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chenelle-solily · 4 months

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Today was a Bad Day (Sanji/Zoro WIP)

A/N: Here's a sneak peek to a Sanji/Zoro one shot I'm working on! It'll be done sometime this week.

CW: Mild angst and references to PTSD

Summary: Even after Whole Cake Island and finally scorning his Vinsmoke name, Sanji still has bad days. Today was one of them. Unluckily, Zoro appears at the worst moment.

Most days were good days. Today was a good day. Sanji slept all night, not being woken up by Usopp’s snores and Luffy didn’t sneak into his bed. He didn’t have any nightmares, which was rare. Breakfast was especially delicious, the fish grilled perfectly and the mangos gathered from a deserted island made a sauce that was both tangy and sweet, neither flavor overwhelming the other. Nami was as stunning as always, and Robin was just as beautiful. Even the weather was good as if God wanted Sanji to have a perfect day. He deserved it too, Sanji selfishly thought. After so many endless terrible days, he thought one or two good ones wouldn’t hurt.

But maybe it was because today was such a good day that when things became bad, it really became bad. It was like dropping straight from heaven to hell. One minute, everything was amazing, then the next, nothing was okay. There was no particular reason either. Most of the time, Sanji could point out the moment his mood shifts. Sometimes he would be in a dark room that felt a little bit too close to a prison, or maybe he would see a man that looked like Judge. But there was nothing like that today.

Sanji was preparing dinner in the kitchen, a cigarette sitting in his mouth, excited about Nami and Robin’s reactions to his new creation of fried octopus soaked in mango and tangerine juice when an avalanche hit him. Everything turned dark and suffocating. His body went cold, but sweat swelled on his hands. He couldn’t move, the knife hovering over a tentacle, as if time stopped. Any happy thought smothered away, allowing all those memories to rise and swell until they filled his body to the brim, searching for a way to burst out.

Most days were good days. Today wasn’t a good day.

Because Sanji was the crew’s chef, and because didn’t want anyone to know that he was one bad moment away from breaking down, he finished the meal, told the crew it was ready, and then made a probable excuse to hide himself away in the men’s quarters. He didn’t want to be alone, especially not in a small, cramped room, dimly lit by overhanging lights. It was far too close to the prison he grew up in. Even the horizontal wooden boards on the wall were starting to look like metal bars, and the ocean smell seeping in could’ve been mistaken for damp stone. But it was better than the alternative: the crew being burdened by him.

Sanji sat on the sofa, head in hands, fingers running through his hair. He bit his lip and tried to calm himself down. He took deep breaths, pushing the memories further into the back of his mind, but that only seemed to make him sink further into the darkness. Soon, he was left alone with no light, and nothing but the memories of when he was a kid. Those days in that prison, forced to wear that itchy, cold mask stretched endlessly across his eyes. They consumed any other memory. His mom, those times Reiju would visit him, Zeff, and the crew: all of it was toppled by years of sitting on cold, hard stone.

The door creaked open and a sliver of light rushed into the dim room, making it seem much more alive. “Oh, it’s you,” Zoro said. He stood in the doorway, his strong silhouette outlined by the light, the green of his coat like the leaves of a ginkgo tree.

Sanji glanced up, irritation growing in him. A bad day could only become even worse with such an annoying presence.

“What’s that mean?” Sanji said, trying to pretend as if everything was normal and that he wasn’t being drowned by his past.

Zoro took a step forward, his boot heavy against the wood. “Nothing.”

“What are you doing here?” Sanji wanted Zoro to leave, and fast. Zoro would only mock him for still not getting over his past even though it had been years. He would make fun of Sanji’s weakness.

“It’s the men’s quarters, not Sanji’s quarters, last I checked.” Zoro walked to his locker and dug through it, pulling out a bottle of sake.

“Why aren’t you at dinner?” Sanji could feel irritation build up in him. There was no reason for it, but it still grew nonetheless, only worsened by Zoro’s presence.

“I wasn’t that hungry.”

“So you just left your food to waste?” Everything was suffocating again, and Sanji couldn’t breathe. He inhaled, felt the oxygen rush up his nose and inflate his lungs, then just as quickly deflate as carbon dioxide rushed out, but he wasn’t breathing.

Zoro glanced at him. “Don’t worry, I gave my portion to Luffy.”

“That’s not the point!” Sanji jumped to his feet. “Do you know how many people would’ve killed for a meal like that, and you just left it!”

It hurt. It so fucking much that Sanji didn’t know what else to do but yell and hope his pain would be carried out by his voice.

“Relax,” Zoro said, though his voice was oddly quiet.

“Don’t you dare fucking tell me to relax! I—” Sanji’s voice choked as tears burned his eyes. He turned around, hoping Zoro didn’t see, trying his best to keep them from bursting out.

“What’s wrong with you today?” Sanji didn’t respond. He closed his eyes, hoping they’d seal away his tears forever, and he hoped that if he closed them hard enough, those memories would, too, forever be locked away. But when he opened them, tears fell down his face and those memories became all he could think of.

“Didn’t you hear what I—Shit, are… are you crying?” Zoro walked in front of Sanji, staring at him with a face that Sanji had never seen before. He looked almost concerned.

Sanji wiped his face and looked away. “No! I—” But he couldn’t get any further with his throat being blocked off by his tears.

“Fuck. Look. I’m sorry, okay?” Zoro said, panicked. “I’ll go back upstairs right now and eat dinner, so… so don’t cry.”

Sanji was so shocked that the tears stopped. “Are you an idiot?” Sanji rubbed his eyes with his sleeve. “You know what, I already know the answer. Just go upstairs and eat.”

But Zoro didn’t move. He stared at Sanji with that same, concerned look, which made him suddenly aware that he just cried in front of Zoro, of all people. Embarrassment rose inside of him, and shame quickly mixed in with all of the other negative emotions like the most fucked up smoothie ever.

Sanji took a deep breath, hoping he could keep his voice steady. “Get out of here already.” Zoro made no attempt to move. “What’s wrong?” The moment of shock was washing away, allowing the memories to flood in again, this time much louder. It was as if Sanji was back in the prison again, his tears irritating his face just as the metal mask did, the distant sound of the ocean just like the one he’d used to hear as the Germa Kingdom moved from one ocean to the next.

“Nothing.”

“You’re shaking.”

Sanji gripped his arm, not even aware he was trembling. “It’s nothing, really.”

Zoro stared at Sanji for a second longer, before plopping himself onto the couch. “Fine. It’s nothing.” Zoro unscrewed the cap to the sake, took a long sip, then held it out for Sanji. “Want a drink?”

Sanji wanted to say, “I’d rather be alone,” but it was a lie, and at that moment, he couldn’t muster the power to lie, so he grabbed the bottle from Zoro, drank the burning, gross liquid, and sat. Neither of them spoke as they passed the bottle between each other. In the distance, they could hear the rest of the crew during their rambunctious dinner, Luffy’s laughter floating above the rest of the voices. It was comforting, far from the silence of the prison.

“They’re loud,” Zoro said, then took a drink of sake.

“It’s not too bad. I don’t mind it.”

“I never said it was bad. Just that they’re loud.” Zoro handed the bottle to Sanji. He grabbed it, his hand accidentally wrapping around Zoro’s. It was surprisingly warm, far different from the cold air. Far different from the cold stone of his prison.

Sanji quickly yanked his hand back. “Sorry,” he muttered, feeling strangely embarrassed.

Zoro stared at Sanji, a gray eye locking onto blue ones. Sanji prepared for him to yell at him or say something about touching him, and Sanji tried to quickly think or a retort, maybe something about not wanting to touch such rough, calloused hands, or that he was too warm, like a fire, but none was needed, because what Zoro said was so completely unexpected that Sanji couldn’t even comprehend a response.

“Your eyes are really pretty when you cry,” Zoro said. Sanji stared at him blankly, which caused red to sprout on Zoro’s cheekbones, the color of autumn leaves. It was cute, or it would’ve been if it was on a woman, and not Zoro. “I just, I mean, the red made your eyes really pop, is all. Nothing but an observation.”

His sudden fluster made Sanji nervous. “I-I know what you mean.”

And that's all I have for now ;-; I plan to post sometime this week, hopefully Friday (1/5). It is a planned smut, and ofc, a bottom Zoro fic.

#one piece #fanfic #vinsmoke sanji #sanji/zoro #zosan #one piece fanfiction #zosan one piece #bottom zoro #current wip #roronoa zoro #light angst

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