The emptiness of his ten by ten foot room surrounded him. No more bed in the back left corner to sleep on, no more pictures taped without frames on the wall to peek at, no more indigo curtains to flutter with the wind; but most importantly, no more lavender blue textured ceiling to stare up at in the loneliest parts of dusk. Now, his once beloved search for Freedom's happiness - something that was always a foot above his head - was nothing more than a mirror resembling the overcast outside as it had been repainted the same lonely white.

The shaggy white carpet compressed under his dress shoes matched its suffocating walls. His room was just an empty shell of what it once was. Nothing but indents in the carpet from his bed frame, bresser, and desk were left to show that this space wasn't always this friendless. Even the small blood stains on the white carpet in front of the closet had been scrubbed vacant, his nose stinging from its chemical cleaner assailant.

Running his hands through his disheveled blond locks, he held his breath, clenched his eyes, and strangled his roots with a shaky grip. He could see the bulky man standing in front of a slender boy - scolding him for messing around in his kitchen without supervision. He watched the man read the boy a book about the deep sea before tucking in his sleeping figure and turning out the light. He observed as the man held the shaking figure of the boy - hidden away under a fort of pillows and blankets with a small lantern as their only source of light - to protect him from the booming lightning and thunder outside. He could see him.

"Sanji?" There was a knock on the open white door right after.

He's burning lunges finally filled as puffy and irritated eyes opening again. He lowered his hands back to his sides as he turned around, not meeting the gaze of the female officer peering at him in the threshold of his loneliness.

Head hanging low, he didn't have to speak when the gentle officer hummed at his depressed state and her boots thumped towards him. Placing her palms on his cheeks, she lifted his face to see his downcast blue eyes were leaking tears of sorrow down his reddened cheeks, his curled eyebrows twitching as he bit back a sob.

"Oh, Sanji." She was quick to embrace him and he found his own arms snaking around her back and holding her close. She was a few inches shorter than him, making easy access to hide his face in her shoulder as a few silent sobs fell from quivering lips and a heaving chest. They held each other for a few minutes, Sanji's hand gripping the coat of her pristine navy blue uniform as she ran her hands up and down his spine in soothing intervals.

As his sobs came to a hush, Sanji was pushed back arms length to be met face to face with Tashigi. Her skin was light with dark freckles lining her cheeks and nose, her hair dark blue and pulled into a tight bun, eyes a mournful dark drown. Her hands found their way to his cheeks again and she smiled softly at him as she wiped away the lingering tears.

"Can't let Zef see you in such a slump." Her hands ran through his long bangs, smoothing the hair down and to the side, tucking it behind his ear.

"Yeah," Sanji sniffled, "He'd be pissed to see I'm getting snot all over my work suit."

Tashigi straighten the wrinkles from the front of his black coat, fixing the yellow pinned rose straight, "I'm sure the rain can help wash it away."

He stayed quiet, just now hearing the pitter patter of the heavy precipitation on the roof of the one story house he grew up in. The house he'll never return to after today.

"Besides," Tashigi took his arm in hers as she started leading him out of the small room, "People won't be able to tell you're crying if you're standing in the rain."

Sanji gave a dry chuckle, "You just want to get rid of me faster. Ship me off to the closest foster home once the funeral is over. That's fine, I didn't want to live in your shitty flat anymore, anyways." Tashigi stopped and glared up at him, he could see the glimmer of hurt shock that swept across her dark eyes. He felt his heart drop to his stomach and his lunges hurn with the next inhale. "Tashigi. I… I didn't mean it."

"I understand Sanji," he could hear her take a shaky breath of her own, "You're hurting. Lashing out is only natural."

"I'm really sorry."

"We should get going, we're running late as is."

"I even liked Smoky."

Tashigi smiled at the nickname Sanji had given her patrol partner over the month he lived with them until this day. Her partner's name was actually John Smoker. Being issued with only one cruiser, Smoker lived with Tashigi, tired of having to drive to one another's houses all the time to pick each other up for work. Sanji and Smoker didn't see eye to eye all the time, they fought about everything, especially who's turn it was to take the couch since it was just a two room apartment.

"Speaking of, he's waiting for us."

"Alright. Alright. I get it. Let's go to the shitty old man's funeral."

At the wake, Zef's co-workers and old navy acquaintances were there to see his dark mahogany casket lowered into the earth. All wearing a yellow rose pinned to their chest to represent a group grieving over a loss of a loved one together. To Sanji, he couldn't help but take note that Zef wrote this specifically in his Will, and that they held an uncanny resemblance to his hair. He refuses to believe Tashigi's theory that Zef made this so because he wanted his depressed son to not feel quite as alone as he already did before he died of cancer.

Under umbrellas, speeches were made, chuckles and tears alike were shared with stories, flowers representing innocents, life, and purification were placed one by one as the cannons were fired. That wasn't apart of Zef's Will, but his navy buddy's insisted on a proper send off for their once head chef on the front battleship.

Sanji stayed quiet, holding Tashigi's hand throughout the service - only giving a few sniffles and tears to not show his co-workers how much this actually shreds him to pieces from the inside out. He often found himself gripping at his shirt over his tight chest to stop his aching heart, to check if the damned thing was still beating or if this pain was from finally being flushed out entirely and faded of all happiness to only be left with depression and despair. As much at it hurt, he also felt hollow and drained. He wanted to jump into the long rectangle in the ground and disappear. He wanted to just lay down where her stood and stare up at the sky, maybe cry with it and crawl into the depths of his mind so no one could resurface him.

Through the last past month, Tashigi was able to keep Sanji's depression at bay, but despite holding the officer's hand and standing beside her through all of this, he couldn't help but feel as though a huge tidal wave had just come crashing down on him, smothering his lunges, battering his bones, bruising his flesh, crushing his soul. He already had a hard enough time getting out of bed while Zef was in the hospital, nowadays he was terrified of consuming sleeping pills just in case he'd take one and not be able to talk himself out of taking another, then another, then another, then another, eventually downing the whole bottle and not caring about the consequences of never waking up.

"Sanji?"

The blond blinked from his thoughts, not realizing he had been staring at the now lowered and buried Zef in the soft soil. He glanced up and around, just then realizing that he and Tashigi were the only ones left to leave when his eye finally landed on the old priest guiding the service.

His hand extended out to him, the priest looked to Sanji expectantly, "Would you like to say a few words, son?"

Sanji felt his muscles grow stiff, his hands clenching into fists as his heart suddenly took off hard against his chest again. "I...I-" It felt like he was being choked by his black tie, unable to let out any air to speak - let alone any in to breathe.

"I…" He could feel just how damp and frizzy his hair was as a droplet of rain rolling down his cheek, or was that a tear? Sweat maybe? He couldn't tell any more.

He raised his hand to his throat and hooked his finger around the knot of the tie, trying to loosen it. "W-Well, um, I-I…"

Instead of loosening, the silk was tightening. His stammering words turned to nothing but incoherent garble as he started wheezing.

"Oh my god. Are you okay, Sanji?" Tashigi was holding him by the shoulders now, trying to look him in the eyes, but it was hard to see around the black spot forming in his vision, it was hard to feel or hear anything over his hammering heart and inflamed lunges.

"I think the kid's gonna faint."

"Call an ambulance!"

Sanji didn't know how he got on the ground but he found his back against mushy grass and his entire being shook and staring up at the raining sky just how me wanted, but he was finding it hard to enjoy with his current panicked state of mind as everything came crashing in all at once.

"Hey, is everything alright over here?"

His head was pounding.

"Please help us!"

He couldn't hear, but he could barely make out someone touching the inside of his neck, just under his jaw with the slightest of pressures.

"He didn't eat anything he's allergic to?"

"He's not allergic to anything."

"Shit."

"What? What is it?"

"His having a panic attack."

"How do you know?"

"I had a little sister who experienced them all the time."

"So you know what to do?"

Sanji could feel someone grabbing the collar of his drenched shirt, hands far bigger than Tashigi's. He shaking was growing worse, his face hot despite the freezing rain.

"I'm going to sit him up and try to get his breathing under control. You call for an ambulance."

"I already did," the priest chimed in, "They're stuck in heavy traffic."

"Then find something dry to cover him with."

Sanji could feel himself being heaved up, his head not having enough time to snap his own neck before he hedbutted something hard, something that wasn't the soft flesh of Tashigi. He could feel arms wrapping around his back as he sat in some guy's lap. His long legs bent around the guy's back, arms still convulsing at his sides, but his airway opened significantly in a matter of seconds.

"Is he shaking because of the attack?" He could hear the priest behind him just louder than his wheezing. Tashigi must be getting something dry as the guy hold him instructed.

"That and he's freezing to the touch. Was the idiot standing in the rain on purpose or something?"

He could feel one of the guy's hands slip between their chests, could feel him opening his coat before unbuttoning his dress shirt. Sanji couldn't move, couldn't speak, could barely comprehend what they were saying and what the guy was doing until he felt his icy chest collide against the stranger's wram one. He must have unzipped his sweatshirt while Sanji was trying to focus on breathing more clearly.

Almost immediately, Sanji's tight chest began to loosen from the transferring heat and he found his rigid body melting into the stranger's warmth.

"Shit, you're freezing Curly Brow - er, sorry Father."

"I'm heard much worse from younger residences, son."

Sanji took a moment to process the words, his breathing no longer hissing Death's name, but still heavily labored. His head pounded with the realization that the stranger just called him something insulting.

Opening his heavy eyes, Sanji saw nothing but short tufts of green hair and took in a shaky breath, "Wh...Who you callin'... C-Curly Brow? S… Stupid, Mar-Marimo."

Sanji could feel Marimo's stomach muscles tense as he laughed, could fully make out how rough his voice really was. "Just rest, Blondie and focus on your breathing. After a big attack like that, I'm surprised you're not sleeping."

Sanji didn't bother with another insult as the Marimo just did, instead he did as told and just sat there against the guy's warm chest. As he sat there, Sanji came to realize just how hard of a hit he too just then. He was so exhausted he couldn't move a single muscle - or will it to stop shaking on its own.

"I found a blanket," he could hear Tashigi smooshing the grass behind him as she approached.

"Put it on him."

He could feel the blanket being draped over his shoulders when the stranger moved his arms to be hugging the blanket to Sanji's back. Finally, he had stopped shaking and he could breath normally again.

Eyes closed from exhaustion, he could hear the grass smooshing as Tashigi walked around and hear the priest calling the ambulance to call it off.

"Are you feeling better Sanji?" Tashigi asked.

"I'm tired," Sanji muttered back and caught himself before he could nuzzle his face into the stranger's shoulder.

He could feel the stranger's muscles again as he laughed, "That's to be expected."

"No one asked you."

"Sanji, don't be rude," Tashigi gaped, "This young man helped you. Say thank you."

"Ah, no need. I did kinda crash your funeral. Sorry about that."

Sanji suddenly realized he was snuggling chest to chest with a stranger in front of Zef's grave. He could feel the embarrassed blush on his cheeks, he just knew he was laughing up a storm in heaven.

"I'm Zoro, by the way. It was nice to meet you Sanji."

He didn't know why, maybe it was just the very odd circumstances and being forced to sit in this guys lap that made his face grow hotter when he said his name.

He was about to reply with a snide remark about how perverted he was or call him Marimo again, but then something else dawned on him: Right now, in this very moment, with only this Marimo stranger, he didn't feel hollow. He didn't feel the urge to disappear, or curl into a ball and scream, or see how long he can stay afloat in his own mind. Sure, depression still lingered but it was suddenly low tide with Zoro here, he felt the urge to explore Life's tide pools again…

Slowly lifting his numb arms, Sanji hugged the stranger closer, "Thank you, Stupid Marimo."

Hi reader!

I need some advise!

So I wrote this and I have a lot of ideas for a longer story but I don't know if it'll just be better as a one shot or if I should continue.

Tell me what you think, if you liked or hated it or whatever.

Thank you for reading!

~B.S. Queen