Enjoy My Current Obsession

Clean and clear- Soap’s callsign was more than jokes about dropping the soap in the shower. Johnny moves back towards the compound wall, his gun stays holstered to keep silent. He surveys the carnage left behind and sees the convoy of backup that would mean certain doom for him and Ghost. The headlights peeking through the mountains meant he had an hour- tops. He clocks three armored SUVs leaving through the main gates, carrying an easy payload of high-ranking cartel members, but this is no longer about stopping the enemy. Not when he’s still fuming at Price for leaving a man behind.

He drops down, his twisted knee from earlier slows him for a beat before he moves silently towards the cartel stash house. Soap’s knife slices across a throat before burying it in the chest of the other before a single shot can be wasted; the two men join the pile of bodies they’d been collecting from the bloodshed. A quick look at the corpses confirms his big bastard of a lieutenant isn’t one of them.

He slips into the side door, sticking to the shadows as he watches the hurried clean-up of shadow and cartel bodies alike. This mission had been more than a shitshow and Soap’s silent comms reminded exactly how alone he was in this. Shadows had been trigger happy, leveling a building before Ghost had confirmed he was clear. Soap didn’t believe for a second that Ghost hadn’t heard the order to take it down; that he wouldn’t do everything possible to get clear- even if it left him in the hands of the cartel.

Johnny doesn’t think about how he wouldn’t be going back into this hell if it weren’t Ghost. It was solely because Soap was loyal- he’d do the same for any of the 141. Of course he would. It wasn’t because Ghost could read his mind even when Soap was spouting out bullshit. It wasn’t the heat Johnny felt creep down his spine in the showers when Ghost came out bare chested. It certainly wasn’t because he hides his rosary on nights Ghost sits too close; he wanted God far away from the things his traitorous heart pumped through his blood.

Soap moves across the courtyard slowly, moving from cover to cover. They’d be stupid to keep Ghost above ground, not with a possible airstrike headed their way again. Ghost was too important; held too much intel to be wasted. Back to the wall, Soap listens carefully for the footsteps and chatter from inside. When the footsteps fade, Soap jimmies the door open, slipping inside and heading down the stairs. After sweeping the hallway, he finds two open doors, clearing them before heading to the last door at the end of the cellar.

“El gran fantasma desenmascarado por fin…”

Jackpot.

Soap slips his knife against the lock, unholstering his pistol when he hears the click. With a sharp kick, Soap takes in the sight of Ghost, unmasked and beaten half to hell.

“¡Qué carajos-!”

POP. POP.

The shots hit the bastard holding a knife to Ghost’s throat, one in the chest and one in the head. The movement of the man jerking back from the shots slice the knife across the lieutenant’s bare skin- not enough to bleed out, but enough for Soap to feel more dread coil in his stomach. He moves without thought, cutting through the ropes already starting to rough up Ghost’s ungloved wrists.

“Steamin’ Jesus, LT. Knew ye weren’t dead.”

“Johnny-?” Ghost’s voice is rough, smoke and heat scraping his throat from the explosion. “Get out of here. I’m a liability- “

“Negative.” Soap cuts him off, releasing the last of the binds around his ankles with quick hands, single-minded on getting Ghost out of here, “Can ye walk? We gottae move. Quick.”

Ghost stands with Soap’s shoulder under his arm. The smell of burnt flesh and blood draft upwards towards Soap’s nose as he eyes the tattered jeans and charred shirt of his superior.

Ghost shrugs off Soap’s arm with a grunt, holding his hand out for Soap’s second pistol. “Where’s the team?”

“Exfil point- safehouse.” Soap mutters, pulling a bandana from his pack and handing it to Ghost.

"You're here alone?" Ghost bites out before tying it over the bottom half of his face, flipping the safety off his gun and tilting his head towards the door. “Take lead.”

Soap moves towards the hallway again, sweeping it and thanking a god he barely believes in that his shots went unnoticed. “There’s a cover point near the east wall, if we can get back there, we might be able to make it.”

When they head up to the courtyard, Soap and Ghost move as a team, Ghost sprinting as if he hadn’t been kneecapped and sliced. Soap’s gut churns anytime he gets a glimpse of the blood marring Ghost’s neck, forcing his training to take control. Emotions get men killed.

“Price. Do ye copy?” Soap checks in over comms, watching the sky to find any evidence of their exfil on the way home without them. “This is Bravo 7-1. A've got Brave 0-7. Requesting exfil.”

When he only receives static back, he tries again. “Price! Do ye copy?”

Ghost’s back is against the wall as they watch the courtyard start to pick up activity. “How many bodies did you leave, Soap? They know- “

“Enough tae get tae ye.” Soap hisses back, both of them making a break for the far wall.  “Price! How copy? This is Bravo 7-1. Need immediate exfil-!”

The words are no sooner out of his mouth than a gunshot rings out, Ghost taking down the guard closest to them and giving Soap enough time to jump up the wall. Three bullets whizz past him as his comms finally ring out with Price’s voice, “Bravo 7-1 this is 0-6. Exfil granted, get back to the safehouse. Thirty minutes.”

Soap reaches down for Ghost, his hand barely making purchase before someone gets a direct hit across Soap's shoulder, dropping Ghost back down with a grunt. “Ghost!”

To the left, a grenade explodes against the wall, debris and smoke giving them cover. Ghost and Soap both freeze for less than a beat, processing the direction of the grenade. It came from outside the wall. Gaz’s voice rings out over comms, “Get moving, sarge. Only got a few of those left.”

Ghost has enough purchase to grapple over the smoldering stucco. Soap drops down, making a run for the hills beyond the walls and back towards the safehouse. The chopper is halfway off the ground as the two men dive into the waiting doors.

"Ah keen ye weren’t dead. Ach, no one believed me, but-" Soap’s hands are trembling as he gives Ghost his mask, stopping him before the mask can cover his neck, the turbulence of the chopper ignored. “Lemme take a look a' that- “

“Soap.” Ghost pushes Soap’s hands back, affixing his mask in place and grabbing both of the shaking man’s hands, “Johnny.”

Soap’s hands won’t stop vibrating even as Ghost levels him with a hard look, “You got shot.”

Soap glances down at his shoulder, the pain coming back in a sharp wave, “Grazed me.”

Ghost doesn’t speak as he pulls Soap’s collar to the side. A graze was a nice way of putting it- more like a lucky angle that kept Soap from a shattered collarbone instead of taking out a chunk of skin and muscle.

Soap hisses when Ghost pushes him onto the seat next to him, flipping open the med kit to press gauze to the wound. The sterile fabric turns red with the sergeant’s sacrifice. “LT, what happened?”

Ghost pauses as he starts to wrap his shoulder, speaking quietly, “Got clear of the blast, barely, but took the back of a pistol to the head. Woke up underground with some bastard speaking Spanish. Learned the word for knife pretty quick.”

Soap’s eyes close, trying to get ahold of himself and think of anything but the warm hands patching him up. His lip trembles with adrenaline and something he refuses to name, “Ghost…”

“No,” Ghost rumbles, “That was bloody stupid. I was dead and gone as far as you knew.”

“I keen you weren’t- “

“No. You didn’t.” Ghost’s voice cuts through Soap’s pained desperation, “…and I didn’t either.”

Soap stops at that, looking to Price who is moving up to the cockpit, before looking back to Ghost, his voice dropping, “Ye thought I was dead?”

“Didn’t exactly get a debrief in their holding cell, did I? Last I saw was your ass getting shot at while I was being swallowed by a fireball.”

“I-“ Soap blinks several times, “Well, ahm not, am ah?”

“Me neither.” Ghost confirms, “Told you I’d never die with regrets.”

Soap’s head drops back against the chopper wall, sighing as Ghost finishes the wrapping of his shoulder before his eyes close. He pulls his lips in tight when Ghost’s hands leave his shoulder, the heat dissipating quicker than he can hope. “Aye. I remember.”

Ghost shifts, turning to face Soap, “Don’t you want to know what I’d regret?”

Soap cracks an eye open, a weak smirk on his face, unable to stop scanning the mask as if it will show the wounds underneath,

“Didnae think ye could regret anything…”

Ghost catches his chin, keeping eye contact as he lifts his mask back up to his nose. The fresh slash across the side of his neck making Johnny’s heartbeat faster with concern and heat.

“Have just the one.”

Ghost moves his hand from his chin to the back of his neck, pulling Johnny towards him to press their lips together. Johnny’s eyes widen, shocked at the first contact, before leaning into the kiss with a release of tension in his whole body. The taste of blood, whose blood was unclear, floods both their senses as Johnny parts his lips to better capture his lieutenant’s mouth.  The kiss turns plush for a moment before Ghost pulls back and tugs his mask back down over his mouth.

“There. Now I can die.”

Soap didn’t lean back; mouth parted like Ghost’s lips were still against his. He stares at the man who stole his heart, sliced it open, and then kissed it clean. It takes several beats before reality slams back into Johnny, Ghost’s words sharp in his ears.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed. Beef had whined a little earlier, and guilt spurred Robert to try and sit up. White lights flashed in front of his eyes, his stomach sprang to his throat, and with a whine of his own, Robert settled back on the couch. He hadn't tried to move since.

Sometimes, he saw his phone light up with an incoming text through his eyelashes, but Robert didn't want to test looking at the phone, nonetheless responding to whatever drama came up. Whatever happened, it was fine. Mandy and Chase could handle whatever disaster came up.

His phone flashed on several more times in succession. Robert completely closed his eyes. When his brain wasn't trying to exit through his ears and nose, he would look through his settings so it wouldn't do that.

The occasional migraine was just another leftover from his coma, right up there with the metal in his spine and his new ability to tell when rain was coming. Robert had no clue what triggered this one. Trying to remember only made his skull pulse more.

Robert focused on his breathing. Like they taught him at the hospital before he made his escape. Focused on the ebb and flow of it, the feel of it in his nose, the temperature of his breath. Focused on it and tried to relax, let his headache become background noise.

Yeah, it didn't work. Sometimes, he regretted leaving so early. Maybe they would have taught him more tricks.

Except it also would have meant putting up with the staring.

Breathing exercises failing, Robert fell back on his default: staying still. Unmoving and forcing himself to relax whenever he started tensing up. It only made the headache worse, but the pain made him tense, which strengthened the headache, which...

When Robert heard his balcony door open, his first thought wasn't that he forgot to lock it last night: it was that if it was a villain, he hoped they made it quick.

"This place still looks awful! Damn, bitch, haven't you done a thing with it since the party?"

Ah. Flambae. Normally Robert enjoyed his voice, even if admitting it would be asking for months of torture. Right now, he wanted to punch Flambae in the throat if it would make him shut up.

He tried to tell him that, but only a groan escaped. Robert slitted his eyes open enough to see a shadow fall over him.

"...shit. Are you alive?"

Robert's hand was still by his phone. He shifted it just enough to give Flambae the finger. Flambae scoffed. "And here I was coming over on my lunch to check on you. I brought food and everything."

Immediately, Robert's stomach threatened to revolt. Robert coughed into the couch cushion and shifted his hand to a thumbs-down.

"Okay, okay. Yeesh." Robert heard Flambae walk around the couch and tracked him through his eyelashes. "You look like shit. I mean, you usually look like shit, but now you look like something Sonar threw up."

And back to the middle finger.

Flambae huffed, but thankfully, he lowered his voice. "Whatever. No delicious food for you then." Robert saw him do something with the bag in his hand but couldn't figure out what. Flambae knelt beside the couch. Robert guessed he paused to pet Beef based on the odd movement of his arm and Beef's sudden, excited panting. At least, he hoped Flambae was petting him and not feeding him any of that lunch. Robert had splurged and bought Beef some nice, vet-recommended food, and it was hard enough keeping him on his diet with Chase around.

"Look, we need you back tomorrow so we don't have to deal with that old fart again. This isn't personal or anything. Just... My sister used to get migraines, right? Some post-pregnancy bullshit. She said heat helped. Since I'm such an amazing hero, I'm offering my services to -- huh?"

Robert hadn't even let him finish before giving a thumb's up. He was desperate... and a little worried that he would throw up on Beef. He wished his dog hadn't settled directly under him.

"...fuck, you must really feel like shit." Robert was finally becoming delirious with pain. Flambae actually sounded worried. Flambae's voice grew softer with every word. "You don't... you don't do this shit, Bob Bob..." His voice strengthened again, although it remained thankfully quiet. Maybe he really was familiar with migraines. "Don't worry, bitch. Flambae is here to save the day."

Of course Flambae was the type of hero to do speeches. If he would just --

Ooooooh.

Robert exhaled slowly as Flambae's hot palm settled on the back of his neck, relaxing the muscles there. His eyes fluttered shut again as the heat slowly spread, Flambae's other hand starting to rub his back. His hands were large, fingers occasionally digging into muscle or scratching his scalp. At last, Robert felt himself relax.

"I can feel your spine, bitch. If you can't eat now, fine, but it's going to be in the fridge and you're going to fucking eat it. Then tomorrow you can tell me how it was the best food you've ever eaten, because we both know it will be."

Robert hummed incoherently. The pain was still there, filling up his skull, but it was weakening its hold on him, leaving only exhaustion in its wake. He felt like he was rocking on a boat, the pain a relentless ebb and flow, surrounded by Flambae's heat.

"Who knew Mecha Bitch could look so sweet like this?" Flambae rubbed his neck again, easing out the last of the tension. Some of the pain flowed out with it, like poison from a wound, and Robert melted into the couch. "It's weird. Like this, you look... you look..."

They collide in a flurry that blurs sound and shape, Zoro’s body reading the angles before his brain catches up. When they break to circle again Sanji’s shirt is plastered to his spine in dark patches and his collar hangs open, exposing a throat that’s working too fast. There’s a tight, ugly set to his jaw that has nothing to do with exertion.

Zoro’s grip shifts on nothing, hands empty and wanting a sword. “How many nights is it now? Since –”

Sanji’s heel whips up, faster than thought. Zoro gets his forearms up but the force still knocks him sideways, boots skidding. “You wanna bring that up now? On deck, during sparring, in front of everyone?”

“Who’s listening?” Zoro shoots back. Nami’s got her sunglasses down, pretending to nap and Luffy’s yelling fight fight fight like he doesn’t know any other chant. The world’s narrowed right down to the heat, to the sun, to the drum of their boots on wood. “They know you’re an idiot, they know I’m an idiot. Nothing new there.”

“Yeah?” Sanji laughs, short and serrated. “That it? I’m an idiot, so I should just shut up and be grateful I’m still alive, right? Grateful I didn’t fuck things up worse?”

He comes at Zoro again, grace stripped down to something brutal, precision wrapped in rage and that rage riding every kick like extra weight. Zoro catches the next one on both forearms and holds, heel grinding meat and bone until it hurts. He leans into it because he doesn’t know what else to lean into right now. “I didn’t say that, I said you need to sleep.”

“Funny,” Sanji breathes, twisting, trying to yank his leg free like he’d rather tear muscle than stay still. “Zoro Roronoa preaching self preservation. What, you get religion all of a sudden?”

“I got tired of watching you burn yourself down,” Zoro snaps and it costs more air than any block.

Sanji freezes for the barest, fatal fraction of a second and that’s all it takes, apparently.

The heat hits first, the air between them turning into a visible shimmer that Zoro feels wash over his forearms, followed by a sudden, roaring wall that curls the fine hairs on his skin. The smell of singed cloth slaps him in the face.

Then the fire comes.

It roars up around Sanji’s leg and it’s nowhere near the tight precise column Zoro knows: it's a flare, wild and overfed. It climbs past his knee, white at the core, orange at the edges, tongues of flame licking for anything they can eat and the temperature spikes so hard, so fast that Zoro’s forearms go from hot to screaming in a single breath.

“Sanji –” he starts.

Sanji’s gone sickly pale under the flush, pupils blown like a cornered animal’s. “Shit!” he gasps, raw. “Shit, shit!”

Zoro releases his grip to drop back but Sanji’s balance’s already shot so when he jerks his leg away he overcorrects on the slick radiating heat of the deck. His foot only grazes Zoro’s side, a glancing blow, but the flame clings, greedy and catches the cotton of the haramaki and climbs in a hungry streak.

Pain detonates along Zoro’s ribs, bright and absolute. His breath punches out in a rough, low grunt, not dignified, not controlled, just dragged out of him. His knees hit the deck hard enough to rattle his teeth.

“Zoro!” Luffy’s voice slices the air, too high, shocked.

Sanji’s fire cuts off. One second it’s devouring oxygen and the next it’s gone, ripped back by a brute force snap of will that leaves the air around his leg smoking. Sanji staggers forward, hands jerking out like he’s about to grab Zoro but his hands flinch back from Zoro’s burnt shirt like they’ve got knives for fingers. His fingers curl in on themselves. His mouth opens, closes, opens again, nothing forming.

The smell catches up: the delayed, nauseating wave of charred fabric, cooked cotton, and under that, thin and awful, the sour-sweet edge of seared flesh. Zoro breathes through his nose, steady, because the band around his ribs is made of knives now. Pain crawls and hisses along his side, down both forearms where he held Sanji’s ankle.

“Oh,” Sanji whispers, sound fraying at the edges. “Oh fuck.”

“I’m okay,” Zoro says because someone has to say it or Luffy’ll be in pieces. He keeps his tone flat, edged in annoyance because he knnows Sanji listens to that better than kindness. “You tryna roast me for dinner, cook?”

It doesn’t even dent it.

Nami’s hand shades her eyes. “What the hell just happened?”

“Yo! Chopper!” Usopp makes a sprint for the infirmary and Sanji’s boots scrape as he takes a single step back. Just one, just enough to open that old, familiar gap Zoro’s been watching him put between himself and the crew ever since he came back.

“Don’t,” Zoro grunts without looking up.

“Don’t what?” Sanji’s voice comes out shredded and small. He’s standing like someone hammered him to the deck, his torso tilted toward Zoro but every muscle in him pulling away. His face looks suddenly carved, too sharp at the edges. Sweat that was simple exertion a minute ago is shock now, cold and clammy under the sun and his bright blue eyes are locked on Zoro’s side, on the black, curling edges of burned fabric where the haramaki’s eaten through, on the angry slick of red beneath.

Zoro grits his teeth until his jaw clicks. “Don’t run.”

“I just set you on fire,” Sanji hisses and the laugh that rides the words is nothing like his usual showy cackle. It’s cracked clean through, splintered. “Excuse me if I don’t feel like standing here admiring the handiwork.”

“It was an accident.”

Sanji snaps, his voice jumping. “Do not do that. Don't accident at me while you’re on your knees breathing like that.”

Zoro snorts despite the way his side throbs. “You think this is breathing bad? You should’ve seen me after Kuma –”

Sanji flinches like he took a blade to the ribs and Zoro shuts the hell  up.

Chopper hits the deck in a clatter of hooves and medical gear. “What happened? Why does it smell like a burnt ham?”

Nami points. “He overcooked him.”

“Oi,” Zoro mutters but there’s no bite to it.

Chopper skids in beside him, hands everywhere: pulse, pupils, ribs. His voice is high and panicked. “Shirt off! No – slowly! Actually, Sanji, help him sit up, carefully!”

Sanji doesn’t move.

Zoro rolls his eye and grunts, forcing his legs under him. Every stretch of damaged skin complains as he shrugs out of ruined shirt and haramaki one-handed and Chopper hisses like a kettle when the full extent of the burn comes into view. It’s not catastrophic, Zoro notes in the detached, practical part of his brain that always shows up for damage reports. It’s just a hand-span patch of skin across his ribs, angry and shining, halfway between livid pink and glossy white. Admittedly, the edges are already bubbling with blisters but his forearms are uglier: uneven bands of red and damp, where Sanji’s ankle and flames kissed them. Chopper prods, muttering about dermal layers and scarring and infection and idiots who don’t know when to stop.

Zoro lets him. Pain’s easy. It’s clean. It’s something he can put his teeth around.

“Is he gonna be okay?” Luffy calls down from the rigging, hanging upside down like a distraught bat.

“He’ll live,” Chopper says briskly, smearing cooling ointment that stinks of herbs and menthol. Not worse than the burnt flesh, though. “But this is serious. No fighting for a few days. No lifting heavy things. No getting it wet”

“Curls,” Zoro drawls, eye on the mast ahead. “If you’re gonna lurk at least make yourself useful. Get Chopper some water.”

There’s a sound, small and strangled, like Sanji just bit through his tongue before the scrape of boots and the clatter of glass. A canteen lands next to Chopper’s kit with more force than necessary, sloshing.

“Gentler!” Chopper yelps. “He’s injured.”

Sanji makes a sound that’s almost a laugh but has too much marrow in it. “Yeah,” he says, hollow. “That’s the problem.”

x

The others don’t leave right away: Luffy has to be bribed with snacks and a promise that Zoro will live and still be fun to fight later. Usopp lingers, eyes big, until Nami catches his ear and drags him off with orders about checking lines far away from the idiot fire pit. She watches Sanji the whole time.

Chopper finishes wrapping a thick bandage around Zoro’s torso, snug enough to hold the salve in place and keep the skin from pulling and it feels like someone’s cinched him with rough cloth and ice. “Burn ointment every four hours and you tell me iuf it blisters worse. Don’t scratch. Don’t pick. Don’t soak it in sake. I mean it.” He swivels. “Sanji.”

Sanji jerks like he’s been shocked. “Yeah?”

“You’re on application duty,” Chopper says, no room for argument. “He’ll half-ass it and I don’t trust him. And you need to monitor how hot your leg gets in combat! That flare-up wasn’t normal. If your fire is changing then we need to know.”

Sanji’s face tries to twist into a scowl and gets stuck somewhere half-formed. “Yeah,” he says again but the word comes out quiet, like it’s been stepped on.

“Every four hours,” Chopper repeats, giving them both one last hard doctor stare before he gathers his bag and trots off, muttering about stupid strong humans and adaptive flame outputs.

Silence drops like a second sail and Zoro flexes his fingers, testing the drag of bandages on his forearms. The tug, the itch, the constant sting are all familiar notes in a language he’s fluent in. Pain doesn’t lie. Sanji, on the other hand…

He’s sitting on the far side of the mast, spine pressed to wood like he needs something solid to keep him vertical. One leg folded, one stretched, the ring of singed fabric around his thigh making a rough halo. The skin underneath is fine, of course, it always is. Sanji’s body knows his own fire in ways that aren’t fair, to be honest. His hands rest palm-up on his knees, fingers splayed like he doesn’t trust them not to move if he lets them hang. The fingers themselves are steady. The knuckles are bone-white.

“Not talking suits you,” Zoro mutters eventually because apparently he does have a death wish.

Sanji’s head snaps up. His eyes look like cracked glass, bright, brittle, nothing solid to hang onto. “Oh, I can talk, Moss. I can say plenty. Like how I nearly ruined your arms.”

Zoro glances at his wrapped forearms. “You aimed for my ribs, not my arms. I blocked. That’s on me.”

“Oh, great!” Sanji snarls. “We can split it fifty-fifty, then. My leg turned into a fucking kiln and you decided to hug it. That’s so fucking comforting.”

Zoro shifts, biting down on the wince as bandaged skin pulls. “You gonna keep yelling from over there or you coming closer so I don’t have to shout back?”

Sanji stares like Zoro just suggested they practice juggling swords over a fire pit again. It went so well last time. “You’re burned.”

“Yeah.”

“Because I lost control.”

“Yeah.” Zoro doesn’t look away. “And?”

Sanji’s mouth flattens. “And I could’ve cooked you alive, you absolute moron.”

Zoro shrugs. “You dragged it back.”

Sanji explodes up to his feet like the deck’s shocked him, pacing the short distance the beam allows, then slamming his hands down on the rail until the wood creaks under the force of it. “You don’t get it! It’s not just kicks and flashy party tricks anymore. It’s –” He gropes at his chest, like there’s a word lodged between ribs that he’s trying to rip out. “It’s like something under the skin. Moving. Waiting. And when I’m pissed, when I’m –” He stops. The word he doesn’t say hangs there anyway: afraid.

Zoro clocks the fast shudder of his shoulders, the flicker of something old and poisonous behind his eyes. He pictures it before he can stop himself, Nami’s hushed whispers filling in the blanks. Metal cuffs. A prison dining room dressed up as a wedding. The sound of Luffy’s voice.

“When I feel like that,” Sanji says, quieter now. “It gets worse. I get hotter. I feel like if I stop moving I’m gonna go off. Like if I keep hitting things maybe I can outrun it. And then today I almost –”

“You didn’t,” Zoro cuts in, sharp.

Sanji laughs a jagged, awful sound that makes Zoro’s skin crawl. “You know what real burns smell like? Flesh. Hair. I do.” His silhouette’s all clean, cruel lines against the hard glitter of the sea. “I’ve spent my whole fucking life making sure I never did that to anyone. That I never… that this only ever landed on people who deserved it. And then I look down and see your skin blistering and all I can smell is them. Him. That fucking kitchen. That fucking –”

The word chokes off on an inhale that sounds like it hurts and Zoro hauls himself upright because he can feel where this is tilting. The air’s changed, gone thin, sharp, like it does right before steel comes out of a sheath and he knows this isn’t just about the burn. It’s about the thing that’s been wedged between them since Whole Cake, growing mould and knives while they pretended they were fine.

“It was an accident,” Zoro says, voice level, lungs already bracing for the hit.

“Sure,” Sanji scowls, icy. “Just another one for the list, right? Just another fuck-up.”

There it is: the thread Zoro’s been studiously not pulling. He was going to leave it, he really fucking was. He wasn’t there. He didn’t see the forest, the rain, the way Sanji’s blows landed on their captain. He only got it secondhand through Luffy’s rueful grin, through Nami’s clenched jaw, through Sanji’s bruises. Sanji’s silence.

Zoro’d swallowed all of it, filed it in the same drawer as every wound he didn’t take himself. Useless anger. Old ache. Something that keeps his sword hand restless at night. “I never said you fucked anything up.”

“No,” Sanji agrees coldly. “That’s the problem.”

Zoro’s brow creases. “What?”

“You didn’t say anything,” Sanji snaps and for the first time all day there’s honest, live heat behind it. “Not a fucking word. Even Usopp managed a shitty pun about weddings and funerals and you’ve just been walking around like a – like a fucking grave with legs.”

“I haven’t –”

“Oh, give me a fucking break,” Sanji snarls, shoving off the rail to face him. “You expect me to believe Roronoa Zoro, king of opinions and pointy arguments, has nothing to say about the cook who bailed on the crew and left your captain for dead?”

Zoro’s jaw ticks. “You want me to yell at you for it?”

“I want you to say something!” Sanji throws back. “Anything! You think I don’t know you were pissed?”

The problem is pissed doesn’t touch it. Pissed is spilled drink, stolen cigarette and what Zoro felt hearing the story was something uglier, heavier. A sick, helpless fury that sat in his gut like a stone. The words come out harsher than he intends. “Why? You didn’t get enough lectures over there?”

Sanji flinches, sharp and involuntary, and Zoro hates that he notices. Hates that he knows the shape of Sanji’s flinches now: what’s from ego, what’s from bone-deep shit someone else carved into him. “My lectures came with exploding hands and threats about my loved ones dying. Thought maybe this one’d be lighter.”

Zoro looks up at the sky for half a heartbeat, like there might be patience up there. There isn’t. He grits his teeth and grinds out: “So, what, you want me to stand here and say that you hurt Luffy so I’m mad’? Fine. You hurt Luffy. I’m mad.”

Sanji flares. “You think I don’t know that?”

“I don’t know what you know!” Zoro snaps. “You didn’t give us a say, you just left.”

The wind kicks up like it’s been listening, shoving at both of them. Sanji’s hands curl at his sides, fingers twitching like they’re remembering cuffs. His voice drops to something rough. “So what was I meant to do, huh? Invite you all to a nice family reunion? Hey everyone, pack your bags! We’re going to a murder tea party where my brothers want to dissect you, my father wants to explode you and my new in-laws want to kill my captain as a wedding favour! Sounds like a fuckin’ great holiday.”

“You were meant to tell us.”

Sanji laughs, that gutted sound again. “Tell you what? That my own blood decided I was a useful piece of bait? What was the move, then? Give me one good goddamn plan where that ends with all of you alive and my old man not redecorating the Baratie with Zeff’s head.”

Zoro is quiet just long enough for the wind to shove at the silence. He says, finally: “You think you’re the only one who knows how to bleed for someone? You’re not special, Curs. You’re just the only one suicidal enough to do it alone.”

“Alone was the point,” Sanji spits. “Alone meant safe. For you.”

“Bullshit.” Zoro’s hands fist, bandages pulling sharply, and Sanji flinches all over again. “We were in the second you walked off that ship, Sanji. You know that, that’s what a crew is. You ran thinking you were hauling the blast away from us and all you did was make sure we couldn’t see where the hell it was coming from.”

“So what, you’re mad because I didn’t hand you a target?” Sanji demands. “Because you missed out on a fun little war?”

“I’m mad,” Zoro says, voice rising despite his best efforts to keep himself, to keep this bottled. He’s been keeping it bottled for days. Weeks. “Because they hurt you and I wasn’t there.”

Sanji stares at him like Zoro just ran him through with language. His voice breaks on the first syllable and he swallows like it cuts. “You – you don’t get to say that like I’m some kid who got roughed up behind the bar. I knew what I was doing.”

“Did you?” Zoro tilts his head. “You knew how far Luffy’d go for you?”

Sanji looks away so fast it’s almost violent.

“You knew he’d drag himself after you half-dead,” Zoro presses on, voice dropping back to something awful, something dragged out of him. “You knew he’d starve himself waiting. You knew he’d stand there and tell you to come back and you knew you’d hit him with every shitty thing your old man ever taught you about yourself until he was bleeding for it. You knew all that?”

“Stop,” Sanji says, quiet and flayed.

“You knew,” Zoro insists because this is the splinter he can’t pull out any other way. “Or you didn’t. Which is worse?”

“Stop.”

“Why didn’t you trust him!” Zoro explodes. “Why didn’t you trust us? You think we’re that weak? That we’d fold that easy? You think any of us would look at you and think oh well, guess he’s more trouble than he’s worth! Who the fuck put that in your head?”

Sanji’s breathing is wrong now, too fast, grabbing at air that won’t stay. “I thought that you’d live if they kept me or killed me or whatever! At least my shit wouldn’t drag all of you down with me. I thought if I just went back where I belong you’d be – you’d be free.”

Zoro stares at him.

“What?” Sanji barks. He’s standing there like he’s bracing for a physical blow. “Say it. Say it was the wrong call. Say I’m selfish, say I fucked up. I fucking know that already! The least you can do is tell me you’re as pissed as I am.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Sanji lets out something between a laugh and a snarl. “Wow, thanks, fuckin’ revolutionary insight –”

“You’re an idiot,” Zoro cuts across, stepping in. “For thinking there’s any version of you that belongs in that house.”

Sanji’s mouth snaps shut.

“You make it sound,” Zoro says, voice gone slow and dangerous. “Like there’s two worlds and you’re some piece that can be slotted back and forth. There isn’t. There’s here, this ship, this crew. That’s the world you picked.”

“You didn’t see –”

“I don’t need to see it,” Zoro bites out. “I’ve seen enough, I know which way your feet point. You belong here because you said so. That’s it, that’s the math.”

Sanji’s eyes shine, not from the sun. He tips his chin up anyway, stubborn even when he’s shaking. “Yeah? And what about when belonging gets everyone killed?”

“Then we die together,” Zoro says, blunt as blade. “Still better than you dying alone thinking you were just a bad investment finally getting liquidated.”

The wind roars in the rigging, making the Sunny’s bones hum. When Sanji swallows it sounds like it hurts. “You think that’s noble? You think that’s romantic or something, all if we go then we go together but it’s not. It’s what they drilled into me, Zoro. It’s the only thing they taught me that made sense: my body in, everyone else out.”

Zoro catches the hem of Sanji’s coat, fingers knotting in the fabric and Sanji jerks like he’s been grabbed by a guard instead of a friend. Zoro exhales steadily, nose wrinkling at the strong scent of the ointment lingering in the air. He keeps his voice low now. “And you didn’t think to let anyone else into the equation?”

Sanji makes a sound that sounds like it cuts his lungs. “Oh, right. You were gonna show up with your swords and what? Fight for my honour on a wedding cake? You can’t even find the front door without a guide. You get lost on a dock.”

“You didn’t give me the chance,” Zoro breathes. “Didn’t give any of us the chance. You decided our limits for us. You decided what risks we were allowed to take and what we were allowed to lose. You did the same shit you scream at me for in every fight: you saw a threat and decided to handle it alone. You just dressed it up as you deserving it because you’re, what, trash?”

That lands: Sanji flinches like Zoro’s driven a thumb straight into an old bruise. Zoro keeps going, because stopping now would be worse. He chooses his words carefully, deliberately, because he always has when it’s mattered and this – this matters more than anything, right now. “You didn’t trust us enough to believe we’d pick you, whatever the cost.”

Sanji’s voice drops to a rasp. “That’s not fair.”

“It’s true.”

The deck feels smaller now, Sanji’s chest moving too fast, pulling in more air than there is space for. “Luffy was…” his voice fractures, rebuilds crooked. “Luffy was bad enough. D'you have any idea how much I wanted to stay down?”

“Yeah,” Zoro says quietly. “I do.”

Sanji’s gaze snaps to his. “You weren’t there.”

“I know that look. Seen it in a mirror my whole life.” He steps in, until their foreheads almost touch, until their breath mixes hot and salty between them. “Difference is I know I’m the only shield anymore.”

Sanji stares at him like that’s the cruelest thing he’s heard all day.

“You should’ve let us stand with you. You should’ve let me stand with you. What'd you think I'd do? Just be like, oh, cook’s missing, guess he evaporated? You think I’d leave that alone? I’d have dragged myself to whatever hellhole they stuffed you in and torn it down from the inside. You didn’t keep us safe, you just kept us blind.”

Sanji’s fingers twist in Zoro’s shirt again, but this time they stay there. “You’re saying all this now that it’s over. You didn’t listen to them talk about my life like a business expense. You didn’t have to –”

Zoro grabs a curl of blonde and tucks it behind an ear, letting his fingertips trace the curve of it, letting him have the flash of surprise across Sanji’s face. The hitch in his breath. “Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t. That’s what keeps me hearing myself breathe in the dark, that you got carved up by people who said they owned you and I wasn’t there to tell them they were wrong. So yeah, I’m mad you left. I’m more mad they touched you. I’m even more mad I didn’t get to put more of them in the ground. I’m…” He swallows and it feels like glass. “It hurt.”

Sanji’s eyes flare. “It hurt.”

“Because you were gone and we – I – didn’t get a vote. Because you decided it was better for you to go back to hell than to let me stand at the gate with you. Because you looked at the worst place you’ve ever known and thought yeah, that’s where I go when I’m not good enough for my crew.”

The ship creaks around them, a low, uneasy sound.

Sanji takes a few tries to respond, his voice stumbling faster now that it’s moving. “If I just… did what they wanted, maybe they’d let you all go. Free of the idiot cook who keeps dragging bounty posters and assassins and fucked-up family drama onto your ship.”

Zoro stares at him like he’s truly, spectacularly dense and oh god he is. “You think I want to be free of you,” he says slowly. “You think that’s the prize at the end of all this?”

Sanji’s gaze cuts away for a second, before Zoro tips his face back. His voice comes out a whisper. “I think it’d be easier to live without me than to keep dragging me out of the holes I dig. That’s all.”

“Maybe,” Zoro says. “If I gave a shit about wanting easy but I don’t. I want you.”

Sanji’s jaw works but nothing comes out, even as pink climbs his throat, even as his whole body tenses. 

“You pissed me off,” Zoro continues. “Scared me, sure, but guess what? I still look for you when I wake up at night. I still listen for your shitty, lopsided footsteps. I still think about you all the damn – that’s the mess you left me with.” He exhales, long and slow, like finally setting down a weight and steps in until there’s nowhere for either of them to go but forward. He presses their joined hands flat to Sanji’s chest where his heart hammers like it’s trying to crack bone. The wind claws at their coats, trying to pry them apart but doesn’t quite manage to. “You want me to yell at you? Here it is. Don’t do that again. Don’t leave like that. Don’t decide for us and sure as hell don’t decide for me.”

His eye burns. He doesn’t blink. “I gave my loyalty to Luffy with my eyes open. I knew it meant dying for his stupid choices, I chose that. You don’t get to sell my life behind my back and call it a favour. That’s not protecting me, that’s stealing from me.”

Sanji’s breath shudders. “Stealing what?”

Zoro shrugs, small, vicious and lets himself take Sanji’s hand, lets himself run his thumb over the knuckles. Feels the way the hand trembles in his. “My right to stand between you and the knife.”

For a second it’s so quiet Zoro can hear the blood moving in his own ears.

“You’re unbelievable,” Sanji says eventually, his voice thick, frayed. His hand jerks like he doesn’t know what to do with it and Zoro grips tighter, holds harder. “You’re actually mad I didn’t let you get tortured with me.”

“I’m mad,” Zoro corrects calmly. “That you didn’t trust that I wanted to.”

The Sunny rocks, a long slow sigh under their feet. Somewhere below, a door bangs and somebody laughs, distant and unaware and here, Sanji leans in until his forehead touches Zoro’s, just a bare, hot press of bone-to-bone. His voice scrapes coming out. “I’m mad that it worked. That that’s the world I came from.”

“Good. Stay mad. Aim it at the right targets this time.”

Sanji snorts something that might be a sob, if they’re being generous. Then, carefully, he lifts their joined hands and presses his mouth to the back of Zoro’s knuckles, clumsy and quick and so stupidly gentle it makes Zoro’s ribs ache in entirely new ways.

“I’m sorry,” Sanji says into his skin. “For making you hear it all secondhand while I walked around acting like nothing had changed.”

Zoro’s free hand finds the back of his neck, thumb fitting into the dip where skull meets spine. He feels the tremor running through him, all the way down. “Don’t be sorry. Just… be better.”

Sanji laughs, thin and shaky, but Zoro'll take it. Zoro'll keep it. “You’re so fucking romantic.”

Zoro feels Sanji’s breath against his knuckles, feels the words settle between his bones like a new kind of scar. They stay like that for a moment, foreheads together, hands pressed between them, the wind clawing uselessly before Sanji shifts, just enough that his gaze drops and catches on the edge of bandage peeking from under Zoro’s open haramaki. The colour drains from his face again. “I really – your arms, your side –”

“Oi.” Zoro’s thumb presses lightly into the back of his neck in warning. “Don’t start.”

“How am I not supposed to start? You’re wrapped up like a damn rice ball because I couldn’t keep my leg from turning into a furnace. You’re gonna scar.”

Zoro blinks. “You wrap rice balls?”

Sanji stares at him like that’s insane. “Are you – you’re going to feel that every time you breathe for a week, at least. I know burns, Moss.”

“Sanji.” Zoro tips his head, catching his eye, pinning it right there. “I’ve gotten worse for dumber reasons.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Sanji demands. “Oh good, I’m just in the top five attempts on your life, not number one, what a low fuckin’ bar –”

“First off, we’re pirates, the bar’s underground. And you’re not even on the list. You’re the idiot who hit me on purpose, yeah. You’re also the idiot who yanked the fire back before it cooked my ribs. Both things are true.”

Sanji’s mouth twists. His fingers twitch like they want to touch the bandage and don’t dare. “Does it hurt?”

“Yeah.” He waits for Sanji to flinch, then adds, deliberately: “It’s fine.”

Sanji lets out a sound that’s almost a laugh, almost a curse. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“I didn’t say it didn’t hurt,” Zoro counters. “I said it’s fine. Pain’s my problem. The fire part’s yours.”

Sanji’s jaw clenches. “Believe me, I’m aware.”

“I mean really yours,” Zoro says, slow, so he can’t dodge the meaning. “You heard Chopper. This isn’t nothing. It’s changing. You tell him everything. How it feels. How hot. How fast. You talk to Robin if he needs books. You don’t shrug it off and pretend you can handle it alone.”

Sanji’s shoulders hike defensively. “I said I’d monitor it –”

“You monitoring you is what got us here. You white-knuckling it because you’re scared of scaring us. I’m not doing burns like this because you’re too proud to just say your leg’s acting weird.”

Sanji looks away, out over the water, at nothing. His throat works. “You really think it’s that bad?”

“I think it’s strong,” Zoro shrugs, honest. “Stronger than it was. I think that’s not automatically bad. But strong and secret? That’s when people get dead. But you pulled it back even when your head was fucked up and your temper was worse which tells me you can control it. So you’re gonna learn how. With help. Not just… trying not to feel anything so you don’t go off.”

Sanji gives a helpless, bitter little smile. “Now you sound like Chopper.”

“Good,” Zoro snorts. “Means I’m right.”

A gull screams somewhere overhead. The sea shivers under the hull.

Sanji’s gaze slides back to his burns. “I still shouldn’t have –”

“Don’t,” Zoro warns and there’s enough steel in it that Sanji’s mouth snaps shut on the apology. Zoro eases his grip on Sanji’s neck, thumb rubbing once along the tense muscle there. “You wanna be sorry then be sorry about the part where you thought you had to handle everything alone. Not about this. This I can carry. That shit? I’m not letting you do it again.”

Sanji scoffs, eyes suspiciously bright. “You’re infuriating.”

“You like me that way,” Zoro says and for once it’s not a tease: it’s just a small, true thing laid between them.

Sanji snorts anyway, because god knows he doesn’t know what else to do with something that naked. “Apparently.”

Zoro lets their hands drop but he doesn’t let go. He’s not going to until someone makes them and, even then, he’s going to keep reaching. “C’mon, gotta rest up. Better stay close for ointment later. Doctor’s orders, after all.”

Sanji makes a face. “You really want me near your burns after that performance? That’s either deep faith or a death wish.”

“Both,” Zoro returns, deadpan. “Besides, if you screw it up then Chopper’ll yell at you instead of me. That’s a win in my books.”

Sanji laughs, properly this time, even if it catches a little. “You’re such an asshole.”

He doesn’t pull away when Zoro starts walking, though. Doesn’t let go of his hand, either. They move slowly across the deck, the late light sliding over them, lashed together by bandage and stubbornness.

x

Later, in the small quiet of the quarters the world’s gone and shrunk down to wood and light and the soft snore of a sleeping captain. Sanji kneels beside Zoro with the jar of ointment in hand.

“Four hours on the dot,” he mutters, more to himself than anything. “That damn reindeer’s worse than Zeff with a new recipe.”

Zoro huffs, lying on his side, bandages loose around his ribs so Sanji can get at them. The air’s cool on the exposed skin; he can feel the heat coming off the burn even now. He feels Sanji’s hesitation more than he sees it, a tiny stutter in the way his shadow leans and grunts. “If you’re gonna hover then do it over here. It itches.”

Sanji rolls his eyes but the corners are soft. He dips his fingers into the salve, warming it between his palms before he touches Zoro’s side, as careful as he is with knives and dough. The first press is feather-light, then firmer as he feels the way Zoro doesn’t flinch.

“You really know how to make a man feel treasured,” Sanji murmurs but his touch is reverent. His fingers trace the border of heat and intact skin like he’s memorising it, like he’s punishing himself by learning every centimetre of damage. “Tell me if it’s too cold.”

“It’s fine,” Zoro says and this time it almost is. The salve cools then burns then cools again, sinking in and Sanji’s fingers are strong and sure and everything Zoro’s been wanting. For years, if he lets himself think about it.

After a while, Sanji’s shoulders drop half an inch and some of the tightness bleeds out of his back.

“You know,” Zoro muses, eye drifting half-shut. “If this is the price of you actually touching me without a shoe then maybe I should pick more fights with your leg.”

Sanji flicks his side above the burn, the kind of casual affection Zoro would dismantle entire armies for. “You ever get hurt like this again because of me, I swear I’ll –”

“Sanji.” Zoro opens his eye. “Look at me.”

Sanji does, hand frozen mid-smear.

“I’d rather take the hit and have you standing next to me than watch you burn alone because you’re scared of what you might do.”

Sanji stares at him for a long beat. Then he exhales, slow and grim. “Fine. I’ll talk to Chopper. Properly. Not just… nod and then ignore half of what he says.”

“And Robin,” Zoro adds thoughtfully. “She likes weird cursed power shit. She’ll have ideas.”

Sanji’s mouth twitches. “Yeah? You volunteering to be my emotional support swordsman during those talks or am I flying solo here?”

Zoro considers it. “If you faint or start an argument I’m carrying you out. That’s the deal.”

Sanji shakes his head, but there’s something warm and stunned in his eyes, like he can’t quite believe he’s allowed this. He finishes with the ointment and re-wraps the bandage with the kind of neat efficiency Zoro’s never managed on himself. When he’s done his hand lingers, palm spread over Zoro’s ribs, feeling the steady rise and fall.

“Still here,” Zoro promises and he tries to smirk, to lighten it, but it doesn't hold. He's too genuine.

“Yeah,” Sanji sighs, his thumb stroking once along the edge of the bandage, like sealing something in place. “Stay that way.”

“Only if you do,” Zoro says back automatically, soft.

Sanji leans down and presses a quick, soft kiss to the bandaged skin, right over the worst of the burn, a counter-curse. His voice’s hushed. “Working on it.”

He slides down to lie beside him, careful of ribs and wraps, their shoulders pressed together in the too-small bunk. Zoro can feel the faint warmth of Sanji’s leg where it rests against his own, just heat, no flame. Controlled. Held.

“Wake me in four hours,” Sanji mumbles, already half-under.

“I will,” Zoro lies. He listens to Sanji’s breathing even out, slow and human and alive, and stares up at the dark curve of the ceiling. His side aches. His arms sting. His knuckles still remember the feel of Sanji’s mouth on them and that sensation wins out against the rest, that’s the one he carries into the night as he lets his eyes close.

The burns’ll heal. In his chest, something else has already started to.

x