New Life

Title: New Life
Author: Genuinelie(s)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money is made from this.

A/N: This is a long fic, first posted on LJ's onepieceyaoi community (thank you to everyone on there who read this first).

For anyone who has livejournal, you can also find my writing at my genuinelie account.

Happy reading, folks ^^


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NEW LIFE

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Chapter One
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Out of all of them, only Sanji had chosen to remain with their captain.

He supposed when it came down to it, he wouldn't have known what to do if they /had/ found All Blue. He'd told them he wanted his own restaurant, but the secret he held close to his heart was to return to the Baratie. He wanted to finally repay that debt he owed to the shitty old man. Maybe, he thought, if he found All Blue he could give its secrets to him. The chef's holy grail.

When it came down to it, he had too many obligations. Obligations to Zeff (who, when he offered to return, told him the next time he wrote it had better be about something important or he'd come and claim that leg he was owed)and obligations to Luffy. He didn't count any obligations to himself, because it had never been about him.

All of them had thought the most important thing to him was to find All Blue. They compared their dreams to his and thought his goal eclipsed everything, just like theirs.

What he had never told them was that his true dream, his secret dream, was of family. It wasn't of proving himself as a chef, because he was self-aware enough to know that he was possibly already the best. It was of having a place where he belonged.

When Luffy dragged him aboard, and that shitty old man all but kicked him off the Baratie, the meaning of nakama had been beaten into him. Not slowly, but fast and hard by three impossibly well-wielded swords, fists that would bounce off of his kicks without so much as a dent and words that sometimes hurt more than all of his battle-wounds combined.

They could fight with each other and beside each other in the split second it took for their pirate ship to be attacked. They could argue and yell for an entire day and still gather in unspoken companionship for dinner. A dinner he cooked for them, and that he knew was always, /always/ appreciated.

He didn't know what it was, but it was unconditional.

Had been unconditional.

Nami had been the first to leave. Other than Robin, of course, but she had left long before all of it.

Nami stayed for three months after Luffy had found the One Piece and claimed the title they all knew he deserved, helping them fight off all the ones who came to challenge him. She even stayed to navigate them back, a sail of victory back down the Grand Line. But after she was given her share of their treasure and Luffy had paid off Zoro's debt, they reached a lavish city their navigator thought she could live in. She said that maybe, some day, she'd join back up with them, but for the time being she wanted to concentrate on her maps.

He supposed those last battles had affected them all.

Usopp was the next to leave, and probably would have been the first if it had been on their way. He conceded the Going Merry to Luffy as if it were still his to give away, but had left their crew without a backwards glance.

Sanji forgave him. He had true love to return home to.

Chopper had stayed until Zoro left. Luffy had given them both his blessing, saying simply that Zoro would need his doctor more than him. Zoro had tried to make a thing out of it, guilt warring obviously on his face with the promise he had made, but Luffy said that he would rather live, thank you. Zoro had looked stupid and confused (as always, Sanji snorted) until Luffy clarified. "You told me you'd have to kill me," his captain said, "if I ever came between you and your goal."

Sanji watched his dreams sail away with his nakama. Fragments that left nothing but the building blocks of a new person.

They had never found All Blue. Luffy, having accomplished his own dream, promised to help Sanji find his.

And Sanji, knowing that Luffy had nothing now but what other people could give him, stayed.

They sailed back down the Grand Line for two years. They had recruited a new doctor, a new navigator, and five others who were in no way a replacement for the one swordsman they'd lost.

All good men, and two good women. Most likely the second-best crew in the world.

It was like living a dream. Everything seemed so familiar, like they had done it before. A permanent sense of deja vu lingered. They did it all again, and maybe better, but the two remaining nakama could see their own emotions on the other's face when they thought they were alone. The expression was alien and heartbreaking on Luffy's. Sanji didn't know how his own looked, but he tried his best to hide it from his captain.

Luffy and Sanji stayed up long into the nights, drinking rum and laughing about the past. He supposed their crew thought they were drunken fools, albeit dangerous drunken fools because they never dared to join them. In fact, none of their crew dared to challenge Sanji or the Pirate King in a fight, so they were left to fight each other. And after two years, even that had become rote.

"Sanji," Luffy had told him once, in a serious tone that was becoming more the norm for their carefree captain, "You can leave, if you want."

Sanji had kicked him in his rubbery skull. He was rewarded with a look of pure joy.

Two years later, and neither of them could believe it when one of their crew caught a sodden green haramaki with her fishing pole.

Sanji had snatched it from the woman, unusually inconsiderate when he didn't even apologize. The sea had done a good job of washing out the red, but there was one spot, directly in its middle, that had a small, clean slash that went from front to back. Around it, spread like a flower, was a geranium stain.

Captain and cook stayed up the whole of that night, pouring rum into the ocean.

They docked the next day, giving their crew leave on the shore. They knew there was a town nestled behind the forest where they could spend the night, and the crew could avoid the grief of the nakama.

Sanji and Luffy stayed on the beach, sitting next to each other in silent companionship, gazing into the dying embers of their campfire.

"Where was Chopper?" Luffy asked quietly.

"That fucking dumbass marimo swordsman." Sanji replied, "Good riddance. Good rid-"

Tears made it hard to swear.

"Sanji?" Luffy asked some time later, his voice small. He had never heard his usually certain captain sound like that, in all the years he had known him.

Sanji lit a cigarette and nodded towards the younger man.

"I'm glad you stayed," he said.

Sanji looked over in surprise, but Luffy had his back to him. He was already snoring.

He woke that night to the light tread of feet, panther-like in their near silence. He pretended to turn in his sleep, freeing his legs from the confines of his blanket.

Someone gasped above him. It was sharp and strangely surprised for someone who had been stalking them.

He cracked an eye, but all he could see from under the fall of his hair were shadows.

The footsteps had stopped, but he could hear someone breathing heavily behind the drone of Luffy's snores.

He didn't care whether this person was hostile. He was annoying.

Sanji decided to fall back on his old practice of "kick first, then ask questions." He swung himself into a handstand, bring both feet down /almost/ as hard as he could towards the breathing.

And was knocked on his ass. Something slender and hard had hit the soles of his feet, throwing him backwards.

Sleep-dazed and shocked by the ease with which he was blocked, he still had the presence of mind to leap back into a fighting stance, positioning himself between his attacker and his still-sleeping captain.

The moonlight cast the stranger's face in shadow, but two narrow streaks of light branched from the man's hip. The gleam of a third sword pointed downwards from his left hand.

It was enough.

Sanji kicked at the man viciously, using his best moves. Perhaps a hundred kicks were blocked until finally, Sanji felt his bare heel connect with the solid, warm expanse of a chest. The other man let out a heaving grunt, falling backwards into the sand.

"Sanji?" Luffy asked from behind his elbow, his voice alert. "Who is that guy?"

Sanji said nothing, catching his breath and glaring at the form on the ground.

Luffy padded over to the spread-eagled figure, then paused. A second later he dropped with a squeal sure to wake the whole island.

"We thought you were dead! We found your haramaki! Does this mean you won? You're the best? Because I need the best on my crew. But if you're not the best, it's ok. You can still come with us."

Sanji didn't hear how the swordsman replied, but he did hear the low chuckle. He turned and walked back towards their ship, /his/ ship, leaving captain and first mate to their reunion.

*****

Sanji didn't sleep that night, and even perched on the railing he could hear Luffy's happy chatter and Zoro's occasional replies. When the moon was close to the horizon, still several hours from dawn, the voices finally fell silent.

It left Sanji bereft. Alone on the boat and staring into the expanse of the moonlit sea, he finally recognized how separate he really was. He had been able to pretend for the last two years that he had found his calling, sailing with the near undivided attention of his captain. But it had never felt true. Deep in his gut, he knew he was just putting off the inevitable.

For the first time he wanted with /all/ of his heart to find All Blue.

Maybe then he could convince himself that it was fate for him to be alone.

He didn't hear him until he saw green and white blur out of the corner of his eye. He didn't turn his head, but he felt Zoro lean on the railing beside him.

"It's been a while," his former nakama said softly.

The lack of an insult hit Sanji more than anything, deep in a place in his gut he'd forgotten he had. It was a true greeting of acquaintances.

He took a drag on his cigarette, then lost interest in it entirely. He tossed it overboard, watching as the glowing ember was snuffed by the waves.

For possibly the first time in his life, Sanji couldn't find words. He sat there in misery, waiting for the dream to end.

"I beat him," the note of pride was unmistakable in Zoro's voice. "Two months ago. I was going to leave soon. Luffy still has it - that's lucky timing."

Sanji shrugged. "He's the Pirate King."

Zoro laughed, more carefree than Sanji ever remembered him being. "I guess he is."

"You goddamn shitty swordsman," Sanji finally bit out. "What did you do with Chopper?"

There was a pause, probably due to Zoro trying to follow his 180 change of thought. "He took off after patching me up. Said he wanted to sail back to the town Nami settled down in."

There was a long silence. It wasn't companionable. It was suffocating and inescapable. Sanji wished he had a reason to kick the swordsman's head in.

But what had been there before, what had been unconditional, was gone. So he sat in silence and /refused/ to look at the man beside him.

"He's not dead," Zoro offered after a while. "I think I'm glad about that."

"Mihawk?" Sanji forgot himself and turned.

Both of them froze as their eyes met, an acknowledgment that they were both really there.

Zoro studied his face with a care Sanji had only seen him use on his swords and their captain. It was like he was checking him for hidden injuries, trying to match up what he saw with his memories of the cook.

Sanji snarled in his face and pushed himself to his feet. "You left Luffy alone on shore, you fucking dumbass."

"I wasn't the one who ran off in a sulk, kuso-cook."

"I don't sulk, marimo!"

But the fight only lasted a few minutes, and ended with the ship still intact and the two men slumped on deck, back to back.

And that was how Luffy found his nakama in the morning.

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