If there is anything I have to apologise for, I'm sorry.

As Silent As The Grave

The words hung in the air like the stench of death. They haunted Zoro, their echoes resonating in his head like pitiful cries. He could feel his own heart thundering in his chest, he could feel himself panicking. He wished he could take back those words, snatch them from the air and crush them in his fist so that it would be as if they had never been spoken in the first place. But they had.

"I… I don't…"
"Forget it," Zoro spat, wishing that the ground would swallow him up. That a hole would appear at his feet and he would fall into the depths of the ocean, never to be seen or heard from again.

Why couldn't he keep his mouth shut? Why did he have to blurt out those damned words?
Now he was doomed. He had ruined everything. Their relationship, his relationship. They were no longer nakama.

Zoro had ruined it all.

"Forget I said anything," Zoro spat. "Don't say a word to anyone else and just pretend this never happened."
The swordsman stormed out of the galley, slamming the door behind him, leaving a very shocked, and very confused Cook behind, with only the echoes of a love confession.

Zoro didn't know if he trusted Sanji with his secret.
For three days he felt wandering eyes snatching glances. Even when Zoro was laid in his bed, trying to sleep, he could feel the darkness watching him. Judging him. Tormenting him.

How could he have been so stupid!
The Cook and Swordsman had not exchanged words since Zoro's outburst. He was barely able to stand in the same room. And it wasn't just the Cook.

Zoro was avoiding everyone. They must've known by now.
Robin, surely. Every time Zoro caught a glimpse of her, she'd smile knowingly, as if she knew Zoro's secret. As if she had overheard. As if Sanji had told her…
No. There was no way. Sanji would be just as much embarrassed as Zoro if the woman ever found out….

Was Nami looking at him funny?
No. She just seemed to be avoiding him. Like he was avoiding her.
But, she seemed conscious of it. Every time their eyes met, Nami would quickly look away, her nose turned up…

Now Zoro thought about it, Nami hadn't looked at him or spoken to him at all. Usually she would scold him for fighting with Sanji, but then again he and Sanji weren't fighting. So Nami would scold him for napping and being useless. But Zoro was dead set on training every day, locking himself in the observation tower with his weights and his gruelling thoughts….

Did… she know? Was she disgusted by Zoro's feelings? Was that why she was ignoring him?

Wait.
Wasn't… everyone avoiding him? Did they all feel the same way?
Usopp or Franky would've mentioned something around now. About the swordsman's silence. Brook, who would usually barge in Zoro's training room had kept his distance. Even Chopper hadn't come to ask the man what was wrong…

And Luffy? Was he just too dumb to realise the relationship. Always spouting Nakama this, Nakama that…
Or did he know.

And understand.

That Zoro had broken his promise, that he had destroyed his Nakamaship with those simple, yet earth-shattering words.

Zoro had always thought that Luffy would accept all of him. He didn't think it would matter if he was attracted to Sanji. He wouldn't let that get in the way of their promise, or their bond as nakama.
But Zoro had.
He did and he was going to have to take the blame….

"Did you tell them?"
"Tell them what?"
"What I said to you?"

"O-of course not!" Sanji stammered, moving back from Zoro. "I said I wouldn't, so I wouldn't" the blonde said again, trying to give himself some space from what looked like a ticking time bomb.

Zoro closed the gap, forcing Sanji back against the wall. "Hey calm d-" but Zoro forced his hand against Sanji and pushed him back into the wall.
"You better not have said a word. If not, I'll kill you."

Zoro didn't know why he was blaming Sanji. Blaming Sanji for his feelings. Blaming Sanji for the pain of this one sided love. Blaming Sanji for everything as if it was his fault.

It was his fault. Zoro felt his hand reach for his sword.
Sanji didn't notice; his one eye open in shock as Zoro pushed more weight behind his hand, getting dangerously close to cutting off the man's oxygen supply. He wasn't even fighting back.
Usually when Zoro would get this close, the Blonde would start spitting and kicking and complaining about the stench….

Zoro forced himself closer. Sanji, pinned to the wall by his hands and body, unable to escape the kiss that Zoro planted on his lips. One he deepened by sheer force of will, his strength and the wall keeping from Sanji breaking away.
The man growled in his throat; a threat to stop, but it was snatched away as Zoro nipped at the man's tongue, exploring the Blonde's mouth with his own. His hands on Sanji's hips, his fingers pressed into the man's bone, feeling the thrum of his own blood in his head, listening to Sanji's quickened heartbeat that beat out of tandem of his–

"MARINES!"

Luffy's excited shout shattered the swordsman's resolve.
What was he thinking? Zoro released the Blonde and barrelled out of the Kitchen before he could do or say anything more that he might regret.
He didn't look back as the door slammed, rushing to the deck to greet an air full of cannon balls being deflected by their rubbery Captain who was performing his own Gum-Gum-Balloon, for Chopper's delight.

"How did they get so close?" Usopp yelled, watching the second barrage destroy the first, mid-air.
"Someone wasn't doing their lookout duties," Zoro growled, his mind pulled from the memories of the stolen kiss. He forced himself to forget, to focus, to concentrate as he ran forward, three swords already drawn. He didn't remember doing so.
It came as natural as breathing that now, he sometimes didn't even feel the weapons as swords. No. They were extensions of himself. Limbs that did as he was told.

Not like his heart. Uncontrollable and unthinking.
It had stolen that kiss with Sanji. It had thrown away the words of confession and shattered the relationship with Sanji.
A fragile, broken relationship.

Zoro threw himself into the fight.
One swing of the sword. One enemy.
Two swords moving in unison. Five.
Three Swords coated in blood. The ship they sailed on. The fleet of twenty one ships was quickly dropped to seven. A gum-gum axe dropped the number to six. With a cannon from Usopp, and limbs throwing Marines into the water, the numbers continue to even out, until only one ship remained. Nami's storm clouds called for a dense fog to cover the decks of both ships, knocking down the crew's visibility. Zoro could only see as far as the end of his swords. But still he attacked each marine.
Everyone that was left standing.

Everyone…

Zoro saw him. He recognised him the second his sword pierced the man's body.
Fear and shock forced his hands forward, his sword still clenched tightly, keeping the man standing. He gasped for breath, coughing out smoke from the forgotten cigarette near his foot. Coated in a spray of blood, spat from his mouth, dribbling from the wound in his chest, the wound in his back.
The sheen of metal that connected the two. One that tore a hole through his body and his heart. His trust. His friendship.

"S-Sanji?"

Sanji coughed again, gasping for breath, unable to get any air. Zoro pulled Wado from the boy's body, watching the Blonde stumbled forward. He fell, crumpling to the floor, holding his chest that was quickly drowning in the sea of blood that poured from the wound.
Zoro dropped beside him, his hands hovering, not knowing what to do. How had this….

Zoro knew how. He knew, but he forced himself to believe otherwise. He had sensed Sanji. Of course he had.
He sensed everyone. He knew exactly where they were when he fought. He knew who his enemy were and who his friends were.

But Sanji….

Sanji had been stood on the line. Between friend and foe. Threat and security.
He had been between.

That was why Zoro had attacked. Because of the doubt. The maybe. The might…

He might tell the crew.
He might not.

Maybe he would accept Zoro.
Maybe he wouldn't.

He couldn't.
He can't.

Not know, when he lay dying at Zoro's feet. At his knees. His tears mixed with Zoro's, which streamed down his face, dropping onto Sanji's body that lay before him, fear and shock on his face.

"W-why?" he asked. He knew Zoro wouldn't make a mistake like this. Not in swordplay. Not in a fight. Zoro wasn't stupid enough. Not in something that meant the world to him.

Sanji knew.
He knew this wasn't an accident.

This was deliberate.

"CHOPPER!" Zoro screamed in horror, crying out for help, not bothering to hide the pain from his voice.
"Why?" Sanji repeated again, coughing the blood that built in his mouth. "I-I don't know," Zoro sobbed. "I'm sorry. I didn't trust you. I should've trusted you." Sanji laughed, wincing from the pain it brought. "Damn Moss-head. I should've trusted you too." Zoro laughed himself. Forced. Choked between sobs. "I'm sorry," he said again, reaching down, pulling Sanji to lay on his knees, his fingers woven into Sanji's golden locks.

And that was how they found them.
Zoro cradling Sanji, his cheeks stained with tears, his eyes red and shut tight shut to keep himself from seeing the pale face of the Cook.
Eyes closed. Lips pulled into a soft smile as if he was sleeping.

At peace.

... So yeah.

I think I'm gonna go now.

Somewhere...

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Bye.