for-what-its-worth99 - Tumblr blog

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zoro gifted sanji this shirt for his birthday

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Ahhhhh. Soulmates AU where Sanji has built his whole life around the fact that somewhere out there he has a soulmate. 

Like, it’s the only thing that kept him going, kept him moving forward. An entire childhood of being told by his siblings, by his father, that he’s unloveable—

And the only proof he has, after his mum’s gone, is that somewhere out there is someone who’s DESTINED to love him. The universe has SWORN it. 

Even when he’s getting bruised and bloodied and told he’s worthless from the siblings who have all the love of their father.

Even when he spends his days in a dungeon, the light filtering in from the high window barely visible through his iron helmet, alone and cold. 

Even when he’s slowly dying from starvation, stranded on a rock. 

The one truth Sanji knows is that he has someone who loves him.

He spends his time at the Baratie flirting with anything that moves, but is thoroughly aware underneath it all that he’s worthless. That’s been drilled into him since birth. 

If he’s able to make a woman happy for a moment, then he will, but that’s not for his own sake.

He feels confident, having had years to think on it, that there is one single person in the world who CAN love him. And Sanji feels sorry for them, because he knows he doesn’t deserve that love, but all the same he selfishly looks forward to finding them.

And then— he meets him. 

It’s everything the books — and his mum — described it as. The world bursting into colour, the feeling of RIGHTNESS slotting into place. The man (that’s surprising) has green hair and three earrings and three swords and it feels like fate. It IS fate.

And then the man — Zoro — green hair and three earrings and the only thing Sanji has ever wanted, the person he’s centred his whole life around — he tells Sanji that he doesn’t believe in soulmates. Doesn’t want the universe to be in charge of his own destiny.

And Sanji breaks. 

He— doesn’t know what to do with his life now. He joins the crew because Luffy asks, because the only thing he clings to right now is that SOMEONE wants him. But. 

Zoro doesn’t. 

His soulmate. 

The only one MEANT for him. 

And what does that say about Sanji?

He hates Zoro. HATES. 

He fights him at every chance. Wages war with words and kicks. 

He’s drowning inside. Unmoored. The knowledge that he’s entirely unloveable is a burden too great to bear. 

They sail onward and Sanji cooks and fights and cooks and fights and drowns.

Something shifts at Thriller Bark. 

Sanji’s there when Zoro attempts to sacrifice himself. And Sanji HATES him for it. He hates him because in all this time traveling together, try as he might, hate him as much as he does, Sanji’s never been able to stop loving him.

And if anyone’s going to die for this fucking crew, it’s going to be the one who’s so worthless he cant even have a soulmate who loves him back. 

He knocks Zoro out of the way, faces Kuma head on. 

The pain in his side a moment later feels like the Baratie betrayal all over again

Later, on the ship keeping vigil at Zoro’s bedside, he waits until Chopper’s gone and then weeps, face red and blotchy, ugly loud wails as he falls apart, staining the sheets with tears and snot. It should’ve been him. 

He doesn’t stop until a hand wraps around his wrist.

“Cook,” Zoro says, voice painfully rough. “Why the fuck— did you do that?” 

Sanji tries to hide his tears, replace them with that familiar anger. “What?” he asks. “Try to keep you alive?” 

“No,” says Zoro. “Fucking— sacrifice yourself.” 

Sanji frowns. “I’m the best option.”

Zoro, injured as he is, gapes at him. “You’re the cook,” he says. “We need you.” 

Sanji tries to pull his wrist from Zoro grasp. “You need a cook,” he says. “You can find another.” 

“You’re crew,” Zoro says. 

“You can FIND. ANOTHER.” Sanji grits.

“No, we CAN’T,” Zoro yells, grip tightening. 

“You already THREW ME AWAY!” Sanji screams. 

Zoro’s fingers go slack and Sanji gets up and runs from the room.

It’s another week before Zoro can leave the infirmary but when he does, Sanji finds himself cornered in the kitchen, fast enough he can’t plan an escape. 

Zoro’s face is set, serious, Sanji’s gearing up for a fight despite Zoro’s injuries. 

He storms in and pushes Sanji up against the back wall. “I was WRONG,” he says, arms bracketing Sanji in. 

“Wh— no,” Sanji squeaks, trying to find a way around him. 

“Yes I WAS,” Zoro emphasises. “Franky says I was stupid and self protective, but I lied. I’ve loved you from the moment I fucking saw you.”

“No, you DIDN’T,” Sanji says, a rushing in his ears as he looks anywhere but AT Zoro. “Because I’m UNLOVEABLE.” 

Zoro’s breath hitches, and he grabs Sanji’s chin in his hand, forcing him none too gently face to face. 

“You’re fucking not,” he snarls. “Because *I* love you.”

Sanji REALLY can’t handle this. “Stop,” he pleads. “You can’t— it’s okay. I’ve always known that I’m worthless, you don’t have to try to convince me otherwise.” You already did, he thinks. “Just— I can’t handle you lying like this. To me.”

“You’re not—“ Zoro looks at him in shock. “You’re not WORTHLESS, Cook, what the hell? And you’re not unloveable, you’re not any of that shit! I thought you’d be a distraction from my dream, that’s why I said that shit, and I’m SORRY. But I was fucking wrong.”

Sanji is still shaking his head — or he’s just plain shaking now— because it’s too late. He KNOWS this is who he is, doesn’t understand why Zoro is LYING. 

“It’s okay,” he says, making eye contact, placating. “I won’t let this — me— interfere with protecting the crew.”

Zoro growls and lunges forward, capturing Sanji’s lips in a bruising kiss. It hurts, Sanji gasps into his mouth, it— feels like truth. 

“I love you,” Zoro says, low. “Tell me how I can prove it.” 

Sanji chases the kiss before recovering. “I don’t know,” he says, small, uncertain.

Zoro grasps his arms, his waist, his neck, like a desperate man searching, he settles on cupping Sanji’s face, leaning his forehead against him. “I’ll prove it,” he says. “Something in your head is fucked up, Cook, it’s wrong. You’re loved. I fucking swear it.”

Sanji’s still shaking, tears rushing unbidden to his eyes. He doesn’t get it but — he wants it. Desperately he wants it. “Tell me again,” he says, voice small, scared. 

“I love you,” Zoro says. “I’m sorry. I love you.” 

Like a mantra. 

Sanji kisses him, afraid to initiate, but Zoro responds with a vengeance. “

I love you,” Zoro says again, like a prayer. 

“I love you.” 

“I love you.” 

“I love you.” Someday, Sanji will know it intrinsically. But for now it’s good enough to hear it. 

“I love you.” 

“I love you.” 

“I love you.”

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How to get your brainwashed husband back - a tutorial by Roronoa Zoro:

Exhibit A:

Tiddies

Aka I got tired of crying over zosan angst

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"A winter with papa"

I started these drawings in November, so please pretend it's still winter 🥶

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So much he would like to say. Any compliment falls short on the grasping feeling rising more untamed. Holding all behind a smokey smile and a cheap diminishing joke to keep that urge to barf every loving word under control.

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Sanji is a lightweight.

He can't hold his liquor for shit despite his failed attempts to hide it from everyone else. The signs are obvious — the flushed cheeks, the hooded eyes, and the constant smile on his face that remains even if he's not talking to a lady. He prances around the room, socializing and laughing at every little thing, from the cool summer breeze tickling his cheeks to Usopp's tamest of wild stories.

He's also very physically affectionate. When he'd usually reject a hug from Luffy's impossibly long outstretched arms, intoxicated Sanji would welcome the embrace with glee. Chopper is rained with little kisses on his head every time he does anything remarkably cute (which is all the time). And he's seen playing with Robin's fingers absentmindedly as he listens to her talk about the ancient history of a forgotten world.

But there's also one thing Sanji becomes when he's had one too many drinks in his system...

He gets... honest.

Sanji on a normal day is blunt and calculated. He calls things out as he sees it yet still knows how to use his words to twist something to his advantage. Like how he knows how to appease Luffy when he gets adamant over food. Or how he somehow convinces Usopp to do something he'd normally be too afraid to do.

Drunk Sanji is a different kind of honest. Drunk Sanji is honest about things he never even utters if he was even a lick sober.

And Zoro? Oh, he's always been the one to bare witness to Sanji's honesty.

Zoro likes to think of himself as an honest man. He can omit the truth every now and then for someone's safety or to preserve their blissful ignorance, but most of the time he doesn't see any reason to lie. If he finds you annoying, he'll say it. To hell with your damn feelings about it.

But though he values honesty and trust, he sure can hide the truth. Because his own feelings take the back burner. He can't be emotionally charged when lives are on the line. He can't let his heart win out when his brain tells him it's a bad idea. He can trust a gut feeling but never the tug of his own heartstrings.

So witnessing Sanji's honesty — so rooted in the tresses of his stupidly big emotional heart — always has Zoro freezing in place. He can't handle it. But he can't push him away either.

He can hide his true feelings but by all four seas, he can't ever push them far enough away for him to ignore them.

For the embarrassing truth of it all is that every time Sanji looks at him, smiles at him, laughs with him, or even fights with him — Zoro is irrevocably, unequivocally, and detrimentally smitten with the curly browed cook.

He doesn't remember when (somewhere between Little Garden and Thriller Bark... who knows, really...) but he definitely remembers waking up one day and wanting to see Sanji first thing in the morning. He remembers the rapid beating of his heart when the man prepared his comfort dishes when Zoro was having a rough day. He remembers the sparks of electric fire seeping to his bones from a single touch, a brush of fingertips against his scalp with a whispered 'you need a haircut marimo', the ice cold chill that runs down his spine of watching this stupid blonde man attempt to sacrifice his life over and over again to save his friends. All these feelings he remembers and dreads and looks forward to all at the same time.

All come crashing down upon him until he's stuck beneath a mountain of untapped, unrealized, unacknowledged feelings — all because Sanji decided that for today's party he will hold Zoro's hand, and guide him to the galley so they could be alone.

Alone.

"Marimoooo," Sanji sings, a light giggle cutting off the prolonged syllable, and Zoro has to actively remember not to crumble. He grips the edge of the kitchen counter, his knuckle turning white, with the other hand desperately clinging to a cheap bottle of sake.

"Auditioning for a musical, cook?" Zoro teases and Sanji sticks his tongue out at him. Zoro, despite all he's holding back, allows himself to chuckle.

"Shut the fudge up, dumb green haired muscle head doofus." (New note: when drunk enough, Sanji physically cannot swear.) He jabs a finger at Zoro's chest, unaware of the invisible mark he's left on his heart. "I wanted to tell you something, stupid."

"Can't it wait until you're sober and can kick my ass properly?" Zoro's deflecting and he damn well knows it. But Drunk Sanji is so unfairly adorable that if he lets him talk more, he might do something Sober Sanji would hate him for forever.

"I donwanna kick your ass!" Sanji throws his hands up exasperatedly. "No no no no thas' not important..."

"What could possibly–" When Zoro chanced a glance at Sanji, he stopped mid sentence. Hooded blue eyes were gazing at him intensely, an ocean of possibilities, a high tide of emotions washing onto the shore. Zoro can't look away. He wants to. He needs to. But he can't. Like a capsized ship at the edge of a whirlpool, Sanji's gaze sucks Zoro in with no pause for mercy.

Mercy that Zoro refuses to call out for.

"Zoro," He says it with a low tone, a soft voice, and with a breathiness he's never heard his name be uttered through before.

He feels Sanji's hand on top of his own before he could let go of the counter. He looks down and the man is tracing his scars. The ones faded overtime and the ones that are freshly closed over. There's a band-aid on his thumb that he's forgotten to remove from a week ago. Sanji's own delicate but kitchen worn fingers run over his knuckles. Each feather light touch sends electric shocks through his veins, a rushing heat that no shot of alcohol could recreate.

Zoro, despite everything his mind is telling him to do, turns his hand over and lets Sanji slip his fingers through and press their palms together.

They're closer now. He doesn't remember when that happened. But Sanji's face is so close, he could count the eyelashes fluttering gently between wakefulness and dreaming if he wanted to. He desperately did. Instead, his other hand raised up to cup Sanji's ever alcohol flushed cheeks, and feels his heart burst with the gentle smile Sanji gives him in return.

"Did you know?" Sanji whispers, thumb rubbing over a particularly nasty scar on the back of Zoro's hand.

"What?" Zoro indulges him. Just this once. "What don't I know?"

Sanji's smile brightens. He rests a hand on Zoro's chest. He feels Zoro's beating heart beneath his palm. Then he looks up, eyes twinkling with a simple but powerful emotion. Zoro's only seen him look like that once before. Back when it was just the five of them from the East Blue, their borrowed ship from Syrup Village, and their feet on a barrel promising to achieve their dreams.

Pure and utter joy.

"Did you know... that I'm so happy that you're my friend?"

Zoro's breath hitches and Sanji hiccups, sudden tears flowing down his cheeks. He doesn't attempt to hide them or wipe them away. Zoro feels them fall onto his chest as he watches Sanji cry with the biggest smile on his face.

"You're the first friend I had that was my age," He continued, bringing Zoro's hand up and nuzzling against his palm. "I never had friends growing up. Was surrounded by old geezers telling me what to do half the time. Joining the crew... This is the best decision I ever made."

Then a faint kiss was placed on every scar Sanji could see on Zoro's hand. Piece by piece, Zoro's resolve crumbled, and he felt tears prickle at the corner of his eye.

"You're my best friend, Zoro. Did I tell you that?"

"No," Zoro whispered. He takes Sanji's other hand and kisses the rough pads of his fingertips too. Sanji watches him, mouth slightly open in a dazed smile. Zoro wonders if he'll remember this in the morning.

"Why haven't I?" Sanji asks him, or perhaps wonders aloud. Zoro just shrugs and keeps kissing up Sanji's hand. With each kiss, Sanji lets out a sigh, gentle and inviting. Zoro chooses not to answer.

"I love having friends," Sanji says stumbling forward slightly at Zoro's ministrations. Zoro catches him before he falls and Sanji throws his arms around him, clutching tightly and giggling so much that he's almost losing breath. "I love having you in my life."

A tear falls down Zoro's cheek. He tightens his hold around the cook and thinks the exact same thing.

Sanji burrows his face into Zoro's shoulder, hiccuping again. "Can we stay like this for a little while?"

"We can stay like this forever, if you want." Like this as in always by your side. Like this as in holding you every time you ask for it. Like this as in who we can be if alcohol didn't make you forget everything you say to me.

"I have to cook tomorrow though." was Sanji's brilliant response and Zoro couldn't help but laugh. He's waited this long for something like this. He can wait until morning for a conversation a little more serious.

"Yeah, cook." Zoro obliges, leading Sanji to the cushioned bench by the dinner table. "We can stay like this for a little while."

"Yay," Sanji cheers softly, his voice already starting to slur. Zoro lets him rest his head on his chest as he curls up and around Zoro like a koala. "Warm."

Time moves by slowly. Zoro's fingers run through silky blond hair as they talk about silly insignificant things. Sanji's giggles get softer and softer. His breathing evens out. Soon enough, Sanji's eyelids have closed and he's sleeping soundly, clinging as tightly as his unconscious body permits onto the swordsman.

Zoro knows that when morning comes, they'll have to talk. But for now, Zoro allows himself to bask in the warmth of Sanji's honesty. Allows himself to let Sanji's genuine gratitude of meeting and joining the straw hat crew wash over him like the gentlest of cool sea breezes after a long and hot day.

And he can be assured, as he drifts off into his own slumber, that Sanji loves him.

And that Zoro loves him too.

inspired by this tweet

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fanarts for the cute fic by Hazel_Athena where Sanji gets turned into a cat and Zoro is very much a cat person

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hits them with the yurification beam

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i have too many of those silly strawhats doodles

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In light of recent events: snooji <3

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Happy holidays!! My zsclubsecretsanta2023 present for @meelonsooda on twitter n__n

I went with your prompt "Zosan big spoon little spoon, they think no one knows" I hope you like it!

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i want to punt them into the sun

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stoking the flame.

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smooch

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Sanji's Waist

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Here to remind you that Will had a gun on him during mizumono and let himself be gutted and held instead of fighting back, and Hannibal had a notebook full of equations to figure out time travel because that’s how desperately he wanted to reverse time

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Sun&Moon