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The past is never far behind. Sanji knew better than anyone the slow creep of anxiety, the constant feeling of being followed, being hunted, long after any threat had reasonably passed. It catches up to him in the shapes of buildings cresting over the horizon, if they’re just a little too similar to the spires he spent his earliest years looking up at; it catches him in the voices of children, the jeering, teasing tones that little kids can have; it catches him in the galley, when a spider drops down from the top of the ventilation hood over the stove and he thinks for a heartbeat that there are bugs are crawling all over him again. Too much, all at once, more than he can handle.
What good is being haunted by the past if you’re not even prepared to face it when it comes back around again, again, again?
When the Strawhats landed, they didn’t see the snail’s spires from their end of the island. They’d been informed, with remarkable politeness, by an old man working the docks that their piracy was ill-timed, for you see, the island was already being pillaged. Best to find another victim, he said, friendly and patient, those Germa 66 folks were no joke!
It wasn’t the flagship. Just some other floating base that seemed to be on a mission to gather supplies. Luffy was slingshotting himself into the sky to find them before anyone else could even ask, “What should we do?”
For all the catharsis Sanji had gotten after the events earlier that year, there was still a deep, cold jolt of terror that came from seeing the familiar uniforms. But this wasn’t the flagship. He almost definitely wouldn’t be forced to confront anyone he knew, he just had to fight through the bastards and maybe send a message that the Strawhats were still, and would always be, a force not to be fucked with.
And it felt good. It’s probably not a healthy form of relief, beating the shit out of your mortal enemies, but it felt really, really good.
***
Zoro, with confidence increasing on every staggering step, took another left turn as the street split.
The sounds of battle dimmed into a drolling hum as the last of their enemies either surrendered or fell; if Zoro could help it, it was always the latter - they deserved the worst of it, the worst of what Zoro could give them, for what they were and what they’d done. But now the screaming had faded, the shouts and commands and the intensity that Zoro lived for, and all that was left was the last crackles of fire and the slow crumbling of buildings as they finally succumbed to the damage accumulated over hours of battle.
His swords, even vicious Enma, felt sated in their scabbards; Zoro wondered faintly how long that would last, his broad palm settling against the hilt. The battle had been brutal and bloody, maybe a little too personal considering Zoro had never been around for any part of their misdeeds to his crewmate. He got a bit heated, he’d admit. Indeed, some of the gore spattered across him was even his own.
Sure would be convenient if Chopper came along. Maybe he would be right around this corner.
Zoro took another left turn.
Well. He had to be around one of these corners. It’s not like Chopper could just disappear.
He kept his pace brisk and determined as his mangled leg would allow, ignoring every twinge and pull of wounded flesh as he went. He kept a hand ready on Wado, just in case. He kept his eye straight ahead. The battle had ended, the fun was over, and now he wanted to get back to Sunny and have a drink in the galley.
The damn love cook was probably still mad at him from this morning, would whine and complain and insult Zoro until he drank his bottle dry. Maybe he’d prod him with the sole of his shitty shoes, maybe he’d just grumble at his stove as if Zoro couldn’t hear him, maybe he’d shout that he needed to go to Chopper to get that gash closed and it was unsanitary to be bleeding all over his galley.
Zoro smiled at the thought, mouth dry and eager for that drink, and turned left.
***
Sanji, with rising frustration that made him feel like his tie was cinching tighter every shitty second, took another step higher into the air.
Far below, the battle was won. Luffy had punched the Germa 66 commander nigh into the stratosphere (Sanji barely dodged the poor bastard when he came back down), and now it was a matter of getting all heads counted and injuries attended to.
Except that one mossy head was notably absent from roll call, and the last anyone had seen the green idiot, he was picking on someone decidedly not his own size, biting off way more than even his sword-gripping jaw could hope to chew.
If Sanji found his body, the only mercy would be that he didn’t have to kill the stupid, shitty swordsman himself.
Sanji worked the knot of his tie a little looser as he pushed himself up ever higher on his burning heels. It was getting harder to see the details in the labyrinthine city below, but even Sanji could admit that it was not built with intuitive navigation in mind: Zoro stood absolutely no chance at all in this place. Sanji would need a birds-eye view if he had any hope of finding their lost little moss ball, but smoke choked out and obscured the side of the city where Germa 66 had landed.
“Marimo?!” Sanji finally shouted down.
A taller building, which had put up a valiant fight of its own to stay standing despite many man-shaped holes going straight through one side the the other, collapsed under its own weight. For a moment, Sanji waited with breath held tight behind his cigarette, cursing that the rumble and crashing might be drowning out Zoro’s response - or perhaps his cries for help, or his coughing moans as he slipped out of consciousness where no one would find him.
“Shit. Stupid idiot. Stupid house plant. Algae for brains,” Sanji groused under his breath. Each word curled the smoke from his lips into a downward spiral that dripped with agonized slowness toward the ground below.
The last thing he’d said to Zoro had not been kind.
Most of what they ever said to each other was unkind, to be perfectly fair, but this morning had been especially bitter and petty. He couldn’t even recall who started it, what snide remark had first been made, any of it. It was all meaningless now, overshadowed by far by the prospect that his final words to Zoro were crude and belittling. And in front of the ladies, no less; his shame was immeasurable.
As much as Zoro got under Sanji’s skin, Sanji had met people actually worthy of his ire. This world had no shortage of warmongers and oppressors. Their enemies today were perfect examples.
Even when standing face to face with his brothers, with his father, not even they had received the heat of Sanji’s anger the way Zoro often did. The soldiers and commanders here today, they had opened a pit of fear and hurt in Sanji, certainly, but it wasn’t like the burning heat that consumed Sanji from his heart and lungs outward, not like when he fought with Zoro. And while Zoro was a brute, and a killer, and worst of all, a slovenly oaf who drank over his allotments, he really was far from the worst man Sanji had ever known.
Not that anyone would know that by the way they treated each other.
He was even a good man, if you put the bloodlust aside as one oft must do when it comes to pirates. When he wasn’t asleep, he was loyal; when he wasn’t lost, he was reliable.
Sanji had been far gentler to far worse people.
***
It was about his shoes.
Zoro was aware of the bloodloss; he had been injured enough times to recognize what it meant when his legs dragged and his mind wandered and frayed, thoughts incomplete and trailing. In the heat of battle, he could force himself to fixate on his opponent, or his swords, or something that could actually help him. Out of battle, he had nothing so useful to think about. So instead, with mind meandering as aimlessly as his steps, he replayed the fight from this morning, where he’d told the shitcook that his shoes sucked.
They weren’t cook shoes. Zoro told him so. It really was meant to be that simple. Zoro didn’t know much about it, but he knew that what he wore these days wasn’t like the round-toed hoofs he’d worn back when they picked him up from the restaurant. The soles had been tall in anticipation of wet, even flooded kitchen floors. They were made not to slide, and they actually looked comfortable. Now, he only wore dumb things that had an unnecessary heel that didn’t do shit on slippery or flooded floors. The leather was uselessly, vainfully shiny, in a narrow shape that made Zoro cringe to imagine on his own feet, and not at all suited to the hard work of a chef nor fighter.
The best shoes the cook had anymore were probably the orange clogs; they were rubber, and if not for the holes in them, made the most sense as far as Zoro could tell.
Shitcook had been unreasonably horrified in being informed that his shoes were dumb, and why didn’t he at least wear the orange rubber ones anymore? Somehow, it had warranted a comment about how Zoro ought to have succeeded cutting his feet off at Little Garden years ago. Which required a response, of course, so Zoro told him that he should have succeeded bleeding to death at Fishman Island.
Zoro didn’t much contemplate the concept of cosmic justice, on any scale, but just maybe he might have had this coming, he mused with faint humor as he leaned against the wall of a building, hardly able to walk another step. Guess who was bleeding out now, Curly? Bet he’d laugh if he could see it.
He could laugh all he wanted back home, back in the galley, while Zoro enjoyed his victory drink. With that image, that promise to motivate him, Zoro pushed himself from the wall and forced his feet onward.
A beer and the sound of the love cook’s laughter; what more could he ask for?
He took another left turn.
***
Zoro wasn’t even on land anymore when Sanji finally, finally found him.
In the empty, abandoned base atop the Germa 66 snail, in a cold, dark stone building, Sanji found Zoro on the floor. It was a dead end in a hall of the military facility, the stuff right out of Sanji’s nightmares. How he’d gotten so far, how he’d wound up on the enemy ship at all, was all at once a mystery and something Sanji frankly cursed himself for not anticipating from the start.
Absolutely battered and beaten, but with the unmistakable air of conceit and cockiness, Sanji knew at once that Zoro had won his fight despite the pitiable looks of him now. The swordsman got himself injured all the time. It was the territory that came with being the guardian of the team and the dedicated warrior of their crew, that he should pick the dangerous fights that no one else could have reasonably survived. And when the battle ended, the risks he took and the danger he faced would be written across his body, his dedication and determination written in blood with the solemnity and steadfastness of a marriage vow.
Sanji knelt beside him and grumbled some half-thought of him being worthless. His slender arms wrapped around Zoro’s body, meaning to lift him up, but Zoro offered no assistance and was dead weight against him: the difference between expecting to pluck a crocus and instead trying to uproot a tree.
More grousing, more grumbling - Zoro at least did Sanji the favor of grumbling back, so he at least knew the idiot was neither dead nor dying, just absolutely wrecked, maybe concussed.
Zoro’s mass eclipsed Sanji’s slight figure. For all Sanji’s complaining, the feeling of Zoro’s wide hand braced against his chest, over Sanji’s thrumming heart, was an unexpected comfort.
Sanji had been far gentler to far worse people, and he knew it. He reminded himself of that, as they stepped through halls that looked and felt and echoed just like the ones he grew up in. He tormented himself for a moment with the thought of what sort of beast Zoro could have been if he’d been born in Germa as well, or instead, and dismissed the thought when Zoro grumbled against him to ask what was wrong.
Once out of the building, they got a glorious view of the sunrise. Mossy bastard had been so lost, Sanji spent more time looking for him than the whole crew had spent fighting!
“I need to stop for a moment,” Sanji explained, and Zoro was in no condition to contest him as he turned them both to settle Zoro on the ground.
“You don’t look injured at all,” Zoro observed from his new spot on the flagstones.
“Of course not, I actually did really well in my fight. Unlike some people.”
Zoro coughed out a laugh, the roll of his eye turning his whole face skyward. “You wouldn’t have lasted a whole minute against the guy I went up against.”
“Wouldn’t have had to, I’d have won in less than a minute.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Oh, sorry, I guess I just assumed you could take care of yourself for one measly little fight.” It was just now that Sanji realized his cigarette had burned down to the filter. He spat the butt at the top of Zoro’s head, grimaced when the oaf didn’t even react, and lit up anew. Then, he pulled Zoro back off the ground and against his body to restart their slow journey.
“Naw… I didn’t want an easy fight, anyway,” Zoro wheezed.
Sanji rolled his eyes and blew smoke over the big green idiot. “What a dumb way to justify getting your ass kicked.”
“Come on, Curly, you didn’t think I’d hear their names and check out, did you? Get bored? It matters too much for it to be a meaningless fight.” He placed his hand on Enma’s hilt, as if to imply that the sword agreed. Weirdo. “Besides, I still won.”
“At the cost of half the blood in your body.”
“Still won.”
“You have to be bodily dragged back to the ship now.”
“My victories keep coming.”
That gave Sanji pause; surely he meant that he had won the last several fights he’d been in, and not that this--?
“Can’t you just sky walk us home?”
“Easier said than done, moron, I just finished a battle, too, and you’re heavy!”
“Your knobbly flamingo legs not up to the challenge?”
“I can just set you down and let you crawl home. Except you’d never find your way back.”
As if to prove that Zoro did in fact know exactly where they were going, he reached out one weak, drooping arm and pointed left. When Sanji scoffed and turned them down the right path, instead, Zoro growled, “I could just follow the awful clicking sound of your stupid shoes.”
“Stupid shoes? Again with that?! Ugh, I cannot believe I got into a tiff with you of all people over fashion.”
Zoro’s face screwed into a baffled little scowl, the same he’d worn through much of their argument at breakfast. As the sky lightened into a hazy gray, it occurred to Sanji that argument had been a whole entire day ago.
“Fashion is nothing to do with it.”
“These shoes are designer,” Sanji added, a little gloating. “Nami-swan got them for me.” Nami let him buy them.
“So you understand what’s wrong then?” Zoro asked, incredulous. “Why have you been such a brat about it if you obviously understand what I’m saying?”
Sanji blinked. “I’m genuinely at a loss. What, you hate fashion? Things that are nice?”
“You’re not a designer, stupid. You’re a chef. Wear proper shoes, is what I’ve been saying.”
For a moment, Sanji was overcome by an unexpected wave of heat; it started at his face, in his cheeks, and swept across him in a wave that pooled at his feet and made each step sizzle. Being called a chef in a Germa base felt cathartic in a way Sanji didn’t know he’d craved. A steel bar on the cold, dark, ever-present cage in his mind came loose.
Then, the heart of what Zoro was actually saying sunk in. Sanji blinked again. “Is that what you think that means? That designer shoes are for desi--”
“I like the rubber ones. They’re practical.”
“Are you kidding? That’s what you’ve meant this whole time?” Sanji breathed a cloud of smoke, and this time, for the first time in hours, it rose properly in a fluffy shape unweighted by frustration. “We said some vile shit to each other yesterday over this.”
“Lighten up. Hey, I thought I was bleeding to death.”
Sanji grimaced. “You’ll be fine, we’ll get you to Chopper.”
“No, it’s funny. You’re supposed to laugh.”
Sanji’s expression was already crunched in discomfort, any more and his face would go fully concave. “You’re not a joke to me, mosshead.” Maybe he’d lost enough blood not to remember this, though, so Sanji continued on in a halting, uncertain breath, “I’m sorry.”
Zoro was quiet, but decidedly not because he’d done them both a favor and conveniently passed out to spare Sanji the humiliation. Even focusing straight ahead, he felt Zoro’s gaze on him, igniting a new wave of heat in Sanji’s face.
“You’re sorry?”
“Ugh, don’t make me repeat it, okay?”
Zoro was quiet for a moment, apparently really chewing on his response. Good, Sanji thought, he could just stay silent the whole way back and maybe he’d forget what they’d even been talking ab--
“Sorry, too.”
“Wh--” Sanji choked on a breath and the smoke puffed out from his head like one of Usopp’s bombs exploding in a barrel. “You’re sorry?”
“We gonna go back and forth all day? Yeah, I’m sorry.” Then, smugly, “I was able to repeat it. You weren’t.”
“Shut up! You said meaner shit than I did, I deserve to hear it from you twice.”
He braced himself for an argument, for something snide, and instead, Zoro barked a laugh. “Yeah, you’re right.” After a pause, he said, “Are we being nice because you actually thought I was gonna die?”
“Shut. Up.”
“I really thought you’d think it was funny. That I thought I was bleeding to death.”
“I don’t hate you, you know,” Sanji snapped. “I mean, I do, I hate you, but I don’t dislike you. When you don’t open your mouth I actually like you a lot. And when you are talking, I don’t stop liking you, I just hate what you say, or maybe just how you say it, or… I don’t know that I hate any part of it, really. I just feel too much.”
Zoro’s weight on Sanji’s shoulder went dead and limp, and he stopped moving to cast a worried eye at the swordsman. He was still conscious, unfortunately, and had seemed to put his weight heavy on Sanji’s shoulder to get him to pause. His broad hand pressed again to Sanji’s chest, over his heart, where now it pounded hard like it wanted to leap from his ribs and right into Zoro’s palm.
“What do you feel, then, Cook?”
“I feel like,” Sanji said, but it was weak and unsure and for the life of him he had never gotten this far trying to sort any of it out.
Zoro was patient only for a heartbeat. His brows twitched, like he was fighting the impulse to get frustrated. Slow and careful, Sanji could hear the tension in Zoro’s voice as he fought to keep his composure, too. “What do you feel like?”
Like it was all too much. Like anything Zoro said filled him instantly with indignance, with pride, with heat and fire and something to prove in a way that no one else did. Sanji was fueled by passion, from the burning of his feet to the chopping of his knife, in battle and in his galley; and no one made him feel so much, so quickly. Like water that boiled in an instant. Like a fish that fileted itself. Instantaneous, and overwhelming, to his constant detriment. And then, with each word that Zoro said, with each thing that Zoro did after, it was immediately too much. He couldn’t fit the emotion that Zoro inspired in him in his body, he overflowed, he was too full of feeling and there was never anywhere to put it.
And here, of all places, under the waving shadow of a Germa flag at dawn, called Cook in the stone street of a warship, it was too much. He was too full of feelings. Zoro made him feel too much, too much to make sense of.
Sanji’s hand landed on top of Zoro’s, over his chest. He could feel his own heartbeat pounding clear through, could feel Zoro’s hand twitch as if he wanted to turn his grip around, to clutch Sanji’s hand back. Zoro’s face watched him so carefully, so expectantly, and it leaned in closer ever so slightly, his body shifting to press into Sanji’s shoulder with a new intention. It was all too much, it was always, always too much.
“Like foie gras,” Sanji gasped.
That stopped Zoro’s steady lean, and wiped his face clean into a blank, unfathoming stare. “Uhm. What?”
“A gavaged duck.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
Sanji abruptly looked away, removed his hand from over Zoro’s, and set them once again on the path home. “Shut up.”
And for once, Zoro did.
***
After five minutes of Chopper panicking, and then half a day of Chopper’s more level-headed medical care, Zoro was back to feeling closer to his baseline. Some aches and pains, but nothing that a stiff drink couldn’t make him forget. This was something with whisky in it, bitter and sharp, with a burn that lingered; he wasn’t sure what exactly it was called, but it hit the spot.
Supper had ended, and Zoro stayed in the galley.
The shitcook, for his part, was fully ignoring him. Zoro didn’t mind.
He was meticulous, washing the dishes and the pans and the counters and the stove with all the focus of performing katas. Zoro sipped his drink slower than usual, savoring it alongside the hypnotizing rhythm of the cook’s constantly-moving hands.
Zoro swore he still felt the phantom sensation of Cook’s heart under his palm, the fleeting brush of his sacred hands overtop his fingers. From the table, he could see Cook plunge his pan in the sink and scour it under the soap; for one single moment that kept him confused for many minutes thereafter, he felt a twinge of jealousy for the pan.
When he heard the sink begin to drain, Zoro knew he was meant to finish his drink; Curly would want to mop next, and would probably be shooing him out any minute. But instead, Sanji came round the counter and sat himself across the the table, a low glass of wine in hand.
“Chopper fixed you up quick,” Cook said, only a little stiff. Smalltalk. Zoro would take it.
“He’s the best doctor on the seas,” Zoro affirmed easily.
“That he is.” He looked away as he took a sip of his wine, stilted and uncertain. He didn’t even bother to take the cigarette out of his mouth, he just rolled it with his tongue to the corner of his lips. When he set the glass down, the white filter was soaked red like lipstick, or blood.
Zoro caught himself wanting to criticize whatever cowardice this was. Instead, he gulped down the last of his drink and held the glass up. “Oi, another?”
And the shitcook, maybe realizing he’d miscalculated just how awkward their attempt at conversation would be, actually leapt at the opportunity to get away without a word of complaint at Zoro’s presumptuous and rude request. He reached as far as he could, stepping only as close as he had to, to retrieve Zoro’s glass and retreat back into the safety of his kitchen. He left his own glass of wine, forgotten, on the far end of the table.
Now that the cook was back on his version of the highground, and the tension immediately diminished as he set about the task of fixing a drink, Zoro tested his luck: “We’re both still sorry about yesterday, yeah?”
The cook might’ve bristled here, might have said something snide or sarcastic. Instead, he scoffed, more dismissive than derision, and Zoro took that as an immediate good sign. “Think I’m going to go back on what I said? Think more highly of me.”
“I couldn’t possibly.”
And the cook’s hand jolted like Zoro had come up from behind him and screamed, “Boo,” just enough for the whisky to splash over the lip of the cup. Never one to waste even a drop, Zoro watched as he swiped his finger across the freshly-cleaned counter and sucked the liquor from his finger tip.
“That sounds like an insult,” Curly grumbled, but the blush spreading across his cheeks told Zoro he was at least aware of how else it could have been taken, how Zoro had meant it.
It was a relief, truly, that sometimes they really could understand what it was the other one meant, especially before having to have a whole fight about it. Maybe it was a blue moon out tonight.
He stood from the table and wandered over to the bar side of the counter, leaned over on his elbows to watch his quick, perfect hands finish the drink.
“I just figured I’d ask, since you were only being nice because you thought I was about to die,” Zoro said leadingly, still offering the cook an out, if he really wanted it. After all, it was clearly a new and uncertain sea for Shitcook to navigate, this sort of peace between them, if his sudden behavior was anything to go by. Maybe he wanted to go back, pretend it was all a fluke - it wouldn’t change anything for Zoro, either way.
But Curly looked up, flinching almost like the words had cut him. “You’re fine, I’m fine, it’s fine. And we’re both sorry. We can leave it at that.”
“Is this you asking me to leave it at that?”
Curly passed the glass across the counter; Zoro made sure their skin connected as he took the glass, made sure that he could feel that Zoro was only barely holding back from crushing the glass between their hands.
The lovecook pulled his hand back and let it sit on the counter, in a fist like he wanted to do the unthinkable and throw a punch. “We don’t often get each other.”
“No shit.”
“Shut up, let me talk.”
“I’m not stopping you.”
“Ugh! Yes, you --! Fine, whatever, but listen!” As if he forgot he already had a cigarette burning in his mouth, Zoro watched as the shitcook went and pulled his pack out from his jacket pocket, set a second cigarette beside the first in his lips, and lit it with a lightning-fast flick of his lighter. “Yes, I was worried about you, alright? But that didn’t make me say anything I didn’t mean.”
Zoro let the declaration settle between them, let the air stop vibrating, let his heart find its proper rhythm again, and then leaned forward over the counter. He expected the cook to lean away; he didn’t. “The next time I’m sent to hell, I promise, I’ll make sure you’re with me.”
Cook’s mouth pulled back into an expression like he’d just bit into a lemon. “That’s a fuckling threat, Marimo.”
“No, it’s not.”
“This is what we’re talking about, you realize that, right?! This is exactly what I mean! I think you mean something nice by that, but for the fucking life of me I can’t parse out what!” His fist flattened out, and he seemed to be pushing against the top of the counter. Too many feelings, and nowhere to put them. “You respect me as a cook, and so you made fun of my shoes. And that just made sense to you. You realized you said some fucked up things yesterday, and so you thought it should have been funny to me that you were hurt. And now, you want me to feel better after being worried about you, and you, I don’t even know what, threaten to kill me?! Talking to you gives me whiplash. Is this you being nice?!”
“How do you think I feel?” Zoro said, volume rising, arms thrown up in frustration. “I thought we were getting somewhere this morning! I thought we were finally going to cut to the chase. I thought I was finally about to kiss you, and you started saying that you were a duck! What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?!”
Sanji gasped, choked, floundered. And, seemingly unable to force the words to respond to the most important part of all that, he instead only managed to squeak out, “Not a duck! It’s when -- they get force-fed, and their livers enlarge - “
Zoro’s hands slammed down against the counter, making the glass bounce and rattle loudly between them. ”There’s no fucking way you actually think that makes any sense to me.”
“Then you say it!” Cook spat like a curse. He swept up the drink off the counter and gave it a desperate gulp, as if that was all it would take to cool the rising, visible heat from his bright-red face.
“Say what?!”
“What you mean,” Cook said, his volume abruptly dropping low as his voice croaked against the whisky.
Zoro reached out, grabbed the glass out of Sanji’s hand, and killed it in one swallow. Then, slamming the glass back down, he made sure Sanji’s bared eye was looking directly into his. “I wasn’t afraid of dying. I’ve had it way worse after battles, and I knew that if I lived, I would sit here, in the galley, and watch you clean up while I had a drink. And I did. Perfect end to a good fight. It’s all I ever want. To fight, to win, and to come back home at the end to you in the galley. After this fight, and after the next, and after Luffy is king, and after I beat Mihawk, and every single fight after that. Forever. I’m not going to hell again, not without you. Not when I can come home to you.”
Curly’s visible eye began to water, but he was clearly fighting hard to keep composure; his chin dimpled, and his mouth twisted so that his cigarettes stuck out weirdly at different angles. “I feel like there’s a simpler way to say it,” and, in an afterthought like he thought he needed to keep some kind of wall up, he added, “mosshead.”
“Then you say it,” Zoro said, just on this side of mocking and low enough to be a growl.
Curly swallowed hard. “Kind of sounds like you love me.”
Zoro felt a jolt of heat in his face. For once, the shitcook wasn’t the only one with a stupid blush building. “So we actually understand each other.”
“Are you saying you get what I mean when I say I feel like I’m being gavaged?”
“I’m assuming it’s about how ducks mate for life or something.”
“That is absolutely not what I’m talking about, actually, no.” But rather than seem the least bit frustrated, his mouth was spreading into a goofy grin, wide and open as his heart, the same big smile he wore talking about mythical fish or fairytale oceans. The tears that had been welling began to fall, and dripped into the creases of his smile, onto his lips.
And because Zoro couldn’t take it anymore, because Cook looked so genuinely happy, because all the frustration and annoyance and animosity was suddenly set aside for this miraculous, unspoken truce in this perfect moment, Zoro reached both hands across the counter and grabbed onto the front of Cook’s shirt. Half by pulling him over, half by Cook practically vaulting over himself, Zoro yanked the distance between them closed and nearly broke both their noses with the force of his kiss.
Cook wheezed a joyous, pathetic sound into Zoro’s mouth when Zoro slid his hand into the hair at the back of his head, pulling them impossibly closer. Kneeling foolishly on the countertop, leaning halfway off with his weight tilted forward directly into Zoro, the Cook smiled into the kiss. Broke the seal of their lips so that he could giggle into the space between them, and more effective than any kick right to the swordsman’s chest, Zoro’s heart burst.
It was a wonder, a shame, an absolute waste of time that they had waited this long to just --
Sanji crawled the rest of the way over the counter, and climbed right down into Zoro’s arms.
-- say what they meant all along.
***
The defeated Germa warship disappeared over the horizon; the folk on that island were going to tear apart the base to rebuild their town with, and far be it from the Luffy to stop them.
For Sanji’s part, they couldn’t get far enough fast enough. They won their skirmish with the Germa contingent, of course, and that was all well and good, but he didn’t want a reason for the main force to want to settle any scores. Better to wash their hands of it and get the hell out of revenge distance.
But it was nice, he could admit privately to himself, being called a chef in a Germa base; to hear that word, to hear it from Zoro of all people, in a place that looked almost exactly like his worst of childhood memories.
He was haunted by his past, sure, but his present had a monster of its own, and this one was on his side.
“Sanji, I thought I told you to get rid of those.”
Nami shuffled into the galley, tray in hand from her tea earlier in the afternoon.
With a squawk of apology, Sanji tumbled to her at the door to grab the tray from her hands. “Oh, let me get that for you, Nami-swaaan! Thank you for bringing it back, you’re so thoughtful and so good to meee!” Then, once the tray and all the clattering accouterments was transferred over to him and balanced elegantly on his hand, and the hearts had popped from over his eyes, he cast a sheepish look downward. “Oh, uh, these? I had to get some fish out from the aquarium and I didn’t want to ruin my nice shoes. They were just more practical, is all. I’ll change them for dinner, don’t you worry, my dear. I’ll not subject your perfect eyes to these unworthy things any longer than necessary!”
Nami frowned at the hideous orange rubber clogs, then at Zoro at the counter, who himself was unsightly as well in his own uniquely Zoro way: dripping sweat from his earlier training, hair mussed, and looking at those same ghastly shoes with completely uncalled-for levels of fondness.
“Uh-huh. Anyway, I’ll just,” and she was back out the door without another word, shaking her head as the door closed behind her.
Sanji sighed sweetly as he watched her go, then turned back around and stuck his tongue out, “I told you everyone else hates them.”
“Doesn’t matter, they’re the best shoes you own.”
“That’s objectively untrue.”
“They suit you.”
“And that’s an insult.” He waved his hands in a shooing motion. “Now get out! You’re dripping sweat on my cutting board, you animal!”
“But sake -”
“After you’ve showered, ugh!” Sanji began physically herding the big brute out. “You make it so hard not to be mean to you, I swear!”
Before long, Sanji had nearly shoved him out the door.
But rather than seem the least bit frustrated, Zoro’s mouth was spreading into a goofy grin, wide and joyful as Sanji remembered from years ago at the start of their adventure together. “Move your cigarette or I’m gonna eat it.”
“No, you wouldn't,” Sanji sniped back, but nonetheless he took the cigarette out from his lips and held it out wide so as not to make it too easy for Zoro to prove a point.
And Zoro swooped in, eager, and caught Sanji’s mouth with his.
This might take a while to get used to, Sanji mused, his face instantly burning hot and his ugly clogs starting to fill the galley with the stink of burning rubber. Too much all at once, more emotion than he could fit.
Amazing how worthwhile that overwhelmed feeling could be.