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It’s Usopp who finds him.
Thirteen days after he’s been missing, and a week since they found their first lead, but still. At least they found him. Pirates aren’t exactly good at keeping to a schedule, no matter how bloodthirsty their Captain and First Mate had been the entire time.
And it’s Usopp who finds him. Granted he finds him all alone, after his arms have been chained behind him, with three marines on either side, marching him down towards his presumed death, but such is the life of a Strawhat. Presumed death via fall into a large and dangerous pit is par for the course, as much as Usopp hates to admit it. He can’t even properly panic at the pit they’re going to shove him into because this, infuriatingly, is exactly what he wanted.
A pit. Usopp has become the kind of man who willingly lets Marines throw him into pits.
His life is one endless circus of doom; Luffy is the damn ringmaster and Zoro the sword-swallower and he, Captain Usopp of Syrup Village, is its most unwilling clown. Made to dance in front of the audience of Marine masses for scraps. He wonders if the chains along his arms make their way into the narrative. Certainly, a chained clown is interesting enough. Captain Usopp the Chained Clown, who miraculously fights his way to safety, rescuing once-princes while the Marines stare in horror.
He’s amazing. He’s awe-inspiring.
He’s fallen hundreds of feet into a pit.
A pit so deep and wide they could fit the entire Sunny in it, that sort of pit, and Usopp cries out at the reminder. His boots, designed to break such a fall, cause his feet to ache.
“You’re here for a reason,” he reminds himself with a hiss. He fishes a match out of his pocket, fingers shaking as he lights it. The chains from earlier clatter at his feet, undone by his lockpick and the years of unwilling lessons Nami forced him into when she realized just how often a Strawhat gets kidnapped.
He flexes his now freed arms with a huff. So it's just back to Captain Usopp the Clown. Wonderful. Somehow Captain Usopp the Chained Clown sounded much better, the sort of name Luffy and Zoro would approve of, and that Nami and Sanji would smack him upside the head for.
So obviously, its a better sounding name, even if Usopp still wants Nami and Sanji here to witness it. Nami just so he’s not alone, and Sanji–
Because if he finds Sanji he can go.
He curses, but finally manages to light the Ever-Light, an easily concealed contraption Franky cooked up for these sorts of pit-centric situations. It flickers once, in a very, very concerning way, before becoming so bright he yelps and drops it. It clatters down the stone floor in an eruption of light and noise.
“Not cool man, not cool,” he cries, following after the now chanting torch. Apparently Franky put a voice box in the thing, and now it chirps out a cheery ‘Woo! Super!’ every time it slams against rock. It finally comes to a stop a good thirty feet away, catching along the stone wall, before tipping to its side and illuminating everything westward in an eerie yellow light.
“Woo! Super!” The Ever-Light cries.
“Shut. Up,” Usopp hisses.
“Please,” a voice moans, causing Usopp to yet again lose his grip on the light. It falls to the ground with a crash.
“Woo! Super!” The Ever-Light says again. Usopp can’t find it in himself to be annoyed, can’t find it in himself to be anything but thankful as the light finally settles on the huddled figure of their missing cook no less than fifteen feet away.
“Sanji!” He cries, scooping up the Ever-Light to rush over to him. “Thank god I found you! Do you know what it took to get down here? I had to start a riot –a riot!– in the prison cafeteria to even get an audience with the Captain of this place, and he only really threw me down here because I called him a butt-faced waste of a uniform and because I sort of spit in his–”
He stops, when no voice pipes up to interrupt him, to call him a stupid, shitty moron for not finding another way out of a pit other than to be thrown down here with him.
“Sanji?”
He moves the Ever-Light to get a better look and feels a pit of his own rapidly tear open in his stomach.
Oh, Usopp thinks, as he drops a palm over the burning curl of Sanji’s shoulders. His eyes catch on the mangled mess they’ve made of his nakama’s chain-wrapped hands. I’m going to kill somebody.
Blood like thunder roars behind his ears. Somewhere over the rush, he can hear Sanji’s voice, frantic and tinny in the maw of such a cavernous space, his words crashing and looping into one another, all caught in the muzzle they’ve clamped over his mouth.
“I’m not in Germa. I’m not in Germa. I’m not in—“
He yelps as Usopp’s fingers dig into his back. Usopp lets go immediately, cursing as he jackknifes himself to get back in Sanji’s face.
“Sorry! Sorry, Sanji! I was just—“ horrified, disgusted, moving past murder into desecration. He imagines begging Zoro for a sword, just one, and hacking off limbs, angry, haphazard, none of the fine lines of their swordsman, letting men live if only to show what happens when they dare to touch the Strawhats’ cook. Wrongfooted, he shakes himself off, forcing his voice into something soft and affectionate. “--distracted! You know me, the Great Captain Usopp is always thinking of his next adventure! Where shall I go? Shall I vanquish an army of giants? Catch the largest Sea King a pirate has ever seen?”
He tries to keep his tone light, airy, his way of grounding Sanji to the present. He doubts Judge or any of his siblings cared enough to wax poetic or spin a tale for their brother’s enjoyment, and as much as Sanji pretends to be annoyed by Usopp’s theatrical nature, it doesn’t stop him from turning an ear to the bunk where Usopp weaves Luffy and Chopper stories night after night.
It doesn’t stop him from turning wide, teary eyes towards Usopp now, his breaths hitching in an almost-sob. His whole face is flushed with pain and fever.
“Captain—?” He asks, all fragile hope, and that look, the one Usopp’s worn himself over and over again, mounts him to the spot. “Lu–”
Fuck.
The ‘no’ freezes on his lips, then the responding ‘yes’ that follows it. Because Usopp would never claim to be enough to Captain the Strawhats, not again, not now. He’s learned his lesson, ran his punishment laps, paid his debt. He spent a month where every spare moment involved peeling potatoes or shelving books or sterilizing equipment. He relearned an entire ship’s schematics, top-down, ground up, on the off-chance their shipwright were indisposed when a repair was needed. Most importantly, he knelt at Luffy’s feet in the privacy of the Captain’s Quarters they never use, his brow to the Sunny, his heart in his throat, begging for a position that was never lost in the first place.
A position that Luffy would happily return to him over and over again, if only he asked, if only he let his Captain drop that hat upon his head and claim him as he’s done every one of them.
Usopp is not Luffy, but Luffy would never allow this slight either. The thought of one of his crewmates, his nakama, believing he hasn’t spent every waking hour raising hell and scouring the earth for him is an idea Usopp would never perpetuate.
“He’s coming,” Usopp breathes, cutting Sanji off at the head. He reaches down to catch the blonde’s cheek, tugging until his gaze seems to focus. His fingers catch at the edge of the mask, and every part of him wails at the affront to his friend, to the delicate sensibilities their whole crew would tease and protect in equal measure. “Luffy is coming. We just have to wait it out.”
“He’s–” Sanji blinks rapidly, eyes darting around the way he does when they’re low on supplies and he’s trying to make something out of nothing. That fever is fucking boiling his brain, but there’s nothing to do until Chopper gets a hold of him.
“He’s coming for you?” Sanji tries, desperate to please, and Usopp will forever curse the Vinsmokes for the easy way his friend reverts to martyrdom.
“He’s coming for us,” he clarifies, squeezing Sanji’s fever-flushed cheek to recapture his attention. “I came for you. Luffy’s coming for us. The crew is coming with him to make sure the three of us actually get out.”
He forces a smile when the lost look in Sanji’s eyes only continues, and digs for that wealth of affront and humor he tries to keep heavy on hand.
“C’mon man, you think we’d leave you down here? In this place? The decor is awful. I mean, really. Seastone clashes awful with the raw iron look they’re going for, and even worse with the rust on top of rust decoupage. Besides, Franky’s been making us burnt steak for like a week, and the Captain’s been surviving off of whatever leftovers you kept in the fridge. He said he won’t eat anything we cook without you back, so we came to get you, easy as that.”
No, not easy as that. Sanji is family; they were never going to leave him, even if their Captain’s well being didn’t depend on having him at their side, but this fever-flushed, exhausted version of their crewmate isn’t going to be able to parse through that right now. Sometimes, Usopp thinks the healthy, wide awake version of Sanji has just as much trouble with this lesson.
So he tries for something simpler, something he knows Sanji of any awareness could grasp.
“You just gotta stay with me, and we’ll do the rest okay? You do what you can do, and I’ll do what I can do, and our nakama will get us home.”
Something clears in the turmoil in Sanji’s face, as bright as the Ever-Bright still chirping beside them. His brows dip, his nose scrunches up, and he mouths the last sentence to himself as finally pulls himself up to a kneel.
“Home,” Sanji breathes. The fever fog finally clears from his gaze. “U-Usopp?”
The laugh Usopp lets out might as well be a sob.
“Hey,” he says, ducking his face into the filthy mess of Sanji’s hair. His arms loop tight around too-thin shoulders and tug him close. “When we get back, you owe me like thirty full course meals, and that includes desserts! Fifteen for getting captured by marines and another fifteen for making me go in this stupid ass pit. Don’t you know I have ‘avoid-dark-and-ass-smelling-places’-itis?”
“I don’t–” Sanji wavers against the hollow of Usopp’s throat, too weak to take on his usual irritable tone. The muzzle presses uncomfortably tight against his adam’s apple. The effort still drops Ussop’s shoulders from around his ears. Seconds pass before his shaking stills; minutes before the cook has a better grasp on his voice.
“I don’t owe you shit.” Sanji says, stronger this time. “Didn’t Chopper disprove all your ‘itis’es?”
“It’s new. Just picked it up,” Usopp sniffs. Tears slide down the side of his neck, as he presses the cook ever closer. He has half an urge to pull a Franky and construct a compartment in his chest where Sanji can stay until they’re out of this gods-forsaken pit. “Chopper doesn’t know about it. He’ll have to treat it when we get out of here, put us next to each other in the infirmary. If you’re nice, the Great Usopp will even hold your hand.”
“The Great Usopp will get a shoe in the ass if he even tries. Nami-swan and Robin-chan—“ his words disappear into a yawn, shuddering before he tries again. “Nami and Robin-Chan are the only two I’ll let touch me!”
Usopp thinks Sanji is a horrible liar. It’s alright. Lying is a finicky art. Let Sanji attempt his job for the day. There’s no greater truth Usopp can speak than the one that leaves his mouth.
“When we get home, I’d love to see you try.”
“Right,” Sanji says, soft and reverent, the way he talks about the All Blue, the way he sometimes talks about being their cook, when he’s especially overrun or uproariously drunk. Lashes flutter against Usopp’s neck. Exhaustion bows his form. “When we get home.”
He’s asleep before Usopp can say another word. Usopp waits until he knows he’s out, before he gets to work on the muzzle.
-
Usopp spends the rest of the night dressing Sanji’s wounds.
He’s no Chopper, but that doesn’t mean he can’t wrap Sanji’s ribs with the remaining scraps of his own dress shirt and use a few alcohol pads, leftover in his pocket from his and Franky’s latest project, to clean the deep gashes in Sanji’s lip and brow where someone must have struck him. The muzzle lays discarded at his side, and the only reason he hasn’t burned it yet, is fear the smoke may alert someone to what he’s doing. He distracts himself tearing off the edges of one of his pantlegs to set the unnatural bend to the ring and middle finger of Sanji's left hand, cursing under his breath at every wince and whine it draws from his unconscious friend.
Monsters, he thinks. Luffy will murder them when he sees Sanji’s state. The rest of the crew won’t be far off. Sanji protects his hands faster than he protects his own life. They all know the importance of those usually manicured fingers. To see them damaged like this, to see them doing anything but plating extravagant dishes and ruffling their Captain’s hair, is an affront to their entire crew.
Whatever Luffy’s Haki doesn’t demolish, Zoro will surely slice to shreds. Usopp can imagine it now, every marine in this place dead, but not before their swordsman takes those same fingers and lops them off, one by one, sword at their hand before it takes their head. Beside him, Robin will come in, voice low beneath the drone of their screams, whispering threats which she takes time to honor. The pit will smell like jasmine and blood, so thick Usopp has to swallow to continue.
His ears have started pulsing again, that low thundering drone he easily turns into the crash of Nami’s climatact. She’s a tempest when her crewmates are injured, loud in the way Robin never is. Storms will rage, so angry and rancorous, it’ll be like Nami has brought a hurricane down upon their heads. Maybe she has. Franky will ride in with her, or possibly her on his shoulder, standing tall and sturdy even as Nami threatens to bring the structure crumbling to the ocean floor. Somewhere in the distance, Brook will cleave someone through. There’s no song, no accompanying laugh, just silence as his looming presence fills the space, looking all at once the Demon King none of their crew believes him to be. Chopper will ignore it all to barrel to their side, and he’ll fuss, hooves glancing over wounds, feeling for fever, easing Sanji into a better state than Usopp can ever accomplish.
Someone will demolish what's left of this stupid pit. Someone will carry them out. Someone will take them to Jinbei who’s waiting with their ship, their home, their Sunny, all prepped and ready for their arrival. They’ll coup de bust out of here, leaving this stupid island, and its stupid torturous marines, in their wake.
They’ll be safe. All Usopp has to do is keep them alive until then. Easy. The Great Clown Usopp may live up to his name. He may be a coward and a weakling and in the face of the living gods who wander his ship, he’s nothing close to special, but even he can keep his crewmate alive long enough to be rescued.
He just hopes they don’t take too long. Sanji hasn’t fully woken since he first passed out in Usopp’s lap. And even in those moments of half-lucidity, there’s none of the usual affront, no baited spark, no vicious temper. In fact, he’s been practically clingy since he realized who he was with, curling into every touch like a cat, docile in a way he’s never seen from their usually explosive cook. If Usopp were one of the girls, he might have expected this. Sanji rarely hesitates to gain their affection or praise, but the blatancy sets a foul taste in his mouth, and he’s never seen him try anything like this outside the safety of the Sunny.
Something wrenches in Usopp’s chest as he watches his usually proud crewmate make himself smaller, long limbs tucked in as far as possible, as he struggles to find any comfort through the pain and fever wracking him. The damp cloth Usopp had placed on his forehead has long since dried, the heat in Sanji’s body working easily through the sparse amount of water Usopp thought he could risk losing.
“C’mon Luffy,” he hisses, as he brushes his fingers through Sanji’s stringy fringe. “Where are you?”
He hasn’t heard the usual sounds of their crewmates’ descent. There’s no far-off explosion, no screaming, no laughter. It’s just him and Sanji, suffering together.
He thinks, terrified, that if they don’t figure out where he went soon, it’ll be a lot of him and Sanji, suffering together.