Chapter Text
Hardness.
“It’s strange how a liquid mass could possibly feel as HARD”, Sanji thought as hitting the surface, head first, and dipping into the sea.
Angry waves causing his body to tumble up and down like a rag doll, it took a long, desperate moment to try and decide which way to go when seeking up. UP, rising to the surface and to a most needed fresh breathe of AIR.
Nobody would tell, by the looks of it when he finally make it to the surface, that an uncoordinate, desperate gasping creature as he may appear could possibly be the best swimmer of the Strawhat’s gang –not that competence was so hard to beat anyway–.
Gulping down a huge breath of mixed oxygen and sea water, he ignited a frenzied pedaling movement underwater while trying to spot the ship again. It took him some tortuous long minutes (or more like seconds, but he could swear they felt like a lot more) to see a thing on the blackened atmosphere; salty water clinging to his eyelashes as he fought to stay afloat, heavy rain drops pouring all over blurring his surroundings but, finally, he turned around for the umpteenth time and caught a glimpse of Thousand Sunny bravely riding the storm about a mile away.
Even though he knew the crew was still there doing their best to control the situation, he couldn’t avoid a pang of panic seeing as the ship quickly floated away from him, the current so strong. He definitely needed to move fast, too, so casting a last quick general glance to his surroundings he took a deep breath before diving again.
As his vision grew accustomed to darkness he tried to focus on finding a flash of color guiding him to his fallen comrade. Sanji knew better than to randomly swim to nowhere, not sure of the right direction to go to, so he let himself slowly sink while searching for poor Chopper, coldness quickly biting to the bone.
They were approaching a winter island when the storm stroked, so water was more than a little cool and that troubled him the most since it may be even tougher to get his nakama back when numbness started to kick in. Fists clenching and unclenching as he instinctively tried to keep the blood moving to his peripheral limbs, he slowly stroked turning in a circular movement, knowing there hadn't been more than maybe a minute since the reindeer fell off the ship, so even sinking as a hammer he couldn’t possibly be out of sight already… could he?
Currents flew slower as he kept sinking lower, and as darkness gradually engulfed his surroundings, the only source of light being the eventual lightning up there he tried his best to sharpen his vision to its finest struggling to promptly locate Chopper. Storm sounds fading by the distance, the mass of water whispering its own private sounds to his ears. Both coldness and oxygen depriving already making his limbs numb and heavy, Sanji was about to start swimming up to catch his breath when a sudden flash of bright PINK caught his attention: Chopper’s hat floating about ten feet under him, gently swaying while drifting to the bottom of the sea. Pushing away the slight burning on his lungs Sanji wasted no time on stroking down to catch the item and the sudden flash of a lightning revealed Chopper’s inert form sprawled there on the muddy depths, partially buried by the bottom’s tossed soil.
Thanking whatever God there was to thank for the sea ground being quite high on this area, Sanji dived even further and not so graciously grabbed Chopper by his antlers to pull him off his muddy prison before firmly bracing his limp body to his chest. He then took some leverage stepping on the bottom to take off on the surface general direction.
Rising turned into his personal hell as his lungs screamed for fresh air, surface always too far for comfort, so when he finally reached his so awaited goal the simple effort it took for him to break water’s superficial tension felt as if trying to pass through a granite block.
Sanji desperately gasped for air while trying to stay afloat by furiously kicking the water underneath, both water saltiness and the unexpected frozen breeze blowing up there causing his eyes to instantly water. The déjà vu sensation hit him hard as he frantically turned around trying to locate Thousand Sunny, but fortunately it didn’t took long for him to spot the ship a fair distance away, still facing the non-relenting storm, and he wasted no time either to start swimming towards it, firmly gripping Chopper’s frame against him.
He mutely thanked when seeing his favorite redhead lowering a ladder over the rail as he reached the ship, though couldn’t avoid to get startled as the girl almost fell by the gunwale when a particularly big wave crashed against the hull.
His numb fingers failed to close around the rope stairs at first, fear kicking in as his hands slipped and he suddenly sank, almost losing his grip on Chopper for a moment. It took all his will power to concentrate and fight the stiffness on his limbs to ever so slowly climb up the ladder, letting Nami and Usopp grab him by the jacket on the last flight and pull him up and over the rail.
"Ch-chopper..", is all he managed to say between heavy shivering and chattering teeth, handing over his limp nakama which the redhead quickly took into her arms before running to the inside of the ship, while the long nosed snipper stayed by his side and helped him get up.
"Sanji, can you stand?", Usopp yelled more than asked, mouth scarce inches away from Sanji's ear fighting to overpower the near deafening wind howling around them, and he managed a curt nod while clenching his jaw trying to stop his chattering teeth.
"Yeah. Go now". Oh, wasn't he pulling an amazing act, there?
He saw the snipper hesitating before leaving his side, but Usopp finally released his grip on him and ran off somewhere else.
The blonde took a minute to collect himself, railing in a vice-like grip on his left hand as he casted a quick glance around to recall the situation: no fruit user to be seen, they all provably locked into the ship after Chopper’s fall to avoid any more last-minute rescues. Which let it to just the marimo, Usopp, Franky, Nami and himself to fix Thousand Sunny out there… well no Nami, actually, since she hadn’t come back after taking Chopper in, which he preferred, thinking on the redhead's safety.
He spotted the blue haired handyman up above the foremast, working on reefing the foresail by hand but obviously having a hard time on getting it secured, and mostly the same for the swordsman who had the mainsail half reefed only. Seeing the longnose was already on its way up the foremast to help Franky he put himself to a good use and moved to climb the mast as quickly as his shivering limbs will allow him to.
With the howling wind waving the Jacobs ladder like a flag it took a while for him to reach the top, where the green headed bastard greeted him by barking him to get the sail up already, and he’d gladly given him the finger and barked back to ‘go get bossy with yer ass’, but the heavy quivering up the mast prevented him to. The crossbar was swaying like a candle, having them both crawling more than walking through its length.
Despite his highly uncooperative cold fingers they kind of achieved to reef the sail, but his hands wouldn’t let him properly secure it so after frankly trying he finally resumed to suck it up and shouted to the swordsman to get his ass there and get that shit tied. As a pretty much grumpy Zoro approached Sanji kept holding the bunched sail onto place, and maintained his stiff grip until seeing it properly secured.
"Lets get the fuck down already!", he shouted to Zoro and impelled him to move forward by shoving his shoulder, getting a grumpy come back in exchange.
They both reached the mast and carefully started getting down the ladder, body pressed flat to avoid being swept by the wind and pausing on each step down to blindly search the next one with their feet, reaching deck taking them a hell of a lot more time and effort than normal.
Welcoming the familiar tap of wooden planks under his feet, Sanji took a moment to breathe and slid down to a sitting position resting his back on the mast, finally allowing himself to relax: work was done, they’d be fine now.
"Hey, you taking a nap there?", Zoro’s voice have him sluggishly opening his eyes even when he hadn’t noticed closing them, but he couldn’t find the will on him to move anymore.
"M’cold…", he managed to mumble, letting eyelids slid closed again.
He could feel his body not so gently swaying as the green headed bastard tried to get him to respond, but he felt so drained he didn’t even bothered to react when being unceremoniously lifted off the floor.
Freetalk:
I started writing this THAT long ago it was originally meant to be a 'before time skip' thing. That's why Chopper's hat is leveled pink when Sanji finds it underwater -although I decided not changing that because I thought on a dark underwater ambient the blue in Chopper's hat shall not be very visible, and the pink area on it would stand up more anymore-.
Basically: I started this years ago, and even posted it in some places but I was unable to keep forward with it because reasons. Mostly because I was unable to translate into my poor English the things I wanted to happen (?). Now that time has passed, I'm still not sure I'll do great doing so lol, but I really want to try.
This is a Sanji-centered story. I want it to develop in a ZoSan eventually but I don't plan on the relationship being the main point of the plot. Let's see how it goes, tho!
If you like this story, please drop a comment below and let me know, it sure helps to keep the spirits high.
Also: I'm not an English-speaker. I'm an avid reader but I struggle with verb tenses, so please be compassionate with my writing. D: