Chapter Text
The pain was all encompassing when Sanji came to his senses. A grave whine escaped his lips as his eyes pressed tighter, a razor sharp ache intensifying the moment he tried to open them in the morning light.
He grunted, sitting up straighter, finally forcing his eyes to unglue themselves and endure the harsh light reflecting everywhere against the grey pavement and debris. A deep inhale told him he had at least two broken ribs. He blamed the rest of his pains for how much it took to remember why he had two broken ribs.
It jolted him up, standing on wobbly legs that didn’t feel like weapons, just stupid flesh and bones and panic.
Just a few feet away of where Sanji fell unconscious, Zoro’s katanas lay horrifyingly forgotten. One, two, and three. Carelessly dumped on the ground without order or caution. That alone was the biggest bad omen of it all.
“Zoro–” Sanji wanted to scream, really, but his unused voice broke in his throat. He found himself running before he processed the wind against his face, the destroyed stones giving under his feet with his wide, frantic strides.
“Zoro!” He yelled when he could gather enough saliva to gulp down the huge ball of no, no, no’s he found in his mouth. Sanji could hear the crew near, somewhere, waking up in tired groans and bright cheers. Oblivious to this huge crisis.
Fuck a crisis, this was an impasse.
“Zoro!” It rasped his throat, every letter like a plea in a foreign language. “Mosshead!”
Fucking idiot. Where is that jerk.
“Moss!” He yelled again, choking. “Zoro!”
A flash of green caught the corner of his eye, stopping Sanji in his tracks. He knew it was him before his eyes could focus, not a single plant in this gloom and decaying island could compete in saturation.
“Phew, you scared me–” Sanji scoffed, walking closer, not really caring about the embarrassing admission. He would deny it later between kicks to Zoro’s thick skull, it didn’t matter. The– God, the relief almost made him dizzy. He slipped his hands into his pockets, trying for nonchalant while hiding his tremors and subconsciously searching for his pack of cigarettes.
They remained hidden for mere seconds, for all it took Sanji to realise that as much as Zoro was standing on his own two feet, Sanji should remain scared.
The whole place smelled of blood.
“Hey–” There was so much of it, painting the surrounding demolitions in dirty red. It couldn’t all be from Zoro, it couldn’t. Sanji reached with a hand when he closed the distance, not being brave enough to touch. “What happened here?”
“Ng–”
Zoro looked like he was disintegrating and sounded like death itself. All of him an open wound that was keeping itself upright by a mysterious force. Stubbornness, Sanji called it in days he felt generous. Atrocious stupidity, recklessness, downright suicidal arrogance, he called it most of the time.
In the deep of the night, though, when sleep got away from him long enough, he called it bravery. The once in every few centuries’ kind of courage. Bravery big enough to conquer his dream, bravery strong enough to let it go for his captain’s.
Bravery. That’s what Sanji called it
“Nothing… happened.”
But not today. Today it was insulting. Sanji meant to scream to all Gods. But he couldn’t, not when Zoro was collapsing to the ground and the only thing separating him from a new concussion were Sanji’s arms around him. His knees had the audacity to give up on him, now, of all the fucking times, and he ended kneeling with Zoro in his arms.
“Hey,” he called. “Don’t fall asleep. I’ll get Chopper, don’t you dare take a nap–”
Zoro still sounded like death. His breath was raspy against Sanji’s shoulder, aching and weak. His chest didn't fill, whistling, like the air was getting lost in its way to his lungs. It was horrible. He was warm, which wasn't uncommon for a green human furnace like him, but he was scalding against Sanji, feverish. His skin burning in the bleeding patches Sanji’s hands were able to graze across.
“Chopper–” Sanji called, choking with the name at feeling Zoro’s weight become heavier, limp. “Fuck! Don’t – Don’t fall asleep. Chopper! ”
It was of no use. They were too far away, Sanji’s voice too frail. Zoro was dying.
And his dream, the one he blindly tossed to the sky while bleeding over the Baratie’s deck, was dying with him. It was that what made Sanji groan into action. His arms clung tighter, arranging Zoro’s body for carrying before standing. The weight was lethal, tearing at his quads with every struggling step.
“Cook.” Zoro’s voice rasped, more of a groan than a word.
“No. Keep it to yourself.” Sanji could feel it battling against his panic, an anger dark enough to threaten with tearing apart all of him. Zoro dared to shift then in his arms, Sanji didn’t know what was heavier, Zoro almost lifeless body or the betrayal he felt embedded into his two broken ribs.
“Be still, and shut up.”
He thought Zoro understood. He thought the swordsman saw him as an equal. But he clearly didn’t, and now Sanji had to endure feeling Zoro’s blood seep into his clothes, touch his skin, and taint everything.
Sanji hadn’t noticed before, how much distance he had run to find Zoro, but now as his heart beat in his mouth he noticed every broken slab of concrete he had to jump through, every meter that could be Zoro’s last. He called for Chopper again and again, feeling the sound of his voice tearing apart his throat.
“Sanji?” He finally, finally heard their little doctor call back, even if still considerably far away.
“Curly.” It was more of a wheeze than a call.
“I told you to shut the fuck up.”
“San–”
“No! Just listen to me for once in your life and be quiet.” Sanji felt like he was going to shatter if Zoro coughed another iteration of his name, and he couldn’t shatter, not now. Not until the idiot was safe.
“Sanji!” It was Luffy now, closer. Zoro didn’t speak this time but shifted once again in his arms, restless in the face of what ought to be unnamable pain, the weakest whine pouring into the nook of Sanji’s neck. His hand twitched weakly, brushing against Sanji’s side before falling limp again.
“Sanji-kun!” It was Nami the first one to see him, see them. And the way her face paled was something Sanji would have to repent for eternally. “Is that… Zoro! Oh my God– Chopper!”
Something in her voice, usually so neat and commanding, alerted everyone that something was terribly wrong. In just a few seconds, they were surrounded.
Robin’s infinite and delicate hands wrapped around Zoro’s body, his shoulders, his legs, and Chopper appeared in front of Sanji in his Heavy Point. His big eyes were wide in dismay —the usual reaction, Sanji was sure no amount of medical knowledge could prepare a kid to be the final wall between death and his friends.
“Sanji-kun.” Robin called, ever so gentle. “You can let go now.”
His hands snapped open, as if burnt, when he realised he was holding onto him so tightly he wasn’t allowing Robin to take care of Zoro. He stepped away, his empty hands closing and opening by his sides.
“What happened?” Chopper asked while Robin lowered Zoro’s body to the ground. Sanji felt cold and too light without the weight bearing down on him.
“Uh–” Sanji watched as a slender hand touched Zoro’s bloodied neck with two fingers. “No– Nothing.”
“What do you mean nothing?!” Chopper downright wailed. “Something must ha–”
“Chopper-kun!” Robin cried out. “No pulse!”
Sanji’s heart lurched, running erratically against his throbbing ribs, like it wanted to overcompensate for Zoro’s absence of rhythm. Luffy screamed something, Usopp answered, his voice faltering. Robin had to snap Chopper out of it, reminding him he knew what he had to do to bring their swordsman back, when their doctor had only a second of doubt.
Sanji observed in a daze all the manoeuvre. Frozen under the claw of panic, he watched as Chopper and Robin tried again and again to reanimate a devastated man in the middle of a devastated place. Not a single sound trespassed Sanji’s ears, more than Chopper counting the beats he pressed against Zoro’s tattered chest. It wasn’t his guilt turning him deaf, Zoro was dead right in front of them and no-one in the crew dared to fall into hysteria.
It was a close friend, an intimately known state for Sanji. He felt it buzzing, sizzling, rupturing and just so, so near to exploding. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the scene, he had been there. He had– Fuck, he should’ve planted his feet better, dodged Zoro’s hit somehow. He knew the asshole, he knew his movements, his attacks, he should’ve–
“Oh, thank goodness–” Robin finally said, cutting through the suffocating silence like a blade. She said something to Chopper, who nodded quickly before standing. Zoro looked so small in his Heavy Point arms.
Then they were gone in a blur, a poodle of blood in the middle of their shocked group the only proof that Chopper was inside Moira’s half-demolished castle still fighting against death, so it released its fangs from Zoro.
It all came crashing at once, Sanji looked up from the place that was Zoro’s deathbed for some seconds just to come face to face with his captain. Luffy looked back at him, pale and shocked. Sanji had the horrendous urge to apologise, to sink to his knees and beg Luffy for forgiveness for allowing this nonsense to happen. Instead, he reached out for Nami.
She clung to him the second he stepped close enough, and Sanji really, really didn’t have it in him to rejoice in her touch. Not when she sobbed against his chest, tightening her hold around the lapels of his jacket, almost tearing them.
“He’s going to be okay, right?” She hiccuped, still crying fat tears. Sanji’s hands faltered where they were trying to comfort their navigator. He had never lied to the crew. Omitted things? Plenty, but lie, he never did. He hoped this wasn’t the first time.
“Of course, my dear. It’s Zoro,” Sanji said, “He can’t die.”
Sanji’s guilt didn’t allow him to console Nami, and so when she calmed the smallest it, he called Usopp over. They hugged immediately, falling into a mutual fresh wave of tears while Sanji stepped away. He wished he could do something for them, but Zoro had beat him to the one thing that came to mind.
Luffy was still in the same place, frozen on the spot, hat obscuring his eyes that were lost looking at the red poodle between them. He met Sanji’s eyes suddenly, sharp, like feeling Sanji’s eyes on him, and he had to run. Sanji turned on his heels, looking for something to get busy with.
There was plenty of work to do, lots of provisions to gather and carry to the ship. Not even injuries were able to tame Luffy’s hunger, so now that he was completely healthy, it wouldn’t be long before he became a threat to their food reserves.
A banquet. Luffy surely would want to hold a banquet when Zoro– Shit.
Sanji gulped, looking down at his soaked suit. The maddening warmth of Zoro’s blood was being replaced by a cold stickiness that made Sanji sick to even acknowledge. He knew he would scrub his skin raw and still feel the red stains for a long time.
The kitchens were exactly like the rest of Gecko Moria’s castle—grand but neglected, decadent but decayed. The iron door Sanji had to push to enter was big, heavy. Utterly useless and impractical for a door that had to be opened with dishes and platters in each hand more often than not. That alone told Sanji the vast space had rarely been used. The other clue was the faint, sour tang of rotting food permeating the stale air.
He stepped further inside. The room was ridiculously large, with high ceilings veiled in cobwebs and soot-darkened beams. Massive, tarnished copper pots hung along the walls, their surfaces dull with grime. The stone counters were cracked, and the remains of broken glass and discarded utensils littered the floor, crunching under his shoes.
Shelves lined with glass jars stretched along one side, their murky contents preserved in thick, cloudy liquids. Sanji grimaced as he spotted something inside a jar that looked like pickled eyeballs.
Despite the state of the place, there was something to be found. He discovered a few crates of potatoes and onions that had miraculously survived the years, along with sacks of flour and dried herbs. An old, but still-sealed, container of salt gave him some hope, while a bundle of garlic hanging from a nail seemed untouched by decay. Sanji searched, smelled and gathered everything that would be of use, fighting against his anxieties. His hands never faltered, never stopped, just to lit yet another cigarette, knowing the collapse was imminent if he did.
The main room was luminous enough, with the sun fighting to get through the thick layer of filth that covered the tall stained-glass windows, but Sanji’s gut roared when he came face to face with a little wooden door by the east-end of the main kitchen.
As he expected, the pantry was extracted directly from his nightmares. A narrow, claustrophobic corridor of wooden shelves. He left the door open, allowing the smallest bit of light from outside to seep through, knowing that if he closed it, the tiny, erratic scrapes of the cockroaches littering the corners would become too much.
Sanji found the instinctual, stubborn fear in his stomach of help. No time to worry about selfish, thick-skulled crewmates dying bled out if his mind was busy with another kind of terror, even though it brought back words that felt a bit too appropriate.
A bug raced by the corner of his eyes, and he could almost hear his father call him a useless waste of space. He winced, taking a big inhale of his cigarette and refusing to think of people destined to greatness dying in his place. Of dreams and legs lost for an ungrateful brat.
It worked, it really did. A most convenient distraction. He checked barrels of pickled vegetables stacked against the wall, jars of spices with missing or faded labels. A burlap sack in one corner leaked grains onto the floor, and a small mound of rice had attracted a colony of ghostly pale worms. In the farthest end of the pantry, a dusty wine rack precariously stood on corroded legs.
His hard work at walking himself away from a panic attack by running towards another fell useless in the face of the lonely wine bottle stored there. Sanji recognised the label, the year. A harsh, bitter thing. Not the fanciest wine you could find, but just the bottle Sanji would buy in his provision-shopping escapades, if he had a coin or two to spare by the time he had everything on his list.
His hand trembled, reaching out for the neck bottle. In horror, he realised his eyes burnt with the effort of holding tears back. Sanji didn’t know if he should take the bottle with him, if anyone would try to sneak into his galley to steal it anymore. It would live forever in the cupboard, waiting to be drunk and Sanji would turn crazy, unable to drink it himself or throw it away. He didn’t think that was a better fate than rot away in this mouldy pantry.
“Cook-san” Robin’s soft but eerie voice called suddenly, making Sanji jump in place. He knocked his head against the shelves above the wine rack.
“Fucking shit–” he cursed, rubbing at his scalp and turning to see from where was she speaking.
“Oh, apologies for startling you.” A mouth attached to the thick stone wall said.
“No need, it was just… unexpected.” The fact that he got himself to the brink of hyperventilation just so he couldn’t think about Zoro was a detail Robin didn’t need to know. “How can I help you, my dear?”
“You can’t,” She teased, the lone mouth smiling sweetly, but Sanji felt the words against his still bruised ribs. “Just wanted to let you know the surgery has finished, our swordsman is finally at rest.”
“Huh?!”
“He’s unconscious, will be for a few days according to Chopper, but stable. Luffy wants a banquet to celebrate.”
Sanji braced himself against the rack, right hand creeping up to clutch at his chest. Why did she need to word it like that.
“Uh– Good, that’s good. Of course he’s fine, I’m not that lucky.” He chuckled an ugly thing, almost deranged. “Wasn’t worried.”
“Mmh,” She hummed, and Sanji didn’t know if she was agreeing or calling him out in his bullshit. “We’re settling on the big hall, it’s half-demolished but still usable. Do you need some help with the preparations?”
Sanji had to blink a couple of times, forcing his brain to reboot. Zoro was stable. Nothing was lost. He hadn’t ruined this family. “Yes, tell Usopp and Franky to meet me in the Sunny in about half an hour.”
“Sure thing. Can’t wait to taste what you’re going to prepare for us this time, Sanji-kun.”
“Awww, Robin-chan.” He twirled around in the pantry, making himself dizzy with the movement and his still aching joints and the relief. So big and so whole. “I’ll make anything your heart desires!”
When he stopped spinning, the mouth had already disappeared. He sighed, his smile faltering. The silence in the pantry was beyond creepy, and it took one cockroach coming slightly closer for Sanji to grab the wine bottle and get the shit out of there.
Saying half an hour instead of a full one had been the right call. Knowing that Usopp and Franky were coming kept Sanji from stopping. He ran to the ship with the little provisions he could save from the castle, peeled his soaked suit off and had the fastest bath of his life. The water scalded open his wounds and turned pink with the blood. He watched mesmerised how it drained when he plugged out the bath, not knowing where his blood ended and Zoro’s began.
It was weird to do this alone, the group baths had become a tradition after a win the same as the banquets, but as he towelled off, he was a little grateful for the unsettling solitude. Zoro was safe, but Sanji still had so much to digest, he simply refused to.
Soon enough, Franky’s voice boomed through the Sunny, calling for him, and Sanji groaned a little. He got dressed, putting on the first thing he saw and kicking his ruined suit under his bunk bed to sort out another day, before getting on the deck and start ordering around.
Between the three of them they carried everything necessary for the feast in a breeze, portable kitchenette included because Sanji refused to set foot in the castle’s kitchen again.
“Blue looks super on you!” Franky beamed as they unloaded the crates with the meat right outside the dinning hall.
“Mystery solved!” Usopp cheered then, catching up with them with his hands full of vegetable sacks. Sanji realised his eyes were red-rimmed, puffy around the edges. “No-one ever claimed that hoodie. Luffy and I thought it was Zoro’s but, uh, well, he’s not very fond of covering up, is he?”
Sanji looked down, to, in fact, face a blue hoodie over his own body.
It wasn’t his.
And by the amount of time he had seen it around and the amount of fabric hanging out his torso and arms, it could only be Zoro’s.
A swirl of nausea almost got the best of him, but that, at least, was familiar enough. It was the same head-rushing sensation he had every time Zoro’s hands lingered on him during a sparing session.
He choked on it, actual coughs coming out his mouth, while he dismissed Usopp’s teasing questions. At least he wasn’t crying anymore, Sanji supposed. He grabbed the kitchenette and got inside the hall, wanting to get on working as soon as possible.
The dizzying, embarrassing, heat he felt on the tips of his ears morphed immediately, turned so sour he almost grimaced at the taste of it on his tongue. By the other end of the massive room, there was a lump of bandages, with only a few strands of grass-like hair escaping the wrappings. Sanji decided then and there he wasn’t getting remotely close to that side of the hall. Better far away than kicking an unconscious man.
The banquet was in full swing not long after, but it wasn’t really alive until Luffy came in bouncing against the walls, unsurprisingly ending plastered over Sanji’s back like a koala while he flipped some roasted meats over the fire.
“Sanji!”
“Hands off– Hands off!” Sanji screamed as soon as he welcomed the weight on his back. He widened his stance so he could bear it while continue cooking. “It’s still not done.”
“It smells sooooooooo good–” Luffy whined. “Make sure to make loads, we’ve a lot to celebrate!”
“You mean that stupid ball of moss not kicking the bucket? Nothing to celebrate about that.”
Luffy giggled, wrapping his arms tighter around Sanji’s neck. “Chopper says it was a matter of minutes.” Don’t, Sanji pleaded in his mind. “Soooooo, you saved Zoro.”
“That’s it. Off.” Sanji said, dropping the tongs he was using to turn the vegetables frying on a pan. “Off, I said!”
Luffy eventually disentangled, still giggling his way out. When Sanji returned to the cooking, he noticed a missing meat leg from the roast. Despite himself, despite the screaming winds in his head, it made him hide a small smile. That was Luffy, he guessed, seeing saviours in people that were little more than a curse with legs.
He piled plates with meats and rich stews, moving through the tables like a ghost, busying his hands to quiet everything else. The others were loud, animated as always, Luffy shovelled food into his mouth at a pace crazy even for him. Brook chained lively little tunes on the piano and Sanji doubted if he needed food at all. He ended up leaving a tray with a bit of everything by the piano, which won him a full-toothed grin —the only kind Brook gave, kind, even with how disturbing they were— and a song dedicated to ‘the chef’ that the whole room joined to sing along.
He avoided the other end of the room like the plague. No, not avoided. He acted like it didn’t exist. And it didn’t, for most of the night.
But Chopper.
He danced and singed, he played with Luffy. At the beginning, that is. Sanji watched as the little reindeer turned every few minutes with worry in his eyes. Sure, the rest of the crew disappeared by turns, going to that zone that didn’t exist, but for Sanji the worst was Chopper.
It didn’t matter how hard everyone tried to make him relax, have a fun time after a though battle, Chopper ended up coming back to that end of the room. And Sanji couldn’t bear to see his restless hooves, his fidgeting eyes.
When all the meat was already served, Sanji quickly whipped up a sweet little treat. It wasn’t cotton candy, but Sanji hoped the insane amount of sugar in it compensated for the change.
He walked through. With wide, confident steps. He looked at Chopper and only at him. Offered the sweet, accepted the not-gratitude and the little dance Chopper always did when flustered. He rubbed his head over the hat. Smiled. Looked at Zoro.
What traitorous, traitorous eyes.
It almost cost him the life. His chest tightened, like it was shrinking, like there was a— a vacuum space where he supposed had a heart. Zoro’s was pale, borderline grey, from all the blood lost. And his face, God, he was asleep, tubed to Chopper’s strongest narcotics and still looked in hideous pain. Brow so tense, like he had when he was in a serious battle. So far from the surprising, ridiculous, infuriating softness that enveloped him while napping by the mast, bathed in warm sunlight.
He wasn’t resting. He was still fighting to come back.
Sanji heaved, looking sharply away. He looked back again. He could feel Chopper’s worried eyes on him, on this embarrassing display. Get a fucking grip.
But Zoro– Something was wrong with him. No, not the smell of medicine and death. Not his drained complexion. Not the bulge of his splintered bones. No. Sanji couldn’t place it, couldn’t pinpoint what exactly was his gut reacting to.
“Are you okay, Sanji?” Chopper asked, tiny voice. Sanji despised that their doctor could tell how distressed this stupidity was making him. Zoro was okay. He got this hurt other times.
But he never doubted Sanji’s strength like this time. Maybe that was what he couldn’t wrap his head around.
“More than ever.” Sanji smiled, taking the empty dish from Chopper and going back to the cooking station.
Fuck Zoro. Fuck him.
Fuck him very much.
That was what Sanji still thought about hours later. Everything was wrapped and collected, pantry full, course set. Nami had announced they would be lifting the anchor first thing in the morning, so she could make the most of the sun hours and try to get out of Thriller Bark’s influence –or lack of– on the Log Pose.
Not that it mattered, or made a big difference with his usual sleeping pattern, but Sanji couldn’t rest a blink. No matter how demolished his body felt, how torn his muscles were. He looked and looked and looked at the underside of the bunk on top of his one.
Couldn’t hear a snore. Well, there were Usopp’s nasal little mumbles, and Franky’s throaty snarls, even some new unnerving whistling breaths, but nowhere to be heard were those deep, raspy grunts that made his eyes twitch and his leg to kick the wood beams above him until they stopped or Zoro’s sleepy grumbles told him to fuck all the way off.
By the third hour tossing and turning in bed, he couldn’t bear it anymore. He got out to the deck to smoke.
He always liked the feeling of the Sunny at night. Not the darkness of it, but the enveloping calm. When the excitement and the exuberant energy simmered down, and the moonlight bathed the ship. In those moments he could unbutton the collar of his shirt, chain-smoke for pleasure, not stress, prep what he could of the next day’s meals and just. Breathe.
He couldn’t breathe now. Not when seeing the flickering orange light coming dimly from the infirmary’s door window.
He shouldn’t.
He knew he shouldn’t.
For all of his neuroses, Sanji prided himself —internally— in knowing how they exactly worked. He didn’t control them, that much was obvious, but knew what could make them explode. And the sick cocktail he was trying to ignore was a clear, loud and glaring sign. He shouldn’t see him now.
He knocked softly on the infirmary door. Inside, Chopper looked up at him from his desk, where he was busy jotting down something.
“Sanji?” He said. “Is something wrong? Are you hurt?”
“No, no.” Sanji quickly dismissed, closing the door behind himself in a soft click, “Just checking on you.”
For a second, Sanji thought Chopper was going to cry, with the way his eyes welled up, but thankfully he controlled it. Sanji feared he would start to cry too if he didn’t.
“I’m– I’m okay, Sanji. Thanks.” He said, not meeting his eyes. “It’s my job.” His gaze wandered behind Sanji, to the bed, he guessed.
Selfish prick. Stupid, empty-headed moss ball. Look what you did.
“Tell you what.” Sanji whispered, conspirationally. “There are some left-over sweets from the feast in the fridge, and I didn’t put the Luffy-lock tonight.”
It was a poor, poor attempt at comfort, but Sanji knew there was not a single thing he could say to convince the doctor to go to sleep for the night.
“I’ll look after him, take your time.” He tried to smile as reassuringly as possible, which didn’t feel like much.
Obviously, Chopper didn't look convinced. Fair, Sanji thought. He couldn’t promise he wasn’t going to strangle the bastard to death the second Chopper was out of sight. But he still went and left Sanji alone, maybe proof of how tired he really was.
Sanji listened his hooves squeak as he went, until all that he could hear was the beeping of the monitor attached to Zoro, and, behind, oh so subtly, Zoro’s breathing. He grabbed Chopper’s chair and turned, sitting beside the bed.
Zoro looked less in pain, but still terribly wrong. Wrong in the way that Sanji couldn’t even fix his eyes in him for too much when all he wanted was to look. To check his heart didn’t stop, that his chest raised rhythmically.
Something was wrong with him to Sanji’s eyes, and he was almost convinced it was just his stupid hurt feelings making his vision unreliable. How unfair, how deeply unfair.
“Fuck you.” He said, feeling the lack of response like a punch. “Do you need the attention this much? Couldn’t let anyone else be the hero, huh?”
Zoro breathed shallowly, the monitor beeping steadily. How hard would it be to find another decent chef? In these waters, not much. It didn’t need to get to these lengths. This was unnecessary.
“I’m not–” Sanji had to cut himself. He stood, looming over Zoro and speaking through gritted teeth. “I’m not cooking you a goodbye party, are you listening?” His eyes darted over his features, looking for a fraction of a reaction. “I’m not cooking for your funeral, I hope you have that clear.”
And that’s when Sanji saw it. Them. Two.
Dangling from a bandaged ear, golden and deeply wrong because they missed one.
Sanji froze. The uneven gleam of the metal caught the light of the candle Chopper had lit by his desk. It was wrong in a way that knotted his stomach and made his hands, gripping the edge of the bed, twitch.
They were always there, swaying with every moment, glinting with the light, chiming gently with every step Zoro took. One being lost made the same sense as one of his katanas being gone. It just didn’t.
He dropped back into the chair, that creaked under his weight. He couldn’t help but let his mind race, jumping from memory to memory. How his eyes would always drift there, to that particular spot, mid-fight or mid-drink, and he would wonder if they’d feel cold against his palm if he ever dared to reach out.
It was one of his little silent obsessions, one of those compulsions he would rather die than voice out. Zoro and his thing with the number three. It made Sanji stare and get frustrated, trying to discern if it was just a fashion choice or if his earrings were what his hat was to Luffy.
He didn’t know, he never guessed and of course he never asked, but just the thought of them being that important had him standing. His eyes flicked back to the empty space where the third earring should’ve been, and something sharp lodged itself in his gut. He told himself it was anger—that it was just frustration at Zoro for being so stupid, for throwing himself into danger like it was a sport. But it didn’t feel like anger.
It felt like loss.
Before he even processed it, he was getting out of the infirmary. Sitting there was not possible anymore, not with Zoro looking so wrong, so incomplete.
Luckily, Chopper was already on his way back, and Sanji didn’t need to explain too much when they crossed paths. He stepped on the railing, eyes gazing across the huge horizon of Thriller Bark, and jumped until stepping back on the crumbling terrain of the castle.
Maybe the mosshead would wake up and mock him for caring, but the thought of sailing away and leaving that little piece of Zoro behind between the rubble, in this abandoned ship, gnawed at him like a life or death urgency.
He couldn’t face Kuma, he couldn’t protect his crew, his rival, but he wasn’t leaving without the earring.