Work Text:
Something’s wrong with the cook.
Zoro can say that on any given day— and the answers to the question are numerous and varied— and it’s been different, lately.
The peace that has lasted since they set off from Wano is a bubble that’s bound to burst soon. The crew is enjoying the downtime while they can. Even Zoro’s muscles still burn with the remnants of injuries piled on top of each other during battle and the strain of forcing his body past its limits.
So the entire crew is relaxing, as much as some of them ever do, to various degrees of success.
Except for the fucking cook.
Who knows what crawled up his ass and died, but for the past few days he’s been even more insufferable. Moody, going from obsequious to the women to snapping at the men (mostly Zoro) to shutting himself up in the galley alone.
It’s not like Zoro cares one way or another. The cook will get his shit together or he won’t, but either way he’ll be ready when the next threat comes. That much Zoro can be sure of.
It’s just annoying.
The past few mornings have been some variation of the same: First, Sanji steps out onto the deck, carrying drinks or snacks or nothing at all. Zoro is lying in one of his regular, completely out of the way spots, enjoying the sunshine. Then, Sanji goes out of his way to step over Zoro, complaining about Zoro being in the way. Inevitably, Zoro trips Sanji because he’s being an asshole; or Sanji steps on Zoro’s chest on purpose; or one of them mutters something under his breath that the other overreacts to, and then—
And then they do what they always do, which is beat the shit out of each other until they’ve worked whatever it is out of their systems.
But a few days in and several repeat performances later, it’s clear that something about this usual rhythm isn’t working. Something is wrong.
—
Zoro hits Sanji square in the chest with Enma’s sheath, sending Sanji flying backwards into the mast. Zoro expects that Sanji will right himself in midair, use the mast as a springboard and push himself off of it and back into the fight with even more force than before.
He doesn’t register that Sanji hasn’t done this until he’s surged forward again, Wado swung over his head in a wide arc, preparing to catch a figure that never rises to where it should be.
Zoro catches himself before he stumbles, scans around himself and finds Sanji sprawled against the mast, like Zoro’s last hit had actually knocked the breath out of him.
Zoro snarls as he stalks forward, his momentum well and truly ruined, snuffed out all at once like a candle’s flame. He’s stomping towards the mast, grimacing— not pouting— as he tries to figure out what’s disrupted their usual rhythm.
Sanji is sprawled against the mast, one hand lifted to his chest as he prods it gently. His expression is clouded, neither of his eyes really visible through the shadow cast over his face.
“What the fuck,” Zoro growls. “Don’t tell me that actually knocked you out.”
Sanji startles at the sound of his voice, hand pulling away from his chest immediately. Anyone not familiar with his speed— his moods, his deflections, his lies— might not catch what Zoro sees next.
But Zoro is intimately familiar with all of it, and more besides, where the cook is concerned.
Sanji looks up, his body already tensing into motion, but right before his brow narrows over one eye in irritation a different emotion flashes across his face.
Shame? For a second, he’d looked like a kid sneaking cookies from the jar, or the one student at a dojo who stays behind because he just can’t get a form right or—
Zoro can’t say what else, because the moment is gone too fast. And then he’s preoccupied with the wheel of fire coming straight for his face.
He grits his teeth against the distraction. He’d never admit this to Sanji, but Zoro needs most of his mind focused on the fight even when he and Sanji are just sparring like this. Almost because of how well they know each other’s moves, they both have to stay present to ensure they won’t fall into a pattern which the other can then exploit.
He’s not thinking about it when Sanji has pushed him back towards the Sunny’s aft, when he’s got one sword blocking a kick and is deciding if he can afford the second he needs to unsheath another.
Sanji is nearly on top of him, but Zoro takes the risk. He breaks out of his defensive stance and swings Wado horizontally in front of himself to ward Sanji off, using his other hand to hastily draw Kitetsu.
He slashes Kitetsu upwards, expecting Sanji to step back to avoid the hit before surging forward again. Instead—
Sanji takes a half-step back, gaze going from Wado over to Kitetsu, and then back to center where he meets Zoro’s eye for only an instant.
Zoro can’t read the look in Sanji’s eye at that moment— it’s clouded, hazy. The fact that he can’t read Sanji— can’t understand him— is almost worse than any worry about what the idiot’s actually thinking.
It all happens within seconds. Zoro slashes Kitetsu upwards, Sanji takes a half-step back, Sanji’s gaze lifts, and then— and then he moves forward, into Kitetsu’s path, instead of dancing back on the balls of his feet like Zoro was sure he would.
They’re fighting with only fractions of their strength, but it isn’t good when Sanji takes the full force of Kitetsu’s slash straight into his chest. The blade never meets his skin, but the impact that blows out a hair’s breadth before the blade is enough to throw him backward.
Sanji’s back hits the deck, Zoro’s swords clatter to the ground, and Zoro stands over Sanji with his chest heaving, eye blown wide.
“What the fuck,” Zoro starts, “is wrong with you?”
The blow hadn’t knocked him out— it wasn’t nearly strong enough for that— but he’s definitely going to feel the bruising across his chest.
Sanji lifts his head slowly, flicks his bangs to one side, and slowly gets to his feet.
“What are you yelling about now?” His tone is bored, like he’s barely listening. It’s so obviously affected that Zoro wants to hit him again.
“You piece of shit,” Zoro spits, head still whirring with the image of one of his swords slashing Sanji in two— something he shoves from his thoughts as quickly as possible. “Why didn’t you block? Or dodge? Or anything?”
Sanji has turned to one side, so now Zoro can read barely anything of his expression. He clicks his tongue against his teeth in annoyance. “Sometimes hits land, marimo. Every once in a million times, but still.”
He’s lost his goddamn mind. He’d never admit to that, but more importantly he shouldn’t have taken the hit at all. He could’ve avoided it. Zoro knows he could have. It’s almost like he… didn’t want to.
“You’re full of shit,” Zoro tells him.
Sanji shrugs, uncaring.
Zoro hates that most of all, the way Sanji tries to play these things off like he doesn’t care. The one thing Zoro can be sure of is that he and Sanji care the exact same amount— they have the same amount of annoyance and anger and surety in each other. When Sanji pretends otherwise, it’s like he’s pulling the rug out from under Zoro’s feet. And fuck if it isn’t infuriating that the cook can affect him so much.
“Whatever.” Zoro scoffs, retrieving his swords and sheathing them with the forceful, exaggerated motions of a kid slamming their bedroom door. (Even more pathetic that he does it twice, like he’s waiting for the reaction.) “We’re done.”
Sanji shrugs again— not disputing the hit, not i insisting they continue until he’s the one on top, not even circling back to whatever fucking thing they had been bickering about.
Zoro huffs and stalks away, mostly so that Sanji won’t see the gears of his thoughts turning away in his head. But why would he ever have—?
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sanji press down on his chest— not gingerly, to assess his bruising, but with pressure and intent, like he’s savoring the pain.
There are so many fucking things wrong with the cook. Zoro can’t believe he’s the one who has to take care of him.
—
He knows the simple solution— he should talk to the cook. Zoro has never hesitated to ask him anything before— has never even needed to ask, when it comes to the important things. Is that true, though? He walked into the Minks’ village on Zou, confident and sure that he was about to see the cook standing with a cocky smile and a ready insult. But he’d been wrong. He thought he understood everything about Sanji, even if he didn’t know everything about him. But he’d been wrong.
He’d gotten the low down from Nami, in quiet moments stolen between crises. A father, a sister, three brothers, most of whom sound like the world’s biggest assholes. It’s still hard to imagine the cook like that, just one part of a match set. He’s always been such a singular figure to Zoro.
And if he matches with anyone, wasn’t it supposed to be Zoro? Aren’t they supposed to be completely balanced between them, the wings that will carry Luffy aloft to whatever heights he can imagine and create for all of them?
He can’t rush into this. The cook will just shut down. And then Zoro will never figure this out. The idea of being careful with the cook sticks like caramel to the roof of his mouth, sticky and caught uncomfortably between his teeth.
He makes a strategic retreat from the galley, along with the rest of the crew. He has first watch, so by the time he climbs down from the crow’s nest he hasn’t seen the cook for hours. But Zoro knows him— and sure enough, there’s a dim amber light glowing through one of the galley windows.
Now or never. Zoro can’t be any more patient than this.
He kicks the door open. Something clatters to the ground. Sanji swings towards him, eyes wide— with shame, or with guilt?
“What the fuck, cook?”
Sanji swipes a foot across the floor in an arc, knocking something behind the counter where Zoro can’t see it.
“Watch change already?” Sanji’s voice is too reedy to be casual. “If you’re looking for a snack, you’ll have to wait. I haven’t—”
“I’ll wait.” Zoro pulls up a stool to the counter and sits, setting himself down with all the immovability of a stone.
Sanji clicks his tongue against his teeth. “That not what I meant, I don’t need a green-haired oaf—”
“Cook.” Zoro leans over the counter to see the silver glint of whatever Sanji had knocked aside a moment earlier, what he’d dropped in panic when Zoro walked in, what he doesn’t want Zoro to see.
It’s a knife, one of the smaller ones in the set of precise blades that Sanji keeps sharped to perfection. Zoro has spent so much time watching him with those knives, he even knows what this one is called— a paring knife. One that usually doesn’t end up with blood on it.
And yet the edge of the blade is dark, stained red across the length of it.
“Did you cut yourself?” Zoro bursts out, looking over to the cook to scan him for injury.
Sanji scoffs. “What are you even talking about—”
Zoro cuts off Sanji’s deflection. He grabs Sanji by the shoulder and spins him around, flipping himself over the counter in the same motion so that there’s nothing between them.
Sanji’s shirt is partially untucked from his pants, crushed where he’d hastily shoved it back into place. There’s a small stain right by his hip, dark against the pale blue of his shirt. It could be sauce, wine, drippings— it isn’t. It’s blood.
Sanji is too off-balance to protest when Zoro tugs at his shirt, pulling it away from his skin. The stain spreads as Zoro pulls the shirt up and away from Sanji’s skin. There, between his abdomen and hip, is a cut. It’s maybe four or five inches long, but it’s deeper than it should be for a knick from a kitchen accident. And what accident would’ve cut the cook in such a specific place, beneath his clothes no less?
“It’s not what it looks like.”
“You didn’t cut yourself on purpose?” Zoro fixes him with a one-eyed glare. He’s wasted enough time tiptoeing around Sanji’s bullshit.
“Tch.” Sanji turns away, hair falling to cover both of his eyes.
Zoro gives him a moment. When Sanji doesn’t elaborate, Zoro grabs him by his hips. Zoro’s hands can encompass nearly the cook’s entire waist.
He presses his thumb against the cut on Sanji’s side, hard. Sanji’s yell of surprise withers into a hiss of pain, then a groan shaken from him as deeply as a quake from beneath the earth.
“Shit, fuck, what are you doing?”
Zoro eases off the pressure but doesn’t let Sanji go.
It clicks in some primal part of him, something he’d never have logicked himself to, something Sanji would never have told him.
“I’m giving you what you want.” Like he always does, in the end. Does Sanji even know how often Zoro bends himself around him? Somehow he’d started doing it without even noticing. By the time he had, it had already become second nature.
“What I want?” Sanji is a furious crimson, his hands flailing aimlessly in front of him, but never quite pushing Zoro away.
“Yeah,” Zoro growls, sure now. “On the deck, right now— it’s the pain, isn’t it?”
Sanji opens his mouth automatically to retort. Instead, he slumps in Zoro’s hold with an agonizing, ancient sigh.
“It’s not—”
Zoro squeezes Sanji’s hip from both sides, thumb digging back into the cut.
Sanji ceases like he’s at the beginning of a heart attack. But there’s no crest of the tension. He’s leaning back from Zoro as far as he can, but with Zoro’s hold on him all that does is force Sanji into an arch. His face may be further from Zoro’s, but his hips are pressed forward.
His eyes dart around in panic, but at no point does he try to remove himself from Zoro’s grip. There’s nothing stopping him from moving his legs, and Zoro’s left himself in perhaps the most vulnerable position he could, in front of Sanji. But Sanji never takes advantage of it— doesn’t even look like he’s thinking about it.
“What is it, cook,” Zoro says, and his voice drops even though the two of them are alone in the galley.
“I don’t—”
Zoro squeezes tighter, the entire pad of his thumb fit between Sanji’s severed skin. There isn’t so much blood, but Zoro can still smell it.
Sanji groans, gulps for air like he can recall his noises so that Zoro will have never heard them. But it’s too late for that. Sanji lives his life on a hairpin trigger of arousal, but the speed with which he succumbs to this is— incredible. The color rises in his cheeks, as if to match the blood now spread over Zoro’s thumb. His chest heaves and then holds, Sanji refusing to let himself complete a breath for fear of what it will free from him.
“You like this, don’t you?” Zoro leans over him, until Sanji is bent backwards over the counter. Zoro looms over him and Sanji looks up, his eyes reflecting the dim light as he breathes shallowly. Experimentally, Zoro grinds his thumb harder into the cut.
Sanji hisses, head falling back and eyes fluttering closed. His face strains, before he sighs and bites down on his lower lip— not steadying himself against the pain, but the pleasure of it.
“You fucking freak,” Zoro says with a terrible grin. Even he doesn’t know if the strain in his voice is mockery or awe. “Here I thought there was something wrong, but it turns out you’re just getting off on it?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Sanji says. He hooks one of his legs around Zoro’s, keeping him close. “No one told you to do this.”
No, Sanji hadn’t told him. But he had asked, in the way that he looked after Zoro landed a hit on him. Like he couldn’t quite understand it, himself, but wanted to dwell in it regardless. Wanted the sensation of touch, whether it brought pleasure or pain.
“You can tell me to stop,” Zoro tells him. He pulls back from the pressure on the cut, and Sanji chokes as the sensation— the pain, which lets him feel something so acutely— is stolen from him.
The clarity rushes back to Sanji’s eyes, and with it something fierce and angry.
“You— fucking— marimo—” He digs his heel into the back of Zoro’s leg, hard.
Zoro stumbles, falling straight atop Sanji, his chest crushing him against the counter. Sanji gasps and then groans, pulling Zoro’s hands back to his waist. He digs his nails into the backs of Zoro’s hands, pinpricks of pain that are a pale echo of what he wants Zoro to do to him.
He can’t help but oblige. He squeezes his hand back around Sanji’s hip, strokes his thumb over the cut to push the severed skin up and apart.
Sanji’s breath grows labored in response, little ah-ah-ahs that rise like they’re trying to push him over a peak, but can’t.
He’s hard, where his hips press up against Zoro’s own. Zoro presses deeper into his skin, and Sanji presses his erection up harder against Zoro’s hip. Zoro pulls away, and Sanji strains like he’s suffocating.
Provoked, Zoro grabs Sanji with intent. One hand goes around the other’s neck, pulling him into a biting kiss. The other never gives up its place at Sanji’s hip.
Zoro can’t resist doing things in threes. He bites down hard on Sanji’s tongue, digs his thumb deep against the bleeding cut, and slams Sanji forward so that his erection is pressed up against the hard muscle of Zoro’s thigh.
It’s impossible to say what does it. But Sanji’s eyes roll back and his hips press forward, and he gasps against Zoro’s mouth even as both of them start tasting blood.
Zoro feels it when Sanji comes against his thigh, wants nothing more than to grind his own erection back against Sanji and ride out the same high. But he can’t look away from Sanji’s glazed eyes, can’t loosen his grip on Sanji, can’t think about himself when Sanji half-smiles, like he felt none of the pain and all of the pleasure.
Zoro raises his hand to trace along the line of Sanji’s smile, across his lips and over his cheek. The smear of red follows his motion, painting a line of blood across Sanji’s face.
—
It’s later, when Sanji has regained himself enough to shove Zoro away, when he’s pulled himself together as best he can, when there’s still blood on his face but his hair is brushed back into place, that they finally talk about it.
Sanji cracks one of the windows, lights a cigarette and takes a deep drag, closing his eyes to savor the moment of peace and the rush of nicotine.
Zoro steps up behind him, but before he can say anything Sanji beats him to it.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, Zoro makes an unimpressed noise.
Sanji sighs again, blows a plume of smoke out of the window and into the wind.
“Try.”
For a moment, Zoro thinks Sanji will refuse. Instead, he opens a side cupboard and pulls out a dark bottle of liquor and two glasses.
“Sit down, marimo. This is going to take a minute.”
When they’re sitting across from each other, Zoro uncorks the bottle and pours himself a glass, then fills the second and nudges it back towards Sanji.
“I hadn’t thought about it, before. Whether I could still feel pain.”
“Ha?” He’s confused, but not so much that he can’t take a long sip of his drink.
“During the fighting on Wano, with Queen— I was already so messed up that I didn’t notice. When the… exoskeleton kicked in, whether new hits were bringing new pain with them, or the pain I already had was just getting worse, and then I just turned it out entirely.”
“Is there a difference?” Zoro is used to fighting through his own pain, ignoring it until the battle is done and the adrenaline fades. But that’s not quite what Sanji is talking about.
Sanji laughs lowly. “I called myself better than them, but I’d never even thought about it before. Whether you can feel through it. Whether they can feel pain at all.”
“They?”
Sanji looks up, lips twitching with ironic amusement. “My brothers. I ever tell you I’m a quadruplet?”
Zoro wants to roll his eye. Sanji knows damn well he’s never told Zoro a single fucking thing that matters.
“You wanted me to hit you, earlier.” Zoro figures he’s got to keep them on track, at least.
Color burns across Sanji’s face. He tilts his head back and blows a plume of smoke towards the ceiling.
“Not exactly. I didn’t want you to hit me, but I wanted the pain.”
Zoro is in frequent conversation with his own pain, the same way he is with any other reaction his body has. If he doesn’t listen to his body, he can’t possibly hope to get stronger. And pain is—
It does feel good, in some backward way. The right kind of pain can be as exquisite as it is excruciating.
“I’m not some fucking wall you can smash your head into when you want to be hurt—”
“I know,” Sanji snaps.
“Ha?”
“I said I know, okay?” Sanji’s voice hasn’t risen in volume, but it’s fraying from his careful control, pitching up and down like it’s riding the waves of whatever he’s feeling. “I didn’t plan it, okay? The first time you hit me it was— a fucking misstep— but then I realized— and I wanted to feel it again. Okay? Is that enough of an explanation for you?”
Zoro knows masochism, and he has no doubt there is the simple fact of arousal that pushes Sanji towards pain. But that’s not all this is. Zoro imagines words like the smoke he breathes in and out— shapeless, impossible to hold, obscuring and violent. He waves a hand in front of his face like he can blow away the smoke, get rid of the emotions and reach the clarity beneath them.
“Not really,” he says finally. “What, Queen slamming you around just got you off?”
Sanji grimaces. “No.”
“Then what the fuck is it, cook?”
Sanji takes a deep breath, closes his eyes.
“I don’t know how to make it stop. I can’t make it stop.”
Zoro just looks at him. This is why he didn’t want to talk this out. The cook never makes any fucking sense.
Sanji turns his head to face the window, like he can’t look Zoro in the eye for what he’s about to say.
“When I was a kid, the pain was always there. Some days it was worse, and others it was better, but it was never completely gone. And when the hits came, I knew there was nothing I could ever do to stop them. Whether I fought back or not, the pain would stay regardless. I couldn’t defend myself, and I couldn’t hope for anyone else’s help. Whether I screamed or cried or begged—”
He sucks in a strangled breath, the smoke around him rushing inward like it’s being drawn into a whirlpool.
“I never, ever wanted to feel that helpless again. But I’m so fucking stupid. I walked straight back into it, eyes wide open. Thought I could prove them all wrong, maybe— that nothing they said or did could touch me anymore. That they couldn’t hurt me anymore. So fucking stupid.”
He laughs hollowly.
“I was never going to be free of them. Whether I could have stopped them or not, I just had to lie there and take it. All that pain and violence and cruelty— thirteen fucking years, and I was right back where I started. Like I’d been trapped there the whole time, and they just let me think I was free so it’d hurt worse when they pulled me back.”
He drops the remains of his cigarette onto an ashtray before digging both of his hands into his hair and tugging at the roots.
“Back then, I would’ve given anything to make it stop,” he says, words formed around ragged breaths. “When I was a kid, I’d close my eyes and beg for it to stop. It never did— I’d pass out, or they’d get bored and leave me for the moment, but the paint was always there, and worse—
“And worse, the threat was always there. No matter where I went, or what I did, I knew the pain would never end and it could come back at any moment. I couldn’t even my brace myself for it, because how the fuck could I? The threat was always there.
“And then I march back, supposedly grown and strong, thinking I’ll never let them hurt me again. And where did I end up? Right back in the same fucking place. Just lying there and taking it, letting the pain come, not doing a thing to defend myself, because even if I’m stronger than them, I still couldn’t fight back—
“It was never about being physically stronger than them. Or at least, that wasn’t the important part. They always know how to make me helpless. How to make sure I can’t escape. Make sure I can’t even fight back.
“I’ve left it behind, so much has happened since then— I can still feel it everywhere. They don’t have any leverage over me anymore, but I can still feel the fucking sword against my neck. I can’t relax, I can’t let my guard down, I can’t fucking breathe, because my brain and my body can’t believe that the threat isn’t there, anymore. I’m always one moment away from pain I can’t control. It’s always there.”
His chest is heaving when he finally pauses for breath. He sniffs raggedly, face covered in his hands and tears falling noisily. Zoro just waits, and listens, as the cook runs himself in more frantic circles as he tries to explain himself. Finally—
“That doesn’t explain why you nearly let me run you through with Kitetsu.” The torrent of Sanji’s words is still bearing down on him, and he’s fighting for the clarity of breaking through to the surface. To understand.
Sanji pulls his hands away from his face, smiling.
“I should have warned you. That’s the most fucked up part.”
Zoro lifts a brow.
Sanji looks upwards, his throat making a long, pale line up to his chin, the point of his nose. “I trust you.”
And how does that explain wanting Zoro to hurt him? Zoro’s sudden burst of laughter is too loud in the quiet of the night. “You don’t make any sense.”
Sanji holds up a hand. “Just wait, listen— I know it’s fucked up, okay? I know I’m fucked up. But when everything else is driving me out of my goddamn mind, it makes sense to me. Because you’re there. Because I trust you, or my body does, and then at least the pain makes sense.”
Zoro closes his eye, trying to process this.
Sanji is always throwing these burdens at him, like he doesn’t value himself at all but knows Zoro does, so he trusts himself to Zoro when he can’t trust himself. Zoro hates that he understands. He hates that he’s willing to do it. He hates the idea of Sanji being alone with it, or worse, someone else taking his place.
“I understand.”
“You do,” Sanji says skeptically.
Zoro huffs, blowing out a hot breath like a bull. “I don’t understand anything going on in your brain. But the basic concept, sure. It’s about control. Pain you can control, or trust someone else to control. Maybe that’s what’ll get you out of this hypervigilant mode.”
Zoro huffs another breath. “And then you’ll be back to your regular, annoying, only kinda paranoid self.”
Sanji rolls his eyes. “Marimo, you always know just what to say.”
—
—
He doesn’t know what it is about Zoro. There are so many things it could be. His unwavering loyalty to Luffy, his exquisite skill with his swords. His single-minded focus on his goals and his blunt, honest kindness. His gravel-rough voice and imposing frame. His fucking moss hair and that incredible set of tits.
But no single one of those things explains what Sanji is going to allow— what he trusts Zoro to do.
“C’mere, cook.” He’s sitting leaning back against the couch, chest bare and legs spread.
Sanji quirks a brow. “Presumptuous, aren’t we?”
Zoro smirks. “Believe me, you’re going to be glad by the end of this.”
His eyes roll to the ceiling. “We’ll see.”
“Cook,” Zoro says again, voice low and unshakable. “Come here.”
Sanji goes.
He lets Zoro settle him in his lap. He lets Zoro run his hands down Sanji’s sides. He lets Zoro unbutton his shirt in haphazard, careless fashion.He lets Zoro grab his chin to pull him into a kiss.
Zoro tastes like the earth. Seeing vegetables right out of the ground has never stopped being a novelty to Sanji. Everything was artificially grown for Germa, and Baratie got regular shipments of produce, or Zeff would let Sanji tag along to the market on the nearest island. So pulling a stalk from the earth, barely dusting off the soil before biting into it— it’s one of Sanji’s smallest, dearest luxuries.
Zoro tastes like the bits of soil lingering on a stalk of celery— the proof of life, of growth, and all things natural and good.
All of the things Sanji isn’t.
Zoro pushes him away, not unkindly. “I’d ask if you were having second thoughts, but I think we both know you sped past second to seventh and eighth thoughts before you even got here.”
Sanji’s lps pull into a humorless, wan smile. “Something like that, have to convince myself to let my houseplant touch me like—”
Zoro’s hands slip beneath Sanji’s open shirt, caressing his sides as Zoro’s thumbs dig into Sanji’s skin.
The half gasp, half mewl escapes Sanji before he’s even aware of what it is he’s feeling.
Zoro tips his chin up, looks him straight in the eye. “I want you to stop thinking about anything. The only thing you should be aware of are my hands on you.”
No problem there— Sanji’s skin is burning with the memory of Zoro’s touch, like it’ll remember it forever.
Zoro smiles wolfishly, pulls Sanji into a kiss that he punctuates with a sharp bite of Sanji’s tongue.
“Come on, Curly. We’ve already come this far.” The timbre of Zoro’s voice is like a touch all its own. Zoro massages Sanji’s shoulders with firm circles of his thumbs. Each concentric movement becomes firmer, harsher, until Sanji is hissing with the pain of it.
“Mm.” Zoro hums approvingly. “I kind of like you better when you’re listening instead of bitching at me all the time.”
The burning of Sanji’s muscles is all he can focus on, the dull, firm pain that fades into something tender and good— can it even be called pain, then? What is it, when the sensation turns into something to crave rather than shy away from?
“You should let me have you more often,” Zoro mutters as Sanji dips forward to rest his weight against Zoro’s firm, warm chest.
Let me have you. It should be alarming, but it’s actually the opposite. The words fall over Sanji like a blanket around his shoulders— warm, gentle, safe.
“Relax, cook.” Zoro’s words rumble through his chest and into Sanji’s body as a physical thing.
Sanji grabs onto Zoro’s shoulders, searching for an anchor as his thoughts feel further and further away. He digs in with his nails, likes the way he can still make Zoro wince, even when Sanji is the one at his mercy.
“Do your worst, marimo.”
Zoro’s grin is something feral— promising pain that Zoro is eager for. If Sanji can hold his attention — if this is what his attention feels like—
His worst amounts to this— Zoro grabs at Sanji with his large, warm hands; maneuvers him so that he can drag Sanji’s pants and underwear down his legs; flips him over so that Sanji is facedown against the velvety couch cushions.
Maybe he hadn’t thought this through as well as he thought he had. He scrambles to get his hands and knees under him, to kneel upwards instead of lying completely prone.
“Relax,” Zoro orders above him. The palm of his hand comes down on the small of Sanji’s back, and Sanji flinches. Zoro rubs his hand over Sanji’s skin, soothing, and gently presses him downwards until Sanji’s bare cock is pressed into the space between Zoro’s knees.
Fuck, why is he so easy? Why is the mere suggestion of Zoro’s cock beneath him flashing like an emergency light in his brain?
Zoro chuckles, mean, and Sanji freezes against him.
Zoro brushes Sanji’s hair behind one each, bends close to murmur, “Don’t worry, ero-cook. I know what a freak you are. You don’t have to hide anything from me.”
“Shut up.” Sanji twists his upper body around to glare up at Zoro. Even so, he knows the truth of Zoro’s words. He doesn’t have to hide anything from Zoro. Even if he wanted to, that ship sailed long ago, with every humiliation and failure Zoro witnesses. There’s nothing left to be ashamed of, is there?
“Do what you want,” Zoro continues. “Just know I’m not going to stop.”
The anticipation is the worst part, hadn’t he told Zoro that in exactly those words? His entire body is tense, arousal and anxiety mixing into a dangerous cocktail. He’s hot and cold at intervals, too close to Zoro or not nearly close enough. Thoughts slip away, his mind going hazy, and then abruptly sharp again. Would the bastard just get on with it?
Smack!
Smarting pain explodes across Sanji’s ass and he sucks in too much breath, choking on it.
“Marimo, you—”
Smack!
He almost bites his tongue as he swallows down on his words. The pain of the hit mirrors the echo of the first, indistinguishable from it.
Smack!
Had Zoro hit him on the other side? Sanji tries to focus on where it’s coming from, to anticipate when and where the next hit will come—
Smack! Smack!
Two in quick succession, and Sanji can’t breathe. The chords of his legs are so taught they might snap at any moment. He flails, but before he can even kick the couch beneath him a strong arm lowers over his calves with heavy weight, pinning him in place.
Fuck, he doesn’t know if he can handle this. He won’t risk his hands to defend himself, to get away, so if his legs are locked in place—
Smack!
He doesn’t know where he’s been hit. The pain explodes from everywhere at once, like a firecracker littering light across the night sky.
“Zoro, I don’t think I can—”
Smack! Right across the join of his ass to his legs.
“Fuck!” Sanji’s head spins, searching for danger, for a fight, for a way to make it fucking stop—
Smack! Across both cheeks this time—
Smack! Right over the seam of his ass—
Smack! From who the fuck knows where?
His vision is read and blurred. His nails have dug into the cushion beneath him, sharp enough to rip eight vertical staples through the soft seat cover.
“Fuck,” Sanji repeats, but if this is a plea to stop or a moan of appreciation, he’s no longer sure. He’s no longer sure he cares.
“Marimo,” he gurgles, voice wet. “Zoro…”
The answering chuckle is so familiar that Sanji sees the cut of Zoro’s smiles perfectly without turning to look.
“You got more complaints, cook?” His voice is the same as it is in the midst of a fight— gruffness lightened by adrenaline and excitement.
Is he relishing this? Enjoying it for his own sake?
“Shit, Curls,” Zoro groans, “You’re gonna bruise so easy.”
His heart jumps. Is he happy? Is he proud that Zoro sounds so excited at the prospect of marking him?
Smack! Sanji cries out with this hit, forgetting even to anticipate it.
Smack! Sanji sobs and scrambles against the cushions, frantic for some purchase.
Smack! His back arches, bringing his ass up, closer to the pain, like he’s asking for it.
Smack! Sanji sighs deeply with the pain, familiar like an old friend.
Zoro adjusts him, pulls Sanji’s knees beneath him and leaving his head and arms to fall, useless and limp, against the ruined cushions. Zoro’s hand rests on the back of Sanji’s neck, not hitting or caressing or moving at all.
Now, Sanji wants the pain. He needs it. The anticipation is so much worse than the hit itself.
He lays there for an eternity, waiting for the next strike. When it doesn’t come, he lets out a low, mournful whine. He’s been clenching his eyes so tightly closed that even when he opens them, the room around him is just a blur of colors, all smearing together and pulsing in his vision.
He reaches behind him, blind, looking for any part of Zoro he can reach.
A warm, firm grip catches his hand, draws it gently upwards to receive a kiss, soft and dry and tender.
“Zoro…” His name comes out strangled, Sanji’s voice wet and panting. This is— he can take anything but this. He can trust anything but this.
Every soft touch, every caress, every contact that doesn’t bring pain with it isn’t real— can’t be real. His thoughts are heady and confused— like he’s been sitting in a sauna too long. In the spiral of sensation, the only thing he knows is that more pain will come. He needs it. He isn’t real without it.
He squirms against Zoro’s lap, the rough cotton of his pants rubbing back and forth across Sanji’s cock.
Shit— there really is something wrong with him. The arousal is so close to the surface that it burns, and he’s going to die if it ever stops.
“Fuck— Zoro, I need…”
Why isn’t the bastard saying anything? Why is he letting Sanji just lie here, untouched? Wasn’t he getting something out of this, too, some sadistic satisfaction at Sanji’s willing humiliation?
If Zoro is here for anything but— why is Zoro here at all? Sanji can’t make sense of it. He squirms even more, trying to push himself up on one hand, his feet flexing and toes trying to get a grip on the softness beneath them.
All his efforts get him is more jostling of his cock against Zoro’s lap, more of the thick air of the room on his feverish skin.
If Zoro doesn’t want this, then—
A hand comes down over the back of his neck, forcing his face back down into the cushions. Both of his arms are wrenched behind his back, hands held in a careful but absolute grip.
“No.” The voice is cold as stone and just as weighty.
“No?” It comes out as a question, because— no to what, exactly?
“No,” Zoro says again, grip on Sanji’s neck tightening. “You don’t get any say about when this is over.”
He doesn’t want to listen to this voice, does he? Except that it sounds good, rich and delectable as dark chocolate. Sanji goes limp in Zoro’s hold.
He’s rewarded by Zoro’s fingers scratching against his scalp before gripping hard into his hair. He wrenches Sanji’s head back, brings his mouth to the shell of Sanji’s ear.
“It’s not yours anymore,” Zoro growls. “It’s mine.”
Sanji blinks blurry eyes, trying to look backwards at Zoro’s face.
Zoro drops Sanji’s limp hands and keeps a grip on his hair. It is moments, or minutes, or an age, then—
Smack!
The pain erupts, twice as hard as before, reigniting every earlier point of contact. Sanji wails, breath escaping him in a ragged sob.
“Do you know why I’m doing this to you?” Zoro’s voice is as calm as it ever is, but suddenly the intensity is gone, like he’s commenting on something of no consequence.
Sanji tries to remember. Hadn’t he asked for this? Hadn’t he been the one to orchestrate it, himself? Why doesn’t that feel true, anymore?
Zoro slaps him again, jarring Sanji out of his thoughts. Sanji whimpers.
“There is no why, Curls.” Zoro’s voice is rough and satisfied. “You’re gonna feel this for as long as I want you to, and there’s not a single fucking thing you can do to change that.”
Pain bursts in his chest. He can’t— he can’t do anything? That can’t be true, he can always think of something…
Smack! Sanji grits his teeth and hisses.
There has to be something, a way to protect himself, if he just figures out the right thing—
Smack! His knees knock against Zoro’s leg, his cock squashed between them painfully.
But maybe he can—
Smack!
If he just—
Smack!
But what if—
Smack!
He doesn’t know where the pain is coming from, anymore. He doesn’t know how much time passes between strikers. He just can’t… do anything…
Smack! Nothing will make this stop…
Smack! Maybe this is it, this suspended state of pain is the only thing he’ll ever know, ever again…
Smack! Sanji cries out, teeth unclenching as the tenseness of his face collapses, as heavy tears roll down his cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
Smack!
“I’m so sorry.”
Smack!
“Please, I’m sorry!”
Smack!
“Please, whatever it is, I’ll fix it!”
Smack!
“I’ll fix it, or I’ll go away—”
Smack!
“Please just— tell me why—”
Smack!
“I can fix it, I promise.”
Smack!
“Please— please—”
The tightening grip in his hair gets his attention, reels him in from the ocean of sensation he’s floating on.
“Why are you apologizing, cook?” Zoro’s voice is distant. Irrefutable.
“I’m so—”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Zoro says. The intensity is back in his voice, bringing with it either fury or euphoria. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
That can’t be right, can it? He has always done something wrong. Aren’t there so many people he has to apologize to? So much he has to apologize for?
He’s sorry Luffy had to suffer in order to make Sanji come to his senses. He’s sorry he couldn’t protect any of them at Sabaody. He’s sorry Zoro took Luffy’s pain, instead of him. He’s sorry he left Zeff, even though Zeff wanted him to. He’s sorry Zeff gave up so much and got only Sanji in return. He’s sorry he got on that particular cruiseliner and sunk it with his unending bad luck. He’s sorry he wasn’t good enough to keep up with the rest of them. He’s sorry he’s never seen his father smile at him. He’s sorry his mother gave her life, and all she got was him. He’s sorry he was born…
“You really want to be saying sorry to me, Curly?”
Zoro--does he want to apologize to Zoro? No, of course not! The day he apologies to Zoro is the day he fucking dies! He doesn’t regret any of it, not the taunts or the hits or the name calling or the competing or the angry, violent attraction--
So if Zoro, who knows the very worst of him, says there's nothing to be sorry for, it must be true, mustn’t it?
He’s afloat, except it isn’t the cool comfort of the sea that surrounded him. It’s hot, painful, and he can’t keep track of himself within it. The only thing he can hold onto is—
“Zoro?” He grapples around in front of him, then behind. Warm hands clutch him under his elbows and hoist him up like he weighs nothing at all. He’s settled back down again, his skin smarting as he sits in Zoro’s lap. He hisses, winces away from the pain, and falls against someone warm, solid, soft. He lays his head against it and breathes deeply, the taste of salt and steel and oil.
“Zoro.” This time it isn’t a question. His hands come up to press against Zoro’s chest, the jagged lines of the scar across his chest as recognizable as his voice, or his face, or his hair. Sanji draws his fingertips across the scar, then presses his face into Zoro’s chest and trails the same path with his tongue.
Zoro’s chest shakes as he chuckles.
“Told you, didn’t I? That you’d want my shirt off by the end of it.”
Sanji doesn’t want to give him any validation. But he does appreciate the expanse of hot skin, the dampness of sweat and the steady beat of Zoro’s heart. Sanji sniffles loudly, well aware that his tears haven’t stopped, that his face is crusted over with salt and spit, that every part of his body is throbbing.
There’s something he wants to ask for, but he’s not sure if he can. He told Zoro to do whatever he wanted, not to just be a puppet enacting Sanji’s own whims. He rests his head against the beat of Zoro’s heart, letting the steady rhythm crash against him like waves on the shore.
“You good?” Zoro asks after a long, quiet moment.
Sanji shrugs against him, makes a sound that is possibly vaguely affirmative.
“Good,” Zoro says definitively, “because I’m not done with you yet.”
Sanji should maybe be scared of the dark intent in Zoro’s voice. Instead, all he feels is eager, and grateful.
—
Sanji is wrapped around Zoro so tightly that he’s not even sure how they’re fitting together, anymore. All he knows is that Zoro’s palm is a heavy weight against his hip, and that his other hand is stroking Sanji’s sore ass with possessive intent.
He braces himself too soon. Zoro spreads his cheeks and keeps him like that, bare and exposed, until Sanji is shaking with the potent blend of anticipation and shame. He lets out a ragged breath against Zoro’s skin, trailing off into a moan.
Zoro’s hand squeezes his side. “Anyone ever tell you what a freak you are?” He doesn’t wait for Sanji’s response, just pushes and pulls at his red, smarting skin.
“All this, and you’re not even trying to get away from me. I think you want what’s coming next. Is that it, Curls?”
There’s no space in him left for want. Anyway, wasn’t it Zoro who said that it didn’t matter what Sanji wanted, anyway?
Zoro said that he didn’t need to apologize. But does that mean he can still say— “Please.”
Zoro laughs darkly, takes hold of Sanji’s hair and wrenches his head up until Sanji is forced to look him in the eye. What he sees there sets Sanji alight— Zoro looks just about ready to consume him, a fire that’s been fed and can no longer be contained. Zoro doesn’t make him ask, again. He pulls Sanji into a messy, biting kiss— like he’s trying to draw blood from Sanji’s lips and tongue, more than anything.
The headiness settles back over him. He whines when Zoro pushes a finger past his cheeks, pushing into his entrance.
It’s pain, again— but not so much of it that it leaves him insensate. Perhaps this is worse, because he feels Zoro stretching him out, can feel how deep two fingers have gotten, can feel the rough of Zoro’s palm against the curve of Sanji’s ass— he feels—
Pain and pleasure dance together, scandalously intertwined. He doesn’t know when one overtakes the other— it’s overtaken by his own arousal, shooting through his veins. He shifts his hips against Zoro’s lap despite the renewed sting that it brings— or maybe because of it. He can’t be bothered to know, anymore.
Zoro yanks Sanji’s head back and presses a kiss against his forehead— patronizing, mocking in the way that Sanji can feel the smirk of it against his skin.
“Fuck you,” he spits reflexively.
“Whatever you want, cook.” The smirk is in Zoro’s voice, too.
He shifts, toppling Sanji backwards onto the couch. Sanji lands hard on his back, groaning at the pain of it, the muted shame when none of it does anything to dim his cock’s interest. He really is fucked up, isn’t he?
But he can’t dwell on it, because Zoro has a grip on the underside of his thigh, spreading him out and open to Zoro’s gaze and touch.
Zoro is holding him open, staring down at him, and Sanji can feel his gaze like a heavy weight, except that it isn’t real and it isn’t enough. It’s the pain that’s kept him anchored, and without it his emotions flood in, complex and contrary, too much for Sanji to even process. He jerks in Zoro’s hold, thrusting his hips upwards, presenting himself to Zoro like he’s begging for something, anything… and maybe he is.
Smack!
Sanji yells in shock as Zoro spanks him across the seam of his ass, against his hole, and the sensation hits him like a lightning strike of painpleasurepainpleasurepain. He doesn’t register when Zoro presses fingers inside of him, only realizes when they find his prostate and push. Zoro might as well have flung him bodily off a cliff, for how disoriented and unmoored Sanji is in that moment. He’s moving— or Zoro is moving him— his hands are clenching— his thighs struggle to close in— his cock jumps, spurts precome— his mouth opens around a wail that doesn’t stop.
Later, Sanji might feel a bit pathetic, that Zoro can keep him on the edge with just one hand. But right now, he hears as the other strokes Zoro’s own cock, the messy sounds that promise more.
Zoro lifts him under his thighs, pulls Sanji up over his lap and holds him there, suspended. The stretch of Sanji’s legs is agonizing— no amount of flexibility or strength can hold back the bruised feeling, the way everywhere Zoro touches him just becomes a lightning rod to focus the pain.
Shit, this is going to hurt. It’s going to hurt like Zoro is slicing him in two.
Fuck, he wants it so bad.
He has the presence of mind to grip Zoro’s shoulders, but his body is beyond bracing itself for pain. When Zoro pushes inside him, it’s like all his nerves have been set alight. A flash of heat runs through his body like a wave. Sanji tightens up, pulls himself up just enough for only the tip of Zoro’s cock to be left inside him. Zoro looks down at him with that dark, heady gaze, and Sanji lets himself fall back down.
The painpleasurepainpleasurepain finally crests to something. Sanji groans as his orgasm is ripped out of him, as he reaches to stroke himself through it, as even his own touch is too much against his abused and sensitive skin.
He’s panting as he comes back to himself, the satisfaction punctuated by pain with each shift of his body.
It’s now that he realizes Zoro hasn’t been moving at all. He’s hard as ever, still inside of him, and looking down at him with something like murder in his eyes.
Sanji looks up at him and swallows noisily. He still has a hand gripped loosely around his cock, and just the promise of what Zoro is about to do to him has renewed arousal shooting through his veins.
Zoro grins at him, all teeth, and Sanji finds himself matching the expression.
Zoro tumbles him over onto his back, and Sanji closes his eyes and lets the pain take him once more.
—
The world around him is soft as Sanji lays on his stomach, trying to piece together how his body feels. It’s the pins and needles that come after your leg falls asleep beneath you-- a thousand nerve endings all firing off at once. It isn’t an excruciating pain, but a continued sensation like his body keeps misfiring in its attempts to pull itself back together.
Warm hands rest on the small of his back, kneading there with the repeated motions of a kitten. It feels— good, actually. Incredible.
“I didn’t ask for this part,” Sanji says aloud.
Something presses against the back of his neck— soft and slow and smooth. A kiss, and then another.
“You didn’t have to.” Zoro’s voice is rough, but Sanji can hear the mockery, the grin in it.
Sanji doesn’t know if he deserves this tenderness, this softness, this pleasure any more than he deserved any of the pain. But if it’s a stolen gratification, he has no intention of returning it. They’re pirates, after all.