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I.
Her hands were all over him.
Pink lacquered nails scraped down his shirt, her dainty hands fisting in the fabric, clawing the collar away from his neck where lipstick marks were already blooming against his flushed skin.
Zoro could see neither her face nor Sanji’s, because their lips were locked together—his only view was of her from behind, her body largely obscuring his view of Sanji—not that he wanted to see the shitty bastard’s face right now. The cook’s hands were on her too, one careful on the small of her back and one touching her cheek (or so Zoro assumed, from the position of his arm.)
He must be losing his mind right now, Zoro thought distastefully. Stupid ero-cook.
This might be the first girl who hadn’t rejected Sanji’s advances flat-line. In fact, she seemed crazy about him, all breathy exclamations of ‘ “You’re the Black Leg Sanji!” and blushing at the cook’s tooth rotting flirting. Zoro could barely believe it.
He gripped his drink tighter in his fist as the celebration lived on around them.
The people on this island certainly knew how to party, which normally Zoro would have approved of, but he was dying to set sail and steal away.
A giggle comes from the girl, and Zoro can hear the low tremor of Sanji’s voice come as a reply, but he can’t make out the words. Sanji’s hand comes up to stroke through her hair. A drip of cool condensation from Zoro’s drink slides over his fingers, and a cold feeling sinks into his gut.
Zoro disappears from the party without anyone blinking an eye, traipsing across the beach and hauling himself up the side of the Sunny and then her rigging, to the crow’s nest.
He stares at the horizon for an indefinite amount of time. The sun has long set, the light of the bonfire on shore not touching the waves. The water is black as ink, painted only by strips of moon silver near the edge of the night sky. The sea looks lovely as ever.
Like Sanji’s eyes in the darkness, flashing with laughter.
Zoro folds his thoughts away.
What Sanji is doing right now is none of his business.
It’s not like the cook is even aware of how Zoro feels—something he intends to keep that way.
So if he's having fun with the girl, good for him.
At some point, Zoro falls asleep, hands crossed behind his head. He wakes later when he hears some of the crew returning, Luffy and Usopp’s laughter and shrieks carry up through the night air. Zoro waits until the ship is silent again, his nakama presumably passed out asleep, before he slinks down to the galley, hoping to nab a bottle of sake.
He is not expecting Sanji to be there.
Nor is he expecting him to be in such a state.
Sanji’s face is dripping with a dreamy grin, cheeks flushed, fine blonde hair a tousled mess. His shirt is unbuttoned all down his front, drooping off one shoulder to expose a collar bone stamped with lipstick kisses. The maroon lipstick has made marks all over him, Zoro’s eyes can follow them over Sanji’s chest, up his neck, over his jaw and to his lips. He’s leaning on the counter island, sleeves rolled up, a wine glass in hand. He looks downright lovestruck and dishevelled and it makes Zoro’s stomach flip uneasily. On the one hand, seeing Sanji finally drowned in affection to rival his own gusto for a woman is sort of pleasant. It's something Zoro knows he deserves.
On the other hand, envy settles into his bones, and he wishes that the marks were his own.
Before Zoro can slip back out the door into the shadows, Sanji’s eyes flick to him lazily.
“Oh,” he smiles lopsidedly. “Hey shit-marimo.”
Zoro’s throat is wretched dry. He can still see her all over Sanji, leaving those marks with awfully painted lips. Each kiss is bright and bloody on Sanji’s pale skin.
Sanji takes a sip of his wine.
“Can I help you with something? Did you get lost?”
“Not lost. Wanted sake.”
“Of course.”
Zoro stands boxed in the door while Sanji tips his glass back again. The colour of the wine matches the lipstick on the corners of his mouth.
“Go ahead and help yourself,” Sanji waves a hand.
So Zoro does, selecting a nice, unopened bottle before hesitating.
He almost leaves, but his feet carry him to the stool beside Sanji.
They say nothing until Zoro is a quarter of the way through his sake.
Zoro hears his own voice come out rough. “What happened to the girl?”
“Her name is Vanessa. And, I escorted her home.” Sanji’s smile is sweet enough to make Zoro wrinkle his nose, but he tries to play it off with a lopsided grin, teasing.
“Interesting, cook, you didn’t go home with her? She decide she didn’t wanna sleep with a shitty flirt like you?”
Sanji flushes redder. “For your information, she was very much interested in sleeping with me, shitty moss brain. She’d had a bit too much to drink, however, so I thought it best to let her get some rest safe at home.”
“Chivalrous of you to walk her home.”
Sanji sniffs. “Naturally.”
After Zoro finishes his sake, he can’t bear to look at Sanji or the lipstick marks at all anymore, so he drags himself to his bunk. Unspoken words twist heavy in his throat. Sanji comes down not long after, and Zoro listens to the small noises and rustles of fabric as Sanji changes out of his clothes.
He has a dream where all the food Sanji serves is covered in lipstick kisses, which ends more like a nightmare when Sanji announces he’s marrying the girl, and the wedding cake is made of red waxy lipstick.
II.
Zoro doesn’t often count things other than reps with his weights or the score of his pushups.
But he counts the marks on Sanji’s body.
The lipstick is magenta this time, like a Valentine’s card or the skin of dragonfruit. There’s three on his chest, four on his collar bone leading over his shoulder, five on his neck—that makes 12—and 8 on his jaw and cheeks. The ones on his lips are overlapping and difficult to discern but Zoro would guess all together there are around 28 lipstick kiss-marks.
Though he tries to count the months he’s been in love with Sanji, he struggles.
He’s not sure when it started. He’s not sure at what point you’d define being in love. There was no moment of clarity, no feeling of having fallen in love—it was more like looking up at the sky with your back to the ground and realising it’s further away than it’s ever been, so you must have fallen. But there was no swooping of his heart in his throat as he plummeted. He was just simply there. He’s been here a while now.
The vertigo makes him sick.
A hand touches his shoulder lightly, and he nearly jumps. The scent of jasmine washes over him. He turns to see Robin behind him, the blue of her eyes melancholy in the dim light and and the ghost of a secret smile dying on her lips. Her voice is smooth and Zoro tenses at its sympathetic undercurrent.
“Swordsman-san.”
He swallows. “Robin?”
“I don’t mean to intrude, but I’m rather concerned for you.”
Zoro lets a few beats of silence pass.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I’ve seen the way you look at him.”
Zoro’s pulse ticks hot in his veins. “Who?”
Robins smiles a little. “Who indeed.” She takes her hand from his shoulder, and moves to sit in the chair beside him. “I think perhaps—if I may be so bold as to suggest it—that you should do something about it.”
Zoro’s blood is now ice.
“I couldn’t.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Why is that?”
Zoro bites his lower lip. There are a million reasons.
He doesn’t know how to say it, firstly. He doesn’t believe they could have a future. He doesn’t know how Sanji will react. What if their nakamaship is ruined? What if monster trio, and so the crew, breaks into pieces because of it?
“There’s no way that he could… return my feelings, for a start.”
Robin tilts her head a little, appraising him, and Zoro feels naked as ever under her gaze.
“I wouldn’t be so quick to assume that, Swordsman-san.”
Her tone catches his attention.
“What do you mean?”
“I think it’s best you find that out.”
Zoro rubs his temples. “I don’t need you being cryptic right now, Robin.”
She gives him an apologetic smile, and then her gaze drifts over to Sanji, in very close conversation with the girl, a blond this time.
“If you don’t tell him, it’ll only get heavier. Such heavy burdens should not be carried on the ship, don’t you agree? They’ll sink us.”
Zoro keeps his gaze on Robin, not letting it stray to Sanji. He lowers his voice further.
“I’m convinced it will sink us either way.”
“It won’t.” Robin’s owlish eyes turn back to Zoro, blinking. “Surely you trust him enough to know that. Even if he doesn’t return your feelings, he will surely respect them, as your nakama. Don’t you give him that credit?”
Zoro thinks for a moment, silent. Scenarios of Sanji’s disgust or ridicule rear up. He knows his fears are amplified, unrealistic.
Robin strips down the excuses he’d been holding himself up on.
“Of course I do.”
Robin stands at his reply, and one of her silky hands pats his.
“Think about it, not for the crew’s sake, but for your own. Men who stand at crossroads never continue their journey.”
Her last words ring in Zoro’s ears.
III.
Zoro cannot sugar coat his words.
When he confronts Sanji, he doesn’t intend for them to be romantic.
All he can do is tell the truth.
The truth is all he has to give.
He’s raw, he’s tired. There are new kiss marks on Sanji and his fists clench.
“Is there a problem, marimo? Did you storm out here with me just to glare at me?”
Zoro can’t swallow the words anymore, so he lets them spill out.
“I didn’t like her kissing you.”
Sanji’s voice drops to a flat line. “What.”
Zoro feels his brows knit together more tightly, but he forces his gaze up and away from the marks to meet Sanji’s eyes.
Pools of blue stare back at him, steady. Zoro takes a deep breath.
“I’m in love with you.”
Sanji’s face goes blank.
They stare at each other for a few moments.
“You… you’re… what?”
“I’m in love with you, shit cook.”
“...In love with me?”
Zoro wants to rub his hands down his face. He growls a little.
“Yes, in love, you know? As in, I have—I have—feelings for you. I want to—I want... you. I want you and I don’t want anyone else to have you.”
Sanji still seems stuck in a stupor, so Zoro continues.
“And I don’t expect you to do anything about it. And no way do I expect you to feel the same, at all, I just—shit, I’m not even sure what the fuck I’m doing. Or why I pulled you out here away from her. That was a jerk move, wasn't it? I just—fuck, I'm sor—”
“So I’ll stop.”
It is Zoro’s turn to freeze in shock.
“What?”
“If you don’t like it, I won’t do it. If… if this is how you feel, then…”
A brilliant flush is freckling up Sanji’s chest to fill out his cheeks and his eyes have dropped to the side.
“Then maybe we should… try… us?”
“...You’ve lost me, cook.”
Sanji glares at him.
“I’m saying I might like you too, shit for brains! And that I’d rather you than any of those lovely, sweet girls, because, fuck, who knows? It’s not a conscious decision, rest assured.”
A smile is curving Zoro’s lips, new and alive and warm, filling his chest up.
“You like me too.”
Sanji nods ever so slightly.
“For how long?”
Sanji shrugs. His voice is quiet. “Some time around when we left Enies Lobby, I guess? But… mostly... since that time on Thriller Bark.”
Zoro remembers that time all too well.
“No more flirting with girls?” Zoro’s voice is heavy with skepticism.
Sanji sniffs. “Can’t promise anything.”
It's about as much as he expected. When Zoro narrows his eyes at Sanji, the cook steps forward into his space. He leans his mouth by Zoro’s ear, voice low and rough, breath touching Zoro's cheekbone.
“But really, I’m yours.”
IV.
Zoro doesn’t leave any of his own marks on Sanji for a while.
At first, he’s still afraid leave any kind of love bite or tender touch on the cook’s body. They fight and the backs of his katana meet Sanji’s limbs often enough, and Sanji’s heels dig into Zoro’s stomach a few times too many. But those kinds of marks were always there, and they rarely bruise badly.
But things are different. They sit quietly a lot, Sanji smoking while Zoro lifts weights or Zoro napping by Sanji as he cooks. Quiet moments are shared by the Sunny’s railing after dark. Special plates of onigiri find themselves delivered to the crow’s nest. Zoro offers to dry the dishes more than usual.
The first time Zoro kisses Sanji, he is almost surprised there is no mark. It felt as if the feather light brush of their lips had enough heat to leave a burn.
Even the firmer kisses Zoro presses in places weeks after leave no mark. Sometimes the pads of his fingers form white prints in the flesh of Sanji’s thighs or hips, but they fade after a second.
It is long after the first soft kisses that Zoro leaves his first mark.
It’s a blooming bruise where Sanji’s neck joins his shoulders, a dusty rose flowering over pale skin. Zoro licks over it when he’s done. It won’t come off so easily as lipstick does.
The crew notice.
Sanji tries to pretend they don’t notice, but Zoro grins smugly. Amusingly, and much to Sanji’s dismay, most of the crew have knowing smiles and gazes, though Luffy asks if a bug has bit Sanji which sends Chopper into a frenzy. This mortifies Sanji the most, because after letting himself be dragged to the infirmary followed by muffled laughter from the crew, he has to explain that Zoro left the mark, and that no, it didn’t hurt, and they weren’t fighting. To his credit, Chopper catches on quickly and the flustered little reindeer stops asking questions, even when more hickeys appear.
Sanji smacks Zoro over his head the next time the swordsman’s teeth and tongue stray to his neck.
“Everyone can see them there, asshole!” he hisses.
Zoro just smiles against his skin, mouthing over his collar bone.
“I know," he grunts, mouth occupied. "That’s why I put them there.”
Sanji chokes a little.
Zoro follows Sanji’s neck up to his jawline, trailing kisses over his cheek to his lips, before hovering over them, whispering into them.
“I want everyone to see the marks. So they know you’re mine.”
Sanji’s breath is ragged against Zoro’s lips.
“Then I get to leave marks on you too.”
Zoro nods ever so slightly.
Their lips meet and Sanji’s hands cup his face, their bodies draw together. When they part, breathless, Sanji’s mouth finds its way to Zoro’s neck. He can feel the flat of the cook’s tongue dance over his skin, the tug and soft clash of teeth on flesh.
Sanji moves down like this, painting Zoro’s shoulders and chest with love bites. He murmurs against Zoro’s skin in between kisses, a thumb rubbing over the back of Zoro’s hands where their fingers are adjoined, the other hand resting in his hair.
Mon chou, he breathes against Zoro’s throat. Mon tigre. Le mien.
Tout mien.