scone | — SALTBURNT INBOX.

[ a long pause. ]

yeah
i think im better with you, sanji

then i'll stick around wherever you are. really, you should be where i am. which is in the kitchen. dishwasher didn't show up either.

[ if he's lucky, he's dead ]

[ i’ll stick around. she wants to hear him say it. to record it and play it back. remix it on a loop. it sounds like — like the way he looked at her, when they danced at the stupid prom. all fizzy, a burst of carbonation in her chest. ]

forget about him

[ especially everything he said about jinx and nami.

which hopefully is the last thing on sanji’s mind, when she flashes into the kitchen like pink lightning, crowding him against the nearest surface, the same as she did when he was sick the first time and then when he was dying.

she looks mostly the same, if bruised by the fighting. big eyes open, vulnerable, but wary. ]

Say it again.

[ does he know which part? does she? she couldn’t say what she’s after, only that she nearly blew everything up for the second time this month, and the thought of actually losing it all — ]

If you meant it. I’m not doing dishes for nothing.

Edited 2025-05-22 23:24 (UTC)

[ he’s holding a soapy teacup when jinx blitzes in, eyes gritty and achy from no sleep and private tears widening at her sudden close presence. his expression settles back into its usual neutrality, plucking the cigarette from his mouth with wet fingers. ]

You always do the dishes for nothing.

[ maybe she thinks she’s seen him worse than this — crying on the floor, dying a slow death in her arms — but this? this is the worst. this is the worst he’s ever felt since he’s been here, certainly since he’s met her. he felt closer to nami than ever last night, stitched back together by their shared loss. but he knows her patterns and can feel the threads stretching taut, silent, as she struggles to pull away.

the last tears he shed were five minutes ago, when jinx said she wasn’t coming to work. it’d felt like one of her bombs exploding in his face. like i don’t want you. like i can disappear too. ]

I’ve meant everything I’ve said to you. [ a drag of smoke. ] Even when I called you a shitty little loquat.

[ he traces the line of her temple with his wet fingers, all the way down to her jaw, and marvels that he can still feel anything, that his heart can still pump blood despite the gaping hole in his chest. she’s warm, pulsing energy. here. ]

Edited 2025-05-22 23:52 (UTC)

Not for nothin’.

[ she huffs, even as she leans into the cup of his hand, lashes fluttering at the tender coolness of his fingertips. it takes her a moment to see him properly, red-eyed and sallow-skinned. not sick, the way he was before, but not well, at least. one hand slides from the counter to his hip, climbing up the flat of his ribs to find where his heart thuds in his chest. ]

For Nami. [ a beat. shoulders bunching up, she scuffs a shoe on his pristine kitchen floor. ] For you.

[ ‘cause she didn’t want a stupid job, when she woke up here, far from the world (and the hardships) she’s known all her life. she didn’t want anything or anyone but silco, returned to her, then gone again. it was sanji and koby who found her. saw her as more than she was (than she is, than she can be). and invited her into something bigger, warmer, until nami sealed the deal with a gifted scarf around her neck. ]

I don’t even know what that is. [ her nose wrinkles, more at the description than the smoke, when silco smells the same. ] Sounds made up.

[ with a tsk that tugs her mouth sideways, she leans up on the tip-toes of her combat boots to snatch the cigarette from his mouth and kiss him — before he can complain about that, too. ]

[ he’s on his way to describing a loquat when he realizes what she’s doing. what’s about to happen. sanji, for all the beats of his lovesick heart, has not been kissed by a grand number of people in a meaningful way. sure, there were the girls passing through the baratie, his inexhaustible attention on every pretty face that floated through their doors, but he hadn’t felt anything real until nami. and then zoro. and now jinx, a perfectly-aimed bullet of electric heat where her hand rests over his heart.

it’s impossible not to kiss her back, not when she’s planted her little blue flower in the tender soil of his heart all that time ago and has been stubbornly growing there ever since. just like zoro sprouted his way in. just like nami became the entire garden blooming all at once. it’s the flaw of his birth that got him thrown out of his home, that he feels everything, and he can’t do anything to stop it. he would never want to, because then he’d miss out on this — on jinx’s warm lips, and the way she stretches up to reach him, and how it feels like an end to something he hadn’t even known he’d been wishing and waiting for.

because she’s nami’s. but she was his first. but jinx doesn’t belong to anyone, and he’s just grateful that she showed up to work.

with both hands around her sweet, heart-shaped face, he breaks the kiss and feels the horrible burn of tears in his eyes. ]

It’s not made up. [ the fruit. this. ] It’s real. It’s all real.

[ he wants to keep his word to nami, don’t tell her, because nami prefers to pull away and disappear when she’s been gouged open with hurt, but he can’t go a moment longer keeping it inside, even as guilt springs bitterly to his mouth. ]

Zoro’s gone. [ he keeps jinx’s face cradled in his hands. ] That’s why your vacation offer’s expired.

[ because i need you here. ]

[ sanji cradles her face like a precious thing, as though jinx can be hurt anymore, too fast for a punch or blade or bullet. she could lose herself in it, in him, if he weren’t so clearly split. the salty wet of his tears pulls her out of a reverie, expression flashing — uncertain — until his grief spills over. ]

Oh, Sanji.

[ though she keeps his cigarette perched in one delicate hand, the other slides from his cheek to press calloused fingertips at his temple, then card back through his hair. sanji didn’t know it, back then, but he was there for her when she lost silco the second time. he’s been here for her the whole time, as she grieves him even while she has him, as she aches over all the connections she’s never had and finds herself desperate to keep close.

jinx kisses the bridge of his nose, then the swell of his cheek, kitten lick swiping the salt from the bone. ]

—‘m sorry. [ for the pain she knows too well, now searing white hot in his chest. there’s no fighting it. no denying it. she tried. ] I’m not going on vacation.

[ or quitting, or doing anything she threatened while thinking only of herself. sanji and nami fill the whole of her mind now, the problem of their grief one that no invention can solve. nami hadn’t even said anything, she thinks, hurt climbing her ribs, lodging in her throat, but there’s nothing to be done about it. maybe nami doesn’t trust her that way. like can be so far from love, and jinx has left a great deal unsaid herself.

it’s a problem for later, however, when sanji is here, and she can kiss the pained curve of his mouth again, hoping to alleviate even a fraction of his hurt. ]

I’m staying here with you, okay? [ their noses brush as she shakes her head. ] Okay. Can’t get rid of me this time.

— SALTBURNT INBOX.

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🎬 — action.

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