the night shift

She’d laugh every time they hit him. That’s what he remembers, later. He also remembers her pouring antiseptic on his knuckles, her pressing plasters over his cuts. The birthday she’d come to his room, long after the others had already fallen asleep, with small presents she’d hidden for him. The cookbook she smuggled into their mansion when their mother fell sick, so he could bake for her. The backdoor key she copied for him in his teenage years, when he finally found friends, when he had something to sneak out for.She’d laugh every time they hit him, but she’d stay afterwards, too. Lead him to her bedroom, hand in hand, hide him there for a brief respite. “You’re always winding them up,” she would say, sitting him down on her bed. His cheeks would be swollen with bruises and she would watch him, still as the surface of a lake. ***Modern AU. Sanji and Reiju: When to forgive and when to forget.