Downward Spiral

Maybe his life is just bound to be a swirling mess of absolute garbage. Maybe he's just fucking destined—fuck destiny—to have a shit-fucked kind of fucking life. Maybe it was a mistake thinking that he could ever run away from what he used to be, what he is—will be. Maybe the circumstances of his birth just didn't allow him so much leeway for whatever he wanted but then again, who on earth ever said he asked to be born a Vinsmoke? Certainly not him.

He just wanted to be a cook. He just wanted to find All Blue. He just wanted to sail with his crew. He just wanted to be with—

Sanji takes a nice long drag from the cigarette sticking out of his mouth. It's too small now and he feels desperate trying to draw in every last bit of nicotine from it, to make the most out of this comforting poison, hoping to hell that it might somehow tranquilize him into comatose. He wonders how much nicotine he would have to consume per minute to kill him before they get to their destination.

Ah, god damn it, since when had he been capable of being so fucking miserable?

Perhaps the only productive thing he was able to do in the last few hours was to actually push Nami-san and the others out of Capone's body and not get them any more involved than they should have. He's thankful that none of them had any mind or guts to stand up to him and actually argue. Zoro would have argued. He always argues regardless of what made proper sense because his brain is fueled by moss. But then again, they might have been more occupied about his kelp ass getting lost than this fucking giant mess and Sanji can't even.

Or maybe not.

Had Zoro been there, Nami and the others wouldn't have been taken hostage. One of them would have been left to take care of the rest of the crew or maybe all of them could take care of Capone's entire gang. Sanji feels like shit for not being responsible enough for the rest of his crew. Like, yes, he told them to stay put because maybe then he could've put up a fight without worrying about their lives. But it wasn't their fault, no. It's just that Sanji's still too fucking weak to protect anyone. Still. God fucking damn it.

Had Zoro been there, Sanji might not have been able to push Nami-san and the others out of the human castle. Or maybe he wouldn't have been able to push Zoro out of this stupid fortress. They'd end up fighting like the fifty million times they've done since they met each other. He's never met a man to make him so fiery by just existing. The god damn mosshead has an uncanny ability to make everything disappear around him so Sanji now has every bit of that man engraved into his skull even if he didn't want to.

Sanji can picture him right now—the shitty marimo—his jaw clenched as he grit his teeth, lips twitching before he speaks as his large hand grabs a fistful of Sanji's shirt, yanking him forward and then suddenly they're too close. They're always too close when they argue. Why can't the shitty swordsman make his point without being too close? Even in Sanji's imagination, Zoro's too fucking close that there's the scent of him mixed the smell of his sweat, his warm breath laced with the smell of alcohol and Sanji's cigarettes that dance across his senses as the swordsman tries to stare him down, their foreheads meeting, eyes glaring before he opens his mouth so that the first sound of his low voice sends Sanji into a whirl of violent emotions.

"No. No, you shitty cook. No. You are not going anywhere. And even if you are, you are not going alone. You are not getting married. You're staying here. With us. With—"

Sanji throws the cigarette butt to join the heap of other cigarette buts into the ashtray on the long table in front of him.

Zoro wasn't there, isn't here, won't be here.

Sanji feels his pockets for another cigarette. He's run out.

Well, fuck.

AN: My first ZoSan one-shot fic (still a draft at this point) is a lemon with hints of LawLu/LuLaw in it but chapter 813 happened and I can not not write this drabble. Also, there's still some debate of whether Sanji's surname is Vinsmock or Vinsmoke but someone pointed out that "vin" is French for "wine" so now Vinsmoke's something like "wine and cigarettes". I don't know about you, but right now, I'm sticking with Vinsmoke.