Author: Devo
Fandom: One Piece (Eiichiro Oda, Toei Animation, Jump)
Spoilers: Baratie arc
Warnings: Language, Sexuality

Summary: "I'm so tired, I haven't slept a wink. I'm so tired, my mind is on the blink." What do pirates do when they can't sleep? Zoro and Sanji have a bit of a talk.

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The Sleep of Reason
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Sanji lay awake in bed smoking--long past the hour he should have--listening to Zoro thrash around. Probably caught in the throes of one of his night-terrors, and a bad one this time.

Zoro used to get the mild garden-variety type with calendar precision in the earlier days. Kind of freaked Sanji out the first time. He was half asleep then, as he recalled. There'd been a bit of creaking and fussing from Zoro's side of the berth, sounds of blankets sliding against skin, uneven breathing, and several things had gone through Sanji's mind at once: 'oi, good for him,' was foremost 'but, christ, man...can't he do that in the bathroom?'

Might've been rude of him, but a man's sleep was sacrosanct, and he'd be damned if he wasn't at least gonna say something.

So Sanji had grabbed his pillow and flipped half-way out of his hammock, winding up a good throw before Luffy snaked out a long arm and stopped him. He'd looked over to see Zoro--that green-haired shitferbrains--tossing and turning like a dog chasing rabbits in its sleep. Man was muttering, growling, and twitching, but not doing at all what Sanji'd thought he'd been doing.

Luffy had placed a finger to his lips and whispered sharply: "He has nightmares. He'll be fine in minute."

"Lemme just wake him," Sanji had whispered back, raising his pillow again.

"Nope," said Luffy. "Bad idea."

Sanji was all set to argue his case. No compunctions about telling Luffy 'what's what'. but the fussing had stopped already, and there was Zoro's usual dumb ass hanging half-way out of the hammock, head all the way back and snoring with relish. That had done it. Sanji recalled pegging the pillow for all he was worth, then the subsequent brawl which ended in him bunking under the kitchen table and Zoro up in the crow's nest. There'd been a carefully scrawled note on the galley door next morning:_if it ever happens again, you're both dead-meat._

Love, Nami.

And, P.S. We're almost out of tea.

That quite put the stopper on _that_. Being that he valued his life about as much as his sleep, Sanji left Zoro to his thrashing. Ignored it when he could, or sat up and lit a candle, read a while, smoked, contemplated the vast mysteries of the cosmos...and otherwise pretended the idiot _was_ just jerking off. This, oddly, set his mind at ease.

Sanji got quite used to lying there nights, listening, waiting for Zoro to quiet down. Stopped giving him a start after the initial few times, and almost became a sort of routine: like his post-dinner smoke. When he heard the terror sounds stop, often with a small sigh, that's when he'd fall gratefully asleep.

It never occurred to ask what the dreams where about, and Zoro never seemed to lose much rest over it--all things being relative, since he slept most of the day anyhow, wherever and whenever he could. He never seemed troubled most mornings, beyond his usual crankiness before food or coffee, and never bolted upright with a flush of stark, terrified guilt. The way Sanji did. No. Zoro woke ass-early as always, scratched himself vigorously through his hemp pyjama trousers, and went into his whole yoga spiel while everyone else snored away. (How many mornings had Sanji lain watching, pretending to sleep? Too many.) At some point, Sanji wasn't sure when, the dreams stopped; and he lay awake many a night, waiting for the sigh that told him "All's well."

Caught him by surprise, how acclimated he'd become to that irritant. How much he counted on the various sounds and textures and ways in which Zoro annoyed him for normalcy. Made him unusually snappish, which he just put down to the insomnia, and made him twice as likely to seek out a fight. All status quo, as far as Zoro was concerned.

"I'll take you down, shitty cook. Any time, any place. Just bring it."

Sanji brought it and Zoro ate it up like salt-crisps. That was the way things were during the day, and that was how Sanji kept himself from thinking too much. Act and react. Smoke, drink, cook, fight.

"Something's going on," Nami had observed after one unusually vicious crack-up, which left the two of them laid out. "This isn't like their usual idiocy."

Luffy'd just shrugged it off. "What? They're always fighting. That's what they do."

"Yeah," said Nami. "But Zoro's usually done something to set him off."

Sanji had shut his eyes to them and lit a cigarette, while Zoro lay flat out behind his back, grumbling and panting. Why try and argue his point? Weren't it just Zoro's nature to set him off? Weren't it the simple fact of his damned existance that was all he needed?

Ussop warned him that it wasn't healthy to supress things. That it was the fault of society that men turned to violence, rather than discuss their feelings out in the open.

"Fine, you want me to discuss my feelings," asked Sanji. "I'm feeling aggravated and pissed off." Then, to prove his point, he put extra anchos into that night's paellia, pith and all.

It was a pyrric victory, at best. Zoro stubbornly ate two huge bowls full, spooning it through the tears and snot with a most healthy gusto, and the rest of them suffered right along. Especially after the belch Zoro let out.

"Delicious," he'd whimpered, holding out his plate for thirds. "More."

Thus prompting a week-long chile eating battle, that finally ended when they ran out, and no-one wanted to be nearer than five feet to either of them.

"Now you're just sublimating," said Ussop, who'd been living off of cold-meat sandwhiches to that point.

"Sublimating," Sanji had snorted. "You read that in a book, or something? What, were you just waiting to bring that one out?"

"It's all right here," Ussop had exclaimed, flapping the volume excitedly in his face. "You're clearly a man at war with his own psyche...you have all the classic signs: lost sleep, lashing out at others, I could go on!"

"Uh, no, that's all right," Sanji told him, carefully pushing his hand away.

"Hey," said Ussop. "You ever hear the story of the scorpion and the frog?"

Sanji gave his curry another stir then set the lid on it to simmer. Reaching back to pull a chair from the table, he'd sat down and lit himself a cigarette. "Oi, go on," he'd said, and slouched in to listen.

Ussop was unusually to-the-point, and the story lacked most of his characteristic wild embellishments, but it was all the same worth listening. "That's what it's supposed to tell us, anyway," he'd concluded. "That, when you get right down to it, we're all at the mercy of our instincts. Try as we might, we can't change."

Sanji had turned this over in his head a moment, then stubbed the rest of his smoke out in a tea-saucer. "Are you saying that's what you believe?"

"No," said Ussop. "That's the thing. We're human beings. We're better than that."

Sanji had gotten up to check the curry, arguing as he stirred, "or we like to think we are. You know the reason men turn to violence," he'd asked. "It's because they're _men_."

Ussop had rolled his eyes at this and said how disappointed he was, thinking _Sanji_ of all people was above that. How he was all suave and sofisticated, and knew a thing or two about vino.

"I'm a chef," Sanji had corrected. "Not a fucking mait'r d. Get outta here with that nonsense, right now." He wiped his hands on his side-towel, then reached for a pair of plates. And while he plated, he pointed up with his chin, to the heavy copper sauce-pan hung beside the smoke-hood. "See that pan," he'd said. "Gift to me from another chef, after he'd used it to brain some guy. And that pot? We used to get bored and nail rats with it. This knife? Used to cut a bullet from some guy's shoulder."

He spun the two plates onto the table and slapped a fork down beside each. "Don't lecture me about the violence men do and tell me what's in our nature. I've got better shit to think about. Now taste that, tell me what you think."

They both agreed it could've used some chile, to which Sanji had just shrugged. "Never realize how much you miss something 'til it's gone."

Pithy of him.

After several weeks of quiet, in which Zoro had slept like a baby--and Sanji not at all--, the big dumb-ass was at it again with renewed vigor. The first sound dropped the bottom out of Sanji's stomach, and the second prompted him lying here in his hammock, tense and smoking. Chewing over what to do. Should he go on pretending to ignore it like normal? Or should he get up and stand by the window, brooding, pondering the vast mysteries of the cosmos through a dirty port-hole? Should he be happy?

This _was_ what he'd been missing, after all. But at such a price, he finally concluded, because Zoro wasn't just fussing anymore. He was fighting for his life. Muttering the names of attacks, jerking his arms, shifting his shoulders such that his hammock was starting to pull from its hooks.

Zoro whimpered, a sort of choked keening sound, and it was yet another sock to the gut Sanji was hard-pressed to shrug off. All those nights he'd just lain there with this going on within reach, with all the power but none of the balls to put a stop to it. Just wake him. That was all he had to do.

He thought about the violence men did in the name of 'being men' and wondered why it had never occurred to him. Zoro carried swords and he used them to kill; simple fact of life that Sanji had accepted and taken immediately for granted. He was once a bounty-hunter, now a pirate, and it was just in his nature to do what he did.

But didn't it just eat him up at night?

Didn't he just have to bury that stuff so deep, it could only come out once he closed his eyes?

Or was Sanji reading too much into it, just like Ussop and his books?

Zoro was gibbering now, small muttered sounds that might've been "no", and that was the last straw.

With a small grumble, Sanji stubbed out his cigarette and swung his feet to the floor. Padded silently across the berth, leaned over Zoro's hammock--sprawled body sweat-slicked and shivery with fear--and placed a hand on the chording by his shoulder.

"Hey," he whispered, and gave a little shake. "Hey, Zoro..."

The swordsman's face tensed, a small moan in the back of his throat. Either he was aware of a voice, or it was all part of the nightmare. Because he seemed to panic even harder now, and the 'no's' were louder. And Sanji recalled Luffy's words from much earlier: "bad idea."

But it was two in the bitching a.m., and they'd all had a hard day of mishaps and stresses. Piratical bullshit per usual, and it never failed to leave them all exhausted. Sanji's sleep, hell, Zoro's sleep, was worth maybe a black eye. So he shook harder and whispered with more urgency: "Hey, shit-head, come on."

It seemed like Zoro was calming down for a moment. He rolled onto his side and dipped into the cushions, mouth falling slack. But as soon as Sanji started to pull back, Zoro's eyes flicked open and a shadowy hand shot out and blundered for Sanji's neck. Fingers punched awkwardly into the dip above Sanji's collar-bone, grasping, scrabbling. He got over the shock quickly and clapped the heel of his own hand over Zoro's mouth; gave him a sharp reprimanding jostle, and hissed.

"Eh, eh, wake up! It's me, you idiot!" Then he took his hand away to let Zoro breathe, and maybe snap back if he wanted.

What came out, though, was just this weak watery voice, too mortal, too unsure. Not like Zoro at all. "Sanji?"

"Yeah, Sanji. You just tried to strangle me!"

Zoro went limp and let out a long breath of relief. His hand blundered up again, clumsily swiping a pat at Sanji's shoulder. "Hey, I'm sorry," he muttered. Which was highly, highly not like him either, and probably cause for alarm.

"You were having a nightmare..." Sanji started, fidgeting now, because Zoro's wrist was still against his neck--hot, heavy, and slippery with sweat. "You feeling all right?"

"Yeah, why?" Zoro mumbled, obstinately shutting his eyes.

Sanji girded himself and reached up to lever Zoro's arm away. Didn't seem right to just slap him off, but this was more physical contact than he'd counted on outside of the odd tussle. "You feel kinda feverish."

"It's hot in here," Zoro countered, now clearly irritated and wondering what the hell Sanji wanted with him.

"If it's hot, why are you shivering?"

Zoro sighed and tossed listlessly a moment. He looked ashen, even in the dark. "I need to get up," he grated, shoving out at Sanji, turning to slither from his hammock.

Sanji moved away, but not far enough, and ended with an arm slung haphazardly across his shoulder. "Jesus-christ," he muttered, putting on a show of disgust. "You're dripping on me." All the same, though, he let Zoro lean on him all the way across the room; up onto the foredeck, where Zoro let go and grabbed onto the railing.

For a second it looked like he was about to go over, or maybe heave sick, but all he did was lean there shaking for a few seconds. Then he slid to the planking with a dull thunk and slap, curled in on himself and sat there. Sanji wasn't sure what else to do, so he ran and fetched a towel. It was one of the good towels. Large, thick, waffel-woven, and expensive. He dropped it onto Zoro's sweaty shoulders, but stopped short of wrapping it round him. In his head, he heard Ussop's voice mutter mournfully about repression and the nature of men. All that garbage he didn't need right now.

"Want me to get you something...I mean...to drink?" Sanji offered.

Tight little head-shake from Zoro, who was still turned away from him, curled up and shaking weakly.

In the galley, with just the dim light of the moon from outside, Sanji set a pot of water to boil and warmed up some brandy. Again, expensive stuff; but he wasn't to worried about the cost just then. Money came and went, and there was no shortage of liquor in the world. The brandy went right into a pair of coffee mugs, and the water went to a pot with some tea and herb. Onto the tray with the drinks went a plate with crisply sliced apple and dark chocolate, which he carried out and set down, placing it between Zoro and himself.

Zoro might've been asleep sitting there, where it not for his hand which dropped down and reached for the offered mug. "Man, you went too far," he muttered groggily. "Chocolate and everything."

Probably closest to a 'thank-you' he was likely to get, so Sanji took it as such. "That's what I'm good for," he said. "Leave the medicking to the doctors. Leave the food to me." Then he fished a cigarette from his apron-pocket and lit up.

Zoro fell on the chocolate like a growing puppy, eager and intent only on his own gratification. He ate with one hand, held his drink in the other, and kept his mouth too occupied to fit in a word besides.

Maybe it'd ding the man's pride, Sanji thought, to say anything right now. But he had to ask. "What was it about?"

"What was what about," Zoro mumbled round his last mouthful, quickly washing it down with a slosh of brandy. His color was slowly seeping back, under the loud glare of the moonlight, from sallow to bronze. He was either playing defensive, or he really didn't remember.

"That nightmare you keep having. Is it the same one every time? Or is it different?" Might as well have asked him his greatest fear outright, for the stung look Sanji earned. "What, you don't wanna talk about it?"

"It's no big deal," Zoro pouted. He was playing petulant now, and a little macho in the way tough young things often were. "Just fighting."

"Fighting who, or what?" Sanji prompted. Getting things out of Zoro was a lot like de-boning a duck: it took a firm, steady hand and couldn't be rushed. Finesse was wasted. It could get messy, too, if he wasn't properly attentive. "Sea serpent? Squid monster? That Mihawk guy?"

Zoro's chin jerked up fractionally. "Mihawk?"

"That guy?" Sanji prompted.
"Maybe." Said Zoro. "Maybe at the end. I dunno. There were so many of them, like hundreds...I didn't really have time."

Hundreds. Sanji tried to picture that faceless seething mass of bodies, some with swords, some with guns; pictured them coming from all sides, wave after wave, dying messily by twos and threes. Tried to put himself in Zoro's head, and see what he saw when he fought. How neatly his enemy folded, and how he didn't stop for a second look back. Wasn't a place he could stay very long, he'd admit. "How bad are we talking here," asked Sanji. "Was it like in the funny pages? Like Popeye? Or--"

"No. It's way too real. I stab and I slice, and I can feel all of it," Zoro continued. "I'm ankle deep in blood and...and..." his voice starts shaking at the word 'gore', and he pales again on on describing the sounds, the smell of sliced bowel. "I never seem to wanna stop, and sometimes they plead with me. They beg to die. And sometimes he's there."

Zoro was babbling now, Sanji could see his pulse threading along the inside of one sturdy wrist, see new sweat breaking out, beading along his brow and running rivulets down his jaw. He didn't like this at all, but the least he could do was sit and listen.

"It isn't like a victory at all. It's not like I expected," Zoro closed his eyes tightly and shivered, rocking slightly. "Sometimes I run him through and he doesn't die right away. He just kind of...he..." Here, he held up his hands and gestured helplessly, grasping at air.

"I don't understand," Sanji whispered, frowning. "Isn't that what you want? To beat him?"

Zoro took a shuddery breath and drew the towel tighter around himself, coiling into a ball almost. "To win and be the best, the most skilled, the number one undefeated." He squeezed his eyes shut. "That's right."

"You think once you kill him, the nightmares are gonna stop?"

"No," said Zoro.

Sanji drew his knees up and folded his arms across the tops. "You don't wanna kill him at all, do you?"
"No," said Zoro.

"Then why do you have to fight this guy? Why does it have to be with swords," Sanji asked.

"Because, that's my way," said Zoro. "It's his way. It's the only way to prove--"

"That your dick's bigger," Sanji cut in, finishing the thought for both of them. "I mean, what's a sword anyway, but an extension of--"

"A man's soul," Zoro shot back. "That's what they teach us. And that it's an honor to die in battle. You should welcome it and go there with dignity, not choking and crying. Not like a...a...fish..." and he took a quick drink to cover his voice cracking.

Sanji took a slosh of his own brandy, and it'd already gone cold. He splashed in some tea, diluting it, but welcoming the heat anyway. "Not such an honor to kill, is it? Doesn't strike me as something that's ever bothered you before, though."

Zoro took a long haunted gaze off towards the graying horizon. "Maybe because it was never your business before."

"And it is now? Have you always had night terrors?"

"Nightmares," Zoro corrected.

"Night terrors," Sanji countered. "Shut up, and don't try and dissemble your way out of this. This was a night terror, it made you completely ill. You were all pale and shit, and you were shaking like--"

"All right, all right, a night terror," Zoro grumbled. "What do you want?"

"I wanna help, I mean, this is really messing you up." Sanji paused to drink some of his brandy-tea (brantea?), and found it not at all disagreeable. "And I have to live with your ass, so, you know. This benefits both of us."

"I see," said Zoro.

"What are you afraid of," asked Sanji, "more than anything in the world?" He shook his hair out of his face and drank some more.

"You tell me first," said Zoro. "Then I'll tell you. In all honesty."

It could've been a trick. But, then, that wasn't Zoro's style. He was direct to a fault. So Sanji let him have it with both barrels. "Bugs. And that people will think I'm a fag."

"I'm afraid of myself," Zoro said calmly. "And do _you_ think you're a fag?"

"Sometimes," said Sanji. "Sometimes. And why are you afraid of yourself?"

Zoro shook his head, looked down at his knees. "I don't know. I mean, in a world of seriously scary shit, why am I the only thing I'm worried about?"

"I think you just answered your question," said Sanji. "You're worried about yourself. You afraid you'll let yourself down? Afraid you're dangerous to yourself with those swords?"

"Dangerous to myself and everyone around me...yeah." Zoro nodded. "Afraid I'll fail because I hold back. Afraid I hold back...because I'm afraid. I'm just afraid."

"Can you own that fear?"

Zoro rubbed at himself, at his arms over top the towel, and swung his head side-to-side like he was really warring with it. "I'm not sure," he muttered dourly. "Can you be okay with yourself? Can you stop trying so hard with girls?"

"Uh, not on that last part. I mean. I do want to get laid before I die," said Sanji. "What about you? Or is that not something you're ever worried about? Walking the warrior's path and all."

"Funny thing about the warrior's path," Zoro mused. "Ever hear of 'the beautiful way'?"

"No," said Sanji, scarfing a piece of chocolate, then an apple slice. "Can't say I have."

"All of the old samurai of legend," he said, "used to talk about brotherly love, and what it meant to be nakama. How loyal they were to each other, above anyone else, above any woman."

"Oh," said Sanji. Then, "oh. I dig. They all--and you've--"

"That's not at all what that means. But I have. I am." Zoro said, very calmly. "At least now we know who the bigger fag is."

Sanji did not give himself very long to digest this, because it made sense all along. In a way. "So, then, what's with all of the macho bullshit? Why are you always picking fights with me?" He ashed his cigarette and pulled a drag. "You think you've got more to prove, somehow? You need to let the world know your balls still work, or something?"

"That's not it," said Zoro. "And you should listen to yourself talk. Every other word is balls this, dick that, and your ass."

Sanji snarfed in a chuckle, smoke streaming from his nostrils, stinging his eyes. "That's the way I talk." But he recalled them laid out on the planking, that time, and Nami's voice in the background. Recalled the slapped-red tinge of Zoro's face and neck, the quick rise and fall of Zoro's breathing, and the hard tympanic rhythm of his own damn heartbeat. He'd never felt it so accutely before in all his life.

"You're so afraid people will think you're a fag," Zoro mused. "You don't realize it's always you picking those fights. Always you jumping on me. To prove what?"

"That I don't want to fuck you," Sanji whispered, picking up a bit of chocolate. No point in not being honest now. "You ever hear the one about the frog and the scorpion?"

Zoro turned petulant again, pouting into his cup. "No. 'zit supposed to be some kind of joke?"

"Shut up and listen. There's a scorpion drowning in a flood or something, and this frog swims by and says 'hey, climb on my back and I'll swim us both to safety.' The frog says it has faith the scorpion won't sting it, 'cause otherwise they both die, right? 'Climb on my back,' he says, and the scorpion does. When they're half-way towards land, the scorpion stings the frog on the head." Sanji paused to suck at his smoke, and this had a nice dramatic effect he thought. "Anyway, as it's dying, the frog says 'why'd you sting me? Now we're both doomed.' The scorpion says 'it's in my nature,' and they drown."

Zoro gave a great derisive snort. "What the hell? Was that supposed to make me feel better?"

Sanji came up short. He had to admit he may've missed out on a point or two of the story; but the intent was still there. He'd had something to say. "Well, no. I think it's supposed to make you think. About how if we don't try to rise above our basic nature...we're all doomed?"

"Pffft," Zoro said. "Stick to cooking and leave the stories to Ussop. They're more interesting when he tells 'em."

Sanji sucked away the last of his cigarette, frowning around the damp dog-end while the wind buffeted his hair to the side and scattered ashes across the deck. "Yeah, you have a point," he said and caught himself sighing. "Who knows were he's getting this stuff lately, though?"

"I don't think you give the kid enough credit for smarts," Zoro snarked.

"That's not true," said Sanji.

"Yeah, well, you can't admit when he's got _you_ soused."

"Huh?"

Zoro's turn to go all calm and superior. All know-it-all. "How've you been sleeping lately, Sanji?"

"Sleeping just fine," he grumbled, flaking the chocolate from his fingertips onto an apple-slice. "What's it your business, anyway?"

Zoro shot up from his huddle and launched half-way across the food tray on one stilted arm. "What was it _your_ business how _I_ was sleeping? Who asked you to start caring all the sudden?"

"How is it you want me to answer," Sanji spat back, not rising to it, not flinching away. "Do you really want one, or do you want another fight?"

Zoro was intense, puffing up and bearing down across him. His lips were parted and it seemed he was waiting for something: for Sanji to take a hint, make a move, 'throw the first blow'. "No, I don't want another fight. Is that what _you_ want? Without bullshitting, is a fight what you want?"

Sanji saw the eventual outcome. If he were to bullshit and lie, then he'd _get_ a fight. Whether that was what he really wanted or no, he'd get his fight, and they'd be right were they'd started out. Square one, denials-ville. "No," he said. "It's not. So, why, then?"

"Whatta you mean, why?"
"Why do we still do it? If you didn't really want a fight all those times, you could've just walked away. But you didn't. And if you're not trying to prove anything by it, then what?"

Zoro fell back, casually settling down into a sloppy basket-style sprawl, this time facing Sanji directly. "I like fighting," he said. "It's in my nature to be physical. And if, like you said, you don't want to fuck me...then fighting's all we've got."

Sanji leaned back on his arms, as much to put distance between them, as to gain perspective. "It doesn't have to be."

Zoro stared at him for a good long stretch before saying anything, and then it was, "yeah, it does. To be honest, you just irritate me."

Sanji grinned and turned onto his side, leaning up on his elbow to watch Zoro watching him. "You irritate me too," he said. "At least we can agree on something."

The ship gave a great lazy roll then, almost like it was yawning and turning over for bed. Sanji realized it must've been late: false dawn was upon them, and he had to be up again, soon, to cook breakfast. Shrugging to his feet was stiff work, though. He hadn't counted on sitting so still for so long, and Zoro must've felt the same. He still seemed knit up about something, and Sanji leaned down towards him, hanging there in space.

"If I offered you a hand up," Sanji asked him, "would you take it?"

Zoro reached out and answered his question right there, slapping a firm palm into Sanji's. Once on his feet, Zoro quickly shifted and made as if to grab Sanji in a head-lock. Words went right out the port-hole, then. They scuffled for a brief turn, but ended in a draw--so tangled around one-another, it took a second or two to sort out whose limbs belonged to whom.

"And what was that for?" Sanji barked, face hot from the friction of Zoro's armpit. "Don't tell me it's just in your nature."

Zoro just gave him a great bearish squeeze and lifted him off his feet. "Fine," he said, grinning. "I won't. And I won't tell you this was, either." He let Sanji down and kissed him on the cheek. Not quickly, or demurely, but hard; almost bending him sideways with the steady pressure of it.

Sanji shoved him off, but not without a token lean, pressing back to let him know it meant something. "Asshole."

"Nothing to prove," said Zoro, as he padded off. "Remember that."

Sanji bent to collect the various cups and dishes, and set them all back in the tray. "Remember you're better than you think you are," he muttered. "Remember you're not alone."

By the time Sanji looked up again, Zoro was gone, but he couldn't help yelling after him: "Remember to bring back my towel! Don't get it all splooged up and junk!"

Nothing to prove, Sanji told himself. Nontheless, he slept not a wink that night, and wasn't looking forward to the next. Too afraid of what he'd see when he closed his eyes, because his cheek was still warm when he touched it, and he couldn't tell anyone why.

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"The sleep of reason produces monsters"~ Albrech Durer