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Sometimes Sanji will wake from dreams where he stands in the rain and wishes he were at sea. He’ll blink in the dark, disoriented for a few moments before he registers the steady rocking of Sunny beneath him. Most times the waves will call him back to sleep, split-seconds of wakefulness forgotten in morning hours.
Tonight isn’t like that.
He jolts awake and thinks, for a moment, that he can still feel the way his suit stuck to his skin, can still taste the salt of the rain-that-wasn’t-quite-rain slipping down his cheeks to wet his mouth. A yawning emptiness unsettles him, growing like a weed in the dark. His hammock creaks slightly as he shifts.
Someone in the room snores loudly. Franky. And Moss-head.
Sanji’s eyes follow a streak of moonlight through the porthole and instinctively seek out Luffy’s form. The balm to his burning wound, though he’s unlikely to put such sentiment into words.
Luffy’s hammock is empty, swinging jovially with the motions of the waves. A sudden—and embarrassing—shock of fear has Sanji nearly tripping out of his own hammock, only barely remembering to keep quiet. When his feet are on the hardwood, he pauses. Settles somewhat. He’s acting ridiculous. This isn’t like before, when it was four walls and no smiling face in any direction.
He creeps out of the room, leaving snores and slumbering crew mates behind.
Luffy is probably getting food. Or using the bathroom. Sanji’s perfectly in his rights to make sure the fridge isn’t being pilfered—or that his Captain isn’t somehow drowning in the sink. He wouldn’t put it past Luffy to figure out how to make an inch of water deadly.
Luffy is in neither the kitchen nor the bathroom. Sanji doesn’t even have to check, either, because he spots his Captain the moment he steps on deck. Luffy is leaning against the rails, looking strangely muted in the glow of the moon. His hair nearly fades into the night, black as ink and uncovered by his hat—which hangs from a cord around his throat. His charcoal gaze flickers over to Sanji immediately, like he’d known the whole time Sanji was coming.
It’s weird.
Not the knowing thing—because Luffy always seems to know everything, but only if it really matters—but the fact that Luffy is here at all. He’s not bothering Usopp in the crows nest, not raiding the fridge, not making a mess of the bathroom, and not making a terrible amount of noise.
That last part really gets Sanji. Luffy is supposed to take up space. In every sense of the word. The way his Captain is pressed against the backdrop of the starry sky like he’ll fade into the cosmos at any moment—just slip away like a shadow—makes him nervous enough to approach until he can practically feel the heat of Luffy’s body through his sleep shirt.
“Trying to break into the fridge?”
“No, just thinking.”
“Careful,” Sanji mutters. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
“I’ll try not to,” Luffy replies seriously. Then he laughs. The kind of laugh that makes his nose scrunch and comes from his throat more than his chest. Probably more of a giggle or chuckle, if Sanji really thinks about it.
He doesn’t know why he’s thinking about it.
Sanji thumbs at his lighter, the tink of metal far too loud in the quiet. He itches to take out a cigarette, but doesn’t want to go back to bed with the taste of ash on his teeth. A quiet Luffy is on odd one. The last person Sanji expects to find ruminating in the night is his Captain.
“What’re you thinking about?” He finds himself asking.
Luffy leans his chin on his arms, staring off into the ocean. The look on his face isn’t sad, distraught, or angry, but it’s one that’s not entirely familiar. “It’s Sabo’s birthday soon! I wanted to give him a gift. Like a really cool bug or something.”
Sanji’s a little taken aback that Luffy remembered something like a birthday of all things. “So why don’t you?”
“‘Cause I want to see him, not just send him somethin’. But I can’t.” Luffy’s face scrunches up. It doesn’t look like the thinking is going well. “We’ve already decided on the paths we’re taking. If I see him, I see him.”
A pirate and a revolutionary. One after the title of Pirate King, the other after the end of the current World Government. Both are strenuous, consuming lifestyles with—though Luffy never brings it up—time constraints. At any moment someone else could reach the One Piece. At any moment the Celestial Dragons and their Marine dogs could suddenly get the upper hand.
Their lives are a gamble. Not fate, but a path constructed piece by piece. Plank by plank. Built on every decision they made and stuck to without lingering regret.
Detours weren’t usually possible. Not even for birthdays.
So Sanji gets it. He does. But Luffy’s other brother is dead, and Sanji spent two years trying to claw his way back to Luffy’s side because he will never forgive himself for not being there. Where was Sabo? Did he spend sleepless nights dreaming of a shitty piece of newspaper with the battered, bandaged form of his Captain with his head bowed at a grave marker?
You saved me, he wants to say, but the words get stuck in his throat.
“Just send him something, I’m sure Robin-chan will be able to find us an address to send it to.” Sanji taps his thigh, feeling the need to fidget build. Irrationally, he’s a bit jealous.
Luffy sighs, loud and dramatic. He rolls and twists against the rail, distorting his rubbery body in a way that would have once freaked Sanji out.
“I don’t even know if he like bugs anymore,” Luffy grumbles. “But who doesn’t like bugs?”
“Most people, actually,” Sanji says dryly. It makes him shiver just thinking about those creepy-crawly things.
“Ahhh! Sabooo! I wish he was here! He should just join my crew!” Luffy throws his hands up and bounces back and forth on his feet. He falls away from the railing, practically tripping into Sanji’s space.
“Hey, watch it!”
But Luffy takes no notice. “We could hang out all the time, and eat a bunch of food together, and train, and fight, and explore, and laugh, and—and it would be like before!”
Is it jealousy? Envy?
Sanji feels his fingertips move to grasp the curve of Luffy’s elbow. All under the pretense of letting the idiot keep his balance, of course. Luffy presses his cheek into Sanji’s deltoid, blubbering and muttering about this and that. An old memory, a repeated and more exaggerated version of their meeting on Dressrosa, the first letter they sent each other—Sabo this, Sabo that.
And Sanji feels—terrible. Terrible that he feels terrible. His grip tightens, his lips purse, and suddenly Luffy is looking up at him. Sanji inhales salt and sea, observes the reflection of stars in the ink of Luffy’s eyes.
Finally, you’re looking at me.
A flush blossoms across his face. What the hell is he thinking?
Luffy laughs, smiling so hard that he nearly splits his face. “Sanji’s being dumb, isn’t he?”
“Shut up,” he grunts, turning his red face away. “You’re the idiot, idiot. Get your shitty man hands off me.”
“Eh? But Sanji’s hands are on me!”
“Don’t say it like that!”
“Shishishi!
Sanji pushes at Luffy’s head without any real strength. “If you’re done thinking and being a complete weirdo, go back to sleep. I don’t trust you out here alone.”
“Sanji,” Luffy says, and it’s a little more serious despite the smile on his lips. “I said we chose different paths.”
Sanji could say something stupid. Like how you have to earn a spot by Luffy’s side—and Sabo might have had that before, but how is he allowed it so easily now? Maybe it’s harder for Sanji to understand because his own family situation is incredibly messed up. He doesn’t give a shit about his own brothers.
But really Sanji just doesn’t want to admit that he’s changed so irrevocably for Luffy that the idea of Luffy wanting someone else outside their sphere—their crew —fills Sanji with a kind of discomfort.
You’re ours, he thinks.
“You’re mine,” he says.
Then realizes what he’s done. The embarrassment is a wave of heat, and he reacts instantaneously. Within a second he’s squirmed away from Luffy, releasing his Captain’s arm and pushing the other man far enough away that he skids on his sandals. Sanji storms away in the direction of the men’s cabin.
“Ehh? Sanji?”
“Never talk about this again!” He hisses, whirling around to stab a finger in Luffy’s direction. His whole body is as red as a tomato. “In fact, forget about it! Bash your stupid little head on the ground until the memory falls out!”
Luffy does no such thing. He’s a whirlwind as he skips towards Sanji, arms wide and laughter spilling into the night. Surely the noise is waking everyone else. “Sanji! You’re mine, too! My cook, my crew, my Sanji!”
“Shut up! You’re too loud! Stop it! Don’t come any closer! Hey—”
A door slams open. Nami’s face is wrath incarnate, peering from the shadow of a cabin door. Both Luffy and Sanji scream at the sight. She stares down their tangled limbs and sweating faces.
“WILL YOU TWO SHUT UP!”