Sanji clamps his mouth shut at the drop of Zoro and Usopp's names. His arms drop down to hang limply at his sides while his mind runs at a pace of a baker's dozen of miles per second. What, does that mean Luffy is involved with the entire crew? Is that their beloved captain's fantasy? Because in that case . . . things suddenly make a lot more sense. It's not just Sanji and Nami. If everyone from the East Blue is there, the overlaps become a little more believable.
Zoro is an invaluable member of the crew. He's done things for them that nobody else could have—things that still weigh on Sanji's jittery shoulders. If Zoro is their guardian, then Usopp is their braveheart. He's the closest to Luffy in age, and the two of them bring life wherever they go, being noisy at the worst of times and uplifting at the best. Sanji has no qualms with admitting to himself that Zoro and Usopp are good people, and he's beginning to see that good people are Luffy's type.
Funny, how going from two to four makes all the difference. Sanji has no reason to take issue with that, not when he thrills in the idea of polyamory himself. Luffy's heart is big, so it reasons that he would love big, too.
"Huh?"
Caught up in his thoughts as he is, Sanji is sorely underprepared for the love bomb Luffy drops on him without preamble. He blinks once, then twice, and then some more while he gapes like a guppy. His eyes grow increasingly wide with every compliment Luffy pays him, even the idiotic ones ("it's like it's a secret"? He's lean, not skinny!) that are quintessentially Luffy yet not. Sanji is aware of what he can do as a cook and a leg specialist; those are things on which he prides himself, so praise in either realm feels earned. But then Luffy talks about Sanji's face and feelings while flushed himself, and that rips the breath out of his lungs as if a gust has torn through him.
He didn't think that was possible.
"What about that doesn't make sense?" asks Luffy. Everything, Sanji almost shouts. All of it edges too close to the nebulous truth he's kept inside for the better part of his adolescence, yet still Luffy perorates such heartfelt words. "It makes sense to me," he'd said. What's with him? Who taught him that? Those are things Sanji never expected to hear—not even from the fictitious ladies in his most indulgent fantasies, because he would never burden a woman with his worries, and certainly not from another man.
And what lovely words they are, so much so that Sanji's entire face begins to tremble before he realizes it. He tenses, shutting out the tremors in exchange for a pinched look, as he balls his free hand into a fist. "You," he says, swallowing past the dryness of his throat and willing his voice not to sound so thin, "you're serious."
"Of course I'm serious," he says, gentler than he really means to. He can be more than a little oblivious even on the best of days, but it's impossible to miss how far he just pushed Sanji with that little rant, or the way the cook seems to be barely holding it together now. He just couldn't stand the idea that Sanji doesn't know how much Luffy likes him. How wrong he was about it not making sense. Whatever else there is—missing memories (different ones, between the two of them), or weird height differences, or strangely curly brows—Sanji is still Sanji is still Sanji. Right?
For once, he's not sure if he should keep going or if he should let up. Usually he doesn't hesitate, but something about all of that had made him feel a little vulnerable, too, in ways he usually doesn't. Like it's too complex, even though everything felt so simple before.
This time when he reaches for Sanji, he just grabs his hand, the one smeared with blood from his nose where he'd either tried to stop it or hide it, Luffy isn't sure. He plucks up the bottom of his vest at the same time, and uses his own shirt to wipe the blood off wordlessly. It'll blend in with the red easily enough, and he knows Sanji doesn't like his hands being dirty but he never wipes anything off onto his own clothes, so Luffy can't just leave him like that. When he's satisfied that he's mostly fixed the issue, he reluctantly drops Sanji's hand again before he can get pushed away.
Baby steps.
"Are you done being weird?" Sorry, Sanji. He's still not polite at all. "We have to figure out what happened to the Merry."
Edited (oops default icon definitely does NOT work in this situation lol) 2024-03-20 17:44 (UTC)
For the lack of a better response, he yields his hand to Luffy. It's the same hand that struck him earlier, but the touch he receives is gentle, which is surreal.
Sanji doesn't do gentle with men. Much as he loves Zeff and considers the Baratie to be his first home, there's never been a soft moment between any combination of them. Having the blood from his hand wiped on Luffy's vest is objectively gross, but the underlying tenderness is an entire distraction of its own. By the time Luffy lets go, it's as if Sanji's palm and fingers are on fire from how intensely they tingle.
And he's the weird one, apparently.
He needs to sit down. Even better, Lady Luck is on his side for once: An excuse to work off the excitement pumping through his body presents itself on a silver platter, and Sanji seizes it with long strides past Luffy as he says in a low voice, "Wait here. I'll take a look."
If this really is Luffy, there's no way he'll heed the command to stay still. Sanji doesn't mind, though. He has something else to focus on now, and it's the flawless execution of the steps he's been perfecting ever since he fled in the sole direction left to him. Wiping the blood from his face with the back of his hand, he steps into the clearing of sand beyond the edge of the forest and looks up at the clouds spotting the blue sky. He bends his legs, then takes the leap of faith into the air, where one kick after another eventually brings him to a decent vantage point overhead.
Things are quiet in the sky. The earth always moves while the sea never stops roaring. The clouds, on the other hand, are silent witnesses to Sanji as he surveys the shore below them. No matter where he looks, the Merry is nowhere to be seen. Naturally, the Sunny is also absent.
The fall isn't nearly as exhilarating as the rise. Still, there's a certain satisfaction to the feeling of the wind as it rushes past him. One shoe hits the sand, followed by another, and Sanji lands with his back to where he last left Luffy.
"The Merry isn't here. In fact, there's not a single ship anchored around this part of the shore."
Despite his dramatics in the moment, Luffy has already completely forgotten the strike. Certainly no mark was left, and he even reaches over one shoulder to tug back on his hat, missing its familiar weight.
He finds himself regretting not pushing things, a little bit. Especially when Sanji moves on so determinedly and Luffy is left wondering if he actually got through to him after all.
There's no time to really dwell on that, though, because: "Huh?!" he protests instantly, despite the fact that Sanji getting all bossy with that low voice is really kinda distracting. "I'm not gonna just—"
Apparently he is gonna just wait there, because he's suddenly incredibly busy gaping as Sanji leaves his side by walking past him (rude), and then before Luffy can take more than two hasty steps to follow, going straight up in the air. His surprised shout chases Sanji up past the tree line and trails off into the clouds, and by the time Sanji lands again, Luffy has grabbed the highest sturdy branches of the tree closest to the edge of the weird little forest and he has begun preparing to launch himself upwards into the sky like a slingshot as well.
To do what? Who knows. Float for a moment before crashing back down, in all likelihood. He just doesn't want to be left behind.
He anti-climactically lets his arms return to their normal length with a pair of rubbery snaps when that becomes no longer necessary, though. "You can fly?!" Luffy makes an immediate addition to the list of his favorite things about Sanji because: "That's so cool! Have you always been able to do that? Why didn't you tell me?" He's worried about the news of the ship, but not so much that he can't stop to goggle at his cook's amazing skills. Besides, just like he's not alone here, the Merry isn't alone either. Nami and Usopp will figure out what to do, definitely, and Zoro will keep them safe.
"Would you remember it if I had?" Less of a question and more of his making a point, he adds: "I couldn't do it when we first entered the Grand Line. It's something I picked up recently." Much as he prides himself on the achievement, he doesn't dwell on the topic. It dredges up terrible, invasive memories—memories that are still his waking nightmare, all things considered.
Sanji reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. It can stand to be drier, so he doesn't bother to light the stick as he slots it between his lips. Just having it there is enough for occupying restless nerves, and he can't afford to blow through the only pack on his person too soon.
Now that he's heard them again, he finds that he'd been missing the familiar stretch and snap of rubber. Just like the sounds of sizzling oil in a pan and a blade against the cutting board, they're home. This isn't a revolutionary thought by any means, but considering their exchange earlier, well . . .
"Anyway, the Merry is gone." Has been, but he keeps that to himself for now. He shoves a hand in his pant pocket. "What now?"
"We go exploring!" Luffy grins, earlier argument seemingly forgotten now as well. It's not, not really, but even he can recognize that suggesting making out again because Sanji apparently doesn't remember what it's like is a risky move at the moment.
That doesn't mean Luffy's impulse control is going to last forever, especially if exploration doesn't rustle up something exciting and dangerous to do, but it does mean Sanji is being given a few moments of grace to try to grasp at normalcy.
Because like... now that he's thinking about it, Luffy wonders what would happen if he pulled out all the stops? All those little tricks he's learned over the last few weeks, about exactly what Sanji likes when he's being kissed? The way his cheeks get so much warmer when Luffy picks him up by the thighs, and holds him up against the wall without real effort? The noise he makes when Luffy presses on his tongue piercing, and coaxes it into his own mouth? It feels like it would be cheating, almost. Luffy is a pirate so he's just fine playing a little dirty, but he's still not sure exactly what will make this confusing version of his cook too angry to want to mess around.
Besides: "that's why we came here anyway, right? There's gotta be something fun on this island! The others will find a way to get to us." He offers Sanji's shoulder a comforting pat, though Sanji didn't seem particularly worried about it in the first place, before he turns on his heel and starts marching jauntily towards the darkness beyond the dense line of trees. Adventure awaits!
That's what he figured. Trust Luffy to dive headfirst into an adventure with present worries all but forgotten. There's the matter of missing memories and little details that don't add up they'll have to address sooner than later, but Sanji knows better than to restrain Luffy ahead of time. Besides, even if he didn't come here for fun, he's also curious to see what the island has to offer.
Once Luffy's back is turned to him, Sanji glances at the phantom weight on his shoulder. He passes his suit jacket to his other hand and flips it over said shoulder, disguising the intangible press with something real. Then he falls into step behind Luffy before his mind can get away from him, and it's just like old times as he slides into the familiar rhythm of a simple jaunt with ease.
"I was checking out the perimeter before you showed up," he says around the unlit cigarette in his mouth. While there's no paved road, there are beaten paths that suggest the presence of wildlife, dimly illuminated by what meager rays of light that have managed to penetrate the canopy of trees towering over them. Old leaves crunch and brittle twigs snap under their feet as they walk, deafeningly sharp in the natural silence that he continues to talk over: "It gets darker the deeper you go. Seeing as you're used to this sort of thing, though, it shouldn't be a problem for you."
He figures a jungle and a forest share enough similarities for experience in one to be serviceable in the other. As for Sanji, he has enough common sense (and recent experience of his own, however begrudging) to compensate for the excess of time he's spent on ships all his life. Together, they'll make do.
Luffy glances back over one shoulder at Sanji and laughs, holding out his rubbery hand in the direction that Sanji is trailing him, teasing this time. "I'll hold your hand if you're scared," he offers with wiggling fingers, as the gloom of the forest canopy begins to truly descend and cast them both in shadows.
It turns out that years living and hunting in the jungle has not made Luffy a silent, graceful presence among the trees (there is a reason he had to learn to hunt predators, rather than prey animals.) No, instead he goes stomping through the dense foliage like someone who can easily punch a tiger's teeth out of its face... or in this particular case, bounce right back after eating shit over some roots, which is precisely what he ends up doing once he takes his eyes off the path ahead to make a joke at Sanji.
"Oof!" Truly, he is an idiot.
He's an idiot who can cackle at himself though, at least, and he dusts off the crunchy leaves and dirt from his knees once he clambers back up to his feet. Lesson learned, he slows his pace just enough to stick next to Sanji instead of continuing to plow on ahead (at least for the next minute or two, who knows how long it will last), following one of the wildlife trails for lack of anywhere else to start. "Hey, Sanji. In the months I don't remember... we've had fun, right?" He doesn't want the grand adventure spoiled, exactly, but he wants to know he's at least brought his crew some happiness while they're together.
Sanji grimaces at the proffered hand. Him, scared? As if! Luffy should just pay attention to where he's goi—there he goes. "Watch where you're going, stupid."
Then they're walking shoulder to shoulder. Sanji doesn't mind it, nor does he expect it to last. The way Luffy marches on with aplomb is a bigger comfort than he'd care to admit—easy to track, too—and he strides into the encroaching darkness without a break in pace when a question is posed to him.
There are few things that Luffy truly hates despite his many vices; if his uncharacteristic outburst at the lovely Shakky's bar is anything to go by, having an adventure spoiled is one of them. The journey itself means everything to him, so Sanji won't ruin it with a boring retelling. Erring on the side of caution is better, anyway (even if he can't quite put his finger on what it is that he's avoiding).
"Yeah. It's the Grand Line, after all." Of course, it hasn't been just fun and games. Things were like that even before they left the East Blue, though, and have no bearing on the answer. The question is whether or not they've been enjoying themselves as intended, because Luffy cares deeply about the crew. Raising the subject of Sabaody Archipelago will only serve to unnecessarily stress him out; ergo, Sanji doesn't bring it up. "It's been one adventure after another. You'd have to see some of the things we've seen to believe them."
Luffy's grin is not relieved as much as it is vindicated, because hell yeah!! That's what he thought! And he bumps his shoulder against Sanji's as they walk, comfortable and casual in the dim forest light. "Good! I can't wait—" oh, hang on. He pauses, face screwed up and thinking hard, because he honestly still doesn't understand everything that's going on. "Or... I hope I remember soon?" That doesn't feel quite right either, but what can he do about it? Wait until the crew catches up and explains everything is his current plan, though of course he's not against things starting to make sense on their own, even if he's not really counting on it.
Though speaking of things being off: "Why is your eyebrow all curly now?" Is that something Sanji was just shaving off before?? Maybe he should have been more nosy. He tacks on: "It looks cool," in case it's a fashion statement that Luffy just isn't stylish enough to understand, which is definitely possible (probable, even.)
Eventually the animal tracks lead towards a cave system, the entrance to which clearly tilts downwards into the ground, so it becomes impossible to follow them in the damp dirt of the forest floor. Unwilling to give up on the idea of finding meat somewhere on the island while they wait for the Merry to show back up, Luffy only wastes a moment peering into the cave's pitch black depths before snapping a rubbery arm up into a nearby tree and yanking down a medium-sized branch right off its trunk. He cracks the green wood in half at the start of further branching to get rid of all the leaves, and then he squeezes the top bit between his impossibly strong fingers a few times to make the wood there start splintering and fraying. It's not pretty, but it'll work as a torch for a little while even without anything useful like cloth and oil to wrap around the top. "Hey, can you set this on fire?" Because he knows Sanji's got a lighter on him. And look! For once he's got enough sense not to barrel right into the darkness! (Even if he definitely doesn't have any plans for when the stick eventually burns itself out right on his hands, probably while they're way down in the dark cave.)
Wait until the crew catches up and explains everything is, by a great stroke of coincidence, also Sanji's plan. That should've been the end of that until then, but the niggling in the back of his mind returns at the nonchalant comment about his eyebrows. Since when has Luffy cared about them? (Has he always thought that?) Of all his features, it had to be those . . .
The unease only grows at Luffy's quick thinking with the branch. Sanji regards the makeshift torch in silence, rolling the cigarette to-and-fro with his lips. While it's not the greatest idea, the fact that there's an idea at all is bizarre. He feels around his pocket for a lighter. Is this a sign of maturation or something else?
Either way, he isn't afraid of the dark. With a click and a fwip, a small flame flares to life above Sanji's hand. He tilts it toward the branch, but doesn't close the gap just yet. "I can, but what are you gonna do once it burns itself out? You'll burn your hand."
Luffy realizes that his question got dodged, but he doesn't push immediately because he's trying to give Sanji at least a little bit of wiggle room, here.
Also because he's caught. Luffy's expression goes slack like he doesn't have an answer for that entirely reasonable question... because he doesn't. "Uh," he looks down at his fingers, considers that he doesn't want to burn himself but he's not particularly concerned about it either, because he never is about stuff like that. Then he grins like he solved the problem, which is ridiculous because all he's got is: "We can just explore really fast! It'll be fine." He wiggles the stick expectantly, though he does at least tack on: "It burns slow if it's a really new stick. It's still wet inside and stuff." Behold, your wise leader!
It's an explanation from an exhausted brother long ago, probably. Luffy parrots it more than really grasps it, but the effect is the same, so what can you do? "Come on, there could be meat down there!" Ah, so he admits to his true motives.
"You, explore fast? Give me a break!" There's little doubt in Sanji's mind that Luffy will move along quickly, but this and the penchant for getting distracted are separate matters. The lighter clinks shut with the flick of his wrist, extinguishing the flame. "If it's that wet, the smoke will make it impossible to see down there."
He glances around, assessing their dim surroundings before taking languid steps over to a sizable boulder nearby. He drops his weight onto it with his back hunched, then draws his gaze up in Luffy's direction. "We'll wait for it to dry out some more," he says, plucking the unlit cigarette out of his mouth and gesturing with the same hand. The wet stick is an excuse more than anything, but that's hardly important in the face of what he really wants to pursue. Despite his initial plan to wait, it's bothering him a little too much; the sooner he gets to the bottom of the mystery, the better. "There's something we need to talk about first."
The captain makes a wordlessly offended noise when Sanji casually flicks his lighter closed again. It's not that Luffy doesn't know how to make fire without it, but the whole process is so tedious and boring, and he doesn't wanna.
So he resigns himself to sagging onto the rock as well, a lightly drooping creature made entirely of disappointment at his adventure (his imagined meal) being postponed, and then he plasters his too-pliant rubber body against the cook's side almost immediately as retribution for making them stop. He does wave his stick listlessly out in front of them like he's trying to dry it out with the air, though, playing along with Sanji's excuse. Or genuinely believing it, who knows with Luffy?
"About what?" The words come out too round, because his cheek is pressed against Sanji's still damp shoulder now, and it'll stay there until he gets properly shaken off (or struck by another flight of fancy.) A beat. "... If it's because of something I ate, I can't remember, so you can't be mad at me." Flawless logic, clearly.
Well, this is unexpected. He thought Luffy would restlessly wander the vicinity while they chat—yet here they are, pressed against each other on a rock just big enough to hold them. Then again, should Sanji be surprised after what he's heard?
No, he's not going to dwell on that train of thought.
He plants a hand on the side of Luffy's head and pushes without real strength behind the motion. If that ridiculous defense is about the fridge, Luffy never could help himself. By rote, Sanji admonishes, "Quit stealing the food before it's ready." Then he lets go.
"Anyway, that's not it." He cranes his neck toward Luffy. "You said something interesting about my face earlier."
Luffy lets Sanji push his head away.... but only his head. His neck stretches out cartoonishly until Sanji gives up his half-hearted attempts to dislodge him, then they're right back where they started.
He doesn't even acknowledge that it happened, he just tilts his chin enough to make eye contact and grin at him when Sanji cranes his neck and looks down, comfortable as can be.
"Huh?" He does blink at the question, though, eyes drifting to the side like he's genuinely casting back for what he may or may not have said. "That I like the way it looks when people tell you that your food is tasty?" A beat. "Oh! Or that I like the way you smile when you talk about the All Blue?" Alright, he is maybe being a little tiny bit obtuse on purpose, but he's just still not convinced that he actually managed to get through to Sanji earlier, so.
That doesn't mean he's not actually curious about what he'd asked just a few moments ago, though, so he does eventually acquiesce with: "Or because your eyebrow is all swirly now?" He reaches up with his free hand to touch the center of the curl with the pad of his pointer finger, a little boop, if Sanji doesn't move to intercept.
Heat rushes to his face, flaring his cheeks despite himself. This guy has to be doing that on purpose. Food is one thing; a smile is another. Those are criminally romantic words a clueless pirate captain has no business uttering to anyone, much less his cook—to say nothing about how touchy-feely he's being.
"I'm talking about my eyebrows!" hisses Sanji, jerking his head back after the poke. He isn't particularly attached to his eyebrows. They're unusual—more bizarre than exotic—and everyone (excluding this guy) always has something to say about them in the vein of teasing. He cups his knee opposite of Luffy, tensing his shoulders and legs, as he looks back with narrowed eyes and an appraising gaze. "Yeah, that's what I thought," he says, evenly in spite of his growing misgivings. "You have no clue that they've always been this way, do you?"
Luffy finally draws back a little, still pressed against Sanji's nearest leg thigh to thigh, but at least he stops borderline melting against the cook's entire side like soft rubber left out too long in the sun. Both because of how stiff Sanji has gotten, and because of how he phrased the question.
He knows he can be a little oblivious about most things, but usually if there's something strange looking about a person, that is what immediately sticks in his head as a nickname. Which is deeply rude of him, obviously, but if no one has managed to bully manners into him at his big age, it's probably never going to happen.
Besides, Luffy likes people who look weird and catch attention. Sanji's looks do catch attention obviously, but not like that, and Luffy knows he definitely would have noticed the curl even if he hadn't spent the last few weeks getting very close and too personal with the cook's face at least once a day. "No, you never told me," Luffy's own bushier brows furrow, trying to figure out what that means. Is it a sore spot? Hmm... "So you were just shaving it off before? Why?"
If the short gap between them makes him feel a certain way, Sanji doesn't show it. Unnecessary reactions will only distract them, and this gives him a better view of Luffy as he continues to watch in his typical slouch. He's neither Usopp nor Chopper; he knows how to keep his cool in moments of uncertainty.
"I don't shave my eyebrows." Quirky though they may be, there are stranger features out there. Even the cooks back at the Baratie are outlandish in their own ways, and then there are Wanze and Duval, so nobody can talk. "And last I saw, your hair didn't look like that."
That fact means nothing by itself when considering the length of time they've spent apart. Combined with the details that haven't been adding up since the start, however, he has to wonder again: who is this rubber man? Or should the question be, what happened to Luffy? In his heart of hearts, Sanji finds it oddly difficult to dismiss the person sitting beside him. As such, he sounds more tentative than suspicious when he asks, "Are you really Luffy?"
"Huh?" Luffy's face screws up in confusion, and then he glances upwards at the curled ends of his own hair, which look totally normal to him pinned against the brim of his straw hat. When he woke up this morning he did exactly what he does with his hair every morning: absolutely nothing. The most effort he ever puts in is to try to let it dry before falling asleep so he doesn't end up with a goofy looking flat spot, but even then he doesn't care enough about his hair's appearance to avoid it if he's really tired. Which begs the question, "What does that mean? What did it look like?"
His brain hurts, like it usually does when he's trying to think too hard about things that aren't fighting or meat or adventures. And here he'd fully resolved to ignore all the things that didn't make sense and simply have fun instead! Honestly, Sanji is so rude.
"Of course I'm Luffy! Who else would I be?" His arms cross, stubborn, a touch incensed by the implication that he would pretend to be anything other than what he is—Monkey D. Luffy, the man who's going to be King of the Pirates. He doesn't bother to return the question, if only because his gut says that's Sanji, and questioning his gut is really not his style, even in totally absurd situations. But, saying that... his gut instinct doesn't get him any closer to an answer this time. After a moment his shoulders sag, and he drops his stick into his lap, all pretense relinquished. "I don't understand." Just, in general. Everything going on right now.
Sanji eyes him, betraying none of his thoughts behind a ruminative gaze. Who else, huh. It should be dissatisfying—and it is—but he can't bring himself to challenge anything when he knows no better. As far as he can tell, there's nothing malicious about this guy beside him. Sanji doesn't understand it, either, which makes two of them.
His shoulders sag, relaxing by a margin. If you can't beat them, join them.
"You wear your hair shorter. It's straight," he clarifies. Curls give the illusion of less length, after all. Then again, even straightened Luffy's hair would sometimes get in his eyes. Every difference is struck by a similarity; it's a frustrating train of thought that yields no answers as he continues: "And you're shorter than I remember." He raises the cigarette to his lips. "But your name's still the same."
Somehow, when Sanji's shoulders sag next to his own, it feels like both the closest and the farthest they've been to being on the same page this whole time. Luffy looks at his—not his?—cook sidelong for a moment, wondering what to say or how to bridge the gap. Feeling uncertain about that is a very unusual sensation for him: he always found it so easy to talk to Sanji. Even in the Baratie's mostly empty kitchen on that very first night, worn from what might actually be the only evening of honest work Luffy has ever done in his life, when they were just feeling out the edges of each other. When Luffy saw for himself Sanji's kind soul, and dreamer heart.
It sits in his gut weird and uncomfortable, like a lump of something too solid to eat. He doesn't like feeling like he's a stranger with one of the people he cares about most in the world. "Nami thinks there's something weird about this island. It kept showing up on the log pose and then disappearing, without resetting or anything." So maybe it's some bizarre, unpredictable Grand Line thing? Everyone keeps talking those up. Luffy's leg bounces in place, terribly restless, jostling against Sanji's because of the way they're sitting. He is not the 'figures out the mystery' guy, and he doesn't wanna be. The whole point of having a crew is so they can do the things that he can't, such as thinking about stuff like this. Stuff other than fighting. (And because he's got a bone-deep fear of loneliness, but that's neither here nor there.)
Anyway, does having curly hair make him so different? Does a little bit of facial hair mean Sanji isn't Sanji Sanji, no matter what his instinct says? Trying to fit the pieces together is not going anywhere helpful in Luffy's head, it keeps getting stopped on the biggest wall of difference that he can see (because he doesn't have the months of perspective that Sanji does), so he blurts out, totally non-sequitur: "Wait. Does that mean you don't like me?" If there are differences, and not just lost memories. It probably says something about Luffy that he hadn't even considered it as a possibility—that Sanji wasn't feeling insecure about Luffy's feelings, it just didn't make sense to him. For him.
Sanji's heart flutters at the mention of Nami's name. Beautiful and brainy—no matter how troublesome this memory business is, she's perfect! Oh, what he wouldn't give to see her, well and healthy, again. If she were here to impart her revelations and navigate them through this predicament, they might've figured out the mystery of this place by now.
As things stand, they're only a step closer—if that—to the elusive truth. Luffy's restlessness against his leg brings him back down from his high, and Sanji hunches forward with a hand around his chin. An island that shouldn't exist . . . If that's true, are their very existences at risk the longer they dawdle? He's about made up his mind to get up and move on when he blinks at the change in subject, his thoughts brought to a screeching halt by the shockingly forward question. Sanji draws back and squares his shoulders as he eyes Luffy, wondering again just what all of this is supposed to mean.
Of course he doesn't, he's primed to say. It's a simple answer to a simple question, yet his eyes narrow from the confliction raging in his heart. He likes Luffy well enough, but he hasn't once thought of him (without prompting) in ways that go beyond camaraderie. Still, the easy answer doesn't come in much the same way he inexplicably held himself back from asserting earlier that none of the crew is involved with each other. In a tone that's more bland than proud, Sanji replies, "I like women." This has been a fact of his life since he was a boy, even before he developed a physical attraction to the fairer sex. He will die as he lived, loving women with all of his being, and that's a damn good commitment as far as he's concerned.
Having said that, he can't shake the feeling that he's just given an excuse.
Luffy stares at him blankly for a moment that's probably too long to be comfortable, clearly waiting for the rest, a little lost. Then slowly, like he's not really putting two and two together, he ventures: "Okay?" He still wouldn't know a social more if it clocked him upside the head, and whatever hangups the world around them has about gender and attraction, Luffy just never paid enough attention to learn to care.
He's at something of an impasse here, though. Because being friends with Sanji—just being near him, having him around with his big heart and his prickly warmth and the way he constantly attends to the needs of others no matter how gruff he pretends to be—that's enough. That's more than enough. Luffy doesn't need everything else from him, even if all of it is fun and it feels like they only just started on that grand adventure, and he doesn't necessarily want to get off the ride so soon. As greedy as Luffy can be, he only wants to take and take and take if he's allowed to give and give and give back. There's no magic in it if Sanji doesn't want it just as much.
Besides, if he pushes, he feels like there will be the implication that it's a requirement (in his memories, they are still all so new to each other), and that will never be true. Sanji should feel whatever he feels, and Luffy will be content with that, but.
But.
That gnawing sense in his gut is still there, not so different from the one he got when Nami tried to break rank and run away, to go back to her grueling one-woman war all alone. It's the feeling that he thinks means he's watching the people he cares a whole lot about get in the way of their own happiness.
Or maybe it's just rejection, and he's fooling himself.
"I'm not a woman." Obviously. Luffy tilts his head, fixing the cook with a much sharper look than the blank one he'd been sporting a moment ago, like he's trying to see past every wall that Sanji has spent the last hour throwing up between them. "Does that mean you don't like me? Seems like a really silly reason." Sorry, Sanji. He's going to make you say it.
He purses his lips. Of course, Luffy wouldn't buy the deflection. If Sanji is honest with himself, it is a silly reason.
The truth is that he likes Luffy—likes all of the crew, even the stupid swordsman—as much as he favors Nami and Robin. Next to Zeff, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that they're everything to him. Without Luffy, he'd still be serving away at the Baratie, dream of finding the All Blue be damned. He can't say that he doesn't like Luffy, who's impossibly larger than life and capable of moving hearts, because it would be a bald-faced lie; on the other hand, he can't say that he likes him, because . . . well, because he just can't.
There's nothing wrong with being a friend to women and then something more with men. For a heart as accepting as Luffy's, it only makes sense to be more with both. But loving women—entertaining daydreams about showering them with everything he has to give—has always been easy for Sanji, easier than it's ever been with his own. He feeds men as he does women, but he doesn't romance them. No, he kicks them, shouts himself hoarse, and asserts his pride, so they'll never doubt the value his otherwise worthless self brings to the table. He likes Luffy, but the sort of tenderness that was described and shown to Sanji earlier isn't something he does with other men.
Plainly speaking, he doesn't know how. That isn't how he was raised. And it's too awkward to change that now, and now is definitely not the time to be exploring this.
In summation, he can't be the person this guy claims to like and kiss on the regular. Sanji tries, and fails, not to think about those honeyed words about his cooking and smile from before as he grimaces under Luffy's withering stare. He shouldn't be entertaining this, yet he can't stop himself from chomping at the bit to retort, "Oh, yeah? Then what reasons have I given you before to say that I like you? Answer me that!"
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Zoro is an invaluable member of the crew. He's done things for them that nobody else could have—things that still weigh on Sanji's jittery shoulders. If Zoro is their guardian, then Usopp is their braveheart. He's the closest to Luffy in age, and the two of them bring life wherever they go, being noisy at the worst of times and uplifting at the best. Sanji has no qualms with admitting to himself that Zoro and Usopp are good people, and he's beginning to see that good people are Luffy's type.
Funny, how going from two to four makes all the difference. Sanji has no reason to take issue with that, not when he thrills in the idea of polyamory himself. Luffy's heart is big, so it reasons that he would love big, too.
"Huh?"
Caught up in his thoughts as he is, Sanji is sorely underprepared for the love bomb Luffy drops on him without preamble. He blinks once, then twice, and then some more while he gapes like a guppy. His eyes grow increasingly wide with every compliment Luffy pays him, even the idiotic ones ("it's like it's a secret"? He's lean, not skinny!) that are quintessentially Luffy yet not. Sanji is aware of what he can do as a cook and a leg specialist; those are things on which he prides himself, so praise in either realm feels earned. But then Luffy talks about Sanji's face and feelings while flushed himself, and that rips the breath out of his lungs as if a gust has torn through him.
He didn't think that was possible.
"What about that doesn't make sense?" asks Luffy. Everything, Sanji almost shouts. All of it edges too close to the nebulous truth he's kept inside for the better part of his adolescence, yet still Luffy perorates such heartfelt words. "It makes sense to me," he'd said. What's with him? Who taught him that? Those are things Sanji never expected to hear—not even from the fictitious ladies in his most indulgent fantasies, because he would never burden a woman with his worries, and certainly not from another man.
And what lovely words they are, so much so that Sanji's entire face begins to tremble before he realizes it. He tenses, shutting out the tremors in exchange for a pinched look, as he balls his free hand into a fist. "You," he says, swallowing past the dryness of his throat and willing his voice not to sound so thin, "you're serious."
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For once, he's not sure if he should keep going or if he should let up. Usually he doesn't hesitate, but something about all of that had made him feel a little vulnerable, too, in ways he usually doesn't. Like it's too complex, even though everything felt so simple before.
This time when he reaches for Sanji, he just grabs his hand, the one smeared with blood from his nose where he'd either tried to stop it or hide it, Luffy isn't sure. He plucks up the bottom of his vest at the same time, and uses his own shirt to wipe the blood off wordlessly. It'll blend in with the red easily enough, and he knows Sanji doesn't like his hands being dirty but he never wipes anything off onto his own clothes, so Luffy can't just leave him like that. When he's satisfied that he's mostly fixed the issue, he reluctantly drops Sanji's hand again before he can get pushed away.
Baby steps.
"Are you done being weird?" Sorry, Sanji. He's still not polite at all. "We have to figure out what happened to the Merry."
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Sanji doesn't do gentle with men. Much as he loves Zeff and considers the Baratie to be his first home, there's never been a soft moment between any combination of them. Having the blood from his hand wiped on Luffy's vest is objectively gross, but the underlying tenderness is an entire distraction of its own. By the time Luffy lets go, it's as if Sanji's palm and fingers are on fire from how intensely they tingle.
And he's the weird one, apparently.
He needs to sit down. Even better, Lady Luck is on his side for once: An excuse to work off the excitement pumping through his body presents itself on a silver platter, and Sanji seizes it with long strides past Luffy as he says in a low voice, "Wait here. I'll take a look."
If this really is Luffy, there's no way he'll heed the command to stay still. Sanji doesn't mind, though. He has something else to focus on now, and it's the flawless execution of the steps he's been perfecting ever since he fled in the sole direction left to him. Wiping the blood from his face with the back of his hand, he steps into the clearing of sand beyond the edge of the forest and looks up at the clouds spotting the blue sky. He bends his legs, then takes the leap of faith into the air, where one kick after another eventually brings him to a decent vantage point overhead.
Things are quiet in the sky. The earth always moves while the sea never stops roaring. The clouds, on the other hand, are silent witnesses to Sanji as he surveys the shore below them. No matter where he looks, the Merry is nowhere to be seen. Naturally, the Sunny is also absent.
The fall isn't nearly as exhilarating as the rise. Still, there's a certain satisfaction to the feeling of the wind as it rushes past him. One shoe hits the sand, followed by another, and Sanji lands with his back to where he last left Luffy.
"The Merry isn't here. In fact, there's not a single ship anchored around this part of the shore."
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He finds himself regretting not pushing things, a little bit. Especially when Sanji moves on so determinedly and Luffy is left wondering if he actually got through to him after all.
There's no time to really dwell on that, though, because: "Huh?!" he protests instantly, despite the fact that Sanji getting all bossy with that low voice is really kinda distracting. "I'm not gonna just—"
Apparently he is gonna just wait there, because he's suddenly incredibly busy gaping as Sanji leaves his side by walking past him (rude), and then before Luffy can take more than two hasty steps to follow, going straight up in the air. His surprised shout chases Sanji up past the tree line and trails off into the clouds, and by the time Sanji lands again, Luffy has grabbed the highest sturdy branches of the tree closest to the edge of the weird little forest and he has begun preparing to launch himself upwards into the sky like a slingshot as well.
To do what? Who knows. Float for a moment before crashing back down, in all likelihood. He just doesn't want to be left behind.
He anti-climactically lets his arms return to their normal length with a pair of rubbery snaps when that becomes no longer necessary, though. "You can fly?!" Luffy makes an immediate addition to the list of his favorite things about Sanji because: "That's so cool! Have you always been able to do that? Why didn't you tell me?" He's worried about the news of the ship, but not so much that he can't stop to goggle at his cook's amazing skills. Besides, just like he's not alone here, the Merry isn't alone either. Nami and Usopp will figure out what to do, definitely, and Zoro will keep them safe.
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Sanji reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. It can stand to be drier, so he doesn't bother to light the stick as he slots it between his lips. Just having it there is enough for occupying restless nerves, and he can't afford to blow through the only pack on his person too soon.
Now that he's heard them again, he finds that he'd been missing the familiar stretch and snap of rubber. Just like the sounds of sizzling oil in a pan and a blade against the cutting board, they're home. This isn't a revolutionary thought by any means, but considering their exchange earlier, well . . .
"Anyway, the Merry is gone." Has been, but he keeps that to himself for now. He shoves a hand in his pant pocket. "What now?"
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That doesn't mean Luffy's impulse control is going to last forever, especially if exploration doesn't rustle up something exciting and dangerous to do, but it does mean Sanji is being given a few moments of grace to try to grasp at normalcy.
Because like... now that he's thinking about it, Luffy wonders what would happen if he pulled out all the stops? All those little tricks he's learned over the last few weeks, about exactly what Sanji likes when he's being kissed? The way his cheeks get so much warmer when Luffy picks him up by the thighs, and holds him up against the wall without real effort? The noise he makes when Luffy presses on his tongue piercing, and coaxes it into his own mouth? It feels like it would be cheating, almost. Luffy is a pirate so he's just fine playing a little dirty, but he's still not sure exactly what will make this confusing version of his cook too angry to want to mess around.
Besides: "that's why we came here anyway, right? There's gotta be something fun on this island! The others will find a way to get to us." He offers Sanji's shoulder a comforting pat, though Sanji didn't seem particularly worried about it in the first place, before he turns on his heel and starts marching jauntily towards the darkness beyond the dense line of trees. Adventure awaits!
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Once Luffy's back is turned to him, Sanji glances at the phantom weight on his shoulder. He passes his suit jacket to his other hand and flips it over said shoulder, disguising the intangible press with something real. Then he falls into step behind Luffy before his mind can get away from him, and it's just like old times as he slides into the familiar rhythm of a simple jaunt with ease.
"I was checking out the perimeter before you showed up," he says around the unlit cigarette in his mouth. While there's no paved road, there are beaten paths that suggest the presence of wildlife, dimly illuminated by what meager rays of light that have managed to penetrate the canopy of trees towering over them. Old leaves crunch and brittle twigs snap under their feet as they walk, deafeningly sharp in the natural silence that he continues to talk over: "It gets darker the deeper you go. Seeing as you're used to this sort of thing, though, it shouldn't be a problem for you."
He figures a jungle and a forest share enough similarities for experience in one to be serviceable in the other. As for Sanji, he has enough common sense (and recent experience of his own, however begrudging) to compensate for the excess of time he's spent on ships all his life. Together, they'll make do.
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It turns out that years living and hunting in the jungle has not made Luffy a silent, graceful presence among the trees (there is a reason he had to learn to hunt predators, rather than prey animals.) No, instead he goes stomping through the dense foliage like someone who can easily punch a tiger's teeth out of its face... or in this particular case, bounce right back after eating shit over some roots, which is precisely what he ends up doing once he takes his eyes off the path ahead to make a joke at Sanji.
"Oof!" Truly, he is an idiot.
He's an idiot who can cackle at himself though, at least, and he dusts off the crunchy leaves and dirt from his knees once he clambers back up to his feet. Lesson learned, he slows his pace just enough to stick next to Sanji instead of continuing to plow on ahead (at least for the next minute or two, who knows how long it will last), following one of the wildlife trails for lack of anywhere else to start. "Hey, Sanji. In the months I don't remember... we've had fun, right?" He doesn't want the grand adventure spoiled, exactly, but he wants to know he's at least brought his crew some happiness while they're together.
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Then they're walking shoulder to shoulder. Sanji doesn't mind it, nor does he expect it to last. The way Luffy marches on with aplomb is a bigger comfort than he'd care to admit—easy to track, too—and he strides into the encroaching darkness without a break in pace when a question is posed to him.
There are few things that Luffy truly hates despite his many vices; if his uncharacteristic outburst at the lovely Shakky's bar is anything to go by, having an adventure spoiled is one of them. The journey itself means everything to him, so Sanji won't ruin it with a boring retelling. Erring on the side of caution is better, anyway (even if he can't quite put his finger on what it is that he's avoiding).
"Yeah. It's the Grand Line, after all." Of course, it hasn't been just fun and games. Things were like that even before they left the East Blue, though, and have no bearing on the answer. The question is whether or not they've been enjoying themselves as intended, because Luffy cares deeply about the crew. Raising the subject of Sabaody Archipelago will only serve to unnecessarily stress him out; ergo, Sanji doesn't bring it up. "It's been one adventure after another. You'd have to see some of the things we've seen to believe them."
sorry this is so late!! got real busy
Though speaking of things being off: "Why is your eyebrow all curly now?" Is that something Sanji was just shaving off before?? Maybe he should have been more nosy. He tacks on: "It looks cool," in case it's a fashion statement that Luffy just isn't stylish enough to understand, which is definitely possible (probable, even.)
Eventually the animal tracks lead towards a cave system, the entrance to which clearly tilts downwards into the ground, so it becomes impossible to follow them in the damp dirt of the forest floor. Unwilling to give up on the idea of finding meat somewhere on the island while they wait for the Merry to show back up, Luffy only wastes a moment peering into the cave's pitch black depths before snapping a rubbery arm up into a nearby tree and yanking down a medium-sized branch right off its trunk. He cracks the green wood in half at the start of further branching to get rid of all the leaves, and then he squeezes the top bit between his impossibly strong fingers a few times to make the wood there start splintering and fraying. It's not pretty, but it'll work as a torch for a little while even without anything useful like cloth and oil to wrap around the top. "Hey, can you set this on fire?" Because he knows Sanji's got a lighter on him. And look! For once he's got enough sense not to barrel right into the darkness! (Even if he definitely doesn't have any plans for when the stick eventually burns itself out right on his hands, probably while they're way down in the dark cave.)
all good! take your time, and welcome back. ♥
The unease only grows at Luffy's quick thinking with the branch. Sanji regards the makeshift torch in silence, rolling the cigarette to-and-fro with his lips. While it's not the greatest idea, the fact that there's an idea at all is bizarre. He feels around his pocket for a lighter. Is this a sign of maturation or something else?
Either way, he isn't afraid of the dark. With a click and a fwip, a small flame flares to life above Sanji's hand. He tilts it toward the branch, but doesn't close the gap just yet. "I can, but what are you gonna do once it burns itself out? You'll burn your hand."
thank you ♥!!
Also because he's caught. Luffy's expression goes slack like he doesn't have an answer for that entirely reasonable question... because he doesn't. "Uh," he looks down at his fingers, considers that he doesn't want to burn himself but he's not particularly concerned about it either, because he never is about stuff like that. Then he grins like he solved the problem, which is ridiculous because all he's got is: "We can just explore really fast! It'll be fine." He wiggles the stick expectantly, though he does at least tack on: "It burns slow if it's a really new stick. It's still wet inside and stuff." Behold, your wise leader!
It's an explanation from an exhausted brother long ago, probably. Luffy parrots it more than really grasps it, but the effect is the same, so what can you do? "Come on, there could be meat down there!" Ah, so he admits to his true motives.
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"You, explore fast? Give me a break!" There's little doubt in Sanji's mind that Luffy will move along quickly, but this and the penchant for getting distracted are separate matters. The lighter clinks shut with the flick of his wrist, extinguishing the flame. "If it's that wet, the smoke will make it impossible to see down there."
He glances around, assessing their dim surroundings before taking languid steps over to a sizable boulder nearby. He drops his weight onto it with his back hunched, then draws his gaze up in Luffy's direction. "We'll wait for it to dry out some more," he says, plucking the unlit cigarette out of his mouth and gesturing with the same hand. The wet stick is an excuse more than anything, but that's hardly important in the face of what he really wants to pursue. Despite his initial plan to wait, it's bothering him a little too much; the sooner he gets to the bottom of the mystery, the better. "There's something we need to talk about first."
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So he resigns himself to sagging onto the rock as well, a lightly drooping creature made entirely of disappointment at his adventure (his imagined meal) being postponed, and then he plasters his too-pliant rubber body against the cook's side almost immediately as retribution for making them stop. He does wave his stick listlessly out in front of them like he's trying to dry it out with the air, though, playing along with Sanji's excuse. Or genuinely believing it, who knows with Luffy?
"About what?" The words come out too round, because his cheek is pressed against Sanji's still damp shoulder now, and it'll stay there until he gets properly shaken off (or struck by another flight of fancy.) A beat. "... If it's because of something I ate, I can't remember, so you can't be mad at me." Flawless logic, clearly.
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No, he's not going to dwell on that train of thought.
He plants a hand on the side of Luffy's head and pushes without real strength behind the motion. If that ridiculous defense is about the fridge, Luffy never could help himself. By rote, Sanji admonishes, "Quit stealing the food before it's ready." Then he lets go.
"Anyway, that's not it." He cranes his neck toward Luffy. "You said something interesting about my face earlier."
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He doesn't even acknowledge that it happened, he just tilts his chin enough to make eye contact and grin at him when Sanji cranes his neck and looks down, comfortable as can be.
"Huh?" He does blink at the question, though, eyes drifting to the side like he's genuinely casting back for what he may or may not have said. "That I like the way it looks when people tell you that your food is tasty?" A beat. "Oh! Or that I like the way you smile when you talk about the All Blue?" Alright, he is maybe being a little tiny bit obtuse on purpose, but he's just still not convinced that he actually managed to get through to Sanji earlier, so.
That doesn't mean he's not actually curious about what he'd asked just a few moments ago, though, so he does eventually acquiesce with: "Or because your eyebrow is all swirly now?" He reaches up with his free hand to touch the center of the curl with the pad of his pointer finger, a little boop, if Sanji doesn't move to intercept.
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"I'm talking about my eyebrows!" hisses Sanji, jerking his head back after the poke. He isn't particularly attached to his eyebrows. They're unusual—more bizarre than exotic—and everyone (excluding this guy) always has something to say about them in the vein of teasing. He cups his knee opposite of Luffy, tensing his shoulders and legs, as he looks back with narrowed eyes and an appraising gaze. "Yeah, that's what I thought," he says, evenly in spite of his growing misgivings. "You have no clue that they've always been this way, do you?"
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He knows he can be a little oblivious about most things, but usually if there's something strange looking about a person, that is what immediately sticks in his head as a nickname. Which is deeply rude of him, obviously, but if no one has managed to bully manners into him at his big age, it's probably never going to happen.
Besides, Luffy likes people who look weird and catch attention. Sanji's looks do catch attention obviously, but not like that, and Luffy knows he definitely would have noticed the curl even if he hadn't spent the last few weeks getting very close and too personal with the cook's face at least once a day. "No, you never told me," Luffy's own bushier brows furrow, trying to figure out what that means. Is it a sore spot? Hmm... "So you were just shaving it off before? Why?"
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"I don't shave my eyebrows." Quirky though they may be, there are stranger features out there. Even the cooks back at the Baratie are outlandish in their own ways, and then there are Wanze and Duval, so nobody can talk. "And last I saw, your hair didn't look like that."
That fact means nothing by itself when considering the length of time they've spent apart. Combined with the details that haven't been adding up since the start, however, he has to wonder again: who is this rubber man? Or should the question be, what happened to Luffy? In his heart of hearts, Sanji finds it oddly difficult to dismiss the person sitting beside him. As such, he sounds more tentative than suspicious when he asks, "Are you really Luffy?"
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His brain hurts, like it usually does when he's trying to think too hard about things that aren't fighting or meat or adventures. And here he'd fully resolved to ignore all the things that didn't make sense and simply have fun instead! Honestly, Sanji is so rude.
"Of course I'm Luffy! Who else would I be?" His arms cross, stubborn, a touch incensed by the implication that he would pretend to be anything other than what he is—Monkey D. Luffy, the man who's going to be King of the Pirates. He doesn't bother to return the question, if only because his gut says that's Sanji, and questioning his gut is really not his style, even in totally absurd situations. But, saying that... his gut instinct doesn't get him any closer to an answer this time. After a moment his shoulders sag, and he drops his stick into his lap, all pretense relinquished. "I don't understand." Just, in general. Everything going on right now.
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His shoulders sag, relaxing by a margin. If you can't beat them, join them.
"You wear your hair shorter. It's straight," he clarifies. Curls give the illusion of less length, after all. Then again, even straightened Luffy's hair would sometimes get in his eyes. Every difference is struck by a similarity; it's a frustrating train of thought that yields no answers as he continues: "And you're shorter than I remember." He raises the cigarette to his lips. "But your name's still the same."
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It sits in his gut weird and uncomfortable, like a lump of something too solid to eat. He doesn't like feeling like he's a stranger with one of the people he cares about most in the world. "Nami thinks there's something weird about this island. It kept showing up on the log pose and then disappearing, without resetting or anything." So maybe it's some bizarre, unpredictable Grand Line thing? Everyone keeps talking those up. Luffy's leg bounces in place, terribly restless, jostling against Sanji's because of the way they're sitting. He is not the 'figures out the mystery' guy, and he doesn't wanna be. The whole point of having a crew is so they can do the things that he can't, such as thinking about stuff like this. Stuff other than fighting. (And because he's got a bone-deep fear of loneliness, but that's neither here nor there.)
Anyway, does having curly hair make him so different? Does a little bit of facial hair mean Sanji isn't Sanji Sanji, no matter what his instinct says? Trying to fit the pieces together is not going anywhere helpful in Luffy's head, it keeps getting stopped on the biggest wall of difference that he can see (because he doesn't have the months of perspective that Sanji does), so he blurts out, totally non-sequitur: "Wait. Does that mean you don't like me?" If there are differences, and not just lost memories. It probably says something about Luffy that he hadn't even considered it as a possibility—that Sanji wasn't feeling insecure about Luffy's feelings, it just didn't make sense to him. For him.
That sits in his gut even worse, if possible.
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As things stand, they're only a step closer—if that—to the elusive truth. Luffy's restlessness against his leg brings him back down from his high, and Sanji hunches forward with a hand around his chin. An island that shouldn't exist . . . If that's true, are their very existences at risk the longer they dawdle? He's about made up his mind to get up and move on when he blinks at the change in subject, his thoughts brought to a screeching halt by the shockingly forward question. Sanji draws back and squares his shoulders as he eyes Luffy, wondering again just what all of this is supposed to mean.
Of course he doesn't, he's primed to say. It's a simple answer to a simple question, yet his eyes narrow from the confliction raging in his heart. He likes Luffy well enough, but he hasn't once thought of him (without prompting) in ways that go beyond camaraderie. Still, the easy answer doesn't come in much the same way he inexplicably held himself back from asserting earlier that none of the crew is involved with each other. In a tone that's more bland than proud, Sanji replies, "I like women." This has been a fact of his life since he was a boy, even before he developed a physical attraction to the fairer sex. He will die as he lived, loving women with all of his being, and that's a damn good commitment as far as he's concerned.
Having said that, he can't shake the feeling that he's just given an excuse.
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He's at something of an impasse here, though. Because being friends with Sanji—just being near him, having him around with his big heart and his prickly warmth and the way he constantly attends to the needs of others no matter how gruff he pretends to be—that's enough. That's more than enough. Luffy doesn't need everything else from him, even if all of it is fun and it feels like they only just started on that grand adventure, and he doesn't necessarily want to get off the ride so soon. As greedy as Luffy can be, he only wants to take and take and take if he's allowed to give and give and give back. There's no magic in it if Sanji doesn't want it just as much.
Besides, if he pushes, he feels like there will be the implication that it's a requirement (in his memories, they are still all so new to each other), and that will never be true. Sanji should feel whatever he feels, and Luffy will be content with that, but.
But.
That gnawing sense in his gut is still there, not so different from the one he got when Nami tried to break rank and run away, to go back to her grueling one-woman war all alone. It's the feeling that he thinks means he's watching the people he cares a whole lot about get in the way of their own happiness.
Or maybe it's just rejection, and he's fooling himself.
"I'm not a woman." Obviously. Luffy tilts his head, fixing the cook with a much sharper look than the blank one he'd been sporting a moment ago, like he's trying to see past every wall that Sanji has spent the last hour throwing up between them. "Does that mean you don't like me? Seems like a really silly reason." Sorry, Sanji. He's going to make you say it.
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The truth is that he likes Luffy—likes all of the crew, even the stupid swordsman—as much as he favors Nami and Robin. Next to Zeff, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that they're everything to him. Without Luffy, he'd still be serving away at the Baratie, dream of finding the All Blue be damned. He can't say that he doesn't like Luffy, who's impossibly larger than life and capable of moving hearts, because it would be a bald-faced lie; on the other hand, he can't say that he likes him, because . . . well, because he just can't.
There's nothing wrong with being a friend to women and then something more with men. For a heart as accepting as Luffy's, it only makes sense to be more with both. But loving women—entertaining daydreams about showering them with everything he has to give—has always been easy for Sanji, easier than it's ever been with his own. He feeds men as he does women, but he doesn't romance them. No, he kicks them, shouts himself hoarse, and asserts his pride, so they'll never doubt the value his otherwise worthless self brings to the table. He likes Luffy, but the sort of tenderness that was described and shown to Sanji earlier isn't something he does with other men.
Plainly speaking, he doesn't know how. That isn't how he was raised. And it's too awkward to change that now, and now is definitely not the time to be exploring this.
In summation, he can't be the person this guy claims to like and kiss on the regular. Sanji tries, and fails, not to think about those honeyed words about his cooking and smile from before as he grimaces under Luffy's withering stare. He shouldn't be entertaining this, yet he can't stop himself from chomping at the bit to retort, "Oh, yeah? Then what reasons have I given you before to say that I like you? Answer me that!"
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