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Sanji’s hands look delicate from a distance. He handles his knives with grace, slicing transparent leaves from vegetables and fish alike with a deft touch that only another bladesman could appreciate. The pastries he makes are so fragile that Zoro thinks he’ll shatter them just by looking, but there’s not a single crushed crust in any of them until he hands them out to the others, a fond smile on his lips as Luffy digs into them without thought. Zoro thinks too much about the delicacy of his hands, how they would feel stroking over his skin and the flesh beneath. How it would feel to have those knives carving paper-thin slices out of him with the same care Sanji shows the meat and fish beneath his hands.
Closer though, there’s so much strength in those hands. Zoro could spend hours watching Sanji knead dough, tendons and muscles flexing as he works, suit jacket abandoned and sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He hauls sacks of flour and sides of meat with an ease that makes Zoro ache, wondering what it would feel like to be carried with so little effort, to have such strong hands wrapped around him, moving him however Sanji likes and exposed for him.
For all that Sanji looks elegant and untouchable, his skin is covered in scarred-over nicks and burns, and Zoro aches to worship each one, tracing scars and the veins and blood beneath the delicacy of his skin. He wants to know the taste of his skin, to feel those nicotine-stained fingers wrap around his throat, strong and squeezing until he’s on the edge of life and death. He wants it so badly he can’t stand it, but he can’t tear his eyes away, and he can’t tell if the heat in his belly is from the sake Sanji had handed him, their fingers brushing as the cup was passed from one to the other, or the deft way Sanji twists the dough into a braid, delicate and impossibly strong all at once.
He starts as Sanji finally looks up at him, brushing his bangs back and leaving a smear of flour on his temple. “What are you watching me for?”
Zoro can only finish the sake to clear the lump in his throat. “No reason.”