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1. across the sea
...there have been clouds gathering on the horizon, and after last month I am so not ready to spend another week cooped up in the galley, so I’ve been productively shaking my fist at them. I’ve also been threatening the barometer: I’ve told it that if it drops it’s going over the side. It knows I’m ruthless enough to follow through, so it’s been behaving so far. Nami paused to take a swig of tea. It had long since gone cold; she had been working on her maps for over an hour before even starting the letter. Not much news from the rest of the crew. I passed along your birthday greetings to Zoro, and he said thanks--or at least grunted something that sounded like “thanks.” I think he’s still kind of cranky that we didn’t kidnap you. Oh, and Luffy wants me to tell you to give Carue an extra-tight hug for him. As for me… Nami’s pen hovered over the letter. She could feel the Sunny creaking under her feet up into her bones. The usual bustle of activity down on the deck had died away with the setting sun. Robin and most of the guys had already gone to bed; it was just her and the candle and the smell of the salt and the sound of Brook’s violin singing out the stars. … I’ve been inspired to finish a lot of stuff I’ve left hanging, so I’ve been buried in paper. I found some projects that I could’ve sworn I finished before I even met Luffy, and I honestly don’t know how they got here. And of course I’ve been... Thinking about you lately? Missing you more than I can say? Listening to Robin’s breathing from across the room and wishing it was yours next to my ear? Those weren’t words a Straw Hat could write to Her Royal Highness Vivi of Nefertari, Princess of Alabasta, no matter how unlikely the letter was to fall into unfriendly hands. Keeping up correspondence with her was risky enough--but Nami, already an ocean and a dream away from Vivi’s body, couldn’t bear to be separated from her in mind. The letters had been Vivi’s idea anyway. She had sent the first one after Water Seven, and it had not been a love letter--she had been furious at the sight of Robin under the Straw Hat flag. Most of her vitriol had been addressed to Luffy, but Nami could feel the grief under her words. Nami, Zoro, Usopp--how could you let this happen? Luffy had gotten a paragraph into a reply letter (Dear Vivi--dont be sad. You r stil a STRAW HAT and we havnt forgoten you) before something else had pulled him away. Usopp had volunteered to finish it, saying his journey at Water Seven had given him some needed perspective. Nami had been too grief-stricken to respond then, but when the second letter came with an apology and a P.S.: please say hi to Nami for me her walls had crumbled and she had taken quill to paper immediately. Vivi, Vivi, she hadn’t given up on them, she wasn’t too late. Vivi knew she was loved. And so Nami wrote. She wrote over Zoro’s bleeding body at Thriller Bark. She wrote letter after letter during her internship and the two-year separation. She wrote a letter from Fishman Island and watched in fascination as it traveled up the pneumatic tube to the surface. She wrote a letter from Dressrosa and finished it in Zou--Sanji is gone, he threw me out of Capone Bege just like that. She wrote another from Wano and made Sanji add an apology note at the end. Vivi had answered them all. ...And of course I’ve been… Vivi knew she was loved.
...I’ve been…
But Nami was so tired of hiding her words. ...I’ve been missing you.
2. across the ship
He had kissed her for the first time on impulse, the two of them alone at the wheel in the lashing rain. They had been so wrapped up in their conversation that they didn’t notice as the clouds gathered and Nami ushered everyone else off the deck. When the clouds broke like a smashed glass and soaked them to the skin in seconds, Robin had simply laughed at the firmness of her own concentration. Her eyes had shone and her hair had plastered around her elegant cheekbones and the bridge of her dignified nose and he had kissed her. And kissed her, almost without knowing. And kissed her, feeling the curve of her back under the dull, artificial nerves of his hand. And kissed her, and kissed her, until she pulled back to look him in the eyes and immediately sneezed in his face. “Unfortunately,” she had said, “implanted prosthetics require the regular use of immunosuppressants to avoid rejection. A simple cold might prove fatal.” “I love you,” Franky had said. That had been a little over a month ago. Since then, they had kissed 47 times, not that Franky was counting (he was counting). They had kissed in alleyways and on the dock of the last island and in Franky’s workshop and once, memorably, after colliding in the hallway to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Each one had been different. Each one had been warm. Each one had left him smiling and buzzing from his artificial scalp to his reinforced toes. They had never kissed in front of the crew. Franky sat bolt upright in bed, violently flinging Chopper off his lap and onto the floor. They had never kissed in front of the crew! Oh no! Oh shit! Did Robin think he was ashamed of her? Did Robin think that she didn’t inspire his heart to light up and piston-beat and lift his voice in song? Did Robin not realize how wonderful she was? Chopper peered up at him from his landing spot on Zoro’s discarded shirt. “What the--Franky! Is something wrong?” “I AM HUMAN GARBAGE,” yelled Franky at the top of his lungs. Usopp frowned groggily at him. “I don’t like to hear my friends say shit like that about themselves!” Franky ignored him. “I NEED TO GO APOLOGIZE!” “For what? What’s wrong?” chirped Chopper, climbing back up the bunk ladder. “Did something happen?” “I MADE ROBIN SAD, PROBABLY!” bellowed Franky, already halfway up the ladder out of the boys’ room. It was a chilly night, and all but one of the hall lights were out. Sunny’s planks nipped a little at his bare feet as he sprinted full-throttle to the girls’ room. He didn’t have a chance to open the door--a disheveled Robin placed an arm on the wall and did it for him. “What’s going on? Franky? What’s happened? Are we under attack?” she said, eyes wide, feet already halfway to the floor. The neck of her too-large T-shirt slipped down over one of her shoulders as she pushed her hair out of her eyes. Franky was positive that at that moment she was the most beautiful woman in the world. “I’M A LOUSY BOYFRIEND!” hollered Franky with new conviction. How could he cause even a tiny spiderweb fracture of self-doubt to mar the perfect life this amazing woman deserved? “I ACT LIKE I’M ASHAMED OF YOU BUT I WAS JUST BEING A DUMBASS I’M SO MMRFF FFRMM MFRRFMMBFF--” Robin gave him a severe look from over her crossed arms. “Why are you in my bedroom insulting yourself in the middle of the night?” “MRFFGHRFG,” said Franky. God, her grip hadn’t gotten any weaker since they first met. At least now she was grabbing his face. “I’ll let you go if you stop yelling,” said Robin. She paused for a moment. “Or, at least, if you come as close to not yelling as you can.” Franky nodded rapidly. Her hands dissipated in a shower of petals. “I’M SO SORRY, BABY,” tried to force its way out of his throat, but he clamped it down and muted it into a softer but less comprehensible high-pitched whining sound. Robin blinked slowly. “What?” “I said,” Franky croaked, “I’m so sorry, baby.” Robin took a deep breath and patted the bed next to her. Cringing, Franky sat down. The bed, which was made long before they fell in love, creaked in protest. “Franky,” she said, grasping one of his huge hands between ten graceful fingers, “did you kill somebody?” “Wh--no!” Franky swallowed. Had he, though? “At least I don’t think I did. I definitely haven’t killed anyone recently. Unless I did something fucked up and didn’t realize it.” That was one of nature’s perfect segues, and Franky would be a fool not to take it. “Which is what I’m freaking out about!” “So you did kill somebody?” “No! Probably not! I just mean that I’ve been a crappy boyfriend to you and I hadn’t realized it until like a minute and a half ago!” “If you had been mistreating me,” said Robin, slowly and softly but with an underline of steel, “I would be aware of it.” She looked him dead in the eye. Franky could see the embers of Ohara somewhere deep behind her cornea, and he shivered. “I’m not interested in allowing anyone to mistreat me.” “But I-- I mean--” Robin placed a hand to his lips. “No.” She glanced away for just an instant, before straightening her spine and returning his watery gaze. “You won’t.” Franky could feel his spine tremble, keel shaken with the weight of her trust. “I’ll fuck up. You know I will.” “Everyone does.” “Then--” Robin leaned in, nose brushing his cheek. “You see me.” “Baby--” Franky choked, tears welling, “--half the time you’re the only thing I can see.” Robin smiled. Franky had been so wrong a few seconds ago-- now she was definitely the most beautiful woman in the world, hell, in the history of the world, in the entire potentiality of this or any other planet to form flesh and soul from carbon and nitrogen, there could be nobody and nothing more beautiful than Robin here, on this bed, lit up from the inside out with her slow-burning brilliant flame. “Exactly.” She kissed him then, softly. Kiss number 48. “So--” she pulled back, not far, just a breath away-- “what is it that you thought you did?” “I didn’t kiss you in front of the crew.” His voice felt tiny and pathetic. “Oh,” Robin said. “I just thought you wanted to keep this private.” That was just so a) ridiculous and b) absolutely wrong that Franky immediately burst out laughing. Robin flinched back with an affronted look. “No, hahahaha, no, baby I’m sorry, no it’s not about you I’m just-- do I look like I’ve ever given a damn about keeping my feelings hidden?” “Yes.” Robin rubbed at her ear. Franky wanted to object but, like, she knew him at Water Seven, so, fair. “Okay, let me rephrase that. Do I look like I’ve ever given a damn about hiding my feelings since I joined this crew?” “No, but there’s a difference between falsely hidden feelings and privacy.” Franky could tell she was gearing up for a debate. “Putting up a false front and not opening a door aren’t equivalent.” “I mean--” Franky wrapped a hand around her waist. “--you could make an argument that keeping important things from your close friends is more like camouflaging the door. But in the facts of this particular case I was seriously just being a ditz.” Robin snuggled in against his shoulder, fathomless eyes twinkling. “It’s true that close friends are privy to more intimate details, but one still reflexively keeps private about certain matters. I don’t tell you or Nami about, say, my bathroom habits, or my first period. And you weren’t being a ditz, and you may kiss me in public if you like.” “Super! Oh, baby, I’m so honored to-- Did you just compare dating me to going to the bathroom?” By the time Nami found them--an hour later, curled up together, half-asleep, debating about the conflation of professionally-coded speech and dress with actual professional competence--and kicked Franky out of the girls’ dorm, they were up to kiss number 63.
3. across the bed
The thing is that Zoro has never been good at reading people off the battlefield. When swords and guns are drawn, he can ride the currents of violent intent like Sunny over the tides. He can tell if someone is prepared to kill or if they just think they are. He can tell where the blood is going to fall. And, like Nami on the rigging, he can take those dagger-lines and steer. That was the first thing he had had in common with Sanji. The two of them had fallen in step without practice, without trying, almost without thought, from the very first battle they shared. After years sailing together, they were beyond communication. Their haki were entwined; Zoro could feel Sanji using Diable Jambe from a hundred yards away. Off the battlefield, that connection snaps and Sanji closes like a safe. People can’t see it from the outside. To the observer, the Straw Hats are loud and proud, open and joyful in their affection for each other. They hug and they cry and they drink the night away and they wake up in cuddle piles. Sanji seems like one of the loudest--he yells at the guys, he flirts with every woman from eighteen to ninety-one, he routinely sets himself on fire to make a point. But in those famous Straw Hat after-caper parties, Sanji stands to the side, hands in his pockets, a streak of charcoal with an affectedly lazy posture. While the rest of the Straw Hats are leaning on each other or waking up in a heap, Sanji is in motion, orbiting them, cleaning something and maintaining his carefully-cultivated distance. He touches the ladies’ hands sometimes, and he pats Chopper on the head, but there’s a distance in his body even if it’s not there in his heart. With Zoro, it’s different. Sanji gets right up in his face. Sanji shares his bunk. Sanji uses him as a pillow. He’s been doing it for years and Zoro cannot for the life of him figure out why. Why would a guy who spends half the time complaining about how much Zoro smells spend the other half of his time practically stapled to his chest? Honestly, Zoro wouldn’t have minded if he hadn’t fallen in love with him years ago.--- The men’s bunkroom rang with the silence of Franky’s departure. For a long moment, nobody spoke. “Anyway!” Sanji cut through the silence like he was deboning a fish. “What the fuck was that all about?” Usopp shrugged. “I wouldn’t even begin to guess.” “Ants in the Speedo.” Luffy swung a leg over the edge of his bunk, tapping his heel lazily against the hull. There was a grumbling of general disgust. “Luffy, what did I fucking tell you about giving us disturbing mental images when we’re trying to sleep?” Sanji snapped. By the time it took Sanji to get from one end of that sentence to the other, Luffy was already asleep and snoring. Sanji turned over and wedged his head against Zoro’s bicep with a huff. “Fucking--if I have ant nightmares I’m making him into stew.” “Uh,” said Zoro. Sanji didn’t seem to notice. He wiggled a little further into the mattress, shutting his eyes on a deep exhale. “G’night, moss.” This was new. They had been napping together off and on for years and sharing a bunk since shortly after Thriller Bark, but Sanji had always just laid his head down silently and slipped into an unobtrusive sleep. Talking in bed was unprecedented, and Zoro didn’t know how to react. Zoro’s system flooded with adrenaline, but he was too disciplined to start flipping out. After what must have been at least half a minute of regulating his breathing, he glanced down at Sanji’s face. The image seared itself into his brain like a camera flash. Sanji looked… Sanji looked relaxed. His ridiculous eyebrow arched softly over his gently shuttered eye. Under his disheveled hair, his forehead was smooth. The ends of his thin mouth were curving--almost imperceptibly in objective terms but to Zoro’s wide eye as bright and as obvious as the edges of a solar eclipse. Zoro had never before seen the cook fallen truly still. Even quietly smoking and watching the sunset--even in his sleep--there was always something in Sanji that was leaning into a sprint. Now the nervous energy was gone; Sanji had his weapons down and his neck quietly bared, and Zoro was so goddamn honored he couldn’t breathe. He felt as though Law had come in and handed him Sanji’s very heart. I don’t ever want to be the monster under your bed, he thought. I never want to make fear flicker in your eyes for even an instant. I want to be a challenge when you need a challenge and a harbor when you need a harbor. There are millions of two-bit pirates and jumped-up Marines I can terrify, but there’s only one Black-Leg Sanji, one infinitely precious Black-Leg Sanji, and if I could I would reach in and tear out the fear behind your lungs and eat it, I would live it twenty times over just to keep you in this peace. God, God, he wanted to kiss him, but he didn’t dare move a centimeter and risk breaking the surface of this deep sea. He could take it; he was a patient man. He could stay here rigidly all night if that was what Sanji needed. Hell, he could stay here all week. He could take root in this bunk and derive nutrition from the smell of old socks and damp Chopper if that would keep that quiet solar smile on Sanji’s face. He felt Sanji’s eyelashes twitch against his arm. One blue eye flicked open and peered up at his face. Zoro tried to look calm, but something must have shown on his face, because Sanji’s legs and back tensed and the easy smile disappeared from his lips. Shit! Still, Sanji didn’t move away. He just stared and stared as the room rustled with sleepy breaths. Zoro stared back, tongue still and clumsy in his mouth. What was he supposed to do? What was Sanji looking for? “Don’t…” Sanji whispered. “Don’t?” Had Zoro done something wrong? Sanji was the one who laid down on his arm. Sanji was the one who had started the naps together in the first place. Zoro was just trying to keep up, but had he failed somehow? Sanji was blushing. His voice sounded like a pilot light crackling in another room. “Don’t make this weird, okay?” “Don’t make wh--” Then Sanji was kissing him. It was a firm, quick, embarrassed kiss and it was over before Zoro had a chance to react. When he pulled back, Sanji was bright pink from ear to ear. “That. Just. Don’t, like. I’m sorry. I’m going to sleep. Just gotta--” Sanji moved to get up, but Zoro grabbed his waist, careful to keep his touch light enough that Sanji could easily break it but unwilling to let this conversation go without a chance to speak his piece. “Hold on a fuckin’ second, curly.” “I just have to--” Sanji didn’t move. His eye was wide. “Why did you do that?” Zoro rasped, dropping his arm. The last thing he wanted to do was make Sanji any more afraid, even if he didn’t understand why the fear was there in the first place. “Don’t make it weird, I just--” “Sanji. Why did you do that?” “I don’t know!” Sanji hissed. “I don’t fucking know, it just happened and I’m sorry--” Zoro’s heart thumped like a wave on a hull. “Do it again.” “--I wasn’t thinking, I just-- what?” “I said, do it again.” Zoro swallowed. It was probably a stupid thing to say, but, dammit, he couldn’t help himself-- “Don’t you have the guts to follow through on things, curly?” Sanji’s mouth dropped open. “You. I mean.” “Are you just gonna run, or do your actions have weight? Because--” Zoro could feel himself blushing, but it was far too late to stop now. He was in this shit till it caught on fire. “Because I’m not interested in doing meaningless things. Even for you.” “Even for....” Sanji whispered. “I don’t like playing around. So, if you meant it, kiss me again.” The word kiss seemed to spark a shiver through Sanji’s body. He took a deep, shuddering breath, then another, and another. Zoro was just about to give the whole thing up and go to sleep when Sanji firmed his spine, looked him in the eye, and said “...I meant it.” “Then--” Zoro cleared his throat. He honestly hadn’t expected that to happen. There was a swoop of giddy vertigo churning down in the center of his chest. “Then show me.” Their second kiss was a lot softer.