Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Sanji, wake up.”

“Sanji.”

“Sanji!”

The voices pull him from a deep, troubled sleep.

His eyes barely crack open, swollen shut and reluctant to let in the bright light streaming from his open bedroom window. He’s too weak to sit up, laying in bed for three days straight does funny things to one’s constitution. Sanji squints blankly ahead at the wall in front of him, eyes slowly tracing the familiar patterns of the texture; having memorized the design of the imperfections in the paint through the hours spent lying in this exact spot.

He can feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat throughout his entire body, feeling it pulse up from his feet, through his thighs, up to his stomach, and weakly echoing in his head. He absentmindedly runs a hand across the opposite wrist, and sees the faint glow of blue underneath nearly translucent skin. Has he always been so pale? Have his veins always been so prominent? 

“Do we even know how long he’s been like this? I’m worried about him.”

A soft whispered voice carries from the opposite side of the bedroom. Someone, a woman, a voice Sanji is intimately familiar with but can’t focus on identifying, speaks from the doorway. He hears the sounds the voice makes, thinks about the way each syllable uttered bounces around the room before it reaches him. He doesn’t understand what they’re saying. He’s a little beyond that point right now.

A rough heavy hand, lined with calluses, lifts him abruptly from the bed placing him propped up on a stack of fluffed pillows. Sanji doesn’t try to fight it, or to assist with his change in position. Catatonia is just a bundle of fun. The person who lifted him up sits beside him and places a bowl of something in Sanji’s lap. Sanji can register dark skinned hands, tanned both by the sun and family history, and somewhere behind him a head of bushy, curly hair.

The helper, Usopp most likely, tries to spring Sanji into action by dangling various pieces of food in front of him. It smells good, most likely his own cooking. The broth smells like it came from the stash in the freezer – the one he’d made after a particularly raucous thanksgiving, his brain unhelpfully supplies.

He cooperates. Eating, he finds to his surprise, isn’t painful at all. Something he’d sorely needed. He’d forgotten how important food was, how much better he felt with some sort of nourishment while he had been so focused on not shattering to pieces in bed.

Usopp asks a question from behind him, Sanji can tell by the uptick in tone and the halting cadence of the syllables, but the fog surrounding his brain is too thick to understand anything. His eyebrows crinkle downwards naturally, and he turns around slowly to stare at Usopp questioningly.

“Are you alright?” The other man repeats softly, as though he was speaking to a spooked and cornered animal.

Sanji shakes his head slowly, though not slow enough and he’s forced to take several deep breaths to fight off the nauseous feeling that arises from the movement. His mouth feels as though it is stuffed with cotton, but he pushes past the strange feeling to form words. Lips pressed tightly together, one stiff swallow, and then a sting of pain as the skin around his mouth cracks.

“Not yet.”

 The days pass and Sanji keeps on living, though it’s little more than existing. Work at least, is a saving grace; he’s given a time to wake up in the morning, people that depend on him, and tasks that leave no room for his mind wandering to more unsavory places. Taking the fewest breaks possible, and only those to satisfy his ever-increasing nicotine habit, he works until he is exhausted and the only thing left for him to do is go home and slip into unconsciousness, usually still clothed. Repeat ad nauseum.

Nothing quite helps but nothing makes it worse. He tries drinking, once, just to see if he could reveal some karmic inspiration or perhaps provide some other kind of stimulation for a break in the monotony. 2 fifths of whisky later, and severe dehydration from spending three nights in a row puking his guts out, he decides that he may have his own vices and issues but alcoholism is not one of them.

Still the days pass.

And each one feels longer than the next.

He’s slipping again. He misses Zoro.

He cycles between feeling nothing, between being lost in the desperation of life, and being angry at the world for fucking him up so badly. It’s not my fault, runs through his mind constantly – a mantra keeping him from further reeling into an even deeper pit of despair. It’s not my fault.

The worst part is that he’s tired all the time. So goddamn exhausted. Existing weighs on him, giving his bones and muscles the consistency of molasses, robbing him of strength and concentration. Everything hurts but he’s too fucking tired to deal with it. There’s a weight on his mind and body – and no amount of sleep, or sleepless nights lying prone in bed does anything to relieve it.

Frown marks begin to etch themselves into his forehead. His hair is dull and frizzy; his skin dry and oddly colored. He doesn’t kid himself when he looks in the mirror in the morning. He looks like shit, but there’s nothing he can do about that right now when even the act of getting out of bed in the morning is sometimes more than he can handle.

Dishes pile up in the sink. He can’t see the bottom of his ashtrays for the amount of ash and spent butts left behind. He hasn’t done laundry in weeks, but it doesn’t matter – it’s not like he has anywhere to be. Or anyone to impress. Texts and voicemails go unanswered because he doesn’t care enough to look at them, and he can’t bring himself to act like a normally functioning member of society. Soon there’s fewer and fewer invitations – his friends wanting less and less to do with someone as antisocial as he is right now. It’s better that way.

He’s pretty fucked up. He knows it. He knows other people can tell by looking at him. He’s not making any effort to conceal the dark circles under his eyes, the way his hair has grown out unevenly, or the delayed reaction he gives everyone after he is spoken to. He’s not trying to hide it. He’s not trying to pretend that everything is fine – he’s too tired for that.

He’s crying out for help in the only way he knows how: desperately and silently.

 Robin shows up one day. Sanji vaguely remembers plans agreed on through text message the week before, but his short-term memory is shot so he can’t be sure that this is purely a social visit.

She stands tall and looming in the entryway, her presence almost overbearing. Sanji looks up at her, but Robin’s expression and deep grey eyes reveal nothing.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” She asks.

Sanji’s wearing yesterday’s clothes – dirtied sweatpants and a soft but ill-fitting t-shirt from years ago. He really wasn’t expecting company today, hell – he doesn’t expect to be much company today, but he’s always found it hard to say no to Robin.

“You’ve cut yourself shaving.” Robin’s voice is light, her words chastising and affectionate simultaneously. She moves past him, settling down comfortably at the dining room table.

“Oh, yeah. This morning actually, my hands were shaking.”

Sanji doesn’t tell her about the ten minutes he spend staring at the razor in his hand. The ten minutes where he imagined how easy it would be to smash the damn thing to pieces and hold a blade between his fingers. He doesn’t share how some forgotten memory told him it was better to angle the blade downwards, not sideways. Or about the few seconds he imagined the blood pooling around his wrists, dripping onto the countertop beat by stubborn beat. He buries the thought of how relieved he’d been when the razor had slipped across his jaw line, at how refreshing it was to finally feel something.

He gets the feeling that she already knows.

“Hands shaking? That’s unlike you.” Maybe shaving isn’t the smartest idea, her smirk says.

“Yeah, I uh, keep forgetting to drink water. I think that’s what it is.” A hand lazily traveling through the uneven fringe over his right eye only to stop to scratch the nape of his neck, I know, his awkward posture projects.

“Want any tea?” A slight nod in response from Robin, bundled with a disconcerting glare. Robin’s not one for gentle pleasantries.

“Feeling any better?”

“No, not really.” The truth hurts, but it’s easier than pretending everything’s ok. 

“Well, have you been doing anything besides wallowing?”

“Work, trying to keep the house clean. Energy’s low, so…” he responds with a shrug, a downturned gaze that studiously avoids eye contact. He quickly gazes around the room, seeing the dirty plates stacked high in the sink, shoes and clothes piled in the corner of the living room. It’s a lie, but thankfully Robin lets it slide.

“Sanji you’re not getting better.” She disapproves, though it’s nothing new. It’s not like Sanji can help it, not like he can think himself happier. If only he could limit his wallowing in self-pity to just 15 minutes a day.

“It’s really nothing new Robin. I’ve… done this before.” He avoids eye contact with her – though keeping her at arms length is harder than he’d imagined. If anyone could understand what goes though his mind on a regular basis, it would be Robin. “I… I don’t think I’ve been really happy in a long time, it just looks bad right now. I’ll be ok.” Probably.

“There’s things that’ll make it easier Sanji. You need to talk to somebody. Pills, therapy, a vacation, anything. You need help and I’ll be damned if I’m just going to let you sit here and rot in your misery,” Robin says. He loves her so much, but there are things that he can do, and there are things that he doesn’t need to solve a silly little problem like depression.

“It’s fine, really. Everyone gets upset like this. There’s always a point in everyone’s life where things just get a little extra hard to handle.”

“Sanji that’s not true and you know it.”

She’s right, of course. He knows it. It’s just hard to admit that he needs help.

“I know,” he places his tea on the table, using the maneuver to gather his thoughts, “it’s just hard to be dependent on something like that. I’m not… I don’t want to seem weak.”

Robin slams her hand hard down on the table, the resulting smack and clatter of dishes echoing around the room. Sanji’s ears begin to ring from the sudden outburst.

“The only weak thing is realizing you have a problem and doing nothing to fix it.”

 Once, when it was probably their fourth time ‘trying again,’ (although with each subsequent fallout it became harder and harder to tell if they’d ever actually broken up, or if they were just two broken pieces interlocked), Zoro and Sanji took a vacation.

They both were overworked, underappreciated, and stressed out from everything. So the first weekend free they booked a stay at a rented beach condo and spent three days in lovely, quiet seclusion.

Sanji had never been more fond of Zoro. It was truly bliss – to be together, outside the views of everyone else, away from the pressures of the real world, in a spot where Sanji could pretend he wasn’t constantly wrestling with his self-doubt and dark mental clouds.

It was during a walk on the beach that Zoro told Sanji about his family. He’s not sure how he never knew about it in the first place, or how they’d never talked about it before – but then again Zoro wasn’t usually the sharing or tactile type, so with hand in hand and their feet in the water Sanji wasn’t about to stop it.

“I miss her a lot. You remind me of her actually… stubborn as fucking mules.”

“Do you think she’d be happy for you?”

Zoro looked at him, confusion clear in his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” and Sanji hesitated, because he wasn’t good with families, couldn’t map out exactly how they were supposed to relate. “If she were still alive, do you think… she’d get along with your friends? Or be happy with your job? Who you grew up to be?”

Zoro hung his head down, and Sanji worried again if he’s said something he shouldn’t have. Crossed some kind of invisible line that would tear Zoro even further away.

“I think… Yeah I think she’d be proud, you know?”

Sanji doesn’t understand, couldn’t possibly empathize. He’s broken, cast out; his family a blight on his memory. He doesn’t talk about them and Zoro knows that.

They walk back to their room in comfortable silence.

Later they ordered room service, and Sanji got a kick of how giggly champagne made the both of them. Wrapped up in the soft, velvety blankets in their king sized bed, Sanji was able to realize just how much he loved Zoro without the thought being followed by how Zoro deserved so much better.

“You know I love you, right? You believe me when I tell you that?” Words whispered in the dead of night, where the only light was what little had spilled under the door.

“I do, Zoro. I do.” A reply murmured, then echoed through tangled limbs.

The question was never about love. It was always wondering if that was enough.

Chopper’s on a roll.

Sanji always knew the kid was serious about medicine. It’s kind of hard not to be proud when one of your best friends becomes an actual licensed, practicing doctor. It gets even better when the doctor is as young and cute as Chopper is. Although Sanji has been admonished more times than he can count for bad habits, and given treatment on the side for things he shouldn’t even have been doing, he’s never been on the receiving end of such a serious lecture from the kid.

Chopper showed up one day after Sanji’s final psychiatrist appointment, followed closely behind by Robin. Sanji had shot Robin a look of pure desperation and disdain when the two had barged into his house together, with Chopper prattling at the top of his lungs about medicine, the brain, and various biomedical terms that went over Sanji’s head.

“Ok, listen Sanji. So when the brain is depressed it’s because of an unbalance in neurotransmitters, which is how neurons in the brain talk to each other. What happens is the neurotransmitters, in this case serotonin… Sanji are you paying attention to me?”

Chopper knows his stuff, but it takes a long time for the message to really sink in. 

Sanji learns far more about the biology and neuro-anatomy of the brain than he ever wanted to. It begins when he learns what dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine are – rhymes of chemistry alien to him. Then he learns that not only are the words and mechanisms foreign to him, but to the microcosm of his own brain as well. Chopper goes so far as to pull out diagrams and figures of neurotransmitter reuptake mechanisms and synaptic firing. While Sanji makes lunch he’s regaled with tales of hormone and enzyme deficiency and of various therapies used in the past.

It’s far too much information given in far too short of a time span.

“Wait, Chopper...” Sanji questions once the kid has calmed down and is actually breathing in between sentences. “You’re telling me, that I feel this way because my brain isn’t… what? Doing the right things with the chemicals it makes?”

“Yes!”

“And this is a thing that people actually study?” 

There's a long pause. “No, Sanji. I made up every fact I’ve told you over the past two hours.” Chopper rolls his eyes and sighs deeply. “In fact, medical school isn’t a real thing. M.D stands for ‘Mad and Disillusioned.’ Sorry.” Chopper fixes Sanji with such a blank stare that Sanji almost feels bad for voicing his disbelief. But hey, it’s not every day you learn that your brain isn’t doing its job properly.

“Hey, no need to be such a smart ass about it.” 

What hits Sanji that night, when he’s lying in bed with eyes wide open, is that he’s not broken. Not really.

Or at least, he’ll keep saying it until it’s true.

He learns that it takes three weeks for the more… unfortunate side effects to potentially pass, at which his dose may or may not be upped until the 2-month time point when hopefully his symptoms will start to be alleviated. He spends 3 weeks being carefully monitored by a (suspiciously well scheduled) rotation of Chopper, Robin, Nami, and Usopp whom have all taken the increased risk of suicidal attempts wholly in stride. Sanji, certainly not for the first time in his life, doesn’t know how to feel about it. Zoro is conspicuously absent. Luffy somehow manages to show up at exactly the point in time when he's needed, and leaves when Sanji starts to get exhausted again. In a way, he's grateful to Luffy the most - he always sleeps better on the days Luffy visits.

He takes 2 pills in the morning: one selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, one supplement for vitamin D, and goes to bi-weekly appointments with a new therapist. Sanji finds he likes this new doctor much better than the old. He’s even managed to get used to not smoking during sessions and he’s calling it a victory.

It’s not that he’s happy immediately. It’s not that his problems magically go away. It’s not that he’s suddenly gifted with an epiphany that he’s more than his depression, trust issues, and recklessness. Every other week his doctor continues to remind him that nothing about this is going to happen easily.

As promised, it starts with little things. It starts with being able to get out of bed after only hitting the snooze button on his phone twice. Breakfasts now consist of toast and a fried egg rather than cigarettes, which makes the rest of his day surprisingly easier than he would have expected. Laundry gets done slowly. The dishes in the sink stop piling up, and the house starts smelling ever so slightly fresher. Sanji starts dressing nicely again.

It’s not easier all the time. He has more energy to do the things he has to, but not enough to get him beyond the necessities. It’s like an invisible weight with claws sunk deep down into his bones. Every step takes twice the amount of energy it should. Every emotion is twice as exhausting. There are hours, sometimes days where he doesn’t feel anything. It’s easier that way, he supposes. 

It’s one of those rare days where he’s dressed up and polished, coming home from a long shift with feet and back aching when he spies a suspicious shape huddled on his doorstep. He hadn’t seem him earlier, but he was walking in that completely unaware state, staring into empty space with his body moving on autopilot. Sanji frowns at the man, carefully taking in the way green hair peeks out from underneath the hood to his sweatshirt and how his shoulders are hunches forward. It’s hard for a 200-pound man to look small, but he seems to be trying his best.

“Hey,” Sanji says awkwardly as he stands in front of Zoro. “Been waiting long?”

“Nah, I just uh, went for a run? And wound up in the neighborhood.”

“Uh-huh…” Sanji sidesteps around Zoro and carefully pulls his keys out of his pocket. He swallows the comment he’d thought of, of how Zoro’s runs always lead him to strange places, and how you’re lucky you wound up somewhere you recognize. Instead he quickly unlocks the door and steps in. He left the door open expecting Zoro to follow behind him, and is surprised when he doesn’t hear footsteps in his house. “You gonna come in?”

“Is that ok?”

“Don’t overthink it Mosshead.”

Sanji carefully balances while disentangling from his clothes. Shoes stay in the entryway; he’ll wear them again tomorrow, no sense in putting them away. His keys, wallet, and pocket box of cigarettes are all dumped on the dining room table. He sighs heavily as he switches the kitchen light on, moving to a cabinet to the left of the sink for a glass.

He grabs one glass, hesitates, and then grabs a second. “Hey, you want-“

“Can I use your shower? I feel really gross after my run.” Zoro’s voice echoes loudly in the silent room. The interruption startles him and shatters Sanji’s train of thought. He’s unused to loud noises and voices in his house as much as he’s unused to Zoro’s voice in his house.

He tries to recollect his thoughts, mentally tries to rebuild some semblance of self-control, and frowns at Zoro; first in confusion, then in exasperation. He waves a hand in Zoro’s general direction. “Yeah, yeah. You know where all the stuff is.”

The other man doesn’t respond, but Sanji hears the bathroom door close, slightly louder than necessary and it sets his teeth on edge and his shoulders hunch up in an uncontrolled manner. Then the sound of the bathroom faucet turning on, and the slide of metal against metal as the shower curtain closes.

Setting the kettle to boil, Sanji mindlessly stares around the kitchen trying very hard to simultaneously think of absolutely nothing to calm himself, and to deconstruct every single possible reason Zoro could have for showing up at his house.

His breathing starts to quicken, but he’s torn away from his inner thoughts as the water begins to boil. He flips the switch on the kettle, and then rummages in the cabinet for a large mug. He throws the tea sachet into the cup and slowly pours the slightly below boiling water over the leaves. Wrapping the string around the mug’s handle with one hand Sanji reaches for the honey he left next to the kettle. He pours in a healthy spoonful and stirs his tea, blowing gently to cool it.

He moves to the sofa and settles down into the cushions with one leg curled up so his foot is pressed flat against the side of his thigh. Holding the mug in two hands his mind cycles over the fact that Zoro is in his house and he doesn’t know how he feels.

Is Zoro there to talk about them together? Is he there for sex? Sanji doesn’t try to kid himself into believing Zoro is there because Sanji’s been removed from their group for so long. Is he drunk? That would explain the strange atmosphere and why Zoro had almost immediately jumped into the shower, but it still didn’t explain why Zoro was there.

There’s the unmistakable sound of the shower diverter being hit from the bathroom, and Sanji stomach begins to tighten nervously. Zoro is about to come out into the living room and then they’re going to have to deal with each other.

His mouth is dry and he takes a large gulp of tea, not realizing that the liquid isn’t quite cooled enough. He scalds his tongue, and coughs, angry with himself for being so careless.

“You okay?” Zoro appears, thankfully dressed in the clothes he was wearing earlier. He frowns as he absentmindedly dries his hair with one of Sanji’s blue towels.

“Uh, yeah. The tea was hotter than I thought it’d be.”

“You never drink tea at night.” Zoro’s voice is suspicious. He’s asking about the tea, but he’s also probably thinking something along the lines of how else have you changed, and do I even know you anymore?

“It’s chamomile – helps me sleep.”

“Are you not sleeping well?” Their back and forth bickering is comforting at first, and then a hard reminder that he is not ok. That he can’t deal with starting over again.

Sanji sighs, and shifts a little in his spot on the couch. “Frankly, I’m not doing a lot of things very well at the moment.” The words come out sounding angrier than he’d meant.

“Shit – I …” Zoro splutters, then stutters, and his cheeks turn a bright dusky rose color when he drops the towel. Sanji hates that blush. He hates how easy it is to watch the blush creep from the sharp edges of Zoro’s cheekbones to the tips of his ears. He especially hates how, when he’s really lucky, it’s possible to trace the blush down Zoro’s chest, though he’s trying very hard not to focus on that right now.

“Why are you here?” Sanji finally snaps.

It takes Zoro a few minutes to collect himself and answer. “I haven’t seen you in a while and-“

“Don’t,” Sanji mumbles.

“ ‘Don’t’ what?” Zoro turns to face Sanji head on, his hands on his hips and leaning slightly forward the way he does when he’s irritated. Or picking a fight, which usually occurs when he’s irritated, go figure.

“Don’t fucking apologize.”

“I’m not here to apologize.”

“Yes, you are because that’s what we do, Zoro. One of us swings a fist and the other apologizes for something. You…” Sanji pauses, not sure what exactly he wants to throw at Zoro. You’re part of why I’m insane? You can’t say anything that’ll make it better? You love me far more than I could ever love you?

“What?” Zoro's response both dares Sanji to continue and clearly expresses his disdain for the entire conversation. Shit.

Sanji stands up, and carefully places his mug down on the coffee table in front of him. His hands shake as the mug makes contact with the wooden surface, but it’s not obvious enough for Zoro to notice.

Sanji repeats his earlier question, “Why are you here?”

Zoro’s shoulders rise and fall dramatically, and the sound of his soft sigh fills the room. “I miss you.”

“Yeah, I miss you too.” It hurts to admit it, but it hurts a lot more to lie.

“Can we…”

“No.” Sanji interrupts, he doesn’t let Zoro continue the sentence, because he’s not sure if he wants to even entertain the thought of something happening in the future.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“It doesn’t matter.” His voice is low, and soft enough that when Zoro doesn’t immediately reply Sanji worries that he didn’t hear him.

“So you’re what, kicking me out of your life?” Zoro asks defensively.

“No, of course not. I just… I can’t…” He loses the sentence, and has to squeeze his eyes to bring his focus back. He rubs his face forlornly, trying to figure out exactly what he should say. Before he can stop himself the words tumble out from him uncontrollably. “I can’t focus on anything right now and I barely have the fucking energy to drag my sorry ass back and forth to the things that actually have to fucking get done. I don’t have the energy to do anything else. I don’t… I don’t have anything else to give.”

It takes a while for Zoro to respond, and in his silence he stares at Sanji. His face contorts slightly in obvious signs of confusion, then resignation. “Sanji, you don’t have to give me anything.”

He says the words like they don’t matter. Of course it fucking matters.

Sanji squeezes his eyes shut again, but this time it’s to control the tears unwillingly forming. His throat begins to itch and he’s forced to stifle a sniffle before the situation gets worse for him than it already is.

Zoro beats him to the next line. “It’s ok. I can wait for you, until this passes, until you get whatever you need. I...” he pauses, the sort of pause where he’s trying not to say something off hand, but full of meaning instead. “It’s not the same without you.”

“Shut up!” Sanji cries out, a tear dropping down his face, a choked down sob nearly cutting off his words. Zoro stands shocked opposite of him, one hand rubbing the opposite shoulder in clear discomfort.

“You don’t get to say that! You… You have no idea what I’m going through. I’m not going to be happy just like that! You can’t just waltz into my house and say that it’s ok, like you even under…” He stops, to take a deep breath, and also because words and emotions are pooling and fusing in confusing ways in his brain.

He walks closer to Zoro, until he’s nearly staring him straight in the eyes. “Do you understand? Do you really understand that I am a broken shell of a human being and that I will never be enough for you? This isn’t something you get to love me through. This isn’t something that saying you love me will fix.” The words hurt coming out, as if something from deep inside Sanji has been pulled out from the roots. They sting his tongue as surely as he knows the bite at Zoro. He means what he said, but he didn’t mean to say it out loud.

The room is silent for a few moments, then broken by a stifled cry from Sanji.

“This isn’t something that can be fixed.”

Sanji is tired. He is so tired of things not working out for him. He is so tired of every aspect of his life being shrouded by a lack of energy, by a lack of emotion, by a deep dark hatred for every thing that makes him who he is.

“I can’t be fixed.”

He’s not sure who reached out first, him or Zoro, but he finds himself wrapped up in Zoro’s arms. They’re sitting on the couch; Sanji’s eyes are puffy and swollen, Zoro’s sleeve stained with tears.

His mind is still cycling. This whole situation isn’t an easy fix. He’s not worth saving. He’s not worth loving.

He picks Zoro’s voice from outside his tumultuous train of thought. “I love you. Why won’t you let me?” But maybe he imagines that.

Warm in Zoro’s arms and exhausted from everything, he lets go and fades to sleep.

He wakes up with eyes swollen and nearly crusted shut. His mouth is dry, though his cheek is wet, and he absent-mindedly wipes the drool off his face with the back of his hand as he adjusts to the reality of being awake.

He’s cold, and it takes him a second to realize it’s because he’s on the couch, and he’s alone.

He wonders, briefly, if he imagined last night. If the Zoro in his house that he clung to last night was just a figment of his desperate and lonely imagination; something that he dreamt up thinking it might make him feel better in the moment.

He spies a piece of paper on the coffee table near him, and sleepily deciphers the uneven lettering that slants oddly to the left.

I wasn’t sure if you wanted to see me in the morning. Please call me when you can. I love you.  

It hits him then, that maybe his friends are willing to wait. That maybe Zoro is willing to wait.

The first few days pass as usual: Sanji, moving from work to bed in an unending cycle, broken up by one scheduled visit to his therapist and one unscheduled call from Nami. She’s doing good – and wants Sanji to visit soon.

A week goes by, and Sanji doesn’t feel any better, but then again he doesn’t feel any worse. 

The second week, Sanji calls Zoro.