Chapter Text
A deep sigh erupted from Sanji’s mouth before he rolled his shoulders back to help relax. He sat in front of his computer station in his assigned room. Well, not that there were many people now to fight for space, but this was his original spot.
Sanji ran a hand through his fringe and heaved one more sigh before hitting a button on his laptop in front of him. A reflected picture of himself showed on the screen and he inwardly scoffed at his cursed curly eyebrow in the image.
Thinking he had stalled enough, he cleared his throat and began to speak.
“Hello, my name is Sanji Black, station code SB005. It’s been…” Sanji glanced at the screens behind his computer and at this wrist communicator before continuing, “fourteen days, sixteen hours, four minutes, and twenty Earth seconds since we’ve been left stranded on the New World research outpost on Saturn’s moon Titan…”
Sanji trailed off and he could feel the tension rising in the back of his neck. He cleared his throat and continued:
“Since this is my first log since the incident, I suppose I should give my side of the story. Not sure what the other one has said about it all, but… It was a lot.
“Approximately fifteen Earth days ago, the Strawhat crew received an alert from Boss Jinbe about a severe wind storm that was heading towards our research station. This was corroborated by the lovely Miss Nami, our climate expert on this expedition.
“There was something Nami said about an atmospheric shift we had researched recently that probably caused it. Anyway, we knew it was coming and while wind isn’t usually an issue, the atmospheric shift was going to make this wind storm so, so damaging. We decided to cut our time here short since readings were saying that the storm was so bad it was going to wipe this whole base off the surface. It sucked since it took us over four years to travel here, but Jinbe said he’d rather us come back alive with minimal data than… you know.
“So we packed, prepared, etcetera to leave. Our small travel ship, Merry, was fueled and ready. We were bringing stuff out from our base when Nami alerted us that the storm had arrived early. Our suits can handle going outside for a decent amount of time in the cold, but this wind storm mixed with the already frigid temps would freeze us in place within minutes.
“We were all heading to Merry, I was lagging behind by the base because I forgot to grab something. Everyone else was either on or near Merry when the storm hit. Visibility went to zero, and I was blown back into the wall of our base. I hit my head with the impact, I don’t remember what happened after.”
There was a bang on the door to his left and he suppressed a jump from surprise. He turned to look at the noise but Sanji knew who it was. His companion in this endeavor had both middle fingers up and was mouthing what looked to be a curse at him. Sanji rolled his eyes and ignored him to turn back to his screen.
“When I woke up, I was back inside the base. My suit had been damaged and apparently I had the beginning stages of hypothermia since it was so cold. I was in my bed and covered in blankets to raise my temperature. Biggest shock of all was who else was here with me.”
Sanji looked to the side where his room connected to… his . The door and wall were both glass so he was able to see his companion at his own desk and computer, it seemed he got bored from Sanji’s lackluster response. He kept his gaze on him for a bit longer before turning back to his screen.
“Zoro… saved me, got us both back inside the base even though we had a very high chance of it failing and just killing us both. Merry and crew left us at Zoro’s request to Luffy, and… here we are.”
Sanji finished his speech, his face falling while thinking about his current situation.
It was one thing to be stranded on a foreign planet’s satellite. It’s something else entirely being stranded with the object of your affections. Sanji sighed again.
“I’m sure I’ll have more to say later. Today was the first day I’ve felt up to talking about what’s happened. You get trained for just about everything, even isolation, but they don’t train you for being alone at all times with… yeah. I’m done here for now. Signing off.”
Sanji shut the camera off and closed the laptop. It seemed his sudden movement caught Zoro’s attention, given that said man was already at Sanji’s connecting door.
Zoro was giving him a snarky grin and Sanji ignored him with an eye roll as he opened the other door to leave his room and leave the living area. Unfortunately the setup of their base had living quarters where two rooms had a connecting door between them for security reasons.
Sanji had been connected to Chopper’s room, but Zoro moved his stuff in soon after their isolation. He wouldn’t say why.
Zoro immediately followed him, leaving from his own room, “That was quick.” Zoro pestered and Sanji kept ignoring the overgrown plantlife. He had better things to do. So did Zoro for that matter, but it seemed bugging Sanji was at the top of his list at the moment.
“Shove it, Mosshead,” Sanji grunted back and left the living quarters to go to their main research area. He made himself look busy by checking their data for the day, but that didn’t deter Zoro from following.
Sanji did take a look at their base’s need levels. It was barely the second week of their isolation so their levels of oxygen and water were high. Since their base was supplied to support six people for five years, they had plenty of supplies for only two people for… however long it will take to execute a plan to retrieve them.
Sanji sighed while staring at the monitor. He’d been doing that a lot lately.
“What’re you sighing about over here, Curls?” Zoro said from right next to Sanji, he hadn’t realized Zoro had gotten so close while he was lost in thought. He suppressed another jump from surprise.
Sanji cleared his throat, “Nothing you insufferable lout. Don’t you have things to fix?” He reasoned, trying to get Zoro to leave his personal space.
“Sure, but I have to do my report to Jinbe first,” Zoro replied with a shrug.
“Okay well do it then! Leave me alone,” Sanji sniped and gave Zoro a push on his chest to get him to back up. That just made him smirk again, but it seemed to do the job since he backed up out of Sanji’s space and back to the living quarters.
Sanji sighed. Again.