Maybe in another world the poison Sanji’s mum took didn’t work on Sanji, or at least not in the same way.
A child with black hair and dull eyes, and like his brothers he’s made to be a solider who follows orders.
The difference is that he follows his mum’s instead of Judge’s.
She’s distraught that the poison wasn’t enough, but she raises Sanji as best she can to be someone free, even if he can’t really be.
He learns to cook because she asks him to (she wonders if she’s fooling herself when she sees just a glimmer of excitement in his dull eyes).
He guards her like a dog as she grows sick, this six year old who can’t even see over the counters. But he’s strong and can fight and all he knows is that what his mum says is what he does.
And when she’s dying, she tells him to run. Says whatever happens, get away from Judge.
And when she dies, that’s what he does. Because he’s an emotionless machine, but he’s following her orders. She told him to be free from Germa, and to seek friends. He doesn’t understand the second part (“friends are a weakness” Judge had said) so he ignores it, but he goes.
He finds the Orbit at age seven and he already has cooking skills (and he’s super powered— he’s good at what he does). They’re creeped out by him, most of the cooks just try to ignore him or slink around him, this terrifying little kid who can dice hundreds of onions in an hour.
He doesn’t interact with them either— his mum said to be free, and he assumes this is “free”. He assumes these aren’t “friends”, at least they’re not like in the books she read him. No one has fought for him or offered to share their things with him, so these must not be them.
And then, of course, the Orbit is hit by pirates, and then hits a storm. Sanji ends up stranded with Zeff on that cliff. Why’d Zeff save him? Maybe it was the way he stood emotionless in front of him with those dead eyes. Said he had to get back to cooking like nothing mattered.
Maybe it was the way everyone else looked at him like they were scared of him, this little ten year old unaware of his effect.
Maybe it was the almost imperceptible way he flinched when another cook came near him, like he was waiting for the next attack.
It doesn’t matter now.
What matters is that Sanji’s on the island with Zeff and they’re starving, but Zeff gives him food. Zeff loses his leg for Sanji. These things are adding up, Sanji thinks this might be what his mum wanted him to find.
He’s not sure.
Uncertainty doesn’t fit well with him.
But his mum said to find a friend and Zeff fits what he knows, so he devotes himself like a soldier. When they get off the island, Zeff can’t get rid of him no matter what he tries (he doesn’t try too hard).
They get a restaurant.
Sanji works like a machine in the kitchens.
Zeff puts him on food prep for years and Sanji does it without complaint. No one is as good as him at finely dicing, at weighing and measuring to the letter. He even does the dishes when they’re behind, and only breaks one before he figures out not to grip with all his strength.
Zeff makes him a full fledged chef at fifteen.
He always feels a little… conflicted about making Sanji work. The boy doesn’t have friends and doesn’t seem to desire them. He doesn’t have emotions. It feels wrong to make him work when he doesn't have the fight to object.
But Sanji’s his responsibility for some reason, and he’s accepted that.
And once, just once, when Sanji is seventeen, Judge comes down in the middle of the night to find a full five course meal prepared. It’s nothing the Baratie makes. It smells of unfamiliar lands.
He doesn’t mention it to Sanji, and there’s no trace of it the next day.
He wonders, though.
When Sanji is nineteen, Luffy arrives with a cannonball through the wall.
Zeff’s not too happy about that, but Sanji’s on red alert. He goes after Luffy with a vengeance.
Because that’s ZEFF, and if Sanji knows one thing it’s that he has to PROTECT ZEFF.
Luffy’s enamoured with him immediately. He wants Sanji. He wants this man who cooks and fights with his feet (Zeff taught him that, Sanji added it to the rules— no hands, be free, find friends).
Sanji’s dull eyes barely blink as he tells Luffy no, that he’s here for Zeff.
But then Luffy says the magic words.
He introduces Sanji (who stopped fighting at Zeff’s directive) to his crew and says, “this is my new friend Sanji! He’s going to be our cook!”
It’s confusing in a way few things are. Sanji lives in black and white— but Luffy says they’re *friends*. His mum told him to find friends. But he can’t leave Zeff, who is also a friend.
Sanji stumbles a little.
And then the green haired swordsman mocks him for it. The smallest flame of anger lights in his belly, a single momentary spark.
But that doesn’t matter because right now in this moment Sanji is processing having TWO friends.
That processing comes to a halt when Zeff yells at him to leave.
It’s simple again.
He follows orders.
He joins the Straw Hats.
He cooks.
He fights.
Luffy talks all the time about being free, and Sanji doesn’t get it but he figures Luffy will tell him when they manage to become “the most free”, something he has no metric of.
Also, Zoro is there.
Zoro is a complication. Sanji’s not sure if he’s friends with everyone or just with Luffy. He THINKS it’s everyone. He doesn’t like living in greys.
And Zoro likes to fight.
He tries to rile Sanji up, every time. Makes comments about his food or eyebrows.
Sometimes it… well it doesn’t *work* but it makes that little spark hit deep inside of him again, and for a split second the world is brighter. And then it’s gone.
Then Zoro pulls out his swords, which means they’re sparring, and Sanji is good at sparring.
They add more crew members. They go from island to island. Sanji protects his friends because that’s what he’s supposed to do, and he cooks, because he’s supposed to.
And then some time around Water 7 he starts to dream.
He’s never dreamed before.
He dreams of his mum and her warm smile. He dreams of his sister and her complicated expressions that he could never understand.
He dreams of Zoro and the grin that stretches over his face and the way his earrings dance.
He doesn’t get it. There’s no point to dreams.
What does it, what finally lights the spark inside of him, is Thriller Bark. It’s “nothing happened”. Zoro pushes him out of the way, stops him from doing the one thing he’s MADE to do, and then Sanji wakes up and realises what’s happened.
And a whirlwind alights inside of him.
The world has colors and depth it didn’t before, as he’s flooded with ANGER, that Zoro would do that, WORRY, that Zoro won’t make it, PAIN and HEARTBREAK for his mum, and a new sort of loyalty, deep and unending, for his crew.
He watches Zoro sleep as he processes.
And when Zoro finally wakes, when that worry abates a little, he YELLS at him. SCREAMS that he was a SELFISH ASSHOLE and HOW DARE HE and he’s IMPORTANT.
And through it all, Zoro stares at him, wide eyed and probably high on pain meds.
And then, when Sanji finally exhausts himself, Zoro grins. That same grin from Sanji’s dreams, and he says, “I knew you’d make it.”
Which is DUMB and makes Sanji EVEN MORE MAD because what does that fucking MEAN and he YELLS SOME MORE and by that time all the Straw Hats have gathered in shock outside the infirmary door.
“Welcome to the crew, Curls,” Zoro says and Sanji wants to KICK HIM but he’s on death’s door already and Sanji knows how strong he is.
So instead he collapses onto him and weeps, his emotions a confusing mess inside of him.
And eventually the door creaks open and Chopper slips in because he HAS to check Zoro’s vitals and then Luffy BOUNDS in and wraps his arms around Sanji and says “SANJI, MAKE ME MEAT” and Sanji SNAPS that he’s BUSY and Luffy LAUGHS and says “Okay but AFTER YOU’RE BUSY, MEAT.”
And later that night, after he’s made a MISTAKE in the kitchen because he got EMOTIONAL chopping vegetables, he sits in the infirmary again, forcing Zoro to drink broth. And he says, “I don’t know what happened. It’s like there’s too much of me inside me now.”
And Zoro says yeah. “That’s what living feels like,” he says.
“I don’t like it,” says Sanji.
“You ever disliked something before?”
“No.”
“Then congratulations.”
Then Zoro reaches out and grabs his hand. His grip is weak still, shaking.
He says, “this is the point. You have to find things to live for, now.”
And Sanji thinks. “I’m supposed to live for friends,” he says. “And freedom.”
“The you’re on the right ship,” Zoro says. “What else?”
And Sanji remembers a book his mum used to read. A long time ago.
“Have you heard of the All Blue?”
