phosphenes (n.) zoro x sanji [roommates au]

chapter 32 - offing

s/n: helium - glass animals (slowed) 
url: https://youtu.be/1Wo-Xthbcek
you'll enjoy the chapter more with the music, trust me!

Après nous, le déluge
After us, the flood

- Louis XV

☞☞☞

[ zoro ]

"YOU KNOW, SOMETIMES YOU UNSETTLE ME." The blond said with thin, bright eyes and red ears from the alcohol they were drinking.

"It's fucking frustrating sometimes, how you're too quiet." The cigarette smoke he gently blew away danced in the moonlight. "Speak your mind more, Marimo."

"You look like you're constantly constipated with too many things to say."

"Constipated?" The green-haired man snorted. "Watch your words, silly cook."

"Hey, I'm not picking a fight, stupid." The blond looked wistfully over to the side, tilting his head, letting his golden strands fall free.

"You constantly look like you've got a bunch of things to say," Sanji described with a pale wave of his hand. "This...la tourmente in your eyes."

Sanji's eyes softened as he met Zoro's and his blue eyes glinted under the bright moonlight.

"...What does that word mean?" Zoro asked quietly. "Don't you dare call me an idiot in French."

Sanji chuckled softly. "I'll call you an idiot in a language you understand."

"And la tourmente? It means turmoil, tempest...or tourment de l'âme, like a storm of the soul." Sanji answered, closing his eyes slowly. "But girls like that you know? This inner turmoil."

"Or maybe a more fitting one would be, mer agitée; rough seas in your eyes."

He shook his head, taking away the beer from Sanji's hands. "You're being delirious."

"But I'm serious." The blond said hazily. "Sometimes I think I would give millions just to hear the thoughts in that Marimo-shaped head of yours."

"You don't need a million dollars." The tanned boy said drily. "I'm thinking right now that...

I could spend my life sailing the oceans in your eyes.

...your drunken French doesn't sound half bad."

The blond laughed, the flowery beer smelling gentle from his breath, his eyes melting close. "Thank you, Marimo."

"...Girls like it too, when I switch to French. They find it romantic." He blew out his cigarette, his silver eyelashes fluttering slowly. "Even when I'm cussing."

"You can't live without girls, can't you, ero-cook." Zoro said with knives in his throat.

There was silence and Zoro thought the blond boy had fell asleep, but a slow crawl of smoke betrayed his suspicions.

"...You're right." The blond said quietly.
"I can't."

"Imagine spending your whole life drowning and finding these little pockets of air. I don't want to feel the pain of drowning...so I use up the air too greedily."

"What are you talking about, you blond idiot?"  The tanned boy scoffed.

"Maybe you don't understand, Marimo." The beer crinkled in Sanji's hand as something sad slid over the blond's blue eyes. "But I have this growing hole that I cannot cover by myself."

"Then you should find someone to teach you how to." Zoro said, voice as still as stagnant water.

"You're right,"
Sanji laughed softly. "Maybe I should."

"...I don't know why I'm telling you all this, Marimo." His sleepy pools of blue connected to something in Zoro's ribs, making his heart feel too present. "I feel like I've known you for a very long time."

"In your silly pirate dream, ero-cook?" Zoro smirked.

"Yeah, maybe." The blond's huffy
laughter was pumping air into his close-to-exploding heart.

The blond yawned and stretched his pale hands, his fingernails capturing silver. Gentle eyelashes that framed his foggy blue eyes fluttered like a lazy butterfly—once, twice—before closing into a blond line.

The rise and fall of his chest slowed and a soft snore sounded from his lips, as his hand fell from the arm rest, jolting the ash to a grey mound on the floor.

The tanned boy could only stare at him and try to memorise the highlights and shadows that made up Sanji—it was the only time he could look freely.

He stood up as soundlessly and slowly as he could and pried the cigarette from the blond's hand.

Covering the sleeping blond with a blanket he grabbed from his room, his sight falling from the silver stray strands shining mutely to Sanji's peaceful features.

"Maybe in that dream of yours, ero-cook, I'll tell you what I really think."

That there's no other heaven other than being with you, looking far out into the long ocean.

I don't know if you've known by now, THAT THE CHAPTERS DON'T FLOW IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER so I hope you're not too confused about this chapter 😬🥲 and i know nothing about French I just used google translate and shit so if I've got things horribly wrong, feel free to slap (or spank) me 😔👍

Hope you've enjoyed this chapter and as always, tell me your thoughts! 🔫

And sorry for the delayed update, I've wrote some drafts and none of them worked, I think I'm losing my touch at writing 🥲