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Sanji leaned against Sunny's quarterdeck rail as the archipelago of Wanokuni slowly appeared on the horizon.
Zoro was there.
He rubbed at the side of his neck, still tender from repeated scrubbings. He'd done everything he could to scrub away the scent marks Pudding had smeared on him, both in the days leading up to the wedding and then finally just before they'd parted. Luffy and Nami had both done their part as well — and at any other time, for any other reason, he'd be deliriously happy to be wearing so much of Nami's scent. She was far more sparing with scent markings than Luffy was, and while that didn't mean she never scented other crew members, her scent was rarely given. Luffy, as befitting the pack alpha he was, scented everyone he called nakama, and often. And now, when they'd sailed away from Totto Land together, both alphas had bracketed him and pressed their cheeks to his and rejoiced with him that he was still theirs.
But underneath the scrubbing and the fragranced soap and Nami and Luffy, he would swear he could still smell Pudding on himself, an elusive scent by turns sweet and bitter. She'd scented him during their brief engagement, with his resigned participation — and then at the very last, just before they'd parted, she'd asked a favor of him and a moment later her scent was thick in his nostrils and clinging to his skin and clothes, but he had no memory of how it had happened.
(He had a pretty good guess about that gap. And despite everything, he couldn't entirely begrudge it of her…)
It shouldn't have bothered him so much. It didn't, not at first, when he'd assumed that a good shower and a day or two away from her would clear the scent and it would be like it had never happened. But the scent lingered. And soon, he would be with Zoro again, with the scent of some other alpha clinging to his skin.
The mere thought of it made him cringe, and he sighed toward the dark blur on the horizon that was Wano. Between now and then, he was going to need a solution. How could he face Zoro, having left him for another alpha (even under duress), and returning with her scent all over him?
At least it was only scent. When he'd woken up the first morning away from Totto Land with the scent of bitter chocolate still tingling in his nostrils, he'd panicked, and spent an agonizing near-hour in the bathroom searching all over his body, afraid that the blank in his memory concealed her laying a claiming bite on him. He hadn't thought she would have, but that scent… but no. There was no bite, and he couldn't feel the connection to her that a mate claim would have created. It was only her scent.
But it lingered.
Could he face Zoro with Pudding's scent still on him? Would Zoro even still want him, with everything he'd done? If not… if not, what then?
"Huh? Zoro was right here…?" Luffy looked around in confusion, frowning. They'd finally met up again after getting separated at the waterfall, and damn was Sanji glad to see him, but the reunion with Zoro was still unrealized, still hanging over his head.
And at the last possible moment before reuniting, somehow, the stupid mossball had managed to wander off! While he was supposed to be riding with Luffy toward them!
"I swear," Sanji muttered under his breath. "He's doing this just to make me suffer."
And suffer he would, until he knew where they stood.
Rage burned in Sanji's heart. To hear the story of the SMILE fruits, the story of the desperate people poisoned with them — the soldiers, the Pleasures who knew the risk they were taking, that was bad enough, but the innocent, starving people of Ebisu, who ate the useless fruits and lost their emotions in the process — monstrous.
He burned with anger, and when the little girl who'd laughed so happily to eat the food he gave her faced down the guns of Orochi's goons, there was no need to think over his decision. He moved with the speed trained into him by all the struggles of the Grand Line — by every enemy he'd faced, by every friend who had trained him to be better, by every challenge he'd surmounted.
And when he stood in that execution circle, haki deflecting away the bullets meant for the child, he felt a familiar presence in place beside him, the battle partner who had always, of everyone, done the most to make him sharp and keep him at his best.
Zoro.
But now there was no time for talk, and barely any for scent. They were surrounded by enemies, with a little one to protect. He met Zoro's eye, and Zoro met his — shock, longing, and the anger of everything unresolved between them riding like a layer of oil over the rage of the circumstances around them.
They could reunite properly later. Now, they had to fight.
Finally, it was over. Wano was shattered, but it would be rebuilt strong and whole. The final battle had cost them so much, but in the end, everyone who had given their lives to free Wano from Kaido's grasp had done so boldly, willingly. It was a triumph not unmixed with grief, but the grief could not overpower the joy.
Sanji limped to Sunny's rail, lighting a cigarette and exhaling in a sigh of pure exhaustion. After the battle, and then the victory feast — a feast he had gladly served, no matter his injuries and Chopper's protestations, for the people who had starved for the last twenty years — he was worn to the bone, and the injuries he'd incurred in fighting the strongest of Kaido's underlings were grating on him miserably.
And on top of it all, he and Zoro hadn't had the chance to exchange more than a few passing words in the heat of battle. Nothing like the talk they needed to have…
Speak of the devil. He was too tired to draw on haki just to see who it was coming up behind him, but then, he didn't need to. He knew Zoro's scent like he knew his own hands. The alpha he loved with all his heart… and yet, here he was, still catching passing whiffs of chocolate and raspberries at stray moments. How did Pudding's scent still cling to him?
He stiffened as Zoro leaned against the rail beside him. For a long moment, neither spake; they breathed the cool night air together and just existed beside each other.
Finally, Zoro spoke, his voice low. "I knew Luffy'd get you back," he said, and it felt like an eternity ago that Luffy had burst upon the Vinsmoke royal carriage on Whole Cake Island to demand Sanji come home with him.
"Yeah, Luffy's good like that," Sanji agreed, exhaling smoke into the still air. There was more — so much more to say — but he had no idea how to start. How to beg Zoro's forgiveness, or to ask if it was even possible to have.
Another long silence fell. Sanji's cigarette burned down to the butt, and he flicked it overboard.
"I didn't ask Luffy what happened," Zoro said, the words coming slowly. "Dunno if he'd tell me even if I did. But… tell me something, cook. This girl they were gonna marry you off to — an alpha, right?" He glanced at Sanji from the corner of his eye, and Sanji nodded his confirmation. "You didn't want her, did you?"
It was a surprisingly revealing question. Zoro had never before given Sanji any reason to think he felt jealous of the women who caught his eye. It was always understood that at the end of the day, Sanji would be back on the ship and in Zoro's arms and trading scents with him even when they scuffled and argued.
This time, though, it was different.
"Nah." He drummed his fingers against the trail — a single quick trill, then another. "She was…" He paused. She'd seemed like a friend, then revealed herself for an enemy, then revealed herself for a friend again. "She was a troubled girl, and I don't think she wanted to be there any more than I did. In the end, she did a lot to help us get away safely."
Zoro seemed to accept that statement, mulling it over for a moment — then he leaned over and sniffed at Sanji's jawline. "You smell like a strange alpha. Tell me it was one of the folks down there getting handsy."
"It probably was," Sanji agreed. "It's been almost a month since I was there, marimo. Any scent Pudding put on me has to be long gone by now." Except in his own troubled imaginings, anyway.
"Hmph." A pause. "... Is this the part where you ask me to bond you? So that shit can't all happen again or whatever."
"Nah." Sanji shook his head. "It wouldn't have made a difference to them if I'd been bonded before that. And we both know why a bonding's a bad idea." Bonding meant fertility for an omega — something Sanji damn well couldn't afford at sea. Meant on a lot of islands, it'd change his social status. He'd be considered owned. As romantic as a matebite was considered to be, it wasn't a good idea, and even Sanji, a romantic at heart, knew better. "Still…"
"Still what?" Zoro looked at him.
"I'd… I'd like something, I guess." Sanji turned to look at him fully. "I told you before. Matebite or no, I'm yours. That's not changing." He reached out, brushed his fingers through Zoro's earrings, listening to them chime.
There, there was the smile he wanted to see, pulling that stern face into something softer. Now Zoro reached for him, hands on Sanji's waist tugging him close. Not pulling him in for a kiss, not yet, but — close. That was good, and Sanji leaned into him willingly. Zoro's strength wasn't a protection for him — it was a match. They stood side by side as warriors, not alpha in front and omega huddled in his lee.
"What sort of something do you want?" Zoro asked, a low rumble meant firmly only for them. His thumb rubbed lightly against Sanji's side through his clothes, a little circle that spoke deeply of affection.
"I don't— hm." Sanji cut himself off, a thought curling in the back of his mind. "Actually, I have an idea…"
The next day, they set sail, waving farewell to the friends they had made.
"It seems so strange to be leaving Momonosuke and Kin'emon behind," Nami commented as Sunny's sails filled with the morning breeze. "They've been with us for so long now, they almost felt like part of the crew."
"They sure did!" Franky agreed. "But they're in their right place now, and li'l Momo's gonna be a super daimyo one he grows up!"
"Indeed he will be," Robin said. "It'll be a very different sort of ruled by a dragon for them, I suppose." Then her eye settled on Zoro, and she frowned slightly. "Ah, Zoro… did you lose something during the battle?"
"Huh?" Zoro frowned at her. "Don't think so… still got my eye, right?"
The comment earned a laugh from her. "Ah, that still seems to be in place. Although I suppose it could be rotting out from the inside without your knowing."
"Yeech."
"Oh no! Robin, there are diseases that should be causing that! Zoro, should you—"
"Chopper, it's fine, she was making a joke. My eye's fine."
That was when Sanji arrived on the scene, balancing a tray full of varied mugs and cups. "Robin-chuan, your coffee…" As he turned his head to offer Nami her morning tea, there was a soft glint of a brighter gold among his blond strands.
"Ah," Robin said. "I see. You didn't lose anything after all, Zoro."
Zoro grinned, and Sanji, relieved of Nami's cup, turned to bring Zoro his. In Zoro's ear, two earrings swung their usual path; Sanji's ear was still a little red from the impromptu piercing, but the third of Zoro's gold earrings sat in its proud place, drawing the eye between itself and its siblings, between Sanji and Zoro.
And finally, finally, he'd awakened that morning with no scent of chocolate to be found.