Chapter Text
Waking up was a slow process.
Once, when Sanji was younger, he had gotten sick. It was just a year after he and Zeff built the Baratie. He remembered long days shivering under the blankets, soup by his bedside, watching the world swim by. It was oddly reminiscent of his current situation.
Flashes of light and color swam past Sanji’s vision—voices, sounds, feelings—before he was dragged back under. It was like being in a cloudy haze.
“—you sure—?”
“—he’s strong, Nami. This won’t—“
“—doctor? We need—“
He drifted away again.
- - -
The first thing he noticed upon waking—actually waking, not just the earlier haze—was the sound of snoring.
It wasn’t the most unusual sound aboard the Merry. Zoro, the swordsman brute, snored loudly, whether it was a nap or the middle of the night. The others did, too, but not to the same extent—except for his sweet Nami, who slept beautifully and peacefully and deserved only the best.
That being said, if whoever it was didn’t shut up, he was going to throttle them.
Everything hurt .
Groaning, Sanji managed to pull himself up out of the covers—and froze in confusion.
Sitting beside his bedside was Zoro . The marimo slept away in a nearby chair, completely dead to the world. His face was smushed into the wall behind him. Legs folded up next to him, curling around the swords. If he didn’t know him, Sanji would have said the swordsman looked almost peaceful. Looking closely, though, Sanji could see the small furrow of his brow. His hand clutched the white sword tight even in sleep, holding the rest of them against his chest.
Not that he paid enough attention to Zoro to notice things like that. No. Absolutely not. Never.
Idiot, Sanji thought, tearing his gaze away.
Briefly, Sanji wondered how the idiot managed to sleep in that position—it clearly couldn’t have been comfortable—before opting to ignore it. He'd long since given up on understanding Zoro. But that still begged the question of why he was sleeping here in the first place. Glancing around confirmed that this wasn’t one of the moss’s preferred places to photosynthesize.
Where was here , anyway? The sound of waves echoed through the walls; it had to be the Going Merry . These weren’t the men’s bunks. But that didn’t—
“You finally awake, dartbrow?”
Sanji would deny the squeak that escaped him until his dying day. He scrambled upward, whipping his head toward the marimo—the now very much awake marimo, who was currently staring at him with an expression Sanji didn’t know how to read.
“Where the fuck am I, mosshead?” His voice was hoarse; Sanji cringed at the sound. He sounded like shit.
“Good morning to you too. We’re in the captain’s quarters, idiot.”
The captain’s quarters? That made a little more sense. It was the only place on the Merry with a bed—not that it ever got used.
Sanji briefly entertained the idea of sweet Nami-swan laying him down, tending to his wounds. That hope was quickly dashed as memories flooded back.
(Grocery shopping. Bounty hunters. Marines. Cobblestone streets. Burning like fire, tearing through his leg. Running. Dizziness. More running. Marimo, ‘m gonna— )
Oh, shit . Sanji moved to scramble out of bed—his head spun, briefly, what time was it? —and before he could move, a hand shoved him back into the covers. Zoro stood above him, glaring.
“I need to make breakfast,” Sanji hisses, trying to push the swordman’s arm away.
“Usopp did that earlier. Nami’s making lunch—the witch is charging us all, but it’s taken care of.” Zoro looked displeased at the thought. “Now stop moving , cook. I don’t want to sew your sorry ass up again a second time.”
Sanji wasn't amused.
“Let me up already, marimo!” He hissed.
“To do what? In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a hole in your leg.”
“That won’t stop me from kicking your idiot ass across the ship, you intelligence-lacking pile of moss .”
A snort. “I’d like to see you try.”
Sanji glared up at the swordsman, blinking away the spots in his eyes. “I can still do my job, idiot marimo. Get off me already!” And he could. Sanji had worked through worse—a bullet was nothing, was no excuse to slack off. It would be fine. He had to be fine. (Had his head always hurt this much?)
A complicated expression passed through Zoro’s face, before vanishing—usual scowl sinking into a rare softness.
"I already said we’ve got it covered, shit-cook. You can go back to cooking tomorrow.”
Suddenly finding it hard to breathe, Sanji swallowed and looked away. The hand on his chest finally let up and the swordsman went back to his earlier perch.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he muttered.
If Zoro said anything else, he didn’t hear it, sinking into the blankets and falling back asleep. He could rest, just this once.