I have a headcanon that Sanji struggles with wanting/asking for non-sexual intimacy from Zoro. So if he's having a rough day or just wants to be held by the man he loves he'll initiate sex in order to feel that connection, regardless of whether he's actually in the mood. But Zoro's gotten unnervingly good at telling when he's doing this and redirecting to give him what he actually needs in that moment.
Sanji dreamed of a love he could hold with both hands and a worn wooden table and children all around it.
By now, Sanji had thrown away his chances at such a life.
He was a pirate and a chef.
He loved both his captain and his job.
He dreamed of a sea of abundance and life.
He was not stupid enough to long for more.
He tried to remember not to long for more.
But sometimes he wondered, what were the chances of meeting someone like that anyways? Someone you could love, and who would love you equally in return? Sanji wondered how anyone was supposed to know what love looked like. Was the woman selling him tomatoes in the last port the one who would love him in all his inadequacies? The math of finding true love was impossible, surely.
-
Zoro gets hurt and Sanji carries him back to the ship and watches over him.
Named after Visible World by Richard Siken because no one gets Sanji like Siken does.
1,438 words, General Audiences, Blood/Injury Mention
Link to read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60057658
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Or read below the cut
It was supposed to be a simple mission, especially for the two of them. Go figure that the swordsman would find a way to get his abdomen slashed open the one moment Sanji wasn’t watching. Which led them to the situation they were in now.
“I’m bleeding on your prissy clothes” Zoro murmured against his neck, puffs of air, rough and broken by pain.
“Don’t worry, I’ll beat your ass later, Mossy.” Sanji’s voice was stained with dread and agony. The forest ground was smooth and he moved swiftly, trying not to jostle the swordsman on his back.
“Cook” Zoro said, voice wavering and sounding more distant by the second.
“Woah there, Marimo, stay with me,” Sanji huffed, gripping the white sheath of Wado with renewed vigor. He knew he was pressing bloody prints into the delicately engraved wood. Zoro would surely try to kill him later, when he realized that Sanji had grabbed the first sheath that would come off of Zoro with an easy yank. He would probably even kill Sanji from the grave if he heard the quiet groaning of the sheath where it was tucked beneath the brutish man’s ass.
Sanji thought of the brand new suit jacket he had tied around the swordsman’s bleeding torso. He didn’t feel that bad.
“Talk to me, shitty swordsman” Sanji prompted, squinting through the patterned shadows the trees threw on them, trying to estimate the distance back to The Thousand Sunny.
The man stayed silent, slumped forward with his nose pressing sharply into the back of Sanji’s neck.
“Hey!” Sanji hollered, trying to resist the urge to jostle the dying man.
“Hmmmm” Zoro groaned, one leg briefly kicking the air as if Sanji was waking him up from one of his naps on deck and he was being mildly inconvenienced.
“Hey Mossy, why three swords?” Sanji asked, not knowing where the question had come from and not caring. The ship was going to come into view any second, once the trees broke away to the shore. Anything to keep Zoro awake until then.
“Sanji-“ Zoro said quietly, causing Sanji to stumble, nearly sending both of them falling into a bank of thorny bushes. Zoro grunted with pain at the sudden movement but continued his low murmurs.
“Three, get it? Ichi, Ni, Sanji-“
Sanji shuddered despite himself. The swordsman was incoherent and was continuing to mumble about numbers and swords and Sanji. Sanji hated hearing about the number three and swords in the same sentence as his name.
As if by some kind of fate, the tree line appeared and in the distance, the Thousand Sunny glowed in the late afternoon sun. Sanji immediately kicked them upward, skywalking them straight to the infirmary doors on deck.
“Ok got it, we are almost there, hang on a little longer.” Sanji twisted, kicking the air with efficient pushes. In the distance, he saw movement on deck as the alarm was raised.
Behind him, Zoro whispered just barely loud enough to hear over the sea breeze and Usoop screaming for Chopper across the remaining beach.
“Two swords for my dream. And one sword for Kuina’s.”
With that, Zoro promptly passed out just before Sanji’s feet met the deck.
-
Sanji brushed the short spikes of green hair plastered to Zoro’s forehead back. His golden skin was pallid and wet with cold sweat. Sanji watched in the darkness of the infirmary as his own hand shook. He felt wrung-out and hollow, like the moonlight might pass right through him as it shone through the portholes.
Chopper snored quietly, head down on his desk, having collapsed after Zoro was stable and Sanji had brought him his late dinner. The young reindeer had eaten and turned back to making notes on the exact treatment Zoro had undergone. He had made it only a few more minutes before Sanji watched his head dip down with sleep.
Sanji glanced at Chopper now, chest tight with something like fear.
Sanji raised his hand, turning it slowly, watching the way the moonlight shone blue through his flesh. Illuminating him from within. The delicate bone of his hands, which he was always so careful to protect, were the only things capable of stopping the light. That didn’t seem right.
If anything should keep the light from passing through, it should be the ache in Sanji’s chest. Robin had once told him that moonlight was light from the sun rebounding off the moon’s surface to reach Earth. It seemed like a waste to block the light that had traveled all that way just before it landed on Zoro’s bandaged chest. Sanji dropped his hand to the cot, fingering at the worn blanket that was draped over Zoro’s legs. The moonlight shone on stark white bandages against golden skin.
Sanji thought of Zoro bleeding out on the deck of the Baratie. Clutching his sword, floating in a pool of tears and blood. His chest stretched open, singing death's sweet call into the salty morning air. Sanji had watched it all, stricken as a practical stranger danced the edge of life but still proclaimed his dream in spite of his suffering. All for a dream he was too inexperienced to realize. And yet, Sanji still remembered how he felt that morning. That was the morning he had decided to leave the only home he had ever loved enough to miss in favor of the All Blue. All this time, his journey had begun with the swordsman’s blood.
In Sanji’s lap, Zoro’s three swords lay, sheaths scrubbed suspiciously clean. He did not dare to breathe it out loud, but Zoro had taught him something he would never again forget.
He did not need permission to chase his dream.
Sanji melted into Zoro’s side, three sheathed swords clanking softly. Sanji was desperate and cold and Zoro was warm with fever. Sanji leaned close, turning his face away from the portholes, as if the moon itself was watching. And gently, slowly, he pressed his lips against Zoro’s forehead.
-
For all the memories Sanji had of his mother, he couldn’t remember a single time she talked about his father.
When he was younger he thought that surely they had loved each other once. Sanji was never quite sure what had changed.
Sometimes though, in the years after his mother’s death, he would imagine what his parents had been like in love. He imagined that Sora made Judge soft, and that Judge made Sora brave. He dreamed of his family impossibly together, of tripping over his brothers when his mother called them all to dinner. He dreamed of a warm kitchen with a wooden table, crowded with chairs to accommodate a gaggle of children. He dreamed of his father resting a gentle hand on his mothers knee after she had finished serving the meal and sat down. Of the soft and knowing smile his mother would reply with.
When Sanji shook away his nightmares, clawing at his iron helmet, he would hold the image in his mind until it was worn like an old photograph.
When Sanji woke to the feeling of his stomach eating itself, he would imagine a warm kitchen with a love for himself.
When Sanji gasped awake in the men’s bunk room, he would drown out the sound of his captain's snores with his thoughts of children’s laughter.
By now, Sanji had thrown away his chances at such a life.
He was a pirate and a chef.
He loved both his captain and his job.
He dreamed of a sea of abundance and life.
He was not stupid enough to long for more.
He tried to remember not to long for more.
But sometimes he wondered, what were the chances of meeting someone like that anyways? Someone you could love, and who would love you equally in return? Sanji wondered how anyone was supposed to know what love looked like. Was the woman selling him tomatoes in the last port the one who would love him in all his inadequacies? The math of finding true love was impossible, surely.
So he did not long for more.
Instead, he bounced from place to place and found his meaning elsewhere.
This kiss has to last me the rest of my life, Sanji thought.
Surrounded by darkness, propped over Zoro’s unmoving form, with the scent of steel and blood in his nose, Sanji thought that he had never been so lucky. He could live out his life with just his dream and his crew if he just had this one kiss.
It was something new to remember when he woke up in the middle of the night.
I understand that male rivals are likely to experience shipping. I ALSO understand that Oda did not have to write them like *that*. One of them is obsessed with the number three (earrings, swords, ect.) and the other is a third son that literally has the number three in his name! One has a weird relationship with gender (don’t get me started) and the other has a backstory where he explicitly denies typical gender roles (Kuina my beloved, Zoro never doubted you)!
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