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The smell of stale air and sweat fills his lungs, breaths echoing in the narrow corridor leading away from the ring.
His ears are still ringing with the sounds of the crowd.
His body is sore and there’s blood on his knuckles, but he’s won, and a deep sense of satisfaction has settled into his bones.
He’s going to be the best.
It’s everything he’s worked for his entire life.
He’s given everything for this.
The smell of cigarette smoke creeps out into the hall and his chest goes tight.
He’s given everything.
There’s a light on in the ready room and he shoves open the door, face blank and armor up for whatever he finds inside.
Sanji is propped casually against the far wall, window cracked and cigarette held shamelessly between his fingers despite the clear No Smoking sign on the door. He taps ash into a familiar tray on the windowsill and finally looks up to meet Zoro’s eyes.
Piercing blue, familiar and foreign all at once.
Zoro thought he’d never meet those eyes again. Hasn’t seen them in over a year.
“Can’t you read? No smoking inside, you’ll set off the fire alarms.”
He grabs the towel around his neck and wipes it over his face, walking over to the small fridge for something to drink. Usually, he goes for water.
His hand finds the chilled bottle of sake instead.
He hears Sanji hum, doesn’t bother looking back as he cracks the top of the bottle and takes a nice, long drink. Tries to ignore the hollow chill in the center of his chest.
He’d won.
He’s going to be the best.
He throws his towel on the ground and pulls his shirt over his head, drops that on the pile as well. His muscles twinge and his body aches and the high he’d been riding has been quickly replaced by a bone-deep fatigue that threatens to overtake him.
“Are you hurt?”
Zoro’s shoulders tense.
He only vaguely registers the tinge of red on the fabric at his feet.
“No.”
Nothing out of the ordinary, at least. Nothing to be concerned about. Bruises will fade and small scrapes will heal within the week.
He’s walked out of the fight with hardly a scratch – something he can’t say for his opponent.
“Why are you here?”
Now it’s Sanji’s turn to tense, movements jerky as he takes another deep drag of his cigarette.
“They still know my name at the gate.”
It’s a very small list, the people Zoro trusts most, and Zoro didn’t have the heart to change it, felt like rubbing salt in a wound that had already been picked raw and open.
Besides, he’d never expected Sanji to use it.
He grunts and starts gathering his things for the shower.
Sanji must have found a way to tip off his team, because the silence of the room and the absence of their usual post-fight routine is deafening. The tile is cold against his bare feet.
The water spits and crackles and he hears a soft noise from the door, turns to find Sanji there looking smaller than he remembers. His feet are bare, too, and there’s no cigarette between his twitching fingers.
One hand lingers on the doorframe.
Graceful, artist’s hands that Zoro used to treasure. Knows the shape of every knuckle and groove, knows the warmth of his skin and the taste of his fingers.
Now, he’s not sure he knows anything at all.
“Can I?”
Zoro stares, heart tight in his chest.
He’s never been good at saying no to Sanji, not really.
(Not when everything Sanji wanted Zoro secretly wanted too.)
At least, almost everything. Until the end. When everything fell apart and Zoro was left in more pain than he can remember, more than any injury or fight.
And wasn’t that the best? The irony.
He wonders if Sanji knows what he did. How, even if he couldn’t see it, Zoro knows his heart bled for days. Weeks.
Until his friends finally came and mopped everything up off the floor, poured it back inside him and sealed him shut with careful hands.
He turns away and shucks off his pants, shrugs his shoulders.
“Do whatever you want, shit-cook. I’m not your keeper.”
He expects a snide remark. A huff of breath or a disappointed click of his tongue.
He’s not expecting the gentle hands on his back, the way fingertips trail softly down his spine.
He can feel the line of Sanji’s body beside him, the familiar heat despite the carefully held space between them. Zoro catches himself wanting to lean back, to sway into the touch and the warmth and all the memories that come rushing back.
“Can I?”
There’s a bottle of soap in Sanji’s hand and Zoro nods. Feels wooden. Detached.
Sanji starts at his shoulders and works down, palms running over the tense muscles in his back, knows all the places to press a little harder, thumbs digging in along his spine.
Zoro’s thoughts flicker back to the fight, retracing every moment, every step, looking for an opening where he might’ve been hit.
Maybe he is hurt.
Maybe he’s lying on the ground, concussed and bleeding while his team swarms around him.
It would be just like his subconscious to bring Sanji back to taunt him.
I knew it! I knew this would happen!
Reckless.
I told you so.
Sanji steps around to face him, hands still where they’ve landed on Zoro’s chest.
His hair is dark and limp and Zoro resists the urge to push it back off his face, isn’t sure he’s allowed that privilege anymore.
Sanji does it for him.
Takes one hand away to rake his bangs from his forehead and puts it back on Zoro’s neck instead, thumb pressing into his jaw line the way he used to like to when they kissed.
Controlling, needy bastard.
He was always desperate. Wanted to touch everything he could reach and still demanded more.
Zoro was never Sanji’s keeper, but there was a time Sanji was his.
“Zoro. Close your eyes.”
He guides Zoro’s head down and reaches for the shampoo, ignoring the way Zoro grumbles into the scant space between them.
It’s all too familiar, this song and dance. It almost feels like they never left. That Sanji still wants to climb inside his skin and Zoro is going to let him.
Strong fingers rub against his scalp and his forehead bumps against Sanji’s shoulder.
He feels more than hears the sigh Sanji lets out, the way his muscles relax and the way his hands urge him closer. He might have imagined the brush of lips against his ear.
He doesn’t let himself focus on that too closely.
The water washes over them and before long Zoro knows he’s clean. That all that’s left is to turn off the water and grab a towel and leave this strange little bubble behind.
Neither of them moves.
Sanji’s fingers tighten in his hair.
His thumb presses at the line of his jaw.
“Can I?”
Zoro lets himself be pushed, lifts his head and tilts his chin and then Sanji’s lips are pressed against his own.
Cigarettes.
Mint.
He knows Sanji tastes sake on his tongue.
It’s almost frightening, how easy they fall back into it, eyes closed and bodies closer and nothing but time between them.
It’s almost too easy to forget how long it’s been.
To forget the scars slowly scabbing over in his chest.
When they finally part, Sanji turns off the shower, grabs a fresh towel from the stack by the door and tosses it to Zoro, grabs another for himself with a careful smile.
Zoro stares at him, still trying to process what’s happened in the last hour.
Sanji lifts one, stupid brow.
“Need some help there, marimo?”
Zoro growls before he thinks better of it, falls back into their usual banter as easy as breathing.
“Shut up, curly. Don’t need your help.”
To prove it, he begins aggressively scrubbing at his hair, stalking past Sanji to get to his small bag of clothes.
He pulls on his underwear and jeans when he’s mostly dry and smirks at the disgusted look on Sanji’s face when his shirt clings to the water on his back and chest.
Some things never change.
“You’re an affront to polite society, I hope you know that.”
“And you’re a fucking prince. Get over it.”
Sanji clicks his tongue then pauses, a strange glint in his eye that has Zoro stopping in his tracks.
His eyes track a drop of water Zoro can feel sliding down his neck.
He blinks and suddenly Sanji is very, very close, one hand cupping his head while the other wrinkles his shirt at the small of his back. Warm lips press to the side of his neck, a flash of tongue sending a shudder down his spine.
A soft groan slips past his lips.
“Zoro.”
His voice is so warm, so perfectly familiar, every part of him aches to hear it.
Hadn’t dared hope to again.
Sanji’s hands are solid against him, his body damp and bare from the shower. Zoro aches to reach out and touch.
Then, Sanji presses against something tender, hand on his back searching and insistent, and Zoro can’t hide the soft grunt of pain that follows.
I can’t watch you do this to yourself anymore.
I knew this would happen!
Every muscle in his body tenses and he feels Sanji pull away in return.
His heart beats harder in his chest. His fingers feel numb.
The room suddenly feels too hot and too cold all at once, heart already cracking in his chest.
But Sanji’s hands never leave him. They keep him steady as Sanji leans back just enough to meet his eyes.
“You’re going to be the best someday, right?”
Sanji smiles, small and careful, thumb tracing the scar over Zoro’s cheek.
“I want to be here when it happens. Right here. Not watching through some stupid tv screen.”
Zoro blinks. Feels a bit like he’s been sucker punched right in the skull, ears ringing and vertigo threatening to send him to the ground.
“You were watching?”
“Of course I was watching. I should’ve known I could never leave you. You’re like a fungus, impossible to get rid of.”
It’s meant as a joke, but Zoro knows him better than that, can hear the slight tremor in his voice.
“How long?”
“Hm?”
“How long did you – When did you start?”
Sanji sighs, seems to deflate a little under Zoro’s sudden scrutiny. He never did like to be the vulnerable one.
“I never stopped watching, you stupid moss head. All the cooks at Baratei are absolutely insufferable about it too. Zeff’s threatened to kick all of us out more than once.”
Zoro grunts.
Not the most eloquent of responses, but it’s all Zoro’s got at the moment, all other brain function taken up by the realization that Sanji’s been following his fights this whole fucking time. As if the whole reason they broke up wasn’t because Sanji couldn’t handle watching anymore, couldn’t handle sending Zoro out to get hurt.
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
Sanji’s eyes widen, mouth dropping open in surprise.
“Excuse me?? Who are you calling—”
Zoro’s hands grab him by the waist, pull him in and cut him off with what he hopes is a very demonstrative kiss. They must look ridiculous, Zoro in his damp clothes and Sanji buck naked with his towel forgotten on the floor, both of them holding on bruisingly tight as the steam dissolves around them.
Eventually, Sanji shivers in the rapidly cooling air. They pull apart and finishing getting dressed, never straying too far apart, reluctant to be out of arm’s reach.
Sanji’s ashtray is still waiting on the windowsill and Zoro’s shirt is in a pile on the floor.
He stuffs it into his bag and tucks the bottle of booze in alongside it as well, hopes to finish the rest of it in much happier circumstances later that night. He hauls everything over his shoulder and turns to find Sanji staring at him, a strangely stricken expression on his face.
His eyes are fixed on the small, green keychain clipped to the strap of his bag.
“How did you…”
Zoro shrugs.
“Chopper gave it to me. Didn’t take a genius to know it was for me.”
Passed off as a souvenir a month after they had broken up, the marimo key chain had been anything but subtle. Chopper had quietly handed it over to Zoro with a sad expression on his face the next time they met, Zoro had taken it without a word, felt a little more of his blood drip down into the cavern of his chest, and that had been the end of it.
Sanji looks like he’s been stabbed in the heart.
“I was watching, too.”
At the new restaurant opening, watching from the back of the crowd as the ribbon is cut.
Robin quietly bringing him a boxed meal at the end of the night.
At the anniversary of his mother’s death, walking past the cemetery to make sure Sanji didn’t have to grieve alone.
Luffy texting him a thumbs up to let him know everything was alright.
Nami not giving him any shit when he’d shown up at her door and crawled into her bed, light of the tv flickering over his face as Sanji had walked across the stage, award under his arm and a proud smile on Zeff’s face.
Sanji’s eyes have gone red rimmed and Zoro knows there’s a lot that’s been left unsaid between them. They’ve never been the best at talking.
Usually, they didn’t need so many words to understand.
It had always felt like Sanji could read him like an open book, but now he wonders how much of it is true.
“I love you. You know that, right?”
For the second time that night, Sanji looks like Zoro’s struck him.
He looks amazed, and stunned, and… offended?
“You stupid mosshead! How could you say it before me??”
Zoro stares.
Processes.
“Huh??”
“I’m supposed to be the romantic one, you neanderthal! Take it back right now! Our friends will never let me live it down if they find out.”
Zoro rolls his eyes.
Sanji is ridiculous. Absolutely absurd.
And Zoro loves him.
“No, I’m not taking it back. It’s the truth.”
Sanji’s face softens, some of the wind taken out of his sails.
“Still… You weren’t supposed to say it first. I had a whole speech planned.”
Zoro huffs a laugh.
“I’ll still listen to your stupid speech, love cook. Even if it is second place.”
Sanji huffs and shoves him in the side.
“Shut up. Now you don’t get to hear it.”
“Okay, last place. Or do you even get a place, since you never finished?”
His back suddenly hits the wall and he’s got Sanji pressed up against him, one hand on the wall caging him in place.
“I love you too, you freaking moss for brains. Now shut up and take me back to your hotel before we ruin the room.”
Zoro hums in consideration.
“Okay.”
Sanji leans back and brushes off his suit. His tie is a brilliant blue to match his eyes.
“But Sanji…” he says, waiting for the other man to meet his eyes. “Don’t run away again.”
“I wouldn’t dare. Nami’s already threatened to skin me alive if I do.”
Zoro huffs.
“Guess the witch isn’t so bad after all.”
“I’ll tell her you said that.”
Zoro rolls his eyes.
“Whatever you say, second place.”
“Hey!”
Zoro’s phone buzzes in his pocket halfway back to the hotel.
Nami: Tell Sanji he left his ashtray in the room
Nami: And tell him I’ll light him on fire if he hurts you again 😘
Zoro snorts and sends back a picture of his and Sanji’s hands, fingers tangled loosely together in the back of the car.
She likes it immediately, then sends a barfing emoji and the middle finger.
Zoro laughs and settles back into his seat, lets his eyes drift over to where Sanji is staring out the window beside him.
They still have a long way ahead of them, not everything is going to be fixed overnight, but Zoro is confident they’ll get there.
Sanji’s hand grips his a little tighter and their eyes meet.
Sanji’s are the same brilliant blue that Zoro remembers – warm and familiar as they trace over Zoro’s face.
“I love you, marimo.”
Warm in the car and adrenaline fizzing out after the fight, the fatigue catches up with Zoro again all at once. He lets himself lean, head easily finding Sanji’s shoulder and settling into the dip there.
Sanji’s coat smells like cigarettes and Zoro’s bag is settled carefully on the floor between them, its little green keychain highlighted with each streetlight that goes by.
Zoro closes his eyes.
The road seems a little clearer up ahead.