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The door to Zoro’s apartment swings open and Zoro stands there looking like he was just roused from a long nap, which is probably exactly what happened.
“Yeah?” Zoro yawns, unabashed, and it’s all Sanji can do not to launch himself across the threshold and slaughter him.
“Let me in,” he grinds out, and if he weren’t so exhausted, he’d snarl a little bit for added effect, but he’s already slumped against the doorframe and besides, Zoro never, ever gets scared. It’s just not a Zoro thing to do.
Zoro steps aside and looks at him expectantly, eyebrow raised. Sanji glares at him, pale and statuesque, until Zoro rolls his eyes and sighs, “Fine, fine. Come in.” He walks away, leaving the door open.
Sanji enters and slams the door behind him with enough force to rattle the dishes in the kitchen. Zoro does not even wince.
“Hungry?” Zoro’s tone is more inquiring than mocking, and Sanji hesitates, runs a cold hand down his face, nods silently. He steps further into the apartment, keeping to the walls, away from the lamplight.
“You’re lucky I’m around,” Zoro says, and Sanji can feel Zoro’s eyes following him.
He does not meet Zoro’s gaze. “I know,” he says, sincerely, though it cuts him to admit it.
Zoro makes a huffing sound and moves in close enough that Sanji can feel the live heat emanating from him, leftover from a deep slumber.
“Well, don’t just sulk around all night. Eat.”
Sanji finally looks at him, looks up at him because he can’t make himself raise his head. His eyes flick to Zoro’s extended arm, the upturned wrist a starburst of white with scars old and new. He looks away, suddenly sick.
“You don’t have to,” he starts to protest, weakly, but Zoro cuts him off.
“I know. You’re not making me. I’m offering.”
“You always say that.”
“Because it keeps being true, and you keep forgetting.”
Sanji has no response. Instead, he walks over to the couch, the old, faded one with the god-awful floral print and the big, squishy cushions that he had helped Zoro haul from the curb years ago. He remembers how much they had laughed when they finally got it into the living room and saw how horribly it clashed with absolutely everything Zoro owned.
He sits down on the couch, and Zoro sits down next to him. Neither of them is laughing now.
“You’ll tell me if I’m taking too much,” he says, sternly, looking at his feet instead of at Zoro.
Zoro only rolls his eyes. “As if you could take anything I didn’t want to give you.”
At that, Sanji makes a face at him and Zoro makes a face back, and then they’re both making faces at each other and realizing how stupid and young they still are, despite everything.
“You’re lucky I’m around,” Zoro says, for the second time that night.
“I know,” Sanji concedes. “I’m lucky you’re who you are.”
Zoro shrugs.
When Sanji takes Zoro’s arm, the heat of Zoro’s skin almost burns him. When he lifts Zoro’s wrist to his lips, the scent of iron almost overwhelms him. He opens his mouth and bites down, breaks the skin, precise as he can manage.
The blood is hot on his tongue, in his throat. Zoro is absolutely still, and Sanji is thankful for that—he is thankful for Zoro, thankful even for this squat, ugly couch with the lumpy cushions. He closes his eyes and swallows, again, again, again. He does not need to come up for air. Warmth is pooling at his core, the cold retreating from his fingertips, a fire rekindling somewhere deep inside him, where he is still mortal, where hunger had started to breach.
Zoro lets him drink until he is sated, lets him drink more than that, until Sanji’s eyes snap open and Sanji wrenches himself away with a strangled, confused noise.
“Shit,” he says, sounding breathless in the only way you can sound breathless when you don’t need to breathe. His tongue darts out to lick at his lower lip, but he catches himself, horrified. “Shit.”
“I was handling it,” Zoro insists, though he looks pale. “It’s been a while. You were hungry.”
Sanji wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, stands abruptly. He feels much stronger and Zoro looks much weaker and suddenly he hates himself. He lashes out, “I told you to tell me if I was taking too much!”
“You weren’t.”
“Bullshit!” he seethes, voice rising, fists clenching and unclenching fitfully, feeling heady and incongruously light. “I don’t need you to do that for me!”
Zoro sighs, and says, wearily, “If you’re done, will you please shut up and get the bandages.”
Sanji opens his mouth to argue and closes it without saying anything. He realizes he isn’t dizzy anymore, realizes that he feels better than he had in weeks, and when he realizes this, the shame amplifies and he has to grit his teeth to keep from shouting at Zoro again. He storms out of the living room, into the bathroom, and back. He sits back down with the first aid kit on his lap, throws it open with an angry mutter, and glares pointedly at Zoro, who extends his arm towards him with the air of someone resigned to something very unpleasant.
“That’s really tight,” Zoro says, but Sanji ignores him, wraps the bandages around Zoro’s wrist even tighter out of spite, with irrational malice. “I don’t want to lose a hand. I have kendo tomorrow,” Zoro informs him, calmly. Sanji glares again, livid and violently grateful, and he lets up.
“Thanks.”
“Shut up,” he snaps automatically, throws the first aid kit onto the stained coffee table. He sets his jaw, makes a conscious, painful effort. “I mean, you’re welcome,” he manages, haltingly. A pause. “Thank you.”
Zoro shrugs, a one-shouldered motion.
“I’m sorry.”
“We’re not going through this again.”
“Just accept the apology, asshole!”
“Save it!” Zoro snatches his arm back only to jab a finger at Sanji’s chest. “I don’t need you to be sorry!”
Sanji bats away the offending hand. “How else am I supposed to feel? Oh, Zoro, good evening, I’m here to leech off of you again—literally. Cheers!” He scowls in exasperation. “What do you expect?”
“I keep telling you I can handle it,” Zoro growls.
“I know! I know you can! That’s why I keep coming back, you idiot. But you don’t have to. I don’t want you to handle it, I don’t want you to handle me, just because you can. And what if, one day, I just. And then.”
Zoro looks at him, expression hard. “Then you can start hunting,” he says. Sanji turns away, jaw clenched tight, but Zoro continues, “That’s the alternative. And you know what will happen. You start hunting people in the streets at night, and I’m going to have to start hunting you. That’s what I do. You know that.”
Sanji is quiet. The way Sanji’s shoulders hunch is almost enough to make Zoro feel guilty, but not quite. There’s no room for that between them.
“Those are your options,” he states, bluntly. “We can be enemies instead, if you want.”
The only sounds are the hum of distant traffic and the ticking of the kitchen clock. Zoro flexes his wrist, experimentally, and the bandages hold, expertly bound. The silence stretches on until Zoro gets impatient and decides to test the waters again. “Is that what you want?”
“No,” comes the answer, soft and almost inaudible.
“So just take my blood. God knows I replenish it fast enough. Even Chopper says it’s okay.”
Sanji runs a hand through his hair, covers his face. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to. I don’t want you to do this because you feel bad for me.”
Zoro snorts, incredulous. “Why would I feel bad for you? You can break my spine in half a heartbeat. It’d be stupid to feel bad for you.”
The response isn’t immediate, but when Sanji finally turns to grin at him, white fangs and the same blue eyes, Zoro knows that things will be fine. Sanji doesn’t laugh anymore now, but he still smiles, all the time, and Zoro’s content with just that.
“I always forget how ridiculous this couch is,” says Sanji, irreverently.
“Yeah,” Zoro laughs, feeling woozy but it’ll pass. “We did well.”