Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1. You must have dinner ready for when he walks through the door. Plan ahead to have a delicious meal ready for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Your family will be hungry when they come home, and the prospect of a good meal combined with a warm welcome will be the best way to his heart is through his stomach. 

They all came back a little different. They’ve grown up, after all, even when sometimes it feels like they haven’t grown at all. It’s not unexpected that two years apart changes things, even if the bond between them feels stronger than ever. Physically, they’re older, mature, or in some cases, like Franky, they’re enhanced. 

Zoro’s missing an eye, Franky’s nearly twice the size he was before, Usopp has abs, and Brook has songs for days now, with at least three albums that are more than entertaining, and fans at every port. It’s a little disarming, to see how much they’ve changed and grown. It leaves room for wonder, for stories that never end. And it’s exciting, too, to listen to each other and to see their growth, with things like General Franky bursting into the scene. To remember the things they went through to get that way. 

Nami talks of old weather wizards, with terrible fashion sense and a sky island in the clouds, sounding fond. Robin, for her part, just smiles that disarming grin and presses a finger to her lips, sending chills down everyone’s spine. There’s no doubt she’s only gained another layer of secrets, mysteries to unravel at another date. Luffy’s stories are garbled words of Rayleigh, his new animal friends that look delicious but he can’t eat anymore, and punching things. Chopper talks of pharmaceuticals and trees of knowledge and medicinal books that span volumes and volumes.

Sanji only refers to his training as hell. 

It’s still visible that he's learned, though, in the way he moves, sharp fluid motions. The way he can leap into the sky, graceful upper cuts and quick maneuvers. 

It’s evident in the little things, too. He keeps a new journal now, beside his chef’s log and recipe book, with neat and tidy notes on what they ate and what they will eat. Each crew member’s diet is rationed, the meals written out, prepared so well in advance that it makes Luffy’s mouth water and it’s certain he’s dreaming of dishes to come after sneaking a glance into the mystery guide.

It shows further, when they enter the kitchen for their dinner. It shows in the preparation that goes into his meals, all portioned out and planned. There’s fresh flowers on the table and a table cloths and napkins and place settings for each crew member, as warm smells sizzle through the kitchen. Notes of cardamom intermingle with the scent of fried fish, with warm pork belly and the fresh scent of rosemary and thyme burst through the air, carried through to the galley. 

It shows in the lean cuts of meat prepared for the ladies versus the fatty skin-on roasts for Luffy. The way the tomatoes are sliced thin for Chopper, but thick for Franky’s burger. The way the spice content differs in each plate, perfectly designed per crew member. 

Before, they’d have buffet style family dinners, with dishes upon dishes scouring the table and a mad-dash grab to find your favourite meal, to steal food from Luffy’s crawling hands and stack up, eat quick and fast. Now each dish is individually prepared, balanced and portioned out to make sure each crew member is full, even Luffy. 

“This is really yummy!” says Chopper, hooves gripping his cheeks in a sigh of contentment, as he swirls his fork into a chicken, topped with pistachios that have been glazed in caramel and candied together over a salad that vanishes into his mouth. It’s mouth-watering heaven, each bite crispy and crunchy but sweet. 

“Your cooking is really the best,” says Nami, with a sigh of contentment as she bites into her own salmon dish, with a sweet orange marmalade made from the tangerines that overgrew on the Sunny while they were away. It tastes nostalgic, a bit, like home but warmer, because Belle-mere’s cooking was never quite so elegant, but there’s a heartiness to the rice served with it that cuts through the fancy texture of the salmon and brings it all together. 

Sanji, for his part, brims with confidence as he twirls over the dishes, hearts in his eyes at the compliments. 

If only that had been the end of it.

- 

“Onigiri?” Zoro finds himself asking to an empty room. There’s a basket of it, placed in the corner of his training corner, and he didn’t even notice the person come in.

They used Haki, that’s for sure, to sneak in a snack for him before he could finish his training. It’s fresh, he thinks, as he takes a bite and tastes the burst of salt and salmon, followed by tart pickled plums. It’s good though, and heavier than he expects. 

There’s an unfamiliar drink served with it, thick and green and smooth. It tastes a bit like vegetables, but not quite so sweet and he can feel it in his muscles, the sensation of growing strength. There’s a kind of bitterness that cuts underneath it all. It’s unsurprisingly, delicious. 

The question lingers, though.

Why couldn’t the cook just drop it off? 

-

Robin blinks, wakes up to the smell of fresh tea and biscuits in the library. Sanji’s just arrived, as though he knew she’d be awake, and he beams at her with that bright smile he gets when it comes to feeding them. 

“Sanji-san,” Robin says, smiling back at him, “What did you bring for tea-time?”

She’s never asked for it, but she notices she’s suddenly hungry. As though someone knew by this time she’d need a snack. 

The biscuits are flavoured like tea, iced with a light frosting that’s only a little sweet. Green matcha cookies, powdery earl grey frosting on a biscuit. A coffee flavoured lady finger that crumbles in her mouth, softens. They’re fresh out of the oven. She smiles, and makes a note to buy Sanji another book about biscuits on the next shore. 

-

Franky and Usopp are thanking the cook, later, for bringing them donuts in the middle of their work, while they were covered in grease and fixing up some new weapon (decoration?) for Nami and Robin’s room. Zoro’s trying to nap, but he can hear the lilt of the cook’s voice.

“Cinnamon,” he says, and it sounds happy, “Just to dust them.” 

“They were even better than the icing ones, bro,” says Franky, sounding pleased, and his voice carries over the ship and Chopper is arguing about icing versus sugar and it’s soft, the debate that engages and he can hear the cook laugh, clap his hands together and say, “Donut battle! I’ll make both tomorrow and we can taste and compare!”

He still can’t figure out why the cook doesn’t just bring him his snacks directly. 

2. Prepare yourself every morning to send him off looking your best, and prepare yourself before he returns. Take an extra fifteen minutes out of your day to rest and be refreshed when he arrives. Touch your makeup up, thread a ribbon through your hair and look as fresh as possible. He’s been surrounded by work-weary people, and just by looking at your refreshing presence, you’ll warm him up.

It’s not that Sanji was never more conscious about what he wore, and his shower schedule, and things like cologne and shampoo and probably even conditioner. It’s just that now he manages to take it a step ahead. 

Nami blinks, when she wakes up early one morning to find Sanji exiting the bathroom and he smells of a sharp woodsy cologne and his hair is still wet but he’s combed it and, well, she finds herself asking, “Is that hair gel?” 

It’s new, she thinks, bemused as he flushes suddenly, bright and then goes noodly as he asks, “Did you notice, Nami-swan?”

It’s not that it’s a bad thing, but it’s definitely a step more than before. For her part, Nami just makes a mental note to go over the receipts later to figure out where Sanji found the money to buy hair gel, of all things. Maybe she should increase his budget to allow for it, considering all the things he does. The thought, kind as it is, vanishes immediately when she reminds herself that he’s already found money to buy it. 

Still. Maybe he does deserve something. 

She walks past him into the bathroom for her own morning routine, leaving the mess of a well-groomed man behind, singing praises of her beauty in the morning. 

-

Usopp finds the shower basket one day by accident and blinks as he sits there with Chopper, trying to find his own shampoo that has long-since gotten lost. Meanwhile, Sanji’s got a whole host of product that blows his mind and he’s intrigued more than he was before. There’s so many different bottles, and they all smell so nice. It wasn’t like Sanji wasn’t the man on the ship with two bottles of shampoo and two different types of combs, but now it just feels like it’s gotten a little more excessive. 

“What’s face cream?” he asks, stumped as he holds the tiny blue bottle up to Chopper who takes a sniff and immediately says, “It smells good.”

So they try it, glomping handfuls of the the thick white lotion onto their own faces and their skin feels smoother - or well, Usopp’s does. Chopper’s fur just gets matted and sticky and needs to be washed, but they’ll worry about it later. Right now, they’re beautifying themselves. He tucks the half-empty bottle back into the carton.   

There’s beard oil , whatever that is and Usopp wonders if he should grow a beard too. Can't you just use shampoo for beards? Or soap? He drops the beard idea almost immediately at the idea of owning more than one bottle of product. There’s a separate lotion for hands and feet and one that just says body lotion. They’re fiddling through the basket of products, unaware of someone entering the room.

Sanji finds them, using his things, with different creams rubbed into their bodies and two different types of cologne sprayed into the air of the men’s cabin. Behind him walks in Zoro, who’s nose scrunches up and says, dismayed, “Why does the room smell like the cook?” 

They don’t get time to answer as a leg swipes through the air, cutting directly onto Usopp’s head, knocking Chopper’s hat off, and kicking Zoro in the chest. Only one of them manages to block.

In the background, Usopp can hear Franky shouting about the door being broken and the clash of steel swords and leg, but his head is ringing and he’s probably got a concussion from all that excess force.

They don’t touch Sanji’s stuff ever again. He does, however, buy himself some of that nice smelling face lotion. His skin feels shinier now.

-

“Cook bro,” says Franky, over dinner one night after they’re all settling down to eat. “When did you change clothes?”

It’s not that they have a luxury budget for clothes, it’s just that Sanji definitely has more than the rest of the men on ship - bar Brook, who somehow managed to bring his entire concert wardrobe with him when he ran away to become a pirate all over again, and who still gets freebies from people who recognize him as a celebrity. It’s just that none of them really change that much. The girls wear new clothes every day, and Brook changes up his accessories, trading feather boa for feathered hat, and Franky switches up clothes when the grease oil gets too much but he’s never changed his clothes twice in the same day. 

Sanji didn't either, but.

He could have sworn Sanji woke up this morning in a very super shirt with red and orange and purple flowers bursting over the print that looked something like what Franky owns, but now he’s back in his suit for serving dinner and it’s not that it’s bad and Franky’s not one to judge - but.

“Before dinner,” says Sanji, as he places a thick sea king burger in front of Franky and his question about why Sanji’s wearing a suit to serve dinner disappears as the scent of dill flutters up his nostrils. He can practically taste the burger, with thick cut potato fries folding around the bowl and a spicy sauce for dipping and Franky’s stomach growls. 

“You still look stupid,” says Zoro, stabbing his fork into a bowl of udon noodles separately prepared for him and Sanji glowers back at the man as he snaps back, “At least I don’t coordinate my clothes with my hair.” 

He’s chowing down on the burger, unthinking of Sanji’s sudden outfit changes or the argument carrying on in the background, as he devours his meal with delight. 

3. Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it. Be happy to see him. Free him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him. Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first — remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.

Brook’s fingers press down on the piano and he sighs, a familiarity to the instrument that brings him back near fifty years, as he continues to play the old jaunty song. Besides the crew, it’s the piano he missed most, the mementos of an old ship, a different crew long gone. He can picture Yorki, sitting beside him as they run through the familiar duet of Cat’s Cradle, fingers bounding over the key’s and laughing like children as they try to learn a new tune, try to compose together. His fingers run alone over those keys now. 

“What song is that?” 

He turns to see Sanji, looking at him curiously enough as he sits down on the bench, in a space Yorki once took, and lights his own cigarette. His hands look calloused, and the last Brook saw of him was when he’d been chopping an endless number of carrots. 

“It’s an old tune,” Brook says, “It’s unfinished, though.”

Yorki had died before they ever got a chance to settle the beat, to determine if it needed a cellist or violinist accompaniment. If the flute should have a solo or not. 

“It’s nice,” Sanji says, a light smile on his face, gentler than his overarching grin of delight and not quite the smile for the women onboard, but something a little personal. A little soft. He doesn’t ask why, but instead asks, “Is it hard writing songs?”

Brook smiles, and his answer is genuine as he says, “It’s like anything else, it has its days. But I’ve had fifty years to fine tune these songs, after all. The hard part is not overdoing it. Too many parts can ruin a tune.” 

“Like a good dish,” says Sanji, wisely, as he exhales smoke into the air and it vanishes, without a trace, leaving just a familiar scent of burning in the air. “You mind?”

He’s a little late to ask, but Brook simply smiles at him and says, “Yohoho, not at all! Would you like to hear another tune?”

Sanji grins, and Brook finds himself smiling back as his fingers hit the keys again and a familiar tune pours over the galley. 

- 

Jinbei is new aboard the deck, and he feels it sometimes. Things that don’t stand out to others often catch him off guard. He’s unused to Zoro’s sleeping form, draped into any corner that he finds. To Luffy’s ever present exuberance, suggesting ideas for entertainment that range from games to throwing things into the air just to see how far they go. He’s not used to a ship with so little structure and so much free time.

It’s surprisingly, he thinks, like a vacation. 

There’s good food, provided by the ship’s chef and music at all hours. There’s someone to talk to, and things to talk about. Robin, in particular, has some of the more insightful conversation but even Usopp and Chopper have things fascinating stories to tell, which while not always true, are greatly enjoyable. 

It’s on one such night that he finds himself looking up at the stars, when the scent of takoyaki fills the air, and he turns to see Hatchan’s takoyaki, in the flesh, served before him. The pungent sweet scent of the sauce lilts into the air as the cook offers it to him and settles down beside him. In the background, he can hear Luffy shouting. 

“The sauce would have gone bad,” Sanji says, by way of explanation, “Felt like a good enough day to make some takoyaki.” 

It tastes, Jinbei thinks, like home. 

“Too bad Caimie isn’t here to dine with us,” Sanji says, and his eyes are looking dreamily off into the distance as the smoke from his cigarette blows downwind, heart shaped forms that dissipate into the air. 

“It’s very good,” says Jinbei, because it is, and he’s not someone who minces words, “Thank you.” 

“No problem,” says Sanji, grinning as he digs into his own portion, “I was going to try pairing the sauce with the tempura you can get at the castle but I couldn’t figure out if it would go together, or not.”

“It might,” Jinbei offers, thinking of the shrimp from the castle, “We didn’t get to eat that tempura often, but it tasted good with everything.” 

“What would you guys eat instead?” Sanji asks, and Jinbei starts with surprise. Of all the questions to be asked about his time as a guard for Ryugu palace, to be asked about the meals is a first. 

It takes him a minute, to find the words but in the end he’s talking. He’s talking about the delicate way the chef made sashimi platters for them, and the hearty broths fit to serve and army. He’s talking about training in the morning before breakfast and the unusualness of eating breakfast with bread, when in the palace they serve lean fish broths and when the occasion called, rice.

Somewhere in the conversation, it leads to fishman karate, and despite himself, Jinbei finds he’s agreed to teach Sanji some of the kicking techniques, in the morning, when they both rise early for force of habit. 

Little by little, he’s building some form of routine. And if from then on, he starts his morning with a fish head broth made specifically for him, he doesn't mention it. 

- 

His sword curves through the air, and he can feel Kitetsu singing under his control, a fluid motion that took months of practice. It doesn’t cut, even when he swings down again, inserting itself into the air. There’s another step, a dance that Zoro knows as he moves forward, swords bursting around him. It’s rare that he practices his one-sword style, rarer still that he does with just Kitetsu, but then, the seas are choppy.

Anything can happen, and it’s better to not be caught off-guard.

“Oi, moss-head.”

It has to be the cook, and Zoro breathes, tries to catch himself as he swings again, ignoring it. 

“We’re getting closer to shore,” the cook continues, unbothered by the swordsman’s defiant attitude, the ignorance. Like a cannon battering a ship, his words bash against Zoro’s impervious attitude, as he says, “Don’t get lost this time.”

The sword freezes in the air, a directional challenge that shouldn’t have happened because he’s training, and he knows the motions and that’s not supposed to happen but the cook just always manages to get under his skin.

“You’re the one who gets lost,” Zoro snaps back, fury colouring his tone and the cook just looks at him, like he’s an infant, eyes judgemental and Kitetsu senses it, sings below him for blood. 

“Yeah, sure,” the cook says, hand waiving in the air and Zoro’s temper continues to flare, until the cook asks, “Why are you practicing with that one?” 

Zoro blinks, freezes in space and says, ever so eloquently, “Huh?”

The cook freezes too, like it was a slip of the tongue that he hadn’t planned and he suddenly seems flustered, as he goes to his pocket and tugs out a cigarette. Busies himself with lighting and Zoro’s eyes track those fingers, the way they hover so gently over the flame. The cook swivels on his heel, turns to leave and Zoro’s left standing, with nowhere to take this confusion that lingers inside his heart.

4. Don’t greet him with complaints and problems. Don’t complain if he’s late home for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through that day. Don’t ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment of integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.

This lesson, somehow, never stuck. And truthfully there’s strong doubts that the Okama on Momoiro Island ever enforced it to begin with. For the most part, however, it comes out primarily with just one member of the crew. 

"The boat's the other way," says the cook, and Zoro turns, staring at the man staring right back at him. 

The boat was definitely this way, Zoro thinks, because he came up that street with the red door earlier. He's pretty sure. Then again, he's seen several red doors since he came ashore and now he's - no he's sure. He's sure that was the red door he saw first. 

"How long are you just going to stay lost for?" the cook asks, and he's leaning against a building and there's a puff of smoke, escaping between his lips and Zoro swings his gaze back around and scowls. He's not lost, he wants to say, but he's frozen for a moment, catching the way the setting sunlight leaves an orangey gold glow along the cook's cheekbones, threading through his hair. 

It's uncomfortable, this new observation, and he pushes it aside. Shoves it into a dark corner, a recess of his mind that he can leave alone, for now.  

"I was going this way on purpose," Zoro says, finally, "Why are you even here?"

The cook looks back at him, unphased as he says, "To find you and bring you back to the boat. We finished restocking ages ago, so we're leaving."

Zoro scowls, irritated all over again at the fact that the cook can just - just find him. Like he's some kind of magnet that attracts the cook's attention, brings him closer - except that's not it, is it? It's the opposite, he feels. Like he's the one constantly turning around, and there's the cook, standing there and doing something annoying. 

He shoves that away, to the corner of his mind. It's a little too close for comfort, to think about in this moment.  

- 

“Oi, shit-head swordsman!” Sanji yells across the ship, “Your weights are blocking the damn door!”

There’s a grunt from Zoro in return and suddenly a bar-bell flies through the air and in the distance someone can hear Franky shouting, “Don’t let it drop!”

Zoro barely catches it in time, as Sanji glowers in fury and the weight gets tossed right back. It’s almost like a game of catch, one man kicking the bar bell, the other swinging it right back. It doesn’t touch the ground but it does crash through a railing, bump on a stair and bounce off the floor in a manner that should be impossible.

The game ends with Franky grabbing the bar-bell and using all two-hundred pounds to knock both of them down. 

They lay there, side by side, staring up at the sun.

“I kicked it twenty-two times so I win,” Sanji says, groaning at the ache and bruises surely forming as he digs into his pocket for a lighter. 

Zoro, for his part scowls and says, “You barely caught it the last time.”

The argument lifts through the air, loud and clear as Brook’s violin hums a merry tune to accompany it. 

-

“You stink,” Sanji says, nose curled in disgust as he stares down at Usopp, Luffy and Zoro with disdain evident in his face. “And we need more fish, so go down and bathe in the ocean and get some fish.”

Usopp is trembling, trying to ignore the glower directed at him by Zoro and he’s trying to say, garbled, “Pop green stink sap is actually a rejuvenating product that makes you stronger like a thousand times and it’s actually a secret ingredient to this recipe I'm working on that -

“You still stink,” says Sanji and Zoro’s eye gleams, as he steps closer into the cook’s space, the clear stains of some putrid plan life that wafts over the air and it’s disgusting. The vague smell of rotting fish that makes his face turn green as he plugs his nose with his fingers, “Go shower.” 

Luffy and Usopp take off, delighted, while Zoro scowls and says, “Don’t tell me what to do.”

The gleam in his eye is clear, as he raises one sticky, putrid hand and offers it over to the cook.

By the time Sanji gets away, he’s covered in stink sap from wrestling Zoro, his legs kicking outwards, trying to keep Zoro away without using his arms and it's a distinct disadvantage for this fight. His legs parry, trying to kick Zoro's hands away, but the swordsman is grinning, delighted because all he has to do is land one touch. 

There's the spreading smell of stinky sap onto Sanji’s clothes and body and it’s Luffy, in the head, who gets excited and grapples them both down, arms tight around them as he says, “I want to play too!”

Sanji’s complaints echo throughout dinner, vicious glares directed at the both of them all night. 

5. Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives. Gather up schoolbooks, toys, paper, etc. and then run a dust cloth over the tables. Try to make sure your home is a place of peace, order and tranquility where you husband can renew himself in body and spirit. 

It’s not like the crew is particularly clean; they’re just all good at taking care of their own spaces and dividing chores fairly evenly among the shared spaces. Chopper wipes the clinic down regularly, sanitizes his tools and changes the sheets. Robin keeps the library dusted and the books organized. Usopp and Franky have their own systems of organization and their workshops, while always chaotic to look at, are regularly maintained.

The kitchen, of course, is spotless. 

But it starts to spill over into the common areas and Robin is the one who takes note first.

“Did someone wipe down the deck?” Robin asks, because they don’t have a cabin boy and often times the damage has Franky replacing the floor boards, giving it a shine. 

The shipwright lifts his head, glances out at the gleaming deck and frowns. He’s pretty sure he didn’t do any strong repairs recently. 

“Not me,” he offers to Robin, who does that thing Robin does, where her face goes blank and then she smiles, after a moment. It’s impressive how fast she thinks. It takes a trained eye to notice and he still hasn't gotten the hang of it. 

Still, she’s not very good at sharing her thoughts, though, and so Franky finds himself prompting, “You figured it out?” 

“Sanji was complaining about the deck being dirty the other day,” Robin offers, her smile not so mysterious when she looks up at him. He can read her enough by now to know she’s just happy, and to see her face twist into something more concerned . “He should have asked for help, though. I hope he doesn’t burn himself out doing everything on his own.”

Franky’s heart swells, pounds in his chest at the idea of his cook-bro putting all that extra effort in for his ship. It truly warms his heart, and reminds him every day what a good crew this is. How much they care.  There hasn't been a day since he left the ports of Water Seven that he wonders if he made the right choice. In fact, it feels like he was born for this purpose, to build this ship for this group of people. 

And that brings him to this question. Repairing is his job, but still, Robin’s right. He can’t let his cook bro do it all alone. 

“I could build something to wipe the decks down,” Franky says, at last, a gleam in his eye. “Cleaning tools to make the job a little easier.”

“Could you build something for the dust in the library?” Robin asks, sounding genuinely curious. 

“Something to wash the dishes too, so cook-bro isn’t doing it alone,” Franky murmurs, already thinking ahead to the plethora of inventions just waiting to be discovered and brought to life. “Maybe I can equip the Franky Sweeper Bot with some canons too. Turn it into a defence for the ship. Can’t have too many lasers on deck. Or maybe as an attachment for the Franky General.”

He knows from the expression on Robin’s face that she's not particularly impressed at the idea of a laser-cleaning bot, but she still gives him her smile. That one she reserves for the people she likes. 

“You never change,” Robin says, and she sounds fond even if he knows she doesn’t get it, and he grins back down at her, as he says, excitedly, “This is going to be super.” 

-

“Did you wipe my weights down, cook?” Zoro asks, and he’s baffled because nobody touches his weights ever. 

They gleam, shining and polished and smell vaguely of something citrusy. The cook, for his part, scowls back at him.

“Those things are disgusting,” the cook says, like it matters how a barbell feels or touches and Zoro’s caught, unsure if he’s supposed to thank the cook but irritation bristles at the idea of the weights even being looked at by someone and how dare the shitty ero-cook just touch his things?

But his attention is caught by the fact that the cook is in the bathroom, on his knees, with suds and soap surrounding him and water is catching on his sleeves. Crawling up the white shirt and clinging to his skin and Zoro’s never noticed before but the conversation with Usopp rings through his head (doesn’t he smell nicer?) and it does, in fact, smell nice. Like sandalwood and smoke and soft scented soap.

“What the fuck are you - are those the hammocks?” Zoro asks, because he’s staring now at the fabric in the bathtub, soaked through and the cook’s got a brush, and he’s scrubbing determinedly on something that looks a bit like Zoro’s and it’s not that he cares about the hammock, but it’s the principle.

When did he just allow the cook to touch his things, so freely? 

“They’re filthy,” Sanji says, looking irritable, “And Usopp’s stinks.”

It’s all the hammocks, dragged out of the men’s cabins and Zoro feels something inside him. Irritation (Guilt?). He stamps into the bathroom, and looks around for a brush. 

“What are you doing, shitty swordsman? Did you get lost? The way out is the other way,” the cook says, blue eyes glowering at him fiercely. 

Zoro scowls, and grabs the brush from the cook’s surprisingly soft hand (He uses lotion, says the unhelpful Usopp sounding voice in his mind) and begins to scrub at his own hammock, ripping it from Sanji’s hands. 

“Stop cleaning my shit,” Zoro says, and he sounds ungrateful even to himself as the cook curses up a storm but magics up a second brush from somewhere to start scrubbing Luffy’s and Zoro doesn’t get it, this devotion to cleanliness that extends beyond the kitchen but it feels warm. Like the water pooling around his knees, dripping off his pants. 

“Ungrateful shit-head marimo,” mutters the cook, but he doesn’t stop scrubbing and there’s something strange about that. 

Like the feeling of being cared for , which does fit the cook but doesn’t quite fit them . Was the cook always taking care of him, outside of the kitchen? Outside of preparing meals with those soft, white hands that scrub so fiercely at the hammock and he can see the dirt and sweat and grime coming off and something fierce echoes in his own heart, a pounding beat that leaves a flush.

It’s the heat of the steam, wafting around them, the ache of his muscles as he scrubs a little harder. 

“I can clean faster than you,” Zoro says, and it’s not a thank you, but he’s scrubbing faster, and there’s water splashing around them and he’s reminded of another memory. Something long ago.

Of a girl wiping a floor, and a boy staring fiercely up at her, because the battle is over and the dojo is a mess and he doesn’t know why it matters, but it does. So he gets on his knees and proudly claims he’ll wipe the floor faster. 

They’re arguing over who can carry more hammocks, and hanging them up and distantly, he remembers that he was soaked to the bone, that time too, after dueling Kuina with wash cloths instead of swords. Cold water hanging off his body, dripping from his hair.

He’s never felt so warm. 

-

Sanji's scrubbing down the kitchen counters after dinner, and it's Brook who notices as he heads towards the galley to wipe down the piano. He watches, for a second, the way the cook sanitizes the counters and wipes down the ovens. The dedication to getting out the grease from the pans and he can recognize, briefly, the tune that Sanji's humming to himself. It's an old pirate shanty, from a long time ago. It wasn't very popular, back then, Brook thinks distantly, but he knows the words.

Maybe in the last few years it's picked up among the youth. 

Brook pauses, staring at the keys on his own piano, and thinks briefly to the milkshakes that come, fresh and cool for him every day. There was a long period of time where he simply hadn't eaten, much less thought of something so inventive as malted milk in a drink, served cool to the touch.

His fingers curl over the keys, and despite his lack of audience, he picks up the tune. After all, even a solo needs an accompaniment.

6. Prepare the children. Take a few minutes to wash the children’s hands and faces (if they are small), comb their hair and, if necessary, change their clothes. Children are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part. Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet.

The Captain isn’t exactly a man that inspires armies, at first glance. It takes a moment, a few seconds in his presence to feel the warmth he gives off, the sensation of a thousand suns that burns through to your very core. To realize that one day, you’ll die for this man and there’s nothing to be done about it. It’s not a feeling that comes on lightly, nor one that you feel every day. 

Still, Luffy likes to think that he doesn’t inspire those feelings, not really. The truth is that to burn like that, so hot and fervent, you have to be cared for , loved like that. He’s never quite sure what he did to be so loved by this crew, what he gave them. All he can do is punch real, real hard. They’re the ones he’s grateful for, every single day. He won’t become the Pirate King without them at his side. 

The smell of meat sizzles in the air, and Luffy grins up at Sanji because it’s snack time, and his favourite snack has always, and always will be, meat. Especially the meat Sanji makes.

They’re tiny bony wings, from birds Usopp shot down earlier, trimmed and chopped into neat little rows with messy sauce that gets all over his face and Sanji’s grinning that wide, open grin at him and Luffy’s grinning back as he devours the wings, accidentally only swallowing two bones from that tangy sweet barbecue sauce flavour.

Sanji only yells at him to chew once. 

“Honestly,” Sanji says, staring at him with dismay and bemusement, “How do you get so messy eating?”

Sanji moves before Luffy can stop him, or dodge, or save them both the situation. He’s got a handkerchief - from where? - that he uses to wipe Luffy’s mouth down, and then he stills, like he just got caught doing something very mad. 

“Shishishi,” Luffy laughs, grins up at Sanji and knows the cook is squirming, uncomfortable, but honestly? Luffy doesn’t mind. “You’re just like Ma-chan!” 

Sanji’s face twists once more, dissatisfaction evident. Which, Luffy can’t understand why, because Ma-chan is the greatest and there’s not many people like her. Still, he offers out the third-last wing, holds it aloft between the two of them.

“Try it!” he says, easily, “They’re really good.”

Sanji sighs, crouches in front of him and hits his head lightly, as he says, “I already tasted them before I served them, idiot.” 

Luffy, for his part, just laughs, as he continues to chow down on the food in front of him. Another day, another reminder of how lucky a Captain he really is.  

-

“Maybe I made the cotton candy too big,” Sanji says, looking thoughtfully at the problem in front of them. 

“It could have been the red bean paste,” Usopp offers, unhelpfully, “Or those sticky caramels.”

Chopper is not going to cry - he’s a man, he’s not going to cry. Still, staring into the mirror, the situation is a bit of a mess. All it took was one oversized dessert dream to put them into peril, after the boat rocked violently from a fight with the marines, and Chopper’s candy dream house delight fell straight on top of him. Of all the times to fight the marines, this is the most humiliating. 

His fur is caught, matted together and stuck in places all over his face. There’s no escape from his personal hell hole, where patches of sticky candy glob together uncomfortably. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not as bad as Zoro got off, or the marines. Sanji’s still wearing their blood, and it drips over the white of his shirt, down the leg of his pants. Patchy blossoms of blood bloom on Sanji and make him look impossibly cool. On Chopper, all he’s got is bursts of rainbow sticky taffy and bright pink cotton candy sinked into his skin like flowers in a field of dreams. 

“We’re just going to have to shave the spots with the candy,” says Usopp, finally, and from his belt he pulls out some scissors, and a comb and a razor blade and Chopper is furious.

“I’m not shaving off my fur, you bastard!” he says, because he’s a man and he’s not vain, but he’s not going to subject himself to this kind of torture. What if his bounty goes up, and he’s a patchy monstrous reindeer for the picture? It’ll be worse than Sanji’s hand-drawn bounty, any day. 

“Hold off, Usopp,” says Sanji, thoughtful, as he looks over at Chopper. “Maybe let’s try some hot water, first. It’ll get the stickier candy chunks out. As for the gum, I might have a trick my old man taught me. We can’t let our reindeer out looking ugly.”

Usopp looks only slightly disappointed, for which Chopper will never know because he’s too busy staring at his messiah, his saviour, Sanji.

The tears pour from his eyes as he wraps himself around Sanji’s leg, and cries out, “I’m not happy you’re helping me, you bastard!”

It takes them two hours of vigorous scrubbing, of pouring oil over the gummy parts of Chopper’s fur. Sanji and Usopp sit side by side, combing through the matted locks with ease. Chopper doesn’t cry until they’re done, but he does still cry. 

-

The marine bastards weren’t good, Zoro thinks, the scowl present on his face in a way that doesn’t suit him. It’s the humiliation of knowing he took blows that if he’d been smarter, he could have avoided. It’s a bruised rib and a fracture to his arm. Not his usual fare, but he’d been distracted by Franky, of all people, who had decided that today he would test the Franky Sweeper. It’s not an excuse, but if it comes down to it, he blames Franky for this whole mess. 

The annoying little robot was shaped like some kind of turtle, and it was crawling all over the floors of the deck, it’s legs sponges and the shell spraying water all over the place. It whirred noisily as it dispensed water and soap, and swished against the floor of the deck, wiping as it went. Not a bad invention, per se, but an irritating one for taking a nap, considering it didn’t have any sense of perception, and bumped into him twice when he was training, soaking his pants, and four times when he was napping, leaving soap all over his chest and even in his hair.

Franky called that monster a success. A success that could also battle, he claimed, except he was wrong. 

The minute the marines showed up, the little turtle’s neck suddenly stretched, neck coming upwards as the face came to hip-level. The eyes, it turned out, were lasers, that Franky claimed were target-seeking but they weren’t, not really. 

“Watch out Zoro-bro!” he’d said, at the last minute as he went to grab the turtle while lasers came Zoro’s way, of all things, allowing two marines to get a good landing on him and fracture his shoulder with their swords. “The target wasn’t set.”

After knocking the marines off the boat, he ended up distracted watching Franky run around with a turtle, pointing the head at different marines to blast them with lasers. And as typical of Franky, it had a cannon , powered by cola that fizzed and packed a powerful enough punch to knock down four marines. Sure, the weaponized version of the Franky Sweeper Bot was cool, but the cleaning one? 

Terrible, especially for when Zoro was trying to take a nap. 

Did they really need to clean the deck after a fight? It’s not like the blood had ever bothered anyone before.

“Oi, marimo,” said a voice, and he turned to see the cook crouched over him, staring into his eyes. Zoro didn’t spook, and he would deny anybody who said he did, but he did make a very manly jump. That may have bashed his head into Sanji’s nose.

“You shitty swordsman,” said the cook, clutching his face as blood started to leak from his nostrils, “What the fuck was that for?”

“Why were you just - above - 

“How did you not notice?” the cook demands, and it’s at that moment the fucking robot appears, bumping into Zoro’s leg, and Zoro is tired, so he pushes the robot away, a little too hard, and it goes flying into Sanji’s stomach, knocking the man off his legs and Zoro - is amused. He’s grinning, because it’s funny.

The cook doesn’t think so, as he abandons his bleeding nose to spring into a handstand. Was the cook always that flexible? His legs swing out, knocking the turtle in the shell and cracking it open, mechanical gears and parts flying over the deck as he turns, murderous to Zoro who realizes, then, that the source of all his problems is vanquished. 

And he won’t even get in trouble for it. 

Franky finds them, with the carcass of the Franky Sweeper Bot, entangled in a fight of their own, legs and swords kicking between them and blood back on the deck and it turns into a threeway fight pretty quickly, that both of them lose but after, after. Zoro finally thinks he might be getting his nap - only to be stuck, awake, realizing he never did find out what the cook wanted.

7. Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or have him lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him. Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.

It’s not a task to make Nami comfortable. The things she likes are fairly obvious, and her tastes are pretty run of the mill for someone who likes luxury. But she’s not blind, and even she knows that Sanji’s been, well, excessive, since the crew got back together. She doesn’t know where he’s been, or what he’s been up to, but it’s enough to make her wonder if he’s okay. The nosebleeds aside, the extra attention is, well, a lot.

Like today, for example, when she finds that her deck chair has been set up for her, complete with an umbrella, sun tan lotion and iced drink for a relaxed mid-morning hour. There’s a tone dial, playing some of Brook’s music for her, and she doesn’t know where he found a tone dial with that, but she takes it in stride anyways. 

It’s a little bit too much, she finds, when the chair in her office has new cushions. The old ones were just fine, but these are heavier, more excessive. They are comfortable, though, and they mold just right with her spine. Sanji’s there with her afternoon coffee and orange liqueur chocolate cake to surprise her awake.

He’s a good kid, she thinks, under all that preening and yes, she’s technically younger than him, but the boys on the ship are always going to be kids. 

When he leaves, her hands go into the accounting book and she makes sure to add a slight adjustment to his portion for the next shore trip, to compensate him for the pillows. And just a little extra, in the vain hopes that he might treat himself, next time. 

-

“We can help you!” Chopper announces, one day, sweeping into the kitchen with Luffy on his heels. Chopper’s got a book in his hand on poisons, and Luffy just looks hungry behind him.

Sanji, for his part, looks doubtful as Chopper gets onto stool nearest to him and looks over the fish they caught. In this part of the Grand Line, it’s hard to tell which fish are safe to eat, and what’s generally easy to cook. Looks, they’re learning, are far too deceptive. Sanji’s been making notes, but this time the haul is a little bigger, a little more, and he’s trying to do this on his downtime. 

“I saw your notebook,” Chopper explains, “When you were - 

He cuts himself off, and Sanji understands, so he doesn’t press the issue, but finds himself asking, “So you want to help? I mean, that’s nice of you to offer -

“We can help!” says Luffy, eyes wide and grinning like a mad man, “It was Chopper’s idea!”

“It doesn’t make me happy that you gave me the credit, you bastard!” Chopper says, looking delighted as he shoves Luffy back. Neither of them seem to realize they haven’t given Sanji an explanation yet, so the cook prompts them with the simple question of, “What?”

Chopper’s smile fades, as he looks up to Sanji with wide eyes as he says, “A lot of toxic chemicals can be broken down into medicine, with the right testing. And you always test the fish alone, so I figure you’ve been cutting away anything that looks poisonous, right? Well, with me here, I can point to any familiar poisonous parts, or anything that we suspect is poisonous. And Luffy’s got a pretty high immunity to poison built up, so if we want to do a small sample test, we can use him!” 

Sanji blinks, and Chopper is sure that he’s got him, that he knows that this is a good idea, but the chef replies with, “Are you sure that’s safe?”

“It is!” Luffy says, “Chopper’s a doctor!”

The doctor in question is flustered again, and pleased at the reminder that, in fact, he is a doctor, thank you very much. 

“We can limit dosages, and I brought a few chemical testers. Plus I want to save some of the poisons for my own samples and testing,” Chopper explains, takes a stab at again. “And you’re doing this all alone, which is risky in itself!” 

“Plus I want to taste all the meat!” Luffy adds, arms crossed and looking firm in his decision. 

It takes a little more cajoling, a lot more promises from Luffy to not put just anything into his mouth, and then the trio gets to work. 

-

Zoro finds the aftermath of all the testing, with the cook slumped over his kitchen counter, passed out and surrounded by the smell of rotting fish guts. It’s acridic, and it hits him the minute he walks into the kitchen. His nose curls in disgust. It’s not an atmosphere Zoro could sleep in, and he’s really only here for the booze, but still.

He always knew the cook was a weird one. 

The swordsman pauses, however, as he sees spread of notes along the counter, the sudden realization that he can read his name.

Or well, Shitty Swordsman, in Sanji’s curved writing along the edges of the paper. Despite himself, Zoro picks it up.

There’s a list of fish, with tiny notes below each and Zoro can barely read it all, as he brings it up closer to his one eye. There’s tiny pointers ranging from the sweetness of the meat, to the sourness, to the potential it would go well in onigiri or whether Zoro might like it baked, versus fried. There’s more notes, on the pages, spreading outwards of fish that Zoro has tried - names he can’t remember now, or descriptions that feel vague and tiny notes of whether he appreciated the dish or not.

Zoro doesn’t even know how the bastard could know that, but there’s some kind of indicator, ranging from he ate all of it, to he was more cranky at dinnertime than usual . Zoro doesn’t know what to do with it, and he drops the notebook. 

For the first time in his life, Zoro runs away.

It’s not a fight that he’s facing, but rather it’s something else. A sudden torrential downpour of awareness . It feels like there’s been clouds in front of his face, but it hasn’t rained. Like the skies in Alabasta, that he remembers feeling the heat, the burn, and the miracle of that rain as it poured along his skin but this sensation isn’t sweet. He feels disgusting. 

Was the cook always doing that? Since when? Was Zoro always just unaware? 

His face feels warm, like something's bubbling under his skin and he knows instinctively that it's red, that he's burning on his own and that the cook is the reason why. And he doesn't know what to make of it, because all he can think of is hammocks. Of decks. Of the cook’s hands curved over paper and the way he’s passed out in the kitchen and Zoro, for the second time this week, finds that he can’t sleep. 

The box of repressed thoughts is open, and he doesn't like what he's looking at. 

Chapter Text

Step One: Admit you don’t know anything. The only reason you’re in debt is because you let it accrue over time, and this is clearly a sign of mismanaged finances. Bring in an expert advice to look over your account, and assess the situation with clear eyes. 

The problem arises when Zoro meditates on the situation. The feeling that presses inside his body, that swells internally and causes him distress. He chalks it up, finally, to his debt, a burden he owes and doesn’t know how to repay. If he takes all those little things, in that box of memories he can’t shake and feelings he doesn’t know what to do with, it coincides with the cook being someone who gives, freely, with no expectations and Zoro’s - well, he’s used to people like that. His sensei, Luffy, even Mihawk had agreed to an unrealistic demand with no real expectation of getting anything in return.

But it rankles him with the cook, because the cook is his equal, if anything. And the idea that Zoro somehow owes something to the cook bothers him more than he can handle, and the more he thinks on it, the worse it gets. 

The little things start to stack up, brick by brick until he’s staring at the face of a tower that spans as high as Enies Lobby. He has forever been at the hands of the cook, delivered mercy upon mercy, gift upon gift.   

He doesn’t know how to repay this kindness and it stings. His honour hurts. His heart aches. The last part is a condition he’s not sure how to deal with, so he lets it lie there, leaves it alone and takes things at a simpler pace. He faces the mountain of debt and inequality, and presumes once he has climbed it, his heart will stop hurting. 

Still, when it comes to debts and interests, to simple mathematics, there’s only one person he trusts to know the sum total of what he owes and what he must give. So he asks the witch to spare him some time at the next port. 

He regrets it almost immediately. 

“Wait, so let me get this straight,” Nami says, perched over a glass of whiskey that she bought, but has been added to Zoro’s never ending tab. Beside her, Usopp stirs the swirly straw of his own fruity cocktail and Zoro’s already irritated. 

“Why are you here?” He hisses at the sniper, who’s somehow found all the sum total of his bravery to look Zoro in the eye as he glares murderously at his own nakama, and say, point blank, “I have a can’t-leave-this-seat-disease. Very contagious. Only cure is finishing this drink.” 

Zoro’s going to kill him. And then Nami. And then himself.

If Nami cares at all, however, about the headache growing inside Zoro’s mind, she doesn’t say because she’s far more focused on the question Zoro posed. 

If someone is constantly doing things that benefit you, and you haven’t done anything to pay them back, what should you do? 

“It depends. What exactly did they do for you?” Nami asks, and he can see her mind ticking away, calculating mental sums that he doesn’t trust for a second to be accurate. He should have just asked someone else. Or never asked at all, and gone back to not noticing the cook doing things. Or maybe the cook should never have done things to start with. 

“Like,” Zoro begins, teeth grinding together as he takes another swig of the whiskey Nami bought. Top shelf, goes down smooth and entirely more expensive than anything he’d have purchased. He can’t find as smooth an escape from this conversation. “Like say they make you - bandages. Like Chopper. He’s always doing stuff for me - 

“Oh,” says Nami, and Zoro doesn’t like her knowing smile. She can’t know what he means. He had a very good example that had nothing to do with anything. 

“I’m pretty sure Chopper worships the ground you walk on,” Usopp offers, sympathetic and slightly confused, “But just buy him some candy. He loves that stuff. And you’re always making sure we don’t, y’know, die. So that’s - 

“Candy won’t work,” Nami says, her hand raised to silence Usopp and she just keeps smiling. He’s going to murder her. And the cook, for putting himself in this position and then he’s just going to murder himself. It’s his only option. 

“Sure it will,” says Usopp, looking baffled as he swirls his straw around and Nami drops the smile to scowl at Usopp. Zoro’s going to spare Usopp, for redirecting Nami’s attention as he finishes the drink and moves to stand. 

“Idiot,” Nami says, and she kicks Usopp’s shins, “This isn’t about Chopper.” 

“Who’s it about, then?” asks Usopp, sounding every bit confused.

“Nobody!”

“Sanji.”

Zoro is a scary person. Marines shit bricks when they see him, and the glare he’s giving Nami could make even a Vice-Admiral pause, hold back, debate if this is a fight they want to engage in. Nami, however, is smiling even wider, a smile that does not, and will not, strike fear into Zoro’s heart. Usopp has fallen off his chair. 

“So,” Nami says, “You want to do something nice for him, huh? To pay back all the favours?”

Zoro moves to stand, to leave, because he will not tolerate Nami being Nami, except she’s got him the moment she says, “If you stay, I’ll knock ten thousand berris off your debt.” 

It’s enough to keep him in place, as he sits down at the same time as Usopp, who still looks like he’s just been told that the sky is in fact purple, not blue. 

Zoro should have left, he thinks, as Nami swirls her glass and says with a bright smile, “We’ll help you.” 

Zoro should have known it was a trap. 

—

Honestly, Usopp doesn’t totally know how this happened. One moment he was in a supermarket comparing the price of mulch and fertilizers to eggs and tabasco sauce, the next Nami had invited him for a drink on Zoro’s tab because it was definitely going to be fun. That was the moment he should have known his mistake; Nami has terrible ideas of what counts as fun. And now he was somehow seated in a huddle discussing Sanji, with Zoro of all people. 

Truthfully, Usopp’s legs hadn’t stopped shaking. Zoro’s clearly murderous aura had scared several bar patrons away from their general vicinity. The mildly braver ones were already whispering Pirate Hunter, and he has no doubt that Zoro had accidentally increased his own infamy. There was probably a call to the marines being made right this second, if they weren’t afraid he was going to just get up and stab the first person to stand. Usopp didn’t blame them for being afraid. They, after all, didn’t have a shield in the form of an orange-haired navigator who normally had as much sense as Usopp in these matters.

Then again, what did it say that Usopp was currently brave enough to weather the onslaught of Zoro’s - he can’t call it embarrassment, because that’s a lighter emotion to this oppressive monster’s aura pressing down on him - rage. And all because Nami had promised it would be fun. Really, she wasn’t wrong, but this kind of thrill is a bit too much for his heart. He’s going to die early, with grey hairs and a stroke that is entirely Zoro and Nami’s fault. 

“You just need to do things Sanji-kun would like. Become someone he can tolerate,” Nami says, thoughtful as she orders another whiskey from a poor, unsuspecting bartender who looks like he’s probably cried twice this shift. Usopp tries to look non-threatening as he waves for a refill of his own sweet sugary margarita, to offer the man some respite. 

It doesn’t seem to work. 

“Like what,” Zoro - well he’s not asking, but there’s question implied in that statement -  and holy shit Zoro is actually trying. Usopp will buy him some red bean rice, later, to celebrate this occasion.    

“I mean, Sanji-kun, he likes food. And cigarettes. And women,” Nami says, her face screwed up in intense concentration and Usopp is far more sober than he wants to be for this conversation. He blames his survival instinct, overriding his ability to get drunk in this situation. 

“He won’t let me cook,” Zoro says, like that’s the problem. 

“You could try being more womanly,” Nami says, brightly, and Zoro doesn’t even dignify that with a response. 

“What do you usually do for him?” Usopp asks, tepidly trying to wade into the waters of the conversation that he’s only just wrapping his head around. 

Zoro blinks at Usopp, the one eye wide and his frustration evident. His answer blows Usopp out of any attempt at drunken revelry. 

“What do you mean, nothing? ” Nami asks, sounding genuinely baffled. “Are you saying you’ve never done anything nice for Sanji-kun since we’ve sailed together? Not even as nakama?” 

“Like you have,” Zoro fires back, and Nami’s now the one who looks mad. The margarita is tasteless, salt burning on Usopp’s tongue as Nami looks at Zoro with all the fury she can possess at such an insinuation. She’s affronted, for sure, and he’s not sure which one of them will win the fight, considering they’re both terrible and prideful and refuse to admit to that, but he’s putting his money on that stroke finally knocking him out. 

“Nami gives him the most spending money,” Usopp says, diplomatically, trying to calm Nami down because she’s the sensible one, usually. “And you’ve probably done something for him, right?” 

It was the wrong thing to say because now Nami is glowering at him, and so is Zoro and his heart is trembling inside his chest, banging for release as he feels himself turn to stone. The stroke isn’t coming on soon enough. 

“I haven’t.” 

“I don’t!” 

Usopp doesn’t get either of them, so shoves his straw back into his mouth and drinks. See if he ever tries to help again. 

“I divy the money up fairly, and he buys all the food for us,” Nami continues, looking embarrassed - and that’s a normal facial reaction. Red face, pouty lips. Not pure unadulterated rage and Usopp wishes Zoro would take the hint - as she says it. Then again, he doesn’t and can’t envision Zoro pouting. She slams the glass down, looks at both of them and carries on, “He’s still in debt.” 

Zoro doesn’t even seem to care. Between the two of them, Zoro has the bigger problem, after all. 

“You’ve done something,” Usopp tries, taking a stab in the dark. “You uh - have his back in a fight.” 

Nami, however, is back to normal and he can hear her muttering to add interest to Usopp’s debt tab. He weeps for the money he won’t be able to use on Tabasco and chilli powder. 

“Logically,” Nami says, “That doesn’t cover the debt of the assumed approximate value of all the meals Sanji’s made, and will make. Nor does Zoro really do that often, considering Sanji-kun can hold his own in a fight. And we’re not counting all the other stuff Sanji does.” 

Her gaze swivels to Zoro, as she says, “You’ve never done anything?” 

“You just throw money at him,” Zoro fires back, and Nami huffs, sitting up straighter and looking Zoro in the eye. 

“That’s because I am a generous and giving person, who unlike you, has actual wealth to her name,” Nami says, and Zoro snorts into his cup. “Besides, my existence alone is enough for Sanji-kun.” 

Usopp doesn’t understand how they’re squabbling over this but the whole conversation is going nowhere. It’s amazing that they’ve even made it this far, truly. 

“You could buy him something?” Usopp tries, derailing them both from the insane argument of Nami’s value to Sanji. “Robin and Chopper usually buy him books.”

Zoro looks at him blankly, and says, completely serious, “Robin and Chopper buy him books?”

Usopp has no clue what’s going through Zoro’s head, but at least he doesn’t look close to murder. He does, however, look stunned.

“Is everyone doing things for the cook?” He asks, and he sounds - not fragile, because Zoro is a man among men and would kill Usopp for thinking it and could never be delicate like that - but, he sounds hollow. Like someone just scooped into his body and took something important from him, like a lung. Like he’s breathing, but it’s stuttered and he can’t catch the air right. 

“It’s not that big a deal,” Nami says, finally, raising her glass again, “We all do stuff for each other. Like me, sitting here and loaning you money to buy me a drink to talk about your problems.” 

“What are you doing for the cook?” Zoro asks, because it’s better to just ignore what Nami said but why is Usopp still here. He has better self-preservation than this. Except, Zoro’s gaze is heavy, and Usopp gives into it because he’s a kind soul. 

“I mean, remember that time you found Chopper and I with all his lotions and stuff?” Usopp goes for that, since it’s safe, and he has no clue what Zoro wants to do here, or what he’s trying to accomplish.   

“Well, we figured out that I could recreate some of that with ingredients on deck that Sanji didn’t want to let go to waste. So I make his shampoo and stuff now. And cleaning supplies. It’s saved him more money for the food budget. And sometimes I help Franky build robots for cleaning the kitchen.”

So far, Sanji has allowed zero robots into the kitchen, but it’s only a matter of time. The last one didn’t even explode. Zoro looks even more furious at the answer and Usopp thinks this is truly a no-win situation. And he’s gambled with Nami before, who cheats at cards and Robin, who also cheats at cards, and that was a no-win situation even if he’d had an impeccable poker face. He has no poker face in front of Zoro to speak of, his cards are laid bare, and he thinks this is harassment. 

“I mean,” Nami says, and maybe she senses how off Zoro is over something that’s not an issue, to anyone. “It’s really not a big deal. We do what we can, when we can. I’m sure Sanji-kun doesn’t think you owe him anything. We’re nakama. You’re not supposed to keep score with nakama. Why is it any different with Sanji-kun?” 

And that’s the crux of the situation, isn’t it? That Zoro’s made up some invisible tally of favours and expectations and specifically with Sanji. Usopp doesn’t understand either, their relationship. The way the two of them have fought, time and again, for things that never mattered and never will, but he’d always presumed there was affection there. A sense of nakama-ship, camaraderie. He’d always thought they had their own separate understanding. 

Zoro seems to consider Nami’s words. Usopp holds his breath. 

“So I’m just supposed to let this whole debt thing rack up?” Zoro asks, stubbornly clinging to the wrong point here. 

They’re right back where they started, and Usopp is no less confused on how Zoro has managed to blow this whole thing up into a terrible misunderstanding.

—

The conversation goes in circles, for hours. Usopp is wasted by the time the bill comes and Nami settles the tab with twenty percent interest from Zoro, after getting a sixty percent discount from the bar owner. It helps tremendously that he’s been trembling all night thanks to Zoro’s mood, and she manages to convince Zoro to leave before them, and the bar owner thinks of her as his savior. The problem of Zoro returning to the ship or the inn is something to worry about for the morning, to be pawned off to someone else. 

Besides, Nami’s fairly sure that Zoro’s not used to having conversations like this, where he  presents his heart, out in the open, and lets someone else weigh it in their hands. Neither is she, to be quite honest, but it’s strange to realize that of all the people on the crew, Zoro trusts her and Usopp enough to carry that burden. Not that he isn’t clearly embarrassed beyond belief and not willing to spend more time in their company, but still. It’s sweet. And while she’s more than intrigued by the sudden change in circumstances and heart, the main problem is to address the situation at hand. Which, for now entails dragging Usopp back to the inn they booked for the night. 

They manage to make it out into the streets before Usopp gives up. She knows before he does that he’s over his limit, and she just manages to grab his hair in time as he bends over. 

“This is going to your tab,” says Nami, as she holds his hair back and lets him vomit. “Ugh, disgusting. Tell Chopper to give you something before you sleep.” 

He’s not going to remember, so she’ll have to tell Chopper for him. It’s heavy, the weight Usopp carries, his broad shoulders and the muscle he’s built over the years. How all these boys manage to grow bigger, but never manage to grow smarter, is beyond her. She wonders, for a second, if Zoro reached the conclusion he wants. Frankly, she has no idea what conclusion he’s looking for, or if they’ve even given him advice that will work.     

For now, however, she’s looking after Usopp, who’s still throwing up in an alleyway because his first mistake of the evening was assuming that he could match Zoro and Nami, drink for drink, and she had kindly allowed him to hang onto his pride at the expense of his sobriety. The hangover tomorrow is going to be ridiculous, or maybe he’ll just die of alcohol poisoning. She can’t let the latter happen, however, because Usopp’s tab isn’t cleared and he’s also the only one on the ship that has any sympathy and understanding for her suffering. Plus, he’s now he’s going to be the fall-back if and when this whole Zoro and Sanji plan goes to shit. Because it’s going to, and yet, she’s agreed to help.

She’s too soft on these big, useless boys. 

When Usopp’s done leaving the majority of his guts and anguish in the bushes, he braves lifting his head. 

“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Usopp asks, as he slings his arm around Nami’s shoulder, and they begin stumbling back towards the inn for the night. “Why are we helping him? Sanji’ll kill me. He’ll kill me.”

The streets of the little village are quiet. The blue rooftops blending with the dark sky and stars twinkle above them. The air feels warm, the tension of the humidity hanging around her and it’ll probably be a storm, at least a few more days out. They should set sail to avoid the incoming thunder shower, when the log pose sets. 

“Because,” says Nami, and she sounds softer, which isn’t quite okay, but she’ll blame it on the drink she’s had and the fact that there’s no way Usopp is going to remember tomorrow.  She’s looking up at the sky and it’s one of those deep moments of introspection, as she studies the clouds - cumulus, but likely going to become altocumulus clouds, soon enough. 

“I just want to see them happy. I mean, if they get along better, it’s better for the crew. And Zoro asked for help. And I don’t know if he’s serious that this is just his twisted way of becoming friends with Sanji, or what, but. At the least, I can try and make sure he doesn’t totally mess this up, right?” 

Usopp nods, because he can appreciate that reasoning. Sound logic. Or maybe he’s finally passing out on her shoulder.  

“Come on,” says Nami, gently guiding his feet, “Let’s figure the rest of this out tomorrow.” 

Step Two: Assess your problems. If you’re in debt, you can’t sink your head into the ground like an ostrich and stop thinking. Face the situation head on, and figure out how much you owe. Then begin enacting a plan to cut costs and expenditures. Make a strict budget for what you will, and won't allow. Cut out those inessential entertainment expenses and find ways to have fun for cheap. 

Sometimes. Sanji thinks about Momoiro Island and the okamas and wishes he could find someone to hit him on the head, hard. Retrograde amnesia doesn’t sound too bad, when he thinks about those years. The part he hates is this, the fact that despite himself he absorbed all the training - not just the cooking. He hates that there’s a small, shitty part of him that knows he’s only become better , trapped in a hellscape like that.

He’s sitting on the floor, measuring t-shirts against Chopper’s back and he can hear a part of him screaming, screaming, screaming. The part that says this is not his job, and that he’s not here to sew, he’s a chef, damnit. The part trying to forget the okamas shoving dresses in front of him and teaching him how to embroider his own lace and velvet pieces.   

Except Chopper turns around and the two of them are sitting together, needles in hand threading through old tears and ripped clothes and he can’t bring himself to hate it. After all, even on the Baratie he was responsible for mending his own broken things. Embroidery is just a step up from that, right? 

“We could probably cut these old shirts of Franky’s up into shirts for me,” says Sanji, eyeing the fabric critically and thankful, yet again, that Franky is three times his size. The fabric is a little much, because Franky’s the only person who wears bright neon green stars on purple, but Sanji can make it work, or Brook could use it for something.

“It’s got a lot of holes in it,” Chopper argues, “Maybe we should make it into napkins. Or bandanas.”

“If we dye it black, the mosshead might want to use it,” says Sanji, easily. Zoro’s bandana is easily one of the most gross pieces of fabric he’s ever seen. The man rarely if ever cleans it. Then again, he also only showers when the stench becomes unbearable. Truly, he’s a subhuman being, a caveman wrought to life who thinks only of swords.

A caveman, who is moving towards them in this moment and Sanji’s hackles raise as Zoro stands over them, looking at the pile of shirts in slow confusion and then asking, “What?”

Chopper, bless him, provides the explanation of, “We’re stitching.”

“This shirt would suit Zoro,” offers Sanji, lifting the tacky green stars up against Zoro for a second. The colour is way too bright to compare to the fuzzy patch of his head that he calls hair, but it’s not like Zoro has any idea about fashion. 

Zoro continues to look baffled, and then he blurts out, “Don’t make me a shirt.”

Sanji stares at the man - the absolutely ungrateful bastard. It’s not like Sanji wanted to make him a shirt, after all. Half the time it’s Chopper who remembers that Zoro’s clothes are running short, and that he just had to cut Zoro out of another pair of pants to stitch and bandage some major wound. 

“Then buy some decent clothes,” Sanji snaps back.

“Why are you making shirts for me, cook?” Zoro asks, looking even more furious and Sanji stares at the man, wondering how Zoro’s mind works. Genuinely, he’s sure Zoro and Luffy just believe that clothes appear in their closets, replacing the material they had previously. 

The question catches Sanji off-guard, because that sounds like Sanji’s doing this because he cares . That he’s worrying about Zoro’s wardrobe and making sure to look into what Zoro wears. He absolutely does not.  

“We patch stuff up,” Chopper says, happily oblivious to the raging war above him, “To make the most out of everything. I’m learning to knit a haramaki. Robin said she’d teach me.”

“If you just bought your own clothes instead of spending all your money on booze,” says Sanji, fierce, a flush rising in his cheeks at the nerve of the man, his temper bubbling. “You can’t just live on two shirts and one pair of pants and it’s not like we always - I don’t - Chopper - 

Zoro doesn’t stay to listen. His face is flat, looking lost all over again as he walks right fucking away from a fight. Sanji’s the one who’s confused now, staring after the mosshead’s back and trying to figure out what that was about. 

“What?” he asks Chopper, who doesn’t seem to have noticed that Zoro just didn't take the bait, and is now moving on to stare intently at one of Luffy’s shirts and look for some yellowish fabric that could be used to patch it back together.  

Sanji’s left clinging to stars, fingers thumbing through the holes. 

—

Luffy leaps on Sanji’s back, in the middle of snack time and the cook groans under his weight. He’s well and truly trapped, however, as the Captain’s arms and legs wrap around him and he yells, into Sanji’s year, “Sanji! I’m hungry! Meat!”

Of course Luffy is hungry, Sanji knows how to predict the man’s insatiable appetite, after all, and he generally knows the pattern, except he’s running behind for the first time in a long time. Normally, by now, he’s snuck food near Zoro’s general vicinity. Normally, he would sneak it closer to the man, but for the first time, he plans to actually hand-deliver that monster his snack. 

It’s been three days since Zoro last approached him, and he’s not bothered by the silence, the sudden mysterious vanishing of the swordsman, but it’s strange and unusual and so he’s concerned, maybe, that Zoro has finally managed to get lost on the ship.

“Hang on,” says Sanji, “Your sandwiches are in the kitchen.”

Normally, Luffy would leap off, run away to eat but for the first time since Sanji’s met him, the captain stays put, a warm presence on his back as he asks, “What are you carrying, Sanji?” 

It’s the basket of spring rolls that he’s made for Zoro, because it’s Zoro’s snacktime too, and he holds the food away, swivels his head to glare at Luffy and say, “Zoro’s snack.”

Luffy tilts his head, looks thoughtfully at Sanji like he’s seeing something on Sanji’s face and Sanji doesn’t know what to make of that look, so he keeps talking, tries to explain, “I always bring his snack to him. Because he’s an idiot and he’d get lost on the way to the kitchen and he forgets to eat and -

Luffy just grins, his hand petting Sanji’s head for a second. He doesn’t know what to make of that, as Luffy says, “Shishishi, it'll be okay.” 

And then the captain springs off, food clearly taking his thought process over and he flees, leaving Sanji gaping after him with a basket of spring rolls. It takes him two minutes to remember where he is, and that there’s biscuits baking for Robin and he’s definitely running late, and there’s a good chance Luffy might grab those too, if he doesn’t hurry back, so he shakes it off and heads across the deck to find Zoro, fast asleep.

That irritates him, because Zoro’s naps are unpredictable but Zoro being asleep after his usual training is irritating. It’s pricking at his skin, tiny needles of fury that he can’t release anywhere as he stares at the swordsman, glare burning into the man and Zoro just stays asleep, like he can’t read the atmosphere at all, and that’s more frustrating. 

He drops the basket angrily into Zoro’s lap and turns around, fury overriding his ability to think, to observe. He doesn’t notice the eyes watching him as he stomps off.  

—

It’s been a week of silence from Zoro, and Sanji is bored . He’s frustrated and bored and he doesn’t know what’s wrong with the man, so he throws himself into using his sudden free time to dedicate himself to what he really cares about. 

“Nami-swan!” Sanji says, twirling harder than ever, managing to complete three back-flips by the time he arrives in front of her, with her refreshing iced mint tea and freshly plated fruit, artistically decorated into the shape of rabbits, hopping through a field. The straw is twisted and twirled so that it forms her name, poking out of the drink. It’s a masterpiece, if he says so himself. 

“Sanji-kun,” she says, sounding oddly flat and distant, staring at the fruit and the drink with a strange sense of resignment. He’s imagining it, he thinks, as he beams at her. 

“Are you okay?”

Sanji doesn’t know what to make of that, he thinks, as Nami looks at him with genuine concern and he falls back, hand clenching his heart as it beats fast in his chest. It’s not anxiousness at her question - it’s love. This is what it means to be loved, and he is well and truly blessed such a goddess is devoting her attention to him and his eyes turn to hearts and she’s still looking at him with those big, worried eyes. 

“Are you worrying about me, Nami-swan?!” Sanji says, getting down onto one knee and holding the serving platter to his chest as he basks in her presence. 

“You’ve been a bit,” Nami says, hand twirling through her long, beautiful lock of orange hair, looking for the words to say, “Off lately.” 

“Please don’t worry about me,” he says, now prostrated before her and his heart is still thumping in his chest, awkward motions as his palms begin to sweat. Love, he thinks, is painful as it squeezes around his heart and he beams back up at the navigator. “I am merely continuing to devote my energy to you.”

She keeps looking at him, with that worry that makes his heart sing, and finally she sighs and turns back to the maps she’s working on. 

“If you say so.”

—

Training in Fishman karate with Jinbei is a good way to start his morning. Sanji’s not the kind of person (read: Zoro) who trains himself until death. The Vinsmokes made sure he’d detest that kind of formal outlet. Most of his training has always been on the fly, in the moment. Learning to dodge Zeff’s kicks and kick back always happened while peeling potatoes, or washing dishes, or garnishing entrees. The rest of his “training” was a situation of running, improvising, adapting, overcoming. Or whatever comes from his rigorous arguments with Zoro.

Except, well, there’s been almost zero arguments with Zoro. He can barely find the swordsman, most days, and he’s pretty sure he’s being avoided. He’s on day ten of this treatment, and he doesn’t know what to make of it. The other day he saw Zoro trying to nag Luffy into a fight, and even hacking his swords at Jinbei. Luffy lost interest almost immediately, and Jinbei? Entertained the swordsman only so long. It wasn’t a bad duel, per se, but it lacked intent, and was over too soon.  

He doesn’t get that. 

Why is Zoro, who is clearly a blood-thirsty dimwit with no common sense, avoiding fighting Sanji? It’s not like Sanji’s lacking for time. It’s surprising, how many hours of his day went into bickering with Zoro, which lead to pummelling Zoro, which lead to the eventual laying in the deck and sometimes falling asleep to wean off the bruises from the whole event, or going to Chopper to fix said bruises, or helping Franky fix the damage from said fight. 

Now he’s barely bruised, with free time galore. He made a seven tier cake yesterday with fourteen different flavours of icing. The previous day he made croquembouche. He’s running low on baking supplies all because he’s got free time and he’s thrown off his cleverly planned and portioned snack ratios. Somehow, the swordsman has managed to ruin his free time.  

Last night, Chopper and Nami couldn’t finish their dinners. Thankfully, Luffy's a glutton, but Sanji's not had to deal with leftovers in a long time. 

He’s going to kill the swordsman - if he ever sees him. That’s the other part he doesn’t understand - Zoro just running away at every opportunity. For the life of him, Sanji cannot pick out a reason to be avoided like this. 

Thank fuck for morning training, though. And thank fuck for Jinbei, who was sent to keep Sanji sane. Jinbei is the first formal teacher he’s had in a long time, and it’s not easy, but Jinbei is nothing like Germa, and is not quite a teacher in the traditional sense. 

“We’re not just going to keep hitting each other until we can’t stand,” Jinbei says, automatically aghast at the idea of training and Sanji doesn’t get it, but he doesn’t argue that topic, either. Fishmen probably have different ideals than humans, when it comes to matters like these. 

“So what are we doing, then?” asks Sanji, staring at the man in front of him.

“We’re going to swim,” says Jinbei, pointing to the ocean that they’re currently sailing on, and Sanji stares at him. It’s not Sanji’s not a good swimmer, but this is the Grandline, the seas are unpredictable and choppy, and he’s not exactly a Fishman himself, after all. And nobody else is awake if they drown. 

“That’s it?” Sanji asks, blinking down at the ocean and then back at Jinbei, because he can’t see how that’s going to help. 

“That’s it,” says Jinbei, sounding amused at Sanji’s confusion. “Fishman Karate relies on understanding water. Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you.”

It turns out, swimming in the ocean is hard. There’s sea monsters that appear with no warning, and while Sanji’s able to kick, he can feel the resistance in the water, the slowness of his own motions. Not to mention that his body aches after a good morning swim. They don’t stop until the sun is up, fully shining over the ship and it’s a struggle in and of itself, to keep up with the boat. 

He doesn’t know how Jinbei can look so unbothered, but it’s the first time he’s learning to fight without fighting. 

And it means he’s burned enough energy to even take a nap and not dive into the baking supplies after lunch. Which explains why the swordsman is always napping, considering his hellish looking training regime. And there it is again, those annoying pinprick thoughts of Zoro that seem to linger on his mind because of this whole unusual situation. 

For now, his focus is on breakfast.

Jinbei, the only one awake who arrives to breakfast first, asks, “Are you sure you want to keep doing this in the morning? We can move to an afternoon time slot. I’m free all day.”

He says free like he’s never used the word before, and honestly, Sanji has no clue how Jinbei has managed to turn sailing with Luffy into a vacation. The man is sitting there in sandals and a sunhat and an honest to god flowery lei that Franky picked up on the previous island. Then again, Luffy always had a knack for finding people who fit into his brand of chaos. 

Sanji waves him off, rolls his shoulders back, and says, “Yeah, it’s good. Training in the morning isn’t as bad as you said it is.”

Because it is good, isn’t it? It’s great, actually. It’s great to train for once in his life. To train without feeling pain.

The next person to enter, surprisingly, is Zoro. 

“Who’s training in the morning?” he asks, sounding suspicious . Sanji doesn’t know what to make of that, but he can guess. After all, Zoro’s thought process is juvenile, to say the least, and he’s fairly sure Zoro’s just panicking that Sanji’s training, like seriously training, and might will continue to win their fights. 

If the man ever fights him again.

“Sanji-san and I are practicing Fishman Karate,” Jinbei says, taking his own seat and pulling up his breakfast. It’s a broth, flavoured fish and scallions mixed together with miso to make something like for the morning and finish off the leftover tuna from the night before. There’s tofu added to it, to make it a little heartier after their morning practice.

Sanji turns to set out Zoro’s plate. He’s not a fan of everyone showing up at their own pace in the mornings, but he wouldn’t dare rouse the ladies from their slumber, and ever since he started personalizing dishes, it’s not always a bad thing to prioritize on one person. And it allows him extra time to write marimo onto the omurice serving. 

“You’re training,” Zoro says, sounding flat and distant and unaware that Sanji has now taken to tampering with food, to get a rise out of the man. “You never train.” 

“Well, now I do, shitty swordsman,” says Sanji, snapping back, and he’s genuinely irritated. He’s so irritated as he slams the omurice down in front of Zoro, the plate crashing against the table and the omelette jiggles, bounces up and lands with a splat and the perfectly plates, perfectly rolled dish wobbles, topples over.

The writing is illegible.

Zoro doesn’t even flinch.  

“I’m going to train,” Zoro says, standing up with a sudden rush and Sanji leaps for the opening, his leg slamming into Zoro’s head, caught by a wrist on his ankle, just barely in time as he says, “Like hell. You eat when I serve you, mosshead.” 

“Fine,” says the swordsman, and he looks absolutely murderous as he sits down, eyes seething with rage and teeth grinding and he doesn’t even hit back. 

This time, it’s Sanji who runs away. He doesn’t know what to do with the form of Zoro, bent over the table and just eating his breakfast, whilst clearly fuming but refusing to engage in battle. He doesn’t know why it’s bothering him but he can’t look at the swordsman any longer. 

He departs from the kitchen to smoke six cigarettes before breakfast, to pump ash and dust out of his lungs until his hands stop shaking. 

—

Honestly, Jinbei didn’t know quite what to make of what he just witnessed. He’s not used to the youths on the ship, not really. He doesn’t remember his own youth being this tumultuous, but then, he was a soldier at the time, not a pirate. He doesn’t understand how they suddenly get riled up and personal but he’s definitely concerned about it. The first option, which is to tell Luffy his concerns, is immediately dismissed. The Captain is not the sort of Captain to get involved in squabbles on deck. 

The second option is to approach Sanji or Zoro about this, to have an open and honest discussion. One look at both their faces, and he decides immediately that isn’t the way to go. 

The third option is to drink his coconut water and sunbathe while sitting with Nico Robin, who smiles and tells him, “It’s always interesting, isn’t it?”

“Shouldn’t we look for a resolution?” Jinbei asks, doubtful. He’s not used to being this relaxed, anywhere. Especially with a storm brewing on deck. 

“They’d never appreciate interference,” Robin says, wisely, “They’ll ask when they’re ready. Just keep giving Sanji-san an outlet.” 

She’s probably right, after all, as they move to a sunnier spot on the ship. Still, he can’t help but worry about the state of affairs. 

Step Three: Consider a debt settlement. If your debt has gotten out of control, because you’ve let it grow for so long, consider that your creditor might accept some money, because something is better than nothing. Trust the advice of your debt counselor, as she clearly knows best. Warning: This can negatively affect your credit score going forward.  

Usopp can’t say he remembers the entirety of the very long conversation with Zoro. He can say, however, he remembers the gist. The overarching main points. He remembers being dragged into corners with Nami and Zoro to discuss how Operation Be Nice is going, and Nami mentioned being concerned about Sanji’s state of mind. Zoro had just grunted and said he didn’t think the cook was acting any different, and frankly, Usopp had mostly agreed. 

Nami hadn’t looked convinced. 

Still, honestly, he thought that they’d come a long way from the start, from Zoro’s refusal to say anything nice to Sanji’s face or even behind his back, to Nami’s refusal to allow Zoro to just randomly gift money to Sanji, and Usopp’s general refusal to get more involved. In the end, the only agreement they come to is that Zoro should maybe, potentially, stop fighting with Sanji. That it’s a good and healthy thing to strive for an environment that’s not, y’know, tense. Show appreciation by giving Sanji a break and not wasting all his time.

So how did it end up like this?

“You’re stressed that Zoro isn’t fighting with you?” Usopp asks, staring at Sanji in utter confusion. 

The blond man had walked into the workshop, kicked the door shut (probably broken it) and lit up four cigarettes before finally asking Usopp, “What does it mean if someone stops talking to you?”

It had taken a bit more wrangling to get the big picture. For one thing, Usopp had somehow never realized that the entirety of their interactions relied on fighting. It was, maybe, an oversight. Something to point out at the next meeting with Zoro and Nami. A problem he’d suddenly solved.

For now, he was busy questioning why he was the one everyone consulted. Okay, to be fair, Zoro hadn’t consulted him. And really, he could understand why Sanji couldn’t bring this up to anyone else, but still. He wasn’t flattered or anything.

“So he’s just avoiding you?” Usopp asks, again, baffled. He didn't understand Zoro, but he thought the whole point of repaying his debts or whatever this was, had been really to improve the relationship between him and Sanji. He doesn’t understand how Zoro made the leap from don’t fight to don’t interact.

“He leaves the room when I walk in,” Sanji says, and Usopp can’t say he noticed, but then he’s been doing a very good job of avoiding Zoro’s presence lest one of them cracks and remembers that conversation. “I called him a shitty swordsman twice the other day and he didn’t even pull his sword out.”

Sanji actually sounds devastated at the loss of murderous rage directed at him on a daily basis. This, Usopp thinks, is why he can never be like those monsters. 

“And you miss him?” Usopp asks, because he’s an absolute idiot.  

Honestly, he deserves the kick he gets, the bruise that’s definitely forming on his head and Sanji’s towering over him, his leg flaring with heat as he stares down at Usopp, leg pushing him into the floorboards, face twisted into an ugly scowl, eyebrows knitted together, forehead crumpled into wrinkles. 

“I do not miss that shitty mosshead.”

Point taken. Denial accepted.

“Why uh - why can’t you just ask him?” Usopp says, from below Sanji’s foot that’s still crushing his skull into the floorboard and he should have brought Nami along, somehow. Sent her a covert message. Usopp cannot and will not survive this alone. He prays to whatever deity that’s listening for help.

“Yo! What’s going on here?” 

Franky towers into the workshop, and Usopp is ready to cry. Tears prick at his eyes and he knows that he’s truly, extremely blessed. He’s going to worship Franky for the rest of his days. Franky was the deity that was listening.

“Cook-bro, why are you crushing Usopp?” Franky asks, looking more bemused than actually concerned, and Franky is maybe possibly a God, since his presence forces Sanji to lift his leg up. Usopp’s face hurts and his cheek is swollen, but he’s survived worse..

“It’s nothing,” says Sanji, because he’s panicking and looking for an escape but Franky’s blocking the only door. 

“Is this because Zoro-bro’s ignoring you? Are you taking it out on Usopp?” Franky asks, lowering his sunglasses to look at them with his actual eyeballs, and Sanji looks like he’s going to die.

“Who told you?!” he asks, and - oh there it is. The rage that he and Zoro wear so well. The burning leg, the flaming fury. The entire inability to express humility like normal adult men. Why, oh why, is Usopp still here? 

Right, Franky’s still blocking the door. 

“I was standing outside the door,” Franky says, cheerful and Usopp is wrong. God would have interviewed to save Usopp faster, and wouldn’t clearly antagonize an already furious man. Franky is a madman who once got run over by a train. 

He has zero self-preservation instincts. 

“That shitty fucking swordsman,” Sanji curses, and yeah, Usopp agrees. This whole thing really stems from Zoro. 

“It’s so sad!” wails Franky, taking a seat at his own workbench, legs crossed over each other as tears pour down his eyes, “To suddenly be abandoned by your bro, with no explanation. Left to dry. I’ve got a song for this moment.”

He pulls the guitar out, and starts to strum a note that rings through the air. It looks ridiculous, considering he has to open his giant hand, to use the smaller, internal hands to pluck the strings. 

“I call this, no-fight-left-in-our-hearts ,” Franky says, and Usopp stares at the ceiling and debates playing dead. Sanji might actually murder him, so it wouldn’t be playing dead, right? He lived a good life, longer than many who board a pirate ship. All things considered, he did a good job, right? 

“He wants advice, not a ballad,” says Usopp, at last, because he’s the only one with self-preservation instincts on this ship and Sanji is actually on fire, the flames burning up his leg, reaching to his waist. The last time Usopp saw him close to this bothered, a tiger man was trying to marry Nami. He doesn’t know what it says that Zoro is able to generate half the rage that Asbalom did. 

“I don’t want advice,” says Sanji, forcefully, “Fuck that shitty bastard swordsman. I am not bothered over the fucking directionally challenged bastard who can’t even find his way around the ship.”

In fairness, Zoro only got lost on the ship the first month. He’s pretty sure Zoro knows the way around, by now. Then again, he did find Zoro sleeping in the infirmary the other day, despite being perfectly fine, and he wonders if it’s because Zoro couldn’t find his hammock.  

“Hey,” says Franky, putting the guitar away and retrieving Usopp’s sanity. “We get it. It’s weird not to see you two bros fighting and destroying the ship. I’ve had so much spare time on my hands I’ve been sketching up schematics for a General Franky battleship. Actually, the two of you not fighting has made me a lot more productive. Why am I helping you guys again?” 

“I don’t need help,” says Sanji, and his one eye burns brightly as the flame rises to chest level and Usopp, unfortunately, has to wade these waters alone. It’s like Nami all over again but at least he was pleasantly not sober for that. And there was a lot less pain. He refuses to acknowledge that maybe he was complicit and partially at fault for this situation. He will never take Nami up on an offer for free drinks again. 

“Cook-bro,” says Franky, and he leans over, folds his hands under his chin. 

He has yet to notice he’s not put his hands back into the big case, and somehow manages to hit himself in the face with his own fingers. It takes a second for Franky to adjust, to get into the pose of serious thinking , looking at Sanji with heavy eyes. 

“Cook-bro,” says Franky, again, “The answer is right in front of you.”

Sanji is still fuming, glowering at Franky with every iota of his being, as he asks, “What?”

“If Zoro-bro isn’t going to tell you what’s wrong, and he’s not going to fight,” Franky says, “Then you have to settle this like men. You’ve got to take the fight to him.”

Usopp is playing dead. He’s a corpse, who is not listening to this terrible, bad advice from a man that got run over by a train. The advice that Sanji is succeeding in taking, apparently, as he stops that raging inferno and looks at Franky with actual interest. 

“You mean I should just hit him?” Sanji asks, looking baffled. 

“Exactly,” Franky says, nodding seriously to Sanji, “Zoro-bro and you aren’t going to just sing it out, or have a manly feelings conversation.” Usopp does not ask what a manly feelings conversation is, but Sanji seems to nod along like that’s solid advice. “Whatever’s bothering him, you’ll only know when you talk it out the way you guys do. With your fists. Er - legs. And swords. That’s the only way men can have a real heart-to-heart conversation.” 

“So I just have to hit him,” Sanji repeats, and he looks like he’s having an epiphany. “That shitty bastard. I’m going to bash his skull in with my foot.”

Franky looks pleased, as Sanji stalks out of the room because of course he’s going to attack Zoro right this minute. The guitar is back, as he begins to strum his ballad.

“You realize they’re going to obliterate the ship, right?” Usopp asks from the ground, where he’s decided to stay until further notice. If he tries really, really hard, maybe he can just become one with the wood below him.

Franky’s face shows that he had not, in fact, considered that Zoro and Sanji’s pent up rage would have devastating, far-reaching consequences. Usopp can hear the thundering footfalls of the cyborg running after Sanji. 

“Wait up, cook-bro! Don’t destroy the deck!”

—  

It’s too late, because Sanji is on absolute fire now as he races to where Zoro is, his haki used to locate the man in the crow’s nest, fast asleep. The murderous rage is flaring out of his body, as he runs and he can hear someone - Chopper - asking what’s wrong. 

Zoro is awake, swords drawn. His one eye widens when he sees Sanji and they connect. Blade to flaming leg, a bang that resounds across the seas, across the ship. Down below, Luffy is laughing and telling Chopper, they’re making up. 

Neither of them have any focus on that, however, as Sanji flips onto his hands and his legs twirl, fire spouting from him as he connects with Zoro, as the swordsman goes flying, slams into crow’s nest wall, forcing the wood to split apart and Zoro lands on the deck, barely on his feet, all three swords out now.

Sanji falls out of the sky, lands on all three blades as Zoro pushes back against him. He has no idea what he’s done to piss the cook off like this, but he sure as hell isn’t going to take it. Kitetsu thrives off his rage, Shuusei sings in his hand, Wado burns. They slice the air in front of Sanji, going on the offensive and forcing the cook to spring back, to dive and kick low while the swords slice against his arm.

First blood, Zoro thinks, and he’s grinning like a maniac as Kitetsu wears the cook on his blade, as rivulets of red drip down onto the deck below and - 

A blow to his thigh, the burn settling into his skin and he can feel the cook’s rage, the anger behind the hit. It hurts a lot more than the cook’s normal attacks, comes so fast he can barely feel his leg as he tries to dance out of the way, as Sanji leaps into the air and aims for his head, springing back off a blade to flip behind Zoro and smash into his spine. 

They clash again, Zoro’s swords slicing the railing of the deck as Sanji leaps out of the way but he isn’t fast enough to dodge the second attack, his swords spinning around as he repeats the flipping motion to stab with two swords forward, cutting the air itself to let it spin, a tornado forcing itself against Sanji and blowing him across the ship. Below him, the grass on the deck burns in a neat streak where the cook flies. 

They keep going, swinging against each other as the sound of their fight echoes around them, explosive booms ringing through the air. 

Rain forms above them, and Zoro can distinctly hear Nami’s voice, calling out, Rain Tempo, but he ignores it, too focused on the cook, moving back towards him and his flames are calmer, only his legs burning now as he strikes again, moves to swing his leg into Zoro’s cheek, so fast Zoro could barely see it. Shuusei blocks, and the cook swings onto his hands, legs twirling and the other hit comes fast, rattling his jaw.

He’s back on his feet, swinging forward again running low to bring the attack upwards and his swords slice open the cook’s chest - not enough to kill but enough to bleed him . 

Chopper is shouting somewhere, and Zoro pays a little more attention. He doesn’t like to worry the doctor, but Sanji can still move and is still coming for him, blood spraying out of his body and it’s beautiful, he thinks, his focus only on the man in front of him. The blood on his blade, dripping off the cook’s impossibly white shirt, spreading outwards. 

They move again, leg slamming between three swords and they’re pushing against each other, impossibly close now. Close enough for Zoro to see through the bangs of the cook’s blond hair, to see both blue eyes staring fiercely at him. To smell the burning sensation emanating off the cook, the smoke. To feel the heat between them, as they press close together and below it all is the faint scent of salt, and the iron of his swords, of blood. His heart sings, the swords are alight, burning, burning, burning.

And then, two rubber hands appear, grip their heads, and bash their skulls together. 

The last thing he sees is Luffy, standing over them, grinning wide as he says, “It's over, now.”   

—

“The two of you are so stupid!” Chopper wails, bandages wrapped around Sanji’s chest as the doctor cries above him. 

It’s the worst fight he and Zoro have ever actually managed to have, and he feels it everywhere. His body is just one bruise, come alive in this moment. Patchy blossoms of blue and green and yellow rise across his swollen face, down over his chest, laced in ribbony cuts that sting on his chest. 

Beside him, Zoro doesn’t look much better. He’s got third degree burns in every place Sanji could reach, and a few particularly nasty second-degree ones along his arms, on his thigh. Blisters bubble on his skin, down his leg, patched up by a doctor who didn’t stop yelling at him the entire time. Sanji takes a visceral sort of pride in damaging Zoro that much. 

“If you so much as move,” says Chopper, and he’s in heavy point form, the towering hulk of a man standing above them, glaring at them both with a voice deeper than usual, his anger pulsating out from him, “I’ll kill both you bastards.”

And then he leaves, muttering about poultices that aren’t complete. 

Sanji could really go for a smoke, right now, but his suit jacket is draped over the chair closer to Zoro, alongside the three swords. Turning his head now, he can see Zoro’s profile, the sharp curve of his nose, the lines of his jaw. The three earrings lopsidedly pressed against his pillow. The green hair, longer than it looks, pressing against the softer cartilage of his ear. 

It’s the only part of Zoro that’s still soft, and he snorts to himself at the idea of Zoro training his ears to have muscle, to grow thick and hard like the rest of him. Sanji can’t look away, and he doesn’t get why he’s entranced with Zoro’s ears, of all things. He’s looking for the hair growing out of them, he decides, but there’s no green tufts or ogre-like signs. Just one normal ear, with three shining gold earrings. And he can't bring himself to look away from it, because he hasn't faced Zoro like this in a long time, hasn't seen him. 

“Stop staring at me, shit cook,” Zoro says, at last, proving that he is awake and Sanji is flustered, caught off guard. His face burns bright as he snaps back, “I wasn’t staring, mosshead.”

“Yeah you were, ero-cook.”

“No I wasn’t, idiot swordsman.”

“Curly brow.”

“Marimo.”

“Pervert cook.”

“Shitty always lost bastard.”

“Dart brows.”

He still has no idea why the swordsman was avoiding him. For all that Franky had said the fighting would give him answers, he has no idea. All he knows is that he’s smiling, trading insults with Zoro that never seem to end. 

“You already said pervert cook,” Sanji says, triumphantly. 

“No I didn’t, pervert nosebleed.”

“Yes you did, lost marimo.”

“Curly nosebleed.”

“Lost mosshead.”

“Dumbass cook.”

“Dumbass swordsman.”

Step Four: File for bankruptcy. You’re fucked, and you need to admit it. Time to consult with a professional attorney on the matter, and not your hack counselors. Seriously, you should have known better than to trust them. 

“I suppose it’s time for an adult intervention,” says Robin, afterwards, in the galley, ear dissipating from the infirmary with a smile on her face, glad the two of them are getting along again. 

Beside her, Franky still looks murderous, his face twisted in anger and his teeth grinding together, muttering darkly to himself about damages and disrespect and idiots. 

“I suppose it is,” says Brook, humming as he runs his fingers over the keys.  

Jinbei, for his part, is relieved things are getting better, and glad to finally be able to get involved.  

—

Predictably, once Sanji and Zoro can move again, Franky is hovering over them, rage pulsating outwards as he says, “You’re helping.”

When Sanji isn’t in the kitchen preparing meals, he’s being dragged by Franky into construction work. Zoro is better at it, because he’s not as concerned about using his hands, but he lacks any ability to do detailed work and seems mostly content to bang a hammer wildly into the wood and wait to see what results of it. 

Enter Sanji, with a paint brush, patching up the wreckage of the stair railing while Zoro takes a nap. Franky is above him, hammering the rest of the rails together, and he only really took ten minutes to get the whole thing put together, and probably doesn’t really need Sanji to give the intricate wood carvings he’s doing a paint job, but Sanji agreed to help, and so he is.

“Why did you get dragged into this?” asks Sanji, to the whale fishman beside him who volunteered to help out because he’s a saint .

“I was curious about ship building,” Jinbei says, and Sanji can tell the Fishman isn’t meeting his eyes, but he drops it because Jinbei is a saint. He wishes that Jinbei would do the same, however, when the Fishman asks, “Are things better with you and Zoro-san, now?”

Sanji is flustered, red in the face, because he wasn’t aware the entire crew was in the know that they were fighting. Except, was it really a fight when Zoro was doing the avoiding, and Sanji was silently seething over it? 

“We’re fine,” says Sanji, at last. And then he turns back to the railing and jumps back, because Franky’s head is between them, directly in front of Sanji and looking murderous. It’s not that he hasn’t gotten used to that anger, but to have it so directly in front of his face is, well, jarring. 

“If you ever destroy my ship again like that because of some stupid argument, cook bro,” Franky says, rage dripping from every word, “I will turn the both of you into masts for the boat.”

Jinbei, ever the saint, tries to intervene with, “We were very worried for you both.” 

“Use your blood to paint the deck.”

“And we wondered if you had ever determined why Zoro-san was upset with you.”

“Use your bones as railings.” 

“Who knows what that mosshead is thinking,” Sanji tries, dismissive but his gaze doesn’t leave Franky, who is still seething over at him and honestly sounding a little psychotic, in the moment, “He’s probably not thinking at all.” 

It’s not like Sanji isn’t direly curious about what triggered the whole argument, but there’s a matter of his pride. He refuses to ask the swordsman anything. He’s just going to chalk this weirdness up to nothing, and move on with his life. Zoro seems fine to do just that, too. 

“Put lasers into your mouths and use your heads as cannons.”

“Well,” says Jinbei, sounding uncertain about the whole thing, “If you want me to talk to -

“No,” says Sanji, immediately, turning to Jinbei with horror, “Don’t do that.”

“Your paint is dry,” says Franky, suddenly, “Do the second coat now.”

His head is still between the railings, and Sanji starts the painting again, as Franky watches him. It’s more unnerving than before, because he’s acutely aware that Franky and Jinbei are watching him, one with the intention of murder, the other with worry. He doesn’t know what bothers him more. 

“I used to hate Iceberg giving me the silent treatment,” Franky says, suddenly, as he begins twisting, tugging his head through the bars and it’s not working , and he looks stupid, but Sanji is focused on painting. 

“He was really good at it, too, the jerk. He could go days without speaking to me, and I could never remember what I did to upset him. And then I’d hit him, and things would go back to normal and we’d both move on.”

Sanji doesn’t get why Franky’s telling him this shitty story, but he can vividly picture Franky and Iceberg, punching the shit out of each other until one of them finally snaps. 

“But I’d still feel kind of bad about it, because he’s got this way of making you feel like a screw-up. And I never knew what to do or how to apologize because he was a bastard and I didn’t know what I did.”

Sanji drops the paintbrush, as he says, furious, “I don’t owe that shithead an apology.”

“And Tom always said a man can say things better with his chest puffed, and with a Don. So I’d make him a ship,” says the shipwright, and his face screws up into more irritation, as he says, “And the jerk would insult it! And then I’d hit him again. That bastard never learned. ”

Sanji doesn’t know what Franky’s getting at, as he continues to seethe by himself about Iceberg, and idiots destroying his ships that somehow leads him right back to looking at Sanji with eyes that scream death. Sanji busies himself looking at the paint, the bristles on the brush. 

"I find," Jinbei says, after a moment, "When my routine changes, and it's out of my control, I tend to be more bothered than usual."

Sanji can relate a bit better to that, he thinks, as he swivels his head to Jinbei, and nods along. That, he thinks, was the crux of the problem. Zoro had ruined his routine. It wasn't Usopp's stupid explanation of missing Zoro, and it wasn't Franky's idea that he owed the bastard an apology. He had done nothing wrong - all of this, after all, had started with Zoro.

"But when my routine changed," Jinbei says, softer now, "I had to take it upon myself to find something to fill the void, or to fix whatever went wrong that forced the change in the first place. We are only as powerful as our actions, and sometimes hesitating to act can be a weakness in itself."

Sanji hesitates, brush stopping on the railing. It sounds, oddly, like Jinbei is calling him weak. But he asks, "So should I have hit him sooner?"

The Fishman just smiles, a careful smile that Sanji can't really read.

"You can't undo the past," Jinbei says, easily, "You can only work to act faster in the future. The longer you let something like that fester, the worse it becomes."

Sanji doesn't know what that means, either, it sounds smart. He's always been fast, and getting faster suits him. 

Still, something rankles inside him long after he puts the brush down and paint stains his hands and he thinks about those words. Why does it bother him, this hypothetical situation that Zoro could ignore him again, in the future? Over and over, he circles around that thought, unable to come up with a suitable explanation. 

—

Zoro’s entire body still aches from the fight with the cook. His stitches run deep and he’s never been felt this happy being this bruised before. It had, he realized, been actually quite hard to not fight with the cook. It felt like a gaping hole in his body, like something stolen from him that he couldn’t explain. And it was more than maddening to realize that Nami had no clue how to answer this problem of debts owed, and unexplainable feelings and had said, with finality, that she and Usopp were no longer going to help him. 

He should never have trusted her, or Usopp, to carry that burden. 

What he doesn’t anticipate, however, is to walk into his training room and find Robin, having tea with Brook, of all people. Like they just hang out in the crow’s nest regularly, and make it a habit to host their tea parties in here. 

“Try the macarons,” Brook says, “They really just melt on your tongue. Though I don’t have a tongue! Yohoho, skull joke!”

Robin beams at the skeleton, and Zoro tries to figure out what they’re doing.  

“Come join us, swordsman-san,” Robin says, indicating the space between them. There doesn’t seem to be any negative intent, coming from the two of them, but still he feels particularly threatened. “Try the tea.”

Brook pours him a cup, looking pleased with the outcome as Zoro sits, on his knees, before them in a traditional manner fit for a tea ceremony, rather than whatever party Robin and Brook are hosting at his expense. 

“Is this going to be long?” he asks, annoyed, “I have to train.” 

“Not long at all,” Brook says, as he takes another bite of some crunchy cookie and manages to spill the crumbs all over himself. He doesn’t bother to wipe it up, either. 

“We wanted to ask you about what recently transpired with the cook,” Robin says, and she’s like a tsunami, crashing directly into Zoro and leaving him to drown in the weight of those words. She can’t be serious. 

“Nothing happened,” he tries to deny, but Brook is tutting like that’s absolutely not true, and he says, “I missed seeing the passion in your fights, though of course, I can’t see. Yohoho skull joke! But I must say, it’s not good to hold it all back and then explode like that. It was a bit too much, even for me.” 

The silence expands around them, suffocating as Robin turns now to Brook and Zoro chooses the only safe option in this moment. He gets up, and moves to start his training. He doesn’t trust anyone to understand the problem he’s facing right now, not after the disaster with Nami. The weight he chooses is the heaviest, to do 300 repetitions with one arm and focus entirely and solely on that pressure and not the conversation Robin is having with Brook, right in front of him.

They ignore him and sip his tea, with no indication that they’re going to leave, well after the cookies have ended. Brook plays his violin, at some point, serenading Robin with old, forgotten songs and Robin, for some reason, is making notes about it. Zoro doesn’t understand either of them. 

It’s only after his sixth set that Zoro finally turns, arms burning, to face them and, well, talk. 

“It was Nami’s idea,” Zoro says, throwing the witch off the boat. 

They both turn to him, identical expressions of surprise. Brook is the one who asks, “Why would Nami-san tell you to avoid Sanji-kun?” 

Zoro scowls, arms crossing over as he folds into a meditative stance before them. He doesn’t know what Nami was getting at either, with the whole idea, but there’s still a bump on his head from where she hit him and said, I didn’t say avoid him until you both explode, you idiot.  

He doesn’t know what she thought would happen, otherwise. 

“It was to be nice,” Zoro explains, and he tries to ignore Robin and Brook trading glances. And then Brook bursts into tears and says, “That’s beautiful, Zoro-san!”

“It’s not like that,” he argues again, tries to explain, but all he can stare at are as his hands, devoid and empty of anything but callouses. 

“So what is it like?” asks Robin, sounding gentle and careful and Zoro doesn’t know what to do with that, either, but it rankles at him. He’s not someone who needs to be coddled.

“It’s,” Zoro tries, but the words are lost on his tongue and this is a maze he can't find his way out of. “You buy him books. And I can’t do that.”

“You want to buy him books?” Brook asks, clearly confused and Zoro’s fists rest over his knees and he doesn’t know why this is so hard to talk about. 

“I wanted to do something,” Zoro says, trying to convey what he means and willing the two of them to get it. “He’s always doing shit, so I wanted to do something but I don’t know how.”

The silence permeates the air, and Zoro can’t look up from his clenched fists because he’s - he’s not afraid of what he’ll see, but he doesn’t want pity. So it’s fists, and nails, and teeth grinding together to stop him from lashing out. 

“To be young,” says Brook at last, and he seems delighted. Zoro attacks him for good measure. 

“Swordsman-san,” says Robin, and he turns to face her, in the middle of strangling Brook for mocking him, as she continues to look at him with that unwavering gaze, that feels like she’s peeling an onion with her eyes. Peeling flesh. 

“When someone does something for you, oftentimes the most meaningful thing you can do is say thank you.”

Zoro stares at her, as Brook’s head falls off his shoulders and rolls away. He finds himself caught in the crosshairs of her gaze. It’s baffling, her suggestion, and he doesn’t know what to do with it. It's so simple. 

“Say thank you?” Zoro repeats, as he drops the skeleton on impulse, stares at Robin, and she’s smiling at him again. 

“Exactly,” says Robin, as she stands up. Her hands sprout out of the ground, collecting the detritus of the tea party together, while Brook grabs his own head and plops it back onto his neck. “Just say try it.”

“Yohoho!” says Brook, now standing up himself, “What a fine suggestion, indeed.”

It’s a trap, Zoro thinks, as Robin begins shepherding the skeleton out of the crow’s nest. It’s a trap, but he can’t seem to stop thinking about it, long after they’re gone. 

Say thank you.

Chapter Text

1. Look for a Provider. You didn’t learn all those bridal arts for nothing! If you’re going to catch a man, he better be the best catch you can get. Find someone who can provide for your wife and family financially. You want to be a good wife, staying at home to cook, clean and take care of the children. As such, you need to find yourself a man with a good job that provides health benefits and enough income to keep your family comfortable should be one of the top priorities.

“I don’t want to be a wife,” Sanji says, teeth gritted as he stands atop four of the queens gathered at Momoiro island, the twenty-second teacher of the Bridal Arts listing off the requirements of ‘husband-hunting’. “I’m the provider! Providing for Nami-swan and Robin-chan and all the ladies of the world!” 

The okama sighed, ruffling a hand through Sanji’s blonde hair and the cook dives, darting backwards as far as possible. Too close - too close. He can see the gleam in the man’s eye, the threatening stance. The potential trap to get him into a dress. 

The queen sighs, fluttering dark, thick lashes at him, and says, “I worry for you, Sanji-chan. You’re a nice boy, with an even sweeter girl inside. Take it from me, if you’re not careful, you’ll get snatched away by some loser. Now come, feel this silk on your skin!”

-

Zoro failed at this step by virtue of his never-ending debt to Nami, his unstable career as the First Mate of the Straw-Hat Crew, and the fact that his health benefits were a reindeer doctor who, whilst experienced and willing to work for free, was the only good part of what he brought to the table. 

Nevertheless, he persisted (at paying his debts).

The opportunity to thank the cook for something doesn’t come, as immediately after Robin leaves the crow’s nest, Nami calls out, “Island ahead!” 

-

Sanji had made the mistake of thinking that after the fight, the situation with Zoro had come to an end. They’re back to normal, he didn’t have to apologize for some invisible slight, and nothing’s all that different. It’s like the strange silence faded into a long gone memory, and he’s working to even forget that there was a silence, to start with. 

Except, of course, they’re on an island and things go awry, yet again. They landed two hours ago, and things go swimmingly. At first . Luffy charms the villagers with his general being, they like pirates, and welcome them all with open arms after seeing their bounty posters. 

“Sorry,” says the girl, hand held up in front of Chopper, “You are too weak to enter the island.” 

They like the strong. 

Bounties below fifty million beri are indicative of weakness. 

Chopper’s bounty is an insult, she tries to explain. He won’t be allowed into their homes, on their land. Luffy, predictably, takes issue with that, tries to explain that Chopper is strong. 

Chopper, for his part, has turned into a ghost, faded into a silent sort of shock and depression at the reminder of his bounty. Brook and Robin are on damage control, trying to revive the paralyzed reindeer from his own depression. 

“That’s the way it’s always been! Bounties are your entry ticket, and we only accept high bounties on this island! The only way he can stay is if the Chief changes the rules,” says Magnhild, the girl who greeted them at the docks, because she doesn’t know them. She thinks that’s a deterrent. 

 Her hair is thick long braids; with practical leather armour and a hat with horns. She’s beautiful, and Sanji’s already planned their wedding.

“Well, if Chopper isn’t allowed on here,” says Luffy, fingers flexing into a fist, “We’ll just have to ask him to do that!”

“He won’t!” she tries to explain, again, looking fearful at the idea, “He’s never changed the rules!” 

“He will when I beat him up!” says Luffy, practically, because his solutions are almost always those that involve fists and fighting, power and might. He's straightforward like that, after all.

Sanji lights a cigarette and beams at the pretty thing, with two swords at her hip, gaping at Luffy like he just said something outrageous . He’ll bake her an apology cake for all the trouble, after. Maybe she’ll even invite him to dinner. 

Predictably, they beat the chief up and Luffy’s now chief of the Island except he doesn’t want it. 

Magnhild hits him for dishonouring their rules, and by virtue of knocking him out, becomes the new chief. She allows Chopper to stay on the island. Sanji’s only broke four ribs and fractured a toe in the process.

They’re now at the part of the night where they throw a party, and he’s finally gotten the chance to bake Magnhild the apology cake, and there’s wine and booze flowing and there are beautiful women, flocking around them. They really appreciate the strong, and at least three women have proposed marriage. Sanji is floating in heaven, twirling around all over the place and throwing his heart freely at the ladies around him. 

Unpredictably, as he’s serving the last of the apology cake, Zoro is standing there, bandages around his head and across his chest, saying, “Thanks, cook.”

Sanji freezes in motion, the knife he’s holding faltering in his hand, like he’s suddenly ten again and unable to keep his balance because of a wave, rocking the Baratie ship, striking against the boat and sending the guests flying in a storm. His body freezes, as he whipped his head around to stare at Zoro, who’s already turned his face and began to walk away. Sanji doesn't even have time to ask if the man is concussed. 

And Sanji doesn’t know what that means, as he watches the swordsman walk away, insults stuck in his throat as he stares at Zoro’s broad shouldered back, illuminated only by the bonfire, shadows dancing across the arch of his neck, along the green robe he wears and between his swords.

For the first time, Zoro manages to leave Sanji speechless. 

-

The skeleton is playing his usual solo in the galley, humming a familiar tune. A cup of tea sits beside him, freshly made. Music is soothing, light and cleansing and it’s easy to pick out the words of his first single. To think, even at this age, he’d managed to be a rockstar, a pirate, dead, and then alive again. It brings a smile to his face, to know he’s managed to wear so many hats in his lifetime. 

“Thanks for the snack, cook.”

Brook pauses, his head swiveling towards the kitchen. He can’t quite see what’s going on, but a part of him does want to peep. 

There’s a sound, a huff of frustration from Sanji and then steps, getting further and further away. 

The skeleton makes the split-second decision, and chugs the tea back. It’s hot, and it burns the tongue he doesn’t have, spills over his jaw and down his shirt. The man wastes no time in standing, knees knocking against the piano, and then making his way to the kitchen.

He finds Sanji, frozen in space and holding an onion, looking at the door Zoro just exit from. He doesn’t seem to notice Brook standing there, empty tea cup and stains along his front. 

The skeleton turns back around and heads to the piano again, tea-less and damp, warm from the feeling of seeing something unbelievably private.

He hums a tune, and this time he begins to compose a ballad of romance, his fingers pressing against the keys as he goes. 

2. Make sure he makes you feel appreciated. When he comes home to a clean house and a hot meal, be sure that he thanks you for providing you with these things. He should surprise you with flowers or another small gift will take you far. Otherwise, feel free to kick his ass to the curb. 

They’re back on the boat, and Zoro’s grateful for that. He has a post fight routine - one that involves drinking a lot of good sake and sleeping. Some chick, however, kept trying to get his attention, and by the time he’d finally found the ship again, he was showered in tokens of appreciation and gifts galore from his admirers. More than the cook, he thinks, pride humming.

Nami argues they got the same amount, but she’s wrong. Zoro’s the only one who got showered in bottles and bottles of sake and beer. The cook got a bunch of food. It’s different, in value, he thinks. Nami takes all the treasure he received, every bit of gold and any useless jewel for her hoard. The cook stores the rest of the drinks in the pantry, and the meager turn of gifts end up on his hammock, and he stares at them as he eats the rest of the dumplings the cook had made for his snack. 

There’s some leather armour type of clothes that aren’t half bad, but probably won’t get used by him. He tosses them onto Usopp’s hammock, to be forgotten about it. There’s some old book on swordsman from an era long gone, that he’ll flip through before passing it to Robin. And lastly there’s a silky garment with strings, that’s probably a shirt, but he doesn’t know what to do with it, or how to wear it, and it looks fluffy and annoying so he doesn’t bother unwrapping it, just bunches it tighter into a ball. 

It gives him an idea. 

He grabs it, with the hand that’s not covered in the juice of the meat from the dumplings, and begins his trek to the kitchen. Ten minutes later, with his empty plate in hand, he’s standing in front of the cook who looks to be busy with his knives, chopping away at meat. 

Zoro pauses in the doorway, stuck watching the cook’s fluid, silent motions. His knife never even hits the chopping board. The meat slides off the blade, clean fresh cuts with each turn. It’s skilled in the same way as a swordsman, the dance of blade against flesh, against bone. It’s tidy strokes that slide in fluid motions and Zoro can’t breathe. 

“Are you just going to stand there?” the cook asks, suddenly, not bothering to look up. Of course he’d know that Zoro was here. 

The swordsman grunts, and says, “Thanks for the snack.”

It’s surprisingly easier to follow Robin’s advice, than it ever was to follow Nami’s. For his part, the cook just stiffens at the words, hunched over the counter and Zoro’s still been unable to pinpoint the expression on the cook’s face because, for his own reasons, he can’t look the cook in the eye when he says his thanks. And he’s done it four times now, once at breakfast, again at lunch, and back on the island. 

For now, though, he places the basket on the counter top and focuses on the step of returning his food. 

A knife suddenly stabs into the counter beside him, and he blinks, turns to stare at the cook who is looking at him with murder in his eyes. Zoro, if he was a weaker man, would have taken a step back in fear. Instead, he thrives in it, the blood lust. He can work better with that than Sanji’s frozen silence. 

“Are you sick?” the cook asks, sounding pained, like he might actually be dying to show concern for Zoro. The swordsman deeply empathizes, which, in itself, is a gross feeling. 

“No,” Zoro says, finally, “What?”

“Then stop thanking me,” Sanji says, the knife plucked back out of the counter with ease and taken back to chopping, as he frowns, looking at the blade for a second and then scowling straight back at Zoro. “You dented my blade.”

Zoro can’t keep up, but now he’s the one irritated, his scowl twisting on his face as he says, “You’re the one who shoved it into the counter.”

“You ruined my knife!” Sanji says, setting it down and lifting a flaming leg. Zoro’s hand goes to the hilt of his sword, relishing in this familiar interaction, this pause where his thanks is dropped and they meet, clashing with familiar ease.

He doesn’t stop to think of anything else, but the focus of attack and defend, of lunge and parry, block and hit. 

-

The thing is, Nami thinks, this whole bubbling problem with Sanji and Zoro isn’t that funny anymore. Objectively, as an outsider, it would be hilarious. She can make out all the angles from which this entire situation is just plain funny. 

But they’re her nakama, and after the ship nearly got trashed keeping up with their fall out, and she gained weight eating all the snacks Sanji made for her, she’s starting to think this situation is a little pathetic. It’s one of those things that worries her, because she’s not an outsider. She’s been there with them, every step of the way and it hurts, to know that they can be this stupid over nothing.

So when Sanji comes to serve her afternoon snack, she finds that she’s got to act. She has to say something, as he sets a fruit salad down and stirs the mojito he made her for, talking all the while about how radiant she looks. 

“I saw Zoro just leave the kitchen,” Nami interrupts him without any fanfare. She can hear Sanji’s praises whenever she wants. “Did you two fight again?” 

Sanji looks betrayed, staring at her in uneven shock that she’d witnessed everything. His face does a complicated fluttering of emotions, trying to go from anger, annoyance, distress, anger again, before settling on blank smile. 

“Nothing to worry about, Nami-swan,” he coos, trying to cover his tracks and failing since his face twists into an unrecognizable expression that’s two parts trying to hide his feelings, and one part straight awkwardness. “We fought like always.”  

“You’re acting strange about him,” Nami says, pointedly, “That’s not nothing.” 

The cook blinks, and then sits down beside her with an unrecognizable defeat. His hand digs into his pocket as he pulls another cigarette out and lights it, as though this is a story he can’t explain naturally. Nami doesn’t comment on how even in his distress, he makes sure that his smoke flows downwind from her. She’s always known he’s sweet, after all. 

“Zoro,” the cook says at last, eyebrow tense as his face furrows into frustration, “Keeps thanking me.” Nami blinks at the declaration, as Sanji takes another drag and exhales, before turning his head to her and asking, “Do you think he’s dying?”

Nami doesn’t get it, she doesn’t get these boys and their inability to use words. Big, useless boys, she thinks, as she tries to wrap her mind around how frustrating it must be to be so dumb. As a smart person, she feels frustrated. 

“Maybe,” Nami says, trying to be gentle, “You should just accept it? Zoro is pretty straightforward, after all. He probably is grateful.”

Sanji stares at her, like she’s just suggested he commit seppuku on deck. She doesn’t know how a grown man looks both like a kicked puppy and an outraged cat at once. She can’t see the frustration ending any time soon, but she settles in and tries her best to convince Sanji that this is not the mountain he thinks it is.  

-

The idea of Zoro just trying to be grateful seems more unlikely than anything else Nami could have said, but Sanji takes it in stride as he goes to look for Zoro, to call him for dinner. There’s no particular reason to actually go find the man, he knows, but there’s clearly something wrong with the man and he doesn’t want to expose anyone else to Zoro’s germs. 

He finds him, predictably, training. Sanji stops in the doorway, taking in the sight of Zoro lifting a barbell over his head, standing perfectly still. The muscles in his back flutter, and Sanji stares, caught in the moment at watching the shine of Zoro’s muscles, the way sweat drips down from his forehead, along his neck, down the arch of his spine.

The absolute barbarian, he thinks, as he kicks the ground to drag Zoro’s eyes towards him.

“What?” the man asks, setting the barbell down to the ground and his whole body just glistens, ripples, shines. He’s looking at him with steady brown eyes. Sanji is not transfixed. 

“It’s dinner time,” he says, staring at Zoro for another second, and then the man blinks and says, “Okay.”

It’s the most civil conversation they’ve had, and Sanji’s mouth is dry and he doesn’t know what to do about it. Drink lots of water, he thinks, as Zoro suddenly stops and grabs a towel and something else, from the bench. Fabric hits Sanji in the face, and he blinks in startled shock.

“What?”

“For you,” Zoro says, like that makes any sense. “Someone gave it to me, but it looks like it would suit you better.”

Sanji stares, as he looks at the balled up silk in his hands, the shirt clearly ill-treated and improperly cared for and he doesn’t know when Zoro decided to give him a gift, but the swordsman is already stomping past him.

“Why?” Sanji asks, spinning around, holding the shirt tightly between his fingers, and the swordsman does that impossible thing, where he just throws his head over his shoulder and looks back at Sanji like it should be obvious.

“For the shirts you make me,” he says at last, and then just keeps going. 

Sanji refrains from kicking Zoro in the head and throwing the shirt back. Nami-san, after all, would be upset if he did. He refrains from burying his face in the shirt, too, to hide the sudden anxiety pit forming inside his stomach. Zoro is clearly trying to communicate something, in his own brutish way. 

He still can’t decipher what it means.  

3. Keep the romance alive. You’re making the effort, after all. You get dressed to impress, even when you had nowhere to go. Make sure he compliments you on how nice you look. Ask him if he notices anything different about you, or if he likes your new dress. If he can’t tell how flattering that colour is on your skin, feel free to crush him.

The thing is, Sanji thinks, Nami-san’s advice to just meet Zoro at his own pace is a little bit frustrating. The shirt, he thinks, is more frustrating. He can’t figure out why Zoro would give him this silken masterpiece and say it suits Sanji, because, well. It’s not really something he’s ever worn before. 

It’s very typical of the heroes on the romance novels Patty used to sneak on board, and that in itself is flustering and embarrassing. The silk feels soft and smooth on his skin, as he stands in front of the lone mirror in the men’s cabin, put up at Sanji’s insistence. It’s got airy, puffy sleeves that come together in a cinched ruffle at his wrists, which is one thing. The fabric tightens around his shoulders, drapes effortlessly down his back and comes together at his waist line, emphasizing the slimness of his figure whilst broadening his shoulders all at once. 

The front, however, is wide open. From his shoulders, it reveals an expanse of white skin, his chest is bared as the fabric slides down his chest, barely covering his chest, and narrowing as it reaches his navel. Two strings criss-cross against his chest, in parallel lines, to offer some shameless modesty, but even that’s barely enough. He’s never felt this exposed in a shirt. 

It looked like it would suit you. 

Sanji has no idea what Zoro means, but he can imagine what the person who passed this to Zoro was thinking. The creamy silk would sit perfectly on that bronzed man, and the expanse of chest would probably fit better in this shirt. His brain short circuits, trying not to imagine Zoro in this shirt as he stares at himself in the mirror, trying and failing to piece together why Zoro envisioned him in this shirt. 

It’s altogether out of character for the man, and it has to be a joke. Weeks ago, he’d have said it was a joke. Except, Zoro keeps popping up, in corners, against walls, in front of Sanji’s eyes to say thank you, over and over. 

So maybe it’s not a joke. And if it’s not a joke, and Zoro is envisioning Sanji in this shirt - Then what does that mean?

The door swings open and despite himself, Sanji jumps, swinging around, red in the face to yell at whoever it is to get out. 

Usopp, predictably, freezes in the doorway. The two of them stare at each other; Sanji in his very exposed shirt, and Usopp in greasy overalls with a bandana stretched around his neck. Neither of them move, trying to assess each other. 

Finally, Usopp says, squeaks out, looking flustered for Sanji’s sake, “Nice shirt.”

Sanji has no choice but to kick the sniper in the face. 

-

Usopp doesn’t know what he did to deserve the black eye, but he knows that it wasn’t worth it. Chopper pats it down, puts some bruise salve and says he’ll be fine but Usopp is tired, and won’t be fine. The crew has survived Doflamingo, and Fishmen Pirates and the Grandline itself. Yet this storm, he thinks, might actually kill him. 

Especially since Sanji decided, somehow, that Usopp’s compliment was enough to keep wearing that shirt. He’s on the deck, in silk and with his entire chest exposed, looking altogether like a pirate or sailor from the novels Kaya and Franky sometimes read. Speaking of, even Franky looks more decent than Sanji does, and Franky doesn’t wear pants. 

“I thought,” he tells Nami, who choked at the sight of Sanji in that shirt, “That I was close to being a brave warrior of the sea.”

Nami listens, because she’s a good friend like that. 

“But I have a long way to go before I could ever go around dressed like that,” Usopp concludes, and Nami snorts, because she's not that good a friend really, as she says, “Good luck with that.”

-

Zoro doesn’t know where the cook got that shirt, but he can’t look at the cook anymore. He’s always dressed in flowery prints and ridiculous suits but this is something different. He can see the cook’s collarbones, the expanse of neck that flows to his abs. To the stretch of white skin that he’s seen in baths, before, but never like that. 

Like the cook is on display, preening like some chicken on a feast. He can almost envision Luffy drooling over the meat, and that leads to the stranger image of Luffy drooling over Sanji and he has to stop training there and then. His mind is going in circles to places he didn’t ask to go. 

Zoro hates the shirt, he despises the shirt. He hates that the cook keeps hovering around him, walking past him as he tries to nap, wearing that. 

Even when he closes his eyes, he can see the shirt. And he opens them only to see the cook is standing there, talking to Chopper, exposed and indecent in front of the kid and that does it.

He stands and moves across the deck, staring at the cook who looks at him, smug, for whatever reason. Zoro doesn’t like the cook’s grin being directed at him, all smug and exposed and -

“You look stupid, shit cook.”

It’s childish, he knows, but the cook reacts predictably as he says, “Not as stupid as you, mosshead.” Then he just leans forward, looking at him with one, expectant blue eye as he says, “Besides, this is your taste, marimo.”

Zoro freezes, suddenly feeling attacked, like Sanji just burned him, placed him on a stake and he’s being roasted alive. Heat trickles to his face, and it takes all the willpower he can muster to not flush at the suggestion the cook is putting out there. At the implications behind those words. He can see his insides pouring out, getting mashed and the cook doesn’t know what he’s talking about. 

Chopper looks between them, and asks, “What’s Zoro’s taste?”

There’s something about the way the cook looks at him, smug as he runs a finger along the straps of his shirt, and Zoro’s eye follows. Watches as it thumbs at the hard line of Sanji’s abs, the way the cook seems to be showing off. He doesn’t like the part of him that wants to touch, that wants to reach out and press his fingers against the cook’s skin. To feel if the skin there is hard or soft, to know the muscle that Sanji wields. 

The perverted curly brow grins back at Chopper and says, “Y’know, Zoro has some real weird taste, Chopper. He even -

Zoro can’t take this slander lying down, and especially not in front of Chopper. The swordsman doesn’t want to think about what it would mean if Chopper wasn’t there, and the cook said those words. 

He doesn’t have a retort prepared, doesn’t know what to say to shut the cook up, so he just strikes. His sword juts out against Sanji and the man is already prepared, leg flying straight up, somehow flexing with no strain, and Zoro’s never noticed it before, how bendy the cook is. 

There’s his heart, on fire again, burning him inside out and he can’t breathe .

Zoro manages to slice the shirt twice in the fight ensuing, cutting it into silky ribbons that will never bother the ship again. The cook looks furious  about it as he leaves to change and Zoro can finally take a nap in peace. 

Just as he’s getting comfortable, however, Brook sits down beside him, long skeletal legs splayed out as he plucks the strings of his violin and says, “Doesn’t it feel like springtime?”

Zoro ignores the man, as he laughs to himself and begins playing some ballad that Zoro can use as his excuse to stay awake, just a second longer, to see the cook return in some oversized monstrosity of a sweater, looking decent again.

He can’t stop thinking about the shirt, about the cook’s skin, even as he tries to close his eyes and sleep again. 

All he can do is swallow the flame and burn on the inside. 

4. Check in with the children. When your kids get into trouble at school, you’ll likely wait until he gets home from work to have a talk with him. Be sure to balance out your parenting skills and make sure he’s doing the duties that you cannot. Take time out of your busy schedule to spend with your family together. If he can’t take care of the kids, find a man who will

Chopper knows things have been strange, on the deck lately. Namely that Zoro and Sanji are having some kind of decisive fight. From his own study, he can tell that Sanji keeps staring at Zoro, looking at the man with confusion, and Zoro won’t look at Sanji anymore except to fight, which is normal, except, not really. He can tell Zoro’s pulse is elevated, and the scent he gives off, is well, strong. 

Mating habits of humans are a bit beyond his expertise, and he’s never asked Bepo or Carrot how they handle it with their respective crews and guests, but he understands the general instinct, after all. He understands the abstract picture of desire, and lust, and procreation. He’s a doctor, really. 

What he doesn’t understand is the complicated affair of not realizing those feelings. Medical textbooks always address the situation from the point of after, when things like pregnancy and disease could become an issue. He’s not sure Zoro and Sanji have reached that part just yet. 

He tried asking Usopp, but the sniper had put his hands over his ears and said he suddenly had can’t-talk-about-sanji-and-zoro disease , and Chopper didn’t really have a cure for that. Nami had given him a very heavy sigh, and said she was going to charge both Sanji and Zoro interest for the stress they’d put her under. 

Luffy had simply grinned, and said, “They’re just hungry, but they can’t eat yet because they’re sleeping and haven’t figured out how to eat while sleeping, so they have to wake up. I’m hungry too! Yosh, let’s ask Sanji to make some meat.”

He didn’t know what that meant, but then, he’s not sure Luffy fully understood the question, either. Instead, they had kebabs and ended up playing tag on the deck, as Chopper raced away while Luffy tried to steal his kebab. 

Still, he understands the basic instinct of courting. 

So he finds the shirt that Zoro wrecked, and begins to stitch. He’s not used to such an expensive and silky fabric, but he’s sure that Sanji was attached to it, and he feels a little bad, even if Zoro was the one to ruin it. The least he can do is try to salvage it.

Zoro finds him, on the deck, with the shirt. Zoro stares at him, with wide eyes and shock and anger, and Chopper isn’t used to Zoro directing all those emotions at him.

“Why are you fixing it?” Zoro asks, looking flabbergasted at the idea of it all. 

Chopper just wants to help, really, he does, but he doesn’t like being looked at with so evil intent and his nose twitches slightly, the impulse of a prey animal sneaking in, the desire to run before he’s given chase.

“I just- I um,” Chopper stutters, trying to find the words, “I thought Sanji really liked this shirt. And - And - And I know he cares about it since it’s the first gift you got him and I didn’t want to throw it away!” 

Zoro looks at him in unpredictable confusion, staring at him looking like stone. Then he asks a question Chopper hadn’t anticipated, his body frozen in space. 

“What do you mean, I got it for the cook?”

-

They land on a summer island with spring time weather, which means that it’s just perfect. Even Zoro’s mood seems to lift, at their new surroundings. At best, it gets him off the boat, where he doesn’t have to face the cook and remember Chopper’s explanation of how the cook acquired the shirt.

Zoro has been trying very hard to not think about it, except it creeps into his thoughts almost daily. What had the cook thought, when he saw the shirt and knew Zoro had given it? Why had he worn it? Did he really think that Zoro's taste was like that? Over and over, the thoughts spun and he hated the fucking shirt. He hated it so much.  

The rest of the crew predictably scatters to have adventures, and he can hear Luffy leaping away in the distance, hear the sniper’s garbled sounds of - “Stop that!” and Jinbei sounding bemused as he follows after the Captain. 

Nami, Chopper, Brook and Sanji have gone scavenging. Zoro walks off on his own, to meditate and train without interruption and without the cook around. His mind has been too distracted, on the ship, plagued with thoughts of the cook, and what he could have been thinking and what he was thinking and things that Zoro doesn’t like to think about. 

The forest jungle is thick, and he keeps running into the same trees, over and over again. Once, he finds himself back at the ship, but the likelihood of the cook returning has him leave it immediately again. 

Two hours of wandering, and he ends up stumbling into Franky and Robin, sitting atop a log in a clearing, eating their lunch together. 

“What are you two doing here?” he asks, nonplussed. He wasn’t aware the two had gone off together. Franky looks at her, she looks back at him. Then they turn back to look at him with identical smiles.

“We’re gathering some wood for the ship stock,” Robin says, easily. “What are you doing, swordsman-san?”

“Training,” Zoro says, because it should be obvious, right? 

Franky doesn’t seem to buy it, as he lifts his glasses and says, “Shouldn’t you be under some waterfall, by now?”

Zoro would be, if he could find one and not just some trees. He instead replies calmly with, “There’s no waterfalls in this forest.”

“I believe we passed one earlier,” Robin says, immediately, as Franky nods and Zoro scowls at them both. The waterfall had probably moved since they passed it. Robin, however, doesn’t elaborate on the location of the waterfall, as she asks, “Are you not going to gather anymore presents for the ship?”

Zoro freezes , and turns to see Robin, smiling at him harmlessly. 

He doesn’t know what she means to say, or what she’s implying but he doesn’t like it one bit. Franky, for his part, just beams and offers a thumbs up.

“Go for it, Zoro-bro,” Franky says, “I hear flowers can do the trick.”

“Try not to pick out any poisonous ones,” Robin adds, lightly, her fingers folded in her lap as she looks at him with an all too knowing gaze, “It would be a pity if your well-meaning intentions backfired and left our crew dead.”

Franky turns to her, and says, “That’s not encouraging.”

Zoro leaves them to it, his face flaming. Heat bubbles in his stomach, a sudden shock at being caught. He has a waterfall to find, and he can’t picture himself picking out flowers for anyone. No matter what Franky says.    

It’s only when he finds the waterfall does he realize that it seems like Franky and Robin were trying to imply something. He doesn’t manage to find the way back to them to ask what it was,  

- 

Sanji doesn’t get it - not the slightest. He doesn’t understand why Zoro saying thank you is moving something inside him, stirring an uncertainty that he can’t place. It’s like Zoro’s somehow evolved from the plankton like species he is, to something more whole. Something more like a fish, swimming through the ocean with value.  

Something that Sanji finds himself thinking about more often than not, even as he tries to not think about it. 

It’s just that none of Zoro’s behaviour adds up to anything, and he’s not sure why that raises his hackles, why a part of him doesn’t want the answer to why Zoro’s behaving the way he is. 

Still, after the confusing incident with Zoro wrecking the shirt, that Sanji had worn out of sheer stubbornness, and the follow up incident of Chopper bringing the shirt to Sanji and not immediately turning it into a dish rag, he’s now at incident of retrieving Zoro from the forest and dragging the man back to the boat.

It’s not hard to track someone, with haki, but it takes a minute to sort through all lifeforms in the forest, to really focus in on where Zoro could be. And then he runs, his legs kicking on the ground, hitting trees out of the way without much fanfare. His instinct tells him left, then right, then left again. A twirl through the branches and finally he finds Zoro on a cliff, looking out towards the setting sun.

Sanji’s breath catches in his throat, as he pauses to quite literally, catch his breath. This whole Zoro thing isn’t good for his heart. Or his lungs.

The man turns, looking at him with those sharp, sharp eyes. He’s still damp, hair wet like he managed to find some puddle to fall right into, and his shirt is clinging to his skin. Fuck his lungs, thinks Sanji, as he grapples for a cigarette. For the lighter. 

Smoke dances between them like a veil, a hazy veil to cover up any thoughts that he doesn’t have. To hide the things he’s not thinking about. 

“What are you doing here, ero-cook?” Zoro asks, and that’s a question, isn’t it? What is Sanji doing here, looking for this man? Staring at him. 

“What are you doing?” Sanji asks, and he wants to ask, desperately wants to peel back the steel layer Zoro coats himself in, but underneath a blade is just another blade and he - Zoro - he isn’t that way. He doesn’t do things with intent, or thought, or anything but pure instinct and they don’t talk about things that way.

They’re smoke and fire and steel, forever riling each other up. It would be easy to say Zoro can’t cut smoke, can’t make flames bleed, but in two years, they’ve changed, haven’t they? They can both do that, now. Flames could always heat metal, get strong and fiery enough to melt it down and he doesn’t know if he’s hot enough for that, if he’s burning enough to wilt Zoro down to husk.

All he knows is that little by little, he’s bleeding out.

“Looking for Robin and Franky,” Zoro says, and Sanji exhales because this - this is why he doesn’t want to think about Zoro, or the questions. The unsteady layer of questions.

Humans can’t talk to plants. They barely even speak the same language, never fit together right. 

“Right,” Sanji says, trying to calm himself down but he’s working himself up as he speaks, “Of course you are. Let me guess, you figured that if you were up high, you could spot them. Except, of course, they’re on the ship and you’re not even facing the right way. Because you’re never looking the right way.”

Zoro scowls at that, snaps back, “That’s not what I was doing.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Sanji says, and he reaches out to grab Zoro’s arm like always, and tug him towards the tree line, back to the ship. 

Except Zoro does the unthinkable - he dodges. His hand is aloft, in the air, and Sanji’s grasping at air and they’re both frozen, a tableau against the sunset as they stare at each other in surprise. 

Sanji stretches again, his hand moving to grab Zoro’s arm, flailing in the air. Zoro’s hand snaps back again, stepping backwards from Sanji. The cook finds himself more than annoyed, as he lunges this time, and asks, “What the hell, Zoro?”

The swordsman looks as confused as Sanji does, which isn’t helping the matter, as Sanji deliberately walks into Zoro’s space. He keeps stepping back, arms crossing over his chest like that’ll stop Sanji from touching him. Sanji’s hand keeps flailing, keeps hitting the air.

The ground below them creaks, as they get closer and closer to the edge and neither of them seem to notice, in their game of tag. Zoro’s fingers swat at Sanji’s, who grows more deliberate, more angry, his legs starting to flame. 

“You are seriously fucked ,” Sanji says, frothing at the mouth now. He’s never been so directly rejected like this, by anyone in his life. Even his brothers let him touch. The cook is going to kill the man, once he gets a hold of him. “What is wrong with you?!”

The ground creaks.

“Nothing!” says Zoro, stubborn, “Stop touching me, pervert curly brow!” 

“Like hell,” hisses Sanji, hands grasping against Zoro’s shirt at last, pulling the man towards him and they stumble. Zoro’s hands wrap around Sanji’s wrists, as he falls forward, into Sanji. The cook’s legs tangle with Zoro’s, as he grips tighter to the shirt, causing small tears to form as he says, “You’ve been acting weirder than usual and you gave me that shirt and keep saying thank you and now I can’t touch you, and you - 

“Let go of me,” snaps Zoro, tugging at Sanji’s hands but he’s clawed into Zoro’s shirt, like a cat, and the swordsman stumbles, tries to regain his footing and balance, as Sanji’s face hovers in front of him and he can see the flames in the cook’s eyes, feel the burning rage of his anger, “It’s none of your business you shitty cook - 

Sanji’s foot stomps on his, as Zoro’s knee moves to hit the cook in the stomach and they’re twisting, dancing on the edge of the cliff together, trying to detach and tangle together and - 

And then they fall.

5. He should be happy to see you. We all have bad days but he should leave those out of the home. If work was stressful, he needs to leave those negative feelings at the office. This doesn't mean he cannot communicate about worries or troubles, but if he’s not able to to enjoy your company and focus on a happy household, why are you even doing this?

Falling hurts, Zoro thinks, dismally. Not as much as stabbing, but enough that rocks and dirt chased after them, hit his back as he and Sanji grappled mid-air. 

Wado is out of the sheath, dug between two rocks in the side of the ledge, and he’s hanging uselessly in the air from his sword, staring down at his leg, where Sanji is dangling from, looking just as furious as before. 

“Get us up, cook,” Zoro says, leg flailing as he tries to wave the cook around. Predictably, Sanji doesn’t want to just do what Zoro says, even if it’s sensible. 

“You didn’t get me the shirt,” Sanji says, instead, like hanging out on a cliff, dangling at least thirty stories up in the air is the space for this conversation, their lives probably hanging in the balance. 

“You’re seriously bringing the shirt up?” Zoro asks, as he kicks his leg a little harder, trying to shake the cook off, force him to do his skywalk thing, but he’s gripping tight onto Zoro’s calf, and his hand is digging inside his pocket. 

“Tch,” he says, sounding grievously annoyed and looking to the ground, “I dropped my cigarettes.”

The last vestiges of sunlight dance across the strands of his hair, fluttering along his cheekbones. He looks furious about his cigarettes, of all things, even as he clings to Zoro with one hand as they dangle on the edge of a cliff. 

He’s beautiful, Zoro has to admit. He’s stupid, and strong, and stubborn, and beautiful.

There’s no man like Sanji anywhere he looks. The cook suddenly tilts his head up, looking at him with one clear blue eye, the hair on his head falling back and Zoro’s breath hitches in his throat, as Sanji stares at him like that. 

Oh, he thinks, as that warm feeling bubbles inside of him, that strange, alien sensation from before. From after. From a long time ago.

“I wouldn’t pick such a shitty shirt,” Zoro says, at last, looking at the cook and taking in every angle of his face, the swirl of his stupid eyebrow. 

His other leg, the free one, moves to kick the cook’s face and the cook swings, body bending in mid-air to block his hit and Zoro’s grinning like an absolute idiot even as Wado creaks, as they drop another five feet in the air, the sword slicing through rock. 

“Yeah right,” Sanji says, sounding disbelieving on the matter. 

“Nobody wears shirts like that,” Zoro tries again, as they hang there, “With everything just exposed.”

The cook snorts, and looks up at Zoro meaningfully. He pauses, stares at his own chest, currently open and on display, as a result of the cook quite literally tearing it in half, forcing a strip of fabric to fall to its doom because the bastard wouldn't let go. Every angle of his scar is on display, the twist of his own muscles. 

“This is your taste, shit cook, ” Zoro snaps back, flustered again, “You ripped it.”

“It’s not my taste, mosshead,” says Sanji, looking away suddenly, dropping his leg to dangle in the air and they fall again, another two feet, as Zoro digs the sword in deeper to the rock. He scowls back at Sanji, trying to force the man to move  and get them to safety. 

“So why did you give me the shirt?” the cook asks, “And why do you keep saying thank you? And why were you freaking out earlier?”

Zoro stares at the cook, a beat passes.  

“I was trying to make it even,” Zoro offers, at last, by way of explanation. He thinks it sums up everything, really, between them. 

The blonde doesn’t look any less confused, as he pinches Zoro’s ankle, and the swordsman yelps, stares at the cook who looks back at him stubbornly. 

“Make what even?” Sanji asks, finally, both hands now grasped around Zoro’s leg, as he holds himself aloft in the air to ask such a stupid question. 

“You do a bunch of shit, for me,” Zoro hedges, and he’s looking up, away from the cook’s face, away from everything except Wado, in his hand, burning with his strength and not the weakness, hanging from his leg. 

One will win out. His swords, or the cook. 

“What the fuck are you talking about, shitty swordsman?”

“You cook, and clean, and make shirts and - 

“So?” 

The cook sounds furious, and Zoro’s head tilts back to see the cook’s face twisted into a scowl, anger pulsing from him as he grips Zoro’s leg a little harder, his fingers digging into the skin. 

Then Sanji leaps, legs kicking into the side of the rock and he’s standing in the air, in front of Zoro, legs flaming with his anger as he balances in the air, holds himself aloft with practiced ease like he isn't just flying, or as close to it as possible. 

“I do that for everyone,” the cook says, furious, “Why are you keeping score, you asshole? And it’s not like I was doing anything special for you over everyone else so why are you getting so - 

It’s not about keeping score, Zoro wants to say. It’s about being equals, he tries to say. His tongue catches, his breath sticks. 

The box unlocks. 

Now, in most cases, a box unlocks and the person has to examine the content. Makes a plan to prepare for what to do with it. Put it away, store it, pack it up or gift it again. Zoro is not most people; he’s a man aspiring to be the world’s greatest swordsman. 

This is just another battle to fight. 

“Because I love you, idiot dart brow,” Zoro says, and he means it, staring at the cook as he balances on the sword, as the two of them face each other, eye to eye. He didn't know he loved the cook either, not until now. 

Not until this moment where the words chase after the cook, slip free and carry in the air and he's hearing them out loud and a small pop resounds in his brain, the realization stinging his face.  His heart catches up to his resolve, and it explodes inside his chest. Shrapnel flies against his veins, his bones, and he’s sure his blood pours out faster from his head, from his back. He can feel the beating of his chest increase, the rapid flush overtaking his face and through all of it, he can’t look away. 

It’s fascinating to watch the expressions flutter on Sanji’s face. Shock - anger - shock - confusion - shock again - 

His hand is held out, as sputtering sounds are made and he’s pointing at Zoro, looking confused as the flame sizzles out, as he tries to figure this whole thing out, process the hundreds of emotions that Zoro took weeks to sort through, and managed to come to a conclusion at only now, as they hang in the air for their lives. 

And then Sanji falls out of the air. 

Zoro freezes, watches Sanji drop for a second and then realizes the cook is quite literally falling. 

He does the only thing he can, as he digs Wado out of the rock and falls after him.

-

“They still haven’t returned,” Jinbei says, as the sun drips out of the sky, fades into the oblivion of night. 

It’s dark now, and they had planned to set sail with the cover of night. The whale fishman doesn’t appreciate the change of plans, though Luffy’s sitting on the edge of the ship, looking particularly pleased with the turn out. 

He doesn’t understand this ship, or it’s captain, or it’s crew.

“Should we go look for them?” Jinbei asks, to Nami, who’s staring out into the forest. 

“Well, we’ll probably miss dinner without Sanji,” Nami says, thoughtful, as the stars start to twinkle.”He usually finds Zoro by now.” 

Luffy’s face swings around, jaw dropping as he stares at Nami with shock in his eyes, as though he hadn’t contemplated that Sanji’s disappearance might mean that they’re not going to eat. 

“Sanji! Zoro!” he calls out, pressing the hat against his head, “We’re coming for you!”

And then he swings away, into the woods as Nami sighs and says, “I’ll get everyone ready to go look for those three.”

-

Later, Sanji will tell everyone that he fell gracefully, with purpose and by choice. Right now, however, his brain is fizzling, rotting away as Zoro’s words cleave straight through his mind. 

Zoro loves him . 

He didn’t even know Zoro was capable of human emotion, let alone love. What does Zoro mean he loves him?

Sanji only realizes halfway down that he’s still falling through the air. He only realizes as Zoro flies behind him, comes charging like a bull to grab him, to rescue him. And something about that triggers a muscle memory, a desire to never lose.

His leg kicks upward, smacking Zoro in the chest and sending the man flying into the air, above the cliff. Sanji turns, sees the ground incoming and knows he doesn’t have the same room to maneuver, to flow backwards into the air so he twists, tries to land on his feet but he stumbles.

Crack!

His ankle snaps as he rolls to the ground and - probably not a good thing that he’s spilling blood on the ground, leaking it from his leg as his shoulder blade scratches against the rock, back tearing into the dirt on the ground and there’s a riverbed nearby, rushing water streams past him as he lays on the ground, bleeding.

Vaguely, he can make out the crushed shape of his cigarette box. It hurts to move his foot, to maneuver his way out of this situation so he slides his entire body, lets his blood drag on the ground until he reaches a crushed up packet of dirty cigarettes.

Shaky fingers drag one out, as he stares up above the cliff. Vaguely, he thinks, he heard a thud of Zoro banging into something. 

They’re separated by an entire mountain - or very tall hill. He’s not sure, as he stares up the rocky edges, lays on the ground and tries to process what just happened. His body is sore, aching, as he realizes what he just did. And said.

And didn’t say.

Zoro loves him.

What the fuck?

6. You'll probably fail. Recognize that neither of you are probably good at this whole thing, that the rules stopped applying a long time ago. Recognize that love, like most things, forms at it's own pace. At it's own speed. There's no right way or wrong way. Just do what you can, be the best version of yourself, and find a someone who'll love you for that. Find someone who wants to be with you, at your worst. Bonus points if he's only ever seen you at your worst, too. 

Chopper finds Zoro, hanging from a tree and looking particularly furious, his head bleeding as he dangles in the air, a branch clearly going through his shoulder.

“Someone call a doctor!” 

“You’re the doctor,” says Robin, kindly, as her hands go to drag Zoro out of the tree without disturbing his wounds. 

“I’m going to kill that shitty cook.”

-

Franky, Brook and Jinbei are the ones who stumble onto Sanji, sluggishly trying to stand on his very broken ankle. 

“Please tell me I can’t see your bone,” Franky moans, looking disgusted at the sight of the cook. 

“You can see my bones?” Brook says, sounding shocked, “How could that be?!”

Jinbei moves to help Sanji up, as he leans against the Fishman. 

“Yohoho course you can see my bones!” Brook says, “Because that’s all I am!” 

-

“We found Luffy,” says Usopp, turning to where Nami has wrangled the Captain by grabbing his ear to drag him back, “Thank god it was just Luffy.”

-

They end up back where they were, when this whole endeavour started. They're lying on the infirmary beds, as Chopper threatens them with death if they take their bandages off, laying side by side and staring at the ceiling. Neither of them speaks, as the realization spreads through the room and they both seem to come to terms with the words said, the things left open. 

Zoro turns first, his back to Sanji as he says, "Forget what I said, shit cook."

Sanji stays silent, eyes on the planks of the ceiling, boring holes into the wood like he can somehow see through it. Or maybe he's envisioning himself somewhere else. Zoro wouldn't blame him for doing that, for wanting to be anywhere else.

Sanji, however, is not envisioning himself somewhere else. He's remembering, trying to piece together the when, the where, the how. Was it at Drum Island, after they'd sailed together and fought together against those shitty bounty hunter Baroque Works guys? Was it in Alabasta? Water Seven? Was it back on Fishman Island? Or was it somewhere else, when this thing with Zoro started? When Zoro started this thing of feeling things. He wants to ask, but his tongue holds back.

"I didn't hit my head when I fell, mosshead," says Sanji, and it lacks bite as he weighs this delicate thing Zoro's handed him, places it in the recesses of his heart and tries to assess it. To feel if it's a burden he wants to carry. 

"Then I'll hit your head for you," Zoro says, easily, facing the wall and trying to imagine himself flying through it, splintering the wood apart and forcing his way through. It's a coward's route, to run away. To hide from the important things. The world's greatest swordsman can't be a coward, right? 

"You wish," Sanji says, and Zoro can hear the man shifting, the bed creaking.

He doesn't turn around, doesn't see Sanji sitting himself up, leg still slung in a cast and he's staring at Zoro's prone form, at the curve of Zoro's ear. At all three earrings. He remembers, vaguely, wondering if that part of Zoro was soft. He wonders now if Zoro's heart is soft too, if Sanji stuck his hand into Zoro's chest, if it would squish below his fingers, or fight back. If it would cut the way his swords do, and leave blood all over Sanji's fingers. 

He wonders who's really scared, of the weight of Zoro's words. 

He's the one can't hurt his hands. Would Zoro hurt them, if Sanji tried to hold his heart? 

"I'm not going to date you," Sanji says, finally, and Zoro finally turns at those words, looks at him with a kind of lividity that only the cook can bring out of him. 

"I didn't say I wanted to date you, curly brow," Zoro snaps, and they're finally staring at each other, looking into each other's eyes and Sanji's the one up top, now. Someone to crick his neck at. He doesn't like that, and finds himself forcing his hands on the bed, to sit up. They're face to face, eye to eye. 

"So what? You just love me and mope around the ship and give me shitty shirts and keep saying thank you?" Sanji asks, and Zoro stops, unsure. 

Honestly, he hadn't thought this far. He hadn't considered what it means to love.

"I won't give you shitty shirts," he offers, and it sounds bigger, in the moment. It swells into the room, wraps around them.

Sanji's breath hitches, for whatever reason, at such a selfish statement. He doesn't look away, because Zoro isn't looking away and there's blood, leaking onto bandages. He can see it, blossoming on Zoro's shoulder blade, stretching outwards. Splotchy patchworks, like fireworks, glistening against his skin, stark on the white linen that Chopper used to bind his wound. 

"You'll keep saying thank you," Sanji says, and Zoro hesitates. 

"You got a problem with that, cook?" Zoro asks, and his eyes dart away, a flush taking over his cheeks. Sanji's own face feels warm, a glow taking his skin.

Zoro notices, he sees the spread of pink along Sanji's cheekbones, down his neck. It's starker on pale skin, sharper too and it makes his own glow feel more pronounced. It leaves him feeling warmer. He doesn't know why it affects him, so much. He doesn't know why he can't breathe because of something so miniscule. He doesn't have the training to not react over the cook, like this. He doesn't know why the cook reacts to him, either. But it makes something inside him roar with approval, a swell of pride that rears his head in ways he didn't know it could, before. 

"Been trying to teach you some manners for a while now," Sanji says, and now he's not looking at Zoro either. Zoro swivels his head back, stares at Sanji as his face shutters, closes off. He's focused only on the cook, fumbling with his pocket and only now realizing he doesn't have any cigarettes that aren't destroyed. "Don't want you backsliding now." 

Zoro's not sure what that means, either. He doesn't know what this nebulous thing is, between him and the cook. He doesn't know if there's supposed to be more, or there's supposed to be less. He doesn't ask, either. 

He just watches. 

The cook huffs, sounding frustrated and it's maddening, Zoro thinks, as his gaze slides to those lips, to Sanji's hand, running through his hair and his teeth gnashing together. The swordsman doesn't get it. Doesn't know why Sanji's panicking, why he's freaking out all of a sudden, but he throws his pillow at Sanji's face and it collides, hits the man square.

He turns to scowl at Zoro, stops doing those rabid movements, to snap, "You're such an ingrate."

Zoro doesn't respond to that, just says, "Cook."

He doesn't know what he's trying to convey, in that one word. Maybe it's frustration - he feels that. He feels so frustrated he could slice through a hundred marines and just keep going, keep fighting until the end of time. Maybe it's longing, because he wants something, anything - to go back to the way it was before, to talk about that silent hitch in the cook's throat that he won't admit to, to touch the cook's hair and run his fingers over Sanji's skin. Maybe it's regret - because he can't do any of that, not now. Maybe not ever.

He doesn't know what it means but something snaps in Sanji, his shoulders sink and his body suddenly slumps, as he stares back at Zoro with that wide, wide eye. 

"Okay," says the cook, says Sanji, staring back at Zoro and they're just watching each other, open books. Slumped shoulders, open eyes. Defeat, acceptance, loss, longing. They're just there, together, shoulder to shoulder, like always. "Okay."

"Okay," Zoro echoes.  

Chapter Text

This is the part of a love story where two people come together, where there is a happily ever after 

Traditionally, there are dates. Confessions of love. Whispered sweet nothings. Meeting the parents. Decisions of the future. Marriage. 

Traditionally, there are steps and patterns and romance. There’s dating manuals and guides. 

Nothing about this story has been traditional, and at this point the guides are unable to predict where this story will go. 

At this point, we close our eyes, throw tradition out the window, and take a leap of faith into the great unknown. 

—

It would be easy to say things went to normal, after the island. After Zoro confessed his love and spread it out in the infirmary like vomit, putrid and repellant and stinky. It would be easy to say the whole thing was just a mistake, a momentary lapse of faith or judgement. It would be so easy to just forgive and forget that Zoro broke something between them.  

It would be easy; but this was never easy. 

The silence claws at them, in the infirmary. After something so utterly embarrassing, Zoro fakes sleep. 

Sanji allows it, but only because he’s busy faking sleep too.

Their backs are turned to each other, unable to turn the slightest inch for fear that they’ll make a sound, that they’ll catch sight of one another. Sanji thinks his heart might finally collapse if he turns around. That it’ll give out and he’ll finally turn to dust or ash, burn out into nothing.  

His face is unmistakably flushed. It’s so hot that he suspects he’s on fire and only the sheets staying cool and not burnt is enough to assuage those worries. It’s sheer willpower keeping him from destroying everything. 

Neither of them sleep through the night. Zoro, predictably, caves first, and gets up to leave at some point. Sanji hears him grunting, the sound of Zoro stepping out of the room and the door closing. 

It’s dawn by the time Sanji braves getting up. Zoro’s sheets are a mess, blood staining the white and leaving a pool of it where his shoulder was - the man never called Chopper, and Sanji failed to alert the doctor. Failed to even notice. 

It’s drenched, and when he steps closer, he can smell the staleness of it. Of Zoro, laying there, bleeding out because he’d rather die than face Sanji again. 

There’s a clear trail of blood on the floor and he resists the urge to step in it. Resists the urge to mop it up. To follow it to its source and place his hands on the wound, stem it at the source and stain his fingers. 

He doesn’t want to follow it, either, but trust Zoro to be an idiot, even in this. Unable to hide properly. A part of him worries, wonders if the man passed out from blood loss. 

He’s frozen, for the first time. 

It takes him great effort to turn around, to head downstairs. He ends up banging on the door to the men’s cabin. He hears Usopp and Chopper moving before he leaves. 

Dark circles line his eyes as he scrambles through his notebook of recipes, meal plans. His body turns to autopilot, functioning only to cook and serve. He finds himself cooking Zoro something rich in iron, good for blood loss. 

His heart doesn’t stop beating. 

—

“You tore out your stitches!” 

Chopper is screaming, because there’s only one appropriate response to this mess and it’s to yell. 

Zoro had somehow left the infirmary, collapsed into a corner and fallen asleep and bled through the night. Even despite his superhuman condition and strength, this wasn’t healthy.

The doctor could only fret, as Zoro absently gazed out into the distance. This was after Chopper had stumbled into the kitchen, found Sanji somehow walking around on that broken ankle, stumbling in the kitchen and serving freshly cooked breakfast - which was normal. The wake up call wasn’t - and he could only suspect something was wrong. 

Even at his insistence that Sanji needed rest, the cook had refused and Chopper could only hover in the kitchen, trying to ensure Sanji didn’t push himself too hard. And then he’d smelled the blood as he went to the infirmary to check on Zoro. 

Chopper has already brewed some pain medication for their wounds, but also to put them both to sleep. He didn’t like medicating them to rest if he could help it, not when the seas could change at any moment. Usually Zoro never needed that kind of encouragement, either, to just go to sleep. He couldn’t tell what had gone wrong, but Zoro wasn’t even whining about Chopper redoing his bandages too tight, or insisting no training for a week, at the least. 

“Alright, let’s get you back to the infirmary and - 

“No.”

Zoro’s eyes are shut, the medication starting to take action as he leans against the wall. Chopper blinks, startled. 

“You need rest,” he tries again, and it feels vaguely like the argument with Sanji, after breakfast - breakfast that Zoro missed and for once Sanji didn’t even complain about that. He just handed Chopper a bowl of food and promised to sleep in the galley. He’d even agreed to having Brook watch to make sure he didn’t strain himself. 

It’s at this point that Chopper begins to suspect something happened. Again. 

He wonders if they’re going to fight again - and it’s not scary but. 

He doesn’t like them fighting - not like that. Not like this, either. Not hard lines and sharp cuts and anger. Bruises. Blood. 

There’s so much blood this time.

He doesn’t understand human mating rituals but in every animal species, in every tradition he’s seen or heard, he’s never heard of a mating ritual that involves quite literally trying to kill each other. 

Well, insects do that - eat their mates. Zoro and Sanji aren’t bugs, far from it. They don’t copulate and kill for sustenance, survive off of each other’s pain, but he’s starting to wonder if this too, is part of love. If maybe, there’s a part of them that works like insects. If they plan to fight until one of them is dead. 

If hurting each other is how romance is meant to work.   

He tells this to Robin, after. After Zoro’s set up in a hammock and Jinbei agrees to watch him because hammocks aren’t great resting places and Zoro’s the type to run away, to start training all over again and tear out the IV he’s set up for the man. 

She hums, thoughtful, and smiles that all too knowing smile. 

“Love can be painful,” she tells Chopper, “People die for it all the time. I hope our swordsman and cook aren’t the type.”

Chopper’s an expert on that - on adrenaline rushes. On the ability to gain strength and momentum. He sees Luffy do impossible feats for the people he loves all the time. Chopper’s felt it too, seen the miracles of love and seen how it’s pushed him to be better. 

He’s also read about broken heart symptoms. Of heart attacks triggered by death and grief so strong a person just gives up on life. Of swans, dying with their partner. He’s sure it’s a double edged sword, that it’ll take just as desperately. He’s seen people lose the will to live and fade way. 

Robin’s words aren’t reassuring, but she presses a hand to his cheek. 

“They’re strong,” she says, promises, “But we’ll watch over them, just in case.”

All he can do is nod. 

—

They avoid each other until their injuries begin to heal. 

The words swell into the space between them, spread out, stretch the void out.

Nobody asks why, this time. 

—

“You don’t love me.”

Zoro sits up, because he’s on watch and it’s late and the cook approached so silently that he’s actually ticked off. He wasn’t expecting him - not now. Not so soon. 

The bandages on his shoulder are now mostly for show, the wound knitting together and the scar starting to form. It’s deep, ugly and gruesome and it slices where Mihawk once did, a star bursting over his body and everything spreads from there, down his chest. 

He’s supposed to be healing.

“You don’t love me,” the cook repeats, looking pale like a ghost in the moonlight, blond hair dipping over his face. The swirl of his brow is almost hypnotic. 

They haven’t been face to face in at least two week, now. It hurt - but then, this hurts more. 

Zoro doesn’t deign to give the cook an answer, because if he does he might hit him. It’s not like Zoro hadn’t been thinking the same thing for the last two weeks. It wasn’t like he’d spent every waking minute, ruminating over the phrase, I love you , trying to turn it to dust. Trying to rack his brain for a way out.

He’s never good at mazes, though, and the walls aren’t so easy to cut down. 

“You can’t love me,” the cook tries, as he leans against the wall of the Crow’s Nest. “You don’t want to date me, and you sure as hell don’t want to kiss me and be romantic - or -

“Is that what love is?” Zoro asks, because he’s never actually been sure and he’s too - not afraid, but hesitant - to ask anyone. 

Because love is a storybook thing, of promises and eternity and kisses and he’d never cared for that part of the tale. All he ever wanted was the story where the knight slays the dragon, or the swordsman earns glory. He’s never cared for the storybooks about princesses.  

He hasn’t tried to picture kissing the cook. He can never visualize how it would go.  

The cook snorts, sounding more disgruntled by the minute. 

“It’s romance, ” says the cook, staring at Zoro with a scowl and there’s a pinch inside Zoro’s chest.

Like Law’s pulled his heart out and squeezing. He resists the temptation to stab himself, to take Wado to his chest and pull the ache out and bleed, let this feeling fade away. 

“What do you want from me?” the cook asks, as he begins to pace. He never stops moving, those lean legs hitting the floor and he’s going back and forth, back again. Like the tide, rocking the ship. Like Aqua Laguna, trying to barrage into the city and take everything away. 

Zoro wants to slice him in two and walk through him like he’s just another obstacle. Cut away at him like the walls of the maze he can’t get out of. Maybe, he thinks, that’s what love is. 

Sanji stares at him, the scowl growing deeper. 

Oh - he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. 

“That’s hate, dumbass,” Sanji says, leg hovering in the air, like he wants to kick but doesn’t know how. The ache returns to his chest, the never-ending beat of his own unsteady heart. He wants to cut - but he can’t. 

He’s never had to face that, before. Love is tiring, complicated and frustrating.

“I don’t want you dead, cook,” Zoro says, at last. He’s sure of that, at least. “If I hated you, I’d want you dead.”  

“You want to cut me into pieces,” the cook tries, flat. “I thought you wanted to give me shirts. What do you even want, shithead?” 

What does Zoro want? He doesn’t know - and meditating, training, nothing helps. 

“Nothing,” he says, and then amends, “I just want things to be normal.”

The cook looks furious, returns to pacing. His ankle’s back to normal, more or less. He doesn’t have bandages anymore, but it’s slight. A limp that hasn’t quite faded away, yet. 

“How am I supposed to be normal when you just - you kept giving me shit and saying thank you and acting insane and now you want to kill me but not really and you love me and -

“So what?” Zoro asks, annoyed. “You don’t love me.”

The cook pauses, swings back around. Stares. It’s the first time he’s come to a full stop, and - the ache is back. The sudden pang that squeezes into his chest. 

“You don’t even know the first thing about love,” the cook says, finally. He sounds irritated, and now Zoro’s irate. “You’re confused.

“I wouldn’t be confused about this.” 

The cook makes a sound, a garbled scream of frustration that clings to his throat and then he stomps away. 

He leaves Zoro awake for the rest of his watch, considering. 

Maybe he really should kill the cook and just get it over with. 

—

The conversation with Zoro doesn’t go anywhere - Sanji doesn’t know why he expected anything different. He doesn’t know what he thought he’d get, either. He had somehow thought maybe Zoro would be normal, say some regular people shit. Like he wanted to make out and go on dates and not kill him.

He smokes a pack of cigarettes before the sun comes up. 

If Zoro doesn’t kill him, the chain smoking might. He’s never been a chain smoker, not like this. He’s never been so jittery, out of his skin and ready to explode at every hour. Sometimes, he thinks he might just burst into an inferno and never come back. Just combust into smoke and drift away on the air. Sometimes, he wishes he could just turn invisible. Fade away into nothing. 

The nerves don’t calm down and he doesn’t know what to do. 

Romance - well. He has his notions about romance, about love. About eternity and vows and forever afters. 

Zoro is not the picture perfect fairytale he dreamt of. He’s real, and vibrant, and stubborn and. He’s real, which is perhaps the most difficult part to understand. He doesn’t know how to handle it. 

“Sanji?” says a curious voice, and he turns to see Luffy, standing there. Awake, for once, at the crack of dawn. The captain stares at him, sitting in the galley surrounded by cigarette buds and smelling of smoke and doesn’t say anything for a long moment. 

“I’m hungry,” he says at last, crossing his arms and looking at Sanji with a tilt of his head, “What’s for breakfast?”

Sanji stands, and his hands still. 

This, he knows. This, he can handle. 

—

Zoro meditates. 

That’s what Zoro does. He trains and meditates and thinks.

How does he know this is love?

The question doesn’t fit right. With everything that’s happened - the rejection, the anger, the pain - he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how he knows what love is, just that this is all consuming and frustrating and painful.

But it hadn’t been. 

It had been easy, when it was a matter of standing side by side. Of being equals. 

Of fighting. 

Sanji was the one who complicated it. Sanji had been the one to do more than fighting. And he’d raced ahead, forced Zoro to give chase. To bring them to sum zero, like always. 

Isn’t that love? 

—

Brook plays love ballads in the galley. Sanji cooks. 

“Can you change the song?” 

Brook pauses, note held for just a moment as Sanji emerges. 

“Does it bother you?” 

Sanji hesitates, then nods once. 

The skeleton considers. He had hoped some ballads and tales of romance would stir the cook a tad. Move him to recognize something. It’s been utterly too tense on the ship lately. He’s old and weary and it steeps in his bones, leaves them worse for the wear. He can hear them creak now, but yohoho, he’s just bones. Of course he can hear them creak.

“Alright,” Brook says, changing the melody slightly. Uplifting music it is, then. 

“Thanks,” says Sanji, and he’s going to run away, so Brook holds the note again. 

“When you’re ready,” Brook offers, because he’s spent fifty years floating alone on a ship, sad and cold and empty. He’s done with patience. “I can play them again.” 

Sanji blinks, stands in the doorway and Brook is afraid of nothing - not really. He’s survived the worst, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t intimidated by the frown. By the angry waves flowing off the cook. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“My dear boy,” Brook says, and he tries to smile but it’s strained, “That’s for you to decide.” 

Sanji freezes. 

He wants to ask, but Brook resumes the melody. The song plays and Sanji doesn’t move.

“He said wants to kill me. He thinks love is just fighting. He doesn’t even know what he’s saying and he’s - he’s Zoro - he’s not. We’re not. Love isn’t supposed to be like that. He hates me more than he - he wants to kill me.” 

Crescendo. The music rises, louder and louder. Pulsating bones rap against the keys and he slams on the medal to hold the notes as he gets louder. Loud enough to make the cook gape, drown out his words. Loud enough to strike chords in hearts and rumble against skin, to move against a man. 

And then he drops the song. 

“He wanted you to live, too.”

They haven’t talked about Thriller Bark, not in a long time. Not since they left the ship. Sanji looks as though he’s been slapped - which, good. The music was meant for that. 

Sanji flees. 

—

“Y’know cook bro,” Franky says, sounding less than pleased at Sanji’s chosen hiding spot, “Can’t you peel potatoes in the kitchen?” 

Usopp has accepted that whatever Sanji and Zoro are doing is none of his business. He has also accepted that he will die from stress induced ulcers. Franky has not gotten the memo. 

“Shut up,” Sanji mutters, as he continues his job. 

Usopp is setting up a filtration system for the plants, because the pop greens take some time to grow and mature and nurture, and Nami wants the tangerine trees to be better cared for. He is very busy and is not getting involved in potential murders. 

Franky looks exasperated, but let’s it go to take a look at Usopp’s pipe arrangement. 

“We should put it on a timer,” Franky says, finally, “Turn it off and on if we’re away from the ship.” 

“Should we hook it up to the water reservoir?” 

They begin to get distracted, involved in construction. Sanji peels potatoes. It’s almost pleasant. 

—

He’s not a coward. He’s just a romantic with expectations and hopes and dreams. He’s someone who wants to caress and hold, not stab and slice. He’s a lover, not a fighter. Except, of course, for Brook, who he can’t face anymore. 

The shitty skeleton had to bring that old shit up. 

So Sanji is hiding. He cooks, he cleans. He flees as far from the galley as possible. 

Brook has turned the safety of the kitchen into a nightmare. Sanji cannot believe he’s being harassed out by music.

He’s not a coward. So then, why does he feel a niggling sense of doubt? 

Love.

He’s thinking about that a lot these days. About love and hate and the line between the two. About Zoro and his earrings and his shitty declarations of murder and romance, all at once. 

He’s thinking about a lot of things.

Sometimes, he thinks about his mother. He knows she loved his father, at one point. That one day she married a man and the next day he became the villain of her story. That makes his hands shake, makes him want to cry more often than not. 

He thinks about marriage - about how easy it was when it was just throwing his life on the line and saying yes to Pudding, because it was a sacrifice. He’s sure he could have made her happy. 

He’s not sure he can make Zoro happy the same way. They can barely stand each other.  

He thinks about Zoro. About their fighting, and their anger, and the days that have gone by since either of them talked. Denial was easy, misdirection. 

Zoro won’t drop the idea, though. 

It’s not that he hates the idea of Zoro being - well. In love with him. It’s just that he can’t put the two things together. Zoro, and in love with him. He doesn’t know how to face him.

Sometimes it’s sheer embarrassment - other times it’s anger. Sometimes, it’s resentment, other times it’s grief. Sometimes it’s this giddy feeling that overtakes his face and leaves him tongue-tied.  

He doesn’t know when his heart will stop thudding in his chest, when it will stop flip-flopping in his chest and banging on his ribs, demanding to be let loose, torn from his chest and flung away. Maybe it’s a heart attack.

He nearly entertains the idea of asking Franky to build him a robotic heart, and dismisses it on the grounds of fear that Franky might, in fact, build him a robotic heart. 

He’s never felt like this before.  

—

They land on an island and it doesn’t come soon enough. Luffy, for whatever reason, keeps badgering Sanji for meals and the food stock has gone low and he’s rounder than normal, rolling around the ship and crashing into Zoro at every turn.  

He ended up fighting with his Captain almost daily, and every time Luffy laughs like it’s all just a big joke and pats Zoro on the head. It’s aggravating for the First Mate, and he’s relieved when Luffy runs off to find an adventure. It’s lonely, too, because besides Luffy nobody’s been able to approach him. 

Everything’s changed. 

The truth of the situation isn’t that Zoro wanted something to change - it’s just the opposite. He’s never been in love before, he’s never felt such fierce admiration, such desire, such longing, for anything but his swords, and even that emotion is something else. Something he can work towards, tangible and important in it’s own right. He doesn’t know what he wanted to gain by telling the cook anything.

He doesn’t even know why he did it. 

Theoretically, he understands the concept of love. He’s seen mothers dive in front of their kids, fathers that go to war. He remembers Kuina and thinks of the slight twinge in his heart when he was younger, when he dreamed of a world where they’d fight until the end of time, but even that was simpler. A clear picture of winning, and losing, and small emotions that don’t overtake his entire being.  

Sometimes, Zoro wonders if his declaration was selfish. If he said it because he wanted something. But that just makes the maze in his mind more confusing, and sometimes it ends with him holding his swords and not understanding when he unsheathed them.

Sometimes, he thinks he really does want to kill the cook. 

Still, maybe there’s merit to the cook’s argument. Maybe he is confused - maybe he doesn’t know anything. 

So Zoro observes. 

He walks around this port city and he tries to understand what he wants from love besides this pang that echoes in his heart.

Couples hold hands. 

He thinks about the cook’s hands, softer than the rest of him but with callouses on the fingers, the worked bone of someone used to holding knives. The way they curl around a cigarette. He thinks about his own skin, rough and cut up from years of practice. He thinks of sliding his fingers between Sanji’s. He thinks of them in his and gags at the idea of walking around, hand in hand with the cook, open and vulnerable with their hands clasped together.  

Couples date. 

He observes them on dates, sitting together in their own little world, whispering sweet nothings and smiling and his face pales at the thought of ever calling the cook something as simpering as darling. Worse still, the image of the cook calling him darling threatens to overwhelm, to ruin his already precarious day. He pictures the cook twirling over him like he does Nami and his vision turns red. 

Couples kiss.

He thinks of kissing the cook, of making love. The image is hazy in his mind. He can’t picture it - doesn’t know how their bodies would arrange together, folded up close and personal without a weapon in the way. Without anger and tension and tightness. Without competition and insult and injury. 

Maybe he doesn’t love the cook. Maybe he didn’t want anything. 

—

“ I don’t know if I’m qualified for this.” 

Nami doesn’t really know what to do with this information, as she finds herself sitting in a bar with Zoro and Usopp, all over again. It’s been nearly a month since they left that tiny island in the middle of nowhere, and set sail for bigger and better things. Zoro’s shoulder healed, Sanji’s ankle was back to new. 

It was almost like that island had never existed.

Except every day on the ship is suffocating, the air tight and tense in a way that’s not easy to read. A storm brewing that she can’t figure out how to navigate out of. 

Usopp, for his part, looks frustrated that he’s even here. Then again, she had told him they were going to shop. Neither of them had anticipated Zoro would drag them back into this mess, nor had they truly wanted to get involved this time. Half of her wonders if Zoro intentionally sought them out, or they were just unlucky enough to be the first in his path. 

Nami’s one of the smarter people on the crew, a veritable genius at navigation. She’s observant, she likes to think. She can tell the weather and control the clouds. She cannot, however, decipher anything about her crewmates and she feels at a loss, unsure how they all missed something so utterly critical. She can’t confirm if Sanji feels the same way. And she definitely can’t confirm what Zoro feels. 

“One of you has to know something,” Zoro says, sounding huffy and annoyed for asking questions that makes her tremble.

Is it normal to want to kill someone you love?

Are you supposed to want something, from love? 

Nami looks at Usopp. He looks at her.

They’re both panicking. 

“I mean, does it matter if you don’t want anything?” Usopp finally asks, and Nami could kiss the man for finding the courage to say anything.

It’s more than her, at this moment. 

Zoro looks confused all over again. 

“He said it wasn’t love,” Zoro begins, and Nami is already too involved. Even if Zoro won’t say Sanji’s name she can hear it, ringing in the background. Like alarm bells, telling her to run. Every survival instinct in her body is telling her to flee. “That wanting to kill him isn’t normal. But I don’t want him dead. I don’t want anything. I just - 

“Okay,” says Nami, raising her hand to stop Zoro before they end up accomplices in murder or something worse. “So he doesn’t believe you love him? Why do you think he doesn’t believe you? Can’t you just, I don’t know, convince him you love him?”

The swordsman opens his mouth, then closes it. There’s a fierce mental battle on his face and Nami can see him debating the humiliation of telling her, versus just letting this whole thing die. 

“But what if he’s right and I don’t actually love him,” Zoro says, again, and Nami’s head is spinning. “It’s not like I want to date him.”

“Okay,” Nami says, and somewhere in the background she can hear Usopp mutter, “I have can’t-talk-about-love-disease.”

“People murder for love all the time,” Nami tries, again, because she’s really not qualified for this so she goes for the question that’s easier to answer. The one that’s not so tangled as the qualifications of what it means to love someone. If there’s a laundry list of factors to tick off. “So maybe that’s normal. Not healthy, but normal.”

Usopp is staring at her like she’s grown three heads. She doesn’t blame him for that. 

“Should I ask a doctor about it?” Zoro asks, earnest and Nami vividly thinks of Chopper, being faced with this question and while she knows, deep down, that Zoro would never subject Chopper to this (maybe Law, but she doesn’t trust that the Heart Pirate Captain would be any more helpful), she can’t help but say, “Please don’t.”

“But you’re not actually going to try and kill him, right?” Usopp asks, because that’s the important part here. 

A beat passes. Too long to accept anything he says as true.

“No,” says Zoro, and it should be reassuring but it isn’t. 

He stands to leave, and Nami wants to be relieved but she’s only more stressed at the idea of what Zoro could figure out by himself. Usopp seems to agree, even though she can feel his knees shaking below the table. 

“Zoro,” Nami says, grasping at his sleeve and he pauses, stares at her. She doesn’t know what to say, so she ends up letting go of his sleeve and offering, lamely. “Drinks are on me.”

—

Sanji goes shopping, because that’s what he does on islands. He runs into bounty hunters who think he’s an easy catch as he swoons over a lady, and they end up on the ground. He buys too many mangoes because they’re so fresh , and then ends up having to alter his meal plans to include more mango.

Zoro - he doesn’t know what Zoro does. He’s trying hard to be just like normal.  

All he knows is that somehow the man accidentally insulted someone important, because he’s a mosshead with no manners. He gets chased and brings trouble to Sanji’s doorstep. Or well, Sanji ends up running into the man on his way back to the ship, after doing a spectacular job of avoiding him.

There’s carnage on the streets. It’s rivers of red and a hundred more guards storming out onto the roads to arrest the man and Zoro’s already bleeding - bleeding like he wasn’t just injured a month ago.

The mangoes will get ruined.

“You fucking moron,” Sanji says, and he lets the groceries drop to the side of the road, the inferno he couldn’t control finally flaming outwards as he spins into the action, running into at least fifty men, leg striking outwards.

He feels the wind, moves and sees Zoro, standing in the eye of a hurricane and looking at him with one wide eye.

Just like that, they fall back together in the same way they’re falling apart. They stomp on heads together, slice with clean cuts and smooth movements. It’s muscle memory, but deeper. The way they move in one endless swirl, anticipating each other’s movements. Cutting through the crowd and Sanji’s gaze falls back to the mangoes and Zoro knows.

Nobody flies in the direction of their dinner. 

Luffy barrels past them because he’s insulted the island’s king - or chief - or boss. Sanji never does get the details on that. And that’s the fight he chooses - he always goes for the strongest guy. Leaves Zoro and Sanji to take care of the rest. 

Franky added a new laser to his battle weapons. Brook takes his time sipping tea. Robin nearly gets stabbed only for Chopper to panic and crush a wall with guard point and tumble an entire building on the man trying to murder her. Usopp and Nami team up for long distance attacks and it rains and trees grow from the ground, burst into vines that choke the life out of soldiers that chose the wrong crew to attack. 

The fight is over before it even begins. 

Zoro is standing there, blood dripping off his swords and a dark gleam in his eye as he turns to face Sanji.

“Three hundred,” he says, and Sanji replies back, “Three hundred.”

They need a tiebreaker, like always. One man squirms, trying to get away. Too weak for their attention. Too weak to break this moment.  

“I got involved after you,” Sanji says, at last, fingers diving into his pocket for the cigarettes. Zoro’s brow knits together in frustration.

“I stabbed three of your guys,” Zoro volleys back, and Sanji’s scowl deepens further as he swings on his heel to head back to grab the supplies.

“You barely cut them,” Sanji says, and Zoro follows. “That’s why they stood up.”

They get back to the ship, bickering. 

He washes his hands first, removes the dirt that clings to his skin and scrapes away the last drops of blood on his sleeves. 

The mangoes he sets out to dry. He cuts one to taste, lets the juice drip over his fingers as she takes a bite, the sugar dusting on his fingers. It’s a little chewy, not quite a traditional mango, but not bad. Zoro stands in the kitchen, looking like a moron under the lighting, green hair illuminated by the last vestiges of sunlight pouring through the window. His earrings glint, catch Sanji’s eyes as he turns around to stare. 

“I stopped the guy who was going for your neck,” Zoro says, leaning against a bar stool, angling his head away from the counter as blood slides from his forehead, down his neck.

It’s not all his blood, yet, Sanji doesn’t look away as he takes another bite of the sweet, sweet mango. He holds it out, sticky on his fingertips and too sweet without thinking about who he’s offering it to. 

There’s a pause, a beat of silence as Zoro stares at the offering. 

“I stopped the bullets aimed at your back.”    

Zoro takes it, stuffs it into his mouth, bloody fingers and all. His lips pursed at the sweetness, and he scowls as he steps away from the counter, stamps his way to the pantry and makes a sound like he’s retching. He’s probably just looking for a drink. 

Sanji’s left with juice on his fingertips and blood. 

He has to wash his hands again. 

—

“Have you ever wanted to kill Franky?” Nami asks, that night, because she’s still a little traumatized after the day they had. 

On the bed across the room, Robin blinks, sets down her book. They don’t really talk about Franky - not like that. Nami knows, because she’s not stupid. She’s fairly sure everyone else has hazarded a guess, or ignored it entirely. But that’s not quite the same as this. 

“No,” Robin says, at last. “But we’re not like them.”

Nami thinks about it, for a second, and nods. She can’t imagine them being that way, either. Maybe it’s because they’re adults. Maybe it’s because they’re reasonable. 

“Besides,” says Robin, a sharp glint in her eye and her teeth bared as she smiles. Looking dangerous - every bit the assassin Nami sometimes forgets Robin is. “If I wanted him dead, you’d never know.” 

Nami doesn’t sleep that night. 

—

Can’t you just convince him?

Zoro is sitting on the deck with a bottle of shochu that he’s nicked from the pantry, with fingers dried with blood and sticky mango juice and the barest hint of smoke and iron. The whole question of whether this is love eludes him - he’s sure it is. He’s just not sure it’s romantic love. Or whatever kind of love Sanji wants. 

Can’t you just convince him?

Huh. 

Maybe the witch is onto something. 

—

“You want to duel,” Sanji says, because Zoro has stormed into the kitchen in the morning, a week later, and laid a sword - Wado - flat on the counter and told Sanji he wants a duel. 

Nothing about this situation is normal, but Zoro seems earnest and they haven’t talked since the whole mango incident. The incident that has made Sanji eat more mangoes than he’d care to admit, which then lead to an unfortunate incident of banning those strange sticky, chewy mangoes from his diet. 

Each time think of Zoro. He thinks of Zoro’s hands. 

He dreams of mangos and tanned hands, sticky with blood and juice. Sometimes, he dreams of those hands on his neck, staining them as he chokes. Sometimes, he dreams of those hands in Sanji’s mouth. Both are nightmares to wake up from.

It should take more energy to repress the embarrassment and desire to flee from Zoro’s all too fierce gaze, the way it pares him down to just skin and bone, blood and organs. Instead, his head is pounding and he’s busy trying to convince himself not to kill Zoro, because the man has just laid his sword flat on Sanji’s table and asked for a duel. 

“Why?” 

“Because,” says the swordsman, “You said I don’t love you. But I think I do. And I don’t know how to convince you, or what you want me to do. So we’ll fight. And if I win, I love you.”

“And if you lose?” Sanji asks, arms folded across his chest. Zoro hesitates. 

“Then I hate you,” Zoro says, at last. “Either way. We settle it.”

“You are such a barbarian,” Sanji says, finally, eyes widening and he feels the same strangeness he felt on the cliff, of Zoro being some alien plant matter taking a human form with a sword fetish. It’s such a stupidly Zoro way to decide things. “Fine. We’ll fight it out.”

Zoro picks up the sword, places it in his mouth. 

“Not in my kitchen!” Sanji shrieks, and then pauses, because he remembered what Franky said last time. “And not on the ship. At the next island.” 

Zoro takes the sword out of his mouth.  

“Fine,” Zoro says, and his gaze burns through Sanji who stares right back at him. “Next island.”

“Fine.”

—

“You want to increase training sessions?” 

It’s a bizarre request, but at this point, Jinbei has come to the conclusion that nothing could truly prepare him for the Strawhat brand of insanity. That everyday is a new adventure. And that whatever Sanji and Zoro are up to is just another piece of this altogether confusing puzzle. 

“Yeah,” Sanji says, as they finish their morning session. For a human, he’s picked up particularly well on the basics of Fishman Karate, understands the general strokes. Still, he’s a man of fire, not water, and it’s difficult to adjust from flames to picking out the water in the air, to knowing how to manipulate it to your advantage. 

“Is something the matter?” Jinbei asks, uncertain. He’s not sure what added training sessions would do. 

The cook hesitates, looks lost and young and it reminds Jinbei of his twenties. Of being an awkward foot soldier at Ryugu Palace and not knowing his place in the world. Of wondering if he even had a place. 

“It’s personal,” Sanji says, and he smiles but it looks a little fragile. A little broken. 

“I see,” says the Fishman, because he doesn’t know what else to say to that. 

—

So, maybe a fight isn’t the romantic way to this whole mess. He figures that out later, when Usopp and Nami are having a loud conversation below the Crow’s Nest, talking to each other about romance novels they swiped from Franky and there’s something about flowers. About vows. Rings. Gifts. 

He’s done the whole gift thing. And he can’t say this in words. 

Instead, he trains. He trains harder than ever, day and night. 

He trains, because that’s what he knows. 

—

They don’t reach the next island for another two weeks. It’s also not a great island for a duel. 

It’s tall, bustling cities with buildings everywhere and tall walls and thousands of people. But it’s an island, which was the requirement. 

The crew separates, takes off on their own to explore the city and find adventure. Sanji waits on the deck, feels his hands break out into a cold sweat.

Zoro stands beside him, watching everyone go. 

“After you,” Sanji says, and then immediately regrets it when Zoro starts walking straight towards the busiest intersection in the whole place. 

“After me,” he amends, grabbing Zoro’s wrist and pulling him away. 

—

“We can just duel here,” Zoro says, for the tenth time that day. 

Sanji keeps putting the duel off - keeps insisting there’s too many people around. They’ve walked through over a hundred alleys, climbed a wall and even stopped for lunch because the cook smelled something good, and forced Zoro to eat with him. The duel is all he can think about, and the cook is wasting time. 

The cook swivels his head around to stare at Zoro like he’s a moron, to give him a withering glare and to purse his lip in irritation, to run a hand through his hair and tug at the strands. 

“I’m not kicking your ass in a place where we could cause trouble for Nami-swan and Robin-chan,” the cook says, even though they haven’t seen either girls all day and they’re still stuck at an intersection, but the crowds have thinned out.

They’ve been walking forever.

“You said on the next island,” Zoro says, trying to tug his hand out of Sanji’s grasp. It’s really just his wrist, caught by Sanji’s fingers and it’s not hand-holding.  

He doesn’t hate it. 

“The whole point is to find somewhere deserted, where we can properly fight and not cause anyone problems,” Sanji repeats, exasperated with him and they keep moving, walking. 

Zoro doesn’t care. He could slice the entire town apart to prove this thing to Sanji, to place bodies at the cook’s feet in a morbid offering. Still, it’s starting to get dark out. His eyes narrow as he considers the possibility the cook is just wasting their time. 

“There’s no empty space on this island,” Zoro says, at last.

“There’s got to be,” Sanji argues, because that’s what he does.

It’s almost normal, for them.

—

In the end, they find a nearly empty beach, on the other side of the island. It’s near sunrise by the time they stop, and the Sanji stands, looks out at the first rays of red light and just breathes.

Somehow, he didn’t really think they’d be going through with this - whatever this is. 

The air around them shifts, as Sanji turns to see Zoro, holding his sword out in front of him. The absolute brute - unable to enjoy the simple things. 

So Sanji lifts a finger, points to the sky, and says, “The sun’s rising.”

Zoro stares at him, and Sanji stares back. 

The first glow of the morning is rising over Zoro’s face, across the side of his jaw and along his neck, leaving dark shadows near his temples, along his collarbone. It’s haunting to stare at him, right now, to see the way his skin burns and melts, the way his one eye watches Sanji with intent. 

“Are we doing this?” He asks, finally, sounding huffy. 

“Yeah, yeah,” says the cook, hand coming to his neck as he undoes the tie, drops the suit jacket, “I’m coming.” 

—

The cook looks bright. He always looks bright but today, he just looks brighter. They spent the entire night together, wrist in hand, strolling through the artificial glow of the city, through dark alleyway. Into warm corners and cold streets. They’d laughed, but he can’t remember now over what. They’d stared at street vendors busking and a man in a suit singing an entire opera by himself, his stage only a town square.

And now they’re going to fight. 

The cook strips off his suit jacket, unbuttons the top two buttons of his shirt with the same hand that clasped his wrist. It still feels warm, where the cook let go. 

Zoro came prepared, as he arms himself. There’s no patience left, no moment to wait. All three swords are unsheathed, as he watches the sunlight sweep over Sanji’s brow, along his chin. 

The cook turns, one leg raised into the air, lounging. 

And then they strike. 

—

It’s a clash of wills, of steel, of intentions. The two of them kick the dust up on the beach and twist into the spaces the other occupies. They turn as one, anticipation guiding their movements. 

It’s clang, a kiss of steel. A bruise blossoming across ribs, a heart pounding in the chest. A spray of blood, wetting the sand below them.

Another twist, the sound of something cracking.

Flames dance along the air, envelope steel and it pushes back, cuts ahead. Faster, harder.

Over and over again they go. 

—

It ends with Zoro atop of the cook, sand clinging to his skin and spreading across bruises and pressing into deep hits. There’s a strong chance he’s got sand in parts that are bleeding and he’s broken at least three ribs. 

The cook doesn’t look better off, laying there in the dirt with bruises that Zoro is pleased to state he placed, and with a cut on his temple, with a sword against his neck. His own knee is curled against Zoro’s rib, pressing into a particularly sensitive bruise. 

The pain is excruciating. He’s gasping for air as the cook’s knee digs a little tighter, as Zoro’s sword presses closer to the cook’s vein, steel caressing his pulse. It takes exceptional self control to not slice him open right there, to keep his hand steady even as the cook continues to press deeper. 

“I win,” he hisses, sweat dripping from his forehead.

The sun is in the sky now, hanging above them and sweltering heat presses against Zoro’s back, along his spine, kissing at the edges of his temple. 

“Barely,” Sanji argues, “If I kicked up now, you’d smash your ribs and puncture a lung. And I definitely could.” 

“I’d slit your neck open before that,” Zoro argues, as Wado curves closer to Sanji’s neck, promising.

Sanji wets his lips. 

“The fuck is this,” he asks, finally, “A tie?”

Zoro doesn’t know what that means either. 

Love. Hate. A draw. A line in the sand, between them. It’s blurry, the tide nibbles at their feet and washes it away. They’re left only with the wreckage. 

“I said I loved you because I do,” Zoro says, finally. “I don’t want to date your shitty ass. I want this - whatever this is. Forever. Or at least until we leave Luffy’s ship. And then you can just -

Leave. Leave him. 

That stings, or maybe it’s the fact that Sanji’s rolling his knee, curling closer to himself. Freezing below Zoro’s body as his sweat trickles down his chest, as he lifts the blade and moves back.

“That’s - 

Not love, the cook’s going to say, so Zoro drops a hand over the cook’s mouth. Leaves Shuusei and Kitetsu in the sand, for a moment. 

“I don’t do gifts,” he says finally, “Unless you tell me what you want and even then I probably won’t get it. I’m not buying you flowers. We’re not going on dates. I’m not going to be sappy. I just - 

He’s frustrated now, as the cook drops his knee back, as Zoro rolls off into the sand beside him. He’s frustrated because from the start he hasn’t been able to understand what he wants or why he’s complicated this shitty thing with love.

If love is supposed to be like this. 

“That’s such a marimo way of thinking,” the cook says, and his hands - clean, uninjured, dig into his pockets. He retrieves the cigarette packet and holds it up, looks at it as the sun gleams between his fingers and casts shadows over his palms. “Why me?”

“Who else?” 

The cook hisses, a sound that slips between his lips and he drops the cigarettes. Zoro doesn’t react, offers him some space to deal with whatever emotional response he’s dealing with. 

“I probably hate you, I think,” the cook says, finally. “I do want to kill you, sometimes.” 

Zoro nods. Understands. 

“I’ve tried thinking about loving you,” Sanji says, turns his head and holds the cigarette in front of him, “Get my lighter from the suit jacket, behind you.”

Zoro glares. He’s the one with a potentially broken arm. He does it anyways. Offers the flame towards the cook who strains to get up, to press the cigarette close and let it burn. Zoro watches his lips, watches the way they curl around the cigarette.

“Don’t love me,” says Zoro, at ease.

The cook frowns, like that’s not even an option. Zoro doesn’t get it. Doesn’t understand why the cook has to keep bending this whole thing over, backwards, out of proportion. He cannot fathom why the cook and everyone else thinks it’s some huge fucking deal. It’s just a heart, just a longing. It’s just something he thinks clicked into place, once, and now that he gets it he doesn’t need to do anything else about it. He doesn’t want the cook to love him back. It just is. 

He tells the cook that. 

Sanji snorts, and says, “You’re either the most frustrating person I know, or the simplest. Probably both.”

Zoro lifts his hand to smack the cook but it falls short, lands near his hair. Blond strands tickle his fingers. 

“I wanted to get married,” Sanji says, and Zoro’s heart pinches again, but he doesn’t understand this line of thinking. Of love and marriage - are those always supposed to fit together? He didn’t fucking propose. 

Instead, he replies, “I remember.”

“No - not like that,” Sanji says, scowling, “Or well, like that. Sort of. I wanted to get married because I want to spend my whole life making someone happy and giving to them, unconditionally. No strings attached. And Pudding made sense, because she was right there and if I did that, then you - everyone - could be happy too.”

Zoro’s silent, because the cook is a sap who talks, has to state the obvious into the air. 

“I wanted to get married, before that,” Sanji says, again, “To someone I’d love and be able to protect and cherish for my whole entire life. We’d have no kids or maybe we’d have five kids and we’d love all of them a whole fucking lot and they wouldn’t have shitty code names or colour schemes and maybe I’d take over at the Baratie. We’d cook together. The shitty old man would probably have kicked me out by then, or maybe he’d die. Who knows. But I’d be happy making someone happy.” 

Zoro doesn’t say anything to that, which prompts Sanji to ask, “Didn’t you want something like that, sometime? At some point?”

He thinks, considers. 

“I wanted to fight someone forever,” says Zoro, finally, “Until I won. I wanted to prove myself to them, until the day we die and maybe even after that. I wanted to keep a promise.”

The cook groans, but doesn’t move his hand as his fingers curl against those soft strands. Conditioner, the unhelpfully Usopp sounding voice supplies, inside his brain. 

“I don’t care about making anyone happy,” Zoro says, as he turns his face to look at Sanji, at the blue eye gazing back at his own brown. “I want to win, and be strong. I want to be the best . I don’t care about kids or wives.”

“We’re incompatible,” the cook says, even as he leans closer, “I don’t care if my kids were strong or weak. Just happy. You probably care about that shit.”

There’s a lot of underlying sentiment behind that statement, but Zoro doesn’t ask. That’s not what this is.

“Don’t care about kids either way. They’re all weak. Kids are supposed to be weak, curly brow. That’s how they grow strong. Besides, I don’t want to make you happy ,” Zoro says, and the cook looks at him. Just stares with that one stupid eye that looks somewhat watery and also really mad. 

He snaps back, “You couldn’t even if you tried.”

“I want,” Zoro says, “To return everything you do for me and watch your back like you watch mine. I want to cut you down until you can’t stand back up, and then watch you stand back up again. I want you to cut me down, until I can’t stand and then I want to stand up again. I want to wash hammocks with you and eat your food. I want you to think - 

He cuts himself off, tongue caught in his throat. He can’t say that part, not here, not to the cook’s face. Maybe not ever. 

I want you to think of me first, and last. I want you to stay, because you never stay. And I want you to choose you, but also choose me. I want you to smile and burn and I want to cut through your flames and bask in them and I want to die in them. I want to die first because last time, I lived, and I can’t cook so I can’t keep any shitty promises to you. 

I want to make promises to you. With you.  

The cook doesn’t say anything. 

Zoro thinks he’s blushing, but Zoro isn’t looking at him. 

Just the sun, feeling it burn over his own warm face as his hand comes up, covers his eyes. As blood slides over his cheeks. 

-------- 

It’s not romantic. 

But his heart doesn’t stop beating in his chest, thundering against his ribs and he really needs to get it removed. It’s not romantic because this whole thing - this whatever story between him and Zoro is so many levels of fucked straight up.

Sanji picks himself up, stares at the man who’s - faking sleep. Maybe dead. Both are good options. 

He’s staring at Zoro because Zoro doesn’t get it. Because Zoro doesn’t understand the first thing about love and has just labelled their shitty intense rivalry as well, love. 

It’s not romantic. 

It’s seriously gross.  

Sanji, for all his twittering about romance, and about the proper ideas of romance, has never actually been in love before. He’s had hazy notions and ideas, promises he wants to keep. He’s got visions of what normal looks like, of a pretty wife and cute kids. 

Of dates and sweet nothings and and forever afters. 

Of tanned hands and blood. Gold earrings and anger. 

His hand moves to Zoro’s throat. He can feel the swordsman shift, but he doesn’t stop Sanji. Doesn’t care that if Sanji vested his last bit of strength, he might actually kill Zoro. Win their fight. 

But Sanji doesn’t fight with his hands. 

His eyes are wet from sweat. Damp fat droplets clinging to his eyelashes. 

He doesn’t know what to do with this man. With this offering at his door, that’s a giant fucking mess. With the ache of his own cut up chest and thighs, the feel of dizziness as he hovers over Zoro and tries to swallow everything Zoro is saying. 

He doesn’t know how to handle this - a love with no expectations. With nothing he can return. A love purely for the worst part of him - the part that fights, and argues. The part that gets angry for no reason and strikes hot and hard and tempestuous. For the part of him that barely did anything, didn’t ask. Didn’t try. 

He doesn't know how to deserve that. 

Zoro’s hand moves, slides across his cheek and his eyes are open. 

“You’re ugly as fuck,” he says, and he Sanji wipes at his eyes. Blinks twice to remove the tears. 

“Says the man with green fucking hair,” Sanji retorts, and Zoro doesn’t mention that it’s kind of a lame rejoinder. 

“Cook,” he says, and he sounds hesitant. Like it’s a question but there’s no words to describe it. Nothing to put out but an answer demanded, nevertheless. 

“Fuck you,” Sanji says, and then he closes his eyes and lowers his head and bites Zoro’s lip.

Zoro yelps into this not-kiss. Into this not-love. 

His hand tugs at Sanji’s hair and they’re fighting again but it’s weak. It’s soft. It’s teeth nibbling against a cut and a tongue in Sanji’s mouth, chasing after the wound. It’s hands in hair, pressing against each other and bodies, sliding together. It’s repetitive motion, not-promises. 

It’s heavy and painful because they’ve cut and bled and bruised each other raw and this too, is a battle. It’s another little fight of the many they keep having, of something bigger than them. Something brighter. Something warm that ignites against his face and hands pressing against his temples because Zoro obviously got lost, has no sense of direction, doesn’t know what to do with his fingers and rested them somewhere so fucking awkward. Like he wants to push Sanji away but can’t bring himself to do it. 

They break apart gasping for air.

It doesn’t suck. 

Sanji flops back into the sand and tries not to think about it. 

“Fine,” says Sanji, at last, “Love me. Hate me. Whatever the fuck you want.” 

“What the fuck,” Zoro doesn’t so much as ask, as state it, and he looks at Sanji with one bruised lip and there’s a wildness to his eyes. 

“I’ll do whatever the fuck I want, too.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Whatever the fuck I want it to mean.”

“That’s not how this works, shit-cook.”

“You decided to love me and keep insisting this is love, so fuck it. It’s love, marimo.”

“I didn’t say you could love me back, ero-curly-brow.”

“You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do, directionally challenged mosshead.”

“Wait - do you love me back, pervert cook?”

“We’re not dating, shitty swordsman.” 

The cigarette burns out in the sand. 

—

They make it back to the ship - together, not in one piece. 

Franky’s the one who sees them coming and he has zero clue what to do or what to say or what to even ask. He didn’t even know they were going off together. Why did he have to be the one who drew watch, today?

Where the fuck is Chopper?

“Did you two start a fight?” Franky asks, horrified, as he pulls them onto the deck and Sanji shrugs and Zoro offers a grunt. 

“Is someone going to attack the ship?”

Two identical head shake. Probably no.

“Did you fight with each other?” 

Two head nods. Probably yes.

“Are you done fighting it out?”

Warily stare at each other, shrug of shoulders. 

“This is so not super,” Franky says, tossing each of them over his shoulders and striding to the infirmary. He’s only got a basic knowledge of medicine, only a base understanding of the human body. Most of his first aid skills are in repair and restructuring, after all. 

Still, he can bandage some surface wounds, at least, as he lectures them.

“You two are clearly going through some very manly shit,” Franky begins, as he tries to stitch up some wounds on Sanji’s legs and Zoro rubs in his own bruise paste. “But this is so not super. Are you really trying to kill each other?”

They both smile wickedly at that.  

Fucking assholes. 

He’s not tearing up at the fact that they’re finally on the same page, communicating with each other. He physically cannot because he won’t be able to see the stitches. 

“Watch it, asshole!” Sanji yelps, leg shaking out of Franky’s grasp as he bawls into his hands. 

“I’m so glad you bros made up!”

Chapter Text

It’ll take two weeks for the Log Post to set on the island and Luffy’s off exploring some ancient, undisturbed tomb with Robin which means they’ve probably only got three days to fix themselves up for the Big Fight. The one where Luffy wrecks an island and exposes some evil autocratic bastard in the bargain. 

Made up. 

It’s not really that. 

It’s just that they’re in an agreement to - to do this. Whatever the fuck this is. Sanji doesn’t get it either, because he said one thing. Then he kissed the man. Then he limped back into a cart and held Zoro’s wrist even though they were clearly being driven through the city. He held it because he could.

He doesn’t know if this is a love story or just something else. Something raw and blemished and bruised. 

Then, when Chopper left the infirmary, he slid back over to Zoro and poked his cracked ribs until he hit Sanji in the face and then they did the not-really-but-sort-of kissing thing again. And each time Zoro looked at him quizzically. Like he’s waiting on an answer and Sanji doesn’t actually know the question. He could hazard a guess, but that would mean someone asks the question.

That would mean he knows the answer.

Zoro doesn’t ask. 

-

They fall back into a routine. They fight. Zoro trains before Chopper lets him. They fight some more. Chopper yells at them both for being stupid. Sanji experiments with the local butter and their surprisingly flavourful fruits.

Zoro heals, and tries not to think about the cook’s teeth, gnawing at his lips like he was trying to tear Zoro’s mouth off. It’s harder than it sounds.

He thinks that should be the end of it, except it isn’t. It happens one day when he’s looking for his booze, the sake mysteriously gone from the front of the pantry. 

“Oi, cook,” he calls, “Where’s my shit?”

And then Sanji enters the pantry and looks around absently and Zoro scowls, says, “I already looked there.”

“You clearly didn’t,” he says, and Zoro lets out a huff. Sanji turns around. Put a hand on Zoro’s chest to push him away but.

But. 

He’ll tell everyone it’s Sanji that leaned closer, not Zoro. 

And then they’re kissing, tangy kisses that taste sticky sweet like fruits - which should be nauseating but it’s burnt away with smoke and salt. Kisses that are open mouthed and needy and sometimes Zoro pushes Sanji against the shelves so that they dig into his back and it hurts his bandages and he knows Sanji can feel the bruises because he’s making a sound that’s both pained and needy, whining as Zoro’s hands roam. He doesn’t know if he’s trying to soothe, or exacerbate the problem,

It becomes part of their routine, before Zoro even knows it. Not daily - that’s excessive. But sometimes, sometimes, the booze goes missing. 

Sometimes, Sanji moves against him, languid. Sometimes he shoves Zoro into the door until he’s got a bruise the shape of the door handle digging into his back. Sometimes, Sanji just pushes him off and goes back to cooking. 

Sometimes it’s soft, peppered kisses and they forget to find a place to hurt, forget to shove someone into a shelf or push each other into the door or to press against an old wound. Sometimes, there’s no teeth. Just chapped lips, moving together until they hear the sound of an explosion or a thud or a scream or a whistle. Until something forces them apart. 

It’s not love. 

It's maybe love. 

-

Sometimes, they fall asleep together. 

It’s not planned, or anything. It just happens. 

When Sanji trips over Zoro’s legs and then decides it’s a pain to leave. Or Zoro gets lost on the ship again and passes out beside Sanji because it’s easier than finding his way back. 

Sometimes, one of them wakes up in a tangle together in a hammock and pointedly the rest of the crew doesn’t ask (they know better now) but it takes a toll because it’s never comfortable doing that. The hammocks were never built for two, after all. 

They don’t wake up together. There’s an unwritten rule about it. 

They don’t talk about it, either. 

-

Usopp doesn’t think things are better. Just different. Vastly improved from that awkward period of Zoro realizing his feelings and Sanji avoiding them. He calls that the Love-Sickness era. 

It’s much better now, with the two of them - well, doing something.

He’s woken up once to find Zoro wrapped around Sanji like Luffy does, sometimes, arms akimbo and legs tangled around the cook and it looked cute but incredibly uncomfortable. He’s not surprised Sanji kicked him later, or that Zoro ended up stretching most of that morning. Hammocks, he thinks, aren’t particularly romantic.

Or spacious.

“Beds?” Franky asks, startled by the suggestion and dropping his hammer.

“Bunk beds,” Usopp states, showing the floor plan he’s drawn up. 

“Huh,” Franky says, admiring the look. It would definitely increase storage in the room, that’s for sure. A proper place for some clothes and weapons in the barracks. “It’s doable, but Luffy and Zoro and Sanji will wreck them pretty easily. They’ll need to be extra super to deal with those three.”

“We can fix them, right?” asks Usopp, hesitant. The idea of adding more to their workload isn’t appealing - but then, neither is the hammock thing. 

“I could add some cannons to it,” Franky says, eyes shifting into his thinking mode, “Or maybe we can make them fold into the wall a bit, to give some space.”

He’s already got his sketch pen, inking over the designs with carefully practiced ease. Usopp bends his head over the page and they get to work refitting the room.

-

One night, Sanji stays up to drink and Zoro curls over the counter because he’s on watch. They’ve - well. They’re not doing whatever this is, right now. Just drinking in the same room, together. But not together.

“What are you going to do, once you become the greatest swordsman?” Sanji asks, because it’s quiet and they’re alone and they don’t really talk, until they’re like this. Languid, loose. 

“Die, probably,” Zoro says, and Sanji scowls and throws a fork at him. “Not immediately. After someone beats me.”

“Aren’t you supposed to defend the title?” Sanji says, irritated. He doesn’t know why he bothers with Zoro, sometimes. Why do they have any sort of conversation except, he knows that he doesn’t want Zoro to die. 

“Until I die,” Zoro says, and he sounds like he’s agreeing but Sanji sits up straighter. 

“Don’t let some shitty brat kill you, marimo,” Sanji says, determined. Zoro shrugs, half-hearted, but Sanji continues. “Be like Rayleigh. That’s how the First Mate of the Pirate King should be.”

Zoro considers, tilts his head in that manner that looks like he’s annoyed but Sanji knows means he’s thinking. Considering an option he hadn’t previously thought through, before. 

“Should I get glasses?” he asks, finally. 

Sanji lets out a huff, brief laughter caught in his throat, tries to envision Zoro in glasses.

“You’d break them,” Sanji offers, finally. “Or maybe that’d be the challenge after you win the title. Got to keep your skill up, somehow.”

“Can’t let them crack the glasses,” Zoro says, seriously, and the tug in Sanji’s chest is deeper now, something pleasant and warm.

He leans in and presses his lips against Zoro’s to swallow the laugh. To avoid giving Zoro the satisfaction, he argues with himself, as he tastes sake and the faint hint of steel. As he climbs atop the man to deepen the kiss and Zoro tugs at his hair and Sanji’s hands roam across the man’s chest. 

Love, huh. 

-

“It’s Sanji’s birthday tomorrow,” Nami announces, imperiously one morning. Zoro cracks open one eye and looks at her. 

He doesn’t respond, genuinely baffled. The cook’s birthday isn’t important. It’s just another day of the year. They’ll probably bake cakes and there’ll be booze and a party and Luffy will fight something. The idea that he needs to be told - well. Actually. He hadn’t known it was tomorrow. Still, he doesn’t understand Nami’s point.

She holds a bag out for him, and Zoro stares. 

It’s blue, with shitty sparkly silver paper peeking out of it and it looks stupid. It’s definitely a present.

“Why are you giving me a present for his birthday?” Zoro asks, finally, when she refuses to offer an explanation.

Nami makes a sound that’s vaguely irritated, and kicks his head. He groans at the sting of it and moves to sit up, scowl at her deeply.

“It’s his present, you moron,” Nami says, placing it down in front of Zoro, “From you. You’re welcome.”

Zoro stares at her, blank. He doesn’t understand what she’s thinking, but he takes another look at the bag.

“I’m not giving him this,” Zoro tells her, tries to reject the offer. 

“I spent a four thousand beri on it,” Nami continues, ignoring his attempts to reject her offering, “Which for you will be charged at a daily interest rate of five percent, discounted for the occasion, of course.”

Zoro tries again, to say, “I’m not giving him that.”

“What else would you give him?” Nami asks, and Zoro blinks. Stares at her, fierce, refusing to answer. The answer, of course, being nothing. 

“Oh my god,” Nami says, sounding incredibly annoyed, “Were you going to just give him sex? Or be cheesy and say some shit like I’m your gift? Because let me tell you, I’m the only one that can get away with that on this ship. You aren’t cute enough to pull it off.”

He didn’t know that giving someone sex for their birthday was an option. He considers the flaws of this plan. She hits him again.

“I wasn’t giving him anything,” he says, scowling as she dumps the shiny bag into his lap. “And you aren’t giving him that either.”

Nami looks bemused, a cheshire grin on her face as she bends down and gets directly in front of his face. He can smell the tangerines wafting off her as he comes face to face with an expression of the ugliest type of delight he’s ever seen.

“I wasn’t giving him anything but my presence,” Nami confirms, awful that way, “But if you’re jealous, I can give him the gift I bought and tell him that you wanted to be his gift, this year.”

Zoro stares at her, meets her challenge with his own fierce determination. They stare in a contest of wills for ten seconds, which he thinks is impressive and will defend that he tried incredibly hard, later. 

“I’m not giving him the bag,” he finally concedes, because the very idea of anyone telling the cook that bullshit would kill him and his honour.

She beams in delight, claps her hands together and stands. 

“I knew you’d get it!” Nami says, “Five percent interest, don’t forget!”

And then she’s gone, leaving him with a bag that he immediately throws over the ship into the ocean, left only with her ‘gift’.He immediately resents that he agreed to her trap and goes back to negotiate with her again.

-

“I didn’t get you anything,” Nami says, smiling at Sanji as he offers her the first piece of cake. “So take this instead.”

She presses a kiss to his cheek, and Sanji turns to stone. It’s predictable, but sweet. 

The rest of his gifts are an assortment of junk, if she’s ever seen them. There’s a fingerpainting she’s fairly sure Chopper and Luffy did together, since they both still have sticky paint-filled hands and Usopp sobbed to her that they destroyed his paints earlier as he tried to negotiate for a bump to his allowance. It’s of their favourite foods, and he’s already stuck it to the fridge like a proud parent with an art project. She vaguely remembers Belle-mere doing that with her maps. 

Franky and Usopp had made Sanji some kind of fryer, that has spikes along the edges and apparently can fry foods with minimal oil. She didn’t fully understand, but Sanji had apparently loved it. Robin gifted Sanji some copper cooking tools, that he swooned over for at least forty minutes. Brook had gifted him the ugliest pair of sandals shaped like fish that she’s ever seen, while Jinbei had complimented Sanji with a fish-shaped hat, the mouth part sticking up from the top of his head. Zoro had failed to present his gift, in the moment. 

“Your presence is gift alone for me,” Sanji says, twirling all over the place to offer her the first piece of cake. She beams at him, delighted. 

The party continues, and Nami glares at Zoro, who glares back at her. It’s only after everyone passes out, intoxicated or full, that Nami manages to catch a glimpse of her present , in action.

She’s stumbling past the kitchen, where Sanji’s doing the dishes - no, she realizes, as she stands in the shadows. Zoro’s doing the dishes, because Sanji’s slumped over, incredibly flushed and his words slurring every so often. She’s amazed he hadn’t passed out earlier.

“Shitty ‘rimo,” she hears him grumble.

Zoro scowls back at him, as he continues to scrub the dishes, gentler than she’d presume. Something tugs at her heart.

“Shut up, shit cook,” he says, hand going to Sanji’s head and it’s soft, the way his wet, soapy fingers brush the strands, pet the cook like he’s trying to put him to sleep. 

Sanji’s fingers tangle with the hand in his hair, hold tight and leave Zoro caught between dishes and the chef. It’s too intimate to watch, too intimate to look away. 

“Here,” she hears Zoro say, digging into his pocket and pulling out the crumpled gift with his still wet and soapy hands.

She flees, a grin on her face for the rest of the night. 

-

Sanji doesn’t remember that birthday. 

What he remembers is the morning after, waking up slumped over the kitchen counter at the crack of dawn, with Zoro beside him and the dishes clean. He remembers staring at their tangled fingers in embarrassment and confusion. He remembers finding a green marimo moss ball in his free hand. He remembers his heart squeezing in his chest, flip flopping madly and the fact that he didn't let go of Zoro, didn't move away until the man woke up.

He remembers soft kisses in the kitchen as they wake up, light still just barely pouring into the room. 

He keeps the moss ball in the aquarium, watches it float around in the bottom of the ship sometimes, when he’s taking a break from cooking. 

He never asks Zoro about it.  

-

“Are you and Zoro getting married?” Luffy asks the question, innocently one day, months later, because he’s not curious but - “I want to have a wedding party. There’s lots of cake and we can cook lots of meat. We haven’t had a party in ages. And I didn’t get to eat the last cake.” 

He’s bored on the ship and Nami said the next island is a while away, and Robin already said no, because she said Franky would have to ask her first. She did, however, mention that Luffy could marry anybody because he’s a captain, and Captains can do that. 

And that Zoro would never ask. 

Sanji, however, turns red in the face and sputters, unable to speak, but doesn’t say no. 

“Awesome!” Luffy says, and he barges out to tell everyone to get ready for the wedding. It takes Sanji five seconds to follow, shouting, “Shut up!”

It’s too late.

-

“Are you really cooking for a wedding, pervert cook?” Zoro asks, because he was taking a nap and got woken up to Usopp muttering about wedding rings and measuring his finger for one.

Sanji doesn’t turn around and won’t face him. He looks furious as he whips some eggs together until they turn white and fluffy, like magic. Like the clouds on Skypiea. 

“Luffy said he wants wedding cake,” Sanji says, gritting his teeth, “Since he couldn’t eat the last one.”

Zoro scowls, because he’s heard the story of the last one and it still pisses him off and they haven’t really figured out what the fuck this is. He doesn’t even know if the cook likes him, let alone loves him. It probably says volumes about them, that even years later, they’re fumbling in the dark. 

“Why are you going along with this?” he demands, and the cook doesn’t stop cooking.

“Why not?” the cook asks, and it’s dangerous, as he looks back at Zoro with that challenging blue eye, “You said you love me. What's your problem?”

“You,” Zoro says, irritated. The cook pretends he didn’t hear that and goes back to cooking. Zoro wants to fight, but the cook is busy measuring out some powders and won’t even pay attention to him. 

He leaves, exasperated.

-

It’s the shittiest wedding. 

Sanji can admit to that, because it’s so fucking half-assed. 

This is not how he ever envisioned his wedding. Truthfully, the whole mess with Pudding was a lot closer, with fanciful decorations and an elaborate meal and dancing. Music. A bride dressed in white. A suit pressed neat with no stains from cooking. A large ballroom, filled to the brim with people, dressed for the wedding. Diamond rings. Zeff had always been in attendance, for whatever reason. 

None of those things pan out here. 

Usopp and Franky melted down some spare steel into plain rings. Chopper and Luffy made decorations that he’s fairly sure are just paper and confetti spread out on the deck and some really bad origami animals, strewn together in no real pattern, and none are the same size. He’s not sure why they went with animals, but all of them are in green. Several of them are just frogs. The majority are misshapen. 

Brook, Nami and Robin are the only ones who bothered dressing up, and none of them seem to have adhered to the same dress code. Nami’s wearing a short black dress that accentuates every curve of her body, clings to her skin like silk, and is decked out in jewels. She’s more beautiful than the actual grooms , more appropriately dressed for a wedding. Robin is dressed similarly, in a purple sun-dress that flows around her and wacky blue sunglasses and no jewels and looks like she’s going to a very nice picnic. She’s radiant. 

Brook, somehow missed the memo that this wasn’t a concert and shows up in a lime green suit with orange bow-tie and a feather boa and sunglasses shaped like hearts. He’s obnoxious. The rest of the men didn’t even change clothes or shower.

Both Zoro and Sanji refuse to be walked down the aisle, nor arrive after the other which forces them at the head of the aisle from the start. The aisle itself is just the centre of the deck, where everyone gathers around. 

Zoro is wearing a tie and a t-shirt and Sanji has no idea who suggested it, because he looks so stupid and the tie is crooked, knotted into a ball at his throat and also it’s definitely Sanji’s tie. 

It's not like Sanji bothered to dress up, for his own damn wedding. He did that before, in a white suit that got stained in blood. This time, he’s wearing a plum dress shirt with flecks of flour and sauce dipped over the sleeves and on the edges. Sandals on his feet because he couldn’t be bothered to find shoes. 

Franky starts crying as Luffy stands between them.

“Welcome to the first Straw Hat wedding ceremony,” Luffy says, to the very large crowd of seven, “Today Zoro and Sanji are getting married and we’re throwing a big party for it with lots of meat.”

He turns to Chopper, who presents them with the rings. Sanji’s actually quite startled when he takes Zoro’s ring into his hand, and actually looks at it. It’s lightweight, but the steel has three sharp lines, etched into it. One straight line that goes around the center of the ring, and two lines shaped like swirls, flowing in the same direction and curling at the end, right before they complete a circle. It’s barely noticeable, except Sanji’s brought it straight to his eye, to inspect. 

Zoro’s doing the same with his ring, Sanji knows. 

“Give each other the rings now,” Luffy instructs, and that’s what Sanji does.

He holds the ring out, on his palm, and offers it to Zoro. The swordsman takes it, replaces it with Sanji’s ring. He brings it up to inspect, startled. His doesn’t have two swirls, just three lines criss crossing over each other, etched sharp and straight. 

Sanji puts the ring while Zoro does the same.

“Wrong hand,” he tells the swordsman, who blinks back at him. “The other hand is for marriage.”

The ape tries to shove the ring on his index finger. Sanji huffs and grabs the ring back, fixes it onto Zoro’s correct hand and finger for him.The man scowls at him but doesn’t fight it.

“Is that it?” Zoro asks, turning to Luffy, “We’re married now?”

His eyes start to shift, which means he’s not prepared for this moment and he looks to Usopp, who takes the hint and moves behind Luffy, to coach him through this wedding. Sanji’s fairly sure Usopp’s never been to a wedding. 

“You have to ask them for vows,” Usopp says, and Luffy says, “Where’s the shampoo?”

“Champagne,” Chopper corrects, as he brings a bottle towards them and Zoro looks elated at the promise of booze. Sanji places his face in his hands because what else can he do. His ring is cold, presses unnaturally against his face. It feels solid and heavy on his hands. 

“Now you two are going to promise to stay married,” Luffy says, repeating Usopp’s words, “In sickness and health. Poor or rich. For better or worse - wait why are they worse? Just for the better. You’re both not allowed to get worse.”

“Probably poor though, considering Zoro’s interest hasn’t been paid off,” Nami says, nonchalantly. Sanji swoons at her interjection. 

“And then you’ll drink the fancy drink because sake is for brothers and shams is for weddings.”

“Champagne,” Nami corrects again, and then turns to Brook and asks, “Is that how weddings are, for pirates?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Brook says, looking equally bewildered, “I do think weddings are the perfect occasion to allow me to see your panties, however.”

Nami and Sanji both strike him, leaving a collapsed skeleton on the ground. Sanji’s almost one hundred percent sure that champagne is not used to make a wedding bond, but Luffy’s pouring it into a sake cup like the bond for brothers.

Fuck it. 

“Is that it?” Chopper asks, sounding doubtful, “Aren’t those short for promises?”

“Maybe they can say their own vows,” suggests Jinbei, to spare Luffy and Usopp the trouble of creating more vows, the two of them now whispering to each other and Sanji can distinctly hear something along the lines of “why do they have to share their meat?”

Sanji’s mind goes blank. Zoro looks equally flustered.

It’s not like they’ve talked about this, to anyone. Yet here they are, making vows.

“Shishishi,” Luffy laughs, as Usopp holds the sake cup full of champagne and it’s atrocious . Sanji had even given them proper flutes for the occasion and they clearly just ignored him.

“Sanji go first,” Luffy orders, and he’s stuck, staring at Zoro who stares right back, one brow raised in a silent challenge.

The absolute asshole.

“Fine,” says Sanji, because he isn’t an asshole.

The silence hangs in the air, as he tries to rack his brains for the right words. It’s evident his face had gone red, that he’s taking a moment too long. He wants to smack Zoro right there, knock the man unconscious.

Why the fuck did he agree to this?

-

The cook doesn’t have vows - he’s not going to say shit. Zoro knows, because he doesn’t have vows either, as he inspects the ring on his finger. It’s solid, sturdy. Unlikely to get cut up. Ten minutes pass in silence, as the cook starts to mutter to himself and Luffy and Usopp whine, “Hurry up!”

This whole thing is stupid. He still doesn’t know why the cook agreed to it. 

“I promise,” the cook says, finally, “Not to kill you.”

Zoro sucks in a breath, as the cook looks firmly at the sky and has his eyes closed, hands over his ears. The ring glints on his hand, even below the strands of hair weaving their way between his fingers.

“I promise not to kill you,” the cook repeats, “And I’ll do whatever the fuck I want, so you can do what you want. I promise not to lose to anyone, including you. I promise to get up every time. I promise to stick around until you’re old, and grey, with glasses that don’t crack.”

He stops, folds his arms across his chest. Zoro lets out a breath he wasn’t even aware he was holding. Everything around them goes still. 

“Your turn, Zoro,” Luffy says, encouragingly. 

What the fuck is he supposed to say to that?

It takes him several minutes to find a vow worth keeping. Something equivalent to the worth of the cook’s offer. His heart is hammering unsteadily in his chest, demanding he offer it on a platter in front of the world. 

“I promise not to die until I die,” Zoro says, finally. He blurts it out, rushed and fast and messy. It sounds stupid, and strong, but it’s enough. Everyone around them blinks, but Sanji cracks a smug grin. Asshole. 

Everyone around them is silent, breath baited. Waiting for something , he realizes, but he folds his arms across his chest. Then turns to Luffy, who blinks, and then nods.

“Shishishi,” says Luffy, taking the champagne, “Drink now!”

“And kiss,” Usopp says, only to be faced with identical murderous glares. “Or just drink! That’s fine too! That’s how weddings are, always!” 

Zoro takes the cup and lets the bubbly drink settle in his stomach. Wipes his lips with the back of his newly ring-clad hand. Watches the cook do the same with his own share of the champagne.

“Now you’re married!” Luffy says, firm and pleased and excited all at once, “Let’s party!”

And so they do. 

-

“I remember Aladine’s wedding,” Jinbei tells Brook, later, as the two of them enjoy their wedding cake, “It was much larger than this, with candy everywhere and lots of dancing.”

Brook laughs, as he says, “Like the one we crashed?”

“Precisely like that,” Jinbei says, “I like this one much better.”

“Yohoho! As do I!” 

- 

Later, when the party winds down and the two slink away into the shadows of the galley, Zoro asks, "So what? You're my wife now, huh?"

He gets kicked in the face for that effort and sports an impressive bruise for the rest of the week. 

"You're lucky I love your dumb ass," says the cook, yanking his husband into a kiss, "Otherwise I'd crack your skull open."

It's not the love they'll write about in fairytales. There's no recipe to recreate this, no guide that fits them. There's no expectations or nothing to ask for, nothing to suggest this is the way to go. But it's theirs.