Feel
The best thing that ever happened in Sanji's life was having his ship attacked by pirates, getting kicked in the gut (hard, since the Old Man was never one to hold back on him, even then), being washed out to the deadly pull of the stormy sea, and nearly starving, ever so slowly, to his death on a rock that was scorched and abandoned beneath the unforgiving eye of the sun.
Those events wove him into the man he became; gave him renewed purpose, the first real place he would, if only in the privacy of his heart, claim as 'home', and it gave him . . . (father). . . that Shitty Old Man.
And then one day, another Best Thing dropped a cannon ball into the roof of his restaurant, and before you could say 'All Blue', he was off, running with a group of people, who's dreams were every bit as ridiculous and important as his own.
He was still running with them today, especially today; running so hard that bitter sweat poured from his heated brow and into his eyes, blurring his vision as he raced through stubbornly thick foliage that snapped its branches and thorns at his face like fanged teeth.
They had come out of nowhere, as cliché as that statement was. But, it was nevertheless true, and he pushed his aching body to go faster as he listened to he sounds of his pursuers growing closer. They looked like giant black spiders, taller than Zoro, and when they first emerged from wherever they dwelled on this seemingly abandoned island on which his crew had stopped in search of fresh food (regrettably, at the cook's own urging), it seemed as if the group could handle the creatures. But as they hacked and killed the enormous spiders, more and more emerged, until it seemed there had to be thousands of them, pouring down the broken mountainside like a deadly avalanche of legs and dripping fangs. He had begun to lose sight of his companions in the midst of the fierce swarm, and as he felt himself being overwhelmed with the force of attack, he knew that the best thing he could do was to fall back and try to get some distance between himself and the monsters if he had any hopes of surviving long enough to come up with a way to defeat them. His plan was not working quite they way he had hoped. The more he ran, the more creatures chased him, and the quicker they came.
He finally broke from the embrace of the oppressive forest, the spiders close behind. But any relief was soon stolen as he looked ahead and realized that he was running towards the edge of a cliff. He heard loud angry hissing that seemed to be right beside his ear, and he knew that the monsters were almost upon him, knew that he was running both from death and towards it, took a moment to hope that Nami was still safe at Luffy's side where he had last seen her, and leapt over the edge of the jagged rock.
He twisted his body once he was in free fall, and saw that he was descending quickly into a large river that cut its way through the island to the sea. The creatures were pouring over the cliff above him, pursuing him even in his fall. Their heavy bodies streaked by him, gravity dragging their massive bulk ahead of him into the waters below. He cried out as he felt a sharp pain in his left calf. One of the spiders had reached out and sank its vicious fangs into his leg, pulling him down faster. Angry, he landed a powerful kick to its grisly head, knocking it away. He turned his head in satisfaction to watch it bounce against the sharp wall of the cliff, until another body struck hard against the back of his head, and then all he knew was nothing.
****
"Hey, are you ever going to get up? Come on, Nami is walking around topless and you're missing everything. Just open your god damn eyes already, you idiot!"
"You're the idiot." Sanji heard himself mutter before bringing himself to full consciousness. He blinked his eyes open, little by little, sensitive to the stinging light of the lingering sun. He finally got them fully opened, and the first thing that filled his line of vision was the battered face of Zoro peering down on him.
"Got enough beauty sleep yet, cook?"
"I'm not the one who needs it", his voice sounded as cracked as his throat felt. He tried to clear it, but wound up battling a coughing fit, tasting the salty sting of seawater in his mouth. A strong calloused hand propped him up and supported the back of his head until the worst of it had passed. Once he felt better, he shrugged out of the touch, and used all of his strength and stubbornness to force himself into a sitting position. He looked around at his new surroundings, trying to take in everything but the man sitting beside him.
He was sitting on a soft grassy bank on the opposite side of the dividing river. Looking up, he glanced at the cliff that he had hurtled himself off of while escaping his pursuers, and was relieved and a little startled to see the area now clear of the deadly creatures. The deep ache in his left leg reminded him of his injury. He saw that the wound had been tended to while he lay unconscious, and tried his damnest not to be absurdly touched by the stretch of familiar black material now wrapped securely around his leg to serve as a bandage.
"Where are our leggy friends?" Sanji asked through the awkward silence, his gaze stubbornly fixed back on the opposite cliff.
"Lining the bottom of the river. Seems they sink faster than Luffy when they hit water. Which is lucky for us, since if they can't swim, they can't cross the river. I think we're clear of them where we are. I haven't seen any of them on this side, so far."
"How did you get here?" Sanji all but mumbled, not really wanting to hear the heroic tale of how the other man had seen him in trouble, and fished him out of the river where he was floating to the bottom like some pathetic rag doll. The scenario seemed all too familiar; he already owed one asshole his life, and now it would seem that he owed another asshole the same thing. And what really burned him about both instances, was that he was really WAS a great swimmer!
The other man paused before answering, and Sanji heard him shifting on the grass beside him.
"Well, I was fighting through that mess, same as you, when I heard Ussop hollering for help. I started to make my way towards his voice, when I got knocked off balance by one of the creatures. I fell down, and before I could get back on my feet, I was, kinda, well. I got stepped on."
A shock of laughter escaped through the blonde's lips. He finally turned amused eyes to the swordsman and got his first real look at the other man, and all pleasure drained as quickly as it had come. Zoro's right shoulder was oozing blood at an alarming rate, the white shirt almost soaked thoroughly by rich crimson. Sanji stared at it in shock, his own wound, which surely had to be minor by comparison, forgotten entirely. The other man took in the blonde's shock, and looked away in discomfort before continuing his tale.
"Anyway, those pointy little legs really are as sharp as they look, and I got one stuck right in my shoulder. Before I could get myself free, the damn thing took off running, dragging me with it. It wound up running off the cliff, and the impact of the water finally jarred me loose. As I started to swim up to the surface is when I noticed you down there with me, so I grabbed you on the way up. And he we are."
Sanji recovered his wits somewhat, and while carefully avoiding putting unnecessary weight on his injured leg, grabbed a hold of the front of Zoro's ruined shirt. He wasn't the resident doctor by any means, but even he knew that the shirt had to come off and the wound patch up quickly before the man lost any more blood. He didn't bother asking the other man to remove the shirt himself, since the blonde didn't want to risk the big moron playing the tough guy routine and lifting his arms to remove it; the movement would only serve to aggravate the injury further. Using Zoro's surprise at his sudden nearness to his advantage, Sanji took handfuls of the shirt and pulled; the fabric splitting neatly down the center.
He leaned in to examine the ruined shoulder. The flesh was torn ragged straight through, and it was when he felt Zoro swaying to the side was when he realized that the swordsman was already suffering from the effects of blood loss. Gently he eased the torn shirt the rest of the way off. He saw mass bruising and swelling covering the tanned back which had to have been the results of being dragged by the spider, so he quickly removed his dark navy jacket and spread it out on the ground behind the green-haired man as an offered means of protection. Lastly, he unbuttoned and removed his dress shirt, shivering slightly as a leftover breeze whispering through the late afternoon air chilled his damp pale skin.
When he looked up at Zoro to tell him to lie down, he saw that the other man's eyes were dark, much more focused than they should have been, and tracking each movement that he made. Sanji hadn't really thought about how close the two of them were at this point, or how half-naked. His stomach started to feel light the way it did when Nami's skirts were extra short or her shirts extra tight, but it was really so much more than that. So much more raw. And Sanji felt himself, ever so slowly and without conscious intent, swaying closer, easing more and more into the other man's personal heat, closer, falling past already shaken boundaries, and this was so much like tumbling over that cliff earlier, but scarier, because that time he had thought that he may have been falling towards his death, but this time, he hadn't a clue of what he was heading towards.
With a start, he quickly realized that he wasn't the only one falling, as the closing distance between the two men suddenly opened again, and if he wasn't so off balance by what had almost just happened, he may have had the reflexes to catch Zoro as his eyes rolled up into his head and collapsed, unconscious, back against the ground.
Sanji let out a whole slew of inventive curses that would sober up even the drunkest sailor. He focused his intention on the bloody shoulder, not wanting to think about ANYTHING else. Knowing that pressure had to be applied to the wound in both the front and back to stop the bleeding, and since he was seated on the left side of Zoro with an injured leg that prevented him from moving around too much, he was forced to lean across the unconscious man, snake his arm under his back to press the cloth of his shirt against the exit wound, while his other arm rested across the scarred chest to press the rest of the fabric against the wound's entrance.
He didn't quite know how he was suppose to feel at this moment, laying half on top of the swordsman, with the flesh of their bare bellies resting against one another. So, for the sake of his slipping sanity, he decided to go for majorly pissed-off, and started thinking about all of the reasons he hated the drooling son of a bitch beneath him.
He hated Zoro's lack of manners when around ladies. He hated the loud gulping noises he made when drinking. He hated that even though Zoro loved the food that Sanji cooked for him (after all, who wouldn't?), he rarely showed it. Sanji hated the fact that he could no longer hear the sound of wind chimes without feeling out of breath. And most of all, he hated him for THAT NIGHT, the night the chef finally heard the voice of the sea, and he heard it laughing at him.
The body beneath his hands shifted back to consciousness. Zoro blinked around and at Sanji in confusion.
"What -"
"You fainted" Sanji replied with abrupt viciousness.
The other man's eyes widened.
"Huh? I fain--, I did not!"
"Yeah, ya did." The cook replied cheerfully, not feeling the slightest bit of shame at the curl of pleasure he felt being cruel to the swordsman. "I've seen fainting before, you know. Back at the restaurant, we had a four-year-old girl faint once, and she looked just like you when you did it. She recovered a lot quicker, though, but I wouldn't worry about it. Its nothing to be all embarrassed about. Not really."
"What?!?!" he all but screamed.
"Shh. Calm down, Zoro. If you get all worked up, you might start swooning again."
"SWOONING?!?! I'VE NEVER SWOONED."
"All right, all right. I believe you." Sanji replied in a voice that clearly said the opposite.
"Fuck you."
"Not at the rate you're going."
Sanji never experienced a silence as complete as the one that followed his words. Where they had come from, he hadn't a clue, but now they were out there, and there was no pulling them back. He could not even hear the pounding of his own heart, but he knew it roared, because he felt the painful pulse vibrate his entire body. He could not track time, but knew the oppressive silence must have stretched long before Zoro's voice, sounding deeper than it usually did, broke through.
"My shoulder feels better."
Like he cared.
"Like I care."
"You're pretty good at this. Guess you had to have had practice, huh?"
Sanji may have grunted in response, he may not have.
"I've heard stories about that old man, you know. There was a reason he was called 'Red Foot'. I guess you learned to patch yourself up as a kid while he was training you."
"What are you talking about? He never made me bleed."
"Really? Held back on you, huh?"
"No. He just told me that he didn't want me messing up his restaurant by bleeding all over it. Said it was bad for business."
There was a pause.
"He really loves you, you know, your old man."
Sanji stiffened at the words, heat touching his cheeks. He stared off stubbornly in the distance, and snapped back,
"Idiot. Don't talk about such stupid things!"
"You're the idiot", the swordsman shot back, sounding angry, "Stupid guy that doesn't know that his father, or whatever, or anyone for that matter, I mean, that he's, or, you're.you know, loved. Or whatever."
Sanji hated this whole conversation, and he knew that his face was growing a deeper shade of red with each word the other man was saying. Whatever was between himself and that Shitty Old Man was between them, and was not open for idle discussion to pass the time. And, it wasn't like he didn't know that what Zoro said was true, he did, he knew that.well, he knew.
"I know. Idiot."
There was a pause, before very softly, Zoro said,
".do you .?"
And like the first glint of dawn touching the tip of the night-drenched sea, understanding came, and Sanji knew.
He knew.
He looked down at the other man who was not looking at him with great deliberation. He had been so caught up in the flush of his own face, that he had missed the heat rising on the flesh under his hands. But he noticed it now. Whatever that conversation had cost him, it seemed to have cost Zoro more; the proof vibrating beneath his finger tips, and Sanji's mind could not wrap itself around the idea that there were things in this world that could make the toughest man that he had ever met tremble.
And then he stopped trying to rationalize what was happening, stopped trying to think at all. Because words held power, it was true, but they also deceived and confused. And at the moment, he was so tired of it, so tired of everything, so very tired of trying to put what he was feeling into words for himself, that he decided to just feel instead.
With sudden exhaustion, he closed his eyes and rested his head against the hardness of Zoro's chest, careful of the injury, and found himself with his ear above the other man's heart. He did not listen to its beat, but felt it instead, and lazily started to count the pulses that seemed to jump beneath flesh to place playful kisses onto the rim of his ear. He smiled into the feeling, and when his face stretched, it moved against the roughness of the long raised scar, and he understood, suddenly, that this was what he had been looking for, this was the explanation of everything that had been going on, this torn flesh beneath his smooth cheek. It was a mark from their first meeting, the essence of their true introduction, when Sanji watched as this man, this unbelievable person he was now pressed against, stood with his arms stretched inviting the mark to be made, inviting his body to be torn and split, so that his soul could look out from inside, just for a moment, to invite Sanji to come see.
He wanted to trace its length with his fingertips to find out where it would lead, but he dared not move his hands yet from their place on the wounded shoulder. So he moved his face slightly, nuzzling into the mark, and that was OK, and when the cook felt a hand cradling the back of his head, blunt fingers weaving themselves into the silk of his blonde hair, that was OK, too.
They didn't move until they heard the sounds of their companions searching for them. They both got up, silently, helping one another with their injuries, and left to rejoin their friends. For now, some things remained unspoken, but nonetheless, told.
The best thing that ever happened in Sanji's life was having his ship attacked by pirates, getting kicked in the gut (hard, since the Old Man was never one to hold back on him, even then), being washed out to the deadly pull of the stormy sea, and nearly starving, ever so slowly, to his death on a rock that was scorched and abandoned beneath the unforgiving eye of the sun.
Those events wove him into the man he became; gave him renewed purpose, the first real place he would, if only in the privacy of his heart, claim as 'home', and it gave him . . . (father). . . that Shitty Old Man.
And then one day, another Best Thing dropped a cannon ball into the roof of his restaurant, and before you could say 'All Blue', he was off, running with a group of people, who's dreams were every bit as ridiculous and important as his own.
He was still running with them today, especially today; running so hard that bitter sweat poured from his heated brow and into his eyes, blurring his vision as he raced through stubbornly thick foliage that snapped its branches and thorns at his face like fanged teeth.
They had come out of nowhere, as cliché as that statement was. But, it was nevertheless true, and he pushed his aching body to go faster as he listened to he sounds of his pursuers growing closer. They looked like giant black spiders, taller than Zoro, and when they first emerged from wherever they dwelled on this seemingly abandoned island on which his crew had stopped in search of fresh food (regrettably, at the cook's own urging), it seemed as if the group could handle the creatures. But as they hacked and killed the enormous spiders, more and more emerged, until it seemed there had to be thousands of them, pouring down the broken mountainside like a deadly avalanche of legs and dripping fangs. He had begun to lose sight of his companions in the midst of the fierce swarm, and as he felt himself being overwhelmed with the force of attack, he knew that the best thing he could do was to fall back and try to get some distance between himself and the monsters if he had any hopes of surviving long enough to come up with a way to defeat them. His plan was not working quite they way he had hoped. The more he ran, the more creatures chased him, and the quicker they came.
He finally broke from the embrace of the oppressive forest, the spiders close behind. But any relief was soon stolen as he looked ahead and realized that he was running towards the edge of a cliff. He heard loud angry hissing that seemed to be right beside his ear, and he knew that the monsters were almost upon him, knew that he was running both from death and towards it, took a moment to hope that Nami was still safe at Luffy's side where he had last seen her, and leapt over the edge of the jagged rock.
He twisted his body once he was in free fall, and saw that he was descending quickly into a large river that cut its way through the island to the sea. The creatures were pouring over the cliff above him, pursuing him even in his fall. Their heavy bodies streaked by him, gravity dragging their massive bulk ahead of him into the waters below. He cried out as he felt a sharp pain in his left calf. One of the spiders had reached out and sank its vicious fangs into his leg, pulling him down faster. Angry, he landed a powerful kick to its grisly head, knocking it away. He turned his head in satisfaction to watch it bounce against the sharp wall of the cliff, until another body struck hard against the back of his head, and then all he knew was nothing.
****
"Hey, are you ever going to get up? Come on, Nami is walking around topless and you're missing everything. Just open your god damn eyes already, you idiot!"
"You're the idiot." Sanji heard himself mutter before bringing himself to full consciousness. He blinked his eyes open, little by little, sensitive to the stinging light of the lingering sun. He finally got them fully opened, and the first thing that filled his line of vision was the battered face of Zoro peering down on him.
"Got enough beauty sleep yet, cook?"
"I'm not the one who needs it", his voice sounded as cracked as his throat felt. He tried to clear it, but wound up battling a coughing fit, tasting the salty sting of seawater in his mouth. A strong calloused hand propped him up and supported the back of his head until the worst of it had passed. Once he felt better, he shrugged out of the touch, and used all of his strength and stubbornness to force himself into a sitting position. He looked around at his new surroundings, trying to take in everything but the man sitting beside him.
He was sitting on a soft grassy bank on the opposite side of the dividing river. Looking up, he glanced at the cliff that he had hurtled himself off of while escaping his pursuers, and was relieved and a little startled to see the area now clear of the deadly creatures. The deep ache in his left leg reminded him of his injury. He saw that the wound had been tended to while he lay unconscious, and tried his damnest not to be absurdly touched by the stretch of familiar black material now wrapped securely around his leg to serve as a bandage.
"Where are our leggy friends?" Sanji asked through the awkward silence, his gaze stubbornly fixed back on the opposite cliff.
"Lining the bottom of the river. Seems they sink faster than Luffy when they hit water. Which is lucky for us, since if they can't swim, they can't cross the river. I think we're clear of them where we are. I haven't seen any of them on this side, so far."
"How did you get here?" Sanji all but mumbled, not really wanting to hear the heroic tale of how the other man had seen him in trouble, and fished him out of the river where he was floating to the bottom like some pathetic rag doll. The scenario seemed all too familiar; he already owed one asshole his life, and now it would seem that he owed another asshole the same thing. And what really burned him about both instances, was that he was really WAS a great swimmer!
The other man paused before answering, and Sanji heard him shifting on the grass beside him.
"Well, I was fighting through that mess, same as you, when I heard Ussop hollering for help. I started to make my way towards his voice, when I got knocked off balance by one of the creatures. I fell down, and before I could get back on my feet, I was, kinda, well. I got stepped on."
A shock of laughter escaped through the blonde's lips. He finally turned amused eyes to the swordsman and got his first real look at the other man, and all pleasure drained as quickly as it had come. Zoro's right shoulder was oozing blood at an alarming rate, the white shirt almost soaked thoroughly by rich crimson. Sanji stared at it in shock, his own wound, which surely had to be minor by comparison, forgotten entirely. The other man took in the blonde's shock, and looked away in discomfort before continuing his tale.
"Anyway, those pointy little legs really are as sharp as they look, and I got one stuck right in my shoulder. Before I could get myself free, the damn thing took off running, dragging me with it. It wound up running off the cliff, and the impact of the water finally jarred me loose. As I started to swim up to the surface is when I noticed you down there with me, so I grabbed you on the way up. And he we are."
Sanji recovered his wits somewhat, and while carefully avoiding putting unnecessary weight on his injured leg, grabbed a hold of the front of Zoro's ruined shirt. He wasn't the resident doctor by any means, but even he knew that the shirt had to come off and the wound patch up quickly before the man lost any more blood. He didn't bother asking the other man to remove the shirt himself, since the blonde didn't want to risk the big moron playing the tough guy routine and lifting his arms to remove it; the movement would only serve to aggravate the injury further. Using Zoro's surprise at his sudden nearness to his advantage, Sanji took handfuls of the shirt and pulled; the fabric splitting neatly down the center.
He leaned in to examine the ruined shoulder. The flesh was torn ragged straight through, and it was when he felt Zoro swaying to the side was when he realized that the swordsman was already suffering from the effects of blood loss. Gently he eased the torn shirt the rest of the way off. He saw mass bruising and swelling covering the tanned back which had to have been the results of being dragged by the spider, so he quickly removed his dark navy jacket and spread it out on the ground behind the green-haired man as an offered means of protection. Lastly, he unbuttoned and removed his dress shirt, shivering slightly as a leftover breeze whispering through the late afternoon air chilled his damp pale skin.
When he looked up at Zoro to tell him to lie down, he saw that the other man's eyes were dark, much more focused than they should have been, and tracking each movement that he made. Sanji hadn't really thought about how close the two of them were at this point, or how half-naked. His stomach started to feel light the way it did when Nami's skirts were extra short or her shirts extra tight, but it was really so much more than that. So much more raw. And Sanji felt himself, ever so slowly and without conscious intent, swaying closer, easing more and more into the other man's personal heat, closer, falling past already shaken boundaries, and this was so much like tumbling over that cliff earlier, but scarier, because that time he had thought that he may have been falling towards his death, but this time, he hadn't a clue of what he was heading towards.
With a start, he quickly realized that he wasn't the only one falling, as the closing distance between the two men suddenly opened again, and if he wasn't so off balance by what had almost just happened, he may have had the reflexes to catch Zoro as his eyes rolled up into his head and collapsed, unconscious, back against the ground.
Sanji let out a whole slew of inventive curses that would sober up even the drunkest sailor. He focused his intention on the bloody shoulder, not wanting to think about ANYTHING else. Knowing that pressure had to be applied to the wound in both the front and back to stop the bleeding, and since he was seated on the left side of Zoro with an injured leg that prevented him from moving around too much, he was forced to lean across the unconscious man, snake his arm under his back to press the cloth of his shirt against the exit wound, while his other arm rested across the scarred chest to press the rest of the fabric against the wound's entrance.
He didn't quite know how he was suppose to feel at this moment, laying half on top of the swordsman, with the flesh of their bare bellies resting against one another. So, for the sake of his slipping sanity, he decided to go for majorly pissed-off, and started thinking about all of the reasons he hated the drooling son of a bitch beneath him.
He hated Zoro's lack of manners when around ladies. He hated the loud gulping noises he made when drinking. He hated that even though Zoro loved the food that Sanji cooked for him (after all, who wouldn't?), he rarely showed it. Sanji hated the fact that he could no longer hear the sound of wind chimes without feeling out of breath. And most of all, he hated him for THAT NIGHT, the night the chef finally heard the voice of the sea, and he heard it laughing at him.
The body beneath his hands shifted back to consciousness. Zoro blinked around and at Sanji in confusion.
"What -"
"You fainted" Sanji replied with abrupt viciousness.
The other man's eyes widened.
"Huh? I fain--, I did not!"
"Yeah, ya did." The cook replied cheerfully, not feeling the slightest bit of shame at the curl of pleasure he felt being cruel to the swordsman. "I've seen fainting before, you know. Back at the restaurant, we had a four-year-old girl faint once, and she looked just like you when you did it. She recovered a lot quicker, though, but I wouldn't worry about it. Its nothing to be all embarrassed about. Not really."
"What?!?!" he all but screamed.
"Shh. Calm down, Zoro. If you get all worked up, you might start swooning again."
"SWOONING?!?! I'VE NEVER SWOONED."
"All right, all right. I believe you." Sanji replied in a voice that clearly said the opposite.
"Fuck you."
"Not at the rate you're going."
Sanji never experienced a silence as complete as the one that followed his words. Where they had come from, he hadn't a clue, but now they were out there, and there was no pulling them back. He could not even hear the pounding of his own heart, but he knew it roared, because he felt the painful pulse vibrate his entire body. He could not track time, but knew the oppressive silence must have stretched long before Zoro's voice, sounding deeper than it usually did, broke through.
"My shoulder feels better."
Like he cared.
"Like I care."
"You're pretty good at this. Guess you had to have had practice, huh?"
Sanji may have grunted in response, he may not have.
"I've heard stories about that old man, you know. There was a reason he was called 'Red Foot'. I guess you learned to patch yourself up as a kid while he was training you."
"What are you talking about? He never made me bleed."
"Really? Held back on you, huh?"
"No. He just told me that he didn't want me messing up his restaurant by bleeding all over it. Said it was bad for business."
There was a pause.
"He really loves you, you know, your old man."
Sanji stiffened at the words, heat touching his cheeks. He stared off stubbornly in the distance, and snapped back,
"Idiot. Don't talk about such stupid things!"
"You're the idiot", the swordsman shot back, sounding angry, "Stupid guy that doesn't know that his father, or whatever, or anyone for that matter, I mean, that he's, or, you're.you know, loved. Or whatever."
Sanji hated this whole conversation, and he knew that his face was growing a deeper shade of red with each word the other man was saying. Whatever was between himself and that Shitty Old Man was between them, and was not open for idle discussion to pass the time. And, it wasn't like he didn't know that what Zoro said was true, he did, he knew that.well, he knew.
"I know. Idiot."
There was a pause, before very softly, Zoro said,
".do you .?"
And like the first glint of dawn touching the tip of the night-drenched sea, understanding came, and Sanji knew.
He knew.
He looked down at the other man who was not looking at him with great deliberation. He had been so caught up in the flush of his own face, that he had missed the heat rising on the flesh under his hands. But he noticed it now. Whatever that conversation had cost him, it seemed to have cost Zoro more; the proof vibrating beneath his finger tips, and Sanji's mind could not wrap itself around the idea that there were things in this world that could make the toughest man that he had ever met tremble.
And then he stopped trying to rationalize what was happening, stopped trying to think at all. Because words held power, it was true, but they also deceived and confused. And at the moment, he was so tired of it, so tired of everything, so very tired of trying to put what he was feeling into words for himself, that he decided to just feel instead.
With sudden exhaustion, he closed his eyes and rested his head against the hardness of Zoro's chest, careful of the injury, and found himself with his ear above the other man's heart. He did not listen to its beat, but felt it instead, and lazily started to count the pulses that seemed to jump beneath flesh to place playful kisses onto the rim of his ear. He smiled into the feeling, and when his face stretched, it moved against the roughness of the long raised scar, and he understood, suddenly, that this was what he had been looking for, this was the explanation of everything that had been going on, this torn flesh beneath his smooth cheek. It was a mark from their first meeting, the essence of their true introduction, when Sanji watched as this man, this unbelievable person he was now pressed against, stood with his arms stretched inviting the mark to be made, inviting his body to be torn and split, so that his soul could look out from inside, just for a moment, to invite Sanji to come see.
He wanted to trace its length with his fingertips to find out where it would lead, but he dared not move his hands yet from their place on the wounded shoulder. So he moved his face slightly, nuzzling into the mark, and that was OK, and when the cook felt a hand cradling the back of his head, blunt fingers weaving themselves into the silk of his blonde hair, that was OK, too.
They didn't move until they heard the sounds of their companions searching for them. They both got up, silently, helping one another with their injuries, and left to rejoin their friends. For now, some things remained unspoken, but nonetheless, told.