micego

His first thought isn’t I should leave. His first thought is awful: it’s a white hot, gut puncturing spike of want so sharp he actually loses his footing for half a step. It isn’t even visual at first – his eyes haven’t processed anything beyond whatever hits through haki: Zoro’s pleasure flaring in his awareness like someone set off a signal right under his ribs. Bright, private. Intimate in a way that feels like fingers under his skin.

And Sanji is in it before anyone has invited him.

The sensation is nothing like pain but his body reads it as danger anyway in the way his nerves light up, in the way heat lances down his spine, low and ugly and dizzying. For a split second he’s drowning in Zoro’s focus, Zoro’s pulse, Zoro’s body wound tight –

He staggers back like he’s stepped barefoot on a hot coal and Zoro’s head jerks, eye slitting open, mouth parting around what’s probably his name but Sanji doesn’t stay to find out. He’s already out the door, hand fumbling the handle, yanking it shut too loud, too fast. The slam rings down the hallway like a gunshot as he bolts, boots thudding the boards, lungs clawing at air that suddenly feels thin.

He doesn’t stop until he’s in the galley.

He shoves the door with more force than necessary and gets to the wall before he has to stop, like he's bracing against an impact that’s already passed. His Observation’s still open, still straining toward that bright little cyclone below deck out of habit and he can feel the edge of it, the echo, like a hand still reaching. He slams it shut, like slamming a window on a fire. 

The sudden absence hits almost as hard as the intrusion did, leaving him buzzing, empty and overfull at the same time.

“Fuck,” he whispers, fingers digging hard into the bridge of his nose. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

His pulse is everywhere: in his throat, in his wrists, low and hot in his gut. His skin feels wrong on him, too tight. He can still taste salt air, metal, the faint hint of whatever soap Zoro uses lingering in the back of his mind in a way that makes no sense and too much sense.

His brain keeps trying to replay what it caught in that ruined fraction of a second. The way Zoro’s shoulders had tightened, the line of his throat, the low, torn sound he’d made, rough and controlled and contained, not meant for anyone else’s hearing.

The shame comes in on the memory's heels, in a wave that’s hot and clawing. Not just at seeing Zoro, not just at staying in that feeling longer than a heartbeat, but at how his own body had answered. How fast, how easily, like it had been waiting for exactly that kind of input and finally got thrown a scrap. He lets out a laugh that’s not really a laugh, just a thin sandpaper sound that scrapes at his throat and drags himself away from the wall to wipe at invisible streaks of just. Fucking nothing until his arm aches, until his fingertips burn, like he can scour the ghost of that feeling off his skin. Off his nerves. Off whatever part of him lit up when Zoro brushed his haki.

Sleep is a joke after that: he doesn’t even try. Instead he does what he’s always done when his head isn’t safe to be in and he works. He rolls up his sleeves and starts pulling ingredients he doesn’t need from the pantry. Onions, garlic, carrots, sacks of flour. He chops and chops and keeps chopping, knife a steady rhythm under his hand. Dice, slice, mince. Turn thoughts into neat little cubes, into clean lines on the board. He marinates three kinds of meat they don’t need for breakfast then starts dough for bread they won’t eat until tomorrow. He beats eggs for pastries he hasn’t decided on yet. Fills the room with normal smells – yeast, butter, lemon zest – until the ghost of salt-and-skin is drowned out.

His focus keeps trying to slip, like a muscle wanting to move, like some part of him’s tempted to open that window again and see if Zoro's sleeping easy now, if his aura is loose and warm, if the aftermath of that private moment has settled into something soft.

He pins it down every fucking time. Slams mental shutters on the reach and does not check below deck. Not once.

By the time dawn greets the porthole, the galley is an organised disaster: trays of rolled dough proofing, chopped vegetables in neat stacks, three pots of stock simmering low. His hands hurt. His back aches and his brain’s frayed just enough that the shame has worn down from a screaming panic to a steady miserable throb.

He leans both palms on the bench and lets his head hang between his shoulders.

“Never happened,” he tells the empty room, voice barely above a whisper. “You walked in on nothing, you felt nothing, you’re going to look him in the eye and act like a normal fucking person.”

His chest tightens at the thought of Zoro’s eye, the way it had flown open, sharp and startled, in that heartbeat before Sanji ran.

Heat flares again, stubborn and traitorous so he reaches for another pan and, outside, the ship begins to stir. Soft footsteps. A yawn. The creak of hammocks. Morning.

Sanji straightens, rolls his shoulders back, and pastes on a grin he hopes looks half-convincing.

He will not open his haki, he will not look for Zoro. And when Zoro looks for him – because he will, because of course he will – Sanji’s going to lie with his hands busy and his knives sharp and pretend this is just another thing he’s buried so deep it never has to see daylight.

Maybe, if he’s lucky, he’ll even believe it himself.

x

The problem is, Zoro never bullshits. He’s never been the type to shy away from confrontation and when he walks into the galley for his usual coffee he looks exactly the same as any other day: sleepy scowl, swords at his hip. There’s no sign anything happened, absolutely zero embarrassment, no weirdness. Just… nothing.

Sanji, unfortunately, nearly drops a mug when their eyes meet and barely recovers with a curse and a flurry of insults. That part’s easy. The script is right there to hold. “Oi, Moss, the fuck are you doing up this early? Get lost on the way to the toilet?”

“Smelled food,” Zoro grunts, dropping into his chair. “Body knows the route.”

“Your body doesn’t know what a map is,” Sanji snips, back already turned so he doesn’t have to see Zoro sitting there, knowing what he knows. “You want eggs?”

Zoro pauses, says: “Sure,” and Sanji can feel the look on the back of his neck like a touch.  He keeps moving because that’s always the key. If he’s moving, if he’s cooking, then he can pretend he doesn’t feel the way Zoro’s presence tugs at his senses like gravity, trying to pull Observation back on.

He doesn’t look up when he sets the plate down. “Eat. We’ve got work after we dock so we need you vaguely functional.”

Zoro grunts. Fork scrapes. Morning proceeds. Sanji breathes. He can do this. He can –

“Hey, Curls,” Zoro says, halfway through his second bowl of rice and Sanji freezes because he knows that tone. Casual on the surface, with a weight under it. “What did you think you were walking into?”

The knife in Sanji’s hand stops mid-chop and for a moment the only sound in the galley is the tick of the stove and the faint seagull noise of Usopp on deck.

“I didn’t –” 

Zoro cuts in, no edge to it, only flat certainty. “You know I can feel it when you crank that haki up.”

Sanji’s stomach drops through the floor because yeah, of fucking course. It hadn’t even occurred to him that Observation would have cut both ways and that Zoro would sensed him sensing him, that his own panic would have been as obvious as a flare gun. He grips the knife tighter. “I was checking for danger,” he grinds out. “That’s my job. Someone suddenly lights up like a bonfire in the middle of the night, I look.”

Zoro makes a quiet, considering sound. “And then you bolted.”

Sanji can’t do this with his back turned. He slams the knife down, harder than he means to and forces himself to pivot, to wipe his palms like he can get rid of whatever’s showing on his face. “Yeah, we’re not talking about this.”

Zoro ignores it. “You saw me,” he says instead, simple as that. “I felt you yank yourself away like a bomb had gone or something. And now you can’t look at me for more than three seconds without acting like you swallowed a fork. So I’m asking if you’re okay.”

Sanji’s throat works uselessly. He can’t say I’m fine, I just tripped over you like an idiot and my body thought it was an invitation. He can’t say I didn’t know I could want something that fast and that hard. He definitely can’t say I don’t know how to want anything without punishing myself for it.

His fingers curl into fists. “What d'you want me to say? You were fine, I backed out, end of story.”

“It clearly isn’t.” He leans back, arms crossing, voice going softer in a way that makes Sanji feel more exposed, not less. “You looked like you’d just caught yourself stealing or something.”

Sanji hears Zeff’s voice in his head, old lectures about respect and romance and proper men, overlaid with Judge’s sneer about filthy, weak desires. He hears Big Mom’s sugar-sweet demands, Pudding’s cry. He sees himself at sixteen, cramming down every stray thought that wasn’t pure, wasn’t chivalrous, wasn’t about some impossible sweetheart he’d never fucking touch. He hears his own stupid, loud laugh as he flirts with women he’d never in a million years let see him want, not really.

He sees last night, his haki catching the raw, unvarnished edge of Zoro’s pleasure and his body answering like it had been starved for something honest and he shoves the whole mess down, hard.

He forces a smirk anyway, because that’s what he does. “Big ego you’ve got there, Moss. Out here thinking the whole ship’s gonna spontaneously combust just because you’re having a wank.”

“Not the whole ship,” Zoro says evenly, gaze not faltering even once. “Just you.”

Sanji looks away first but the porthole gives him nothing; just a slice of sky and a smear of sea and his own reflection, too pale around the mouth. His voice comes out rougher than he wants. “Drop it, Zoro.”

Zoro’s quiet for a beat. He doesn’t get up. Doesn’t push back from the table. Just sits there, hands laced again, like he’s giving Sanji room to run or stay. “It’s just a way to wind down, you know.”

Sanji’s pulse roars in his ears – desperate, he does what he always does with feelings he can’t touch bare-handed and smothers them in sarcasm. Sneers: “Easy for you to say.”

Zoro shrugs, takes a calm sip of coffee. “Sometimes my body’s loud so I make it quiet, same way I stretch before I train so I don’t pull something.”

Sanji makes a strangled noise. “You can't seriously be comparing it to stretching.”

“Why not?” Zoro sounds genuinely baffled. “You make it sound like some grand moral failure. It’s just maintenance. You’re the one who likes putting bloody halos on everything.”

Sanji’s shoulders go rigid. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Zoro tilts his head, studying him like a strange beast. “Ah, so that’s what it is. This isn’t even about me, this is about you.”

“You don’t know shit about –” He stops. Bites the inside of his cheek until it stings.

Zoro doesn’t push that line, but he doesn’t back off either. “So, what, you think touching yourself is gross? Weak?”

“It’s…” Sanji gropes for words and finds only old, rancid ones, the kind that taste like smoke and bile. He wants to make himself stop but it’s a wound now, opened and bleeding and nothing he will ever be able to stopper again. “It’s pointless and it’s – it’s not a helpful use of my time.”

Zoro stares at him like he’s finally found the moldy onion at the bottom of the sack, the poison in the milk. “Wait. You think rest isn’t helpful?”

“That’s not what I –”

“Oh. You think pleasure isn’t helpful,” Zoro corrects quietly. “Not rest.”

Sanji’s mouth snaps shut. His teeth click together. He wants, desperately, to say of course I don’t, to shrug, to make some obscene joke and let it skate right over but his brain won’t fucking cooperate. It’s already flipping through evidence like a prosecutor: the handful of times he’s palmed himself under a too-thin blanket, jaw locked, quick and rough like he’s taking out the garbage. The way he never lets himself stay there, never lets his thoughts drift anywhere dangerous, no faces, no voices, nothing that could be mistaken for real wanting. Just friction, finish, disgust. The way he always, always ends up in the galley after, scrubbing pots that don’t need it, redoing prep that was already perfect. Paying it back. Paying it off.

Like stolen food in a starving kitchen.

Sanji drops his hand from his face, knuckles white. His voice goes very dry. “So, what, is this is the part where the great Roronoa Zoro gives me a heart-to-heart about self-love?”

Zoro scowls, exasperation flaying at the edges. “I’m not trying to be your priest or whatever. I’m just trying to understand why you looked like you’d done something wrong when I was the one with my dick out.”

“Because I did do something wrong,” Sanji snaps, louder than he means. “I should’ve knocked. It was – it wasn’t fair.”

“For who?” Zoro demands. “Me? I’m fine. I got what I needed and went to sleep. You’re the one walking around like you kicked a puppy for no good reason.”

Sanji bristles. “You don’t get to decide what I feel guilty about, actually.”

“I’m not,” Zoro fires back. “I’m pointing out you do, about everything. You break a plate and act like you sank the Merry. You miss a shot in a fight and look like you pushed Luffy off a cliff. That’s your usual idiot martyr routine.” His gaze flicks down, pointed. “But if you’re adding this crap to that pile too, I’m not pretending I didn’t see it.”

“What, you suddenly promoted yourself to ship guilt inspector? Gonna tell me my shame quota’s over the limit? Gonna confiscate some?”

“You’re my crew,” Zoro shoots back, voice steady despite his jaw being clenched. “If you’re walking around thinking wanting anything good for yourself makes you dirty, that’s not just your problem. That bleeds into fights. Into training. Into us.”

Sanji’s heart lurches. “Into us,” he repeats, twisting it into something ugly. “Big word for a guy who didn’t even want to be seen last night.”

Zoro’s mouth tightens like Sanji’s the one saying something insane here. “You think I haven’t noticed? You flinch away from anything that might actually be nice unless you’re half-dead and bleeding. You’ll throw your life away for us but the second it’s just you, you look at yourself like you’re the villain.”

Sanji goes very still before a laugh barks out of him, sharp, too loud for the small galley. “Oh, great. Very fuckin’ profound. Gonna tell me to love my inner child next?”

Zoro doesn’t flinch. “You don’t have to love him but you could try not beating the shit out of him anytime he wants something.”

Sanji’s breath catches; he covers it with a scoff so fast he almost chokes on it. “Poetic. You get that from one of Robin’s books or something?”

“There,” Zoro says loudly, voice cutting clean through the deflection. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?” 

“Hiding.” He leans forward, forearms on the table. He’s not looming, not really, but the focus in that one eye is so direct Sanji feels pinned anyway. “You walk in on me but you act like you’re the one who needs to atone. Now you’re acting like even talking about it is dirty.”

“Maybe I’m just bored of hearing about your magical self-care routine,” Sanji’s skin feels too tight, his voice too loud. Everything is too much. “Stretch, spar, jerk off, nap. Wow. Routine of champions right there.”

For once, for fucking once Zoro doesn’t take the bait. “When’s the last time you did any of those for you without calling yourself an idiot after?”

Sanji’s spine goes rigid. “I stretch every morning.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Heat crawls up the back of his neck. “I’m not discussing my fucking masturbation schedule with you, idiot.”

Zoro lifts an eyebrow. “You have one?”

Sanji splutters. “That’s not – of course I – I’m not –”

“You don’t,” Zoro realises aloud, slow. There’s no triumph in it. Just… horrified understanding. 

Sanji suddenly feels horribly, stupidly naked, exposed, even as his ears heat. “It’s none of your business,” he says and, god, it sounds thin even to his own ears.

Zoro doesn’t bother arguing. “Who told you wanting something is stealing?”

Sanji’s fists curl so hard his nails bite his palms, a hundred answers clawing up at once – voices that smell like polished floors and iron chains and Zeff’s tired eyes – and he slams the door on them so hard his head rings. His tongue trips over the lie. “It’s not that. It’s just – stupid.”

“Stupid how?” Zoro pushes, calm and relentless. “Stupid like… it’s beneath you? Like you’re too good for it? That’s not like you.”

Sanji bares his teeth. “You know me so well, huh.”

“Yeah,” Zoro says, and there’s no brag in it, just stubborn conviction. “Better than you think.”

Sanji looks away, to the stove, the pan, anything. Flame he understands. Knives he understands. This? No. “It’s selfish,” he says finally, each word dragged out like it’s hooked. “Happy now?”

“No,” Zoro says. “Explain.”

Sanji’s jaw clenches. The words feel rusted, fused. “It’s… taking something for nothing. For free. I didn’t earn it. I didn’t do anything for anyone. It doesn’t feed anyone, doesn’t protect anyone. It’s just – me. In a room. Wasting time so I can… what, feel good for five seconds and then hate myself for it after? There’s no fucking point.”

Zoro goes very still. “That’s what you think it should feel like?” 

Sanji’s temper spikes like a defense mechanism. “I’m not like you,” he snaps. “I can’t just treat people like training dummies for my – for me and call it maintenance. I can’t just be fine with everything.”

Zoro’s eye slits. “What the hell does this have to do with other people?” he asks, sharper now. “We’re talking about you, just you. Alone, in a bunk. Not dragging anyone else into it.”

“You’re the one who called it maintenance,” Sanji throws back. “No big deal, right? Just you and your enlightened hand, doing your warrior stretches.”

“Alone,” Zoro repeats, jaw tight. “Who the hell told you wanting anything for yourself is the same as using someone?”

There’s a high, buzzing pressure at the back of Sanji’s skull, like the world’s tilting a degree at a time. He snaps: “Yeah, well, congrats, you’ve officially therapied me. I’ve got dishes.”

He makes to turn but Zoro’s voice hits him like a thrown blade. “Look at me.”

Sanji keeps his eyes on the sink. “Pass.”

“Sanji.” Zoro’s tone means he’s done playing stupid. “You’re not gonna combust if you look at me.”

“Bold of you to assume,” Sanji snaps but the command hooks into something deep and trained, and his gaze drags up anyway to where Zoro’s face is set, serious in a way Sanji’s more used to seeing in battle.

“It’s not selfish to touch your own body,” Zoro says, slow and precise, like lining up a killing blow. “It’s not stealing to want to feel good when you’re off the clock. You’re not ripping a meal out of anyone’s mouth. You’re not taking anything from us by not grinding yourself down to dust.”

Sanji tries to scowl, tries to make his face into something angry instead of wounded, instead of this. “You sound pretty damn sure about that.”

“If I thought it made me weaker I’d have stopped years ago. I train. I sleep. I eat. I take the edge off when my head won’t shut up otherwise I can’t focus, and that endangers the crew.” He leans in just enough that Sanji can’t look away. “You know what I don’t do? I don’t make myself bleed for it. I don’t stay up all night punishing myself because my body works.”

Sanji’s fingers twitch, like they want to hide, even though Zoro hasn’t actually touched him. “I don’t –” he starts, then stops, because he does. Because they both know he does.

Zoro’s gaze flicks down to his clenched fists. “You’d never talk about a woman the way you talk about yourself, hell, you’d kill a man who did. So why’s it okay when the target’s you?”

“Maybe I deserve it,” Sanji hears himself snap and he doesn’t even mean to: it just falls out, heavy and awful and true.

The air in the galley goes thin as Zoro’s whole posture changes, the anger on his face sharpening, turning vicious, but not at Sanji. “Who told you that?” he demands. “Your family? Zeff? Some asshole in that restaurant? Your own goddamn head? Who the fuck put that there?”

Sanji bristles so hard it feels like his skin’s too small for his bones. “No-one had to say it. You live long enough as the world’s biggest chandelier, you pick up the general message.”

“What?”

“Decoration,” Sanji bites out. “Pretty, pointless, replaceable. Smile nice. Dance on command. Don’t want anything back or it’s rude. You eat last, you sleep last, you don’t –” He breaks off because it’s too much, too fast. The words scrape his throat on the way out like they’ve been waiting years and now they don’t know how to stop. He hears himself inhale, harsh and awful. “You don’t take, ever. Not without giving twice as much back first. Otherwise you’re just… hanging there, wasting space, using up the air.”

Zoro’s eye narrows. “Who told you that?”

Sanji’s chest spikes with panic. He realises, belatedly, that his hands are shaking where they grip the bench; his knuckles are white. He yanks himself a step back like he’s waking up from a bad dream. “Forget it, this is fucking ridiculous. I’m not having an —” he flaps a hand, searching for something that isn’t as pathetic as it feels. “An existential crisis first thing in the morning because you decided to get handsy in the middle of the night.”

Zoro doesn’t move. He doesn’t crowd or lunge; he just stands there with his weight settled, watching. Sanji can see the impulse to press in the flex of his jaw, the tiny twitch in his fingers where they curl on the bench, like he’s holding himself back by the hilt but instead he exhales, long and controlled, sheathing a blade he’d rather be swinging.

“Fine,” he says at last. His voice stays even and, somehow, that’s worse than if he’d yelled. “But don’t stand in your own damn kitchen and act like basic human needs are a crime.”

Sanji scoffs, throat tight. “You’ve made your point, oh wise one. Congrats. Go write a pamphlet and leave me alone.”

Zoro pushes off the bench, giving him a little more air. The distance doesn’t help; Sanji still feels pinned under that look.

“You want to keep pretending you didn’t feel anything last night? That’s your business. You want to keep beating yourself up and never letting yourself have anything that isn’t earned in blood and sweat and gratitude from other people?” His mouth flattens. “That’s your business too.”

He turns toward the door and for one awful, horrible second Sanji thinks he’s actually leaving - just walking out and taking that awful, examining focus with him, leaving Sanji alone with a pot, a knife and the echo of maybe I deserve it still hanging in the air. Zoro stops with his hand on the frame and looks back over his shoulder, voice low and level.  “But if I ever feel you like that around me again and then punish yourself all night for it – that’s my business.”

Sanji’s heart jumps somewhere. His mouth moves before his brain can stop it. “Why?”

“Because I like it when you want things, even when they’re about me.” A corner of his mouth quirks, crooked and not quite a smile. “Especially then.”

Sanji’s stomach lurches; it’s a stupid reaction. It’s just words, just Zoro being blunt in that way he is, like there’s no possible universe where admitting that could be dangerous. “That’s not –”

“But honestly? Mostly because watching you treat yourself like the enemy pisses me off.”

Those words land like a punch to the sternum and Sanji swallows around the impact, frozen. His first instinct is to snarl, to snap that maybe he is the enemy, throw it like a knife so he doesn’t have to hold it – but he can’t quite get his voice to cooperate. He stands there instead, every part of him buzzing with the desperate urge to do something. Joke. Flirt. Kick him. Anything but stand here and let Zoro see the parts of him that never, ever get daylight. 

His brain scrabbles for purchase but nothing makes it past his teeth.

Zoro watches the struggle flicker across his face, and for once he doesn’t look away, doesn’t pretend not to notice. He just nods once, like he’s accepted exactly as much as he’s going to get for now. “Food was good,” he says, rough casual sliding back over his voice like a saya over steel. “Thanks.”

Sanji stands alone in the quiet galley, pulse hammering. He should move. There are dishes to wash, prep to finish, a whole list of useful things he could do to drown this out but he lets himself sag back against the bench for just a breath, eyes closing.

He sees flashes, behind his eyelids: a steel mask over a child’s face, a dining room full of shining cutlery and cold eyes, Zeff’s missing leg, red dripping into salt water, his own reflection in the Baratie’s windows, bowing and scraping and grinning too wide for tips. Pretty, pointless, replaceable.

He scoffs, a breath that’s almost a laugh and almost a sob. “Maintenance,” he mutters. “Piece of shit.”

Tomorrow, he’ll probably pretend this didn’t happen. Zoro will come in for breakfast and they’ll bicker about portion sizes and sake and who almost burned the Sunny last fight. The world will keep tilting on. But today, alone with his own thoughts, the echo of Zoro’s words sits heavy in his chest: I like it when you want things.

For the first time in a long time, Sanji tries to let the wanting exist without immediately kicking it in the teeth. Only for a heartbeat. Only here, in the quiet. Then he shoves it down where all the other dangerous, tender things live and gets back to work, because if he’s going to learn how not to treat himself like the enemy it’s not going to happen in one day. It’s going to be a fight, and god knows that’s the only things he’s ever been good at.

x

sorry, you thought you were gonna get through this without emo sanji drama??? pls. know me better 😮‍💨