This is my entry for the OPbigbang! Look out for the awesome artwork from my bb partner Kumiko-sama-chan illustrating this fic ~(I'll have links up on my FF profile as soon as I have them) A huge thanks to Bea for running this event and being so helpful when I needed it! Thank you Torchi for pre-reading and betaing through this and a huge tremendous thanks to MyLadyDay for plowing through this in three days, polishing it fabulously, putting the shoelaces back and putting up with my whiny ass XD Then last but not least, thanks to Steph for moral support xoxo

Fic disclaimers: Please realize this fic spans over a couple countries and I just want to say that I tried to research as much as I could but I understand there's no way that I could get the culture/facts completely right and I apologize in advance if I unintentionally included something that could be seen as offensive. (Considering its Zoro and Sanji though please don't expect them to completely uphold culture norms) So see these as a AU Japan and a AU France that somehow has a USA healthcare system. I don't know French or Japanese, I consulted the dreaded google translate.

Please ENJOY !

I.

It all happened so suddenly, Sanji's chest bolting up and his body tumbling off the side of the futon he'd been resting on, gasping for air. His heart was beating a mile a minute and, in the most odd way of describing it, his brain seemed to be in emergency mode, recovering from a sudden restart and struggling to calm down. What the hell had just happened? Had he forgotten to breathe? Either he was having a mad case of acid reflux or his lungs burned before they finally settled, the frame of his body relaxing.

His eyes opened wide, despite not being able to see much under the comforter that decided to roll off onto the floor with him. What the hell had just happened? His paranoid brain, still a bit in a panic itself, jumped to several diagnosis – sleep paralysis? A nightmare? Fuck, that had to be the most intense nightmare he'd ever experienced in his life. Sanji's hand rubbed at his forehead, his brows furrowing as he tried to decipher what it was. Now that he thought about it, could it have been a dream? He wasn't sure, his memory seemed to fail him. In fact, not only about the dream either, when had he ever had a bed set so close to the floor? What had happened the previous night, what had he eaten last? What was today's date, for that matter?

Swallowing thickly, Sanji appreciated the fact that he lived alone. If someone were to have seen him take such a tumble – all the while somehow sporting some morning wood – he would have never been allowed to live that down. His hand still shaking a bit with the aftershocks, he slowly pulled his blanket from off his head and, once more, his heart sank as a cold sweat ran down his spine.

Speaking of not remembering when his bed had been so low to the ground – it hadn't even been his bed. For that matter, this wasn't even his apartment. Like things could not have gotten anymore strange for him in the last two minutes. Had he gotten drunk? It was sad that was one of the first things his consciousness jumped to as an excuse, but it was all his mind could come up with so quickly, it would explain the memory lapse and throbbing at his temple, because he was an awful drunk. And he'd be a liar if he'd said he wasn't prone to a one night stand here and there, or at least the fantasy of having one.

Except, now he was really praying to himself that that wasn't the case, because, as he pulled himself up – ignoring the way he stumbled slightly and his body seemed heavier and fatigued – this didn't really look like the apartment of a woman. Even with sudden weird morning amnesia, Sanji always knew and followed a personal code of being nothing but a lady's man. How much alcohol did he even drink to end up somewhere that could only be another man's apartment? An apartment that was filthy from first inspection, several empty beer cans spread about that could easily confirm his fears. Maybe he was just possessed. Maybe it was just a chick's brother's apartment?

Now why did Sanji just know that wasn't the case? Talk about rolling off the wrong side of a stranger's bed. He couldn't allow himself to panic about it right now – even if there was a growing pit of anxiety and unfamiliarity at being with a man burning in his gut – he'd had enough of a shock for one morning. For now, at least, it looked like whoever it was he'd spent the night with was missing in action, unless some of the doors spread around led to another bedroom. Otherwise, he doubted they spent the night in separate beds. After all, it was a very small apartment.

Squinting at the light coming in through the blinds covering two, what he assumed to be, balcony doors. So this bedroom he'd awoken in was actually more of a living room anyway, more compact than he'd seen, but he wasn't really going to waste time here going over the floor plan details. On his feet now, he glanced around at the ground, nudging a few piles of clothes in his path and scanning the table off to the side. Nothing, there was no evidence of his things. Well, surely this wasn't some hostage situation where he'd been kidnapped from his own home naked and brought here to get drunk. That was foolish and didn't make sense. So then where were his clothes? His cell phone? Dammit, he was on the edge of a personal melt down here, he didn't have time to be stranded nude in a stranger's house.

Forcibly, Sanji stopped a yawn, refusing to be reminded yet again that he'd not had a restful night of sleep for unknown reasons and kicked up a pile of clothes, snatching the first few items. Fine, if the stranger had taken his things, he would take theirs. Like hell was he going to stick around here to add a face to this awful ordeal. He was not gay and he was ashamed to think that he'd gotten drunk and… Nope. Wasn't going to think about it, he was better than that, surely! This wasn't fantasy material at all.

No, he would just rid himself of this annoying stiff and get out of there. Walking a little awkwardly, he moved to the first door off to the side, knocking on it like the idiotic gentleman he was before opening the door and peering inside. Just because he didn't see the guy, didn't mean he didn't exist, right? Flipping on the light, however, he just furrowed his brows in further confusion. Honestly, what was this fucking apartment he woke up in? Who had a bathroom with no toilet?

Yes, clearly this was a very interesting and weird place. He could spot the bath to the side, smaller than any he recognized, and a shower head conveniently right next to it but not inside, fixed there so when you wanted to flood the apartment a small drain in the floor might catch the water beforehand. What the hell did this person do? Piss in the floor drain? In fact, no, Sanji didn't want to know what they did, especially if the other option was involved. Instead, he just shut the door, determined to look behind the other doors. He wasn't going to just believe that, although this place was small, there wasn't a toilet. He had some class before going on the floor into a drain!

If this was the lifestyle he was unconsciously letting himself fall into he needed to have a heart to heart with his subconscious about the people he decided to go home with while intoxicated. He decided to go to the door practically across from this one, huffing sarcastically when he opened it to reveal a small room with only a toilet. Really, a few feet away, why? He wouldn't question it, though, his body was annoying him with its persistence and he didn't really favor being bullied by not only his bladder but obviously confused manhood. Not even wasting time, he lifted the lid – ignoring the colorful buttons to the side, which he didn't even want to imagine what they did, and got ready to go about his business that was also the first step of his escape plan.

Except, that wasn't even his dick. If you could even call this a dick. Sanji's body froze, mortified at what he saw. It certainly appeared like it was supposed to be a dick, in the same dick like area and shape, but what seemed very much off was the fact it was fucking green. He didn't know whether to even feel or not to feel – were those supposed to be pubes? His pubes? Like hell, last time he'd checked, they hadn't looked like fucking moss on a rock, with the rock being his manhood. Because he couldn't just remain there staring without checking, he hesitantly moved his hand to the odd appendage, feeling it only for a second just in case – as if some weird luck would have the green drop off and reveal his usual body part. It didn't and, quickly, Sanji jumped back into reality, nearly stumbling back onto his – if this even was his - ass onto the floor outside of the bathroom and back into the living room.

His eyes frantically went to his hand which still lingered before him even when he fell in shitty slow motion, because it wasn't fucking his either. Only in a matter a seconds he could tell it seemed off: where there should be faded scars, there weren't and his skin spreading up to his arm wasn't the normal slight pale he'd worn for majority of his life. No, it was tan and not in an 'oh maybe I blacked out at the beach' tan, but a natural one.

Sanji's eyes went back to his crotch, as if it would have really changed back in the second he glanced away like this was just some severally messed up acid trip or perhaps he still was asleep in a dream, but found that it and up his abdomen to his chest was the same. Quickly, he forced himself over onto his feet, purposely peeling his eyes away because he couldn't handle this. This was too science fiction, what the hell was going on? What had seriously happened to him so suddenly, or over these past few days?

What he needed was a damn mirror, but this bastard's apartment, whoever they were because now Sanji was confused and pissed, had two half bathrooms that lacked any. To the side, where the main part of the apartment opened up, was the tiny kitchen area and Sanji stumbled there quick, his foot nearly sliding on the change of flooring as he tried to attempt looking at his reflection in what little cookware that settled there. Not even paying the slightest mind if they were dirty, just lifting them up into the light and trying to find his image to calm his nerves.

It only made matters worse, however. It wasn't his face that came into view – even if the shape of the kitchenware already distorted the image – he got nothing but green in every direction he looked. What the hell was happening to him? Was he turning into fucking cabbage? He let the pot drop back into the sink and took a step away from it, a heavy anxiety settling over him. He didn't want to look down at this body again, but it was killing him to know what this was. Turning his head, he glanced around the apartment for anything that just might give him some answers.

There, somewhat close to the apartment's door, a mirror hung on the wall. Sanji had never moved so fast over to it. There were several mixed emotions when he got there. What was there to say? Or to even think? He looked like he was going to be sick. Or rather, Sanji didn't, just the guy whose face he was currently wearing. This wasn't his body. It seemed so weird and foreign to even think that, but pushing and pulling at this appearance that glared back with a permanent scowl, there was no arguing with it. Everything felt so off to Sanji because everything was off – there was no worse way to feel lost than in someone else's fucking body.

Sanji was at a loss for words, clenching his teeth and lowering his chin to look at the floor. He was running out of excuses to what this could be and he knew, or at least the sane part of him knew, there was no better proof to find you were stuck into someone else's body than being in someone else's fucking body. But this wasn't the end of the world yet. What did this mean? Well, on the bright side, even if there didn't seem to be one, it meant Sanji hadn't unconsciously changed his lifestyle and gotten shit faced drunk and had a one night stand with a man he didn't know! On the other hand, he was now in the body and also the tiny apartment, of a guy he didn't know.

And even now, after realizing this, was it actually real? He glanced back up and into his now darker eyes, then at the stupid short hair on his head. Cautiously, with a stupid shaky tan hand, he experimentally felt it, swallowing thickly as he did. It was soft, not exactly the best upside – but it was fucking green! Just like the pubes. Green hair, was this guy even real? What if he was some sort of alien, or what if Sanji had been the one abducted by aliens and they'd done this to him so that it was really-

Sanji closed his eyes and rested this stupid hand against his face. None of this was right and he wasn't nearly at the point where some shitty imaginative story like that was going to explain any of this. It didn't even feel like he was in someone else's body – he'd been awake for like five minutes already and didn't feel that much different, so how was this even possible? Deciding not to gaze back at the reflection, he gazed down at this body. Who the hell did he end up in, anyway? He didn't recognize him.

In the movies at least, this was used for some kind of lesson, wasn't it? But what was he being taught about a stupid stranger? Hollywood was full of such bullshit, it couldn't have even began to prepare him for something like this. Curiously, though still feeling very strange, he traced a scar across this body's chest. Whoever he was, he wasn't just some random guy. That intimidating glare, a bulk and built body, tons of scars, earrings for goodness sakes… What if he was some type of hit man?

No. He gave him too much credit. Why would a hit man live in a tiny apartment with a toilet in a closet? It didn't add up. He sighed then looked back over to said toilet. Well, there was another issue. How the hell was he supposed to take a piss now through someone else's morning wood? He would rather die than ever have to deal with another man's penis! This was degrading, would there be no mercy this morning?

"Oi."

What? He hadn't said that. But he'd checked the two doors, there hadn't been anyone around. He was alone in this apartment. His arms, for some odd reason, wrapped around this torso. Maybe he was feeling fairly uncomfortable and exposed in a body that wasn't his. Who knew? WIth that, Sanji turned and his eyes widened. Oh, now someone definitely had to be fucking around with him. It was one thing to put him into someone else's body, or, hell, to hypnotize him perhaps into thinking he was, but then to just have the actual person – or so he assumed – to just appear and stare at him with an unimpressed, just as confused but more calm about it expression? Yeah no. It was overkill, and Sanji's body knew it.

Because, before he knew it, some stranger's dick wasn't even his main concern anymore. He went light headed and promptly fainted, tumbling to the floor oh so elegantly. At this point, did he even have shame anymore?

-0-

Sanji only lasted like five minutes on the floor, stark naked in someone else's body and the intense need to piss haunting him. But that didn't make him any more willing to go do it. In fact, it was pretty good the guy watching him didn't really know him personally so he didn't even have to give a damn at the way he curled toward the floor more as if immaturely stating his disinterest in all of this. He was gonna be stubborn about it, dammit, because he was still Sanji, he didn't want this and he wanted to go back home now.

Though his patience was running a tad bit thin, the guy who wore this same face as him crouched down on the floor next to him, continuing on with his 'Oi's' and some language that Sanji couldn't understand but sounded… Japanese? He wasn't sure, but it only made this a tad more miserable. At least this guy was clothed, because at this angle- never mind it didn't matter. After a few seconds to calm himself down and come to somewhat terms again that this was a severely fucked up scenario, he glanced back at the guy, squinting again. If he didn't know any better, he was like a projection and Sanji could barely make out the toilet he needed to go to in the backdrop.

What were the odds that heaven could grant him just one thing, that this guy could know his native language? If this was Japan, which now seemed to make a lot more sense about the strange structure of the home and compact area of it all, the most likely answer was no.

*"Parlez-vous français?"

Personally, Sanji couldn't recall the first day in puberty when he woke up and noticed his vocal cords had changed, dropped and declared him partly a man, but he suspected it felt something like this. It was so awkward and almost eerie hearing his words come out in someone else's voice. And not even one similar to his, it was deeper and odd and it made him wish he knew some kind of sign language instead. Unfortunately, he just had a feeling he'd have to talk to this one.

Go figure, the spirit guy in front of him furrowed his brows and tilted his head a little comically to the side, as if trying to understand what the hell just happened. Sanji gritted his teeth. Alright then, if not French, perhaps another language met his fancy.

"Do you know English?"

That seemed to get a much different response and the bone head was back in on the conversation, or at least the one they were attempting to start. He rolled his shoulder, giving a half shrug half nod, gesturing like it was a maybe. Sanji just wished he'd make his damn mind up, but before he could say anything more, the guy leaned forward, staring uncomfortably into his own eyes and wore another serious expression.

"Go. Pee."

Sanji stared at him for a moment, letting the unfamiliar accent on familiar words set in. When he finally understood, his face may or may not have gone a shade darker in the red color palette. He didn't need to be told by some ghost, as weird as that was, to be told to piss. Taking his goddamn time, however, he pulled himself up off the floor for the second time that morning, resisting the urge to stretch these muscles and side stepped past the spirit that had joined him in standing. Awkwardly, he moved into the restroom, cringing at the sight of the moss appendage before glancing back.

The guy's eyes were just so dark and Sanji couldn't read them, he could only assume from the way he literally lingered in the doorway that he wasn't going to budge and would instead just watch Sanji with some weird crazy fascination. Well, not to be stereotypical, but this was Japan, he supposed. Wasn't it known for being slightly strange? He took care of business, another horrifying memory for the books, before turning around and quietly stepping back out.

It was so weird, he was the one that wasn't see through here and in an actual body, yet somehow there was still the distinct impression that he was intruding. Okay, well maybe he technically was, if he stole this guy's body, but it wasn't willingly! He had a body, too, out there somewhere, isn't that where this ghost guy should be right about now?

"Who," the guy began, then promptly paused. Sanji should've known, or at least could tell now, there was bit of a hesitance that he could only recognize being from someone who wasn't that fluent enough in a language to be confident while speaking it. Because it would just be too easy to stick him with someone who he could actually talk to, wouldn't it? "Are you?"

Sanji sighed, moving out of habit to run his fingers through his hair irritably, only to find that short grass on top of his head instead. Annoyed, he pulled at it just a bit, cause why the hell not, before even trying to answer that. Technically, though, did he have to? Maybe this was just a one day thing that he could just forget all about later and it was better not to get personal about it. That was probably wishful thinking, however.

"Who am I? Who the hell are you! Why am I in your body? What are you?" Sanji grumbled back, gesturing to the hair in emphasis because, honestly, he didn't know a species with green fucking hair.

The guy narrowed his eyes with another contemplative expression. Probably wishing he'd paid more attention in English class, Sanji assumed, regretting speaking so fast. But could he really be expected to speak slowly and calmly about this type of situation? There was no line of 'for dummies' books for this.

"Who are you?"

What was he, a damn parrot? Sanji took a deep breath just to resist trying to kick the poor damn see through guy before remembering gravity would just fuck him over in this broad frame and send him back down onto the floor like a hot mess.

"Please tell me you know more shitty English than that." Sanji was doomed, he just knew it. "What's your name?"

Sanji, not willing to just stand there and be someone else's eye candy, moved back where he dropped the clothes he found earlier and picked them up. No use freezing someone else's butt off, sporting their ice cutting nipples all the while. He'd preferred being clothed when he learned more fucked up things about this situation.

Luckily, that was a question the guy did understand. "Zoro," he said, the voice Sanji was already becoming used to hearing sounding more confident. "Roronoa Zoro."

Zoro, huh? Wasn't there some kind of movie about a guy with a cape under that name? Sanji never watched any recent stuff anymore so he wasn't sure, but at least the guy understood him about his name. And, he supposed, now that he thought about it and realized what a shitty situation this guy seemed to be in as well and he could help him out just by doing this, he could tell him his name. At least the first part if not the last as well.

"I'm Sanji," he replied, pulling on a tee and looking down at the Japanese symbols that seemed to dance along his front that he could only hope didn't say anything offensive or that would make him stand out. He looked over toward the light still coming in through the blinds then back at Zoro. "We're in Japan?"

Zoro nodded and Sanji had that uneasy feeling again. He was way more than a short drive back to home to find out what the hell was happening to his real body and what had happened to him for him to end up in such a random predicament.

"This is so weird," Sanji muttered before he really realized it, pulling on the guy's boxers before allowing himself to just fall and land on the futon again. Like he was in any rush to go out into a foreign country right now, anyway.

Zoro approached the edge of it, still watching him with a perplexed stare that seemed unamused, but then fairly interested at the same time. "Very... weird." So it was agreed.

-0-

Some people might've found it old fashioned, but Zeff still always knocked before opening a door. Even when he knew the person inside this hospital room, number 4008, wouldn't exactly be able to respond. Still, he opened the door and made his way inside, making use of the hook on the back of the door for his coat like he had several days before, then going over to the chair closest to the bed but still far from the machines, which were constantly humming each and every heartbeat.

He'd like to have believed he'd seen this shitty eggplant in worse condition, but that wasn't true. It was eerie seeing him like this when every memory he had of him contained such life and emotion. Here, he could hardly even see his face with the amount of colorful cords and tubes covering his body and the mask on his face. This was a god damn shame and Zeff knew it, he only felt so powerless that there wasn't more he could do except sit at his side like the nurses encouraged him to do.

It made him angry. Here he was, watching the same snot nose kid he decided to take under his wing, that he actually taught how to cut up vegetables, and they had the nerve to try and say that's all he was? When he'd called him an eggplant, it'd only ever been out of some unspoken fondness in regards to the kid, not a preparation to what was to come. Zeff felt guilty. There were so many parts of him that felt maybe he could've prevented this from happening, if only he'd done something differently.

But if sitting here every single day, talking about the most random things that come to him, was all it would take to perhaps bring Sanji back, or at least while the money was still good and the hospital hadn't screwed them over yet, then so be it. Zeff had no problem sitting here and giving back the time he so very enjoyed spending with his step son. However, it didn't make it any easier to think of what to say. The last few days he'd just sat here in silence, reading the paper or a magazine from the waiting room with its insane celebrity gossips.

Today, he'd brought something more special, more personal. Hell, he'd almost forgotten he'd brought it. He pulled pulled himself out of his chair and moved slowly back to his jacket to fetch something from inside the pocket. It was rugged and old, yet still not of his ancient age, he could assure that, and it held some of his fondest memories and secrets. With the journal in tow, he returned back to his seat a bit more comfortably.

"Now you better consider yourself lucky, you little shit," he breathed out, relaxing back into the recliner. "I'm only going to read this off to you once so get to memorizing."

Zeff opened the journal to where a ribbon stayed on the wrinkled pages, a former place he'd stopped at once upon a time. He scanned over it, letting his last memories visit him before turning it all the way back to the front. His fingers shook slightly as they hovered over the first few sentences and he let this sink in. He'd been hoping to keep this from Sanji for a little longer, but that didn't matter now.

"I was going to wait until your ass made head chef, but there's no use letting you get rusty while you sleep." The first pages were just stupid notes to his future apprentice, whoever that may be. Out of habit, Zeff licked the top of his thumb and skipped those pages. "But don't think for a minute I won't expect you waking up able to do these."

They were recipes, a whole journal full that Zeff had created on his own. Most of it was from his youth when he liked to travel around the world, others just random surprises from mistakes even he used to make. It was slightly ironic, but it started from when he was around Sanji's age.

Zeff spent the majority of the day like that, reading from his journal and adding excellent commentary about how much a little shit he'd been himself along the way. Only pausing in the slight moments when the rhythm of the machines keeping his step son alive would shift differently or stall for a few seconds. Those were the worst.

At the end of the day, when the clock hit nine, visiting hours were over. Zeff's instincts told him to stay as he should, but he knew if he didn't leave, the once vibrant and reactive personality of his apprentice would have protested against him for not at least checking in on their restaurant at night. He could never trust only Pattie and Carne to take control and Zeff didn't blame him. Those two were morons. Another opinion shared between father and step son.

Zeff settled the journal on the bedside table, just in case a certain someone woke up with a great need to finish the page where he'd left off, before glancing back at Sanji. He swallowed thickly as he looked over the blankets covering Sanji's sleeping body, taking in anything else but his covered face.

"I've checked the closet, there are no monsters," he began with a small but pained smile, saying what he used to say more than a few nights in the eggplant's childhood. "You be good eggplant." He patted him on the arm, once, then twice, keeping his hold there as he fought back a stubborn dampness gathering at his eyes. "Enjoy that All Blue some for me, will you?"

* Do you speak French?

Author's Note : Yo! Long time no see! I really hope you're enjoying this fic, I worked my ass off on it and it's been killing me not to know what you guys would think about every little thing. I have a challenge for you guys that I'll hope you'll take. I'm dying for reviews and commentary over here so I challenge you to try and review not necessarily every chapter but every other chapter. I will absolutely love you forever even if its just one word I'm serious. It makes all the lonely writing stress worth it XD And you know, you could always.. push those favorite and follow buttons.. even if its gonna be a complete fic.. cough.