space cadet.
Pairing: OPLA!Vinsmoke Sanji x Reader
Word Count: 831 words
Warnings: None
reverie (noun): a state of being pleasantly lost in one's thoughts; a daydream
You imagine the thoughts in your head as a forest of kelp at the bottom of the sea: dense, beautiful, brimming with life and all too easy to get lost in.
They’ve caused you trouble in the past. Countless rapped knuckles, letters sent home to your parents, walking into trees on the way home from school. But how could you resist? Empires rose and fell over the course of an hour inside your mind, mighty beasts swore their allegiance to you and the four seas were yours to explore. The childhood you had in the real world was so dull and lonely in comparison.
When you ran off and joined the Straw Hats, you finally had the excitement you had so craved. And yet, even now, your mind still wanders.
“If you swab the deck any more, we won’t have any left, sweetheart.”
Only a select few can bring you back.
You blink rapidly, the clouds dissipating as you stop scrubbing and look up. Sanji’s already smiling when you meet his gaze.
He lifts his hands; one offers a plate of shortbread cookies, the other a glass of milk.
“I’m going to guess that you haven’t had a break in a while,” he says. “Am I right?”
A break? Sending him a perplexed frown, you lean on the handle of your scrub brush and glance over your shoulder.
The side on which you had started winks back at you from afar, wood gleaming under the afternoon sun.
Oh.
“I … I guess so,” you reply slowly, turning back to him. It’s only then that you register the saltwater washing over your feet and the ache in your muscles. “I didn’t even realize …”
He shakes his head and chuckles, leading you to some nearby crates to sit down. “Too caught up in your stories again? I’m almost jealous that they get to spend so much time with you.”
“I don’t mean to make you worry.”
“Loving someone means worrying about them from time to time.”
He winks, and you smile, flustered.
“I see,” you say quietly. “Then thank you for worrying, Sanji.”
“Of course.” He hands you the glass of milk, then picks up a cookie and taps it against your lips. “Now, this is my best batch of sablés. You have no idea how hard it was to keep Luffy from eating them all in the kitchen.”
“I have some idea,” you drawl amusedly, taking a bite.
The cookie breaks with a gentle snap. It crumbles delightfully in your mouth, sugar and butter dancing on your tongue. A pleased hum rumbles in your throat before you wash it down with a gulp of cold milk.
“What do you think?”
“I think I might eat the whole plate right now,” you say, taking the other half of the cookie.
He grins. “So you like them.”
“They’re delicious.” Picking up another one, you hold it in front of his face. “Here.”
Sanji’s gaze remains locked with yours as he leans forward to take a bite of the cookie, his lips brushing your fingertips in an impromptu kiss before he pulls away. He chews thoughtfully. The action should not look as good as it does.
“My best batch, as I’ve said,” he tells you once he swallows. “But I’ve tasted sweeter.”
You tilt your head. “Where?”
His mouth curls into a smirk, and he places his fingers under your chin to bring your face closer to his. Your noses touch and you can feel his answer against your lips as he murmurs, “Right here.”
The rest of the crew may also have the pleasure of eating Sanji’s food, but they do not share your privilege of knowing just how talented he is at kissing.
He sets down the plate and lifts his hand to cup your jaw, meeting your lips and letting out a soft sigh before pressing his lips more fervently against yours. You can taste the smoke on his tongue, a constant underneath the warm sweetness of sugar and the saltiness of butter. Your eyes flutter closed, and you reach up to cradle the back of his head, fingers tangling in his hair and tugging slightly. The groan he lets out sends tingles down to the tips of your toes.
“Sweetheart,” he pants, and the longing in his voice would’ve made your knees buckle if you were standing, “I won’t be able to stop if you keep doing that.”
You put your glass of milk down so you can bury both hands in his golden hair. Your forehead touches his. “Maybe that’s a good thing.”
“Maybe it is,” he mutters.
You bring him back in for another searing kiss that Sanji returns just as eagerly.
Yes, you value your time alone with your thoughts. They are a forest of kelp at the bottom of the sea, beautiful, countless, and wild.
But as easy as it is to get lost in your thoughts, it is infinitely easier to get lost in him.
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Sokka 🤝 Azula
Being dehumanized in the way that they are made into tools and servants of sorts, centering their purpose on another person and having trouble existing outside of that.
sokka 🤝 azula
a lot of things.
but no seriously. like, everything you said, and also the added fact that in both cases this (self)dehumanization stems from issues of fatherhood. i said in the tags of this post that for sokka it stems from being abandoned in such a way that he knew he was expected to die for katara, sacrificing his life and personhood for the preservation and protection of his sibling, whereas for azula it stems from knowing that her father killed her mother (or simply banished her if you're lame and annoying) and tried to kill her brother and rationalizing that violence through the logic that anyone who does not obey, agree, and serve him adequately simply deserves to die (hence why she believes that fear is the only logical way, and that the only reason anyone who defy her is that she is simply not fearsome enough).
in both cases they are subscribing to explicitly patriarchal logic that denies their own humanity for the sake of achieving the goals of their respective projects (conquest and resistance respectively) in a way that primarily serves those to whom they have subordinated their own selfhoods. and their ways of achieving/navigating that are also very similar. like they're both unafraid of humility, as opposed to someone like zuko or zhao or ozai, whose pride gets in the way of their tactics, but they do have these very fragile egos that are a product of feeling isolated and unloved and unvalidated, and so when they do fail their perfectionism will get the better of them and their facades of mental stability crack (sokka is actively suicidal in "the boiling rock" due to his failure at the invasion, azula has a whole ass nervous breakdown in "sozin's comet" as i'm sure you're aware).
and like. as much as they are willing to let their personhood be subsumed by the project they have dedicated themselves to, they also do both share this adorable quirk (by which i mean dreadful flaw that i nonetheless do happen to find cute when they do it and abhorrent irl) of needing to be the smartest most correct person in the room and being very condescending about it to anyone they deem their intellectual inferior (with azula it's most apparent in her conversations with zuzu, with sokka it's most apparent when he's encountering various villagers and lecturing them on what a bunch of idiots they all are) (also they are teens so it's okay we were all kids once). and as much as their condescension can be obnoxious, it's also proof that they're human beings and not perfect machines as they would like to imagine themselves, because robots would simply not say "i told you so."
(and obviously there's a lot more i could say on the parallels between sokka and azula, because they are mirrors in such a fascinating way, not just within their own scheme but situated in a dynamic with katara and zuko as primary mirrors and sokka and azula as secondary mirrors, and i haven't even talked about how they look like their mothers but worship their fathers, or interrogated their logic thru the framework of utena gender dynamics, or anything. but that is also because such posts are currently in my drafts, and i shall try to post them as soon as i have some more free time. as for now please enjoy this very incoherent ramble lol)
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invisible scars (referenced previous talk here)
[ID: A colourless, digital Trigun comic of Vash and Wolfwood talking about Wolfwood's scars. They're both laying in bed and topless. Vash lays on top of Wolfwood, playing with the rosary around his neck. Then, Vash kisses a spot on Wolfwood's chest. Wolfwood asks, "What are you doing?" Vash smiles sadly, "You got shot here. In the last town we visited. You didn't even bother moving."
Vash props himself up over Wolfwood, who frowns slightly. Wolfwood is quiet for a moment before he says, "You remember that, huh?" Vash grabs Wolfwood's left wrist and brings it to his face. "And here." He kisses another spot there. "When you helped free the hostages from that robber..." Wolfwood dismissively says, looking away, "Was a lucky shot." Vash huffs, “Don’t brag. Jeez.”
Half of Wolfwood's expression is shown, eyes returning to Vash who is now sitting up, continuing to say, "And..." Vash goes on and kiss Wolfwood's right palm. "You got cut here, even though that girl was aiming at me." A moment from the past flashes, of Wolfwood grabbing a knife aimed at Vash, his hand bleeding.
At present, Vash moves down and puts another kiss on Wolfwood's right shoulder. "And here, from watching my back." Another memory flashes of Wolfwood and Vash back to back. Vash looks back as Wolfwood grins while holding Punisher, bleeding from multiple gunshots in his shoulder.
"And," Vash combs up Wolfwood's hair to reveal his forehead, "Here." A final memory shows Wolfwood with a regeneration vial in his mouth while getting shot on his temple. The next panel is framed in blood with Vash at the center, eyes wide and stunned in horror. The next panel is a closed up shot of Wolfwood's eye, locked on Vash's face.
Back to present, Vash’s head is bowed down as Wolfwood raises a hand to his nape and says, “Spikey.”
Wolfwood looks serious and frowns as he says, "We talked about this. Those were my decisions. They're not there anymore. Forget about them." Vash looks very sad before he smiles ruefully and says, "I still see them. All the time." He leans down so they touch foreheads. Wolfwood’s sorrowful expression can be seen as Vash says, "You protect so much. I could never forget what you've done to me. And many others..."
In the last image, they're drawn more cartoonishly. Wolfwood sweats and asks, "You don't actually remember every wound, right?" Vash points at a spot on his chest. "Kuroneko left a scratch here 7 times." Wolfwood, startled, says, "Why the hell are you keeping count—" End ID]
Credits for ID here and here
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