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Brook’s bones keep falling out of his hammock through the holes in the netting and rolling around the cabin with a hollow rattling sound, Luffy is snoring in two-part harmony with Usopp, Zoro stinks to high heaven because he hasn’t showered in at least a fucking week, probably more— and Sanji can’t sleep. It’s stupid. He’s being stupid because he should be able to sleep through all that shit. He did it back when they were literally piled on top of one another back on Merry; he dozed through Kambakka’s parties that ran from sunset to sunrise on the beaches literally right outside his little cabin Ivankov gave him; hell, most nights on the Baratie were worse than this— all those crotchety old sailors holed up in one ship meant there was always a round of cards going, and because none of those old sailors are particularly good at cards, most hands ended in a brawl.
And he managed to sleep on Whole Cake, too. Can’t forget about that.
So yeah. It’s pathetic and Sanji isn’t even having nightmares, which at least would’ve been an actual reason for being like this. He’s the safest he’s been since he was ten fucking years old and instead of being a normal person about it he sits awake in his bed and listens to his own thoughts for hours on end like everyone in this crew wouldn’t go to hell and back for him— like they haven’t. It’s insulting, really. If he thinks too hard about it, hot, broiling shame starts to fill his chest. It doesn’t hurt exactly, but he’s sure that’s just because he’s not feeling like he used to. Not bleeding like he’s supposed to. It’s been a week since they left Wano and the guilt follows him like a shadow, sitting heavy on his chest so that when he lays down in bed he can hardly breathe. Everyone else is heavy with their aching wounds, trying to pretend they aren’t bothered as much as they are. Even Zoro— stupid as fuck, tried to cut off his own feet and walked around like everything was fine not even an hour later Zoro has been willingly going to the infirmary once a day. Well. Willing is a strong word, he just doesn’t fight it as much he normally would.
But it’s… fine. Sanji’s up before the rest of the crew anyway, so if he’s careful about it they won’t notice how little he’s really been sleeping. They haven’t so far. Sometimes he’ll head for the showers to try and wash that dirty, wrong feeling off of his skin. He scrubs till his arms are raw but it doesn’t help much. Instead of that, tonight he opts for the galley. The cabin door creaks a little as he opens it out onto the deck, one of those little things Franky hasn’t gotten around to fixing yet just like the leaking window up in the crows nest and the crooked shelf in the library. But he’s been busy doing actually important shit in Wano and now preparing them for Egghead and whatever the hell “The Smartest Man in the World” has waiting for them.
Sanji breathes in the salty ocean air, relishing in the familiar taste on his palate as he leans up against the railing and gazes into the ocean below. It’s dark enough that he can’t really see much, but he feels the way Sunny lolls about upon its surface and hears the crests of the waves breaking against the hull and fizzling out into seafoam. He’s tempted to go for a swim. He doesn’t, of course, breaks away from the railing and heads to the galley instead.
Hands toying with the wheel of his lighter he briefly considers trying for a nap on the couch, but waives the idea quickly. He’ll probably just start on breakfast early or maybe even prep for dinner. If he starts a marinade or a roast within the next half hour or so he should have enough time for it to be ready for supper, so long as he squeezes in an extra snack to tide Luffy over. They still haven’t had a proper feast to welcome Jinbei: everyone’s so busy, there’s always at least one body missing from the dinner table. The crew hasn’t had the chance to sit down together, just them since… he abandoned everyone.
Putting a name to it stings more than it should. His palms go clammy and his wrists ache with a phantom pain that resonates down into every bone and joint in his hands. Sanji ignores it: he has no right to feel this way.
It isn’t until he’s already gotten out the beginnings of his marinade that Sanji notices that the lights are on, and it takes a few moments for it to register that he wasn’t the one to do it. It’s not the overheads: just the smaller ones over the countertops that aren’t strong enough to creep under the bottom of the doors and bleed out onto deck, but they give you enough to see everything you’re doing. There’s only three people on this crew who are ever in the galley this late at night, one of them being himself. Luffy usually eats in the dark when he breaks in; if it's to avoid getting caught or because he doesn’t care enough to turn the lights on, Sanji isn’t sure. And Zoro doesn’t care enough about other people to stop and think about which lights to turn on— maybe this time he got lost on his way to the lightswitch. A glance over to the cracked pantry door tells him that much is the truth. Sanji doesn’t stop to think about how exactly Zoro managed to sneak past him. Because if the cabin smelled that bad without him even in it Sanji’ll need to do a deep clean of everything Zoro’s ever touched.
Sanji crosses the room and tries to keep his steps quiet, ignoring the rabbiting of his heart in his chest. This needs to be normal. It has to be some sixth sense waking him up in the middle of the night to save his liquor. Nothing else.
It’s easier than he expected to stomp his feet and twitch his eyebrow, falling into the familiar motions as he slams open the door.
“If you don’t get your hairy ass out of my liquor storage right fucking now, Marimo, I’m going to purée your—” Sanji cuts himself off and tries not to be too embarrassed, but he can tell there’s an angry red blush crawling its way down his neck and can feel the shame rising in his chest like a wave. It’s not the Marimo skulking about in his pantry, for once. Apparently he was still asleep.
Nami looks up at him through her lashes, “What was that about my ass?” she asks, the corner of her mouth quirking up in an amused smirk. Goodness. She’s so gorgeous that he forgets to be mad.
Reality catches up to him and Sanji remembers to look a little more ashamed of himself. “I apologize, my love, I simply… Not that I would ever mistake you for the Marimo but—”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll forgive you this time.” Truly, he doesn’t deserve her kindness. It’s one of the many things that makes Nami an angel among mortals.
Now that he’s a little more composed, Sanji can see the bottle in her hand and the finest hints of a flush across her cheeks. He feels his face fall just a little. “If you wanted something to drink you could’ve just told me.”
“You should be asleep right now,” she says like that’s any sort of reasonable answer.
She really should be too, considering the fact that Franky is on nightwatch but Sanji’s never one to question her. “What is sleep compared to the company of a beautiful lady?”
With a snort and a roll of her eyes Nami stands and stretches, her joints popping in a few different places. “Make me something with this,” she instructs as she takes one last swig before handing over the bottle, “the top rolled off and I don’t wanna waste good booze.”
“Anything for you!” Truly, Sanji couldn’t imagine anyone more perfect. He tries not to think about the fact that’s something that Zoro says every other day, or too much about Nami losing her tops.
He bows long and low, holding open the door and making a mental note to reorganize sometime later, maybe after breakfast today. She’s a mastermind and he’s a lug but if even Nami’s wonderful self can lose the lid to an entire fifth then there's no telling what damage Marimo would do if his directionally challenged ass got into this cabinet. He’ll just move everything back into the liquor cage in the galley proper and have Franky or Usopp make him a better lock for it. Sanji doesn’t bother to check for any more damage because Nami would never loot the way Zoro does: she can be trusted with these things.
The moment he thinks it, shame cuts through him, precise and clinical. It slots between his ribs and draws a long line through him from back to front— skinning him alive. It gurgles and bleeds hot anger. Zoro never betrayed his crew. Zoro never left them for dead. Zoro didn’t lie through his teeth for years and refuse to say anything about it until the truth is fucking forced out into the open and laid out before them in a gored mess that stains everything it touches.
Nami takes a seat at the table and Sanji takes his position behind the bar. Part of him wishes that he was a little more put together for her, harshly aware of how his hair is sticking out at odd angles and the tacky feeling on his teeth that has to make his breath smell. Another part is more focused on the fact that there’s a pack of cigarettes tucked into the second drawer from the right of the sink, folded up into a hand towel. It’s half-empty and probably slightly mildewed but they’re some of the only ones he has left on the ship. He takes a few half-steps away.
“Any particular requests?” Sanji muses, examining the bottle a little closer. It’s a wheat vodka, profoundly strong and without any additional flavorings. A perfect choice for a cocktail base, but it makes Sanji wonder why she was drinking this straight from the bottle of all things. Nami’s never particularly enjoyed the taste of vodka, not the way she gravitates towards a rich beer. And while not many, Nami knows he has a few options squirreled away in here, plus the expensive stuff that he keeps truly hidden down in the aquarium bar. It’s always on ice too— because no one like a lukewarm beer except the Marimo— so it’s not that.
A little strange. He decides not to comment on it.
“Strong. But don’t make it taste like piss.”
That’s a little hard to do with her alcohol tolerance but he’s working with a decent proof and a quality brewer. This bottle was from a summer island they stopped at ages ago. The seller was kind and listened to his mumblings with care, gave him a few suggestions for markets around the island and cocktails to try. He wrote them down somewhere, if he’s remembering right.
“As you wish, Nami-swan.”
He sets the bottle back down and starts his work, mind spinning with possibility. He’d fully restocked their inventory not even a full week ago and everything’s jumping out at him, desperate for attention. Only two days ago Nami had a fresh harvest from her trees and he'd managed to keep a few safe from their captain’s appetite. Something with that, then. On the simpler side too, because he dares not keep her waiting. Nami rests her cheek in her hand and watches him with mild interest. Sanji can’t stop himself from stealing a few glances even as he unlocks the fridge and takes a few bottle from it— noting the exhaustion in her eyes and the tight clench of her jaw. She holds a heavy tension all the way down her spine, shoulders rigid despite her slouched posture. There’s not much he can do to soothe her pain, there never has been, but that’s never stopped him from trying. So before he can think better of it he starts to talk— worthless words spilling from his lips and filling the stagnant air.
“Practically speaking, tangerines are some of the best foods to have on a ship.” Sanji picks one up and scores the top of the fruit, guiding the rind away from its flesh. It curls over and over on itself in one continuous loop, falling to the countertop gently.
Cutting a slit through one of the wedges he runs it along the edge of the glass. Tangerines aren’t traditional by any means, but it works. Sanji spins the glass around in his grip and salts the rim, tapping off the excess.
“You’re not just saying that to try and get on my good side?”
“I never kiss and tell, angel.” Crushing a cluster of berries with the flat of his knife, they crackle beneath the pressure and ooze crimson juice. “But I’d also never lie to a lady.” He pours the vodka over ice and ignores the fact that he already has. Many times. Lies of omission are still lies.
Nami raises a brow and her gaze hardens, eyes flashing like a lightning strike building in the clouds. Sanji barely has time to brace for impact— her wrath is as swift as she is brilliant, and it’s not like it’s anything that he hasn’t earned. But she doesn’t say a thing, and in the heavy silence that follows Sanji knows that her mercy is not something he deserves.
He clears his throat half-assedly and tries to ignore the itch he has for a cigarette. He’d probably do nothing but chew through the filter at this point, but he doesn’t really care. Nami wouldn’t say anything, she never has when it comes to his smoking. He keeps talking instead.
“Most people can’t stomach a whole lime or a lemon on their own, and cooking too hot for too long can degrade the vitamin content. There’s other sources, of course, but they’re harder to come across. Usually more expensive, too, if it’s obvious you’re a tourist.” Nami’s eyes sparkle and the corner of her mouth quirks just so. It’s the same way she looks whenever Zoro does something that she can add to his debts. He makes note to gently discourage any attempt on her part to start a produce stand. “And those that are region-specific tend to be more unpredictable in their flavor notes. Hard to work with if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
The rest of the ingredients go into the glass. Tangerine juice first, freshly squeezed and pulp-free; sweet purée made with a fruit he can’t quite remember the name of, but not so important that he can be bothered to read the label; distilled syrup that he boiled down a few nights ago for a glaze topper on the honey-lemon cake he made for Chopper; the blood-red juice he’d just retrieved, with a satisfying kick he suspects is from being grown in acidic soil.
He stirs it all together, the color settling somewhere between a rich sunset and that of Nami’s hair. “But tangerines? They’re an easy peel, incredibly nutrient dense for their size, don’t require complicated steps for storage, and are excellent to eat on their own— just to name a few things.”
Placing a dainty curl of rind as a garnish, Sanji heads for the table and places the drink in front of her. Nami raises the glass to her lips and licks salt off the rim, letting it sit on her tongue for a moment before knocking back a sip.
Her eyes slide shut and she hums, content. “Sex on the beach, hm? Nice and sandy.”
“One of my personal favorites.”
“Why? Zoro get lost on the way to your bed?”
Nami snickers as he blushes all the way up to his ears. He retreats back into the kitchen and raises the vodka towards her.
“Need a kicker?” She dismisses him with a shake of the head.
There’s still a little left swirling around at the bottom of the bottle, and he’s sure he’ll find some way to regret this later but Sanji raises the bottle to his lips anyway, Adam's apple bobbing as he guzzles the liquor. It burns going down. He tries not to make a face but based on the smile curling at Nami’s lips he’s not very successful.
“Lightweight,” she teases.
”All the better reason to spend my time making drinks for you.”
She huffs a laugh into the glass as Sanji busies himself cleaning up, stopping up the sink and turning on the faucet, returning the miscellaneous bottles to their places as the basin fills. He slices down the remainder of the peel into thin slivers and collects them into a mason jar for later.
“When was your first?”
“Drink?” he clarifies after three steady beats of silence.
“Mhm.”
“I was probably… eleven? Or twelve? Old geezer wouldn’t let me make anything with alcohol in it until I actually knew what it tasted like on its own. Spent a whole week knocking back whatever he gave to me, then whipping it into whatever dish he told me to. Wasn’t as fun as you might think.” Sanji dips a hand into the water. The temperature’s fine so he shuts off the faucet and rolls up his sleeves. “What about you?”
“Some banquet with Arlong’s crew.”
“I see.”
She doesn’t offer anything more and he doesn’t push. Instead he focuses his attention on the dishes in the sink. The galley’s sounds are of sloshing water, scrubbing, the ice shifting in Nami’s drink and the gentle groaning of the ship. Eyes slipping shut and relaxing a little more with every sip, she doesn’t leave and she doesn’t speak. By the time he’s gotten to drying the dishes Nami’s weaned down the cocktail to just ice.
“How much did Zeff know?” Her breath fogs up the glass as she speaks into it, voice echoing and hollow.
He waits a few moments before responding to try and calm the pounding of his heart. There’s no reason to be nervous. She’s forgiven him. “About what, my love?” he asks, obscenely saccharine.
“Germa.”
Sanji never thought he would ever hate a thing about Nami, that he even could. From the very moment he laid eyes on her back on the Baratie, bobbing aimlessly through the East, he could tell there was something special about her. She found her way straight into his heart with a single bat of her eyelashes and never once has that love wavered. Except for now, it seems. The feeling is viscous like molasses, clings to his lungs and shortens his breath and sends a hot spike straight down the length of his spine. He can’t stand the sound of it coming from her throat, the way her lips move around it. The way she says it so casually, so very Nami: her East Blue roots making it soft at every syllable with the inflection tipping down to falling off at the end.
Sanji twists the rag between his hands harshly, water leaching from its fibers and dripping down into the sink. “I never told him.” His voice is rough even to his own ears. “But I was a refugee chore boy who could read and write and had a stuffy accent I kept trying to hide. He knew something was up.”
She doesn’t laugh exactly, just sort of puffs an amused breath out through her nose. “Yeah fair enough, but he never asked you about it?” Sanji shakes his head. Zeff only ever cared that he wanted to cook. “Now that I think about it… we really should’ve noticed sooner. You told us that you were from the North all the way back on Skypiea, when we found Noland the Liar.” A terse nod. “Germa had to have still been in the North when you were a kid, right? No Grand Line shit?”
“The specifics don’t really matter.”
“But I want to know. Tell me.” Not a request exactly, and not firm enough to be an order of any kind. At least not to anyone other than Sanji.
“I really don’t see why any of this is important.”
“That’s fine, you don’t have to get it.” Nami pinches a piece of ice between her thumb and forefinger and pops it into her mouth. “Just… talk. It’ll make it better.”
Sanji swallows the lump in his throat. “Maybe I don’t want to talk about it. I’m done letting the past define me, there’s no point in dwelling on it any longer.”
“That’s not what– there’s nothing wrong with talking about shit that messes you up. It’s healthy to get all those feelings processed, actually.”
“I never said anything was wrong! And I do… I have an understanding. With Zoro and Robin. Luffy. It’s okay. I’m okay.” Sanji cracks a weak smile. “I wouldn’t want to burden you with my worries anyway, dear.”
“Do you really think I’m so weak that I can’t handle it?” Her voice trembles under the weight of her anger, and Sanji’s heart rate skyrockets.
His tongue feels heavy in his mouth. “That’s not…”
The chair screeches against the floorboards as Nami pushes herself to her feet and storms toward him. She marches forward until she’s decidedly in Sanji’s personal space and jabs a finger into his chest, face twisted into a scowl. “You need to quit pretending that everything is okay. Because you bottling things up and refusing to tell anyone what’s going on is what made Whole Cake happen in the first place. If you can’t tell us shit— if you won’t then why are you even on this crew?”
And, well. What exactly is he supposed to say to that?
She falls back a half-step. “You’re my friend, dumbass. We’re crew and if something is hurting you I’m going to do everything I can to stop it. And no, that’s not because being sad makes your food taste bad or whatever else you get in your head about— it’s because it’s you.”
“You shouldn’t have to worry about that.” His voice comes out as barely a whisper.
“Are you even listening to me? I don’t care about that, I just want you to be okay!” Nami lets out a shuddering breath and her posture sags with it, all the fight falling out of her. “You asked Robin to save you. You asked her, you let her, you wanted her to. Same with Zoro.” Grabbing one of Sanji’s hands, she clutches it between her own reverently. “Please, for the love of god, lean on me.”
Sanji can feel the tears building behind his eyes. For once, he doesn’t try to stop them.
“And I get you don’t want to be vulnerable around me or whatever, and I won’t pretend to understand the real reason why. We’re all screwed up in our own special ways. But out of everyone on this crew it’s safe to say that I get this the most.” She snorts. “Not that it’s a competition or anything. Even if you make it feel like one sometimes.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ve got two tragic backstories, asshole.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“Usually am.” That’s the truth if he’s ever heard it.
Still, there’s some part of his hindbrain that’s still trapped somewhere deep underground, hissing and spitting and screaming in protest at the very thought of it all. It would be so easy to curl up and shut down, to scorn and snap at the hand that feeds. He wants to: it’s a familiar dance he’s been performing all his life. But he’s so fucking tired and he knows that scared kid hiding away in him is too, and he’s never been the type to do things because they’re easy so he sure as hell isn’t going to start now. Besides, Nami asked this of him, so Sanji clears his throat and leans against the counter for a little bit of stability.
“He spent most of his time conquering smaller nations around the North Blue, before I escaped. Probably kept doing that for a while before setting sight on the Grand Line after everyone grew up.” Judge never was satisfied. Sanji doesn’t think he’ll ever be. “And Noland the Liar was a story my mother used to read me before she died.”
He tries not to be ashamed by the way his voice trembles and his stomach rolls, yet it’s hard not to notice how Nami looks like she’s expecting him to say something else. But his eyes are stinging even worse than before, his throat is closing up and his breath is starting to stutter and even if he was able to collect himself enough to keep talking he hasn’t got a damn clue what he would say. Mercifully, she saves him from any further embarrassment.
“Bell-mère would tell Nojiko and me a bunch of stories like that to try and calm us down when it was storming. Not exactly the same, it never ended with the main character going to jail. But. You know.” She laughs. “I always wanted to be a princess because of those stories, I actually convinced myself I was one and that one day my real family would come… sweep me off to their palace and shower me in gold.” Her face falters. “That was all before Arlong. Feels dumb now.”
Sanji finds his voice, somehow. “You were a kid. That’s the type of stuff that kids are worried about. That’s the kind of stuff you should’ve been worried about.”
“Still.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I wanted to be a princess too.” The confession doesn’t lift a weight off of his shoulders or anything spectacular, but it’s easier to admit than he expected.
“Weren’t you already a prince?”
“I was. And I know it’s not fair but it felt like she had it easier than I did— and she did, in a lot of ways. Reiju, I mean. But there was so much stuff I still didn’t see.” His tongue trips over her name. “I was a failure in every way. Reiju was his first shot at the whole… thing so she was allowed to be wrong. She wasn’t perfect and she never had to be.”
“Hmm.”
“I dunno. I try not to think about it too much.”
“Saw how far that got you.”
He laughs humorlessly. “It’s dumb— I know it’s dumb. But hoping for useless stuff like that was all I had, especially after…everything.”
It’s the coward's way out but Sanji’s never been particularly brave. He can feel Nami’s eyes on him, brows drawn low and mouth pressed into a thin line. She’s waiting to say something, but he can’t seem to figure out what.
“What was her name?”
“Sora.” His voice is barely a whisper.
A ghost of a smile dances across her face. “Pretty. Is it Northern?”
“I don’t know. I never asked her.”
“Ah.” Not sad, not quite. “What was she like?”
He huffs out a breathy laugh and rubs at his watery eyes. Blues, what a question. He doesn’t even… where would he start? Is there a way to say it? If there is, he doesn’t know how. Sanji wishes he could bottle up that feeling in his chest— the warmth, the hurt, everything— and just give it to Nami instead. It would be a lot easier. But he doesn’t have that option, and she asked him to be honest, so he doesn’t bother to mince his words. There’d be nothing left of them if he did.
“She was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Yeah?”
He nods. Swallows. “There isn’t a way to… I just. I can’t.”
“It’s okay,” she reassures, “I get it.”
“No, you don’t, but I don’t want anyone to have to understand. She was the only one that treated me like a person. She her life was hell and she still ate my shitty food and still smiled through everything because she knew she was the only one who would.”
The words get caught in his throat, an ugly tangle of half-formed syllables and broken promises. He chokes on it. The blossoming warmth in his chest is snuffed out like a candle in the wind, beautiful optimism met with harsh reality. Because no matter how long he talks, what tales he weaves and stories he recollects, tending to the ancient memories and reviving their forgotten aspects, eventually he must pause for breath. And in that moment, in the silence that follows, she’s gone all over again.
Sanji crumples in on himself, sinking to the floor and burying his face in his hands. He tries to breathe, to focus on what he can see and feel and hear and smell like he’s supposed to. But he doesn’t because he can’t and there’s no point in trying when his nose is so stuffed up he has to breathe through his mouth and his vision is so blurred he can’t even see his own hands in front of his face. His hands gravitate up to his hair and tug at it sharply but there’s no comfort to come from the gesture. He pulls harder, and his ears pop too and suddenly all he can hear are his own gasping, wheezing breaths as he draws them, hiccups spasming his chest painfully as he wails. He doesn’t know when she lowered herself to be next to him but Nami sticks close to his side, resting a steady hand across his shoulders. Slowly, Sanji lets himself lean into her. He screws his eyes shut and relaxes ever so slightly, the grip on his hair loosening. Nami guides his hands away and replaces them with one of her own, running her fingers through his hair and scratching meaningless patterns into his scalp.
Sanji isn’t sure how long they sit there but he doesn’t really care. Eventually his breathing calms and the tears stop, leaving his face a wet, blotchy mess that bothers him less than he thinks it really should. But before he can drag himself up to grab a tissue, Nami clears her throat.
“I’m going give you some unsolicited advice,” she murmurs, “and if you don’t want it you don’t have to listen but I’m going to keep talking anyway.”
Sanji coughs wetly into his fist as a response. Eloquent as always.
“I won’t pretend I know everything about the Vinsmokes and what they did to you and how badly they fucked you up. I won’t pretend that I’m not lucky to be able to separate my memories of Bell-mère from the rest of my childhood. Because you don’t have that.” She swallows heavily. “But because of that you think that one day you’re going to wake up and everything is going to be gone. I can’t really blame you: you don’t have anyone who knew your mom when she was alive, you don’t have any of her things, and when you see your face in the mirror you don’t see hers you just see the people you hate most in this world. I can’t really blame you for that.
“Still, you get in your head about it, because when you're not safe all you can care about is getting free and the second you get a chance to breathe that guilt just… crushes you. You tell yourself you should’ve done more, but if you’d stopped you wouldn’t have survived.” She stops to catch her breath, in through her nose and out through her mouth. “So even though I know you want to and it’s what you’ve been doing for the past decade, you can’t tell yourself it’s your fault.”
He doesn’t meet her eyes.
“Your mom made her choices to protect you for a reason. She knew all the risks and she still did what she did because even before she knew you, you were worth saving. So I’m not going to let you sit here and blame yourself— you’re so dedicated to dying like a martyr in her honor that you’re ignoring the fact that she would never have wanted you to do that in the first place.” Sanji can barely hear her over the sound of his heart pounding in his ears. “And don’t say shit about how I wouldn’t know that because I didn’t know her, either. Maybe I didn’t, but Bell-mère did the same damn thing for me and you would never look at me and say the things you tell yourself.”
“How do you know that?” He sounds angrier than he thought he would be. “About the poison. How do you know?”
She gets a sheepish look, lines forming around her mouth as she presses her lips together harshly. “Your sister. Got some answers out of her after she saved Luffy. She likes the sound of her own voice, I think.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Nami recovers quickly and the determined spark comes back into her eyes as she sits up a little straighter. “So, yeah. I’m not going to let you sit here and blame yourself. Because when you sit and stew and fixate on that one fucking moment when everything changed, you lose her. You let her dying be the only thing that you think about. She lived a whole life with you and convincing yourself that the only thing that matters is her death is fucked up.”
His mouth goes dry and his face burns. Sanji wonders if this is what a bug feels like before it’s crushed, all nerves and no hope.
“Doesn’t make you a bad person or anything. You saw how I was back East, I thought everything was me against the world. It wasn’t until Vivi joined that I started figuring this stuff out.” She laughs without humor. “Like I kept watching her, I think I was trying to prove she was lying, or something— but after a while I just started to notice all the stuff I did differently than her. Not just fighting or anything, but like, the way we washed our hair? It was weird. After like three days of thinking about it I realized it was because Vivi’s way was all about preserving moisture in her hair without using a ton of water, and mine was the way Bell-mère did it in the Navy. And that kind of sent me over the edge because it made me realize she was in everything: I raise the trees the way she taught me to, I dress the way I do because she made sure I was never ashamed of myself, I navigate, I’m a real cheapskate–”
Nami whistles, long and low, but it doesn’t mask the way that her voice snags.
“If you think I’m a penny pincher? You should’ve met her. Damn devil could haggle down anything. I thought it was… the most annoying thing in the world.”
“Bringing her techniques all the way across the Grand Line, eh? She’d be proud of you.”
“You know it. It’s not much but it's what I have left.” There’s a forlorn tone to her voice that Sanji doesn’t really know what to do about.
She’s been so vulnerable, the least he could do is reciprocate.
“I wish I could’ve cooked her something proper. Something I’m proud of.”
“You were proud of it then.”
He doesn’t know exactly what to say to that, but he does know that’s the straw that breaks the camel's back; the raindrop that starts the flood. He gives in and pulls away from her warmth to reach up into the drawer by the sink, sticking a cigarette into his mouth.
Nami’s eyes follow the smoke as it curls up towards the ceiling. “You good?”
“Yeah. It’s just… a lot.”
“No shit.” She snorts out a laugh. “But we’ll get through it. We’ve been through worse.”
Sanji puffs on his cigarette, letting his mind spin in endless circles like water washing down the drain, with every breath his head empties a little more, suspending him in blissful silence. The rational part of his brain has noticed the sun has begun to rise from behind the horizon, just barely shining in through the portholes, and it wants to start formulating how long he’ll need for the roast. He shuts it up with a long pull.
He’s startled from his stupor by a sharp poke in his side. Nami’s got her hand out expectantly, her first two fingers parted, one crooked in beckoning. “Come on, sharing is caring.” Sanji blinks in confusion, staring blankly at her fingers. Nami rolls her eyes and snatches the cigarette right from between his lips.
“Smoking was the one thing Bell-mère never let me get into. I stole one of hers one time and she whipped my hide for it.”
“Smart woman. It’s a shit habit.”
“I guess.” She takes a drag and coughs halfway through, smoke puffing out of her nose. “It’s nice to have a kitchen that still smells like her, though.”
They pass the cigarette between them until it’s burned all the way down to the filter, and then they light another.