Sanji realises he’s in love with Zoro halfway through watching him do absolutely nothing.
The Sunny’s in one of those rare impossible moods: gentle. The sea’s a slow breathing thing under the keel, swell and fall, swell and fall. The sky’s wide and washed out, clouds torn thin like old linen and everyone’s slotted into their usual business. Nami’s bent over the chart table, Robin turning pages with that unhurried grace, Franky half inside the engine, Usopp and Chopper arguing cheerfully over some new contraption. Luffy’s on the lawn deck trying to learn a card game and cheating so enthusiastically – on himself – it’s practically a new set of rules.
Zoro’s ‘asleep’ against the rail, one shoulder to the warm wood and one arm loose over Wado’s hilt, head tipped back. If you didn’t know him you’d think he was dead to the world but Sanji does know him, unfortunately. He sees the little tells: the way Zoro’s fingers twitch when the mast creaks wrong, the way his breathing never quite tips into the heavy, slack-muscled rhythm of real sleep. Half dozing and half coiled, that weird predator rest he’s perfected, recharging with one ear still pressed to the world.
Sanji’s at the opposite railing, cigarette down to the last stubborn sliver. He’d come out for air. That was all. Check the clouds, check the wind, make sure the idiot captain hadn’t fallen overboard between one blink and the next. Normal things.
Instead, his brain picks now of all times to calmly rearrange his whole life. The wind ruffles Zoro’s hair and the light glances off the scar bisecting his chest and something in Sanji’s stomach just – drops. Clean cut. Rope severed.
Oh, he thinks, with all the dull, stunned clarity of a man who’s just realised he’s been walking around with a knife in his own back. The thought lands so neatly it’s almost insulting.
He drags on the cigarette hard enough his lungs sting, exhales slow and starts, methodically, to inventory the damage. The way his first instinct when Zoro gets hurt now isn’t a cuss but a cold punch of fear that knocks the breath out of him. The way his feet know the route to the crows’ nest at midnight, just to check for the comfortingly idiotic clank of weights. The way some treacherous part of him has started keeping score of Zoro’s favourite dishes, what he eats faster when he’s tired, what he reaches for without thinking.
you know what, what if he did!! it’s soft silly hours!!
x
This is not when or how Zoro planned to get married.
If you’d asked him – which, thankfully, no-one did – he might’ve pictured something stupidly simple, some no-name port between nightmares with a half-decent bottle of sake and a ring pressed into Sanji’s hand behind a dockside bar while Luffy terrorised the local buffet.
Instead, there’s an exploding cliff and a split harbour, half a dozen ships comprised of Marines and hired guns, plus one very pissed-off Admiral with a magma fruit making the sky look like it’s on fire.
So, you know. Close enough.
“ROOM.”
The air warps, blue light spider-webbing over the smoking plaza. Gravity gets weird for a second and bullets take a sudden interest in the clouds instead of his organs, which is probably one of the better parts of the day. Zoro’s swords sing in his hands but he doesn’t slow down. He’s breathing hard, ribs aching where a fist dipped too close earlier but the rhythm’s good: slash, turn, kick, breathe. There’s a Vice Admiral in front of him with two swords and a bad attitude so Zoro breaks the man’s stance in three exchanges and his nose in the fourth.
Behind him, Sanji laughs and the sound cuts through the chaos like a flare.
Zoro doesn’t have to look to know where he is because he can feel him through the heat at his back, through the whoosh of a flaming kick whipping past his shoulder, through the specific crunch Sanji’s boots make when they meet a jaw.
“Watch your right, Moss,” he snaps and Zoro shifts just enough to let a spear slide by so Sanji can take the wielder’s teeth out.
Sanji’s already there, heel arcing past Zoro’s hip to catch a Marine in the temple; the guy drops like a cut rope. Three years together and the rhythm’s sunk right down into his bones. Some fights, it almost feels like cheating.
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