This… came a lot quicker than I expected lol. But, hey, what's wrong with that? 8D
Right. They're going to be alone.
But that should have occurred to him earlier, right? They're the only people left that are still in costume for the day, after all; nobody else has any business being in that dressing room. And what's more, after this brief stop, they'll be leaving to go to Sanji's apartment, which is just as devoid of life—unless you count his houseplant, lovingly named Francis. But ficus trees aren't exactly the best wingmen, as it turns out.
His hands ball up in tight fists, leaving behind harsh lines in his blood-covered palms. Usually, he'd be able to ignore that first little issue and keep to himself. But they're going home together tonight, so ignoring the man while they strip down and change clothes would be a pointless effort anyway. He really hadn't thought this through, had he?—Not there's any backing out now.
The thought makes Sanji accidentally shove the door open with a lot more force than necessary, and it slams against the wall on the inside with a heavy thud. The rhythmic hammering in his chest shoots up to his ears, and the realization strikes him that his internal freaking out is becoming a bit less subtle than he'd like.
"Shit, my bad," he says with a wince, mentally kicking himself. He really needs to calm down, or tonight's going to be way more difficult than he'd imagined.
"Wow. Way to show that door who's boss," Zoro says, and he passes by to enter the room, his hands shoved deep in his pockets to make his already-casual-saunter look about a hundred thousand times more laid-back than Sanji feels. He tosses his shirt onto the black loveseat couch by the door, as if that's even close to where it belongs, and walks over to his corner without missing a beat. Sanji turns his gaze away just in time to hear rather than see the rest of his co-star's dirtied clothes drop to the floor. Shameless as always. "You put another dent in the wall. Pretty sure that's three this month."
"Oh, shut up," Sanji grumbles, stepping in and making his way over to his section of the room a bit more hurriedly than usual. On his way, he takes a stealthy glance over his shoulder. As expected, there's a fresh crater in the already-heavily dented wall behind the door. At least nobody can prove it wasn't there before. "Don't keep track of pointless shit like that."
Zoro shrugs audibly from his side of the room; there's a clanging of metal hangers against one another, but he doesn't make another sound. Apparently he's more interested in getting dressed than getting in a fight. Sanji can appreciate that.
His own street attire, which he'd wore into work that day, sits neatly folded on top of his rack beyond a cluster of makeup tables, against the wall opposite the marimo's. Checking the full-length mirror in front of him to make sure he isn't being watched, he makes short work of his tattered suit, placing it on a hanger away from the rest of the garments that are still clean. He puts on his normal clothes quickly; fitted black pants, a leather belt, and white v-neck underneath a slim-fit blazer (with the sleeves rolled up his forearms a bit, just the way he likes it.) He sticks with the same shoes—they belong to him rather than the studio—but he makes a note to clean them off before going anywhere that might frown upon the blood flaking off of the soles.
He'll admit, some of his character's sharp dressing habits have definitely made their way into his own wardrobe. So what? The costume department knows damn well how to dress his build; and after years of showcasing their hard work day in and day out, it's been difficult not to gravitate toward a similar style on his own time. It's something comfortable—something he's grown into.
Readjusting his blazer to sit flatter on his chest, he steals a glance over his shoulder. Zoro is still in the midst of putting on a fresh pair of jeans, just as topless and covered in red as before. Sanji lets himself stare for a moment, watching closely as Zoro takes a slow, steady breath. Rather than focusing on anything productive, the man's eyes are glued to something on the ground near his feet, his hands hovering still over unbuttoned pants that threaten to slip from his hips.
Sanji frowns. That's strange; he's usually done and out the door before Sanji can even blink. But the silence that he usually welcomes with open arms after a long day at work feels heavy on his shoulders, for some reason. Is something… wrong?
Oh, no, there's no way in hell he's going to play therapist for his fictional-but-almost-genuine-rival. That's Luffy and Usopp's job. Those two are great at being good friends. Shit, even Ace would be a better option than him if the guy were ever actually around. Sure, he and Zoro are supposed to play nakama who are always able to help each other and all that idealistic stuff—and he'll even admit that sometimes, under the influence of the excitement around them, he lets that level of relationship bleed into their interactions after wrapping up for the day.
But in that room, away from everyone else, they're just two men. Instead of crewmates bound by fate, they're completely separate people—just a college-dropout-turned-supermodel from Sapporo, and a fine arts honor student from Seattle. There are no swords, no seas, and no scripts to read from. There's nobody telling them how to act with each other, how close to stand, or how long to look at each other before scowling away. It's different. Difficult. And he's voluntarily offered himself up for a whole evening of this; damn it, what the hell had he been thinking?
Practically chewing a hole into the inside of his lip, Sanji turns back to his side of the room and idly thumbs through his wardrobe. For whatever reason, be it a habit or something else, it feels wrong to be the first one ready. So he takes his time admiring the fabric tucked away toward the back, if only to feign some semblance of being busy.
His old costumes are really beautiful, though, and it only takes a moment for him to get absorbed in them. Every individual hanger holds a different story, and he can recall every moment he's spent in each one. The blue pinstripe button-up that he'd been stuck in for years, that heavy leather coat from the Drum Island saga, and even his old desert attire hang there in case they're ever needed again.
"…Hey, I remember this," he grins, holding the third hanger up to himself in front of the mirror. "Alabasta. That was the first time I actually got to call you 'marimo' on camera."
Glancing up at his own reflection, he only admires himself and the outfit for a moment before he catches sight of Zoro staring at him in the mirror's surface, his mouth half-open and eyes narrowed. Zoro doesn't respond, anchored in place as he grips a fresh shirt that's pulled halfway over his chest. His gaze slides down Sanji's back before shifting up to his face again, and Sanji can almost swear he sees the knot in the man's throat as he closes his mouth and swallows. Sanji pries his eye away from the mirror to turn and face him reluctantly, something twisting strangely in his chest as Zoro's eyes lock on his without the aid of a mirror, and he finally lets his shirt fall into place.
When had Zoro managed to wipe the dirt off his face? He looks pristine already, like he hadn't just been standing under hot lights and watchful eyes for hours and hours covered in grime and sweat. He looks flawless, but that's nothing new, so it isn't hard to ignore that in favor of the very rare expression of frustration on the man's face instead. "…The hell is that look for?" Sanji finally asks, the accidental shift in his voice making the question sound a lot less aloof than he'd intended.
Shifting his gaze to the side, Zoro scratches the back of his head. "…Do you still remember that night?"
The words come out so easily that it takes Sanji a moment to register them. He's unsure what exactly he's supposed to be remembering until Zoro offers a slight nod toward the outfit in Sanji's hand.
Ah, that. Sanji takes another look back at the desert garb, holding it away from himself to examine it from top to bottom. He bites his lip on the spot that's starting to become sore from abuse, thinking back to the location shooting they'd done for Alabasta in those clothes. He remembers the scalding hot sun that hung overhead throughout their endlessly long workdays, and the tan he'd gotten for the first time in his life afterward. He remembers the celebration they'd had after the final day of shooting, and how he and Zoro had stumbled a bit too far from where the party's lamplight reached, accidentally letting their hands roam a bit too much in the darkness. His mind could never possibly erase the memory of that stifling humidity, and the feeling of Zoro's hot breath on his neck as he grabbed for fistfulls of the man's shirt, with no goal other than to satiate the uncontrollable pounding in his chest.
To insinuate that he could forget something like that is laughable.
"I don't know. Maybe," he lies under his breath, scowling at the fabric in his hands. It isn't hard to imagine where Zoro is going with his questioning. But Sanji has long since dedicated himself to the facade of not giving a shit that they've wordlessly agreed to uphold over the years, and he isn't appreciative of the reminder that he had almost fucked that up before.
He isn't a fool; he knows that wrecking a halfway tolerable relationship with someone you're contractually stuck with for years down the road is a terrible life choice. So he refuses to say a word about his feelings, about that almost-fling, or about anything even remotely related. And it isn't like it's even usually all that hard for his heart to keep a respectable distance. People aren't entirely wrong to assume that their hostility lives on behind the cameras. The mere fact that he and the marimo are professional equals—despite the fact that the latter had none of the formal training that Sanji had slaved over for half a decade in college—makes his blood boil nigh constantly. He definitely wants to knock the man down a few pegs sometimes, that's for damn sure.
"What the hell is 'maybe' supposed to mean?"
Hooking the clothes hanger back on the rack, Sanji lets out a quiet sigh and grabs his cell phone and keys from the top shelf. What does it mean? It means he knows he should say no, but he can't—that he knows he wants to say yes, but can't do that either. "It means I'd rather leave than talk right now," he mutters under his breath. "Quit stalling and grab your stuff already."
Instead of doing as he's told, Zoro stands with his arms crossed over his chest. "No."
"'No'?" Sanji parrots back with a hint of disbelief, looking up from his lock screen to stare a Zoro. "Why the fuck—? Just a few minutes ago, you said we should make this quick!"
Zoro rolls his eyes and lets his arms fall, meandering over from his side of the room to Sanji's. "Yeah, and now I'm trying to figure something out, so hold your damn horses."
"Figure out fucking what, exactly?" Sanji frowns, rocking back on his heels as Zoro approaches him to keep a comfortable distance. His fingers graze the wardrobe behind him, tipping him off that he's run out of space to back up, and he grinds his teeth restlessly. "…Seems kind of unlike you to actually be present in your own head for once."
And this would be the part where they'd start fighting, and either he or Zoro—or both of them—would find themselves face-first on the floor of one of these wardrobes.
But, for once, Zoro doesn't argue back. "Run the 377 scene with me again," he says, as if it were the most typical request in the universe. "The one with both you and Kuma, from the top."
Sanji only lets his jaw drop halfway before he catches himself and snaps it shut; he hadn't seen that coming at all. What the hell is he getting at? Zoro never asks to practice with him, especially material that's already been recorded and done. And it's not like it was a particularly difficult scene in the first place; all he had to do was yell some stuff, and get hit in the stomach half to death. They'd gotten it right nearly on the second try. Not to mention, that scene is practically a monologue exclusively for Sanji himself. As far as he can figure, Zoro would gain nothing useful from going through it again. But there's a familiar, provoking spark in the other man's eyes—one that Sanji has been literally trained to be unable to ignore—so he steels himself and takes in a deep breath.
"Alright, fine," he says after a moment. "If that's what you want, then whatever. But just one time, got it? Don't fuck it up, because I won't start over." Really, he just doesn't know if he has it in him to keep this up much longer. Especially not if Zoro keeps looking at him like that.
"Yeah, I got it. I'll read your cue," he says, taking a few steps toward the back corner of the room. They don't have as much room to work with as they did on the set, but they still need to start far apart in order to make the stage directions work. "Whenever you're ready."
While part of his head is telling him he'll never be ready at this rate, Sanji is a goddamn professional, and he's had more than enough practice ignoring the feeling in order to perform. Pushing away any nagging questions he has about Zoro's eerie behavior, he wanders back over to the doorway and shakes the tension out of his nerves. Lighting up one of his cigarettes with a deft hand, he leans back against the door, sliding back into a state of fake exhaustion. If he's going to do this, he's going to make it the best damn three minutes of acting Zoro has ever witnessed. He breathes in, letting the smoke fill his chest, before speaking in the most drained voice he can muster. "Read me in, marimo."