Work Text:
The Baratie has a strict rule against offering birthday specials. They offered them once. They will never offer them again.
Zeff was an idiot for allowing them in the first place, but he didn’t initially understand the gravity of birthdays. As his pirate crew aged, they stopped pointing out their own birthdays, and Zeff was more than happy to ignore them too. He fed the crew well enough that any evening’s dinner could pass as a regular pirates’ feast; they didn’t need anything extra because someone was one year closer to the grave.
His crew had known that any dinner he cooked was a suitable replacement for a birthday celebration, but the Baratie clientele sure as hell didn’t. Birthdays embolden their customers with an untenable self-righteous and stubborn sense of divine entitlement. Most ask for an extra dessert or, god forbid, a song. The former is easy enough to put together, the later Zeff saves as a method of torture for new waitstaff.
After one too many times of well-fed Marines trying to cajole their way into a free dessert or foolish singing, Zeff had enough. He instructed every single one of his chefs and waitstaff that the Baratie will not dish out free desserts for free, and if anyone insists, to serve them a tall glass of water with a candle stuck inside.
However… sometimes, he makes a single exception to his strict no-birthdays rule. Sometimes a kid will eye every damn dessert his waitstaff carries out with envy, and Zeff will accidentally deliver a cake to the wrong table. Sometimes a lovey-dovey couple will lose time, so caught up in their own conversation they stay long-past their original reservation, and Zeff will leave them chocolate with the bill.
He makes consistent exceptions for women. Always has, and always will. They just need to ask.
His current exception is a group of women celebrating something, though the story changes every time they’re asked. The ringleader of the group, a young blonde with a toothy smile, orders round after round of appetizers and drinks. They never bother with the full menu. The group’s been in the Baratie’s best window spot all day, idly chatting as the sun rises and sets, and none of them show any intent on leaving anytime soon.
Zeff delivers them their appetizers themselves, enjoying the brief moment of satisfaction from serving the young ladies, then hurries back to bark orders in the kitchen. He can’t leave this shit staff alone for long, not until they’re properly kicked into shape.
He’s halfway through plating six servings of their seafood special when he overhears something heinous.
“--and they asked for a birthday dessert,” Carne laughs. “Gave me big puppy dog eyes and everything.”
Carne better not be talking about the table Zeff thinks he’s talking about.
“You moron! The customer’s always right! You should’ve given them the cake!”
“Not here, Patty. The Baratie doesn’t give out desserts for free. Even if the girls were cute–”
He is talking about those lovely girls’ table. Zeff stomps over, then quickly smacks Carne in the head with the bottom of his peg leg.
“Hey! What the hell was that for, Chef?!”
“What the hell are you talking about, you moron? You should give the young ladies what they want,” he barks, motioning to the kitchen sinks. “You’re on dish duty until you figure that out!”
Carne scoffs. “But the no freebies on birthdays policy–”
“--doesn’t apply to women! Scrub your dishes until your fingers fall off, idiot.”
As much as Carne bitches and moans, he still stalks off to wash his dishes. The rest of the kitchen argues one way or the other on the fairness of Zeff’s ruling. Rules are a guideline in the Baratie, and the final judgement will always be decided by himself and himself alone. He doesn’t need insubordination. They should all know better.
Their debates don’t matter now; no, Zeff needs to make up for Carne’s treatment of those poor women yearning for their celebratory dessert. He knows it’s not any of their birthdays. He doesn’t care. They’ll get their cake.
Most of the chefs are busy with something, even if they keep debating under their breaths, but then there’s the brat. He’s skirting around the edge of the kitchen, trying to peek out the kitchen windows at the rumoured women. Typical behavior. He’s learnt from the worst.
“Oi, eggplant,” Zeff calls out. Sanji practically jumps out of his skin. “You’ve stared at their table long enough. You should know what those lovely girls want for a birthday cake.”
“Birthday cake….?” He stills for a moment. Was he too busy gawking to pay attention? “I thought you said that the Baratie doesn’t do birthdays,” Sanji accuses. He holds his small fists to the side, offended at Zeff’s hypocrisy. “You– you can’t go back on that!”
Sanji’s ove-reactive rage radiates off him like a hot oven. The birthday freebies rule is mostly to save face for the meeker waitstaff who could cower in the face of a Marine officer demanding his birthday shot or whatever. It’s not some golden rule Sanji should regard as unbreakable.
But Sanji is still scowling, anger barely contained in his tiny body. He fumes, fists shaking at his sides. It doesn’t make any sense; Sanji would typically drop anything and everything to serve a table full of women, but instead he’s defensive and irritable.
“Yeah, brat, a birthday cake,” he says. At Sanji’s continued angry scowl, he throws the kid a bone. “They’ve been ordering cheese and mimosas all day, a light citrus sponge should work.”
The tension breaks. Sanji’s irritation boils over. “Of course that’d work, I don’t need your shitty advice!”
The brat storms off, collecting ingredients and cooking utensils as he goes. None of the staff pay him any mind, not even when he elbows them to grab a wooden spoon or a handful of lemons. The kid keeps looking over his shoulder like he’s expecting Zeff to be watching him. That doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t need Zeff’s advice; it’s a singular citrus cake. He’s cooked more difficult dishes before.
The nervous look temporarily leaves when Sanji serves his finished cake, fawning over the women at the table as they eat, but it returns the second he steps back into the kitchen. Sanji shifts from foot to foot, glancing over his shoulder back at Zeff, even as he washes the damn dishes.
Zeff pretends not to notice. Noticing always startles the kid and he closes off, never offering any information on what his damn problem is unless he snaps. Zeff doesn’t want to push him to that point, so he leaves him be, hoping he’ll cool off eventually.
There is no eventually. Sanji makes up some half-assed excuse that he needs to skip dish duty early because he’s been waking up earlier to meal prep, and Zeff lets him get away with it. Zeff makes some comment on how Patty’s been slacking recently so he can cover, then shoos Sanji out the door.
“Hey, don’t shove the brat’s dish duty off on me,” Patty complains, though he obliges regardless.
“He’s acting weird, huh?” Carne comments, and Zeff grunts in dismissal.
He is acting weird, but like hell Zeff’s going to point that out to the rest of his staff.
Zeff barks at the rest of the cooks, telling the lot of them that they better not break any damn dishes, and ambles off to his office to double check his ledgers. He doesn’t need anything else to worry about. Not that he’s worried in the first place. But he does take longer with his paperwork than normal, spinning his pen in his hand instead of focusing on the numbers in front of him.
Every time Sanji acted out was a new mystery. Most of the time Zeff lets it pass, not wanting to accidentally ignite a bomb, but this time he has a bad idea on why Sanji’s so peeved. He opens his books and counts how many weeks of itemized stock inventory he’s kept track of. It’s all meticulous work. His stock inventory goes on for weeks, then months, then years, not a line out of place.
They’ve been at this for more than a year. That’s disquieting in itself. When he gets to the two year mark, Zeff curses, and throws his pen across the room.
After reading and rereading his ledgers until his eyes can’t focus anymore, Zeff exits his office. Night has already set in and most of his crew have gone to bed. He checks in on the brat to make sure he’s sleeping before heading back down to the first deck. The Baratie is quiet, the only noise of the waves crashing into the boat, the deck boards creaking under him, and the loud echoing of his peg leg on wood.
When he’s far enough away from the living quarters that no one will hear him he groans, unable to keep his frustration quiet. He’s such a damn idiot.
Most of the first deck of the Baratie has a sturdy railing around the edges, preventing any drunk patrons from falling over the edge. The only places without railings are the entrance doors and a small section near the back fin. The back fin should have a railing, but it was broken to bits in a previous bar fight. Zeff never bothered fixing it– no one comes out here but the staff– and, well, he likes the damn spot as it is.
Kicking off his one shoe, Zeff sits down at the edge of the deck, shuffling around so his leg is over the railing and his foot is in the water. Sea water licks up his leg, reaching just up to the knee with each wave. The familiar motion of the water typically calms him down. It doesn’t this time.
Footsteps echo behind him, and they’re loud enough that he knows it’s not the brat. Someone else on staff, then. Zeff is content to ignore them, hoping it’s just one of the chefs taking a piss. If he doesn’t bother them, they won’t bother him.
The footsteps stop just behind him. Ridiculous. The chefs have been getting awfully bold lately.
“It’s not like you to sulk, Chef Zeff,” Carne comments unhelpfully.
Zeff huffs. He should kick Carne all the way back into the kitchen before he tries to start a damn conversation. That’d show him his place.
There’s a loud yelp behind him. “Hey! Don’t kick me yet.”
“Give me one reason not to kick you over the side of this deck and into the ocean–”
Carne presses a cold glass of something against his cheek. He can smell the booze from the glass; it’s strong stuff. Despite his threats, Zeff’s not going to say no to that. He takes the glass, and when he takes a sip, Zeff realizes it’s one of his own better whiskies. Bastard’s been raiding the cabinet.
He’ll allow it, just this once. He’s stumped on this himself. Might as well get some advice with his drink.
“If you’re going to bother me, sit down,” Zeff grumbles, motioning next to him.
The waves continue to hit further and further up his leg, and Carne finally sits down cross-legged next to him. He keeps a distance between them, as much as he can with the limited break in the railing. Zeff doesn’t look at him, instead focusing on the reflection of the half moon in the ocean.
“And I’m not sulking, I’m thinking. Maybe you’d know what that is if you tried it sometime, you stupid bastard.”
Carne laughs, undeterred. “Shut the hell up. Patty’s the one who doesn’t think around here.”
“Hah. Don’t give yourself that much credit, you’re not that much better than he is.”
Carne takes a sip of his own drink. He’s either drunk a good bit of it down already, or given Zeff the better pour. Maybe a bit of both. But he sure is nursing it down slowly now, waiting for Zeff to break and say something. He’s glad Carne’s on this boat, but he can be too perceptive.
“Quit deflecting. What the hell has you worked up? Even the brat’s noticed that you have a stick up your ass recently.”
That makes Zeff pause. He doesn’t want Sanji to think anything’s wrong. Kid’s high-strung enough already, and that’s just because Zeff mentioned birthdays. God forbid that he actually gets the impression Zeff’s truly mad at him.
Zeff watches as the one ice cube waters his drink down. He sighs, not able to put off this conversation any longer. He needs advice, even if it’ll take putting aside his own pride to get it.
“...how long have you been at the Baratie, Carne?”
Carne pauses, caught off guard. “Dunno, a year and a half?”
That sounds about right. Zeff looked over their ledgers into the night. He knows how long each and every member of his staff has worked at the Baratie, down to the day.
“And how long has the Baratie been open?”
“...just over two years,” Carne answers, though the sentence ends like a question. “Why the hell does that matter?”
Zeff scoffs. It matters way too much; Zeff’s been so stupid. He tips back the drink Carne gave him, relishing the burn of alcohol down his throat, then motions for Carne’s own.
Carne, knowing his damn place, unhappily obliges.
“And after working here for a year and a half, don’t you think it’s weird that we’ve never celebrated the brat’s birthday?”
“You don’t do birthdays,” Carne answers quickly.
He pauses, face scrunching up. And there it is. He’s pinpointed the problem.
“...you don’t celebrate the brat’s birthday, but you made him bake a cake for those girls today,” Carne accuses with a harshness that Zeff didn’t expect Carne to show on Sanji’s behalf. He knows that Sanji grates on the chef’s nerves more often than not. “You even know what he likes. It can’t even be that hard.”
“It shouldn’t be hard,” Zeff half-agrees. The sea waves continue, ignorant to his plight. “...I haven’t celebrated it because I don’t know when it is.”
The comment takes a moment to sink in, but it leaves Carne choking on his own drink, “You– you don’t know when it is? Isn’t he your son?!”
“He’s not my son! Don’t know why everyone assumes that.”
Carne makes a face, and Zeff doesn’t want to hear his moronic reasoning. He cuts him off with a wave of the hand. “Picked him up almost three years ago. He came like that, warts and all.”
Part of that isn’t true. He’s grown more warts since Zeff brought him under his wing; Sanji copies his own bad habits like a mimic, intent on emulating the best and worst of him.
“It’s still been nearly three years,” Carne says, jolting Zeff out of the thought. “You still don’t know when his birthday is?”
His tone is as accusatory as Zeff deserves. He pinches the bridge of his nose. He’s already missed at least two of Sanji’s birthdays already, and he has a bad feeling the brat’s going to make it difficult to celebrate one at all.
“It wouldn’t be a problem if I kept to my own no birthdays rule. Kid wouldn’t realize anything. But…”
But now he’s stepped in some shit. He never thought to celebrate a birthday before, but birthdays are important to kids, right? He vaguely remembers enjoying them when he was younger. And Sanji, despite his own prickly behavior and denials, lights up at that kind of shit.
Zeff knows he’s not the best option for raising a child, but he can at least throw a birthday party. That’s the bare minimum, and yet he hadn’t even asked for two years.
He downs the rest of his drink, and Carne quickly takes the empty glass from him.
“If not knowing the kid’s birthday is your only problem, you should stop sulking about it.”
“What?! Look, I know you don’t give a rat’s ass about the brat, but–”
“--all you have to do is find out when it is, right? And then you’ll throw him a party that’s three birthdays worth.”
He says it with such easy confidence. Zeff scowls. It can’t be that easy. Sanji always makes shit like this difficult. He doesn’t even know where the hell to begin.
Carne laughs in his face. “I’ll even help you out, since you fucked it up two years in a row already. I’ll find out when his birthday is for you.”
Good fucking luck. “Oh, fuck off. You go ahead and give it your worst,” Zeff says. He looks pointedly at the empty glasses. “You better wash those. And don’t get any bright ideas about sneaking into my liquor cabinet again!”
Carne dismisses him just as easily, though he does take the glasses with him. As soon as the door to the Baratie clicks shut, Zeff allows himself to sag forward, one hand on his forehead as he listens to the familiar sound of the ocean.
Zeff leaves Carne to his own scheming.
There’s not too much harm in it. Hell, maybe it would be easier for him to find out; he is, technically, Sanji’s peer. Sanji’s a steel trap of information with Zeff normally, but maybe Carne will be different. Zeff continues his normal routine of working on his ledgers at night, though recently he’s been accidentally tearing through the paper with the tip of his pen more and more often.
But when Carne reports back no less than two days, looking morose, he has a feeling he’s made some kind of mistake. That’s not the look of someone who simply failed to find information. He’s even holding two glasses again as a peace offering.
Zeff motions for him to set the drinks down. “What? Did you come here to tell me you’re giving up already?”
“Of course not.” Carne shakes his head, but the apologetic look remains. “This is just going to take longer than expected.”
“Could’ve told you that myself, shithead.”
“Oh, shove it.” Carne’s words are without their usual bite. “But, really…”
He hesitates, then downs his own drink. Zeff raises his eyebrows; it couldn’t have gone that bad.
“Look, I thought this was going to be easy. Had a plan and everything,” he starts. “I told the brat he could only have more smokes when he turned fourteen, and I never remembered celebrating his birthday any time recently.”
Zeff snorts. Not a bad tactic, but Zeff’s been trying to keep those things away from Sanji since he started. No way in hell he’d listen to Carne’s lectures.
“But he kept denying having a birthday at all. He really didn’t want to tell.”
“Of course he didn’t tell, he’s never going to listen to anyone about his damn cigarettes. He really should–”
“No,” Carne interrupts. “It wasn’t about his cigarettes. He really, really did not want to tell me his birthday, or Patty either. Practically threw a fit and kicked both our asses before running off.”
That is odd. Sanji kicking their asses was normal, but typically he’d gloat about it, not run off.
“Huh.” Zeff can’t think of a reason for that reaction. “...is he that bent out of shape about it?”
Carne nods, then shrugs. “Don’t know why, though. He doesn’t make much sense, does he?”
He sure as hell doesn’t.
“I’ll talk to the kid myself. Don’t worry about it.”
Carne shakes his head. “No, I’m sure Patty and I can annoy the answer out of him.” He pauses, scratching the back of his neck. “But I thought you might know why he’s so squirrely about it.”
Zeff has no damn clue. Carne looks apologetic, and Zeff’s left with one more question he doesn’t have an answer to.
“Let me know if you find out,” Zeff says in lieu of admitting he has no idea why Sanji would be acting out about this.
They don’t say anything else. Zeff finishes his drink, then Carne dutifully takes his glass back to the kitchen. It takes Zeff too long to finish his paperwork, again, and by the time he does, Sanji is already in his room, asleep.
Zeff is curious by Carne’s apprehension. He doesn’t expect anyone on staff to walk eggshells around their 14-year-old sous chef, but Carne hesitated, clearly unnerved by whatever the hell Sanji’s reaction was. All he was supposed to do was find out the brat’s birthday.
So as soon as Carne broaches the topic again, Zeff eavesdrops just outside the kitchen doors, just in case he picks up on something Carne missed.
“The old man doesn’t do birthdays,” Sanji’s voice echoes in the kitchen. “So quit asking me about it!”
“Oh, come on, shithead,” says Patty. “I’ve worked here almost as long as you have. I know Chef Zeff’s rules, too. And he breaks them all the time, whenever he feels like it.”
Patty’s egging on Sanji this time– Carne must’ve put him up to it, too– and by the sound of it, he’s already on an uphill battle.
“Well, I haven’t seen him do anything for your birthday. You’ve worked here for over a year. If it mattered, he’d have done something for you.”
Zeff can just make out the three of them through the kitchen porthole window. Sanji has his arms crossed, glaring at Patty like he can roast him alive with a look.
“Hah. I’m too old for that, brat. But you’re still a kid.”
Sanji freezes in place, unsettlingly still. His previous uncontrolled irritation is gone, instead he now looks like a deer trying to avoid being seen by a wolf. “I’m your boss, don’t call me a brat,” Sanji says in his reedy kid voice.
“You’re thirteen. You’re still a brat.”
Patty hasn’t noticed Sanji’s shift in behavior, though Carne seems to have. He watches between the two, one hand on his chin.
“It doesn’t matter that I’m thirteen! I’m the sous chef already, I don’t need a birthday. It’s not like I’m not gonna take the Head Chef job,” Sanji says. “I don’t need to do a birthday test to prove anything to you.”
Carne’s eyebrows raise to his forehead; Zeff doesn’t know what to make of that, either.
“A test?” Patty questions, without much subtly. “What the hell is a birthday test?”
“That’s what birthdays are for. Testing you on how much progress you’ve made in the last year, if any at all.”
Both chefs stare down at Sanji, gobsmacked.
“I guess birthdays can be about that,” Carne acknowledges. “But…”
The comment comes too late, silence hanging in the air for too long. Sanji must realize he’s said something wrong, because he suddenly changes topics.
“And if it was your test, you’d fail! You’re going to overcook your steak at that rate, idiot!”
The two chefs snap attention to the oven, Patty darting over to open it. “I only overcooked it because you wouldn’t give me a straight answer!”
“That doesn’t matter! I’m going to kick your ass!”
The kitchen breaks out into typical ruckus, and Zeff moves along. Carne reports the same conversation to Zeff later, looking just as apprehensive as he did the day before. And this time, Zeff is beginning to understand why.
Zeff has enough of letting Patty and Carne take the reins on his own damn problem. Zeff’s the one who fucked up by not knowing Sanji’s birthday in the first place. He’s going to be the one to fix it.
He waits until long after the Baratie closes to act. Most of his staff has already gone to bed for the night, finishing up their allotted clean up duties and calling it a day. The kitchen empties out, and Zeff counts as everyone leaves.
All that’s left is one chef in his kitchen. Sanji’s always the first to start in the morning and the last to leave. Tonight, he’s busying himself by polishing serving platters until they have an unnecessary mirror sheen.
As Zeff ambles into the kitchen, Sanji’s shoulders tense. He continues working without as much as a greeting.
“Oi, eggplant, you don’t need to polish the serving trays. If you want to stare at your own reflection, we have mirrors,” Zeff comments.
That at least earns him a glare and matching pout. “I’m just fixing the smudges the new busboy left, old geezer. Maybe if you weren’t so old and blind you’d be able to see them.”
“Hmph, I can see them just fine.”
He leans over Sanji’s shoulder, watching Sanji’s expression through the reflection. Sanji’s small hand tightens around the edge of the serving tray, and he scrubs at it with renewed aggression. “Quit hovering! I’m doing it right, you blind old geezer! No need to double check!”
“Tch. Whatever, you can fix the busboy’s mistakes in the morning.”
“I can do it now–”
“I’m trying to talk to you now. You can do it in the morning.”
That finally shuts Sanji up. He holds the serving plate close to his chest, almost like a shield. “I don’t know what we need to talk about. First Carne, then Patty, now you. I don’t see the point of–”
“So you know what I’m going to ask you, then.” Sanji’s silence is confirmation enough.
“No,” he tries anyway. “I don’t.”
“Eggplant,” Zeff admonishes, and Sanji avoids looking him in the eyes. “When’s your damn birthday?”
Sanji freezes stiff. “You don’t need to know. You never needed to know before.”
“Well, I do now. It’s for…” Zeff frowns. He’s never been openly sentimental with the brat. Not wanting to admit to any sentimentality, he settles on lying. “It’s for paperwork. I need to know for our ledgers. Track how tall you’re getting, or if you’ll be a short runt forever.”
Wrong excuse.
Zeff expects Sanji to bite back– Zeff’s own insult is there mostly to soften the blow of kindness– but instead, Sanji tenses up more, fully hiding behind the serving platter. He looks tiny behind it. He eyes everywhere but Zeff, before settling on the open door just behind his shoulder.
Sanji’s one visible eye is wide, and panicked, and before Zeff knows what to make of it, Sanji starts rambling.
“I’m not– I’m going to be short forever! I’m already taller than I was last year! So you don’t need to test me!” There’s that test nonsense again. Sanji continues to be fixated on thinking of his own birthday like some kind of trial. “Birthdays are stupid! Who are you even going to compare me to, Patty? He probably gets worse every birthday! Test him instead!”
“What the hell do you mean by test? I’m asking you about your damn birthday, shithead.”
Nothing calms Sanji down now that he’s riled up. “That’s the point of birthdays though, right? You’re going to test me and tell me I’m falling behind this year! That’s how they always go! I’m not!”
That’s how they always go. Just how the hell did he celebrate birthdays in the past? Sanji occasionally shows glimmers of having a rough upbringing– he was working too young for anything else– but everything he says is so damn confusing.
“Quit talking nonsense! I’m not going to test you, just who the hell taught you that was how you celebrated a birthday?!”
Wrong move, again. If Zeff thought Sanji looked nervous before, he looks absolutely terrified now. His face pales, the previous stiff posture replaced with a seemingly uncontrollable tremble. He shakes, mouth opening and closing like a dying fish, before collecting himself.
“No one taught me anything!” He insists, his raspy voice echoing in the kitchen. “And you don’t need to do anything for my birthday! You don’t even know when it is!”
And Zeff has a bad feeling he’ll never find out now.
Sanji takes in one loud, shuddering breath. “Just go back to ignoring it like you did the last two years!”
“I didn’t ignore it!”
Zeff hadn’t meant to skip it. Guilt claws at him, and he can’t keep his frustration from his face.
Sanji must think he’s the one who’s said something wrong, because he turns frantic, eyes darting across the room. He finally decides on an escape plan, and darts just under Zeff’s reach.
“Oi! Brat, where the hell do you think you’re going?!”
He doesn’t get a response, just the loud, echoing slam of the kitchen door.
Sanji is very good at staying hidden.
Zeff learned this the hard way during the first major storm on the Baratie. Zeff knew Sanji wouldn’t take the weather well, but he hadn’t expected him to disappear. His first, irrational thought when he couldn’t find Sanji was that a wave had taken him overboard, swallowed by the ocean again. The reality was he’d hid under his own bed, clutching a pillow over his head to shield himself from the noise.
Neither of them talked about it. Zeff pried Sanji out from underneath the bed, just to see him, and Sanji avoided eye contact, caught between fear and embarrassment.
He’s gotten better at finding the kid since then.
This time takes longer than expected. Sanji’s not in any of his typical hiding spots. No, instead Zeff finds him off at the tail of the ship, by the broken railing that Zeff’s fond of himself. He’s small enough he’s hard to spot at first, but his bright hair contrasts with the blue ocean.
Zeff makes sure Sanji can hear him as he steps forward, dragging his peg leg across the deck. “Oi, eggplant,” Zeff says. “Brought you dinner.”
Sanji hunches over himself, ignoring Zeff entirely.
Dinner is an easy olive branch. Sanji won’t deny food, even under the worst of circumstances. Zeff sets the plate down next to Sanji, close enough he can take it without looking over. And he still avoids looking at Zeff, but he does start eating. He scoops the food into his mouth, barely bothering to chew.
Zeff takes his chance and sits down next to Sanji. His foot splashes loudly in the water, and Sanji flinches at the sound. While the water nearly reaches up Zeff’s knees, it’s barely at Sanji’s ankles.
“Don’t skip dinner on my watch, brat.”
Swallowing, Sanji pauses, glaring at Zeff. “I wasn’t going to. I was gonna eat.”
“Sure you were.” Zeff bets he’d try something in the middle of the night, when he was positive everyone else was asleep.
Sanji eyes him suspiciously. When Zeff doesn’t say anything else, he keeps eating until he finishes his plate. He licks the thing clean, then sets the shiny plate behind him. When he’s done, he stares down at his own feet, kicking the water in frustrated, tiny splashes. He even scoots forward for more leverage, though that doesn’t make much of a difference.
The ocean between his toes seems to calm him down, just like it calms down Zeff.
“I didn’t need you to bring me food. I can get it myself.”
Zeff huffs, not bothering that bullshit with a response. Instead, he kicks water, making a much bigger splash than Sanji despite his one leg. It earns an irritated huff from the kid, and he continues kicking his feet to try for bigger splashes, until he finally settles down.
“Old geezer…” Sanji starts, looking at the empty plate. “...why are you still here?”
He’s still here because he doesn’t know what to say.
The kid’s apprehension about his birthday, of all things, is a concerning bomb to defuse. He’s still insistent on his birthday being some kind of test. He knows the kid’s from the North Blue, not the East Blue, originally– he’d weasled that much information– but Zeff doesn’t know much about that sea. He’s never heard anything good about the place, so it wouldn’t surprise him if they had weird, cruel coming of age traditions.
Sanji’s sure as hell convinced that they do, at least. And that’ll have to be enough to start with.
“Look, eggplant…” Zeff starts, trying to find the words. “I don’t know what’s gotten you so convinced I’m going to test you for your birthday.”
“Because that’s how birthdays are! That’s how they go,” Sanji insists.
He doesn’t want to think about what kind of birthdays Sanji’s had before if he’s so convinced they’re nothing but trouble.
“Well, most people in the East Blue just celebrate their birthdays with cake. Sometimes they sing, too. Every damn island has their own stupid shanty.”
“I didn’t ask. I don’t care.”
Zeff ignores the protest. “Cakes are easy enough. You managed that yourself. But we don’t offer birthday specials because most customers will use that to get a free slice, whether it’s their birthday or not. And I may be lenient, but we’re still a business. We’re not gonna give out free cakes to every shitty customer that asks, especially the Marines.”
“Customers are liars.”
“Customers are liars,” Zeff agrees, “Especially the Marines.”
Sanji resumes kicking, the sound of splashing water echoing in the night. “I already knew that.”
And yet here the brat was, thinking Zeff was going to put him through some trial by fire for his shitty birthday.
“Most customers don’t get special treatment. Don’t deserve it,” Zeff continues. “Still make exceptions, though. Everyone likes cake, especially girls.”
Sanji nods seriously, then stares down at the water, contemplating something. “You’ve never celebrated any of the others’ birthdays. Patty said it’s for kids,” he says. “If the rest of the staff don’t get cakes, I don’t need a cake.”
Zeff suppresses a groan. Is he going to have to start celebrating everyone’s damn birthdays just to convince Sanji to tell him his birthday? That’s a pain in the ass.
“Hah. You’d turn down a free cake? Do you not like cake?”
“That’s not what I said! I like cake! I just… I just…”
Sanji’s earlier petulance is gone, and in its place is a recognizable exhaustion. He burnt himself out on his own emotions, and it tired the brat to the point of yawning. He still makes a show of kicking in the water, though his kicks start slowing, getting lazier and lazier.
“I like cake,” he insists. “And I know how birthdays work, too, shitty old man.”
Zeff huffs. “Uh-huh, sure you do.”
“I do,” Sanji says, but before he can protest again, he yawns. He doesn’t even bother covering his mouth. “I made those lovely women a cake. I know how it works. I just thought that… for the staff it’d be a normal– a birthday test.”
His protests are concluded with another loud yawn.
“It won’t be.” Zeff doesn’t know how the hell to convince Sanji otherwise. “And since you know how East Blue birthdays go, why won’t you tell me when yours is?”
Sanji stiffens again, though he can’t keep his eyes fully open to glare. “I’m not a kid, I don’t need to celebrate my birthday.”
“Right, right. You’re a grown adult with adult vices.”
“That’s right,” Sanji nods resolutely.
It doesn’t take grown adult Sanji very long to fall asleep while he’s sitting, though. He keeps nodding off, only waking up right before he nods off and falls right into the ocean. Zeff knows he’ll win the waiting game. He simply has to shut up and wait for Sanji to tire himself out completely.
“Birthdays weren’t always bad,” Sanji admits between yawns. “...my mom used to sing sometimes. Probably not a shanty.”
His kicking stops, instead tapping on the deck with his fingertips in an uneven rhythm. He starts to hum something under his breath, though it lacks any rhythm. Zeff stills, trying to recognize the tune, but it’s completely foreign to him.
“I don’t remember… how it went…”
He continues humming regardless, deep in concentration. His blinking slows, and his eyes droop shut. Zeff has to catch him before he falls asleep and falls straight into the sea.
At least the kid had some kind of positive memory on his birthday. He doesn’t think he’ll get any more information out of him. Zeff shuffles so that he can lean Sanji against him, keeping a good grip around his shoulders so he doesn’t fall.
Water laps up his legs, and it still barely reaches over Sanji’s ankles. He knows the brat is insistent as all hell that he’s not going to tell him his own birthday, and maybe he never will. He’s entitled to his own secrets. But Zeff’d be a moron not to try anyway, especially with the low standard Sanji has for his own birthday celebrations.
Maybe he can guess at Sanji’s birthday. He’s sure the kid will be squirrely about it on the actual day but, well, he’s squirrely about damn near everything. Even if he slips up, it could be from a number of things.
All Zeff knows about Sanji is the brief detail he let slip about being from the North Blue, a half-remembered birthday song, and his name. That isn’t much to go off of.
His name, though… that’s an interesting thought.
Well. If Sanji won’t tell him his damn birthday, Zeff will just have to make an educated guess.
Zeff doesn’t mention the birthday question for the next few weeks.
He doesn’t need to avoid the topic. Work picks up at the Baratie, and Sanji isn’t going to mention his birthday himself. He’s too busy trying to earn respect as the sous chef of the Baratie, and that means a lot of yelling, training, and fighting. Not like he could completely earn the respect of men triple his age, but he sure as hell keeps trying.
It lulls Sanji into the false assumption that Zeff’s forgotten all about his birthday.
He still doesn’t know the exact day of the brat’s birthday, though he has a pretty good educated guess. Sanji hasn’t given him much information to go off of, but after weeks of turning over the problem in his head, Zeff has decided the limited information he has is pretty damn useful.
Zeff plans accordingly. Once he has a good guess on the date, he keeps the information hush, even from his staff. He tells Carne, both because he can keep a secret and because Zeff will need his help. He doesn’t tell Patty, because the loudmouth is sure to let Sanji know ahead of time, but he’s pretty sure he found out regardless.
The result of his planning isn’t an over the top celebration– it’s humble by comparison to the parties they host from time to time– but it’ll do. He’s never been a fan of over the top parties, and he never will be. But he can use the excuse for an indulgent dinner.
Somehow, he manages to carve out the time during the dinner rush to prepare something separate. Fresh pasta is time-consuming but worth the effort, and he saves the best seafood of the day just for this meal. It doesn’t take him long to whip together seafood pasta, but it does take a considerable amount of effort to keep the brat distracted enough not to notice his favorite dish.
The cake takes stealth and coordination. He goes with a citrus cake, not too dissimilar to what Sanji made for the women weeks prior. The cake itself is light and fluffy, with a thick layer of lemon curd cream cheese frosting.
Somehow he keeps it a secret until the chefs meet after dinner rush for their own meal. Chaos is typical around the kitchen, but the game of keep-away Carne and Patty are playing with Sanji adds to it. They manage to sit Sanji down at the dinner table without him noticing anything is happening.
“I didn’t think we were doing seafood pasta tonight,” Sanji starts. “It wasn’t on the regular menu.”
“It wasn’t,” Zeff agrees.
Sanji is incredibly suspicious. But Zeff doesn’t leave Sanji much room to contemplate anything until he sets down the bright lemon cake right in front of Sanji, and unceremoniously shoves a candle shaped like a question mark into the top.
Zeff lights the candles. All the chefs pause. Sanji himself stares gobsmacked at the cake, unsure what to make of it. Carne starts snickering in the back.
“It’s your birthday, eggplant.”
Zeff expects Sanji to be angry. He doesn’t look angry, instead, his mouth hangs open stupidly, like he can’t comprehend anything in front of him.
He finally closes his mouth, swallows, and tries to push the cake back toward Zeff.
“What the hell are you talking about, you shitty old geezer? It’s not my…” Sanji catches himself before he admits anything out loud. “You don’t actually know when my birthday is!”
Well, Zeff had a one in three hundred and sixty five chance of guessing it right off the bat. He thought his chances were higher than that; he had a good shot with his logic. Pity, but he doesn’t care about when Sanji’s actual birthday is.
“What the hell do you mean it’s not your birthday? It’s March second.”
Sanji gapes at him, absolutely baffled.
“That’s what your name means, right? San-ji. March second. I figured it out, shithead. Wasn’t that hard.”
The shocked look doesn’t fade from Sanji’s face. “What are you talking about? Have you lost it, old man? Sanji doesn’t mean March second! It means…” Sanji swallows, paling slightly. He loses his train of thought.
Zeff pauses. Well, he guessed wrong. That’s a shame, he doesn’t know what else Sanji’s name could refer to, but his birthday seemed as good of a guess as any. He expects the brat to explode at him, bark up a storm about the assumption, but instead he stares down at the bright yellow cake, his bangs covering his face.
“That’s not what my name means,” he says quietly.
Sanji scrubs his face, though it doesn’t help much. When he finally looks up at Zeff, he still has wide, watery eyes, his lip wobbling slightly. Zeff can’t keep the shock from his face. Sanji tries to pull himself together with a pathetic, loud sniff, then his eyes start watering again.
Before Sanji can embarrass himself further, Zeff starts rambling. “Well, I don’t care what your name meant. March second what your name means now, and today’s your birthday. Already missed two of them, so you get extra this year.”
He points to the cake. Sanji doesn’t look at the cake, though his eyes do water more. The waterworks don’t seem to end, and now, he looks up at Zeff like he’s hung the moon.
Zeff can’t handle it; he motions to the cake. “Blow out your damn candle, the wax will ruin the frosting.”
“I was– I was getting to it, shitty geezer!” Sanji catches on to the fact that the rest of the chefs are staring, and his full face flushes. He blows out the candle quickly, then unceremoniously shoves a piece of cake into his mouth, chewing slowly.
“You copied my recipe,” he accuses as snot drips down his face. “It’s a lemon cake. But it’s…”
It’s slightly sweeter, with a richer profile from a wider assortment of citrus zest, from lemons to yuzu. Zeff doesn’t need to go into the details; Sanji can figure it out on his own.
“Of course it’s the same. It’s the birthday special,” Zeff says, brushing him off. “Don’t make a big deal about it.”
“We don’t do birthdays,” Sanji argues for the sake of arguing. “You said it yourself.”
Zeff sighs; how long will it take for the kid to accept a gift? “I make exceptions.”
Sanji starts crying again, though he ignores it completely this time. Zeff politely ignores it, too, not wanting to embarrass him any further. He doesn’t seem to know what to say. “That’s stupid,” Sanji settles on, and for the first time in a while, smiles.