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"Love is a verb, love is a doing word, fearless on my breath." -Teardrop, Massive Attack.
Sanji woke to the feeling of eyes on him, and immediately knew something had changed.
He blinked in the low lamp light, raising his head from where he was slumped over in his chair, and turned muzzily towards the bed.
In the dimness of the room a single, silver eye glinted back.
Sanji stared for a long moment, and then realisation shot through him.
Zoro was awake.
“Zoro,” he breathed. “You’re awake. Thank fuck. How are you feeling? Is your head hurting?”
He reached out across the bed, instinctively, to take Zoro’s hand, a smile of relief crossing his face.
Zoro stared at him blankly.
“Sorry, sorry,” Sanji said, retracting his own hand and feeling strangely awkward. “You just woke up. I should get Chopper.”
He made to get up from the chair that had been his makeshift bed ever since Zoro had been deposited in the infirmary still and lifeless, but then hesitated, hovering over Zoro’s bedside.
“I’ve never been more happy to see your stupid face,” he said, and then shoved himself out of his chair and through the door before Zoro could respond, no doubt to rag on Sanji for being a soppy bastard.
It was still dark outside, and the ship sat quiet and still on the night ocean. Sanji had no idea what time it was, but would guess they were an hour or two off dawn from the feel of the sky. He slipped into the boys’ bunkroom quietly, trying his best not to disturb anyone else as he went to Chopper’s bunk to wake him.
“Chopper,” he whispered, shaking the reindeer gently. “Get up, Zoro’s awake.”
Chopper grunted and snuffled, turning his back to Sanji, and Sanji tamped down his impatience, shaking him more firmly.
“Chopper,” he said, a little louder. “Zoro’s awake.”
Chopper rolled over, blinking sleepily at him.
“Eh?”
“Zoro’s awake!” Sanji snapped, raising his voice more than he meant to.
Chopper squeaked and flinched, flopping out of his bunk and onto the floor with a loud thump.
“Ah!” he wailed. “Zoro’s awake! Someone call a doctor!”
At his shout the other occupants of the room began to stir.
“Wassit?” Luffy mumbled from his bunk. “Sanji, is it time for breakfast?”
Usopp was stirring too.
“What’s going on?” he asked sleepily.
Chopper was on his feet now, running around in tiny circles beside his bunk, crying “Zoro’s awake! Get a doctor!” and Sanji resisted the urge to knock him upside the head.
“Chopper!” he said loudly. “You are the doctor.”
Chopper stopped, abruptly, and stared at him.
“Oh. Right.” Then his eyes widened and he let out another wail. “Ahhh! Zoro’s awake! You should have got me right away, Sanji!”
He shoved past Sanji and made for the door, leaving Sanji to roll his eyes and follow.
“Sanjiiiiii, meeaaaaaaat,” Luffy said.
“Go back to sleep,” Sanji said. “It’s the middle of the night.”
Luffy answered with a snore.
Sanji followed Chopper back to the infirmary, and when he entered Chopper was making indignant noises as Zoro tried to climb out of the bed.
“Zoro!” Chopper scolded. “You need to stay in bed!”
He shoved at Zoro’s bare chest with his hooves, trying to push him back down.
“Better listen to him Mosshead,” Sanji said, trying to hide his own amusement.
Zoro was staring at Chopper, eye slightly wide, as Chopper continued to push at him. His gaze flicked up at Sanji’s remark, then back to Chopper, then back to Sanji.
“Cook,” he said. His tone was raspy from his days of unconsciousness, and his words came a little slowly. “Why is this racoon dog talking to me?”
There was a split second of stunned silence, and then Chopper wailed. Loudly.
“ZOROOOO! I’M A REINDEER!”
Sanji tried very hard not to roll his eyes.
“You spend days making us wait for you to wake up and now you’re giving us your comedy act?” he muttered, mostly to himself. “Sit down Mosshead,” he barked. “Chopper, stop yelling at him.”
Zoro sat, looking mutinous. Chopper’s eyes had gone all big and wet and he was sniffling.
“You know I’m a reindeer and you’re not very funny,” he mumbled, but started peering into Zoro’s eye, reaching for his stethoscope.
Zoro had gone very stiff and was watching Chopper warily.
“Cook,” he said, not talking his eyes off Chopper. “What the fuck is going on? Who the hell is this?”
Chopper let out an indignant squawk and Sanji opened his mouth to yell at Zoro when he stopped suddenly. There was something about the way Zoro was holding himself, the way he was looking at Chopper that felt…off.
Chopper was full on beating his hooves on Zoro’s chest now, wailing at him again.
“Chopper!” Sanji said, and Chopper drew back, looking guilty.
“Sorry,” he said, eyes all wet again.
Sani frowned at Zoro.
“Marimo, do you know who this is?” he asked, indicating Chopper.
Zoro scowled.
“I just said I didn’t!”
Sanji heard Chopper suck in a sharp breath.
“Do you know where you are?” Chopper asked, voice quivering.
Zoro scoffed.
“I’m on the Going Merry,” he said, gaze darting around the room. He frowned. “No wait…this isn’t…” His eye hardened, and his gaze locked with Sanji’s. “What the fuck is going on? Where the fuck am I?”
“Zoro,” Chopper said slowly. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Zoro’s eye was still on Sanji, and he found himself nodding slightly, trying to encourage a response despite the panicked feeling that was rising in his gut.
Zoro screwed his face up, as if he was thinking. Sanji resisted the urge to make a crack about how much work that was for him.
“I remember going over Reverse Mountain,” he said finally. “I think we were…yeah we had just arrived on Little Garden. And you owe me Cook ‘cause I caught the biggest dinosaur you have ever seen. So I won!” he finished triumphantly.
Sanji stared at him.
There was a long, long moment of silence.
“Little Garden,” Chopper said, and his tone was one of forced calm. “Are you sure?”
Zoro glared at him.
“Who are you?”
Chopper was holding his hooves out in a calming, placating gesture.
“My name is Chopper. I’m a doctor.”
Sanji felt completely frozen. Little Garden .
“Why do I need a doctor?” Zoro asked, belligerently. “And how can you talk? Racoons can’t talk.”
“I’m not a raccoon, I'm a reindeer ,” Chopper snapped back. “Stop calling me a raccoon!”
“You look like a raccoon,” Zoro muttered sulkily.
Chopper sucked in an audible breath.
“Zoro,” he said, once again patient and professional. “You took a bit of a hit to the head and it appears you are missing a bit of time. I just need to ask you a few questions, okay?”
Zoro was still regarding him very suspiciously.
“How much time?” he asked.
“Don’t worry about that right now,” Chopper said soothingly. “Can you tell me your full name?”
Zoro looked as if we would rather do anything but.
“Roronoa Zoro,” he spat out.
“And do you know who this is?” Chopper continued, gesturing at Sanji, who was still standing, frozen, by the door.
Zoro sneered.
“The Cook,” he said, distaste dripping from the words, eye flicking disdainfully to Sanji.
Sanji stared. His brain seemed to be doing the equivalent of a stutter.
“That’s good,” Chopper said calmly. “Very good. Now, how ab-”
“What are you doing here?” Zoro interrupted. He was still looking at Sanji, eye narrowed.
“Zoro-” Chopper tried, but Zoro spoke right over him.
“Why the hell are you here?” he spat at Sanji, and Sanji was taken aback by the amount of venom suddenly present in his tone. “Where’s Luffy?”
“Marimo,” he tried, feeling dry mouthed and strangely unsure of himself.
“Don’t call me that!” Zoro shouted. “Where the hell is Luffy?”
“Zoro,” Chopper pleaded, reaching for him, but Zoro knocked his hoof aside harshly.
“Don’t touch me!” he yelled. “I don’t fucking know you!”
Chopper tried to swallow the involuntary anguished sound he made at the words.
“And I fucking hate you!” Zoro continued to shout, this time at Sanji. “Get your ugly face away from me! Where is Luffy?”
And Sanji knew, okay? He remembered what they were like back then so he knew, rationally, that Zoro didn’t really feel like that, that those weren’t his true feelings.
It still felt like he had taken a sword handle to the gut.
“Sanji,” Chopper was saying, trying to keep his tone even. “Go get Luffy.”
“I don’t think I should leave you alone with him,” Sanji said, eyes still warily on Zoro, who was looking more and more murderous by the second.
“I’m fine,” Chopper said. “Just get Luffy!”
Zoro was looking like he might leap over Chopper and try to take Sanji’s head off, so he thought it was better not to argue and instead hurried out of the door and back along to the boy’s bunkroom.
He heard Brook’s voice float down from the crow’s nest, no doubt alerted by all the shouting, but ignored it, focussed only on getting Luffy as quickly as possible.
He flung the door open, no longer worried about waking anyone up, and hurried to Luffy’s bunk, kicking him unceremoniously out of bed.
Luffy made a sleepy, confused sound as he hit the wooden floor.
“Get up,” Sanji said. “Zoro needs you.”
Luffy squinted up at him through the dimness of the cabin.
“Eh?”
Sanji kicked him again, a little harder this time.
“Get. Up. Zoro needs you!”
Luffy allowed himself to be yanked to his feet. By this time the other occupants of the bunk room were stirring sleepily.
“Sanji?” he heard Usopp mumble. “Is Zoro okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” Sanji lied hastily. “Luffy move!”
He could hear the confusion he left behind them, but couldn’t think about that, only focussed on towing Luffy across the deck and to the infirmary.
He shoved Luffy harshly through the door, crowding in behind him to see Chopper and Zoro involved in some kind of tussle as they appeared to be yanking the bedsheets back and forth between them.
“Lie back down,” Chopper grunted, as he tugged on his end of the sheet.
“Let me up,” Zoro grunted back, pulling at his own side of the sheet.
It would have been amusing, if Sanji hadn’t still been reeling from disbelief over the events of the last ten minutes.
“Zoro!” Luffy shouted joyfully, bounding up to the bed like nothing odd was happening at all. “You’re awake! I thought you were going to sleep forever!”
Chopper stepped back with a scowl, letting go of his end of the sheet so suddenly that Zoro fell back on to the bed in an undignified sprawl.
“Luffy make him lie down,” he said. “He won’t listen to me!”
Luffy laughed brightly.
“Aw Zoro, don’t upset Chopper! He’s been taking such good care of you.”
Zoro glared up from his prone position on the bed.
“Luffy,” he said, teeth gritted. “What the fuck is going on? Where am I and why is there a talking raccoon dog in here?”
Chopper actually stamped one of his feet at this.
“I’m a reindeer!” he cried, and then promptly burst into noisy tears.
Luffy, still smiling, looked between them.
“Zoro don’t tease Chopper; you know he’s a reindeer!”
Chopper’s crying only increased in volume at this, and Sanji made himself step forward to place a hand on Chopper’s bare head. At the touch Chopper positively wailed , and then flung himself up into Sanji’s arms.
“Captain,” Sanji said, over the top of Chopper’s head, trying to keep his tone even. “It appears Zoro is suffering from some memory loss. The last thing he can clearly remember is arriving on Little Garden.”
Luffy was still smiling, head swivelling between Zoro and Sanji. Zoro was still giving them all a death stare from the bed.
“Don’t be silly,” Luffy said. “Little Garden was ages ago. Of course that isn’t the last thing he remembers.”
He continued to look between them, back and forth, smile slowly fading as he took in the seriousness of Sanji’s expression, Zoro’s angry and confused glare, Chopper’s quieting sobs.
“Really?” Luffy asked.
Sanji shrugged a little helplessly, gestured towards Zoro as if to say ask him .
Luffy squinted thoughtfully at Zoro.
“So, you don’t remember Alabaster?” he asked.
Still glaring, but confusion beginning to fully take over now, Zoro shook his head.
“Or Skypiea?” Luffy prodded.
Another headshake.
“Or Water 7? Or Thriller Bark? Or being apart? Or Fishmen Island? Or-”
“No, none of those things!” Sanji interrupted, as Zoro had begun to look more and more overwhelmed. “Luffy, he doesn’t remember .”
“Oh.”
For a moment Luffy looked incredibly sad, then he brightened up again.
“But he will! Those things all happened to him! So he has to remember them. Right Chopper?”
Chopper extracted his face from Sanji’s shoulder, where he had been stifling the last of his sobs.
“It doesn’t always work like that, Captain,” he sniffled.
“Yeah, but I know you can help him. After all, you are the best doctor in the whole world! There’s nothing you can’t cure.”
At this, Chopper wriggled so violently with pleasure he wriggled right out of Sanji’s arms.
“Shut up!” Chopper trilled. “You can’t make me happy with those compliments you bastard!”
Zoro stared.
“You sure look happy,” he muttered.
Sanji felt, abruptly, like he wanted to laugh. This was all so implausible, so ridiculous. How could a little bump on the head have taken out Roronoa Zoro ? How could he not know who he was? How could he not remember?
It was just…ridiculous.
Luffy was getting in Zoro’s face now, in the way that only Luffy was allowed, poking at Zoro’s forehead as if he was trying to physically force him to remember.
“Luffy” Chopper scolded. “Stop that!”
“But he looks so funny!” Luffy protested, still poking. “He looks all young and clueless, like he used to!”
Luffy was right, Sanji realised. Zoro did look younger, slightly more bewildered. More angry too though, and Sanji could see he was about to punch Luffy’s lights out any second.
“Captain,” he said delicately. “Maybe you shouldn’t be poking someone with a brain injury.”
“I’m gonna give him a brain injury,” Zoro hissed, smacking Luffy’s hand away. “And why are you still in here?” he continued, looking at Sanji again. “I told you to get the fuck out.”
“Zoro!” Luffy laughed. “Don’t be mean to Sanji! You like Sanji!”
Zoro stared at him.
“No Luffy,” he said flatly. “I do not like that brainless, perverted, twirling idiot.”
“Of course you do!” Luffy insisted. “You and he are-”
“Luffy!” said Sanji sharply, cutting the words off before they could be spoken.
Luffy stopped, very suddenly, and set his gaze on Sanji, all mirth gone from his face.
“Oh,” he said. “He doesn’t remember, does he?”
Sanji tried to swallow. His throat felt suddenly tight and a little raw. He shook his head slowly.
“Oh,” Luffy said again, softer this time. He glanced between Zoro and Sanji, looking suddenly sad.
“Remember what?” Zoro asked. “What are you all talking about?”
There was an awkward moment of silence.
“Nothing,” Sanji said decisively. “I mean, you can’t remember a lot obviously. But this is nothing important.”
Both Luffy and Chopper were staring at him now, but Sanji avoided their eyes. “The sun will be up soon, I should go and start breakfast.”
He turned and left, before another word could be spoken, swallowing desperately against the tightness in his throat. He had done the right thing. Zoro didn’t remember anything . Three years, just wiped away. He thought they were rivals again, even enemies. He thought they hated each other.
How was Sanji supposed to tell him they were actually desperately, deeply in love?
*
Breakfast was a strange affair; half sombre, half joyful.
The crew were relieved beyond belief that Zoro was awake, after days of unconsciousness, but the news of his memory loss left them feeling subdued and anxious. Zoro wouldn’t even know half of them now, would have no memory of Robin, Frankie, Brook and Jinbe along with Chopper. Had no memory of the Thousand Sunny. No memory of the way they had defeated warlords and emperors. No memory of the first time he kissed Sanji. Or the last.
After everyone finished eating, he cleared his throat and stood at the end of the table to gather the whole crew’s attention.
Zoro was still confined to the infirmary for the time being, and Sanji had given Chopper some simple rice porridge for him to try and eat earlier, too cowardly to deliver it himself. Unwilling to see that cold eye glaring at him again without any of the fondness that usually underlined their continual irritation with each other.
Chopper had been explaining to everyone how Zoro’s injury had been caused by the blow he had taken to the head which had knocked him out, that he likely had had some swelling of the brain which was why it had taken him so long to wake up, and this had affected his memory.
“It’s not permanent though, is it Chopper?” Nami had asked worriedly.
Chopper had frowned down at his pancakes.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “Amnesia is so different case to case. You can’t predict how a person’s brain will respond.”
He trailed his fork absentmindedly through the syrup on his plate; a ridiculous amount, just the way he liked it and just the way Sanji always indulged him.
“I hope that once the swelling goes down completely he’ll remember but…I don’t know.”
Now, Sanji waited for everyone’s attention, knowing he had to do this right away, before any more of them had a chance to speak to Zoro themselves.
“I have been thinking,” he began, uncomfortably. “I don’t think Zoro should know about our relationship until he remembers.”
They all stared at him.
“What?” Nami finally asked. “Sanji-kun that’s…”
She trailed off, unsure how to continue.
“I think, what Nami is trying to say,” Robin said. “Is are you sure that is the right decision Sanji? It might help Zoro’s memory if he knows the truth of the situation between the two of you.”
Sanji remembered the way Zoro had looked at him in the infirmary after he had woken up. I fucking hate you.
He suddenly felt very tired and found himself sinking into the empty chair at the end of the table, head in his hands.
No, he wasn’t sure. Pretending would be the worst thing in the world. How could he? How could he look at the man he loved, the man who meant more to him than anything, and pretend it meant nothing? Pretend they were just enemies again? Pretend to hate him?
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what to do.”
He looked up beseechingly, catching Nami and Usopp’s gazes.
“You remember what we were like back then. We couldn’t stand each other. All we cared about was getting one up on each other. And, what, now I tell him that ‘oh yeah by the way, we’ve actually been together for a while now. Surprise.’ He’ll go ballistic.”
Usopp’s eyes slid away; Sanji knew he got it.
“Sanji-kun,” Nami said, something soft and sympathetic in her tone that normally would have made Sanji want to melt. “If you do this, if you lie to him about this, you can’t take it back.”
“It’s not lying,” Sanji said stubbornly. “I’m not saying anyone has to lie to him. We just don’t tell him the full truth.”
Franky snorted.
“Yeah, that sounds like lying bro.”
Sanji squeezed a fist into his hair, tugging sharply at the strands.
They didn’t understand. They hadn’t seen the way Zoro had looked at him, had spoken to him.
“He’ll hate me,” he mumbled. “And I don’t think I can stand to-”
He cut himself off abruptly.
Since Whole Cake Island, since Zoro , he had been better at allowing himself to be vulnerable with this crew, but this wound felt too raw, too personal to voice yet.
“I’ve made up my mind,” he said firmly. “I don’t want him to know. So please, I am asking you all to keep your mouths shut.”
He looked around the table at them then. Nami, looking sorrowful, Robin unreadable as usual, Usopp worried, Franky frowning, Brook sightless and expressionless yet still managing to somehow look sad, Jinbe trying to be impartial, Chopper wide eyed and Luffy strangely contemplative as he stared right back at Sanji.
For a long moment no one spoke, then Luffy nodded decisively.
“If Sanji thinks this is the best thing to do then we’ll do it.”
Sanji nodded in thanks.
“Thank you, Captain.”
“Besides,” Luffy continued. “Zoro will remember in no time, I know it. Then we won’t have to worry.”
Sanji nodded again and bit his lower lip. God, he hoped that was the case.
“Are you sure, Sanji-kun?” Nami asked.
No, he really wasn’t.
“Yes Nami-san,” he replied, and forced some steel into his tone. “This is the best thing to do. Zoro can’t know we are together.”
*
The next few days were strange. Zoro was awake but confined to the infirmary under Chopper’s, or as far as Zoro knew Luffy’s , orders. Luffy was the only one he seemed willing to listen to, not even trusting Usopp or Nami, and when Chopper had eventually admitted he was missing three years of time and an eye, he had thrown such a tantrum that Chopper had been forced to sedate him with Luffy restraining him in his rubber limbs to keep him still.
The only time Sanji had attempted to go and see him, Zoro had hurled Chopper’s microscope at his head. (Thankfully Sani had excellent reflexes, and had managed to catch the instrument before any damage could be done to it. Sanji really couldn’t face telling Chopper that Zoro had broken one of his favourite toys by using it as a projectile.)
Sanji steered clear after that, as did the rest of the crew. It had been agreed that they would wait to introduce Zoro to anyone he didn’t remember until after he was released from the infirmary and back in the main bunkroom. For safety.
Thankfully after two nights of confinement, Chopper seemed satisfied enough with his progress, and the crew prepared to welcome Zoro back into general populace.
Whilst Chopper ran some final tests, Sanji made himself scarce and glumly shifted his things around in the bunkroom, trying to erase any trace of himself from the extra wide double bunk he and Zoro shared. Franky had made it for them, not long after their relationship became common knowledge, because they were all sick of Zoro and Sanji squishing into one bunk together and then squabbling over who was taking up too much room or stealing the blankets. Or kicking each other out of bed when one of them had had enough.
Now, he carefully tucked his pyjamas into the spare single bunk they kept for guests on the ship. He had already rummaged through both of their lockers to check their things were separated and anything incriminating was hidden away. He did find some rather explicit letters he had written to Zoro, tucked carefully into the back of Zoro’s locker and wrapped in an old scarf that Sanji was pretty sure had belonged to Nami once. He hid these away in his own locker, burying them right at the back under his clothes, where hopefully no one would go digging about, trying to ignore the choking, squeezing feeling in his chest at their discovery and that Zoro had kept them.
The door opened just as he was straightening the sheets on the spare bunk. Or his bunk now, he supposed, and Zoro stood in the doorway, Chopper and Luffy just behind him.
Sanji tried to smile, and not wilt at the way Zoro’s eye skipped over him, the indifference in his expression.
“Ah Mosshead,” he said, forcing his tone to be light, teasing. Just act normal. “Still not dead then?”
Zoro sneered at him, but didn’t reply. His eye wandered around the room, taking in the swinging bunks, the low couch and row of lockers, the general untidiness.
“Which one is mine?” he asked.
Chopper and Luffy both looked at the row of bunks, then a little helplessly at Sanji.
Sanji sighed.
“This one,” he said, gesturing to the double bunk.
Zoro stared at it suspiciously.
“Why’s it so big?”
Sanji rolled his eyes.
“Because you kept moaning the normal ones weren’t big enough, so Franky built it for you.”
“Who’s Franky?”
“Zoro you know this,” Chopper said. “I told you who Franky is!”
Zoro screwed up his face as if thinking was taking an awful amount of work.
“I don’t think I was listening.”
Chopper made a sound that may have been a mini scream of rage.
Luffy laughed.
“Come on Zoro!” he said. “Let me introduce you to the rest of the absolute best crew in the world!”
Something softened as Zoro looked at Luffy, and the belligerent expression he had been wearing lessened slightly.
It made Sanji ache .
He watched them leave, surprised when Chopper didn’t immediately follow.
“You doing okay?” Sanji asked.
Chopper hesitated for a moment.
“He doesn’t know me, Sanji,” he said, and his voice was wobbly. “He doesn’t know me at all.”
Yeah tell me about it , Sanji thought bitterly, but it wasn’t the same really was it? Because even though he couldn’t remember what they were to each other, Zoro did at least know who Sanji was. And Zoro and Chopper had always had a special relationship.
“Come here,” he said, and he gathered Chopper in a gentle hug, kneeling on the floor so Chopper could cry wetly into the shoulder of one his favourite shirts.
“I’m sorry,” Chopper sniffled through his tears. “I shouldn’t be crying on you, this is horrible for you too.”
“It’s horrible for all of us,” Sanji said firmly. “Just because I lo-” He cut himself off. “Just because we were together doesn’t mean I get a monopoly on feeling shitty about the situation.”
“Are,” Chopper said.
Sanji frowned.
“Huh?”
“You said were together, but you still are Sanji. And once Zoro remembers you’ll be together again.”
Sanji squeezed his eyes shut tight, suddenly very glad Chopper couldn’t see his face.
“Right,” he said softly. “When he remembers.”
He gave Chopper another squeeze, then disentangled himself.
“You’d better get out there,” he said. “Make sure Luffy isn’t overwhelming him.”
Chopper let out a little squeak, eyes wide with horror at the thought, and scurried out of the bunkroom without another word.
Sanji stood slowly, taking a deep breath and holding it for a long moment before blowing it out in a facsimile of calm.
He could do this.
He was fine.
Outside Luffy was, indeed, overwhelming Zoro, and it appeared he and Franky were giving Zoro an impromptu tour of the Sunny,
Not that it would help , Sanji thought wryly, remembering just last week finding Zoro down in the stores when he went to get a new sack of flour, where the idiot had been meditating amongst the supplies.
When Sanji had kicked him upside the head and asked why the hell he was down there, Zoro had only shrugged and said he had been looking for the aquarium bar.
Sanji had told him what a hopeless oaf he was, Zoro had said he had only wanted a bit of quiet, and then they had ended up fucking on the storeroom floor.
He watched now as Luffy dragged Zoro over the lawn and up the steps at the other side of the deck, Franky following and shouting about random facts and features of the Sunny. Chopper was racing after them, yelling at them to stop over taxing Zoro.
“Well, he doesn’t seem too phased,” he said to Nami and Robin, who were standing closest to him.
“You missed the initial introductions,” Robin noted. “He was surprisingly calm. Even with Brook.”
“Probably the brain damage,” Sanji said absently.
Nami whacked him round the head.
“Nami-san!” he gasped.
“Don’t be so casual,” she snapped. “ Probably the brain damage . This is serious!”
“Perhaps our Cook-san is using black humour to cover the depth of his fears that Zoro will never regain his memory and remember their love, and Sanji will be alone and miserable forever,” Robin suggested.
And Sanji wanted to tell them both to shut the hell up and back off he really did…but of course he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He may be in love with Zoro, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t still sooner gouge out an eye to become Zoro’s matching accessory than say a bad word to either of his goddesses.
“Astute as always, Robin-chan,” he said. “I am, at this very moment, contemplating my lonely and miserable existence without that giant idiot at my side.”
Robin laughed softly, and Nami rolled her eyes at them.
Sanji squinted up to where he could see Luffy dragging Zoro up to look at his ‘special seat’.
“How has he been with you?” he asked Nami.
Nami shrugged.
“A bit suspicious, but mostly normal. You know how me and Zoro are.”
Sanji nodded, trying to keep his expression neutral.
He did know. Nami and Zoro had always had a bit of a sibling like bond, even when Sanji first met them. And although Zoro could make fun of Nami he had always been protective of her. Had certainly never hated her, the way he seemed to now despise Sanji so much.
Had they really been like that , Sanji wondered then. Had they really been so vitriolic to each other back then, or was Zoro’s reaction partly because something inside of him still felt connected to Sanji, and without his memory intact he was rebelling against it?
“Nami-san,” he began carefully. “You have known both Zoro and I for a long time.” He hesitated, trying to think how to word it without coming over as completely pathetic. “What were we like at the beginning? Did we really come across as so…loathing of each other?”
Nami’s eyes flashed with sympathy, and Sanji had to grit his teeth a little to keep his expression neutral.
“I think at the beginning you were wary of each other,” she said. “Then the way you expressed your friendship was through bickering and fighting, much the way Zoro and I do. But I don’t think you ever truly loathed each other, Sanji-kun.”
“Then why does he seem to hate me so much now?” he asked, and was ashamed to feel the burn of tears at the back of his throat.
“Cook-san,” Robin said gently. “He is confused and you are an easy target. That is all. You must not take it to heart.”
Sanji swallowed, hard, and fiercely blinked the moment of weakness away. What was he doing, laying all of this on the ladies? He should know better.
He forced a bright, carefree smile onto his face, that he knew would fool neither of them.
“I am sure you are right, Robin-chan. Forgive my moment of melancholy. I am only a bit tired from all the excitement of the last few days.”
Nami frowned.
“Sanji,” she began, but suddenly he couldn’t stand to hear anything placating from her, from either of them. He should have kept his damn mouth shut.
“Ah look what time it is!” he exclaimed. “It is time for your mid-morning snack! I must get something prepared at once.”
He gave them both an elaborate bow and backed off towards the kitchen, trying not to see the sympathy in their eyes, trying to ignore the wriggle of shame from the vulnerable moment in his own gut.
In the safety of his kitchen he focussed only on cutting fruit into delicate swans and heart shapes, as he arranged some lovingly on china plates for the girls, then hastily cut some more into large slices for the rest of the crew, piling this onto a large platter.
It wasn’t his best work, but it would do in a pinch. His head had been so full of sorting the bunk room that morning he had neglected his duties. The truth was, he had been neglecting them ever since Zoro took that blow to the head, spending far too much time at his Marimo’s beside instead of doing his actual job.
But he could make up for that now.
He would prepare a veritable feast for this dinner this evening, and include as many of the crew’s favourites as he could. It would keep him focussed, and the more energy he spent on cooking the less he would have time to dwell on Zoro’s memory loss, and the way he looked at Sanji like Sanji was something on the bottom of Luffy’s sandal.
He would be fine.
*
Days passed and Zoro’s memory showed no sign of returning.
Sanji thought something of before must have been retained, as he seemed strangely comfortable with the members of the crew he no longer knew and had taken having a part-cyborg, living skeleton, talking reindeer and fishman on the crew very much into his stride.
The only one he seemed even slightly wary of was Robin, whom he treated with a slightly suspicious glare most of the time, but he was still polite whenever they interacted. In fact, he was nice to everyone except Sanji, and Sanji tried not to let the overt hostility wear him down too much.
Whenever he and Zoro were in the same space together, Zoro would give him an open glare before determinedly ignoring him. He sneered when Sanji was serving Robin and Nami, making unkind, snide remarks within Sanji’s earshot, that Sanji tried his best not to rise to.
They weren’t even sparring anymore, which would have at least relieved a bit of the storm Sanji could feel building every time he suppressed his reactions to Zoro’s hostility. The only time Sanji had suggested it Zoro had looked genuinely revolted, like the thought of lowering himself to fight against Sanji made him sick, so Sanji had backed off and hadn’t been able to bring himself to broach it again.
He had tried, sneakily, to goad Zoro into a fight, but each time he made some sort of crack at Zoro’s expense Zoro just regarded him flatly, and the words fell dead into the air between them
It was horrible.
Sanji was beginning to feel like he was dragging himself through each day. He had not only lost his lover but he had lost his partner, the one who challenged him, who pushed him and held him and made him feel like he could be a better version of himself. It would perhaps have been better if Zoro had just forgotten him completely, like the others, than this misremembered past they shared.
Because Sanji was sure it had never been this bad. Yes, they had been rivals and they liked to fight and rile each other up, but he could never remember such hostility, such vitriol between them.
Or had he just forgotten how it really had been, at first? The years smoothing those rough edges between them, the fire of the rivalry burning into something more intense, something deeper that surpassed anything either of them had felt before, could have believed they would ever feel. The depth of understanding that lay between them now, to know each other in ways they could have never foreseen.
Sanji was dwelling on this as he finished watering Nami’s mikan trees, setting down the now empty pan of leftover water he had been pouring lovingly onto the soil. He sat back on his heels, hidden in the shade of the small orange grove, and let the sound of the ocean and the breeze take him out of himself, just for a moment. He closed his eyes and breathed in the salt in the air, trying to find a moment of calm amongst the turmoil that had been dogging him ever since Zoro woke up.
He stiffened as felt two presences approach the mikan grove, recognised instantly first Zoro and then Robin.
He wasn’t sure, in that moment, why he didn’t stand up and make himself known. He wasn’t hiding exactly, but something kept him there, knelt on the ground, hidden from view by the green shade of the mikan trees.
“I do remember you,” Zoro said.
There was a pause.
“Do you?” Robin asked, sounding gently amused.
“You were on the ship,” Zoro replied. “After Whisky Peak.”
Sanji frowned, momentarily confused. It took a long moment before he realised what Zoro was referring to, as the memory of Robin in a purple hat, sitting casually on the Going Merry’s railing, surfaced.
“You are with Baroque Works,” Zoro said.
“I was ,” Robin countered, a bit of sharpness in her tone. “Now I am a Straw Hat. Just like you.”
Sanji could practically feel Zoro frowning.
“So what happened?” he asked.
“Luffy,” Robin replied simply, and Sanji could hear the smile in her words. “He saved my life when I didn’t want to live anymore. More than once, actually,” she added wryly. “He let me dare to dream I could be allowed to live. He is my Captain, and I will follow him across any sea, any adventure, no matter how wild or dangerous. You do not need to question my loyalty, Roronoa Zoro. My life is Luffy’s now; my heart, my ambition, my dreams. They all belong with him.”
There was a long moment of silence. Sanji wished, suddenly, he could see Zoro’s face, to watch this encounter play out across those stoic features.
“Huh,” Zoro said. Then: “What happened to Vivi?”
“She departed ways from you before I came aboard,” Robin said. “But she made the right decision for her, at the time. Who knows, you may yet see her again.”
Silence again.
“Huh,” Zoro repeated.
Sanji resisted the urge to snort.
“So,” Robin continued. “Do I pass your test?”
“Test?” Zoro asked.
“I know you are loyal to your Captain above all else. Will I muster as one of the Straw Hat crew?”
Another long, long moment of silence.
“I don’t trust you,” Zoro said finally. “But I do trust Luffy. And if he says you are part of the crew, then I guess you are part of the crew.”
“Well,” Robin said, sounding amused again. “I believe trust is earned, so I hope I can earn yours again, Swordsman-san.”
Zoro grunted, and Sanji had to tamp down the urge to give him a swift kick for being so impolite in Robin-chan’s presence.
“You should be kinder to Sanji,” Robin said suddenly.
Sanji felt himself stiffen.
“Eh?” Zoro asked. “Why?”
“I know you can’t believe it, but you and he have become very close. You hurt him now, by being so rough with him.”
And Robin was only speaking the truth, the very thoughts Sanji himself had been ruminating on only a little while before, but he found himself clenching his jaw, anger stirring in him.
She didn’t have the right to meddle in his and Zoro’s relationship. It was hard enough going through it as it was, without the crew getting involved and making things worse!
“Rough with him?” Zoro scoffed. “’He’s not a delicate fucking flower. And you’re right, I can’t believe in any future I would be close to that curly browed pervert. I can’t stand him and want to keep as far away from him as I can.”
A moment later Sanji heard the deliberately heavy thump of Zoro’s boots across the deck as he walked away. Robin didn’t leave though. She hovered, almost as if she were waiting for something, and Sanji realised, suddenly, that she had known he was there all along.
He stood up slowly, picking up his empty pan, and rounding the edge of the mikan grove.
“I was watering the trees for Nami-san,” he said, tone hollow.
“I am sorry, Sanji,” Robin said, a flicker of guilt in her voice. “I was trying to help.”
“I know,” he replied. The anger from before had drained out of him. “And whilst I appreciate it, please just…don’t. It only makes things worse.”
Robin frowned and opened her mouth unsurely, but Sanji brushed past her before she could speak in an uncharacteristic display of rudeness. He would overcompensate for it at dinner, waiting on her hand and foot to try and make up for his behaviour. But at that moment he had nothing left to give her, and craved only the solitude of his kitchen, and the loneliness of his thoughts.
*
Sani stirred in the half light of the morning. He frowned, squinting through the dimness of the room. If the sun was rising that meant he needed to be up, otherwise he would be late getting breakfast out.
He made to pull back the blankets, but the arm looped around his waist tightened, stopping him from moving.
“Nnnnng,” Zoro said unintelligibly. “S’not morning.”
Sanji smiled sleepily.
“It is,” he murmured. “And I have to get up.”
Zoro tightened his hold, nuzzling his face into the back of Sanji’s neck.
“No,” he said, and Sanji allowed himself to relax, pressing back into Zoro’s arms.
“Five more minutes,” he said softly, and Zoro gave a contented sigh against Sanji’s nape. He felt lips press there a moment later.
“Should stay here,” Zoro grunted. “Make someone else do all the work for a change.”
Sanji nudged him with an elbow, a lot more gently than he normally would.
“No one is going in my kitchen,” he said, and Zoro laughed softly.
“Course not.”
He pressed another kiss to the back of Sanji’s neck, lips sliding lazily down to the curve of his shoulder.
“Zoro,” Sanji murmured warningly.
“Just five more minutes,” Zoro said teasingly.
Sanji rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. He tilted his head back until Zoro’s lips found their way to his and they shared a lazy kiss.
“Morning shit cook,” Zoro said.
Sanji scowled.
“Let me up you giant monkey. I need to start breakfast.”
Zoro slid his arm up from Sanji’s waist, capturing his jaw and keeping it turned toward him.
“Not yet,” he said, diving in for another slow kiss. Sanji sighed into it, parting his lips to allow Zoro’s tongue to flicker against his.
When they eventually drew apart, Zoro kept him there, faces pressed close together.
“I love you,” he said.
Sanji felt the words shiver through him. It wasn’t like they never said it, but for all his flowery romanticisms, Sanji still found it difficult to express his sincere emotions and show vulnerability, and Zoro was, well. Zoro.
So yeah, they said it, but they weren’t throwing it out there every few seconds or anything.
Zoro sighed, his terrible morning breath ghosting over Sanji’s face. His eyes were closed and there was this little contented smile on his lips. Sanji felt his heart swell. The knowledge that this ridiculous, impossible, unbelievable man was his could still completely floor him. That Zoro, in all his magnificence, in all his idiocy, in all his strength and loyalty could want Sanji, could choose Sanji…
Sanji wriggled in Zoro’s hold until he had turned over, reaching up to cup Zoro’s impressive jawline. Zoro squinted his eye open, still muzzy with sleep.
“I love you too,” Sanji said, and his heart seemed to kick start, just as it did every time he said those words.
Zoro grinned and leaned back in for another long kiss.
“I really do have to get up now,” Sanji said.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
Zoro’s eye was already closing, ready to slip back into sleep whilst Sanji prepared breakfast. Sanji slithered out of the bunk, brushing a last kiss over Zoro’s forehead that had Zoro wrinkling his brow at the touch.
Sanji began to dress in the dim light from the porthole, and was just looping his tie under his shirt collar when Zoro spoke again.
“Sanji.”
He didn’t sound sleepy anymore.
“Huh?” Sanji asked distractedly, fiddling with the lengths of his tie.
“Sanji,” Zoro said again. “What are you doing?”
Sanji stopped then, and looked at him.
“What?” he asked. “I’m getting dressed you moron, what does it look like I’m doing?”
“What are you still doing here ?” Zoro asked. “When you know you’re not wanted?”
He was sitting up now. Sanji felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.
“What?” he said, uselessly.
“You’re not wanted here, Sanji,” Zoro said. He stood up and Sanji automatically found himself taking a step back.
“No one wants you here,” Zoro continued. “You should have stayed away. You should have let me follow through with your request and killed you. Then we would finally be rid of you. No one wants you here! You’re weak. You’re pathetic. You’re replaceable and no one would miss you if you were gone.”
Sanji stared at him. All traces of tenderness were gone from his face now. It was hard, cold like marble, a sneer of disgust twisting his lips.
“You don’t mean that…what are you saying?”
Zoro took a menacing step towards him; Sanji could feel the power rolling off him in suffocating waves. He felt, very suddenly, afraid.
“I am saying NO ONE WANTS YOU HERE!” he roared, and Sanji sat up, gasping for breath, his heart hammering in his chest.
It took several laboured breaths for reality to begin to seep in. He was in bed, in the dark, alone in the guest bunk.
A dream, he realised, the thought materialising through the panicked fog of his mind. It had just been a dream.
As his breathing began to slow, scraps of the dream drifted into place. Not just a dream then, a memory, the beginning at least. That had actually happened, hadn’t it? The details seemed hazy, as if they were already slipping away, but Sanji was sure that had been a memory, it had felt so familiar.
But the remnants of the words Zoro had spat at him, the still elevated beating of his heart, overshadowed the memory. The details were dissipating but the way Zoro had taunted him cruelly, that sinking desperation, the jolt of fear: they were all still very real.
Sanji knew he wouldn’t go back to sleep now.
He slipped out of bed and gathered some clothes then dressed in the darkness. He felt almost bruised and forwent his usual armour of suit and tie for some sweatpants and an ancient blue hoodie. He could change later, before breakfast, when he woke the others.
In the quiet of the kitchen he turned the lightning low and began to carefully prep for breakfast; rolling flour and yeast with olive oil and water, a pinch of salt, kneading the bread dough firmly until it felt worn and stretched and then setting it aside to rest. Next the croissant dough, prepared the night before and left in the fridge overnight to chill, rolling it evenly to cut into uniform triangles. Rolling each individual triangle into a perfect curve, layers of butter sealed within each one ready to create mouthwatering layers of flaked golden pastry.
He worked calmly, methodically; his focus trained on each step to avoid thinking of his dream, of Zoro, of what was going to happen next. Just there in that moment, the dough beneath his fingers, working quickly and gracefully to create something delicious. Sustenance.
He came out of it when the door swung open, and it brought inside Brook from the nightwatch. Sanji blinked, suddenly realising that dawn was in the air, the port holes beyond the galley brightening by the second.
He looked down at the mounds of croissants he had created. There were scones too, both savoury and sweet, all neatly cut out and ready to be baked. He hadn't even realised he had made them.
“Good morning Sanji-san,” Brook said, tone bright but quiet in the stillness of the morning.
Sanji cleared his throat, and tried to not let the slight bewilderment he was feeling show on his face.
“Tea?” he offered, already reaching for the kettle to refill it.
Brook nodded and seated himself at the bar, watching quietly as Sanji prepared the tea, steeping the leaves, waiting for it to infuse properly, and then finally pouring into Brook’s cup.
Brook took a sip and made a contented sound.
“Thank you Sanji-san. There is nothing like that first cup of tea in the day.”
Sanji nodded, distracted, fixing himself a cup of coffee in the hope it would wake him up a bit.
“You are up even earlier than usual this morning,” Brook noted.
Sanji stiffened slightly.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he muttered.
“Hmm,” Brook nodded, sipping his tea.
Sanji stared at the mounds of croissants and scones he had prepared, the three loaves of bread still rising. What could he make next?
“It looks like we are in for a treat for breakfast today,” Brook observed.
Sanji felt himself redden, inexplicably. It was his job, after all, to feed the crew. There was no reason he couldn’t make croissants and scones if he felt like it. He didn’t have to explain himself.
So why did he suddenly feel caught out, exposed? Why did he feel like he had to justify himself somehow?
“I just…couldn't sleep,” he said. “So I cooked.”
Brook nodded, as if this was perfectly reasonable and not at all the behaviour of someone with questionable sanity.
“Our Captain will be most pleased,” Brook said.
Sanji found himself nodding back, wordless.
Brook drained his cup of tea with a satisfied sigh.
“Thank you Sanji-san,” he said. “You are always so kind as to prepare me a cup, even when you are in the middle of your preparations.”
“It’s my job,” Sanji said.
Brook shook his head lightly.
“It is more than that,” he said, tone alarmingly gentle. “You are so very kind, Sanji-san. You always look out for us. Even when you show your affection by kicking us, yohoho.”
Sanji felt his fists curl on the counter, then forced himself to keep his posture relaxed as discomfort raced through him.
“Get out of here, shitty skeleton,” he said, between gritted teeth.
Brook just laughed again brightly.
“Thank you for the tea, I will resume my watch now and join you for breakfast.”
He left, chortling softly to himself, and Sanji swallowed, aware of the heat in his face at Brook’s words.
He was only saying it because he felt sorry for Sanji, of course. Everyone pitied him now that Zoro had lost his memory. They looked at him and saw poor sad Sanji, whose own lover couldn’t even stand him now.
Sanji swallowed thickly, trying to stuff the self pitying thoughts down, trying to cast them aside.
It wasn’t what the crew thought of him, of course it wasn’t. And that certainly wasn’t the first time Brook had told Sanji he thought highly of Sanji’s kindness. He knew this. He knew the intrusive thoughts were just that. He musn't…he shouldn’t…
Sanji slumped down onto the counter, still strewn with flour from his frantic baking.
He missed Zoro.
He missed that wry voice in his ear, telling him to get a grip. He missed those ridiculous arms circling him from behind as he tried to prepare breakfast and Zoro got in the way. He missed that cool grey gaze watching him from across the counter as he whipped up something delicious.
He missed Zoro.
He breathed there, hunched over the worktop, for long moments, until he took it all -all the missing, all the self doubt, all the nightmares- and stuffed them so far down inside himself he could barely find them again. Then he straightened up, took a deep breath and finished making breakfast.
It wasn’t much later the sun really began to rise, and members of the crew drifted sleepily into the galley where Sanji could provide them with drinks of choice. The noise level began to rise as more of them awoke, clanging echoing from somewhere on deck, He heard Nami’s sharp voice and Lufffy’s laughing return, then Luffy was bounding into the kitchen, flinging himself into a chair at the dining table, joining Robin and Jinbe, who both regarded him with fond amusement.
“You had better not be upsetting Nami-swan,” Sanji chided.
Luffy looked at him with gleeful eyes.
“Sanjiiiiiiiiiii meeeeeat!” he said.
Sanji rolled his own eyes as the rest of the crew came clattering in, taking their various seats at the table.
“Yes yes alright, breakfast is coming.”
He purposefully avoided looking at Zoro as he began ferrying their individual plates over, then platters of croissants and scones. He could feel Zoro watching him though, which in itself was unusual as he had spent most of that week pretending Sanji didn’t exist when they were in the same room together.
“What?” he snapped, finally, when he couldn’t take the feel of Zoro’s gaze any longer.
Zoro blinked, as if surprised.
He was looking at Sanji’s jumper, and Sanji released with a flush he hadn’t gone back to change before the meal. He was still wearing the old blue hoodie he had pulled on in the dark of the early hours.
“I just…thought your sweater reminded me of something,” Zoro said, sounding confused. He was speaking quietly, and Sanji had to lean a little closer to hear the words over the din of the others. He could feel Zoro’s warmth, and it was probably the closest he had been to him since Zoro first woke up.
“It doesn’t,” Zoro said, suddenly, tone curt. “My mistake.”
He turned deliberately away from Sanji to shovel some food into his mouth, and Sanji stepped back, confused and strangely self conscious.
He retreated back over to the kitchen under the guise of getting more coffee for Robin and Nami, trying to pull himself together. As he waited for the coffee to drip through he fingered the edge of his hoodie, the blue material soft and worn with age and washing. It was a darker colour on the bottom half, intersected by a jagged wave pattern, but it was so old and worn the dark blue had faded now, the two colours much closer in hue than they used to be. It hit him then, when he even last remembered wearing this sweater, a long forgotten memory from years ago.
Thriller Bark; the aftermath, watching over Zoro’s still figure, waiting and waiting for him to wake him. He had worn this hoodie when they had sailed away.
Sanji looked up, thoughtfully, gaze resting on Zoro, who was fixedly working his way through his plate, occasionally fending off Luffy’s reaching limb.
It was probably nothing. Probably just a coincidence. It couldn’t mean anything.
And yet…
And yet.
*
The afternoon saw the crew on deck occupied in their various activities. Usopp and Chopper were fishing off the stern rail, Jinbe behind Sunny's wheel, steering her gently.
Robin, Nami and Brook were relaxing on sun loungers wearing oversized shades, the girls in bikinis, all three with a cocktail in hand courtesy of Sanji.
Frankie was tinkering with a piece of machinery, grease stains on his arms, at the edge of the lawn.
In the centre, Luffy and Zoro stood opposite each other, as Luffy showcased his use of Haki.
Luffy had regaled them with stories of how Hyogoro taught him to unlock his advanced Armament Haki in Wano. He was convinced he could do the same for Zoro’s lost abilities. By Luffy’s logic, Zoro already knew how to use Haki, he had just forgotten, and Luffy was determined to get Zoro to remember.
They had been at it for a while, and what had thrilled and delighted Chopper and Usopp at first as they had watched, had soon become boring as attempt after attempt bore no result for Zoro.
Still, Luffy did not tire, determination bursting out of him, and he pushed Zoro through his paces again and again and again.
Sanji had settled himself close to the sun bathing trio, idly listening as they gossiped, eyes glued to Luffy and Zoro on the grass below.
Zoro had shed his robe and wore only his trousers and boots, his bronze skin glistening with sweat from a combination of effort and the sun. His eye was narrowed with determination and concentration. His earrings glinted every time he moved, little flashes of brightness. He was incredibly beautiful and Sanji wanted nothing more than to go down there, press him up against the mast and lick him.
“-don't you think, Sanji-kun?”
Sanji blinked.
“Yes, Nami-san,” he said absently.
There was a moment of silence, then all three of them started laughing.
“I was asking if you needed a towel for that drool problem,” Nami snorted.
Sanji felt himself redden but met their amused gazes head on. He had nothing to be ashamed of. A man could drool over his lover if he wanted to.
“I was merely admiring the view,” he said tartly.
Nami and Brook sniggered, whilst Robin let out a dainty little laugh.
“As you should,” she said, eyes twinkling.
Nami pushed her sunglasses up onto her head, regarding him.
“How are things between you two?” she asked. “Any better?”
Sanji felt himself tense, then immediately tried to relax as if the question had not bothered him.
They were his friends, he reminded himself. His family. They were allowed to be concerned about him.
He shrugged, letting his gaze cast back down to Zoro.
“I don't know,” he admitted. “There was a moment, this morning at breakfast, when I thought maybe…”
He trailed off uncertainly. He still wasn't sure if he had imagined Zoro’s strange reaction to his sweater, putting it together with Thriller Bark in his own mind. Was he just hoping to see something that wasn't there?
He shook his head abruptly.
“Anyway, we should focus on regaining his memories. On what we can do to help.”
Brook nodded agreeably, but Nami slumped back on her lounger and groaned.
“We've tried helping him remember,” she moaned. “I’ve tripled his debt. Chopper asked Zoro to brush his fur. Franky made replicas of all his old swords. Brook even threw him a rock concert! Nothing helped.”
She pouted, and Sanji reached up absently to his hair, tugging on the strands until an answering pain lanced through his scalp.
“He can't even remember Haki!” Nami finished.
They all looked down to the lawn just in time to see Luffy knock Zoro flat on his back again.
“Shishishi Zoro!” he laughed. “You have let it flow through you. Just reach for it and it will be there. You can't battle it into submission!”
Robin smiled.
“Our Captain makes quite the teacher,” she said, as Luffy used his Haki to knock Zoro over once again.
Sanji couldn't help smirking. Zoro was going to be so mad about this when he got his memory back.
“I guess we just have to continue to give it time,” he said quietly, watching as Zoro twisted elegantly in an unsuccessful attempt to evade another of Luffy’s unseen attacks. “That’s what Chopper thinks anyhow.”
The truth was that, as the days passed and Zoro’s memory showed no sign of returning, the advice felt hollow and more than a little hopeless. Sanji tugged on his hair again, more sharply.
“Cook-san.”
Soft fingers covered his, and Sanji blinked into awareness to see one of Robin’s flower hands covering his own, gently prying his fingers from his hair.
He flushed, and hurriedly pulled his hand away.
“I should start dinner,” he said.
He saw Robin frown and heard Nami sigh loudly as he stood, backing off before they could argue with him.
“There he goes,” Nami muttered, perfectly aware that Sanji could still hear her. “Running off when we try and talk to him about it.”
“Don’t push him,” Robin replied, tone gentle. “You know how he…”
The rest of what she was saying was lost as Sanji practically threw himself across the deck and into the galley. He didn’t want to hear it, couldn’t stand their pity. It made him feel pathetic, like he had to prove his worth, his usefulness somehow. He hated it.
He yanked sharply on his hair, the pain grounding him. He was fine.
He had managed to calm himself down by the time dinner rolled around, cooking soothing him as always. That was until he called the crew in to eat and Zoro sauntered into the galley.
Sanji nearly choked on his spit.
“What…what are you…” he stammered, foolishly.
Zoro regarded him coolly.
“Spit it out shit cook.”
“What the fuck are you wearing?” Sanjy burst out, the very opposite of cool.
Zoro scowled at him, like Sanji was the dumbest thing to walk the earth.
“A shirt. Idiot.”
Sanji stared.
“That’s not a shirt, Zoro, that’s…” It was obscene, was what it was. “Where did you even find that?!”
Zoro shrugged and half turned away from him, clearly already bored of giving Sanji any attention.
“It was in my locker, okay? Or do I need your permission to wear it?”
Sanji stared some more. He was only human, okay, and Zoro looked…well.
Somehow, Zoro had managed to find one of his old white t-shirts he used to wear back when the crew first got together. It was threadbare and bore the signs of Sanji’s needle from where he had sewn up countless rips and tears over their time together.
It was also several sizes too small.
Sanji was surprised the seams were still intact, the way they strained around Zoro’s physic. And his tits looked downright pornographic, the way they were squeezed up into the v neck. It made Nami’s outfits look practically demure in comparison.
“You can’t wear that!” Sanji said, the words bursting out of him before he could stop them.
Zoro went still then turned slowly to meet Sanji’s eyes.
“You actually telling me what I can and can’t wear?” he said, voice low and dangerous in a way that should definitely not be getting Sanji’s blood pumping.
There was a tense, fraught moment, and then the galley door burst open and Nami came in with Chopper on her heels.
She took in Zoro’s shirt and made a disgusted sound.
“Christ Zoro, you can’t wear that! You look like a stripper!”
Zoro snorted softly, turning away from Sanji.
“Takes one to know one,” he snapped back at her.
Sanji opened his mouth to defend Nami, but all that blood was still rushing somewhere it shouldn’t in polite company, and he closed it again abruptly.
“You look ridiculous,” Nami was saying. “I can’t believe you even still own that mouldy old shirt.”
“I can’t believe it still fits,” Usopp chimed in, then quivered under Zoro’s gaze. “I mean it looks great! Really brings out the colour in your eye!”
“If you’re not careful you’re gonna poke someone’s eye out ,” Nami said, eyeing Zoro’s cleavage disdainfully.
“Jealous?” Zoro asked with a mocking grin.
Sanji tried to clear his throat, and sounded like he was quietly dying.
“Okay over there, Sanji-kun?” Nami asked, a knowing glint in her gaze.
Sanji made a sound that he hoped was the word ‘dinner’ and then hurried over into the kitchen to start dishing out the meal.
He made sure to keep his eyes at face level the whole time he was serving, and then very firmly on his own plate as he tried to eat and think of absolutely nothing else. Nothing else at all. And definitely not Zoro’s tits.
They were just finishing up when there was the distinct sound of cannon fire from outside, and the ship rocked with a sudden movement.
“Oooh!” Luffy yelled gleefully. “Someone’s attacking us! Come on Zoro, it’s the perfect time for you to try out Haki in battle!”
He leapt up from the table, reaching over to tug Zoro out of his seat.
“Don’t try your Haki out yet!” Sanji protested in alarm, unable to help himself. “You’ll just wind up with another head injury! Luffy don’t encourage him!”
Zoro glared at him as the boat rocked again, the enemy cannon fire clearly getting closer.
“You think I can’t do it?” he challenged.
“Oh for fucks-” Sanji cut himself off with a groan. “That’s not what this is about. Of course you can do it. I just don’t want you to get hurt again. Hurt worse,” he amended.
Zoro was still glaring at him, but something seemed to flicker across his expression for a moment, gone so quickly Sanji couldn't identify it.
“I don’t need you telling me what to do,” he huffed, and then Luffy was hauling him out onto the deck, reaching back with his other hand to tug Sanji along too.
Sanji went, of course he did, and the effect of Zoro’s ridiculous shirt was at least good for something as he felt his elevated blood practically singing at the prospect of being able to finally kick some ass and release some frustration.
It was a motley looking crew of pirates that had attacked them, if he was honest, and Sanji doubted they would prove much trouble although they were quite heavy on numbers. Luffy was already slingshotting himself and Zoro over to their ship with a gleeful woop. Sanji shook out a cigarette as the rest of the crew followed them out onto deck, taking up their various positions for battle should they be needed. He lit the cigarette with a flick of his lighter and breathed in deeply, feeling the smoke settling into his lungs for a long moment.
Then, with a sharp grin, he kicked off into the sky.
He landed lightly on the enemy deck, where Luffy and Zoro were already making good headway with the enemy crew, and immediately joined the fray. It felt good to stretch his legs, so to speak, as he kicked several pirates out of his path, watching them sail across the deck with satisfaction. He and Zoro ended up back to back, seamlessly fighting together as they always had done, and that felt good too, the awareness of Zoro’s swords behind him, the familiar strength of his attacks as they cut through the air.
The whole thing was going quite splendidly, and Sanji felt himself smiling properly for the first time in days, cigarette dangling from his lips as he and Zoro ducked and weaved around each other, twirling and moving in sync to defeat the enemy. Luffy was providing his own brand of chaos on the far side of the deck, and Sanji caught Zoro’s grin at one of his shouts of “Gomu gomu!” as he let fly an attack.
Sanji was distracted. The enemy crew were too easy, like swatting flies, and he let the thrill of the moment, of working with Zoro again, pull his mind from the fight, just for a moment.
Just for a moment as he grinned across the deck at Zoro. Zoro who was standing stock still, staring at a pirate rushing towards him with a pistol. Zoro who was not moving to defend himself. Zoro who Was. Not. Moving.
Sanji realised what he was doing in a breathless second. The idiot had his face all screwed up just like when he had been practising with Luffy. He was trying to use his Haki. But his Haki was not there.
And Zoro was not moving .
In another split second Sanji was flinging himself across the deck towards Zoro’s still unmoving form. There was a crack of a pistol shot, and Sanji felt himself jerk in mid air as the bullet found a target.
A bright, sharp pain blossomed in the right side of his chest.
He hit the deck, hard, and when he tried to catch a breath the pain became sharper. There was a metallic taste in his mouth.
He lay there, stunned, staring up at a sky which was just beginning to darken with the first strains of sunset. His cigarette fell from his loose lips.
There was a roar of pure fury, and then the sound of Zoro’s swords slashing through the air. The ominous creaking of the ship’s mast, a grinding sound as the ship shuddered.
Sanji struggled to sit up, watching as the mast slid sideways and then crashed over the side of the ship, cut clean off its base.
The pirate with the gun was nowhere in sight.
Zoro grunted, and Sanji stared at him.
“What the hell?” he asked.
Zoro scowled.
“You alive?”
Sanji rolled his eyes.
“Yes, I’m alive,” he snapped, and went to heave himself up.
The pain in his chest bloomed, suddenly, and he choked down a gasp.
Zoro stilled, watching him.
“Cook?” he asked.
“I’m fine!” Sanji snapped, forcing himself to stand, suppressing another gasp as the ship seemed to tilt wildly around him.
He tried to take a step and suddenly Zoro was there, one hand under his elbow, steadying him. It was the first time Sanji could remember being touched by him in days, and he felt himself lean into it without realising he was doing so.
“Did you get shot?” Zoro asked. His hand on Sanji’s elbow tightened.
Sanji scoffed, even as the action sent a wave of fire through his chest,
“Barely,” he said.
He was finding it a little hard to breathe actually, which was unusual.
Zoro frowned.
“We should get Chopper to check you over.”
“I’m fine.”
Sanji tried to pull himself out of Zoro’s grasp, but Zoro tightened his grip.
“Luffy!” Zoro yelled. “Cook’s hurt! We need to take him back to the ship!”
“I’m fine!” Sanji hissed again, pulling harder away from Zoro. Zoro let him, though he was still watching with a wary gaze.
“Sanji?” Luffy asked, landing beside them with a thump. “You’re hurt?”
“I’m not hurt!” Sanji snapped. “I’m fine!”
“He got shot,“ Zoro said.
“Only because you were standing there like a complete idiot!” Sanji yelled. It was quite difficult to yell. He felt like he couldn’t keep the breath in his lungs.
“I wasn’t going to let him shoot me,” Zoro yelled back.
“You literally were! You literally stood there doing nothing while he was about to shoot you!”
Sanji was panting now. The enemy ship was definitely swaying. Oh shit, was it about to sink?
“Uh guys,” Luffy said.
“I obviously would have sliced the bullet before it hit me!” Zoro shouted. “You just got in the way. As usual!”
“Oh I am so sorry for stopping an actual bullet from actually hitting you!” Sanji shouted back. “Next time I will just let it find its target!”
“Guys, I really think-”
“You go ahead and do that! Because I don’t need you stepping in front of me! I don’t need you looking out for me! I don’t need you!”
“GUYS!”
They turned as one to glare at Luffy. Behind him the few remaining enemy pirates were screaming as they jumped into the water. The other side of the ship was smoking and there was a giant crack in the deck. Sanji could see the ocean through it.
He opened his mouth to ask what, exactly, Luffy needed, but the breath he drew in seemed to get stuck. The metallic taste in his mouth was overwhelming and his head spun in a dizzying rush.
“What Luffy?” Zoro snapped.
Luffy pointed.
“Sanji’s bleeding.”
They all followed the trajectory of his finger to Sanji’s chest, covered by his navy blazer. There was a steady drip of red from the bottom of the dark material, down onto the deck. Sanji tried to suck in a breath and coughed, felt a wetness on his chin. He reached up to touch it and his fingers came away red.
Zoro’s eye widened.
“Shit, Cook, you’re bleeding!”
Sanji tried to roll his eyes, and the world tilted.
“Great observation, Mosshead,” he said. or tried to say, but the words seemed to slur as they left his mouth. He tried to move, to take a step forward, and the ship tilted again but more dramatically this time. It was definitely sinking.
He felt arms come up around him, arms he would know anywhere, as the ability to breathe seemed to evade him entirely and the sky went fully dark above him.
*
When Sanji woke up he was in the infirmary, blinking up at the wooden ceiling. He could hear the scratch of pen on paper off to his side, and when he squinted could see Chopper bent over the desk, scribbling furiously.
“What time is it?” he asked.
Chopper startled, then spun around on his chair to face Sanji.
“You’re awake!” he proclaimed happily. “It’s the morning, you were only out overnight and that was mostly from the surgery.” He wheeled the chair over to Sanji, narrowing his eyes as he came nearer.
“Don’t lecture me,” Sanji tried.
“Sanji, you jumped in front of a bullet ,” Chopper lectured, predictably. “What were you thinking?”
Sanji shrugged, and tried to hide how the movement twinged in his chest,
Truthfully he hadn’t been thinking. He had only been aware of Zoro, just standing there, and the bullet on course to bury itself somewhere in his body.
“Thought it would bounce off,” he muttered, which wasn’t entirely a lie. Just mostly.
Chopper frowned at him.
“That’s another thing: why didn’t it?”
They stared at each other until Sanji’s gaze slid away and Chopper sighed.
Since Wano they had been tentatively testing and experimenting with the abilities that had been awoken by his Raid Suit. Tentatively, because Sanji would much rather pretend they never existed and it took a phenomenal amount of poking and prodding from Chopper to get him to agree to one of their sessions.
The abilities were proving temperamental at best; Sanji seemed unable to predict when they would activate or be useful, and half the time they still seemed to lay dormant. Chopper had a theory it was because Sanji was refusing to fully embrace this new side of himself, and until he did the abilities would never be fully realised.
Sanji told Chopper he was full of bullshit, but secretly he suspected Chopper may be right. The truth was he didn’t want to embrace that side of him, would rather just ignore it and hope it went away. Every time he went back to that moment in Wano when he thought he had hurt O-Some, when he thought he was becoming a monster just like his brothers… He had told Zoro to kill him in that moment and he had meant it. He would never be like that, like them . He would rather die first.
Of course he didn’t share any of this with Chopper, just continually made excuses to avoid further testing and exploration of these new abilities. He hadn’t thought for a moment the bullet headed for Zoro would bounce off him, even though there was the slim chance it might have.
He hadn’t been thinking at all.
“What’s the damage?” he asked.
Chopper sighed as if he had the weight of the world on his young shoulders.
“Well, the good news is that the bullet went straight through so I didn’t have to dig it out and cause more damage. The bad news is that it hit your ribs and broke some of them, then managed to nick your lung which collapsed. That was why you were having trouble breathing.”
“Huh,” Sanji said.
Chopper breathed deeply, as if he found Sanji very aggravating.
“I had to do surgery to repair and reinflate your lung. Your ribs will just have to heal up on their own.”
He narrowed his eyes at Sanji,
“And DO NOT take off your bandages! You need to keep them tight to stop your ribs moving around. If you make it worse one of them could do even more damage to your lung. And I am NOT sewing that back up again!”
Sanji couldn’t stop himself from grinning.
“You mean if I injured myself again you wouldn’t do your very best to save me? Even though you’re the greatest doctor in the whole world?”
Chopper tried very hard not to squirm
“Don’t you dare flatter me, you bastard! You can’t make me happy by sweet talking me!”
He was definitely blushing.
Sanji relented, and reached for the box of cigarettes in his trouser pocket. The packet was a bit crushed, thanks to all the falling down and everything.
“SANJI NO!”
Chopper snatched the box out of his hands and promptly threw it out of the open porthole.
“Chopper, what the hell?” Sanji asked, gaping.
“Did you NOT just hear me say COLLAPSED LUNG?” Chopper yelled. “You can’t SMOKE with a COLLAPSED LUNG!”
“You said you fixed it!” Sanji protested.
“IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT ASSHOLE!”
Sanji winced, and tried to hold his hands up in what he hoped was a calming manner, Chopper half way onto the bed and shouting in his face.
“Okay okay! I won’t smoke.”
He waited until Chopper had backed off a bit.
“Today,” he amended.
Chopper morphed into his human form.
“I will sit on you, Sanji!” he threatened, looming over the bed.
Just as Chopper really seemed to be considering grievous bodily harm against his patient, the door swung open and Jinbe’s massive form appeared.
“I thought I heard voices,” he said, sounding half amused and half wary. “Good to see you awake Sanji.”
Sanji pushed on Chopper’s chest, shoving him away so he could sit up without a lapful of angry human-reindeer.
“I hope you haven’t been forcing the girls to cook in my absence,” he said, a note of warning in his tone.
Jinbe grinned, a certain mischievousness in his expression.
“Oh no,” he assured. “Our dearest Captain insisted he cook for us while you were indisposed.”
Sanji felt his blood run cold.
“WHAT?!”
He leapt out of bed, ignoring both Chopper's cries and his body’s protest at the sudden move.
Without even registering he wasn’t wearing a shirt, only his suit pants, he clattered through the connecting door into the galley.
“You had better not be playing around in my kitchen you useless piece of rubb…er…”
He trailed off he as he burst into the kitchen and registered the scene before him: Robin, Nami and Zoro all sitting around the table, drinking coffee, not a gluttonous captain in sight,
The kitchen looked pristine.
Nami raised a very judgemental eyebrow at him.
“Sanji-kun! Are you feeling better then?”
“Sanji!”
Chopper had followed him through the connecting door.
“You need to get back in bed! At least rest a bit more, please .”
Zoro was staring at him, cup raised halfway to his lips.
Sanji felt himself flush, suddenly, a brilliant red that went patchily all down his bandaged chest.
Robin made a sound which may have been a soft laugh; Sanji could barely hear it over the sudden blood rushing through his ears.
He coughed, weakly.
“Much better, thank you Nami-san,” he mumbled. “Though I should, ahm, probably get dressed before coming to cook anything.”
“Probably,” Nami agreed, endlessly amused.
Zoro finally seemed to realise he was staring, and put his cup abruptly down on the table with a loud clink.
“Don’t break that cup!” Sanji snapped, before he could help himself. “Those are the nice ones we got in Wano!”
Zoro’s slightly dazed look hardened into a sneer.
“He must be feeling better, if he’s so concerned about pottery.”
“They’re china ,” Sani emphasised, and Zoro rolled his eyes.
“Why would I give a flying fuck?”
Sanji sighed, aggravated.
“Well, if you don't care about being wrong .”
“I care when I’m wrong about things that matter! Your cup does not matter!”
Zoro had stood up now, taken a few steps across the room to get in Sanji’s face. His shirt had the washed out stain of Sanji’s blood all over it.
“It matters to me ,” Sanjo pointed out, drawing himself up. “You’re not the authority on whether things matter to people. Or what’s important!”
“It’s a cup!” Zoro yelled. “It literally has no importance!”
“You wouldn't be saying that if there were no cups and you had nothing to drink your sake out of!” Sanji fired back. “ Then you would see that cups are important!”
“Well if there were no cups I would drink it out of my fucking shoe!”
Sanji stared at him. Zoro stared back defiantly.
“You are the most disgusting-”
“Stupid scenario-”
“Pig headed-”
“Absolute nonsense-”
“Uncultured-”
“Making up crazy-”
“No manners to be-”
“Annoying-”
“Moss headed-”
“Twirly-”
“Boys!”
They broke off at Robin’s interjection. Sanji flushed as he realised just how close he and Zoro had gotten, foreheads pressed tightly together as they practically muttered insults into each other’s mouths.
Usually this sort of situation had a very different ending.
Zoro was almost panting, warm breath gusting over Sanji’s open mouth and it made him want to moan, to crush his lips against Zoro’s and press the rest of their bodies together. To feel Zoro’s stupid tits, still strangled by that ridiculous shirt, all pushed up against him. To let Zoro’s massive hands reach down and-
He coughed and pulled away.
Zoro panted dazedly, slowly seeming to register the others all staring at them.
“Just like old times,” Robin murmured with a sardonic grin.
Zoro snapped his gaze to her, eye narrowing.
Sanji coughed again, feeling the echoing pain in his damaged lung.
“Sanji,” Chopper pleaded quietly. “Please come and rest some more.”
Sanji shrugged him off, avoiding looking at Zoro.
“I’m fine Chop,” he promised. “Let me make some food for everyone. You can’t have eaten well for breakfast.”
He stopped, suddenly.
“You didn’t really let Luffy in here to cook, did you?”
Jinbe guffawed and Nami sniggered.
“Of course we didn’t,” Robin said soothingly. “Usopp warmed up some of the rice porridge you have for emergencies. It still tasted wonderful.”
Sanji nodded, mollified by her kind words.
“I’ll make a snack now for everyone. Just a small one,” he added, at Chopper’s big, worried eyes. “And I’ll take it easy. You can even sit in here and supervise me.”
Zoro snorted and Sanji had to bite his tongue to stop himself leaping right back into their argument. Having Zoro that close and spitting hot insults in his face was definitely not good for his damaged lung.
Sanji stuck to his word and made some simple snacks for the crew but cheated slightly by making them each an individual treat tailored to their own tastes. When Chopper tried to protest it was too much work, Sanji distracted him with an ice cream sundae the size of his head, covered with hot fudge sauce and freshly spun cotton candy.
By the time he was putting the finishing touches to Zoro’s perfectly shaped umeboshi onigiri, he had to admit there was a dull, nagging sensation in his ribs, and his lung was protesting slightly every time he breathed too deeply.
Still, with the rest of the crew happily munching away he steeled himself to make the trip up to the crow’s nest, where Zoro was supposedly training but Sanji was sure he was sulking.
He took a deep (painful) breath and summoned the energy to sky walk. Halfway up he felt his determination notably waver, and hastily reached out to settle himself on the ladder instead, glancing down over his shoulder to check no one had seen that stunning display of ineptitude. Especially Chopper, who might just tie him to the infirmary bed.
He shoved the hatch up with one shoulder, onigiri carefully balanced in one hand, and pushed himself through. Zoro was standing over on the far side, lifting a weight three times the size of Sanji’s head, idly, clearly not putting much effort into it. He scowled when he saw Sanji, and Sanji rolled his eyes.
“I come in peace,” he said, holding the plate out. “Made you some food.”
Zoro regarded the plate suspiciously.
“You like it,” Sanji insisted.
Zoro let the weight drop back onto the rack with a clatter and approached. still eyeing the plate distrustfully.
“Don’t you dare insult me by refusing this,” Sanji warned, and it was a stupid thing to find himself upset about really. But his Zoro would never refuse Sanji’s food, would never even dream of doing so. Would flirt with Sanji and mock that Sanji should be hand feeding it to him. Would put it into his mouth whilst making an uncomfortable amount of eye contact and letting his tongue roll out just a little, swiping at a stray grain of rice on his lip and lingering just so…
Sanji blinked.
“Um,” he said.
Zoro stared at him.
Sanji shoved the plate forward, trying (and no doubt failing) to suppress the heat he could feel in his face. God damn it, Zoro had literally touched him once to stop him collapsing and then spat insults in his face and Sanji couldn’t stop thinking about him half naked.
Or, you know, all the way naked.
He watched as Zoro shoved the first onigiri into his gaping, disgusting mouth and proceeded to chew with it half open. Loudly.
Which should definitely have been a turn off, was a turn off, except Zoro made this tiny, startled noise in the back of his throat, like the taste of it was so good he couldn't help himself. And it wasn’t unlike the noise he made when Sanji got down on his knees.
“Is it good?” he asked. His own voice was a little raspy. And he should definitely not still be standing here. He should be giving Zoro the plate and walking away. He should not be picking up the other onigiri and raising it to Zoro’s lips.
Zoro’s eye widened in surprise, but he didn’t push Sanji away. He didn’t shove his hand aside and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing.
Eye locked on Sanji’s, he opened his mouth.
Sanji pressed the ball of rice into it. His fingers brushed Zoro’s lips, and for a split second he felt the flicker of a tongue against the pad of one finger.
He let his fingers linger, even as Zoro chewed, pressed them against Zoro’s lips, then dragging slowly down over his chin and throat, settling in the v of his shirt and resting against his pectorals.
Zoro swallowed, and the sound seemed to echo in the absolute silence of the crow’s nest.
Sanji swallowed, reflexively, and Zoro’s eye flickered down to his throat, his lips, then back up again.
Sanji’s fingers twitched against Zoro’s hot skin.
He wasn’t sure which of them moved first, or maybe they did it simultaneously, but the next second his hand was wound tight in the neck of Zoro’s shirt, Zoro’s lips pressing against his as they crashed together. The plate falling uselessly from his grasp and clattering to the floor.
He felt Zoro’s hands on his waist, yanking him close, and his mouth opened up under Zoro’s, their tongues tangling as the kiss became hot and furious, both of them pulling at the other to get closer, like it wasn’t enough.
Sanji was gasping for breath, Zoro’s hands around his waist like a vice, as they practically bit at each other’s mouths, pushing and thrusting, as much violence as it was passion.
He felt Zoro’s grip slide upwards, those hands wrestling him even closer, and Sanji moaned, completely consumed by lust and desperation, at finally having Zoro’s touch on him again.
He wrenched his head away with a gasp, sucking air in desperately, as Zoro chased him, biting at his jawline, one hand tightening around his ribcage whilst the other slid around his back, grasping him close, Sanji’s own hands entwined in Zoro’s hair now, yanking those lips back up to his, breathing be damned.
Zoro groaned into him, tongue thrusting into Sanji, fucking his mouth dirty with it and Sanji felt a sudden rush of weakness, his knees full on collapsing as he struggled to actually remain upright.
Oh wait.
Through the blur of passion he realised, dimly, that he wasn’t just overcome with lust. He actually couldn't breathe and Zoro’s hand was squeezing round his broken ribs, crushing his damaged lung and oh, yeah, there were dark spots in his vision now.
He tried to shove at Zoro, to break himself free, but Zoro was clasping him so tightly there was no space to push him away.
Fuck. One of the hottest kisses of his life and he was about to pass out.
He tried to wrench his mouth free to breathe, to speak, to do anything, but Zoro’s tongue was stroking along his own and it felt so damn good.
Sanji was pretty sure he was drooling when he passed out.
*
Sanji opened his eyes to the infirmary ceiling for the second time in less than 24 hours and groaned.
Chopper was going to kill him.
An amused laugh met his ears, and it was Robin, not Chopper, sitting in a chair by his bedside, book in hand.
“How much trouble am I in?” he asked.
Robin laughed again.
“Less than Zoro,” she replied, with an amused smile.
Zoro.
Hearing his name brought back a rush of memory and their kiss in the crow’s nest, Zoro’s hands and lips all over him, Zoro’s hands crushing him.
Oops.
Sanji cleared his throat, feeling himself flush at the memory and hyper aware of Robin sitting beside him.
“Did, ah, Zoro say what happened?” he asked, wondering if he could get away with playing the ‘I blacked out, I don’t remember a thing’ card.
Robin’s eyes glinted.
“Just that things got a bit heated and physical between the two of you, and he may have been too rough with your injury.”
“Physical?!” Sanji squawked. It was not an attractive sound.
“I presumed the two of you were sparring,” Robin replied nonchalantly. “Was that not the case?”
Sanji tried to clear his throat.
“Yes exactly. We were sparring.”
Robin was definitely trying not to openly laugh at him now, and Sanji decided a shift of gear was in order.
“And to wake up with your beautiful visage by my bedside! Sent like an angel to watch out for me!”
Robin’s sharp smile turned indulgent.
“I am glad you are feeling better,” she said.
“I am fine my love,” he assured her. “Although that oaf had better apologise,” he added with a slight growl. “I don’t know what he was thinking, squeezing me like that.”
Robin coughed politely, and Sanjii broke off, feeling himself flush again.
“Well,” he finished lamely. “Anyway.”
There was a brief moment of silence, where Robin was clearly trying not to laugh at him again.
“If Chopper isn’t here does that mean I’m free to leave?”
Robin looked thoughtful for a moment.
“I believe his exact words were ‘If Sanji even thinks about getting out of that bed let him know I will come and strap him down.’ So take from that what you will.”
Sanji sighed, aggravated, and slumped back against the pillows.
“Ridiculous,” he muttered. “And of course he left you here knowing I could never say no to anything you ask of me.”
“Hmm,” Robin said, eyes twinkling.
He waited a long moment, eyeing her as she pretended to read her book.
“He said things got heated?”
Robin’s smile widened.
“He seemed most unwilling to talk about it. Which is an odd reaction to sparring.”
Sanji really needed to stop blushing so much in a lady’s presence.
“Things are going well then?” Robin asked.
Sanji frowned, fiddling with the edge of the sheet.
“Maybe? I mean, things did get heated between us, but he still doesn’t remember anything, does she?”
“He was quite distressed when you collapsed, you know. Both times,” she added, which to Sanji felt a bit unnecessary.
“Was he?” he asked quietly.
Robin nodded. She was graciously still pretending to read and not looking at him.
He bit his lip.
“Quite distressed,” she said again. “I haven't heard him swear that much in a long time.”
Sanji wanted to bristle at the thought of Zoro swearing in front of Robin and Nami, but he couldn’t quite muster the energy.
“Cook-san,” Robin said, and the gentleness in her tone was almost unbearable. “You fell in love once, why can’t he fall in love with you again?”
Sanji swallowed, unable to look at her.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Maybe.”
The moment was broken by Chopper bursting through the door, and during the furious lecture that followed Robin slipped out despite Sanji’s pleading eyes for her to stay and save him.
Chopper had indeed threatened to strap him down if he didn’t get some rest, so Sanji played along until late into the evening, eyes closed and replaying those moments with Zoro in the crow’s nest over and over again like the most delicious kind of torture.
Eventually, when Chopper had nodded off over one of his medical books, Sanji covered him with a blanket and then slipped off into the galley, unable to lie there restlessly any longer.
The kitchen showed signs that the others had used it that evening, but it wasn’t too bad. Sanji quietly set about cleaning the surfaces and putting anything back that wasn’t in its place. He wouldn’t sleep yet, he knew, after being confined to bed all afternoon and evening, so he set about counting his stores and secluded himself in the pantry.
It had been agreed that for the time being they would not dock at an island, not whilst Zoro still couldn’t remember. It was too risky, and they did not want to run into anyone who could catch wind of Zoro’s condition and take advantage of it.
So they sailed out on the open ocean, barely moving, growing restless. Luffy, especially, was finding it difficult. He wasn’t so bad when they were sailing towards a destination, even if it meant days at sea, but the aimlessness they were experiencing now made him twice as impossible as usual. That fight with those pirates had been a blessing in disguise, paltry thought it was, as it had at least given Luffy a chance to direct some of his energy. Except for the whole Sanji-getting-shot part, of course.
Sanji was getting concerned about his stocks too, the longer they remained out here. There was plenty of food, and he wasn’t about to let anyone starve, but whenever they were unexpectedly held from land the familiar itch of anxiety would start to unravel him. He could be obsessive, he knew, in this scenario, but he was hurting no one if he wanted to count the pantry a few times. It helped soothe the itch, the worry, to know exactly what they had and how long it would last. And if he liked to count it all more than a few times, well, that was his business and no one else’s.
The door was pulled to, just in case Chopper came looking and scolded him back into bed, and he wasn’t exactly hiding but he certainly wasn’t advertising his presence with his lamp turned down low and only the quiet scritch of pen on paper to be heard.
There was the distant sound of voices, out on deck when everyone should be asleep in bed, and Sanji paused, frowning.
The voices got closer, the galley door was flung open, and Zoro’s familiar tread thumped across the kitchen, Usopp’s yapping cutting through the silence.
“I’m just saying, you made him pass out! That isn’t easy, especially with all that went down in Wano.”
There was a brief pause.
“What went down in Wano?” Zoro asked.
“Oh!” Usopp sounded excited. “He got this sick ass Raid Suit from his fucked up family! It gave him uber cool powers and he could even turn invisible in it!”
They were talking about him, Sanji realised, swallowing suddenly.
“And it had, like, lasting effects so now his exoskeleton is basically unbreakable.”
Zoro grunted.
“Except when he gets shot?” he asked a little drily.
“Heh yeah. I guess his powers don’t work all the time. He doesn’t like to talk about it honestly. ‘Cause of his family.”
Sanji found himself clenching his jaw. What the hell was Usopp playing at, telling Zoro about his Raid Suit and his fucked up family?
“The old man from the restaurant?” Zoro asked, sounding confused.
“What? No! That’s not his family!”
Sanji clenched a fist to go alongside his jaw. Zeff may not be his biological father but he sure damn well was family.
“Wasn’t that his dad?”
Zoro sounded even more confused now.
“Nooooo,” Usopp said, as if Zoro was the biggest moron in the room. Sanji reckoned it was a toss up between them.
“Zeff adopted him. Because Sanji ran away from his real family. Because they’re, like, the worst . You know they tried to force him to marry one of Big Mom’s daughters even though they haven’t seen him in, like, 15 years and they had declared him dead?”
“Big Mom?” Zoro repeated. “The Yonko?”
“Well yeah, but not anymore. She’s dead now.”
There was a startled pause.
“I…what?” Zoro asked.
“I keep forgetting how much you don’t know anymore,” Usopp said.
Sanji had crept up to the small gap he had left in the door, ensuring the lantern was left towards the back of the pantry. He pressed an eye to the crack, and could just see around the edge of the mast; Zoro’s boots were kicked up onto the table. Asshole.
The edge of Usopp’s face was just visible from the angle he was sitting. He was shaking his head.
“Fuck you don’t gotta keep going on about it,” Zoro muttered, sounding strangely hurt.
Usopp’s face fell.
“Ah sorry man,” he said, looking contrite. “I guess it can’t be easy.”
“I’d quite like to not talk about it,” Zoro grunted.
Sanji saw something contemplative pass through Usopp’s eyes.
“Think Sanji’s okay?” he asked.
Zoro grunted again.
“Man can’t believe he passed out again!” Usopp crowed, and Sanji rolled his eyes. “You two must have been really going for it to get that reaction!”
Sanji almost choked.
Zoro’s boots slid off the table.
“What?” he asked.
Usopp cowered under the glare Zoro was no doubt levelling him with.
“Sorry!” he squeaked, “I didn’t mean to offend. Just, you know, things must have been getting, uh, intense.”
“Intense,” Zoro repeated.
“Heated?” Usopp tried.
He was full on wilting now, under the look Zoro was clearly giving him.
“What do you think we were doing up there?” Zoro asked, teeth gritted.
Usopp gulped.
“Uh, fucking?” he asked.
Sanji closed his eyes.
“FUCKING?” Zoro yelled, and Sanji really hoped that hadn’t woken Chopper up. “Why the hell would you think we were fucking?! We weren’t fucking! We were only kissing for fuck’s sake!”
Sanji opened his eyes, and could see Usopp trembling under Zoro’s onslaught, though he hadn't run away.
“Kissing?” Usopp said brightly. “You were kissing? That’s great! That’s…uh…” He trailed off. “I mean, what? Kissing? That’s um, that’s…”
Zoro took a step forward then, and Sanji could finally see his face. He was flushed with anger, lips pressed together.
“Usopp,” he said tightly. “Why did you think we were up there fucking?”
“Uhhhhh,” Usopp said. “I don’t…know?”
Zoro reached out and fisted the front of Usopp’s shirt.
“There is something everyone has been keeping from me,” he hissed. “And I know it has to do with the Cook. So you better start talking right now.”
Usopp pawed weakly at Zoro’s grip.
“Zoro I don’t think it’s exactly my place to-”
Zoro gave him a firm shake.
“Start. Talking.”
Usopp gulped.
“See, the thing is, it wasn’t our idea, okay? Sanji asked us not to say anything and it really isn’t any of our business so we went along with it okay? You can’t get mad at me for this Zoro!”
Zoro growled and shook him again.
“Okay okay! See the thing is, with you and Sanji, you don’t exactly remember so it’s kind of hard to…I mean, the thing is, well, you guys are…the two of you are…well. You’re actually-”
“That’s enough Usopp.”
At the sound of Sanji’s voice Usopp let out a little scream.
Sanji pushed the door open to reveal himself in the pantry.
“Sanji-kun!” Usopp gasped. Zoro still had him by the shirt. “Wow, please tell me you didn’t hear any of that.”
“Every word,” Sanji confirmed grimly. “Let him go Mosshead, this is between you and me.”
Zoro glared, switching his gaze between Sanji and Usopp, then let Usopp go with a little shove. Usopp scrambled back out of arm’s reach.
“Ha,” he said, feeling his way backward to the doorway. “As fun as it is to chat I can see you two have lots you need to discuss so I’m just gonna…”
He gestured at the door with a thumb over his shoulder, then catapulted himself through it.
Sanji watched the door swing shut, then forced himself to meet Zoro’s eye.
“Why were you lurking in the pantry like a creeper?” Zoro asked.
“I wasn't lurking!” Sanji snapped, exasperated. “I was checking the food stocks! It’s not my fault you two decided to come in and have a highly private conversation where anyone could hear you!”
“Yeah, which you then stayed and listened to. Lurking. Like a creeper.”
Sanji felt the desperate urge to kick him. Hard.
“And why the hell does Usopp think we’re fucking?” Zoro demanded.
Sanji swallowed.
Well he supposed he couldn’t keep it from Zoro indefinitely. He was honestly shocked none of the crew had let it slip already.
“Because we are,” he admitted.
Zoro stared at him.
“You and me?” he asked.
Sanji nodded.
“Fucking?”
Sanji nodded again.
“And everyone knows?”
“Well yeah…Zoro it’s not…” He took a deep breath. Here goes . “It’s not just fucking. We’re, well, we’re in love.”
The words fell into the silence between them.
Zoro was still staring.
“Sorry,” Sanji felt compelled to add, and then immediately wanted to kick himself. Sorry?
“You and me?” Zoro said again, but slower this time.
Sanji nodded, not daring to speak.
Zoro seemed to be turning the idea over in his mind.
“How long?” he asked eventually.
Sanji bit his lip.
“Nearly six months.”
Zoro’s eye widened.
“Six months?” he repeated disbelievingly. “We’ve been together for six months and you, what, didn’t think to mention this?”
Sanji felt the sudden, hot slide of shame.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. ”I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“So you lied?” Zoro demanded.
“I didn’t lie,” Sanji defended himself weakly. “I just didn’t exactly tell you the truth.”
“A lie by omission is still a lie,” Zoro spat angrily. “And you roped the whole crew in too, even Luffy? All of them, just lying to my face?!”
Sanji swallowed thickly.
“Zoro please,” he said softly. He reached for him then, unthinkingly, forgetting that Zoro didn't know him, not really, only seeking the sense of comfort his lover could provide, even when they were spitting mad at each other and Sanji had seriously fucked up.
Zoro jerked back, and a look of pure disgust flashed across his face.
“I don’t love you,” he hissed. “And you sure as hell don’t love me. If you did you would have told me the fucking truth!”
“I do love you!” Sanji insisted, distress yanking the words out of him. “Please, I know this is hard to hear but you have to listen-”
“I don’t have to do a fucking thing!” Zoro interrupted. He laughed suddenly, a cold, bleak sound that sent a shiver crawling down Sanji’s spine. “You know I couldn’t understand it. Ever since I woke up I had this itch under my skin and every time you came near me I felt like…fuck, and all this time you knew why! I didn’t understand what the fuck was going on with me and you could have explained it all if you had just told me the fucking truth!”
Sanji closed his eyes, feeling the sudden burn of tears.
“I’m sorry,” he choked out. “Please, I’m so so-”
“Fuck off!” Zoro shouted. “Shut the fuck up! I don’t want to hear your bullshit apologies! I don’t want to even look at you!”
With a sudden roar of anger he picked up the dining chair nearest to him and threw it across the room.
Sanji flinched as it struck the far wall and splintered.
In the sudden following silence, Zoro’s pants were loud and jagged.
“You kept this from me, deliberately,” Zoro said. “How the fuck am I supoosed to believe you love me?”
Sanji felt a hot tear slide down his face.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Stop saying that! Saying that doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t change anything!”
“I don’t know what else you want me to say!” Sanji cried.
They stared at each other, the distress between them heavy and taught with emotion.
Zoro looked away first.
“Don’t say anything,” he said, tone flat. “Don’t speak to me. Don’t look at me. I don’t care about anything you have to say. I don’t want to hear it.”
Sanji gasped in a shuddering breath.
“Zoro, please-”
Zoro cut him off.
“I don’t want to hear it,” he said again, emotionless. “Whatever this apparently was between us? It’s over now.”
“No,” Sanji protested, unable to help himself. “You can’t just-”
“I. Don’t. Want. To. Hear. It.”
He sneered a little then, letting that look of disgust crawl across his face again.
“You’re pathetic,” he said, cruelly. “And I am done with you.”
He left then, slamming the door shut behind him, and Sanji was alone in the galley.
He was crying, tears slipping helplessly down his cheeks, that last look Zoro had given him imprinted into his brain.
The door to the infirmary creaked open, and Chopper came through with Usopp on his heels, both faces twisted with worry.
“Sanji,” Chopper said. “Are you okay?”
Sanji shook his head.
“I can’t,” he said. “Not now, sorry, I just…”
He backed away, into the pantry and closed the door behind him, sliding the lock firmly into place. He backed up until he was pressed against the sacks of rice in the far corner, sliding down them to the floor, pushing his head against his knees. The tears came thick and heavy then, and Sanji wept silently in the low lamplight at his own stupidity. He had lost Zoro now, probably for good, for even when Zoro did get his memory back Sanji had lied to him. Oh he had dressed it up as protecting them both, protecting Zoro but the fact was he had lied. He had lied and now Zoro would not forgive him, could not forgive his dishonesty.
He had lost Zoro for good.
And he only had himself to blame.
*
Sanji stayed in the pantry through the night, alternating between restless sleep in which he jerked awake, Zoro’s disgusted face in his dreams, and endlessly counting the food on the shelves again and again as some sort of coping method.
In the early hours he got up, made a breakfast spread which he left on the table, and a lunch spread which he left in the fridge with instructions on a note for Nami and Robin. Then he took himself off to the aquarium bar with two bottles of wine, which he proceeded to spend most of the day drinking.
A tentative knock on the door came sometime after lunch and Sanji heaved himself up off the floor where he had been watching the fish from a prone position.
“Yes?” he asked, a little testily. He thought his instructions of ‘please don’t bother me, I will be back to make dinner’ were pretty clear cut.
“Sanji-kun?”
It was Nami. Of course they sent Nami.
He glanced again at the blue glow coming from the aquarium.
He and Zoro had once spent a very memorable night in here, after everyone else had gone to bed, making love in the blue glow it cast across the room. It had been extremely hot, and had culminated in Zoro pinning him up against the glass and fucking him so hard Sanji had been worried the tank might break
This was after he had spent some dedicated time taking Sanji apart with his fingers and tongue.
“Can I come in?” Nami asked.
Sanji sighed, aggravated. They knew he wouldn't say no to Nami.
“If you must.”
Nami opened the door and stuck her head around.
“Hey,” she said. “You okay?”
Sanji just looked at her.
“No,” she amended hastily. “Of course you’re not.”
She came into the room, closing the door behind her.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t need to hear any I told you so from anyone. I know I screwed this up.”
“Sanji-kun, no one is saying that,” she promised, taking a few steps towards him, still sitting morosely on the floor. “I know you wanted to be left alone but we just want to see how you’re holding up. If you need anything.”
He sighed and let himself flop back down onto the floor.
“They should be saying that,” he muttered. “You all warned me, but I was stupid and stubborn and now Zoro-”
He cut himself with an unsteady breath. He was too drunk for this.
“I’m sorry,” Nami said softly. “But Zoro will calm down, you know how he gets. And when he remembers-”
“When?” Sanji scoffed. “And when will that be, Nami? Because he has shown no sign of remembering anything. Not a thing! And now he hates me. And if he never remembers this is the way he will always think of me! As a…a fucking liar!”
Nami said nothing, only bit her lip as she looked at him.
Sanji dragged a tired hand down his face.
"Sorry,” he muttered. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t…this is why I asked to be left alone. I just need to get this out okay? I just need to let myself wallow in it a bit and then I can get it together.”
“Sanji-kun,” she said gently. “No one is asking you to get it together. You’re allowed to be upset.”
Sanji shook his head fiercely. He couldn't allow himself more than this, and even this was an indulgence. Ever since Zoro had been hurt he had been barely keeping up, making subpar meals for the crew, getting injured himself and now this…temper tantrum. He couldn’t afford to behave like this. He needed to be useful, he needed them to need him because if they didn’t then why was he even here? What good was he?
He had thought himself all cried out from his night in the pantry, but now he felt that choking tightness in the back of his throat again. He swallowed against it.
“How’s Zoro?” he asked quietly.
“Pissed,” Nami replied. “He thinks we should have told him the truth. He’s refusing to come out of the crow’s nest.”
Sanji nodded miserably.
“He’s right. We should have told him. I should never…”
“I know,” Nami broke in gently. “But we can’t change that now, can we? We can only try and mend it.”
She came and sat beside him, and a moment later he felt her careful fingers in his hair.
“I’m sorry you’re hurting,” she said. “Both of you. And maybe we should have done things differently, but this isn’t just on you Sanji. We all chose to go along with it, Luffy agreed and he is the Captain. So it isn’t just on you.”
Sanji closed his eyes, concentrating on the feeling of her gentle fingers running through his hair.
“It will be okay,” she promised.
And he wanted desperately to believe her, but he honestly didn’t see how it could be. Zoro drew a hard line at dishonesty. The way Sanji had handled the mess with his family and Whole Cake Island had very nearly broken them beyond repair. Zoro had made him promise that moving forward it couldn’t be like that. They were the wings of the future Pirate King, and if they were going to make it they had to be honest with each other, they had to depend and rely on each other. They had to trust each other. Sanji couldn’t hold things back, he couldn’t avoid the truth,
He couldn’t lie to Zoro.
“I miss him,” he whispered. “I miss him so damn much.”
Nami’s fingers halted their movements in his hair, just for a moment, before they resumed their careful stroking.
“I know,” she whispered back.
“What if this really is it?” Sanji asked. “He’s it for me. I don’t want anyone else. And what if he really has ended things? I don’t know how I go on without him.”
Nami sighed softly.
“When Vivi left us,” she began slowly. “There were honestly times I wasn’t sure I could carry on.”
Sanji listened intently. She barely ever spoke about Vivi in this way.
“And I know she had to do what was right for her, she made the only choice she could. But sometimes I just wanted to fling myself back into the ocean and swim right back to Alabaster.”
“So what stopped you?”
She smiled sadly.
“You guys are my nakama. Leaving you would tear my heart even worse than leaving her had already done so. And it became bearable, after a while. I got used to it. I don’t think it will ever stop hurting, I won’t stop feeling this way about her, but I can bear it.”
She shrugged.
“And who knows, maybe we will see her again some day. I hold on to that.”
He appreciated that she felt she could confide in him, but he knew it wasn’t the same. Nami and Vivi had known each other for such a short time, they hadn't had time for the feelings between them to really deepen. And Nami had not had to spend every day looking at Vivi’s face, knowing she had destroyed the best thing to ever happen to her.
“I appreciate you telling me, mellorine,” he said.
“I know it’s not the same as you and Zoro. But Sanji-kun, even the worst pains gets better, with time.”
“I don’t want time,” he said fiercely. “I just want Zoro.”
She sighed softly again.
“I know.”
They sat together in silence for an indeterminate amount of time, then eventually Nami bent and kissed his forehead.
“We’re all here for you,” she said.
She left him alone then so he could have the afternoon to wallow, and just as Sanji promised by the time dinner rolled around he was back in the kitchen, freshly showered and in clean clothes, not a whiff of wine about him.
And as he smiled and served the crew a delicious looking meal, each plate tailored perfectly to their individual needs and palate, it was almost as if nothing had happened.
It was only Zoro’s empty seat at the table that indicated anything was wrong at all.
*
The next day a fierce storm hit the open sea and all hands were needed on deck to keep the Sunny and her crew safe on the rolling waves. Nami had been watching the clouds with trepidation for some time, but suddenly she started yelling the storm was about to hit, even though no one else could see any difference in the weather.
Sure enough, a few minutes later they were drenched with torrential rainfall, the sky darkening dramatically.
Nami shouted instructions over the increasing howling winds and battering rains to them all. Luffy had to use his rubber limbs to keep Chopper safe when a particularly bitter gust nearly carried the little reindeer off overboard.
Through his sopping hair, Sanji could see Jinbe fighting with the ship’s wheel, arms straining to keep the Sunny from capsizing as she was tossed carelessly in the waves’ violent hold.
Sanji himself was installed halfway up the rigging, helping Zoro to reel in the mainsail before it was torn by the turbulent winds or they blew too far off course. They worked well together, as they always had, although the lack of sniping and insults was notable. Sanji pretended it was because they would not hear each other over the howling gail.
“It’s too dangerous!” Nami was shouting. “Devil fruit users need to get inside! It’s too much of a risk if you are swept overboard!”
Luffy started arguing vehemently with her, but Sanji could see her point.
“Captain!” he yelled. “Let us focus on keeping the ship afloat! We can’t worry about losing one of you too.”
Luffy was frowning, hair plastered to his skull from the rain.
“Please Luffy!” begged Chopper. He was still wrapped up in one of Luffy’s arms. “Let’s get to safety!”
Sanji watched with relief as Luffy finally gave in, and he gathered Robin and Brook to him, all of them heading towards the galley as the Sunny’s deck tossed and rolled beneath them.
“You too, Nami-san!” Sanji shouted.
Nami shook her head fiercely.
“You need me out here. I’m staying!”
Sanji wanted to protest that it was too dangerous for her to be out there with them, but knew she was the only one who could read the storm’s pattern correctly, which may mean the difference between life and death for them all.
“I’ll go!” volunteered Usopp eagerly.
“You stay with Nami-san!” Sanji snapped. “Watch her with your life!”
Franky was strapping the cannons down on the deck, along with any other loose items. The main sail safely stowed, Sanji began focussing on securing any loose rigging lines so they didn’t get tangled.
“We should drop the anchor!” Jinbe called. “Try and steady her.”
“No!” Franky protested. “It will put too much strain on that side of the hull!”
“Not if I keep her at right angles to the waves to reduce the impact!” Jinbe argued back.
Sanji tuned them out, focussing all his attention on the rigging lines, legs tensed to ensure he stayed attached to the ropes in the increasing wind. Zoro was across and up from him, and Sanji could see him in his peripheral vision, tracking his movements and tensing every time Zoro took a hand off the rope.
They were not even in the thick of it yet.
“Sanji! Zoro!” Nami yelled. She was standing by Jinbe, anchoring herself to the wheel for safety. “The full force is about to hit! Get down!”
As she said it Sanji felt the force of the wind increase to a gale, and any following instructions were lost in the howling pressure.
He was preparing to slither back down the rigging when the ship tilted dramatically and the boon swung free from its tether. Sanji swore as he saw it coming toward him, and let the ropes slip through his hands as he plummeted towards the ship’s lawn deck. He saved himself from crashing with a last minute sky walk onto the main deck, and looked up instinctively to where Zoro was still clinging to the rigging.
“Get down idiot!” he yelled, but his voice was immediately snatched away by the wind.
Zoro looked down at him, took in the swinging boon and Sanji’s dramatic hand gestures. He waited, tracking the boon’s movement, and then suddenly let go. Sanji watched as he plummeted, heart leaping in his chest, but Zoro landed on the lawn and then dropped into a roll before springing back to his feet, light as a cat.
Sanji wanted to kick him across the back of the head, but instead they both rushed to help secure any doors that were still banging loose, to stop as much water getting below decks as they could.
The storm seemed to battle on for hours but Sanji was sure it could have been no more than thirty minutes in reality.
Eventually the winds began to lessen, and the black skies lightened.
“It’s stopping” Nami yelled, voice carrying from the foredeck, and it was the first time Sani had been able to hear anything but the howling gale and his own laboured breathing in quite some time.
Sanji watched as the heavy clouds began to roll back, the rain getting suddenly lighter.
“Oh thank you!” Usopp was saying, falling to his knees and kissing the deck dramatically. “Thank you Sunny. Thank you thank you thank you!”
Zoro snorted and Sanji couldn’t help his own smile.
“She did us proud,” he said.
“Of course she did,” Franky remarked. “She is the greatest ship in the entire world.”
“And thank goodness you had me here too,” Usopp said, jumping back to his feet. “Without the Great Captain Usopp helping you would have all been fish food!”
“Yeah, you were a real help when you were begging to go inside with the devil fruit users,” Zoro muttered, and Nami sniggered.
“Yes yes,” she said. “Thank you Usopp for saving us from certain drowning.”
Usopp beamed.
“All in a day’s work.”
Sanji watched them, and despite everything that had happened recently he wondered if Nami was right after all. Maybe he and Zoro really were broken beyond repair. Maybe Zoro would never get his memories back. And maybe they would still be okay. Maybe Sanji would still be okay.
Because he had his nakama, didn’t he? He had his family, right here, odd and dysfunctional though they may be.
And Luffy would be King of the Pirates. No matter what.
They still had their dreams.
The sun was beginning to tentatively poke out of the clouds now, and the rolling waves were calming to more of a rocking.
Franky had gone below to haul up the anchor (looks like Jinbe had won that one) and Nami was squeezing the rain water out of her hair, as she surveyed the damage.
“It’s not too bad,” she said.
Sanji looked around, frowning. There were rope and barrels strewn pretty much everywhere, and a big gouge in the lawn where one of the cannons had gotten loose and flung itself down below.
“We should check the aquarium glass, just in case,” he said.
“On it bro!” Franky’s voice assured, having finished securing the anchor, and he swung himself up towards the aquarium bar.
“Can we come out now?” Luffy yelled through the galley door. “I’m bored .”
Sanji rolled his eyes and went over to open the door.
“Yes,” he said, with a mock pleasant smile, pretending to escort them out with a lavish bow. “You can come out and help us clean up!”
Luffy, Robin, Chopper and Brook all trooped out of the galley, looking round at the mess the storm had left behind.
“You had better not have eaten anything while you were in there,” Sanji warned Luffy, trying to peer past him to see what state the kitchen might be in.
Luffy stared at him innocently. Sanji narrowed his eyes.
“Sanji-kun!” Nami called. “Can you help me with this bit of rope please!”
Sanji shot one last look at Luffy before spinning to see Nami dangling an armful of rope over the edge of the deck down towards the lawn.
“Of course mellorine!” he trilled, and leapt towards the stairs.
Afterwards, he was sure there must have been an errant piece of seaweed or something similar that had been blown up by the storm. It was the only explanation that made sense. Because as Sanji bounded down the steps towards the lawn, his trusty rubber soled shoes that had never let him down went from under him, and he slipped.
One moment he was running down the steps, and the next he was hurtling through the air, totally unprepared, body twisting as his feet left the ground and gravity took hold, so he could see the clearing sky above him.
Oh shit , he thought.
He heard Nami cry out, and a shocked call of his name. In the split second before he hit the ground he braced himself for impact.
Only he didn’t land on the lawn.
His fall was cushioned by a pair of brawny arms, a hand between his head and the ground.
Zoro was there, eye wide, his arms wrapped tightly around Sanji. Sanji felt the breath leave his lungs as they hit the ground, but Zoro’s arms took the worst of the impact. He grunted, arms straining to keep his body weight from completely landing on Sanji. They were pressed very close together, and Sanji could feel the warmth of his skin, still rain damp.
He stared at Zoro, and Zoro stared back.
His mouth was suddenly very dry, and he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. Zoro was looking at him with what could only be described as a raw sort of fear, panic written across his face.
“Cook,” he rasped.
Sanji felt heat bloom suddenly in his cheeks.
“I’m okay,” he said.
Zoro’s eye skittered over his face, as if he was trying to see the non existent damage the fall may have done to Sanji.
Sanji was able to slide one of his arms free from Zoro’s tight grasp, bringing it up to cup Zoro’s cheek. Zoro’s hand was still cradling the back of Sanji's head, a protective barrier between his skull and the grass they were laying on.
“I’m okay,” he said again, tone soft, and his thumb stroked over the well loved cut of Zoro’s cheek bone.
Zoro sucked in a sharp breath, and the panic on his face started to recede.
“Cook,” he said again, and he sounded so lost and hopeless. Sanji longed to bring his face down and tuck it against his neck, to hold Zoro until he could soothe every hurt, every fear, until he could chase them all away with his touch.
“We’re okay, Marimo,” he murmured quietly. His thumb stroked Zoro’s face, over and over. “We’re okay.”
Zoro stiffened suddenly, as awareness seemed to creep back in.
They were lying entwined on the grass, the rest of the crew standing around them.
Zoro yanked himself back, and Sanji felt the loss of his warmth, of his familiar bulk in Sanji’s arms.
“Zoro,” he tried, but Zoro was already scrambling backwards, desperate to put some space between them.
There was a thump as Luffy landed on the lawn.
“Sanji! Are you okay?” he asked.
Sanji sat up slowly, still watching Zoro who had leapt to his feet and seemed determined to now put most of the ship between himself and Sanji.
“I’m fine,” Sanji said, a little dazedly. “Zoro broke my fall.”
Luffy helped him to his feet (which meant yanking Sanji unceremoniously upright) and Sanji let Chopper fuss over him, checking his ribs to ensure they hadn’t sustained any more damage.
Throughout it, Sanji couldn’t take his eyes off Zoro, even after Zoro had retreated up onto the deck with Jinbe, determinedly avoiding any eye contact.
Sanji knew he hadn’t imagined that utter panic and fear on Zoro’s face, Zoro had been worried about him, scared for him, in that moment.
Zoro still cared.
He might not remember Sanji fully, might not remember their relationship and he might be spitting mad that Sanji had lied to him but he still cared.
And if he still cared then Sanji still had hope.
He carried this hope with him through the rest of the day, through the clean up from the storm, through dinner time, through dusk as he fixed Zoro’s favourite snack for his night watch.
He hummed to himself, unable to help it, as he arranged triangular onigiri on a tray with a glass of sake, fussing over the placement.
He smiled to himself as he made his way over to the crow’s nest, ignoring a knowing smile from Robin as he passed her on her way to the library for a little late night reading.
He sky walked up to the crow’s nest, and he blamed his utter elation later for being so absent minded that it wasn’t until he was right underneath the trap door that he realised Zoro wasn’t alone up there.
Of course, he also realised later, Luffy must have known he was there too, there was no way Luffy’s Observation Haki could have missed him.
Zoro, however, still couldn’t seem to access his Haki. He couldn’t have known Sanji was hovering less than a metre away, with a tray made up just for Zoro.
“Shishishi!” Luffy was laughing. “You’re so funny Zoro! You know exactly what you’re feeling! Why do you keep pretending it isn’t real?”
“Because it isn’t!” Zoro hissed back. “It’s like someone has come along and planted this in my head! It’s like it hasn’t come from me at all!”
Sanji hesitated, hand on the trapdoor. It sounded like they were having a pretty heated discussion, and he wasn’t sure it would be the best time to interrupt.
“But of course it’s come from you!” Luffy was protesting. “Zoro’s heart knows the way it feels. But Zoro’s head is being stubborn. When you remember you will understand it is coming from you, all of it.”
“Well then maybe I don’t want to remember!” Zoro snapped back. “If this is how it makes me feel then maybe I’m better off ignoring it and hoping it will go away!”
Luffy laughed again, loud and bright.
“You can’t make it go away silly! It doesn’t work like that!”
“Well I wish it would! Every time he comes near me it’s like there is this electric current between us. I can feel him, all the time, when we’re in the same room. Like my body knows something my mind doesn’t. I hate it!”
Sanji’s fingers clenched on his tray.
When Luffy replied his voice was quiet, more serious.
“You don’t hate it,” he said. “You love Sanji, and when you remember you’ll-”
“I don’t want to remember!” Zoro cut in furiously. “Not if it means that! I don’t want him and I don’t want to remember ever wanting him!”
“Don’t,” Luffy said soberly. “Don’t say things you might not mean.”
“But I do mean it, Luffy,” Zoro protested. “I know you all think that we have this great love story but I can’t accept that. I can’t stand him. I don’t want him anywhere near me, and I can’t stand the way my body reacts to him! It disgusts me. He disgusts me! ”
Sanji sucked in a sharp breath.
“Zoro!” Luffy scolded furiously.
Sanji didn’t want to hear any more of this. He didn't need to stand here and listen to Luffy try and talk Zoro round. He didn’t need to hear how much he disgusted Zoro.
He sky walked down to the deck and took the tray back into the galley, where he left it out for Zoro to see later, when he would get hungry.
Then he went into the boys’ room, got changed and got into bed. Chopper was already snoring in his bunk, but Usopp, Jinbe and Brook had been playing cards in the aquarium bar and still seemed to be at it.
Sanji closed his eyes.
He wanted the blessed blankness of sleep to claim him, but Zoro’s words kept repeating in his mind.
I can’t stand him. I don’t want him anywhere near me. It disgusts me. He disgusts me.
He disgusts me.
He supposed that look in Zoro’s eyes earlier was just a reaction to Sanji’s close call on the stairs. Understandable, really, considering Zoro’s history with falls on staircases. It hadn’t meant anything. Just his body reacting to something Zoro no longer understood. Sanji didn’t mean anything.
Sanji meant nothing.
He disgusts me.
Sanji closed his eyes, and tried to sleep.
*
Sanji is leaning over a pan on the stove, stirring furiously, when the galley door bangs open. He glances up to take in Zoro’s figure, slouched in the doorway.
“Don’t distract me,” he warns, eyes back on his creation. “This is at a delicate stage.”
“Hello,” Zoro says. “Love of my life.”
Sanji chokes. His hands keep stirring as he gives Zoro some major side eye.
“What do you want?”
Zoro saunters in, the door closing behind him.
“Nothing. Can’t I just say hello to the love of my life?”
Sanji stirs harder. He glares at Zoro.
“Stop calling me that. And you definitely want something.”
Zoro gets closer, circling the bar to peer over Sanji’s shoulder into the pan, where the choux pastry is coming together perfectly.
“Don’t distract me,” Sanji warns again. “I will literally be done in one minute!”
Zoro nudges up behind him, nuzzling at the back of Sanji’s neck, his arms sneaking around Sanji’s waist.
Sanji finishes cooking off the flour in the base of the choux and turns the heat off, moving the pan to a cold hob to stop it overcooking.
“You’re like an overgrown cat,” he grumbles, but he leans back into Zoro’s hold.
“Mmm,” Zoro says. “Love of my life.”
Sanji scowls, stiffening in Zoro’s arms.
“Stop fucking saying that. What has gotten into you?”
Even after all these months it niggles at the back of his mind in these moments, where Zoro becomes spontaneously affectionate.
He’s pretending. It’s all a big joke. He’s mocking you. He doesn’t love you.
Zoro holds him tight, allowing no room for Sanji to try and pull away.
“Just trying it out,” he says.
Sanji rolls his eyes, uncomfortable with this new affectionate term. Even as part of him thrills to hear it.
“Why?” he asks, and he hears the plaintive note in his voice, the edge of vulnerability, and wants to run from it, to hide. To push Zoro away so he doesn’t have to expose anymore of his soft underbelly.
He feels Zoro shrug against him
“I love you,” he mumbles, and his lips are pressed against Sanji’s neck, where he has ducked his head down to push his face against Sanji’s jaw. “And I don’t plan on loving anyone else. Ever. So, I guess that makes you the love of my life.”
Sanji is pretty sure this started out as one of Zoro’s attempts to make him squirm, but the words sit between them, pressed into Sanji’s skin, and there is a sudden weight to them he does not think either of them expected.
“Fuck Mosshead,” he mutters, overcome and trying desperately not to show it.
Zoro begins to pull away.
“I won’t say it again if you hate it.”
Sanji yanks him back, pressing them tightly together.
“You can say it,” he allows, trying to ignore the warmth blooming in his chest. “Just not where the ladies can hear.”
He doesn’t need to see Zoro’s face to know he is rolling his eye.
“Yeah yeah,” he says, and then tilts his face up into Sanji’s for a kiss.
It starts out chaste, but soon they are breathing into each other’s mouths, tongues tangling, and Zoro is yanking Sanji around to face him, pushing him up against the stove.
“Love of my fucking life,” he growls against Sanji’s lips, and Sanji makes a sound he will absolutely fucking deny, if anyone asks him about it later.
Zoro’s hands slide down his body, over his ass and to the backs of his thighs, lifting until Sanji is perched precariously on the edge of the hob, his legs instinctively wrapping around Zoro’s hips as Zoro presses him backward. Sanji reaches out with one hand to steady himself as his body bends back over the cooker.
And he puts it right into the pan of cooling choux pastry.
His entire body stiffens, and Zoro feels it immediately.
He pulls back and they stare at each other for a long moment, then Zoro’s eyes drift down to Sanji’s hand, in the pan.
Sanji takes a deep breath.
“You better get out of my sight in the next five seconds or I am going to kick you so hard,” he warns.
Zoro grins, unrepentant, and lays one last sloppy kiss on him, before darting back out of Sanji’s reach. Sanji flips himself off the cooker and onto the floor, choux still stuck to his hand, but Zoro is already backing out of the galley door.
“Later, love of my life,” he grins, and Sanji scoops the pan off the stove and flings it at him.
It hits the door as it closes behind Zoro, with a loud thud.
As he is washing the spoiled pastry off his hand, muttering at the waste, he is unable to stop the smile creeping at the edge of his lips.
“Love of my fucking life is a moron,” he says.
It feels good.
*
Sanji opened his eyes and found he had been crying in his sleep.
He rubbed at the salt trails that slipped from the corners of his eyes. God, he really hoped he hadn’t been making any sort of noise.
The rest of the bunk room was quiet, and he could see in the dim morning that Zoro’s bunk - their bunk- was still empty. Franky should have taken over Zoro’s watch at some point, but clearly Zoro had chosen to stay secluded up in the crow’s nest.
He got out of bed and silently dressed, used to doing so in the dark after so many mornings of the same routine.
Moments of the dream, no not the dream the memory , kept intruding on him in flashes, despite his best attempts to keep his mind blank.
God, had that really only been a few weeks ago?
Had he and Zoro really been that happy, such a short time ago?
He shouldn’t have trusted it. He knew not to trust it. He knew something would happen, he knew Zoro hadn’t meant it, not deep down.
How could he have, when Sanji disgusted him so much now?
He stalked out onto deck and fumbled a cigarette out of his packet, welcoming the sweet taste of tobacco deep into his lungs.
Love of my life.
He disgusts me.
He smoked three in row in the early dawn, the conflicting words spinning round and round inside his head.
Love of my life.
He disgusts me.
It would have been six months today that they had been together.
Sap that he was, Sanji had been keeping track. Not that he had told Zoro, of course. That idiot was no doubt blissfully unaware, but Sanji had been keeping track. marking each day off on his mental calendar, unable to believe as each day ticked by they were still together, they were still making it work.
That they could have this.
Love of my life.
He disgusts me.
He sucked in the last bit of the cigarette, then ground the butt out on the sole of his shoe before carefully tucking it back into the packet with the others to dispose of later.
He made breakfast on auto pilot, and when Zoro shuffled down from his night’s watch duty he looked haggard and avoided eye contact with most of the crew.
Sanji didn’t attempt to interact. He was feeling vaguely sick from both his dream and the events of yesterday. He was aware of Luffy watching both of them, but he didn’t say anything.
“Are you not hungry this morning, Sanji?” Jinbe asked, noticing Sani slumped over by the bar and drinking a cup of coffee but not eating anything.
Sanji shook his head. He was desperate for another cigarette.
“I ate earlier,” he lied.
He felt their gazes on him, and he knew they didn’t believe him.
After breakfast Sanji busied himself with doing a full clear out of the pantry. His frantic counting the other night had revealed some smears of dust on some of the shelves and he was mad at himself for not noticing earlier.
Ever since Zoro had been injured he had been seriously off his game, and he really needed to pull himself together. If this was his new normal then he had to find a way to make it work. The crew deserved better from him.
Love of my life.
He disgusts me.
He scrubbed so viciously at one shelf that the paint flaked off, and swore guiltily. He needed to be more careful. Franky shouldn’t have to be running around after him, repairing things because of Sanji’s carelessness.
He needed to do better.
Love of my life.
He disgusts me.
After the pantry he went through the boys’ bunk and gathered all the dirty clothes strewn across the floor and in the hamper. He would do the laundry after lunch, which would keep him busy. The skies were clear and bright again, with a nice bit of breeze. Perfect laundry weather. And perhaps after he had finished that he could give the bathroom a once over. He was sure he had seen some mildew along some of the grouting yesterday. It would be good to give it a thorough scrub.
Love of my life.
He disgusts me.
Sanji had just dumped all the dirty clothing in the laundry room and turned back to head to the kitchen to make lunch, when he was stopped by Luffy literally swinging himself into the laundry room.
“Whatcha doing?” he asked.
“The laundry,” Sanji replied, perhaps a tad sharper than he meant to. “What does it look like?”
“You’ve been working all morning,” Luffy said. “Come and hang out with us!”
Sanji gritted his teeth.
“Can’t,” he said shortly. “I need to make lunch.”
Luffy’s eyes lit up at the prospect of lunch.
“After then,” he insisted. “Usopp, Chopper and I are going to fish this afternoon. You can help us!”
“You don’t need me to help you fish,” Sanji said. “And I have to wash all your dirty clothes after lunch.”
“That can wait!” Luffy protested.
Sanji made to push past him, but Luffy had stretched his limbs and attached his hands and feet to the corners of the doorway, effectively trapping Sanji in the small room. When Sanji pushed at him, he only stretched further.
“Luffy, let me out,” he said, growing impatient with his Captain’s antics. “I need to get lunch ready.”
“Not until you promise to fish with us,” Luffy sing songed.
“I’m not fishing with you!” Sanji snapped. “I have chores to do!”
“But I want you to hang out with us!” Luffy protested.
Sanji felt his irritation, already so close to the surface, bubbling over.
“Well you can’t always get what you want!” he yelled. “Sometimes you just have to make do and suck it the fuck up!”
Love of my life.
He disgusts me.
His shout echoed around the small room, and Sanji suddenly felt like he was suffocating. If Luffy didn't get out of his face he was afraid of what he might do.
Luffy was staring at him unnervingly, the teasing look gone from his face now.
“Let me out,” Sanji said. “Please.”
Luffy slowly withdrew his limbs, and Sanji shoved past him back onto the deck.
“Sanji,” Luffy said.
“I have to make lunch!” Sanji snapped, and stalked off before Luffy could waylay him any further.
He wasn’t being fair, he knew, and Luffy was clearly just trying to cheer him up after last night. But Sanji’s head was a mess and he knew he wasn’t pleasant to be around when he got like this.
It was better Luffy just let him work it out on his own.
And he had to make lunch.
He had to keep busy .
It was well into the afternoon by the time Sanji emerged from the laundry room, pink faced from the warmth of washing the clothes. He took the basket up to the line and started pegging up the garments.
“Let me help you with that, Sanji-kun!” Usopp said brightly, appearing from apparently nowhere.
“It’s fine,” Sanji said. “I’ve got it. Go back to your fishing.”
Usopp shrugged, reaching into the basket.
“Nothing biting,” he said. “And we already had to pull Luffy out of the water three times. He and Chopper are playing a game now.”
He pulled Zoro’s green robe out of the pile of wet clothes, and Sanji stared at it. The memory of his dream was suddenly heavy in the forefront of his mind, the way Zoro had held him and breathed those words into his skin.
Love of my life.
He disgusts me.
“I said I’ve got it!” Sanji snapped, reaching over and yanking the green material from Usopp’s hands. “I’m perfectly capable of doing the laundry myself!”
Usopp stared at him.
“No one is suggesting that you aren’t,” he said timidly.
“Did Luffy send you here?” Sanji demanded. “Did he tell you to come up here and keep an eye on me?”
Usopp was holding his hands up defensively now.
“N-n-n-no one sent me anywhere,” he stuttered, and in the back of Sanji’s mind it registered that he was scaring Usopp. “I just wanted to help, I swear!”
He should have said sorry. He should have said thank you and let Usopp help him hang out the laundry. He could have done things differently, in that moment.
“I don’t need your help,” Sanji spat. He turned deliberately away from Usopp and began hanging Zoro’s robe up. “So just get lost.”
Usopp was mumbling something Sanji thought might have been an apology as he backed away, but Sanji tuned it out. He didn’t want to hear it. He couldn’t bear for anyone to talk to him right now.
He just needed to keep focussed, keep busy.
He just needed to…needed to…
He clenched his fists in Zoro’s robe.
Love of my life.
He disgusts me.
He just needed to finish hanging this laundry up.
That’s what he needed to do. And he didn’t need anyone helping him or interrupting him or checking up on him.
He was fine.
After the laundry he went back down to the kitchen, pretending not to see the way Usopp flinched when Sanji glanced over in his direction.
Pretended not to feel the weight of Luffy’s gaze on him either.
He needed to make an afternoon snack now, primarily for the ladies of course, but he remembered Chopper had made an offhand comment about strawberry mochi at breakfast.
Sanji had some strawberries he had chopped up and kept in the ice box, after he had gotten a great deal on them at a market a few islands back. He also had some red bean paste in the ice box, for those who liked their mochi a little less sweet.
He took the strawberries and red bean paste out and set them aside, then gathered the ingredients to make dough. Once that was mixed and in the steamer he set about boiling the strawberries up on the stove with water, sugar and a touch of balsamic vinegar to make a filling.
He had added matcha to the dough, which would work well with both fillings. He tried not to associate the matcha with Zoro. Just because it was one of his favourites. Other people in the world liked matcha.
Once the dough had steamed and then cooled enough he worked quickly to shape and fill each mochi, then roll it in a mixture of black and white sesame seeds or powdered sugar.
He worked calmly and methodically to the beat of his own heart and his even breathing, only focussing on the next step and the next and the next.
Love of my life.
He disgusts me.
He balanced three trays with the carefully arranged mochi and pushed his way out of the galley, careful to school his features, and waltzed his way down to where Robin and Nami were sitting on the lawn deck at a small table, bending their heads together over one of Nami’s maps.
“For you, my goddesses,” he proclaimed, presenting them with the smallest of the three trays where the mochi balls were piled into a heart shaped tower.
“Thank you, Sanji,” Robin smiled. “They look delicious, as always.”
“Thank you, Sanji-kun,” Nami said absently, not bothering to look up at him. She had a pencil behind one ear and was tracing a line on the map with one finger and a look of fierce concentration.
“I live to serve,” Sanji said, bowing as low as he could with the two remaining trays balanced on his arms.
He turned to find the rest of the crew.
“Snacks!” he yelled, and they all seemed to materialise at once and fall upon him.
“Mochi!” Chopper shouted gleefully, as he scooped two of the strawberry ones into his mouth at once.
Luffy had already fisted a handful and was scarfing them down. Sanji raised the other tray higher and out of his eyeline, so the others would get a shot.
He noticed Zoro was not among them, and when he glanced around he could see he was sleeping in the shade of the tree under the swing, propped up against its trunk.
Sanji felt his jaw tighten and realised he was gritting his teeth.
Love of my life.
He disgusts me.
“Oi Mosshead, come and get some mochi,” he called, trying to keep his tone light. He suspected he was failing if the way the others looked at each other indicated anything.
Zoro grunted, and made a big show of opening one eye, then turned his head away and closed it again.
Sanji ground his teeth together.
Love of my life.
He disgusts me.
That pigheaded, stubborn…
“Unless it’s too disgusting for you,” he spat.
He saw Zoro’s face twitch. His eye opened slowly.
Sanji stared at him defiantly.
Love of my life.
He disgusts me.
Without looking away, he shoved the trays into Luffy’s gleeful hands, and stalked over the lawn to where Zoro was sitting.
“I said come and get some mochi,” he hissed, glowering down at Zoro. “Or is my food not good enough for you now?”
Zoro glared up at him, a mullish set to his jaw.
“Or am I too disgusting to prepare your food now? Is that the issue?”
Something flickered across Zoro’s face before he wrestled his expression back under control.
“Not hungry,” he grunted.
Sanji felt what was perhaps a disproportionate amount of rage flood through him.
“Go and eat a fucking mochi!”
Love of my life.
He disgusts me.
Zoro scowled at him.
“I said I’m not hungry. Go and bother someone else.”
All day Sanji had had Zoro’s words flitting back and forth through his head. All day, these opposing sides to who Zoro had been and who he was now. The best and the worst of the way he thought of Sanji.
All fucking day.
Love of my life.
He disgusts me.
He disgusts me.
He disgusts me.
He disgusts me.
That rage, that desperate, impotent, powerful, hurt rage swelled up and it was like he was drowning in it, like he was screaming and suffocating and dying and-
And as Zoro shifted against the tree and moved to turn away from him, something inside Sanji snapped and he kicked him.
It wasn’t a gentle kick. It wasn’t one of their sparring matches. They weren’t on equal footing. Zoro didn’t even see it coming.
Sanji swung himself round, leg lifting off the air in a powerful circle, and his shoe found its home in Zoro’s body. He heard the thud of the impact, felt the way his toes hooked under Zoro’s side to lift him bodily off the ground and the force with which he lashed out, sending Zoro flying across the lawn to thud up against the mast on the far side. His head hit the wood with a sickening crack, and he flopped back down onto the grass.
He wasn’t moving.
There was a moment of utter stillness and silence, and then the crew seemed to explode into action as Chopper let out a shriek, the sound cutting through the air.
“Sanji!” Nami shouted. “What the hell?!”
Chopper and Luffy had rushed over to where Zoro lay on the ground, totally still, and the others were staring open-mouthed back at Sanji.
Sanji was frozen in place, his own eyes fixed on Zoro’s unmoving form.
“Zoro?” he heard himself ask, as if he wasn't the one who had just kicked his partner clear into the ship’s mast.
He took an unsteady step forward as Chopper and Luffy turned Zoro onto his back, Chopper bending down to listen to Zoro’s breathing.
A large hand appeared on Sanji’s chest, keeping him in place.
“Zoro,” Sanji said again. “I need to, to-”
“No Sanji,” Franky said firmly, his hand pressing against Sanji’s chest, stopping him from moving. “You don’t need to be anywhere near him right now.”
Sanji wrenched his eyes away from Zoro’s still form. He felt as if someone had shoved him underwater. Franky was glaring at him, sunglasses pushed up on his head. Nami was standing just beyond him, eyes wide with shock and rage as she watched him. Robin had a worried, pinched look on her face.
Sanji moved his gaze across each of them, and could see it in the way they met his eyes or turned away, could see the disgust each of them felt for him in that moment.
Zoro had been right. He was disgusting.
Shame rushed through him and he felt his eyes blur as they welled up. Zoro was still passed out on the lawn and Chopper was carefully feeling around his neck to check it wasn’t broken.
Oh god, he had done that. Sanji had done that. To his partner, to the man he was supposed to love.
He had done this.
Sanji took a shaky step backward, Franky’s hand sliding away from him.
He couldn’t bear the way they were all looking at him, even if he deserved it. He couldn't be there anymore.
He stumbled backwards, towards the deck, and felt the door to the aquarium bar dig into his back.
“Sanji-kun,” Nami said. “Wait.”
But Sanji only shook his head, mute with horror at his actions, and fumbled for the door handle behind him.
“Let him go Nami,” he heard Robin say, as he pushed the door open and fell through, cutting off the sight of Zoro lying so still on the lawn.
Cutting off the sight of what Sanji had done.
*
He found his way down the ladder to the energy room, and from there down again to Franky and Usopp’s workshops. He didn’t know where he was going, what he was trying to do, he just knew he had to get away .
He kept hearing the crack as Zoro’s head hit the mast, feeling the phantom weight of his body as Sanji had swung his leg, flinging Zoro like a rag doll.
He felt sick, bile rising from his churning stomach, and he swallowed against it, his breathing short and sharp with his panic.
He had to get away.
He slipped between the narrow compartments of the dock system until he was in the centre, then out of the other side into the store room.
Here was a familiar dark space, his spare sacks of flour and rice piled in one corner. Sanji shifted them around until he could make a small space behind them and then wiggled inside, hidden from view, and pressed himself against the wall, knees up against his chest, trying to make himself as small as possible.
What had he done?
He felt the burn of bile again, and swallowed fiercely. He reached up with both hands and twined his fingers in his hair, tugging sharply, welcoming the sting of pain in his scalp.
How could he have done that to Zoro? What if Zoro didn't wake up this time? What if Sanji had killed him?
He didn't know how long he was down there, deep in the bowels of the ship rocking under the waves, clawing at his own head in some kind of perverse punishment. Long enough for a dim awareness to start growing inside of him, stronger the more he dwelled on it, until the seed of a thought became an indisputable fact and a dreaded realisation: he had to leave.
He couldn't stay here, on this ship, with the crew. Not anymore.
Sanji was a danger to them, he had proven that by hurting Zoro. What if next time he snapped it was Chopper? Or one of the girls? He couldn’t risk them like that.
He couldn’t stay.
He remembered, bitterly, that call with Zoro in Wano where he had asked Zoro to kill him. Why hadn’t he let Zoro follow through with it? How could he have thought he was okay after all? He knew his body was changing. Surely this was just more proof that he was becoming the very thing he feared above all else?
He had hurt Zoro .
Sanji squeezed his eyes shut against the darkness surrounding him, and dug his fingernails harder into his scalp.
He had hurt Zoro.
Time held no meaning for him anymore, hidden as he was in the darkest, lowest part of the ship. When there came a scrambling on the ladder above him it could have been mere minutes or long hours since he fled the deck.
A light shone down into the store room from above, passing slowly back and forth over the space. Sanji held his breath, sure he was hidden from view by the way the sacks were piled up and the small size of the hole he had crammed himself into.
He would need to find a way off the ship. Maybe at night. He could borrow the shark submersible so no one would see him leaving.
No, he couldn’t do that. Franky would never forgive him.
They won’t forgive you anyway, not after this.
He clawed harder at his scalp, trying not to let the panic consume him. The light wasn’t going away.
Leave , he thought desperately. Please just leave. Just leave.
“Sanji,” Luffy said. “I know you’re down here.”
The light shifted and flickered as it moved, and a moment later Sanji heard the thump of Luffy’s body hitting the floor as he jumped down into the stores.
Sanji held his breath, even though he knew it was useless.
“It’s ok,” Luffy said gently. “It’s just me.”
Sanji felt a hot rush of shame, of tears, and wanted nothing more than to fling himself at Luffy’s feet and beg for his forgiveness. But Sanji had asked for forgiveness too many times already. He didn't deserve another chance, he had used all his goodwill up.
He had hurt Zoro.
Luffy sighed.
“I’m so sorry, Sanji,” he said.
Sanji felt himself flinch at the words.
What?
“I should have realised you were not okay. I should have stepped in sooner,” Luffy continued. “We were all so focussed on getting Zoro’s memory back we didn’t see what a toll it had taken on you. I’m sorry,” he said again.
Sanji stared blankly at the wall of sacks in front of him. What was Luffy saying?
“And last night,” Luffy added, before trailing off awkwardly. “I should have, uh, told Zoro you were there. That wasn’t fair.”
Sanji curled his fingers and winced at how tightly they were embedded in his scalp. The pain grounded him.
Luffy took a few steps closer, the wooden planks creaking beneath his weight.
“Come out Sanji,” he said.
The light approached Sanji’s hiding place, and then Luffy was peering down at Sanji over the top of the sack wall.
“There Sanji is!” he said brightly, as if he hadn’t known the second he stuck his head below the trap door. “Please come out.”
Sanji swallowed against the clawing sensation in his throat. He was a fucking child, running away and hiding like this.
“I can’t,” he rasped. He dug his fingers in tighter, relishing in the sharp sting. “I can’t go out there and face them. I can’t-”
One of Luffy’s hands reached down and covered his own, gently stopping the movement of his fingers.
“Just come out from there,” he said. “Just come and sit with me here. That’s all.”
Sanji gulped, but his Captain’s eyes were fixed firmly on his own in the lamplight, and there was no hatred or anger or reproach there. Only warmth. Only Luffy.
Sanji began to slowly pull himself out of the sack den. His legs had gone to sleep, curled so tightly against him for an indeterminate amount of time, and he found himself pretty much crawling out into the storeroom.
Luffy watched him, displaying a patience glimpsed so rarely, and then he came to crouch in front of Sanji.
“Sanji,” he said, tone serious. “You’re bleeding.”
Sanji followed Luffy’s eyes down to his own hands, and the ends of his fingers were smudged red with blood.
“I’m not hurt,” he said.
Not like Zoro.
Luffy reached out a careful hand to brush Sanji’s hair back from his face, exposing both his eyes in a way that made his skin crawl with vulnerability. He probed gently at Sanji’s hairline.
“You’re hurt here,” he said, and when his hand withdrew it glistened with the same smudges of red.
Sanji blinked.
“Sanji’s been hurting himself,” Luffy chided gently.
Sanji pulled away.
“ Don’t ,” he hissed. “Don’t be nice to me. Not after I-”
He cut himself off, the sharp crack of Zoro’s head hitting the mast echoing once again in his ears.
He swallowed.
“Is Zoro okay?” he whispered.
He dreaded Luffy’s eyes suddenly becoming shadowed and haunted. He dreaded him saying “No Sanji, you damaged his spine. You broke his neck. You killed him. He’ll never see me become the Pirate King, He’ll never be the World’s Greatest Swordsman. Because of you .”
But Luffy didn’t say that. He cocked his head to one side and grinned.
“Chopper says Zoro’s got a hard head. He might have a bruise, but he’ll wake up any moment. Zoro will be fine.”
His smile slipped.
“Sanji isn’t fine.”
Sanji felt the hot burn of tears.
“Luffy,” he gasped desperately. “I have to leave the crew. I can’t stay here, not after this! What I did to Zoro was-”
“You always kick Zoro,” Luffy interrupted, frowning. “Why is this different?”
“Because it is !” Sanji insisted. “We weren't fighting! We weren’t sparring. He wasn’t even doing anything to me and I kicked him so hard I knocked him out! You don’t just do that to people you love, Luffy!”
Luffy tilted his head from side to side, considering.
“So it’s a love thing?” he asked.
“No!” Sanji snapped. “I mean, yes, I suppose it sort of is, but…you just don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me,” Luffy insisted. “If it’s so terrible you think you need to leave, explain it.”
Sanjii shook his head. How could he explain the difference to Luffy, who saw Zoro and Sanji’s fights as a weird sort of affection and always had. He had always taken their fighting to mean they liked each other. even before they actually did.
He had always thought they liked each other.
Sanji stared at him, the thought cutting through his panic and self recrimination.
“When did you know Zoro and I, ah, cared about each other that way?” he asked.
Luffy shrugged.
“I don’t know,” he said. He picked his nose idly as he considered it. “Thriller Bark?”
Sanji felt his eyes bug a bit.
“Thriller Bark?” he repeated.
“Well yeah,” Luffy said in a ‘yeah duh’ sort of way. “When Zoro was injured you were always checking on him, acting odd until he woke up. Oh no wait,” he added. “I think it was Water 7 actually, when you got on that train to go after Robin and Zoro couldn’t stop worrying about you.”
Sanji stared some more.
“Luffy,” he said slowly. “Zoro and I weren’t together then. We didn’t get together until much, much later.”
Luffy frowned.
“Huh,” he said. “Are you sure?”
Sanji nodded slowly, blinking in amazement.
How had Luffy always known? How had this dense, idiotic man child with no emotional development known before either Sanji or Zoro did themselves?
“Yes Captain,” he said softly. “I’m sure. Today is our six month anniversary.”
Luffy looked thoughtful for a moment, then he grinned.
“Then we should celebrate!” he announced. “You can make a feast.”
Sanji smiled sadly.
“I don’t think it would be much of a celebration when one half of the couple is unconscious,” he said. “And even if he were awake he doesn’t remember anything about the actual relationship.”
He was trying to joke, but the words sent a fresh wave of pain through him. Luffy may think Zoro was going to be okay, but that still didn't change the fact that Zoro couldn’t remember them being together. It still didn’t change that Sanji was slowly losing it, and that he had blown up today in the worst possible way.
It still didn’t change that he had hurt Zoro.
Luffy was extolling the virtues of how an anniversary meat fest would lift everyone's spirits, even if Zoro couldn’t join in or remember the occasion for it.
“Captain,” Sanji broke in gently. “I can’t stay on this ship.”
Luffy gave Sanji his most aggravated look.
“Sanji is being silly.”
“I’m not!” Sanji protested. “How can I stay when this is what I have come to? Zoro isn’t going to remember, or at least not any time soon. I think it’s time we started to face facts. I clearly can’t be trusted to be around him anymore. And Zoro isn’t going anywhere so that only leaves-”
“Neither of you is going anywhere,” Luffy interrupted. “You both belong here, with me. And I told you once I couldn't become King of the Pirates without you. That hasn’t changed.”
“The situation has changed,” Sani protested.
“Why are you always trying to run away, Sanji? I thought Sanji had stopped running away. I thought Sanji wanted to be here, with his nakama?”
Sanji closed his eyes.
“I do,” he whispered.
Luffy shrugged.
“Then be here,” he said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
Sanji opened his eyes.
They were still sitting on the storeroom floor in the low lamplight. Sanji’s face was swollen and puffy from his earlier tears, dried blood dotted along his hairline and under his fingernails. Sanji had snapped and hurt someone he loved. Sanji was a mess. Sanji was terrified.
Be here , Luffy said.
And Sanji didn’t want to be anywhere else. He wanted to be here in his home, with his family and the man he loved. The man that could hopefully forgive him, maybe even learn to love him again.
Be here.
“Okay Luffy,” he said softly. “I can do that. I can be here.”
*
Luffy led him up the storeroom ladder and then to the bathroom, as if he were a child that needed minding. Whilst Sanji had been hiding below, the sky had darkened and the night air hung cool around them. Luffy waited with a surprising amount of patience whilst Sanji rinsed his face and washed away the dried blood, scrubbing viciously under his fingernails until not a speck remained.
Then, together, they went to the galley.
The rest of the crew were sitting anxiously around the dining table, minus Zoro of course, who was presumably still out cold in the infirmary. There were traces of crumbs on the plates that were still on the table, and Sanji felt relieved that they had eaten something in his absence.
All eyes turned to him as they entered, Luffy leading him still, and Sanji felt himself wilting away from the attention. He was sure they must be angry with him still, after all his actions had been appalling. They must hate him, they must-
“Sanji-kun!” Nami called out, and then next thing he knew she was flinging herself into his arms and squeezing him tight.
Sanji blinked, unsure, but Luffy was smiling at him, and Nami was holding him so tightly it was hard to breathe, his mostly healed ribs protesting slightly.
“Sanji,” Robin said, rising from the table. “We’re so glad you are alright.”
She joined them. squeezing Sanji’s shoulder gently.
“Come and sit down, cook-san. You must be hungry.”
Sanji wasn’t hungry, the gnawing sensations of shame and guilt killing any desire for food, but he allowed them to lead him to the table and sit him down at the end, where they had saved his usual seat.
Usopp had leapt up and was bringing a plate with a sandwich on over from the kitchen.
“Here Sanji-kun,” he said, setting it in front of him. “We made you some food. We hope it’s okay.”
Sanji stared at the plate, blinking rapidly.
“If it’s not okay we can make something else,” Usopp rushed to say. “It’s no problem!”
Sanji frowned.
“I don’t…understand,” he said eventually.
“Um, it's a sandwich?” Usopp asked.
“Not the food.” Sanji dared to raise his head then, and they were all watching him, a little cautiously, a little apprehensively. “Why are you being so nice?”
He saw the way Jinbe’s face dropped at his words, and Usopp’s almost imperceivable flinch.
“Sanji,” Chopper piped up, looking extremely serious. “We’re all so sorry.”
Sanji stared at them all in confusion. Luffy had said the same thing to him, down in the store too, but if anyone should be apologising here it should be Sanji.
“We should have been watching out for you,” Chopper continued. “We knew you were having a hard time!” His lower lip quivered and his eyes filled with tears. He bit his lip, hard, as he tried not to cry.
“We should have been looking out for you bro,” Franky said.
“We’re so sorry Sanji,” Usopp said. “We’ve really let you down.”
Sanji looked from face to face, gaping. This wasn’t what he was expecting at all. And he didn’t understand it.
“Why aren’t you angry?” he asked. “I hurt Zoro. I hurt him! I deserve your anger!”
“You deserve kindness Sanji-san,” Brook said seriously. “And we should have been paying more attention.”
“But…but Zoro…I…I hurt him…I-”
“Zoro’s been unnecessarily cruel to you since he lost his memory,” Nami interrupted. “We should have realised just how much that was affecting you and stepped in before it got this far. He kind of needed a good kick.”
“We’re so sorry, Sanji,” Chopper said again, voice thick with his tears.
Sanji shook his head slowly.
“No, this isn’t...I don’t…I’m not…”
“Sanji thinks he has to leave us, for hurting Zoro,” Luffy broke in. “But I’ve told him no one is going anywhere. He belongs here, with us. With his nakama.” He gave Sanji a hard look. “Sanji forgets, sometimes, his worth and we’re the ones who should remind him of that. Zoro helps remind him of that. With Zoro unable to remember we didn’t do our jobs. We’re sorry, Sanji.”
Sanji felt tears gathering, the heavy press of them in the back of his throat when he tried to swallow.
“Captain,” he rasped.
“We won’t forget again,” Luffy said. Then he smiled, and in its simplicity Sanji felt like a weight had suddenly been lifted.
He forced himself to meet the gaze of each one of his nakama.
“I’m sorry too,” he said. “I should have been more honest with how I was feeling, how hard I was finding everything. Then maybe it wouldn’t have gotten this far.” His eyes lingered on Chopper. “Is Zoro really going to be okay?”
Chopper offered him a reassuring smile.
“I think so. We won’t know anything for sure until he wakes up, but his pupils were responsive and nothing is broken. I think he will be fine. This isn’t like last time,” he added gently.
Sanji nodded, and let out the breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding. Zoro was going to be okay. They just had to wait for him to wake up. He was going to be fine. Sanji sank into his seat at the table, and rested his head in his hands.
Zoro was going to be okay.
“Now!” Luffy said suddenly. “We’re all glad that Zoro is fine and Sanji isn’t kicking anyone else.”
Sanji winced.
“But what about a late dinner, Sanji? I’m sooooo hungry!”
Sanji was about to offer him his sandwich, but when he glanced down he realised the plate was already clean. Luffy saw him looking and glanced guiltily to the side.
“Luffy!” Nami snapped. “You’re impossible. You just ate six sandwiches, seven including Sanji-kun’s which did not belong to you, and you want him to start cooking for you?!”
“I’m hungry!” Luffy protested. “And Sanji doesn’t mind, do you Sanji? Sanji likes cooking for me!”
“He’s not your slave!” Nami protested. “And he’s probably really tired and wants to go to bed!”
“And he can!” Luffy said brightly. “After he makes me some supper.”
Nami narrowed her eyes in pure rage.
“LUFFY!”
Her mouth was open to yell at him some more, when the infirmary door slammed open, interrupting them with a sudden bang that made Chopper and Usopp jump a foot in the air with twin shrieks.
Zoro stumbled through, clearly confused, his hair sticking up on one side. His eye flicked around wildly, something desperate in his gaze, until it landed on Sanji, sitting at the end of the table.
“Sanji,” he said, and then he lurched the few steps across the room until he reached Sanji, where he sank to his knees, arms wrapping around Sanji’s waist as he pressed his face into Sanji’s stomach.
“Sanji,” he breathed again, and Sanji could feel the warmth of it, even through his clothes.
He stared, uncomprehending, arms raised half in defence as he had thought, for a moment, Zoro meant to attack him.
Zoro was shaking, he realised, after several long seconds. His whole body shook with tiny tremors, and his arms around Sanji were locked tight.
“Zoro?” he asked quietly, completely at a loss of what to do. One of his hands found its way to Zoro’s head, and he cradled it gently, sure any moment Zoro would come to his senses and shake him off in disgust.
Zoro let out a sort of wounded, anguished noise at the touch, muffled into Sanji’s clothes. Sanji felt a wash of sudden fear at the sound. He didn’t think he’d ever heard Zoro make a noise like that before.
Zoro raised his head then, gaze meeting Sanji’s, and Sanji stopped breathing.
Zoro.
Zoro, his Zoro, was staring back at him. And Sanji suddenly knew, with a wave of desperate hope and terror.
Zoro remembered.
“Sanji,” Zoro said for a third time, as if the only thing he could focus on was Sanji’s name, on Sanji himself, clamped tight in Zoro’s arms.
He hadn’t called Sanji by his name since he had forgotten.
“Zoro,” he choked out. “Are you…do you…?”
“ Sanji ,” Zoro said.
Sanji’s hand was still cradling Zoro’s skull, and as Zoro loosened his arms and leant up, Sanj used it to pull him close, their foreheads pressing tight against each other.
“Sanji,” Zoro said, barely a whisper against his lips.
He kissed Sanji, soft and sweet, just a brush of their lips together.
Sanji didn’t think a kiss could ever feel so good.
Zoro drew back, his hands still clinging to Sanji’s sides as if afraid to let him go.
Sanji let his eyes search Zoro’s face, but there was no denying it; the Zoro looking back was the one he had spent the last six months waking up next to, the one who had called him the love of his life in this very room. The one who annoyed the ever loving shit out of him, the one he burned and ached and yeared for. His Zoro.
He remembered.
“You remember,” he said aloud, and it came out confident, not the desperate stuttering of only moments ago.
“I remember,” Zoro said.
The moment stretched between them, sweet like spun sugar, and then Luffy let out an almighty whoop.
“ZORO REMEMBERS!” he yelled, and Sanji winced at the explosion, before Luffy lept bodily onto Zoro’s back to hug him, pushing Zoro forward into Sanji’s lap as the air was knocked out of his lungs.
“LUFFY!” Chopper shrieked. “YOU’LL BREAK HIM AGAIN!”
The galley dissolved into a chaos of joyful shouting then as everyone erupted at once, the realisation that Zoro’s memory had returned causing cascades of glee and jubilant cries.
Zoro’s face stayed upturned toward Sanji, despite Luffy squishing his cheek right up to Zoro’s as he wound him possessively in his rubber limbs. Zoro’s eye was wide and fixed on Sanji’s.
“Alright!” Chopper yelled, cutting through all the mayhem. “I need to examine Zoro right away! Luffy get off him!”
Luffy scowled as he began drawing his limbs back from where they wrapped around Zoro like a particularly stretchy snake.
“But I missed him!” he whined.
“After you can hug him all you want,” Chopper promised. “But first I need Zoro back in the infirmary. You should have stayed in bed!” he scolded Zoro.
Zoro was still kneeling at Sanji’s feet, hands still anchored around Sanji’s waist.
“Wanted to see Sanji,” he muttered, and Sanji felt himself go inexplicably pink. Which was just ridiculous.
“Yes yes,” Chopper said impatiently. “Sanji can come too. Up!”
Sanji helped draw Zoro to his feet, and was stupidly pleased when Zoro didn’t seem inclined to separate from Sanji, leaning into his side so that Sanji was forced to wrap an arm around his waist.
“Come on Marimo,” he said softly. “Let’s get you checked out.”
He shuffled Zoro back to the infirmary and onto the bed. When he made to take a step back Zoro grabbed at his hand.
“It’s okay,” Sanji soothed. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He hooked a leg around the chair a few feet away and used it to pull it close to the bed, so he didn’t have to let go of Zoro’s hand.
Chopper, who had been fussing with some equipment on his desk, turned and saw them. His eyes got very big but he didn’t say anything. Still, he was definitely trying not to smile too wide.
He took Zoro’s vitals and then asked him a series of questions to test his memory. Apart from the fight itself where he had sustained the injury, he seemed to have everything back. No gaps, no confusion. No thinking they were anywhere near Little Garden. He remembered it all, including the bits when he hadn’t been able to remember.
Sanji stiffened slightly hearing that, thinking of his own terrible behaviour which had started with lying to Zoro and concluded in Sanji losing his temper and kicking Zoro halfway across the ship. He had kind of been hoping maybe Zoro wouldn’t remember those bits.
Eventually Chopper proclaimed himself satisfied.
“I want you to stay in here tonight though, just in case,” he said.
“I’ll stay too,” Sanji volunteered. As if anyone could drag him away.
Chopper nodded, and began to reel off a list of things Sanji should watch out for in the night in case Zoro turned out to have a concussion after all. He stopped, list exhausted and apparently satisfied, then suddenly narrowed his eyes.
“And don’t have sex on my infirmary bed,” he said.
Zoro made a sound like a wounded animal, and Sanji felt himself go a bright, brilliant red.
“Chopper! What the hell?”
“I’m just saying!” Chopper said. “Don’t! No strenuous activity for at least 24 hours!”
Sanji gaped at him, face still beat red. Zoro had pressed his lips together and was staring determinedly at the ceiling, as if he could will himself away to a different part of the ship. Or invisible.
“Goodnight Chopper,” Sanji said pointedly.
“Goodnight!” Chopper replied brightly. “I’ll check on you in the morning, Zoro. Sleep well!”
Sanji waited until the door closed behind him, then dropped his face onto Zoro’s shoulder with a humiliated groan.
“What the fuck,” he mumbled.
Zoro’s hand came up to cradle his head, holding it gently against his sturdy shoulder. Sanji breathed him in, the smell of his sweat and musk. He felt suddenly dizzy with it.
He raised his head, until he could look into Zoro’s eye.
“Hello Marimo,” he said.
Zoro smiled, a slow thing that leaked into every crack of Sanji’s heart like kintsugi, filling him with threads of gold.
“Hey love cook,” he said back.
Zoro drew him in, pressing them close together, and then his lips found Sanji’s.
It was gentle, a relearning of the way they felt against each other and almost innocent in its simplicity, until Sanji tilted his head and their lips slotted together, turning the kiss deeper, hotter.
Zoro opened his mouth and Sanji licked into him hungrily, happy to taste him again after what had felt like an eternity.
It wasn’t like their kiss in the crow’s nest which had been passionate but tinged with frustration and violence.
This kiss was pure sensation, a sweet need borne from familiarity, of knowing each other again. Every pant, every lick, every shiver; familiar and yet somehow at the same time new.
Zoro made a sound in the back of his throat and Sanji fisted that ridiculous white shirt he was still wearing, dragging their bodies even closer, as Zoro manhandled him out of the chair and onto the bed, lifting him to straddle Zoro’s lap.
Sanji moaned helplessly, giving into the sensation of Zoro’s hands sliding down his back to grope at his ass. He tilted his head to the ceiling, Zoro’s lips trailing down his neck, his teeth worrying at Sanji’s shirt collar, as his hands encouraged Sanji to grind against him.
“Fuck,” Sanji gasped out, and Zoro raised his head to swallow the sound down with his mouth again. He tangled his hands in Zoro’s short hair, and Zoro tightened his grip on Sanji’s ass in response, his giant hands pinning Sanji against him.
Sanji wanted nothing more than to rub himself against Zoro until they both came, he didn't even care if they kept their clothes on at this stage, but the one brain cell that hadn’t taken up residence in his dick was screaming at him that they had to stop.
He wriggled a hand between them to press against Zoro’s impressive chest.
“Marimo,” he gasped against Zoro’s lips. “Stop.”
Zoro did. Instantly. In fact, he yanked himself away from Sanji so quickly Sanji nearly overbalanced and fell off the bed.
“Did I hurt you,” Zoro asked urgently. “Your ribs?”
Sanji shook his head, feeling slightly dazed. He had curled his fingers in the front of Zoro’s shirt to try and keep his balance.
“I’m fine,” he reassured. “We just promised Chopper we wouldn’t have sex on this bed.”
Zoro’s expression slid into an exasperated scowl.
“You promised,” he muttered, but his hands were back on Sanji’s body, sliding up Sanji’s back and cradling him again.
“Yeah yeah,” Sanji said, rolling his eyes. “But it was on both our behalfs. And come on, no one wants to get caught having sex in the infirmary.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Also, if Chopper got wind of it Robin-chan would kill us.”
Zoro nodded seriously.
“And she would make it hurt.”
Their eyes caught and Sanji found himself smiling at the absurdity of it, Zoro grinning back.
“God I missed you,” Sanji said.
He regretted it right away because, well, they didn’t do that, did they? They loved each other and trusted each other and would die for each other, but they didn’t tend to be so candid about it, most of the time.
But Zoro, for once, didn’t immediately make some scathing remake, and regarded Sanji seriously.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he said.
Sanji felt a sudden heat in his cheeks and looked away. He squirmed, but Zoro was still holding him tight, unwilling to let him go just yet.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said uncomfortably.
“I was an asshole to you,” Zoro said bluntly. “And I was a shitty nakama. I said some really terrible things to you, Sanji. You would have every right to be mad at me.”
Sanji heard the sound of Zoro’s head hitting the mast again.
“Let’s not talk about this now,” he said. “Can we just go to sleep?”
Zoro regarded him, frowning deeply, then he seemed to come to some sort of decision and the expression melted away.
“Yeah, Cook,” he said softly. “Let’s go to sleep.”
The infirmary bed was only a single, and definitely not big enough for two grown men, but before Franky had built the double bunk Sanji and Zoro had regularly squeezed themselves in together, so they had practice at this,
Besides, Sanji wanted to be as close to Zoro as possible right then, not that he would admit it out loud, and the single bed was the perfect excuse.
They slipped out of their shirts and, in Sanji’s case, shoes and tie, and dimmed the lights, then squished themselves in the bed on their sides, and Sanji wrapped his arm around Zoro’s chest, drawing them tightly together. His lips found a well loved spot at the back of Zoro’s neck, where the first knobble of his spine poked out.
“Love you, Marimo,” he murmured quietly, lips brushing Zoro’s skin.
Zoro stiffened for a second, and then his hand found Sanji’s and he wove their fingers together, squeezing tight.
“I love you too,” he said. “And I’m sorry I ever made you doubt it.”
Sanji closed his eyes, his heartbeat pulsing loudly in his ears.
“You’re back now,” he said. “That’s all that matters. Go to sleep.”
Zoro did, his uncanny ability to fall asleep anywhere and pretty much instantly serving him well.
Sanji, however, lay awake for a long time, savouring the feel of Zoro in his arms again, letting each rumbling breath Zoro took wash through him, breathing in the scent of Zoro’s skin where his nose nudged the back of Zoro’s neck.
Trying to stop the phantom sound of Zoro’s head cracking against the mast echoing through his mind.
*
Sanji woke the next morning later than usual, although still too early for anyone else to be awake.
His body felt heavy, exhaustion from the events of the day before sitting leaden in his bones, but Zoro was a hot, bulky weight pressed up against him, reassuring him that it had all really happened and that Zoro remembered again.
Sanji shifted, rubbing his face across the back of Zoro’s neck, his morning wood nestled quite happily in the steel of Zoro’s buttocks.
He rocked his hips gently, not really planning on it going anywhere, just enjoying the gentle friction as his brain began to fully function and slip out of the last vestiges of sleep.
Zoro stirred, mumbling sleepily, and one large hand reached back to clamp around Sanji’s hip, encouraging Sanji’s movements with a firm grip.
Sanji let out a soft whine, and his own hand slipped below Zoro’s stomach, pressing against the front of Zoro’s trousers where Zoro was clearly having a very happy morning.
“Come on, Cook,” Zoro slurred, his voice pure gravel. “Give it to me.”
Sanji groaned and sank his teeth into the back of Zoro’s neck, his hand slipping fully inside Zoro’s trousers where, of course, Zoro was wearing no underwear.
“Shit, you beautiful slut,” he breathed, and Zoro muffled out a laugh, Sanji’s hand exploring the familiar heat of Zoro’s hardness, squeezing gently. He squinted his eyes open, wanting to see it, and became suddenly very aware of exactly where they were. “Shit, Zoro! We said we wouldn’t fuck in this bed!”
He tried to pull his hand away, but Zoro’s own spare hand clamped down on his, trapping him there.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Zoro growled, and Sanji moaned, helpless to the rumble of his voice, the tight grip on his hip and hand.
His own hips began moving again, faster now, and his hand gripped Zoro tighter, Zoro’s own on top of his clothes encouraging the rhythm as they moved against each other, desperate and starving for it.
“Fuck Curly,” Zoro groaned, as Sanji’s teeth found their home on the back of his neck again. “That’s it, harder, I’m so fucking close.”
“Feel so good,” Sanji choked out into his skin.
Neither of them were going to last long, after all it had been over two weeks since they had touched each other and the pace became frantic, spiralling up and up until Sanji bit savagely into Zoro’s neck and came with a muffled cry, Zoro following only moments later as Sanji’s hold on his dick tightened almost to the point of pain.
They panted together, bodies slick with sweat and still pressed close, as they came down from their orgasms, the world still sleeping around them, and it felt almost like they were the only two people alive, just for that moment.
“Fuuuck,” Sanji groaned out. “We were definitely not supposed to do that.”
Zoro grunted out a laugh, then pulled Sanji’s hand out of his pants and promptly stuck his messy fingers in his mouth, sucking them clean.
Sanji felt his spent dick twitch.
“You’re fucking disgusting,” he said, as Zoro practically fellated his fingers.
Zoro didn't reply as his mouth was occupied, but Sanji made no move to push him away, which probably meant deep down he was the disgusting one.
He disgusts me.
The memory shot through him, completely unexpected, and he felt his whole body tense.
Zoro spat his fingers out.
“What?” he asked. “Cook?”
Sanji shook his head.
What was wrong with him?
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “Just realised I’d better get up and start on breakfast. It’s getting late. And I really don’t want Chopper to come in here and find us like this.”
Plus the come cooling in his underwear was starting to feel pretty gross.
Zoro made a vaguely dissatisfied noise, but he didn’t protest as Sanji pulled away and slipped out of the bed, searching for the shirt he had stripped off last night so he didn’t have to go around the ship half naked.
Zoro rolled onto his back to watch him, eye slitted lazily open. He had a smear of come on his lower lip.
“Please make sure you shower,” he told Zoro, and Zoro rolled his eye.
“Yeah yeah,” he muttered, and Sanji reckoned there was a 50/50 chance he would actually do it.
He leant over the bed and ran a thumb over Zoro’s lip, cleaning away the evidence, and then let Zoro suck it into his mouth. He replaced his thumb with his lips, even though they both had atrocious morning breath, and Zoro licked into this mouth enthusiastically.
“Don’t try and start something else,” Sanji warned against his lips.
“Wasn’t gonna,” Zoro muttered back. He gave Sanji a firm squeeze around the waist, and Sanji was almost tempted to strip his clothes right back off and climb back into bed.
He straightened up determinedly.
“I’ll see you later.”
Zoro was already letting his eye slip closed, no doubt about to fall asleep again now he had had a nice orgasm to start his day and tire him out.
Sanji stopped by the boys’ bunk room and quietly got a fresh set of clothes out of his locker, then went up to the bathroom and rinsed his dirty underwear out whilst waiting for the shower to heat up, grimacing at the task.
He was really way too old to be coming in his pants anymore.
Under the shower’s hot stream he let his mind wander as he washed his hair, remembering the jolt he had felt earlier as the ghost of Zoro’s words had echoed across his mind.
What was wrong with him? He had Zoro back didn’t he? So why couldn’t he stop thinking about it? Why couldn’t he stop remembering the noise of Zoro’s skull hitting the mast?
It was done after all, and none of it even mattered now Zoro was back to normal.
So why couldn’t he just forget it and move on?
Breakfast was a predictably rowdy affair. After his late morning Sanji hadn’t had time to prepare anything really special, but the crew seemed more than happy with the mound of bacon and sausages he fried up, alongside towering stacks of pancakes and fresh fruit, as they celebrated Zoro’s return to normalcy.
Well, as normal as Zoro ever got anyway.
They did all cheer when Zoro lumbered through the door after, thankfully, following Sanji’s advice and showering. He had finally ditched the ridiculous white shirt and was wearing his usual green robe and red sash again. Something settled within Sanji at the sight.
Speaking of Zoro, he seemed particularly handsy with Sanji that morning, wrapping a hand around his hip or squeezing his waist whenever Sanji drifted near, latching on to one of Sanji’s hands when he was in reach, tangling their fingers together for a brief moment.
At one point he even brought Sanji’s hand to his lips to snatch a brief kiss. Sanji went bright red, and kneed him sharply in the ribs for that.
The rest of the crew had noticed, because how could they not, but they seemed unwilling to spoil Sanji’s good humour that morning and apart from a few sniggers and smiles, didn’t bring it up.
Zoro had to submit to more of Chopper’s tests after breakfast, and Sanji found himself alone in the galley after everyone had left, absentmindedly humming to himself as he washed the dishes.
The air was warm and bright with a gentle breeze blowing in from the open door. Nami had announced that as soon as Chopper had given Zoro the all clear they would start heading for the nearest island, so Luffy was in high spirits. Sanji could hear him whooping round the deck with Usopp and the occasional shouts from Franky and Brook. He wondered what they were getting up to.
The infirmary door creaked and Zoro came clunking through. Sanji glanced at him and watched as he went over and flopped down onto the couch.
“All good with Chopper?” he asked and he meant you all good , but Zoro only drawled “Yes Cook, he has no idea we fucked on the bed this morning.”
Sanji choked and shot a look at the galley door, open to the deck.
“Zoro!” he hissed.
“What?” Zoro asked with a shrug. “No one can hear us. Chopper went out to join the others.”
Sanji could hear him now, Chopper’s delighted squeals joining in with whatever Luffy and Usopp were playing.
Sanji scowled and shoved the last dish onto the drying rack.
“You’re so crass,” he accused.
“You’re the one getting your knickers in a twist because of a bit sex,” Zoro remarked.
Sanji gaped at him, astounded.
“I am not getting my anything in a twist!” he protested hotly. “ You’re the one who-”
“Sanji,” Zoro cut him off impatiently. “Come here.”
Sanji opened his mouth to snap he was not a dog, thank you very much, and not here to be solely at Zoro’s beck and call, but Zoro was giving him this slightly vulnerable look that he knew made Sanji helpless to resist him.
“Stupid Mosshead,” he grumbled as he dried his hands on a dishtowel. “Can’t just turn on that pretty charm whenever you want something.”
But he went, regardless, and allowed Zoro to wrap his arms around Sanji’s waist, pulling him firmly onto his lap so Sanji was straddling his legs.
Sanji rolled his eyes.
“You’re such a gorilla,” he said.
Zoro only grunted, fixing his arms more firmly round Sanji’s waist, settling Sanji against him and pressing his hands against Sanji’s shoulder blades.
“You’re very tactile this morning,” Sanji noted, when Zoro didn’t say anything.
Zoro let out an irritated breath.
“I’ve missed touching you,” he said. “Now shut up and let me.”
Sanji shut up.
Zoro shuffled them so they were even closer and he could press his face into the curve of Sanji’s shoulder where it met his neck, breathing deeply. Sanji felt it as Zoro’s whole body sagged, relaxing into Sanji like his strings had been cut.
Sanji brought his own arms up, one around Zoro’s broad shoulders, the other to play in his mossy hair, and they stayed like that for long moments, just breathing each other in, recharging in each other’s closeness after two miserable weeks apart.
Zoro’s head hit the mast with a sickening crack.
Sanji flinched, the memory ricocheting through him.
“What?” Zoro asked, still pressed tight to him.
Sanji cleared his throat.
“Nothing,” he said. “Just, uh, there’s stuff to do. Can’t sit around cuddling all day.”
He meant it to sound snide, but it came out a bit sad and plaintive, which only made him sound pathetic.
“There’s nothing to do right now,” Zoro protested.
Sanji felt the tension sweeping through his entire body.
Fuck, what was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he just enjoy the fact that Zoro was back in his full mental capacity?
“Cook,” Zoro said, and there was a note of caution in his tone that Sanji didn’t like at all. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but, uh, I think-”
“There isn’t anything to talk about,” Sanji cut him off.
Zoro sighed, and it was hot against his neck.
“Right,” he said. “Except I kind of think there is.”
He lifted his head so he could meet Sanji’s gaze, and Sanji tried not to squirm.
“You hate talking about stuff,” he protested.
Zoro’s arms squeezed him gently.
“I don’t think you’re okay,” he said.
Sanji scoffed.
“You’re projecting.”
“I’m really not.”
He heard it again in his head, the sound as Zoro hit the mast, and he slumped down, pressing his forehead to Zoro’s.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, and there was a definite whine to his tone. So not sexy.
“I know you don’t,” Zoro replied carefully. “But I think we should. I have things I want to say too.”
Sanji squeezed his eyes shut. Why was Zoro suddenly being all wise and shit? Where was his grunting Mosshead when Sanji just wanted to bury his head in the sand?
“Later?” he asked. “I just…not yet.”
Zoro nudged at him, like an overgrown cat, and rubbed their cheeks together.
“Yeah okay,” he hummed. “Later.”
Later turned out to be that evening, when Zoro had got both himself and Sanji assigned to the night watch. Because he had to be up so early, Sanji didn’t usually do the second watch so he could get enough sleep, but Zoro promised to make it worth his while so he gave in.
After dinner he made his way up the ladder with two bottles tucked under his arm -a crisp sake for Zoro and a nice full bodied red wine for himself- and shouldered open the trap door.
“Alright Marimo, I’m here, what’s…”
He trailed off, staring.
“What the hell?” he asked.
The space was lit dimly with flickering candles, and Zoro had piled the cushions from the library benches up on the floor with several blankets. It was cosy and inviting and unbearably romantic.
Zoro was standing by his weight rack, scowling and fidgeting and looking like he wanted to murder someone.
“Zoro,” Sanji said. “What the fuck?”
Zoro scowled even harder, if that was possible.
“Robin helped me set it up,” he muttered.
And Sanji really didn’t want to think about Robin helping Zoro get the crow’s nest ready for a night of what was undoubtedly romantic seduction.
“Um, it’s nice,” said Sanji, coming fully into the room. The trap door clanged shut behind him, and Zoro twitched, very slightly. “It really is!” Sanji added. “It’s just, ah, unexpected.”
Zoro shrugged, and he was definitely avoiding eye contact.
“You’re into all that romantic shit,” he mumbled. “Thought you’d like it.”
His eye flicked, very quickly, to Sanji’s and then immediately away again.
It occurred to Sanji that Zoro wasn’t just feeling uncomfortable, he was feeling nervous for some reason.
“You’re not going to propose are you?” he asked.
Zoro’s eye bulged.
“Well, if I was, I’m certainly not gonna now!” he snapped.
Sanji felt his stomach drop.
“Oh shit,” he breathed. “Were you actually going to…”
Zoro scowled at him.
“Of course I’m not fucking proposing! I’m not an idiot! And as if you’d say yes anyway!”
“I might say yes!” Sanji defended himself instantly. “I mean, not right now obviously, but I’m not saying I wouldn’t say yes! Maybe. One day.”
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to marry Zoro, possibly, in a very very far off sort of indiscernible future way. It was just, well, Sanji’s track record with weddings wasn’t that great and he and Zoro were not exactly your average couple. They didn’t really do romance and mushy stuff and promises of forever (even if they were both pretty sure this was forever), which is why this whole situation was really throwing him for a loop.
Zoro’s scowl had dropped and his lips twitched.
“Relax Curly. I’m not about to ask you to marry me.” He grinned. “Not today anyway.”
Sanji ignored the hot, swooping sensation in his stomach at that.
“I just…” Zoro looked around the room, at the candles and the pillows and the blankets, almost like he didn’t know where it had all come from. “Just wanted to do something nice for you,” he finished, shrugging.
Sanji crossed over to put his bottles on the bench seat, procuring two glasses he had slipped into his pockets.
“It’s all very nice,” he said, unable to keep a slightly patronising note out of his tone as he began to uncork the bottles. “Thank you.”
Zoro huffed and rolled his eye, and Sanji found himself smiling.
“Drink?” Sanji offered, pouring a glass of sake without waiting for Zoro’s reply. Zoro took the glass silently, their fingers brushing, and Sanji repressed a shiver at the touch.
Ridiculous.
Once he had poured his own drink, he and Zoro settled down together amongst the pile of blankets and pillows, and Sanji allowed himself to curl into Zoro’s side, the hand not occupied with his glass nudging under the edge of Zoro’s robe and resting on his pecs (arguably one of Zoro’s best features).
“Okay, this is kind of nice,” he admitted, and Zoro’s arm, which was slung around his shoulders, tightened with a gentle squeeze.
They drank in silence for long moments, and Sanji enjoyed the quietness between them, not awkward or strained as it had been, but comfortable and familiar.
“I’m sorry Sanji,” Zoro said abruptly, and Sanji felt tension ratchet through his whole body. So much for enjoying the moment.
“Guess we’re talking about it then,” he muttered, suddenly glad he couldn’t see Zoro’s face.
“I told you I had things I needed to say,” Zoro countered.
Sanji took a long sip of his wine.
“Well, say them then,” he said eventually, when it seemed like Zoro wasn’t going to continue.
Zoro shifted around, and in his peripheral vision Sanji could see him draining his sake and putting his glass down. His hand, now free, came to rest on one of Sanji’s legs, clasping across his thigh.
Maybe he was worried Sanji would run away.
“I was so shit to you,” Zoro said then. “I treated you worse than I have ever done, and I know it’s no excuse, but it was like my body remembered you but my mind didn’t.”
Sanji flashed back that conversation he had overhead in the crow’s nest, remembering Zoro saying every time he comes near me it’s like there is this electric current between us.
“I was obsessed with you,” Zoro continued, “but I didn’t understand why. So I just got mad about it. And then took that out on you.”
He disgusts me.
“That was my fault,” Sanji said quietly. “If I had just been honest about our relationship from the beginning-”
“No,” Zoro cut in firmly. “I mean, yes I wish you would have, but the way I treated you is on me. I decided to act like that. So no, not your fault.”
Sanji gradually felt the tension draining from his body, settling back in Zoro’s hold. It was still excruciating, of course, and every word of this conversation felt like Sanji’s flaws and failures were being examined under a microscope. But his body knew, it knew Zoro.
It knew safety.
“I said some really shitty things,” Zoro was saying. “And I wish I could take it all back but I can’t. I can’t even say I didn’t mean it because at the time I was confused and fucked up and I sort of did.”
He disgusts me.
Sanji swallowed.
“I’m just…really fucking sorry Sanji.”
Sanji closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“We both fucked up,” he said. “I lied to you Zoro. And I hurt you. I don’t…” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know if you can get past that.”
Zoro’s hand gripped at his thigh.
“I’m not gonna pretend I’m not pissed,” he said. “Mainly about the lying. The kicking thing is whatever, we do that shit all the time.”
Sanji gritted his teeth, that echoing thud of Zoro hitting the mast still in his head.
“But the lying?” Zoro continued. “I thought we had gotten past all that. And not just to me either. You pretended to the crew that you were handling things when you needed help.”
Sanji was humiliated to feel the burn of tears in his throat. He kept his eyes shut, teeth clenched tight, trying to will them away by sheer stubbornness.
“We agreed,” Zoro said, and his voice was suddenly unbearably soft. “You promised you wouldn’t let things get like that again. You promised me.”
“But you weren’t here!” Sanji said, and the words seemed to rip right out of his throat. “There was some distant past version of you here that hated me and I was suddenly alone again! And I didn’t…I couldn’t…”
He trailed off as the burning in his throat became too much, choking on a sob.
Wordlessly, Zoro took the wine glass out of his hands and placed it out of reach, then turned Sanji in toward him and wrapped him tight in his arms as Sanji broke down.
He didn’t say anything, for which Sanji was supremely grateful, but just held him as Sanji gasped and shuddered against him until eventually his sobs petered out.
When he became aware again, it was to Zoro’s fingers carding gently through his hair, still holding him almost unbearably tight.
Sanji rubbed his face on Zoro’s robe, trying to dry his lingering tears, and getting more than a bit of snot all over it.
When he finished he raised his head, aware that he looked like a complete mess and not the least bit attractive, but when he pressed his lips to Zoro’s, Zoro didn’t stop him. Zoro only opened his mouth to welcome him in, let their tongues slide against each other as the kiss deepened.
“I need you to fuck me,” Sanji gasped into Zoro’s mouth. Zoro’s hand in his hair tightened reflexively.
“Cook,” he said, a note of trepidation in his voice.
“Please,” Sanji breathed out, not above playing dirty. “I need to feel you, Zoro. I need it.”
Zoro let out a low sound, then he heaved them up and over, Sanji on his back underneath him on the blankets, Zoro caging him in with his massive body.
Sanji scrabbled at Zoro’s robe, shoving it off his shoulders, and Zoro shook the sleeves off his arms impatiently, so it pooled around his waist. Sanji was already unknotting his sash, Zoro’s fingers slipping on Sanji’s shirt buttons as he tried to undo them without ripping anything. (He knew better than to rip Sanji’s clothes. The only time he had made that mistake Sanji had punished him by withholding sex for an entire week and it had nearly killed them both.)
He finally managed to get them all undone, and Sanji yanked his arms through his sleeves and then they were both shirtless, hands roaming over newly exposed skin and leaving heated paths wherever their fingers trailed.
Sanji began working on Zoro’s pants, wrestling them over his hips.
“Do you ever wear underwear?” he muttered, and Zoro snorted.
“You should know the answer to that by now.”
His hands were on Sanji’s own trouser fastenings, and very quickly they were both naked, pawing at each other with more than a little bit of desperation.
“Do you have stuff?” Sanji asked, gasping a little as Zoro set his teeth against one of Sanji’s nipples.
“Wasn’t just asking you up here to talk, Cook,” Zoro said against his chest, and one of his hands groped for his recently shed haramaki, coming back triumphantly with a small bottle of oil clasped in it.
“Please,” Sanji found himself saying, the shame of begging making him flush even as it sent a wave of desperate desire through him. “Hurry, need you Zoro.”
Zoro, fingers now coated with oil, pressed him back down onto the blankets.
“It’s okay,” he soothed, reaching down between Sanji’s thighs. “I’ve got you baby.”
Zoro got like this during sex. Normally it was all ‘ero cook’ and ‘shit cook’ and ‘curly’ and then he got Sanji on his back and it was nothing but ‘sweetheart’ and ‘baby’. Sanji really wished he could hate it, but each endearment made him shudder and melt under Zoro’s too knowing gaze.
Sanji spread his legs, and the first sweet press of Zoro’s fingers caused him to arch his spine up in a tight bow. It had been a little while, and he was more sensitive then he had thought he would be.
Zoro stilled his hand.
“Okay?”
“Don’t fucking stop!” Sanji snapped, pushing his hips down onto Zoro’s finger to take it deeper.
Zoro grunted and got to work, pressing deep and carving a place for himself within Sanji’s body, until Sanji was moaning at every thrust of his hand, his dick leaking copiously between them.
“Please,” he sobbed out. “Stop fucking around, I need you inside.”
Zoro exhaled noisily against his cheek, where he had his face pressed up against Sanji’s, keeping them locked close together.
“You look so fucking good like this, sweetheart,” he said, voice gravelly with his lust. “Could do this forever, watching you fall apart on my fingers.”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Sanji said. “Please, just fuck me. Fuck me!”
Zoro pulled back, his fingers withdrawing and Saji couldn’t help groaning at the sudden loss. He squinted his eyes open to see Zoro coating his ridiculously gigantic cock with the oil. The sight made Sanji’s insides clench.
Then Zoro was leaning back over him, one hand guiding himself into Sanji’s body, and the press of him made them both shudder.
“Fuck,” Zoro said lowly. “You’re so fucking tight. Relax, baby.”
He ran a hand up Sanji’s flank, as if Sanji was some wounded animal he was trying to soothe, and Sanji found himself dragging in a breath, his body responding to the touch as some of the tension left him.
Zoro pressed in further as he felt the shift in Sanji’s muscles, and Sanji wanted to scream with how good it felt.
“That’s it,” Zoro was murmuring. “You’re so good for me, baby.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Sanji said, but he was trembling with each of Zoro’s words, the praise dripping sharp spikes of desire, hot and molten, through him.
Zoro was panting desperately above him, his eye almost black as he gazed down at Sanji.
“Fuck, you’re perfect,” he said.
Sanji moaned, unable to help it.
“ Move ,” he begged, and brought one of his legs up to kick at Zoro’s ass, like Zoro was a horse he needed to stir into action.
The movement jolted Zoro inside of him, and Sanji let out a little cry at the way it lit up his insides.
Zoro began thrusting his hips, short dirty jabs that reached deep and Sanji found himself trying to muffle his cries, biting hard at his lips.
“Let me hear you,” Zoro said, bending his head down over Sanji’s mouth, kissing him then nipping at his lips. “Don’t hide yourself from me.”
Fuck, why was this brute so tender, so fucking good at this?
Sanji latched his hands around the back of Zoro’s head, keeping their lips pressed together, and they kissed sloppily as Zoro’s hips began moving more quickly, drawing further out before shoving himself back in, hitting the spot inside Sanji that made him cry out, muffled into Zoro’s mouth.
Zoro drew back and hitched Sanji’s legs up onto his waist, pressing deeper into him in a way that made Sanji moan and claw at the blankets.
“That’s it,” Zoro panted. “Just take it sweetheart. You feel so good.”
“Fucking…fuck…” Sanji said, nonsensically, his brain short circuiting with the pleasure.
Zoro’s hand found his right leg, then he was guiding it onto his shoulder and the angle of his next thrust made Sanji howl .
“Don’t stop!” he cried. “Don’t fucking stop!”
Zoro didn’t stop. He ploughed Sanji harder, sweat dripping off them both in rivers, breathing dirty praise into Sanji’s skin in a way that made the back of Sanji’s nose itch with an impending nosebleed.
“Zoro!” he wailed, stupid with how good it was.
“Yes baby,” Zoro was gasping, verbose and undone in his pleasure. “You take it so well. You were made for this, for me. So fucking perfect.”
“Give it to me!” Sanji cried, arching into each of Zoro’s thrusts. ”More!”
The need between them ratcheted up higher and higher in a dizzying spiral, until Zoro’s words were only grunts and Sanji’s moans gasping breaths.
Sanji could taste iron in the back of his throat, red on his lips, and Zoro leaned down to lick it away like the animal he was.
It shouldn't turn Sanji on so much.
He never wanted it to end, this blinding almost unbearable pleasure, like they were peeling off each other’s skin and becoming something permanently entwined.
“Zoro,” he gasped. “I’m going to come.”
Zoro dug his hands into Sanjis’s thighs and fucked him harder.
“Come on Cook,” he groaned gutturally. “Give it to me, wanna feel you come.”
Sanji moaned, eyes rolling back in his head at the pace, wanting to put a hand on himself to tip him over the edge, but unable to move his fingers from where they dug into Zoro’s shoulders, as if his grip was the only thing keeping him tethered.
“Yes!” he cried. “Yes, fuck, fuck, fuck, there there please!”
He felt that band of pressure snap and he cried out long and loud, waves of pleasure suffocating him in bliss as he came untouched. Zoro was moaning above him, working his hips hard as he started to come too, fucking them both through the orgasm and Sanji could feel the heat of him inside, claiming Sanji as his once again.
The torrents of ecstasy finally began to slow as Zoro slumped over him. The leg Sanji had had locked around his waist fell open onto the blankets, his hands sliding off Zoro’s sweaty shoulders.
Zoro’s harsh panting filled his ears as he tried to get his breath back, the heat and weight of his body on top of Sanji's grounding even as it suffocated him, because Zoro was made entirely of muscle and not exactly light.
Sanji opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling, every thought simply gone from his brain.
Zoro’s lips pressed against the damp skin of Sanji’s neck, lingering there as his warm breath huffed out across Sanji’s skin.
Sanji blinked slowly, awareness beginning to partially come back to him. His leg was still slung over Zoro’s shoulder and trapped between them, starting to hurt a little. He shoved at Zoro to try and get him to move but Zoro was a ridiculous amount of deadweight and it was like shoving at a rock face.
“Mosshead,” he said, voice scratchy from all the screaming he had been doing. “My leg’s asleep.”
Zoro stirred at that, and Sanji winced as he shifted then pulled out, trying to ignore the rush of fluid that followed.
He lowered his leg back to the floor, attempting not to flush too hard at the way Zoro’s eye was glued between his legs and the mess down there.
“You’re washing this blanket,” he said.
Zoro nodded, distracted, and reached forward. Sanji snapped his legs shut before Zoro’s fingers could reach their destination.
“Fuck off,” he hissed, flushing harder.
Zoro only grinned at him and then lay back down, manhandling Sanji against his chest in a way Sanji definitely did not find hot.
Goddamn Marimo.
There was silence for a long time, just the even sounds of their breathing, and Sanji was pretty sure Zoro had fallen asleep, which was generally his pattern after an orgasm or two. He needed to get up and clean himself off; he could feel the come drying between his legs and on his stomach and it was pretty gross.
“I love you, kinky-cook,” Zoro said quietly.
Sanji felt his heart lurch.
“Love you too,” he said, just as quietly back. “Idiot.”
Zoro huffed out a soft laugh.
Right after his orgasm Sanji’s mind had been quiet, but now he was thinking again, and he was thinking about the way Zoro had dismissed Sanji kicking him earlier, likening it to their normal behaviour.
But if it was just their normal, why was Sanji still haunted by the sound of Zoro’s head hitting the mast?
“I don’t think it was the same as stuff we do all the time,” he said aloud.
“Eh?” Zoro asked sleepily.
“When I kicked you,” he elaborated. “It wasn’t the same as usual.”
He could feel Zoro struggling to catch up, clearly still a bit sex stupid.
“What are you talking about?” he asked muzzily. “You kick me all the time.”
“Not like that,” he said and he could hear the raw edge to his tone.
Zoro stilled, as if he had suddenly realised they were talking about two completely different things.
“Not like that,” Sanji said again. “When we’re sparring or fighting it’s different. Then we’re equals and I know you can give as good as you get. But this wasn’t like that. I just hurt you, out of nowhere.”
Zoro sucked in a sharp breath.
“It wasn’t out of nowhere, Curly.”
“But I snapped and I hurt you, Zoro! I hurt you.”
“Sanji.”
Zoro had shifted them so he could see Sanji’s face. He looked serious and slightly devastated.
“Whatever you think happened in that moment, it isn’t that.”
“Isn’t it?” Sanji asked stubbornly. “Didn’t I hurt you?”
“Yes,” Zoro allowed. “But it wasn’t intentional. You didn’t mean to knock me out, did you?”
Sanji avoided his gaze.
“It wasn’t…unintentional either. I didn’t kick you by accident.”
Zoro sighed frustratedly.
“And I was being shitty and deserved it!” When Sanji opened his mouth to protest, Zoro spoke over him. “No I was, I was being fucking awful. If you can forgive me for that, why can’t I forgive you for kicking me?”
Sanji wasn’t sure it was the same. Sure, Zoro had been a colossal dick but he hadn’t physically skewered Sanji with one of his swords, had he?
“This isn’t a game of who hurt the other worst,” Zoro continued. “It was a really shitty situation and we both dealt with it badly. Which just goes to show we really do work better together. And as that very specifically shitty situation is unlikely to ever crop up again, I really think we need to try and just let it go.”
Sanji eyed him.
“Besides,” Zoro added. “If I hadn’t hit my head again who knows when my memory would have come back. And then we would still be stuck in all the shittyness. So.”
“When you got your memory back, did you forget that you’re usually the strong and silent type?” he asked drily.
Zoro scowled at him.
“Depends, you gonna stop whining about one little kick?”
“One little kick that knocked you out,” Sanji said, but he could feel the edges of a smile tugging at his lips.
“Barely,” Zoro scoffed.
“For a few hours actually,” Sanji countered.
“Exaggeration,” Zoro said.
Sanji tilted his head, pretended to think about it.
“Nope, pretty sure it was definitely a decent length of time.”
“I’ll show you a decent length of time,” said Zoro, which made no sense at all and had Sanji snorting with laughter unattractively.
Zoro said nothing else, but he was smiling, and shifting them around again to get comfortable.
“Don’t you dare go to sleep,” Sanji warned. “I have dried come everywhere.”
“Sounds like a you problem,” Zoro yawned.
Sanji punched his side. Hard.
Zoro yelped.
“I am not wandering around the ship with your jizz leaking out of me.”
Zoro gave in, of course he did, and shrugged on some clothing so he could go and find some sort of washcloth, then spent a ridiculous amount of time cleaning Sanji up with this stupid, proud grin on his face, like being able to come with the strength of a geyser was some sort of fucking talent.
Afterward, Sanji wrestled him out of his robe so he could commandeer it for himself, not wanting to have to put his own restrictive clothing back on when his skin was still buzzing slightly with sensitivity.
“Go to sleep Marimo,” he said. “I’ll keep watch for a bit.”
Zoro blinked up at him from the nest of blankets, already looking half gone.
“Can keep watch from here,” he mumbled, holding out an inviting hand to Sanji.
Sanji sighed and went, sitting with his back to the bench so he could still watch the ocean through the large glass panes, while Zoro curled around him, one hand in Zoro’s hair, as Zoro almost immediately started snoring.
He looked down at him, feeling sickeningly, unbearably fond, as he watched Zoro sleep.
His head was quiet.
Just the sound of Zoro’s familiar snuffles, and beyond that the waves as they rocked the ship in the night.
His Marimo’s familiar warmth, heavy weight on Sanji’s thighs. His well known scent, layered with sex from their love making. His forgiveness, given to Sanji so easily even if it felt undeserved.
His Zoro.
And Sanji could breathe again.
*