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He steps out in front of you, a truly pathetic sight. His suit is fucked up and he's shaking with fear. You wonder if he actually thinks he will save you or if he just wants you to die feeling loved. If it’s the latter it works, fuck how well it works, and fuck if you’re going to let him stop you. He couldn’t die like this.
It is so easy to knock him aside, even though you feel like you will faint any minute, even though you feel your blood soaking through your shirt. He is so light and so beat up, and you feel a bit bad about knocking him out. You hope against hope you will be able to tell him you're sorry. Then you stand up, and descend into hell.
When he finds you after the longest hour in your life you are standing up only because any movement makes you want to puke. You don't feel human, you don’t feel alive, and you can hardly see him through the fog in your eyes. You are glad to not be dead, but you have only a vague memory of fondness of him. You hate him for touching your ruined skin and for seeing you like this, but rather him than anyone else. He asks you what happened, and you tell him nothing, hoping he will understand. Then you’re out cold before you can even notice whether or not he catches you.
When you regain consciousness you can’t even locate your eyes in the cloud of painkillers and blood loss, let alone open them.
“Is Luffy okay?”, you want to ask, but you barely manage to slur out his name.
“Yeah, Zoro, yeah”, someone says, and you recognize your captain's voice even though it sounds distant and thick. “I’m here. I’m ok.” You can’t feel your hands until he squeezes one of them. You wish he hadn’t done that.
You hover in and out of consciousness after that, but you don’t try to open your eyes until you feel like you are in little enough pain you can face your nakama with dignity. When you do you have to talk to Chopper for what feels like at least fifteen minutes. Then you have to talk to Nami, who is curious and worried and driving you crazy. Halfway into her rant you realize Sanji's come into the room, and is quietly standing in the doorway. You smell the smoke clearly.
You avoid looking at him, and try to listen to Nami and Chopper for a few more seconds, but you can only think of how he's quietly watching you.
"Nami-san, Chopper", he says when they are finally quiet for a second. "Could you leave us alone for a moment?" You can't believe he's actually saying this. Embarrassing.
"Well. Sure?" Nami gets up. "Maybe you can get some information out of him."
"Please, Sanji, don't let him move around too much!" says Copper with tears in his eyes.
"No worries." You can hear the fake smile in Sanji’s voice.
The others leave, and he puts out his cigarette and sits down at the edge of the bed.
"I'm so glad you are ok." He sounds uncharacteristically sincere.
"Don't make this a big deal. I'm too tired for that bullshit."
"I won't tell anyone, I promise. But. Please." He bows, touching his forehead to the bed. "Don't give your life away."
"Hey..." You don't really know what to say. "It, eh, it worked, didn't it?”
"Yes, and I'm grateful! Really! I just-”
“Yeah, and besides you just tried to pull the exact same thing, didn’t you?” He huffs, sits up and looks at you for all of two seconds before hiding under his fucking hair.
“No, you shithead, I was stalling for time. I wouldn’t just let him kill me, ok, because honestly, fuck your honor, and fuck your goddamn deathwish! If we die, we should die together, all of us!" His voice gets a little shrill, his breathing a little laboured. "What if you would really have died? How could we ever recover from that?"
Of course you can't promise him not to risk your life, and you know you don't need to, but you feel bad for him. You sit up, to maybe get the situation to feel less severe, even though it hurts like shit. He’s still hiding his eyes. You think of how scared he seemed when he offered his life in place of yours, the limp in his step and the fake confidence in his voice.
"Hey, Eyebrows”, you say, “I'm glad I survived. That means I get tell you I'm sorry you're such an idiot I had to knock you out. Thanks for being alright." You smile, a little, and he leans in to hug you, one armed and carefully. The bridge of his nose rests on your collar bone.
Despite yourself you relax against him, now that every touch doesn't send you back down in hell, and put your less beat up arm around his shoulders. He's wearing a soft, blue sweatshirt, and where it shows his pale neck and slim shoulders you can see part of a large, dark bruise.
"You shitty bastard", he says, swallows thickly. "You fucking mossball. I fucking owe you, you shit."
He isn't surrounded by his usual cloud of cologne and hairspray, he just smells of cigarettes and food, and his hair is soft against your mostly bare shoulder. With a sigh you pass your hand once down his back, and feel his shoulders quivering. You’re too tired to be angry. In the near silence you shut your eyes, lean your chin on his head and hope no one will come in and see you.
When he sits up both his face and his eyes are pink. He lights a cigarette, blows smoke toward the ceiling with a thankfully steady breath.
“Annoying”, you tell him, and try to cross your legs before finding your left knee won’t allow it.
“You’re fucking lucky I’m not childish enough to put ash in your food, you shit.” He’s smiling.
“You’re fucking lucky I’m not childish enough to tell everyone about this.”
“You wouldn’t! You hugged me back, you jerk!”
You laugh, a short wheeze.
“You got me.”
You bicker mindlessly while he smokes, and when he stands up to leave his presence in the room doesn’t feel like a ghost of anxiety and shame. He says he has to make sure all the food ends up in the right place, and also not in the mouth of the captain, and brushes his hair to the proper side of his face.
“Sure. Hey, Eyebrows”, you say, meeting his eyes for a few consecutive moments that make you want to hide in a hole forever, “this is shameful and you should be ashamed, but I have to say I’m flattered.” His eye widens and he blushes again, looking fit to say something incoherent at best, but you wave for him to leave.
“Now shoo! You have food to protect. Don’t make this worse!”
“Y-yes! Of course! See you.” He leaves, and you hear him tell Nami he couldn’t get you to say anything, then Chopper comes in and forces you to lie down while he screams about a few more things.
For almost one day you're ok with staying in bed. You're so glad to be alive all the rest is less important. Luffy barrels into the tent where you are resting a few minutes later to make sure you’re alright and hugs you so hard you almost pass out again. Around late afternoon you get restless and limp outside when Chopper is doing something elsewhere. You take care of your dead sword, you help carry some cargo to the ship, and then go to sleep in the crow’s nest. The next day you all head off, away from the gloomy Thriller Bark, and in the evening you drink to celebrate your new crewmate. You mistrust this one less than Franky and Robin, which mostly means you don't expect him to kill you in your sleep, and you have some sliver of hope that his puns will get more tolerable. Everyone but Luffy is still tired, so no one gets drunk.
Even though you spend most of the next few days making like a hurt cat and holing up in the crow’s nest you don't miss the difference in how Sanji treats you. It's subtle, in the silence between insults and the way he moves around you. One evening when you come down to make some tea he's set out the kettle on the counter, and lets you fetch tea and a cup without glaring at you. You put everything away neatly, and since no one is around you sit down in front of him while you drink. He's writing something, moving the pearls of an abacus around with little calming clicks. When you go to sleep that night with the same ache in deep in your guts as the last few days you don't tell yourself it's good pain, but instead think of his light arm around your shoulders, his soft hair and his blue sweater. It is not often that you are hugged like that, so light. (You’d say tender, but then, you wouldn’t.)
You try vainly to work out like you use to, but you know it would just make you weaker. Fear of having to face another enemy like Kuma or Moria when you still can't trust your body hovers over you like a dark cloud all the way to Shabaody, which turns out to be worse than you could have imagined.
You know your enemy is not the real Kuma the moment he attacks, and with your own first strike you feel something tear in your abdomen. The fight is an absolute nightmare, a haze of light and a taste of blood. An actual fucking admiral stands on your broken ribs, there are more enemies than you can count, and as Usopp carries you away you wish you could have died a week ago instead of dragging the crew down with you. You see Brook go down, then Usopp and then fucking Eyebrows, all in vain to protect your dead fucking self from the fake Shibukai. You hear Sanji scream, and as the real Kuma appears, cold and huge and way too fast for his gigantic body, you wish you could look at your shitty fucking cook. You can't bring yourself to. In case he's dead, in case you're about to throw away a life he died to save.
You stand up straight in front of Kuma, and accept your fate with honor and dignity.