Chapter Text
There was a pressure behind Zoro’s eyes that cloaked his mind in an uncomfortable haze. He was lying on his back and the ceiling was unfamiliar. It was bright and it made his head swim. He groaned, closing his eyes.
“Zoro—Moss…” said a gruff voice. Moss. It was Sanji.
Zoro opened his eyes again, craning up his neck to see Sanji hunched over him, holding a bloodied cloth to his chest. He knew it was his blood but he couldn’t feel the contact at all. All he felt was a low, consistent thrum of pain all across his chest and torso, soothed by cool numbness.
“Sanji…” he said, his voice quiet and rough.
“Don’t exert yourself,” Sanji said, “This is just a patch-job before a real doctor takes care of you.”
Sanji reached up and poked Zoro’s head, gently pushing him back so that Zoro’s head rested against the cot. The small motion had his head spinning like he’d had one too many drinks and stood up too quickly. He grunted. Sanji placed his palm on Zoro’s forehead, cool and damp. He hummed something contemplative and brushed through Zoro’s short bangs.
“Your hand…” Zoro mumbled.
“Hm?” Sanji asked. He was back to work cleaning the blood away from Zoro’s torso.
“Feels nice…”
The room was very quiet, almost long enough for Zoro to slip back into dreamless unconsciousness.
There was another sensation on Zoro’s forehead, something soft. It lingered for a moment before it was gone.
“I’ll see you,” Sanji promised, his breath tickling Zoro’s ear. Zoro wasn’t awake enough to answer.
Sanji pulled away and left Zoro alone to sleep.
Then…
“Okay everyone, get into pairs,” Braydon instructed.
It was Sanji’s least favourite time of the day: the cabin activity. Everyone in his cabin sucked. For all the other activities he could usually keep to himself or try and hang out with the girls, even though they didn’t really like him all that much. He always offered to do whatever they wanted to do as a gentleman should, and they’d giggle and boss him around. He didn’t mind that.
They were gathered in a little section of the field outside of their cabin. It was full of patchy grass and had a picnic table with a bunch of crude drawings etched into it. All of Sanji’s cabinmates started to pair off like usual, the friend groups already clustered together. Some of the groups were uneven and Sanji would probably end up with whichever kid lost rock, paper, scissors. He hoped he didn’t get the guy whose breath always smelled.
There was a lack of striking green hair among them. Sanji scanned further from the crowd, seeking out his bunk-mate. Zoro usually paired up with a kid he knew from his village but that kid ended up with someone else already.
Rustle rustle. Sanji turned around, facing the bushes that grew between the cabins. The leaves shook up and down. He walked towards them, squinting. The next time the bushes moved, Sanji caught a glimpse of an arm, and suddenly Zoro’s figure became clear. He’d completely blended in!
Sanji stomped right up to him and kicked his shin. “Get out of there, moss for brains!”
“Oi—!” Zoro squeaked. Sanji snickered at the noise. He struggled a bit and popped out of the bushes, leaves sticking to his hair. “What’d you call me!?” He wielded three new sticks, one clenched between his teeth, and lunged at Sanji as soon as he gained his footing.
“Hey—!” Sanji stumbled back.
Zoro laughed as well as he could, chasing after Sanji with the sticks. “C’mon, fight back!!”
“I won’t! Stop it!!” Sanji yelled but Zoro was too persistent and Sanji ended up ducking under a swipe and stomping on Zoro’s foot. He cried out in muffled pain and tackled Sanji and they both tumbled to the ground, pulling and scratching at each other.
“Zoro! Sanji!” Braydon yelled, stopping them both in their tracks. They detangled themselves and stood. Sanji’s heart pounded. He looked at the ground, holding his hands tightly behind his back. Braydon held out his hands in front of Zoro and after a moment Zoro huffed and slapped his sticks into them. Braydon waited another moment and Zoro spat out the third stick, spit joining it in the pile.
Sanji smirked, vindicated.
“You’re not off the hook either,” Braydon said to Sanji. He pressed his lips together, caught. “I’m going to have you two demonstrate what we’re doing today, and you both better cooperate or else you don’t get dessert.”
“But—” Sanji tried to protest.
“No ‘buts,’” Braydon said, his nasally voice cracking. He glared at another kid who snickered. “Alright Sanji, stand in front of Zoro.” Sanji frowned but did as he was told. “Have either of you ever done trust falls before?”
Sanji shook his head.
Zoro said, “No.”
“It’s really easy, but you’re gonna have to both cooperate. All Sanji has to do is put out his arms and fall back and all Zoro has to do is catch Sanji.”
“What!? There’s no way Zoro is gonna catch me!” Sanji exclaimed. He looked back at Zoro who was rubbing his hand under his nose. Gross. “I don’t want him to touch me either!”
“Well, if he doesn’t participate, he won’t get any dessert,” Braydon said.
“Zoro never eats his dessert! He doesn’t even like sweets!” There was no way Braydon didn’t notice that. Zoro gave his dessert to someone else every day, except when it was pound cake or carrot cake.
Braydon rolled his eyes. “Alright, I’ve had enough of this. You have ten seconds to do the trust fall.”
Sanji groaned in frustrated acceptance. If he fell on his ass in front of his cabin, it wouldn’t make a difference. He stood ahead of Zoro and spread his arms out.
He tipped backwards.
He fell and fell and then his back connected with a chest and there were arms under his own.
Sanji blinked up at Zoro, bewildered. “You caught me.”
Zoro didn’t say anything back. His face scrunched up in confusion for a moment before he stepped back and Sanji fell on his ass. Everyone laughed. Sanji tuned it out.
Now…
“What’s this wayward moss doing all by himself? Get lost trying to find the party?”
Zoro cracked his eyes open. Sanji stood over him, holding out a cider. His golden hair glowed from the bonfires and streetlights that were spilling into the alleyway. Zoro grunted and took the offered drink.
“I’ll assume that’s caveman for ‘thank you,’” Sanji said, plopping himself down on the crate across from him. He unhooked his belt and Zoro’s eyes widened, frozen in shock as Sanji used the metal clasp to pop open the bottle.
Sanji’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he tipped his head back to chug, his eyes slipping shut. It took Zoro a moment to remember to pop his own bottle open with his thumb. He chugged the whole thing in one go. It helped numb his feelings and his pain.
“Damn, you really put it back. Should’ve brought two.” Sanji started snickering, pulling up his knee and resting his arm on it. “Remember that time we snuck sake from the head staff’s cabin? You could barely stand straight after two cups.”
That was their final summer together, before the camp shut down. They were thirteen and Sanji had terrible acne and kept sneaking off to smoke. Zoro leaned back. “Nah, that was you, Curly. I was perfectly fine.”
“It was both of us! You spent an hour trying to catch fireflies like an idiot.”
It was the first time he’d gotten properly drunk. He thought that the firefly was in one spot only to be a meter off the mark. Sanji laughed at him the entire time. He vowed to build up his tolerance so it’d never happen again.
“It was your idea,” Zoro said.
“Was it?”
“You said you wished you could have one, like your night light back home. You didn’t like how dark it got.”
“Oh.” Sanji studied the cider he held, sloshing it around. He tipped it back, draining the rest. His face was flush and he angled his head down. “Mosshead, I—”
“There you guys are!” Usopp’s nasally voice called out, the man stumbling into the alley. “They’re gathering the whole town together to make a toast! And we can’t do a toast without the saviour of Cocoyashi’s sidekicks!”
He puffed out his chest and gestured at Zoro and Sanji.
Zoro laughed. “Man, you’re wasted.”
“And why aren’t you?” Usopp grabbed his arm, tugging him. “Come on, you big party pooper! Don’t hog Sanji all to yourself!”
Zoro shrugged sheepishly at Sanji. “Duty calls, I guess. C’mon, Cook.”
Sanji smiled, small and light. “Lead the way, Usopp.”
Then…
Sanji’s cabin had spent the last two days preparing for their big camping trip into the woods and Sanji was dreading it more than anything. He’d been told that the only thing that he was allowed to bring was one outfit (he’d have to wear his swimming trunks instead of underwear) and that they’d have to share four towels between all twelve of them. Sanji definitely was not going to go swimming.
They left the camp property right at sunrise and walked along a road for about an hour before they made it to a pathway that was swallowed by the looming forest ahead of them. Braydon, who was quickly becoming one of Sanji’s least favourite people, had told them to pair up. Again.
“And Sanji, you’re with Zoro,” he said.
“What!? Why!?” Sanji yelled.
“Him?” Zoro complained at the same time.
“That kid doesn’t know his left from his right and you’re the only responsible one who doesn’t have any friends to pair up with. Figure it out.”
He walked back to the front of the group to address them and Sanji muttered, “Asshole,” under his breath. Zoro snickered beside him.
Three hours later, Sanji and Zoro found themselves completely alone, in the middle of the forest, with no path in sight.
“This is all your fault!” Sanji yelled. “We’re gonna die out here because of you!”
“We’re not gonna die, idiot. This happens to me all the time,” Zoro said.
“Yeah, right. Aren’t you too busy training with your sticks all day to get lost in the woods?”
“Swords! Not sticks! And, yeah! The forest around Shimotsuki is huge, so I’ll sometimes go train there,” Zoro explained. He spotted a stick, picked it up, and started drawing patterns into the dirt. “All you need to know how to do is kill rabbits and make a fire, it’s pretty easy. But I wouldn’t expect a crybaby like you to know how to do it. I can take care of us.”
“Ew, no way you know how to cook a rabbit right. Don’t you have someone to look after you? They just let you disappear into the forest alone like that?” Sanji asked.
“Yeah, I guess. It’s not a big deal,” Zoro said. “It’s not a big island so I usually make it back to the village eventually.”
Zoro removed a pocket knife and sat on a rock and started whittling his stick down to be pointy. His tongue stuck out in concentration.
Sanji sat on a rock across from him. “I’ve never lived on an island.”
Germa was not an island. There was nothing alive about that place.
“Never? Were your parents sailors or something?”
“Not—kind of,” Sanji said, swallowing. It was better to agree than to make him ask more questions. “We moved around a lot. I worked on a cruise ship for a year as a kitchen boy. And now I’m a chef at the Baratie.”
“You’re a cook?” Zoro asked.
“I’m a chef!” Sanji repeated. “Well… I will be soon! I’ll be the sous-chef and Zeff is the head chef!”
Zoro swiped his knife along the tip of his stick once more and grinned. “Done!” He jumped up, lunging forward and pretending to stab an invisible enemy. “Let’s go hunting!”
“Fine, but I get to cook!”
Now…
“Hey, guys, has anyone seen Zoro?” Usopp asked as the sun was setting.
Sanji looked up from his inventory list. They’d stopped at an uninhabited island on their way to Loguetown because they spotted it in the distance and Luffy insisted they went to explore. Sanji was secretly happy to be able to restock by hunting and gathering. He’d been to Loguetown a couple of times and everything was incredibly overpriced.
“Zoro went off on his own earlier!” Luffy exclaimed, laughing. “He wanted to go train or something.”
“You let the mosshead go off on his own!?” Sanji stood, his chair scraping on the wooden floor of the Going Merry.
“Why, you worried?” Nami asked, smirking.
“Don’t you idiots—not you Nami—know that he’s a directionless moron!? He’s probably on the other side of the island by now! Or stuck in a cave, or got swallowed by a giant snake or something! Plus, he’s still healing from—”
His three crewmates stared at him and Sanji clicked his mouth shut. He cleared his throat and swiped at his jacket.
“I’ll go find him. But it might be a few hours,” Sanji said. “We don’t have any baby snails, do we?”
Usopp shook his head.
“Ugh, forget it,” Sanji said. “I know how to get us back and I’ll be able to find him. Eventually…”
“Should we stop him…?” Nami asked as Sanji closed off the pantry and locked the fridge.
“Why would we do that?” Luffy asked.
“Because—yeah, whatever,” Nami said. “Good luck Sanji!”
“Thank you Nami my dear!” Sanji fawned, throwing the last few essentials into a pack and hefting it on. “The next meal I’ll make you will be nothing short of exquisite!”
He hopped off the ship and started on his way, grumbling to himself. What an idiot, going off on his own. He was probably still in denial about his penchant for getting lost.
Picking the least intuitive path, Sanji ventured into the forest. Asking Luffy where he last saw Zoro was a pointless endeavour. He supposed their little crew never stayed on an island long enough for them to take note of this particular feature of Zoro’s.
It was a cloudy night and Sanji started to lose visibility, his eyes adjusting to see the vague shapes of what was right in front of him. The nocturnal fauna came to life, owls hooting and crickets chirping. Maybe it was just because of being around Zoro, but it threw him right back to summer camp.
Now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure they usually stopped at Loguetown after Zeff picked him up. The island must have been right around here. Sanji pressed his lips together, looking up and around. It was just a forest.
He pulled at the straps of his pack and continued on. It was meditative, the ache of his legs burning pleasantly and the weight of the backpack making his movements slower and deliberate. He walked and walked and maybe it was all in his head but the forest seemed familiar.
There was a steep incline that he was trudging up, grabbing onto roots and using rocks for footholds. His muscles burned and he sweated through his shirt. When he finally got to the top he heaved in relief, closing his eyes and slumping against a tree. The night air cooled the sweat on his forehead.
When he opened his eyes he gasped.
Below him, though covered in vines and overgrown foliage, was the camp. His camp. He’d recognize the wooden blue roofs anywhere, faded and flaking as they were. The layout was the same. He could see all the way to the cove, the sad excuse for docs still bobbing along with the muted tide.
Clenching his muscles and breathing in deep, he launched himself off the cliffside, sliding down the coarse dirt to slow his descent. He landed in between two rotting cabins, the backpack jostling and almost making him lose his balance.
It smelled familiar. Like pine and wood and grass. He was flung back six years, back to the lazy heat of the bowels of summer. Back to the long days ditching activities to fuck around in the woods or dig holes in the dirt for no reason. Back to when he had no responsibilities. Back to when he shared himself with a boy who he’d nearly forgotten.
He placed his hand on the coarse slatted wood of the cabin. It felt the same. He wanted to explore everything. See his old cabins. Find the places he etched his name into the walls. Find the sock he was sure he left behind. Find the dent in the tetherball pole he kicked in after losing to Zoro six times in a row.
Instead, he let his legs carry him on a path he’d travelled hundreds of times before. Behind the gymnasium and the raspberry bushes, which had grown huge vines and creeped up the building’s walls. It was a steep slope to climb with the pack, but he managed. There was an old hiker’s path at the top that followed the cliff’s edge, higher and higher to the peak of the mountain.
Sanji heard Zoro before he saw him, snoring. He was lying against their rock, hands behind his head. He looked younger when he was sleeping. Like the boy Sanji knew all those years ago. Sanji couldn’t help but chuff something fond, throwing off his pack and sitting next to him. He lit up his cigarette and shivered when the wind swept through. The clouds had blown away to reveal the bright moon, and its reflection sparkled in the water the cliffside looked out on.
He was halfway through his cigarette when he felt Zoro shifting. He glanced over, meeting his eyes. “You’re late,” Zoro said.
“I wasn’t aware we had plans.”
Zoro didn’t answer him. Instead he stared at Sanji lazily. Just watching him—like he was enjoying the view. Sanji started to squirm.
He and Zoro were careening into something… something neither of them could stop. Sanji wasn’t sure he wanted to stop it.
It was new and exciting and scary as hell. He’d never even—and definitely not with a man. But with Zoro… it was so easy to exist with him. It made him vulnerable with an ease that he’d never even known he was capable of.
He was sure that if he leaned in and kissed Zoro that he’d kiss back.
“You hungry?” he asked instead.
Zoro smiled at him wryly. “I could go for some rabbit.”
Then…
“Got one!” Zoro yelled triumphantly. He held up his stick, the rabbit dangling from it and dripping blood from its jugular.
Sanji appeared and made a face, looking away and gagging into his elbow. Wimp.
“What’s your problem? Can’t handle dead animals?” Zoro taunted. He waved his stick closer to Sanji’s face, the rabbit swinging back and forth.
“Y-you did it wrong!” Sanji said, his face still in his elbow. “You can’t cook the rabbit properly like that, idiot!”
“I thought you said you could cook anything,” Zoro said.
“Of course I can!” Sanji exclaimed, getting up into Zoro’s face. As soon as he noticed the rabbit again he went back to hiding in his arm, choking back a gag. The blood continued to drip down the stick and splattering onto the ground.
“Did you get the kindling and logs?”
Sanji nodded. He gestured to a sad little pile of twigs that Zoro hadn’t even noticed. “I didn’t find anything that big…”
“If I had my swords, I could have cut down the tree!” Well, only young trees. And only after a couple of good swings. He was sure that he’d be chopping down dozens of huge oaks in one swing in no time, though. He just needed to practice more.
“As if!” Sanji challenged.
Zoro growled, but was kind of glad he didn’t have his swords so he didn’t need to prove himself. Though, he’d been training with bokken every day, so maybe he could cut a tree down now. Koshirou read him a story one time about a samurai who lost his sword, and had to use a staff instead to survive in the wilderness. He trained so hard that when he got his sword back, he was the most powerful swordsman in all the lands, and he didn’t even realize it.
Koshirou was going to be so impressed with Zoro once he got back. He smirked to himself as he hit two rocks together over and over, trying to make a spark over their make-shift fire pit. Sanji was skinning the rabbit, but finished really quickly, the skin basically falling off. Damn. He started trying with his own rocks too, and managed to get a spark after only a couple of tries, lighting the kindling on fire. He smirked at Zoro.
“Beginner’s luck,” Zoro said, throwing his rocks over his shoulder. He reached for the rabbit, which Sanji had stuck into the ground, but Sanji got in his way.
“Don’t touch. I’ll be cooking. You go make shelter. You can manage that without getting lost again, right?”
“Of course I can!” Zoro said. He realized Sanji tricked him halfway through piling big leaves together. Weirdly, the fire seemed to move, but he followed the smell and light in the distance back to Sanji. It smelled really good, better than anything they’d been served at camp. Zoro’s mouth watered.
“Took you long enough.” Sanji held out the cooked rabbit to Zoro. He ripped off a leg and the meat fell off into his mouth, juicy and tender. It was the best rabbit he’d ever tasted.
Sanji ate a lot slower, eating the meat off the bone so that it shone white before tossing it into the fire.
“Hey,” Zoro said as he chewed. “How come you only kick when you fight?”
“Don’t chew with your mouth full. It’s bad table manners.” Sanji ripped another leg off the rabbit.
“Do you see a table? ‘Cuz I don’t.”
Sanji glared at him. “This is why you’d never understand. A brute like you only ever thinks about fighting.”
“What else would I think about? I saw you skin the rabbit, you’re good with your hands. You’d make a great swordsman.”
“Well, too bad. I’m not a fighter, I’m a chef. My hands are for cooking, and cooking only.” Sanji took a huge bite of his leg, like he was trying to prove a point.
“That’s stupid,” Zoro said.
Sanji glared at him. He chewed aggressively, and swallowed with a gulp. Zoro snickered. “I knew you wouldn't get it! My hands are my treasure!” he pointed at his palm.
Zoro thought about Wadou Ichimonji, waiting at home for him with Koshirou. “My treasure is way cooler than yours.”
“Well I bet you’ll never taste rabbit so good for the rest of your life!” He was probably right. The rabbit was really good. Not that Zoro would admit that.
“You saying this is the best you can do?”
“Wh—well! You’re so annoying!!” Zoro laughed and held the rabbit out of reach as Sanji lunged for him. He couldn’t help but smile as they fought and ate. He wondered if Sanji enjoyed himself too. He hoped so, because he couldn’t remember having this much fun since Kuina died.
Now…
“Zoro! Come’ere!” Sanji called him over. He pointed up at one of the slats running across the ceiling of the mess hall. “It’s still there.”
Back in their second year of camp, they’d snuck out in the middle of the night and into the mess hall. Usually when they snuck out they’d go to the forest or to the ocean, but for whatever reason, they came here instead.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Zoro said.
“You’re so annoying. Doesn’t this make you at all nostalgic?”
“Why did we do that again? Nobody even noticed it was there.”
“Maybe they did and just didn’t care,” Sanji said. “It was a lot of work to get up there!”
They’d made a pyramid with the tables, and then a pyramid of the benches on top of the pyramid of tables. All that work just to carve a simple ‘S + Z’ into the wood. It’d felt like the biggest achievement in the world at the time. Heat crept from Sanji’s stomach into the back of his neck. Had neither of them realized how romantic that was? Sanji glanced over at Zoro, who had laid down on top of one of the tables.
“They really had terrible supervision. It’s a miracle no kids got lost or died here,” he said, sounding bored as hell. His shirt was riding up a bit, showing his stomach. Sanji cleared his throat.
“Maybe that’s why they shut down. I wouldn’t be surprised.” Was Sanji’s voice too high? It wasn’t, was it? Shit, he needed to stop getting worked up over nothing.
“Nah, I think the owner just ran out of money or something. I remember Koshirou talking to another kid’s parent about it one time.” He scratched his stomach, pushing his shirt up even more. If nobody had died here before, Sanji might end up being the first.
“Right. Uh. We should… we should probably head back. I’ll need to feed Luffy before he starts terrorizing my poor sweet Nami.”
“That witch can handle herself for a couple more hours,” Zoro said, sitting up. His shirt fell back down. Sanji both internally cursed the loss and sighed in relief. “I wanted to do one more thing before we left.” He smiled and Sanji knew he was doomed to say yes no matter what he proposed.
“Oh yeah? What’d you have in mind?”
“Just follow me,” Zoro said. He hopped off the table and started towards the exit.
Sanji trailed behind him. “Famous last words.”
.
Despite Sanji’s constant badgering, Zoro did get them where he wanted to go. Eventually. The camp wasn’t that big, and the beach was pretty much right next to the mess hall. It was just how he remembered it, though the wooden docks looked worse for wear. He started stripping, tossing his shirt onto the sand.
“What are you doing!?” Sanji squeaked.
Oh, he was definitely checking him out. “What does it look like? I’m not gonna get my clothes wet. You should strip too.”
So maybe Zoro had an ulterior motive. Sue him. It was incredibly entertaining to watch Sanji stutter into compliance. In their third year, they started a list of things they wanted to do. Skinny dipping was one of them, but they didn’t get around to it. At the time, Zoro figured they’d just do it the next year, but next year never happened.
“I didn’t think you remembered that bucket list,” Sanji said as he toed his shoes off. He was beautiful in the moonlight.
“Of course I remember. It bugged me that we never got to finish it.”
“Me too.” Sanji said it softly, like he was whispering a secret. Zoro grinned.
“First one to ten laps wins!” he yelled, and ran off to jump into the boxed off zone.
Sanji squawked and ran after him. “I’ll get to twenty before you manage that!”
They ended up going to thirty, and Sanji did beat him… by a hair. “That’s what you get for skipping leg day!” Sanji splashed Zoro, the salt water burning his eyes. He splashed back, laughing.
“That was just a warm-up, let’s go again!”
“Just take the loss like a man!” Sanji tackled Zoro, pushing them both underwater. They pulled at each other’s limbs, coming up to the surface for a breath before scrabbling underwater again. Sanji pushed Zoro up against the docks, pinning him there with both his wrists in Sanji’s hands. They both heaved. Zoro’s heart was racing.
Sanji’s hair was dark and matted, clumping together so that both his eyes were showing. He was grinning manically and—shit. It was a good look on him. Really good. He was at Sanji’s mercy and he could not find it in himself to care.
They both caught their breaths, bobbing up and down with the tide. Sanji blinked at him, like he’d finally caught on to their positioning, and quickly pushed himself away. Damn.
“Now will you admit that I won?” Sanji asked, facing away from Zoro.
“Sure, fine,” Zoro said. Shit, that just slipped out. He was having too much fun to care.
Sanji starfished, most of his body underwater except for his head and feet. Zoro pushed himself off the docks and floated up too. Neither of them said anything for a while. The wind whistled by and the waves lapped up against the docks.
“I can’t believe we’re back here,” Sanji said. “I didn’t think I’d ever see this place again.”
“Yeah,” Zoro agreed. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, either.”
“Yeah…” Sanji trailed off. Zoro waited. He watched a cloud cover and uncover the moon. “Hey, Zoro?”
“Mmn?”
Zoro could hear Sanji thinking. Clicking his tongue like he was rolling his words around in his mouth. “…Nevermind.”
He flipped underwater and started swimming back before Zoro could pry those words out of him. Oh well. Zoro followed after him. They were crew now. They had all the time in the world.