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“What’re you staring at.”
Zoro blinked and almost smacked himself. Sanji was giving him that shitty look. So Zoro wrinkled his nose and glared right back.
“Don’t flatter yourself. You just walked in my line of sight.” Zoro narrowed his eye, and he looked away. “I should be the one complaining.”
“Whatever.”
And at that, Zoro was left alone in the galley. He couldn’t even remember when he’d wandered in there. Couldn’t remember why. Maybe there wasn’t even a real reason.
He hated looking at Sanji, hated watching him and the way he made a fool of himself all the damn time. So it was annoying as hell that he found himself doing exactly that — looking at Sanji, watching him when nobody else was around to notice. Annoying that he did it constantly these days.
This was stupid.
“Are you okay?” Usopp asked him after sitting next to him in silence for a good twenty seconds.
“Hm?” Zoro half-grunted, leaning up against the main mast, his legs folded and his focus on the sea.
Usopp had just walked right up to him, and he sat down by him on the bench there, and he took a deep breath, and then he’d hesitated. Zoro had almost shouted at him to spit it out, but Usopp was a man who’d come a long way in the past couple years.
“You’re extra pissy lately, and if you couldn’t bend me in half the wrong way with one hand, I’d say you were acting like kind of a baby.”
Zoro snorted. “Coming from you, that’s a lot.”
“Hey! Well. Eh. Okay.”
For a few beats, Zoro let the silence settle between them. And when he spoke, his voice was level.
“Is it that bad?”
“So there really is something wrong?” Usopp raised his eyebrows. “Damn, I didn’t expect you to admit to it.”
“There’s nothing — it’s not. It’s not — just, shut up. Nothing’s wrong.”
They sat there, saying nothing for another moment.
“Even Sanji can tell you’re acting different. He’s the one who told me to come bother you about it,” Usopp said quietly.
“Figures that shit cook couldn’t say anything himself.”
“Like you would’ve —“ Usopp almost laughed, kinda smiled, “ — opened up to Sanji.”
Zoro clenched his jaw. Fair point, though.
“Yeah, well I’m not gonna open up to anyone because I don’t have shit to open up about, so go somewhere else. Nothing’s wrong.”
“You’re worse at lying than I am, Zoro,” Usopp said with a bit of a sigh, and he leaned back against the mast, his shoulder against Zoro’s. He looked straight ahead with him, out to the ocean.
After maybe a minute, Zoro inhaled and said, “Hey, you remember that girl from your home town?”
“Kaya?”
“Hell if I know. The sickly one.”
“Kaya.”
“Okay, whatever — were you in love with her?”
Usopp made a noise like he was choking on his drink, except he obviously wasn’t. And then he suddenly laughed. “What?”
“What do you mean what—“
“That’s a weird thing to ask me out of nowhere.”
“Well, answer the question anyway.” Zoro huffed, glancing over at Usopp with his eyebrows knitting together.
“Okay! Jeez. No, I wasn’t. She was just a friend.” Usopp paused. “Why, are you in love?” And a smile crept across his face. “Were you gonna ask me what it felt like and how I knew?”
“No!”
Yes.
Zoro stood up abruptly, his hands in fists, and he glared down at Usopp. “I’m leaving. That’s not what I was — don’t be an idiot. Just shut up.”
And with that, Zoro turned on his heel and walked in the opposite direction.
Zoro was sweating while Sanji stared him down through the hair than hung over his face.
“Stupid shit-cook,” Zoro said in an even tone, hiding the way his breathing was getting heavier, controlling it, trying so damn hard to, anyway, trying to control everything, but his palms felt wet and his his pulse was punching through his veins, down to his fingertips. “I should just cut you in half and put everyone else out of their misery.”
Zoro clenched and unclenched his fists. He saw Sanji’s eyes shift to that and return to his face.
“The way I see it, the only one on this ship who’s miserable is you,” Sanji said, real quiet, and there was malice in his tone, and Zoro swallowed.
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
“Doubt that.”
Zoro suppressed the urge to erupt. Channeled and coiled it up.
“You love acting like you always know everything that’s going on,” Zoro said after a second. “Like you’re so damn aware.” He licked his lips, tasted salt, locked on Sanji’s sharp gaze and the way it was zeroed in before he continued. “But you’re a bumbling idiot that everyone tolerates at best because you’re decent at cooking.”
Normally they stuck to name calling. This was different, and Zoro’s heart was fucking pounding.
He couldn’t remember how this fight had escalated so quickly and stuck to words instead of kicks and swords and lunges. He didn’t like it. But Sanji was backing him into a corner. Not literally, but Zoro couldn’t really move all the same.
Screw that.
“If you don’t pull your act together—“ Sanji started, but Zoro forced a step forward.
“You’ll what,” Zoro smiled a little, cold, it felt off, “teach me some manners, or something.”
“I’ll kick your fucking face in is what I’ll do,” Sanji replied, putting his cigarette out in the ashtray that sat on the galley table.
The room felt small. Zoro just wanted Sanji to do it already. Enough talking. Talking wasn’t going to fix anything.
Just get it over with.
“You’re not really strong enough to do something like that,” Zoro said in return, almost casually, because he knew that’d piss Sanji off more, “but you could try your very best. I’d entertain it.”
“Stupid fuck,” Sanji said, walking towards him, murder in his eyes, and Zoro almost looked away.
Instead, he cleared his mind and anticipated the attack.
Sanji moved, and in that split second, Zoro reached for his katana. Got his hand around the hilt. And then everything moved much faster and slower than that all at once. Too fast for Zoro to react, but so damn slow that he caught every detail.
Zoro went to yank his katana from its sheath, and in that clean swipe of motion, he was met with the bottom of Sanji’s shoe — the steel sole connected with the end of the hilt, and before Zoro could remove the sword from its sheath completely, Sanji kicked it right back in, and it clicked into place, snug, as Zoro stumbled with the misplacement of weight.
Sanji used his momentum, spun once, nailed Zoro right in the side of his ribcage, and that alone sent Zoro flying.
Damn. That was pretty good.
Sanji stood there, hands at his sides, watching as Zoro picked himself up off the ground, ignoring the splintering cracks he’d put in the Adamwood of the galley wall.
Zoro was frustrated. He was angry. This wasn’t right. And Sanji could feel all that, probably. And Zoro didn’t know how to put an end to it — not with words, anyway. That was why Sanji was doing all this right now, wasn’t it. And that was why Sanji had sent Usopp to him. Because Zoro couldn’t put an end to it.
“Asshole,” Zoro muttered under his breath, unsheathing two swords.
Whatever.
Zoro leapt forward, and Sanji was ready for him.
Violence was an escape for the both of them, but in different ways. Zoro’s power came from intense discipline and control, through precision and a clenched jaw with teeth that bit down hard. Sanji’s strength came from pure, bubbling rage that tore his throat with rough screams and curses of anger and fire that exploded outwards.
In both circumstances, their minds were wiped clean, and it was that — that state of mind that balanced them.
However, their roles were switching.
Sanji met every attack with calculated counters, like he was waiting for every move, quiet and flowing. And Zoro stopped trying to contain his frustration. He shouted.
“You’re so full of shit!” he yelled, uncharacteristic, but Sanji wasn’t thrown off. He met Zoro’s words and his blades with the bottom of his shoe, kicking him away with his hands in his fucking pockets.
“You’re one to talk,” Sanji replied.
“Stop acting like you know a damn thing about me!” Zoro said in return, slashing outwards and laterally.
Sanji dodged. “You don’t hate me, I know that much.”
And Zoro shouted again.
He pushed forward, pushed harder, wanting more than anything to overpower Sanji and all of this, and he lashed out again, overwhelming and overwhelmed, hardly seeing anymore. But his eye was open. And he saw a splash of red, and his eye widened.
“Shit—“ Zoro said, faltering, but Sanji didn’t stop, didn’t hesitate.
With a hand clamped over the front of his throat, Sanji jumped and kicked him hard, right in the side of the head, and Zoro was knocked several steps sideways. And Sanji followed, his flow unbroken, and he kicked Zoro again, knocking away one sword, and Zoro’s arms felt so damn heavy out of nowhere.
Sanji had him up against the wall after that, a black leather shoe wedged up under his jaw and pressed hard against his throat, and Zoro couldn’t breathe anymore. He couldn’t move. He could in theory, but.
“You,” Sanji said, his voice cracking, kind of wet sounding, and there was red seeping between the fingers he kept pressed tight against his throat, “have been a dangerous and stupid asshole lately, and you’re going to get this crew in trouble if you don’t pull your shit together. That’s all there is to it.”
Zoro narrowed his eye, and he grabbed Sanji’s ankle and shoved his leg away, and Sanji just let him.
Sanji stood on two feet again, one hand in his pocket, the other over the front of his neck, glaring at Zoro. Waiting.
And Zoro didn’t actually know what to say. His eyes bounced between Sanji’s blue eye and reddening hand, and he still couldn’t really breathe as he said in a rough voice, “Just go see Chopper.”
Silence hung between them.
Sanji was complicated where Zoro was simple. Sanji was a river, constantly in motion and never still, winding his way around whatever he encountered, changing and shifting and calm at times but full of rapids at any turn, pulled along by gravity and deep and dangerous currents unseen by anyone else. And if Sanji was a river, Zoro was a mountain, carved through and scarred by swift and running water.
They had watch together that night.
It’d been a couple days since that fight they’d had, and they hadn’t really spoken much since.
“Hey,” Sanji said when he popped up through the porthole, joining Zoro in the crow’s nest.
Zoro grunted a bit in reply and turned his head to eye the bag Sanji had slung over his shoulder, watching him climb up through the porthole and walk over.
“I brought some things,” he said, and Zoro sat back and waited.
Sanji sat on the wooden floor in front of him, and he opened his bag and pulled out three dark bottles and a couple sandwiches.
“You brought booze,” Zoro commented, folding his arms in front of his chest.
This was weird.
“And snacks,” Sanji added, and he sat back, looking up at Zoro. “I’ve been thinking about you the past few days.”
Fuck, that felt awful to hear. That felt great to hear.
“Have you,” Zoro mumbled, watching Sanji’s fingers as he uncorked the first bottle.
“I have. Here—“ Sanji said, and he passed the bottle to Zoro. And then he didn’t say anything else. Just sat there, looking stupid as always. Looking right up at him, hunched over, elbows on his knees and his neck wrapped in white bandages.
“What’s all this about?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. Can’t beat it out of you, so…” Sanji trailed off, and then he cleared his throat.
“You think you can give me some liquor and we’ll have a heart to heart and that’ll fix it.”
Zoro didn’t see a need to sugarcoat things anymore. They were past that now, somehow.
“Well, not exactly. But something like that,” Sanji said, standing up and stretching and letting his arms fall to his sides before taking a seat on the bench next to Zoro.
Zoro didn’t say anything. Took a long drink instead.
“We’re not enemies,” Sanji said after a minute or so.
“No,” Zoro agreed, exhaling a slow deep breath after another shot. “We’re not.”
“So why have you been such a damn prick the past month?”
“I—“ Zoro closed his mouth and paused. They didn’t talk like this very much. That made it worse. “Nothing important. I’ll get over it soon. Just, uh. Weird funk I’m in.”
“Well,” Sanji said, his posture shitty, fighting a yawn, “I hope so. You’re awful to be around.”
“Like anyone’s ever enjoyed your company.”
Sanji actually snorted instead of firing something back at him, and that was real shitty, too.
He didn’t want anything to change between them. He didn’t want Sanji to treat him any differently. Didn’t want to stop all the fighting. He hardly knew what he actually did want, but he was sure of that much.
Actually. This moment. This was exactly, exactly what Zoro craved. This was all he wanted, maybe. Just this. It would be enough.
Zoro went his whole life without feeling like he wanted to be close to anyone in particular. Before the strawhats, he pushed people away. He didn’t let people get close to him, kept them at a distance. That didn’t apply to the crew, really, except for one person. So maybe it was just. Maybe it was that, with Sanji — when Zoro pushed, Sanji just pushed back harder instead.
They sat there in the dark together, and they didn’t talk about any of this. They did talk, though.
It was weird. Idle conversation. They chuckled together a couple times, tired and worn, both of them sleep deprived and too used to the feeling.
Zoro moved onto the second bottle of liquor, and Sanji mentioned that he needed to make a pot of coffee, but he didn’t go anywhere. Lit another cigarette instead.
They talked about the crew a bit. About Luffy. Zoro told Sanji a bit about Mihawk, and Sanji had laughed at him, and Zoro had smiled a little.
Damn it, though.
Sanji opened the third bottle once the second was finished, and he took a small drink from it before giving it to Zoro. The sky was slowly fading from black to a hazy grey.
“I need to go make that coffee and start on breakfast soon,” Sanji muttered.
“You don’t sleep much, shit-cook.”
“Nah.”
The silence felt foreboding.
“So,” Sanji said quietly, and then nothing else.
The sound of the ocean lapping against the hull could be heard outside the glass windows.
“I told Chopper my neck got messed up in a freak cooking accident when the ship hit some bigger waves.”
Zoro set his bottle down on the bench next to him, and he curled his fingers inwards, fists in his lap, and then he just. Gave up.
He leaned over, and Sanji didn’t move, and Zoro pressed his lips against the side of Sanji’s neck, against the bandages wrapped tight around his throat, and still, Sanji didn’t move. Zoro felt the heat of Sanji’s skin beneath the cloth, against his lips, and he closed his eye, and he held his breath, and he felt his own heart beating.
And then, after that moment, Zoro pulled away, and Sanji, still, didn’t move. Didn’t look at him. His posture was still shitty, and his hands hung loose between his knees.
“I like you,” Zoro said, his voice wanting to falter, but he wouldn’t let it, wouldn’t let it go that far as he added, “You were right.”
Sanji nodded slowly and said nothing.
“I won’t do anything else. I’ll handle it.” Zoro swallowed and looked out at the rising sun with Sanji. “I’ll take care of it.”
As Sanji stood up slowly, he fished in his pocket for another cigarette, and he picked up the empty bag he’d used to carry all that booze up to the crow’s nest. And after he lit his cigarette, he spoke, eyes back on the sun at the horizon.
“I’ll see you in the galley for breakfast.”
Zoro didn’t reply. Rather, he watched Sanji turn towards the porthole, not looking back, and he slipped out, and Zoro sat back and took another several long gulps from his third bottle. And then he leaned over, elbows on his knees, and he put his face in his hands and exhaled very slowly.