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Chapter Text

It's an offhand thing Zoro is pretty sure that Luffy doesn't even remember saying, but the kid says it and Zoro can't get it out of his head. So. Yeah, this is one hundred percent Luffy's fault and that's what Zoro's sticking to. Everything else? No one will pry it out of him. Not under duress, or threat of torture, or through bribery.

The deal is this: stitched up and no longer in danger of literally spilling his guts everywhere, Zoro is sitting outside of the party at the mouth of an alleyway. Cocoyashi village is celebrating their freedom something fierce, and the fervor of their jubilation is just. It's a lot, really, so Zoro sits just skirting the perimeter of the party to make sure he's sorted on alcohol and away from his unfortunate surgeon's judgemental stare.

This is how Luffy finds him, just outside the raucous cheering and singing from their sniper and the village drunks and kids, with a tankard of sweet, citrusy ale. Luffy's holding at least three plates, amazingly enough, one on each hand and one balanced on his head. Next to him, the blonde guy Luffy recruited is walking with at least seven fucking plates and a bowl balanced on him with far more control. They're coming his way, at least, and Zoro supposes he could use a little food; alcohol can't replace his blood or build back the shredded muscles in his chest, after all. 

"Zoooooorooooo!" Luffy half shouts and half-drawls, and Zoro can't help the tug at the corner of his lips he swears isn't already fondness at his captain. "Zoro, we brought food! Lots of it! Sanji says that it's all good stuff for preventing shaft-cuckold infection!"

"Oi!" Sanji coughs, turning to Luffy with wide eyes and red ears, "that's not what I said you shit rubber!" 

Zoro watches as they continue their back and forth. Luffy sits on the ground with Zoro and starts digging into the food on the plates he's shifted to his lap. Zoro moves quickly to catch the plate sliding off his captain's hat but another hand is there to catch it first. For a second Zoro watches it, curious at how the blonde was able to catch it faster than him at a further distance, and then just to note the contrast between their hands. 

Zoro's are darker, radiating warmth and nicked and calloused from years of swordwork and fighting. The other hand, as far as Zoro can tell where it tugs the plate out of his limp hold, is... almost the opposite. Pale and without any visible scarring, from what Zoro can tell; long fingers with the nail beds tidy, nails trimmed. 

He comes back to himself when the plate is pulled fully from his hand and placed on the crate in front of Luffy. The rest of the space is already taken up by the frankly absurd amount of plates the man had already put down. 

Zoro tries to put those hands to the same idiot that fought a Fishman underwater, and his mind hits an error screen. Those aren't the hands of a fighter. Those aren't the hands of a pirate. 

"I'm going to take some plates over to Nami-swan and Nojiko-chan," the man says, turning abruptly from the two. "Don't cause more trouble, I'll be right back."

Zoro grunts and looks at the spread before him, the variety of meats and fresh vegetables, and reaches for the bowl of rice, first. Luffy's plates are just stacked with meats and the wafting smell hits Zoro straight to his empty stomach. He grabs the chopsticks mixed with the rest of the cutlery sitting on a napkin between himself and Luffy and gives a quick mental thanks for the food as he reaches for his first bite.

By the time he's finishing up his second plate, insensate now that he's had a taste of what the island's cooks have to offer, Luffy is sneaking a long arm around the crate to grab a far-off dish full of meats. 

"Ahh, I can't wait to get back out to sea," Luffy sighs, cramming what looks like an entire roasted chicken into his mouth. He takes a second to continue, pulling out bones from his mouth that have been sucked clean, "but I fink ish not fair."

"What isn't fair, captain?" Zoro asks, filling the dredges of his bowl with more vegetables and some thinly sliced meats. He hadn't eaten a meal so filling and complete since he left his home village. Luffy pulls out the last of the bones and puts them on a separate plate also filled with food detritus, an odd method of keeping their small space neat and tidy. 

"I go and recruit a cook," Luffy says far too seriously, "the best cook of the sea, and you're the one that gets to eat his food first!" Luffy huffs and crosses his arms across his chest. "It didn't count when he was back with the old man with the funny hat and mustache, because he wasn't mine then. But he's my cook now and he only made food for you."

Zoro looks at the spread in front of him, his mind calculating, and recalculating. All the while he notes the way Luffy looks at him from the corner of his eye like he's trying to study his reactions. 

"You'll like Sanji, he made food for this guy and he fought a pearl and he tried to give me his mask but the guy he helped gave him his," Luffy continues, watching Zoro with dark eyes. "And that was before he was mine, but now he's mine and he promised not to catch cold, and his dad was weird but he's a cool guy, too, but we got him! And now he's our cook but he only made you food, and its not fair."

On his part, Zoro simply looks down at the spread and it seems... obvious that it's not the case, not really. There are plates packed with more meats than he could eat, different cuts that are thicker and fattier, and some of the veggies are wrapped in what could be beef or bacon that are definitely not there to help his health or fight off an infection.

Then, Luffy laughs. Something secretive, something slightly worrying, but Zoro doesn't get time to argue anything because Luffy is pulling the proverbial rug from under his feet. There's a shock of blonde hair breaking through the crowd and heading their way when Luffy pats Zoro's shoulder and then reaches around to pull all the heavier meats toward his plate.

"I guess it's okay," Luffy says, grin wide, wide, wide, "Sanjji is the best! We can share him. He can be my cook and he can be your--"

Sanji is walking closer, eying the food spread on the table like he's calculating the amount they've eaten since his departure. Afraid of what will come out of his captain's mouth, Zoro stuffs what looks like a giant chicken wing into Luffy's mouth to stop whatever is going to come out next. 

Sanji raises a single curly brow at Zoro as he comes closer, still far enough for Luffy to pull the wing out of his mouth and look at Zoro.

His smile is so wide, almost knowing. Zoro swallows thickly despite himself, vaguely understanding the implication but too embarrassed and tired to fight it. 

"You should ask him about why he wanted to join us," Luffy says, getting up with his plate piled high on the crook of one arm and the half-eaten wing in the other. "He gets this great big... well, you'll see. Later Zoro! Later Sanji!"

"Later Luf, don't cause too much mayhem," Sanji says, raising a hand as Luffy walks past him. He looks at Zoro again, that damn curled brow still raised in an unasked question. Zoro stuffs a mouthful of rice into his mouth in response. The other man snorts, taking Luffy's vacated seat and cramming a cigarette between his lips. Zoro eats cautiously, dialing down the zeal from earlier now that the man was present. 

"So, you're the new cook," Zoro says between bites, noting the way Sanji plays with a lighter between his hands but doesn't shift to turn his cigarette on. 

"Yeah, so it seems," Sanji snorts back in response, shifting to lean back on his hands.

They sit in companionable silence for a few minutes, Sanji vaguely watching as the crowds undulate around the center. They watch as Luffy appears above the crowd, laughing loudly. Zoro finally turns to look at the cook when Usopp's shrieking form joins their captain's up in the air.

"What made an uptight priss like you want to join us?" Zoro says around a mouthful of rice and tangy chicken. Sanji snorts, eying him derisively.

"Just cause I don't make a habit to bleed all over the place like a stuck pig and shower," Sanji looks at Zoro up and down,  and Zoro sits there and fights the urge to preen, "what, once a week? Doesn't make me a priss. Besides, I came from a ship of pirates. I probably have more claim to the sea than you do, Bounty Hunter."

"Oho," Zoro says, placing his bowl down and turning to the blonde, "do you really?"

"I come from a sea-faring ship of cooks," Sanji says, waving his hand in the air to dispel Zoro's assumptions, "if you're going to be cooking you need to be sanitary, that's what life in a kitchen is like."

"Funny, I don't remember the other cooks there looking like you," Zoro says, matching Sanji's relaxed pose. He glances over as Sanji's ears redden again, the man glaring at Zoro.

"That's funny," Sanji says, returning Zoro's tone, "I don't remember you being conscious long enough to notice anyone else from the Baratie."

Zoro shrugs, grinning. The stitches and puckered skin across his chest is itchy but numb with alcohol, and they pull a little as he leans further back. He keeps his gaze firmly on the cook's and feels a slight thrill in his chest that the man doesn't deign to look away.

"Touche," Zoro concedes, grinning toothily. 

Sanji turns his head, ears still red, and sits up. His hands continue their fiddling with the unassuming lighter.

"So you're still gunning for the top, huh," Sanji says, and even though he's not looking Zoro nods.

"Luffy's gonna be King of the Pirates," Zoro says slowly, "can't let the Future King of the Pirates have a sub-par swordsman as first mate."

The party seems to die around them, or at least the sound of it dwindles as Sanji breathes out a quiet little 'huh' at that. In the ensuing silence, Zoro takes a moment to look at the other man. 

Stupid Jacket, garish shirt tucked and buttoned up beneath it; the guy's kind of scrawny, but Zoro has seen him fight. He knows there's strength in those lanky limbs, in those long legs.

Shit, focus.

"And you?" Zoro asks again, gaze following the way Sanji's shoulders tense and slowly, so very slowly, relax.

"Can't let the future King of the Pirates and Future World's Greatest Swordsman starve so early into the game, right?" Sanji shrugs, flicking the lighter on. "The first map of the World and being a brave warrior can't get done on an empty stomach."

"Those are just things you're doing," Zoro scoffs, heart lurching uncomfortably. "What do you want to do out there? What's your dream?"

He can hear him, faintly, let go of your dreams and ambitions!

Sanji lights his lighter but not his cigarette. He clears his throat, pulling the unlit stick from his lips and tapping it on the table next to the plate Luffy left. He seems... awkward, suddenly, like the energy from their banter earlier has left him tongue-tied and nervous.

"Have-have you heard of... of the 'All Blue'?" Sanji asks slowly. Zoro racks his mind and shakes his head, then remembers that he's laying back behind Sanji's view.

"Can't say I have," Zoro responds, and Sanji spins to face him, hair bouncing for a split second to show two wide, blue eyes. 

"You've never heard of the All Blue?" Sanji breathes, something coming over his features bordering between wonder and trepidation.

And, look, Zoro is many things, but he has never been the kind of man to look at someone's dream and trample on it. He'd rather take Wado to the gut than ever tell someone that their dream is unattainable or unrealistic. But Sanji's face-- it reminds him of Kuina, a bit, resigned and resentful, but strong. Resilient. Pushing forwards despite--or because of--it all. Like someone whose been told their dream isn't worthwhile, is impossible.

"What is it?" Zoro asks softly, wonderous and nervous. He feels like that boy back on that field, defeated but indomitable.

And Sanji's face lights up, softening him; his eyes are bright, a smile pulling at his lips. He looks--younger, it seems, happier, explaining the intricacies of species and evolution, the way water tides change deeper underwater. The science of water currents and sprouts and different theories of shifting land masses as time goes on.

They're sitting close together in the alley, Sanji gesturing wildly as he goes on, his rough voice lighter and quick as he grins around his words. The ground underneath them is hard, unyielding. The crate gets emptied of food as Sanji continues and Zoro bites between words, listening. Mugs of ale are slipped onto the crate, and Sanji's cheeks get a fine dusting of pink after the first one. He continues, happily, unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt and removing his jacket as he works through theories and explorers. 

They're laying down in a field at night, the stars a warm blanket over them both; just children sharing impossible dreams, reaching and reaching and finding each other.

Oh, Zoro thinks, sipping some of his drink as Sanji turns that wide, earnest smile to him. 

Oh, shit.

Chapter Text

Zoro is in a field of grass. The wind blowing through the trees sounds like the crashing of waves on the coastline. The air is cold and stinging. It smells like dust and sea salt, filling every pore of his body with a sense of urgency. Each time he reaches for the thoughts or a reason it eludes him, dancing among the branches of cracked, concrete trees, tickling the grass with small fingers as they leave him there amongst the rubble and grass.  

He opens his eyes and has to squeeze them shut. It's bright out, daytime, and everything is on fire. There's a voice saying something--his name, maybe, and it takes him longer than he'd like to admit to comprehend the words being thrown his way.  

"What's with all this blood?" The voice says, so Zoro makes the effort to open his eyes once more at the approaching footsteps, the voice coming closer. "Hey! Are you alive? Where'd he go?!"   

A tuft of bright yellow wrapped in black. Looking at him feels like staring at the sun for too long and keeping the negative trapped behind your lids. Zoro's vision swims until it focuses on two hands reaching for his crossed arms.   

"What happened here?" Sanji demands, and all Zoro sees are those hands reaching for him, a slight tremble in the long, unmarred fingers. It reminds him of Sanji's shaky stance earlier, the way his legs trembled in front of Zoro's prone form, blocking his view of Kuma.  

"Nothing," Zoro says, looking at those hands, "nothing happened."  

Kuina kicks his ass. She's as merciless as he remembers, ruthless when given an opening, and relentless when she pushes forward. Each hit is met with a block, and he is 19, and he is 15, and ten, and then he is eight once more, that same kid facing the stars with defeat on his tongue.  

"You need to get stronger," she says with a huff, taking a seat on the grass, except the grass is a dull, muted gray that crumbles beneath her. "You'll never protect the people you care about like this, let alone become the Greatest"  

Zoro takes Wado out of his mouth and puts it beside Shisui and Sandai Kitetsu. Yubashuri lays lengthwise over them in one long, cracked piece.  

He remembers Sanji standing before him, and what about your dreams and ambitions? How little time seems to feel between asking him to give up and then making his dream something worth dying for.  

But he stopped Sanji from doing something stupid, right? Zoro can handle it. He can. He... He's—  

"He's dying right now," Kuina says simply, in the brash way all kids speak of death before it touches them. She is Luffy, she is Chopper, she is all bone, she is Nami and Franky and Usopp and Robin and--  

"That's not fair of you to say, Sanji-kun," Brook's voice says gently from somewhere by Zoro's left. There's the sound of wood creaking directly next to Zoro's right. He is conscious enough to hear them but not enough to move. His body feels heavy, leaden down with the weight of their failure to fight Kuma.   

"What, it's not like he's up right now to argue with me," comes Sanji's voice, so close yet so very far away. "I could have handled it. Stupid bastard couldn’t even stand anymore."  

Zoro has never paid attention to sounds more than he is now, listening for the light sound of steps coming closer. There's another sound though, closer by how much louder he can hear it. A light click, a snap. Light click, a snap.  

Somehow, he knows, instinctively, that it’s Sanji fiddling with something. He can picture it clearly, those long, nimble fingers picking at things, fussing with this and that.  

“Do you not believe in your nakama’s strength? In Zoro-kun's resilience?” Brook asks, his voice approaching.  

“Of course I do,” Sanji scoffs, and Zoro’s fading fast, like water slipping through a sieve, “but we shouldn’t have to .”  

They’re in a land that shouldn’t exist after a battle with fake idols and false gods. Stuck at the tail end of a legend, the conclusion of a myth. He remembers the city was made of gold, bright and inscrutable and everything people tell kids in stories. He’s trying to remember why he’s here, the memory of wolves dancing around a campfire far too high warming his hand. Just one hand, as if he was reaching for the image and it stayed in his grasp.  

The destroyed temple is grey, grey, grey. His hand is warm and clenched tight around his boon, the weight of gold seeped from the city and heavy in his grasp.  

In front of him, Sanji stands on shaky legs, his pant leg torn; his white tie is soiled, and the sleeve of his jacket is ripped up to his elbow and coated in a fine dusting of rubble debris. The blood running down his forehead and the side of his head is bright red, startling in the monotonous landscape. He’s reaching out.  

Sanji’s jacket burns. His shirt, his fucking tie. Beneath the ashes, bandages slip around Sanji’s stomach to wrap around his midsection all the way around his chest. They begin to wrap around his arms to the cuff of his wrist.  

All the while he looks on blankly, arm outstretched. Palm up. Waiting, expecting.  

It smells like ozone and smoke.  

Zoro looks down at his warm hand and places the warm, heavy weight of the gold lighter on Sanji’s hand.  

Zoro doesn’t so much as wake up again as come to in short bursts of sound. The warmth and weight on his hand is still there, translating between his dream and waking consciousness seamlessly.  

“—thank you, Robin-chan, really,” Sanji says softly, lacking the usual enthusiasm when any of the female crewmates so much as breathe. “I... I appreciate this.”  

“It’s no trouble, Sanji-kun,” comes Robin’s pleasant voice, “I find the human mind fascinating: we can compartmentalize the blood of our enemies on our hands as a simple matter of everyday work. It washes off easily. When it’s the blood of people we care about...” She trails off with a light hum and Sanji sighs.  

“I didn’t even notice I was doing it,” Sanji mutters, and the weight on Zoro’s own hand tightens for a second before letting go. There’s the burgeoning pain just on the edge of his consciousness, a rising tide threatening to pull him out into the open water and under once more.  

“I believe you were just thinking about cleaning your hands,” Robin says, “and in doing so, picked at your nailbeds a bit too much. We can’t set sail with our cook’s hand looking messy, can we?”  

Sanji’s silent for a moment, the soft shh, shh sound of—something beyond Zoro’s purview lulling him back to a numb in-between.  

“It’s been two days already,” Sanji says softly, and Zoro’s pulled back by the finger rubbing along the ridge of his knuckles. “I just...”  

“I know,” Robin says softly, “more than the others, Cook-san, I know. But you’ll need clean hands and a clear head for what comes next.”  

“And what comes next?” Sanji asks softly, so soft Zoro feels himself sinking back into the darkness, but the warmth on his hand is still there and the voices of his nakama surround him. They believe in his strength. It is enough.  

“Why, dear Cook-san,” Robin says, mirth tickling her voice and lulling Zoro, “the—”  

 Kuina sits on the railing on the deck of the Sunny, touching the glossy varnish with a curious gaze.

"You know, there's more to getting stronger than just being able to win," She tsks, sending a stinky look his way. Zoro snorts and looks out onto the open seas. The waters are calm, and people on the ship or on some unseen island cheer. He hears the celebration in the distance. 

"Of course," Zoro says softly, watching the glittering waters with her.

"Good," Kuina says with a smirk, patting the rail beside her. Zoro smiles as he wobbles over, his body a mess of aches and pains. He knows he's going to wake up soon; the pain is too strong to not be real. 

But he can sit with her for another minute, another eternity in seconds. 

"Hey," Kuina says after a second, her dark blue hair swaying in the salty breeze, "what do a swordsman, a musician, and a chef have in common?"

"Our hands are our most valuable asset," Brook says, and Zoro blinks the grogginess from his tired eyes. How does that even make sense? It's like he's been sleeping this whole time. "As fighters and artisans, this is how we bring things into the world."

"I know," Sanji says, his voice raspy with exhaustion, "I'll be better about it, I swear."

"Trust me when I say this, Sanji-kun," Brook says solemnly, and Zoro turns in time to see the skeleton place a single hand on Sanji's head, "your hands are only as important as your overall well being. Do well to take care of your self as well!"

"Yeah, yeah," Sanji waves his hand about, a single bandage wrapped around his index finger. There is dirt under his fingernails, a smudge of dirt on the back of his hand. "You should rest, Brook. It's been a rough day for you."

"Yes, well," Brook turns, facing the open doorway. There's something pensive about him, although his face doesn't actually change. "I've spent fifty years with the body of my crewmates as company. It's been... rough for them as well. I am glad to have put them to rest at last. Perhaps all of use could use some."

Brook gives Sanji's head one last pat before he takes his leave. Zoro watches all of this blearily. Sanji's changed—of course he has, it's been days now, Zoro thinks bitterly. His blue sweater looks soft. The cook's hair is still mussed from Brook's hand. 

"It's stupid," Sanji says, maybe to himself, or to the Zoro that hasn't woken in three days, "it's so stupid because the shit old man that saved me as a worthless little castaway told me to never fight with my hands. He taught me that a chef's hands are precious." Sanji releases a breath, looking at the doorway Brook exited. "He taught me to fight, you know, with my legs. Because I cost him his. And I wonder, sometimes, about the prices we pay for the people we care about. About the people we don't even know all that well."

Sanji sighs, leaning forward in his crate seat and cramming both hands into his hair. His hands are trembling slightly, still dirty, but it's the tight grip on his blonde hair that worries Zoro. A sound slips past Sanji's lips, something wounded and bone-deep.

"It wasn't worth it. I—"

Zoro moves, his body just one assortment of pain. He's sprawled on the makeshift bed, arm shot out to grab the elbow of Sanji's sweater. And Sanji—

Sanji looks like he's seen a ghost. His wide eyes scan Zoro's face, the bit of his upper body exposed by the shifting of the blanket. 

"I...diot," Zoro breathes, tugging. Sanji doesn't say anything, keeping his shocked gaze locked on Zoro. "Curly... curly cook," Zoro swallows, his throat parched. "Gon' hurt... yourself."

His piece said, Zoro grunts and shimmies to lie down more comfortably. He keeps his hand on Sanji's sweater, feeling as as the cook slowly lowers his hands. He follows the trail of the inner seam of the arm down Sanji's forearm to the cuff. With his head turned, Zoro can inspect the slight redness of Sanji's cuticles, the jagged cuts to his nails. He rubs the dirt off the back of Sanji's hand with his thumb and then taps his index finger against the bandage. 

"Protect 'em," Zoro slurs, his head too heavy to hold up. His gaze shifts to the open pack of cigarettes and the gold lighter in the space next to him. "S'cause they're precious."

"You're an idiot," Sanji says, and he sounds muted, breathless but happier than Zoro's heard him in his dreams. "Go back to sleep, asshole."

A chef's hands breathe life onto a ship, Zoro thinks, tugging on that dry hand with the last of his strength. Sanji says something, or Zoro does, but the cook doesn't fight him as Zoro tugs and pulls until that hand relents and allows itself to be maneuvered. Zoro presses his finger against one of those bitten nails and smiles to himself.

Zoro grunts, settling back to rest just a bit longer, and pulls that hand down to hold his, campfire warm. 

Chapter Text

Chopper’s face just looks so bright, standing on the stool in the galley with the small apron and chef's hat placed on the counter in front of him. Zoro is so distracted he’s forgotten what he roamed into the kitchen for in the first place. It’s not unusual for one of them to be with Chopper, and the galley is only a doorway away from the medical wing, but somehow Zoro has never thought of Sanji and Chopper just. Doing things.  

“You bastard, I don’t need a cute apron to work my station!” Chopper giggles, lifting the—good lord, Zoro snorts as Chopper raises the tiny, pink monstrosity—Doskoi Panda apron. There are a variety of herbs and small instruments set up on the counter next to Chopper. 

“Can't let our Doctor get messy making everyone’s medicine,” Sanji says seriously, but there’s an obvious smile in his voice. He’s butchering something in the sink, the smell of blood reaching Zoro even over at the table. “Besides, you said you wanted to take a look while I flay today’s dinner for Robin-chan, and it’s gonna be messy. Let me know once you’re finished there and you can head over.” 

“Sounds good!” Chopper chirps, lifting the apron and then attempting a few loops around his head before pulling the thing down and frowning.  

Zoro’s pulling the fabric from Chopper’s hooves before he realizes what he’s doing and carefully moves the collar around the doctor’s antlers to settle around his neck. Chopper brightens up again, turning his infectious, gleeful smile at Zoro. 

“Thanks for the help,” Chopper says, and reaches for his instruments. Zoro hums as he approaches the cupboards near Sanji’s side, warily eying the assortment of meats and entrails on the counter.  

“You can take the one on the second shelf,” Sanji says distractedly, pointing a bloodied knife at the correct cupboard. “And then get out of our way, there’s sciencing happening and your moss-head is absorbing all the nutrients we’re working with.” 

Zoro snorts and takes the bottle Sanji indicates quietly but parks himself on the furthest stool down from where Chopper has moved to hold some kind of twine between his hooves. He flicks open the bottle of—ooh, hell yeah, rum , and falls into the comforting lull of watching Chopper loop the string around different stalks of long, leafy plants.  

Sanji is humming a song beneath his breath, something that tickles Zoro’s mind as an old sea shanty he’d hear belched out at bars when he was still roaming the East Blue. He’s reminded, suddenly, of that first full conversation by the crate just skirting around the party at Cocoyashi Village. It feels like a lifetime ago with the breadth of time between Punk Hazard and Sabaody weighing on the differences of who they were then and who they are now.  

“Here,” Chopper says suddenly, pushing a small brown bag with small punctures on it toward Zoro. Zoro pulls it towards him and raises an inquisitive brow. “Do you mind hanging this by the window for me? There should be a few hooks there, I only need these to dry so you can choose any of them.” 

In his current form, Chopper won’t be able to reach the hooks. He could always transform, Zoro thinks, but he probably wants to keep the apron on for longer. Zoro grins as he goes to hang the pouch by the window and returns to his seat.  

The sound of chopping covers any low humming Sanji might still be doing and Chopper begins to grind something in a small bowl, taking breaks to drip a liquid from a dropper every few grinds.  

“I’ve heard that one, once,” Chopper says suddenly, and Zoro closes his eyes and lets his mind simply absorb the galley around him.  

“Hmm?” Sanji asks, slowing on his prep work. 

“That song,” Chopper clarifies, the bowl in front of him making an odd clicking sound as he adds more little round beaded plants in to grind. “Dr. Hiriluk sang it once when he drank with Doctorine, it’s a Grand Line sea shanty, right?” 

“That it is,” Sanji says with a laugh, “a little bit on the racy side, but yeah.” 

“Did you hear that one when you guys made it over to the Grand Line?” Chopper asks, and Zoro peeks open his eye to watch as Chopper sticks his tongue out and drops two amber drops into his mortar.  

“Heard it while working with my old man,” Sanji says, voice distant. “Think I was, shit, like twelve? A big storm hit the East, so there were no customers for a good week or so. The pâtissier at the time was new, like. He’d been with us maybe a year after we opened the Baratie. But his original deal was, like. Shit, rice dishes, I think. He hadn’t imagined that his real talents would lie in desserts, but there he was with a promotion at his feet. 

“Well, most of the cooks were drinking in the dining room and just generally practicing and experimenting, and this guy just pours half the bottle of wine down his gullet, then pours the rest into his pan.” Sanji puts down his knife and puts a hand on the edge of the sink, thinking. Casting his mind back, Zoro thinks, watching the pink-apron-wearing fool now. “And right when he starts glazing his cake, he starts belching out the dirtiest thing I've heard up to then.” 

Chopper starts giggling, moving to put a small funnel on the glass vials on the counter. “Yeah, I was really surprised the first time I heard it, too.” Sanji laughs lightly, moving to grab his knife once more.  

“Yeah, Patty and Carne both moved to cover my ears and ended up squishing me between their big, beefy hands. I didn’t know it was because of the song, I thought I’d done something wrong at my station.” 

“Who are Patty and Carne?” Chopper asks, and Zoro has the vaguest memory of a man with a white bandana tied to his head and tattoos.  

“At the time, Patty was our charcutier and one of the first pool souls to join the Baratie,” Sanji explains, “but he was the pâtissier by the time I left. Carne was our hef garde manger but made his way to charcutier by the time I joined Luffy and everyone.” 

“That’s so cool!” Chopper squeaks, reaching for the toppers for all his vials and sealing each as he goes along. “And what were you, Sanji?” 

“I was the sous chef, of course,” Sanji says around a grin, back into the swing of his prep work. His tone is jovial and young. It reminds Zoro of that big, wide smile. “The guys had a lot of songs they would sing sometimes. Some of them were pirates or cooks on different pirate ships to pay back for safe travel and stuff, so it was a nice mish-mash of songs from different areas.” 

“That sounds fun,” Chopper sighs, a tinge of melancholy entering his voice. Zoro brings the bottle to his lips, watching.  

“If you’re done over there,” Sanji pipes up, turning from the sink with a bloodied knife in one hand and beckoning with the other, and Zoro swears his throat doesn’t go dry at the sight. The man’s still in his stupid panda apron, he is absolutely not doing this today. “Put on your hat, sous-chef-of-the-day Chopper and c’mere. I’m going to use a lot of bits for dinner today, but you get first pickin’s on anything you need first, sound good?” 

“It doesn’t make me happy at all, you bastard!” Chopper gushes, grabbing the chef hat from the table and slipping his own blue and pink hat off. Zoro shifts to help him once more and finds himself chuckling at the small openings available for Chopper’s antlers. He’d seen the white chef hat in the galley before when raiding the stores for alcohol but assumed it was Sanji’s all along, but now that he’d thought about it, he’d never really seen the cook wear it. Maybe he’d gotten tired of seeing the thing and had it altered for today. 

Zoro swallows a mouthful of booze and tries to remind himself that there isn’t tie to be distracted by incredibly distracting shit-cooks.  

“Do you really use all the bits and pieces to cook, Sanji-kun?” Chopper inquires while dragging one of the tall counter stools over by the sink.  

“Of course,” Sanji says, handing Chopper something over the sink. “Nothing goes to waste. A lot of snobby assholes out there think that good food is dependent on only the choicest ingredients, but they’re not only wrong they’re stupid, too. People like that consider food like this something along the lines of peasant food,” Sanji spits, and Zoro is reminded of the way Sanji stood in front of Kuma: resolute, unshakable. “But it’s the food of survival. It’s the food for people that want to live, and there’s nothing more delicious than the history of the dish. There’s no greater sensation on the pallet than the food of life.” 

At dinnertime, Zoro takes his usual seat across from Sanji but next to Law, which is new. The Surgeon of Death has been quiet around the crew for the most part, taking up war room-like conversations in Nami’s office with Robin and the navigator in either an attempt to hash out their Dressrosa plans or to avoid Luffy’s never-ending list of questions and comments. The table is nearly bursting, each person given their own meal with extra sides lining up the middle of the table.  

This, this is new. Zoro noticed the abrupt change between almost the buffet-style meals from before with the almost tailored eating experience of new mealtimes. Wherever Sanji was for those two years, it shows in his cooking, in the way he moves around the kitchens, and the way he fights.  

Zoro has not been paying attention. Really.  

Robin is deep in conversation with Luffy, fully immersed in whatever their revolutionary-archeologist is debating with their captain when Sanji places her bowl on the table. She takes a second to thank him with a smile which he swoons at as he goes back into the kitchen. It doesn’t look like anything over the top, not something with the usual pizzazz the cook oozed when around the women. Just little bundles made to look like those bulby flowers Zoro semi-recognized sitting on a bed of sauce.  

Robin is distracted by Franky pouring her a glass of wine with the tiny hand attachment coming out of his palm when she brings the first pasta-flower into her mouth. 

And then—she stops. Chews slowly like her tongue is probing a question she dare not ask. When she swallows she looks towards the kitchen, eyes wide. 

“How—” Robin starts, then takes a shuddering breath in as she goes for the next edible tulip bud, dragging it into the sauce and putting it in her mouth as if compelled. She turns to Sanji with wet eyes, motioning at her plate with her fork. 

“Ah, there was someone back on the island I was training at,” Sanji says, suddenly nervous, which is so odd because Zoro would assume this would be his idyllic premise for extra wooing. “Were from around the West, and had family from Ohara before the whole—thing.” Sanji scratches his cheek. “The recipe I won from her was a kind of pappardelle al ragù d’anatra, but with ducks and hibernation cycles depending on the region that’s a little harder to make in the New World than most other poultry, and whenever I had time I experimented and we kind of got to talking, and well...” 

Zoro remembers Sanji showing Chopper how he prepared the bits of chicken he kept, things Zoro would have never thought to cook let alone feed anyone, but knew Sanji would make delicious regardless: hearts, livers, testicles, cockscombs, and wattles. The small, edible flower buds drizzled in a pink, thick sauce look anything but heartbreaking. Anything but sad, but Robin looks at them with watery eyes and a sense of astonishment that’s confusing the others at the table. 

And then Zoro remembers Sanji’s serious voice proclaiming it’s the food of survival. It’s the food for people that want to live.  

Nothing goes to waste. He thinks about asking Luffy to feed him the dirty, too-sweet onigiri. Thinks about the taste of kindness, the flavor of life. 

" I haven’t had cibrèo since I was a child,” Robin says with a watery smile, looking down at her dish. “Not since—well,” she clears her throat. “Thank you, Sanji-kun. It’s as delicious as I remember.” 

“It’s a different take, a Cappelletti di Cibrèo,” Sanji says flawlessly, bowing lightly. The tips of his ears are red—typical, Zoro thinks with a fond snort, of when someone looks genuinely pleased with their meal or honestly compliments his cooking. “I’m glad you enjoy it.” 

A taste of something like the memory of home with the added flavor of today. The chatter picks up around them and Zoro startles, so focused on the interaction he hadn’t noticed the way the rest of them all paused to hear what was happening, too. Chopper starts listing off the vitamins and nutrients in the chicken bits used for the meal to a green-around-the-eyes-Usopp, and Robin offers a dripping forkful to Brook. 

Zoro looks down at the table, at the rice dish with steamed fish and some kind of green sauce that makes Law's eyes widen slightly when he takes a bite; the piles of hearty meats on Luffy’s plate and the grilled chicken breast dolloped in an orange sauce on a salad bed on front of Nami. All their favorite flavors are wrapped in the things they need but don’t have to think about.  

Sanji takes a seat last, as always, bringing a bowl of what looks like clear broth with some light dusting of greens with him. He gives a quick bow to his food before sitting and eating, and Zoro watches with a curious gaze before looking down at his own food, insatiable and wanting and curious. 

Zoro glances up at Sanji once more. 

He takes a bite. 

Chapter Text

_{(An Interlude, of sorts)} 

Nami recognizes the kind of fool Sanji is: lovestruck, struck dumb, somehow toeing the line between pervert and white knight. He gives her his jacket and he twirls with blood on the toes of his shoes and along the heel. He prances around with sweet words on his lips, love in his eyes, and death at his feet. He calls himself ‘Mr.Prince’ and fools a Warlord but he's walked into a trap on Dressrosa by big, brown eyes, and she can trust him not to peek on her in the shower on Thriller Bark  but not in the baths in Alabasta; she trusts her life and the life of the crew to his steady hands when he leads half of them away from Doflamingo himself, and...but... 

He makes no sense , is the thing.  

Nami knows cowards and creeps, she knows murderers and megalomaniacs, she knows men who think themselves gods and the bright, untamable spirit of god slayers. She knows kings and princesses and witches that cackle in singing woods and she knows fear and shame and death and pride and seeing no way out and reaching out for salvation and—

He hurts Luffy. He smiles when he tells them he’ll be back, and he damn near spits when he calls them lowlife pirates. There is no hesitation. 

Why can’t he make any fucking sense? 

Luffy promises to stay, because he says Sanji is only hurting himself. But it aches something fierce deep in her heart where she keeps Bell-mere's sacrifice, where she keeps the memory of Nojiko stitching her up or cleaning her wounds.  

It hurts in the part of her that dares to call them her family. Does Luffy feel the phantom arms holding him there to that soggy-sweet grass, the same way she felt the shove out of her house? 

And then—and then ...  

(Humans don’t tend to lend themselves to neat and tidy characters. They’re only human , after all.) 

Nami is not blind, and she is not naïve.  

In-between Luffy’s optimism, Robin’s morose predictions, and Usopp’s realistic fears, she likes to consider herself a healthy share of the three. She tells him she will never forgive him. A petty part of her knows this is true. 

She sees the way Sanji and Zoro dance around each other. The care they have for each other is some unfathomable flavor of devotion she has never seen before. They fight and pick on each other and it feels like the fights last longer and longer each time. Like they’re getting stronger by forcing each other to better themselves and each other. Each word is accompanied with a touch, and at first she thought it was just another pissing contest between nakama.  

Until Zoro turns around and tells Chopper about an injury. Until Sanji, inflamed—sometimes literally—retaliates by giving up a wound Zoro forgot to disclose. Like they were watching the other move, seeing the shift of each muscle, each carefully hidden grimace.  

She doesn’t understand them, but she gets it. 

It makes the wedding worse.  

When she looks at Sanji’s biological (?) family, she doesn’t understand, but she gets it. 

She didn’t survive Arlong for so long without getting it. Fishmen like that, even engineered men, they have this thing about superiority. The way they sneer at being saved says volumes.  

When they finally escape, when Whole Cake Island becomes a speck behind them and Luffy sleeps and Chopper is turning to bandage Sanji, she hates that she gets it. 

She understands him a little more, like a book in a language she didn’t speak but holds a similar structure, a similar weight to something she does.   

He’s a sous chef from the East Blue, born in the North, and his father was a monster and his father is an old pirate with a hat that reaches the ceiling, and he has a ship full of family that was in danger and a family on a rolling kingdom on the sea that was the danger, and he’s somehow better and more bitter and more human and more of a monster.  

She doesn’t know what to think of him, is the thing, as he twirls with hearts in his eyes with the same face that looked down on them in disdain. She doesn’t know what to think except— 

—maybe, finally, she’s seeing him as something human.  

It's so easy to think of him as untouchable: one of the monster trio.  

She looks at the bandages wrapped around Luffy’s body and waits until Chopper is standing in front of Sanji, an impatient, worried look on his little face.  

“Sanji,” she says impatiently. He glances up at her, all mirth and happiness sapped out of his expression. His eyes are cold, cold, cold. She doesn’t shudder; she promised years ago, she would never back down. Not for the things that matter. 

She doesn’t understand what’s happening, or why, but she knows it’s important. If a gunshot is the least of Sanji’s troubles, she thinks warily, she wonders what he is hiding.  

She wonders, for a second, if Zoro would know, in that strange way he has of knowing.  

He looks down at Chopper then glances lightning quick at Luffy’s snoring form.  

“Please,” Sanji says, and the low timbre of his voice is more comforting than she wants to admit. He pulls a lighter from his pocket and flicks it open; the gold glints in the dawn’s light. “Don’t... don’t tell him.” Sanji looks down at the lighter, his knuckles white.  

Nami wonders who he means.  

Sanji’s hand trembles around the golden lighter. His free hand comes to scratch at his beard, and it looks strange, she thinks, the way the hairs seem to blur then return to sharpness. And then Sanji’s fingers are scratching at the line of his jaw, pulling up something that looks like a mask but is made of a small net of fibers.  

His face is a swollen, bruised mess. His eyes remain downcast and damn near swollen shut. Up above, Carrot hops down from the watch tower and approaches, her eyes wide. Nami, too, can’t think. She doesn’t know what to do. When had Sanji fought like that? He looked fine in Bege’s castle, and fine in the carriage, when-- 

“Itsh alright,” Sanji says softly, watching as Chopper stutter steps close. His eyes close into what is probably meant to be a smile, maybe, but it only makes Nami’s stomach turn. “M’alright. We’re alright.” 

She doesn’t know how to translate him. 

What does it mean.  

What does he mean. 

Zoro sits beneath a cherry blossom tree. Across the yard, sitting on a cushion with one hand strumming the shamisen on her lap, Robin watches him like a hawk. 

“Would you like to hear a story, ronin-san?” Robin asks.  

It’s not a question. Zoro has been avoiding the area ever since Luffy leapt into his arms.  

“I’m not quite in the mood for a story,” Zoro says gruffly, taking a hefty swig from his bottle. He knows the rest of the crew has returned. He's made it through Luffy's commentary about the island and Usopp's unsubtle hints and nudges.

He hasn't gone looking for anyone. He also hasn't been sought out.

The rest of it is just. Details. Unimportant. 

He doesn't want to know anything else. 

Really. 

“A song, then,” Robin says with a smile, and some of the passersby enjoying tea and the open breeze gaze at her beauty with wide eyes.  

“O-Rob—” Zoro starts, but she strums harder, still smiling that same placid smile that means pain. 

"A story of royal children, four princes, growing and raised in the land of war. One was a hammer, the second a matchbook, the youngest a scale, but the third was a—” 

Chapter Text

Death has never been a mercy; death is an unbeatable opponent, skirting the edge of each battle, following the sharpness of each blade, hiding in the chamber; death is the smell of gunpowder, the prickle of sweat at the back of your neck. Death is inscrutable, fathomless; death is standing before him, ready to strike.

And Zoro cannot move.

He corrects himself. Dying is not a mercy. Perhaps death is. Dying is being stranded on a rock for eighty-five days with only your dreams and another presence getting you through each day. Dying is being awake while the people you consider yours are scattered and battered and unconscious. Dying is not a promise of death.

Dying is knowing your family needs you, and watching death's face as you struggle against the weight of your failure, again, and again, and again.

He can fight many things; Zoro can cut and not cut with his blades based solely on his own whim. 

His greatest opponent has always been himself. 

Death approaches, pressing forward. Their billowing cloak is made of stardust and smoke. It is formless and shifting; it looks like hands reaching and it is the form of what nightmares are made of and the airy sigh of the daydreamer and a creature so old Zoro's mind cannot fathom its shape. The tip of their scythe is black, and white, and it is opal and brimstone and materials that do not belong in this reality.

There is no sound. Just Zoro's heavy breathing, his grunts as he tries to move.

Move, dammit.

And then, a shock to both of them, to the eeriness of the warped shadows and flashes of eternity: puru puru puru. Puru puru puru.

Zoro moves.

Zoro will die for his dreams. For a promise.

He wonders, then, opening his eyes, how odd it feels to want to live for a different promise. 

No one has to tell Zoro that something is wrong. He can taste it in the air, he can feel it like a sharp gaze that follows him. But the city is liberated, the people are free. 

He can't shake off this serious feeling, no matter how many tankards of alcohol are pushed into his hands, no matter how much food is crammed in his face or how many watery, grateful smiles thank him. 

Maybe it's the resurrection. 

Maybe it's the promise. 

He doesn't have to walk far to find Sanji, half of the crew pointing him in various directions as they come and go. He ignores Robin's smile and Chopper's worried gaze, and he nods at the dip of Nami's chin as he passes her, he tucks Luffy's grin into his back pocket. The cook is standing in the treeline, cigarette lighting the trees and throwing his own face into a sharp, shadowy contrast. Zoro approaches slowly, not wary but cautious. 

"Why did you ask me that," Zoro asks, scanning Sanji's face to make sure of--what? He's not even sure, himself. His eye follows the curl of the cook's brow, down to his dark gaze, so dark in the night Sanji's eyes look almost black. "You could have told anyone and they would have said no. You asked me because you knew I would agree."

Sanji nods, his face impassive. It should scare Zoro but, instead, he feels... tired, really. 

She was a beautiful queen, righteous and kind; the last day she drew breath was the day he confined--

"I knew you would agree," Sanji says as he blows out a plume of smoke. Robin's voice continues to sing to Zoro: haunting, a low melody for him and only him.

--the third prince in the dark, only his humanity for light, his kindness the spark where he drew all his might. A promise he made, though it remained untold: he would never be like them, he would never grow cold.

"Then why," Zoro presses, taking a step closer, and then another until Sanji's bright red cigarette end is lighting up Zoro's features as well. 

"I figured," Sanji begins, looking confused, lost, "it's the least I could give you. If I... couldn't be me. If I couldn't come back."

It's heady, the feeling the simple truth gives Zoro, it's far more intoxicating than anything he's ever had before. He feels it thrumming in his veins, this rousing hunger, this insatiable need. It feels dark but enlightening, pious and hedonistic; he plucks the cigarette from between SAnji's lips and crowds into the other man. He reaches for Sanji's chin with his other hand, holding it between his thumb and forefinger. 

He wants Sanji to look only at him. To ask only him, always. His want is vicious, his eye dark, hungry.

"Is this your kindness, then?" Zoro asks, tipping Sanji's head back and putting the butt of that dying cigarette between his own lips. The smoke fills his lungs and burns at the back of his throat but he refuses to look away. He exhales the smoke slowly through his nose, moving his hold up to caress Sanji's cheek and brush his blonde fringe. He looks between both of Sanji's exposed eyes, letting his fingers curve around the side of Sanji's skull and rubbing the cook's cheekbone with his thumb all the while. 

"It's yours," Sanji says, voice low. "If I'm not me..." Sanji exhales softly, closing his eyes and leaning infinitesimally into Zoro's rough, gentle touch.

It hits Zoro, now, cradling Sanjji's head in one hand, just how fragile humans are. Just how fraught life is. How outrageously fragile.

Even with bones that can be beaten back into place and skin that no longer tears.

Back on the rock, perhaps Sanji could trick himself into thinking that dying there would have been kindness. After all, mercy was not something he was acquainted with. 

Sure, he wanted to live then, and he still wants to live now, mostly, but if he ends up a Vinsmoke through and through, well, it's not a question of wanting to live or die but whether or not a life like that is worth living at all. And through it all, through the fears and anxieties, through the numbness and second-guessing, even when he can't get himself out of his own head--

He'll give it all to Zoro, still. His life, if it is worth it, his death if it is not. 

All to Zoro.

He flicks the cigarette into the darkness of the treeline to cradle both sides of Sanji's face in his hands, breathless, suddenly. He thinks of the way death felt, an image his brain can longer conjure but can feel: like staring up into the vastness of space and seeing no stars. A void that is never filled; a bottomless maw begging for more.

It sounds like Brook, our Sanji is too kind. Like Robin, he is a kind man, like his nakama and starving strangers and scared children and it reminds him of the fading memory of death's rattling voice coming for him, too many voices to be a singular sound, too many memories compounding to be considered a single revelation.

Knowing that death is a kindness in itself.

"Of course," Zoro whispers, and for a second he presses his forehead against the cooks and it's just the two of them, endlessly, whether they live or die.

This is kindness.

This is mercy.

This is l͖͖̰̝ͭ̀͘o͙͙̙̘̙ͤͫ͞v̹̹̘̼̞̻͆ͩ̓ͪ͢ḛ̡̰̳͓̥ͬ͋ͪͧ.

Chapter Text

Zoro doesn't mean to listen in.

No, really.

Really, really.

He feels judged, which is funny because according to the loud voices on the other side of the galley window, no one knows he's there. It's been good on the Sunny, too, lighter somehow. Chopper has vials of blood stored in a mini-freezer in his medical room, Petri dishes scattered around the ship to see if between him and the other curious minds on the ship can work out a reversal for Kado's SMILE victims behind them on Wano. It's been a peaceful trip from Wano back to the whims of the log poses and calm on the ship.

The thing is--well, not a thing, obviously, all things considered. Its the absence of a thing, maybe, if that makes sense, that seems to trouble Zoro. Luffy had taken one look at him after the moment he'd had with the cook and seemed pleased, but as time has passed, Zoro's gotten only more and more nervous and he doesn't know why.

Worse, he doesn't like it. 

So, feeling out of sorts, he's at the stern after breakfast with his heftiest weight, sitting on the rail and working out his frustrations. It's been three days now, and each time he finds his mind wandering back to that moment.

He could have leaned forward. He could have pulled Sanji forward with the firm grasp he had on the cook's head. Instead, they'd stayed in that pleasant space just. Breathing in each other's air, pressed tightly. 

He should have kissed him there.

It had made sense at the time, Zoro thinks stubbornly as he heaves the bar up and over his shoulders. His eyes sting with sweat when Usopp's voice reaches him during his positioning, obnoxiously loud and far too clear. 

"I don't think I understand the problem," Usopp says. 

You and me both, Zoro thinks bitterly to himself as he hauls the bar up and around his head. He counts off one, two, three, then resets the bar on the bulge of his back muscles just behind his neck.

"Useless, why the fuck did you even offer to wash dishes if you're not gonna help," Sanji groans over the sound of running water. 

Usopp did not, in fact, volunteer for post-breakfast dish duty. If Zoro recalls correctly, he was walking towards the submerged dishes when Sanji tugged Usopp into his space and shouted that Usopp had volunteered, no, really, so it's all okay. No need to help out, Zoro.

Usopp and Zoro both know better: Zoro walked out, an irritated scowl on his face, and Usopp clears his throat at the sink.

"Okay, tell the Great Advisor Usopp, Counselor of all Woes what's up." A pause, "is this about you and Zoro?"

Zoro loses count, his arms extended but not locked above his head, the weight forgotten.

"What the fuck do you mean me and Zoro," Sanji growls.

"I'm just saying, if this is about you two, please wait until Luffy becomes King of the Pirates to announce it." There's the sound of a loud splash like a dish was dropped into the water-filled sink from high above the waterline, and Usopp continues. "The pool is so deep I'd be able to pay for my wedding to Kaya with enough for a honeymoon, please think of my conjecture-kids. My postulated prenuptial. My theoretical--"

"Oh my god, please stop." Sanji says, voice strained. "I don't--" a pause. "How many people are in on the bet? How big are we talking about?"

Zoro is thinking the same thing.

"Well," Usopp starts, "Nami is the bookie, so she'll have the direct pool amount down to the last berri, but pretty much all of us, the majority of the Heart Pirates including Law, uhh, I think Luffy confirmed that some of the other Worst Generation Captains joined in, Vivi, Pappag, uhh, Camie, maybe, some of the Dressrosa delegation--"

"Oh my god," Sanji wheezes.

"Yeah, but because you love me and I don't charge for advice, you're going to wait until Luffy becomes King of the Pirates to announce your undying love and devotion to each other, right?" Usopp's grin is tangible in his voice. 

"The bet's on when we're going to confess?" Sanji manages to squeak out, voice gaining in pitch. 

"Well, yeah, sort of, I interpreted it as, like, marriage proposal or like, vows," Usopp says plainly, "I think Luffy started it, he asked us when we thought you guys would let the crew know and it kind of snowballed from there."

"Luffy started--" Sanji shouts and then chokes down the rest of his sentence. "What the fuck, when?!" He demands.

"Uhh, a while back. Nami's been the one to get more people in on it." Usopp pauses, "Yeah, Luffy asked us back in Cocoyashi Village."

The silence is overwhelming. Even Zoro, eavesdropping with his weight still held high, is stunned. 

"Soooo," Usopp drawls, and the sound of running water returns. "What's up?"

Sanji remains quiet for a few seconds, and Zoro strains to hear if maybe the cook is whispering or muttering.

"It's just," Sanji starts, then takes a deep breath, "how... you, you l-love Kaya, right? The girl from your home village?"

"Well, yeah," Usopp says breezily. 

"How... how were you sure? Like, sure-sure? I just." Another pause; SAnji stews over his words for a few seconds before it all comes boiling hot and spilling fast beneath whatever lid he's been trying to keep on all of this. "I spent so long being so sure of everything, of who I was and what I wanted, and... before Luffy crashed into the Baratie and everyone came into my life, I had regulated myself to just. The dream, and the debts I had to my old man and the restaurant.

"And then it felt like a dream, you know, to start sailing with you and everyone and making toasts to what felt like impossible dreams, and just..." Sanji clears his throat. "Everything changed, and it just keeps changing, and everyone, too, we're all still changing and moving forward and I just... I just..."

"I used to be able to wake up in the mornings and say this is who I am, this is what I want, and this is my dream, but since... shit, since Sabaody, that first time around, and then with all the Kamabakka newkamas, and... and then Whole Cake and everything, I just... I don't know."

Usopp is quiet for a second, stewing over all of Sanji's words. 

"I can see why you're thrown now, especially," Usopp starts, "but you're making a mountain over a molehill, I think. If you're confused if you're feeling something because you genuinely feel it or because you think you should, and you're not sure about it, then that's one thing. If you're confused about who you are now, the answer is simpler than you think." 

"Is it, though?" Sanji asks with a snort.

"Here, let me ask you this: when you were a kid, before you had to deal with expectations and everything, what were you?" Usopp leads.

"A failure," Sanji deadpans. 

"Okay, I walked into that one," Usopp grumbles, "I mean, deep down, strip away the expectations and the name calling, what did you know about yourself as a kid that wasn't, like, thrown on you."

"I..." Sanji starts, "I was a cook."

"Very good!" Usopp crows, "and during that time, what did you want to be when you got older?"

"I wanted to be," happy, Zoro's mind supplies, but Sanji says," a cook," instead, but Zoro hears it loud and clear anyway.

"And between then and now, what are you now? And when you're older, still, what are you going to be?"

"But that still doesn't help me with my other problem," Sanji grouses, though he sounds remarkably more cheerful than earlier. 

"Well, it kind of goes hand-in-hand, doesn't it?" Usopp asks, "when did you first realize you loved Zoro?"

Zoro balks, looking around to see if anyone has heard the dishwashing duo, but its still him alone on the railing, turning his head to hear more.

He should really move. 

"I don't--" Sanji starts, then groans. "Fuck, fine, I didn't... I didn't call it love at the time, alright, but I knew it was different. What I felt. Skypiea, probably. Maybe even before that, but that's when I knew for sure."

Usopp whistles and there's the unmistakable sound of a wet hand slapping his head.

"Sorry, sorry! Anyways, between that 'oh fuck' moment and today, do you still feel the same?"

"Of course," Sanji snorts, and something gets lighter in Zoro's chest, the weight of his unease lifting slightly, "but do I feel like that because I still really do, or do I feel like that because I think I should? After Wano and the-the awakening, I just. I don't want to be a Vinsmoke, you know?"

"Well," Usopp starts, taking the heavy weight of the conversation like a champ," I can't tell you about how your genetics will affect your emotions, but... there are notebooks' worth of notes and recipes you've hidden in your locker behind nudie mags." Usopp continues over Sanji's sputterings. "And there's one over there beneath the couch cushions that you're writing in now, right? So, look, you asked me about Kaya right?

"When I think about her, I want to be better. I want to live, and fight, and survive the fights so I have more stories to tell her. She likes to say that my storytelling saved her, but she kind of saved me, too." Usopp takes a deep breath. "And that's my love for her. You and Zoro are kind of like that, I think. In that, your love is saving each other. He makes sure you fight for your dream and you make sure he doesn't die for his.

"Your love is in those notebooks. And yeah, maybe this is another change, but not all change is bad, right? Change is also growth." There's a final clink and then the sound of water swirling down the drain. "Whenever I forget to be brave," Usopp continues, "I think of all of you, and I think of Kaya, and each time I turn around or I get back up. You're the strawhat's cook, a member of the Monster Trio, and you're nakama. Whenever you feel like you're forgetting, ask any single one of us and we'll remind you."

"... thanks, Usopp," Sanji says shyly, "there's just been so much going on, I just..."

"Hey, we all need to be reminded every now and then," Usopp says earnestly. "Remember, if you can't, one of us can. Just gotta ask for help."

"Yeah, yeah," Sanji says lightly, "Thanks." There's a rustle, and then, "that was heavy, do you mind opening the window?"

Oh.

Oh, shit. 

Zoro's eye is wide and he isn't one hundred percent on what his face is doing when Sanji and Usopp's faces appear behind the open window pane. Sanji's face is red and lit up perfectly by the early sun. 

"Oh, crap," Usopp grumbles.

"How much of that did you hear??" Sanji demands, that pinkness spreading down from his face to his neck and under the collar of his shirt. 

Zoro wants to know how far down it will go.

"Uh," Zoro says intelligently. Usopp smacks a palm into his face. Zoro feels his face burning hot, now, too. "All of it?"

His arms, tired from holding up the weight, finally buckle and the weight makes an abnormally large splash when it hits the water. Franky shouts something from the intercom in the crow's nest. 

Zoro looks between Sanji's face, growing more nervous and irritated by the second, and the disturbed water passing behind them. 

In a move that would make Usopp proud, he takes the high road and throws himself off the Sunny, ostensibly to recover his weights and maybe to escape the horror of being caught.

Still, though, even through the shock of the cold water on his heated skin, there is the buzzing feeling of elation coursing through his body.

Love, love, love. 

Chapter Text

_{(A Conclusion and a beginning, in one})

"It's all up to you two," Luffy says calmly, and his steady voice is eerie with the sounds of Marie Jois in chaos around them. Coddled by their own sense of superiority and pliant on the backs of the slave labor they enjoyed, it's almost a laughable slaughter. There are people running around in tattered clothes, some starving, some beaten way before the Sunny cut the horizon a few days earlier.

They are ferocious in their revenge and merciless in their fight for freedom. There had been lots of screaming and crying earlier, but it's all drowned out now by the sound of crumbling bricks and cheering.

"I can get you up there," Luffy motions with his head above the center peak, "but I'm the only one that can hold off Sakazuki. You're going to have to get the last hit in." 

Sanji nods, looking high up in the sky, plotting. 

Zoro is the only one between them that notices that Luffy is looking at Sanji when he says it. 

After learning what they learned about Sanji's mother with Vegapunk, the hints of royal blood in their cook's DNA from birthright and not by Germa's vicious manipulation, it makes a sort of poetic sense. 

Zoro knows what he has to do.

"Strawhat," a deep, dark voice growls, and Zoro doesn't need to turn to know the mass of volcanic heat that was once the fleet Admiral is oozing slowly closer. "The bane of my existence. I should have killed you when I killed your brother all those years ago."

"Alrighty!" Luffy says, grinning brightly despite the eaves of heat hitting them as Sakazaki approaches, more oozing mound of hatred and pride than man. "You two ready?"

"Ready!" Zoro shouts in unison with Sanji, and they turn toward the sky. Luffy blows up both of his hands and they both leap onto one large, bouncy palm. The ground beneath Luffy shakes and for a second Zoro has to choke back the fear that the other Admirals have returned--it had taken most of him to beat down Issho, and Sanji barely fared any better against Borsalino. But, no, thankfully, Zoro braces himself in a low hunch on Luffy's palm as one giant hand raises them even higher and leans back.

Robins gigantesco mano throws the three of them hard and dissolves into a myriad of flower petals. Luffy's laughter at take-off is infectious and Zoro shares a grin with his captain before Luffy is throwing them, too, higher and further. 

There's a second of weightlessness where gravity ceases to exist. The moment when Zoro is no longer increasing in altitude or being pulled back into the earth.

He looks at Sanji: the idiot's grin is bright, his blonde hair a tussled mess, and he looks weary and worn and beautiful, he looks like everything Zoro didn't know he needed. 

"Throw me," Zoro says breathlessly, so many things in his body screaming at once. Sanji laughs and it's weightless, it's the last bit Zoro needs to know what he has to do. 

"I thought you'd never ask," Sanji purrs back with a wink and he presses both feet to Zoro's back as they begin to fall. He kicks and Zoro spins his body, all three swords ready.

He takes the liberated people's cheers, and he takes Luffy's grin and Sanji's laugh and that sense of elation after he woke up from his second fight with Mihawks and he yells as he swipes all three swords at once into the castle.

It's quiet as he continues to fall, and then the castle explodes. Another giant hand comes for his freefalling body, and Sanji shouts from his perch up in the air.

"Finish it, Curly!" Zoro shouts. "We're ready!"

Sanji looks at him in surprise, which is so stupid. 

There isn't any other way this could end. Not when the Celestial Dragons sit, fat with viciousness and voracious in their violence on the land that once belonged to his mother's people.

He should shout something in encouragement at the lost look on Sanji's face, but the faith of all these starved people is relying on this one moment. So, Zoro grins, wide and vicious and loving, and shouts, "don't be a chickenshit, Shit-Cook!" at the top of his lungs.

And Sanji, well.

How can Sanji resist?

With his body alight with flame, falling to the large cross-cut Zoro has left deep in the earth of the island and clear of all debris, Sanji looks like a falling star. Zoro watches as those dangerous, flaming legs slip into the gouge, and the earth trembles around them all.

This was the land of the Lunarians before it became the grave of the Celestial Dragons. 

It was about time to return the area back to the sea and sky.

When all is said and done and boats from different countries and their allies are filled with survivors and warriors and celebrations, Sanji and Zoro sit on the brow of the ship. Luffy has been going around each ship, effusive and effervescent, and greeting each person, new or known, with the same kind of spirit that gathered the forces in the first place.

No one is immune to the King of the Pirates, it seems.

Just happy to have survived another battle and grateful for the comfort of the Sunny's cheerful face beneath them, Zoro sighs contently even with the bandages wrapped around his chest limiting him. Sanji hums in agreement, though Zoro hasn't said a thing; neither of them have spoken since the island cracked into pieces and began to sink beneath their feet. Even as Jimbei came for them while Franky and Usopp came for them and the rest of their devil fruit users still on the precarious chunks of land.

Nami had been guiding ships around the wreckage from the crow's nest, shouting into their microphone and guiding the smallest rescue boats to the largest vessels.

Their fishing rods have been dead for the past hour due to the absolute mayhem going on around them. It was daytime two days over when they began the battle and now its the third night; Usopp has been showing people how to light up fireworks and explaining with an over-enthusiastic Franky about the logistics of different compounds on the color and intensity of the explosions. 

Nami has been drinking with Robin on the deck, a completely ridiculous assortment of alcohols surrounding their table. There's a large man with a funny laugh that's been enjoying their company and a pair of twins that Zoro vaguely recognizes but cannot name that made it on the knick of time to save Nami on the first day of the battles. 

Brook's been playing music around the ship, grabbing unsuspecting musicians from all over the sea to join him. Jimbei's been gone with Luffy, or just out and catching up with other Captains.

The crew comes together on the Sunny as the night drags on, and still the two of them sit, silent, on the masthead.

And then--a tug. Zoro looks down at his hand, surprised, and finds that Sanji is looking down, too, where just below their joint hands Zoro's fishing rod is jerking. 

"Oh, shit," Zoro says smartly as they lift their hands and he dives forward to catch the rod before it flies off the ship and into the dark waters below. Sanji chuckles and then curses when his rod also begins to jump with a catch.

"Fuck, if we got the lines tangled again," Sanji begins, voice gruff. 

"You're just being prissy because you know my fish is going to be bigger," Zoro snorts, and he meets Sanji's competitive gaze for a second before they're both busy wrangling their prospective catches.

"You're just being an ass because I'm going to reel mine in first," Sanji grouses back, and then it's really on. 

Due to the darkness, it takes a few minutes for them to haul up their catches. True to his word, Sanji reels his up first, but Zoro's is bigger. Still, Sanji's excitement at the catches far outweighs any tantrum or outcry at the results. 

"It's a barramundi," Sanji tells Zoro, his grin wide and childish. Zoro feels his face warm and all sense of competition melts away at that excitement. "God, I haven't fried one of these bad boys since..." Sanji's face falls a little, his smile dialing back a bit. "Well, since the Baratie, really. They're usually in warmer waters."

"And what about this thing?" Zoro asks, knowing fully well he doesn't actually care about the name of the thing, just that it'll bring that spark back in the cook's eyes. 

Sanji snorts like he knows, but shifts his hold on his own line to look around Zoro.

"Looks like a Sablefish," Sanji says at long last, "You must be using one of Franky's deep sea lines, those are bottom dwellers, but looking at the coloring and the position of the gills, this looks like a northern Sablefish, those are the kinds that chill in warm water."

"Huh," Zoro says, turning to jump back onto the deck with the long, heavy fish still dangling on his line. He reaches out a hand to help Sanji steb down with him, and the cook takes it with a laugh. Something tickles the back of Zoro's mind as they walk up the steps to the latch to drop the catches into their respective aquarium drops.

He stops, suddenly, eye wide. He looks up to where Nami is still chattering away but Robin is making eye contact with him, her face slack in surprise.

She recognizes the fish. She knows what this means. 

"Oi, did that Admiral hit you in the head as well as the ribs? What the fuck, Marimo?!" Sanji grouses, unsticking himself from Zoro's back. Besides them, the two fishes writhe on their hooks.

"Where did you say the fish were from?" Zoro asks urgently, and Sanji raises a single, curly brow in confusion. 

"Well, this one's definitely an East Blue species," Sanji says slowly, as if Zoro is being obtuse, "and that one is one-hundred percent a North Blue species, South Blue Sablefish have different gills and coloring because of the slightly warmer temperatures."

"Oh my god," Nami says, suddenly on the railing high above and to the right. Robin is rummaging through her bottles. "Oh my--Oh my God, we need--Luffy, someone go get Luffy! RIGHT NOW!" Nami shouts, waving her hands at Brook. The music stops playing and the fireworks finally taper off. Nami is still running around while Zoro--he can't help it. He's gawking at Sanji, willing the cook to look and understand. 

"Cook," Zoro says slowly, painfully, "look at the rod. We're using the same kind." 

Sanji looks at the rod in Zoro's hand and back at the fish, then to Zoro's face. He repeats the process silently while Nami and Usopp run amock around the ship, and Luffy bounces back onboard with a whoop and a laugh.

"Oh," Sanji says lightly, then, eyes widening, looking now between the two fishes and Zoro's expression. "Oh, oh, shit, fucking really? Really, really?"

Robin laughs as she lowers a bottle of wine between the banister and down towards them.

"Congratulations, Greatest Swordsman and Cook-san," Robin says softly, even as Luffy screams behind them all while Nami explains everything to the captain. "You've found the All Blue. What's next?"

Sanji grabs the bottle of wine in his free hand and gapes, turning to Zoro somehow both pale and flushing fiercely all at once. 

"I... I..."

"C'mon, Sanji," Zoro says softly, pulling out the cork from the bottle with his own free hand, and maybe it's the use of the cook's name that startles him out of his shocked reverie or throws him deeper because Sanji--

--Sanji chugs the bottle and throws it vaguely behind him to crash on the ground. 

Franky's shocked "oi!" is drowned out by cheers when Sanji tugs Zoro close, fishing line and still threshing fish and all, into a messy kiss in front of their crew, the Straw Hat Fleet, the liberated people of Marie Jois and all.

When Nami collects the bet money from everyone on her ledger, she doesn't tell them the winner. 

She promises to keep that information to herself and as blackmail material if Zoro doesn't make her Maid of Honor. It does make something sweet, though, to have bet on the declaration-of-love-slash-pseudo-proposal on the day Sanji found his dream.

After all, it is enough money for a wedding and a honeymoon.