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The moonlight glows through the crows nest, shimmering off the damp of Zoro’s back as he moves across the floor. He is lithe, deliberately placing his breath with each step. Wado is a weight between his teeth, Sandai Kitetsu a comfort to his grip. And Enma. Enma binds him, pulls for its own control. His hand clenches and releases, the muscles running through his shoulder taut and straining. It’s in his head, he tells himself. Move with it, not for it, move, move— Sandai Kitetsu marks the next forward slash, Enma is water through the air, then a current, then a wave of purple and his arm contracts, his jaw clamps tight.
-
Sanji sits in the middle of a spread of cookbooks. All lay open to various pages on this region’s cuisine by cooks that wrote their recipes, their experiences with such detail to pore over. He’s made notes. He’s copied their diagrams of this season’s edible flowers and the profile of each one’s flavor. Pungent. Light. Even the thought fills his senses with sweet aroma and— the cadence of Zoro’s footwork stops.
It’s abrupt, a break in the fluidity that has been background to Sanji’s hearing for the past two hours. He glances up, marking his page before closing his notebook.
He’s standing there. Zoro. And it’s like he’s locked to the floor. There’s a tremor to his bicep rippling down his forearm and into the back of his hand.
“Hey,” Sanji says, starting toward him, voice a touch concerned. “Zoro, call it for tonight, alright?”
Zoro doesn’t look back at him, just waves his hand vaguely through the air. He sheathes Sandai Kitetsu then Wado. Enma holds his grip and Sanji stares at it, keeping a few paces back. Pale purple wafts and slips through his fingers, tensing his knuckles as the hilt clicks into its sheath. The release brings him to his knees.
And Sanji doesn’t know what to do. Not anymore. There’s no comfort he can give. No guidance. He is shaking and Sanji hesitantly touches his back, “C’mon, love..”
“Just— just give me a minute,” Zoro chokes, both hands bracketing himself to the ground. Frustration flares through his spine. “Fuck,” he grits out, “Every time. Every fucking time.”
-
Sanji lays his hand on Zoro’s low back as they make their way to the bunkroom, he’s listing slightly to the side and said nothing when Sanji went in front of him down the ladder. It makes him think this is why Zoro chooses this hour. That no one will witness this— another failed attempt, another show of weakness by his own untamed strength.
-
The bunkroom is empty but for them. It’s become more common lately. There’s trades of watch shifts and sleeping in workrooms or other shared beds.
Zoro slides out of his robes. Sanji takes off his shoes. It’s calm. No rock to the water or sway to the floor. Zoro leans into the dresser, tugging at his haramaki, “Can you..?”
Sanji nods as he sets his shoes in the corner and hangs his shirt over the back of their bunk.
“Do you want something to eat?” he asks, sliding Zoro’s haramaki down his belly, his thighs, then his knees to his feet. Zoro holds Sanji’s shoulder and shakes his head, “I’m alright.”
-
In bed, Zoro kisses him, light and sleepy, as soft as the moon over Sanji’s face. His bangs fall in the rare way that exposes both of his eyes, deep and blue and always a touch unsettled.
“I’m worried,” Sanji says quietly. He runs his palm along Zoro’s hip, circling his thumb around the jut of his hip bone.
Zoro closes his eye and tucks himself closer into Sanji’s chest, “Don’t be.”
“You think that helps to say?”
“Does it?”
“No, love.”
“I don’t want to think about it.”
“Which means it’s all you’re thinking about.”
“Cook,” Zoro huffs out, “just let me sleep this off.”
“Will you for this once not stuff it all down? You can talk to me.” He wishes he would. He has given him everything else. The vulnerability of his body, the view of his frustration and anger. He’s asked for help and leans into the support of Sanji’s touch but Sanji can feel something in him drop, like Zoro’s weight has just given into the bed.
“In the worst moment,” he says, its bluntness only muffled by Sanji’s shoulder, “I’m going to lose control. Enma.. I don’t know how to explain it. It feels like,” Zoro pauses, “like I’m giving in.”
He is saying everything Sanji feared, everything he knew to be true. “No,” he says instantly, “that’s the sword, not you. You’re more than it can handle. It can’t— that's why you can even hold it.” He remembers the look on Zoro’s face when he first gripped Enma’s hilt, how he quieted the warnings of all— how he spliced a cliff, a fucking cliff. And there, among the samurai of Wano, Enma failed to take him. It folded to his command. That was months ago. Now it’s wearing him down. Sanji sees it, feels it simply in the way that he moves.
“She would kill me. If she were here and saw this— fuck,” he says, turning onto his back. He wipes his palms down his face, his stomach caving with the depth of his breath.
“Zoro..” but Sanji stops. Zoro doesn’t speak of her. Sanji has only once heard her name. It was back on the deck of the Merry. He was smoking, watching Zoro oil Wado’s blade. It was the only sword he never talked about. He would go on and on about the history, the lineage of swords he’d never seen, swords that passed through the hands of greats and bore sought after names all while he carried that uncanny white blade. So Sanji asked, nodding toward Wado and for some reason, while they sat alone on that hot afternoon, Zoro answered.
Sanji props himself up on his elbow, placing his palm in the center of Zoro’s chest. His haki is everywhere, loose and immense, pulling apart in grief and in stress. “Reign it in,” Sanji whispers, “You’re gonna rock the whole ship.”
Then, it is still.
And Zoro is looking right at him, eye ringed in red.
“You can control it,” Sanji says, with a resolve usually only Zoro can possess, “you have to get out of your own way.”
“I wish it was that easy,” Zoro breathes as Sanji lays a hand on his cheek because, fuck, it is painful to see him like this. That a sword, his greatest love, could strip him this much.
-
Steam rises from a skillet as Sanji lowers the heat on the stovetop burner. He stirs the eggs with chopsticks and spreads rice flaked with sea king in the center. He folds it into shape with barely a thought, hovering the pan just over the heat. Near him, Zoro sits on the counter, propped back on his hands.
Sanji steals a glance at him as he reaches for the salt, his eye rests shut, he seems less tense.
“Here, moss,” Sanji says, handing Zoro a plate of omurice and settling next to him with a plate of his own. It feels good to watch him eat. It feels like when he can do nothing for him, he can do this. He can feed him a meal that’s simple and warm on the belly.
“I’m gonna say something,” Zoro says, drying the dish that Sanji passes over.
Sanji raises an eyebrow at him and waits.
And waits.
“Well?”
“Can it, I’m trying here,” Zoro snaps.
“Alright, alright.”
Zoro sighs, leveling his voice, “Sorry, I just— I feel like I don’t know what to do for you.”
It’s not even close to what Sanji thought he would hear, he falters, “What do you mean?”
“You always want me to talk and you don’t. I mean, I don’t know, maybe you just know how to ask or pry it out of me or whatever. But I can tell you’re at your edge too.”
He feels caught— no, Sanji’s really not sure.
Zoro reaches over him and turns off the sink tap, “I don’t have a clue what you’re thinking these days.”
Sanji’s hands just hang over the sink, holding a soapy dish, “Did you ever?”
“Yeah.”
Which is about as detailed of an answer as Sanji expected. And really, when he tries to actually think, it’s like he doesn’t even know where he’s been. What he has thought of is logistics— of the New World and a plan for the next unknown. It has put him so moment to moment, in a fear that has become unplaceable and ever looming. He’s wondered how long they will be so lucky when they have grown ten strong. He’s wondered the odds if that luck will end.
Zoro takes Sanji’s wrist and sets the plate in the sink, “You only tell me you’re worried and I know it’s for me but I am for you.”
“Don’t be.”
Zoro scoffs, “So it’s okay if that’s your answer?”
“Zoro, right now, I’m not the one that’s always on the verge of collapse.” He wishes he didn’t say it. He regrets it the moment it comes out of his mouth and sees the flicker of uncertainty in Zoro’s eye.
“I don’t think that's true. I mean I don’t think I’m the only one.”
He could be right, if Sanji really lets himself consider it. All his energy is turned outward because that is what he does, who he is. The cook, the romantic, the one that always, always cares. He is tired, held up by adrenaline and the worry of what he could lose. He’s already glimpsed it, what he could’ve been, what he was supposed to be and he can absolutely not think about it.
Now he is. It is all over his face and Zoro is pulling him close, resting his chin on Sanji's shoulder, “Just..” Zoro breathes against his neck, “you can talk to me too.”