Archive of Our Own

Sanji is ten years old when paperwork is signed, hands are shaken, and he stares up at a large rundown ship while standing next to Zeff. He is eleven years old when he stands in the same spot and watches the construction crew lower a large sign over the skeleton of a restaurant that reads THE BARATIE.

"What do you think?" Zeff asks.

"I think it looks crooked." It earns him a smack to the back of his head, but he barely blinks at it. Zeff hobbles past him to head back inside, calling for him to follow. He spares another glance up at the sign and then takes in the rest of the floating restaurant on the sea. They accomplished a lot in the last year putting this together. Not that Sanji really helped much. He'd given an opinion here and there, but mostly it was Zeff working alongside architects and men in hard hats designing the layout. Still, he walks through the large wooden doors like it's his.

The outside of the restaurant is designed like a fish and the inside of it has been gutted. There are no small bones in shapes of chairs or round cartilage tables or viscus muscle of workers. It's simply empty with sanded down white walls that are scheduled to be painted the following month. Tall load-bearing columns stand thick at two sections of what will eventually be a dining room, and there's a loud hammering as three men continue their work on a staircase that will wrap around one of them, leading up to the crew's quarters. Sanji had asked if Zeff would put in bunk beds for the crew. He never got an answer, just a gruff sound of indifference as he finished scrawling out an order of supplies.

And then he's twelve, and he blows out a candle on a small cake Zeff made for him, and they sit around a large stainless steel island in the center of the kitchen, the first room to be nearly complete. Sanji's taste buds burst with the pineapple filling and he smiles over at Zeff. "It's delicious!" he tells him.

"Of course it is," Zeff grunts back.

"Can you teach me to make it?"

"You can't even make a vegetable stew right, why would I teach you this?"

Sanji shrugs and focuses back down at his cake. He feels Zeff's eyes linger on him just a moment longer than they need to, but when he looks up in question, Zeff is already turning away to toss his plate in the three-section sink. "I baked. You wash."

Sanji nods and shovels the last forkful into his mouth before he gets back to work. They've still got plenty to do.

The doors of the Baratie kitchen swing open on a gray mid-morning and Sanji looks up from the vegetables he's sautéing and desperately trying not to burn to find two older men holding up a flyer.

"You guys still hiring?" the larger of the two asks.

A week later, Patty and Carne move into the upstairs bunk room with one bag each and a journal of recipes between them. They take the bunk bed opposite Sanji's and then he leads them down the stairs to take them around the restaurant on a make-shift tour. There's the dining room with large round tables that still need linen, there's the front deck that is undergoing it's final coat of paint, and the bar area that still desperately needs work and is mostly covered with pallets of wooden planks, but they'll get to that. It's been on the list for some time.

Patty and Carne take it in and smile at each other and Sanji watches curiously as Patty slings an arm around Carne's shoulders and says something quietly to him that makes them both smile in excitement.

He spends most of his time in the kitchen, learning what he can while he watches the three older men work around each other. He watches Patty set parsley leaves on a plate with careful focus and long tweezers delicately held between two massive fingers. He takes note of the way Zeff kicks the oven door closed with his pegleg, pounds his fist into the dough, and whips his towel along the smoke alarm while cursing the damn thing for going off at the faintest hint of smoke. (It only lasts another week before Zeff tears it from the ceiling and frisbees it into the ocean. "If there's a fire, we'd better goddamn figure it out before a smoke detector, otherwise we're all fucked.")

He stands next to Carne and stares down at the precision in which he slices meat. Carne's voice is soft and accented, quiet in the evening in a mumbled half-attentive mix of French and English, and he urges Sanji to remember the importance of when to cut vertical, horizontal, and diagonally. Sanji sneaks down to the kitchen at two a.m. when the three of them are fast asleep to find anything in the garbage that he can practice his own cuts on.

There's one morning after in which Carne snatches Sanji's hand up and looks down at the nicks at his fingers. "What's going on here?"

"Mind your business," he snaps, yanking his hand back.

"Hey, now, what's with the attitude? C'est quois?"

Sanji just shoots him a glare, but he offers his hand again, and then bites his tongue as Carne wraps it in small bandages and reminds him to curl his fingers against the flat side of a knife.

He starts showering early in the mornings to avoid the questions. It only takes one or two comments from Patty for Sanji to realize the smell of old food can seep into skin, clothing, and hair with ease, and his nightly practices don't help matters.

Patty reminds him it's not going to just be food from now on. "You're getting older, kid," he says, like he's proud of the simple fact. He helps him with his hygiene beyond reminders to shower. He teaches him how to clean the minuscule bits of food that find home beneath his nails. He teaches him to scrub hard at his scalp and harder at his forearms and all the places he misses throughout the day when he does a quick hand-wash at the metal employee sink.

Sanji rolls his eyes and insists he knows how to take care of himself, but he lets Patty yank a brush through his hair one evening, furrowing his brows the whole time so he knows he's annoyed about it. Patty insists it's important to look just as good as the food you serve and tells Sanji he's lucky to be so handsome already in his young age. Zeff shoots Sanji a look that conveys just how strange he thinks Patty's methods are, but otherwise doesn't say much about it. He simply shakes his head and walks away.

On his thirteenth birthday, Patty insists they sing to Sanji, because it's not a birthday unless there's singing, and he and Carne burst out into a grand song with their arms around each other while Sanji laughs, warm in the otherwise empty echoing kitchen. Zeff stands next to him with his arms folded and tells Sanji to blow out the candle before they can reach verse two.

The first time Zeff really knocks him back into the sink is when he catches Sanji throw out the remainder of an onion he'd cut unevenly. The solid wood of Zeff's leg slams into his stomach and knocks him back against the sink enough for the metal lip of it to cut into his lower back. He feels something warm drip down his tailbone as Zeff's spit lands on his cheek and he's told all the different ways he can reuse the sprouting core of an onion and "don't you remember what it was like, boy?".

"You're being too hard on him," he overhears Patty say one evening.

Sanji stands on the outer side of the kitchen wall, listening as Zeff scoffs out a laugh.

"You're too soft on him," he says. "He's gotta be strong out here on these seas. He's getting older and people aren't gonna take it easy on him anymore."

"He also has to be kind," Patty insists. "You can't go through life with punches and kicks. It's no way to live."

"And you're gonna teach him that, are you? Gonna introduce him to yours and Carne's lifestyle?"

"Say what you want, Zeff. I've heard it all," Patty laughs. "I'm not teaching him anything except humanity."

Carne walks Sanji through the life cycle of carp, salmon, and bluefin, and then teaches him how to spot the difference once they're already flayed open on a cutting board.

He pushes small, nimble fingers into guts and feels the different textures of them, weighs them, and starts to learn them by scent alone. He memorizes the water content of each and how much protein each carries per hundred grams. He practices rolling the handle of a knife along his fingers and when he masters the efficiency of slicing and gutting a simple hake, he rolls the knife and starts over with his left hand.

"Doing good, kid," Patty says as he walks past.

"Thanks," he murmurs through a smile, focused on the angle of his wrist.

"Who do you think taught him?" Carne snips.

"Oh, I'm sure," Patty says quieter.

Sanji glances up for just a second, but it's enough to catch their fingers tangle into each other when they pass each other. He doesn't think much of it until it happens a second, fourth, and tenth time.

"Stop picking," Patty says once again, swatting his hand down.

Sanji growls under his breath at him, but otherwise doesn't reach for his face again.

"Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah!" Patty says, sliding the cutting board away from him. "Wash your hands. Don't get your little unsanitary-pimply-residue all over this sirloin. You're out your pretty little head."

Sanji rolls his eyes and heads over to the hand-washing sink. "Stop calling me pretty," he grumbles out. "I'm not a girl."

"Doesn't mean you can't be pretty."

"Yes it does," he says, narrowing his eyes as he scrubs hard at his hands.

"Whatever, little man. Just finish up and get back to the steak."

Sanji stares in the mirror that night long after the three men have gone to bed and he presses down on the red bumps that appear by the dozens beneath his hair. He flattens his bangs over them and then scratches at the ones near his chin.

The next day, Patty teaches him to mix water and baking soda and apply it to the marks. Two months after that, he teaches Sanji to mix witch hazel, apple cider vinegar, and tea tree oil and apply it to his face before he goes to sleep that night. He takes note of the recipe and adds it to the mental list of medicines and treatments Zeff's already drilled into him.

He sits on the countertop while Carne taps his pen to the notepad in front of him. Sanji taps his own fingers restlessly against his knees. They're sharper now, bonier. Zeff tells him he needs to work out more so he doesn't accidentally slice off someone's legs if he walks past them. Sanji flipped him off behind his back. "What about carpaccio?"

Carne glances up at him and then back down to the notepad. "I like where your head's at, but it seems a bit basic, no? I think we can do a little better."

"But it's easy. If we're busy and have to make a lot of it--"

"You don't cook to put food out fast. You cook to put it out good. You got that?"

Sanji leans his head back against the cabinet behind him, holding Carne's gaze. He considers the words and then nods. "Alright. Sure. I still stand by it. It's a stable dish that people can count on."

Carne eyes him for a moment and then stands taller. He looks Sanji up and down for a moment, brows furrowed. "When did you start getting so big, huh?"

Sanji lowers an eyebrow at him, his neck heating in embarrassment. "What are you talking about?"

"When I walked through that door a year and a half ago you were barely able to reach the stove. Now you can practically reach the floor from the countertop."

Sanji leans forward and looks at where his feet hang about a foot from the ground. "Bullshit."

"Oh!" Zeff's voice calls out as he walks in. "Language, ya brat."

"Yeah, who taught it to me?"

Zeff shoots him a swift glare and then leans on the island next to Carne, looking down at the list. "Still missing some appetizer ideas?"

"Trying to think of something beef based. Maybe a tenderloin crostini or a skewer of some sort--"

"I told you," Sanji hums, looking up at the ceiling, "carpaccio is gonna provide enough familiarity to guests while also making them feel fancy when they order it." He waits a beat and then finally looks back over at them when there's no response. Zeff's looking at him with narrowed eyes. "What?"

"That's the dumbest shit I ever heard," Zeff says.

Sanji tosses his hands in the air and then drops them to his lap. "Fine. I'm just trying to help."

"You can help by getting off my countertops and grabbing a mop. The bunkroom needs cleaning."

"Oh, come on!"

"Now, brat."

Sanji slides off the countertop and lands pointedly on the floor below, shooting Carne a hard look.

"Checkers tonight?" Carne asks him with a smile. "I still owe you a butt-whooping."

"In your dreams," he says.

He's swiveling his barstool back and forth as he watches Carne and Patty attempt to hang a large, wide mirror against the back wall of the bar. They've finally gotten a decent layout out here. The liquor stock, the stools, some tables. Next to him at the bar itself, Zeff is flipping through paperwork on a clipboard and scratching out illegible notes. "It's too high on the right," Sanji says, looking back up at the mirror.

"No one asked you," Carne says back with a wink. He lowers his side.

"Why are we putting a mirror up here anyway? No one can even use it from way back here."

"It's not for the customers, princess, it's for the bartender."

"Don't call me that," he grumbles, landing a sharp kick to Zeff's leg. "And why does the bartender need it?"

"To keep an eye on the customers." Zeff turns to him then, abandoning the paperwork. "Out here on these seas, you never know what kind of people you're gonna come across. Could be Marines, could be pirates, could b--"

"Pirates?"

"Yes, Sanji. Pirates. Everyone is going to be welcome into this restaurant, remember?"

Sanji shifts his gaze over to Patty and Carne, but the two of them are still somewhat busy trying not to drop and break the giant mirror.

"Whoever they are, they all have one thing in common. Know what that is?"

"Money?" He flinches as Zeff's hand smacks into the side of his head.

"No, ya idiot. They all think they're smarter than the people who service them."

"Uh-huh," he says, rubbing at the side of his head. "That's what I meant to say. Yeah."

"The minute that bartender turns around to pour a drink or ring up a tab, you can bet your ass the customer is trying to steal money or a drink or whatever they can."

"Really?"

"Absolutely. And that mirror is gonna provide you with the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of this bar you would otherwise lose the minute you turn your back."

"Okay, but wouldn't they obviously know it's right there? Why would they try something if there's a giant mirror on the wall?"

"Are you listening to me? What'd I just say?"

"Which part? You're saying a lot, old man."

"They all think they're smarter than the people who service them!" Carne calls over.

Zeff nods at Carne. "Whether they take notice of the mirror or not, no part of them is expecting a bartender to look into it and watch them."

"And if they do think that?"

"Then they're not gonna be stupid enough to try to rob the joint, are they?"

Sanji furrows his brows and looks back over at the mirror.

"Boss thinks of everything!" Patty calls back.

"Shut up," Zeff grumbles back. He looks at Sanji then, pointing the pen in his face. "Always. Stay. Observant. You hear me? Never let someone get the jump on you. You got five senses. Use them."

"Got it."

"You using them now?"

"Yeah."

"Bullshit."

Sanji frowns. He's about to ask what he means, but he's interrupted by a voice near the bar's entrance.

"Excuse me?" Behind them, there is a young man standing with a folder in his hands, dressed in a collared shirt and brown pants. "I'm here for the bartending job? I'm looking for Chef Zeff?"

"You're late," Zeff grunts, scanning down the list in front of him and not bothering to turn around. "Interview started six minutes ago."

"I know. I'm sorry. I went into the dining room, but I didn't see anyone there."

"Why the fuck would a bartending interview take place in the dining room?"

The boy gapes at the back of Zeff's head and then shifts his gaze to Sanji like he's waiting for backup. Sanji just stares back at him.

"I don't tolerate lateness and I don't tolerate lack of common sense," Zeff says, scratching out an item on the clipboard. "Good luck with the next place."

The boy closes his mouth, cheeks tinging red with embarrassment, and then awkwardly takes his exit.

"A bit harsh, boss, no?" Patty asks quietly.

"No."

Sanji looks between the two of them and then turns back to the bar without another word.

He hears the same exchange enough times over the next two months that he doesn't bother turning around anymore when the men walk in. But then there's a cold, cloudy day that promises rain, and Sanji's got the hood of his sweater pulled up to block out the wind, and he barely hears the next man call out for his interview.

"Why the fuck would a bartending interview take place in the dining room?" Sanji mouths silently along as Zeff calls back the question.

"I don't know. Why the fuck would your job posting tell me to go to the dining room when you're sitting out at the bar?"

Sanji whips around on the stool to stare at the guy in shock and even Zeff finally sits up from the clipboard and turns to slowly look at him.

The guy seems unbothered at the fact he's probably just trashed the interview. He scratches idly at his neck beneath his tie. "I heard you designed the restaurant. Did you forget which room is which already?"

Sanji shifts his gaze to Zeff, waiting for the explosion, but Zeff's mouth just curls into something sinister. "What's your name, boy?"

"Jordy."

"Welcome to the Baratie. Go upstairs and pick a bunk." He turns back to the bar and starts scribbling on his clipboard again.

Sanji looks over to meet Jordy's gaze, who just looks back over at him with a surprised blink. Sanji taps Zeff with his sneaker. "Is that it? Don't you need to make sure he knows how to make drinks or whatever?"

Zeff looks at Sanji with a sigh and then turns back to Jordy. "Kid, you know how to open a bottle of rum?"

"With one hand tied behind my back."

"I don't care if you do it with one hand around your dick. Serve the drinks and collect the money."

Jordy's brows pop just a bit. "Yes, sir."

Sanji straightens in his chair and frowns at the chess board in front of him, trying to sort out his next move. He hesitantly reaches forward to a chip and then tugs his hand back.

"What'd I tell you about committing?" Carne asks.

Sanji spares him a glance and scans the checkers board once more before he reaches forward and follows through on his move.

Carne barks out a laugh and immediately snatches up his piece with his own move. "Sap."

"Hey, what the hell?!"

"You can't let someone bully you into your decisions, mon petit."

Sanji eyes him for a moment and then tilts his head. "What does that mean?"

"It means you have to follow your own gut. You know how your stomach always tells you if you're hungry or full? Or when it tells you if you need more salt or vinegar or basil?"

"No, I mean the French thing."

Carne looks up at him with a bit of a surprised smile. "Mon petit?" He waits for Sanji to nod and then his smile grows a bit more. "Just means, you know, you. Uh. My boy. My little man." His eyes narrow just slightly. "Though, I suppose you're not so little anymore, are you?"

Sanji makes a weird sort of embarrassed grunt and shrugs. He doesn't really like when the guys fawn over him and make comments about his looks. It's not like they're mean about it, but he still feels embarrassed or weird when they comment on his height or the way his hair grows longer or how strong he's getting.

"Okay," Carne nods to himself. "Okay, your move."

Sanji twists his mouth to the side and after a few more seconds of contemplation, moves another piece. Two moves later he takes two of Carne's checkers for himself.

"Merde," Carne mumbles under his breath. "Okay," he nods. "Okay. You got me."

Sanji flashes him a smile and then looks back down at the board, mouthing the French word to himself and makes a note to look that one up later as well.

A week before his fourteenth birthday, Sanji lays out tablecloths with Patty. They're a bright white to match the leather of the chairs, and they contrast it with a blue seaglass vase in the center.

"There we go," Patty nods. "Get some nice flowers in there and we'll be all set."

"We're gonna get flowers delivered?"

"Every day if we need to," Patty nods.

"Do people really care about that sort of thing?"

"It's about the experience, kid," Patty says, slinging an arm around his shoulders and walking him around the dining room. "When you're eating a Coq au Vin, you want to taste the salt of the lardons and the bite of the pinot noir, right? Now think about eating it on a dinghy next to Zeff pissing off the boat next to you."

"Ew, what the fuck?"

"You see?" he laughs. "Now think about sitting here." He turns and gently lowers Sanji into a seat at the table, pushing him in softly. "You've got this soft leather behind you to lean back against, the clean linen, and the - hopefully orange and pink - blossoms here that will complement the overall experience. It's no longer just a stew, you see?"

"But what does that matter if it's cooked the same way? It's gonna taste the exact same no matter what. Isn't that the point? That food on a dinghy is just as good if the right person is making it?"

"Ah, yes," Patty nods, "but The Baratie is not a dinghy. We want people to sit and enjoy their time here. Have a few additional glasses of wine, be tempted by dessert because they're enjoying the gentle string music coming from the dais."

"What music?"

"A little imagination, Sanji, I'm beggin' you. When'd you become so cynical, huh?"

Sanji snorts but nods along. "Okay, okay, fine."

"It's all about the look and feel - not just the taste. You understand?"

"Yeah, I get it."

"The same care and intention you put behind dressing a plate, you have to put that into everything you do, you understand me? Even outside of this restaurant."

Sanji tilts his head back to frown up at Patty. "Outside this restaurant? When the hell am I gonna be outside this restaurant?"

Patty just shrugs. "You never know. You might go off one day and live a life somewhere else."

"Yeah right."

"Eh, you meet a pretty girl one day and decide to marry her--"

"Alright, that's enough," he laughs, scratching at his jaw.

"What? What's so wrong with that? You're getting older. I'm sure you're starting to think about these things."

"I don't really care about that stuff."

"You say that now. Wait until this restaurant opens and all these pretty girls are flitting in and out of here. You'll see. You'll be dropping your two weeks notice before dinner is served."

Sanji just shakes his head and laughs, ignoring the heat crawling up his face. "I really don't wanna be talking about this sort of thing with you."

"Why not? It's just part of life."

"Because you're-- you!"

"You should talk to one of us! We're here to help you! What, I can help you with your acne but not with your hormones?"

"Okay," Sanji mumbles, fumbling out of the chair. "We're done here."

"Then ask Carne! Or Zeff!"

"I'm not talking to any of you about that!" Sanji says, eyes wide. "I don't need to talk to anyone about it! It's weird! I'm not gonna run off with some girl, I don't care about that!"

"Oh, Sanji, come on, be a romantic! Please! I can't be the only one!"

Sanji puts his hands over his ears and shakes his head, mouthing I can't hear you, and then disappears through the kitchen doors.

He's walking past the bathroom one evening when he spots Patty leaning over the sink and looking in the mirror. Sanji pauses, frowning as he watches Patty brush something carefully over an eyelash. "What are you doing?" he finally asks.

Patty jumps slightly at his voice and something clatters into the sink. He turns quickly and smiles at Sanji. "What's that? You scared me, there," he laughs. "What's going on? Did you need something?"

"What is that?" he asks, tilting his head to try to look past Patty.

Patty shifts just slightly to block the sink more. "Oh, my-- I have a stye. My eyelash-- I'm putting a medicine on it to heal."

"Oh. Did you make it here?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, yes."

"Can I see it? Will you teach me?"

"Oh, I..." Patty makes an odd face. "It's not perfected just yet. I'll-- I'll keep working on the recipe, you know, trying out different things. But once it's right I'll show you. Sure."

"Okay," he nods. "I kinda like learning the different ways to use food, you know? Zeff says it's important."

"Yes," Patty insists. "Yes, that is important. You're right."

Sanji twists his mouth, noticing the way one of Patty's eyelashes shines just a bit darker, longer than the other. "Alright. Well. I'm gonna go to bed."

"Okay, sure," Patty nods, smiling. "Goodnight, boy."

Sanji gives him a stiff nod and then heads off into the bedroom.

On his birthday, Carne gifts him a set of his very own chef's knives, Patty gives him a new pair of leather dress shoes, and Jordy mixes him his first cocktail, which he promptly grimaces at and pushes back to him apologetically while the others laugh. But Zeff gives him the best gift of all and lets Sanji cook that evening's family dinner for the five of them.

He works painstakingly slow and meticulously and then lays out a pan-seared magret de canard with balsamic honey glaze, sautéed potatoes, and seaweed salad. He stands at the table, eyeing Zeff with his breath held while the other three moan out compliments and gratitude. Zeff sits back in his chair, chewing thoughtfully, and then shrugs. "Your medium rare is still too pink."

Sanji nods, taking the note along with his seat, and then dives into his own plate. They fall into conversation, mostly excited chatter about opening day approaching, but Sanji's eyes continue to flit over to Zeff's plate as he watches it slowly clear over dinner until he's scraping his fork across it to get the last morsels of food from it.

That night, when Sanji washes the dishes, he smiles to himself and thinks about the sound of Zeff's fork scraping the plate.

"You did good, kid," Patty says, folding a hand towel.

"Thanks. I gotta work on taking the meat off the pan quicker."

Patty looks at him sideways with a smile, but doesn't say anything else.

Sanji leans his forearms on the bar and tilts his head as Jordy stretches a measuring tape along the top shelf of the bar's back wall. "You know, I'm sure Zeff has the measurements somewhere in his office if you need them."

"Why would I bother him for something I can figure out myself in two minutes?"

Sanji feels a bit annoyed at the response, but he can't exactly disagree. Jordy hops down from the ladder and takes the pen from his ear, scribbling the numbers on a notepad. Sanji watches him, twisting his mouth back and forth.

"Something on your mind, kid?"

Sanji frowns and then catches Jordy's gaze in the mirror, watching him with a raised eyebrow. And the thing about Jordy is that Sanji just thinks he's so cool. He's been so used to spending time around all these old geezers, it's kind of nice to have someone closer to him in age. Not that they're very close in age. Jordy is about eight years older than him still, but it's a hell of a lot closer than the other three.

And it's kind of nice to have someone he can look up to who talks to him like a normal person and not just a little kid. Carne, Patty, and Zeff are all nice, for sure, but they treat him like he's still eleven years old. Jordy sees him for the fourteen-year-old he is. He lets Sanji join him for his morning workouts and impresses upon him the importance of having a good, strong body. And, sure, the others have told him it's important, but Jordy just goes about it differently. Zeff tells him to gain muscle to defend himself. Jordy tells him to gain muscle because it looks good and it's gonna help him look older than he is. He teaches Sanji about maturity and growing up, and all the things that Carne and the others have probably forgotten in their old age.

"Can you teach me to make drinks?" he finally asks.

Jordy eyes him for a moment and then finishes writing whatever he's doing. He tucks the pen back behind his ear and turns to face Sanji, leaning back with his arms folded. His muscles ripple just a bit, a long blue vein slicing across his forearm. "I thought you were more interested in the food side of all of this?"

"Patty says everything feeds into the experience. He says food is the star, but every star needs backup dancers or something."

Jordy snorts. "Yeah, he would make that metaphor."

"You don't agree?"

Jordy shrugs. "I'm a bartender. And yeah, sure, the meal is the end game, right?"

"Right."

"But, what's the point if there's no foreplay beforehand, you know what I'm saying?"

Sanji's brows twitch down.

"Drinks just...make everything a bit...easier."

"Easier?"

"Smoother." Jordy clears his throat and steps forward, bracing his hands on the bar. "You ever been with a girl, Sanji?"

Sanji stares back at him, gut churning with nerves. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah," he shrugs.

Sanji pulls his gaze away and shifts on the barstool. And this is what he likes about Jordy, right? Because while Patty's teased him about finding a girlfriend one day, and Carne's taught him the importance of being polite and having manners and holding doors open, no one's really spoken to him about... this sort of thing. "Uh, no," he finally says, feeling heat creep up his neck.

"No? Alright. Well, trust me. You're gonna learn that foreplay is the most important part. It makes the meal ten times more enjoyable."

Sanji scatches awkwardly behind his ear. "What--? Uh. Okay."

"Come on," Jordy gestures for him to join him on the other side of the bar. "I'll teach you a French 75. It's the sophisticated woman's favorite."

Sanji slides off the barstool, a bit confused, but he's not gonna turn down the free lesson, so by the end of the day he's poured a perfect bubbling cocktail complete with curled orange rind.

"You fix these clothes, you're gonna do wonders," Jordy says, tugging on his hoodie. "Stick with me, kid."

Sanji leans against the wall with his arms folded, watching Patty talk with the finalists for their waitstaff. Everyone sits at the tables at attention, some taking notes in their leather booklets, others nodding along to every other sentence.

The kitchen door opens next to him and Carne steps out, running a cloth over his knife. "How's it going?" he asks quietly.

Sanji shrugs. "They're paying attention at least. But that could be because Patty kicked out the only person who dared interrupt."

Carne laughs to himself, shaking his head. "C'est mon chou. Come on, wanna help me with something?"

Sanji turns to him in question, but he nods without asking.

Carne sets him up at a small square table in the corner of the kitchen tucked back behind the carbonation tanks. There are three large rolls of ribbon and a pair of scissors.

"The hell is this?" Sanji asks. "We got a little girl's birthday party or something?"

"Hush up." Carne gently shoves him into the chair and then drops a stack of ivory cardstock in front of him with a heavy thud.

Sanji leans forward, raising an eyebrow, and peers down at the blue script.

The Baratie
The Floating Restaurant on the Sea

He looks up at Carne in question.

"What does it look like?" Carne snaps, gesturing to the pile.

Sanji looks down again and then it hits him. "Are these the menus?"

"Ah, so Zeff hasn't given you brain damage yet."

Sanji flips the cardstock quickly, eyes scanning the stamped in blue ink boasting various dishes and drinks and sides. His lungs surge with the gasp and he brushes his fingers over the paper.

"You're going to fold these, loop the ribbon around them, and they'll go into these leather casings, okay?"

"Yeah."

"Sanji, are you listening? I can get someone else to--"

"No, no! I'll do it!" He looks up at Carne to insist again, but Carne just gives him a knowing smile.

"Did you happen to look at the items? There are some good ones on there."

Sanji looks down at the menu again and scans down the list. There, fourth from the top of the appetizer section is the option for beef or tuna carpaccio. His eyes widen and he whips back around to Carne, but Carne is already gone around the kitchen to yell at Noline for drinking all of the tea again.

A fight breaks out in the kitchen in the middle of their test lunch shift. The dining room is filled with a few critics from the World Economic Journal, and Sanji's practically sweating through his chef's coat trying to make sure it goes smoothly. The fight catches him just a bit by surprise because he hadn't even picked out the arguing among the usual shouting, but there's a word spat across the grill top, and then Patty's fist lands across Ruddy's jaw, and both of them are yanked apart while Sanji slips between them to remove the steaks from the grill before they start burning. He plates them between shouts, hears that word echoed off the stainless steel around him once more, and then calls for a server to bring the plates to table thirty-two.

That evening, he's running a broom beneath the back shelves by the office when he hears raised voices beyond the door. He spares a quick glance and can just make out Patty in there. He stands just to the edge of the window out of sight and presses an ear against the door in time to hear--

"--didn't fire you, did I? He's the one outta here!"

"Oh, gee, Zeff. Should I get on my knees and thank you."

"Please don't. I told you, I don't care about that shit. Just--"

"Keep it behind closed doors, yeah. Whatever, Zeff."

"Patty, I don't give a fuck what you get up to, really. You know that. I don't care if you're fucking women, men, or the fucking fish on the flattop. All I said was not to let it get in the way of how we run The Baratie."

"How the hell would it get in the way of that? It's Ruddy's bullshit opinions getting in the way--"

"You nearly ruined the lunch shift. Both of you."

"You've got a lot to learn, old man. Tolerance only gets you so far. And by the way? That boy out there--"

"That boy has nothing to do with this."

There's a beat of silence long enough that Sanji thinks the fighting has finally ended, but then Zeff speaks again, so low that Sanji has to press harder against the door.

"I just want it to be easy for him. I don't need these arguments happening around him."

"Then make it easy," Patty says. "Show him it doesn't matter."

"I do that by treating every person in this restaurant the same. Ruddy's gone because he spoke out of line to one of us. I don't want to make a big deal about why. If anyone wants to speculate or assume, they can. But I'd have thrown him out whether he spoke to you like that or to Messi or Hosoo or anyone else is this goddamn kitchen, you got it?"

Patty sighs, but says, "alright. Fine. What do you plan on saying if the kid asks why Ruddy's fired?"

"I'll tell him it's none of his damn business, like I do to everyone else in this place."

Sanji pulls back when he hears Patty's footsteps come closer to the door, and then spins away to sweep at the mess in the corner.

He's on his hands and knees scrubbing at spilled fra diavolo sauce that's ricocheted across the floor and onto the lower shelves in the kitchen when Zeff taps his wooden peg against his ribs. "Bit busy, geezer," he grits out.

"You're gonna be busy gettin' your head knocked in if you don't come with me right now."

Sanji sighs and tosses the sponge into the water, glancing apologetically at Hosoo before he climbs to his feet and follows Zeff through the kitchen, across the dining room, and out onto the front deck.

Sunset is approaching, but it's still bright enough that Sanji has to squint momentarily until he gets his bearings. He pulls the sleeves of his sweater down and tucks his hands into his slacks. "So?" he asks as Zeff leans on the deck railing. "What is it?"

Zeff doesn't answer right away. He just looks out at the sea like he hasn't even heard Sanji's question.

Sanji watches him for a moment, breeze ruffling through his bangs enough where he has to flick his head to the side to correct them.

"I want you to work salads tomorrow."

Sanji stares at him, confused. "Wha--? Salads? I thought I was prepping the fish?"

"Changed my mind."

"What? No! No, I want to be on mains. You can't just shove me to the sides to do salad."

"It's my restaurant, boy, I can do whatever I want."

"But it's me! I've worked here longer than any of those other guys. Why do they get to work on prep and I have to throw salad in a bowl?"

"Are you finished?"

Sanji shrugs, annoyed, and then drops his shoulders in a huff.

Zeff eyes him for a moment. "You're good at what you do, boy, but you haven't perfected it."

"I have perfected it! I perfected it weeks ago! You're the one who said it! You said I could do prep because I knew what I was doing!"

"I said you were good, not perfect. I need this restaurant to be perfect."

"Then tell me what I'm doing wrong. I'm a quick learner, you know that!"

"You're on salad, Sanji. I will not repeat myself and I will not explain myself. If you don't want to serve salad, you can stand at the door and welcome people instead."

Sanji blinks back from him. "Oh, go to hell, old man." He spins on his heel and shoulders open the door harder than he needs to.

That evening, he rants to Jordy at the bar about how he's always being treated like a kid and Jordy just lets out small trickles of laughs as he does things with the bottles and his clipboard. Finally, he rests the clipboard on the bar and leans forward to look at Sanji. "Listen, you wanna start being treated like an adult, you gotta just tell them."

"I've tried."

"Not hard enough," he laughs. "Tell you what. You get tired of slinging lettuce into a bowl, you come find me. I'll teach you a couple more drinks. I could use the extra hands for inventory once we open up anyway."

"Yeah?"

"Why not?" he shrugs. "You know how to count, right?"

Sanji flips him off.

Jordy smiles over sharp teeth. "Good. We'll start next month, alright?"

Sanji fidgets with his collar in the middle of the dining room, staring between the front door and the large clock on the wall.

"Arrête, arrête, leave it alone." Carne swats his hand down from his collar and smooths it out for him. "Fits you well."

"Thanks," he mumbles, tucking his hands into his pockets.

"You gonna wear this in the kitchen?" he asks. "Even where no one can see you?"

Sanji shrugs. "Jordy says it's important for a man to always look his best."

Carne mumbles something in French under his breath, but then he nods. "Well, yes, I can agree with that to some extent. He give this to you?"

"It's his, I'm just borrowing it until I can get my hands on some of my own."

Carne hums to himself. "I'll send Patty."

"Huh?"

"I'll send Patty. The next time we do a supply run, I'll send Patty out to fetch you some clothes. You need new ones soon anyway. You're sprouting up far too fast. These pants are gonna be shorts soon."

Sanji snorts and shakes his head, looking back at the door. "Whatever."

"That attitude's sprouting up too fast, too, you know."

"Only around you," he says with a smile.

"Oh, bless me, how lucky am I?"

Sanji starts a laugh, but inhales it when he hears the lock of The Baratie's front door slide open. Zeff turns to them all and gives a single nod. "Give 'em hell, gentlemen."

"Aye, chef!"

Three months into The Baratie being open, the restaurant has flourished enough that the patrons pour in by the dozens. The World Economic Journal boasts: a floating multi-course dining experience with flawless service and a welcome change from the run down island bars that plague the East Blue. Balanced wine pairings and unmatched ambiance are pulled together in an immersive sway of the ocean below. The evening begins with the refreshing burst of flavor from the perfectly curated salads and finishes off with the decadent, rich saccharinity of the desserts. Let The Baratie sail you to islands you've never imagined and allow you the taste of flavors of seas you've never dreamed of.

This review gets torn from a newspaper and set down on the stainless steel service next to the bowl of salad Sanji is arranging cucumber triangles on. "Bit busy," he mumbles to Zeff's gnarled knuckles.

"Read it."

Sanji sighs frustratedly, but looks over and scans it quickly. "Okay, great. Congrats to us." He turns back to the salad and finishes setting the last cucumber. He grabs spirals of shaved red onion and starts looping them carefully around the lettuce.

Zeff slides the review off the table and hobbles off.

It's not until that evening when Sanji is exhausted and pulling himself into his bunk that he finds the cut out review again sitting on his pillow. "C'est quois, what the fuck?" he sighs to himself. He swipes it from his pillow and then falls back to the bed, holding the review above him to read it in the soft moonlight through the window. "Why the hell does he care about this shit review?" he mumbles under his breath. "It doesn't even have his name in it."

Sanji has his first kiss on a frighteningly cold winter evening. He's sweeping the front deck with the collar of his new coat pulled up, shoulders held even higher, when his gaze lifts to find a young girl waiting on the dock, arms folded over herself while she bounces up and down on her toes. She's familiar in the way that most patrons come to be at The Baratie. He caught a glimpse of her as he dropped off an appetizer that was nearly running late, and then again when she walked past the kitchen door as he glanced through the small window of it. He watches her now for a moment, realizes there's no one around, and then finally walks over. "Hey, you alright?"

She looks up at him, eyes wide. "Oh, yeah. I'm waiting for my mom. She's bringing the boat around, but there was a bit of a line at the back dock."

"Oh. Yeah it gets crowded toward closing."

"I saw," she laughs. "There were so many people headed that way, she told me to just wait here so I wouldn't get lost in the crowd."

Sanji nods, eyeing the way her arms tighten around herself. "Hey, are you cold?"

"Freezing," she laughs.

Sanji's hand twitches for his coat and then finally he moves intentionally. He unbuttons it and rolls his off his shoulders, putting it over her instead. "Here. Just while you wait, you know?"

"Thanks," she says, voice soft with wonder. "That's really kind of you."

Sanji shrugs and tucks his hands in his pockets.

She looks down at his shirt and slacks and then at the broom he's rested against the railing. "Do you work here?"

Sanji glances at the broom and then nods, unable to meet her gaze. "Uh, yeah. I'm a... I'm a chef, actually. I'm just helping sweep tonight."

"You're a chef? How old are you?"

"Nearly fifteen," he shrugs.

"Whoa," she laughs. "I can't believe you're a chef. I'm fourteen too and I don't work anywhere."

Sanji isn't really sure how he's meant to respond to that, so he just lets the sentence sit between them and squints out to look across the sea as another boat takes off from The Baratie's west deck. He tries to rack his brain for everything Jordy's told him about girls - how to approach them, how to talk to them, how to seem aloof if you want someone to give you their attention.

"Well, the food was amazing," she says.

"Yeah?" he asks, turning back to her, thoughts of Jordy wisping away with the breeze.

Her eyes are wide with wonder as she looks back at him. Her cheeks and nose are tinged pink in the cold air and it's doing something strange to Sanji's insides. She steps forward toward him, asking "did you cook the truffle scallops?"

For whatever reason, Sanji says, "mhm," even though he'd spent all evening smelling vinegar, herbs, and lemon juice while he threw together salad after salad after salad after--

"No way!" she says, laughing into her hand. "They were so good! You're a really good cook."

Sanji shrugs and looks off across the water again. He feels kind of bad for lying, but the truth is he could have made those truffle scallops, and honestly? He could have made them better than Noline. "I'm glad you liked it," he says, looking down as he taps the toe of his dress shoes to the dock. "You should come back and try something else next time."

"Like what?"

"Um, if you like truffle, we do a truffle-stuffed arancini. You might like that. Or if you want to try something with a bit of a different flavor profile, maybe the eggplant napoleon."

She tilts her head at him with a smile. "You really know your food, huh?"

"Sure," he nods. "I know what tastes good anyway."

"Does anything on the menu taste bad?"

"Depends who's cooking it." This gets another laugh out of her and her body shakes with it. He watches her, enamored by the effect his words have on her. "You have any allergies?"

She composes herself from her laugh and shakes her head. "No, not that I'm aware of."

He flicks his gaze back and forth between her eyes. They're so blue under the fading light of the evening. "So, you can try anything."

"I guess so," she smiles. She drops her gaze to the dock below them and then Sanji watches as she takes the smallest of steps forward. "Is there anything you want to try?"

"I've tried everything on the menu," he shrugs. "I mean, I helped create the damn thing."

"Wow," she says, impressed again. "That's really cool."

Sanji wets his lips reflexively. "Yeah."

"What's your name?" she asks quietly.

Sanji's leg bends back to tap the toe of his shoe against the deck again. "Sanji," he says.

She nods. "Sanji? Do you want to kiss me?"

He nods, a bit shamefully, but then he watches her smile and move in closer to him, stopping with just enough space for him to do the rest of the work himself. So he swallows and leans forward, pressing his lips softly to hers. He holds himself there for a few seconds before he pulls back again.

She smiles at him and then steps back. "Thanks," she says.

"Um," he nods, "yeah. Yeah-- You-- You too. Thanks to you. Thank you."

She giggles into a hand again and then looks up as a boat rounds the dock. She steps back again and removes his coat from her shoulders, handing it back to him. "See you around."

He nods and steps back as she walks to the end of the dock to be picked up, realizing that he never even asked her name. He turns on his heel and heads directly for the bar, practically jogging over to Jordy.

When the warm weather fades back in again, Sanji is finally pulled from salads and Zeff puts him on prep. He tells him its a one-night trial, but it lasts for two months before he's moved over to appetizers and a new chef comes in to take over prep. Sanji grumbles his annoyance at it, but Zeff just gives him a whack to the back of his head and reminds him to be grateful and not the fifteen-year-old brat he's grown up to be.

The Baratie hosts a wedding in the heat of the summer sun, and they opens open up the brand new wider decks they lovingly call the "fins" to provide large dancing platforms. Sanji is stuck weaving through tables in the bar area snatching up beer bottles and small snack plates. He ducks beneath a tray of champagne flutes and swerves around the corner of the bar itself to dump everything into a black plastic bin that he'll have to then lug back into the kitchen. He sighs and wipes his forehead with the back of his wrist. He's sweating through his dress shirt an embarrassing amount and he's kept quite aware of it every time he walks past a girl who gives him a second glance.

"You doin' alright, man?" Jordy calls over, grabbing a bottle from the rack and spinning it in his hand before pouring it over ice.

"Yeah," he nods, watching Jordy's hands move swiftly across the bottles and glassware.

Jordy's fingers twist a lemon peel, slide it along the rim of a glass, and then he slides it across the bar to someone with a wink. He turns to Sanji then with a wide smile. "You see the ladies filling this bar tonight?" he murmurs to him. He reaches up to a shelf on the back wall and the tail of his shirt slips from his trousers to reveal a sliver of pale skin. It disappears as quickly as it comes, and Jordy's turning back around to the bar with a new bottle in hand.

"Yeah," Sanji says again.

"Between me and you, I might try my luck."

"Your luck?"

Jordy looks at him and then glances pointedly across the bar area.

Sanji follows his gaze to where a young woman stands in a slim yellow dress, delicate hand wrapped around a champagne glass, manicured nails tapping against it. Her eyes shift over to the bar, despite the conversation she's in, and her pink lips tilt in a smile. Sanji looks back over at Jordy, who's passing a beer forward to someone. "She's a guest," Sanji says.

"Yeah, and?" Jordy asks, wiping his hands on the bar towel hanging from his belt loop. "I don't see any rules that say we can't taste test just the same as them."

Sanji chews at the inside of his cheek, mulling over the idea. He leans down and picks up the bussing bin, looking back over the bar area at everyone before ducking back into the kitchen.

That evening, Jordan takes the bussing bin from Sanji and sets it to rest on his own hip. He stares down at Sanji. "How're you feeling?"

"Fine," he shrugs. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, like, you wanna have some fun tonight?"

"What kind of fun?"

Jordy narrows his eyes at him like he's trying to calculate something. "Look, I'll finish up here. Why don't you run upstairs and rinse off quickly? Come back down here when you're done."

"Zeff wanted me to finish washing all the glassware--"

"I got it, I got it," Jordy says, spinning Sanji around and giving him a gentle shove toward the door. "Would you act like a man for once and just say thank you when someone gives you the rest of the night off?"

Sanji laughs and waves a hand over his shoulder.

"Meet back down here in twenty minutes!"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Wear one of your good shirts!"

The wedding party arrived just before sunset on a large yacht that remains docked behind The Baratie for the night. After Zeff locked The Baratie's doors and most of the crew started winding down from the shift, Sanji slipped through the door to the bar area where Jordy sat on a stool sipping down a red cocktail, waiting for him.

"Damn, finally. What the hell took so long?"

"I couldn't find a shirt. Is this alright?" He holds his arms out.

Jordy makes a disgruntled sort of face and then steps up to Sanji to adjust the outfit. He rolls the sleeves up, undoes the top button of his shirt, and helps him retuck it neater into his pants. Sanji holds his breath the whole time, trying not to think about Jordy's hands and how close they're getting to his more private areas. He's fifteen and he's been undergoing the near hourly misfortune of getting turned on by anything ranging from a person's shoulders to a questionable cut of meat. Jordy's hands aren't exactly doing much to help, since Sanji's been fascinated by them since he's met the guy.

"Alright, better," Jordy says, brushing Sanji's bangs back and forth a bit. "Here, drink the rest of this."

Sanji's nose scrunches a bit at the drink, but Jordy's cool, and he wants Jordy to think he's cool, so he takes down the remainder of it in four large sips, sucking hard at the ice.

"Alright, alright, easy you fuckin' camel."

Sanji coughs out an apology and then follows Jordy when he gestures for him to tag along.

He leads him across The Baratie's deck around to the back docks, lighting a cigarette on the way. He looks sideways at Sanji as Sanji watches him and then he holds out the lit cigarette to him in question.

"I've never smoked before," he says.

Jordy comes to a stop and exhales a small stream of smoke. "Damn, man, you're killing me," he laughs. "Here." He hands the cigarette to him. "Go on. In your mouth."

Sanji eyes the cigarette and looks up at Jordy unsure. "Am I gonna get in trouble for this?"

"Who the hell is gonna--? Just put it in your mouth, man."

Sanji tucks it between his mouth and waits.

"Inhale!" Jordy hisses. "Slowly."

Sanji takes a slow inhale, grimacing at the taste. He holds his breath and looks up at Jordy, waiting.

"Now, exhale," Jordy says impatiently, gesturing with a hand for Sanji to hurry up. He walks him through it twice more before lighting another for himself. "Alright?"

Sanji takes in a breath of fresh air to counteract the cigarette taste but nods. "Okay, yeah. Yeah, I think so."

"Good," Jordy nods. "People smoke. It's a good social skill to have. Plus, women think it's hot and they'll usually ask you for one or at least for a light. Always have cigarettes and a lighter on you, you hear me?"

"Got it."

"Now come on. You better hope I don't have to walk you through anything else tonight."

Sanji gives him a curious glance, but instead busies himself tucking the cigarette between his lips like Jordy's is and then tucks his hands in his pockets. He only slows when he realizes Jordy is walking down the walkway of the back dock toward the yacht. He takes the cigarette from his mouth and whisper-calls over to him.

Jordy turns, a single eyebrow cocked. "What?"

Sanji looks up at the yacht and then back down to him. "What are you doing?"

"Come on," he nods toward it. "We were invited."

"We were?"

"Yes," he laughs. "Now come on. I told them I wanted to bring you and you were cool. Don't make me look dumb, alright?"

Sanji nods and takes a deep breath, determined to make Jordy proud instead. As if to prove it, he takes another inhale of the cigarette and then holds it between his fingers like he's seen Jordy do on his bar breaks.

The yacht is large enough to have a goddamn ballroom inside and apparently it's where the wedding's afterparty is happening. Jordy leads Sanji through the crowd, flashing polite smiles here and there, and then pauses by a wall. "Alright, hang here a minute," he says. "I'm gonna get us some drinks, but they won't serve you. You look older than you are, but you're still a little twerp, you know?" He gives Sanji a quick wink and then disappears into the crowd.

Sanji slips his hands into his pockets and looks out across the room. There are a ton of people dancing in the flashing lights and the music pounds through speakers enough that it vibrates through the floor. He bends his knee and taps the toe of his shoe against the carpet once, twice, a third time.

Some of the people are still in their long gowns, but a handful have changed into shorter dresses or removed their suit jackets or their dress shirts altogether, leaving thin ribbed tank tops that they sweat through. Sanji watches muscles shift and manicured nails tug at hems of dresses and mouths part as they exhale mid-dance. He's probably the youngest person in the room, and he's sort of starting to feel self-conscious about it. He tries to hold himself taller and push his shoulders back.

Jordy returns with bottles of beer and tilts Sanji's up until he's drinking it. "There we go," Jordy laughs gently. He slings an arm around Sanji's shoulders. "See? It doesn't always have to just be work, you know? We get to let loose too."

"Yeah," Sanji nods, mouth twitching up into a nervous smile. "Yeah, okay."

"Alright? Now, come on. I wanna introduce you to some friends I made."

He's on his third beer that Jordy pushed into his hand, and his head is fuzzy, and her name is Bora.

Or Bara. Or Bera. He can't really remember, but her nails are red, her lips are redder, and her bra falls somewhere between the two shades. His neck arches back and he swallows back the shock when she reaches down into his pants and wraps her hand around his cock.

She giggles into his ear, laughing about how hard he is, and there's a mix of shame and horror and just plain shock churning in his gut. He leans back more, the edge of the steps they're sitting on digging into his back. He doesn't even remember coming into the stairwell, but she pushes one of his knees out to separate his legs and then she kneels between him, dress pulled down around her waist to give him a full view of her breasts. He's only seen naked women in magazines left around The Baratie's bunk room by the other chefs, once coming across one discarded in the bathroom trash. He'd gotten off to page twenty-seven and never thought about the moment again, but now he's got this woman between his legs lowering her mouth onto his dick and he's biting down into his wrist to keep from coming too fast. He tries in vain to tell her he's going to, but instead of pulling her mouth off of him, she just looks up to his face to watch him instead, and the embarrassment crests over him harder than the orgasm, and he's covering his face and leaning back, and wondering if this is how it's supposed to be.

Patty teaches him the specifics of how to blanch citrus peels to keep them from tasting too bitter. He stuffs them inside the poultry and sets it to bake.

"What's going on with you?" Patty asks, leaning against the counter with his arms folded.

It's barely five o'clock in the morning and Sanji's still peeling his eyes open from the strange dream he had about stingray eels knocking down The Baratie door for breakfast. He glances up at Patty, at the red tint of his lips, and then back down at the counter he's wiping down. "Nothing. Just tired."

"No, I mean in general," Patty insists. "You've seemed off lately."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. Just... quiet, I guess. You don't come play checkers and me and Carne anymore. I need someone around to beat him so he can't talk shit."

Sanji shrugs. "I don't know. I'm not thirteen anymore," he laughs. "I don't really play checkers."

"Oh you're too old for checkers now," Patty says. "Big bad fifteen year old. Has plenty of time to kiss girls on the west dock when he thinks no one sees him but he can't play checkers."

Sanji whips his head around to Patty in horror. "What?"

Patty just raises an eyebrow at him. "What? You think you're so suave and secretive? This boat is only so big, you know."

Sanji shifts his shoulders, the collar of his dress shirt starting to feel uncomfortable.

"And since when did you start smoking? Why am I cleaning ash stains off your collars, hm? You turning into one of them greasy men who don't bathe after they scale fish? Didn't I teach you better than that?"

Sanji sighs and rubs his hand down his face. "I'm not a kid anymore, Patty."

"What's going on with you these days?"

"Nothing!"

"Zeff's noticed it too, you know? It's not just me and Carne."

Sanji looks up at him, hesitantly. "What do you mean?" he asks. "What'd he say?"

"Just that you're more of a shit than normal. Which means he's noticed. Which means he's worried."

"Worried? What's there to be worried about? Because I'm smoking? Half the people in here smoke."

"Yeah, but you never used to. Where'd you pick this up, just from the guys around here? Why?"

"I don't know," he shrugs, abandoning the rag and picking at his cuticles. "I just started."

"Stop that."

Sanji drops his hands on instinct at Patty's voice.

"And you got drunk after Friday's shift."

"I'm basically sixteen," he shrugs. "I'm allowed to drink. It's not like it's happening every night."

"No," Patty reasons. "But it's happening, and it never has before. I guess we're all just wondering where it's coming from or, maybe more importantly, where it will lead."

Sanji's eyes flit to him again just briefly and then he shrugs, looking over at the oven. "You know as much as me about the future." He taps the toe of his shoe against the floor while he waits for the timer to beep.

There are about six shifts in a row, including his birthday, that Sanji notices Jordy is not behind the bar, and when he finally leans against the doorframe of Zeff's office and asks about it, Zeff simply says "he doesn't work here anymore. You won't either if you don't get your ass back in that kitchen and finish cleaning your station."

Sanji is pulled up to the front of the line when Noline comes down with a bad cough that puts him on bedrest for the dinner shift. He works diligently under Zeff's orders, moves when he's told, seasons on command, and plates with accuracy. His eyes never leave the plating the area unless they're on the grill, and his legs move quickly without him even having to make the conscious effort to shift back and forth between stations. He doesn't realize he's got a burn beneath his forearm until The Baratie's door is locked and he leans back against the cooling stainless steel of the kitchen's plating window. He stares down at the red mark and runs his thumb lightly over it.

"With me," Zeff grunts as he hobbles past him.

"It's fine, doesn't hurt."

"That wasn't a question."

Sanji stares after him, annoyed, but slips between the rest of the chefs and ducks into Zeff's office with him. He watches impatiently as Zeff rummages around in the shoebox that's become their first aid kit.

"Carne tells me you've gotten better with not burning the shallot sauce."

Sanji growls under his breath. "I told you it was one time and--"

"One time is enough to ruin it for you for good."

"It hasn't ruined anything. I can make the sauce fine. I've done it again three times since then."

"Mhm," Zeff nods and hands him a tube of burn cream. "But you will always know that you burnt it the first time."

"Why does it matter?" he sighs under his breath, rubbing the cream against the burn. It's cool against the mark and it sends a soothing sensation up his arm nearly to his elbow.

"Because we don't get first times back."

Something in Zeff's tone makes Sanji look up at him to meet his gaze. Zeff just watches him for a moment and then looks pointedly at the burn. "Take care of that before it scars, okay? You have to nurse it and soothe it, and let it heal. It won't just go away by ignoring it. And, damn it, pay attention from now on. I can't have my sous chef burning himself on the grill in the middle of the dinner rush, understand?"

Sanji blinks back from him as Zeff stands and shoves past him toward the door. "Wait--! Sous chef?"

"What have I told you about making me repeat myself?"

Sanji stares after him long after the office door has shut. His chest fills with something warm and for the first time in what feels like years, he thinks he might enjoy waking up for work tomorrow.

Giulia has tan skin and dark hair that brushes over Sanji's collarbone as she trails kisses down his chest, but it's over before it even starts, because her apparent boyfriend comes back from The Baratie's bar, kicks in the door of their small boat's cabin, and shoves her off of him with an unceremonious push that sends her rolling off the bed onto the floor. Before Sanji can even object, he's got a fist punched shock-quick to the mouth and his head snaps back as the taste of blood pools in the back of his throat. He sits up and spits dark red into his palm while the guy screams at Giulia and then Sanji rounds the bed and snaps his leg up to land a kick right against the guy's jaw - enough to hear a crack right before the guy falls clattering into the small breakfast table by the window. Giulia screams, Sanji apologizes to her with a quick kiss to her cheek, he grabs his shirt, and he's gone.

Sanji's spent enough time around Carne's French rambling that he doesn't even blink when he hisses out the rolling vowels to ask Sanji what the hell is wrong with him. Sanji brushes past him, shirt still clutched in one hand and then other clutching his bleeding nose.

Noline lets out a bark of a laugh. "Oh, to be young."

"Fuck you," Sanji calls back. He leans over the handwashing sink and spits into it, running the faucet cold.

"You're getting blood in the sink!"

"Yeah no shit!" He leans forward more to run his face beneath the water.

"What did you do, huh? You get in another fight?"

"No, I didn't get in another fight."

"Then what's this?" Carne asks, gesturing wildly at him with both hands.

Someone next to Sanji coughs pointedly. He lifts himself from the sink, holding his head back to try to keep the blood from seeping out and then looks sideways at Messi, their newest bartender. Messi looks down pointedly at Sanji's bare chest and open trousers that hang loosely on his hips. Sanji chances a glance down to see strikes of lipstick smeared across his chest. He looks back up at Messi and Carne and then tilts his mouth in half a smirk and shrugs. "What do you want me to do, say no?"

"Ooh, you piss me off!" Carne snaps, tossing his hands in the air. He spins away and starts rambling in French, telling Zeff at least twice that he quits.

Messi leans forward. "Was it worth it?"

"Not even," Sanji sighs.

Messi ruffles a hand through Sanji's hair and then walks away. "Clean the sink when you're done!"

"Yeah," Sanji sighs, waving a hand at them.

Sanji sends out about a hundred ribeye au poivres, two-hundred pan-seared scallop entrees, fifty lobster tails, two hundred seafood risottos, eighty hamachi crudos, and sixty truffle and wild mushroom glazed salmons. By the end of the night, he's got oil nestled in the hollow of his throat, butter smeared over his wrist, parsley in his hair, and sweat dripping down his back as he removes the chef's coat.

"You did good," Zeff says with a single pat on the back.

He nods his thanks, exhaustion taking over before he can even work the words down from his brain to his mouth. Before he dives into cleaning, he slips out the backdoor of the kitchen and tucks a cigarette between his teeth. The lighter flickers to life and he exhales into the salty sea air.

Behind him inside the restaurant, he can still hear the faint voices calling back and forth across the kitchen, laughter trilling out and the banging pots and pans that have become his nightly ambience. He doesn't remember when The Baratie restaurant grew to what it's become. The World Economic Journal barely advertises for them anymore, no longer needing to tell people about the wonders of the floating restaurant in the sea. Word has spread around enough that they've started getting people from all over the different seas. He's walked past the slurred accents of the West Blue in the bar area and heard stories of an island called Water 7. The dining room echoed a story of a place called Loguetown, and he stood against the back wall with the rest of the chefs in clean white coats as a Marine Admiral accepted a medal of honor. They don't advertise anymore. The people just come. And they come for the romantic taste of the gravlax or the casual lunch of pan bagnat. He's had napkins slid across the dinner window where someone scribbled compliments to your chef! and lifted a hand in farewell when a table has thanked him again by name for his attentive care to their allergies. All the while, Zeff's office has a small, torn article from a newspaper pinned to the corkboard with the words "perfectly curated salads" underlined.

He rubs a hand against his eyes and then frowns down when his fingers come back wet. He swipes at his eyes again, confused why they've started tearing up and then wipes his nose on the neckline of the white t-shirt under his dress shirt.

"Er, sorry. Don't mean to bother."

Sanji sniffs quickly and stands straight, blinking at the deep voice. His feet shift defensively and his hips still, ready to swing a leg around if needed.

The guy stands there, sheepishly, with hands tucked in his pockets and shoulders pulled up by his ears. "Can I...? Do you have a spare cig by chance?"

Sanji eyes him for a moment, measuring the threat, and then slips the pack out from his pocket. He holds it out to him between his fingers.

"Thanks," the guys trots forward quickly and takes the pack, slipping one out and handing it back. "Um. L-Light-Do you have a light?"

Sanji keeps his eyes on him and hands him the lighter. "People aren't supposed to be on the back dock, you know. It's staff only."

The guy stops his attempt to light his cigarette, eyes wide. "Is--? Shit, sorry. I didn't realize. I was looking for the bar and got turned around."

"Yeah, other side, mate." He points over his shoulder in the direction of the other side of the Baratie.

"Sorry," he mumbles. He fumbles with the lighter again.

"You good?"

He finally gets the mechanism to work and lights the cigarette. He hands the lighter back with another mumbled apology, not quite meeting Sanji's eyes.

Sanji eyes him skeptically. He's probably right around Sanji's age, maybe a year younger, tan skin and dark hair. He's lanky, but a head shorter than Sanji still. There's an earring glinting from the top of an ear. He swallows, determines there's no real threat from this guy, and then leans forward on the railing again. He takes a drag, keeping his eyes on the guy regardless.

"Wait, so you work here?" he asks, tilting his head at Sanji.

Sanji nods slowly.

"Oh wow. Nice. Must be a good place to work."

He shrugs and pulls his gaze away finally. 

"You're-- You're a waiter? Or...?"

Sanji looks sideways at him. "Chef."

"No shit!" he says, shocked.

Sanji looks over at him, brows furrowed. "Why's that so hard to believe?"

"Well, you're-- I mean, you're, like, my age."

Sanji eyes him up and down. "Seventeen."

"Like I said. My age."

He mentally pats himself on the back for calling that. "What do you do for work, then?"

The boy scoffs and pulls his gaze from Sanji, looking down at the dock. "Shit. Nothing exciting. Just whatever work I can find here and there, really."

Sanji stares back at him, confused. "And you're here, eating at The Baratie?"

The boy shrugs. "I'm here with..." he sways on the spot, an odd grimace on his face as he looks over his shoulder. "Someone else paid."

Sanji watches him, rolling his words over in his head. "Your parents?"

The guy shakes his head, still not meeting Sanji's gaze.

It takes another few rounds in his head before something slots into place. He takes in the clothes the guy's wearing - nothing too fancy, but enough to be seen on the arm of someone who is - and then looks up to the strange tension in his gaze. Sanji takes another drag of his cigarette. The guy's not the first escort that Sanji's seen seated at The Baratie, but he's certainly the first one he's seen that's his own age. "You make decent money?"

The guy looks at him, possibly a bit shocked at how Sanji's figured it out without him saying it, but he doesn't ask. He just shrugs. "I guess." He takes a long drag and tilts his head back to exhale, arms hanging down at his sides.

Sanji can see the exhaustion layered in this guy's shoulders just the same as his own. Or maybe it's just dread at the exhaustion that's to come. He doesn't know if he's starting or finishing his night, but he guesses it all starts to feel the same, just like his. He fishes into his pocket and pulls out the pack, holding it out to him. "Take 'em."

The guy looks down at the pack, confused. "What?"

"You look like you need them more than me and I can just steal another from one of the guys in there," he nods back toward the door. "Really, it's fine."

The guy's mouth twitches into a smile, but he shakes his head. "That's alright. I'm not really supposed to."

"What do you mean?"

He shakes his head and then points over his shoulder in the direction of the bar on the other side. "He's not really a fan of the taste, you know?"

Sanji's brows perk a bit. "Oh. Right, got it. Well, you can keep them for another... Isn't she gonna...? I mean..." he gestures to the cigarette in the guy's fingers. "Won't she notice?"

The guy swallows and looks out across the ocean, something complicated in his face. "Uh, yeah, maybe. I'm hoping--" He shrugs. "You know, you drink enough alcohol you don't really know what's going on."

Sanji flinches at the implication.

The guy mumbles something so quiet Sanji barely catches the tail end of "won't notice it." He takes another drag and then flicks the cigarette out into the ocean. He waits, holding the smoke, and then finally exhales it slowly, blinking through it. "Well. Thanks."

For some reason, Sanji stands up from the railing and reaches out to the guy's wrist. "Hang on. Are you hungry?"

The guy looks at him strangely and then looks around them as if he's expecting to see the other person Sanji meant to ask.

"I mean, kitchen's closing up, but I can throw something together quick for you."

"Well, I... I already ate with him..."

"Oh!" Sanji blinks back from him, stupidly. "Right. Of course. Obviously. Fuck," he laughs. "Sorry, I don't-- I don't know why I... Sorry."

"It's okay," the guy laughs. His eyes crinkle in the corners with it.

Sanji lets out his own embarrassed laugh, holding the guy's gaze. His eyes are this strange light brown that Sanji doesn't know that he's seen before. He's got freckles dusting his cheeks and nose and his mouth looks soft where it rests easily in a smile. He can feel something twitching at his fingertips and it takes him a second to realize he's still holding the guy's wrist. He lets it go quickly, jolting his hand back into his pocket quicker than if he'd burned it on the flattop.

The guy scratches awkwardly at the back of his head. "Uh, alright. I'll... I'll get back to... Thanks again. For the..."

Sanji nods his way through the guy's unfinished sentences, heart pounding in his chest as he sucks down the rest of his cigarette.

"See ya."

Sanji fights against the urge to tap his shoe to the deck. He's been breaking the habit quite well these days ever since Noline called him out for it in the middle of the kitchen. He keeps his gaze down on the railing until he finally takes a chance to look up. The guy is basically at the end of the back deck, about to turn the corner to head in the direction of the bar, and it's not until he disappears beyond The Baratie that Sanji finally exhales. He leans onto the railing again and lets his head fall forward between his shoulders.

He thinks about the moment enough that it infiltrates his fucking dreams and he wakes uncomfortable in the middle of the night, pressing his fingers to his eyes, and wondering why the fuck the dream version of himself wanted so badly to push the guy against the back wall of The Baratie and taste the nicotine on his tongue for himself.

Sanji deals with it the way he deals with most things and gets lost in a tangle of limbs when a girl invites him back to her friend's boat at the west dock. He bites down and clenches his jaw as he feels her leg wrap around his waist and then he reaches down to guide himself inside her, willing himself to keep his breathing steady and not to give in too quickly.

She arches below him and he screws his eyes shut when his hips snap forward on their own accord, chasing the warmth of her. He feels her hands grip at his sides and shoulders as he moves faster, pushing harder into her, and then, embarrassingly, he presses his forehead to her shoulder as his body tremors with his orgasm.

See? he tells himself in the mirror as he shoves a toothbrush across his teeth probably harder than he needs to. You're obviously not a queer.

A fight breaks out in The Baratie bar and Zeff sends three of them off to shut it down. Sanji tears down the deck with Noline and Hosoo trailing behind him. He skids to a stop at the entrance, the sound of breaking glass hitting him before he even gets his eyes on the action. There's a group of gruff guys all with the same tattoo shining black ink on their left shoulders. On the floor beneath one of their boots is another guy, struggling to breath beneath the pressure. He's got deep black lines marked around his eyes and other tattoos sprawling up from the neck of his shirt. One glance around the rest of the bar tells Sanji all he needs to know before Noline even exhales the word pirates.

Sanji shoves through two of the patrons and pushes another aside with his knee before he stands in front of the main course of the fight. He stares up at the man with the large, heavy boot on the other's chest, and tucks his hands in his pockets. "What's going on?"

The guy looks at him, confused as to why in the world Sanji's talking to him. "Me?"

"No one else around here's doing anything interesting. So what's up with you?"

"What's up with me?" He turns to the other matching tattoo guys. "Did he just ask what's up with me?"

"Sure did, Cap."

"I'll tell you what, blondie. This scum just took down the last of my ale."

Sanji scratches at his neck, glancing over at Messi, who's leaning on the bar visibly annoyed. "He drank your beer?"

"Yes."

"Like, out of your mug?"

"No, smartass. He ordered it and it was the last of it. And I was enjoying my own and now there's none left for me."

Sanji looks back over to Messi and nods at the guy in question.

"Whale's Wharf," Messi answers.

"That shit?" Sanji asks, scrunching his nose. He looks back at the pirate. "You're fighting over cheap piss out of a tap?"

Noline clears his throat in warning.

Sanji ignores him and continues. "We got six other beers on tap. Why don't you order one of those."

"Cuz I don't want none of those," he says, leaning forward and earning a grunt from the guy below as he adds more weight to him.

"Great, well, I don't want whatever this shit is," he gestures to them, "so how do we fix this?"

"You tell me," he says. "Why don't you go fetch me a new barrel of Whale's Wharf, chore boy."

"Fuck," Hosoo sighs.

Sanji stares at the guy, tongue pressing to the back of his teeth. "Excuse me?" he finally asks.

"You heard me," he says. "Isn't that why you came out here? Run the little errands for your boss?"

Sanji takes a measured step back from him, scratching idly at an eyebrow.

"That's right," the guy laughs. "Run awa--"

Sanji's ankle connects snugly into the side of the guy's neck before he jerks his leg straight and sends the guy slamming sideways into the bar, knocking stools left and right and breaking a glass.

"Sanji!" Messi groans, tossing his arms in the air.

Sanji reaches down and yanks the other guy up by his shoulder. "You alright?"

"Yeah," he says, dusting himself off. "Thanks."

"I suggest you leave."

The guy blinks at him. "But I didn't do anything wrong."

"He's not gonna leave until you do. So you need to go."

"You're joking, right?"

"Sanji," Noline growls in warning.

Sanji gives him a look that silently says what?!

Noline steps forward to the younger guy. "Sir, can I offer you a seat in our dining room and a round of drinks for your friends on us?"

"That sounds a bit more like it."

The other guy starts lifting himself from the floor, grunting and groaning on his way up. "And what about me?" he calls over. "What are you gonna do to make sure I don't go running to the WEJ to tell them The Baratie staff is a bunch of young punks who beat up their customers?"

"As long as you accept that I did beat your ass, I don't really give a damn what you say."

"Sanji," Messi sighs.

"Anyone else wanna say my name?" Sanji asks, spinning around and looking at the rest of the patrons.

"How about I say it when I tell them I broke your skull?" the larger pirate asks. He swings an arm back and brings it slamming forward, hand outstretched like he's gonna grab Sanji by the head, but Sanji steps aside and sweeps a leg beneath him in a quick turn, knocking the guy backward once more - enough for him to stumble and then trip over one of the knocked over barstools.

Sanji stands again, pulling the pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He pulls one out with his teeth and takes his time lighting it, only pausing to kick out to the side when one of the guy's friends decides to try his hand with a weak attack.

He gets the cigarette lit in time to duck beneath a punch from someone else and then he kicks up a barstool and slams his heel into it to break it in half and send both pieces directly into two of the men's chests. "For fuck's sake!" Sanji yells, staring at them both. "It's a Wednesday! Can we at least make it to the weekend without me having to stop a fight?"

"You call this stopping it?" Hosoo asks, leaning one of the high-top tables with a tired look in his eyes.

"More than you're doing," he says. He tilts his head to the side as a fist appears from behind him and then he kicks a leg backward, hearing a satisfying grunt of pain and then a bang. A shattered glass punctuates it.

"Sanji." Messi snaps.

Sanji tosses his hands in the air. "Then don't ask for my help. I don't know what to tell you." He turns to the larger pirate who's standing up again. He points at him with the cigarette. "You. Off The Baratie. All your little matching tattooed boyfriends with you."

The guy spits on the floor of the bar and then looks over at Messi. "Keep an eye out for my review."

"Looking forward to it," Messi says.

Sanji flips through the next month's worth of newspapers until he finally finds the small square review ranting and raving about the fighting cooks of the Baratie. He cuts it from the paper and pins it in Zeff's office next to the perfect salad review right before Zeff shoves him out of the office and tells him to get to work. But when Sanji glances back through the office door window, he catches Zeff glance up at the article with a smile, and it's enough for Sanji.

Sanji fights back a yawn and loses, pausing his chopping enough to get through it. He shakes the sleep from his head and refocuses on the carrots.

"Late night?" Patty asks.

"No, just slept rough."

"Bad dreams?"

Sanji grunts back noncommittal and tosses the carrots into the bowl. He grabs two more and starts chopping again.

"Your eye's looking better," Carne says.

Sanji spares him a quick glance, but otherwise stays focused on the chopping. "It was a suckerpunch." His eye saw the less fair side of some asshole's fist about three days ago when he turned his back on him to ask the woman at the bar if she was alright.

"Suckerpunch is still a punch," Patty says. "Your pretty face doesn't need those kinds of bruises."

Sanji sets the knife down on the cutting board probably harder than he means to. "I told you to stop doing that."

"On y va," Carne murmurs.

"Je te comprends, asshole."

"Oh, you don't know that word though?" Carne asks.

Sanji holds up his middle finger.

"Ooh! The universal language!" Carne smiles.

"What's wrong with you?" Patty cuts in. "Why do you care so much about all that stuff?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean being called pretty or soft or whatever."

Sanji stares at him. "I'm a man, Patty."

"Oi, a man!" Carne yells, tossing his hands in the air.

"A man! Did you hear that Carne?" Patty yells back, gleefully.

Sanji rolls his eyes, biting down on his tongue while they guffaw back and forth. "Are you two finished?"

"I forgot, Patty, he turns eighteen next week, you know."

"I shudder to think what happens when he turns nineteen!"

"Fuck you both," he says, smile betraying himself.

Patty and Carne get out another laugh before the three of them turn back to their prep work for the day.

"Anyway, Sanji-kun," Patty continues, "I'm just saying. It's not a bad thing, you know? It's okay for you to be kind and soft and sweet. You can be both!" he adds quickly when Sanji looks up at him. "You can kick ass and beat up as many people as you want and go around sleeping with every girl you see in the restaurant, but you can also be soft and..."

"Pretty?" he asks flatly.

Patty sighs, pressing his mouth together in a tight line. "What would you like me to call you instead?"

"I don't know," he grumbles defensively. He turns back to the carrots, chopping them harder than he needs to.

"Tranquille, Sanji."

Sanji makes a conscious effort to slow his wrist and then centers himself. "I just don't like being talked to like I'm some..." he works his jaw over the words that flit through his head before he lands on "little boy or whatever." He spares a glance up at Patty, but Patty's not looking at him, exchanging a knowing look with Carne instead. Sanji stares at them, waiting. "What? What was that look?"

"What?" Patty asks, snapping his gaze up. "What, I didn't say anything."

Sanji narrows his eyes at them. "I don't like when you two do this," he says, gesturing between the two of them with his knife. "You're always having, like, silent conversations."

"We didn't say anything," Carne repeats.

"Listen, we understand you're a young man now. We will make a better effort to use terms you prefer. Can I call you handsome? Is that alright with you?"

Sanji stares at them and then sets the knife down. "I'm stepping out for a smoke."

He's out on the deck for just under ten minutes when he hears the back door creak open and then a heavy thump of a boot followed by the solid tap of a wooden peg. "I'm on my mandated smoke break," he calls out. "It's in my contract."

"What contract?"

"The one shoved up your ass."

Zeff's hand whacks the back of Sanji's head. "Watch your mouth."

Sanji tucks the cigarette into his smile.

Zeff leans down on the railing next to him with a deep sigh. "How's prep going?"

"Fine."

"Mhm, looks like you got a lot done in there already."

"Still have to finish up the vegetables, but the meat's all done."

"I saw." He folds his hands in front of him, fingers loosely knotted together.

Sanji looks sideways at him, shoulders growing tense. "What's going on? You never come out here."

Zeff frowns and shrugs. "Just wanted to catch a bit of the sunrise."

Sanji squints out across the sea. They're facing the west, so it's not like it's the best view, but high above them, he can see the pinks and oranges pushing the blue back and away to eventually fall beneath the horizon.

"What's your plan?"

Sanji looks back at Zeff with a raised eyebrow. "Uh. Like, for dinner?"

"No, not for dinner. After that."

"Just gonna clean up and go to bed?"

Zeff growls something annoyed under his breath. "Sanji, how long are you gonna work here?"

Sanji blinks back from him, confused by the question. "What do you mean?"

Zeff looks at him directly in the eyes. "I mean it. You're eighteen next week. You should be figuring out what you want to do with your life. So? I'm asking you. What is it you want to do?"

Sanji stares at him, taken aback by the question. "I don't... What are you talking about? I'm working here."

"Yeah, but, boy, you don't want to work here your whole life. Working in a restaurant is something you do when you've already lived your life. You've been here coming on a decade now."

"Barely nine years," Sanji corrects him.

"Whatever, it's all the same when you get to be my age."

"So, what? You're firing me?"

"If I have to," he says, looking at Sanji. There's no humor there.

"Screw you," Sanji laughs, pulling his gaze away. He takes another pull of his cigarette. "You're not getting off that easy. I'm gonna work here until I take over your job. I already do it better than you, anyway, so it shouldn't be long."

"That's really what you want?" Zeff asks.

Sanji looks at him, still unnerved by the seriousness in his voice. He shrugs and nods. "Yeah. I told you, I wanted to open this restaurant with you."

"We did that."

"So why would I want to leave it now? I want to watch it grow, you know?"

Zeff lets out a long breath, eyeing Sanji for a moment before he nods. "Yeah. I know what you mean."

They stand there, watching to horizon until Sanji's cigarette is nearly to the filter.

"You know you're a good kid, right?" Zeff asks.

Sanji stares at him wildly. "What?"

"You're good. No matter what."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I mean regardless of what you say or do or...want... in life. I'm always gonna- You're just- You're good, alright?"

Sanji stares at him for another beat before he lets out a small snort. "You're getting senile, old man."

Zeff grunts something lazily back at him.

Sanji narrows an eye at him. "So, you're not trying to fire me?"

"No," Zeff laughs and stands up straight again, stretching his back. "Who else is gonna knock shitty customers on their ass and get us bad reviews every week?"

Sanji's mouth tilts in a smirk.

"You're cutting into company time," Zeff says, clapping a hand on his shoulder. "Get the hell in there and chop."

He rolls his eyes, but flicks the cigarette out to the ocean.

The storm rolls in hard and heavy and Sanji fights against the winds with Messi to close the fish mouth and shut the bar down for the evening. The Baratie stays quiet for the day, except for the sound of splattering rain on the roof and the deck, and the cooks and waiters sprawl out around the tables in the dining room, reading, eating, or otherwise busying themselves to pass the slow hours of the day.

They rarely get days off, and none of them ever seem to know what to do with themselves when they're graced with one.

Sanji rests an elbow on his knee, and rolls the cigarette back and forth in his mouth as he stares down at the cards in his hand.

"Come on, kid, we ain't got all day."

"Fuck you, yes we do," he says. He pushes three of his cigarettes forward and puts his cards face down on the table.

"Oh," Hosoo says, impressed. "Okay. Call."

Sanji feels a flick at his ear and he swats quickly, frowning up at Patty. "What?" he snaps.

"What'd I tell you about smoking in the dining room?"

"Clarence is smoking too, asshole. Besides, there's no one here," he says, gesturing to the room.

"I don't care. The smell gets in the fabric of the tablecloths."

"So I'll wash them."

"Will you? Because that's what you said last time you spilled that champagne on that man and Eric ended up having to do it at three in the morning."

"Well, why'd he wait so long to start?" Sanji laughs.

"Don't be a smartass. Put it out."

He rolls his eyes and then snuffs it out in the dregs of the beer bottle next to him. They finish the hand and Sanji collects his winnings as a clap of thunder sounds from overhead.

"Gonna be a rough one," Hosoo says.

"Guess so."

"Buckle in," Zeff calls out, shuffling across the dining room. "We're in for a rocker."

The storm sets the East Blue's waves on a course to wreak havoc on anything in its way. Sanji's legs work overtime trying to keep his balance as The Baratie sways violently one way and then course corrects the other. He helps Noline drop the south anchor and then runs a towel roughly over his hair while Patty blasts him with a blowdryer.

Sanji sits on the counter in the kitchen an hour later, dry in a collared shirt and a pair of old sweatpants. He leans back against the wall and holds Eric's hair back with one hand while the guy yaks into the sink from seasickness. Sanji keeps his eyes off him and stares out across the kitchen, bored. "What about profiteroles?"

"Boring," Carne sighs, flipping through one of the many recipe books on the prep table. "We need something new. All of our desserts have been done before."

"What if we fill them with a fruit puree instead? Or simply flavor the filling?"

Carne hums, but he doesn't seem convinced. "I like where your head's at, but it needs something more."

"What if we top it with something?" Eric asks, voice raspy.

"Like what?" Sanji asks, refusing to look at him lest he start getting sick himself.

"Drizzle it with a strawberry glaze? Or whatever the filling flavor is?"

Carne tuts his tongue, shaking his head. "Is all so basic."

"Okay, hang on," Sanji says, holding his free hand out. "Forget the fruit, what if we go floral? What if we do an array of different floral profiteroles? We could do lavender, and earl grey, and rose. We could lean into richer flavors like almond and even a salted caramel."

Carne looks up at him, eyes narrowed as he considers it.

Sanji points at him. "Lavender and earl grey blend. A black tea and rose blend. And a fig and rosemary to offset the tea choices."

"We've got plenty of tea leaves to work with."

"Too many, one might say."

Carne grunts in agreement. "Okay, I like this. I like where this is going." His mouth quirks up in a smile. "Bonne, Sanji."

"Don't sound so surprised," he laughs.

Eric gags into the sink.

Sanji turns eighteen on the same day they have a dinner rush that drives him up a wall, and a bar fight that has him holding an ice pack to his shoulder that night as Patty sets a cake in front of him. The cooks sing to him on Patty's command, but Zeff doesn't join, as usual. He stands across the table from Sanji, holds his gaze, and gives him a nod and a wink.

When he crawls into his bunk that night, he finds a brand new silver lighter on his pillow with an S engraved at the bottom right corner and a note that reads "Happy birthday. I don't care how old you are, you're still a brat at the end of the day."

He's allowed on his first supply run on a warm day. It takes the better part of the day on a small boat with Patty's bad singing and Carne's mumbling comments about Sanji's smoking habits. He shuts up when Sanji beats him twice in checkers.

Dancing Lawn in a small island with cracked paved hills and tall clay buildings. There's music bursting from nearly every window and patio and Sanji's eyes glance over couples dancing in the middle of the square while a few men play guitars and passersby clap along.

The market swells with people and the flutter of berri being exchanged over booth tables. Carne piles their wagon up with some crates of meat and places a delivery order for two additional ones for the upcoming months. Patty stands back and lets Sanji take the lead at a wine stand, tasting a few different ones the guy offers. They smile, exchange comments on notes of wine, and Sanji lets out a bark of a laugh when the guy tells him how he came up with the recipe for the Malbec. He can feel Patty's eyes on him, but he doesn't have time to shoot him a confused glare because he's too busy watching the guy's hands as he uncorks another bottle that Sanji simply must try. "You've got good taste," the guy says with a soft smile. Sanji holds his gaze probably longer than he should, and his stomach roils, and he tips back the sample to stop his mouth from running dry.

They're at a fish stand when he gets distracted by a young red-haired girl who smiles at him and thanks him for letting her order first. His feet move without him really taking note of it and he's suddenly falling into step next to her asking if she'd like to get a drink with him and insisting he'll pay for whatever cocktails she'd like if only she'd grace him with her presence for just a bit longer. She laughs at him, brushes a hand down his arm, and tells him maybe another time. When she's out of view, he finally turns around to get his bearings, only to find Patty and Carne watching him with amused smirks on their faces. He shoves his hands in his pockets and storms over to them. "What?" he snaps.

"Oh nothing," Carne says.

Patty turns to Carne. "Sweetheart, dear, would you grace me with your presence for just a bit longer? I'll pay for anything you want."

"Oh shut up," Sanji growls, hiking his shoulders up as heat creeps along his neck. "You're the ones who taught me to say that stupid shit."

Carne slings an arm around Sanji and walks him away from Patty's teasing. "Listen, that was very nice of you. Sometimes, a girl will say no, though, and you need to respect that, right?"

"Obviously. It'd still be nice if she said yes." Sanji presses his tongue to the back of his teeth. He's still never had a proper girlfriend. It's hard at The Baratie, he knows that, but it'd still be nice to have something consistent in his life that's not just a bunch of grown, sweaty cooks.

"But, you know what's important?" Carne says. "You made her smile. She's going to go the rest of the day feeling good about herself, because you called her beautiful and complimented her and made her feel special. That's what's important."

Sanji sighs. "Yeah, I know."

"It felt good, yes? To see her smile because of your words?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"You see? It doesn't always have to end in a kiss or a date or...whatever else it is you look for." He waves a hand at him as Sanji rolls his eyes. "Sometimes it's just about making a person feel special, and knowing it's because of you--" Carne cuts himself off as they hear raised voices, and the two of them turn to look behind them for the source of it.

Two booths over, there are two gruff men talking to Patty with snarls on their faces and spitting down at the ground near his feet. Patty holds himself tall as the other tells him they're not keen on selling anything to him.

"What's this now?" Sanji sighs, moving to step forward.

Carne holds out an arm to stop him. "Uh, maybe we shouldn't get involved."

"What do you mean?"

"He-- He can handle this. Come on."

"Carne--"

"Look, uh," Carne flips through the berri in his fingers and then presses some into Sanji's hand. "Do me a favor. There's a stand down at the end of this street that had cornstalks. I walked past and forgot to go back to it. I need about twenty of them."

"But Patty--"

"Just get the corn, Sanji. I'll go see if he needs help."

Sanji looks back at Patty and the men a bit concerned, but he nods at Carne and heads off down the market. He waits until he's walked past two stands before he turns back and cranes his neck over the crowd to look back at them.

Carne's standing between Patty and the others now, waving his hands to tell everyone to calm down. The two men look them both up and down and give Carne a shove, gesturing for them both to walk away.

Sanji's leg shifts a bit against the pavement as he tries to resist running over to see what's going on, but he ends up turning and walking over to the corn stand, trying to rid the uncomfortable feeling in his shoulders.

Later that evening, the night sky takes over as they sail back toward the Baratie loaded up with supplies and sharing one of the bottles of wine Sanji picked out. As their conversation comes to a lull, Sanji finally gives in, and asks Patty about the interaction.

Patty talks around the topic for a bit, never quite answering Sanji's question, and when Sanji asks why he didn't just knock them out, Patty tells him sometimes people's unfortunate opinions just aren't worth the energy.

Carne refills their wine glasses and gently steers the conversation to a new topic, but Sanji continues to think about the fight long after they've arrived back at the docks.

Sanji spins a bottle in his hands and pours the rum over a glass of ice, sending the girl a wink. She laughs into her hand and thanks him for it, sliding him a few berri. "You know, normally I'd just accept payment in the form of your beautiful smile, but my boss insists I take your money." She laughs again and disappears to her friends in the corner, whispering to them and glancing back over at Sanji. They don't get another chance to talk during the evening that Sanji covers Messi's bar shift, but he watches her enjoy her drinks and conversations, and the smile never leaves her face. He thinks that maybe this is what Carne meant about compliments and the way they should be for the other person and not for what he can get from them. By the time his nineteenth birthday rolls around, he starts to realize that maybe Jordy really was just full of shit.

They get hit bad by a crew of pirates that ransacks The Baratie late in the night. Sanji stands with the rest of the crew, staring at the upturned dining tables and nursing a bruised rib.

"Alright," Zeff says, voice gruff. "Get to work. We got four hours until the doors open."

"Sir?" Eric asks. "We're still opening?"

Zeff looks back at him like he's confused why he's asking. "Of course we are. We're a restaurant, aren't we? People need to eat whether the tables are broken or not."

Sanji tucks a cigarette between his teeth and rights two of the chairs. "Hosoo. The chandelier."

Hosoo nods at him and heads off to grab the ladder and gets to work fixing the broken glass bits of the dining's room light fixture, and it stirs the rest of the crew into moving fast enough that when they open the doors, the dining room looks just like it had every other day.

Sanji slips through the door to the kitchen, steps over a pile of broken plates, around Noline as he tosses fish on the grill, and starts shouting orders for medium rare ribeye and two lobster tails. He scans down a list of scribbled orders, calling over his shoulder to "get an order of rosemary potatoes working and double check the counter for glass shards. If I see one drop of anyone's blood on one of my plates, you'll be losing a lot more when I'm done with you."

He gets a whack to the back of his head and shoots Zeff a glare.

"Stop bossing my cooks around, brat."

"I'm trying to get food out. Someone's gotta get work done while you're busy writing order forms in your little office."

Zeff grumbles something under his breath as he storms off, but Sanji's mouth curls in a smile at it. "Another salmon tare-tare on deck and two beef carpaccios!"

The Baratie continues to get its reviews about the fighting cooks, the hardass owner, and the one-eyed glare of the bartender, but more importantly is the detailed description of the food that - despite the disruptive patrons or attitude from the waitstaff - always hits the table with perfection.

The only downside is their turnover rate of the waitstaff increases over the year. They get more and more resignations from waitstaff choosing safety of the islands over the tumultuous lifestyle The Baratie has come to provide, and every time another leaves, Sanji leans back against the wall and lights a cigarette and mumbles under his breath about how weak people can be. Patty's nervous, he can tell. He thinks the business is turning into something darker and the restaurant's gaining a less favorable reputation, but Sanji's finding he kind of likes it. The restaurant runs like it doesn't give a fuck who steps into it, and isn't that just Zeff in a nutshell?

He leans into it, probably more than he should, and while he still puts care and intention into every single dish he cooks, he starts to care less about the patience he offers the customers. He spares no care about smoking in the dining room anymore, doesn't waste his time smiling at the men who look down on him for serving them, and when some stuck up bitch liutenant comes in spouting some bullshit about the wine's aroma, Sanji barely thinks twice before looking him in the eye and telling him he's dead fucking wrong, sir.

Honestly, maybe he should've drawn the line somewhere before then, because it's only ten minutes later that he's holding the guy up by his jaw in the middle of the dining room and that, really, is when he realizes things have changed in a way he can't quite turn back from.

He's lost all patience by the afternoon when he looks up to see their new chore boy sprawled on the floor gagging over something, and he's about to make some comment, except his eyes fall upon the guy standing over him, smirking, short-sleeves of a t-shirt banded around his muscles, light glancing off strands of deep green hair, and Sanji's mouth runs dry in a way it hasn't for quite some time.

Sanji deals with it the way he deals with most things, and he shifts his focus to the girl behind him. He pours all his energy into complimenting her and determinedly not thinking about the gap between the guy's legs when he sits with them widespread, or his arm where it leans back over the edge of the chair, or the way his neck stretches and shifts as he drinks down his beer.

Before he slips through the kitchen, he spares a last glance back to him, which is probably the moment he should have realized he fucked up. It's enough for the memory of him to flicker through his dreams at night until he finds himself smoking down a third cigarette on the back dock at sunrise, mentally rattling off the names of every girl he's ever been with.

The guy sticks around - evidently part of Chore Boy's little pirate crew - for four fucking days until Sanji has to watch with abject fascination as the guy takes on Hawk-Eye Mihawk on the dock right in front of him. The cigarette nearly falls from his mouth when he watches him hold out his arms, accepting his defeat with dignified sort of grace that makes Sanji's head spin stupidly, and the words tear out from his throat as he watches the guy get sliced across his chest and fall back into the waters of the East Blue.

It's only until the guy's finally whisked away on someone else's boat that Sanji can yank his attention down back down to the dock beneath his feet, the balance in his legs, and the adrenaline thrumming in his veins. The Don Krieg pirates stand across from them, fists curled and ready to fight. It's then he realizes that The Baratie really has become something else over the last ten years since he and Zeff agreed to open it up. He can remember in the blink of an eye standing right on this deck and looking up at the rundown ship they'd acquired, and every memory after that.

Now, he realizes, The Baratie is going to become a battlefield, and he'll be damned if he lets it get past those fucking wooden doors they'd spent so long picking out.

He turns to Hosoo and pulls the cigarette from his mouth. "Go to the control room and open up the fins. We gotta do everything we can to protect this place." He can feel Zeff's curious gaze on him. "Can't give the old man anything else to bitch about, right?"

"Did you just say something, you brat?" he asks.

"Yeah, I said you bitch and moan too much. Now go," he says, turning back to Hosoo.

"Yes, sir!"

Sanji tucks the cigarette back between his teeth and looks back to find Zeff watching him curiously. He gives Sanji the smallest of nods and then he's off, barking orders at the rest of the crew. Sanji steps out of the way as a few others run past him and then he looks overhead as the chore boy flings himself across the dock and over to the mast by Don Krieg.

"Sanji," Zeff says, voice quiet. "Pay close attention to how this boy fights. Don't take your eyes off him for a second until it's over, you hear me?"

Sanji looks at Zeff with a lowered eyebrow, but then he looks back across the water to find the boy gripping his straw hat and smiling wide, something blazing in his eyes. It's the same hunger he just saw in the swordsman, and he's willing to bet it's the same kind that's flashed through his own eyes when he shifts his weight from one leg to another, ready to swing.

It's been a while since he's been around someone his own age who has a burning flame sparking alive in his chest, and Sanji starts to feel his own gas tick on beneath his ribs. He can't remember the last time he felt this excited about something and he doesn't even know what it is he's anticipating. He feels Zeff's hand clap onto his shoulder and give him a tight squeeze, but Sanji doesn't take his eyes off the boy for anything. He thinks back to the way Chore Boy smiled down at him with a tilt of his head. "You should join my crew and be our cook."

There was not an ounce of blood inside Sanji that took the kid seriously, but now he stares out at him and wonders what it would be like to sail under someone who still has fire in his veins. There's no way he'd leave The Baratie. He made that decision long ago. But still, he's only nineteen, and it's nice to think about a change in his future.