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inoreuct · 7 months

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been thinking about asura zoro lately.

possibly a prince sanji au where sora’s kicked her shitstain of an ex-husband out of the kingdom and his siblings are going through behavioural therapy,,,

at any rate, sanji’s wandering across the grounds one afternoon and he sees someone sitting beneath his favourite apple tree in the middle of the field. he thinks it’s yonji at first, but no— the hair’s too short and the wrong shade of green. less neon than his brother’s electric lime and more like… moss.

the man has one leg propped up with his arm resting on his knee, an apple clutched loosely in his hand. he turns as the grass rustles with sanji’s steps and sanji notes the vertical scar over his left eye that cuts through his brow and down his cheek. “you’re in my spot.”

“hm,” the man says, completely unbothered. he lifts the apple to take a bite and his open robe shifts with the wind, the hilts of the three swords tucked into his sash knocking gently against each other.

sanji narrows his eyes. “move.”

a slow, lazy grin. “no.”

“you—!” the prince is just about ready to boot this guy in the ass. “you do realise who i am, don’t you?”

“no,” the man repeats, shrugging a shoulder and peering down at his apple before taking another bite.

that gives sanji pause. everybody knows who he is. it’s inescapable— queen sora’s kindest son, with the golden hair and a heart to match. ocean eyes and the hands of a chef and legs steadier than any sailor’s. he has a duty to fulfil and an image to uphold, and it’s—

well. it’s just that sometimes, he thinks that he wasn’t made for this life at all— that he was meant to be out there, on the ocean, skipping over the waves with the wind in his hair and the sun on his brow, feeling the grit of sand between his teeth. he has satisfied himself with the comforts of royal life, with the orchards and the kitchens, but something pulls at him still. it tugs his heart towards the coast and whispers for him to shed the courtly graces he wears as tangibly as the cloak over his shoulders.

sanji is quiet as he reaches up, swallowing over the soft click of the clasp before red velvet falls into his hand. he drops it to the grass and lets it pool, puts one palm on the ground before settling against worn, rough bark and letting the pattern press into the skin of his spine.

“it’s peaceful here.” the man’s voice is low, slipping beneath the soft sigh of wind. “quiet.”

“it hadn’t always been,” sanji says, before he can stop himself. he has no reason to be doing this— to be saying anything at all, much less sitting down. he should be yelling for the guards and then taking this guy out himself. he’s a stranger who’d somehow made it onto royal grounds, through the extensive defences they had; one with three swords and scars, sanji reminds himself as he eyes the gnarly line of pearly tissue running diagonally down the man’s chest. he’s, by all definitions, a threat.

and yet, sanji hasn’t felt anything at all. no hostility, no fear— just… stillness, if he had to put a word to it. a sort of calm.

“the king… he was cruel,” he continues softly. “he treated my siblings and i like lab rats to be used. my mother was nothing more than a pretty thing to fill a space beside him. this palace, this kingdom used to be filled with war and pain and noise.” sanji chances a glance up to find the man already looking at him, and he quickly looks away. “sometimes, he’d come back from war stinking of blood and death. even worse was when he’d bring my siblings with him. he forced them to fight, see— didn’t even give them a choice, because of his experiments.”

the words are bitter as he spits them out, and sanji feels his hair bunch when he tilts his head back against the tree and blows out a breath. “i was always the failure.” the grass is damp with dew as he rubs a few blades between his fingers. “the weak one. the useless one. and i was the one who dragged him outside the city gates and told him that if i ever saw him again i’d take his head.”

he’s no longer as angry about it, he thinks. sanji has spent enough of his life being angry. the thought just carries a muted tone now, satisfied and a little victorious but also resigned— sometimes he looks at fathers in the squares and the markets, carrying their children on their shoulders and indulging them in the smallest of things, overpriced candy and tag on the dusty cobblestones, and his eyes burn. he should have had that. he never did, and he never will.

sanji lets his eyebrows flash up, swallowing against the tightness in his chest. “i don’t know why i’m telling you all this, anyway,” he says with a light, forced laugh. “i don’t even know who the hell you are.”

“nobody important,” the man hums. “not yet. but one day i’ll be the greatest swordsman in the world.”

the prince believes it. he feels something now, at least— a presence of sorts, like pressure from all sides, present but not pushing. just there. “i think… i want to get out of here.”

again, he doesn’t know why he says it. he has the urge to slap a hand over his mouth as soon as he does, in fact. because everything’s fine now, everything’s finally going well; judge is gone, his siblings are safe, his mother is safe, and he should be happy. he is happy. he gets to cook all he wants and he’s—

he’s not. he’s not happy. he wants to go, wants to— to grab a boat and disappear, sail to the edge of the horizon and then beyond. it aches in his chest like someone’s squeezing his heart, fingertips digging into tough muscle, and he rubs the heel of his hand through the fine weave of his shirt.

the man bites into his apple again, and the crisp crunch cuts through the still air. sanji lets his eyes slip shut.

“where do you want to go?” the man asks.

sanji laughs, a soundless exhale. “the all blue. it’s an ocean with every kind of fish you could imagine and then some. i want to open a restaurant. a place of my own where nobody will ever go hungry.”

a pause, and then the man turns to look at him. “do you know why i’m here?”

“no.” sanji cracks an eye open, sighing impatiently. “why?”

“the change. all this place has known for years was turmoil and war and chaos. and then suddenly… it all went silent.” he eyes sanji unreadably. “somebody took notice.”

somebody, huh? if sanji’s dealing with a religious nutcase, he might just burst into laughter. or knock this guy out. maybe both. “you believe in god, then?”

“no,” the man says flatly. “and even if one did exist, they didn’t help you then. they won’t help you now.”

the blonds’s eyes narrow as he sits up straight and slowly raises an eyebrow. “if that’s supposed to be a threat, mosshead, i’m not scared of you.”

“mosshead?!” the other splutters, the first sign of real human emotion sanji’s seen on him, and sanji laughs.

“it fits!”

“it’s—”

“blasphemous? disrespectful?” sanji teases, somehow more at ease than he’s felt in ages. he doesn’t know who this man is, and who he is doesn’t matter— he’s free to run his mouth, and he damn well will.

“you should be scared of me, you know,” the man says, voice gritty, and sanji smirks.

“why so?”

and— oh.

that presence from before increases exponentially, until he feels sweat bead beneath his collar. dirt gathers beneath his fingernails as he scrabbles backwards, instinctive, throat bobbing as he counts three, four, six arms, and three heads, and three grey eyes glinting like watered steel. wind whips through the clearing, shaking the branches of the tree— sanji reminds himself to close his mouth as he sits beneath the rustling, as black tendrils of shadow snake through the air, swelling around the man’s silhouette, silky and molten. it’s not just that overwhelming, omnipresent aura; he’s got to be two heads taller than a normal man at least.

sanji’s breath is stuck in his throat. and then he looks down; that half-eaten apple is still there, shiny and red. the man’s swords — nine of them, now — clatter gently by his hips, and his earrings jingle with something that almost sounds like gentle laughter, and his hair is still impossibly green.

“…is this supposed to be intimidating?” he offers, climbing to his feet with a bored cock of his hip. “i mean, it’s impressive and all, mossy, don’t get me wrong, but—”

the man’s form snaps back to normal in an instant, leaving him with an almost comical look of disbelief on his face. “you’re fuckin’ crazy.”

“i’m traumatised,” sanji corrects, cackling. “after my bastard of a sperm donor, i doubt i could be scared of much else. besides, you haven’t done anything but talk to me. that’s a lot more kindness than most people can say they’ve shown.”

he watches the emotions flash across the man’s face like a play-by-play until his strong features finally settle on something not dissimilar to determination. “we’re going.”

“huh?” the sudden subject change throws him. “where?”

“the all blue,” is the impatient answer as the stranger crosses his arms. “didn’t you say you wanted to go?”

“yes, but—” sanji makes a series of exasperated noises as he tries to find his words. “i can’t just— go! i have responsibilities, i need to—”

“you need to be free,” the man grunts, and sanji stops short. “can’t keep a bird caged and expect it to be happy.”

the prince bites his lip, heart pounding. this is crazy. this is insane, it’s how kidnappings happen, he shouldn’t even he considering this. “…if, even if we were to go— how would we get there? how would we even find it?”

“we’ll figure it out?” the man pins him with a look that says duh, like it’s no big deal. “i know a witch who’s a navigator, she owes me a favour. and a guy who works in a shipyard. it’ll work.” he looks like he’s about to start tapping his foot, but then his expression softens. “one day,” he says, eyes skating across sanji’s face. “we go for one day, sunrise to sundown, and if you don’t like it i’ll bring you right back.”

sanji’s chest aches. his breath trembles against his teeth. “why?”

his stranger swallows, gaze tilting down as his fingers drift to the hilt of the white sword by his side, like it’s a comfort. “you aren’t scared of me.” his eye is a flash of silver as he looks up again, bottled starlight and iron. “maybe that’s more kindness than i’m usually shown, too.”

maybe sanji’s losing his mind. maybe he’d lost it a long time ago. because he finds himself nodding slowly and breathing, “okay.”

a sharp, sure nod. “we leave tomorrow. settle your affairs and meet me down by the beach at dawn.”

“alright.”

sanji watches the man turn and amble away, in no apparent, rush, before a thought strikes him. “wait!”

green hair shifts in the sunlight as he twists back around, one scarred palm by his ear. “hah?”

“what’s your name?” sanji yells across the clearing, and the smile that’s sent his way is blinding.

“meet me and i’ll tell you, curls!” the man yells back, and then he’s gone. just— disappears, like he’d been a figment of imagination.

an apple core tips against sanji’s ankle, pale and clean.

(sora takes one look at his face when he asks and lets him go.

“you’d always been restless,” she tells him gently, as she helps him pack his things into a burlap satchel and sets his spice tins carefully into their case. she says he’d been loud even as a baby, wailing right out of the womb with eyes the blue of cornflowers and summer skies and the water, riotous and gentle and vast like his heart.

she sends him off with a kiss to his forehead, hands cupping his face as she smiles against his skin, and this time sanji welcomes the burn in his eyes.

he finds zoro by the beach like something out of a fairytale, skin bronzed in the light of a new day, glowing with the orange dancing off the waves. he has a boat waiting, barely big enough for two, wrist draped over his sword hilts as he yawns and scratches at his head, and sanji grins so hard his face hurts.

his palms on the lip of sealed wood have his heart pounding hard enough to feel it against his ribs, his shoes sinking into the sand as they push the dinghy out to sea and jump on, and he shoves his hand in the water just because he can.

“zoro,” the man says abruptly, two extra shadows framing him in the sunrise like a mirage, and sanji’s lips curl up at the edge. “that’s my name.”

“okay, mossy,” he sing-songs, and bites down a laughing scream when zoro rocks the boat so hard he nearly falls out.

he does tell zoro his name, when he decides that he’ll stay. they’re still on their little boat; it’s sunset now, and the green-haired man is taking up all the space in his other form, stretched out with his hands folded behind his head. “i’m sanji, by the way,” he offers, offhand, and watches zoro crack an eye open to grunt in acknowledgment.

he pretends not to see the soft smile that the other man flips over to hide. zoro hardly ends up using it anyway, the brute.

sanji really doesn’t mind.)