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inoreuct · 4 months

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drink from me

a sherry-laced conversation about thirst and running away. zosan | 2k | hurt/comfort

Being a coward isn’t as easy as one might think.

It’s juxtaposition in its own right; cowardice is, as defined, a lack of bravery— And yet Sanji supposes it takes bravery to be able to ditch everything you stand for. To turn tail and run. Bravery to bear upon your shoulders the disappointment of everybody who had ever believed in you.

He sighs deeply, tilting the bottle in his hand so that the dregs of liquor slosh within. This is why he doesn’t drink.

It’s relatively easy most days. To lock his past behind a set of double doors, bar the handles with a padlock and chain so he can pretend that everything he’s running from isn’t just three paces behind, snapping at his heels, starved and ready to eat him up whole. Alcohol slots the key back into place and twists it without his permission. Twists his heart until it aches.

He doesn’t know why he’d started. The bottle of sherry had sat, nondescript and guileless and half-full on the galley table after the night’s dessert, and Sanji had paused before he’d slowly wrapped his fingers around the neck of it and let his nails scrape against the dark glass.

The cork had popped almost too easily and here he is now, taffrail digging into his forearms as he takes a long drag from his cigarette and lets bitter smoke fill his lungs full to bursting. Blood orange coats the back of his tongue, cloyingly sweet, thick on the roof of his mouth— He’d made a layered trifle with cacao nibs and caramelised cream that had been slathered between slabs of boozy vanilla sponge, and the aftertaste clings to his teeth. Sanji peers down as what’s left of the sherry glimmers vaguely inside the bottle and fights the urge to chug the rest.

He could, if he really wanted to. He hardly drinks but it certainly doesn’t mean he can’t.

A soft scrape against wood catches his attention, barely perceptible. He fights to keep his spine from stiffening, fights to maintain his loose-limbed, easy demeanor; the liquid warmth in his veins helps some but not enough, and he’s halfway through another drag when near-silent footsteps stop just behind him.

Zoro’s haori shifts in the wind, palm loosely wrapped around the end of Wado’s hilt where she’s strapped alone to his hip. “Was wondering where you went,” he says easily, looking out over the ocean.

Sanji scoffs. It burns his throat more than the sherry did. “For someone built like that, you’re surprisingly quiet, marimo.”

The immediate urge to kick himself is something new. He rarely feels it— It appears often, don’t get him wrong, he just. Ignores it. It’s a little more difficult tonight. Built like that. The noise that escapes him is mirthless. What’s that even supposed to mean, huh? Alcohol’s always made him snappy and he does feel bad for once — But he’s tired, and the chores won’t do themselves.

“Make it quick, would you?” he mutters when Zoro still hasn’t replied, low and quiet in the still evening air as he curves down to dig the heel of his palm into his temple. “My spice jars are still all over the counter, and I have to mop the floor before I wash the dishes—”

“It’s done.”

Sanji blinks, before his eyes narrow and he turns his head to look at Zoro properly. “The dishes?”

“Everything.” The swordsman huffs when Sanji gives him a dubious look, gaze flicking over and away again as he rolls his eye. “Luffy asked me to clean up the galley. Said you needed a break.”

Well. The cook exhales, measured, and buries his face into the crook of his elbow. Taps his cig so that ash doesn’t fall into his hair where he’s holding it aloft above his head. “Tell him thanks, but I don’t.”

He clocks it out of his peripheral vision when Zoro smirks and waves a hand to gesture to his cigarette and his slouch and the glass bottle dangling against wood. “What’s this, then?”

I don’t know. Shop’s closed, please fuck off and come back tomorrow morning.

The other words that sit at the tip of Sanji’s tongue are far more scathing. He feels them, bites them back viciously before he can burn anyone other than himself. “If there’s a single thing out of place in there I’m gonna—”

“Kick my ass, I know, I know.” Zoro chuckles under his breath. “Don’t you get tired of saying the same things over and over again?”

“Maybe I wouldn’t have to if you didn’t constantly choose to be selectively deaf, moss-for-brains.”

The swordsman huffs another soft laugh, and conversation peters out after that. Sanji feels an itch building at the base of his skull, flickering just under his skin; it’s making him restless. He taps the bottle against the rail just to fill the silence. Zoro reaches a hand out and Sanji gives it to him easily, unthinkingly, watching and pretending he isn’t as the swordsman thumbs over the faded paper label that’s peeling at the corner.

Zoro’s hands are scarred, he notes. He knows this, of course, but he never gets tired of letting his gaze drift over tan skin and old scars, thin slivers of pearly tissue painted silver in the moonlight. A breeze ruffles his hair as Zoro finally drinks, and he’s distantly surprised to see that it’s a measured sip and not a swig like what it usually would have been.

Fucking hell. Sanji’s inhale shudders when he pushes himself up and stands straight, now-free hand wrapping around lacquered wood as he finishes his cigarette and tosses the butt over the side. He needs to stop thinking. He’s paying too much attention. There’s a pressure building behind his forehead and Zoro is an overwhelming presence beside him, unavoidable, stoic and staunch as ever, perfect posture, perfect honour, a sentinel with a pure white sword like some sort of— of hero from a storybook. Perfect perfect perfect.

It’s all building like a scream behind his lips, a river at a bottleneck, and he clenches his jaw to keep it in. Grits his teeth until he hears them creak because what would happen if he opened his mouth? Nothing good, he’s sure. Nothing anyone needs.

Sanji nearly startles when the bottle taps against his elbow. “Talk to me.”

“Nothing to say,” he replies immediately, taking a careless gulp and holding in a cough.

Zoro’s slow exhale feels like it shifts the wind itself. Their ship creaks gently. “You always have something to say, curls.”

“Look, you—” He cuts himself off, tempering his breath. “I’m tired, alright? So can you just get to the point?” Fuck, he needs another cigarette.

Maybe that’s the problem. He knows he’s the problem, sure, but Sanji suspects that he’s been running for so long that he’s forgotten how to walk. It’s grown into him like weeds wound through his ribs, the way he sees poison in water that’s perfectly clean, the way peace makes him more anxious than chaos does. He needs to stop running. He doesn’t know how.

Zoro pries the sherry from his fingers and it’s only then that he relaxes the death grip he’d unintentionally had, a shudder slipping over his shoulders. Zoro holds the bottle loosely between his scarred fingers and doesn’t drink.

The silence thickens. Static crackles within his bones.

Sanji doesn’t know why he starts talking. Doesn’t know why it feels like a dam breaking in his chest, but his mouth is open, and the words are emptying out. “I’m tired of looking over my shoulder for something that isn’t there. Luffy gave me something to run towards, for once, but—”

He doesn’t know how to say it’s not enough without sounding ungrateful, without being greedy. “Sometimes I think I could… consume every one of the Blues, and still want more,” he allows. “Need more.” His fingers lace together, and Sanji dips his head with a wry smile even as he looks at the endless expanse of sky in front of them. “I’m afraid I’ll drink the world and still come up dry.”

There is a thirst in him. Something different than what had wracked him for a month on that barren rock. Hunger he can handle; he eats just enough to stave it off and goes about his day. This, though— Sanji can’t help the way it buzzes in the back of his head and keeps him wound up like a coil of electrical wire. He kneads dough and whisks egg whites just to have something to do with his hands. He defaults to his usual barbs when he’s feeling ungrounded so he can kid himself into thinking he possesses some semblance of normality. His shoulders ache as he stares out over the sea and wonders what it’s like to hold so much and still, still, be so achingly empty.

The winds change, carding cool fingers through his hair.

“Drink from me,” Zoro says, and Sanji’s breath catches between his teeth.

His head snaps up to find Zoro already looking at him, face unreadable, elbows on the taffrail and bottle cupped in his hands. The swordsman looks serene, Sanji thinks. Gaze trained straight ahead, ever clear of his objectives as Wado gleams at his side, starlight in an ivory sheath.

“Drink from me,” he repeats. The words are solemn as they always are in moments like these, the liminal space just after dusk but before true night, as his eyes shift over to Sanji and lock in place. “I won’t let you go thirsty again.”

Sanji’s mouth dries. It’s hard not to feel pinned as Zoro looks at him; the weight of his gaze is almost physically tangible, like a familiar green coat settling over his shoulders. That’s the thing about Zoro— For all Sanji jokes about him having plant life in his skull, the swordsman has a penchant for dropping absolutely earth-shaking statements without even seeming to think about them at all. The cook swallows once, twice, tries to find his words as his lips part and loses them as soon as he takes his next breath.

He doesn’t know if he’ll ever stop feeling like a ticking time bomb. But as Zoro’s lashes flutter and he looks away, Sanji feels something in him settle. The relentless buzz that always seems to sit just beneath his skin soothes out into a quiet hum.

Maybe part of it’s how Zoro’s scarred and still perfect. Untouchable. Sanji couldn’t hurt him even if he tried, even if he blows apart.

His fingers wrap, unthinking, around the neck of the bottle as it’s pushed back into his hand, the pressure of Zoro’s touch lingering until he’s sure that Sanji has a good grip. The swordsman’s boots brush softly across the planks as he turns to leave and he’s halfway to the stairs before Sanji speaks.

“Marimo.”

He knows Zoro turns without even looking. “Hm?”

“Did Luffy really ask you to clean up the galley?”

A pause, before Zoro starts walking again. “Get some sleep, cook. I’ll take the rest of your watch.”

The silence he leaves in his wake is honey-thick. First watch is Sanji’s shift, it always is— He cleans up the galley and stays awake until Zoro comes to take over.

(The galley is clean. His watch is covered. His mind is quiet.

For once, he can’t find himself another reason to stay.)

The sherry holds no evidence of them ever having shared it. Sanji lifts the tinted glass and there’s no trace of Zoro, no proof that his mouth had ever been where Sanji’s is— None of the candied orange and rosemary from the duck they’d had for dinner, gamey and blood-sweet.

I won’t let you go thirsty again.

Sanji tastes it still, gentle in the back of his throat as he drains the bottle.

#wrote this all listening to hozier #not a necessary accompaniment but cherry wine fits the mood perfectly even though the lyrics don’t 😌#zosan #one piece #roronoa zoro #black leg sanji #sanji #one piece zosan #one piece sanji #zoro #zoro x sanji #one piece zoro #when will i ever stop angsting sanji you ask? NEVER #cuffs him over the head because he doesn’t know how to accept affection LOOK AT HOW MUCH ANGST I CAN FIT IN THIS BAD BOY #ino writes #will i ever stop using fruit and food and liquor as symbolism? also never

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