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As Thriller Bark fell, the celebration rose and rose from the ground like the pseudo zombies had when the Straw Hat crew first laid anchor, and slowly sizzled out like salt raining down on the graveyard. While Luffy whined and moaned about how Zoro hadn’t even been awake for the celebration, about all the booze he didn’t get to drink, Chopper was a stone wall around Zoro’s makeshift infirmary bed, keeping anyone from trying to shake him awake.
The swordsman lay there throughout the party, wrapped up and reeking of antiseptic. During his encounter with Kuma he was struck down and sunk into deep, dark waters. It’s a terrifying experience for quite some time, to float in unknown waters with no light to guide you, nor a sense of direction — not that that was particularly Zoro’s strongest suit in the first place.
But in the quiet abyss, occasionally, the dull sensation of a hoof touching his arm would briefly float by, or he could make out the sound of what seemed like a thousand people singing along to a song — of which the title was on the tip of his tongue — far, far up on the surface, making the corners of his lips quirk up as far as he can muster. Fuzzy sensations would pass by Zoro, and he didn’t have the strength needed to swim upwards, to chase after them. Usually, it was a hand (or a hoof) sliding along his shoulder, carding through his hair, once even what he assumed to be a tankard bumping into his chin as a shrill voice yelled from miles away, that, no, Luffy! You can’t bribe someone into escaping a coma by offering them alcohol! If Zoro could chuckle, he might have. The little reminders of his nakama floating around made the impossibly dark waters more bearable. Either he’d died after his encounter with Kuma and this was it for eternity, or he was alive, asleep and not alone. Zoro could deal with either.
A few murmurs float around about having to set sail sooner or later, and Zoro becomes weightless for what feels like forever, only to then reunite with soft bedding once again. Cold hooves poking and prodding, a wave of warmth washing over him, and the shimmering sound of people up on the surface fades out. He’s alone, familiar scents enveloping him now. He’s alone, but he’s safe, floating in the depths of this strange ocean.
– ⋆˚꩜｡ –
Zoro’s body, however, has no plans of drowning anytime soon. Finally lurching to the surface, light breaks through. It’s nearly blinding, though it’s night when Zoro first cracks his eyes open. Pain zaps through him in an instant, like thunder striking down on the land of Skypiea, like the bubble of his captain’s suffering that he’d walked into headfirst. He has to clench his jaw to hold back a groan, which, bad idea, only causes his jaw to ache as well. Vulnerable, newborn, stripped bare, that’s how it feels to regain consciousness. He’s grateful no one’s circled around or hunched over him as he does so, staring him down with fear, pity, sympathy, whatever the crew, his crew, may feel were they to see him like this.
But there’s a dip in the mattress, like the dips of consciousness in the coma, a heavy dip that radiates warmth and rises and falls ever so slightly. Zoro’s able to crane his neck, ignoring his protesting muscles, and there lay the lovecook, dartbrow, Sanji, an unusually greasy looking mop of blond hair resting on top of the duvet. His legs are folded under him, back bowed like a cat and upper body resting on the bedding, arms folded underneath and supporting his head. It can’t be comfortable, but all that’s running through Zoro’s mind is how he’s actually there, likely exhausted, injured all over, dressed in a hoodie of all things — since when did he even own a hoodie? — boneless and breathing . And he’s quiet, which is such an unfamiliar occurrence between Sanji and himself that Zoro wouldn’t dare disturb him.
Zoro must’ve moved a little without realizing it himself, though, because the head of hair moves, tilts up, up, to the side, until the cook’s right eye peeks out, blinking open slowly. There’s a dark bag underneath it, like he’s been asleep by his side ever since Zoro himself was tucked into the infirmary bed. The peace is disturbed; Sanji’s eye widens suddenly. As if Zoro is a particularly large spider, the blond jolts and jumps up, stuttering and stumbling around his words about how oh, good, he’s awake, about how he should go and fetch Chopper.
Zoro thinks he may still be swimming, as Sanji’s voice isn’t quite as clear as he remembers. Wait, hold on, go and fetch Chopper? Zoro’s not having that, Sanji was being so nice and quiet by his bedside. A rarity he’s willing to cherish and hold onto, perhaps partially because he’s still a little loopy on anesthesia. And so, he croaks out a weak “Hold on.”
And it feels like a futile request, but miraculously, it works. Sanji stills, probably surprised Zoro’s able to speak at all despite his scratchy throat.
“Stay for a bit,” Zoro dares to try, and Sanji fidgets in place before deciding to indulge in this pathetic looking mummified boy. He lets out the breath he was holding.
“Let me just grab a glass of water real quick. You sound like shit,” and gods, Sanji’s right, he needs something to wash out the drought in his throat so bad that he disregards Sanji’s second comment. The cook pulls Chopper’s chair from behind the desk, rolls it up to bed. With a gentleness he hasn’t felt from the cook before, there’s a hand snaking underneath his upper back, helping him sit up (ow, ow, ow) as the other hand holds a tall glass for him, fresh painkillers ready on the tiny bedside table.
Hands that aren’t used for violence, yet they must’ve been stained with Zoro’s very own blood days, or however long it may have been ago, when the last thing he’d felt before his vision blacked out and his knees buckled were Sanji’s arms holding him up. Zoro winces at the thought of Sanji dragging his weight back on a broken leg to the commotion of people without even knowing whether the swordsman was still alive or not. Like he took a gamble, and hoped for the better.
Zoro’s got no time to reminisce on how he passed out and handed what little vitality he had left to his rival, his equal, his friend , though. He has bigger problems to worry about here and now, namely the pain throbbing through what feels like his entire nervous system, and said rival, equal, friend is currently helping him gulp down the water and painkillers as if his life depended on it (it felt like it did, honestly).
“You couldn’t have gotten me some sake, curls?” Zoro tries to jab, and only gets an unamused glare in return.
“No way in hell, Chopper would have my head. Or I’d end up bedridden together with you,” Sanji seems to visibly shiver at the idea. The reply is barely any different than usual. It’s playful, familiar, yet there’s a sharp edge to it. Sanji’s tense, terribly so, Zoro can tell.
The glass knocks against the wood as Sanji sets it down with a little more force than necessary. “For the record, I am pissed at you. Be thankful I’m not shoving this glass down your throat.”
“Well alright, I’m pissed at you too.”
“Of course you are. You just woke up from a week long coma and you’re pissed at me. Right,” Sanji grumbles under his breath. His leg is bouncing. It’s making the chair squeak.
For a few breaths, it’s quiet again. Zoro glances out the window; there’s no fog or clouds out there obscuring the moon, they’re already far, far away from Thriller Bark. He doesn’t have a clue as to how long they’ve been sailing for. Sanji takes out a cigarette, hesitates, realizes the little doctor isn’t there to hit him over the head for smoking in the infirmary, lights it up. Uses an old cup that’s still stood on the little table as a makeshift ashtray. Zoro sinks back down onto the pillow. The silence is dancing right on the borderline between pleasant and awkward. Zoro chooses to relish in it.
“It’s like you don’t even— consider yourself to be a part of the team, throwing yourself out there like that, like you’re our fucking knight in shining armor. You know that’s it, right? That’s why I’m pissed?” Sanji blurts out after a shaky, smoky exhale.
“Right, what did you want me to do? Lay back and watch him take Luffy’s head?”
Sanji’s mouth closes. It opens and closes again a few more times, like a gaping fish. Funny. Sanji looks a little bit like a fish sometimes, Zoro thinks. A seahorse, maybe, with their curled up tails and weird looking snouts. Sanji cuts through Zoro’s train of thought.
“I don’t— how would I know? I tried to come up with something else—”
“Right, by offering yourself up like a sacrificial lamb.”
“I wasn’t offering myself up like a sacrificial lamb.”
“You were, that’s why I knocked you flat on your ass,” Zoro chuckles humorlessly, staring daggers into the ceiling.
“We’re not getting anywhere with this,” Sanji moves to leave again. And something inside Zoro snaps, something that tells him to dig deeper under Sanji’s skin.
“Why were you here, anyway? Worried much?” Sword in hand, Zoro pushes.
“I wasn’t worried, I was just doing what our doctor asked me to.”
“Huh. Would you stay a little longer if I asked nicely?” The swordsman twists his blade further. “Would you make me little snacks, hand feed them to me because I can’t move my arms? Lull me to sleep if it turns out Chopper doesn’t have enough painkillers?”
“I’m not here for entertainment, Zoro, I’m here because someone had to keep watch over you and make sure you didn’t fucking flatline,” Sanji snaps. Touched a nerve there.
And it’s all so clear; the cook’s leg is still bouncing, his fingers fumble with the cigarette, other hand tugging on his hair. Seems backwards, doesn’t it? The cook, being scared, angry at the thought of losing Zoro? It’s so laughable, it makes them both uncomfortable. And there’s still something there, something unsaid, something shiny and valuable, floating just barely beneath the surface, and it’s well within reach.
“How’s the rest of the crew doing? They all alright?”
“Yeah, we all made it out. No one except you ended up bedridden either,” answers Sanji, glaring down at the duvet, as if it had personally offended him. He’s not letting his shoulders drop, the tension there only increasing.
Zoro adds fuel to the fire, as it’s all he’s ever known when it comes to Sanji. “Then I did what I had to do.”
Zoro needed Sanji out of the infirmary desperately, so that he didn’t have to look at how angry, yet devastatingly sad he looked, face pinched with misdirected worry, vaguely resembling a kicked dog. He either needed him to get out of the infirmary or for him to kick Zoro in the face. He needed him to stop doing whatever this was.
Zoro was fine, alive; Zoro didn’t need anyone hovering around him to make sure his heart’s still beating, not even the guy who matched him in strength. Especially not the guy who matched him in strength. Fussing from Sanji’s end in particular feels like a blow to the face, a piercing through his chest, a love letter. Something too sweet to be shared between the two of them. Sweets make Zoro gag. It’s one of the first things the cook learned about him, and by far not the first thing Sanji’s made fun of him for.
He needed Sanji to flee from the conversation, to burn up into fury and flames at the stupid, insensitive remarks, and instead Zoro was underwater again. “Why— you..” Unscarred, yet raw hands — as if they’d been washed a thousand times — grab his cheeks, push his face down, down. Zoro’s eyes are wide open, salt stinging. His heart is jackrabbiting and his lungs feel achy. He can’t breathe. It’s not until after Sanji pulls back and blinks down at him that Zoro realizes he’d felt Sanji’s lips on his; a gentle but insistent thing, mouths not even being given the time to open up. Sanji’s hands shake where they still cradle Zoro’s face.
Sanji, still blinking down at Zoro, murmurs a weak “Sorry,” as if being kissed by him is the worst possible thing that could have happened to Zoro in this scenario, or any scenario for that matter. Zoro would love to let him know that, no, this is absolutely not this argument’s worst outcome, Zoro’s head is pounding, that’s just silly, Zoro’s lungs feel like they’re about to burst from the pressure of the depths he’s been pushed into, please, could you do that again?
And then Sanji wobbles, “I really should go wake Chopper,” and he moves to stand up. And Zoro’s limbs feel too sluggish, too heavy to get them to move and to latch his hands around Sanji’s wrists.
And so Sanji finally flees the infirmary, leaving Zoro floating.