"And I took him on a date and everything!" Zoro says happily, finishing his story. He's putting away groceries as Robin thumbs through his movie collection. He's not got anything in the horror genre that she hasn't seen with him but he has a lot of stuff that she doesn't own and she said that she wants to rewatch some things at home. Zoro suspects that she's just there to spy on his love life.
Wow, he actually has a love life now. That's a strange thought. He'd never figured that romantic stuff would be something for him, he had sex and he had friends, mixing the two seemed both like a bad idea and unneeded. Going on a date with Sanji was fun though! He took him somewhere that they both enjoyed and it was just like the two of them having fun had been before, he knew loads of shit that Sanji liked, he could do this for ages without repeating himself. That was the point of dates after all, showing the person that you're with a good time. He didn't have to worry about Sanji finding out that he was attracted to him any more and so he had felt better for it.
"That's really sweet. How did it go?" Robin asks with a happy smile from her place knelt by his DVD rack.
"It was great! We broke into the zoo and I showed him everything, it was just us and it was... it was perfect." he smiles dopily. He was in the middle of sorting through his DVD's for her but he's long since got distracted.
"Of course no date is complete without breaking and entering." Robin chuckles lowly, her eyes sparking with mischief.
"Shut up." Zoro grumbles, shoving her in the shoulder and he flicks through the titles a little more.
"So what, did your eyes meet over the lion enclosure with swelling violin music and swooning?" Robin teases.
"Shut up." Zoro responds, crinkling his nose in distaste. He enjoyed his date but it doesn't mean that he has to like that hollywood crap. Robin's mouth curls in amusement and she returns to her browsing.
"Classic Romero? You can't go wrong with that." Zoro suggests, pointing at the titles and aptly changing the subject.
"That's why I own them. Can I borrow this?" Robin asks, holding up Hitchcock's Psycho to him.
"You bought me that one." Zoro frowns at her.
"Yes, but I don't own it. Anyway, I'm impressed that you actually asked Sanji to date you so soon. I was expecting at least another month or two of indecision from you." Robin laughs lightly.
"Your confidence in me is flattering. Sure, take that one. What about The Shining?" he suggests, holding it up to her.
"Oh, absolutely. And these two and... yes..." Robin hums as she plucks out a few more titles.
Zoro smiles in relaxation. Everything is amazing right now. He's got his job, one of his friends is over and it's pleasant. Also he's dating his best friend and everything is just so nice. He's really really happy in a way that he hasn't been in a long time. Robin had been right, he needed this.
"So how did you ask him out?" the dark haired woman asks with a coy smile. Robin isn't a gossip, if she gets told something in secret then she never shares it with anyone but it doesn't mean that she doesn't adore getting all of the juicy details out of people.
"How do you mean?" Zoro asks with a raised eyebrow.
"I mean how did it all start?" Robin prompts him, poking him in the side with a movie case.
To his surprise Zoro finds himself reddening as he awkwardly explains their encounter in the laundromat, he skips out on some of the details, Robin doesn't need to know that much after all.
"And then you asked him to be your boyfriend?" Robin says slowly, her blue eyes piercing into him.
"I told him that I didn't want it to be a one time thing and he agreed, then a while later we went on the date that I just told you about." Zoro answers with a frown.
"But you asked him out. At some point you said 'Sanji will you go out with me', right?" Robin asks sharply. Zoro looks at her and senses that there is a wrong answer here but that lying will also be worse.
"Nnnno... but we went on a date it's pretty cl-OUCH!" Zoro yelps as Robin whacks him on the head with the DVD cases.
"You. Have. To. Be. Clear. On. This!" Robin shouts, smacking him on the head each time.
"It's fine! QUIT HITTING ME!" Zoro yells as Robin pushes him over and starts slapping and pinching anywhere that she can reach. Zoro doesn't want to hurt her so he's limited in trying to defend himself, Robin however has no such reservations and aims to hurt.
"Stop it! OW! That HURTS!" Zoro protests loudly, shoving her away and getting a nasty Chinese burn for his trouble. He's howling and scrabbling away when the front door bursts open with a wide eyed Sanji in it.
"ZORO! Are you... what?" Sanji blinks, the key to Zoro's front door still in his hand as he stares down at the two of them. Robin pauses for only a moment before resuming beating Zoro about the head with his own DVD cases.
"You're an idiot!" She yells at him.
"Help me!" Zoro pleads, reaching out for Sanji whilst he tries to hold Robin off of him without putting his hand anywhere inappropriate. Unfortunately with Robin as generously endowed as she is that happens to be a difficult task.
"What did you do?" Sanji frowns, putting down the shopping bag that he was carrying onto Zoro's sofa and walking over to the pair of them as if Zoro wasn't presently in dire need of help.
"Nothing!" Zoro insists.
"EXACTLY!" Robin snaps and pinches his side, making Zoro yelp.
The woman stands up with an irritated huff, straightens out her dress and runs her fingers through her hair whilst Zoro stays sprawled on the ground whimpering in embarrassment and stinging pain.
"Do it, or next time I see you I'll rip your balls off." Robin threatens and snatches up the DVD cases.
"He's all yours." She smiles stiffly at Sanji and takes her exit.
"You were so much help. How can I ever repay you?" Zoro deadpans from his place on the floor and swats at Sanji's leg. The blonde just sits on the arm of the sofa and grins down at Zoro.
"I would never lay a hand on a woman." Sanji says with a smirk.
"Hah. Tell me again about your previous dating problems?" Zoro laughs, sitting up. Sanji scowls at him and puts his foot on Zoro's chest, shoving him back down to the floor and pinning him there.
"You're an asshole. Stay down there where you belong." Sanji growls at him.
"And here I thought I'd found a guy without any real kinks, but hey, whatever does it for you. Want me to beg or call you sir or something?" Zoro responds deviously, with a filthy waggle of his eyebrows. Sanji yelps and yanks his foot off of Zoro like he's been burned, his face goes a burning red too. Zoro is very magnanimous and only laughs for a few seconds, though it is very loud laughter.
He pushes himself up onto his knees with a few giggles and shuffles closer to the sofa and his blushing boyfriend. He leans in and kisses Sanji's lips, managing to coax the soft haired blonde into deepening the kiss. Zoro smiles into the kiss, how can Robin think that Sanji doesn't know what's going on here?
"How was your day?" Zoro asks quietly and kisses Sanji again quickly.
"Pretty good, I made a few really perfect dishes and my old man seemed pleased. Plus I got to kick Carne in the ass, literally." Sanji smiles and kisses him back.
"You?" The blonde asks.
"Had a couple of classes, mainly older kids studying for exams. Quiet and kinda boring, I've been here all afternoon. Then Robin came over to borrow movies and beat me up." Zoro answers grumpily.
"My heart bleeds for you. I brought beers for movie night and I'm making you dinner. Unless you didn't get the groceries that I told you to, in which case I'm drinking the beer and you're going shopping." Sanji says, poking Zoro with his foot.
"I got 'em, I got 'em." Zoro sighs, getting to his feet and walking to the fridge, to open it and wave dramatically at the food that he'd bought from Sanji's very specific list.
"Perfect. Beer?" Sanji asks, popping the cap off of his own with the multi tool wine bottle opener and beer bottle opener that he's started keeping at Zoro's.
"Don't have to ask me twice." Zoro says and takes one of the unopened bottles from the bag and slams the top off of it by smashing his hand against it just right on the counter top.
"You're a goddamned peasant. Why was Robin torturing you anyway?" Sanji asks as he takes a sip of his beer. Zoro wrinkles his nose. There's no way that Sanji doesn't know, he's not going to spoil their evening by getting all awkward and clingy with a huge are they/aren't they conversation.
"She's just pissed because I didn't do exactly what she thinks that I should do in the way that she thinks I should do it. It's fine." Zoro says, shaking his head.
The two of them settle into the same easy pattern that they always have. Talking about whatever random shit crosses their minds, arguing about the same things. Sanji bitches about his coworkers or spitballs ideas for recipes that go completely over Zoro's head but it still seems to help the cook. Zoro has to take the beer away from his mouth because smiling whilst drinking is likely to end up with him wearing about as much of his beer as he'll get in his mouth. Still, the smile stays, everything is so similar to before.
Still, despite not wanting to make things awkward there is something that Zoro does have to bring up.
"Hey, uh... about last night." He starts uncomfortably.
"Yeah, how is that hangover going?" Sanji grins at him as he sets up his preparation area in Zoro's kitchen and starts to scrub vegetables.
"Well, after you making me drink water and take painkillers I didn't really have one." Zoro answers with an easy shrug.
"Fucking lucky asshole. You deserve a week long hangover for that and you got nothing?" the blonde grumbles miserably.
"I've got great genes, what can I say?" Zoro answers smugly.
"There's an innuendo there about getting into your jeans but I'm not gonna go for it." the blonde says with a smirk as he chops some tomatoes with a blade that moves so fast that Zoro hardly sees it.
"Speaking of..." Zoro says awkwardly because actually that's kind of the line that he was going down. Not the line of innuendo but close.
"I wanted to thank you for last night. For turning me down." He says quietly.
Sanji's knife stops and is put down. The blonde wipes his hands off on the apron that he's wearing and has started keeping at Zoro's place. With that done he turns to Zoro and looks at him carefully, like he's trying to read every signal and word that Zoro is saying as if it's of some specific importance. He's even doing the squinty eye thing that he does when he's really focusing on something.
"Why?" Sanji asks without any emotion in his voice and scrutinizes Zoro for his answer.
"Because... it wouldn't have been as good and I want to actually remember it properly. I'll admit that I'm missing a few bits of our walk back and the drinking contest." Zoro admits. It's still rubbing him the wrong way that he lost to Nami again. Next time he's not even going to drink at all before hand, maybe he'll make sure that he lines his stomach with pasta or bread beforehand to give himself every advantage. That feels a little like cheating but if it is then he can surely bet that Nami was doing just that, she's competitive as all hell.
"Okay, but why did you want to remember it perfectly?" Sanji says, pressing him for more answers and still watching him like a scientist testing a theory on a lab rat.
"Because it's something that I really want so why would I want to risk not remembering it? And, you know, first times are special or whatever." Zoro answers uncertainly. What's going on here.
"'or whatever'? What's that supposed to mean?" the blonde demands. He's not angry at all, not like Zoro would expect but he's just relentless about it.
"Okay, no 'or whatever'. They're supposed to be special." he clarifies.
"Supposed to be." Sanji responds slowly, staring at Zoro with a frown starting to pinch in his brow.
"Is there a goddamn echo in here? Yeah, they're supposed to be. Isn't that the general consensus of how these things go?" Zoro snaps as he restrains the urge to yell.
"You sound like you're just repeating something that you've heard." Sanji says quietly, his eyes finally breaking contact with Zoro's.
"No, you do. You're the one parroting back everything that I say!" Zoro retorts. A muscle in Sanji's jaw twitches.
Zoro grits his teeth, this is going nowhere except into an argument that Zoro doesn't even get. He's got no idea what Sanji's going on about or why he's suddenly getting grilled on this. He'd just wanted to thank the blonde for being considerate, plus Sanji had realised that he was probably too drunk to really agree. Okay, he was definitely too drunk to agree, goddamn Nami.
He frowns and tries to imagine what advice Robin would give him in this situation. Whenever romance puzzled the fuck out of him she was always there to explain or theorize. Robin watched their friends like a hawk so whenever Zoro needed insight Robin had it with laser precision. Robin would tell him just to talk to him, just to ask him what was wrong. Of course Robin also wanted him to ask Sanji about whether or not they both were on agreement about whether or not they are dating, but that can come later. Maybe.
"Look, you're clearly pissed and I've obviously said something wrong but I don't understand what it is, so do you mind enlightening me?" Zoro asks in a calm voice after taking a deep breath to make sure it came out right and not angry. He thinks that he did a pretty good job about that, Robin would be pleased. Maybe.
"I'm not pissed." the cook answers with a shrug and chops more tomatoes.
"I... really don't get what's going on here." Zoro says with a frown.
"Exactly." Sanji says tightly and puts the tomatoes in a bowl and starts on chopping onions.
"What?" Zoro asks in utter bewilderment.
"Nothing. It's fine. It's nothing." Sanji says with a shake of his head.
Zoro just watches the cook with complete confusion, he has no idea what just happened there but he gets the distinct feeling that he just failed some test that he didn't even know he was taking and that he doesn't even get to know the results. Should he press the cook more to get him to explain himself or would that only make this worse?
"You know how I've told you about how all people who work in kitchens are gossipy sons of bitches right?" Sanji asks conversationally as if they hadn't just been having the weirdest conversation. Okay, whatever, if Sanji's going to drop this then he can too. After all, he has no idea what that was so it makes more sense to just go with the more sensible things that Sanji's saying.
"You're just as bad a gossip, but yeah, go on." Zoro grins. Sanji flashes him an unimpressed glare but he can't deny it as he is literally talking about the people that he works with right now.
"Well apparently they've been talking about us when I'm not there. I only caught it because I was in early and doing stock in the pantry where they couldn't see me." Sanji continues.
"Okay." Zoro says slowly.
"Well half of them think that we're having some fucking around in secret on every flat surface in the restaurant. A bunch of them are divided on whether or not you have a secret family which is why we're being so 'secretive' about it." Sanji says with a grin and Zoro nearly spits his beer out in shock.
"Wow, those guys have too much free time." Zoro mutters, shaking his head in dismay.
"True, I should make them work more. They're just making up shit but I thought it was hysterical." Sanji chuckles and drops the rest of his vegetables into the large pan that he has already heated. It sizzles when it hits.
"Hm... unless you're just subtly suggesting that you think we should christen the flat surfaces of the Baratie...?" Zoro asks with a grin, half serious and half not. After all, thinking about that is what has ruined his concentration many times before. All Zoro gets for an answer is a flat slap on the arm with a spatula and a dark look. Okay, so perhaps no kitchen sex them. Damn.
Zoro watches Sanji cook for a few long moments. Silence between them is nothing new, it's one of the things that Zoro liked about Sanji after all. The two of them are usually as content to sit there in a comfortable silence as they are with talking. This doesn't feel like that though, not on Zoro's end anyway. His mind is still buzzing with Sanji's strangeness earlier and in light of that he almost feels like Robin's insistence that he clarify things with Sanji is even more important now than it was before.
"Hey... can I ask a stupid question?" Zoro asks slowly and takes a long sip of his beer.
"Well, you're the one asking it so most likely yes." Sanji shoots back, not even bothering to look at him but a grin still curling at the corner of his mouth.
"Asshole." Zoro mutters and punches Sanji lightly in the arm. Well, reasonably lightly anyway.
"I just wanted to ask, I mean, it's stupid really... but... we are dating aren't we?" Zoro asks uneasily. It seems so obvious and silly but as the words come out of his mouth he feels this claw of dread run up his spine and it feels like that moment of weightlessness that you experience before crashing to the ground. The fact that Sanji hasn't laughed at his silly question and said 'of course, moron' or something like that is not easing Zoro's feelings at all.
Instead the blonde just turns the heat off on the pan and puts it onto a cold ring. He sets down his spatula and turns to Zoro, his blue eyes watching Zoro carefully all over again.
"You tell me." Sanji says quietly.
"What's with the Confucian attitude all of a sudden? It's a simple question!" Zoro argues, his patience with Sanji finally fraying thin.
"Why do you ask?" Sanji asks, ignoring Zoro's words entirely.
"Because I want to know! That's the purpose of a fucking question! I want to know because it seems like a goddamn important thing to know and neither of us actually said one way or the other when this all started and it'd be fucked up to not think the same thing!" He shouts, putting his beer down on the side with a clunk because he's going to spill it at this rate if he keeps holding it.
"It is important. Do you think that we're dating or not?" the blonde questions him as he takes a pull of his own beer. Zoro doesn't know if it's casualness or for courage but both piss him off.
"I think we are! Am I wrong here or not? Just give me a straight answer!" He snaps.
"I thought that we were too." the blonde says softly and looks off to the side as he leans against the counter.
Silence stretches between the two of them as Zoro processes what Sanji just said.
"What's... what's with the past tense? Unless you broke up with me and I didn't notice..." Zoro says, his voice quiet as his system goes numb.
"I've not done anything like that." the blonde says with the first hint of a smile on his face, though it does little to ease his nerves. Especially as that smile drops quickly.
"Zoro... what do you feel for me?" he asks Zoro.
"What do you mean? I love you, that's why I'm with you. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't, what kind of a dumb question is that?" Zoro answers. Seriously, why would he be dating Sanji if he didn't feel that for him? He knows what Sanji's been through and he wouldn't have let himself make any kind of move on the blonde if he wasn't certain that he felt this strongly for him. He hadn't spent all that time agonizing about it for nothing!
"Do you really? Because that's not usually how relationships go at the start. It's supposed to take time to fall in love." Sanji says with a wince and now he's not looking at Zoro any more but instead at the floor.
"Hey, it's not like I just picked you up at a bar! It did take time, we've known each other for a decent length of time and I-" Zoro starts but Sanji cuts him off.
"I'm not saying that." Sanji says with a tight shake of his head.
"So what ARE you saying?" Zoro asks through gritted teeth, restraining the urge to point out that Sanji had said exactly that.
"I'm saying... I just wonder if you even know what love really is. If you're capable of it is all." Sanji says to the fridge to the left of Zoro's head, like he can't say these things and make eye contact at the same time.
"What the fuck are you saying cook? I'm not some kind of psychopath!" He yells angrily and that snaps Sanji's gaze back to him.
"I didn't say that you were a psychopath!" Sanji says quickly, holding his hands up in a calming gesture but Zoro's having none of it.
"No, you just said that you think that I don't know what I'm talking about and that I'm 'incapable' of feeling love? What the FUCK Sanji?!" Zoro yells angrily, trying to push down the sting in his chest. How can Sanji say something like this to him?
For his part Sanji looks scared and regretful, as if he's opened up and said too much and desperately wants to take it all back. Zoro feels no pity for him however, if Sanji has these kinds of thoughts about him then Zoro deserves to know about them! How long has Sanji thought this about him? Robin was right, if he hadn't asked Sanji this then who knows how long he could have gone into his relationship with Sanji before he found this out? He'd thought that the pair of them were on the same page, that they were both in love, dating each other and that things were great. Clearly Zoro had been misguided on that.
"Look I'm not- okay, calm down. You know how Luffy's never dated anyone because he's not interested? How it's just not something that he's wired to do even though he has friends?" Sanji says in a panicked tone.
"I know that he hasn't dated, but I don't know what goes on in his head, just what he tells me." Zoro says flatly. This isn't any of Sanji's business and the same clearly doesn't apply to him because as far as he knows Luffy's never slept with anyone and Zoro obviously has. Sanji knows that so why is he going down this route?
"Ace and Marco said that you could be the same with romance. You know, just not getting it and how you might think that you were in love when you just felt strongly for someone platonically and-" Sanji babbles but he's startled into silence when Zoro slams his hand on the counter top.
"There are so many fucking things wrong with what you just said." Zoro says darkly, glaring at Sanji as hard as he can.
"But I'm gonna just start at the beginning. You were talking about me, behind my back, to Marco and ACE?!" Zoro snarls furiously.
"I wasn't talking about you behind your back! They started it! Ace was just telling me not to get involved with you and I-" Sanji says anxiously.
"What are you five?! I don't give a shit who started it! You were talking about me, about us, to them of all people? You know that Ace and I used to fuck and you don't even really know the two of them! Why would you do that?!" He demands half angry and half hurt. Or perhaps all of both.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have been talking about you, even if they started it. Which they did. But... what they said makes sense. I mean, you had to get talked into the idea of love by one of your students, you've never been interested in it, you thought it was dumb and now suddenly you say that you're in love with me? What am I supposed to think?" Sanji says, clearly trying to reason with Zoro. Zoro does not need to be reasoned with here, he isn't the one being irrational and awful, Sanji is.
"You're supposed to trust me! If I say something then I mean it, you know that. Or I thought you did. Fuck." Zoro hisses, turning away from Sanji and pacing across the room. He combs his hands through his hair one after the other, his fingers pressing into his scalp as he does so in some kind of gesture that's somewhere between a self soothing head massage and an attempt to rip his hair out in frustration.
"I do trust you but... but you have to admit it fits. How would you know the difference if you can't feel romantic love? I'm not saying that you're lying, just that you might not know what it's supposed to feel like. You said it yourself that you've never mixed sex with people that you're friends with. I know that you love me, I love you too but I knew that when we were just friends. How do I know... how do you know that you're not just assuming that because it's both at once for you?" Sanji says from behind him. Zoro freezes and drops his hands. He feels like every muscle in his body is pulled taut with tension and emotion, holding him perfectly in place. He's clenching his teeth so hard that his head hurts.
"I don't want to have this conversation any more." Zoro says in hard clipped tones. He keeps his gaze straight ahead, his back to Sanji and he focuses on the fist dent that he made in the plaster of his wall when he was angry at being fired. He reminds himself of all of the good in Sanji, all of the reasons that he loves him, he remembers how in tune with him Sanji was then. He breathes in and out, trying to let go of his feelings because if this keeps up then it will only end badly and he really doesn't want that. He cares too much to let that happen.
"You can't just opt out of this conversation Zoro, you started it. Besides you wanted to make sure that we were thinking the same thing. We need to talk about this. What if you're just confused?" Sanji says, placing a hand on Zoro's shoulder. Zoro shakes him off sharply and turns back to face Sanji with an expression so harsh that the blonde actually flinches back from him.
"Get out, you patronizing asshole." Zoro snarls, snapping his arm out in a sharp and brutal point to the door. His whole body is shaking with barely restrained emotion and Zoro has no idea which one is likely to break through first, anger or hurt.
Sanji stares at him in wide eyed horror. Zoro's only ever thrown him out once before and that was to stop him overhearing Daz talking about him. They've never had an argument so bad that Zoro's had to throw him out before. Sure, they argue all of the time but both of them have the common sense to not go for each other's throat like this. Sanji isn't pissing him off, Sanji is wounding him.
"You're... you're kicking me out?" Sanji asks in a tone of stunned shock.
"I don't want to have this conversation right now, probably not ever but if you stay here then I'm going to say something that I can't take back so just get the fuck out." Zoro growls at him. He's really trying to be the bigger man here, he is.
"No! We need to talk about this and you can't just throw me out because you can't handle this! This is why this is important, if we can't even talk about how you actually feel then how do you expect this to work? This is how relationships work Zoro!" Sanji shouts back.
"Don't tell me that, I-" Zoro cuts himself off, breathes in and out sharply through his nose and starts again, "just go."
"No way, if you've got something to say to me then say it. Come on." Sanji says toughly, his blue eyes shining with steely determination.
Zoro's last strand of patience and self control snaps. He thinks that he can even hear it go.
"Fine." He says coldly, dropping his arm and clenching his fist at his side. He sees Sanji shift his balance as if Zoro intends to punch him. He doesn't. Sanji can shake off a punch and Zoro's not going to go for that. If Sanji is going to be this awful to him then Zoro's not going to hold back either.
"You're a fucking asshole for presuming to know what's in my head. I tell you that I love you and you say that you don't think I'm capable of it, something you decided with an ex-lover of mine no less." Zoro says, his voice sounding cold even to his own ears.
"I apologised for that, it was a dick move talking to Ace and-" Sanji cuts in but Zoro is having none of that.
"Shut up, I wasn't done." He barks at him and Sanji's expression darkens. He doesn't like this but he literally asked for it so fuck him.
"You're trying to look into my head and see how I feel and compare it to what you feel, but you can't do that. You can't do that to anyone, you just have to trust people when they tell you how they feel and see what they do and say. Even if what I feel is different to what you feel how does it fucking matter?" He says angrily.
"Because I've been hurt enough! I keep falling for people who don't love me back as much as I love them! I'm not going to do that to myself again!" Sanji bristles angrily.
"I KNEW THAT ALREADY!" Zoro yells at him, really shouting for the first time.
"In case you fucking forgot I'm your best friend too, I probably know more about you than anyone else except your old man! You think I didn't agonize about not wanting to hurt you before I got into this? Do you think I'm that selfish and stupid?" He demands furiously. After all that time that he's spent fretting about whether he was willing to risk doing that it hurts to hear that Sanji thinks that the thought didn't even cross his mind.
"You were supposed to trust me. I trusted you." He says, the volume going from his voice all of a sudden.
Now Sanji looks really hurt, he's finally starting to get just what he's done and the blonde reaches out to him on instinct but Zoro steps back with a shake of his head. He can't stop what he's saying now. He knows that he should but something vindictive in him needs to see this through, because Sanji knows that he's hurt him but he doesn't get why, not yet. If he doesn't understand then he'll just do it again and Sanji isn't the only one who's not prepared to get hurt again.
"You want to look into my head and see if what I've got matches what you have, well you can't. And hey, maybe you're right. Maybe the wiring in my head is fucked like Luffy's apparently is, seeing as that's how you see it." He says with a shake of his head.
"I didn't say that. You're not wired wrong or broken, neither of you are. I was just saying that love might not-" Sanji tries to say, a vain attempt to mend his blunder.
"No, but you think that it's not real compared to what you feel. Maybe you just keep telling yourself that it's 'cause you just loved them more than they loved you so that you aren't to blame at all when shit goes wrong. What is it that they say? The only constant in all of your failed relationships is you?" Zoro spits and Sanji looks like Zoro's just slapped him but something in Zoro can't stop going.
"But what do I know? Maybe you're right. I don't get it. I don't get romance films, they're boring and the people and the plots are stupid. I don't get the point of giving people flowers or staring into people's eyes all misty like. Maybe I don't get all the things that you do, who knows?" Zoro says with a shrug and he feels his hands starting to shake because a small part of him is scared that maybe Sanji is right and maybe he is broken, but mostly it's because he's angry.
"But don't you fucking dare say that I don't love you, you asshole. I'd do damn near anything for you. If you called me up and said that you needed me to help you hide a body you know I'd do it, hell, I'd probably have been the one to kill the person for you! I'd give you anything I have if you needed it without you even asking. I trust you and you're the first person that I've been willing to risk dating, I'm breaking every rule that I have for you. I wanted to be with you because it seemed to make you happy and it made me happy. Isn't that the whole point?" He demands.
"It is but- but I don't want to get my heart broken again Zoro! I can't!" Sanji shouts at him.
"So you'll just get in and break mine first?!" Zoro shouts back.
Zoro doesn't know what it is. Maybe it was building the whole time and it was just the movement, the flinch away from Sanji's shout, or maybe it's just too much. Either way he feels something hot run down his cheek and realises that he's actually crying from anger or pain or a mix of the two.
"Zoro- Zoro I'm sorry... I didn't mean to hurt your feelings I just-" Sanji pleads quickly.
"Go apologise to someone with real feelings." He snaps and turns. He's out of his own front door and down his stairs before he knows what he's doing. He's halfway down the street before the absurdity of it makes him notice what he's doing. He couldn't throw Sanji out of his home so he threw himself out.
The front door to his building slams and Sanji's voice is shouting after him. Zoro takes off running. Sanji might have a sense of direction where he doesn't but Zoro runs across town every day without stopping and right now he's pretty sure that he's never run so fast.
He can't deal with this right now. He's pretty sure that if he and Sanji ever really were dating then they're not now. He doesn't even know that they're friends any more if Sanji thinks so little of him. He's furious and hurt and... and part of him is scared. Despite all his accusations Sanji does know him, he knows how he thinks and if Sanji thinks that some part of him is fucked up or missing entirely then... then maybe he is. He's always known that his policy on keeping sex and emotions separate was strange to people but he'd figured that he was just being smarter and avoiding unnecessary shit. But perhaps his is warped and confused or broken.
He finally stops running when he can't suck air into his chest fast enough to sustain his speed and he stops, dizzy and worn out. He's long since stopped his uncharacteristic tears and a lot of the pent up emotion in him has been dulled by exertion and exhaustion. He looks around shakily and realises that he has no idea where he is. He pats himself down and realises that he has neither his wallet, phone or keys on him. He knows most people's phone numbers off by heart, so it's easy enough to wander into a nearby business and ask to use their phone. He doesn't want to go home, Sanji will certainly be there. He also doesn't want to go to someone who's going to make him talk about what just happened or someone who'll let Sanji in if the blonde pleads enough. That cuts down the list of people that he can call, but thankfully he's got someone in mind who fits that description just fine.