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Chapter Text

Sanji should be used to the Grand Line’s weather anomalies, but even after years sailing these seas, he found himself surprised.

The Thousand Sunny had been calmly sailing the open waters. Sanji had just finished handing out refreshing drinks to the crew, all but Zoro who was conspicuously absent from his usual napping spot, when the sky was suddenly overtaken by a large purple cloud. The crew had barely a minute to prepare before they were plunged into the storm. The sky streaked with lightning a concerning hue of red as thunder boomed all around them, barely drowning out Luffy’s wild laughter.

Stupid rubber was way too eager for all of them to die.

That possibility was not far off, not with the way the Sunny was being thrashed by the waves, the winds blowing the sails so hard Sanji was worried they’d rip right off. Nami was calling out orders above the din while the crew ran around, securing what they could and doing their best to sail out of the storm’s path.

“Is it just me, or is this storm weirder than normal,” Sanji shouted above the roaring winds.

The air had an ominous green glow to it as another bolt of red lightning streaked across the sky and hit the water worryingly close to the ship. Sanji noticed a peculiar smell in the air, almost like… wet sand? In the middle of the ocean? It couldn’t be.

“It is certainly the oddest I’ve seen, although I don’t have eyes, yohohoho!”

“I’m pretty sure lightning isn’t red,” Usopp responded.

“Devil Fruit,” Robin opined, her arm looped through Franky’s to keep her from falling into the dangerous waters.

“There were no ships in our immediate vicinity,” Jinbei replied, holding on to Luffy who was half-hanging over the rails, peering at the churning water.

“Can we debate this when we’re out of this storm?!” Nami shouted, clutching onto Chopper before he could be thrown overboard by the violence of the tempest.

“Of course, Nami dearest,” Sanji replied immediately.

He turned his focus to following her orders as the crew sailed on through the storm. Well, most of the crew, there was still one member that was nowhere to be found.

“Oi! Where’s the Mosshead? Don’t tell me his lazy ass got thrown overboard,” he shouted over the buffeting winds.

“I believe our dear swordsman was training in the crow’s nest when the storm hit. I’ve yet to see him emerge.”

Sanji rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to retort but suddenly the air became super charged around him. It was eerily similar to the feeling that surfaced in Skypiea before Enel struck, though this time there was more warning. It wasn’t enough of a warning for him to get himself to safety. He saw the world turn white and crimson before a red bolt of lightning shot down, heading straight for him.

Before he could react, he was tackled to the deck. The lightning strike that was aiming at him hit the ship instead, much to Franky’s dismay.

Sanji’s attention, however, was on the significant weight on top of him.

Zoro’s body pressed him down against the floorboards of the ship. Sanji found all the air punched right out of him. Partly because Zoro was on top of him and pressing down on his lungs but also because Zoro was staring at him with something vaguely like concern. Although, perhaps Sanji was imagining that. Zoro had made his stance very clear after Whole Cake in that he had been barely acknowledging that Sanji existed. But here he was, looking at him like he might care.

“Alright, Curls,” the swordsman asked.

Sanji blinked at that, momentarily thrown at the concern before his face twisted into a sneer.

“I’d be better if your knee wasn’t pressed into my liver. Get off me, Marimo!”

Zoro opened his mouth to retort, but the storm suddenly had the Sunny lurching to the right. The two men went sliding against the wet deck towards the edge of the ship. Zoro raised an arm against the railing just as they reached the edge, stopping them from slipping into the restless sea.

Sanji glanced around for a place where they could secure themselves. The lurch had made them slide away from all the riggings, putting them on the opposite side of the ship from their crewmates.

“Just hold on to me!” Zoro shouted above the din.

Sanji’s lips twisted unhappily but seeing no other option, he did as told. He wrapped his arms around the larger man’s back and locked his thighs against his waist, doing his best to ignore the awkward position they had found themselves in. It was purely for necessity’s sake, Sanji reminded himself. Nothing more. Not that he wanted that of course. Who would want this sweaty, smelly brute laying on top of them?

His mind flashed traitorously to a stunning beauty, her blue hair flowing down her back and her eyes alight with affection for the oblivious swordsman. Sanji still could not believe that someone as lovely as Hiyori would be so taken with Zoro. Far be it from him to question a lady’s tastes, but honestly, what did she see in him beyond his swordsmanship?

And his extreme sense of loyalty.

And his dumb unintentional charm.

And his stupid weirdly handsome face.

And his ridiculously built body.

And his absurdly large pecs.

And his sinfully strong arms.

And the way his stupid cyclops eye could make you feel like the only person that mattered in the world.

But other than that, there was nothing at all. So why would Hiyori want him? Admittedly, Zoro did seem to fit into Wano in a way Sanji had never witnessed before. It was almost like the island ran through his blood. If Zoro decided to settle there after they all achieved their dreams, Sanji wouldn’t be surprised.

He felt a sharp twist as he thought of Zoro and Hiyori together, a trio of green haired children between them.

Hiyori would probably like that, even though the brute didn’t give her the attention her grace and beauty warranted. The same couldn’t be said for Kiku. Maybe the Marimo would prefer a fellow swordsman like her, or Tashigi.

Or Law.

Sanji had noticed the looks exchanged between the two supernovas during the post-war festivities. They certainly had time to capitalize on their shared interest while Sanji was on Whole Cake.

Maybe there were quite a few people in recent history alone who might find Zoro appealing, but that hardly mattered because Sanji wasn’t one of them. He would rather be flung about by this storm than have Zoro’s weight continue pressing him down, completely covering him so the only thing he could be aware of was the swordsman.

Or that was the case until some weird portal opened up above them. Sanji blinked as he took in the growing maw. It was shaped like an hourglass and looked to be the size of the Sunny’s main sail. There was a swirling vortex inside of it, glowing sand whipping around violently within.

“Hey Mosshead, are you seeing this?”

Zoro looked up and followed his gaze, his body stiffening as he took in the new threat. Sanji made note that although the portal opened right above them, it wasn’t trying to pull them in.

He stared up at it mystified, before he felt his Observation flare with a warning. He locked his limbs around Zoro and rolled them out of the line of fire before he even consciously thought to do so. The pair rolled a few feet away and stopped just in time to see three figures fall out of the hole, hitting the deck with a concerning amount of force. Sanji was pretty sure he saw a dent under the largest body.

Franky was going to flip.

He glanced up, noting that the portal was closing. Once it did, the storm they had been embroiled in rapidly dissipated before disappearing entirely as if it had never existed at all.

Sanji looked at the sky in disbelief before his attention went back to the three figures crumpled on the deck, seemingly unconscious.

“Oi, Cook. Mind letting go so I can see who the hell just landed on our ship?”

Sanji’s brows furrowed at that before he realized he was still wrapped around Zoro like a koala. He abruptly let go, his cheeks heating up in embarrassment.

Zoro stood, his hand on Kitetsu’s hilt as he approached the newcomers. Sanji shook off the previous moment and locked in, prioritizing the intruders over whatever the hell that had been.

As he approached, he noticed that there was one large figure the size of an average man with lavender hair and golden tan skin along with two smaller figures clearly belonging to children. He blinked as he stared down at the three crumpled forms.

“Friends of yours, Mosshead,” he asked, waving at the green hair the identical girls sported.

“Maybe I should be asking you that, Cook. Never seen those weird-ass eyebrows of yours on another face until now.”

“Huh?”

Zoro nodded at the girls. They were laying on their backs, faces half visible past the wet hair matted to their foreheads, but their curled eyebrows were easy to make out.

Sanji found himself freezing in place.

Green hair and curled eyebrows.

Could they be…?

No one had mentioned Yonji having children when he was on Whole Cake Island. Then again, why would they? The girls did seem a bit old to be Yonji’s. Sanji would place them at 7 – 9 years old. Yonji would’ve had them in his early teens. It wasn’t impossible but still.

There was also the possibility they were the result of Judge’s experiments. Sanji shuddered at the thought. He thought he had left Germa behind and here it was again.

He remained frozen as the crew came over. They all stopped up short as they saw their guests. Sanji could vaguely hear them having a conversation, but he wasn’t paying attention. He found his mind taking him back to memories he would rather forget.

A dungeon.

A helmet.

A cold lab.

A dirty cell.

A tombstone.

A disappointed glare.

Needles and serums.

Relentless fists.

Sneers and giggles.

Failure. Failure. Failure.

His chest felt tight as his breath stuttered in his lungs, the memories swirling past his mind and throwing his soul into disarray as he attempted to cover up the fact that he was on the verge of a panic attack.

Zoro’s singular eye was narrowed as he stared at Sanji’s tense form. The swordsman said nothing, but it was clear he noticed Sanji was having difficulty. Sanji hoped to any god that might be listening that the mosshead didn’t draw attention to his situation. Despite Sanji’s hope, Zoro opened his mouth as if he was going to say something. Before he could, there was a sudden commotion from the three newcomers.

The man who had been unconscious suddenly picked up the two girls and held them in front of him, backing away from the gathered crew. Sanji initially figured the man might’ve been trying to protect them. He was on a pirate ship after all, one belonging to an emperor no less. However, he went rigid as the sun glinted off metal, revealing the long knife in the man’s hand aimed at the girls’ necks.

The crew were immediately on alert. Sanji swept a foot back as he heard the ringing of Zoro withdrawing his swords.

“Stay back, Strawhats!”

“Hey Grapehead Guy, what are you trying to kill those girls for,” Luffy asked blankly, though Sanji could see the vigilant way he watched every move the man made.

“No one take a step, unless you want me to spill the blood of your precious cabin girls all across this deck.”

The crew paused at that before Jinbei, their most diplomatic member, spoke up.

“It appears you have been misinformed. The Strawhats have no cabin girls. It would be best if you release those children so we may discuss terms rationally,” he replied calmly.

The man’s bushy blonde eyebrows furrowed as his eyes roved over the crew.

“Where are the rest of the Strawhats? I know this isn’t all there is. I won’t be snuck up on, not before I slit these brats’ throats.”

The ten present members looked at one another in confusion.

“How hard did you hit your head when you fell out of that portal,” Sanji asked, drawing a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it.

The lavender-haired man tilted his head at that.

“Portal? I didn’t…”

Realization seemed to come to him as he stared harder at the crew. Sanji shifted when he noticed the man’s eyes linger on him and Zoro longer than the others before falling on Robin.

“Ha! It appears that I’ve managed to outsmart you then, demon woman,” the man crowed, smirking victoriously at her.

“Oi! Don’t call the lovely Robin names or you’ll get my foot up your ass,” Sanji warned.

The man smirked wider at him.

“Oh, I wouldn’t take a closer step if I were you, Black Leg. Your future self won’t thank you for the consequences, trust me.”

“Considering my future self will be kicking your teeth in, somehow I doubt that.”

“You’ll keep your distance, or I’ll kill your daughters right before your very eyes.”

Sanji’s other brow went up.

“You really have gotten your head scrambled. I don’t have any daughters.”

“Not yet you don’t, but one day you will. Events will conspire such that they, like their parents, can’t keep their noses where they belong. As a result, they will fall through a portal into the past with me and find themselves on the business end of my knife.”

“What the hell are you on about?”

“If I may, Mr. Cook. I believe this man means to imply that he is a time-traveler from our future,” Robin spoke up, a spark of interest in her voice.

Sanji looked at her with disbelief.

“That’s right. It appears that you’re as smart as you ever were, Nico Robin.”

“Grapehead Guy is from the future? So cool,” Luffy stated, starry eyed. Chopper and Usopp were in similar states.

“Why should we believe a single word you say? How would you travel to the past anyway? The Toki Toki no Mi only sends people to the future so that can’t be it,” Nami shot at him.

“Wrong Fruit. You see, I’m the eater of the Jikan Jikan no Mi.”

“The Hour Hour Fruit? I find that hard to believe as the user is only able to travel forward or backward an hour. Seeing as how you claim those children belong to our cook, I would think your origins in our lives stretches forward much longer past that,” Robin commented.

“Yes, no thanks to you. You have always doubted me, Professor, but now you see that I have proven you wrong. I did what you said I could not and I travelled years instead of hours. The brats may have gotten in my way and hitched a ride, but I get to rub my success in your face nonetheless.”

“Hmm. We appear to have quite the history, Mr…”

“Sugimoto, though that isn’t important. I think it best that you all listen to my demands, or these little brats won’t have a future.”

“Let’s say you are from the future, which I still don’t believe, why should I think those kids belong to me? Parenthood certainly isn’t an ambition of mine,” Sanji stated dubiously.

“I mean, they do have your eyebrows,” Usopp mumbled behind him.

Sanji shot him a glare in return, causing the man to recoil.

“Our sniper does have a point. How many can claim such a unique feature,” Brook added.

“I can think of at least four others,” Sanji mumbled in return.

“That isn’t their only prominent feature. And the hair color coupled with the eyebrows gives me reason to believe they aren’t mine. This could be a trick from Germa. I wouldn’t put it past Judge,” Sanji said louder.

“Oh, you think Green Sanji’s their dad, huh,” Chopper concluded.

“Green Sanji,” Usopp repeated in confusion while Nami groaned at the mention.

“Sanji’s somehow even more annoying brother, Yonji,” Nami explained.

“Brother is a relative term, but it would be a more logical explanation over time travel,” Sanji replied.

“But that’s silly. Green Sanji isn’t their dad, you and Zoro are,” Luffy chimed in, his voice chipper like he hadn’t just said something asinine.

“EH?!?! WHAT ARE YOU SAYING, YOU STUPID RUBBER?! DO YOU WANT ME TO KICK YOUR HEAD IN?! IF I HAVE KIDS, IT WILL BE WITH A BEAUTIFUL LADY WHO APPRECIATES MY COOKING AND BATHS MORE THAN ONCE A MONTH, NOT THIS SHITTY SWORDSMAN!”

Sanji was practically emitting an aura of death which caused the majority of his crewmates to take a step away from him. Usopp was even cowering behind Jinbei. Zoro, however, was seemingly frozen at his side while Luffy was in veritable stitches, doubled over himself in laughter.

“Oh man, you’re so mad. It’s so funny!”

“Take back what you said, idiot!”

“Why? It’s true. Look.”

Luffy pointed at the slumped over girls’ waists. Sanji looked at them more closely. The girls were both dressed in yukatas, one a dark blue with koi fishes and the other light blue with goldfishes. They had green obi sashes around their torsos and tucked into the fabric at their hips were three bokkens each. They looked like mini-Zoros.

Still, curly brows aside, Sanji might’ve been able to convince himself that they were Zoro’s kids with Hiyori or Kiku or some other beauty he was destined for, but then his eyes were drawn to the two children’s ears. Each child’s left ear had one of Zoro’s golden earrings dangling from it. More damning though, they were wearing a rose-shaped aquamarine stud beside Zoro’s earring. Those studs were one of a kind, commissioned by Sanji’s mother before she had even married Judge. Sanji had retrieved it and other belongings of his mother’s during his time in Germa castle. And they were in the ears of these children, these mini-Zoros with Marimo’s mossy hair and his fashion sense and his three swords but Sanji’s eyebrows.

Sanji suddenly felt faint.

He squirmed uncomfortably at the feeling of the entire crew’s eyes turning to him at once.

“Oh my.”

“Well, this is awkward.”

“Congratulations bros!”

“Wait, how did they even manage to—”

“Hey! I’m still here you know?!” Sugimoto shouted over the murmuring Strawhats.

“As I was saying, my demands will be met or you can kiss the pirate hunter and the chef’s brats here goodbye.”

“You really think I’m gonna let that happen,” Zoro replied, his voice hard and low.

Sanji glanced over at him. His silver eye was trained on the unconscious girls. Almost like…

“You don’t believe this madness, do you, Mosshead? I mean I would never… you don’t even… this isn’t…”

“Does it matter? Either they’re ours or they’re not. He’s got a knife to their throats though, so maybe focus on that and have your gay panic later.”

Sanji huffed in reply. Gay panic? He was well past that, thank you very much. Ace took care of that. Besides, Sanji was bisexual, not that he was broadcasting that, but still.

“Why should I be worried? You’re certainly not the World’s Greatest in this time period, Roronoa,” Sugimoto boasted.

Zoro paused for only a moment.

“Maybe not, but that just means I’m not going to let weaklings like you keep me from that title. Drop the girls.”

“We may not know Zoro and Sanji’s kids well, but they’re still nakama so we won’t let you hurt them, Grapehead Guy.”

“My name is Sugimoto,” the intruder sneered in response before he flinched, his face scrunching up in pain.

The girl in the koi fish yukata was moving, quick as lightning, before her teeth bit into Sugimoto’s hand, forcing him to release his hold. The two girls landed on their feet on the deck. The one in the goldfish yukata turned and kicked Sugimoto in the balls before the two kids ran towards Sanji.

“Daddy!”

He felt his whole body go rigid as they hugged his legs, their voices talking over each other as they tried to explain what happened, not that Sanji was getting any of what they were saying. He was too stuck on the word they had used.

Daddy.

He glanced up and met Zoro’s eyes. He was standing over the writhing man, his foot on his chest and Kitetsu pointed at his throat. His face was unreadable, but Sanji still found himself having to look away in discomfort.

“What should we do with him,” the swordsman asked after a moment.

“If I may, Captain. This man claims to be a time traveler and is a part of our personal history. It would be best to keep him close,” Robin suggested.

“The guy’s obviously a nut. Why bother,” Nami protested.

“I believe his claims to be true, Ms. Navigator. It would be pertinent to extract relevant information from him in order to substantiate his claims. If they prove true, then we can work on sending them all back to the future,” Robin explained.

“We’ll go with Robin’s plan and figure out why Grapehead Guy came here and why he’s got Zoro and Sanji’s kids.”

“I can whip up a nice holding cell out of a storage closet and I’ll dig up the seastone cuffs,” Franky added, following behind Zoro as he dragged Sugimoto away, consequently leaving Sanji alone with the twins.

Well, not alone but still.

Sanji glanced down at the two girls who were staring wide-eyed back at him with achingly familiar blue eyes.

“Did Auntie Robin just say that we time traveled,” koi fish yukata asked.

Sanji continued staring down at them wordlessly.

What the actual fuck?

Chapter Text

The girls were strange ones.

They took the news of time travel in stride, only debating amongst themselves about how angry “Daddy” and “Otosan” would be about their little adventure.

Chopper put any conversations on hold with his desire to check their guests over, giving Sanji the chance to retreat to the galley and start preparing lunch. They had three new guests on board and he imagined time travel must work up an appetite. He’d stick to foods as safe as possible given he didn’t know about any allergies. He had had a sensitivity to eggs when he was around the twins’ age, so perhaps…

God, was he really contemplating this? Was he entertaining the notion that one day he was going to have two kids with Zoro of all people?

It made no sense. Zoro barely acknowledged his existence nowadays. How do they go from this to having kids? Maybe it had been a one-night stand or something. Maybe Zoro had gotten so hopelessly drunk off his ass, he hadn’t even known it was Sanji he was fucking. And obviously Sanji was drunk too because that would be the only way that he would sleep with Zoro, of course. Then he turned up pregnant and they managed to co-parent as crewmates. There was no alternative. There was no universe in which he and Zoro were, what? Married with two kids?

Preposterous.

In spite of himself, Sanji’s mind conjured the image he had thought of earlier during the storm. There was Zoro but instead of standing under a Sakura tree in Wano, he now stood aboard a floating restaurant in the All Blue Sea. Hiyori had been replaced with Sanji and their faceless children were replaced with the curly-browed mossheaded twins that had landed on the Sunny. Sanji was smiling brightly in the image at Zoro who was smiling back. They each had a grinning girl on their hip. They looked happy together. They looked like a family.

If they were together in the future, and Zoro actually chose him of all the people in the world, maybe Sanji wouldn’t totally hate that. It might even be a comforting thought. Zoro was never one to mince words, he followed his thoughts without hesitation. If he chose Sanji, then he really did believe he was worthy of building a life with and in that case…

Maybe…

Well, worse things had happened in the universe, hadn’t they?

Sanji jumped as the galley door opened. He turned around to see Zoro walking into the room, a cautious look on his face.

“Hey.”

Yeah, scratch that. Sanji wasn’t accepting shit.

“No.”

“Cook—”

“No.”

“We should—”

“No.”

“Damn it, Twirls. There are two kids aboard the ship who are, apparently, from the future and claiming we’re their parents.”

“We don’t know for sure that that’s true.”

“I talked to them in the infirmary. They seem pretty convinced of it. We’ve gotta talk about it.”

“I don’t think we do actually.”

“Oh really? So, you’re just gonna, what? Pretend they’re not here?”

“Even if all this is true, all it proves is that somewhere down the line I’m either drunk or stupid or crazy enough to sleep with you and dumb enough not to use protection. I’m sure we’re civil enough in the future that it shouldn’t be an issue then and it doesn’t need to be one now.”

Zoro stared at him in return. Sanji thought he might’ve seen a flash of something close to hurt in his eyes but that made no sense. Zoro didn’t even like him let alone anything else, so why should any of what Sanji just said hurt him?

“You don’t want to talk to me about it, fine. Usopp’s got them on deck getting ready to interrogate them, so I guess we’ll be getting the story one way or another.”

The swordsman turned around and walked out of the galley. Sanji felt a pang of regret in his gut, but he pushed it down ruthlessly. He turned towards the stir fry he had been making and put the finishing touches on it before setting out plates and utensils for lunchtime.

He left everything there and walked out onto deck where the crew was gathered around Usopp and the two girls sitting across from each other at a low table. All eyes turned to him when he emerged from the galley, including the girls who waved happily in greeting.

“Hi Daddy,” they said in unison.

Sanji stared back, not saying anything. Their hair was dry now and he couldn’t help but notice how it was styled. It was parted so that their long bangs hung just over their left eye. The hair wasn’t long enough to completely cover their familiar blue orbs, but the effect worked all the same.

God, he needed a smoke.

“Yes, the leading theory seems to be that you’re the children of Zoro and Sanji. But we’re here to ascertain the truth of that theory. It’s only fitting that I, the Great Captain Usopp, an accomplished time traveler in my own right, extract the pertinent information from my fellow travelers.”

“Whoa, Uncle Usopp is a time traveler too,” goldfish yukata said, mesmerized.

“No way,” koi fish yukata snorted.

“But he just said it, so it’s true.”

“Otosan said Uncle Usopp says a lot of stuff that aren’t true. No way he’s a time traveler.”

“Why, of course I am. Have I ever told you about the time I traveled back so far in time, I ended up saving my own great great grandfather in order to ensure my birth?”

“Hey longnose, stay on task,” Nami snapped.

“Alright, alright. No need to get testy. Anyway, I’ll be able to tell through my ingenious methods of deduction whether or not they truly are Zoro and Sanji’s kids. Now, let’s start with the basics. What are your names?”

“Roronoa Kuina,” koi fish yukata answered.

Sanji noticed Zoro flinch at the name. It must’ve meant something to him.

“Roronoa Sora,” goldfish yukata answered.

Now it was Sanji’s turn to flinch. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised he would name his daughter after his mother. Still, it was jarring to hear, especially coupled with Zoro’s surname.

“Hmm. Where do you hail from?”

The two girls tilted their heads at that in bewilderment. Sanji noticed Luffy was doing the same.

“How can they hail? They aren’t clouds, are they,” Luffy asked.

“We don’t think so,” Sora replied innocently.

“I’m not asking about… I meant, who are your parents?”

“Oh. Well, Gramps says my father’s name is Dragon or something and my mother—”

“Not you, Luffy! The kids!”

Sanji rolled his eyes at the interaction. The twins didn’t look surprised by the crew’s antics. It was like they were used to this sort of thing, lending even more credence to the theory of their lineage.

“That’s Daddy,” Sora said, pointing to Sanji.

“And that’s Otosan,” Kuina answered, pointing to Zoro.

“But you already know that, Uncle Usopp. So why are you asking us all these questions,” Kuina continued suspiciously.

“Seeing as how you’ve travelled from the future, we expect things as we know it are very different from your reality. As such, there will be discrepancies between what you know and what we do. Currently, you two haven’t been born yet. It’s of the utmost importance that we don’t do anything that would change that outcome. We need the right information to figure out how you got here,” Robin explained, stepping up to be closer to the scene.

The two girls seemed to mull this over before nodding.

“Okay, what do you want to know?” Kuina, who was apparently the more talkative of the two, replied.

“What were the circumstances that led to you and Sugimoto falling back in time?”

The two girls looked at each other and grimaced.

“Well…” they trailed off, their eyes drifting over to Zoro who quirked an eyebrow, and then Sanji who was doing his best to process this moment without freaking out even more.

“Will you guys get mad at us,” Sora asked sheepishly.

Sanji opened his mouth to answer but found he couldn’t.

“We won’t. Can’t guarantee your parents back home won’t though,” Zoro answered, picking up his slack.

“Why would you be in trouble, little sisses?”

“Well, technically we left home without permission,” Sora explained reluctantly.

“We were still in the same port as home, it barely even counts,” Kuina grumbled.

“And home would be,” Robin inquired.

“Le Grand Bleu, our ship. It’s where we live with Daddy, Otosan, Grandpa Zeff, and all the other chefs that work in Daddy’s restaurant. Plus, Otosan’s students from his dojo upstairs if they stay the night.”

Sanji paused at that. Le Grand Bleu. It was the name he had always dreamed he would name his restaurant when he finally found the All Blue. He had never told anyone that before, not even Zeff.

God, they really were from the future, weren’t they? They were his and Zoro’s. Wait, if he had a restaurant in the future that he named Le Grand Bleu, then that means…

“I find the All Blue,” he blurted out, his voice full of shock and hope.

The girls turned to look at him. Those were the first words Sanji had spoken to them. Zoro had gone to see them when they were with Chopper, but Sanji had honestly been trying to forget they existed and immediately retreated into the galley. Still, this was more important than whatever hang-ups he had about these kids’ existence. This was about his dream and Zeff’s.

“That’s where we live. Why wouldn’t you find it? You don’t get lost like Otosan,” Sora answered, confused.

“Hey, I don’t get lost,” Zoro protested.

The twins gave him a skeptical look, which drew chuckles from most of the crew except Sanji. He was stuck on the confirmation that he would fulfill his dream. He’d find the All Blue, he’d bring Zeff there, he’d open a restaurant… and live there with Zoro and their two children. Zoro, who apparently runs a dojo on the same ship as Sanji’s restaurant.

Sanji was starting to doubt that theory about healthy co-parenting right about now. He opened his mouth, wanting to ask them to confirm his relationship status with Marimo in their time period, but even he knew that probably wasn’t the most appropriate thing to ask a pair of 7-year-olds.

“Back to the story, you left home without permission to embark on what I’m sure was a grand adventure,” Usopp prompted.

“Not really, we just wanted to play with Caspian and Adrian,” Kuina replied.

“Caspian and Adrian?”

“Auntie Robin and Uncle Franky’s sons.”

Franky spluttered at that and Sanji was certain Robin’s cheeks turned pink.

“Oh my,” she commented, pressing a hand to her face.

“Whoa, warn a guy before you drop a bomb like that, little sis.”

“Have all of you lost your minds and started popping out babies in the future,” Nami muttered.

“I feel sorry for the world having to deal with Zoro and Sanji’s kids let alone Franky and Robin’s,” Usopp mumbled.

“But you and Aunt Kaya have the most kids out of all of our aunts and uncles,” Sora commented innocently.

“Me?!? Wait, Kaya?!?! Me and Kaya are…”

“How many kids are we talking about exactly,” Nami asked, her eyes alight with mischief as Usopp wriggled around in his seat in embarrassment.

“Five.”

“Five?!?!?! I have five kids with… that’s… I mean, I don’t… of course the Great Captain Usopp is…” Usopp trailed off with a deflated sort of sound before practically melting to the deck in a stuttering pile, cheeks flaming and limbs twitching in his shock much to Luffy’s amusement if his cackles were anything to go by.

“Yohoho, I am delighted to learn of my nakama growing our family and swelling our ranks. Anyone else we should know about?”

Sora’s gaze switched to Nami briefly. The navigator’s eyes widened before she shook her head profusely.

“Do not answer that question. Just keep telling us what happened.”

“Auntie Robin and Uncle Franky’s ship, the Library of Ohara, was anchored at the same port as Le Grand Bleu and we hadn’t seen Caspian and Adrian in a few months. We wanted to play but no one was around to ask first. Daddy and Grandpa Zeff were working in the kitchen during the lunch rush. Otosan was teaching his older students at the dojo. Sometimes, we sit in to watch the classes, but we didn’t that day,” Kuina explained.

“You were on your own,” Zoro asked disapprovingly.

“Technically we were being watched by Uncle Carne. He was out of work with a broken leg but then he went to take a nap, so we left. We went aboard the Library and played with the boys on deck for a while. Then, Adrian and Caspian said they had something cool to show us in the new section of the ship. The Library of Ohara has tons of different sections on board with, like, all the books in the world. Auntie Robin adds new sections for her collections all the time. This new section was all about time. There weren’t just books there, though. There was this weird giant hourglass looking thing and the sand inside of it was glowing. Adrian said it was called a Tempus Dial.”

“A dial? And it wasn’t shaped like a snail shell?” Robin asked.

“No.”

“A different sort of dial perhaps,” Robin thought to herself.

“Anyway, Sugimoto was already there. He was messing with the Tempus Dial, attaching different wires to it. Adrian said he wasn’t meant to be there. Auntie Robin usually has scholars from all over the world come to the Library to study with her. I guess Sugimoto did something Auntie Robin didn’t like because Adrian said his mom kicked him out of her study group. We were going to leave to call Auntie Robin and Uncle Franky, but Sugimoto attacked us. Auntie Robin heard and came to help us, but then Sugimoto started talking about proving her wrong and traveling back past an hour. Sora and I were hiding behind the Tempus Dial and when he turned it on, it made a portal and sucked us in with him. Then we landed here on Sunny,” Kuina finished.

“Hmm. Was this Tempus Dial something I found or created?”

“Caspian said you found it on an island called Epocah, but that you and Uncle Franky added some things to it. I’m not sure what.”

“Nami?”

“I’ll look into it, see how far we are from the island. I assume we’re all thinking this Tempus Dial is the best route to getting the girls home?”

“That is the mechanism that brought them here in the first place, it stands to reason it will help them get home.”

“It wasn’t just this Dial though. It was also the Devil Fruit of our other special guest,” Brook brought up.

“Yes, we will likely need his assistance as well,” Robin confirmed.

“How can we be sure he won’t do something that will put the girls in danger rather than send them home,” Franky asked.

“He seems to be quite driven by proving me wrong. Presumably, he’ll want to rub his success in the face of the future me. I would say that is a good enough motivator and if not, I’m certain our swordsman and cook will impress upon him just how unpleasant his life will become if he mistreats our precious cargo,” Robin concluded.

“In the meantime, the girls will be staying with us,” Nami decided.

“Of course. They’re our nakama, where else would they go,” Luffy agreed.

“I can whip up some rooms for our little sword-sisses no problem. I’ll convert a closet,” Franky offered.

“That won’t be necessary, dear. We have plenty of room in the women’s quarters.”

“Why can’t we just stay in Daddy and Otosan’s room? That’s where we always stay when we’re on the Sunny,” Sora asked.

Sanji stared at the girls wide-eyed.

“Our room? Like, together? Me and Zoro? At the same time?”

“Yes?”

“When…? What…? How…?”

“You, future you, said you and Otosan moved into the first mate’s quarters after the wedding.”

“Wedding?!?! Whose wedding?!?!”

Sora jumped in fright and looked cautiously at her twin sister.

“Yours and Otosan’s… why are you being so weird, Daddy,” Kuina asked, her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Me? I’m the one being weird? This whole thing is weird! There are two children here with my eyes, Zoro’s everything and my mother’s name that are apparently from a future where me and Mosshead get married, have kids, and are living some domestic fairytale on the sea of my dreams! How is anyone taking this seriously right now?!”

The crew paused, looking at the cook cautiously.

“I agree that this situation is… unorthodox to say the least, but given who we are, it isn’t that weird, is it,” Usopp said, speaking up first in a burst of confidence.

“Time travel? Maybe not that weird. Me and Zoro though? Me having kids with Zoro? Yes. It’s pretty fucking weird. I still say it’s more logical that they came from Germa. If that’s the case, then they’re a danger to us. They shouldn’t be here. They shouldn’t even exist.”

“Sanji,” Nami barked at him.

His mouth snapped shut as he turned to the orange-haired woman. She was glaring at him.

“Stop talking,” she warned, her eyes switching to the twins briefly.

Sanji didn’t want to look at them. He didn’t want… he and Zoro weren’t… he didn’t have… Zoro would never…

His chest was getting tight and his stomach was clenching. There was a suspicious burn in the back of his eyes. His father and brother’s words were repeating on a loop, over and over again, each word specially tailored to tear him down to nothing.

Sanji heard a wet sniffle. For an embarrassing moment, he thought it came from him, but as it sounded again, his eyes were drawn to the girls.

His daughters.

God, what the fuck was he thinking?

Sora was staring at him with wide wet eyes, tears slipping down her face. Kuina was comforting her twin and glaring at Sanji fiercely, however he could see her bottom lip wobbling dangerously as well.

Fuck, he had only had children for a day and he had basically rejected them to their face and made them cry. Just like…

Why the fuck did future him ever think he had what it took to be a parent?

He shifted uncomfortably under the girls’ stares as well as the tension growing amongst the crew.

No one moved or said anything for a long moment until Zoro began taking steady steps towards the girls. He wordlessly held out a hand to them. Sora responded by holding up her arms and Zoro picked her up, securing her to his hip, before he took Kuina by the hand and walked towards the rope ladder. Kuina immediately started to crawl up his back to make it easier for him to climb with the kids, an action that seemed familiar to her.

“Don’t worry about the twins, Luffy. I’ll take care of them until we get them back where they belong,” Zoro stated, an implicit promise in his voice.

“Of course you will,” the captain replied, one of his trademark smiles plastered on his lips.

Zoro climbed up the ladder one handed with the girls, entered the crow’s nest and closed the door behind him.

Sanji stared at the door for a long moment, feeling the heavy weight of his crewmates’ stares on him. He heaved a sigh to himself, his hands clenched into fists.

“There’s lunch prepared already. It’s laid out in the dining room. Feel free to help yourselves,” he informed them before turning and retreating to the aquarium where he could be alone.

Chapter Text

Sanji leaned his back against the door of the aquarium once he was alone, his body feeling like a live wire. He didn’t want to think about his current situation or why it was affecting him the way it was, why he was so upset, especially when he didn’t…

“Fuck…” he mumbled under his breath.

He moved to sit down, a hand tangling in his hair as he hunched over, trying to resist the urge to tear his hair out.

Of all the strange fucked-up situations to find himself in, why did it have to be something like this?

Okay, so maybe it was time for him to level with himself a bit. Yes, there had been a time when he had felt… something for Zoro. A weird, indefinable thing that made his chest clench strangely when the mosshead smiled and his skin feel like it was on fire if they made even the slightest bit of contact. Something that had started some nebulous time during Alabasta after Sanji realized he could feel that way for men, something that had grown stronger in Skypeia, something that he thought Zoro might reciprocate after some of their interactions in Water 7.

Following Usopp’s departure and Robin’s, with Luffy’s confidence being tested and the rest of the crew a depressed mess, Zoro had confided his worries to Sanji one night. He let Sanji give him words of encouragement and be his support. Later, he expressed concern for Sanji getting on the sea train by himself. After Merry’s funeral, when Sanji was able to hole himself away and let himself feel regret and grief, Zoro found him, sat by him and let Sanji lean on his shoulder, offering silent comfort.

And Sanji thought, maybe.

Then Thriller Bark happened. And Kuma happened. And nothing happened.

Sanji felt like his heart was being ripped apart when he stumbled upon Zoro in a pool of blood. He felt Zoro’s heart stop as he carried him on his back, hobbling towards the crew on a broken leg in desperation for the man he realized in that moment that he loved. The idiot was bleeding out on his back, his heart stuttering in his chest, his loyalty etched into every ravaged inch of his skin and Sanji could only think of how much he absolutely adored this idiot.

He debated with himself whether to say anything about it in Sabaody. Zoro had even noticed him acting differently. Sanji told him he’d talk to him later, when he was ready. Later came much later than he was anticipating. He spent two years on Momoiro dwelling on things, trying to accept that he could have a serious conversation with Zoro about his feelings and that either outcome would be okay as long as he was strong enough and confident enough to face it. He planned on talking to Zoro on the archipelago about it all, but then he saw him and every bit of courage and resolve fled him in an instant. He couldn’t make himself say the words, couldn’t even broach the topic. He had fled so deep back inside himself that he made an even larger fool of himself than usual. Fishman Island was not his proudest moment, but he recognized it as a result of his own cowardice.

Ever since Thriller Bark, he never really stopped running away from it all. He didn’t see a reason to stop now, not when he was sure that Zoro didn’t feel the same way about him. Maybe he had once, maybe, but Sanji had ruined that with his recent actions and behavior. What was the point of putting himself through something that was bound to hurt him in the end?

For all Sanji’s blustering, he recognized the kind of man Zoro was. It was true he didn’t shower enough. He had the emotional intelligence and linguistic skills of a cactus. He was entirely too obsessed with pointy things. He wouldn’t know romance if it slapped him in the face and stole his swords. He was a directionless moron who would get lost walking in a straight line. However, Zoro was also strong, brave, loyal, trustworthy, steady, driven and determined. He had never wavered in his dream, he staked his life on it the second he got the chance. He wore violence like a second skin and it only attracted Sanji to him even more. Zoro was the type of man someone could lean on when they needed the extra support. He was someone you could trust with your secrets, with your soul, with your dreams, with your treasure and know that if he claimed you as his nakama, he would guard all that you were with his life.

By contrast, what did Sanji have to offer him? His cooking? Chefs were a dime a dozen, Zoro could find someone to make him food anywhere.

Sanji was strong, but so were Luffy and Jinbei. So were Robin, Brook and Franky. So were Nami, Usopp and Chopper in their own ways.

Sanji wasn’t brave, he chickened out on telling Zoro the truth the second he got the chance.

He wasn’t trustworthy, he proved that by abandoning his crew and going to Whole Cake, he proved it by fighting his captain, by denouncing his dream.

He wasn’t steady. He was a mess of indecision and insecurities.

He couldn’t call himself driven and determined. He had given up on his dreams before and if it wasn’t for Luffy, he wouldn’t be looking for the All Blue at all.

So how was Sanji meant to accept that Zoro would choose him, that they would settle down, have a family, be happy together? It all seemed like a cosmic joke, a carrot dangled before him, an impossibility that was being rubbed in his face.

Putting aside the unlikelihood of Zoro wanting him, Sanji couldn’t be a father. He couldn’t raise a kid, let alone two. There was no way they’d turn out right. What did he know about being a parent? Judge was hardly a good role model. He adored his mother, but she hadn’t gotten the opportunity to raise him from her sickbed. There was Zeff who took him in, taught him everything he knew, shaped him into the man he was. Zeff was the only man he’d ever call father, but he wasn’t exactly the soft nurturing type. Sanji wasn’t about to adopt his parenting style of punctuating lessons with a kick upside the head.

And what about Germa? Judge had said they’d leave him alone, but he wouldn’t trust his word worth a damn. What if he found out about the twins and wanted to use them? What if he wanted to turn them into perfect soldiers for Germa’s aggrandizement? What if they inherited Sanji’s modifications? What if they had more of Germa in them than even Sanji did and the modifications triggered for them sometime down the line? How could he bring children into the world with all that baggage?

Sanji wasn’t sure how long he was in the aquarium, trying and failing not to freak the fuck out, before a knock sounded at the door. He looked up as it opened and Robin stepped inside, a genial smile on her face and a plate with burgers in hand. He quickly collected himself upon seeing her and plastered a smile onto his face.

“Robin, my sweet, how honored I am to be blessed by your beauty. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company,” he gushed, ignoring the way his voice wavered.

“You missed dinner. I was concerned and wanted to be sure you had eaten.”

Sanji’s face fell at that. He stared at the plate in her hand again. He hadn’t made burgers. He quickly glanced at his watch. It was an hour past dinnertime. It was just around lunchtime when he came in here. He felt a stone settle in his gut and shame well up in his chest.

“I’m so sorry. I… I can fix this. I’ll whip something up right now.”

He stood up and made for the door, but Robin stepped in front of it.

“That won’t be necessary. When you didn’t emerge at your usual time, my dear Franky took the liberty of bringing out the grill and made burgers for dinner. Brook and Jinbei took care of cleanup, so that isn’t a worry either. Everyone has eaten already. It’s why I’m here, to ensure you do as well.”

Sanji sighed, more shame squeezing his heart. How could he skip out on his duties? His job was to be the Strawhats’ cook and he couldn’t even do that.

“I must confess, my primary reason for being here is to check on your wellbeing and it seems I didn’t come a moment too soon.”

Robin was giving him a knowing smile. He shifted uncomfortably and looked away.

“It is strange, isn’t it? To get a clear glimpse into what the future holds for you? To hear about yourself living a life you never imagined was possible? There have been many times that I’ve told myself to simply be content with what I have, that I was greedy for wanting anything beyond what I’d been given, that I didn’t deserve to have more.”

“Robin, dearest, you deserve the universe. After all you’ve been through, I’m glad to know that you’ll have the life you deserve.”

“And I’m glad to hear that you will too.”

Sanji clenched his teeth in reply, unable to meet Robin’s deep gaze.

“May I ask you a question, Sanji?”

“You can do whatever you desire, my sweet,” he replied automatically, more of a reflex than anything.

“You sound as though you are happy in the future with Zoro and your daughters. Why are you so afraid of that?”

Sanji gaped at her. Robin stared back, waiting patiently for an answer.

“I don’t… I’m not afraid.”

“No?”

“No. I’m upset.”

“Why?”

“Because Zoro and I shouldn’t be together.”

“Why not?”

“There’s a laundry list of reasons why not. We fight all the time. He doesn’t love me, he doesn’t even like me. And more than that, I don’t deserve to be with—”

Sanji cut himself off, looking down and away. He did not want to get into this.

“I shouldn’t be burdening a lovely lady such as yourself with things like this.”

Robin was quiet for another moment before she spoke up again.

“One more question. Why is it that you are so convinced of everyone else deserving happiness but not yourself?”

Sanji stared at her, feeling like he had just been bludgeoned over the head.

“Hmm. It’s quite a wonderful feeling, knowing that the future holds with it the promise of so much love. I’ll have Franky. I’ll have our children. I will even be preserving a piece of my home and making sure the name of Ohara doesn’t die out in my lifetime. It is humbling and, in some ways, frightening but a wonderful feeling nonetheless. Perhaps you should allow yourself to feel it. In your own time, of course. In the meanwhile, please eat something. It would ease our worry for you immensely.”

Sanji took the plate Robin handed to him robotically. She gave him one of her enigmatic smiles and turned towards the door.

“Robin? Did… did Zoro and the girls eat?”

“Usopp brought their food up to the crow’s nest. They spent the day inside and have yet to emerge.”

Sanji scrunched his eyebrows, guilt growing inside of him again.

“Thank you.”

Robin nodded before leaving him alone with his roiling thoughts.

Sanji remained in the aquarium for another few hours, his mind consumed by what Robin had said to him along with the thoughts he had already been dwelling on. Eventually, he had to accept that he couldn’t hide forever. He had to go to the galley and see what needed to be done ahead of tomorrow. He had to make up for his misstep today, that meant he needed to make extra food tomorrow for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He’d need to make things Franky, Jinbei and Brook would like as thanks for picking up his slack. And he’d better check the stock of sea king meat and ingredients for onigiri. He owed Zoro as well.

He sighed to himself as he stood up, bringing his plate with him so he could wash it.

He walked out onto the deck, pausing for a moment to take a deep breath of night air, his fingers twitching towards his cigarette pack. He’d been chain smoking in the aquarium and now his cigarette supply was depressingly low. He debated whether to give in to the urge but before he could withdraw his pack from his pocket, he heard unfamiliar laughter.

He turned towards Nami’s trees and paused as he saw three figures cuddled up beneath one. Zoro was lying on his back, staring at the sky. Kuina and Sora were tucked into either side of him, snuggling up against his chest as they all looked up at the stars. Sanji couldn’t hear what Zoro was telling them, but the girls had soft smiles on their faces before they both let out a chorus of sweet giggles.

Zoro glanced over at him suddenly, causing Sanji to jump just a bit. The swordsman stared wordlessly for a few seconds, his face blank and emotionless, before he turned back to the sky. Sanji felt a pang in his gut before he steeled himself and walked towards the galley. The kitchen was clean, just as Robin said it would be. Sanji would still end up rechecking everything anyway but right now he had something else he needed to do.

He went to the cabinet and grabbed three bowls before opening the freezer. There was still leftover matcha ice cream that Sanji had made specifically for Zoro during their trip to a summer island not too long ago. He scooped some into a bowl and set it on a tray before taking out the tub of vanilla ice cream. He didn’t know anything about the twins’ palettes yet, so it seemed a safe bet. Still, he garnished their bowls with slices of strawberries, two almond tuille cookies that miraculously hadn’t been eaten yet and some chocolate drizzle. Once all three bowls were ready, Sanji walked out of the galley and approached the trio. They looked over upon hearing his approach. Zoro’s face remained impassive, but the girls stiffened a bit and stared at him cautiously.

“Hi,” he greeted lamely, wincing a little at his own awkwardness.

“I, um, I just wanted to bring you this. I thought you might like some dessert.”

He held out the tray towards them. They all stared at him for a moment before Zoro took the bowls.

“That all?”

“Actually, no. I… I want to apologize to you. I’m sorry, girls. I shouldn’t have raised my voice at you; I know that scared you. I shouldn’t have implied that you shouldn’t exist. I didn’t mean that, not now and I’m certain not in the future either. I’m sorry that I hurt you.”

Sora and Kuina shared a quiet look before Sora hesitantly spoke up.

“Did we do something wrong? Why don’t you like us?”

Sanji’s eyes widened at that and he felt his heart breaking. How many times had he wondered and asked Judge why he didn’t like him? Sanji had always resolved to be a better man than Vinsmoke Judge and look at what he had done. He stared into their big blue eyes, the eyes that he shared, and it was like looking at his child self. He got a quick flash of the girls in a dungeon with an iron mask on their heads before he firmly banished the image. He would die first before he ever let that happen to them.

He swallowed his own self-loathing and focused on the girls. He knelt so he was eye level with them.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. There’s nothing wrong with you. And it’s not that I don’t like you. What I said wasn’t a result of hatred, it was fear. I was afraid and I was lashing out and I ended up lashing out at you. You didn’t deserve that. I am so sorry that I made you feel like it was somehow your fault, because it was not.”

“We scared you? How did we do that,” Kuina asked incredulously.

“It wasn’t you specifically. It was me. My head… it can be pretty silly sometimes. My thoughts can get… anyway, it’s my sh— stuff, my baggage. It’s not on you at all. There isn’t anything wrong with you. You deserve all the happiness in the world.”

Somewhere near the end, Sanji found his eyes flickering up to Zoro, making sure to include him in the collective ‘you’. He had been an ass to him too and he was owed an apology as much as the girls were. Zoro’s face softened just the barest amount. It would’ve been imperceptible to anyone else, but Sanji was well versed in all his nuances by now.

“Well, Otosan does say that your head works funny and you get stuck in it sometimes,” Sora commented seriously with Kuina nodding in agreement.

Zoro snorted at that as Sanji gave him a look.

“Am I wrong,” the swordsman asked.

Sanji held his gaze. Zoro seemed less cold and standoffish, though that could be because the girls were here. Sanji wouldn’t know what he was really thinking until they could talk, just the two of them.

“No, you’re not wrong. Either way, I apologize to all of you.”

Kuina and Sora looked at each other silently for a moment before they both turned to him, wide dazzling smiles on their lips.

“We forgive you, Daddy.”

A gust of breath was punched out of him when the girls flung themselves at him, wrapping him in tight hugs. He paused for a moment before he returned the hug, his hands rubbing up and down their backs soothingly.

“Are you sure? Because you don’t have to. You’re not obligated to just because I’m your father in the future.”

“We know your head gets silly, Daddy,” Sora started.

“We love you anyway,” Kuina finished.

Sanji’s heart suddenly constricted at that.

“Y— you do?”

If they loved him, then he must be a good father. He was nothing like Judge was, not that he ever thought he would be but he had already hurt them today. Even if he wasn’t abusive, he didn’t want to be the kind of parent who wasn’t emotionally available to their children and he knew himself well enough to know that even if he didn’t mean to, it was a possibility.

The girls looked up at him with strange expressions.

“Of course we do, you’re our Daddy,” Sora responded, her head tilted like a puppy before realization flooded her blue eyes.

“Otosan, I think Daddy’s head is still being silly.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me. It does that a lot,” Zoro answered.

The girls nodded sagely in return before hugging Sanji harder.

“Otosan says we should say lots of nice things to you when your head gets silly like this. We love you tons. You’re the best Daddy ever,” Sora declared.

“You make the best spicy seafood pasta and the tastiest treats. We love getting to cook with you. You’re super strong, we can’t wait until you start teaching us how to kick like you so then we can use swords and kick and be just as strong as you and Otosan,” Kuina added.

“Plus, you do our hair much better than Otosan does. He always gets it all knotted up,” Sora added in a whisper, though from the look of amusement on Zoro’s face, he heard it anyway.

Sanji stared down at the girls, suddenly overcome with a wave of affection and love.

Oh.

Well, if his future self felt even a fraction of this, then Sanji could understand his decision to have kids just a little better now. Embarrassingly enough, he felt tears stinging his eyes. He hugged the girls closer to him, leaning down to press kisses to their heads so they didn’t see. He was not going to do this in front of them as well after how undignified they had seen him be today. He ought to preserve at least some pride for his future self.

He lifted his head back up. Zoro had a knowing look on his face that signified that Mossy likely saw the emotion. Thankfully, he didn’t say anything.

“Will you stay with us, Daddy? Otosan is telling us stories about the stars,” Kuina asked.

Sanji glanced over at Zoro who shrugged in reply.

“Up to you, Curly.”

He looked back at the girls who were staring with hope shining in their eyes. How could he say no to those faces?

“Sure, why not?”

He sat next to Zoro, their shoulders brushing. Sora climbed into Sanji’s lap while Kuina did the same with Zoro beside him, the two girls digging into their ice cream as the swordsman continued telling his stories about the stars. Sanji chimed in a few times, telling his own stories. It was hard to ignore how domestic it all felt as well as how easy it was, how right it seemed. The girls didn’t last too much longer, eventually falling asleep cuddled in the two men’s laps.

“We’d better get them to Robin and Nami so they can sleep in a proper bed,” Sanji suggested softly after the twins had finally gone limp and their breathing evened out.

(He took note that they did not inherit Zoro’s penchant for snoring, thank the seas for that.)

“Actually, Franky got the first mate’s quarters ready for them. He figured they’d like the familiarity all things considered. They asked if I would stay there with them and I agreed.”

“Oh. Okay, well, do you even remember where the first mate’s quarters are? I know it’s technically your room but seeing as how you’ve never used it a day in your life…”

“Franky showed me the way earlier.”

“I’ll take that as a no. Alright, the Sunny isn’t big enough to be lost forever. You start leading the way and I’ll get us there eventually.”

Zoro shot him an annoyed look as he stood up, adjusting his grip on Kuina. Sanji followed as Sora cuddled into his chest, a sleepy sigh puffing past her lips.

It took longer than Sanji was sure it needed to, but eventually they managed to find their way. He looked around the space curiously, the room he would be sharing with his family in the future. It was slightly smaller than the bunk rooms were and largely dominated by a bed situated under a port hole. There was a small bedside dresser with a lamp atop it on the left side of the bed and a wardrobe next to the door as well as a small room connected that appeared to be a bathroom. It was a spartan space, not lived in, though Sanji suspected that was different in the future.

“You can put her down now,” Zoro said, breaking Sanji out of his examination.

Zoro had already laid Kuina in the middle of the mattress. Sanji followed suit with Sora and then stepped back, watching as Zoro began arranging them so they could sleep comfortably before he tucked them in snuggly. He even pressed a kiss to each of their foreheads, just above their curly brows. Sanji felt his heart squeezing again at the sight. Zoro had always been good with children, but it was something totally different to see him with his own children.

Their children.

“You staying, Cook?”

Sanji snapped out of his daze and looked over at Zoro. The swordsman had removed his swords, laid them next to the bed and climbed in beside the girls. He was staring at Sanji, quirking an expectant eyebrow.

“No, I’ve gotta— I need to sort things out in the kitchen, so… I’d better…” Sanji waved towards the door but found himself pausing.

“I really am sorry for the way I reacted earlier. It wasn’t about you. I don’t want you to think that I would ever believe a happy future isn’t something you deserve. From the little I’ve gleaned, it seems like happiness will find the whole crew in different ways. You’ll have the girls, you’ll reach your dream, you’ll even have your own dojo. I’m happy for you. I really am.”

Zoro stared at him, a hesitant look on his face before he spoke.

“Even though part of that happiness will include me being married to you?”

Sanji felt his heart clench and his stomach flip at the words. Zoro and Sanji, married. It was an impossibility, and yet…

He felt the heavy weight of Zoro’s stare as Sanji continued to flounder, unable to find any words to reply. The green-haired man nodded after a moment.

“Right. I’ll see you in the morning, Curly.”

“Right,” Sanji mumbled in return, turning towards the door to leave the room.

“Curls,” Zoro called just as Sanji touched the doorknob. He paused but didn’t turn back around, inclining his head slightly to indicate he was listening.

“I’ve been talking with the girls. The way they’ve described their lives, it seems like you’re happy too, not just me. I’m glad I’ll be able to make you happy.”

Sanji whipped around to stare at the other man, wide-eyed. Zoro met his gaze steadily and unwavering.

“You deserve it too, you know?”

It was a rhetorical question but from the look that came over Zoro’s eyes, he wondered if the mosshead was waiting for an answer.

“You do know that, right,” he continued, confirming Sanji’s suspicions as the man tilted his head questioningly, still waiting for an answer.

Sanji pursed his lips in reply before opening the door.

“Good night, Zoro.”

He stepped out of the room and shut the door behind him, leaning heavily against the wall beside it as he took a deep breath. Everything inside of him wanted to read into Zoro’s words, find hope in them, possibility, but he knew better. There was no point in wishing and hoping and praying, no matter what the future held. Sanji was certain the man he will be then isn’t the man he is now. The man he will be will be a man worthy of bearing the title of ‘world’s best dad’ for the twins. The man he will be will be a man who will make Zoro happy. The man he will be will be a man who earned his happy ending.

Sanji isn’t that man yet.

He stuffed the hope back down inside of himself and resolved to get to work.

Chapter Text

It was a testament to just how crazy the Grand Line was that the crew returned to business as usual after their time travelling guests had settled in.

Sugimoto was locked in their approximation of the brig, being watched on a schedule by the crew and depowered thanks to sea prism cuffs. The man ranted on about his victory over Robin ever so often, but he was largely ignored. It was their younger guests who got most of the attention, which made sense. The twins were fucking adorable if Sanji said so himself, though he might’ve been slightly biased.

He had quickly decided to put off whatever crisis his brain was intent on having about the twins (i.e. he stuffed his feelings down as deep as they could go and layered them over with as much of his usual B.S. as he could manage). Beyond the girls being his and Zoro’s daughters, they were guests on the Sunny and a new challenge for him to gauge their palettes.

He threw his all into doing just that and often, the girls would join him in the galley to watch him cook or to offer their assistance as sous chefs. Usually, Sanji preferred to work in the kitchen alone. He had a flow once he started cooking and despite his years at the Baratie, in the ship’s galley it was difficult to account for other bodies once he got carried away. To the girls’ credits, they seemed to instinctually know when and where Sanji was likely to move and they called out their own movements as well. He could admit that he might’ve teared up in pride the first time Sora called out ‘sharp walking’ when she brought him a knife and he might’ve nearly split his face grinning when Kuina barked ‘hot behind’ while maneuvering a pan of cookies out of the oven even though Usopp, who had been passing by the galley at the time, had nearly flung himself into the ocean out of fright.

It was clear they were used to a kitchen and more importantly, they were used to being in a kitchen with him. There was an eagerness to them whenever he allowed them to do anything that reminded him of himself with Zeff. The girls didn’t appear to have the same deep yearning to cook that he did, but there was a level of curiosity and interest reflected in the precious moments he had growing up with his adopted father. It was nice to know he was carrying on that tradition in the future.

Cooking wasn’t the only interest they shared with their parents. After breakfast, the twins usually followed behind Zoro to sit down for morning meditation followed by going through their katas with the bokkens the girls brought with them from the future. After dishes were clean, Sanji would sit back and watch them. The way the girls held the bokkens and went through their forms showed they’d been training for a while. They were by no means experts, they were still children after all, but Sanji saw Zoro written in every inch of them and their resemblance to him certainly didn’t hurt that assessment. It was like seeing triple. A garden of moss.

Sanji chuckled to himself at the image as he heard the commotion going on past the galley.

Luffy, Chopper and Usopp were teaching the twins another one of their infamous games that was no doubt going to devolve into chaos. The girls would sometimes drop anecdotes about the future. However, Sanji often would wave it away and encourage them not to. Some things were best left unknown. However, that didn’t mean that he was oblivious to the crew’s interactions with the girls. At first, it hinged on whether a certain crewmate wanted to know more about the future or didn’t.

Luffy wanted to know absolutely nothing because that would ruin the adventure.

Usopp pumped them for every bit of information that they would give him and then spent hours wriggling around the boat over the happy domestic life ahead of him.

The rest of the crew fell between those two extremes. Franky and Robin learned a bit more about their future, mainly because the twins were wondering about the archeologist and shipwright’s sons and their wellbeing.

Nami learned only that she split her time between sailing with Luffy to complete her map of the world and working in Alabasta as an ambassador and diplomat for the country’s relationship with the Pirate King.

Brook claimed foreknowledge had its place but he would much rather let the wild melodies of the world blow his heart where they pleased (“of course, I don’t have a heart, yohohohoho.”) He also added a joke about anticipation shivering through his bones but Sanji tuned him out at that point.

Chopper was burning with curiosity and asked a lot of questions about the future, but most of it had nothing to do with the Strawhats and instead had to do with the world at large. He didn’t seem too concerned that the girls were from somewhere between 10 to 15 years in the future and that times couldn’t have changed so drastically that the world looked completely different.

Jinbei thought wisdom dictated that there was some knowledge better left unattained.

Zoro seemed more in line with Sanji’s thinking. He let the girls ramble if they ever felt a need to but also thought some things were better left unknown.

Once everyone got past the novelty of time travelers from the future, they moved on to the fact that those time travelers were kids, Zoro and Sanji’s kids to be exact, making them nakama and family. That showed in the way they treated the girls.

Franky kept going into his workshop and coming out with more and more elaborate toys, knickknacks and what Sanji was certain were secretly weapons that he bestowed on the girls, devolving into sobs whenever they thanked him.

Jinbei was often seen giving them piggyback rides and walking around with a girl on each shoulder, showing them how to steer the ship and teaching them about Fishman culture to satiate their endless questions.

Through Brook, Sanji discovered dancing was one of the twins’ great loves. The skeleton was ever available to play any tune the girls requested for their impromptu dance parties and always found an alternative if they requested a song that didn’t exist yet or one Brook didn’t know.

Robin and Nami took to treating them as dolls, raiding their closets and Chopper’s to find something the girls could wear other than the yukatas they arrived in, though they still customized anything they wore with their green obi sashes and bokkens.

Usopp, Luffy and Chopper also treated the twins like dolls, but less in the dress-up way and more in the lets-see-how-much-havoc-we-can-cause-before-our-toys-are-taken-away kind of way. Sanji had had several veritable heart attacks on account of some of the shenanigans the trio roped the innocent girls into. He had made liberal use of Nami’s birdcage and stuck all three of them inside (lumpy and bruised) after they managed to convince the girls to be lowered to the sea by way of fishing rod to act as what amounted to live bait for a sea king they were trying to capture. From then on, they weren’t allowed to be alone with the twins unless they were supervised, which usually fell to Jinbei or Zoro, but mostly Zoro.

The mosshead had been…

Sanji wasn’t even sure how to put it into words really.

Zoro and the girls seemed to fall into each other effortlessly. The girls, on a whole, were taking the time travel thing in stride. There were some moments where they expected the crew to know something or do something that their future counterparts would but it never really stopped them for long if whatever they expected didn’t happen. These hiccups occurred often. However, with Zoro, it was different. He appeared to instinctively know the right things to say or do for the girls. Fatherhood fit him as easily as swordsmanship did regardless of how it was foisted upon him. Sanji couldn’t help but notice the ease with which the girls existed around Zoro. The trio orbited each other, three patches of moss growing symbiotically together. The girls listened to whatever he said as gospel truth. They trusted him implicitly. He was the first person they sought out in the morning and by virtue of their sleeping arrangements, the last person they sought out at night.

It was obvious that in the future Zoro and the girls were close. Sanji would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a pang of jealousy. Zoro took this situation in stride. There was no freakout or meltdown. He accepted it with his usual coolness, took on the girls as his responsibility and moved on with his life. Zoro had always had an affinity for children, or rather they had an affinity for the swordsman, but he was different with the girls. There was a softness there, a level of care that was rarely ever seen in the brutish man. Sanji saw it in the gentle hands he used when correcting the girls’ forms. He saw it in the mild reprimands whenever the girls got into a little too much trouble. He saw it in the placid way he allowed them to eke every bit of physical affection out of him that they wanted. He saw it in the tender looks he gave them when he thought no one was looking.

Zoro loved them, there was no question about that. Which was not to say Sanji didn’t love them. He saw those two girls as walking miracles. He didn’t know how it was possible for him to be as fucked up as he was and produce two relatively normal children. Even with Zoro’s genes alongside his own, they weren’t winning in the genetics department and yet the girls were happy, well-adjusted and clearly loved. They often dropped beloved members of their family casually in conversation, creating the image of a tapestry of people who all adored the girls and made sure they knew it. Sanji’s future self was among those people and his present self was too.

However, there was an ease to Zoro’s interactions with the girls that Sanji couldn’t force himself to feel. He felt on edge, like he was waiting for a shoe to drop. Any moment now, Germa was going to show up, wanting to take the girls and experiment on them. Any moment now, the girls were going to say something that revealed that Sanji was as shitty a father as he expected himself to be. Any moment now, the girls were going to shatter the illusion of future happiness that all the Strawhats believed lay before them. Each day that passed gave more evidence to the contrary, but Sanji still felt that impending sense of doom deep in his gut. It caused him to hold the girls an arm’s length away, even as he spent time with them.

Zoro was with them nearly all day. Meanwhile, Sanji couldn’t even think of them as his daughters in his own head. It was always ‘the twins’ or ‘the girls’. He never referred to them as his, although everyone else did and the girls still called him Daddy.

He supposed in a way, they weren’t his, not yet at least. Whatever needed to happen to put him and Zoro in a position to have the twins hadn’t happened yet and given how stupid time travel was, Sanji worried that there could be a scenario where Sugimoto fucked things up enough and the girls didn’t exist. Robin had waved this off, stating that while there was a theory of time travel to support Sanji’s fear, given that the girls were able to time travel to the past at all when it was previously believed to be scientifically impossible, they were likely not operating under that theory and instead they could be operating within a paradox and it was best to simply carry on with their plan to reach Epocah.

That was easier said than done.

Sanji turned as he heard whistling, taking the kettle off the hot plate and setting it aside. He was working on getting lunch together for the crew. Sora and Kuina would be joining him to cook dinner as they always did, leaving lunch as a time of peace and solitude for Sanji to dwell on his thoughts, thoughts he did his best to keep from veering towards more maudlin emotions. A near impossible feat for him.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, willing the anxious thoughts away. Robin said there was no need to worry and he’d be lower than a worm to question her wisdom.

Sanji spent the rest of lunch prep and all of lunch doing his best to ward off any troubling thoughts that saw fit to invade his mind, but he had never been the best at succeeding in that endeavor. As a result, he was quieter than usual during lunch with the entire affair passing him by in a haze of the general chaos that came with being a Strawhat.

Once lunch was over, he resolved to use clean up to distract himself.

“Need any help?”

He looked up and blinked in surprise. Zoro and the twins had stayed behind after everyone else had left.

“You don’t have to do that. I can do it on my own.”

“We know that. Still, we want to help.”

“Please,” Sora and Kuina tacked on, blinking up at Sanji innocently.

His resolve crumbled at the sight of their wide blue eyes and he found himself relenting.

It was a strange feeling to be cleaning up with the other three. He and Zoro had washed dishes together plenty of time and it felt easy to fall into their same rhythm. It was stranger to have Kuina and Sora there and have the girls effortlessly fall into their rhythm as well. The girls cleared the table and brought the dirty dishes over to Sanji, setting them exactly where he liked, not too close to the edge of the sink but not on top of his cutting boards. He watched out of the corner of his eye as they wiped down the table, even spraying the disinfectant in the same pattern he did and wiping counterclockwise as he preferred.

“It’s kind of weird, isn’t it? Seeing your own mannerisms inherited in another person without us teaching them any of it,” Zoro said, voicing Sanji’s thoughts.

“The Grand Line has thrown some pretty weird sh— stuff our way, but this is certainly near the top of the list. Guess it’s even weirder for you, huh? They’re practically your mirrors.”

“They look like me, yeah. When they open their mouths, I usually hear your words more than I ever hear mine though.”

Sanji blinked at that before giving Zoro a skeptical look.

“They gave me a five-minute lecture this morning on hygiene and forced me to take a bath. They chastise Luffy and Usopp when their shenanigans go too far or they endanger Chopper. I heard them giving Jinbei a practical seminar on world cuisine and talking about the merits of an oregano marinade.”

“That last one is Zeff. Clearly my future self has failed to stop him from infecting the children with his oregano obsession,” Sanji muttered mutinously.

“They also love volunteering to help in any way they can. They’re the only kids I’ve met who actively seek out chores. They’ll indulge the crew in practically anything if it makes them happy. Yeah, they inherited my looks. Clearly, they inherited your heart. They’re better for it.”

Sanji blinked at that, his heart skipping a beat as his cheeks colored. He furrowed his brows before he kicked Zoro’s ankle roughly. The swordsman hissed at the hit and threw him a glare.

“The hell?”

“Wh— what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I just meant I’m glad they’re kind, like you.”

“You can’t just say stuff like that,” Sanji exclaimed, his cheeks redder as he kicked Zoro even harder, drawer a harsher glare.

“You don’t have to make a fuss about it. I was just saying how I felt. Hell’s the matter with you, shitty cook?”

“You’re the matter, shitty swordsman. Just saying what you want any time you want, not thinking of what it even means.”

How dare he say something so romantic to Sanji and not even realize it, the damn fool.

“You trying to pick a fight with me, swirlybrow,” Zoro growled, his hand drifting to his swords.

Sanji tapped his foot against the floor in response.

“I’ll mop the floor with your face if you really wanna try me,” he retorted through grit teeth.

Just as the two were ready to clash, a voice cut straight through the tension.

“Swear money.”

Sanji and Zoro looked down to see Sora and Kuina staring up at them expectantly.

“You guys were cursing. You owe us swear money,” Kuina elaborated.

“That was three curses from Otosan and one from Daddy, so Otosan owes us four berries each and Daddy owes us two,” Sora calculated as she and her sister held out their hands for their expected berry.

“Three curses? How’s that?” Zoro grumbled.

“You said the h-word twice and the s-word once. The h-word will cost you one berry for both times and the s-word will cost you two berries.”

“How the he— how in the world did you come up with that pricing system?” Sanji asked, quickly correcting his words as he retrieved his wallet.

“Aunt Nami helped us,” they replied in unison.

“She says one flat charge doesn’t make sense and we should charge for each curse by level of severity,” Sora elaborated.

“Course that witch would do something like that,” Zoro groused as he took out his billfold.

Sanji shot him a glare in response.

“Don’t insult Nami, shi— stupid swordsman,” Sanji warned as he put his wallet away.

“What are you two swindlers planning to do with this money anyway,” Sanji asked the girls.

“Oh yeah, we almost forgot to mention. Aunt Nami says there’s a small island on the way to Epocah that she thinks we should dock at for supplies. Can we use the money to get some things when we all go grocery shopping?”

Sanji blinked.

“Who says we’re all going grocery shopping at all?”

The girls blinked at that.

“We always go grocery shopping together when we go to a new island,” Sora said.

“Well, we do in the future anyway. Future Daddy likes to show us how to find the best produce at the market and how to spot people who are trying to rip us off,” Kuina explained.

“It’s strange though, whenever we go to stalls with Daddy we might meet people who are trying to trick us, but when we’re with Otosan, we never do. People even give us special prices sometimes. I wonder why,” Sora pondered innocently.

Sanji snorted as he imagined the twins facing off against some scammer quivering in their boots at the sight of the World’s Greatest Swordsman glaring down at them.

“Yeah, I wonder why.”

“So, we will be shopping together, right,” Kuina pushed.

Sanji took a moment to ponder it. He thought of those weekends when he and Zeff used to go to the markets together, looking for the most premium fish and produce for the Baratie, learning how to haggle after watching Zeff argue down prices at stall after stall, learning how to spot a scam under his adoptive father’s tutelage. He imagined himself doing the same in the future with Sora and Kuina. Would they stroll through the markets hand-in-hand? Would he smile warmly at them? Would he hold their fingers gently as he taught them how to test the freshness of different fruits? Would he teach them how to sample food to find the best quality for their dollar? Would Zoro come with them? Would they all walk the markets as a family, taking an extra hour after the idiot swordsman got lost? Would they eat lunch together, laughing and smiling and enjoying time together like any normal family would?

Sanji found himself softening at the thought. It wasn’t an awful one. Part of his brain decried it as impossible, but it wasn’t, was it? Sora and Kuina’s very existences were proof of that. In some not-so-distant future there was a version of Sanji living that life, a life current Sanji never dreamed of. As impossible as it seemed, he felt a pang of envy in his heart.

Jealous. He felt jealous of his future self, a man who was apparently adjusted and secure enough in himself to settle down with a man who loved him and build a family together while living in the sea of his dreams. Sanji felt lifetimes away from that man. Maybe he’d never even be him. He didn’t know how time travel work and everything Robin explained was theoretical at best. Maybe so much would be changed that the future Sora and Kuina came from would never come to pass or it would become some alternate reality that Sanji would never get to live.

He startled as fingers suddenly snapped right by his ears. He recoiled from the noise and shot a glare at Zoro as he stared at him with a raised brow.

“What gives, Mosshead?”

“Been trying to get your attention for a while now, Cook.”

“Are you okay, Daddy,” Sora asked, gazing up at him with guileless eyes.

“Yeah, I’m fine. We can go to the market together, that’s fine.”

“Yay,” Sora and Kuina celebrated before turning to each other and theorizing about all they’d like to buy. Sanji watched them, a warmth pulsing in his chest as he took in their enthusiastic smiles just at the prospect of spending time together.

God, he hoped he was doing right by them in the future. If he was worth anything at all, he couldn’t fail them, not them.

He flinched a little as a calloused hand brushed against his own. He looked over at Zoro who was still standing next to him, only a couple feet away thanks to their argument forcing them into each other’s space. The mosshead was giving him an assessing look, his single eye slightly narrowed with an emotion Sanji couldn’t readily identify.

“What,” he snapped.

“You sure you okay there, Cook?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Zoro gave him a look at that that screamed ‘don’t play dumb’.

Sanji pursed his lips in reply. Just a few months ago, before Whole Cake, the thought of admitting to an ounce of weakness was unthinkable, especially to Zoro. He was still learning that it was okay to ask for help every now and again. He was still accepting that he didn’t have to always be the strongest, but it was another thing to admit out loud that he was still adjusting to everything.

“I’m… I mean… it’s…” Sanji trailed off with a sigh.

“I don’t know,” he admitted lowly, looking down at the ground in both embarrassment and shame.

“That’s good, ‘cause I don’t know either.”

Sanji snorted at that.

“Oh please, you’ve got this whole thing figured out. You jumped right in and didn’t hesitate for a second. You’ve been doing great and I’ve been…”

“You’ve been doing what you can, same as me. This whole thing is weird as fu— it’s weird. I don’t think there’s a playbook for this sort of thing, but we’ve managed well enough so far. Don’t sell yourself short.”

Sanji glanced up and met Zoro’s eye. There was sincerity, as expected. Zoro wasn’t a liar. If he said something, he meant it. Still, Sanji was surprised by his… not softness per se, tenderness perhaps?

“I’m glad I’ll be able to make you happy. You deserve it too, you know?”

Zoro’s words from that first night were still ringing in Sanji’s mind.

Sanji’s finger twitched and he shuddered the slightest bit as they brushed against Zoro’s, his callouses making his sensitive skin tingle.

“Cook—”

Whatever Zoro was going to say was cut off as the galley door burst open and a hand stretched inside, wrapping around Sora and Kuina’s waists. The girls stared down, wide-eyed before they suddenly went flying from the room.

Sanji stared at the spot the girls had been just a moment ago, Luffy’s laughter and twin groans of pain floating into the kitchen.

He gritted his teeth as what happened finally settled in and he grabbed his frying pan before stomping out of the kitchen on a war path.

“Oi! You rubber idiot, what the hell is wrong with you? You don’t just go flinging my daughters around like that, are you out of your mind?!” He ranted, flying out of the kitchen wielding his frying pan like a weapon as his leg lit aflame.

His skin still tingled from Zoro’s touch even after he had beaten some sense into his captain and whisked the girls away from him.

Chapter Text

The island they landed on was as small as Nami indicated. It seemed to be little more than a waypoint to Epocah, which was the much larger island in the area. Franky and Usopp decided to stay on the ship, tinkering away in the workshop and also keeping watch. Robin and Brook had gone hunting for information about Epocah ahead of their landing while the others scattered to explore the island. Sanji, Zoro, Kuina and Sora quickly made their way towards the markets.

The girls were especially excited about it, their heads turning this way and that as they took in the sights. According to them, they didn’t often leave the All Blue sea. They had only gone on two short voyages on the Sunny and a few trips to a vendor on a nearby island from Le Grand Bleu but that was it. Sanji smiled down at them as they drank in the small island with a level of curiosity one would usually reserve for something more than a mundane marketplace.

“Where do you girls want to start,” Sanji asked as they walked through the stalls, listening to people shout out prices and offer free samples.

“We get to choose,” Sora asked excitedly.

“Sure, why not? I can get what we need for our inventory along the way.”

The girls smiled before turning to each other and whispering conspiratorially. Sanji caught their eyes straying over to the pastry stand more than once before they turned to him.

“Can we go over there,” Kuina asked, pointing to the pastry stand.

“We’ll only get something small so we won’t spoil ourselves for lunchtime,” Sora added.

“Please,” they begged, looking up at Sanji with the wettest puppy eyes he’d ever seen.

And, well, Sanji was only a man.

“Of course, mes petits choux, whatever you want,” he cooed in reply.

The girls beamed before making a beeline for the stand as Zoro snorted at his side. Sanji cut a glare at him.

“What?”

“Softie. You’d have chewed Usopp, Chopper and Luffy out if they wanted a sweet treat this early in the morning.”

“Well, the girls have got my genes and hopefully that offsets whatever idiocy you might try to pass on to them through your blood. But it also means they are noticeably more relaxed than those three, likely thanks to you, so sugar this early isn’t as much of a risk.”

“Likely thanks to me? More like definitely. If they took after you, they’d be raging neurotics who couldn’t sit still for five minutes,” Zoro retorted as they made their way leisurely towards the stall.

“I resent that, especially coming from a man with a moss infestation on top of his head.”

“Well, maybe I don’t enjoy taking lip from a man with a dartbrow resting over his eye.”

Sanji shot Zoro another glare as the man smirked back at him. Sanji blinked as he took note of the smirk. It was filled with amusement but there was also a contentment in his eyes that threw Sanji. He quickly looked away as they made it to the girls.

“Aww, man,” Sora was saying as the men stopped at the stall.

“What’s wrong?” Sanji asked.

“Nothing of your concern, good sirs. What can I get for you,” the vendor said.

Sanji ignored him and kept his eyes on the girls.

“We wanted to get those pink chocolate éclairs, but we don’t have enough berry.”

Sanji quirked a brow at that.

“Yes, yes. It’s unfortunate. Parents send children ahead with berry all the time and never take the time to learn the prices before doing so,” the vendor explained.

Sanji narrowed his eyes suspiciously at that.

“Oh really? And just how much are these éclairs?”

“1000 berries each,” Kuina answered.

Sanji stared down at her for a moment before looking at the vendor with a glare set on his face.

“1000 berries for an éclair?”

“Well, the pink chocolate is a special blend, so the price accounts for that.”

“A special blend,” Sanji repeated dubiously.

“And just what makes it so special,” he pressed.

“Well, this chocolate is a mixture called garnet chocolate. It’s very rare, you see. A perfect balance of sweet and sour. The true secret though are the garnet crystals that grow in the same area as the cocoa plants harvested to make garnet chocolate. Some say that the essence of the garnet crystals imbues the chocolate and promotes good health and fortune.”

“Ooh,” the twins cooed as Sanji stared at the man skeptically.

“Right. Don’t suppose you have a sample of this chocolate.”

“Why? Of course. Normally, I don’t do this sort of thing, but you seem to be a discerning fellow,” the vendor replied.

Sanji was used to this song and dance. He had met plenty of vendors who thought they could get one over on him, typical snake oil salesmen. Sanji took a dipstick covered in the pink chocolate and took a quick taste.

“Interesting.”

“Well worth the price, wouldn’t you say?”

“I meant it’s interesting how this “garnet” chocolate, happens to taste exactly like white chocolate that I’m willing to bet has been dyed pink. At least, the ink on your fingernails sure seem to point to as much,” Sanji replied.

“Besides, even if it was this stupid chocolate you were talking about, who’s paying 1000 berries for that? Is it magic or something,” Zoro said, drawing attention to himself.

His face was largely neutral with only a furrow between his brow indicating his annoyance, but the vendor suddenly broke out into a sweat.

“W-w-well, you see… it… it’s a family recipe and… I…”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to get one over on our girls.”

“P— perish the very thought, good sirs. I— I— wouldn’t— I didn’t—”

Zoro continued staring dully as Sanji glared hard at him.

“Hey girls, why don’t you check out that stall over there? We’ll be with you shortly.”

The twins glanced over at the stall Sanji was indicating. It wasn’t far away, still within earshot, and laden with fabrics and some pre-made clothes as well as cases of makeup. The girls’ eyes lit up before they made a beeline for it.

“Please sirs. It’s— it’s just b-business. I… I’ll give it to them for free even if you just…”

The chef and the swordsman exchanged a knowing look as the vendor continued stumbling uselessly over his words.

Sanji tapped a foot on the ground while Zoro clutched one of his sword hilts. And here he was thinking he’d have a tame morning.

~*~*~

“It was so nice of that man to give us all these éclairs for free,” Sora said as they walked away from the pastry and garment stalls towards the fruit stands.

“And we got sweet milk to drink with it too. That was so nice,” Kuina added, sipping her milk happily.

“Oh yes, he was a very nice man,” Sanji commented, patting the girls’ heads before glancing back at the man who was still hyperventilating thanks to Zoro’s menacing aura. At least all that muscle was good for something other than just Sanji’s viewing pleasure. Not that he was looking… often.

“Don’t you think the Conqueror’s Haki was overkill,” Sanji muttered as he glanced at the self-satisfied swordsman.

“What’s the point of having it if I can’t use it against some asshole trying to swindle little kids? What about you? Don’t you think breaking his stall in half with an Ifrit Jambe was a little over the top?”

“It was that or the pastry case and you know how I feel about food waste.”

Zoro and Sanji shared a smirk between them as the girls beckoned them to try the éclairs. Sanji had to admit they tasted good and he got a good chuckle out of the face Zoro pulled having to eat the sweet treat in order to please the girls.

He glanced around the marketplace before gasping as his eye caught on a product.

“Daddy, are you okay?” Sora asked, glancing up at him with concern.

“Yes, yes. It’s just I’ve caught the eye of a rare gem,” he replied excitedly.

He had to stifle a laugh as both Zoro and the twins tilted their head inquiringly, like a bunch of curious puppies. It was a little adorable.

Okay, a lot adorable.

He nodded his head towards the stall that had engendered his excitement. The island they were on was a summer island in the middle of its version of spring. That kind of weather brought unique fruits in season, fruits Sanji hadn’t had the opportunity to get his hands on in ages. His eyes sparkled as he took in the mangos, pineapples, jackfruits, durians, papayas, avocados and lychee but his eyes caught particularly on the dragonfruit.

“Is that thing a Devil Fruit,” Zoro asked.

“No, it’s a dragon fruit.”

“There are dragon fruits now? Wait, isn’t Kaido’s Devil Fruit a dragon fruit? What’s the difference?”

Sanji rolled his eyes to the sky, praying for strength, before answering.

“Firstly, Kaido has a mythical Fish Fish Fruit. Secondly, a dragon fruit isn’t going to turn you into a dragon. It’s just a normal fruit.”

“Name’s misleading.”

“Surprised you know a word that big.”

“Oi!”

“Daddy loves dragon fruits. He puts it in a lot of dishes,” Sora mentioned.

“Daddy loves dragon fruits almost as much as Grandpa Zeff loves oregano,” Kuina added.

Sanji gasped at that.

“I do not. I don’t think anyone could love a food as much as that man loves that bloody herb.”

The girls giggled at that, drawing an involuntary smile from Sanji.

“Why’re you so obsessed with some lame fruit that can’t even give you powers,” Zoro drawled.

“It’s not lame and it certainly isn’t useless. Dragon Fruits have tons of prebiotics and antioxidants to help strengthen your immune system. It’s high in vitamin C, which we always need on the sea to make sure we don’t catch scurvy. It’s low calories but it’s high in fiber and iron. And it’s a fruit so I could use it in as many ways as I could think of: a sauce, a jam, a juice, a garnish, a snack, a gelée. I could roast it and stuff it. Make a salad, a pudding, an ice cream, a cake, a cupcake…”

Sanji didn’t notice how long he had been rambling until he took note of the lack of responses. He paused and looked at his three green-haired companions.

They were staring at him with small smiles on their faces.

“Keep going, Cook. We’re listening,” Zoro said.

“Yeah, Daddy. We like hearing you talk when you’re happy,” Kuina added.

“Ya-huh, Daddy looks even prettier when he’s happy,” Sora declared.

Sanji blushed and looked away, embarrassed.

“Honestly, girls. You don’t have to— it’s not necessary to— I’m not…”

“You okay, Daddy?”

“Daddy’s really red.”

“He’s alright, girls. He’s just incapable of accepting a compliment is all. His silly head doesn’t let him believe they’re true.”

Sanji shot Zoro a light glare at that as the girls gapped before twin expressions of determination took over their faces.

“Daddy is the best cook in the world. His food is even better than Grandpa Zeff’s. But don’t tell him I said that,” Sora announced.

“Daddy is the prettiest, most handsome man in the whole wide world. He’s even prettier than Auntie Nami and Auntie Vivi were on their wedding day,” Kuina declared.

“Daddy’s a good singer and a good dancer and we like singing and dancing with him the most, other than Uncle Luffy cause he’s really funny when he tries to sing.”

“Daddy’s smile is the brightest and makes me happy when I see it.”

“What on earth are you girls even saying,” Sanji interrupted, his whole body a mess of red blotches reflecting his embarrassment.

“We’re saying nice things about you, just like Otosan said we should when your head gets silly,” Kuina explained.

Sanji shot Zoro a look, but the swordsman just shrugged in response.

“Older me must’ve said it, but it’s an effective strategy.”

“Daddy’s so strong and brave. He can take down sea beasts with just one kick,” Sora declared, jumping up in the air trying to imitate Sanji’s skywalk.

“Ooh, remember that time the Blue Shock Pirates attacked Le Grand Bleu,” Kuina said excitedly.

Sora’s face immediately lit up.

“Yeah. We were kind of scared at first ‘cause they came at nighttime and Otosan was gone. The pirates boarded the ship, but all the cooks started fighting them too.”

“Grandpa Zeff brought us somewhere safe but then the captain came and took us. He could fly and he took us up really high and dropped us.”

Sanji’s eyes widened and his heart stopped at that.

“We were falling and it was really scary.”

“I wasn’t that scared,” Kuina muttered defensively.

“You were too. You were screaming louder than me,” Sora retorted.

“Were not.”

“Were too. That’s probably how Daddy heard us because suddenly he was there, catching us and he brought us back down to our ship where we stayed with the crew while Daddy took care of the rest.”

“He jumped back into the sky and then started spinning so fast we couldn’t even see him and his whole body lit up with blue fire. He flew right into their ship and blew the whole thing up,” Kuina exclaimed excitedly, her eyes glittering with clear admiration as she stared up at Sanji.

“The captain and the rest of the crew went swimming away in fear all because Daddy was so strong,” Sora explained, staring up at Sanji with just as much admiration.

“You were our hero,” Kuina concluded.

Sanji felt a lump of emotion that he was doing his damnedest to ignore begin forming in his throat. This was ridiculous and embarrassing and he was not going to do this here.

“I… well…”

Sanji glanced around, squirming a little under the girls’ gaze. Who knew two seven-year-olds could hold so much power over him?

In his efforts to avoid eye contact with them he found himself looking at Zoro. The man eyed him critically before speaking.

“You wanna really make sure we knock all the silly thoughts out of his head,” he started.

The girls nodded in response enthusiastically.

“Let’s go check out those fake Devil Fruits then.”

Sanji rolled his eyes at that, familiar and comfortable annoyance filling his chest.

“They’re dragon fruits.”

“They’re lying fruits. Could at least have the decency to do something cool with a name like that.”

They moved through the market together, checking out produce to restock the galley. Sanji could immediately tell that the girls had experience with his process from the way they eyed different fruits to how they inspected the meats even down to the questions they asked some of the vendors about what was in season and what wasn’t. He couldn’t help the fondness flooding his body watching them, seeing the proof that he was raising them in the smallest of things that they did. And maybe, just maybe, he was even doing a decent job of it. They seemed happy enough, adaptable, loving, high-spirited. Sanji remembered what he was like as a kid in Germa: withdrawn, fearful, full of anxiety, a crybaby, weak, useless, unwanted. On the Orbit, he had to learn that his tears would get him nowhere. No one would coddle him. He had to earn his keep and that meant learning how to stymy his tears, learning how to turn his fear and anxiety and terror of a world that he knew little to nothing about into anger and resentment and defiance. Those emotions were generally more accepted and the men on the ship knew what to do with that over some kid stuffing himself in a corner to hyperventilate because someone slammed a pot down and it sounded to him like the sound the cell door made when his brothers locked him back in after beatings.

He carried that same disposition with him to the Baratie. He relaxed a bit more over time with them but still, his weaknesses and his flaws were things he tried his best to lock up tight. He owed Zeff a great debt and he needed to focus on paying that off, not on crying about things that happened years ago. Sometimes, Zeff let that slide and sometimes he didn’t. He remembered some nights spent with the old chef sleeping in an uncomfortable chair at Sanji’s bedside while he was plagued with nightmares. He remembered the man coaching his breathing when he got locked in the pantry once by accident which led to a panic attack. He remembered calloused fingers gently removing his hands from his hair so Sanji wouldn’t rip the strands out.

Zeff was pretty shitty at saying anything comforting or soft or gentle. He was a former pirate after all, gentle wasn’t his thing. However, he could act in a facsimile of gentle sometimes when Sanji needed it. He could be… not gentle, but tender maybe, delicate? Tactful would probably be the best word for it. But would Sanji have let him be soft or gentle with him? Probably not, he probably would’ve been too worried about being seen as weak. It was a persistent fear, one he still carried with him even amongst the Strawhats. He could abide his crew seeing him in a lot of ways: seeing him as kind but rough around the edges, a good cook with a sharp disposition, a man whose morals regularly made him useless against about half of the population thanks to their gender, a man who nearly died of a nosebleed multiple times. Through all that he’d be seen as kind, strong, loyal, stupid, perverted but never as weak. Because weak meant useless and useless meant unwanted and unwanted meant replaceable.

He was trying to reorient his thinking nowadays after Whole Cake Island, but it was still a work in progress and things being what they were now was testing that. But Sora and Kuina were not like him. They weren’t traumatized, they weren’t fearful, they weren’t anxious, they weren’t sad. They were just kids, something Sanji never got to be. So, he must be doing right by them. He must not be utterly useless as a father then.

Although, he wasn’t alone in that endeavor.

He glanced over at Zoro, who had been pliantly following behind Sanji and the twins as they took the lead in picking items. He was playing the role of pack mule, food taster, occasionally transport if the girls decided to start climbing all over him, nuisance if it seemed like he was about to wander off, but mostly silent observer. He kept most of his attention on the girls, watching them to make sure they were okay but not stopping them from exploring the world around them. Sanji wondered what kind of upbringing Zoro had. The crew didn’t talk much about their pasts unless it became relevant, so he didn’t know much.

“What were you like as a kid?” He found himself asking.

Zoro glanced at him, a hint of surprise in his eyes before he shrugged.

“I was a little shit.”

The answer drew a snort of amusement from Sanji against his will.

“Well, for you to admit that it must be true. Not that that’s a surprise.”

“I was a feral headstrong thing. Lived most of my life alone after my parents died when I was four.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.”

“Barely remember ‘em. Ran around the woods on my own for a while because I didn’t want anyone to stick me in an orphanage. My parents started my training, but I kept training myself after they were gone. I fought the animals at first, but that got old quick so I started going to dojos and challenging them. I beat everyone at every dojo I went to, kids and adults. Except for one person at Isshin Dojo. Fought her 2001 times and didn’t beat her once. I ended up staying there until I left my village to be a bounty hunter.”

All that tracked as far as Sanji could see, though one detail stuck out.

“One person you couldn’t beat, eh? A lovely lady at that. You’re telling me there’s a woman out there that can soundly kick your ass and you haven’t told me about her yet?”

Zoro’s face didn’t change much and to anyone else, they wouldn’t notice anything wrong, but Sanji took note of the minute way his jaw ticked and the small tightness around his eyes. Zoro had changed a lot after training with Mihawk, his expressions and emotions were much more subtle, but Sanji had learned to pick up on them and so Zoro’s next words didn’t overly surprise him.

“She’s dead. Died years ago in some stupid accident.”

Sanji didn’t say sorry as he knew it didn’t help anything, but he did find himself stepping closer to Zoro, so their shoulders brushed against each other.

The swordsman looked indecisive for a moment before continuing.

“Her name was Kuina.”

Sanji paused at that, glancing over at the twins whose attention was grabbed by a pair of stuffed ducks hanging from the top of a stand.

“You named our daughter after your old rival?”

“She was more than that. She was my friend. She was my goal. We made a promise before she died that one of us would become the World’s Greatest Swordsman. I carry her sword now in honor of that promise and I carry our dream for both of us.”

Sanji noticed Zoro’s fingers brushing against Wado Ichimonji’s hilt. He knew the sword was special to him, more special than the others. He saw it in the way he held it, in the way he cleaned it, in the way he would react if anyone else touched it. He couldn’t have guessed why though.

“Well, from what the girls have said, you’ll fulfill that promise. You’ll be the World’s Greatest Swordsman one day.”

“In their version of the future, yeah. Doesn’t mean I can get complacent.”

Sanji didn’t bother bringing up Robin’s different theories about how the timelines worked and instead focused on Zoro’s words.

“No. But their version of the future or not, the outcome isn’t really in doubt, is it? Whenever you decide to fight Mihawk again, you’ll win and take his title.”

“You believe that, huh?”

“I don’t just believe it, I know you will,” Sanji replied with certainty.

He believed in every member of his crew and their ability to achieve their dreams. Zoro was no exception.

Zoro stared at him for a moment, a certain light in his eyes that Sanji couldn’t identify but it still sent his heart galloping in his chest before the singular silver orb finally relented and looked back to the girls. Sanji looked back at them as well. They were talking to the vendor about the stuffed ducks as the woman brought one down for the girls to look at closer. Kuina was stroking the stuffed duck’s beak while Sora squeezed the life out of it.

“Sora was my mother’s name,” Sanji blurted out.

Zoro glanced back over at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Just… since you told me who Kuina was to you I thought I should tell you who Sora was to me and… anyway, Sora was my mother. She died when I was young, 7 or 8. But she was… she was the best of our family. She was kind, a rare trait in Germa, believe me.”

“Hmm. Guess you got your heart from her then.”

Sanji paused at that. Reiju had said something similar to him and a lot more than that.

“Even though Mother has passed, she’s still here. Her kindness lives on in you. Needless to say, you are no failure. Our mother selflessly gave her life to protect you and your humanity. You are the future Mother wanted to see. That’s why you’re more kind and tender than anyone.”

That was another thing Sanji was still struggling to believe. His mind, so used to taking the blame on to himself, wanted nothing more than to wallow in guilt for his mother’s sickness and subsequent passing but it’d be the opposite of what his mother wanted, just as living his life as if he were indebted to Zeff was the opposite of what the old man had wanted. As he looked at Kuina and Sora being nothing more than two happy little girls who had the opportunity to just be children, he allowed himself to feel a moment of triumph. His mother’s legacy would continue to live on in his children and that was a win and a spit in the face of Vinsmoke Judge, who had shuffled her off to a hospital ward to waste away and left her grave buried so deep in the castle grounds that barely anyone ever visited it. His mother’s kind heart would live in the innocent purity of the twins. However, he was forced to acknowledge that could only happen if he inherited it from his mother and passed it on to them. Difficult as it was to give himself credit most times, Sanji couldn’t help but be proud in this instance of what he had gained from his birth family.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Zoro glanced over at him with a strange quirk to his lip.

“What?” Sanji asked defensively.

“Nothing, Curls. Just not used to you taking a compliment without a fuss is all.”

Sanji’s cheeks warmed just a bit then.

“I can take a compliment just fine, asshole.”

“Oh really? Okay. So what if I said that I really like that shade of blue on you? Makes your eyes look even prettier.”

Sanji was pretty sure he was as red as a tomato as his whole body heated up and his heart skipped a beat.

“You… you… don’t say things like that!” He exclaimed, throwing a fire-laced kick at Zoro which he blocked with Kitetsu.

“Point proven, Cook,” Zoro replied with a smug grin.

It was only right for Sanji to answer that with a kick to the face, which quickly devolved into a full-blown fight. Clearly this wasn’t new to the twins, because they hardly reacted to it at all. The rest of the vendors weren’t so amused, especially when a couple of the stands ended up destroyed, forcing them all to hightail it back to the ship to avoid any authorities. The girls didn’t seem to mind it, finding it rather hilarious more than anything if their laughter was anything to go by. Although they were sure to immediately harass the two for swear money thanks to all the curses they (mostly Sanji) let loose once they started fighting. Sanji was going to be as broke as Zoro if that kept up.

The fight was worth it though. It’d been a while since Sanji was able to let loose that way, ever since the girls had arrived really. He supposed he had wanted to be on his best behavior, but he guessed it should’ve occurred to him that the twins would be used to his dynamic with Zoro. He doubted it had changed so drastically just because they had gotten married to each other. He was only upset about the fact that he had managed to lose some of the items they bought during the mad dash back to the ship. Nami wouldn’t be happy about that.

The girls stayed back in the galley, helping him to put away the food they managed to save and also ended up helping him make lunch while Zoro made himself scarce. The girls volunteered to help clean up after lunch time as well, prompting Sanji to smile and accept the help. It was a nice day after all, he wasn’t ready to send them off just yet.

“Hey Daddy?” Sora asked.

“Hmm?”

“Later on, can we have spa night?”

“Spa night?” Sanji asked.

“Daddy doesn’t know about that, Sora. Remember? That’s in the future,” Kuina explained.

“Oh yeah. Well, it’s something we do once a month. On spa nights, the three of us get to wear fluffy robes and do facials, and you braid our hair and we paint our nails,” Sora elaborated enthusiastically.

“And sometimes we even get to wear a little bit of make up too,” Kuina added.

“Spa nights, huh?”

Sanji took a moment to think it over. Other than joining him in the galley, he didn’t spend time alone with the girls. Even going out shopping today, it was with Zoro. It had been nice being with the three of them, even if it ended in them having to run away. He hadn’t spent much time spiraling about the girls’ existence. It had just felt… normal. Maybe he should do something with them outside of the galley without Zoro. It could be rewarding and it might finally knock out the last bits of lingering anxieties he had about them. Not completely. Sanji would always be a bundle of nerves and self-doubt, but at least he could veer that towards himself and not them if he only spent some more time with them.

“Yeah, that sounds nice. Let’s do it.”

The girls beamed up at him with unadulterated joy, love and happiness. Sanji felt like his heart had wings. It was so strange to know that the girls looked at him and saw family, saw a parent, someone to trust, someone to love. Someone who wasn’t like Judge to them, someone who was more like Sora. He saw it in the way they smiled at him now and in the clear anticipation they felt throughout the day. They gushed to Robin, Nami and Zoro about the spa night they were going to have and how fun it would be, even to the point that Luffy was jealous that he was getting left out until he heard that it would involve a bath and getting nice and clean with the intention of staying that way.

Sanji was a little panicked about how excited they were. He didn’t know exactly what their usual spa nights entailed, and he didn’t have some of what they mentioned. There were no robes that would fit them aboard the ship and as for the make-up… well, Sanji did have some locked away in the back of his drawer that he brought with him from Moimoro Island but he only used that sparingly and he wasn’t sure he wanted to break that out and have it be known that he had that in his possession. He supposed he could ask Nami or Robin to borrow some of theirs, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so.

“Hey, Cook. Heard you and the girls are going to spend some quality time together tonight,” Zoro said as the two of them washed and dried dishes together.

Zoro had stayed back while the rest of the crew trickled out after dinner time to indulge in whatever evening activities fit their fancy.

“Yeah, well. With the way the girls have been crowing about it, I’d be surprised if you didn’t hear about it.”

“They’re excited. They’re happy to spend some time with you. They miss you. Well, the other you but you too if you know what I mean. This time travel shit is confusing.”

Sanji snorted a little at that before taking in Zoro’s words.

“I understand them missing their real Dad. I’m not… him. I’m sure I’m not exactly living up to whatever he is to them,” Sanji replied, trying to hide the jealousy he felt.

It was ridiculous, he told himself, to be jealous of a version of himself that would exist in the future. He should view it as an ideal to stride towards, not as a symbol of everything he wasn’t and every way he was falling short, but he couldn’t help but feel the way he did. He was sure if he verbalized his jealousy, he’d be either called an idiot or looked at with pity so he did his best to hide it instead.

“I don’t think they really care about that stuff. They just like spending time with all of us either way. Doesn’t mean they don’t miss home, but I think they’re seeing this as a vacation or something. They trust us, trust that we’ll get them home. And we will.”

“Of course we will. No thanks to that bastard in the brig. How’s that dumbass holding up?”

“Sugimoto? You’d have to ask Robin about that, I haven’t exactly wasted my time seeing him.”

“Understandable. I don’t know why our beautiful archeologist is wasting her time either.”

“He’s from the future and she’s an archeologist. He intrigues her.”

“You have a point there.”

“Did you just admit I’m right, Curls?”

“Don’t get used to it. All that means is that one braincell has managed to survive the parasite you call hair sucking all the common sense out of your head, Moss.”

“Maybe my braincells are just dizzy after staring at the swirl on your face all day, Cook.”

Sanji retaliated by kicking Zoro’s shin. The man gritted his teeth before flicking a handful of water at Sanji, hitting him square in the face. Sanji stared at him in surprise with a face that was apparently comical enough to cause Zoro to snort before letting out a low chuckle. Sanji stared at him as he held his head down and shook his head, a lop-sided smile on his lips. He couldn’t help but compare it to the laugh Zoro used to have when he first met him. The unrestrained nature of it, head thrown back and cackling in wild abandon. Sanji had always felt his heart squeeze painfully upon seeing him in that state. He always thought he looked beautiful. Not that he didn’t now as well.

The swordsman glanced over at Sanji, peering up at him with a smiling eye and the same smile still crossing his lips.

Sanji’s heart thudded in his chest. He gritted his teeth against the feeling, trying to chase it away with annoyance.

“Tsk. Dumbass. Don’t waste the water.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, Cook. Hope you three have fun tonight, that’s all I was gonna say. You should start taking more time off anyway. You work too much.”

Sanji scoffed at that as he felt his cheeks flare up again.

“Hell kind of thing is that to say?”

Zoro smirked in response.

“Just wanted to see you struggle to accept a compliment again is all.”

“You wanna fight, damn shitty Mosshead?! I’ll kick your ass again.”

“You didn’t kick my ass the first time. Accept the fact you lost, shit cook.”

“The only thing I lost were those two bags of summer fruits, thanks to you.”

“Didn’t lose that.”

“I’m pretty damn sure I dropped them on a table and couldn’t get them when we had to hightail it.”

“Not then, no, but I went back and got them. Surprised you didn’t notice.”

Sanji paused at that.

“You… you got them back?”

“You seemed real excited about those fake devil fruits. Didn’t want to just leave them there.”

“Dragon fruits,” Sanji automatically corrected absentmindedly.

“If you got them, where did you put them? I didn’t see them with the other fruits.”

Zoro waved a hand at the pantry.

“They’re in there behind the rice. Luffy was giving them a weird look. Didn’t want him to eat ‘em before you got to see ‘em.”

Sanji walked over to the locked pantry, still unsure about all this.

“How’d you get into the lock?”

“Asked Robin to open the pantry.”

Sanji narrowed his eyes and opened the door to check. Sure enough, the two paper bags sat innocuously behind a large sack of rice. Sanji approached it and took a few fruits out. They looked perfectly intact and unbruised.

He walked out of the pantry and stared at Zoro with a furrowed brow, not sure how to respond to the gesture.

“Why,” he asked simply.

Zoro stared back with an inscrutable expression on his face before answering.

“You’ve got a thing about food, Cook. I don’t need to know why but I know losing those two bags is something you’d dwell on and feel guilty over and go on some long-winded existential crisis about. So, I went back and got them. Simple.”

There were several responses that popped into Sanji’s head in that moment.

Snarky. “You know the word existential?”

Dismissive. “Surprised you made it back here at all, lost Mosshead.”

Angry. “I’m not weak. I don’t need you doing things because you think I’ll have a meltdown over bloody fruit.”

Soppy. “That was oddly sweet of you. Thank you.”

What came out instead was honest, much more than Sanji thought he was prepared to be.

“I starved for three months when I was a kid,” he blurted out.

He blinked at his own words, biting his lip as he realized what he had said.

Zoro didn’t look entirely surprised, but his words did get the greenhead’s attention. He dropped the rag he’d been using to dry the dishes and turned to face Sanji. He supposed he wasn’t obligated to continue but he felt the need to do so anyway.

He quickly pulled out a cigarette and lit it up, taking a deep drag. If he was going to talk about this, he was going to do it with some nicotine in his system.

“Well, I mean I… I had been hungry before that in the… anyway, the ship I lived on got attacked by pirates during a storm and a rogue wave came and capsized both of us. The pirate captain saved me from the water because we shared the same dream and we ended up marooned on a rock in the middle of the ocean. He even gave me all the food he managed to salvage from the wreckage. He decided to sacrifice his own leg to make sure I could eat, give me a chance. We stayed there for 85 days before we were rescued, starving, waiting for a miracle.”

Sanji blinked away his own haze, recalling those long dreadful, pain-filled days before remembering that he was standing in the galley of the Sunny talking to Zoro about this.

“So, yeah. Anyway, I’ve got a weird thing about food,” he concluded, taking another deep drag of his cigarette.

“You were deprived of something essential for a long time and nearly died because you didn’t have it. Nothing weird about being a little sensitive after that,” Zoro shrugged.

Sanji scoffed in return.

“You’re telling me it’s okay to be sensitive about something? I suppose it’s easy to say being you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean you’re… you. Nothing phases you. You’re not sensitive about anything. If something bothers you, your philosophy is either cut it down or just get over it.”

“Maybe, doesn’t mean it always works or that there aren’t things that stick with me.”

“Well, then you’re very good at hiding it if that’s the case, Mosshead,” he retorted, blowing out a stream of smoke into the air.

“I try. Don’t always succeed.”

Sanji rose a brow at that.

“Did you know I made the girls cry on their third day here?”

Sanji’s other brow shot up at that.

“Huh? You? But you’re so good with them, they adore you. You’re practically the perfect parent.”

“I hardly know what I’m doing, Cook. I’m not a parent, just been around kids enough growing up in a dojo that doubled as an orphanage. We had to help with the younger kids while I was there. It’s not perfection, it’s just experience.”

Sanji blinked at that. He supposed he didn’t have much cause to be exposed to children much, even as a child himself. At Germa, he only spent time with his siblings. On the Orbit, he was the youngest on staff and the same thing at the Baratie. He only interacted with kids who were customers and that wasn’t often.

“So what happened? Why did they end up crying,” Sanji asked as he moved to lean against the counter beside Zoro.

“They were playing on the stairs with Luffy and Usopp. I told them to play somewhere else, but they kept going back. Kuina ended up tripping and falling down them. Luffy caught her before she hit the ground, but I flipped, shouted at all of them, sent the girls to their room. They were crying when they left. Kuina… my Kuina, she died after falling down the stairs, broke her neck. She was one of the strongest people I knew, and some stupid accident killed her before she ever had a chance to make a name for herself in the world. It still haunts me, Curly. I try to use it as fuel for my dream, and that helps, but it lingers in other ways.”

Sanji stared back, flummoxed. He had never imagined that Zoro would feel that way about anything. Not because the idiot was insensitive or incapable of feeling, but because Zoro more than most brushed things like that aside. Sanji wouldn’t have guessed he would have a vulnerability like that. He always seemed so strong.

No, Zoro was strong despite that vulnerability.

If Zoro’s still strong, then why can’t you be too? A small voice in his head asked.

Sanji brushed it aside. He wasn’t going to go into that existential spiral Zoro mentioned earlier. Besides, Zoro and Sanji were different. There were a whole host of reasons why Sanji didn’t measure up to Zoro.

“I guess neither of us managed to escape shitty childhood trauma, huh? But at least the girls seem okay.”

“They’re good kids,” Zoro responded with a small smile on his lips.

“They are.”

“We must be doing something right. Both of us. Not just me. You don’t let the things that linger get in your way either, Cook. You’re strong like that.”

Sanji scoffed a little, biting his lip.

“What,” Zoro hedged.

“How can you say that? After Whole Cake Island, after me leaving the crew because of all that shit? That wasn’t me being strong, that was me being scared. Besides, it’s not like you’ve forgiven me for it and I don’t blame you. I fucked up.”

“I’ve forgiven you.”

“Please. You barely were talking to me before the girls got here. You were avoiding me even.”

Zoro was quiet for a long while, seemingly going over things in his head, before speaking.

“I was pissed at first, yeah. Said some stupid shit about how you should stay gone, but that was just me being angry for my own personal reasons. You’re back now and I don’t hold what happened against you any more than I hold Nami stealing the Merry against her or Usopp leaving against him or Robin’s actions against her. Only one still mad at you is you, Curly.”

Sanji stared at Zoro, dumbstruck.

God, what the fuck was this conversation and what was it doing to him?

“Besides, that wasn’t my issue with you before the girls got here.”

“Then what…?”

“You called me in the middle of a fight and asked me to kill you and then refused to talk to me about it afterwards. So, yeah, I was avoiding you.”

Sanji choked a little on the smoke in his throat.

“That… that was… it’s over now so it doesn’t matter.”

“After what we just talked about with Kuina and the rock, you still think that just because something is over that it doesn’t matter?”

“That’s… that’s different. That was my shit and I shouldn’t have dragged you into it.”

“If that’s how you feel then why did you?”

“Because I trust you.”

“Do you?”

Sanji flinched a little, feeling hurt that Zoro had to even question whether Sanji trusted him, but he had to acknowledge that his past actions had given the crew reason to doubt if he truly did.

Zoro must’ve noticed his flinch seeing as they were standing side by side, but he didn’t comment on it. He kept his gaze heavy on Sanji, searching for something. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing but the swordsman sighed in response.

“I’m not mad you dragged me into it. You’re my nakama. Your shit is my shit. I just… do you really think if something was wrong that I wouldn’t try to drag you back to yourself before I’d ever try to kill you? You’re our cook. You’re the second wing to the future pirate king. You’re the man who’s going to find the All Blue. You’re the person I rely on the most other than Luffy. You think it’d be so easy for me to not only lose you but to lose you by my hand? You trust me to kill you, Cook. But do you trust me to save you?”

Sanji felt his heart squeezing at Zoro’s unexpected words. He was not expecting this when Zoro stayed back to help him with dishes. Before he could answer, the galley door swung open and he was greeted with the bubbly faces of the twins bouncing in.

“Girls,” he greeted, quickly stubbing out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray and opening the galley window to let some fresh air in. He’d been refraining from smoking around the twins and it wasn’t a habit he was going to break now.

“You ready, Daddy?” Sora asked excitedly.

“We can’t wait for spa night. We already got some stuff ready in the bathroom,” Kuina added.

Sanji glanced back at the dishes that still needed to get down and the counter he hadn’t wiped down yet.

“Go. I’ll finish up in here,” Zoro offered.

Sanji looked back at him uncertainly.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. You all have fun.”

“We will. Thanks Otosan,” the girls chorused, going over to hug Zoro’s legs before each girl grabbed one of Sanji’s hands and began dragging him out of the galley.

He glanced back to look at Zoro before he left. The swordsman was wordlessly looking back. Sanji looked away with a heavy heart and a lot more on his mind than he anticipated there would be.

Chapter Text

Sanji’s mind was abuzz with thoughts as he left the galley, the girls pulling him away. He wasn’t expecting that conversation with Zoro. The whole day had been full of reveals and vulnerability. He had exposed more of himself to Zoro in one day than he had ever since they’d reunited in Sabaody.

“You trust me to kill you, Cook. But do you trust me to save you?”

What was Sanji even supposed to say to that? If he became like his brothers, saving him wasn’t an option. He couldn’t imagine it, becoming like the Vinsmokes: unable to feel passion for cooking, unable to dream about the All Blue, unable to appreciate the beauty of a woman, unable to feel affection towards his crew, unable to care about the morals that had been instilled in him by his true father. He would turn his back on everything he valued, hurt the people that he loved.

He thought of Ichiji: passionless, uncaring, unfeeling, cold, immovable, apathetic to everything and everyone.

He thought of Niji: callous, cruel, violent for violence’s sake. He thought of poor Cossette, beaten and battered thanks to him.

He thought of Yonji: clueless, brutal, brainless, aggressive. Mindlessly following the orders and whims of people even crueler than him.

Sanji couldn’t live with himself if he became like them. He didn’t even know what it would look like for someone to try to save him from that. It wasn’t possible, it couldn’t be.

“Daddy?”

Sanji shook out of his thoughts and looked down at the twins who were staring up at him inquisitively.

“Are you okay?” Sora asked.

“We’ve been calling you,” Kuina added.

“Sorry, I was just thinking about something.”

“What were you thinking about? Maybe we can help.”

“It’s adult stuff I’m afraid.”

“We’re grown up,” Kuina protested indignantly.

“Yeah, we’re seven years old and that means we’re grown,” Sora announced.

Sanji chuckled at that.

“Oh, is that so?”

“Yup!”

“Well, since you guys are so grown, why don’t you take charge of spa night?”

The twins smiled happily as they pulled Sanji forward and towards the bathroom.

“We’ve already got some things ready, come on,” Sora gushed.

Sanji allowed himself to shake off the pall of his previous conversation with Zoro and focus his attention on the girls. They should be able to provide an adequate distraction from whatever that interaction was.

As Sanji entered the bathroom with the girls, he saw that they had indeed set things up. The lights were low with several candles spread all over the room. There was soft music playing from a tone dial. The tub was steaming hot with the water sprinkled with flower petals and smelling of lavender, chamomile, rose and eucalyptus. There were towels and fluffy robes laid out on the benches as well as several products. Sanji could see supplies for face masks, foot scrubs, pedicures and manicures.

“Uncle Usopp helped us get all the supplies we needed,” Sora explained.

“Auntie Nami and Auntie Robin helped us set everything up,” Kuina added.

“Uncle Franky even made it so the water in the tub will stay warm for as long as we’re in here.”

“Do you like it?”

Sanji was gobsmacked to be honest. He wasn’t expecting the girls to put so much effort into this just to spend time with him. It had only been a few hours after all. He felt oddly humbled by how much thought they’d given all of this.

“It’s great, girls. Thank you,” he said, leaning down to pull them into an embrace. The girls returned the hug tightly before pulling him towards the benches.

They all quickly changed into the fluffy, white robes and the shower headbands that were there. Sanji couldn’t help the slight blush as he noticed his duck headband included. The girls didn’t think anything of it themselves. Kuina had a frog headband which he recognized as Usopp’s and Sora wore a bat headband which belonged to Robin.

They started with skincare. Usopp had clearly been inside Sanji’s locker given this his face cream and brushes were there. He didn’t mind it as much as he normally would. He walked them through applying the face wash, though it was clear it wasn’t new to them, and helped them with the spin brushes. He giggled along with them as they ran them over their faces, squirming at the sensation. After that, there were face masks and cucumbers. Robin had given them the idea that they could make face masks themselves and had brought all the ingredients. It wasn’t quite cooking but it was still fun to make the masks with the girls. They sat down on the edge of the tub together, soaking their feet inside of the water while listening to the TDs.

After their masks, they rinsed and moisturized their faces as well as their feet. Then it was manicures. Kuina chose blue paint for her nails while Sora preferred pink. Sanji helped them so it wasn’t so messy.

“What about you, Daddy?”

“Yeah, what color do you want?”

Sanji paused at that.

“Oh, I don’t… it’s not… I don’t wear makeup.”

He hadn’t worn any makeup since he left Kamabakka Queendom, not even nail polish, though he did have some tucked away in the very back of his locker as well as some other makeup the candies had hidden in his luggage. He hadn’t asked them to do so, but he also hadn’t thrown it away. While he wasn’t particularly pleased about being hunted down day in and day out and being forced into a dress, he had come to like applying some makeup to his face every now and again. He hadn’t since he got back to the Sunny, he wasn’t sure what the others would say. He hadn’t wanted to confront the desire in the first place.

Kuina and Sora tilted their head at that.

“But you do back at home,” Sora commented.

“I do?”

“Sometimes Daddy likes to wear makeup. You said it makes you feel pretty. Sometimes Daddy doesn’t wear makeup. Daddy’s pretty either way,” Kuina answered.

A blush lit up Sanji’s cheeks at that.

“We brought some other stuff too. Auntie Robin said they were in your locker and you might like to use them,” Sora explained, getting up to retrieve what Sanji recognized as the makeup bag from Kamabakka.

He had a mini-heart attack at the thought of Robin finding out about his secret before he calmed himself down. Of all his crewmates, Robin was probably the one he was least worried about. She wouldn’t judge him and she wouldn’t go sharing his secret with everyone. She wouldn’t force him to talk about it either unless she thought not doing so would be to his detriment or the crew’s. If she gave the bag to the twins, obviously she didn’t have an issue with it. Robin rarely had an issue with much. She wasn’t the judgmental type. Still, Sanji was anxious about sharing this part of himself with the crew much less the twins.

They seemed used to it though. It was normal for them. Sometimes, their Daddy wore makeup and liked to be pretty.

What does Zoro think?

Zoro was the last person he wanted to know about any of this. Sanji’s time in hell was better left unsaid around the crew. Would Zoro make fun of him for these developments? Would he think Sanji was weak, lesser? He wanted to be Zoro’s equal. He knew he was far from it nowadays. He didn’t want there to be another thing that knocked him down a peg in the crew’s eyes.

But the girls…

They were staring at Sanji so innocently. There was no judgment, no embarrassment, they felt no shame. They didn’t see him as different or wrong or strange. Sanji was Daddy to them. His mind flashed back to all the things the girls had said to him at the marketplace. In their eyes, Sanji was pretty and handsome, he was strong, he was loving, he was caring, he was brave, he was the best cook, a good singer, a good dancer, he was the best at combing their hair, they loved his smile. He was their hero. He didn’t see himself that way, but did it really matter right then? He was doing this for the girls.

“Why don’t you girls pick out the color for me?”

Sora and Kuina smiled brightly at him. Sanji returned the smile, his heart lightening at the expression. The girls argued over whether to paint his nails blue or pink for a while before they finally decided on green because,

“Otosan likes it a lot when Daddy wears green.”

Sanji was not going to examine the way his heart flipped at that comment.

After the nail polish, it only felt natural to go through the other makeup there was. He pulled out the blue eye shadow and applied a little to the girls’ eyes as well as his own and some colorless lip gloss.

There were hair accessories tucked away inside of the bag as well. Sanji gathered them along with a comb and sat behind the girls, intent on styling their hair. Kuina opted for a more simple hairdo, a single long braid common in the North Blue. Sanji wove the bows and flower barrettes into her hair as he braided it and brushed out her bangs to fall artfully above her left eye before turning to Sora, whose hair was a little longer than Kuina. For her, he parted her hair and gave her two braids in the front while braiding the back of her hair into an intricate bun.   

“Daddy is super good at doing braids. I bet you’ve done it a lot before, huh,” Kuina asked, sitting beside Sanji as he was working on her twin’s hair.

“In a way. When I was younger, I worked on a cruise ship and one of the chefs had really long hair. She taught me how to braid so I could help her out. Plus, I help the boys with cutting their hair nowadays. This is nothing. The hardest part is when I have to deal with whatever sticky situations Luffy has gotten me into. I’ve had to learn how to get quite a few mysterious liquids out of my hair.”

Sora giggled a little at that.

“Uncle Luffy’s so silly. He’s no different than he is in the future, only that he’s younger now.”

Sanji wasn’t surprised by that. Luffy never changed personality-wise, not in any big ways. He matured in some ways, but he would only ever be unapologetically himself. As much as Sanji complained about that sometimes, if Luffy wasn’t the man he was, Sanji wouldn’t be standing on this ship right now, braiding his time-displaced daughter’s hair. An odd situation to be sure, but leagues better than what he would be doing if he was still stuck with his family and the Big Mom Pirates.

Sanji continued working through Sora’s tresses, taking note of how soft her hair was. Clearly, he had been extending his grooming routine to the girls in the future. Good. Just because he was married to the sweaty mosshead who thought it was appropriate to only shower once a week didn’t mean his own hygiene needed to suffer or that of their children. He truly hoped he had wised up and started making the shitty swordsman bathe more often in the future.

At one point, said shitty swordsman did pop his head into the bathroom.

“Hi Otosan, are you joining us,” Kuina asked.

“Nah, just checking in before I go up to the Crow’s Nest.”

“I thought Nami was on watch,” Sanji pointed out.

“I took over the shift,” Zoro explained.

He lingered for a moment longer in the door, enough to make Sanji raise an eyebrow at him.

“Do you need something?”

“Just wanted to say you look pretty. Green looks good on you.”

Sanji’s fingers paused as a blush colored his cheeks. He opened and closed his mouth, floundering before he answered.

“Thanks.”

His voice was smaller than he would like, but his heart was thudding too much for him to do anything else.

Zoro had disappeared afterwards and Sanji did his best to put his attention back on the girls, ignoring any intrusions from stupid mossheads. It was another few minutes before one of the girls spoke up again.

“You still hum the same song,” Kuina suddenly commented.

“Hmm,” Sanji questioned.

“Le loup, la biche et le chevalier. You’re humming it. You always hum it back home whenever you’re doing my hair or Sora’s.”

Sanji paused, unaware that he had been humming at all.

“Do I?”

“Mm-hmm. I always wondered where that song came from. Grandpa Zeff doesn’t know it.”

“It wasn’t your grandfather I learned it from, it was your grandmother.”

“Your mom? That’s Grandma Sora, right? I have her name,” Sora pointed out.

“You do.”

“Did Grandma Sora teach you this song, Daddy?”

“Yes, that’s right. She used to sing it to me sometimes to get me to sleep,” he explained.

“You don’t talk much about her,” Kuina said hesitantly.

Sanji’s lips twisted wryly. At least there was something about him that doesn’t change in the future.

“It’s… well, she died when I was still young so…”

“Oh. You must really miss her then,” Sora said sadly.

He hadn’t really thought about his mother, at least he made a conscious effort not to. However, after what Reiju had told him during Whole Cake, it was hard not to think of the sacrifice his mother made for him and his brothers, even if it only worked on Sanji. He couldn’t help but equate it to the sacrifice Zeff made for him.

Sacrifice was the greatest expression of love there was. Sanji saw it in a pirate choosing to eat his leg to save his life and their shared dream. He saw it in Ace jumping in front of a lethal blow to save Luffy. He saw it in Zoro standing in a pool of his own blood after “nothing happened”. He even saw it in the risks Reiju took to patch up every bruise and injury inflicted on him by their brothers.

Sanji tried to show his love as much as he could through giving up bits of himself to ensure the happiness and wellbeing of the ones he loved. He threw all of himself into everything he did, offering himself on a platter, quite literally, and hoping it was enough. Lately, he found himself wondering if he had gotten that trait from his mother as much as it was ever learned from that rock and Zeff’s sacrifice.

It was part of the reason he was still flummoxed that he would have children in the future, and with Zoro. Sanji’s sacrifices never matched up to the love he yearned for. He had given neither a limb nor his life for his family. He had yet to even put a dent in the debt he owed the people who gave up so much for him, so how could he deserve to have settled down and started building a family when he hadn’t paid Sora and Zeff back for their sacrifices yet?

Kuina was staring up at him inquisitively and Sora had turned around to do the same. Sanji took a deep breath and answered in as steady a voice as he could manage.

“I— I do miss her. I miss her a lot actually,” he said, putting all his focus on finishing the last twists of Sora’s hair and securing the bun so it wouldn’t fall apart.

“I wish Sora and I could’ve met her.”

A genuine smile crossed the cook’s lips.

“She would’ve adored you both.”

“You think?”

“I know it.”

“What was she like? Was she like me,” Sora asked as she moved to sit on the bench on the other side of Sanji, opposite her twin.

Sanji paused. The twins looked innocently curious. His mother had been invading his mind much more lately. Having the kids around didn’t help that really. Whenever he thought of her, all he could see was her sick and frail, lying on her deathbed because she had tried to save him. And what did he give her in return? Rancid food that almost certainly made her sicker?

He didn’t deserve—

He didn’t earn—

“Daddy?”

Sanji glanced down at Sora and Kuina. It was like staring into a window to the past, the same eyes of his mother peering at him with openness and trust. How could he deny those eyes?

“My mother… she… she was blonde with blue eyes,” he started.

“Like you,” Kuina pointed out.

“Yeah. Like me. No curly brow though.”

“Grandpa Zeff doesn’t have one either,” Sora commented.

They don’t know about Judge, Sanji realized.

If his future self hadn’t seen fit to, Sanji certainly wasn’t going to be the one to tell them.

“I’m not sure where we got that particular trait from. My mother was kind, sweet, loving. She adored daffodils and lilies. Her favorite color was blue and she loved winter best because she liked watching snow fall outside her window. She…”

Sanji felt a smile stretch across his lips as he thought of a rare happy memory from the past.

“She became obsessed with knitting one winter, but she wasn’t very good at it. She resolved to knit all of us sweaters and spent a whole month working on it, but in the end, she really only managed five scarves. Still, Eponi, her nurse, managed to organize it so we all got to visit my mother so she could present us with her gift. Reiju was as perfunctory as ever. I gave her the biggest hug I could. The boys… I thought they’d laugh at her, mock her. They did a little, but mostly because they didn’t know what the scarves were for. Whenever it snowed, they’d go out in their normal clothes to test their endurance against the cold.”

“Like Otosan,” Sora asked.

“He always says he’s training his body for extreme conditions, which is why he barely wears coats unless you make him,” Kuina clarified.

Sanji rolled his eyes at that.

“Yes, exactly like that idiot. But Mom helped them put the scarves on and they seemed to like it. It started snowing, the kind that sticks to the ground. We got to watch it come down with her and drink cocoa that Eponi made us. Then she went and got our coats and gloves. We wore them with our new scarves outside along with Mom to play in the snow.”

That was probably the only memory Sanji had of genuinely playing with his siblings in an innocent way, a way that most children played. Sure, Ichiji pelted him with snowballs too hard. Sure, Niji tripped him so he fell face first in a snowdrift and busted his lip. Sure, Yonji got on top of him and shoved his face into the snow, all while Reiju stood to the side. But, unlike Judge, Sora had reprimanded them and the boys had listened.

They built a snowman and went back inside for more cocoa before their mother fell asleep with a smile. Sanji had thought things would change then. They had, for a day. In training, his brothers were a little less rough on him, taking their mother’s words to heart. When Judge got wind of what happened, he forbade them all from visiting their mother again and his brothers had had to spend a weekend with the scientists. They came back stronger and more willing to hurt Sanji. He had never given that course of events much thought before Whole Cake, but lately he’d been thinking more and more about his family, the monsters that they were and the reasons behind it all. He had been thinking of the sacrifice his mother made and wondering how wasted it was on only having saved Sanji and not his brothers. It wasn’t enough, not for what his mother gave up. Sanji wasn’t enough for Sora’s life.

“I’ve never heard that story before. We don’t get a lot of snow in All Blue, only for a couple of weeks, and most of the time it doesn’t stick to the ground. But one time, when we were visiting Uncle Chopper in the Sakura Kingdom, we got to play in the snow,” Sora remembered.

“Otosan fell asleep against a tree and we built a snowman around him. When he woke up, he shook off the snow so hard, it made the snow on the tree branches above him fall down on top of him and covered him in snow all over again,” Kuina recalled, giggling.

Sanji found himself laughing as the image played too clearly in his head.

“It was really fun. Then, when we got back to the castle, King Dalton had a big feast ready and we ate all kinds of yummy food,” Sora added.

“At night, we ate smores by the fireplace with homemade marshmallows and this really yummy hot cocoa with chocolate that Uncle Yonji made while Uncle Chopper told us all about how you guys saved the Sakura Kingdom from the old king—”

“Wait, what did you say,” Sanji interrupted.

“Just that Uncle Chopper was telling us about when you were younger and—”

“No, not that. You said… I thought… Uncle Yonji?”

“Yeah, he came with us because Aunt Reiju and Uncle Ichiji was supposed to be visiting Sakura Kingdom with the rest of Germa for some adult business no one would tell me about so… Daddy? Are you ok? Your face is red.”

Sanji felt like he couldn’t breathe. His throat was seizing and his blood was boiling and his body was buzzing because what the fuck? What the fuck is wrong with his future self? How daft could he truly be to let his daughters, their daughters, around those fuckers? How could he put them in danger like this? Fuck what he was thinking before, it didn’t matter what theoretically could’ve been, the reality was his brothers were emotionless monsters and his future self had seen fit to allow Kuina and Sora around them, to call them ‘uncle’ even.

He knew it was too good to be true. He knew his future self was not the pinnacle of growth and perfection that he had been thinking. He knew that that man was just as undeserving of the family he had as Sanji thought he was. He had to be if he allowed his family anywhere near Germa.

Or what if…?

What if he didn’t have a choice in the future? What if Judge comes back, wanting something, and this time he had the luxury of using Sanji’s children and husband against him. He had allowed himself a vulnerability that was too easy to exploit. If his children were threatened, then yes, he’d imagine his future self would fold beneath the pressure of his family.

Zoro would fight against them, he was too much of an idiot not to. Though, maybe he’d refrain from doing so if Kuina and Sora’s lives were on the line. Either way, any future that included the Vinsmokes in his life was a future bound to bring nothing but pain.

“Daddy, you’re scaring us. What’s happening,” Sora asked, shaking his shoulder.

Sanji glanced down at the girls. They were staring up at him with confusion and fright.

Sora and Kuina, who were sweet and innocent. Sora and Kuina, who loved him so much. Sora and Kuina, who were half of him and half of Zoro, evidence that somehow, impossibly, he and Zoro were together in the future and happy. But how could they be happy when Sanji was inviting monsters to come in and rampage through their lives? His dream of the All Blue, his dream of being happy, the love in his heart for Zoro, the possibility of a bright future, all tainted by the Vinsmokes.

He felt panic squeezing his throat, shame crawling in his stomach, anxiety gripping his nerves. He ripped his eyes away from their faces, his head swimming like he was under water. He distantly noted that he was on the verge of a panic attack and that he did not want to do so in front of the girls.

“Daddy? Please tell us what’s wrong,” Kuina begged tearfully.

Sanji took a deep breath, ignoring the way it got stuck in his throat. He took the girls by the shoulders wordlessly and ushered them out of the bathroom, ignoring their increasingly apprehensive words and pleas for an answer for his strange behavior.

The girls’ dorm was closer to the bathroom than the men’s bunkroom, so he brought the girls there. He knocked on the door, not reacting when an eye appeared on it before disappearing in a haze of flowers. The door opened and revealed Robin sitting on her bed with a book in hand and Nami sitting at the vanity, brushing her hair.

“Sanji? Are you alright,” Robin asked, looking up at him.

Her eyes roved over him, assessing him critically.

“We don’t know what happened,” Sora said, sniffling.

“We were just talking and then Daddy got upset by something we said. I think it was because we mentioned Uncle Yonji,” Kuina explained, looking up at Sanji while wringing her hands nervously.

A shiver went down Sanji’s spine at the name as he gently pushed the girls inside the room.

“Yonji,” Nami repeated, standing up from the vanity to approach him. She looked at him with concern marring her face. Sanji didn’t deserve it, not after what he put her through, not after she had to watch him beat their captain senseless and denounce his dreams. She reached out to touch his shoulder and Sanji flinched away involuntarily, the stinging slap across his face echoing in his ear.

“Now we’re through. I’m sorry, sorry we ever came here.”

“I will never forgive you.”

He stepped back, the words ringing in his ears too loudly, the slap stinging his cheek as if it had just happened, his heart clenching at the knowledge that he had lost his dear navigator’s trust. He glanced up at her and though she was still looking at him with concern, her face morphed to the uncompromising one she’d given him on Whole Cake, her hot gaze heavy and loathing like he was a worm beneath her boot. He wasn’t worth enough for her to give him the time of day.

He took another step back and turned to walk away.

“Wait,” she called after him.

He shook his head, too wrapped up in his unfurling panic. He quickly made his way through the ship as his breathing got more and more labored, his mind racing and his body going into fight or flight mode. It felt like when he was a child, doing his best to survive his brothers’ cruelty; waking up every morning knowing that each day would bring some new torment, either from the scientists or his own family.

The dungeon, the helmet, the isolation, the bugs.

His fingers flew into his hair, confirming to himself he was not wearing the mask anymore. He shook the strands as if there were insect carcasses buried within the blond locks. Logically, he knew there weren’t, but the panic was too great and overrode any rationality.

He found himself stepping into the empty galley. The space, which was usually a comfort, felt too big, too bright, too dangerous.

If Father finds me… If the boys find me…

He shook his head, trying to dispel old fears as he made a beeline for the storage closet. He pushed himself to the very back of the closet, behind the bags of rice and the barrels until he found himself in the corner of the pitch-black room. Once there, he finally let himself fall apart.

The fear took him over immediately, an animalistic thing that had no sense of time or reality. He curled up as tightly as he could, pulling his knees to his chest and tucking his head down as the feeling roared over him with all the force of the sea. He felt like a weak, useless child again. A failure. He wasn’t good enough.

You’re a good-for-nothing fool.

You’re such a disgrace.

Sanji is Germa’s failure.

Oh man, he’s so weak!

How are we related to such a loser?

You’re a failure.

Unlike your siblings, you were born without an ounce of talent. 

He is simply a waste of life.

What kind of idiot would want a colossal failure like him?

A failure.

A failure.

A failure.

Sanji was a failure.

A dark room, a dungeon, a heavy mask on his face. His heart gripped with confusion as he was herded back into a cell, his vision restricted to a small opening on the heavy mask forced upon him. His small fingers scrambled at the metal, trying to rip the thing off to no avail. The expressionless soldiers stared down at him, ignoring his pleas, locking him away like he was a common criminal.

God, it was so dark and small and cold and scary. All Sanji wanted was the warm embrace of his mother. He didn’t want to be left alone forever. He didn’t want to die here. There was so much he wanted to do. The All Blue, he had to find the All Blue. He wanted his mother… he wanted his father.

Sanji shook his head roughly, bringing himself out of the vivid memory. A fool, he was a fool to have ever wanted that man. Judge was not his father. Judge locked him away in the first place just because he was too much of a coward to kill him.

Maybe he should’ve.

A sob choked Sanji’s throat at the stray thought as his fingers tightened even more in his hair, pulling the strands hard. He knew he was probably ripping out hair, but he didn’t stop. His nails scrambled at his scalp, digging in deep. The sharp pangs of pain brought him closer to reality and farther away from being trapped in the memories.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to gain some semblance of control over himself, to remind himself that he was on the Sunny. He was not back in Germa. Whatever might happen in the future hadn’t happened yet so Sanji could change it. He would change it. He would not invite those monsters back into his life to destroy the things he loved.

He wasn’t sure how long he was sequestered in the storage room, trying and failing to overcome the panic attack before a sudden knock on the door made him freeze. Sanji didn’t speak as he peeked out from his cocoon to stare at the door. He could see the shadow of feet, but it was impossible to tell who it was and he wasn’t in his right mind enough to use his Haki to check.

The knock came again but this time the visitor announced themselves.

“Cook? I know you’re in there. Open the door,” Zoro called.

Sanji squeezed his eyes shut again, curling even deeper into himself. He didn’t want Zoro to see him like this. He didn’t want anyone to see him like this. He tucked his head back into his knees and ignored the knocking as it came again.

“If you don’t open this door, I’ll get Robin to open it for me.”

Sanji clenched his teeth and dug his nails deeper into his scalp, pulling his hair harder. He held his breath as he heard the code to the storage room being punched in before the door swung open, letting in a stream of light from the galley. He was still tucked in the very back of the closet, not immediately visible. He tucked himself even smaller, mentally willing Zoro to go away.

The door shut and heavy footsteps came right towards where Sanji was sitting.

“What’s going on, Cook? The girls are freaking out and Nami and Robin seemed to think I needed to check on you.”

Sanji let out a shaky breath but didn’t answer. He cringed as Zoro stepped closer to him. He heard a thud against the wall, likely Zoro resting his swords there, before he felt the larger man slide down the wall beside him. He could feel his gaze through the darkness, but he didn’t look over at him.

“Sounds like you’re struggling over there.”

Sanji rolled his eyes.

“No shit, dumbass,” he choked out.

“Probably a good idea for you to breathe.”

Sanji looked up enough to glare over at Zoro.

“Obviously,” the blonde hissed.

“So breathe then, Curly.”

“Great fucking advice.”

“Seriously, Cook. Breathe.”

Sanji paused, taking in the seriousness in Zoro’s voice.

“I— I can’t,” he admitted in a shamed whisper.

He jolted when he felt a large hand on his arm. Zoro’s fingers followed the path of his arm until he found Sanji’s hand tangled in his hair. He coaxed the tight fingers to release their grip before guiding the hand towards his own chest. Zoro’s skin was hot under his palm, the ridged line of his scar easily identifiable.

“I’m going to set a pattern for you, just follow me.”

“Follow the lost Marimo?”

“Or you could hyperventilate until you pass out, your choice.”

Zoro let his words hang in the air as he began to breathe in a pattern of in for four seconds, hold for seven seconds, out for eight seconds.

Sanji debated with himself for a moment before he began following along with Zoro’s breathing. It was difficult to make his body follow the rhythm at first but eventually he got there.

“Good. You’re doing really good.”

He felt a stab of satisfaction at the praise followed immediately by a stab of disgust. He wasn’t a child or a dog, he didn’t need stupid compliments.

He snatched his hand back from Zoro’s grip and curled himself back up in the corner of the storage room.

“Can we get out of the closet now? It’s cramped in here.”

“Get out then,” Sanji shot back.

“Not alone I’m not.”

He suddenly felt a surge of anger overtake all rationality.

“Go away! Go bother someone who actually wants to be stuck with you. All you’re doing is stinking up the room, you unwashed neanderthal.”

Zoro didn’t move from his spot and didn’t speak. It only made Sanji angrier.

“I said get out! I don’t need you and I don’t fucking want you.”

Zoro was still silent.

“What are you waiting for? I said leave. What are you expecting from me? Gratitude? A bottle of booze? You’re not fucking getting anything from me!”

“Doesn’t seem like you’re in any position to give anyone anything right now, Cook.”

Sanji felt both hurt and incensed by the words. How dare he? All Sanji had was what he could give to others, whether it be his service as a chef, his support as a crew mate or his life if a sacrifice proved necessary. Who was Zoro to say Sanji didn’t have anything of worth to give? Other than his future husband that was.

“No? You mean you’re not waiting for me to fall over myself, head over heels in love with you? To turn my back on everything I’ve thought of myself to settle for you? If that’s what you’re waiting for, you’ll be waiting a while. I’m not so desperate that I’m ready to go crawling to you just yet, Mosshead. So why don’t you just leave me the fuck alone,” Sanji hissed scornfully.

Part of him regretted the words, but most of him felt rubbed raw, wounded and aching and lashing out like a cornered animal because he didn’t have anything else. There was no other defense at his disposal. If Zoro stayed, he’d see the ugly truth about Sanji. He’d see the failure, the loser, the waste of a life, the unlovable embarrassment, the shame that needed to be locked away, spend a faceless existence in the dark.

He gritted his teeth as tears fell unbidden down his face, one of his hands still tight in his hair and scratching at his tender scalp. He needed Zoro to go already. He needed to continue falling apart alone where no one could see just how useless their cook really was. He’d like to at least help Luffy become Pirate King before the crew realized the dead weight they were carrying.

“I fought Luffy. Did you know that? On Whole Cake Island, I fought our captain and he didn’t even fight back. I used my strongest moves on him. I knocked out a tooth, made him lose consciousness, scared Nami. Then when he vowed to starve unless I came back, I let him. I gallivanted around with Big Mom’s daughter while our captain starved. What do you have to say to that, first mate?”

Sanji was sure that would be enough to make Zoro leave, or even better, attack him. A fight would be the perfect distraction for the storm roiling inside him. However, Zoro dashed that hope with his next words.

“Luffy chose to forgive you. I trust Luffy.”

“Fucking hell. Will you just leave?”

“Can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“You’re my nakama. You’re hurt. I’m not abandoning you.”

“Oh, now you say that. You left me on Whole Cake to deal with that shit storm alone. I don’t want to hear you preaching about loyalty, shit swordsman.”

“Stop trying to make me leave. It’s not working.”

Sanji dropped his head back against the wall, resolving to ignore Zoro’s presence until the man got the hint. However, the mosshead made it impossible as hands were suddenly on Sanji’s body.

“What the fuck are you doing,” he exclaimed as Zoro grabbed one of his arms and tugged him.

“Come here,” the swordsman demanded.

“Like hell. Get off me,” Sanji snapped, trying to wrestle himself out of Zoro’s grip while the man was still pulling Sanji towards him.

“Stop struggling, Cook. Just come here.”

“I don’t know what you’re doing but fuck you!”

Sanji tried to kick Zoro, but the man wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled Sanji close until he found himself seated between Zoro’s legs, damn near in his lap. He kept one arm around Sanji, gripping him close so he couldn’t break away while the other arm pressed him into Zoro’s chest. He could hear his heartbeat and feel the warmth of his skin on his cheek.

“The fuck is this, Marimo?”

“It’s called a hug. People do it from time to time. Supposed to be comforting or some shit.”

“I know what a hug is! Why are you hugging me?”

“’Cause you need it.”

“I don’t fucking need—”

“Sanji. Enough.”

He felt his teeth click together at the stern words before he ground them angrily.

“I hate you,” he hissed.

“I know. I’m going to be here for you anyway. I wasn’t before, but I am now.”

Zoro’s reply made tears well up in Sanji’s eyes, much more than before. He shook with the effort of holding them back. Zoro moved his hand down from his hair to his back, splaying his fingers across the expanse in a grounding gesture before he dropped his chin on top of Sanji’s head, effectively tucking him firmly into Zoro’s chest.

“It’s alright, Cook. No one else is here. They won’t see and I won’t tell them.”

Sanji bit his trembling lip, trying to hold back the flood.

“I have your back.”

Sanji’s face crumpled at the words and the tears he’d been trying to hold in finally broke loose, pouring down his face in rivulets.

“Shit. Fuck,” he sobbed, cursing himself for being unable to stem the tide.

Zoro’s hand moved on his back soothingly while his other ran through Sanji’s hair and brushed his neck in silent comfort.

“Zoro, I can’t…” Sanji words trailed into more sobs that he could no longer hold back.

He thought he had cried himself out on Whole Cake Island, but apparently not. It felt like everything was coming down on him like a ton of bricks. He had faced his family again, he had nearly left the crew permanently, he had lost the trust of his friends, he had lost his chance with Zoro. Then, his future children show up, giving him hope for a brighter future only to find out he will fall into the same traps again. He’ll willingly destroy his own happiness again. A failure. A joke. A waste. That’s all he was, all he would ever be.

“It’s alright. Everything is going to be alright eventually, Cook.”

Sanji wished he could believe that.

Chapter Text

Sanji didn’t know how long he and Zoro spent inside the storage closet, Zoro holding him close and providing comfort that Sanji did not think he deserved. Eventually, when he had cried himself out, Zoro made him stand up. He had no energy to fight it or protest so the two walked out into the light of the galley.

He couldn’t help but cringe at the light after so long in the dark of the storage closet. The galley looked perfectly fine, spotless, untouched. It seemed wrong in a way. Part of Sanji expected his workplace to reflect the chaos going on in his mind.

He looked over at Zoro as the man suddenly tensed.

“There’s blood in your hair.”

Sanji blinked in momentary confusion before wordlessly holding up his hands to show his bloody fingers. Zoro’s face tightened as he captured Sanji’s hands in his. A few of his nails were chipped and hanging, marring the green nail polish. Some of his fingers were redder than others, reflecting how deeply he’d gouged into his own flesh.

He watched with detachment as Zoro got a washcloth and wet it before wiping away the blood with warm water.

“These are your treasures, Cook. You can’t go messing them up. A chef’s hands are for cooking, not fighting, remember?”

Sanji glanced up at Zoro with bewilderment, not quite sure how to respond to his own values being thrown back at him by the swordsman of all people.

“I wasn’t fighting,” he couldn’t help but mutter, their natural antagonism rearing its head.

“You’ve been fighting yourself since you got back, Curls. When are you going to give it a rest?”

Sanji’s jaw clenched at the statement. Zoro reached up and brushed his fingers lightly through his reddened locks, a displeased tilt to his lips.

“Going to need to wash your hair. I’m going to get some shampoo, just stay here.”

Zoro led him to a chair that he moved in front of the sink before he left the room. Sanji watched him go. His mind felt fuzzy and dazed, like it had gone from running at ten miles a minute to abruptly only going two. He couldn’t even focus on his worries as he let time slip past him in a listless haze.

Zoro returned eventually, taking slightly longer than necessary, and threw a towel over Sanji’s shoulders before coaxing his head back into the sink.

He closed his eyes at the feeling of warm water running through his hair and over the wounds he’d scratched into his head. The water soothed the stinging ache of the marks. Zoro was surprisingly gentle as he washed the blood out of Sanji’s hair and wiped his face clean of the makeup which had been ruined thanks to Sanji’s breakdown. He applied an ointment he’d pilfered from the infirmary to Sanji’s scalp and cleaned under his nails as well, careful not to ruin the green nail polish the girls had applied.

The girls…

Sanji recalled their frightened faces suddenly.

“Are the twins okay,” he asked, his voice rough and raspy.

“They’re in the women’s dorms. Nami and Robin are with them while Franky took over my watch duty so I could come here. They were shaken up but more worried about you than anything else.”

Sanji could hear the faint question in Zoro’s words, but he didn’t know that he was up for an explanation just then. Zoro stared at him wordlessly for a moment. Sanji wondered if he was going to press him for an answer or not.

“You look exhausted, Curls.”

A humorless chuckle passed Sanji’s lips at that. He was certain he looked a good deal worse than just tired.

“It’s been a long day, Moss.”

“A long few weeks I’d say.”

“Longer than most,” Sanji agreed.

“We should see about getting you some clothes and then going to bed.”

Sanji’s lips twisted a little at the idea. He wanted to get in some actual clothes seeing as how he was still in the robe he’d donned for spa night with the twins, but he didn’t know if he could go back to the men’s bunkroom where everyone would be able to see the evidence of his weakness. Zoro stared at him for a moment, seemingly weighing options, before he spoke.

“We could spend the night in the first mate’s cabin if you want. The twins are going to stay with Nami and Robin so you can still have some privacy.”

Sanji bit his lip before ultimately nodding.

He got up and walked to the bunkroom so he could quickly get his clothes from his locker and change into his nightwear before making his way to the first mate’s cabin. Zoro stayed by his side the whole time. Sanji cut curious glances over at him, wondering when the mosshead was finally going to leave him alone, but he said nothing to him, not even when Zoro followed him into the room and settled on the other side of the large bed.

Sanji laid down, staring at the ceiling. The sound of the waves crashing against the sides of the ship echoed in his ears. His head was started to ache, both from the number he had done on it and from the emotional overture he’d gone through. He could feel his own heartbeat, steady and strong despite the battering it had taken lately. There were times when Sanji wondered what it would take for the thing to finally give out. His head was telling him he didn’t deserve to live, but his heart was a stubborn thing that beat on with defiance, a metaphorical fuck-you to all of Sanji’s self-recriminating thoughts. His heart had always been like that though, determined to keep beating, determined to keep loving, to keep hoping, to keep him alive no matter what he or anyone else had to say about it.

He wondered where he had gotten that from. Was it from his mother, who lived years after poisoning herself, soaking up what little love she could from the children she gave up her life for? Was it from his real father, who scraped and sacrificed and did the unthinkable all to give Sanji a chance to follow his passions? Was it part of his Northern heritage, encoded in his blood from a people who had had to contend with the freezing cold as much as any human threat in order to make a home in the frostiest of the Blues? Was it something Sanji had gained from his childhood, something subconsciously forged in the fires of abuse and torment? Or maybe it was a result of the experiments done on him, some byproduct of genetic manipulation that Sanji had romanticized as some sign of resilience. Wherever it had come from, it forced his heart to beat on loudly, boldly claiming a space in the world even when Sanji didn’t think he’d earned it.

‘Here I am, do your worst,’ it proclaimed with every beat.

The world answered the challenge in kind, throwing every trial it could his way. Even battered, fractured, trampled and broken, his heart kept beating, continuously taking the helm of Sanji’s life and steering him wherever it wanted, even against his better judgment. Sometimes he wanted to rip the thing out of his chest and be done with it, but he wasn’t sure even that would stop it.

“You should be sleeping by now, Curls,” Zoro said.

Sanji flinched a little. He had been so wrapped up in his own maudlin thoughts, he’d forgotten Zoro was there. He glanced over at the swordsman. He was sitting up, his back propped against the headboard. His eye was closed, like during his naps or meditation, his body relaxed unlike Sanji.

“Can’t,” he replied shortly.

Zoro cracked his eye open and gave him an assessing look.

“You ready to talk about what’s got you like this yet?”

Sanji bit his lip and glanced away. He knew a conversation between him and Zoro about Whole Cake was long overdue. He had been putting it off for fear of what Zoro would say: the condemnation, the judgment. Part of him was afraid that Zoro would tell him what he was already thinking: that Sanji didn’t deserve for the crew to have risked themselves to help him with his mess, that he wasn’t worth the effort it took to face off against the Big Mom Pirates and Germa, that Sanji was going to be more trouble than he was worth in the long run and didn’t have a place on the crew anymore.

Zoro had said earlier today that he wasn’t mad at him anymore for leaving, only upset he didn’t trust him. In the closet, he hadn’t reacted to finding out that Sanji had fought Luffy and scared Nami. Maybe he ought to give the Mosshead more credit. After all, if the Vinsmokes were going to reappear in Sanji’s life in the future as the twins had implied, then it was going to affect Zoro too and he needed to be ready to defend himself or cut his losses, take the twins and leave Sanji to his fate. Either way, Zoro needed to know the truth. If it finally caused him to see Sanji for what he truly was, then it was better to get it over with now.

He let out a long sigh before sitting up so that he was shoulder to shoulder with Zoro. He kept his eyes forward, staring at the wall, unable to see the look on Zoro’s face while he explained all this. He didn’t want to see the moment when he lost all respect for Sanji completely.

He opened and closed his mouth for a moment, unsure where to start. He patted his pocket absentmindedly, searching for his cigarette carton. He sighed again when his pockets turned up empty but perked up when a box and a lighter appeared in his line of vision. He wordlessly took the offering from Zoro before lighting the cigarette and puffing in a wave of smoke. He relaxed a little more against the headboard at the rush of nicotine before diving in.

“You remember Punk Hazard?”

“The clown guy. He was experimenting on kids. We’ve seen a lot bad shit, but you had a tough time with that one.”

Sanji’s brow furrowed at that as he glanced at Zoro.

“You noticed?”

He thought he hid his feelings pretty well all things considered. He hadn’t broken down until they were already sailing away from the island and he had only done so when he was on watch by himself.

“I notice most things about you, Cook.”

Sanji looked away, a slight blush coloring his cheeks at the words. He didn’t even have the strength to kick Zoro as he would’ve done otherwise for a sweet comment like that.

“Well, it brought back dark memories. My early childhood was like that. Half of it was spent in a lab under the knives of scientists trying to “fix” me or whatever,” he explained, taking a drag of his cigarette.

Zoro’s brows furrowed at that.

“Fix you?”

“My birth father, Vinsmoke Judge, is the king of the Germa Kingdom. It’s a militaristic seafaring country that values the power of science, particularly weapons manufacturing and genetic modification. Judge’s goal was to create the ultimate soldiers, emotionless killing machines that would obey his every order without any pesky morals getting in the way of his dream of total domination of the North Blue. And what better test subjects for a man so convinced of his superiority than his own children? It started with my older sister, Reiju, but by the time my mother was pregnant with me and my brothers he’d advanced his technology to experiment on us in the womb. My mother took an anti-agent to try and stop the modifications, poisoning herself in the process. The antidote only worked on me. My brothers, Ichiji, Niji and Yonji, were exactly what Judge wanted them to be: emotionless, cold, unfeeling, obedient. But me? My skin wasn’t impenetrable, I cared about things weaker than me, I wanted to cook, I felt fear, I cried, I loved, I couldn’t run as fast as my siblings, I wasn’t as strong as them, I didn’t want to fight or kill. I was a normal human and that made me a failure.”

Sanji clenched his hand into a fist as the word rung in his head louder and louder. It had been haunting him for hours now, a constant mantra that wouldn’t leave him. He looked down as a larger hand covered his fist, calloused fingers worming their way past his clenched digits until Sanji’s pale fingers were intertwined with Zoro’s tanner ones. He stared at their hands for a moment, his muscles relaxing more than he wanted to admit before he continued speaking.

“The first seven years of my life was spent in and out of the labs, still being experimented on to try and make me useful. When I wasn’t there, I was training and falling behind my siblings in every metric. In Germa, the worst thing you could possibly be is weak. And if you’re the weakest… my brothers beat me every day. Judge let it happen. I wasn’t a fighter, so he didn’t gain anything from raising me. If I was so weak that I couldn’t fight them off, then I earned whatever they did to me. My sister watched them and laughed but later she’d patch me up. She had more emotions than my brothers, but she learned to hide it otherwise she’d be in the same position as me. I don’t blame her for not wanting to trade places with me. What kid would want to be Germa’s failure? The only good thing in that place was my mother. She was bedridden for my entire childhood. I didn’t know until Whole Cake that the reason was because of me, because she tried to save me. She was the only one who loved me, who encouraged me to cook, who smiled at me. She died when I was seven and afterwards…”

Sanji trailed off, his heart rate picking up as he remembered those dark months after his mother’s death, the listless existence in that dungeon, the hopelessness, his certainty that he was going to join his mother soon, his relief at the prospect.

“Cook, you don’t have to keep going,” Zoro offered.

Sanji took a deep pull of his cigarette and plowed ahead.

“One day, not long after she died, the guards brought me down to the dungeons. I didn’t know what was going on. I was such a stupid kid. They put an iron helmet over my face and locked me up in a cell. ‘Your father is the one who decided this… he intends to make it as if you were never born.’ That’s what the guards said. He told everyone I had died. He had a fucking funeral for me. He left me there alone with nothing but the bugs and the rats. Guards came twice a day to give me food, once a week with a bucket so I could wash up. They wouldn’t talk to me, they acted like I didn’t even exist. After three months down there, my brothers showed up and realized I wasn’t dead after all. They went right back to beating me except now they didn’t have to hold back because everyone thought I was dead already and if Judge locked me up down there, then clearly that’s what he wanted even if he didn’t have the balls to do it himself. Weak fucking failure that I was, I was glad my brothers found me because at least they talked to me, at least they acknowledged that I existed. What a fucking joke.”

Sanji took a moment to reflect on his childhood idiocy as he finished his cigarette, his weakness. He was such a snot-nosed little crybaby. It embarrassed him, shamed him that he was ever like that.

“Reiju started visiting then too to patch me up again. Another three months after that, she took pity on me and broke me out of my cell while Germa was attacking some island in the East Blue. My father ended up letting me go as long as I promised to never tell anyone about my connection to Germa or him. He didn’t kill me because I was blood, but I was his greatest shame and he didn’t want anyone to know about his failure of a son. So I ran, snuck my way onto a cruise ship escaping the battle and begged for them to let me stay. I was there two years before I met Zeff and we ended up stranded together on that rock. I never told him about Germa even after he chose to keep me. I thought… I was still afraid of Judge, afraid of him keeping his promise and killing anyone who knew about his waste of a son. I couldn’t put Zeff’s life at risk like that, not after everything he sacrificed for me.”

“What was it like with the old man?”

A small smile crossed Sanji’s lips as he thought of his childhood with Zeff.

“We fought nearly every day, cussed each other out religiously. I’m pretty sure I plotted to kill him about five separate times. But it was the first time in my childhood when I didn’t feel like I had to shrink myself or try to be anything more or less than what I already was. Zeff was the one who gave me the values I still believe in today. He helped me refine my cooking, taught me to fight with my legs, to take care of my hands, to respect women as the goddesses they are.”

“Oh, so he’s to blame for all your pervy shit.”

Sanji elbowed Zoro in retaliation for the comment.

“His values might be a little antiquated to you, but he’s an old seadog, Marimo. What do you expect?”

“I don’t remember him being as annoying as you when it comes to women.”

Sanji rolled his eyes in response.

“He took responsibility for me as a father when he had no reason to. I’d follow his morals over Judge’s any day.”

“They were holding him over your head during the shit at Whole Cake, weren’t they?”

Sanji sobered, the moment of levity slipping away from him.

“They were holding a lot of shit over me. Judge had people watching the Baratie, ready to strike if I stepped a toe out of line. They threatened my hands. You remember those slave collars we saw in Sabaody? They converted them into bracelets and made me wear them, threatened to blow my hands off if I tried to run.”

“Why exactly are these people still alive again?”

“Because I don’t want to be like them. Zeff raised me better than to stoop to their level, so I won’t.”

“There’s a difference between being kind and being forgiving. You must’ve learned kindness from the old chef, probably your mom too. You’re one of the kindest people I know. Just because you’re kind doesn’t mean you have to forgive them or absolve them of all the shit they did to you. They should get what’s coming to them, one way or another. If I had been there, I wouldn’t have let them get away without at least carrying some scars to show for it.”

“I’m glad you weren’t there. I didn’t want you to be. I didn’t want any of you to be. They were already threatening the crew. I didn’t want you guys in danger for me.”

“Why not?”

“What do you mean why not?”

“We’ve put our lives on the line for people we barely know, why wouldn’t we do it for you?”

“I wouldn’t want you to.”

“But we would. You’re our cook, our friend, our family. If we knew what you were facing, you think we’d leave you to face it alone?”

“Going to Wano was more important than—”

“What? More important than you? Is that what you really think?”

“I’m a liability to the crew. I dragged half of them into a mess they had no business being in.”

“Do you think Nami’s a liability or Robin? We got dragged into their messes too.”

“Of course they’re not liabilities.”

“Why not? And none of that flowery perv cook shit. Why are they different?”

“I chose to leave, they didn’t. Their lives were at risk. They had no choice.”

“Usopp had a choice. He chose to leave, just like you. He fought Luffy, just like you. You don’t think he’s a liability.”

“That’s different. I got our captain wrapped up in a conflict with a yonko.”

“Luffy was going to do that anyways, whether it was Big Mom at Whole Cake or Kaido in Wano.”

“Yeah, well, Nami and Robin and Usopp aren’t at risk of turning into psychopathic murderers that can destroy the entire crew.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The reason for my call on Onigashima. I put on that stupid raid suit and I awakened my modified DNA.”

“Raid suit? Is that that Soba Mask thing Usopp and Chopper kept going on about?”

“It’s Germa technology. I don’t know how, but it changed me after I wore it. I don’t want to become like my brothers, I can’t. If I do, I won’t care about my dreams anymore or the crew’s. I won’t care about my passion for cooking. I won’t care about the morals I was taught. I’ll be cold and emotionless. The All Blue will be nothing but a children’s story. Cooking will be peasant’s work and beneath me. I’ll beat up women for my own pride without thinking twice about it. I won’t fear death, but I won’t enjoy life either. I won’t love you— any of you. I’d be a shell of who I am. I’d be useless to the crew, a burden. There would be no point to me even existing at all, so if that happens, then yes, I want you to kill me. I trust you to kill me. There would be no saving me then and no point in even trying.”

“I don’t accept that. There is no such word as ‘never’ when it comes to our crew. We’d figure it out, even if we had to drag you back from hell to do it.”

“What would be the point of that? I’m not worth all that trouble. There are stronger fighters in the New World to replace me, other cooks that can do the same thing I do. You won’t be missing anything without me. You guys would still achieve your dreams. You don’t need me around for that.”

“You really don’t see the value you bring to the crew? It’s not just the cooking or the cleaning, it’s the support you give everyone. Other than Luffy, I can’t think of anyone else who believes in the goodness of this crew as much as you. You’re the one who’s given Usopp the confidence to want to fight even when he gets afraid. You’re the one who does stupid lovecook shit that I think is ridiculous but makes Robin smile anyway. Nami relies on you the most outside of Luffy and it’s not just because you bend over backwards for her, it’s because you’ve never stopped believing in her. You have every reason to avoid the infirmary like the plague, but you don’t fight Chopper as hard as the rest of us when he wants to patch you up. You go out of your way to cook people’s favorite foods when you know they’re upset about something, including hunting down teas you think will remind Brook of his home ocean. You take time out of your day to check on everyone, even though you’re the first person awake and the last one to go to sleep. You’re smart enough to think three steps ahead of the rest of us and take care of problems we didn’t even think about way ahead of time. You never lose faith in us, no matter what. And yeah, you’re about the only person in the world that could satisfy Luffy’s hunger. We wouldn’t have made it this far without you. You’re irreplaceable, Sanji. There is no future for us without you in it. If you don’t know that by now, then you really are an idiot.”

“Even if I become a monster one day? Even if I threaten the crew?”

“You won’t, I know you won’t.”

“How?”

“Because I know you. And, more practically, the girls are here. We know you find the All Blue in the future. We know you open your restaurant there with Zeff. We know the girls exist. We know you’re happy. Which means that whatever you’re thinking is going to happen doesn’t.”

“Maybe it just hasn’t happened yet. It still could and my idiot of a future self is about to let it happen. That’s why I freaked out tonight. Because for some godforsaken reason, our girls know my siblings, my brothers, called them uncle. And I can’t understand— why would I do that to myself? To the girls? Why would I let them back in my life after everything that’s happened?”

Zoro was quiet for a moment before speaking.

“I don’t know why your siblings are around in the future, but I trust you. So, whyever you let them back in, I’m going to trust that it was the right thing to do.”

Sanji stared at Zoro wide-eyed.

“You trust me? After everything that I did, you still…”

“I never stopped trusting you, Curls. I’m just waiting for you to start trusting me.”

“I already told you I trust you.”

“With your death, yeah. With protecting the crew, yeah. But not with you.”

Sanji clenched his jaw, not sure what to even say to that. His shoulders tensed as Zoro reached his unoccupied hand up to brush some of the strands of his hair back.

“I’ll prove it to you. I’ll prove you can trust me with all of you. You’re not going to scare me off.”

Sanji’s shoulders drifted down a little at those words, a sigh escaping his lips.

“You asked me a while ago if I knew that I deserved to be happy and I didn’t answer you because I didn’t want you to know how pathetic it is that I don’t feel like I do. Maybe I did, once, but lately? I’ve just been so… I don’t feel like myself anymore. I feel like that weak, useless, failure of a prince all over again. Judge’s greatest shame, a waste of life. I don’t know how to stop feeling this way. Maybe I always felt this way deep down and I just hid it up until now. I’m… I’m afraid that I’m always going to feel this way. I’m afraid of what I’ll become.”

Sanji bit his lip, a tear slipping down his face. His chest felt cracked open from giving this much of himself away, allowing himself to be this vulnerable. Zoro reached up and lightly brushed a tear away before moving closer to pull Sanji close to him in an embrace. He felt his body relax unconsciously into the hug even though part of his mind was screaming at him that he didn’t deserve to be here, didn’t deserve Zoro’s comfort or this softness from the usually stoic swordsman.

“Let us be here for you. You’re not alone. We all want to help you. You just need to ask. We’re your crew. Trust us to support you as much as you’ve supported us. Besides, you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

Sanji’s brows furrowed at that. Zoro pulled back and raised a hand to Sanji’s cheek, caressing the stubbled skin and forcing the cook to lock gazes with the swordsman.

“That weak, useless failure of a prince survived things that would kill a grown man. That kid made it in a world where all the odds were stacked up against him, where his own family almost killed him, committed unspeakable cruelties against him. And here you are, one of strongest, kindest, smartest, bravest men I know. You survived in spite of Germa and everything they’ve done to you, twice now. You’re a fighter, Cook. It doesn’t matter what bullshit’s going on in your head, you couldn’t stop fighting even if you wanted to. Unless you want Judge to win.”

Sanji couldn’t help the knee-jerk fury that burned in his gut at the thought.

“Fuck that. Fuck him,” he sneered.

Zoro grinned at him in reply.

“There’s that fire I love.”

Sanji stomach flipped at words. It wasn’t a confession, but it was pretty fucking close. Zoro brushed his thumb lightly across Sanji’s features.

“Hold on to it. Don’t let him take it from you. You’ve been proving him wrong every day that you’ve been alive, so you keep living and we’ll take care of the rest. And if all we can do is believe in you until you’re ready to believe in yourself again, then that’s what we’ll do.”

Sanji sighed before his head fell forward, his forehead knocking lightly against Zoro’s.

“Okay. I’ll trust you guys,” Sanji decided.

He didn’t feel strong nowadays but if there was any lesson he had learned on Whole Cake, it was that he needed to place more trust in his crew. He had trusted Luffy and the others to save him from the tea party. He trusted Robin to have his back in Wano against Black Maria. He trusted Zoro to kill him if he became a threat to the crew. Now, he needed to trust his crew to support him as he pieced himself back together again, found his footing and a healthy sense of self again. It wasn’t going to be easy, but he had to trust them nonetheless and as for whatever his future self had done that made his brothers apart of his life again… he supposed he was going to have to trust that too.

~*~*~

Sanji woke in the morning to sunlight streaming in through the porthole. For a moment, he was confused about where he was. His body was a mess of aches and pains. His head was throbbing, his eyes felt swollen and his throat was sore. The memories of the night before came floating back to him. Part of him expected to feel embarrassed or ashamed. Maybe it would hit him later. For the moment, his mind was strangely calm. He glanced to his side and felt a pang of disappointment to find it empty. He struggled to sleep last night. At some point, he found himself in Zoro’s arms, his head resting on the larger man’s chest, lulled to slumber by his heartbeat.

Sanji sighed and pushed himself up. He could already tell it was later than he usually woke up. He’d have to make something quick and easy. Breakfast was less formal than dinner was anyway. Just as he was thinking of what he could cook, the door to the room swung open. He looked up to see Zoro standing there with a tray in his hands. He paused when he saw Sanji was awake.

“Morning,” the blonde greeted as the silence lingered.

“Morning, Curls,” Zoro replied, stepping into the room and revealing that he was not alone. The twins walked in behind them, an air of nervousness hanging over them. Sora was holding a mug while Kuina was holding a syrup dispenser. Sanji softened as he saw them, recalling their confusion and fear the night before.

“The girls and I made you some breakfast. Figured you’d be tired,” Zoro explained, placing the tray on his lap. There was a plate of misshapen pancakes, a couple strips of too-crispy bacon, gooey scrambled eggs and a bowl of mixed fruit. Kuina placed the syrup on the bedside table while Sora placed the mug that looked to be full of tea beside it.

“What about—”

“Robin and Nami are taking care of breakfast for the rest of the crew. They thought you’d need some rest.”

Sanji frowned in reply. He was the cook, it was his job to make breakfast. His ridiculous breakdown had gotten in the way of him doing his job.

His thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a hard pluck hitting him square between the eyes. He looked up to glare at Zoro.

“I could see you were thinking something stupid. They wanted to help you, to support you as your nakama. Don’t turn it into anything more than that.”

Sanji pursed his lips but nodded before turning his gaze went back to the girls. They were looking down at their feet rather than at him. He felt a flash of remorse, knowing he had scared them the night before.

“Hey,” he said softly, reaching up to brush a few loose strands of green hair back from the girls’ faces.

“Are you both okay?”

The girls nodded wordlessly in reply.

“We’re sorry, Daddy,” Sora said sadly.

“You guys don’t need to apologize. I’m sorry if I scared you last night. The silly thoughts got to be a bit too much for me.”

“We’re supposed to help you keep the silly thoughts away, not make it worse,” Kuina replied with a frown.

“It’s not your job to do anything about it. It’s mine. I’m the adult, it’s my head and my thoughts.”

“But—”

“Not buts. It’s not up to you to do a single thing to try to fix me or protect me or shield me. I’m your father. That’s my job.”

“He’s right. Yeah, it’s good if you say nice things to cheer your dad up, but it’s not your job to try and do anything more than that. And it’s not your fault if he gets a little overwhelmed,” Zoro added.

The girls pouted in reply, which was much cuter than it had any right to be.

“Know what I think you can do to make me feel better,” Sanji started.

“What,” Sora asked eagerly.

“According to your otosan, hugs can be very comforting. I bet I’ll feel ten times better if I got a hug from you guys.”

The twins’ faces lit up at that.

“We can do that,” they declared.

Sanji smiled before setting the tray aside and holding his arms open. The girls immediately crawled up and latched onto him, hugging him tightly. It caused a bloom of warmth to unfurl in his chest. He had been freaking out about their existence mere weeks ago but now, he was content with the prospect.

“I’m sorry about spa night. You girls worked so hard on it and it was lovely,” Sanji complimented.

“We still had fun, Daddy,” Sora assured him.

“You made our nails all pretty and everyone liked our hair,” Kuina dropped in.

Sanji squeezed them once more before pulling back.

“Did you guys have breakfast?”

“Yeah, we ate with Otosan and Uncle Brook in the galley.”

“Do you want to keep me company while I eat then,” he asked.

The girls nodded enthusiastically before climbing up on either side of him. Sanji settled the tray on his lap and was about to start eating when he noticed Zoro turn to the door.

“Where are you going, Marimo?”

“Crow’s Nest. Training.”

Sanji bit his lip for a moment before deciding that he needed to take Zoro’s advice and start asking for what he needed.

“Stay, please?”

Zoro stared for a moment before his lips quirked in a barely visible smile. He moved to sit on the right side of the bed so Sora was between them while Kuina sat on Sanji’s other side.

“You guys were telling me fun snow stories yesterday. Why don’t you continue,” Sanji prompted.

The girls hesitated minutely but soon they began talking. Sanji let their words flow over him like a tidal wave, allowing himself to sink into the comfort of their voices along with the warmth Zoro’s skin was radiating towards him. He allowed himself to be at peace.