Work Text:
King of Love
“So you’ve got Conqueror’s Haki! Try and kill me!”
Sanji bit the inside of his cheek, not wanting to show that, no, he didn’t possess Conqueror’s Haki. That Gaban had told him he should have the potential, but he had a dangerous tendency toward self-sacrifice. That if he wanted to see Luffy become King of the Pirates, he needed to become a king, too.
The king part was easy – he should be the king of love.
Except Gaban clearly hadn’t meant women.
Sanji loved people easily. Feeding them was easy. Protecting them was easy. Throwing himself between them and death was just a natural part of his love. After all, he was unimportant in the whole of things, and if his death meant someone else would live, he would gladly give his life, again and again.
He’d spent his lifetime giving himself up when someone else needed him. He’d ignored the danger to rescue Robin, tried to give himself to Kuma, nearly gave up everything for Zeff.
Beneath all of it was the same old certainty that Sanji simply wasn’t worth much. Judge had spent years drilling that into him, and Wano had managed to twist the knife by making Sanji’s survival depend on the very modifications he’d spent his life hating. The drop in bounty price added to it, an outsider’s view that he wasn’t up to snuff. Even though he knew Luffy wanted him for the very reasons Judge had not, some part of Sanji still measured his value by his ability to fight as much as to cook.
Vegapunk’s message told the world his dream would drown them, ripping a hole in his heart even as he gave it up immediately. No dream was worth that sort of price. So his life had even less meaning now, not more.
And there it was again. Someone else mattered, so Sanji stepped aside. Someone else needed something, so whatever Sanji wanted stopped mattering. His life, his dreams, his happiness – all of it could be spent without a second thought if the price bought somebody else something better. Somewhere along the way, he’d started treating that as what love was supposed to look like. He had never been particularly good at treating his own life with the same care.
He knew how to love people. He knew how to give and give until there was nothing left. What he didn’t know was how to put himself among the people worth protecting. How to believe that something he wanted could matter simply because he wanted it.
He didn’t know how to love himself.
The love he had for women was sincere but shallow. The kindness he showed was innate and true but unbalanced. He cared deeply for his nakama, would do anything for them, but he knew even that wasn’t enough to make him feel like a king. A king of love couldn’t spend his life giving himself away and still somehow leave himself outside all that love.
Maybe becoming a king meant believing his own life mattered, too. Maybe it meant wanting something for himself and refusing to treat that want as selfish or foolish or wrong.
And Sanji knew exactly what he wanted.
He’d known almost immediately when Gaban had spoken. All Sanji had to do was admit and embrace it. That he, the obvious king of love, who worshiped, adored, and bled over every woman he met, was in love with a directionally impaired, smelly, grunting brute who scratched in public and had more muscle than brains.
That he was in love with a man.
He knew gender could be fluid and sexuality was a spectrum. It had been drilled into his head on Momoiro. But he’d sworn up and down that he loved only the ladies and that would never change. And he’d believed it, because it was true.
Until he returned to Sabaody.
Until he saw Zoro again for the first time after two years apart, and Sanji forgot how to breathe.
It wasn’t Zoro’s newly built physique. Sanji had seen other men who looked like Zoro, and they’d done nothing for him. The scar across his eye made him look more dangerous; it hadn’t softened his features into something Sanji suddenly found attractive.
But Sanji couldn’t breathe just the same. Relief, excitement, joy, and a sense of home flooded through him. Electricity slid under his skin, as if he’d been struck by Enel again. The world narrowed and expanded all at once, and he knew, right then, that it was this man he wanted by his side for the rest of his life.
Sanji, of course, panicked, repressed, and denied, denied, denied.
There was no way he could be in love with a man. It wasn’t in his nature. He’d been mistaken. He loved women, and only women, and one day he’d marry a petite, voluptuous lady who he could dote on and adore and protect, and they’d have children together and grow old together, and it would be a fantastic life.
Except–
Except.
Sanji could simply wait. Drag out the fight until Luffy defeated Imu, likely making Killingham vulnerable again. But the thought of being that cowardly disgusted him. There was also no question Zoro would reject him if he did that. Which meant if Sanji wanted to call himself the king of love, he probably ought to learn that loving someone didn’t always mean dying for them. Sometimes it meant putting himself among the people worth saving. It meant believing he deserved to live beside them. It meant wanting something for himself and refusing to apologize for it.
It meant accepting the fact that he was in love with Roronoa fucking Zoro.
Sanji’s feelings weren’t asking him to sacrifice anything heroic. They were asking him to stay, confess, risk rejection, accept affection, and build something for himself. To take steps into the unknown, to be scared, be vulnerable, and reach for what he’d never let himself want.
Killingham conjured the legendary spear Longinus between his hands. Sanji took a breath and closed his eyes for just a moment. Then he smiled.
Sanji had never backed down from a challenge with Zoro.
End