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“–disgusting, horny, perverted–”
“Ow! Ow, Nami, stop– you're not lis– fucking ow what the fuck–”
“–piece of shit, I don't even LIKE men why would you assume I–”
“Stop hitting me!” Sanji wails. He's thrown his hands up over his head, but he hasn't moved out of Nami’s reach, even though he could easily dodge her flailing hands. “I was just asking, I thought it would be nice to offer–”
“Nice?” Nami shrieks. She's blushing so hard she's worried her face will catch on fire. She doesn't think she's ever been this mortified in her life. “That's not nice, you freak! I don't care if you're in heat, I'll kick your ass right over the side of the ship–”
Luffy, with his incredible, tactless ability to show up at the most inconvenient time, wanders over to see what the commotion’s about. “Are Nami and Sanji wrestling?” he asks around a mouthful of tangerine. “I wanna wrestle!”
“Nami’s being mean to me,” Sanji says. He looks up from where he's just sitting on the deck now while Nami smacks at him, giving Luffy a pitiful look like he's the one being mistreated. “I didn't do anything.”
Nami’s head almost explodes. “Didn't do– you just propositioned me in broad fucking daylight!” she splutters, and Sanji scowls.
“I did not! I asked because I wanted to nest, not– I'd be so much more romantic if I was inviting you as a heat partner! I'd get flowers and wine and hire a band, probably!” Sanji’s voice breaks, and his lip wobbles pathetically. “You'd be swooning!”
Nami had her mouth open to yell some more—swoon for fucking Sanji, of all people, what is he on—but she freezes at the sad little crack in his voice. “Are… are you crying?” she asks, baffled, and Sanji sniffles and dabs at his eyes.
“No,” he says, then, “Yes, of course I'm crying, your beautiful way with words and powerful fists has– have overcome me, I'm very p-passionate–”
Nami’s fists are by no means powerful, and she's pretty sure that her barely-coherent screaming at Sanji barely counted as words at all. She's still pissed as hell, but… “Are you, um, okay?”
Sanji shoots her a dirty look, then snaps his head away guiltily like he's ashamed of the expression. “I'm in fucking preheat,” he mutters. “I'm fine, I'm not– you know, I was just worried about asking you and then you yelled at me a lot but that's completely fine.” He sniffles again. “I'd never call a lady rude, everything you do is perfect, but, you know.” He draws his legs up to his chest, glaring at his own shoes now, and says sulkily, “It would have been more perfect if you'd just said no instead of hitting me about it.”
Nami blinks. “Not if I'd said yes?”
Sanji glowers at her properly this time. “I just said you don't have to. I'm not gonna make you hang out if you don't want to.” He groans and scrubs at his cheeks. “Fuck, and I'm being so– I'm really sorry, my hormones are being stupid right now, mosshead don't even open your mouth–”
“What's your excuse the rest of the time?” Zoro asks anyways, and it's Sanji’s turn to yell as he launches himself to his feet and halfway across the deck.
Nami stares after him, eyes wide. Luffy gulps down the rest of the tangerine, peel and all, says, “Are Sanji and Zoro fighting now? GUYS ME TOO I WANNA WRESTLE–” and jumps into the fray.
Nami feels a little desperate as she makes eye contact with Usopp, who grimaces sympathetically.
“It's hard being the only normal ones, huh?” he asks. “Hey, do we have any money in the budget left over for extra hot sauce? I want to make some more bombs.”
“I'm going to my room,” Nami says, then turns on her heel and marches away before anyone else says anything crazy.
She spends some time mulling it over, first while sitting at her desk, then lying on the floor staring on the ceiling, and then, hesitantly, while nudging her blankets into a loose pile and snuggling into them to try to see what the appeal is. It's like lying in bed normally, just not as flat. What… what's the point? Why would anyone want to do this? Why would they care about having company to do it with them?
Sanji gives her a wary look when she slips into the galley later. “If you're gonna hit me again, just let me turn the stove off first,” he says, and Nami winces and sits carefully in the chair furthest from the stove, and from Sanji.
“No, I wanted to talk. I, uh, I'm sorry for losing it earlier. I thought you were just being…”
“Yeah, I know,” Sanji says tiredly, turning back to whatever he's making that has Nami’s stomach growling already. He's been cooking up a storm the last day and a half, trying to have enough prepped for them all to eat while he's out of commission. Nami and Usopp had both offered to cook while he was busy, but he'd looked so heartbroken at the thought they had decided discretion was the better part of valor.
Besides, Sanji’s leftovers taste better than anything Nami's ever made fresh.
“I'm serious, that wasn't what I was asking for,” Sanji says. “I've just never had a chance to nest with another omega before, and I thought it could be fun.”
And there it is. The real reason Nami let herself get mad, because overreacting to Sanji’s offer was easier than considering it, than thinking about why he asked her instead of any of the guys. So much simpler to pretend he was just using his upcoming heat as an excuse to be gross and pushy, so much less painful to ignore how shy and hopeful he'd looked when he asked.
“You know I'm not really an omega, Sanji,” she says quietly, and Sanji glances at her out of the corner of his eye before setting his jaw and focusing on the pan again.
“According to Arlong,” he says. “What's a fishman know about it, anyways?”
“He had a pretty good idea.”
What Arlong had known about it was that a human on his crew was going to be difficult enough to deal with, and that much harder when he found out Nami was an omega. What Arlong knew was that betas were the closest thing to correct that a human could be, no messy cycles or unpredictable pheromones to deal with, and so if Nami was going to stay, Nami was simply going to be a beta.
It could have been worse. They actually knocked her out for the surgery, despite mocking threats that they'd leave her awake for it. One long, thin scar on her lower belly, two smaller ones at the base of her neck where her scent glands had been. He'd even given her time to recover, let her heal up completely before sending her back out into the world. Nami hadn't even presented yet; it wasn't like she knew what she was missing.
She folds her hands together to resist the temptation to rub at her scarred neck. “I don't think I'd be that fun as a heat partner.”
“You don't have to come,” Sanji says. “And even if you do, you don't have to stay. It would really just be a chance for you to relax, you know? Just hang around in comfy clothes and eat snacks. Hang out. Do omega stuff.”
Nami doesn't know what the fuck “omega stuff” is supposed to be.
“I’ll think about it,” she says.
Sanji’s smile is glowing, or maybe that's just his fever-bright eyes and the flush building in his cheeks. Nami wonders, in a way she's never let herself wonder, what he must feel like right now.
They're docked at a small island only a few days away from the Reverse Mountain. They were supposed to be halfway up that mountain by now, but Sanji woke up with a fever two days ago and went scrambling to find Nami to tell her his heat was coming. They could have tried it, maybe, but no one was particularly enthused about the idea of trying any hard sailing when one of their already-small crew was sick and distracted.
So, here they are: docked at a small little nothing island, taking a few days to prepare themselves for the journey ahead. Sanji’s rented a room at a small, cozy inn, and Nami was going to stay on the Merry and work on her maps, on figuring out a course and a plan for the mountain, but somehow she's standing in the lobby of the inn wearing an old, soft hoodie and loose pants, rucksack slung over her shoulder.
“Hi, um, my friend rented a room for the week?” she says with an uncertainty she almost never feels and always, always hates. “Sanji. He said he'd leave a key here for me.”
“Oh, yes, you must be Nami,” the innkeeper says brightly. There’s a large pegboard sporting a dozen keys with different colored tags hanging on the wall behind her, and she turns and begins to sort through them, muttering to herself until she finds the right one. “Here you are. Room seven, upstairs at the end of the hall. Let us know if you need anything, all right? I know heats are tricky when you're away from home.”
Are they? Huh.
“Right,” Nami says, fingers curling around the key. The key is hard and cold, and the bright green tag is a soft, rubbery thing that squishes in her hand. “Thank you.”
It takes effort to unstick her feet from the floor, and even more to actually turn towards the stairs instead of abandoning this whole idea and running back to the ship. What's the worst that can happen? Sanji's ridiculous, but he'd never actually hurt her. It's just going to be the two of them hanging out. Like a mini vacation or a sleepover, not that Nami’s got any experience with those, either, and it doesn't matter anyways because this isn't that, this is Sanji in heat wanting to do omega stuff, and Nami is so far out of her depth she can't tell which way is up.
She stops in front of a door with a round, bouncy-looking number 7 painted on it, and she raises her hand to knock and then freezes because she didn't realize she was shaking until she looks at her own fingers.
She should leave. She should leave, this isn't the kind of place she's supposed to be, Arlong took this from her before she ever even got it just like he took every fucking thing else–
“Nami-swan? S’that you?”
Nami squeezes her eyes shut and tries to force herself to calm down. “Hey, Sanji,” she squeaks out. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah, lemme–” A thud on the other side of the door, then a yelp and the sound of rustling fabric. Did he trip over his own nest? Is that normal? “Shit, shit, ow, sorry, one second–”
The lock unlatches, the door swings open, and then Sanji’s beaming down at her, looking absolutely thrilled even as he rubs at his knee with the hand not holding the doorknob. “You came! Hi! Come on– um, I mean, would you like to come in?”
He looks so excited. All eager and hopeful like Nami showing up is the best thing he's ever seen, and he smells happy. He also smells sweet and strong and, well–
Nami’s cheeks burn. “Are you…”
“You look so comfy,” Sanji says, eyeing her with something like awe. “Are these your pajamas? They look soft. Oh, sorry, come in, come in–”
He steps back and gestures her inside. Nami stumbles through on stiff legs, fingers wrapped tightly around the strap of her bag, and kicks her shoes off next to Sanji’s by the door. He's in pajamas too, or at least in lounge clothes: a pair of worn sweatpants and a long sleeved t-shirt that hangs on him like a tent, falling past his fingertips when he lowers his hand. His hair is a mess of blond bedhead, and he's even more flushed and sweaty than he was when he left for the hotel yesterday.
It's hard to feel nervous when he looks so endearingly scruffy and ridiculous, drowning in his soft clothes and bouncing on the balls of his feet as he smiles at her.
“I'm really glad you came,” he says earnestly. “I've been bored shitless when I'm not– uh, I've been bored, I mean. Here, you can put your bag down there, and I've got the, um…” He stumbles over his words and gestures vaguely towards the pile of blankets and cushions on the floor that Nami has been studiously avoiding looking at since she stepped into the room.
“Thanks,” she says, setting her bag down carefully even though there's nothing more fragile than another change of clothes in it. “Sorry I didn't earlier, I was still…”
Thinking and overthinking about this until she nearly cried. Desperately wishing she could talk to Nojiko about this. Wondering if she would have done this with friends before now, if everything about her life had been different.
“No, it's okay!” Sanji says. “I get it. I'd be nervous, too. I've only ever shared a heat with Zeff before.”
Holy shit, would Nami have done this with Belle-Mere?
The look on her face must be bad, because Sanji's bright smile falls. “Sorry,” he says. “You, um, you don't have to stay, really. It means a lot that you stopped by.”
“No, I want to stay,” Nami says, and she almost means it. She doesn't not mean it, at least. “I just… this is new for me.”
It's not like Sanji doesn't know that already, but it still feels painfully vulnerable to admit. She's never shared a heat before. She's never even had one herself. Hell, she's barely spent time around any omegas at all, because the time she spent away from Arlong’s crew was almost exclusively when she was sent out to rob people, and the kind of rich, greedy assholes she tended to target were almost exclusively alphas. She doesn't know how to get this right.
She so, so badly wants to get this right.
Sanji’s smile is unexpectedly sympathetic and, even more unexpectedly, embarrassed. “It's kind of new for me too,” he admits, hushed. “I actually only had my first heat last year.”
Nami has absolutely no leg to stand on when it comes to omegas with unusual cycles, but her jaw still drops. “What. But you're– aren't you nineteen? You didn't present until you were eighteen?”
Sanji goes impossibly redder, but he laughs, even if it's still a little embarrassed. “Nami, I shit you not, it was two days after I turned eighteen. I was in preheat for ages beforehand, too. I was so scared it was gonna hit on my birthday.”
“Is that normal?” Nami asks. Sanji shrugs, opens his mouth, then hesitates and shoots the nest a longing look.
“Sorry, do you mind if we sit down?” he asks. “Just, I feel kind of, uh…” His mouth flaps as he searches for the right word, then he gives up and says weakly, “feverish and gross?”
“Oh, shit, yeah,” Nami says, nodding frantically. Two minutes in and she's already fucked up by making the guy in heat just stand outside his nest instead of lying down in it like omegas are supposed to do. “Yeah, after you.”
She gestures towards the nest, awkward and clumsy, and Sanji offers her an equally awkward smile before stumbling into it. He careens into a stack of pillows with a relieved groan, wriggling down deeper into the nest until he's starfished out. He snags one of the pillows and tugs it close to his chest as he rolls onto his side, facing Nami. “You wanna get in?”
“Is there a way to do it?” Nami asks. “I don't want to be in your way.”
“Wherever and however is most comfortable,” Sanji says firmly. Nami hesitates, and Sanji softens, rubbing his cheek against the corner of the pillow. “It's just blankets, Nami-swan,” he says softly. “They don't bite.”
“I just don't want to mess up your nest,” Nami says. “I've heard omegas can be really specific about how it's set up, and wanting to make sure it's built just right.”
Sanji lifts his head and blinks a few times. He looks startled. “Shit, really? I just threw it all in a pile and rolled around till it felt nice. Was I supposed to be more careful?”
Nami thinks of her sad attempt to build a nest out of a single blanket the other night, and she surprises herself by laughing. It's an unexpected comfort to see that Sanji’s not that much more experienced than she is. Makes her feel just a little less stupid about the whole thing. “I guess not.”
She's still careful as she steps into the nest, gingerly with one foot at first, then the other, like she's testing the temperature before she sits down. She waits for… hell, she doesn't know. A choir of angels, maybe, or some sort of deep, instinctive rightness with the universe, a message from above declaring this hotel room is holy ground, because there's an omega in heat there.
It feels like blankets and pillows. Maybe Nami really is just the world’s worst omega, or maybe she's built this up too much in her head over the years.
“It's nice, right?” Sanji asks. “Like a bathtub full of fluff.”
Nami snickers as she tucks her knees up and settles back against a cushion, wriggling her toes under a loose sweater in the pile that she's pretty sure is Usopp’s. There's clothes from all of them scattered throughout the nest, wedged in between pillows and blankets and large, plush floor cushions. Some she recognizes from the ship. Others must have been provided by the inn.
“We should make room for a proper nest for you,” she blurts out. “I can bully the guys into clearing some space in the bunkroom. You shouldn't have to leave the ship just to nest.”
Sanji looks startled, then shy. “I don't mind. I didn't have a permanent nest at Baratie, either.”
Nami needs to stop being surprised by everything Sanji says, but she can't help it. “Really? But– but you lived there.”
“Yeah, and I didn't have heats till I was eighteen,” Sanji says. “Nesting didn't seem like a big deal, and by the time it did I'd already had my room set up for so long it didn't seem worth it. There wasn't room for a nest and a bed, and I didn't want to get rid of my bed.”
“So where did you nest?” Nami asks, helplessly curious even though it's none of her business. “Did you nest?”
“Zeff’s room,” Sanji says, making a face. “I used to crash in there some nights anyways when I was a kid. It's bigger than my room, so I just drag my mattress in and make a nest on the floor for a few days.”
Nami’s stomach twists uncomfortably. “He makes you sleep on the floor?”
Sanji huffs and rolls his eyes. “No, I practically have to fight him off, chivalrous old bastard. 'I'm not making an omega in heat sleep on the floor, eggplant, what are you thinking, eggplant, get on the damn bed, eggplant, and no I'm not being a weird old alpha about this, this is how I always act.’ Then he tries to force feed me and check my temperature twenty times.”
His face is set in a scowl. His voice is helplessly fond. Nami finds herself smiling without meaning to. “That sounds nice.”
“It's not nice, it's annoying and condescending,” Sanji says crossly, but his performative glare melts into something more sincere and a little sad. “I thought he'd calm down after a while once he got used to it, but I guess we aren't really gonna get the practice now. I only had a few heats before I left.”
Oh, god, even his scent is starting to smell sad. Nami’s smile fades, and she frantically casts out for a change of topic before Sanji can dwell on it. “Can I ask about your heats?” she asks. “Like why you presented so late? I know that's probably personal, I've just never heard of it.”
“Oh, that.” Sanji clears his throat a little and doesn't smell that much happier, but his expression now is more thoughtful than teary, at least. “So that's… kind of also why I wanted to spend time with you? Because it's not the same thing, I know that, and I'm not saying it's the same thing, but I… kind of get it.”
Nami’s never been gladder than she doesn't have much of a scent, because she'd definitely wreck the sweet, cozy smell of this room with her reaction to that statement. “You get it,” she says flatly, and Sanji winces and pushes himself up so he's facing her. He keeps hold of the pillow, pulling his legs up to mirror Nami and tucking it between his knees and his chest so his hands are free to absently pet it and play with the tassels on each corner.
“About… about being an inconvenience to someone,” he says. “About someone not wanting you to be an omega. Mine didn't work, obviously, but it kind of– I didn't present until years after I should have, and my doctor said my cycle might never level out.”
Nami stares. She expected…. she doesn't know. Weird genetics and a family of late bloomers. A childhood illness delaying his presentation. Hell, maybe he started smoking earlier than she realized and the nicotine fucked with his cycle somehow. She didn't think–
“Someone– did something to you?”
Here voice doesn't sound like her own. Sanji stares down at the pillow in his lap.
“Put me on blockers when I was six,” he says. “It was bullshit, there was no way I was gonna present that young, but I guess they wanted to start early just in case. Shots when we started, then an insert when I got a little older and they decided they didn't want to bother with the upkeep. It shouldn't have been a problem, but, um.” He clears his throat again and inhales, deep and slow. It's only when Nami copies him automatically that she realizes she's been holding her breath. “I was– I got– I left them, the people that did that, when I was eight. And I didn't know that I had to see a doctor to get it taken out.”
“Oh.” Nami swallows hard. “So you just… had that in you?”
“It didn't hurt or anything,” Sanji says. “Honestly, I didn't even think about it for years. Our fucking patissier was the one who pointed it out, actually,” he says with a snort. “Just looks at me in the kitchen one day and goes, ‘Hey, shouldn't you have had a heat by now?’”
Nami gasps and claps a hand over her mouth. That's not as horrifying as someone forcing a child to take blockers, but it's astronomically more humiliating. “He what?”
“I'm serious,” Sanji says with a half-amused, half-embarrassed little smile. “I almost kicked his head off. I thought Zeff was gonna kill him, then Zeff gets this look on his face and goes, ‘wait, how old are you, you definitely should have by now.’”
Nami would feel bad for laughing, but Sanji’s snickering too. She can just imagine it, a seventeen year old Sanji in his chef uniform shrieking at his pack for daring to ask about his heat cycle.
And then she thinks about why his pack would have to ask in the first place, about the fact that they were right to ask, about someone injecting some kind of drug into Sanji’s body when he was just a little kid, and it gets a lot less funny.
“I'm really sorry that happened to you,” Nami says. “I'm sorry that someone did that.”
He didn't say if it was his parents or pirates or anyone at all, but he's told her a lot already. Nami quietly resolves to never ask for more.
Sanji smiles again, a barely-there quirk of his lips. “Thanks. I'm sorry Arlong did what he did to you.”
Nami swallows hard, past the lump in her throat, and snatches up a nearby pillow to hug like Sanji is. It's comforting, like she has to imagine holding a stuffed animal would feel. Yet another thing she never got.
“I don't know how to be an omega,” she confesses.
“Me neither,” Sanji says. “Wanna do whatever we want and say that's how it's done?”
The laugh comes easier this time. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
Whatever they want turns out to be mostly just lazing around the nest all day. They make vague efforts to rearrange and restructure the nest, mostly just into whatever shape feels marginally more comfortably in a given moment. Sanji casually mentions that he's been dealing with horrible cramps all day, and Nami smacks him upside the head for not saying anything earlier then goes downstairs to ask the innkeeper if she has a hot water bottle.
Sanji cries four different times, laughing at himself for it even while dashing away tears because he's emotional, Nami, you can't just say things like “think of a kitten and a puppy being friends,” that's basically attacking him in his most vulnerable, fragile state–
Sanji pulls out snacks that he packed, part of the feast he cooked in advance, and makes a show of feeding Nami by hand while she reclines against a cushion and makes up ridiculous orders that Sanji promises to fulfill only as soon as he's done with her afternoon snack, Most Beautiful and Benevolent High Queen Nami. When Nami tires of the game, she bullies him into switching places with her and letting her feed him instead. His eyes are wide and his cheeks are pink, and Nami rolls her eyes when he scrambles for a pillow to hold in his lap.
“Seriously?” she asks, playing up how unimpressed she is, and Sanji goes impossibly redder.
“I'm in heat,” he protests. “And you're in soft clothes and you're feeding me.”
“Oh, so I'll stop,” Nami says, then bursts out laughing when Sanji whines. “Oh my god, calm down, you big baby. I'm not going anywhere.”
“Better not,” Sanji grouses. “I'd go insane being the only omega on the crew. They already outnumber us; we have to stick together.”
That, unexpectedly, makes Nami’s eyes burn. She never thought she'd have this. A crew, a pack, a nest, a friend. People who let her be who she is, who want her to be who she is.
Sanji gets a little squirrelly that night, eyeing her in a way that clearly says he wants something but doesn't want to ask for it. Nami, who's been keeping his hot water bottle full all day and patted his hair while he teared up about various high-yield crops, waits him out.
“Are you planning to stay here tonight?” he asks with studied casualness. “Or go back to the Merry? I'd understand if you’d rather sleep in your own bed.”
Nami makes a show of stretching out on her side of the messy pillows and blankets. “No nest in my room,” she says. “Might as well stay here.”
Sanji offers her a small, pleased smile, then curls more tightly around the hot water bottle pressed to his middle. “Do you want to, um. Would you mind…” He wriggles a little, clearly uncomfortable, then presses his face against a pillow and mumbles something incoherent.
Nami squints. “You want to try that again?”
Sanji’s glaring when he lifts his head, but it's a thin mask for how nervous he is when he says, “Do you want to sleep on this side of the nest? A little closer?”
Nami’s been having fun teasing him all day, but he looks so genuinely unsure. She doesn't know if he'd be able to laugh it off this time, and something about that makes her want to melt.
“Yeah, scoot over,” she says, and Sanji makes a happy noise and wriggles back until there's space for Nami pressed up against him. She hesitates for a moment, trying to figure out how to cuddle properly when Sanji’s still clutching the hot water bottle like his life depends on it. He must see her dilemma, because after a moment, his eyes go wide and he twists around onto his his other side, back to her.
“Is this okay?” he asks over his shoulder. “So I can hold this without burning you with it.”
“Yeah,” Nami says, breath catching on her throat. They're just cuddling, she knows that. They're just lying down together while Sanji’s in heat, but she can't help but wonder what it means to Sanji to trust her to have his back now, when he's vulnerable in a completely different way than when he's fighting. She wonders if it means as much to him as it does to her.
She's taken care of her village for years, but always in such a distant, lonely way. She doesn't have words for what it feels like to be allowed to take care of Sanji now.
“Yeah, this is fine.”
She lays down carefully behind him, her front to his back. They're both stiff for a moment, unsure exactly how to go about this, and then Nami steels herself and wraps her arm around his chest, and Sanji melts back against her with a long, content sigh. She shuffles up a little to find a more comfortable spot, eventually settling with her head just behind his. He's uncomfortably warm and damp with sweat all pressed up against her, but when she tilts her head just right, she can get her nose close enough to his scent glands to grin helplessly at his happy, relaxed smell.
“That's nice,” Sanji says around a yawn. He sounds half asleep already. “We gotta switch later, I can't smell you like this.”
Nami snorts despite herself. “I don't have scent glands. You can't ever smell me.”
“Sure I can,” Sanji mumbles. “You smell like tangerines and salt and ink and paper and your shampoo.” He yawns again and leans back against her more heavily, nearly melting in her arms. “Don't need pheromones. You smell like my pack mate.”
Nami's not going to cry. She's not, she's not, she's not.
“Thanks for inviting me,” she says thickly. “This has been really nice.”
“We should build a nest on the Merry,” Sanji says. “But not in the bunkroom. In your room, maybe. It should be your nest too, right?”
“You're just trying to get in my room, asshole,” she says, and Sanji snickers.
“Trying to get in your nest, at least,” he says. “You wanna? We could share it.”
Nami tries to picture it. A nest made of her own things, a permanent fixture, a place to snuggle with Sanji and relax and sprawl out more than her small bunk allows. A place for Sanji to ride out his heats on the ship, and a place to feel like the thing she's never known how to be.
“A nest would be nice,” she says. “I've got space for it.”
“Good,” Sanji says. “We should have a nest at home. We're the pack omegas, right?”
He sounds hesitant. Half an offer, half a request. Nami squeezes her eyes shut and grits her teeth as she fights back tears, then she gives up and lets them slip out, disappearing into Sanji’s hair. Sanji’s being the softest she's ever seen him. She can stand to be a little softer, too.
“Yeah,” she says, and she reaches down to carefully link her fingers with his over the hot water bottle. “We are.”