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The sun shines, it falls on his skin and heats him up from the inside out. It burns him alive as though punishment from god. Sometimes it’s kind, the sun. Sometimes it’s soft and waxy, nothing more than a fluffed, silken rug like the ones he used to roll around in when his mother was feeling well enough to play.
The wind howls loudly, its cacophonous screams ripping through his ears and whipping his clothes around in a frenzy. It rips across his face, offering a brief, cool contrast to the slow, searing heat of his father’s repeated slaps.
Failure.
Failure.
Failure.
The sky falls. It tumbles over his battered body, crushing bone and ligaments. It slashes his skin and burrows deep beneath the surface until it mingles with his blood. He glances out the window as his brother’s foot launches down in yet another devastating arc. Snow glides to the ground, flakes delicate, but free, breaking on their own time. They float towards their destruction, while his own towers above him.
The words of his brothers, echoing, combing, nothing more than the vassal and prophets of god, their father.
It hurts.
It hurts.
It hurts.
“How fitting it is that you look like our mother. One weakling to another. Maybe one day, you’ll finally die like her too.”
Cackling laughs, harsher kicks, and tears bubble up to the surface, spill even more as they pounce on him, nothing more than sharks that smell blood.
“Merry Christmas Number Three.” one of them says, or maybe they all do– he doesn’t know anymore.
Their words, it hurts so much. It’s unbearable.
But the sun only stares blankly, refusing to listen. The wind continues to cut and slash and let him bleed.
The sky shatters.
It’s cold. Very cold.
The snow won't melt.
It won’t melt.
He hates winter.
It's strange, the way that brains work, a bizarre, magnificent organ. It’s ability to make a lightning quick assessment, its memorization. The brain is the most capable muscle in existence, a super computer in its own right.
The most fantastic moments however, are when the conscious plane of existence is dormant, and the others run rampant.
Dreaming, some people call it.
Though he much prefers the word insanity.
“Alone again, are you?”
All around him is white, coating every surface in every direction for miles.It’s barren here, a wasteland of cold ice with a cloudless skin tinted yellow. The Baratie stands alone amidst the nothingness, but he knows better than to go there in search of normality.
“I don’t know what you expected.” Sanji responds, stifling a yawn and reaching into his pocket for a cigarette. It’s there without fail, exactly one– his favorite brand. “I don’t invite just anyone into my head.” he shrugs a bit, absentmindedly rubbing his thumb along the cool metal of a golden lighter– the one he’d gotten for his 19th birthday and promptly lost less than a year later. “I didn’t even invite you.”
The remarks earns him a loud guffaw, making muscles ripple seamlessly beneath dark skin and Sanij reminds himself that it's rude to stare. It takes a long moment to rip his eyes from the visage before him, and the curiosity that always tugs insistently when he catches sight of that scar. Hideous, is all Sanji can think. Hideously beautiful.
It mars what would have otherwise been perfectly smooth flesh, a gash stretching all along a warrior’s torso, in a way that frightens him somewhere deep within. What exactly has the power to harm such a capable predator? Sanji doesn’t want to know.
“If it makes your pansy ass feel any better,” the other starts, sounding all too smug about nothing. His voice is gruff and ridiculously deep with a range so low that it makes nearly every word spoken sound like a jumble of growls. Damn neanderthal. “I didn’t exactly ask to be here either. As if I’d want to be stuck here with you anyways.”
Ouch. Sanji blows out the smoke building in his chest. The smokey substance falls from his lips as thin, wispy hands and all of them are saying fuck you. Perhaps dreams have their merits. He lays back, only distantly realizing how the snow surrounding his body has melted.
He’s so tired. It’s frustrating to be in this place, because he isn’t sleeping. No, he’s hanging around a brute with bright green hair and enough wit to be on par with each and every one of Sanji’s stinging remarks.
“I didn’t mean that.” is the soft apology, a whisper nearly lost in non-existent wind. It's a belated remark, like the other needed time to blow cobwebs off of the cogs in his mind. “I didn’t mean that.” said again, a little louder, a little firmer.
“Forget about it.” Sanji says with eyes closed, shielding his sight of a dim sun. “It’s not a big deal.”
People say things they regret all the time, it's simply the way life goes. He knows better than anyone, remembers with clarity every poured out confession spewed from his too big mouth, resting heavy against a similarly large pile of rejections.
Between one blink and the next, Sanji is boxed in. An earnest face shoved in front of his own. He finds himself staring into heterochromic eyes, amber and silver, both equally dark. Roronoa Zoro perches over him in all his overbearing glory. “It is a big deal, you stupid, shitty cook.” the man tells him, hand coming down to caress the side of his cheek.
Thump, thump, thump, goes his heart, the sensation never getting old, no matter how many times they do this.
“I hurt you.” the swordsman murmurs. “I don’t want to do that.” LIke everyone else , remains unsaid.
Zoro is magnificent, so Sanji can’t be blamed really, when his eyes slide down and lock on to plush lips. His heart jackrabbits in his chest, beating so hard that a part of him worries it will jump out of his chest and force itself into the swordsman’s hands.
He gulps, a flush working its way across his cheeks, as Zoro hovers even closer, their mouths brushing lightly. Sanji tries to ignore how the sky is turning pink and the cigarette that should have been put out a long time ago is still lit, and puffing up lazy hearts from its place on the ground.
“You won’t hurt me.” Sanji says, and doesn’t bother to finish the sentence as he closes the gap.
It's warm, enveloping him in a way that feels like drowning. A chaste peck, like those of fairy tales. Zoro's hand is buried in messy blond hair, tilting his head and deepening the kiss. The new angle is pleasant, and makes Sanji groan. His legs come up to wrap around a tone waist and it's only when that mouth slides down to attack his neck that his senses return.
With a reluctant sigh, the blond pries Zoro off of him. “Let me go Marimo.”
The remark is received with a petulant grumble, and one last press of lips to his forehead. “Stupid curly brow.”
“Are you real?” Sanji asks tiredly, knowing the answer but unable to refrain from giving the question regardless.
“I dunno.” Zoro tells him with a careless shrug, shoulder silhouetted by a sinking sun and pitch black inching all around. “Are you?”
Yes, he doesn’t retort.
Sanji wants to laugh, let a little of that hysteria slip through and out to the open.
Woe is him, to be in love with a dream.
“Who cares?” the chef comments aloud. It's a dismissal of his own dismayed thoughts. “It doesn’t matter.” He laces his fingers with Zoro’s, reveling in the warmth that seems to seep through his entire body. He tilts sideways, letting his body lean against the swordsman and ignores the confused expression shot in his direction.
Sanji’s being a contrary bastard here tonight, he knows, but he can’t help it. “Tomorrow is Christmas.” told as an explanation for the fluctuating behavior. “Nothing good ever happens on that stupid day.”
Sanji cries. He wails as Yonji hits the poor thing again. Wicked sobs rip from his throat, hand reaching, so close, but never close enough. Niji snickers, arms crossed with an evil grin as his feet ground holes into Sanji's back. Ichji only watches on impassively. His eyes are hidden from sight but the weight of his disdain is heavy in the air, so thick that he can taste it.
"Hiding rats in your room. You know cleanliness is a part of father's protocol." the eldest drones, blatant disinterest and uncaring disposition hurting more than the actual statement itself.
"Yeah brother!" Yonji exclaimes, bringing the heavy stick down again. Blood splattered, landing on his tongue.
It tastes like metal.
"We're only getting rid of an infestation." Niji adds, moving a foot down to clamp on Sanji's head. "Really now, you should thank us. Consider it our Christmas gift to you!"
But Sanji doesn't. Instead he has one dark, destructive thought. That he would rather die.
He wants to die.
“Then why don’t we celebrate today? Together, just you and me.” Zoro asks, and clearly the man knows him well– too well– because his eyes are averted the moment Sanji whips his head around. “We can make it mean something better.”
“And how exactly are we supposed to do that?” he cries, feeling too incredulous to focus on the sweetness of the offer.
Zoro shrugs in the easy, infuriating manner the swordsman tends to treat every problem with. “We’re in your head. You can do whatever you want. You can do anything.”
As if to prove his point, the swordsman jabs a finger in the direction of the cigarette– still lit and puffing out smoke shaped question marks that gradually turns into exclamation points as Sanji’s brain catches up with what’s going on.
“Up there too.” Zoro adds, gesturing to the sky. The waxen sunset is no more, creeping shadows disappearing in the face of a magnificent sunrise. All around, the snow sparkled, not melting even a bit. “Guess I made you feel better.”
Sanji can’t help but adore the cheeky smile flashed his way, Zoro strolling over to his side and making them bump shoulders. The blond lets himself rock to the side under the pressure, thinking a bit on it.
The idea of spending his time with Zoro sounds fun, not that he has any clue where to start on that. But…”I don’t see why not.” he says, turning towards the other—
Only to be hit in the face with a ball of snow. He brushes the nuisance away, blinking furiously as the other laughs on the floor, eyes closed and arms wrapped around his stomach.
“Fuck!” Zoro gasps between breaths of air wranged through the guffaws. “I got you real good, didn’t I?” It takes a while for him to calm down, but when he does, his eyes are soft, gazing at Sanji with something he hesitates to label. “Look, I don’t know what people usually do on this holiday, nor do I know– really know what you go through out there.” he jerks his chin up, “But there’s no harm in having some fun.”
“Suppose you're right.” the blond murmurs, giving Zoro a quick kiss, pushing down every worry and fear. “And also,” he starts, a mischievous smile worming its way over his features. “I suppose you won’t mind this either, right?” comes the question as he slams the largest snowball he can create in his mind on top of the swordsman’s head.
It's adorable, the look of surprise he receives, so unexpected and full of disbelief. He can’t help but cackle joyously as he scrambles to his feet and takes off.
Sanji doesn’t know where he’s running, but the sound of Zoro following hard on his trail is comforting enough.
Tomorrow’s going to be a shitty day, but for now– for now he’ll stay here, and not wake up.
For once, he'll enjoy Christmas.