Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Cook, stop pouting.”

“I’m not pouting .” Sanji is grinding spices into dust at the kitchen counter, inflamed by Zoro’s callous accusation. Pouting is childish and dramatic. Sanji is level headed enough, at his mature age, to understand that there’s no point in throwing tantrums over things that can’t be changed. But it isn’t fair and life isn’t fair, and so he is, in fact, pouting fiercely.

He’s thirty five years old. That’s almost forty . Sanji’s dream; the ever eluding, mysterious All Blue. He’s supposed to have found it by now.

Zoro slinks closer to stand behind him, chin dropping on top of Sanji’s shoulder to get a look at what he’s doing. “You are,” he says. Zoro’s aging like fine wine - a few extra scars from a lot of critical fights, and a few extra creases around his eyes that show how much he’s laughed in the fourteen years since Luffy became the King of the Pirates. There’s a lot that’s changed, he considers, between his relationship with Zoro to the achievement of all of the straw hats dreams.

All apart from Sanji, the last one. Which is the reason for his pouting, his jealousy without envy, as he is nothing but ecstatic for his crew mates.

Instead of saying all this, Sanji clenches his teeth and snarls through them a snappy and very childish, “ shut up .”

He feels Zoro’s answering smile where it’s pressed against his skin.

Just following Luffy had been enough to grant half of them their dreams. Nami’s world map, Franky’s complete journey around the world on the ship that he had built. Robin’s thirst for knowledge surrounding the void century. Usopp’s bravery. All were all achieved just by believing in Luffy’s journey and where he was leading them. The celebration that followed after finding the One Piece had lasted months. Wealth, fame, power. They were treasures that Luffy had accrued for himself even before they arrived at Laugh Tale.

When Luffy declared Fishman Island under his protection, it had allowed the island’s residents to come and go without fear of being hunted or enslaved. Fish men were able to coexist with humans on the surface or while in the sea, if they chose to remain. They had the choice to move freely without fear. This triumph was evident in Jinbei’s face whenever they went anywhere thereafter, seeing the inclusion.

And Chopper had his breakthrough - tirelessly working for years and years inside the medbay on the Sunny and utilising what he had learned from every island, every sickness up to then that he had cured. A medicine that could heal any sickness. Sanji knew that he had worked with Luffy somehow - harnessing Luffy’s body’s ability to create antibodies against most poisons or other toxins. He doesn’t know the ins and outs of it, just that the little doctor is a genius.

Zoro challenged Mihawk for his title shortly after. Sanji remembered the first time he watched them fight; in the East Blue, the day that they had first met. He had watched Zoro be cut down and could not understand it, how he had been willing to throw away his life for his dream. Watching his Zoro - strengthened by age and wisdom and raw, practiced skill - finally attain the goal he had worked his whole life towards… Sanji could not describe how proud he had felt. It was the same for all of them. Every time one of his nakama could tick off another ambition was another celebration felt as deeply as if he had attained his own.

When Mihawk had surrendered with a smile, a sign of respect to who would now be crowned the better swordsman, Sanji had realised two things. The first was what Zoro really meant to him. The journey they had taken together and the sacrifices made for the other had strengthened their friendship into something deeper. Something more intimate than friends or crew mates.

The second realisation had been sour. They had travelled around the whole world, been over the sea and under it. And Sanji could not think for the life of him where his All Blue could be.

***

Brook had been the first to break away.

Sanji understood why he did it. The straw hats were not split up, no matter what the ridiculous tabloids published by ‘Big News’ Morgans or the rumours from various islands would have anyone believe. Brook had wanted to stay as long as possible. To see Sanji find the All Blue just as he had seen the others obtain their lifelong dreams. But they were getting older and so were the people who were not sailing with them. Laboon had already waited fifty years and was getting older still, and he still had no idea that Brook was still around at all, or desperate to see him.

He would be back, he promised. And so Brook had departed from the Sunny with a farewell YO HO HO and Sanji hadn’t seen him since, though they heard from him all the time in the form of written letters and snail calls filled with whale song and rocking music.

Nami had left next. That had made Sanji cry, but only because it meant he would no longer get to see her beauty every day. She wanted to go back to the Conomi Islands to see Genzo and her sister.

“I’m so sorry Sanji-kun,” she had said. Genzo was only just in his sixties, but Nojiko’s latest letter had said he hadn’t been well as of late and she had wanted to see him again as soon as possible. Just in case . That had made Chopper want to leave with them too, though Nami insisted they had doctors at Cocoyasi Village and that Chopper should stay with the crew in case they needed him. Usopp had reminded them that Kaya was a doctor too. The plan was to travel back to Syrup Village first and then leave for Nami’s hometown, seeing both of their families again in the process. They would return when Genzo was well, though they weren’t yet sure how long it would take.

“It’s fine, Nami-san.” Sanji had kissed the back of her hand sweetly. She had smiled until she grew impatient, his own desire to keep her there as long as possible prolonging his affection. Eventually she had been forced to rip her hand away from under his pouting lips. No hard feelings. She would truthfully miss his devotion, no matter how irritating.

Watching the boat sail away with their navigator and sniper on board had been bittersweet at best and downright emotional at worst.

The Sunny sailed on. She was the best travelled ship in the New World and carried stories of the places they had been, the crew that she carried, in every grain of her Adam wood. They revisited old friends and allied kingdoms; Doctorine ( a hip and young one-hundred and fifteen she had said despite being over one-hundred and fifty,) Vivi, Iceburg and Kokoro and Chimney and the Franky Family. Sanji travelled with his eyes open .  

He pretends it doesn’t sting a little every time another contender makes the journey to find them and challenge Zoro for his title. He’s happy for him, of course he is. But jealousy is not always rational and it comes from a place of selfish want. Sanji has taken his crew to the ends of the New World and back again in the hunt for his precious All Blue. Every time they don’t find it, every time his theories are wrong and he feels as if he’s wasted their time; there’s a part of him that considers the uncomfortable truth. Which is the possibility that he’s been chasing after a dream all along.

***

Sanji’s latest venture is Reverse Mountain.

The Sunny’s library is somehow both the same and not. Robin has filled the space with more books than can be counted, the shelves stacked with knowledge, a miniature recreation of the library of Ohara. Sanji stands over the table in the middle, hair tied back out of his face. It puts both of his eyebrows on display. Seeing them makes the discipline that Zoro has worked to harden all his life feel cracked and brittle.

“Think about it, marimo,” Sanji says, poring over the giant map Nami had shipped to him via seagull. “The four blues travel up the mountain and meet in the middle.”

Zoro hums in recognition, sipping from a bottle of sake and staring. “Right.”

“So don’t you think it’s plausible that the All Blue could be somewhere around there? Obviously not on top of the mountain,” Sanji is rambling through his cigarette, eyes affixed to the four streams on the map and where they lead together, “the water is moving much too fast and it’s far too deadly for anything to survive up there realistically. But what about surrounding it? Or inside the mountain. Maybe there’s an entrance.”

“Maybe,” Zoro says. Sanji looks up from the map at him, glaring through cigarette smoke. Zoro obviously doesn’t sound like he cares enough. “What? I’m listening.”  

“I’m asking if you think it’s plausible , moron. Why don’t you clean the moss from out of your ears.”

Zoro frowns as Sanji works himself up. He’d usually love to see it. Years may have passed but the easy way they tease each other, Zoro riling him up while Sanji consistently takes the bait, has stayed much the same. He normally loves to watch the passion behind Sanji’s rants or the way his cheeks flush pink when Zoro gets one over on him. This though, the way he gets stuck on the subject, deflates when he chases a theory only to end up back at square one. Zoro doesn’t like to see him truly upset.

“It’s possible, curly,” Zoro says. Sanji nods, appeased.

“I assume we’d have to go back to Twin Cape,” he continues. The way Sanji sees it, all the water that converges at the top has to come back down, so Twin Cape seems the most obvious place to begin looking. “We can pay Brook and Laboon a visit at the same time.”

Zoro’s eye widens minutely, though it’s enough for Sanji to notice it. “If we go through the East then I can stop off at my old dojo,” he says. Sanji understands the shift in Zoro’s tone immediately. He hasn’t been back there since he left, since his vow to become the worlds greatest swordsman. “I’ve been meaning to go. To tell Kuina that I kept my promise.”

“Zoro.” Sanji crushes his cigarette into the ashtray on the table, sympathy unexpectedly beating inside of him like a drum. Zoro has never mentioned it before, though it does make sense that he would want to visit Kuina’s resting place now that everything is said and done. To pay his respects, confirm the completion of their childhood oath in person. “Have you been meaning to go back there all this time?”

“Yeah.”

“You idiot.” Zoro won his title years ago. “Why didn’t you say anything?”  

Zoro sets his bottle of sake down on the table, close enough to Nami’s map to wet the edge of the paper with condensation. Sanji scowls at the blemish it leaves behind. If they weren’t discussing such a tender subject, he would rip the swordsman a new one for being so careless.

“I was planning to.” Zoro pinches Sanji’s chin, thumb brushing over the stubble there, tipping his head up to face him. “Was waiting for you to finish your dream first, curly.”

Sanji’s face heats. “ Idiot ,” he says again, softly. “Is that because you need me to hold your hand so you don’t get lost?”

“I don’t get lost.”

“Lost little marimo~ ” Sanji sings. Zoro leans down to stamp a kiss against his mouth, shutting him up.

“It’s a good idea, cook,” Zoro says when he pulls back. “We can see Nami and Usopp while we’re there.” As if Sanji needed the reminder, the idea of Nami flittering into his head like a dream. “Your dad too.”

Sanji’s soft devotion smooths out into something solemn.

He wants to see Zeff. It isn’t that he doesn’t. He’s in contact with the geezer frequently, and they swap updates on Sanji’s travels and Zeff’s life at the restaurant and are generally up to date with what’s happening in each others lives. He would like to see the old man. He just isn’t sure if he can handle it.

The issue is that when Sanji speaks to him on the snail, he hears the aged rasp that sometimes filters into an already rough voice. Zeff’s life updates sometimes include the pain in the stump of his leg that he brushes off, along with the general aches and stiffness that naturally come with old age. He’s in his eighties . And what does Sanji have to show for it? Certainly not the shared dream that Zeff almost sacrificed his life for. The one that Sanji left home to find for the both of them.

“You’re doing it again.” Zoro’s tone is fed up. The hand he used to pinch Sanji’s chin moves up to get a rough hold of his cheek, pulling harshly. It smarts and Sanji reaches up to get a grip of that mossy hair, tugging until Zoro is similarly put out.

“Stop it, loser.”

“ You stop it. Overthinking.”

“If I could then I would you shitty swordsman!”

They bicker back and forth until Zoro’s scalp stings and Sanji’s cheek aches, both of them letting go and glaring. Sanji rubs at his face until it feels normal again. The uncomfortable self-doubt that he’s so used to living with is forgotten for now too, squashed the same as Sanji’s cheek between Zoro’s thumb and forefinger.

“We should tell the others the plan,” Zoro confirms. “I think Luffy will take it well.”

Sanji packs up the map and together they head out to stand on the deck. It’s a lovely sunny day which does nothing to mitigate the complicated feelings twisting inside of him.

“Listen up, shitheads and Robin,” Sanji announces.  

Franky and Robin, who had been harvesting mikans from Nami’s fruit trees, stop and look up from their baskets. There’s a generous splash from over the side of the ship as Jinbei vaults himself out of the water, swimming laps to pass the time. Sanji grits his teeth at the tell tale squeak of the kitchen door swinging open - he knows it’s the kitchen, he’s been meaning to ask Franky to oil the hinges - and Luffy and Chopper circle around innocently from the middle of the ship. Over fourteen years of sailing together and still they haven’t learned how to pick the fridges lock. Sanji can’t catch a break.

He’s a little hesitant to spring his latest theory on them. The last few he’s suggested had all been duds. It’s just his old anxiety talking, something he’s been actively working on. Zoro’s callused hand brushes against his own as if he knows and Sanji scowls to himself at being so predictable. He knocks his hand back into Zoro’s, fingers brushing, and appreciates the sentiment.

The crew are all in, no matter what Sanji suggests. They’ve been this way since finding the One Piece, since doing whatever it is that they feel like doing whenever they feel like doing it. And since Sanji’s been searching for it, what they’ve wanted is to help him achieve his dream, no matter the cost. Sanji could tell them that he thinks the All Blue is in Mary Geoise and they would find a way to bulldoze up there with weapons drawn, screw the cost.

And hey, isn’t that an idea.

“Right,” he says. “So. Next plan.”

He feels like he’s led them around the world with no outcome. He doesn’t want to reflect on that thought too deeply, lest he start spiralling. The idea that the All Blue is just a legend, the myth that he was ridiculed for believing in when he was still just a child, is not something he is satisfied to settle for.

“Reverse Mountain,” he tells them. “We can get there in multiple ways.” Sanji juts his head towards Zoro. “Moss says we should go through the East Blue and I agree; we can stop off and see the others before we head back for the Grand Line.”

Luffy laughs loudly, teeth bared. “It’s like we’re starting our journey again!”

It’s what Sanji had been worried about, but Luffy says it like it’s just another thrill to chase after. Sanji prefers his captain’s version of looking at things.

Robin smiles in the perfect way that never fails to make Sanji swoon, her basket balanced on her hip. “How lovely. I’ll be pleased to finally meet your families.  

“Sounds super ,” Franky agrees.

“Please can we stop at the Baratie for lunch before we go? I’ve heard so much about the food!” Chopper clicks his little hooves together. His antlers have grown larger along with his body, but paired with his blue nose and doe eyes, he looks friendly and approachable rather than intimidating. Sanji wouldn’t refuse him even if that hadn’t been the plan to begin with. “I want to try the desserts!”

“Sanji’s food is better,” Luffy declares, finger up his nose. He’s grown as they’ve aged too; he’s stockier, the beginnings of a beard shadowed beneath his chin and across his lip. He’s the same old Luffy though, King or not, forever hungry and ready for their next adventure.

“We can stop at the Baratie for a bite to eat before we go.”

Luffy takes the idea very well if the excited “ MEEEAAAT! ” that he bellows across the deck is anything to go off of. The cooks’ at the Baratie have their work cut out for them and they haven’t even arrived yet. Sanji thinks he should call ahead and warn them.

***

They get to the East Blue through the calm belt, blasting through it using the Sunny’s paddles and a strategic coup de burst.

The order of how they visit islands there is much the same. Shimotsuki Village is the furthest from Reverse Mountain so that’s where they start. It’s quaint and peaceful, full of trees and grassy fields and other greenery. Zoro fits right in. He’s more reserved than usual when the Sunny finally makes port along the shore.

Sanji bumps his shoulder, a little concerned. Zoro has never been one to look back on the past, least of all his own, though it looks like that’s exactly what he’s doing. “Marimo. You okay?”

Zoro hums. “Just reflecting.”

Sanji makes a face. “Good or bad?”

“Good.” They step off the ship. The sand moulds beneath their shoes as they head for a path, the rest of the crew a little ahead, inquisitively looking around. “I was seventeen when I left this place.”

Sanji whistles. He was nineteen when he left the Baratie, but he imagines himself at seventeen and he just seems so much younger. “Did you miss it?”

“Didn’t think to,” Zoro says. “I left with my goal in mind and was chasing it ever since.“

Zoro leads them to the dojo, teeming with children all holding bamboo swords in both their hands and between their teeth. Shouts of three sword style! fly around the training hall from several young and excitable students as they pass, taking inspiration from their most famous resident. They have no idea that Zoro’s currently in the midst of perfecting his four sword style , as absurd as it might sound. Sanji can imagine Zoro at this age quite easily, seeing them. He wonders how young-Zoro would react to future-them showing up, his older self’s dream accomplished. He probably wouldn’t be surprised. His own young-self would be disheartened by his lack of fulfilment. Sanji can’t say he blames him.

Zoro introduces them to Shimotsuki Koushirou, his old sensei and distant relative. He looks young for sixty five. Good genes, Sanji thinks. He imagines how rugged and handsome Zoro might look at that age, his partner, and cringes to think of himself all wrinkled and grey standing alongside him. Sanji will have to update his skin care routine if he wants to stay on his level.

He offers him privacy when they walk out among the gravestones, though Zoro insists his crew come out to meet her. Kuina. Sanji has heard so much about her with so little words spoken. He bows his head, as do the rest of the straw hats, when Zoro kneels at the base of her gravestone, burns some incense he retrieved from Koushirou, and places his hands together in prayer.

The whole process does not last long. Franky and Chopper are a mess of tears by the time Zoro finishes and Luffy winds his arms around the seven of them, drawing them close to him in an act of both consolation and comfort that they each have each other. Sanji squeezes Zoro’s hand, warm in his own, as they head inside.

They barely stay a full day. Koushirou packs them enough onigiri to feed a dojo or Luffy for one afternoon.

They sail to Goa Kingdom next, where Luffy was born. The reception when they arrive is extraordinary. Sanji doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it - the pleasure their arrival brings, the food and joy and music that always follows. They meet a beautiful lady named Makino who owns a bar and blushes wonderfully when Sanji compliments her. Luffy introduces them to Curly Dadan, ( she’s got the same name as you, curly ) and at the end of the day they watch the bandits fight for food as if they’re never going to see it again. It makes sense, why dinner time on the Sunny always ends up such a chaotic affair. Sanji cooks enough to see them through the week before they leave, thankful for the generous offerings always given to the King of the Pirates for keeping his stock room full.

The Baratie is next. It takes about a week to reach the restaurant from the other side of the East Blue, the Sunny docking at the port. Sanji is about to step off the ship when he’s stopped dead in his tracks.

“What the fuck is that.”

Luffy’s laughter is probably loud enough to hear from the New World. They’re all laughing - even Zoro , the traitor - and Sanji can’t help the way his face burns bright red from his chin to his hairline. He wants to jump in the sea and let it swallow him whole.

“Little brat!” Carne is the one to greet them. The shit-eating grin on his smug face tells Sanji that he is the one responsible for whatever that monstrosity is on the water. “What do you think of the expansion?“

The teppanyaki expansion-ship, the Nasugasira, is fine. They had told him about it over a snail call when they first built it. What he doesn’t understand is;

“ WHY is there a giant model of MY face on the side of it, you two-bit shit old man ?!”

Luffy is howling now, as are the rest of them. Tears are streaming down Franky’s face and Jinbei is slapping his stomach from the force of it. Sanji feels betrayal unlike any he’s felt before.

“You don’t like it?” Carne’s grin widens.

“No I don’t like it, ” Sanji seethes. It’s a mimic of his first bounty poster, the one that forced him into a fight with Duval all those years ago. That ugly drawing that looked nothing like him while the rest of his crew were given bounties that made them look powerful and impressive.

“Where’s the old geezer? Let me see what he has to say about this.”  

Sanji storms towards the Baratie, his nerves around seeing Zeff forgotten. The dining room is packed and the chatter stops as he all but boots the doors down, marching straight for the kitchen as if he never left. The straw hats might be following along behind him. In his rage, Sanji does not care to check.

The kitchen doors get a similarly savage kick, blowing them open like a gale force. The chefs all spin towards him as he barrels inside. There’s no one he recognises, though they recognise him well enough. Some of them pale as if he’s there for them personally and Sanji would scoff at their presumptuousness if he wasn’t so pissed off. He spots Patty kneading pastry dough and makes a beeline for the one face inside the place that he knows.

Patty sees him coming before Sanji calls out, saving himself a leather shoe up the ass.

“Knock it off, shitty brat!” Patty scolds, giant hands covered in flour. He swerves out the way of Sanji’s kick, saving himself. “This how you greet me after all this time?”

“ I know you had something to do with that offensive eyesore outside too,” Sanji says darkly. Patty’s face lights up.

“Ah, the teppanyaki ship?” Patty claps a hand on Sanji’s shoulder, leaving a big floury handprint on the dark blazer. Sanji scowls. “You mean the giant unmissable recreation of the owners pride and joy? Looks just like you, brat. Brings us lots of service.”

“ Shut the hell up, ” Sanji’s face is inflamed. It’s mortifying and humiliating and actually unbearably endearing all at once.

The repetitive wooden thump of Zeff’s peg leg sounds from the hallway leading towards the living quarters of the floating restaurant. The nostalgia slams into Sanji like a Gumu-Gum Pistol , dispelling his anger. He faces the hallway just as his old man comes into view.

Zeff is as grumpy and hard looking as usual. Age has deepened the lines in his face to heavy set wrinkles, peppered his blond hair with grey in the front and interspersed it throughout his moustache. He looks at Sanji with the same old sullen face, like he wants him to get back out into the world rather than spend his time arguing over waiting tables and being kicked off the line. Only Sanji’s just got here. He always thought that he’d return to the Baratie for the first time with their dream in his hands, the location marked off on a map to gift to him. Instead Sanji’s hands are empty.

“Hey eggplant,” Zeff says.

Sanji clears his throat of his chagrin. “Oi, shit geezer. What do you think you’re playing at?”

“Don’t give me that shit.” Zeff leans on the nearest counter, glowering. Sanji pretends it doesn’t concern him, how he knows he’s doing it to take the weight off his bad leg. “If I’d known you were going to start griping the second you docked I’d have told the maitre d’ to keep you out.”

The teasing is as easy as it was when he was nineteen. The ship has expanded more than just the Nasugasira. Sanji had heard all about it, of course, but Zeff teeters him and the crew on a tour of the changes once they’ve finished arguing regardless. They’ve added multiple floors and a dessert ship called the Sister Anko, run by Patty. He sees many newspaper articles cut out and pinned to the walls in the kitchen or displayed in the dining room; headlines shouting the straw hats exploits and victories. There’s one wall in the main area of the dining room exclusively flaunting Sanji’s bounties over the years. It is not lost on him how the posters declaring him as Vinsmoke have the wretched name either scrawled over or burnt off completely.

Dinner that evening is a lively one. Sanji thinks his crew are a sight to behold sitting in the middle of the restaurant. The worlds greatest and most brutish swordsman. An anthropomorphic reindeer with cake stuffed between his cheeks. A cyborg drinking out their cola stock. A famous ex-warlord fish man. A beautiful lady with enough arms to stop their captain from swallowing the whole table. And said captain; the exuberant King of the Pirates.

Sanji can’t help but join the kitchen as they plough through dinner service, Luffy’s cavernous appetite giving them a run for their money. He’s never seen so many dishes piled high around the sink by the end of the evening, and that’s another sight the cooks’ probably never expected; watching the most notorious crew of the New World flock inside to help with the washing up.

They take their leave in the morning. It’s cold but fresh, sky cloudy. Zeff is standing with Sanji just outside the Baratie’s entrance, the cooks’ lumbering back and forth from the dock with the delivery of fresh produce around them.

Luffy and the others are boarding the Sunny, readying to go and giving Sanji some privacy with the old geezer before they set off. They’re taking more than enough food to see them through to the Conomi Islands, passing barrels and boxes up to the ship between them. Zoro has a giant barrel on each shoulder, carting them up effortlessly like an absurdly strong freak of nature. Sanji watches him fondly.

“So,” Zeff says. “You and the green bean, huh?”

“ Shut it, ” Sanji mutters, face pink.

Zeff hums. “Seems like an okay enough choice. What do they call him? Worlds greatest swordsman?”

Sanji doesn’t answer him, facing ahead. The way he glows with pride at hearing Zoro’s title is irrelevant.

“You keep your feet dry,” Zeff tells him. “And make good decisions.”

“I know,” Sanji pulls on a cigarette, the cherry burning red. “You too, old geezer.”

“Say hello to your other crew mates from me,” Zeff grunt, as he always does. “Keep me updated with where you’re going.”

A loaded pause lingers then, one that makes Sanji want to suck his cigarette down in one drag. He’s buzzing with tension to his fingertips, eyes ahead.

“I’m gonna find it,” he promises. “I am.”

“I know.” An aged hand settles on Sanji’s arm, turning him towards him. Zeff isn’t smiling - he rarely does, the prickly bastard - though there’s something like understanding in the serene way that he’s looking at Sanji, like he sees all of his doubts and anxieties revolving their dream, the weight of carrying it on his shoulders for the both of them.

“But it’s okay if you don’t.” Zeff promises back. “Sometimes the journey is more important.”

***

Cocoyasi Village is as bright and full of life as when they left it, structure shattered but free, all those years ago.

The last time they had made the journey had been when Nami stole the Going Merry out from under them. They hadn’t even been a full crew yet. This time is different. She’s waiting for them at the shore with Usopp, Nojiko, and Kaya, the four of them waving and calling out as the Sunny approaches. Luffy doesn’t wait to dock, springing off the ship towards the island with the force of a cannon ball.

Jinbei had been a little nervous to make land here, what with the history of what the islanders had gone through. Nami’s clearly made a name for him larger than his reputation as he and the rest of the straw hats are greeted with familiar celebration and open arms. They eat and tell tales of their journeys. Nami re-introduces them to old familiar faces and new ones; Nojiko’s family and children. Sanji can’t help but smile at the sight of her, surrounded by her loved ones. She makes a terrific aunt.

Nojiko lets them stay with her for the night. The house is small but it’s enough, the lot of them crammed into the main area while Nojiko and her family sleep in the bedroom. Nami stays with them, asleep on the couch.

Sanji is awake. The looming pressure of where they’re headed next is weighing on him. Travelling back through the East is too, seeing the old familiar sea. They’ve sailed so far and accomplished so much. It’s so conflicting, the frustration of not finding the All Blue mixed with the pride of all that they’ve achieved together.

“Cook,” Zoro’s voice is tired. They’re lying together on his open coat, Zoro’s arm around him. “You’re doing it again.”

Sanji sighs and turns in, hand hovering up above Zoro’s face to trace over the scar there. Zoro hums, pulling Sanji closer.

“And you’re nagging me about it, greenie.”

“You’ll worry yourself grey,” Zoro mutters. “Or bald. One or the other.”

Sanji smacks him lightly. “Shut up, moron. Worry about the algae infestation that you call your own hair.”

Zoro snorts. “You like my hair. That’s why you’re always blabbing on about it.”

“I don’t even like you , idiot. Your hair is the last straw.”

He’s obviously teasing. The bickering is normally enough to distract him. Not tonight. It’s likely because the end of their destination is so nearly in sight, the possibility of his dream on the horizon.

Zoro sighs deeply, amused but fatigued. Sanji pushes his face into the dip of Zoro’s neck, eyes closed, willing himself to relax and go to sleep. Zoro turns his head enough to press a kiss to his forehead, a balm on his anxious thoughts. The smack of his lips sounds loud amidst the silence. Chopper groans in irritation as if it's their affection that is keeping him awake.

“Why don’t you two get a room?! ” He whisper-shouts.

Usopp cackles at that, which makes Kaya giggle beside him. That starts Sanji and Zoro chuckling in turn. Poor Chopper rolls over and holds his cushion over his ears around his antlers.

***

Nami has a bag packed in the morning, as does Usopp.

“You’re coming? ” Sanji couldn’t be happier.

“Chopper checked over Genzo yesterday and he and Kaya are in agreement that he’s getting better,” Nami tells him. The relief on her pretty face is palpable and Sanji wants to give her the biggest hug. He does, in fact, sweeping her off her feet. He’s so so glad that they’re coming with them. “We want to see your dream come true, Sanji-kun.”

“Kaya’s gonna stay and monitor him,” Usopp says, sounding proud. They’re a cute pair, still blushing around each other like teenagers despite being thirty three and life long friends. He juts a thumb towards his chest. “Let Captain Usopp lend you his wisdom of the truth behind all the old myths and legends!“

“Thanks ‘Sop,” Sanji says, charmed.

Sanji takes Nami’s heavy bag off of her hands, content to carry it for her as they board the Sunny again. Leaving Cocoyasi as a group of nine instead of seven isn’t something that Sanji thought he needed. It reassures him that no matter what the outcome is later, All Blue found or just as far as it’s always been from him, that things will be okay if the crew stay together.

***

“We’re here.”

Jinbei announces their arrival from the helm, the base of the mountain appearing in front of the ship ahead. Sanji stands by the Sunny’s head, chewing on a cigarette. He does not feel hopeful. There’s a part of him that doesn’t want his latest theory to be correct. If the All Blue turns out to be inside the mountain, where they were at the very start of their journey, he’s not sure what it means for all the time he’s spent looking for it. It’s not like it was wasted - definitely not - and he supposes that it makes sense in a twisted kind of way why nobody has ever found it. Nobody ever thinks that what they’re searching for is at the beginning of their journey, after all.

“I can hear you overthinking, curly,” Zoro says, coming up to stand beside him. He puts his hands on the rail, peering at their destination. “Cut it out.”

“Eat shit,” Sanji retaliates. He finishes his cigarette and throws the butt over the side to the sea. “I’m stressed out.”

“I can tell.” Zoro drops his head onto Sanji’s shoulder, hair tickling at his neck. “Calm down, dart brow. It’s gonna be fine.”

Sanji is too pent up to snap at him like he usually would not to call him dart brow and not to tell him to calm down . Instead he fishes another cigarette out of the pack and lights up, hoping the drags will force him to breathe deeply and subsequently calm him down just like Zoro said. “What if it’s not?”

“Then we keep looking til we find it.” Zoro shrugs. “Same as we have been. Not a big deal.”

Sanji wants to scream at him that it is a big deal, that it’s easy for Zoro or Luffy or any of them to say that. They’ve all achieved their dreams. He’s right though. They will look and if they find the All Blue then it’s amazing and he hopes Jinbei is ready to fish him out of it by the end of the night. If they don’t find it, they don’t. They’ll be no worse off than they are right now.

The current is choppy as the ship draws nearer. The water starts to pull them in, forcing them towards the mountain with no room to back out. Debris from several splintered ships is scattered in the water. Many pirates don’t survive the ascent and Sanji remembers that it had been one of their own concerns when they first came here. They aren’t worried this time. Jinbei‘s talent with a ship wheel could probably steer them safely through a knock-up stream.

“Hold onto something, bros!” Franky shouts, gripping the rail on the lawn deck. Robin hooks her arm around the stair banister and crosses her arms, multiple more of said limbs sprouting out of the ship. There’s enough hands for each of them and she grabs on tight.

The ship judders upwards. Chopper is shrieking - he was born on the Grand Line, Sanji recounts, so has never done this before - and the Sunny shoots up to the mountains’ peak in less than a minute. It stills in the air for only a second before dropping with a heavy jolt that nearly gives him whiplash. The stream directed towards the Twin Cape carries them downward back to the sea. A tall, skeletal figure is watching, awaiting their arrival.

“ YO HO HO HO HO ,” Brook is waving from the cliff side with his bony arms outstretched in the air, crying loudly. “My friends! Welcome!”  

A piercing trill accompanies him. Laboon is greeting them too from the water. The painted skull and bones in a straw hat on his wide, scarred head is smudged with age but still present. Luffy grins as the ship comes to a still, straightening his hat.  

“That’s right!” Luffy punches one of his hands, beaming. “You owe me a rematch! But not yet! First we have to do what Sanji came for!”

Laboon lets out a happy, cacophonous rumble, seeming to agree.

Brook invites them inside for tea in Crocus’ old house, where he’s been staying. It’s just Brook and Laboon here, the old man is gone now, and they sip their drinks and listen as Brook recounts the stories of what they’ve been up to between their last conversation and the straw hats arrival here.

Sanji is restless, leg bouncing beneath the kitchen table in the small house. He’s vibrating in his seat. He crosses his leg over his knee in an attempt to stop it but his energy transfers to his hands, fingers thrumming against the table top. Zoro’s hand lays atop his own, an attempt at comfort. Sanji can’t wait anymore.

He stands up fast enough that his chair scrapes back. “Sorry,” he says when his crew all look back at him. Nami, Robin, and Chopper aren’t even halfway through their tea and Sanji is going insane just sitting here. “I can’t wait any longer.”

“Ah, Sanji-san!” Brook chuckles, standing with him. “No worries! You’re quite right.”

Luffy drains his tea into his mouth and stands up, face as eager as Sanji’s anxious heart. “Let’s go, Sanji!”

They head back outside. The sea is broad and blue, as calm as the paradise that the pirates of the New World have dubbed it. The crash of water from the mountain sounds like a waterfall and Laboon can be seen swimming in the distance, the giant shape of him beneath the water.

“Alright, curly,” Zoro says. “Where do you wanna start?”

They head down along the red rocky cliffs, sprayed by sea mist and smelling the salt in the air. It sticks Sanji’s hair to his face and his clothes to his skin, and he feels thoroughly drenched by the time they’ve spanned the visible expanse of the rock side. He feels a little dejected when they finally reach the end of the path, like he’s chasing ghosts.

He takes the shark-submersible with Zoro and Luffy beneath the sea level. Laboon’s eye peers inside the front window then they first eject the Sunny, and they wave at him before they set off. The sea floor is covered with cold-water coral, the sea itself filled schools of fish and bunches of krill.

“You see anything, Sanji?” Luffy says, cheeks full as he devours his pirate lunch that Sanji created for him before they set off for Reverse Mountain.

There’s nothing under the water level but jagged, solid rock. “Nope.”

He’s getting pissed off again. This is the same as every other time, fucking pointless waste of time.

“Let’s go back up,” he says.

Robin has been using her ability to scope along the walls of the mountain where they can’t reach on foot. She’s focused as the submarine breaches the water but no updates is the same as no luck.

“What about behind the stream?” Franky asks. Sanji is all out of options. They take the mini-merry; Zoro, Nami, Chopper, and himself. Nami steers them so they aren’t in danger of being capsized by the rapid water, angling the little boat to manoeuvre around and behind the waters path. There’s a space carved out in the rock that sparks a little hope, what looks to be opening. Heading inside is fruitless. Nothing but barren rock and lifeless water until they come to a dead end inside.

They head back to the Sunny in silence. It’s loaded. Disappointment, dejection, and a touch of embarrassment at being led down an aimless path.

“Don’t lose face, Sanji-san,” Brook tells him. They sit together inside the Sunny’s galley, cradling drinks and sharing snacks. “All good things come to those who wait.”

I’ve been waiting , is what he wants to say. He’s been searching since he left home and has nothing to go on, no clues to follow but poorly stringed together ideas that lead him nowhere. He won’t say that though, especially not to Brook, who understands the pain of the waiting game better than any of them.

“I’d say don’t give up, but that’s not really your style, bro.” Franky grins around his cola. Sanji appreciates the encouragement.

“I’m not giving up,” he says. He doesn’t think he ever will. The All Blue gave him hope as a child when he needed it most, a belief that there was somewhere better and made for someone like him. It saved his life again in the form of Zeff and has been a drive on his ambitions ever since.

The fact that it continues to elude him feels like an ironic joke. Maybe he needs to stop looking. The good things in his life have always found him when he wasn’t actively searching for them.

“Any more theories?” Zoro asks him. It would sound like ridicule if not for how well Zoro knows him, how close he’s kept to Sanji to know that he is always speculating.

“Actually, yes.” It’s his final theory, one that came to him when he wasn’t seriously thinking about it. He lights a cigarette. Is it strong enough to drag his crew around to the opposite side of the world?

Then he smiles. Sanji could tell them that he thinks the All Blue is in Mary Geoise and they would find a way to bulldoze up there with weapons drawn, screw the cost. They want to go with him. He doesn’t have to drag them anywhere.

“Hey. Luffy,” Sanji addresses his captain. The man who has obtained everything that the world has to offer. The King of the Pirates. “How do you feel about setting off on our journey again from the start?”

And Luffy grins, lifting his hat from his back to place it like a crown on his head, teeth bared with enthusiasm. “Sounds like an adventure!”