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Zoro refuses to allow the sour strain of anxiety that has been churning through him ever since he’d last seen his captain and the cook to take over everything else. Even though it’s louder and more insistent now that the battle has abated, and the only thing left to do is worry. Despite himself, though, the ugliness of it had seeped into every cell in his body as they’d made their way up the mountain pass. The easy way. Not right through the jagged edges of slippery stone that he sees on either side of the path. Not into the night through a snowstorm, and the cook… Just an idiot human.
In Luffy, the reckless disregard for himself is at least merited. Zoro doesn’t like it any more than on anyone else in his crew, hypocrite that he is, but he accepts it. Luffy isn’t indestructible, but mostly he is. On the waiter, though, with his too-thin shirts, and his stupid hair that distorts his field of vision, and not even one blade to guard him, the current of wildness that sometimes manifests itself agitates Zoro more than anything else. That stubborn determination of Sanji’s to dash himself against the cliffside, cost be damned. The one that, from nowhere, colors itself dark in the shadows beneath blue eyes and infects the cheerful expanse of the other’s smile, turning it into a vicious baring of teeth against some invisible foe that only Sanji can see. Stubborn, but somehow absurdly fragile. Unfocused, Zoro knows, distracted by the phantoms that whisper through his mind. But Zoro also knows a thing or two about being haunted, so he knows there’s that there’s no stopping Sanji as he kicks against his ghosts.
He should have gone with them.
When they finally make it into the witch’s castle, though, he forces calm. Discipline. One of them ought to be disciplined at any given moment, or they’ll drown in the ocean. Maybe spiritually, maybe literally. So he makes himself take in the room one inch at a time, in the order his gaze lands on its occupants, and refuses to allow his eyes to swing wildly onto the cook, to see if he’s still all in one piece.
First, there’s the new girl. Maybe not so new anymore, Zoro figures. An alright addition. Nami says she keeps her sane. And a sane Nami is important for their continued peace. So, Zoro supports her. Her eyes are bright and relieved, and that’s probably a good sign.
He gives her a nod as Luffy finally stirs to grin at them, rising from where he’d sprawled on the throne in the back of the room. His infectious, delighted victory smile sends bright flames into the dimness of the room. It’s a little smug, a little preening. But Zoro likes that smile; it always makes him want to grin back, his meticulously cultivated, cool stoicism be damned. And it loosens something tight in his chest to see it, even though he doesn’t smile back this time, the only outward manifestation of his relief coming in the form of a slight untensing of his shoulders.
When his eyes finally land on the waiter, though, everything tightens again, lips thinning. Sanji is splayed on the ground, and he’s the only one who hasn’t bothered to try moving yet, his hand draped across his side with the appearance of carelessness, that Zoro knows is anything but. His eyes zero in on the other’s prone form, glaring, and then for a brief breath of a moment, their gazes tangle as Sanji tilts his head up as though magnetically pulled by Zoro’s stare on him. Sanji’s deep, endlessly blue irises, shadows parted now, darkness blown away by the winds once more, deliver the perfect performance of innocence.
It only makes Zoro glower harder.
Why aren’t you standing? He wants to demand. What happened?
And somewhere deeper, in a softer construction that’s buried under layers that won’t let it fully unearth itself. Tell me you’re okay.
But Zoro can’t figure out how to say any of these things without sounding absurd. Knows that if he tries to craft the words on his tongue, they’ll whirl into something panicked and ridiculous. The cook is fine. Even if he isn’t standing. Even if something is off. He’s fine. He’s here. And asking after him in front of everyone isn’t something Zoro understands how to do without going too far.
So, he breaks the contact. Grumbles, “Where’s Nami?” instead. And allows the rest of the conversation to flow around him in waves. Lets himself be distracted by Luffy’s pleased recounting of the battle, by the way-too-adorable Reindeer Doctor who speaks, by Nami looking healthy and whole again, and Usopp’s tales of their own fight. If he tracks Sanji’s slow, curled-up shifts from lying to sitting to standing, a tense, rigid repositioning, out of the corner of his eyes… Well, it’s not his fault that a swordsman should always notice everything happening in a room.
---
He opens his eyes late into the night. Luffy’s snoring is where it should be. Usopp is muttering something about giants. And Chopper’s new soft snuffling noises are a fine addition to the cacophony of nights in the Going Merry. But, in among the rest, the deep breaths of the waiter are missing, not where they should be.
Goddamn waiter.
Zoro wasn’t really sleeping all that soundly, anyway, though. Had been tossing and turning for hours before he finally let this awareness dawn on him. So it’s not really out of any kind of specific concern, but more just because he doesn’t want to keep shifting, restless, frustration gathering in his bones, that he slips out of his hammock, and makes his way through the quiet ship.
When he finally emerges on deck, he takes a minute to inhale the salty air as it brushes, welcome and fresh, along his cheek, starting to warm again as they sail toward Alabasta. Around him, the remnants of good cheer and celebration from their welcome dinner for Chopper still cling to all the corners. Luffy’s raucous laughter echoes in his ear despite the silence all around him. The weight of Nami and Vivi’s shared glances lingering long in his awareness, loaded with something Zoro can’t fully understand. Usopp swings Chopper around in a dance neither of them really know behind his eyes, even as he takes in the emptiness of the space. And then there’s Sanji’s sunshine smile, brimming light even into the witching hour.
Good memories. Good ghosts. He tries to let these spectres infect him when he can, so his brain has a fighting chance when the blood-stained monsters come knocking. It hasn’t fully worked yet. But in a twist of fate not even he can fully comprehend, he finds he really thinks it will, someday.
But right now, Zoro considers, as he catches a glimmer of light from the kitchen, the door to the space slightly ajar, it’s not about the bad stretches of his own brain. Not exactly. And like a moth to flame, the beckon of the gleam draws him closer. Invites him to cross the remaining steps across the deck and into the dimly lit room, where one lantern flickers on the table, casting a dreamlike glow across the whole expanse. Where one shirtless waiter sits, holding his body carefully on the couch, and making sounds that aren’t fully words nor entirely exhalations of air.
Instead, a stream of pained gasps falls from the other’s lips in the cadence of swearing without any fully coherent constructions in the mix. Scattered around the other, and seemingly, recently tumbled to the floor, if the direction of the other’s stricken eyes is anything to go by, are a variety of balms, ointments, and rags that make Zoro squint, squeeze something in his chest, though he wouldn’t admit it.
Zoro slips across the room, soundless. He hadn’t pushed the door any further in when he’d entered, and he can blend right into the shadows when he sets his mind to it. So it’s only when he pads quietly over to pick up the fallen jars and slips onto the couch by the waiter that the other finally notices his presence.
On reflex, Sanji straightens defensively and surges backwards, away from the intruder, pulling his body into something like a battle stance. It’s sloppy, though, Zoro considers, as he takes in the other, damaged by the raw edges of anguish that keep him halting, and the normally defined lines of the other, sharply lethal and graceful, manifest as sluggish. Hurting in the way Sanji has been pretending he isn’t.
And then he’s hissing out a “Holy fuck, you goddamn bastard.” Which, Zoro assumes, is meant to be casually irritated, the way Sanji usually is with him when they’re goading one another out of boredom. But the words scrape out of the other’s throat all wrong, come clipped and tight. Sanji tries to release the tenseness of his limbs again as the shock settles away, but it gives only slightly, body still gingerly held, protective of itself.
And, maybe there’s a twist of mild guilt that surges through Zoro that he’d set this up on purpose. But he’d had to see what the other wouldn’t willingly show him. To get the measure of the situation in its purest form, not the prettied-up, lip gloss, bangs, and eyelash-batting version of events that Sanji would try to spin for him if he hadn’t.
“Uh-huh.” He blinks at Sanji, over exaggerated, then slowly places the balms he’d scooped up between them. “Having trouble bending over, I see.” He narrows his gaze over at the other, looking more intently now. “We have a doctor on board now, you know.”
“I never have any trouble bending over, Mosshead.” Sanji’s lips twitch momentarily upward, never able to resist an opportunity, and a bright glee, a new kind of life, gleams into him for a breath, his voice falling to pitch lower, a little more velvety, as he leans into Zoro’s space. “You should know that.”
But Zoro can still hear the way the words tremble at the edges, the uneven stutter-step of breath beneath the current of invitation. And he doesn’t miss the slight wince that flickers through the other’s features as he shifts. And even though he knows his ears have flushed red in the lamplight, Zoro doesn’t let himself get distracted.
“Looks like you are now.” He deadpans, dry as a bone, as Sanji huffs out a breath of humorless laughter and rolls his eyes, cautiously leans himself back against the pillows of the couch, eyes closing. Zoro can see the blaring exhaustion written into him now, finally surfacing as Sanji's defenses erode.
Silence for a beat. And then.
“What happened.” The question finally rolls out of him, the one he’s been chewing on all day, that he’s pushed down, and down. He doesn’t shape it like a question, though. Doesn’t put a question mark at the end. There’s no room to debate receiving a response. But, without his express permission, the sounds pitch soft as they leave his lips, come out somehow gentle.
Sanji nods into them as they land around him, a sigh escaping him that’s drenched in something like defeat, and something like relief. He presses his head back more firmly into the couch, exposes the long lines of his neck, like he’s trying to keep his head above water, like he’s trying not to drown.
Open like this, vulnerable, exposed to Zoro’s gaze, stripped of layers and bandages and smiles, he finally gives himself over, lets the other drink in the truth of him. And Zoro doesn’t hesitate.
There are deep, dark bruises all across Sanji’s chest, hideously purpling over his collar bone and down his ribs, like he’d been scraped over something, like he’d been crushed against stone. They mottle the smooth tan skin with smudges of unshed blood that rise into indigo smears, spreading ink blots of color that darken to nearly black. A midnight sky tattooing pain where it doesn’t belong. Lower down, Zoro can make out the outline of Sanji’s ribs rising from the viscera, their ridges distorting the color of the bruises even more unnaturally, everything swollen, marking the places of impact. Across the surface, long thin cuts, scratches from rock and pummels of ice, decorate everything with sickly wells of scarlet---not dangerous, maybe, but deep nonetheless.
And all of it hidden away by cloth and coat.
As Sanji had continued to bustle along, impressing Chopper with his kicks, making dinner for them all, grinning, staying on his feet.
Zoro glares at him and hopes the other can tell behind his annoyingly long lashes.
And maybe he can, because full lips quirk up at the edges, just a touch. “I slipped, fell.” And this time his voice comes out free of its many masks, earnest and heavy, though a little toneless, resigned. “Luffy saved me. But that ended with a thump, too.” A small shrug. “And then we had to fight, and I’m sure you know, that doesn’t help the healing process.”
Zoro takes this all in for a breath and then another. Then shifts closer, narrowing the space between them. Reaches out without fully knowing why until his fingers have connected with the warmth of Sanji’s skin. The other’s inhale catches in his throat, but he doesn’t pull away, leans in instead, lets Zoro trace over the marks softly, following them across the lines of his body.
“I should have been there to catch you.” The murmur falls low from Zoro's lips, into the suddenly charged air between them, as he lets his hand splay over Sanji’s chest, his palm over his heart, the pad of his thumb circling, light, over a spot that throbs with feverish heat, fingers fanning out across blood and bruise. Because he knows he should have. Has been thinking about the truth of that sentiment since Luffy and Sanji had left, before he even knew his fears actually came to pass. Because how could they not come to pass?
He shouldn’t have let the dumb cook risk his life and precious hands to climb up a treacherous mountain when it was clearly Zoro’s job. At least his job to go and make sure that no gust of wind blew the stupid blonde off the cliffside, if the other was going to stubbornly insist---when Zoro is solid, a mountain of muscle and training. And Sanji is the master of his craft too, whatever he might tell the other to his face, but nothing in that purview involves scaling sharp stones that cut, or letting falling ice pierce into your body, or being pummelled by howling winds. And, Sanji, he knows, hates the cold.
No, he should have gone.
The barest line of blue appears in small slits as he follows the line of long cut, sluggishly bleeding, watching him. “You wouldn’t have caught me, Mosshead.” Sanji, huffs, stubborn.
“Maybe, I would have.” Zoro insists, stubborn in equal measures. And the other laughs his none-laugh again. Rolls his eyes beneath his lids. But he doesn’t protest again.
Instead, Sanji crawls himself slightly straighter in shifting inches that start and stop, and reaches a deliberate hand up to wrap around Zoro’s wrist. His long fingers, cut up, pounded, but whole, press the touch of the palm on his chest, of Zoro’s palm, harder against his skin. The thrum of Sanji’s heartbeat, slightly overfast, pounds beneath it.
He drags his eyes open once more, until they’re watching one another fully again, caught in the thrall of the connection, the unbearable tempest of it always tying them both together, dragging them, down, closer, into the inescapable cyclone at the center. Into each other.
“Catch me now, Zoro.” Sanji insists, an empathic note to the plea, or is it a command, or is it an offering? It’s for Zoro, Zoro thinks. A way to ease the whirl of his endless thoughts. The rush of his deprecating guilt. But it’s for Sanji, too. Sanji, who sometimes still, even in the face of pain and breakdown, struggles not to obscure. Who can be so open, juxtaposed against Zoro’s inability to lower his walls, to make plain his feelings. And then, at once, so frustratingly far away.
But, this time, it’s not confusing to Zoro. What he wants here. What he wants for Sanji. With Sanji. That he wants what the other is offering to him. And that since he wants it, he can have it. For once, it all makes perfect sense.
“Okay.” He gives back. And it’s not as nuanced a sound as Sanji’s was. Just a curt acceptance of what’s being given. But it’s what Zoro has to offer in return. And for Sanji, as he nods, a pleased hum at the edge of his mouth, a little smile, a squeeze of Zoro’s wrist, a little too tight, a brush overly needy, it’s enough. Zoro is always enough.
And so, he picks up the balms and the towels, and slowly gets to work covering Sanji’s form, his breakable, muscular, bruisable, powerful, lithe form, with layers of relief. Brushes over all the parts of him that scream and pound, that he can’t get to by himself, that ache, touches them with something softer.
Even though there’s a doctor onboard now. Even though maybe Sanji could do it alone if he really tried, and what is a little more pain in the mix of everything? Zoro does it for him.
And it lightens some bleak gnawing hurt in his own chest, to watch as the other’s breathing deepens back from shallow brushes of air to something closer to normal that involves most if not all of his lungs, as his shoulders droop, heavy with contentment instead of tense with burning fire, as relief comes to kiss a flush of pink back into the stark paleness of his skin, and he nuzzles into the couch, a little less careful and a little more comfortable.
But there’s something still off with the waiter, something not altogether sewn up all the way in the edges of him, wounds that Zoro can’t see, can’t reach, but knows keenly exist. When Zoro’s fingers slide soft, along his cheek, over his jaw, Sanji shudders hard, draws back for a half-breath before he catches himself and shifts into it again. Eyes still overlarge for moments too many, pained. Even though there aren’t any bruises on his face, even though there’s nothing Zoro touched. And those phantoms that only Sanji can see, Zoro thinks, lurk close, hover in the near distance, even as the physical hurt evaporates.
“Will you tell me why you flinch?” He asks, plain. Because it’s the only way he can. And bites back the flurry of other questions it raises in him.
Why Nami’s illness made you so wild? Why you always throw yourself into danger like you think no one cares? Why you won’t ever say when you’re hurting?
But Sanji only smiles up at him. Smiles through the way his eyes are suddenly too shiny, and water wells in the corners of them. Smiles through the one teardrop that falls. A smile, Sanji’s favorite mask. They all have them. He shakes his head, then nods, then shrugs. Smiles. Smiles and smiles and smiles.
“Not tonight.” The murmur comes in the end, through the upturned corners of the other’s mouth, kissed in salt.
But Zoro doesn’t mind. Likes the formation of that thought, the future it implies. He had to ask, but he won’t push. It’s not his way. But now Sanji knows. Knows he’s not alone. Not alone with the ghosts. Maybe one of these days, Zoro will tell him about Mihawk.
Hey, hypocrisy is a lifestyle he owns, thank you very much.
For now, he shifts his touch into Sanji’s hair instead of his face, tugs a little on the stupid strands, in the way he knows Sanji likes, even though bangs that long are completely unsanitary for a waiter. What if he gets them in the food? And leans forward to kiss him. The brush of their lips isn’t an intense miasma as it can be sometimes. No, tonight, it’s sweeter than that, comfort and closeness, an endless relief that the other is still here, scarred, maybe, exhausted, not exactly whole, but whole enough. Sanji melts into him, and Zoro holds him, solid. As tight as he can without risking a new set of bruises.
“Carry me to bed.” Sanji murmurs eventually into the press of their lips, and Zoro rolls his eyes and bites hard in reply, a yelp erupting against him about how one should be careful with the healing.
But Zoro is already gently sweeping him up into his arms, letting the stupid blonde head tuck against his chest as he sets a course for the one mattress they have for emergencies. And even though he isn’t, Sanji seems somehow small in his arms. And there’s something so fucking relieved in Zoro to surround him, to grasp onto him.
He couldn’t catch Sanji, but instead, he holds him close.