ᴍᴏɴᴋᴇʏ ᴅ. ʟᴜғғʏ (ex_rubber515) wrote in valloic, @ 2024-02-01 11:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, one piece: sanji, ~plot: flipped vallo, ₴ inactive: monkey d luffy |
Luffy was absolutely sure there were Things to be done, somewhere in the vicinity of many to too many and he was also absolutely sure that they were all Very Important Things to be done, given - well, everything. The fact a handful of them had been captured, the sudden appearance of people from a whole other Vallo who had expected all of them to be different, that there was a whole other Vallo in general.
But Luffy was also absolutely sure he was starving and needed a nap, because apparently being captured for a couple weeks left one hungry and tired. He was also more than a little aware he was not nearly as okay as he had claimed to be to anyone who asked. So he cleaned up as best as he could and found his way to the kitchens area to find the person who could help with the lingering icky feeling and hunger. The nap, he figured, could come later.
It was quiet, but even if the area had been bustling with people it wouldn't have stopped Luffy from walking straight to Sanji and invading his personal space. He all but went boneless against Sanji, his forehead dropping to rest on Sanji's chest and his arms around Sanji's back. Honestly Luffy wondered if he could get away with napping right there.
" 'm hungry," he said, muffled a little, and made absolutely no effort to move so Sanji could do anything about that.
Luffy's absence had been like a missing limb. More than one really. Certainly worse than his damaged hands, which even now worked slowly and diligently to prepare a stew. It wasn't the expertly prepared sushi of a few years ago, but it would be tasty and it gave him time in between chopping ingredients to rest his hands and take a sip from the very cheap bottle of wine he'd managed to scrounge up.
He sensed Luffy's approach like the sun rising on a cold day and he turned just in time to find himself enveloped in familiar arms. He set the bottle down and hugged Luffy's head and shoulders tightly.
"That's like saying you're breathing," he teased gently. Brushing a hand over Luffy's riotous hair, Sanji pulled back to get a look at his captain's face. "The stew is going to take some time. I thought you'd sleep for a while." He'd promised himself he'd let Luffy sleep even if he had peeked in on him a number of times already.
Him and Zoro.
"How do you feel?" Sanji frowned.
It didn't magically erase the past couple of weeks, but the closeness made Luffy start to feel a little bit more like himself as he took a few deep breaths and soaked up the warmth of Sanji. He made a little huff of a laugh at Sanji's comment. "Hungrier?" he came back with.
"I wanted to see you," he said simply as he disentangled himself a little from Sanji, though not going far, looping an arm around Sanji's waist and tucking himself into Sanji's side. Sleep would come, but Luffy needed this right then - to be close to his person. To remember good things still existed in the world they'd found themselves in.
"Can I help?" he asked, eyeing the ingredients on the counter, avoiding the question that was asked.
Sanji didn't like Luffy not answering his question. But he'd be lying if he said he hadn't wanted to see Luffy too. He looped an arm around Luffy's shoulder and pressed a gloved hand to his bicep.
"Maybe." Sanji squinted at him. "Hard to say when you didn't say how you're feeling." He couldn't help but hug Luffy anyway. This time away, with no way to know if Luffy was alright or being tortured in some singularly terrible way - it had left its mark. If he could keep Luffy at his hip while he made stew, he would. Even if guilt was eating him alive.
"I'll make you a deal. You can chop potatoes if you talk to me while you do it." He reached around Luffy and collected a knife carefully with a gloved hand. He held it out to Luffy hilt first. "Not about food either. Talk about that place or how you are or…Just talk. I missed your voice."
Luffy eyed the knife, the one that came with conditions. Even if he didn't really blame Sanji for said conditions, he knew well enough to know it came from a place of worry. So he gave a bemused little smile and took the knife hilt. "Deal."
He grabbed a couple potatoes and brought them closer to himself to set about chopping them into bite sized pieces. And while he had agreed to the terms it still took him a moment to collect his thoughts to speak. A rarity for him, at least on most days. When it came to matters of his own personal state though it wasn't. Luffy never quite figured out how to talk about certain things.
"It kind of sucked," he admitted though, a small shrug of his shoulders as his gaze stayed locked on his potato dicing task. "They are all very angry, sometimes I think maybe they just need to have a good dinner, maybe they're just really hungry all the time," he continued, a bit off the point but the spirit was there.
"Sometimes Serefin tried to do weird magic on me," a pause as he bit his lower lip, the pain still a clear memory. "The echoes would come usually though." For that Luffy was grateful, he had no doubt it would have been a million times worse if not. "Sometimes it was just… boring." A scrunch of his nose. Boring itself was its own torture for Luffy. "Just being kept locked up, nothing to do, no one to talk to." He popped a piece of potato in his mouth. "Really boring."
Luffy's good heart never ceased to amaze Sanji. His eyes lingered fondly on Luffy's profile, as surprise and then anger coursed through him. Serefin would pay. One day, one way or another, he'd find a way to repay everyone who hurt Luffy. But something felt so strange about making that promise in his head. Part of him thought it was wrong. That Serefin wasn't like that. The strange thoughts didn't seem to be going away. If anything they seemed to be getting worse.
"I prefer you being bored over getting experimented on." Sanji wrinkled his nose and reached over to tweak Luffy affectionately on the chin. "And stop eating those. They aren't even seasoned yet." In all honesty, they wouldn't get much better. Seasonings were few and far between. But he would find the best he had for Luffy's return home. And he supposed Zoro could have some too. If Sanji's pulse could stop skyrocketing everytime the dumb swordsman was in the room.
"What do you think about the Mosshead showing up after all this time?" He sounded quiet and thoughtful. "I mean…it could be a trap. These people. All of it."
"I'm just glad everyone got out." It had been his biggest worry really, the others who had been captured too, the people left behind.
"They're still good," he said in defense of his choice of food, a smile directed at Sanji at the chin tweak. But Luffy would eat just about anything so his opinion was probably not the best. And just to make his point he popped another little piece in his mouth before he set about cutting again.
He was quiet for a moment as he thought over the question, it had been quite the whirlwind to see Zoro in the rescue team, to meet Robin. To find out there were others from a different sort of Vallo. "I don't want to think it is," he said and glanced up at Sanji before going back to his task. "Did you get those…" a pause as he tried to find the right word to describe it "flashes? I can't remember much of them, but it was like - different memories?" He half thought it was just a result of something Serefin had done but now, with all the people showing up, he wasn't so sure.
"I know, I know." Sanji knew Luffy would always see the good in people. And if he was being fair, he'd spent days with these new arrivals and most of them seemed like truly decent people. Heroes even. It was only Zoro that had Sanji's head spinning for days on end. "I don't actually think it's a trap. They helped us get you all out and they've been helping around the base. Robin is nice. Kind. And I did get a few glimpses…of a different life. That might be with all them? I don't know. I just…"
He sighed and reached for some of the potatoes Luffy had chopped and tossed them into the soup pot boiling on the induction stovetop with a distracted plop.
"Zoro kissed me. That's practically how he said hello, just walked into the garden and planted one on me!" He told himself he'd take this to the grave but Luffy was his safe space and always had been. It spilled out before he could reel it back in. "Anyway. It's not important! I just think we should be cautious about all of this. Them. Whatever their plans are now."
"Because he likes you," Luffy said without hesitation, a half formed memory that suddenly decided to dig its heels in. "Likes likes you."
You are a brave fighter, Zoro, be brave with this too. Luffy's mouth squished together as the moment fell from his mind. But he knew almost all his conversations with Zoro before here like the back of his hand, that was one he did not remember. Another life maybe. Another Luffy. He shook his head, it was a confusing thought.
"Did you kiss him back?" Asked like someone might ask about the weather, as a sinking feeling that he hated settled into the pit of his stomach, screaming don't leave me behind.
"He doesn't hardly know me," Sanji argued, frowning. He felt a bit like a placecard for the Sanji that Zoro did know and it was a bittersweet feeling, knowing that they had possibly formed a true connection, but that it hadn't been with him. Every time they spoke, he found himself making the mistake of taking Zoro's words as if they were only meant for him. Foolish. Naive. He seasoned the soup almost a little too aggressively.
"But yes, fine, I kissed him back. I haven't been kissed in a long time and I didn't--I don't know. I took advantage of the offer I suppose, even if it wasn't really meant for me." Sanji moved to start cutting up a few more vegetables to add to the pot. "I would much prefer to talk about how you feel about them being here than this," he grumbled as he salted a piece of zucchini and held it up to Luffy's mouth.
"You're still Sanji and he is still Zoro," Luffy pointed out. As though it were that simple. Which to him, it was. Luffy knew they had been through a lot in their years in Vallo, but he didn't think they were so far gone from themselves that they still weren't who they were before all this. At least in the ways it really mattered.
He leaned forward to eat the piece of offered zucchini. "I am happy to see them, but I wish they were not here," he paused and looked up at Sanji. "I don't wish here on anyone," he added, because it wasn't for lack of wanting them around, it was if there was somewhere better they could be, he would want that. For all his friends.
Trust Luffy to say 'you're still Sanji and he is still Zoro' like that was a good thing. They'd never done anything but butt heads before. And fight well together, yes, but still. Sanji sighed and recollected his bad wine to take a swig. It didn't help.
"They want us to come with them. Back to their world. I told them I wouldn't make a decision without you." It was the truest statement about him at this point, in any situation. Luffy was as entangled in his life as blood in his body. He took another drink anyway. "What do you think we should do?"
Luffy wasn't sure how that would work. If Zoro and Robin had come looking for another Luffy and Sanji, would there be two of them if he and Sanji went back with them? Would the other Sanji and Luffy just be gone? Would they form a Super Sanji and Super Luffy? What if something went wrong and they just up and disappeared?
It was enough to make his head hurt.
So he shrugged. "I think we should wait until we know more." And as though he himself just realized his suggestion of waiting and not just running head first into something his brow furrowed.
"But whatever we do, we do it together," he added, dropping a hand to Sanji's shoulder. That he was certain on, above anything else.
It was the sensible answer, even if it was coming from someone who was run on instincts and aggressive positive thinking. Sensible wasn't a word Sanji slapped on Luffy very often but facts were facts. He snorted a little laugh.
"You couldn't ditch me if you tried," he threatened cheerfully. Someone could separate them, like they had just recently, but that wasn't the same. And Sanji would've stayed closed looking for a way to save Luffy until he figured something out anyway. "But I guess you have a point. We don't know how it's going to play out. Odds are…we won't have as much choice in the matter as we might like."
That was the unfortunate truth of Vallo. He was resigned to it so it didn't sting as much as it could have. Carrying his chopping board over to the soup, he scooped the last of the cut vegetables into the mix, threw in a few pinches of seasonings like it was second nature, and then gave the pot a big stir.
"This has a while to cook down." The little space was starting to smell like venison and veggies already though. "Why don't you let me give you a haircut? Just a trim."
Luffy smiled warmly at Sanji's declaration. The same was true of him, Sanji was another part of himself and Luffy would do anything to keep them together.
He watched as Sanji finished setting the stew to cook, leaned against the counter and arms folded lightly against his chest. Watching Sanji cook held the same awe as watching someone fight for him, and he would never tire of it.
At the question he faked a look of horror and brought his hands up to the mop of curls on his head for a moment before he laughed. "It does need it doesn't it?" he agreed, blowing up out of his mouth to try to push a piece out of his eyes. "Hair, food, sleep," he amended his schedule and gave Sanji's shoulder a bump with his fist.
He started back towards the rooms to start in on the first, knowing Sanji would be right behind him.