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He hates it, but Sanji can’t figure out how to go back to normal.
They’ve sailed far past Wano now, on to better, more dangerous things, no doubt. The log pose is still set for southeast, and Usopp and Luffy spend the odd day sprawled on the lawn, rattling off guesses on their next adventure. The ladies stay for tea, then slowly slip back into the ship to the library or observation room or anywhere there’s more than a half-beat of silence. Brook teases Chopper. They perform kabuki on the lawn or roll around on the grass like wild horses until their clothes keep the streaks of green, and Sanji has to break into his new bottle of vinegar to soak them.
Zoro and he fight over nothing, then fall asleep curled around each other. On days he wakes early or returns from watch late, he likes to watch Zoro sleep. His weedy limbs always overgrow the sides of the cot, resiezing all space Sanji had volunteered. Before, he’d shove Zoro over and start another bleary-eyed, halfhearted fight on the commandeering of Sanji’s well-deserved blanket space. He decides, now, to let sleeping dogs lie and takes it as a sign to start early on breakfast.
It’s normal. So tooth-achingly, gut-wrenchingly normal. A normal he’d shaken his head at last month, and a fortnight ago, he’d have paid for this normal in limbs. There’s little more he does than serve and observe now. The crew flows through the ship, as light and airy as the wind in the sails, but Sanji’s still tied at the port.
They haven’t talked about it. Not really.
Not that there’s much to talk about if Sanji has no words to say. He tries to make it up in closeness, but that aches something fierce. He just— He feels… Undeserving is the wrong word, but he worries his hands behind his back in moments when everyone is quiet nonetheless. Insecure maybe isn't the right word either but something like it tugs at his chest in between meals when snacks have been passed out and dinner is prepped, and he has at least half an hour to himself. It’s that half-hour, a month ago, he’d look forward to, and now he can’t fathom straying far from the deck.
For Sanji, leaving made the world slow down. Minutes clung like sand through a sieve. He felt every second of every hour of every day they’d been apart. And lived it, too. An age is what they call it, and an age he’d grown. A thousand in those few short weeks, keeping to himself and growing coiling inwards like a bound tree.
The worst of it is he didn’t age alone. The world, horrifically, continued turning, much as though it felt it didn’t. How much did he miss? It’s ridiculous, maybe, to think they’d grown new hobbies or tastes in the month they’ve been apart, but how crazy is it really? Who cooked for them while they were apart? Who catered to every whim and fancy? Who rose first in the morning, slow as not to wake the others, and slunk to the kitchen to make some new bastardized version of French toast?
What new fish had they caught that Sanji couldn’t appraise? Which jokes had missed a single peal of laughter? He fears in leaving to protect them he’d lost them in a way he’ll never get back. Time rushes by him in a wave.
He hasn’t spoken about it with Zoro either, and that’s worse. Between the death pact and the raid suit and everything on Wholecake, it’s been an amalgam of a clusterfuck, and Sanji really can’t find the words. He’s not sure what to say. Not sure he wants to say anything at all.
Sanji spends the days doting on the ladies and dragging Luffy off the guard rail, then making a snack, then making lunch, then making another snack, and then making dinner. All the while, chatting along with anyone not passed out against the mast or buried beneath the mikan trees head first, stocky legs stuck out like the wicked witch of the east.
It’s easier to think of what he wants to say when Zoro’s not annoying him, and he’s only not annoying him when he’s asleep.
Zoro sleeps like the dead. He always has. His face evens out in sleep, the crease in his brows unnaturally flat. He only snores if he’s laid on his back, but it’s never loud, and he drools like a hungry dog.
Sanji props himself up on an elbow to watch him, free for a moment while dinner’s set on a low-flame stew in the kitchen. Zoro’s chest rises slowly and steadily through each breath, as sure as every step he takes. The breaths don’t trip. His arms lay lax and breezy, not a hint of tension. It mirrors his expression in Onigashima, wrapped like a mummy on a cross. Thirty-odd broken bones and utterly unfazed, snoozing away.
They’ve just missed a squall by a mile, and the dark clouds Nami’d predicted carry gales in lieu of rain. It airs out the crow’s nest, throwing Sanji’s hair in his eyes. Zoro’s hair shivers in the wind, too, rustling like leaves in the spring. It’s grown substantially since last he’s seen it, he realizes— Zoro’s far from overdue a trim.
A sleepy sigh is heaved against his thigh, Zoro’s hand rucking up his midriff and rubbing at the warm skin of his stomach. The wind whips up the smell of sweat and steel stuck to the walls of this place, and it makes Sanji’s mouth water against his better nature.
Drawn to the fingertips tucked beneath his hem, Sanji lets his own hand wander. He traces the jut of Zoro’s chin, stubbly from the coarse green hair he can’t seem to grow all the way. His jaw and chin and slope of his nose are all sharp lines— harsh and blunt, not unlike himself. Sanji’s thumb catches the shape of his lips, snarl-free, concealing sharp canines and a sharper, flippant tongue.
He’d wanted this. Could think of little else when he was locked away without his family as long as he was, warring with his brothers and Judge and none so more than himself. It feels strange to have mourned for the death of a life he’d loved and taken for a misplaced sense of self-sacrifice and then have it thrusted back into his arms like this. He’d fought for it; he knows that. It wasn’t handed to him— Sanji’d had to grapple and ply, and with himself, more than anyone, to get these precious ten minutes that spill out so fast—ticking by while the heat in the kitchen pot broils higher.
Sanji can feel it bubbling in the pit of his stomach, too, catching in his throat and lodging there. Zoro’s as cocksure as ever, his arrogance bleeding out to the rhythm he sleeps in. He falters so rarely, trusts with everything he has in him like it comes second only to breathing.
It’s easy to be angry at Zoro, but so hard to hate him. He tries his best anyway. He hates how easily he’d answered the phone in the midst of a battle, hates how he trusts him implicitly. With everything. Trusted him with his life, with Luffy’s life. Trusted him enough not to come after him. Trusts him enough to kill him.
Zoro sighs again, soundless. Sanji feels it against the tip of his thumb caressing his cupid’s bow. Zoro nudges into him, a cat chasing the sun. His chest dips and rises, and Sanji watches until it evens again. In… Out… In… Out... Slow and sure. He waits until it steadies, then extricates himself from Zoro and slips down the crow’s nest hatch.
Zoro almost misses dinner. He comes down when Sanji’s serving thirds, alone with Luffy and Usopp at the table. Nami’s readying herself to leave, handing her bowl to Sanji who’s filling the sink with warm water.
He watches Zoro trudge to his empty seat at the table, blinking sleep from his eyes. His shirt’s as rucked as it’d been when Sanji left, but his hand has migrated to the short tufts at the back of his head, mussing it further. His stomach must’ve woken him up; he’s all agog by what Usopp’s eating, glancing from his half-empty bowl to the pot in the kitchen. It twists something funny in Sanji’s chest, and he diverts his attention from the mosshead to Nami, who’s still holding her dish out.
Sanji smiles warmly at Nami. “Thank you, my sweet,” he says, taking it and dropping her bowl in the sink. “I wouldn’t want you to get your hands dirty, though. I could’ve grabbed it from the table.”
Nami waves it off. “It’s fine, Sanji-kun. No big deal.”
Sanji hums grudgingly, like he’ll make it ‘no big deal’ for her. He’s usually quicker about collecting the dishes— he’s not sure what’s gotten into him. Thoughts of performing correctly around the crew while canvassing opinions of his actions have whirlpooled his mind, swirling him slowly into the drain of memory. He can’t decompartmentalize what was normal from what he’s trying desperately to make so.
“Did you enjoy dinner?” he asks, grabbing a larger bowl to start scooping rice into. Based on Zoro’s typical appetite and the way he’s burning holes into Sanji’s back, he thinks to maybe add a few more scoops before moving to the meat.
“Good as always,” Nami says distractedly.
He’d found her and Robin in the library when he’d called them for dinner, pouring over old maps. She must be keen to get back up there. Is this enough rice, or should he add more? No, he’s overthinking it. If Zoro wants more, he’ll ask for it. Then again, he eats whatever’s on his plate… Is Nami sure everything was good?
“Anything you’d like changed?”
Nami pauses. She turns around, a bemused eyebrow raised like he’d said something strange. Thing is, he hasn’t. Sanji’s asked both her and Robin this many times before, craving any opportunity for improvement in their eyes; having spent so long from them now is little more than pretext for such an ask. It freezes him as well; a spoonful of rice held akimbo like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
A beat, and she responds. “No,” she says. “Nothing,” then turns and leaves Sanji to the company of three half-asleep men and soaked, dirty dishes.
Zoro takes his plate without comment and digs in as he gets it, spoon nearly foregone. Usopp and Luffy seem momentarily sated, so Sanji takes the excess time to start cleaning up the kitchen. He leaves leftovers out for Zoro’s seconds and busies himself with scrubbing the plates. Was what he asked Nami so strange? It’s not that he was second-guessing his cooking or even what he knew of her existing tastes, but tastes can change at the drop of a hat. Sanji’d never know the difference unless he asked.
Again, he feels robbed by time and, comparatively, his own actions. Worse yet, the ones he didn’t make. In Wano, he’d worried— He’d felt his bones break and snap back together. Things were fine now, but how long until they weren’t? Sanji can feel the bones of his wrists and fingers like he always could, despite knowing now they’d changed fundamentally. They’re not the same ones he’d kept from injuring, that had eagerly served the crew. He relies on them now, but that trust cannot stay.
Zoro creeps up behind him. Even if his haki couldn’t sense it, Sanji’d know; his steps aren’t nearly as discreet as Zoro’d like him to think. The others fled a while ago, sometime between him scrubbing the counters and the dishes, leaving the two of them haunting the kitchen.
The rice and chicken are purposely left out, and Sanji shuffles closer to the kitchen counter so Zoro can get to it. Zoro still doesn’t move. Sanji feels tension ready itself in the meat of his shoulders, preparing for a conversation he’s still not ready to have.
“Can I help you?”
The clink of Zoro’s plate echoes as he places it beside him. “You’ve been skulking around the girls more than usual.”
Blunt. Just so.
Typical.
The pan slips from Sanji’s hands just enough to bang against the side of the sink. He tightens his grip and his shoulders, snarking, “Go play with your toys, Zoro. I don’t have time for this.”
Zoro, used to picking the peas of Sanji’s words from the shit, realizes his mistake before he does. He catches him by the arm and tugs Sanji to face him, expression serious.
Heightened by the slip of tongue, the mere mention of his name has all levity sucked from the air. His probing gaze, the furrowed eyebrows. It breaks Sanji open in ways he loves, in ways he hates.
“What's the matter?” Zoro asks. This time, phrased as a question.
“Nothing,” he snips, then bites his lip. That was the most obviously something ‘nothing’ ever to be spoken aloud. Sanji rubs at his temple. “It’s fine, I’ll get over it.”
Because he will. This is a minor blip on the radar of his sense of self that will quickly be bum-rushed under duress through the threat of his life or the lives of the crew.
Zoro doesn’t let it go, loosening the grip on Sanji’s arm and letting it fall to his wrist. “No,” he says. “It’s bothering you. Tell me.”
Sanji stalls. He whirrs through anything he might’ve thought to tell him, rewords it, then tries again. Still nothing. The thing is, Zoro deals with problems as they come; he’s not one to perseverate on what-ifs. Sanji can’t think of a way to undermine just how pervasive it’s been in his brain or come up with some way it doesn’t come off as angry or pathetic. Sanji can’t make it obvious or upfront. It tears through his mind, a whirlwind of emotions that ends where the other begins. There’s no separation between; it’s as much frustration and shame as it is joy.
Moreover, he knows what Zoro’s gonna say, and he’s not sure he wants to hear it.
Sanji huffs a sigh, free hand fussing with his hair. “I know you’re not— You don’t— You’re not good with stuff like this.”
Zoro’s lips purse immediately. His eyebrows screw up, the hand on his wrist taut like he thinks of tugging again but doesn’t. His mouth opens and closes. Sanji watches him, watches every thought pull at his brow and cast his eyes away before snapping them back to him like a rubber band.
Finally, in one breath, he says, “Let me try.” Steely and sure, he meets Sanji’s eye. “It’s you. Let me try.”
It’s that, that look in his eye, that effectively breaks him open. Zoro is rude and the worst at times, telling Sanji exactly what he needs to hear when he doesn’t want to hear it. He has it figured out; he always does. Sanji’d trapped himself in the idea of the worst because he knows it, knows how it sounds from Zoro’s lips. All this time, he’d concerned himself with the wrong thing.
Because he’s gentle, too. There’s a kindness weaved into every decision Zoro chooses to make, hidden within the fabric that makes him and envelops the crew. It’s every other thread and loop, disguised as obstinacy and brashness. He wants as much as Sanji does, and he tries until he gets it.
Sanji doesn’t know what to say. He gapes at him, breath tripping too quickly to allow oxygen to pass and thoughts to form. It’s clear, though: this is him asking permission. Zoro impresses it upon him, gray eyes open and pleading. It’s all he can do to jerk through a nod.
Sanji breathes out an exhale that escapes too tightly to be a laugh. “Don’t hurt your head, marimo.”
Zoro nods as well, never looking away. “Is this because of Wano? The call?”
At the mention of the call, Sanji’s chest tightens. It’s another side of everything he’s been reluctant to unpack. He doesn’t regret it for a second, nor would he if it ever came to that, but the plausible reality that it may become necessary sometime in the near future adds an oppressive gravity. How much time does he have left?
“Or is it because of whatever happened when you left?”
Sanji falls silent, and Zoro follows suit, having blindly struck the nail on the head. Sanji chews at his bottom lip, suddenly faced with a situation he’d tried desperately to put off.
“Zoro,” Sanji sighs. “Be honest with me. Were you mad when I left?”
“Yes,” he says. Zero hesitation.
It’s not a surprise to hear, but it frustrates him nonetheless. A week. A week he’s been back and not a word about any of it. Everything’s been normal normal normal, and it’s reached a fever pitch within Sanji. It spills out of him in what he tries to channel into anger, but comes out decidedly not.
“You never told me,” he says, voice breaking on the last word.
Zoro runs a hand through the hair at the nape of his neck he knows sits askew and downy soft, refusing to comply with the rest of his hair. “What’s to say? I knew you’d be back.”
“Really?” Sanji goads, reverting to anger because that’s what he knows. That's what works. “Not once, even for a second, did you think I wasn’t coming back?”
“Never.” Just as quick. Just as certain.
Sanji’s jaw works. “Why?”
“Because I know Luffy. And I know you.”
And there it goes, cast away to the wind. It’s frustrating; Sanji scrabbles for anger, gritting his nails in any semblance of it more often than it comes naturally. When he’s angry, it burns hot and bright, embers searing and calcifying for days, but as it’s dissipated, Sanji can hardly remember why it’d started in the first place.
Because he does know him. And he, Zoro. Sanji notices the set of his jaw and still of his fingers, the fire in his eyes as he imparts Sanji with this like it’s of the utmost importance solely because he’d noticed it bothering him. It’s not just Sanji and the crew’s diet that were affected by his leaving. Nor are they the only things fundamentally changed or will be either now or in the upcoming future.
He knows him. He knows him well. And that’s how he knows that’s not all it is. It’s not just for Sanji.
“You’re still mad.”
The line of Zoro’s mouth wrinkles. He looks away from Sanji for the first time, eyebrows settling and unsettling. Eventually, his head jerks in a nod. “Not… at you. You're stupid. You would think you’d have to do something like that.”
Sanji’s scowl deepens. Leave it to Zoro to always say what he’s thinking. “Great. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Zoro does tug this time, the grip on his wrist tightening, and it’s then Sanji realizes he’d never shrugged it off and Zoro had never let go. “No, you’re— You did what you had to do, I just…” He huffs out a heavy sigh, entirely reluctant to say whatever’s coming next. “You keep disappearing. And every time it feels like forever.” Sanji stops, watching him. “I trust you, but I also need you.”
“To protect the crew,” Zoro tacks on as an addendum, as though it levies any of the words he’d just spoken.
He keeps going anyway, barreling through the look in Sanji’s eye and the words pressed against his tongue. “So you can’t die so easily. You’ve already promised me the right to kill you.”
Sanji stares at Zoro, stunned to his spot. Sanji’s mapped the length of him— with his tongue, with his hands, with his teeth, with his fists. He knows him. He’s known him intimately before they were ever intimate. He’s known him sweetly and in anger, well enough not to ever forget, and can still stand floored when Zoro does this. When he’s nothing more than his bullish, unabashed self, reminding him of what he forgot he knew.
“You need me, huh?”
Zoro flinches, expression haughty. He’s not denying it, but his mouth’s twisted like he ate an unripe fruit. He grunts, as eloquent as ever, loosing Sanji’s hand to scratch his cheekbone. He’s trying, Sanji notes belatedly, and his chest aches.
Sanji doesn’t let the urge pass him by, and he reaches for either side of Zoro’s face. It’s more of a peck, Zoro’s eyes wide, hands frozen at his waist like it’s his first time being kissed. The shocked awe he stares at Sanji with after is too much not for him to steal another one.
Zoro wakes up for this one, hands finally finding his waist. Sanji pulls him closer, keeping it decidedly sweeter than Zoro aims to drag it. Zoro’s arms shift from his waist to the flat of his back, pulling him in with both arms. His fingers caress the ridges of his spine, tongue warm and probing, licking at Sanji’s bottom lip and prepping it for his incisors.
Sanji swallows back a groan. The kitchen is the last place he wants to do this; there’s open food just to the left of him, the lack of privacy coming a close second. His thumbs find the divot of Zoro’s cheekbones and pull him all the way back. Zoro goes reluctantly, nearly taking Sanji’s bottom lip with him. He ogles him, eyes half-lidded, and Sanji has to reinforce his grip.
The side of Sanji’s mouth tilts up despite himself. “You’ve got a real way with words, mossy.”
Zoro’s grin is toothy, the flush of his cheeks growing a bit ruddier. “Shut up,” he grumbles.