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They'd arrived back at the ship in the early hours of the morning and Sanji felt dead on his feet. To say that he was emotionally drained from the whole experience would be an understatement.
Having to not only see, but be around his abusive father and siblings had left him stuck in memories of the past he'd hoped he'd forgotten. It was stupid of him to ever think something like that would ever just vanish though, not when it gave his brain a perfectly good way to torment him even further, reminding him how much of a failure he was, and how his crew were gonna' dump his ass at the next island they came across.
Zoro had still yet to talk to him and it was pretty obvious that his boyfriend was purposely trying to ignore him. He'd been there during Luffy and his fight so he knew exactly how much of a monster he was, just like his family.
They do say the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.
"Sanji?"
He jumped slightly as he turned to find Robin by the doorway looking into the guy's bunkroom.
"Hey."
"Sorry to scare you like that."
"It's nothing."
"So, how are you feeling?"
He looked down at the sheets lying in his and Zoro's double bunk hammock and sighed.
"I'm fine, just tired."
"Has, ummm... has Zoro spoke to you yet?"
"No, he hasn't."
Robin looked saddened.
"It's fine, he probably just-."
He was soon cut off as his crewmate crossed the room and pulled him into a hug. Caught off guard he found himself sinking into her embrace, the acceptance of at least one of his friends hitting him harder than he could've imagined.
"Thank you."
She pulled away with a soft smile.
"For what?"
"Just... thanks."
Robin gave him a nod before heading for the door.
"Get some sleep, you need to rest, and don't worry about the meals, we'll be just fine until you're back on your feet."
"Okay."
He went to climb up into the bunk.
"Oh and Sanji?"
"Yeah?"
"Zoro loves you more than anything, I wouldn't be too worried."
He could only hope that was true. Just because he did love him didn't mean he wanted anything to do with him now, not after everything he'd done.
Robin's footsteps became quieter as he flopped down on the makeshift mattresses Franky had fitted the bunks with. Relaxing back against the soft fluff he closed his eyes, the gentle sway of the ship almost bringing tears to his eyes after so long away.
It took no time at all for him to fall asleep.
The first time he saw his boyfriend since returning to the Sunny was as he made the trip down to his kitchen, hoping that it wouldn't be completely trashed in his absence.
It wasn't... great, but it was definitely better than the horror shots he had in his head of how it could have looked. Whoever had been doing the cooking had clearly attempted to preserve his sacred safe space ready for his return.
He saw a flash of green before he narrowly avoided walking into the swordsman who was distracted rubbing at his eyes as if he'd just woken up; which, knowing Zoro, he probably had.
"Hey."
"Hey."
Sanji took a breath.
"You didn’t come to bed last night."
Zoro rubbed the back of his neck.
"I just stayed out on the deck, thought I'd do some stargazing."
The concoction of sadness from being so openly avoided and guilt from those words hit him hard.
"It's your bed too."
Zoro offered a soft smile which broke off mere seconds later as if he'd forgotten he was angry.
"It's fine."
"I don't think any of this is fine. If we were fine then you wouldn't have needed to risk catching pneumonia just to escape me."
"Sanji..."
"HEY SANJI!" Called the voice of their Captain before he erupted into the kitchen.
"Yes, Luffy?"
"Meat please!" He announced with a grin.
"It's breakfast so no; now go bother someone else until it's ready."
"Ohhhhh..." Luffy grumbled as he left the kitchen.
He noticed the smirk at the corner of Zoro's mouth but he didn't comment on it.
Sanji began to take the ingredients he needed out of the fridge. Annoyingly he didn’t notice his shirt rise up as he reached right to the back of the chiller.
Zoro’s eyes widened as the mass of bruises all over his stomach were revealed, the swordsman stepping forward and pushing up his sleeves to display even more shades of black and green.
"Your fight with Luffy, he didn't fight back."
He took a breath.
“Who did this to you?”
He couldn’t reply.
“Sanji!”
He jumped at the raised voice.
Zoro seemed to soften, the tone of his voice matching.
“Who did this?”
"Judge and my brothers."
His boyfriend looked ready to punch someone.
"What did he have over you?"
"They said they had Zeff and the Baratie crew held hostage, they were going to kill him if I didn’t do as they wanted.”
"Sanji..."
Grabbing the ingredients and placing them down on the counter he hoped there would be enough left to at least have meals for the next week but it was going to be tight.
Maybe he'd have to say he'd already eaten his in the kitchen again. Zoro was hardly going to care right now so he'd probably get away with it.
His stomach chose that moment to rumble.
"When was the last time you ate?"
"I'm fine." He quickly replied back hoping the swordsman would drop the line of questioning.
"You don't sound fine you sound hungry, and should you really be up and about, you look exhausted?”
“I don’t need your pity.”
Zoro’s brows furrowed as he scowled.
“It’s not pity it’s concern, you look like you’re going to keel over any second.”
Sanji scrubbed a hand down his face.
“Zoro? Do you still love me?”
The swordsman seemed taken aback by the abrupt question.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because I just attacked our captain even, like you said, when he wasn’t fighting back. I remember what you said about Usopp so surely it’s just the same for me, but what I did was worse. I don’t deserve to be on the Sunny. I mean, I even betrayed you; I was going to marry Pudding!”
Zoro almost growled.
“I know there was nothing there between the two of you, there’s no way you’d leave me for her. I know you, Sanji, you’re not even bi so why would you be interested; and there’s no way you’d throw that away for some girl your father wanted you to marry.”
"I was gonna' go through with it until I overheard her talking about how pathetic I am. You probably think am I too?"
"You're not pathetic."
He closed his eyes for a few seconds, desperate for a cigarette.
"I wanted to come back with you, I wanted to be nakama again but I screwed everything up and now you all quite rightfully don't want anything to do with me, not after what I did to my Captain."
There was an awful silence in the kitchen as Sanji tried to keep hold of his composure after everything that had happened in the last week and a half
“Of course I still love you, I could barely think straight when you were gone. I was so worried, everyone was, one minute you were there and the next we find out that you’ve been taken against your will just so we wouldn’t get hurt. You were playing the damn martyr when you could have just asked for help. We were prepared to sail to the ends of the earth to save you because that’s what nakama do.”
Sanji’s eyes widened at those words before a tearful smile came to his face.
The swordsman took a breath.
“If I left this kitchen, would you eat anything?”
“Zoro…”
“Would you eat anything?” He repeated, tone firm.
Sanji looked over the items on the table, they didn’t have much left. He hoped the portion sizes wouldn’t be too small, his plan having been to skip his own to allow his crewmates larger helpings.
“Sanji?” Zoro’s tone was soft.
“No.”
His boyfriend sighed, closing the gap between them and placing his hands on his cheeks so that their eyes met before pressing a soft kiss to his lips with a smile.
“Then we need to think of something you can have too, yeah?”