salmon_pink: (Hypno)
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Title: Shredded
Fandom: One Piece
Pairing: Zoro/Sanji
Rating: PG-13
Words: 1657
Timeline: Movie 2
Notes: For [livejournal.com profile] 100moods, prompt "vulnerable".
Summary: Blood in his shoes, anger on his lips.



Zoro stares at him from across the room, quietly stepping down from the ladder. His face is deceptively neutral, although there’s a tension in the set of his jaw, in the rigidness of his spine, and there’s a scent of blood and battle around him.

Sanji feels something in him flare, something he’s been struggling to suppress and push past since finding himself forced into the bunk room, and his fingers dig into the cushions of the couch, mouth twisting into a snarl.

He doesn’t want to know what Zoro was thinking. After all, if it had been anyone else, any other member of the crew, Sanji could have accepted it as concern, as trying to be helpful.

From Zoro, it was nothing but an insult.

Clockwork Island had barely even disappeared over the horizon when the Marines attacked. Everyone was ready for action instantly; Usopp had run for the cannons, Nami had started executing their escape, and Sanji had stood beside Luffy and Zoro, ready for the fight.

The Marines boarded. Sanji smirked, all but beckoning them forward.

Clockwork Island had been an unnecessary distraction. Their presence there had been of use, of course, had freed those held captive by the Bear King and his crew, had helped reunite a family. Still, the insides of Sanji’s shoes were stained with blood, and he’d never admit that standing for too long made his feet throb in a way that he wasn’t ready to accept.

A fight was exactly what he needed to relieve his stress.

He took out the first wave easily, dropping to his hands and swinging his legs around, catching Marines with his calves and sending them flying into each other, flying overboard. He could feel the places where the soles of his feet were shredded most violently, and it was simple enough to adapt, to keep any twitches and winces from his face.

A sword flew towards his head and he ducked under it, arched away, and brought up his right leg to block the next swing.

The sole of his shoe connected with the side of the blade, held off the attack effectively, but Sanji could feel something was wrong.

Maybe he’d underestimated the strength of his opponent, maybe he’d torn the still-healing wounds open. Maybe he’d miscalculated just how much damage his feet had taken.

He could feel sweat beading at his brow.

He forced the swordsman back, pushing himself past the pain, refusing to hesitate, before felling him with a kick to the chest.

It all happened too quickly.

A rustle behind him, a gust of air, and then a spray of blood over his shoulder and a choked gurgling sound.

Sanji turned, heart thundering against his chest, eyes widening at the blade held a mere inch from his head. He glanced beyond it, saw the Marine responsible, saw the slackened jaw and glassy eyes, and Sanji’s gaze flickered down, saw the familiar katana that had run the Marine through a second before he’d been able to take Sanji’s life.

Zoro jerked the katana from the Marine’s chest in one fluid motion, and Sanji watched as the Marine crumpled and fell to the ground.

Zoro was very carefully not looking at him.

Sanji opened his mouth, but there were no words.

“Don’t have time for this,” Zoro had muttered, and then he was moving forward, ducking down, and Sanji forgot to fight when Zoro lunged towards him.

Blunt pressure against his stomach, and then his feet were leaving the floor and Sanji heard himself making a startled noise, hands fisting in Zoro’s t-shirt as a solid arm wrapped around the back of his thighs and he was easily thrown over Zoro’s shoulder.

For a moment, time had stopped, and Sanji was weightless and dizzy, and his feet ached in relief.

And then reality and anger and embarrassment came crashing down over him in a sickening wave, and Zoro was already moving through the Marines, cutting them down one-handed, the other arm wrapped around the backs of Sanji’s knees and stopping his struggles with apparently no effort at all.

Sanji could only claw at Zoro’s back, watching the heels of Zoro’s boots moving over the deck, and he could feel the fierce blush on his face, the humiliation that threatened to strangle him. And, shit, Nami was going to see him being manhandled like a child that couldn’t be trusted to look after himself, and Zoro was steadfastly ignoring every protest as he reached down for hatch to the bunkroom, shifting Sanji’s weight like a sack of potatoes.

He bypassed the ladder, jumping down to the floor below, and Sanji could tell by the way Zoro’s knees bent extra low, by the steadying hands on Sanji’s thighs, that Zoro was trying to cushion the landing for him.

He was unceremoniously dropped on to the couch, falling back against the cushions.

Zoro’s hand pressed firmly against his chest when he tried to sit up.

“Every time you try to fight, I’m going to carry you back down here,” Zoro murmured, staring at Sanji levelly, and there was something in his voice that killed every scream, every insult, every objection on Sanji’s tongue.

There was something in his voice that made Sanji feel as if he’d done something wrong.

And then Zoro was disappearing back up the ladder, and Sanji heard Luffy bellowing an attack before the hatch slammed shut and he was left in darkness.

The couch creaks slightly as Sanji slowly stands, and he can’t even feel the pain in his feet anymore, can only feel the suffocating rush of rage and shame and hatred, and he’d never liked Zoro, not from that very first meeting, but he never thought he’d actually feel hatred for him.

Zoro watches him move through narrowed eyes, completely still as Sanji raises his head, and he doesn’t seem surprised or even bothered by the loathing he must see on Sanji’s face.

“Asshole,” Sanji hisses, and his voice is quiet, choked off, and it’s all he can do to keep the angry tremor from being heard.

Zoro opens his mouth to speak, but Sanji snaps over him, “Don’t even fucking bother.”

Zoro’s jaw clicks shut, and he exhales sharply though his nose, and for a moment Sanji thinks that he might just leave. That he might be left to seethe in peace, and that Zoro must understand that he just fucked everything up, and that it’s his fault if everything changes. Because Zoro stopped him from fighting, from doing what he could to protect the crew, and it would never even occur to Sanji to do the same. He’d never take that from Zoro, never undermine him like that, and he’d watched Mihawk slice the man in two, but Zoro apparently didn’t even trust him to hold his own against a group of shitty Marines.

How long before Zoro, or any other nakama for that matter, tried to stop him from cooking? How long before that was taken from him too? He hadn’t been with the crew long, but how could he consider himself a part of them without that trust?

For a moment Sanji thinks that Zoro might just leave, and he realises that he needs Zoro to leave, because he’s trembling and he can’t stop and he needs to break something and he needs his feet to stop aching.

For a moment Zoro bows his head and his eyes close and Sanji wants nothing more than to see Zoro hurting in the way he’s hurt Sanji.

And then Zoro moves forward and he’s too fast and Sanji’s feet don’t want to obey him when he wills them to move.

His back slams against the wall, Zoro’s hands fisted in the collar of his shirt, and Sanji wants to bellow and claw and punch at him but he can’t.

Because Zoro’s lips are crushed against his own, and Sanji can’t even breathe.

And he can’t stop trembling.

It’s rough and unrelenting, and desperately insistent, Zoro’s tongue all but forcing its way between his lips, twisting in his mouth, licking at his teeth and drawing a surprised moan from Sanji that rumbles in his chest. Zoro’s body presses Sanji backwards, even while his hands try to drag him closer, and Sanji feels his head knock against the wall with the force of the kiss, feels Zoro’s body pushing against him, feels the heat there and the shudder that Zoro isn’t quite hiding, and there’s blood on Sanji’s lip and he doesn’t know who it belongs to.

Zoro jerks back as suddenly as he’d lurched forward, slams Sanji back against the wall again as if he doesn’t know what else to do with him, and his eyes look confused and slightly wild, and he’s breathing heavily, and Sanji hadn’t noticed how pale he looks.

“Stop acting like an idiot,” Zoro growls, and the words seem to cost him a huge amount of effort, and Sanji’s just staring back at him and he knows his mouth is hanging open, and he knows he’s blushing.

Zoro’s hands leave him abruptly, and then he watches as Zoro silently turns and stalks away, climbing the ladder and disappearing onto the deck.

Sanji doesn’t understand what just happened, only knows that Zoro is messing everything up. Because Zoro keeps changing the rules, and Sanji is supposed to be angry at him, is angry at him. Only now there’s confusion and awkwardness and the feeling of Zoro’s lips moving over his own, and Sanji still feels dizzy and sick, just in a different way, a way that leaves him flushed and swallowing thickly and trembling more than ever.

He slides slowly down the wall, sitting on the floor and stretching his legs out, and he digs blindly in his pocket for his cigarettes, shakily reminding himself that the pain in his feet is the only reason his knees don’t want to support him anymore.
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