Chapter Text
0.
Sundays leave Sanji exhausted, back bowed against the weight of gravity as he drags himself home. There’s the early morning rush of brunch, then the afternoon church crowd, and who could forget dinnertime, with its boozy bourgeois diners sending back plates for tiny details and splitting bills on ten person parties. By the time he clocks out sometime after midnight, he’s picked to the bone, eyes drooping as he makes his way up the stairs of his apartment complex.
He’s been looking forward to a glass of wine and a cigarette, his favorite post-Sunday-shift ritual, but he mentally changes a glass to a bottle when he spots the figure hovering around his doorstep.
He freezes in the middle of the hallway, blood curdling in his veins, considers turning and leaving, but the person turns around to face him and it’s too late. Dressed in an expensive looking suit and looking every bit as formidable as the last time he saw him stands Judge Vinsmoke.
The last time Sanji saw his father, he was sixteen and already living with Zeff, independent in every way but legally. White-knuckled and defiant, he’d told Judge that he wanted to be legally emancipated. He didn’t know what he’d expected, some kind of emotion, maybe anger, regret, closure. Instead, Judge had told him not to bother with the legal nonsense, that he never considered Sanji his son in the first place.
Sanji still remembers the feeling, something between relief and devastation at that final act of rejection. An ending, not only to a relationship, but to any hope for repair.
Or so he thought.
Now, Judge is standing casually outside his door, like this is something they do, like Sanji had invited him over for tea and forgotten to leave the key under the mat.
“Sanji,” his father says, and it takes everything in Sanji not to flinch at the sound of his name in that voice again.
“No,” he says, pushing past him and turning his key in the lock. “Whatever it is, no.”
“I need to speak with you. It’s important.”
“No,” Sanji says again. “You don’t get to show up here after years and ask me for favors. How do you even know where I live?”
Judge gives him a look, pitying, like he’s wondering why Sanji hasn’t learned by now. And the sad part is, he hasn’t learned, not if he’s entertaining this conversation to begin with.
“You know what? Forget I asked. Goodnight.” Sanji closes the door, but Judge’s foot catches it just in time, leaving it open a crack.
“Sanji. Be reasonable.”
Sanji barks out a laugh, short and acidic. “Fuck you.” He pushes the door again and it gives a little, Judge’s pointy-toed dress shoe slipping back a bit. He hopes it scraped the lacquered surface, maybe some kind of proof he could leave any kind of mark on the man.
“I see you’re still emotional. I’ll be in town until the end of the week. Contact me before then. My number hasn’t changed.”
Sanji gives one last shove in response, but Judge pulls his foot back willingly, leaving the door to slam in his face with far less satisfaction than the action was supposed to bring. Always pulling back, right when Sanji is about to escape himself.
He watches footsteps disappear beneath the crack in the door, his heart twisting itself into knots inside his chest. He doesn’t realize his hands are shaking until he tries to reach for a cigarette and almost drops the box. “Fuck,” he mutters.
A deep breath and he tries again, slides a cigarette out of the box and between his lips as fast as he can manage. The hiss of the lighter does nothing to calm his frayed nerves.
It’s dark, the night time casting everything a melancholy sort of blue, but he doesn’t bother fumbling for the light, just slides his shoes off and throws himself down on the couch. It’s rare that he allows himself to smoke on the furniture, but he’s not sure how much longer he can stay standing.
Maybe it’s the low light, or maybe it’s the appearance of someone he thought he’d never have to see again, but the place he’s lived in for years suddenly looks threatening and unfamiliar, shadows pooling in hidden corners and pieces of furniture looming like figures over him.
He’d spent so long making his apartment a home, years of shitty food service jobs and hourly pay, working his way up from the bottom, creating a space that was his, and his father managed to ruin it in one night.
He feels, vaguely, like he should call someone, but he isn’t sure who that could be. It’s two in the morning, and he’s not in the mood for sympathy or for unpacking the cold swell of nausea that washed over him at the sight of his father’s face.
He’s still unsure how Judge found him, or why he reappeared after years of silence, but one thing he knows for sure is that he can’t stay here this week. The threat of his father at his doorstep again is enough to make his hands start sweating.
His first thought is to call Luffy, but Luffy is liable to try and fix his problem, possibly even fight Judge, and he doesn’t want saving right now, just a place to lie his head. Besides, he’d rather risk another run in with his biological father than stay at the shithole Zoro and Luffy call home.
Zeff is out of the question too, sure to act even if Sanji begs him not to. He owes Zeff everything, his real father even if not by blood, and the last thing he needs is to get him tangled up with the Vinsmokes again.
He mentally runs through a list of the rest of his friends, weighing his options. Nami? Shacked up with Vivi. Robin? Shacked up with Franky. Brook? Not the most ideal living situation. Jimbei? Too far away from work. Usopp? …Now there’s a thought.
Of everyone in their friend group, Sanji gets along with Usopp among the best. He’s easy to be around, goofy and well-intentioned, with a tendency to overthink that reminds Sanji a bit of himself. They tend to bicker a lot, but underneath the petty arguments is a rare and comforting level of true understanding. Best of all, he’s not as much of a meddler as a lot of others in the group, more likely to sit back and observe from afar than to jump in without being asked.
They had a brief hiccup in their easy friendship when Usopp had returned from study abroad tall and worldly and different in a way that left Sanji feeling too big for his skin. It had been weird for a while, a struggle to get back into the back and forth they shared, but recently things have been smooth again, the strange feeling of discomfort finally passed. They spend so much time together now that a brief roommate arrangement shouldn’t be a problem.
Living arrangement wise, Usopp is relatively neat, and Sanji’s at his place all the time now since his new apartment is so close to the Baratie. The only downside is the size: a studio apartment, not the most ideal for guests. It’d be a tight squeeze, but Sanji is bordering on desperate, so he allows himself to consider it, rolling the idea around in his head until it sticks.
It’s not the worst plan in the world; he’s certainly stayed in less ideal living situations than someone’s futon. Worst case scenario, Usopp says no and he braves Brook’s late night practices and eerie decor.
He already feels better, cigarette and newly developed plan calming the rabbit of his pulse, and he takes a deep breath, releasing as much of the remaining tension as he can. Tomorrow he’ll figure out the details, plan his week around the ambush that is his father’s presence in the city.
He drags himself to bed an hour later after dozing off a bit on the couch, even more tired than before yet somehow wide awake. Sleep comes eventually, but it’s restless, and he tosses and turns until the early hours of the morning.
***
Mondays are Sanji’s day off, a welcome reprieve from the Sunday rush, so he takes his time getting ready, chasing his morning shower cigarette with a coffee and a full breakfast.
Somewhere around noon he finishes packing, but decides to stall heading over to Usopp's, knowing his tendency to wake up late as all hell. He makes his way over slowly, meandering down busy streets and taking in the beauty of the early afternoon.
By the time he makes it to Usopp’s apartment building, he’s in a decent mood, the anxiety of the night before a distant memory. He knocks extra hard on Usopp’s door in case he’s still asleep, then stands with his hands in his pockets, waiting.
Sure enough, when the door swings open a few moments later, Usopp is standing in his bonnet, basketball shorts, and a ratty t-shirt, scratching tiredly at his goatee.
“Looking sharp,” Sanji says.
“Shut up, man, I just woke up.”
“It’s one in the afternoon.”
“I had a really late night.”
By a really late night, he likely means a really early morning; when Usopp gets stuck on a project, he gets into a mode of focus so intense that he usually isn’t disrupted by anything but the sun rising.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“I’m deciding,” Usopp says, but he steps to the side and lets Sanji enter, closing the door behind him.
Usopp’s studio apartment is a lot like him: warm, comfortable, safe. There are plants everywhere, overflowing from mismatched pots, dotting the shelves and window sills with color. His bed is tucked into the farthest corner, where it sits unmade, a pile of various blankets spilling over the side and brushing the floor. Next to it, his desk, neat but cluttered with a variety of papers, tools, and oddly shaped metal objects that Usopp definitely understands but register as junk in Sanji’s mind.
The wall above it is organized chaos, a mix of blue prints and sketches that contrast the rest of the room, where pictures of friends and loved ones hang in neat rows. There’s a painting by the window that Sanji always admired, some textured acrylic piece of a stretch of ocean. Every time he asks Usopp about it, he gets a different answer, but Usopp was always one for storytelling.
Beside him, Usopp yawns and stretches, sitting down on the bed before hooking his foot around the desk chair and rolling it towards Sanji, a clear invitation. Sanji takes it, sitting down.
“So, what’s up? Just coming to hang out or?”
Sanji hesitates, nervous all of a sudden. He reaches into his pockets for his cigarettes, shooting a questioning glance at Usopp. Usopp sighs, leans back, cracks open the window. Then he leans forward, reaching under the bed for the ashtray he made Sanji for his birthday last year that he keeps in his room for moments like these.
“Go ahead,” he says, “just don’t smoke the whole thing.”
The flick of the lighter soothes him, the first drag settling his stomach. He can do this. “I need a favor.”
“What kind of favor?”
“My old man’s in town.”
“Zeff?”
“No, biological.”
“Oh,” Usopp pauses to absorb and then, “Oh.”
“Yeah. Showed up at my place last night.” Sanji’s hands twitch, and a bit of ash falls on his pants. He flicks at it absentmindedly, avoiding Usopp’s gaze.
“Wow. Are you okay?”
Sanji shrugs and says nothing.
Usopp shakes his head. “Okay, yeah, stupid question, sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
Sanji takes another pull, steeling himself. Gives himself a minute to exhale. “I need a place to crash in case he comes around again.”
Usopp blinks at him, eyes darting around the space before settling back on Sanji. “Um, you sure you want to stay here? I mean, I don’t have a problem with it but it’s not exactly roomy.”
Sanji shrugs. “Everyone else I know is either coupled up or living in squalor. Half the chefs in the kitchen have kids, the other half I’d pay money not to have to sleep in the same building as. I’m not really spoiled for choice, no offense.”
“None taken,” Usopp says. He looks, for a moment, like he’s contemplating saying something else, but in the end he just nods. “You can crash here. That won’t be a problem.”
Sanji lets out a sigh of relief that’s half smoke. “Thanks, Usopp. I work a lot so I’ll be out of your hair most of the time. Shouldn’t be longer than a week.”
“No problem, man. If you wanna bring your stuff over later today you can. I don’t have anything planned.”
Sanji nods, putting his cigarette out on the ashtray and placing it on the desk. “I’ll go grab it now. Thanks again. I owe you one.”
Usopp waves a hand at him, dismissive. “Cook me a meal and we’ll call it even.”
“Of course,” Sanji shifts from one foot to the other, working his way up to his last ask. “Do you mind if—” he pauses. “Do you mind keeping this between us?”
Usopp blinks at him. “Your dad? Or you crashing at mine?”
“Both.”
Usopp mimes zipping his lips, exaggeratingly turning an invisible key and tossing it over his shoulder. It’s a decent performance, all things considered.
“Your secret’s safe with me.”