Work Text:
Zoro had a strange dream about Sanji the night before.
It was strange in the way that the sunlight shone down on them warmly; how it traced their close figures and cast shadows on their laughing faces. In the way warmth followed them everywhere they went, from their civil moments to their unhinged fights.
It was strange because, in his dream, the two of them were together. In more ways than one.
“I had a dream about you, you know,” Zoro said as they sat at the kitchen table, long past midnight.
The boat was rocking gently and the smell of the late dinner they’d had with the crew was long gone, dissipating as it spread out across the salty ocean air.
“Oh yeah? Wouldn’t doubt it, with how much you sleep,” Sanji replied, taking a drag out of his cigarette.
“Uhuh.” Zoro admired Sanji’s appearance, from his silky blond hair to his relaxed frame, eye as captivating as it always was. “You wanna know what it was about?”
The blond exhaled, leaning back in his chair. “Shoot.”
“We were together.”
Sanji paused, and then he raised an eyebrow, obviously curious. “...Together?”
“We held hands wherever we went, and we lived in the same house,” Zoro explained, “We weren’t pirates.”
Zoro further examined Sanji, watching as a careful expression slipped onto his face. The blond then took his gaze from Zoro’s, looking away as he smoked in silence.
“We weren’t pirates, because you were a cook at the restaurant near our home, and I was a blacksmith. We’d work separately and then come back to our home in the evening.” Sanji’s eyebrows were furrowed, but he did nothing to stop Zoro from talking. “At night we’d have sex.”
The chef smirked. “Vulgar.”
“I’d wake up to your breakfast and have to do the dishes and massage you later as repayment. We’d go out for groceries together on the weekends, and you’d force me to hold the bags as you check out ingredients for our next dinners.”
“That sounds like me alright.”
They heard a thump from below, no doubt Luffy falling from his sleeping spot and taking Usopp down with him. Zoro continued.
“Sometimes, when we were in the mood, we’d go on a date and take turns picking where to eat from. You liked going to the fancy restaurant down the street for some steak and I liked going to the bars for a drink together.”
“You are an alcoholic after all.”
Zoro smiled, because he could feel how his heart ached at the same time that he could tell Sanji was hurting.
His lithe fingers were gripping his cigarette a little too hard, and his perfect jaw was set in place.
“When we’re just about to fall asleep,” Zoro decided to say regardless of the observations he’d made—voice a little softer, a little quieter, “I’d tell you I love you.”
Sanji froze when he heard the words, and then he finally looked back at him, his eyes showing a sort of desperation that Zoro recognized in the mirror.
“Did I say it back?”
Zoro could hear the words in his ears even now.
“Always.”
The swordsman cut it off there, filling the air around them with silence instead of his fictitious words.
However, there was more to the dream.
There always was, because Zoro wouldn’t admit it, but he’d have the dream on multiple nights, always a continuation of the past one. It might’ve been coincidence, but it was most likely because he wanted it that badly.
“That seems nice,” Sanji supplied after some time.
“It does.”
They stared at each other for a moment, and then when Zoro chuckled Sanji followed suite, covering up the longing with layers and layers of reminders that it wasn’t possible—that it was laughable for it to even happen.
Because that was all it was, when they lived where there was no time for romance.
Castles in the air, with no way up and no way down. Further unreachable from the precarious ocean they called a home.
Dreams.