Fidelis-473

***

Crisis

  Sanji is currently in the midst of a tiny but powerful crisis.

It started with the sauna.  No, the bathhouse in general.  No, the storm.

Yes, the typhoon that left everyone soaked and miserable and short-tempered was the start.

Zoro in particular hates being wet (possibly the cause of his general disdain of bathing), and was snappish as a result, which led to a mean little spat.  So, for several hours, Sanji baked bread like it could turn back time and pull his head out of his arse, and his husband was on the far end of the ship being alternately angry and depressed.

Fortunately, they made landfall by the same afternoon and were able to avail themselves of a resort with a bathhouse and sauna.

If he had hoped to spend quality time apologising for their row, Sanji was doomed to disappointment:  Zoro didn’t even look his way as he announced plans to take Luffy and Chopper to the sauna so they could warm up without drowning.

“That’s rough, bro,” Usopp commiserated.  “But, like, we could hit the sauna, too!  They’re super-relaxing.  I’ve been in, like, dozens, so I can tell this one is good just by looking at this place.”

“Excellent idea!” he said a trifle manically.

It was a terrible idea, and he knew it.

Leaving aside the absolute idiocy of engaging in public nudity with a husband whose sex drive would wither a lesser partner like a prune (which had necessarily trained Sanji into expecting sex at the slightest hint of interest), there was the sheer pettiness of Zoro completely ignoring his existence while solicitously helping Chopper scrub before entering the sauna.

Sanji was so irritated and guilty and generally distracted that he almost missed Luffy getting up with half his body still covered in soap.  “Oy, rinse properly!” he yelled, flinging water at their idiot captain.

Fine.  It was fine.  It was just five guys mostly naked in a room full of steam.

Okay, it was fine until Luffy got bored.

He started it by whipping off his towel and snapping Usopp in the ribs.  Usopp retaliated, but Luffy dodged.

Zoro took the hit in the shoulder, and that was when crisis set in for Sanji.

They’re all fit, of course—they sail and train and fight constantly.  But Luffy’s two years of training with Rayleigh are suddenly obvious as three nude bodies of various shades twist and jump and tackle.  (Off to the side, Chopper is cheering them on.)

It’s not fair.  Luffy eats three times his weight on any day ending in Y, and ten times his weight after a hard fight, but the definition of his lean muscles makes him look carved from stone.

He should stop them.  There’s steam everywhere, the benches and floor must be slippery.  Surely the establishment has rules about horseplay.

But three idiots laugh and shriek and snap livid marks onto sculpted bodies, and Sanji is annoyed and a little aroused and aghast at being aroused by something so juvenile and feeling uncomfortably inferior to his captain, to whom his husband is incredibly devoted and attached.

And it’s supremely unfair for someone as completely disinterested in sex as Luffy to be so well endowed.  What’s the point?  What a waste of a good cock!

“Sanji, you’re making a weird face,” Luffy says.

Shit!

Sanji puts on his blankest, most harmless expression.  “Oh.  Sorry, I was just thinking about things.”

Zoro raises one unimpressed eyebrow.

“Oh no!” cries Chopper.  “Are you feeling okay?  You’re so flushed—maybe the heat is too much for you.  We’re all warm enough now to support good immune function and restful sleep, so we can go get dinner.”

“You’re probably right, Chop,” Sanji says with a forced smile.

They all rinse in the cold water just outside the sauna (good for the circulation, evidently) before drying off and getting dressed in complimentary robes.

“Robin said it’s a resort, so there’s gotta be room service, right?” Luffy says eagerly.

“Preeetty sure Nami’s gonna be keeping the receipts,” Usopp warns.

“A place like this will not be kind about inability to pay,” adds Sanji.  “Might impound the Sunny.”

Luffy pouts.  “She wouldn’t let us starve!”

“Let’s check with her first, to see if we’ve got an allowance.”

Luffy and Chopper bound ahead, followed by Usopp.

“You’re being weird,” Zoro grunts.

“Oh, we’re on speaking terms again?” Sanji snarks, and immediately wants to kick himself.

“You were staring at our captain’s dick and getting jealous.  Are you seriously having some kind of attack of wounded self-esteem?  Over Luffy?”

“Over one of the most important people in your life, who also happens to be one of the only people you trust, and who evidently has an unfairly godlike body to go with his admittedly adorable empty skull?”

“You’re one to talk about him being important.  You left your home for him.”

“I left for Nami,” Sanji lies.

“You left because he told you we needed a cook.  Watching him eat makes you glow with pride.”

Sanji rubs the bridge of his nose in a vain attempt to conceal his rising blush.  “I left because some beautiful idiot almost got cut in half on my porch and I was equal parts appalled and intrigued.  Luffy’s invitation was an excuse to follow through.”

A burst of flattery tickles its way across their bond.  “I’m still mad at you,” Zoro grumbles.

“I was a shitty, unsupportive husband.”

“Yeah.”  Zoro shrugs.  “I didn’t have to snap at you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.  That doesn’t make me less pissed off.”

Sanji just nods mutely and watches Usopp resignedly entering the room Luffy and Chopper barreled into.

“I forgive you,” Zoro says.

Sanji whips his head around.

“You were trying to figure out which thing to apologize for,” Zoro goes on.  “You were gonna settle on saying you’re shit at being a husband.  So I’m gonna head that off by forgiving you for being pissy during the typhoon, because otherwise I’ll have to kick your ass for insulting my husband.  Being mad as hell doesn’t make me love you less, dumbass.”

Mindful of the fact that they’re in the open hallway of a resort, Sanji takes Zoro’s left hand in his own and presses a kiss over scarred knuckles.

“You done with your weird crisis of confidence?” Zoro asks with obviously forced nonchalance.  (Even without their match bond, Zoro’s positively incandescent blush would have belied his tone.)

“For now.  I’ll just have to periodically remind myself that Luffy’s not the one who reduces you to a moaning puddle of goo on a daily basis.”

Usopp leans out of the door.  “Stop being gross and come help us negotiate; Nami’s being tyrannical again, and Luffy’s on the verge of tears.”

***

Pedestals

  “It’s actually kind of a shitty way to treat someone,” Nami said.

Sanji paused only briefly.  He bullied his body back into motion past the instinctive freeze of being scolded by a woman.  Keep stirring until the fondre reintegrates.  “What is, my dear Miss Nami?”

“The way you treat women.”

He frowned.  “But I’m always a perfect, doting gentleman to women.”

“Only the ones who aren’t old or ugly, first of all—a certain elderly doctor and mermaid train conductor could attest to that.  Second, that’s the whole issue.  A strange man fawning makes most women wonder what the price is.  When is it safe to turn him down?  When is it safe to leave?  Will he demand sex, obedience, favors?  Can I fight him off if I have to, or do I need to find someone else who can?”

“I would never do such a thing!”

“But a lotta guys would, especially in the Grand Line,” she pressed.  “Even if you have the best intentions, when you do that, you’re treating women like objects.  For you, they’re treasures, trinkets, things.  You love them, but they’re not people to you.  And yeah, sure—some women are okay with that or even like it.  But women are people, and most of us just want someone to treat us like more than an idea.”

He lifted the pan off the heat and switched off the burner.  “But what if it’s a lovely idea?” he asked softly.

“If it was that great, you’d treat your husband like that, too,” she retorted.  “I know you can see the nuance between what you’re saying you believe and what you actually practice; don’t be fucking obtuse.  See, this is why I only date women.”

He couldn’t imagine doting on Zoro the way he did Nami and Robin.  Zoro would probably be confused, if he wasn’t outright disturbed.

…wouldn’t he?

Hm.

Nami groaned.  “Fuck’s sake, now I’ve given you a stupid idea.  If he thinks you’re possessed and tries to throw you overboard, I’m not stopping him.”

  -

  Sanji was being weird.

He was being touchy-feely, and bringing Zoro fancy cocktails and fruit animals and onigiri with little cat faces.

Was it a special day?  Had Zoro forgotten some couple-y landmark?  It definitely wasn’t their anniversary, and it wasn’t Sanji’s birthday…

The only other time Sanji treated him like that was when he was badly injured.

Was he sick?  Had Chopper’s periodic checkups shown some latent disease, and he was secretly dying, and Chopper hadn’t been able to tell him, but Sanji had seen the medical whatevers?

Was Sanji trying to win him over, somehow?  Had he looked at some guy a little too long at the last island?  Had he made it seem like he was angry or dissatisfied and somehow hiding it?

Was this Sanji’s default setting for loving someone, and Zoro was just now earning it?  What had he done differently to get past playful threats and bickering?

It wasn’t about sex.  Their sex life was basically the same as ever:  two or three rounds plus a few makeouts scattered through the day.  None of the kinks had changed recently, nor had their level of enthusiasm (even if one or the other of them was running low on energy).

He’d been good about the girls, so maybe that was it?  Every time he started to have a mean thought about one of them, he thought about something else.  That was progress, right?

His head hurt and his stomach churned.  All his thinking in circles was getting him nowhere.

“What’s wrong, love?” Sanji asked, startling him.

“Gah!  Fucking warn a guy before you pop up outta nowhere!” he complained.

Sanji raised an eyebrow as he wiped dishwater from his hands.  “Mossy, this is my kitchen.  Plus, you and I literally share a mystical bond that tells us how far apart we are.”

“I was thinking about something, so I was distracted.  Pretty unsporting to take advantage of that.”

“Darling, you’re trembling,” said Sanji, grasping his arms.  “What are you so afraid of?”

“I’m not!” he denied.

“Stop that.  You’re terrified, and I want to know how I can help.”

He shifted, squirmed, tried to think of an excuse.

“Don’t lie,” Sanji said sharply.  “Not about this.  Not when whatever-it-is made you come looking for me, whether or not you realised you were.”

But even the sharpness felt more stable and familiar.

“You’re treating me differently and I don’t know why,” Zoro admitted in a rush.  “I don’t know if I did something wrong, or if I did something right, or if I’m sick, or if I’m delusional, or if this is a fucked up dream, or if you’ve been replaced again…  If I did something wrong and I don’t know what it was, maybe I’ll keep doing it until we have another fight.  If I did something right and I don’t know what it was, I can’t keep doing it, and eventually you’ll go back to the way y—we’ve always been.  If this isn’t even happening, and nothing’s changed, then I’m losing my mind.  If—”

“Stop.  Please.”

Oh, that was…that was much worse.  His heart thumped so hard he could feel his pulse in his throat, and he was sweating between his fingers, and his ears were full of throbbing, wooshing noises, and his throat was closing up.

Any second.

Any moment.

‘I don’t want to be married anymore,’ or ‘I was just trying to make you stop being sad all the time,’ or ‘You’re so ungrateful, even when

“Stop being mean to my husband,” Sanji begged.

Zoro hiccuped in surprise, and blinked dumbly.

Clever hands on his cheeks, his ears, the back of his skull.  Lips on his nose, eyelids, forehead.  “I don’t know why you hate yourself so much just now, but I love you, and I don’t want you to think cruel things about yourself.  I’m so sorry I let you think there was some…condition…or price tag, for that kind of treatment.”

The fear left, but Zoro’s pulse still wouldn’t quite calm.

Sanji sighed.  “Miss Nami told me off, you see.  Said that all the, er, fawning was dehumanising because of select application, and if I thought it was such a good way to treat someone, why didn’t I do it to you.  So I said to myself, ‘why not, indeed, maybe he’d like it.’”

“Sorry.”

“No, darling, don’t apologise for what you do or don’t enjoy.  And don’t apologise for being anxious.  I’ve left a lot of room for doubt in our relationship.”

Zoro turned a thought over and over, mouth moving as he decided how to say it.

Sanji nuzzled his jaw, briefly short-circuiting his brain.  “What is it, lovely?”

Grasping Sanji’s sleeve, he settled on, “You could try it again.  Now that I know what’s going on.”

More kisses landed over his cheek.  “Aw, you only get clingy when you’ve been really upset.  I’m so, so sorry, my poor, sweet thing.”

“Stoooop,” Zoro grumbled insincerely, and got throughly snuggled for his trouble.  Sanji really was great at hugs…

“My precious, my treasure, my dear darling,” Sanji murmured into his hair.  “I am going to spoil you even more than Robin spoils Chopper.”

“I don’t think that’s humanly possible,” Zoro joked.

“Have a nap while I finish up here, love.”

Zoro slipped away, but tipped his chin.

Sanji laughed and kissed him.

  -

  Nami had apologised.  Sanji had tried to wave her off, but she’d insisted—“I was too harsh about it,” she’d said.  “I’m not wrong about you turning women into ideas, but when I thought a little harder, I realized it’s because of your mom.  Women have to be ideas to you, because if we’re real, we can die.”

He’d both loved and hated being seen through so well, and accepted her apology gracefully.

And then he’d gone to the kitchen to make bread, so that he had an excuse to hit his feelings against a board multiple times.

Predictably, his moss-cat was stretched out in his favourite napping spot.

As he covered the dough to proof, he sensed Zoro’s attention, alternating curiosity and ease as he catalogued his surroundings while waking.

“What about a date?” Sanji said.

Zoro grunted, but didn’t open his eye or sit up.

“Well?  Good grunt?  Bad grunt?  Indifferent grunt?”

“Indifferent,” Zoro replied.  “Not gonna commit to an opinion without more info.”

“Well, maybe at the next civilised island we could look for a decent restaurant and have a nice, leisurely sit-down dinner with food that isn’t an hour old?”

“So you can complain about the texture, or about the meat being overcooked, or how I’m so uncultured for enjoying it anyway?”

“I wouldn’t,” Sanji said lamely.  He probably would.  “Well, maybe we could do a picnic lunch, then.”

“How much do you think the witch will charge us for leaving her alone to wrangle the idiots?”

“Don’t call Miss Nami that,” Sanji grumbled reflexively.

A little needle of hurt shot through the bond, quick as a flash, swallowed up by dull resignation.

Sanji breathed through it.  Yeah, he never snapped back when someone called Zoro something negative.  Well, when someone besides Zoro did it, anyway.  He needed to work on that.

“We could go stargazing?” he half-asked, a little desperately, to move the conversation along.  “Like on our wedding night.”

“We do that all the time, and you definitely said it didn’t count as a date and I still owed you dinner—at which you complained about the food and called me an algae with defective taste buds because I thought it was fine.”

“That was almost four years ago!”

Zoro shrugged.  “Maybe there’s just no point going on dates.  We’re already married, and it’s not like we don’t spend three quarters of any given day together.”

Sanji almost growled a complaint, but

Zoro wasn’t being careless or dismissive.  Despite his closed eyes and lounging posture, he was anything but relaxed.  Sad, anxious, sad, sad, ashamed.  Just like earlier.

“I love spending three quarters of any given day with you,” Sanji said firmly.  “I just thought it might be nice if you didn’t have to share me for a while.”

“Doesn’t matter.  I’m a shit date.”

“Oi, say that about my beloved husband again, sir, and there shall be a reckoning.”

That got Zoro to open his eye.

Unsure.  Curious?  The tiniest ticklish hint of dark humour.  Still sad.  Still ashamed.

“The crew’s just got so big and everything’s just been so hectic,” Sanji went on, approaching the table.  “I feel like we don’t have any time to ourselves anymore.  I miss feeling like you’re all mine.”

Zoro blushed and pouted.  “Stupid cook, I’ve always been yours.”

Sanji’s heart fluttered very much against his will.  “I just want us to have some time that feels special to you.”

Zoro’s blush was starting to rival the moment he’d understood the intention behind his lingerie.  “Every single moment with you is special, idiot!”

“You’re such a sappy, romantic moss-cat!” Sanji exclaimed with an ear-to-ear grin.  “I’m gonna make you a mountain of sea king rice balls, and they’re all gonna say sappy, romantic shit in lovely little crisp seaweed letters.”

“Stoooop!” Zoro complained, but he was oozing flattered satisfaction.

Sanji kissed him against the galley bench, trapped and warm and beautiful.

“Put me over the table again?”

“You are a menace, my dear.”

“Is that a no?”

“It is a token protest over my willingly being persuaded to act against my better judgment.”

“So it’s a yes?”

“It’s a yes, you lovely little slut.”

Which was how he had Zoro’s bare legs hooked over his elbows when a voice near the door said, “Oh, my innocent eyes—though, of course, I have none, yohohoho!”

“Fuck off, Brook!” Zoro yelled.  “I will open up your stupid skull-lid and stuff your head with sauerkraut!”

Sanji laughed at the mental image (and at the salt cellar being flung at their unwelcome guest).  He got a warning kick in the spine, and knew better than to let his ministrations falter.

“Very well, since you’ve chosen to a-salt me, I shall take my leave,” Brook announced, followed by the sound of the door closing.