Pieces of me you've never seen...
Dec. 6th, 2005 03:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chibi_trillianTitle: Tears on the Sleeve of a Man
Series: One Piece
One Piece: Not mine.
Rating: R for language.
Summary: Sanji and that shitty old man. The father/son relationship from Hell...or maybe not.
Notes: This is not crack. Inspired a few weeks ago by the first line of Tori Amos' "Pretty Good Year" and helped by a sudden mushrooming of Zeff fics in my general vicinity. Title is mercilessily ganked from said line. Apologies to Ms. Amos.
Tears on the sleeve of a man (don’t wanna be a boy today)…
Sanji woke up and hated it.
Another one of those increasingly rare lucid periods had elected to descend on him. God not only hated him, but wanted him conscious to know it too. Naturally, it was brilliantly sunny, parching him, somehow managing to burn him while he was still freezing from his body shutting down, one part at a time.
God’s a little slow on the uptake. I’m already in Hell.
The slow agony of his body eating itself returned when he was awake and aware. The slow agony of his soul eating itself with guilt returned too. Zeff. Stupid old pirate. He’d given up his food, his leg, and his dreams for a useless little boy who was probably going to die here on this barren rock.
Die. Zeff was still alive, wasn’t he? That shitty old man was not allowed to die. Not before Sanji repaid him. Sanji had to live and get stronger, so that he could pay off that debt. Life-debt. Scratch that, two life debts. Zeff had given Sanji the food that kept him alive, and then had given up his future as well. Sanji had to…he had to…what was it he had to do again?
It was important. Sanji clung to it when hunger and blackness started consuming him from the toes up again. Body hurt. Memory fuzzy, spotty. Consciousness same. Important thing. Hold on to it.
Zeff. And life. Hold on.
****
“Don’t eat it too fast, stupid baby eggplant. It’s not going anywhere, and if you inhale it it’ll just come back up again.”
Sanji glared at Zeff. The crew of the rescuing ship had been fussing over them almost nonstop for the past week, mostly for the novelty of a pair of breathing skeletons, Sanji thought, but they’d been left alone here in their bunk for now. “Their” bunk. They’d just assumed Sanji was important to Zeff, and kept them together. Sometimes, Sanji wanted to go correct them. Then he looked at the flat blanket where Zeff’s right leg was supposed to be and stowed that thought so far belowdecks that even the bilge rats wouldn’t find it.
Zeff was recovering, just like Sanji, but slower. The ship’s doctor had made noises about the resiliency of youth and told him to stick to soups and broths until his body got used to eating again. The ship’s doctor had also expressed amazement that Zeff was still alive and told him that that by itself was a minor miracle and one couldn’t expect too much. All that speech accomplished was twisting the dagger in Sanji’s hollow gut a bit deeper.
“’M not a baby. Stop calling me that.” Sanji swallowed too fast and was rewarded with a surge of nausea, just like Zeff had predicted. Shitty asshole, being right all the time. Sanji’s hand clenched around his spoon and he fought it down.
A napkin hit Sanji in the head. “You’re a baby ‘til you prove otherwise, eggplant.”
Sanji jumped to his feet to give that asshole a piece of his mind…or tried to. The room went wobbly and gray, and it only defuzzed after his nose hit the floor. Another bruise bigger than his hand, and this one was going to be tough to hide. He was half-tempted to just stay down here. Dealing with his unreliable body just felt like too much effort right now.
“Graceful, eggplant.”
Asshole. Sanji got to his feet. Slowly, this time.
****
Sanji stared at the ship, wide-eyed and wide-mouthed.
“Shut your mouth, eggplant, or I’ll filet you for dinner with the rest of the fish.”
Sanji’s jaw snapped shut. He wanted to glare at Zeff, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the ship. Baratie, the floating restaurant. There wasn’t another ship like it in all the Blues. He’d been eating it up with his eyes all day. Zeff had barely poked him for staring, possibly because he kept glancing at it himself even as he supervised the provisions loading.
Sanji had seen the plans for the ship, had seen it when it was barely more than a few pieces of wood nailed together, had been there when it had first been floated out of drydock. But there was something about seeing it here, complete, whole, waiting only for a word from its master to go wherever he willed. Zeff’s entire fortune was sunk into this ship. It was full of clever features and hidden surprises of the kind only Red-Leg Zeff could come up with. And the kitchens…the kitchens were to die for.
Zeff and Sanji almost had.
Zeff stumped off to go yell at some moron of a dockboy who was mishandling the carefully crated wine. One step firm, the tread that brought fear into the hearts of any who should cross it. The other tapping, artificial, and, even after all these months, still ever-so-slightly unsteady. Something Sanji had taken that he could never give back. He could sure as hell try, though.
Boys couldn’t stand up for things. Children were meant to be taken care of, not to take care of others. A boy could never take the place of a man.
Sanji had quit being a boy the moment he had picked up his knife and made a conscious decision to kill another human being. He’d made his first adult decision wrongly. Now he had to make up for it.
Even if it took the rest of his life.
****
“I’m a fighting cook too!”
“You’re barely a mouthy sous-chef! Go back to the vegetable bin until you ripen!”
A kick drove Sanji out of the kitchen, adding insult to injury. Shitty old man. Refusing to teach him his fighting style. Well, screw Zeff. Sanji would work on it himself until that shitty old fart had no choice but to take him on. He’d strengthen up his legs and work on his balance and Zeff would eventually cave.
Late that night, Sanji faced off with one of the railings on the upper deck. It was slick with sea spray, and it was a choppy night. He almost stopped and decided to go back inside. But no, this was a test. If he could stand on this narrow railing for one watch and not fall to the lower deck, he’d have proven himself worthy to start training in Zeff’s Red Leg kicking style.
So Sanji stepped onto the railing and concentrated on not falling off.
He lasted for three and a half hours, and broke two ribs on the way down.
After his ribs healed, Zeff kicked the hell out of him because it could have been his arms that got broken instead of his ribs, stupid eggplant! Sanji, somewhere in between the pain, the blood, the running, and the swearing, found the time to be stunned because that sounded remotely like affection and concern for his future as a chef.
Zeff started training Sanji the next day. Sanji learned that Zeff had been gentle before.
****
Sanji knew what Men, capital M, were supposed to be like.
Men were supposed to drink and smoke and swear. They were supposed to be debonairly polite to those who deserved it and mercilessly blunt to those who didn’t. They were supposed to fight and always win. They were supposed to love women and make every girl feel like a princess.
They weren’t supposed to like other men.
Sanji had held out vague hope that those impulses would go away, especially if he paid exclusive attention to the ones that told him to chase pretty girls around. Puberty was always a mess of conflicting signals, wasn’t it? He’d leave them alone, and they’d go away on their own. They’d be gone, and he could be a Man, capital M, without any worries about being a sissy or a pervert or an okama or whatever anyone felt like calling men who liked other men.
Except they weren’t.
He’d be okay for a while, and then he’d see some guy who made his heart beat the same way a lovely lady did, and he’d know he hadn’t managed to cure himself. He’d flirt extra hard to make up for it, even though he was still in the gawky, awkward teenage boy stage and got laughed at more than blushed at.
Nothing was going right lately, actually. Well, his cooking was improving (though Zeff wouldn’t admit it) and his kicks were getting stronger. Otherwise, though, his personal life sucked. He was in the middle of a growth spurt, and his legs and elbows always seemed to be in the wrong place. He could barely get any facial hair to grow. He wondered why it was so important to him to have stubble of some sort to shave. He was only fifteen. Theoretically, he had lots of time to try and get some sort of beard or mustache or something going.
He knew why. It was because he needed to be a Man in Zeff’s eyes. The only person one Man could trust with his dreams was another Man. And every time, Zeff just kicked him and called him baby eggplant again.
Sanji wondered if Zeff knew somehow and thought him flawed for it.
****
Sanji swung his left leg around again, feeling the heavy weights on his ankle shift. Shit. The straps were fraying again. He sighed and broke off in mid-set. If he pushed the straps, they’d break, and when they broke, weights tended to go flying and cause property damage.
“Frayed” also described his relationship with Zeff lately. So did “property damage.” Even Patty and Carne had commented that they’d been fighting worse than usual, usually from behind something sturdy. Sanji wasn’t sure whether that was good sign or not.
Sanji took the weights off and started stretching. Brace leg against the wall and push until you thought your muscles were going to snap. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Zeff kept pushing Sanji like that, too. Almost to the breaking point, over and over. He wasn’t sure whether Zeff was trying to make him leave or making sure that he was still determined to stay.
Fuck Zeff. He was never leaving here. He was a man, goddammit, and men didn’t walk away from their debts. He could outstubborn that shitty old man any day of the week. He didn’t care if Zeff disapproved of his clothes or his skirt-chasing or his taste in wine or his smoking or his personality. He was here, and he had a pair of strong legs. Both were thanks to Zeff.
All Zeff needed to do was ask, and Sanji’s legs would do. His mouth would bitch, and his body would tense, and his hands would fist up and make obscene gestures, but his legs belonged to Zeff. Zeff had turned Sanji into a younger version of himself, and now he half-trembled to be loosed on world with the old man’s blessing to go chasing their mutual dream.
Zeff didn’t ask children to do important things, though. Seventeen and still a child to the only man whose opinion he actually valued.
Shitty old fart.
****
Sanji stared over the aft rail at the rapidly-shrinking ship.
Baratie. Home.
Home no more. He was following a half-crazy boy in a straw hat to the waters Zeff had once sailed. Red-Leg Zeff had found a way to unleash himself and his dreams upon the Grand Line once again.
So many years with such a debt hanging over him. He didn’t know what to do, really, without the weight of two lives resting on his shoulders. So many years with his life, his worth, his self cupped in the palm of Zeff’s skilled hand. Today, for a boy in a red vest who wasn’t afraid to die, Zeff had finally handed off his most beloved blade, the one he’d been carefully honing and shaping for years, so carefully the blade hadn’t realized what was happening until the sharpening finally stopped.
Shit, he was crying again. He scrubbed at his face as unobtrusively as possible. He hadn’t cried this much in years, not since he was little. Figures that that shitty old man would manage to make him cry like a child on the day that he finally admitted that Sanji wasn’t one anymore.
Sanji inhaled deeply, shudderingly, and then let it go. Let it all go. One life now. His own. His own dreams.
Zeff would be waiting when he got back from the All Blue.
Series: One Piece
One Piece: Not mine.
Rating: R for language.
Summary: Sanji and that shitty old man. The father/son relationship from Hell...or maybe not.
Notes: This is not crack. Inspired a few weeks ago by the first line of Tori Amos' "Pretty Good Year" and helped by a sudden mushrooming of Zeff fics in my general vicinity. Title is mercilessily ganked from said line. Apologies to Ms. Amos.
Tears on the sleeve of a man (don’t wanna be a boy today)…
Sanji woke up and hated it.
Another one of those increasingly rare lucid periods had elected to descend on him. God not only hated him, but wanted him conscious to know it too. Naturally, it was brilliantly sunny, parching him, somehow managing to burn him while he was still freezing from his body shutting down, one part at a time.
God’s a little slow on the uptake. I’m already in Hell.
The slow agony of his body eating itself returned when he was awake and aware. The slow agony of his soul eating itself with guilt returned too. Zeff. Stupid old pirate. He’d given up his food, his leg, and his dreams for a useless little boy who was probably going to die here on this barren rock.
Die. Zeff was still alive, wasn’t he? That shitty old man was not allowed to die. Not before Sanji repaid him. Sanji had to live and get stronger, so that he could pay off that debt. Life-debt. Scratch that, two life debts. Zeff had given Sanji the food that kept him alive, and then had given up his future as well. Sanji had to…he had to…what was it he had to do again?
It was important. Sanji clung to it when hunger and blackness started consuming him from the toes up again. Body hurt. Memory fuzzy, spotty. Consciousness same. Important thing. Hold on to it.
Zeff. And life. Hold on.
****
“Don’t eat it too fast, stupid baby eggplant. It’s not going anywhere, and if you inhale it it’ll just come back up again.”
Sanji glared at Zeff. The crew of the rescuing ship had been fussing over them almost nonstop for the past week, mostly for the novelty of a pair of breathing skeletons, Sanji thought, but they’d been left alone here in their bunk for now. “Their” bunk. They’d just assumed Sanji was important to Zeff, and kept them together. Sometimes, Sanji wanted to go correct them. Then he looked at the flat blanket where Zeff’s right leg was supposed to be and stowed that thought so far belowdecks that even the bilge rats wouldn’t find it.
Zeff was recovering, just like Sanji, but slower. The ship’s doctor had made noises about the resiliency of youth and told him to stick to soups and broths until his body got used to eating again. The ship’s doctor had also expressed amazement that Zeff was still alive and told him that that by itself was a minor miracle and one couldn’t expect too much. All that speech accomplished was twisting the dagger in Sanji’s hollow gut a bit deeper.
“’M not a baby. Stop calling me that.” Sanji swallowed too fast and was rewarded with a surge of nausea, just like Zeff had predicted. Shitty asshole, being right all the time. Sanji’s hand clenched around his spoon and he fought it down.
A napkin hit Sanji in the head. “You’re a baby ‘til you prove otherwise, eggplant.”
Sanji jumped to his feet to give that asshole a piece of his mind…or tried to. The room went wobbly and gray, and it only defuzzed after his nose hit the floor. Another bruise bigger than his hand, and this one was going to be tough to hide. He was half-tempted to just stay down here. Dealing with his unreliable body just felt like too much effort right now.
“Graceful, eggplant.”
Asshole. Sanji got to his feet. Slowly, this time.
****
Sanji stared at the ship, wide-eyed and wide-mouthed.
“Shut your mouth, eggplant, or I’ll filet you for dinner with the rest of the fish.”
Sanji’s jaw snapped shut. He wanted to glare at Zeff, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the ship. Baratie, the floating restaurant. There wasn’t another ship like it in all the Blues. He’d been eating it up with his eyes all day. Zeff had barely poked him for staring, possibly because he kept glancing at it himself even as he supervised the provisions loading.
Sanji had seen the plans for the ship, had seen it when it was barely more than a few pieces of wood nailed together, had been there when it had first been floated out of drydock. But there was something about seeing it here, complete, whole, waiting only for a word from its master to go wherever he willed. Zeff’s entire fortune was sunk into this ship. It was full of clever features and hidden surprises of the kind only Red-Leg Zeff could come up with. And the kitchens…the kitchens were to die for.
Zeff and Sanji almost had.
Zeff stumped off to go yell at some moron of a dockboy who was mishandling the carefully crated wine. One step firm, the tread that brought fear into the hearts of any who should cross it. The other tapping, artificial, and, even after all these months, still ever-so-slightly unsteady. Something Sanji had taken that he could never give back. He could sure as hell try, though.
Boys couldn’t stand up for things. Children were meant to be taken care of, not to take care of others. A boy could never take the place of a man.
Sanji had quit being a boy the moment he had picked up his knife and made a conscious decision to kill another human being. He’d made his first adult decision wrongly. Now he had to make up for it.
Even if it took the rest of his life.
****
“I’m a fighting cook too!”
“You’re barely a mouthy sous-chef! Go back to the vegetable bin until you ripen!”
A kick drove Sanji out of the kitchen, adding insult to injury. Shitty old man. Refusing to teach him his fighting style. Well, screw Zeff. Sanji would work on it himself until that shitty old fart had no choice but to take him on. He’d strengthen up his legs and work on his balance and Zeff would eventually cave.
Late that night, Sanji faced off with one of the railings on the upper deck. It was slick with sea spray, and it was a choppy night. He almost stopped and decided to go back inside. But no, this was a test. If he could stand on this narrow railing for one watch and not fall to the lower deck, he’d have proven himself worthy to start training in Zeff’s Red Leg kicking style.
So Sanji stepped onto the railing and concentrated on not falling off.
He lasted for three and a half hours, and broke two ribs on the way down.
After his ribs healed, Zeff kicked the hell out of him because it could have been his arms that got broken instead of his ribs, stupid eggplant! Sanji, somewhere in between the pain, the blood, the running, and the swearing, found the time to be stunned because that sounded remotely like affection and concern for his future as a chef.
Zeff started training Sanji the next day. Sanji learned that Zeff had been gentle before.
****
Sanji knew what Men, capital M, were supposed to be like.
Men were supposed to drink and smoke and swear. They were supposed to be debonairly polite to those who deserved it and mercilessly blunt to those who didn’t. They were supposed to fight and always win. They were supposed to love women and make every girl feel like a princess.
They weren’t supposed to like other men.
Sanji had held out vague hope that those impulses would go away, especially if he paid exclusive attention to the ones that told him to chase pretty girls around. Puberty was always a mess of conflicting signals, wasn’t it? He’d leave them alone, and they’d go away on their own. They’d be gone, and he could be a Man, capital M, without any worries about being a sissy or a pervert or an okama or whatever anyone felt like calling men who liked other men.
Except they weren’t.
He’d be okay for a while, and then he’d see some guy who made his heart beat the same way a lovely lady did, and he’d know he hadn’t managed to cure himself. He’d flirt extra hard to make up for it, even though he was still in the gawky, awkward teenage boy stage and got laughed at more than blushed at.
Nothing was going right lately, actually. Well, his cooking was improving (though Zeff wouldn’t admit it) and his kicks were getting stronger. Otherwise, though, his personal life sucked. He was in the middle of a growth spurt, and his legs and elbows always seemed to be in the wrong place. He could barely get any facial hair to grow. He wondered why it was so important to him to have stubble of some sort to shave. He was only fifteen. Theoretically, he had lots of time to try and get some sort of beard or mustache or something going.
He knew why. It was because he needed to be a Man in Zeff’s eyes. The only person one Man could trust with his dreams was another Man. And every time, Zeff just kicked him and called him baby eggplant again.
Sanji wondered if Zeff knew somehow and thought him flawed for it.
****
Sanji swung his left leg around again, feeling the heavy weights on his ankle shift. Shit. The straps were fraying again. He sighed and broke off in mid-set. If he pushed the straps, they’d break, and when they broke, weights tended to go flying and cause property damage.
“Frayed” also described his relationship with Zeff lately. So did “property damage.” Even Patty and Carne had commented that they’d been fighting worse than usual, usually from behind something sturdy. Sanji wasn’t sure whether that was good sign or not.
Sanji took the weights off and started stretching. Brace leg against the wall and push until you thought your muscles were going to snap. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Zeff kept pushing Sanji like that, too. Almost to the breaking point, over and over. He wasn’t sure whether Zeff was trying to make him leave or making sure that he was still determined to stay.
Fuck Zeff. He was never leaving here. He was a man, goddammit, and men didn’t walk away from their debts. He could outstubborn that shitty old man any day of the week. He didn’t care if Zeff disapproved of his clothes or his skirt-chasing or his taste in wine or his smoking or his personality. He was here, and he had a pair of strong legs. Both were thanks to Zeff.
All Zeff needed to do was ask, and Sanji’s legs would do. His mouth would bitch, and his body would tense, and his hands would fist up and make obscene gestures, but his legs belonged to Zeff. Zeff had turned Sanji into a younger version of himself, and now he half-trembled to be loosed on world with the old man’s blessing to go chasing their mutual dream.
Zeff didn’t ask children to do important things, though. Seventeen and still a child to the only man whose opinion he actually valued.
Shitty old fart.
****
Sanji stared over the aft rail at the rapidly-shrinking ship.
Baratie. Home.
Home no more. He was following a half-crazy boy in a straw hat to the waters Zeff had once sailed. Red-Leg Zeff had found a way to unleash himself and his dreams upon the Grand Line once again.
So many years with such a debt hanging over him. He didn’t know what to do, really, without the weight of two lives resting on his shoulders. So many years with his life, his worth, his self cupped in the palm of Zeff’s skilled hand. Today, for a boy in a red vest who wasn’t afraid to die, Zeff had finally handed off his most beloved blade, the one he’d been carefully honing and shaping for years, so carefully the blade hadn’t realized what was happening until the sharpening finally stopped.
Shit, he was crying again. He scrubbed at his face as unobtrusively as possible. He hadn’t cried this much in years, not since he was little. Figures that that shitty old man would manage to make him cry like a child on the day that he finally admitted that Sanji wasn’t one anymore.
Sanji inhaled deeply, shudderingly, and then let it go. Let it all go. One life now. His own. His own dreams.
Zeff would be waiting when he got back from the All Blue.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 09:07 pm (UTC)