CHAPTER EIGHT
Sanji's living room
Present time
When they sat back down, they took a seat on the sofa, where they could be at least fractionally closer to each other. Sanji roughly took the swordsman's hand in his own, interlacing their fingers and clutching firmly. Maybe he should have felt self-conscious or embarrassed, but quite frankly, he was long past the point of giving a shit.
His mind, instead, kept flickering back to that time. That awful, hot, balmy summer island. His hands, raw from lifting chunks of rubble and rocks, tossing them to a new pile. The crew trying to methodically search for what was ever-increasingly likely to be the swordsman's corpse. Trying to be logical and systematic when their minds and bodies were raw from emotion and labor.
But no matter how distraught he was, he should have kept looking. They never found a trace of Zoro's body. He should have kept looking, because he was still alive.
Unintentionally, his grip on the swordsman's hand tightened.
"What is it?" Zoro asked, glancing over at him.
Sanji furrowed his brow, briefly debating whether he should answer before realizing it was stupid to even worry about something like that anymore. "I never should have left that shitty cliff-ridden island," he admitted through slightly gritted teeth, closing his eyes.
Zoro shook his head in disagreement. "Even if you stayed there for months, you might've never figured out there was a village in the middle of it."
"But we didn't find you," Sanji said solemnly. He opened his eyes, staring downward, recalling that horrible time. "We shouldn't have left until we did."
"How long did you look for me?"
"Ten days," Sanji said quietly, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Only ten days..."
Zoro leaned back, tilting his head upward toward the ceiling. "Tch, that was a long time to search that small area. It's pretty common for a body to get lost at sea. I don't know who made the call, but it was the right decision. You couldn't stay there forever."
"Yeah, but we never found a trace of you..."
Suddenly, the cook abruptly sat upright, pressing his fingers against his lips. "No, that's not right," he muttered, more to himself than to the swordsman.
Zoro raised an eyebrow, but he did not speak; the look on his face indicated that he had no idea what to even say to Sanji's troubled words.
Rising to his feet, Sanji briskly walked into the kitchen, where much earlier that evening, he had slung his suit coat over the back of a chair. After digging around inside of the pocket for a moment, he pulled something out. He returned to the living room and wordlessly sat back down on the couch, uneasily pressing a folded scrap of worn-out black cloth into Zoro's hand.
Bewildered, the swordsman stared down at it incredulously, unfolding the small piece of cloth. "Is this..." Zoro murmured, turning it over in his hands. It was undeniably familiar; the black bandana that he used to always have on his person, wherever he went. "Oi, I can't believe you have this."
After scrutinizing it for a moment, he looked up at Sanji. "But wasn't that the jacket you were wearing today?" He beckoned toward the black jacket hanging up on the chair in the kitchen. Before he could give the cook a chance to answer, his brow furrowed slightly. "Why were you carrying this with you?"
Sanji's expression faltered. He quickly averted his gaze, peering downward at the floor, turning his body to the side. He wanted to make up a stupid reason, like he happened to accidentally grab it instead of a handkerchief that day. But after all of the remorse he had felt over the years for never saying what he really meant, it seemed ridiculous to say such a stupid thing.
"Why do you think?" he muttered finally, his voice just loud enough for the swordsman to hear.
When he finally looked up at Zoro's face again, he saw the corner of his mouth was twitching slightly, until finally, the vaguest hint of a smile appeared. "That so," he murmured.
Sanji exhaled loudly as Zoro rose to his feet. Like the cook, he headed toward his own black cloak he had discarded just a short while ago, digging through the inside pockets. When he turned back toward Sanji, he held out a small, rectangular item, and tossed it toward him.
Catching it, he peered at it inquisitively. It was a lighter, made out of some kind of metal, tarnished brown with time. Sanji blinked in surprise; it was hard to tell, but it seemed very familiar to him.
"This is... my old lighter?" he asked disbelievingly.
Zoro nodded. "You had left it up in the Crow's Nest, that last night we..." he started, letting the words trail off. "It was in my pocket. I was going to return it to you, but I didn't get the chance."
"What shitty, sentimental fools we are," Sanji muttered under his breath, closing his eyes as he shook his head from side to side. A hint of a smile played at his lips.
But suddenly, he opened his eyes wide, jerking his head toward Zoro. "There's one other thing, though."
"Hah, what?"
He beckoned toward the hallway. "Come with me," he urged, unthinkingly grabbing Zoro by his wrist, pulling him to his feet.
They wound up in Sanji's bedroom.
Zoro looked around the simple room with surprise. Like the rest of the house, everything was functional, without even a hint of decoration or warmth. Besides two nightstands on each side of a large bed, a full-length mirror, and a large dresser at the wall nearest the foot of the bed, the room was devoid of any other furnishings.
"Oi, why are we in your bedroom, ero-cook?"
"Didn't you say I wasn't an ero-cook anymore?" Sanji asked, as he turned his head to look at him from over his shoulder. Then Sanji walked to the dresser and paused for a moment, a slightly tremulous hand clutching the knob.
"Well, I won't complain if I was wrong..." Zoro started, but if he had any more words to add, he did not finish them.
Sanji had slid open the drawer while the swordsman had been talking, and pulled out a katana with a familiar white hilt and sheath. Wordlessly, he turned toward Zoro, holding it up in both hands, as though offering it to him.
Zoro stared in silence, his jaw agape, his eye flooded with emotions that Sanji couldn't quite name, but that he easily understood. That feeling of being reunited with something thought to be lost forever, after so much time...
Taking a choppy step forward, Zoro reached out to accept it. "Wado Ichimonji," he murmured under his breath, as though the words were a name he had not spoken in a long time.
Incredulously, he looked up at Sanji, his eye wide. There was a small bead of perspiration dripping down his forehead as he clasped the katana with his single hand so tightly, his knuckles began to turn white. "I thought it was gone..." he murmured.
Sanji shook his head negatively. "I found it in the deepest part of the water where you disappeared." He averted his gaze, his brow knitted as he focused on the grains of wood of the floor. "That scrap of cloth and this were the only things we found."
To his surprise, Zoro clutched the sword against him, closing his eye. For a moment, the lines in his face seemed to slightly subside, as an expression of relief flooded his features. Sanji felt the breath catch in his throat; new scars and gray hair aside, this face was very close to the Zoro he had known in his youth. He felt a painful tugging in his chest, as once again, it hit him that this was the man he thought he had lost.
"Finally," the swordsman murmured, his tone barely audible. Sanji took a step back, understanding that the other man had something going through his mind that was private.
Although he did not know what those thoughts were, he knew they were related to torments from his past that made Zoro seem like such a difficult person sometimes. The cook didn't know any of the details of Zoro's youth, other than the name Kuina that he had heard spoken a time or two. He didn't know how the swordsman had acquired that blade. And he never knew why Zoro desired to be the strongest swordsman.
But Sanji had noticed the emotion toward this sword, faintly trickling through Zoro's often unreadable countenance throughout the years he had known him.
When Zoro finally looked up again, he turned to fix his gaze on Sanji, a thin, barely discernible smile on his lips.
"You've helped me fulfill a promise."
"That so," Sanji said quietly.
"Ah," he nodded, a look of satisfaction on his face. Then Zoro suddenly approached him, wrapping his arm around his shoulders; he was still clutching the Wado Ichimonji in his hand, carefully positioning it so the sheath wouldn't accidentally bump Sanji's body.
He drew his lips near the cook's until they touched. Almost instantly, Sanji felt a warm tingle run up his spine. The kiss was so eager and flooded with a joyful gratitude that he was certain the shitty swordsman could have never expressed in words. But as lips pressed together firmly, tongues lightly brushing and sliding against each other, he could hear the other man's message loud and clear.
It was strange how such a pleasant feeling made him feel so ineffably sad.
When they pulled apart, Sanji didn't really know what words to say or what to do next. The whole evening had been such a drain on his emotions. He glanced over at the bedroom door, assuming they would head back to the living room next.
But the other man had a different idea. He walked over to the dresser, setting the Wado Ichimonji on top of it, before turning back toward the cook.
"Again," Zoro said suddenly, taking a brisk step toward him, bringing their mouths together.
Although Sanji was trying to will away a knot forming in the pit of his stomach, the feeling of the other man's yearning lips hotly pressing against his probably did the job better than he ever could have done on his own.
The lingering sadness was still ever-present, but as they increased the intensity of the kiss, Sanji noticed there was another emotion slowly sifting toward the surface... something new. Or perhaps, something that had once been lost.
It had been so long since he had felt even a flicker of what could be called happiness. He lived a life filled with satisfactory events and accomplishments; notches on a scorecard that would make him be able to look back on his life and say, "Alright, I accomplished a lot." But the feeling of joy, elation... it was no longer in her repertoire of emotions.
Not that he had really minded, either. Sometimes he felt a slight pang of regret that he no longer felt the same earnest joy from preparing succulent meals for hungry travelers. But he still enjoyed it, and his food was still delicious and left his customers happy, so that was all that mattered. It was okay for him to be drowning in apathy, as long as he could still give someone a small piece of happiness.
But this feeling, sparking in the depths of his soul and manifesting somewhere in his chest, in the form of a tight-but-delightful pang, reminded him of when he felt such an emotion...
Sanji hungrily deepened the kiss, wanting to devour the feeling, devour the swordsman himself. Zoro did not once object or even try to pull away. He responded with the same predatory lust than was overtaking the cook, controlling his actions.
"Oi, Sanji," Zoro pulled away from his mouth, repositioning his lips against the side of Sanji's face, his baritone voice rumbling in his ear.
The cook shivered. It was strange hearing the other man use his actual name. Come to think of it, before he had known it was Zoro, it had always made him feel uneasy whenever Isshin had spoken his name.
But until he had said his name under the guise of "Isshin," the cook had never heard the swordsman utter his name before, not even once. Perhaps that was why it was so unrecognizable to him.
"What is it?" Sanji asked breathlessly, sliding his hand up Zoro's chest, over the thin fabric of his shirt.
"I want to... like the way we used to do it."
The swordsman's hand slid down to the bulge in Sanji's pants, and the cook gasped before he could even think about stopping himself.
He wanted it to, though... So desperately he could not even put it into words. Panting heavily, the cook eagerly attacked Zoro, crushing their mouths together as he shoved the other man backward onto the bed.
"Tch, your clothes still have too many things to do to take them off," Zoro muttered, struggling to unbutton Sanji's shirt as the cook laid on top of him.
Yet he managed to get them undone, one-handed and all, and soon Sanji's shirt was being pulled off of his back as he tried to pull the other man's long-sleeved shirt over his head.
The swordsman's expression flickered with something like uncertainty for a split second, and Sanji felt the breath catch in his throat.
It was a hesitation he had never seen intermingled in the other man's lustful gaze before, and it was off-putting enough to make Sanji reflexively back away. He realized he had been feeling a bit lost in the euphoria-inducing moment, but that slight falter was enough to rip him back into reality—the reality where he had doubts and fears, and where he believed that the price to pay for even a shred of happiness was several times worth of agony.
He almost felt an insult form at the tip of his tongue—it probably would've tumbled out in a horrible burst when he was younger, but now, he had just enough self-control to stop himself. After all, he only wanted to insult Zoro because for a moment, he himself had felt uncomfortable, alarmed that he had done something he shouldn't have.
In his youth, he had never really gotten to figure out what some of those conflicting looks Zoro gave him meant. As he had grown older, he had torn himself apart inside, wondering just what those things were that he had missed. He didn't want that to happen again. He had to find out, now, because he never knew when it might be too late.
So instead, he took a deep breath, trying to momentarily forget about his raging desire as well as his own insecurity. Calmly looking at Zoro, he asked, "What is it?" Once the words left his mouth, he was surprised at how easy they had been to say.
The swordsman grinned mirthfully, sitting upright. "Tch, I guess I just feel like I should warn you," he said, starting to pull off his shirt, "it looks a hell of a lot worse than it used to."
Zoro adeptly yanked the shirt off with his single arm, revealing an impossible number of scars and gouges across his muscular body. The slash on his chest—the one that had been left by Hawk-Eyes Mihawk, right after Sanji had first met the swordsman—was no longer the most obvious scar on his body, as it had been repeatedly covered by other similarly gruesome imperfections.
Without thinking, Sanji leaned forward toward Zoro until his face was only inches from his chest, tracing his fingers over the lines of the scars and gouges, wide-eyed as he took in how bad some of the injuries must have been. Some of them even looked rather recent—near his left shoulder and abdomen, there were large slashes that were still quite pink.
His lust momentarily forgotten, Sanji slowly studied his body, taking in all the new detail. The chef's hand slowly began to move toward that gruesome-looking arm—that stump, cut off just below the shoulder. He knitted his brows as his hand brushed it, and he felt Zoro's body stiffen slightly.
He didn't linger for long, though. A moment later, he leaned forward, moving his hands to his back, resting his chin on Zoro's shoulder. He immediately noticed that there were large hunks of flesh missing near one of his shoulder-blades; he wasn't even sure what could have caused such a macabre injury.
Recalling how Zoro used to fight, though, it wasn't so surprising. When he was in the mindset of needing to win, he seemed nearly incapable of self-preservation.
"Idiot," Sanji muttered under his breath, once he had taken in all of the new details of his body. He wrapped his arms around Zoro's back and pulled him close. Even if the swordsman hadn't explained, he could see most of these wounds were caused from fighting, and not from the accident. Even if the swordsman never told him, each of these scars and gouges represented one more time that Zoro risked cutting his life short; and if that had happened, Sanji would have never even gotten to know he was still here.
Embracing him tightly, Sanji wondered if this was okay; to just sit there and hold him like that, even though lust was supposed to be the reason they were there. But suddenly, this seemed far more urgent that any desire.
Then he felt Zoro's arm reach around his shoulders, gripping him tightly in return, and he sighed in relief. For awhile, the two men just sat there, heads on each others shoulders.
Recalling the past, their stubborn, young selves trying to act nonchalant and disinterested in each other, even when they were greedily clinging to each other in the throes of passion, Sanji suddenly laughed.
It was a deep, genuine laugh that seemed to start in his abdomen and slowly work its way upward, until it broke free. The cook raised a hand and grabbed the back of Zoro's hair, grasping the coarse gray-and-green strands as his mirthful laugh filled the room.
"Oi, what the hell's so funny?" Zoro asked, unable to pull away to look at his face while he gripped the back of his head like that.
"I was just thinking about what a shitty kid I was."
"Hah?"
"I would've kicked you into a wall for this back then," Sanji chuckled.
"I'm wondering if you still might," the swordsman admitted.
The laughter died down, and when Sanji spoke again, his voice was considerably more solemn. "There's no reason for me to do that anymore. I've come to terms with a lot of things since back then."
Finally, he started to pull away, and Zoro loosened the grip around his shoulders.
"Eh, it's not like I was much better," Zoro admitted.
"Yeah, true."
"Oi, don't agree that easily."
"Then don't say things that are so obviously right," Sanji smirked.
Zoro grinned broadly, that unfettered grin that Sanji honestly felt like he never got to see very much, even back when they were together on the Thousand Sunny, spending day in and day out in each other's presence. It was a rare delight, and rarer still that it was just for him.
Unthinkingly, Sanji leaned toward Zoro, pushing him backward sharply so that his back was flat on the bed once again.
Putting a leg on either side of his hips, Sanji leaned down until their lips connected. He wanted the other man like he had wanted nothing else in the innumerable gray and dull years that had passed him by.
"I want the same thing you do," Sanji said, referring to the swordsman's earlier comment. "Like we used to..."
"Ah," Zoro nodded.
They struggled a moment to remove the rest of their clothes, and then they were finally naked. Sanji felt like he could barely breath as he felt that familiar, muscular body pressing against his... And that familiar hardness brushing against his own.
Both men sat up, and Zoro's lips tantalizingly pressed against Sanji's chest, a tongue occasionally flicking out to trace the sensitive places that he somehow seemed to remember so well.
"You're still so much like you used to be," Zoro commented. Sanji started to reply, but lips momentarily grazed a nipple, and instead he only whimpered in response.
"Why the hell wouldn't I be," he shot back.
Zoro chuckled, bringing his mouth back up to Sanji's, giving him a hungry-but-gentle kiss. "Ah, I guess I was just comparing you to me, that's all."
Sanji shook his head. "You're a little worse for the wear, but you're the same too," he said, his voice unintentionally tinged with sadness. He reached out to brush the side of the swordsman's face, his fingers grazing the chunk of his left earlobe that was now missing.
Raising an eyebrow, Zoro commented, "You don't seem to bothered by some of these things." For a moment, he pulled his left arm away from Sanji, unconsciously touching the stump of his right arm.
"Why would I be?" Sanji said simply. "Tch, you were always covered in scars, so this is nothing new for me."
Before the swordsman could say another word, Sanji leaned over and kissed him, slowly pushing him back against the bed as their tongues slid back and forth against each other.
"How do you want to start?" Sanji asked, pulling away momentarily. His body ached with an unfamiliar lust; he hadn't wanted anyone this badly in so long.
Zoro's hand reached down, engulfing his engorgement so that it surged with pleasure and a screaming desire for relief. "Can I have you first?"
"Tch, as long as that's not all you're up for."
"I may be old, but I'm not dead," Zoro smirked.
They changed positions, so that the swordsman was now laying on top of him, and Sanji felt his pulse quicken incrementally as Zoro readied his body. The way they used to do it was nothing in particular, but he was startled at how much the other man seemed to remember his body.
All the familiar places he sought, the sensitive spots that he had painstakingly discovered when they had snuck away to do it again and again. Sanji had never thought much of it at the time, but he had never had another lover who had taken the time to learn what he liked the way Zoro had. Ah, but then, he had never really had a lover with whom he felt anything even remotely close to the sensation of love.
A slightly better hotel than what they were used to
Over twenty years ago
Sanji's brow furrowed in his sleep, an unpleasant dream temporarily hijacking his mind. He awoke with a start, the memory of the nightmare all but gone the second his eyes snapped open.
You don't really know what love is.
An unidentifiable whisper flitting across his mind was the only remnant left. Although the voice seemed to belong to no one in particular, Sanji did recall the phrase being spoke to him more than a few times, each time by a different person. Every time it happened, however, he had never given it further thought.
Yet for some reason, at that moment, he was breathing hard, and he could feel a bead of sweat rolling down his forehead, despite the chill in the air.
Distracted by his startling physical reactions to a mere dream, it took him a few extra seconds to realize where he was. He was, most assuredly, not on board the Thousand Sunny; and what was more, the back pressed against his chest, and the ribcage he had his arms wrapped around, most definitely belonged to a very familiar marimo.
Why the hell was he clinging to the swordsman, anyway? Inwardly cursing, he start to pull his body away, but Zoro started to stir, and he did not really want to wake him up.
With a sigh, he allowed his body to relax, and after settling down for a few moments, he realized it wasn't that bad being against the other man like this. He had no idea why his body has sought out such a position while they slept, but it was definitely him and not Zoro who had initiated such a position, so he couldn't reasonably blame the marimo.
As his breathing began to steady, he realized that he still felt sort of anxious from the dream. He hated it when this happened; emotions lingering from a dream, particularly from one leaving behind such a cryptic message.
He tilted his head forward, until his forehead pressed against soft, green hair. He inhaled deeply, breathing in the smell of salty sweat and steel. It shouldn't have been a pleasant smell, but it was so deeply ingrained that it was the familiar smell belonging to the marimo, he couldn't say he disliked it.
Sanji's eyelids began to grow heavy, and he unconsciously wrapped his arms around Zoro a little bit more tightly. He was vaguely aware that the swordsman let out a faint murmur and raised his arm, wrapping it above Sanji's, but the cook was already about to drift to sleep.
The last thought he had was probably his groggy mind arguing with himself that he did, indeed, know what love was, but he would never remember it.
Sanji's bedroom
Present time, a short while later
Though it was the same man who he had shared so many nights with all those years ago, for some reason, there was satisfaction beyond what he was capable of understanding in his youthful
days.
This time, there was no shame or fear. There was no hesitation within him. He no longer had his stupid, arrogant streak that made him act like he didn't want this, when he ached for it.
And maybe, just maybe, he could allow himself to be slightly honest with himself.
Things were different now; they would never again have to pretend they didn't actually want to stay with each other until morning. There was no need for smokescreens and flimsy excuses. There was no fear.
Except, maybe, the fear that this wasn't real.
But the feeling of Zoro inside of him was all too vivid for it to be a dream or a hallucination. The feeling of a rough, fervid hand touching him down there, those familiar fingers wrapped around his impossibly stiffened member. The sweat, commingling with his own.
And the taste of the sweet, hungry kisses that he missed more than two decades of melancholy had ever made him realize.
When they came, he almost cried out to stop, because he didn't want it to end. The thought of it being over was too much for him to take.
But a passionate hand and mouth quickly reassured him that it wasn't over. After they took a few minutes to recover, Sanji felt himself being impelled to shift his position, and then he was on top of the swordsman again. Then instinct took over as Sanji repeated what Zoro had just done to him.
The way they used to do it... There was no rhyme or reason to it, no method or schedule. It was just this; the two of them taking lustful turns as to who would take or be taken. Sanji had always internally fought with himself over which he preferred, because logically, he should have hated to be taken. But now, experiencing it all over again, he came to the conclusion he should have come to all along: they both were quite good.