Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

On his way to the Baratie, a shopping bag slung over his shoulder, Sanji was halted in his tracks by the growling of a hungry stomach.

Even after all these years, the sound sent a chill down his spine, made his palms sweat and his heartbeat quicken. He spun on his heel, searching the darkened alleyway for the source of the sound, because he knew for a fact that the sound didn’t come from him.

The sunlight caught the reflective sheen of intuitive brown eyes, and Sanji jumped back, startled, as a stray dog nestled between an upturned bin and a pile of sodden cardboard boxes, whining in the back of its throat. Its black-brown fur was matted, and there was a scar beneath its left eye, and it was watching Sanji intently, ears droopy. It made no move towards him, and no move away, staying exactly where it was hunched in the corner, hidden behind rubbish and debris.

“Um. Hello,” Sanji said eloquently, thankful that the dog couldn’t understand him. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.”

The stray cocked its head to the side, one of its ears flicking as if it were hearing a high-pitched sound from a near distance. Other than that, it made no move towards or away from him, just continued to blink stupidly at him. Great, Sanji thought, I’m talking to a dog. Thank God Zeff isn’t here. “Well,” Sanji took an uncertain step backwards. “If you could just stay where you are, I’ll be going now…”

He was interrupted mid-step by another low growl, and he glanced at the dog to check if its fangs were bared, and he was about to get a chunk taken out of his arm for his troubles, but instead it was the hungry growling of the mutt's seemingly empty stomach, reminding him why he stopped in the first place. Now that Sanji thought about it, the dog did look a little sallow and emancipated - not that he knew anything about dogs, mind you, but he assumed that the symptoms were the same on animals as they were on people - and instead of turning around and continuing to the Baratie for the shift he was most likely going to be late for, he sighed and riffled through his bag for his lunch. Apparently, his inability to leave anyone hungry extended to animals as well.

Rummaging through the bag, he pulled out his lunch, a delicious sandwich in a crisp ciabatta roll with pastrami, Swiss cheese, aloi and cured meats that he was looking forward to, and forced himself to remove all the meat from the innards. There was a part of him that wanted to see if the dog would eat from his hand, but he wasn’t looking forward to losing his fingers in the process.

“Here you go,” Sanji tossed the cured meats to the ground, and the dog pounced on them eagerly, almost before they landed. He watched, fascinated, as the meats disappeared faster than he could blink, and then the dog was staring up at him, tail wagging, eyes bright. “That’s all I’ve got. I’m sorry. I'd best be off now, it was good meeting you…”

He didn’t want Zeff to chew him out for being late, so he hurried off towards the Baratie, trying not to think about the stray with the big brown eyes and the rumbling stomach happily eating his lunch.

It was easy for him to forget all about the stray. Zeff chewed him out for only being ten minutes early instead of fifteen, and he had plenty of prep work waiting for him that took him right until service to finish. The lunch rush was chaotic and frantic, and the dinner rush was obscene, full of incompetence and bad mouthing and Patty and Carne busting Sanji’s balls, and he frankly didn’t have time to think about the stray. But he thought, when he spent his ten-minute break smoking out back, that he saw the glint of two wise brown eyes watching him from the darkness, the cherry of his cigarette reflected in its gaze.

He tried very hard to put it out of his mind, and for the most part, he succeeded. Tucked into bed that night, exhausted and aching in all the right ways and satisfied right down to his bones, he thought he heard the sounds of baying and whining outside his window, and the riffle of something going through the rubbish, but he was fast asleep before he could let it worry him.

The second time Sanji saw the stray, it wasn’t alone. He took the shortcut home from the butchers with thick cuts of meat wrapped in parchment paper and cured meats tucked carefully in the bottom of the bag. He was going to ask Zeff about making a bone broth for the risotto instead of using their chicken stock - he had asked the butcher for their extra bones, and he heard them jangling together as he walked.

The stray literally jumped out of the darkness and scared the absolute crap out of him. Yelping, he reared back and stumbled away as the little bastard watched him with its chest pressed low to the ground and its tail wagging so fast it defied the speed of sound, little more than a blur. In the light of a new day, Sanji took the time to look at it, really look at it, and take it all in.

It had floppy ears and a deep chocolate coat of wavy fur, and the most intelligent brown eyes that he had ever seen. Its wagging tail was curled up behind it and ended in a shock of long frizzy fur, and it had a curved scar dangerously close to its eye, furless and white with long-healed scar tissue. There was a patch of lighter brown fur, closer to a coffee colour, on its chest. Though its teeth weren’t bared in aggression, he could see how sharp they were, despite its long, lolling tongue.

“Oh, it’s you.” For some reason, Sanji felt relief at the sight of the familiar dog from the week previous. He had hardly thought about the stray since that day when it had gobbled up his lunch, but the fact that he was being accosted by a familiar dog and not some other stray filled him with a strange sort of relief. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have anything for you today.”

The dog whined and covered its nose with a paw. Sanji felt immediately bad for the poor thing - it did look mighty thin and lanky, surely he had something he could throw at it from his bag - but all thoughts of concern flew from his mind at the sight of the black wolfdog looking mutt slinking from the shadows.

It was massive with wiry muscles and fur as black as the darkest midnight. It was missing one of its eyes, the torn flesh around it devoid of fur and marred with the pink-white of old scar tissue, and it was covered in scars, bites and deep gouges and a nasty-looking slice through its muscled chest. Its yellow eyes were trained on Sanji as it slinked out of the shadows, belly to the ground, with its massively sharp fangs bared.

Sanji felt himself taking frightened steps backwards to get as far away from this mutt as possible as it stalked forwards before it came to a sudden stop by the smaller, friendlier dog, who yipped at the sight of its friend. They were both looking at Sanji expectantly, and he wished for a ridiculous second that he knew how to speak dog so he could hopefully get out of this unscathed.

“Alright, you brute,” Sanji raised his hands in what he hoped the larger dog would interpret as harmless, even as its black lips pulled back to reveal the roots of its canines, and it growled low and threateningly in its throat. “Put those fangs away, I’m no threat to you even if I tried to be.”

With his back pressed against the wall, he tried to shimmer around the two dogs as far as he could go, giving them the widest berth possible. But the first dog he met barked and leapt in front of him, wagging its tail and its front legs dancing, as if it wanted Sanji to stay. Maybe, any other day, he might have. He had time before his shift started, and the stray was admittedly pretty cute, but he was certain that the longer he stayed here, the more likely the risks of that larger dog sinking its fangs into his forearm became.

“Sorry,” Sanji tried to apologise to the first stray, whose ears immediately dropped as if it could understand him. “I know you’re hungry, but I don’t have any food this time. And I really got to go before your friend tries to eat me…”

The stray whined sadly, and the sound sent a stab of heartache deep into Sanji’s chest. Why the hell did he care about this dog? It was pathetic. If Zeff could see him now…

He tried to gingerly escape the sad eyes of the mutt, slowly edging out from the alleyway, but before he could even take two steps, the larger black dog surged forward and tore through the plastic bag that held the discarded bones for his broth with its teeth. They clattered loudly to the ground, the juxtaposition of white and red on brown stark in this empty-looking alley, and the brown-furred stray yipped happily as it dove forward to gnaw at the bones, the larger dog flicking its tail in disdain at Sanji as it cracked a bone in half with its powerful teeth and licked out the marrow.

Sanji stared, gobsmacked, at the mess. The bones that he had sought out specifically for a bone broth, that he had brought out of his own pocket and planned to surprise Zeff with, were taken by a couple of strays. He didn’t know what to do. So he just turned around and left, the sound of the bones being crunched effortlessly between the jaws of that large, scarred hound repeating in his memory. He should count himself lucky that the bones were discarded cow bones and not his own.

The third time that Sanji saw the stray, he actually went out of his way to take the long path to the Baratie. He avoided the alleyway with everything he had and went down an entirely different street just to put a little more distance between them. The last thing he wanted was to run into the little curly-haired dog and its large, toothy friend.

He wasn’t carrying any meats this time, just an assortment of cheeses and wine for a fondue. He was going to make it as an after-service snack for the rest of the cooks to munch on as they tidied the kitchen and prepped for the next day. He had it all planned out, and he intentionally left Carne and Patty to get the meats so the smell didn’t have any chance of attracting the dogs to him, and this time he was going to make it back to the Baratie with his groceries and his dignity intact.

He froze at a familiar yip. He should’ve kept going, ignoring the sound and pretending to never hear it in the first place, but he turned around and saw the floppy ears, warm brown eyes and curly coat of the first stray. He was alone in this street, right in the middle of the work day with schools in session, and the stray was sitting in the middle of the path, its back straight, its tongue lolling out of its mouth, and its tail wagging eagerly against the ground, kicking up dust. He glanced around and saw the other dog, the larger one with the pointy ears and the black coat, hidden mostly in the darkness with nothing but its snout and the gleam of its eyes sticking out into the sunlight.

“No,” Sanji told the first dog, and its ears immediately fell. “I cannot keep feeding you. It isn’t good for any of us.”

The dog whined sadly in its throat, but Sanji waggled his finger at it. “I don’t have any meat for you today, so I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

The big black stray made a grumbling noise, and Sanji’s eyes were immediately drawn to it just in case it decided it wanted to make up for the lack of meat by taking a bite out of him. To his surprise, another dog emerged from where it had been hidden behind the black dog’s flank, its head down and its eyes watery.

It was practically trembling in fear. It was on the smaller side of medium with short floppy ears and a dark brown coat of short, wiry fur. Its snout was a lighter shade than the rest of it, almost a tan colour, and it looked up at Sanji with something he couldn’t place. Hope? Fear? How was he supposed to know?

He needed to leave. The whole point of changing the food he brought and going down an alternate path was to avoid feeding these dogs entirely, but there was something about the way they looked at him, with keen intelligence and understanding, as if they wanted him to stick around. The first stray was still wagging its tail, still looking at Sanji as if it knew he would give in. And God damn it - the bloody thing was right.

“Fine,” He relented, riffling through his bag. The new stray perked up its head, and the first stray’s wagging tail somehow got even faster. The second stray seemed indifferent, but Sanji thought he caught its eyes watching his hands as he pulled a packet of pre-sliced Havarti from the bag. It was the only thing he could willingly part with. “But this is the last time, you hear me? I can’t keep buying food for the restaurant just for you to eat it all before I even get there. I have a life outside filling your bellies, you know.”

The packet came with fifteen slices of Havarti cheese. He tore open the packet and threw five slices towards the smallest dog, five slices towards the biggest dog, and five slices towards the first stray. The other two dove right in, licking them from the floor and devouring them in seconds, but the first stray padded up to Sanji and ate the cheese right from his hand before he could throw it, licking at his fingers and leaving saliva sticky across his digits. Sanji didn’t know if that meant that the dog trusted him or if it just couldn’t wait any longer, but his surprise was overridden by his immediate disgust at the strands of saliva connecting his fingers.

“Right,” Sanji wiped his hand on the brick wall. It only made it worse. “Well, if that’s all, then I’m leaving. You have to find someone else to feed you from now on. This is the last time.”

Zeff didn’t ask about the missing packet of Havarti when he arrived back at the restaurant, and Sanji fled towards the bathrooms to wash his hands before Zeff could question him. Thankfully, the service was so busy that he didn’t have the chance.

That night, he heard the sounds outside his bedroom again, low throaty sounds and the sound of something skittering against the concrete. He threw off the covers, marched to the window in his pyjamas and slid it open. He stuck his head out and looked down to the street below, prepared to shout at whoever was making such a ruckus at this time of night, only to freeze when three sets of gleaming eyes turned up to look at him, reflecting in the moonlight. Sanji pulled back, shut his window, and went straight back to bed.

The fourth time Sanji saw the stray, he had resigned himself to his fate. Along with his regular shop, he purchased sausage links from the butcher, little more than rejects, all odd-shaped and unsellable, practically free and on the verge of expiring. The butcher had been desperate to get rid of them. He could feel the weight of them wrapped in grease paper as he walked through the shortcut, the alley opening up on either side.

He was not surprised to see the first three strays, but the fourth one was unexpected. It had pointy ears, an extremely curly red-brown coat and eyes that seemed to be judging him. It was about the same size as the first stray, the one that always seemed happy to see Sanji, who bounded up to him now and threw its body against his knees as he entered the alley.

“Alright, alright,” Sanji couldn’t help but laugh as he rubbed at the fur between the dogs’ ears. Somehow, it seemed even happier, its tail whipping near-painfully against his legs. When had he stopped fearing that the stray might bite him? “Yes, I know, I’m here. You can probably smell the food, huh?”

The other dog, the smaller one, barked once in excitement, its stubby tail wagging so fast that its back legs were almost off the ground. The bigger dog, the black brute with the one eye, sat impassively on the ground, unbothered. It had apparently decided, after multiple repeat visits where Sanji had fed it each time, that he was no longer a threat. But the new stray was watching him warily, as if expecting the worst. It was a beautiful thing, with sleek curly fur, the red-brown colour of mahogany. There was a splotch of lighter discolouration across one of its front legs.

“Aren’t you a gorgeous thing?” He cooed to it as he approached. It was probably stupid - he had just gotten so used to these strays greeting him with excitement or indifference that he was a little surprised when the new stray growled and bared its teeth at him. He jerked a hand away before it could put those fangs to good use. “Fine. But don’t think I won’t stop trying,” he jerked his thumb at the biggest stray, watching them intently now, its ears flicking. “If I won the brute over than it’s only a matter of time before you’re next.”

The first stray was weaving itself in and out between Sanji’s legs, leaving trails of its fur across his suit pants. It nosed at the plastic bag, at the sausages hidden at the bottom, wrapped in paper. It scratched at his knee, whining low in its throat, drool dripping in long strands from the corners of its mouth. “Hold on, you can’t eat the plastic,” Sanji scolded as he gently pushed it away. He riffled through the bag and pulled the sausages out. “Just a second, just a second…”

He tore through the paper and revealed the slippery pile of sausages, and all the strays looked at him in interest. He scattered them around the alley, making sure each dog had their own pile that they didn’t have to share or fight over, and he watched in amusement as all four of them dove onto the sausages eagerly. He fished his phone from his back pocket and took a quick photo. He needed to learn more about dogs. He’d never had any pets, not in the traditional sense of the word, but suddenly having these four strays waiting for him and relying on him for food made him wonder if this was what it would feel like.

“Well, I’ve got to get going,” he patted the first stray on the back as he passed it. “You enjoy that now. Don’t eat it all at once.”

Back at the Baratie, he handed the bag of groceries over to Luis and opened the gallery on his phone. “Oi,” Sanji tapped Carne and Patty on the shoulder where they were prepping carrots and onions for the soup. “You ever seen dogs like these?”

They frowned down at the photo he took today of the strays. “Not me,” Carne frowned. “Don’t know anything about dogs.”

“They look like mutts to me,” Patty squinted at them, leaning so close his nose almost touched the screen. “Why? Whose are they?”

“I don’t know,” Sanji shrugged. “Just some strays I see on my way home. Was hoping someone might know what breed they are.”

“Hold on,” Carne pointed at the screen. “Are they eating sausages?”

Sanji quickly tucked the phone away and moved to put on his apron. “Shut up, that’s a stupid thing to say,” He grumbled as he turned away. He felt Carne and Patty’s eyes on him, but he forced himself to ignore them. He didn’t owe them an explanation. “Get chopping, you morons, or Zeff will have your heads.”

He flat-out refused to think about the dogs for the rest of the shift. Zeff actually seemed to be in a rare, good mood for once. Service was busy, and he was constantly moving, overheated from standing beside the ovens and the stove, rushing from station to station, even leaving the kitchen to help deliver meals to tables. He thought he saw a young man standing by the front doors, partially hidden by the darkness, watching him move across the dining room. Under the lights, his hair almost seemed green.

That night, Sanji finished wiping down the kitchen and sweeping up the discards. He went to throw out the rubbish, heavy bags clutched in his hands, and saw that first fucking stray waiting there for him, illuminated by the light streaming out from the open back door. Its head perked up, and its tail began wagging against the ground, recognising Sanji’s silhouette.

“Persistent little bastard, aren’t you? I’ve already fed you today,” Sanji dumped the bag of food scraps on the ground. Meat discards, the ends of vegetables, egg shells and uneaten food spilled out and scattered on the floor, and the stray immediately dove in to chow down. Sanji moved to put the rest of the bags in the bin. “I know people talk about bottomless stomachs, but this is ridiculous.” The dog pulled away from its second Sanji-provided meal of the day to bark at him. “This is the last time you come here begging for food, got it? I’ve got a reputation to uphold, and you coming here and whining to be fed isn’t doing either of us any favours.”

When he went back inside, the dog was still chowing down on the remains of the dinner rush, and he could’ve sworn that he saw the gleam of more eyes in the darkness.

On his way to bed, drained and exhausted in all the best ways, Sanji passed Zeff’s office and was halted mid-step by his voice calling, “Brat.”

“What?” Sanji asked as he stuck his head through the door, frowning 

The desk in Zeff’s office, crammed into the corner of the small room to make space for a large desk chair that was more comfortable than Zeff’s own bed, was laden with their weekly invoice for groceries and the accounts for the money spent on fresh produce and meat. Zeff was just as meticulous and paranoid about food stores as Sanji was, and his own count of their stock, written on a yellow piece of paper in his bold, jerky scrawl, was at the top of the pile.

As Zeff leaned back, the desk chair squeaked ominously. Sanji had expected the old thing to give out years before, but it just kept kicking. “What’s this about stray dogs?”

Defeated, Sanji blew his fringe out of his eye, and it fell right back down to cover half his vision. “They told you, huh? Big mouths.”

“I’d like to hope so, considering I pay their wages and give them a place to stay,” Zeff grunted, and Sanji had to agree with that one. If he concentrated, he could hear Carne and Patty and some of the other chefs snoring in the cooks' quarters on the floor below them, sandwiched between Zeff and Sanji’s floor and the ground floor, where the kitchen and dining room resided. “You’ve got some sort of picture?”

“There are these dogs,” Sanji admitted. He wasn’t ashamed, but it sounded crazy to actually say it out loud. “I see them on my way from the store all the time. I think they’re strays. I was just wondering if anybody might know what breed they are.”

“Let me see it then,” Zeff gestured. Sanji pulled his phone from his pocket and went looking for the picture. “I’ve never had dogs of my own, but there were plenty of strays around when I was growing up. Did you ever have any pets before the shipwreck?"

Sanji didn't like thinking of his life before the shipwreck, so he didn’t. “Not really,” Sanji said as he handed Zeff his phone. “We had plenty of rats around, though. I would feed them kitchen scraps.”

Thankfully, all of Zeff’s attention seemed to be on the picture. He squinted down at it, his large, sun-weathered hands and calloused fingers wrapping around the phone and making it look tiny in his grasp. He gave Sanji an unimpressed but fond look from under his brows. “I can see where all our missing stock has been going,” Sanji flushed a brilliant shade of red. “I guess you can’t leave animals hungry either, huh?”

“I didn’t give them much,” Sanji said, embarrassed. “And the sausages were almost free because the butcher had been trying to get rid of them.”

“As long as it came out of your paycheck,” Zeff said, but Sanji knew it was an empty threat. “I don’t know much about dog breeds. Sorry, eggplant.”

“It’s fine,” Sanji shrugged as he took the phone back. “I didn’t expect much anyway. Just thought it couldn’t hurt to ask.”

“Get your butt to bed,” Zeff said, dismissing Sanji by turning to type away at his computer. It was an ancient thing with missing keys, but he refused to upgrade. “And stop thinking about these dogs, or it’ll drive you mad.”

That night, Sanji lay in bed and found he couldn’t sleep. He didn’t know why - his body and mind were tired enough that he should’ve dropped right off as soon as he got into bed. But, despite Zeff’s advice, he was thinking about the dogs again. He wondered if they belonged to anyone, if they had owners and families who missed them and were looking for them. If their only real meals were the ones that Sanji gave them, maybe that was why they always looked so eager to see him. If that’s why the first stray kept appearing with more and more friends.

An hour of Sanji just staring blearily at his ceiling, and his phone dinged with an email notification. He frowned at it where it rested, charging, on his bedside table. Who the hell would be sending him an email at one in the morning on a Friday?

But a glance at the screen told him that the email was from Zeff - a series of photos attached to articles with brief descriptions of certain dog breeds. The message from Zeff: hope you can sleep easier tonight with an answer to your question. But if you aren’t in tip-top shape for lunch service tomorrow, then I’m going to roster you as a waiter.

Grinning, Sanji sat up and scrolled through the email and the pictures attached. Zeff had spent the past hour researching breeds of dogs and had sent Sanji the ones that were the most similar to the stray dogs he had grown so attached to.

The first dog that Sanji recognised, the big black dog that was covered in scars and missing an eye, was apparently a Calupoh. The newest dog he had met today, with the pointy ears and the curly mahogany coat, was a Mudi. The third one, the little timid one with the short ears and stumpy tail, was a Deutscher Jagdterrier. And apparently, to Sanji’s great relief, the first stray that had started this whole thing, that seemed the most attached to Sanji and happiest to see him, was a Wetterhoun. He was so glad to finally have names for the dogs, instead of calling them Stray One, Stray Two, Stray Three and Stray Four, or Happy, Brute, Bashful and Sweety, like he had been doing in his head.

He slept soundly after that, relieved and satisfied, and was sure he was imagining the howling from the street below his window.

At the beginning of the lunch service, Patty entered through the swinging double doors that led between the kitchen and the dining room with a confused frown on his face. “Hey, boss?” He looked at Zeff, uncertainly. “There are some kids here who I think are asking for Sanji?”

The look of confusion on Zeff’s face matched Sanji’s own expression. “Kids?” Zeff asked. “What kids?”

“And how do you think they’re asking for me?” Sanji demanded. “Either they are, or they aren’t.”

“It’s, uh...” Carne trailed off, meeting Patty’s eyes. “It’s exactly as he says, boss.”

Sanji listened through the window that separated front of house and back of house, and over the din of conversation, the scraping of chair legs and the clatter of cutlery on plates, there was a voice louder than the rest, practically shouting. “I told you! I don’t know his name. But he’s got blond hair, and he’s really tall, and he has really long legs, and he works here, and he always gives us food because he knows that we’re hungry and - ow! Nami, why did you hit me? I didn’t say anything wrong!”

Everybody that Sanji knew was all right here with him in the Baratie, so he couldn’t imagine who these people might be. Zeff caught his eye and jerked his head towards the doors. “Go see what they want. Take their order or get rid of them, I don’t care. Don’t let them scare away any customers.”

Exasperated, Sanji shucked his apron and threw it across the counter. He washed his hands, wiped them on his pants and snatched up a notepad on his way out the door. The guests were easy to find. There were four of them sitting together in one of the round booths in the back of the room, and the other patrons were looking at them, whispering amongst themselves.

“Luffy, shush!” One of them hissed, a man with thick curly hair and a dark complexion wearing stained overalls. He was hiding behind his hands, half slumped in his seat, peering out from between his fingers “Everybody is looking at us!”

“He’s right,” said an unimpressed woman with auburn hair and a deep frown, wearing a crop top and a leggings and large chucks. “You don’t even know his name; you can’t seriously expect him to just come and talk to us.”

The third man, muscled and covered in scars and missing an eye, had odd green hair that made him look like a Chia Pet and three golden earrings dangling from his ear, was glaring around the room at the patrons on the other tables until they were cowed and turned away. “Luffy knows what he’s doing.”

The fourth and final person sitting at the table, and the one shouting at anybody who would listen and banging his fork and knife fisted in his hands on the table, had dark wavy hair and warm brown eyes, and Sanji felt like he knew him already, despite never meeting him before. He wore a pair of long shorts that ended at his knees and a red t-shirt with an anchor on it. He had a faint, pale scar that curved under one of his eyes, and a grin bright enough to rival the sun. He had a worn straw hat perched on his head, utterly defying the dress code for the establishment.

The second his eyes caught on Sanji, he pointed at him with his fork, and his expression blew open like fireworks. “You!” He shouted, and Sanji winced at the volume. “See, Zoro? I told you that he works here!”

The brute with the green hair fixed the woman with a smirk, and she rolled her eyes at him. Sanji came to a stop beside their table, the notepad and pen in his hand. “Good afternoon, welcome to the Baratie,” he greeted. “I was told that you were requesting my service specifically,” he tried to keep the cheer in his voice and not let any of his irritation bleed through. “May I take your order, or would you like a little longer to look through the menus…?”

“You!” Cried the man with the straw hat again. “It’s you! What’s your name?”

Sanji felt his smile growing brittle. “Sanji,” He said tersely. “What would you like to order?”

“Sanji! Zoro, his name is Sanji!” The straw hat boy grabbed the grumpy, green-haired guy and shook him so roughly that he bounced around like a bobblehead toy. “I’m Luffy! This is Zoro, and he’s my best friend in the whole world,” he poked the green-haired guy - Zoro, apparently - in the shoulder. “And this is Nami!” He pointed at the woman. “And this is Usopp!” He pointed at the man still hiding behind his hands. “Hi!”

Was Sanji’s eye twitching, or was that just his imagination? “How nice,” He managed. “About your order…”

“Everything!” Luffy picked up a menu and waved it in Sanji’s face. “We want one of everything - no, we want two of everything, and - !”

The woman pinched his nose between her fingers and yanked him downwards, effectively cutting him off. “Shut up, stupid,” Nami hissed. “We don’t have the money for that!”

“Aw,” Luffy whined. “But I want to eat more of Sanji’s food. It’s always so good!”

Though Sanji was certain that he had never served any of these people before, he decided it was better not to point it out. They were obviously suffering from some sort of delusion or mass hysteria. At this point, he wouldn’t put it past them. “That’s wonderful to hear.” It was only years of practice that kept his professionalism in place. “Would you like a little more time to decide, or would you like me to bring you a selection of the specials?”

“Oh,” The guy wearing the overalls – Usopp? – sat up eagerly. “What are the specials?”

Finally, a part of the script that Sanji had memorised. No surprises there. “Tonight, we are serving Coq au vin, a French dish of chicken braised with wine, lardons, mushrooms, and optional garlic. Bouillabaisse, the classic fish stew with red rascasse, sea robin and conger. Ratatouille, a vegetarian dish of stewed tomatoes, garlic, onions, zucchini, eggplant, and herbs. For a sweetness, we have-“

“Yeah, whatever,” Zoro waved his hand absently and kicked his feet up to rest on the table. Sanji stared at his muddy boots on their pristine white tablecloths, gobsmacked, and was only glad that he was the one out here taking their order and not Zeff. “Send it all out.”

“Meat!” Luffy shouted, looking at Sanji with wild eyes. “Do any of those special things have meat in them?”

Sanji glanced down at the menu in his arms. “Croque monsieur?” he asked, and Luffy stared at him dumbly. “Uh, a fancy ham and cheese sandwich.”

“Yeah! I want that!” Luffy was practically jumping up and down in his seat. “Nami, can I have that?”

“Sure, Luffy,” Nami sighed, but she seemed mostly fond. “You can have the meat sandwich.”

“And anything for the lady?” Sanji turned to Nami and offered her his most flattering smile. “Anything to drink? We have a variety of desserts for your choosing.”

Zoro snorted a laugh, but Nami looked fed up with him already, her brows drawn low and her arms crossed over her chest. “Just the specials and Luffy’s fancy meat sandwich.”

“Uh, maybe go heavy on the meat!” Usopp offered shyly. Sanji followed his glance over to Luffy, who was staring intently at the picture of the croque monsieur on the menu with drool on his chin. “Yeah, extra meat.”

Almost in a daze, Sanji made his way back to the kitchen, where Zeff and the rest of the chefs were watching him. “Well?” Zeff demanded. “What did they want?”

“Food,” Sanji handed Carne the ticket. “And to say hi?”

Zeff grunted. “That’s it?”

“I think so?” Sanji couldn’t remember the last time he had been so confused. “They acted as if they knew me, but I’m pretty sure that I’ve never met them before.”

“Well, serve them their meals and get them out of here,” Zeff turned away to return to chopping his onions. “We won’t turn them away, but they’re scaring away our other customers.”

Honestly, Sanji couldn’t agree more. There was something about them that was disconcerting, something eerie that he just couldn’t put his finger on. Nobody was really that friendly to a stranger, right? They probably needed something from him, wanted free meals or a new hang-out place or something, but he had no idea. He didn’t have any friends, not outside the other cooks and waiters at the Baratie, but he was pretty sure that they didn’t behave like the gang of fools in the dining room.

When the doors opened behind Ricard on his way to deliver their meals, he could’ve sworn he could hear Luffy talking about eating delicious sausages, and the rest of his friends shushing him.

Sanji thought that would be the last he saw of them. He thought that, having satisfied their curiosity and filled their bellies with the best food that the Baratie had to offer, they would leave and never come back. But to his surprise, Luffy just kept coming.

Sometimes he would drag Zoro or Usopp or the lovely Nami along, but mostly, it was just Luffy who would come and sit at a table by himself, just to be with Sanji. He ordered their most meat-focused meal and would sit there until Sanji went on his break, and would chat with him, make him laugh despite himself and tell Sanji all about his day. Sanji was perplexed. Who the hell was this kid, and why was he so determined to be Sanji’s friend?

But it was working. Good God, it was working. There was just something about his guileless charm and his genuine good-nature that drew Sanji in like a moth to a flame, and when Sanji hung up his apron and left the kitchen for his break,  his eyes would scan the dining room, looking for a familiar head of unruly hair and a beaten straw hat. Despite his best intentions, Sanji found himself enjoying Luffy’s company and couldn’t help but feel like they were becoming the good friends that Luffy was so sure they already were.

Even Luffy’s other friends, he found himself liking. Usopp and his stories that Sanji never knew if he could believe, Nami with her beauty and the way she would ask the most intelligent questions about the food, even Zoro with the easy repartee he had with Luffy and his witty remarks he had about the other patrons that Sanji couldn’t help secretly agreeing with, but could never get away with saying himself.

He found himself giving them special treatment. Not anything crazy, not anything that would get his ass kicked by Zeff, but little things. An extra handful of their hand-cut beer-battered stake fries on their order or a larger-than-usual cut of their beef wellington. He made them drinks he knew they liked, some experiments that Zeff wouldn’t let him try out for service and would bring them a bowl of fresh prawns and tartare sauce to snack on when he joined them for his break. If Zeff had noticed, he hadn’t said anything yet.

He had been seeing the strays around a lot more often, too. Almost every night when he put the rubbish out, he would see the four of them sitting there, as if they were waiting for him. He had taken to putting meat scraps and things aside instead of throwing them out with the rest of the rubbish to feed them with, instead of them digging through the bins.

One day, he looked at the Calupoh tearing through the fat of a steak, with its missing eye and scar-covered fur, and said, stupidly, “I met a guy recently who looks like you,” and the dog had looked up at him like he was crazy. “He’s a brute, though. I like you much more.”

All the other dogs had made a sound that was almost a laugh, but that would’ve been crazy.

It got to the point where all the other cooks had started paying notice. One day, Patty swept into the kitchen from the dining room and threw his hands up in the air. “What the hell is up with you and strays, Sanji?” He’d demanded, exasperated. “First, it’s the dogs that hang around the back all hours of the night, and now it’s those damned kids! Can’t you get any normal friends?”

The rest of the cooks sniggered, but Sanji ignored them, as practised as he was. “It’s not my fault that your only friend is your right hand,” he replied. He jerked his head through the window in the dining room, not pausing in his expert chopping of the mushrooms. “What have they done now?”

“Nothing,” Patty was so defeated that he couldn’t even come up with a good enough retort. “They just keep asking for you. They do know that that’s not how it works, right?”

“I’ve explained it to them once or twice. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they can be very instant,” Sanji said. “I’ll go out soon; it’s almost my break anyway. Did they order anything?”

“Yeah,” Patty scoffed. “The one with the hat said, ‘tell Sanji to make us whatever he thinks we’ll like the most’. Can you believe that kid?”

Strangely, after such a short time of getting to know them day in and day out, Sanji could. He hid his smile in his mushrooms. While the rest of the cooks hustled to prepare and send out real, official orders, Sanji worked on an entirely separate project. A plate of onigiri for Zoro, which Luffy had told him was Zoro’s favourite snack, before Zoro could stop him. A bowl of hot and spicy soup with extra peppers floating in the red broth for Usopp, who had told him many tales about competing in the spice-tolerance championships. A not-too-sweet mikan sando with hand-whipped cream and soft white bread that Sanji had made that morning for Nami, a rare sweet treat that he knew she would not allow herself otherwise.  As for Luffy, he carved up juicy slices of the roast lamb and smoked beef that he and Zeff had worked on all last night and most of the morning. He forwent adding any roast vegetables, but he couldn’t help but add a few potatoes, for the sake of a balanced meal. Everybody liked potatoes, right? Well, if he didn’t eat them, Usopp probably would, to quell the burn of the soup in his mouth.

He carried them all out alongside a tray of raspberry lemonade made with hand-crushed lemons and raspberries, topped with little umbrellas that Luffy loved and the maraschino cherries that Usopp enjoyed even though he couldn’t pronounce maraschino.

“Sanji!” Luffy cried at the sight of him. “Did you bring us something yummy?”

“I think so,” Sanji laughed as he slid the right plates in front of the correct people. “Mangez et savourez.”

He felt great pride in watching these people – loyal customers? Friends? Pains in his ass? – enjoy his food with gusto. It was different from the way other patrons enjoyed their food. He always hoped that they enjoyed themselves, that their food was tasty as well as filling and satisfying, but with these guys, he actually wanted to know what they thought. He wanted to know if Usopp’s soup was spicy enough or too much for his taste buds to handle. He wanted to know if Nami’s sando was just the right amount of sweet and if the mikan’s were ripe enough. He wanted to know if Zoro was actually going to admit that he liked these onigiri instead of turning his nose up and pretending that they were bad, despite eating the whole plate. He wanted to know if Luffy would actually eat the roast potatoes just because he liked Sanji’s cooking enough to give them a try.

“So, Sanji,” Nami said politely as she wiped the cream from her face with a napkin. Sanji was instantly alert. “What do you do for fun?”

“I do a lot of cooking,” Sanji said. He laughed a little - duh. “As you can probably tell.”

“But that’s what you do for a job, though,” Luffy licked gravy from his fingers. “When you go home, what do you do for fun, thats like, not cooking?”

Sanji blinked at him, confused. He didn’t even know how to answer that. “Well, I live here, so… I guess I sleep? Plan new recipes? Oh!” He clicked his fingers as a memory struck him. “There are these stray dogs that hang out around the back of the restaurant these days. I fed them once, and they just started following me around.”

Usopp choked on his soup, and Sanji winced as he saw a dribble come out of his nose. “Oh, wow! That is totally a fact that we never knew about!”

He yelped as Zoro kicked him hard enough in the shin to bounce the table. Sanji frowned at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Nami waved Usopp off as he was sputtering in pain and clutching his knee. “It’s just that we’ve all seen those dogs around, they’re actually - “

“Why did you do it?” Luffy asked, staring at Sanji so intently that it felt like he was peering deep into his very soul, more serious than Sanji had ever seen him.

He felt his hands grow sweaty under the attention. “Do what?”

“Feed the dogs,” Luffy said simply, as if it were obvious. “Why did you feed them? You didn’t have to. They’re just dogs.”

At least Sanji didn’t have to think up an answer - it was the same answer that he’d had since he was ten years old, stranded on that rock with Zeff silent on the other side, both of them starving and dying and maybe already dead in ways that Sanji will never know and will never get back. “Because they were hungry. Because I will always feed anyone who is hungry - even animals, I guess.”

Luffy’s unwavering attention made Sanji feel a little bit like the floor was falling out from underneath him, crumbling all around and taking the world down with it until the only things left were Sanji and Luffy’s concentrated focus, his expressionless face, his eyes so intense that it made Sanji’s mouth dry. But then, Luffy broke into a smile wide enough to crinkle up his eyes, and he laughed, joyous and unrestrained. “I knew you were a good person! I just knew it!”

For some strange, unexplained reason, Sanji felt like he had just been presented with a test and accidentally passed.

One of his favourite pastimes, other than cooking with Zeff and feeding the dogs, was learning about his new friends. Friends – he still couldn’t believe that he could claim that he had friends, now, all because Luffy must’ve seen him coming home from the store or something and had decided he must make good food.

Nami was studying accounting through an online class. Not because she cared about the job, really, but she thought that knowing everything there was to know about money would be useful. She worked as a meteorologist and forecasted the weather for the local news stations. Not presenting, she was quite adamant, because she didn’t want to be on camera despite Sanji’s many assurances that she certainly had the face for a live broadcast. She lived in a small house with her sister on a mikan grove at the edge of the city, and Sanji was shocked to learn that he had already met Nojiko, considering that very mikan grove was where Zeff ordered most of their citrus produce for the Baratie.

Usopp worked as a mechanic at the car repair store in town and ended up with grease and oil in his hair more often than not. He was one of the most skilled mechanics there, he claimed, and would be running the place soon enough. In his spare time when he wasn’t being dragged around on adventures by Luffy, he did volunteer work at the community centre, inspiring the children there with grand tales of his escapades and running tabletop role playing games for them, leading them on quests and journeys of great skill. He had a girlfriend, Sanji was silently stunned to note, a lovely young woman named Kaya, whom Usopp promised to bring to the Baratie one day for Sanji to meet. In any other circumstance, Sanji might’ve doubted Usopp’s claim, but his expression went so starry-eyed and tender at the thought of her that it couldn’t have been anything other than the absolute truth.

Zoro didn’t so much as tell Sanji what he did for a living, but more… told him what he did for fun? Sanji wasn’t sure. He trained in Kenjutsu and Santoryu at the local gym slash martial arts studio. He competed in competitions around the world, which is how he lost his eye and got most of his scars - Sanji was horrified at the knowledge that all the swords they fought with were very real and very sharp. He wasn’t sure if he did that for a living, though. He seemed to mostly follow Luffy around and did whatever he wanted to do, an ever-present shadow. He seemed to get money somehow, but maybe it was the reward from the seemingly endless competitions he had won? Payment for all the scars, for the missing eye, for the massive scar on his chest that he had shown Sanji once, proudly, as if your body being torn apart was something to be proud of. It just made Sanji nauseous.

Luffy… Sanji still had no idea what Luffy actually did, and he doubted that he ever would. He seemed to do everything and nothing all at once. He volunteered at the animal shelter on the weekends and ran errands for people during the week. He worked at the docks and helped unload ships and tie knots for rigging. He went out fishing with his brothers on Monday and Wednesday, even though he couldn’t swim, and they made a pretty penny selling all the fish they caught. He delivered letters for the post office and moved boxes for Dadan. He and his brothers went foraging for goods in the forest at the far side of town. It was a strange and eclectic collection of jobs, and Sanji still didn’t know if any of these earned him money or if they were just some things that he liked to do. He lived with his brothers in a large hollowed-out ship that was too unfit to sail and would cost too much to fix, and for somebody who lived on the top floor of a restaurant, Sanji thought that was pretty damn cool.

On one Tuesday morning, before the afternoon rush really started, Sanji slunk out of the kitchen early to sit with Luffy. Just Luffy, today, whose schedule was more sporadic and free-falling than the rest of his friends, and he seemed perfectly happy to wait patiently for Sanji and his food all day, despite Sanji knowing for a fact that he didn’t have a patient bone in his body. It felt strangely intimate, sitting at the small two-top across from Luffy, the single focus of all his unwavering attention.

“One day,” Luffy told him proudly in a voice barely above a whisper, as if they were sharing a secret so important that the safest place for Sanji to keep it was locked away within his ribcage with all his other secrets. “I’m going to find the One Piece.”

Frowning, Sanji drew patterns into the pristine white tablecloth with his finger. “What’s that?”

“I’ll know it when I see it. Some say it’s just a myth, but I know it’s real. It’s out there, somewhere, and I’m going to find it.” Luffy’s grin was intense, sharp around the edges. He leaned forward across the table, almost nose-to-nose with Sanji, his expression almost consuming him. “What about you? What’s Sanji’s dream?”

“I don’t really have one,” Sanji forced himself to tear his eyes from Luffy’s gaze. It felt like a black hole that he was being steadily dragged into.

Luffy laughed, and it would’ve been mocking from anyone else, but coming from Luffy, it just felt like he was sharing a joke that only Sanji was in on. “Everybody has a dream. Even you.”

It was the motion of Luffy sitting back that drew Sanji’s eyes back up. There was something about his face… he wasn’t forcing Sanji to speak, but the way he smiled slightly and leaned forward in his seat as if hanging off of his every syllable that had the words falling from Sanji’s mouth before he could stop them. He wanted to tell Luffy, he realised, wanted to tell Luffy his dream that he hadn’t told anyone since he was ten, since the shipwreck and the storm and the eighty-five days on The Rock. “They say that there’s a sea out there somewhere with the most amazing fish from all around the world. Beautiful, delicious, the best things you’ve ever tasted. I want to find it, and open a restaurant, and feed as many people as I can with all the fish I can catch.”

“Wow,” Luffy sounded genuinely awed, as if Sanji’s dream meant something to him. “I would eat there every single day! What would you name it?”

The words came to him unbidden, thought about daily since he was young enough to have such dreams, unchanging since he was a boy. “The All Blue.”

Luffy gaped at him as if that were the most unbelievable thing he had ever heard. “Maybe we’ll find the special sea and the One Piece together,” he suggested, eyes wide. “Oh! Maybe the One Piece is in the special sea!”

“Wouldn’t that be crazy?” Sanji laughed.

“Not that crazy,” Luffy said.

One night, Sanji dreamt of the shipwreck, of the pouring rain and the crashing of the waves over his head as he plummeted through the water, drowning, swept away by the currents. He dreamt of The Rock, of the endless grey and oppressive heat and the starvation deep in his bones, that he could feel in every movement at every moment. The total awareness as he was slowly dying, wasting away with nobody to mourn him. The fear of death and the fear of continuing to live in such a hell, warring as he struggled.

He woke with a gasp, sitting up in bed. Rain was pounding on his shut bedroom window, lightning crackling and thunder rumbling in the distance. He was breathing hard, caked in sweat. He could feel his heart jackrabbiting in his chest. He could still taste the putrid bile at the back of his throat as his body digested itself.

Usually, on nights like these, when he couldn’t distinguish between the feeling of The Rock and the softness of his bed, or the crashing of the waves over his head and the patter of rain on his window, he would find his way downstairs to the kitchen and would go through the Baratie’s stores once, twice, as many times as it took for his hands to stop shaking and his heartrate to slow. But tonight, something drew him to the back door, a magnetic north like the waves are pulled by the moon. He grabbed a tray of zucchini fritters from the fridge, the ones left for the cooks to snack on, and made his way outside.

It was cold and wet, as he should’ve expected. He didn’t put on his slippers, a dressing gown, or anything. He sat on the back step under the veranda and watched the raindrops fall from the gutter and make ripples in the puddles. He munched on a fritter - even cold, they were good.

There was a small bark, a quiet yip, and Sanji glanced over to see the perpetually tenacious Wetterhoun slunk out of the darkness between the bins and crawled over to Sanji on his belly, head low. Not as if he were afraid or wary, but as if he noticed Sanji’s distress and was trying not to spook him.

“Hey,” Sanji greeted the stray when he came to a stop beside him. “Rough night for you, too, huh? Where are your friends?”

Predictably, the dog didn’t answer. He climbed the steps to press himself against Sanji’s thigh and made a low, comforting sound in the back of his throat. Sanji could feel the rumbling vibration of it against him. “Do you have a home to go back to? Is that where your friends are?” he glanced around. “I’m surprised that brute of yours isn’t around. He seems to always be with you.”

The Wetterhoun moved to lay his head and most of his upper body across Sanji’s thighs. He froze, stunned. All his life, he had been warned about how feral or dangerous stray dogs could be, how they were slow to trust and quick to violence, how he would sooner lose a finger than befriend one. And he knew from the very beginning, when he was feeding them on his grocery trips, that these dogs were different, all of them, not just this bemusing Wetterhoun. But with the shadows of The Rock still needling in Sanji’s vision and his body feeling not quite his own, it felt like something miraculous that this stray would choose Sanji to climb up to and rest his head in his lap, trusting him to protect him and care for him and treat him with more kindness than he's ever experienced while living on the street. It was enough to make Sanji’s already untrustworthy heart skip a beat.

“You shouldn’t trust me so much, you know,” he murmured softly. With one hand, he carded his fingers through the long, curly fur at the top of the Wetterhoun’s head, between his floppy ears. “I know you think I’m wonderful because I’ve been feeding you, but I’m not really all that great.”

Making a grumpy noise, the Wetterhoun craned his neck forward so it could lightly nibble at the fingers of Sanji’s other hand without disturbing the one in his fur. It didn’t hurt, and it obviously wasn’t trying to break skin, but should he be worried about germs and diseases or something? Was rabies an issue?

But then he realised that the dog had moved on from his reproachful nibbling and was licking the salt and grease from the zucchini fritters from his fingers. He laughed, charmed despite himself, and reached for the pile on the tray on the step above him. “You’re insatiable,” he teased as he fed the Wetterhoun a fritter. He devoured it immediately, before he froze, displeased with the zucchini, and started chewing again. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were out here. Next time, I’ll bring you some sort of meat, like bacon bits or -"

“Eggplant.”

Sanji craned his head back to peer upside down at Zeff, who had emerged from the backdoor to the kitchen without bothering to turn on any of the lights. It was strange that Sanji hadn’t heard the thump of his prosthetic across the kitchen tiles, but his blood was still loud in his ears, and the rain was thunderous on the tin roof above him, it didn't surprise him that he had missed it. The Wetterhoun didn’t seem bothered by Zeff’s appearance, just gave his tail a single happy thump before he went back to nibbling at a fritter. Zeff looked down at the dog happy in his lap and sighed.

“You weren’t in bed,” Zeff grunted, stroking his beard. He had untied it from its tight braid to sleep in, and it was unruly in ways he never let anybody else see. Nobody but Sanji. “Went looking for you.”

“Sorry,” Sanji said, and meant it. “Needed some fresh air. Just… hanging out with my new best friend.”

The Wetterhoun gave a happy little bark, and Zeff looked down towards it. “I thought I told you not to feed the strays.”

“I know,” Sanji shrugged. “Just can’t help it, though. They’re hungry.”

Zeff didn’t say anything to that. He understood Sanji’s complex better than anyone else on the planet. “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Zeff grunted. “Those kids who come through here all the time. The one with the hat, the boy in the overalls, the lady, the moss ball,” Sanji snorted a laugh. “What are they to you? Are they… friends?”

To anyone else, it might’ve been strange that Zeff was so hesitant about this. But Sanji had never had friends before, especially not any that went out of their way to see him or were people outside of the Baratie. He probably didn’t want to put a label on what they were in case that made it tangible enough to break. “I think so,” Sanji focused on the Wetterhoun, who he was sure was almost falling asleep in his lap. “I mean, I hope so. Nobody has actually said as much yet, but I don’t know what else we could be.”

“Good,” Zeff nodded. “If you ever… I don’t know. I don’t know how to do this. If you needed time away from the kitchen to ‘hang out’ or whatever the fuck kids do these days, then all you need to do is ask.”

Sanji was glad he couldn’t see Zeff. He doubted the old man would be able to get through any of this if he had Sanji’s eyes on him. “I don’t even know what we would do outside of the restaurant. Hang out? What does that even mean?” He shook his head, amused. “But thanks. I’ll keep it in mind.”

Grunting, Zeff turned to go back inside. “Don’t be too long.”

“I’ll be right in,” Sanji assured. The last thing he wanted was for Zeff to worry, especially about him.

But Zeff froze at the doorway, hand on the doorframe. “Eggplant?”

“Yeah?”

“The dog stays outside.”

The door shut behind Zeff, and Sanji couldn’t help but laugh. The Wetterhoun licked gently at his fingers, and he finally felt his heart settle in his chest.

Head down, Sanji was concentrating on the temperamental onions sautéing on the stove in front of him, prickling at his eyes and making the whole kitchen smell savoury and delicious. Patty and Carne were avoiding him like the plague, surreptitiously wiping the tears from their eyes, sniffling at the sting of the onions.

When the doors burst open, Sanji jumped so high that he dropped his wooden spoon and hit his head on the combustion fan above him. Zeff swore and gripped hard to the edge of the counter as his prosthetic slid out from under him. Patty and Carne both screamed like scared little girls, and both of them leapt away. There was a cacophonous clatter of pots and pans and utensils as all the cooks dropped what they were doing in surprise and turned towards the double doors. Sanji didn’t want to look. He had a feeling that he knew exactly what he would find.

“Sanji!” Luffy cried at the top of his lungs. He stood on his toes, craning his neck, to search for Sanji through the sea of cooks. “Where is my Sanji?”

“I’m here, Luffy,” Sanji sighed, wiping his hands on his apron. “What’s the matter?”

“Oi!” Zeff barked, glowering at Luffy as he bounded through the kitchen to Sanji’s side. “You little brat, you can’t be in here! Cooks only! Can’t you see Sanji is busy?”

But instead of being cowed as most people would’ve, Luffy just turned his wide-eyed, innocent gaze onto Zeff and beamed at him. “Whoa, old man Zeff! Did you really teach Sanji everything he knows? His food tastes so good, better than anything I’ve ever eaten in my whole life, so your food must be just as good!”

Zeff blinked, surprised. He glanced at Sanji, who could only shrug. He had long ago stopped trying to understand the whims and thoughts of Luffy. “Uh… thank you?”

Luffy turned back to Sanji and wrestled his phone out of one of the many pockets of his black cargo shorts. “Sanji! I was trying to send you a funny picture I took, but Usopp told me that we don’t have your phone number. Why don’t I have your phone number?”

“Uh,” Sanji blinked down at him. “Because you never asked for it? I didn’t think you’d want it.”

“That’s stupid,” Luffy frowned. “Of course, I want Sanji’s phone number. How else am I going to talk to you all the time? I have Zoro’s number and Nami’s number and Usopp’s number, and they’re my friends. Why wouldn’t I want your number? You’re my friend too.”

“Oh,” Sometimes, when Sanji looked down into Luffy’s open expression and kind eyes, he felt like he was staring down into something otherworldly, a person who didn’t belong in this world or the next, untouchable and ethereal. How could he possibly begin to understand this boy who lived his life like a game and who was so unafraid that he befriended anybody who smiled at him? “I can probably give it to you now if you want it?”

“Yes!” Luffy pumped his fist in the air and practically shoved his phone into Sanji’s chest. “Then I can talk to you all the time!”

Though Sanji tried not to pry, he couldn’t help but glance at Luffy’s phone screen. He found that you could learn a lot about a person based on their wallpaper. He didn’t have a password, the hellion. The front screen was a picture of Luffy being squished between a blond-haired boy with a burn scar across his milky eye and a blue button-up top, and another boy with tanned skin and unruly black hair just like Luffy’s, shirtless and tattooed and wearing a necklace made of thick red beads. The home screen was slightly blurry but definitely of Zoro struggling to hold Luffy in his arms, as if Luffy had sprinted at him and launched himself at Zoro, totally expecting him to catch him, and Usopp clinging to his back like a monkey, arms and legs wrapped around Zoro’s torso, one of his hands covering Zoro’s only eye. Nami was in the foreground, having taken the selfie, and she seemed to be laughing so hard that there were tears in her eyes. Sanji smiled to himself as he put his number into Luffy’s contacts and sent himself a message.

“Here,” Sanji handed it back to him. “Now get out of here before you give Zeff an aneurysm.”

“Thanks, Sanji!” Luffy grinned, already sending him a flurry of messages. He was paying so much attention to his phone that he would’ve smacked right into the door of Ricard hadn’t opened them just at the right moment to deliver an order. “Now I can talk to you even when you’re here and I’m at home! This is going to be great!”

Though there was a little bead of unease growing in Sanji’s chest, the first thing he did when he clocked off at the end of the night was check his phone and read through all of Luffy’s messages, including but not limited to the meme he had tried to send him earlier that day and the funny picture of a seagull trying to eat a bird much too big for itself that he had taken on the docks. He smiled as he added Luffy’s contact to his phone. He had foolishly thought that it would be a great idea to have Luffy’s number – he’d be able to talk to him even when he wasn’t at the Baratie, be able to ask questions and have conversation with the first real friend his age that he’d ever had.

That was, until three in the morning when his phone started ringing. At first, Sanji thought he was dreaming and let it ring out into silence. But then the phone started ringing again, vibrating immediately on his bedside table before the silence had even settled. He groaned and fumbled for the phone, answering it and bringing it to his ear before checking the caller ID and groggily mumbling, “’ello?”

“Sanji!” Luffy screamed so loudly that his voice was still ringing in Sanji’s ears. “It’s me! It’s Luffy!”

Who the fuck else could it possibly be? “Hi, Luffy,” Sanji rolled onto his stomach and ran a hand down his face. “Do you know what time it is?”

“It’s really late at night,” Luffy said cheerfully.  “Or really early in the morning. I don’t know which one is right.”

Frowning, Sanji pulled the phone just far enough to check the time, the bright light momentarily blinding him. “It’s three thirty in the morning,” and then a bolt of fear shot through him, icy and almost painful, and he blinked the sleep from his eyes and pushed himself up a little straighter. “Wait, Luffy, is something wrong? Is someone hurt? Is there an emergency?”

“No? Why would there be an emergency?” Luffy sounded so innocent and young that it made Sanji feel stupid for ever thinking something was wrong.

“Because you’re calling me at three thirty in the morning.”

“Oh! I was just so excited to call you that I couldn’t wait.”

Sanji pinched his nose in exasperation. “I was sleeping, Luffy. Why aren’t you sleeping? You should be sleeping.”

Before Luffy could reply, Sanji heard someone’s voice in the background, sounding as groggy and disgruntled as Sanji felt. “Luf? Are you on the phone? Who the hell are you calling at this time of night?”

“Hi Ace! I’m calling Sanji,” Luffy was saying. “The cook from the restaurant that makes the best food in the whole world and -"

“Luffy, hang up the phone. You can talk to him tomorrow. This is the time when normal people are sleeping.”

“Okay! By Sanji!”

And just like that, as suddenly as the call started, it ended, and Sanji was left staring at his phone, watching as the screen dimmed. He threw it back onto the bedside table, buried his face in his pillow and forced himself to go back to sleep.

A little-known secret around the Baratie, known only by those who had been around for a long enough time, was that Sanji knew how to fight. Not just throwing punches and haymakers and hoping they found their mark - real fighting, trained fighting, learned from Zeff right after The Rock. He knew he had a temper, an anger that he never really knew what to do with but felt festering within his chest anyway, as firmly wrapped around his heart as love was. There was nothing he could do about it. He thought, sometimes, on particularly bad days when the sound of his own breathing set him off and nobody in the restaurant, not a customer of a chef, was competent enough for him, that he was born with the anger, and he would die with the anger and know nothing but fury and rage in between.

Zeff taught him Red-Leg when he was eleven. A year after The Rock, when Sanji had mastered chopping and deep frying and salting, Zeff had taught him how to fight, how to channel that unstoppable rage into something productive, something that would hurt people who deserved it. Keep his hands clean, safe, and unharmed so he can use them to the best of his abilities in the kitchen. Sanji knew from a young age that he was good at two things - cooking and fighting.

When he saw those kids - teenagers with pimply faces and slow-growing moustaches - throwing rocks at the strays, the strays that he had come to consider as his, he lost it.

“Hey!” He barked, growling almost as loud as the Calupoh where it was standing in front of the Mudi and the Deutscher Jagdterrier. The Wetterhoun was standing off to the side, barking and barking and barking. It’s what had drawn Sanji’s attention out here, actually. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The kids sniggered at Sanji. “What the hell do you want, freak?”

“This is private property,” Sanji took a step forward, hands balled at his sides. The Calupoh matched him step-for-step, bleeding from a cut above its eyebrow, matting its black fur. Honestly, Sanji had no idea if the alley behind the Baratie was private property, but he suspected that if he said so with enough authority, the teens would listen. “And who the hell throws rocks at dogs, you psycho? Get the hell out of here.”

“Oh yeah?” Another kid wiped his nose with his sleeve. He pulled another, rather sizable rock from his pocket, which looked honestly like a hunk of brick from a building somewhere and hucked it mercilessly at the Deutscher Jagdterrier, who yelped in sudden pain and jumped back. The rest of the strays converged on it, surrounding it in a huddle of their bodies while it whined and pawed at its smarting nose. Sanji saw red. “What are you going to do about it, you - ?”

Sanji didn’t even give the teen time to finish his taunt. He surged forward and cracked his knee upwards and silenced the bully by breaking his jaw and biting his teeth into his tongue. He screamed, long and loud, as he crumbled to the ground holding his face. Sanji didn’t give his friends time to react – his other foot found its way into the second bully's nose in a spout of blood and the crack of bone, and he twisted and swung his other foot around to knock into the side of the final bully’s head, sending him crashing face-first into the brick wall. He collapsed in the rubbish bins with a clang!

“Get out of here!” Sanji snapped as the boy with the broken nose and the boy with the concussion helped their friend with the broken jaw off the ground and scurried backwards out of the alley. “And if I ever see you twits here again, then you’ll have more than broken bones to worry about!”

As soon as they disappeared around the corner, Sanji rounded on the strays, falling to his feet around their tight huddle. He checked them over. The Calupoh seemed the worst off, bleeding from a slight cut, but nothing nearly as graphic as its missing eye. The Deutscher Jagdterrier pressed its head into Sanji’s hand when he ran his fingers through its fur.

“I’m sorry,” he told it in low, soothing tones. “You didn’t deserve that, none of you deserved that. Are you okay?” He prodded the smarting snout, and the Deutscher Jagdterrier sneezed. “Well, it doesn’t seem like anything is broken. Don’t worry about them anymore. They won’t be coming back; I’ll make sure of it. God, do you guys really have nobody to go home to? If you’re out here tonight, then I’ll bring you something to keep you warm…”

The next day, Sanji was helping Patty and Carne change out the menu items advertised on the outer-facing windows of the Baratie when the doors were flung open, and Zoro burst into the restaurant. Sanji froze at the top of the ladder and frowned down at him. “What’s the matter with you?” He asked. “Has that grass on your head finally overgrown your brain?”

Ignoring him, Zoro marched forward and pushed Carne and Patty away from the bottom of the ladder so he could wrap his hand around the metal and squint up at Sanji. Instinctually, Sanji glanced around for Luffy but couldn’t see him anywhere. He couldn’t see Nami or Usopp either. Was this the first time that Zoro had willingly entered the restaurant without accompanying the rest of their friends?

“You can fight?” Zoro demanded, and Sanji immediately turned to look down at Patty and Carne, who looked as perplexed as Sanji felt. “Why did you never tell me that you can fight?”

“How the hell do you know about that?” Sanji retorted. He was pretty positive that he had never fought in front of Zoro, and nobody but the longest-lasting chefs knew about Red-Leg. The only thing he could think of was the bullies in the alleyway the other day, but nobody had been there except for the dogs. “Have you been watching me?”

“Come to the gym on your next day off,” Zoro insisted instead of answering.

“What?” Sanji felt dizzy in ways that had nothing to do with looking down from the top of a ladder. “Alright, this is crazy. Firstly, I don’t get days off, mosshead, and secondly, I have no reason to go to your stinky gym -”

“The old man will give you a day off if you ask for it,” Zoro said, and how the absolute hell did he even know that? “Just come, alright? It’ll be worth it, I promise.”

And then, just like that, he was gone, leaving as suddenly as he arrived. Carne rushed forward to hold onto the ladder as it wobbled. He glanced back down to find them both watching him, asking him silent questions, but he honestly didn’t understand it either. What the hell had just happened? “Did I fall and hit my head and now I’m stuck in a nightmare?” He asked them. They laughed and went back to work.

But Sanji couldn’t stop thinking about it. How the hell had Zoro known about Red-Leg, and why did he want him to meet him at the gym? He couldn’t figure it out, but he was nothing if not curious. He needed to know before it drove him crazy.

The next day, he asked Zeff for the morning off, and it was granted to him without hesitation. He could’ve asked for the whole day off, but he felt too bad about leaving all the prep and the early morning rush to the rest of the cooks, and Zeff, who would undoubtedly be the one to pick up Sanji’s slack, so he was only willing to give Zoro the morning.

It turned out that other than winning competitions, Zoro also worked at the gym as a martial arts instructor, teaching young people self-defence and older students his perfected art of Kenjutsu. Sanji was strangely touched at the sight of him correcting a young boy's stance with gentle taps with the end of his wooden staff against the outside of his foot.

When Zoro caught sight of him, he frowned and called a break. His students dispersed, and Zoro marched up to Sanji. “Why the hell are you wearing that?”

“What?” Offended, Sanji glanced down at his uniform, at the three-piece suit that he wore every day. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Is that what you usually work out in?” Zoro asked.

“Work out? Is that why I’m here?” Sanji scowled at him. “You didn’t tell me what you wanted from me when you demanded I take the time off and come. You could’ve led with that.”

“What did you think you were coming here for?” Zoro demanded.

“Not working out or training or anything like that,” Sanji shook his head. “I don’t need to work out. And I think our brand of exercise is very different. So, thank you for the invitation, it was more polite than I thought a neanderthal brute like you could manage, but if we’ve got a rush back at the Baratie, so I’ll be on my way… what the hell are you doing?”

While Sanji was talking, Zoro had stalked back to the training mat and took his shirt off so he was wearing little more than a green haramaki and billowing pants, barefoot. The scar on his chest looked more gruesome now that Sanji could see the full extent of it. He pulled a couple of swords off the rack on the wall and turned to face Sanji. “Fight me.”

Sanji eyed the swords. They were dulled, ending in rounded points, but obviously swords meant to harm. “What?”

“Fight me,” Zoro insisted. He clamped a third sword between his teeth, like an absolute madman, and spoke around the hilt, his words muffled but distinguishable as if he had plenty of experience. “You like fighting, I can tell, and you’re good at it. And don’t think I haven’t noticed all that anger you’ve got in you. Sooner or later, you’re going to burst and hurt anyone in the crossfire. So, fight me.”

“This is totally insane, you know that?” Sanji laughed incredulously, but he was already rolling up his sleeves. “What do you think that this is going to accomplish?”

“I don’t know. Maybe nothing,” Zoro grinned around the hilt of his katana. “Maybe something fun. So come on, idiot cook, come fight me. Unless you’re too scared to get a little bruised.”

He had barely gotten the words out before Sanji was already striking, surging upwards with his leg and going for a strike across his ribs. Zoro grinned and parried his attack with the blade of one of his swords and swung for Sanji’s head. He hated to admit it, but it actually felt pretty good. It had been a very, very long time since Sanji had fought anyone he would consider an equal. Nobody he’d fought had given him that muscle-burning and adrenaline-inducing thrill that he got from fighting Zoro, and the moss-headed bastard was right, Sanji really did need a good fight. He hadn’t known how much he needed it until he was right in the thick of it, ducking and weaving and dancing around Zoro’s swords as they sang through the air, glinting under the harsh fluorescent lights overhead. Zoro’s students were all gathered around, watching with wide-eyed rapt attention, and it gave Sanji a type of thrill that he hadn’t felt in a long time. Days before, fighting off those bullies from attacking Sanji’s strays had given him a hint of the taste, but this, fighting Zoro with all the fever of a man possessed, was like being fed over and over and over again.

When he returned to the Baratie just in time for the lunch rush, he was limping and covered in bruises, dried blood crusted from a split lip, but he was grinning, satisfied in ways he hadn’t been for a long time. Zeff must have seen something in his eyes, because he took one look at him, at the state he was in, and nodded as if he understood. Sanji suspected that he probably did. They were more alike than either of them was willing to admit.

He tasted the blood on his teeth throughout the whole service, but it was worth it.

Strangely, life repeated itself. He was walking home from the store, his hands laden down with bags filled with groceries, whistling to himself. He was lost in his own thoughts, looking idly around for any of his strays hiding in the shadows and waiting to jump out at him so he could feed them.

Stays jumped out at him, blocking his path. That wasn’t the strange bit. The strangest part, of course, was that he did not recognise these dogs.

There was a large, tan-coloured dog with rippling muscles across its bulky form, with short, almost-blond fur and floppy ears and thick drool dripping from its mouth, its expression twitching as if it couldn’t decide. Just behind it was another big dog with long limbs and a pointy face, long fur that shagged off of it and short ears, watching Sanji intently. And even further back, hiding partially behind a crumbled section of wall, was another, slightly smaller dog with a curled tail that almost touched its back, with black fur, tan markings across its face and a white underbelly.

“Oh, hello,” Sanji greeted, already reaching into his bag for food. These days, he always brought a little extra from the butchers or the grocers on his trips to the store, in case he ran into his four favourite strays. “I think I know some friends of yours. Voracious appetite, those ones. Are you hungry too?”

He threw a handful of jerky onto the ground, smoked and sliced thinly from the butcher's that cost him three dollars for a pound. It landed between him and the dogs. The large drooling one looked at it blankly, almost uncomprehendingly, but the smallest one stared at it with something hungry in its eyes, licking its lips. Sanji didn’t mind. “That’s okay,” He mused as he walked by them. A shiver went down his spine at the proximity, but he didn’t know why. They seemed harmless enough, and he had his fair share of experience with strays. “That’s yours in any case, if you get hungry later.”

The dogs parted for him as he moved past them, continuing on his way towards the Baratie. He moved past the littlest dog, and he didn’t know what came over him, what sort of instincts and awareness left him since becoming acquainted with the strays he was so fond of, because he absentmindedly reached his hand down to brush between the dogs’ ears, just like he would’ve with the Wetterhoun.

Immediately, the little stray jumped backwards and growled at Sanji, baring its fangs. Sanji raised his hands in apology. “Sorry! My bad. I’m too used to my overly affectionate strays. Won’t happen again.”

He paused, remembering the first time this happened to him, and fished his phone from his pocket. He snapped a picture of the three strays, the two largest looking at him with varying expressions – indifference, hostility, defensiveness – and offered them a mildly sarcastic thumbs up. The smallest dog was taking advantage of their distraction to lap up all the jerky crumbs flying everywhere in its haste. “Thanks. Can’t wait to tell my friends about the new strays around town. I don’t know why I’m still talking to you, though. This is just getting weird now.”

That night, Zeff helped Sanji Google different dog breeds, Sanji leaning over the back of his chair and pointing out the right pictures that correlated and was able to narrow down the breeds of the new strays. The biggest one, a Mastiff. The long, indifferent one, a Belgian Tervuren. The smaller grumpy one, a Whippet. Sanji felt satisfied just by knowing.

The next day, when Luffy and the gang came to the Baratie, they all immediately wrinkled their noses up and leaned away from him in disgust. “What’s wrong?” Sanji frowned, looking down at himself. His clothes were clean, untouched, not a speck on them.

“You smell weird,” Luffy looked at him seriously. Sanji felt like a deer in headlights. “Why do you smell like that?”

“Uh, I don’t know. I don’t smell anything different. We’re preparing fish in the kitchen, maybe that’s it. I did just go out for a smoke - oh!” Sanji pulled his phone from his pocket. “Look at these dogs I saw on my way home yesterday. I think they’re strays, just like the other ones. These ones might be a little meaner, though.”

He held the phone in the middle of the table as all four of his friends leaned forward to peer at the dogs in the picture. Sanji got the chance to really study their expressions, and their faces were… odd. Zoro looked thunderously angry, and Nami was worrying her lip between her teeth, and Usopp brought his hands to his mouth to chew on his nails with wide eyes. Luffy’s expression was perfectly blank, eyes darting between the three dogs and Sanji’s face as if worried he was going to disappear between one blink and the next. His hands were curled into fists on the table. He was still, so still, unnaturally so. There was something in his eyes that Sanji couldn’t place, but it scared him a little bit.

“Where did you see them?” Zoro demanded, the first to break the silence.

“There’s a shortcut,” Sanji pulled his phone back, wary. They were all looking at him with so much intensity that he resisted the urge to squirm under their scrutiny. “I take it when I go between the grocery store and the restaurant.”

“We know it,” Luffy said, his eyes never leaving Sanji.

“You guys are really starting to freak me out,” Sanji laughed nervously, glancing between Nami, Usopp and Zoro. He couldn’t bear to look at Luffy. “What’s going on? Do you know who these dogs belong to?”

Nami leaned forward and wrapped Sanji’s hand between hers, her smooth fingers and cool rings a new, blinding sensation as she smiled at him. It didn’t quite reach her eyes, but all his worries and fears vanished in an instant, as if they were never there at all. “Don’t worry, Sanji darling, just be careful out there, okay?”

And, really, how could Sanji possibly disagree?

His life continued as normal, with a few added benefits. Luffy still came to see him practically every day and called him and texted him at odd hours just to chat. He overheard a cook complaining about finding a good mechanic to fix his car, and Sanji sent him to Usopp. He went to the gym and fought Zoro a few times a week, whenever he could feel the need for violence bubbling beneath his skin, and he returned to the Baratie bruised and beaten but satisfied. He watched the news at the end of every day and paid special attention to the weekly weather forecast, knowing that Nami was the one who predicted and wrote it.

Despite all that, the strangest thing was that the four stray dogs he had come to love would just not leave him alone.

Whenever Sanji left the Baratie, it felt like all four strays were glued to his side, as if they were waiting for him. At first, he had felt terrible, thinking that maybe he hadn’t been feeding them enough, but when he tried to feed them the extra food he had packed, they hadn’t seemed interested, not even the Wetterhoun. He never left the restaurant without at least one of the strays following beside him, like faithful shadows, clinging to his every step.

“What is with you guys?” He muttered once as he almost stepped on the Deutscher Jagdterrier as it walked under his feet. “I know I said I liked your company, but this is just ridiculous.”

He had tried to play a game with the Calupoh once. When it was just him and the big black dog, he had turned a corner and sprinted down the street, darting between alleyways and hiding behind a brick wall as the dog sprinted after him, nose to the ground, searching. He watched in the reflection of the windows of a building on the opposite side of the street as the Calupoh frantically darted to and fro, searching for him, barking in distress and sniffing at the ground. He had never seen the Calupoh so upset before, so stressed. He must’ve been very bad with directions and finding things, with its single eye, and after just a few moments of the game, Sanji took pity on him.

As soon as Sanji stepped out from behind the wall, the Calupoh dashed to his side. He growled reproachfully at him, but there was no heat, no fangs. It felt more like a displeased grumble as he pressed his full weight against Sanji’s legs, practically melting into him. “I’m sorry,” Sanji said, and meant it. He hadn’t expected the standoffish and vaguely unfriendly Calupoh to be so worried, and he’d seen people play a similar game with their dogs at the park. “I thought it would be a good change of pace to play together. I didn’t mean to worry you like that. I won’t do it again, I promise.”

The Calupoh let Sanji pat him behind the ears for the first time, running his fingers across his short black fur and scarred body, and he couldn’t help but feel it was the closest thing to an accepted apology that a dog could give.

When Sanji entered any store, the strays would wait outside for him, worriedly, pacing back and forth, baying and barking and whining until he hurried outside to reunite with them. They would glue themselves to Sanji’s side and would barely let him take two steps without almost stepping on one of them. They were always at the front and the back of the Baratie, and sometimes he heard them late at night, yipping under his window. Zeff and the other chefs were obviously starting to get genuinely annoyed, but there wasn’t anything Sanji could do. He stopped feeding them, stopped spending so much time with them, stopped treating them like pets despite how much it all pained him, and they still hung around and followed him as if they actually cared about him.

It wasn’t just the dogs, either. Sanji’s human friends were being just as clingy. Luffy had started coming to the Baratie from the moment it opened to the moment it closed, sometimes by himself, even when Sanji was too busy to sit with him for long. He never seemed bored, though Sanji knew he definitely was, and when he snuck glances at him through the server's window, it was to find Luffy already looking back at him, his eyes transfixed on the kitchen. Sometimes, Sanji would take a quick trip out the back for a smoke break or to take out the rubbish, only to find Zoro already back there, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, watching him like a hawk. Nami was paying suspicious amounts of attention to him, calling him over in a sugar-sweet voice and batting her eyelashes at him, starting conversations about anything and everything to such an extent that even Sanji started to feel like something was amis. The day that he almost tripped over Usopp – literally – as he was on his way from the kitchen into the dining room and didn’t see Usopp hiding behind the door, peaking through the little view windows at the very top, so high up that he had to stand on the tips of his toes to reach, Sanji had finally had enough.

“Alright,” He demanded as he slammed his hands down on the table. He didn’t sit down. Usopp jumped at the sound, and Nami blinked innocently at him, but Luffy and Zoro both looked unfazed. “What the hell is going on?”

“What?” Usopp chuckled unconvincingly, his voice high-pitched. “We totally, most definitely, have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about! Nothing is going on. What do you think is going on?”

“First, those strays won’t leave me the hell alone,” Sanji said. “And now you four are acting squirrely. What’s the matter with you? I feel like there’s a secret I’m not in on.”

For a second, they looked pretty guilty, refusing to meet his eyes. Sanji tried not to think of all the times he had caught them with bent over the table, heads together like sunflowers drawn towards the sun, whispering with increasing frenzy until they caught sight of him and pulled away, smiling and acting as if nothing was happening. He couldn’t shake the feeling that they were talking about him, and he didn’t know what was worse - that he thought they were better friends with each other than they were with him, and they didn’t want him to share in their secret, or that the secret was about him.

“Nothing's going on,” Nami said, so sweet it made him sick. “Why would you ever think that?”

“I’m not stupid. I have eyes,” Sanji said bitterly. “If you guys don’t want to tell me, then that’s fine, but lay off, okay? I don’t know what the hell is going on with you, but it’s obviously none of my business. But if something is happening that involves me, then I think I have a right to know.”

For a few long, tense moments where Sanji thought he could taste his heart in his throat, nobody spoke. Zoro was looking at him intently, as if trying to read his mind, and Usopp and Nami were looking at each other, expressions tense. But Luffy just looked at Sanji like he was the most important thing in the world, his brown eyes blown wide and his jaw set in something determined and unshakable.

“You’re our friend, and we want you to be safe,” Luffy told him, and Sanji felt all his frustration and ire melt away. How could he possibly be mad at Luffy? “We want to protect you. You’re important to us. Is that okay?”

How the hell was he supposed to be angry and upset when Luffy was looking at him with that honest, loving expression, like Sanji hung the moon and the stars in the sky and was the one responsible for moving the waves and rocking the boats? Even the gods would falter until that kind of devotion, in the face of that type of love. “Yeah, Luffy, it’s okay,” He ran a hand down his face, suddenly exhausted for reasons he couldn’t explain. “Let me go get your food. I’ll be right out.”

🍖Luffy🏴‍☠️. 2:25AM

SANJI!!!!!!!!

SANJI!! ARE YOU AWAKE????

SANJI ARE YOU THERE ITS ME LUFFY

Sanji. 2:26AM

Ii ust wpk up

Sanji. 2:27AM

What’s wrong? It’s late. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?

🍖Luffy🏴‍☠️. 2:28AM

sorry sanji!

i forgot to tell you today and nami got really mad at me about it.

my head still hurts.

but i need to tell you something and it cant wait!

Sanji. 2:30AM

?????????????????????

Well???

Sanji. 2:31AM

Are you going to tell me??

🍖Luffy🏴‍☠️. 2:31AM

oh yeah!

sorry.

there was a big frog on my window and i got distracted

were not going to be around for a while.

weve got a trip planned.

like an adventure!

me and zoro and nami and usopp

its not a big deal

i just wanted you to know that you shouldn’t worry about us at all!!

because were going to be ok

but we just wont be here. ok??

just for a few days. maybe three. or five. nami says less than a week

sorry you cant come with us.

but youre still our friend!! i dont want you to think we dont want to hang out with you anymore.

Sanji. 2:32AM

It’s OK Luffy.

🍖Luffy🏴‍☠️. 2:32AM

i feel really really bad about it

and i know the others do too

but weve got to go. sorry

i wish you could come with us

were going to miss you so so much!!!

Sanji. 2:33AM

Luffy.

It’s OK.

I’m going to miss you guys too.

Be safe, OK?? I’ll have a feast ready for you when you get back.

🍖Luffy🏴‍☠️. 2:33AM

OH NO

IM NOT GOING TO EAT ANY OF SANJIS FOOD FOR FIVE WHOLE DAYS

SANJI

WHAT AM I GOING TO DO

SANJI

SANJI WAKE UP

SANJI

In a much more cognisant, conscious state, Sanji sat on the side of his bed and re-read Luffy’s text messages, mostly to assure himself that the conversation even happened at all and wasn’t just a dream. Sunlight streamed in through his bedroom window, and for the first time in what felt like forever, he couldn’t hear the dogs outside the restaurant.

He smiled down at the little pirate flag and meat emoji that Luffy had added beside his contact himself, after glancing at it while passing Sanji’s phone to Zoro and being utterly outraged at how boring it was. “Sanji, that’s no fun!” He’d pouted. “It’s supposed to be special! Look at your name!”

He had pulled out his own phone to show Sanji his contact, and Sanji had been floored to see SANJI 🥩🥞🍙🍡🍗🫕 proudly displayed in Luffy’s contact list. Everybody else who had the honour of speaking to Luffy regularly seemed to have earned the same treatment, and his contacts were more emojis than names.

Though he had started to find himself oppressed by how overbearing they had been lately, without his friends to brighten up the dining room, without the stray dogs to bark happily at him when he exited for a smoke break... he was actually a little lonely, not that he would admit it. Instead of spending his breaks at the table with his friends, yapping and laughing away, he went outside to smoke numerous cigarettes in the near silence of the back alley behind the Baratie. Instead of watching the news and knowing that Nami had written it, instead of walking past the mechanics and sticking his head in to shout greetings to Usopp, instead of going to the gym purely to beat the shit out of Zoro and get his ass kicked in return, instead of spending almost every second of every day within Luffy’s gravitational orbit, he was alone, lost in his thoughts, wondering how the hell he had survived nineteen years before he had any friends.

It was only five days, Luffy said, and Luffy wasn’t in the profession of lying. But those five days felt like a lifetime.

In the middle of the night, Sanji jerked awake to a sound down in the street outside his room. Hopeful, he slid on his slippers and made his way down the stairs on near-silent feet, bypassing Zeff’s room, the housing for the cooks, the dining room and the kitchen to creep out the back door. He needed a cigarette, anyway.

The alley behind the Baratie was illuminated by the milky light from the full moon hanging high above him, a single spot of brightness in the darkness of the night, ethereal in its beauty. He had heard many poems and love songs that compared a beautiful woman to the sight of the moon at its zenith, and he never really understood until moments like these, when he could see it for himself.  

He shook a cigarette free from the packet in the breast pocket of his pyjama top and fished his lighter out. He lit the cherry, let it glow in the darkness, and inhaled a cloud of tobacco that had his trembling fingers stilling, chasing off the cravings.

There was a clatter, a thump so loud that it had Sanji jumping back up the steps. Out of the darkness, he saw the gleaming eyes of a creature slinking out from between the rubbish bins. Too big to be a rodent or a nocturnal scavenger, four-legged and drooling, Sanji felt a weight he hadn’t known he’d been carrying lift at the sight.

“Is that you, my friend?” he took a step towards the eyes. One of his strays must’ve come back from wherever they had gone. He should’ve brought food out with him. They must be so hungry. “I missed you. Where did you go?”

Instead of a cheerful yip or a hungry yowl, Sanji’s greeting was met by a low, menacing growl, the sound like rock against rock. A second pair of eyes appeared beside the first, and to his surprise and concern, two dogs stepped out of the shadows and into the light of the full moon. They were absolutely massive, looking feral and half-crazed with drool dripping from their slovenly mouths and their entire bodies wreathed in thick fur and tense muscle. If he hadn’t known any better, he would’ve sworn that they looked like a bigger, twisted version of the Mastiff and the Belgian Tervuren he ran into the other day. But that was just preposterous, right?

“Whoa,” Sanji’s cigarette dangled limply from his lips as he backed up, nicotine forgotten in his lungs. “You’re not who I expected.”

The dogs approached him, impossibly large and dangerous-looking. They came up past his hip, their fangs as long as his fingers and their claws as sharp as his kitchen knives. Mutations, he thought, or dogs so sick that their bodies had twisted with their minds. But if these dogs really were the same strays he saw the other day, the strays that had watched him wearily and growled but had ultimately left him alone, what the hell happened to them?

Slowly, Sanji backed up. No sudden movements. He thought, if he could just make it past the threshold, then he could shut the door and shout for the rest of the cooks residing in that Baratie and -

He wasn’t looking where he was going, and he kicked an empty beer can off the top step with his heel. It scraped against the concrete and clattered loudly on the ground, and he barely had time to take a fearful breath before the dogs both lunged.

The pain was immediate and indescribable. White-hot and all-consuming, fangs pierced the skin of his forearm and bit down, down to the bone, fangs scraping against his radius and ulna the way he would scrape the scales from a fish. He could feel the tearing of his muscles, the burst of hot blood against his skin, and he had to blink tears away from his eyes as he choked on his breath, his lungs seizing with agony. He didn’t even think about it. He brought his leg up and kicked the dog away with all the strength left in him, and as it fell away, tumbling down the steps, stunned, he stumbled backwards and slammed the door shut, sliding the metal latch into place and locking it tight.

All in all, the whole ordeal lasted less than a minute, but Sanji slid down to rest on the cold tiles of the kitchen with his back to the door as two massive dogs struggled to get in, throwing their bodies against it hard enough to rattle the frame, scratching and growling and howling loud enough to wake the dead.

Sanji cradled his arm to his chest, watching numbly as blood poured through his fingers and pooled in his lap. His lungs were tight with fear and pain, and every breath was a stuttering, painful thing, like his body was rebelling against him. He couldn’t stop crying, tears falling unbidden from his eyes to crawl down his cheeks.

At least, he thought as the sound of the dogs outside finally receded, they didn’t get my hands.

“Eggplant? Sanji?” Came a voice from the direction of the staircase, and Sanji looked up just in time to see Zeff descend clumsily from the first floor, holding a flashlight in one hand and limping one-legged, his crutch tucked under the other. He took one look at Sanji sitting there pathetically on the floor, covered in his own blood and swore. “What the hell happened?”

“I just,” Sanji couldn’t even speak. He didn’t know what happened. “I just went out for a smoke.”

Zeff dragged the wheeled chair out from where it was tucked carefully under the kitchen counter and sat on it heavily as he scooted over to Sanji. He tutted as he carefully took Sanji’s arm and turned it to and fro. He wiped the blood away with a clean dishrag and frowned at the bite mark. “One of your strays do this to you?”

“No,” Sanji shook his head so hard it made him dizzy, though that might’ve been the blood loss. “One of the other ones. The Mastiff, or the Belgian one. They were massive, Zeff, like there was something wrong with them.”

“It doesn’t look too bad,” Zeff said with more gentleness than Sanji had ever seen from him, holding Sanji’s arm in his lap like the most valuable of imported goods. “We’ll take you to the doctors in the morning. You’ll get a shot, maybe some stitches, and you can take the day off, alright? You’re going to be fine.”

Sanji didn’t know what else to say. His entire body hurt from the ordeal, and he couldn’t stop shaking, shaking so hard that he thought he could feel it in his bones. He just let Zeff gently stem the bleeding with a dishtowel and his bare hands, and rested his head on his leg, falling asleep to Zeff’s gruff comfort and his careful touch as the adrenaline faded. He was asleep within seconds.

Despite both of them having a perfectly good bed, the rest of the cooks came downstairs in the morning to start their prep and open the restaurant to the sight of Zeff and Sanji asleep together in the kitchen, Sanji slumped at Zeff’s feet with his arm propped up in his lap and his head pillowed against his thigh, Zeff slouched on his rickety wheely chair with his back against the wall, his chin pillowed on his chest and his large hand fisted gently in Sanji’s golden hair. Carne woke Zeff while Patty cleared the cooks from the kitchen, and Zeff only took the time to climb the stairs and don his prosthetic before he was bundling Sanji up, half-delirious with pain and shock, and took him to the doctors.

Doctor Kureha gave Sanji all the necessary shots for infection and rabies - though he suspected that was only to placate him, because he knew that if one of those dogs really did have rabies and had given it to him, there'd be nothing anyone could do - and stitched up the worst of the bite marks, disinfecting the wound and wrapping it securely with a compression bandage until he couldn’t even tell that there was anything there at all. If it weren’t for the pain, he would’ve been able to forget that the previous night ever happened.

She sent them home with medication for possible infection and painkillers. Sanji took two in the car, and he slumped, half-asleep, in the passenger seat as Zeff drove them back to the Baratie. In this state, Sanji couldn’t work even if he wanted to, but Zeff gave him the rest of the day off anyway and made sure all the cooks knew it.

He was sure he was coming down with something, a head cold or the flu. Maybe Doctor Kureha missed an infection after all? Whatever it was, his entire body was aching like his bones were being struck like a hammer on an anvil, his skin felt tingly like his whole body was filled with pins and needles, and his thoughts felt slow, soupy. It might’ve been the drugs. The painkillers he had been prescribed were so strong that the pain in his arm, once all-consuming and brutal, was little more than a distant memory now. He didn’t dare unwrap the bandages to take a peek at the wound beneath, blood already spotted on the crisp white bandage and dried rust-red.

Everything sounded very loud. He thought that he could hear the clatter of cutlery and the sounds of laughter from the dining room, the bark of orders and the banging of pots and the slice of a knife on a chopping board from the kitchen, even the growl of an engine from a car idling on the road. Light bounced behind his eyelids in rhythm to his heartbeat. He could hear the blood in his ears, could practically feel it flow through his veins, could almost taste the copper on his tongue.

It was just his body fighting off an infection. He felt terrible, like his whole body was rebelling and fighting against him, but this was by far the worst he had ever felt. He remembered the eighty-five days on The Rock, the twenty-five days of rationing and the sixty days of starvation, his body slowly yet steadily eating itself until there was nothing left. No matter how bad he felt now, nothing would be worse than that.

Everything was going to be okay. Tomorrow, Luffy would be back from his trip, with Zoro and Nami and Usopp hot on his heels like they always were, and maybe, if he was feeling better, he would go out looking for his strays, the Wetterhoun and the Calupoh and the Deutscher Jagdterrier and the Mudi, and all would be right in his world again. He could put all of this behind him, would avoid those monstrous strays like scurvy, and his life would be full and bright again.

He shivered. He was sweating. He kicked the blankets from his legs and was immediately cold again. He took another painkiller with a hearty swig of water and promptly passed out.