Fandom: One Piece
Pairing: Zoro/Sanji
Rating: Safe
Challenge: COW-T, w4, m4
Prompt: I’m on watch here, so close your eyes and get some rest Wordcount: 4000 parole
They say it could be cured with a kiss.
If only life could be so easy, Sanji would even go as far as to pay for it and get rid of the damn disease.
But since the disease spreads from unrequited love, only a kiss from the loved person will work - and to make the matter worse, the kiss must be meant. There’s no cheating this fucking disease, there’s no loophole to find, no way to circle it.
For the Hanahaki to stop, the unrequited love must become requited.
So Sanji might as well prepare his will because he’s on for coughing bloody flowers ‘till the end of his very few days until the roots of the plants growing in his chest crush his lungs putting him out of his misery.
Oh, he always knew his lungs would be the death of him, smoking so many cigarettes a day he was doomed. How ironic is life.
- - -
The first to know something’s wrong with him, somehow, is Zoro. Of all people.
Sanji would laugh, instead, he keeps coughing until he crushes on his knees, a hand on his chest, his throat burning as the green petals scratch his palate.
Zoro lowers his swords, frowning, then sheathes them, abandoning their fight. “Oi, shitty cook, what’s wrong with you?”
Sanji would very much like to reply that nothing’s wrong with him, but the cough doesn’t allow him to speak and flowers fall from his mouth.
The swordsman reaches over. The flowers are green, with a hint of yellow, five petals around stamens and pistils, all soaked in blood and saliva.
“What are those? Why are you coughing up this shit?” he asks and Sanji would really like to answer him, but he’s still gagging.
“What the fuck, cook, you have the Hanahaki?” Zoro looks at the flower in his hand and then at Sanji, trying to make out another sense to what he’s seeing. But there isn’t another explanation. “Of fucking course, you would have that stupid disease, who else? You fall in love with every woman who so much as walks in front of you.”
Sanji shakes his head, but Zoro ignores him.
“You need to check up with Chopper, to tell this woman -”
“No” Sanji breaths out, his voice rasping, his throat sore. “Nobody can know…”
“Are you out of your mind, you stupid cook? You are gonna die.”
And then, in a moment of clarity, Sanji sees what is really gonna happen to him. He tells Chopper and Chopper cries, because there isn’t a cure to this crappy disease, and then guilts him with his big round raccoon eyes into telling this person, so Sanji does and Zoro punches him in the face. Or worse, Zoro kisses him out of pity and it doesn’t work. Of course, it doesn’t work.
“I’m not telling Chopper. There’s no cure he can concoct. I’m as well as dead.”
“You can’t really be giving up.”
Sanji doesn’t have a reply.
Zoro beats the crap out of him, without even unsheathing his swords, bruising his knuckles to bring him to his senses and Sanji lets him because there is nothing that Zoro can do to save him. In the end, he still doesn’t have a reply.
“And what about your dream? What about the All Blue?” Zoro asks and, for a second, Sanji thinks he cares. Ah, wishful thinking.
“I suppose you’ll have to find it for me” he answers, his throat still sore, his cheekbone throbbing where the swordsman landed a punch.
Zoro looks at him like he’s seeing him for the first time ever and leaves him there, surrounded by bloody green flowers.
- - -
Zoro hadn’t told anyone, Sanji is sure of that, as he was sure that Zoro wouldn’t want him or anyone else to disclose what happened on Thriller Bark. After all, they are alike - so much alike they clash and grind and go under each other skin - and they always were the ones to take the blows and suffer in silence, because admitting a weakness would make them stumble and get undone.
So Sanji is sure Zoro hadn’t told anyone, but Robin knows about it nonetheless.
“Sanji” she addresses him, entering the kitchen while he’s washing dishes and Sanji forces himself to smile hoping there isn’t blood smeared on his teeth.
“Yes, my dear Robin? How can I help my sweetheart today?” He asks, his eyes twinkling but not as heart-shaped as usual. It takes effort to achieve that effect and Sanji’s tired. It happens when half the oxygen you inhale goes to a fucking plant in your chest instead of your muscles.
Robin’s usually cryptic expression has been replaced by a concerned frown. “I think you lost this.” She extends her hand and, when she opens her fingers, in her palm there’s a flower.
“I -” he doesn’t really know how to continue.
“Hellebore,” she states, holding the evidence of his vulnerability between them. “May I suggest you talk to the object of your affection very soon?” She doesn’t need to remind him that a weak nakama makes his whole crew weak - she isn’t even implying it - but Sanji can’t see anything else than reproach in the fold of those green petals.
Sanji pries his eyes away from the flower. “Well, if you would be so kind as to kiss me…” Sanji tries to put up his ladies' man façade.
Robin’s lips turn in a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “It is a strong flower, the hellebore. It takes a lot to grow in the middle of winter. And a green variety, nonetheless. Quite uncommon. It could make someone wonder.”
“Wonder?”
“About why the Hanahaki had decided to manifest itself with such a particular flower.” The way she stresses her words makes Sanji shiver. She knows - he doesn’t know how, but she knows.
“Be careful, cook-san, for the hellebore is also poisonous and you are producing completely formed flowers. You don’t have that much time left to waste flattering me.” She leaves the flower on the kitchen table.
- - -
Luffy doesn’t ask for lunch, shouting for it at the top of his lungs, and that should worry Sanji more than anything. But Sanji doesn’t immediately take it in, not when he’s doubled over the kitchen sink, spitting blood-smeared flowers in the basin.
He has time to wipe his mouth and plaster a fake smile on his face, his throat still burning and raw as he waltzes out of the galley with the food, before realizing Luffy had waited politely, sitting without fuss.
He feels his chest contract and for once it’s not his bloody disease.
They all know.
Sanji doesn’t know how they know - Robin would never and Zoro would never, for different reasons, different moral compasses, maybe the whole crew had just figured out on their own - but they do.
Or if they don’t, by now Luffy’s weird and out of character behavior is making them wonder. Because for the Captain to be as silent surely something must have happened.
So Luffy knows - Sanji is still sure Zoro didn’t tell - and now Nami is eyeing both of them wearily and it’s not even close to the thoughtful expression on Usopp’s face as he looks at food in his plate and then at Sanji. Franky has a big question mark on his face while Brook, of course, is unreadable as always, having no muscles, and Chopper is fretting over Luffy, too worried about him to wonder about anything else.
The only one behaving as if nothing is wrong is Robin, politely accepting his food and eating. Zoro, on the other hand, has his arms crossed over his chest and his gazing into the ocean, stating a clear “I don’t give a shit, you already know what I think”.
Sanji puts his plate down and sits awkwardly, feeling at loss about what should happen now.
Nami fixes her gaze on him, unwavering and pondering, and that’s when Sanji takes it in. She doesn’t know, she is not sure.
No one knows - well, except for Zoro, Robin and now, apparently, Luffy - no one knows what is wrong. But they know something is wrong.
And Sanji’s playing them all.
He’s pretending everything’s fine when actually, everything’s not fine at all.
“I don’t want to eat,” Luffy states and the whole crew gasps and hold his breath. “I want you to talk.”
“I -” I don’t have anything to say, but that’s not fine either.
He should tell them.
It’s difficult because then they would ask who and would push him to tell and he doesn’t want to. He knows he’ll just give in if they keep insisting and he fears it more than he fears the death at the end of his inaction.
“Sanji…” Luffy pushes and Zoro snarls “Tell them, stupid cook” and it’s all it takes for the blossoms in his to thrive and flourish.
Sanji bends over, his whole body shaking for the coughing fit, and when he looks up there’s blood smearing his lips and trailing down his chin.
Robin reaches for his shirt and takes a few flowers that haven’t been spat on the floor, leaving the hellebore on the table, green as an accusation. “You have to tell this person, cook-san.”
Sanji’s throat is hurting and burning, “I - I can’t.”
Zoro is the first to leave, with a tsk, anger stiffing his steps.
One by one the other members of the crew try to convince him, uselessly, and then they leave him alone - Chopper with the promise he’ll come to the infirmary as soon as he’s done working - until Sanji’s alone with Luffy.
“Why aren’t you talking?”
“I can’t.”
“No. You already said it. Why?”
Sanji could reply it would be pointless, it wouldn’t work. Instead, he just goes with the truth.
“It hurts too much.”
Luffy nods to himself.
“I don’t think it's me,” he says, serious, “but if it’s me…”
Sanji shakes his head in a silent 'no', not daring to look his captain in the eye as he asks permission to die.
Luffy nods again and then, as he’s leaving, he stops to put his hat on Sanji’s head. “Right now, you need it more than I do.”
- - -
Chopper frets and squeaks and all in all he is worried, but when he speaks he’s professionally calm.
“The roots have already infiltrated between the lobes and reached the pleura, it’s a matter of weeks before they move inside the lobes squeezing the parenchyma. Then you die.”
His voice doesn’t crack nor weaver, Sanji knows he’ll cry later.
“Your options are limited. You could eradicate the pathology by telling the people you love…”
“That’s out of the question.”
“Fine, then -”
“You aren’t gonna plead your case?”
Chopper looks at him with earnest eyes. “I cannot force cures on you. I am your doctor right now, I will respect your decision on your health.”
Sanji nods. “It’s pointless if they don’t love me back.”
“Are you sure of that?” Chopper inquires.
“Positive.”
“Then the alternative is surgery.”
“There’s an alternative?”
“Yes. You should have come to me sooner, we could have saved the memories if we eradicated the disease when it was just petals, when it was limited to your major bronchi. Now that has infiltrated that much, it will be more difficult and painful and the complications are gonna be enormous. There is a small chance you won’t forget.”
“What? What will I forget?
“The person you love. You won’t love them anymore, you won’t even remember them. The probability of memory loss at this stage of the disease is… 95%, more or less.”
Sanji looks at his hands, wondering what it would be like to wake up in the morning, breathing freely and wondering who the hell is the green marimo sleeping in the hammock next to his. Would he even call him marimo again?
“I - I can’t.”
- - -
Nami comes to him in the dead of the night, when the only people still up are Zoro in the nest crow and Sanji in the kitchen, washing the last dishes and starting the preparation for tomorrow’s breakfast.
She slides in, closing the door after her and leaning on it, head reclined and eyes closed, as if she’s gathering an internal force, still debating with herself.
“Nami-schwann?” Sanji inquires, curious. His tone strangely isn’t full of treacle.
Nami doesn’t speak a word, she just looks at him with cold determination in her eyes, before moving. She takes the dishcloth from his hand, putting it on the table, then she cups his cheeks with her hands and she plants a firm chaste kiss on his lips.
Time should stop, firework should explode, only months before Sanji would have given an arm for this to happen.
Right now, though, it’s nothing.
Nami takes a step back, watching his face to see some reaction.
“You don’t love me, Nami, do you?” he breathes.
Her face crumbles. “You are my nakama, Sanji. Of course, I love you, just… not in that way. I hoped it was enough.”
Sanji takes a step back and recovers the dishcloth. “It’s not your fault Nami. I love you too, just not in that way.”
“Who is -?”
“I’d prefer not to tell.”
“Why not? If it’s Robin…”
“It’s not.”
“But they are one of the crew, are they not?”
“Nami -”
“Sanji,” she pleads, “Please. You are gonna die. You can’t just let this thing consume you without fighting. Tell them, whoever they are.”
The cook pinches the bridge of his nose, forcing himself to reply, even if it’s against his policy to contradict a lady.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. This person… they won’t react well.”
Nami smiles sadly. “Every person on this ship loves you. We are nakama. We won’t let you die.”
“But this kind of love isn’t enough. I need him to love me romantically and it will never happen.”
It doesn’t matter anymore if she knows whom he’s talking about.
“Aren’t you even willing to try?” Nami asks, relenting. “You might be surprised.”
“Goodnight, Nami-schwann.”
- - -
When Zoro comes to the crow's nest to start his watching duty, Sanji should leave - would leave, if only he had enough energy to get up.
“I saw Nami joining you in the kitchen,” Zoro speaks, looking in the distance.
Sanji gets up and reaches him at the window. Right now climbing down looks like hell, but maybe if he stays up long enough his body will cooperate.
“She kissed you, right? So you don’t have the Hanahaki anymore?”
“She kissed me,” Sanji nods. “But I still have it.”
“She doesn’t love you enough,” Zoro snarls, as if that was her fault in any way. She tried, at least.
“I don’t love her.”
“Excuse me, what?”
“I am the one that doesn’t love her,” Sanji repeats, because why not, and Zoro looks at him like he had just stated the sky has always been green.
“Then who the fuck is this person, if not Nami?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. You are gonna die, you need to tell them.”
Sanji laughs, then coughs, nothing too serious, no blood nor petals. “You all seem to think I don’t know I’m gonna die. I realized it and I’m scared as hell. But there’s nothing anyone could do about it.”
“Tell me who this person is. I’m gonna find them and make them love you. Then they’ll kiss you and we’ll be done.”
“You can’t force people to love me,” Sanji chuckles, “it’s not that simple.
“Yes, it is.”
There’s something in his voice. Something that goes along the lines of ‘yes it is that simple to love you’, something that scares the shit out of Sanji.
“What do you mean?” he asks, uncertain.
“Nothing,” Zoro doesn’t meet his eyes.
“What do you mean, asshole?"
“I’ve said nothing.”
“Zoro -”
“Tell me it’s me,” Zoro blurts out, almost a plead.
“What?”
“Tell me it’s me this person you’re loving so desperately to die for them. Tell me it’s me so I can save you.”
Sanji’s so shocked he just tells the truth. “It’s you.”
Zoro tsks, the bitter smile of someone who thinks he’s been mocked painted on his face.
“It is you.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“It’s green.”
“What.”
“It’s green. Thousand of flowers in the world and I’m coughing up the only green one.”
“You don’t know it’s the only one.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Yeah, I suppose it’s not.”
Sanji wishes he could smoke one of his cigarettes without coughing out his lungs at the first puff - how ironic this was what made him quit.
“It’s you and you can’t save me, because nakama-love, or whatever the fuck you wanna call it, isn’t enough.”
Sanji thought it would be more embarrassing, opening up like this. Maybe it’s that he’s gonna die, that puts everything in perspective.
Zoro puts a hand on his arm, “I’m gonna kiss you now,” and Sanji takes a step back because, fuck no, he doesn’t want his pity, he doesn’t want to know Zoro isn’t in love with him.
Then his chest is hurting, spasms bringing him to his knees as he tries to breathe enough air - but it’s not enough, it will never be enough, Sanji’s dying and Zoro is crouching beside him, gripping his shoulder to support him.
Sanji spits, blood and hellebore, red and yellowish-green mixed together on the wooden plank of the crows' nest.
His respite is so short, Sanji is not even sure it has even happened, that painless moment of freedom that came with emptying his bronchi. Then pain is there, again, and Sanji’s chest is constricting under the pressure of the roots in his lungs.
“Sanji!” Zoro is shouting and the cook coughs again trying to take what little flow of air he can. He doesn’t remember Zoro ever calling him by his name.
“Sanji! Fuck! Are you ok?”
Sanji would laugh if he only could. Yes, he’s just trying to expel his lungs, he’s perfectly fine.
Zoro takes his head between his hands, forcing it up so he could look at his face.
Through watery eyes, Sanji sees concern and worry and he shouldn’t be surprised because they are nakama, but somehow he is nonetheless. He hadn’t expected Zoro to be so worried.
Sanji could almost imagine Zoro really loves him, could almost imagine his expression being something else, something more than nakama affection - he could, he can and his heart breaks a little more because he perfectly knows he’s deluding himself.
Another flower blooms in his throat and Sanji lets out a strangled gasp.
Well, if he’s dying now, at least he’s dying at his side. There are worse deaths than this.
And then Zoro is kissing him, crushing their lips together desperately.
“Don’t you dare,” he growls against his mouth before kissing him again and again and again and Sanji thinks he’s already dead and for some strange reason, he went to Heaven, despite all.
“Don’t you dare die on me, you idiot” Zoro murmurs between kisses and it doesn’t make sense, because Sanji’s already dead, is he not?
“You can’t die on me, you hear me? You can’t!” And the moist on his skin… are tears?
Sanji opens his mouth to reply and Zoro slides his tongue inside, gripping and pulling at his hairs and Sanji can’t breathe - again - but this time it isn’t the flowers that are choking him.
Everything clears, here there are fireworks exploding and time stopping and his heart feels so warm, this is too much…
Sanji pushes Zoro away and he stumbles back surprised, but the cook is already coughing and vomiting and the sounds he’s making feel so painful Zoro almost panics.
It lasts a few seconds, no more than ten - but to the swordsman, they feel like centuries, centuries during which Sanji is dying and dying again - and then Sanji looks up at him, eyes red, tears from the strain rolling down his cheeks.
His breath is fast and ragged, like someone’s emerging from an apnea.
At his feet, wet and soaked in blood and saliva lays a hellebore bush, complete of rots and leaves and flowers.
Zoro bolts at his side as he waverers, almost collapsing onto the floor.
“Are you alright now? Was it all?” The swordsman asks, taking Sanji in his arms and moving him onto the couch.
“Yeah… I think. I don’t feel anything in my chest anymore, so maybe… Hopefully, it was all.”
Zoro leans over him and Sanji tries to push him away
“No, no, I’m dirty. I just coughed up that damn thing. It’s gross!”
“I don’t give a fuck” Zoro whispers over his cheeks and then proceeds to kiss him.
Sanji humpfs against his mouth but kisses back.
When they part he doesn’t cough.
“Just to be sure,” Zoro plants another kiss on his mouth and then leaves him on the couch to keep his watch. The sea’s calm, no ships crossing the horizon.
“So… you love me.” It’s not a question. Sanji doesn’t have a plant growing inside him anymore, after all.
“Yes, I love you,” Zoro admits. “God knows why I’m in love with an idiot like you.”
“Hey!” Sanji sounds too affronted for someone who was about to die less than five minutes before.
“You are an idiot. A stubborn one. You would have given up your life, your dream… for what? Your honor? Why didn’t you want to tell me.”
Sanji doesn’t answer and when Zoro turns to face him, he finds him deeply frowning at the ceiling.
“So? Answer me.”
“I thought you would never…” he trails off, no need to complete that sentence.
“You were not even willing to try!”
“I didn’t want your hate.”
“I would never -”
“Or worse, I didn’t want your pity. I preferred not knowing what it was like to kiss you if the kiss was not meant. And I didn’t think, not for one second, you could mean it.”
“But Chopper said… the surgery…”
“I’d prefer to die true to myself than survive to betray what I feel. I love you, and it’s part of me, and I would never, never cut off a part of me.”
“Would you die before amputating one of your legs, if necessary?” Zoro looks affronted, he was ready to cut out his legs to survive.
Sanji shakes his hand. “A leg can be replaced by something very similar. A feeling… A feeling is there because what I am generated it. To cut away a feeling, it would mean to undermine my own personality so much there would not be a base anymore for that feeling to grow up again. Would you forget who gave you your swords if it meant surviving?”
“No,” he answered softly.
“Then you understand why I couldn’t forget you. I love you because I, Sanji, cannot not love you. If you take that away, am I still me? Is it still worth living, no, surviving?”
Zoro shakes his head. “I suppose I can understand you.”
“Good,” Sanji yawns and Zoro wonders when was the last time he had slept decently.
“You should sleep.”
“No, I -”
“I’m on watch here, so close your eyes and get some rest.”
Maybe it’s the fact that with his cough he hadn’t slept well in ages, but Sanji closes his eyes and in a few seconds he’s sleeping.
Zoro should watch out for threats, but he can’t tear his eyes away from Sanji’s chest, raising and lowering without labor.
Maybe he should call Chopper, have him make sure Sanji’s really ok.
Maybe tomorrow.
They have time now. Zoro will make sure of that.
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