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The fight at Arlong Park has opened up his wound again - the bigger one, shoulder to hip on the long diagonal, the one that Yoru gave him. Zoro lies in his hammock the day they set sail for the Grand Line and touches it, feels where the flesh is trying to knit itself sluggishly back together and remembers the overwhelming, exquisite pain of the moment it happened.
There are no words for the magnitude of how he feels about it, so he doesn’t offer any - even when his shipmates ask. Even when Sanji, who has taken it upon himself to take over the job Zeff started and tend to Zoro’s injuries, touches the inflamed edges with his long, cool fingers and asks Zoro if he’s aware that it’s going to leave a wicked scar.
Of course Zoro’s aware. Some days it’s a struggle to be aware of anything else.
The permanence of it, the way Mihawk’s mark will be visible on Zoro’s body for the rest of his life - that’s part of the gift that Mihawk gave to Zoro that day on the jetty outside the Baratie.
“And how are we feeling about that?” Sanji asks him, and Zoro can only turn his head away in silence.
He has to re-stitch it, in the end. Zoro lets it happen, though part of him wants to tell Sanji to keep his hands to himself, that the wound belongs to him and Mihawk, that he wants to keep it unadulterated. Wants to tell him that when he touches it, Zoro feels Mihawk’s touch in Sanji’s fingers as he did through Yoru’s blade.
He says nothing. Falls asleep halfway through, lulled by the knife-sharp needle’s impossibly precise sting as it pierces him again, and again, and again. Sanji’s good, he has to admit. Whether it’s a kitchen knife or a surgical needle, he wields them with absolute control and finesse.
He kicks Zoro awake when he’s done, and Zoro jerks in place. When he sits up the movement tugs at the stitches, and Zoro… Zoro realises his dick is hard.
Huh.
He’s not sure if it’s from the pain or the memory, from the feeling of being cut open or the feeling of being sewn back together again, but either way it belongs to Mihawk. Like all of Zoro does now. His swords and his wounds and his achy cock and the blood on Sanji’s fingers, it’s all his, and will be until Zoro grows powerful enough to take it back from him.
“You are one kinky motherfucker, you know that?”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
Zoro’s hands clench in his lap.
“You get off on big men sticking their big swords in you, is that it?”
“I will cut your tongue out.”
“Will that give you a hard-on, too?”
It isn’t that Zoro gives a shit what this idiot thinks. It’s that it’s something like sacrilege to hear him talk about it that way. This thing that has altered the course of Zoro’s life, has burrowed into his body and changed it right down to the bone, set a match to light the fire of his devotion to Luffy, started the process of changing him into something new. Stronger. Better.
“You understand nothing.”
Sanji laughs. “It ain’t exactly rocket science, is it? I know you like to think you’re fucking married to your swords or some shit, but you’re just a man.” He looks pointedly, brazenly down at Zoro’s lap and Zoro has to use every inch of his impressive willpower not to instinctively cover his cock, which is stubbornly refusing to go back to normal. “And apparently not immune to a fit older guy with a pair of pretty eyes and his tits out.”
“Don’t talk about him like that.”
“Why? You defending his honour?”
Zoro’s jaw clenches tight. “He’s the greatest swordsman in the world. The honour is mine, that he agreed to fight me at all.” To beat him. To hurt him. To shove his blade into Zoro’s body and make him gasp, to stand face to face with Zoro as if they were equals and draw Yoru, the sword that Zoro’s dreamed about since he was a fucking kid, and use it to cut Zoro down, cut away everything weak and useless in him, make him feel every inch.
He knows he nearly died that day. Knows from what Luffy and Nami have told him that they were all prepared for the worst.
Sometimes, he almost wishes he had. Of all the things Mihawk has given him, death would have been the most permanent. The most transcendent.
He knows better than to say this out loud.
“And honour’s what gets you going, is it?” Sanji laughs again, and it’s simultaneously mean and fond.
Rabbit, Mihawk had called him. Little frog. Zoro can’t help his cheeks growing hot at the memory, and Sanji raises one elegant eyebrow.
“Hey, I’m not judging.”
“Then what are you doing?”
Sanji hums a little considering noise. “I’m helping out a crew mate, aren’t I.”
“Are you talking about the stitches?”
“Could be.” His pink tongue pokes out at the corner of his mouth, just for a moment. Zoro feels hypnotised by it. “Could be willing to put a little more on the table.”
His hand, still bloody, trails down Zoro’s chest, over the newly made stitches and blossoming bruises, and comes to a stop just above his haramaki.
“Why?” Zoro can’t help being suspicious.
But Sanji only grins and winks at him. “That ain’t rocket science either.”
His fingertips dip below the soft green fabric, and Zoro can’t stop himself from shuddering.
“C’mon, moss head,” Sanji murmurs, in a voice full of amused fondness, “It’ll be good for you.”
Zoro’s voice is shaky, and he can’t help feeling embarrassed by it, like this is a game that he’s somehow losing. “Is that a promise?”
“My friend, that is a guarantee.”
He pushes his thumb into the very bottom of Mihawk’s wound, and that’s enough to have Zoro’s breath trembling out of him and his eyes fluttering closed.
He nods, helplessly. “Alright,” he says, and the word makes almost no sound.
Sanji moves forward, between the spread of Zoro’s parted thighs where he’s sat on the edge of the table Sanji’s just sewn him up on.
“Good boy,” he tells him, and Zoro wants to punch him, wants to wipe that smugness off his face, but instead his traitorous body betrays him once again and his head drops forward onto Sanji’s shoulder.
He takes a steadying breath, and feels the motion of the ship on the water. Sanji smells of cigarettes and cologne, something spicy and expensive. He strokes Zoro’s inner thighs like he’s calming a spooked horse, and Zoro hears himself make a helpless, mortifying sound.
“That’s it, darling,” Sanji murmurs, like Zoro’s one of the women he’s always flirting with, and his lips brush the shell of Zoro’s ear. “Let me take care of you.”
He cups Zoro through his trousers, like he’s judging the weight of him.
And Zoro’s never… He knows Sanji was joking, was mocking him when he said that Zoro was married to his swords, but the truth is that Zoro had always pretty much considered himself that way.
Too busy training, honing, improving. Too busy getting elbows deep in blood and beer and ambition, too focused on the path that led to Mihawk and beyond.
For so long, nothing else had existed. Especially not his body with its distracting needs and wants, its weaknesses. Zoro’s body was a tool of his will - he kept himself as distant from it as possible.
But ever since Mihawk, since Yoru, Zoro has been more fully in himself than ever before. Grounded in his body, tethered to it, a sword in its sheath.
He pushes up into Sanji’s palm, and whines deep in his throat.
“Fuck,” Sanji bites out, and then he’s coaxing Zoro up onto his feet just for long enough that he can push Zoro’s haramaki and his trousers down to his thighs, exposing him, and Zoro’s never felt embarrassed or awkward about his body, never, but when his achingly hard cock is revealed to the air he shivers as if he’s cold and casts an eye to the galley door. It’s closed but not locked. Anyone could walk in. Anyone could witness Sanji doing this to him, easing him back down to sit on the table and stroking the increasingly wet dip of his dick with his fingertips, smearing the slickness around with feather light touches until he’s slippery with it.
“What do you like?” Sanji asks. “How do you like it?”
And Zoro refuses to be embarrassed as he meets Sanji’s eyes and says, “I don’t know.”
There’s a taut moment of silence, like a line pulled too tight and straining against the sail in a hard wind.
Then Sanji says ”Shit”, viciously, like he’s angry, and his mouth is on Zoro’s mouth and Zoro’s brain is nothing but pure white noise.
Kissing isn’t anything like he expected it to be. It always looked kinda awkward and strange, Zoro never really quite understood the point of it. He thought that if he ever did it he wouldn’t know where to put his hands or how to move his mouth, or when it was supposed to end. But it’s clear that he doesn’t have to worry about any of that. That Sanji’s got him, Sanji knows what he’s doing and all Zoro has to do is take it, melt into it like ice in the sun, overwhelmed and diminishing.
Sanji’s lips are confident, nothing soft or tentative about them, but they move slow. Coaxing. Zoro realises, then, that his hands are fisted in Sanji’s shirt, clinging to him like a lifeline. He’d taken off his suit jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves to tend to Zoro’s injuries; his pale forearms are bare and slender.
Sanji takes Zoro’s face in his hands, tilts him to the perfect angle, exactly where he wants him.
Zoro’s lips part on an almost-inaudible gasp, and he feels the tip of Sanji’s tongue on them. Something shivers up his spine, electric hot. Tentatively, he puts his own tongue out to meet Sanji’s. When they touch, wet and warm, it feels like dying.
Sanji moans into his mouth and Zoro’s dick twitches against his belly, his balls drawing up tight and heavy.
“That’s it,” Sanji breathes, so close that Zoro can taste the words as they meet his mouth. “Just like that, sweetheart, you’re doing so well,” and Zoro screws his eyes shut and tries not to whimper again, and then Sanji’s mouth is on him once more, more forceful this time, his tongue pushing its way into Zoro’s mouth like it has every right to be there.
He feels plundered. Sanji’s tongue in him, Mihawk’s sword in him, Zoro’s body nothing but a sheath for them to slide into.
Sanji thumbs at Zoro’s cheek, and Zoro can’t help the way his hips twitch, helplessly thrusting up against nothing. He feels Sanji smile.
“Needy, aren’t you?”
“No,” Zoro counters automatically, then bites his lip as his treacherous hips move again.
Sanji laughs, and kisses Zoro’s mouth, his cheek, bites oh so gently at his pierced earlobe, and takes his cock firmly in one slender-fingered hand.
Zoro groans and instantly fucks up into that cool fist.
“Hey,” Sanji croons, “Slow down.” He kisses Zoro’s temple. “Like this,” he says, and strokes from the tip down to the base and back up again in one long, measured glide, his other hand coming up to hold Zoro’s balls gently, impossibly gently, Zoro had no idea that anything in this world could be so gentle. “The best dishes take time to prepare.”
“I’m not a dish,” Zoro chokes, and Sanji chuckles.
“I have to disagree.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
Sanji strokes him again, and it’s like nothing Zoro’s ever felt. Like something that could ruin him.
“How has someone who looks like you never done this before?”
Sanji squeezes his balls, lets Zoro feel the promise of the pressure he could exert if he chose to, and Zoro’s legs spread further apart reflexively.
“I-” He’s struggling to think, to focus on Sanji’s words instead of his hands. “I had offers.”
“I’ll bet.”
“They never interested me before. I never…” he puts his head on Sanji’s shoulder again, so he won’t have to see the look on his face. “I never felt - like this.” He gestures vaguely at his dick, and hopes Sanji will get the picture.
“Huh.” Sanji lets go of Zoro’s cock and brings his hand to Zoro’s mouth instead, tapping two fingers to his lips. “Open up, treasure.”
Zoro lifts his head and opens his mouth cautiously, lets Sanji’s fingers in. He can taste the blood on them; the metallic tang of it makes him feel dizzy. They thrust back and forth across his tongue gently, steadily, and the rhythm of it is obscene and sexual.
“I suppose I don’t have to ask what caused this little awakening,” Sanji smirks, his other hand releasing Zoro’s balls and stroking the long line of Mihawk’s wound with a barely-there touch that, nonetheless, makes pain bloom like flowers across Zoro’s torso.
He moans around Sanji’s fingers.
“Is it pain in general, d’you think, or is it him in particular?” He takes his wet fingers out of Zoro’s mouth and Zoro chases them with his tongue, whimpering. “Jesus,” Sanji breathes, and kisses him again while he wraps his wet fist around Zoro’s dick and starts stroking again.
“I don’t know,” Zoro lies. “I don’t know, I don’t- Please, Sanji, don’t stop, don’t stop.”
“I won’t, darling, don’t worry. I’ve got you.” He’s stroking faster, now, though still not as frantic as Zoro wants it, and he can’t help thrusting up into the tight slickness over and over again.
Sanji’s other hand is still petting the place where his skin was opened. Small drops of blood are dripping tacky from the wound.
“Fuck,” Zoro gasps. “Sanji. Fuck.”
“I know. He liked you, didn’t he? Must’ve done to hurt you like this, just how you needed it. You need it, don’t you, pet?”
There’s a feeling in Zoro’s gut like lightning building in a thundercloud, rumbling and electric and about to spill over. He clings to Sanji. Presses his chest into his fingers, his cock into his fist.
“You close, sweetheart? Shit, you must be so full, all pent up like that for so long. It’s not good for you, you know. C’mon, Zoro, let it happen, let it all out for me like a good boy.”
Zoro closes his eyes and pictures Mihawk’s face, the way he’d looked at Zoro when he’d cut him, the sound of his voice speaking that one word - Magnificent.
And then the lightning strikes, shivering through him, and he’s coming, he’s dying, he’s sobbing in Sanji’s arms as his cock spurts again and again and it feels like he’s being emptied out and left entirely hollow.
“That’s it,” Sanji’s telling him, stroking him through it tenderly, as if he’s something fragile instead of the man who’ll be the greatest swordsman in the world one day. “There you go, pet, isn’t that better?”
Is it? Zoro has no idea.
After he’s stopped shaking, Sanji eases him back and gets a damp tea towel to wipe him down. There’s semen all over his chest, clinging to his stitches, and Sanji tuts over it and tries to dab it away without disturbing the injury.
Zoro swallows loudly. “Um. Do you want…” Sanji pauses to look up at him, curious. “Should I…” He’s not a coward, Roronoa Zoro. He’s faced down Dracule Mihawk, he’s faced death, he’s never known a wound to the back because he refuses to turn away from anything, even if it scares the shit out of him. So he reaches out for the zip of Sanji’s trousers with a steady hand, and meets his sea blue gaze without flinching.
Sanji grins at him a moment, then bats his hands away. He catches one of them before Zoro can tug it back, though, and raises it to his mouth to kiss as if Zoro was some fancy maiden.
“Next time,” he says, and winks.
That night, Zoro has the second watch. He sits and meditates in the crow’s nest, perfectly still for hours, and watches the stars fade and the pre-dawn light appear in cautious stages like it’s shy.
Everything hurts, and he’s exhausted, and Sanji didn’t let him have any rum because he wouldn’t eat dinner. But his mind, for once, is as still as a calm sea.
He feels his pulse in the gash on his chest. Feels Mihawk’s pulse in it, too. Thinks he’ll never stop feeling it, even after it’s long healed and scarred over and nothing but a story he tells about how he faced the greatest swordsman in the world and lived to wear the scars.
Perhaps that’s all any of them are doing out here. Making stories for the future, for someone else to tell.
“Zoro! Shift change! Come and have some breakfast.”
He peers over the edge. Far below is a familiar mop of blond hair; a sharp suit; the pale grey curl of cigarette smoke.
“I know you’re up there. Get your moody arse down here and stop brooding, or I’ll kick you clear to the Grand Line.”
He hides his smile behind the railing. “Fuck you!” he calls back.
But he starts climbing down, nonetheless.