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“Remember,” the pretty girl with tangerine-colored hair says for the fifth time, her smile a fixed, gritted thing on her face, “Sanji is very small right now. The Devil’s Fruit effect isn’t going to wear off for another week at least. If you try to roughhouse with him the way you usually do, he will get hurt, and I will kill you with my hands. Understood?”
“You could try,” the green-haired man replies mildly.
“Why are we leaving Zoro in charge of babysitting again?” the man with the long nose says, to no one in particular. “I mean, we can all agree that this is going to be an absolute disaster, right?”
Zoro scowls, but the skeleton says, “Right,” at the same time the man with the long white hair and bright orange horns says, “I mean, yeah,” and everyone else nods along.
Yonji would have been furious to be made fun of in any capacity. Sanji holds his breath and waits for Zoro to snap at the rest of them, to use his size against everyone smaller than he is, but all he does is lean back against the railing and cross his arms. He looks unbothered to the point of falling asleep standing up.
It’s weird.
“I’m not a baby,” Sanji thinks it’s important to point out. He’s eight years old, which is a lot of years. He thinks his years are longer than most people’s, because he hasn’t felt like the little kid he used to be in ages. That little kid grew up when mama died.
“We know,” the tall woman tells him, her eyes very gentle. She always looks at Sanji like she understands him completely. It’s nice, even if it makes him feel kind of sad. He wonders if she had big brothers who hated her, too, or if it was just her dad. He thinks it wouldn’t be polite to ask, so he doesn’t. “You’re practically a gentleman.”
“Sanji can come shopping with us if he wants!” the reindeer says eagerly. He’s sitting on the robot’s broad shoulder and pats it like he’s inviting Sanji up there, too. They’re both small enough that Sanji could probably fit even without asking the rabbit-girl on the robot’s other shoulder to get down to make room.
Weathered yellow fills his vision as the brim of a worn straw hat slips over his eyes.
“Nope, it’s Zoro’s turn!” the captain replies brightly. That’s Luffy, with a scar under his eye that curves like a smile, and arms that don’t really look strong but can hold Sanji forever without getting tired. Sanji tips the hat back in time to look up at Luffy’s grinning face. “He and Sanji will have fun today and tonight they can tell us all about it!”
Everyone heaves a sigh, but no one argues. Luffy doesn’t throw his weight around like Captain Chas on The Orbit does, but he’s very stubborn in a way that reminds Sanji of the spoiled little kids on the cruise ship who get underfoot at dinner and demand dessert before all their vegetables are gone. In similar fashion, Luffy mostly gets his way because his crew loves him too much to deny him. It’s a strange sort of authority for a pirate captain to have, but it seems to work for them just fine.
Sure enough, Zoro’s shoulders go back just a little, and he levels Luffy with one unblinking dark eye. Accepting the terms and conditions.
Sanji tries not to be nervous. It isn’t fair to compare Zoro and Yonji just because they look similar.
Zoro looks like the kind of person Yonji is going to grow up to be—has grown up to be, somewhere else in this strange future Sanji is living in—and he seems to enjoy scathing arguments as much as Yonji does, too. But he hasn’t hurt anyone smaller than him that Sanji has seen.
In fact, the smallest member of the crew clambers around on Zoro like he’s a walking jungle-gym, and scolds him viciously when he doesn’t take care of himself, and looks up at him with round, bright eyes all the rest of the time. Chopper acts as though Zoro is among the very last people in the world he would ever have cause to fear.
Sanji’s so used to being afraid that he hardly knows how else to be. The people here who call themselves his real family make it hard to be, though. He absorbs their brightness and silliness and fondness every day and slowly learns how to stop holding his breath.
The Sunny is docked for the day at a busy, bustling resort island, with enough lights and billboards that you can see the shine of it for miles across the water. There’s a big map on the wharf, twice as tall as Franky, that notes all the places of interest—shrines up in the mountains, a sprawling sea-side spa to the west, an amusement park further inland, the bright green and yellow loops of a rollercoaster visible above everything else, and hundreds of shops and restaurants scattered all in between.
The Strawhats—that’s who these pirates were, who Sanji himself was, apparently—split up in twos and threes where the road forked but Sanji and Zoro didn’t even make it that far, because there was a market selling produce and all kinds of fresh fish and local goodies right there in the port, and Sanji only had to cast one curious look toward a cart towering with brightly-colored fruits for Zoro to start walking that way. He clears a path for Sanji through the bustling crowd like it’s nothing.
“If you buy more than you carry, don’t cry to me about it,” Zoro says in the same indifferent tone he says everything in.
“I won’t!” Sanji promises, not sure if he means he won’t buy that much or he won’t cry about it.
He was given money—real, actual Bellies—and told in no uncertain terms to come find Nami if he ran out. He doesn’t see how he could! There’s so much in the bag she gave him!
He says as much to Zoro, half-afraid to spend it all just in case it was a mistake. Zoro replies, “Our grocery budget is half of what it usually is while our cook is on vacation. We’re eating simple.” He nudges Sanji’s head with his elbow without taking his hands out of his pockets. “We don’t usually survive off sandwiches and eggs and soup, you know.”
Sanji figured that must be true, because of how grand their ship is, and because his grown-up friends seem to have fun taking turns cooking meals but they’re just clueless enough in the kitchen that it’s obvious they don’t spend a lot of time in there.
“I can cook,” Sanji says for what feels like the hundredth time. “I can cook for all of you.”
“What part of ‘vacation’ did you miss?” Zoro tells him without missing a beat. “Shut up and look at that weird fish.”
Sanji looks before he can help it. That sure is a weird fish! He forgets to keep arguing his case in favor of darting over to ask the fishmonger a dozen rapid-fire questions about their catch that they answer cheerfully.
Contrary to what he said before, Zoro carries all the shopping. The vendors hand the goods over Sanji’s head every time, even though he’s the one forking over the gold for it. The swordsman is very big and strong, and probably all those parcels and purchases weigh absolutely nothing to him, but it’s the principle of the thing.
Sanji tries to imagine Yonji carrying anything for him at all just to be nice. The daydream falls apart instantly, because Yonji only ever took things from Sanji to break them.
“Do you promise you’ll give it back?” he musters the courage to ask, clinging to the cookbook a kind old woman just sold him, unwilling to let it go without making sure. She had smiled and said she was certain her family’s recipes would be in good hands with him and Sanji doesn’t want to prove her wrong before he gets a chance to even try. “You have to promise.”
Zoro gazes down at him with that inscrutable look on his face he’s worn all day. He could probably take the book from Sanji pretty easily but he doesn’t yank it away or twist his wrist until he lets go. They just stand there, sizing each other up. Sanji’s nerves mount with every second but he doesn’t back down.
Yonji would have hurt him already and laughed about it. The first mate of the Strawhat crew simply says, after enough time that Sanji knows he’s taken it seriously, “Promise.”
Surprised, Sanji lets the book go, and watches it get tucked away in an oversized tote bag with the rest of his little treasures. Then Zoro just stands there looking at him, one eyebrow higher than the other, waiting for Sanji to go chasing after the next thing that catches his eye.
Back on the Sunny, Zoro was goaded easily into fights with his friends, and seemed short-tempered any time he wasn’t napping on the grassy deck or drinking from bottles Sanji wasn’t allowed to touch. He didn’t cause problems on purpose, the way Sanji’s younger brother enjoyed doing, but he seemed to have sharp edges and Sanji didn’t know how to get close to him without getting pricked.
But he thinks about how Chopper looks at Zoro. He thinks about the mice in the castle that would run from his siblings but cozy up in Sanji’s hands. Animals know. And then he thinks about the way Luffy trusts Zoro, how he doesn’t have to look to know Zoro will be right where he needs him. Everyone on the crew is quick to tease him and make fun and none of them are scared.
Zoro could have gone with Luffy and the others, but he’s spending the day with Sanji instead. He hasn’t even been mean about it. Sanji abruptly feels really bad about not handing the cookbook over right away.
“My brother has green hair,” he blurts, then stares at the cobblestones beneath his shoes in acute mortification. Why did he say that?
“I know,” the swordsman says, the last thing on earth Sanji expected him to say. “I heard all about your brothers.”
He says it like he’s not impressed by them in the slightest. It’s a weird way for someone to talk about Sanji’s brothers—they’re the best, they’re everything they were supposed to be, and Sanji is the one that went wrong.
Abruptly, Zoro points at a bench. “Go sit. I think your blood sugar is getting low. If you pass out on me, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
Sanji finds himself bundled onto the bench with the tote bag in his lap. Zoro set it there as if it was a paperweight that would keep Sanji from blowing off somewhere. That was kind of annoying! Sanji isn’t a baby and he isn’t gonna run off by himself, he’s not stupid.
But the swordsman is only gone for a few minutes when Sanji’s attention is grabbed by something across the street. There’s a grizzled-looking man lounging in the shade of his stall, flicking through what looks like a waterlogged ledger. There are a bunch of crates and cages stacked around him that are empty—except for one.
There’s a distressed bird crammed into a cage so small that it can’t move except to shuffle in place, its head ducked so that its long narrow beak doesn’t hit the bars. It’s making a harsh ticking noise, high and tight and anxious. Sanji shoves the bag off his knees and jumps to his feet, weaving through the crowd and ducking down to his hands and knees before the man behind the stall clocks him. He crawls the rest of the way to the birdcage and lifts it down from the cart into his lap.
The bird stops vocalizing, looking up at him with darting black eyes, its chest heaving. Sanji whispers, “I know how you feel. Let me help.”
But there’s a lock on the cage, and even as Sanji tugs at it, he knows it’s useless. He’s decided to just take the cage away with him when a fist closes in the back of his jacket and he’s hauled all the way off his feet.
He yelps, flailing in midair, and only barely manages not to drop the bird.
“The hell do you think you’re doing?” the man asks, sounding more bewildered than angry. He wrenches the cage out of Sanji’s hands and then drops him.
Sanji lands with an oof on the street, and he automatically curls his limbs in, making himself a smaller target. If he tucks his fingers into fists and hides them under his arms, there’s less of a chance his brothers will break them just for fun. He curls his hands into fists but he doesn’t hide them. The fear is in the back of his mind, but it’s not the loudest thing in there. He’s lived on the Sunny for days now where bravery and goodness come before everything and he must have absorbed some of that, because he’s shaking under the sharp eyes of a big, unfriendly stranger, but he still says, “You should let it go.”
“What was that?”
“You’re not taking good care of it,” Sanji says, louder, “so you should let it go.”
The man’s mouth twists in an unkind sneer. “And I should just toss my Bellies into the Blue while I’m at it, eh? That’s not how it works, whelp.”
The bird is moving around in the cage again, making that dry clicking noise again and rucking its orange and blue feathers up in its anxious bid to get free or somehow create more space. Sanji remembers being tossed behind bars, no respite and no rescue and no one left in his life who cared if he was hungry or cold or afraid. He can feel the metal helmet that encased his head as clearly as if it’s still there. He remembers crying so hard it made him lightheaded, clinging to those bars and wishing he was anything like his siblings, if only so he was strong enough to save himself.
“It’s not your bird, it’s its own bird,” Sanji shouts. “It wants out!”
The man shifts his weight. Maybe he was going to step forward, or turn around and go back behind his stall, or maybe he wasn’t going to move at all. Sanji will never know, because at that moment a shadow falls over him, and he knows without having to look that Zoro has come back.
“There a reason he’s on the ground?” Zoro asks. He almost sounds conversational. “Hope it’s a good one.”
The man obviously feels much differently about giving Zoro the same attitude he gave Sanji. He hesitates to answer right away, staring up at the swordsman the way that little bird probably stared up at him when he stuffed it into that stupid little cage. The way Sanji looks up at Judge and hopes for anything else besides what he knows is going to happen.
“He started helping himself to my wares,” the man settles for saying. “Maybe you ought to teach him a bit about how the world works before you let him loose on it. He’s gonna get himself into trouble running his mouth at the wrong guy.”
Sanji is waiting for the moment when he’ll have to defend himself, to make his case, but it never comes. Zoro doesn’t even ask what happened, he just plants himself like a tree in the middle of the confrontation and lets Sanji shelter safely in his shadow, as steady and immovable as the castle walls of Germa Kingdom.
“And are you the wrong guy?” Zoro says, very interested in the answer. He’s got some grilled skewers in one hand and the tote bag that Sanji abandoned in the other, but even without easy access to the swords at his hip, he is not a person anyone would want to get on the wrong side of. That grumpy sleeping dragon that lounges lazily on the deck of the Sunny is gone and the creature left behind is wide-awake and hungry.
Speaking a little faster, the man says, “Look, mate, I’m just trying to make a living here. If I gave away my beasts every time a tender-hearted little brat teared up over them, I’d be out of business.”
Zoro just says, “He’s eight years old and already more of a man than you’ll ever be. You put your hand on him, and you still have your hand. That is more good luck than most people get in a lifetime. Make it count.”
Sanji is not actually surprised when the man snatches up his ledger book and the handle of his cart, ready to make tracks. The bird is left behind, and Sanji picks himself up and hurries over to scoop the cage back into his arms. The bird makes a sound at him like something is rattling in its throat, but it sounds slightly calmer than before.
When he looks up at Zoro, he finds Zoro already gazing back down at him. He holds out the birdcage and says, “There’s a lock. Will you help?”
“I could break it open, but it might cut itself on the metal. It’s not safe to let it out here, anyway,” Zoro says. “Let’s head back home and get Usopp to pick it open. For now carry it in one hand and eat some of these, tough guy.”
Sanji agreeably accepts a skewer of grilled squid and walks close enough to Zoro that he bumps into him every couple of steps. The bird sticks its beak through the bars and snaps at one of the curly tentacles, sneaking a bite so cleanly that Sanji laughs in sheer delight. He shares the rest of that skewer, as well as the next one Zoro passes him with pieces of tender zucchini and shrimp.
“Didn’t know you liked birds,” he says.
“I don’t really,” Sanji says. “I just like this one. Do you know what kind it is?”
“Robin will,” Zoro replies with the unremarkable certainty in his nakama that Sanji is still in the middle of learning. “What makes this one so special?”
“We understand each other, that’s all,” Sanji says. He focuses on keeping the hungry beak away from his fingers when he adds, “I was in a cage, too.”
Zoro stops walking. Sanji doesn’t want to look up at him and see the face that he’s making, because then he won’t be able to force the truth out. And he wants to. He feels safe enough to do that now, for the first time since he woke up in this strange, bright, wonderful, silly family. He thought it would be Luffy he told, or Robin, or little Chopper, but it’s not any of them.
It’s Zoro. The one who lets his siblings crawl all over him and poke fun and start fights, and only ever turns his teeth on any person outside their family who means them harm. The one who never steps in where he isn’t wanted, but keeps careful watch for the moment that he’s needed. Of course it’s him.
“My brothers are mean to me,” he admits in a whisper. “Yonji likes to hurt me. I’m sorry I thought you were like him. You’re not.”
There’s a moment of stillness, the two of them standing in an out-of-the-way corner, the noise and bustle of the market all pushed into the background. And then, without warning, for the second time that day, Sanji is lifted right off his feet. He squeaks in surprise, but he’s settled on Zoro’s shoulders a second later, and grips at his green hair to steady himself with the hand that isn’t clutching the birdcage.
He stares, wide-eyed, out at this view he’s never been given before.
“Next time we see your brother, I’ll beat him up,” Zoro says without preamble. “I won’t stop until you’re satisfied. And that’s a promise.”
Sanji breathes in a deep lungful of air that tastes like salt and brine and certain freedom. He can see the ocean from here, and their colorful ship bobbing on the water, waiting for them no matter how far away they wander.
“But you’re on your own with Nami when she sees that bird,” the swordsman adds plainly.
Sanji holds the little bird a little closer and smiles. He understands his nakama much better now than he did even earlier this morning. Zoro might say one thing, but he really means another. Sanji is not on his own at all. Maybe he hasn’t been on his own in a long time.
(A week later, with the Devil’s Fruit effects finally negated, Sanji is searing scallops in the kitchen, following one of the recipes in his new cookbook, and Zoro is day-drinking at the table, and Stella the common kingfisher is sticking her nosy beak into spice jars where it doesn't belong.
Sanji says, “I’m releasing you from your promise.” When Zoro glances at him, he adds, “You don’t have to beat up my brother. I’m more than capable of doing that myself.”
For a moment, the swordsman doesn’t speak. He and Luffy can have entire conversations in a few seconds of absolute silence, but Sanji is not quite there yet. He waits with newfound patience for Zoro to come to whatever decision he’s making, rewarded when Zoro says, “No, I’m going to. I have it on good authority that he was mean to a friend of mine.”
Sanji scoffs and looks away, busying himself with the food, so that no one sees his helpless smile except for the obnoxious little bird that his present friend harangued Nami into letting him keep.)