||| Zoro |||
Sanji had started coming into town regularly when they were both six. Zoro had a part time job helping the old man down the street carry ordered groceries down to the docks for he was far too old to do it himself. Zoro had relished the physical training and his sensei informed him that the guided activity and responsibility was good for his training. Besides, the old man's partner had died recently and sensei had said that it was good to help those in need. He was young enough though that when Zoro showed up to help him with the deliveries he couldn't not stare at the greyed out mark on the old man's hand.
He knew about marks of course, people had them. Grown-ups really. It connected them to their match. It was all kinda gross and Zoro was glad that he didn't have his yet. He didn't want to bother with tracking down his match, instead he wanted to defeat the world's greatest swordsman. Though he had no idea how he was going to do that before Kuina beat him there.
Still, the old guy at the shop needed his help and he liked the training. He even managed to stop staring at they greyed out dead mark after a little while. When the old man talked about his match he sounded so fond, so happy and sad at once that Zoro couldn't imagine feeling that way about anyone.
Every week an old guy and his blonde son came to town, they ordered food from the old man's grocery store and Zoro carried most of it down to their ship. The boy, Sanji, had informed him that they ran a restaurant out on the sea and that sounded awesome to him. After all, how cool was that? A floating restaurant!
Eventually Sanji started coming to Zoro's town on his own, capable enough to sail the little ship of his to and from Zoro's island and the Baratie. The two of them fought and hung out and Sanji was truly Zoro's only real friend. Sure he had people he liked at the dojo but they weren't friends, Kuina and he were close but they were practically siblings and she was more rival than friend.
Things ended up being where they would stay over with each other on a regular basis, Zoro visited Sanji on the Baratie and sometimes Sanji stayed at the dojo overnight. Zeff was glad that Sanji had a friend his own age, though Koshiro was more than a little exasperated at Zoro and Sanji's constant fighting. Zoro preferred to stay at the Baratie, they got to stay up late there and eat great food and watch movies. Koshiro didn't believe in TV and he certainly wouldn't have let Zoro watch the kind of things Sanji had access to.
"This is a fifteen! That's like... ancient! We can't watch this!" He had gasped in horror at the case.
"Wimp." Sanji taunted him, leaning back on his elbows and watching the movie. It was all about some boat that sank and two lovers who were separated by class. They were mark matches though so it was meant to be. There was even a scene where they were in a car together doing goodness knows what and the camera showed their hands coming together and their marks matching up with a theatrical burst of light.
"AUGH!" Zoro had yelped, going so red he clashed with his hair.
"Don't be such a baby! That's what matches do, that's how you know that they're your match. It's romantic you idiot!" Sanji had yelled at him, though he was just as flustered as Zoro was, he knew that even then.
"It's- shut up!" Zoro had retaliated and punched him. They'd broken the TV in that fight and that was the last movie they watched for some time.
That summer they had been sprawled on the grassy hillside, soaking in the afternoon sun whilst the pair of them came down from their particularly enthusiastic tussle in which neither had won (as always) and left them both slightly bloody and grass stained (as always).
"What do you think they're going to look like?" Sanji asked, holding his hands up in front of his face with his palms facing him.
"What?" Zoro had frowned, not getting it. Sanji had smacked him in the forehead then and Zoro punched him back.
"Your mark idiot. What do you think they're going to look like when they come in?" Sanji said.
Oh. The marks were something that people developed as they aged. They appeared at varying ages, though usually around the onset of adolescence though sometimes earlier and sometimes later. On every person's palm was a mark, a unique pattern that out there somewhere in the world had a match on someone else's opposing palm. It was how you knew you were meant for each other. People pressed their marks together and if they were a match then the marks became one and changed colour. It was all pretty gross and icky and Zoro wanted no part of it regardless of Sanji's insistence that it was cool and his threats to show him more fifteen rated movies.
"Ick. Who cares?" He'd said grossed out.
"I care, dumbass. I wanna know who my match is, I wanna know what my mark will look like and when I get it! I want to meet them!" Sanji insisted, sitting up and glaring at Zoro.
"Your match probably has cooties." Zoro had asserted confidently.
"You have cooties." Sanji retorted, the picture of maturity.
"Anyway, if you met your match you'd have to kiss them." Zoro insisted with a challenging grin, kissing was gross.
"I want to and my match would want to kiss me too, because they're not an immature little weenie like you." Sanji had retorted, poking his tongue out at Zoro.
"I'm not a weenie!" Zoro wailed, shoving Sanji over sharply.
"Prove it." Sanji challenged.
Zoro had gritted his teeth then, he never backed down from one of Sanji's dares, just like Sanji never did from his. It was half of the reason the two of them were always in one sort of trouble or another. He grabbed Sanji's right hand with his left and clumsily fitted their palms together, slotting their fingers between one another as their palms smushed together, it was all very adult and made Zoro's face redden considerably. It was just like in the film, except they didn't have any marks yet, so it did nothing. Sanji had looked mortified but Zoro hadn't been about to back down and so he'd leant over and kissed Sanji, just to prove him wrong.
It had felt amazing, weirdly so. The feel of Sanji's hand tight against his own and the way that after a second Sanji had pressed his lips back against Zoro's. It had all been pretty chaste really, just kids playing at being adults, but at the time it'd felt like the most scary thing ever, something they'd never tell their parents about.
"Well, you're not too bad." Sanji had said a little breathlessly after the kiss, though the effect was a little spoilt by Zoro wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve and rubbing his hand on his jeans like he might have got plague from touching Sanji.
"Maybe you're my match, I guess we'll find out." Sanji had said with a grin and disappeared off with a laugh.
Over the years it changed from being 'if' they were each other's match to 'when'. The two of them would talk at length about what they'd like their pattern to be and what hand they wanted it on, Zoro wanted it on his left and Sanji was perfectly happy with being the right handed one of them. They drew designs over and over, not that you got to choose what your mark looked like of course, but it was nice. Now and then in secret they'd press their bare palms against each other and kiss, talking in quiet voices about the first time they'd do it for real.
Kuina's mark came in a year before she died, when she was eleven. When she died it turned a sick grey of a dead person's mark and somewhere out there some poor soul's mark had gone grey too, letting them know that their match was dead. Zoro hurt so bad with her death that Sanji stayed with him for two weeks, they slept together and he put up with Zoro when he'd crawl into bed with him and cry and he fought back when all Zoro wanted to do was to lash out and break everyone and everything. Sanji kept him together and the blonde had sworn that he was supposed to, that was what your match did after all.
Sanji had pressed their blank palms together as Zoro raged and swore that he was there for Zoro, that he wasn't leaving, no matter what. It calmed him, even through the thick rage and hurt surrounding him.
Not long after Zoro's fourteenth birthday he was woken up in the small hours of the morning by a blinding itch from his hand. It startled him awake with a yelp but no amount of scratching at it in the dark would make it go away. When he flicked on the light and looked at his left hand his palm was now adorned with three dark black slashes from the top of his palm to the heel of it. The lines were slightly broken in odd places, making it more like a series of small lines in parallel but Zoro loved them instantly all the same.
He'd proudly shown his sensei in the morning and babbled on about whether he was allowed to match with Sanji right away or if he had to wait. Did they have to do it in private or was public okay? When they matched would Sanji live here or would he live there? Could they switch each week or something? If he promised that he'd keep up with his sword practice every day could he go with Sanji?
His sensei had eventually interrupted him with a stern look and said that he was being childish, he didn't even know if Sanji was his match yet or if the blonde would even have a mark at all yet, let alone a matching one. Sanji hadn't had a mark two days prior when they'd seen each other last. Besides, there was still half a week due before Sanji usually showed up.
Zoro had laughed at his sensei's lack of faith and told him that he knew Sanji better than that. He sprinted to the beach the very moment that he was done shovelling breakfast in his face, running for the dock with Sanji's boat in the distance.
"ZORO!" Sanji's voice had called to him.
"I GOT MY MARK!" Zoro yelled back, holding his left hand aloft as he ran closer. Sanji's laugh echoed across the beach, as he held up the opposite hand- Sanji's right to his left. He was too far away to see and as soon as the blonde was close enough they threw themselves at each other, smashing their mouths together in a kiss that was considerably less chaste than the first one they shared as kids. Sanji tripped him and shoved him to the ground, the sand from the beach ground into his skin. Zoro didn't care though, laughing happily.
Sanji loomed over him, the elated grin on his face. He couldn't wait to be completely matched to Sanji. He unfurled his hand on the beach, palm up to Sanji in a waiting offer. The blonde was always the more romantic of the two and Zoro had wanted to let him do it how he liked. Sanji's face paled as he looked at Zoro's mark though and in horror he opened his own hand and slowly turned it towards Zoro. Their marks were different.
Where Zoro's was three straight if slightly broken lines Sanji's was a swirl just like his eyebrows.
They weren't a match.
"Fuck it, I still want-" He'd started but Sanji had leapt off of him as if scalded.
"No- I can't, my match..." Sanji had trailed off before turning tail and running away from him.
Zoro had cried for days in his young heartbreak but he tried to move past it for Sanji's sake. Sanji never touched his hand again, though they saw each other still when Sanji had to pick up a grocery order. Sometimes though Sanji would look at him wanting and clearly restraining himself. Zoro's every fantasy was Sanji, he hadn't been interested in finding his match because whoever they were, they weren't Sanji. Sanji was all he wanted.
Zoro had celebrated his sixteenth birthday on the Baratie, things had been more normal between them then. They still fought and argued and everything they used to do. Everything except kiss and touch palms. They had raided Zeff's liquor cabinet and proceeded to get very drunk, their young systems unused to the alcohol.
Zoro was never sure if Zeff was a great parent or a terrible one, Sanji had been smoking since they were kids and they used to watch those films that they weren't old enough to watch and now he was letting them drink. There was no way that Zeff didn't know what they were up to so he was apparently cool with two barely sixteen year olds drink themselves silly.
"You still haven't made a birthday wish." Sanji had slurred drunkenly.
"I have, same thing I wish every year." Zoro answered almost just as far gone.
"What? Oh, no, don' tell me, it won' come true if you do." Sanji had exclaimed. Zoro looked over at the cook. The blonde was older now, and he was hotter every day. Even half wrecked on alcohol like this there was nothing he wanted more than Sanji. He wanted to press his stupid non-matching mark to Sanji's, maybe his wish would have come true and they'd match and he would and kiss him and just... not be rejected this time.
Sanji seemed to see something in his eyes because the blonde lurched forward, grabbing Zoro's face and kissing him hard. Zoro exploded into enthusiasm and he kissed back, pawing at Sanji's shirt and his skin and the two of them got sloppier and sloppier with each other.
Before too long Sanji had dragged him upstairs to his room by the front of his shirt and kicked the door shut behind them. Clothes were shed quickly and Zoro couldn't believe his luck, it was the best birthday ever. Their kisses were heated and demanding and Sanji wanted it just as much as him. They both went down on each other and came embarrassingly quickly, inexperience cursing them but youth granting them the ability to be perfectly ready again almost instantly. Zoro would do it again in a heartbeat though, just the feel of Sanji in his mouth and the sounds that he made were just... perfect.
Sanji had dragged him up the bed, kissing him feverishly with murmured assertations of how much he wanted him and how hot he was and just... everything.
"Fuck me." Zoro had pleaded, scrabbling against Sanji's naked skin. He was happy to do this the other way around of course but right now he just wanted to give himself to Sanji, to be the other half of him and belong to him just as Sanji would belong to him. He'd wanted it for so long.
"Oh god." Sanji had cursed against his lips, flipping them over and holding Zoro's wrists against the mattress. Zoro wanted more though and shuffled his hand down, trying to press his left palm against Sanji's right as it held him down. His fingertips were just starting to twine with Sanji's when the blonde jerked back off of him, looking like he was going to throw up. Considering how much they had drunk it was a possibility.
"Oh shit no, we can't! We're drunk and we can't cheat on our matches Zoro! We can't!" Sanji bawled drunkenly clutching his right hand to his chest, protective of his mark as he backed away and scrabbled around on the floor for his clothes.
"Don't do this?! We've already-" Zoro tried to reason.
"Don't remind me what we've already done, it's just a huge mistake!" Sanji snapped, looking furious for the both of them. Zoro's eyes stung at that barb and his heart clenched painfully. How could Sanji reject him after all of this? He just needed to make him understand.
"I've always wanted this, I'm made for you... please." Zoro begged, he normally wouldn't beg for anyone but for Sanji he would. Sanji looked at him wounded and still wanting, still not dressed enough to stop Zoro from seeing just how much Sanji wants this too.
"You're not made for me, your match is. Just as mine is made for me. This needs to stop." Sanji insisted, with one last regretful look Sanji left.
Zoro stayed in Sanji's bed that night, though god knows where Sanji stayed. He cried for his broken heart, he was so much more in love with Sanji than he had been when Sanji first rejected him. He felt weak and useless, but for that night he allowed it. In the small hours of the morning after a fitful hour or so of sleep he stared at Sanji's ceiling and at his hand. He hated this fucking mark, he hated Sanji and he hated love. He was never going to fall in love again, that part of him was dead, Sanji had ripped it clean out of him and he didn't want it back.
He got up and sailed back to the mainland in Sanji's boat without even searching for the blonde. He went home and resolved never to see him again, despite his actions he still had some pride. Sanji took his boat back and someone else picked up the deliveries, not that Zoro took them anymore, he quit that job.
The blonde tried to visit Zoro a few times after that but quickly gave up when Zoro refused to see him. Three attempts is all it took for Sanji to give up on him completely. He clearly had never meant anything to Sanji. Good, he didn't want to anymore.
Sanji
Three years had turned Zoro into a man. No longer the lithe sixteen year old he's now nineteen and build like a full adult, clad in muscle that makes Sanji's knees go weak when he sees him. They'd not seen each other for three years but even so, the first time that he lays eyes on Zoro a wave of lust and love hits him so hard in the gut he nearly doubles over in shock.
"Zoro said you were the best cook, so you're joining my crew!" The little black haired bouncy kid with the hat says.
Sanji's eyes went wide. Zoro had refused all contact with him after that drunken debacle that was Zoro's sixteenth birthday and yet it turned out that when questioned about a cook for the pirate crew he was now on Zoro had immediately given Sanji's name as the best. It took almost no convincing to join Luffy's crew. He wanted to badly to see Zoro again that he would have signed up for being the goddamn maid if he had to. Besides, it was a chance to see the world and find the All Blue. Yes it had been heart wrenching leaving his old man, but Zeff had all but kicked him off the ship.
On the crew there's a kid younger than him with a long nose who is already matched to a girl back home. His mark is red and he talks of her fondly and writes her letters. Nami refuses to let anyone see her mark, keeping a bandana or a bandage around her hand at all times. She's right handed with her mark too though so to Sanji's regret he knows that she's not his match, regardless of how much he'd like it.
Their captain Luffy was entirely mark-less despite being 17. He's so immature most of the time though Sanji could see why he'd not developed one yet. It turned out that he wasn't the only one though, when they rescued Nami from Arlong after she stole their ship it turned out that she had no mark either. Something that she was incredibly angry and self-conscious about. They only discovered because she stabbed herself right in the hand where her mark would be, just to save Usopp's life.
Zoro disturbed him though. He'd thought at first that Zoro was just mad at him, as he had every right to be. They'd been too busy at first with Nami and Arlong and getting onto the Grand Line to talk much but after that Sanji discovered that Zoro didn't want to talk to him. Zoro studiously ignored him or if he didn't he fought with him. It wasn't like the playful fights that they'd had as kids, Zoro hurt him if he could. He never made a move to kill him but he had no qualms about seriously hurting Sanji.
Zoro was a different man, hard and cold with him. But there were rare moments... when Zoro didn't think that he was looking or after an especially dangerous encounter that Zoro would look at him and his face would look so much like that love-struck sixteen year old's that Sanji had to do a double take. Zoro always seemed to punish himself afterwards though, by ignoring Sanji or by training himself half to death. If Sanji was honest it hurt.
Zoro had reasons to have the issues that he did though. Aside from how royally Sanji had fucked things up when they were younger Zoro had another problem. Zoro was wearing gloves, black leather things that completely covered his palms. They were fingerless for grip but even so Sanji knew what they meant. People sometimes wore black over their marks and hid them when their match was dead, when their mark had gone the cold dead grey of a widowed person. Sanji's heart ached for Zoro, no wonder he was never interested in his match all that time ago, perhaps some part of him knew he'd never meet them.
He tries not to get drunk around Zoro because every time he does he can't help but remember Zoro's sixteenth birthday and when he had the swordsman naked and oh so willing beneath him and quite literally begging for him. He alternates between feeling sure of his decision, usually when he looks at his mark and imagines his match, and regretting it intensely. He can't wait to meet his match because it'll be a relief not to have Zoro be the person that he loves most any more. He wants not to feel that pang of hurt when he knows that Zoro doesn't feel the same anymore.
With each island that they come to he looks for his match, checking hands and looking in the matchmaker's directory at each island. It's a big book listing all of the unmatched marks living on the island and whilst it doesn't capture transitory visitors like himself it's a good way to see if his match is there. He'd need to be blind to miss the flash of hurt that runs through Zoro or the way he's cold with him each time he does it. Zoro's lost his own match but it's not Sanji's fault, is it? He invited Zoro to talk about it once but Zoro just punched him in the face and fucked off for a few days.
He can never imagine what the face of his match might be like, and so whenever Sanji jerks off it's always to thoughts of Zoro. In his imagination Zoro's mark is the inverse of Sanji's own, a perfect counter spiral to his instead of those three strikes on his palm. He imagines pressing Zoro into the mattress and holding his hands close and feeling that spark that's supposed to be like lightning the first time matches press together. At the end he always feels guilty though, Zoro isn't his to fantasise about.
When Kuma stands before them on Thriller Bark Sanji offers to take Luffy's place, their captain needs to go on and Zoro needs to become the best. They all have dreams that need to be fulfilled and giving Zoro a chance to fulfil his is the closest that he can do to make amends for loving Zoro when he had no right to. He knows that his last thoughts before death should be of apology to the match that he's never met, the one who was meant for him, but all he can think about is Zoro.
That is until Zoro knocks him out with a blindingly painful attack to the side.
Sanji comes to with a searing pain in his hand, just like the night when his mark appeared. He screams and clutches at it in agony, the whole thing is throbbing angrily. He doubles over his hand in pain and clutches it close. Before he can think further he sees Zoro's swords abandoned on the floor and rushes up to them, he follows a bloody trail leading away and follows it, his heart in his throat.
Zoro is still alive, but barely so. The pain in Sanji's hand is only getting worse and Sanji can see that his mark is starting to fade, starting to go a grim grey colour at the edges. His match is dying and so is Zoro. He clings to Zoro like a child and drags him to Chopper, he can't lose both his match and Zoro at once. He won't.
Chopper dresses his wounds and tends to him with Sanji hovering around him. He doesn't worsen much but he doesn't improve either. Chopper is concerned with how much pain Sanji is getting from his mark and tells him that Sanji's match must be on death's door, Chopper tries to counsel him for the loss that he's no doubt about to feel but all Sanji can think about is Zoro.
"I just wish his match was here, the energy from matching might help Zoro's drained system, he's struggling to fight for his life and I really don't know if he'll make it." Chopper warbles tearfully. Sanji wants to scream and cry and curl up and die, the pain from his hand hurts him but the pain at the idea of Zoro dying is so much worse.
"Yeah, well his match is dead. Hence the gloves." Sanji sighs, taking his hand from Zoro's bandaged arm and ruffling Chopper's tiny furry head.
"What? No they're not." Chopper blinks up at him in surprise. To Sanji's shock the little doctor pulls back Zoro's bandages to reveal a perfectly fine and black set of three lines on Zoro's palm. His match isn't dead, Zoro had just refused to let anyone think otherwise and make that connection. Zoro could have met his match already and not known it, the stupid bastard!
Sanji is furious with Zoro, if his match was here then perhaps he could borrow some of his match's energy and he'd survive this and not worry Sanji so. But with that said any match of Zoro's would no doubt disapprove of Sanji entirely, they'd be right too, Sanji is a blatant threat to any match of Zoro's. He tries to imagine who could possibly be good enough for Zoro and he can't come up with anyone, no one is good enough for Zoro as far as he's concerned.
Chopper forbade him to smoke as the little doctor went to bed, leaving Sanji on Zoro watch duty. He's so tense though that he desperately wants to. Zoro is getting weaker, he can feel it in his bones.
"You still have things to do you bastard." He whispers to Zoro's ashen face.
"You have a match to meet and fall in love with, someone who deserves you, not like me. You were always far too good for me, that's why you weren't my match. You're too strong, too noble... I'm selfish. I just want you for myself even though you belong to someone else. And... even though I fucked things up so bad that you don't love me any more." Sanji sighs.
He pulls back Zoro's bandages on his hand and looks at the dark black mark. Sanji's own is nearly entirely grey now. He gingerly climbs on top of Zoro, his knees resting on the stone tomb that they've laid Zoro on in lieu of a bed. He leans down and listens to Zoro's heartbeat, just to reassure himself that it's still there. It's slow and weak, but still beating.
"My match is dying Zoro. In a way I'm glad I guess, I know that's horrible. But... if you still want me, and you're rejecting your match, then maybe we can be together. We can do all the things we always wanted." Sanji promises into Zoro's ear, hoping that the vow will wake Zoro.
He pulls back from Zoro, kneeling on either side of his thighs. Zoro's skin is so pale and he looks almost dead already. He's been a constant in Sanji's life for so long that he's no idea what he'll do if Zoro actually dies.
"You can't die, you stupid bastard." He hisses.
His eyes fall down to Zoro's turned up palm, to the three black strikes on his palm that are so different from Sanji's swirl. He remembers having Zoro under him in completely different circumstances, when Zoro had been desperate for him. Zoro had wanted to press their marks together and make love with him despite their mismatch. Zoro didn't believe in fate or god or anything like that, but he'd believed in Sanji.
He was a fool to ever turn Zoro down.
It feels so wrong to do this with an unconscious person, creepy even, but matches did this all the time to show affection, even if the other was asleep. Besides, Zoro had offered it to him twice before now and he'd stupidly thrown it away. If Zoro does die then Sanji doesn't want to have never done this. He twines his weak fingers with Zoro's limp ones and keeps their palms a centimetre apart. This is heresy to be doing this with his match dying somewhere else in the world, but he won't stop, not this time.
"I've always loved you, idiot." He breathes and presses his palm to Zoro's like he should have done years ago.
Zoro's hand snaps shut around his and pain lances through Sanji like a knife. He feels like he's been struck by lightning and hit by a truck all at once. All he can do is scream and he feels Zoro's body arch under him. His vision swims through tears and disorientation and he starts to feel empty and weak, like he's dying. Zoro's chest heaves under him and Sanji hears the pained hiss escape from Zoro's lips.
Zoro's bandages are splattering with red, Sanji's nose and mouth are leaking blood and he thinks that even his eyes are shedding it. Just when he feels he can't possibly take any more it ends and whatever current had been running through him drops him limp and near lifeless onto Zoro's prone body. Hands wrench him off of Zoro and he drops to the floor, his fingers untangling from Zoro's. He can hear his nakama's voices around him but he can't make out the words.
|||Zoro|||
He awakes to what feels like the worst hangover in his entire life. Even his goddamn teeth hurt. He groans and opens his eyes blearily. Chopper is on him in an instant, shining a light into his eyes and asking him questions like "does this hurt" and "can you bend this?" Zoro answers the questions and does as he's told with the practiced ease of one used to the notion that obeying Chopper is so much easier than not.
Chopper is monitoring his blood pressure when Zoro looks over the edge of his hard makeshift stone bed and sees Sanji on the floor at his side. The blonde is pale and blood stained, sending Zoro's bloodpressure skyrocketing enough to make the little doctor react in terror.
"Sanji!" Zoro gasps, leaning down stiffly to Sanji.
"He gave up quite a lot for you, you know. It's only because of him that you're still alive." Chopper says disparagingly, pulling Zoro back down. Zoro resists and looks at the cook. His eyelashes are crusted with red and his nose and ears also show signs of having bled. Did Kuma inflict leftover damage on Sanji? Did Zoro pass out before it was all done? He can't remember!
"Thankfully the match gave at least as much to you as it took from him, you'll both recover with enough rest." Chopper says calmly, pushing Zoro back down.
"Wait, what?" Zoro blinks in confusion.
"Your mark. Congratulations I guess, though why you both waited this long I don't know." the doctor grumbles, holding Zoro's own hand up before him.
Zoro stares at his mark.
It's not black any more but instead the red of a completed mark. His three lines are still there but they cut through a perfect swirl in the middle of his palm. He knows the place where his three slashes had blank spaces in them and now they're completely filled with the arcs of Sanji's curl. Sanji's mark fitted with his... he... he was a match.
They were a match.
SANJI IS HIS FUCKING MATCH!
Zoro squawks and leaps out of bed, landing on the ground above Sanji and pulling at his blonde's hand. He stares at the limp pale hand for a second. Sanji's mirror swirl is cut up by Zoro's slashes and they're all painted in a perfect red. Oh god, it's real.
Zoro presses his palm to Sanji's and feels a surge of energy within him, his hand hums with a strange push and pull feeling that changes with his breathing. It feels like a completed circuit with energy flowing from him to Sanji and back again. Sanji groans, his eyes fluttering open.
"I hate you, you fucking stupid bastard." Zoro snarls furiously and lovingly at once. It's sinking in bit by bit, he's not going to have to watch someone take Sanji from him. He's not going to have to be alone for his whole life wishing for something he can never have. Everything inside him that he'd tried to kill comes back to life, not dead but just dormant.
"Fuck you." Sanji croaks back.
They make eye contact and suddenly the energy coursing through their marks turns hotter, that alone tells Zoro that this is going in an entirely new direction. He knows that without even looking at the flush on the blonde's cheeks.
Two giant furry hands yank them apart, Chopper is holding them each at arms length and Zoro's soul aches from the loss of Sanji. Both of them squirm to get free, arms straining for each other.
"As much as I hate to interrupt a first connection, neither of you are physically healthy enough for sex right now and I know that's where this is headed. You both nearly died!" Chopper insists. Zoro squirms and Sanji kicks Chopper in the ribs.
The doctor drops Zoro onto the bed and carries Sanji off, separating them until they're better.
Chopper is by far Zoro's least favourite person right now. He's been keeping the two of them quarantined from each other ever since they woke up. It rubs Zoro raw to have matched and not have consummated anything, it's wrong and totally against all of his instincts. When he has the energy he paces the infirmary like a caged animal, needing Sanji but not getting him.
On the third day Sanji bursts into the infirmary and quickly locks the door and wedges a chair under it, he's breathless.
"I kicked Chopper in the head, he's out cold but still breathing. I also locked him in the bathroom." Sanji explains hurriedly, pulling his shirt off over his head in his eagerness. Sanji reaches for him, his marked hand going for Zoro's matching left. Zoro recoils.
The hurt flashes through Sanji's eyes and for a vindictive second Zoro is pleased, it's still nothing compared to how he's suffered at Sanji's hands.
"Every time we've done this you've broken me, why is this any different?" He asks, accusing.
"I... I was stupid. I thought you weren't my match." Sanji says sadly, shaking his head.
"But we are and-" He tries again, reaching out. Zoro steps back again.
"I told you that I didn't give a shit about that ever and you still did it! If all you care about is this mark and not me then I'll just cut the fucking thing off and you can keep it with you!" He snarls, wishing that he had his swords with him to do just that.
"No!" Sanji squawks, panicked.
"I was a stupid kid, I'm sorry! I really am! I've regretted it ever since. I just... I wanted to find my match and I was heartbroken when I thought it wasn't you. I didn't want to fall for you and then be replaced when you met them, or to hurt you more by doing the same to you." Sanji apologises earnestly, his hands on Zoro's shoulders and holding him in place.
Zoro doesn't move to Sanji but nor does he stop him when Sanji's hand gently traces down his arm, when Sanji meshes their fingers together and brings their palms in contact. He feels the hot energy flow between them and feels the wave of Sanji's remorse and anguish washing over to him. Sanji truly is repentant and he can feel the love from the other.
Zoro's resistance gives and he shoves Sanji back on the medical bed, climbing on top of him. He undoes Sanji's trousers with one hand and pulls them off Sanji helps him with his own and Zoro finds himself glad that he's shirtless (albeit swathed in bandages) because he wouldn't break his connection with Sanji for some stupid shirt.
He presses Sanji's hand into the mattress, a little harsh and hard but he's still angry deep inside himself. Despite Sanji's apology he's still hurt and it can't be instantly erased. Sanji isn't passive, he's kissing and pulling at Zoro far too much for that, but he is submissive. Zoro can feel through their connected hands that Sanji is offering Zoro the chance to do anything, to hurt him if he wants and make him feel heaven or hell. Sanji will take whatever Zoro deigns to give him.
There's been enough hurt for two lifetimes.
Sanji came prepared, with lube in his pockets. It's hard to do everything with just the one hand but like hell will Zoro let Sanji go, not now that they're truly matched. Not now that he has him. Sanji opens up for him brilliantly and they move together slow and easy. He pins both of Sanji's hands above him and they kiss languidly as he rocks into Sanji. He chases every noise that Sanji makes and feels everything between them become more permanent, a fixed match. Everything about Sanji feels perfect, just made for him. He supposes that he is.
The two of them ignore Chopper's shouts through the door about ripping stitches and disobeying orders. By the time the two of them have climaxed together in a long and exhausted wave Chopper is long gone, having got tired of yelling for them through the door.
Sanji pulls their hands apart as he snuggles into Zoro's side afterwards, though he keeps their fingers together. He looks at their red mark, a spiral and three slashes through it.
"I've never seen a mark like ours, one that fits together but doesn't mirror itself." He muses aloud.
"There's no one out there like either of us, so why should there be any other marks like ours?" Zoro sighs tiredly, still weak from the fight at Thriller Bark.
"Sap." Sanji teases lovingly, pressing a kiss to Zoro's cheek.
"Yeah, well." Zoro grumbles, looking away.
"I love it. I love you." Sanji insists, pressing their marks together again and sending a surge of energy through them both. Zoro can't help but smile, heaven help him but he loves this idiot.