? You care about the guy so much, how’d he end up getting knocked up that young anyway?”

Oh, the kid’s asking for it. The betas scramble away as he bristles up and growls. The swordsman goes loose, hands away from his swords, but he meets Zeff’s eyes in clear alpha challenge.

“That’s none of your business, boy. The only reason we’re even having this conversation is because I can tell Sanji likes your stupid whelp of a captain, and I’m soft enough to indulge his whims. You don’t have any idea of what you’re talking about.” He points at the slightly discolored patch of deck a few feet away. “I killed the last knotheaded bastard that hurt my son right on that spot, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

The swordsman’s lip curls in a disgusted sneer. “You make it hurt?”

He’s not expecting that. He barks out a cruel laugh. “Damn right I did.”

He receives a matching cruel grin. “Good.”

Zeff shakes his head and relaxes a little. God, getting into an alpha pissing match at his age with a hotheaded pup like the swordsman. It’s irrelevant, anyway. “It’s Sanji’s choice, but I have no intention of letting you take him.”

“He’s not happy here,” the captain says, jaw jutting out in challenge.

Zeff smiles humorlessly. “Yeah, but he’s safe.”

He turns and stomps away. His shoulders tighten when the captain calls out, “Yeah, but is that enough?”

He doesn’t bother to answer that.

--

Don Krieg is the absolute worst of all alpha stereotypes, and Sanji’s crawling out of his skin with anxiety.

He’s not a coward. He’s not. He’d fight to his last breath to defend Baratie and the cooks and Zeff and especially Sora. Don Krieg just scares the shit out of him on a personal level. He’s big and flashy and mean, with enormous hands that make Sanji feel small in comparison. As soon as he’s no longer on death’s door, he’s sneering and demanding things, and when he bothered to look at Sanji at all, it was with the worst kind of indifference. Not the indifference of a man who would leave him alone, no, it’s the indifference of a man who would fuck him if it was convenient to him or kill him if it wasn’t, with no bearing on what Sanji wants at all. He knows how he smells right now, anger and anxiety mixing in a sour cocktail that has Don Krieg smirking, Zeff and Patty bristling, Gin sweating guiltily, and Luffy shooting him a concerned glance.

Still, he and Zeff have their principles. It’s stupid to feed them, but any time either of them see a starving man, they’re both back on that rock on day 84, right before the end, right when they were both starting to give up and die. No, they can’t leave anyone to starve, even though it’s a stupid fucking idea.

Sanji stays in the kitchen helping prep the meals until his hands are shaking too badly to cut vegetables, and Patty sends him and Sora up to their room with a stern, concerned look. He doesn’t like the coddling, but he knows how it looks. His tongue is heavy in his mouth, and he’s afraid to try to talk and find out his voice is gone again. He goes to his room and pulls Sora with him to hide in the closet.

“Daddy, are we okay?”

God. He hugs the kid tighter for a moment and breathes in the smell of his hair. Then he pulls back and tries to muster a smile.

“We’re fine, baby.”

Sora doesn’t look convinced. “But it’s time to be small?”

Another bolt of guilt and grief hits him. He hates how fucked up he is, that his own kid can see it. That him getting freaked out and going back to curling up and hiding is such a common occurrence that they have a term for it. He squeezes his son again and fights down tears.

“Just for a little bit, baby. We’ve got pirates in the restaurant right now.”

“Bad pirates?”

“The bad kind of pirates,” he confirms, “but they’re hungry, so Jiji’s gonna feed them.”

“Because we always feed hungry people.” Sora nods sagely.

“That’s right. And if they try to make trouble, Jiji and Uncle Patty and Uncle Carne are gonna kick their butts.”

“You’re gonna kick their butts, too, right?”

His kid’s unwavering confidence startles a laugh out of him. “That’s right. Because we’re the good kind of pirates.”

“Like Jiji and the Cook Pirates!”

He’s never had the heart to tell him that Zeff was actually in the middle of robbing him when they met. The kid’s convinced the Cook Pirates were some kind of folk heroes. He doesn’t correct him.

“Even better, we’re the Baratie pirates, and we feed people.”

Sora accepts this and turns his attention back to the stuffed toys he grabbed on the way to the closet. Sanji takes a little longer to sit there in the dark with him and just be a coward.

--

Luffy doesn’t like much of anything that’s going on.

He’s not actually stupid. Or, not that stupid. He knows something really bad happened to Sanji – he may not like sex, but he knows enough about it to know it sometimes happens to people who don’t want it, and that’s bad. He knows it’s the reason Sanji’s such a weird guy, always acting big and scary to try to hide that he’s scared of getting hurt again. He knows Sanji being afraid of getting hurt again is the reason he’s acting so weird about Don Krieg trying to take the Baratie from Old Chef-guy. Sanji’s strong and could probably kick half of Don Krieg’s crew by himself if he tried, but Don Krieg himself makes him nervous and twitchy and makes his sweet smell turn bitter and sour.

Luffy imagines Don Krieg taking the Baratie and making Sanji have sex when he’s scared of it, and it makes him really angry. He can feel a growl in his chest at the thought, and he’s pretty sure he’s going to kick Don Krieg’s ass as soon as he has the opportunity to do so.

It’s a good distraction from everything else that’s going on, anyway. Nami stealing the Merry was a blow, and Zoro almost dying because he was chasing his dream to beat Mihawk was cool, but really scary. He likes the cooks on the Baratie, and he’s not a big fan of Don Krieg and his creepy indifference to his crew and the way he looks at Sanji and the fact that he’s trying to steal Old Chef-guy’s logbook and ship because he’s too useless to sail the Grand Line without help. Luffy’s looking forward to kicking that guy’s ass.
He stumbles across Sanji and his kid on one of the balconies in the lull between Mihawk leaving and Don Krieg finally getting himself geared up to fight the Baratie cooks. He’s smoking again, staring at Don Krieg’s destroyed ship, and he’s got his hand resting on his kid’s hair.

“Hey there!”

Sanji jumps and almost drops his cigarette. “Luffy! What are you doing?”

“Same as you. Waiting until we can kick Don Krieg’s ass.”

“Dad, it’s the hat guy again.”

Luffy grins down at the kid. “I’m not a hat guy! I’m a pirate!”

The kid half-hides behind Sanji’s leg, but he’s bold enough to peer up with one visible blue eye. “A bad pirate or a good pirate?”

“A good pirate. I’m gonna be the best pirate. I’m the one who’s going to find the One Piece and become King of the Pirates!”

The kid looks up at him blankly.

“Sora doesn’t know about the One Piece,” Sanji explains, smirking at Luffy’s aghast expression.

“Your dad never told you about the One Piece?! But it’s the best pirate story ever!”

“Nuh-uh,” Sora says, very bold from where he’s safely hidden behind his dad. “The All Blue is the best pirate story.”

That makes him laugh, and he plops down to sit cross-legged on the deck. “That’s fair. Your dad told me about All Blue. It sounds really cool! Maybe not as cool as the One Piece, though.”

“Is too cooler than the One Piece!”

“You don’t even know what the One Piece is!”

Sanji’s looking at both of them with a weird look on his face. Sora looks up at him uncertainly. “Dad, what’s the One Piece?”

He eyes the stalemate on the docks for a moment before sighing. “Luffy, tell him about the One Piece.”

Sanji gently nudges Sora over and sits down across from Luffy. Sora takes this as an invitation to sit in his lap, and he stubs his cigarette out before the hot ash can fall on him with a tired, practiced motion.

Luffy grins. “The One Piece is the coolest thing ever! There was a pirate a long time ago named Gold Roger, and he was the only pirate who ever sailed all the way through the Grand Line! He was the King of the Pirates!”

Sora’s eyes are huge. It makes Luffy grin wider, the cute sight of the kid obviously entranced, and Sanji looking more at Sora than Luffy, an utterly smitten look on his face.

“What’s the King of Pirates do?”

Luffy pauses because he hadn’t really thought of that. He doesn’t think the Pirate King actually does king stuff. He throws that thought away and answers, “The Pirate King is the freest man on the seas! Gold Roger could go anywhere and do anything. Until the Marines caught him and killed him.”

Sanji frowns at him, but Sora doesn’t look that bothered. “They killed him?!”

“Yeah. But before he died, he said he left his treasure in the One Piece, and anybody who finds it will be the next Pirate King.”

“And you’re gonna find it?”

“Yeah!”

“Me and my dad are gonna find the All Blue one day,” Sora says confidently.

“You are? That’s awesome!”

Luffy’s a little worried, because Sanji looks sad now, but Sora can’t see his face, and the kid looks so happy. His eye is practically sparkling.

“Yeah! We’re gonna get on a ship and sail all over the seas until we find it. Right, Dad?”

“…Right.”

“And we’re gonna cook all the fish!”

Sanji snorts. “Right.”

Luffy grins at both of them. He’s tempted to mention his offer again, but he doesn’t need Sanji’s warning look to know that’s a crappy thing to do. He wants Sanji to come with them, but he’s not gonna use Sanji’s kid to guilt him into saying yes. That’s just shitty. No, Sanji’s going to be his cook because it’s what Sanji wants to do.

“That’s an awesome dream,” he says instead. “I’d love to eat the fish you cook!”

Don Krieg’s shouting again, and they get to their feet. It looks like they’re getting serious now. Sanji hugs his son closer to him, a frown on his face.

“Sora, remember what I told you?”

The kid nods. “I’m going. You’re gonna fight them?”

“Yep. I’ll come get you when it’s over, okay? You just stay hidden.”

He leans down and kisses him on the forehead and watches him run off into the building. Luffy gently puts a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s gonna be okay, Sanji.”

“Yeah.” He taps another smoke out of the pack and lights it. When he lifts his head again, all the fear and uncertainty is gone, leaving nothing behind but cold anger and determination. “It will be.”

--

Their home’s destroyed.

They’ve barely won, and Sanji’s bloodied and bruised and heart still hammering in his ears from Zeff having a gun pointed at him and Gin slamming a gas mask over his face, but he’s already up and stumbling into the restaurant. Zeff’s got the same idea, hobbling inside on his crutch, but even injured, Sanji’s faster, darting inside and running for the living quarters.

The fire and destruction haven’t reached this deep. He doesn’t relax, still, not until he’s burst into the cooks’ quarters and ripped open the linen closet. Sora blinks up at him, hugging his shark plushie to his chest.

“Dad?”

“Baby.” His knees buckle, and he knows he’s scaring the kid with the blood all over his face, but he’s so weak from relief that all he can do is sink to the floor and drag him in for a hug, filling his nose with the sweet smell of his hair.

“Dad, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, baby. Are you okay? Were you scared?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry, baby.” He’s trying not to cry, but he’s sore and so residually frightened, and their home is destroyed, and he just clings to his son. He hears the lumbering footsteps of Zeff and Patty and Carne following them in.

“Is the little string bean okay?” Patty’s made it there first.

Sanji pulls back enough for the other men to see him. “He’s okay. The fighting didn’t reach here.”

He doesn’t know what he would have done if Gin had grabbed Sora as a hostage instead. It doesn’t bear thinking about. He hauls himself up and takes Sora’s hand.

“Jiji did you fight the pirates? Where’s your leg?”

“Got hungry and ate it,” Zeff quips. “Nah, it just broke. I’ll get a new one. I didn’t get to fight much, but your dad kicked their butts.”

Sora’s eyes shine with open admiration, and Sanji ducks his head, embarrassed. He mostly just stood around being really good at taking a beating. Luffy was the one doing the impressive stuff.

Oh, wait, Luffy.

The cooks plus Sora make their way back out to the destroyed deck. The other cooks all greet Sora with enthusiasm, but Sanji pushes past them until he finds the boy in the straw hat.

“You’re okay?”

Luffy grins. It seems almost a default expression for him, his thoughtless confidence and joy. “Yeah. You?”

“I’m good.”

“And you’re okay, Sora?”

The kid beams. “Yeah. Jiji says Dad kicked the bad pirates’ butts.”

Sanji flushes, but Luffy doesn’t correct him. “Yeah, your dad was awesome! He kicked their butts big time!”

His heart sinks as he takes a better look around. Most of the deck is destroyed, and chunks of the building are ripped off and still smoldering. Some of the cooks are forming a bucket line to douse the worst of it, but the Baratie is a wreck. He feels tears burn in his eyes.

“Our home,” he says quietly.

Luffy’s face turns serious. “Sorry it got that bad.”

“Not your fault.” He tries to play it off, but he’s not sure how flippant he sounds. “If you hadn’t been here…”

He feels at a loss. Now that the fight’s over, he doesn’t know what to do. The restaurant is in shambles. He doesn’t know the state of his den and all of Sora’s things. His heart is conflicted, wanting everything to go back to normal, longing for the sea in a way he hasn’t let himself in years, preemptively missing Luffy, because he’s grown to care about the crazy kid, and he knows he has to go soon to reunite with his crew and get his ship back.

“Eggplant,” Zeff calls, “Let’s make lunch.”

He can do that. That’s simple. He can cook lunch. Enough for Luffy, even.

“Sora, you want to stay and talk to Luffy?”

That makes Zeff and Patty and Carne all pause. Sanji, leaving Sora with a relative stranger? Sanji, letting an alpha watch his kid? Sanji, relaxed and not snarling, smirking down at a strange alpha casually?

He knows how it looks to them, but he just shrugs. Luffy and Sora give him matching beaming smiles, and he feels confident leaving them together while he cooks.

--

Zeff trudges into the wrecked den with a heavy heart.

It’s not too bad. The walls are busted and scorched, and there’s dust and soot on everything, but most of the den is salvageable. It doesn’t stop Sanji’s subvocal whining as he paws at his nest, fruitlessly scraping at splinters. Sora stands to the side, watching his dad’s distress in an unfortunately all-too-familiar way. They’ve tried to protect him from the worst of it, but Sanji carries a big weight of trauma, and the unfortunate truth is that Sora sees more of it than they’d like.

“We’ll fix it,” he says.

Sanji glances at him, and he winces at his distressed face. He’s failed the kid in so many ways over the years. He’s done his best, but at the end of the day, he’s just an old pirate running a pirate restaurant. Today was just another wake-up call that for all he boasts about keeping his kids safe, he can’t actually protect them from the bigger dangers of the world.

He’s useless that way. He lowers himself down into a knocked over pile of wooden toy marines and ships and starts listlessly sorting them into their box. Sora joins him and starts helping because he’s a good boy like that. Zeff loves him so much. It makes what he’s about to say even harder.

“You should go with him.”

Sanji’s hands still on the pillow he’s brushing off. His bangs hide his eyes from Zeff. “What?”

“The boy. Monkey D. Luffy. He wants to take you away.”

Sora stares between them, silently watching.

“I know he does.”

“You should go.”

“I can’t.” And god, his son sounds broken by this. “I can’t leave Sora here, and I can’t…”

“You both should go.”

He feels like he’s swallowed razor blades. He picks up a little carved pirate and rolls it between his fingers. Long ago – before Sora, before that horrible day – he’d thought about how he’d have this conversation one day. How he’d have to push Sanji out of the nest because the boy’s got so much more potential than he can realize here in the East Blue, here in relative safety. He’d grown complacent after Sora had happened. Convinced himself that keeping him from getting hurt again was enough. But it’s not, is it? Sanji’s going to burn out here in this restaurant, fizzle out just like Zeff did, waiting for the next generation to pick up his dream.

It’s not fair to Sanji, and when Sora’s old enough to realize what Sanji’s given up for him, it’s going to do nothing but hurt him.

“But Jiji…” Sanji lifts his head now, darts a glance at Sora anxiously. “It’s not safe.”

“We got our restaurant blown up by pirates today,” Zeff says flatly. “At the end of the day, you have to accept a certain amount of risk wherever you go. You should go with that Luffy kid, though, because he’s a good captain. He’s strong, and I can tell you already that he’d throw down his life for you if you were one of his. Nowhere you go is going to be perfectly safe, but I think he’s your best shot.”

“But…”

“You want to go.”

Sanji looks gutted. “…Yes.”

“So go.” Zeff pretends there’s not tears in his eyes when he smiles. He reaches out and tugs both of his boys closer to him, pressing a gruff kiss into each soft head of hair. “Take Sora with you and find your dream sea. You’ll regret staying here and wasting your life on my dream when yours is still out there.”

“Dad, where are we going?” Sora wiggles away and looks at them. “We’re leaving Baratie?”

Zeff looks at Sanji with a clear challenge. “Well, are you?”

He can see the kid wavering. He’ll overthink it if he lets him, so he just pins him on the spot and waits. Sanji looks between the two of them anxiously before something in him seems to firm up. He squares his shoulders and swallows, turning to look Sora in the eye.
“Sora, baby, remember how you told Luffy we were gonna sail the seas one day and find All Blue?”

The kid lights up immediately. “Yeah!”

“You wanna do that? Be pirates together with Luffy?”

“I do!” He hesitates. “But Jiji’s not coming?”

“I’m too old,” Zeff says kindly. “Sailing’s for kids like you. But I’m gonna fix the Baratie up while you’re gone, so when you’re done and you find the All Blue, you can come back. Sound fair?”

Sora hesitates. He steps back in for a hug. “But… But I want Jiji to come.”

Zeff gives Sanji a look before he can backtrack. “I can’t, but you know what, I can get you a transponder snail for your ship, and you can call me, and you can write me letters. And you’ll have your dad and Luffy to take care of you when I’m not there.”

Sora looks slightly mollified by this, but he’s still such a young boy. There’s already been so much uncertainty and excitement today that this last piece of news tips him over the edge, and he starts wailing. Sanji jumps up like a scalded cat and scoops him up.

“Baby, don’t cry…!”

Sora shakes his head and cries harder. Sanji throws Zeff a lost look before he decides the best course of action is to get the kid into their slightly-dirty nest and soothe him.

“It’s okay, baby. You don’t want to be a pirate?”

“I do! But I want my Jiji!”

Zeff’s been stabbed before during his pirate career, and he’s pretty sure this hurts more.

“Don’t cry over an old fart like me,” he says gruffly. “Once you get out to sea, you’ll forget all about me.”

That was a mistake. Sora looks horrified. “B-but I don’t wa-wanna forget Jiji!”

Sanji shoots Zeff a dirtier look this time. “It’s just an expression, baby. It’s okay. We’re gonna get a snail and call him every day until he’s sick of hearing from us, right?”

“Did I ever tell you about Reverse Mountain?” The abrupt subject change startles the kid out of his tears. He continues, “It’s the only way to get to the Grand Line from here. You’re gonna need a smart navigator and a tough crew to get up it, because you’re riding a current up a mountain.”

He smirks, because he’s managed to catch the attention of both of them, and matching blue eyes covered by bangs are now peering at him from the nest. He knows Luffy said he doesn’t want to sail off of Zeff’s logbook, but he can be sneaky and drop a few hints just for Sanji and Sora.

He’ll help them pack after he’s done calming them down. He’s already second-guessing his decision, already worried he’s pushing them in the wrong direction, but he’s read a few of the parenting books Sanji’s been obsessively memorizing for the past five years. He knows he’s never going to feel like it’s the right time or place. He’s going to take a leap of faith and have another serious talk with this Monkey D. Luffy.

--

Sanji’s pretty sure he’s going to die of dehydration before the day’s half over.

He’s trying not to be a baby, but he’s been crying all morning. Zeff and Patty and Carne aren’t much better. They’ve been packing up his favorite cooking gear, and his nest supplies, and as many of Sora’s toys as they can, and they keep pressing bottles of spices into his hands and other stupid trinkets he doesn’t actually have room to bring.

Luffy’s taking it all in stride. He doesn’t seem to mind how long they’re taking to pack the spare boat. Sanji’s surprised by this, because the kid doesn’t seem like the most patient guy he’s ever met, and he has no idea how his friend with the swords is doing after fighting Dracule Mihawk. He’d think the guy would be chomping at the bit. Instead, he’s downright jolly. He helps load the boat without complaint, yammering away talking to the guy Yosaku who’s sailing with them.

It doesn’t feel real. The Baratie’s been his home for a decade. He’d learned to cook here. He’d found a father here. For better or worse, he’d become a father himself, here. The vast and most important parts of his life have been confined on this floating restaurant, and now he’s packing every touch of himself and Sora away from the restaurant and heading out into the unknown.

He’s crazy. Who does this? A single omega with a little kid heading for the Grand Line? Oh, he’s going to panic again.

“It’s gonna be okay.”

Luffy’s managed to sneak up on him, and he jumps a foot into the air. The kid grins wide and open.

“You’ll see,” he says confidently. “The crew’s going to love you guys, and the Merry’s a good ship, and we’re gonna have so many adventures! It’s going to be fun!”

He wishes he had that confidence. Luffy just pats him gently on the shoulder and runs off to consult with Sora about how to stop his stuffed sea creature collection from springing back out of the slightly too small bag he’s crammed it into. Sanji sighs shakily. When he looks up again, Zeff and Patty and Carne have joined him.

“Am I making a terrible mistake?”

“Probably,” Patty says blithely.

“You’re young,” Carne says, crossing his arms and nodding sagely. “When I was your age, I was stealing ships and tearing them up to sell for parts. Did three years in jail for it, too. Your youth’s the time for that kind of thing.”

“I think I was dealing drugs about that time,” Patty says thoughtfully. “It was that or the underground fight club. Have a hard time remembering which came first.”

“What these idiots mean,” Zeff interjects, glaring at them, “is that you’re gonna hate yourself if you don’t try. You’ve got a life to live. Don’t waste it trying to play it safe.”

Ha. He turns back and looks at Sora grinning wide as Luffy sticks Mr. Takoyaki on top of his straw hat as some kind of tentacled ornament. Tentatively, he wants to hope.

Too soon, not soon enough, they finish packing, and it’s time to say goodbye. Sanji’s got tears openly rolling down his face now. The rest of the cooks stand around wiping their eyes and gruffly trying to pretend they’re not all crying, too. Zeff presses a fat wallet into his hands.

“For the snail,” he explains. “You should be able to get one in Loguetown. Just be careful what you say on it. The Navy sometimes picks up signals. But still, you call me as soon as you get it set up, you hear?”

“I’ve got it, Jiji,” he says, utterly failing to sound casual.

Sora holds his arms up, and Zeff scoops him up to nuzzle him close before he shifts to drag Sanji into the hug.

“My boys,” Zeff chokes out. There are tears smearing on Sanji’s face, and he’s sure they’re not all his. “Take care of yourselves. Don’t catch cold out there.”

They pull away. The steps from Zeff to the small ship waiting at the end of the dock are the hardest steps he’s ever taken. He doesn’t look back again until they’ve cast off, and they’re catching the wind to drift away from the Baratie. His lip wobbles.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me! Shitty old geezer! Shitty cooks!”

Sora waves wildly. “Bye, Jiji! Bye, everybody!”

A chorus of rough men shouting goodbyes and half-hearted advice form the soundtrack of their first voyage away from home.

--

Yosaku thinks he’s crazy, but Sanji actually relaxes when he learns they’re fighting Fish-men.

Fish-men are tough, he’ll give them that, but it’s a rare Fish-man who takes any interest in humans for mating purposes. The utter indifference to his sex is a breath of fresh air. He’s usually either fighting some alpha who’s posturing because they’re interested in him, or fighting any other asshole who thinks he’s going to be a pushover just because he’s got a cunt. To just have a park full of assholes to kick the shit out of because they’re being run-of-the-mill greedy, murderous pirates? Oh, Sanji will take those odds any day.

The trip there is uneventful. He’s grateful for that. Sora takes his cues from Sanji and Luffy and doesn’t let Yosaku drag him into his panicking. Instead, he’s nodding along and lying on his belly on the deck to draw dubious artistic interpretations of Fish-men with Luffy that Sanji exclaims over like they’re priceless works of art. It’s genuinely amusing that he has a hard time distinguishing between the drawings made by Luffy and the ones made by a five-year-old.

It doesn’t make it any easier when it’s time for bed, and Sora’s struck by homesickness. Sanji makes up a quick and inadequate nest in the cabin and rocks him until he goes to sleep. When he tries to get up and take a watch shift, Luffy just shakes his head.

“We’ve got it,” he says. “You take care of Sora. I was sad, too, when I first left home.”

Sanji’s not sure he believes that – Luffy’s such a spontaneous and in-the-moment kind of guy. He’ll take this small kindness, though. He pulls a quilt over them both and snuggles his boy until he finally falls asleep.

--

Nami the navigator’s sister is omega.

Sanji’s not sure why he’s surprised. It’s not like omegas are incredibly rare. He’s just never known any other omega besides his doctor for any amount of time. Nojiko is spunky and vivacious and not at all like the meek and fainting stereotypes.

It gives him something to think about instead of fretting about the coming battle with Arlong’s pirates and the other alpha that keeps trying to bleed out from the enormous slash wound in his torso. He keeps Sora close to him. He’s still not sure about this “Zoro” guy, and there’s no telling how an alpha in pain will react to a minor annoyance – such as a small child poking him or asking questions. He trusts Luffy implicitly, but Luffy’s weird. He’s not risking Sora getting snapped at if he can help it.

He listens instead. Nojiko and Nami’s story is a sad one. He’s glad she waited until Sora’s nodded off after dinner to tell it. He expresses as much to her, and she smiles sadly.

“I can tell how important he is to you. I don’t want to make him cry. He’s a good kid.”

Tentatively, a little unsure about what he’s doing, he rubs a thumb over his scent gland and releases a comforting scent intentionally. It startles the swordsman awake, unfortunately, but Nojiko beams and steps closer to Sanji.

“Thanks. Nami’s going to like you. You’re a great…?” She trails off.

“Dad,” he answers. He can understand the hesitance. Different people prefer different terms, but he’s never been comfortable being called Sora’s mom. He may have carried him, but he’s still a man, for what it’s worth. Nojiko just nods amiably.

“You’re a great dad. Sora seems really happy.”

“I do my best.” He doesn’t know how much value that has. He’s about to leave him in the village here so he can throw himself into mortal peril. Some parent he is.

“I’ll take care of him,” Nojiko promises. “You take care of my little sister, okay?”

He’s still unsure, but she seems confident, and he’s seen her with her rifle – she knows how to use it. A little of her scent reaches him in turn – sweet like orange blossoms. He settles and gives her a serious nod.

“I’ll come back. And when I do, you guys won’t have to worry about Arlong anymore.”

He marches out to Arlong Park with deadly determination in his step.

Despite the tragedy and seriousness of the situation, it’s a true joy to finally let loose all the pent-up rage and aggression on Arlong’s crew. He tears through the pirates, and he can tell the swordsman alpha is shocked by his viciousness. Let him be shocked. Maybe it’ll be enough of a warning to leave him and Sora alone. Blood and water soak his pants, clinging to his calves, and it’s almost too soon that they run out of opponents still able to stand. All in all, Sanji feels like they came out okay.

“You’re a monster, cook,” the swordsman says.

There’s a look in his eye that Sanji’s not sure he likes. Awe, maybe. Something sappy. It’s nothing he’s used to seeing – not hungry or greedy like other alphas. He doesn’t trust it. He sneers at him and scampers off to check on Nami instead.

--

Zoro’s sleepy, but he can’t seem to let himself nod off yet.

The party on Cocoyashi is still in full swing. Various townspeople strum on guitars and bang drums, and food’s being cooked and shared all around. Luffy dances among everyone, and Nami’s the center of attention, still wearing that old straw hat. Usopp’s taken a perch as a storyteller, drawing a crowd with his exaggerated tales of their exploits.

He can’t tear his eyes away from their new cook.

He knew the guy could fight, but he wasn’t prepared for just how ruthless he was. It’s like he had a personal grudge against every Fish-man he kicked, and he didn’t flag at all when bones broke beneath his feet. That vicious snarl around his cigarette, the way he’d flicked his bangs out of his face, the way his suit had clung to those long legs of his…

Fuck.

There’s no sign of that now. The cook weaves easily through the throngs of villagers, his kid in tow. He samples all the food he’s offered, smiling and complimenting and practically glowing in the firelight. When his kid starts to wobble sleepily, he scoops him up without a thought, propping him up on his hip like he weighs nothing. Halfway through a conversation he leans over and places an absent kiss on the kid’s hair, smiling at the old lady he’s engrossed in conversation with.

“You’ve got it bad, huh?”

Zoro flinches, but it’s just Nami’s sister. Noriko? Natsuko? Nojiko. The blue-haired girl shoots him a grin.

“I dunno what you’re talking about.”

“You can’t lie to me. You’ve been staring at him all night.”

He looks away, caught. “Is that a problem?”

“No, not a problem.” She takes a seat near him anyway. She’s got an extra tankard of beer in hand, and she hands it over to him. “It’s just funny how obvious you are.”

“Doesn’t matter.” He takes a long swig and scrapes the foam off his lips with the back of his hand. “The guy’s nuts. Looks at me like I’m gonna eat him.”

“He’s been hurt,” she says sharply. “Not nuts. Can you blame him? I’m not stupid – anyone can do the math. He’s way too young to have a kid like that.”

“…Yeah. His old man might’ve said something like that.”

“So what are you planning on doing?”

“Nothing. I’m gonna leave him alone.” He rolls his eyes. “Dunno why everyone thinks I’m some kind of criminal.”

“You’re literally a pirate.” Nojiko’s smile has warmed, though, and she tips her tankard at him approvingly. “Right answer, though. If Sanji’s ever gonna want anything to do with an alpha again, it’s gotta be on his own terms at his own pace.”

Zoro just scowls into his beer. “You’re the second person scolding me about the cook. Why does everyone think I’m gonna be a complete asshole?”

“Uh, have you seen yourself? You smell like a gym locker and look like a serial killer.”

He blinks. Tentatively raises his arm and sniffs underneath. Okay, so maybe he’s a little ripe, but it’s not that bad? Nojiko just laughs at him.

“You’re not a bad guy, Mr. Pirate Hunter. I think I can let Sanji and my little sister sail with you.” She hauls herself up to her feet and salutes him with her tankard. “There may be hope for you, yet. I’m rooting for you.”

He waves her off. He’s not sure what he got out of that conversation. He glances back out into the party. The cook is hefting his kid higher on his hip, smiling at something he’s saying. He catches Zoro looking, and his entire demeanor changes. He glares and steps out of his line of sight, shoulders tense. Zoro sighs and takes another swig of beer. If they’re going anywhere at Sanji’s pace, then they’re going nowhere at all. Hopefully his little crush will go away on its own.

--

“That’s our ship?” Sora spins to throw his arms up in excitement. “It’s so cool!”

Sanji is a bit bemused. It’s a cute ship with its little sheep figurehead, and it figures that a little kid would like it. Sora’s practically bouncing with excitement.

The boy beta, Usopp, is preening. “Yeah, my best friend in Syrup Village gave us the Going Merry. She’s a great ship.”

Sora turns to Usopp, uncovered eye sparkling. “Does it have cannons?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s got cannons. Lots of cannons.”

“Can we fire a cannon, Dad?”

“Not today.”

Sora sulks, and Usopp turns to raise his eyebrows at Sanji. “Violent kid, huh?”

Sanji shrugs. “Cannons are cool.”

“Well… yeah, they are pretty cool.”

Of everyone on the crew except Luffy, he is the least nervous about Usopp. The guy’s not exactly threatening, and he approaches Sora with the demeanor of a guy who’s used to being around kids. Sora, having been raised around male betas, likes him immediately. He follows him up to the ladder, prattling on a hundred questions about their new ship.

Sanji hefts his armload of bags and decides to just jump the distance up to the railing. It makes Sora exclaim out loud and startles Usopp, but hey, it got him and their stuff up without fumbling with the ladder. He finds Nami already on the deck consulting a sea chart. The swordsman is asleep propped against the mast.

“Hey guys,” she says, barely looking up.

Sanji feels bad bothering her, but, “Excuse me, Miss Nami, but I need to know where I can set up my nest.”

Nami and Usopp give him matching looks of confusion that turn into mild panic. “Oh, I completely forgot! I’m sorry!”

“No worries. I just need to know where to go.”

Nami turns to Usopp. “You’re going to have to give them the tour. As for the nest, well, the only two options are the hold, which Luffy, Zoro, and Usopp use as a bunkroom…”

He makes a face. He’s not sure how he’d ever get settled down in a room reeking of two alphas, much less make it through a heat in there.

Nami notices, making a matching face, “Or there’s the room I use as a bedroom slash office. It’s got extra space – we could drag in another mattress and convert half of it into a den. If you don’t mind sharing, we could share? I mean, I don’t want to move into the boys’ room, but if you need the privacy…”

“It’s fine. I’m not going to put you out. Thank you for the generous offer. Usopp, can you take these things and Sora to Nami’s room?”

He waits until the two of them have left, glancing to see that the swordsman is seemingly still asleep before he rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “Miss Nami…”

“Just Nami’s fine.”

He smiles weakly. “I appreciate it, I really do, but I just… I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

She tilts her head. “What wrong idea?”

His face is heating up, and he looks away. “It’s… I know a lot of people make assumptions, but I’m not… I don’t want you to treat me like another woman just because I have Sora. I’m still a man.”

“…Okay,” she says calmly. “I’ll admit, I’m only used to being around Nojiko, so you’re going to have to let me know what you’re comfortable with. I assume you mean you don’t want me changing in front of you and stuff like that?”

He looks back at her, relieved, “Yes, exactly. I just… I don’t want you offering to share and have it get uncomfortable. But I also don’t want…”

“It’s fine. I’m sure we can work it out with curtains and stuff.” She smiles widely. “Trust me, you’re not missing out on anything not bunking with the boys. Their room is usually disgusting. I trust we can keep our room much neater?”

“Oh, definitely. Who knows what den of depravity those three have going on?”

“Trust me, it’s bad.”

They share a grin, and Sanji relaxes a little. He wasn’t sure at first about her, but he’s pretty sure this is the beginning of a good friendship. He’s stupidly excited to be making a friend his own age.

“I should go get set up. I warn you, Sora’s managed to bring a ridiculous amount of toys.”

“I can come help organize. I’ve pretty much figured out how to get to Loguetown from here anyway.”

He accepts her offer and follows her down the ladder to their new, shared room.

--

They finish building the nest with time to spare for their planned launch time. Sanji sits back, satisfied. A heavy blue curtain encircles the mattress with its elaborate pillow structure, able to be drawn to cover it from sight completely. Sora’s added several stuffed creatures to his satisfaction, and their combined wardrobe’s found storage space. They’re still finding storage for the toys, but it’s coming together. Nami’s a surprisingly good organizer.

When they climb back up to the main deck, he finds the rest of their belongings piled neatly by the stairwell. He’ll sort out the cookware and toiletries and books later. He follows Nami up to the figurehead where the crew’s gathered.

“Everybody ready to go?” Luffy looks over his crew, waiting for each of them to nod or agree in turn. He grins widely. “Awesome! Let’s go!”

From there it’s messy goodbyes with the residents of Cocoyashi and a familiar scramble to adjust the rigging and get the Merry out to sea. Sora stays out of the way, watching the chaos, but Sanji dives right in, following Nami’s called instructions. Before long, the Merry’s left the island behind, and there’s nothing but smooth, unbroken horizon ahead of them.

“To Loguetown!” Nami beams.

“To the Grand Line!” Luffy hops up onto the figurehead and whoops in excitement.

Sanji scoops Sora up and holds him close. “We’re really doing it, baby. We’re heading to the Grand Line.”

Sora’s grin could match Luffy’s in wideness. He shouts, nearly breaking his dad’s eardrum, “We’re going to the Grand Line!”

A chorus of cheers answer him, everyone caught up in the excitement. Sanji nuzzles Sora’s hair and tries very hard to not overthink it.

Chapter Text

There’s a conversation the crew needs to have, and Sanji is pretty sure he can’t put it off much longer. According to the charts, they’ll be hitting Loguetown within the next two days. He needs to settle this before then, before they climb Reverse Mountain, before he can’t turn back. He chews the end of an unlit cigarette and wipes his sweaty hands on his pants.

The past week of sailing has been uneventful and pleasant. He’s surprised by how quickly they’re able to fall into a rhythm. Usopp and Nami turn out to be great friends to have, and Luffy and Sora get along like a house on fire. He still avoids the swordsman as much as possible, and he’s sure to never be alone with him or let Sora get too close. It’s shitty of him. He knows it is. Still, he’s got six years of instincts telling him to avoid and distrust alphas. He knows he won’t try anything drastic on this little ship, but it doesn’t take much privacy or time to do something horrible on a smaller scale. A quick grope in the storeroom or a nasty comment by the mast, and Sanji’s tiny grasp on his anxiety’s going to snap, and one of them will end up killing the other in the ensuing fight.

So, despite the tension between him and Zoro, things are fine. Even that’s not much of an issue, as the alpha seems content to spend most of the day sleeping as he recovers from his injuries. It’s just Sanji, then, skulking around corners and eying Zoro like he’s a rabid dog about to strike. If it bothers him, he doesn’t let on. He seems content to pretend Sanji and Sora aren’t there at all.

He waits until dinner that night, pretending to be busy in the kitchen area while everyone eats. He can’t right now. He doesn’t want to waste food throwing up when his anxiety gets bad. He dries his hands on a cloth and checks to make sure Sora’s okay, eating his dinner politely between Nami and Usopp. Sanji clears his throat.

“We need a crew meeting,” he says after he’s gotten their attention. “Tonight. After Sora goes to bed.”

The crew looks surprised and confused, but they agree. Sora makes a pouty face.

“Why can’t I be in the crew meeting?”

“Because,” Sanji says, bringing dessert over to the table to soften the blow, “it’s going to be very boring. We’re going to talk about budgets. And chore charts. Boring grownup stuff.”

Sora makes a face. “I don’t like chore charts.”

“I know. That’s why I don’t want to make you listen to it. Finish your vegetables.”

“Then I can have cake?”

“Vegetables, then cake.”

He blushes just a bit when he looks away from Sora and sees the crew looking at him. They do that. Whenever he forgets they’re there and talks to Sora with his parent-voice, they all look at him like he’s doing something endearing. He’d flip them off, but he can’t afford to piss them off right before he has their talk, so he just huffs and walks to the sink.

He’s jittery the entire time they get the dishes washed and he gives Sora his bath and gets him settled into bed. The kid wants to talk his ear off about crustaceans until he finally gets him to go to sleep by rocking him and purring like he’s a baby. It works like a charm. He slithers out of the nest and climbs the ladder to find the crew on the deck waiting for him.

“Crew meeting time?” Luffy hops down from the figurehead and joins their loose circle on the deck.

Sanji briefly considers taking them back to the galley for this talk, but he’s not sure how claustrophobic that’s going to feel. Instead, he fishes out a cigarette and lights it, trying to hide his shaking hands.

“Yeah,” he says after the first lungful hits his bloodstream. “We need to talk about my heats.”

He doesn’t look at any of them, pacing away to lean against the railing. He takes another drag.

Nami speaks up carefully, “What exactly do we need to talk about?”

He exhales. “Okay, look, I’m only going to say this once, and you better not interrupt me. It’s context, okay? I can’t just… I’m fucked up, alright? So, you need to know what you’re getting into before it happens, and if you don’t want to deal with it, I need to get off at Loguetown and get a ride back to Baratie. I don’t want to get my ass stranded on the Grand Line somewhere.”

“We wouldn’t do that,” Luffy says.

“See, you say that, but…”

He hesitates and sucks more of his cigarette down. He’s going to end up chain smoking the rest of the pack, he can already tell.

“Sanji, you don’t have to tell us anything if it’s uncomfortable,” Usopp tries.

“Just shut up and listen.” He closes his eyes even though he’s already staring at the deck instead of any of them. “It’s not a secret, okay? It can’t be. Anybody with a grasp of basic math can tell that there’s something fucked up going on here. So I’m gonna tell you, and you’re not going to ask again, because I’ve had nothing but stupid fucking questions for six years now and I’m done with it, okay?”

Back after the first sleep-deprived year of Sora’s life, Sanji had come to a decision. Exhausted, covered in spit-up with a whining baby crying into his shoulder (crushingly, achingly lonely despite the rest of the cooks on the ship because when it all comes down to it it’s just him and Sora and he’d felt so alone), he’d gotten one too many looks from some judgmental old customer, and he’d snapped. Being a sad little victim could only take him so far. He’d gotten angry. He’d stayed angry. Anger’s been his friend since then, and even though he doesn’t want to lash out at this crew, he can’t turn it off. Anger’s all he’s got beyond turning into a sobbing wreck. His words grate out of his mouth harshly, bitter and rusty on his tongue.

“I went into my first heat when I was thirteen. The useless fucking assholes who barely deserve credit for raising me before Zeff told me I was a beta for some reason, and I was a dumb fucking kid who didn’t know little beta boys weren’t supposed to have a cunt. So I’m on the Baratie and it’s a pirate ship – we picked up all kinds of assholes back then, very few questions asked. So I go into heat and don’t know that’s what it is, and with my shitty fucking luck, I ran into a fucking pedophile before I could get to Zeff and figure out what was happening.”

He opens his eyes and sucks down the rest of his cigarette, flicking the unfiltered butt into the sea. He goes to light another one.

“Sanji,” Nami starts, sounding choked.

“Don’t interrupt.” He takes a drag. “Fuck. Sorry. Just – listen. It’s, ugh it’s fine. I don’t even remember most of what happened, anyway. It just really fucking sucked. Zeff stomped the fucker to death, but it really fucked me up for a while, and of course I found out about Sora and decided to keep him back then. So yeah, anybody who looks at both of us can put two and two together and make four, right? So that’s the story – that’s why your cook’s got a kid. And why people are gonna make shitty fucking comments about it. It’s par for the fucking course. And Sora doesn’t know all this, okay, so don’t fucking mention it. He knows I’m fucked up – he doesn’t need to know his sperm donor’s a fucking rapist, okay?”

He twitches. It’s too quiet. The crew’s stopped trying to interrupt, but they’re not not reacting. Luffy and Zoro are both growling unhappily, and he’s pretty sure both Nami and Usopp didn’t suddenly get hay fever to explain the sniffling. He starts pacing, still not looking at them.

“The relevant thing, okay, the relevant thing is that my heat? It’s kind of triggering. I mean, the first time it happened I got knotted bloody in a dirty bathroom, so…” Fuck, he’s panic-babbling, and everyone’s upsetness takes a sharp uptick – Luffy and Zoro’s growling increasing in intensity and little gasps of horror from Nami and Usopp. Shit, Sanji, not relevant. Get to the point. He tries to recover. “So anyway, uh - so sometimes when my heat hits, I freak out, okay? I end up finding somewhere to hide and sometimes I can’t talk, and it’s a huge pain in the ass. It’s not always that bad, but when it is, I might need extra help with Sora. I can’t - “ and this is when he finally chokes, finally feels a sob coming up “I can’t take care of him like that. So, if we’re really going to do this, I just need you to know it might not be pretty. If it’s a problem, let me know now so we can go home.”

There’s a moment of silence as the crew waits to see if he’s actually finished now. He throws his cigarette away and contemplates lighting another one, but his hands are shaking too badly to open the pack, and as soon as he has an answer he’s going to dive into his nest with Sora and probably never come out, so he just waits stupidly on the dark deck for them to just say something. The alphas are still growling, and there’s the heavy scent of them rolling over the ship, and it’s freaking him out more though he knows logically that it’s not intended to scare him but it’s still the smell of angry alphas and the only thing worse than that is the reek of aroused alphas and he’s not going to think about that because he already feels like his heart’s hammering out of his ribcage. He just has to keep from going completely crazy until they tell him when they’re dropping him off. If someone would just say something. It’s Nami who finally finds her voice.

“None of us are going to abandon you, Sanji,” she says. Her voice is thick with tears, but there’s a solid backbone of utter certainty to her words. “Thank you for the warning, but it’s not… It’s okay. We’ll figure it out when we get to it. Do you know when it’s going to happen next?”

He laughs, a hysterical little giggle that sounds nothing like himself. “That’s the other thing – it’s irregular. My doctor said it’s probably stress. If I was regular, I’d have gotten it back on Cocoyashi. So, I throw a wrench in it again. You really should just dump us off in Loguetown.”

“We’re not going to do that,” Luffy says.

And it’s Luffy. He’s not scared of Luffy. But this is Luffy forcing his words out around a growl, Luffy using an alpha voice. He’s not entirely in control of himself when he lets out a sharp whine and scuttles backwards. He’ll be embarrassed later.

“Right! Okay! I’m going to bed,” he announces loudly, too-loudly, glancing wildly at all of them and not waiting for a response. “Thanks, see you tomorrow.”

He stumbles off, never quite turning his back to them, and fumbles the door of the storeroom open. He almost slips on the ladder to the den, but he’s inside now and relatively safe, and he’s not going to be able to look them in the eye again. His breath is coming out in quick, harsh puffs, and he’s going into a full-blown panic attack. He’s so glad Sora’s asleep. He strips off just his shoes and jacket and pulls the curtains firmly around the nest before crawling into the furthermost corner, away from Sora’s sleeping body, and curls into a tight ball. It’s only then that he lets himself completely break down.

--

Nami needs to do damage control.

She’d known it was bad. There’s no way it wasn’t bad, not with the timeline and Sanji’s own behavior, but knowing it’s bad and hearing it are two different things. Just the bare details he’d given them are too much. She can see it in her head, a younger, smaller Sanji, still innocent and hopeful, and she feels sick thinking about it. She remembers how nervous and frightened Nojiko was with her first heat, how young she still was and how proud Nami was to get to help her. How special it was to spend that time together making her feel safe and secure and bringing her good food to eat and soft blankets to cuddle with, and that’s how heats are supposed to be. She can’t stop crying, because Sanji didn’t get that. Apparently all Sanji got was raped – in a bathroom? God, she’s stuck on that because cold hard tiles and bad smells is the exact opposite of what an omega in heat needs, never minding everything else – and forced to spend the rest of his life associating that special time with nothing but pain and danger.

She’s got to get it together, because Sanji’s run off alone to hide – hiding because he’d been so scared of Luffy he’d let out a pitiful whine and needed to get away. Luffy and Zoro are both spiraling, and she needs to get this under control before they get themselves caught up in a protective rut or something.

“Usopp,” she barks out.

Usopp looks at her and wipes his eyes. He follows her glance to the alphas and nods. He’s a smart guy. She lets him take Luffy and gently nudge him to the figurehead to talk. She takes Zoro by the elbow.

“Zoro, listen to me,” she says.

Zoro turns his glare to her, and she’d flinch under the force of it except he looks so terribly sad and confused. He’s shaking, still growling, and she lets go of him to rub her own scent glands, stimulating them until she’s producing enough of a smell to soothe him a little. She grabs him again.

“Let’s go to the crow’s nest. You smell really upset, and it’s going to make Sanji scared, okay?”

He still looks a little befuddled, but the growling’s dying down, and he lets her bully him over to the mast to climb it. Usopp’s got Luffy sitting down now, his hat hiding his face, but she’s sure he’s got it under control. She follows Zoro up. He sits down and hugs his sword to himself. There’s a slow beat of silence as they let the ocean breeze strip away some of the overpowering scent of him and cool his flushed cheeks. His fingers trace the tsuba of Wado meditatively.

“When I was a kid, sensei told me it was my job as an alpha to protect omegas,” Zoro blurts out unprompted.

Nami sits across from him, still putting out a soothing smell. She says neutrally, “I can understand why he said that.” A little reductive, but she’s not expecting much from him. And she’s sure not going to strike up a debate on gender roles right now.

Zoro shakes his head. “It’s more than that. It’s about… honor. The alpha’s the protector of the home. Betas build the home. Omegas are the heart of the home. A pack’s supposed to work together.”

It’s a little old-fashioned, but talking about it is getting his blood to stop boiling with his protective drive, so Nami takes the win where she can get it.

“I can’t stand alphas like that,” Zoro bites out, another growl rumbling in his chest. “Fucking animals. What the fuck kind of person sees a kid in distress and takes it as an opportunity to stick their knot in something? He was thirteen.”

“I know,” she says.

Zoro growls again before he deflates and hangs his head down. His earrings jingle in the quiet. After a moment, he says, “I’m calmed down, Nami. I’m not going to do something stupid.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” He lifts his head, and he just looks tired. “I wasn’t expecting that. I mean, we all figured. It’s just different guessing how bad it was and actually hearing it.”

“Yeah…” She sighs. “His first heat. Can you believe it?”

Zoro just sighs gustily.

“I’m gonna go check on him. We should probably just… act normal tomorrow. I think he’s still half-convinced we’re going to leave him on the next island.”

“Luffy would never. He loves the cook. And his kid.”

“We know that. I just don’t think Sanji believes it yet.”

She climbs down the mast and takes a minute in the bathroom to try to wash out as much of the residual scent of Zoro and Luffy from her skin and hair as she can. Bringing their distress scent into the den sounds like a terrible idea. She hesitantly opens the hatch and climbs down into the den.

It’s dark and quiet except for the muffled sound of crying and whining. Her heart breaks all over again.

“Sanji?”

The sounds cut off. She can’t see any of him – he’s drawn the curtain fully around his nest. She rubs her scent glands again, and her lighter, soothing smell starts trying to combat the waves of distress coming off of Sanji. He whines again.

“You okay?”

She waits, and she’s worried he’s gone nonverbal like he’d warned them he could, but she finally hears a tiny, raspy, “I’m okay.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

He’s quiet for a long moment. It’s so quiet on the ship right now that she can listen to the steady breathing of Sora still asleep and the sound of fabric rustling as Sanji moves inside the nest. His breath is still hitching from tears, but it doesn’t sound like he’s hyperventilating.

“I don’t know what would help,” he admits. He sounds congested.

“Okay.” She takes a deep breath and pretends to herself that this is just heat-tending. She’s tended her sister’s heats dozens of times. Similar principle. “I’m gonna grab you a handkerchief. Do you need pajamas?”

A sound that might be a yes.

“Okay. I’ll put your pajamas outside the nest, and while you change, I’ll go get you a glass of water.”

She finds the softest pair he owns and leaves them neatly at the edge of the curtain with a handkerchief on top. Then, true to her word, she leaves. Luffy’s still on the figurehead and Zoro’s still in the crow’s nest, and she leaves them be. She finds Usopp in the galley scratching out notes.

“He doing okay?”

“Not really. This whole conversation got him really worked up.”

“Poor guy.” Usopp sighs heavily and sets his pencil down. “I can’t imagine how rough it’s been. I feel like when he does have his next heat, it’s gonna be a bad one.”

“Well, we’re not going to send him away.” She grabs a glass and fills it.

“I know that,” Usopp says flatly. He gestures at his notebook. “I’m writing a list right now. Everything Sanji said about his heats and triggers, and possible solutions for it. I think if we tag team the heat-sitting, we can manage it okay. We just need Luffy and Zoro not to be stupid about it.”

“Asking those two to not be stupid when the ship’s flooded with omega distress scent? You’re asking a lot.”

“Ugh, I know. They’re both still up there trying not to go crazy. Hopefully they can find someone to punch in Loguetown. It might be the only way to clear their stupid heads.”

She takes a seat at the table with him. Sanji’s probably still changing, and she’s not going to rush him. Usopp tilts the paper so she can see his hasty diagram. It’s pretty thorough, though they’re still missing a lot of pertinent information. She can see the gears turning in his head, recognize the way he’s throwing himself into the problem so he doesn’t have to think about it.

“Are you okay?”

“Me? I’m fine. The Great Captain Usopp is made of stern stuff.”

“It’s okay to be upset.”

He deflates a little. He scoots his notes back and stares at them for a minute. “I’m sorry. I just… we didn’t have stuff like this happen back in Syrup Village. I mean, we all got talks about not doing horrible sex crimes, but really, it was a small village. We took care of each other.”

“Cocoyashi was like that, too.” Nami can feel the bitterness in her own smile. “It’s different out here on the seas.”

They sit in silence for another minute before Usopp scrubs a hand over his eyes and picks his pencil back up. “Well, I’m going to finish up here. You’ve got Sanji and Sora?”

“Yeah, I’ve got them. Goodnight, Usopp.”

“Goodnight.”

She takes the glass of water with her and makes a detour to the mikan trees, searching carefully until she finds a good, ripe fruit, heavy in her hand. She picks it and knocks politely on the hatch before letting herself into the den. The rest of Sanji’s suit is in an inelegant pile by the nest, but the pajamas are gone and the scent of distress has dissipated some. Nami carefully lowers herself to the rug by the nest.

“Sanji? I brought you some water. Do you want me to leave it here?”

She’s pleasantly surprised when she hears shuffling, and then the curtain slips open a sliver. A pale hand hesitantly reaches for the water.

“There you go. I brought a mikan, too. You want to share it?”

“…um, sure? Thank you?”

Ugh, she wants to just tear the curtain open and hug him. She has to remind herself that would be the worst thing she could do. Instead, she rubs her scent gland again and strikes up a comforting purr. The motions of peeling the fruit are well-practiced and soothing. She tears a wedge off and carefully cleans it of pith before offering it to the slit in the curtain. Again, a hesitant hand appears, and she drops the fruit gently into it without brushing their fingers. She sticks a wedge into her own mouth to chew on while she cleans the next piece for Sanji.

Bit by bit, they finish the fruit, and she waits for him to give her back the empty water glass.

“Thank you,” Sanji says quietly.

“You’re welcome. It was good. I’m gonna tidy up a little bit and then go to bed. Do you need anything? Is Sora okay?”

“He’s good. I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Alright. Goodnight, boys.”

She bustles about, setting the glass and peel aside on the bar to be returned to the kitchen later. She unthreads Sanji’s belt and wallet chain from his pants and sets them aside, and shakes out the pieces of his suit. Sets his shoes together by the wardrobe, throws his other laundry into the hamper. It’s domestic and takes her mind off of everything. She can keep pretending it’s just another day of heat-tending for her sister. Easy.

She can’t resist sneaking a peek before she goes to bed herself. She minutely pulls the curtain back, just enough to catch the dim outline of Sanji curled around Sora, fast asleep. It settles some anxiety in her chest, and she watches for another moment before she carefully closes the curtain and goes to bed.

--

Sanji wakes up feeling much better than he expected.

He’d almost think it was a dream, but his face is clean of dried tears, he’s in pajamas, his head isn’t pounding with a dehydration headache, and his fingers still faintly smell like oranges. Sora’s starting to stir beside him, and he pulls him closer to nuzzle his hair. He’s sometimes in awe when he watches Sora sleep. He doesn’t know how he managed to make something so innocent and perfect. He’s warm and safe and comfortable, and he’s confused.

Nami was suspiciously perfect the previous night. It wasn’t a dream. He was delirious from the tail end of his panic attack and the utter mortification of laying his ugly past out for the crew, and she’d come into the den like an angel. He’s not sure how she knew exactly what to do, but he’d gone along with her instructions, and he’d come out of it feeling so settled. Cared for. Seen.

The closest he can compare it to is when Zeff would tend his heats. The old alpha always did his best, and he was always well-cared-for with food and water and linens, but even Zeff didn’t make him feel as secure as Nami did. Maybe it was because she’s beta? He’d never been tended by a beta. The closest he would let anyone come was letting Carne tend to Sora during his worst heats. The crusty old charcutier would try his best to purr and hum to soothe him, but he’d never been particularly good at it, and Sanji was usually too far gone in trauma-induced panic to be soothed.

Nami, however, made it seem effortless. Her citrusy soothing scent, the way she’d predicted his needs better than he could express, the strange but pleasant intimacy of being fed her precious mikan fruit…

He doesn’t think he should get used to it, but it was nice.

Sora stirs again, and Sanji lets it go. There’s plenty to occupy him with, getting Sora up and grabbing clothes for both of them, getting him up the ladder and to the bathroom before his tentative hold on his bladder can fail – thank god he’d finally stopped bedwetting last year, that would be a nightmare on a sailing vessel. Then it’s the familiar motions of getting teeth brushed and hair combed and bringing him out onto the deck to get up to the galley.

It's a beautiful morning, and to Sanji’s relief, the only other person awake is Usopp in the crow’s nest, wrapped in a blanket and clutching a telescope. He waves at them sleepily but doesn’t say anything. Sanji bundles Sora up the stairs and into the galley.

“What are we cooking for breakfast today, Dad?”

“Hmmm…” He grins at his son because he can’t help it. He loves the kid so much, and he loves that he wants to cook with him every day. “I think we should go over-the-top today. Let’s make everybody’s favorites. It’s gonna be a lot. Are you up for it?”

“Yeah!”

It’s easy then to lose himself in the comfort of cooking with his son. They pile up mounds of sausages and bacon for Luffy, rice and egg omelet for Zoro, fluffy pancakes with orange marmalade for Nami, and a spicy pepper omelet for Usopp. Sora gets a completely unhealthy mound of chocolate pancakes to stuff in his hungry little face. Sanji opts for coffee and a cigarette. Maybe after the crew’s eaten, he can try some plain eggs and toast, but he’s still feeling queasy from anxiety.

“Is breakfast ready?” Luffy sticks his head in and gasps aloud when he sees the enormous platter of breakfast meats ready for him. “Meat!”

He dives in, and Usopp stumbles in behind him, yawning. “Guess that means breakfast’s ready.”

Sanji hides his smile behind his hand, holding his cigarette. Nami and Zoro file in, Nami giving him a soft smile. Zoro barely glances at him before he tilts his head away, baring his neck slightly and taking the seat furthest away from Sora. Huh. He files that odd behavior away for later and sets his and Nami’s plates in front of them.

“Thank you, Sanji! It’s delicious.” Nami’s eyes are alight with delight, and he hopes she tastes his gratitude in the meal.

“Of course,” he says lightly, pretending along with everyone that everything is fine and he didn’t make them listen to him ramble about his trauma the night before. So far, though, he hasn’t seen a single look of pity or disgust. Usopp looks too sleepy for that, anyway, groggily clutching his tea and squirting hot sauce on his omelet. Sanji leans over to refill his cup from the pot. Then he remembers and hesitantly slides a bowl of miso soup into the swordsman’s reach.

The swordsman is looking at his breakfast with a strange expression. His anxiety spikes because what’s wrong with it? He’s noticed that he favors simple, filling foods like plain rice and meat. He’d taken a leap and gone for a traditional East Blue breakfast to suit that palate. He’s not offering him anything else, the bastard’s going to eat it whether he likes it or not, but he hates it when people don’t like his food.

The swordsman snips a bit of omelet off with his chopsticks and washes it down with a sip of soup. His head swivels around to pin Sanji with a look and – oh, the swordsman’s smiling. Not smirking, not a bloodthirsty grin, not the face he makes when he’s laughing at something stupid happening on the ship. Just a genuine, pleased smile.

“It’s good. Thanks, Cook.”

Sanji makes a face and retreats to the kitchen. He absolutely does not know what to do with that – but the swordsman’s already looked away, happily eating his breakfast. The rest of the crew doesn’t react, and the galley’s quiet except for the sounds of eating and the occasional satisfied noise. He takes another sip of coffee and raises his eyebrows when he catches Luffy sharing a piece of his bacon with Sora. Notorious food-thief Luffy is sharing. Sora’s handing him a sticky pancake in payment. Maybe he’s still asleep.

“Where’s your breakfast?”

Oh, nope, definitely reality. Only reality would be so awkward. He cringes and makes a face. “Not hungry yet, Captain. I’ll eat when you’re done.”

Now he can feel the concerned glances. Ugh, it’s just like the Baratie. Any time he’d ever gotten too anxious to eat, all of a sudden he’d have fifteen cooks trying to press bowls of soup into his hands, or some crackers, or here Sanji I just made these ginger cookies please try them, or here I made you a cup of tea and stuffed so much sugar and milk into it that it’s like candy and has the caloric value of an entire meal. Bunch of mother hens.

“I’m done!” Luffy shoves the last three sausages into his mouth at once and bounds over to the kitchen. “Whatcha gonna eat?”

“Um…” He’s still not feeling very hungry, but he can’t really tell them ‘I was planning on maybe skipping and just having lunch later.’ He tries, “Maybe just some eggs on toast.”

“Oh, I can cook that!”

Luffy dashes around him and reaches for the fridge. He’s stopped in his tracks by a dress shoe to the spine, pinning him to the fridge door.

“Absolutely not. You are banned from the kitchen. Indefinitely.”

“Aw, but I wanna help!”

“You can help by never helping. Please never help. I’ll cook the damn eggs.”

Luffy grins and sits back down to watch him. Did Sanji just get played? He can’t decide how mad he is about it. He rolls his eyes and starts cracking eggs.

Still, it’s not bad, sitting at the table with them to eat in small bites. Luffy’s shoveling his own plate of eggs down his mouth. Usopp’s nodding off over his tea. Sora’s sitting in his chair looking mildly put-upon as Nami scrubs at the chocolate and syrup mess on his face with a wet cloth. He even barely twitches when the swordsman leans a little closer to start grabbing the dirty dishes to be cleaned.

“I can do the dishes,” he says to the swordsman’s elbow that’s nearly in his face.

“Nah,” he says casually. “It’s my turn on the chore chart.”

They have a chore chart? He blinks, and follows the swordsman’s pointing finger to a piece of paper pinned to the wall. There is, indeed, a new chore chart, sketched out in Usopp’s neatest drafting handwriting. He’d told Sora last night that they were making a chore chart. It was just a little lie to get him to go to sleep, but Usopp stayed up to make one?

He bites his lip so he doesn’t make a really weird face at the confusing rush of emotions that brings up. Usopp yawns and gives him a bleary thumbs up from his side of the table.

“I got you, buddy,” he says sleepily.

Sanji just nods and turns back to his eggs, already planning on making something Usopp will like for dinner.

--

Miracle of miracles, nothing changes.

He was expecting pity. Probing questions – oh, how everyone loves the dirty details of the worst time of his life, but the crew seems to accept what he’d told them and move on. They’re a little gentle with him the morning after, but as they sail closer to Loguetown, everything seems to even out into its normal rhythm without too much odd behavior. Luffy’s maybe a little clingier than usual, and Zoro seems to have made it his mission to scent-mark the perimeter of the ship like some kind of invisible wall of protective alpha stink, but when Sanji is his usual growling and cursing self, everyone treats him just the same as they did before.

He tentatively lets it slide. He’s prone to overthinking things, but it’s not like he wants everyone to act weird around him. This way, at least, Sora’s not asking questions. They sail into Loguetown as scheduled.

--

“Your little brother is so cute.”

It’s probably the third time someone’s said that. Nami opens her mouth to say something, but Sanji’s already sweeping past the statement and accepting the compliment with a strained smile. The old lady pats Sora on the head and continues her walk. Nami watches her go with a frown.

It’s just the two of them and Sora out shopping. The others have run off on their own shopping expeditions, but since Sanji needed to buy all-weather clothes for Sora and himself and Nami’s designated to buy clothes for everyone else, they’ve combined their trip. Sanji had even bought a little wagon to pull their things in, which Sora is currently dragging along with their new transponder snail in tow.

Sanji follows her gaze and his smile falls. “It’s fine, Nami.”

“This happens a lot, I take it.”

“All the time.” He glances at Sora, who’s engrossed in staring at something in a shop window, and continues quietly so he can’t hear, “That’s our normal. Either I’m a doting older brother who’s babysitting, a tragic little child rape victim forced to carry a kid, or I’m some stupid slut who got knocked up as a teen. Of the options, it’s probably the least awful.”

Nami nods, but she feels sick. She’s starting to see, even more, why Sanji had opted to stay on the Baratie so long. Out here, everyone seems to have an opinion – and she can’t imagine how exhausting it must be to defend your life constantly, and to have your traumatic experiences thrown in your face by strangers all the time. Sanji seems to take it in stride. He’s used to it. She forces herself to stop frowning and takes his elbow, smiling at his confused expression.

“Come on, let’s see how much free stuff we can get with Sora’s cute little face.”

It turns out to be a lot.

Nami’s a master of wheedling out discounts, and after she gets Sanji’s okay to make up sad stories for them, Sanji and Sora’s matching cute pleading faces turn all the shopkeepers into suckers. Their wagon’s full of supplies, and Sanji’s stopped glancing into his wallet fretfully every shop. She’d tried to tell him she’d help with the supply run, but he’d been weirdly stubborn about buying all of Sora’s supplies with his own money. The snail had taken the largest chunk of his finances, though, so Nami’s been extra aggressive about haggling to get the worried frown off his face.

“Dad! Look!”

They both turn to find Sora pointing excitedly into a shop window. It’s a… milliner?

“What is it, baby?”

“Look, it’s matching Luffy!”

Nami and Sanji both stare blankly at a straw hat on display. It’s shinier and newer than Luffy’s with a dark blue ribbon around the brim. Sora turns to them with his one visible eye huge and pleading.

“Can I get it, Dad? Please?”

Sanji’s eyebrow is climbing up his face. “I thought you wanted to spend the last of your allowance on a new toy.”

Sora wavers for just a second before he shakes his head. “No, this is cooler! Please, Dad? Then I can match with Luffy and be a real Straw Hat Pirate. Please?”

“This is a terrible idea,” Sanji mutters for Nami’s ears, pinching the bridge of his nose. She can tell already that he’s going to agree, though. “Fine, we’ll go in and see if they have one that fits you.”

Sora whoops and throws his arms around his dad’s legs for a crushing hug before he waits impatiently by the door for Sanji to open it. Nami elects to wait outside with their wagon. It doesn’t take long at all. Sora’s got Sanji wrapped pretty firmly around his finger.
Within minutes, Sora’s bursting out of the shop with his new hat on his head.

“Miss Nami, Miss Nami! Do I look just like Luffy?”

She grins and flicks the brim of his hat. “You look awesome. Just like a real pirate.”

It’s her turn to be shocked when Sora beams and grabs her into a hug, knocking the hat right off his head with the force of it. She turns her stare to Sanji’s bemused gaze. He grins when he catches her looking.

“Are we done shopping now?” Sora looks up at her, bangs falling away so she gets a glimpse of both curling eyebrows. “I’m tired of shopping.”

“Yeah, we’re done. We’ve just got to get our stuff loaded onto the Merry.”

“Then we can set up the snail and call Jiji,” Sanji adds.

Sora lets go of her now to bounce back over to his dad. Nami feels almost sad to see him go. Still, she feels warm watching Sanji stooping to mash Sora’s hat back on his head and tighten the strap so it doesn’t fall off again. They set out back towards the dockyard.

“You know Luffy’s gonna take this as us all needing straw hats, right?”

Nami laughs. “Maybe. Maybe we can spin it as a brotherly bonding thing between him and Sora.”

Sanji makes a face. “Ugh, those two… It really is like having another kid around.”

“What? You don’t want Luffy to start calling you ‘Dad’, too?”

“Please don’t say such horrible things.”

Her delighted cackle echoes across the street, and the three of them head back to their ship with their mound of purchases in tow.

--

Luffy nearly gets killed in Loguetown and they all barely escape into a storm with their lives, but the thing he finds most noteworthy is Sora’s hat. Typical.

“We’re matching now!”

“Yeah!”

“Straw Hat Pirates!”

“Straw Hat! Straw Hat!”

Sanji sighs from the galley door. The rain’s dying down and they’re heading for Reverse Mountain. They’ve already had their launching ceremony and everything. Usopp’s inside the galley getting the snail set up, and Sanji can only stare down at his son and Luffy running in circles on the slick deck like a couple of morons chanting about straw hats.

“Oi, Luffy, either of you fall in and I’m gonna kill you,” he calls.

Luffy skids to a stop, Sora crashing into the back of his legs and sending them both into a wet heap.

“We’re not gonna fall,” Luffy protests.

“Yeah, Dad, I can swim!”

“Not in the sea during a storm. And Luffy can’t swim at all.” He rolls his eyes. “Come inside and get dried off. You’ll catch cold.”

“Awww…!”

God, it really is like having two kids.

“I’ll make hot chocolate, but only if you get inside in the next 30 seconds.”

He deftly steps aside as the two soggy idiots scramble up the stairs and past him into the galley. They’ve both crowded around Usopp now, exclaiming over the new snail. Sanji huffs out the tiniest laugh and starts warming some milk on the stove.

“Can we call Jiji now?”

“I wanna call Jiji, too!”

Sora turns to Luffy and puts his hands on his hips. “He’s my Jiji. You have to get your own Jiji.”

“Aw, but your gramps is way better than mine. Mine’s mean!”

“Jiji’s mean, too. He kicks the cooks when they mess up so they don’t mess up again.”

“Well my gramps would hit me all the time. He wanted me to be a Marine!”

“Gross. Pirates are better.”

“I know, right?”

“Anyway,” Usopp interrupts, “The snail should be ready to make a call. Whenever you’re ready, Sanji.”

“A few more minutes on the cocoa, and then we’ll call Jiji. Can you be patient?”

Sora looks like he wants to complain for just a second before Sanji raises an eyebrow at him. “Fine. I’ll be good.” He hops up to sit at the table. Luffy joins him, grinning, and Usopp shakes his head at them both.

“I am so sorry, Sanji,” he says, falsely commiserating, “It must be tough, adopting a teenager at your tender age.”

He rolls his eyes, focusing his attention on not letting the milk scald. “Keep laughing, longnose, and no cocoa for you.”

That shuts him up, and he takes his own seat at the table. Sanji snorts and pours out the mugs – and yes, there’s enough for Usopp, too. He gets them all settled before he sets the snail on the table and dials in a familiar number.

”Thanks for calling the shitty restaurant, would you like a reservation?”

“Uncle Patty!” Sora hops up to stand in his chair. “Uncle Patty, hi!”

”String bean! Your dad’s there, too, huh?”

“I am. I’ve got Luffy and Usopp here, too.”

”Eh, who cares about them? Lemme get the others.” He must pull the receiver away, because his shouts come out muffled. There’s a clamor of several voices calling out greetings. ”All the shitty cooks are here saying hi. And here comes the boss.”

”Keep it down, you idiots. Don’t you have work to do?”

They hear a faint, “String bean and Eggplant are more important!” in the background of the call.

“Jiji!” Sora’s hopping up and down, his cocoa sloshing dangerously on the table in front of him. “Jiji, we got a snail!”

”I can see that. Eggplant, you there, too?”

“I’m here.” Sanji can feel an easy grin across his face. “We’re just on the East Blue side of Reverse Mountain. There’s a storm, so we’re heading there in the morning.”

”Good. Don’t be taking any unnecessary risks.”

“I won’t.”

“Jiji, I got a straw hat just like Luffy! Except mine’s blue and his is red and his is special but mine just came from a shop, but Luffy says it’s special cause my dad got it for me and now we’re matching!” He blurts this all out in one breath.

”I see. Did your dad get one, too?”

“No, he said it, uh, crashed with his uh, um…”

“Aesthetics,” Sanji sweeps in smoothly. “And yes, Luffy, the straw hat clashes, and I am not going to wear one.”

Luffy makes a disappointed noise.

“We should tell you about Arlong Park and everything Luffy’s gotten up to in Loguetown.”

”I saw the papers. Who’d he piss off to get such a high first bounty?”

“Um, everybody we meet, I think.”

“Hey!”

Sanji grins and sits down beside Sora so they can fill Zeff in on their adventures so far. Outside, the storm is passing. Tomorrow, they make for the Grand Line.

Chapter Text

“No, stop, both of you come here.”

He wants to rub his forehead again, because Luffy and Sora both come skidding to a stop in front of him, and between the matching hats and matching childish faces, he really is seeing double. Luffy calls him ‘Dad,’ though, and he’s kicking him overboard.

He holds up the two ropes in his hands. “Do you know what this is?”

“Um, rope?”

Sora perks up. “It’s a lifeline!”

“That’s right.” He kneels down and starts tying the rope securely around Sora. “This is a lifeline. It’s going to keep you tethered to the ship when we go over the mountain.”

“Why do I need a lifeline?” Luffy’s looking at his own rope with clear distaste.

“Luffy, you can’t swim.” He knots Sora’s rope and tests it before he starts on Luffy’s. “We’re about to head up a current over a mountain, so if you fly off? Who’s going to fish you out? We’ll be moved on before we could jump in and get you and you’d drown.”

“I’m not going to fly off.”

“Captain, please,” he says, and he turns the full force of his pleading face on him. He’s seen Sora’s, and besides coloration they’re the spitting image of each other, so he knows it’s a pathetic face. “It will make me feel better.”

Luffy relents, and he ducks his head to hide his triumphant grin. Too easy. He tests the knots again and steps back. “Okay, there. You can take it off once we’re in the Grand Line.”

Luffy runs off to test the limits of his new leash, and Sanji kneels down to look Sora seriously in the eye. He hands him a small, sheathed knife.

“You know what this is?”

Sora nods. “A knife.”

“You know what it’s for?”

“To cut the lifeline. But only in emergency.”

“That’s right. Same rules as kitchen knives. What are the knife rules?”

Sora dutifully lists out, “Knives are tools, not toys. A sharp knife is a cook’s treasure. You never ever play with knives. You respect the knife. Never hurt a person with a knife – every knife has a job, and hurting people is not my job, ever.”

“That’s right. This knife’s job is to protect you in case I can’t get to you. So you keep it safe and give it back once we’re over the mountain.”

“Okay, Dad.”

He makes sure the kid pockets the knife securely before he lets him run off after Luffy. He can feel the swordsman’s attention on them, and he shoots him a sneer before he stomps off to find Nami.

“Finally, someone with sense,” she says when he finds her. “I never thought we’d see Luffy use a lifeline.”

“I used our discount technique. Hook, line, and sinker.”

She grins proudly. “That’s my shopping protégé!”

“Seriously, though, do you want one, too? It might get dangerous.”

She hesitates, then shakes her head. “I think it’ll be okay. Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, galley’s secured. At your command, Miss Navigator.”

He takes up his own position. His lower back twinges, and he rubs it thoughtlessly as he secures some rigging. Maybe he slept wrong.

--

He didn’t sleep wrong.

Sanji stands in his galley and tries to force down the panic that’s bubbling up in his throat. Going up Reverse Mountain was stressful enough, and then the whole business of being swallowed by a whale and getting out of that, and the whole time, he’d begun feeling worse and worse.

He’s… He’s gotta prep some meals. He’s not going to be able to cook. He’s fumbling his equipment. He can’t leave them to starve, but he can’t – he can’t think. He’s starting to feel hot, and the panic is starting to override his higher brain function. He drops a mixing bowl, flour puffing up into the air and oh, Zeff’s gonna be mad he dropped ingredients. He can’t…

He’s gotta get to his nest. His nest. Yes. If he can just get to his nest, he’ll be okay. He’ll be safe. He’ll be safe in his nest, and he’ll have Sora and Sora will be safe but oh he’s got to find Sora. He’s… Was he with Luffy? Where is Sora? He stumbles to the galley door, and he’s knocked over something else – some eggs? He… wasting food is bad, you can’t waste food. But Sora! He’ll find Sora and he’ll be okay.

He throws the door open and takes two stumbling steps before he freezes, blood running cold despite the heat flushing his face. There’s an alpha out here.

The alpha’s too close. He should remember something about this alpha, but he stinks, and he’s holding his hands up towards Sanji and he’s cringing away, staring at those hands. Hands are bad. Hands are for grabbing and pinching and pulling and bruising and shoving fingers in his mouth so he chokes and can’t scream and hands are bad. He flinches back more and slaps a hand over his neck. He can’t get scruffed. He can’t let those bad hands touch him - he can’t do this again. The alpha’s backing away slowly, back down the stairs. That’s weird. Alphas don’t do that. He gauges his chances and finally darts over the railing, past the alpha, landing inelegantly and painfully on the deck before he’s scrambling into the storeroom and down the hatch. He wavers at the edge of the nest, but it’s not safe. He’s going to find him here. He pulls the wardrobe open and shuts himself in and it’s dark and the walls of the space press soothingly against him and he curls up as tight and small as he can in the corner behind the clothes and trembles in mindless animal terror.

--

“Nami!”

Everyone on shore freezes. No one’s ever heard Zoro’s voice bark out like that before, and it brings everyone instantly to attention. It’s the voice of emergency, danger, of “pay attention to me right now this is a crisis.”

It summons Luffy and Usopp, too, who stays on shore with Sora. She doesn’t entirely get the problem yet, but Luffy’s nose is flaring and he stops before he can jump aboard, looking resigned and unhappy in equal parts. She tries to catch the scent he’s chasing, but her nose has never been that sharp, and it’s not until she’s clambered up on the deck that the scent of heat pheromones and terror hits her like a brick.

“His heat’s started,” Zoro says unnecessarily.

He looks rattled. He’d nearly bled out fighting Buggy’s pirates the first time she met him, and he hadn’t looked nearly as stressed then. All of his body language and scent is screaming “distress, worry, danger, protect” at her.

“How bad is it?”

He makes a face. “Bad. I don’t think he’s really lucid. He didn’t seem to recognize me or hear me when I tried to talk to him. I tried to give him space to calm down, but… I think he made it to the den okay. I just…”

“Okay.” Nami takes a deep breath and gathers her wits. “Okay, we need to deal with this. You okay?”

“I’m fine. You should worry about the cook.” He looks away from her searching gaze, and there’s an unhappy whine in his chest. “Seriously, witch. He looked at me like… Just take care of him.”

“I will.” She turns to the railing. “Usopp! Sora! I need you both here please.”

She waits for the two of them to join her on the deck before she crouches down to eye level with Sora. “Sora, your dad’s gone into heat.”

Sora makes a face. “That’s not good. Dad gets really sad when he’s in heat.”

“I know.” She pulls him in for a hug, rubbing his back. “Do you know what you usually do? Does it help your dad if you go into the nest with him?”

“Sometimes. But sometimes he’s gotta be small and he won’t talk to me.”

Oh, god, her heart’s breaking. She throws a frantic look at Usopp. He just shrugs, looking uncomfortable.

“Okay. I think your dad got scared, so he’s probably gonna be small. Do you want to go check on him?”

Sora pulls out of her hug, nodding and biting his lip.

“Okay. Usopp’s gonna go to the kitchen and get some snacks and water for us, and you and I are going to check on your dad. Zoro and Luffy are gonna stay with Mr. 9 and Miss Wednesday.”

Orders discreetly given, she marches with Sora into the miasma of misery wafting out of the hatch to the den. She follows him down the ladder. Sora immediately beelines for the nest, stopping short of going in. Nami approaches and looks over his shoulder. The nest is empty.

“Where…?”

Sora looks around the room critically before pointing confidently at the wardrobe. “There.”

Cautiously, she pulls the door open and feels her heart shatter just a little more.

Sora wasn’t kidding. She didn’t know such a tall and lanky person could fold themselves down into such a small ball. His knobby spine pokes up through his dress shirt, and he’s trembling almost hard enough to rattle the wardrobe. Distress and heat pheromones pour off of him in equal measure.

“Sanji?”

No response.

“He’s not gonna talk.”

She turns away from Sanji, and Sora’s already walking away to fish a dolphin plushie out of his nest to hold onto. He looks unhappy, but unsurprised.

She looks up to Usopp coming down the hatch with a rucksack of supplies. He takes in the scene with a grim frown.

“I’m gonna try scenting him,” she says to Usopp. To Sora, she asks, “Did your dad have any beta friends to help him before?”

Sora hesitates and shakes his head. “Jiji would take care of Dad. Uncle Carne would play with me sometimes, but Dad didn’t like Uncle Carne to help him.”

“Okay… Well, my sister is an omega. You remember Nojiko?”

He perks up a little. “Yeah. She let me make orange juice.”

“I bet she did. I helped Nojiko with heat lots of times, so I’m gonna try helping your dad. Usopp’s here, too, to help. We’re gonna get him taken care of, okay? Don’t you worry.”

She doesn’t feel that confident, but she’s got to try. Tending her sister is a lot different than tending a guy she’s only known for a couple weeks who’s got such severe heat-related trauma that he shuts down completely like this. But Sora’s looking at her with such hope, and she never wants to see that resigned look on his face again, like he’s had to watch his dad suffer too many times.

She kneels down beside the wardrobe to where Sanji hasn’t moved. “Sanji? I’m gonna touch you now.”

He still flinches when she does, but she’s pretty sure he’ll forgive a little manhandling if this works. She manages to get a hand near his neck and rub his scent gland lightly before rubbing the same hand on her own. It’s a little more direct than her usual method of slowly integrating their scents, but she needs to smell safe sooner rather than later. She can feel her own body temperature rising to match his, and her scent’s disappearing to be replaced with something close to Sanji’s.

Miraculously, he relaxes slightly, no longer clenched tightly around himself. She turns and jerks her head to indicate Usopp should come over. He does and follows her lead, scenting him and putting his body into a sympathy pseudo-heat. As Usopp begins to smell safe, too, Sanji unwinds a little more.

“Sanji, can you hear me?”

Blearily, he looks up at her with unfocused, tear-tracked eyes. He doesn’t look like he recognizes her. She starts up a purr and is glad when Usopp joins in without being told.

“You wanna come out of the wardrobe? We’ve got your nest here. And Sora. Sora’s here and he wants to cuddle in the nest with – hey, Sora, what’s your dolphin’s name?”

“Sashimi.”

She blinks for a second. “Um, yeah, Sora’s got his dolphin, Sashimi, and they’re going into the nest. You want to nest with Sora? It’s warm and safe.”

She and Usopp keep up a quiet babble until they eventually get him to leave the wardrobe, looking around the room as if he doesn’t remember where they are. They act quickly, pulling his shoes off and getting his belt and wallet chain off, at least, though his upset whine and flinch when they tug on his pants breaks her heart again. They herd him over until he reaches his nest and buries himself in his pillows and blankets.

Sora, seemingly pleased with their progress, climbs in without prompting and wriggles in until Sanji’s arms come out to pull him in for a hug.

“You okay, Sora?” Usopp asks.

Sora turns his head enough to smile at them. “Mmhm! You’re so cool! Jiji could never get Dad to stop being small so fast.” He snuggles in closer to his dad.

Nami… needs a break. She steps back and flops to sit on her own bed. Usopp looks similarly frazzled.

“I’m glad it worked,” he says.

“Yeah,” she breathes.

They let Sora and Sanji snuggle quietly for a while until Sora seems fed up with all the touching and wiggles away. Sanji sits up blearily, looking around not-quite-lucid, but not in a state of complete panic, either. Usopp gets up and pours a cup of water from the supplies he brought, kneeling down and shuffling awkwardly to the edge of the nest.

“Sanji? Buddy, you want some water?”

Sanji blinks at him silently. Sora has no qualms, scrambling over the pillows to take the cup.

“I wanna drink!” He takes a few gulps and then grabs Sanji’s hand and forces the cup into it. “You drink, too, Dad!”

She’s surprised that that’s as little prompting as he needs to drain the cup. Sora takes it back and hands it to Usopp.

“So,” Usopp says, obviously grasping for some topic to lighten the weird, tense mood in the room, “I haven’t met all your friends yet, Sora. Can you tell me their names?”

As Sora lays out his stuffie collection – Fin Soup the shark, Takoyaki the octopus, Calimari the squid, Unadon the eel, she’s sensing there’s a theme – Sanji follows his motions and voice blearily. She feels hopelessly out of her depth here. So far, Sanji’s responded well to their efforts to break him out of this panic fugue state, but she’s just kind of throwing ideas out there and hoping they stick. She’d really hoped they’d get more time to plan for this before it happened – but nature has its own schedule, she supposes. Still, after the initial panic attack and hiding episode, he seems to be doing okay.

Sora’s a big help with that. Suspiciously helpful, really. She wonders how much of the way he’s interacting with his dad is just him being a kid, and how much is learned behavior from being around this kind of traumatic thing his whole life. He’s currently pressing his stuffed tuna – Tartare – into Sanji’s arms and chattering away to him and Usopp about sea creatures. Sanji’s hand starts moving seemingly on its own, petting the soft stuffed fish and squeezing it in his hands. He blinks some more, and she swears his eyes are looking a little more focused.

“I’m hungry,” Sora abruptly announces.

That actually makes Sanji jolt. He looks around the room before zeroing in on Sora with laser focus.

“I brought snacks,” Usopp says quickly. He meets Nami’s eyes and raises his brows significantly. All she can do is shrug in response. He doesn’t bother getting up, crawling instead to his rucksack and pulling out another bag full of cured sausages and cubes of cheese. Hesitantly, he offers the bag to Sanji who, dreamily, takes it and stares into it before very seriously offering it to Sora.

“Thanks, Mr. Usopp! Thanks, Dad!”

Sanji watches Sora intently as he eats. Luffy had mentioned something he’d learned from Sanji’s dad about him and Zeff almost starving once. She supposes that’s why making sure Sora gets fed was enough to drag him further out of his shell. Sora gives the food back to his dad and lies down. Sanji, after a moment, follows suit, wincing a little and pressing his hand to his abdomen. Sora starts playing some kind of game with his sea creatures, and Sanji watches calmly.

“I think they’re okay for now,” Usopp says, startling her from her thoughts. He stands up and stretches. “I’m gonna head up and see if we’ve got a hot water bottle in our medical supplies. You okay taking over for a bit?”

She grimaces and nods. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Can you check on the guys while you’re up there?”

“Already on it,” he says, climbing the hatch.

--

He lucks out and finds the hot water bottle in the second poorly-organized crate of medical supplies he checks. It’s a relief, because they really don’t have a good storage system in place yet, and because he’s feeling so frazzled that the minor frustration of having to dig through more crates might make him cry.

He’s never been in pseudo-heat before. It’s kind of weird. He’d pseudo-rutted before, when Luffy suddenly went into one right after they left Syrup and someone had to keep an eye on him to stop him from tearing the ship up, and Zoro’s stupidly permissive of most of Luffy’s terrible ideas. Pseudo-rut had mostly just made him feel grouchy and kind of itchy and restless. He’d bickered with Luffy quite a bit and snarled more, but ultimately, it wasn’t that bad. Pseudo-heat is making him feel sweaty and emotional in the most annoyingly fragile way. He kind of wants to wriggle into the nest with Sanji and Sora and have the best nap ever. Instead, he’s trudging out onto the deck and blinking at the sun in his eyes so he can boil some water.

He gets into the kitchen, stepping around the egg and flour mess he’d halfhazardly swept into a pile earlier and getting the kettle set up. He’s not really sure what Sanji’s master plan had been before he’d wandered off out of the kitchen. There’s flour and eggs and a brick of lard and, inexplicably, a large stalk of broccoli shoved head-down into a saucepan. He shakes his head and goes back outside to look for the others.

Luffy waves from the shore where he’s set up a camp for him, Mr. 9, Miss Wednesday, and Crocus. Zoro’s not immediately visible, and he is, unfortunately, unsurprised when Zoro pops his head up over the railing, clinging to the rope ladder on the hull of the ship.

“He’s fine,” Usopp cuts in before he can ask. He rolls his eyes. It’s cute that Zoro takes his first mate job so seriously, but his awkward crush on Sanji is just painful to look at. Especially when Sanji looks at him like he’s dirt on his shoe, and all Zoro does is stoically ignore the hostility. “We’ve got him to stop actively panicking, at least. He’s taking a nap with Sora right now.”

Zoro sags visibly with relief before his nose flares and he perks up again, raising both of his eyebrows. “Are you pseudo-heating?”

Usopp flushes. “Yeah. It’s the only way Sanji’d calm down.”

Zoro sniffs again and climbs onto the deck properly. He leans into the beta man’s space, sniffing some more.

“Oh my god, please tell me you’re not gonna pop a boner from smelling me,” Usopp pleads. “That’s just going to embarrass us both.”

“I’m not getting a boner,” Zoro says, though his flushed face suggests maybe otherwise. Usopp’s certainly not going to look down and check. “You just smell interesting, is all.”

“You mean I smell like Sanji. You better get your nose off me before you go all rut-crazy or something.”

“Too late,” he says casually, shrugging.

“What?” Now that he mentions it… He sniffs, and ugh, yep, that smells like early rut. He makes a pained face. “Did you have to do that right now?”

“Not like I did it on purpose. All the omega distress stink everywhere plus the pheromones? Yeah, no, I wanna fight somebody. I’ll fight Mr. 9. I’ll fight Laboon. I’ll fight the old guy over there. You sure he’s okay?”

“Well, I’m not sure-sure, but he’s doing better than he was.”

Zoro scowls. “Yeah. Fuck.”

Usopp waves his hands in a shooing motion. “Get out of here. If Sanji smells you, he’ll freak out again. Can I leave you alone out here, or am I gonna come back and you’re fighting the whale?”

“I might fight the whale.” He grins savagely at Usopp’s unimpressed glare. “I’m fucking with you. I’m not gonna fight the whale. Luffy’s gonna make sure I don’t kill Mr. 9 or something, but it’s fine. Won’t be a problem.”

“If you’re sure…” The kettle’s beginning to whistle, and the two men stare each other down before Zoro shakes himself and throws himself off the ship onto the shore. Usopp’s just glad he didn’t have to say out loud that he wasn’t going to trust Zoro alone on the deck with Sanji below. Not that he thinks Zoro’s into sex crimes – quite the opposite. He thinks Zoro’s big dumb head is full of “must protect gotta cuddle” juice and he’s gonna scare the shit out of Sanji again. He shakes his head and goes to fill the water bottle up.

He grabs a little more food, too, and returns to the den. Luckily, nothing catastrophic has happened. He offers Sanji the hot bottle, and he can’t help but grin when he takes it, confused for only a second before he shoves it onto his belly and starts a shaky purr of contentment.

“Everything okay up there?” Nami asks when he joins her on the bed.

“Um… kind of.” He lowers his voice to a whisper, leaning into her ear. “Zoro’s rutting. Luffy said he’s taking care of it.”

“Of course he is.” Nami groans and rubs her head like she’s developing a headache. “You think it’ll be okay?”

“Yeah, no creepy vibes except how much he liked smelling me. He wants to fight Laboon.”

He laughs at Nami’s incredulous face and stands up again. “Okay, Sora, you ready for a story?”

Sora perks up and crawls to the edge of the nest. “A story?”

“Oh yes, I think you’re ready for the story of how I, the Great Captain Usopp, sailed to the very edge of the North Blue and challenged the king of the polar bears to a fishing competition and almost lost my arm! It was a dark, starless night…”

--

Zoro’s never been a huge fan of biology.

Sensei’d never been worried about his sex before puberty, so they didn’t check too hard to see if his dick had the extra bit of tissue that would turn into a knot later. He’d been indifferent to whether he was beta or alpha until he’d dropped into a rut at 14 and that had been the end of it. Sensei’d given him some stern lessons about family values and strict and dire warnings of how exactly he’d disembowel him if he ever caught Zoro doing anything to make any omegas or betas uncomfortable. Other than that, though, the biggest issue about the whole thing was being banned from the training hall during his ruts.

He's seen the porn. He knows the stereotype is big horny alpha going sex-stupid during a rut, but he also knows the stereotype of lust-crazy omegas in heat is bullshit, too. Sure, sometimes he gets ruts where he gets inexplicably horny over nothing and spends a few days being annoyed and sweaty and jerking off until it goes away, but most of the time, he doesn’t feel that different than usual. Angrier, maybe. Quicker to snap. His ruts are more in line with feeling this gnawing feeling of being needed somewhere, a desire to protect his space and his people and fight anybody who would mess with them. So, not really much different from any other time.

Sanji’s heat, however, is driving him crazy.

He walks away from the Merry and the camp on the shore and avoids Luffy’s amused, knowing eyes following him to a secluded bit of rocky beach where he can throw himself into some strength exercises until he’s worn out enough that the impulse to re-scent the entire ship, punch someone, and swoop Sanji into his arms to snuggle the shit out of him goes away. Ugh, thinking about Sanji just sends him into another confusing spiral of emotions.

He feels awful, mostly.

He hadn’t meant to scare him. He’d been coming up the stairs before he figured out what he was smelling, and by then, Sanji was already heading out of the galley and it was too late to stop them from nearly colliding. And then, when he’d lifted his hands in surrender and tried to gently talk him out of his panic, he’d stared at Zoro’s hands like they were venomous snakes and flinched away, making the most terrible sounds. Zoro’d backed off, wincing when Sanji’d foregone the stairs and made a leap for it to get away from him, but he knew when he was not the right man for the job, and Nami and Usopp seem to have it covered.

He feels like shit, though. He’s killed people and hurt people before, and many people have called him a demon or a monster. Nobody’s ever looked at him like Sanji did. He could only think, smelling the sickening combination of fear and heat coming off of him, that this must’ve been what that son of a bitch who’d hurt him had smelled. It turns his stomach. It wasn’t an alluring, sexy smell. It was a smell that made every instinct in him want to wrap the cook in his arms and protect him until his smell turned sweet again. He wants to bring that fucker back so he can kill him again. He bets he can make him die slower and more painfully than Zeff had. He’d draw it out until that fucker felt a fraction of the pain and fear he’d made little Sanji feel.

Fuck, this isn’t helping.

He throws himself into more pushups, trying to work out the aggression. It’s worse now that he’s pushed into a rut. He’s putting off all these pheromones, and he’s careful to make sure he’s downwind of the Merry so the cook and his kid won’t smell them. Pissed off, rutting alpha, bad for omegas and little kids.

If only he could fight something. Maybe he will punch the whale. Whale might be a good fight.

Usopp had smelled nice. That was a bonus. A little tease of what Sanji might smell like in a normal heat without all the trauma. He’d almost pulled Usopp in for a snuggle, but he’d restrained himself. Barely. Luffy would probably be mad if he licked Usopp’s face. Usopp would definitely be mad. Mm, he’d smelled nice, though, and a little cuddle wouldn’t kill him. Actually, he could cuddle Nami, too. She probably smells good, too.

Dammit, focus, Zoro.

This is going to be a long week.

--

Sanji still hasn’t said a word, but the rest of the afternoon has been uneventful. Blessedly, wonderfully uneventful. She gets up and pops her back. It’s time to do the thing she’d been avoiding.

“You guys good if I run up to the galley?”

Sanji glances at her from where he’s sprawled in his nest. He doesn’t respond verbally, but he does lift his shoulder in a half-shrug, which she takes for a good sign. Usopp gives her a thumb’s up from where he and Sora are using up half her good paper trying to make an illuminated manuscript alphabet book, or something. She’s afraid to ask.

She sneaks off and heads to the kitchen. The little camp on the shore looks cheerful for a collection of makeshift tents on a barren rock. The only disturbance there is Zoro pacing the edge of the rock, staring out to sea, and she’s not going to go bother with that nonsense. Luffy doesn’t look worried about it, and when it comes to the crew, he’s not stupid, so she leaves them to it.

Finding the old man Crocus in their galley, however, is a surprise.

“Ah, Miss Nami.”

“What are you up to?”

The old man shrugs and smirks. “Cooking, I suppose. Your chef is indisposed, I’ve gathered, and your Captain seems… dangerous in a kitchen. The swordsman is too busy pacing a hole in the shore, and his protective drive has decided that Miss Wednesday and Mr. 9 are definitely planning on poisoning us all if we let them try. So, here I am.”

She eyes the simple stew and rice he’s made in addition to a pile of meat that’s probably for Luffy. It’s charmingly adequate, and it’s a relief to have someone else step in to help make decisions and get necessary tasks done. She was starting to feel frazzled.

“I appreciate it, Crocus. I need to make a snail call. Is that okay?”

“Of course. You need me to leave?”

“Not if you’re cooking. I just need to call our cook’s father.”

Crocus watches her for a long moment before he nods and turns the burners off. “Food’s done anyway. It can stand to cool for a minute. Call me back over here when you’re done.”

She’s glad he left, though she wasn’t going to kick him out. This conversation will probably be a tough one. She dials the number Sanji had written down and taped to the fridge.

”You’ve called the shitty restaurant. You want a damn reservation?”

“Um, yes, this is Nami. Sanji’s crewmate? Can I speak to Zeff?”

”Eh, you need to talk to Zeff? Where’s the Eggplant himself?”

“He’s fine, but he can’t come to the phone. That’s why I need to talk to Zeff.”

”Shit, okay, just a second. Owner! Snail’s for you! It’s Eggplant’s crewmate!”

She winces at the yelling, but it’s only another few seconds before the snail sprouts mustaches and says, ”Yeah, this is Zeff. Where’s Sanji?”

“He went into heat this afternoon,” she says, aiming to be direct and calm. “He can’t come to the phone.”

The snail’s eyes narrow. ”Talk to me, girl. How bad is it?”

She breathes out a shaky sigh and sits down at the table. She rubs at the headache in her temples. “It was pretty bad at first. We weren’t expecting it this soon, so we weren’t prepared. He ran into Zoro and freaked out – nothing happened,” she hastens to reassure when the snail makes a livid face, “Zoro tried to talk him down, but he was panicking and ended up hiding in the wardrobe.”

”Is he there now? Where’s Sora?”

“He’s in his nest. Usopp and I went into pseudo-heat and got him calmed down. Sora’s with Usopp right now drawing squids or something. Sanji’s resting.”

”You kids managed to get him to leave his hiding place?” His tone is pure disbelief. ”Is he talking?”

“Um, no. He warned us that could happen.”

The snail sighs. ”Too much to hope, I guess. He’ll start talking again when he feels safe enough. Old habit from when he was younger. If he needs something bad enough he’ll write it down for you.”

Nami swallows and nods. “Um, yeah. So, anyway, I just wanted to let you know so you wouldn’t worry.”

“I appreciate it.” He hesitates, then, “Thank you for caring for him. I know it isn’t easy.”

“It’s not, but… Well, I don’t mind the work, it’s just, it hurts to see him so scared.”

A heavy sigh. “You don’t have to tell me that.”

“Sorry. I shouldn’t be complaining after only one day. You’ve been doing this for years.”

“That’s not what I meant, girl. I appreciate that you and your crew care enough so quickly. Sanji’s… he’s a good kid. What happened to him wasn’t right. I did my best to help him, but it sounds like you’ve already done more than I ever could.” Nami starts to protest, but he cuts her off again, “It usually took me a day and a half to get him out of his hiding space. You’ve done it in an afternoon. Just accept my gratitude.”

“Okay, then.”

“Just take care of him, would you? And maybe have Sora call me. I doubt the Eggplant’ll let him out of his sight anytime soon, but I’d like to talk to him if you can manage it.”

“I’ll try. Thank you, Mr. Zeff.”

The old chef just grunts and hangs up. Nami is left in the suddenly-too-quiet galley. It’s ridiculous. They haven’t had the Merry for long, and they’ve had Sanji for even less time, but the galley still feels empty and cold without him puttering away at the stove with a crooked grin around a cigarette, little Sora kicking his heels on the table. Touches of both of them paint the entire space – crayon drawings taped to the fridge, a jar of pretty seashells by the sink, the obsessive way Sanji organizes the pantry. It feels sacrilegious to be here without them.

She shakes the heavy thoughts away and focuses again on what she can do. Dwelling’s never done her any good – she’s practical. Solution-oriented. She can’t go back in time and save Sanji from being traumatized. She can’t wave a magic wand and fix the horrible fear that festers in him. She can, however, grab a laundry basket and fill it with a container of the stew and some rice and juice and some bowls and carry dinner down for the four of them. She does just that and hopes it’s enough.

--

He doesn’t have a proper frame of reference for this.

Sanji floats somewhere between the animalistic need to make himself safe and a higher state of consciousness. He’s aware enough to know that he’s not on the Baratie. He’s just not sure about where he is. It’s strange. His nest is here with all his things. Sora is here, talking his ear off and occasionally force-feeding him snacks. There are two others here, too, and they’re confusing because they’re soft and gentle and they smell, inexplicably, like him. They smell safe. Sora is calm and happy, and the two that smell like him are calm, and he has the feeling that he needs to wake up a little more.

It's difficult. He’s never enjoyed going into his panic state. It feels more dangerous than staying lucid. It’s just… he’s always been helpless. Dim memories of being beaten and locked away with heavy iron over his head and no one to care to hear his screams. Sitting, aching, flesh cooking in the sun on that godforsaken rock, unable to do anything more than stay awake to watch for rescue. Then, later, the Bad Thing happening, and trying to scream knowing that Zeff was only down the hall, that if he could only make a sound he would be saved, but his mouth was crushed and bruised by large hands, and eventually he lost his voice anyway to the shock and agony of it. It’s close to logical, then, that when he’s frightened enough, he just reverts to what he’s always known – that he’s small and weak and begging gets him nowhere.

He shivers and curls further around himself. The nest is soft and good-smelling. One of the calm people brought something deliciously warm for him to press against his aching abdomen, and it’s good. It’s very good. Sora’s sweet voice is talking again, but not to him, so he tries harder to focus, to wake up from this terrible state. He doesn’t like Sora to see him like this. He wants to be strong and confident, to not let his fear poison his son.

Focus. He’s in his nest. His nest is… on a pirate ship. A cute pirate ship with a sheep figurehead. The Going Merry. He and Sora are pirates. They’ve always been pirates. He frowns. No, they’re different pirates now. Straw Hat pirates. Luffy is Straw Hat. Luffy is alpha, but Luffy is also safe. He sits up a little and looks around. His thoughts are starting to come more clearly now. He’s in the den he shares with Nami. Nami’s sitting on her bed across the room. Usopp is here. Usopp is talking to Sora, and Sora looks happy.

He has to lie back down and try not to cry, because he’s done it again. He’s gotten frightened and panicked and Sora’s had to see it. He shouldn’t have to see that. He’s going to ask questions eventually. Difficult questions. Zeff’s put him off with vague answers so far, but he’s getting older. He’s going to eventually figure out that there’s a reason his dad’s so scared of alphas. Fuck, the kid’s gonna grow up and be an alpha – Dr. Toshiko checked for him – and what kind of message is he sending? He’s a terrible parent.

He scrubs his face with his hands and sits up. He’ll just watch everyone until he feels up to communicating again. He can tell already that his voice is still gone. Just a matter of time.

Nami leaves. Nami comes back. She’s got dinner, and Sanji pulls himself out of the nest without being told. He can tell it surprises both of the betas, but he’s feeling better – snapping out of it much faster than he ever has. He sits on the edge and watches.

Maybe it’s the change of setting. He knows exactly who belongs on the Merry. It’s just Luffy, Usopp, Nami, and Zoro. No surprises. The Baratie was too big, and too full of strangers all the time. He never really felt safe. Not when someone could just drag him into a bathroom or a closet. He shakes that thought loose. He’s grown now. He can fight. He’s not a spindly kid. It’s not going to happen again. He’s not going to walk down the long hallways full of strange customers and rotating waitstaff anymore. He won’t have to always walk on the opposite side of the service hall, away from the never-fixed, demolished old staff restroom that mocked him with its dreadful associations any time he had to walk past it to get to the laundry and showers. He’s not surrounded constantly by stinging little reminders.

“This stew is… yuck.”

He stands and walks to the desk, where Sora’s making a face. He looks up at Sanji, still frowning.

“I’m not gonna waste it, Dad, but it’s yucky.”

Sanji wordlessly takes the spoon and tries a bite. He startles everyone in the room with his laugh. He forgets, sometimes, that Sora’s lived his entre life on the Baratie. He’s had every meal prepared by professional chefs. No wonder the kid has high standards. The stew’s fine – just fine, really, nothing special. No exotic spices or red wine reduction or delicate twist of flavors. Just meat and vegetables cooked down over time, slightly undersalted. He gives the spoon back to Sora and pats his head.

“Jiji’s stew is better,” Sora says mulishly.

He opens his mouth, but the words aren’t there yet. He clacks his jaw shut and instead mimes eating.

“I know. I won’t waste it.”

He beams and pats Sora on the head again. He’s tried hard to make sure Sora’s got as well-developed a palate as a five-year-old can have, and they’re usually honest and open about how he feels about food he’s not sure about. He’s proud of him.

“You hungry, Sanji?”

He turns and looks at Usopp. The sniper’s there with his own bowl, and Sanji’s not particularly hungry, but he knows the value of eating together. He holds up his fingers in a “just a little” gesture and accepts the bowl with a little bow of thanks.

It’s peaceful. Quiet. Even during his better heats, the less traumatic ones where he’s been mostly okay, he’s never felt this calm. He doesn’t even feel too stressed when he eventually gets Usopp to let him take Sora up the hatch to the bathroom using an elaborate pantomime act – he even lets Usopp stay with them and fill the bathtub with an ungodly amount of bubbles that makes Sora squeal with delight and play a game of ships and sea kings with the bath toys. Sanji stays out of the worst of the bubbles and smiles to himself. Usopp really is a great friend.

He's in such high spirits when it’s time to head back down the ladder for bed that he’s actually started to purr unconsciously. That’s pretty unusual for him. He follows Usopp back down and gets Sora into his pajamas and sits on his heels on the floor, thinking for a minute.

“Are you okay?” Nami asks.

Sanji looks up at both of his beta friends and feels the purring in his chest take a sharp uptick. He opens his mouth to speak, and chokes when his voice still isn’t there. He frowns, then stands up abruptly to take Nami’s hands and rub their cheeks together. He turns when she’s still open-mouthed with surprise and gives Usopp the same treatment. He grins when he pulls back to see both of them blushing, dumbfounded.

“I guess you’re happy, then?” Usopp says.

Sanji grins wider and rubs Usopp’s face again.

“I get it, I get it,” Usopp says, laughing. He pushes Sanji gently away. “You’re such a sap.”

“I want a snuggle!” Sora’s little hands tug insistently on his pants. He laughs when Sanji hoists him up to rub their cheeks together, too. “Dad, your face is fuzzy!”

He probably should have shaved, but now he’s sensed weakness and he scrubs his cheeks on Sora’s more aggressively, starting another wave of giggles. It’s not perfect, really, but this has to be close, he thinks. This warm, safe den, Sora happy and well-fed in his arms, and Nami and Usopp joining in on the laughter as they ready for bed. He’s so unbelievably lucky.

#

#

#

Marvel-esque Post Credit Scene

“You’re so stupid.”

Luffy’s laughing at him. Zoro throws a punch, but Luffy’s faster and blocks it. His arms are weak from all the exercising he’s done, feeling almost as rubbery as Luffy’s.

“Shut up,” he growls half-heartedly.

“Zoro has a cru~ush.”

“Luffy, I swear –“

“Zoro wants to snuggle Sanji!”

They tussle some more on the stupid hard sharp rocks.

“Is this… normal alpha behaviour?” Miss Wednesday asks hesitantly.

“I don’t think they’re normal,” Mr. 9 answers. He clings uncertainly to Miss Wednesday as they watch the two alphas fight, neither of them certain if it’s play-fighting or real fighting. “The whole crew’s insane. These alphas aren’t even the worst of it. Why in the world do they have a little kid and some kind of traumatized omega on their crew?”

Zoro catches that bit of commentary and throws himself at Mr. 9. Mr. 9 yelps when Zoro’s teeth clack together an inch from his face, angry rutting alpha held back from biting him only by the rubber limbs twisted around him.

“Bad Zoro! No biting!” For all his scolding, Luffy’s still grinning.

“He’s talking shit about the cook!”

“I-I’m not? Just asking?”

“You shouldn’t talk about Sanji right now,” Luffy says in an aside to Mr. 9 and Miss Wednesday, “Zoro’s stupid about him. And he’s extra stupid because he’s in a rut and it makes his brain extra extra dumb.”

“I’m not stupid,” Zoro says, sounding for all the world like a pouting toddler.

Luffy just laughs at him again. “You are so stupid. You’re so dumb you wanna go stink up the ship!”

“Just a little!”

“And I said no! Sanji doesn’t like you.”

That makes Zoro deflate, sinking into a full pout. Luffy crouches next to him and pets his head.

“It’s okay, Zoro. I like you. And Sanji’s gonna like you, too. You just gotta show him you’re nice. Oh! You could get him meat!”

That sounds dumb, but it actually kind of makes sense. He goes to the tent Luffy’s pitched for them to share and stares at the ceiling, thinking of all the ways he can show the cook how nice he is, and how strong he is, and what a great provider he is. Yeah, he’ll win him over. Confident in this new plan, Zoro rolls over and goes to sleep.

Chapter Text

Sanji’s heat breaks on the fourth day.

He’s beyond ready for it to end. It’s been so nice to be cared for, but at the end of the day, he’s bored. He doesn’t like how heat feels even on a good day – flushed and emotional and clingy in all the worst ways omegas are said to be. Nami and Usopp are saints, not complaining and caring for Sora so well, but he’s itching to get their adventure underway and stop holding everyone up right on the Red Line without even venturing into the Grand Line yet.

“We’d have to wait anyway,” Usopp says carelessly when he – quietly, voice still tentative – complains, “Zoro’s got to get through his rut before we can go.”

Sanji freezes at that, going tense. “His what?”

Nami elbows Usopp. “It’s fine. Idiot. No, Sanji, it’s fine. Zoro accidentally started because he was worried about you.” She glances at Sora, who’s studiously scribbling with crayons and conspicuously eavesdropping. “He’s been camping with Luffy on the shore. They mostly seem to be sparring and fishing.”

Sanji feels himself withdrawing again. Shit, he doesn’t want to be weird about this. Usopp and Nami share a long look before Usopp chipperly announces that he and Sora are going to go call Zeff and see if there’s any trail mix left in the pantry, and they’ll be back soon don’t worry. Nami steers Sanji over to sit on the edge of his nest after they leave.

“Hey,” she says softly. “You okay?”

He shrugs. He’s not stupid. He’s done more research on sexes and biology than he’d admit to, trying to contextualize things in his head. He knows that a lot of alphas rut in a territorial kind of way or have an intense protective urge during their ruts. Some alphas get mostly sex-drive ruts, but even that doesn’t guarantee that an alpha’s going to be an uncontrollable monster who forces themselves on any omega they run across. Hell, any gender can be a sex criminal. He just happened to run into one at an early age who used his heat as an excuse to be a monster. He knows that.

“You know Luffy wouldn’t let Zoro hurt you, right?”

He nods.

“And you know Zoro’s mostly harmless, right? Trust me, all he wants to do is make sure everyone on the crew is safe. That’s especially true for you and Sora.”

He knows that, but… Fuck, he’s tired of letting this bother him. He’s tired of worrying all the time about being violated again, just because it happened when he was barely hitting puberty. He’s tired of being treated differently by alphas just because they care about what’s between his legs. He’s so tired of being fucked up.

“I know I’m being stupid,” he says.

“You’re not stupid. You had something really bad happen to you. It makes sense that you’re… cautious now.”

“You can say it. I’m a traumatized wreck.”

“Hey.” Nami lightly knocks his head with her fist. “You’re okay. Seriously. You’ve got us, now, and we’re not going to let anything happen to you. Plus, you’re one of the strongest guys I’ve ever met. Luffy and Zoro won’t stop talking about how cool you were fighting Arlong’s crew, and I watched you take down a whole squad of Marines in Loguetown with just your legs. That’s amazing, Sanji. I’m a wimp – if we get attacked again, I’m counting on you to protect me.” She sticks her tongue out, lightly teasing.

Stupidly, it does make him feel a little better. And she’s right, really. Even if he did seriously think Zoro was interested in forcing himself on him, he’s strong now. He could fight him off – maybe not defeat him outright, Zoro’s insanely strong – and Luffy wouldn’t take Zoro’s side against him. Not over this. Not after how upset he’d been hearing his story, and how viciously he’d taken down Don Krieg. He’s not a scrawny little kid anymore. He took down a Fish-man underwater for fuck’s sake.

“Thanks, Nami,” he says quietly.

“Anytime, stupid,” she replies, warmth softening the insult.

--

It takes another day for the marimo’s rut to die down enough that the smell doesn’t overpower Sanji. His nose is feeling a bit delicate right on the tail end of his heat, and the mixture of the swordsman’s usual poorly-laundered clothes and sweat with his pheromones is enough to turn his stomach. Not that the pheromones smell bad like the socks, but the smell is just so strong that it makes him gag.

He uses the time that the swordsman’s still banned from the Merry to get his galley back into order and plan out the next two days’ worth of meals. Then he and Nami catch up on laundry – at least theirs and the bedding. Anything coming out of the men’s bunk is the men’s problem, as far as he’s concerned. The atmosphere on the ship’s cheerful, with colorful lines of laundry drying in the sun and Laboon splashing and showing off for Sora’s amusement as he and Usopp and Luffy egg him on from the figurehead.

Zoro looks so pathetic standing alone on some rocks downwind of the ship. Sanji’s actually stirred to pity. Before he can think better of it, he’s whipped up a big batch of onigiri and sent it off in a picnic basket for everyone – not Zoro in particular, of course, no special treatment for marimos – to share. He begs off so he doesn’t have to catch another whiff. He’s testing himself, anyway, letting Sora wander off close to Zoro at the end of his rut. Logically, he knows there’s no problem. He’s just got to see if he can do it without getting anxious about it.

And… it’s shockingly easy. He leans on the upper railing by the mikans, slowly smoking a cigarette, and watches the little picnic he arranged. Sora sits comfortably next to Usopp, his mouth running a mile a minute as he rants about everything he knows about island whales from his ocean books to his captive audience. Everyone’s relaxed, calm, and the swordsman is nothing but calm and respectful, nodding along to whatever Sora’s saying. He catches him glancing at Sanji occasionally, but he always looks away quickly.

Sanji’s a little embarrassed, to be honest. He’d warned them it could happen, but he doesn’t really remember what exactly happened when he ran into Zoro during his heat. He’s pretty sure it was pathetic. Pathetic enough that the alpha’d gone into a rut thinking he needed to protect him? It’s mind-boggling.

He doesn’t know if he should address it or just pretend it never happened. The second option sounds a lot easier. Besides, he doesn’t even have a relationship with the swordsman to ruin. He’s kept himself at such a distance and acted so hostile himself. He’ll just play this by ear and see how it goes.

--

Whisky Peak is suspicious as hell, and Sora clapping his hands over his ears at the noise and whining is the straw that breaks his back.

“Hey, we’re heading back to the ship.”

He tells this to Zoro, of all people, as he’s the easiest to get to. The crazy party that had started when they arrived is ramping up in intensity. The townspeople had seemed a little flummoxed to see a five-year-old included in their “pirate welcoming party” and hadn’t quite recovered in making their festivities family-friendly. There’s wine and beer and liquor flowing, and Nami is busy swindling suckers out of their cash while Luffy gorges himself and Usopp tells his tall tales. Sanij had been sitting alone in a corner with Sora, pushing away suspicious tankards and wine glasses being pressed into his hands and snapping sullenly at beautiful women and men sent over to talk to him and coo over his kid. Sora had been interested at first, but the noise is overwhelming, and there’s nothing more boring to a kid than a bunch of adults acting foolish. Sanji can remember that much from the early Baratie years and his complete disdain for the cooks’ antics on their days off.

Zoro looks up at him, surprisingly sober despite the empty tankards around him, and frowns when he sees Sora holding his hands over his ears.

“You two okay?”

Sanji hugs Sora a little tighter to his leg and glares at the crowd of dancers that’s started up. “Just a little overwhelmed. It’s past our bedtime.”

Zoro nods solemnly. “Want me to come with?”

“No, no, you stay.” He lowers his voice a little. “They might need you here.”

Zoro’s frown pinches lower. “Be careful.”

“We can take care of ourselves, Marimo.” He’s unsettled, though, so his words don’t come out with the bite he intended. The two men give each other a serious nod before he bundles Sora out the door and down the streets back towards the docks.

Sora pries his hands off his ears and sighs. “Dad, that was loud.”

“I know, baby. Sorry.”

Sora holds his arms up. “Carry me?”

“You’re getting kind of big, aren’t you?” He’s teasing. He fully intends on picking him up and carting him around until he physically can’t, and he can carry a lot of weight – he’ll still be trying to piggyback him when he’s a teenager. He laughs and pulls Sora up into his arms and presses a quick kiss to his cheek. “You ready for bed?”

“Yeah. I don’t like this place.”

“Me neither. Way too loud.”

“And the grown-ups are weird.”

“Way weird.” He nods along and covers the empty streets in long strides. The rest of the town is too quiet, and there’s no way the entire population is crammed into that one bar. It’s definitely a trap. He can only try to get Sora safe down below and get ready for whatever is coming and try not to tip his hand too early.

“Almost back to the Merry,” he says, “You think we should make eggs benedict tomorrow?”

“I want croque madame.”

“Well, I think we still have the ham I hid from Luffy in the fridge.”

“Luffy eats a lot of ham.”

“Unbelievable amount of ham. You’re not going to eat that much, are you? You’re gonna get as big as Laboon!” He blows a raspberry into his cheek and grins at his giggles. “You remember the steps? Walk me through how to make croque madame.”

He lets Sora chatter about sandwiches as he finally gets them to the docks without seeing any obvious tails. Not that they need to tail them. It’s no secret where the Merry is. He skips bathtime and ushers Sora down the ladder to the den.

“Okay, baby,” he says once they’re away from prying eyes and ears, “You remember bad pirate protocols?”

Sora straightens up, suddenly serious. “Are there bad pirates?”

“I’m not sure, but I think there’s some bad guys in this town. If there are bad guys, I’ve got to be ready to fight them. Can you stay down here and be really really good and not come out until I say you can?”

Sora nods solemnly. “I can be good. You’re gonna kick their butts?”

He smiles and ruffles the kid’s hair, putting on a cocky grin. “You kidding me? If I can take a kick from Jiji, then I can handle anything these losers can dish out. I just need you to be super quiet and good, okay? Stay in the den.”

“I will.”

“Good boy.” He kisses him on the head and ushers him to the nest. “I love you. I promise I’ll be right back as soon as I can.”

“Okay, Dad. Love you, too.”

He climbs the ladder again and double-checks that the hatch is shut securely. No way in to Sora except that hatch or the one in the boy’s bunk below the deck. No way to Sora except through him.

He sets up his little act. Takes off his suit jacket, rolls up his sleeves, undoes the top buttons of his shirt. Grabs a beer from the fridge and an ashtray so he can lean against the railing with his sweating beer and a cigarette, cheerfully smoking and winding down from a long day. Just a casual omega taking a break from tending his kid, enjoying a moment to himself. An irresistible, harmless target.

It’s funny how well it works.

It only takes half an hour of this charade before the group of bounty hunters line up on the docks. Twenty-five bounty hunters for one omega with a kid. He’s not sure if he should be flattered or insulted.

“Can I help you?”

The bounty hunters ignore him.

“Straw Hat’s the one with the bounty,” their unofficial ringleader says to them, “But this one’ll probably fetch a good price on the market. It’s pretty enough.”

“A little used up,” another one says doubtfully.

“Proof of purchase,” a third says, smirking. “No doubt about its fertility.”

Sanji lights a fresh cigarette. “Seriously? Human trafficking? I could respect bounty hunting, but this is low.”

The ringleader scowls. “First lesson if you’re gonna make it on the market, kid – omegas are seen, not heard.”

“Yeah, I don’t really go for that.” Sanji steps up on the railing and jumps, adding a gratuitous front flip before he lands just for the drama of it. “Seems a little condescending.”

“You little bitch-!”

He doesn’t get to finish his lovely thought, because Sanji breaks his jaw with one elegant kick. Then he turns, grinning, to the group that’s beginning to circle him. He should probably be frightened – they’re talking about selling him into the sex trade after all – but he just can’t take these idiots seriously. Not when he’s got the Merry to protect with his most precious son inside it. These morons really don’t know what they’ve walked into.

He can hear explosions from town as he begins his assault. Guess he’s not the only one having fun. He kicks one man flying so he knocks two others into the water. He twists backwards, neatly avoiding the length of chain aimed for him. The guy with the chain obviously wasn’t expecting him to be that flexible, and he kicks upward into a standing split just to show off. Then he leaps onto his hands, spinning to knock the nearest group flying and give himself some room.

Not as challenging as Fish-men, that’s for sure. Still, he’s having at least a little fun.

He can’t play around too much. One man reaches for the rope ladder, and Sanji’s kick breaks his neck. Another man tries to put his actual filthy hands on Sanji instead of hitting him with a weapon, and he’s punished with a caved-in ribcage. There’s a woman in the group, too, and Sanji’s got some mixed feelings about hitting her. He doesn’t like to hit women. Can’t say he’s ever actually done it. Then again, he’s never met a woman who’s spat in his face and is trying to beat him up enough to sell him in the black market, either. He settles for kicking another man into her and knocking her into the water. Hopefully she’ll get the hint and leave with her life that he’s so generously offered her.

Still, there’s only twenty-five of them. He’s beaten down or killed the lot of them too quickly, and he’s left sweaty and with nothing to do but wait to see if his crew’s going to need him. He decides to do what prep work he can with the rigging in case they need a quick getaway.

There’s more explosions, but distant. Drawing closer. He stands at the ready, waiting. With nothing else to do, he idly starts sorting the bodies into a dead pile and a not-dead pile. A couple of the not-dead ones need another kick to keep them down. It’s boring work. He can’t believe they’ve left him waiting this long. There’s another huge explosion, this time coming from the sea. He paces the deck of the ship. He’s starting to feel anxious.

Finally – finally! – the crew comes into view. Luffy’s dragging poor Usopp by his nose through town, and Nami and Zoro are running to the ship in a dead sprint. Miss Wednesday’s there, too, for some reason, riding a giant duck. He decides not to question it.

“Sanji, ready the sails! We’re getting out of here!” Nami calls.

“Already done, Miss Nami!” He tosses the rope ladder down with a sunny smile.

“Sora’s okay?” Luffy asks, tossing Usopp to the deck.

“He’s in the den. He’s fine. Care to fill me in?”

Zoro’s paused halfway through climbing up the railing, staring at the two piles of bodies. “You do those, Cook?”

Sanji barely spares the piles a glance, sneering. “Yeah. Fuckers thought they’d pull a fast one and try to make some cash selling me.”

“They were going to sell you?” Miss Wednesday sounds shocked. “But they were just supposed to…”

Zoro climbs the rest of the way up and raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “What, just turn Luffy in for the bounty and kill the rest of us? If they’re willing to do that, it figures they’d do other shady shit.” He turns to Sanji, then, his expression softening. “You good, Cook?”

“Perfectly fine, Mosshead,” Sanji says. “The lot of them were complete amateurs.”

Zoro’s answering grin is savage. “I said the same thing.”

Sanji pauses, unsure exactly of how to react to that. Still, better than being seen as a delicate, fainting omega. He focuses instead on getting the ship up to the tributary to head out to sea.

“Be mindful of the rocks,” someone says.

“I’ve got it,” Nami says, distracted.

“This bit can be quite tricky,” someone says.

Sanji, who had climbed up onto the higher deck to check on Usopp and secure a line, freezes.

The scent of flower petals carries over the breeze, but it’s not enough to completely cover the underlying scent of alpha under the floral notes. He’s spent six years paranoid and honing his nose, so he doesn’t doubt his senses for a moment. Vivi and Nami are yelling something, but he’s too focused to listen. Before the others have found time to attack, he and Usopp have rounded the corner by the galley door in a pincer movement. Sanji draws his emergency pistol and levels it at the strange alpha’s head.

She doesn’t flinch or stiffen at all. Completely relaxed, as if she doesn’t have two weapons aimed to take her head off and the whole crew primed to attack.

“I’d appreciate you not pointing such dangerous objects at me,” the floral alpha says, sounding, if anything, only mildly vexed.

There’s no more time than that to react because several somethings are touching him, and his pistol is slapped out of his hands, and he’s thrown over the railing before he can blink. He lands in an ungraceful heap on the lower deck, and rolls to a crouch quickly, growling his stupid, soft little growl up at the woman who just disarmed the entire crew in an instant. The deck shakes under him slightly as Zoro steps forward, closer to Sanji, his much deeper and more impressive growl rumbling over the ship.

“Relax,” the woman says, still nonchalant, “I’m not here to hurt your omega, little alpha.”

“Not anybody’s omega,” Sanji mutters.

The woman ignores him, smiling down at Luffy. “I have no reason to fight – I’ve been given no orders.” She does something then, tossing Luffy’s hat to her hands and putting it on over her cowboy hat. “You’re the Straw Hat captain I’ve heard so much about… Monkey D. Luffy.”

Luffy puffs up, finally growling himself. “Give me back my hat! You want to fight?”

The woman strikes a pose and tries to intimidate them with her cryptic warnings, but all Sanji can think about is the doorway to the storage room below her casually crossed feet. Where had she come from? Surely she hadn’t stowed away – he would have noticed her, right? Surely Sora’s still safe in their den? His anxious growling is growing in volume, eyes flicking between the door and the alpha uncertainly.

The woman pauses her monologue to glance at him. Her cold eyes crinkle at the corners, just slightly, warming her wry smile into something closer to genuine. “Your child is undisturbed, little omega. Calm yourself. Another reason,” she says, turning her attention back to the others, “to avoid Little Garden. It’s no place for children, and Baroque Works agents will hound your steps.”

“You don’t decide the course of this ship!”

Luffy dramatically shatters the Eternal Pose she’d given them and hounds her off the ship. All Sanji really cares about is diving for the door as soon as she’s gone. He doesn’t trust her – though he also doesn’t think she’s lying. Still, his anxious growling only cuts off when he’s thrown the hatch open and sees Sora looking up at him expectantly.

“Can I come out now?”

Sanji sighs, shoulders sagging, and smiles down at him. “Yeah, you can come out. You’re okay?”

Sora nods before he starts climbing the ladder. “Yup. I was really good, right?”

“You were so very good.” Sanji scoops him up once he’s high enough and nuzzles him before he drops him gently and lets him go outside.

“Dad, there’s a duck!”

Ah. Yeah. Sanji looks over at Miss Wednesday and raises his eyebrow. “I think you owe us an explanation.”

It’s a long, overly-complex tale, made confusing by the details Luffy thinks are important (the food he ate) and Miss Wednesday’s strange habit of leaving out important information. The gist he gets is that Baroque Works now knows their faces, they want Miss Wednesday dead, and Miss Wednesday’s actually Princess Vivi of Alabasta.

(Privately, hysterically, Sanji has to laugh. Who’d think the Going Merry would be housing not one, but two long-lost royals? He shoots that thought down before it can fester. Vinsmoke Sanji is dead, and there’s no noble homecoming at the end of that story.)

During all of this, Sora’s been completely enamored of the overgrown duck Vivi brought aboard. Said duck doesn’t seem to know what to do with all of the attention and is looking beseechingly at Vivi as Sora climbs all over his feathers.

Vivi cuts her eyes over to Sora and looks back at the rest of them. “I appreciate your offer of help, but it will be dangerous. Are you… quite sure you want to help?”

Sanji crosses his arms and speaks for the rest of the crew, “We’re not stupid, and we’re not taking unnecessary risks. I trust Luffy, and I trust we’ll be fine.”

Luffy gives him a beaming smile, and the others nod.

“We’ll follow the Log Pose, then,” Nami says, looking at the little needle. “To Little Garden!”

--

Later that night, in the calm, quiet darkness of his nest, Sanji shivers awake from a nightmare sensation of grasping hands touching him all over his body.

A stupid consequence of the day, he thinks. All that crude talk about selling him as a sex slave. The casual dehumanization of being called “it,” the way that makes his skin crawl with the memories of the labs he was confined into in his youth. Princess Vivi, and all the weight of royalty and the creeping dread that brings him.

Sanji pulls Sora closer and tries to banish the thoughts from his mind. No use dwelling on these things, even as the night makes the terrors seem closer and more immediate, and he lies in the dark for far too long waiting for the feeling of hands on his skin to fade enough to sink back into sleep.

--

Sailing’s pretty boring for the most part, if you take away the crises.

Zoro has a routine. He stays up half the night on watch – first or second, he doesn’t particularly care – and makes up the sleep in naps during the day. Interspersed in this is training and meditating and the occasional flurry of activity to keep the Merry on course under their navigator’s guidance. Usopp usually finds time to scold him about remembering where he is on the chore chart, too, but there’s still a significant amount of time dedicated to good, simple napping.

He’s found a nice sunny spot on the lower deck by some piles of rope to take a pre-lunch nap after his morning sword practice. He’s just drifting off when a door bangs open, startling him awake.

“Usopp,” the cook calls in a weird voice. He sounds pained, but also like he’s trying very hard to sound patient. “Usopp, my dearest and best and most cherished of friends…”

Usopp looks up warily from where he’s tinkering with something on the other side of the deck from Zoro. “What… is it?”

Zoro cracks an eye open to watch the cook smile too widely and push his kid out of the galley door. “Our supplies are low, and I’m trying to do inventory, and it’s giving me a bit of a headache, so my dearest friend… would you please take Sora to see that godforsaken duck so I can have ten minutes to make sure we don’t all starve? Please.”

Usopp snorts and sets his gadget aside. “Sure thing, boss.”

Sanji pushes Sora a little further out and mouths “thank you” to Usopp before he slams the door shut again.

“You were bothering your dad, huh?” Usopp flicks the brim of the kid’s straw hat.

Sora puffs his cheeks out. “He said I could play with Karoo if I finished my math, and I did! I finished it all! But he was busy counting beans and it was boring.”

“Well, counting beans is kind of like math.”

“Well that’s Dad’s math, not mine. I was already finished! Can we play with Karoo now?”

The two of them scamper off to go harass the duck. Zoro closes his eye again and optimistically tries to get that nap in. He doesn’t have high hopes, not when the ship dissolves into high-pitched shrieks of childish laughter and the awkward squawking of the duck, and that’s before Luffy joins in. Nami starts shouting for quiet, and Zoro feels for the cook, if he’s stuck in the galley trying to get work done with this ruckus going on right outside. He feels for himself, too, as all hopes of a nice sunny nap are smashed into pieces. Stubbornly, he stays prone on the deck, pretending to sleep if nothing else.

He waits out the worst of it, until Luffy’s gotten bored and run off to look out from the crow’s nest and Nami’s stopped her hysterical shrieking. He’s just settled back to try to nap again for real when the boards near him shudder just a bit with footsteps. Light footsteps.

He opens one eye again. He sees a tiny pair of boots and follows them up with his eye until he’s looking into one ocean-blue eye peering right at him, the other obscured by his dark brown fringe.

He opens his other eye and just stares at the kid. What does he want? Sora crouches to look at him more closely. The kid tilts his head, considering.

“My dad says you smell bad.”

Zoro groans and shuts his eyes again. “Well, your dad’s rude.”

The kid giggles for some reason. “Jiji says Dad’s got a potty mouth.” There’s a beat of silence, then, “Why do you smell bad? You take baths? Dad makes me take a bath every day cause he says if I don’t, I’m gonna grow moss on my head. Is your hair really moss? Dad says it is, but I think it just looks like hair.”

“Your dad needs to stop being rude. I don’t smell bad.”

When he opens his eyes, Sora wrinkles his nose at him. “Nuh-uh. You smell stinky.”

“I got sweaty exercising. It’s not that bad.”

“Yeah it is.”

Zoro opens his mouth to argue and abruptly realizes how stupid it is to be arguing with a five-year-old. He hoists himself up into a sitting position, and the kid straightens back up so they’re level with each other. “Why’re you here talking to me, anyway? Doesn’t your dad think I’m mean or something?”

The kid makes a weird face. “Dad thinks all alphas are mean. ‘Cept Jiji and Uncle Patty and Luffy. But I don’t think you’re mean. I think you’re nice.”

Ah. Well. Zoro scratches his head. “Uh, thanks. But I don’t want you to talk to me if it’s gonna make your dad mad. He doesn’t like me.”

Again, the kid does weird, inexplicable things. Instead of leaving, he sits down, scooting closer to Zoro. “Dad doesn’t like lots of people. But he likes Miss Nami and Mr. Usopp and Luffy, and Luffy says you’re nice. I think if you’re nice, then Dad’s gonna like you. He likes people who are nice. Jiji says a lot of alphas are mean to Dad cause he’s omega so that’s why he doesn’t like them, but you’re not gonna be mean… right?”

Zoro swallows around his suddenly dry mouth. It’s weird hearing the kid’s perspective on the cook and his… issues. The kid obviously doesn’t know more than what the old geezer told him, but even that - the kid’s casual generalization about alphas and omegas – is disturbing.

“I’m not gonna be mean,” he says. “You and your dad are both crew on this ship. I’m the first mate, so I’m in charge of keeping everyone safe, so I’m not gonna be mean to anybody. And only jerks are mean to people because they’re omega or beta or whatever. If anybody wants to be mean to the crew, I’ll kick their asses.”

Belatedly, he wonders if he should have cursed, but the kid’s nodding and already changing the subject. “With your swords?”

He nods and pulls them up onto his lap. “Yeah. I use these swords to protect people.”

“Dad says swords are dangerous just like knives.”

“Yeah, I heard your knife rules. Your dad’s smart.”

The kid beams at that. “He is! He teaches me lots of stuff. He says I can use the kitchen knives when I’m seven but not yet because my cord-nation’s not good yet and his knives are really really sharp.”

Sounds sensible. Zoro finds himself nodding and decides this is probably a good teachable moment. “My swords are really sharp, too. If you see me using them to practice, you have to stay away and be careful.”

Sora nods, looking at Zoro like he’s imparting wisdom from the heavens. They’re both interrupted by the sound of the galley door opening. The cook steps out, squinting a little in the sunlight and peering around before he zeroes in on Sora sitting chummy with Zoro – the swordsman tries very hard to look nonchalant and not cringe guiltily under that narrow-eyed look.

“Sora? I thought you were playing with the duck.”

The kid stands up and brushes his shorts off. “I did, but it got boring. I’m talking to Mr. Zoro now.”

“Really.”

“Yeah! He said you’re smart and that I have to be careful of his swords because they’re sharp.”

The cook looks momentarily thrown by the compliment, raising his eyebrows and giving Zoro a strange look before he visibly drops that line of thinking and changes the subject. “It’s time to make lunch. Say bye to Mr. Zoro and come wash your hands.”

“Okay! Bye Mr. Zoro!” The kid waves, even though he’s only a few feet away, and Zoro finds himself mirroring the motion dumbly. “We’re making fish stew!”

“Sounds… great.”

The kid scampers off to the galley. Zoro watches him on the stairs until he reaches the top and steps away from them before he switches his gaze back to Sanji. The cook’s looking at him with a mild expression. He says nothing to him before he shuts the door of the galley behind him.

He didn’t snarl, though. Or act overly stressed by Zoro being alone with his kid. It’s progress.

He groans and flops back onto the deck. Such a tiny bit of progress.

--

At this point, Sanji doesn’t care what’s on Little Garden as long as it’s edible.

They’re not in trouble yet – he’s done the math thrice and they can make it quite a while if they’re careful, but he’s still adjusting his cooking to Luffy’s appetite. The kid can eat – and any attempts to cut his eating down at all seem to result in increased lethargy. Not that Sanji’s been experimenting on Luffy. Or, well, not much. But he needs to know their limits, and Luffy can eat twenty pounds of meat by himself on a regular day.

He can get protein into the others just fine by other means, but he’s already mentally rearranging the freezer to accommodate more meat and planning ways to incorporate smoked and salted meat that’ll keep on the voyage to keep Luffy sated. The fishing they do helps, but at present, he’s low on meat. It’s been weeks since they supplied in Loguetown, and Whisky Peak had no food to spare, so by the time Little Garden comes into sight on the horizon, he’s determined to restock their meat supply one way or another.

Nobody will go hungry in his care.

He’s being tetchy again, but everyone’s been polite about it. Luckily nobody’s asked him why he’s spending so much time obsessing about the pantry. He’s not really up for gathering the crew for another round of story time – starvation issues edition. Sora just rolls his eyes when he thinks Sanji’s not looking and goes to bug the rest of the crew. At least this particular neurosis is dismissed as “Dad’s being boring again” and not anything worse.

Thus, when they pull their ship into the island proper through the river, and a tiger as big as a house leaps by them, Sanji’s seeing stars.

“Do you think all of the animals here are this big?”

Usopp and Nami look like they’re about to faint. Zoro looks stoic, and Vivi’s grasping for the same stoicism and failing, but Luffy and Sora are both sparkling with excitement as well.

“Adventure!” Luffy cries out.

“Food!” Sanji says.

“Food!” Sora echoes.

“What kind of food are we talking, Cook?” the swordsman asks.

He seems… earnest. Sanji opts to indulge him. “Well, we’re critically low on meat, so any big game we can find will help. Edible vegetation and fruits wouldn’t go amiss either. I don’t know how long it’ll be to the next island, so anything we find will help.”

The swordsman nods seriously and turns to scan the jungle. Sanji himself gets roped into preparing “pirate bentos” for everyone. There’s a strange mixture of excitement and dread on the ship as the two more cowardly crewmates flinch at every noise and the rest of them look out at the dense jungle with a feeling of anticipation.

“We’re going exploring,” Luffy announces as he grabs both Vivi and his bento. “See you guys later!”

Sanji waves him off and turns back to where he’s fiddling with Sora’s hat and backpack.

“You’re taking your kid out there?”

Sanji turns and gives the swordsman an unimpressed stare. “Yes? We need food, and I can handle a forest full of animals.”

The swordsman runs a nervous hand through his hair. His face is flushed, and he looks like he can’t quite meet Sanji’s eye. “I could do it.”

“…Do what, Mossball?”

“Meat.” He rubs the back of his neck and looks out over the jungle. “I can find some animals. Bring them back. For meat. For you.”

Oh. Oh hell no. He suddenly sees this for what it is. Mossy’s gotten a whiff of him when he was vulnerable and gotten all riled up in his alpha-ness and instead of being a creep about it, he’s getting soft. He’s looking at Sanji and seeing some weak little omega that’s going to gush all over him for bringing food home like a caveman. His stupid instincts are probably already planning on how Sanji’s going to coddle his ego and tell him what a good boy he is and stay at home with the baby and let big strong Zoro do all the work. Fuck that. Fuck him. Sanji pulls his lips away from his teeth in a sneer.

“I don’t need your help, Mosshead. I’m perfectly capable of catching food myself. Besides, I bet any game I find will be twice as big as anything you could take down.”

The swordsman’s head whips around, and he stares at Sanji aghast for a second before a scowl takes his big stupid forehead over. “I’m offering to be nice. You don’t have to be a dick about it.”

“Still don’t need it. If you don’t mind, Sora and I have some meat to catch.”

“Yeah? Well – I bet I can find twice as much meat as you can!”

“You sure about that, Mossy?”

Sora’s head is whipping back and forth between them during this exchange. He huffs and stomps his foot, clearly finished with the posturing. “Dad, can we go now?”

Sanji’s back to all smiles. “Sure thing, sweetheart. We’re gonna go catch twice as much meat as Marimo here, and we’re going to cook Luffy a big feast when we do.”

He scoops Sora up and hops down to shore. He hears low, frustrated muttering from the railing before the swordsman also jumps down to land beside him.

“Can I come with you at least?” The swordsman cuts him off before he can reply, “I’m not being weird about it, Curly – I know you can take care of yourself. It’s just more efficient than splitting up.”

Curly? Ugh, payback for all the moss comments. He huffs. “Fine. You can tag along for now. C’mon, Sora. Let’s see what we can find.”

Begrudgingly, he must admit that the swordsman’s not bad to travel with. He knows how to keep his mouth shut and not scare all the game away, at least. Sora’s content, too, more concerned with looking at cool rocks and bugs as they walk than seriously hunting. For all he was just complaining to himself about the swordsman being weird about it, the whole arrangement is nearly domestic. It’s unsettling how fucking quaint it is. Sanji shakes his head and focuses on keeping his ears out for animals and his eyes peeled for familiar fruits or vegetables. The jungle’s foliage is strange, and he’s having a hard time identifying edible plants at a glance.

He and Zoro freeze at the same time when there’s a rumbling of the earth, and suddenly an honest-to-god dinosaur charges out of the forest, hell-bent on snapping Sanji in his jaws.

Sanji’s moving faster than he can think, dashing ahead of Sora and Zoro to feint into the creatures reach. It’s too slow to correct itself before he’s moving again, shoving all his force into an upward collier shoot that shatters the beast’s jawbone and sends it staggering backwards before falling limply to the jungle floor. He takes a step backwards, but it’s on its feet again before he can finish it off. It tries again to bite him, but he leaps upwards and kicks down with all of his strength, driving its head into the earth. He waits a moment, but it doesn’t do more than twitch in death spasms.

“Was that a dinosaur?”

He tosses his head to flick his bangs back into place. When he turns back, Sora’s looking at him like he’s a superhero, and the swordsman hardly looks much better. He’s got the same dumb look on his face he’d had back in Arlong Park, only now he can’t use blood loss to justify it. It’s just as unsettling now as it was then.

“Dad, you just killed a dinosaur!”

“I did. Wonder how it tastes.” He casually saunters back over to them. The grin he grants the swordsman is wicked. “Pretty big and meaty, too. Bet it’ll feed us for a while.”

Zoro flicks his eyes to the dinosaur and back to Sanji. The dopey look on his face turns into something sharper. His own grin is just as predatory as Sanji’s. “Pretty good, Cook, but I know I can do better.”

“Really? Better than a freaking dinosaur?”

“I’ll bring back something twice as big,” he boasts.

“Twice as big as that?” Sora looks between the dinosaur and Zoro, awed. “No way!”

“Wanna bet on it, Mossball?”

“No need. I know I’ll find something that’ll blow your little lizard out of the water.”

“Cocky bastard…” Still, if it does end up getting them more food… “You’re on. Bring back something with more kilos of meat, and you win. But when I win, you’re going to have to wash all the laundry in the bunkroom.”

He snorts. “Yeah, right. Well, when I win, you’re gonna spar with me.”

Ah. Well, he’s not expecting Mossy to actually win, but of all the weird prizes he could have chosen, he should probably have figured that was what he’d go for.

“It’s a deal, Mossball. Run along now. We’re taking this thing back to the ship.”

“Yeah, yeah…” The swordsman steps down the path without a backwards glance.

“Right,” Sanji says. “Come on, Sora. Let’s get this thing back to the Merry and head back out to look for vegetables.”

“Coming, Dad!”

He grabs the creature’s tail and starts dragging it. So far, not a bad trip, this island. Even with this one dinosaur, they’re much closer to restocking their meat supplies sufficiently. Now that he’s tricked the Mossman into bringing back even more… It’s nothing but a win, really. Even in the off chance that he does bring back something bigger, the idiot had used his win to request a spar of all things. Getting a pantry full of meat and the opportunity to kick the swordsman’s head in? His birthday must’ve come early this year.

--

“What… the fuck?”

He was having a good day. He’d hunted a dinosaur for meat. Sora’d seen some cool rocks and animals and stuff. He’d already planned the dinosaur barbecue he was going to make with all the meat, and everyone was going to be so excited and well-fed, and it would have been the perfect day.

Meanwhile…

“Seriously. Why the wax?” He looks around more and pales when he sees Nami standing in the open, exposed, her shirt mysteriously gone and her bra out for everyone to see. He scrambles to shuck off his jacket and cover her. “Nami! Are you alright, my dear, did someone try to hurt you? Where are they, I’ll feed them their teeth.” Nobody else seems that bothered, but his brain’s already tripping into a murderous panic because why is her shirt gone and how could there be an innocent explanation? Someone’s going to die.

Nami puts her hand on his arm and quiets him. “I’m okay, Sanji. My shirt got destroyed in the fight. Thanks for the jacket.”

He squints at her. “No shit?”

“No shit. I’m fine.”

He finally looks around some more. The air in this area has a gross quality to it, sticky almost. The whole crew looks worse for wear, not even mentioning the literal giants behind them. He was only gone for a few hours. How did they manage this?

“You’ll have to tell me everything later,” he says, taking a seat on a rock and nudging Sora to sit beside him. “I’ve just talked to Mr. 0 on a transponder snail.”

“You spoke to the boss?!” Vivi looks like she’s going to faint.

He nods. “Yeah, there was this weird hideout –“

“It was a wax house!” Sora cuts in.

“ – and there was a transponder snail there that was ringing, so I answered it and pretended to be Mr. 3. I lied to him and told him that we were all eliminated, and he no longer needs to send anyone to chase us.”

“And there was this bird and this rat,” Sora speaks so fast he can’t quite keep up with his need to breathe, “And there was a gun like BANG! BANG! BANG! real fast! And Dad was like ‘don’t shoot at my kid!’ and then he was like POW! And he kicked them so fast I couldn’t see his feet move and it was SO COOL!”

Sanji rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed, but Luffy seems enchanted by the story. Usopp groans.

“They’re not chasing us anymore, but we’re still stuck here!”

“That’s the other thing,” Sanji says, and he can’t fight his proud grin when he pulls the Eternal Pose to Alabasta out of his jacket. “We found this.”

The crew erupts in shouts and whoops of joy. Sanji sits back and basks in the moment. They’re all readying to head back to the ship when he glances over at Zoro and cuts off mid-sentence.

“Oi! What the hell, Mossball?”

The swordsman, who was starting to walk in the wrong direction, stops his limping stride to raise an eyebrow. “Yeah? What? I didn’t forget our bet.”

“I don’t care about that! Why are your feet covered in blood?”

His boots are soaked in it, and through the slices in his pants, Sanji can see deep wounds that gape and flex as he walks. It turns his stomach. How the fuck is he walking on those?

“It’s nothing, Cook.”

“Nothing? You call that nothing? Luffy!”

The captain bounds over. “Sanji?”

Sanji makes a sweeping gesture at Zoro. “Carry this idiot back to the ship before his feet fall off!”

“Shishishi, Zoro tried to cut his feet off.”

“He what?!”

“Can it, Luffy! I’m fine,” he says, more calmly, to Sanji, “it’s not as bad as it looks.”

“Looks pretty fucking bad, Mossball. Luffy…”

“Gotcha!” Luffy scoops Zoro up before he can do more than protest and runs off with him into the jungle. Sanji follows the sounds of leaves crashing and the swordsman cursing, shaking his head. Sora comes back to him and takes his hand.

“Are Mr. Zoro’s feet really gonna fall off?”

“I hope not. I’ve never seen a swordsman with no feet before, much less the world’s greatest.”

“Jiji’s only got one leg.”

Sanji snorts. Kids are so weird when they’re trying to contextualize things. “Yeah, but Jiji didn’t cut his own leg off with a sword.”

No, he just hacked at it with a small bootknife in between passing out from the pain and then he ate it. Nope. Not a kid-friendly story. Besides, eating your leg out of desperation is a lot different than trying to mutilate yourself so you can fight somebody. Idiot swordsman.

The bigger problem arises when they make it back to the ship, and Sanji’s forced to recognize that he probably has the most practical first aid experience of anyone here.

“You’re not secretly a doctor?” he asks Karoo, only half-joking.

The duck looks panicked and shakes its head.

“Right. Animal doctor would be ridiculous.” He looks around the ship again, but damn… there really isn’t anyone else. “Fuck. Okay, Luffy, put Zoro in the galley on the table. Nami, can you keep Sora away? It’s not something he needs to see.”

Nami gives him a look. “You going to be okay in there?”

“Fuck no, I’m probably going to throw up.” He gives her a wry smile. “It’s fine. I’m getting used to him. Just take care of Sora for me.”

“I’m fine,” Zoro insists as he passes by, manhandled up to the galley by Luffy’s restricting rubber limbs. “It’ll heal on its own.”

“Shut your stupid mouth and get on the table,” Sanji snaps.

Zoro’s mouth clacks shut, and he turns pink for some reason, but he lets Luffy drag him inside. Sanji takes a minute to quietly freak out before he digs out the heavy duty first aid kit and marches into the galley.

“Thanks, Luffy. I’ve got it from here,” he says with a smile. Once the captain’s gone, he slams the galley door shut and scowls at Zoro. “Boots off, lie on your front. I don’t want to hear any complaining.”

Miraculously, Zoro does as he’s told, still flushed. Probably embarrassed by the sheer, incomprehensible idiocy he’s displayed by trying to cut his own feet off. Sanji shucks his jacket and rolls his sleeves up. He’s so not qualified for this. He figures scrubbing his hands and arms is a good first step.

“You know first aid?”

Sanji spares the swordsman a glance. “Not exactly.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means I’m basically a novice here.” He dries his hands with a clean towel and comes over to assess the damage. “I know how to perform the Heimlich on adults and babies, I can do basic child CPR, and I’ve tended childhood illnesses and bumps and scrapes. This… This is out of my wheelhouse.”

Zoro’s looking at him again, lying casually on the table with his chin propped on his crossed arms. He makes a weird face. “I’m serious, Cook, you don’t have to do this. I’ll be okay.”

“You really won’t be. It’s… the slices are neat, but they’re deep. When you walk, I can see…” He trails off, poking tentatively at the wounds. Oh, God, he can definitely see tendons. He’s gonna be sick. “Fuck, Marimo, this isn’t good. I’ll do my best, but you need a real doctor.”

Okay. Cleaning. Clean the wounds, first. He’s got a bottle of saline – unfortunately just one – and it’s probably not enough to flush both wounds properly, but it’s better than nothing. It won’t do Zoro any good if he sews dirt and dinosaur shit into the wounds or whatever. Fuck. He turns away and flicks the kettle on. Boiled water will have to do – maybe he can add some salt or something.

“Okay, I’m rinsing them out.”

He shoves a towel under his legs and braces himself before he starts pouring the saline into the wounds. Oh, it’s gross. Blood and water start spilling all over. He’s going to have to bleach everything twice before he can serve dinner in here again. The swordsman doesn’t even twitch. He finishes pouring the whole bottle out and tosses it away. Now, the really scary part.

He’s never sewn human flesh before. He’s mended clothes. He made an unfortunate and lumpy ragdoll for Sora once. This – this is nothing like that. Fuck, it looks like the tendons were partially cut into and he doesn’t have a clue what to do about that. Does he do something about that? No, definitely not. He’ll fuck it up even worse. He just knows it. He pulls the curved needle out of the kit and stares at it for a long time before he finally threads it. Wait, something Zeff had said once… He pulls his lighter out and passes the flame over the needle a few times, unsure if this is right or if he’s just making things up now. Needle ready, he finally looks back down at the ghastly wound on Zoro’s leg. He’s gonna be sick.

He drops the needle back into the first aid kit and makes a dash for the sink. He’s not sure how long he spends retching before he finally straightens back up, sweaty and flushed and embarrassed. When he turns around, Zoro’s sitting up, looking concerned.

“Cook –“

“I can do it. It’s fine.” He’d be more convincing if his voice wasn’t hoarse from losing the last little bit of his lunch. “Lie back down.”

Zoro gives him a wary stare. “Seriously, you look like shit. I can just wrap these up.”

“That’s not going to work. I have to sew you up or it’ll just keep reopening. I can do it. Lie back down.”

Zoro does as he’s told, thankfully. Sanji scrubs his hands again and goes back to the table with a more determined demeanor. No excuses. He’s getting this done.

He doesn’t give himself time to second guess. “Starting now,” he says. Then he takes a breath and pushes the needle in.

It’s weird. Zoro holds himself rigidly still, the only tell betraying how much pain he’s in being the minute twitches of his shoulders and neck and the occasional bitten off grunt. Sanji zeroes his focus in on the stitches, slowly gaining confidence as he goes along. It’s weird to sew into skin and flesh on a warm body that’s twitching under his hands, and it really is nothing like sewing cloth, but he’s proud of his work. His stitches are neat and even, if not pretty. It’s going to scar. He finishes one leg and goes to the next, moving more fluidly and confidently. Once the wounds are closed, he takes the warm boiled water and gently wipes the area down.

“This is going to sting,” he warns Zoro.

“Just get it over with,” the swordsman mutters into his arms. He’s buried his face so Sanji can’t see it.

Warning given, he takes another cloth and soaks it in iodine before he rubs it all over the wound area. Zoro does jump and twitch, then, but he settles back down onto the table with a hiss.

“Just wrapping it up,” Sanji assures him.

He neatly bandages the whole thing. Finally done, he collapses into a nearby chair.

There’s silence in the galley for a few blessed minutes.

“We really need a doctor,” Sanji says into the quiet. “I don’t want to do this again.”

Zoro doesn’t answer at first. He lifts his head from his arms and looks at Sanji again. His expression is soft, for all his face is drenched in sweat. Painfully sincere, he says, “Thank you for doing this.”

Sanji looks away. This whole thing has been overwhelming. Embarrassing. Terrifying. He crosses his arms over his chest before he remembers himself and straightens up. No weakness. He’s gotta man up. He stands instead and gives the swordsman a weak smile.

“You’ll be alright now, Mossball. I, however, have to get that meat butchered before it spoils. You did good, though.” Absently, he pats the top of Zoro’s head as he walks past, muttering, “Good boy,” out loud before his brain catches up with him and reminds him that this is Zoro the alpha Pirate Hunter and not his kid he’s talking to. Mortified, he shares a panicked stare with Zoro before he takes the low road and decides to not address that at all, grabbing his rolled up knives and running off out of the galley before the day can get any more embarrassing.

--

“Good boy.”

Zoro groans aloud and rolls back over on the deck. Fuck, he can’t stop thinking about it. He’s lying on the upper deck, trying to stay off his feet, and also watching with genuine interest as Sanji goes about butchering the two dinosaurs they’d gotten into usable cuts of meat. It’s a different kind of knife work than he usually sees in the vegetable prep, and it’s not knifework like fighting, either. Instead, it’s methodical and precise. He wonders who trained him to butcher things with such precision.

“Good boy.”

Fuuuuck, he can’t stop thinking about it.

Zoro considers himself, sexually, a pretty tame guy. He likes men – but he’s never been picky about if they’re alpha, beta, or omega. The junk’s not really the important part. He just likes guys with a little muscle and he’ll have a quick romp with a willing dude and not get too hung up on kinks or anything elaborate. Therefore, it took him completely by surprise when Sanji had turned to him with irritation and ordered him to shut up and get on the table with complete confidence that he would do just that – and injuries or not, Zoro’s dick had twitched in interest. Where the fuck had that come from? And then, after the excruciating and awkward experience of having Sanji sew his legs up, the omega had brushed a gentle hand through his hair and called him “good boy,” and suddenly the pain was forgotten, and he was halfway to hard on the fucking dining table.

It doesn’t mean anything. The cook was just working on muscle memory. He’s probably called Sora a good boy a million times – and now Zoro’s the freak making it into some kind of kink. It’s weird. Too weird. He needs to forget about it.

He rolls back over onto his front and peers through the railing at where Sanji’s finishing the first beast. He looks lovely in the late afternoon sunlight, a long leather apron protecting his clothes and little smears of blood on his exposed forearms. He seems content to ignore his audience, though he definitely knows he’s up here creeping on him. More progress, he guesses.

Boots on the deck nearby. He rolls over onto his side to look up. He’s not surprised it’s Sora peering down at him critically.

“Hi, kid,” he says.

“Hi, Mr. Zoro.” The kid looks down at his bandaged ankles and back up at him. He pinches his lips together. “Mr. Zoro, you forgot the knife rules.”

“I didn’t forget…”

He never thought he’d end up here, shrinking under the disappointed, judgmental frown of a five-year-old.

“You did! You told me your sword’s job was protecting people, and then you cut your feet. That’s not the rules!”

He scrambles to justify himself, but his mind is blanking on anything to say that’ll make disappointed frown disappear. “Well, I was trying to get out of the wax so I could protect Nami and Vivi.”

Sora shakes his head. “Swords are not toys. You need to be more careful.”

It’s like talking to a mini-Sanji. He’s not going to win this argument. He sighs and rolls onto his belly again.

“Fine. I was wrong and I forgot the knife rules.”

Sora plops to sit next to him. He doesn’t look at the kid’s face, but his voice is mollified. “Good. It’s important. You gotta be safe.”

“Alright. I’ll be more careful.”

“Good.” There’s a beat of silence while they watch the cook work on his butchering on the shore below. Finally, the kid pokes his leg on the calf above the bandages. “Does it hurt?”

“Yeah. It hurts.”

“Did Dad kiss it better?”

Zoro splutters, flipping back over to stare, blushing furiously, at the kid, who’s just staring at him innocently and waiting for an answer.
“Uh, no. No kissing.”

Sora frowns. “Oh. Dad always kisses my bandages better. He says it makes them get better fast. Like when I was running on the deck on Baratie and I slipped cause it was wet and Dad was so mad because he told me not to run, but I did it anyway. My knee hurt a lot. A lot of blood came out, but Dad put a bandage on it and gave me a kiss and it got better super fast.”

Zoro… feels a bit of a pang. He doesn’t like to dwell on the past – he’s a present kind of guy, not one for dwelling – but sometimes… Sometimes he looks at Sora and it’s too damn hard not to remember what it was like to be little like him. He didn’t have a parent like that. He didn’t have anybody. Even when Sensei took him in, he never got bandage kisses and bubble baths. He’s not begrudging the kid the experience. Fuck no. But still… a littler Zoro would have liked to have that.

Older, hopefully wiser Zoro says aloud, “Well, your dad does that for you because he loves you. But it’s okay. He did a really good job fixing my legs. They’re gonna get better really fast, too.”

The kid nods and they sit for a spell. Finally, the kid hops up and runs off to find the duck again and probably talk Vivi’s ear off asking questions about the ducks in Alabasta. Zoro finds his eyes closing, and he dozes lightly in his patch of sunlight, listening to the sounds of the crew nearby and the occasional meaty thud of dinosaur being tossed onto the tarp.

He must slip into a deeper sleep at some point, because the nearby tapping of leather shoes on the deck startles him awake, and he’s upright and grabbing for Wado before he’s fully registered that it’s Sanji walking towards him.

If the cook’s offended by his grab for his swords, he doesn’t say anything. He’s lost his apron and rolled his sleeves back down, and there’s a fresh cigarette between his teeth. He walks closer and leans against the railing casually, studying Zoro as if he’s a bug under a glass.

“’Sup, Cook?”

The cook lets out a stream of smoke and glances away. His posture’s too casual to be real. He’s working up to something.

“They were about the same.”

Zoro blinks. “What?”

“The dinosaurs.” He takes a drag from his cigarette and looks back at Zoro again. “They were about the same weight. Negligible difference. So either we both won or we both lost.”

Oh. He’d nearly forgotten the bet after the first aid incident. He tilts his head.

“So…?”

The cook busies himself with his cigarette for a minute, playing with it instead of looking at Zoro or speaking. Finally, he says, “I wouldn’t mind sparring. If you still want to.”

Can a heart actually inflate with excitement? Zoro feels like his chest is lighter. “That’s – fuck yeah, Cook, let’s spar right now!”

“Slow down. You’ll pop your fucking feet off and I’m not sewing them back on again.” The cook snorts and walks away. “I’ve got dinner to make, but after you’re better, let’s spar.”

He doesn’t have a witty comeback for that, but for once he’s content to let someone else have the last word. The cook’s letting him spar with him. It’s actually happening. Are they becoming friends? Is Sanji finally relaxing? Zoro’s too excited to go back to sleep, so he lies there on the deck with his heart racing, daydreaming of all the ways he can counter Sanji’s powerful kicks with his swords and get some blows in himself. His damn legs better get better fast.

Chapter Text

They make it a day out of Little Garden before Zoro finds a reason to get back on his feet. Honestly, Sanji should’ve put money on it happening sooner, but he figures the mossy swordsman held off as long as he could.

It still makes him queasy to think about. He’d been trained in butcher shops and taken out on hunting trips in his youth as a chef’s apprentice – he knows blood and meat and flesh intimately. He knows pain and injury, too. He’s not normally squeamish. Something about the gaping, self-inflicted wounds on Zoro’s ankles makes him ill, however. So deep and obviously so painful and speaking of a strange desperation and determination. In the face of that, Sanji had no choice but to try to fix it, though the feeling of knitting the flesh back together seems seared into the memory of his hands. Nobody, after seeing those grisly wounds, would fault Zoro for taking more than twelve hours off his legs to give them time to heal.

This is Zoro, however, and he’s coming to realize that normal human logic doesn’t apply to him.

He’s starting a simply stir fry for lunch when he overhears a strange conversation from the galley.

“Oi, Usopp, is this the one?”

“What – no, Zoro, that’s machine oil. I said the white jug.”

“This is white.”

“No, that’s tan.”

“They’re the same, right?”

“No they’re – ugh, let me just go get it. Why do you need laundry soap anyway?”

“’Cause I’m doing laundry, dumbass.”

The voices walk away from near the galley. Sanji can only raise an eyebrow and glance over to where Sora’s studiously tracing his alphabet so he can declare his schooling done for the day. The kid doesn’t seem like he’s noticed the conversation outside. Probably more focused on finishing his lessons so he can go make trouble with the boys.

He can’t step away from lunch, and he’s not curious enough about the laundry phenomena to investigate, so he shrugs and finishes slicing the vegetables and cranks the heat up on his wok.

“Lunchtime! Nami, Vivi, lunch is prepared, my angels!” He shouts out of the galley door a little while later. “And grub’s ready for the rest of you assholes, too.”

He’s turned away from the door when they start filing in, dishing plates out, and he jumps when he finally looks and sees Zoro, Luffy, and Usopp coming in sopping wet and liberally coated in soap suds.

“What – you – my kitchen!”

“We’re doing laundry!” Luffy exclaims.

“Take those clothes off! You’ll get soap in the food! Son of a – my floors – dry clothes, now!”

“All our clothes are wet,” Luffy says.

“All of them?”

Usopp nods, flicking a wad of bubbles off his forehead with the motion. “All of them! Except what we’re wearing.”

“None of you had any spare clothes?”

The three of them look away, shame faced.

Sanji groans, Quickly, he scoops up three portions and shoves them into the boys’ hands. He pushes them bodily out of the door.

“As much as I admire the initiative you’ve taken, you need to get your soggy asses out of here. Eat on the deck. I don’t want to see you again.”

They go with minimal complaining. Sanji casts a weary glance at Nami and Vivi, who are failing to hide their smiles behind their hands. “What brought this on?”

“Well, Mr. Bushido started collecting the laundry to wash earlier,” Vivi says.

“Then he realized that none of them had anything clean, and the whole room was full of laundry,” Nami finishes. Her grin is wicked. “Zoro dragged all of them down into the hatch and yelled at them until they brought everything up onto the deck, and he’s been making the other two do their portion.”

Well. It’s about time that happened. Sanji hasn’t seen the guys do even a bit of laundry since they’d crossed Reverse Mountain. He shudders to think about how the bunkroom smells. Between Usopp’s coveralls crusted in hot sauce and strange oils, Luffy’s unmentionable jean shorts, and anything that’s touched the sweaty swordsman… He’s incredibly glad that he doesn’t sleep with them. He’d probably garrote one or all of them with one of his neckties before they’ve even made it to Alabasta.

Still, he hides a small, satisfied smile behind a bite of vegetables. Zoro’s made good on his end of the bet, hasn’t he?

--

Nami is…

Nami’s…

Sanji swallows down his panic again and focuses.

Nami’s sick. Not just a mild case of the sniffles. She’s burning up, and once again, Sanji’s the one with the most first aid experience.

They need that fucking doctor.

He doesn’t know enough. She’s the only one sick. Nobody else has gotten any symptoms, but he doesn’t know if that means she’s not contagious. If she’s dangerous to Sora. Sora, who’s not unusually prone to illness for a kid, but he’s still just a kid and his immune system is still growing. Sora, who caught such a bad fever when he was only two that he’d had to have Zeff and Patty sail him to the mainland to bang on Dr. Toshiko’s door in the middle of the night to beg her to help get the fever down and get him to keep fluids down, terrified that after all this, he was going to have to watch his baby die.

The illness might be a little triggering if he’s honest.

“Usopp, I need you to listen to me,” Sanji says. “Luffy, you, too.”

They both come to attention. He’s left Nami in Vivi’s hands back down in the den, but now he paces the galley. Zoro’s keeping an eye on the ship, and Sora’s keeping an eye on Zoro, but here in the galley, Sanji’s slowly unraveling.

“I need you to take care of Sora,” he says, deadly serious. “I need you to keep him out of the den and away from Nami.”

“Do you think it’s contagious?” Of course, it’s Usopp who immediately understands.

“I don’t know. If it is, though, I know we’ll struggle to isolate it. I just want every chance to keep Sora away from it. Vivi and I will try to get the fever down and get her well, but…” He shrugs helplessly.

Luffy reaches a hand out and clasps him on the upper arm. The comforting weight of it makes him feel more grounded and less like he’s spiraling.

“We’ll find a doctor,” Luffy says. “We’ll take care of Sora, too. You take care of Nami. Make her some yummy food so she’ll get better, okay?”

He reaches up and puts his hand over Luffy’s and squeezes. He tries to pour all of his anxiety and gratitude for Luffy’s support into that gesture, and he thinks he gets it. Emboldened, he straightens up.

“Okay. I’ll toss some of Sora’s things through the hatch into the bunkroom. Clothes and blankets. He’s probably going to whine, but…”

“It’ll be okay,” Luffy says.

He wants to believe it. He nods, and he lets the two of them leave. He gets started with what he can do. A light, brothy soup and some watered-down juice for Nami. Something a little heartier for the healthy crew members, too. He’ll do what he can. He’s got some fever-reducing drugs and cold packs and… He’ll just do what he can.

--

Nami keeps getting worse.

--

“We need a doctor,” Sanji says to Luffy.

He’s running ragged. He’s barely sleeping. Vivi sleeps on the bed beside Nami, and he catches an hour or two here and there in his nest, but he can hear Sora’s muffled whining and questions through the wall between the two sleeping rooms, and his guilt is killing him. He can’t fix any of this.

“We’re going to find one. We will. You’re doing good, Sanji.”

Is he?

--

Luffy curls around Sora, pulling him closer to him on their hammock. The nights are getting colder, and the little kid snuggles deeper into Luffy’s chest on instinct, sighing in his sleep. It’s been getting easier to get him to sleep as the days pass. He still whines for Sanji and asks to go back to his nest, but he’s getting used to it.

Luffy feels a surge of protectiveness for his smallest crew member. Sora’s been struggling. He wants his dad, and he wants Nami. He doesn’t really understand why they can’t play with him. Luffy himself thinks that it’s probably okay, but he knows already that Sanji’s not ready to believe that. He’s putting his everything into helping Nami. If he has to worry about Sora, too, he’s going to break.

He really does have the best crew. It’s little, but… He sighs and nuzzles Sora’s hair. Zoro’s working day and night to keep them on course to find an island. Usopp helps with that, too, and with keeping Sora busy and not letting him worry too much about his dad. Sanji and Vivi have barely left Nami’s side. It makes Luffy feel warm and determined to fix this. His crew’s so strong and so full of love – just like he’s always wanted. He’ll be the best captain he can be and get them somewhere where a doctor can fix Nami and everything can go back to normal again.

For now, though, the littlest crewmember is cold and lonely, so Luffy does what he can to help.

--

They’re still reeling a bit from the weirdo who’d tried to eat their ship when they weigh anchor at the winter island.

Sanji’s too distraught to care about how hostile the locals are or any of their problems, at least until he hears that they’ve managed to land on the only island in the godforsaken Grand Line that doesn’t have any doctors. How could their luck be this shitty?

“Doctor Kureha’s your only chance,” Dalton says to them. “She’s up on the top of that cliff in the old castle. It’s a suicide mission, though.”

Luffy looks at Nami, and Sanji looks at Luffy. She’s not getting better. Suicide mission or not, choosing not to try is an act of murder by negligence. Luffy looks back at Sanji. He opens his mouth, but –

“I’ll go,” Zoro says. He steps forward, pink-cheeked from the cold. He looks Luffy directly in the eye. “You carry Nami, and I will clear the path. We’ll get her to the doctor.”

Sanji wants to protest, wants to remind them that Nami’s life’s been in his hands this whole time, that she’s his responsibility, but Luffy’s hand comes down and rests on the top of his head before he can speak. Stunned, he can only look deep into his captain’s serious eyes, such a dark brown that they look black in the winter sunlight.

“Zoro will go,” he says, “Sanji will stay here and watch the ship. It’s okay. You’ve done a good job. Sanji can rest.”

Sanji’s –

He’s –

For an insane, impossible moment, he thinks maybe he’s in love with Luffy. Possessed by some wild energy, he thinks about surging forward and burying himself into the captain’s arms and crashing their lips together. Maybe then he’d find some outlet for the strange, impossible feeling his words have sparked in his chest. He’s enough. He’s done enough. He’s done good.

Not a failure.

The moment passes as quickly as it comes – just a spark of madness. Still, he’s powerless to resist at least some of his baser instincts, and he’s stepped forward before he can think better of it to nuzzle his face against Luffy’s. He can be embarrassed later.

Luffy doesn’t ruin the moment by asking questions. He just nuzzles back, sliding the hand on Sanji’s crown down to press against the back of his neck. It’s so frighteningly close to being scruffed, but – this is Luffy. He relaxes and finally lets some of the tension of the last week ease from his shoulders. Luffy smells like salt and sea and Luffy. Sanji drinks it in for a long moment before he pulls away. Luffy stares at him for a long moment as if assessing how well he is before his face splits into a grin.

“It’s gonna be fine,” he says confidently. “Me and Zoro will get Nami to the doctor no problem.”

He wants desperately to believe. He glances at Zoro. The swordsman gives him a nod, solemn. Nami’s in good hands. He can relax.

He steps back. He reaches blindly and takes Sora’s mittened hand in his, and he watches, filled with faith and worry and aching care as the trio disappear into the snowy landscape. They’ll make it. They’ll be okay. He has to believe.

--

East Blue never gets cold like this. Winters tend to be wet more than anything, rainy and cold, but not this bitter wind that feels like it’s biting right through his coat and into his skin.

He’ll call it training. Zoro’s already removed his earrings and stashed them in a pocket for safekeeping. His hands are cold even with gloves, and he’s regretting the fact that he doesn’t have a hat. Still, he needs to accustom himself to this. They’ll surely run into more winter islands in the Grand Line, and he’ll be a shit swordsman if he shuts down and can’t grip his sword because of a little bad weather.

He glances behind him to where Luffy’s carrying Nami. No change there. Luffy gives him a nod and they continue.

He’s not sure what he’s feeling beyond the cold. The past week has been a haze. They rely too much on Nami’s navigation to feel secure without her, and the tension on the ship has been thick enough to cut with a knife. He’s left the cook alone entirely, because every time he’s seen him he’s looked like a wire about to snap. He’d still cooked them delicious meals and made extra sick-people food for Nami to try to tempt her to eat, but it’s obvious that he hasn’t been sleeping and his worry for Nami is beyond what any of them are feeling. Not that they don’t care about her, but the cook seems to be taking it personally.

They really do need a doctor. Not just for Nami, and not just to heal their wounds – the cook already does so much for the crew that adding the weight of tending their injuries is killing him. He glances at Luffy again. It had felt strange to watch Sanji nuzzle Luffy. Like he should probably be jealous – if only Sanji sought comfort from him like that! – but instead of that he’d felt at peace. Like watching Luffy calm their cook was the most natural thing in the world.

This isn’t about him, though.

He slows his pace to fall back until he’s walking beside Luffy. He leans over to peer at Nami, but he sure as hell isn’t a doctor. Her face is red and sweaty, and her breath sounds wheezy, but he can’t tell you if she’s better or worse than she was an hour ago.

“This way, Zoro,” Luffy says.

He’d started to veer away, but the damn path they’re following keeps moving. He hustles to catch back up. The towering mountain looks so impossibly far away, still. He’s not going to give up now.

“What’s that?”

There’s… a giant bunny in their way.

And soon there’s an entire pack of the damn things.

Training, he reminds himself. Slicing rabbits with his coat restricting his upper body movements is difficult. Adding his loosened sword grip from the gloves and the cold numbing his fingers, and what should have been a simple massacre of rabbits becomes a drawn out battle. Luffy can’t even help, because the risk of getting Nami hurt is too high. Murder bunnies. What next?

“Um, Luffy, why are they doing that?”

The rabbits are jumping up and down, shaking the mountainside. Luffy and Zoro both stare up as a sheet of snow breaks away and falls, a terrifying wave of white building in intensity as it starts sliding down towards them at incredible speed. He’s never seen anything like that before and he doesn’t know what it is, but he knows with an instinctive, animal fear, that they do not want to get caught up in that.

“Run!”

They’re not going to be fast enough. Icy air tears into his lungs as they flee the terrible wave of snow heading for them. The rabbits have all scattered. There has to be somewhere they can go.

There!

One little rocky outcropping that looks tall enough to weather the snow waves. They’re not fast enough running.

The decision isn’t even really a decision.

With a hysterical burst of strength, Zoro grabs Luffy and Nami in his arms and throws them with a guttural roar of effort. He has just enough time to verify that they’ve landed safely before he’s hit with a force that knocks all the air out of him, and he knows nothing else but darkness.

--

Nami is possibly dying, and Sanji’s making a snowman. He’s such an asshole.

“No, Dad, bigger!”

What is he supposed to be doing, though?

Sora is stupidly cute bundled up in his thick coat and pants and scarf and warm hat with a pom-pom on top. The Baratie never saw snow – just the occasional miserable sleet in the winter – so this is Sora’s first time experiencing it. He’s overjoyed by the abundance of snow to play with, and he’s dragged a bunch of local children into teaching him snow games to play. Sanji’s somehow gotten roped into building up the base of their snowman for them, though he’d luckily skipped out on the snowball fight.

The worry and guilt linger. How far have they made it? The snowfall’s getting more intense, and if they stay out past nightfall in this, they’re as good as dead.

“Sanji!” Usopp comes running from Dalton’s house, panting. “Sanji, we have a problem!”

He straightens, snowman abandoned. “What?”

“The doctor – someone just came – she’s in the next town!”

Sanji’s blood runs cold. “She’s not even in the castle?”

Usopp shakes his head. “No. We’ve got to get to her right away and tell her to go back to the castle!”

He’s right. Luffy and Zoro are monsters – they’re probably almost to the castle right now. Their best bet is getting the doctor to meet them back there.

Dalton and Vivi drive up in a sleigh. Vivi leans out. “Karoo’s guarding the ship. Are you and Sora coming? We’re going to look for the doctor in Cocoaweed.”

He doesn’t want to split them up more than they already are. He hoists Sora up. “Say goodbye to your friends – we’ve got to go now.”

“Bye! Thanks for playing with me!”

A chorus of children’s goodbyes follow them onto the sledge. Vivi sits beside them and tucks a lap blanket around the three of them as Dalton gets the sleigh going again. Usopp leans around to talk to Dalton as they go.

Sanji listens without interrupting. A tyrannical king. Controlling the people through controlling their access to medical care. Despots and tyranny and mutiny. He grits his teeth. Typical, really. He’s bowed to no king since coming to East Blue, but he’d hoped that maybe the rest of the nobility was better than Germa in some regard. Vivi had given him a little light of hope, but it’s all just the same. Just assholes throwing their weight around, oppressing anyone too weak to stand up to them. He clenches his fists where they’re hidden underneath the lap blanket.

It’s getting darker and colder and the snowfall’s picking up. He prays to anyone listening that the three of them are okay out there. That Nami’s not shivering and making herself worse. That they haven’t gotten lost. That they’re safe.

He prays they can find the doctor out here and get her to go back and find them. He prays that this hasn’t been for nothing, that the doctor will really help. There’s nothing else he can do.

--

Shanks had told him once about being a captain.

He was really little, so it’s hard to remember exactly what he said, but he’d said something about the captain having to be willing to make the biggest sacrifices for the crew. That if there’s trouble, the captain is in the rear, the last to flee. If they’re running into a fight, the captain’s in the front, leading the charge. That for any hard decision, a smart captain will ask for advice, but the decision comes down to the captain himself, and any consequences that come from his decisions rest on the captain’s shoulders alone.

Zoro never got the memo, he guesses.

If anyone was supposed to make the sacrifice, it’s Luffy, not his first mate. But stupid Zoro had to be cool and save him and Nami from the avalanche and now he’s stuck here, digging bloody fingers into the snow to look for any hint of green where the swordsman went down. He’s not leaving him behind, though his dumb first mate probably thought he was going to do it. As if Nami’s more important than Zoro. Zoro’s his best friend. Zoro’s going to be the best swordsman in the world one day. Luffy can’t be pirate king without him.

A tiny patch of grass springs up from the snow. Not grass – it’s Zoro. Luffy yanks him the rest of the way out. He’s unconscious, and there’s blood sliding down his face from his hair, but he’s alive.

He’s also heavy.

Luffy is the captain. Luffy is the alpha. His crew, his pack, whatever they’re called in name, they belong to him. Carrying Nami and Zoro is what he needs to do, and it doesn’t matter how heavy they are or how cold he is or how tired. There’s no option for leaving anyone behind.

He makes sure Zoro’s still got all three swords and then hefts him up over his shoulder, bumping into Nami but it’s okay. He’s getting them to the doctor. A rumbling growl echoes in his throat and chest, and he turns his eyes to the mountain. They’re making it to the doctor one way or another.

--

“She’s already left.”

Of course the doctor’s not in Cocoaweed anymore. Of course. He didn’t think today could get any worse, but the universe loves kicking him in the teeth when he’s down.

And that’s before Wapol shows back up.

And then the avalanche.

Really, the universe is just fucking with him now.

They’re kind of lost, trudging through the snow. At least they’re together. Usopp and Vivi bicker quietly about directions, and Sanji focuses on putting one foot in front of the other and making sure Sora’s keeping up okay.

“Daddy, I’m tired,” he mumbles.

Sanji kneels down and helps him clamber up onto his back. He usually saves the “daddy” for when he’s tired or if he’s really trying to lay the sweetness on thick. He’s tired, too, but his legs are twice as long as Sora’s, so he can’t imagine how worn out he is. Those little arms wrap around his neck, and he keeps walking.

“Do we even know where we are?” Sanji asks.

Usopp glances back at them and slows his pace until he’s walking beside them. He ruffles the top of Sora’s knitted hat. “We’re not sure, but we should be heading towards something. I think I saw smoke. You okay there, kiddo?”

“Tired. Cold.”

Usopp smiles sadly before his face brightens. “Would a story help? I still haven’t told you about the time me and my pirate army got stranded on an island filled with bananas.”

Sanji snorts quietly and keeps walking, letting Usopp’s chatter fly over his head. Vivi looks back at them and smiles, her face lovely and pink from the cold. It warms him up a little and gives him the strength to keep trudging through the snow.

“Hey, wait,” Usopp says when they finally reach the settlement. “I recognize these buildings.”

“It’s Bighorn!” Vivi looks shocked. It’s the first town they’d come to, the town where Dalton lives. “We somehow circled back around.”

The town’s almost unrecognizable with how damaged it is now. There’s a ruckus up ahead. They slow their pace as they step inside the fringes. Vivi pulls out her peacock blade nervously, and Sanji gently sets Sora down and grabs his hand. They creep further into the town to where a group of citizens are gathered.

“Please! Dalton’s buried!” One of the men cries.

“Let us dig him up!”

“Stay back,” one of the soldiers facing the citizens says. “Nobody’s getting past us.”

“Those were the guys who attacked us on the ship,” Usopp murmurs. They wear the same uniform of Wapol’s men.

“And Dalton’s buried.” Sanji nudges Sora. “Hey, stay with Usopp, got it?”

“What are you going to do?” Usopp asks.

“Kick their asses,” he says simply. “I don’t like their attitudes, and Dalton’s not a bad guy. Vivi, you coming?”

The princess nods, and the two of them break away from the crowd to attack.

They’re not expecting resistance like this, much less from trained fighters instead of a mob of civilians. Sanji kicks the leader and two others down before they can even draw their blades. Vivi’s peacock blade whistles through the air and two more men scream in pain. Sanji dances between them, kicking away swords and knocking soldiers into the snow. It would’ve been over quickly except he hears the leader scrambling to his feet and screaming, “Open fire!”

Fuck, he hates guns.

He tosses his head around wildly to see a small group of soldiers aiming their rifles not at him and Vivi, but at the unruly crowd. One of Usopp’s projectiles knocks one out, and Sanji’s dashing across the snow, and Sora’s in that crowd, and he throws his body into the group of soldiers as the first deafening crack of gunfire echoes out. He makes quick work of crushing the rest of the soldiers while Vivi slices up the rest of her group.

“Sanji!”

Shakily, he presses his hand to his side. His glove is immediately soaked.

“Sanji!” Usopp reaches out, hesitating, “You got shot! Oh my god oh my god we need a doctor!”

“’s fine,” he says, aiming for casual. “Just a… flesh wound. Go look for Dalton.”

Usopp shakes his head. “No, the villagers can do that. You need to sit down.”

He lets himself be led away, a little dizzy with shock. He’s never gotten shot before, and the experience is more than a little uncomfortable. Downright unpleasant. He’s aware he’s not reacting strongly enough yet. He’s probably going to be pissed once he gets his brain unscrambled. Sora appears and latches onto his uninjured side.

“Dad, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He reaches out with his clean glove and pets his head. “I’ll be okay, baby.”

“You’re bleeding…” Sora’s eyes are huge and distressed.

“It’s okay. Usopp’s gonna help.”

Usopp pulls a bandana from somewhere and shoves it into the wound, pressing down even as Sanji bites a groan of pain behind his teeth. It’s probably not as bad as it feels, but it feels like the bullet cracked a couple of ribs as it passed through. Hopefully it did pass through. If it lodged in a rib, he’s gonna be pissed. Stupid Drum Island and stupid Wapol with his stupid 20 MDs and their stupid lack of medical care. He holds Sora’s hand and waits, listening to the frantic digging and shouting of the citizens as they look for Dalton.

All in all, he’s had better days.

--

Zoro wakes up.

That’s nice.

He wasn’t really counting on waking up again.

Figures Luffy would find a way.

He cracks his eyes open. They’re in a room now, not out in the snow, and it’s cozy with a crackling fire and rugs on the floor. He runs a quick assessment of his body – tightness in his ribs (bandaged), aching twinge in his back (worrisome), throbbing head wound (negligible importance), tingling in his fingers and toes (undetermined origin.)

“Hey, you’re awake.”

He rolls over to crane his neck. Nami’s sitting up in another bed, and she gives him a little wave.

“Oh, Nami. You’re alive.”

The witch makes a face. “Really? That’s all you can say to me?”

“Well, you didn’t die, right? Unless we’re both in hell.”

“Why would you assume we’d both go to hell?!” Good to know she’s regained her shrill screeching. “You know what? Forget it. How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.” He might be lying. It might be true, though. He’s not really sure. “You’re cured?”

“She had a tropical bacteria,” a creaky old voice says, and the most provocatively dressed grandma he’s ever seen saunters into the room, swigging a bottle of plum wine. “Found only on prehistoric islands, and impossible to cure without proper treatment. She’s lucky she didn’t die.”

“Oh,” he says dumbly. “Good she didn’t die then.”

“You could try a thank you, young man.” The granny grins at him. “You would’ve died, too, if that captain of yours hadn’t carried you up the mountain like that.”

Oh, shit. “Luffy!”

“He’s around here somewhere,” Nami says.

“Trying to eat my apprentice,” the granny complains before she cackles and takes another swig of wine. “Don’t you think about getting up, either, young man. You broke part of your spine and six ribs trying to withstand an avalanche, plus you tried to knock your brains out on a rock. If you so much as move, I’ll tie you to the bed.”

Zoro rolls his eyes and regrets it when the granny swoops in and jabs her thumb into one of his tender ribs.

“Did you have something to say? Was it ‘thank you, doctor, for saving my life’?”

Zoro grits his teeth. “Thank you for saving my life.”

The granny’s grin is like it came out of a children’s story about wicked witches. He shudders and looks away. His swords rest on the nearby table, all three of them, and he can faintly hear Luffy’s voice echoing from outside the chamber. He glances back at Nami again. She looks better. Still sick, but not like she’s on the verge of death anymore. They did it. They made it. He lies back and slips into a doze.

--

“There was a trolley that goes up the mountain the entire time?!”

Sanji’s with Usopp on this one. They sent Luffy and Nami and Zoro up a mountain in the snow when there was a perfectly usable trolley a few towns over?

He sticks close to Vivi and Usopp uncomfortably. They’ve knotted some makeshift bandages over his wound and gotten the bleeding to slow, but it hurts, and from the way Dalton and the other nearby alphas are sniffing and frowning, he knows he probably smells distressing. Blood and wounded, anxious omega probably creates some cocktail of hormones in the idiots, and he can tell a few of them are on the edge of bringing him things and offering to carry him. He doesn’t want to have to get snappy when they’re probably only trying to help. He’s had a lot of practice denying his instincts, so he shouldn’t hold it against them when they struggle to contain their own alpha caretaking instincts. It doesn’t make him want to kick them any less.

Vivi glances at him and subtly thumbs her scent gland, a little soothing smell wafting to his nose. In answer, he steps a little closer to her, pulling Sora with him.

“Let’s get up the mountain,” Dalton says, ushering them into the cabin of the thing. “Wapol is probably already there.”

They load inside, and it’s a little snug, but definitely better than climbing the mountain on foot. Sora stares out the window, enamored, though he keeps giving Sanji anxious looks like he’s afraid he’s going to keel over. Sanji gives him a reassuring smile. Sora doesn’t look like he believes him.

The ride feels excruciatingly long and dull. He saw smoke up on the mountain earlier. There’s no way to tell what’s going on up there, and if their crew is safe. They don’t even know for sure if they even made it to the doctor’s castle. He tries to tamp down his worries, hissing as he presses his hand more firmly into his side. He pointedly ignores Dalton’s worried look in his direction. Just a flesh wound. No matter what awaits them at the top of the mountain, they’re still going to find the others. They’re going to be safe. He repeats it to himself as if he can will it into being.

They burst out onto the mountaintop, ready to fight. Usopp and Vivi go a few steps ahead of him, weapons ready, but they pause when they find the enemy already defeated. There’s no sign of anyone nearby – just the doors of the castle open to the elements, unconscious lackeys of Wapol’s, and the scuffed evidence of a battle in the snow.

“Hey, you brats…”

One of the townspeople blanches. “It’s Dr. Kureha!”

A shockingly sexy old woman strides confidently out of the castle. She looks over their group through tinted glasses.

“Are you happy?” Her grin is wicked. “Dalton, you fool… You and you! Take Dalton to the medical ward. Anybody else who’s injured, too. Not you.” She points at Sanji before he can move. “You’re coming with me.”

Vivi steps closer to Sanji. “Why?”

The doctor smirks, hardly looking offended by their caution. “So I can treat his injuries. You’ve been shot, haven’t you? I can smell the blood and gunpowder from here.”

Sanji bites his lip. The special treatment makes him nervous, and he clutches Sora’s hand tighter. “Shouldn’t you treat Dalton first? He’s more injured than I am. And why am I going somewhere else?”

“Dalton will be fine,” Dr. Kureha says. “He’s a 300-pound alpha – if he dies from those wounds, he’ll deserve it. You’re coming with me because I don’t make a habit of stripping omegas in a medical ward full of strange men. Now quit your yapping and get a move on.”

He blinks, but follows the doctor, Vivi and Sora trailing behind. Her tone is gruff and condescending, but if she’s being serious, then she’s extending him quite a large branch of kindness. He hadn’t let Usopp get a good look at the wound for just that reason – opening his clothes up in front of others just wasn’t something he was ready to do so casually.

The woman leads them into the icy castle, walking them past the men carrying Dalton and into a room that looks more like the doctor’s personal bedroom than anything else. He subtly tries to scent the place, but the doctor is so old that her personal scent has faded out, and it’s impossible to tell whether she’s another omega or a beta or even an alpha.

“Did Nami and the others make it here?” Vivi asks.

“Your friends are recovering,” the doctor answers. “The girl’s recovering from her illness, and the boys are healing up from their adventure on the mountain. Now, out you two. I need privacy with my patient. You’ll find your friends in the main medical ward.”

Vivi hesitates, waiting for Sanji’s reluctant nod before she ushers Sora away. “C’mon, Sora, let’s go find Nami, yeah? Miss Doctor says she’s getting better.”

“But Dad…”

“I’ll be fine, baby. Dr. Kureha’s just going to give me a proper bandage. I’ll be right behind you.”

Sanji watches Vivi and Sora go with mixed feelings. The whole situation is strange, but his side is throbbing and this woman is supposedly a doctor. He’ll tentatively trust her.

“Take off your coat and your shirt.” She smirks when he hesitates. “Now, now, don’t be prudish. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

That’s beside the point, but… With a sigh and stiff shoulders, he shrugs his clothes off and stands, shivering slightly, in just his trousers and boots. His uncovered wound starts to bleed again sluggishly.

He can feel the doctor’s eyes roving over his body, cataloguing his stretch marks – long gone silver with age – and lingering at his beltline, where his c-section scar is covered by his pants. Her face looks sad.

“How old are you, kid?”

He bristles a little but deflates instantly, defeated. “Nineteen. Sora’s five, before you ask.”

She nods and doesn’t ask any more questions, gesturing for him to sit on the bed. She’s on him in an instant, pressing and feeling on the wound. He grits his teeth and endures.

“Looks like the bullet lodged in one of your ribs,” she says casually. “Tough luck. It was almost a clean in-and-out graze. Don’t you fret. I’ll fix you up.”

He nods and lets her do what she needs to do, spreading a clean sheet under him and directing him to lie down with his injured side propped up for easier access. The clinking of metal instruments is an odd lullaby to the scene.

“Your captain’s set on recruiting my apprentice,” the doctor says casually. She punctuates this by stabbing some forceps into the wound, stealing Sanji’s breath and cutting off any response. “He’s a good kid, but a little inexperienced. I can tell already that your crew will be an interesting challenge for him. I wasn’t expecting his crew to contain an omega and child, but I did train him in pediatric care and gynecology at least in theory. You’ll be in good hands.”

He opens his mouth to respond, but it chokes off into a groan when she digs deeper.

“So, the kid,” the doctor says, businesslike. “Singular incident, or ongoing abuse?”

She stops digging, waiting for a response. It takes him a moment to get his thoughts unscrambled and realize she’s asking about Sora’s conception. His face burns with shame – at both her boldness at just asking, and again at how easy it is to see victimhood on him.

“Singular incident,” he manages to say. “Wrong place, wrong time, sadistic bastard with a fetish for kids.”

The doctor nods and continues her work. “I see. I am sorry that happened to you.”

She somehow manages not to sound condescending or pitying. He swallows a lump in his throat and looks away.

“Quite a challenge for little Chopper,” she mumbles as if to herself. “Still, I suppose he’ll never be a good doctor if he can’t handle a little foray into psychiatry. Boy, have you ever taken medication for your anxiety?”

He startles, both at the sudden question and the renewal of forceps digging under his skin. “No,” he grits out, “My doctor in East Blue wanted me to take them, but I don’t want them.”

“Why? Got something to prove? Aha!” She yanks a lump of metal out of his side and presses a wad of gauze over the wound to catch the newest gush of blood. “I’ve known you for ten minutes, and I can tell you’re absolutely riddled with anxiety. There’s no shame in it, kid. Even if you didn’t live through something terrible, there’s no shame in needing a little help.”

There is every shame in needing help. He pinches his lips together. To be such a failure that he can’t even regulate his own brain chemistry? No, he’s not going to stoop that low.

Dr. Kureha looks less than impressed by his resolve. “Tough guy, huh? Let me make a few guesses – untreated PTSD, extreme anxiety, probably an irregular hormone cycle because of it. Judging by how skinny you are, it’s affecting your appetite, as well. Get a lot of nightmares, do you?”

He pointedly looks away, but he can’t deny her accusations.

“Smoker, too. I can smell it on you. You’re already self-medicating with the nicotine – what’s the harm in trying something a little less likely to send you to an early grave with black lungs, huh?”

She’s waiting for an answer. He chews his lip. He doesn’t really know what to say. He knows what answer she’s looking for, but… “It’s… I don’t want to try it and it doesn’t work.”

The old doctor softens just a little. “Oh, you silly boy. If it doesn’t work, then you try a different one until you find one that does. You’ll be a lot more helpful to that captain of yours if you take care of yourself and stop acting like a skittish horse. Hold still – this is going to hurt.”

With that little warning, she disinfects the wound and gets her suture supplies ready, cheerfully ignoring his groan of pain.

“I’ll think about it,” he hisses out around his clenched teeth.

The old doctor’s grin is wide. “Progress, I guess. I’ll pack a list of suggestions for my apprentice, then.”

Her hands are quick and sure when she sews the wound closed, and it’s done almost as soon as it’s started. She bandages the whole thing up and steps aside so he can pull his clothes – stiffening with dried blood – back on his body.

“You seem like a nice kid,” she says gruffly. “Don’t hold yourself back just because you’re afraid. Now go see your friends.”

He bows his thanks – stiffly because of the wound – and follows the sound of voices through the icy hall until he’s sliding open a door into a warm, bright room.

“Dad!” Sora comes flying at him, and he barely manages to turn his body so he hits his uninjured side before he wraps his little arms around him in a hug. “You’re all better?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” He lifts the hem of his shirt enough so that Sora can see the clean bandage before he lets it drop. Finally, he surveys the room, his eyes lighting on where Nami and Vivi sit together on a bed. Zoro lies flat on another bed. Or… strapped to another bed? He’ll deal with that in a minute. “Nami! My dearest, you are practically glowing with health and beauty now!”

She’s still pale, with dark circles under her eyes and an unhealthy flush, but his flattery does its job of making her smile. “You idiot. Vivi said you got yourself shot.”

“Just a flesh wound,” he assures her. “I’ll be better in no time – faster, even, now that I can see your lovely smile. Where’s our captain?”

Nami rolls her eyes. “The idiot’s been chasing Chopper around the castle ever since he finished kicking Wapol’s ass. I still can’t tell if he’s trying to eat him or if he really wants him on our crew.”

He’s opening his mouth to ask why in all the hells is Luffy trying to eat a person when Zoro pipes up, “Oi, you got shot?”

Sanji turns to the sentient algae that’s taken root on Dr. Kureha’s bed. “I’m fine. What the hell happened to you?”

“Got caught in a snow wave.”

“A what? Do you mean an avalanche?”

“What’s an avalanche?”

“The big giant avalanche that came down the mountain and buried a couple towns. You got caught in it?”

Zoro tries to shrug, which is impossible due to the multitude of leather straps holding him in place. “I guess that, then. The old witch says I broke my back.”

“You what?”

Dr. Kureha’s cackle precedes her into the room. “He’ll be fine. I’ve given him all the treatment he needs. With my treatment, he won’t even become paralyzed.”

She waves them off and goes to start poking at Dalton’s injuries. Sanji steps over and sits on Nami’s bed with the girls, wincing when Sora immediately climbs into his lap to cling to him. He is still wearing blood-soaked clothes, so it makes sense the kid is still anxious. He nudges him over until his face rests beside the scent gland on his neck. Sanji hums quietly and focuses on projecting a calm, content scent for Sora. Slowly, he can feel the kid’s tension leaking out of his body.

“You’re really okay, Dad?”

Sanji hums affirmation. “Mmhm. Promise. I’ll be good as new in no time.”

He catches Vivi and Nami’s scents joining his and he has to blink back sudden tears. Their intermingled scents are soothing and just smell like home. The girls smile at him, and Vivi, who’s closer, pats Sora on the head.

“You were really worried about your dad, huh?” she asks.

Sora nods, nose still buried in Sanji’s neck.

“He’s gonna be okay,” Nami says cheerfully. “And I’m getting better and better, too. And Luffy’s fine. It’s just Zoro over there who can’t move yet.”

Sora straightens up and peers over at Zoro who, still immobile, is staring at the four of them with something incredibly sappy and alpha-coded in his eyes. Probably more dumb caretaker instincts. Sanji rolls his eyes, but not without fondness. Sora wiggles off his lap and goes over to poke at the straps.

“You’re okay, Mr. Zoro?”

The swordsman grins cockily, as if he’s not laid out. “I’m fine. Takes more than a mountain to keep me down.”

“He would have died if Luffy hadn’t saved him,” Nami stage whispers.

“Oi, I would’ve been fine, witch.”

“Keep telling yourself that, buddy.”

--

Dr. Kureha’s apprentice is a reindeer.

Scratch that. Dr. Kureha’s apprentice is adorable.

Tony Tony Chopper looks over at where Sanji and Sora are and recoils, scampering off to hide behind a skinny tree. Sanji shares a look with Sora, and he can tell that they’re both making the same face of delight.

“Oh, wow, there’s two of them,” Usopp comments.

“Pay up,” Nami says, “I told you Chopper would make Sanji’s parent instincts go nuts.”

“Dad, he’s so cute!”

“Yeah,” Sanji says, ignoring the peanut gallery. He’s not a useless sap of an omega – he’s a tough man, dammit! – but Chopper is a child and he is fluffy and on some primal level, Sanji wants to scoop him up and drag him away and take care of him.

“I don’t like that glint in Sanji’s eye,” Usopp says.

“I think he just adopted the reindeer boy,” Vivi says.

Sanji takes Sora’s hand and they both walk slowly over to where Chopper is (badly) hiding behind the tree.

“Come out, Mr. Reindeer,” Sora says sweetly, “We’re not gonna hurt you.”

Chopper peers at them both suspiciously, though he looks interested despite himself.

“Hey, I’m Sanji.” He kneels down so he’s not looming and gestures. “I’m Luffy’s cook. This is Sora. He’s my son.”

Chopper glances between them and mutters something too quiet to hear except the word “eyebrows.”

Sora beams. “Dad and I got the same eyebrows! And you’ve got a blue nose! It’s so cute!”

The reindeer boy falls over at that, looking gobsmacked. “You – You like my nose?”

“I love it!”

“You… don’t think it’s weird?”

Sora shakes his head. “No! You’re a real reindeer?”

“Um… yeah. I ate the Hito Hito no Mi, but I’m a reindeer.”

“That’s awesome! Will you be my friend?”

Chopper’s jaw drops more, and he glances at Sanji as if looking for a joke or a lie. Sanji just smiles and shrugs. The reindeer boy looks back at Sora, who’s beaming with painful earnestness and a sparkling eye.

“I’ve never had a friend before…”

“That’s okay! I don’t have lots of friends, either. But if you join our crew, we can be best friends!”

The poor little reindeer never stood a chance.

--

They’re all still laughing from the adrenaline high of fleeing Kureha’s castle when the sakura snowfall lights up the sky. Sanji beams, watching the beautiful display for a long moment before he disappears into the galley.

Minutes later, he’s ferrying beer and juice and quick, easy snacks out onto the deck.

“New crewmate party!” Luffy shouts.

As seems typical for the Straw Hats, they’re immediately swept up in partying, even as they idly check the rigging and stay the course to head for Alabasta. Sanji keeps the snacks and drinks flowing out of the kitchen, and Chopper hardly has a moment to sit down as Sora drags him all over to point at all the random things around the ship that are of the utmost importance to a five-year-old. Chopper seems overwhelmed, but the lure of his new best friend is too much, and he listens to every word seriously, as if he’s going to be quizzed later. Sanji can’t help but find it endearing, and he waylays the two of them to sit them down with fresh baked cookies and milk so Chopper can have a little break.

“These are really good,” Chopper says, mouthful of cookie and eyes wide.

“Dad’s the best chef on the seas!” Sora shouts, double-fisting cookies and drunk on excitement.

“Damn right I am,” Sanji deadpans. “Eat up, you two.”

Sanji retreats. He’s in a lull where everyone’s got plenty to snack on, and his hands are idle. He jumps when a glass of beer is shoved in his direction.

“Sneaky marimo!” He takes the beer, laughing, good mood too high to let Zoro’s deadpan expression get him down. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” The swordsman gingerly lowers himself to sit on the deck, back pressed against the cabin wall.

“Your back okay?”

“Stiff and a little sore.” Zoro shrugs one-shouldered. “How about you?”

“Eh, I’ve had worse.” Sanji lowers himself down so they’re sitting beside each other, not touching. “So, an avalanche, huh?”

“Tch. Fuckin’ rabbits were cheating.”

There’s a story there, but he doesn’t elaborate. Sanji sips his beer. He roves his gaze over the swordsman, taking in the line of stitches in his hairline and the way he’s still holding himself stiffly.

“I’m fine, Cook. I can feel you fretting.”

Sanji sputters. “I’m not fretting!”

“Mmhm.”

“I’m not. Just curious. Dr. Kureha was really skilled. I was just wondering how she fixed your spine.”

Zoro makes a face. “Ah. She did some kind of surgery. Got an incision back there, now.”

Sanji’s mind flashes back to the scar on his belly, the way it always does when he thinks about surgery. The tenderness and recovery time for that aren’t exactly fond memories. He takes another gulp of beer and frowns.

“So, I’ve got a question.”

“Hm?”

“How does it work? I mean, I heard you say before that scars on your back are shameful or something. Are you, like, dishonored now? Gotta commit seppuku?”

Zoro gives him a look like he’s the one who’s stupid. “Who commits seppuku these days? Crazy cook… Scars from swords are shameful because they imply cowardice. I got this scar saving my friends. I’ll wear it with honor.”

“Oh.” Sanji feels his ears turning pink. “Right.”

“What about you? What’s the story with getting shot?”

Oh, that’s easy. Sanji waves a dismissive hand. “Wapol’s soldiers were getting uppity, and they didn’t like it when Vivi and I started kicking their asses. They thought it’d be a good idea to fire their guns towards where I left Sora and Usopp. Wasn’t a lot of time so I ended up blocking a bullet with my body and then kicking their heads in.”

“Damn, Cook. That’s pretty badass.”

His ears are definitely pink now. “Whatever. Not all of us can try to fight a mountain.”

Zoro’s grin is bright when he glances over at him. “I think the mountain might’ve won this round.”

“Don’t head back for a rematch, moss-for-brains. Speaking of,” a thought occurs to him, “we’re never gonna get that sparring match in if you keep getting hurt.”

Zoro’s grin disappears. “Oh. I thought you’d forgot.”

“Nah, I’m a man of my word. You did your laundry, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

Sanji pulls himself stiffly to his feet and smiles down at the swordsman. “So get better soon so I can kick your ass.”

Zoro peers up at him. “Where are you going?”

He jerks his head over to where Sora and Chopper are slowing down, their little heads bobbing sleepily. “I think it’s bedtime.”

“Here, help me up.”

Sanji takes Zoro’s hand. It’s dry and warm, rough from calluses. He’s never touched Zoro’s hands before, now that he thinks about it. He feels an odd thrill of anxiety and an unnamable nervousness at the feel of them against his own. He lets go as soon as he can and rubs his hands together to get rid of the weird feeling.

Zoro walks past him and reaches down to pat both Sora and Chopper on the tops of their hats. “Oi, bedtime, you two.”

They both mumble sleepy protests, but Chopper doesn’t resist when Zoro scoops him up. Sanji takes a minute to try to process what the hell his heart is doing when he sees the rough and tumble swordsman cradling Chopper in his arms like he’s something precious. Nope, nope, too weird. He steps in and scoops Sora up. Zoro gives him a nod and a small smile. Sanji nods back dumbly and flees – for lack of a more dignified word – from the deck to take Sora down to bed.

“Wanna play with Chopper some more,” Sora complains into his throat.

“You can play tomorrow,” he says. “Chopper’s our crewmate now. You can play with him every day if you want.”

“Good,” Sora mumbles, already nodding off.

“Yeah,” Sanji says, laughing, and presses a kiss to his head. “C’mon, baby, let’s go to bed.”

He leaves the deck and whatever strange, genial conversation he’d just had with Zoro behind.

Chapter Text

The cook’s got to be doing it on purpose.

Zoro shovels another bite of dinner into his mouth and tries not to look at the other side of the table. It’s delicious, as usual, some kind of fish dish with dark green leaves and seasoned rice. He doesn’t know what it’s called, and he doesn’t ask. He can only clutch his fork in his fist and cram his food down, because the cook…

Sora reaches up and tugs on the cook’s shirt as he passes by. The kid looks distressed. “Dad -!”

The cook sets the basket of rolls he was carrying down and leans over to talk to the kid. “What’s wrong?”

The kid lifts a piece of the green leaf thing on his fork. “I don’t think I like this.”

Zoro lifts his head and looks at them directly. The cook’s neurotic about finishing all their food, and this is the first time he’s heard anyone say they don’t like something he’s cooked. He can see the others watching this exchange from the corner of his eye. How’s the cook going to respond?

Apparently by sighing gently and lowering himself to the bench beside Sora to ask him, painfully patiently and loving, “Okay, so it’s a question food. Which part is weird? The look, the smell, texture, or taste?”

Well, that’s not what Zoro expected.

Sora scrunches his face up. “Texture and taste. It’s chewy.”

“Mmhm. It’s kale. It’s a winter green high in fiber,” Sanji says. “The fiber makes it a little tougher than some other vegetables. What’s wrong with the taste?”

“Tastes strong.”

“Bitter? A little iron-y?”

“Yeah.”

The cook smiles and ruffles the kid’s hair. As if the kid’s not complaining about the cook’s precious food.

“I knew it might be a bit much for you. Your tongue’s not as good with bitterness as a grown-up, but remember, I always cook food for a reason. Chopper, do you know why kale is good?”

Zoro’s going to vibrate out of his chair.

The little reindeer looks surprised to be addressed from where he’s sitting at Sora’s other side, but he perks up once he realizes he knows the answer. “Oh! Yeah, kale is loaded with vitamins and minerals. We eat it a lot in Drum – it’s really good for you.”

Sora looks unsure, still. The cook ruffles his hair again. “Chopper’s eating all his kale. I think if we cut yours up a little smaller and you eat it with the fish or the rice, it should be easier to eat. What do you think, Chopper?”

“Y-yeah, you should eat your kale. It’s really nutritious.”

The kid nods, finally. “Okay. I’ll try to eat the kale like Chopper.”

Sanji pets his head as he stands up to go get a knife. “Good boy. All I ask is you be brave.”

Zoro stands up with a loud screeching of wood. The whole crew pauses eating to stare at him. Face bright red, he stammers out, “Excuse me,” and stomps out of the room. He marches out of the galley, down the steps, and up onto the rail before he hurls himself bodily into the sea.

The cold salt water to his face clears his head a little. He swims along and catches onto one of their ladders and starts hauling himself back up onto the ship.

Stupid cook with his stupid gentle smiles. Stupid Chopper being all fluffy and cute and shit. Stupid kid, being the cutest little mini-Sanji with his little curly eyebrow and his ‘question food.’ Fuck, he’s gonna lose it one day and just start hugging the shit out of them and Luffy’ll have to kick his ass to get him to stop but they’re all so fucking cute he’s going to rip his own face off.

He shakes the worst of the sea water off and walks back into the galley and calmly takes his seat again. There’s silence for a beat.

“Um, Zoro…” Usopp begins.

“Finish eating,” he cuts him off. He stabs his remaining fish and shoves the entire piece into his mouth, resolutely chewing.

He’ll mop the sea water off the cook’s floor after dinner. He does not look at the cook or Chopper or Sora, staring at his plate and trying to ignore the way he’s still flushed and Luffy and Nami are both snickering at him and that he can feel the cook’s incredulous stare on him but he’s not looking, he is finishing his food.

--

See, he has to be doing it on purpose, because it keeps happening all the time.

Chopper’s already the cutest little thing Zoro’s ever seen, and he’d been so lonely and homesick when they’d taken him in that he’d ended up bunking with Zoro for the first week, and holding onto his little fluffy body and letting him yammer on about medicinal herbs until he fell asleep made Zoro feel things. And then here’s the cook prancing around being Father of the Year to not only his own kid, but to Chopper, too? It’s completely unfair to have all this domestic cute shit in his face all the time.

He's supposed to be a tough guy, and he keeps getting his meditation distracted by fantasies about doing dad stuff with the kids and having the cook turn those gentle smiles on him.

He’s getting ahead of himself.

Step one, get the cook to even like him.

Step two? Well, succeed at step one, first.

--

There’s no way he’s doing it on purpose, but Zoro’s driving Sanji to distraction.

Chopper’s a complete sweetheart. He settles into the crew so quickly that it’s like he was always part of it. Sora is absolutely in love with his new best friend, and the rest of the crew’s folded him into their lives seamlessly. It makes Sanji’s heart feel full to bursting to watch the shy, skittish little guy who was terrified of humans when he met him turn into such a sweetie, and smart as a whip to boot.

But it’s Zoro who’s making it weird.

Chopper’s imprinted on the mossball like a baby duckling. If Sora’s his best friend, then Zoro’s like his tough older brother or something, and Chopper’s influence is making the swordsman seem soft in a way Sanji’s never seen before. He’s still crude and smelly and has no thoughts in his brain but swords, but he lets the little reindeer boy climb all over him and watch his training and force him to drink more water, and he looks at him with such mushy fondness that it turns Sanji’s stomach. Or something? It definitely makes his insides feel weird.

Really, it’s inexplicable. The Chopper thing he can chalk up to omega instincts gone haywire – he gets a little weird around babies, too, some hormonal stuff is just hardwired in. Cute little kid needs some kindness? Sanji’s there. But Zoro?

Fuck, maybe he’s being an asshole. His sample group of alphas he’s spent significant time around has been pretty limited and skewing towards assholes (Zeff and Patty included in this) so maybe there’s a whole slew of nurturing and kind alphas he’s missed out on growing up. Maybe Zoro’s being totally normal, and Sanji’s the one making it weird.

Fuck, Sanji’s always making it weird. He spent the first two months of their journey acting like Zoro was just waiting for a chance to rape him. It’s a miracle they even get along as well as they do. If he was Zoro, he’d hate Sanji’s guts for thinking so poorly of him.

Fuck it.

Sanji makes sure everything is settled in the kitchen and stomps out onto the deck where Usopp’s mending some fishing net and Zoro’s doing sword drills while Nami is engaging Luffy in some kind of argument by the figurehead. He wrinkles his nose reflexively, because Zoro’s worked up a sweat, and apparently nobody ever taught him how to not spew pheromones everywhere all the time because he’s always so funky with them, but Sanji’s here on a mission. He can’t let a little funk get him down.

“Oi, Marimo.”

Zoro finishes his perfect sword arc and pauses. “Yeah, cook?”

“Let’s have that spar.”

The swordsman turns to him fully now, whole body lighting up with excitement. Fitness freak. Sanji rolls his eyes.

“Right now? You need to change, or anything?”

“Nope,” he says, popping the ‘p’ cheekily. “I don’t need to do anything special to kick your ass.”

Still, he does a couple of stretches to limber up. Zoro gives his full suit a dubious look, glancing between it and his own ratty shirt and pants.

“You sure?”

“Positive. Let’s do this.” Zoro makes a move to sheath his sword. “Oi, mossball, what are you doing?”

The swordsman pauses mid-motion. “I was gonna grab some bokken from the storeroom.”

Sanji rolls his eyes. “Just use your swords. It’s not like you’re going to slice me.”

“Live steel’s different than sparring, Cook, I don’t wanna –“

Sanji cuts him off with a sudden high kick that forces him to block with the flat of his blade. Zoro grunts at the impact, and Sanji snarls in his face, “You finish that sentence with ‘I don’t wanna hurt you’ and I’ll kick your ass through the railing. Man up and attack me already.”

The swordsman’s still hesitating, and it’s pissing him off because when he was offered sparring, he was expecting to be treated as an equal. This doe-eyed “I don’t wanna hurt you” bullshit is just triggering every built up resentment he has about the entire gender spectrum. Why? Why does every alpha get a whiff of him and decide he’s either an easy target or made of glass? He’s just as much a man as any of those assholes, and he hasn’t mastered Blackleg style just to be attacked with bokken.

Zoro’s still not attacking, so Sanji explodes into motion, throwing out a flurry of kicks that send the swordsman staggering backwards, giving up ground, until he finally gets a free space to draw a second sword and start actually pushing back on Sanji’s attacks instead of just weathering them. Sanji catches the flat end of a katana on the thick sole of his shoe and grins, wild and toothy. Finally.

“You move pretty good even with that prissy suit on,” Zoro says, yanking his sword back roughly in an attempt to destabilize him.

“And you hardly move at all. Like algae on a rock.” Sanji dances back, light on his feet, and dodges some half-hearted strikes. “Come on, Mossy, you can do better than that.”

“So can you.”

Oh yeah? Sanji does a handspring, whirling his legs around to create space, springing back up and dancing backwards again when the swordsman closes the distance in a whirl of blades. Sanji kicks a few strikes aside before he finds an opening, shoving his knee into the swordsman’s gut and knocking the air out of him before snapping the shin of that leg forward to send Zoro staggering backwards.

The swordsman lifts his head and glares. An instinctive shiver runs down Sanji’s spine and a pathetic little part of him worries he’s gone too far. The rest of him smothers that part and grins at him instead.

“C’mon, Marimo. Keep up.”

To his relief, Zoro grins at the taunt and rolls his shoulders. It was always going to be a risk, adding violence to his relationship with the alphas on the ship, but he’d held onto some faith that Zoro wasn’t going to go overboard and get bent out of shape if an omega landed some blows on him. Some alphas would just double down on trying to beat him into submission for that one. Zoro? He looks thrilled.

“You asked for it, Curly.”

And –

It’s awesome.

He and Zoro are evenly matched, blow for blow, with comparable stamina and unwillingness to concede. Their fight takes them all around the lower deck, sending Usopp scuttling away with a yelp and prompting Luffy to jeer out taunts and encouragement from the figurehead. Nami futilely tries to call them out on being immature and reckless, but Sanji can barely hear her over the focus he’s having to put into keeping Zoro on his toes. More often than not, his kicks hit swords, but he lands a few solid hits on the swordsman, which are paid in kind by long, flat bruises he can feel under his clothes from the dull side of the steel. He’s getting tired, though, and he catches Zoro’s eye, silently throwing out a question that’s answered with a short nod. Without further words, they both stumble to a halt.

“Tie?” Zoro sheathes his swords.

“Almost had you,” Sanji says cockily, before folding and agreeing, “Yeah, it was a tie.”

“Wanna do it again tomorrow?”

Does he? He feels the pleasant burn of strain in his muscles and the throbbing heat of his bruises and tilts his head. The answer comes easily. “Hell yeah.”

“Ugh,” Nami says. “Boys.”

Usopp pipes up from where he’d scampered off to, “Don’t lump me in with them!”

Sanji snorts and lights up a cigarette, nodding goodbye to the swordsman and ambling off to the upper deck. The adrenaline’s running out, and he feels the soreness and fatigue more acutely now, but he’s pleased enough. He’s not really a fan of violence for violence’s sake, but sparring with Zoro was the perfect workout, and he oddly feels a lot calmer and friendlier towards the swordsman after testing his limits like this. So far, he’s not tried to touch Sanji – ever – and he’d missed several opportunities to seriously hurt him during their spar. He’s proven to be a pretty decent guy.

He's not going to be best friends with him or anything. He starting to trust him, but… He’s not ready yet to think about how far he can trust an alpha, really.

--

Chopper’s face should be classified as a weapon.

He should’ve known it would come to this when Chopper had insisted he get his physical in private without Sora around. He’d already firmly declined to get a pelvic exam despite Chopper’s hysterics about cancer screenings and proper healthcare, mollified somewhat when Sanji had told him it had only been a year since he’d let Dr. Toshiko examine him, and he’s fine enough without putting himself through that again. Then came the lecture about smoking, which ate up most of his physical. He’d thought he’d gotten away free and then Chopper had turned on him with that adorable face.

“So, Doctorine left me some notes about your care.”

Sanji feels his stomach squirm. “Oh. Did she.”

Chopper hums, flipping through his clipboard. He’s almost like a different person entirely once he’s in the process of treating someone. Sanji can barely see the remains of the adorable little boy who shyly begs for more cookies. “She had several suggestions about medicines I can synthesize to help treat anxiety and post-traumatic stress. She also noted that you’re resistant to treatment.”

“I’m not resistant…”

“Oh, so you’re willing to try it out?”

“I’m – no, I don’t think… I just think maybe she’s overreacting.”

Chopper’s huge, doe-eyed pleading face is making Sanji sweat. “But… But don’t you want to feel better?”

He wants more than anything to feel better.

“I just… I’m not sure about it.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of!” Chopper climbs up Sanji’s leg and into his lap, nuzzling him into a hug. “I promise! We can monitor how you feel every day, and if you don’t like it, we can try something else! Doctrine wouldn’t suggest medicine unless she thought you really needed it, and Doctorine’s the best doctor in the Grand Line. Won’t you please think about it?”

This is completely unfair. He’s pretty sure Dr. Kureha arranged this on purpose. She’s probably sitting in her castle, cackling madly knowing he’s getting worn down by the most stupidly cute doctor he’s ever seen.

Chopper’s so fluffy and warm in his arms. He looks down, and those big round eyes stare at him imploringly, and he can feel his resolve crumbling.

“Maybe I can… try it out?”

Chopper’s entire face lights up with joy. “You’ll try it?”

He’d always told himself he would stand firm, but he’s only human. “I guess. Yes. I’ll try it. But if it doesn’t work, I’m going to stop,” he says warningly.

“Of course! I’ll have the first dose ready by the afternoon! We can start today!”

Oh, what is he getting into?

--

The universe has a very strange sense of humor.

He takes some time with Sora in the galley to put together some mail packages. They call Zeff almost every evening before bed, so it’s not like the old man doesn’t know what they’re up to, but there’s so much they don’t get to share with the distance. That said, they’re sorting out crayon drawings and the hand-written recipes he’d picked up in Drum to ship off whenever they reach land with a proper postal service, and in that small window of time, Mr. 2 of Baroque Works boards their ship, learns most of the crew’s faces, and skips off, all without Sanji being any the wiser.

Ludicrous.

Still, Vivi’s all torn up about it, so they’re even more determined for her sake to get to Alabasta and prevent the civil uprising from breaking out into full warfare and bloodshed. She’s confident that they’re very close to making landfall, so Sanji quietly gets the affairs no one else would think of in order, like using up their perishable food and preparing travel rations and making sure they’re not leaving stinky laundry and gross messes to fester while they’re gone.

And then… they drop anchor in Nanohana, the port city of Alabasta.

“You’re sure you’re okay to do this?” Nami asks.

“Perfectly,” he says with more confidence than he feels.

The problem with Baroque Works having their faces is that the only ones left who can safely walk around in the open are Sanji, Sora, and Chopper. They need proper clothing and supplies for desert travel, and since the rest of them are compromised…

“But why can’t I come?” Sora whines.

Sanji’s saved from answering by Usopp. “We’ve gotta stay here, kiddo, so your dad and Chopper can get the shopping done super fast! The place we’re going is far away from here, so we have to get going quick so we can make it on time. But, we’ve got an important job to do while they’re gone.”

“We do?”

Usopp nods seriously. “Yeah. We don’t know enough about the desert here, so Vivi’s gonna teach us everything she knows –“

“I am?”

“- and when they get back, you’re gonna help me teach your dad and Chopper all about it.”

Sora seems to accept this mission. Sanji could kiss Usopp, he really could. Instead, he shoots him a grateful smile and beckons Chopper to follow him.

The first order of business is securing postage for the letter bundles. The human clerk at the post office is much easier to reason with than a news coo, so that errand is taken care of quickly. Sanji rushes them through the other stops, and it’s not until he’s loaded up with clothing and groceries and ready to head back that he realizes he’s lost Chopper.

Okay. Let’s not panic.

…Sanji’s panicking.

When did he lose him? Where did he lose him? Was he kidnapped? Did he get heat stroke? How did he not notice? Fuck, he needs to get back to the others and drop all this stuff off so he can search properly.

“You there!”

He flinches away before the man can touch him. The man’s obviously surprised, but he recovers quickly.

“Greetings! You don’t look like you’re from around here! What pretty yellow hair you have!”

Sanji glares and keeps his tone flat. “Fuck off.”

The man’s ingratiating smile flickers to something ugly before he recovers. “Now, now, don’t be so hasty. I can’t help but notice that you’re an unbonded young omega. I don’t know if you’re aware of our customs, but going around dressed as you are… well, it’s quite scandalous. Come to my shop! We have the perfect garments for such a pretty thing as yourself. Here, a sample of our perfumes.”

He shoves a small bottle into Sanji’s suit jacket before he can flinch away again and takes advantage of how close he is now to stroke his hand up Sanji’s chest and touch his face.

Or, he tries to.

The man lets out a yowl of pain and rage. “You bit me! You little slut, you fucking bit my hand!”

Fuck, they’re attracting attention now. Sanji spits at the man’s feet to try to get the taste of his nasty, sweaty hand out of his mouth before he turns heel and jogs away, pretending he can’t hear the murmur of bystanders and the man’s screeching as he runs off. He doesn’t head directly back to the others, circling around to make sure he’s not being followed. It’s as he circles back towards the edge of town that he spots antlers down the street, and he jogs to catch up.

“Chopper!”

The reindeer turns his head, still in walking point and looking more reindeer than human, though his animal face splits into an uncanny, human-ish grin.

“Sanji!”

“I was worried about you! Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just got hot and dizzy. I ended up lost, but this nice camel showed me the way back here.”

Sanji shakes his head. Only Chopper. “C’mon, let’s get back to the others.”

Luckily, everyone is still where he left them, though Luffy’s still missing. He passes out parcels of clothing and goods to everyone and reassures Sora that he’s mailed their letters before he turns to Vivi with a frown.

“Hey, um, Vivi?”

“Yes, Sanji?”

He bites his lip and reaches up unconsciously to run a hand through his hair. “I ran into someone in town. He said… Well, is there anything I need to know about being omega here?”

Vivi’s eyes widen in horror. “Oh! Oh, did someone say something to you?”

The rest of the crew is looking at them sharply now, tense. Sanji tugs his hair before letting go. He feels his face heating up in embarrassment. “Kinda. Ran into some asshole who tried to get handsy. He said I was dressed scandalously. Called me an unkind word,” he says lamely, glancing at Sora.

Zoro’s rumbling with a growl now. “Where?”

“Tone it down, Marimo, I’m fine. But, Vivi, what’s he talking about?”

Vivi looks mortified. “I’m so sorry, Sanji. I didn’t think of it. It’s kind of traditional and old-fashioned, but there’s a cultural norm of omegas covering their hair for modesty in this country. It usually doesn’t apply to foreigners, especially in trade cities like this one, but… it would probably draw less attention if you covered your hair and your legs while we’re in towns. You look foreign, but if you wore a scarf…”

“Okay,” he says simply. “I’ll do it. I just needed to know. Can you show me how I should do it?”

“Of course. Again, I’m so sorry, Sanji. I was careless.”

“It’s fine,” he says, glancing away again. He just wants everyone to stop staring at him. He’s rattled enough by the encounter. Still, Vivi is gentle and apologetic and kind as she shows him how to wear his hair and they all change into their desert attire. If they can just find Luffy, they’ll be ready to go.

--

Luffy finds them.

The Marines also find them, because Luffy is a moron.

Sanji’s extra glad of their changed clothes and his hair covering, because he’s praying that Smoker doesn’t notice or recognize him from Loguetown. Having a Marine Captain with a personal vendetta against Luffy who’s motivated enough to chase them from East Blue into the Grand Line? Not great. A crazy Marine sniffing out the fact that their crew has an omega and a kid on board?

He really doesn’t want to be the weak link here. Marines can be ruthless. He doesn’t want to know what they’d come up with to take the weak link out.

Hopefully, Smoker’s destroyed his sense of smell with those cigars. Really, Sanji has little room to talk with his own habit of chain smoking when stressed, but he at least doesn’t run around with his jaw always clamped around two enormous cigars. The alpha barely spares them a glance, though, zeroed in on Luffy, but that’s hardly a blessing when he’s followed by a Marine squad and that Tashigi woman who terrifies Zoro so. They’re all scrambling, running for their lives.

And then something amazing happens.

Fire-Fist Ace saves them.

--

It feels weird to think of himself as being sheltered. He comes from a country of warmongers – he learned sixteen ways to kill a man with a letter opener by the time he was seven. Then he worked with rough sea cooks for eleven years and absorbed more profanity than should be possible to learn. He knows what it is to starve, to be beaten, to be raped, and to carry a child. Sometimes he’s baffled that he’s only nineteen, feeling the weight of twice as many years on his shoulders. So, he wouldn’t think of himself as sheltered, really.

That is, until he realizes he’s never seen a man like Ace before.

Surely he has, right? But no… Zeff hadn’t allowed him to be around the communal shower room when all the other chefs bathed even before his disastrous first heat. He’s seen Zeff shirtless in passing. Glimpsed Usopp changing or coming out of the bath. He’s never seen a man who looks like that.

Ace struts around in nothing but his shorts and boots and that cowboy hat that shouldn’t be as endearing as it is. His body is… perfect. It’s everything Sanji wishes his own body would be. Rippling muscles, a trim waist with no excess fat, constellations of freckles exploding across his face and upper body… even his slightly greasy hair and pointed face work together to make him handsome. He dearly wishes he was a man like that.

Or… Well…

Maybe he’s thinking something else, too. The staring could be chalked up to admiration, but he’s been staring at Ace’s left nipple instead of listening to what he’s saying to Luffy, and he’s having a hard time rationalizing that away.

It makes his face burn and his hands fidget for something to do. He feels clumsy and strange and awkward, and he’s never been like this around anyone before. He stumbles over his words when he talks, and he can’t quite look Ace in the eye, and he wishes he would ignore him entirely, except he feels so warm and giddy when Luffy’s brother turns those lazy eyes to him and gifts him with his attention.

What’s wrong with him?

It would be easier to dismiss if Ace was an asshole. He’s an alpha. Doesn’t Sanji always say how much he dislikes alphas? Except he’s soft-spoken, polite, friendly, helpful… and unlike some people, he doesn’t spew his alpha pheromones everywhere, so when Sanji discreetly sniffs him, he smells pleasant. Smokey and masculine and just… nice.

Face flaming red, he retreats to the kitchen to cook up enough food for Luffy and Ace’s monstrous appetites.

--

Ace has never been prouder of Luffy.

Seriously, only his dumb little brother could make it all the way to Alabasta on a tiny ship with a skeleton crew of merely half a dozen crewmates and have zero worries about it. The crew’s so typically Luffy that Ace can’t help but laugh at it. Nami the fiery, gorgeous navigator. Vivi the long-lost Alabastan princess. Usopp, a kid he just knows his brother loves, because he’s hilarious. Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro – and who but Luffy could recruit the most famous bounty hunter in East Blue to be his first mate? A reindeer-human doctor boy who’s cute as a button. And…

“So, the cook,” he begins. He’s up in the crow’s nest with Luffy watching the crew set about sailing the Going Merry up the inland river to dock away from town. They’re all working together well despite the small size of the crew, but the cook and the child are nowhere to be seen. If he had to follow his nose, they’ve got something to do with the delicious smells leaking out of the galley.

“Sanji? What about him?”

Ace considers how to word this. “Well, I’m just curious. It’s kind of an unusual choice to take an omega and a little kid along into the Grand Line. I mean, times are changing – I keep seeing more omegas at sea nowadays, but the kid?”

Luffy hums. To a casual observer, he’d look nonchalant, but Ace can see he’s also considering what to say. “Sanji’s the best cook ever. It doesn’t matter that he’s omega. And Sora’s a great kid. They both wanted to go to sea really badly, but it took a long time for Sanji to agree to come. He said it’s too dangerous.”

Ace nods. “Yeah, but you took them anyway.”

Luffy’s mouth draws into a thin, unhappy line. “Sanji’s got a dream, and it’s not his fault that someone tried to take it away from him when he was a kid. It was really brave of him to still have Sora even though everyone tried to tell him not to, and Sora’s great. Sanji’s great, too. He can take care of himself, but we’re nakama. If anyone wants to hurt him again, I’ll beat them up.”

Luffy startles when Ace knocks his hat aside to ruffle his hair. “Okay, I’m convinced. I just wanted to make sure you were taking it seriously. Having a kid around is a big responsibility.”

“I know that,” Luffy squawks indignantly. “I’m not dumb!”

“You’re pretty dumb, kiddo.”

“Ace, you’re mean!”

“Seriously, though. I’m proud of you. You’re being very mature.”

Luffy smiles at him with a soft, genuine expression before it turns sly. “I think Sanji likes you. Zoro’s super mad about it.”

Ace laughs aloud. “He is, isn’t he?” The Pirate Hunter hasn’t made any secret of how little he thinks of Ace. It had all been fine until the young alpha had gotten a glimpse of Sanji’s tomato-red face and the shy little glances he kept throwing Ace. After that, relations had gone rapidly downhill.

“Think it’d mess your crew up too bad if I flirted back? Sanji’s pretty cute.”

“That would make Zoro so mad. You won’t hurt Sanji’s feelings, though, right?” His grin falls.

“Of course not. I’ll be nothing but respectful.”

“Good. Sanji’s had a bad time with alphas. If you make him scared, I’ll beat you up, too.”

Ace presses a hand over his heart. “If I make him scared, I’ll beat myself up, Luff. Cross my heart.”

Luffy’s bright grin is enough of an answer for him.

--

Dinner is… awkward.

Ace is the star of the meal, of course, fielding worshipful questions from Usopp and Luffy and Sora and entertaining Nami and Vivi with easy grins and jokes. Sanji makes it his mission to play perfect host, keeping drinks topped up and plates full. He nearly spills a pitcher of beer when Ace looks up at him from under his eyelashes and grins a crooked little grin and thanks him in a husky voice for filling his glass. Sanji has to stammer out an appropriate response and retreat to the kitchen to calm down. Zoro’s rude growling echoes underneath the good cheer.

See, Zoro’s the one making it awkward.

Of all the people he could go into a weird alpha posturing contest with, he’d just have to do it with Luffy’s older brother. It isn’t even fair, because Ace is being nothing but a gentleman and brushing off his hostility with more patience than the marimo deserves. He’s just being so rude! Ace has done nothing to him at all, and he’s sitting at the far end of the table with a thundercloud over his head, arms crossed, acting like Ace has come into his home and pissed on the rug. He’s Luffy’s family! Of course he’s welcome on the Merry!

“Sanji! Come sit down and eat!”

He can’t really disobey the captain, so he nods and comes back over. Nami gives him a sly smile and pats the bench next to her. The only open spot. Between her and Ace.

Sanji’s blushing again, dammit.

“Here.” Ace scoots over to make more room, and then he turns back to his conversation with Usopp. His divided attention gives Sanji a little bit of breathing room to gather his courage and slide in next to him with his plate. Even with the extra room, they’re nearly brushing shoulders. His face is so hot. Zoro growls again.

He focuses on eating. One bite after another. Ace is so warm, warmer than he has any right to be, and he wonders if it’s a side effect of the Mera Mera no Mi. He’d probably be so nice to snuggle up to in the cold.

Sanji shakes his head. What is he thinking? He doesn’t snuggle alphas. Except maybe Luffy. But Luffy’s made it abundantly clear that he’s not interested in ravishing anyone. He has no guarantees about Ace. Still… He glances at Ace’s profile before he quickly looks back down at his food. Ace seems so nice. It probably wouldn’t be so terrible if someone like him wanted to touch him.

He shakes his head again, unaware of Ace’s amused smirk and Zoro’s death glare at the Fire Fist. He’s going to just keep his head down and finish dinner and not let his thoughts spiral with weird things like that. He can be cool. He can be normal.

“Let me help with the dishes,” Ace says as dinner winds down and the crew starts filing out.

Sanji’s opening his mouth to answer him when Zoro cuts in, “It’s my turn on the chore chart. I’ve got it.”

Ace laughs aloud. “So let me help. You go relax, Sanji. You worked hard. Dinner was delicious.”

“Thank you,” Sanji stammers out, “I’m glad you enjoyed.”

Sanji all but flees the kitchen. He’s going to die, he decides. The Mera Mera no Mi is too powerful, and it’s burning Sanji up from the inside and he’s going to die with his blood boiling out of his ears because he’s so embarrassed. Why does Luffy’s brother have to be handsome and polite? He’s never met an alpha like this before, and he hopes he doesn’t again because this is killing him.

He chain-smokes three cigarettes and rounds Sora and Chopper up for bathtime. His Ace problem can wait.

--

“You need to stay away from the cook.”

Infuriatingly, Luffy’s brother doesn’t look intimidated at all. He just raises an eyebrow and smirks with his stupid mouth on his stupid freckled face on top of his stupid, perfect body.

“I’m not doing anything to Sanji,” he says.

Zoro growls and dumps a load of dishes into the sink and turns the water on.

“I know what you’re doing. You need to stop.”

Ace ambles up to lean against the counter by the sink, toying with the drying cloth. “I’m not doing anything, friend. It’s Sanji who’s getting a crush, it looks like. There’s no harm in that.”

Zoro picks up a sponge and attacks the first plate on the stack. It gives him an outlet other than reaching over and trying to strangle the older alpha. “You’re encouraging him.”

“Again, what’s the harm in that?” Ace takes the plate from him and dries it methodically, unhurried, before he reaches for the next one. “Sanji’s a grown man. His crush is cute, and he’s cute, and it’s not hurting anyone to flirt a little bit.”

“You don’t get it. Sanji’s been through enough. He doesn’t need you toying with him.”

Ace’s glance at him is cutting. Zoro suddenly feels small. He isn’t even growling, just leveling him with an appraising look. His smirk when he does open his mouth to talk lacks any warmth and humor.

“You think you’re helping him out, don’t you? You really are a silly little boy.”

Zoro almost throws the dish in his hand back into the sink but is stopped by a hot hand around his wrist. Ace stops his aggression in its tracks with a stern frown.

“Don’t break Sanji’s dishes.” He lets go but doesn’t back away until the plate is rinsed so he can dry it. He continues, eyes on the plate, “Your concern for your nakama is touching, really. Loyalty is a good thing. What you have going on with Sanji, though… It doesn’t look healthy. Are you his father? His lover? Has he spoken to you about wanting you to defend his honor?”

Zoro’s silence is answer enough.

“Sanji is a grown man,” Ace repeats slowly. “His affection and attention are his to give away, even if you think it’s going to an unworthy place. Whatever his past, whatever harsh things he’s lived through, that doesn’t make him a child that you need to care for. Whatever feelings you have for him also don’t give you any ownership of him. Unless you confess your feelings for him and he reciprocates them, you don’t have a claim to being upset about who he chooses to spend his time with.”

Zoro struggles, finally says, “I don’t want him to get hurt.”

“And I won’t hurt him.” The warmth is back in his smile. He dries another dish. “I’m not here to cause problems in my brother’s crew, Zoro. I like you guys. You and Sanji will both be a lot happier, though, if you lose this attitude of yours and stop treating Sanji like some thing you need to take care of. He’s a man. He can make his own choices. If you want him to choose you, you have to give him the chance to do that without smothering him.”

Zoro… didn’t think that was what he was doing, but maybe Ace has a point. He thinks back over the afternoon. He’s seen Sanji nervous around alphas – perhaps more than he’d like. He’s seen the sweating and anxiety and smelled the sour tang of his scent. How he’s reacting to Ace is… different. He’s nervous, sure, but it’s a strange kind of nerves. He keeps smoothing his hair down and licking his lips. Glancing at and away from Ace like he wants to look but doesn’t want to be caught looking. He’s… cute.

Zoro drains the sink and watches the dirty water slowly spiral down. Ace finishes drying and says nothing else, letting him process his words. Zoro finally looks at him, feeling somehow like he’s lost a fight.

“I find out you’re just using him to try to get in his pants, I’ll end you, Fire-Fist.”

Ace grins at that. “You’ll have to beat Luffy first. I already got the shovel talk from him.”

Zoro grunts and, mercifully, Ace leaves him, but not without a companionable clap on the back. He saunters out, all cool and handsome and confident, and Zoro feels himself shrink, just a bit. He needs to work harder, he decides. He needs to be someone who will make Sanji like him of his own free will. One day, he’ll have Sanji blushing for him like that. Maybe. If Sanji will have him.

He has a lot to think about.

--

The desert is a land of extremes, and it’s causing Sanji no end of grief.

The water rationing is hard. Especially for Chopper and Sora. Neither one of them is used to the heat, and he longs to give them more than their fill of water, but good sense and Vivi’s advice force him to give them only just enough to sustain them. It doesn’t make him feel better about it.

Zoro’s stepped up, surprisingly. Usopp fashions together a stretcher to drag behind them, and Zoro pulls both Sora and Chopper on it, stoic and silent and refusing offers of help with a mute shake of his head. He’s been off since their dinner with Ace. Withdrawn. Sanji’s curious about it, of course, but maybe it’s just the heat. He knows they’ve all been quieter, saving their energy as they slog across the arid sands.

In contrast to everyone, Ace is in his element. His chipper spirit doesn’t flag at all. It was a surprise when he opted to travel with them for a while, but he claimed that he was following a lead on Blackbeard. He flits around the crew, joking and telling stories and lifting spirits as he goes, and Sanji’s grateful for him.

In contrast to the heat of the day, night in the desert is as frigid as any night in the North Blue. Sanji takes first watch after Sora drops right off to sleep in the tent with Nami and Chopper. He’s not quite ready to sleep, himself. The cold brings too many memories with it, not many of them good. He fumbles in his outer robe for his pack of cigarettes, tapping one out of the box.

“Need a light?”

Ace grins at him from where he’s walked to Sanji’s rock from camp. Sanji feels his face heat up and he hopes it’s too dark in the moonlight to see how red he’s gotten.

“Thanks,” he says, putting the cigarette between his lips and leaning in. Ace sparks a tiny flame on the end of his finger and leans into Sanji’s space to light it, his grin shrinking into a small, genuine smile. Sanji inhales a lungful of smoke and tries to cover his shyness with the motions of smoking.

“Beautiful night,” Ace comments. He looks at the stars appreciatively before his eyes roam over Sanji’s face.

He’s going to combust. “Um, yeah. It’s pretty.”

Ace hums, and they sit together in silence. The stars in the desert sky are as many and as clear as the stars over the sea. It never fails to take Sanji’s breath away, the wide expanse of glittering night.

“Hey, Sanji. I’d like to kiss you.”

Sanji’s brain short-circuits.

Ace scoots down until his butt hits the sand and leans back casually against the rock, hands behind his head. He looks up at the sky, smiling, as if he hasn’t just dropped a bomb on Sanji’s brain.

“What?”

“Only if you want to,” Ace says, still casual. “I won’t be mad if you say no. And you don’t have to answer right away, of course. Just think about it.”

That doesn’t make any sense. “But… If you wanted to kiss me, you could just… do it.”

Ace glances at him, and dammit, he looks sad. “I do want to kiss you, Sanji, but only if you want me to. I’m not going to just force you.”

That hardly lines up with any alpha behavior he’s known so far in his life. Not even including the man who fathered Sora – alphas are always reaching out and trying to touch him or grab him or stop him from doing things. It lines up with Ace, however. Ace has been nothing but kind and respectful. Instantly, he feels a little bad for even thinking about Ace kissing him against his will.

“Sorry,” he says.

“It’s okay. I’m not trying to pressure you. It’s just that I think you’re a kind man, and you’re very attractive, and it would be nice to kiss you.”

“Just… kissing?”

“Yeah, just a kiss.” Ace sits up from the rock and smiles up at him, cross-legged in the sand. “We’re kind of busy out here – not exactly the time for a drawn-out romance.”

Sanji nods mechanically. His brain is still reeling. “But you still want to kiss me?”

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?” When he ducks his head and shamefully shakes his head, Ace continues, so painfully gently, “That’s okay. You can say no, but I’d be honored to give you your first kiss if that’s what you want.”

He stands up and dusts the sand off his robes. He never steps closer to Sanji. Never looms. Just smiles down at him gently and kindly and says, “Just think about it and let me know. We have a few more days.”

With that, he trots back to camp, leaving Sanji stumped and with a half-smoked cigarette and whirling thoughts.

--

He’s distracted all the next day.

Ace doesn’t treat him any differently. As if offering to kiss him was just something natural to do, and not weird at all. Maybe it’s not? It’s not like Sanji knows. His only knowledge of romance comes from his secret and shameful stash of syrupy romance paperbacks hidden deep in the back of his underwear drawer. The alphas in those books are usually more forceful than Ace – even the gentlest ones – and don’t usually ask before they sweep the heroines off their feet and ravish them. The Baratie wasn’t exactly a place hopping with romance, either, and he’s content to believe that Zeff is a sexless being, so he never asked him about any of it. He probably could’ve asked someone else, but Patty and Carne are both old and have been together so long, and their idea of romance was probably stealing ships together or something. The rest of the Straw Hat crew is just as young and relatively clueless as he is.

He traces his fingers over his lips, thinking.

He’d kind of assumed his chances of romance were ruined, anyway. Who would look at a used-up omega like him, all flabby from pregnancy and obviously tarnished and want to give him anything sweet like his novels? Ace, his brain helpfully supplies. Ace isn’t blind. He can see that Sanji’s not exactly a delicate virgin, and he still wants to share his first kiss with him.

Ugh, now he’s blushing.

He’s never kissed anyone. Not even… Not even that horrible man Kenta had kissed him. He’d been too busy being terrible and smashing his mouth shut with his hand to keep him from screaming to do anything like that. It feels disgusting and wrong to think about Kenta and Ace in the same breath. They’re worlds apart. Fuck, though, it’s not like he has any other context for anything sex related. His only sexual contact came at thirteen and it was so deeply traumatizing that his brain’s blocked out most of his memory of it. It’s fucked him up, though. He’s having a hard time thinking about letting Ace kiss him without his stupid brain taking a leap and imagining Ace being the one ripping his shirt open and biting at his chest. Ace wouldn’t do that, he reminds his brain. Ace already said he doesn’t want anything but a kiss. And if he did want something else, he’d be gentle and kind, he hopes. He’d… He blanks now, because the idea of being handled gently is so foreign that he can’t even imagine it properly.

Annoyed now, he stomps ahead to go kick a giant scorpion to death and roast it over a fire for lunch. The rest of the crew sense his bad mood and don’t try to talk to him, which is exactly what he needs.

You know what? Why can’t he just kiss Ace? Doesn’t he deserve something gentle? Doesn’t he get to have something sweet and untainted and uncomplicated? Hasn’t he suffered enough?

That determination sustains him up until they make camp that night. He glances at where Ace is out on watch. He thinks, I should just go over there and do it. He almost stands up and does just that, but he loses his nerve and goes to bed instead, shamed and scared and confused.

--

Ace doesn’t act disappointed at all.

Sanji trots beside him in the sand, sun beating down on them, and Ace doesn’t say a word about his offer, doesn’t badger him for an answer, doesn’t act unpleasant at all. Instead, he’s asking him insightful questions about preserving food during voyages and asking for recipe tips. He listens to Sanji’s rambling about proper grain storage like he’s actually interested. When Sanji breathlessly scribbles down one of his favorite recipes during their break for lunch, he takes it, reads it, and sincerely thanks him, promising to pass it along to his ship’s cook.

Sanji’s resolve solidifies.

It feels like torture to wait patiently for nightfall and to make camp and to cook dinner and to get everyone settled. Finally most of the crew’s asleep, and he can slip away to the edge of camp where Ace stands watch.

“Hey,” Ace says casually.

“Hey,” Sanji replies. He’s suddenly shy, but he’s determined. He squares his shoulders and balls his hands into fists, forcing out, “I want to kiss you.”

He finally looks at Ace and is surprised by what he sees. The studied casualness is gone, replaced by a warm and affectionate smile.

“You’re sure?”

Sanji nods. Hesitantly, he says, “I’m nervous, though.”

Ace stands up and dusts himself off. “That makes sense. Everyone’s nervous about their first kiss.”

Of everything, that’s what settles him the most. It’s normal. This one thing about him is normal. He feels some of the tension drain from his shoulders.

Ace closes the distance between them but stops without touching him. “Okay. Before we do, how much can I touch you?”

Sanji blanks on the question. “What?”

Ace smiles. “Where can I put my hands? Is it okay if I touch your face? Your shoulders?”

Nobody’s ever asked something like that before. He takes the time to consider the question carefully, treating it with the seriousness Ace had given it. “Um, my face and shoulders is fine. Just… please don’t touch my neck or my chest?”

He wants to trust Ace. He just… does not like his neck to be touched, and he vaguely remembers that Kenta liked his chest – no. He’s not thinking about that bastard right now. Ace steps closer, and he realizes he’s trembling.

“Are you okay? You don’t have to do this.”

Sanji shakes his head. “No, please, I want to. I’m just… scared.”

“That’s okay. Can I hug you?” When he nods, warm arms wrap around him, and he finds his head tucked under Ace’s chin. “No rush. You’re okay.”

They stand there, hugging in the cold desert night until Sanji’s trembling subsides. He takes a deep breath. “Now?”

Ace’s laugh huffs over his scalp. “Okay, then.”

Sanji’s not sure what to expect, but they hardly step away. Both of Ace’s large hands cup his face, and he feels small and delicate and treasured. His eyes flutter closed, and then, very gently, Ace’s breath ghosts across his cheek, and their lips are brushing together.
It’s not like the romance novels. There’s no stars or fireworks, and his heart doesn’t flutter out of his chest and he doesn’t swoon. It’s tentative and a little awkward until Ace uses his hands to tilt his face and get a better angle, and suddenly the brush of their lips together feels ten times better. He hadn’t known his lips were so sensitive, but now it feels like his whole world’s narrowed down to the way their lips move together gently and chastely. Ace’s thumbs rub light circles across his cheeks, and when they pull away abruptly he realizes it’s because he’s crying.

“Whoah, hey, are you okay?”

Sanji opens watery eyes, and it’s Ace’s alarmed and concerned face that makes him crumple, face scrunching up and ugly tears running down his face.

“Sanji? Hey, talk to me.”

“Sorry,” he chokes out.

“Hey, it’s okay. What’s wrong?”

He shakes his head. He’s not sure how to put what he’s feeling into words. Instead, he tentatively steps forward into Ace’s arms for another hug and lets the alpha rub soothing circles over his upper back.

“Sorry,” he mumbles again into Ace’s collarbone. “Sorry, I just…”

“You don’t have to apologize. I’m sorry. Was that too much?”

He shakes his head. Forces out, “I just… It was nice. And nobody’s ever…”

Ace sighs shakily above his head. “Oh, Sanji… You haven’t had a lot of kindness in your life, have you?”

He shakes his head wordlessly. They stay like that for a while as his quiet tears slowly dry up. He hates this. He hates how pathetic he is, and he’s grateful that Ace isn’t making this awkward. He’s choking under the weight of a terrible grief. He deserved better than this. He should have been able to have this earlier – he should have gotten all the awkward and sweet firsts that everyone else got. He shouldn’t be breaking down in a cold desert over a single kiss because the irony is that he’s been used and plundered and stolen from already, that he’s had his body ripped from under him and it’s only now, later, that he can lay any claim to it, can make use of it for himself, and he’s so broken already that trying for anything normal is so overwhelming and sad. He wants so desperately to take what Ace is offering him, and he’s ruining it with his insecurities already.

“You’re far too kind for what the world’s done to you,” Ace says quietly, almost to himself.

His tears slowly dry. Ace is steady as a rock, and he’s so horribly grateful for it. He pulls away and scrubs at his face and tries to lighten the mood with a joke. “So, you’ve probably never made someone cry by kissing them before.”

Ace scans his face and breaks into a hesitant grin. “You’d be surprised. The first time I tried to kiss with tongue, I made the girl throw up. Pro tip, you're not trying to put your tongue in their throat. Trust me.”

Sanji wrinkles his nose. “Gross.”

“Very. You okay?”

“Yeah. Sorry. Just… overwhelmed.”

“I know. Hey, can I kiss you again?”

Sanji raises an incredulous eyebrow. He probably looks terrible now, snotty and flushed and gross. Who would want to kiss him? Ace quirks his mouth into a grin. “Look, I just don’t want you to remember your first kiss as just making you cry. One more for the road?”

He blots at his face with his sleeve and musters a watery smile. “Okay. One more for the road.”

Ace smiles and gently tugs him closer, and Sanji closes his eyes, surrendering to the very light manhandling until they’re positioned correctly for Ace to slot their lips together again. It’s lingering and sweet and most importantly it doesn’t make him cry. He breaks the kiss by smiling, and he feels the curve of Ace’s lips against his before they pull apart.

“Better?”

“Better. Thank you, Ace. For everything.”

“Of course. Thank you again for your first kiss.” He mimes plucking it from his lips and cheekily stuffs it into his pocket. “I’ll treasure it.”

Sanji snorts and shoulders him lightly. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Guilty as charged. Now go to bed. Long day tomorrow.”

Sanji smiles and tucks his hair behind his ear. “Okay. Goodnight.”

“’Night. Sweet dreams.”

--

Zoro pretends to sleep when Sanji stumbles back to camp.

Not that he has to try too hard. The cook’s in his own world. When he cracks an eye open, he can see he looks flushed and like he’s been crying, but there’s a silly smile on his face, and he keeps tracing his lips with his fingers. His scent’s relaxed – not distressed or, ugh, aroused. Altogether, not Zoro’s problem. He closes his eye and listens to him shuffle into the tent with Nami, Chopper, and Sora.

Zoro opens his eyes and stares up at the stars.

He’s been thinking about what Ace said, about not being an asshole and policing Sanji’s life. It’s hard. He thinks about the cook all the time, thinks about talking to him and being around him and fighting him and touching him. His stupid crush from Cocoyashi’s only gotten bigger, and it gets bigger and bigger every time he and the cook get closer. As much as he’s trying not to be a jerk, the fact that Ace just kissed Sanji is killing him.

Then again, Ace was the one who actually asked.

Would Sanji have said yes if Zoro asked him? He doubts it. Sanji’s been afraid of Zoro for as long as he’s known him, and he’s only recently started letting down his guard around him. Fuck, Ace is right. How’s Sanji supposed to relax around him if he acts like a territorial asshole? He’s going in circles here.

He thinks about Sanji’s little smile. He… can’t be mad about that, can he? He’s jealous. So jealous he burns with it. But… Sanji looked happy. Should he begrudge him something that made him smile like that? He doesn’t think he can. The cook’s had precious little to smile about, so for this once, he’ll try to be the bigger man and let go.

Still, if this stupid crush isn’t going away, he’s got to either do something to get rid of it or do something so Sanji will take him seriously as a suitor. He’s not sure yet which direction to take.

He closes his eyes again and tries to sleep, trying hard not to imagine Ace’s lips on Sanji’s, or how much he wishes those lips had been his.

--

Every adventure they find in Alabasta’s desert is increasingly ridiculous, but the bounty hunter and his kids who lied about Blackbeard to try to take Ace out are reaching the pinnacle of silliness.

Ace is kind to them, and it all works out, but he turns back to the Straw Hat party, and they know without saying that this is the end of the road for them.

“I have faith in you, brother,” Ace says to Luffy, slapping his back. “You’re turning out to be one hell of a pirate.”

He turns to Zoro and gives him a significant look. “Take care of Luffy for me, please. And if you want something, fight for it, alright, Zoro?”

Zoro crosses his arms and grunts.

He says a personal goodbye to each of them in turn, ruffling Chopper’s and Sora’s hair, giving Nami and Vivi each a gentlemanly hug, clasping hands with Usopp like a warrior. Ace saves his goodbye to Sanji for last. He hesitates where the cook stands, and they both look at each other for a long moment.

Sanji breaks the silence. “Thank you, Ace. For everything.”

Ace’s grin is blinding. “Thanks for everything, too, Sanji. I hope you find everything you’re looking for, and everything you deserve.”

Sanji ducks his head, blushing. “Yeah. I hope I see you again one day.”

“I hope so, too. Thank you, everyone, for taking care of Luffy. Let’s meet again one day!”

With that, Fire-Fist Ace walks out of their lives as abruptly as he entered.

Chapter Text

Traveling in the desert sucks for many reasons. During the day, the sun is brutally hot, searing down and making every drop of water precious. Strange Alabastan creatures attack them by turns, and there’s precious little shelter to be found to take breaks and rest. Nightfall brings frigid temperatures and new creatures, and little fuel for campfires to cook by.

The most humiliating part is trying to use the toilet.

They all have a polite system now of not asking too many questions if one of them wanders off alone when there’s no rocks or shrubs to hide behind, traipsing instead over a dune or something so nobody has to see anybody else do their business. Sanji’s still treasuring Sora’s horrified face when he’d had to explain that he needed to dig a hole in the sand to do his business into. If the kid ever gets married, that’s definitely a good story for the fiancé.

Sanji’s feeling lucky today – there was an outcrop of rocks to camp in, so he doesn’t have to wander too far to find somewhere to relieve himself out of sight. He’s just zipping his slacks back up when Nami’s voice makes him jump and drop his robes back down, whirling on her with his face heating up.

“Sanji!”

“Nami, what the hell?!”

She comes fully around the rock and waves her hand dismissively. “I waited until I heard you finish. I’m not trying to see your dick.”

“That means you stood there and listened to me take a piss instead! That’s not any better!” He finishes straightening his robes and crosses his arms. “What did you need so badly?”

Nami’s grin is wicked. “Gossip.”

Sanji rolls his eyes and steps into the shadow of one of the rocky outcroppings. “We couldn’t gossip in camp?”

She steps over to lean against the wall beside him. “I wanted to gossip about Ace, and I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of everyone.”

His blush, which was receding, flares back up. “There’s nothing to gossip about.”

“Oh no? Nothing at all?”

“Nothing. He was just… nice.”

Nami nudges his shoulder playfully. “Nice? Or nice-nice?”

He nudges back. “Nice-nice like Vivi’s nice-nice to you.”

It’s Nami’s turn to blush. “Oh. Is it that obvious?”

“Kinda. You should go for it. You’re a cute couple.”

She sighs and leans over to lean against him, both of them staring out at the sand. “I don’t know. She’s a princess.”

He hums.

“It wouldn’t work out. We’re pirates, and…” She rests her head on his shoulder and sighs heavily. “She’s a princess. I’m sure they want her to marry someone important and have little princess babies with them. Even if they got over me being a pirate, it’s not like two beta girls can make babies together.”

He tilts his head over so he’s leaning too, resting his head on hers. “So… you’re already planning on having babies with her?”

She straightens up abruptly, knocking him over, and punches his arm lightly. “That’s not what I meant!”

Sanji snickers, rubbing his arm. “Aw, but Nami-dear…”

“You’re changing the subject, anyway. What happened between you and Ace?”

“Nothing! Well…” He hesitates, but this is Nami, and he loves her too dearly to not want to share what happened with her. He’s got to tell somebody, and he’s not holding out for Usopp to be mature about it. “We, um… kissed.”

Nami gasps loudly, and he throws his hand over her mouth to shush her. “Don’t yell!”

She yanks his hand off, grinning. “You can’t just drop that and have me not have questions. Who kissed who? Was it good? Was he a gentleman?”

He’s pretty sure he could cook an egg on his face, he’s so flushed. “I don’t – I don’t know. It was… He was sweet to me. And then I made it weird, but he was still nice, so I dunno.”

“How’d you make it weird?”

“…I cried.”

Instantly, Nami’s grin falls, and something murderous replaces her expression. “He made you cry?”

“No! No, not really!” God, he’s so embarrassed. “I’d never kissed anyone before, and it was nice, and I got a little… overwhelmed.”

“Oh.”

He toys with the sleeve of his robe for a second. He’s embarrassed, still, and now Nami is looking kind of sad, too. He’s tired of being so pathetic that he makes people sad. Abruptly, in a whirl of instinct and desire to comfort, he reaches out for her wordlessly.

“Hm? Of, you want a hug?”

She lets him step forward and laughs when he uses the opportunity to nuzzle their faces together. It’s enough for them to get a good nose full of each other’s scent and soothe them both. He hasn’t done this since he did it with her and Usopp during his heat. He feels his chest starting to hum with a light purr before he can stop it. It just feels so good and right, like a warm blanket on a cold day or a perfectly cooled cup of tea. Something he’d been craving that he didn’t know he was missing.

“Aw, I love you, too, Sanji. I’m glad you had a good time with Ace.”

“Mm,” he hums, feeling a little fuzzy with contentment. “You need to kiss Vivi. ‘S nice.”

“Didn’t I just say it’s a bad idea?”

“Don’t have to marry her. Just smooch.”

“Okay, that’s enough scenting for you.” Nami pushes him back, blushing, but doesn’t push him too far away. “I’ll think about it, okay? Now let’s head back before they think we’re out here having a tryst.”

Sanji’s disappointed to lose the nuzzling, but he follows her back. He still feels loose and warm from the comfort, so he rambles unconsciously, “You’re beautiful and wonderful, dear Nami, and you deserve so much better than a sandy tryst behind a rock.”

Nami laughs, and he grins, feeling like he’s won. “Much better! I’m a classy lady!”

“So classy.”

“The classiest.”

Giggling, they stumble back into camp together. Usopp raises an eyebrow, and Zoro squints at them, and they just giggle more at the rest of the crew. Sanji nudges her in the direction of Vivi not-so-subtly and squats down next to their sad campfire to try to miracle some dinner together.

--

The reality of how bad the three-year drought is really starts to sink in once they get to Yuba.

He’d been hoping for an oasis. They’re all dirty and tired and have been rationing water ever since they left the ship, and he’d really wanted to at least give Sora and Chopper their fill to drink. Old Man Toto is sympathetic and promises to try even harder to dig some water out of the oasis for them, but Sanji’s not holding out too much hope. It’s already such a kindness that he’s sheltering them at all.

“I’m okay,” Chopper insists, puffing himself up like he’s trying to be more grown than he is. “I’m tough! I don’t need extra water.”

Sora glances at Chopper and puffs up, too. “Me, too! I’m tough, too!”

It’s heartwarming and heartbreaking at once. Sanji’s trying to find the right response when Zoro passes by, ruffling both of the kids’ hair as he goes.

“We know you’re tough,” he grunts, smirking manfully at the two kids trying so hard to be grown up.

It perks them right up. Sanji tilts his head, considering Zoro in a new light. He’s actually really good with both of the boys. Sanji… really appreciates that.

The thought’s cut off when a pillow smacks into his face.

He turns slowly to look at Usopp, who’s faltering, obviously shocked that his pillow projectile missed and hit Sanji instead. Probably worried he’s gonna cry or something stupid. He’s not sure if it’s the sheer relief of being back in a town again, Chopper’s anxiety drugs, or just how comfortable he’s gotten with this crew, but he’s feeling more like his old self from the Baratie than he has since before Nami got sick. He turns to Usopp thunderously and cracks his knuckles.

“You wanna fight?”

“Um, no?”

He snatches the pillow and lobs it full force at Usopp’s face, knocking his long nose askew. Usopp fires back, and he catches that pillow, tossing it dead center into Zoro’s face. After that, the pillow war is on.

He hasn’t had this much fun in ages.

The pillow war ends with them all in a heap on the floor, beds knocked aside and one pillow burst into a cloud of feathers. Chopper and Sora are both collapsed on his chest, panting and giggling and covered in feathers, and Sanji’s not much better, laughing and wheezing for air by turns. His head’s resting on something firm, and he turns his head to find that it’s Zoro’s chest. They lock eyes, surprised, because he’s never gotten this close to Zoro except for sparring and the occasional brush that happens when you live on a small ship, and the swordsman’s shockingly comfortable to rest on. He’s close enough to watch in fascination as Zoro’s cheeks go from a pink flush from the pillow battle to a cherry red. He’s opening his mouth to say – something – he’s not sure, but whatever moment they’re having is shattered when Nami starts kicking the downed pillow warriors and berating them for making a mess.

They fumble the room back into order, and it’s bedtime now, and Zoro takes the furthest bed from Sanji’s, and the moment passes without comment.

--

“I’m sorry, Sanji,” Vivi says again. “I know you don’t like it.”

“It’s fine.” He holds still while she adjusts the scarf over his head. He doesn’t like it – it feels like it’s drawing even more attention to his omega status to be dressed like this, but the one thing they have over the Baroque Works agents is that they don’t know everyone’s faces. That little advantage will be ruined if they draw unnecessary attention to themselves by not adhering to local customs.

To try to misdirect and maybe throw their pursuers off even more, they’ve dressed Vivi and Nami like omegas as well, spritzing all three of them with the perfume from the shop to somewhat disguise their scents. Usopp’s nose, unfortunately, is too distinct for that to work for him, and nobody would look at Zoro and think he’s omega. And Luffy – yeah, he’s as subtle as a brick through a window. They don’t even try to disguise him. Besides, a group of all omegas would probably stand out too much, as well.

“So, Crocodile’s in Raindinners,” Luffy says again.

“Yes, but we can’t just go charging in,” Vivi reminds him.

“I wanna kick his ass, though!”

“We need information, Luffy!” Nami punches him. “We can’t just march right in!”

It’s a nice thought. Sanji doesn’t believe it’s going to work for a second.

Still, the time they took to at least try to be subtle seems to be paying off. Nobody gives him and the girls more than a passing glance, and really, the only thing they have different about them is the shape of their head covering. The one Zoro’s wearing covers his distinct green hair, and it’s easy enough for him to tag along with them and play the role of an older brother escort taking his friends to the market. They make a show of stopping at a few stalls to really sell it, meandering closer and closer to Raindinners in the center of town. If it weren’t for their eventual goal of confronting Crocodile, he might even enjoy himself. Altogether, though, it’s too easy. Nothing’s ever this easy.

When Luffy and Usopp come fleeing out of a local bar with Smoker, Tashigi, and a squad of Marines on their heels, he’s at least not surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised.

--

Zoro’s brushed with death more times in the past few months with Luffy than he has in his entire life leading up to this point, and it’s becoming worrisomely normal.

Chased around the Marine base in Shell’s Town after starving for nine days? Meh.

Stabbed and carrying Luffy around Orange Town chased by insane pirate clowns? Just another Tuesday.

Stuck in a sea prism stone cage in the basement of a casino while the water level rises and they approach certain death by drowning? Well, that one stings a little, because it wouldn’t be a problem if Zoro could just figure out how to cut through steel.

He’s trying to not watch Vivi get knocked around by the banana gator and not think about how if they don’t drown, they’ll be eaten by those same gators when the ringing of a transponder snail stops everyone in their tracks.

They’re all even more floored when Sanji’s voice comes out of the snail.

“Just who are you?” Crocodile growls.

“You can call me Mr. Prince,” Sanji’s voice says over the snail, sounding calm and suave.

Zoro’s just starting to relax – Sanji’s probably got a plan – when a gunshot echoes over the snail and Sanji grunts in pain before someone else takes over, claiming they’ve caught him and they’re right outside.

“Seriously?” Zoro’s too shocked to even be angry yet. “Did he just -?”

No way he got cocky enough to let himself get taken out like that. Is he even still alive? Is he hurt somewhere? It wasn’t that long ago he’d gotten shot on Drum, and his brain unwillingly flashes back to the cook’s bloodstained coat, and the way he’d winced as he served snacks and drinks later that night. He better not have gotten shot again. He needs to be okay.

The crew’s panicking now, and Crocodile and Miss All Sunday have left them to go get Sanji and finish him off. Their attempts to escape are becoming increasingly frantic, and Zoro’s not unaffected. He’s on the edge of saying ‘fuck it’ and using one of his swords to try to pry the bars or something when a hauntingly familiar voice pipes up.

“Try as hard as you can not to make noise at mealtime,” it says. “Bad Manner Kick Course!”

A lithe figure in black appears under the giant banana gator and kicks upwards with so much percussive force that the gator spews out the rubble he’d eaten, and the water around them goes sloshing away. As the gator falls and the spray of water clears, they can all look out and see the figure of Sanji striking a pose, cigarette in hand, a stream of smoke spewing from his lips. He flips his hair and grins at them.

“Hey there. Been waiting long?”

It becomes crystal clear in that moment that this crush he’s been carrying? It might not be a crush anymore.

As lovely as their domestic cook is when he’s on the ship and tending to the needs of his child and serving them meals, it’s this. This is it. It’s Arlong Park all over again, Sanji out of his Alabastan clothing and back in his sleek black suit with the water making the fabric cling to his legs. Gone are any of the softer expressions or the distress he’s seen too much of – this is Sanji in all of his cocky glory, in his element, with a monster at his feet and a grin on his face. Sanji, who just outsmarted the man who’s been manipulating an entire country for three years. Sanji, who’s here to save them.

Zoro might be in love.

“Mr. Prince!” Usopp and Luffy cry ecstatically.

“Thank goodness,” Nami says quietly, voicing the relief that Zoro feels, too.

“Nami-dear,” Sanji says, as if telling an old joke, “You in love with me yet?”

“Yeah, sure,” she says sarcastically. “Very cool, I’m in love with you.”

“Stop screwing around and find the key!” Zoro’s turning red, he’s sure of it, and he cannot be having this revelation right now.

The banana gators are swarming around the cook now, but he doesn’t look worried at all. He shouldn’t be. He’s just as strong as Zoro. He’s trying not to look too mushy, instead excited to watch Sanji fight.

“Bunch up if you want, you damn gators and come get me,” Sanji taunts, “but anyone with such rude manners as to attack a lady is going to get some table manners beaten into them.”

“Make it fast, Sanji!” Usopp calls. “One-instant strikes! Hurry!”

“Don’t bother,” Smoker says from his seat. “Take out the third one who just came in.”

“You can tell?!”

“It has the same growl as the one who swallowed the key.”

Zoro wants to call bullshit, but they really don’t have time. Sanji shrugs and does as suggested, winding up and striking the gator with the same overwhelming force he’d used on the other one. This one coughs out a huge ball of wax, and Zoro’s mood plummets.

“Mr. 3?”

Indeed, the wax-wax idiot emerges from the ball like a dehydrated baby chicken from an egg. Sanji looks mildly disgusted. The idiot rehydrates himself and rambles something about Crocodile, which would be a mild annoyance at best except he also nabs the key and throws it across the room.

“Now you’ve done it,” Sanji growls, stepping forward and making Mr. 3 squeak in terror. “I should beat the shit out of you for that.”

“Wait, Sanji,” Usopp pipes up, “Can’t he make a key with his wax powers?”

Sanji looks at Mr. 3. Mr. 3 looks at Sanji. Sanji grins.

The beating Sanji delivers to Mr. 3 is as brutal as it is efficient. The Baroque Works agent folds nearly instantly, sliding a wax finger into the keyhole and opening it. Sanji waits until he’s sure the door’s open before he kicks again and sends the poor idiot flying away into a wall.

There’s a brief moment when they’re all exiting the cage where he catches Sanji’s eye. He opens his mouth to say something, but what is there to say? He turns instead to vent his feelings out on the gators. Romance can wait.

--

“You were cool back there,” Zoro says later, on top of the crab they’re riding out of Rainbase.

Sanji looks surprised to hear him speak. He opens his mouth, seems to think better of it, then opens it again. “Thanks, Marimo,” he says simply. Is Zoro imagining it, or are his cheeks pink?

He’s got Chopper and Sora taking a nap in his lap, and he’s back to being the soft, domestic chef he normally sees, but Zoro can’t help but look at the long lines of his legs and remember how they’d flexed with deadly muscle, how he’d proven himself over and over as a warrior on Zoro’s level.

He shakes his head. Distractions like this will get them killed. Whatever feelings he’s having will have to wait until the end of this.

--

“Fuck!”

Maybe their strategy to decoy as Vivi to get into Alubarna is working too well. Sanji leaps and curls around Sora, shielding him with his body as another of those damned bomb balls comes towards them.

“Sanji!” Chopper staggers in his heavy point. Sanji catches his eye after the smoke clears, and the reindeer shakes his head frantically. “Get Sora out of here! I’ll hold them off!”

“Chopper -!”

“It’s too dangerous! He’s going to get hurt!”

Sanji can’t argue with that. Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Christmas don’t seem to have any qualms about sending bombs after a five-year-old. He’d love to beat them to death under his feet as punishment for even thinking about hurting his son, but they’re too vulnerable here. He scoops a crying Sora up and starts running.

“I’ll send help! Hold on, Chopper!”

He flees into the city, heading for the next gate. Sora’s sobbing in his arms, covered in dirt, but he doesn’t seem to be seriously hurt, and he needs to get to Usopp and send reinforcements for Chopper. He’s a little beat up from the bombs, but he still runs like the devil’s on his heels. Finally, he sees Usopp and the pervert camel, skidding to a halt.

“Sanji?! Sora?! What happened?”

“Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Christmas,” Sanji gasps out. “Chopper. He needs your help.”

“R-Right! You’re sure you’re okay?”

He’s not sure of anything right now. “It’s fine. We’ll be okay. Just help Chopper.”

“Okay. Be careful! Mr. 2 is around here.”

“Got it.”

He takes a precious moment to watch Usopp run off and hike Sora higher in his arms.

“Hey, baby, it’s okay. Are you hurt?”

Sora’s crying too hard to be easily understood. “I’m scared,” is all Sanji can really make out.

Fuck, he’s going to cry, too, at this rate. “I know, baby. Let’s keep going, okay? We gotta find the crew.”

The streets are chaos with rebels and royal guards clashing everywhere, and he doesn’t have a lot of faith that half of them aren’t double agents working for Baroque Works. He ends up ducking behind barrels and crates and into alleyways. He’s almost hopelessly lost at this point. It’s pure chance that he ends up tripping into a confrontation between Vivi and Mr. 2.

“Keep going, Vivi. I’ll handle this.”

He gets Vivi to speed off, and he turns to Mr. 2. The flamboyant man rests in some kind of martial art pose, but he’s not attacking, frowning instead at Sora.

“Is that a baby?”

Sanji clutches Sora closer to him. “Oi. Let me set him down and then we can fight, okay?”

Mr. 2 relaxes out of his stance and crosses his arms. “Are you two Straw Hats?”

“Yes, we’re Straw Hats. Keep up.” Sanji sets Sora down and tries to get him to go over to an alley to hide. He’s clinging to Sanji’s jacket and won’t let go.

“Is he okay?”

Sanji jumps. Mr. 2’s snuck up on them and crouches next to them, still frowning.

“I thought we were fighting.”

“We can fight later.” The ballerina waves his hand nonchalantly. “Why are you crying?”

Sora sniffles harder and hugs onto Sanji’s thighs. “I’m scared.”

“Yeah, your asshole friends Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Christmas tried to blow us up,” Sanji snarls.

“Oh. Well, that wasn’t very nice of them.” Mr. 2 plops down onto his butt on the street, looking ridiculously relaxed for someone who’s supposed to be spreading chaos and disorder. “Did you get hurt?”

Hesitantly, Sora holds out his arm, where he has a big scrape from hitting the ground.

Mr. 2 hisses sympathetically. “That looks like it hurts. Here –“ He pulls out a handkerchief with “Bon Kurei” embroidered on it with pink thread and offers it to Sora. “- Sorry you got hurt.”

“What is happening right now?” Sanji gives up and sits down on the street beside the Baroque Works agent. Sora crawls into his lap, holding the handkerchief to his arm and sniffling. “Aren’t we supposed to be killing each other? Is this some scheme to lull us into a false sense of security and murder us when we’re not looking?”

“Eh, I don’t really like murdering people.” Mr. 2 shrugs. “I don’t hurt kids, either. We can fight each other if you want to. Would that make you feel better?”

“I dunno. If we don’t fight, are you going to try to stop us from stopping Crocodile?”

“You probably can’t stop him, anyway. No offense to you guys, but Mr. 0 is strong.”

“Well, my captain’s strong, too.” Sanji unconsciously starts rocking Sora back and forth. He frowns over at Mr. 2. “Seriously, is this pity? You don’t have to be nice to us. You could’ve taken us out and gone after Vivi by now.”

He blinks, looking like the thought hadn’t occurred to him. “Oh. Yeah, I could have. But if I beat you up, what am I gonna do with the kid? I’d feel bad leaving him here. It’s dangerous.”

“Oh. Well, that’s decent of you.” They lapse into silence for a moment. “So, if you’re not a complete asshole, what are you doing working for Baroque Works?”

Mr. 2 wiggles his slipper-clad toes back and forth nonchalantly. “A girl’s gotta eat. It’s not all bad, anyway. I have a lot of fun sailing with my crew. And most of my missions are just sneaking in and stealing stuff or planting false evidence on people. I hardly ever have to kill anybody.”

“Oh. That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“It’s a pretty good gig.” He looks over at Sanji then, squinting his brightly-painted eyes at him. “You’re not a bad guy, either, are you? You could’ve dropped the kid and beaten me up, too.”

Sanji blinks. “Oh, well, probably. Honestly, I’m just surprised you’re being this generous. Most of the other Baroque Works agents we’ve run into have been much more serious about being evil villains. I was kind of expecting you to also try to hurt my kid.”

“Nah. Your kid’s cute. What’s your name, kid?”

He peers up out of Sanji’s arms, mostly calmed down at this point. “It’s Sora.”

“Hi, Sora!” Mr. 2’s grin is wide. “I’m Bon Kurei! Or, well, that’s what they call me! How old are you?”

“I’m five and a half.”

“And a whole half? That’s almost six!” Bon Kurei laughs loudly.

Sora wriggles out of Sanji’s hold to get closer to their – new friend? “I like your birds.”

Bon Kurei puffs up proudly. “They’re swans! Swans are the most graceful and beautiful of birds!”

“That’s cool. Your face is pretty, too. Did you paint that by yourself, or did your dad do it for you?”

“I did!” He laughs again. “Hey, Straw Hat! I like your kid! He’s funny!”

Sanji’s smiling despite himself. This whole scenario is ridiculous, but Bon Kurei’s a very difficult person to get angry at. He exudes a childlike enthusiasm that’s completely at odds with the fact that he’s climbed the ranks of Baroque Works to become the number 2 spot all by himself. He thinks he’s a pretty good judge of character, and so far, the guy’s done nothing to make him feel like he’s a threat at all. He reminds him a lot of Luffy, actually.

“It’s Sanji,” he says. “Thanks. For being nice to Sora.”

“No problem!” When he looks at him again, his face is somber. “Us outcasts have to stick together.”

“Outcasts?”

“Yeah. You’re a male omega, right?” He nods to himself. “People don’t tend to like that. You’re not all man or all woman – like me! I have the body of a man but the soul of a woman! But people don’t like that at all. They want you to be all woman or all man. So we’ve got to stick together and help each other out. The world’s a mean place for people who don’t fall into easy categories.”

He grips the fabric of his slacks in his fists. He’s never heard it said so bluntly. Unfortunately, it’s true. Female alphas and male omegas are the rarest sexes. The world’s not really set up for them. He’s lost count of how many times he’s been feminized by strangers because the fact that he’s a man is inconvenient for them – he’s never enough of a man for most betas and alphas to want to include him. And then the fact that he is a man who is also, incidentally, attracted to women, makes him extremely uncomfortable whenever people just assume he’d prefer to be lumped in with women. Always the puzzle piece that doesn’t fit, getting crammed into whatever place fits just enough of his edges to let him rest for a second. He startles when Bon Kurei pats him companionably on the shoulder.

“It’s okay. We’re friends now, right?”

He smiles weakly. “I’d like to be friends… but you still work for Baroque Works, and I still need to find my friends.”

“So let’s go!”

“Wait… you’re going with me?”

Bon Kurei leaps to his feet gracefully and offers a hand to pull him up. “Yeah! Friends are more important than jobs! Besides, I have a feeling this whole country invasion plan’s about to blow up in our faces. I’ll be hunting for a new job soon.”

“You should be a pirate,” Sora says. “Pirate’s the best job ever.”

Bon Kurei laughs again, wild and uninhibited. “Maybe! Sounds fun! Let’s go find your friends!”

Reeling, Sanji takes Sora’s hand, Bon Kurei takes the kid’s other hand, and the three of them stride off down the street of the war-torn capital together. Sanji decides to just roll with it. He’s going to give himself a headache if he thinks too hard about it.

--

Zoro’s not having a good time.

There’s sand in his eyes – sand everywhere. He’s covered in shallow slash wounds and he’s lost too much blood already. Carrying Nami across the city on his back hadn’t made any of these problems any better. The witch’s screeched instructions in his ear have managed to lead them to Luffy and Vivi, so it could be worse, but he’s had better days.

“Everyone!”

He and the others turn to see an extremely ragtag group running their way. Chopper, injured. Usopp, bandaged all over on the back of the pervert camel. Strangest of all, there’s the cook looking mostly unruffled and holding Sora’s hand – and Mr. 2 holding Sora’s other hand with an enormous grin on his face.

“What the fuck?”

“Bon Kurei!” At least Luffy looks happy. “What are you doing here?”

Vivi and Nami are tense, ready to fight, so he’s not the only one having a reasonable reaction to this.

“Straw Hat! I made some new friends!”

The cook shrugs when they look at him. “We’re buddies now. Bon Kurei’s actually pretty nice. Are you guys okay? Nami, you’re bleeding. And Mosshead…”

“You should see the other guy,” he says. He’s still glaring at Mr. 2, who’s content to ignore his hostility. What does this guy have over the cook to make him this calm about him? He’s a Baroque Works agent! “What’s the deal with the ballerina?”

“He’s our friend!” Sora pipes up. Now that he looks at him, the kid looks a little rough. There’s a big fresh bandage on his arm and his clothes are dirty. “Dad was gonna kick him, but Bon-Bon was nice, so we’re not gonna fight him anymore.”

Mr. 2 strikes a pose at that.

“We don’t have time for this,” Vivi cuts in. “Sanji, if you trust him, I’ll trust you, but we have to stop this. Crocodile’s going to blow up the rebel army and the royal army together – we don’t have much time!”

Well, fuck. They are running out of time. Luffy jets off to go fight Crocodile again, and it’s up to the rest of them to try to fix the mess out here in the city. He’s not as convinced as Vivi about trusting Sanji’s judgment. He’ll just have to keep an eye on him as they go.

--

He’s extremely annoyed when Mr. 2 never shows his hand.

He’s cheerful, helpful, and damn good in a fight. He keeps an eye on Sora when Sanji’s busy kicking ass, and he keeps rebels and soldiers at bay and away from their group with ease. If it weren’t for his overenthusiastic proclamations of friendship and comradery, he’d actually be nice to have around.

He’s still not happy about it.

--

The crazy kids have actually done it.

A natural rain falls over Alabasta, and Bentham stands in the shower and lets themselves be soaked. They suppose that their time as Mr. 2 and Bon Kurei is over now that Luffy’s beaten Crocodile. No more Baroque Works. No more missions and structure. They could become a pirate, they suppose.

The poor kids are exhausted. One by one, they drop off together in the rain. Sanji’s curled himself around Sora, and it’s so cute that they wish they had a cameko to record it. They’re faring a lot better than the kids are. They retreat back to an awning to watch and wait. From what they’ve seen, it’s unlikely the king or the princess will leave them out here for long. Still, they’re not going to leave them unattended.

Boots in the rain have them sinking deeper into the awning to watch. Just in case, they swap their face for an innocuous Alabastan man they’d touched.

A squad of Marines stop outside the alley. Bentham watches and waits.

“Leave them.” The woman leader speaks. “That’s an order.”

The men under her command protest. “This is a rare opportunity! Once they wake up…”

Bentham tenses, preparing to fight them off. It’s not good odds, but they’re not going to let their friends be arrested without a fight. Over their dead body.

“I will not allow you to lay a hand on them right now!”

The female commander whirls on her troops with a snarl. They straighten, frightened, and with no more than a few clipped orders, the Marines march away, leaving the Straw Hats undisturbed.

Bentham watches and waits. This… isn’t good. Once the princess comes back and takes the Straw Hats away, they’ll sneak off themselves. More Marine presence will mean it’ll be harder to get out of here unscathed. They’ve got their own crew and ship to find again, and they’ll find the Straw Hats’ ship while they’re at it. Someone has to take care of it so the Marines don’t just snatch their ship up or destroy it before they have the chance to escape.

The princess returns with some troops to carry their friends off to the palace. Bentham remains hidden until they leave. They cast one last glance at their new friends before they shake off the gooey feelings. They’ve got a job to do, and they’re going to do it. Friendship’s the most important thing in the world, and they’re not going to take it for granted.

--

Sanji wakes up alone.

He opens his eyes to an unfamiliar curtain in deep red. He takes a moment to take stock, disturbed by what he’s finding. He’s in a room he’s never seen before, in some kind of approximation of a nest. Someone’s washed him, bandaged his wounds, and changed his clothes while he was unconscious. Frantically, he tries to remember anything else about it, but he draws a blank. The only reason he’s not completely panicking is because he doesn’t feel any telltale soreness anywhere that would suggest he’s been molested, though just the fact that he’s been moved and manhandled in his sleep is disturbing enough. And Sora –

He jerks upright, almost tipping over when it makes him dizzy.

Where’s Sora? The rest of the room is bare – it looks like a guest room or hotel or something. He leans down again and sniffs at the nest. The fabric smells faintly like jasmine, but he catches Sora’s scent. So he’d been here recently. He scrambles up and out of the nest.

They’ve dressed him in a soft cream shirt and a pair of loose trousers dyed a nice, earthy orange. He slips from the room barefoot and pads down the hall. It looks like they’ve made it into the palace, at least. He sniffs, desperately searching for a whiff of his crew, but there’s nothing. Nothing but – omegas?

“Oh, you’re awake.”

He turns. There’s a servant there. Omega. She smiles at him. Reflexively, he smiles back, but he’s still not sure about anything – where he is, where his crew is, why he’s woken up in some alternate universe populated by omegas.

“Are you looking for your child? He’s with the other children in the playroom. I can show you?”

He finds his voice, “Ah, yes, that would be lovely, Miss.”

The woman smiles at him again and beckons. “My name is Hapi. I’m a servant here in the Iris Hall.”

“The… what?”

“This wing of the palace.” She smiles wider, excited. “Ah, you’re a foreigner, so you likely don’t know our customs, but this is a special wing of the palace that only omegas may access without special permission! You may relax here, because even the guards here are omega. You may keep yourself uncovered if you wish – no alphas or betas to make you uncomfortable. It’s a wonderful place.”

“It sounds… lovely.” He’s really not sure about that. He’s never seen so many omegas in one place – they pass other servants, all omega, and the guards at the end of the hall, and from afar he can glimpse some women that look like noblewomen gossiping around a low table of tea and snacks in a large open room. The scent of nothing but other omegas is overwhelming and confusing. He’s used to mostly betas with their mild scents in his life.

“Where are my friends?”

“Jasmine Hall, in the main wings of the palace. We can take you there, if you’d like?”

“I – yes, I would very much like that.”

“You might like some shoes, too,” she says pointedly, giggling when he self-consciously shuffles his feet.

“Ah, probably. So, the playroom?”

“This way.”

He follows her the rest of the way down the hall until they reach a large room full of children of all ages – from babies to preteens nearly ready to present. The room’s like a kid’s paradise with colorful murals on the walls and tables and cushions and napping nests in the corner. He’s never seen anything like it. It’s… probably the loveliest thing he’s ever seen. He quickly spots Sora’s straw hat from the doorway. His kid’s already managed to find some other kids to draw with.

“Sora!”

It’s gratifying when his son looks up and his face splits into a bright grin. “Dad!” He sprints over to the door, his companions and drawings forgotten. “You slept forever!”

“Sorry, baby, I must’ve been super tired. You doing okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good. This place is nice – did you know all these ladies are omegas just like you?”

“They mentioned that, yeah.”

“It’s cool. I never met so many omegas.” His son looks genuinely awed. “Are we gonna go see our crew now? They said I couldn’t go til you woke up.”

He glances at Hapi, who nods sedately. “Yeah, this lovely lady is going to show us the way. You ready to go?”

“Yeah!”

Hapi leads them back to the room he’d woken up in. His boots are going to look ridiculous with these trousers, but the woman’s an incredibly astute servant. Before he can even ask, she’s procured some sandals in the local style to wear. He slides them on and is just about to leave the room when he stops to watch her pull a scarf out of her dress pocket and wind it expertly around her hair, securing it with a few pins without even looking. She catches him watching and smiles.

“Would you like me to help with yours?”

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Tries again, voice oddly small, “Do I have to?”

She frowns now, and he feels awful, like he’s offended her, but she looks more thoughtful than anything. “I suppose you don’t have to. We’ve entertained foreign dignitaries who were uncomfortable with the custom before. You may draw more attention than you’re comfortable with, however. You have lovely golden hair, which is uncommon here, and most here are unused to seeing an uncovered omega. Still, if you’re uncomfortable, I don’t see why you should be made to wear it.”

He wars with himself. On the one hand, he hates unnecessary attention. On the other, he really doesn’t enjoy wearing the clothing. As usual, he thinks, remembering Bon Kurei, he’s trapped by a social norm that feels intended more for women than men. He feels ridiculous wearing the scarf with his strong jawline and the patch of beard he’s been working on growing. Like a man playing dress-up.

“I’d rather go without, I think.”

“As you say.” She nods and gestures for them to follow her down a different hallway until they reach a pair of large double doors flanked by armed omega guards, who break their stern expressions to greet Hapi like old friends.

“You’re going out like that?” The male omega of the pair of guards asks.

“He is,” Hapi interjects firmly. “Open up. These nice young men want to see their friends.”

The guards glance at each other and shrug, obviously deciding that policing hair coverings is outside of their pay grade. They slide one of the doors open, and they’re soon on their way down palace hallways towards their friends.

Sanji’s not unaware of the looks he’s getting. He keeps his eyes forward and expression schooled, but there’s a distinct reaction he gets whenever people they pass come close enough to catch his scent. From a distance, he’s large and masculine enough to look like a beta easily, or even a particularly runty alpha, but his personal smell doesn’t lie. Most people they pass flush and look away, as if he’s out walking around in his underwear. Some of the servants whisper behind their hands. Not a one of them treat his appearance as normal. Maybe he should have sucked it up and worn the scarf.

“Here we are. The infirmary wing. Your friends are inside. If you need an escort back to Iris Hall, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Thank you, Hapi, you’ve been a treasure. Still, ah, why can’t I just stay here with my crew?”

Hapi blinks and finally her serene countenance cracks. Her cheeks bloom with color. “Oh. Well, unless one of these crewmates is your spouse, it would be highly improper…”

He gestures at Sora vaguely. “I mean, it’s not like I’m saving myself for marriage, if you pardon my crudeness.”

Hapi backs up, clearly flustered. “That would be a matter to discuss with Madame Terracotta, I believe. I would highly advise against it. Most improper. Unconventional… simply not done. Good day!”

She scuttles away, leaving the two of them in the doorway.

“Dad, what’s ‘improper?’”

“When you do something that’s not good manners,” he says distractedly. This entire day’s been bizarre. He’s entirely wrong-footed. He knocks briefly and pushes the door open. “Guys?”

“Sanji!”

“Sora!”

They go into the room, and Sora’s immediately picked up by heavy point Chopper and spun around. The crew’s gathered in the room full of beds. He feels a huge weight of tension fall off his shoulders. They’re all alive and mostly okay. Luffy’s still unconscious, and the lot of them are more bandage than flesh, but they’re alive.

“Thought they kidnapped you, cook,” Zoro grumbles.

“I told you they just took him to Iris Hall,” Vivi says, as if they’ve had this conversation a few too many times. “Sorry if you were startled, Sanji. I tried to get them to let you stay here, but my father insisted. He’s quite traditional when it comes to omega propriety.”

“It was strange,” he admits. “I’ve never seen so many omegas before.”

“It was cool! They had a big room just for the kids and all the ladies were nice and they gave us snacks,” Sora gushes to Chopper, who’s shrunken down to match his size.

Sanji lets the conversation wash over him as it continues. It strikes him again how dangerous what they’d just done was. How lucky they were to come out of it relatively unscathed. He’s so deliriously happy that everyone’s alive. Unconsciously, he edges closer to where Nami and Vivi are, wanting to do… something. He’s not sure exactly. His instincts have him reaching his hands out again.

“Do you want to scent again, Sanji?” Nami gives him a knowing smile. “Nojiko used to do that when she was worried about me. Come on, don’t be shy. You’ll feel better.”

Permission granted, he laces their fingers together and presses against her to rub their cheeks together. Instantly, he knows this was exactly what he needed. It’s like how he felt in the desert all over again. Nami smells so good, and mingling their scents feels good. He hadn’t realized he’d closed his eyes until they shoot open when someone taps his shoulder.

“My turn,” Vivi says, grinning. “You can’t hog Sanji all to yourself, Nami.”

“So says you,” she teases, but she pushes him away and into Vivi’s arms with a wink. “Go ahead, then. Take him.”

Vivi smells good, too. His chest is vibrating now with a spontaneous purr. He whines when she pushes him away, but he’s pushed directly into Chopper and Sora, and he takes a long time to nuzzle the both of them until they’re both giggling and pushing him off of them.

“I want in on the Sanji nuzzles.” Usopp takes his hands and rubs their faces together himself. “Wow, this really is the best. It’s like a hug, but better.”

Oh, hugs are good, too. He lets go of Usopp’s hands to throw his arms around him, knocking them both over onto a nearby bed. Usopp’s laughing uncontrollably now, and he’s purring, too, and this is the absolute best. Conscious Sanji? Gone. Cuddle Sanji? Yes.

“Mn, want Luffy,” he murmurs.

“He’s still asleep, but he’d probably be mad if you didn’t scent him, too. Go ahead.”

Sanji doesn’t need to be told twice. He drops Usopp and crawls off the bed to – gently, still aware of his injuries – drape himself over Luffy and rub their faces together. Not as nice as it would be if he was awake, but still good. He’s feeling loose and relaxed, and he’s got his crew –

Wait, not everybody.

“Uh oh,” Usopp says, chuckling.

Sanji zeroes in on Zoro, who looks petrified. Zoro’s not used to omegas, he remembers. The poor guy’s been acting weird the whole time because he doesn’t know what to do. It all makes so much sense now. That won’t do at all. He’s gotta comfort him, too. But he doesn’t want to freak him out. What if Zoro doesn’t want to scent him? What if he just doesn’t like Sanji after all? Maybe he just doesn’t like him. Indecisive, he stares at Zoro and whines.

Zoro looks even more panicked. He glances around the room at the others, and whatever he sees makes him flush red. Gruffly, he holds his hands out, face cherry red and eyes looking anywhere but Sanji.

“Get over here, idiot-cook,” he says. “It’s fine.”

He doesn’t hate him! Sanji hastens over and takes the swordsman’s rough hands in his own, pulling himself closer to rub their faces together. It’s perfect. He’s gotten the whole crew now. He hums happily, even though Zoro’s stiff as a board and obviously uncomfortable. Someone’s given Zoro a bath, too, so he just smells like antiseptic and floral soap and his personal smell, which is actually quite nice when he’s not throwing it around everywhere like a caveman. He indulges as long as he dares, before he peels away with one last nuzzle to totter back to Usopp’s bed and flop beside him.

“Feel better?” Usopp asks.

“Mmhmm. Nice.”

He feels even fuzzier and stupider than he did in the desert with Nami. It’s nice, though. Some hindbrain part of him feels safe and secure and settled, knowing where everyone is and that they’re all okay. He drifts a while in the odd, content headspace all the scenting’s put him into. It’s almost a shame when his wits start sharpening again. Oh, god, he forced Zoro to scent him. He sits up, his face flushing.

“Oh, you’re back with us?” Usopp asks. He’s moved to sit on the floor playing a simple card game with Sora, Chopper, and Vivi.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry.”

Usopp frowns, but Nami beats him to it, “You don’t have to apologize. After all the stress, it’s only natural you’d want to reaffirm our social bonds.” At his incredulous look, she bashfully grins. “Nojiko made me read a bunch of omega social theory after she presented. I didn’t get it all, but I retained enough. Long story short, it’s a good thing you’re letting your instincts work. Denying them’s unhealthy.”

Ah, well. He’s been unhealthy for a long time, then. The only people he’d scented on the Baratie were Sora and, when desperate enough, Zeff. He’s read the literature – he knows in theory what he’s supposed to do as an omega. He’s just never had the inclination to practice. Not on a seedy pirate restaurant ship with no other omegas around for guidance. It feels strange to let go and do what he feels like, though he’d rather do it here with his crew than with anyone else. He’s terribly fond of the lot of them. Even Zoro.

He chances a glance over at Zoro. He feels good about treating him like just another crewmate. He’d taken a lot of big risks lately. He made himself incredibly vulnerable with Ace, and nothing bad had happened. He’d trusted him, and the guy had done nothing to break that trust. Same with Bon Kurei. He’d followed his intuition, and the guy had turned out to be a good friend. These wins in turn are quite a confidence boost. He smiles when he catches Zoro glancing at him.

“Did I make you uncomfortable, Mossball?”

Zoro’s face heats up again. “…No. It was nice.”

It must be the lingering contentment from the scenting that has him smiling wider, openly happy. “That’s good. I don’t wanna freak you out. I know you’re not great with dealing with omegas, but… We’re friends, right?”

He can feel everyone else listening. Zoro glances at them, a faint frown on his face, but he looks back at Sanji and gives him a wide smile of his own. “Yeah. Yeah, we’re friends.”

A little part of him still wasn’t sure if Zoro liked him. He’s glad to squash that part. He’s got a friend who’s an alpha now. Someone besides Luffy, who’s the least alpha-y alpha he’s ever met. It feels good. Like a good, normal thing to do, not a fucked up traumatized thing to do, having friends who are alphas. Speaking of friends…

“Hey, what happened to Bon Kurei?”

Everyone in the room shrugs collectively. Vivi pipes up, “He was gone already when I came back to bring you guys to the palace.”

“I hope he’s okay.”

“I’m sure he is,” Usopp says confidently. “With his Devil Fruit ability, I bet he just snuck out of the city before the Marines could get to us. I’m sure we’ll run into him again.”

“Yeah… I hope so.”

He spends the rest of the afternoon just resting and hanging out with the crew as they wait for Luffy to recover. He’s only a little reluctant when Hapi finally shows up to forcefully escort him back to the Iris Hall. He’s not willing to have that fight just yet. Instead, he and Sora snuggle up in their borrowed nest to catch some more sleep. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Chapter Text

Okay, Sanji’s fed up.

Maybe he’s the culturally insensitive one here. Maybe he made the wrong choice, and he should have just swallowed his discomfort and worn the damn scarf. He stomps back into the palace, Usopp in tow, aggravated by his experience shopping in town.

“You okay?” Usopp asks hesitantly as they march straight past some Marines questioning Chaka about illegal pirate harboring.

“I’m fine,” he lies. In truth, he’s rattled. The previous day had been so nice with the all-omega wing of the palace and getting to relax with his friends and soothe his anxieties. Today, he’d taken Usopp with him to try to shop for supplies. It turns out that the capital city of Alubarna, even right after a big civil uprising, is more conservative than the other towns they’d seen. Sanji’d been stared at and avoided and treated like some kind of pariah, all because he was dressed just the same at his beta friend. It’s not fair.

“I’m heading to the kitchens,” he tells Usopp. “I’ll come get Sora before dinner – I just want to watch their processes if they’ll let me. Maybe get some recipes.”

“Okay,” Usopp says hesitantly. “I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah. Later, Usopp.”

He asks a few servants for directions and follows his intuition until he gets to the palace kitchens. They’re big and gorgeous – just what he was expecting to run a palace as large as this. He starts trying to ingratiate himself with the chefs, and he runs right into the same roadblock he’d found in the marketplace. Other omegas seem rattled by him, and the betas and alphas don’t even want to look at him. He can tell his scent’s souring with embarrassment and distress from how they’re now wrinkling their noses. This isn’t fair. It’s just a stupid piece of cloth.

“What’s going on here?”

A large woman bustles over. She looks… a lot like Igaram. If Igaram was the biggest omega he’s ever seen.

“Madame Terracotta,” one of the chefs says deferentially. “We have, um, a guest.”

The woman looks down at him. He winces, preparing for whatever weird reaction she’ll have, but she merely raises an eyebrow before smiling kindly.

“Khal, make us some tea and snacks, why don’t you? I’ll entertain our guest.”

She gestures elegantly for him to follow her. He can’t really say no to a lady, so he follows, though he’s also curious. She takes him to what looks like a servants’ dining hall and takes a seat at one of the tables. He follows suit.

“So, you’re the omega that’s part of the Straw Hat group. What was your name?”

“It’s Sanji,” he says. “And you’re Madame Terracotta?”

“That’s me.” Her sudden grin is blinding and does a lot to settle his nerves. “Igaram is my husband.”

He blinks. He would have assumed they were brother and sister. He tries to imagine the big, sing-songy alpha with this equally large omega woman and draws up short. He decides not to question it.

“I’m in charge of most of the household matters in the palace,” she says. “Now, what brings you to my kitchen?”

“Professional curiosity. I was a sous chef at a restaurant before I became a pirate sea cook. I’m always looking for new recipes,” he answers honestly.

He clamps his mouth shut then, because the chef from before comes in now with a tray of tea and a collection of small pastries and savory dolma – which he only recognizes from obscure recipe books he’s found. The chef doesn’t look at him and scuttles away as soon as they’re served.

“I can’t stand this,” he blurts out.

Terracotta raises an eyebrow and pours them some tea. The smell of mint wafting up from the steam soothes a bit of his ruffled feathers, but he’s well aware that he’s sinking into a full-on pout.

“I assume you’re frustrated because you’re expected to wear a head covering in public.”

“It’s stupid. It’s just hair. I don’t care if anyone looks at it, but everyone here acts like I’m some kind of harlot. It’s ridiculous.”

Terracotta nods along to his complaints, dishing out a selection of snacks onto two plates before passing him one of them. “I see. Would you be interested in a little history lesson?”

He barely glances at her, distracted by pulling open and then scrutinizing the dolma filling. “History?”

“My husband considers himself an amateur scholar of Alabastan history. I’ve had to listen to so many of his rants about it, I feel like I’ve become a bit of an expert, myself. One of the subjects he studied was the origin of this island’s omega customs.”

He perks up at that. “Yeah?”

She nods. “Indeed. Due to the nature of traveling the Grand Line, not many people travel for leisure. In turn, many islands are mostly isolated from one another, so it’s only natural that there’s some variance from island to island in social norms. I assume our way of living is quite different to where you’re from?”

He blinks. Oh. Shit. Now he’s panicking, put on the spot like this. “I’m from East Blue, but… Well, I don’t actually know a lot about East Blue customs. I had an… unconventional childhood.”

Both of her eyebrows are raised now. “Oh?”

“Uh, yeah. I was raised on a pirate vessel. I didn’t exactly get the full society experience.”

“Oh. A pirate vessel.” Terracotta looks pale. “I’ve heard… Well, I’ve heard many awful and salacious rumors about how omegas are treated on pirate ships. I assumed it wasn’t that way with your current crew, but…”

He flushes and looks down at his tea. “Uh, yeah. Most pirates are betas and alphas, and a lot of them aren’t good people. All I really learned was that being omega’s dangerous, and even that lesson came… too late.”

An awkward silence descends between them. He takes a deliberate sip of tea.

“I’m sorry,” Terracotta says, looking grim. “I did not mean to stir up bad memories. I’m often disgusted by how barbaric the world is outside of Alabasta. I’m sorry you had to experience that.”

“It is what it is. Still, what’s the deal with the way omegas are here?” He’s desperate to change the subject, and not rude enough to just walk out.

“Ah. Yes. Well, these past three years are hardly the first time that Alabasta’s experienced disastrous drought. The ruling dynasty here is ancient, but they were not always able to maintain peace throughout the country. About five hundred years ago, a drought struck, and there was much civil unrest. Several leaders emerged declaring themselves warlords of the land, fighting for resources. The unrest was eventually ended by the monarchs at the time, but, well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what kind of atrocities can happen during violent conflict.”

Sanji feels a shiver run down his spine. He tries to cover it by plucking a pastry off his plate and crumbling it between his fingers. It doesn’t distract him from the feeling of her sympathetic eyes on him.

“Many terrible things happened, and the unfortunate truth is that us omegas are uniquely vulnerable. Biologically, heats are intrinsically times of vulnerability, and many omegas struggle to fight off their natural instincts to submit to alphas at the best of times. This is not even mentioning the violent urge many of the warlords had to stake their claim on other factions’ omegas on a biological level. I will… not elaborate. I’m sure you understand. At the peak of the fighting, a certain faction of omegas declared that enough was enough.

“These omegas began a separatist movement. They formed their own militias and began creating shelters for other omegas in danger. Some betas were welcomed, so they say, but the bulk of the warriors and leaders were omegas. The royal omega guard can actually trace their history back to those militias.”

“So… where do the scarves come in?”

“I’m getting to it, dear boy. Much of the philosophy of these omegas was in protecting one another from violence. The omega shelters became places of refuge, and after the conflict, they evolved into places for omegas to connect to and make community with other omegas separate from betas and alphas. Part of the way the omegas of the past protected themselves from violence was to practice more modest dress. I believe the idea was to not draw unwanted lustful gazes, though I don’t believe it worked that well for that purpose. Violent men will be violent for its own sake, regardless. As time went on, the modesty practices became more of a mark of honor, that these omegas would choose to only show themselves to select individuals. At the heart of it, our customs are based on a desire to respect omegas’ autonomy.”

Sanji makes a face. Terracotta gives him a rueful smile. “I’m sure you may not feel that way, coming in from the outside. All of this was five hundred years ago, so many people don’t remember the history. A lot of the beliefs have become corrupted over time. Some alphas even believe that omegas cover themselves for their benefit, and not the other way around.”

He snorts. “Ran into that already. Some vendor in Nanohana called me a slur. That was the first I’d heard of the practice at all. Vivi never mentioned.”

“The princess can be a bit of an airhead,” Terracotta says, laughing at his shocked face. “I changed the girl’s diapers – I’m well aware of her shortcomings. Still, I am sorry your introduction to our customs came from such a distasteful source. It’s no wonder, then, that you find them oppressive.”

He hums and sips his tea. Her explanation did clarify some things, like the existence of Iris Hall and why the omegas wear the head coverings in the first place, but he’s still not sure how he feels about them.

“From an outside perspective, they do feel restricting,” he says diplomatically. “All I’ve ever wanted was to live my life normally in spite of being an omega. It feels… risky to me, to draw attention to the fact that I am omega.”

Terracotta sips her own tea and nods. “I can see why you would feel that way, growing up as you did in that particular environment. I assume you did not know many omegas on your pirate vessel?”

He shakes his head. “None. My doctor was omega, but everyone I lived with was beta, except for my father and, well, we’ll call him my uncle. Those two were alphas. I’ve never seen so many omegas together before.”

“I see. I am sorry you missed out. Community with other omegas is a rewarding thing. Here in Alabasta, every city and town has its own omega hall, those places that used to be omega shelters. They have heat rooms and clinics and leisure halls and daycares… I dearly wish you had grown up with them as I did.”

He doesn’t answer. There’s a lump in his throat that won’t go away, even when he swallows more tea. It sounds too good to be true.

“The palace staff don’t intend to offend you,” Terracotta says gently when he doesn’t respond. “They are unused to seeing uncovered omegas, yes, but they also feel like they are dishonoring you by looking at you uncovered. Some of them pity you for being ignorant of how things are ‘meant to be,’ while still more are simply trying to be respectful. I know Our Majesty believes he is providing the best care possible for you by insisting that you stay in Iris Hall. He deeply respects omegas, though he is a stubborn old goat for not listening to your actual wishes.”

Again, he stares horrified, and she winks. “I’ve known Cobra for years – I have the privilege of telling him when he’s being an idiot. If you want to stay with your friends, I have no problem with moving your things. For His Majesty’s sake, though, I would ask if you’d be willing to wear the head covering for the feast? You can decline, of course, but Cobra will probably faint when he sees you. Honestly, it’d be rather funny to see.”

“I wouldn’t want to offend him. He’s been kind enough to let us stay.”

“And you and your friends saved his country. Let him be offended.” She winks again.

“I’ll think about it.”

Terracotta nods and starts actually eating her plate of finger foods. “Thank you for indulging me in my little history lesson, young man. I hope it eased some of your worries.”

“It did. Thank you.” He is honestly grateful she took the time to explain things. He’s still not sure if Alabastan customs are for him, but the context is a lot clearer than the brisk “you should just do it because this is the way it’s done” he’d gotten before this.

“You’re welcome. Now, you wanted to see the kitchens? We’re doing prep work for the feast, and I’d love to hear your thoughts about our methods. I’ve never cooked with a chef from East Blue before.”

Sanji perks right up at that, hastily stuffing more snacks in his mouth. “I can stay?”

“Absolutely. The chefs will get over it once they get a chance to teach you our cooking styles. Finish your snack and let’s get to it.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

--

Sanji’s so thrilled from getting to play around in the kitchens that he doesn’t even notice any weird looks thrown his way. True to Terracotta’s word, the cooks got over their embarrassment fairly quickly once they got into the groove of showing him everything, and his genuine enthusiasm and background in a professional kitchen smoothed the rest of the awkwardness over. He’s practically skipping back to the infirmary, a basket laden with Alabastan treats he’d been taught to make under his arm.

“Guys! I brought snacks!”

To his disappointment, the only ones in the room right now are Usopp and Luffy, who’s still unconscious.

“Where is everyone?”

Usopp looks up from whatever strange invention he’s got broken down into small components on his bed. “Hey, Sanji. Sora needed the toilet, so Chopper took him. Nami and Vivi went to ‘check out the library,’ but I’m pretty sure they’re just making out somewhere. I think Zoro went to go rip his stitches open doing some training.”

“Sounds like them. Did you want some snacks?”

“Sure. Hey, these look good! Did you make them?”

“Yeah. Madam Terracotta let me into the kitchen. She also gave me a history lesson.”

“Really? Oh, this is so good – what kind of history lesson?”

“She told me about the history of omega customs here. Apparently the omegas here chose to separate themselves to keep themselves safe, and they cover themselves for the same reason.” He’s oversimplifying, but now that he’s trying to talk about it, the words aren’t coming easily. How can he judge these customs when he’s basically done the same thing? He’s spent years hiding himself away from others, throwing up a protective shield of aggression against anyone who’d try to get close. For the most part, it’s been beneficial – the Baratie played host to a disproportionate gallery of scumbags, and he’s still convinced that choosing preemptive violence was the safest option. Still, he never let himself be vulnerable at all, and now he’s learning how much nicer things are when he does let people in. Would things have been better if he’d been more open with Zeff and Patty and Carne, or even the beta kitchen staff that he held himself apart from? Would he have felt safer, or would his paranoia have consumed him?

Probably the latter. He's heartbroken when he realizes that the person he was before becoming a Straw Hat Pirate would never have accepted comfort and vulnerability, not to any great extent. He’d been such a raw and bleeding wound, still. Every shadowed corner of the Baratie and aggressive customer had ripped at the scabs. He’d never really felt safe. Zeff had proven that he couldn’t protect him – and he knows it’s unfair to think that, but it’s the truth. He’d been abducted and assaulted one hallway away from the man he considers a father. All the care and promises of protection had come too late for him.

It's only with Luffy and the others that he’s been able to let the wounds heal. His lovely Nami and Usopp and Vivi – betas and endlessly patient with him, who’d first given him the gift of real, usable comfort. Luffy, the first alpha he’d ever come to truly trust. Chopper, his dear little friend and the dedicated doctor who takes his care so seriously. Even Zoro, who’d borne his suspicion and anxiety with grace, who’d looked so happy to be called his friend. He loves this crew, and it’s thanks to them that he’s stronger now. With them by his side, the shadows of the world don’t seem so dark, and the faceless demons who haunt him seem powerless.

Usopp’s looking at him curiously, and he shrugs. “Sorry. Just thinking. In any case, it’s really not as bad as I imagined. They have places in every town here that are just for omegas. Madame Terracotta said they’re amazing resources.”

“That sounds nice. Still, doesn’t mean some of these people had to be so rude!” Usopp huffs pointedly and picks up his tools again.

Sanji laughs quietly and steps closer to set his basket of snacks on the table beside Luffy’s bed. It’s strange how quiet the room seems with just the three of them. Sora and Chopper should liven things up a little once they’re back. He idly hopes the swordsman isn’t actually popping his stitches with excessive training, but he’s not holding out hope. The guy had been a little fixated on cutting through steel lately. Then again, getting trapped in a cell would do that to you.

He bites his lip sharply before he can think too closely about cells.

Movement in his peripheral has him jumping backwards, tensing for a fight. There’s a mighty inhalation of air and the sounds of wicker crunching under teeth. He turns, and Luffy looks at him blearily, the entire basket of snacks turning into a mushy mess of food and wood in his mouth.

“Luffy!”

Their captain swallows with effort. “Sanji? More food?”

“That was all of the food! You idiot!” He leaps forward before he can think, tackling Luffy back to the bed and aggressively rubbing their faces together. “You absolute idiot! Of course food would be what woke you up! Stupid captain…!”

“Shishishi,” Luffy laughs, nuzzling back. “Sanji was worried.”

“Of course I was worried! You’ve been unconscious for days!”

“I was tired. What are you doing? It’s nice, but I’m hungry.”

“There’s a feast tonight, but Vivi brought some fruit…”

Luffy leaps out of bed, sending Sanji toppling ass over teakettle over the side. The captain starts shoveling fruit into his mouth like a feral beast, ignoring Sanji’s cries of alarm completely. He misses the door opening, but he doesn’t miss Chopper and Sora’s loud cries of “Luffy!”

“Sora! Chopper!”

He inhales the rest of the fruit and laughs as the two kids tackle him directly to the ground. By all rights, he should still be in agony, but he takes the manhandling without complaint, only laughing harder when they both start chattering at him at the same time. Sanji clambers back up onto the bed and just watches them, his heart swelling with a fondness that feels too big to be held.

--

Sanji tugs at the ends of his scarf fretfully.

“You look perfectly lovely,” Hapi pipes up, as if that’s what he’s worried about.

Sanji sighs. He’d decided, after thinking carefully about it, to wear the customary clothing for the king’s sake. He hadn’t been able to get the thought that the king would feel like he’s the one being disrespectful by looking at Sanji out of his head. To that end, he’d enlisted Hapi, going back to Iris Hall for her help so she wouldn’t be freshly scandalized by the fact that he was going to be sleeping in a room full of unmarried young people tonight.

He looks in the mirror. He does look fine. It’s just weird, because the others will be wearing their own clothing, and here he is dolled up in Alabastan robes. The only bit he’d stubbornly held onto was leaving his bangs out of the scarf to cover his eye. He hates having both eyebrows exposed. Hapi had accepted that, at least, happy enough that he’d agreed to wearing her clothing suggestions in front of the king.

“I’ve got to be going, Miss Hapi,” he says. “Thank you again for your help.”

“Of course. Enjoy the feast!”

He finds the rest of the crew easily enough. He just has to follow Luffy’s loud voice echoing down the palace hallways. They’re waiting outside the banquet hall semi-patiently, though Luffy looks ready to burst inside and eat the whole place empty. Sanji grins when Sora and Chopper both come running to hug onto him.

“Hey guys.”

“Hey, Sanji. You look… nice?” Usopp sounds uncertain.

“You look uncomfortable,” Nami corrects. “You sure you don’t want a suit?”

“Nah,” he says, aiming for casual and unaffected. “It’s just for one evening. Don’t want to make Vivi’s dad embarrassed.” He pats the kids both on the tops of their hats. “You guys hungry? The chefs here have been working hard all day.”

“Yeah, I’m really hungry,” Sora says.

“I’m hungry, too,” Luffy whines. “Let’s go already!”

“After you, Captain.”

They push their way inside to where a long table is laid out with place settings for all of them and platters of fresh food in the process of being served. Guards line the walls, which is a little nerve-wracking, but any hesitance on his part is swallowed up by Luffy’s enthusiasm. He immediately leaps towards a chair near the head of the table, where Cobra, Igaram, and Chaka are already seated. The king only laughs when Luffy barely acknowledges him to start shoveling food into his maw.

“We’d better hurry before he eats everything,” Usopp says.

They rush the table. Sanji is immediately busy ensuring that Sora and Chopper get food on their plates – helped along by Nami and Zoro both passing him platters that haven’t been ransacked by Luffy yet. One the two of them are settled in and eating, he turns to his own plate, surprised to catch Zoro in the act of dishing food onto it. The swordsman flushes.

“Gotta hurry before Luffy gets it.”

Sanji doesn’t point out that Zoro’s own plate is still empty. He just takes his plate with a quiet thanks and turns his attention to eating as quickly as he can so he doesn’t get robbed by Luffy in the throws of his gluttony. Usopp, sitting directly across the table from Luffy, is getting the worst of it. Zoro at least is able to fend off some of the rubbery attacks with his knife and fork wielded like swords. Sanji’s just glad that Chopper and Sora are far enough away that they’re able to eat in relative peace. With Nami as a buffer and Zoro’s occasional stabs, he has enough extra attention to chat with the chefs bringing the food out – he’d earned enough favor with them that afternoon to get genuine smiles and tidbits of information about the recipes used for the feast.

Still, the food and beer and wine keep coming, and the atmosphere of the banquet’s devolved from a mad dash to eat before Luffy to a much more raucous and jovial party. It’s a lot like the parties they throw on their ship – laughing and dancing with wild abandon like the pirates they are, completely unsuited to such a fancy environment. Vivi’s laughter is contagious, and even the three men at the head of the table are joining in on the merriment.

It's as the food is finally slowing down and even Luffy’s appetite is sated that Cobra pipes up, “Now that the rain has returned, we should make use of the palace’s main bath!”

Luffy and Usopp jump at the idea, excited, and Sanji quietly feels his jovial mood frost over.

Another thing he’d missed growing up was the apparent prevalence of communal bathing culture. In theory, North Blue has a culture of sauna, but Germa had largely lost their sauna culture when they lost their land. There were saunas built into the snail ship communities, sure, but the prevalence had dwindled significantly by Sanji’s time, largely practiced by the military troops for health and communal bonding and less popular with regular citizens. Even if the culture remained, though, it wasn’t like he’d had the typical introduction to it – no father to take him to the sauna and relax together as a family. Judge never used the facilities as far as Sanji was aware, and he’d never been bathed by anyone but his mother’s hand-picked servants. In retrospect, that’s probably how his sex had never been discovered. He was bathing entirely on his own by the time he left.

Still, even after moving to East Blue, where hot springs and bathhouses are common, he’d never been inducted into communal bathing culture there, either. The Baratie had a communal shower room with open cubicles, but Zeff, even before learning Sanji was omega, had prudently decided that he didn’t want the ten-year-old in his care to bathe around the crusty old sea dogs who worked for him. Sanji showered when Zeff showered, separately, but with Zeff around to make sure he was safe. Then after… After. He’d take showers and baths with Sora, but that was it.

Now, with everyone so excited to relax in the bath, he’s completely unsure of what to do.

Silently, he follows the lot of them down the halls. It’s only once they’re close to the bath that anyone notices him or his trepidation at all. Cobra glances over and blanches.

“Oh. I’m so sorry. The Iris Hall has its own bathing facilities – I’m sure a servant can show you there.”

“Wait, Sanji’s not coming?”

Cobra turns to Luffy, hastening to say, “Well, it would be highly… Well, the facilities in Iris Hall are impeccable. Your friend will be quite comfortable.”

“But that’s dumb. Sanji should take a bath with us.”

“Luffy,” Sanji says quietly, wilting at the attention.

“He can bathe with the other omegas. Or,” Cobra hesitates, “If he really must, I suppose he can bathe in the women’s bath.”

Oh, just shoot him. It’d be faster and less embarrassing than this.

“Why would he take a bath with women?” Luffy makes a face. “Sanji’s not a girl. And he really likes boobs!”

.
..
…

Sanji closes his eyes and prays for a bolt of lightning to strike him from the sky.

“Luffy!” He’s surprised steam isn’t coming out of his ears. He can feel his whole body turning red with utter mortification.

“What?” He looks completely clueless. “You do. You look at Nami’s boobs all the time.”

He’s going to die. Nami pats him commiserating on the shoulder, whispering, “It’s okay. They’re great boobs.”

“Besides, most omegas are girls,” Luffy points out, “so he wouldn’t want to take a bath with them, either. So, he should take a bath with us!”

Cobra looks gobsmacked and almost as humiliated as Sanji. “It’s not –“

“If Sanji’s not taking a bath with us, then I don’t want to,” Luffy says with an air of finality.

“Luffy, you didn’t even ask if he even wants to,” Usopp hisses.

“Of course he wants to. We’re crew. We do everything together.”

Of course for him it’s that simple. Sanji still wants to sink into the ground and disappear. Of all people, it’s Zoro who comes to his rescue.

“So why don’t we all just wear robes? It’s not much different than a modesty towel, right? Then nobody’s looking at anybody naked and getting weird about it.”

“That’s a great idea!” Luffy grabs onto the actual monarch of an actual country and drags him towards the doors. “C’mon, we’ll all bathe together! It’ll be fun!”

Luffy disappears through the doors with Cobra in tow. Usopp shrugs and follows him. Chopper and Sora stand, confused, looking to Sanji for direction, and he has no idea what to tell them. Nami hugs his arm.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” she says.

“I know.” How does he explain that he doesn’t even know what he wants?

“C’mon, Chopper,” Zoro says, “I’ll wash your back.”

“O-Okay! Yeah!”

The swordsman turns to Sanji, looking grave. “I’m serious, Cook. We’ll wear robes. Hell, we can take a bath blindfolded if you want – I don’t care. But the kids’ll have fun, and they’ll have more fun if you’re there.”

With no further counsel, Zoro and Chopper go inside as well.

“We’ll be in the women’s bath,” Vivi says uncertainly.

“Go ahead,” he says automatically. “Don’t worry about me.”

Nami and Vivi hesitantly wander away to another door, leaving Sanji and Sora alone in the hallway. Sora looks up at his dad warily.

“Are we taking a bath, too?”

“I… don’t know. Do you want to?”

Sora fidgets uncertainly. “Well… yeah? Mr. Zoro said it’ll be fun, right? And everybody’s there…”

He could send him in there alone. He’s certain the guys would take care of him, though anxious images of them letting him run on wet tile and slip to his death haunt him. Or drowning. Or boiling in a hot pool. Or…

Get a grip, Sanji!

“Do you want to go without me?”

Sora makes a face and doesn’t say anything. A no, then. Sanji hesitates some more, but he knows already where this is going. He’s not going to let Sora feel left out just because he’s shy.

“Okay, then,” he says quietly. “Let’s take a bath.”

Any future embarrassment is worth it for the way Sora’s face lights up.

Sanji steels himself and walks through the door. The first room is simply a place to disrobe, with little cubbies for clothes and shoes to be stored. He sees his friends’ possessions haphazardly stuffed there already. The next room seems to be a shower room. Sanji swallows his anxiety and helps Sora out of his clothes and ties a towel around his waist. Then he pulls his own off.

He tries really hard to not hate his body. He does. Still, he knows he doesn’t look like the other guys. He’s seen Usopp naked, and enough of Zoro and Luffy wandering around half-clothed to get the idea of what they look like. He’s… not that. Wider hips. That damned scar on his belly, and the skin around it that never fully tightened back up despite the muscle underneath it. His stupid chest, where he has to try really hard to make sure his pecs look appropriately masculine and not like little boobs. He doesn’t even like acknowledging it – he hadn’t even been able to try to feed Sora from there because anyone at all touching his chest sends him straight into a panic attack. Fuck, he’s zoning out again, and Sora’s looking at him expectantly.

“Right, sorry,” he says. He strips his pants and boxers off and does not look at or think about anything underneath them, nope. He ties his own towel on and wraps himself in a robe, immediately glad for the coverage. He enters the next room like a lost soul entering the next circle of hell.

Huh. Actually, it’s not that hellish.

Luffy, Usopp, and Cobra seem to have already showered and run off to the baths. Only Zoro and Chopper remain, and only because Zoro seems dedicated to his task of scrubbing all the sand out of the little guy’s fur. Sora immediately makes for the showers near them, and Sanji hangs back, just… watching.

Zoro’s so gentle with Chopper, and he finds he enjoys watching him so focused when that focus isn’t on him. He’s also only wearing a towel, sitting on a low stool, and Sanji’s not a pervert, but he’s kind of fascinated. He’d been fascinated by Ace’s naked torso, too, and he blushes when he compares the two. He’d seen Zoro shirtless many times before, sure, but… that was always during training, when his muscles were bulging and sweaty. He looks softer with them relaxed and less defined. There’s even a little layer of fat on his belly, probably from all the alcohol he drinks. He wonders if it feels as soft as it looks.

What the fuck.

His brain’s broken. He’d gotten too much desert sun, and he’d fried his brain. First Ace, and now he’s looking at Zoro? His friend and crewmate, Zoro? Is he really just some omega slut who’ll objectify any alpha he spends any significant time with? He shakes his head wildly and hugs his robe closer around him, scuttling past the two oblivious crewmates to go help Sora wash off. While he’s having his internal crisis, Zoro hoses Chopper off and smiles at him, then thankfully pulls a robe over himself, covering up his tanned skin and intriguing soft muscles and anything else Sanji’s horrible little brain could think to look at. He barely glances at the two of them as he ties the belt on his robe and walks off to the main bath with a quiet little slap of bare feet on wet tile.

“Dad, hurry up,” Sora urges.

Safely alone, Sanji discards his own robe and showers off quickly before shrugging it back on. It’s weird. He’s making it weird. Nobody takes a bath in a bathrobe. It’s stupid. He follows his son into the main bath, stunned for a moment by the opulence of it. It’s a truly gorgeous place, complete with spouts of water coming from the statuary, and a fountain so large that it creates a small waterfall. He finally looks around, surprised to see that yeah, everyone’s wearing bathrobes. Even Luffy and Usopp who are roughhousing, and Cobra, who’s beet red and not looking their direction at all, as if a tile mosaic has captured his full attention. Sanji feels bad because he never wanted to put the king in this position in the first place, but his attention’s grabbed by Zoro waving him over to a smaller pool.

“This one’s a little cooler than those,” he says, gesturing to the larger pools. “The hottest one is the one the king’s in. This should be okay for Chopper and Sora.”

Chopper kicks his feet in the water. “Yeah! It’s not too hot!”

Sora glances at Sanji and, at his nod, enthusiastically joins Chopper in the bath. Zoro watches them both splash around with a fond smile on his face.

“Thanks, Mosshead,” Sanji blurts out, looking away instead of meeting his eyes when he turns to him. “For this. And at dinner. You’ve been really nice.”

“That’s what friends are for, right?”

He glances up to see Zoro’s wide, unabashed grin.

“Don’t worry, Curly, I’ll still kick your ass sparring when we get back to the Merry.”

Just like that, it’s back to normal. Sanji grins back. “Oh, I see. You’re just buttering me up so I go easy on you.”

“Hell no. I’d destroy you if you took it easy.”

“Yeah, right. You can barely keep up.”

“You tell yourself that, but I almost had you last time.”

“It won’t happen again. Just wait. I’ll knock you right into the ocean.”

“Not if I send you there first.”

Sanji stops to remind the kids no running and to be careful before leaving them and hesitantly sinking into the slightly hotter bath nearby with Zoro. Sitting in a bathrobe in the water is definitely weird, but Zoro makes a good show of looking completely unbothered. He’s just glad for the coverage. If he was ogling Zoro just now, would Zoro have also looked at him? He hadn’t indicated that he wanted to, and he’s not sure how he’d feel about him looking at him. Probably anxious. But Zoro’s not trying to peek, just closing his eyes and tipping his head back. He’s so relaxed compared to Sanji’s tense, overwrought body.

“Stop thinking so much, Cook,” Zoro says without opening his eyes.

“I’m not!”

“Right. King of relaxation, that’s you.”

“I can relax! I’ll relax twice as much as you!” As he blurts it out, he realizes just how stupid that statement was.

Zoro snorts, confirming that he realized it, too. “Relaxation contest doesn’t sound very relaxing, Curly.”

“Fuck off, I’d still win,” he mutters, sinking deeper into the pool until the water’s up to his chin. He’s never been in a bath so large or so hot before. It’s amazing. He can feel sore muscles he didn’t even notice relaxing, the tension and pain that’s almost constant in his feet and legs seeping out of him. Between the heat and his full belly and the wine he’d had with dinner, he thinks he could fall asleep right here.

“Don’t doze off, Curls, you’ll drown.”

“Nah, I wouldn’t,” he grumbles, his eyes sliding closed anyway. So what if he drowns? He’s never leaving this tub.

“Seriously, don’t sleep.” The water sloshes as Zoro scoots over to his side, little waves smacking against Sanji’s face. The swordsman stops before he can touch him. “Are you – are you purring?”

Sanji’s eyes shoot open at that. Ah, shit, he is. He’s got to get better control of this – he’s been purring so much lately. Zoro is looking at him incredulously from a foot or so away.

“Shit, sorry,” Sanji mumbles, straightening up so he’s no longer slouched and in danger of drowning.

“No, it’s… it’s cool,” Zoro mumbles, sloshing away again. His cheeks are pink from the heat, and he looks away from Sanji. “I don’t think you need to be weird about it. It’s just something your body does when you’re happy, right?”

“Uh, yeah. Right.”

“Then it’s fine.” He scratches the back of his head, darting his eyes over to the pool with the kids in it. “Usopp does it, too, sometimes. Not as loud as you, but I can hear it when I’m trying to sleep, and it’s kind of nice. So I don’t mind. I’d be kind of an asshole if I told you to stop being happy, yeah?”

He opens his mouth to protest, to try to explain, but he abruptly realizes he’s not sure he has an explanation. It’s just always been a weird quirk about him, at least since he was a teenager. He’d purr to comfort Sora, and sometimes he’d purr when he was alone with Zeff or with both him or Sora, but it wasn’t ever something he did around anyone else. It also wasn’t something he’d normally experience with others. Carne would try to purr to soothe him, but Carne, frankly, sucked at it. Dr. Toshiko and Beatriz would purr sometimes when Sanji was freaking out about one thing or another, but again, he wasn’t really in his right mind to think about it too hard. He’s never been lulled into purring so often and around so many others before.

Absurdly, that makes him feel even happier. He really loves his friends. If they weren’t in a bath and technically naked underneath their soggy robes, he’d probably want to go nuzzle everybody again.

Sanji slowly stands up, instead, careful not to move too quickly and make himself woozy. The cloth of his robe clings annoyingly to his skin, and over the sound of water sloshing, he thinks he hears Zoro make a noise.

“Did you say something?”

“Nope,” Zoro grunts.

“Oh, okay. I’m gonna go join the kids in the cooler tub. This one’s nice, but I don’t want to nod off again.”

“Right. Okay.” Zoro waves him off and sinks lower into the tub.

Sanji drips his way over to the tub with Sora and Chopper in it and sinks in. Immediately, both of them crowd up on him to chatter about the baths and the statues and the feast they just had. Eventually, they’re distracted making a game of pushing a floating wooden bath bucket back and forth to each other. Sanji leans back and relaxes.

“Straw Hats!”

He flicks his eyes over to the king. Cobra has moved himself to the center of the room, on his knees in a soggy bathrobe and looking nothing like royalty.

“I must thank you,” he says, his voice carrying through the room in a practiced, kingly timbre. “For my country, I thank you.”

He bows, then, pressing his forehead to the floor.

“Is it okay for a king to do that?” Zoro asks.

Sanji’s own blood is frozen in his veins. A king, lowering himself below peasants? Before pirates? It’s unheard of.

“This is a serious incident, Cobra,” Igaram says. “A king shouldn’t bow his head to anyone.”

“Igaram,” Cobra says, head still bowed, “Authority is something worn over your clothes. We are here in the bath. There is no such thing as a naked king. Here, there is no authority, no status.” He cuts his eyes over to Sanji and the kids finally, giving him a weak, still slightly embarrassed smile. “I thank you all from the bottom of my heart as a father and as a resident of this land.”

He raises his head, greeted with Luffy’s warm and goofy laughter. It softens the king even further.

“Thank you,” he says again. “I really appreciate it.”

Sanji finds Luffy’s grin to be mirrored on the rest of their faces. For a moment, it does seem like a beautiful and impossible world of equality. He closes his eyes and relaxes back into the tub.

--

“We need to leave tonight,” Nami says.

“Tonight?!” Usopp and Chopper echo.

“Yeah, we have no reason to stay here any longer,” Zoro says.

“I’m worried about the Navy, too,” Sanji says. “They’re all over the city outside the palace. The longer we stay, the harder it will be to leave.”

“We should go, then,” Usopp says. “Luffy?”

“We should eat more, then leave!”

“No, we need to leave now, idiot!”

A scuffle breaks out between Luffy, Zoro, and Usopp. Sanji shares a look with Nami and sighs.

“Excuse me,” a guardsman says, interrupting by knocking on the door of the room and opening it. “There’s a snail call for you.”

“For us?”

“From who?”

“Someone named Bon-Bon?”

Sanji perks up, but Sora beats him to it, “Bon-Bon?!”

“Oh, so you do know him,” the guardsman says. “Here.”

He hands the snail to Sanji, who sets it in the middle of the room so everyone can listen.

“Hello! Hi, it’s me!” Bon Kurei laughs loudly through the receiver.

“Bon, you’re alive,” Sanji says.

“Of course I’m alive!”

“We thought you’d left us,” Nami says.

“Of course not! We’re friends! I had some business to take care of!”

“What business?”

“I took your ship!”

They all share a look of confusion.

“Why’d you take our ship? Are you joking?” Usopp asks.

“Not joking! The Navy’s made a blockade around the coast! I had to move your ship so they wouldn’t get it!”

“So they’ve already made their move…” Sanji mutters.

“Tell us where you are, and we’ll meet you tonight. Right, Luffy?” Nami asks.

“Sure,” Luffy says casually. “We’ll be there as fast as we can.”

”Great! I’ll be waiting!”

The guardsman takes the snail back when they finish, and the Straw Hat Crew explodes into action, smoother and more professionally than anyone would normally give them credit for. Chopper gathers all the medicine he’s been making. Nami organizes their clothes and personal belongings. Sanji and Usopp oversee the supplies for restocking the ship. Zoro and Luffy speed off to get the duck squad prepared. Vivi is suspiciously quiet through all this, but they don’t really have time to ask more questions.

She walks them to the courtyard at least, the city quiet and dark under the light of the moon.

“I’ll meet you tomorrow on the coast,” she tells Nami. “I have to stay until then.”

“I understand,” she says.

The two girls step closer, and Sanji looks away to afford them a small measure of privacy. Hopefully, their separation will be brief. He doesn’t like to see any of them sad. He busies himself getting Sora perched atop their duck ride.

“Okay, everyone. Let’s get out of here,” Nami says briskly.

With that, they mount their ducks and dash off into the night.

Sanji lets himself relax a little as the countryside flies by on the way to the river. Sora’s nodded off in front of him, and he holds him tightly so he’s safe. They’re well into the early hours of morning now as they reach the shores of the Sandora River and see the Going Merry waiting in the water. A loud, flamboyant figure hops up and down the railing when they approach.

“Guys! Everyone! You made it!”

“Thanks for taking care of our ship, Bon-Chan!” Luffy shouts.

“Of course! Anything for my dearest friends!”

They work quickly to unload the ducks and load the ship, stowing as much as they can and tying down the rest. Bon-chan’s own ship is anchored nearby.

“It won’t be easy to slip the Navy’s blockade,” Bon says, “but we’ll do everything we can to support you. Hopefully, we can all get out okay!”

“We’ll do our best!”

Sanji grabs his arm before he can go over to his own ship. “Hey. Thanks again for everything, Bon-chan. You’re a great friend.”

Bon Kurei’s eyes pool up and spill over with tears, and Sanji isn’t even surprised when he’s dragged into an exuberant embrace. “Ahhhh!! What beautiful friendship! Let’s meet again one of these days!”

He exchanges another embrace with everyone and squeezes Sora extra hard before hopping off to his own ship to rally his crew.

“Okay, everyone. Let’s get out of here,” Nami says.

--

“There’s only one way,” Bon Kurei shouts across the water to their ship.

“No,” Sanji whispers.

“I have no regrets!” He waves at them. “Take care, Straw Hats! We’ll meet again one day!”

“Bon-chan, no!”

With a final wave, Bon Kurei turns his ship to lure the Navy ships away with his Straw Hat disguise. Sanji feels tears in his eyes, reflected in the eyes of the crew. Still, they can’t let his sacrifice be in vain. They stay the course to the rendezvous point with Vivi, stoic despite the tears freely falling from their eyes. Vivi’s waiting for them, and they have no time to miss this appointment. Distantly, he can hear cannons, but he can’t turn and look. He has to believe in Bon. Luffy and Usopp watch, tears streaming.

“Bon-chan,” Luffy shouts, “I’ll never forget you!”

Bon Kurei’s sacrifice is rewarded when they reach the rendezvous point and see Vivi and Karoo waiting for them. The princess looks especially lovely in her gown, though maybe it’s how she shimmers through the tears in their eyes.

“I came to say goodbye!”

All activity on the ship freezes.

Vivi’s voice echoes out over the ocean through her snail. “I can’t go with you! Thank you so much for everything! I’d like to go on more adventures… but there’s no ignoring that I love this country!”

This really is goodbye. Sanji picks Sora up and rests him on his hip so they can both see Vivi’s distant figure.

“So I can’t go!”

The princess is crying now, and Sanji feels the tears leftover from losing Bon-chan rise up anew.

“I will remain here,” she sobs, “But if we ever meet again some day… will you call me your friend again?”

As if there were any universe in which they wouldn’t. And they can’t respond verbally. Not with the Navy listening. Still, when they all line up and thrust their X-marked arms up into the air, they can’t help but feel that the bonds of their friendship will last longer and further than any time and distance that would separate them.

Chapter Text

They’re finally out on the open water, but Zoro can’t let himself relax yet.

It was too close. They’d come far too close to death or imprisonment, and the adrenaline hasn’t quite worn out of his system. Too many upheavals in too short a time. He’s annoyed with himself for how much Bon Kurei’s heroic sacrifice actually hurts – but the overwhelming sincerity of the guy who should have been their enemy had won him over against his will. He has to believe that he survived. Bon Kurei’s sturdy like a cockroach. He’s probably aggravating all the Marines in his vicinity with his loud mouth right now.

And Vivi…

It’s thrown his count off. He doesn’t know when she got enfolded into them, but it’s like a gap in his teeth. He keeps scanning the crew, verifying and counting, and now they’re short. Without Vivi and Karoo, he’s dropped from his comfortable nine to only seven.

He turns to count again and groans. Now that the danger’s past, the crew’s become completely useless. They’re just flopped on the deck, whining and nuzzling and crying.

“Get up, you idiots,” he growls.

“We miss Vivi,” they chorus.

“If you miss her that much, then you should have just grabbed her and taken her by force.”

It’s like he threw a bucket of water on them. They all turn to look at him with disdain.

“You’re such a savage,” Chopper cries.

“You’re the worst,” says Nami.

Sanji’s gaze is flat. “Mosshead.”

Sora copies his dad. “Yeah! Mosshead!”

“Three-Sword Style,” Luffy deadpans.

Usopp is distracted from whatever he was about to say, instead turning to Luffy to say, “Hey, wait, Luffy. ‘Three-Sword Style’ isn’t an insult.”

“Four-Sword Style.”

“The number isn’t exactly the problem…”

“Five-Sword Style,” Sora chimes in.

“That’s ridiculous. How would you hold five swords?”

“Two in each hand!”

“Or hold the swords in your toes.”

“But how would you walk, then?”

Zoro crosses his arms and scowls at the lot of them as they completely lose track of insulting him. He’s not sure why he’s the bad guy here. It’s the truth – they could have just kidnapped her and been done with it. Then again, that would probably make the Navy hate them even more. If word got out that they’d kidnapped a princess…

He’s distracted. That’s why he’s not immediately alarmed when the storeroom door opens, but the sound of a smooth woman’s voice saying, “Looks like we finally made it off the island! Good job,” grinds his thoughts to a halt.

He has a sword in hand before he can think. The woman framed in the shadows of the door is Miss All-Sunday, the alpha who’d threatened and insulted them back on Whisky Peak. Distantly, he acknowledges that she’d probably used chemical scent blockers, because even this close, her personal smell is muted and astringent, though still with the overall floral note that he’d noticed before. It’s a useless observation here in the moment. The crew’s jumped into defensive positions, with Usopp grabbing his slingshot, Nami putting a hand on her clima-tact, Chopper switching to heavy point, and Sanji tensing and putting himself between her and Sora while also putting Luffy between them and her.

“You here to avenge your organization?” Zoro asks. “I’ll take you on!”

The woman seems completely unbothered, walking past Zoro’s blade as if it’s just a toy. He growls at her, and she only smirks before whatever trick she uses knocks their weapons out of their hands once again.

“Didn’t I tell you before not to point such dangerous objects at me?”

“How long have you been on the ship?” Nami asks, aghast.

“All this time,” the woman says.

He doesn’t know if it’s because she’s an alpha or if she’s just a bitch, but her arrogance grates on him. The way she’s casually grabbing a deck chair, wearing Nami’s clothes – implying she’s been down in Sanji’s den, and that causes another wave of growls at the thought – he wants very badly to hurt her.

She turns her eyes on Luffy. “Monkey D. Luffy. You know what you did to me.”

“What did I do?” Luffy’s tense, but he’s letting her talk, so Zoro can’t attack just yet. “I didn’t do anything to you!”

“Yes, you did,” she says, lounging on the chair like she owns the place. “What you did to me was unbearable. Take responsibility.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Luffy says again. He’s still not overtly aggressive, just waiting. “You’re not making sense. What do you want me to do?”

“Let me join your crew,” she says pleasantly.

“What?!”

The woman continues as if they didn’t say anything, “You made me live when I wanted to die. That is your crime. I have nowhere else to go… nothing to go back to. Let me stay here.”

Luffy opens his mouth to reply, but Sanji cuts in, “Pardon me, ma’am, but that sounds like complete bullshit. Why would we let you join us? We know nothing about you. Not even your name!”

Her pleasant smile doesn’t dim. “I don’t know yours, either, omega.” The way she says it is an obvious dismissal. Like Sanji’s not even worth remembering. “You do raise a good point – my name is Nico Robin.”

The cook obviously caught the subtext. His teeth gleam white in a snarl. “Yeah, and my name’s Sanji. Cut the ‘omega’ bullshit.”

For all his bold words, he still stands with Luffy between them, looking just as anxious and furious as he’d been back on the Baratie. It makes Zoro feel anger beyond rationality. Sanji’s worked so hard these past months to get where they’d gotten to, and this cold-eyed alpha’s building his walls right back up before their very eyes.

“What do you actually want?” Zoro growls. “What’s your Devil Fruit power? What guarantee do we have that you’re not going to murder us in our sleep?”

“So protective,” she coos. He growls louder at her tone. She doesn’t bat an eye. “I want to join this crew. I can hardly sail this ship by myself, so I have nothing to gain by killing you and no reason to wish you harm. As for my abilities…”

She crosses her arms, and more arms materialize around her, sprouting from her back like fleshy wings. Usopp yelps, and Sanji makes a horrible noise caught somewhere between a whine and a gasp.

“I ate the Hana Hana no Mi. I can bloom parts of my body anywhere I choose.”

So it had been her hands knocking their weapons away. She releases the power, and the hands melt away into flower petals.

Luffy’s looking at her consideringly. Zoro waits for him to reject her – to ask more questions – to give him some kind of order, but instead he smiles.

“Okay. You can join my crew.”

Everyone turns to look at him in horror.

“It’s okay,” he says, reassuring no one. “She’s not a bad person.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Robin says.

“You’re serious?”

“Yup!”

Normally, Zoro would follow Luffy without question, but this is just… He can tell that the crew’s uncertain and frightened. They’re all running on no sleep and too much stress, and he can’t believe they’re making this decision so hastily.

“We don’t have anywhere else to put her, anyway,” Luffy says blithely.

“Over the side,” Nami mutters.

He’s inclined to agree with Nami. They know nothing about this woman, have been told nothing about what she’d done beyond a garbled explanation from Luffy that she’d helped him somehow when he fought Crocodile. He’s not sure a history of betrayal is as much of a glowing recommendation as Luffy thinks it is. He’d be okay with trusting Luffy’s judgement to a point, but this is bigger than just them. He flicks his eyes over to Sora, who’s openly worried, and Sanji, who’s coiled with tension. They have a kid to worry about. If this blows up in their faces, he’s the most vulnerable one here.

“Captain,” Sanji says sharply. “A word, please?”

He edges around the deck, staying far away from Robin without taking his eyes away from her. He pulls Sora with him, depositing him by Zoro’s side.

“Stay with Mr. Zoro, okay?”

“Okay, Dad.” Sora’s looking hesitant, but not yet completely frightened. Zoro understands Sanji’s unspoken command. Sora is in his care now. He gives Sanji a nod and watches with half his attention as Sanji drags Luffy up to the figurehead, keeping the rest of his attention fixed on the woman lounging on their deck chair. He can’t hear what Luffy and Sanji discuss, but the cook’s gone to gesticulating wildly before his shoulders draw back and the fight drains out of him. He walks back to them, meeting no one’s eyes.

“There should be some sandwiches packed in the kitchen,” he says woodenly. “Eat them for lunch. Sora and I are taking a nap. We’ll be back to cook dinner.”

He grabs Sora’s hand and the two of them start their walk back to the storeroom. He pauses when they pass Robin. He doesn’t look at her, just tonelessly says, “Welcome to the crew,” before he disappears behind the door with a near-silent click of the latch that echoes like a gunshot on the quiet deck.

What the fuck did Luffy say to him?

He’s curious, but that can wait. Nami and Usopp share a look before Nami follows the cook and his kid. Usopp edges close to Chopper. He looks like he’s marshaling his courage to start peppering the woman with questions. Good. Zoro carves out a middle ground for himself. He sits down, taking a post near the door so he can play both guard for the cook and bodyguard for Usopp.

“I’m not satisfied,” Usopp says. His voice trembles only slightly.

“Oh? You won’t obey your captain?”

“Of course I’ll obey my captain. Unlike some people, I’m not a traitor.”

“Such hostility.” She says it like it’s a joke.

The door creaks open again, and Nami’s back already. If that’s a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen. She strides over to stand next to Usopp with her arms crossed over her chest.

“You’re going to have to sleep in the boys’ bunkroom,” she states.

Robin snorts quietly. It’s the first tiny shred of real emotion Zoro’s sensed – a blink-and-you-miss-it spike of annoyance. “Misgendering now?”

“I know you’re not a guy,” Nami says, though her tone is still firm and brooks no argument. “I know it’s not ideal, but it’s that or you sleep in the galley. You and the guys will have to work it out. The den’s off-limits to any of the alphas. I don’t care who. Don’t care that you’re a lady. You stay out.”

The humorless smile is back on Robin’s face. “Of course. You’ll have to forgive me for going inside before this. I needed some clothes that weren’t soaked in blood, you see, and somewhere to stow away.”

“I’ll forgive it this once. If you need more clothes to borrow, just ask me. Just don’t go in there.” Nami chews her lip. Finally, she says, “Look, I don’t trust you yet. You’ll forgive me for being a little protective of Sanji and his kid. They deserve somewhere to feel safe, you know?”

“I understand. I will respect their space. You have my word.”

“Good.” Her stony expression thaws just slightly, though she looks more tired than friendly. “Welcome to the crew, Nico Robin.”

Zoro keeps his own counsel. Luffy’s bounding back and distracting Usopp from his interrogation. Chopper looks torn between Luffy’s enthusiasm and the general feeling of distrust pervading the ship. Zoro just feigns relaxation, his thoughts lingering below the deck.

--

He’s already feeling twitchy and overstimulated when they discover the rat stowing away on their ship.

He’s well-used to fatigue, but the exhaustion he’s feeling now is a bad combination of staying up all night and dealing with way too many emotional blows in one day. It was only twenty-four hours before this that he’d been in the kitchen with Madame Terracotta. In the time since, they’d had a party, taken the most stressful bath of his life, packed up and ran to the Merry, nearly been killed or captured by Marines, lost Bon-chan, lost Vivi and Karoo, and escaped a Naval blockade.

Is he wrong for just wanting a few hours to process this?

Instead, he gets to throw himself between his son and the strange, enemy alpha who’d tormented them back in Whisky Peak and watch her handily disarm Zoro, Usopp, and Nami without moving or breaking a sweat. She oozes confidence and a detached sort of humor, and he feels blind without the ability to smell her. He reads so much intention and mood from others with his nose – but this alpha’s blocked her scent, leaving him scrambling to understand her motives. The way she looks at him makes his skin crawl. It’s not lust. It’s something worse. Like she doesn’t even want to look at him. Like he’s not worth her attention? Or that she’s just too disgusted to look at him? He can’t pin her intent down, and that frightens him more than it would if she’d just wanted to fuck him.

She’s keeping up this aloof, coy act. “You made me live when I wanted to die. That is your crime. I have nowhere else to go… nothing to go back to. Let me stay here.”

He can’t hold it in anymore. “Pardon me, ma’am,” he says because he’s still a gentleman, though he ruins it by following up with, “but that sounds like complete bullshit. Why would we let you join us? We know nothing about you. Not even your name!”

Her pleasant smile doesn’t dim. “I don’t know yours, either, omega.” And there it is again. That stupid fucking word. Technically true, yes, but the way she says it makes him grind his teeth. Like he’s just a particularly stupid child and not worth speaking to. “You do raise a good point – my name is Nico Robin.”

She says that like he should know her. He doesn’t. He’s more interested in snarling out, “Yeah, and my name’s Sanji. Cut the ‘omega’ bullshit.”

He was taught not to be rude to ladies, but that’s for ladies who don’t make him feel like less than human from the get-go.

Zoro draws her attention to him again, asking the questions they’re all wondering. Nico Robin dismisses him, too, making his concerns seem like some childish alpha display to protect Sanji, as if it’s not Zoro’s job to protect everyone, his job to worry about these things. Then she demonstrates her Devil Fruit power and Sanji can’t stop himself from making a noise.

He’s going to puke. She’s sprouted hands. All over. It’s grotesque. And she’d touched him. That’s what had disarmed him back in Whisky Peak, and she’d touched him with her hands. His skin crawls. He doesn’t let any alpha touch him without consequence. And yet. This one could pin him down without even using her own limbs to do it. It would be laughably easy.

He’s still reeling from his panicked visions of being held down and touched by more hands than he can count when he finally realizes that Luffy’s just… welcomed her to the crew. He’s laughing. Like this is a game. Like he’s not inviting a woman who’s proven already that she can disarm them all as long as she knows their attacks are coming, who was their enemy until a few days ago.

“Captain,” he barks, “A word, please?”

He weighs his options and edges Sora closer to his friends. Zoro’s his best bet. He’s the strongest, and the best at close-range fighting. He’s also insanely protective, and he knows without asking that Zoro would fight to his last breath to defend Sora just as much as Sanji would. He’s just that kind of person. Zoro’s also astute enough to understand what Sanji’s requesting without having to be told. Sanji gives him a nod and takes Luffy to the figurehead.

“Luffy,” he says with as much poise as he can summon, “You can’t just let her join the crew.”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry so much.”

“Don’t – Don’t worry? How can you ask me not to worry? You’ve invited this woman on board our ship where I keep my child. This isn’t a game, Luffy!” He sweeps his arms out as if to encompass the whole fucked up situation.

“I’m not playing a game,” Luffy says. “She’s not a bad person.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. She’s not going to hurt anybody.”

He’s still sitting there looking unconcerned and so confident that he’s right. It dredges up the humiliation he’d tabled until now – the humiliation Luffy had caused just last night by talking over him and loudly talking about his sexual preferences in front of Vivi’s father and making both him and Cobra bend their morals to accommodate his whims. He’d been so sure he was right, then, too, and Sanji’d gone along with it. Hell, he’d even enjoyed parts of it. It still didn’t make it right. He hasn’t had time to really process it yet, but there’s a kernel of resentment festering in him that flares up now, fanned by the anxiety of Robin’s appearance and the grating mortification of the way she looks at him and addresses him.

“So, what? You just unilaterally decide for us?” Bitterness drips from his tongue. “We don’t get a vote? She’s a Baroque Works agent!”

Luffy’s carefree expression finally solidifies into something stern. “She’s not Baroque Works anymore. I said she’s not going to hurt you, and she’s not.”

“But how can you be so sure?”

“Bon-chan was a Baroque Works agent, too. You trusted him.”

Sanji flinches. “That’s… different.”

“How?” Luffy’s mouth tips down on the corner. “Because he was a beta? Robin’s different because she’s an alpha? You can’t just not trust her because she’s an alpha. They’re not all out to get you.”

He’s so casually dismissive. Maybe to Luffy, it is that simple. How could he even begin to explain? Robin frightens him, and not because she’s an alpha, not entirely. She’s hiding something. Maybe everything. They don’t know a single thing about her or her real reasons for joining. So what if he does distrust her for being alpha, anyway? Luffy’s never been forced to submit to an alpha, never had that terrible pressure come down on his neck and steal away his ability to fight back. Robin could violate him without even taking his clothes off.

“You’re not listening to me,” he says. His lips feel numb. He’s slipping into such a high level of stress that he feels like he’s starting to float away.

“I’m the captain,” Luffy says. There it is. That hint of alpha authority he’d been dreading. He squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn’t want to look and see the stubborn, immovable look on Luffy’s face. “You need to trust me. Robin’s not going to hurt anyone, and she’s not dangerous. You’re safe. She’s part of the crew now.”

He says nothing else. As if the matter is settled. For him, it is. He’s the captain. They have to listen to him. He’s already decided that Sanji’s irrational. Nothing he can say now will sway him. As usual.

“So you say, Captain.”

He sounds hollow to his own ears. He turns mechanically and walks back to collect Sora. “There should be some sandwiches packed in the kitchen,” he says to the crew. “Eat them for lunch. Sora and I are taking a nap. We’ll be back to cook dinner.”

He pauses when he passes Nico Robin. He can’t even look at her. Still, Luffy’s word is, evidently, law. So he musters an unenthusiastic, “Welcome to the crew.” He doesn’t wait for a reply.

Descending down into the den isn’t the relief he was hoping it would be. Despite the scent blockers, he can smell the trace of Robin down here. It seems concentrated on Nami’s side of the room, but that’s still too close. She’d been in here, she’d seen his nest, she’d sniffed around what was supposed to be his safe space.

“Go on and lie down. I know you’re tired.”

It’s a mark of how tired Sora really is that he doesn’t argue. He only asks quietly, “Where’s Fin Soup?”

“Here.” Sanji digs through the wicker basket full of plushies and grabs the shark, handing it over. Sora settled, he starts mechanically picking up pillows and blankets from the edge of the nest and rubbing them over his neck and the underside of his chin, reinforcing his scent on their nest. He hears the hatch creak, but he ignores it.

“You okay?” Nami’s voice is hesitant. Quiet.

Sanji shrugs wordlessly.

“You want some company?”

“Not really. I really did come here for a nap.”

Nami grunts in agreement. When he glances over, she’s doing much the same as him, looking through her things and rubbing her scent over them. Good. Maybe that woman’s scent will fade entirely. A terrible thought strikes him.

“She’s not going to sleep in here, is she?”

It’s the logical place to put her. Put her and Nami together, the two women. He could move his nest and their things to the bunkroom. He’s not scared of Zoro or Luffy anymore. He could probably learn to deal with their scents invading his nest by proximity. Maybe. But then where would he go for his heat? Or when one of the guys ruts? He doesn’t actually want to move. He likes it here. He likes sleeping with Nami nearby and listening to her scribble on her maps in the evening. He likes the smell of her books and the inks she uses to finish the maps. He likes having this quiet corner all to him and Sora. He doesn’t want to lose it.

When he dares look at Nami, her face is stormy. “No. She’ll have to find somewhere else.”

“You can’t make her sleep with the guys…”

“She’ll have to figure it out. Stowaways don’t get the luxury of first-choice accommodations.” Her expression softens. “I’m not going to kick you out.”

“…Okay.”

She hesitates a long moment before she asks, “…What did Luffy say to you?”

He shakes his head. He’s not ready to open that can of worms just yet. “Nothing important. Just reminded me of my place.” He shakes his head again when her brow furrows at his word choice. “I really don’t want to talk about it. I just want to catch a nap before dinner.”

Nami looks like she wants to argue, but, mercifully, she chooses to hold her tongue. He knows she’ll ask again later. Maybe by then he’ll be able to speak about it without his throat closing up and his eyes prickling.

“Okay. I’ll try to keep the idiots quiet. Have a good nap.”

He nods around the lump in his throat. Sora’s eyelids are drooping despite his best efforts to stay awake and listen to their conversation. Sanji leans in and nuzzles him, though he can’t seem to muster a purr now. Too stressed. Still, the affectionate gesture and bit of his scent is enough to push him over the edge. He’s asleep within a minute, too tired to stay awake any longer.

Sanji wants to crawl in there, too, but… He sighs. The anxiety crawls under his skin like centipedes. He removes his jacket, shoes, and belt, then, with no small amount of disdain for himself, opens the door of the wardrobe and shuts himself inside.

He should have outgrown this. He shouldn’t have to do this. The dark and quiet and press of wood against him, though… he’s powerless to resist the measure of comfort it provides. The clothes brushing against his face are his own, so they just smell like him and cigarette smoke and the soap he uses. He presses his shoulders more firmly into the wood. He wishes he could extend the pressure over his entire body, weigh himself down until he’s not so close to panic anymore.

He grits his teeth when the first tear bubbles up and over the edge of his eyelashes, leaving a hot trail down his face. He feels thirteen again. He doesn’t want to be back here, crying alone in a closet. He squeezes himself tighter and fights to keep his keening whine quiet so he doesn’t disturb Sora. He shouldn’t be so upset. It’s his own fault for letting himself get his hopes up.

Luffy had just seemed different. A little pushy, even back at the Baratie, but he’d known when to back off. Sanji had let himself think that maybe he respected him. Maybe they wouldn’t fall into the trap of alpha-omega dynamics. He was kidding himself. Even if Luffy isn’t interested in fucking him, he’s still an alpha. Still thinks he’s right, still thinks he’s better…

It’s probably his fault, too. He’d thought himself so headstrong and defiant, but when push comes to shove, he folds like any other omega. He’d just stood there and let Luffy humiliate and pressure him in front of King Cobra. He should have told him to fuck off then, but he didn’t. He wanted to please him, was afraid if he said no he’d make things even more awkward. So he’d pushed his feelings down and told himself he’d deal with it later, and here’s later: crying in a fucking closet because Monkey D. Fucking Luffy decided bringing that spiteful, frightening woman aboard was a perfectly fine idea. Because he could just tell she’s a good person. Sure, Luffy has an uncanny intuition about people sometimes, but this is a stretch.

And then he’d been a dick about it.

It is different than Bon-chan, he tells himself. Bon-chan had stopped himself from attacking them before he’d even started. He’d seen a hurt kid and felt compassion. He’d reached out in kindness and empathy to someone who should have been his enemy when he had every opportunity to do the opposite. Nico Robin, however, is here on their ship, leagues from any friendly shore, demanding their aid while leaving them no choice but help her or kill her. The Merry is too small for anything to work as a brig – keeping her prisoner would be a fool’s endeavor. There’s nowhere to drop her off, either. Just miles and miles of unfriendly sea. She doesn’t even have the decency to grovel or act humble. No, she’s here on their generosity and still playing her twisted mind games.

Not that he can tell Luffy any of that. He’s made it quite clear how seriously he takes Sanji’s concerns.

A fresh wave of tears run down his face. He’s so tired. He’d thought he was through with this. Thought he’d found a new family to add to his little Baratie pack – people who really loved him. He hopes things will look less hopeless once he’s gotten some sleep and the world’s not spinning with exhaustion anymore. He hasn’t even gotten to process the loss of Bon-chan and Vivi. So much has happened in just a day and a night.

He’ll call Zeff while he cooks dinner. Maybe he’ll feel better once he gets to hear the old geezer’s voice again. The thought cheers him enough that he can shake off some of his misery and curl up on the floor of the wardrobe for a quick nap.

--

The world isn’t magically better after his nap, but it’s a start. He’s got a crick in his neck now – he really should have gone out to the nest for his nap, anxiety be damned – but his thoughts are a little more clear and less frantic.

He still doesn’t want to look at Luffy. In the hours he was away, the captain’s fully committed to having Robin around, and he’s won Usopp and Chopper over enough that they’re not running away in terror, though neither of them look strictly comfortable as they hang out with her. Nami and Zoro, at least, look appropriately cautious, and they both at least acknowledge him when he emerges. He does not look at Nico Robin, but he feels her eyes on him regardless.

He sets Sora up with a coloring book and a promise to call Jiji as soon as he’s at the simmering stage of dinner. Then he loses himself a bit in the motions of prepping. He ends up with a big pot of spaghetti noodles with a pot of Bolognese sauce to simmer down until the flavors meld. He can really leave it on as long as he wants. He finds himself prepping a bunch of vegetable and vegetarian dishes unconsciously. Trust his subconscious to manifest his displeasure with their captain in the most passive-aggressive way possible. He’s feeling petty enough to not remedy it. He hopes Luffy chokes on an asparagus.

“Okay. Snail time,” he says, clapping his hands together.

Sora’s out of his chair immediately, bouncing on his toes and reaching fruitlessly for the snail stored up on the high shelf above him. Sanji pets a hand absently through his soft brown hair and pulls their snail down to sit on the table. They both sit down while Sanji dials the Baratie’s number.

”Thanks for calling the shitty restaurant. What do ya want?”

“Hi, Uncle Patty!”

The snail’s bored expression lights up immediately. “String Bean! Hey, we haven’t heard from you kids in forever! Let me get the guys. Guys! Owner! It’s Eggplant and String Bean!”

Sanji’s shoulders lose some of the tension he’s still carrying as a grin finds its way to his face. The snail mutters out muffled greetings and yells from the guys in the kitchen and a particularly heartfelt hello from Carne. Finally, the snail sprouts braided moustaches and an impressive glower.

“Waited long enough to call, didn’t you? We thought you were dead.”

“We didn’t die!”

Sanji snorts. “Dramatic old geezer. As if we’d up and die before you.”

”Coulda fooled me. They didn’t have snails where you went?”

“We ran into a little seagull problem,” Sanji says, trying to be subtle in referring to the Navy. “Buggers are still nearby, so I can’t say too much. Figure we can talk more once we’re out on open waters.”

Sora interrupts, “Jiji, did you get our letters?”

The old geezer’s tone immediately softens. ”We sure did, kid. Carne taped your picture of a duck to the fridge so we can look at it every day.”

Carne’s voice, muffled, ”We miss you, String Bean! Send more drawings!”

Sora beams. “We miss you, too! I’ll make lots and lots of pictures for you!”

Sanji lets Sora take point in chattering for a bit. Finally, the old man turns his full attention to him.

”Are you kids really okay? There’s been some wild stories in the papers. Plus your captain’s bounty’s gone up, and that swordsman has one, too.”

“Oh, really? I didn’t know that.” They’d be happy to hear about it. Then he remembers that he’s mad at Luffy right now and his spirit drops. “We’re fine, Jiji. Captain and the swordsman were the only ones seriously hurt. Everyone else is healing up fine. Me and Sora barely got scraped up.”

”Hm. So if nobody’s hurt, then why do you sound like someone kicked your puppy in front of you?”

Ugh, Zeff’s too good at reading him. He scowls at the phone. “It’s nothing. Just a little spat.”

”If it’s nothing, then no harm in telling me.”

“We got a new crewmate,” Sora pipes up, the traitor. “She’s scary. Dad doesn’t like her.”

The snail raises an eyebrow.

“Ugh. Fine. Yes, we evidently have a new crewmate. She stowed away on our ship and the captain welcomed her aboard. I don’t like her because she was a major enemy of ours until, like, yesterday. Captain trusts her, but…”

”Did you tell him you had reservations?”

“I did.” He hesitates. He knows Zeff’s going to blow up over this, but… “He basically told me to shut up and respect his decision. He said I’m just overreacting because she’s an alpha and – “ and this one hurts, still – “and they’re ‘not all out to get me.’ So… yeah. Not happy with him right now… Jiji?”

The thunderous silence breaks. ”He said what? Where is the little punk? Put him on the phone.”

“No – Jiji, I’m handling it –“

”I have some words for that captain of yours. I can keep calling until he answers. Trussed up little brat’s lucky I can’t shove my foot up his ass through the snail –“

“Just stop! I’m serious – Dad, I’m handling it!” He claps a hand over his mouth immediately, flushing even though he’s alone except for Sora and the guys on the other end of the snail. He and Zeff don’t do the parental thing. He can count the number of times he’s slipped up like this on one hand.

The snail blinks and blushes slightly. “…Fine. But if you need me…”

“Then I’ll call you and you can try to cram your peg up his ass through the snail. Promise. Just don’t – don’t keep calling until he answers. It’s embarrassing.”

”You’re my kid and your captain’s being an asshole. You can’t blame me for worrying.”

“I know. I do. And I’m going to fix it.”

”I know you will. Just don’t let him walk all over you.”

“I won’t,” he says guiltily, thinking back to how much he’s let him get away with already. “I’ll kick his ass if I have to. We need to go, anyway. It’s almost dinner time.”

”Yeah, these assholes should be working, too.” A chorus of jeers and shouted goodbyes come through the snail. ”Call again tomorrow.”

“We will. Sora, say goodbye to Jiji and everybody.”

“Bye Jiji and everybody!” He’s shouting so loud he’s turning red in the face. Sanji winces and covers the ear closest to him. “I miss you! Let’s talk tomorrow!”

They hang up to a chorus of jovial goodbyes. Sanji returns the snail to its shelf and gives it a plate of vegetable scraps to munch on. That could have gone worse. He even feels kind of… vindicated? He was worried he was overreacting about what Luffy said, but if Zeff wanted to beat him up over it…

Well, dinner time. He’ll call all the alphas who aren’t out to get him to come eat now.

--

Nami already knew something was wrong, but the wrongness only sinks in deeper when the crew gathers for dinner.

The table’s set beautifully, and a big bowl of pasta dominates the table and at a glance, it looks completely normal. Then she looks closer and sees dishes and dishes of meatless sides and entrees. The usual platter of meat just for Luffy is missing entirely save for a sad package of jerky sitting on the counter prep space. Sanji’s also got a cigarette lit as he serves the food, and he only smokes in the kitchen when he’s upset.

“Eat up,” he says without unclenching his teeth around the cigarette.

She glances at the others and sees her trepidation mirrored to various extents on their faces. Zoro hasn’t relaxed all afternoon, and now his eyes dart quickly between Sanji, Luffy, and Robin as if he’s waiting for a brawl to break out. Chopper takes the route of least resistance, sliding instead next to Sora to eat with him and bury himself in a quiet conversation about the snail call they’d made that afternoon. Nami listens with half an ear as she sits and starts dishing vegetables onto her plate.

Luffy, when she glances at him, is staring at the table with a blank expression. She braces, waiting for the whining and demands for meat to start, but he just tugs his hat lower over his eyes and takes his seat.

“There’s jerky in the kitchen,” Sanji says lightly. “If you find dinner to be inadequate, Captain.”

He doesn’t join them, standing in the kitchen with his plate instead and eating little bird bites out of it. Robin’s watching the entire exchange with far too much interest. Usopp’s sweating bullets as he twirls pasta around his fork.

”No,” Luffy says, mustering a forced grin that almost looks real. “Dinner looks great. Thanks, Sanji.”

The table’s too quiet. She wants to flinch every time a fork scrapes across a plate. What in the world happened between the two of them? She was waiting to corner Sanji tonight, but now she’s wondering if she’s better off interrogating Luffy for his side of it.

The only reason she notices anything is because she’s so keyed up. Dinner is winding down and Sanji is starting to gather dishes. He leans past Luffy and freezes for just a split second. He very, very quietly says, “Oh.”

Nothing else happens. He straightens. Carries his load of dishes back to the sink. Usopp jerks to his feet to help – as master of the chore chart he always has the duty roster memorized – and whatever moment just happened passes without comment.

Luffy doesn’t look surprised, though, when she corners him by the mikan trees after dinner.

She cuts to the chase. “What’s going on between you and Sanji?”

Luffy tips his hat back and sighs. “I don’t know. He’s really mad for some reason.”

“Don’t feed me that bullshit. He wouldn’t serve you a plate of peas for no good reason.”

“It’s nothing,” he squawks. “Really! He was mad about Robin, and I told him he doesn’t have to worry about it and then he got madder so I told him he needs to trust me and stop worrying!”

That doesn’t sound right. “Luffy, what exactly did you say?”

“I don’t remember. He was saying something about her being dangerous because Robin was Baroque Works, but Bon-chan was Baroque Works, too, and he liked him a lot! Then I said… hm… I said why’s it different for Robin than Bon-chan and maybe it’s because she’s an alpha. But I already told him it was fine! And then I said that not all alphas are out to get him and then he got really quiet.”

Oh. Well, fuck.

“You said that to him? Exactly that?”

Luffy eyes her warily. “Yeah? I mean, I know about him and alphas, but it’s getting better, right? He’s friends with Zoro and he liked hanging out with Ace. I already know Robin doesn’t want to hurt him.”

“Just… how do you know that?”

“I just do! She’s not a bad person.”

“Luffy…” She knows he’s kind of stupid, but really… “You know Sanji’s got a history with alphas pushing on his boundaries.”

He makes a questioning noise.

“You know that. And you know it takes him a long time to trust new people – especially alphas.”

“But he trusted Ace!”

“He decided to trust Ace. That’s the difference, you moron!”

Luffy tilts his head, looking confused and upset about being confused. Nami groans.

“Sanji trusted Ace because he wanted to. You want him to trust Robin because you said so. You’re just trying to boss him around.”

“I’m not!”

“Whether that’s what you mean or not, that’s how he’s taking it. He’s nervous about Robin – for good reason, I might add – and you completely shut him down. Just like you walked all over him yesterday when we went to the baths. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that. Did you even notice how uncomfortable he was? But you just kept talking and making decisions –“

“But I’m captain. I’m supposed to make decisions.”

“Not at the expense of your crew.” Nami groans and rubs her forehead. “Look, I know you’re not wrong. I don’t think Robin wants Sanji for sex, and I don’t think Sanji thinks so, either. But the way she talks to him is creepy and rude. And – you know, you weren’t even there for it, but an alpha grabbed Sanji when we were in Nanohana.”

Luffy stands up straighter. “What?”

“Yeah. All he was doing was shopping by himself, and some alpha thought it was okay to touch him. That’s the kind of shit he deals with all the time. Just for being omega.” At least, she thinks bitterly, when men catcall her or try to grope her, she’s at least dressed in the sexy clothes she prefers. It’s fucked up and wrong, but there’s a twisted kind of logic to it. She’s never been immediately harassed just for how she smells. “So yeah, they’re not all out to get him, but some of them are. Enough are. You fucking know that.”

Luffy frowns. She gives him a minute to think. To hopefully understand her point here.

“So… Sanji’s mad because he doesn’t believe me about Robin?”

“No, idiot. He’s upset because you’re not listening to him!” Not to mention throwing his trauma back in his face, but she can only tackle one problem at a time.

Unfortunately, Luffy chooses obstinance instead of sense. “I’m not wrong. Robin isn’t dangerous, and she’s joining the crew even if Sanji doesn’t like it. He’ll be okay once he sees she’s nice. Like he did with Zoro. I can’t just throw her overboard or something.”

“I know you can’t.” She flexes her fingers, fighting the urge to throttle him. “You’re being an asshole, though. Can’t you at least let him know you understand how he feels and you’re taking his concerns seriously? That would go a long way to fixing this.”

Luffy at least looks like he’s considering it. “Maybe. I can talk to him tonight?”

They freeze when the galley door opens and slams shut again. Sanji’s heavy bootsteps thump down the stairs. He’s talking to Sora, telling him, “Bathtime, then teeth brushing, and then one storybook before bed. Dad’s tired.”

“But what about just two stories if they’re really really short ones?”

“I said one, didn’t I?”

The haggling gets too muffled to follow as they disappear into the door leading to the bathroom.

“Maybe not tonight,” Nami says.

Luffy’s frowning, his stare pointed to the spot beneath them that would be the bathroom.

“Just think about it some more, and talk to him tomorrow, okay? You two shouldn’t fight. It’s making the whole crew nervous.”

She leaves Luffy to his thoughts. She has a few more lines to check on their rigging to make sure they’re staying the correct course. She checks in with Zoro to make sure he doesn’t tamper with them and to remind him to get her if any weird weather blows in. Out of curiosity, she pokes her head into the bunkroom, which now sports a curtain cordoning off part of the room. Robin’s presumably in there. She doesn’t stay for small talk. By now, Sanji and Sora should be in the den. She finds the bathroom empty, still muggy from their bath, and takes a minute to brush her teeth and wash her face before she makes to join the two of them.

Sanji barely glances at her when she comes down the ladder, shutting the hatch securely behind her. He’s in the middle of reading what is undoubtedly a second bedtime story to Sora. He avoids her neatly after that by climbing into the nest and shutting the curtain snugly “so you can change comfortably, my dearest.”

She lets him get away with it until she’s sure Sora’s asleep. Then she pads over on bare feet to sit outside the nest.

“Sanji… Sanji… I know you’re not asleep, asshole.”

He twitches the curtain open enough for her to clearly see him when he rolls his eyes at her.

“I talked to Luffy,” she says.

“I know. I saw you practically chase him out of the galley.”

“He told me some of the stuff he said to you.”

Sanji just sighs. “Look, I still don’t really want to talk about it.”

“He really hurt your feelings, huh?”

She’s close enough to watch his jaw clench and see how rapidly he blinks.

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

“I don’t know what crawled up his ass and died, but I told him to talk to you tomorrow and sort things out.” Sanji’s shaking his head before she can finish. “What? You two need to make up.”

“Can’t,” he says shortly. “Luffy’s about to rut.”

Nami’s thoughts grind to a halt. “What? But I didn’t…”

“I only noticed because I got close to him. Plus I’ve got a good nose.” He wrinkles said nose. “I could be wrong, but I doubt it. He’ll probably start by morning.”

Nami grimaces. She remembers the last rut – the only one of Luffy’s she’s seen. The captain had been hyper and more annoying than usual. She doubts that Luffy would be mature enough for the conversation they obviously need to have, and she also doubts Sanji would want to be anywhere near him for a couple days, anyway. Not with Luffy’s overbearing alpha instincts ramped up when he’s already mad at him for being overbearing on a normal day, with the heavy scent of his pheromones thrown on top.

“That’s just lovely,” she says.

“Isn’t it?” He taps his lips like he wants a cigarette. “Who knows how Robin will take it. She’s so new, still. I just hope Zoro and Usopp can keep it contained so it doesn’t become a bloodbath.”

“I doubt it would get that bad.”

Sanji shrugs. “Who’s to say? Alphas are stupid that way. In any case, we should get some rest. Long day tomorrow, I’m sure.”

Understatement of the century. Nami goes back to her bed and falls into an uneasy doze. She wakes sometime in the night, before her turn at watch, to the sound of Sanji whimpering in his sleep. She considers trying to wake him, but he does it himself before she can, gasping awake and panting for a few minutes before she hears blankets rustling as he turns himself over. She doesn’t know how long they both lie there awake, pretending they believe the other’s asleep before she drifts off again. She manages to sleep until Zoro knocks on the hatch lightly to signal her turn at watch.

She gives the curtained nest one last glance before she goes out to brace herself for whatever the morning will bring.

Chapter Text

Usopp’s a great friend and an even better informant once you cut through the elaborate stories he builds around the truth.

Sanji’d grilled him early on about how the ruts on the ship worked, and the sniper had even written out a schedule for him to work off of. He’d known Luffy’s rut was coming up somewhere in the back of his mind, so it’s not a complete surprise when he smells the first whiff of pre-rut hormones on him at dinner. Usopp had also been kind enough to give him a supposedly accurate account of how Luffy acts during rut, so he’s also not panicking about his virtue.

Still, he’s not thrilled about Luffy – who’s already deep on his shit list – acting more out of control and manic than usual while they have the big Robin-shaped liability on board and Zoro’s obviously torn between loyalty to his captain and his inherent instinct to protect the crew from threats. Adding in the fact that he has no idea where Robin is on her cycle and that Luffy’s rut could either prod one of the alphas into synching up or kickstart Sanji’s own heat…

There’s too many variables. He simply has to cut a few out.

Unfortunately, these variables are up to their own agendas.

First order of business is placating the captain’s appetite for meat and keeping him sated enough to disregard Sanji entirely. He can’t pull the vegetarian stunt again now. It’s too risky to rile him up. Better to keep him fed and quiet and bring his feelings up after the rut when he’s less likely to start throwing fists.

Second is establishing a routine that keeps him away from Luffy and Robin but doesn’t negatively impact Sora too much. Unfortunately, that’s immediately buggered when he steps out onto the deck first thing in the morning with sleepy Sora in tow to find Zoro napping against the mast, and the faint smell of Luffy’s rut wafting up from the deck grating. He grits his teeth and pushes on, only to freeze when he opens the galley door.

“Apologies,” Robin says, “but there was nowhere else for me to go.”

She’s strung a hammock up in the corner of the room, where she lounges now. Of course she’d be here. No alpha in a new environment would want to sleep next to a relatively strange alpha in a rut. Still, all the good feelings he’s scraped together about today vanish like smoke on the wind.

“It’s fine,” he says.

He does his best to ignore her. He’s got breakfast to make.

“I assume you noticed your captain has gone into his rut.”

He darts a look over at her. She’s looking at him with a rather calculating expression.

“Yeah, I noticed,” he says. “Probably won’t see me much for a few days.”

Robin’s face twitches in a micro-expression he struggles to decipher. Was that a grimace?

“I see,” she says. She makes no move to speak any more to him, rolling over in her hammock and making a show of looking relaxed and unaffected.

He ignores her entirely then. Breakfast comes together quickly. He throws together a picnic basket and sticks his head out the door.

“Oi, Marimo!”

Zoro jerks awake, hand reaching out instinctively to his swords before he wakes up enough to relax again.

“Breakfast for Luffy and Usopp. Can you deliver it?”

Zoro grunts affirmative and stomps up the stairs to collect it. He sneaks a look into the galley when he does, eyes cataloguing Robin and Sora’s locations and the relative level of tension in the room. It must be satisfactory because he takes the basket and leaves them alone again.

“I’ll get Chopper and the witch to come,” he says.

“Thanks, Mossy.”

Sanji lights a cigarette and starts pouring drinks and loading plates. When he glances at Robin, she’s staring at him blankly again.

“Something on my face?”

“No. Nothing at all. Carry on.” Her smile is rigid and fake.

Weird, but whatever.

--

Luffy munches through the parcel of salt pork and sausages he’d been sent happily. This is so good! So much better than all the vegetables he’d eaten last night! His mood sours when he remembers the weird vegetable dinner.

His rut’s thrumming in his veins now. It’s so boring. It makes him want to slingshot around the ship to get rid of some of the excess energy. He wants a fight! Or to go out running until his legs are wobbly. Or find a new island to explore! Sitting bored in the bunkroom playing games with Usopp is so boring. But Usopp had said in no uncertain terms that he’s not leaving this room unless someone verifies that Sanji isn’t out there.

That makes him angry. He doesn’t want Sanji to act like he’s a monster. He’s not a monster. Not like those creeps who like to touch him or the bad guy who put Sora in him. And Robin’s not like that, either! If anything, it’s Robin who’s afraid of Sanji, but everyone’s too dumb to see that. He wants to make Sanji like him again. He wants him to just trust him! Why does he always have to be so difficult?

When he says as much to Usopp, the sniper frowns.

“You’re not being very fair, Luffy. I know you’re hopped up on fight juice right now, but you’re being a bad friend.”

The scolding from Usopp makes him whine. He doesn’t want to be a bad friend or a bad captain!

“We can talk about it when you’re not rut-stupid, okay?” He sighs. “It’ll all blow over. But now’s not the time to try to apologize. Just focus on getting through this without punching anybody or breaking anything, okay?”

He’s right. He doesn’t want to be this angry. He wants them all to be happy again. He doesn’t know how to show them what he sees – that underneath everything, Robin is just sad and scared and needs friends who will help her follow her dream.

But then he really thinks hard, and maybe everybody does have a point. She’s been pretty mean and scary so far. Even he’s not really sure why she’s been like this. She must be really uncomfortable. Maybe there isn’t anything he can do but wait. He will apologize to Sanji, though. Once he figures out what exactly he’s apologizing for.

--

Four days, maybe. Five, tops. He can do this.

He can do this.

He’s going crazy.

His kitchen is compromised. Even when Robin isn’t in there, she’s still present with her lingering scent and the books she leaves on the table and the hammock hanging in the corner where it doesn’t belong. Then he goes out on the deck and Luffy’s stunk the place up, and it’s even worse when he comes out to play on the deck and fight Zoro for exercise. Sanji spends those hours hiding in the den with Sora despite his complaints.

Three days in. No news yet of when they’ll reach another island. He’d love the distraction and the space. The cabin fever is setting in bad. He’s puffing on a cigarette while simultaneously drumming his fingers on the railing. Luffy’s smell has him on edge. Robin’s nearby – and he’s trying not to be weird about it but she’s just so quiet and unreadable and odd that she immediately puts him on edge.

“Wanna spar?”

Like an angel of deliverance, there’s Zoro offering him exactly what he needs. He cannot help but beam. A spar sounds like just the thing to work off some of his tension and anxiety.

“Excellent idea, Marimo. There’s something to be said about the moss growing in between your ears.”

Zoro rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Two swords today?”

“Make it three.”

“I’ll only do three if you give me an actual challenge this time.”

“Cocky bastard.”

He loves sparring with Zoro. They’re so evenly matched that most bouts end in a draw, and he’s never had a sparring partner force him to work so hard for every tiny inch. He has to focus so intensely to keep up that the distractions of Luffy’s scent and Robin watching from the upper railing and how he’s been keeping one eye on Sora to make sure his game with Chopper doesn’t knock either of them over the side – they all fade out and his world narrows down to his own body and the flash of steel in the sunlight.

He wins this round just barely, by the skin of his teeth. He’s got new bruises and a tear in his jacket and he’s sweating, so it’s well-earned, and Zoro looks as elated as he is, even thrown onto the deck and pinned down under his boot. The weirdo’s just as happy to lose as win. Sanji has a theory that he takes every loss as something to meditate on and use to grow only stronger in some weird zen swordsman way.

“I’ll get you next time, Curls,” Zoro states with far too much confidence for a man laid out on the ground and covered in boot prints.

“Only if you pull out all three, Marimo. I’ll kick your ass again with two.”

He glances up when he hears clapping. Robin looks down at both of them, her deadpan expression and cold eyes a strange counterpoint to her hands.

“Good job, gentlemen,” she says.

Well, if that didn’t ruin his good mood…

He steps off Zoro and sidles over to the railing to stand by Sora and Chopper. He can’t get a read on that woman at all, and it’s driving him mad. She’s completely closed off and doesn’t seem to want to talk to him, either. He’s not sure how they’re meant to be crewmates going forward if they can’t even be on the deck together without ratcheting up the tension on the ship.

He lights another cigarette and starts tapping the railing again. He tries to relax, tries to force himself to be interested in a pod of dolphins swimming near their ship, but he’s aware without trying of every move Robin makes. The scent of flowers spikes suddenly, and it’s all he can do to fight down his sudden nausea. He can’t help but turn his head to look. He shouldn’t. It’s gross. But he has to look.

Robin stands in the middle of the deck with a frown on her face and her arms crossed. There are hands all over the place, like a kelp forest of undulating limbs. They’re dragging out the washtub and laundry baskets. Evidently, she cares more about the laundry buildup than the boys. He should be happy someone’s doing it, but the method is so disturbing…

He doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to be on the deck with her. He doesn’t want her here at all. Still, Sora’s been cooped up enough and needs his time to play as much as anyone. He’ll have to just suck it up. That, or try to find something to do to relax, even a little.

--

Zoro doesn’t like this at all.

It feels like he’s standing in the middle of a storm with winds buffeting him from all sides. On the one hand, he’s the first mate. His job is twofold; protect the crew or die trying, and to carry Luffy’s dream with him until they make it to the end.

On the other hand, he just wants everything on the ship to be comfortable and stable. Right now, it’s anything but. Luffy’s rutting, which is a nuisance and terrible timing. He spends half his day whaling on the guy with his swords until he’s not vibrating with energy anymore and Usopp can wrangle him back down into the hold. Usopp’s too busy doing that to weigh in too much on the Situation they’re living in, and he’s kind of surprised to realize he’d really like to hear his point of view on this. Usopp’s pretty smart, and he’s way better at talking than Zoro is.

If he was half as good at talking as Usopp, he’d know what to say to Sanji to reassure him, or how to get an accurate read on Robin. He’s tried talking to the witch about it, but she’d been reluctant to give out details, saying something about it being between Luffy and Sanji and not really his business to intervene.

Obviously, his first impulse is to spew threats and do anything and everything to protect Sanji and Sora and knock Robin down a peg or two. He’s stopped by a little voice that sounds annoyingly like Ace reminding him that he can’t just thump his chest like a caveman and hope to fix this. He should just talk to Sanji, but the cook’s looked so miserable and been so weirdly submissive these past few days, like he’s shut down and is hoping to be as uninteresting and unobtrusive as possible until it’s all over. He hates seeing him like that. He gets it – nobody wants to deal with Luffy when he’s like this, and the two of them are obviously on bad terms right now. If he just knew what was wrong, he could help.

He doesn’t know what else to do, so he just tries to be there.

The only bright side to all this is that Sanji deciding that Zoro’s his friend means he’s let in on the cook’s attempts at normalcy. He’s rewarded every time he acts naturally around him with the bright, beaming smile that never fails to make his heart flutter in his chest. He’s tired from fighting Luffy for half the day, but he still musters energy to goad the cook into a spar at least once a day. It’s… endurance training. Yeah? He gets to hang around the cook whenever he’s not hiding from Luffy in his den or moodily cooking in the galley, and it’s cool. It doesn’t fix whatever’s going on with Robin or whatever fight the cook and Luffy had, but he likes to think that he’s helping in his small way.

It's at the end of day three of Luffy’s rut that he runs into the cook up in the crow’s nest.

“You’re not on the watch rotation,” he blurts out.

Sanji’s usually not on night watch on account of how much work he does during the day and how early his day starts. He’d put up a token protest at first. It was Usopp’s slick talking that had convinced him that his talents were put to better use elsewhere, and the cook had made up for it by aggressively taking over deep cleaning the bathroom. If Usopp was trying to get him to relax, then it was an utter failure, but the bathroom’s never looked nicer.

The cook looks up at him lazily. “Oh, Marimo. Hi.”

Zoro’s brow furrows when he takes in more of the scene. The cook’s slightly disheveled, and there’s a half-full bottle of wine on the floor of the crow’s nest beside him. The sky’s nearly fully dark, and the flickering lantern nearby makes shadows dance across his face.

“Cook, are you drunk?”

“Mmm, kinda.”

“From half a bottle?” He’d figured he was probably a lightweight, but this is a little ridiculous.

Sanji laughs quietly. It doesn’t sound very happy. “Forgot. Chopper said the drugs I’m on aren’t good with alcohol, and he was nooooot kidding. Feel like I had a loooot more than I did.”

Zoro takes a second to breathe, closing his eyes and counting to ten before he finishes pulling himself up into the crow’s nest to join him. “Should I ask why you’re hiding up here drinking?”

“You could. Probably wouldn’t tell you.” He leans closer to Zoro, though still quite far away, whispering now, “Can I tell you a secret?”

This is definitely a trap. “Um… Sure?”

“I’m really really fucked up, Marimo,” he whispers. He’s serious for another half-second before he breaks into giggles. “I’m soooo fucked up it’s crazy.”

“I don’t think that’s much of a secret.”

As a precaution, he takes the bottle away from him so he doesn’t get any ideas about finishing it. He gives it a cautious sniff before trying it. He’s pleasantly surprised – it’s a white, but drier than he was expecting, hardly sweet at all. He had the cook pinned for liking girly shit that tastes like pure sugar.

“I watered down your sake for the first month I was here,” Sanji blurts out.

Zoro blinks and sets his bottle down. “…Why?”

Sanji giggles again nervously. “Cause I’m fucked up. I mean, who fucking does that? Fuckin’ lunatic. Thought you’d be a mean drunk but you’re just sleepy. Stupid sleepy Marimo…”

In any other circumstance, he’d probably be livid. Right now? He just feels something ache in his chest.

“Thought it was a little weak. I just figured you’d bought the cheap stuff.”

“Nah. Just me being a crazy dickhead. Sorry.”

He sighs and takes a swig of the wine. “Not gonna lie, that’s a new level of paranoid, but I can’t really get mad about something you did to keep yourself safe.” Which begs the question… “Why take the risk now? With Robin here?”

Sanji laughs again and it sounds suspiciously wet. “Well I didn’t think I’d get this fucked up. It doesn’t matter though, does it? Couldn’t stop her if I tried. So many fucking hands…”

Tentatively, Zoro scoots toward him, slowly, giving him every opportunity to tell him to back away. Sanji just scoots closer, like it was an invitation, and leans against his shoulder. Zoro risks getting snapped at to drape his arm over his shoulder, pulling him close enough that they’re basically cuddling. It’s a mark of how far they’ve come from the beginning that Sanji just sighs and nuzzles closer, sleepy and drunk and sad.

“It’s always the hands,” he mutters.

“What’s that?”

“Hands. Hate ‘em so much. Kenta had hands like yours, y’know that?”

He wants to ask who Kenta is, but he has a sick feeling he already knows the answer to that. “Yeah?” He’s amazed he sounds only a little strangled.

Sanji nods against his chest. “Not exactly. But big. Calloused. Kinda… tan…” He yawns, interrupting his own disturbing monologue. His voice is barely a mumble. “Only needed two of ‘em and couldn’t get away… she’s got sooo many…”

“I don’t know what her deal is, but, for what it’s worth, I don’t think she wants to touch you like that, Cook.”

“Mm, but she could.”

“I wouldn’t let her,” he says, regretting it once he’s said it because it’s too close to the overbearing protectiveness Ace had scolded him about. It doesn’t matter, anyway. The cook’s breathing is slow and even. He’s nodded off. Probably didn’t even hear him. He’s soft and malleable and vulnerable.

And Zoro? He’s only a man.

He should prod the cook up and get him down the ladder and into his den to sleep it off. It would be the responsible thing to do. He’s feeling selfish, though. His drains the rest of the bottle and pulls the cook more snugly against him. It’s a privilege to get to hold him like this, one he’s not sure he’s even really earned. He’ll hold onto him as long as he can – at least until the watch shift is over and he can pass him off to Nami on her way up here. Until then, he’ll commit the feeling of how nicely he fits under his arm into his memory so he can look back on it later and pretend.

--

Robin has made several miscalculations.

She’d learned through trial and error by the time she was a teen that coming on aggressive and strong is the fastest way to ensure her safety. Any hesitance in the pirate crews and shady organizations she’d found to harbor her in her flight from the World Government would be rewarded with more abuse and a knife in the back. She’d spent her late childhood and early teens fighting for scraps of respect and honing her Devil Fruit until she could hold her own against most contenders.

As an adult, she prefers a more subtle approach. Disarming smiles. Deadpan expressions that give few hints of her motives. Intimidation through studied casualness. For the most part, it works. It gives her an air of competence and danger that few like to question. It’s worked with shady organizations and gritty pirate crews alike.

Unfortunately, the Straw Hats turn out to be neither.

She wasn’t sure, at first. When she’d met them at Whisky Peak, all she had to go on was a bounty poster of a grinning child and a crew that single-handedly wiped out an entire town of bounty hunters. The captain was an enigma and bore the name of D. The swordsman was brash and strong. The navigator charismatic and cunning. A small crew, but potentially dangerous, and potentially just what she needed to depose Crocodile.

The only thing she found distasteful was that they kept a ship omega.

It wasn’t something she would expect from such a young crew, but she supposes it can’t be helped. The captain and swordsman are both young and strong and alpha. Undoubtedly, they would have turned to the cheapest and easiest way of dealing with ruts – keeping an omega on hand, and one that’s so obviously been ill-used. A nervous, anxious thing, forced at an unseemly early age to carry a child to term. The swordsman is obviously attached to it, protective and growling and indicating an obvious weakness. The omega itself barely seems to care about Robin, more concerned about its child. What a bittersweet feeling it is to see that.

She’d been ten the first time she’d run into the concept of ship omegas.

She’d been ‘he’ at the time. She was androgynous enough at that age that she could pass as a cabin boy named Billy with only some boys’ clothes and a messy haircut. Pirate ships aren’t exactly safe for any child, but an aggressive boy child seemed less likely to attract predators than a girl child, and more likely to find work. She’d hopped aboard a seedy crew of smugglers and rumrunners in a hurry to get off a smaller island where the residents were starting to look too closely at her.

The crew, by and large, were not nice people. A cantankerous scattering of betas and alphas more interested in making money at any cost than arguing about ethics. The only members of the crew that she liked at all were the handful of omegas crammed into one of the ship’s few cabins. They were kind to her and soft-smelling, though she never dared get too close to anyone for fear of being recognized as the Devil Child. It wasn’t obvious at first what the omegas were on the ship to do other than small chores until the first mate went into a rut.

Robin didn’t know what was happening. Not then. She was a nosy child, though, always watching whatever she could, so it was not even a question whether she would spy on these strange proceedings or not. She watched with her large, solemn eyes as a crewmate came to the omegas’ room and grabbed one of the ladies, dragging her roughly despite her submissive lack of protest. It was easy enough to follow them until they reached a room she’d never seen before. Even with her childish, undeveloped nose, she could smell a thick, musky scent coming from the room, made more intense when the door was opened and the woman pushed unceremoniously into the room. Robin ducked into a storage closet and focused her power to open a set of eyes in the wall of the room.

A decision she regrets to this day.

She learned a lot during those six months she spent on that ship. She learned of the rough superiority worn by alphas like them. She learned how easy it is to push an omega out of a comfortable heat and into a haze of mating instinct instead if you only provide the right stimuli – how helpless they become in the waves of hormones set loose. She learned that to these men, it mattered little whether the omegas wished to be there or not. They were simply tools to be used and toys to be played with, and it was a waste of time to provide them sympathy. When she tried a few times to convince the omegas they needed to get off at the next island, they’d scoffed at her. They didn’t have a great life here, they’d told her, but were they better off dumped on a strange island with no money, few skills, and no friends? Here, at least, they knew where their next meal was coming from and had a bed to sleep in every night with a ceiling that didn’t leak.

She’d been cold and hungry enough times by then to at least understand that.

Still, even as she left that crew and grew older and encountered other ships like that one, she never grew to like the practice. She much preferred the ships that forwent omegas altogether. It grew easier over time to distance herself from the omegas, to nip any feelings of sympathy at the bud. She could hardly keep herself safe if she tried to liberate every omega in peril she stumbled across. She has enough problems of her own with that bounty on her head without inviting trouble by being soft about the harsh realities of the world.

She was prepared, then, when she stowed away on the Straw Hats’ ship, to deal with their omega the same way she’s dealt with all the others. What did it matter to her if the poor boy was passed back and forth between the captain and swordsman, and maybe even the betas? It certainly wouldn’t help her any to hope they at least have the decency not to let the child see or hear it. Perhaps they’re even kind about it and give the omega the illusion of choice.

She waits until they’re on open waters before she announces her presence, half her mind preoccupied with the possibility that they’ll simply aim to murder her. That would be at least an end to her story. She puts on a show of aloof confidence and shows off her abilities and does her best to project the idea that she’s untouchable and strong, that fighting her is pointless. It works well enough, she thinks at the time.

Currently, she sits at the dining table with a cup of tea and watches the omega cook. She’s miscalculated this badly. He’s tense as piano wire, pretending quite desperately that finishing their dinner is occupying him too much to notice her attention. She keeps her sigh inside.

She’d been braced for the wrong things. When she’d first appeared, she’d been shocked at the omega’s boldness in confronting her directly, and in questioning his captain. When he’d stormed off to argue, she’d watched, waiting for the captain to inevitably slap him or otherwise punish him for his outburst. Nothing of the sort came. At dinner, when the omega served their captain dishes of food he obviously dislikes, she’d braced herself for violence then. But all the captain did was eat the food without complaint and thank him for the privilege. It made no sense to her whatsoever.

The swordsman, too. She was certain before this that he, at least, had staked a claim on the omega, but she’s seen no evidence that they’re anything more than friends – and that the swordsman has the most obvious crush in the world that the omega’s ignoring for some reason, but still. The omega sleeps in his own nest with his child, sharing the room with the navigator. She spies with her extra eyes all around the ship and catches none of them touching the omega at all or dragging him off to a private room – nothing.

She’s just beginning to think that she’s read everything wrong until she wakes the first night to the growing anxiety of being so close to the captain’s rut beginning. She and the swordsman clear out of the room quickly after that, and she makes a temporary place for herself in the galley. None of them wake the omega.

She waits.

The omega and the child come to the kitchen to cook – his job seems to be the cook more than just a bedwarmer. She prods, just a little. He pushes back, vaguely alludes to how he’ll be indisposed during the captain’s rut and it’s enough confirmation to make her grimace and disengage from the conversation. The ship is small. She doesn’t have high hopes that she won’t be forced to listen to the captain making use of the cook. It makes her queasy – she’s no blushing virgin but she’s never been able to shake the sounds of pain-pleasure-distress the omegas on that ship had made from her memory. She glances at the cook again and grimaces to herself. She really doesn’t want to have to witness him be debased. Perhaps this entire endeavor was a mistake.

She nearly loses control of her expression when the cook merely summons the swordsman to deliver breakfast to the hold.

She really has miscalculated this entire thing.

She spends the next days just watching. The cook is strong – he fights toe to toe with the swordsman, evenly matched, and she wonders just how strong he can be when he’s not holding back for a friendly spar. Her earlier assessment that he’s already damaged doesn’t seem inaccurate, but whatever sexual trauma he’s endured, it wasn’t inflicted by this crew. He’s far too comfortable with them for that to be true. The child is also remarkably polite and well-adjusted.

The entire crew, really, are painfully earnest and – innocent? Not innocent, perhaps, but maybe decent. They really don’t seem to realize that there is any other way to live than free and mostly carefree.

The more days she spends with them, the more she realizes that her initial approach was perhaps the worst way she could have introduced herself possible. The cook is terrified of her and angry about it. The captain’s split the crew with his simplistic rationality. The swordsman doesn’t trust her and sleeps with one eye open, prepared to kill her. The navigator and longnose are both – rightfully – upset at the way she’d treated the cook.

She really doesn’t know how to fix it.

Her excuses sound lame in her ears. “Sorry I was dismissive and rude to you. I was afraid to become attached because I believed your crew was raping you, and it’s easier for me to listen to that happen if I don’t think of you as a person.” She doesn’t believe that will go over very well. “Hello, Straw Hats. Apologies for the deception. I had to ensure you wouldn’t kill me, so I tried to goad you into doing it on day one so you’d be too disheartened to try again.” Also inadequate. She’s left meandering in a singular moment of solidarity with the crew – they all seem to be waiting for the captain to finish his rut before they make any drastic moves.

“Dinner’s ready,” the cook says.

She looks up from her cold cup of tea. The cook’s loading his arms up with platters of food, balancing far too many with surprising grace. He even has a platter perched on his head. He looks fine and capable of ferrying them to the table, except several things happen at once.

The open doorway of the galley is filled with two small, fast-moving blurs of motion.

The smaller of the two – Chopper – crashes directly into the cook’s knees.

The cook stumbles, fumbles, and dishes begin to slide from his grip.

Robin reaches for her power on reflex.

Several arms sprout from the ground, from the cook’s body, from everywhere to stabilize him and catch the falling dishes.

And the cook lets out a blood-curdling scream.

--

Zoro’s on his feet and halfway to the galley before he even consciously registers what he’s heard.

All he knows is that something is wrong-dangerous-bad-must protect. He vaguely notices a flash of orange as Nami ducks around from the mikan grove, but he’s already darting past her into the kitchen.

It’s chaos.

The cook is frozen, petrified, eyes wide and mouth open in a now-silent scream. There’s hands all over him. He almost draws his sword to slice them off before he notices that they’re supporting him while other hands move dishes of food off of him and onto the table. Sora’s frozen in place near the door, huge eyes watching everything. Robin glances back at Zoro, and there’s real emotion there at last – naked shock.

“He’s – he was falling,” she says.

The last dish is gone now but her arms are still there, clutching at the cook, who’s white as a sheet and trembling so hard he can see it from halfway across the room.

“Let go of him!”

--

Chopper’s remarkably good at compartmentalizing.

He has to be with the nature of his Devil Fruit. He had an entire life as a normal reindeer before eating it. Then a strange, terrible life as a half-man-half-reindeer hated by all. Then everything that came after. He’s simultaneously an adult reindeer and a human child. He’s a trained doctor, but he also likes bedtime stories and candy and playing games.

That said, he compartmentalizes his relationships, too.

Right now, this isn’t Sanji, the sort-of-mother-father-figure he shares with Sora, who always makes the bubbliest baths for him and gives him goodnight kisses and fresh baked goods. This is Sanji, his crewmate and patient. The patient in his care with an extreme anxiety disorder who’s just obviously had his PTSD triggered.

“Let go of him,” he snaps. He stays in his small form. Heavy point would be more useful, but he’s gathered already that Sanji’s trauma happened when he was small, so being big around him would be detrimental to his care.

“Nami, bring my black doctor bag from the storeroom,” he commands.

The hands holding Sanji up dissolve into petals. He collapses heavily to the floor, knees loud on the wood. Chopper winces, but he can deal with the bruises later. What’s more immediate is the way Sanji’s clawing at his own mouth and hyperventilating so badly that he’s not getting any air in. Chopper tries to gently move his hands away from his face, but he flinches away and instead begins scratching at his arms and upper chest.

“Sanji,” Chopper says seriously. “Can you hear me? Sanji?”

There’s no recognition in his eyes. Wherever he’s gone in his head, it’s nowhere near here. He wants to stop him from hurting himself, but he can’t bring himself to restrain him when he’s like this.

“Chopper! The bag!”

Nami tosses it to him and falls heavily to the floor beside Sanji, probably bruising her knees just as badly as he did. She starts furiously rubbing her scent glands until her smell wafts up through the room.

“Zoro, take Sora out of here,” Chopper orders. “Robin, out.”

He finally finds the little vial of medicine he’s looking for. It’s supposed to be an emergency measure, and he’s glad that Kureha thought far enough ahead to suggest he synthesize it. It’s a much more immediate and potent anxiety drug to hopefully knock him out enough to get the panic under control.

“Can you roll up his sleeve?”

It’s already half-rolled from cooking, so it’s easy enough for Nami to drag it up more despite Sanji’s futile, twitchy resistance. Chopper presses until a vein pops and pushes the medicine in.

“It’ll take a few minutes,” he says.

There’s a commotion on deck behind them, but he can’t worry about that now. He trusts that Zoro’s taking care of Sora. All of his focus is on Sanji. He’s trembling and twitching, still, making wheezy, wordless vocalizations between short inhales. Several of the scratches on his lower face are bleeding, and he looks awful, like he’s been mauled. Like he was so desperate to rip something off his face that he’d hurt himself to do it.

Chopper doesn’t usually think he’s an angry, vengeful person, but it makes something sick and heavy pool in his stomach to look at Sanji right now. How could a human do something to someone like this?

The drug’s beginning to work. Sanji’s drooping, his breathing beginning to even out. Chopper switches to heavy point and gently maneuvers him until he’s lying on the floor with his head and shoulders in Chopper’s lap. He pets his hair gently, and luckily, he responds well, slipping into a light, drugged doze.

“I want him in his nest,” Chopper says, “but…”

Nami nods, grim. “I’ll go see what’s going on out there.”

--

Chaos.

Zoro feels shaken and sick. Only the night before, Sanji had confessed his phobia of alpha hands grabbing at him, and now his worst fear’s come true. Oddly, he doesn’t even blame Robin. She couldn’t have known. And she looks awful – her veneer of smug calm is shattered, and her scent is soaked in fear and upset. Whatever she’d meant to do with the cook, she obviously didn’t intend to torment him.

He can’t deal with that, though, because several things are happening at once.

For one, Sora is crying now. The kid’s scared and confused, and too much is happening, so his poor overloaded brain’s gone right to awful wailing like a much smaller kid. It’s a no-brainer for Zoro to scoop him up and hold him firmly to his chest so the kid can nearly throttle him with his arms around his neck and wipe terrible snotty tears on the shoulder of his shirt. He rubs the kid’s back like he’s seen Sanji doing and makes quiet shushing noises. He’s kind of stuck just doing that.

Two, Luffy’s been summoned from the hold by the scream, and the captain is livid. Even the weather seems to have picked up on his mood, clouds beginning to gather in the sky and dim the late afternoon sun.

“What did you do?”

Usopp’s useless to hold him back. Luffy’s already stronger than him, but this is an enraged Luffy still on the tail end of his rut. He gives it a good try, babbling about hey, we can talk this out, and don’t jump to conclusions, and let’s figure out what’s going on…

Luffy’s not listening. His nose is flared, picking up the waves of terror rolling out of the galley. He takes another threatening step towards Robin.

“Mr. Cook was carrying the dinner dishes,” Robin says in a measured, level voice. Wisely, she’s averted her eyes from Luffy’s and bared the side of her neck to him. “The children ran into the galley while playing. Chopper struck Mr. Cook’s leg. He was losing his balance. I did not think. I used my hands to steady him. He did not respond well to that.”

“You hurt him.”

“Not by choice.”

On a better day, Luffy would accept that. Zoro can tell already that it’s not going to work. If Luffy wasn’t already feeling conflicted about the cook, if he wasn’t rutting, if Sanji’s scream hadn’t been so heart-wrenching…

Unfortunately, it’s not enough. Luffy growls and launches himself at Robin. To her credit, she does the math quickly and goes strictly for defense. Zoro can’t do anything but step away and shield Sora with his body. Usopp’s just as helpless as he is, waving his hands frantically and being summarily ignored by all the alphas on deck.

“Crew doesn’t hurt each other!”

Robin ducks away from a wild punch thrown her way and shoves Luffy across the deck with several conjured legs. “It was a misunderstanding.”

Luffy growls wordlessly and launches himself at her again. Zoro’s impressed by Robin’s poise, honestly. If he were to get in an alpha scuffle like this, he’d already be growling and posturing and pumping his muscles up. She looks cool and calm and focused, intent on avoiding his attacks and outlasting his rage. He wonders how many times she’s had to do something like this.

Robin backs away, careful to keep her body language loose and unthreatening. She doesn’t bother trying to talk him down anymore. Luffy’s gearing up to try for another wild tackle when all movement on deck is arrested by an intimidating aura stepping out.

“Everyone - KNOCK IT OFF!”

Everyone – even Luffy – freezes. Nami stands above them looking more like a demon than a witch. He’s never met a beta before who can summon such a chilling and intimidating energy. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she was the dominant alpha on the ship.

The clouds above rumble with thunder. Nami’s disdainful gaze roves over the scene.

“Sanji is sedated and needs to get to his nest. Chopper will be carrying him there. None of you will get in his way or interrupt him in any way whatsoever. None of you will fight. There will be no shouting. Any and all conflict is to be put on hold until I say so. Do you understand?”

There’s a collective nervous gulp on deck. They nod.

Nami’s gaze softens when it lands on Zoro and Sora. “Oh, Sora, baby, come here. Are you scared?”

Zoro finds himself reluctant to hand him over. All of his instincts say to protect the kid, and even on a personal level, he wants to see him calm down and be happy again because he actually really likes him. He’s a good kid. Still, he can wrestle his own feelings down and pass the kid over to Nami for his own good. She hefts him easily, muttering soothing words into his hair. The gaze she turns onto the rest of them is cold.

“I don’t want to hear a peep from any of you,” she says. “Chopper, Sora, and I are staying in the den with Sanji until he’s better. Usopp – I’m sorry, but the pseudo rut can’t come in.”

“No, I get it.” Usopp gives her a thumbs up and a watery smile. “Take care of them for me!”

Zoro’s attention is drawn to the galley door. Chopper’s coming through in his heavy point, cradling the unconscious cook in his arms. Absurdly, Zoro feels a prickle in his eyes when he looks at him. The cook looks awful. Most of his face is red with angry scratches and spots of blood that he must have inflicted on himself. His bare forearms look much the same. Even asleep, he looks stressed. Chopper takes the stairs slowly and carefully, giving them all a wary look at the bottom before disappearing into the storeroom with him. Zoro lets out a small, involuntary whine when the door shuts behind them that he immediately tries to cover with a scowl.

Nami flicks her eyes to him and sighs. “Zoro – in a few minutes, can you bring some dinner to the hatch for us? The rest of you – Sanji worked hard. Don’t let it go to waste. If I come out here again and you’re back to fighting, I’m keelhauling the lot of you.”

They nod again. Nami disappears into the room with Sora on her hip, shutting the door firmly behind her. The rest of them are left in an uneasy silence.

The thunder rumbles again, and the first spattering of rain begins to fall.

Chapter Text

Luffy sits at a table full of food, and for the first time in his life, he’s not hungry.

The storm’s broken above them. Not a particularly bad one, but still lashing the ship with sheets of rain and cracks of thunder. The four of them had gone through the motions of storm-proofing the ship in complete silence. They’re safe now. Dripping wet and shivering in the galley, but the ship is steady.

Nami had been so scary. Between her and the water dumped over his head, Luffy doesn’t think he’s ever come out of a rut so quickly. It’s still not quite over, but the overbearing thrum of tension in his blood is gone like it’d never happened. He feels limp and useless now.

Zoro and Usopp aren’t. Luffy sits mutely and watches them use Sanji’s bento boxes to pack up dinner for the four crewmembers down in the den. He’d made steaks and dishes of buttered and seasoned noodles and roasted vegetables and a dessert of tinned peaches cooked in rich syrup under a golden pastry crust. It’s the kind of meal that would normally have him salivating, but all he can think is that it’s one of his favorites. Just like every other meal sent down to the bunk the past four days. Luffy’s been a big idiot.

“Let me help,” he says in a rough voice.

Zoro and Usopp give him a look, but Zoro slides a cutting board and steak over to him.

“Small bites,” he says, “That one’s for Sora.”

Luffy takes the knife with more care than anyone would give him credit for and cuts the steak into small cubes. Zoro takes the board back wordlessly and carefully arranges the meat in the box before snapping it shut and stuffing it in a cloth tote with the others. He fills some canteens with water and throws in a couple of mikans before he braces himself to weather the walk through the storm. Luffy watches him go.

Robin has been silent. When he looks at her now, she looks empty. She sits at the other end of the table and makes no move to eat. She doesn’t look at him. She just stares at the table like she can read secrets in the wood grain.

There’s an unspoken rule that none of them will talk until Zoro returns.

It takes a few minutes, but Zoro is back again. His hair’s plastered to his head with rain – and Sanji would crack a joke about it looking like algae if he were here. His stomach twists. Zoro stomps over to the kitchen and grabs a towel to dry some of the rain off himself before he rejoins them at the table.

“Cook’s knocked out,” Zoro says gruffly. “Chopper’s cleaned up his – his face. And his arms. Nami’s still pissed. Sora’s… The kid’s still crying.”

Luffy remembers holding Sora in the night on their trip to Drum as he cried into his chest. Remembers he’d promised himself he’d take care of the crew. That he’d do his best.

The whole table flinches when Luffy lets a whine out of his throat.

He’s been a bad captain. A bad friend. A bad alpha. He doesn’t like lying to anyone, but he’s probably been lying to himself. He was scared in Alabasta. He doesn’t let people know that. He’s the captain. He’s strong. He’s brave. He doesn’t have time to worry about pain or dying. But Alabasta was scary. Crocodile had hurt him badly, and in the moment he had no time to be upset about it, but after… He can stop lying to himself long enough to admit that he’s not happy about how close he came to dying – he should have been strong enough to not come so close. He’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. Still, he hadn’t liked how close they’d come to losing.

It doesn’t make it okay. He’d just wanted things to lighten up again. He’d wanted everything to be normal and fun. He shouldn’t have been mad at Sanji for being the way he is. He loves Sanji. It’s not fair that he was mad because sometimes it’s so inconvenient that Sanji is always so scared of things. Hell, it’s not even things he’s scared of. He fights monsters and dinosaurs and sea kings without any problems. It’s just alphas. And Luffy was a dick because he just wanted Sanji to trust him – he wouldn’t let an alpha who was dangerous onto their ship. He wouldn’t! But then… then she hurt him anyway.

“I’m sorry.”

They turn as one to look at Robin. She’s still looking at the table blankly.

Usopp glances at Luffy and Zoro before tentatively asking, “Um, about which part? The part where you were rude and creepy this whole time, or the part where you triggered Sanji into ripping his own face off?”

Luffy’s surprised Robin doesn’t flinch or start crying. He knows he wants to cry.

“All of it. I should start at the beginning.”

--

Robin’s no stranger to guilt. She’s done many things in the past twenty years that she’s not proud of. She’s killed. Lied. Stolen. Witnessed atrocities and stood by while others were hurt or killed and she slipped quietly away and left them to their fates. It never gets easier to shoulder.

This particular failure just feels especially profound. She was so completely wrong from the very start that it’s difficult for her to even begin to explain herself.

“I was under the impression that you were pirates,” she forces out.

The captain looks confused. “We are pirates!”

It’s only the swordsman who looks enlightened. His face is opening up with a slow understanding.

“You are not like most pirates,” she says. “From your attitudes, I doubt you’ve run into many pirates.”

“We have!” Luffy hesitates, uncertain. “Uh, those clown guys. And, uh, the Fish-guys! And Bon-chan! Some other guys, too, but we beat them up!”

So, the Buggy Pirates – a crew somewhat notorious for the open secret that their captain is a loudmouthed omega pretending to be beta – Fish-men who have a different system of sexes entirely, and Bon Kurei’s merry band of theatre rejects. How she envies his luck.

It’s Zoro who speaks up, surprisingly, “She doesn’t mean guys like that. She means the other kind of pirates. The kinds I used to hunt down. Murderers, rapists, bandits,” he explains more clearly when the captain still looks confused.

The captain makes a face. “Ugh, those guys. They give pirates a bad name!”

Robin inclines her head.

The swordsman looks like he’s sucked a lemon. “So you thought…”

“I believed that your cook was kept on the crew as a form of stress relief, yes, and he certainly does not give the impression of a man who enjoys the attention of alphas.”

The longnose looks like he’s finally understanding, as well. “You thought we were, what? Rapists?”

She inclines her head again. “Evidently, I was wrong.”

Luffy slams his hand on the table. “Why would you think that? We’re not like that!”

“Well, why wouldn’t I? Because you are young?” Robin scoffs despite her promise to herself that she wasn’t going to antagonize them. “I knew very little about you when I chose to gamble on joining your crew. At Whisky Peak, all I knew was that you, Luffy, had the highest bounty in the East Blue, and the infamous Roronoa Zoro had just taken out almost eighty frontier agents by himself. The two of you had just defeated Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine. You were young, strong, and one member of your crew was an omega who’d obviously suffered from unwanted sexual attention from an early age. The conclusions I drew were incorrect, but…”

“Logical,” Usopp finishes, looking distinctly green.

“If you thought we were such pieces of shit, then why join us?” The swordsman crosses his arms.

None of them make a move for dinner. They’ll have to eat it or save it. The cook despises waste. Robin pulls her attention back to the boys in front of her with some effort. She is already tired of this conversation. She desperately wishes the discomfort were over.

“I’ve served under worse,” she says softly. “At least your crew appeared well-fed and mostly unharmed. I asked to join because I wanted to understand. Your captain saved my life even as I was begging for death. I’d given him very little reason to do so. I wanted to know what kind of man would do that. I also needed to escape Alabasta, and you seemed the most likely candidates for making it through the blockade. Two birds, one stone.”

The longnose speaks up, “When did you decide we weren’t monsters?”

“When the captain’s rut began. I was expecting you to force the cook down into the hold to absorb the captain’s excess energy. Instead, he sent the swordsman. An omega commanding an alpha, and no question of using him for his supposed intended purpose? I knew then that I had misread the situation.”

“But you didn’t say anything.”

“The cook was obviously uncomfortable around both me and the captain. I determined the best course of action would be to wait until the captain was no longer indisposed and address the entire crew at once. But then…”

The silence is uncomfortable.

“You couldn’t have known,” the swordsman says abruptly. “Hell, I didn’t know until yesterday. Cook’s got a thing about hands. Something to do with how he ended up with the kid. Didn’t ask for details. Point is, he’s scared shitless of your Devil Fruit.”

She can see that now. She can only imagine how frightening a power like hers would be to someone who is afraid of being made helpless. She can think of many ways she could scruff him or immobilize him with her powers – she’s sure he’s thought of even more. It turns her stomach. She’d shown off her powers too much in front of him. She’s just so used to using them. She’d never considered that anyone would look at her and her powers and worry that she was the rapist.

“I can leave at the next port,” she says, “though I beg you to let me apologize to the cook before I go.”

“But… Why would you go?”

She looks up, startled, to meet the captain’s frown.

“Why… would I stay? My behavior has been abhorrent, and I have cruelly mistreated your crewmate.”

“I don’t know what abhorrent means, but you have been mean to Sanji. I’ve been mean to Sanji, too. I need to apologize. But that’s what crew does. They apologize and they do better. They don’t just run away.”

“What if Sanji wants her to leave?” the longnose hisses urgently.

The captain frowns. “He might. And if he really wants you to go, you should probably go. I just don’t think you really want to hurt him. I could tell from the beginning – you were scared of something. I thought you were scared of Sanji, but you were really scared that we were going to hurt him, right?”

Wordlessly, she nods.

“I think Sanji will understand. But you can go if he doesn’t. But I don’t want you to decide to go until we know what Sanji needs, and he knows everything that happened. So don’t go running away until then!”

She doesn’t point out that they’re in the middle of the sea right now, and she has literally nowhere else to go. Perhaps he’s being rhetorical.

“I agree,” the swordsman says. “It should be up to the cook.”

“Don’t you think that’s a lot of pressure?” The longnose sweats when they turn to spear him with their eyes. “I mean… eh… The poor guy’s been through a lot. After last time… He probably won’t be talking for a while, anyway. You can’t just dump this huge decision on him. At least, that’s my opinion,” he trails off, wilting under their gazes.

The captain nods thoughtfully. “Usopp’s smart. This sounds like a mortal quarry!”

“Moral quandary, idiot.”

“Sounds like something we need to think on before we jump to any conclusions.”

“In any case,” Robin interjects, “It sounds like Mr. Cook will be indisposed for some time. If you wish to clap me in irons in the meantime, I will understand.”

Whatever response they’d have to that offer is interrupted by the galley door creaking open, and two figures in raincoats sliding in to drip on the floor.

--

He wants to go home.

He’s confused, because Baratie was home forever, but they’ve been on the Merry for a long time now, and it feels like home, too. He doesn’t know if he wants to be back with Jiji and the cooks or if he wants to be on the Merry, but not how the Merry is now.

There’s thunder outside, and he whimpers again. Miss Nami snuggles him closer. He likes Miss Nami a lot, but he wants Jiji.

He doesn’t want to look at Dad. He’s seen his dad a lot when he’s small or when he’s crying, and he doesn’t like it, but this is different. He’s scary right now. His face is all covered in red lines like he was scratched by a big monster – but there wasn’t any monster but Miss Robin’s hands. His dad had screamed so loud that it hurt his ears, and then his dad had hurt his face. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know why the hands made him hurt himself. He’s never seen him do that. His eyes get hot again, and he’s crying.

“Sora, baby, I promise it’s okay.”

He shakes his head. Grown-ups are always saying it’s okay, but it’s not. He wants his Dad to wake up and not look scary anymore and purr and sing the special lullaby he sings just for him – the one with the words Sora doesn’t understand, but Dad said he’d teach him one day if he wants to know. Nobody else knows their special song, so he can’t ask Miss Nami to sing it, and she’s too sad right now to purr.

He looks up when there’s a knock on the hatch. Miss Nami leaves him sitting on her desk chair to go climb the ladder. He watches her because he doesn’t want to look at Chopper cleaning Dad’s face and putting medicine on it. He can see Mr. Zoro’s head at the top of the hatch. He frowns.

He likes Mr. Zoro. He thought he was scary when he first saw him, and Dad didn’t like him for a long time. Mr. Zoro is like Jiji. He likes to look big and scary, but he’s nice. Chopper says he gives really good hugs, but Sora hasn’t asked him for one yet. He frowns more. He did get a hug, though. When Mr. Zoro took him outside. He’d given him a big hug and patted his back and didn’t get mad when he wiped his nose on his shirt even though Dad always says that’s ‘disgusting.’ Mr. Zoro didn’t say it was disgusting. He’d just hugged him tighter.

“Here, Sora, try to eat some dinner, okay?”

Someone put his dinner in a bento. It’s not pretty like when Dad does it. He pokes the ugly pile of noodles with his fork. His stomach feels like it’s full of angry worms.

“Please try to eat?”

Miss Nami’s not eating, either. He sniffles and wipes a fresh tear off his face.

“I’m not hungry,” he says.

Miss Nami sighs. “I don’t think I’m hungry either, baby. Maybe we can put it in the fridge with your dad’s dinner, hm? Maybe you’ll be hungry later.”

He nods. There’s a small fridge behind the bar for fruit and milk and stuff that his dad uses for cocktails. He looks over at Chopper and Dad and feels more tears run down his face.

“Are you sure you don’t want to lie down in the nest?” Chopper asks.

He shakes his head wildly. Chopper said he gave his dad medicine so he’ll sleep, and he doesn’t like it. He’s not moving. He looks like he’s dead. Chopper put bandages on his arms, but only a couple sticky ones on his face. He can still see the red lines. It doesn’t look like his dad and he doesn’t want to be here. He wants Jiji.

Jiji’s always been there when he’s sad. Dr. Toshiko says Dad has ‘episodes,’ and whenever Dad has a episode, Jiji always takes care of him. He’s not a baby. He’s not stupid. He knows Jiji is far far away right now. He knows he can’t just show up. He wants one of Jiji’s hugs right now, though. He wants it so bad it hurts. He wants to smell Jiji’s smell that’s like kitchens and spice and sometimes a little cigarette smoke or whisky and tug on his moustache until he tells him to “leave the damn things alone, brat,” in that voice that sounds angry but isn’t angry at all.

If he can’t have Jiji, though…

Chopper needs to help Dad. Miss Nami’s nice, but not like Jiji. Uncle Usopp is too scared – his heart’s always really fast. Luffy gives good hugs, but Dad is sad and mad at Luffy right now, and Sora’s not sure if he’s supposed to hug him when he’s been bad and made Dad sad. If he made Dad this sad, he must’ve been really bad, and Sora doesn’t want to hug him until he says sorry.

He thinks again about the way Zoro had hugged him tight on the deck.

He tugs on Miss Nami’s shirt until she looks at him. “Miss Nami… can I go see Mr. Zoro?”

“Zoro? Why do you want to see Zoro?”

He bites his lip and wiggles uncomfortably. He doesn’t know how to explain.

“Please?”

Miss Nami looks over at Chopper and Dad.

“You sure you don’t want to lie down?” Chopper asks.

Sora shakes his head quickly. He’s not tired. He doesn’t wanna. Not when Dad looks like that, and he’s still got angry worms in his belly and his heart hurts like someone’s squeezing it.

“I want Mr. Zoro,” he says quietly.

“It… should be fine,” Chopper says to Miss Nami, but slowly, like he’s not actually sure. “Sanji’s not gonna wake up for a while. I’ll stay with him.”

Miss Nami frowns at him for a long time before she sighs. “Okay. We can go see Zoro. But put your raincoat on. There’s a storm outside.”

Thunder rumbles again. Sora squeaks, but hurries over to the wardrobe before she can change her mind. Grown-ups like to change their minds if they think he’s too much of a scaredy cat to do things. Miss Nami has to help him with the toggles, and he leaves his straw hat on its hook. Finally she has her coat on, too, and they climb the ladder up to leave the den.

It’s dark outside now, and the rain is coming down hard. Miss Nami’s hand is warm and tight on his, and she holds onto him as they slowly walk up the slippery staircase. The wind is so strong he feels like he could fly away like a kite. Miss Nami pulls open the door and pushes him inside.

It’s nice and warm and bright in the galley. Everybody’s sitting at the table, but they don’t look like they’re eating.

“What’s up, guys?” Luffy asks.

“Sora asked to see Zoro…?”

He impatiently waits for her to pull his coat off and he immediately beelines for Mr. Zoro. Mr. Zoro looks surprised, but he doesn’t say no. His hands are big and warm when they lift him onto his lap.

“You okay, kid?”

Sora shakes his head and wraps his arms around him. He’s bigger than Dad, but not as big as Jiji. He’s warm. He rubs his nose in his shirt. He smells different than Jiji, too. Like stinky armpit on his shirt, but also like the choji oil he cleans his swords with and the minty soap his dad bought for him and laughed about. Thinking about Dad makes his eyes get hot again.

“Hey, it’s okay.”

He likes the way Mr. Zoro’s voice rumbles in his chest. It reminds him of Jiji. His big hands, too. He rubs his back again. Sora kinda wishes he was omega or beta so he could purr to show how much he likes that. He rubs his face on his shirt and tries to stop his breath from trying to be hiccups.

“Looks like he’s calming down a little,” Miss Nami says from somewhere behind them.

“Is Sanji…?” Uncle Usopp doesn’t finish his question.

“Still asleep. Not sure how he’s going to be when he wakes up. We’ll just have to see. Did you guys talk it out?”

“Yeah,” Luffy says.

“I attempted to explain myself,” Miss Robin says, “and I would repeat it for you, but it’s not a story fit for children’s ears.”

Miss Robin’s the one who started this whole mess. Sora lifts his head and turns to look at her. She’s so weird. She looks back at him and her face doesn’t move at all like she’s a statue. His chest rumbles for a second before he growls at her, high in his throat.

There’s a beat of silence.

Luffy’s the one who laughs first.

Sora’s growl disappears into a pout. “It’s not funny!”

One by one, the grown-ups are all laughing. Even Miss Robin has a look on her face like she’s trying not to smile.

Sora feels his lip wobble. He knows his growl is little like him, but it’s not funny! They’re being rude. Dad would kick them if he was here.

“Stop laughing! It’s not funny!”

Mr. Zoro’s hand pets his back again. He’s still smiling, but not laughing. “Easy, little tiger. We’re not making fun of you.”

Art by Gimpi90 on X/Twitter!

“You are, too!” He hides his face in Mr. Zoro’s shirt again.

“Aw, Sora, I’m sorry,” Miss Nami says. “We didn’t mean to laugh.”

“Sorry, little guy,” Uncle Usopp says. “It’s not funny. You’re right. We just…”

“Sometimes grown-ups laugh when they really want to cry,” Luffy says loudly. “We’re not laughing at you.”

“We’re all just a little stressed out,” Miss Nami says. “I’m sorry we laughed at you. We were just surprised. I didn’t know you could growl like that.”

“You’re an alpha?” Mr. Zoro asks.

Sora nods and pulls his face away from the shirt again. “I am! One day I’m gonna be a big and strong alpha and I’m gonna fight everybody that makes Dad sad!” He says this especially for Miss Robin, so she knows he’s serious.

Miss Nami looks sad now. “Oh, baby, that’s sweet, but that’s not your job…”

He shakes his head. “I’m gonna.”

The grown-ups all look at each other like they’re having one of those silent grown-up conversations. He ignores them and looks at Miss Robin again. She doesn’t look scary. She just looks like a lady. She looks back at him, and he ducks back closer to Mr. Zoro.

“I’m sorry I scared you, little one,” Miss Robin says. “Will you accept my apology?”

He looks at Mr. Zoro. He just pets his back again. He feels brave enough to ask her, “Can I…?”

He loses his voice. He remembers how his dad had shouted so loud it hurt his ears. It doesn’t feel good to remember.

“What is it?”

He tries again, “Can I see your hand power?”

He wants to see it again, closer. He doesn’t know why it made his dad so scared, but he wants to know. He knows Mr. Zoro wouldn’t let her grab him, and Luffy and Uncle Usopp and Miss Nami are here, too. Miss Robin looks at him for a long time before she nods.

“My Devil Fruit can copy more than just hands,” she says. “Can I show you?”

That sounds a little scary. He squeezes Mr. Zoro, but he nods.

Miss Robin crosses her arms. Two arms are on the table now, waving at him. One of them points at the wall. He looks, and there’s two eyes on the wall. They wink. He turns away quickly. It’s weird. Miss Robin wiggles the fingers on her real hand, and there are way too many of them.

“I can do a lot more than that, but I think that’s enough. Did you have any questions?”

He nods. Mr. Zoro hugs him tighter, and he feels brave enough to ask, “Why’d you grab my dad and make him scared?”

Miss Robin makes the extra pieces of her disappear. She puts her real hands on the table.

“Your father was falling over, and I was surprised. I was trying to help him not fall and not drop the dinner he worked so hard on. I didn’t know that it would scare him. I would never try to scare him on purpose – that would be a very wrong thing to do, do you agree?”

He nods. It would.

“I am very sorry that I frightened him, and I am also sorry that you were frightened, as well. I apologize and hope you will forgive me. When your father recovers from his fright, I will apologize to him. I have been very rude to him.”

Miss Robin smiles now, and it makes her face look warmer and less like a creepy statue. “Trust takes time, however. I understand if you do not forgive me today, or if you never forgive me at all. You are a very brave and kind boy. Your father is very lucky that you are his son.”

Sora ducks his head and hides his face in Mr. Zoro’s shirt again. He doesn’t know what to say to that. His cheeks feel warm. Mr. Zoro rocks him a little, and it makes him feel a little better. The thunder outside makes him jump and hug him tighter, but Mr. Zoro doesn’t laugh at him. He just rocks him a little more until he calms down.

“I’m gonna say sorry to your dad, too,” Luffy says. “I was a big jerk, but it’s going to be okay!”

Sora nods. The grown-ups start talking to each other again, but he’s having trouble listening. Now that he’s not angry, he feels really sleepy. Mr. Zoro is warm, and the choji oil smells like the stuff Dad uses on his knives, and he feels a lot better now. His eyelids are heavy. He’ll close them for just a minute.

--

The kid’s knocked out.

They don’t exactly have a lot of bedding up here, but Nami hands him their picnic blanket. He wraps it around the kid and settles him more comfortably on his lap. He’ll have to wake him up to get down the ladder to his bed later. For now, he lets him sleep.

Robin’s just finished her explanation to Nami. The witch looks sick.

“I didn’t realize…” she says.

“The seas are often a cruel place,” Robin says.

“No kidding. Still… God, this whole thing’s a mess, isn’t it?”

Understatement of the century.

--

In the daylight, Sanji pretends he can’t remember anything.

It’s a polite little fiction he plays for himself. He postures and growls and does everything in his power to keep himself safe, but from what? Oh, don’t ask him. He doesn’t remember. Something dreadful happened to him, but it’s not like it can affect him that much, because he doesn’t remember the details. He can talk about it because it’s like it happened to someone else. Not him, oh no. That happened to the scrawny little kid that used to be him.

He has no such safety in his sleep.

In dreams, he remembers. All the neurosis of the daylight come out to play in his dreams, swirling together with every other shitty thing that’s happened to him.

Is he remembering an iron mask, or the grip of a man’s hand over his face that just feels as immovable as iron?

Is he being held down and kicked by his brothers, or is that grip on his face keeping him pinned to the tile while the other hand yanks at his clothes?

Are those his brothers’ voices whispering taunts? Or -------

He’s grateful that even in sleep, he doesn’t remember what that man said to him. He’d talked. He knows he spewed some vile words over him while he used him. He’s just glad he can’t remember. He hopes he never remembers.

There could have been any number of things he could’ve fixated on, he supposes. The hands just stick out to him. A chef’s hands are for cooking. Zeff had said so. They’re for making things. For making food that nourishes and makes people happy. It just doesn’t make sense. He can’t wrap his head around why this chef is using his hands to hurt. To clamp his mouth shut, to later stick his fingers into his mouth – and for why? His own amusement? He’d tasted like the soap he’d washed his hands with just before he’d grabbed him. Sanji never had been able to use that soap again. Zeff had had to switch brands entirely.

A chef’s hands are for cooking.

They’re not for fighting.

Not for ---- for pinching skin and pulling at his clothes and shoving dry and burning into places they were never supposed to be to scratch roughly inside of him, stretching and ruining and –

That’s not what a chef’s hands are for.

--

Waking up feels slow.

His cheek hurts where it’s pressed against a pillow. There’s drool pooled underneath, and the back of his throat feels dry and raw like he’s breathed carelessly through his mouth all night. The skin of his face pulls and burns when he scoots away from the damp spot.

His body feels sluggish. His brain feels even slower than that. What happened?

With effort, he rolls over. He’s alone. He doesn’t usually sleep alone. He’s in his own nest, though. The blue curtain draped over the top is his. He can feel one of Sora’s plushies digging into his back now that he’s moved. Time and reality slip through his fingers when he tries to grab hold. Had he been drugged?

He turns his head. The curtain’s open, so he has an unobstructed view of Nami’s bed. He can just see her orange hair from here. Chopper and Sora are curled up on top of her.

Why? Why isn’t Sora in here with him?

He tries to remember. What’s the last thing that happened? Zoro waking him up so he can go back to bed after falling asleep in the crow’s nest? No, later than that. He’d made sandwiches for breakfast. Ham and egg and cheese. Sora had helped squeeze mikans into orange juice.

Focus, Sanji.

Lunch? No, lunch was fine. Crunchy breaded fish fried and served with potato fries and a fresh vegetable slaw.

Dinner. That was it. He was cooking dinner. Robin was sitting at the table with tea. He’d left the door open so he didn’t feel so trapped with her. The kids were running around outside. The air felt kind of heavy like rain was coming. He’d have to ask Nami what she thought. If it was going to rain, he’d have to let the kids play as much as they can so they’re not miserable when they’re stuck inside.

What happened, though?

Unbidden, the feeling of hands grabbing hold of him all over returns.

He curls up tighter in his nest. His face hurts and his arms hurt and when did they get bandaged up? How did he get in here? He can’t remember. He remembers Chopper slamming into his leg, and the lurching feeling of losing his balance, the plates beginning to slide off his arms and the spike of adrenaline as he tried to save dinner from ending up on the floor. Then freezing as several points of contact appeared on his body, palms and fingers distinct as they pressed on his skin through his clothes.

A whine builds in his throat.

He can imagine the rest. He knows how unreasonable he gets when stuff like that happens. It doesn’t explain his face and arms. Who clawed him up like this? Was it Robin? Why would she do that?

“Ah, Sanji, you’re awake. H-Hey, please let go of your hair, okay?”

When did he put a fist in his hair? He doesn’t remember. Little hooves massage his hands until they relax, and he lets them pull them away from his head. It’s easier to focus with Chopper. He’s never felt anything before like Chopper’s little flexible hooves.

“Thank you. I’m gonna hand you a canteen, okay? Can you sit up and drink some water?”

He won’t disappoint Chopper. He pulls himself upright and takes the canteen. The water feels good on his achy throat. Chopper takes his hand and drops a pill into his palm.

“Today’s dose of your medicine. Can you swallow it?”

He puts it in his mouth without protest. He’s been obedient to Chopper’s wishes for weeks now. Other than whatever is going on now, he even thinks the pills have been helping. He hasn’t had a panic attack in a while.

“Nami said you sometimes experience episodes of mutism. Are you having one of those now? Can you talk?”

Anxiety shivers down his spine, and he shakes his head without even trying to speak.

“Okay. That’s understandable. Do you remember what happened?”

He nods.

He turns his head. Chopper’s looking at him with as much professionalism as he can muster. He looks past him to the bed. Sora’s little eyes stare back at him before he notices him looking and ducks his head under the blanket. Sanji frowns.

Chopper follows his gaze. “Oh. Yes. I’m sorry, Sanji. Sora is having a hard time right now. He, um… He’s upset about your face.”

Sanji’s fingers trail over the skin of his face. The smooth surface is marred by raised lines and bandages. He makes a little noise.

“I’m not sure if you should see it…”

He turns to Chopper and gives him a look.

Chopper hesitates visibly before he wilts. “Fine. I’ll just… I’m sorry. Here.”

He hands him the hand mirror from the vanity drawer. Sanji slowly lifts it and stares. No wonder his skin feels burning and itchy and sore. He looks like someone’s done their best to claw his face off with their fingernails. He raises a hand and matches a line of scratches to the spacing of his own fingers.

“Yes… Sorry. You were having – I think it was a flashback? Maybe just a really bad panic attack? You wouldn’t stop trying to scratch your own skin. I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t remember the flashback specifically, but he can imagine what he’d been seeing. Remembers weakly scratching at the hand clamped over his mouth on that disgusting bathroom tile. He raises his hand now to feel the back of his skull, half-expecting to feel the lump left there after Kenta had slammed his younger self back down repeatedly until he’d just left his arms limp and stopped fighting. There’s nothing there, now.

He hands the mirror back to Chopper. Fuck, how does he fix this? He wants Sora to come back, but his words are stuck in his throat again, and he can’t expect the kid to accept him when his face looks like minced beef.

He needs to know where the rest of the crew is. He makes a motion like writing with a pen, more and more urgently until Chopper scrambles to find a notepad and a pencil for him. He nearly snaps the graphite in his haste to write out –

Where crew?

“Uh, Robin and Zoro stayed in the galley, I think. Luffy and Usopp went back to the bunk. It’s still early morning. I don’t think they’ve gotten up yet.”

Robin?

It’s Nami’s voice who answers, “She’s explained herself to us. She wants to apologize to you. But you don’t have to until you’re ready. Luffy wants to talk to you, too. He finished his rut and he’s a little less stupid and useless now.”

She sits up, disturbing the blanket lump that is Sora and rubbing her eyes. She looks exhausted.

“Don’t worry about breakfast. Zoro said he’d take care of it.” She finishes rubbing her eyes and snorts when she sees his expression. “I know, I thought so, too. He says all he can really do is boiled eggs and toast, so brace yourself for that culinary delight. Last night’s dinner is in the fridge if you’d rather have that.”

He doesn’t really feel hungry, though, unbidden, he’s already planned out how he can use the leftover steaks for steak and eggs for breakfast and is trying to think how to repurpose the buttered noodles. Maybe top them with a fresh sauce or a stew? He glances back at Sora, his interest fizzling out. Quickly, he tears out another piece of notepaper and writes on it neatly and carefully. Sora’s only five. He can’t read much at all. Still, he’s pretty sure he can read this.

I LOVE YOU SORA.

He draws a heart under it and hands it to Chopper to pass along. He has so much more that he wants to say. He could write a more complicated message for one of them to read to him. He just knows, though, that it would mean more to him to read it on his own.

“Here, Sora. This is for you.”

He peeks his head out and takes the note from Chopper suspiciously. Sanji watches him sit up and frown, tracing his fingers over the letters carefully. When he looks up again, his face is crumbling into tears that lance directly into Sanji’s heart.

“Dad!”

He nearly trips flat on his face twice in the short distance from Nami’s bed to the nest, but neither of them care. Sanji drags him into their dim, quiet nest and holds him under his chin while he cries bitter little tears into his collarbone.

Later, he’ll have the words to comfort him. Later, he’ll reassure him with how much he loves him, that he’s okay, that he’s so sorry he had to see that, that he never wants to hurt him or scare him again. Later, he’ll have the words to call Zeff and reassure him together that everything’s going to be okay, that they’re safe.

Now, though, he just holds his son, content enough with that that he can force out the tiniest rumbles of a purr to soothe him.

--

Nami wants him to wait. Chopper wants him to wait. He’d like to have a better grip on his voice before he does this.

He can’t wait.

The rain’s left a cooler breeze over the sea this morning. The clouds are gone, and he’s sure it’ll be sunny and hot as it climbs higher in the sky, but he tips his head back and enjoys the wind in his hair while it’s here. They’re having their talk out here under the open sky. It feels right.

Sanji lowers himself to sit with his back against the mast, legs crossed and notebook balanced on his knee. He can feel the stares of the crew, but he ignores them. He’s sure he looks like unholy hell with the livid scratches out in the open. He can’t help that. He balances a cigarette on his lips and cups his hands around the lighter flame until it catches. Finally, he looks around.

They’d left Sora asleep in the nest. His tears had fizzled out into an exhausted doze. They’ll have to get back quickly so he doesn’t wake up alone and upset, but for now, they have time.

Zoro’s interesting breakfast of boiled eggs and toast sits relatively untouched on one of the deck chairs.

Focus, he reminds himself.

Luffy steps forward. Sanji flicks his eyes up and down him before he drops to sit across from him, an uncharacteristically somber look on his face.

“I was stupid,” he announces.

Somewhere behind him, Usopp snorts.

Luffy spares him a glare and returns his intense stare back to Sanji. “I’m sorry. I was really really dumb and not sensitive and I know I hurt your feelings. I shouldn’t have made you embarrassed in Alabasta – though I still don’t know why you didn’t just tell me – Ouch!”

Luffy rubs the spot on his head that Nami just punched. “Fine! You tried to tell me and I ignored you. I was a bully. And then I should have taken you seriously when you were not sure about taking Robin on the crew and I said some things that turned out to be really rude. I can’t change what happened, but I’ll try even harder in the future to listen to my friends when they’re worried about things.”

He hesitates, and finally something less rehearsed creeps in. “I noticed you cooked me my favorite foods when I was rutting. You’re a better friend than I am. I told Ace I wouldn’t let him make you feel bad, and then I made you feel bad anyway. I’m sorry. I want us to be friends again.”

Sanji waits, but he seems done. He sets the notebook aside. There’s nothing he could write that Luffy couldn’t infer from actions better than words. He holds his arms out and huffs out a silent laugh when Luffy springs into his arms. He’s so gentle when he lightly brushes his scratched cheek with his own. Sanji pats him firmly on the back until he gets up off of him.

“You forgive me?”

Sanji makes a so-so gesture with his hand, but also nods. He’s still not one hundred percent on board with this, but he thinks he’ll get there.

Luffy’s grin is just as wide as if he’d nodded enthusiastically. “Awesome! I can’t wait until we can hang out again! I missed you!”

Sanji shakes his head fondly as Luffy steps back. It’s Robin’s turn now. She lowers herself to the deck and, to his complete shock, lowers herself fully into a deep bow on her hands and knees, pressing her forehead to the deck.

“I have done you great harm, Mr. Cook, and I beg you to forgive me.”

“I think you’re freaking him out, Robin,” Nami chides.

Sanji waves his arms ineffectively. He’s never had a woman bow to him like that. It feels wrong. Hell, he’s never had anyone beg for forgiveness from him like this.

Robin straightens up. “I apologize. I do not mean to make you uncomfortable, though I can see that may be hard to believe, as I’ve done nothing but make you uncomfortable since I boarded this ship. I cannot apologize enough. I am sorry for going into your den without your knowledge. I am sorry for speaking in such a dismissive and dehumanizing way to you. I am sorry beyond measure for how my actions yesterday affected you, innocent though my intentions were. If you are willing to hear me out, I will explain why I behaved so reprehensibly.”

She waits for his hesitant nod before continuing. She doesn’t quite look into his eyes, gaze trained on his shoulder instead.

“Are you aware of the role traditionally assigned to omegas out on the sea?”

Any good humor sours in his stomach.

He does. He can credit Patty with this knowledge. Neither Zeff nor Carne had ever wanted to speak to him about it, but it had been Patty who’d told him one night as they kneaded the next day’s bread together. He'd been fifteen.

”Why do all these alphas act like such pigs?” he’d griped.

“Well, one, they’re assholes. Two, they’re used to treating omegas like shit. Comes with the territory.”

“What territory?”

“Piracy.” Patty had glanced at him and sighed, throwing his dough down onto the board. “Look, kid, I don’t want to lie to you. I’ve seen some fucked up shit out there on some crews. Always jumped ship as soon as I could. Killed a few guys over it. I don’t want to scare you, but a lot of these pirate assholes are used to keeping a few omegas around on the ship so they have something to fuck when their ruts come around. It’s nothing you did. Just how they’re used to behaving. You know me or Owner Zeff would gut those fuckers before we let anything happen. So don’t worry about it.”

It wasn’t as comforting as Patty probably thought it was. He’d had nightmares for weeks thinking about being stuck on a ship somewhere filled with alphas drooling after him like a piece of meat.

He nods for Robin’s sake. He can’t look at her eyes. They look very far away.

“Forgive me,” she says, “but I joined this crew with the impression that you fulfilled the traditional role of omega on a crew. I… there is no excuse, really, but I’ve been hunted for my bounty since I was eight years old. There are many deplorable things I’ve seen over these twenty years. Many evils I’ve had to turn a blind eye to so that I could survive. We all develop strategies to cope with these things. Mine was a little game of fiction.”

She laughs. It’s a joyless huff of breath, barely audible above the wind.

“Seeing omegas in distress was painful to me. There was also nothing I could do to help them. Thus, I began to pretend that they weren’t really human – not like me. The crews using them already considered them less-than. At least my method wasn’t actively harmful. Or so I thought. I was wrong. My cruelty directly harmed you, and I am sorry.”

Sanji digs his fingers into his thighs. He doesn’t know what he would say even if he could.

“In any case, I believed that the captain and the swordsman, at the very least, were assaulting you. I was uncomfortable with how small the ship is – I was worried, too, that your son was forced to watch or listen to you being abused. I didn’t want to see that. I chose to turn a blind eye to it and not let myself become attached to you so that when you were inevitably harmed within my earshot, I would feel less dreadful. It was selfish. Cruel. I apologize.”

She sounds so terribly sad. Sanji fumbles for his notebook, scribbles out –

I understand

Robin’s laugh is small and incredulous. “Do you, now?”

It was shitty. But I guess that means you care. That’s more than some do.

“Caring more than not at all is hardly a virtue.”

Sanji huffs, blowing his bangs out of his eyes temporarily in irritation. His pencil scratches aggressively on the paper.

just let me forgive you!

Robin’s laughter, this time, is closer to genuine. “How perplexing! You’re so ready to forgive an enemy?”

maybe not yet but I’d like to give you a chance. eventually. Luffy sees something in you

“Also perplexing,” she says softly. “Another story to tell you all. About a man, a ruin, a kingdom, and a pirate… But that can wait. I expect no answers yet, no forgiveness at this time. When we make port again, we can discuss my membership. In the meantime, please rest and recover and give yourself time to think. Bearing a grudge would be more than understandable.”

He huffs again. Truly, he probably should hold onto a grudge, but it’s hard to do with a woman so determined to paint herself as an irredeemable villain. Throwing accusations and hatred at her feels rather like kicking an enemy who's already downed. She's not wrong, though. They still haven't even addressed her Devil Fruit and what it means. How he feels about it. They'll have time for that, though.

fine. I’ll think on it. Thank you for your apology.

“Truly, dear Cook, it is the least I can do.”

She bows once more before drawing herself to her feet and walking away.

He’s not left alone for long. The void is occupied by Usopp throwing himself into his space.

“Sanji!! I missed you! I’m so glad Luffy’s rut is over so I can hug you again! He was so stinky and hyper!”

Sanji laughs soundlessly again and hugs onto Usopp while he cries – a strange combination of crocodile tears and real ones as he tries to cover his real anxieties with false complaints. Zoro gives him a solemn nod from over Usopp’s shoulder, and Nami gives him a thumbs up.

It’s not better yet, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Chapter Text

He thinks he’s earned a nap after all this.

Whatever sleep he’d gotten from Chopper’s drugs hadn’t felt like restful sleep. He feels heavy and sluggish, and the world tilts a little when he turns too fast. Chopper escorts him back down to the den, apologizing profusely about how bad he feels and rambling explanations about side effects and lasting fatigue, but he only listens with half an ear. Most of his attention’s still stuck on the last twenty-four hours and how deeply embarrassed he’s becoming now that the immediate crisis is over.

Reasonably, he knows it’s not really his fault. Despite that, though, there lives in him a wellspring of shame for always being the center of so much drama.

Chopper leaves him once he makes it safely down the ladder to the den. Once the hatch is shut and he’s alone, he sags from the defensively normal posture he’d held up. He’s tired. It’s more than just the fatigue from the drugs. Deeply and truly, he’s tired. There doesn’t seem to be any point in his life that hasn’t been colored by some kind of terrible event. Is it too much to ask to have a little relief from it all? Just a week or so of just living without the shadow of some great and terrible thing hanging over him?

Sora sighs and rolls over in his sleep.

Sanji sags more when he tiptoes over to look at him. To some, Sora would be the ultimate reminder of his greatest shame. He can’t really think that way. Sora’s sprawled over the nest in a tangle of gangly, chubby limbs, mouth wide open and drooling in his sleep.

He nudges some of the splayed limbs aside enough to scoot in next to him and pull him into his chest. What a horrible, bittersweet thing it is. His baby’s so big. He dreads the day he decides he doesn’t need cuddles from his dad anymore. It’s going to crush him. He’d been such a tiny thing, once. Small and fragile and the most precious thing he’s ever held in his own two hands. He’d been petrified on that first boat ride back to Baratie to bring him home – he’d been so young himself, and there in his arms was this tiny, perfect little human he was supposed to take care of. When did that tiny little human become so grown up?

He dozes for a little bit – not quite asleep and not quite aware – until Sora stirs and starts actively wiggling out of his arms. He squeezes tighter for just another second, nose buried in his hair, before he forces himself to let go.

Sora rolls over and looks at him with eyes far too solemn for such a young face. “Can you talk yet, Dad?”

The words sit like a stone in his throat. He shakes his head with a small grimace.

Sora nods, as if this is an expected development. “I gotta pee.”

No rest for the weary.

Still, the immediate need to get Sora up the stairs and to the bathroom is just the kick in the ass he needs. He always does better with a task in front of him. Otherwise, he just wallows, and the dark waves that Chopper insists on calling “depression” start to bowl him over. He’s not completely convinced yet that the little reindeer is right when he starts spouting his psychobabble and mentioning things like traumatic stress disorders and chronic depressive episodes and maladaptive coping strategies. He mostly tries to tune the little guy out. That usually just earns him an exasperated sigh in return, but his chest always feels tight like he’s being attacked when he starts in on that, and he simply can’t deal with any of it too closely.

He washes his face and runs a razor carefully over the patchy bits of beard and mustache that can’t quite commit to being proper facial hair while Sora pees. The task is a little more difficult with all the scabby scratches still littering his face. He looks like shit. Sora bullies him away from the mirror to wash his hands, so he combs his hair blindly. Facial wounds heal fast. Hopefully he’ll look normal again in a couple days. Then maybe they can sweep this entire awful week back under the rug.

“We gonna cook lunch now?”

He looks down at Sora and musters a wide grin for him and nods.

Sora tentatively grins back. “Good. I’m hungry.”

Sanji nods and leads him out of the bathroom and out onto the deck. The midday sun’s burned away most of the lingering humidity, but it’s still not completely scorching. Fine weather for sunbathing. The ladies seem to have taken advantage of it, stretched out together on deck chairs with a pitcher of ice water between them. He feels a twinge. Ladies forced to drink plain water on a day like this. He needs to get back to normal and get something more interesting going.

Usopp waves at them but doesn’t get up from fishing. Luffy’s lying on his belly on the figurehead, kicking his feet in the air and talking animatedly to Zoro and Chopper about something. Chopper perks up like he’s going to run over and fuss over them but stops when Luffy says something to him. The three of them instead give them nods and waves but don’t bother them.

That’s perfectly fine for Sanji. Even if he could talk, he’s really not in the mood for it right now.

It takes a little bit of convincing once they’re in the galley to get Sora to let go of his leg and let him work. The kid’s clingy, nearly tripping him by standing in his way every time he turns around. He finally dices up some of Zoro’s boiled eggs with some mayonnaise and spices and celery and gets Sora to leave him alone to eat his egg salad sandwich at the table. A mikan and a glass of milk, and he doesn’t have to worry about him anymore. While he’s distracted by that, he gets the art supplies out of a nearby cabinet and sets out a sketchbook and some colored pencils. Hopefully he’ll go right from eating to the lure of clean new drawing supplies. If he had a voice, he’d ask for a new fridge drawing. Instead, he hangs his head over the sink for a moment and breathes.

Okay, Sanji. Back to work.

The fridge is full of bentos packed with yesterday’s dinner. He pulls them all out and starts separating the components. The beef steaks can become a stew, maybe, and he can reheat the noodles and serve the stew over them. The roasted vegetables have gone a bit mushy. He might just eat them himself and prepare something else for the others.

He feels like he’s forgetting something.

“Look, Dad, I drew Usopp!”

Grateful for the distraction, he goes back to the table to pantomime his awe at a pretty good stick drawing with a wild mop of hair and a long nose fishing off the side of the Merry. Sora giggles when he smacks a kiss on his forehead and reaches for another sheet of paper. Sanji retreats back to the kitchen.

He nibbles on a cold asparagus and tries to not let the weird clench of anxiety in his chest derail his thought process. He’s fine. Just with Sora in the galley trying not to waste food. It’s fine.

What is he forgetting?

Onions, aromatics, beef back in the pot. Stroganoff over buttered noodles. Simple. He’s got this.

purururu

Oh.

pururururururu

Shit. Nobody called Zeff.

The old man probably thinks he’s dead. Bloated corpse in the ocean. Run through by Marines. Finally snapped and fought Luffy in a battle to the death. He can only imagine the scenarios running through his head. And here he is with no voice to reassure him.

“Is it Jiji?”

He glances back at Sora. He shrugs, but nods. They both look at the ringing snail for a second.

“I can say hi to Jiji for you.”

Sanji squeezes his eyes shut. Fuck. Relying on a literal child to speak for him. He really can’t fucking deal with this today. He’s got no choice. He brings the snail down from the shelf and sets it on the table next to a childish drawing of a green-haired stick man with three swords fighting a dinosaur.

“Hello?”

The snail sprouts Zeff’s signature braided moustaches and a little chef’s hat.

"Sora? Why are you answering the phone? Where’s your dad?”

Sora glances at him. He nods encouragingly.

“Um, Dad’s right here. We’re cooking lunch.”

”Eggplant?”

Sanji takes a deep breath. This shouldn’t be hard. It was okay when he was thirteen and still reeling from the double whammy of unexpectedly going into heat and realizing he’s a different sex than he thought he was and then immediately being brutalized by a grown man in a place he thought he was safe. This is different. He’s fine. He’s a man himself, now. He can do this. It’s just Zeff. He loves Zeff. Absolutely nothing bad is going to happen if he speaks up and talks to Zeff. His heart is racing in his chest like he’s under attack. Just Zeff. Just open your mouth and say hi to Zeff.

Sanji opens his mouth and chokes over his own tongue.

Fuck fuck fuck fucking useless shit –

He ducks his head so hopefully Sora won’t see his frustrated and anxious tears. Fucking goddamn useless maladaptive coping strategy, Chopper!

Zeff’s voice comes out sharper, ”Sanji?”

Sora pipes up, “Dad’s having a episode, Jiji.”

”An episode? What kind of episode? Sanji, are you in heat right now?”

Shakily, he puts his hand over Sora’s and lowers the receiver close to the table and knocks twice on the wood.

Zeff sighs shakily. ”Not heat, then. Are you hurt?”

Not seriously. He knocks twice again for no.

”Sora is safe?”

Knock.

”Are you safe?”

Hesitates. Knock.

”What’s going on, then?”

Sora pipes up again, “Miss Robin grabbed him with her hands!”

There’s an awkward beat of silence. It’s quiet enough that Sanji can hear the faint sounds of the kitchen mumbling out of the snail’s mouth from the Baratie.

”She did what?”

Sora nods wisely. He looks happy to have the answer. “Miss Robin’s got a Devil Fruit that makes her grow lots of hands. Other stuff, too. She showed me how she got extra eyeballs on the wall and it was really gross and weird and they winked at me. And then they turn into flowers, but then the flowers disappear, and I asked Chopper but he says it’s Devil Fruit stuff so it probably doesn’t make sense. I asked him if he’d eat the flowers but he said no cause maybe it’s like eating Miss Robin’s skin and he said that’s gross, and –“

”String Bean, I need you to focus. What happened with Miss Robin and your dad?”

“Oh! Yeah.” Sora glances at Sanji. He quails a little under whatever expression he’s wearing. “Um, yeah. Miss Robin said it was an accident.”

”What was an accident?”

“Well, um, it was…” To Sanji’s complete horror, Sora’s lip begins to wobble. “It’s my fault, cause Chopper and I were playing tag, and we try to stay away from the kitchen cause it’s dangerous to run in the kitchen but I was winning and Chopper started running faster and we ran into the galley and we didn’t mean to but Chopper ran into Dad and he was holding dinner and he was gonna drop it and Miss Robin said it was a accident and she didn’t know but she grabbed Dad with her arms and he got –“ His wobbly lip’s turned into a wailing kind of sob. “He got really really scared and it was really scary and Luffy was really really mad and Miss Nami got really really mad and Dad’s face is all gross and – and –“

He's hiccupping too badly to keep talking. Desperately, Sanji grabs him up and sits down to rock him in his arms. His efforts to soothe him are barely effective. The stress of the past day seems to have caught up with him all at once, and no amount of hugging and kissing and rocking seems to be softening his terrible weeping.

”Eggplant, I need you to get the orange-haired girl. The navigator. I need to talk to her. Hell, grab the whole damn crew. We need to talk.”

Oh, no, the last thing he needs is Zeff talking to the crew. He shakes his head wildly, even knowing Zeff can’t see it. He will not be doing that.

Unfortunately, any gods that exist live to spit in his dinner. Of all people, Zoro pokes his head into the galley, wide forehead furrowed.

“Everything okay in here?”

Sanji shakes his head frantically, but Zeff’s already perked up at the new voice.

”Swordsman!”

Zoro’s sharp eyes dart to the snail. “Chef-guy.”

”Eggplant’s not talking. I need you to bring that captain of yours here, and the new crewmate, and the navigator girl – I need someone who’s not completely useless to talk to.”

Zoro glances at Sanji’s panicked face and back at the snail. The fucking traitor opens his mouth and says, “Yes, sir.”

Sanji’s burning all of his dinners for a week.

”At least some of your crew’s not useless. Don’t bother being mad, Eggplant. It’s for your own good.”

Sanji scowls at the snail and rocks Sora more vigorously. “For your own good” is always bad. “For your own good” means needles and extra training and invasive medical exams and not being listened to. He’s never speaking to Zeff again.

Thunderous footsteps mark the return of Zoro with the crew. Chopper immediately hops over to sit on Sanji’s other knee and quietly ask Sora if he’s okay. Luffy and Nami crowd up to the phone. Zoro, Usopp, and Robin hang back near the door.

“Chef-guy,” Luffy says cheerfully. “What’s up?”

Sanji tunes out Chopper and Sora’s quiet conversation under his chin to listen to the soon-to-be-disastrous snail call.

”I’m not talking to you yet, boy,” Zeff says coldly. ”Miss Navigator. You’re the most reasonable one there. What is going on?”

Luffy’s teeth clack together. He frowns at the snail, but surprisingly shuts up.

Nami glances at Sanji nervously. “Oh, uh, how much do you… already know?”

”New crewmate. Alpha, used to be your enemy. Weird Devil Fruit, touched my kid without his consent. Asshole captain in a rut, made my kid feel like shit. Sora’s a mess, thinks whatever happened is his fault. Eggplant’s so worked up he can’t talk again. Sora’s saying something about his face being messed up. What in all the blues is happening on your ship?”

Nami looks over her shoulder at the rest of them, eyes wide. “Um, yeah. That’s… basically what happened. Robin used to be Baroque Works. Luffy saved her life and she joined our crew. She didn’t… It’s not how it sounds. It was an accident. She didn’t think…”

”It sounds like none of you thought. Nobody mentioned to her maybe that my kid’s a little jumpy and would appreciate a little bit of fucking decency and respect instead of expecting him to just get over his perfectly reasonable biases?”

Zeff’s voice is gaining volume. Sanji groans silently and buries his now-flaming face in Sora’s hair.

“I’m sorry,” Nami says quietly, looking sick. “It wasn’t…”

”I’m sure you did your best,” Zeff says, because he’s always been a big softie for pretty girls, the old bastard. ”You. Luffy. Explain yourself.”

Luffy steps forward like he’s going to fight the snail. “Chef-guy. What happened between me and Sanji is between me and Sanji. I apologized.”

”And he probably forgave you too fast. Kid’s never had friends his own age before. I’m not gonna be so soft. Eggplant, cover Sora’s ears.”

Sanji’s mouth forms the shapes for “No Zeff please stop” but nobody can hear him. Wordlessly, he clamps his hands over Sora’s ears and gives him an apologetic smile when he looks up in surprise.

”Now, then… You lily-livered hare-brained dim-witted wet-behind-the-ears captain, you listen to me. You ever pull the shit you did with making my kid feel like he’s the problem again when all he wants to do is be a crewmate you can be proud of, I will hoist anchor and sail this damned restaurant up the reverse mountain to kick your ass in person. What kind of spineless shit-brained knot-headed idiot throws his weight around like a damned caveman alpha moron instead of taking his crew’s needs into consideration – if I was still captain I’d have your ass strung out on the mast for the birds to eat, you rubber-headed lint-licking – “

“Hey,” Luffy begins.

”Did I say I was finished? I’ll shove my peg so far up your ass you’ll get splinters in your ears, you goat-sucking –“

Sanji lets go of Sora’s ears to grab a colored pencil and frantically scribble BLOOD PRESSURE on a sheet of paper and wave it wildly at the crew, slapping his free hand on the table for attention.

“Um, Mr. Zeff, sir,” Nami interrupts, correctly guessing that she’d be the only one that wouldn’t get the sharp side of Zeff’s tongue thrown at her for interrupting, “Sanji’s worried about your blood pressure?”

“Blood pressure?” Chopper hops up, panicked. “Do you have a history of hypertension? Any chest pains? Oh no, this man needs a doctor!”

”I don’t need a damn doctor!”

Still, the interruption did the trick. The tirade’s stopped, and the snail slowly stops looking so flushed and agitated.

”I’m fine, Eggplant,” Zeff says grouchily. ”Worry about your own damn self.”

Sanji huffs audibly.

“Chef-guy,” Luffy says now that he has a break to get a word in, “Sanji hasn’t forgiven me yet. He’s not stupid. I was a bad captain and a bad friend and I promised him I’m going to be better. I can’t be king of the pirates if I make my best friends sad, so I’m going to do better and better and Sanji can forgive me when I’m a better captain.”

The snail grits its teeth and works its jaw. ”Better. You’d better be a man of your word, you little brat.”

“If I may…” Robin steps forward now and takes the receiver in hand. “I am the new crewmate in question. My name is Nico Robin.”

There’s a pregnant pause. “Nico Robin?”

“Yes.” Robin takes a deep breath. She waits for Zeff to say something, and when he doesn’t, she continues, “I have already apologized to your son and made explanations for my behavior. I have also not earned his forgiveness. My only excuse is that my behavior was based on erroneous assumptions that I made no real effort to correct, and your son was more than accommodating to me when he had little reason to be so. The incident with the kitchen was an honest mistake. If I had put more than a moment’s thought into my actions, I would not have done what I did, and if I am given the opportunity to continue as a crewmember on this ship, I will never put your Sanji into a position that would make him uncomfortable again. He is a kind and hardworking young man for whom I hold the deepest respect.”

”…You’re good with words, lady, I’ll give you that. What happened to his face?”

“After I touched him with my Devil Fruit hands, he experienced an acute panic attack and injured himself with his fingernails,” Robin says matter-of-factly.

“He’s okay!” Chopper hops up to stand on Sanji’s knee. “Mr. Sanji’s Dad! I’m Chopper, his doctor! I took care of him and none of his wounds are serious! I’ve also been helping him with anxiety medicine so he doesn’t have so much stress!”

Sanji’s still mortified, sure, but Chopper’s so earnest. He lifts his hand to slide under the brim of Chopper’s hat and ruffle the fur on top of his head. Chopper wiggles happily from the attention.

Zeff seems a bit taken aback by the cute little voice over the snail. ”Ah. Thank you, Doctor Chopper.”

"I have offered to leave the crew at the next port,” Robin says. “Ultimately, the decision rests on Sanji’s shoulders, but I will only stay if I judge that he truly wants me to.”

Zeff grunts. ”Miss Navigator, what’s your heading?”

“About a week out from Alabasta.”

Zeff hums. ”Depending on the magnetic field you caught, you might be headed to… Damn. You’re likely headed to Jaya.”

“What’s Jaya?” Luffy asks.

”A wretched hive of scum and villainy,” Zeff says. ”If that’s where you go, then I’m afraid you’re stuck with the crew a little longer, Miss Robin. There’s no way I’d let a lady get off at that port. And Eggplant, absolutely do not disembark on Jaya. You hear me?”

Sanji shares a wide-eyed look with the rest of the crew.

Usopp pipes up from the back, “Uhhhh… What’s wrong with Jaya?”

”Did you not hear me? It’s full of scum. Bootleggers and petty pirates all puffed up from making it so far into the Grand Line and skintraders looking to catch the magnetic route circumventing Water 7’s anti-slave policies. You wanna be a good captain, rubber boy? You keep my kids safe.”

Luffy nods, looking grim. “I will, Chef-guy.”

”Now clear out, the lot of you. I wanna talk to my kids.” He hesitates, adds, ”The doctor kid can stay.”

Sucker. Sanji refuses to look at the rest of the crew leaving, still mortified from this entire encounter. Nami pats him on the shoulder before she goes, and Luffy pats Sora’s head on his way out. Chopper returns to sitting on Sanji’s lap with Sora. It’s a little crowded, but he’d be lying if he said he minded. If anything, the warm weight of them is grounding and comforting.

“You feel better, Sora?” Chopper leans his head down to peer into his face.

“A little,” Sora mumbles.

”So you’re the doctor,” Zeff says, ”You sound like a kid.”

“It’s complicated,” Chopper addresses the snail. “I’m kind of… both? I can be a grown up when I’m being a doctor, but I also really like playing with Sora as a kid, and Sanji’s really nice and makes me cookies and…” He trails off, looking embarrassed.

Zeff’s gruff laughter echoes through the snail. ”Eggplant mentioned he’d picked up another kid. I’m glad String Bean’s got someone to play with.”

“He’s my best friend,” Sora speaks up from under Sanji’s chin.

”That’s good. Eggplant, you mind letting an old man ramble at you a while? Gets lonely out here without you kids.”

He knows Zeff just wants to comfort him some more, but he’s too weak to turn it down. He nods and leans back in his chair some more.

“Dad says yeah,” Sora says.

”Alright, then. Remember that vendor that sold the bad peaches? That moron came back like we wouldn’t remember him…”

Sanji lets his dad’s voice wash over him and smooth over some of his ruffled feathers. He’s still going to make a big fuss once he can talk again. For now, though, it’s nice to hear his voice.

--

The muteness wears away pretty quickly, thank anyone listening. By the next morning, he can speak again, though only to Nami and Chopper and Sora, and only one on one. His throat still closes up around the whole crew, but he knows that, too, will eventually fade.

“Your dad’s actually terrifying,” Nami tells him as he smokes by the mikan trees.

“He took it easy on you,” he answers quietly, exhaling a plume of smoke. “You especially, because he’s soft for ladies.”

“Like you aren’t.”

“Where d’you think I learned it from?” He grins and takes another drag. “Luffy and Robin got off pretty easy, too.”

“That was easy?”

“Well, we haven’t gotten any threatening packages by news coo yet, so I think it’s out of his system.” He scowls down at his shoes. “Shitty old geezer, embarrassing me like that.”

“It just means he loves you.”

“I know that.”

He lets Nami lean in and scent with him for a minute. It’s nice. Relaxing. Maybe he’ll grab Usopp and Zoro later and scent with them, too. He’s still not ready to have Luffy grabbing at him yet, but the comfort is nice.

“I’m sorry I didn’t help more,” Nami says, pulling away.

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“No, I do. I knew things were just getting more tense. I was just…”

“We were all waiting on Luffy. It’s fine. I’m okay, Nami.”

She bites her lip and nods. “I hope we’re not actually headed for Jaya. It sounds terrible.”

“Me neither. With the log pose, no two trips on the Grand Line are the same. Maybe the old geezer’s wrong.”

“Maybe. I should go check our heading.”

“Okay. Meet you back down there.”

He drags the last bit of his cigarette out. He doesn’t really know what to do with the crew. There’d been a little bit during Alabasta where he’d felt like he’d finally found a comfortable place in the crew. One where his multitude of issues wasn’t the forefront of his relationships with them. Then the past week had happened, and he feels like he’s back at square one. Stupid traumatized omega dragging the whole crew down.

Ugh, Zeff would tell him he’s feeling sorry for himself.

He stubs out the butt and pockets it, inhaling one last fortifying gulp of orange blossom and salty air to buoy him as he rounds the corner of the upper cabin and leans over the railing to put his eyes on the crew. The Merry seems like it’s back to normal. Robin and Usopp work together to string lines of wet laundry up over the deck, the woman in question making a concerted effort to use only her two natural limbs for the job. Luffy dangles upside down from above, chattering to Nami who’s looking increasingly annoyed. He doesn’t see Chopper, Sora, or Zoro. Frowning, he leans further over the rail and blinks stupidly at what he sees.

Zoro. Lying on the deck in a patch of shade on some rope piles. Not an unusual sight. What is unusual is that he has Chopper tucked under one arm and Sora under the other, all three of them snoring loudly.

He wracks his brain, trying to figure out when Sora’s quiet acceptance of his “Mr. Zoro” had turned into this. Now that he thinks about it, the kid’s made quite a few drawings of him in the past day. Something must’ve changed during his episode to change him from whatever they were before to this borderline hero worship. Sanji’s not really sure how he feels about it. Sora riding on Patty’s shoulders or on Zeff’s back was a common sight at Baratie. Since Drum, he’s also been really close and handsy with Luffy. He’d just not really pegged Zoro as such a kid-friendly guy, but he guesses if he could be so good with Chopper, it makes sense he’s also good with Sora. And the three of them do look pretty comfortable.

Unbidden, he remembers what little he can about getting wasted the other night. His memory’s a little blurry, but he thinks he did end up cuddling with Zoro. And it was stupidly comfortable. He has an insane urge to forget about making midday snacks and curl up with the three of them on the deck instead. His cheeks flame at the thought. God, wouldn’t that just make everything weirder? Not only a traumatized omega wreck, but a clingy one?

Nope. He shakes his head and ducks into the galley. Tea! Sandwiches! Cookies, maybe! Not cuddles or naps, nope.

He’ll hold it together.

And he does.

Until he’s serving the snacks and a decrepit ship falls out of the sky on top of them.

--

“You sure you’re up for this?”

Sanji glances between the barrel and Zoro and raises an eyebrow. His words stick in his throat, but he thinks his disdain for the question comes across clearly.

“Just saying, Usopp could go.”

“No I can’t! I have can’t-dive-into-shipwrecks disease! The barometric pressure increase makes me fall into a fever and break out in oozing hives!”

Chopper gasps.

Nami bonks Usopp over the head. “He’s lying, Chopper!”

Luffy chuckles. “It’s fine, Zoro! Sanji’s our best swimmer!”

Zoro frowns. “He’s not better than I am.”

Sanji huffs. “Am, too,” he grates out.

Zoro’s grin lights up at the sound of his voice. “Whatever, Curly. I’m a way better swimmer than you!”

That’s a complete falsehood. He’s not going to stand for the slander. He kicks out with his foot and is blocked by Wado’s saya. The two of them erupt into a quick flurry of blows before they stop. Zoro grins at him and Sanji reluctantly grins back.

Okay, so maybe there is still a chance for normalcy.

“Load us up into the barrels, Usopp!”

“Be careful, Dad!”

Just another day with the Straw Hat Pirates.

--

An island in the sky.

Luffy’s absolutely panting to go.

Sanji squints at the clouds as they sail for, unfortunately, Jaya. He’s having a hard time believing that there’s really something up there, though the ship falling from the sky is pretty compelling evidence that there’s something going on for sure.

“Excuse me, Mr. Cook?”

Sanji will later deny that he jumps in surprise at Robin’s voice.

Robin waits for him to recover patiently. Usopp stands beside her. He gives Sanji a thumb’s up behind her back.

“Yes?” He’s grateful he gets the word out unimpeded.

“Pardon my intrusion. I was discussing our destination with Mr. Longnose, and I have a suggestion?”

“You’re not going to get off at Jaya – sounds like a bad idea, and I don’t really want to get off, either. Places like that make my don’t-want-to-leave-the-ship disease act up, and you know how that gets. The pus…”

“Usopp…”

“Right, right! Well, Robin mentioned that she still had some scent blockers if you wanted.”

His visible eyebrow rises. He looks back at Robin, who just nods and holds out a half-used tube.

“It’s just a topical cream, but it’s what I used to hide my presence on the ship. I doubt that your scent will carry off the ship, but I wanted to offer it to you. Hiding your scent may ease some of your worries.”

“I’m not worried,” he lies. Truthfully, after their run-in on Whiskey Peak and the certainty in Zeff’s voice when talking about slave traders using Jaya as a supply port, he’s a little worried. He’s confident in his skills, but there’s plenty of dirty ways to incapacitate someone if you’re fighting someone without morals. Between that and the relative rarity of male omegas, he’s not looking forward to spending any time in Jaya.

“It’s merely an offer.”

He meets her eyes. She doesn’t look angry or expectant. Merely patient. He still doesn’t have a read on her, and it seems like they’re stuck with her for the time being until they find a safer place to drop her off. Hesitantly, he reaches for the tube.

“I appreciate it,” he says. “What about you?”

Robin’s mouth twists in a wry smile. “I am not especially worried. Female alphas, while rare, are much less desirable than male omegas.” He’s startled when she winks. “We tend to bite.”

He can’t help his half-amused, half-anxious snort. “That’s alarming.”

Usopp elbows Robin. “You’re being creepy again.”

Robin blinks and loses the smile. “My apologies. I’ve been told I have a morbid sense of humor.”

“That’s… fine. Thanks for the scent blocker. I’ll think about it.”

Robin nods gracefully and walks away. Usopp watches her go and joins him at the railing.

“Still don’t really get her,” he says conversationally.

“Me, neither.” He turns the tube over in his hands, thinking. “I guess we’ll have to get used to her, huh?”

"Since it looks like we’re taking her up to Skypeia? Yeah, I guess so. Don’t you worry! The Great Captain Usopp has your back! Me and my 8,000 pirate warriors will keep an eye on her!”

He snorts again. “Right. Thanks, Captain Usopp. You wanna…?”

“I wanna…?” His whole face lights up. “Oh, you wanna scent? Of course I do!”

Sanji laughs as Usopp enthusiastically yanks him closer to rub their cheeks together.

“I missed you so much when I was stuck rut-sitting Luffy! You know that idiot can’t hold a conversation to save his life, and you’re the only one who actually has any chemistry knowledge to talk to about my stars and even pretend to follow along – and you smell way better than the other guys and you always make me snacks and I just missed you so much!”

Sanji laughs again and pats him on the back. “I missed you, too, Usopp.”

Usopp pulls back, hastily rubbing his eyes. “I’m just glad you’re okay! I was really worried about you!”

“I’m okay. Really. Thanks for being such a good friend.”

He sniffles and musters a confident smile. “Of course! The Great Captain Usopp is extremely loyal to his friends!”

“That he is.” Sanji leans in and nuzzles him one more time with a warm smile. “C’mon, let’s go make some tea. Sora’s probably got a million drawings to show you.”

“Awesome! The Great Usopp is known around the world for his artistic critiques!”

--

Sanji takes one look at the port of Jaya and turns right back around into the galley.

He pulls the scent blocker out of the drawer he’d stuffed it in and mechanically starts smearing it over his scent glands. The men wandering the docks outside are the exact kind of pirate he’s tried to avoid this whole time. Unwashed, foul-mouthed, smelly… and he’s not willing to entertain the idea of any of them getting a whiff of him at all. Not after the week he’s had and certainly not after talking to Robin had dredged up all his reasonable anxieties about how many pirate crews treat people like him.

He rejoins the crew out on the deck as Nami guides them into their dock and climbs down with Zoro to settle the docking fee with the harbormaster. Luffy’s bouncing on his heels with excitement. Sanji wanders over to where Usopp, Chopper, and Sora are standing looking much more reasonably intimidated. He catches Robin giving him a knowing look and looks resolutely away from her.

“I’m glad we have lumber on hand for the repairs,” Usopp says, staring out at a brawl spilling out of one of the harborside pubs/brothels. “This place is terrible.”

“Do they really have to go ask about the sky island?” Chopper swallows heavily as a man gets a wine bottle cracked over his head and falls prone to the dirt. “Maybe we can ask somewhere else.”

“I’ve settled things with the harbormaster,” Nami says, climbing back up the ladder. “We’ve gotta be quick to beat the log pose reset – it’s currently still aiming for Skypeia, but if we stay too long, it’ll grab onto the next island’s field. In and out fast, got it, Luffy?”

“Yeah, let’s go!”

"Nami, please be careful,” Sanji begs.

“I’ll be fine. I’m going with Zoro and Luffy. Anyone gets fresh and I’ll have them beat them up.” She sticks her tongue out teasingly and heads back over the side. Luffy springs off after her.

“I’ll be going, too,” Robin says.

Sanji cuts her a sharp glance. She raises her hands placatingly.

“I won’t stay, but I can’t very well keep wearing Miss Navigator’s clothes. I’ll just pop down for some shopping and to see if I can pick up any rumors of my own. I’ll return in, say, two hours?”

Sanji nods. Despite whatever mixed feelings he has about Robin as a person, he’s still not comfortable with any woman wandering alone in a place like this. “Please be careful, Miss Robin.”

“Worry not, Mr. Cook. I will return.”

He watches her go with a frown. Usopp and Chopper have already moved on to trying to repair the damage the Merry had taken from their run-in with the salvagers earlier.

“Will you two be alright if Sora and I go back inside?”

Usopp pops his head over the side of the ship and shows him a thumb’s up. “We’ll be fine! You hear any screaming, though, you come running and kick people, okay?”

“Sure thing.” He rolls his eyes affectionately. “Sora, come on. I don’t like it here. There’s too many bad pirates. Let’s go inside and… we can make modeling dough with flour and salt, how about that?”

Sora, who looked ready to protest at being left out of the ship repair, perks up immediately. “We haven’t done that in ages!”

“Ages? I think it’s only been a couple months.”

“Nuh-uh, it’s been forever…”

“Forever and ever, huh?”

“Yup.”

“Well, how about we see what we can use as food coloring, hm?”

“Alright!”

--

Sanji’s pulled out of cutting out yet more dough stars with cookie cutters by Usopp’s shout. He leaves Sora in the galley and runs out, ready to start throwing kicks, but it’s just Nami, Luffy, and Zoro returning.

Scratch that.

Nami looks fine. Luffy and Zoro, on the other hand, are battered and bloody and covered in a sour and stinking mixture of booze and pub food. Neither one of them seem perturbed by this.

“What’s going on?” Sanji asks.

“Manly pride or something,” Nami growls. “Don’t ask me to understand it!”

“Zoro! Luffy! You need a doctor! Someone call a doctor!”

“Chopper, you are the doctor.”

“Ahhh, Usopp, you’re right!”

Sanji sighs and slips into his “mom-voice,” as Usopp calls it. “Whatever happened, you smell awful. Both of you to the shower and let Chopper fix you up, and then you can explain why you both look like you met the wrong end of a bar fight.”

“Wasn’t a fight,” Zoro grunts.

“Not worth the fight,” Luffy affirms.

He is not dissecting those statements. He wordlessly points to the cabin. Both alphas duck their heads and accept his stony disappointment. Usopp looks at Sanji with something like awe.

“It’s amazing. Those two are like wild animals, but the second the mom voice comes out…”

Sanji groans. “Not this again. Is Robin back yet?”

“I am now.”

Usopp, Sanji, and Nami all shriek as one and scamper away from where Robin’s appeared. The woman smirks at them. It’s gratingly close to her original attitude. It makes Sanji want to throw something at her.

“Sorry,” she says, not sounding apologetic in the least. “I completed my shopping, and I also found a man who might be able to help us.”

Perfect. The sooner they’re out of gods-forsaken Jaya, the better.

Chapter Text

“His name is Montblanc Cricket,” Robin says as they sail up the coast of Jaya. “He’s regarded by most as a fool and a dreamer.”

“Sounds like my kind of guy,” Luffy says with a grin.

Sanji stays quiet. Something about the name Montblanc is bothering him. Perhaps it’s just the North Blue taste to the surname. He’s done a good job of pretending he knows nothing about the North for a while now, save the lullaby he sings to Sora in the old tongue his mother taught him. Even for that, he’s sworn Sora into secrecy. The more anyone pieces together of his origins, the harder they become to explain away. Zeff just assumes his family died in the Orbit wreck. He’s never tried to dissuade the idea. In the intervening years he’s done enough to soften his accent in WGS – World Government Standard – to something closer to the clipped syllables of East Blue that he can skate by without most people guessing he’s not a trueborn Easterner.

He can’t let it slip now. No, Robin is far too clever, and the rest of them aren’t stupid. It’s far easier for him if he keeps his mouth shut.

He glances again at Nami, who’s looking at their log pose needle still pointing to the sky. Sky Islands. About as far-fetched as the All Blue. But if they find sky islands…

Maybe that means the All Blue is real, too.

He lets himself daydream about it as they sail the coast. On such a sunny day on this eternal summer island with the clean sea breeze chasing away the stinking remnants of the main town of Jaya away, the possibilities start to seem endless. They’re okay. They’re sailing, his friends are okay, he’s okay, and one day he’ll dip his feet into an impossible sea. One day he’ll stand on the deck of this ship with this crew and be able to say that he did the impossible. He hasn’t let himself dream this deeply in a while. Visions of colorful fish and leaping dolphins and a thousand species of shellfish buoy him along until Nami shouts that they’ve made it.

“Is that a real castle?!”

Luffy, Usopp, Chopper, and Sora all stand at the bow in awe. Sanji makes a face. It’s obviously fake. He’s seen more of castles in his life than he’d like, and this painted monstrosity is nothing like them.

“I believe it is just a façade, Captain,” Robin says gently.

“A what?”

They drop anchor, and Luffy and Usopp are quick to disembark and bemoan the fact that the whimsical castle was a lie.

“I believe I will stay with the ship for now,” Robin says.

Sanji glances at her. He tries to think of any insidious reason she’d want to stay aboard, but she just gives him a mysterious smile and climbs the mast to take position in the crow’s nest. Is she… trying to be helpful? He really doesn’t know how to read her.

“Do you want to go check it out?” He asks Sora.

Sora peers up at him from under the brim of his hat. “Is it safe?”

“Looks safe enough. Oi,” he calls down to the guys, “what’s down there?”

“There’s nobody here,” Usopp calls.

“Yeah, nobody at all!” Luffy huffs and puts his hands on his hips. “Dreamer-guy, where are you?”

“Seems fine,” Sanji says to Sora.

“Okay. Let’s go!”

Sanji’s not a fan of Sora on the rope ladder heading down, so he hefts him up and hops over the side. Zoro raises his eyebrows at them. Sanji just shrugs and sets Sora down.

“Go see what Nami and Chopper are doing,” he says.

Sora runs off happily to ask them a million questions about why they’re digging all over the clearing. Sanji comes to stand beside Zoro. The swordsman grunts in acknowledgement like the caveman he is. He snorts and runs his eyes over him. Other than some darkening bruises and two little threads of stitches poking out of his scalp, he doesn’t look too worse for wear from his Jaya adventure. At the very least the mess had the bonus consequence of making him shower and change. He’s used the mint soap that Sanji had bought for him as a joke. He smells nice like that, minty and green and mingling with his personal scent. It’s funny that he’s capable of looking less like a complete caveman when he’s not wearing a sweat stained shirt for a week straight.

Idly, he imagines how Zoro would look in a suit. He’s got a nice figure for it. Broad shoulders and a trim waist, though relaxed as he is, he does still have the little bit of healthy flab over his muscles that round out some of his edges and make him seem so much more approachable. He’d make a striking figure in a suit. Something dark. It would probably make the gold of his earrings shine all the brighter in contrast.

Said earrings chime when he turns his head. “You good, Cook?”

Sanji blinks. How long was he staring at him? Why was he staring at him? Oh, shit, he’s still staring at him, gaping like a fish for no reason. And now he’s frowning, and Sanji’s made painfully aware that for all Zoro looks shockingly nice, he himself still looks like complete shit. He has the bizarre urge to cover his face, as if Zoro isn’t already tracing the lines of healing scratches with his eyes.

“Fine,” he finally stammers out, “I’m not – I was just thinking. You ever worn a suit?”

Both of Zoro’s eyebrows shoot up. “What?”

“Ah – nothing. I just. It’s a hobby…? I like imagining what suits would look nice on people. Not in a weird way? Just… Like, Usopp would look great in warm tones, but I can’t imagine Luffy wearing real dress shoes, and….” Fuck, he gives up. He crossed that great invisible line into awkward and weird.

Zoro laughs quietly. “Wow. Uh, didn’t know you thought about it that much.”

He shrugs. “Just sometimes.”

“Never worn a suit,” he says in answer to his question. “That’s more your thing, Curly-brow.”

“Yeah, well…” He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “I like them.”

“You look good in them.” Zoro smiles at him warmly, cheeks pink in the sunlight, and Sanji’s heart does a nervous flip in his chest.

“Ah, thanks.”

“Sanji,” Usopp calls from across the clearing, “We found something!”

“Duty calls,” Zoro says dryly.

“Right. You should check on Luffy. He looks like he’s about to fall into the sea.”

He strides purposefully off to join the others. Zoro’s barking at Luffy behind him, scolding him about the water. Nami, Usopp, Sora, and Chopper all stand around a book sitting innocuously on a stump.

“What’s going on?”

“We found this.” Nami lifts the book, and Sanji’s steps stutter just a little. He fights to keep his face neutral. “Noland the Liar. Have you ever heard of it, Sanji?”

“Sure,” he says carefully. “It’s not really distributed widely outside of the North Blue, though.”

“Oh,” she says, surprised. She reads the publishing notes. “You’re right, the story is from North Blue. You’ve read it before?”

The lies taste bitter on his tongue. “Yeah, the Baratie would get traveling vendors all the time. Some of the book salesmen had some harder to get stuff. We were mostly after cookbooks and travelogues, in any case. Found that one while I was buying books for Sora.”

“I don’t remember it,” Sora pipes up.

“I didn’t buy it,” he explains, the lie carving deeper between them. “It’s not a nice story. I’m sure Miss Nami will read it to you.”

He nods for her to go ahead and turns away from them to light a cigarette for something to do with his hands. Perhaps that was a bigger mistake. With his back turned and Nami’s sweet, feminine voice reading out a story from his childhood, it feels like his mother’s ghost hangs over his shoulders. The tragicomic story of Montblanc Noland plays out over the clearing. The story had seemed funnier when he was little. Now, it just makes him feel cold.

He's saved from having to comment on it by a loud splash and yelling from Zoro. They whirl in time to see a huge, muscular man leap up out of the sea and go straight to attacking Zoro.

“Usopp, Luffy fell in!” Zoro dodges away from his fist to try to get space to draw his swords.

Usopp takes off running towards the bay. Sanji steps forward, glancing behind him to check that Sora and Chopper and Nami are okay. They’re fine, and he looks back in time to catch the big man pulling a pistol from his waist and narrowly missing taking Zoro’s head off. The swordsman dances backwards as the man fires again and again. Sanji’s already running towards them, yelling, preparing to kick the man’s head in, when the man himself suddenly pales alarmingly and faints dead on the ground.

That’s… weird.

“Let me through!” Chopper bounds past him to inspect the unconscious man. Sanji turns to look, and Zoro’s already sheathed his swords looking completely fine, and a drenched Usopp is sitting on the shore with Luffy flopped next to him. Everyone’s alright, then.

“Help me get him inside,” Chopper calls.

Sanji steps forward with Zoro to help heft the guy. He’s big and heavy, and he doesn’t like the feeling of his clammy skin under his hands. He can’t smell the guy’s scent from how strongly the ocean’s washed it away, but no matter his sex, he’s not really thrilled about having to touch a strange, half-naked man. He all but drops him to where Chopper’s directed them and steps away, scrubbing his palms on the fabric of his slacks.

Well, shit. They’ve got more questions than answers now, at least until the guy wakes up. He might as well start cooking something.

--

For all he thinks he’s hidden his accent, Cricket still gives him an appraising look when he first hears him speak.

Sanji pretends he doesn’t see it. It’s uncomfortable and strange to hear a Northern accent in the flesh again. Even if it’s not the same as Germa’s, there’s a certain softness to the consonants that’s similar enough to trigger memories of other voices he’d rather not think about in mixed company. If the geezer knows what’s good for him, he’ll keep his mouth shut. Alpha or not, Sanji has no problem kicking his teeth in to keep him from talking.

There’s enough distraction as-is. Sky islands. The Montblanc legacy. Icons of gold. Their ship needing modifications to survive the trip. Not to mention –

“How could that idiot have forgotten the damn bird?”

“I told you, you didn’t have to come,” Usopp reminds him.

“No, we’re finding that damn bird.”

The grove they’re in is dark as shit, and he’s not in the best mood already. Eleventh hour bird-hunting quests are his least favorite type of quest. Add in the fact that it’s past Sora’s bedtime, and he hadn’t felt comfortable staying behind with just the old guys because even if they’re not creeps, it’s awkward to hang around near-complete strangers without the buffer of his crew, and the more he talks to Cricket, the more his mouth wants to shape itself into an accent he’d thought he left in the past. Entirely too stressful. All in all, he’s had better evenings.

Sora is keeping up admirably, however. He’s not often allowed up past sundown, and his enthusiasm for the novelty seems to have given him a fresh wave of energy. He marches beside Usopp looking frankly adorable in his favorite “adventure boots” and his jaunty straw hat. Usopp’s given him the net to hold until they need it. Sanji wishes he had a cameko. It’s almost like a pleasant hiking trip.

Until the bugs.

If Sanji could think clearly, he’d be happy that Nami’s just as scared of them as he is, so he’s not alone in his phobia. He hates the nasty crawling things. He doesn’t even have the luxury of an easy-to-explain reason he hates them so much. They’re just disgusting, foul creatures. Just looking at them makes his skin crawl.

Sora, on the other hand, seems to share his love of creatures equally amongst the animal kingdoms.

“So cool!”

“You’re right,” Usopp says, picking up a great hairy spider in one gloved hand, “this is a really interesting species!”

“Is it poisonous?” Sora’s eyes shine with far too much enthusiasm.

“I don’t know! That’s why we have to be careful of bugs we’re not sure of – and it’s venomous, not poisonous. I wonder what it is. I’ve got an encyclopedia back on the ship we can check later.”

“Just put it down!” Sanji shrieks.

Sora glances at him and gives him the worst deadpan look a five-year-old can muster. “Dad, it’s just a spider.”

Just a spider. Just a spider! He’s been letting him spend too much time with Luffy and Usopp.

They have absolutely no luck with the South Bird. Every time they make any progress into the forest, they run into another plague of insects that sends both him and Nami running screaming. At least Usopp and Sora are enjoying themselves.

“Oh, hey, it’s Usopp! Usopp!”

Ah, the others. Sanji wipes his panicked tears away. It’s the entire crew, with Zoro in the rear with an enormous bird clenched in one meaty fist.

“Robin caught it,” he explains.

She gives him a wan smile when he glances at her. “Extra hands,” she says, wiggling her fingers.

Ah. Bad memories of that. In this case, though, the hands came in handy. Heh. He’s going hysterical. Luckily, the others chatter enough on the way back that his own silence is hardly noteworthy. Hopefully, it’s smooth sailing from here.

But when does he ever get what he wishes for?

Old guys beaten up, their gold stolen. Asshole pirates from North Blue – seriously, is this a North Blue convention? – and Luffy’s run off to fight them alone. The salvagers get to work fixing the Merry up, and there’s nothing for them to do but make up a little camp in the clearing to wait for Luffy to return.

Sanji’s really not sure how it happens. They make a pot of tea and leave it warming on the coals. He takes a seat by the fire, and Sora and Chopper both end up coming to lie on either side of him and use his thighs as a pillow. It’s comfortable and fine. Usopp coos about how cute they are and he only has to throw a couple of nearby dirt clods at him to get him to shut up. They keep up a quiet chatter until the kids are asleep and Usopp and Nami have curled up and dropped off themselves and Zoro seems to be dozing sitting up.

It's just Sanji and Robin awake.

The silence feels awkward. There’s plenty of noise from the shipbuilding and the crackling of the fire, but the quiet between them feels heavy. Robin stares into her tin mug of tea and doesn’t try to break the silence. Sanji tries to leave it at that, but…

“So, your Devil Fruit…”

Robin startles minutely. Her large blue eyes meet his over the fire between them.

“It came in handy today. With the bird.”

“It was quite useful, yes,” she says carefully.

Sanji swallows and looks away awkwardly. Finally, he says, “Look, I want to take your word for it. And I do. I believe you. It’s just… Your power is hard for me to accept.”

Robin smiles as if on reflex. “I understand. It is quite grotesque.”

He shakes his head. “No. I mean, it’s unsettling, but I could get used to it. It’s not any more grotesque than the things Luffy can do with his body, or some of Chopper’s transformations. I get that. It’s just…” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Look, I’ll try to get over it. You don’t have to not use your abilities in front of me. Just don’t grab me, and it’ll be fine.”

“But would you be comfortable with that?”

“I’d get used to it.”

“I don’t want you to have to grit your teeth and merely endure my presence.”

He looks at her again. The last statement rang a bit more genuine than most things she says. There’s compassion in her eyes. If he looks closely. And something incredibly sad. Really, now that he sees it, the sadness stands out so prominently that he can’t really buy into the stoicism anymore.

“Can you tell me about them,” he blurts.

Robin blinks. “What?”

“Ah. Your…” He flushes but meets her eyes resolutely. “I want to know more about the omegas you’ve known.”

Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. She looks genuinely and visibly surprised.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Curiosity, maybe? Morbid curiosity, I guess.” He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “Despite appearances, I ended up… quite lucky in where I ended up. My old man’s a pirate, but he’s a good man. And the other chefs… they’re rough guys, but they were like uncles to me. It’s pure luck that I ended up with them instead of some other pirate crew. I very easily could’ve been groomed into one of those omegas you knew.”

Robin’s lips pinch together. “So you want to know details about their abuse, then? So you can feel lucky that you avoided it?”

Sanji blanches. God, this woman is cynical. “No! Trust me, I know enough about that.” He strokes over Sora’s hair as he speaks until he forces himself to move his hand away. “I wouldn’t ask you something so sick.”

“So what are you asking?”

“What they were like.” He smiles weakly at her surprised blink. “I know you talked a big line about not thinking of them as human and trying to protect yourself, but I think it’s kind of bullshit, pardon my speech. You seem too invested. You worried so much about me when you barely knew me. I can’t believe that you managed to sail with omegas and not care for them at all.”

Robin goes still at his words. He lets her scrutinize him in the glow of the fire. He can wait. The hammering and sawing sounds behind them mark time. He watches as she slowly crosses her arms and conjures a single arm to drag another log over. She sets it into the fire and pokes at it for a moment before she seems to gather her wits and settle herself more comfortably.

“I’m surprised,” she says. “I didn’t think I was that easy to read.”

“You’re not. I still can’t understand you most of the time. In this, though…”

“You’re quite astute,” she finishes. She pours herself another cup of tea and lifts it to breathe in the steam. She lowers it again and musters a small, tired smile. “I suppose I can indulge your curiosity.”

“Thank you.”

She hums. She tilts her head towards the moon, her eyes distant. Finally, she speaks.

“On the first pirate crew I sailed with, there were three omegas. Two sisters, Polly and Peaches. The third was named… I believe her name was Bernice. It was eighteen years ago. I forget details. Peaches had the most lovely singing voice – I remember that. We were in West Blue at the time, so she sang the folk songs from there. Even the horrid crew would sing along with her in the evenings. Polly didn’t share that talent, but she did help me improve my sewing skills and taught me how to hem garments. I tried to keep my distance from them, but the two sisters were too kind for their own good. Bernice was much more jaded, but even she was kind to me.”

Sanji doesn’t dare interrupt.

“Then there was Francis. He was the first male omega I ever met. He made a game of trying to get me to smile. It was quite difficult to keep myself from liking him… Unfortunately, Francis was treated quite roughly by his crew. He was their only omega, and… Well, he took his own life shortly before I left.”

She takes a sip of her tea.

“You don’t… You don’t have to keep telling me.”

She looks back at him with her big, sad eyes. “Well, you asked. I have just… tried not to remember these things.”

“I understand. Really, it’s okay. I understand what I needed to.” He looks away and back down to Sora and Chopper on his lap. He regrets bringing up such bad memories, but the genuine affection and grief in her voice… it’s done a lot to convince him of her sincerity.

“My birth family raised me to be a beta,” he admits, still avoiding her gaze. “I don’t know why. I don’t know if they just didn’t know, or if they were playing some fucked up game, or what, but I ended up leaving them when I was little, so I didn’t exactly end up with the most sophisticated sex education. And Zeff, he’d never planned on raising a kid. I don’t think it ever occurred to him that I didn’t already know all this stuff.”

“How old were you when you discovered the truth?”

He squeezes his eyes shut. “Thirteen. Same day I… If I’d known what a heat was, what it was supposed to feel like, if I’d known that I was omega in the first place…”

“Is that when…?”

“Yeah,” he sighs out. He opens his eyes again but neatly avoids her gaze by staring down at Sora instead. “First heat. I thought I had a stomach bug or something. I was trying to get to Zeff because I didn’t know what to do, but I ended up running into one of the line cooks, and… I guess he came from a more traditional pirate background. I don’t know. I don’t know what he was thinking. It’s not like I was super sexy or anything – I guess he just… because he could, I guess.”

“I’m sorry.” She actually sounds sincere. None of the cloying sympathy he’s heard from a lot of others. Just a quiet acknowledgement of his pain.

He runs his hand through his hair again and glances at her. “Look, sorry, I don’t know why I’m bringing it up. I guess… Everyone else on the crew already knows.”

“Thank you for telling me. I must ask, Mr. Cook, if there’s anything in particular I can do to avoid making you uncomfortable. I would greatly like to avoid a repeat of the incident in the galley.”

“Me, too,” he says with a hollow laugh. “I guess… I don’t like being touched by surprise. Or being crowded into. Being grabbed or pulled on is the worst if I’m not expecting it. And…” He hesitates. This feels oddly vulnerable to admit. “He scruffed me. When he – I’ve never let anyone else touch my neck.”

He glances at her again to find her quietly sad eyes tracing the path of his hands smoothing over Sora’s hair.

“How did the child happen?” She ducks her head when he glances at her sharply. “My apologies. I didn’t mean it like that. I overstepped.”

“Oh, you mean why did I keep him? I don’t mind. Most people are curious.” He hums and touches his son’s cheek lightly. “I fought tooth and nail to keep him if you want to know. My doctor and Zeff both tried to talk me out of it so many times. I was determined, though. I guess because… I never really had anything that was just mine before. I was being selfish, but Sora saved my life, really. I don’t know if I could have made it this long without him. Not when every damn day there seems to be someone else that wants to take a piece of me. At least I’ve got Sora to come home to.”

“You love him very much, then.”

“I do. And we’re both lucky, I guess. He ended up so much like me. Not like…” He looks away from Sora now, staring at the fire instead. His voice feels distant to his own ears when he continues, “I’ve tried to remember. I think… I think he only worked at Baratie for a couple months at most. I just can’t… he was just a line cook. Nothing special about him. He cooked okay. I think maybe I yelled at him once or twice about wasting food scraps, but I’ve never been sure. I don’t actually know anything about him. The only thing I know for sure is that Sora got his dark hair from him. Anything else, though? I just don’t know. I try not to think about it – Sora’s his own person, not just a mix of me and that guy. I just… Chopper had all these questions about family health conditions and I couldn’t even answer my own, much less…”

“For what it’s worth, Sora seems like a healthy and happy child.”

He glances back at her and scoffs. “I guess. He’d be healthier if I wasn’t so fucked up.”

Robin’s smile is laced with a kind of grim amusement. “No parent is perfect. Given the circumstances, I feel like you have done a remarkable job.”

“Ah. I – thank you?”

“I appreciate getting to know you, Mr. Cook. Sanji,” she corrects herself. She slowly moves to stand. “I hope we can become more comfortable with one another. Perhaps one day we may even be friends. I would like that. For now, though, I believe it is time to rest. I’m off to the facilities, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Ah, of course!” He blushes a little at her confidence in announcing her need to relieve herself, but she doesn’t linger or make it strange. Just gives him another nod and walks off to find Cricket’s outhouse.

Now for the other problem.

--

“How long have you been awake?”

Zoro flinches and opens one eye. He’d thought he was doing a good job pretending to still be dozing, but apparently not. At least the cook doesn’t look mad. Just amused and tired and painfully lovely sitting there in the flickering light with the two kids asleep in his lap.

Shut up, alpha brain. Focus.

“For most of it,” he admits.

Sanji just laughs quietly. “Too awkward to wake up, huh?”

“I didn’t want to interrupt your little heart-to-heart.”

“That would have been awkward.”

“You feel better about her now?”

The cook hums and looks down, using both hands to pet the kids’ heads. Zoro entertains for a wild moment the fantasy of scooting closer to wrap his arm around him. A caveman calling in the back of his head to protect and comfort and hide them all away and keep them safe. Not useful right now.

“I think she’s sincere,” he says. “I think she’s a good person, just has had a very bad life.”

“Like you?”

The cook shoots him a look. “I guess.”

Zoro hums and crosses his arms more tightly. “I think she’s sincere, too. I’d still cut her in half if I needed to.”

“I think you’d cut anyone in half, Marimo.”

“Not you.” He locks eyes with the cook and is startled by his own intensity when he continues, “I’d never try to hurt you. Or Sora,” he adds quickly.

Sanji’s cheeks are red, and he looks away uncomfortably. “I – yeah. Whatever. You hit me with your sword hilt the other day and left a bruise as big as my palm.”

“That was a spar. It’s different. You know what I mean, Cook.”

The cook doesn’t respond. He curses himself again. Too intense. Too close to how he really feels. Too much for the flightiest person he’s ever met. The stupid idiot he had to fall in love with.

“You should sleep,” he says instead. “I’ll wait up for Luffy.”

“Right.”

“Here.” He shifts and helps scoot the kids gently off the cook’s lap. This close, he can smell the cook’s personal scent that’s always intwined with cigarette smoke and some kind of food or spice. He’d love nothing more than to lean in and press his nose to him, to drink the smell in like life-saving water. Luckily, he’s not a creep, and all his meditation on self-control’s done something for him. He remains a respectful distance away from him.

That’s why he’s so surprised when it’s the cook who leans forward.

“Can I scent with you for a second?”

Zoro trips over himself trying not to sound too eager. “Sure.”

He’s gentle when they press their cheeks together. The cook’s face still looks like it stings. The cook lets out a little sigh of contentment and the tiniest hint of a purr.

“I appreciate everything you do for the crew,” he says quietly. “Sora likes you a lot, too. So… thanks.”

Zoro nods, not trusting himself to speak. Too soon, the cook’s pulled away with a small smile. He watches dumbly as the cook scoots the children away and closer to Usopp, curling around them until they become a big pile of Usopp-Nami-Sanji-Chopper-Sora. Even on the ground like that in the open air, they look so gentle and comfortable that Zoro thinks he’s going to combust. His alpha instincts scream mine-mine-mine about all of them. He’s got the wild urge to pace, to scent mark the entire camp, to throw up flags and signs and demonstrations that this is his crew and he is theirs.

He takes a deep breath instead and tries to meditate the instinct away.

Robin returns quietly, and they share a nod. He twitches only slightly at the introduction of the still-strange alpha, but she’s calm and smells peaceful and doesn’t approach the rest of the crew, so he can accept it.

She gives him a long, considering look, glancing between him and the cook. She doesn’t say anything. The cook’s probably still awake. He feels her eyes on him, though. He just raises an eyebrow and shrugs.

Robin nods, and they stay awake together for a time. Waiting on Luffy’s return. Waiting for the dawn.

Chapter Text

Sanji stares at the snail on the shelf and frowns.

In typical Luffy fashion, he’d returned just in time for their departure with the old men’s gold in hand. The salvagers had finished the ship enhancements, and everyone is as ready as they can be for their trip up the knock-up stream. Sanji had left Sora on the deck and retreated to the galley under the pretense of making sure the cabinets and drawers were tied down securely and nothing would go flying around too badly. He’d done it, of course, but there’s another issue he’s afraid to address.

Zeff, he knows, will not like their plans to ride the knock-up stream. Zeff will, in fact, scream at him over the snail and spew threats and generally make him doubt all of his decisions leading up to this.

It’s insane. He knows it’s insane. Dangerous and foolhardy and ill-advised. If he were a better parent, he’d never drag Sora into something like this. If he were a better parent, he’d never have taken him onto the Grand Line at all. But… he has faith in Luffy. He has faith in Nami’s navigational abilities. He has faith in their ship and their crew and the miraculous way Luffy makes dreams come true before their eyes. Any regrets or misgivings he has about this are easy to sweep away.

Still, Zeff deserves to know. He doubts the snails will be able to reach each other once they’re in the sky. Maybe they will. He’s just not putting money on it.

He’s running out of time in any case. He steels himself and dials the Baratie’s number.

”Shitty restaurant. Reservation or complaint?”

“Hey, Carne. It’s Sanji.”

”Hey, kid. Glad it’s you. Hate talking to shitty customers on the phone.”

“Can’t blame you. Is the old man around?”

”Eh, actually, he’s not. Patty’s taking him to the mainland to get a new peg fitted.”

“Ehh? What’s wrong with the one he’s got?”

”Dumb Owner broke it over some hardheaded pirate’s skull. I mean, mad respect for Owner, but we had it handled. Owner just lost his temper when the guy pulled a knife.”

“Anybody get hurt?”

Carne laughs. ”Just Fritz. He’s been sulking about it all day.”

“You’ve probably been giving him shit all day, though, shitty old man.”

”Damn right I’ve been giving him shit. What kind of sea cook gets stabbed with a knife? A knife? Knives are our whole thing!”

They share a laugh. Sanji misses the crusty old bastard. There’s a lot he could talk to him about, but he’s on limited time as it is.

“Hey, can you leave Jiji a message for me?”

”Sure. Do I need to write it down?”

“Only if you’ve finally lost the rest of your marbles. No, just a short one. I’m heading somewhere with the crew where we probably won’t be able to call. I want you to know that I’m okay and Sora’s okay and we’ll call as soon as we can.”

”Oh. I can do that. You kids going to be okay?”

“We’ll be fine,” he says with as much confidence as he can muster. “I do have to go now, though. Say hi to all the chefs for me. And tell Fritz he should’ve dodged that knife.”

”I will. Just… be careful, okay? I don’t want to hear you’ve gotten yourself hurt.”

“It’s the Grand Line, Carne. No promises.”

They say their goodbyes and he hangs up, carefully stowing the snail in a drawer where it won’t get knocked around as much. Then he takes a deep breath and joins the rest of the crew on deck.

--

“I think you’re worrying too much,” Luffy says.

Sanji holds the rope out to him and says nothing.

“I mean…” Luffy looks around the crew, but everyone is too busy tying off their own ropes to back him up.

“Just put on the lifeline, Captain,” Zoro says.

“I agree with Sanji,” Usopp says. He yanks on his own line to test it. “I’m not heading up the knock-up stream without one!”

“I don’t like them, though,” Luffy pouts.

“Just put it on,” Nami scolds, evidently at the end of her temper. “If anyone’s going flying off, it’ll probably be you, you idiot!”

Sanji leaves Luffy’s line in Nami’s capable hands and crouches to triple-check Sora’s.

“Alright, you know the drill. Knife?”

“For the rope.”

“Knife rules?”

“I know, Dad!”

“Humor me.”

Sora sighs. He’s a whole five and a half. So unreasonable that his dad’s making him repeat stuff like a baby. Sanji rolls his eyes fondly.

“Knives are tools, not toys. Respect the knife. Never play with it. Never hurt a person with a knife – every knife has a job, and hurting people is not my job, ever. I know, Dad!”

“Good boy. Remember the rules.”

He straightens up and checks his own line again. The fact that the crew was planning on riding the stream without any tethers at all is going to give him grey hairs. Reckless. He’s only nineteen and he feels like the mom of the whole crew sometimes.

“Alright, guys, to your places. It’s about to start!”

Sora dutifully heads to the mast where he’ll be the safest. Sanji runs with the others ready to tighten and slacken whichever lines Nami needs. It’s the moment of truth.

He’d be lying if he said later that the next several minutes aren’t some of the most exhilarating in his life.

Danger and adrenaline and wonder. Circling the whirlpool just to go shooting straight up into the sky. He clings to his rope, landing beside Zoro and Sora on the railing as the ship tilts completely and they shoot straight up. It takes his breath away even before they go plunging through what feels like an entire ocean, cold and wet and strangely not salty at all. After a small eternity they erupt from the sea into an ocean of clouds.

“Fuck,” Sanji whispers.

Coughing from beside him brings him back to the present. He crouches to check on Sora, but luckily he didn’t seem to inhale any water, just got it uncomfortably up his nose. Once that minor crisis is averted, he looks around them again.

They’re on an ocean in the sky.

Usopp breaks the silence first, whooping loudly. A half-second later, everyone’s joined in, screaming and yelling and laughing like maniacs. Even Robin’s laughing aloud with them. They did it. They’re alive. They’re really in the sky right now.

And Sanji can’t wait to explore.

--

Through a very strange series of circumstances, they find themselves on a gorgeous beach. Not worth dwelling on, really. Getting kicked in the face by guerillas, old men dressed like knights of old, bartering steep tolls with weird old ladies, piggybacking on a shellfish… Yeah, he’s not going to worry about it.

Especially with this view.

He flexes his toes in the beach. It’s so spongey and strange. Not like sand. Not like anything he’s ever felt before. An island made of clouds on the shores of a white sea. The smell of it is like clear water and rain, not like the familiar brine of his own sea.

He looks around him with a smile. It’s good to see everyone having fun. Laughter and shouts of excitement echo across the beach. Luffy’s already climbed one of the many trees lining the not-sand. Chopper and Sora chase each other around the clouds, giggling and splashing in the water. Sanji himself is interested in the cloudy lounge chairs nearby and the flowers blooming around them that remind him of hibiscus. He wonders if it’s possible to make them into a tea just like hibiscus blossoms. A chilled tea would be so refreshing. Plus the flowers themselves are beautiful – he’s already dreaming up the perfect beach barbeque with a bouquet as the centerpiece.

“Oi, Cook.”

So lost in his thoughts, he jumps at the sound of Zoro’s voice. When he turns around, the swordsman looks sheepish for startling him. He jumps again when he suddenly thrusts his fist forward into his chest.

“For you,” Zoro says gruffly.

Sanji tilts his head to see what’s been shoved into his sternum. It’s… a cluster of those flowers clenched inelegantly in his hand.

Is –

Is Zoro giving him flowers?

Why is Zoro giving him flowers?

Does Zoro even know how romantic that gesture seems?

He feels his face start to flame.

“I – thank you?”

Tentatively, he takes them into his cupped hands. Zoro jerks his own away as soon as he can as if burned.

“You looked like you liked them,” he grunts.

“They’re lovely.” He lifts one tentatively and sniffs. His eyelids flutter closed as he catalogues their light fragrance, tries to compare it to other flowers from the surface. When he opens his eyes again, Zoro is looking away, pink staining his cheeks.

“Thank you, Zoro,” he says quietly and sincerely.

Zoro’s lips twitch into something like a grimace. His voice is as gruff as ever when he says, “You’re welcome.”

Sanji plucks one of the flowers from the bunch away and loops the stem over his right ear whimsically. Zoro’s looking at him again with some unreadable expression. He opens his mouth, unsure of what to say next. Unsure why he feels so warm and kind of breathless. No one’s ever given him flowers before. Is he reading too much into it? Undoubtedly, he is. He’s the king of reading too much into everything. Still, it was a thoughtful gesture.

“You should give some to Sora and Chopper,” he says, for lack of something better to say. “They – they’d probably like them for their hats. You know how they like feeling included.”

Zoro’s odd grimace softens, just slightly. The smile he replaces it with is tiny. “Yeah, I figured. Damn captain will want one, too. Glad you like them. They, uh, match your shirt.”

He lopes off down the beach towards the flowers again. Sanji watches quizzically as he shakes his head to himself and seems to be muttering something. What a strange guy. Still, he looks back at the small bunch cupped in his hands and can’t keep the warm smile from his own face. The first flowers he’s ever gotten as a gift.

He sees Robin nearby, standing with her feet soaking in the gently lapping cloud waves. On a whim, he approaches her, coming to stand by her side with his own feet in the cool water.

“Mr. Swordsman is sweet,” she says, glancing over at him and his gift.

He feels his receding blush returning. “I – yeah. It was really kind of him.”

Robin hums. She looks a little out of place on the beach. Too tense. Sanji follows his whims again, plucking a flower from his bunch and holding it up.

“May I?”

She blinks at him and stares for a long moment before she nods. He gently reaches out and tucks it behind her ear to match his own.

“There,” he says. “Pretty flower for a pretty lady.”

Robin’s blank face melts into a smile. “You’re awfully playful today.”

“It’s a beautiful day.” He turns his face out to the white sea and feels his cheeks tugging into a grin. He cups the flowers more closely to his chest. “Don’t you think so?”

Robin hums and follows his gaze. “You’re right. It is a beautiful day.”

“It’s a shame they’re going to die,” he says, holding his bouquet up again. “I’ve never been given flowers before, and I’m already sad that they’re going to die in a few days.”

“…If you’d like, I can show you how to press them.” She smiles a tiny smile when he looks at her again. “It’s a method to preserve them. You press them flat and dry them, and you can keep them in a diary or the like.”

“That’s – that’s amazing! I didn’t know you could do that. I’d love that.” He beams again and hugs the flowers closer. He can keep his first gift of flowers forever? What a beautiful thought.

“I’m sure Mr. Swordsman would be happy to give you even more if you asked.”

Oh, now his face has passed from flushed to embarrassingly red.

“I wouldn’t – that’s embarrassing – I mean – that’s not – “

Robin’s laugh is a joyous and beautiful thing.

Satisfied and embarrassed both, he steps back onto the beach. From somewhere, the sound of a harp plays out. He’s not the only one who’s noticed. The rest of the crew looks around in confusion and apprehension until they find the source. It’s –

An angel?

He’s never been particularly religious, but his mom had liked the idea of heaven and angels. He remembers drawings in her books of beautiful people with harps and feathery wings. Surely this is what he’s looking at? A slender young woman playing the harp beautifully. Her golden hair is tied into neat braids except for… antenna? Maybe it’s an angel thing.

And then she turns to them with a smile and inexplicably greets them with, “Heso.”

The girl’s name is Conis. She’s not, in fact, an angel, but rather a resident of Skypeia who welcomes them to Angel Beach. She has a small cloud fox named Shuu that Sora immediately scoops up and starts cuddling. They’re shortly joined by her father Pagaya on his waver, and the two of them patiently answer the Straw Hats’ questions.

Sanji’s trying very hard not to be rude. His most burning question, however, is the odd lack of smell the two Skypeians have.

They have personal scents, sure, but if he didn’t know better, he’d think they were prepubescent children. All the unconscious markers he uses to identify someone’s sex and mood are either nonexistent or so muted as to be useless. He inhales more deeply with his mouth slightly ajar, as subtly as he can, but still, nothing. It’s like the two of them aren’t there at all.

“Come to my house and have dinner,” Pagaya says kindly. “You can use my waver all you like after dinner, Miss.”

Nami looks disappointed to have to wait, but she’s a good sport about joining them. They climb the long road to Pagaya’s house as the man explains what he can about how Skypeia functions.

Sanji’s… He’s hesitant to make a fool of himself again. He’s had time to reflect on his time in Alabasta, and thinking back on it makes his guts squirm uncomfortably. He’d caused Hapi and Terracotta and Cobra so much unnecessary grief with his hang-ups about respecting their local customs. In retrospect, he thinks he might’ve been unforgivably rude despite their kindness. He doesn’t want to repeat the performance up here, but he has no idea how to broach the subject with their hosts. Neither of them had made any mention of any of the Straw Hats’ sexes, so maybe Skypeia doesn’t have any odd rules about it? Maybe they assume they already know – but no, they’ve been very kind so far about explaining anything they think the crew would need to know. He’s genuinely unsure of how to proceed from here.

He resolves to wait for a better time to bring it up. Maybe with Nami and Usopp to back him up. He really doesn’t want to end up doing something offensive this time.

They finally crest the hill. Pagaya and Conis’s home is lovely, clean and bright and overlooking the sea. Open concept, too, so he can join them in the kitchen to help and watch the way they cook without being too far from the crew. At the very least, the sky fish and the local vegetation and seasonings and the way they prepare the dishes is fascinating. He almost forgets his earlier trepidation in his joy to be cooking with them. Nami leans against the nearby counter to watch as the rest of the crew roughhouses in the living area.

“Sora is so cute,” Conis says lightly as they cook. “He’s your son?”

“He is,” Sanji says proudly. He doesn’t plan on elaborating unless he needs to.

Conis giggles. “I assumed from his eyebrows. If you don’t mind me asking, where is his mother?”

Sanji’s hands freeze. The noise from the living area crashes to a halt.

“Oh,” Conis says, “I’m sorry. Is it a sensitive subject?”

Sanji swallows and sets the knife he was holding down carefully. His voice comes out small when he asks, “Are you messing with me?”

He can’t look up from the fish he’d been prepping. This – what? Why is she…?

“Sora doesn’t have a mother,” Nami says slowly, cautiously. “Sanji is his parent.”

He’s not looking at Conis, but she sounds nervous. “I – yes? I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be rude. I just don’t understand. I only meant to ask who his other parent was. I assumed it was perhaps Miss Robin?”

Robin? Why would she…?

“I am Sora’s parent,” he repeats. Fuck. This is definitely not a conversation he wants Sora overhearing and thinking too hard about. All he knows about his sperm donor is that he’s dead and that he shouldn’t miss him. He doesn’t know anything else. Not about how he was conceived, or that Zeff and Patty killed the man right there in their home. He doesn’t need to know or ask these questions. His voice is more firm when he says, “I carried him.”

“You?” When he looks up, finally, Conis looks even more nervous and confused. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you were a woman? Or – oh, I’m sorry. You are one of those who was born in a body that doesn’t match your spirit?”

What?

“Sanji’s not a woman!” Luffy sounds highly offended.

Luckily for everyone, Robin steps into the kitchen with her hands raised placatingly. “Pardon me, but it seems we are suffering from a miscommunication. Mr. Pagaya, Miss Conis, am I incorrect in assuming that there are only two biological sexes in Skypeia?”

“Of course there’s only two!”

“Conis,” Pagaya warns gently. “Yes, ma’am, you are correct, heso. Are things more complex down on the Blue Sea?”

“Indeed. There are three primary sexes in the Blue Sea.”

“Oh! That is fascinating.” He glances at Sanji, his face warm and kind. “So on the Blue Sea, a man can carry a child? Heso, I have a friend who was born a woman and is now a man – is that not how you are?”

“No,” he says woodenly. “I’ve always been a man.”

“Why don’t you come sit down and I will explain,” Robin says kindly.

Sanji listens as they flick the burners of the stove off and go to the living room to talk. He stares at his hands silently until Nami gently takes his elbow and guides him to the sink to wash them. Whatever he’d expected today, it wasn’t being bluntly asked if he was a woman or how he was capable of pregnancy. Here he was worrying about offending their hosts, and they’d gone and offended him first.

“Generally, this information is broadcasted through scent,” Robin is explaining, “so one can determine another’s reproductive sex through their personal scent. Strong emotions can also affect one’s scent.”

“But what does it smell like?” Conis asks.

Robin frowns. It’s Nami who walks in and answers, “Well, what does anything smell like, really? There’s not really words for describing what they smell like, just what the smell itself describes. I can tell when someone is angry, but I can’t tell you what ‘anger’ smells like.”

“So you use these scents to determine compatibility, then?”

Conis pipes up, “Oh, I had wondered how you chose your mates without wings!”

Sanji sidles into the room and takes a seat on the sofa. Sora and Chopper are quick to abandon their own seats to pile onto him.

“What do you mean by the wings?” Nami asks.

“The colors! We communicate these things by our plumage,” Conis says.

“What colors?” Luffy scoots closer to peer at her back, ignoring or oblivious to her blush at his boldness. “They just look white.”

It’s Pagaya and Conis’s turn to blink in confusion.

“White…?” Conis looks over her own shoulder and back to them. “My wings aren’t white…”

“Fascinating,” Robin drawls. She props her chin on her hand and smiles. “Could it be that your eyes are sharper than ours? Just as our noses are different from yours? Therefore, you may see colors that we cannot, and we can smell things that you cannot. How utterly fascinating.”

“It’s true,” Pagaya says, “We don’t see just white… There’s quite a bit of information in the colors. It’s odd to us that you can’t see them like we do, but I suppose to you, we are the odd ones who cannot pick up the information you’re receiving with your noses. The coloring of our plumage can tell you things about age, health, and, well, reproductive information. I’m unsure how to express in words.”

“Understandable.”

“So you guys are just male and female? Nothing else?” Usopp rubs his chin thoughtfully. “That’s strange to us, but I guess it’s simpler in a way.”

“Our three primary sexes are alpha, beta, and omega,” Robin explains, “It is slightly more complex. All omegas may carry children, for example, though they may be male or female in their secondary sex representation.”

Sanji tries not to make a face as he feels eyes dart over to him. He pretends instead to be interested in Sora – who’s bored by the conversation – trying to play with the sky fox in his lap. Chopper leans against him, obviously focused on the discussion, but still pressing one hoof reassuringly against his leg.

“Likewise,” Robin continues, “all alphas may impregnate females and omegas. Beta males lack the internal reproductive structure for pregnancy, but may impregnate others, and beta females may become pregnant, but cannot impregnate. The less common examples are alpha females, like myself, and omega males, like our cook, as we are both capable of pregnancy and insemination.”

Sanji sneaks a glance up around the room. Luffy’s picking his nose. Zoro looks like he’s napping. Only Usopp and Nami seem like they’re paying attention. Conis and Pagaya look fascinated.

“And you tell all this through smell?”

“For the most part. There are also hormone cycles everyone goes through. Body language has a lot to do with things, too.”

“That, I can understand,” Pagaya says. “Our mating rituals use body language extensively.”

“Dad!” Conis is bright red, looking mortified. “You can’t just talk about – about mating rituals!”

Pagaya chuckles. “It’s nothing embarrassing, dear!”

“To you, maybe,” she mumbles, looking away uncomfortably.

“I think that book I bought for you when you turned twelve would do a better job of explaining.”

“Dad!”

“If you could go grab it, dear.”

Conis grumbles some more, but she takes the opportunity to escape. Pagaya just laughs, sharing a commiserating look with Robin.

“The young people are so spirited, heso! I’m going to go finish cooking now. Feel free to join me again if you like, Mr. Sanji.”

He nods, but stays in place. Despite his urge to go finish cooking, he is curious about whatever Conis is going to bring. His curiosity is satisfied when she returns, dropping a colorful book onto the coffee table with a mumble and retreating to the kitchen to complain quietly to her father about embarrassing her.

Nami picks up the book and they all lean in to look at it.

“Oh, I had a book like this,” Nami exclaims.

“Me, too,” Usopp chimes in.

Sanji wordlessly agrees. It looks very similar to the books Dr. Toshiko got for him when he was thirteen. He can see why Conis would be embarrassed to share. He can imagine Pagaya – who seems to be a single father himself – lovingly buying it for her and offering to answer any questions she has while she adamantly swears to herself to never ever ask her father anything. He’d probably be the same with Zeff, but it’s kind of hard to be too embarrassed by the old man after Zeff watched them cut his abdomen open and pull a baby out of it. What mysteries does his body hold after that? Not much.

They all read over Nami’s shoulder as she flips through the book. No individual heat or rut cycles – apparently Skypeians have two mating seasons a year that they can all participate in. The illustrations of their wings do look a lot more colorful on paper than they look in reality to their Blue Sea eyes, but probably don’t do the plumage justice.

“Ha, look at that, Usopp,” Nami says, pointing to the page. “Males have more colorful plumage and are meant to woo females with dancing and gifts.”

“Hmm, do you think Kaya would appreciate a special dance and gifts?”

“You’d probably freak her out,” Zoro grumbles from where he’s still propped against the couch pretending to nap.

“We should make a special dance!” Luffy hops up and starts moving erratically. “Like this?”

Pagaya laughs from the kitchen. “Your spirit is admirable, but I don’t believe any women would be wooed, Luffy.”

“Ooh, teach me how, old guy!”

“Do not teach anyone mating dances,” Conis begs.

Sanji can’t help it. He laughs. The whole situation’s gone from tense to ridiculous. The others soon join in, and the mood of the room lightens considerably.

“Here, let me help,” he says, gently pushing Sora, Chopper, and the sky fox off of himself so he can go to the kitchen.

He rejoins the two Skypeians in companiable cooking. The others have already finished studying their book and have gone back to their usual rowdy behaviors. Luffy’s still trying to make up a dance, and Usopp and Chopper have joined in, threatening to knock furniture over. Nami and Robin are still quietly discussing the differences between their world and the sky realm together. He snorts when he glances at Sora and finds he’s sneakily trying to get the sky fox to balance on Zoro’s head. There’s no way the swordsman is sleeping through this, but he’s hamming it up with fake snoring anyway. It makes him feel warm to see them playing together.

“I’m so sorry if I offended you,” Conis says as he passes her prepared filets of sky fish. “Really, I didn’t mean to get so defensive!”

“It’s okay, Conis-dear,” he says. He glances at her through his bangs and gives her a warm smile. “I’ve found out recently that it can be difficult to interact with new things gracefully. I’m afraid I made a terrible impression on the last country we visited. I’m trying to learn to be better.”

Conis smiles back hesitantly. “I see. I’m still sorry. I’ve never talked to any Blue Sea visitors at length. I should have expected things wouldn’t be exactly the same down there as it is up here. I can’t apologize enough.”

“Really, it’s okay. I understand talking about these things is embarrassing at the best of times. I’m just happy we cleared things up and can be friends now.”

He still sees a shadow of something in her eyes like guilt. He hopes she’ll get over it. He’s already smoothing down his own raised hackles, content with the explanation that none of them intended to offend him or make him uncomfortable. He’s also quite interested in their biological differences. If he’d been born up here, would he have simply been a man? Found a nice girl in the sky and dazzled her with shiny gifts and intricate dances? It sounds far-fetched. For better or worse, he is omega, and while he’s not comfortable with what that means to others and how they treat him, he has a hard time regretting it too much because of Sora. How could he imagine a world where Sora doesn’t get to exist? Maybe being an omega is a steaming pile of shit most of the time with the harassment and violence and sexism, but it’s also how he got to feel Sora wiggling around inside of him at the sound of Zeff’s voice and kicking him back gently when he poked at him. It’s a warm nest full of gifts from friends and family. It’s the fuzzy happiness when he gets to share scents with his friends. It’s the happy purr in his chest when he lays down to sleep with Sora at night.

Slowly, but surely, he’s learning not to mind being omega, really.

Their late lunch or early dinner is delicious. He makes notes of how they prepared it so he can adapt the recipes with Blue Sea ingredients. They hardly have time to relax after finishing before Nami’s dragging them back down to the beach, eager to try the waver.

Sanji’s not particularly interested in such a dangerous-looking contraption. He’s content, instead, to rest on the spongey cloud beach with the waves lapping at his feet. Robin elects to join him a respectful distance away. Zoro sits down beside him, too, with a grunt, though much closer than Robin. He doesn’t mind. He closes his eyes under the bright Sky Island sun and listens to Nami whooping and riding along, and the chaotic sounds of whatever strange game Luffy, Usopp, Chopper, and Sora have come up with to play. It sounds like it involves one of those hard-shelled fruits Luffy had tried to break his teeth on earlier.

Abruptly, he realizes he can’t hear the waver or Nami anymore. He sits up and looks, and surely enough, she’s gone.

“Where did Nami go?”

Zoro opens his own eyes and frowns. “Not sure. She’ll be fine. The witch is too smart to get into trouble.”

“I agree she’s smart, but we have no idea what’s out there. What if she runs into that guerilla again?”

“Have faith in her.” Zoro sounds certain, but still, he stands, sliding his swords back into place at his side.

Sanji stands, too. He’s uncertain what they’re meant to do now with no way to easily follow her. He doesn’t get a lot of time to contemplate that, because sudden movement in his peripheral turns out to be… a squad of military police crawling towards them across the beach?

“Why… are they crawling?”

Zoro looks at confused as he is. “I don’t know.”

They keep crawling as if they’re approaching from the underbrush. On an open beach. In clear view of their group. The Straw Hats converge together, defensively shuffling Sora into the middle of them. Luffy steps forward.

The leader shouts orders, and all the soldier-police jump up at attention.

“Heso!”

Conis and Pagaya echo him, “Heso!”

“What are they even saying?” Luffy makes a face.

“You! You must be the illegal entrants from the Blue Sea!” The man doesn’t seem to have any volume except shouting. “I’ll humbly bring Heaven’s Judgement upon you!”

The Straw Hats share a look. That doesn’t sound like a good thing.

“Amazon sent us photos of the illegal entrants!”

“Oh no, that can’t be true,” Pagaya protests, “These people aren’t bad people like you say! There must be a mistake, Captain McKinley!”

Sanji speaks up, “What do you mean by illegal entry?”

“Was the entrance fee 1 billion Extol per person?” Robin says. “It’s true that we didn’t pay that.”

“But the old lady said we could still pass without paying, didn’t she?” says Usopp.

“It doesn’t matter,” McKinley says, “Stop making excuses. However, there’s no need to panic yet. Illegal entry is only an 11th degree crime according to Heaven’s Judgement. Once you accept your punishment, you can become legal tourists on the spot.”

That almost sounds reasonable, but he doesn’t like the sound of punishment. He can tell the others feel the same. He says as much. The police captain nods.

“You simply have to pay ten times the entrance fee.”

Oh. Simple. Sure.

“80 billion Extol would be 8 million Berries,” Robin supplies after some quick fact-checking on the exchange rate between the two currency.

“That’s expensive! You know how much rice you could buy for that!” Sanji realizes he’s yelling now, but this is just ridiculous. “We risked our lives to come up here and now you want to make us pay that much just to enter?! There’s no way we’re paying that!”

“All you had to do was pay 800,000 berries when you entered.”

“That’s still too expensive!”

The captain guy keeps talking about heaven’s judgement or whatever, but Sanji’s already turned to the others. They’re pirates already – who cares about a stupid entry fee?

“I’m more worried about Nami,” he says. “We don’t know where she is. She could be hurt or upset somewhere! We need to find her soon.”

“That’s right! As soon as the wind changes direction, we need to go find adventure – I mean Nami,” Luffy exclaims.

“Hey, Luffy…” Usopp grabs him, sweating. “Nami should be back soon. We should wait so we don’t miss her!”

“Oh, yeah?”

“But she’s been gone too long,” Chopper says.

“Shhh!” Usopp dives for Chopper. “Luffy wants adventure, right? We can’t let him remember about Upper Yard! He’ll get us all killed.”

Sanji’s inclined to agree to not taking unnecessary risks, but if Nami’s in Upper Yard, then that’s where they’ll go.

“Stop ignoring me!” Captain McKinley steps forward. “One of you seems to be missing. Where is this other person? Fleeing the fee will raise the degree of punishment.”

“No, no, no! It’s not like that!”

Usopp rushes over to placate the guy. Sanji, raised by pirates and disdainful of police and military authority in general, is less than impressed by his promises to pay. Between his authority issues, Luffy’s free spirit, and Zoro’s unwillingness to do things he doesn’t want to do like follow laws, he’s pretty sure this is going to end in violence. He crouches down to softly remind Chopper to stick with Sora if any fighting breaks out. He’s confident that he can kick most of these guys out quickly, and Chopper is both tough and fond of Sora. If anything does happen, he knows Sora will be taken care of.

Usopp buys them some time, at least. They try to ignore the soldier-police on the beach and relax as they wait for Nami to return. Of course through a series of unlikely circumstances, they simply incur more and more violations of the law, which does seem a bit unfair seeing as they don’t even know the laws up here. Not that they care. Again, pirates.

So of course Nami returns. And of course it eventually devolves into violence. Finally, is all Sanji can think.

It’s with no small amount of pleasure that he joins Luffy and Zoro in beating up the entire squadron of guys until they’re all collapsed on the beach. Like they were going to pay their damn fees anyway. The air up here is kind of thin, sure, but that’s not as much of a hindrance as it could be. He still has a lot of fun cracking skulls in.

And then the captain blabs about punishment and the laws some more. Honestly, this guy needs some new material.

“You’ll be judged by God’s Priests in Upper Yard!”

Well. Sounds about typical. All Sanji can do is exchange a shrug with Zoro. They took out the entirety of Baroque Works together. What’s a couple of priests supposed to do? He’s not buying the idea that there’s really a god living up here. Luffy’s just excited for more adventure.

“We’ll sail out as soon as the wind shifts,” Nami says. She shrugs at them uncomfortably. “There’s dangerous stuff up here. I’d like to get away from these priests and God if we can.”

“Whatever you say, Nami-dearest!”

“C’mon,” Usopp says, slapping Sanji on the shoulder, “Let’s go pack up the rest of the food and our supplies at Pagaya’s house. Then we can set out.”

“Food? I’ll come, too!”

“Sora, you want to stay here on the beach or you want to come back to the house?”

“Can I stay on the beach and play?”

“Sure.” Sanji nods at Chopper and Nami before turning to Zoro. “Hey, Mossball. Take care of them, okay? If those White Beret guys come back and Sora gets hurt, I’ll gut you like a fish.”

“It’s fine, idiot-cook. I won’t let anything happen to him.”

“I’m holding you to that.” He bends over and kisses Sora once on the top of his head before straightening back up. “We’ll be right back with the food and supplies, okay?”

“Okay. Bye, Dad!” Sora waves, but he’s already running off to go poke something with a stick.

Sanji shakes his head fondly and starts the long climb back up to Pagaya’s house with Luffy and Usopp in tow. Other than the run-in with the local authorities, their trip to Skypeia has so far been pleasant. Moreso for them than Nami after her frightening run-in near Upper Yard, but he’s confident that they can deal with anything that comes up. If they’re smart about this, they can still sail around the sky islands and look for the lost city of gold that’s supposedly up here. He’d love to bring in enough treasure to make Nami’s face light up with joy! She’s so cute when she’s excited about treasure!

“Sanji, you’re leaking smoke hearts everywhere,” Usopp says, deadpan.

“Ah, sorry! Just got excited thinking about getting treasure for Nami!”

“I’ll just be happy if we don’t get smited by God.”

“Is it smited? Smote? Smitten?”

“I don’t know! Killed horribly and painfully, how about that?”

“Shishishi, we’re not getting killed. We’re having an adventure!”

Pagaya is awfully quiet as they ascend the path to his house. It makes Sanji wonder, just a bit. Maybe he’s reading too much into it. Maybe they are getting tired of their guests. Who knows what repercussions will ensue from them hanging out with dangerous criminals? The sooner they get out of here, the better off Pagaya and Conis will be. He tries to pack the food up as efficiently as possible.

Well, as efficiently as he can while also being a perfectionist and having to stab Luffy’s wandering hands with chopsticks as they work on the bentos.

Usopp’s cheerfully packing his own bag with ship-repairing materials. Pagaya’s been so generous with them. He wishes there were more he could do to help their hosts out so they’re not in trouble for giving them aid and information up here. The best thing they can do now is leave and hope nothing bad happens to their new friends.

“Oh, Conis is back.” He lifts his hand up in a friendly wave. “Everything alright, love?”

“Everything is fine,” she says with a weak smile. She looks pale, still. Shaky. It makes him frown, but he doesn’t ask.

“Oi, guys, what is that?” Usopp dashes for the balcony. “Something’s wrong with the ship!”

Sanji and Luffy are by his side in an instant. “What’s going on, Usopp?”

“Look at that! The ship’s rocking!”

The Merry is indeed rocking back and forth. Sanji can feel his heart in his throat. According to their plan, Sora should be on that ship ready to weigh anchor as soon as they get back with the food and supplies. He grabs their small telescope and – yeah, there’s Sora holding onto Zoro as the ship rocks back and forth. Nami, Chopper, Robin… the whole rest of the crew is on the ship.

“Hey, the ship’s moving!”

“What are they doing?”

“It’s moving backwards!”

“There’s something underneath them!”

Pagaya joins them. “Ah! That’s… the famous White-White Sea Super-Express Lobster!”

The giant thing emerges from the sea as he speaks. The Merry looks tiny clutched in its claws.

And Sanji can only watch as his son, his home, and his best friends are dragged away and out of sight on the back of the beast.

“Where is it taking them?”

“The Super-Express Lobster is a messenger to God. Everything it takes is an offering to God.” Pagaya looks troubled. “They’re headed for northeast Upper Yard… to the sacrificial altar.”

“Sacrifice?!” Sanji feels a growl building in his throat. Both of the Skypeians look disturbed at the sound, but he can hear Usopp and Luffy beginning to echo him in their deeper timbres. “You mean our crew… You mean my son has been taken to be a sacrifice to God? What does that mean?! What are they going to do to them?! I don’t care if it’s God himself – I’m going to kill him before he can touch my baby!”

“Sanji’s right! How dare they take them?!”

Sanji can barely get the words out now around his own growling, “That son of a bitch! Messing with us? I’ll kill him!”

“Hold on a second,” Pagaya says, stepping forward, “even though it’s called sacrifice, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s an ordeal for criminals instead.”

“My son is five years old! He’s too little for an ordeal or judgement or anything!” He steps forward and clenches his fist in Pagaya’s shirt. “He’s just a kid! What will they do to him? Tell me they won’t hurt him!”

“I-I’m sorry! I don’t know! I’ve never seen them take a child before! They – he might be okay. More than anything, they are hostages. The ones being judged right now are the three of you.”

He can’t quite relax at the news. He’s still growling, still a little fuzzy around the edges with fear and rage. He does drop Pagaya so he can back away. Judgement, huh? He can handle judgment. He can handle ordeals.

“If they put one hand on Sora, I’m going to burn Upper Yard to the ground,” he promises.

Pagaya and Conis both swallow in unison, faces paling further. Usopp and Luffy merely nod in agreement.

“They’re going to be okay,” Luffy says confidently. “They’re all strong! Sora’s strong, too.”

Sanji nods. He is, but not in the way Luffy probably means. He’s just a kid. He can’t kick or punch or fight. He can’t take a direct attack from some sky maniac.

Still, he left him in Zoro’s hands. With Chopper and Nami – and even Robin. He has to believe that they’ll keep him safe. At least until Sanji can get there.

“You’re right, Captain. Now let’s go get them.”

And if one hair on Sora’s head is hurt, he’s going to rain hellfire down onto the supposed God of Upper Yard.

Chapter Text

Sanji will later struggle to remember much of their journey through the sky island town.

It’s a shame. It’s not every day one gets to traverse a city in the air built from clouds populated by winged people with strange and exciting new things to share. If the situation weren’t so dire, he’d have loved to browse the shops and talk with vendors the way he’s growing to enjoy doing at all of their other stops along their journey.

All he can think about is Sora. He’s never been separated from him for longer than a day or so. Even that was infrequent. Just the occasional trip to verify new vendors or shop for a birthday surprise or something. He’d always been left safely with Carne or Patty or Zeff.

He must be terrified.

He’s with Zoro, he reminds himself. Zoro wouldn’t let him be hurt. Nami wouldn’t let him be scared. Chopper is there, too, so even if he does get hurt, he’s in the best hooves on the Grand Line. There is absolutely nothing to worry about.

(He’s incredibly fucking worried.)

It doesn’t help, exactly, that Conis was the one who betrayed them. It’s not hard to deduce. He can tell without speaking about it that Usopp and Luffy both get it, too. The poor girl’s shaking like a leaf the entire walk, and she hasn’t met their eyes once since returning from the Merry. Sanji’s at an impasse. He’s furious that he’s been separated from Sora and the crew, but he’s also sure she must have a damn good reason to do it, and it’s against his personal policy to make a lady cry.

Still, said lady does provide them a dial-powered boat to ride the cloud streams, and she does unintentionally demonstrate the range and intensity of their god’s destructive power. So that’s useful. The weird old knight spirits her off, and they can finally start traveling at what feels like a snail’s pace towards upper yard.

I’m coming, Sora, he promises.

--

“Everybody alive?”

Rhetorical question. He knows that Sora’s fine for sure, safely wrapped in his arms as their ship is thrown around by the lobster that kidnapped them. Robin had grabbed hold of Chopper and stabilized them with her extra limbs. Nami probably got a little bumped around, but he can tell she’s fine, too.

Gingerly, he sets Sora down to inspect their surroundings. The cloudy islands have been replaced by a dense jungle fencing them in on all sides. Wherever they’d landed is high – up at the line of foliage instead of near the roots. When he goes to the rail and looks straight down the side of the ship, he finds that they’re dry docked on top of some kind of stone structure with a steep stone staircase leading down into a cloudy lake.

“This is Upper Yard,” Nami says, somewhat unnecessarily. There’s nowhere else he can think that they’d be dragged off to. Honestly, he’s more surprised that they weren’t greeted by this supposed god or one of his followers immediately upon landing.

“Why are we here? Where’s Dad?”

Zoro winces. He knows Sora’s just a little kid, but he sounds so young with his high, near-frantic voice. When he turns to look, he sees that he’s plastered himself to Nami’s legs, arms wrapped around them like a little baby squid. His one visible eye is big and blue and watery.

Nami almost loses her balance from the sudden attack on her legs, but she rights herself immediately and runs her hands through the kid’s hair, briefly exposing both of his eyes and curling eyebrows.

“Hey, Sora, it’s okay. I’m not sure why we’re here, exactly, but I’m sure your dad and Luffy and Usopp are already on their way to catch up with us.”

He nods and sniffles, burying his face into her pants. Zoro turns away again to scan the forest. He can’t see or hear anything amiss. Just the occasional bird call and rustle in the leaves from animals and wind. Nothing ominous approaching that he can sense.

“Chopper,” he asks, “can you sense anything?”

Chopper hops up onto the railing beside him and frowns, his blue nose twitching as he inhales deeply.

“Just the birds,” he answers, “and I think there’s something in the water down there. I don’t smell or hear any people or big animals.”

Zoro nods. Right. So they’re alone for now. He hops the railing and descends the staircase to the base where it disappears into cloudy water. He’s not surprised when he’s immediately greeted by a large, toothy maw. Some kind of shark, he guesses. It makes sense that they’d strand them here somewhere that’s not easy to escape. Not if they don’t want them wandering around Upper Yard freely. He climbs back up.

“So we are effectively stranded here?” Robin looks unbothered by this information.

“From what I can tell. There’s enough vines around, though, I think we can get off the ship okay.”

“The real question is, what do we do?” Nami looks between all of them uncertainly. “I mean, do we stay on the ship, or do we try to leave? Is staying here a trap? Is leaving more dangerous?”

“We don’t have enough information,” Robin supplies. She leisurely studies their surroundings. “This certainly appears to be a sacrificial altar.”

“Sacrifice altar?”

“Nami,” Chopper asks, “what’s a ‘sacrifice?’”

“It means you’re being offered to God while you’re alive.”

Chopper and Sora both recoil in horror.

“Are we going to be killed!? Boiled alive?!”

Sora screams, too, “I don’t want to be boiled alive!”

“Nobody’s getting boiled alive!”

“Well…” Robin says.

“Stop that.” Zoro shoots her an impressive glower. He crouches down to the level of the kids. “Look, nobody’s getting boiled alive. We just have to figure out what we’re doing.”

Robin hums and moves off to inspect the stone structure. Nami kneels beside him and tugs Sora closer into a hug. Her eyes are big and brown and worried.

“What are you thinking, Zoro?”

“Well, here’s what we know. We’re in Upper Yard, and that’s where God and his priests are, right? I know Curly and Luffy and Usopp are already on their way, but we don’t know how long it will take them to get here. The Merry…” He hesitates. “The Merry’s hull is damaged pretty bad. We’re going to need to repair it if we plan on sailing out of here.”

“I can fix it!” Chopper pipes up. “Usopp showed me how! And we’ve got extra wood and nails and stuff. I can work on fixing the Merry!”

Zoro nods. “Good idea, Chopper. I’d assume someone would be waiting for us here, but there’s no one. I don’t know if that means they don’t know we’re here yet or if someone is just on their way. Our best bet would be to wait with the ship for the others, but… I don’t like not knowing where we are.”

“You never know where you are,” Nami mutters.

“Hey! I’m not lost that often. But still. I want to check out the surrounding area and make sure there’s no other surprises waiting for us.”

“I’d like to look around, too,” Robin says, ascending the side of the ship to join them. “These stone structures are hundreds of years old. There may be more nearby. It would also be helpful if our navigator joined us to map the lay of the land.”

Nami bites her lip. “Should we really split up? What about Sora?”

Zoro frowns. “I don’t like it, either, but I don’t know what else to do. So far, no one’s come for the ship. If we move fast, we shouldn’t be gone for too long. Sora, are you okay waiting in the galley until we come back?”

Sora wiggles around to give him a look. “Why do I gotta stay in the galley?”

“In case there’s bad guys. Chopper can get big and tough, but you’re just a little kid. You’re safer if none of them see you.”

“I don’t want to stay here! I want to stay with you!”

Zoro pinches his lips together. “I can’t take you into the jungle, kid. We don’t know what’s in there.”

“I don’t want to stay here alone!” Sora hugs onto Nami tighter, earnest eye meeting Zoro’s. “I want to stay with you. Please, Mr. Zoro.”

“You won’t be alone. You’ll be here with Chopper.” He kneels down, too, to the kid’s level. “Look, your dad and Luffy are on their way here, but we don’t know how long that’ll take. It might be dark by the time they get here, and staying here at night without knowing where we are is dangerous. We’ll just scout the area a bit and be back before you know it. Can you be brave for me?”

Sora bites his lip. He doesn’t look sure when he nods.

“You’re a Straw Hat pirate, right?” Zoro tries, “Straw Hats are brave. All you gotta do is hold down the fort in the galley while Chopper fixes the ship. When we get back, we’ll come straight to the galley first thing to get you, okay?”

Sora nods again. Zoro gives in to the urge to lean in and give the kid a quick hug and rub his scent on him just a bit. Skypeians can’t smell pheromones, so he’s not sure if scent marking the ship will even do anything, but he’ll give it a try before they go anyway.

“Fast, then?” Nami still looks torn by the decision. “I don’t want to leave these two here for too long…”

“We’ll be fast.”

Zoro scents the ship while Robin secures some vines for them to swing off the ship with. He gives each of the kids one last pat before he goes and tries not to worry. Chopper’s tough, and Sora’s smart enough to stay out of danger if anything happens. This will be quick, anyway. They’ll be back way before there’s a chance anything will happen.

He just hopes he’s making the right choice.

--

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

Sanji braces and leaps for what feels like the fiftieth time to kick yet another boobie trap away from their ship.

He’s livid. The ship feels like it’s hobbling up the stream at the pace of a grandma after a hip replacement, and every time they make any kind of progress, there’s another spat of traps and ferocious sky sharks and many and varied threats to their lives and livelihoods. He’s going to wear himself out at this rate, but at least killing sharks and destroying traps is an acceptable outlet for the rage and anxiety creating a noxious stew in his guts. He flips midair to redirect his fall back to the Crow, landing with a solid thump that sends cloud-water sloshing into the boat.

Usopp winces at the landing. His knuckles are pale around the steering stick. “Sanji, my guy, are you good?”

“Am I good?” He flips his hair out of his face and crosses his arms. Luffy sits, unconcerned, in the back of the boat munching on one of their bentos. He tries to keep his temper, but what a stupid question. “Let me see… We’re separated from our crew on a hostile island full of traps and some religious freaks out to kill us. We just nearly got eaten by fifteen sharks as big as the Merry. We have no idea how the crew is, only that they’ve been taken to what the locals call a sacrificial altar, and – oh yeah – my only child was kidnapped by a lobster. Really, Usopp, I’m doing great.”

Luffy laughs from behind him. “Wow, you’re really positive! All that stuff sucks!”

“It’s called sarcasm, you half-wit.”

Usopp cringes more. “I know. Sorry, I just don’t know what to say. I’m worried, too, you know? I mean, you’re obviously more worried. It’s just, your scent’s getting everywhere and you smell super stressed and it’s kind of making me nervous.”

Ah. Sanji blinks. It goes without saying that he’s probably spewing distressed pheromones everywhere, but he hadn’t considered how uneasy that would make the crew. When he glances back at Luffy curiously, he finds him still with a blasé smile on his face… while his foot jiggles nervously as he periodically clenches his fists. So, even their captain’s affected. Shame-faced, he takes a seat and tries to calm himself down.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

Usopp waves him off. “Nah, don’t be sorry. It makes total sense that you’re freaking out. Still, we’re on our way there! Surely we’ll be there before you know it, and I bet everyone’s a-okay!”

Sanji wants to feel that faith, but he can’t seem to muster it. All he can really think about is Sora out there in this jungle, scared and alone. He’s not alone, he reminds himself. He’s got the rest of the crew. God, he’s not going to relax until he’s got him in his arms again. Until he’s nuzzled him all over and determined that he’s okay.

“I’ll keep her steady,” Usopp assures him. “We’re going as fast as we can!”

Hold on, Sora.

--

Chopper’s paused in his hammering when he hears the sound of the galley door opening.

He wipes some sweat from his fur and peers up the side of the ship. The deal was that Sora was supposed to wait in the galley for the others. Maybe he misheard the sound of the door.

“Chopper?”

Chopper hums and scurries up the rope ladder on the side. Sora waits for him on the deck, fisting his hands in the hem of his shirt and stretching the material out.

“Hey, Sora, what’s wrong? You gotta pee?”

Sora nods, biting his lip. Chopper laughs and shrinks back down from heavy point to his cuter form. It makes him shorter than Sora, and he always likes playing in this size.

“Alright, you can come out of the galley to pee, but you can’t stay out here.”

Sora scurries off to the bathroom. Chopper takes the opportunity to rest against a barrel. Hauling lumber and nailing boards down is hard work for just one person to take on. He wishes Usopp were here to help. He wishes everybody was together, honestly.

Sora comes out of the storeroom, drying his hands on his shorts in a way that Sanji would scold him for. He can hear him now – “You think the hand towels are for decoration? Were you raised in a barn? Dry your hands properly!” His scolding is always funny to listen to, because he never actually sounds mad, just exasperated sometimes. For a guy raised by pirates, he’s so finnicky about things being just so.

“Do I gotta go back to the galley?”

Sora sounds so timid. Chopper bites his lip.

“Zoro said you’d be safer there.”

Sora nods sadly. He doesn’t meet Chopper’s eyes when he mumbles, “It’s scary in there.”

“In the galley?”

Sora nods. “It’s too quiet. And it’s kind of dark, and Dad says I can’t light the lanterns by myself because it’s dangerous and I can burn the ship down, and I don’t wanna get in trouble and can I just stay with you for a while?”

“You really should stay inside just in case…”

“Please, Chopper! I’ll be really good! I’ll be so quiet, you won’t even notice me!”

He really should listen to Zoro… Without Luffy around, Zoro’s the next one in charge. But he still can’t smell or hear anything dangerous, and the others should be back soon, right? And Sora looks so worried and sad, and he doesn’t want his best friend to be sad.

“Okay… Just for a little while.”

Sora’s face lights up. “Really?!”

“Yeah, I’ll just work on stuff up on the deck for now. But when I go back down to the hull, you have to go back to the galley and wait, you got it?”

Sora nods enthusiastically. “I will!”

Chopper smiles and descends the side again to grab his tools. For a while, it’s peaceful. Sora seems content to sit a few feet away from him and play quiet imagination games with his fingers acting out the parts of people and animals. He keeps quiet except for the occasional mumble under his breath of whatever dialogue is going on in his head and the occasional sound effect. Chopper only gets snippets out of context, like the deep voice he puts on to say, “This fish is overcooked!” before making one of his finger figures kick the other one. He’s having fun, and Chopper’s having fun listening between hammering.

So of course that’s when the guy on the bird drops in.

--

“We really need to head back.”

“Just a bit further,” Nami says, brow furrowed as she studies the land. “I have a theory…”

“We’re nearly done, Swordsman,” Robin says, also distracted.

Zoro folds his arms and resists the urge to pace. “We said we’d be quick. We’ve already been gone too long. We need to head back.”

Nami looks back at him and frowns more heavily. “I agree, but… We’re very close to something that could prove what I think I’ve noticed. Just a few more minutes, okay? Then we’ll head back fast.”

Reluctantly, Zoro nods. He turns his head in the direction he thinks they came from. Hopefully the kids aren’t scared.

--

“I pick Ball Ordeal!”

Well, now that Luffy’s chosen, they dive in. Sanji can’t be assed to care which trial they take. All he wants is to get through it quickly and get to Sora. For a good minute, it seems like the entire trial scenario was just a fakeout anyway. Nothing unusual happens.

Then the ball-shaped asshole shows up.

The last thing Sanji’s in the mood for is some giddy asshole dancing around and chortling to himself and wasting their time. Yeah, yeah, running these trials is probably the guy’s entire raison d'être. He doesn’t give a shit. The guy’s between him and his kid, and for once, it’s not some alpha asshole picking on him because he thinks an omega guy’s an easy target. He winds up to kick the shit out of the guy and get the fuck out of here when the guy announces his moves before he makes them and sucker-punches him right in the gut with an attack he calls “impact.”

“Impact” doesn’t really do it justice.

He’s taken some hard kicks from Zeff while learning Blackleg fighting style. This impact attack makes them feel like love taps. It doesn’t just feel like impact. It feels like something’s individually bruised each of his organs in the radius of the attack. He collapses forward with a bloody cough, his face rushing to meet the hard jungle floor.

“SANJI!”

Sorry, Usopp. He’s going to need a minute.

--

The guy on the bird looks down on the two of them with a sneer.

“This is what they sent to be sacrificed?” His eyes flick between them. “A couple of kids?”

Chopper curses to himself. He should have made Sora stay inside. Now it’s his fault that they’re both out in the open and exposed to this guy.

“I’m not a kid,” Chopper says, looming up into heavy point and putting on his bravest face. “I’m a man! But he’s a kid, so leave him alone!”

The guy’s sneer curls his lip even further under his pointed moustache. “He may be a kid, but everything that ends up on this altar is a sacrifice to God Enel! If he’s here, then he’s done something to earn his place here. You’ll both perish all the same.”

Oh, this is not just bad. This is very bad.

Chopper darts his eyes over to Sora frantically. Sora’s still on his knees, staring up at the big man on his terrifying bird-thing with one wide eye through his bangs. He’d left his straw hat in the galley, and he looks even smaller without it. Just a normal little kid. Chopper has to get rid of this guy somehow. Or at the very least hold him off until help arrives. Where are Zoro and the others? Or Luffy and Sanji and Usopp? He’d take anybody right now.

He doesn’t have anybody else, though. Chopper’s going to have to be a man and take care of this himself. No matter how terrifying it is.

Unless…

“Sora, the mast! The whistle!”

He can’t spare a glance to see if he understood. He launches directly at the flying opponent in a bid to distract him from Sora moving. It almost works, except the guy stabs out with his lance and hits him with a glancing blow. The scratch is superficial, but it’s quickly followed by the wound bursting into flames. Chopper yells in pain and surprise and falters over.

“Blow the whistle!”

The bird swoops past him. Frantically, he grabs its tail and drags it back around, sending its rider toppling off and onto the deck. The man turns to glare at him.

“Leave him alone!” Chopper lunges for him again, managing to land one punch. It’s no good, because wherever the lance drags, the ship bursts into flames. Then the bird opens its mouth and spews more flames, setting the rigging ablaze. He hears Sora scream.

“Sora!”

The scream cuts off. He tries to swat the fire away. Where is Sora?! He can’t see through the flames.

Faltering, then louder until it pierces the jungle, a whistle sounds.

Chopper manages to dash around the mast. Sora’s face is streaked with soot and tears and he’s cradling his left arm to himself, but he keeps blowing out sobbing little puffs of whistle. Chopper wants nothing more than to check on his arm and make sure he’s okay, but he has to deal with the immediate problem first.

“Great job, Sora! You did great! You can stop! The Sky Knight will come for sure, now, you can stop!”

He drops the whistle from his lips, replacing the breathy toots with gasping sobs. Chopper grits his teeth, scoops him up, and uses his other hand to wrench the grating leading to the bunkroom open. With as much precision as he can, he tosses Sora bodily down the hole to bounce roughly off of the couch below.

“Stay there until I come get you!”

He slams the grate shut. He’ll feel bad about manhandling him later. For now, he should be safe. Smoke rises instead of sinking, right? And it’s just the rigging and mast ablaze for now. He turns instead to the sneering man.

“Why fight the inevitable? I’ll kill you and then kill him just the same.”

“I won’t let you.” He firms his stance. He needs to stop the fire from spreading to the rest of the Merry, but more than anything, he needs to protect the grate that leads to Sora. “I won’t let you kill him, and I won’t let you burn this ship! I won’t let you hurt any of my friends!”

“You demand a lot of things, don’t you, boy? You can’t have anything in this life without sacrificing something.”

“Sure I can!” He takes a chance and dives for the flaming mast. The fire can’t spread if the mast is detached. He grips with all of his strength and pulls. He grits his teeth and forces out, “I… am… a... pirate…! And pirates… can take anything they want!”

The wood of the mast rips from his strength, and he swings the massive burning log at the guy. It misses, but he still manages to toss the burning mast over the side to roll down the stone steps and douse the flames in the cloudy lake with a massive burst of steam.

Chopper pants, stepping forward to cover the grate again with his body. The mast left singed patches in his fur and hopefully-superficial burns. He doesn’t have a plan yet for how to counter the guy’s flaming spear attacks or his fire-breathing bird, but that’s okay. He doesn’t have to win. He just has to protect Sora and keep the ship safe until help gets here.

He doesn’t really care who comes. The Sky Knight, Zoro, Luffy, Sanji… He doesn’t care who gets here first.

He growls again. “I’m a pirate! And this ship is mine! And pirates don’t give up their treasure for anyone!”

He prepares himself for the next onslaught.

--

“Did you hear that?”

Nami and Robin turn to him. They’d just made a major discovery – that Upper Yard is a piece of Jaya broken away and flung to the sky. It’s huge, it’s important, yeah, whatever, but Zoro’s craning his neck around the other way.

“Hear what?”

“I thought I heard a whistle.”

They share a look.

“Maybe you’re hearing things,” Nami says, even as she hurries to backtrack towards where they left the ship.

“Is that smoke?” Robin shades her eyes to try to peer above the canopy.

Zoro has a bad feeling about all of this.

“Let’s head back. Fast.”

Neither of the girls disagree. For all they’d hurried to make it this far, they go twice as fast on the return trip.

--

Sanji isn’t sure how long he’s knocked out by the impact attack. Hopefully it wasn’t that long. He still feels bruised and sore, and his mouth tastes like blood, but he’s ready to fight again.

Usopp’s back at it, too. He nods to their boat.

“Go get the Crow back. We’ll distract him.”

How they’re going to do that with the guy predicting their attacks, he doesn’t know. He only knows that he can’t afford to waste any more time here. Sora’s waiting for him. He’ll take a hundred impact attacks to get to him quickly.

“Luffy!”

He hops up the trees. Luffy shoots him a grin from his own tree branch. The captain looks like shit, bruised and dirty and bloodied, but he smiles like he’s having fun.

“Sanji, you’re back!”

“Hell yeah I am.” He stretches, feigning more confidence than he feels. “You ready to beat this fucker down?”

Luffy’s laugh is bright and loud. “Hell yeah!”

There’s not a lot of grace or strategy to their attacks. Luffy sets off as many mystery balls as Sanji avoids, sending innocuous balls and exploding balls in equal measure back to Sanji. It’s annoying, but it does give them the idea to use the idiot’s balls against him, herding him around the tree branches with increasing focus. The guy’s starting to look harried.

“Come out, Ball Dragon!”

He seriously roped a string of surprise balls together and calls it a finishing attack. He shares a look with Luffy. Time to end this guy.

It’s an easy enough affair now that they’re working together for Luffy to get in close and sneak past the guy’s weird predictive intuition. Once he’s in close, it’s child’s play for the rubber man to restrain him.

Sanji sits atop a harmless surprise ball and takes a minute to light a cigarette. He glares down at the Satori priest-guy.

“Ordeals? Gods? You think we give one shit about any of that? I’d have been happy to ignore you and go on my way except you dragged me into it.” He spews smoke out from between his clenched teeth in a parody of his stupid dragon. “Your fatal mistake was thinking a bunch of pirates gave two shits about anything your god has to say. And your final mistake was setting me up for this ordeal when my kid is waiting on me at the end of this road.”

He stands, then, feeling his scowl twist further and more menacing. “An ordeal you want? Then it’s an ordeal of love.”

“Ah, let me go! You guys are playing dirty, attacking two on one!”

“We’re pirates, dipshit.” Sanji takes another drag, warming to the subject, “You creeps kidnapped our friends. Made a pretty girl cry and tried to kill her. You have no right to say that we play dirty.”

“He’s right.” Luffy stretches enough to let the guy see his deranged grin. “It’s cool that you can predict our movements, but it doesn’t mean anything if you can’t avoid them, does it?”

The guys starts panicking, flailing around. “Idiots! Stop it! I’m one of the priests who serve God! Let me go!”

Sanji lets him scream, leisurely riding the cloud orb closer. He lets the guy see his own menacing grin as he gets closer.

He launches himself upward, high into the canopy. He could let it drop at that, but where would be the fun? Instead, he adds a spin, cranking up his body’s velocity and building force as he drops until he slams his heel down into the guy’s skull with a loud crack and a fountain of blood from his scalp ripping open. Luffy lets him drop, and they stand over his body for just a moment to soak in their violent victory.

Luffy turns to him with a bright grin. “Let’s go catch the boat! We’ve got to catch up to our friends!”

--

Relief comes in the form of the Sky Knight dropping down from the clouds to attack the priest on his bird.

Chopper’s singed and bloody and bruised, but he lets out a laugh as the priest’s attention is dragged away from him. He might be beaten up, but the fire hasn’t spread, and he hadn’t broken past him to the bunkroom. Chopper’s won this round.

In any case, the old guy and the priest seem to have history. Chopper keeps his guard up as they clash. He wants more than anything to get down the ladder and triage Sora, but too much rides on the victor of this fight. He can only watch as they exchange blows until the priest manages to knock Gan Fall and his weird bird down into the water.

Shit. Chopper braces himself to defend once again. The priest stares down at him from bird-back and scoffs.

“A couple of kids,” he mutters to himself just loudly enough for Chopper to hear. He raises his voice, then, “There’s no fun or honor in killing a couple of weeping children. I’ll wait until the rest of the sacrifices come back. Maybe then it’ll be a real challenge. Prepare yourself for that, reindeer boy!”

He flies away. Chopper can only wait, stunned, for the other shoe to drop. When nothing else happens, he almost relaxes, except – the Sky Knight and his bird are drowning!

He peers over the railing. There’s nothing he can do. He can’t swim. He can only watch helplessly as they drown. He’ll do them the honor of not looking away, at least. He owes them that much. So they don't die alone.

When the swarm of South Birds drag them out and drop them on the deck, proclaiming the Sky Knight as their god? He doesn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Instead, he needs to focus on triage.

Once he determines the knight is breathing unimpeded, he shelves his injuries for now and rips the hatch open.

“Sora!”

The boy’s hidden behind the couch. He’s still cradling his arm to himself and whimpering. It hurts Chopper’s heart to see it.

“Is he gone?”

“He’s gone.” Chopper nods. “Can you climb up by yourself?”

Sora whimpers more loudly. “My arm really hurts.”

Chopper nods again. “I’ll come get you. I’ll take care of your injuries. I promise!”

Even though he’s burnt and slashed and bruised, he still clambers down the ladder and carefully cradles Sora in his arms as he climbs painfully back up again.

“You were so brave,” he babbles as he goes, focused more on which medicine kit to grab, “You did so well, you’re so brave, I’m so sorry you got hurt, it’s okay…”

Sora cries quietly into the fur of his heavy point chest.

Thank any god except the weirdo with the murder priests that when he finally gets a good look at Sora’s arm, it’s not as bad as he expected. Still bad, a large first degree burn spanning the majority of his left forearm with some blistered spots of second degree burns where he must’ve directly touched the flames or the hot mast. Still, it could have been so much worse.

He has half a mind on the old knight’s injuries, but even as a doctor, he can’t stop himself from putting Sora first. He doesn’t think the old guy would mind. He gets Sora to drink down some liquid pain medicine and cleans his wounds before wrapping them with soothing ointment. Sora hasn’t stopped crying. The sobs, at least, have quieted to sniffles.

“I’ll be right back,” Chopper says.

He really needs to get to the old guy, but he can’t bear to leave Sora like this. He climbs down into the den and grabs his biggest, softest plushie and a soft quilt and brings it up. Once he has Sora draped in the blanket and curled around his shark, he backs away.

“I need to take care of the Sky Knight now, okay? Are you okay over here?”

Sora nods with his face pressed into his plushie.

Chopper sighs and turns back to the knight. His own injuries burn and throb, but he’ll be okay. They’re all alive, at least. He can work with that.

--

Sanji feels nothing but relief at first when the Crow finally comes out of the jungle into the opening of a lake with a massive stone structure on it. From here, he can see the distinct shape of the Merry’s figurehead. As they get closer, though, his stomach begins to sink.

Why’s the mast gone? And why is there the lingering scent of smoke?

“Hey, Sanji – Zoro, Nami, and Robin are on the shore,” Usopp says.

“Not the kids?”

Usopp shakes his head with a frown. “No, just the adults. Oi, Sanji, what are you doing?!”

“Pick them up,” he orders. He stands and launches himself into the lake and starts swimming for the altar.

“Sanji, the sharks!”

He didn’t forget about the sharks. He just doesn’t care. He sees their fins coming and ducks below the surface of the water. These sharks think they hold a candle to Fishmen from the Grand Line? Think again, fuckface. He kicks the heads in on three of them before the rest scatter. He surfaces and keeps swimming until he hits the stone staircase.

“Sora! Chopper!”

“We’re up here!”

That’s Chopper’s voice. He bounds up the stairs as fast as he can go and dashes up the damaged side of the ship. Once he clears the top and makes it to the deck, his stomach sinks all the way down to his feet.

The ship’s wrecked. It’s charred and splintered, with the mast ripped away roughly. Chopper’s in the middle of tending the wounds of the Sky Knight guy, and he looks rough and burnt, and Sora…

“Daddy!”

He throws himself to the deck and drags Sora into his arms, heedless of his own dripping clothes and the soot smearing his son. Sora’s wrapped in a quilt and crying and clutching his shark, and worse than that, there’s a fresh bandage wound around his arm, stark white against his soot-streaked skin.

“Sora, baby, Sora, what happened?” He’s babbling now, almost incoherent as he sniffs him all over and rubs his scent across him. “Talk to me, baby, are you okay?”

“Daddy, I was scared!”

There’s a commotion behind him as the rest of them catch up to the ship and exclaim over the damage and the injuries.

“What happened here?” Luffy asks.

“We were fixing the ship,” Chopper says, “and one of the priests from Upper Yard attacked us. Sora blew the whistle and called the Sky Knight here, but he hurt us both and did a bunch of damage to the Merry before the Sky Knight showed up.”

“Why were you here alone?” Sanji’s anxiety fizzles down to something cold as the question sinks in. He loosens his grip on Sora to turn an accusing glare on the three adults who were on the shore instead of the ship. “Where were you guys?”

Robin and Nami won’t quite meet his eyes. It’s Zoro who tilts his head up and answers, “We left to scout the area. We didn’t plan on being gone long.”

He looks queasy and guilty and his scent’s sour with distress, but Sanji can’t spare a shred of sympathy for him. It’s like his matter of fact answer lit a fire inside of him. As if in a trance, he sets Sora down and turns to Zoro. The swordsman meets his eyes looking tormented, and he is so distracted by his guilt that he almost fails to dodge the kick that whistles towards his head.

“Cook?!”

“I left him in your care,” Sanji says quietly.

“Cook…”

“I LEFT HIM WITH YOU!”

Sanji launches himself at Zoro again. The swordsman barely dodges the next three savage kicks sent his way. He looks stunned and hunted. Sanji’s never thrown kicks at him like this. If any of them connected, they’d break bone.

Sanji is… incandescent. His whole body feels hot, like he’s the one who should be bursting into flames. Sora whimpers behind him, and he’s scaring him, and he needs to stop, but it’s like his body is moving on its own. Zoro’s stumbling to avoid his attacks. He needs to hurt him.

“I left Sora with you! He was your responsibility! And you left him!”

“It was a mistake –“ Zoro begins.

“You don’t get to make mistakes. Not with this. Not with Sora!” He stumbles his next attempt at a kick. He’s vibrating all over with a growl. He doesn’t know if he’s going to scream or cry. He does a little of both. “Nothing else matters! Nothing! Sora is the most important thing. How could you leave him? How could –“

He stumbles again, and Zoro moves. Just a twitch towards him. And Sanji flinches. Braces for it. He’s gone and done it now. Challenged an alpha. Tried to hurt him. Screamed at him. He’s done these things before, but always with alphas he’s been able to beat. Zoro’s not one of them. He’s never been more than a hair better than him in any sparring match, and Zoro’s got him beat on sheer muscle mass and upper body strength. He wouldn’t make it easy for him, but he knows, deep down, that he’s not coming out on top if they get into an alpha-omega scuffle. So he braces for it. Ready for Zoro to snap. Ready for his big hands to grab his throat, slam him into the wall of the cabins and bash his skull into the wood. Ready for him to come down on him with his teeth to bite at his face and throat until he submits to him. Ready for it to hurt, even if maybe the others would step in before it went too far, because a man like Zoro could do so much damage in just a handful of seconds, and Sanji’s just given him an open invitation to do so.

Nothing happens.

Zoro’s hands twitch towards him as if on reflex before they drop back down to his sides. He moves, but not closer. No, he sinks down to his knees on the deck. Averts his eyes from Sanji and tilts his head back to expose the entire vulnerable expanse of his throat.

And he speaks.

“I’m sorry.”

Two simple words.

Sanji stands there, struck dumb. He’s still hurt and frightened and so, so angry at Zoro and the others for leaving Sora to get hurt, but he can’t seem to move now. This isn’t in the script. He doesn’t fly off the handle and fling blame at an alpha and have the alpha apologize. Much less submit to him.

Zoro keeps his eyes averted. His voice soft. “Is Sora okay?”

“He’s okay,” Chopper answers from behind Sanji. He just sounds tired. “A little second degree burn, but mostly first degree. It might not even scar if we keep it wrapped well enough. He’s okay.”

“Sanji, no more fighting,” Luffy says, appearing in his vision to stand between him and Zoro.

When did he start trembling?

“Daddy?”

He hisses in a deep breath and grasps at the last straws of his self-control. He can break down later. He gives Zoro one last baffled and wounded look before he turns the full force of his attention onto his child. Sora looks frightened and hurt and confused, and he needs him right now. Not his rage, not his fear. He needs him to hold it together and be comforting and strong for him.

He sits on the deck and tucks Sora into his lap, blanket and plushie and all, and tries to cry silently enough that the kid doesn’t notice it.

Chapter Text

The process of setting up camp comes to him as a blur.

He’s not sure how present he is for the process, really. He thinks Zoro and Robin do most of the heavy lifting. That Usopp and Luffy build the fire. Nami pitches a couple of tents. He, himself, ends up with a big cauldron of stew stock and his handy water distillery to sanitize some drinking water for them. He’d probably decided on the stew and water purification himself. He simply doesn’t remember making these decisions.

Sora’s just as quiet as he is. The two of them cling to one another. Sora in shock from being hurt and left alone. Sanji from all of that and his terrifying encounter with Zoro on top of it.

He’d thought he was done being scared of Zoro. He’d been a fool to think so. How sure can he be of anyone until he’s pushed them to their limit? And then he had. Pushed every button he knew to ignite the alpha’s rage, and Zoro simply… accepted his accusations and submitted to judgement. He hadn’t even looked like he was tempted to force Sanji to submit.

How peculiar.

--

The cook’s doing the thing again. That thing where his body keeps going but there’s nobody home behind his eyes.

“Dissociation,” Chopper’s voice echoes in his head from an earlier explanation.

Fancy term or not, he hates it.

At the very least it gives them the chance to talk about the cook without him noticing. He’s too busy chopping vegetables and periodically pawing at Sora and staring into space to really seem to notice them gossiping about him on the other end of the clearing.

“– I made what I thought was a logical choice,” Zoro says quietly, finishing his report to Luffy. He rolls his shoulders uncomfortably. “I take responsibility.”

“That’s not the full story,” Robin cuts in. She’s been quiet, too, since they returned. She meets Luffy’s eyes. “I was the one who wished to explore, and I was the one who insisted we bring the navigator. I was selfishly interested in the history here. I let myself be distracted by that and failed to put the wellbeing of our smallest crewmates first. I apologize.”

“It’s my fault,” Chopper adds. He looks awful, fur all singed and ragged, with hasty bandages covering the worst of his injuries. Injuries he wouldn’t have gotten if Zoro had been there. He looks away, listening as the reindeer tearily continues, “I should have been more firm! Zoro told us what to do, and we didn’t listen, and I should have been more responsible and taken care of Sora, but I didn’t! I let him stay in the open and he could have been seriously injured or killed! Sanji’s never going to forgive me!”

“He’ll forgive you,” Nami says. She hasn’t been meeting anyone’s eyes. “He won’t forgive me, though. I should have let Zoro turn us back sooner. We didn’t need to confirm my theory then and there. I could have waited. It’s my fault.”

Usopp swivels his head between all the speakers, following their stories. He’s uncharacteristically quiet. His eyes dart over to the cook and the kid periodically. He glances now at Luffy.

Luffy crosses his arms and frowns. “So, Zoro shouldn’t have left the ship. Robin shouldn’t have made you go. Nami shouldn’t have gone, too. Chopper should have made Sora stay in the galley. And Sanji shouldn’t have tried to kick Zoro’s head off.”

Zoro’s shaking said head before he can finish. “No, it’s fine.”

“Not fine. We’re a crew. We need to fix this before we get bad again, like when Robin first came. Everybody just needs to apologize to each other!”

“I don’t know if it’s that simple…”

“Sure it is! You’re all sorry, right? And Sanji’s gonna be sorry, too, when he wakes up again, because he always thinks too much and he’s gonna think it’s his fault because he’s kind of dumb.” Luffy nods decisively. “Once Sanji comes back, we’re all going to fix it. Sora’s going to be okay, too, right, Chopper?”

“Physically, he’ll be fine, but Luffy, kids aren’t supposed to almost die like that. He’s traumatized!”

Zoro winces. It’s true but hearing it out loud is jarring.

“We’ll take care of it. Usopp, come with me. Zoro, Chopper, go find stuff for Sanji to cook.” Luffy gives Zoro a significant look. “I’ve got this. You go.”

If anything, it’s a relief to have a simple order to follow.

--

Luffy chews on his lip. The whole camp smells bad. Sanji’s stopped spewing unhappy pheromones since his brain started hiding, but he still stinks like scared-sad omega. Sora doesn’t smell as strong because he’s just a kid, but he also stinks. Then he adds in how Zoro and Robin and Nami smell and their sad faces... Ugh, it makes his skin crawl.

“What are we going to do, Luffy?”

Luffy musters a smile for Usopp. “We’re gonna bring Sanji back.”

Usopp makes a face like he doesn’t believe him, but that’s fine. Usopp’s the only one here that Sanji can’t be mad at, so this is perfect. He grabs Usopp’s hand and drags him to the fire.

“Sanji! San-ji!”

Sanji looks up from the potato in his hand. His eyes look fuzzy, but not the nice fuzzy Usopp had told him about from Alabasta. No, this is a bad fuzzy. He’s gotta fix this.

“I gotta scent with Sora,” Luffy announces confidently. “I’m the captain, so I gotta. Can I do it?”

Sanji blinks slowly, but he nods. He turns to Sora and nudges him gently.

“Hey, Sora? Luffy wants to scent.”

Sora sits up straighter and yawns. Oops, Luffy didn’t know he’d fallen asleep. Too late now. He catches Usopp’s eye and points to Sanji firmly before crouching down.

“Hey, Sora. Can I cuddle?”

Sora nods and holds his arms up. That’s all the invitation Luffy needs to plop down cross-legged onto the dirt and pull Sora in close. He smells like smoke and sweaty hair. Luffy scrubs his cheek over the top of his head before rubbing the scent gland under his chin over him.

“You had a scary adventure today, huh?”

Over Sora’s head, he sees and half-hears Usopp talking to Sanji quietly. He’s in good hands, then.

Sora’s voice is small when he answers, “It was really scary.”

Luffy hums. He’s not mad at anyone, really. Everyone thought they were doing the right thing. He’s not even mad that Zoro’s blaming himself or that Sanji tried to kick him really hard or anything like that. He’s upset and sad, sure. Just not mad.

“I bet it was. Chopper said you were really brave and cool, though!”

Sora shakes his head. “Wasn’t.”

“You was, too. You blew the whistle, right?”

Sora nods.

“That’s really cool! You really helped Chopper out. I’m sorry you got burnt, though. I bet it hurts.”

Hesitant little hands reach out and hug Luffy back. He grins on top of the kid’s head.

“It feels better now. Chopper gave me medicine.”

“Chopper makes really good medicine. Did it taste bad?”

“Kinda.”

“Good medicine always tastes bad. Someone told me that once.”

Sora nods. “Jiji says that, too.”

“Smart guy. Hey, Sora, where’s your hat?”

Sora reaches up and touches his own head like he’d forgotten he wasn’t wearing it. He tilts his head up further to frown at Luffy.

“I think I left it on the ship. In the – in the galley.”

His lip’s beginning to wobble. Luffy distracts him by plucking his own hat off his head and plopping it down onto Sora.

“You can borrow mine for now!”

“Your special Shanks hat?”

Luffy nods. “Yeah! You can wear it until you get yours back tomorrow, okay? I know you’ll take good care of it!”

Sora runs his fingers over the worn straw brim. He tilts his head up again and nods. “I will!”

Luffy squeezes him tighter for a second. “That’s good. Tomorrow we’ll have more adventures.”

“…scary adventures?”

“Maybe.” Luffy’s not going to lie to him. “But you’ve got your dad with you now, and the crew’s not going to leave you alone again. If that bird guy comes back, we’ll beat him up! You think his bird tastes good?”

Sora was looking conflicted about their conversation, but now his nose scrunches in distaste. “The bird looked dreadful.”

He must’ve learned that word from Sanji. Luffy laughs and hugs him tighter. He doesn’t think he’s fixed everything with just one talk, but he helped. He’s not going to be a bad captain again. He’s going to get his crew through this.

--

Safely out of sight and scent and hearing of the cook, Zoro finally lets out a growl of frustration.

Chopper gives him a look from his herb collecting but doesn’t ask. Zoro’s grateful for it. He needs a minute to just… think.

He’s not usually one to dwell on things once they’ve happened, but today is an exception. He’d give anything to go back and make different choices. He wouldn’t leave the kids alone. He wouldn’t stay in the jungle for so long. Hell, he’d make Sora stay with Sanji instead of keeping him close and having him get kidnapped alongside them by that damned lobster.

He can’t change his choices or his actions. He can only move forward.

He stabs a rat with his sword a little too forcefully. He nearly bisects the poor thing. Some part of his alpha instincts is soothed by the action of hunting and collecting food for the object of his affections. Another part is roiling in turmoil. He’s not proud of it, but there was a solid moment today where he’d seriously considered hurting the cook.

He wants to blame adrenaline. The cook had been kicking out at him with intent to harm. Screaming tearful accusations. There had been one horrible moment where he’d felt his temper flare and he’d almost stepped forward to meet the cook head-on. To do what? He’s afraid of the answer. Just for a second there he’d been guilty and angry and resentful and the thought of getting his fists onto the cook and putting him in his place had sprung up vicious and cruel and horrifying in his head.

He hadn’t. He wouldn’t. He would never.

But the fact that it had even felt like a possibility for a second makes him feel twice as guilty and sick.

He’d instead copied what he remembered of how Robin had handled fighting with Luffy. Staying loose and calm and submissive. Avoiding and redirecting instead of defending or attacking back. And when he’d had the opportunity, he’d thrown his all into it and gone for a full submission pose and apologized. He didn’t know what else to do.

Luckily, it had worked. It’d startled the cook out of his rage, at least, and knocked that face he’d made when Zoro had moved right off. He doesn’t want to remember that face, either. Not fear, exactly. Just a kind of resignation. Like he’d already accepted that Zoro was going to do something horrible to him, and he’d chosen to endure it rather than run from it.

He skewers a frog with far too much force. Dammit. Useless fucking hunter he is, all he can find is frogs and rats. Not exactly the gourmet cuts of meat he’d rather be bringing back as a peace offering. Not every offering can be a dinosaur, but still. Fucking frogs?

Unbidden, he remembers a memory that feels like a lifetime ago. The cook standing on the beach, framed in the sunlight, smiling at him with his offering of flowers in his hands.

Fuck.

He thumps his back into a tree trunk and slides down to slump at the base.

Fuck, but that’s it, huh? How incredibly fucking jarring to go from his heart fluttering at Sanji looking so soft and happy from something that Zoro did to looking at him like he’s about to prove every violent preconception he’d had right. How awful to look at himself and see the capacity for ugly cruelty lurking in there. He’d just been so startled, so frightened, so offended that he’d had to step in and take the blame for Sora’s injury all onto his own shoulders when it hadn’t felt fair – it still wasn’t fair, and he’s still not particularly happy that the girls kept their mouths shut. Ultimately, he’s glad he redirected Sanji’s anger onto himself, but it still hurts. And it still frightens him that he could look at the cook for even a moment and consider using his omega instincts to force him into submission. It makes him sick.

“Zoro? You okay?”

“I’m fine, Chopper,” he says automatically.

He hopes that’ll be the end of it, but the reindeer takes that as an invitation to sit next to him.

“Sora’s going to be okay,” the doctor says.

“Just traumatized,” he says bitterly.

Chopper sighs. After a moment, he leans closer to rest his weight against Zoro’s side.

“Between you and me? Sora was already traumatized when he joined the crew.”

Zoro blinks. That doesn’t sound right. “Sora? Our Sora? What are you talking about? Curly’d wrap him up and stick him in a box if he could.”

Chopper sighs again. Zoro can’t see his face from this angle – just the brim of his hat. He wonders what face he’s making. He sounds tired and too old for his years.

“I’m not saying Sanji hasn’t taken care of him. I’m just saying, there’s no way he’s seen everything he’s seen and isn’t even a little traumatized. I’m not sure how to bring it up to Sanji… He tries so hard to take care of Sora that I’m afraid telling him that Sora might not be doing well emotionally would just upset him.”

Zoro makes a questioning sound.

“Well,” Chopper goes on to explain, sounding lost in thought, “Sora’s had to see his primary parent in very stressful situations and obviously afraid and hurt frequently as he was growing. And even his home, the Baratie – from the stories he tells me, the restaurant got attacked by pirates quite a lot. So even though Sanji and his family did their best and took care of all of his physical needs, they might not have been able to provide adequate safety and stability for Sora to really flourish. Adding in the fact that he’s never socialized with children his own age for longer than a day…”

Chopper glances up and blanches at whatever face Zoro is making. “Really, though, Sanji did a good job under the circumstances! I’m not saying he’s a bad parent! Or that Sora already being traumatized makes him being more traumatized okay! It’s just – I don’t want you to feel like it’s all your fault if he has a hard time processing today! It’s not your fault! Everyone makes mistakes!”

Zoro sighs and stops the reindeer’s rambling by pressing his hand to the back of his head. “Chopper, it’s fine. I get what you’re saying.”

Chopper nods. He still looks sad. “It’s not all your fault. I should have been more responsible. It’s my fault Sora was out on the deck and got hurt.”

“Hey. You just said yourself: everyone makes mistakes.” Zoro can’t lie and say he wasn’t a little mad at Chopper when he first found out that he’d enabled Sora to be out in the open when he’d specifically told them to keep him safe and inside. He’d quickly gotten over it. There’s no point in dwelling. Chopper’s just a kid himself, and he already feels like shit about it. Zoro can put his frustration aside.

He stands and pulls Chopper to his feet. “Okay, little guy, let’s head back. What’d you find?”

“Aloe and bananas and garlic!”

“Ah. Well, if anybody can make a meal out of some rats and frogs and bananas, it’d be the cook.”

“Okay!” Chopper hugs his basket to himself and falls in step to walk beside Zoro. He glances up cutely from under the brim of his hat. “Thanks for listening, Zoro. You won’t tell Sanji what I said about Sora, will you?”

“Nah. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Thanks, Zoro.”

Zoro nods and rolls his shoulders when Chopper looks away. Time to find out which version of the cook they’re getting when they get back to camp.

--

“ – so really, I just don’t think sautéing is all it’s cracked up to be. I think it’s a ploy from bookbinders to pad out cookbooks with extra steps and charge more for their services.”

Sanji blinks.

Usopp keeps talking, “I’m just saying, I’ve never once seared meat before stewing it and I don’t see the difference at all.”

Sanji’s not sure, exactly, how they got to this point, but he’s awake now and he has to put a stop to this. He reaches out unthinkingly and baps Usopp lightly on the forehead with the wooden spoon in his hand.

“Usopp,” he says firmly, “please stop talking.”

Usopp leans in closer to him, peering into his eyes suspiciously before he leans back out of his space with a bright grin. “Sanji! You’re back!”

He’d like to say that he was here the whole time, but he’s not actually sure about that. Everything between fighting with Zoro and now slips through his fingers hazily. He must’ve had an episode.

It’s never fun, coming out of one of these episodes. He hates not knowing what he did or said or if anything important happened when his brain was away. He surreptitiously looks around himself. Forest, not the Merry. Big pot of stew in front of him and the evidence of potatoes and carrots and onions having been peeled and chopped. To his other side, Sora’s asleep in Luffy’s lap with a too-large straw hat on his head. Luffy catches him looking and smiles widely. He lifts his finger up in a shushing gesture.

“What did I miss?”

Usopp’s grin stays in place. “Nothing much, really. The girls set up camp, and Zoro and Chopper are out for ingredients. We didn’t have any meat for the stew.”

Oh. Meatless stew is a problem. From what he can smell, zoned-out-Sanji still managed to make a hearty broth with generous lumps of vegetables. It looks like he even thickened it with his stash of powdered milk. Extra protein and flavor. Good job, zoned-out-Sanji.

“Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone’s fine.” Usopp scoots closer and throws an arm over his shoulder so he can nuzzle him. “This okay?”

Just the simple act of touching and smelling Usopp is already soothing him. He answers by nuzzling him back. Man, he really loves Usopp. The beta man’s been such a cornerstone for him and so patient. Once they’re out of this jungle, he’s making him extra snacks. Maybe the spicy pepper jerky he’d liked that one time. If he can keep it away from Luffy, it’s something he can keep for a while.

He glances around the camp again. The ladies are sat outside one of the tents, scribbling on what looks like a map. They’ve positioned themselves downwind of him. Is he reading too much into it? Maybe it was coincidence. If not, it makes him anxious that they’re hiding their scent from him.

Their stricken faces flash before his eyes again. He grimaces. He shouldn’t have flown off the handle like that. He probably frightened them. He definitely frightened Sora and Usopp. He frightened himself. What had he been thinking, trying to hurt Zoro? They’re trapped in a dangerous situation – they need all the fighters they have, and he’d freaked out and tried to incapacitate one of their strongest. So what if his heart had been seizing with anxiety? So what if he’d felt like he wasn’t really piloting his own body? He should have been better than that. He’s horrified when he feels his eyes start filling with tears.

“Whoah, hey, Sanji?”

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

“What is Sanji sorry for?” Luffy speaks quietly so as not to wake Sora, but loudly enough to be heard.

He feels small and stupid again, like the dumb teenager he’d been in the past, putting all his shit onto Zeff and the guys. After all this time, he’d hoped he would feel tougher. Instead, he’s just the same pathetic burden he’s always been.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. He sniffles and flinches when Usopp’s hand appears in peripheral with a clean handkerchief. Hesitantly, he takes it and holds it to his dripping nose. “I’m sorry, Luffy, I… It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have come on this journey in the first place. I should have – I knew it was dangerous, but I was selfish and brought Sora anyway, and now he’s hurt and it’s my fault and I blamed everybody else, and now Zoro’s gonna hate me…”

“Sanji,” Luffy says firmly. He waits until the cook looks at him before he shakes his head. “Don’t be dumb.”

“Captain –“

“Stop. Sanji, you’re a pirate. Sora’s a pirate, too. Being a pirate is dangerous, but it’s also fun. Chef-guy wanted you to go, right? He told me you were not happy at the restaurant because you needed to go to the sea, and if you left Sora, he’d be sad, too. Sora’s gonna be okay now. Chopper says he’s not hurt bad. And now we know we’ve gotta be even more careful, so we’re gonna take even better care of him because we’re crew. Crew takes care of each other. So don’t be sad, okay?”

Sanji sniffles pathetically.

Luffy hums and rubs his chin. He brightens up. “Oh yeah! And Zoro’s not gonna hate you. Zoro loves you! Zoro feels bad, too, and he just wants everyone to be safe and happy! So we’re all going to apologize and it’s all going to be better.”

He makes it sound so simple. He opens his mouth to say so and is silenced with another look.

“We’re crew,” Luffy repeats seriously. “Crew will take care of each other, and we forgive each other when we make mistakes. Understand?”

All he can do is nod. Usopp squeezes him to his side, and he inhales the warm scent of him and campfire smoke and stew bubbling in the pot, and it’s hard to hold onto all the anxiety. Just this once, he wants to trust in their captain and let him take charge of things.

They’re not left alone for long. Chopper bounds over a log with a basket in hand, followed closely by Zoro.

“Sanji! I found ingredients!”

He wipes his face again with his handkerchief and musters a smile. “Chopper. Hey, buddy, what did you find?”

“Aloe for medicine, and garlic and bananas for dinner!”

…Okay, he can make garlic and bananas work. He sneaks a glance at Zoro to see the mossball avoiding his gaze. He’s got several limp rats and frogs dangling from his fists.

“Are those for the stew?”

Zoro tenses and nods. “…Yeah. All I could find.”

He sounds so defeated. Sanji feels his heart lurch despite himself.

“It’s fine. You ever eaten rat or frog before? It’s not bad.”

Zoro glances at Luffy and shuffles closer to where the four of them are sitting. “If you’re cooking it, there’s no way it’ll taste bad.”

Sanji’s heart flutters. There’s anxiety there. He’s still feeling shy and wrong-footed for his outburst at Zoro, about how close he could have come to being hurt and humiliated and how disarming it is that nothing had happened. There’s a different shyness there, too. Zoro presents the meat he’d hunted for him at his feet, and he feels touched on a primal level. Zoro had gone out to bring this back for him. It’s just rats and frogs, but he’d still gone out and hunted for him to bring food back for him to cook and share with the pack. He’s still looking up at him from where he’s crouched to deposit his catch, his eyes almost obscured by his thick eyelashes, profile glowing in the firelight. It feels weighted in a way that frightens him as much as it intrigues him.

And he hasn’t even unpacked how he feels about the choices that led to Sora getting hurt. He still hasn’t heard the whole story. All he has solidly under his feet is the knowledge that Sora is okay and safe in their captain’s arms, and Zoro’s given him both an apology and an act of service.

“Help me prepare them?”

He’s surprised by his own request. Zoro looks surprised, too, but he just nods. Usopp moves away slightly so Sanji can move, and he takes a knife to show Zoro how to skin the rats and clean out their insides before he leaves him to it to prepare the frog legs himself.

“We can save the guts and bits for fish bait,” Sanji tells Usopp as he works. “Maybe we can catch something fresh tomorrow to cook.”

“That would be nice,” Usopp says. He’s looking away queasily. Sanji doesn’t blame him. Butchery isn’t for everyone. “You ate frogs and rats before?”

Sanji hums. “Yeah, I’ve eaten pretty much anything I can get my hands on. Zeff wanted me to have the best palate possible. I drew the line at bugs, though. I just can’t. I’d have to be starving again before I could.”

Mentioning starving always kills the mood, but that’s okay. He debones the meat and adds it to the pot and sets some of the garlic to roasting in the coals. Zoro disappears as soon as the butchery is done, but when Sanji looks around it’s to find that he’s just gone to the lake to wash his hands and bring back another bucket of wash water. He even washes up the knives and cutting board carefully while Sanji cooks. He feels another spike of guilt.

Sora wakes up as the stew is finishing. He scrambles out of Luffy’s arms once he realizes that his dad’s not sitting nearby anymore, whirling around until he spots him standing by the fire.

“Dad!”

“Hey, baby,” he says tiredly. Sora grabs onto his legs like a little baby monkey and starts trying to climb him until Sanji has to laugh and haul him up onto his hip. “Was your nap good?”

Sora nods. “Luffy’s comfy.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” He lowers his voice. “How’s your arm?”

“It’s okay,” he says. He nuzzles his cheek into the scent gland on Sanji’s neck, which lets him know exactly how stressed he still is. He doesn’t usually attack him so directly. “You done cooking?”

“I was going to make some more bentos with these other things.”

“Can I help?”

“Of course, baby.”

He sets Sora down and stirs the stew one more time before joining his son at their makeshift work station. The act of cooking even just bentos with his son settles his nerves more. Sora’s still got a full range of motion in his hand and arm and doesn’t seem overly hampered by his injury. He still smiles when Sanji passes him chopped vegetables to arrange and sticks his tongue out in concentration as he tries to make pretty patterns in the bento.

“They look good,” he praises.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Usopp, what do you think?”

Usopp leans over and swoons dramatically. “Oh my! Am I in the presence of a master chef? I haven’t seen a bento so perfect since the time I flew in a flying balloon up to the mountain kingdom of master lunchbox preparers. There, I had to battle them for the title of master bento maker and was nearly defeated by an ancient master!”

Sanji huff a quiet laugh as Usopp warms up to his story and Chopper scoots over to listen. The kids are both enthralled by his tales even when Sora has to occasionally pipe up to correct some detail about the cooking. Usopp’s good at rolling with the criticism – “I was just checking to see if you were paying attention!” – and it soothes him even more to see the two injured kids enjoying themselves. He slips away to fish out a bit of meat from the stew to test for tenderness. It could use a little longer, but stomachs are rumbling and it’s only slightly less than perfect. He grabs a stack of bowls.

“Soup’s on,” he calls.

Luffy’s quick to bound over with a cheer. Sanji rolls his eyes and doesn’t bother to warn him about the heat – the idiot slurps half a bowl down before he starts yelling about how hot it is. He’s not worried. With his rubber body, minor burns like that don’t phase him for long. He dishes out bowls for everyone, even the shame-faced ladies and taciturn swordsman who look hesitant to accept his kindness.

He’s just sitting down with his own bowl when Luffy stands in the middle of their circle and taps his spoon against his bowl for attention.

“Okay, crew,” he says with sudden gravity, “it’s time to talk.”

Instantly, the clearing fills with tension. Luffy raises an eyebrow and looks at each of them in turn.

“We had a bad day today,” he says. He gestures at all of them. “Everyone made mistakes and feels bad, and Chopper and Sora both got hurt. It doesn’t feel good. We’re all going to say sorry now.”

He nods wisely and waits.

Robin is the first one to break the silence. She angles her body towards Sanji. “Sanji. I am sorry. It was primarily my decision to leave the Merry and explore the surrounding jungle. I let my excitement about the historical ruins cloud my judgement, and it’s my fault that your son was in a position to be injured.”

He doesn’t have time to accept her apology before Zoro cuts in, “Bullshit. I was the one who suggested we go in the first place. It’s my fault we left at all.”

“I was going to leave the ship regardless. I doubt you would have let me leave alone, so in a way, I did force your hand.”

“It still would have been my choice.”

“In any case –“

Luffy cuts her off with a loud noise. “No more blame! Robin, are you sorry you left the ship?” She nods. “And Zoro, are you sorry you left the ship?”

“Yeah, but –“

“No buts! You’re sorry. Do you forgive each other?”

Warily, the two alphas eye each other before hesitantly nodding. Luffy beams.

“Good! Sanji, do you forgive Robin?”

Put on the spot, he can only blink for a moment. “Um… Yes? I mean, studying ruins is her life’s work, right? I guess I understand why she wanted to go.”

Luffy nods. “Zoro, why did you leave the ship?”

It’s the alpha’s turn to look startled. “I wanted to scout the surroundings for danger. The lake was full of sharks. Who knows what else was in the jungle? I also wanted to see if the river connected to an ocean anywhere close so if we did get the Merry down, we’d know how far we were from getting out of here. I didn’t plan on taking so long.”

“That was my fault.” Nami stares down into her stew bowl, stirring it listlessly. “I held us up. I theorized that Upper Yard was part of Jaya, and I made us keep going until I found evidence that it was true. I ended up delaying us, and while we were gone… Sora and Chopper…”

“It would have been fine if I made Sora stay hidden!” Chopper’s eyes are already filling with tears. “It was my fault! I didn’t think the priest guy would fly in and be that fast, so I thought I had time to make him hide if something was coming, but I should have been more responsible! He wouldn’t have gotten hurt if I hadn’t let him stay in the open!”

“He wouldn’t have gotten hurt if I’d been there!” Zoro’s growling now.

“And we’d have been there if I hadn’t made us stop!”

The tension is ratcheting up and starting to turn into a full-blown argument. Sora huddles closer to Sanji and he feels his own anger rising. Luffy cuts a glance at him and smirks at what he sees. He stands up.

“Everybody, shut up!”

They all freeze, staring at their cook. He clears his throat.

“Pardon me, ladies.”

They nod dumbly.

“We could argue about this all night. It sounds like everybody fucked up, and that sucks, but Luffy’s right. We can’t keep blaming each other like this. The reality is that we’re still in danger out here. There’s still those fucking priests and ‘god’ or whatever waiting to kill us, and I’m not letting any of us die because we can’t stop being at each other's throats.”

He gestures at all of them in turn. “I’m mad at each of you for different reasons, sure, but you sound like you’re sorry and you know the consequences of fucking up now. I forgive you. Just… I’m also sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my temper the way I did.”

A chorus of voices speak up to reassure him and he holds up a hand to stop them.

“I don’t take it back. It’s true, Sora is the most important thing to me. If we’re ever in a position to pick him or me, it’s him, okay?” He sits back down and hugs his kid closer to him with one arm, the other hand still holding onto his stew bowl in a death grip. He tilts his chin up challengingly. “So, I’m sorry I blew up and I’m sorry I let my fucked up issues take over, but I’m not sorry for getting angry.”

“It’s okay,” Luffy says, stepping in again. “We can all be mad, but we still love each other, right?”

A chorus of agreements.

“And if we run into those priests tomorrow, we’re going to kick their asses!”

A more enthusiastic round of agreements at that.

They relax a bit after that, tucking into their stew with gusto. Sanji watches Chopper feed Gan Fall and his bird over in their corner before his attention’s caught by Nami and Robin explaining what they’ve deduced about the sky islands and their theories about the lost city of gold. It sounds like tomorrow will bring adventure with it. He shudders and holds Sora closer. He’s not letting him out of his sight again.

True to his word, he takes Sora with him when he hauls their stock pot down to the lake to scrub it out. Sora sits on the bank safely out of range of any sky sharks dumb enough to test him again and watches him clean their dishes and utensils as well.

“Hey Dad…”

“What, baby?” He only pays half an ear to him, shoulder deep in the pot with a cleaning rag.

“I’m sorry…”

He straightens at that and turns to frown at him. “What are you sorry about?”

Sora peers at him from under Luffy’s hat and looks away, tugging the hem of his shirt nervously. His lip wobbles. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to Chopper and Mr. Zoro.”

Sanji chucks the pot up onto the bank and moves to sit beside him. “Baby?”

Sora’s lip wobbles more, and he’s suddenly crying, hugging his arms around himself. “I’m sorry! I know I should have listened to Mr. Zoro! I wasn’t trying to be bad!”

“Oh, baby, come here.” He yanks him in and smothers his sobs into his chest, shushing and knocking the hat aside to kiss his hair. “Baby, I’m not mad at you.”

“But I was bad!”

“Baby, listen.” He pulls away to make eye contact seriously. “Sora, baby, you are five years old.”

“…five and a half…”

“Five and a half,” he amends. He shakes his shoulder gently. “I agree, you should have listened to Mr. Zoro if he was trying to keep you safe, but Mr. Zoro shouldn’t have put you in that position in the first place. Do you understand? If I told you not to go into the kitchen and play with my knives, and you did anyway and got hurt, I would be mad. You know why?”

“Because it’s against the rules.”

“That’s right. You know the rules and you know knives are dangerous, and we’ve talked about how to stay safe. If you chose to do it anyway, I would be mad because I know you know better than to do that, right?”

Sora nods.

“This was different. Mr. Zoro didn’t know what would happen. Neither did Chopper. Following his rules would have been smart, but you didn’t really know why he made the rules or what would have happened if you didn’t follow them, and you didn’t know how long he was going to be gone. I’m not mad that you made a mistake because the situation wasn’t really fair to you. You’re just a kid. It was Mr. Zoro’s job to keep you safe, and he didn’t do a good job with it.”

“Are you still mad at Mr. Zoro?”

The million berry question. Sanji sighs. “I’m not sure, baby. I think I’ll feel better about it once I sleep on it. I do feel bad that I tried to kick him and that I yelled at him.”

Sora nods and hugs himself. “You were scary.”

Sanji hugs him again, both to comfort him and so he doesn’t see the agonized look on his face. “I’m so sorry, baby. I didn’t want to scare you. I was very scared and worried, and I lost my temper. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. You get scared and worried lots.”

Ouch. That one hurt. He squeezes him tighter.

“I’m sorry, baby. I’m trying to be better, okay?”

Sora hums noncommittally. Sanji sighs and squeezes him one more time.

“Let’s finish up here and go back to camp, okay? I found a little chocolate from the ship to go with the grilled bananas. Does that sound good?”

Sora rubs his eyes and nods. Sanji smiles sadly and plops the hat back on his head. He haphazardly finishes his scrubbing and hauls the dishes back, checking every few feet to be sure Sora’s following him. The clearing is warmer and brighter as they approach. He’s not surprised, then, when they come through the trees and see that the boys have built a massive bonfire.

“Something like this is just going to attract dangerous animals!” Nami is screeching at them.

Sanji snorts and sets the cookware down, taking Sora’s hand to lead him to the smaller cooking fire where he’d left the bananas roasting in the coals. Nami and the boys keep arguing as Sanji takes some tongs and retrieves the bananas. Chopper and Robin both join them to watch him peel the desserts into a bowl, crumbling chocolate over the ones for Sora and Chopper.

“Here you go, kids.”

He and Robin sit by the fire on their heels and watch Sora and Chopper excitedly scamper off to sit on a tree root together with their treats. He’s happy that despite the stress and their injuries, they’re able to enjoy something as simple as a dessert and each other’s company.

“Are you well, Sanji?”

He glances at Robin. She still looks guilty, but he’s satisfied with Luffy’s forced apology. He gives her a wan smile.

“It’s just been a long day.”

She nods. “I did take the liberty of making sure your flowers were secured. I know that’s probably the least of your priorities right now, but I didn’t wish for one of the few good things that happened today to be soured.”

He’d nearly forgotten the flowers. The afternoon feels like a lifetime ago now. “Oh, thank you.”

“I will still help you press them when we’ve safely left Skypeia.”

“Thank you,” he says again. His eyes stray to where Zoro stands with his arms crossed letting Nami yell at him over something. His stomach lurches nervously.

“He feels terrible about what happened.” Robin follows his gaze.

“I know he does.”

“I hope you will not treat yourself too harshly. We’ve all made mistakes today.” She smiles, a tiny thing. “The swordsman cares a lot about you, you know?”

He nods. He knows Zoro cares. The big lug cares about all of them, and he knows he’s bonded especially with the kids. He’s beating himself up about it. Sanji’s just not ready to be the one to comfort him.

“Wolves! I told you this was going to happen!”

Sanji sits up straighter, on high alert. Their camp is suddenly tense with the feeling of being watched. Chopper pats Sora on the back and marches over to where Nami, Luffy, and Zoro stand with what seems to be the leader to translate. Sora scuttles over to cling to Sanji with a wary look on his face.

Sanji can’t quite hear the words exchanged, but he does wince when Nami slams her fist into the wolf’s head and shouts at him until he cowers. The wolf somehow makes a face just like a sleazy human guy, and Chopper shouts, “The wolves have accepted Nami as their alpha!”

Sanji blinks and turns to Robin, finding a similarly bemused look on her face.

More wolves pour into the clearing, and it becomes obvious quickly that they have no ill intentions. Sanji scoots out of the way with Sora to watch as they pull out makeshift instruments and begin to dance around the firelight.

“I don’t think this is normal wolf behavior…”

Sora sticks the last spoonful of warm banana and chocolate in his mouth and watches the dancing with eyes as big and round as saucers. He sets the bowl aside and tugs anxiously on Sanji’s sleeve.

“Can we dance with them, Dad?”

He hesitates, but… Nami’s become drinking buddies with some of them. Luffy and Usopp and Chopper have already joined in, laughing and whooping like maniacs. Zoro and Robin hang on the fringes with Gan Fall, content to watch. It doesn’t feel dangerous, and after the stress of the last several hours, he finds his inhibitions are looser than they’d normally be. He gives Sora a smile.

“Sure, let’s dance.”

Sora grins with a glob of chocolate stuck in his teeth. Sanji just snorts at the sight and drags him to his feet with him. With a little shuffling, they find their way into the line of dancers, Sora immediately whooping and whirling his arms wildly. Sanji’s a little clumsier and more hesitant until Luffy launches himself into him and nearly knocks him over.

“No, Sanji, like this!”

Luffy grabs his arms and drags him off into a wild spin. He cranes his neck to keep an eye on Sora, but Usopp and Chopper have swept in to fling him back and forth between them as he giggles and shrieks. Several wolves join in, howling. The three crewmates stop dancing to howl, too.

“Don’t stop dancing!”

Sanji’s jerked into another spin and he stumbles, laughing despite his reservations as he nearly falls and is dragged back into Luffy’s chest with a loud, rubbery snap.

“Is this your fancy mating dance?” he teases.

“This is a friendship dance!”

Luffy twirls around again, sending Sanji flying with him. He’s barely able to keep his footing as his captain drags him round and round the fire. Dizzying, he spins in circles as the flames dance behind his eyes and half-blind him. He’s not drinking, but he feels drunk on the comedown of his anxiety and the joy of holding Luffy’s attention. He catches the rest of the crew in flashes. Nami, red-faced and laughing with some wolves. Robin watching them with a smile on her face. Sora riding high on Chopper’s shoulders, howling at the moon. Zoro sitting alone, catching his eyes for a split moment that feels stretched and heavy as the swordsman watches Luffy spin him on his heel and send him careening off into Usopp.

It's a beautiful night on an impossible island with a sea of stars above them and a pack of wolves to keep company. It’s a night he’d never have been able to dream of back on the Baratie. He chooses, then, to set his worries aside and enjoy the moment as it lasts.

Tomorrow will be time enough to deal with troubles. Tonight, he dances.

Chapter Text

Sanji awakens in an unfamiliar place.

He takes stock of his surroundings, his frantically beating heart slowing as he recognizes the inside of the tent he’s sharing with Sora. Beyond the canvas, he can hear the rustle of foliage and the distant call of south birds. Bit by bit, the tension bleeds back out of him, and he snuggles closer to the child in his arms.

His nightmare lingers in little fingers of anxiety around the edges of his mind. If he focuses, he can recall certain details – scent and sensation and an overwhelming feeling of an achingly lonely terror. His dreams are often lonely and cold – fear and memory melding together to throw him back into isolating recollections of pain and humiliation. He does his best to shake the thoughts away and focus on better things, like the softness of the blanket he lies on and the sweet smell of Sora’s skin and the aloe under his bandages.

Eventually, he’s fully calm once more. The canvas is thick enough that the morning sun hasn’t brightened it too considerably, but he can tell already that it’s late enough to justify waking. He’s unlikely to find sleep again, anyway.

Gingerly, he shuffles out of Sora’s arms and leaves him to sleep a little longer. Yesterday was such a draining day for the boy. He can’t bear to take any bit of rest from him. Quietly, he exits the tent and stretches in the weak morning light that filters through the trees. The camp is quiet save for rumbling snores. Their wolf friends had dispersed in the night, leaving only the human Straw Hats behind. The only one awake is Robin, who gives him a silent nod from her small campfire, a tin mug of some kind of hot drink in her hands. He nods in return and jerks his head towards the trees to indicate his need to relieve himself. She just smiles and nods again, returning her attention to the book in her lap.

Sanji wanders away as quietly as he can. With the crew asleep, every step on loose soil or fallen twigs sounds like a gunshot to his ears, and he worries about wandering too far. Still, he’s not going to take a piss in earshot of a lady. Nor does he want any of the guys catching him with his trousers down. By all rights, it shouldn’t be a big deal – a cock is a cock – but his skin crawls at the idea of being seen in any state of undress. He shakes his head again. Nothing to stress about. Just the lingering feeling of exposure from his dream.

He finishes quickly and ducks over to the lake to scrub his hands off in the water. Then he returns to come up with something filling for breakfast.

He’s just finished cooking down some broken rice grains into a porridge with the rest of the bananas and some nuts when the crew begins to stir in earnest. Sanji ignores the shuffling, staying intent on his task. He feels too introspective this morning to be good company. The others seem to sense his mood and keep their own voices down as they start breaking down tents and packing up.

He changes his attitude once Sora wakes up. Then, he musters a wide smile.

“Good morning, baby!”

Sora scampers over to cling onto his arm. He rubs his cheek against the fabric of Sanji’s shirt and looks over his shoulder.

“Banana porridge?”

“Mmhm. A little unorthodox, but we sea chefs work with what we have,” he says with puffed up bravado.

It does the trick in disarming the worry that Sora woke up with. The kid nods and watches him stir for a moment before tugging on his sleeve and leaning in to whisper, “Dad, I gotta pee.”

Sanji nods. He expected as much. He lifts an eyebrow at Robin seated nearby. The lady alpha is quick to approach and take the wooden spoon from him.

“Just keep stirring it, will you? It needs to simmer for about another three minutes. Don’t let it boil over or scorch, okay?”

“I understand,” Robin says, taking the utensil and copying his movements.

“And don’t let Luffy eat it all! Save some for us!”

“Of course.”

“Where are you going?” Usopp gets up when Sanji does, trotting over to join them.

“I’m going to help Sora clean up a little,” he answers. He pats the kid’s head. “He could use some clean clothes.”

“You’re swimming back to the Merry?”

“Yeah. I’m not worried about the sharks.”

“You did beat up three of them yesterday,” Usopp says thoughtfully. He perks up. “Can I come? I want to check on the Merry!”

“Oh, me, too!” Chopper bounds over. “Can you grab some supplies from the ship? I need more bandages for Sora’s arm!”

“Okay, okay,” Sanji says, waving them away, “you can both come.”

The foursome set out, stopping for the three of them to pee before heading to the shore. Seeing as it’s just these particular three and the lingering discomfort from his nightmare is dissipating with the morning sun, Sanji feels comfortable enough to strip off his shirt before he dives in.

“Wait, how does the Merry have a mast again?”

Sanji stops at the shore of the lake and looks where Usopp is pointing. Sure enough, the Merry looks oddly… whole. Wide sheets of metal patch the worst of it, with boards nailed over the rest. He can’t tell from here how extensive it is, but at this distance, the ship looks almost seaworthy.

“Who fixed the ship?”

“I have no idea.”

“Sanji, be careful.”

“I will be. Don’t worry, Chopper. I doubt someone fixed our ship in the night just so they can ambush us in the morning. Besides, if it is an ambush, I have a bone to pick with these priests…”

Usopp and Chopper both gulp. Sora just shuffles closer to Chopper.

“I’ll be fine,” Sanji assures him. “I’m just grabbing some oilcloth and wrapping some supplies. I’ll be back in five minutes. Can you count them with Chopper?”

Sora nods.

“I can grab your hat, too. Would you like that?”

Sora nods more enthusiastically.

“Good boy. Don’t start counting until I start swimming. That’s cheating!”

He winks at them – the effect probably ruined by having one eye covered with hair – and takes a running leap into the water. Quickly, he starts eating up the distance with powerful strokes of his arms and kicks from his legs. Swimming is one area he’s never felt any lack of confidence in – post-Germa, at least. Plus, his earlier attack on the sharks must have made an impression on the dumb animals. He only has to kick one over the head before the others scatter. Dripping and triumphant, he climbs the steps of the sacrificial altar to where the Merry rests.

Closer, the patch job is obviously rough. Whoever fixed her was no shipwright. Still, there’s a certain kind of care he can detect in the way the ship’s been treated, unnamable and indescribable. He feels, too, like he’s not alone, but for once the feeling of being watched feels like a comfort rather than a threat. It’s strange. Almost like he’s being guided by a dear friend.

He shakes off the sensation and climbs the side. The oilcloth is with Chopper’s supplies, and he wastes no time in throwing a medical kit in with it and Sora’s hat from the galley. Dropping down into the den takes a moment longer, but he’s able to grab Sora a clean shirt and socks from their last still-unfolded load of laundry in record time.

Sanji wraps the supplies up snugly in the oilcloth and tucks it into the front of his pants with a quiet apology to the rest of them for the indignity. If he’d thought this through, he would have grabbed a bag. Still, he promised Sora he’d only be five minutes. With that in mind, he races down the stairs and leaps back into the water. He swims to shore in record time. Sora puts his hands on his hips when he surfaces.

“Dad, that was five minutes and twenty-three seconds!”

“My apologies,” he says drolly, panting from his five minutes of exertion. “I’ll do better next time.”

Usopp snorts and tries to disguise it badly as a cough. Sanji shoots him a quelling look and pulls the bundle out of the front of his pants. The oilcloth did its job – the contents remained dry. He plops Sora down by the bank and starts scrubbing him down with lake water as he wiggles and complains.

“I’m not letting you stay covered in soot,” he scolds.

“It’s cold!”

“You’ll live,” he says without heat. Scrubbing effectively is difficult when the recipient is trying to twist out of his grip. “The faster this is done, the faster we can get breakfast, so stop squirming.”

“C’mon, Sora, it’s not that bad,” Usopp says cheerfully, splashing some water onto his own face and trying valiantly not to grimace at the temperature.

Once Sanji’s satisfied that Sora’s as clean as he’s going to get with an impromptu lake water bath, he stuffs him into his clean shirt and socks and hands him over to Chopper’s care.

“We’re just changing the bandages. Let me know if it hurts, okay?” The reindeer’s eyes are big, round, and earnest. It’s disarming enough that Sora merely nods and settles himself more comfortably on the forest floor, holding his arm up for Chopper to take care of.

Sanji kneels beside them, hardly daring to breathe. He hasn’t seen the wound yet himself – has only heard Chopper’s description of it and imagined the worst. Sora seems mostly unbothered as the now-slightly-grubby bandages are peeled away until his arm is exposed to the air.

Sanji winces. His son’s skin is bright red all along his forearm, with painful-looking blisters in places. Chopper makes a strange noise.

“That’s… unusual.”

Sanji turns to the doctor to find him frowning.

“What’s unusual?”

Chopper glances at him before turning back to prodding the burn with a damp gauze square. “The burn… It’s healed much more than I expected after only one night. See how these blisters are already smaller? Well, I guess you never saw them…”

Sora wiggles his toes in his socks cheerfully. “It doesn’t hurt that bad! Dad’s right – a real chef isn’t afraid of fire!”

Sanji makes a choked, half-hearted noise of agreement. Whatever Chopper says next is lost to the ringing in his ears. All he can see is the healing burn on Sora’s arm. All he can hear is Chopper – “healed much more than expected” and a vague memory of him saying something about the burn being less severe than he anticipated for how hot the flames were.

It can’t be… Right?

Sanji’s always written his own tolerance to heat off as a fluke. Strong willpower, maybe. Maybe a leftover bit of Germa tampering – some minor mutation that even a failure like him was able to achieve. But now, staring at Sora as Chopper smooths aloe over the burn and begins wrapping it in clean linen, he can feel his mouth going dry.

There’s no way.

He’d checked. He’d been diligent in making sure that Sora developed normally, that he’s raised to be kind and gentle. He’s been obsessive in making sure that Sora is nothing like his brothers or even his sister. Sora’s so kind and loving. He pets animals and uses his manners and charms people wherever they go. He’s got normal human skin. He bleeds. He can’t run for hours without pause. He’s human. He has to be human. There’s no way he inherited anything like that from Sanji. He can’t have. He can’t carry the curse that Sanji carries.

He'd just never let him be burned before.

Trancelike, he reaches out and touches Sora’s bare calf sticking out from his shorts. The skin is warm, soft. It squishes when he presses harder. When he squeezes. It’s not firm and hard. It doesn’t hold shape, unyielding like metal. It doesn’t feel like his brothers’ skin.

“Ow! Dad, you’re hurting me!”

“Sanji?”

Sanji blinks and lets go. He stares uncomprehendingly at the mark his fingers left behind on Sora’s leg before the horror sets in and he falls over backwards, scrambling away.

“Oh my god,” he babbles, taking in the hurt and confused look of Sora’s face and the twin expressions of concern from Chopper and Usopp. He falls backwards in his haste to distance himself from Sora. Before he hurts him again. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Sora – Sora, I’m sorry.”

“Sanji, you need to calm down,” Chopper says, hesitantly approaching him.

He shakes his head. “No – no, I – I’m sorry, I was –“ But how can he explain what he was doing? What sane person would accept that he was checking to make sure his son was human, that his flesh is normal and soft and not the skin of a monster?

To make matters worse, there’s a rustling from the underbrush, and Zoro stumbles out onto the shore (mysteriously from a direction nowhere close to their camp.) Sanji stares at him with his mouth agape in surprise and mortification. The swordsman hasn’t seemed to notice yet, but Sanji’s achingly aware that he’s sprawled out practically on his back in the dirt, shirtless, and in the middle of a small panic attack. He couldn’t look more vulnerable or pathetic if he tried.

“There you are,” Zoro is grumbling, sweeping his gaze around the four of them. “Luffy’s going to eat all of your breakfa-“ He stops when his eyes land on Sanji.

Sanji stares, frozen, as the swordsman’s gaze quickly darts over his exposed skin. The man’s expression is blank with surprise – his mouth opens as if to say something, his eyes lingering on his pale chest as if he can’t make himself look away. He’s not sure which would be worse – he could either scramble to cover himself with his hands, awkwardly hiding only his nipples or a bit of his breast from sight and ultimately drawing even more attention to his exposure, or he can play it off casually. Or, the third option, he can spring up and kick the swordsman in the face for leering. He’s just about to pick that option as the one closest to dignified when Zoro’s mouth snaps shut and he flushes an ugly shade that clashes with his hair. He spins on his heel to turn his back to him.

Zoro addresses Usopp, “Why is the cook naked?”

Sanji finds his voice, though it comes out as an awkward squawk, “I’m not naked!”

“Almost-naked,” the swordsman amends. From here, Sanji can see that the back of his neck is just as red as the rest of his face was.

“We were bathing,” Chopper answers in a chipper voice, though he darts a still-concerned glance at Sanji behind Zoro’s back.

“Right,” the swordsman says gruffly. “Right, uh. So, breakfast. Luffy. He’s gonna eat it. The breast – breakfast! Luffy’s trying to eat breakfast. Ready to come back to camp?”

Usopp, the saint of a man, grabs Sanji’s shirt from the tree root he left it on and tosses it over to him. He claps Zoro on the shoulder and starts leading him off. “Breakfast sounds great! Let’s head back right now!”

Sanji shoves his arms into his shirt and starts buttoning it frantically. His brain feels like it’s spinning – the thwarted anxiety and new anxiety and mortification war inside him to cast him completely adrift. He watches helplessly as Chopper passes Sora off to Usopp and approaches Sanji like he’s a wounded animal.

“Sanji? Are you okay?”

He nods vigorously out of habit more than anything. “I’m fine.”

“What was that? Why’d you grab Sora’s leg?”

“I…” He doesn’t know what to say. He looks away. “I don’t want to talk about it. It won’t happen again. Is Sora alright?”

“He’s fine. I don’t think it’s even going to bruise. You really startled him, you know?”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

He can feel Chopper’s incredulous stare boring a hole into him, but he shrugs it off, opting instead to grab the last of their things to begin hauling them back to camp.

“Are you okay now? With the Zoro thing? I know you don’t like him looking at you.”

“It’s fine,” he says, still automatically. “I’m not going to freak out. He wasn’t weird about it.”

“Are you weird about it?”

“I’m fine,” he says again, more firmly. “Really, Chopper, I’m not made out of glass. I’ll live with the mossball getting a little bit of an eyeful. He was more respectful than most alphas would be.”

“I think you’ve just known a lot of bad alphas,” Chopper mutters, almost too low to be heard.

That startles a laugh out of him. “Trust me, Chopper. There’s a lot of them out there.”

“They’re not all like that, though,” Chopper says as they walk along. They’re far enough away that they can just follow the sound of Usopp scolding Zoro about going the wrong way. Chopper glances up at Sanji with a weird look on his face. “I don’t know a lot about human habits, still, but I think we know some good alphas. Luffy’s really nice.”

“Luffy’s an exception.”

“Robin’s really nice, too, now that she’s stopped trying to be scary.”

“She is quite polite. So ladylike.”

“And Zoro,” Chopper says, glancing sharply at Sanji. “Zoro’s a good guy.”

Sanji frowns as they walk. “I guess?”

“He really seems to like you.”

“I would hope that he likes me. We’re friends, after all.”

Chopper stares at him a minute longer before sighing heavily. “I’m beginning to think you’re just not good at being human.”

Sanji blinks. “What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“Nothing, nothing. Look, we’re almost at camp.”

Sanji wants to ask more questions, but he’s right. Camp’s within sight. He doesn’t have the energy to worry about Zoro right now, anyway. Sure, he’s flustered that he got caught half-dressed by the mossball, and he’s still feeling awkward about trying to kick his head off, but other than that, things have been really good. He doesn’t want to overanalyze their friendship and paint himself into a corner of anxiety about it. Zoro is a decent guy who really loves the crew. He’s good with Sora and Chopper, and he’s really thoughtful with things like bringing Sanji meat to cook and nice things like the flowers he was admiring. Maybe that’s how Sanji can fix their friendship. Maybe he can find something Zoro likes as a gift. What does Zoro like? Swords? Booze? Rice?

Sanji draws a blank. Surely the mossball likes other things, right?

Yeah, no, still blank.

Maybe he’ll ask Nami.

Robin gives him a warm smile from where she’s seated at the fire. She’s got a cage of arms formed around the porridge pot, effectively guarding it from Luffy’s prying fingers.

“Thank you, Robin,” Sanji says, crouching beside her.

Luffy’s hunger has been put off for too long. He quickly forgets about Zoro and Sora and the shadow of Germa in the mad dash to serve the food to everyone and hold Luffy’s breakfast rampage at bay long enough for everyone to eat their fill. Judicious application of the bentos he made yesterday seem to do the trick. By the time breakfast is over and packed and they’re on their way to the Merry to put everything away, he’s put the events of the morning behind him.

The crew pauses once they make it back to the ship to really take in the repairs that sprang up overnight.

“It’s really weird that someone fixed our ship,” Usopp says.

“There’s no one here but enemies,” Zoro adds, his paranoid gaze cast to the tree line. “None of them have any reason to fix our ship.”

“Well, for whatever reason they did, this is only a good thing,” says Nami.

“It is weird that they fixed it and it’s back to normal,” Luffy says.

Sanji would love to spend his time speculating, but the fact of the matter is that the ship is seaworthy and they need to leave. The details can sort themselves out later. For now, they focus on getting the Merry back down to the water and hooking up the Crow to propel their ship along the cloud river.

The next part of the plan is the part Sanji’s not really sure of. As much as he’d like to steal some treasure – classic pirate move, there, very exciting – he’s not convinced that it’s worth risking their lives over. There’s some kind of guerilla war breaking out across Upper Yard. The god and priests here want them dead for no particular reason that he can discern, and the guerillas don’t seem too fussed about keeping them out of their crossfire. Splitting up to search for the city of gold seems risky. Then again, staying all together in one place would make them far too easy a target, as well.

“Don’t worry, Sanji,” Luffy says, bounding across the deck towards him. He supposes his scent must’ve indicated his stress. Luffy drapes himself over his back and rubs his cheek to the scent gland on his neck. “It’s an adventure! We’re all going to be okay!”

“You’re way too confident about this,” he grumbles.

Still, he’s relaxing despite himself. It feels good to let his primary alpha soothe him. Before he knows it, the rest of the crew has gathered on their part of the deck, exchanging scents with one another. Robin hangs back until Nami grabs her hand and drags her in closer to scent. Zoro gets dragged in, too. Sanji himself is spun around between all of them until he’s completely calmed and beginning to edge into the fuzzy contentment zone he’d been in at Alabasta.

“Okay, back off before you knock the cook out again,” Zoro says.

Reluctantly, they all step away. Sanji basks in the contentment for one small, selfish moment before he shakes himself and focuses on sharpening his wits again. This is no time or place for going into an omega snuggle coma, no matter how tempting it is to let go and re-bond with his crew. They’re still in danger.

He catches Gan Fall watching them with bemused interest from where he rests on the upper fore deck. He flushes and looks away.

“Okay! Jungle team, let’s head out!” Luffy’s filled with boundless energy again, his own straw hat back on his head. His grin is wide and seems brighter than the sun.

“Don’t forget to meet again at the rendezvous point,” Nami stresses. She turns to Robin. “Those two are hopeless. I’m counting on you to keep them from getting lost.”

“I will do my best, Miss Navigator. I am, however, traveling with Mr. Swordsman. Best not ask for a miracle.”

“Oi!”

Chopper hugs Sora tightly and hops backwards. “We’ll meet you at the shore! Everything’s going to be okay! Your dad’s going to take care of you, and Luffy and Zoro are strong! We’ll see each other again real soon!”

Sora nods and steps aside to stand by Sanji. The four of them left to pilot the Merry watch until the jungle team disappears into the dimness of the forest and out of sight.

“We’ve got the easy job,” Usopp says confidently and for Sora’s benefit. “All we have to do is keep the Merry safe and get her out to sea! We’re the perfect team for the job!”

Sora grins at Usopp. “Because Miss Nami’s the navigator!”

“I am,” she says cheerfully.

“And Usopp’s a brave warrior of the sea!”

“That I am!” Usopp strikes a dramatic pose.

“And I’m going to kick those priests’ faces in if they bother us,” Sanji adds, deadpan.

Sora nods. “Cause Dad’s ‘splosive!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

Sora blinks, looking like he’s only just now thinking about the meaning of his words. “That’s what Jiji calls you.”

“He says I’m explosive?”

Sora nods. “And rude.”

“Rude?!” Sanji crosses his arms and gives Sora a mock-ferocious scowl. “I’m going to have to call Jiji and tell him he’s wrong! I am not rude!”

Usopp leans closer to Nami and stage-whispers, “He is really rude sometimes.”

“You guys are all traitors.”

Sora laughs, and Sanji relaxes. Mission accomplished. Sora’s relaxed enough now to sit down happily near Gan Fall as they cruise down the cloud river. Sanji takes a perch on the railing nearby, alert to the sounds of the jungle and movement in the trees. So far, so good.

“It’s interesting to watch,” Gan Fall says suddenly. He smiles when the four of them look at him. “I’ve always enjoyed meeting with Blue Sea people. I find it fascinating how similar and yet different you behave from us White-White Sea people.”

Nami walks closer to sit on the railing near the old man. “In what ways are we similar? I haven’t noticed anything that looks familiar to me – no offense.”

“None taken, Miss.” Gan Fall nods his head to the lower deck. “What you did there – the rubbing thing – was that a grooming ritual?”

Nami blinks. “Oh. Uh, not exactly? It’s more of a soothing with physical touch thing, and sharing our scents together so we smell like a family. I mean, we can groom each other sometimes, but mostly we scent.”

Gan Fall nods amiably. “I see. Up here, we would preen each other’s wing feathers for a similar effect. Only family is meant to touch your wings – and preening is a way of showing affection and trust. That extends to brushing and styling hair, as well.”

Nami smiles. “That does sound pretty similar! It’s so interesting how you communicate with what you see more than anything.”

The old man chuckles. “To us, you are the fascinating ones. Oh, to borrow your nose for a day to experience the world the way you experience it.”

Usopp butts in, grinning, “I’d like to borrow your eyes! I can’t believe you can see colors that we can’t. The world must look so vivid and cool to you guys!”

Sanji keeps one ear on the conversation as it segues into a history lesson about Jaya and a lengthy explanation of the sky island’s dial technology. Both history and dial tech seem to be more of Usopp and Nami’s wheelhouse. He lets them take point in learning about that. He keeps his ears and eyes on their surroundings. So far, nothing.

“Sanji, come kick this barrel!”

He huffs, but he steps closer and drops his leg down with as much force as he can muster from a standing kick. The barrel doesn’t budge.

“I said kick it hard,” Usopp jeers.

“I did!”

“This is the power of impact,” Gan Fall says with an amused twinkle in his eye. “Observe.”

Suddenly the barrel explodes. Sanji’s knocked backwards. He springs back up, stressed, but Sora’s safely next to Nami, with Gan Fall gently shielding the both of them behind his arm.

“That’s a dirty, rotten trick, old man,” Sanji growls.

“My apologies. I just wanted you to know what you were up against.”

“We already got a taste of impact back with Satori.” Sanji gives Sora a stern look. “Don’t play with the dials, okay? They’re dangerous. Got it?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Good boy.” Sanji takes his previous position by the railing.

He’s probably being paranoid. The jungle just seems like it’s too quiet. Their ship feels like it’s moving so slowly. He glances back to the others. Nami and Usopp are still deep in conversation with Gan Fall. Sora’s amusing himself near the figurehead with an improvised game of hopscotch. Everything’s –

It’s –

Sanji’s heart sinks to his stomach.

There’s no words for the sensation. Like a blanket of doom falling over him.

There’s a man on the figurehead.

Sanji’s nose prickles with ozone. Every instinct in him screams to kill this man. Kick him hard and kill him because this man is dangerous and wrong. This man is a threat and he needs to get away from him right now.

Sanji takes a small step forward.

The man’s eyes flick to him.

Sora stands frozen in between Sanji and the man on the figurehead.

Drool pools in Sanji’s mouth. He’s going to be sick. This isn’t alpha submission. This isn’t that kind of instinctive need to make himself smaller and softer and hope the alpha accepts his surrender. No, this is something on a different level. Like trying to stand up to a thunderstorm.

Sanji lowers himself down, not breaking eye contact with the man on the figurehead. He shuffles forward on his knees with his throat bared and his teeth clenched behind his lips.

The man’s eyes flick from Sanji to Sora with little interest.

Sanji reaches a hand for Sora and does something he hasn’t done in years.

He begs.

”Please,” he says to the man – the god? – the persona of thunder staring him down.

The man grimaces, just slightly, and looks away from him. He makes a condescending shooing gesture.

“Take the child,” he says, “but if it makes even one noise, I’ll kill you both.”

This man could probably do it.

Sanji darts forward and drags Sora in close, scampering backwards until his back hits the railing. He doesn’t dare take his eyes off the man. Sora’s stock-still in his arms. He tucks his face under his chin and squeezes him.

The man doesn’t spare them another glance.

The man exchanges words with Gan Fall. Sanji can barely hear them over his own heartbeat. And then, as suddenly as he appeared –

The man vanishes.

Sanji stays frozen for several heartbeats, barely daring to breathe. The rest of the crew is stuck in a similar state. Nobody dares break the silence.

The smell of smoke starts to trickle into his nose past the overwhelming scent of ozone left behind by the man. A flock of birds erupt from the jungle, cawing indignantly. There’s a great rumble of thunder, and then…

The silence of the jungle begins to be broken by the booming of explosions and the sound of distant screams.

Chapter Text

Another boom echoes across the forest.

Zoro swears, as loudly and as colorfully as he can. The others are all lost, and he’s alone. Chopper is out there somewhere, probably alone. Luffy and Robin… he’s less worried about them. They can handle themselves. It’s Chopper he thinks about as he strides through the jungle. The tension between “God’s” people and the guerillas seems to have burst, and now the sounds of battle echo through the trees. The Straw Hat Pirates really have nothing to do with it, but both sides have demonstrated their willingness to drag them into their conflict regardless.

It matters little to him. He’ll cut down anyone in his path.

He doesn’t worry so much about the crew on the Merry. Nami and Usopp are smarter than they appear to be, and the cook…

He’s really not worried about the cook.

He’s almost upset that he’s not there to see it – the moment when the switch gets flipped. Every serious fight they’ve ever gotten into, the cook becomes someone else – like underneath the vulnerability and love and care lives a dark and sucking chasm of rage.

He shivers.

It’s a treat to witness it. With Sora nearby and needing protection, he’s sure the cook is even more gloriously unhinged than usual. He pities anyone stupid enough to attack the Merry with the cook and his kid aboard. They’d better be prepared for the monster that waits for them.

--

No one speaks for a long time after the god of Skypeia leaves their ship as abruptly as he arrived.

Sanji sits against the railing with Sora in his lap and feels his pulse thrumming in his throat.

That man couldn’t be a god. Surely. If gods exist, he doubts they bother to appear before mortal men. Still, if that man is a mere mortal, then he’s a mortal in a league he’s not sure he can touch yet.

Sora squeezes his arms around his neck. He strokes his back without making a sound. His eyes remain locked on the spot the man had vacated.

Should he be ashamed for debasing himself like that? Probably. Later, he’s sure the mortification will set in, and he can scold himself for his weakness at leisure. In the moment, all he can think is that he did what he needed to do to keep Sora safe. Pride and personal safety will always come behind Sora – everything comes second to Sora. With that in mind, he finally tears his eyes away from the strange emptiness left behind and focuses on his son.

The kid’s body is beginning to tremble. He still hasn’t made a sound. Sanji rubs his back more firmly and opens his mouth to say something, but Sora beats him to it by abruptly retching.

Sanji’s not quite fast enough to spin him and redirect him. He gets hit with a nauseating splash of bile right across his shirt, but he forces himself to not think about it and focus instead on rubbing his back and holding his bangs out of the way as Sora loses his breakfast on the deck. He can’t even be surprised. If he was that affected by whatever that was, then… poor Sora.

The pathetic retching transitions into wailing sobs. Sanji gathers him close again and mutters soothing nonsense into his hair. He finally looks over to see all three of the others – even Gan Fall – watching them with concerned expressions.

“Is – Is Sora okay?” Usopp steps forward uncertainly.

Sanji opens his mouth to reassure him and closes it again. Fuck, he doesn’t actually know. Desperately, he leans down and kisses the top of Sora’s sweaty head and holds him tighter.

“Baby, I need you to breathe, okay?”

Sora shakes his head, still pressed tightly to Sanji. “I don’t – I don’t like this place anymore! I want to go home!”

Sanji’s not going to cry.

“Home?” Please don’t say Baratie, please don’t say Baratie…

“I wanna go back on the Merry on our sea!”

Ah. He relaxes slightly. “We will, baby, I promise. We’ve just got to get out of this stupid jungle and pick up our friends, okay?”

Sora nods, but he just starts crying harder. The vomit on his clothes has gone cold and disgusting, and they both stink. That makes his mind up. He stands, bringing Sora with him and stepping down towards their quarters.

Usopp steps forward uncertainly and places his hand on Sora’s back. “Buddy, you alright?”

Sora shakes his head. Sanji gives Usopp beseeching eyes over Sora’s head. “We’re going to get cleaned up, okay? Then we’ll figure out what to do next.”

Of course it’s as he’s walking down the lower deck that two bumbling idiots jump aboard their ship not ten feet away from him and Sora.

Sanji turns his head slowly to stare at them.

They remind him of the idiot he’d kicked back in the jungle – round and bouncing and chortling that same annoying laugh. He doesn’t know what his face looks like as he feels the muscles tighten – he only knows that they take one look at him and recoil. The air around them feels cold, and his own body feels hot, starting from the soles of his feet and spreading upwards. He holds Sora more closely to himself, spinning on his heel to face them. He thinks he can smell smoke.

“What… now?”

The two idiots cringe and glance at each other before rallying again.

“W-We’re here to avenge big brother Satori!”

“Y-Yeah! You Blue Sea people defeated him!”

Hm, so he didn’t die? Sanji sneers at them and widens his stance. He’s not sure yet how to fight with his son in his arms, but he’ll figure it out.

He doesn’t get the chance.

“Sanji! We’ve got this!”

He risks taking his eyes off the two attackers to glance back where he came from. Usopp stands on the upper railing with his slingshot in hand. Nami snaps her clima-tact together and smirks with surprising confidence.

“You’re sure?”

“I think we can handle these two,” Nami says, cutting her eyes over to Sanji and Sora. Her smirk softens into a real smile. “Seriously, don’t worry about us. Usopp wants to know more about dials anyway. Perfect time to learn.”

“Don’t take us so lightly,” one of the men says, moving his body towards Sanji and Sora. He’s stopped when one of Usopp’s projectiles explodes in his face.

“Don’t take us lightly, either! Your fight is with us!” Usopp draws his slingshot back again with a mighty frown.

It’s… oddly touching. Sanji retreats to the door that leads to the bathroom and the hatch to the den. He ushers Sora into the room behind him and stops in the doorway to watch the fight. Sora fails to head to the restroom like he had nudged him to do, but he’s confident he can block any wayward attacks from this position. He feels his little hands grab onto the back of his shirt as they both watch from their slightly safer spot.

“Remember, first ascertain their dials,” Gan Fall calls from the upper deck.

Usopp nods, and Sanji can see his keen eyes flicking between the two soldiers of god. Nami’s been pushed by their position into being the primary close-combat fighter, and he’d worry about that if he hadn’t seen the damage she can do with a staff and the loose way she’s holding her shoulders. He’s honestly surprised. Usopp and Nami aren’t known as the bravest or strongest of their group, but together and with Sora to protect, they stand as a unit – perfectly in harmony.

Sanji can only watch, tense, as the two men attack, sending Nami retreating across the deck as they send fart flavor and flames at her. The other two dials…

“Four dials,” Usopp announces. “Nami, keep them moving! Watch out for the one on the left – he’s got a – Gan Fall, what is it?”

“An axe dial!”

“Axe dial! Left hand! Don’t let it hit you!”

The two soldiers of god clamor in outrage.

“You Blue Sea people must be cheating!”

“Yeah, how do you know about dials?!”

“Eyes on me, boys!” Nami darts forward and cracks one of them across the face with her staff, darting back barely in time to avoid a blast of impact dial aimed at her.

“Need I step in?” Gan Fal asks.

“I think we’ve got it,” Usopp answers.

“So overconfident! Try this!”

The two idiots begin spinning to try to confuse them. They both look exactly the same. Anyone with eyes would be confused by their mad dance. Sanji smirks. The two soldiers stop spinning and hold their dial-enhanced hands out again, grinning madly at their ploy.

“Now which of us is which?”

“The one on the right this time – he’s the axe and flame,” Usopp calls. “Left has flavor and impact!”

The two men’s jaws drop.

Sanji grins widely now. “Usopp’s our sniper, assholes. He’s got the best eyes on the seas.”

They turn to gape at him, and that’s their next mistake. Nami flings part of her clima-tact at the flavor guy while Usopp sends a projectile flying at the flame guy. Both of them go flying off the side of the ship.

The ship’s quiet for a moment. Usopp turns to confer quietly with Gan Fall. Nami idly watches her clima-tact piece go spinning through the air as she wafts cool balls across the deck.

They don’t have to wait long.

“That’s a dirty trick!”

Both men come flying out of the water. Nami blanches only slightly before she centers herself again. They advance on her with furious grins.

“You’ll pay for that!”

“Oh, will I?” Nami smiles sweetly and sends a few more cool balls their way.

“Yeah, you wi-“

The missing half of the clima-tact chooses that moment to complete its arc and return to Nami – cracking him on the back of the head as it comes back. Nami grins and clicks her weapon back together.

“Cyclone tempo,” she says smugly.
“Brother!” The remaining conscious soldier grits his teeth and raises his hand. “You think this cold air will stop me? Flame dial!”

Sanji tenses, but Nami’s quick. She dives out of the way of the blast and shouts, “Fog tempo! Usopp!”

The flames and cool balls explode in a burst of humid fog. Sanji immediately loses sight of the deck, but he’s not worried because – as he’d said – Usopp’s the best sniper on these seas. He’s rewarded for his faith by the pounding of boots on the deck and a loud thump.

“H-Hey!”

“Excuse me,” Usopp shouts. “Impact!”

There’s a loud sound of impact, and the fog clears enough to show the guy flying off the railing again. There’s silence for a beat, and then –

“OOOOUCH! Gan Fall! My arm’s falling off!” Usopp clutches his hand where he’s armed himself with a piece of the old man’s armor. “You didn’t say it would hurt this much!”

“We did it!” Nami jumps up and down cutely, momentarily turning Sanji’s brain to mush. “Usopp! We did it!”

Usopp sits up and looks around. “Oh… Yeah, we did.”

“You were so cool!” Nami leaps over and throws her arms around his neck. “We did so good!”

“Excellent job,” Gan Fall says, walking to the edge of the railing to look down and smile underneath his beard. “And with no injuries! I’m impressed.”

Usopp and Nami both freeze. Their eyes go comically wide.

“No… injuries…”

“That was… so dangerous…”

In unison, they both scream and clutch onto each other tighter, tears rapidly streaming down their faces.

“Oh my god, we could have died!”

“That was so dangerous!”

“Scary!! Sanji! Save us!”

Sanji finally loses his grip on his emotions. He steps out of the doorway with a huge guffawing laugh to kick the unconscious body of the soldier over the side. He turns back to Nami and Usopp with a wide grin.

“You didn’t need me to save you! You did that all on your own! Great job!”

Usopp bites his lip, still weeping. “I’d hug you, but you’re gross!”

“Yeah, stay away!”

Sanji plucks at the wet patch on his shirt with a grimace. “Right. We’re going to clean up. I’d say call me if you need me, but you seem to have it under control.”

Nami and Usopp both fall over themselves running towards him. “No, please, Sanji! If anyone else attacks, help us!”

He shakes his head at their antics and rejoins Sora. The kid’s staring with owlish eyes at the deck. Sanji gently directs him to the bathroom and starts undressing him.

“Usopp and Miss Nami beat those guys?”

“They sure did.”

Sora nods and seems to still be puzzling it as Sanji turns the shower on and strips his own clothes off so he can wash up with him. He’ll be happy to get the scent of sweat, smoke, and vomit cleaned off them.

“The others are stronger than Usopp and Miss Nami, right?”

Sanji nods this time. “Yeah. Luffy and Zoro are monstrously strong. Miss Robin and Chopper are both really tough, too.”

Sora wiggles when he scrubs his hair with shampoo, peering up to meet Sanji’s eyes. “They’re really tough?”

“They are. Stop wiggling.”

“So they’re going to be okay, right?”

Sanji pauses his scrubbing and looks down properly. Sora stares up at him with big, worried eyes. He sighs and grabs the shower head to rinse him off.

“They’ll be okay. Listen, I know you’ve had a very scary time up here,” Sanji says, “and I’m sorry it’s been so rough. I promise you, though, that everyone on our crew is strong. Chopper told you about his rumble balls, right? He’s very smart and brave. And he can change his shape to be even bigger and stronger. And Miss Robin is very clever – she’ll be fine. And Luffy and Zoro? Come on! Of course they’re going to be fine.”

Sora nods, looking a little less worried. Sanji pokes him on the side, startling a giggle out of him.

“We can’t worry too much about them, okay? Everyone has a job out here, and you remember what our job is?”

Sora shakes his head.

Sanji lathers shampoo on his own head and continues as he scrubs, “Our job is to get the Merry to the shore where we’re going to meet up. The crew is counting on us to get the job done. Even more importantly, my job as your dad is to keep you safe. So, we’re all going to work together to get the ship to the shore, and I’m going to do everything in my power to keep you safe and sound, okay? So all I need you to do is to stay calm and listen to what I tell you, okay? Everything’s going to be fine.”

Sora nods at that. He lets Sanji finish rinsing them both off and bundle them down the ladder to the den and into clean clothes. Once clothed, Sora immediately dives into the nest and covers himself with blankets and pillows. Sanji puts his hands on his hips and raises his eyebrows.

“You’re staying here?”

“Can I?” His little face peeks out from a gap in the linens. “I don’t wanna be out there.”

Sanji sighs and scoots into the nest to snuggle him for a moment. “I think that’s a good idea. You want to stay in here for a while?” He feels Sora nod. “Okay. I’m going to go back outside to watch the ship with Usopp and Nami, though, okay? I don’t want you to be scared and alone down here.”

“I’m okay. I won’t be scared.”

He’s not sure he believes that, but he nods. It’s probably the best place for him now, anyway. “Okay. If you do come up, make sure you shout for me right away, so I know you’re outside, okay? You find me first thing. Understand?”

“I understand.”

“Good boy. I’ll be right above you making sure the ship is safe, okay?”

He kisses Sora one last time and arranges his plushies around him more snugly. He’d love to stay in the nest with him where they both feel safe, but he wasn’t lying when he said he had a job to do. He can’t vouch for the others, but he’ll be damned if he lets Sora get hurt again.

He throws one last look at the snug little lump that’s his son before climbing the ladder to rejoin the others.

--

So, running into God is terrifying.

Nami would be lying if she said she wasn’t petrified by the encounter. All she can really do is be grateful that none of them tried anything stupid, because there’s a callous kind of pride in that man’s eyes that frightens her. She’d felt her own heart in her throat when God Enel had appeared from thin air on the prow of their ship. She’d nearly vomited that same heart out when she’d realized that Sora had ended up between God Enel and the rest of them.

It was nauseating how quickly their prickly, prideful Sanji had dropped everything to prostrate himself on the deck for Sora. It had worked, of course, but in that moment, she’d wanted nothing more than to get both of them away from Enel and somewhere safe as fast as possible. Not that she thinks Sanji can’t handle himself, but if she has to see him do something like that again, she’s going to scream.

No, nobody gets to abuse their friend.

Not even a god.

To that end, she’d resolved to make herself more useful during this adventure. She can’t just rely on the others to save her. Not with Sora to protect. Not when they each bring their own vulnerabilities to the table. If Sanji needs help with something, she will help with it, just as she knows that Sanji will help her when she falters. As a friend and as crew, it’s the least she can do.

Still… she’s still shocked and proud of herself and Usopp. She’d known that they could be a dangerous team if they tried, but that went so much better than expected. The thrill of victory is intoxicating. She doesn’t think she’ll turn into a crazy person like Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji, throwing themselves in front of everyone and taking hits like they’re nothing, but it’s incredibly reassuring to realize that with a little teamwork and preparation, she’s capable of taking opponents out, too. It makes her feel strong. Competent. Reliable.

She can tell that Usopp’s realizing the same thing. That they’re both stronger than they thought they were. She hopes he takes it to heart. He’s one of the bravest men she knows for going into battle despite his fears.

As for the other bravest man…

Sanji emerges from the cabin alone. He’s clean and changed into a dark blue shirt, damp hair hanging limply in front of his eye. He looks calmer than she’d expect for the amount of stress they’d just endured. He joins her and Usopp and Gan Fall on the upper deck, bending to stretch his legs out and scanning the tree line fretfully as the distant sounds of battle continue to trickle down to their place on the cloud river.

“Where’s Sora?”

Sanji glances at her from his stretch and sighs. He straightens again and pats his pockets down in search of a cigarette. “He’s in the den. Doesn’t want to come out now.”

“I don’t blame him,” Usopp says, casting his own wary glance at their surroundings. “Poor little guy’s been through a lot lately.”

“Yeah…”

She glances at Usopp and knows that they’re both seeing the pall of guilt falling over their friend again. Neither one of them know what to say. Nobody had expected their sky adventure to go this poorly, and nobody had expected that Sora and Sanji would get separated. They’d all kind of assumed that the two of them went hand in hand. And then… she bites down the guilt that still wells up in her when she thinks about the choices she made recently. She knows Sanji says he forgives her, but she’s not sure she’s ready to forgive herself. She never intended for Sora to get hurt.

“We’ll get out of this soon,” Usopp says, stepping forward to put his hand on Sanji’s shoulder. He smiles weakly. “I bet Luffy’s out there causing all kinds of trouble as we speak.”

Sanji stares up at him mutely before his face softens into a wry smile. “You’re right. I bet Zoro found the one guy up here who thinks he’s a sword-master. Probably making up some bullshit technique right now.”

--

Somewhere in the jungle, Zoro pauses his attack to sneeze mightily into his elbow.

--

“Do you hear that?”

Nami strains her ear to listen for whatever Usopp is hearing. It takes her a moment, but she hears it, too. The whirr of a dial-powered boat.

“More guerillas?”

“Nami! Usopp! Sanji!”

The three of them run as one to the railing. The tension on deck is sliced in half when they make out Conis and Pagaya waving at them from their craft as it sails up the cloud stream to meet them. Pagaya begins honking a ridiculous horn at them, disturbing a flock of birds from the trees.

“What are you doing here, Conis?”

“We came to meet you guys! Oh, Gan Fall! You’re here, too! And you’re hurt!”

“I am quite well, Miss Conis,” Gan Fall says pleasantly.

Nami glances at Sanji and frowns. He’s gone ramrod straight, staring down into the boat. She follows his gaze and frowns.

“Conis, who is that little girl?”

Conis catches the rope ladder Usopp tosses her and nudges the little girl to climb up before her. The little girl shouts and resists the entire way up the ladder. “Her name is Aisa. We found her out on the White-White Sea. She actually led us to you.”

“Unhand me, Blue Sea scum! I am a warrior of Shandora!”

Nami should have anticipated this. Sanji nudges past her to pick the girl up in his arms and stare at her. She can see the fog of instinct already clouding his eyes. Sure, some omegas can keep it together around babies and little kids, but she’s not known Sanji to be one of them. Maybe it’s because he’s already a parent. He stares Aisa down as her flailing slowly tapers off.

“What do you want? Let me go! Blue Sea weirdo!”

Sanji flares his nostrils and then abruptly crushes her to his chest and starts purring.

Aisa stops flailing entirely and cranes her neck to stare at Nami and Conis. “What is he doing? He’s vibrating. This is weird! Let go!”

“He’s trying to calm you down. Stop fussing, Aisa, and be nice to him.”

Aisa wriggles some more, but evidently even without Blue Sea instincts, an omega purring still has a soothing effect. She slumps a little in his arms. Sanji makes a pleased noise and rocks her back and forth. The little girl seems completely thrown off by everything happening.

“I think Sanji’s got this handled,” Nami says, turning more fully to Pagaya and Conis. “You said you found her out on the sea?”

Pagaya nods. “She was in terrible danger. She was trying to cross the sea herself to help the Shandorans in their fight against God Enel’s soldiers.”

“She says she can hear them fighting,” Conis adds, looking troubled, “That’s actually how she led us to you. She followed the sound of your ship.”

Usopp gasps. “So like the Mantra ability the priests use!”

Gan Fall looks thoughtful. “A rare talent for such a young child.”

Nami glances back. Sanji’s carried Aisa off when they weren’t looking. She finds the two of them emerging from the galley – Sanji with Aisa on one hip and a bowl of food in his other hand, and Aisa looking a bit lost with a glass of juice cupped in her palms. The two of them sit down on the deck, and Sanji insistently puts the bowl in Aisa’s lap.

“Eat,” he says quietly. His smile is warm. “You can’t help your friends on an empty stomach.”

Nami smiles and turns back to the others. The rest of them are looking at the odd duo with similar soft expressions.

“Is Sora alright?” Conis asks quietly, as if she just remembered he was missing.

“He’s taking a nap down belowdecks,” Usopp answers. “He’s okay.”

Conis presses a hand to her chest. “Thank goodness.”

“In any case, Miss Nami,” Pagaya says, jerking his thumb in the direction they came from, “You should follow the path we took. We used a Milky Dial to make that route directly to the White-White Sea. It’s dangerous here. We should hurry.”

“Right. That’s so helpful, thank you.”

“I also have a gift for you,” he says. He hauls something up from the craft he came on. Nami gasps when it clears the railing. “The waver you brought from the Blue Sea! I restored it. It’s actually quite powerful. Use it well.”

“I will. Thank you so much Mr. Pagaya!”

They lower the waver back down to the cloud stream. Nami can’t resist climbing right on and taking the waver for a test ride. It’s perfect – so much more powerful and faster than the one she borrowed from Pagaya earlier. She manages to forget some of her anxiety in the joy of playing with this machine. She’s not having so much fun, though, that she doesn’t hear Aisa scream.

“What’s going on?!”

She can’t see over the railing, but she hears Sanji’s voice, “Aisa? What’s wrong?!”

“Another voice disappeared!”

“A voice? What’s she talking about?” Usopp shrieks suddenly. “Hey, wait, stop!”

There’s a thump. Sanji’s voice calls out, “Aisa, wait!”

Echoing thumps off the deck like footsteps. Nami can only watch as Aisa launches herself over the railing.

“The voices are all disappearing! I have to find Laki!”

The little girl plunges into the cloudy water. Nami sees Usopp and Sanji peer over the railing. Sanji looks like he’s about to jump after her.

“I’ve got her,” she calls up to them. She strips her t shirt off and hops off the waver to snatch the struggling girl out of the water. “Stop fighting!”

“Let me go! Let go of me! Everyone’s hurt! I need to help Laki!”

“I don’t know who Laki is, but I don’t think they want you to run off into the forest to get yourself killed!”

“Laki’s going to get killed! I have to find her!”

“Laki wouldn’t want you to get hurt,” Sanji calls from the ship.

“Shut up! You don’t know anything!”

Nami ignores the girl’s crying and flailing, focusing instead on swimming in powerful strokes back to the waver. Aisa kicks and screams the whole way, but she’s not about to let this tiny kid run off alone into the jungle to whatever’s happening in there. She chucks her up onto the waver and grabs onto the handlebars.

“Stay,” she orders. “You’re staying on the Merry with us.”

“I’m not! I won’t stay with you!”

“You will, you little brat,” Nami growls, yanking the waver around to point back to the ship.

It’s a good plan.

A safe plan.

Until the snake shows up.

--

Sanji can only stare with his mouth open as Nami and Aisa both disappear into the jungle.

His brain seems sluggish in remembering the sequence of events. First, Aisa had screamed about voices disappearing and tried to run away. Nami had stopped her. They were coming back. And then…

That huge snake.

He’s stepped up on the railing before he can think more, wavering on what to do. He feels a hand rest gently on his ankle. He looks down to lock eyes with Gan Fall.

“It’s no use following them,” Gan Fall tells him solemnly. “That waver is far too fast – you’ll never catch up to them.”

“We can’t just leave them,” he whines.

“Gan Fall’s right. None of us will be able to catch up,” Pagaya says sadly. “The best we can do is continue to the coast where you were meant to meet. Miss Nami is your navigator, correct?”

“She is, but,” Sanji casts his eyes back to the jungle and whines again. “She’s not a fighter. She’s not weak, but… and Aisa’s there, too…”

“We should keep going,” Usopp says. He looks sick even saying it out loud. “We can’t take the Merry in there, and we can’t… we’ve got to take care of the ship and Sora first. Nami’s tough.”

Sanji nods miserably. “You’re probably right… It’s just…”

“I know. But we can only do what we can.”

Sanji nods.

Together, they get the Merry angled up the new cloud trail and heading out towards the White-White Sea.

--

Sanji paces the deck of the ship.

They’ve made it to the rendezvous point, and there’s no sign of any of their crew. He has no way to contact any of them. If they make it – no, when they make it back to their own sea, he’s buying everyone a baby den den mushi even if he has to go into debt to Nami for the rest of his life.

He’s already brought sandwiches down to Sora. His son was okay, at least, and ate his dinner without complaint. He still refused to leave the den for now, so Usopp had gone down there to entertain him for a while. Sanji’s filled with too much nervous energy to be good.

Instead, he paces.

Pagaya and Conis give him wary looks from across the deck. Gan Fall’s gone, now, too, ridden off on his weird bird thing to fulfill his godly obligations or something. Meanwhile, all Sanji can do is pace, smoke, and chew his lower lip until it bleeds.

Nami and Aisa are out there somewhere alone.

Chopper is alone.

Robin, Zoro, Luffy… they’re all out there somewhere.

He feels so useless.

It’s the right call to defend the Merry and wait for them, but it doesn’t make the choice any easier.

The sky fox’s yipping drags him out of his dark thoughts. He follows Conis and Pagaya as they follow the fox to an injured man crawling out of the jungle. The sight of how severe the man’s injuries are makes something hollow sink in Sanji’s gut.

“Skypeia is going to fall down into the Blue Sea! He’s going to destroy everything! You have to warn them! Enel’s going to kill everyone in the sky!”

Well… shit.

Things always have a way of getting worse.

“But wait a minute, please,” Pagaya says, looking sick, “if he does that, then there’s nowhere for God Enel to go, either.”

The injured man shakes his head. “He has an ark! The Ark Maxim! He doesn’t need the sky!”

Fucking hell.

And, since everything always, always gets worse, he’s too slow to do more than grab onto Conis when the lightning comes out of the sky, and Pagaya pushes them off and away from danger as the smell of ozone fills his nose, and Conis’s screams fill his ears.

--

Zoro’s having a bad day.

Okay.

So maybe it’s a little worse than just a bad day.

He’s exhausted, filthy, bruised, and bloody. Chopper’s laid out on the ground not far from him, unconscious and bloodied and smelling so strongly of distress that it coats his nose with the stink of it. He wants more than anything to run back over there and make sure he’s stabilized, but he can’t do that because he’s surrounded by assholes who want to take a piece out of him for no reason. Between the priest and his stupid dog and that Wyper asshole running around with that crazy cannon of his…

Zoro grits his teeth and swallows down a menacing growl.

He perks up like a dog that’s caught a scent even before he registers that the new sound he’s hearing is the roar of a waver and Nami’s shrill screaming blending with the screeching of a child. Nami comes barreling into view, chased by a couple of god’s soldiers. He and the Wyper guy put their differences aside long enough to kick the assholes away as the woman and child go skidding to a stop.

“Aisa?! Why are you here?!”

Zoro turns, too, ashamedly relieved that it’s some strange kid with Nami and not Sora. “Nami?! What are you doing here?!”

“Zoro! Where is everyone?!”

“I don’t know – where’s the cook and the kid?”

“They’re fine! Back on the Merry!”

Zoro’s sagging relief lasts only as long as it takes for Wyper to raise his stupid weapon up again and aim it right at Nami and the kid. Zoro’s not fast enough to interfere. He watches, heart in his throat, as Nami and the kid are swooped away at the last second by the old man and his spotted bird as Zoro’s still diving to try to knock Wyper’s aim away. He whirls on that guy at the girls go flying off, teeth bared in a full snarl and a growl tearing through his throat.

Wyper sneers. “Disgusting Blue Sea person. Little better than an animal.”

“Yeah? I’ll tear your throat out like an animal. See if you like that.”

Nami shrieks again. Zoro tears his eyes away from Wyper just in time to see Nami, the kid, the old man, and the bird all get swallowed by a giant snake.

You…

You have to be kidding.

And that’s, of course, when the asshole with the dog comes back.

For fuck’s sake.

--

“What happened?”

Sanji grunts and sets Pagaya down on a pallet in the galley. Usopp hovers nearby, holding his hands up uselessly.

“Fuckin’ Enel,” Sanji grits out around his cigarette.

“He did this?”

“Best I can figure, yeah.”

“Where’s Conis?”

Sanji sighs and squeezes his eyes shut. He gets up and moves to the sink to wet a dish towel to drape over the old man’s forehead.

“He’s going to destroy Skypeia.”

Usopp makes an incredulous noise. “He’s what? Who? Enel?”

“Yeah, Enel. Apparently the guy plans on dragging the entire sky island down to hit the Blue Sea.”

Usopp looks shaken. “And Conis?”

“She left.” Sanji wrings the cloth out and comes back to dab at Pagaya’s face. He can’t quite look at Usopp. “She went to warn the others. All of her people… She…”

“She’s alone?”

Sanji hangs his head. “Yeah. I couldn’t…”

Usopp puts a hand on his shoulder. “Hey. She’ll be okay.”

“I shouldn’t have let her go alone.”

“She can make her own choices. Besides, we need to take care of Pagaya and this other guy. Any idea what to do for, uh, lightning strikes?”

Sanji’s shoulders slump even more. “No. I wish Chopper was here.”

Usopp swallows audibly. “I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

“I just want everyone back together again. I can’t… I don’t like not knowing where everyone is.”

“Me, neither.”

They meet each other’s eyes over Pagaya’s limp body. Sanji sighs and looks away first.

“I’m going outside to smoke.”

“I’ll come with you. I don’t think I can do anything else in here.” Usopp stands and stretches, eyeing Sanji’s cigarette as he thumbs a flame from his lighter. “If our adventures are all this stressful, I think I’ll be the next one smoking.”

Sanji snorts, though he momentarily chokes on a mouthful of smoke and has to wheeze to catch his breath. Usopp’s worried expression when he looks up makes him laugh again. “Fuck, sorry, just… It’s a nasty habit. I don’t see you getting into it.”

“I could! I could be a great smoker!”

“It’s not a competition, you idiot.”

He shoulders him playfully. The two of them stand at the railing and stare out over the jungle as if they’ll somehow see something new if they just look hard enough.

“Sora’s okay?”

He sees Usopp nod in his peripheral. “Yeah. He couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore, so I read him a story and got him to take a nap.”

He feels his heart swell with a melancholy fondness. Without thinking too much of it, he leans over and rubs his cheek on Usopp’s shoulder. “Thanks for doing that. You’re… You’ve been a really great friend.”

“Hey, don’t get sentimental on me now.”

“I don’t mean to, I just… I appreciate you, Usopp. So does Sora. He really looks up to you, you know?”

He pulls away to see Usopp blush and rub the back of his neck. “Oh. Well, shucks. I mean…”

“Don’t think too hard about it.”

He chuckles. They lapse into silence again. A silence that feels… oppressive. Sanji straightens up, casting his eyes up to the sky.

“Do you hear that?”

“Yeah… Is it engines of some kind?”

They stand side-by-side, but they don’t have to wait long. The humming, roaring sound swells up over the trees until the ship seems to vibrate with it. A huge ship sails over the tree line, flying in the air and sending birds scattering from the canopy.
The Ark Maxim.

And aboard it – visible for only a moment before the ark shifted and flew on – stands Nami, alone and clutching onto an old straw hat.

“Usopp, did you –“

“I saw.” Usopp’s mouth is a grim line. “Nami’s up there. And something must’ve happened to Luffy – he’d never leave his hat unless he was forced.”

Sanji’s stomach seems to sink all the way to the deck of the ship. “That’s Enel’s ark – and Nami’s alone up there. Usopp – we have to help her.”

“But what about Sora?”

He bites his lip and fights down a howl of frustration. He’d promised Sora he would protect him, and he intends to do that, but Nami’s in danger right now. He could send Usopp to help her, but he knows already that it’s not the best idea. Usopp works best when he has range and long sightlines – he’s a sniper, not a brawler. In the limited space of the deck of a ship, he’s at a disadvantage. Pound for pound, Sanji is stronger than Usopp and a much more specialized close-range fighter. If anyone should go rescue Nami, the smart choice would be him.

“We don’t have time to think about it,” Sanji growls. He sticks his hand out. “Give me your Usopp AAAaaaAAaaah! The rope thing!”

Usopp’s already handing it over even as he looks dubious. “You’re going?”

“Someone has to.” He buckles the belt on and steps up onto the railing. He turns, hesitating. “Usopp, please understand… I’m leaving Sora to you. Can you –“

“I’ve got him.” Usopp jerks his head up with forced confidence. “I won’t let him out of my sight. You go save Nami!”

Sanji nods and takes a deep breath. Leaving Sora behind feels like stabbing himself in the heart, and leaving him with only Usopp… He prays that they’ll be safe.

“I’ll come back to you as fast as I can. I’ll bring Nami with me.”

“We’ll be waiting for you. I won’t let anything hurt Sora. I promise.”

“I’m counting on you, Usopp.”

Sanji takes a final breath and leaps from the ship. No more time to question it. He’s got a job to do now.

--

Nami stands in the overwhelming presence of a god.

He might just be a man. She’s not sure anymore. All she knows is that she’s well and truly alone. She’d lost Aisa and Gan Fall. Zoro and Robin and Chopper, they’re all injured and incapacitated. And Luffy – she can’t begin to think about what might have happened to Luffy.

No, she’s alone.

The fact that God Enel is letting her fight against him at all is shocking. She’s pretty sure that if he took her seriously at all, she’d already be dead. Instead, he grins like a cat toying with a mouse. She’s panting and sweaty and desperately scrambling for a way out of this.

If she can get to her waver, she might have a chance. She can’t die up here. She doesn’t think she can take a bolt of lightning and walk away. She’s got too much to live for to die up here on the whim of some long-earlobed-weirdo. She’s going to map the entire world! She’s going to help Luffy make it to the end of the Grand Line! She’s not going to die up here!

The door to the inner cabin of the ark opens, and Nami turns.

She’s not sure what she expected. One of Enel’s priests? A soldier of god? Luffy, miraculously returned?

That’s not what she gets.

To her absolute shock and horror…

Sanji strides out onto the deck.

--

Sanji’s feeling more than a little vindictive as he makes his way down the bowels of Enel’s Ark Maxim.

He’s tired from sprinting to keep up with the damn thing and from crawling up who knows how many meters of rope to make it to the inside of the ark in the first place. He’s absolutely sick with worry over his friends, and he knows if they fail here, there’s absolutely nothing saving Sora and Usopp from plunging down out of the sky with the rest of Skypeia.

He never intended to be caught up in something like this. They were meant to be here to prove that the sky islands exist and to steal a bunch of treasure. He never asked to be dragged into a war or fighting god or saving the sky islands from certain doom. They’re not heroes. They’re pirates. Selfish, criminal pirates. But, selfishly, he can’t just let them all die or let Nami be hurt when he has it in his power to stop it.

So, Sanji goes a little wild on the machinery powering the Ark Maxim. God Enel wants to shit in his dinner and make him have the worst sky vacation ever? Then he’ll serve him up a steaming pile of shit for himself. His foot breaks through yet another delicate set of gears, and he grins nastily.

He can’t waste much more time down here. He’ll be beyond pissed if he went through all this just to find out that Nami’s dead already.

He makes his way upwards until he finally opens a door out onto the main deck of the ship. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds to get a grasp on what’s going on.

Nami is still alive.

Her waver is up here, but just out of reach.

If he turns his head, he can see that jackass with the weird earlobes lounging about without a care in the world. He’s pretty far away, but that’s still way too close – especially with how fast he’d appeared and disappeared on the ship that afternoon. He doesn’t like that he doesn’t know more about him other than that he’s fast, he has Mantra, and he can hit people with lightning from across the island. There’s too many gaps in his knowledge, and he has no idea if he has the time to get Nami out safely.

Hell, he’s not confident he can get himself out safely.

At the very least, the adrenaline and indignant anger he’s holding onto acts as a buffer against the weird effect he’d had on him earlier in the day. It helps that his kid isn’t here. Without Sora being held hostage against him, he can think more clearly and get righteously pissed at this shirtless idiot running around pretending to be a god.

Ass-kicking later, though. He’s got a more important job now.

“Oh? One of the Blue Sea people from the boat.” Enel tilts his head and smirks. “The mother-man. Where is your child? Still on your ship?”

Okay, a lot to unpack in that statement. Sanji decides the best thing to do is probably to ignore whatever that is and focus on redirecting the man’s attention. He nonchalantly slips a fresh cigarette between his lips.

“Look, buddy, let’s be civil about this.” He digs through his pockets looking for a lighter or matchbook, and uses the motion to get a better gauge of distance on the deck, peeking through the curtain of his hair. Enel stands between him and Nami, with the waver further off. It’s going to be tricky to make this work.

Enel’s lips pinch together in an unamused expression. “I think the time for civility is passed… buddy.”

Ooh, creepy. Sanji gives up on the lighter as a lost cause, and not a moment too soon. Enel sends a blast of lightning his way, sending him flipping and dodging away as he throws blast after blast at him until he’s completely cleared that side of the deck and reunited with Nami closer to the prow of the ship.

“Sanji!”

“We’re getting out of here,” he says to her, keeping one eye on Enel. He nudges her to start edging towards the waver. “Luffy?”

“I have his hat. He fell off.”

“He’s probably fine. He’s Luffy after all. We can’t count on him to help, though.”

“Usopp?”

“Busy.”

Nami nods in his peripheral. “Okay. We’re getting out of this.”

“Enough whispering, you ants.”

Nami and Sanji leap out of the way together as another powerful blast of lightning hits where they stood. All the hairs on his body are standing up, and the lightning’s making his ears roar from the noise. Enel advances, looking insultingly bored.

“Get the waver,” Sanji mutters from the corner of his mouth. “I’ll distract him. Go!”

Nami hesitates for only a second before she’s taking off. Sanji darts forward to close the distance between him and Enel.

It’s a gamble. He’s seen the lightning balls shot across the deck, but he doesn’t know what he can do up close. Sanji can’t do anything from this distance, though, so he doesn’t see much choice. He has Nami to protect. He feels his heart swell with affection for her, and he feels lighter on his feet, like he’s burning with his feelings. He throws a powerful kick directly to Enel’s face.

And he –

He doesn’t bother to dodge it.

He just collapses into electricity and reforms again, leaving Sanji’s leg tingling in the aftermath.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, he’s outclassed.

Enel opens his mouth to gloat, and –

His eyes bug out a little as Sanji spins on his heel and runs.

“Fuck this,” he says with feeling.

He’s not going to try to kick a guy who can’t be kicked. He’s not an idiot. He hears the rev of the waver, but he can’t let Enel focus on Nami. She’s a sitting duck if he decides to take a crack at her, since to collect him, she’d have to go in a straight line right towards Enel. No, he has to keep him distracted somehow.

His eyes light on the huge glass domes of electricity.

“I forgot to tell you something,” he calls to Enel as he beelines for the glass domes.

“What’s that?” Enel advances like something inevitable. Fuck, with the power he has, it’s hard not to think of him as godly.

“Oh,” he says, voice high from stress and feigned nonchalance. He casts a glance to Nami, heading this way. He shakes his head slightly at her and hopes she sees it. “Just – your ark. It’s full of such lovely bits of machinery. It’d be a shame if something happened to them.”

He feels more than sees Enel react to that. The oppressive feeling of being buried in a stormcloud surges. Fuck, he’s not making it out of this. He swings a kick at the glass dome more for defiance than anything. The roar of charging lightning is building in his ears.

“Nami, get out of here!”

Enel screams something. The amount of lightning building up, and how far he is from anywhere to hide – but no – if he’s going to be struck down by lightning, he’s going to go out like a man on his own two feet. He hears Nami scream, but more importantly he hears and sees the waver barreling to the edge of the ark. Enel’s focused entirely on Sanji. She’s going to make it.

He’s completely relaxed when the light grows too blinding to see, and he’s hit with the full force of a storm.

“El Thor!”

“Sanji!”

The light fades after what feels like an eternity. He can’t – there isn’t – he – he doesn’t think it even hurts yet – he doesn’t know how he’s standing besides the sheer, stubborn need to shove Enel’s loss in his face. Distantly, he thinks he feels an unhealthy, groaning rumble under his feet. Like machinery finally grinding to a twisted, broken halt.

“Th-Thanks,” Sanji says, raising a twitching, shaking hand up to take a drag from his now-flaming cigarette. He sucks in a drag, still spasming and twitching, but most importantly, still on his feet. He exhales. “I was just… about to ask… for a light.”

Enel stares him down, even as the deck shakes under their feet, and he thinks he can feel them losing altitude.

“Checkmate, you bastard,” Sanji says, still smiling.

He feels himself falling forward. He’s unconscious before he hits the deck.

--

Usopp feels completely useless standing on the deck, squinting his eyes at the Ark Maxim that’s steadily rising. He couldn’t hope to see Sanji or Nami from here, but still, he cranes his neck to watch. On the one hand, he’s glad he’s not facing off against Enel. That guy’s terrifying. On the other, he’s leaving Sanji and Nami to face him alone. No good option here.

The creak of the door to the storeroom makes him jump. He quickly pales. Shit, he’s supposed to be watching Sora.

The boy creeps out of the room, eyes roving the deck. He looks smaller without the straw hat on his head, and so much younger standing instead on the deck in an oversized sweater he must’ve purloined from Sanji with his arms wrapped around his toy dolphin.

“Dad?”

Usopp opens his mouth to answer him, but Sora spies him first. He runs over to press himself against Usopp, still looking around.

“Dad?”

“Hey, uh, hey, buddy. He’s not here.”

Sora blinks up at him uncomprehendingly. “He told me to yell for him. He said he was here.”

Shit. Um…

“Well, you see…”

Sora opens his mouth again, his visible eye wide. “Dad? Dad! Dad, I’m here!”

Usopp glances at the jungle nervously before he crouches back down. “Look, hey, buddy, look at me.”

Sora does, and Usopp’s heart breaks at the little tears gathering in his eyes. “He said he was here. He said he was protecting the ship. Where’d he go?”

Usopp sits on the deck properly and pulls Sora to sit on his leg. He points up to the ark. “You see that big thing?”

“It’s a flying ship?”

“Yeah, it’s a flying ship. There was an emergency. Your dad and I were watching the ship together, and we saw that ship up there, and we saw Nami up there.”

“Why’s Nami up there?”

“I don’t know. But that ship belongs to that scary guy who came here earlier. Remember him?”

Sora shivers and turns to ram his face into the crook of Usopp’s neck. He winces from the force, but all he does after that is reach up to rub his back soothingly. Since the kid’s already here, he focuses on releasing a calming scent and seeing if he can make himself purr. It’s difficult with how anxious he’s feeling, but he feels Sora clutching onto him tighter and he firms his resolve. Slowly, he feels his chest begin to rumble. Sora relaxes, just a little.

“Your dad was really worried about Nami, and there wasn’t a lot of time. He really really didn’t want to leave you here, but he had to get to Nami quickly. He left me in charge of you. I’m going to keep you safe, okay?”

“You will?”

“I will. I’m a brave warrior of the sea, remember? The Great Captain Usopp? As long as I’ve got my trusty slingshot and my brave first mate, Sora, there’s no way we can lose!” He grins to really sell it when Sora looks up again.

They both look up as blue-tinged lightning flashes up on the deck of the flying ark.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know,” Usopp lies. He squints his eyes to see, but it’s just too far away. The lightning flashes a few more times. He thinks maybe it’s over. Then a huge column of lightning explodes across the deck. He squeezes Sora more tightly.

“What is that? Is Dad okay?”

“I’m sure he’s fine.” Usopp keeps a smile on his face and a rumble in his chest. Every lie tastes bitter on his tongue. “Your dad’s super strong. I bet he’s just fine.”

--

As Enel’s huge attack blasts into Sanji, Nami lets go of her waver.

She knows, alright? She knows what Sanji staying behind means. She knows he’d want her to jump off to safety. That’s what it was all for.

But she can’t leave him alone up here.

She’s a Straw Hat Pirate. She’s not leaving her injured crewmate behind. She may not have much on hand, but she can use what she has.

The waver flies off and down to the clouds below. Nami doesn’t watch it go. She instead whirls midair to jab her clima-tact into the side of the ship and hold on for dear life.

She can barely hear anything over the roar of the air whipping past them and the distant sounds of Enel’s Ark Maxim breaking down. Sanji must’ve sabotaged it. She feels immeasurably proud of him even as she’s terrified.

She wishes Usopp were here.

He’d probably have a creative solution for getting back up there. She’s left with brute force and hope, drawing on hysterical reserves of strength she didn’t know she had. If she lets go, she plummets to certain death and Sanji’s left alone with that madman, so there’s really no room for mistakes. She either does this, or she dies.

She doesn’t know how she claws her way up the side of the ship. All she knows is that she makes it, even though her fingertips are bloody from holding onto the wooden hull. She peers over the edge and sees no sign of Enel. She’s probably on a time limit, then. She peers further and gasps when she sees Sanji flat on his face, charred almost beyond recognition.

Her first impulse is to cry. She shoves that impulse down. There really is no time for it. She hauls her body up and onto the deck and quickly makes her way over to the still-smoking body of her crewmate. She feels around and waits and is rewarded with a pulse. Erratic and jumpy, but a pulse nonetheless.

She can work with that.

Sanji’s bigger than her and heavier. It’s difficult to haul him up over her shoulder, but she manages it. She’s not quitting now. She gets them both to the edge and stares down.

Fuck, but this is probably suicide.

She’ll angle it as best as she can and jump with all her strength. She doesn’t have any other choice.

She says a quick prayer before she jumps.

And then she leaps.

She can’t help but scream as they plummet. The earth below seems to be heading straight towards them, but there’s cloud below. She leans as far towards the clouds as she can. It looks like they’re going to make it. She hugs Sanji closer and twists until they’re going feet first. Falling into clouds isn’t that different than falling into water, right?

Well, it’s close.

Thank god the clouds are so soft and absorb the impact so well. It doesn’t feel good, but they’re alive. She couldn’t care less about anything else.

She drags herself up out of the cloud and yanks on Sanji until he’s flat on the surface. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around, so she feels secure enough to leave him alone while she hunts around for her lost waver. There must be some spirit of good fortune smiling on her, because she finds it half-submerged in a cloud not too far away from where she and Sanji landed, and when she drags it upright, it powers right back up. Finally, some good luck.

She loads Sanji into the floor of the waver with what feels like the last of her strength. From there, it’s a matter of hanging on as she speeds along, hoping against hope that she’ll run into someone friendly.

Her good luck holds.

“Robin!”

She’s never been so glad to see her. She lets go of the throttle and lets the waver slide to a halt. Robin and Aisa both come running to her side.

“Nami, what are you-?” Robin freezes, catching sight of Sanji’s unconscious body. “What happened?”

“Sanji came and rescued me from the ark, but when he did…”

Several hands sprout from the waver and gently drag Sanji down onto the clouds. It’s only now that Nami really takes in the scene – how Robin and Aisa are the only ones who greeted her because they’re the only ones who can.

Chopper, Gan Fall, that guerilla guy, even Zoro… all unconscious and almost as charred as Sanji.

“They all got taken out…”

Robin nods, her expression grim. “We’ve had a difficult time up here. Where are Usopp and Sora?”

“Back on the Merry. At least, that’s what Sanji said.”

“Good.” Robin nods. “Perhaps they will be safer there.”

“There won’t be anywhere that is safe. Not if Enel gets his way.”

They’re silent for a long moment.

A thought occurs to her. “Wait, where’s Luffy?”

“He just left! He went up the beanstalk to rescue you,” Aisa exclaims.

Well, shit. Guess she doesn’t get any time to rest, huh?

--

Zoro wakes to the sound of thunder.

He groans, squinting up into the darkened sky while he tries to get his bearings. His body feels like it’s been passed through a laundry wringer.

“Swordsman!”

Ah, Robin’s voice. Zoro pulls himself upright with a groan. The whole sky feels like it’s rumbling. Guess that god asshole really is letting loose on the place. He reaches out blindly, but yeah, he’s still got his swords. He finally opens his eyes properly to take everything in.

The weird old guy is waking up nearby. That Wyper asshole’s already on his feet. Chopper’s still knocked out, and Robin and the little girl are alive. He turns to look at his other side and freezes.

“Cook?!”

He scrambles over before he can stop himself. The cook’s on his back on the clouds, and he looks worse than the rest of them. It’s obvious he was hit by the lightning, too, but whatever hit him must’ve been supercharged. His clothes and skin and hair are all burnt and smoky smelling. He can’t smell the cook’s personal scent at all under the stench of ozone and char.

“He’s alive,” Robin says gently from a few feet away. “He seems to be stable. There’s nothing more that we can do until Chopper can examine him.”

And Chopper doesn’t look like he’s up for examining anyone any time soon.

Zoro staggers to his feet and adjusts his swords. He still feels dreadful, but he can push it down. He’s awake, so it’s his job now to protect everyone.

“Robin. Where are the others?”

Robin inclines her head. “Sora and Usopp are awaiting us on the Merry at the rendezvous point. Luffy has climbed this beanstalk in search of Nami. Nami, herself, was rescued from Enel by Sanji. She’s taken her waver up the beanstalk to catch up to Luffy.”

“Dammit.”

“We are no use to Luffy right now,” Robin says seriously, “I would advise we gather our injured and return to the Merry. If Luffy hasn’t returned by then, we can treat our injuries and return to search for him. There’s nothing useful we can do here.”

“It will be too late by then,” the old guy says seriously. He stands and stretches. “Return to your ship. If Luffy does not stop Enel, the ship may be your only hope of survival.”

That sounds ominous. He wants to argue. Wants to chase after Nami and Luffy. Robin has a point, though, loathe as he is to concede to her. They’re all too banged up to be any good.

“Fine. Back to the Merry,” he says.

He crouches down beside the cook. He takes a selfish moment to brush the hair out of his eyes and cup his hand over his cheek. The cook’s shallow breaths coasting across his hand reassure him that he’s alive. Maybe not well, but alive. As gently as he can, he scoops him up and, with Robin’s help, arranges him to be carried on his back.

“Let’s go,” Robin says.

Zoro lets her lead, trusting she knows the way, letting himself be soothed by the cook’s continued breathing as he carries him somewhere safer.

--

Sanji wakes to the sound of a ringing bell.

It’s difficult to make his eyes open. His whole body feels like a slab of beef after he’s taken a tenderizer to it. His head aches and pounds. He’d been having the strangest dream…

His eyes open wider. He’s – he doesn’t know where he is, but he’s not on the ark and he’s not on the Merry. There are trees around him, and the sky is a beautiful, clear blue, not a thundercloud in sight. The bell’s ringing continues to reverberate in the air around him. He carefully pulls himself up into sitting position.

“Sanji!”

He looks up to see Robin smiling down at him. The sight’s blocked immediately by a wall of muscle, and he has no time to react before he’s… hugged?

Zoro is… hugging him?

“Don’t fucking scare us like that, shit-cook,” Zoro growls.

He pulls back before Sanji can process that yes, grumpy old Zoro just gave him a hug, much less decide how he feels about it. The swordsman keeps a hand on his shoulder. He looks exhausted and hurt and vulnerable in a strange way. His smile when Sanji meets his eye makes him look almost like a different person.

“You okay? You’re not talking. You didn’t get brain damage, did you? Oi, Chopper!”

Sanji reaches out and, fumbling, slaps weakly at Zoro’s arm. “I don’t have brain damage, you mossball. I’m fine. What happened?”

“Luffy did it,” Robin says simply. “He saved us all.”

Sanji’s shoulders slump in relief.

“Sanji!”

“Dad!”

Sanji and Zoro both jerk to their feet at the new shouts. Usopp and Sora come sprinting towards them. Sanji catches Sora when he launches himself bodily into his arms.

“Dad! You’re okay!”

“Of course I’m okay.”

“You look bad! What happened?”

Sanji blinks and answers honestly. “I think I got struck by lightning, kiddo.”

Sora’s mouth drops open. He looks like he can’t decide if that’s horrifying or, “Cool! You were struck by lightning? And you’re okay?”

“Your dad’s tough,” Zoro says from behind Sanji.

Sora peers over Sanji’s shoulder. “Zoro! Were you stuck by lightning, too?”

“Yup. Wouldn’t recommend it.”

Sanji looks at Usopp. The sniper comes closer to pat him on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Sanji. I know you said to stay with the ship, but Pagaya woke up and left, and then the thunderclouds went away and everything stopped being destroyed, and we were worried you guys were lost or hurt somewhere, and we kind of got anxious and we figured it was probably mostly safe now that there wasn’t any lightning, but we really should have stayed and I’m sorry but we were so worried, and –“

“Usopp,” Sanji interrupts, “it’s okay.”

Usopp deflates a little. His eyes well with tears instead. “I’m so glad everyone’s okay! Everyone is okay, right?”

“Everyone is fine,” Robin says soothingly. Her smile is a small, but honest thing. “I’m sure our captain and our navigator will be around shortly.”

Sanji’s knees buckle. He waves off everyone’s sudden anxiety. “I’m fine! Just tired. And just…”

He stares up at the blue, blue sky and feels laughter tickling in his chest. When he opens his mouth, it escapes. He can feel the crew’s stares until Usopp starts snickering. It’s like a dam burst after that. One by one, they all begin laughing, perhaps a little hysterically.

“We made it,” Sanji chokes out.

“We’re alive!”

Sora joins Usopp’s call, “We’re alive!”

From nearby, he can hear similar calls from the people of Skypeia and the warriors of Shandora. He doesn’t know the extent of the destruction yet or how gravely they’re all injured, but in this moment, everyone on the sky islands is united in the simple joy of having survived.

They made it.

They can go home.

Chapter Text

To Sanji, the most satisfying part of saving Skypeia is raiding the pantry of Enel’s little temple.

With the Shandoran camp and the city of Skypeia both in shambles, the immediate problem of finding bedding and food becomes the most immediate issue. Luckily, many Skypeians had grabbed what supplies they could before evacuating, and the temple pantry does more than enough to fill in the gaps.

Not that Sanji is involved too closely with this process. Chopper takes one look at the bedraggled crew and announces that everyone who was struck by lightning is to sit down immediately until he can make sure they’re actually okay. There’s a lot of dire muttering about their hearts and lungs as he does his best with his field kit to stabilize everyone. Wyper turns out to be the most injured of the lot, but that’s mostly due to his continuous use of a freaking suicide cannon that he knew would kill him, because Wyper is an idiot and also doesn’t seem to know how to deal with either the Skypeians or the pirates. He mostly just sits uncomfortably with his mouth clamped shut until Chopper declares him okay to go on to his own people if he wants. He limps away from them without more than another quick glance.

Zoro and Sanji tie for next injured – Zoro for all the superficial slashing and stabbing wounds on top of his lightning strike, and Sanji for tanking a supercharged strike that probably should have killed him. Chopper mutters scoldings at both of them as he cleans and bandages their wounds and burns. He doesn’t seem to notice when his scoldings turn into soft tears until Zoro drags him into his arms for a hug.

“Chopper, we’re okay,” he says.

“I know, but -!” Chopper sniffs mightily and manfully tries to staunch his tears.

“No buts,” Zoro says firmly. He pulls Chopper back to chuck him under the chin. “Everyone’s fine. We did good. And you’re doing good, too. No more crying. You’ve still got to check on the girls.”

Sanji, personally, would probably have let him cry a little more, but to his surprise, the reindeer perks up immediately with a new fire in his eyes.

“You’re right! Let me finish here and take care of the rest of the crew!”

For all his haste, he’s still gentle when he leads Sanji away behind some rubble to privately wrap his burns in aloe-soaked bandages. Sanji wordlessly nuzzles him in gratitude, and the reindeer gives him a huge smile before depositing him back with Zoro to go find the ladies.

Sanji glances at Zoro. The alpha’s staring at the beginnings of a bonfire taking shape, looking tired and content and soft.

“You’re really good with Chopper,” Sanji observes.

Zoro startles like he wasn’t expecting to be addressed. He turns his head slightly to peer at him.

“It’s nothing,” he says gruffly. “Chopper’s a good kid. He likes being treated like an adult.”

Sanji hums. “He likes being treated like a kid, too, sometimes.”

He’s not prepared for Zoro to turn his head fully with a wide, white grin that makes all the serious lines of his usual expression disappear. It’s the kind of face he wears when he’s goofing off with Luffy. It’s not something that he thinks has ever been directed at him.

“That’s why he’s got you, right?”

Sanji finds himself echoing that grin unconsciously. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Zoro pulls himself to his feet with a grunt. “I’m going to go find some booze. You want any, Cook?”

“Didn’t Chopper say not to drink alcohol?”

“Chopper doesn’t have to know.”

Sanji snorts and waves him away. “Your funeral, then, Mosshead. I’m good. Though if you find anything nonalcoholic to drink, I’d take it. Unlike you, I value my life.”

“Hey, I value my life. That’s why I like drinking. What’s so fun about living sober?”

Sanji rolls his eyes and waves him away more aggressively. Zoro just grins again and marches off. Sanji’s left alone for just a few moments to watch the bonfire be lit and the women and a few of the men of Skypeia begin preparing what food they found. Someone starts up somewhere with a flute that’s quickly followed by the beat of some drums. Looks like it’s turning into a real victory party.

“Sanji!”

He turns his head and grins again. Nami approaches him with Aisa holding one hand and Sora the other. The two kids break away from the beta woman to scramble up onto the rubble next to him. Nami grins at him and continues on, heading for a group of people who look like they’re opening a cask of wine.

“You’re okay, Blue Sea guy?” Aisa squints at him suspiciously.

“I told you my dad is really strong!” Sora declares this with the air of an argument that’s been going on for too long. More timidly, he asks, “You’re okay, right, Dad?”

Sanji smiles and loops his arms over both of their shoulders to drag them to his side in a hug. He can already feel his chest thrumming with an easy purr. “I’m just fine. Chopper said I should take it easy for a little while, but he doesn’t think it did anything seriously bad. I’m just a little toasty.”

Sora wrinkles his nose. “You smell burnt.”

“I did get a little overdone. Enel’s not a very good cook, is he?”

Sora laughs, and Aisa looks at both of them like they’re crazy. She declares, “You Blue Sea people are weird.”

“No, you Sky People are weird!”

“Nobody’s weird,” Sanji cuts in, hoping to nip this argument at the bud. He snakes his hand up to knock both of their head coverings askew and ruffle their hair over their sounds of disgruntled protest. “Different’s not weird. Don’t fight. We’re all friends now, okay?”

Sora huffs and crosses his arms. “But she’s rude!”

“Am not! You’re rude!”

“You were rude first!”

“No, you were rude!”

“Was not!”

“Aisa,” a woman’s voice cuts in. Sanji looks up to see a beautiful young Shandoran woman approaching. She gives Sanji a hesitant smile before she narrows her eyes at Aisa again. “I told you to be polite.”

“He started it!”

“I don’t particularly care who started it. Cut it out or I’ll eat your portion of grilled eel.”

Aisa’s eyes turn comically wide. “You won’t!”

“I will. Now, are you done playing with your friend?”

“He’s not my friend!” Aisa pauses and glances at Sanji. Quickly, she hugs him tight and bounces away before he can react. She calls over her shoulder, “Bye, Blue Sea guy! I’m glad you’re okay!”

The woman watches her run off and sighs. “That girl… Excuse me. My name is Laki.”

“Aisa mentioned you,” Sanji says easily. He’s trying to remain cool and calm, but the woman is extremely lovely, with fine, narrow features and a waterfall of straight black hair cascading down her back. He coughs slightly and smiles. “She was worried about you. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“You as well, sir.”

“It’s Sanji.”

Laki nods. “Aisa told me you were kind to her when she was lost on the cloud trails. Thank you. She is a spirited child and prone to getting into trouble, but I appreciate your kindness.”

“It’s no trouble. She’s a funny kid.”

Laki smiles and makes her excuses, trailing off after Aisa into the throng that’s becoming a celebration. Sanji turns to Sora and pokes him on the cheek.

“What was that?”

Sora makes a face and looks away. “Nothing.”

“I thought I told you to be nice to ladies.”

“Aisa’s not a lady,” Sora declares, crossing his arms, “She’s just a girl. And she’s a rude girl.”

Zoro chooses that moment to return with his arms laden with bowls and mugs. Sanji reaches up and takes some of them before he can drop them, juggling them in his hands as Zoro takes the seat Aisa had left. He grins at Sora from around Sanji.

“When I was a kid,” he says, grinning, “my best friend was a girl, and she was rude, too!”

“Did your dad make you be nice to her?”

Zoro makes a weird face before grinning again. “Hell no. She would’ve beat me up if I tried to be nice to her! She was the strongest swordsman ever. She kicked my butt all the time.”

Sanji slips Sora a mug of what seems to be pineapple juice, or something similar, as the kid’s eyes go wide and round. “She beat you? But you’re the toughest guy ever!”

Zoro snorts and takes a gulp of beer from his own mug. “Nah, Kuina was way stronger. I never beat her. Not once.”

“Where is she now? Can I meet her?”

Zoro stares into his mug for a moment before he says, “She died.”

Sanji’s heart sinks. He’s never heard Zoro talk about his past before this, and he can hear the real grief in his voice. Without thinking too hard about it, he grabs Zoro’s free hand in his own and brings it up to rub the back of his knuckles across his cheek, a quiet, rumbling purr vibrating in his chest. Sora hops up, too, and carefully sets his juice down so he can crawl up onto Zoro’s other side and wiggle his way under the arm holding his beer mug to hug him tight around the middle. Sanji glances at him before he looks away, embarrassed, and sees that Zoro looks completely shocked.

“I’m sorry your friend died,” Sora says sincerely.

Zoro seems speechless for a moment before he says, sounding a bit strangled, “Um, thanks. It was a long time ago. It’s okay.”

“But you’re still sad,” Sora says, squeezing tighter. “Dad says sometimes you can be sad about stuff for a long time, but it’s okay. You can be sad, and I’ll give you a hug and you can feel better!”

“That’s… that’s nice, kid.” Zoro gently removes his hand from Sanji’s so he can ruffle Sora’s hair. “If I get sad, I’ll tell you first thing, alright?”

Sora nods and hops up again to go back over to Sanji’s side again, carefully picking up his juice and wiggling his butt on the masonry until he’s situated back comfortably by his dad’s side. Zoro watches him go before his eyes dart up to meet Sanji’s. His cheeks flush in ruddy splotches.

“I’m, uh, gonna go get more beer.” He waves his cup, which sloshes audibly, in a weak gesture before he flees from their patch of rubble to disappear into a throng of people.

Sanji watches him go with a raised eyebrow before he turns his attention back to the bowls of food Zoro had brought. Someone had grilled what had to have been an enormous sky-eel over the fire and served it over a bed of rice with a sauce dribbled over it. Sanji passes a bowl to Sora and takes his own, glancing again at where Zoro had disappeared to.

Still, he can’t worry too much about it. He’s got food now, and Sora looking more peaceful than he’s looked in days, and there’s music and lights and laughter, and everything seems like it’s going to be okay now.

--

Zoro chugs his beer and belches into his fist.

What’s wrong with him?

He peers through the throng of people for a glimpse of blond hair. He’s being stupid about this. He knows he is. He’s getting everything he ever wanted handed to him, and instead of enjoying it, he’s running away like a coward.

It’s terrifying, honestly.

He’s not scared to die. He’s not scared to throw himself into danger and battles. He thought before this that he was brave, but maybe he’s actually just a coward. A coward, because for a moment, his fantasies had felt so real that he’d thought – there’s no way he could have this without screwing it up.

He feels the phantom touch of Sora’s skinny little arms squeezing him, and Sanji’s slender fingers wrapped around his palm to nuzzle his cheek against his hand. He clenches his fist and draws another mug of beer from the keg. He knows already that Sanji doesn’t mean it the way he wishes he did. He knows that to him, he’s just reaching out as a friend, comforting him in his natural nurturing omega fashion, that it’s just a kindness. He deserves better than Zoro overthinking it, than him turning these innocent moments into a fictional flash forward in time, where he can pretend he’s really Sora’s dad, that Sanji’s looking at him with genuine love in his eyes, that he’ll get to have that one day.

He chugs more beer and burps again. Fuck, but having feelings is complicated. Before he’d met the cook and his kid, he figured romance and settling down was never in the cards for him, but he turns out to be just as dumb as any other knot-headed alpha out there. The first pretty omega catches his eye, and he’s running to bring wooing gifts and dreaming up names for their future kids. What an idiot.

“Hey,” a man’s voice says.

Zoro turns to peer at one of the Shandoran warriors leaning against the keg. He holds a mug of beer casually in his own hand, and the way he’s looking at Zoro isn’t unfamiliar to him. He grins.

“You’re a strong warrior.”

Zoro grunts. It’s true. The man’s grin widens.

“Not a man of words, huh?”

“Not really any point.”

The man stalks closer to put a hand boldly on his bicep. He leans closer than he needs to murmur, “Man of action, then? Wanna get out of here?”

And Zoro… is just a man.

He considers it.

It’d be easy to wander off somewhere secluded with this handsome man and blow some steam off. Nobody would fault him for it. It’s not like he has any relationship with the cook to be loyal to, but it feels wrong. Maybe he’s just tired and not in the mood, but right now he’d take the warmth of sitting side by side with the cook and Sora over getting his rocks off in the jungle with some stranger.

“Sorry, man. Not interested,” he says.

The Shandoran’s face falls in disappointment before he pastes a confident grin back on. “That’s fine. See you.”

They exchange a nod, and he watches the young man wander off to go try his luck somewhere else. He shakes his head and gulps down another beer. He’s lost track of how much he’s had, but he feels loose and warm and relaxed. Must’ve been quite a few, then. He should probably cut himself off now.

He means to make his way directly back to the cook, but he gets muddled somewhere along the way. The bonfire spins dizzying in his eyes as night truly begins to fall, and he gets swept up in the wild dancing around the fire. It’s so similar to the party they’d had with the wolves the night before – and had it really been only a day? – and he finds himself searching the fringes of the party, looking for the cook. He finally finds him a little ways removed from the festivities, sitting on a blanket with Robin as Sora sleeps draped in his lap.

He doesn’t even hesitate to duck away from the party and run right back to his side.

--

“Sanji,” Robin calls.

He looks up from his people watching to see Robin approaching with a blanket folded in her arms. She nods towards the weight in his lap.

“Would you like to go somewhere quieter?”

It says a lot about how much he’s come to relax with the crew that he doesn’t even search for innuendo in her question. Instead he nods and struggles to his feet, hefting his mostly-asleep son. He follows Robin to the edges of the group, to where there’s more shadows than light from the bonfire, and the music carries on the wind away from them. Robin spreads the blanket out so it’s still folded to twice its thickness and gestures for him to sit.

“May I stay with you a while?”

“Of course,” he says. He settles on the blanket and arranges Sora more comfortably in his lap. He’s slowly growing too large to be held like this, but he makes it work. He’s not quite ready to let his baby grow up all the way, yet.

Robin lowers herself down beside him, close, but not touching. They relax together in silence for a long while, soaking in the atmosphere of revelry and relief that permeates the gathering. The number of casualties from Enel’s attack was shockingly small, likely due to Conis and Pagaya’s quick thinking in evacuating the town. For his part, Sanji’s relieved that their crew came out of it relatively unscathed. Their time in Skypeia had been so tense and violent that he’d been prepared for more gruesome injuries than what they ended up with.

“I owe you an apology,” Robin says. She hesitates. “Perhaps more than one.”

Sanji leans his head over to look at her. “What for?”

Robin sighs. “For one, I must apologize again for yesterday. For leaving Sora alone.”

Sanji sighs, too. After the chaos of the last day, he doesn’t even know how to feel about the situation. He’d been so devastated at the time, but he’s so worn out now that the memory of how terribly betrayed he’d felt is muted and replaced with a much more immediate feeling of relief that everyone’s okay.

“I…”

“You don’t have to answer me,” she says, looking down at her hands. “I am not asking to be forgiven. I merely wish you to know that I do take my actions seriously and genuinely desire to never make a choice such as that again. I am… unused to having more than just myself to worry about. It’s a pitiful excuse for putting your child in danger, but it is my only justification. Going forward, I will take the rest of the crew more into consideration before I act.”

“…Thanks.”

“My second apology…” She twists her fingers together in what looks like a nervous gesture. “I confess, Sanji, that I touched you while you were unconscious with my Devil Fruit ability.”

“Oh.” He blinks and takes that in. “When did that happen?”

“After Miss Navigator… After Nami rescued you from the Ark. You are rather heavy, especially while unconscious, so I used my abilities to help me lift you out of the waver and onto the cloud bed to rest. I could not think of another way to efficiently move you.”

He nods and chews his lip. He still feels squirmy when he thinks about being touched by all of those hands, but she sounds so genuinely upset, and he can imagine Nami and Robin, both injured and exhausted, struggling to lift him up between them without aggravating his injuries. He briefly feels terrible for inconveniencing them. They’re both on the thinner side, without bulging muscles or Luffy’s weirdly dense, rubbery strength. He nods again.

“Thank you for telling me. I never would have known otherwise. I forgive you. It sounds like you didn’t have many options.”

“I just don’t want to upset you.”

“I’m not upset. Thank you, Robin, for taking care of me and the others. We owe you a lot.”

Robin looks up from her hands and searches his face for something. He smiles, hoping she finds whatever she’s looking for, and he’s rewarded with a small, almost shy smile of her own.

“I truly do enjoy being part of this crew,” she says in a quiet voice.

He nods, and in this moment, he feels like he’s seeing a kind of kinship between them. He was so lonely for so long in the years dragging by on Baratie, starved for the friendship of people his own age who would care about him at all. He hadn’t even realized how lonely he’d been until he’d been granted a space on this crew for himself and for his son. He thinks of Robin alone on these seas, forced by circumstance to never reveal her true self to anyone, to never trust, to never let her guard down, and he aches for how lonely she must have been, as well.

“You’re welcome to the crew,” he says, still smiling. “I’d like for us to start over. As friends?”

Robin’s shy smile widens. “I’d like that.”

They smile at one another before the moment is abruptly ruined by Zoro stomping over, tipsy and flushed from dancing and the flames. He grins.

“Found you, Cook. You got lost.”

Sanji’s eyebrows climb up to his hairline. “I got lost? You said you were getting a beer. That was ages ago!”

Zoro frowns. “I wasn’t lost. You’re the one who moved.”

Sanji turns to Robin, but she’s no help. She laughs quietly behind her hand and stands in a graceful motion. “I believe that’s my cue to go. I believe Longnose could use some help. Our captain seems to be looking for more food.”

She nods at Zoro and waves goodbye to Sanji before walking off, leaving him alone with the mosshead.

Said mosshead wastes no time in taking Robin’s vacated seat. He smells like sweat and beer and his strong alpha scent, but there’s a bright undercurrent of genuine joy that makes it not as unpleasant as it could be. Sanji barely wrinkles his nose.

“Kid got tired, huh?”

“Yeah. He had a long day.”

Zoro nods. He leans back on his hands to stare out over the cloudless sky. Sanji follows his gaze to where clusters of stars dot the heavens. It’s breathtakingly beautiful. He wishes he could take this sight and bottle it up so he could look at it again and again at leisure.

“What’s it like?”

He blinks and looks back at Zoro. The alpha’s stare has moved to Sora, to where the kid’s asleep with his cheek smushed onto his shoulder on top of a growing wet patch of drool.

“Having a kid, I mean.”

“Oh.” Sanji pets his hand slowly over Sora’s back, thinking it through. Finally, he settles on, “It’s terrifying.”

Zoro seems surprised by the answer. He blinks slowly like a confused cat, and it’s enough to make Sanji huff out a quiet laugh.

“It is,” he insists. He shifts a little to get more comfortable. “It’s like… Like someone took your heart out of your chest and let it go running off away from you, and you try so hard every day to keep it safe, but it’s never really safe enough. Every time he gets hurt, every time the world does something that pushes him down, it feels like knives in my chest. I would do anything to keep him safe, to keep him from ever seeing how ugly the world really is, even though I know I can’t just hide him away somewhere. So, you just brace for the pain and hope you’re able to do enough when it happens.”

Zoro hums. They’re silent for a minute before he says, “Do you regret it? Not, well, I don’t mean… not the way it happened, obviously, but just… was having a kid even something you wanted?”

What a question. He sighs. “I wish it hadn’t happened the way that it did, but Sora’s mine. I’d never regret having him. I love him so much that I can’t describe it to you. And… I’d do it again.” He feels his face turn pink, and he hopes the dim light of the stars and bonfire isn’t bright enough to illuminate his blush. “I was… I was a lonely kid. When I was young, I daydreamed about romance and fairy tales, about princes and princesses and all that trite bullshit. And then after… Well, it wasn’t the worst thing ever, you know? Carrying a kid? And I liked it. It was hard, and I needed a lot of help, but at the end of the day… I like babies. And kids. And I don’t think it would be so bad to settle down one day and have another. Or more. You know? Is that… That’s not weird, right?”

Zoro leans over enough to gently bump shoulders with him before pulling back. His voice is quiet, “It’s not weird.”

“…You ever think about kids?”

Zoro makes a noise like a cough. He recovers quickly, sniffing and sitting up straighter to say, “I didn’t really think about it growing up. I always had my dream of being the strongest swordsman. I kind of figured that I’d die somewhere along the way, bloody and alone. But, I don’t know… Being around Sora, around Chopper… It’s made me think things through a little more. I don’t think it’d be so bad… if I survive reaching my goal… It’d just be nice. Settling down somewhere. Having a few kids. Seems like a good life.”

Sanji hums and smiles. It’s kind of an odd image to imagine, some older Zoro with his bandana and haramaki and swords, settling down in a cottage somewhere with a baby on his hip, but it actually seems nice. He glances at the swordsman again and thinks about those big hands of his cradling a newborn between them and has to glance away sharply to hide his blush. He wasn’t expecting to like the image so much. It’s confusing. Kind of frightening. But also… curious?

“I’m sorry.”

Sanji blinks his fantasies away and glances back at the swordsman. He’s looking at Sora again. His expression’s hard to discern in the dim light, but it doesn’t look happy. His scent has deepened with unhappiness.

“You’re what?”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I don’t think I actually said it, but I am. I’m sorry I left Sora behind on the ship.”

Oh, so they’re doing this. Sanji shifts uncomfortably. “Oh. I… thanks. I forgive you. I think I owe you an apology, anyway. I said some harsh stuff… I can’t even remember what, but I know how I get, and I know it was probably bad. So, sorry.”

“It’s fine. You didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”

“I probably did,” Sanji says wryly, “but I’ll take your word for it. I was just as bad… I tried to bite your head off and then I did the same thing the next day.”

“I don’t think it’s the same.”

“Isn’t it?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t there. Walk me through it, Cook.”

Sora snuffles sleepily against his shoulder, and he strokes him soothingly again. He shifts. He doesn’t like conversations like this. Where he has to explain his mistakes. It always smacks of reporting his failures to that bastard back in North Blue, and he hates any reminder of him. But this is Zoro, looking patient and still a bit tipsy and honestly kind of sleepy. He takes a deep breath.

“We were on the ship. Enel had just hit Pagaya with lightning, and Conis had just left to go warn everyone. I got him inside, where I figured Enel might not be able to get him again, and then Usopp came out of the den and said Sora was asleep… We went outside to talk and smoke, and then we saw the Ark, and we saw Nami up there, and… there just wasn’t any time to think. I thought about sending Usopp, but… I didn’t want to send him up there where he would be at a disadvantage.”

Zoro grunts in agreement. “’Sopp’s a sniper, not a brawler.”

“Exactly. I didn’t have enough time to come up with a better plan – Nami was flying further away. I just… went with my gut and did my best. I feel like I should have stayed behind, but if I did…”

“Then Nami would have taken the hit you took,” Zoro finishes. He nods as if satisfied. “So it’s not like what I did at all.”

“What? Yes it is.”

“Nope. You made a leadership call in an emergency. I let myself get talked out of my gut feeling and left the kid when I really didn’t have to. It’s not the same.”

Well, when he puts it like that… He still feels conflicted about it. Zoro startles him with a hand on his shoulder, which he pulls back immediately when he flinches.

“Shit, sorry, I forgot. Dammit, I was trying to make you feel better.”

A wave of dejected alpha stink hits his nose. Sanji grimaces before a smile takes over his expression. “It’s okay. I was just surprised.”

“You hate surprises,” Zoro mutters.

“I do. But… you mean it? I didn’t… I didn’t completely fuck up, right?”

“You did good, Cook. It all turned out okay. And next time, we’ll make a better plan for keeping the kid safe.”

“There better not be a next time,” Sanji says firmly. He grins when Zoro looks surprised. “Yeah, I know we’ll go somewhere dangerous again – it’s the Grand Line – but we better not run into any more cults worshipping false gods and throwing lightning everywhere again.”

“Yeah… that hurt like a bitch.”

“It really did.”

They laugh softly and lapse into silence. It’s nice. There’s a cool breeze on the wind, and the revelry looks like it’s still not even close to dying down. He can see Usopp and Luffy and Nami dancing around the fire. None of them look too worse for wear, other than the bandages on the ends of Nami’s fingers. They look happy. He lets out a purr of contentment.

“Love it when you do that,” Zoro mutters.

Sanji startles. When he looks, Zoro’s drooped back onto his back and looks mostly asleep. He doesn’t seem to notice that he’s murmuring loud enough for Sanji to hear.

“The purring’s nice. Feels good.” His mumbling drifts off into nonsensical sounds that transition into snoring, leaving Sanji sitting there, sober and awake and completely unsure of what’s going on.

Maybe the lightning did something to him. Or maybe the alcohol? He feels his cheeks flaming, which is stupid. All he said was that he likes… no, loves his purring. It doesn’t mean anything. Everyone loves purring. They’re programmed to love it since infancy. Zoro’s probably… it probably doesn’t mean anything. He’s just drunk and sleepy.

Sanji hugs Sora tighter and feels a strange ache in his chest. He’s not sure why the thought makes him feel… sad? It’s not like he wants the mossball to get weird ideas. He’s just…

It was just their conversation, probably. He’s always been a sucker for babies and domestic daydreams, and Zoro’d gone and brought it up, and sat there looking like… like his dream idea of what an alpha could be. Someone big. Gentle. Kind of sweet in a gruff way. Someone who’d love Sora just as much as he would his own kids. Someone to hold something soft between his sword-calloused hands and treasure it.

Zoro will probably be a nice alpha to someone one day. Sanji holds the pain that thought elicits close in his chest and breathes through it.

Zoro would be a nice alpha to someone, and he deserves a good omega to settle with. Someone clean and pure and not so damaged. Sanji should cut these daydreams out of his head now before he just hurts himself. It’s foolish to go and give himself ideas about things that won’t ever happen, that shouldn’t happen. It’s probably Ace’s fault, giving him hope that love and comfort and gentleness can be something attainable for him. It was all well and good for Ace to believe those things, but Ace only had to know him for a few days.

Ace didn’t get to see the nightmares. Ace didn’t see him fall into dissociative terror with his heats or watch him work himself into a frenzy over the very idea of Robin’s Devil Fruit. He didn’t have to deal with him on days where he’s inexplicably so incredibly angry that every little thing sets him off, or on days where he can’t bring himself to crawl out of bed because everything feels heavy and dull and grey like a blanket of misery coating the whole planet. He didn’t see the real Sanji.

Zoro has, and nothing he can do or say now can give him a better impression of him.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there brooding and feeling sorry for himself with Zoro and Sora both snoring in his ears before Chopper wanders by.

“Oh, Sanji! I was looking for you! How are your wounds?”

“They’re fine, Chopper. You did a good job treating them.”

“Aw, that doesn’t make me happy at all, you bastard!”

Sanji smiles at the reindeer’s wiggling. It’s a good distraction from the dark direction his thoughts had traveled in. Chopper sniffs and goes still. His hat brim shadows his eyes for a moment before he yells and launches himself at Zoro’s unconscious body.

“Zoro, you idiot!”

Zoro jerks awake, reaching for his sword belt that’s not strapped to his waist. Chopper leaps on top of his shoulders and starts smacking him over the top of the head with his hooves.

“Ow – fuck – Chopper, what are you doing?!”

“I said no alcohol!”

“It was just some beer!”

“Beer is alcohol, you idiot!”

Sora had startled awake from the noise, so Sanji scoots them both out of the epicenter of violence happening on the other end of the blanket. The noise draws the rest of the crew over to see why exactly Zoro’s cringing and trying to protect his head from flailing reindeer hooves.

“Chopper, stop!”

“No! You’re an idiot and a bad patient, and I should beat you up until you’re too injured to drink anything but what I give you, you jerk!”

Luffy laughs loudly and hops in to try pummeling Zoro, too, escalating the mild bludgeoning to a full-fledged brawl. Usopp helps Sanji and Sora up, and they back away to watch the two humans fall over as Chopper explodes into heavy point and continues grappling at Zoro.

“Those idiots,” Nami groans, putting her face in her palm.

“I thought we were supposed to be resting and celebrating,” Usopp says.

“I don’t know, they look like they’re having a good time,” Sanji offers.

“Ah, Chopper, no tickling!”

“Sora, come help me tickle him,” Luffy calls.

Sanji shakes his head and sets Sora down. The kid, being an awful traitor with no loyalty, immediately joins Luffy in trying to tickle the swordsman. The green-haired man turns the tables by tickling Sora back, and then things get muddled and all four of them are laughing and rolling around in the dirt.

“It’s always exciting on this crew,” Robin says with a wide smile.

“It could stand to be a little less exciting,” Nami mutters.

“Ah, what the hell.” Usopp shrugs off his satchel and dives into the fray. “I’ll save you, Sora!”

“Idiots,” Sanji says fondly.

He’s purring again, he realizes. Nami comes closer and hugs his arm, resting her head on his shoulder. Robin tentatively moves to stand closer to him. It’s a beautiful night under the stars on an island in the sky, with the soundtrack of music and revelry and the shrieking laughter of his crew and his kid – healthy and happy enough to play in the dirt like a bunch of children.

It’s a very good night.

Chapter Text

Sanji is more grateful to the crew than ever because there is no way that he would ever be able to keep up with Sora’s energy this morning without some help.

Evidently five-year-olds who have it in their heads that today is the day they can leave the sky islands and go back to their proper sea have no sympathy for “Dad’s been sleeping on the ground all night and got struck by lightning yesterday, so can we please just sleep a little longer?” Sanji lies on his aching back and stares glumly up at the morning sky as Sora insistently pokes him and whines and he wonders if maybe he was lying yesterday when he said he loved kids and wanted more.

“Hey, Sora, let’s go see what they’re cooking for breakfast, huh? Let’s let your dad rest a little more, right Sanji?”

If his body wasn’t one big ache from the lightning strike, he would get up right this moment and kiss Usopp on the mouth. Instead, he wordlessly raises his fist in a thumb’s up gesture and closes his eyes again. Usopp leads Sora away, chattering cheerfully about how he agrees, he is also excited to go back home, and yes, we will go back to the Grand Line, and no, I don’t think Conis will let you take her pet fox back down with you.

He drifts away again for a while, waking once Chopper comes by to poke at him to make sure he’s just sleeping and didn’t die. It’s as good a time as any to finally get up. He lets Chopper drag him off to the most secluded area they can find to unwind his bandages and wash the skin of his chest and rewrap it away from prying eyes. Freshly wrapped and medicated with something for the muscle soreness (it turns out that your muscles actually don’t like having massive electrical currents run through them) Sanji finally feels ready to track down his kid.

He finds Sora unashamedly sitting in Nami’s lap with a bowl of some kind of porridge. Luffy’s over by the cooking fire with Usopp as the sniper tries in vain to stop Luffy from tearing through the rations like a ravenous animal. Robin’s nowhere to be seen, but Chopper had managed to find Zoro and is busy winding fresh bandages all over him.

“Sanji!” Nami smiles warmly upon seeing him. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m perfectly lovely! Thank you for asking, Nami!” He blows her a kiss and then lets a real smile fall onto his face. “Where’s Robin?”

“She left to go check out a poneglyph they have up here. Did you want some breakfast?”

His stomach rumbles on cue. Zoro shoots to his feet as if shot, knocking Chopper over.

“Did you need breakfast?”

“He can get his own breakfast!” Chopper switches to heavy point and shoves him back down, rolling his eyes. “You humans with your stupid instincts, I swear… Sit down and let me finish!”

Zoro huffs and rolls his eyes.

Sanji blinks and shuffles away from the two of them. Alpha provider instincts? It’s way too early in the morning for this. He instead makes his way over to the communal pot to beg a portion from the sweet Skypeian grandmother who’s manning the cooking this morning.

“Sanji!” Luffy bounds over and hops onto his back, nearly making him drop his bowl. “They won’t give me meat!”

Sanji bucks him off and glares at him. “These people are already being nice by sharing their food with you, and now you complain? Shitty rubber!”

The grandmother laughs and stirs the pot again. “What a nice young man you are. Now, now, rubber boy, if you go down to the sea with the warriors and catch me a big sky shark, I’ll cook it right up for you!”

Luffy’s entire face lights up. “Yeah? You hear that, Sanji? Meat! C’mon, Usopp, let’s go!”

“Wait, Luffy, no-!”

Sanji winces as Usopp gets snagged by a flailing limb and dragged away screaming towards the sea. The grandmother winks at him, which he returns with a weak smile, and he makes his way back to the others.

“What’s Luffy doing now?” Nami asks with a tone of completely resigned exasperation.

“Catching a shark,” Sanji replies, settling down on the cloudy ground beside her. He stirs his porridge and takes a bite before he continues, “Granny over there told him she’d cook it if he caught one.”

Zoro groans and drags himself to his feet. “He went to the sea? Alone?”

“Usopp’s with him. He probably won’t let him drown.”

Zoro grumbles some more and starts off after them. They all watch him go silently until he disappears between some trees.

Sora pipes up, “Why is he going that way, Dad?”

Sanji sighs. “Because Zoro is hopeless at directions.”

“Should we try to stop him?” Chopper asks.

Nami waves her hand dismissively. “He’ll be fine. He’ll get there eventually.”

--

To Sora’s loud and vocal disappointment, it takes them four days to finally leave Skypeia.

For one, Luffy insists on throwing more and more parties. The residents of the sky keep up as much as they can, but nobody can really keep up with Luffy when he’s throwing a victory party.

Repairing the Merry enough to be sea-worthy takes some more time, and Robin spends quite a bit of her days studying the ruins around the area and taking notes and rubbings. Usopp goes all-in on trading for dials and studying their effects, and Zoro seems to mostly be sleeping their adventure off.

Sanji, for his part, is left with the task of keeping Sora from completely losing his mind. Every day, he’s asked approximately one hundred times why they can’t go back to the Blue Sea right now and Dad, you promised we would go back, and I don’t want to be in the sky anymore.

It’s exhausting.

He directs him to playing with the other children as much as he can, and when that fails, he occupies him with gathering supplies for their journey. The Merry is still stocked with plenty of dried and canned food to keep them going, but he likes to incorporate fresh ingredients when he can so the meals are the highest quality he can provide despite the difficulties of cooking out at sea.

Sora takes to the tasks well enough, though the whining and complaining hardly slows. He can’t really blame him, either – Sora’s experience with the sky islands has been unpleasant and frightening, so it makes sense that he wants to leave. It doesn’t make dealing with his poor attitude much easier, though.

It also doesn’t help with the guilt when he wakes up crying at night with night terrors.

Needless to say, by the fourth day, Sanji is more than ready to leave.

Sanji ditches Sora with Nami on the Merry with Conis so they can prep the ship to leave, and so he can go with the other boys to raid the city of gold for treasure. It’s the first bit of genuine fun he’s had in a while, and he can’t help but get a little giddy.

“We’re stealing treasure! Makes you feel like a real pirate, huh?”

Usopp shares a grin with him as they stuff their sacks full. “Right? This is what I was waiting for! A real pirate plundering!”

“More gold, more gold!” Luffy chants as they shovel their sacks full.

They head back for the Merry with their sacks heaping with gold on their backs, gleeful and laughing even as Robin joins them and they’re chased off the island by a hoard of locals, thundering off towards their ship and the Blue Sea that awaits them.

--

“Everyone, I have just remembered something that could affect the crew,” Robin says over dinner that night. “I would like to be transparent.”

Everyone tenses slightly over their plates. They’d made it back down to their own sea, drifting down with the help of a friendly cephalopod. To celebrate returning to their sea, Sanji had whipped up as much of a feast as he could with the ingredients at hand, serving up platters of roasted sky-fish and mushrooms atop pasta tossed in a refreshing vinegarette and crusty loaves of fresh bread with herbed oil for dipping. A dense sheet pan cake is cooling on the stove.

“What’s up?” Luffy asks around a mouthful of fish bones.

Robin cradles a glass of wine in her hand and leans back in her chair, relaxed and casual. More importantly – nonthreatening. She makes a little grimace that looks like it wants to be a smile but doesn’t quite make it there.

“My rut,” she says. She takes a sip of wine and glances at Sanji. “It should be here within the week. I lost track of time during our adventure in the sky. I apologize. I would have liked to give you more warning.”

“Oh, is that all?” Luffy succeeds in swallowing the fish bones, ignoring the kick Sanji gives him to his shin because who the hell eats fish bones? He grins instead. “It’s not a problem, right, guys?”

“I understand that,” Robin says, “but I would like to have a plan in mind for how to manage it.”

“Do you want me or Usopp to tend to you?” Nami asks.

Robin hesitates, setting her glass down. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

Nami frowns. “So you want to go through it alone?”

“I am used to it.” Robin shrugs uncomfortably. “I don’t want to put the rest of you out of the bunkroom, however. Is there a way we could partition an area more securely for me to establish as my territory? I am not usually aggressive or –“ she glances at Sora and changes whatever she was about to say to –“seeking company. I do, however, get a bit… odd.”

“Define ‘odd,’” Sanji asks.

Robin tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and avoids his eyes. “Paranoid, perhaps. I warn you, Sanji, I may become… unusually attached. I don’t wish to make you uncomfortable, but I may be compelled to verify your whereabouts periodically. I will try to resist.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Robin glances at him properly and crosses her arms. They all follow her gaze to a set of robin’s egg blue eyes blinking at them from the wall.

“That’s a little unsettling,” Usopp mutters.

“As established, I will try to be respectful, but I am only human. I may falter.”

Luffy is frowning mightily before he nods. “Okay! We’ll make you a nice den, and then I’ll help you out!”

“Captain, you don’t have to –“

“Nuh-uh! You’re gonna be sad all alone, and you don’t want to bother Nami and Usopp? So I’ll take care of you!” Luffy grins and starts counting on his fingers, “I’ll bring you food, and we can have a party, and we can play cards…”

“Captain…”

Sanji glances at Robin, worried that they’re going to have to step in to stop Luffy from going on one of his rampages and hurting her feelings, but when he looks at her, he’s surprised to see a vulnerable little spark of something lonely and hopeful that makes him
squirm uncomfortably somewhere deep inside himself, where the little lonely boy he was lives. He knows that look. That desperate feeling like maybe this time it won’t hurt as much. Maybe this time the comfort will be real. He looks away.

“Don’t worry so much,” he says gruffly, stabbing his food. “It’s just a rut. We’ll take care of you.”

The others affirm that as well with “yeah!” or approving grunts. Robin nods, too, tilting her head down to shadow her eyes behind her bangs.

“Thank you, everyone,” she says.

--

The night sky is beautiful and temperate. They’re on a pretty peaceful stretch of the Grand Line now, following their log pose to wherever it leads. There’s a breeze on just the right side of cool, and little enough clouds that they all take a minute to lounge on the deck before bed to stargaze.

“What would you like to eat whenever we get back to a big island?” Sanji asks Sora.

Sora, sitting in his lap and kicking his feet contentedly, twists his head up to grin at him. “I want katsudon!”

“Oh, that sounds good!” Usopp says from where he’s lying on his back nearby.

Sanji smiles and leans forward to kiss Sora’s hair. “That sounds yummy. I hope we find a big island soon so we can buy some more eggs and some pork.”

“Can we buy meat?” Luffy asks.

“I’m pretty sure we’re rich now. I think we can buy whatever we want.”

“Rich enough to buy whatever we want…” Nami mutters, sighing happily.

“I want to have a barbecue!” Usopp exclaims.

“Who asked you?” Sanji snipes back.

“I want to have a barbecue, too!” Chopper chimes in from where he’s sitting on Zoro’s shoulders.

“Yeah, with lots of meat!”

“And grilled pineapple!”

“And fish!”

“Enough already! We’ll have a damn barbecue as soon as you find me all this stuff, huh?”

The chattering eases a bit. It’s hard to stay awake with their bellies full of good food and the starry sky blanketing them overhead as they bob gently on the sea.

“What about you, cook?”

Sanji blinks drowsily and looks over at Zoro. “Eh?”

“What do you want to eat when we get to an island?”

Sanji hums and folds himself tighter around Sora. “I dunno… Some beef would be a nice treat… Hard to find if the island’s small, though…”

“Sounds good.”

Sanji hums. He thinks he should get up and get him and Sora back to bed properly, but just in a few minutes… He’s so comfortable here…

One by one, the crew nods off on the deck to the lapping of the waves on the hull and the gentle creaking of the ropes as the Merry cuts its way through the sea.

--

“Sanji! Saaaannnjii!!”

“What, you shitty rubber?”

Sanji storms through the doors of the galley to blink in the sunlight. It’s another bright, beautiful day on the sea, and he’d been in the middle of making bread for the next few days. Whatever the captain wants better be good.

“Zoro and I are catching fish!” Luffy waves his free arm exuberantly. “I’m gonna catch a huge one and you’re going to cook it, right?”

“I’m catching a bigger one,” Zoro announces.

“Ehh?! No, you’re not! I’m catching the biggest fish!”

“I’m getting the bigger fish!”

“No, I am!”

A couple of Robin arms sprout up to catch the poles that go flying as both alphas abandon their fishing to tussle together on the deck, growling and mock-snarling and tumbling head over heels. Sanji can only watch, unimpressed, as the two idiots go rolling up one way and back down the other. Sora and Chopper watch avidly from where they’re both standing on top of some piles of rope.

“Captain, you have a bite,” Robin calls, cutting through the fight.

“Ooh! I bet it’s huge!”

“I bet it’s going to be tiny!”

“You’re tiny!”

“What?! That doesn’t even make sense!”

Luffy hauls back on his pole, grunting and yanking until he finally drags a big bluefin tuna up onto the deck in all its slippery, writhing glory.

“Look, Sanji! It’s huge! Are you gonna cook it? Huh? You gonna cook it?”

“It’s huge, yes, I’ll cook it! Shut up already,” Sanji grumbles, stalking across the deck so he can kick the poor thing and put it out of its misery.

“I’ll catch something bigger,” Zoro says stubbornly.

“No you won’t! My fish was enormous!”

Sanji ignores them as they devolve into a childish slap fight over their once-again-discarded poles. Sora and Chopper seem to have taken inspiration from them, and are now wrestling each other across the deck, but in a much more giggly and friendly way than whatever Zoro and Luffy are up to. He hefts the big fish up and shouts over his shoulder.

“Cut it out, you two, and I’ll grill this tuna up and make some onigiri, too, hm?”

Bunch of children, he thinks to himself, rolling his eyes as the fight’s forgotten and the two alphas immediately perk up at the mention of food.

--

The first island they stop at is a bit of a disappointment.

No cities, no towns, just a ring of smaller islands around a central island. They dock all the same, eager to stretch their legs and explore. Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper take off running immediately, ooh-ing and ah-ing over the vast expanse of green grass and sparse, tall trees around them. Sora hovers uncertainly by Sanji’s leg until he nudges him gently.

“You can go play,” he says. He glances around again, but there doesn’t seem to be any visible threat for quite a stretch. “It’s okay.”

Sora glances back up at him for reassurance before he nods and crams his straw hat more firmly onto his head. He sets off after the three of them.

“Wait for me!”

Sanji watches him go with a smile on his face. Behind him, he hears the splash of Zoro lowering the anchor. Nami comes to stand beside him, stretching.

“Not the most exciting island,” she observes, bending to touch her toes and then coming back up to stretch her arms above her head.

“I don’t doubt Luffy will find something to make it exciting.”

“He’s already having way too much fun with all these weird animals.”

“Dad, come look at this dog!”

Dutifully, Sanji trots over to where a bizarre dog stretching for several yards over the rolling plains stands, distantly wagging its tail.

“Why’s it so long?” Sora giggles when the dog licks his face. “It’s weird!”

“I bet it does tricks!” Luffy starts feeding the dog commands, laughing when he complies.

Sora looks up with big beseeching eyes. “Can we keep him, Dad?”

Sanji stares down the impossible length of the dog and looks back at Sora with a raised eyebrow. “This dog? Are you nuts? Where would we put him?”

He giggles. “We could fit him on the ship!”

“We’re not keeping the weird dog. I told you before, I’m not getting a dog on the ship.”

“Aw, but this one is good!”

“No dogs,” Sanji says firmly.

Sora puffs his cheeks out and huffs, abandoning the argument briefly in favor of playing with the dog some more. Luffy and Usopp have already run off to go check out the next weird thing.

“I wonder what this island is called,” Nami says.

“I don’t know. All the animals are weird and long, too.”

Sanji leans against a tree and settles in to watch Sora running and rolling in the grass. It’s a nice sight. Sora was raised on a ship for most of his life, so opportunities to let him run around in the grass and see trees were few and far in between. Sanji had done his best to let him experience what nature he could. He’d been in charge of watering the decorative plants around the Baratie, and Sanji briefly wonders who’s taken up the task since they left. Ah, the Baratie… he still hasn’t called Zeff. He’s been putting it off to avoid the headache he’s going to get when Zeff yells at him for going dark on him.

A problem for later. He can enjoy the now, peacefully smoking as Sora tumbles and plays in the grass as Nami tries to teach him how to do a cartwheel. From the corner of his eye, he sees Zoro take up his own position at ready, with half an eye on what Sora’s doing and the rest of his attention spread out to scanning the long sightlines for danger.

Sanji’s a little surprised to find that the sight makes him relax.

It’s nice having a protective alpha around. He’d been spoiled with Zeff and Patty always on his ass about keeping Sora safe and fighting unruly customers. Not that he can’t take care of himself – he’s trained for years to make sure he doesn’t have to rely on anyone for protection. Still, though, it’s nice to have someone to watch his back so he can relax a little and take his time letting Sora just be a kid. As long as Zoro’s around, he’s got someone else to share the load of keeping him safe. It’s a good feeling.

“Oi, Cook.”

Sanji turns at the urgency in Zoro’s tone. Nami freezes in the grass, too, spinning to look at them both.

“The ship,” Zoro says, his body turned completely to the shore and tense.

They follow his gaze back to the Merry and feel their stomachs drop. Robin stands on the shore by the ship with her arms crossed. A huge pirate vessel crowds the Merry close to the shore, and two large paw-like devices are clamped to the land around them, fencing her in with chains so there’s no escape. Sanji joins Zoro as they jog back to join Robin, glancing behind him to see Nami’s collected Sora and they’re right behind them, Nami’s hand already at ready by her thigh where her clima-tact is strapped.

“We’re the Foxy Pirates,” a loud voice from the ship announces, “and we’re here to challenge your captain to a Davy Back Fight.”

“A Davy Back Fight? Seriously?”

“Sanji, you know what that is?” Nami asks.

He nods. “It’s a pirate game. The two crews compete in contests, and whoever wins can steal members from the other crew.”

Robin tightens her arms around herself. “Supposedly, it originated on ‘Pirate Island’ long ago, which is said to be a pirate paradise somewhere in the sea.”

“All the swiped crewmembers must immediately swear loyalty to their new captain,” a voice from the ship calls, “in the name of Davy Jones, the pirate of the deep!”

“So you can lose your crewmembers?” Nami looks sick.

“They can take your Jolly Roger, as well,” Robin adds helpfully.

“It’s a risky game,” Sanji says, “where you put your pride and your crew on the line. Winning makes you stronger, and losing can be a serious loss.”

“It’s too risky! Why would we ever agree to such a dangerous game?”

“Crewmates can’t decide,” one of the Foxy Pirates calls. He’s joined by jeers from the rest of the crew. His voice rises up again, “Right now, our captain is challenging your captain to a Davy Back Fight. When you hear the crack of two pistols, that means the challenge has been accepted!”

“We should prepare.” Zoro crosses his arms and sighs too quietly for the Foxy Pirates to hear. “It’s Luffy. He’s not going to say no.”

Right on cue, two pistol shots echo across the flat fields of the island.

“Luffy owes me so much,” Nami mutters.

--

The Straw Hat Pirates mostly stand aside so the Foxy Pirates can hop onto the island and immediately launch into constructing a fairground from materials they haul to shore from their ship. Soon, the coast is clamoring with the rasping of saws, hammering of nails, and the heaving of heavy canvases going up. The smell of hot oil and cooking soon follows, and in no time at all, the vacant plains of Long Ring Long Island have transformed into a pirate carnival.

As annoyed as Sanji is that he’s been roped into a Davy Back Fight of all things, he’s not going to pass up on free food. He takes Sora and Chopper through the grounds with Luffy trailing behind him to sample the various festival foods of yakitori and takoyaki, hot soba and cotton candy and deep fried treats.

“Well, they certainly know how to hold an event,” Sanji muses.

Chopper peers up at him over the fluffy stick of cotton candy he’s working on. “You’re not worried, Sanji?”

“I’m not not worried, but…” Sanji shrugs uncomfortably and takes a bite of his yakitori. Amongst the mingling scents of so many people and so many different foods cooking, his personal omega pheromones are a bit lost in the mix. He doesn’t see many Foxy crew members giving their group more than a glance, and most of them seem to be looking at Chopper or Luffy rather than him and Sora. Besides that, he sees several throngs of women he assumes to be omegas, and most of them look… happy? He scans them over as much as he can for any visible injuries or leaking distress scents, but the women are giggling and laughing and flirtatious, none of them seeming to be frightened of their crewmates. It’s puzzling, but it far beats the alternative for a ship with a crew this size. He shudders imagining some small, overused delegation of omegas trying to keep up with the crew. No, this is much nicer.

“We can’t really waste time worrying,” he says to Chopper. He finishes his skewer and tosses the stick into a trash bin as they pass. “All we can do is win, right?”

Chopper nods. Luffy grins at him around his own plate of soba and nods.

“Luffy! Sanji! We need to finalize our roster,” Nami calls.

“Right away, Nami my love!” Sanji hastens over to her, the kids and Luffy in tow.

They settle on their roster quickly, and Sanji takes the crewmates who aren’t participating off to the side so the rest of the crew can work on constructing their barrel boats. It’s more obvious than ever that they really need to recruit a shipwright and soon. He’s not sure how long Usopp and Chopper can keep patching the Merry together. From the pensive look on Luffy’s face, he’s sure the captain’s come to the same conclusion, though Luffy would never be so serious as to say it out loud.

It becomes apparent quickly that the Davy Back Fight is absolutely lax about cheating. Sanji follows the progress of his crewmates’ boats as they go, but there’s little he can seem to do to stop the Foxy Pirates from pulling out every dirty trick in the book. He’s gritting his teeth in frustration when he hears a group of the women approaching.

“Oh, how cute,” one of them coos, “is this your son?”

“Yes ma’am,” he says as shortly as he can. He tries to split his attention between the women and the little boat carrying Nami, Robin, and Usopp through the course, but there are a lot of them, and they’re all beautiful and overwhelming his senses with warm omega scent. He scoots closer to Sora and lays a protective hand on his shoulder.

“Poor thing,” another woman says. She waves a fan in front of her face. “You must’ve been quite young when you had him.”

“Indeed,” he says uncomfortably.

“Don’t worry. If you get recruited, you don’t have to worry about stuff like that.”

“Yeah,” another chimes in, “Silver Fox Foxy might just be a beta, but he runs a good, clean ship! Nobody will mess with you unless you want them to!”

The other ladies clamor to agree, causing a confusing cacophony of assurances about his own personal nest, and so many doctors on board, and if anyone messes with you, you go straight to Foxy, he’ll take care of it, and no, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, it’s great!

“I’m perfectly fine with my own crew,” he cuts in. Belatedly, he realizes he’s lost track of the race. He tries to edge away. “Really, ladies, I like my own crew just fine.”

The first woman who spoke gives him a look tinged with something sad. “If you say so, honey. But even if you don’t get picked, you’re still welcome to come with us, okay? You and your boy. If you ever decide you deserve something better.”

They don’t know and couldn’t know that his crew is the best thing that’s happened to him, so he grasps for as much calm as he can muster. “I promise you. Nothing bad is happening on my crew. We’re perfectly happy.”

“Whatever you say, darling. But you know where to find us if you need us, hm?”

The ladies flock away in their sweet-scented group to find somebody else to hassle, and Sanji hears the crack of a pistol indicating the end of the race.

They’ve lost.

--

“We can’t mess this up, Marimo.”

“I know.”

“We have to get Chopper back.”

“I know.”

“So don’t mess this up!”

“I know, Cook. Stop being nervous.”

“I’m not nervous!”

Zoro gives him a flat, unimpressed look from over his crossed arms.

Sanji grimaces around his cigarette. He’s not nervous. He’s just not happy with having Chopper taken away, dragged up onto a stage to be displayed like some sort of exotic pet. Zoro’s speech to him about staying stoic and acting like a man might’ve been impressive and what Chopper needed to hear, but it doesn’t change the fact that they won’t get Chopper back unless they win this Groggy Ring match.

“One of you needs to be the ball,” the referee says gruffly, tossing a ball with straps onto it at them.

Zoro and Sanji share a look before both of them are tossing the ball back and forth to each other.

“I’m not wearing that!”

“I’m not wearing it, either!”

“You wear it!”

“No! It looks stupid!”

“Well someone has to wear it!”

“So you do it!”

“No, it looks dumb!”

“I’m not going to be the stupid ball!”

“Boys,” Nami cuts in, snatching the ball from the air between them with an impressive glower darkening her expression. She squeezes the ball between her hands. “Decide on who the ball is and win this so we can get Chopper back and go back to sailing!”

Sanji and Zoro both cross their arms stubbornly.

Nami switches gears. She turns to Sanji with an innocent expression pasted onto her face. “But Sanji… please? I’d really appreciate it if you’d do this for me.”

Sanji’s resolve crumbles like a wet paper sack.

“Anything for you, sweet Nami,” he says, slapping the ball over his head and fiddling with the straps. He turns to glare at Zoro. “Not a word, Marimo.”

“Not saying anything. You look so handsome in that!”

“Like I’d fall for that!”

Sanji stomps away, flaming red and pretending he can’t hear Zoro’s snickering behind him. Asshole Marimo. Next time something embarrassing happens, he’s making sure it happens to him.

“Okay, rules,” the referee says. He points at the field. “Two rings. Your goal is to get your opponent’s ball into your ring, and vice versa. No weapons, but anything goes as long as the ball player touches the inside of the ring. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”

Their opponents stomp up to the field, and not only are they now outnumbered with the loss of Chopper, but they picked the three biggest assholes he’s ever seen besides Dory and Broggy. How they’re meant to move any of them is a mystery.

“We got this, Curly,” Zoro says.

“Just don’t slow me down, Marimo.”

They can’t afford to lose this. Chopper’s on the line.

Unfortunately for them, their teamwork…

It leaves something to be desired.

“What are you doing, Mossball?!”

“Trying to protect your left!”

“I don’t need you playing defense, I need you to help me take this big guy down!”

“So stop hopping around like a maniac!”

“I’m not hopping – you’re the one standing around like a lump! Take this seriously!”

“I am taking this – Curly, watch out!”

Sanji’s fast enough to avoid a full-on hit, but he’s still grazed by the player’s illegal weapon. He goes tumbling across the grass with a curse. He hears a loud growl from Zoro and then the heavy thump of impact before the alpha goes tumbling across the pitch to land with a crash right on top of him, driving the breath from his lungs.

“You alright, Curls?”

“Worry about yourself,” he grumbles.

He loses his train of thought for a moment when he opens his eyes and looks up to see Zoro’s face mere inches from his own, most of his weight still pressing him down. He’d never noticed the lighter flecks of color in Zoro’s eyes before. Or smelled so much of his scent right in his nose like this. He moves, his hand coming to push down on Sanji’s shoulder to push himself up, and Sanji’s stupid fucking brain takes that moment to panic under the sense memory of trapped-danger-pain-fear-embarrassment. He sees Zoro’s eyes widen the moment he stiffens, and the alpha’s scrambling to his feet to put distance between them.

“Shit, Curly, you good?”

“Fine.” He pulls himself upright and takes a deep breath. Just Zoro, stupid brain. Just Zoro. He pinches his eyes shut and lets the breath out slowly. Just Zoro. He’s fine. He gets to his feet and dusts himself off.

“Look, Curls…”

“It’s fine.”

“No, just…” Zoro gives him a sharper look. “Ten seconds.”

Sanji immediately catches the tone shift. He follows Zoro’s gaze back to the other players. Oh. So that… Yeah.

“Yeah,” he says, “that should about do it.”

Zoro grins, wide and vicious, and then they’re off.

Whatever clumsiness they started with is forgotten. They move in perfect synch now, barreling across the field as the seconds seem to tick by in slow motion. With little more than glances, they manage to perfectly unify to knock out first one, then two, and then the third enemy player, watching as Zoro topples him over and rides the momentum down until the ball on his head goes crashing into ring. The crowd goes wild.

Sanji can barely hear them. He stands, panting, over their opponents until Zoro trots over to him to roughly shoulder-check him.

“Good job, Cook.” He grins, his teeth shining white on his dirty, bloody face.

Sanji finds him echoing that grin. He shoves him back with his own shoulder. “Not bad yourself, Marimo.”

“Zoro! Sanji! You did it!”

Sanji gives Zoro one last bright smile before he jogs back to their friends to accept the hugs they tackle him into.

“You guys were awesome!”

“Dad! Zoro! So cool!”

“We can get Chopper back!”

Sanji’s cheeks hurt from grinning. He watches Zoro swoop Sora up to take Chopper’s usual spot on his shoulders as his son cheers, swept up in the excitement of their win. Zoro grins at him even as he winces from the little fists grabbing onto his mossy green hair.

Only one challenge left, and they’ll be finished with this Davy Back Fight.

Then on to their next adventure.

Chapter Text

“C’mon, Dad, hurry up!”

Sanji stares into the eyes of their snail with all the doom of a man walking to the gallows.

“I’m hurrying,” he says, as he does not make a move to hurry at all. He squints at Sora. “You know Jiji’s going to kill me, right?”

Sora laughs. “He can’t kill you through the snail! Silly Dad!”

He can’t. Still, he braces to have his ear drums blown out. Sanji dials a familiar number into the shell.

”You’ve called the Baratie.” His stomach sinks. Of course Zeff himself would answer this time. He continues, ”You want to make a reservation?”

“No, Jiji, it’s us!”

”String Bean!” Zeff’s tone immediately lightens, which makes it all the more jarring when the snail glares in Sanji’s direction. ”Eggplant – where have you been?”

He opens his mouth to explain, but Sora cuts in, “We flew up into the sky!”

”The sky,” he echoes flatly.

“Yeah! We sailed into a whirlpool way down into the ocean and then whoosh! Up the knock-up stream all the way up into the clouds!”

”You went up the knock-up stream? To the clouds? Eggplant…”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds!” He winces. “I mean, it was pretty dangerous, but it worked out just fine, and we went on an adventure in the sky islands above Jaya, and, well, nobody got seriously hurt –“

“Dad got struck by lightning!”

“Sora, let Dad talk –“

“And Mr. Zoro did, too! And there was this big mean guy and he set the Merry on fire and he burned my arm and it hurt really bad!”

Sanji opens and closes his mouth. The snail stares at him blankly.

”You got hit by lightning and Sora got set on fire?!”

“Jiji –“

”What in the world have you been getting up to?! First you call and leave a message with Carne saying you’ll be out of contact, which, fine, I understand, but then you don’t call for a week, and then when you do I hear you took your kid up a knock-up stream and almost got both of you killed?!”

“We didn’t –“

”And where was your crew during all this? Whose fool idea was it to go on this – no, it was that captain of yours, wasn’t it? I told him to keep you two safe and what does he do? I’m going to wring that kid’s neck!”

Another voice joins in from the snail. “Boss, what’s going on in here?”

“Patty, the damn kids went and nearly got themselves killed!”

“Only a little almost-killed,” Sanji tries.

”Hey, Boss, remember your blood pressure. Deep breaths. So, Eggplant, what’s going on? Who died?”

“Nobody died! Look, what happened was…”

He launches into the story from the beginning, about how they’d nearly been crushed by the shipwreck from the sky, about their time in Jaya and running into Montblanc Cricket and learning about the existence of Skypeia. About how they’d come up the knock-up stream and found that the sky islands are real.

Sora joins in with his own anecdotes, only going quiet once they get to the part where he and Chopper got attacked. Sanji, in the interest of downplaying the drama and keeping Zeff from flying off the handle again, carefully skirts over the interpersonal issues they’d run into and rehashing the blame game over whose fault it was that Sora got burned. Instead, he focuses on telling the most thrilling parts, about fighting a man calling himself a god and saving the sky islands from destruction, about working together to take care of each other and the parties they’d thrown to celebrate, the treasure they’d plundered and the actual good memories they’d made. By the end of it, Sora looks entranced by this version, and even Zeff’s calmed down.

”But you two are okay?”

Sanji hums affirmative. “We’re fine. Chopper says the burn on Sora’s arm probably won’t even scar after a while, and he took good care of us after the lightning. Everyone’s fine.”

Zeff harrumphs dubiously. ”I still don’t like it.”

“Well it’s over and done with, so there’s nothing more to be said about it,” Sanji snipes. He scoots the snail closer to Sora. “Here, tell Jiji about the Davy Back Fight.”

Sora immediately lights up and starts rambling faster than his mouth can keep up with, stumbling over his words to tell Jiji and Patty in minute detail about the entire thing. Sanji leans back in his chair smugly – nothing like setting Sora loose to be cute to divert the lecture he was sure Zeff was building to. Instead, he hears Carne and some of the other chefs showing up and joining in to jeer at them and throw in their own questions and stories about Davy Back Fights in their pasts.

It's nice. He’d missed their Baratie uncles. He snuggles Sora into his arms and adds his own commentary as the sun ticks along the sky and they make up for lost time.

--

“Do you think it was a mistake?”

Patty stops in his tracks, turning to watch his boss and – if he’s being honest with himself – his friend set the snail back up on its shelf. He’d held it together well for the kids’ sake, but now that the rest of the chefs have dispersed for dinner prep and the kids have gone back to their adventure, the gnawing uncertainty and anxiety seems to be creeping back out. He stares glumly at the snail like it somehow holds the answers.

“What, ‘cause they got roughed up a little?”

Zeff sighs. He runs a hand down his face, looking older than he has in a while.

“Sounds like it was more serious than that. Shit. The Grand Line’s dangerous. I should have – I don’t know. It felt right at the time, but now…”

Patty crosses his arms and shakes his head. “Don’t be dumb, Boss.”

His head snaps back up. “Hey, who said you could sass me?”

“I say, if you’re gonna be all self-pitying. Did you even hear those two?”

Zeff raises a single eyebrow up from his scowl. “Eh?”

Patty’s grin stretches his cheeks, sore from laughing at their snail conversation, at Sora’s embellishments and Sanji’s deadpan snark about the pirates they’d faced. “They sound like they’re having fun, you damn geezer.”

Zeff’s other eyebrow rises up to join the first. He stares at Patty for a long moment before his harsh features crack, and his shoulders drop down. He shakes his head. “Yeah, they do sound like they’re having fun.”

“So stop worrying like an old granny and get your ass back in the kitchen, old man.”

Zeff snarls half-heartedly at him, shooing him out the doorway in the same breath. “Who decided you get to talk to me like that? I ought to dock your pay.”

“You already don’t pay me enough, you old miser.”

“Yeah, yeah, get your own ass back in the kitchen, you idiot.”

Grinning, Patty runs off. He worries about the kids, too. They all do. But none of them can say they’ve ever heard the eggplant and his kid sound happier or like they’re having more fun than the snail calls and letters they get from them now that they’re really out there living like the pirates they were always meant to be. Sure, it’s dangerous. Sure, bad things could happen. Still, though, Sanji’s never sounded more alive than he has these past couple months.

Nobody can regret that.

--

“Well, that’s the best I can really do with what we have.”

“It’s more than adequate, Usopp,” Robin says.

She’s used to living a bit rough, though she had been spoiled by the last few years working for Baroque Works. Her base of operations in Raindinners had included a den for her to rut in, and the implication that she’s excused from work during those times, and some not-so-subtle pamphlets for hiring service omegas that Sir Crocodile had slipped under her door early into her tenure. She’d never taken him up on the silent offer, but the stability of having a place to stay for a while had been nice while it lasted.

Still, there’s a rustic charm to the clumsy partition Usopp had built for her from scrap wood and canvas. It had effectively transformed a corner of the boys’ bunk into a small den for her, which Luffy is currently enthusiastically stuffing with mementos from the crew. She hopes that her scent isn’t so extreme that it drives Luffy and Zoro out again – bunking in the galley had been less than ideal. She wants to be as unobtrusive as possible, and she already feels the stirrings of pre-rut making her anxiety feel all the worse.

The swordsman is perhaps too astute for his own good. He cuts her a glance and grabs Luffy by the back of his shirt.

“Let’s give her a minute to settle in, you dumb captain. After she’s got her scent established, then you can throw your stinky shorts at her or whatever.”

Luffy grins. “Okay! Sanji should have lunch done soon!”

“Right. Go bother him.”

Luffy slithers up the mast and disappears. Zoro nods at her and follows. Usopp takes another moment to pack his toolbox.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go into a pseudo-rut? I can stay with you and keep you company.”

She shakes her head. “No, I’m sure I will be fine. I have the captain so enthused already to spend some time together.”

Usopp laughs. “That’s true. Still, I know it can get lonely. Maybe not as bad as a heat, but… You can rely on us, you know? We’re crew now.”

She thinks she covers her wince at his words well. It doesn’t feel real, still, that she’s been accepted so readily by this crew, and that she already feels so close to them.

“If I change my mind, I will call for you,” she assures him.

He salutes her and makes his way to the mast himself. “That’s all I ask!”

Left finally alone, Robin makes her way to her new den and gives in to the urge to run her scent glands over the perimeter. It was already the area she usually slept in, so it’s not too much work to mark it as hers completely and arrange her things to her satisfaction. It’s not a large territory, but she’s worked with smaller and less stability before. This will do nicely.

The paranoia is already creeping in. She listens closely, hearing only the thumping of footsteps above and faint yelling. She needs to… She might get it out of her system now if she just checks really quickly…

She crosses her arms and opens some new eyes.

From her vantage point in the kitchen, she watches the cook finish up lunch. It appears to be a light, brothy fish soup with sandwiches and a gelatine dessert. She has no nose or ears to smell or hear, but she can see his mouth moving as he cooks, likely singing under his breath as he does when he is focused and content. Good. She wants the omega to be safe and content. She blinks those eyes away.

From high on the mast, she looks down. Chopper and Sora sit beneath the mikan trees with Nami. Sora seems to be reading a simple picture book aloud. He must be doing well, because Nami and Chopper both exclaim and embrace him. The child throws his head back and laughs. Good. The child is safe and content.

The swordsman tightens a rope and pauses to stare out across the sea. She only sees him so pensive when she spies on him like this. He runs the fingers of his free hand across the hilt of his white blade. With her own ears, she hears a muted yell, and with her conjured eyes, she watches the swordsman startle and turn to chase after Luffy. The captain appears to be rushing the galley despite Usopp’s attempts to hold him back. All three of them stumble when the door flies open on its own and the cook exits dress shoe first, throwing kicks and obviously scolding the captain.

It must be time for lunch. She closes her extra eyes and spends another moment scenting her den before she climbs the mast. Judging by how quickly the pre-rut is settling in, this will probably be her last meal in the galley until after her rut.

--

Two days out from Long Ring Long Island, Robin’s rut begins.

It’s less unpleasant than Sanji had been worried about. Robin’s scent is laced with the smell of flowers – a phenomena she’d explained to him as a side effect of her Devil Fruit. It brightens the usual musky scent of alpha to something more layered and pleasant than the usual rut-scent, and she doesn’t produce so much smell that he can’t avoid it if he stays away from where it wafts from the grating.

Luffy’s thrilled by the excuse to be her rut tender. He’d obviously had so much fun tending Zoro’s last rut that he’s eager to repeat the experience with Robin and is visibly disappointed that she doesn’t want to wrestle like he’d done with Zoro on his last rut. He adapts quickly to playing errand boy to bring books and entertainment and snacks (that he mostly eats himself) and plays games of cards with her, as Robin generally seems uninterested in working out any extra rut energy with exercise.

Instead, Robin seems to want to keep to herself. The only weird thing is the occasional feeling of being watched. Sanji will turn to see a set of eyes peeking from somewhere unobtrusive. They usually disperse into petals soon after he acknowledges them. He’d be more concerned about it if it didn’t appear that Robin is spying on everyone, not just him. She wasn’t kidding about being paranoid and wanting to check everyone’s whereabouts. He takes to giving her a thumb’s up when he notices her watching, and the matter seems peaceful enough. He has other problems, anyway.

Three days out from Long Ring Long Island, Sora begins to cough.

He spikes a low fever and starts sniffling and whining an hour or so after breakfast. Chopper’s quick to tend to him, coming down into the den to press his stethoscope to his chest.

“I’d say it’s just a virus,” he says to Sanji that first day.

Sanji bites his lip and nods, fretfully folding a damp cloth to drape over Sora’s forehead.

“He probably picked it up from the Foxy Pirates. There were a lot of them, and viruses love to breed in large crowds like that. We’re lucky nobody else got sick. If I had evidence it was a bacteria, I could give him antibiotics, but I’m pretty sure it’s a virus, so we just have to let it run its course.”

“I understand,” Sanji says. He smooths Sora’s hair down. “You feeling okay, baby?”

Sora shakes his head. “Nuh-uh. My head hurts.”

“I can give you some medicine to help with the symptoms.” Chopper pats Sanji on the hand with his hoof and smiles at him when he meets his eyes. “Why don’t you go make him a warm drink and some soup? I’ll take care of him down here.”

Sanji swallows and nods. This is fine. Not like that time he’d gotten really sick when he was little, and not like the tropical illness Nami had gotten before they met Chopper. Chopper’s here and he’s got no reason to be worried. He nods again and swoops in to peck a kiss on Sora’s warm little face.

“I’ll be right back, baby. I’ll make you a honey lemon tea and some broth, okay?”

Sora hums affirmative, and Sanji leaves him in Chopper’s capable hands.

Out on the deck, Zoro sniffs audibly and pauses his sword kata to look over his shoulder.

“Everything okay, Cook?”

Sanji shakes his head. “Sora’s sick. Chopper thinks he picked up a virus on Long Ring Long Island from those Foxy Pirates.”

Zoro makes a face. “Is he okay?”

“Chopper’s got him. Says it just has to run its course.”

“Well, Chopper’s the doctor…”

“I know that, Moss,” Sanji says without heat, sighing and crossing his arms. “Still, I hate seeing him miserable.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?”

“I’m making him some tea and soup. There’s not really anything else we can do.” Zoro looks so dejected by this that Sanji can’t help but laugh quietly. “You can help, if you want. I could always use another hand in the kitchen.”

Zoro’s all too quick to slide his swords back into his haramaki to join him in the kitchen. Sanji sets him to washing vegetables for a nice, vitamin-rich soup as he fills the tea kettle and lights the stove, bustling about for his tin of black tea leaves and his jar of honey. When he comes back to the main prep area, he grins to see that Zoro’s gotten a knife out without prompting and is dicing a mirepoix with intense focus so each piece of vegetable comes out perfectly even.

“Good knife work,” he compliments.

Zoro doesn’t look up from his work. “You could do it faster.”

“Yeah, but I’ve been working in kitchens since I was eight years old. Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the help.”

Zoro grunts. There’s a beat of silence broken only by the knock of the knife on the cutting board and the soft rustling of Sanji rifling through their dried herbs for inspiration.

“I’m sorry he’s sick,” Zoro mumbles. His knife keeps up its steady rhythm. “I don’t like that he doesn’t feel good.”

Sanji hums. “It sucks, yeah. Still, he’s gonna be thrilled when I tell him you helped make the soup.”

Interestingly, the swordsman flushes at that. “Eh? Why’s that?”

“Uh, because he thinks you’re awesome?” Sanji makes a sweeping gesture at the refrigerator. “You looked at his drawings lately? Mossball this, swordsman that, running his green crayons down to nubs. It’s cute. Kid thinks you’re a hero.”

“Oh.” Zoro seems to take a minute to process that. He sweeps the carrots he was chopping into a bowl and starts on the celery. “So he thinks I’m… cool?”

He snorts as he pulls his stock pot out. “Yeah, Mosshead, he thinks you’re cool. Keep up.”

“Oh. That’s good. I think he’s pretty cool, too.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. He’s begging me to let him try swords.”

The knife hits the cutting board with a loud thunk. Sanji whirls and sees Zoro staring at him with his mouth open and a terrifyingly hopeful look on his face.

“Can I teach him?!”

Sanji blinks. “Um… what?”

“Swords. Can I teach him?”

“You… want to?”

“Fuck yeah I want to!” Zoro seems to catch himself, reining the enthusiasm back with an awkward cough. “Um, only if it’s okay with you.”

Sanji looks away and bites his lip. This has taken an unexpected turn, and despite himself he can’t seem to separate his own memories of being beaten with shinai and having that called training from the actual experience of learning swordplay.

“I don’t know,” he hedges, “I don’t… he’s only five, and I’ve started him on the basics for blackleg style already… and he might want to be a chef, and his hands… and swords are so violent… I just…”

“Hey,” Zoro says softly. When Sanji looks up, he’s not stepped any closer, but his body language has softened. “Sorry. I got overexcited. I forgot about the no-hands thing. I won’t teach him if you don’t want, but if you do… I’ll still be here. Hell, even if it’s just the basics. It’s good upper body strength training if nothing else.”

Sanji nods, mustering a smile. “You’re right. Yeah. Of course it’s all about training with you, huh? Anyway, let’s get this soup going!”

Zoro nods and returns to his celery, letting the matter drop. It could easily be awkward, but there’s nothing but a calm atmosphere in the kitchen as they work together to get some soup going.

--

Five days out from Long Ring Long Island, they make landfall at a nameless island.

For a seemingly empty island, the area around the coast is lush with food. Sanji throws out some lobster traps with some fish scraps and has Usopp help throw out some nets. They find coconuts and some type of persimmon growing nearby. Soon enough he’s set up a grill on the beach, and they’ve got a proper barbecue going with freshy caught fish and lobster tails alongside grilled fruit and coconut mocktails.

Robin was persuaded to leave her den for the barbecue, staying downwind of the party and accepting her plate of food with only mild anxiety evident in her posture. Sora, deep in the throws of his cold and a completely snotty mess, stays clinging resolutely to Chopper and sniffling mightily. Miserable as he is, he’d balked at the idea of staying inside and missing the party, so they do their best to make him feel as comfortable as they can.

“We should search the island for more food while we’re here,” Sanji says to the group as they begin cleaning up.

“I’d like to forage for herbs, too, if I may,” Chopper pipes up. “It’s always good to restock when we have the chance!”

“Sounds like an adventure!”

“We’re hoping for no adventure, Luffy,” Usopp scolds, “and no, we’re not going to create an adventure from scratch! We just need to find food and supplies!”

“You’re no fun. Usopp is boring!”

“I’m not boring!”

Usopp tackles Luffy, and the two of them go rolling off in the sand.

Sanji glances fretfully at Sora. “I should take you back to the den…”

“I can stay with him,” Nami pipes up. She smiles and crouches to give Sora a hug. “You’re way better at finding food than I would be, and I can watch him just fine! That way Chopper can look for herbs, too!”

“If you’re sure… Sora, will you be okay staying on the ship with Miss Nami?”

Sora coughs wetly and looks at him with bleary eyes. “But I wanna have an adventure…”

“You’re too sick for an adventure right now. Trust me, though, this island is boring. We’re sure to find an adventure on the next one when you’re all better.”

Mollified by this (and too ill to really argue) Sora lets Nami scoop him up and carry him up the gangplank.

“May I come along?”

Sanji glances at Robin. He has barely seen her for the last couple days as she’s stayed cooped up in her den. She looks okay, and her muted scent suggests her rut is winding down. He gives her an encouraging smile.

“I don’t see why not. Luffy?”

“The more the merrier!” Their captain pops up from the beach with a wide grin. Usopp glares at him and spits out a mouthful of sand. “Adventure!”

That settled, they finish cleaning up their camp and head out. Luffy takes the lead, loudly laughing and running around completely uselessly. Chopper and Sanji follow more sedately, as they’re actually working to find food and medicine. Usopp and Zoro try to help, but they get dragged into Luffy’s shenanigans more often than not as the captain hunts for weird bugs and strangely shaped rocks. Of the group, only Robin is really helpful.

“Look up ahead!”

The forest opens up into a wide clearing. Luffy takes off running in the new open space, laughing and whooping and cartwheeling wildly. Sanji is the closest to Robin as they walk, so he’s the first one who notices when her posture goes ramrod straight and her scent spikes sour with distress.

There’s a man in the clearing.

At first sight, he looks unassuming. A very tall man fast asleep in the middle of the field with a sleeping mask over his face and a bicycle nearby. His clothes do look rather… militaristic… but he blinks awake and seems calm and friendly.

Quietly, Robin begins to growl.

Sanji feels his own nerves start to spike.

There’s no reason for this strange man to be here. There’s no reason for them to fight. Still, there is something deeply unnerving about finding this man here, and he does not want to approach him. At his back, though, is a rutting alpha in distress, a growl rising in her throat and her scent swirling with fear and anger and something that tastes distressingly like grief. He feels trapped between these two opposing forces, frozen to his feet by the combating auras of the tall stranger and Robin.

“Aokiji,” Robin chokes out in a voice broken up by snarls, “one of the three Navy Admirals.”

Ah, so the uniform and the subtly intimidating aura make sense now.

What would a Navy Admiral even care about their crew? It’s not like they’ve even…

Oh.

On second thought, he does have to admit this looks bad. A tiny crew of less than a dozen pirates, and they’d helped end the Alabastan Civil War and had taken down Warlord Crocodile and his entire Baroque Works organization over the course of a week.

This… does look bad.

“It’s fine,” Aokiji says, squatting down so his intimidating height is no longer looming over them. He yawns as if this conversation is just some boring task he must accomplish before he can get back to sleep. “I’m not here to arrest you. I was sent to verify the location and status of Nico Robin. Like I thought, she ended up with you guys. Sure, I’ll have to make a report to headquarters since your total bounty’s changed with her on the crew, but it’s not like I’m taking you in.”

Sanji’s so distracted by Robin’s rolling waves of distress pheromones that he almost misses the shift in Luffy’s body language. The captain stiffens and seems to make his own assessment before he winds up his fist.

“Gum-Gum…”

Zoro, Usopp, and Chopper all tackle him.

“Let go!”

“Idiot! Are you trying to piss him off?”

“He just said he’s not going to arrest us!”

“He’s gonna take Robin!”

“I just said I’m not taking anyone,” Aokiji interrupts, visibly confused. “I’m not doing anything.”

Luffy still looks geared up to fight, and Robin’s not any better. Maybe she’d be more rational if she wasn’t still in a rut, but all Sanji feels like he can do is stay near her and try to subtly send some of his own calming scent her way. He’d rather not let the enormous Marine alpha catch his scent and find out he’s omega, but he doesn’t know what else to do. With how protective Robin’s been the past few days, he’s afraid to step away from her or approach this man at all.

Outside forces have mercy on them and cut through the tension with the arrival of a small, pathetic band of shipwreck survivors. Even Luffy seems to recognize the shift in tone as he stops trying to fight Aokiji and switches focus onto the new problem.

“Robin and I will go get more food,” Sanji says firmly, deciding for them to separate Robin from Aokiji. The alpha woman hesitates before she nods in agreement. Luffy gives him his own assent, so he reaches out on impulse to take her hand and turn on their heels to walk back to the coast.

They’re quiet as they follow the path back to the sea. With every step away from Aokiji, Robin’s scent dissipates more until the waves of distress have settled into just the deep scent of rut still coming off of her.

“I apologize, Sanji,” she says quietly as they load up some food and cooking supplies.

“Hm? Why for?”

“For making you uncomfortable.”

“I’m not uncomfortable,” he answers truthfully. He gives her a warm smile. “Look, you’re probably the least threatening alpha on rut I’ve ever met. You’re remarkably calm. And I haven’t felt uncomfortable around you even once since you started. If anything, I’m more worried about that Aokiji guy.”

“I do not know him well, but I do not think he is the type to abuse his power to torment omegas,” Robin says uncertainly, “In any case, you know the crew would never let something like that happen.”

“I know. I’m not worried. I’m worried about you, Robin. Are you okay? You seem really scared of this guy.”

Robin ducks her head and pretends that stuffing food into a sack is taking all of her focus. “I met him only once… In my past.”

Sanji waits, but she doesn’t elaborate. He reaches out and lays a careful hand on her arm. “Hey, it’s okay. I have people from my own past like that, too. Let’s get these people taken care of and then let’s get out of here, alright?”

She nods. The two of them throw the bags over their shoulders and trot back towards the clearing. Luckily, no further violence has broken out. Sanji busies himself with setting up a grill to make more food while Chopper examines the survivors and Usopp entertains the kids. Zoro and Luffy stand guard at the fringes, but Aokiji merely lies on his side on the ground and watches the proceedings. Sanji shrugs and gets to work even as he pretends he doesn’t notice Robin hovering beside him like an anxious guard dog.

The survivors were quite lucky to land on such a nice island. He’s more than a little jealous. With his own shitty luck, of course he’d ended up on a barren rock instead of somewhere nice like this when he was shipwrecked. He could have saved himself a lot of grief if he’d been somewhere nice like this. Still, it’s nice to see the children merely hungry instead of starved, their faces still squishy with baby fat and not emaciated like how he recalls his own face after almost three months stranded.

Aokiji even steps in after they get the survivors settled so he can show off his ice Devil Fruit and make a path for them to walk to the next island. Sanji’s hopeful enough to think it might be over after that.

He’s wrong, of course.

Why would anything ever be easy?

As Aokiji talks himself back into capturing them and cutting them off before they can do more damage, Sanji readies himself for a fight.

It’s not great odds, but at the very least, Sora’s safe on the ship. He doesn’t have high hopes that they can take out someone on Aokiji’s level, but if they can incapacitate him long enough to sail away…

Not letting him take them out and get to the ship is their goal.

Still, it pisses him off how Aokiji dangles Robin’s mysterious past in front of them and tries to allude that she’ll betray them the way she betrayed all her other allies. Fucking asshole. He has no idea what he’s talking about. He hasn’t been there to watch Robin change her attitude and open up to them. He hasn’t seen her winking eyes keeping an eye on them, the gentle way she reads storybooks to Sora, shared a late night cup of tea with her in the galley or sunbathed with her, hasn’t watched her shyly lose her defensive crust to reveal a kindhearted woman underneath the posturing and aggression. Aokiji doesn’t know shit about their Robin.

The rest of the crew shares his attitude.

“Stop it, you jerk! Her past doesn’t matter!” Luffy’s hackles are completely raised, a challenging growl echoing across the field.

“Yeah,” Usopp chimes in, “You can’t worry about people’s pasts and then hang out with ruffians like a former pirate hunter or a thief girl! None of us are innocent!”

“What’s more important is the present, not the past,” Sanji says. He hopes Robin believes them.

“Robin is our precious friend now! Don’t badmouth our friend!” Chopper waves his arms in agitation.

“I see,” Aokiji says, and Sanji instantly knows that none of it has worked. “You really did a good job befriending this lot.”

A loud growl rips through the group. Sanji’s jerked to the side as Robin shoves herself in front of him, her beautiful face twisted into a snarl, white teeth and elongated canines flashing in the sun. Her rut-heavy scent rolls over him, making him want to bare his throat as musk and flowers invade his nose and cloud his brain. Apparently, she’d taken his words as a threat. Sanji doesn’t have high hopes now of dissuading her from violence.

Zoro’s hands rest on his sword hilts, and Luffy looks torn. Usopp clutches his slingshot in shaking hands.

“This crew is mine! You will not harm them!” Robin takes several steps closer to Aokiji, her blue eyes seeming to glow in the sun. “You want to capture me? Go ahead and try!”

Robin crosses her arms and shouts. Briefly, Sanji cowers under the combined, violent scent of flowers and a spike of a nearly wintergreen sharp smell of Aokiji’s alpha pheromones before thirty arms spring into existence to encase the admiral.

“Clutch!”

The admiral shatters into a million chunks of ice. They have no time to run or relax before they begin reforming back into the massive man they were, steam rising from the spreading ice to cloud the sunny field.

“That wasn’t very nice,” he gripes.

He throws some grass into the air before forming a jagged blade of ice around them. He has the audacity to look regretful.

“I wasn’t going to kill you, but…”

With twin growls – though embarrassingly different in depth and ferocity – Zoro and Sanji leap at the man as one.

There’s no time to think out strategy. He trusts Zoro to watch his back just as he’d watch the swordsman’s. Together they press the attack and are handily blocked by the much older and larger alpha.

“Get back, Cook!”

“You get back – he’s got my damn leg!”

Right on cue, they both scream.

The hand clamped around his knee burns with a jagged and frozen pain as ice creeps down to encase his lower leg. He’s never felt a pain quite like this before – it’s nothing like broken bones or stabbing or even the electric searing of a lightning strike. He has a panicked impulse to grab Zoro’s sword and hack his own leg off to get the pain to stop and to get away from this man, but Zoro’s arm is frozen to his sword as the alpha screams through gritted teeth.

Aokiji tosses them both aside as Robin and Luffy scream wordlessly with rage.

More limbs sprout from around them, and Sanji can only yelp as he and Zoro are grabbed and yanked even further from the Admiral. Aokiji knocks Robin limbs away in bursts of flower petals as the alpha woman snarls and spits at him. Luffy comes to stand over his downed friends with a growl.

“You may have good friends now, but you’re still you, Nico Robin. How long until you betray them?”

“I’d never!”

“Robin,” Chopper screams, “watch out!”

Aokiji is so close, suddenly, and Sanji can only watch in mute horror as he folds his body around her in an embrace. Robin’s face is frozen in a frightened and defiant snarl as ice creeps over her body.

It must hurt so terribly.

Their Robin is a statue now – a beautiful, frozen ice sculpture of their friend trapped in a rictus of terror.

“Robin!”

“Calm down, she’ll live if you defrost her carefully,” Aokiji says far too casually. He turns to look at his work. “Be careful. Her body is fragile now. If her body is broken, she will die. Like so…”

He raises his fist to smash into her body.

Luffy moves faster than Sanji can think, sprinting ahead and yanking Robin’s body down and away from Aokiji’s fist. He slides her away far enough that Usopp and Chopper can sprint towards them and drag her away.

“Usopp! Chopper! Get Robin to the ship and treat her!”

“Yes, Captain! C’mon, Chopper!”

To Sanji’s relief, they seem to be getting away, though he and Zoro both stumble to head Aokiji off and stop him from following.

“You shouldn’t bother,” Aokiji says, “It’s better for the world to not save her.”

“And you get to decide that? News flash, asshole,” Sanji pants, “we’re pirates.”

“And pirates are naturally your enemy,” Zoro finishes, baring his teeth. His dominant arm trembles, frozen, but Zoro’s still deadly with just one arm and his mouth. “We save who we want to save.”

“Bold words, but you can barely stand. Get out of my way.”

“Zoro! Sanji! Retreat!”

All three of them flick their gazes to Luffy. Their captain stands tall, a stubborn jut to his chin.

“I’m going to fight him in a duel!”

Aokiji raises an eyebrow. Sanji nods at Zoro, and they both stumble back.

“We’ll rejoin you as soon as we defrost,” Sanji promises.

“Don’t die before we come back!”

“Let’s you and me settle this,” Luffy says, never taking his eyes off Aokiji.

Luckily, Aokiji seems to take the challenge seriously. Zoro loops his unfrozen shoulder under Sanji’s arm, and the two of them hobble back towards the ship as fast as they can. The deck’s deserted.

“Chopper!”

They stand at the shore and wait for Chopper to hop up on the railing. The reindeer’s back in his usual form, damp and a little wild-eyed.

“Guys! Where’s Luffy?”

“We left him back there. We’ll explain later. How do we fix our arm and leg?”

“Um,” Chopper says, “You’ll have to thaw them in cold water. I’m using the shower on Robin right now, though…”

Zoro and Sanji nod at each other and leap into the sea.

Sanji resurfaces with a gasp, treading water as best he can with one and a half legs. “Will this do, Chopper?”

“Y-Yeah! After you’re thawed, come up to the ship and rub the affected area.”

“Got it. How’s Robin?”

“Thawing slowly. I don’t want her to go into shock!”

“Right. Please take care of her!”

Sanji leans on Zoro some more so they can float together in the water. The cold water stings and burns on his leg, but he feels like the ice is already starting to melt. He looks up again when Nami pokes her head over the railing.

“Are you guys okay?”

“Been better,” Zoro grunts.

“We’re trying to hurry. Luffy’s stalling for us. How’s Sora?”

“He’s fine. I told him to stay in the den. He’s too sick to be running around, anyway.”

Sanji nods.

“I’m going to go help Chopper and Usopp thaw Robin. Wait – here, I’m tossing a rope ladder down. You two will be okay?”

“We’ll be fine. Thanks, Nami!”

“What a shit show,” Zoro mutters when Nami disappears.

“Tell me about it. What kind of luck is that, running into a fucking Admiral?”

“Same luck that had us pissing off a Warlord so soon.”

“Two Warlords, if you count Mihawk.”

Zoro makes a face. “I don’t count Mihawk.”

“He gut you like a fish.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think he was pissed about it.”

Sanji snorts. They kick together in silence until the last of the ice chunks fall off, and they climb up to the deck to rub on their limbs with some nearby sailcloth.

Usopp joins them on deck a few minutes later. He scans the coastline before sitting down beside them.

“No Luffy yet?”

Zoro shakes his head. “Not yet.”

Usopp’s scent is bitter with worry. “I hope he’s okay. I can’t believe he challenged him to a duel.”

“It was the only way to stall. He saved our asses with that.”

Sanji nods. “He’s a good alpha and a good captain. I don’t think I could’ve made that call.”

Usopp swallows and nods. “What are you going to do if…”

“It’s no use worrying about what-ifs.”

Zoro nods. “We’ll react and adapt as we find out more. We’re in crisis right now, so we just have to trust Luffy.”

“You’re right… Do you want me to come with you?”

Sanji glances at Zoro before he shakes his head. “No, I need you here. If the worst comes to worst and Aokiji comes here… Nami and Chopper will need your help.”

Usopp pales, but he nods.

“Zoro, you feel ready to run yet?”

The swordsman stretches his arm and winces. “It’s not perfect, but I can move. Your leg, Cook?”

He bends his knee and grits his teeth. “It’s gonna hurt, but I don’t think it’s frozen anymore. Ready when you are.”

“Right. Let’s go get our captain.”

“Usopp, you’re in charge.”

The sniper nods again and takes up a lookout position on the upper deck, trembling hand clutched around his slingshot. Sanji lets Zoro help him down the gangplank before the two of them race off through the forest, following the steam of melting ice and the lower temperature of the air as they approach what was a battleground.

The field is torn up and muddy with melting ice. Monkey D. Luffy stands, perfectly intact and perfectly frozen in the middle of a jagged ring of ice. Aokiji is nowhere to be seen.

“He didn’t smash him.” Zoro scans the field, but there is no sign of the Admiral.

“Thank goodness. We can still save him.” Sanji wraps a handkerchief around one hand and tugs his sleeve lower on the other side so he can more comfortably grab their captain’s frozen skin. “Let’s get him back to the ship – carefully!”

Zoro nods and wraps his dominant hand in his bandana, sucking it up and freezing his other hand as they pull their captain carefully back to the ship.

“No sign of the Admiral?” Sanji calls up to Usopp as they carry Luffy up the gangplank.

“None! I don’t know where he is, but he didn’t come this way.”

“Well, let’s get Luffy to the showers and then get the fuck out of here.”

“You said it, Zoro!”

Usopp scrambles to lift the plank and the anchor as the other two men carefully maneuver Luffy into the bathroom. They set him in the tub beside the bleary and half-thawed Robin, sending another wave of cold water sloshing to the floor and soaking their shoes again.

“Oh, Luffy,” Chopper moans.

“We’re leaving him in your care, Chopper,” Sanji says.

Zoro nods, already turning to leave. “We’re getting the ship out of here.”

“I’ll come, too,” Nami says. She follows them out and to the deck, shouting orders to hoist ropes and turn the rudder and drop sails down to catch the wind. Sanji scrambles to help, and between the four of them, they get the Merry away from the coast and sailing away from the nameless island and away from the icy road the shipwreck survivors had taken to the next island. For a brief, impossible second, Sanji swears he saw a man riding a bicycle across the sea in another direction, but he blinked, and the weird image was gone. The stress must be getting to him.

“We’ll keep moving and following the log pose until Luffy wakes up,” Nami says.

“Not that it matters. Luffy will just tell you to navigate however you want, anyway,” Usopp says.

“True.”

With the danger finally past and the adrenaline crashing, Sanji finally gives into his instincts and grabs at both of them, yanking them into a hug and scenting them as they wrap their arms around him in turn.

“We’re alive,” Usopp gasps, sounding watery.

“Yeah. We’re all okay,” Sanji says.

“Thank goodness.”

Sanji sticks an arm out and waves it vaguely in the direction he thinks Zoro is. “Get in here, Mossball. Victory scenting.”

He hears a snort. “Victory scenting?”

“Look, I’m too tired and stressed to fight my instincts. Get over here and scent with us.”

“You don’t need to fight your instincts, anyway,” Nami points out. She rubs her cheek on his pointedly. “We’re all relieved to be okay.”

Sanji sighs and purrs when he finally feels Zoro’s big, meaty arms circle around them. All three of them wiggle around until Zoro – bemusedly blinking – is in the center of their group hug.

“Wow, you’re all purring,” the big meathead says dumbly.

“No shit,” Nami mutters.

“I want Luffy and Robin to thaw out so we can cuddle them, too,” Usopp whines.

“Yeah,” Sanji says. Reluctantly, he tugs away from them. “I’m going to go check on Sora.”

“I’ll go help Chopper,” Usopp volunteers.

“We’ll take care of the ship,” Nami says, hooking her arm over Zoro’s neck and dragging his head down to her level, which he submits to with only mild grumbling.

Sanji nods, looking over their crew warmly.

Fuck, but today was scary. Still, though, they came out okay.

They’re going to be okay.

Chapter Text

Long years of practice keep Sanji operating the kitchen smoothly despite the child doing his best baby monkey impression and clinging to his back.

“Not so many potatoes!”

“Potatoes are filling,” he reminds the still-a-bit-stuffy voice mouth-breathing in his ear. He chops the potato on the board pointedly. “We’re feeding a lot of hungry people, and potatoes are good sources of carbohydrates.”

“Carrots are better,” Sora says mulishly.

“There are plenty of carrots already.”

Sora huffs but quiets down. He stays stubbornly clinging to his back, scrutinizing the rangiri vegetable cuts as Sanji finishes that up and sets the knife carefully aside before strolling over to the stove to get the roux started. It’s a little unorthodox to cook while wearing his child as a backpack, but he’s long since given up trying to raise the little creature in any orthodox fashion. The kid’s a pirate who’s lived in kitchens since before he could walk. This is just a natural, if cumbersome, extension of how he’d worn him in a sling as a younger teen.

“I’m only making curry because you said you’re sick of soup,” he reminds him.

“We’ve been eating soup for twelve years,” Sora agrees.

He hears a small snort from the recovery area set up in the front portion of the galley. He ignores it.

“Twelve years? How has it been twelve years? You’re only five!”

“It’s been twelve years,” Sora repeats.

“It’s been less than a week, Mr. Snot-Pants. Twelve years, my left foot... Besides, I made plenty of different kinds.”

“I’m sick of soup.”

“Well,” Sanji drawls as he stirs the roux, careful to avoid scorching, “what would you suggest I feed you when you’re sick? And Robin and Luffy, who were frozen solid, hm?”

“Cheeseburgers!”

“Cheesebur– get off my back, now, you heathen!”

“Cheeseburgers sound good,” Luffy calls.

Sora giggles in his ear and makes no move to slide off his back. “Luffy wants cheeseburgers.”

“Luffy would eat an old shoe if I put it between two buns – he doesn’t get a vote.”

Sora giggles more. Sanji ducks his head to hide his own grin from the peanut gallery.

“Add more spices,” Sora urges suddenly.

“Eh? This is the usual amount. You wanna burn your tongue or something?”

“You gotta make it spicy!”

“…but why?”

“If you make it real spicy then Miss Robin and Luffy will eat it and they’ll get so hot that all the rest of the ice melts away and they’ll be all better!”

“I don’t think it works like that, Baby.”

“Aww, but you could try.”

“He is a scientist,” Robin pipes up from her sickbed. Her voice is still a little hoarse, but she sounds amused. “He’s made a hypothesis, and now the next step is testing.”

“Yeah! Testing the hypo… hypo-this-is!”

Sanji wavers for another minute before he shrugs as much as he can with Sora still bearing down on his shoulders. “Fine. We’ll make it spicy, but I don’t want you to cry later when it’s too hot for you.”

“I won’t cry. I’m big!”

“Hm, right. Get down and go keep Luffy and Miss Robin company, big boy.”

Sora slides down and off him before scampering away. Sanji busies himself with the curry until it’s all mixed together and ready to heat up into a simmer. He leans down and lights a cigarette from the stove burner and turns to check on the room’s other occupants.

Honestly? This is all Usopp’s fault.

Half the galley – which is already a room doubling as a kitchen and a meeting room plus the additional rudder stick in the middle adding its weird utility to the space – has been transformed into a nest.

He’s heard of betas getting weird with nesting before, but he’s never actually seen it. Apparently, the stress of their encounter with Aokiji combined with Chopper’s mild suggestion that they make Robin and Luffy comfortable in their makeshift infirmary zone triggered something in his brain. Usopp had brought bedding and then… never stopped. Zoro had halfheartedly tried to talk him out of it, but the sniper’s anxiety was such that everyone left him to it and then eventually joined in the madness.

Nami had been the first one sucked in, and then when Sanji saw their nest-making and determined that they were going about it all wrong…

He just had to fix it, that’s all.

It’s perfect now.

Chopper wanted them to take shifts sharing their body heat with them, anyway, so this way… Yeah, it’s a shit excuse. If he’s being honest, they’re all stressed by how goddamn traumatic it was to see their friends frozen into statues. Nobody’s sleeping in the bunkrooms or den now. Everyone’s sleeping in a big cuddle pile, ostensibly to help Robin and Luffy relearn how to regulate their body temperature, but mostly so they can all scent and pack bond.

“One extra-hot curry coming soon,” he announces.

“It’s gonna warm you right up,” Sora announces.

Apparently Miss Robin is now “in” on the circle of crew, because Sora’s shamelessly using her stomach as a pillow as he uses Luffy’s butt as a leg rest. Luffy kicks his legs idly and squints at his hand of cards. Sanji’s not sure why he’s bothering. He’s playing cards with Nami and Usopp – trying to win against those two is an errand for fools.

“I look forward to testing your hypothesis,” Robin says, gently running her fingers through Sora’s hair.

“It’s going to work,” Sora insists.

“We’ll see. I’m sure it won’t hurt.”

Sora hums, content. Sanji soaks in the pretty image of most of his family all lounging together for a moment before he shakes it off and reaches for the kettle. He might as well. Another pot of tea won’t hurt anyone.

--

No one is really surprised when Luffy’s the first one recovered from being frozen.

The idiot has a body of rubber, and Sanji’s had to sit through too many incoherent rambles from Chopper about how it doesn’t make sense and it’s a medical mystery and why does it work like this to be shocked that he shakes off being completely frozen in only a few days.

Robin is a bit slower to recover, but that would be because she is a human being and not a rubber man. She can’t really do much as her body adjusts to being unfrozen and she recovers her strength. She’s never without company, at least – there’s a rotating stream of crewmates coming to lounge in the nest at all hours to chat and spend time with her. It’s a bit of a disruption from Sanji’s usual hours of near-solitude in the galley, but it’s shockingly not that bad. Robin even helps Sora with his rudimentary schoolwork, supplementing his reading and simple maths with her bits of history and science knowledge.

“Dad, did you know that giraffes fight with their necks?”

Sanji, who’d listened to the same fact from the kitchen when Robin told him five minutes ago, makes a sound of surprise. “Really? That sounds dangerous.”

Sora nods. “Yeah! I asked Miss Robin if any animals fight with their legs like you and Jiji.”

“And what did Miss Robin say?”

“She said kangaroos kick each other, but not really like how you kick.”

“That’s cool.” Sora nods and scampers off to go dig through the animal encyclopedia Robin had found for him again. He shoots her an embarrassed grin from the stove. “Sorry he’s been so excited. I told him to take it easy on you.”

“I don’t mind.” Robin smiles at him in turn from her bundle of blankets. “I am certainly never bored. Your Sora is full of questions.”

“Oh, I know that. You luckily missed out on his ‘where do babies come from?’ phase.”

“Babies come from a vagina,” Sora pipes up matter-of-factly, not looking up from his book.

Sanji can only offer Robin a long-suffering look in answer to her sudden laughter.

“Is that so?” She says to Sora.

“Yup. But I came out of Dad’s belly from a big cut. Wanna see?”

“Sora, we talked about this.” Sanji groans and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yes, it is cool, but this is Dad’s body, not yours, and Dad doesn’t want to show his belly to everyone.”

“Oh yeah. Sorry.” Unconcerned, he puts his nose back into his book.

“He spent a couple weeks trying to lift my shirt up and show everyone the c-section scar when we were back on the Baratie. Customers, vendors, the cooks…” Sanji groans again at the memory. “Apparently everyone in the universe needed to know about the miracle of babies.”

Robin laughs again. “Well, it is all rather miraculous, isn’t it?”

Sanji lowers his hand from his nose and looks over at Sora again. The kid’s happily kicking his feet, his tongue poking out of his lips as he frowns at a drawing of a lizard in the book. He can feel his own smile turning a little sappy.

“Yeah, it really is.” He coughs and turns back to the sauce he’s simmering. “Anyway. Thanks for teaching him stuff.”

“It’s my pleasure, Sanji.”

Sanji grunts, and the archeologist leaves it at that. Within minutes, he’s back to listening to Sora pester Robin with requests to read the encyclopedia to him and feed him more animal facts. All in all, not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

--

Zoro’s kind of an idiot.

He doesn’t mean to be. Not about this. He just loses track of time sometimes. He knows, sure, the responsible thing to do would be to track his cycle religiously so he can be ready for it when it hits, but in reality…

Well, he’s spent more than one rut camping out in the woods or holed up in some sympathetic stranger’s barn when it hits suddenly.

He’s thrown off his rhythm, anyway, since his last rut was triggered by Sanji’s heat, so maybe he was expecting to go into a rut in Alabasta? But no, it’s been about three months, so he really should have been thinking about it, and he should have been prepared, but the reality of the matter is that he is currently right this moment going into a rut and he’s not prepared in the slightest.

Nothing to it but to face it head on.

“Hey, uh, guys?”

He pokes just his head into the galley. He was hoping not to overwhelm anyone or stink up the cook’s space, but the cook’s damn nose is too sharp. His head comes up from where he was doing something with a whisk and a bowl to stare at him with one visible round eye that looks more surprised than anything. Zoro quickly ducks back outside.

“I’m going into a rut,” he calls through the doorway.

“Seriously?” He hears Nami say.

“No warning?” Usopp sounds just as frustrated. “Do you not know how to read a calendar?”

“I forgot!”

“Shishishi, Zoro’s dumb.”

“You’re not any better,” the cook says. At least he only sounds aggravated and not frightened. “I’ve always been irregular, but you’re like clockwork – what’s your excuse?”

“I forget.”

There’s a loud thump of clothed flesh on rubber. “If you forget, too, then why’s Zoro the dumb one?!”

“I’m charging both of you an inconvenience fee.”

Zoro rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. He’s trying to stay focused, but there’s a not-insubstantial part of his brain that’s caught the scent of the cook and is way too interested in following the scent to its source. Following it, and… Shit, he’s got to get out of here.

“I’m heading down to the bunkroom,” he says, “It’s coming on pretty quick.”

“You want a buddy?”

“Yeah – maybe.” He wouldn’t say no to having Usopp around. It’d be a good distraction from… Do not think about the cook. Focus. “I’ll see you down there.”

The timing’s not great, but it can’t really be helped. At least Luffy’s back to almost 100% from being frozen – a fact that Sora’s been taking complete credit for after the cook had served them extra-hot curry for dinner the other night. Robin’s pretty close to okay, too. At least if something happens, those two aren’t a liability.

He lowers himself down the hatch into the bunkroom and surveys the space. Honestly, rutting on the Red Line had been better than this. This room reeks of Robin and Luffy. Normally, he likes having their smell around, but as his rut sets in, their scents grate on his nose. He’d much rather climb back up there and grab the cook and bury his nose in his sweet-smelling hair and drown in the intoxicating combination of pheromones and cigarette smoke that clings to him. He could pull him into his arms and hold him close and put his mouth on his –

Zoro reaches up and slaps himself across the face.

He is not going to do this.

He is a warrior. A swordsman. He is not going to have another one of those ruts where his brain runs away from him and he spends three days or more desperately trying to get off and stop the waves of barely-satiable horniness. He can meditate this away.

He sits cross-legged on the couch and takes a deep breath. He can do this.

A rushing mountain stream.

A forest with leaves rustling in the wind.

A swirling lake of clouds in the sky, and the cook sprawled on his back, shirtless, staring up at Zoro with open surprise on his face. His legs just slightly parted, almost invitingly. His pale chest, the barest layer of fat over his pecs hinting at the tiniest bit of softness, and he wonders if it would jiggle slightly when he –

No!

Zoro cracks his eyes open and scowls down at the tent forming in his pants.

“No,” he tells it sternly.

His traitorous dick doesn’t listen.

“We’re not doing this. We’re going to have a normal rut and we’re not going to be like this. We are not going to think about the cook.”

And shit, now he’s thinking about the cook. Thinking about their bath together, about the moment he’d stood from the bath innocently, completely oblivious to how the white cloth of his bathrobe had molded itself to his body, outlining his shapely legs and perfect ass.

Zoro’s dick twitches with interest.

He can hear bootsteps above him. Doubtless it’s Usopp coming to help out. He grabs a nearby pillow and shoves it into his lap. Maybe he can smother it to death.

“Please,” he whispers harshly.

His stupid dick cheerfully rubs on the pillow, having the completely opposite intended effect.

“Alright, Zoro, we can do this,” Usopp is saying as he descends the mast. He’s got a bag over his shoulder, probably full of water bottles and snacks. “I’ve got supplies, and we can deal with your boredom as it comes up.”

“Mmhmm.” Zoro grits his teeth.

“Hopefully we don’t run into any islands soon, or if we do, they’re not hostile,” Usopp continues, dropping the bag on the floor and crouching to dig through his storage locker.

Zoro tries valiantly to ignore his raging erection and focus on Usopp. He’s not attracted to Usopp. Usopp’s just his friend. Focus on Usopp. Listen… to… Usopp.

Fuck it all, this isn’t going to work.

“Hey, uh, Usopp?” Zoro’s voice is hoarse.

“Yeah?” Usopp doesn’t look up.

“I need you to… I’m having… I need some space.”

“You need wha?” Usopp finally sits up and looks at him. Zoro feels his face flush bright red as he watches Usopp put the pieces together in real time. His nostrils flare, his eyes dart down to the pillow in Zoro’s lap, he blanches and drags his eyes back up to Zoro’s flushed face. “You need to – oh. Oh. I, yeah… uh…”

“Yeah,” Zoro grits out.

“Right. Uh, sorry. Okay. I’ll, um, give you some time? I’ll be back later. Uh. For lunch. I’ll – knock. I’ll knock. Yeah. So, uh, do what you gotta do, buddy.”

“Please stop talking.”

“Right! Yes! I’m going now! Bye!” Usopp scrambles back up the mast, hesitating at the top. “Call if you need anything!”

“Just go, Usopp.”

“Right! Bye!”

The hatch slams shut. Zoro closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Finally, he pulls the pillow off his lap and glares down at his crotch.

“I hate you,” he says.

Zoro’s dick is completely unperturbed by his vitriol. It bobs happily between his legs, oblivious to how much embarrassment it’s causing him.

Zoro just glares at it some more before he gets up and shuffles to his footlocker. This is not his first time dealing with a rut like this, and he’s unfortunately found out that if he doesn’t start with lube from the get-go, he’s going to end up chafed and miserable by the end of the rut. Normally, he’s more of a dry and perfunctory kind of guy – just trying to get it over with so he doesn’t hog the bathroom too long, because there’s not much privacy or free time to be found on a ship full of other people. Now, though, he fishes out a bottle of lube and sighs heavily.

It's not like he hates ruts like this, it’s just that they’re embarrassing to admit to people and more annoying to deal with than just getting territorial and bored. He flops back on the couch and unceremoniously pulls his pants down.

Fuck, he should have thought ahead. He doesn’t even have a skin magazine to focus on – and he’s already raided Usopp’s locker before. The guy is aggravatingly heterosexual. Looking at a bunch of busty women isn’t going to do anything for him. He brings his hand down to give himself an experimental squeeze.

Dammit, he’s already thinking about the cook again.

He squirts some lube onto his hand and barely gives it time to warm up before he’s stroking himself again, biting his lip to hold in a groan at the glide. He can focus on something else. Thinking about the cook feels disrespectful.
Think, Zoro. Remember that nice beta boy from the island before Shell’s Town. He’d been pretty – gingery hair and a talented mouth. He grunts and loses himself in the fantasy for a minute, remembering the best blowjob he’d ever gotten. Fuck, the kid had even taken him into his throat. It’d been awesome. He works up a steady rhythm as he loses himself in the memory of those pretty pink lips wrapped around him, about fisting his fingers in silky blond hair, about ocean blue eyes under curling eyebrows looking up at him –

He lets go of his dick as if burned.

Fucking hell. No, stupid dick. The cook isn’t – he wouldn’t – he wouldn’t ask the cook to do that for him. He’s respecting his boundaries.

Just like he’s respecting him by not using him as fap material.

Think, Zoro – that alpha guy who’d pinned him down and fucked his thighs. That was hot. Why don’t we think about him? But he doesn’t even remember what he looked like, and all he can think about is letting Sanji pin him down and use him for his pleasure. About the cook bending down from on top of him to mutter “good boy,” in his ear as he rides his cock.

Fuccccck.

He’ll feel like shit later. He’s going insane. He just needs to come. If he can just come, he can clear his head and think about anything else. For now, he whimpers and pulls the hem of his shirt up to bite onto, holding the fabric up and away from himself and hopefully stifling his sounds a little. Because he’s so sensitive now and so pent up that he whimpers again when he takes himself back in hand and sides slowly from base to tip, spilling a bead of pre-cum down to dribble onto his hand.

How would he do it?

His alpha instincts say “mount him from behind,” but he can’t realistically imagine that. He wouldn’t want to, anyway. He wants to see the cook’s face. Watch his eyelids go heavy with pleasure as he takes his cock into his mouth and fingers him open. He’d stretch him slowly, take him apart piece by piece until he’s dripping and begging to take what he needs from him.

Zoro groans and slides further down the couch. He imagines Sanji flipping him over onto his back, pinning him in place with those muscular thighs, holding him down and sinking slowly onto his cock. He can practically hear his little mewls of pleasure. He uses his free hand to run over his own abdomen, to reach up to toy with his nipples as he pictures Sanji’s hands instead. The hand on his cock speeds up as he thinks about being surrounded by that tight, wet heat, about swimming in the scent of the cook gasping in pleasure.

Fuck, he’d be so beautiful. Even more beautiful with a little more fat on him, with his flat chest blooming into little breasts that jiggle as he rides him, his belly poking out round and heavy with Zoro’s pups inside him –

Zoro’s eyes shoot open, and he grasps blindly for anything – finding a nearby towel as he comes with a muffled groan into his shirt. Fuck, it’s – he’s rutting, he – dammit, his knot’s swelling, and all he can do is throw a towel over himself as his knot inflates and he’s coming longer and harder than a normal orgasm, desperately squeezing both hands around his knot to try to – what? He’s not sure anymore, eyes rolling back in his head as he rides the orgasm out, hips shuddering involuntarily until it’s finally over.

He lies there on the couch, panting.

Fuck, that had been intense. He peels the towel back and grimaces at his dick still kept erect by the knot and the copious amount of come pooled in the towel. Laundry’s going to be an embarrassing nightmare. He carefully folds the towel up so the dry part’s wrapped around the wet inside and chucks it to the side.

Fuck, is he ever going to be able to jerk off without thinking about the cook again?

Hell, is he ever going to look him in the eyes again?

That’s a question for after this rut, he decides.

Sanji exits the galley to see Nami and Usopp jump guiltily and swivel their heads to look at him. He’s immediately suspicious.

“Guys, what’s going on?”

“Well, you see…”

Sanji steps forward and wrinkles his nose. There’s a scent wafting up from the bunkroom, and he knows it…

Oh.

So that’s why they’re worried.

Sanji feels his face flush. Usopp and Nami are both looking at him like he’s about to explode.

He gets it. In their shoes, he’d be worried, too, except, well…

This isn’t the first time he’s ever caught the scent of an aroused, rutting alpha.

The Baratie, for all its size, was still just a ship. Most of the cooks slept in a big bunkroom, but he and Zeff each had their own rooms, and Patty and Carne had one, too. And those rooms weren’t far away from each other – right next to each other, in fact. And they didn’t really have a designated rut room or anything, and with Zeff and Patty as the only alphas, it wasn’t a problem. They’d just rut in their bedrooms.

And, well, it’s not like the rooms were airtight and soundproof.

Sanji’s not a complete blushing virgin. He’s smelled Patty on his rut, and Zeff, too, and yeah, they were both gross, because that’s his dad and his uncle, basically, but it’s not like he wasn’t aware that they did that. Or that Patty liked to have Carne around for his ruts. Or overhearing anything they got up to. Or heard jeering from the other cooks, teasing and taunting Carne about taking Patty’s knot up his ass, and it’s definitely a gross image that he never wanted, but the point is that he’s not an innocent little baby about sex stuff. He knows plenty about it from his books and from eavesdropping on the other cooks. They never made sex jokes with him of course, but, like, he gets it. Nobody likes talking about sex with the sad little rape victim.

In any case, he can smell Zoro’s rut pheromones from here, and he can also smell his arousal. It’s kind of impossible to mask with his rut scent so heavy, and he’s a bit embarrassed on Zoro’s behalf, because that can’t be fun, having your private business aired out for the whole crew to get a whiff of.

But still. He’s not going to panic just because of that.

Because this is Zoro. Rutting or not rutting, the alpha’s been nothing but respectful and kind so far, and he’s never once since getting to know him seriously thought he was secretly plotting to molest him. Maybe the occasional instinctive panic about alphas in general still flaring up, but he’s had more than enough evidence pile up that Zoro’s far from some evil rapist.

So, this isn’t a problem. Except…

“Ah, so Zoro’s…” He trails off awkwardly.

“Yeah…” Nami glances at Usopp and back at him. “Um, are you okay? Not… worried?”

“No, I’m fine,” he says, perhaps a bit too quickly. Nami’s looking suspicious. He has to escape before she notices anything. “It’s fine. I just… I spilled some sauce on my jacket. Gonna go change.”

“Oh. Uh, okay. But you’re fine with the whole… thing?”

“It’s fine. It’s perfectly natural.” He gives them an awkward thumb’s up and flees to the ladder to the den.

Well… shit.

He finishes climbing down and strips his jacket off. Might as well back up his little lie. Besides, he does have to do something about…

He bites his lip and drags the heavy wardrobe from its spot against the wall to instead pushes it flush with the emergency hatch between the den wall and the bunkroom. Not that he thinks Zoro will catch his scent and madly break in here, but…

But why the hell is he aroused?

His cheeks flush darker now that he faces the problem head-on. He’s… He’s never reacted to an alpha’s scent like this before. Sure, he’s gotten used to Zoro’s smell and actually likes it when he’s bathed and not covered in gross sweat and dirt and blood and stuff, but he’s never reacted to him like this. It’s… why is this happening? Is it because of the rut? Or just scenting his arousal and reacting to it? He’s maybe smelled arousal from not-unattractive people like Nami or Usopp before, but it’s not polite to point these things out, and he’s never smelled them and gotten… wet.

He yanks his slacks off and grabs a fresh pair of boxer briefs from his drawer. He hesitates and grits his teeth before peeling his underwear off. They’re unpleasantly sticky and damningly smell like aroused omega. He buries them punitively in the bottom of the laundry hamper. He feels stupid, hiding his underwear like a kid or something, but… but how’s he supposed to explain that to the crew?

He studiously ignores his half-erect dick and stuffs his legs into the boxer briefs and picks out a fresh suit. This entire episode is making his heart pound with anxiety and a weird anticipation.

Just on the other side of that wall…

He’s not going to think about that.

He wouldn’t even know what to do with Zoro if Zoro even wanted him back.

And he doesn’t want Zoro!

Not… really.

It’s just… biology, or something.

He’d be mortified if Zoro reacted to his own scent just because he’s rutting. That would be disastrous for their friendship. And he’s never going to tell him about this. Because if Zoro heard he was getting hard and wet just smelling him, and it disgusted him, he’d be humiliated. And if Zoro knew he was aroused by him and he wasn’t disgusted…

Sanji’s brain goes blank.

It’s terrifying. He’s… not opposed to finding Zoro attractive, and that’s worrisome. Because he decided before, didn’t he? That Zoro deserves someone better than Sanji? And if he returns Sanji’s interest… well, it would probably be for lack of options. He’s the only omega Zoro’s ever known, as far as he knows. Maybe he’d be interested now and then throw him aside as soon as he finds a better option. And Sanji… can’t handle that. He can’t compete with some other omega. Some omega out there who would know what to do with an alpha like Zoro, who isn’t half-petrified at the idea of starting something sexual not only because of bad memories but because he’s embarrassed to admit that he has no idea what he would do, personally, in an intimate setting. He’s never even really explored his own body, much less someone else’s, and he’d be terrible at it, he’s sure. Zoro would laugh him away and find someone better.

Fuck, is he crying?

He pushes the tears away with his hands. Fuck, he’s not a baby. He’s not going to cry over this. Nothing is happening. Zoro is having an intense rut, but he’s fine. Nobody is expecting Sanji to do anything about that. He can’t be down here in the den having a panic attack about hypothetical scenarios that won’t ever come true.

Because they won’t.

He’s going to clean himself up, he’s going to get dressed, and he’s going to not pick up Zoro’s scent again for the next few days because he cannot let anyone else on the crew know that he’s not scared of Zoro’s scent but rather has a frightening urge to follow it to its source and see what happens.

No, don’t think about that, Sanji.

He carefully gets dressed and sticks his face into the bar refrigerator for a minute, hoping the cool air will help with how blotchy and swollen his face gets when he cries. Then he tightens his tie and climbs back up to the deck.

He holds his breath as he walks the staircase up to the galley. He’s got lunch to finish. Nami gives him a worried look from the mikan grove, but he presses his lips together and shakes his head. She doesn’t look happy about this, but she nods and leaves him alone. Good. He’s not in the mood for her concerned questions right now. He’s got lunch to finish cooking, and then a long afternoon of avoiding the main deck.

It's going to be a long week.

--

Thank the gods that his rut only lasted three days this time.

The aroused ruts do seem to burn hot and fast instead of dragging out like his normal ones. He’s grateful for that. Rut or no rut, he’s kind of over jerking himself off, and despite the copious amounts of lube he used, his dick is started to feel a little chafed.

Usopp seems grateful for the break, too. He’d been great. He’d helped air out the bunkroom so he wasn’t stewing in his own musk and pheromones the whole three days. He hadn’t been willing to touch Zoro’s towels – and Zoro didn’t want him touching them either – but he’d helped him haul out a washtub and get them washed in the evenings after the cook and the kids went to bed. Getting rid of the evidence helped a lot with the smell, and the extra task of scrubbing his gross linens was unsexy enough that he probably cut down on a few waves of arousal just by doing the chores.

“Is the cook okay?” Zoro had asked on the second day.

He hadn’t planned on asking, but the cook had kind of been on his mind a lot. It felt weird to jack off thinking about him several times a day and not at least ask how he was doing.

Usopp had given him a weird look. “He’s okay, I think. Not scared or anything. He doesn’t want to talk about it. Just avoids coming out onto the deck.”

A sad, stupid little part of him wilts at the idea that the cook would avoid smelling him. The larger, more practical part of him bullies that stupid little part into submission. He’s glad the cook isn’t scared. He’s not unhappy at all that the cook doesn’t want to smell his rut pheromones. Of course the cook – an unclaimed omega with a history of trauma – wouldn’t like smelling aroused rut pheromones. It doesn’t mean anything.

It still feels stupidly like a rejection.

Which is stupid. He hadn’t offered the cook anything to be rejected.

He still feels pathetic about it.

Next island, he promises himself. He’ll get the cook some more courting gifts. Maybe if he brings him enough flowers and meat, he’ll figure out himself that Zoro’s serious about him without having to have the awkward conversation. Would he like jewelry? Zoro can’t really afford jewelry. Wait, they’re rich now, right? Maybe Nami will loan him some money. Or… He is a pirate. He could steal some jewelry. But would the cook think that was cheap? Stealing nice stuff for him?

He ponders the question as he helps Usopp air the bunkroom out again and swab the floors. Zoro had been careful, but that had been a lot of jizz. He’d be shocked if he hadn’t gotten some on the floor or one of the walls. He’s not going to make Usopp clean up his mess. He leans on the mop and stares at the hatch leading to the den.

Next island, he swears to himself.

He’ll try wooing the cook again on the next island.

--

Sanji leans against the wall outside the galley and blows a cloud of smoke out.

Three days of avoiding the main deck. Three days of making sure he had a cigarette lit every time he walked down the deck to get to the bathroom or den. Three days of accidentally catching a noseful of Zoro and having to try to hide the scent of his arousal from the others. He knows Nami knows something is going on, but he’s made it clear that he’s avoiding talking about it, and for once she seems willing to wait for him to broach the subject first.

Which he’s not going to do.

How would that even go?

“Hey, Nami. I’ve been getting hot and bothered every time I smell Zoro, and it’s been seriously messing with my personal ‘don’t let alphas fuck you’ policy. What would you do in this scenario?”

Yeah, no. Not doing that.

So he’s glad it’s over. The meathead himself is in the bathroom washing the stink off himself with a good long bath, and he’s ever so grateful for that.

“Hey! Check it out! That frog is doing the front crawl!”

Sanji blinks at Usopp’s shout.

“What? But frogs usually do the breaststroke,” he blurts out.

“This one is doing the front crawl!”

He stands up in a cloud of cigarette smoke. He flinches as the door below him slams open.

“A frog doing the front crawl?!”

Zoro runs out onto the deck, and Sanji can’t help but stare. He must’ve hurried from the bathroom, because he’s only wearing pants and hopping ridiculously to shove his boots on as he follows the other boys to the side of the ship to see the frog. His hair’s still dripping water down the back of his neck, and when he angles his body to follow the frog, Sanji gets a glimpse of how his nipples have hardened in the open air.

He screws his eyes shut and counts to five before opening them again.

Stop objectifying the swordsman.

“Let’s catch it and eat it!”

Okay, focus on catching and cooking the giant frog.

“To cook frogs, first remove the slime using white wine, then dredge them in flour and fry them crisp…”

Nami gives him a wild, incredulous look from where she’s standing nearby, but she doesn’t have time to question him as the ship lurches from the boys shifting their course to chase the frog. Robin stands on the lower deck with Sora on her hip and out of the path of wild frog-chasing, laughing openly at their antics.

“Careful! You don’t even know what you’re heading towards!”

“It’s fine! Catch that frog!”

“Captain’s orders,” Robin calls mirthfully.

“Captain’s orders,” Sora echoes.

“You idiots! Watch where you’re steering the ship!”

Sanji heads down the stairs to help. He neatly avoids Zoro’s side of the ship, leaning instead to see that – yep – they’re barreling straight on towards some kind of tiny island. The ship abruptly slams to an inelegant halt.

“What was that?”

“Some kind of barrier in the water!”

A bell starts clanging somewhere like some kind of alarm. Sanji’s never heard something like that before, but Nami’s looking pale, staring up at whatever is making the noise.

“You’re kidding me…” she says.

A loud whistle echoes across the sea.

“You’re kidding me!”

“Is that a train?”

“Move the ship! Now!”

“It’s coming right for us!”

There’s more incoherent screaming as they grab the oars and pull for their lives. They just barely manage to clear the space they’d been stuck in before a real-live train comes screeching down the tracks floating in the water. They all stand, panting, watching the train continue on as if it hadn’t nearly killed them.

“Wait, is that the frog?”

“Move, you dumb frog!”

The frog’s standing on the tracks for some reason, bracing and scowling at the train. They all watch with mild horror as the train continues on, slamming into the frog and sending him flying into the sea.

“What was that…?”

Sanji’s ears perk up as he hears a child’s voice calling from the structure they’d run aground next to. “Grandma! Grandma! Pirates are here!”

A crackling old voice answers, “What? Is that true, Chimney? Bring my transponder snail at once!”

The voice belongs to an obviously intoxicated old woman who stumbles and falls as soon as she reaches the platform. The little girl nods and runs off, chased by a large rabbit.

Zoro growls and runs back to the bathroom for his haramaki and swords. “This isn’t good! They’re calling for help!”

Sanji glances at him wearily and closes his eyes again. Why couldn’t he have grabbed a shirt, too?

“Here, Grandma!”

The old woman stares at the snail and collapses again, mumbling drunkenly.

“Look, this is all a misunderstanding,” Usopp says.

They gradually disembark. Sanji can’t help projecting his worry. There’s nobody here but this drunken old woman and the little girl. Who’s responsible here? Who’s taking care of her? Surely not this old lady who’s so intoxicated she can’t walk in the middle of the afternoon. He knows he’s a pirate, but he has a sudden urge to complain to some kind of authorities.

“I’m Chimney,” the girls says cheerfully, “and this is my cat, Gonbe!”

The rabbit meows. The Straw Hats glance at each other and collectively decide not to question it.

“And this is Grandma Kokoro!”

The old woman laughs. “You’re not train robbers, huh?”

Sanji stares her down for a minute before running back to the kitchen for some carb-rich snacks and coffee. Maybe filling her stomach will sober her up a little. He comes back to the platform and dumps the snacks into the old woman’s hands as the little girl explains the sea train to the crew. Sanji wordlessly hands the girl a sandwich, which she takes without missing a beat in her explanation.

“If your log pose is pointing east of here,” Kokoro says around another gulp of wine, “then you’re headed to the Free City of Water 7!”

“Free City of Water 7?”

The woman’s huge smile widens. “It’s a wonderful city that made its name with its shipyards. In recent years, it’s become a booming business city known for equality – slavery is illegal in Water 7, and no slavetraders are welcome anywhere near its waters!”

“Really?” Nami looks intrigued. She frowns. “But doesn’t that cause problems?”

Something flickers in the old woman’s expression. “A few. But our mayor, Iceberg, is powerful enough to enforce these things.”

The pirates exchange a glance. What kind of mayor could challenge the World Government’s enthusiasm for slavery so openly? And get away with it?

“The best shipwrights in the world go to Water 7. If you’re looking for help with your ship, that’s the place to go.” Kokoro looks pointedly at their mast, which sways dangerously in the breeze, groaning audibly.

“Then it’s settled,” Luffy says, “we’re going to Water 7 to find a shipwright!”

“In that case, let me give you a note of recommendation,” the old woman says, standing unsteadily from her chair. “I may not look it, but I have some sway with the best shipyard in town!”

She comes back a moment later with a folded piece of paper. “Here! A simple map and a letter. Make sure you get it to Iceberg himself. He’ll take care of you! And make sure you stop by a visitor center before you go into the city.”

“Oh? Why’s that?” Nami asks.

Kokoro smiles mysteriously. “Water 7 does things very differently from other islands! Just make sure you go to a visitor center. They’ll explain everything there.”

That raises more questions than answers, but Luffy is already grabbing the paper and getting ready to leave.

“Thanks, Granny! Come on, guys! Let’s go to Water 7!”

“We’ll be heading to the city soon, too,” Chimney calls.

“If we see you there, I’ll treat you at my favorite bar!”

“Please eat your snacks, Grandma,” Sanji calls.

The old woman just laughs and swigs more wine.

“Let’s go, guys! To the city of meat!”

“It’s a city of shipwrights, Luffy.”

“And meat!”

Sanji rolls his eyes and helps drop the sails. He glances at where Zoro’s hauling the anchor up, the flexing muscles of his back now covered by a shirt. He’s not disappointed by this. Not at all. He focuses on his own tasks and the anticipation of their next destination.

The Free City of Water 7… What kind of place is that going to be?

Chapter Text

The supposed Free City of Water 7 does not disappoint.

The entire crew stands on the deck of the ship and watches the tall fountain crowning the city come even more clearly into view. It’s undoubtedly the biggest city Sanji’s ever seen. He can’t help but become swept up in the excitement, matching grins adorning the faces of the crew. This is it! Surely, here, they’ll find a shipwright to sail with them and find a crew to fix the Merry up and get her back to her best.

It takes them a bit of time to find somewhere to dock. Kokoro had warned them that there’s a not-insignificant World Government presence in the city, as the sea train is the only direct route to Enies Lobby and the World Government favors Water 7 shipwrights for constructing their own ships. They’re not excited to have another run-in with Marines so soon after Aokiji, though after some debate, they do leave their jolly roger flying on the mast. They don’t come off as anything more respectable than pirates, and Kokoro had assured them that Iceberg has no ill will towards pirates and no problems doing business with them, so long as they have no ties to the slave trade. Still, there’s no sense in courting trouble. They dock on a rocky beach some distance from the city’s lowest levels.

“There seems to be one of those visitor centers Granny told us about over there,” Nami says, pointing. They all follow her finger to a large building at the fringe of the town, right next to another place advertising “yagara rentals,” whatever those are. “We can dock at the shore here and walk.”

They drop anchor and, after some debate about leaving the ship unattended, walk the entire crew down to the visitor center.

It’s a large, clean building, well-lit and modern. Sanji feels fine in his button up and vest, but he glances at the others and wonders if they’re perhaps underdressed. This doesn’t seem to deter the person manning the desk inside.

“Welcome to Water 7!”

The voice sounds masculine, but… that’s the only thing Sanji can determine. The person’s dressed head to toe in colorful garb with a painted wooden mask over their face. Their scent’s also totally masked by scent blockers and perfume, rendering them completely anonymous, androgynous, and impossible to read.

“Uh, hello,” Nami says tentatively.

“Please don’t mind my appearance! This is a local custom! We are currently in a festival season, and it’s traditional to wear masks to disguise oneself during this time. No worries – outsiders are encouraged to participate but are in no way required to!”

“I see.” Nami still looks mildly perturbed. “I was told to stop by here before entering the city?”

“Of course! It’s highly encouraged that all visitors stop by so as not to cause any unnecessary confusion or distress. My name is Jasper. I am a local guide. Now, how much do you know about Water 7?”

“We’ve just heard that you don’t abide by slavery here,” Usopp says.

“Absolutely,” Jasper says cheerfully, “and if I were to determine that you have any ties whatsoever to the slave trade, I would be required to report you to the authorities at once to be escorted from the area!”

“It’s good we’re just pirates and not slave traders,” Luffy says, laughing. Nami shoots him a quelling look.

“Indeed! Pirates are perfectly welcome here. Now, as you know so little, let me give you a brief overview to ease your transition into Water 7. Our magnetic field requires a full week to set for the next island, so we try to avoid any unpleasantness. Water 7 is a booming metropolis of shipbuilding ingenuity, but it is also a fairly close-knit community, and we do not stand for civil disruption. Any and all disruption will be reported to the proper authorities!”

Jasper says all of this with a warm and welcoming tone, yet there’s something a bit menacing about the way they stress reporting people to the authorities.

“We don’t plan on causing trouble,” Zoro speaks up from the back of their group.

“Excellent. Then we will have no problems. Now, moving forward… The most pressing order of business is that all of you, minus the child, will need to select a scent-blocking option. We have medical staff on hand to assist with choosing the best option for your health if you do not have a doctor on your crew.”

“I’m the doctor! I can help.” Chopper hops slightly to draw attention to himself.

There’s a brief pause, supposedly for Jasper to process that the reindeer just spoke. They recover admirably with only a slight quaver to their voice, “I see! In any case, I am afraid that this is not a negotiable request. It is highly improper within the limits of the city to wander about with one’s pheromones openly displayed. Should you fall into a rut or heat while within the city, heat and rut houses are available for use, and you may find further information there should you require their services. I do have a pamphlet if you’d like.”

Usopp takes the pamphlet and flips through it as Jasper continues speaking, “Here in Water 7 we pride ourselves on not limiting or discriminating against the sexes in matters of business and community. Everyone here is equal. Please be considerate in following our customs on this matter, or I shall have to –“

“Report us to the proper authorities?” Nami finishes dryly.

“Exactly! Now, where was I? Ah, yes, I can provide maps of the city and some listings of popular places of business. As you are pirates, I assume you are interested in the shipyards? I shall circle them on your map. Is there any other services you require urgently?”

“Currency exchange services.”

“Ah, yes. The banking district is here. Most shopping is found here and here, and hotels are usually clustered in these areas.” The marker in their hand squeaks as they circle various parts of the city and add notes on what they’ve circled. They look up abruptly, sending Chopper toppling over in surprise. “This is also the time of year where we experience Aqua Laguna. It is a dangerous tidal wave that plagues the city. In the event that your stay overlaps with this weather event, please follow directions to the nearest shelter. There are many located throughout the city, and they are clearly marked. Now, does anyone have any pressing questions? I have plenty of pamphlets!”

Jasper tosses an armful of colorful pamphlets at them to punctuate their statement. Usopp scrambles to catch them. Nami glances at the others and shakes her head when none of them come up with anything.

“No, I think you’ve answered our questions. You provide scent blockers here at the visitor center?”

“Indeed! Your first dosage of either topical or oral scent blockers is complimentary, and we have doses of topical, oral, and injected scent blockers available for purchase here at the visitor’s center.”

Nami has her haggling glint in her eye, so Sanji backs away to flip through one of the pamphlets while she works Jasper over. The one he grabbed is about sea train routes. It’s not necessarily the most interesting topic, but he notes the gourmet island connected by rail and makes a mental note to check the local markets for upscale ingredients. Sora yawns visibly from where he stands at Sanji’s hip.

“Come on, guys! We’re off to get our scent blockers,” Nami sing-songs. She must’ve suckered the price down. He glances at Jasper and smirks because some quirk of body language makes them look frazzled despite the mask and clothing hiding their appearance.

The crew awkwardly shuffles down the hall and into a medical area so they can stand around while Chopper earnestly discusses medicine with a couple of bemused-looking doctors. They talk too rapidly for Sanji to try to follow, so he doesn’t, and he fully checks out when they pull out a huge textbook and start discussing side effects and drug interactions. Chopper’s in his element, and he doubts the reindeer would make any medical decision that he’d disagree with.

“Okay,” Chopper says, pointing at each of them in turn, “Luffy’s going to get the shot because I don’t trust him to remember to take pills.”

“Okay,” Luffy says amiably.

“Zoro, you should probably take the shot, too.”

Zoro grunts.

“Nami, Robin, Usopp, Sanji, you can either take the shot or choose the pills. The pills have to be taken daily to be effective, and the shot lasts about two weeks. You could choose the ointment, but it does wash off rather easily and needs to be applied more often, so it’s kind of inconvenient.” They all nod, and the reindeer steps closer to speak more privately to Sanji. “Sanji, neither one will interact poorly with your other medication, though I would recommend the pills as the shot might give you side effects if you were to go into a heat. I know you’ve said they’re irregular, so we can’t really gauge when it could happen, so to be on the safe side, I’d like for you to take the pills. Is that okay?”

“You’re my doctor, Chopper. I trust you.” He’d ask more questions about the side effects, but he doesn’t want to prolong the conversation. He’d rather not go into heat in the middle of Water 7 in any case. “I’ll just take them when I take my other pill in the mornings.”

Chopper’s shoulders sag with relief. “Thank you. Now, everyone, come get your scent blockers.”

Robin and Usopp opt for the injection. Nami makes a face and picks the pills. Chopper and the two doctors on staff get them taken care of quickly.

“Let’s return to the Merry for now until the blockers begin to take effect,” Nami says, “I don’t want to go into the city until they start working.”

“That’s fine,” Sanji says, already thinking about what he can feed them for lunch. “I can get lunch ready while we wait.”

They nod and leave the center to head back to the ship. Already, the scent of his crewmates is becoming more muted as the drugs start shutting down the pheromone production. It’s weird. He’s not sure he likes it.

Once aboard, Sanji heads into the galley to cook while Nami and Zoro make their way down into the cargo hold to gather their Skypeian treasure into easier to carry bundles. All the while, he catches less and less whiffs of scent from passing crewmates. By the time he sets out their lunch and gathers everyone at the table, the crew’s scents have almost completely vanished.

“This is really weird,” Usopp comments as he pops a piece of Alabastan-style flatbread in his mouth. He flares his nostrils and shakes his head.

“And everyone here lives like this, huh? Strange.” Nami leans closer to Usopp to scent and frowns when she does. “Yeah, I really can’t pick up anything important from you.”

“Fascinating,” Robin says.

Sanji hums and spoons out some tabbouleh he’s made with the last of their fresh cucumber and tomatoes. They desperately need to go shopping, but he’s not sure how much groceries to plan for. Until they know more about how repairing the Merry is going to go and whether they can find an inn or hotel to stay in for the duration, he’s not really sure how to plan for their meals. They’re close enough to the shopping district that he can probably shop daily, just buying what they need for that day’s meals, but that option is not his first choice. He’s probably going to keep feeling unsettled until they get the plan to fix the Merry finalized.

“Well,” Nami says, standing and carrying her plate to the sink, “our first task is to get that treasure exchanged. Once we have the cash in hand, we can head to the shipyard and find Iceberg and get the Merry fixed right up!”

The crew lets out a cheer at that. The kitchen becomes a flurry of activity as everyone finishes the last bits of food on their plates and washes up, filling the galley with the clink of ceramic and the low chatter of excitement. Once the mess is taken care of, they tentatively split into groups.

“We’ll take care of the business stuff,” Nami says, looping her arms through Usopp’s and Luffy’s. She grins. “I’ll get us the best exchange rate and the best deals!”

“I’d like to go look for a bookstore,” Chopper pipes up, “Robin wanted to go, too.”

Robin nods. “If that’s alright?”

Zoro opens his mouth and seems to think for a moment before he shuts it. He crosses his arms instead. Sanji gives him a curious look, but the swordsman just pinches his lips together.

“I’ll stay with the ship for now,” he says, “but, witch, I do still need that thing we talked about.”

Nami’s grin turns sinister. “If you’re prepared for the interest rate…”

Zoro just rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. You can go ahead shopping, Cook. I know you need groceries.”

Sanji hesitates, glancing between Zoro and Nami. “Um, okay. Did you need to go into town urgently? I could grab it for you, if it was something you needed to buy.”

Zoro’s lips pinch together again. “…No. It’s not urgent. Just get your groceries, Cook.”

Nami’s sinister grin widens. Sanji’s not sure what exactly this is all about, and he’s probably safer not asking.

“Okay, then… Sora, you have your hat? We’re going into the city.”

“I got it!”

“We’ll meet back here later this afternoon,” Nami says. She slips a fat purse of cash into Sanji’s hands. “This should be enough to cover what you need.”

“Why does Sanji get all that money?” Luffy complains.

“Because Sanji is responsible, and he’s going to get some small snails for us.”

Sanji nods. “Right. I don’t want us to all get lost and separated again without any way to contact each other. If I find a snail shop, I’ll get enough for all of us to have one.”

Zoro finally meets his eye, a small smile on his face as he nods approvingly. “Good thinking, Cook.”

Ugh, yep, he’s still being weird around Zoro, even after the rut’s ended. This is annoying. He really hopes he’s not blushing. He tries to cover it by griping, “I wouldn’t have to get them if you didn’t suck at directions, Mosshead.”

Zoro’s smile transforms into a frown. “I don’t suck. Things just move.”

“The fact that you truly believe that makes me worried that you were dropped on your head as a child.”

“Eh? It’s the truth!”

Sanji rolls his eyes. “It’s ridiculous! Roads don’t move!”

“Weird stuff happens on the Grand Line!”

“Not moving roads!”

He stuffs the money into his jacket for safety and kicks out at Zoro – still pretty lightly, but sharply enough to express his annoyance. The kick hits Wado’s hilt when Zoro brings it up to block, and the rest of the crew scrambles away as they exchange a quick, but light flurry of blows. His aggravation quickly melts in the excitement of the fight. It feels like it’s been ages since they sparred or had one of their little arguments, and Sanji can’t keep the grin off his face.

“Cut it out, you two!”

Evidently, Nami had enough of their antics. Sanji turns his attention immediately to her with a flurry of hearts. “Yes, Nami!” He gracefully pirouettes to avoid Zoro’s last mulish sword strike and fawns over to Nami’s unimpressed scowl. “Anything for you, darling!”

Usopp mutters something to Chopper that Sanji doesn’t catch, but Nami drags his attention back before he can question it – “We need to head out. Just be careful, okay? Water 7’s a big place. Just try to stay out of trouble.”

“Of course. You guys be extra careful, too. With all that treasure…”

“We’ll be okay,” Luffy says confidently.

“Yeah,” Usopp echoes, “we’ll take great care of our money!”

They split up, Nami’s group leaving first, and Chopper, Robin, and Sora leaving the ship next. Sanji hesitates at the top of the gangplank.

“Are you sure there’s nothing I can grab you, Zoro?”

Zoro hesitates before he shakes his head. “Nah, I’m good. Have fun.”

Sanji nods, hesitating more for some reason. They haven’t really talked since his rut, and maybe it’s just hormones or something, but he feels… reluctant to leave him here alone. Like he almost wants to stay, too, or ask him to come with him.

“Sanji! Hurry up!”

Jolted out of his thoughts, Sanji turns away from staring at Zoro. “Right! Sorry! Mossball, we’ll be back soon!”

Zoro grunts. When Sanji turns to glance back as they walk to the yagara rental, the swordsman is still standing at the railing watching them go.

--

“You can let us off here, Sanji,” Robin says, reaching up from the back seat of the yagara saddle to gently touch his upper arm.

“You’re sure?” Even as he asks, Sanji directs the creature over to the stone walkway many shoppers are traveling on. This section of the city seems evenly split between dry walkways and canals, but when he looks around, he can see that many of the side streets are accessible only by water.

Robin exchanges a glance with Chopper before nodding decisively. “I believe there’s some book shops along these streets. We should be fine from here.”

“Alright. Meet you back at the Merry later, then.”

The yagara rocks gently as Robin and Chopper disembark. Sanji watches them go until they disappear into the crowd of shoppers.

“Dad, are we going?”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t rush me.” He tugs the reins and gets the yagara moving again. When he glances at Sora, the kid’s humming happily and reaching his hand over the side to pet the creature’s shoulder. Of course his love of animals would extend to these weird water-beasts. He’s not sure why he’s even surprised. He taps out a cigarette with one hand and fumbles his lighter as he steers the beast along one of the paths that looks like it leads to a less touristy shopping area.

Judging by the number of housewives and what looks to be apprentice chefs, he’s in the right place. He follows his nose to peer at street food grilling on floating pop-up restaurants and vendors hawking their wares. Where does he even begin with this variety?

“Can we try the fried squid?”

Sanji glances over at the stall in question and opens his mouth to say no, but then he thinks better of it.

“Okay, but just this one snack, okay? We’ll come back here after we find a snail shop and then we can buy the groceries and try something else.”

Sora nods eagerly. “But we eat the squid now, right?”

“Sure thing.”

Sanji angles the yagara closer. The vendor, a kind-faced woman with her wild hair tied in a bandana, leans over her counter and grins.

“What can I get ya?”

Sanji puffs his cigarette smoke out in a stream of hearts. “My angel. If you would be so kind, may we please have two servings of your fried squid? With you as the chef, it’s sure to be delectable beyond compare!”

“Dad, you’re being dumb,” Sora mutters.

“Hush, you. I’m speaking with the lady.”

The vendor leans back to laugh, a full-throated laugh from deep in her belly. “You’re a charmer, huh? I’m not knocking anything off the price just because you flattered me, you know?”

“I would never presume to beg you for a bargain, my lady.”

“You’re cute. Two servings of calamari, coming up.”

Sanji watches her scoop some battered, fried rings of squid from her basket of finished product. He might be imagining it, but she seems to serve them some scoops that look a bit larger than the ones he saw some other customers ride away with. She twists a little paper square around some salt and throws a couple of lemon wedges on the side, reaching over to take his berries and exchange them for the heaping paper trays of snacks.

“Pleasure doing business with you, hon. Come back soon.”

The vendor shoots him a wink, waving him off as he starts spouting lovesick nonsense in return. What a beautiful and kind-hearted mature lady. When he finally reaches down to sample a piece as they ride off, it’s just as fresh and crisp as he was hoping it would be.

“You like it, baby?”

Sora nods with his mouth full. “It’s good! People here are nice, huh?”

“Yeah, they are,” Sanji says absently.

When he thinks about it… It’s very strange to wander through a crowd this large and not have his brain bombarded with information. Everyone here just smells… like people. Rather like the Skypeians had. He glances around. Any one of these men could be alphas, and he wouldn’t know… but at the same time… he glances at Sora. Most people assume Sora is his younger brother, anyway. Out here in this crowd with his scent hidden… even if he’s surrounded by alphas unknowingly, it’s not like any of them are going to know he’s omega, either.

He drizzles some lemon juice over his snack and pops a piece of calamari into his mouth to chew as they drift along. Come to think of it, the vendor had treated him differently than most women usually do. He’s used to women smelling that he’s omega and summarily dismissing him as a viable suitor or prospective mate. All of his flirting and posturing is laughed off as just a silly omega acting foolish. The vendor had laughed it off as well, but in a different manner than he’s used to. She’d laughed his antics off as a middle-aged woman laughing off a younger man’s flirting. She hadn’t given him that knowing look reserved for men like him or made any sly comments. Just laughed at his flattery and sent him on his way.

He glances around the streets and canals again. Everywhere he looks, he just sees people calmly going about their day. It’s probably not paradise, this city of Water 7, but in the heady rush of realizing that here, he is almost invisible when he’s used to being singled out as a rare male omega? It feels close.

Emboldened, he swings the yagara closer to the streets and hails a passing older man.

“Excuse me, sir? Do you happen to know where I could buy a transponder snail?”

The man stops his ambling walk and smiles. “New around here?”

“Just passing through.”

The man nods. “We get a lot of those. There’s some snail shops two streets over. Just take a left at the fork up there. You can’t miss them.”

Sanji follows his pointing finger and nods. “Right. Thank you, sir.”

“No problem! Have a nice day, kids.”

They steer back onto the street and follow their directions until they end up on another street lined with shops. He’s quick to find a shop with a hanging sign in the shape of a grinning snail.

“Come on, Sora. Let’s see what they have.”

Sora shovels the last of his food into his mouth and hops out, stopping to pet the yagara and feed it his last piece of calamari. Sanji just shakes his head and ushers him into the shop.

“Welcome! Feel free to browse!”

Sanji nods to the shopkeeper and follows Sora over to the tanks of snails. Big ones, huge ones, medium sized ones, and finally a long, low tank of little snails just perfect to fit in the palm of one’s hand. He checks the price taped to the front of the tank and does some mental math. They should have enough, with money to spare for the groceries. He nods decisively.

“Ok, let’s pick some out for the crew. Which ones are you thinking?”

Sora lights up. “I get to pick?!”

“Sure. What are we getting?” He glances at the shopkeeper. “Hey, is it okay if we grab these?”

The shopkeeper nods. “As long as he’s gentle, it’s fine. How many are you getting?”

“Seven of them.”

The shopkeeper raises his eyebrows briefly, but lets it pass without comment. “Alright, then. Let me grab a box from the back for you to carry them in.”

“Thank you.”

Sora’s already holding up two snails. “This red one is for Luffy and this yellow one is for Usopp!”

Sanji holds his hands out and takes the snails so Sora can dive back in to sort through them, commenting as he goes, “And a green one for Zoro and a purple one for Miss Robin and… hm… pink or orange for Miss Nami?”

Sanji shrugs, more focused on balancing the growing pile of snails in his arms. “She likes both, so…”

Sora gives him an unimpressed look and plops an orange-shelled snail into his arms. “Orange, then.”

“Why not pink for Chopper, then? He likes cotton candy.”

He perks back up immediately. “And his hat is pink!”

“Here you are, sir,” the shopkeeper says, choosing that time to return and help load the snails into the box he’d found. “This is quite a few!”

“Yeah, well, I’m tired of not being able to find my crew.”

“You’re sailors?”

“Pirates,” Sora corrects without looking up from his snail hunt. Sanji makes a face at the back of his head.

“Oh, you two are pirates? Aren’t you a little small to be a pirate?”

Sora turns his unimpressed face on the shopkeeper. “I’m not small – I’m just a kid.”

Sanji snorts at the shopkeeper’s perplexed face. “That’s what he meant, kiddo. Most kids aren’t pirates.”

“Well that’s dumb.”

“Sora, don’t be rude.”

“Sorry.” He turns and holds up a snail with a glossy blue shell. “Can this be your snail? It looks like All Blue!”

Oh, that manipulative brat. Sanji sighs and shelves the scolding about manners for now. Buttering him up talking about the All Blue like that… “It is very blue. You want it?”

“Yeah!”

“Toss it in, then.”

Luckily, Sora doesn’t take him literally, though the shopkeeper shoots him an alarmed look. He gently sets the snail in the box and pats it on the top of the eye stalks.

“I’m gonna feed them,” he declares confidently.

“You are?” Sanji follows the shopkeeper to the till to count out the berries. “It’s going to be more work than just taking care of Fatso.”

“But I take good care of Fatso! Miss Nami says I take too much care of Fatso, even!”

“And that’s why we call him Fatso now,” Sanji mutters. He passes the cash to the bemused man behind the counter and jerks his head towards the door. “Back to the yagara with you. Thank you for your time, sir.”

“Thank you for your business!”

Sanji carefully sets the snail box in the second seating row of the yagara and grabs the reins. “Alright, then. Let’s hit the market and head back to the ship. I wonder if they found a shipwright yet…”

They float along, perusing the stalls. Idly, Sanji thinks again of finding a gift for Zoro. He doesn’t need to, but he’d like to make some kind of gesture towards him. To show his appreciation. Of their friendship. Not of… anything else. Just friendship. He feels his face heating up into a blush, and it’s a mercy when Sora sits up straighter beside him and tilts his head in question.

“Is that Miss Robin?”

The yagara jerks to the side as Sanji swivels to follow where Sora is pointing. It is Robin – and Chopper’s nowhere to be seen. She’s walking away from them instead with one of the masquerade-adorned citizens. Her face is stonily blank from what he can tell at this distance.

“Robin?” No reaction. He tries, louder, “Robin!”

He’s sure she should have heard him, but she continues walking until she disappears.

“That’s strange…”

Chapter Text

Monkey D. Luffy is having the best day.

Water 7 is awesome. He could ride up and down the canals on the yagara all day and explore all the cool and strange buildings and the cool new foods to eat and all the people in their weird masks and fancy clothes and maybe even climb up to the top of the big fountain way up high on the top of the city. It’s a little weird that he can’t smell people the way he’s used to, but it’s kind of fun. It makes everyone a mystery person, and there’s no weird rules about not making omegas uncomfortable or not pissing off other alphas so you have to fight them – everybody’s just going about their business without worrying about all that stuff. It’s pretty neat.

He has a job to do, though.

He nods seriously and follows Iceberg through his fancy shipyard. He likes Iceberg. The mayor’s funny with his silly suit and fancy hair and the little mouse he carries around in his pocket and the way he just canceled all his important stuff so he could tell them about shipbuilding stuff.

Plus, the shipyard is really cool, too! The workers are all really weird, and the place is a lot of fun.

The weird granny was right. This is the perfect place to fix the Merry.

Plus, the shipwright Iceberg sent to check on the Merry looks just like Usopp. That was funny. He glances around him and doesn’t see Usopp anywhere, but he did hear someone say something about a big cannon. Usopp’s probably just checking it out where he can’t see him.

--

If one more person interrupts Zoro’s nap…

The swordsman blinks one eye open to glare at the leggy guy with the long nose who’s scurrying all over their ship now. He’d thought the whole point of watching the ship was that it would be boring and kind of relaxing so he could meditate and get some rest, but no, between the bozos from that gang attacking him for his bounty and this guy, he’s having a lot more excitement than he signed up for.

With a disgruntled sigh, he straightens and gives up on pretending to nap. At least it was him that they left and not Chopper or Usopp. He doesn’t think either of them would have dealt well with both getting jumped and with this weird shipwright guy crawling all over the place. Zoro doesn’t trust him. Zoro doesn’t really trust anyone, though. So far all he’s done has been to scramble around looking at all the Merry’s patched parts and frowning. He crosses his arms and watches as the shipwright ducks down into the main hold. There’s silence for a few minutes except for the creak of a couple boards being pried up.

Finally, the long-nosed guy pops his head back out, looking grim.

“You’re in charge of the ship here?”

“For now,” Zoro says, “Luffy’s captain.”

The long-nose nods. “I see. Well, I have some bad news…”

“Hit me. What did you find?”

The shipwright’s lips press together grimly. “I can show you if you want, but the news is… your ship is irreparable.”

The words don’t sink in for a long moment. Zoro stares down from his perch at the man as he hauls himself back up onto the deck. Irreparable? What does he mean by irreparable?

“What’s that?”

“Your ship. Her keel’s damaged in several places. That’s not the kind of thing we can fix.”

Zoro’s hand is on Wado’s hilt before he can think. “Are you lying to me?”

The shipwright shakes his head. “I never lie on the job.”

Zoro stares down at him, not quite able to comprehend what he’s hearing. He releases his sword hilt with some effort and tries to relax his stance into something less hostile. “Look, explain it to me like I’m stupid. Why can’t you fix her keel?”

The long-nose perks up, evidently happy to get to explain. “The keel is the base of the entire ship. It’s the first piece of any ship you build. The rest of it, the hull, the mast, everything else… It all feeds back to that foundation. If the foundation is damaged this severely… Well, there’s really no ship left at that point. Anything you do to repair it is like… sticking a plaster on a gunshot wound. It might hold up for now, but eventually, the ship’s going to die. With the amount of damage she has, your chances of reaching the next island… are zero.”

Zoro stares down at this odd man and tries to wrap his head around this. It’s ludicrous. The Merry’s taken them all this way. And now she’s dying? He swallows.

“You need to go tell the captain,” he says roughly.

The long-nose nods seriously. “I will. Right away. See you.”

With that, he takes off running again, sprinting and leaping his way back into the city. Zoro watches him go for a minute before he takes his spot back on the railing again. The clean sea scent of the bay washes over him in the breeze, and he briefly closes his eyes. When he opens them again, he finds himself looking at the back of that sheep’s head figurehead that he’s seen a thousand times, that he’s watched Luffy climb all over and helped nail back in place more times than he can count. Before setting out on this journey, he would have said that a ship is just a ship, that there’s no reason to be sentimental about it. Now, though…

There’s the crow’s nest where he spends his watches, the place he’d cuddled Sanji that awful night he’d been drunk. There’s the deck where the crew throws their parties at the drop of a hat. There’s the rope piles he sometimes naps on, where the kids sometimes join him, giggling and sneaking while he pretends to be too asleep to notice them snuggling up to him. Nami’s mikan trees, the little grove they all hide in sometimes because it’s nice to nap underneath the shade of the branches or to watch the sun dancing through the leaves. Their jolly roger flying proud on their patched-together mast. This place is home now. The ship’s taken them up Reverse Mountain, into the belly of a whale, all the way to Alabasta and the sky islands and beyond. To have to stop here and leave her to die…

He swallows and looks away.

It comes down to Luffy in the end. He’ll accept whatever their captain decides.

--

He’s not actively shopping for a gift for Zoro, but that doesn’t stop Sanji from looking.

Trying to pick a gift for someone like their swordsman is more difficult than he anticipated. Zoro’s a simple guy with pretty simple interests. He likes to train and to spar and to sharpen and oil his swords. He has all the whetstones and blade oil he could need, though, and it’s not like he can just hand him a dumbbell or something and call it a day. For snacks, he seems to like simple dishes like onigiri and sushi and grilled meat. He wouldn’t be wowed by fancy pastries or chocolates. Whenever he’s not training, he’s usually napping or talking shit with Usopp and Luffy or playing cards with the crew. Sanji’s never seen him reading a book for pleasure or journaling or – or anything hobby-like, really.

The only other thing he likes is booze, but handing him a bottle of liquor just seems kind of crass, and he doubts the swordsman would even appreciate the subtleties of something really expensive.

Sanji huffs and disembarks the yagara to visit a stall on the walkway, reminding Sora to stay in the seat with the snails. His oven mitts are getting a little ratty and worn, and they’re burning through to his hands in places when he uses them. The stall he’s perusing seems to have different kinds of cloths and accessories like aprons, so he ducks down to sort through the piles of goods.

His fingers freeze on a deep green cloth.

It’s a bandana, eerily similar to the one Zoro keeps tied around his upper arm. Such a deep green that it’s nearly black. He traces the pads of his fingers over the cloth. He’s seen that bandana every day. He wonders if it has sentimental value or if it’s just a piece of cloth to him. In any case, the poor old thing is threadbare and worn, ratty around the edges. He’s never seen him replace it, but…

He passes some coins to the vendor and tucks the bandana into his pocket. It’s stupid and Zoro will probably look at him like he’s mad for buying him something he already has, but…

Too late, anyway. The purchase has been made. He drops back into the yagara and guides it away.

“Are we almost done shopping?”

“I think we’re almost done,” he says, mustering a cheerful attitude. He grins at where Sora peers at him around the brim of his straw hat. “You getting tired, love?”

Sora hums negative. “I wanna see if they fixed the Merry yet!”

Sanji laughs, steering them down a side street. “They wouldn’t have fixed her yet! I’m pretty sure they’d have to come get her and take her to the shipyard to dry dock her.”

“What’s ‘dry dock?’”

“When they take the ship up out of the water. That way they can see the bottom and fix everything there, too. Like a normal dock, but dry.”

“Dry dock,” Sora mutters to himself a few times, seeming to feel it out for himself.

Sanji hums and glances to the nearby stone walkway. He startles so badly that he jerks the yagara to the side.

“Chopper? What are you doing here?”

The reindeer – wandering in walking point so he doesn’t draw too much attention – perks up at his voice. “Sanji! Sora!”

“Chopper!” Sora hops up and waves. “We got the snails!”

“That’s good! Have you guys seen Robin?”

Sanji finishes parking their yagara and frowns. “Wait, wasn’t she with you?”

“She was, but…” Chopper hops in and shifts to his normal form, his more humanish face crumpling into a confused and sad frown. “She disappeared. We never even went to the bookstore.”

Sanji reaches out and strokes his head, his own frown deepening. “She just disappeared?”

Chopper nods. “Yeah. She was with me, and then she was just… gone.”

“But we saw her,” Sanji says, the memory solidifying in his head as he speaks, “She was walking down one of the dry walkways with someone in one of those masks.”

“A real big guy,” Sora adds.

“I never saw anyone… I’ve been looking for her for hours now, but I can’t even follow her scent properly.”

Sanji swallows heavily. He’s worried now, because it’s highly unusual for Robin to just vanish without telling someone where she’s going. The kids are both looking frightened, though, so he puts on a brave face.

“Maybe she just got turned around somewhere. Let’s head back to the Merry. Maybe she found her way back to where we docked, and we can meet her there.”

Sora perks up a little. “And we can give everyone their snails so we can find them easier, right?”

“That’s right,” Sanji says, turning them down the canal that should head back to the yagara rental shop. He bites his lip and then forces a smile. “Once everyone has their snails, it’ll be way easier for us to find each other.”

If only they’d had their snails this morning, he thinks. Hopefully Robin’s okay. Maybe she did just get lost.

He doesn’t feel optimistic about it.

--

Zoro stands at the prow of the ship feeling like nothing more than an anxious guard dog.

He hasn’t been able to relax since the shipwright left. Standing on the Merry’s planks knowing that she’s probably doomed to whatever fate befalls a ship that can’t sail anymore? It’s a lonely and terrible feeling. Adding to that, it’s been hours since the others left, and he doesn’t like that they’re all split up again. At least this time Sora’s with the cook and not separated, but he still won’t feel completely at ease until they’re all back together again to discuss their next moves.

He perks up as he sees a familiar trio approaching from town. The cook’s blond hair is shiny in the sunlight, and Sora’s distinct with his jaunty little straw hat. Chopper looms over them both in his heavy point with his arms laden with grocery bags. The cook has a cardboard box propped on his hip.

“Hullo, Mosshead,” Sanji calls up to him, grinning, “Permission to board?”

Zoro rolls his eyes fondly. “Permission granted. Get your ass up here.”

“You could be more polite, you know,” Sanji cheerfully grumbles as the three of them make their way up the gangplank. He gestures to Chopper. “After all, we brought food! We found some pork and some eggs – we’re making Sora some katsudon tonight!”

Sora bounds up and hooks his hands in Zoro’s haramaki. “We got you a snail! Can you guess which one?”

Zoro’s got to tell them about the ship. The guilt of not saying anything weighs on him, but he’s allowed to be a little selfish sometimes, right? He lets the five-year-old drag him over to the cook to peer into the box.

He’s pretty sure it’s the green one, but… He shoots the cook a conspiratorial smirk.

“Oh, wow,” he says theatrically, “Sora! How did you know pink was my favorite color?”

Sora’s jaw drops. “What? No, the pink one is for Chopper!”

“Chopper gets the pink one? Well, what about this nice yellow one?”

“That’s Usopp’s!” Sora puffs his cheeks out in annoyance and sticks his hand into the box to gently grab the little green snail. “You got this one cause it’s like your hair and your belly warmer!”

“Oh, right. The green one.” Zoro holds his hand out and lets the kid put the snail in his hand.

“You gotta feed it,” Sora says seriously.

“Yeah, I’ll feed it.”

“And he can’t live in your belly warmer – he needs exercise.”

“He’s a snail,” Zoro says. He almost quips something about their other snail, Fatso, and about how maybe that’s the snail that needs exercise, but Sora puts his hands on his hips.

“Snails need exercise, too! And his name is Pistachio.”

Zoro squints. “You sneeze or something?”

“I didn’t sneeze! He’s Pistachio!”

He’s not sure what Pistachio is, but knowing the kid, it’s a food thing. He just grumbles enough of a confirmation that the kid’s satisfied that he understands the gravity of his new responsibility as a snail owner and scrambles off to make sure the rest of them are settled down with Fatso in the galley.

“Hey, Cook,” Zoro says as he passes by, “we need to talk.”

The cook freezes comically and turns to stare at him with one wide eye and, inexplicably, a flush to his face. “We what?”

“It’s about the Merry.”

The cook blinks and then relaxes a little. “Oh, the ship? Did Nami and Luffy and Usopp come back yet?”

Zoro shakes his head. “No, but they sent a shipwright to assess her. Cook… it’s not good news.”

Sanji’s lips thin into a line. “Oh. Should the kids hear it, too?”

“Probably. It’s their home, too.”

Sanji nods. He looks down and away and takes a deep breath before hefting his grocery bag and calling in a voice far cheerier than his expression, “Hey, Sora, Chopper! Come out to the deck for a minute. Zoro says he talked to the shipwright.”

Sanji steps past the two shortest crewmates and drops his groceries just inside the galley before he joins Zoro and the kids at the figurehead. Zoro swallows and glances at the face of their ship before he turns to look at the three of them. Sora and Chopper both look excited and hopeful, but the cook just looks wary and tired.

“The shipwright came to take a look at the Merry,” Zoro starts, feeling awkward. “He said it’s… The Merry’s taken a lot of damage.”

“Like the fire,” Sora says.

“And when I broke the mast,” Chopper adds.

Zoro nods and swallows again. “Yeah. Well, he said if it was just that, they could fix her, but… He said her keel is damaged, and that it’s too bad for them to fix.”

He feels like the biggest bastard in the world as he watches their hopeful faces cloud over in confusion and growing horror. Sanji, when he glances at him, just looks grim.

“He can’t fix her?”

Zoro shakes his head. “I don’t know yet what Luffy’s going to do, but… he said the Merry can’t sail anymore.”

Okay, yeah, he’s the biggest bastard in the world. Both of the kids have their eyes welling up with hysterical tears. He’s heard them talking about how excited they were to get the Merry fixed here, and now he gets to watch as that balloon of hopeful excitement bursts and leaves just a couple of devastated kids in its wake.

“But… But I love the Merry!”

“Hey, shh, it’s okay,” the cook says, stepping in smoothly to hoist Sora up so he can hiccup and weep into his neck. The cook’s not crying, at least, but he still looks incredibly grim. “It’ll be okay, baby. Let’s wait for Luffy to come back and we’ll see what we can do, okay?”

Chopper wails and latches onto Zoro’s leg. Without thinking about it too hard, he mirrors the cook and pulls Chopper up into a loose hug. Both men look at each other solemnly over the crying kids.

“She really can’t sail anymore?” Sanji asks.

Zoro shakes his head. “I don’t think the guy was lying.”

Sanji nods and shushes his son some more.

Zoro turns away from those two to scan the area for lack of anything better to do. He startles when he sees Nami coming towards their ship at speed.

“What’s she doing out there? Where’s Luffy?”

Sanji perks up and joins him to peer over the railing. “Is she okay? Where’s Usopp?”

“Sanji! Zoro!” Nami sprints to the ship and hurtles up the gangplank to collapse at the top. She’s drenched in sweat and gasping for breath, but she composes herself enough to gasp out, “It’s Usopp! He’s been hurt!”

--

“Is that guy okay?”

“Should someone get a doctor?”

“That lady who was here said she was getting help.”

“Mister, are you alright?”

Usopp opens his eyes.

He feels… not great.

Physically, he’s had worse. Probably. Those guys who jumped him were rough and didn’t pull their punches at all. His mouth tastes like blood where he might’ve cut his cheek on his teeth or something. Luckily, he seems to have all of his teeth. Bones seem mostly intact. He’s just a big bloody bundle of bruises.

The onlookers startle as he slams his fist into the stone walkway and groans.

Why was he so stupid?

He pulls himself upright and groans again. Tears prickle in his eyes, but he manfully tries to force them down. He was in charge of holding onto two thirds of their money! How could he have let those guys get a hold of their money? How are they going to fix the Merry now? Why is he so stupid and useless?

“Mister, are you sure you should be moving?”

“I’m fine,” he says shortly. After a pause, he looks up and grins sheepishly at the concerned Water 7 citizens. “Really, I’m okay. Thank you for worrying about me. I’m heading back now.”

They don’t look super convinced, but no one tries to stop him as he staggers away.

If he’s smart, he’d wait for Nami to send help and let Chopper patch him up, but… every second they waste is a second those assholes could be running off with their money. They need that money. They can do so much with it – get the Merry fixed up, maybe renovate it a bit so that everyone has a bit more space and privacy, get Sanji that bigger oven he’d like or find a better way for Robin to be comfortable or get Chopper a proper infirmary. That money is their future.

His whole body hurts, and he thinks he’s leaking blood from somewhere, but nobody else stops him as he staggers to the lowest levels of the city and asks around until someone finally points him in the direction of the Franky House.

This is suicidally stupid.

He doesn’t feel like he has a choice.

He can be brave. If this had happened to Luffy or Zoro, they’d never hesitate to storm in there and demand their money back. Sanji, too. He wouldn’t let a mystery house full of violent gang members stop him. He’d kick their asses and look cool doing it. If those three can be tough and brave, then so can Usopp. He’ll get their money back one way or another.

His knees absolutely aren’t shaking.

He summons all the courage he’s ever had and shoots an explosive star at the door.

“Hey! You guys! Give me back my money!”

And a room full of tough, scary-looking gangsters swivel their heads to stare at him. Usopp gulps.

Hopefully the crew finds him soon.

--

“How could he be gone?.”

“You’re sure we’re in the right place?”

“I know how to read a map, Mosshead,” Sanji snaps.

“He’s right,” Chopper interrupts before frayed nerves can lead to a real fight. He wrinkles his nose. “That’s Usopp’s blood. He must’ve been hurt pretty badly! Where would he be going in that condition?”

“To get the money back,” Zoro says grimly.

Sanji nods. “That idiot. As if we’re more worried about the money than him.”

“We have to find him,” Chopper says.

“Hey, do you guys… hear that?”

At Zoro’s words, Sanji tilts his ear up and listens. Distantly, something drones. Like a scream? A big long “aaaaaaaaaah” approaching closer. The three of them watch, dumbfounded, as a bright streak of red and denim blue falls from the sky, bounces against the wall and the brickwork, and lands with a mighty splash into the canal. They all just stare, speechless, until the figure resurfaces, flailing and gurgling out screams for “Help!”

“Luffy?!” the three of them yell in unison.

Sanji groans and dives in first. Catching their drowning captain is practically muscle memory at this point. He drags the idiot up and out of the canal so they can both drip water everywhere and Luffy can sputter out gasping breaths.

“What were you even doing up there?”

“I was jumping around,” Luffy says.

“Where’d you even come from?”

“The shipyard. I was trying to be like that shipwright guy and jump around to look for Usopp.” Luffy gasps and jerks his head up to look at them. “That’s right! We’ve got a problem, guys! Usopp got abducted with our money!”

“We know,” Sanji says, “Nami told us already.”

“We’re heading for their hideout,” Zoro says. He folds his arms tightly around himself and glowers. “We think Usopp went to go confront those guys after they beat him up and stole the money.”

“The idiot probably thinks he’s responsible for getting it back all by himself,” Sanji spits. He hops into the yagara and gestures for the rest of them to board. “We’ve gotta hurry.”

“He’s gotta be hurt bad,” Chopper explains as they hop in and get going as fast as the beast will go to the outskirts of town. “I could smell blood.”

Luffy nods, looking grim. They don’t speak much more as they race to where they’ve heard the Franky House is. All of them are tense with worry for Usopp.

The yagara ride seems to stretch on for an eternity, and they’re out of the beast’s saddle as soon as possible, racing down the rocky shore of the island of Water 7 towards the meanest and bleakest fringes away from town. The oddly-shaped Franky House looms menacing in the distance.

Sanji’s the fastest, so he’s the one who stumbles over Usopp’s body first. Chopper’s right on his heels, and they both falter briefly at the scent of blood and gunpowder on the wind before they speed over to the crumpled figure of their dear friend on the ground.

Sanji feels himself go cold with rage.

They’d beaten him unconscious. Nearly every inch of Usopp’s lovely tan skin is bruised blue and black and bloody, larger patches of blood drying in dark splotches on his overalls. The only clean parts of his face are the thick trails where tears washed the blood away. His long nose is obviously broken, squashed out of shape, and he’s just been tossed in a heap several yards away from the house like their dear friend is nothing more than a piece of trash.

Chopper ducks down to check his vitals, and all Sanji can do is stand there, numb with rage. The scent of blood and tears and Usopp’s desperation and fear soaks into his nose. He’s growling, and he’s unsurprised when his quiet growls are matched by twin deep rumbles as Zoro and Luffy join him in looking down on their friend.

“Is he still breathing, Chopper?” Luffy asks.

Chopper tilts his hat to hide his face. “He’s completely unconscious, but he’s alive. He’ll be okay. I can save him.”

Luffy nods and squares his shoulders. Instinctively, Zoro and Sanji fall into step beside him, both looking to their primary alpha for direction. Luffy crams his hat more tightly onto his head and nods.

“Just wait a minute, Usopp,” he says.

Sanji lights a fresh cigarette and inhales deeply to force down his own turbulent feelings. It’s time to focus on Usopp. He hears the fabric tensing as Zoro ties his bandana on with a grim look on his face. Luffy’s aura is murderous. Chopper stands to take his place beside them with his teeth grit in rage. As one, they advance on Franky House.

“We’re going to go blow that stupid house away,” Luffy declares with complete confidence and deadly calm.

The sounds of partying and laughter intensifies the closer they come to the doors of Franky House. Sanji chews his cigarette and seethes. They’ve left a man critically injured right outside their door, and the assholes are throwing a party like they have no worries in the world. The grumbling echo of his growls harmonizes with the growling from the alphas that hasn’t ceased during their walk. If these assholes in this garish house think they can get away with hurting one of their pack, they are operating under a mighty veil of delusion. Sanji can almost taste blood already, a primal ache in his teeth begging him to bite and tear into the enemies who hurt his packmate. He’d normally fight against these latent instincts. Today, he embraces them gladly.

The intact door creaks open as some large-sized guy ducks to leave, still joking over his shoulder at his little buddies. Sanji keeps his face stony even as he smirks internally at how shocked the guy is when Luffy levels him flat with a gum-gum pistol and destroys both the intact door and their hasty patch job with one blow.

The carousing inside the house screeches to a halt as all the half-drunken gang members grab for their weapons.

“It’s Straw Hat Luffy!”

“We’re screwed!”

“But there’s only four of them!”

“Wait, you’re right.”

“Yeah,” one of the gang members says, rallying the others, “what can four of them even do?”

Sanji feels like he’s angry enough now that it would only take him. Judging by the aura of murder coming from Zoro and Luffy’s uncharacteristically still and calm fury, the others are feeling similar. Even Chopper looks beyond pissed, flexing his heavy point muscles and grinding his fist into his opposite palm.

One of the bigger guys struts up, oozing confidence and condescension. “Come on, then, shorty.”

Luffy’s growl cuts out as he gives the huge guy a murderous flash of his eyes before throwing out a flurry of gum-gum punches.

“What is this? It’s not even doing anything,” the big guy goads.

Sanji takes a drag of his cigarette and just watches.

Luffy’s flurry of punches superheats into a blast that knocks the big guy out and splinters his armor. Luffy watches calmly as he falls.

It’s a bloodbath after that.

They fire cannons at them, but Zoro slices the balls into pieces with his swords and destroys the cannon for good measure. Sanji hops in after that to stop the most cowardly of them from fleeing out the back.

“You started this fight,” he reminds them, “so don’t act pathetic.”

He launches his body into a series of spinning kicks, his legs and feet a black blur of motion as bones snap and blood flies under the force of his kicks. Every hit that connects, he wonders to himself, did this guy help beat Usopp up? Did he kick him or punch him? Did he just sit back and laugh? He finishes his series of blows with an extra vicious kick to the final guy, a snarl twisting his lips when he thinks about poor Usopp alone with these assholes, trying so bravely to get their money back.

“Wait –“ The ringleader holds up his hands, sweating profusely. “Look, if it’s about the money, the 200 million berries that worthless guy had –“

Sanji’s brow twitches, and he sees Luffy’s hand flex, Zoro’s hands squeezing his swords’ hilts, Chopper’s hoof scraping on the floor. Worthless?

“Our boss, Franky, he took the money and went shopping! He went to buy something on the black market, so none of us know where he went, so even if you rampage here, the money’s gone-“

Luffy’s fist cuts the guy off, sending him flying.

“That’s enough out of you,” Sanji says darkly. His glare bores holes into the remaining men. “This has nothing to do with the money.”

“Yeah… it’s too late,” Zoro says.

“We’ll beat you up so badly not even your bones remain,” Luffy declares.