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Zoro hates running from danger, but here he is, sprinting like a coward but with a real coward in tow. A coward, a traitor, a fool. Zoro hates him.
"Moss, wait."
"I won't, you stupid fucker." Anger seeps through his teeth and into his words like a poison. "Luffy told me to-"
"Listen."
Sanji sounds alert, and that's the only reason Zoro obeys. He quickly makes it out: a quiet ticking, like there's a clock, but its hands are slowly but steadily picking up speed. Zoro throws up his head, ready to see a chaser or two. Sanji stumbles.
"I told you,” he grits, “I told you to leave me alone!"
It hits Zoro like a needle sent through a blowgun: somehow gentle, but then rapidly and overwhelmingly numbing. He hears a panic in Sanji's voice. It wasn't there when they first caught up on him in that stupid royal carriage. It wasn't even there when he was walking away, leaving Luffy all beaten up behind his back.
"What's that?"
"The handcuffs. They will blow my hands off."
Sanji sounds defeated. Like it's useless to fight anymore, even right in front of his best rival. That's the first time Zoro sees him like that, and it's disarming (huh), and it's devastating, but Zoro promised to his captain to bring this traitor back, whether to end him or to, fuck, forgive him. And there's no point in possibly forgiving him if this trash of a cook won't be able to do his job, right?
They'll blow, he said.
"I don't care,” Zoro steps closer, while Sanji takes a few steps back to slow down the ticking.
"The fuck you don't-"
Zoro firmly catches his hand and bends his thumb towards his palm to dislocate it. The joint leaves the socket with a sound that reminds of a knife put through a fish's spine to take the head off. Sanji gasps silently and freezes. His face is a mask of disbelief, and Zoro can almost smell his pain. Without a thumb on the way, he easily tugs on a handcuff and tosses it on the grass.
He takes Sanji by the other hand, but the cook remains immobile. With grim satisfaction, Zoro guesses that now he probably thinks how much he deserves it. Hell yes he does. Zoro cracks his other thumb and off the second handcuff goes.
"C'mon now."
Sanji doesn't move. He still stares right in front of him as if Zoro isn't even there.
"I said move it, you bitch!"
Zoro tugs him by the wrist, and Sanji stumbles, nearly falling. Zoro catches him in his arms, lifting him like a fucking bride. What an irony.
"Fuck you", he mutters, gaining speed. Sanji is so tense that if he were to fall he would probably shatter like some statue. He makes no try to hold on to Zoro, cradling his wrists on his chest instead. He suddenly feels very small, fragile even.
It doesn't matter, for Zoro has no pity for him, even when he starts trembling in his arms like an animal being taken to a slaughter. That's what Zoro thinks it is right before Sanji presses his forehead to his neck. His eyelashes are wet, Zoro feels it with his skin each time Sanji blinks. He leans his stupid head on him so gently and trustfully as if he doesn't know that Zoro would kill him on the spot. Except that he knows.
This whole thing feels rigged and unfair because of all the shit the cook put Luffy and the others through, only for Zoro to break his facade in a minute. And his fingers. The poor bastard probably cries like a girl now because he won't be able to hold a knife for a while, and that's for good as the said knife won't end in someone's back.
His tears are, like, a technical win of the stupid endless quarrel of theirs, but the taste of victory is bitter. When he was alone, Zoro was used to the taste; he never paid attention to the state his food was in, whether it was just stale or on the verge of rotting. Since he could stomach it anyway, he never cared. With Sanji, he did. Somehow he could hardly remember what bitter was like. On the tongue, though; with only his presence, Sanji won't allow him to forget how bitter the heart can be.