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"You're holding back."
Zoro's feet skid across the deck as he is pushed backward from the sheer power of Sanji's kick. "You're imagining things, cook."
Sanji spits his cigarette, his expression twisted with anger. "Bullshit," he snarls. "I have kicked those shitty blades thousands of times for the past two years. 'Imagining things' my ass."
Sanji swings another leg before Zoro could reply, and it would have hit the swordsman square in the chest if he hadn't blocked the kick with both of his swords. Zoro grits his teeth at the impact and considers sticking with his lie for a second before he just — doesn't. He has never been good with lying, and especially not to Sanji, who knows Zoro like the back of his hand.
"Of course I'm holding back," he admits, and the stab of fear he felt when he saw the state Sanji was in after the battle with Big Mom washes all over him again. "She broke both of your fucking legs."
Escape from Big Mom was not without sacrifice.
"Do you even know —" Zoro begins, and doesn't like where this is going, doesn't like admitting to any kind of weaknesses, but he wants Sanji to understand. Needs him to understand the way the scene was burned into his mind like a terrible scar. Sanji, his rival, his equal, lying unconscious on the infirmary bed, legs still bent at the wrong angles. "Do you even know how terrifying it was for me? To find you like that?"
Sanji scoffs at that, and it is devoid of humor. "Have you ever considered that you just got a taste of your own medicine?" He takes out another cigarette from his pocket and lights it up. "Do you think I felt fantastic when I found you like that in Thriller Bark?"
Zoro bites his lower lip, frustrated. "That's different."
"How so?"
"I wasn't there!" Zoro yells. "We've made our own decisions in Thriller Bark. I wasn't even there for this. You could have died and I wouldn't have known until — fuck — until Luffy brought back your tie or something."
When Zoro looks down, he sees his hands on the swords tremble. He doesn't remember the last time they ever did, and the surprised look on Sanji's face shows that the cook just noticed this too. Zoro immediately looks away, shame creeping from the back of his mind for letting his emotions get the best of him to this extent, but there's also a part him that has accepted that he's always been a lost cause when it comes to Sanji.
"I know," he says after a moment, "the weights we chose to carry, what it means about our lives, about — us." He lowers his swords, realizing that this is the one thing they can't fight their way through. "But I still want to have your back, and I need you to have mine, cook. Can't imagine a fight without you anymore. And I can't do this if you keep throwing yourself like a shield as if —" He thinks of the letter Sanji left at Zou, how it sounds exactly like, tell the others to find a new cook, "as if you don't mean anything."
Sometimes Zoro feels that death clings to Sanji like carrion birds pick at dead things, and Sanji lets it, doesn't resist it. Zoro isn't afraid of a lot of things, but this one thing about Sanji frightens him, because sometimes it feels like he would go to sleep soundly one night and wake up the next day to find Sanji dead, and it would be Kuina all over again, and Zoro would never forgive himself for that.
Zoro continues to stare at his hands, getting increasingly irritated at the way they won't stop shaking, when Sanji's hands suddenly cover his.
"I'm sorry," Sanji says. Zoro knows that he means it.
"You," Zoro pauses, tries not to choke on his own heart. "You matter. To us."
"I know," Sanji agrees, and they're standing close to each other now.
"You matter," Zoro repeats, because he needs to make sure Sanji gets it. "To me."
He hears a sharp intake of breath from Sanji. He closes his eyes, and presses a barely-there kiss on Sanji's cheek.
Sanji breathes, and — lets go. "I know, mosshead," he finally says. "It's just, it's not — when you grew up with the pathetic excuse of a family I had. It's not that easy to remember that."
"They're wrong," Zoro tells him, and tries to squash down the flare of anger at the mention of the Vinsmokes. "And they're stupid."
That earns him a laugh from Sanji; his first genuine one today. "I know."
Zoro holds Sanji tighter, and they stay like that for a long time, simply taking in the other's presence. He can feel Sanji's breathing, soft and steady, and he thinks, he's alive. And, he wants to live.
Zoro's hands have stopped shaking.