Death and its Fool

Mortal beings die. They fade. They go elsewhere and light the darkness with whatever insight they have learned from this thing called life. It is merely his job to make sure they get there.
The sky-the universe-the void, strongly disagrees, constantly chiding him when Zoro greets it to let a soul into oblivion. “One day Zoro, you’ll find out what it means to live and you’ll yearn for the chance to have it.”
The first time Zoro meets Sanji is on his deathbed.
[Zoro is death incarnate. And in all his immortal life, he has never found a reason to live. Until he meets Sanji: over and over again.]

Notes:

There's something about Zosan that makes me feel like a poet when I'm writing.
This work contains all my existential thoughts about life written as a love story that goes beyond death and life. It can get really dark and nihilistic at points, and I understand that it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea.
But I hope you are willing to give this a chance. I cannot express how much it means to me to have people read my work.
(Sofia, my roommate/not roommate anymore, I hope this makes you fucking cry.)

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils. - The Life and Death of Socrates

The first time he met Sanji was on his deathbed.

Silvering temples that faded into dull blonde. Pale ash-stricken skin folded and creased all over the body. A withered frame with brittle bones and lungs that heaved for one last kiss of air. A heart fading into background noise as muscles, organs, everything began to give. Heavy-lidded eyes fluttered, faded blue boring into him.

“I suppose you’re here to collect me.” An old man’s voice croaked through the being that lay dying in front of him. You’d think eons of reaping souls would have taught him that the elderly always knew it was their time, and yet each instance caught him a little off guard. How prepared they were. How entirely fearless in a body that no longer had anything to give.

“There’s still some time.” Zoro echoes. Seconds, really. But in terms of eternity, it was a life’s worth of time. Before the physical body would give and the soul would reawaken and take the reaper’s hand to be led into oblivion, to emerge and fuse as one with the universe.

A defeated cough wracks the room, but Zoro waits patiently by the man’s side. Sanji, as Zoro had glimpsed from the nameplate outside the hospital room. He lifted his hand weakly, urging Zoro to come a little closer. “I don’t mean to keep you waiting. Please, feel free to take my hand at any point.”

It was such an odd request: to take the reaper’s hand. Those he found dying alone often reached for the last scrap of hope, some semblance to cling onto their humanity even if it came in the form of a man who stole the rest of their time. They asked for Zoro’s hand to weaken the burden of the unknown. So Zoro takes the old man’s hand.

“It’s not scary.” He tells Sanji. A whisper of words he’s said repeatedly with such little depth in the tone. Humans. They come and they go, and they live like they are immortal only to find themselves at death’s feet.

Sanji looks at him, befuddled, scrounging up a gaspy wheezing sort of laugh. “I would certainly hope not. I’m far too old to be frightened now. Thank you - er- uh, what should I call you?” Zoro tilts his head and stares, the pale hand in his palm squeezes a little harder. The heart rate monitor is starting to beep because the numbers are dropping too low. “Please? I’d like to know your name before I die.” Sanji smiles, so soft, so austere and vulnerable, and entirely stripped bare. There is nothing attached to his request. No hope he’s holding onto. Nothing his mind is trying to comprehend as he approaches an end he previously couldn’t comprehend. Entirely calm, completely fearless. The man had taken the reaper’s hand because he did not want death waiting on him. It’s a startling revelation in millennia of mulling around purgatory collecting souls, that he doesn’t even recognize he’s supposed to answer back until Sanji’s at his last breath.

“Zoro. My name is Zoro.”

There isn’t a response back. The monitor flat lines and nurses rush in pulling on tubes and checking the body. They phase right through Zoro’s body in a desperate attempt to reclaim something from a power far beyond. A younger nurse attempts to pull out the defibrillator.

“No, don't.” A doctor says. “His file says do not resuscitate.”

They announce a time of death, forty-two point six seconds off from the actual time the man took his last breath. Zoro should be long gone by now, leading a brightly colored soul on its way to oblivion, releasing it to join the other stars lighting the universe’s vast emptiness. But no soul appears. Yet he waits, an inkling of hope that someone so brave would have finally reached the end of all their eternities and were ready to go.

The hourglass on Zoro’s wrist flips, sand pouring into the bottom with a set of coordinates listed in inky black at the edge. Zoro doesn’t even spare the body a last glance as he moves on to his next death. Another death to reap.

Zoro’s biggest problem with immortality was dealing with the abundance of memories. What may seem so vital and altering in one moment is nothing but an insignificant blip on the timeline of eternity. There is no such thing as pivotal. The concept of “life-changing” is such an utterly mortal thing to abide by. Time flows like sand, remnants of the dead shifting and cycling endlessly. No granule stands out more than the others. And just like the insignificance of a grain of sand, existence itself is nothing.

So, his memory is faulty. Partially because there is far too much to remember. Mostly because he honestly doesn’t care. Mortal beings die. They fade. They go elsewhere and light the darkness with whatever insight they have learned from this thing called life. It is merely his job to make sure they get there.

The sky-the universe-the void, strongly disagrees, constantly chiding him when Zoro greets it each time a soul is let into oblivion. “One day Zoro, you’ll find out what it means to live, and you’ll yearn for the chance to have it.”

He doubts that moment will ever come. The humans follow as the sun rises and it falls, using dawn and dusk to guide their ways. And with each day and night - kingdoms are built, empires are razed, new souls are given a chance, and tired souls are finally being granted rest. What is there to life but to follow the motions?

Still, Zoro finds himself lingering in wide fields of grass when the hourglass has not reset. When it does not require his efforts and instead condones how he wastes away towards eternity, sleeping in the quiet fields on the far outer circle of a kingdom long forgotten. In these moments he knows peace: to be everything and nothing at all. To simply be as the wind gushes and the birds sing and the leaves rustle.

Imagine his dismay when something thumps into him rather roughly rather than phasing right through his form. He lifts his head from the pillow of his hands and peers down at his chest, wide blue eyes blinking back at him in utter horror.

“Ghost!” The child shrieks, scrambling up to scurry away, but tripping on Zoro’s robes and falling right back into the tan chest. He trembles into Zoro’s skin, too afraid to look but more afraid to flee again. Cuts and bruises litter the thing’s pale skin, and it looks pathetic cowering in fear right in front of the thing it should be fearful of.

“Oi brat.” Zoro grabs the thing’s collar and hefts it off him. He roughly shoves the kid away and stands, brushing away whatever sticky salty tears were clinging to him. The child’s legs are quivering, his bottom lip clenched between his teeth as a river of tears runs down his face in silence.

“Don’t kill me, I beg of you!” The boy warbles, his voice breezy and broken. Zoro glances at his wrist, frowning when he notices the hourglass remains still. This boy was nowhere near death, yet here he was right next to Zoro, able to touch him and feel him and see him.

“How’d you do that?” Zoro taps the ink at his wrist, wondering if it was defective. If time became too much for the concept of death and no longer wanted to abide by the rules.

The kid stares up at him, confused and apprehensive at the gruff man cloaked like a ghost. The more he looks, the less deathly the man looks. His skin was tan, his body was warm, the robe covering him was black for sure, but underneath was a simple pair of pants, and most importantly: “Sir, your hair…it’s like grass.”

Zoro glares at him. “Is that what I asked?” He admonishes the boy harshly. All he gets is a rebellious toothy grin.

“Your hair is green!” The boy claps his hand and tugs his robe, pulling Zoro down with the force of surprise rather than his grip. Soft chubby hands run through the spiky head of hair on Zoro’s head. “It’s like moss!”

“Watch it,” Zoro growls, but the boy doesn’t bite. Suddenly this ghost is a moss man, a troll he found as he got lost exploring. There’s nothing scary about a troll. In fact, there are only exciting things when stumbling across a forest creature as he had read in all those stories.

“Have you come from elsewhere?” The boy’s questions come unfiltered, unfettered just like his vivacious personality. “How far have you come?” “Are you lost, sir?” “You must be hungry.”

There are too many words and inquiries swirling around but before Zoro even has the chance to step in to get the kid to shut up, the little thing takes a step back and shakes his head in reprimand. “Oh, my apologies. My name is Sanji! It’s a pleasure to meet you.” The boy sticks out his hand, a sunny smile plastered on his face, so proud of himself for remembering etiquette.

Sanji. There was something about that name that was so muddy. It clung to Zoro like wet sand: gritty and uncomfortable.

“Not interested.” He pushes past the kid. The hourglass had reset.

Zoro doesn’t remember how he got here or why. It was just nothing and then something. And there he was, listening as the universe told him to collect the dead in search of souls. Souls that had learned all there was to living and needed to shine their light upon other worlds. So, Zoro went collecting shining little orbs and watching them decorate the sky. He asked the universe once if he had a soul.

He never got a reply.

A couple of days. Or maybe years. Or maybe even millennia. Zoro finds himself back in the very same fields. His memory calls back the way the wind gushes, how the birds' chirp, and the rustle of the leaves. And for some reason a glimmering smile from a boy who spiraled into tears when he first saw him.

The king is dead, though the people haven’t received that news yet. He wades through the village, passing through people who get in his way and feel an uncontrollable shiver ice their veins. He climbs the stone steps of the servant’s quarters up to the king’s room on the third floor of a guarded palace and walks through the mahogany doors. Another man who squandered his time for gold and glory, crumbling away in the weight of old age.

The man’s eyes go wide, barely able to make noise, just wheezy sounds from tattered vocal cords that once boomed for conquest. Zoro reaches for his hand when a knife stabs him in the gut. Viscous black liquid pooling from the wound. Zoro pulls the dagger from his stomach. The torn flesh already stitching itself back together. The blade drops with a clatter, splashes of blackened blood splattering on the carpeted ground.

“Reaper.” The man finally manages to speak, an arm outstretched from where it once stuck a dagger into Zoro’s abdomen. “It is not my time yet.”

These are the humans he loathes the most. The ones who believe they are entitled to more time. The ones who assume that the universe chose them to live an eternity as gods that rule and ravage those unworthy. The ones who looked at Zoro as if he were simply another thing to be conquered. He waited for the sand to stop spilling, not deigning this so-called king a single word.

“Let me offer you.” The man wheezes. “A deal.” There is nothing in the universe that would entice Zoro to buy him more time, even if he were able to. He remains gravely silent, waiting to see if a soul will exit the body. “I will give you my darling girl. The most beautiful woman in the world as your bride.”

Zoro grimaces. He looks at the man as the life dims in his eyes. “You are no god to offer the lives of others when you can barely hold on to yours.” The man chokes and sputters on the venom in Zoro’s words and suffocates to death on the rage that laced them. There was no soul this time. Not even a pale flickering blue light. He could scoff at the notion. A creature so vile and cruel produce light for oblivion? It was improbable. The moment it would have made it into oblivion it would have withered away under the light of a billion stars, completely purposeless. It would have faded quickly. Why give it a chance when it was fated to amount to nothing? There was no point in such a futile existence.

“It needs another life.” The universe tells him.

Zoro grits his teeth. “It’ll never learn.”

“But it might.”

Mostly empty promises of learning what it means to live. Something about forgiveness and repentance. But what is the point of becoming if harm was still inflicted? No number of lives could make up for the haunting nightmares of the oppressed.

The hourglass remains still. The sands of time are sedentary. Zoro stumbles out of the palace, through the winding paths of the town, ears not hearing the trumpets proclaim their great king’s demise.

Something solid collides into him as he shifts past the gathering cloud.

“Ow- who is-” The voice cuts off, wide blue eyes blinking up at Zoro’s form. A mouth that rounds in shock and hands that fidget with words that can’t be articulated.

“You,” Zoro says.

“My god, it wasn’t an illusion.” The golden-haired boy, now older, taller, and leaner, gapes at him. “Moss man?”

That snaps Zoro’s attention. “See you haven’t changed.” Blistered cold fingers reach up to Zoro’s jaw, a thumb running over the sharp edge. Fingers pulling at the strands of hair. Zoro hardens at the touch. “Don’t.”

As quick as they came, the fingers flee. “My apologies. I overstepped. It’s simply that- folks thought I caught a demon with my tales.” Ocean blue eyes run all over Zoro, taking every aspect in. “They refused to believe me.”

“How can you see me?” Zoro doesn’t understand. Once was simply childish curiosity. But now? This gangly teenager standing before him? This shouldn’t be possible.

“Whatever do you mean? You are standing right in front of me.”

A lingering thickness fills his mouth. He glances at his wrist. The hourglass remains still. “Sanji. You said your name was Sanji.” Zoro doesn’t know how he remembers. He doesn’t know how long it’s been and how many eras he’s traveled but this human remembers him and that’s all it takes for the name to appear.

Sanji beams. “You remembered my name. Though you never told me yours. How should I address you? Moss man, perhaps?”

Another memory emerges from the depth of time. A cold hospital room. A dying old man. A soul that never appeared. It’s years away yet somewhere buried in Zoro’s figment of a past. His fingers twitch, urging him to take this Sanji’s hand.

“SANJI!” Someone calls from a shanty of a building, huffing as they stomp their feet. Sanji’s attention flickers to the side.

“Ugh. Hold here mossy. I shall return in an instant.” And the blonde races away, answering this screaming girl’s demands. Hands up as he apologizes apathetically and reaches to ruffle the curls of her hair and offers something from his pockets.

Zoro is befuddled as he watches, a sort of peace settling over him for a mere moment - where he was simply an observer and not the hand of death. But the hourglass resets with its divine timing to remind him of his role.

The next time, Zoro finds him by chance. Though what is a coincidence but the guiding hand of fate?

A young girl had just passed. She was scared, hesitant to take his hand. But her soul was effervescent, illuminating away the ugly shadows of fear. Guiding her was an honor. And when he released her into the river of oblivion, infinity welcomed the brightness. He would’ve gazed at the night sky and its stars for as long as he could if it were not for the flash of gold in the corner of his eye.

Zoro turns to the right to test his vision. But there it is - the bit of bobbing gold that caught his eye in the dark forest. It dances closer and Zoro feels the need, the urge, to investigate. He crosses the hills to the edge of the forest in search of that shimmering light, twisting and peering.

“Oi moss man,” A voice beckons him, “had I not asked you to wait?”

It should be impossible. The man standing before him, a lilting pout and hands neatly tucked in pockets. The same wide and curious blue eyes and curling blonde hair. It was unimaginable when Zoro met him at seven. It was inconceivable when he met him again at fifteen.

“Sanji,” Zoro tells the now twenty-one-year-old man before him.

Sanji beams. “You remember my name. Again, I suppose. Now do tell Mossy, it is impolite to make a man wait yet another ten years for a name.” Zoro doesn’t understand. His head hurts from trying to force together a cobbled memory, but he can’t take his eyes off Sanji. Sanji waves a hand in front of his eyes. “Hello? Are you alright there?”

“How,” Zoro cracks, “how is this possible?”

“You tell me. I suppose you are some sort of mythical marimo man yet how is it you look precisely the same as you had when I was a child? Is it immortality or the sort?” Sanji peers at Zoro, taking in the flowing robes and the hourglass tattooed on his wrist - attempting to configure what has seemingly escaped him. Sanji didn’t even know half of it.

“It’s because-” Zoro frowns as he realizes what Sanji has said, “wait what the hell did you call me? A marimo man?”

“Of course.” Sanji pops, obviously pleased with himself. “I did a good bit of research post our first meeting, and I had read that creatures like you happened to live in the woods by the river.” Sanji gestures over to the river that flowed just over the hills. “I ventured back to find you, but I could never seem to find you again.”

Zoro squints. “First off, I’m not a marimo man or whatever the hell you read. Second, you came back here to find me?”

The man shrugs, ambling around in circles with his hands tucked in his pockets. “Yes, I had hopes of running into you once more.”

“I could kill you.” Zoro’s brows furrow.

A toothy grin. “You do recognize that there were two chances for that, and I remain standing. I believe you’re safe Moss man.”

“Stop calling me that.”

It’s preposterous, Sanji’s confidence that is, as he leans in far too close for comfort. “And why should I do that without a name?”

Something sparks the way Sanji’s blue eyes glimmer with a tease. It makes Zoro want to run. “We’re done here.” And he pushes past Sanji to escape to another time, another place.

A hand catches his wrist, reeling Zoro in from surprise. “No, wait!” Sanji blurts out. “When am I going to see you next time?”

“When you die.” Zoro snatches his arm back.

Sanji frowns. “Well, that’s rather morbid. I beg of you mossy, at least tell me your name.” Sanji pauses. “Or is it like fae where they are not able to give you their real name in worries that one can use it against them? Though I always believed faeries would be devastatingly beautifully compared to the look you sport.”

“Zoro.” He relents with a sigh. “My name is Zoro.”

“Zo-ro.” Sanji enunciates, rolling the last syllable between his tongue entirely too intimately. “I have never heard such a name. Foreign or just magical?”

“Goodbye.” Zoro turns to leave.

“Ah- Zoro!” Sanji stops him, again, this time with a hand on his shoulder. “I understand you are in a hurry, but I will see you another time, yes?”

Zoro shrugs the hand off him. The hourglass has reset. “Goodbye, Sanji.” And he’s gone.

There are many types of death, Zoro has learned. There are the ones that lead to souls emerging, shedding the physical existence to intertwine with the beyond. For some, it took merely a handful of lifetimes. For others, it took a millennia's worth.

Then there were the deaths where no soul emerged. The in-betweens. Either there were more lifetimes to be lived or something had gone wrong. The soul had to try again another time.

But Zoro’s least favorite deaths were the ones where the soul disappeared. For a handful, it did not matter the number of lives - at some point, the souls became fragile glass, and a slight nick shattered them whole. In the end, they became hollow shells roaming the earth like brain-dead zombies. Aimlessly wandering without purpose, without meaning. And it was his job to put the physical being out of its misery. To mourn a soul that never escaped.

It was some salaryman this time. Limp stringy hair and a bloated body. Ugly green veins bulging from his forehead. And the eyes, far too cold and dead. The shell stopped when Zoro held his hand against its chest.

“What the- hey buddy, what the fuck do you want?” The guy screams at him. Zoro prefers to do this in an instant. He’ll target the heart or the brain and let his powers do the work quickly. The man collapses to the ground as his heart stops beating. A crowd gasps and gathers around the body.

Zoro can’t quite get the feeling of emptiness off his chest. There was something entirely agonizing about seeing himself in that man. Wandering towards eternity aimlessly, without a soul. So, he stumbles through time, trying to shake off the grip of futility, and lands himself in front of a sweets shop in a very familiar kingdom.

He peers through the window lined with an assortment of decadent desserts and flamboyant flourishes. If he looks closely, he can make out a bit of bobbing blonde beyond a stand of bread. Zoro watches silently as customers come in and go. One young lady blatantly flirts with the blonde owner who turns into pure goo and hearts at the attention. Many children come in, pockets empty of coin but leaving with baskets of freshly baked bread and other sweet treats.

He seems so alive in the shop. Bouncing around from aisle to aisle, joking with customers, picking different assortments, and smiling so wide and bright it nearly blinds Zoro. That lingering upset in Zoro’s chest begins to fade with each moment he gazes upon. One of the last customers in the shop turns to leave and the owner waves them goodbye, eyes crinkling shut in a warm smile. Zoro can’t help the upturn of his lips.

Those blue eyes flicker open and that gaze lands on him. They grow wider with every second of panic building in Zoro’s form. The reaper turns to flee - nearly making it down the street but getting stuck before a staircase that seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

“Zoro!” He hears behind him. And in the nervous frenzy of being caught - Zoro turns to the right and sprints as if his immortal life depended on it. “Good lord!” The voice behind him shouts.

Zoro weaves and turns into the somewhat copious turns he’s faced with when he nearly slams into a brick wall that decided to be built in the middle of an open street. Zoro panics in the alley he has found himself in. A hand latches onto his shoulder - his demise imminent.

“Finally.” Sanji whirls Zoro around to face him, huffing with slight exertion. “What kind of ridiculous path were you carving?”

“The straight one out of here. Why are there so many walls everywhere?” Zoro retorts.

Sanji blinks at him. “You can’t be serious, are you?” Zoro remains unfazed. “Well, let’s disregard that for now.”

“Are you done? I have somewhere to be.” Zoro doesn’t actually have anywhere to be. He glares at the hourglass on his wrist as it mocks him.

“Then why are you here?”

“No reason.”

“I see…you were just standing outside of my shop for no reason?”

“Yes.” Zoro crosses his arms. Sanji smiles before he doubles over in peals of laughter. A warm buzz overtakes Zoro’s face. “I’m leaving.” He pushes past Sanji to get to any era but here.

A hand grabs onto his robes. “No wait, please.” Sanji reels him back. “You visited my shop. I honestly did not think I would see you again.” He’s fidgeting the way he says it. Long dexterous fingers fiddling with strands of gold hair and pulling at the edge of the apron he’s still wearing. A part of Zoro wants to take the hands himself - to stop the nervous movements.

Zoro very much could run. He doesn’t. But he could. His feet remain planted. “I wasn’t visiting anything. I was taking a break.”

“I thought you had somewhere to be.” Sanji pushes.

It should be noted that in all this time wandering around humanity, Zoro has never learned how to properly lie. “Yes.”

Sanji grants him small mercy with a small puff of a laugh. “Well alright, if you are still on your break - spare me some time.”

Oh, how little did Sanji know. Zoro had nothing but time. And yet with all this time at his disposal, he had never found anything worth wasting it over. He scrutinizes Sanji, noticing the smudge of powdered sugar at the edge of his jaw. “Fine.”

“Truly?” Sanji’s befuddled.

“Don’t make me take it back. Now, what is it you want?”

Call it curiosity. Zoro has seen many things - many deaths, multiple souls, and a myriad of reasons why humanity should just cease to exist. But never a human who could see him. Touch him. Interact with him as if he were not an immortal being that symbolized the mortality humans seemed to fear so much. And a lingering what if stilled on Zoro’s mind.

Sanji brings him back to the shop, somehow taking a shortcut without all those walls in the way. He flips the sign at the front to closed and locks the door before shoving Zoro to the back where the main kitchen was. Sanji begins scrubbing his hands with soapy water. “Alright mossy,” his voice lilts, “I’m an excellent baker, so do tell me what you will have to try.”

Zoro tilts his head. He had seen desserts of course. He knew what they were. But in a body that never hungered, there was never an urge to eat such a thing. Though he supposes Sanji wouldn’t understand that. “I don’t know. Surprise me.”

Sanji frowns. “Okay. Any preferences or choices you would rather avoid?”

“No?”

“I was the one that asked the question.” The stare-down continues for a moment. Sanji waited for Zoro to reply with an I hate this thing and Zoro was completely oblivious that Sanji was waiting for a response in the first place. Revelation dings in Sanji’s head. “How could I have forgotten?” Sanji smacks his forehead. Zoro’s brows furrow at the action. “You live in the woods. Of course, you have not tasted sweets before.”

That is not at all what was going on here, but Zoro decided to take what he could get. “Uh- right. That.”

“Alright then.” Sanji rolls his sleeves up to his elbows. “Looks like we must have you try a couple of things. Discover what you will and will not like.”

Zoro attempts to help as Sanji flits around the kitchen but his hands have only ever reaped souls not mixed wet and dry ingredients. Sanji scolds him when he cracks eggs - shell and all - into the mix and threatens to tie him to a chair if he gets in the way again.

“I was trying to help.” Zoro pouts.

“Look river monster, I appreciate the sentiment, but let me do this for you. Next time, I will request your help.”

The words next time stick in the air. Both unblinking as they stared at each other. Someone needs to say something. Zoro needs to tell him that there will be no next time. He opens his mouth. “Okay.”

Sanji snaps back into work mode, a soft smile hidden on his face as he turns away from Zoro and back to his batter. “Okay then.”

In record time, Sanji lays out a plethora of leftovers from the bakery and whips up a batch of cinnamon swirl cookies, meringues, and freshly fried cake donuts layered with powdered sugar. Zoro eyes the plates warily. Sanji gestures for him to take his pick, which he does, picking out one of those donuts laced with enough sugar to turn the whole thing sticky. He takes a bite and immediately regrets it.

“Bleh.” Zoro nearly spits it out and scrunches his nose trying to get that sickly coating off his tongue by swallowing as many times in a row as possible. Sanji’s too busy laughing at Zoro’s disgusted expression. “What did you put in this thing? Poison?”

Sanji’s wiping tears from the corners of his eyes. “That my forest friend would be called sugar, and I don’t think your palette is quite ready for it, it seems.” Zoro takes another look at the half-bitten donut in his hand and pops the rest of it in his mouth, grimacing as he chews through the doughy atrocity. “Oi, oi, you don’t have to finish it! I’ll just give them out later.”

“I can at least finish one,” Zoro grumbles through a mouthful. “You made all of this, so I should do at least this much.” Sanji blows a puff of air out in exasperation but cradles his chin in his jaw as he watches Zoro gum down the rest of his treat. There’s something about his expression that makes Zoro feel a tingle of warmth spread up his spine, but before he can get the words out, he feels the hourglass shift on his wrist. He looks down at the new writing outlining his task and glances at Sanji furtively. “Uh- I have to go now.”

“Oh.” Sanji straightens up and dusts off his apron. “Right, you said you were on a break.” Zoro stands to leave awkwardly. In all his time shifting around humanity, he never expected to have to give a temporary goodbye. Wait. Temporary?

“Yes. Um- thank you. Bye.” Zoro nearly bolts out the back of the kitchen door, but Sanji catches his arm just before he manages to make it into the night.

He gives Zoro a hesitant smile. “I hope to see you next time.”

“Next time,” Zoro reassures him.

Zoro asked the universe-oblivion-the void once why it was such a trial for a human soul to learn what it needs for it to join the beyond. It hummed as it thought of a way to articulate it all. The rare chance of existence. The way fate worked its hand. The whole obsession humanity seemed to have with divine purpose.

“There is no one answer. It is simply how it is meant to be.” It had told him.

Zoro scoffed in return. “Right because destroying civilizations, being worked to the bone as slaves, starving while others feast, and everything else just seems so meant to be.”

“Who said anything humanity does is meant to be?”

“Then why do you let it happen?”

It didn’t answer him back.

Life, Zoro has seen, is a completely paradoxical thing. People war with each other in the name of love. Empires are built from dust only to crumble back into nothingness. And humans search for meaning in everything, attempting to find soul in absolutely nothing. In the way, they chase their dreams, in the way they allow themselves to be consumed by their passions, in the way they give, and they give everything they have to gain it all. Only to find they take none of it with them when it's time to go.

They can create what they want and make of things what they will but at the end of it all - there is nothing to take.

He wants to seek out Sanji this time. Consider it curiosity when Zoro knows that he’s trying to fulfill the promise of ‘next time.’ Little did he know what next time would entail.

The hourglass had flipped quickly after Zoro had reaped a soul, so without a second thought, he headed on his way. He finds the walls of a very familiar kingdom, but the air is still, and the leaves hang limp with suspense. Zoro steps tentatively to where the hourglass’s numbers point him. The cobblestone path gripping onto him like wet cement as he comes to realize where he’s headed. There’s a crowd gathered meters away from the red-trimmed shop. Flames broil and smoke with the scent of cinnamon and despair. Zoro races inside.

The entire thing is collapsing, the wooden structure aflame and every aisle is already covered in ash and char. The pillars groan as they collapse on top of one another, and Zoro is scrambling through the wreckage to find him. A weak cough catches his ear. And Zoro’s neck cracks as he finds him in the corner, body mostly burned black and red from the waist down. A large wooden canopy smashed across his legs.

“Sanji.” Zoro swallows.

There’s some semblance of coherency as the said man looks at him with dimming light in his eyes and chokes out. “Zoro, you need to get out of here.”

And it hurts. It hurts more than any death Zoro has ever had to face because there Sanji is, lungs filling with soot and body broken - worried not about surviving but making sure that Zoro gets out of here alive. And Zoro must walk up to him and wait. Wait for the sands of Sanji’s time to stop flowing and stand there to take him away from this life he cherished.

Zoro comes closer, kneeling by Sanji’s side. Sanji’s eyes widen frantically but he is unable to make any movement. “Please Zoro,” Sanji pleads, “You must get out of here, there is not enough time to save me.”

“I’m not here to save you.” Zoro’s voice is hoarse, cracking on the vowels. He takes Sanji’s hand and holds it gingerly. “I’m not here to save you.” He repeats. Sanji with whatever strength he has left gives him a soft smile. Blue eyes begin to fade with recognition. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think-” Zoro tries to explain but a barely there squeeze on his hand stops him.

“You came back,” Sanji whispers. Zoro nods. He wants to scream. He wants to yell into the void-oblivion-whatever it is that this isn’t fair. That there is no point in life only to have it taken away. But he doesn’t. Sanji mutters a final time, “I hope to see you next time.” Zoro holds Sanji’s hand as his breath slows completely. He lets the flames engulf them both.

Sanji’s soul doesn’t show.

It’s called the dross, this banality of human existence. It infects and invades the natural order of how things are and twists them into nonsensical notions of how things should be. The system is built upon creating a sense of nihilistic purpose - a journey to find where you belong only to find that you spent the entire time searching and looking for the answer, just to realize you were the answer at the end.

Zoro has seen it since the beginning of whatever made him. The futile need for humans to create order out of chaos and act as if they were placed here for a reason. As if they were the chosen ones amongst the vast infinity. So, they create these hierarchies and rules and ways to live pretending that they had already figured out the universal true law. So, people suffer in the search for forever.

But there is no greater glutton for punishment roaming the vast endlessness of the world other than Zoro.

He carries on for what seems to be millennia, no more than the empty shells he must purge from existence. The reaper grows silent. Simply waiting in the outskirts of the shadows that loom over people’s lives until the dead remains and the soul comes to life. He harvests and feeds the river of oblivion without uttering a word. If the reaper was hollow before - unable to understand the meaning of existence and the gift of life. Then he is a void now: engulfing whatever there is to cherish about this thing called living.

They begin to tell tales about him. Cloaked in all back with a sword on his back, swinging in a way that if you see the silver scythe you’re already gone. They weave in lies about bony fingers and a hauntingly cold grip when the touch of death arrives. Yet, Zoro never feels the need to think otherwise. After all, there is nothing more dead than the grim reaper himself.

It shouldn’t have bothered him so much. He’s still not sure why it does. But he doesn’t ask the void-the universe-the beyond to explain. Not that it would give him answers anyway. Though he does ask one thing: one lingering spark of hope that he wishes he didn’t have stored on the tip of his tongue but can’t seem to forget the taste anyway.“Will I see him again?”

He doesn’t get an answer. Of course.

This time when Zoro falls, he doesn’t try to catch himself. He simply falls. It’s somewhere in what humans call the modern era. Ironic considering every generation calls their time the modern era. During this time some buildings graze the clouds and an inconceivable amount of light when the sun falls - humanity learning to create their source of day in the streetlights of night.

It took too long. There were too many eras and moments and time to go through, but when Zoro saw the sign, he nearly crumbled from the weight of it all. It was a poster for a fundraiser. Some elementary school hosting a bake sale to raise money for cancer research. He nearly glanced away but that smile made him do a double take.

Sanji stood in the middle of a gaggle of kids who attacked him ferociously in the picture. Little children beamed happily as the man outstretched his arms to hug them all. There were more pictures of course. Other classrooms participated and baked goods lined the poster in an overwhelming way. But Zoro only saw him.

He could have gone about it a better way, he supposes. Standing ominously outside an elementary school as it dismisses students for the day was probably not a great impression to make, but it’s not as if anyone could see him. Zoro swallows. He wonders if Sanji could see him. So, he stands and waits in the bus lanes as children load the last set of buses and head on their way home, arms crossed staring intently at Sanji who’s on bus duty.

Sanji spots him the first time, confused, and quickly looks away. He glances back over seconds later and then gestures to a colleague. The colleague laughs at him. Sanji’s expression grows worried. The last bus starts to make its way out of the school lot and onto the road and Zoro happens to be in the way. He’s not worried - it’ll phase through him as most things do. Sanji on the other hand waves frantically at the bus driver to STOP!

“There’s a man right there! You’re gonna hit him!”

“What are you talking about? There’s no one standing in my way but you.”

Sanji’s eyes widen at the fact that no one else is seeing Zoro. He mutters under his breath about losing it. The bus moves on, phasing through Zoro as expected and Sanji watches in horror. He turns on his heel and sprints into the building. Zoro is close on his heels. He could laugh about how reminiscent this is, how the tables have turned, but Sanji is faster than he expected - swiveling through hallways and confusing the path.

He corners him in the kindergarten hallway where there is no escape but to go back Zoro’s way. Sanji acts nonchalantly, whistling like he’s got nothing to do before he attempts a fast duck and runs under Zoro’s arm only to be launched backward into Zoro’s grip. “Oi, where do you think you’re going?”

Sanji pauses for a moment before answering. “Alright, Mr. Ghost this isn’t fair. How come the bus went right through you and you’ve got me pinned?”

“Mr. Ghost?” Zoro’s left brow raises.

Sanji shoves the hand off him and points a threatening finger in his face. “Listen, I may not have believed in ghosts and the supernatural or whatever the fuck you are, but I really don’t have time to get haunted. Whatever gripe you have, I suggest you go take it up with someone else.”

Zoro could keel over laughing - first a forest creature now a supernatural being. “I’m not a ghost.”

“Didn’t ask.” Sanji waves him off and stalks into an empty classroom, Zoro stepping in right behind him. Sanji looks back in exasperation but doesn’t shove him out.

“You’re a teacher.” Zoro examines the room. There’s a colorful cacophony of posters and child drawings pasted all over the room. Swirly scribbled notes on the whiteboard and what seems to be an entire explosion of pink glitter in the right corner where the cubbies are.

Sanji shoots him a questioning glare. “Please don’t tell me you’re here for one of my kids. Alex has been complaining about monsters under his bed. I really don’t want to kick the boogie man’s ass.”

Zoro chuckles. “Bold of you to think you could.” Zoro cocks his head examining Sanji in this life. He’s taller and more confident. There’s a sense of stability in the way he speaks and he’s much quippier than last time. “You’re different,” Zoro tells him. “A lot stronger this time. Just as rude though.”

“Rude?” Sanji scoffs. “I’m sorry who here is just trapezing around my classroom like they own it? Come on Mr. Ghost, what do you want? If you need someone to visit your grave, I’ll do it. Just save the unnecessary haunting.”

“Told you I’m not a ghost. Name’s Zoro.”

Sanji throws his hands up in the air, grumbling about respecting the dead, and sits himself down at his desk - typing away at that little screen everyone seems to have in this era. Zoro’s not exactly sure what to say. He can’t just outright say “Hi I’m the grim reaper and I was there when you died in your last life.” Or could he? Zoro looks at Sanji focused intently on whatever is on that blue screen and decides against it. The hourglass on his wrist flips and the sands of time begin flowing again.

He taps Sanji on the shoulder, breaking his focus. Sanji peers up at him, a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose. “I’ve got to go. But I’ll come to see you again.”

Sanji blanches, “please don’t.”

How a kindergarten classroom becomes a refuge for death incarnate as a place to nap in between reapings is something well beyond the understanding of a mortal mind. Sanji nearly kicks him out the door the second time he shows up, convinced that he was here to haunt a child. But it keeps happening over and over again. Zoro shows up on sporadic days completely unannounced and peering over a five-year-old’s shoulder while they attempt to recreate the dinosaur from their dreams onto paper. Sanji constantly stumbles over Zoro’s feet when he inevitably decides to take a nap in the corner by the cubbies.

“I think I’m losing it.” Sanji pinches the bridge of his nose one lunch break. Zoro looks at him from his reserved position on the floor.

“Why?”

There is no better sigh of exasperation than the one Sanji gives him before gesturing in between the two of them. “This. I’m literally convinced that I’ve developed schizophrenia and you’re just in my head and I’ve officially gone crazy from working with five-year-olds all day.”

“Nah.” Zoro yawns, smacking his lips with the tired fatigue he doesn’t actually feel. “I’m real.”

“That’s what all crazy voices say.”

Zoro cracks a smile at that and lulls himself back to sleep, barely getting to the brink when a weight collapses on him with an oof. Sanji lays resting his entire body on top of Zoro’s. “Oi.” He prods the blonde currently lying on his chest only to find Sanji poking and pulling at his skin.

“You definitely feel real,” Sanji mutters, tracing the curve of Zoro’s temple and putting his ear over Zoro’s chest. “No heartbeat though. Hey, how are you so warm if you don’t have a heartbeat?”

Zoro stumbles with his words. “Don’t know. Never asked.”

“Never asked who?” Sanji peers up from Zoro’s chest and he must do everything in his power to keep from swallowing audibly.

He waves around to the general air about them. “It. The universe-void-beyond.”

Sanji stays silent for a moment, a question flitting about in his eyes before he decides to work up the nerve to ask it. “Is there a god?”

Zoro bursts out laughing at that one. “What is it with you humans and god?” He’s wheezing in between breaths and Sanji’s smacking him to calm down, face red with embarrassment.

“Come on! If you’re a figment of my imagination, then you’re supposed to give me answers dammit.”

Zoro pokes Sanji’s cheek. “Definitely not a figment of your imagination.” He tells him. Sanji’s breath hitches for a second as he finally recognizes his position on top of Zoro in his kindergarten classroom where children will be bounding back for post-lunch activities any minute. He shoves himself off Zoro and stalks away, a lingering bit of redness high on his cheeks.

“Right.”

Time flows like the waves, ebbing and flowing through high and low tides. There are days when Sanji barely gives him a sentence, far too absorbed into lesson plans or creating play-dough models with his students. On other days they talk about everything and anything they can. Zoro learns that in this life, Sanji is the only son of a woman currently in a coma. He has a nervous tic where he’ll pull at his fingers. Sanji dreams about traveling the world but doesn’t know if it’s possible on a teacher’s salary.

He asks Zoro questions too. Where did he come from, where does he go when he disappears, and what exactly is he? Zoro hesitates to answer - giving half-truths and lies of omission as explanations. Sanji can certainly tell he’s holding back but never pushes any further.

Sometimes, when he’s completely exhausted, he’ll collapse on top of Zoro in the now newly dubbed napping corner. And Zoro swears that in those moments when Sanji’s breath syncs up with his own and there is nothing but the buzz of the heat through the vents, time ceases to exist.

Zoro would stay here forever if he could. But even with forever as his greatest companion, nothing ever truly lasts.

Sanji found out who Zoro was when his mother died. They had met by chance. Though what is chance but the wicked chess game of fate? It was bound to happen at some point. The grim reaper faced a broken boy who had just lost his only family member.

“Zoro.” Tears are tracking down his face. The hospital room is ice cold as he steps in. But when Sanji flings himself onto Zoro in search of comfort that he couldn’t give something shatters inside Zoro too. He grips onto Sanji, cradling him in his arms for whatever bits of time he could before it would inevitably fall to pieces. “Zoro.” He hiccups through the sobs. “She’s not gonna - she’s not gonna.”

“I know.” He holds him tighter, attempting to erase the pain. To take the grief and the sorrow and bear it as his burden and his burden alone. “I know.” He mutters into golden strands. The hourglass on his wrist flows steadily. Zoro looks at the woman on the hospital bed - painful flashbacks of another life where he was greeting someone so similar: Silvering temples that faded into dull blonde. Pale ash-stricken skin folded and creased all over the body. A withered frame with brittle bones and lungs that were giving up on their chance for air. The light begins to grow as the woman’s soul begins to escape its physical prison. Zoro holds Sanji tighter.

“I can’t lose her.” Sanji cries. His grip on Zoro’s robes was the only thing holding him to reality.

“Sanji.” Zoro tries to pull himself apart. “Sanji.” The name falls like a prayer on his tongue, pleading for forgiveness. Sanji burrows in tighter. “Sanji, please.” There must be something in his tone that finally makes Sanji untangle his fingers and glance up toward Zoro’s stricken face.

His eyes widen with recognition. “No.”

Zoro remains tight-lipped. Looking over at the nearly fully formed soul. A vivacious caramel orange. Warm, inviting, with kisses like cinnamon. A light that would bring not only luminance in oblivion but a hand that would guide others toward infinity. One of the ones that people would search for in the inky mess of the night sky. He steps towards it.

“Don’t!” Sanji stops him, pushing back with all his might. “Don’t you dare!” It’s righteous fury the way he slams Zoro back, refusing to let him get closer. There’s betrayal in his eyes - fight in his stance. “I am not letting you have her.”

Zoro reaches out to touch Sanji’s cheek only to be shunned away. He drops his hand. “It’s not your choice.”

“But it’s yours.” Sanji’s voice wobbles. “Please Zoro, don’t do this.”

Zoro meets his gaze, something deep within him turning brittle and cold. This is no man trying to defy death. This is not a man seeking immortality to conquer all that life has to offer. This is a boy - asking for a fragment of eternity for his mother. Zoro gives. “I wish I didn’t have to.” The soul bounces - searching for where it’s supposed to go next. He pushes Sanji out of the way to cradle the soul in his hand. Sanji scrambles up to try and stop him but it’s too late. Zoro’s already turning into smoke and shadow, heading to oblivion.

The rage, the misery, the anguish coat Sanji’s words as he watches Zoro leave. “I never want to see you again.”

People look at death in one of two ways. Then they oscillate between the two opinions until they finally reach their own deaths.

The first is: Death is cruel and unjust - stripping away a person of their youth, their time, and their loved ones. A demon hiding in the shadows, preying on the essence of humanity to satiate its own depravity.

The second is: Death is what makes life worth living. Because if it were not for death, then everything would be taken for granted. The limits of one’s time are what allow for things to be cherished and loved. For one day, they will no longer have it.

Zoro, as death incarnate doesn’t understand why it’s being assigned meaning. It simply is the way of nature. What exists, must cease to exist. What is created, must be destroyed. Everything in between is just a moment of matter. It is what you make of it. But at the end of it all - everything must return to nothing.

He thought he understood that. Zoro knew he was nothing more than a cog in this infinite machine carrying out some tasks that must be nothing compared to the oblivion that awaits all. There was no point in making something out of nothing. Or at least that’s what he tells himself as he wastes away towards eternity again - doing the bare minimum of reaping lives and harvesting what souls emerge. Anything beyond that is pointless after all.

Zoro wasn’t expecting to see him again. Especially after how that last moment ended. In fact, he was given explicit instructions to never show his face again. He could respect that much. So, he was ill-prepared when he’s idly walking the pavements of some city after another reaping just waiting until he is summoned by the hourglass once more.

“Ay dickhead! Heads up!” Zoro didn’t know it was being addressed to him. But the resounding punch that lands him flat on his ass sends him reeling. Onlookers create a seamless split in the path not paying the seething blonde above Zoro any mind.

Sanji’s got some silver streaks coming in by his temples. Crow’s feet are creasing next to his eyes and the rasp of his voice is telltale smoked with age. Zoro can’t think of a sight he wanted to see more in all of eternity. “Sanji.” He chokes.

Sanji grabs him by the lapels of his wispy robe and hauls him up so he can growl into his face. “You fucking asshole.” A couple of pedestrians have whipped out their phones to record a man having a psychotic breakdown in the middle of the street. “You absolute fucking prick. How could you.” Sanji grits out.

Zoro raises his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry. I know. But it isn’t up for me to decide I was just-”

“I wasn’t talking about her.” Sanji zeroes in on him, bottom lip chewed raw with his next words. “You disappeared and never came back.”

Zoro frowns, “you told me you never wanted to see me again.”

“Yea but!” Sanji cuts off and glances away from Zoro’s distraught expression. “Yeah, I did, didn’t I?” He lets go of Zoro’s collar dropping him to the ground and starts walking away. And for a moment Zoro is convinced this is it - that his last image of Sanji will be of him walking away after delivering his own version of retribution. And if it eased the burden of loss, Zoro would let Sanji punch him a thousand times. Sanji peers over his shoulder beckoning Zoro. “Come on. We’ve got to talk.”

There Death went, following in his footsteps.

Sanji’s apartment was a tiny little thing - complete with a bustling kitchen and cluttered walls lined with books. There were appendixes on Greek Mythology and fictional novels titled things like ‘scythe.’ Sanji notices Zoro staring at the shelves and sighs.

“I read just about anything I could get my hands on. I spent years trying to figure it out.”

“Figure what out?” Zoro lifts the hardcover titled ‘the boy who courted death,’ pages worn with years of use.

“How to find you again.”

Zoro gingerly sets the book back where it originally was stored and takes a good hard look at the man before him now. There’s something weary in Sanji’s bones - like he had lost far more than his family. “Why?”

“Why?” Sanji chuckles dryly, entirely regretful. “Are you seriously asking me that?”

“I can’t.” Zoro swallows. “I can’t bring her back.”

Something flares in Sanji’s eyes. It makes Zoro’s fingers fidget and his jaw tick. Sanji steps closer ominously, and it takes all of Zoro’s resolve to not turn away - in fear of… in fear of what? “I hate you.” Sanji’s voice is still, placid, and unwavering the way he says it.

“Sanji.” Zoro’s voice cuts off as the man’s hands come up to cradle his face, forcing him to face the fury in his gaze. “I’m sorry.” He shut his eyes waiting for what was next.

What he didn’t expect was for all that unbridled anger that had simmered for years to greet him as the softest brush of lips that left him shaking to be punished instead. Zoro tries to pull back - to abstain from mercy when Sanji pulls him back in, pressing more chaste kisses against his mouth, tears streaming down to taste of salt and sorrow.

“I hate you,” Sanji repeats as he breaks away in between and leans back in. “I hate you so fucking much.”

“I’m sorry,” Zoro whispers into his mouth, torturing himself with forgiveness.

“I don’t care how sorry you are. You left me. You absolute fucking dick. Who does that?” Sanji’s eyes are rimmed red and his lips quickly puffing as well. He punches Zoro in the chest and again and again. “This entire time you fucking ran away when I needed you the most.”

“I couldn’t- not after.” Zoro’s voice breaks.

“I know.” Sanji collapses into Zoro’s chest. He takes a moment to collect his thoughts and process through the agony of it all. “Zoro, I wasn’t looking to get her back,” Sanji tells him. Sanji takes a breath before turning to look up at him. “I hate you so much. God, even after all this time I tried to tell myself I was crazy. That I was delusional from losing my mother and I wasn’t in the right state of mind, but I kept looking for you everywhere. I had to quit teaching because I couldn’t even look at the stupid cubby corner without thinking about you. I moved to another city to get away from it all and I found myself right back at the library that first night researching the paranormal.” Sanji gives him a wry smile. “And it took me three fucking years to admit it…. That as much as I hate you, I love you that much more.”

Zoro’s knees buckle, and Sanji is quick to steady him in his arms. “What?” His voice sounds so far away. “What did you say?”

Sanji holds the entire weight of him cradled in his arms. He knocks his forehead against Zoro. “I said I love you. I think I always have.”

Zoro doesn’t understand. He had seen humans be in love of course - he was responsible for tearing halves apart from one another. But this entire thing, it was just curiosity, wasn’t it? Connection at most probably. Sanji was the only one who had ever seen him, spoken to him, hell even nagged him. What was Zoro supposed to do? Ignore him. But he didn’t think. He never thought-

Sanji cuts him off just as quickly as he gets to the possibility. “It doesn’t have to be.” He blurts out. “I mean for you. You don’t have to you know- love me back or anything. I just thought you should know why I was searching for you this entire time.” Sanji’s shifting back and forth from his toes to his heels. “I know you’re busy with the whole being the grim reaper thing and like there’s a whole bunch of other things I don’t know but you know.” He babbles.

“You were searching for me,” Zoro swallows the roughness in his throat, “because you love me?”

Sanji’s growing increasingly flustered, an odd sight on his older self with his cheeks flaming red. “I mean yeah. I don’t know if it’s the most traditional idea of love, but I figured that’s what it had to be after never forgetting about you.”

“Oh.” And it’s starting to click. How Zoro in all his immortal age seemed to remember Sanji. The way he desperately denied wanting anything to do with him yet was stumbled right back into him the first time. The agony of not being able to give him a proper next time and then spending eons, centuries, millennia searching for Sanji’s soul once more. Because Zoro could never forget about him. Sanji’s trying to pull away from him now in all his nervous embarrassment and Zoro snatches his hands back into his vicinity, he reels Sanji in. “I think…I think I love you too.”

“Oh.” Sanji’s flustered chuckle softens into a fond look. “Dumbass. Only took you a decade to figure that out huh?”

“It took much longer than that.” Zoro concedes.

Life with Sanji was an inexplicable thing. One, because Zoro wasn’t exactly living - so those typical spend your life together: make a home, grow old together things weren’t really in the cards for them. And second, because Sanji made Zoro feel alive.

He still had his duties of course - finding the dead and guiding their souls into the beyond. It was cause for concern the first couple of times when Zoro would simply disappear for times on end, leaving Sanji to panic about being left behind again. But it eventually settled because no matter what - Zoro always came back home again.

Though it did lead to a whole host of questions, Zoro wasn’t necessarily prepared to answer.

They’re lying on Sanji’s couch at some point, the sun setting behind the balcony windows painting them in hues of amber and rose. Sanji’s snuggled up on top of him claiming that Zoro makes for an excellent pillow and Zoro merely huffing in fake exasperation but rubbing a hand up and down the length of Sanji’s spine, nonetheless.

“So, can you like turn into a skeleton also? Or is it more of a zombie situation where you’re just kind of like the living dead?”

Zoro peers down at Sanji. “That’s what you want to ask me?”

“I mean,” Sanji props himself up, elbows painfully digging into Zoro’s chest, but he ignores it, “In all the stories and stuff - the grim reaper is usually like a skeleton waltzing around with a big old scythe. Nothing about you screams skeleton ya know.”

Zoro frowns. “Yeah, because those are all made up.”

“But they had to come from somewhere!” Sanji rolls his eyes. The hourglass on Zoro’s wrist flips and the sands of time begin to flow. Sanji eyes it with distaste. Zoro opens his mouth to say something, but Sanji gets to it before he does. “You have to leave I know. Alright then - go perform your deathly duties.” He scrambles off Zoro and into a long stretch.

Zoro works out the crick in his neck as he follows behind, heading to the door to exit instead of his typical shadowing away because apparently, that wasn’t proper etiquette when saying goodbye. Sanji’s already leaning by the door arms crossed to say goodbye when Zoro leans in to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know where they came from.” He tells Sanji before he leaves. “Because you’re the only one who can see me.”

Sanji burns red and all but shoves him out the door. “Fucking sap. Don’t get lost this time mossy - come back soon.”

Death is freeing. Supposedly. Or at least that is what some come to believe. It’s seen as an eternal release from this thing called human suffering. Living in a state of in-between: feeling powerless and hopeless and as if it was a mistake to be on this world. So rather than waiting for death to come to free them - they decide to greet death themselves.

By the time he arrives, the person’s already induced themself into a barely conscious state - remnants of crushed pills and powders around him. It comes as no surprise when the last of life fades and the soul never appears. It’s never shown itself in such cases.

“Don’t you think it’s had enough?” He asks the sky-the beyond-oblivion.

It disgusts him. How such tortured souls are forced to rinse and repeat as if they had made a mistake and must be punished some more. It's moments like these that Zoro is convinced he does not believe in a greater fate - that there is something lying in the beyond that will make all this worth enduring. From nothing to everything to nothing once more, it would all return to dust in the end. So, what was the reason?

“It’s not a question of enough.” The void-the end-the universe tells him. “But rather a question of reason. There will come a point where every soul decides: to let go or to give in.”

Zoro isn’t truly alive so he supposes he can’t really understand the point of it all. If there even is a point with the whole letting go portion. Because all he does is serve some sort of universal purpose - following blindly in footsteps already scorched on the ground for him. Not truly dead, not truly alive: just oscillating somewhere in between. Stuck in some sort of eternal limbo.

“Do I have a soul?” He asks one more time.

And yet again, he receives no reply.

He poses the question to Sanji instead - the only other place he could get some semblance of an answer even if it was just an opinion. Sanji’s in the middle of stirring some broth when Zoro hits him with it.

“Do you think I have a soul?”

The stirring pauses for a second while he ponders before Sanji resumes. “Well, what makes you think you wouldn’t?” Zoro pouts and gestures to all of him trying to convey his point of hello? Immortal. Some sort of grim reaper. You like to call me a god of death. Sanji chuckles at Zoro’s obvious retort. “I meant putting all of that aside. What makes you think you, Zoro, wouldn’t have a soul?”

Zoro chews on the inside of his cheek. “I don’t understand. What do you mean me, Zoro?”

Sanji holds out a spoon full of soup for Zoro to taste while he replies. Zoro scalds his tongue on the steaming liquid in the meantime. “There’s the whole death side of you of course, but there’s also just you.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

Sanji shakes some bottle into the pot after taking a sip of his own. “You’re the grim reaper. But you’re also Zoro. Zoro who naps on my couch and steals the hoodies in my closet. So, what makes you think you wouldn’t have a soul? You clearly have a will.”

“A will,” Zoro repeats.

Sanji looks at him a little confused. “Right. You might have to go off and I don’t know kill off a rich man every once in a while, because you have to, but other than that you do what you want, you have your own thoughts. That’s what a will is.”

“For the record, I don’t kill. I just collect.”

“Semantics.” Sanji interrupts him then wrinkles his nose. “Ew, collect? Like stash a whole bunch of dead bodies?” His morbid curiosity has led him down some Reddit rabbit holes that had been driving Zoro half-insane.

Zoro steers him back on track before they can delve into the nuances of collecting souls. “So, a will is basically being able to do what I want?”

“Something of the sort. It’s basically having your own independence to live your life, make your choices, etcetera etcetera.”

“But I’m not alive.” Zoro frowns. “So, I don’t have a will. And that means I probably don’t have a soul.”

Sanji considers this for a moment as he chews his bottom lip and then questions back, “does it matter? Whether you have a soul or not?”

“I mean. Yes? No? Supposedly, nothing matters.”

Sanji smiles at him, reaching up to ruffle moss green hair and then settling a hand on Zoro’s shoulder. “Alright, so nothing matters. That means you can do whatever you want. I’d consider that a will.”

Zoro slumps into Sanji with a groan. “My head hurts. I asked you about souls and you’re talking about wills.”

“Hypotheticals are a lot for someone like you.” Sanji kisses the nape of his neck. “I’m only telling you what I think. Took a philosophy class once that said a soul was basically free will. I think it’s all up to interpretation.”

“Even for me?”

“Even for mossy-haired gods of death.” Sanji laughs.

Sanji grows older, a reminder that time for a mortal is such a willy fickle thing. He’ll ask for back rubs and his arthritis medication. At some point, the reading glasses become permanent glasses that he can’t see without. Doctor’s appointments become more frequent as bones become brittle and muscles easier to tear. And Zoro paces.

He doesn’t like the way silver looks in Sanji’s hair. He worries over the increasing number of lines on Sanji’s face. And he loathes the way Sanji is so quick to fall asleep - quieter each time.

“You need to relax.” Sanji’s voice rasps now. “At this point you’ll end up dying yourself.”

Zoro’s mouth tightens in the midst of him buttoning up Sanji’s nightshirt. Sanji’s fingers shook and shivered, clumsy when they attempted to do so on his own. Though Zoro wasn’t much more adept at it either. “I am relaxed.”

A withered hand come up to Zoro’s jaw, forcing his gaze back on paling blues. “Leave it. Come lay down with me for a bit.”

They can’t quite cuddle like they used to. Sanji’s lungs must work harder to hold onto air and the aches, and the pains make it near impossible to collapse into a tangle of limbs without waking up with regret. But they’ll get as close as they can - Sanji lying flat on his back, head cradled on pillows rather than Zoro’s arm but a calloused hand still running through the tangles of ashy blonde and greying strands.

“Are you able to tell how much longer I have?” Sanji’s questions never stopped. Even after years of unloading all the thoughts. From pestering Zoro about folklore to questioning the meaning of existence itself.

“No.” Zoro purses his lips. “I don’t know until the hourglass flips, and I meet the person.” Zoro hesitates for a second before deciding to push. “Sanji,” The words barely articulate the things swirling inside him, “if I was able to find a way - to make you immortal. Is that something you would want?”

Sanji gives him a weary sigh but pulls Zoro’s hand up to his mouth, gentle kisses tracing a calloused palm. “I was waiting for the day you would ask me that.” He hums with the thought for a bit. “When I was younger, I thought my answer would be yes. And then you came - an actual opportunity to live forever. And isn’t that the dream? To never have a drop of time wasted. The entire world for your taking.” Sanji’s slowly drifting off to sleep, his eyelids growing heavier, his words stilting for grasp in between. “I don’t want to live forever Zoro. I just want to live with everything I have. And that’s enough.”

To live forever. What a lonely broken thing. To never have felt anguish to its fullest extent. To never linger for a moment more because it was all you had. And even though time was a thief and stole from mortals - how was it that they lived so freely in the face of gods and the universe?

Sanji’s persistent cough turned into something more. An ailment that at his age he was unable to bounce back from. Visits transitioned from the warm hearth that they had called their home to Zoro dawdling in the halls of a hospital every moment in between. Sanji’s body was far too weak, hands becoming skeletal in nature and gaunt features haunting Zoro’s mind. The nurses had thought he’d gone mad speaking to an empty room but left him be when he forced Zoro to make shallow promises.

“And remember to check in on that old lady at the bakery, she has no one left, so even if she can’t see you, I know your presence will be appreciated.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t have any next of kin and I don’t care for most of my stuff. But please take my mother’s necklace with you. I would hate to see it lost.”

“Alright.”

“And make sure you find me next time no matter what.”

“Of cou- what?”

Sanji glares at him from his nest of pillows swathing him in the hospital bed. Arms semi-crossed over his chest, laboring for breath. “I said, make sure you find me next time no matter what.”

Next time. Zoro swallows. “You don’t know if-”

“I do. Keep in mind ghosty, that just because you may be the grim reaper does not mean you actually understand death.” Even at 76 he keeps Zoro laughing from his quips. Though it gets harder to force the sound out when he wants to scream instead. Sanji asks for Zoro’s hand, and he relents, lacing strong fingers through pale wilting ones. “Promise me Zoro.” Sanji pushes.

Zoro leans closer, pushing his lips against Sanji’s brow. “I promise.”

“It’s going to be a challenge you know. I’m hot-headed and I probably won’t believe you and I’m sure I’ll cause a whole host of drama but make sure to-”

“I’ll find you. No matter what. And I’ll do my best to make you love me again.”

Sanji smiles at the notion. “Oh, I don’t think you’ll have to work too hard at that. Loving you is easy.” Sanji takes a deep breath and shuts his eyes. “I’m tired Zoro. I think I’m going to go to bed for a bit.”

The hourglass on Zoro’s wrist flips, the dark sands of time flowing once again. And Zoro is right where he is supposed to be. He chokes on his words, attempting to keep his tone neutral as his thumb traces the lines of Sanji’s palm. “Okay. Get some rest.”

The monitors begin beeping, hospital staff racing in. Zoro should be long gone by now, leading a brightly colored soul on its way to oblivion, releasing it to join the other stars lighting the universe’s vast emptiness. But no soul appears.

“I’ll see you next time.” And he lets Sanji go.

Sanji’s mother’s necklace was a simple silver thing - a Celtic spiral knot gifted to her the day Sanji was born. Amid an arduous labor, all on her own, no family or loved ones to support a young mother at her lowest point - a catholic nun had stood by her side to bless the life she was about to bring in the world. The woman had taken one look at Sanji cradled in his mother’s arms and unclasped the chain around her neck to place around the young woman instead.

“One life leads to another in an infinite loop. All of it, all of us are interconnected. We cannot exist without one another.”

For a young girl who was about to face the long journey ahead as a single mother with no career prospects and waning hope for her ability to provide, it was the push she needed. She looks down at her little Sanji, a little helpless thing she fought so hard for. And a sense of peace had settled over her that all of it was simply meant to be.

Zoro had spent the last two decades of Sanji’s life cherishing the time he had with an ailing older man, so he was a little wary when faced with a seedy bar and an intuition that told him that this was where next time would begin. He pushes past the swinging doors, nonetheless, garnering some looks from the drunkards on tables nearby whose eyes widen when they see no one step in. A chill runs up the spines of those he passes by the bar and one man claims he saw a shadow pass under the dim light.

Zoro finds him swinging around a sweaty and frankly overwhelming dance floor, pressing around with a woman, and twirling her underneath his arm. The color in his cheeks is a vibrant contrast to when Zoro saw him last, and he throws his head back when he laughs at something the girl says. Something in Zoro’s chest hurts when he recognizes he can’t just step onto the dance floor and take Sanji in his arms, to sway him from foot to foot like Sanji used to make him do in the kitchen.

Eventually, a rather inebriated blonde makes his way out of the crowd and out the back door to light a flimsy cigarette and Zoro chases his opportunity down. Sanji barely flicks him a glance as he steps into the back alley, more focused on the flame of his lighter and the embers of his smoke.

Zoro’s staring. He’s aware. But cut him some slack - social etiquette isn’t his forte considering he’s quite invisible to mortals. Sanji finally peers up, shutting his golden lighter and shoving it into his shirt pocket. He raises a brow. “Can I help you with something?”

And the only words that could possibly come out of Zoro’s mouth after filtering through eras and eras to find him again is, “Sanji.”

The brow arches even higher. “Do we know each other?”

“I-” There’s no good way to phrase it. One would think that Zoro had thought through some semblance of a speech to make this as easy to understand as possible, but words were never his strong suit. Luckily Sanji cuts in for him.

“You know, I think I have seen you before.” Zoro’s hopes skyrocket at the words. Sanji’s gaze traces up and down Zoro’s form, now a bit more “modern” after years of Sanji heckling at him to get rid of the ratty cloak. Sanji’s eyes cling to Zoro’s chest and his lower lip gets caught between his teeth. “You’re rather attractive, aren’t you?” Wait-what? But before Zoro can comprehend just exactly how Sanji is inferring to have known him, long limbs tangle up around his neck and Sanji’s face is mere centimeters away. Zoro goes cross-eyed just looking at him in shock. “Hm, it’s a shame I forgot your name.” And then Sanji’s lips are on his.

They’ve kissed before. Obviously. Zoro spent every moment he had with Sanji trying to experience as many as he could. But it was never like this.

It’s slippery and warm. Sanji slips his tongue into Zoro’s mouth deftly and runs it against his teeth. There are fingers pulling at the short strands of his hair and Sanji’s body keeps clamoring closer, sliding a knee between Zoro’s legs and a hand squeezing at his shoulders and chest. Zoro nearly gets lost in the momentum of it all.

“You’re a bad kisser,” Sanji grumbles against his lips.

Zoro’s hands fall to squeeze Sanji’s hips. “That’s not what you said last time.”

“Last time?”

Zoro would have gotten sucked back into the black hole that was Sanji’s passion had it not been for the jarring realization that there was a last time, and they were currently in next time and Zoro had to explain to Sanji that he was the grim reaper and also in love with him even if they had literally just met. He pushes Sanji away. “Wait.” He shakes his head, getting his bearings. “Wait.”

Sanji stumbles back from the force of it all. It certainly doesn’t help that he’s already rough on his feet from the number of drinks he’s had tonight. He barely steadies himself against the wall. “What?” He cuts back to Zoro.

There’s no good way to phrase it, so Zoro will just have to rip it off like a hopelessly sticky and painful band aid. “I’m the grim reaper.” He blurts out. “Or something like that. Death really. And I’m in love with you.”

Sanji blinks at him a couple of times before his eyes roll back. “I think I’ve had too much to drink.” And collapses to the ground.

Well, that went perfectly.

One of the things Sanji used to tell him is how absolutely aggravating he is in public. Zoro would like to state that he was doing his best by helping out. The people who fainted at the grocery store when Zoro decided to pick up a loaf of sourdough from the bakery and walk back over to aisle three where Sanji was, would probably beg to differ. The video of said loaf of bread floating its way over to aisle three still lives in infamy in the “modern” era.

Zoro figures that hauling Sanji over his shoulder and then going God knows where because he certainly does not know where this Sanji is currently residing is probably cause for concern. And unlike the modern era - it seems like the people of 1914 would certainly be scandalized by the notion of a drunk man being totted around via an invisible force, no matter the cover of night.

“Sanji.” Zoro attempts to slap him awake. The man grumbles in his inebriated state, entirely unresponsive. “Sanji.” Zoro smacks him again. Once again receiving abysmal results from said love of his.

The hourglass on Zoro’s wrist flips, counting down to Zoro’s next post and he groans internally at the thought of leaving Sanji here slumped by the wall of a bar and completely unable to take care of himself. Zoro knows the elderly Sanji would be so disappointed in this version of himself. Though maybe he’d just laugh instead. Zoro points a threatening finger at the passed-out man. “You better be much more conscious the next time I see you.” To which Sanji mutters something entirely unintelligible that Zoro takes as a promise before winnowing into shadow to collect another death.

Memory becomes a funny thing when there are things worth remembering. All of time was once a shiftless, endless blur that came and went. And now?

Zoro will pass by a sweets shop in the middle of somewhere at some time and think about Sanji’s deft hands kneading together cinnamon swirl cookies. He’ll glance upon some dandelions in a field and recall how older Sanji used to love blowing the dandelion seeds to another place with the weight of his breath. He has a hard time looking at flames and hospital beds, attempting with all his strength to not associate certain memories with them.

Memory becomes a subjective thing completely nuanced with all the things you wish to always remember and the swirling darkness you pray to forget.

Sanji’s far steadier on his feet this time. If anything, stone cold sober and honestly with an expression that indicates that he really could use a drink. And probably doesn’t have any inkling of what happened at the bar whatsoever.

Well, there was never such an opportunity to redo a first impression.

“Sanji.” Zoro seats himself across from Sanji, the tiny little cafe table squeezing into his legs. Sanji peers up in surprise, but Zoro stops him before he can say a word. “Listen, this is going to sound like a lot, but first you should know that no one else can see me. You should take out your phone and pretend like you’re talking on that.”

“What? My phone? Does this look like my home?” Sanji’s befuddled. Zoro even more so. Were phones not a thing here? Zoro takes a glance around, noting that people didn’t carry those little screens around that he was used to seeing.

Zoro shakes his head. “Forget that. Maybe just whisper.”

“Who the devil are you?” Sanji says in something that is definitely not a whisper. He earns a couple looks from the others seated around them.

Zoro gives up rather quickly on his quest to handle this well. “My name is Zoro. I’m the grim reaper. No one else in the world can see me except for you. Oh and also, I’m in love with you.”

Sanji’s look darkens and he slams his hand against the table, making the little thing wobble and the coffee in Sanji’s cup spills over. “Is this some fucking joke? Did the boys at in the platoon decide to send a rookie to pick their fun?” There’s a sardonic laugh bubbling from Sanji chest as his anger grows. “You’d think for some dicks soon to be on their deathbeds they’d have at least a modicum of respect. Fuck you.” He stands to leave but Zoro catches his wrist and pulls him back before he can get far.

“I can prove it. I’ll go break something and no one will even notice me. Just watch.” Zoro steps over to the table two steps down, a lovely couple chatting about some nonsensical thing. Zoro snags the teacup right underneath the man’s nose and drops it to the paved floors watching it shatter into a million pieces. The couple startles but neither one turn to look at Zoro. Sanji’s jaw drops. For emphasis, Zoro also decides to knock the woman’s pastry dish to the floor as well. The couple jumps in horror. He finally trails his way back over to Sanji. “Told you.”

Sanji’s glancing around furtively and then placing two fingers to his jugular. “Heart rate is slightly elevated. No fever. Could I have inhaled something?”

“Oi.” Zoro snaps his fingers. “You’re not going crazy. I’m actually here. This is actually happening. I can go break that fountain if you need more proof.”

That seems to reel Sanji in as he grabs Zoro’s arms with a hiss. “Don’t you dare go damaging more property. These people have done nothing.”

“So, you believe me?”

“Absolutely not.” Sanji storms off with the intent to shake off Zoro, but little does he know all Zoro’s done in his time is collect souls and follow the line of Sanji’s back.

“Where are we going?” Zoro attempts to start conversation. This whole getting Sanji to fall in love with him bit seems like it’s going to be tougher than he believed.

“Nowhere. Specifically, you. Get lost.” Sanji grits through his teeth.

Zoro looks around as he steps after Sanji. Cobblestone steps and ornate architecture. Cigarette smoke wafted through the air in conjunction with a sense of burning that Zoro couldn’t seem to place. “Where are we?” He prods a little further.

Sanji looks back at him incredulously. “Are you actually lost?”

“Something like that.” Zoro states. He waves around to the general atmosphere. “What’s all this smoke lingering in the air?”

Sanji halts to wave a hand in front of Zoro’s eyes, a couple of fingers held up. “How many?” Sanji asks.

“Three,” Zoro answers correctly. “What are you doing?” He follows Sanji’s finger up, down, and to the side.

“Hm, no signs of head trauma. Where are you stationed soldier?”

Zoro takes Sanji’s hand and pulls him close, Sanji yelping as he’s pressed against Zoro. “I told you I’m a grim reaper. Not a solider.”

Sanji’s frowns in disbelief. “You’re telling me that a brawn for brains like you isn’t a soldier? Then what the hell are you doing this close to the battlefield?”

“Battlefield?” Zoro cocks his head.

“Alright then.” Sanji’s voice drops to a gentle command, laced with obvious concern. Let’s get you back to the medical tent. Maybe we’ll be able to figure out something there.”

Sanji leads him down some long and winding path to a mechanical contraption he recognizes as a rudimentary car, though far from the cars Zoro had become accustomed to seeing in the modern era. A man pops up from the driver’s seat. “Ay ready to go doc?”

“Yes. Gathered what we needed and grabbed you a pack of these as well Jamie.” Sanji tosses the curly-haired man a pack of cigarettes. “Half though. We’ll be splitting it.”

Jamie beams at him. “God knows what I’d do without you.”

“End up like this fellow here.” Sanji laughs, pointing at Zoro.

“Like who?”

Sanji freezes, gaze flicking back and forth from Jamie to Zoro in recognition that he truly is the only one able to see him. Zoro leans in with a vicious grin and whispers into Sanji’s ear. “Believe me now?” Zoro relishes the goosebumps he witnesses spike on Sanji’s neck.

“Never mind that Jamie. Come on let’s head back. Who knows what kind of disasters have stricken since we’ve been gone.” Sanji clambers into the seat of the car while Jamie revs up the engine but before they depart, Sanji murmurs to the side, holding out a hand to Zoro so inconspicuously no one would have noticed. “You coming?”

They’re in some place -or country he supposes- called France. Sanji informs him of this much later in a place where the earth is scorched, and the smell of gunpowder and smoke lingers. They’re still a bit away from the front line supposedly, but close enough that soldiers would at least have a chance to make it to the tent before dying first.

It seems that in this life Sanji is some sort of medic or doctor for the army. Serving some other country called Britain while stationed in an entirely different place. It doesn’t add up in Zoro’s head - these strange things called politics. But war he can understand. He’s seen the notion of it span across every millennium he’s traveled in. And death is something he is far accustomed to.

Sanji sits him down on an empty cot after checking up on a couple of patients and ensuring their wounds were clean and bandages dry. Most fade back into a fitful sleep leaving Sanji and Zoro in a tense sort of silence. “So,” Sanji breaks it first. “Were you a solider who passed on the line?”

“You think I’m a ghost.” Zoro’s left brow raises. “Why do you always jump to ghost?”

“Of course, that would be such a ridiculous assumption to make.” Sanji’s sarcasm bites. “Some muscle head is trailing after me, completely out of their wits and invisible to everyone but me. But ghost is such a horrible thing to guess.”

“What will it take for you to believe I’m a reaper?” Zoro pauses for a moment looking around the space. “I guess it doesn’t really matter though. If you know the truth or not.”

“If you’re death then I figure I would have seen you around by now. I’ve lost too many soldiers to count.” Sanji blanches, blood leaving his face before turning to Zoro wide-eyed. “Unless…unless you’re here for me?”

“No.” Zoro’s eyes flick down to the hourglass on his wrist that remains stagnant. “It’s not your time yet.” Sanji’s eyes follow down to the tattoo. He takes Zoro’s hand in his, tracing over the inky black lines and the unintelligible writing scrawled underneath the sand at the bottom. He’s mesmerized by the way it glitters even without any direct light. “Are you starting to believe me now?” Zoro asks softly.

Sanji’s blue eyes cut back up to his and he flinches away from Zoro’s touch as he comes back to the present moment. “We’ll see.”

Calamities are not what Zoro presides over. At the beginning of whatever he is, he wondered why he had never had to collect a colossal number of souls at once considering the mass havoc humanity continues to inflict upon itself. It made him curious to see if there were any others out there like him - some forces of universal will that handled things above a mortal’s understanding. Perhaps, he was seeking some sort of companionship to share in the things he could not explain.

But he never found anyone or anything. It was just Zoro, roaming the vast endlessness of it all. Maybe, Zoro too, was merely just a whim of fate. An arbitrary existence that subsists only to feed into the illusion of purpose.

Sanji brings it up again when he loses a soldier soon after. Zoro’s been soliciting the space of the medical tent much to the dismay of the other man, taking up valuable cot space for a hearty nap even though Zoro had reassured him that he can toss a patient on top and operate just fine. Sanji still leaves the end cot empty and available just for him.

There is blood and viscera coating Sanji up to his elbows as he desperately tried to save a soldier who suffered at the hands of a musket and bullet. But even with his valiant effort, the solider gave in - releasing his last painful breath, incoherency in the words he mumbled and faded away.

It frightened Zoro to see how Sanji handled death. Practiced and with ease. As if it were simply a thing that happened. And entirely far too much like Zoro.

“Well,” Sanji looks over at Zoro who’s lingering in the corners of the shadows. “I guess you’ll get to prove you’re the reaper now.”

But the hourglass on Zoro’s wrist had not flipped. The man was dead and without a soul and one would think Zoro would still have to filter through every death, but it seems that was never the case. The hourglass was selective. For what? That, even Zoro does not know.

Zoro attempts to give Sanji an answer anyway. “Souls that are ready for the beyond would not die in vain.”

It unlocks some sort of hidden fury in Sanji. He turns around, tight as a whip, fire in his eyes as he seethes. “In vain?”

Zoro doesn’t react. Unsure of how this would go, and he was a little desperate not to have to lose Sanji for decades again.

“In vain,” Sanji repeats, the words like venom on his tongue. “You’re telling me that they can’t go to the afterlife because they died in vain?”

“They were killed in a fight that was not their own.” Zoro crosses his arms. “The will of humanity should not affect each individual soul.”

“These men died with honor! Is that worth nothing?” Sanji screams at him.

“Honor is not a ticket to freedom. That’s such a human thing to say.” Zoro would not lose Sanji, but he would not continue to delude him either. He had respect not to shield him from the truth of it all.

Sanji does not take to it kindly, shoving Zoro back and yelling with each push. “That’s human? Well, fuck you! I would rather die a million times knowing I had lived according to what I thought was right than disregard everything for no reason like you!”

He tosses Zoro out of the tent and tells him to get lost and for once, in all this time of chasing after Sanji, Zoro hopes to never see him again.

If death is meaningless, then what was it all for? Did there even need to be a purpose? Or was every living and non-living thing in this infinite space they called the universe just an instance that happened? Completely pointless and entirely unnecessary but taking up space anyway.

It was all hypocritical. A ridiculous paradox that rivaled Schrodinger’s box of being dead and alive at the same time. To be something and nothing all at once. To have meaning and yet mean nothing at all. It drove Zoro mad. For an immortal whose hand shaped so much of humanity’s fears and history, was he not just the same?

He doesn’t run far. Sanji finds him again brooding under an awning of a tree further west. He stalks back up to death with a cigarette between his lips and an apology written in the way he had his hands shoved in his pockets. He slumps down to sit in the grass, shoulder brushing Zoro’s.

“So, Death has feelings too huh?” Zoro doesn’t deign Sanji’s opening a response. Sanji bumps his shoulder again. Zoro remains steadfast in his intent to look away. Another shoulder bump and another until Zoro finally caves and throws him a glare. “I’m sorry.” Zoro’s glare softens, prompting Sanji to continue. “I wasn’t thinking about what I said.”

“It’s okay.” Zoro’s voice is gruff, but he leans to place his head on Sanji’s shoulder anyway. “I shouldn’t have said that immediately after you lost a patient. Death affects people differently.”

There’s a pause in the air, Sanji listening for the words in between. “Does that mean death affects you too?”

The answer should be no. Zoro is death. But even he can’t deny how he cherishes brightly colored souls excited for oblivion, the agony of a tortured soul repeating life once more, and the way his nonexistent heart breaks each time he has had to let Sanji go. “I don’t know,” Zoro admits. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

Sanji wanted to be out on the battlefield. It’s part of the reason he grew so frustrated at the notion that the lives lost were not honored to the extent he had believed. He settled a little after Zoro tells him of the different deaths: the cycle of life, death, and rebirth - how it was all interconnected for something else. Every death was one the soul was ready for - whether they were ready to let go or give in once more.

“Why are you not out there?” For someone so adamant about living his life the way he wants, Sanji seems so stuck this time - as if attempting things only out of pure spite.

“My father,” Sanji sighs. “He’s German. I was originally born in Germany but let’s just say things weren’t great. I wasn’t…good enough. So, one day I just got up and ran. Fled all the way to Britain, changed my name, and went to school. Thought I could start all over again.” Sanji leans back on his palms, looking up at the sky. “When the war started, I went to enlist. But looks like my past came back to haunt me. The military found out about my family history and wasn’t comfortable with a potential spy in the mix. Never mind that I had been in Britain for seven years at this point.”

Zoro traces a thumb over the back of Sanji’s hand. “But you’re still here?”

“Fought tooth and nail. If they wouldn’t let me on the front line so, be it. But I knew I could do something else. I could be useful.”

Zoro tips up Sanji’s chin, a gesture so familiar to Zoro from last time, yet one that left Sanji flustered this time. “They’re lucky to have you.”

For such an austere and calm doctor, Sanji’s left flushing red and babbling out half-mangled words before he shoots up and races off. “I’ve gotta go.” Sanji’s long legs already carrying him halfway back to his post but he turns back for a mere fraction of a second, tossing Zoro a grin. “Don’t keep sulking, you’ll turn into the moss underneath your feet.”

He meets an old woman for his next death. Somewhere well past the war but still an age far from the skyscrapers kissing the clouds. Eunice is a lovely woman well into her years, curling gray hair and seated with a knit blanket across her lap as she rocks back and forth.

Eunice looks up with mirth in her eyes when Zoro comes to greet her. “Ah, I suppose it’s that time.”

Zoro nods, shaking off that perturbing feeling he gets when the elderly greet him instead - as if waiting for an old friend, even if he’s never met them before. Or maybe he has.

“Come sit for a bit.” Eunice pats the seat next to her, an older wicker chair that rocks back and forth the same. “Let me see this one last sunset.” Zoro checks the hourglass. They have more than enough time to see the sun sink into the horizon. Zoro takes a seat.

The creaking of the chairs goes back and forth in unison, the only sound that seems to remain in the companionship they share. “I’ve lived a good life,” Eunice says. Her gaze focused on the lavender clouds above them. “I’ve done everything I should. Was a good daughter, a good wife, and a good mother. I don’t really have any regrets.”

That piques Zoro’s interest. “But you have some?”

“Just one really.” Eunice’s smile grows fond before she faces Zoro. “You know young man; I think we’re too focused on how we ‘ought to live. Spend all our days trying to live according to what someone else says.” Zoro nods, hearing the last of her thoughts. “But you know,” Eunice continues. “When we die, we die all alone. Rare to find someone heading to the after with you. So, I wish I had lived a bit more freely. Lived how I wanted to.”

The sands of time begin to swirl entirely in the bottom, close to settling still but not before Eunice voices her only regret. “I should have told June I loved her.”

Sanji avoids him with an uncharacteristic resolve. He dodges Zoro’s attempts for a conversation. He startles away from Zoro’s touch. He flinches when he meets Zoro’s gaze.

“Oi.” Zoro corners him some random evening. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sanji pushes past him to gather a couple of supplies from the shelf behind Zoro and stalks off just as quickly.

“Why are you avoiding me?” Zoro presses.

“I’m right here, aren’t I? Doesn’t seem like avoidance.” Zoro doesn’t like the tone of Sanji’s voice the way he says it but before he can get a word in edgewise there’s a startled call for help and soldier rush through the tent limping as they carry a broken man. Sanji jumps into action ordering them to a cot and asking the two nurses to grab certain things.

The man on the bed has been nearly cut open, his innards practically spilling out, but he still holds out with every bit of strength he has left. Sanji snaps on a pair of gloves as the nurses race to help him beat the clock. The soldier looks up in a daze at Sanji as he begins. “Don’t.” The voice is garbled with resentment. Sanji pauses just above torn flesh. The soldiers who carried the man in, freeze at the demand. Sanji decides to continue anyway, stepping back when the man violently trashes. “I said don’t!”

“Hysteria.” A nurse mutters. “He’s lost too much blood.”

“I’m afraid that isn’t it.” Sanji’s mouth falls into a grim line. “Sergeant Rogers, I need to get you into emergency surgery.”

“Don’t you fucking dare touch me with your filthy hands, fairy.”

Sanji recoils as if he’s been slapped. He rips the gloves off and turns to the nurses. “Ladies, I won’t be able to help much but I’ll coach you through this. Let’s proceed with cleaning.” The women give each other a wary glance but quickly get to work once they hear the horrendous moan of pain from the man. Sanji is strict but efficient in the way he addresses the way to treat him and eventually the nurses get the last of the stitches sewn and the man has long since fainted from the pain. His breathing is a bit uneven but still alive nonetheless.

“Stable.” Sanji hovers for a second before turning away and out the door. “Yell for me if you need me.” Zoro races after him.

“Sanji.” Zoro beckons. “Sanji wait. Sanji!”

The man turns with a huff, hands thrown up. “What in the world could you possibly want?”

Zoro pulls him in tight and cradles him in his arms. All of Sanji’s coiled-up energy deflates the instant he’s buried in Zoro’s chest. Zoro’s fingers thread through blonde waves and massage the nape of his neck. “It’s okay.” Zoro whispers. “You’re okay.”

Sanji crumbles. “Do you even know what they were implying?” He chokes through the sentence. “Do you even know what they mean?”

“No.” Zoro’s honest. “But it’s upset you. And that’s all that matters to me.”

“Why?” Sanji mumbles. “Why would you care about me of all people?”

There isn’t a way to articulate it. The way that Sanji, a mortal of all things, makes Zoro, the hand of death, feel seen. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s Zoro’s only companion in the vast nothingness. Or perhaps the reason Zoro feels like he’s been unraveling this entire time searching for nothing but Sanji. There’s no way to truly say it, so Zoro settles for “because I love you.”

Sanji tenses. “No, you don’t. We just met. We haven’t known each other that long-”

But Zoro has known him, across lifetimes and eras, across deaths and millennia. “Time isn’t important. I just know I love you. And I hope one day you will love me too.”

“I don’t think that’s the problem I have.” Sanji peeks up at him from the comfort of Zoro’s embrace.

Zoro knocks his forehead against Sanji’s. “You know last time you’re the one who said it first. This time I beat you to it.”

Sanji looks at Zoro with wonder and curiosity in his eyes, something indecipherable swimming in the blues of his irises. “How many?” He poses the question. How many lifetimes? How many times has this happened, over and over again?

“Too many.” And it startles Zoro that that’s the truth.

Sanji smiles. “I guess I shouldn’t worry about liking men when I’ve apparently got an immortal chasing me down.”

Zoro kisses Sanji’s forehead and pulls him close. “I’ll find you. Wherever you are.” Sanji’s grip around him tightens.

Life denies you that which you truly desire. Many would call it ordained - a reminder that what is desired is not what is truly needed. That there is no such thing as a perfect life. Everything was simply about perspective.

But a beam of sunlight on a cold winter’s day. The peace and quiet of rustling leaves. The childish wonders of a sparkling holiday. The freedom of screaming from the highest peaks. The taste of salt when one visits the sea. All the colors of the sunset. The sigh of relief when huddled in a lover’s arms. To look at the sky and see not the impossible but all the things that could be possible.

God help them, they wanted it all.

Though far and frequent, there are moments where Zoro loses the race against the sands of time. The hourglass on his wrist far too quick for him and all he’s able to see is a physical body that has been left behind and potentially a soul to guide into after.

Maybe he’s gotten a little sentimental. But somehow death feels like a thing too great to have to face alone. And if he can ease the burden of facing something so unfathomable, so daunting, all on your own - then Zoro has learned to recognize the honor in that.

But sometimes he arrives a tad bit too late. Even if he was right there.

Human affairs and conflicts are something so foreign to him - nondescript in the way he only understands that kingdoms are raised, civilizations thrive, and then it all crumbles to dust. He had seen it repeatedly in the myriad of cycles of time. But he never knew what destruction meant until it hit him.

Everything exploded in a sea of flames and broiling heat, coating the entirety of the camp in fury. The screaming he had gotten used to was unbearable at first, but nothing could compare to the deafening silence of nothingness. By the time Zoro was able to see again, to look through the clouds of smoke and fire, everything had already been burnt to ash. There were no bodies, nothing recognizable. Sanji.

Zoro races through the wreckage, throwing himself over debris in a panic to find where the medical tent once stood. But everything was charred and unidentifiable and he could barely make out guttural moans of the poor unfortunate souls who were still clinging to the last dregs of life. The sands of time had halted to a stop, the writing indicating the place he stood when he catches a flash of silver, and he gently picks up the broken necklace at his feet.

Sanji Black
Medic
0-1467231

The tag cuts into Zoro’s hand as he screams at the world.

"No!” He yells into the beyond-oblivion-the sky “No! Bring him back! This isn’t how it was supposed to be. I didn’t get enough time. I need more time!”

And with nothing but bitter truth to offer Zoro back, it says, “But you have all of eternity. All you have is time.”

Zoro crashes to his knees. He’s suffocating on far more than the lingering ash and smoke. It feels like he’s collapsing from within. “It’s not enough. He didn’t - I couldn’t.” He shuts his eyes and burrows his head into his hands. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

And the universe has nothing to say about that.

There’s a riddle that goes something like this: What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, three legs in the evening, and no legs at night?

A mythical creature had asked a man the question just before it sent him along towards his tragic destiny. That he too, would be like that creature no matter the events of his life. A child, an adult, an old man, and at last - a dead man.

But what the riddle doesn’t teach you is the significance of all those events. It takes a million brushstrokes, after all, to create a painting of life. It’s easy to get lost in the whole image of it and neglect to understand the details it took to get there. And maybe on their own, each speck of color is nothing but a one-dimensional aura of a moment. But together - melded with one another and contrasting other hues, it creates something otherworldly.

Maybe that’s how destiny is too. A seemingly endless cycle of life, death, and rebirth. An infinite number of chances. And looking at it as a whole is inconceivable. But maybe it’s not about seeing it all. Maybe it’s just recognizing the pieces.

He meets Sanji once more as a child, a five-year-old having far too much fun playing in the creek and nearly drowning. Zoro became his imaginary friend. Another time Zoro found him as a university student struggling to balance his job at the post office while reading Voltaire. An instance where Zoro spent a week watching him slowly succumb to a degenerative disease. Then there’s the life where he stops Sanji at the altar, ensuing the rage of a catholic priest and his beloved daughter when he sprints away, Zoro hand in hand.

But his favorite life or Sanji so proudly proclaims has to be his favorite life, is the one where he is nothing more than a simple cook. Somewhere in New York City, staffing a family-owned Italian restaurant. And this time, Sanji found Zoro first.

Zoro frowned at the hourglass on his wrist, tapping it to see if the location he was supposed to be was correct. But it was adamant that these were in fact the correct coordinates. Zoro spins in a circle standing on the sidewalk, entirely confused about who was dead here considering there was no body to be found. That is until he hears the scream for help in the dark alley right next to him.

“Somebody help!” And the voice. It sounded suspiciously like... Zoro steps into the alley and there he finds, kneeling above a grotesquely bloated and punctured body, Sanji. Sanji looks up at him, expression frantic as he attempts to put pressure on the wounds. The dying man below him gurgling in pain. “You! Help me! He’s going to die!”

This is an awfully atrocious time to tell Sanji that the man is in fact going to die and that Zoro was here to make sure of it. He kneels on the opposite side instead, hands phasing right through the body when he tries to put pressure on the wounds. Well, can’t say he didn’t try. The sands of time begin to count down to the last grains. Zoro gives Sanji a half-hearted shrug. “So, you’re probably thinking that you’ve lost it. This is where I tell you I’m a grim reaper.”

“What.” Sanji balks at him. And just then police sirens come wailing in, flashing blue lights rounding upon the corner they’re tucked away in. A crowd gathered on the outskirts watching Sanji’s bloodied hands.

The man’s soul begins to escape its physical shell. A smidge little thing of olive green but bright in its own way nonetheless. Zoro smiles and holds out his hand for the soul to bounce around on. “Come on then. It’s time for you to go.” His gaze flicks back to Sanji who’s now an ashen grey, watching Zoro collect a soul. “Um-” Zoro paces as the soul fully ascends and lingers on Zoro’s palm. “I’ll be back. And then I promise I’ll explain.”

Usually, Zoro has a bit more of a segway before having to prove he’s an immortal collecting deaths. And typically, evidence was more along the lines of showing how he’s invisible to others, or in the case of seven-year-old Sanji a few lifetimes ago, pulling out a random scythe he found in the middle ages. Just showing up and taking a soul from a dying man was definitely not how Zoro had intended to go about it. Zoro sighs as he releases the soul into oblivion, watching its twinkling light join the others. This was probably not going to go over well. (Though when did it ever, really?)

He retraces through time to end up back in the alley, getting lost spinning in circles a couple of decades before. Zoro wants to smash his head against the wall - he didn’t even think about figuring out where the hell Sanji in this life was from in order to find him again. Luckily, he doesn’t have to. The back door to the building on the left creaks open, a certain leggy blonde stepping through for his smoke break. He blinks at Zoro. “Oh, you’re back.”

“Hey.” Zoro waves.

Sanji leans against the brick and lights up a cigarette. “So…” He prompts Zoro.

“Right.” Zoro walks up to him and leans on the wall opposite, running a hand down his face in exasperation as he finds yet another way to articulate how exactly he’s going to say this. “So, I’m a grim reaper, as you probably noticed from the last time we saw each other.” Sanji gives him a sarcastic huff as a response. “There’s a bit more. I already know you. You’re Sanji. I’ve met you almost fifteen times now. Like fifteen different lifetimes. You’d probably call them reincarnations or something I guess.” Zoro pauses before his next words. “Oh, and I’m in love with you.”

Sanji’s face remains stoic as he exhales a cloud of smoke. He taps the ashes onto the floor before stubbing out the cigarette beneath his toe. “Hmm.” Sanji considers as he thoroughly analyzes Zoro with his black t-shirt and pants, a head that’s minty green, and tan skin that doesn’t scream anything like death. Sanji shrugs before propping the door back open. “Alright then.”

Zoro’s jaw drops. “What?” He shakes his head. “Wait. You’re okay with all that?”

Sanji shifts from foot to foot for a second. “Yeah, seems like you’re telling the truth. You can tell me more later; I have to go finish up this shift. Meet you out front at like 8:30?”

Zoro grabs the door to follow in after him. “No one can see me anyway. I’ll just tell you now.”

Sanji pushes him back. “No way. Just because you’re some death whatever does not mean you get permission into the kitchen. I’ll meet you out front afterwards.”

“But-” Zoro tries but Sanji interrupts once again.

“You got a name, reaper?”

“Zoro.”

“See you later Zoro. Don’t be late.” And Sanji promptly slams the door shut in Zoro’s face.

Zoro was late. It was already hard enough having to deal with the in general sands of time flowing towards eternity and stumbling back and forth through it all but add in the concept of human time on top of it with their ridiculous notion of time zones and hours and such and it was expected that Zoro would get a little lost through it all. Only a little of course. It was 8:30 somewhere, someplace else he would like to argue.

“You’re late.” Sanji scolds him from his perch under the restaurant’s awning. Andiamo the sign said in looped cursive writing.

“Sorry.” Zoro steps in tandem with Sanji as they head out, his shoulder brushing Sanji’s as they walked. Sanji’s got a little basket clutched in his right hand and he steers Zoro down some winding streets until they find themselves in a secluded park, hidden by the cover of trees and overlooking a river. Sanji pulls a blanket out of the basket and settles it over the damp ground.

Sanji pats the seat next to him. “Come on then. I think we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

Zoro settles on the ground a little uneasy. “You’re taking this rather well.”

Sanji uncorks a bottle of wine and brings out an assortment of things. He looks at Zoro as if asking can you eat? Zoro nods and pops a piece of hard cheese in his mouth. “Well,” Sanji tells him between sips of wine. “Nona Bacino was something of a witch. Called it stregheria. She’s always warned me that death has been following me. Used to ward me off with salt and herbs.” Sanji laughs to himself. “Little did she know how right she would end up being.”

“And you’re…okay with that?” Zoro asks warily. “With the whole man dying thing and all, I would expect-”

“You didn’t kill him though. Just took his soul. Or at least, you aren’t the stabber going around town, are you?” Sanji questions him.

“No. No stabbing happening on my side. Just, you know, doing my job.”

“Aren’t we all.” Sanji smiles. He takes another long draw of wine, amusement flashing in his eyes. “Now come on, tell me about all our lives.”

In all these lifetimes, Zoro never had to share the weight he was carrying. But as Sanji laughs when he tells him about the time he got glitter glue in his hair from Sanji’s time as a teacher, when he pouts at Zoro’s distaste for the sweets Sanji as the baker had made him, how he rubs away the tension in Zoro’s back when he grows quiet explaining how he had to slowly let Sanji at 76 go - that unbearable pressure on Zoro’s chest begins to lighten.

All this time he was carrying all of Sanji with him, mistaking the smothering feeling of it all as a way he held onto the burden of love.

Sanji must notice because he cuts him loose from having to remember it all. “It’s a lot isn’t it? You don’t have to say it all today.”

Zoro looks at this Sanji with certain fatigue he hadn’t realized rimmed his gaze before. What if today was all they had? What if after this time, they would have to do it all over again? “Okay.” Zoro relents. Because he was weak when it came to Sanji. Always caving in and never taking anything in return.

Sanji stands, brushing off his pants, and sticking out a hand to pull Zoro up. “It’s getting late, and I’ve got to go to the other side of town tomorrow morning, so it’s best we call it a night.”

And as it is with divine timing, the hourglass on Zoro’s wrist flips. Indicating it was his own time to get going. Sanji watches as the sands of time spill. “I’ll see you then.” Zoro leans in for a kiss.

“Oi oi,” Sanji leans back, hands above his face blocking Zoro from his path. “On the first date?”

Zoro raises a brow. “Did you miss the part where I said I’m in love with you?”

“Trust me I didn’t. But listen marimo, just because you love me doesn’t mean you just get everything back. I’m still this Sanji.”

Zoro pouts, crossing his arms. “What are you saying?”

Sanji gives him a pointed smile, more teeth than kind grace. “You’ll have to earn it. Meet me by the harbor on Friday, at 6’o clock.” He sticks his hands in his pockets and collects his pockets and waves goodbye as he walks off.

“That’s not fair!” Zoro yells after him, pointing to the tattoo on his wrist for emphasis. “What if I’m late?”

“I’ll wait!” Sanji shouts back.

Death comes easy. Dying, on the other hand, happens to be very excruciating. To live is to die, some say. One cannot exist without the other. You can go about life thinking that you are dying along the way. Or you can go about dying thinking about all the life you have lived.

When the final moment arrives, there’s a certain sanctity to it. A sense of universal understanding of all the life and death that went into that one moment. Unbearable highs that leave one entirely breathless and rock bottoms that crushed every aspect of your being. Monotony in the days of limbo lingering in between and passion-filled fits at sporadic moments.

One lives and dies through it all. Hand in hand, do the reaper and the fool walk.

Sanji certainly makes Zoro work for it.

Their date at the harbor went great as they milled about with endless things to talk about, and an infinite number of questions Sanji was armed with. Sanji shoved Zoro into the harbor when he was unsuspecting and then laughed as the reaper nearly froze to death from the chill of it. But the kiss Sanji planted on his lips afterward warmed him up.

Then there was the invite to Sanji’s home. A tiny cottage of a thing filled with far too many cookbooks and coated in a sense of comfort that Zoro had never experienced before. They were supposed to cook dinner together - a task that Zoro had never been assigned in all these lifetimes. But Zoro awoke on the floor with a blanket smothering him and a pillow beneath his head, listening quietly as Sanji hummed along to some song playing on his radio.

Zoro was finally allowed into Andiamo’s kitchen well past the lunch rush to help taste test a dish Sanji was experimenting with. Sure, the number of scallops Zoro consumed should have been cause for concern, but he was too focused on the way Sanji’s tongue poked out from the corner of his mouth when he was concentrating on getting the sauce just right.

Sanji had forced Zoro to watch far too many cliche black and white romance movies on weekends when he was free, scolding Zoro when he would fall asleep in the middle of a grand scene. Though, it seems the forget-me-nots Zoro plucked from somewhere in 1922 did the trick at earning his forgiveness.

But Sanji continued to give and give and give. In the way he always asked Zoro if he was hungry whenever he would show up. Or how his arms would wrap around Zoro’s waist when he came back with a distraught expression on his face, asking no questions but simply holding him to leech off some of the feelings. Zoro loved the way Sanji took him to see new things with the words “just because you’ve seen it all doesn’t mean you’ve actually experienced it.” Even though he would deny it if asked, Zoro relished the feeling of Sanji forcing him into the shower because he smelled atrocious, relaxing at the fingers kneading into his scalp to wash his hair.

It’s on an early morning when Zoro’s still snuggled into Sanji’s bed, comforter snatched away from him, face buried into his pillow that he realizes he never wants to lose this again. It drops like a weight in his stomach as he adjusts to face Sanji. The man’s got the entirety of the comforter swaddled around him, trim of his blonde bangs popping out and his mouth in a tight line as he watches the morning news, something about the suspect of mass stabbings.

He notices Zoro staring at him intently and says, “Morning.” Then a soft frown with knit brows. “Do you have to go?”

“No,” Zoro says, holding back on the not yet. Wishing for once that the answer would just simply be no. I’m staying here. I’m not going anywhere.

“Hungry?” Sanji clicks off the TV, arching his back to stretch and letting the blankets fall.

Zoro’s never hungry. He doesn’t experience things like hunger. He’s gone most of his entire existence without eating anything. There was no point in it anyway. And yet he says, “yeah.” All because he didn’t want to forget the taste of Sanji’s cooking.

“Yeah?” Sanji grins. “I'll whip something up. I’ve got some time this morning.”

Zoro continued to delude himself. An immortal walking in a human’s footsteps, pretending as if they were his own. Lingering in Sanji’s shadow, to leave his own mark against the sunlight. And he does so for months. Has been doing so since the beginning. Chasing after Sanji and all that he was to vicariously live.

Sanji shows him pictures of himself as a kid causing a ruckus in their little community, when he points to pictures of his childhood friends - Zoro wants to be photographed next to him too. Sanji points out the street where he broke his leg falling off a bicycle, laughing about all the stupid jokes people wrote on the cast. Zoro wishes he could have been there to call him stupid and kiss him better.

Sanji’s past, present, and future - he thought he had already seen it all. Scattered puzzle pieces across time he had been collecting in his heart. But what were puzzle pieces if he couldn’t see the picture they made in the end?

And the reality of it all begins to slowly destroy him.

“Are you happy?” Zoro finally asks him.

Sanji looks over at him from the stand where he was perusing the tomatoes. “Huh? Happy with the tomatoes? Sure - yeah, they look great.”

“No.” Zoro snatches Sanji’s arm and drags him away to the tiny little subsection by the flower stand - out of sight. “I meant are you happy as in are you happy with your life?”

“Zoro what are you-” Sanji’s watching him with a shaky unclear look in his eyes, hand coming up to Zoro’s jaw, which Zoro holds onto.

He cuts Sanji off. “Please just.” Zoro sighs, dropping his head to Sanji’s chest. “Are you happy Sanji?”

Zoro listens as Sanji’s voice reverberates in his chest. “I am.” It’s soft. “I’m happy.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. And you know I don’t think I’ve ever lived a happier life. I get to do what I love every day. I’ve got the family at the restaurant, and” Sanji pulls Zoro’s face up to kiss his cheek. “I have you.”

Zoro doesn’t understand. “But how does that make you happy?” They were such ordinary things: a dream, people, love. They didn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of it all.

“I don’t know, but it does. I can’t imagine my life without them.” Sanji’s thumb drags back and forth from Zoro’s cheekbone. “Zoro, where is this coming from?”

“I can’t understand. I don’t know what all of it means.” He looks at Sanji helplessly. “But I want to. I don’t want to lose this, but I know that one day it’ll be gone, and I’ll have to start over again. I’m not even the one dying but I have to keep starting over.”

Sanji’s smile grows a little wistful and he traces the line of Zoro’s temple, scanning the man’s face. “I don’t have the answers for you Zoro. But maybe,” Sanji’s breath hitches, “maybe you’re a bit more human than you think.”

To conquer death is some men's greatest goal. To live forever. To surpass the only limit that curbed humanity: their finite time.

Existence is much like the grains of sand. On its own, it seems rather insignificant. And yet, in order for time to flow - it only requires a single grain of sand to fall.

Zoro was so used to being invisible. His gaze entirely on Sanji as the world walked past him. It was window shopping day as Sanji so enticingly proclaimed. Mostly it was a day for him to oooh and ahhh at the expensive knives at the German mart that he always looked at but never bought. Zoro was begging him, pleading with him to just cave in and buy the knives.

“No, not yet.” Sanji meanders around. “I’m saving them for something special.”

“Big plans?” Zoro fiddles with the knife set.

Sanji nods, a soft smile on his face. “One day, I’ll open my own restaurant. And the first thing I’ll buy for the kitchen are these knives.”

Zoro drops the knives to follow Sanji, who’s already on the far wall looking at the wooden cutting boards. He pulls him in by the belt loops, securing an arm around his waist. Sanji grumbles about clingy immortals. Zoro presses a kiss to his cheek instead. “What are you going to name it?” He asks Sanji.

“I don’t know. Figured it’d come to me when the moment happened.”

“Leaving me hanging? Come on, tell me. Tell me.” Zoro pulls at Sanji’s hair, tugs at the edges of his sleeve, and kisses his neck relentlessly.

“Oi!” Sanji pushes him away playfully. “I really don’t know!” He dodges another one of Zoro’s grabs. “I just thought it’d be more exciting to think of one when it happens.”

“Okay fine.” Zoro manages to grab him into a hug. “I have a couple ideas though.”

“Of course, you do.”

They leave the German Mart to grab some groceries to make dinner at home. Sanji gets entirely distracted by a stray kitten stuck in a bush, who promptly flees from his arms the second he’s able to free it. They take the long route back to the cottage, shoving at one another - threatening to push the other into the river. The stars begin to sparkle through the veil of night.

They turn the corner onto their street when Zoro looks back for an instant - the hair at the nape of his neck prickling. He nearly doesn’t hear it at first. The soft inhale of breath - but a sound so powerful, almost as if man had found the fountain of youth.

“Zoro?” Sanji’s voice beckons his gaze forward, to the man holding out his hand in confusion. Zoro reaches out to tangle his fingers with Sanji's hand.

It happens in an instant. Seconds, really. But in terms of eternity, it was a life’s worth of time.

Zoro is shoved up against Sanji quickly. Sanji shouting something and twisting his body, hurling Zoro to the far side. The searing burn of something cutting past his arm as he’s twisted to the opposite side. The flash of silver sticking through Sanji’s chest and being ripped away the next second. The soft sound of Sanji’s breath before they both collapse onto the ground.

The man is already gone, racing away with a bloody knife and a hysterical laugh that he defeated death. But Zoro can’t chase after him - his whole body paralyzed grasping onto Sanji. His limp body is cradled in his arms and the blood is soaking through Zoro’s robes. The stupid damn fool who jumped to save a man who was immortal. There’s a wretched cough as Sanji coughs up thick clotting drops of blood. The light in his eyes dims and Zoro watches in horror as a small golden light begins to grow out of Sanji.

Of all the times, why now? Zoro loved him at 21, 36, and 45. He would love him whether he was 87 or 103. He would love him as a baker, a teacher, a doctor, a cook, whatever he chose to be - watching as the man always gave and never took in return.

“No.” Zoro tries to push Sanji’s soul back into him, but the sands of the hourglass are dripping by, counting down to the very last moment of Sanji’s final life. Cooling blood clings to his fingers. “No.” Zoro refuses. He has abided by all of time’s rules, but he would never give time this. The universe didn’t deserve him. No entity did.

“Zoro.” Sanji gasps, his lungs beginning to give. “It’s okay.”

There is salt running down his face. In all his time, in all these millennia - the reaper has never shed a tear. But here death kneels, broken before a man.

“I can’t lose you. No.” Zoro repeats. But the words are null and void, powerless to the threads of fate.

Sanji smiles, blue eyes clearer than any sky. He takes Zoro’s hand and brings it to his lips, ghosting over knuckles with his dying breath. Kisses callouses as if they did not collect souls. The golden light above Sanji grows. “Zoro. It’s okay.”

“Sanji, why would you-” Zoro’s voice breaks.

And he gives Zoro one last grin. A smile that Zoro could never forget, no matter how many eons would come to pass. “Why would I die for you?” Sanji says. He holds Zoro’s hand and grips his jaw, forcing him to watch as he lets Sanji go. “Because I love you. I will always love you. Even if I can’t remember it all. I just know that it’ll always be you.” He brings Zoro’s lips to his, mashing together teeth and gums but all Zoro can taste and feel is Sanji, Sanji, Sanji.

Sanji pulls away with an expression that Zoro would end worlds for. Blue eyes brimming with tears of knowing what’s next, knowing that this time there will be no next time, knowing that this is it. He gives his last breath to Zoro, “so let go. It’s okay. If you are my end, then let me be your beginning.”

To live is such an individualistic thing. One’s thoughts, perception, and reality is formed by figments of one’s own mind. Beliefs and values are all whimsical concepts to make order of chaos and find a path to walk upon.

But maybe that’s all it really was - some whimsical half intelligible nonsense that no one or nothing could ever comprehend and instead to take pieces of it all to half haphazardly toss together something called the path of life. A journey each person believes is predestined and carved to fit when simply you’re putting one foot in front of the other trying to find the light out of the darkness.

And maybe along the way, you find purpose in your footsteps. A reason to keep searching. Others to journey with. And you keep going - stumbling over rocks and other hurdles, pausing when there’s a fork in the path, looking to the sky-the universe-the beyond for a guiding hand. But you keep going until you finally reach the end.

Sanji’s soul is a glimmering gold, tones of marigold and neon yellow. Blinding with all its flashiness and unable to shy away from basking in all its warmth. Zoro can’t bear to take it, screaming into Sanji’s no longer moving chest, tears mixing into pink with the blood that stains his face. The hourglass has stopped. The sand has disappeared.

When Zoro greets the edge of the world, glimmering lights in the inky abyss of oblivion, he can’t seem to let go. The shimmering yellow light dances in his palm, the warmth kissing his cold fingertips: the light of comfort in the soft honey hues and the flames of passion in all its waves of amber. Zoro knows how beautiful Sanji’s soul would be in the beyond, an eternal blaze that would never waver.

But he’s selfish. He wants all of it. Zoro would spend an eternity getting lost if Sanji could be the star that guides him home.

The wind rustles past him in a whisper of the universe’s voice. “You found it. What it means to live.”

Zoro squares his shoulders as he stares at oblivion and all its infinite nothing. “Yeah.” He turns around to face the void. The creator of all and nothing at once. It laughs already knowing what Zoro has decided. The soul in his hand dances around. “One lifetime with him is worth all my eternity,” Zoro says. "I ask you to release me.”

For a moment Zoro thinks it won’t happen. That he’ll be chained to an existence where he will remain forever in mortal’s nightmares. A shell of something that doesn't quite exist but lingers in the nothingness for all of infinity. But the universe gives in with a content sigh, “In exchange for eternity, I set you free.”

Existence rips itself to pieces once more. Destroying what was. Becoming what will. Taking Zoro along with it. Elsewhere. Another time, another place, another life.

And Zoro finally lets go.

If humanity was created in the image of the gods, then it goes to say that the gods must be just as flawed and hopeless as man is.

Chasing after the unattainable. Risking it all for more. Perhaps it was desperation.

Maybe it was something divine.

Somewhere in the East Blue

There was a clamor in the restaurant. What now, Zoro grumbles to himself. Not only had his idiot captain already gotten himself tied into indentured servitude, but Zoro is pretty sure Luffy has continued to rack up more debt than relieve it. Nami and Usopp look at him with the same thought in mind, and with a sigh, they head in.

Zoro pushes through the entrance. “A fight?” He surveys the scene. There’s broken plates and a shattered table. Customers gawking in stunned silence and wine dripping onto the floor in tandem with the blood streaming off the man’s face.

Zoro finally sees the tall silhouette cloaked in tailored black. A lazy hand in his pocket. Cherry cigarette smoke wafting up in puffs. There’s something familiar about the gold of his hair and that brilliant blue in his eyes. And for a moment, Zoro swears - time stops. Nothing but that man at the center and the rocking of the waves.

“Ahhh! Our customer! You again Sanji!” Someone new screams, jolting Zoro awake.

And the sands of time continue to flow again.

Unable even to imagine what will come after, under what stars, but I know there will be an ‘after’. - The Book of Disquiet

Notes:

This fic was based on my favorite tarot cards: Death and The Fool. Death being a card of endings. And The Fool being a card of new starts/beginnings. Just remember that when something ends, it means something new is beginning.
Thank you so so so much for reading. I truly truly appreciate every person who took a chance at reading this. Every kudos and comment is genuinely the reason I'm so happy to share my work. I hope you got something out of it whether it was simply enjoying watching Zoro and Sanji find each other over and over again or something from my philosophical tidbits.
P.S. if you liked this poetic version of Zosan, I would recommend my other fics: Plato's Other Half and Icarus

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