Chapter Text
The copper stew pot needs to soak. The winter mugs need to switch shelves with the summer glasses. The carrots need to be peeled.
Sanji runs through his incomplete mental list of tasks he needs to do before Luffy wakes up and starts begging for breakfast. Becoming an Emperor didn’t change his hunger. If anything, he’s even more insatiable now that they’re back on the Thousand Sunny.
Weeks of being away while helping the people of Wano left the kitchen in utter disrepair. Sanji feels lucky that he was able to catch up so quickly; after only a few days, his daily routines are starting to look normal again.
Robin’s espresso needs brewed. Brook was on watch for the night so he's probably already hungry. Jinbe was hoping to add some comfort meals from his hometown to the rotation and Sanji doesn't even know where to begin to get half the ingredients outside of Fishman Island. Zoro's booze supply is running lower than Sanji likes to keep it. Nami's already warned him they'll only have a few hours to shop at the next island before the magnetic field will affect the log pose and put them off course. Even with the kitchen in ship-shape, it's looking like it will be a long, tedious day and he knows there are still more things to add to the to-do list.
Keeping his eyes clenched to shut out the morning light from the large bay window, chasing those last few precious moments of sleep, he finally rolls over to get out of bed but someone else is in the way. He's expecting Chopper's fur on someone this small but this person has smooth, flawless skin. His skin crawls because it reminds him of his brothers’ exoskeletons. His own exoskeleton.
Wait, the Sunny doesn’t have a bay window in the male dormitory.
His eyes bolt open.
Yonji, still asleep but jostled from Sanji's haphazard rolling, shoves him back into Niji who is sleeping on his other side. Ichiji, from Niji's other side, blearily rubs his eyes and looks at Sanji.
“Why are you up so early?” he asks.
Sanji, in shock, replies, “I have to prep the kitchen for breakfast.”
Ichiji scoffs, “This again? Just ask the staff to make something.” Sanji tenses at the familiar, degrading tone. “It's absurd for royalty like us to get our hands dirty. I'll never understand why you're playing at being a servant when your blood simply makes you better than them.”
Sanji looks down at his own hands. They're smaller than he ever remembered them being. There's a yellow adhesive bandage putting pressure on the pad on his thumb and he suddenly remembers the first time he'd cut his hand in the kitchen. He was seven-years old then.
Somehow, Sanji is currently inside an incredibly vivid memory from before the Germa scientists found out that the genetic modifications had “failed.”
Ignoring his own pounding heart, he looks back up to his brother who is inspecting his face but is very quickly losing interest in Sanji.
Sanji had forgotten that Ichiji had ever looked him in the eyes like this. He'd forgotten that he was ever included as a part of “us.”
Ichiji squirms out of bed and waves his hand dismissively in Sanji's direction. “Whatever this is, I'm out,” he says without looking back, “fix it before you show up at the breakfast table.” Ichiji's bare feet plod on the ground as he goes off to use the bathroom before his brothers can crowd him in.
Sanji, confused as to what specifically Ichiji expects him to fix, gasps quietly when he realizes that tears are running down his cheeks.
Damn these pre-pubescent child emotions. Any tears he'd had in regards to his relationship with his brothers dried up long before he saw them again on Whole Cake Island and his heart became steadfast after saving their lives and cementing his detachment from them, so why is he so moved by this memory? It's not even like his brothers are being nice to him; all they’ve done since he woke up was shove and nag him. Nevertheless, he scrubs the wetness from his face before his other brothers see.
Niji is the next to stir awake and Sanji flops back onto the mattress and pretends to be asleep. He’s not quite ready to confront his most aggressive brothers. While he's trying to forget that he's wedged between the two of them, Yonji clasps his hand and nuzzles into it.
In surprise, he rips his hand away so rapidly that he smacks himself in the lip. Niji chuckles and throws his weight on top of Sanji, grabbing at the wrist on the same side Yonji had held. Niji repeatedly jerks the hand so that Sanji ends up slapping his own face.
“Why you hitting yourself? Why you hitting yourself?” Niji jeers playfully. Sanji remembers Niji doing this to him in the past but he recalls that it was never this lighthearted once he'd been declared a failure.
Ready to play along, despite just waking up, Yonji grabs Niji's shoulders and they both roll over Sanji and overshoot onto the floor with a hollow thump. Niji scowls, hating to be overpowered, but isn't pinned for long. He breaks free and wallops the green swoop of hair on the crown of their youngest brother’s head. Yonji barely reacts to the hit and lunges at his legs.
The two boys don't address Sanji again as they stumble against each other, out the door, and down the hall. Sanji can hear Ichiji whine loudly as the rowdy boys make themselves known at the sink while he's trying to brush his teeth.
Sanji's alone and, despite waking up by himself in a hammock for the last few years, he's uncomfortable with the solitude. The bed is massive and he is so small.
He shakes himself out of it and remembers that he's actually twenty one-years old and this is just an extremely vivid dream. And he definitely doesn't miss his brothers. And he should probably stop having a glass of wine before bed.
Perfect, the last thing he wanted after confronting his newly manifested exoskeleton is to relive his experiences here in Germa. Maybe he should have insisted that Zoro follow through on their deal.
He huffs and relaxes into the lush mattress. Germa might be full of rotten scientists and heartless bastards, but they certainly have the money for good sheets. Sanji decides that this fact actually irks him and he waits for himself to wake up in the real world under his threadbare woven blanket (if Usopp hasn't reached over and plucked it off of him yet).
He waits.
Sanji doesn't dream often, and he's never lucid dreamed before. He assumes this is what's happening because he’s hyper-aware of his surroundings. Chopper told him all about it once, and Franky jumped in and shared his experiences with lucid dreaming which typically resulted in him turning into a huge tank and encountering hot delinquent babes (this captured Sanji's attention immediately). Usopp bragged that he has always been able to control what happens in his dreams but he ended up having the most questions for Chopper about how it works. Despite knowing that lucid dreams could spawn hot babes, Sanji was never able to figure out how to get it to work for him before now.
He tries to manifest an entire ensemble of buxom blondes, brunettes, and redheads, but no women appear. He cautiously pictures a few types of men, thinking maybe his subconscious knows he's not being entirely genuine in the complete picture of his fantasies, but no hunks appear either. He sighs and looks towards his child-sized feet. Probably for the best that his dreams don't veer towards explicit while he looks like this.
Frustrated that he can't make anything happen and no longer willing to probe his thoughts about his own sexuality, Sanji waits for himself to wake up again.
A quiet knock on the door distracts him from his swirling mind and he thinks he's finally made some headway when he turns to the doorway to see a young woman with sharp chin-length black hair and an hourglass figure looking back at him.
“Oh, Prince Sanji! Awake already, it looks like,” she beams. She has a far Northern accent that tickles Sanji's ears. He hasn't heard a voice like hers in what feels like a lifetime and he's surprised that his memory can even recall it accurately. When they were in Jaya, Robin had asked him if he was able to recreate the accent but he floundered the long and round vowels and she couldn't resist giggling at the attempt, making him flush with embarrassment.
“Your sister and brothers are waiting for you in the dining room. We should get you ready before your father arrives, yeah?” the mysterious maid continues. Knowing his father would never come up in an erotic dream, he resigns himself to playing along with this childhood storyline.
He springs out of bed and ostentatiously thanks the woman, allowing himself to give her a tight hug against her thigh as he strides past her. She pats his back gently, guiding him towards the bathroom as if she were herding a stray lamb, and he suddenly feels guilty for using his innocent appearance as an excuse to touch her. He reminds himself of his own protestations at Momonosuke’s lecherous groping of Nami and Robin under the guise of childish innocence.
Something in him, though, is seeking a comforting touch and his brain feels too scrambled to truly process it. Not to mention, his hunger is making itself known.
Food first, sorting out his complex emotions and figuring out how to wake up from his dream after.
Well, actually, bathroom first. He does his business, washes his hands, and cringes at the toothpaste mess his brothers left in the sink while he brushes his own teeth. The maid patiently waits in the hall for him to finish up.
Still feeling a little guilty, he restrains himself from holding her hand while she escorts him to the dining room.
He balks when they reach the large hexagonal double doors that lead to where his siblings are. Where their father will join them.
“I'm sorry,” he bursts, turning to face the woman, “what's your name again?”
Her smile reaches her eyes while she answers, “I am called Yvonne, your highness.”
Sanji bounces on the balls of his feet nervously. As much as he wants to blame his flirtatious nature for this exchange, he knows he's just stalling. “A beautiful name for a beautiful woman, Yvonne.” It's far from his best work, but his best work never garnered many results anyway.
“Ah, very kind, Prince Sanji. I have to say that your brothers were leagues more crass in their swooning this morning,” she drawls. “Down here, boys are far too young when they start chasing skirts.”
He appreciates her sharp tongue. She must not last long working in the castle; Sanji doesn't remember her being around. It doesn't help that Judge always hated strong-willed and opinionated women.
“Enough lollygagging, in you go.” She presses her hand into his back once more and forces him to step through the dreaded doors.
Sanji's eyes immediately settle on the large, purple, throne that looks down on the rest of the room with it’s ominous horned-skull ornamentation; the habit to check whether or not the King is looming above is ingrained in him. He's grateful that Judge hasn't arrived yet, but he's aware of the imminent threat and looks around to ease his nerves.
The room is adorned with oppressive velvet curtains around the perimeter, obnoxious repeating banners that hang from the ceiling to remind everyone what kingdom they're currently in (as if they could forget, no one comes to Germa for spontaneous tourism), and stuffy air. Directly behind the throne is an imposing eagle emblem, its stern eye focused on the center of the room where five egg-shaped chairs sit around a circular dining table. They're numbered 0 through 4 and all but one already has a child in it. Sanji is taken aback when he sees Reiju.
He's relived the events that brought him to The Orbit and started his life of freedom in the East Blue nearly every night since. He remembers Reiju as she was then: shoulder length pink hair; gangly limbs that she hadn't grown into yet; a calculating mask that hides her true expressions that only cracks when she opens the cage and releases her brother into the world with a gentle yet desperate push.
She doesn't look like the Reiju he remembers.
She is smiling and there is genuine interest pasted on her face as Yonji puts on a humorous little play which stars his silverware as the main actors. Niji reaches across the table to attack the makeshift puppets with his own spoon actor and Yonji is easily roused into another play fight.
Ichiji notices Sanji's arrival and his mouth draws tight.
“Hey, get over yourself. I told you to fix whatever this is.”
Sanji schools his own face, masking his shock and confusion the way his sister would have done. He had a lot of practice making this expression before his unfortunate wedding and Ichiji seems satisfied by the result.
He plops into his designated egg and notices Yvonne joining the staff-members who are forming lines on either side of the walkway. They stand with their shoulders back but with their eyes to the ground. This is how Judge expects them to behave when he enters a room.
His siblings have taken notice of the staff’s behavior as well and hastily put their table settings back into order. The fact that his brothers know the correct placement of the utensils, chargers, plates, and napkins comes as a surprise; yet, all of them have pristine settings by the time their father's silhouette envelops the doorway.
Sanji thought he would be scared when Judge appeared but he isn't. The man saunters down the path with the presence of a mountain lion yet Sanji can only see Judge as the sobbing and pissing man whose ego failed him at Big Mom's castle. The visual of his wet, beady eyes pleading for Sanji to save them equally haunts him and feeds a morbid sense of superiority within him. He doesn’t like to dwell on it but he doesn’t look away now either. For now, however, the mountain lion believes he’s the apex of the food chain and it’s a bad idea to look away from a predator.
Yonji's hand wanders under the tablecloth and finds itself lightly holding onto Sanji's knee. Reiju's mask is firmly back in place. Ichiji and Niji are looking in their own laps.
Sanji realizes that before they found validation in ganging up on him, no one knew how to interact with their father. They don't need emotions to read tension in the air. He looks at his brothers and sees three children who are not scared of their father but can tell that there are risks to upsetting him.
Reiju’s veiled stress—only visible in the way that she avoids eye-contact—speaks to the fact that she understands that their father only sees his children as tools.
He, on the other hand, won’t let Judge hide behind his intimidating persona and lets the corners of his mouth quirk up into a polite smile.
Judge’s brows furrow in response. “Sanji, you're looking chipper this morning,” he projects his voice even though Sanji is only a few feet from him. “Do you expect to have more desirable results on your exams this afternoon? Have you been practicing your sword training?”
Sanji feels the blood vessels in his head constrict and his vision goes spotty for a moment as a memory forces itself to the forefront of his mind. He remembers what yesterday was like—not the task-filled yet pleasant day of sailing he had on the Sunny—but the grueling day of falling behind his siblings in their endurance tests, slashing a dull blade across a dummy filled with straw over and over and over again until his arms threatened to pop out of his shoulders, and tucking into bed right after dinner because he was too exhausted to play with his brothers.
“Y-yes,” he stutters as he processes the feeling of a fourteen-year old memory getting flash-banged into clarity, “I did practice my swordsmanship yesterday.” He rubs his shoulder, now recognizing the dull ache of overuse. It’s a miserable pain. How does Zoro bear it? There’s no way he’ll continue fighting with his hands from now on so he declares with confidence, “Frankly, it feels like a waste of time. I'd rather go into martial arts.”
He feels his siblings’ stares as they all whip their heads to look at him but he still refuses to take his eyes off Judge. Reiju's eyes especially seem like they're about to fall out of her skull; it looks like she hasn’t mastered keeping up the perfect poker face yet.
Judge hums appreciatively. “Seems like your… anxiety has become more manageable as well.”
“I have nothing to be scared of.”
Again, Sanji lets himself indulge in the memory of when he had shattered the sugary prisons that were consuming his family and how it felt to stand on top of the table and glare at the man who told him never to call him ‘father.’ He has no reason to suck up to or change himself for a man who will never truly respect him, especially when his captain has no complaints. Judge tuts and slinks around the table and up the stairs to his own seat.
“Good, I'm glad you are finally starting to understand. None of my children will possess fear. You're all going to be formidable commanders for Germa 66 or you're going to die trying.”
Sanji suppresses a scoff. He's already been pronounced dead once.
“Sanji,” Judge says from the landing at the top of the stairs, fully looking down on his children, “you will never speak to me with that tone again. And if you continue to do so, I'll have your arms removed below the elbow and replaced with swords. I decide what path you'll take and you will continue to pursue swordsmanship.”
Judge might be a pathetic excuse for a father (with an admittedly weak track record of successfully threatening Sanji’s hands), but he always seems to know just how to trigger a stress response in a child's endocrine system. Sanji keeps his mouth shut and just nods.
Once Judge sits, he waves a hand and the servers begin to deliver food and drinks to the dining table.
An older gentleman with a beer-belly lifts the silver lid from Sanji's plate and presents a small but hearty serving of buttered mashed potatoes, pork sausage, and breaded green beans. A soft woman with silver hair offers orange juice and milk; Sanji chooses milk.
Sanji's stomach growls and he quickly assesses that all of his siblings have their meals before diving in. Judge isn’t served but he doesn't eat in the throne room; he takes his meals privately beforehand and makes his family wait to be served until he can show up and observe them from above.
The meal is filling and warm, yet Sanji can’t help but resent that his subconscious has provided an incredibly accurate reproduction of the bland food from his childhood.
Every meal in Germa consisted of a separate starch, protein, and vegetable. It was a very cookie-cutter menu and far from creatively enriching, but it did what it needed to do. Sanji hopes that—if he's going to be stuck in this dream for much longer—he has a moment of free time in the kitchen to cook for himself. He's craving a comforting salmon and shrimp fried rice but it feels wrong to pick what he's in the mood for without double checking with Nami or Robin (or Luffy) for requests.
He considers asking his siblings what they might like but all of them are chowing down without any complaints, the earlier tension dissipates with the routine of mealtime. Well, Niji is prodding his green beans around his plate but he's always been picky and it’s unlikely that his brothers know of any foods they might request aside from the standard fare anyway. Reiju keeps trying to give him knowing looks but Sanji doesn't understand what they mean and he’s tired from playing mind games with Judge so he avoids making eye contact with her altogether. She’ll figure out a way to actually talk to him if it’s important.
His mom would pick something interesting to make. He should go and ask her.
The thought makes him freeze and his spiralized eyebrows furrow in concentration. His hands quake as they desperately try to not drop his fork.
Ichiji and Reiju pause and send him wary glances (well, as wary as they're willing to let show on their faces, which is none at all). Sanji takes a deep breath and pushes through the meal.
He forgets to chew.
Each forkful of mashed potatoes and sausage feels far too dense and every bite of fried green beans scratches his choked up throat on the way down.
None of it matters, though, because if he's seven-years old right now then his mom is alive.