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Three months since their last day under the sun.
Three months on that random island where they took shelter, backs against the wall, after the horrors that signed the last of their adventures as pirates.
Three months since the day he last saw Zoro's smile. Oh, how he missed it, way more than he missed his own. But above all, how he missed those who once could elicit a sense of joy from them with such ease.
Time had come to an end, it seemed. Every day, the same exact dance, Sanji exhausting himself until he collapsed. His only way to get away from it all, to focus on the role he had to fulfill, and to promptly shut down as soon as he hit the mattress.
He didn't want to be alone with his thoughts, and so he hid from them every second he spent conscious. They made him despise living, burdened him with a rancor he could not afford to assuage; and for how much he wanted it, he could not let himself wander astray.
There was still Zoro to take care of, practically half-dead while he had barely been grazed in the impact. He couldn't let him go. Not when he was the only one left remaining by his side.
They had been scraping by, barely; surviving in a tiny hut still standing somewhere on the island, far from the ruins of an ancient civilization that had roamed the place centuries ago. The grand edifices and golden lights of that fallen nation always reminded Sanji of his ladies; so, he never trudged on that side of the island, favoring the bushy undergrowth surrounding what they were left to call home.
Every day, he went out to hunt, find herbs and drugs to alleviate Zoro's pain, and every day he fixed the planks of the roof that were torn off during the night, unconsciously using the techniques he had observed with Franky and Usopp, as if for his whole life he hadn't been using his hands for cooking only.
He wondered if the news had reached Zeff. Better if they hadn't, was always what he ended up thinking. No need for the geezer to clutter his mind with worries.
Zoro, lying in bed, bound to the sheets since that first day. Sleeping more hours than he spent awake, left to thrash in his slumber when the pain became too unbearable. His mind and body mauled raw alike, scarred to an extent Sanji couldn't bear to witness.
For the first time in his life, healing was to the swordsman as painstakingly slow as it was to a regular person. Or perhaps, was he now lacking his stubborn resolve to get back on his feet and resume his training. Secretly, Sanji blamed his lack of medical skills; he never uttered a word of it, however, knowing how they would haunt Zoro with the sight of mouse brown fur and tiny blue noses.
In those three months, not one time had the man ever complained about pain. He hadn't spoken much, truth be told, but Sanji had known from the beginning how his back had been killing him. An excruciating kind of numb, scars overlapping each other, gnarled and puffy flesh forever marked as a reminder on his body.
A mark of shame, he remembered, and ignored the way it always made him want to barf, nausea twisting his guts until he hurled the last of the meager sustenance he allowed his body. It made him want to crawl into a hole and never have to face the man's eyes again, for the prejudice he had caused him, powerless, as the swordsman shielded him from an impact that was almost deadly on his body.
In the end, every thought led him back to death, these days. He resented it, even more than he resented life, even more than he had hated it as his mom heaved her last breath as he was away on his father's training grounds.
He resented death, for taking his family in a greedy swoop of its sickle, cackling in his face in mirth as it took pleasure in destruction. He resented death, for it still seemed to dance around them even after months, lured by the smell of dried blood and bitter tears, threatening to take Zoro every time he coughed his pain so hard it made his throat raw and crimson.
But more than everything, he resented death, for its failure to take him with the others.
Was this the pain Brook had been telling them about, he couldn't know. Only one thing he was sure of: never in his life had he been faced with such agony, even in the sticky, damp, dark of a dungeon.
He'd still had dreams, at the time. Now he was left with nothing, except for his shell of a corpse and the Marimo's to take care of.
At least, his sole purpose remained in care. As long as he didn't have to see himself and the way he had combed his hair on the left, again, to hide the scar on this side of his face, he could go on. Oblivious to the disgust of his reflection in the mirror, and oblivious to the unearthed memories he would have preferred buried deep under the most recluse parts of his brain.
Zoro always glared weakly and squeezed his hand when he fiddled with his bangs. Tried to alleviate his pain when he was suffering just as much, the noble bastard, as if he somehow knew how his mind could twist around his neck in a chokehold. Sometimes, Sanji would sit by his side for hours on end, seeing nothing, feeling nothing, except for the anchor that was his hand around his. And when the man would wake up, he'd let him tug on his arm until he gave up and crawled against him under the covers, and would let him draw gentle patterns on his back, their breaths heaving laboriously under the strain of sorrow.
"C'mere," Zoro would say. Sanji would crumble on the bed, suddenly taken by sobs he could no longer keep quiet, and Zoro would hold him, silent, fighting against the tears prickling at his own eyes as he tucked him under his head, both making sure never to see the other's face. Be aware, but never witness.
The tears would still end up spilling on his cheeks, in the end. At least, would he bury his nose in his chef's hair, and hope that he'd never have to leave his side anymore.