Work Text:
-oOo-
“You shouldn’t love me, you know.”
Zoro looked up from his glass, eyeing the blonde as he pulled his cigarette to his mouth once more, an attempt to drown the pulse in his veins with nicotine. An unsavory addiction surely, but if anything Zoro was just as addicted to the taste now.
“The hell makes you think I love you, huh?”
He slipped out the words softly, because at this point in their game there wasn’t any point, but if he didn’t try at all what fun would that be anyways? Like Sanji didn’t know that Zoro would kill and be killed for him a million times over. The amount of time they had spent laying in the same bed without any filters between the two had been damn enough time for them both to let slip true feelings. Pirates of the new world do not touch flesh as delicately as butterfly wings without silently confessing at least a little.
Sanji smiled against his cigarette, facing the almost set sun. Zoro could admit to himself these days that the man was beautiful, handsome in a way he himself wasn’t. He had never cared about the appearance of flesh over bone, and in a way he still didn’t, but he had learned to appreciate.
“It’s your own mistake. Not much I can do about it anyways.”
Now Zoro grinned, wide and loose at the words.
“Damn right, shit cook.”
He turned back to his drink, missing the way Sanji stared at him while the sun disappeared to the night.
-oOo-
“Maybe we should stop doing this.”
Zoro didn’t like those words for a number of reasons. He didn’t like the way Sanji stood without looking at him, as if his pride had been lost. He didn’t like how Sanji referred to all they were as ‘this’ like it could be summed up that easily. He certainly didn’t like the word ‘stop’ either.
Zoro did what he usually did when Sanji started talking like this, because he was absolute shit at words but he had learned long ago how to touch the man he loved.
The kiss was long and just on the edge of harsh. Zoro kept his fingers just barely brushing the cook’s cheek, letting him know that yes, he could be pushed away but he would be slow to go. His other hand made its way into Sanji’s, and Zoro felt it tremble.
He pulled back just enough to speak, his lips still brushing the other’s as he whispered.
“Maybe you should shut the hell up, or be less full of shit.”
There was a small flash of indignation on his face in response to Zoro’s words, but it crumpled just as quickly, letting Zoro know that whatever this thing was that flared inside Sanji’s head on occasion wasn’t gone yet. He wanted to growl, could almost feel his teeth barring of their own accord but he hardened his jaw and waited.
“One day, this is going to end, and just maybe it would be easier for both of us if we at least end it on our own terms like god damn adults.”
Sanji’s voice wavered in the too-quiet way it did when they both knew he was lying. Zoro released the grip he had on his patience and snarled.
“Coward.”
He brought his hands to Sanji’s shoulders, squeezing hard enough to bruise and tempted to shake the man staring at him like he wasn’t even there. Blue eyes turned gray, with deep bruises underneath.
“You wanna break it off? You do it when you actually stop giving a shit about me. You do it when you fucking want to, not out of whatever self-pitying crap excuse you have bouncing inside your tiny head.”
Sanji just stood there, digesting the words and Zoro took a step back, breathing harder than he wanted to. He needed something to hit, preferable over a hundred times, with a barrel of alcohol by his side.
Hours later when he sat in the crow’s nest unable to fall asleep, Sanji came offering drinks and food. He ate the cook’s food and waited, and sure enough the apology leaked out. It leaked, and then it poured, a constant stream of sorry, I’m sorry until Zoro reached over and pulled him close, falling asleep to the lullaby of Sanji’s heart.
-oOo-
Battles brought blood lust. They brought challenges and skills to test, people to slice through with less care than he had seen the cook cut vegetables with. He was able to stand (mildly) unscathed, wearing other peoples blood like it was his own skin, ugly in the most perfect way.
Sanji stood in his own post-fight mind, carefully inspecting his suit, his shoes, his organs. Zoro had seen a particularly graceful moment when he had brought one man to the floor, back to the deck and eyes wide in fear as the cook lowered his foot just so on the neck to cause an unclean, gorgeous separation of skin and bone. It was a reminder to Zoro that though he himself may spill more blood, death found its way in a possibly even more gruesome end thanks to the blonde man.
“For a tight-ass about laundry, you sure chose a messy kill.”
Sanji lit his cigarette, eyes flicking up and down Zoro, ignoring the comment as he zeroed in on the partial hole in the swordsman’s side.
“Is that your fucking spleen?”
He said it as if Zoro’s spleen had personally insulted the cook’s food, stolen meat from the galley, and kissed Nami all at once. Zoro, for his part, tried and failed to cover the mess with clothing more stained than the deck.
“Wha- stop that! Do you want it to get infected you idiot?!”
Zoro’s normal response was halted when he found himself pushed roughly towards their ship, not able to get a word in while the cook raved about whatever.
“Where the hell is Chopper? Oi! Chopper! Get out here and fix this dumbass!”
“Will you calm-
“Shut up! Just shut up and stop bleeding!”
They were still on the enemy ship, the silence eerie after the outburst, and Zoro silently thanked his crew for being busy. Sanji remained frozen on his feet, clutching Zoro and shaking.
“Cook.”
Sanji continued to tremble, from multiple emotions going from his facial expressions. Zoro sighed heavily.
“Idiot.”
He muttered it softly, the same way he sometimes said how he felt. At 4AM when Sanji was asleep and Zoro was alone with consciousness, he would allow himself gentle whispers and his fingers to catch stray hairs on his lover’s brow.
Now he pushed dirty locks from Sanji’s forehead, blood and sweat clinging to his fingers but the touch itself tender. He let Sanji have his weakness there, while they were alone in the aftermath of victory. There was so little room for weakness on the sea, in their lives, Zoro allowed Sanji this.
They could only ever be weak with each other anyways. Anywhere else was death.
-oOo-
“It’s always going to be heavy.”
It was noon, but the fog and clouds outside made time of day unorganized. A cold from the lack of sun had slid into Zoro’s skin, causing a tenseness. He looked over at his lover, the man flipping and cutting carrots faster than most men could move. His voice was quiet, and melancholy. Zoro could ask the obvious question of what’s heavy but he felt like he knew where this was going and what it was about. He had become skilled in navigating Sanji’s downstream conversations.
“We are not weak. Weight will not crush us.”
Sanji looked at him over his shoulder, the chopping of carrots never stopping. His eye was sharp enough to cut a lesser man in two.
“Maybe not. But enough weight and any ship will sink.”
He turned back to his carrots, the pace of the knife increasing. Zoro let their conversation rest where it was, unsure how to respond. He heard Ussop screaming about something outside, Nami not far behind. Luffy eased the muscles in Zoro’s neck by letting out a long laugh, signaling that whatever it was didn’t threaten them seriously. He turned back to the cook, unable to see much with his back towards him.
Zoro thought of Kuina suddenly, and understood just a fraction better.
Of course love is heavy. It keeps us grounded.
-oOo-
2 years changed them both, but Zoro could still see the same man he loathed almost as much as he loved right there inside Sanji. Same stupid eyebrow (had it always curled that way?) same dumb facial hair, same asshole attitude, same long legs he couldn’t always block. He smoked like a chimney and cooked like some kind of god, and behind the blue eyes of a man the shadow of a hesitant child still crept.
In the privacy of the galley Zoro went ahead and closed the distance between them, somehow knowing it wasn’t going to be Sanji to make the first move. And still, in the end, the cook seemed so surprised, like he somehow expected Zoro to forget the fact that they loved each other.
“You’re still a shit cook.”
He was rewarded with a smile that might have just made his heart burst a little.
“You’re still an ugly moss head.”
They kissed and kissed again, and when Zoro lowered his hand past Sanji’s hip he only got kicked partially through the door.
-oOo-
He was god damn pissed at first.
Actually he was still fucking pissed because really? Leaving without a single fucking goodbye to be some self proclaimed martyr? And the cherry of top was just the whole marriage thing because what else could the idiot possible do to twist the knife more. So no, Zoro hadn’t exactly been ready to volunteer to go rescue Sanji’s sorry ass with Luffy. He needed his space to cool down, to fight and spill enough blood to ease the sting. For once he didn’t want to be the person convincing the cook that it was ok because it wasn’t ok anymore.
It fucking hurt.
And then it hurt all over again when he showed back up in Wano covered in wounds with a small smile and hunched shoulders. Zoro turned his back and let him hide in his kitchen, trying and failing to get details from Luffy.
In the end he got it all from Nami. The sacrifice thing, the battle, the deal with his family (he’d never heard the name Vinsmoke, he didn’t want to ever hear it again). And Zoro understood better now. He could see exactly who that hesitant child was that always hid in the shadows of a strong, prideful man.
He gave Sanji three days to come out of hiding, but a week passed and he decided waiting was stupid anyways (and not because Nami threated to increase his debt and Luffy was giving him weird looks). He volunteered to do dishes and forced himself into the other man’s space.
“What would you have done if it hadn’t all been a plot to kill you? Would you actually married her, stayed a prisoner your whole life? Been a pawn for people you hate? We hate?”
“I would have done everything and anything if it meant they’d leave the people I love alone.”
His voice was cold, maybe colder than it had ever been towards Zoro. But it was also desperate, and under it all it was broken.
“Dying doesn’t solve shit. At the end of the day, you choosing to sacrifice yourself was just a selfish, stupid thing to do.”
“But you can sacrifice yourself!? You get to die if its for the good of the crew!? Don’t act like what you did with Kuma wasn’t you being a selfish bastard!”
Of course he would bring that up.
“He would have killed Luffy-
“They would have killed all of you!”
“We are not weak, Sanji!”
A plate broke in Zoro’s hand and he grimaced further. Sanji tugged at his hair, soap bubbles combining with blonde. He was squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his teeth, hunching further and further into himself.
“They’ll take what you care about and break it, shove it down your throat, and choke you with it while you grieve. It’s not something you can block with your stupid god-damn swords.”
Slowly, Zoro turned back to the sink and removed the broken pieces. He put them on the counter with tiny clinks of ceramic against metal, inhaling and exhaling.
“I don’t break. None of us break. We just get stronger and deal with what comes at us, same as always.”
Sanji just stood there, hands fisted in his hair as he stared at the floor. Anger flared in Zoro at the empty look in blue eyes, and he calmed it. His frustration had no direction, and so he calmed it.
“Sanji.”
He tried his best to say it gently, the way he remembered saying it so late into the night it was morning and Sanji was too tired to do anything other than smile back. He said it when he saw softness in a hard man, and thought it was beautiful.
“We’re pirates. We’re not ever gonna be safe and soft. Hell, can you even keep track of your injuries? ‘Cuz I damn well cant. You’ll end up hurt again and I’ll be pissed I couldn’t stop it and you’ll bitch to me that no one could have done a single fucking thing about it and then the roles will switch and repeat. And you know what? I like that shit! I like Luffy being an idiot and causing us all trouble and Ussop blowing up part of the boat and Franky have a shit-fit about it and Robin saying something creepy! I don’t mind the witch increasing my debt and Brook with the fucking skull jokes and Chopper freaking out over a paper cut! I want to deal with that shit everyday because I get to eat your stupid food everyday and see your dumbass eyebrows and fight with you and be with you and-fuck!-
He closed his eyes, his breathing out of balance and throat constricting, the burning behind his eyes becoming unbearable. He clutched at his head, the screaming inside roaring in his veins, pissing him off.
He had missed him. He had missed Sanji so much and the sting of his absence was causing his soul to ache. It burned and burst, and he remembered, distantly, old stories of how love could bring great warriors to their knees- to their deaths.
He opened his eyes slowly, cautious at the silence, and then wide open as he took in the tears trailing down Sanji’s face. He didn’t need to think for this, he moved so fluidly the ocean could have been jealous, and the cook was in his arms, pressed inside and fitting so well it was like two bodies of water meeting each other. He was not soft, and he trembled, and he was perfect.
“I’m-I just-I didn’t know if I’d make it back-
He shuddered against Zoro, and so he held the blonde tighter.
“This is my home, Zoro.”
Sanji didn’t wail or hiccup while he cried. He did it quietly, gently. It almost had a gracefulness to it, the way it could break Zoro’s heart. Zoro turned his head, pressing kiss after kiss to the tear marks.
“This is your home, idiot.”
There was a wet, muffled chuckle, and just over the sound of silence came the words
I love you.
-oOo-
Sanji would joke for years to come that no matter what he did, he couldn’t get rid of the stupid swordsman.
“Like a god damn stray cat. They live forever and always come back.”
Some of his chefs on the All Blue would joke back, say that maybe he’d start bringing him dead thing like a cat does too. Sanji would kick them all in the heads, a horrified expression on his face at the idea.
Thankfully, the worlds greatest swordsman did not return to the restaurant dragging corpses with him, just the occasional near-fatal wound and a lot of blood that wasn’t his, no matter how much the head chef bitched about sanitation and god damnit that rug was expensive asshole.
If someone wanted to see Zoro, they found Sanji first, and much to the annoyance of many All Blue staff members, finding Sanji meant dealing with Zoro. Sometimes first thing in the morning wearing very little and very irritated. They came as a package deal, and for a while even had bounty posters where the picture of the swordsman was clearly him talking to the cook (who had been cut out) and exactly the same for the cook but with the swordsman cut out. It had Sanji blushing from head to toe, mumbling about how they might as well be fucking married for shits sake. Nami had even mailed them (along with a bill for shipping costs) a framed version of the posters, side by side so it looked like the image had never been cropped. Zoro hung it in the bedroom just to annoy Sanji (and god damnit he had basically paid for the thing anyways so he had every right to do whatever he damn well wanted with it).
“They could have at least increased our bounties. Lazy shitheads, who even took that photo?”
Zoro kissed Sanji’s head, curling closer to the irritated man under the blankets.
“Someone who could see how I look at you. ‘s not that hard.”
There was a long enough silence that Zoro looked over to Sanji’s face. His eyes were still so blue, soft like calm shores and a skin-kissing breeze. He pushed Zoro back, crawling over him and pressing a long kiss to his temple, his lost eye, his ear.
“You really shouldn’t love me.”
Zoro sighed into each kiss, each touch, feeling their bodies melt into each other’s very blood.
“But-
The ship swayed, yet despite the trepidation, it did not sink under the weight they carried.
-I’m stupidly glad you do.”