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Zoro glanced over at Sanji who was looking out at the ocean, his ocean, his All Blue. He had that dreamy look in his eyes, as if even after all this time he couldn’t believe he’d actually made it. The smoke from his cigarette framed his face, the soft colors from the setting sun making him even more beautiful. He looked almost exactly like he did twenty years ago, when they’d first met.
Zoro stared at his hands, cracked and scarred as they were. They were old hands for an old man, he realized as he clenched them into fists.
They’d known for a while that Sanji wouldn’t age. Chopper explained it ages ago using complicated medical terms that Zoro instantly forgot, but he’d gotten the gist of it. Basically, even though the vast majority of the modifications Sanji underwent with the Vinsmokes failed, some of them didn’t, and as a result his body hasn’t aged since he was twenty five.
Zoro, of course, had continued to age. . He looked every bit of his forty years, and those years hadn’t been kind to him.
Eventually time will catch up to Zoro, and he will die. And Sanji will keep living, keep being young and beautiful.
“You have to let me go,” he said with a sigh.
Sanji looked over at him, “Huh?”
He glanced down at his hands again, the ring on his finger sparkling in the low sunlight, “Eventually. At some point.”
“Where’s this coming from?” Sanji smirked, “Can’t keep up with me anymore, old man?”
“I’m serious,” Zoro said as he turned to face him, “People already think we’re father and son. It’s only going to get weirder as I get older.”
Sanji took a long drag from his cigarette, “Since when do you care what people think?”
“I don’t,” he said. He didn’t, not really, but he did care about what Sanji thought, and if he was getting uncomfortable with the apparent age difference.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Sanji shrugged, “We know the truth. Everyone else can assume all they like.”
“Yeah, but,” he clenched his scarred hands and glanced down at the water, “You’ll still have to let me go.”
Sanji placed his hand on his, their matching rings clacking together.
“What’s wrong?” He asked, rubbing circle into his hand, “What’s bothering you?”
He sighed, “I’ve been thinking-”
“Congratulations. I guess there’s a first time for everything.”
“Shut up. I’ve been thinking that eventually I’m going to die. Probably violently, killed by someone after my title, but even if my death isn’t violent, I’m still going to die. Get old and wither away, eventually.”
Sanji frowned, but remained silent, so he continued, “Eventually I’ll be gone, and you’ll still be here,” he gestured at him, “Like this. Unchanged. Forever. One way or the other, you’ll have to let me go.” He sighed as he looked at him, still beautiful, “Maybe its better if you let me go sooner rather than later.”
Sanji stared at him for a long moment, blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth. Eventually he said, “Do you want a divorce or something?”
“No. Maybe, I don’t know,” he frowned and ran a hand through his hair, “I just, I don’t want to leave you all alone and miserable. I don’t want you to spend the rest of your forever missing me. I don’t want to hurt you like that, but inevitably I will.”
“You don’t think I know that?” Sanji snapped at him with decisive heat in his tone, “You don’t think I lie awake at night knowing I’ll probably have to watch you die and I’ll just,” he gestured around them at the ocean, at the sky, at the ship they were on, “Be here? Alone?”
“I’m sure you have,” he admitted, “So you know it’s probably better if you say goodbye to me now.”
“Fuck you,” he said, “It’s my life, and I’ll get to decide when and how I let you go, if I ever do.”
“Sanji-”
“No.” He shook his head, “If you wanted to spare me the shitty heartbreak of losing you, then you’re too late. You should have thought of that before I fell in love with your dumb ass.”
He reached out and cradled Zoro’s face, and Zoro couldn’t help but lean into the touch and feel the coolness from his ring, “If I have to spend the rest of my life without you, then I want you for as long as I can have you, and not a second less.”
Zoro turned his head and kissed his palm, “You have me.”
“Good,” he smiled as he took the cigarette out of his mouth and leaned in to kiss him softly.
Zoro kissed him back just as tenderly, his arm wrapping around his waist to pull him closer.
“You have me too,” Sanji said against his lips as he pulled away, “Always.”
He closed his eye and rested his forehead against Sanji’s.
Always sounded pretty good to him.