Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sanji knew how to weld fire. 

He’d been dancing with flames since he could walk, sprinting between stoves and scalding pots, learning the difference between heat that cooks and heat that destroys.

He knew how to control it. Contain it. Extinguish it. 

Some might say he was born in a kitchen. Others may have even said he was an expert. 

But he didn't see it coming. 

Not like that— like him. 

He could have never anticipated that the burn would catch up to him eventually. 

And now he wished that someone had warned him that there are fires no training can prepare you for. 

It was hot. 

Too hot.

The kind of heat that kills your senses—dry, blistering and relentless. A kind of heat that clings to your lungs and turns sweat into salt before you can even feel it on your skin. 

The rest of the crew was scattered around Nanohana, looking for food, clothes, or trouble. 

But Sanji was off on his own. 

He snuck into an alley between half-crumbling buildings, probably looking for shade.

Definitely looking for a lighter.

His cigarette hung loosely and unlit on his lips. He’d told Luffy to stop messing with his matches, but to no avail. He’d used every single one of them, god only knew what for. And someone, probably Zoro, had placed every single used match back into the box. 

His patience was wearing thin.

He leaned against the wall, tilted his head back, and let the smoke-less cigarette rest between his teeth like it might still calm him down. It didn’t.

A few seconds passed.

Then—footsteps.

Unhurried. Confident. Not the clumsy stomp of a Marine or the frantic shuffle of a vendor. No, these were quieter. Heavier. Like they belonged to someone who didn’t care whether or not they were heard.

Sanji opened one eye, curiosity getting the best of him. 

The man rounded the corner of the alley like he belonged there—like the sun hadn’t touched him once, despite the sweat gleaming on his chest. His shirt was nowhere in sight, a long black coat unbuttoned draped over his shoulders. His hat was wide-brimmed, casting most of his face in shadow, but not enough to hide the curve of a smirk or the scatter of freckles across tanned skin.

Sanji’s eyes narrowed, instinct kicking in. He wasn’t from the town—his gait was too relaxed, too self-assured. Not a local. Not a Marine either. And not drunk enough to be trouble.

Yet.

The man paused when he saw him. Didn’t speak. Just tilted his head slightly, like Sanji was interesting. Like he hadn’t expected to find anyone here and wasn’t in a rush to leave.

Sanji didn’t move.

The stranger stepped closer.

“You look like a man in need of a miracle,” he said, voice low and easy, one could hear the smug on his lips. “Or at least a lighter.”

Sanji’s teeth clicked around the filter of his cigarette, fighting the urge to seem desperate. “Unless you’ve got one, I’m not interested.”

The man chuckled, slow and warm, like the kind of fire that creeps before it flares.

“Lucky you.”

He knelt beside Sanji, looking straight into his eyes, and held up his index finger.

And then, with zero fanfare, he lit it on fire.

Just like that.

No flint. No friction. Just flame, blooming steady from his skin like it belonged there. It crackled softly, casting golden light over his face—and for a second, Sanji’s breath caught in his throat.

Devil Fruit. Logia. Fire.

Sanji leaned in without a word, the tip of his cigarette meeting the flickering heat. It lit instantly.

Too close.

He could feel the warmth not just from the flame, but from him. A dry, sun-baked scent hit his nose—sweat, dust, a hint of smoke. Not kitchen smoke. Wildfire smoke.

He pulled back.

The cigarette burnt between his lips now, exactly what he’d wanted, what he'd needed. But something about the interaction left him unsettled.

The man grinned, not leaving his side.

“Ace.”

Sanji exhaled slowly, smoke trailing past his lips.

“Sanji.”

Ace looked him up and down, not shy about it. “Didn’t know there were blondes this far out in the desert.”

Sanji shrugged, playing it off. “Didn’t know fire could walk and talk.”

That earned him a real laugh. It echoed down the alley, light and honest. Too honest.

“Touché.”

He turned, already walking away, as casually as he’d arrived. A lazy wave over his shoulder.

“See you around, Sanji.”

Sanji stared after him, lips parted just slightly, cigarette forgotten.

He didn’t know yet that that would be the moment everything started to go wrong. That he’d just lit more than tobacco.

That Ace—bright, burning, fucking dangerous Ace—would be the fire he could never put out.

Chapter Text

Sanji hated the way heat clung to everything in Alabasta. 

It was in the air, in the walls, on his shirt, on his spine. It was the opposite of the Baratie kitchen, where steam clung to his skin and the air smelled like broth and burning garlic. Or the Going Merry’s kitchen— his kitchen —flowing at his own pace, burning with his own fire . At least the kitchen heat had a purpose. It transformed things, created. 

This was just empty.

The sun hammered down on Nanohana until the stone streets glowed pale, and the air blurred above them. Every breath scraped the inside of his throat. He’d stopped sweating an hour ago. That was the part that worried him—no sweat meant his body had given up trying to keep him cool.

Behind him, Zoro trudged along like a bored ox, his katana’s handles tapping against his hip.

“You’re going to dehydrate,” Sanji snapped without turning.

Zoro didn’t answer. Probably didn’t even hear him. 

They passed a stall selling dates and old flatbread, the vendor too sun-struck to call them over. Sanji’s stomach gave a low, steady ache—less hunger, more habit. Back at the Baratie, the midday lull meant peeling onions and sneaking a cigarette in the pantry. Here, it meant choking on dust and pretending he wasn’t about to collapse.

“We need water,” he muttered. “And shade.”

“Need a babysitter, too?” Zoro said, voice dry as dust.

Sanji ignored him. Focused on the next corner, and the next. He was looking for a place that didn’t feel like a tomb. Some cracked doorway with shadows deep enough to breathe in.

When he glanced back, Zoro wasn’t there.

Sanji stopped. Closed his eyes. Counted to three.

“Idiot,” he hissed under his breath. “Stupid idiot.”

He turned in a slow circle, scanning the street. Nothing. Just heat distorting his view. 

Of course, he’d wandered off. The world could be burning down, and Zoro would still manage to get lost in a straight line.

Thank god he was a chain smoker, he’d managed to keep a cigarette lit since he’d seen that man a couple of hours back. If not, being stranded with Zoro’s pathetic sense of direction would’ve been ten times worse. 

Sanji exhaled through his teeth, set his jaw, and backtracked past the last two corners. He checked the mouths of alleys as he passed them, peering into each one with mounting irritation.

When he reached the third, he paused.

There.

Half in shadow, Zoro leaned against the wall like he had all the time in the world. He wasn’t alone.

A man sat on a broken crate in front of him. His hat was tipped low, but Sanji identified him in a second. He was holding a bottle loosely in one hand, like he might drink from it or set the whole street on fire—Sanji wasn’t sure which.

Zoro said something Sanji couldn’t hear. The man laughed—low, warm, the kind of laugh that didn’t belong in this blistering, empty place.

Sanji’s jaw tightened. No doubt it was him.

He stepped into the mouth of the alley, letting the sun beams slice behind him, and folded his arms across his chest.

“Am I interrupting your little desert tea party?” he called, voice sharp.

Zoro looked over, expression unreadable.

“You found your way back, Curly,” he said flatly.

Sanji bit his tongue. He was too dehydrated to fight.

Ace turned his head. Tilted his hat back with two fingers. His eyes were bright, too bright, like the embers under a charred log.

“Sanji, right?” His grin crooked wider. “Guess we are destined to meet, huh?”

Ace shifted on his knees, and for a second, the light caught the freckles on his cheek. He didn’t look like any of the bounty posters, but something about him rang familiar. A name that had drifted through the Baratie once or twice, always spoken with caution. A name he’d heard Luffy and Zoro mention in passing.

Sanji blinked and eyed Zoro, “How do you even know the stray?”

“Long story.” Ace laughed and swung the bottle in the air dramatically. 

Zoro scoffed, “Very long.” 

Sanji tipped his head, studying him, as Zoro and Ace continued talking. 

Zoro’s voice cut through the quiet.

“Don’t even think about it.”

Ace laughed, low and warm, “Come on, you know what my type is…”

“I’m serious. Off limits.” 

“Oh…” Ace had his finger on his chin, looking up in a very theatrical way. “You a thing?”

Zoro dropped his head as a smile pulled on his face. “Don’t be a dick.”

“What?” Sanji snapped.

Ace’s laugh cut through again, but nobody answered.

Then Ace’s gaze slid back to Sanji—and stayed there.

Just a second too long.

It wasn’t the lazy once-over Sanji was used to. It was slower, measuring—like Ace was trying to decide something. 

Sanji shifted, suddenly too aware of the sweat drying on his jaw, the taste of smoke clinging to his tongue.

The silence stretched, soft and heavy, before Ace finally looked away, tipping the bottle back to his mouth, trying to get the last drops. 

Sanji couldn’t help it—he kept staring. It felt like the heat had nothing to do with the sun anymore.

“Is the crybaby here?” Ace asked. 

He was looking at Zoro now, but Sanji couldn’t help noticing the sidelong glances he kept flicking his way—sharp, quick, impossible to read.

“Yeah…” Zoro said, voice low. “Probably begging for food somewhere, you know…”

Sanji's mind raced, trying to connect the dots. Zoro wasn't a social person, and Sanji knew it a bit too well. 

“Ah…” A sigh, deeper than expected. “Haven’t seen him in ages… Bet he hasn’t changed one bit!” 

“He’ll be happy to see you.” Zoro said, back to his nonchalance. 

“WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” Sanji snapped. 

Ace blinked at him, surprised for half a second—then grinned, wide and soft. It made Sanji look away in embarrassment. 

“What, you didn’t figure it out, yet?”

“He is slower than he seems.” Zoro cut through. 

“Figure what out?” Sanji growled, heat prickling beneath his collar again. “You two have been speaking in code since I got here.”

Zoro sighed like he’d aged three years in one minute. “He’s talking about Luffy.”

Sanji’s expression twisted. “Luffy? What the hell does he know about Luffy?”

“My lil’ brother,” Ace said, “You know—straw hat, stretchy arms, very punchable face, total menace.”

Sanji’s mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again. “ That’s the crybaby? Luffy has a brother? ”

“That fucker didn’t tell you about me?” Ace threw his head back and laughed. “Either way, it was pretty obvious.”

“No, it wasn’t ! You could’ve been talking about any idiot.”

“Well,” Zoro muttered, “It was an idiot. Just a specific one.”

Sanji shoved his hands in his pockets, trying to pretend he wasn’t completely thrown, trying to gain some of his cool demeanor back. “How do you even know Mosshead, then?”

Ace laughed—a sharp, surprised bark of a sound—and for some reason, that laugh landed squarely in Sanji’s chest.

It was too much. Too genuine. Too bright .

“You do have a moss head!” He spat in between laughter.

Sanji coughed, covering it by adjusting his cigarette, like the smoke had gotten to him. “Don’t laugh like that,” he muttered.

“Like what?” Ace asked, still grinning.

“Like it’s the funniest thing you’ve heard all day.”

“It was ,” Ace said, easily. “Didn’t peg you for funny, blondie.”

“I mean, come on,” Ace continued, pointing lazily at Zoro’s head. “It’s not even green. It’s moss . Who approved that color?”

Zoro rolled his eyes, muttering something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “If you weren’t Luffy’s brother…”

“Yeah, yeah, Mosshead .” Ace waved him off. “Anyway—met him before Luffy did. Back before Mosshead stopped dressing like washed-up bounty hunters.”

Zoro scoffed. “I was dressed just fine.”

“You were dressed like a noob .”

“And you were half-naked in a bar.” Zoro spat. “Also… Noob? Speak like an adult, dumbass.” 

“I am always half-naked in a bar.” Ace said, looking a little too pleased with himself.

Sanji frowned. “Wait, wait, wait. You’re telling me you two just ran into each other before anyone knew Luffy was gonna be captain?”

Ace shrugged. “Not exactly. I knew Luffy was going to be something . Always did. Just didn’t know how far he’d get. But this guy—” he nodded at Zoro, “—he didn’t connect the dots until way later.”

Zoro clicked his tongue. “You talked about him like he was a legend. Not a real person.”

“He is a legend. Just happens to also be a total dumbass who eats with his entire face.”

Sanji smirked around his cigarette. “Yeah, that checks out.”

Ace gave him a look, playful but edged with something older. “How do you even feed that guy?” 

“I’m the cook,” Sanji said proudly. 

“Makes sense you are a chain smoker. He must be very stressing.” Ace laughed again—loose, effortless, and too warm. 

Sanji didn’t mean to react. But something about that sound scraped against the inside of his ribs in a good way. The man was magnetic. And Sanji hated it. 

He cleared his throat and looked away, his cheeks flaring pink, flicking ash off the cigarette. “Tch. You laugh too loud.”

“I live loud.” Ace flashed a grin. “Problem?”

But Sanji couldn’t answer. The comeback stuck somewhere in his throat, right behind the secondhand smoke and whatever the hell had just shifted inside his chest.

Zoro’s eyes narrowed for a heartbeat, sharp as a blade. He shifted, crossing his arms, the faintest crease of a scowl tugging at his lips. He hated how easily Ace’s easy charm seemed to unsettle Sanji—like a flame licking too close to something fragile.

“Shut up already, Ace,” he muttered. His gaze flicked briefly to Sanji, “We should find Luffy before he gets into a fistfight with a camel.”

Sanji sighed. “Again?”

Ace stretched his arms overhead, bones cracking. “Lead the way, moss boy. ”

“Don’t start.”

“Oh, I’m just getting warmed up .” He said, flames erupting from his fingers as he held them up high. 

Sanji watched them bicker as they started walking. Something about the rhythm of it made his chest feel weird. Like he was hearing the tail end of a song that had started long before he stepped into the room.

He took one last drag of his cigarette, then flicked it away and followed them, steps slower, quieter.

Maybe it was the heat. The dehydration. 

Yes, definitely that.

Chapter Text

“What do you mean he is joining us?” Nami said in a loud, angry whisper, pointing at the man half asleep on the Going Merry’s deck. 

“Just for a couple of weeks!” Luffy grinned, leaning way too far back in his seat like this was all a game.

“He better pay for his own things, Luffy,” She huffed, pinching the bridge of her nose, “We are not a charity.”

Ace was sprawled against the wall of the ship like he had been thrown there. One leg bent, the other stretched out, arms crossed as he dozed like he didn’t have a care in the world. His hat tilted forward just enough to shield his face, though the edges of a satisfied grin still showed beneath it. 

“Relax, woman.” Zoro spoke from the mast, arms crossed, “He is actually a good sport.”

“What do you even know?” Usopp snapped, exasperated. He plunged a finger into Zoro’s chest, eyes wide. “You barely even like anyone! Hell, you don’t even like us sometimes!”

“Get off my face, Usopp.” Zoro shrugged and gently pushed the man backwards. “If I don’t like anyone, but I am okay with him, maybe you should trust that a little bit, huh?”

The air smelled faintly of sea salt, sun-warmed wood, and smoke drifting from Sanji’s cigarette just behind the kitchen door. He hadn’t said anything yet, but his eyes kept drifting back to Ace—tracking the rhythm of his breath, the way he didn’t even flinch under all the scrutiny.

“He’s someone with nothing to prove,” Sanji said, stepping into the deck with a towel slung over his shoulder, cigarette already lit. “Or someone too stupid to worry.”

Ace stirred at the sound of his voice but didn’t open his eyes. Just smiled like he’d been listening the whole time.

“Might be both,” he muttered.

Sanji tapped ash off the railing. “Tch…”

Nami leaned against the rail just outside the kitchen, arms folded tight. Her glare moved from Luffy to Ace and back again, sharp enough to slice through rope. She already saw it coming. 

“How I wish we would bring a woman on board for once…” she muttered, mostly to herself. No one seemed to hear her. “I’m gonna miss Vivi…”

“Saaaanjiii…” Luffy said, dragging his name like it was a lifeline.

Sanji didn’t even move. He knew what was coming. 

“I’m huungryy…”

“You’re always hungry.” Usopp snapped, already tense. 

“But now I’m dying hungry. Like… really, really hungry!”

“I told you it would take half an hour more.” Sanji said, not even looking at him. 

“You said that houuurs agooo…” He kept stretching his words like it might make them easier to digest by the rest of the crew.

“Not even ten minutes ago.”

“You can’t be so impatient, Luffy.” Nami spat, rubbing her temple. “It’s too hot for all this whining.”

Ace chuckled from his spot against the wall, still not bothering to open his eyes. “Luffy, don’t be such a spoilt child.”

Sanji flicked ash over the railing, exhaled smoke through his nose, and turned back toward the galley. “If you want it faster, I need someone to peel the potatoes. Not you, Luffy—you’re banned from the kitchen.”

He didn’t expect the silence that followed, or the soft scrape of sandals against the deck.

“I’ll do it.”

Sanji stopped in the doorway, glancing back. Ace was already standing, hat tipped back, arms overhead in a stretch like he hadn’t just been dozing through an uprising.

“Least I can do, huh?” He looked at Sanji, almost too casually, and shrugged.

Sanji stared at him for a second longer than he meant to. “You don’t look like someone who knows what a potato peeler is.”

Ace grinned. “Guess you’ll have to supervise me, then.”

Sanji rolled his eyes, muttered something under his breath, and vanished into the kitchen.

“Oi,” Zoro’s voice cut through the air, sharp and low, calling Ace’s attention. “Don’t.” 

Ace turned his head towards Zoro, “Relax, Mosshead.” 

Before going into the kitchen, Ace turned to Nami. 

“Don’t worry,” he said, offering a soft smile—almost a plea for forgiveness. “I’ll pay what’s necessary. Won’t make you overspend.”

Nami narrowed her eyes at him, arms still crossed. “Good. Because if you cost me a single berry, I will make you pay interest.”

She held the glare a second longer—then, just barely, her lips twitched into a vague smirk.

When the door swung shut behind them both, the deck suddenly felt a little emptier.

The wood creaked under Ace’s boots as he trailed Sanji into the kitchen. Sanji didn’t look back, but he could hear the faint jangle of a belt buckle, the quiet scrape of metal shifting against fabric.

Ace’s first attempt was… an attempt. 

Sanji tossed a peeled potato into the bowl with a little too much force. “That is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, staring at Ace’s mangled attempt.

Ace held up the sad excuse for a potato next to his face. Parts of the skin were still clinging on like battle scars, while others had been gouged out entirely. It looked more peeled by teeth than blade. And done by a five-year-old.

“Hey, it’s got… character.”

“You’re supposed to peel the potato, not flay it.”

Ace chuckled, unbothered. “Didn’t know I was signing up for kitchen boot camp.”

“You volunteered. And we don’t waste food around here.” Sanji snatched the next one from Ace’s hand. “If you are gonna be here, at least pretend to make an effort.”

Sanji turned his back, grabbing another towel, trying to breathe normally. The bastard wasn’t even trying to be good at this. He was leaning against the counter, one foot hooked behind the other, peeling like it was a lazy hobby. Shirt half open. Smiling like he knew exactly how much space he took up and loved it.

And Sanji kept looking. He told himself it was disbelief, amusement. 

“Mind showing me?” Ace asked again, casually. “Can’t be worse than this.”

Sanji narrowed his eyes, and exhaled through his nose. “You want a demo or a lecture?”

“Whatever gets me through this without getting stabbed.”

Sanji rolled his eyes, walked over, and picked up a clean potato. “Hold it steady. Like this.”

He didn’t mean to get that close, but his fingers brushed warm skin, and for a moment, he felt it—calloused, steady, and somehow hotter than it should’ve been. The contact was brief, insignificant even, but Sanji shook his hand away, as if he’d touched a burning stove. 

For once, Ace didn’t immediately crack a joke. His grin faltered just slightly, and he cleared his throat.

“You always cook like this?” Ace asked. “Like it’s a life or death situation?”

“If this is how it looks like with potatoes,” Sanji snorted softly, “you should see me with onions.”

Ace let out a laugh. Nothing teasing. Just amused. Honest. 

“Try again,” Sanji muttered, stepping back. 

Ace picked up a new potato and the peeler. He focused—sort of.

Sanji returned to his side of the counter, wiping his hands, pretending his pulse wasn’t being weird.

For fuck’s sake… even as a kid I peeled better than this, Sanji thought. It had been a while since he had someone so incompetent in the kitchen. 

Sanji reached past him for the spice jar, arm brushing against Ace’s side as he moved. This time, Ace stiffened, barely noticeable but enough for Sanji to catch it.

“Careful, Blondie,” Ace said after a beat, his tone still playful but quieter now. “Keep that up, and I might think you’re trying to fluster me.”

For a split second, Sanji’s breath caught. His fingers twitched. Shit. Heat crept up his back, fast and stupid, and he forced himself to scoff like it was the most absurd thing he’d ever heard.

“You?” Sanji didn’t even glance at him, sprinkling the spice over the pan. “Once you grow a pair of tits, I might start thinking about it.”

But when he risked a quick glance, he caught it—the faintest tinge of color at the tips of Ace’s ears.

Hah, Sanji thought, smirking faintly as he handed back the potato peeler. Makes sense Zoro’d like him. That easy way of moving, the cocky quiet—Zoro likes that kind of guy.

When Ace handed over his second attempt—still terrible but less disfigured—Sanji paused before taking it. Their fingers brushed.

“Better?” Ace asked.

“Marginally.” Sanji didn’t look up. “At least you are not wasting so much food.”

Ace chuckled again, softer, proud.

Sanji’s gaze drifted to Ace again. Just making sure the bastard wasn’t about to start a fire and burn everything down.

“You’ve got good hands. Shame you don’t know how to use them.”

Ace freezes for half a second before grinning, but this time it’s a touch too wide, like he’s covering up that flash of heat in his face.

They peeled in silence for a while—well, Ace peeled and mangled with marginal improvement, and Sanji corrected him without making eye contact.

Then, without warning:

“You and Zoro have something?” Ace said, too casually.

Sanji’s knife paused mid-slice. He’d been so sure he’d figured Ace out—the lazy grins, the friendly jabs at Zoro, the way he kept hanging around. Obviously there had been something between those two. And now, what? Ace was jealous? Assuming his and Zoro’s fights meant something more?

He forced a laugh, sharp and dry. ”What is that even supposed to mean?”

Ace shrugged, eyes on the potato in his hand like it had been nothing. “Just curious. You fight like an old couple.”

Sanji snorted. “Is that how your people flirt?”

Ace paused mid-peel, the knife slipping and taking off too much potato.

“My… people?” he repeated, his voice just a little tighter than before. Sanji could see a raised eyebrow under the stupid looking cowboy hat. 

“Yeah. You know…” Sanji smirked, finally feeling back in control and lighting a fresh cigarette. “Reckless fire-starters with bad kitchen etiquette. Is bickering your idea of foreplay?”

Ace huffed a laugh, but the grin he threw Sanji wasn’t as steady as usual. It felt as if he suddenly remembered how to breathe. 

“Careful, chef,” he said, meeting Sanji’s gaze for just a moment. “Sounds like you’ve been watching too closely.”

“You’re in my kitchen,” Sanji muttered, flicking ash into the sink. “And you are a fire hazard after all.”

The words hung between them for a moment—sharper than Sanji intended. He wondered if he’d gone too far. Ace glanced at him, quiet now, and for a split second, the air felt heavier. 

“You know…” Ace said, softer this time, a faint grin tugging at his lips. “He respects you. Zoro.”

“It is mutual,” Sanji gave a quiet laugh, short, uncomfortable. 

Ace didn’t push. He set down another sad-looking potato. “He’s not easy to talk to, I get it. First time I met him, he nearly stabbed me because I stumbled near him.”

Sanji’s eyes flicked toward him, curiosity outweighing the irritation. “That does sound like him.” He huffed a quiet laugh. “And how’d that go for you?”

“I left with a busted lip, and he had a sword through a table. I’d call it a tie.”

Sanji shook his head, amused. “You really know how to make an entrance.”

Ace shrugged. “He remembered me, though. Ran into him again a few weeks later, different island. Didn’t try to kill me that time. Shared some drinks.”

“And that’s friendship, huh?” Sanji said, glancing sideways at Ace.

“With Zoro?” Ace grinned. “That’s practically a love letter.”

Sanji’s smile wavered—not enough to notice, but enough that he felt it. 

For a split second, the afternoon light caught on the faint sheen of sweat at Ace’s collarbone, and Sanji found himself looking away too quickly, and rushed to change the topic.

“So what, you two kept in touch?”  

“We had a couple of run-ins. A shared fight or two. He never talked much, but we became friends. Every time we saw each other… it was like a silent agreement that we had to go for a drink.”

Sanji didn’t respond right away. He just kept chopping, the rhythm sharp.

He turned back to the cutting board, focused too hard on dicing a bell pepper that didn’t deserve it. “I’m surprised he never mentioned you to us…”

“I think he was embarrassed because he didn’t realize my brother was his captain until like a year of knowing him.” Ace’s voice was easy, but not careless. “He isn’t really a great talker, either way, you know?”

Then, quieter: “He doesn't talk much with us, either. Not about… anything real.”

“Maybe he thinks he doesn’t have to,” Ace said, leaning slightly against the counter. “Maybe he thinks you already get it.”

Sanji blinked, thrown off by the simplicity of it.

A long silence stretched between them. Not awkward. Just dense.

Then, trying to shake it: “Anything you’ve got on him I could use?”

Ace grinned. “Once, he fell asleep on a roof, black out drunk. Didn’t move for two days.”

“That sounds about right.”

Another beat. 

Sanji wasn’t blind. He’d noticed the way Zoro looked at men—the quiet tells, the soft edges that only showed when he thought no one was watching. And this guy? The lazy confidence, the easy charm, the way he burned a little too bright—it didn’t take a genius to connect the lines. 

He told himself it was just curiosity. Just dot-connecting. But the need for an answer felt… personal. Before he could stop himself, the words slipped out, as casually as he could manage:

“So what exactly was it? Between you two?”

Ace raised an eyebrow but didn’t answer right away. He set down the peeler, wiped his hands on a towel, and met Sanji’s gaze as he leaned on the counter.

“Nothing like that,” he said simply. “He’s always been a friend.”

Sanji didn’t answer, just shot him a look of disbelief.

Ace tilted his head. “Would it bother you if it had been?”

Sanji’s grip on the knife tightened, knuckles pale against the handle. A flicker of annoyance passed through his eyes before his jaw set hard. He’d said it before. Too many times. Men getting the wrong idea wasn’t new, but it was getting tiring. 

“I don’t like men. Not like that.” he muttered, not daring to meet Ace’s gaze. 

Ace studied him for a second longer. Then smiled again—lighter this time, back to normal.

“All good, Blondie.” He picked up another potato and got back to work. “Was just asking.”

Sanji didn’t answer. He focused on the cutting board, knife clattering a little too sharply against the wood. 

Before the silence had a chance to grow heavy, the galley door creaked open.

“Sanji,” Nami’s voice carried in, light but firm, “need a hand setting the table?”

Sanji straightened instinctively, flicking ash into the sink. The faint crease in his brow smoothed out as he glanced over his shoulder.

“Ah—Nami-swan! Of course, thank you!” His tone shifted in an instant, warm and sugary. It felt like a completely different person.

Nami stepped inside, barely sparing Ace a glance as she reached for the plates. “It smells good in here,” she said casually, and for a moment, the air felt normal again—less charged, more like the gentle rhythm of life aboard the Merry.

“Food will be ready in five minutes,” Sanji said, sliding past her to grab a tray. His voice, though still soft around the edges, carried no hint of the earlier bite.

“Good. Luffy’s about to chew through the railing out there.”

Sanji chuckled under his breath, holding the door open for her with a flourish. “Almost there, Nami-swan.”

As they left together, Ace lingered for a beat, alone in the kitchen. The soft creak of wood and faint scent of spice were all that remained. Then he let out a quiet laugh to himself and followed them out, the heat of the galley fading behind him.

Chapter Text

The hammock creaked every time he shifted, and it felt like the ropes were conspiring to strangle him. The air was thick, heavy—too much for that time of night. Sanji peeled off his shirt halfway, tossed it to the floor, but it didn’t help. Nothing was helping.

He was tired, but his body didn’t care. His brain wouldn’t shut up. It just kept overwhelming him. Thoughts blurred together, messy, too loud to untangle.

Ace.

His name blazed behind Sanji’s eyelids like a live ember, like he’d pitched a damn campfire inside his skull: the heat, the smoke, the grin—circling, relentless, refusing to burn out.

He could still smell him. Not in that flowery, perfume-cloud kind of way like when Nami walked by. No. He smelled as if salt and the sun were baked into old leather. And it was in his nose like he couldn’t breathe anything else.

It was nothing. He was nothing. Just Luffy’s brother.

But he was in his head.

You’re allowed to want things you don’t understand yet.  

Zeff would always say that to him. 

Fucking old-geezer. No matter how far into the sea I am, his words always find a way back to me. It’s bullshit. It’s so much more complicated… 

He exhaled hard through his nose, the sound too loud in the stillness of the night. He shoved his legs into his pants. The floorboards creaked under his boots as he slipped into his jacket and pushed open the door, the cool night hitting his face like a slap. He needed air. A smoke. Something. Anything but the silence of the room. 

The deck groaned under his boots as he stepped out, the faint slap of waves against the hull cutting through the silence. The air out here wasn’t any cooler. It clung to his skin, damp and heavy, like the heat had followed him from the bunk room just to suffocate him all over again.

Sanji cupped his hand around the flame of his lighter, shielding it from the faint breeze as he lit his cigarette. The ember flared sharply in the dark, then dulled to a faint orange glow. Smoke curled from his lips, slow, steady, disappearing into the night air.

It helped. A little.

Not enough.

The quiet stretched on, but he could still hear messy thoughts hammering his brain. None of them made sense. Not really. Not for Sanji.

He leaned on the railing, elbows propped, cigarette hanging from his lips, and let his eyes wander across the black water. It didn’t look like water at all—more like oil swallowing every remnant of moonlight.

Ace’s face slipped through his mind again, uninvited. That stupid cocky grin. That easy way he moved, like nothing in the world could touch him. Like he owned every room he stepped into, even Sanji’s kitchen.

Sanji gritted his teeth.

It wasn’t like he’d never seen confident men before. Hell, Zoro radiated that same quiet assurance every time he gripped his swords. But the bastard was different. He stood low, didn’t like making a scene or calling unwanted attention. He didn’t speak much; his presence was felt, but it didn’t overwhelm. At last, Zoro was easier to ignore. 

Ace burned brighter. Louder. He made sure he was being seen and heard. And Sanji hated how his chest tightened at the thought of it.

He took another drag, forcing the thought down with the smoke.

Just a sleepless night. Wouldn’t be the first one.

He’d spent years chasing women— real women, soft hands, and perfect smiles, and curves he’d give his life for. That’s what he likes. That’s who he is . 

So why does my pulse keep stuttering every time this dumbass crosses my fucking mind?

Why the hell does he keep thinking about the way Ace smelled, or the way he laughed? 

Sanji frowned at the water as he flicked ash over the railing.

It’s just the heat. Alabasta’s been baking my brain for days. That’s all.

But the lie feels brittle, paper-thin.

“You’re allowed to want things you don’t understand yet.”

Zeff’s voice again. Damn him. Why did he always have something to say?

Sanji dragged smoke deep into his lungs, as if it could scorch the thought out.

Want things? Want what? He doesn’t want anything. 

Not from him.

Sanji’s teeth clicked around the cigarette filter, jaw tight.

His fingers curled into a fist, knuckles whitening. He flicked the cigarette away—but it was already gone. Burnt down to the filter without him even noticing. 

“Goddammit.” He said aloud, breaking the silence for the first time in hours. 

“Goddammit to you too,” A voice replied from the door of the boy’s room. 

Sanji flinched. Of course, it was him. 

Zoro stepped out, barefoot, shirtless, and annoyingly calm. 

“You always stomp around like that when you can’t sleep?” Zoro asked, crossing the deck like he had all the time in the world. “Some of us are trying to not care.”

His words didn’t match his tone. He sounded somewhat kind, or at least worried. 

Sanji scoffed, dragging a hand down his face. “Didn’t ask for commentary, Marimo.”

Zoro leaned on the railing beside him, arms folded, eyes on the black stretch of sea. He didn’t say anything else for a minute.

The silence returned—Not hostile, for once.

Sanji lit another cigarette out of habit. Zoro didn’t move.

“You're anxious,” Zoro finally muttered.

Sanji exhaled smoke through his nose. “It’s the heat.”

Zoro didn’t buy it, and Sanji knew he didn’t buy it, but he didn’t press.

Instead, Zoro tilted his head, studying him sideways. “It’s not just the heat.”

Sanji’s jaw tensed. “Drop it.”

Zoro shrugged.

The waves slapped softly against the hull. Sanji inhaled again, smoke burning slow in his chest.

“What happened in that kitchen?” he said suddenly, not paying attention to Sanji’s warning. 

Sanji didn’t answer right away. “What do you mean?”

Zoro glanced at him, brow furrowed. “You came out flustered, barely spoke during lunch and dinner, and now you are out here, chain-smoking like the dumbass you are.”

“I fucking hate you sometimes.” Sanji barked a soft laugh. “How can you be so perceptive and still can’t tell right from left?”

Zoro grinned.

Sanji’s eyes stayed fixed on the water.

“So, dumbass?” he asked, softer now. 

Sanji didn’t answer. Just took another long drag, the smoke catching in his throat.

Zoro sighed through his nose. “Right. Of course.”

“You’re the last person I’m explaining shit to,” Sanji muttered. “Especially when you already know more than you should.”

“I don’t know anything,” Zoro replied, voice sharp now. “I just see it.”

Sanji flinched at that.

Zoro turned, leaning against the rail now, arms still folded, eyes on him. “You’ve been jumpy since he showed up, and now you are not even sleeping.”

“What do you even fucking care?” Sanji scowled. “I’m always jumpy around all of you. You’re annoying. Luffy’s loud. Usopp and Chopper keep hiding my damn cigarettes.”

“I know Ace.” Zoro studied Sanji, gaze steady, unrelenting. “And I, sadly, know you.”

Another beat of silence. 

Zoro turned, leaning against the rail now, arms still folded, eyes on him

“Did he flirt with you?”

Sanji’s stomach dropped.

“Why would you care?” he asked, voice low. He was ashamed, for the first time in forever. 

Zoro’s eyes narrowed, but there was something softer behind them. Something unreadable.

“I don’t.”

And maybe that was true. Or maybe it was the closest Zoro could get to saying I do without disfiguring Ace in that very second.

“But I did tell him to leave you alone.”

Sanji’s lips parted, but no sound came out at first. Then:

“Tch… As if I couldn’t handle a stupid man trying to get with me.” He wanted to sound dismissive. It was definitely an attempt. 

“So he did flirt with you.”

“I don’t like men.” 

Zoro chuckled, patronizing. “That’s not what I asked.”

Sanji let out a deep sigh and took the last puff from the cigarette. The ember flared, and then died.

He didn’t speak. 

Zoro didn’t, either.

The silence was thick now. Like something had been cracked open but neither of them wanted to look directly at it.

Then Zoro shifted, arms still crossed.

“What if he did?” Sanji finally said, voice trembling. “Would it be so terrible?” 

Zoro scoffed, “You tell me, Curly. You are the one out here chain-smoking in the middle of the night.” 

Silence. 

“Did you like it?”

Sanji shifted the weight and leaned on the railing again. 

He snorted under his breath, as if it were the last thing he could do, “I don’t know.”

His voice was quiet. Like he wasn’t sure if he was confessing or defending himself.

Zoro’s grin dissolved in an instant, and something flickered across his face. It wasn’t anger, nor annoyance. It looked more like sadness. 

Sanji didn’t notice. His eyes were fixed somewhere else, somewhere distant. 

“I didn’t flirt back,” Sanji added, almost like it hurt to say. “Not really.”

Zoro still didn’t say anything. That silence cut more than words.

Sanji looked away first, teeth grinding. “You’re such a pain in the ass.”

“The fuck did I do, Cook?” Zoro spat, irritation seeping through his lips. 

“I’m not mad at you,” Sanji snapped, then added, more quietly, “I’m mad at myself.”

Zoro’s eyes narrowed. “For what?”

“For doubting,” Sanji said. “I should know by now.”

The words hung there, bitter and raw.

“I don’t even know what the fuck I’m feeling. But it won’t shut up in my head. And you—” he broke off, shaking his head, voice hoarse, “—you just stand there like you already know how this ends.”

Zoro stepped forward once. Not much. Just enough to make the space between them shrink enough.

“I don’t know how it ends,” he said, low. “But I know how it feels with men like Ace.”

The moment felt weirdly intimate. They didn’t have moments like this anymore, so raw.  Not the kind where silence wasn’t a weapon or a wall, where words weren’t just things to throw between kicks. 

They used to talk. Not about big things, but enough. About things that mattered at the time. 

It had been easier, once. Back when everything was a little looser, when the sea hadn’t worn them down in quite the same way. Back before when they looked at each and saw a friend, not a rival.

Now, every word felt like a gamble, and every look, a test.

Sanji wasn’t sure why it had changed. Why they’d stopped being close, when they’d stopped having late night conversations about life. But it had been sudden. 

“Why did we stop talking like this?” Sanji asked, finally meeting Zoro’s gaze. 

Zoro didn’t answer, and looked away.

Of course he did.

“I never judged you, you know?” Sanji spoke again, his voice softer. 

“Drop it, Cook.” Zoro’s spoke fast, too fast— Like he needed to cut the words off before they landed.

A beat of silence. 

Zoro gripped the railing so hard his knuckles turned white. Sanji just stared at him, waiting for an answer.

But he knew.

He hadn’t judged him, but he also hadn’t reached out. 

“I didn’t know what to say.  It caught me off guard.” Sanji said, ignoring Zoro’s warning. He knew he could push a bit further before Zoro snapped. 

Zoro didn’t move.

“That night I— You said what you said and—” Sanji continued, eyes locked on the sea beneath them, dragging his hand through his hair.  “I should’ve said something. Anything.”

Zoro’s jaw flexed, still facing the sea. “You didn’t owe me anything, Cook.” 

“I owed you something,” Sanji said, jaw tight. “You sat on the edge of the upper deck, two drinks in, and told me you’ve never once looked at a woman and wanted her.”

Zoro’s head dropped slightly.

“You said it like it was a joke,” Sanji went on, voice rough, “but it wasn’t.”

Zoro didn’t respond.

“And I just stood there.”

“You didn’t laugh,” Zoro muttered.

“No. But I didn’t say anything, either.”

“You were supposed to say what? ‘Good for you’?” Zoro let out a humorless scoff. “I shouldn’t have said anything in the first place.”

Sanji huffed a quiet breath. “I should’ve said it was okay, at least.”

“I wasn’t looking for your permission.” 

Silence. 

“It wasn’t that,” Sanji muttered. “I just… I saw myself in you, somehow. Always did. And when you said that, it felt like—like the floor dropped out.”

That made Zoro finally turn, his brow tight. “Well, that’s a way to confirm you are disgusted.”

“No.” The word came fast. Too fast. “It’s not that, dumbass. It made me think about myself.”

Sanji dragged a hand down his face. “It wasn’t about you, Zoro. Not really. It was about what it made me realize I’d been avoiding. Shoving down so hard I forgot it was even there.”

Zoro didn’t say anything.

“I didn’t have the words,” Sanji went on, voice quieter. “You gave them to me. And I panicked.”

“I thought you hated me for it,” Zoro muttered.

“I made it about myself,” Sanji muttered, “I shouldn’t have, and I fucking hate myself for it.”

He looked up at Zoro finally. “I never wanted you to think I was ashamed of you. I just really didn’t know what to say.”

Zoro’s jaw clenched. He didn’t speak. But his arms dropped from their usual defensive fold.

“You were the first man I respected who ever said it out loud. And I didn’t know I needed to hear it.” Sanji admitted. “Because if you—Zoro, of all people—could say that out loud, then what the hell did that make me? Maybe I wasn’t as sure of myself as I thought. Maybe I’ve been lying to myself longer than I care to admit.”

The words hovered in the air like smoke between them.

“And now Ace is flirting with you and those feelings are back.” Zoro finally said. His voice came out bitter. 

Sanji’s eyes narrowed. He pulled the cigarette from his lips slowly, exhaled smoke through his nose.

“Is that what this is about?” he said, grinning.

Zoro didn’t answer, which told Sanji everything and nothing at once.

A corner of Sanji’s mouth twitched—confused, incredulous. “You like him.”

Zoro’s head jerked toward him. “What?”

“That’s why you’re pissed. You’re not worried about me, you’re jealous.”

“I’m not—” Zoro’s voice caught. His jaw locked shut.

Sanji let out a low sharp laugh. “God, of course. That’s what this is.”

“I told him to back off because I know how he is with men like… you.” Zoro snapped. “And I know it would fuck with your head. Not because I give a damn what Ace does.”

But the words came too fast. Too defensive.

Sanji tilted his head slightly, watching him. “You do like him.”

Zoro didn’t confirm or deny. He just looked away, jaw clenched, gaze fixed on the waves like he could cut through them if he stared hard enough. 

He was pissed. His jaw clenched, a muscle on his temple twitching rhythmically. 

Sanji leaned back against the railing. “Could’ve just said so, you know.”

“You are the dumbest person I know.” Zoro muttered. “So fucking oblivious.”

They stood there for a beat. The night thick around them, heavy with heat and smoke and too many words left hanging.

Sanji finally sighed. “For what it’s worth, I’m not trying to get between you two.”

“So you do like men, huh?” Zoro snorted. “Say it.”

Sanji’s shoulders stiffened at that. His breath hitched in his chest. If he said it, it would be real. It wouldn’t be just a passing thought, a sleepless night. 

“That’s not what I said.” He couldn’t say that he didn’t. 

“But it’s what you meant.” Zoro’s voice was sharp now. Tired. “You don’t know what you feel, but you’re so sure it’s not that?”

Sanji turned to him. “And what if I don’t like men? What if it’s just him? What if I’m confused as hell and every time I try to sort it out, I get you breathing down my neck like I’m doing something wrong?”

“I never said you were doing anything wrong,” Zoro muttered.

“You didn’t have to.” The words were quiet. “You just look at me like I’ve failed some test.”

Zoro's mouth opened, then shut again. He ran a hand over his face. His voice came out low. Tight.

“I’m not mad at you for being confused. Or doubting anything.”

Sanji blinked. “Then what are you mad about?”

Zoro didn’t answer right away. He tightened his grip on his own wrists. 

When he finally did, it was without looking at him.

“You’re letting him into a space you never gave me.”

Sanji froze.

“What?”

Zoro pushed off the railing. “Forget it.”

“No, say it,” Sanji said, stepping toward him now, voice hard. “You think I owe you something?”

“I think—” Zoro bit the inside of his cheek. “—I think I told you something sincere. And after that, you disappeared.”

Sanji’s breath caught.

Zoro looked at him then. Just briefly. Eyes hard. Voice flat.

“I didn’t tell you because I wanted anything from you. I just thought… if anyone might get it, it was you.”

Sanji stared at him. “I never meant to disappear.”

Zoro shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter what you meant. You did.”

The silence between them this time felt heavier than all the others. Like the floor might actually give out.

Sanji swallowed hard. “You think I’m replacing you.”

Zoro didn’t respond.

Sanji let out a hollow laugh. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

“I’m not him,” Zoro said quietly. “He flirts and shines and talks like it’s nothing. But you accepted that with so much… ease.”

“I— I didn’t—”

Zoro looked up sharply.

“I didn’t ask for any of this,” Sanji went on, frustrated, “and I sure as hell didn’t want it to get so fucking complicated between us. But don’t stand there acting like I threw you away. You were the one who disappeared.”

Zoro stared at him for a long beat.

Then, “I disappeared because I couldn’t watch you pretend it didn’t happen.”

Sanji’s breath hitched.

The waves slapped softly against the hull again—steady, indifferent. The world kept moving.

But something between them stayed frozen.

Sanji looked away first. He didn’t know what to say.

“Is it so difficult to accept you do like men?” Zoro’s voice came quiet. Not accusing, just tired. “Is it really that embarrassing to be like me?”

Sanji’s lips parted—but nothing came out.

Because yes.

Because no.

Because he didn’t fucking know.

Because he had no idea if he liked men, if he just liked Ace, if he liked anyone, if he was even capable of feeling love.

The words stacked up in his throat, clashing, snarling, begging for order. But none came.

Zoro waited. Just long enough. Then he turned.

And this time, Sanji didn’t stop him.

He stayed by the railing, staring at the horizon like it might hand him the answer. Like it might give him back the version of himself that hadn’t shattered on some goddamn upper deck a year ago.

The door creaked open behind him. Closed again with a soft click.

He was alone. Still smoking. Still pretending he could make sense of a question that had lived under his skin longer than he’d ever admit.

And Zoro’s words, quiet as they’d been, refused to leave him.

Is it so difficult to accept…

The ember of his cigarette died in the dark.

Chapter Text

Fire leaped through the sides of the pan with rage, and weak sunbeams leaked through the windows, painting streaks of gold across the counters of Sanji’s kitchen.

It was only four thirty in the morning.

Sanji hadn’t slept at all.

He moved like a man trying to outrun his own thoughts—hands fast, precise, every motion louder than necessary. The fry pan hissed when the oil hit metal. The knife cracked against the cutting board. His boots scraped sharply across the wooden floor. It wasn’t cooking. It was containment.

He’d lost track of how many dishes he’d started—how many he’d saved at the last second from burning, boiling over, or falling apart altogether. The counter was a mess of half-prepped ingredients: chopped herbs clinging to knives, bowls stacked with grated zest and peeled potatoes, pans still warm from being yanked off the heat before disaster struck. A bowl of cream sat on the edge of curdling. The toast had to be scraped. Twice.

He hadn’t actually ruined anything. Not really. He’d never forgive himself if he wasted food before salvation. But he was close. Too close.

When a pan finally did scorch—just a flicker of black at the bottom—he slammed it into the sink with a snarl loud enough to shake the spice jars.

“Fuck’s sake!”

The noise echoed—better that than the silence. 

He wasn’t feeding anyone. He wasn’t even hungry.

He just needed the noise.

It kept Ace out. 

Every time he blinked, he could still see it—that stupid grin, the flick of flame from his fingers, the lazy confidence like the world bent around him and not the other way around. The worst part? Sanji could still feel it. The warmth. Not just the fire, but him.

Sanji slammed a pot onto the stove harder than necessary. It rattled the shelf again.

He was so focused on whatever he had going on, he didn’t hear the door creak open.

“You gonna burn the ship down, or should I come back later?”

The voice—dry, familiar—made Sanji flinch just slightly. He didn’t turn.

“Kitchen’s off-limits until breakfast,” he muttered, grabbing another handful of eggs and cracking them impatiently. “Especially for freeloaders.”

Ace stepped into the room anyway, barefoot,  a shirt slung across his shoulder like he’d just rolled out of bed and decided to ruin Sanji’s morning.

“Good thing I’m not hungry,” he said, leaning on the counter with a smirk. “Just came to see if the world was ending in here. Hell of a lot of noise, cook.”

Sanji cracked another egg. 

“Fuck!” Shell fragments slipped inside the bowl. Sanji cursed, fishing them out with shaking fingers.

Ace nodded toward the stove and pointed at it nonchalantly. “That thing’s about to catch on fire.”

He glanced sideways at the pot simmering on the stove and breathed. It smelled good, it still needed a few more minutes. He’d have crashed out if one of Ace was actually right about something happening in his kitchen. 

“I know.” Sanji didn’t look up; he just kept whipping eggs violently. “Maybe that’s what I want it to do.”

Ace tapped his fingers on the counter like a metronome, but the silence that followed was thick, stretched by smoke and tension and the sound of something sizzling.

“Wanna talk about it?” Ace said finally, leaning against the crowded counter. 

Sanji paused, his jaw tightening.

Ace stepped closer, but not enough to crowd him. 

“No.” Sanji’s voice was sharp, final. “I want you to leave .”

Ace ignored the last beat and leaned on the counter again, watching him. “Wanna not talk about it while I peel something badly?”

“Bastard…” Sanji muttered, almost inaudible. 

Either way, his lip twitched, just slightly. “Depends. You planning to ruin potatoes again?”

Ace shrugged, a grin returning like it had made its way back home. “I can also ruin carrots.”

Sanji shook his head, finally looking up—and the moment their eyes met, everything stilled.

The heat in the room shifted. Not stove-heat. Not sun-heat. Something else. It was him . He burnt. 

Ace didn’t speak. He just held his gaze. Quiet, unflinching.

Sanji looked away first, his fingers already scavenging inside his pockets for a cigarette.  His hands trembled, but he still managed to take it to his lips. 

He patted for the lighter, and before he could find it, Ace raised a finger. A soft flick .

Flame bloomed, steady and silent.

Sanji didn’t look up. He leaned into it just enough for the tip to catch.

He exhaled smoke slowly and tightly.

“Fuck you,” Sanji muttered, still not looking up, returning to his eggs. 

“Welcome,” Ace grinned, unfazed, and walked towards the door. 

But he didn’t leave.

Instead, he hovered by the doorway, eyeing the wreckage of the kitchen.

Sanji’s eyes flicked up, narrowing just a fraction. Why the hell won’t he just leave? He didn’t get it. He’d been extremely hostile—as hostile as he could get away with— and Ace still chose to hang around in the kitchen at five in the morning. 

“You and Mosshead have a fight or something?” he asked casually, like he was commenting on the weather. “Heard you whisper-screaming last night.”

Sanji didn’t even flinch. “We always fight.”

Ace raised a brow. “Right, right.”

“This is normal. ” Sanji scowled. “Don’t act like you know us.”

Ace chuckled, stepping inside again. He leaned against the counter, grabbing a knife—not one of the good ones, thankfully—and began to toy with a lemon, rolling it under his palm.

“I mean,” he said casually, “he did give me the whole ‘don’t mess with the cook’ speech yesterday. Real intense. Like I was gonna seduce you with one peeled potato and a bad pun.”

Sanji stiffened just slightly.

Ace noticed—but didn’t push. “So I figured, hey, maybe I stepped into something. Didn’t know I was in the middle of a soap opera.”

“You stepped into nothing.” Sanji didn’t look up. 

Ace held up both hands. “Cool. Cool. Just saying. If I’m gonna be the new hot homewrecker, someone better give me a script.”

Sanji gave him a sharp look, but his mouth twitched—almost a smile.

“You’re an absolute idiot.”

Ace grinned. “Takes one to light one.”

Sanji froze mid-step and blinked.

There was a pause. 

The stillness was unnerving, especially after the nonstop clatter of knives, pots, and footsteps that had filled the air just minutes before. It was the kind of quiet that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

Sanji turned his head just enough to look at him. A cigarette dangled between his teeth, jaw tight, expression flat.

“That’s not how the saying goes.” his words came out paused, deliberate. 

Ace blinked, holding back a laugh at Sanji’s attempt to keep it together. “Pretty sure it is now!” 

Sanji exhaled through his nose as if it would give him any control over the situation. “You are lucky you are Luffy’s brother. I’d thrown you overboard twenty-four hours ago.” 

“You really think you could throw me overboard?”

“Don’t fucking push it.”

Ace chuckled, spinning a lemon in his palm like he had all the time in the world. “So… Zoro…” 

Sanji made a tight noise in the back of his throat like he was debating whether to stab the eggs or Ace.

He settled for the eggs.

His hand hovered over the stove and turned everything off, slowly. Then, he turned, unhurriedly. His gaze shifted into something menacing, fixed on Ace. 

When he spoke, his tone was hard, cold. 

“What the fuck do you want?”

Ace didn’t flinch.

Didn’t smirk, didn’t back down. He just raised an eyebrow like Sanji had asked him if he wanted milk or sugar in his tea.

“I want you to chill the fuck out, Cook.”

Sanji blinked. The threat hanging in the air, tense. 

Ace kept rolling the lemon on the counter like it was a stress ball.

“ Excuse me? ” Sanji said finally, voice low and sharp, like a blade pulled halfway from its sheath.

Ace tilted his head. His words stripped from all the playful banter from before.

“You’re acting like someone lit a fire under your ass and forgot to blow it out.”

Sanji snorted. “Cute. Real original.”

But Ace didn’t back off. “I’m serious. I walk in, the kitchen’s on fire, you’re trying to beat eggs like they owe you money, and Zoro looks like he wants to punch the moon. You think I’m not gonna notice that shit?”

“You’re here for three weeks.” He spun around, voice rising now. “Three fucking weeks. Why the hell are you acting like you know anything about what’s going on here?”

Ace raised an eyebrow. Didn’t flinch, on the contrary, he stepped forward. 

Sanji kept going, the words coming faster now, cracked around the edges. He closed the distance between them a bit more. 

“You waltz in, stir shit up, flirt like it’s a game—like we’re some kind of entertainment while you —” He pressed his index finger against Ace’s chest, “ you kill time before your next grand adventure—and suddenly you’re some fucking expert on me? On him?”

Ace didn’t move. 

“What the fuck do you care about what happens to me, or to anyone here but Luffy?” Sanji’s ears were turning bright red, his hair tousled, “Keep fucking quiet. Follow the ship’s and the crew’s etiquette. You are a fucking guest here.” 

The kitchen was hot, stuffy, tense. 

Ace blinked once. Twice. Then slowly, deliberately, he reached up and tapped Sanji’s finger off his chest—not hard, just enough.

“Yeah,” he said, voice soaking in sarcasm. “I’m a guest. Got the welcome committee and everything. Threats, glares, passive-aggressive comments. Real five-star treatment.”

Sanji opened his mouth, but Ace kept going.

“I don’t care about your crew politics, or your stupid macho attitudes, or who slammed what door last night.” He took half a step closer. “But I do care when someone starts throwing knives at the air.”

Sanji scoffed. “You don’t know me.”

“No,” Ace agreed easily. “I don’t. But would it be so wrong if I wanted to?”

That threw Sanji for a second. His fingers twitched, like he was ready to grab another cigarette just to have something to do with his hands.

“…Why?” he asked, quieter than he meant to.

Ace tilted his head, still rolling that lemon like it was the most exciting part of his morning. 

“Don’t know,” he said, the corner of his mouth curling into a smirk, “Maybe I like a challenge.”

Sanji scowled, relief and irritation colliding in his chest. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Yep.” He popped the ‘p’ specially loud. 

“You’re not gonna drop it, are you?” He sighed.

“Nope.”

Sanji leaned back against the counter, exhaling like the tension was steam trying to crawl out of his bones. “I really don’t get why you are so adamant…”

“You are intriguing,” Ace cut the distance between them and leaned on the counter next to Sanji, their shoulders brushing. 

Sanji’s exhaustion began leaking through his eyes, but Ace didn’t stop. 

“Besides, have you never felt like someone’s been through the same hell as you?” Ace’s voice was serious, a completely different tone from the one Sanji was used to. “Not necessarily the same… you know? But oddly similar…”

The silence between them thickened, like something buried was shifting. Slowly.

Sanji took a drag. It was shaky, but he held it down, exhaled slow. He knew what Ace meant, he’d also felt it. There was something beneath the irony, the playful banter, the flirtation, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was just yet. 

He exhaled and finally spoke, “No, not really.” 

“Yeah,” Ace’s grin was soft, “me neither.”

He grabbed a leftover piece of toast, took a bite and turned toward the door, but stopped with one hand on the frame.

“Sanji.”

Sanji glanced at him, cigarette half-lit, lips tight, his whole body screaming exhaustion.

Ace didn’t smile.

“You are not the only one who doesn’t sleep when it’s quiet.”

And then he left.

The door clicked softly behind him, and the sun beams leaked through the window with much more strength now. 

Sanji stood still for a moment, staring at the smoke curling from his cigarette. Then he looked around the wreck of his kitchen.

He scraped the toast. Again.

Chapter Text

Laughter and drunken hiccups bounced off the walls of the galley. Forks were still scraping plates, glasses clinking loudly, and Ace was halfway through an outrageous story about a crocodile, a stolen pair of boots and what he insisted was the worst apple pie he’d ever had. 

Luffy was in tears, slamming his fist against the dinner table with every laugh, making every bottle shake. Chopper giggled uncontrollably, and kept chanting, “No way! No way!” alongside Usopp. Even Zoro had a noticeable grin drawn on his face. 

The table was a mess of empty bowls and different alcohol bottles—a testimony of a damn good meal, one that had taken four and a half hours to make. 

A meal Sanji hadn’t even touched. 

On the other end of the galley, Sanji stood at the sink with his sleeves rolled up above his elbows. Water spilled over the edge of the counter. A dishrag hung limp in one shoulder. His movements were mechanical: scrubbing, rinsing, stacking, repeating. Too fast. Too hard. 

The rest of the crew kept laughing, raising bottles up to the sky. Luffy had already knocked over a glass while acting out Ace’s story and a crocodile attack with a spoon. Nami had slapped the back of his head as punishment, which only made them erupt louder. 

But Nami couldn’t keep her mind off Sanji’s behavior. She elbowed Usopp, a silent signal that she needed help. He groaned as he pushed the chair back. 

“You owe me.” He muttered under his breath, half-hoping she didn’t hear him. 

Sanji didn’t look at them as they moved silently across the galley. His head was bowed, the sink being a bit too low for his stature. Water kept splashing violently over the edge of the counter. He’d already washed the same pan three times. 

“Hey, Sanji…” Nami’s voice was warm, gentle. 

No response. 

She placed a hand on Sanji’s shoulder softly. The kind of touch that used to send him into orbit, that would make him melt. The kind of touch that usually granted Nami absolute attention. 

No response. 

Nothing. 

No melting to her feet—not even a grin, not even a flinch. 

“Hey,” she said again,“We’ve got it. Why don’t you go rest?”

Sanji didn’t pause.

Didn’t even blink.

“No,” he said, his voice flat and fast. “I got it.”

The rag tore in his hand mid-scrub. He didn’t look down.

Usopp hovered awkwardly at Nami’s side, glancing between the two of them like a referee at a silent standoff.

“You sure?” he offered, his tone laced with careful humor. “I mean, no offense, man, but you look like shi—uh… like you could use a break.”

Sanji’s lips curled into something that might’ve been a smile if it hadn’t looked so wrong on his face.

“If I let you two touch these dishes, half of them end up broken and the rest come back smelling like soap and failure.”

 “Okay. Rude?” Usopp held up his hands. “That’s never happened to us. It’s only with Luffy and Chopper.”

Nami didn’t laugh. Her hand slipped from Sanji’s shoulder slowly, absolutely defeated. 

She took a step back, exchanging a look with Usopp—worried, quiet, helpless.

Sanji didn’t turn around. He just kept scrubbing. The same pan. Again.

The water kept running.

The laughter behind them continued.

And for a second, it felt like Sanji was in a different room entirely. Like the space around him had closed off—walled up with suds and silence.

Nami and Usopp returned to the table slowly, resigned. Luffy was too deep into reenacting a dramatic crocodile escape with Chopper to notice anything wrong, but Zoro’s eyes tracked them both.

He hadn’t laughed once since they stood up. 

“Cook,” Zoro said, voice louder than necessary. “You gonna come sit, or just scrub the coating off the pans?”

Before he could finish his question, Nami’s palm was already against the back of his head—sharp, practiced, a silent order to shut the hell up.

Sanji didn’t answer, didn’t even flinch. 

He reached for a clean rag. Dried the already-dry handle of a pot. Scrubbed an invisible spot off the sink.

Zoro leaned back in his chair and muttered something that earned him a raised eyebrow from Ace, but he didn’t speak. 

The table buzzed again creating just enough noise to fill the awkward pause. Usopp cracked a joke that didn’t land. Chopper laughed too late. 

“Oi, Sanji!” Luffy spoke—light and careless, “You not gonna eat? You made it all so good you have to try it.”

Sanji rinsed his hands under scalding water. Let them burn longer than necessary.

Still no answer.

“Maybe it’s time for bed!” Chopper said quickly, voice shaking as he stood up. 

Usopp yawned forcibly and agreed with Chopper. 

Luffy mumbled something about dessert. Zoro just watched.

Sanji stood silently by the sink. 

Silence.

Ace’s chair scraped back, deliberate. He stood, stretched like nothing was wrong, and grabbed a half-empty bottle from the center of the table.

“I’ll go get some air,” he announced casually.

He walked to the door, paused right on the door frame, and looked at Sanji.

“Silence doesn’t suit you, Blondie.” His voice came almost as a whisper, meant to be heard by Sanji alone. 

As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, a loud crash was heard. 

“ARE YOU INSANE ?!” Nami screamed as a half-empty bottle whizzed through the air and slammed into the kitchen door. It shattered, but the top bounced off with a metallic clang , rolled across the floor, and spun to a stop near Sanji’s feet.

Everyone froze.

Chopper squeaked and sat back down like he’d been scolded by a parent.

Usopp mumbled something about “holy shit” under his breath and pushed his chair back with exaggerated care.

Even Luffy, wide-eyed now, stayed quiet.

The glass pieces were splattered across the floorboards, catching the light like tiny daggers. 

Zoro didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

Didn’t offer an apology. 

He just leaned back in his chair again, arms crossed, jaw tight. His eyes still on the door like he wanted to kick it off its hinges. His serious demeanor being broken only by an occasional hiccup. 

Sanji didn’t react. He just curled his hands into fists at the sides of his body. 

Then, without a word, he reached for the last pot.

Set it gently—too gently—on the drying rack.

Picked up the dishrag. Folded it once. Then again. Pressed it down flat against the counter like he was sealing something inside. His movements were quiet, surgical even. 

The stove clicked on with a spark and a soft rush of flame.

Sanji leaned in. Lit his cigarette directly from the stove—odd—and didn’t move when the heat kissed his cheek.

He took one long drag, let the smoke curl out of his mouth like something cathartically leaving him.

He stepped forward, right through the shattered glass.

His shoes cracked over it. He didn’t look down. Didn’t look back. Just opened the galley door and disappeared into the night.

The door swung shut behind him with a soft creak.

This time, no one threw a bottle at the door. 

✩°｡  ⋆ 𖦹 ⋆  ｡°✩

The deck was bathed in moonlight. It caught the edges of the railings, the ropes, the bottle in Ace’s hand, and his face. Slightly. Only enough to see the shimmer in his eyes. 

Sanji stepped onto the deck like trying to decide between two battlefields: his crew or Ace. 

Sanji didn’t look at him. He just held out his cigarette with fingers that betrayed him.

“You throw bottles often?” Ace said, voice quiet, leaning on the railing like he hadn’t been listening to every sound inside, to every footstep taken, to every hitched breath. 

 “No.” Sanji’s voice was flat, automatic. “That’s Zoro. You should know by now.”

Ace didn’t laugh. Didn’t grin. He just took a swig from the bottle and watched the horizon like it held the map to the One Piece. 

They stayed in silence for a while. Sanji smoked, Ace drank, and the moon stood tall above them—careless, oblivious. 

Then Sanji muttered, almost to himself, “Don’t get why you’re still here.”

Ace didn’t look at him. He just dropped his gaze to the floor and chuckled. One of those drunken little giggles that slip through, unsolicited. The ones that show  you’ve had a drink too many.

“I told you already.” He offered Sanji the bottle, gaze fixed on the cook, “I find you intriguing.”

Sanji took the bottle. One swig, then another. The burn helped a little.

“Also, I’m enjoying the view, Blondie.” Ace added, meeting Sanji’s eyes. 

“Fuck off…” He said, quickly pulling away from Ace’s gaze. 

The silence stretched for a couple of minutes, broken only occasionally by the sound of metal clinging to the glass bottle. They passed the bottle back and forth, not speaking again, not needing to. 

It didn’t feel uncomfortable—the silence—it didn’t feel like those silences that crawl beneath your skin and make you want to peel your flesh off. No, this silence felt… good.

The wind shifted slightly, brushing his hair back just enough for moonlight to catch the sharp edge of his jaw. His cigarette burned low, forgotten between his lips.

He didn’t understand it. Didn’t like it. But it was undeniable—There was something about Ace that pulled at him in ways he didn’t have a name for.

It wasn’t the flirting. It wasn’t even the confidence.

It was the way he spoke, the way he saw him—like he’d already seen the worst parts of Sanji and refused to turn away. Like he’d recognized something. 

Sanji was used to hiding in plain sight. In compliments and smoke. In meals and manners. No one was supposed to look past that. Nobody had ever looked past that. 

But Ace did. Without trying. Without warning.

And Sanji hated how easy that made things feel.

How natural it was to be near him. How he had been having to stop himself from gravitating towards him. How he didn’t have to be charming, or clever, or useful. How, for some reason, standing there beside him didn’t feel like a mistake.

It felt... safe .

And Sanji didn’t know what to do with that.

He didn’t want to be seen. But he also didn’t want to walk away.

So he stayed. In silence. Letting the air stretch between them like something fragile.

Ace didn’t speak, either. Didn’t move. He just let the silence grow heavy around them again. Let it wrap around his ribs like a question he didn’t want to ask out loud.

Then, Ace finally glanced sideways. His voice came low, a hint of worry seeping through. 

“You good?”

Sanji took a long drag, exhaled slow. “Yeah.”

Ace just leaned forward slightly, arms on the railing, the bottle swaying lazily from his fingers. 

“I get it…” He finally said, raising his finger up to Sanji’s face to light the new cigarette on his lips. 

Then, he stepped forward, boots heavy against the wood, and leaned on the opposite side of the railing. Not close enough to touch. Just close enough for Sanji to feel the heat.

“You don’t,” he muttered.

“I think I used to be like you,” Ace replied, his words slurring a little because of the alcohol. “Before I was shown that I could stop trying to outrun the past with charm and competence.”

Sanji looked at him. 

The pause that followed was thick, like neither of them trusted the next breath not to betray something .

Sanji dragged his thumb across the edge of his cigarette, then let out a humorless chuckle. “You really think you’re not still doing that?”

Ace blinked in surprise. He took another sip from the bottle, then set it down carefully beside him.

“ Ouch ,” he said, dramatically placing his hand over his heart. Then, with a quieter voice, “Not all the time, at least.”

Another stretch of silence, comfortable still, long.

And for once, Sanji didn’t flinch from the quiet.

Chapter Text

Ace had never been good at silence. Not real silence, at least—the one that coils around your throat while you try to sleep, accelerating your pulse, making it thud in your ears.

Ace liked noise, he craved it, needed it. Laughter, chatter, the easy rhythm of flirtation. He was good at noise, he created it. He could fuck through noise. Smile through it. Make people laugh so hard, it made everyone forget whatever the hell they were worrying about.

But the Merry’s silence? 

An utterly different beast. 

He leaned against the mast with a bottle pressed loosely to his palm, head tilted back just enough to feel the sting of moonlight against his closed eyes. It had to be around three in the morning. The air smelled like salt and smoke and something sharp beneath it. Regret, maybe. Or guilt. Or longing. He couldn’t tell anymore. 

Sanji had disappeared below deck about an hour ago, jaw tight, eyes unfocused, leaving a trail of tension behind. Not as bad as it had been in the kitchen, but still, tense. 

Ace hadn’t followed.

He’d wanted to. Every cell in his body screamed at him to do it. To touch his shoulder, or talk, or stand too close and make a joke until Sanji rolled his eyes and exhaled that little breath he didn’t know he was holding.

But he didn’t.

Because he was afraid.

Not afraid of rejection. Hell, he was used to that. People said no all the time, or worse, said yes and meant nothing. That wasn’t new. He didn’t care. He’d do that also. 

No, what scared him was how much he wanted it to mean something this time.

And that was the part he couldn’t fucking shake, the part he’d been thinking about for three nights in a row. 

He’d always kept things simple, and physical, and temporary. His rules were basic: don’t get attached, don’t dig deep, don’t stay. He’d break hearts with a grin, then vanish into the night. And he didn’t care.

There’d been a man in Loguetown once—sharp jawline, quick hands, too eager. Ace hadn’t even caught his name. They’d ended up behind a pub, half-drunk, breathless, backs pressed to damp brick while rain pooled under their boots. The man had kissed him like he meant it. Ace had kissed back like he also did. He didn’t. When it was over, he asked if they could grab food in the morning. Ace never answered, just smiled, nodded ambiguously, buttoned up his pants, and disappeared before sunrise.

There’d been a woman on a small island near Amazon Lily who spoke three languages and none of them fluently. She’d given him a meal for free and looked at him a second too long. He flirted, and she’d dragged him into a supply closet and dropped to her knees. Her perfume clung to his skin for hours after, sweet like candy melted under the sun during summer. He left before she woke, a half-empty bottle of rum and a note that just said, “thanks for the food.”

It was always like that.

Fast. Shallow. Clean.

Bodies meant nothing. Faces blurred together. Names faded before he could remember them. If there was heat, it burned quick and painless. If there were words, they were vague. Pretty. Harmless.

And it worked. For years, it worked .

Because it was easier to be wanted than to be known. Easier to feel good than feel seen.

But now… Ace wanted to be seen . Not just touched. Not just devoured in some breathless alleyway or tied to a broken bed frame.

He wanted Sanji to look at him and not flinch, to hear the mess behind the grin, the burn behind the charm, and hold him anyway. 

Wanted to be wanted back. Fully. Without conditions. Without the act.

Just once, he wanted someone to choose him after seeing the wreckage.

And he wanted Sanji to be the one to do so. 

Ace couldn’t keep himself from watching, from gravitating towards him, from desperately trying to get his attention anyway he could. There was something in him absolutely magnetic. Something in his eyes, his laugh. In that sharp tongue. In that maddening—and now unstable—calm, he tried so hard to carry like an armor. It was clear he’d spent his whole life forcing himself to stay cool because if he ever let the heat out, it might fucking kill someone.

Ace knew that feeling a bit too well. 

He could see it in the way Sanji walked, the way he deflected with arrogance or charm, how he always made himself small when he thought no one was watching. And Ace watched. He couldn’t stop.

Because Sanji burned. Not like fire, not like him—but like coal. Slow. Controlled. Contained under layers of civility and routine and elegance. But Ace had lived long enough, seen enough, been through enough to recognize the pressure under that restraint.

He’d known the type. Hell, he was the type.

He saw it in Sanji’s eyes the first time they met. The exhaustion. The calculation. The way he checked for escape routes even when smiling and accepting the light. It was the look of someone who had learned not to trust the world, not because he wanted to be cold, but because the world had taught him it was easier than hoping.

Ace’d been called a curse. Broken. A bad omen. Devil-child. Demon-born. The names bled together after a while.

He wondered what Sanji had been called. 

Because he knew that look. That posture. The silence. The pretending. It was different from any other wound or scar. 

And that was the part that gutted him.

Because somewhere in the middle of peeling potatoes and trading insults, he’d seen Sanji. Not just the cook. Not just the flirt they said he was. But the man—fractured, guarded, still bleeding somewhere under all that elegance he carried during the day.

He’d felt a pull like this once before—almost.

Yamato.

It came back to him sometimes when he wasn’t ready for it. That night on the rooftop of Onigashima, wind slicing through the torn edges of Yamato’s cloak, both of them bloody and laughing, backs pressed together against a war they didn’t believe in. Talking about freedom like it was something they could steal if they moved fast enough. Yamato had looked at him like they were equals—not just in power, but in possibility.

Yamato had seen the version of him he could become.

Ace had felt something crack open then. Something he didn’t have a name for. It wasn’t lust, not exactly. It wasn’t just longing, either. It was ease, hope even . A kind of bone-deep recognition. Yamato made him feel safe in a way he hadn’t known he needed. Like maybe he could stop pretending to want something he didn’t. Like maybe he could stop running from things .

And Ace had almost stayed. He’d thought about it—longer than he should have. Waking up with someone like Yamato. Building something. Fighting for something that wasn’t just survival. He could still remember the way Yamato had leaned in close, voice soft and steady, and said, “You don’t have to be anything for me except yourself.”

It had terrified him. 

So he left.

Before the sun rose, before it could become real, he left quietly—no goodbye, no promises. Just fire on the horizon, a vivre card tucked into  sleeping Yamato’s palm, and a voice in his head begging him to turn back.

But he didn't. He couldn't.

Maybe another time. When I fix myself. 

If I fix myself…

Because staying would’ve meant accepting hope, and Ace hadn’t known how to carry that.

But this— Sanji —was different. Sanji didn’t just make him feel safe, he made him feel exposed. Stripped bare. Like all the armor Ace had spent years welding together—charm, flirtation, fire—meant nothing under that steady and stupid blue gaze.

Yamato had been a promise of a future.

Sanji was a threat, a mirror.  

Because Ace didn’t just want to stay this time—He didn’t just want to be wanted back anymore. He needed to be chosen. Fully. By someone who saw the wreckage and stayed anyway. By someone who understood the pain. He wanted Sanji to see the worst of him and still hold on, because he knew he would. And fuck, he wanted to reach back. To give something that wasn’t a performance, or a joke, or a lie.

Sanji reminded him of how Yamato had made him feel—but deeper. More volatile, somehow. Like Yamato had cracked the door open, and now Sanji was kicking it off the fucking hinges.

There was something in the way Sanji looked at him that felt like looking in a mirror and meeting a compassionate gaze. As if Sanji saw the version of him he already was—scorched, jagged, unfinished. And still chose to look.

Ace had no idea how to live through that.

Three fucking days. That’s all it took. And he was unraveling. Sanji too—Ace could see it in his eyes, hear it in the way his voice cracked around him. What the actual fuck were they doing?

And he hadn’t even shown anything, dug into anything, and he was already causing havoc. He hadn’t meant to make it worse for Sanji, but he had, and he didn’t know how to stop. 

He hadn’t meant to send him spiraling, hadn’t meant to rip something open he didn’t know how to close. But everything in him had pulled toward Sanji like a riptide. Reckless. Hungry. Unstoppable. He didn’t want to hurt him. But he couldn’t stop circling. He tried. He tried to keep it light. Tried to flirt and leave it at that. But every time Sanji flinched, or cracked, or looked at him like he was trying not to feel something, Ace felt his own chest hollow out.

This wasn’t fun anymore. It never really was, that’s why he always pulled away fast, or didn’t even allow himself to go in so deep. 

But this? It was messy. Real. Dangerous.

He’s just a man, he repeated to himself. You’ve had a hundred like him.

But that was the lie. He suspected that there was no one like him. He could feel it, and everything in him wanted to confirm it.  No one who made him want to stay up peeling goddamn vegetables just to hear them breathe, to see the corner of  his mouth twitch up just a fraction after a stupid joke, to light every cigarette he wanted. 

Ace rubbed the heel of his hand into his eye, exhausted. He had slept more than five hours in the past three days, and it was starting to show—in the way he thought, in the way it was becoming more difficult to stay away from Sanji. He thought about walking. Thought about asking Luffy to drop him at the next port. Thought about running, the way he always did when things got too complicated. But his feet didn’t move. They just stayed there—planted, stubborn—as if the ship boards had already claimed him.

As if Sanji had.

Ace sighed, and finally turned toward the boy’s room, where light had stopped leaking through the rim of the door a couple of minutes ago. 

He knew Sanji lied awake there. Why would he go? He didn’t know what he would say.

Sorry?

Too soon.

I didn’t mean to fuck with your head?

Too dishonest.

I think I might like you?

Too risky.

So he just stood there for a while longer, gripping the mast like it might answer for him.

And inside his chest an aching something kept pulsing—terrifying, relentless, real.

Chapter Text

"Morning, Ace!" Luffy’s voice broke the silence, wide-awake and already chewing on something. He bounded up the deck with Chopper behind him, a trail of crumbs forming behind them.

Ace offered his usual smile. "You raided the pantry before breakfast again?"

Luffy held up the mangled remains of a muffin like it was treasure. "Sanji gave it to us as a pre-breakfast . Right, Chopper?"

Chopper froze mid-bite. "Yup!"

Ace chuckled, fighting the urge to ruffle Luffy’s hair. "He must be in a good mood."

Ace stretched his arms overhead, yawned, and dropped onto the deck lazily—shirt half-off, eyes half-closed, letting the morning rays sink straight into his bones.

He hadn’t slept much. He never really did, to be fair, but this— the exhaustion —was different. His eyes felt heavy, his thoughts hammered his head. It had been long since he had felt like that. 

He let the sun press down  on him like a blanket, as if the warmth would smother every scream inside his brain—the unease, the want, all the things he wanted to say two nights ago and he couldn’t. 

His fingers twitched once, and he told himself he was just flinching because of the cold breeze. 

Somewhere nearby, he heard the familiar clink of pots, the hiss of a pan—Sanji, already cooking again.

Ace inhaled through his nose. Garlic, toasted bread, and something citrusy, probably for Nami.

He exhaled, slow. He’s fine, he told himself.

He, at least, sounded fine that morning, even better than the day before. The footsteps sounded less erratic, more confident, measured even. Drawers opened, and the rattle of utensils followed, short and deliberate. The chopping was precise, fast. There was no hesitation between cuts, no trembling of the knife.  Sanji was moving like someone in control. At least it all sounded natural. Functional.

And Ace just stayed there, under the morning sun, listening to an almost normal Sanji cook. 

Sanji emerged half an hour later with sleeves rolled up, a cigarette balanced at the corner of his mouth, an innocent, easy grin on his face, and plates stacked up in both arms. 

Ace’s gaze snagged on him instantly, as if the rest of the deck had gone out of focus.

He tracked the set of Sanji’s shoulders as he wove between chairs, the precise angle of each plate in his hands, the way his hip nudged the door closed without even looking. No wasted motion, no hesitation. Like every muscle in his body had a map of the space and its purpose.

Sanji didn’t look at him once. Didn’t even flick a glance his way—eyes on the table, the food, the crew… his crew.

It was almost insulting, how someone could hold Ace’s attention so completely while giving him absolutely none in return. 

"Breakfast’s ready!" Sanji announced. "Don’t run over each other—talking to you, Luffy!"

Usopp had just finished setting the table outside, and the crew gathered like vultures. Luffy dove face-first into his eggs. Nami sipped her tea with grace. Usopp was about to jump into a tale about a sea monster but Zoro growled at him to shut up. The usual noise.

Sanji settled at the far end of the table, fork in hand, posture lazy.

For once, the Straw Hats weren’t preparing for a fight. No one was running from Marines, chasing bounties, or nursing wounds. It was just breakfast. Just a sunny morning on the open sea. And it felt earned.

The plates hit the table unrhythmically, but balanced perfectly despite Sanji’s one-handed cigarette habit. Toast crumbling, eggs sparkling under a pinch of salt and smoked black pepper, and steam curled lazily off a pot of fresh coffee at the center of the table.

The deck was a chaotic scene of clattering utensils and hungry groans. Someone passed the bread basket the wrong way, almost dropping it, Chopper nearly broke his plate trying to grab the syrup, and Luffy was already chewing like he hadn’t eaten in days. 

“Chew with your mouth closed!” Nami scolded him, batting Luffy’s head with the back of a spoon. “You’re not an animal.”

Usopp almost choked and muttered something like,“ He is closer to an animal than Chopper is.”

Luffy giggled, toast crumbs on his cheeks. “But it’s soooo good!”

Usopp leaned dramatically over his plate. “Don’t talk while eating. You’ll summon the Ghost of Choking Death.”

Chopper gasped. “Is that real?!”

“Absolutely,” Usopp said, lowering his voice like he was about to impart a grave truth. “I fought it once. Nearly didn’t make it out alive. Because you can’t just fight the Ghost of Choking Death with brute strength, no—its powers are too dangerous. It strikes when you least expect it—mid-bite, mid-chew—and suddenly you’re gasping, seeing your life flash before your eyes while your enemies cackle in victory.”

He leaned across the table, eyes wide, “The only way to survive is to outsmart it. I lured it away with the sound of a kazoo—very advanced, high-level strategy, only a few warriors in the whole world have ever managed it. But even then, I had to play backwards to confuse it, because every strong captain like me know ghosts can’t resist a reversed melody.”

“WHAT!?” Chopper was fully invested now, clutching his fork. “What happened after that?!”

Sanji snorted softly into his black tea, not looking up. And Ace just stared at Sanji, unable to pull his gaze away from him. 

Usopp straightened up, grave again. “It vanished into the shadows… but it swore it would return. And when it does…” He tapped his temple. “I’ll be ready.”

“Usopp, stop messing with Chopper!” Nami interrupted, voice loud and firm. “He’s gonna have nightmares!”

“DO YOU THINK WE COULD SUMMON IT?” Luffy shouted from his seat, his mouth full of something that looked like half-chewed meat. “I WANNA FIGHT IT!”

Half the crew groaned. Ace smirked under his hat. Zoro opened just one eye and glared at him.

“Luffy, no—” Nami started, but it was already too late.

“I bet if we leave food out, it’ll come!” Luffy declared, shoving a syrup-soaked pancake onto the center of the table like an offering to an ancient deity.

Chopper gasped and slid down in his seat, eyes wide. “We’re just gonna… invite it here? What if it goes after the syrup first?! That’s its favorite!”

“This is ridiculous,” Zoro muttered, not looking up from his plate.

“Chopper’s right,” Usopp said, suddenly grave. “The Ghost of Choking Death always takes the sweetest snacks first. That’s why it’s so dangerous. You never see it coming. One moment you’re enjoying dessert, the next—” he snapped his fingers.

Chopper let out a short horrified scream and quickly put his hooves over his mouth.

Luffy was already piling more food onto the “ghost plate.” A bit of chocolate mousse. Half a biscuit he was struggling not to eat. An alarming spoonful of whipped cream. “It’s gonna love this! And we can even ask it to join us!”

Sanji continued pouring the beverages—tangerine and chamomile tea for Nami, coffee for Usopp,  apple juice for Chopper and Luffy. Zoro asked for sake; Sanji shot him down with a flat, “It’s morning, dumbass. Black tea.”

Sanji set a fresh cup of coffee in front of Ace, leaning in just close enough for him to catch the faint scent of smoke and the sea. For a moment, Ace let himself study him up close—the way his fingers curled steady around the pot’s handle, the slightest trembling that could just as easily be from the cigarette, the simple tilt of his smile that didn’t seem forced at all. His eyes were clear, his movements sure. And yet,  he couldn’t pull his eyes away from him, the way fire feeds off oxygen—insatiable. 

He looked fine. Ace let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He really is fine.

That should’ve made Ace feel better. Instead, Sanji’s smile coiled around his chest painfully. Because it felt off. Because it didn’t make sense. 

How could he already be over it, when it had felt like only the beginning of an utter breakdown?

Chopper took no chances, grabbed an empty bowl that was functioning as the bread basket and jammed it over his head. “ Just in case,” he mumbled, voice muffled under the ceramic dome.

“Where did you even—” Nami started, but stopped herself. She knew better. They were far gone.

Ace, watching all this from across the table, shook his head but reached for the remaining bread basket, offering it wordlessly across the chaos. Everyone was too busy talking about how the Ghost of Choking Death was supposed to be summoned. Sanji extended his arm over the table and took the basket, fingers brushing against his for the briefest moment—light enough to be nothing, long enough to be something. Neither said a word. Sanji didn’t even look at Ace. And Ace’s chest ached a bit more. 

God, why won't he just look at me?

“Maybe we should sing to it,” Luffy said suddenly, eyes burning with what could only be a terrible idea. “Usopp said it likes kazoos—what if we use one?”

“We don’t have a kazoo,” Nami said, exasperated. 

“Sure we do!” Luffy grabbed two spoons and a cup, banging them together in what could only be described as a death rattle. “We can make it!”

“DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT A KAZOO IS?” Usopp screamed, eyes wide in bewilderment. 

The table dissolved into overlapping noise—Luffy’s metallic “summoning song,” Usopp swearing he could “feel a spectral presence” by the syrup pot, Chopper tightening his “helmet”, Nami threatening to throw the ghost and Luffy overboard if either touched her plate, Zoro ignoring all of them as he dozed off on his chair. 

“What if you have to be silent to summon it?” Sanji cut in, shushing with his index finger to his mouth. 

Nami’s eyes widened as she saw the opportunity make its way towards her, “Yes! Sanji is right! Clearly all this noise is not working. It needs to be quiet!” 

Ace chuckled. Luffy slapped both hands over his mouth, eyes bulging with the strain of silence. Usopp mirrored him, not knowing how to get off the lie he created. Chopper still had the bowl on his head, nodding solemnly like a soldier ready for battle.

For a few miraculous seconds, the table was so silent you could hear a pin drop. 

Amid it all, Ace leaned back in his chair, one arm hooked over the backrest, a smile playing at his lips. Sanji sipped his tea, smoke curling from the corner of his mouth, and for a second—just one—they caught each other’s eyes through the haze of steam and noise. For the first time that morning, and for the first time in at least a day and a half. 

“That’s not how it works—” Usopp had begun speaking, but Nami elbowed him so hard he lost almost lost his breath. 

Chopper jumped on his feet and started shaking Usopp violently, “USOPP, ARE YOU OKAY? DID THE CHOKING GHOST OF CHOKING DEATH GET TO YOU?” 

Zoro still sat with his arms crossed. His usual silence held no spite—just the look of a man who should’ve been half-way through his first nap of the day. Every now and then, though, his eyes flicked toward Sanji, like he was trying to solve a puzzle and couldn’t find a missing piece. Then he’d go back to chewing, completely unfazed by the whole situation. 

When Usopp spoke again, he was still panting, “Oh—It is how it works—Now I remember! we must—stay silent!” 

Ace laughed along from the foot of the table, and mouthed something like “Are they always like this?” to Sanji, who was sitting at the head of the table. He nodded slightly and rolled his eyes back. 

“Always.” He mouthed back, finally. 

“USOPP PLEASE ANSWER US!” Chopper and Luffy were now both trying to get Usopp to come to his senses.

“I— I’m fi—fine!” Usopp muttered, trying to get the two monkeys off him. “He—Help N—Nami.” 

“Should’ve thought about it before ruining my peaceful breakfast.” She said, not even looking at him. “You’ll have to pay if you want help.” 

As the chaos died down, Sanji stood, gathering the empty cups like nothing in the world could possibly bother him. Ace tracked him without meaning to, but he couldn't help it neither.

“Are we done here or does anyone want something else?” He said, halfway to the galley. 

From the other end of the table, Luffy was already bouncing in his seat. “Hey, Sanji! Can you make ghost-proof pancakes?”

Sanji arched a brow. “Ghost-proof?”

“Yeah! With… uh…” Luffy trailed off, visibly straining to think. “With garlic!”

“That’s vampires, you idiot,” Zoro and Ace said at the same time.

“Vampire ghosts?” Luffy countered immediately, beaming at his own genius.

Sanji rolled his eyes, muttering something about brain cells being “an endangered species on this ship.” But Ace caught the faintest quirk of his mouth. 

Ace, now perched on the stairs, spoke again. “If it were a vampire ghost, it would haunt in reverse. You’d be safe during the night, but the mornings…” His lips curved faintly, his hat covering his eyes. “Those would be dangerous.”

“SO THIS REALLY IS A DANGEROUS MORNING!” Chopper yelped, leaping up and almost spilling his juice.

“Idiot,” Zoro said. 

“Sanji! I’ll do the dishes in a bit” Nami called from the table, a soft smile on his face. 

“I got it, Nami! Don’t want those pretty hands to get damaged!” Sanji answered, tippytoeing around the table, grabbing the last plates and cutlery. 

Sanji slid past Ace to take the coffee pot, and in that moment—just for a breath—Ace caught him glancing at the horizon, his jaw tight, eyes distant. By the time Ace looked again, the smile was back in place.

And Ace hated that he couldn’t decide which version was real. 

The galley was warm, quiet except for the steady hiss of water over porcelain. The laughter and clatter from the deck came muted through the walls, distant enough to feel like another world.

Sanji stood at the sink, sleeves rolled, cigarette hanging from his lips as steam curled up into his face. He moved with the same precision Ace had heard earlier—each plate rinsed, stacked, and set aside like an utter professional. 

Ace lingered in the doorway for a moment, watching. Then he stepped inside without a word.

Sanji didn't look up from his task, his brow furrowed in concentration. 

Ace came to stand close, leaning his hip lightly against the counter. “Need a hand?” 

“I’m good, thank you.” Sanji’s words came out eerily calm and soft. Ace was expecting some roughness, or at least some snarky comment, but nothing. 

When Sanji shifted to grab another plate, Ace reached out—his hand brushing Sanji’s waist, the touch light enough to be gone in a second—as he guided him a fraction to the side.

“Move,” Ace said softly, not as an order, but like a quiet suggestion.

Sanji didn’t flinch, but his breath caught almost imperceptibly and his eyes widened. He quickly stepped aside, and Ace took his place at the drying rack.

“Hand it over,” Ace added, palm open. 

Sanji glanced at him, brows lifting. “I got it, man.”

“You are stubborn, huh? Let me help you, I need to pay my debt to ya’ll somehow.” Ace smirked faintly. “If not, Nami will come for me.”

For a while, neither spoke. The only sound was the water running, and the faint hiss of the cigarette.

Finally, Sanji placed the plate in his hand, their fingers brushing, and the hairs from the back of Ace’s head spiking. 

He didn't understand what this man had done to him, what type of spell he had cast over him. He hadn't acted that way—so deranged— since he was a teenager at sea. Ace turned toward the drying rack without looking back and spoke, spat the first thing that came to his mind, “You don’t have to do everything alone, you know.”

Sanji didn’t answer. But the next plate came faster, almost not allowing the conversation to continue, or, maybe, wanting to get that gentle touch of their fingers brushing again.

They worked in silence, Sanji’s cigarette burning low between his fingers, ash balanced perfectly until he flicked it into the sink without even looking. The next plate clinked gently against the drying rack. Ace took it without comment.

They found a rhythm—Sanji washing, Ace drying—until the steady give-and-take almost felt normal, like there wasn’t a weight in the air pressing between them.

“You’re quieter than usual,” Ace said finally, eyes on the plate in his hands.

“Guess I’m just letting you fill the air for once,” Sanji answered, rinsing another dish. His voice was smooth, but the set of his shoulders betrayed the effort.

Ace let out a small laugh, more breath than sound. “Careful, I might start thinking you like having me here.”

Sanji slid him the next plate. “Don’t push it.”

They kept going. The warmth of the galley seemed to sink into Ace’s bones—steam from the sink, the scent of soap cutting faintly through the smell of cigarette smoke. Every so often, Sanji’s hand would brush his as he passed another dish, and each time Ace wondered if it was accidental.

“Still,” Ace said, quieter now, “I meant what I said, you know?.”

Sanji paused mid-rinse, water rushing over his hands. He didn’t look up. “What specifically? You speak a lot, you know?”

Ace laughed, loud, wide and strong. “You are an ass—” He tried speaking between laughter. 

Sanji’s cheeks blushed bright pink, and he went back to dish cleaning. 

“I meant everything I said to you so far, which is… odd.” He sighed, trying to gain back his composure. “But I meant that you don’t have to do everything alone.”

Sanji shrugged, still not looking up. “Some things are easier that way.”

Ace’s brows furrowed, but he said nothing. Instead, he reached for the towel, drying the last plate and setting it neatly on the rack.

For half a second, it looked like Sanji might say something sharp, but instead, he reached past Ace for the plates. Their arms touched, warm skin on warm skin, and then Sanji was gone, stacking them neatly in their place.

When Sanji finally glanced sideways, Ace was already watching him. It wasn’t a sharp look—no accusation, no demand—just that steady, unreadable warmth that Sanji wasn’t used to receiving without strings attached.

“Hey,”  Ace asked as he rinsed off some forks. “Are they always so dumb?”

“This morning was surprisingly laid back.” Sanji shut off the tap, shaking his hands once before reaching for the towel on his shoulder. 

Ace was still standing there, one hip against the counter, like he had no intention of leaving.

“All done?” Ace asked, voice neutral.

Sanji nodded, but his eyes lingered on him, like he was still waiting for something. “Yeah. Thanks for the help.” Sanji said, voice flat enough to sound like dismissal.

Ace smiled faintly. “Anytime.”

Sanji snorted softly, turning back to the sink. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Fire Fist Ace.”

Outside, the chaos rose and fell like a tide—chairs scraping, someone laughing too loud, Chopper’s high voice cutting through Usopp’s protests. The creaking of furniture mixed with the thud of feet on deck. The door to the galley stayed shut, holding it all at bay.

Somewhere in the middle of it, Luffy’s voice rang out, muffled but impossible to miss: “Ace! Come see this!”

Ace didn’t so much as glance toward the door and smile a bit. 

Sanji noticed. He didn’t say anything, just exhaled smoke toward the ceiling like he wasn’t taking note of the choice.

The faucet hissed again as Sanji started rinsing a cutting board, and his voice came quieter this time. “You missed your captain calling for you.”

Ace smirked faintly, still holding his wrist. “I’m busy trying to pay off my debt.”

Sanji gave a small, sharp huff that wasn’t quite a laugh. There was something about the sound—like he was keeping the real laugh caged somewhere deeper, and Ace wasn’t sure if he wanted to pick the lock or leave it alone. Then, Sanji pulled his hand free and reached for a towel. “Your loss, you’d probably get some laughs out of it.”

From outside, Luffy’s voice came again—louder, impatient—followed by what sounded suspiciously like a crash. Usopp started shouting about something being “cursed” and “definitely not my fault,” and the rest of the crew’s voices tangled into a wall of noise.

Sanji moved past him toward the cupboard, but Ace didn’t step aside immediately. Just enough space to force Sanji to brush against him. It wasn’t an accident.

“You’re in the way,” Sanji said flatly, but there was no real bite to it.

Ace smirked. “Yeah. I know.”

Ace’s gaze lingered on Sanji’s back as he went to the pantry. “Don’t think it is,” he said under his breath. 

He watched Sanji for a beat longer than necessary as he put some dishes in the cupboard, then pushed himself off the counter. “You look better.” He said, though it didn’t sound like that was the way he wanted to say it. 

It wasn’t just that Sanji didn’t look like he was about to snap in half anymore—it was the way his shoulders sat lower, the knife-edge tension in his jaw smoothed over. Still sharp, still dangerous, but softer. 

“Thanks?” Sanji replied, raising an eyebrow and a small curve forming in the corner of his mouth.

“Didn’t mean it like that.” Ace laughed, loud, as he usually did—real. “But yesterday, you still kinda looked like you were two minutes from setting the ship on fire—”

“Still an option,” Sanji cut in, tilting his head just enough to meet his eyes, taking a step closer. 

Ace chuckled, lower this time, and warmer. “I’d say I’d help you, but… I actually like this ship.”

“I’d burn it down myself,” Sanji muttered, “But if the kitchen was set on fire and I had to sacrifice someone to save it, you’d be the first thing I’d toss overboard.”

Ace pretended to flinch, placing his hand on his own chest. “Ouch. Right in the ego, Cook.” 

And Sanji laughed. For the first time in a couple of days, it seemed… real, honest. He sat down at the table, and lit another cigarette, watching Ace’s performance. 

Ace continued looking around like he was taking the whole thing in, “This place has character,” he went on, stepping away from the doorway with an exaggerated, slow prowl, fingertips grazing the edge of the counter as if testing the craftsmanship. “Solid wood, smells like garlic and cigarettes… lived-in, you know? Not too clean, not too messy. Like the kind of place where somebody’s either about to feed you or fight you.”

Sanji snorted. “Are you about to put in an offer on the place?”

Ace smirked and tapped the counter twice, like sealing a deal. “Maybe I am. Comes with a hot chef, right?”

Sanji exhaled a thin stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “Hot chef comes with a warning label.”

Ace tilted his head, grin lazy. “So it is included, Blondie?”

“Maybe.” Sanji flicked ash into a tray on the table, his cheeks a soft pink, “But I doubt you know how to read.”

Ace leaned against the counter, arms folded, pretending to be hurt again. “Ah, you pain me, Blondie. Do you really think so little of me? I love reading.”

Sanji’s lips twitched. “What’s your favorite book?”

“That supposed to scare me?” Ace asked, taking a slow step forward.

“Me asking what your favorite book is…?” Sanji asked in disbelief. 

Ace’s grin widened and leaned in closer to Sanji. “Easy — How to Piss Off a Cook in Three Questions or Less. ”

Sanji blew out the smoke of his cigarette into Ace’s face, forcing him to back off, but the corner of his mouth curved into a small smile. “So smart. Now give me a real answer.”

Ace tilted his head, pretending to think. “Alright… The Sea Atlas. Had it as a kid. Not much for reading, but those maps—made me want to see everything out there.”

“Huh,” Sanji finally looked up at Ace, “it really always is a childhood book.”

Ace raised an eyebrow and met Sanji’s gaze, “What do you mean?” 

“Mine’s The Cookbook of the Sea ,” Sanji’s eyes started glistening with excitement, his whole face transformed into pure… love, “Found out about the All Blue when I was only seven. It’s still my dream to find it.” 

Ace froze for a second, caught off guard by the sudden warmth in Sanji’s voice, in Sanji’s gaze. It wasn’t the smooth, lazy confidence he usually wore like armor—it was brighter, unguarded, the kind of thing a person only showed when they forgot to be careful. It seemed real, genuine. 

“The All Blue?” Ace asked, trying to snap out of it. 

Sanji nodded, almost too quickly. “It’s a legendary sea where all the oceans meet. North, South, East, West… every current feeding into one place. And because of that—” he leaned forward slightly, eyes locking on Ace’s, “—every fish, every ingredient from every corner of the world is there. Tuna from the South Blue swimming right alongside red snapper from the East, spices that have never touched the same wind all mingling together. You could cook anything. Everything. ”

His hands moved as he spoke, cigarette forgotten between his fingers, trailing smoke in wild patterns that curled around his words. “No limits. No borders. Just the purest, most perfect pantry the world’s ever seen. You could spend a lifetime there and never make the same dish twice. You could taste the whole damn world without ever leaving your kitchen.”

Ace hated how much Sanji’s excitement pulled at him. How much he wanted to lean into it. 

He’d seen men talk about treasure, power, revenge. He’d heard confessions of hatred, fear, despair. But love? For something so simple, so unthinkable as a sea where every fish swam together? It was… different.

It made Sanji look different too. Like the sarcasm melted off him, leaving just this burning, brilliant thing underneath. Ace felt it curl in his chest, a force that made him want to reach out and keep that light close, selfishly, before the world tried to put it out—before Sanji himself tried to put it out. 

He smirked to cover it, but the thought lingered: If I could bottle that look, that voice… maybe I’d finally understand what it feels like to want to stay.

“That sounds impossible,” Ace said, but it came out quieter than he meant.

Sanji smirked faintly, leaning back in his chair. “So does outrunning the Marine your whole life, and yet here we are.” 

Ace huffed a laugh, shaking his head. “Hey, hey! I’m not saying it’s not worth chasing.”

“Good,” Sanji said, meeting his eyes over the rim of his cigarette, not moving from his chair, “Because it’s the only thing I’ll never give up on.”

Ace felt that settle in his chest. He wanted to say he understood —that they really weren’t so different— but the words stayed put. He didn’t want the moment to go to waste, to make Sanji pull away again. Instead, he reached out and stole the cigarette right from Sanji’s fingers and took a slow drag.

Sanji’s brow arched, but he didn’t move to take it back.

“Tastes like shit,” Ace said finally, handing it back. He tried to keep his cool demeanor, holding back a cough with watery eyes. He hated smoking.

Why the fuck did I do that?  

Sanji laughed, and spoke before thinking. “Then you should stop trying to kiss me, gonna taste even worse.”

For a second, neither of them breathed. The words just hung there, thickening the air of the galley. 

Sanji’s brain caught up half a second too late, and by then it was already far, far too late. Heat hit the back of his neck like he’d just leaned into an open oven. His pulse kicked hard in his chest, the kind of ugly, choking thud you get when you realize you’ve stepped straight into your own trap.

“fuck me.” He muttered, almost forgetting Ace was in the room also. 

His cigarette wavered between his fingers. He wanted to rewind the last three seconds, bite his own tongue, toss himself overboard—anything but sit here under the weight of what he’d just said.

Ace didn’t move. Didn’t even pretend to play it off. He just stared—hat tilted back far enough for Sanji to see his eyes, sharp and clear and locked on him like the rest of the ship had dissolved.

Sanji’s throat went dry. His knee bounced once under the table, restless.

Say something, idiot. Anything. Ace thought, but he couldn’t find anything—suddenly all the cunning and sharp remarks were stripped from his tongue.

The silence stretched until Sanji thought it might actually choke him. Sanji ground his cigarette out with more force than necessary, like maybe he could crush the moment along with it, but his hand still trembled faintly as he pulled it back.

Ace watched that hand, followed it up to his face.

Then, finally—soft, low, deliberate—

“Can I get a taste test, then? Just to confirm?” He leaned forward just enough to make it feel closer than it was.

A beat. His smile curling into a smirk. 

 “Or should I read the warning label first?

Sanji blinked once, like he hadn’t quite processed the words. Then he huffed a short laugh, sharp as a knife’s edge. “You’re not worth the trouble,” he said, but his voice didn’t have the usual bite.

Ace tilted his head, still leaning in, still not letting him off the hook. “Could’ve fooled me.”

Sanji stood abruptly, scraping the chair legs against the floor. He moved past Ace toward the stove, cigarette between his fingers again. “I’ve got prep to do, lunchtime’s soon.”

Ace didn’t move out of the way. “That’s a no?”

“That’s me ignoring you,” Sanji muttered, brushing past him just hard enough for their shoulders to bump. But the way his breath hitched on the last syllable didn’t escape Ace.

Ace let him go, but only far enough to watch him from the counter. “Careful, Blondie. Dangerous to leave a fire unattended.”

Sanji didn’t answer. He lit a new cigarette, smoke curling up into the still air, and kept his back to him. But his hand shook—just barely—when he flicked the lighter closed. He moved to the door, and peeked outside. Without warning, his voice echoed on the Merry’s deck. 

“Miso soup and fried octopus critters for lunch?”

Screams and cheers erupted from the deck. Ace thought Sanji would join them, escape a conversation that was starting to feel like an uncomfortable stomachache, but he recoiled into the galley again, silent. 

Ace stayed where he was, elbows braced on the counter like he had all the time in the world. Sanji’s back was straight, too straight, every movement calculated down to the angle of his wrist as he set the lighter aside. If Ace didn’t know better, he’d think nothing had happened. But he did know better.

The cigarette’s tip burned brighter when Sanji took a drag, his shoulders hitching just slightly on the inhale. A tell. Small enough that most people would miss it. 

Ace didn’t miss it.

“Relax, Blondie,” he said finally, the words lazy on his tongue. “I’m not gonna eat you alive.”

Sanji exhaled through his nose, smoke drifting sideways in the sunlight. “Didn’t think you could,” he said, and it was almost convincing.

Almost.

Ace smirked. “Mm... You’ll let me know if I get close, then.”

He meant it as a tease, but the truth sat heavier underneath. He wasn’t sure which of them would burn the other first.

Sanji reached for the cutting board, knife sliding from the rack with a sound too clean, too sharp. He started slicing something—tomatoes maybe—quick, precise strokes that sounded like punctuation marks. 

Ace let himself watch, leaning back against the counter, arms folded. Not the hands, not the knife, but the way Sanji’s jaw worked while he focused. The faint pink still clinging to his cheeks.

“You staring at my knife skills or what?” Sanji asked without looking up.

Ace grinned, slow. “Can’t a man appreciate both?”

Sanji’s knife didn’t pause, but his smirk deepened just enough to give him away.

Ace decided to take that as a win. For now. Although there was something itching behind his ribs—Two days ago, the cook had snapped at every jab, at every step too close. Now he was letting Ace stand in his kitchen, letting their words slide into something that felt like a game instead of a fight. No snapping teeth, no smoke-screen insults, just a faint blush and a smirk Ace didn’t have to dig for. 

Something had shifted. 

Ace didn’t know if it was the calm after a storm, or the eye of a worse one, but the change tugged at him. He’d figure it out—he always did. But for now, he just kept leaning against the counter, watching the way Sanji’s shoulders moved as he cooked, wondering what the hell had cracked open.

Chapter Text

Sanji had been frantically cooking all day. And the day before. And the day before that, although he’d wanted to, he could still keep it together. He was exhausted, hadn’t slept more than four hours, trying desperately to outrun something he didn’t want to name. 

He knew the cause of it all. He knew why it ached when Zoro said he hadn’t once looked at a woman with lust. He knew why Ace’s presence had been so overwhelming. He knew why he’d always been so ashamed to look at another man in the eyes. Sanji wasn’t stupid. He knew where everything stemmed from. 

But it meant nothing. 

It’s like knowing exactly why a dish keeps curdling, but no matter how many times you start over, the outcome is all the same. Because you need to whisk the eggs with a fork, and yet all you have is a spoon. And a spoon will never be anything else, no matter how much you beg it to change. 

He could dress up with cigarettes and cologne, he could bury it all under a flirty laughter, but beneath all that polish he was still a boy who’d been told one too many times that he was a spoon in a world that demanded a knife. 

He was, at last, still the failure they locked in the dungeon. The one they called a faggot for having empathy, for protesting against what they called “entertainment”, for begging them to stop turning shame into a theater. And Judge’s voice above all, iron and final: you’ll never be anything more than this, pervert.  

So how the hell was he supposed to look at another man without hearing that chorus in his skull? How was he supposed to want without flinching? Without choking on the bile of it?

He ground his teeth, the spoon digging deeper in his head, carving out his brains. Wrong tool. Wrong son. Wrong man.

He pressed the heel of his palm into his temple, like he could grind the thoughts out, like he could scrape Judge’s voice from his skull the way he had been scraping burnt sauce from a pan for two hours. But it wouldn’t come out. It never came out.

The galley smelled of smoke and grease and exhaustion. His hands shook on the knife, but not from the effort of chopping. He wasn’t even cooking anymore—just hacking at the cutting board as if he could split himself in half.

The door creaked. Heavy boots against wood. Sanji didn’t need to look up to know who it was.

“Even the kitchen’s sick of your bullshit, dumbass.” Zoro muttered, eye cutting over the mess of burnt pans and wasted ingredients. His voice was flat, almost bored—but the edge was there. “You gonna stop soon?”

Sanji’s shoulders pulled tighter, and the chorus in his head got louder.  He didn’t answer, he couldn’t. Everything was too loud. The knife kept thudding against the board, uneven and pointless. 

Zoro lingered in the doorway longer than he should have, arms crossed. He could see the sweat at Sanji’s temple, the way his jaw was clenched so hard it looked like it might crack, an ashtray filled to the brim. Something in his chest tightened, but he shoved it down.

“Tch.” He scratched the back of his neck, looking anywhere but at him. “Relax. I wasn’t here for you anyway. Just came to see if you’ve got another bottle of sake stashed around.”

It was a shitty excuse, and he knew it. If Sanji had the strength, he probably would’ve called him out on it with a smirk and an insult. Instead, the cook just kept chopping, hacking, like he hadn’t heard a word.

Zoro’s frown deepened, but he stayed put.

Sanji’s silence dragged, heavier than the stink of burnt oil clinging to the air. It was abnormal, the galley always smelt pleasant, but now it was almost unbearable to stay there..

Zoro’s brow twitched. Normally by now the cook would’ve thrown some snarky remark about his liver rotting or his brain cells drowning in booze. Instead, he got nothing. Just that relentless chopping.

He shifted his weight, boots creaking on the floorboards. “You deaf or just stupid?”

Still nothing.

Zoro exhaled through his nose, irritated—or maybe not irritated, but close enough to pass for it. “Forget it. Doesn’t matter. I’ll find the sake myself.” He pushed off the doorframe, pretending to scan the shelves like he had any idea where Sanji kept the bottles. It always worked, he hated people digging around his kitchen. 

But nothing. 

His eye flicked back anyway, catching the tremor in the cook’s hand, the smoke curling too thick from the half-burned cigarette clinging to his lip.

Zoro’s jaw tightened. He wanted to say something else— what the fuck’s wrong with you, cook? —but the words stuck.

Instead, he muttered, “Are you really going to ove—”

“I—I don’t think you are disgusting.” Sanji interrupted, his voice trembling, eyes fixed on the cutting board. 

Zoro was taken aback by Sanji’s voice. It sounded raw, broken. He didn’t reply, he just analyzed Sanji as he struggled to keep his composure, or what was left of it. 

“I made it about myself again, that night.” Sanji sighed, filling his lungs with smoke as if it would solve anything. “I don’t know how to make this better. I don’t know how to fix this. I’ve fucked up, like I always do, and I fear there are no words strong enough to mend what I’ve broken.” 

He continued studying Sanji. His shoulders were rigid, every inch of him pulled tight. Smoke curled around his face, but his eyes stayed on the counter, too afraid to meet his. 

Zoro almost scoffed, but something in the way Sanji’s fingers shook around the dying cigarette kept him still. “What are you—” 

As if it pained to say out loud, he spoke slowly, “I— I miss how things were, Zoro.” 

“Just say it, then.” Zoro’s voice came out blunt, tired, and—somehow—soft. “It’s easier than whatever you're trying to do.”

“I—I don’t think—I—” Sanji started mumbling, his chest tightened, and every word felt like it scraped his throat raw. 

“Fuck off, Sanji.” Zoro’s sigh melted into disdain, “What the fuck do you want to get out of this? A forgiveness? You have it, I don’t care. Just stop digging your finger in the sore and give me the sake I came here for.” 

Sanji didn’t answer immediately, the bitter taste of the cigarette still clinging to his tongue. His shoulders loosened just slightly, like the fight had gone out of him, but his jaw stayed clenched.  

His brother’s voices piled up in his head: fag, fag, fag.

Zoro’s eyes flicked toward him, sharp but tired. “You don’t get it, do you? You’re not the only one hurting, dumbass.”

Sanji froze. The smoke burned his throat on the way out, Judge’s voice thundered in his ears, the image of naked men caged flashing before his eyes.  

“I told you once. That was enough. I don’t need you reminding me of how I sounded. Or how you didn’t answer.” Zoro scoffed, and lowered his gaze to Sanji’s feet, ”Maybe if I had a pair of tits, you would be more eager to understand.”

Zoro’s words felt distant, but they still landed. Sanji’s fingers trembled around the filter as guilt surged sharp and ugly in his throat, no longer contained in his chest. It was no longer the kind that made you want to apologize, it was the kind that made you want to tear your own lungs out, just to stop feeling like you were poisoning everyone around you.

“I wasn’t trying to—” he started, but his voice cracked. “I just want things to go ba—”

“Maybe if I was Ace,” Zoro’s tone softened as he interrupted Sanji, sounding almost reluctant. “You would be more eager to understand.”

Sanji flinched, taken aback by the sudden mention of Ace. His throat tightened again. Of course Zoro would drag him into this, of course Ace had to be the measure against which he was judged. Because, at last, it was true—Sanji couldn’t pull away from that grin, that warmth, that magnetism. It had been instant. But with Zoro, he’d recoiled into himself, taking two steps back every time Zoro took one step forward. 

And he couldn’t explain it. 

“It’s not about that. I’m so—” That’s all Sanji could force himself to say out loud. 

“Can you not see that being sorry doesn’t fix anything? Are you really so stupidly blind?” Zoro interrupted. 

“Then how the fuck do I make this better, Zoro?” His voice cracked on the last word, desperation bleeding through every sound. He wasn’t on the ground begging, but his voice sounded exactly like that. 

Because he didn’t know how to fix it. He never knew how. He could make a thousand perfect meals, craft miracles out of scraps, but when it came to this—when it came to people—his hands only broke what they touched. At last, he couldn’t stop being a Vinsmoke.

Everything came back to him, surging up his throat, suffocating him. Look at those fucking faggots . Cold metal. Screams. Laughter—not joy, never joy. Faces and lips forced together, begging for it to end. Begging to die.

“Drop it.”  Zoro’s voice cut clean through the noise, low and solid, real.

With that, the chanting’s volume dropped. The cage vanished. The galley walls rushed back in around him—the smell of smoke, the scrape of wood under his boots, Zoro’s shadow by the door.

Sanji blinked, gasping like he’d surfaced from underwater. His chest still heaved, but his eyes found Zoro again, dragging him back into the present.

Zoro body shifted towards the galley’s door. “That’s how you make it better”

After all, maybe there was no fixing it. Maybe all he’d done was confirm every suspicion Zoro already had about him—that he was a coward, that he couldn’t look a man in the eye unless it was with the excuse of a fight, that he could only touch the world if it was through smoke and women’s laughter and lies about what his heart wanted.

“Zoro…” The name barely made it out, worn, more like choking than a proper sound. His fingers shook so badly he dropped the butt of his cigarette, and he didn’t light another. 

For the first time, he wanted the quiet. He didn’t want to explain what he knew he had to, he didn’t want to be honest with Zoro, and, more so, with himself. He didn’t want to speak about his past, not after everything he’d done to escape it. 

“I’m cursed.” 

Zoro raised an eyebrow, “Since when are you into magic and shit?”

“No, it’s not magic.” He scoffed, “It’s science. They say it’s science.” 

“Huh? Who’s they ?” 

“The Vinsmokes.” He spat coldly, closing his eyes as if the words hurt to say. As if expecting a gut punch or a slashing sword across his throat. 

Zoro’s expression stained in irritation. “Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?” 

He genuinely didn’t know who the Vinsmokes were. He’d never heard that name before.

And still—Sanji’s jaw clenched, because that silence was like getting stabbed by someone you trust. He’d expected disgust. A curse. A sword to his neck. Anything but this. Anything but nothing.

He almost laughed, a bitter sound. “Exactly. You don’t even know what the fuck that means. You can’t understand it. And you’re better off for it.”

Zoro frowned, unimpressed. “So you throw some name at me like it’s supposed to explain everything? That’s your big answer? Your big apology?”

Sanji’s hands curled into fists, nails biting into his palms. “It explains enough. It explains why I can’t be what you want me to be, or accept who I want to be. Why I ruin everything I touch. Because underneath all this—” he gestured harshly at himself, the suit, the smoldering butt of his cigarette crushed on the floorboards “—I’m still one of them.”

Zoro stared at him, silent, his face covered in confusion. 

Sanji felt his chest cave in around the silence. He’d expected disgust, mockery, a clean slash to end it. Instead, Zoro’s steady gaze pinned him in place, as if demanding more, as if refusing to let him hide behind a word.

Sanji swallowed hard, his throat raw. “So now you know. Go on. Hate me for it.”

“What are you talking about? Have you finally lost your mind, cook?” Zoro stepped closer, an eyebrow still raised. 

Sanji’s whole body trembling with words he couldn’t spit out. It meant nothing to him, to Zoro. He’d just said what he feared most, his best kept secret, and he was met with nothing.

Nothing at all.

The silence pressed in, suffocating. The same silence he’d given Zoro once before. He recognized it now, for what it really was—an answer without words.

So that’s what it felt like.

It was worse than he thought. It was as if he had just bled out in front of someone who didn’t even bother to look down. 

He could feel it spreading under his skin, that sick, crawling heat, clawing its way up his neck. He wanted Zoro to say something—anything. To curse him. To tell him he was right. To hate him. To understand. To say everything would be okay. For everything to go back to what it was. 

But nothing came. Just that steady, unblinking stare and a raised eyebrow. 

He wanted to tear it out of him. He wanted to smash something until the silence broke. He wanted to stop feeling like he was the only one burning, like a caged animal, like the child forced to watch it all unfold. His chest tightened, air catching. His fingers shook so badly he could barely keep them from curling into fists.

He hated this. He hated how familiar it felt—the helplessness, the rawness, the way his lungs scraped just trying to breathe. It was the powerlessness his family had always showed him he had. This was what Zoro had felt that night. When Sanji said nothing. When he let him hang in the dark alone. 

And now here he was. Choking on the same silence.

The pressure broke. His body moved before his brain did—leg snapping up, heel driving straight into Zoro’s chest.

Zoro caught it before it landed. Sanji’s breath came ragged as he stood frozen in place. 

“Pathetic,” Zoro muttered, squeezing hard enough to make Sanji’s foot ache. “That’s all you’ve got, Vinsmoke ?”

“I’ll fucking end you,” Sanji spat, shoving harder, trying to break free. 

Being called a Vinsmoke after so long… he wished that Zoro would just end him instead. Make it all go away, make it be still for a minute. Make the whole world pause— hell —make it stop alltogether. 

Zoro’s swords rattled in their sheath as he placed his hand on them, “Try it. Go ahead.” 

Zoro moved first. He yanked him forward, their foreheads slamming together. “You think a name makes you what? You think that’s enough to be a fucking ass to everyone around you?”

Their breaths clashed—cigarette smoke and alcohol and sweat.

“Get it through your thick skull and into your tiny brain,” Zoro hissed. “You’re not the only one who’s fucked up. But at least we don’t make it everybody’s problem.”

Sanji twisted his ankle, tried to wrench free, but Zoro shoved him back against the counter. The wood rattled under the impact. His cigarette fell from his lips and hissed out against the floorboards.

“All of this to try to convince yourself you aren't a selfish bastard.” Zoro laughed low. 

For a moment, neither moved.

Sanji’s chest heaved. His knees felt weak. His hands shook where they still pressed against Zoro’s chest, half wanting to push him away, half wanting to hold on so he wouldn’t collapse. 

“You don’t want me to understand?” Zoro’s voice was low, dangerous. “Fine! But stop throwing your damn name and your stupid foot in my face.”

The silence between them was violent. Sanji froze. His pulse thundered in his ears. He’d ruined it. His relationship with Zoro, with himself. Everything. 

A tear dropped to the floor. Then another. And another. And Sanji’s whole body trembled as it collapsed to the floor. 

“They’ve ruined me,” He whispered, his words merging into an uncontrollable sob. “They’ve ruined me. I’m so sorry. They've ruined me.” 

Zoro was taken aback by the sudden crying, he didn’t know what to do, what to say. Fuck’s sake, he thought as the knelt down beside Sanji, who was violently sobbing and chanting something he couldn’t make out. 

“Look at those faggots… the cages… smaller, colder… laughing, always laughing… begging, begging to die—” And he laughed a bit, a maniacal chuckle. 

Zoro froze, watching him unravel. “What are you even talking about?” 

Sanji dragged his hands through his hair, nails scraping skin, a wild laugh splitting through sobs. “They’d chant and laugh and scream at them to go die. Feed them dog food, shove their faces in — ” His breath hitched, broke into another sob. “ Die fucking faggots .”

Zoro’s hand twitched toward him, then stilled in the air, useless. He’d rather take a blade to the back than sit there, watching this. It felt uncomfortable, raw. 

“Cook,” he muttered, rough, the only thing he could think to say. “Stop. You’re not there anymore.”

But Sanji wasn’t hearing him. His whole body shook, shoulders caving, every word slicing through his throat. “They ruined me. Every fucking part of me.”

The galley walls felt too close, too heavy. Zoro clenched his jaw, torn between walking out and dragging the idiot back to himself by force.

“Cook,” His voice came out lower than usual, almost careful. “You’re here. Not in some cage. Here.” 

Sanji’s voice rasped, words tumbling faster, uglier. “They’d throw dog food into their cages and laugh when they fought over the scraps. Drag them out during dinner, make them—make them kiss while the entire table howled. Quality entertainment .” 

His eyes met Zoro’s then, wet and broken, a cigarette being lit between his lips. “You think you’ve seen shame? You think you know what it is to beg for someone to just fucking kill you?”

Zoro’s chest tightened, anger stirring in his gut—not at Sanji, but at whatever bastards had put that look in his eyes. He didn’t understand all of it, but he didn’t need to.

“Cook.” His voice dropped to a growl, steadier this time. “Enough. You've left. It's over.”

Sanji barked another broken laugh, more sob than sound. “That’s the fucking joke, Zoro. I can’t leave.”

Zoro’s jaw tightened. He’d seen men beg for their lives, scream with blades in their guts, but he’d never seen someone look like they were still bleeding from a wound that wasn’t even there anymore.

“You did leave,” Zoro said again, firmer this time. His hand twitched, then finally settled on Sanji’s wrist, not gentle, but solid enough to make him stop clawing at himself. “You’re here, smoking in the galley, and being a fucking ass like always.”

Sanji’s breath came in ragged bursts, his nails digging into his palms, but the touch rooted him. He hated it. He needed it.

Zoro leaned closer, eyes hard. “If you’re gonna stay stuck back there, that’s your choice. But don’t drag me into that cage with you.”

Sanji’s head snapped up, eyes wide and raw. For a second, he looked ready to hit him again. Then the fight just—collapsed out of him. His shoulders gave out, and he let himself sink against the counter, shaking but silent now.

It wasn’t the silence of being abandoned—it was the silence of someone waiting.

Sanji’s breath still came ragged, his chest still hitching. His hands trembled as he wiped at his face, smearing ash and tears across his skin. “I can’t do this.” 

“Do what? What are you talking about?” 

“I—”  Sanji’s throat burned. He couldn’t even tell if it was smoke or bile or words that had gone rotten in his chest after waiting to be said for too long. His hand shook so badly around the cigarette he dropped it halfway to his mouth, the ember dying against the floorboards.

“This—” he gestured, vague and ugly, hands trembling as if he could point at the thing clawing him apart. “Talking. Breathing. Pretending like I’m not already—” He broke off, dragging both hands down his face until his nails scraped skin.

Zoro didn’t flinch. He never did. Just sat there, arms crossed, like he was daring Sanji to keep going.

Sanji’s laugh split the silence, wild and brittle. “You think I’m just an idiot—the idiot who can’t shut up about women. The love-struck fool that falls for every woman that crosses my path. But that’s not— fuck , that’s not me.” 

The word hung there, rancid.

Zoro’s brow ticked down, but he didn’t move.

Sanji’s chest heaved. “They made me into that. They made me the freak. The pervert. The sick one. If I cared, it was disgusting. If I begged them to stop, it was proof I deserved it. My family. My father. They took every decent thing out of me and left this—” He slapped a hand against his chest, hard enough to leave a mark. “This fucking parody of a man, crafted perfectly to escape their taunts. And I can’t scrub it out. I can’t fix it. I can’t fucking change it no matter how hard I try, so tell me—” 

His voice cracked, his eyes finally lifting to meet Zoro’s again. “How the hell do you stand there and act like I’m not already ruined? I’m not a son, not a soldier, not even a person. How do you expect me to be a man? To not be a coward?”

For the first time, Zoro shifted closer, slow, deliberate. His face didn’t soften, but his voice wasn’t sharp when it came.

Zoro’s jaw flexed. For a moment, he looked ready to sneer. Instead, his voice came low, steady. “You think being a man is about what an old fuckhead shoved down your throat as a child?”

Sanji’s breath hitched, smoke and bile piling in his chest.

Zoro leaned in, close enough that Sanji couldn’t look away. “I like men. Always have. You think I give a shit if some random dumbass thinks that makes me less of one?” His eye narrowed. “If I listened to every voice calling me wrong, I’d be rotting in some corner pretending I didn’t exist.”

Sanji’s lips parted, words caught in his throat. 

“You’re not ruined,” Zoro pressed, his hand now wrapped tight around Sanji’s wrist again. “You’re just a coward.”

Sanji almost laughed — a broken, bitter thing. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand enough,” Zoro snapped back. “I’m gay, cook. That’s the word. And I’m still the person I was before you knew. So stop acting like your stupid father’s voice gets to be louder than mine.”

Sanji froze. His chest ached with it, suffocating, like someone had kicked the air right out of him. Zoro had said it so simply. Like it wasn’t shame. Like it didn’t mean he’d be forced to kiss anyone in a cage, nor beaten to death. Just a fact.

And for the first time in years, the chorus in Sanji’s skull stuttered—Judge’s voice knocked aside by something undeniable.

He slumped, fists unclenching against Zoro’s chest. His laugh came out wrecked, torn between disbelief and grief. “You make it sound so easy.”

“It’s not,” Zoro said, blunt, a muscle ticking in his temple. “But it’s easier than whatever the hell you’re doing.”

For a moment, Sanji just stared, wide-eyed and wrecked. His body still trembled, but the noise in his head dulled, just slightly, under the weight of Zoro’s stare.

His voice finally tore free, cracked and ugly but real:

“I think I might be…” He swallowed hard, words scraping out of his throat. “…I might be into men also…  I don’t fucking know. B—bixes— I can’t even say it right.”

His laugh came out broken, half a sob. “All I know is I’m terrified of it. Because if it’s true, then maybe they were right. Maybe I am every filthy thing they said I was.”

Zoro’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t look away. Not once.

“Do you think I'm filthy?” a smirk hinted on his lips

Sanji’s eyes widened and relaxed in the span of a second. He took his face closer to Zoro’s chest and made a loud sniffing sound. 

“You do shower once a week…”

Zoro blinked at him, deadpan, as Sanji’s stupid little sniff echoed in the quiet. 

“You’re crying your guts out one second, and now you’re cracking jokes that might get you killed?” His voice was flat, but there was the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Is this a suicide plan?”

Sanji shrugged weakly, still pressed against him, his face blotchy and damp. “What can I say? I’m versatile.”

Zoro snorted. He gave Sanji’s wrist a squeeze before finally letting go. “And for the record, I shower twice a week.”

Sanji actually huffed a laugh, shaky but real, smoke and salt still clinging to it. He dragged his sleeve across his face like it might erase the mess of the last ten minutes.  “Generous man, huh? Your crew must be blessed.”

“Yeah,” Zoro muttered, leaning back against the counter, his arms crossing. His eye cut toward Sanji, still raw but steadier now. “Some of us smell like steel and sweat. Others smell like burned tobacco and cheap cologne. Not everyone can smell like a real man.”

Sanji flicked his lighter, the flame catching on a new cigarette with more steadiness than before. “Tch. You could’ve just said ‘thank you for making the ship tolerable,’ but sure, go with the insults.”

The swordsman rolled his eye, but there was no bite in it. “Don’t push your luck. I’m not forgiving you twice in one night.”

For the first time, the silence between them didn’t suffocate. The galley smelled of smoke and sweat and salt, but the air didn’t feel suffocating anymore. Just heavy, lived-in.

Sanji took a slow drag, his chest still aching, but not caving. “Oi… Marimo.”

“Hm?”

“…Thanks.” His voice was quiet, but steady. The word didn’t taste like blood this time.

Zoro tilted his head, studying him for a long moment, then looked away, arms still crossed. “Don’t make it weird.”

Sanji smirked around the cigarette and nodded.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. 

Zoro shifted, pushing off the counter, muttering something that might’ve been “idiot” under his breath. He didn’t leave, though. He dropped into a chair instead, arms crossed, like he had nowhere better to be.

Sanji exhaled a thin stream of smoke, watching it curl into nothing. “Are we good?” 

Zoro sighed, “Yeah, we good.”

Sanji reached under the counter, pulled out a half-full bottle of sake, and tossed it across the room without ceremony. Zoro caught it one-handed, eyebrow raised.

“Don’t make me regret wasting good booze on you,” Sanji muttered, taking another drag.

Zoro uncorked it, swigged without hesitation, then set it on the counter between them. “It only feels like shit until you accept it,” he said simply, just a fact.

Sanji blew out smoke, slow, steady. For the first time in forever, his chest didn’t feel like it was collapsing in on itself. 

“Help me clean this, Marimo.” He said, vaguely eying the counter as he stood up.

Chapter Text

Sanji was cooking again, but this time it sounded normal. The knives didn’t slam against the cutting board, the pans weren’t clattering violently—just the quiet, steady rhythm of someone who actually knew what he was doing.  For once, he wasn’t trying to drown out his thoughts with noise.

The kitchen smelled like garlic and butter instead of burnt sauce and curdling cream. His cigarette burned lazy between his fingers, forgotten more often than not, a mere accessory. He’d even slept. A little. Enough to feel like his limbs weren’t dragging him down for once.

It almost felt wrong. Wrong to feel this steady after nights of pacing and snapping at everyone, and giving no explanations.  Or after chain-smoking until his lungs begged for oxygen. Wrong to be this calm when everything in him pulled towards ruining it again.

Where he’d once wrestled with disgust and disappointment, he was now confronted with curiosity. Every glance at Ace had been a battle, back to the very first one, to that lit cigarette.  He wanted to look, he wanted to lean in, to embrace it, but first he needed to come to terms with him wanting anything at all. 

It still projected in the back of his head, though. When he closed his eyes, Sanji could see it all over again, like the memory of a nightmare he desperately wanted to forget and couldn't. It was blurry, distant, but his body—the shaking, the weakened knees, the lightheadedness—reminded him it had been real. 

The cage wasn’t a prison, it was a stage. A grotesque centerpiece rolled out like fine silverware whenever Judge wanted entertainment. It rattled softly on its wheels as servants rolled it in, the black bars swallowing what little light the room offered. Always black. Judge had insisted white or silver made the steel the focus of the scene instead of what bled inside. Black let the spectacle shine. At last, the bars weren’t meant to restrain. They were meant to display. To showcase misery like it was the finest art, placed in front of them while they chewed. It didn't even have a lock at first, they trusted their ability too much.

Inside, the men were stripped naked, pressed together in the stench of sweat and shame. Their skin was glossy with sweat, bruises tattooed across ribs and jaws. But they weren’t fighters, they weren’t warriors. They weren’t anything anymore. Just bodies pressed together, shivering in silence until the orders came.

“Closer,” Yonji would bark, his fork clanging against his plate. “Touch him more, faggot.”

And when they hesitated, Niji’s voice cut in. “Do it, or I’ll cut your fingers with my own teeth.”

“Tch, you’d take that filth to your mouth?” Ichiji would bark. “Are you one of them?” 

“I’ll skin Sanji before being a faggot.” 

And they laughed. Together.

So they obeyed, they always did—Hesitant hands, trembling mouths, bodies forced into a parody of intimacy while the Vinsmokes feasted. The sound of it was worse than the sight—the whimpers swallowed down, the tears hitting metal. And then, the laughter—loud, noisy. But  it didn’t sound human. It was unsettling, feral, like animals tearing into meat, never certain if they’d turn on you next or if they’d already fed enough.

Sanji tried not to look. He always tried at least. Eyes fixed on his own plate, appetite rotting in his mouth, stomach twisting in on itself, waiting for the meal to be over. But sometimes his gaze slipped—just for a second—and the shame didn’t belong to them anymore. It belonged to him.

The bars cut the men into pieces—an arm draped across a shoulder, the curve of a trembling spine, a face buried in another’s neck. If Sanji stared too long, his throat closed up. Because it wasn’t just them that the chanting was meant for. He knew. He felt it burning under his skin.

Everyone knew what happened if you tried to leave the Vinsmoke circus. And they knew how to destroy your spirit just enough, how to shatter you in the right way. So you’d still hold on to the hope of freedom, so that you’d felt like there was still a way out. The cage had no lock, because they loved the thrill of watching you never try.  And nobody ever did.

Except once.

Sanji had made a habit of sneaking into the kitchen. He’d never take much, never enough to be noticed. The cooks didn’t care if bones went missing, or if a little broth vanished from the pot, or if the edges of bread heels were cut away. Nobody watched the trash, and Sanji had gotten good at pretending he was just fussy with his food. 

He’d arrange the dishes the best he could, desperately trying to humanize the inhumane. He carried the plate carefully, small hands trembling, balancing every step down the hall, so the broth wouldn’t spill. The men always noticed. Their hands trembled when they reached through the bars, their voices too hoarse to say thank you, but their eyes gave them away. It was the only thing Sanji knew how to offer them. 

When the cage came into view, he whistled low, like he always did, a warning that he was coming. The men lifted their heads slowly, hollowed eyes. Even the smell of food made their spines stiffen.

“Here,” Sanji whispered, crouching close, passing the plate through the bars. “Eat quick, before—”

The clang of steel cut him off.

One of them wasn’t reaching for the food. He was crawling forward. Past the plate. Past Sanji’s outstretched hand. 

“My daughter should’ve been born yesterday.”

The collar around his neck blinked once. Red.

“Wait—” Sanji’s breath caught in his throat.

And then the collar lit.

A flash at his throat—so bright Sanji thought it was fire. Then the sound came, bone-shaking, tearing the air apart. Heat slammed against the cage bars. Blood sprayed the bars, hot and sudden, painting his hands, his clothes, the food he’d just brought. The man’s body crumpled backward, lifeless, headless.

The others didn’t scream. Didn’t move. They just shrank back and kept stuffing their faces with the food. 

Sanji’s tiny hands had flown to his face. They came away wet, sticky. The smell of cooked meat and iron pressed into his nose until it was all he could taste.

The body on the floor wasn’t even a body anymore. Just debris. And only Sanji had seen the man’s eyes before it happened—determined, alive.

And Sanji just sat still for what felt like hours, watching that something decompose on the ground, listening to the others gulp down food. 

The butter in his pan hissed louder, spitting against his wrist. He blinked, breath shuddering. Garlic scorched black at the edges. His cigarette had burned down to the filter, singeing his fingers before he realized.

He dropped it into the sink with a hiss. The kitchen was quiet again. But in his head, the chant still rang, cruel. He hadn’t forgotten, and he never would. But since that night in the galley with Zoro, the weight of it had shifted. Not gone, that couldn’t happen, but definitely lighter. Bearable. Enough that he could breathe through it. Enough that his hands could steady again over a pan.

And that left space for something else. Something worse, in its own way.

Ace.

He wasn’t the echo of his brothers, or the shame Judge had carved into him. He was a different kind of ember. His voice no longer made Sanji’s knees buckle with disgust; it left him aching. His laugh didn’t slice him open with shame anymore—it pulled at him, relentless, until he wanted.

The fear he once was so eager to blame on Ace’s presence had never been about him at all; it was about the mirror he held up, about the truth he’d forced him to see, about how much he wanted to feel the warmth of his soft chuckles. And now that the truth was undeniable, every stolen glance felt less like a threat and more like gravity—inevitable, pulling, and, at times, dangerous, like the possibility of falling from a hammock. 

Falling always carried risk. What if there was nothing at the bottom to catch him? What if he was reading it wrong—the glances, the warmth, the way Ace’s laugh seemed to hold him in place?

It could all be nothing. A trick of timing. A starving man convincing himself he saw bread where there was nothing. Maybe Ace wasn’t pulling him in at all. Maybe Sanji was just stepping too close, convincing himself that he was wanted. It wouldn’t be the first time. 

The thought knotted tight in his chest, sour and familiar. If he was wrong, then the wanting wasn’t just dangerous anymore—it was humiliating.

With women, he’d always known when he was wanted and when he wasn’t, and pursuing someone who you knew would never reciprocate gives you a kind of control. You could laugh it off, call it being a gentleman, move on with a smile and another line. It didn’t tear at your insides—it was performative.

That was the trick of it: every wink, every flourish, every exaggerated bow was a role he could step into. A shield dressed up as charm. Nobody ever looked past the act, and that was the point. Because if it was just a performance, then rejection never landed on him, it landed on the character. The mask absorbed the blow.

But with Ace, there was no mask. No script, no part to play. His body didn’t follow the choreography of easy smiles and practiced lines—it betrayed him, knees weak, breath catching, voice failing. And if Ace turned away from that, it wouldn’t be the mask he was rejecting. It would be Sanji.

And if he was, in fact, wrong, it wouldn’t just sting—it would confirm everything he’d been raised to believe. That he was disgusting. That he was twisted. That what Judge saw in him, what his brothers mocked, what they claimed was unlovable, was right all along.

He knew what he looked like on the surface — charming, confident, loud. He knew how to wear the mask. But underneath, there were just scraps of the man he could’ve been and the one he should’ve been. 

That was the part nobody saw. Not Zeff, not the crew. They all saw a good cook, a decent fighter, a man who lived for women and grinned through every bruise if that’d get him a kiss on the cheek. None of them saw the coward underneath. The boy who’d learned long ago that if you never let anyone close enough, then when they spit on you, it wouldn’t hurt as much.

Sometimes, he thought that Zoro knew, that he’d somehow developed the ability to look right through him. The bastard had a way of staring at him when he changed his pace just a minute, it was infuriating.

But it was a mere an illusion. Zoro could only read the surface—the exhaustion, the temper, the pride that cracked too easily if pressed. He could see when Sanji was burning himself down to the ground and tell him to quit being an idiot. Maybe he even understood that Sanji carried a different kind of weight than the rest of them. 

But that was it.

Zoro didn’t know what it felt like to want and hate yourself for it in the same breath. He didn’t know the taste of bile that came with every brush of the skin, or the way shame could creep into your bones so deep you couldn’t tell where it ended and you began.

But Ace—smiling like he didn’t know any better, laughing like Sanji wasn’t dangerous.

Sanji hated how much he wanted it. Hated that when Ace’s eyes lingered, even just for a breath, something in him dared to hope. Sanji knew that that was the most dangerous thing of all: the hope.  Because hope never ended with joy. Hope ended with the comfort of chains, of cages, of laughter and insults. Old hope had been the only thing that helped the slaves endure. The promise of freedom if they pushed on through. But new hope—the kind that slipped in uninvited, that dared to promise escape, that made a man crawl past the food for one last step toward freedom—new hope was the only thing that killed the slave.

The cruelest part of it all was that he knew better. He’d seen what hope did to men who reached too far, too fast, who dared to believe they could claw their way out. And still, the moment Ace laughed, Sanji’s pulse betrayed him. His eyes lingered too long, his thoughts leaned too close.

With Ace, the chains around his wrists and ankles, dared to rattle, to pull at him enough to remind him he was chained to the past. 

The tightening in his chest, the ache in his gut, the way his fingers twitched for a cigarette he didn’t need—all of it felt like shackles, clinking just loud enough to remind him he’d never escaped. He might have left the cages behind, but the cages hadn’t left him. And Ace was a constant reminder of that, ever since the very first encounter. 

It was pathetic, dangerous even. Because if Ace noticed, if he looked too closely and saw the chains Sanji had spent years trying to bury under smoke and charm, then the whole mask would come apart. And Sanji couldn’t afford that. Not with Ace. Not with anyone.

So he forced the smile when Ace caught his gaze. He reached for the pan, let the sizzle fill the silence, and told himself it was nothing. Just heat, just hunger, just an echo of a boy who should’ve been smarter than this.

But even as he thought it, he knew he was lying. The chains rattled anyway, daring him to move, to test how fragile they’d grown after years of tears soaking into the iron.

Chapter Text

The sun and the moon wrestled at each side of the horizon, each tugging at the edges of the sky in an endless fight for dominance. The sea mirrored their struggle, half drowned in darkness, half drowned in gold. Waves rolled in steady rhythms, caressing the ship’s hull, calm and gentle. And there was not a voice to be heard—another early morning in the Going Merry.

Although not total, the silence continued to amaze Ace. With Pops’ crew, mornings like this didn’t really exist. There was no such thing as quiet time. Someone was always awake, laughing, brawling, singing, or swearing about anything. Even at dawn, you’d find Thatch frying something he claimed was breakfast but looked more like someone’s vomit of last night’s dinner; Vista polishing his swords while humming so loud you couldn’t sleep through it; Marco perched somewhere with a book, pretending not to hear the banter; and a half-dozen idiots gambling with dice or cards, swearing vengeance on whoever cheated last. The ship never slept.

Even the sea seemed louder under Whitebeard’s flag. Every crash of the waves felt like it carried his pride, every creak of the Moby Dick’s floor thundering in your ears. You couldn’t mistake it for anything else. It was chaotic, noisy, infuriating at times—but it was home.

And compared to that, the Going Merry felt… delicate. Too small, too soft, like a whisper that could go silent if you weren’t careful.

It wasn't painful, but it was uncomfortable. Ace was used to being loud, to making himself heard wherever he went. In part because of his personality, in part because he'd been raised in an environment that forced him to be that way. Noise made things flow easier—mistakes were less noticeable, your movements could be more careless, and your thoughts could be drowned easier.

Marco had warned him time and time again that if he kept ignoring it, it would only grow bigger and louder, until no other sound can suffocate it. He had a tendency to treat emotional wounds as if they were fractured bones—splint them early, rest, let them heal before they break any further. But Ace knew that was bullshit. You couldn’t bandage what clawed at you in the dark. You couldn’t stitch up something that wasn’t open. You couldn’t rest when you’ve got somebody chasing you. 

Maybe that was why silence made his skin itch. Out here, with no laughter to cover it, no clang of swords or roar of engines, he could hear it—the thing Marco swore would only grow louder if ignored. The voice that asked if he deserved any of it. If he deserved them.

He shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck like the thought could be swatted away. Stupid. Overthinking. He needed noise. He needed motion. He needed someone to yell at him, or laugh too loud—make the world feel heavier than his own chest, or so light that nothing could reach him. 

It couldn’t be later than five thirty in the morning when Ace’s eyes jolted open, but the aroma from the galley was already making its way to the boy’s room. He could hear Usopp mumbling something about a Sea God in his sleep, and Zoro snoring. He’d probably just gone to bed after a night of keeping watch. But the noise wasn’t enough. 

He’d been woken up by a dream. Not even a dream—one of those half-formed spirals that hit harder because they weren’t fantastical, they were just close enough to real.

It had started soft, harmless even. He was a child again, running through a forest so green it hurt his eyes a bit. Sunlight split the branches, painting the path in gold. He laughed alone, pretending to be a pirate. Nothing weighed in on him this time, it wasn’t like his actual childhood. He spotted the tree where Sabo and him had built a tree house, and he ran faster. 

As soon as  he touched it, it set on fire—wild and angry. 

He stumbled back, choking on the smoke, but the fire didn’t stop at the tree. It leapt hungrily across the clearing, licking up every trunk until the forest was an inferno. Heat pressed in, too bright, too heavy. Sabo stood inside the treehouse, silent, motionless. He tried to shout for him, for anyone, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out.

Through the flames, he caught glimpses—faces in the firelight. Luffy’s wide eyes, too round, too trusting. Pops’ vast shadow, larger than the blaze itself. Marco’s outline, steady even here. They stood just out of reach, blurred by smoke. Watching. None of them moved. None of them answered.

Ace pushed forward, but the ground turned to cinders under his feet, every step sinking deeper, burning his skin without consuming it. He reached out again, desperate—

And the faces turned away, one by one. First Pops, then Marco, then Sabo. Even Luffy’s eyes shifted, dropping like he couldn’t stand to look at him.

Only one figure remained, sharper than the rest. Blond hair catching the firelight, a cigarette ember glowing faintly against the smoke. Ace’s chest lurched. He reached for it, grinning like always, pretending it wasn’t need, just habit. Pretending it was nothing, pretending he’d be the savior and not the saved. 

The figure turned, and with a flick, the ember died. Darkness swallowed the clearing.

And then he was alone. Where once stood a fire that seemed endless and devouring, now only silence and ashes remained, leaving him standing in the center untouched but hollow.

That was when he woke, breath caught in his throat, his skin damp, and every muscle taut like he’d sprinted for miles. For half a second he swore he could still smell it, the fire, the smoke. And the Merry was silent—or not loud enough. 

Ace dragged a hand down his face, forcing the tremor out of it, and swung his legs off the hammock. He wasn’t about to sit here letting the silence crawl all over him. Not when the galley smelled like butter and something frying. Noise. He needed noise.

The floor creaked under his boots as he pushed the door open, and sure enough, Sanji was already at work. The cook stood half-lit by the dim lantern, and a soft beam of the morning sun illuminated his chest. A cigarette was burning low between his lips, wrist flicking quick over a pan. Oil hissed loud enough to fill the room.

For a second, Ace just leaned on the frame, letting the sound wash over him. Pretending it was enough. Only pretending. 

“Morning, Blondie,” he drawled, voice rougher than he meant. “Thought I was the only one cursed with insomnia.”

Sanji didn’t look up. Just tapped ash into the sink and flipped whatever was in the pan with precision. “Some of us work before sunrise.”

Ace grinned too wide, teeth flashing to cover the sting. “Hey, I can peel potatoes now. Barely maimed the last one. Need a hand?”

Sanji snorted. Still didn’t look at him. The cigarette ember flared, then dulled again.

Ace stepped further in, the dream’s residue clinging to his skin, he couldn’t shake it. He wanted to keep talking, to crack another joke, to force a laugh out of Sanji—anything loud enough to drown out the echo of that ember dying in the dark. But Sanji’s silence pressed harder than the fire ever had.

He hovered by the counter, grin tugging at his lips like it was nailed there. “What’s on the menu? Or do I get the honor of being your taste-tester again?”

This time, Sanji did look at him. Briefly. Just a flick of blue, sharp as a knife, before he turned back to the stove. “Don’t need one.”

And somehow, that landed harder than a fist.

Ace pulled a smile on his face, again, and walked around Sanji, “Oh, come on! Let me be of use, Blondie! What else am I supposed to do?” 

“Sleep.” Sanji spat coldly. 

“Sleep is for the weak, I’d rather learn a thing or too!”

Sanji didn’t react, didn’t look at him, didn’t even huff. Ace chuckled at his own words, but it came out hollow. He leaned against the counter, fingers drumming a restless beat, and then stilled them. For once, the grin slipped—not gone, but shaky at the edges, like he couldn’t quite hold it up.

“Truth is,” he said, voice lower now, rough. “I don’t sleep because I can’t shut it off. The noise. It’s always there.”

Sanji’s hand paused mid-stir. The oil hissed, but he didn’t move.

Ace shrugged, too sharp, too casual. “I need something louder than my head.”

Sanji flicked ash into the sink, jaw tightening. He didn’t answer, but a small smile pulled at his mouth. Because he got it, he understood.

Ace’s laugh broke, short and bitter. “Marco always says I’ll burn out faster than my own fire if I keep pretending I’m fine. He doesn’t get it. None of them do. And you—” He caught himself, biting off the words, eyes snapping shut.

Sanji finally turned, cigarette dangling from his lips, gaze fixed on him, and his weak smile, gone. “And me what?”

Ace’s chest tightened. He wanted to smirk again, to laugh it off, to turn the whole thing into a joke. But he couldn’t. Not this time. Something in Sanji forced him to speak. He stared at him, freckles shadowed by the dim light, and let it out—low, almost a whisper:

“I have a feeling you get it.” The words landed heavy, filling the galley thicker than smoke. “All of it. And I don’t know why, but there’s something in your eyes that makes it feel like I’m looking in the mirror.” 

Ace sighed, laughing at himself a bit. It was too late to stop it. He never knew when to quit talking. He’d grown up in a world where silence meant danger—if you weren’t loud, if you didn’t laugh, if you didn’t pick fights before they picked you, then the questions crept in. So he filled every gap with noise, like it might drown the thought that he didn’t deserve the life he’d carved out, didn’t deserve to be anyone’s brother or son. 

With Sanji, though, it was different. He wasn’t just trying to be loud for the sake of it; he was trying to bridge something he couldn’t name. The cook’s silence wasn’t emptiness, it was recognition. That was what made him reckless—Sanji’s quiet eyes stripped him bare in a way even Pops’ never could. And so Ace talked, too much, too fast, because if he didn’t, he might have to sit with the truth of that reflection. Better to spill it out—ugly, raw, half-formed—than to let it rot inside where no one could see. Sanji might cut him down for it, but at least he’d heard him. At least Ace wouldn’t be alone with the noise.

“And there’s something that makes me gravitate towards you, and I can’t really tell you what it is. But I can’t stop… seeing you.” He sighed and looked down. “It’s been five days since I first saw you, and I feel like I’ve already seen most versions of you.”

Sanji froze, cigarette burning low. For a second, his breath caught, and something dangerous flickered across his face—fear, anger, want, all tangled. He looked away first, shoving the pan off the heat with a clatter that made Ace flinch.

“Don’t,” Sanji muttered, and then added with a determination. “Don’t dump your shit on me. You know nothing about me. ”

Ace’s voice came in fast, almost cutting Sanji off. “I know you wear a mask. I know that whoever you are playing to be, is not really you—at least not completely.” 

Sanji’s jaw clenched. For a second, he wanted to laugh in Ace’s face, call him an idiot, toss him out of the kitchen. That was safer. Easier.

He sees too much.

He’d lived his whole life building the mask, stitching it tighter each time someone got too close. The ladies’ man. The chef. The clown who’d take a kick to the head before letting anyone look at his chest too long. The performance was survival; the mask took every hit for him.

But Ace wasn’t swinging at the mask. He was pointing past it.

Sanji’s fingers twitched for another cigarette, though one was already burning low between them. The smoke didn’t dull it. It only reminded him of the silence between them, of how much Ace had already said.

What if Ace was right? What if the mask had worn too thin?

Sanji thought of the cage, of laughter that didn’t sound human, of the man’s eyes before they went dark. He thought of how hope could kill, how wanting was the cruelest weight of all. He thought of how Ace’s laugh made his chains rattle anyway, no matter how tightly he tried to bind them.

And now the fire brat had to go and say it out loud—that he saw him.

Sanji’s jaw clenched. His heart thundered against his ribs, loud enough he swore Ace could hear it.

If he really sees me, then what the hell is he seeing?

He wanted to spit something cruel, push him away until the grin came back, until Ace stopped looking at him like that. But the words wouldn’t come. Not the right ones. Only the mask. Only the performance. Because the truth was unbearable. The truth was that the mirror Ace held up scared him more than Judge ever had.

“I know you can’t sleep at night, either. I know you also have nightmares about the past. I know you were rejected one too many times.” Ace’s voice was stronger, sturdier. “I know you feel incompetent, worthless—unlovable.” 

The words slammed into him harder than any kick he’d ever thrown. Sanji had thought them before—every night, every cigarette, every damned moment of quiet—but it was different hearing them aloud. Cruder. Sharper. Like Ace had reached inside his ribs and plucked the thought straight out of him.

He’d been circling it for days now, trying not to. The idea that Ace’s grin wasn’t just irritating—it was disarming. That every stupid laugh, every reckless comment, peeled something loose he’d kept buried. That the man saw too much, too quickly.

His pulse pounded so hard it felt like it rattled the bones in his chest. He wanted to snarl, to shove Ace against the wall, to bury it under violence until everything felt safe again. Anything but the truth clawing at his throat.

Instead, his lips curved downwards, his eyebrows frowned, and his eyes watered. He didn’t raise his gaze from the counter in front of him. 

“I—” He wanted to speak, to say anything, but he’d risk the tears slipping from his eyes. 

Ace stepped closer, his body weight resting on the counter. His voice was softer, less erratic. “I see the way your smile fades away the moment they look away, the way your shoulders curve inwards when you think nobody can catch a glimpse of them, the way your eyes dart to everyone’s faces after you make the smallest comment.” 

Another step forward. “But I also see how you’ve memorized everyone’s favorite dishes, and how you always know what somebody needs and when they need it, and how you try so desperately to show you’re reliable and trustworthy.” 

Ace continued. “I see how you feed the Den Den Mushis twice a day, and read books on what meals are the most nutritious for them. I see how you feed the seagulls every time we get close to land.” 

Another step forward. He was only a couple of inches away from him, but Sanji didn’t move. “I see a mask, but I also see you. Or at least the small glimpses that you allow to slip through the cracks, Blondie.”

Sanji stood frozen. Ace was so close that Sanji could feel the warmth that he emanated. “It's not obvious. Don't panic. Your mask is not damaged. I just…” he sighed and lowered his gaze to Sanji’s hands, trembling. “I understand it.” 

“What could you possibly understand? You know nothing.” Sanji snapped, his back straightening tight and fast, his jaw locked shut. But still, he didn't look at Ace. 

Sanji’s words cut sharp—meant to drive Ace back, to keep him on the other side of the wall. But Ace didn’t move back. He leaned in instead, warmth closing the distance until the air between them felt impossibly heavier.

“You’re wrong,” Ace said, softer, steadier. “You know you’re wrong.”

Sanji opened his mouth, ready to spit venom, but Ace’s hand moved first. Rough fingers brushed his jaw, sliding up, tilting his chin. Not harsh, but unyielding. The kind of grip you couldn’t ignore and couldn’t pull away either. 

For Sanji, the world lurched. No one touched his face. No one dared. The mask was supposed to be impenetrable, his smirk untouchable. But here was Ace, holding him in place, eyes locking onto his like he could pry him apart with nothing more than raw stubbornness.

His chest tightened. The instinct screamed to shove him off, to bury the moment under violence or a cruel line—but his body betrayed him. He stayed still. Rooted. Because for all the danger, for all the terror, there was something intoxicating about being seen this clearly. His chains rattled again, sharper and louder, and for once he didn’t move further back to silence them.

Ace’s hand trembled, though his grip didn’t falter. He didn’t know why he was doing this—not fully. Maybe it was selfish. Maybe he needed to prove he wasn’t the only one cracking under silence. Maybe he was desperate for proof that someone else carried the same weight, that he wasn’t alone in the noise or, worse, in the silence. 

And Sanji let him. Because no one had ever forced him to look like this and not recoiled. No one had ever stood this close and not flinched away from what they saw. For all the risk, for all the danger, Ace’s gaze didn’t carry disgust. Only recognition.

They stood in silence for a moment. Eyes locked in on each other's. Ace's hand softly caressing Sanji's chin, fingers trembling under the softness of it all.  

Sanji’s breath was still caught in his throat, sharp enough that he hated himself for it. He wasn’t supposed to sound like that—weak, startled, like the boy pressed back into chains, into the cage. His jaw twitched under Ace’s hand, begging to break free, but the rest of him stayed traitorously still.

The mask should’ve been easier to find. It always was. A quip, a grin, a drag of smoke—anything to hide behind. But Ace’s touch stripped it bare. Because he wasn’t grabbing him to control, or to hurt, or to mock. He was just… holding him. Making him look.

And that was worse. A thousand times worse. Because Sanji could survive cruelty—he’d built his whole life on it. But kindness? Recognition? That was the blade that cut deepest.

Ace’s thumb twitched at the corner of his jaw, almost uncertain, though his eyes stayed fixed. Don’t look away, he thought. If Sanji turned from him now, if he shoved him off, it would prove every noise in Ace’s skull right—that he was unworthy, unlovable, doomed to be turned from again. But if Sanji didn’t…

Ace swallowed hard. He hadn’t thought this far. He didn’t know what he wanted—only that he couldn’t stand the distance anymore, couldn’t stand being half-seen when everything in him screamed to be known.

“Why aren’t you pulling away?” Ace’s voice was low, unsteady, but it forced itself into the space between them. A challenge, a plea.

Sanji’s throat pulsed. He wanted to answer. He wanted to lie, to snarl something cruel, to spit the fire back in Ace’s face. But the truth was heavier than the mask. His body leaned into the touch—barely, but enough to condemn him. He wanted it—needed it— and hadn’t realized until then. How long had it been since someone had shown him softness?

“Because…” His voice was hoarse, barely audible, like the words cost more than breath. “Because I don’t know what happens if I do.”

The silence widened again, thick, dangerous, alive.

Ace’s chest ached, like every chain in his own body was pulling tight. He should’ve let go. He should’ve laughed it off, thrown some stupid line and walked away before it cracked him in half. But his hand stayed, stubborn as the fire in his veins.

But when Sanji’s eyes finally flicked up to meet his, blue striking against the dark, something in Ace screamed at him to stay. In them Ace didn’t see disgust, or dismissal. He saw fear. He saw defiance. He saw himself, and confirmed what he’d known all along. 

Ace’s voice carried in the quiet, low and careful:

“Do you hate this, then?”

The hand on Sanji’s back was warm. It wasn’t a shove. It wasn’t force. Just the barest pull, enough to tip Sanji forward into a closeness that made his head swim. Their breaths tangled in the narrow space, and for the first time Sanji didn’t know if the smoke clinging to him came from his own cigarette or Ace’s fire.

His instinct screamed danger—but not because of the touch. Because of the question. Do you hate this? Nobody had ever asked him that, not at least actually caring about the answer they’d get. Not once. To be asked now made something knot in his throat, something he couldn’t swallow past.

And instead of stepping back, he let it happen. His shoulders, tense and rigid, eased just a fraction beneath Ace’s palm. A silent answer.

Ace saw it. Felt it. And because he was who he was—reckless, starving for connection—he took it as permission. His grin didn’t return this time, but his voice did, quieter, almost unsure.

“Do you hate this, then?”

The second time was worse. Because this time, his hand left Sanji’s chin. It trailed down, slow enough that Sanji could have stopped it, but he didn’t. Calloused fingers brushed along his jaw before settling at the side of his neck. Not pressing, not closing—just resting there.

Sanji’s pulse stuttered beneath Ace’s palm. The warmth was nothing compared to what he carried in his own chest, but it lit his nerves all the same. He could feel every inch of it, too aware, too raw.

And that was when the cracks started.

His body remembered before his mind did: the weight of steel at his throat, the sharp blink of a collar before it lit, the rattle of a cage rolling into a room that reeked of cruelty. His lungs tightened. He told himself it was just Ace’s hand, just skin, just touch—but the memory bled through anyway. The laughter, the spectacle, the certainty that he wasn’t allowed to move unless commanded.

His breath hitched. Barely audible, but enough that Ace felt the tremor beneath his fingers.

Still, Sanji didn’t move. Didn’t shove him off. Because part of him—traitorous, yearning—couldn’t believe the same hand that could burn through steel was asking instead of taking. 

And that contradiction, that impossible fracture, was what undid him.

Something wet hit the wood at his feet.

Ace’s eyes snapped down. For half a second he didn’t understand — then he saw it: a single, bright tear tracking down Sanji’s cheek, glinting where the light hit it before it fell. 

Ace froze. For a split second, he thought the fire had jumped again — thought he’d set something ablaze without meaning to. The tear caught the dim light like a spark, and it gutted him worse than any inferno. His dream came crashing back, faces turning away, the ember dying in his hands. He’d done it again. He was the fire. He burned even when he tried to be gentle.

“Fuck—” He ripped his hand away so fast the pad of his thumb left a ghost-print of heat on Sanji’s skin. The sound tore out of him, ugly and terrified. He stumbled back, knocking his elbow against the counter. A pan clattered; a spice jar tipped and sighed onto the board. The kitchen noises came rushing back all at once, stupid and loud and horribly ordinary.

Ace looked at his palm as if it belonged to someone else. His face collapsed — not angry now, only frightened. “I—shit, Blondie, I’m sorry. I didn’t—” Words tripped over one another. He could hardly make them fit. “I didn’t mean to—” He swallowed, voice raw. “God, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Sanji’s breath hitched. The instinct to slam the mask back on rose so hard it felt like revenge: a snarl, a derisive laugh, a shove. Instead, he only found small, stunned sounds, tiny and useless. He scrubbed a hand across his face like he could wipe the evidence away, felt the damp on his fingertips and hated himself for letting it be seen. For letting it fall. For letting Ace be the one who saw it.

Ace took one more step back as if the space might heal what happened—then stopped, hands clenched at his sides, the fight gone out of him. He wouldn’t touch him again, not yet. The thought seemed to frighten him more than anything else. “I’m sorry,” he said again, softer, the words finally honest and frightened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have—” He broke off, useless and hollow. As if he’d burned him, like he always did. 

The silence that followed felt enormous. Between them the air lay thin and trembling, full of things unsaid. Sanji’s mask sat heavy in his chest, and for now he let it stay there; he said nothing. He watched Ace’s fists unclench, watched him sway as if he’d just escaped a fire. As if Sanji had burned him. 

Both of them were breathing too fast. Both of them were suddenly, dangerously awake and aware of it all.

Ace missed the chaos of the Moby Dick. Sanji missed the chaos of the Baratie's kitchen. At least there, escaping silence was easy.