It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind,
Or not untrue and not unkind.
~Talking in Bed by Philip Larkin~
.Talking in Bed.
They still slept together, though why Zoro had no idea. Perhaps it was just the norm, so used to it now that there was no escape from it, like two lingering spirits not able to move on. Stuck in repeat.
He felt Sanji shift next to him on the double bed Franky had made and he reflected that once this had been exciting. There was once something thrilling in going to bed with the cook, but now it felt heinous. A chore, a bother. The blond sighed and moved some more and Zoro wondered just where he was planning on moving to, there wasn't much mattress left after all. But he didn't turn over to look. He would have done that once, but he knew better now how to avoid a faceful of venom these days.
They were almost like shy lovers, stepping around each other but never quite touching and it was almost comical he supposed that two fiery characters could begin to dim so easily. There was a beast of an elephant in the room and neither would dare to confront it.
There was no talking and if it weren't for the blond's usual chatter around the ship then Zoro would surely have forgotten what the man's voice sounded like. But what was there to say? He could barely remember the idle talk they used to share and he wished now that he had treasured it in his memories, so that he had something to play back to himself now in the silence.
It was odd how a person could feel so lonely when lying next to another.
Zoro turned his hearing to the world outside, the creak of the Sunny, the lap of the waves that rocked the boat gently. He stared up at the porthole which leaked in dreary silver moonlight and envisioned the world outside. The expanse of ocean and the islands with their piled up towns and haberdashery villages laid out like patchwork. So many people living there, loving there, dying there. Suddenly his problems seemed insignificant when compared to these imaginary people inside his head but this was a problem that was big to the one suffering it.
He knew well enough why he couldn't turn over, why he couldn't speak, or feel the blond beneath his fingers. Because he had nothing positive left to say to the man and if he opened his mouth then he would not say that he loved.
Zoro had slowly stopped loving a while ago and now all he had left to say was hate.