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“Sanji!”
Sanji looked up from where he'd been putting the groceries away as Usopp and Nami burst into the kitchen, Luffy sprawled unconscious over Usopp’s back.
That got his attention. He put the can of peaches he was holding down on the counter and rushed over to them, easing Luffy off of Usopp and onto the couch.
“What happened?” He glanced around for the head of green hair he was expecting to find, “Where's the Marimo, wasn't he with you guys?”
“There was this guy!” Usopp explained in a rush as Sanji checked Luffy’s pulse, “This stupid bounty hunter guy with a weird devil fruit.”
“He called it the Sleep Sleep fruit,” Nami said as she ran a hand through her mussed hair, “Zoro got hit with it and wham!” She smacked her hands sharply together, “Fell asleep right there in the middle of the fight!”
Sanji frowned. Sure the Mosshead was prone to sleeping at odd times and odd places, but never in the middle of a fight. He loved fighting more than just about anything.
“The guy said only a true love’s kiss could wake Zoro,” Usopp continued, “So Luffy tried kissing him, since you know he loves all of us.”
“Yeah,” Sanji agreed. Luffy loved them and they loved Luffy, that was just a fact. There was no reason Luffy’s kiss shouldn't have worked, if those were the terms.
“But then!” Nami went on, throwing her hands in the air, “Luffy fell asleep too, and that idiotic bounty hunter just laughed! Said it had to be a true romantic love’s kiss, not one between friends.”
Sanji clicked his tongue, “Well that just sounds like bullshit.”
“I know! But that's what he said!” Usopp clutched his hair, “He said that only someone who Zoro romantically loved who romantically loved Zoro in return could wake him with a kiss, and anyone else who tried would suffer the same sleeping fate until Zoro awoke.”
“Damn shitty Mosshead,” Sanji grumbled as he finished examining Luffy. His pulse was normal, and he didn't appear injured in any way, just asleep and snoring slightly, which was a relief.
He sighed as he stood up, “Where is he now?”
“Well,” Nami said, “Usopp dropped a smoke bomb-”
“I didn't drop it,” Usopp corrected with a hand to his chest, “That guy dropped it.”
“Whatever,” Nami waved him off, “a smoke bomb was dropped, and we got all confused and separated. We managed to get Luffy away, but the idiot got Zoro.”
Sanji groaned as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it with a swift flick of his wrist, “So we have to get our Marimo back first before we can even think about waking him up.”
“Exactly!” Usopp moaned as he buried his face in his hands, “We’re screwed!”
“Even if we do get Zoro back, there's no way we'll find someone Zoro loves romantically,” Nami groaned as she ran her hands down her face, “And even if that person exists, how are we supposed to bring Zoro to them?”
“One problem at a time, my dear,” Sanji said as he took a hit from his cigarette, “If we knock out the bounty hunter, that could very well wake Zoro up too.”
“True,” Usopp snapped, “Very true. It’s worked for us before, so it's bound to work here!”
“You know devil fruits are weird! That's not always the case,” she sighed and placed a hand on her forehead, “But I suppose it's our best shot.”
“Fantastic,” Sanji tilted Luffy's hat so it shaded his eyes, letting their captain sleep, “So do you know where he is?”
The bounty hunter, it turned out, was holed up in the old mill on the far side of town.
“The townspeople said he has a dragon,” Usopp said as he hid behind Sanji, “Like an actual fire breathing dragon.”
“Yeah,” Nami nodded from where she was also hiding behind Sanji, “You can handle a dragon, right?”
“For you, Nami, I would walk through hell itself,” Sanji declared, “A dragon will be no problem, no matter what it spews from its mouth.”
After all, they needed to get their Marimo back.
He marched to the door, the other two trailing behind him with their weapons out.
Sanji reached out to the door, and, just for the hell of it, knocked.
“W-wait a moment,” a voice shouted from inside, “Just — just wait!”
Sanji frowned, pointing at the door as he turned to the others, “Is that the guy?”
“Yeah,” Nami nodded as she got her clima tact ready, “That's the guy.”
“Careful,” Usopp cautioned, his slingshot already in position, “Don’t let him touch you, that’s how he got Zoro.”
Sanji nodded, then kicked the door in.
A pale, scrawny looking guy with messy auburn hair turned from where he was messing around with a cardboard cut out of a dragon. He gasped, his eyes going wide as he snapped at them, “I said wait, you rude pirate! I'm not ready yet!”
Sanji glanced up at the sad excuse of a dragon, “Ready with what?”
“The dragon,” he huffed as he messed with a nearby switch, “It takes time to create the right atmosphere, you know!”
The cardboard wings twitched a little when he pulled the switch, a red light blinking slowly behind the eye slots as a crackling noise came from its mouth.
Sanji took in the pathetic display, then glanced back at the bounty hunter as he took a drag from his cigarette, “Is that it?”
The bounty hunter frowned as he turned the switch off, “It would have been more impressive if you had waited until I was ready.”
“Ugh, I really don't have time for this, I have to start dinner soon.” Sanji groaned as he waved his hand around, “Can you just hand over our moss-headed swordsman so we can be on our way?”
The bounty hunter laughed, a sharp smirk crossing his face, “That's one thing I won't do, Black Leg Sanji! I knew the Straw Hats were coming here, and I prepared accordingly! I knew once Pirate Hunter Zoro and Straw Hat Luffy were out of the picture, they'd send you in, and with all three of your bounties claimed, I can finally-”
“Yeah yeah, gain obscene wealth or notoriety, or capture us for the greater good, or whatever your shitty motive is, I get it,” Sanji sighed as he took another hit from his cigarette, “Can we move this along? If you're not giving up Mosshead, I'm just gonna go grab him myself, okay?”
“Good luck finding him,” he cackled, gesturing around the space, “The dragon may not be ready, but my lair still has plenty of tricks ready to thwart you! This place is a labyrinth, once you enter you’ll never see the light of day again! You’ll never be able to find-”
“Got him!” Nami said as she and Usopp came down the spiral staircase carrying an unconscious Zoro between them, “Thanks for keeping him distracted, Sanji!”
“Anything for you!” He swooned, keeping one eye on the bounty hunter, whose face was growing paler by the second.
“How…” he gaped at them, “How did you find him so quickly?”
“Please, we all know the stories,” Sanji rolled his eyes, exhaling a stream of smoke as he nodded up, “The princess is always in the highest room of the tallest tower, and there's only one staircase.”
“W-well, even so,” he cleared his throat, “Just because you found him doesn't mean you can wake him.”
Sanji raised a brow, “You sure about that?”
“I told you, I've been preparing for your crew to arrive here,” he let out a maniacal laugh, “I've been studying you all. Putting the Demon of the East to sleep was the obvious move. After all, who could possibly love someone like him, a violent demon of a man who only brings death and destruction? And heartless monsters like him don't fall in love.”
Sanji’s brow twitched, and he took a long, deep hit from his cigarette, exhaling the smoke slowly.
“I knew your captain would try to wake him, but if I made the terms for awakening a romantic kiss, then he'd just fall asleep too,” the bounty hunter laughed again, a high pitched sound that was starting to grate on Sanji’s last nerve, “Everyone knows the Straw Hats don't leave a man behind. If I'm lucky all you idiots will try to kiss him awake, and I can just scoop you up and hand you over to the Marines while you snooze away,” he shrugged, “But if you don't, just Straw Hat and Pirate Hunter will do.”
“Just confirm one thing for me,” Sanji said as he finished the last of his cigarette, “When we wake the Marimo up, Luffy will wake up too, right?”
“You're not going to wake him up, haven't you been listening?” He shook his head, “But yeah,” he shrugged, “If he somehow manages to wake up, everyone who fell asleep kissing him should too. But you're never going to find someone to kiss him awake. It needs to be a true love’s kiss and monsters like him don't fall in love.”
“I mean,” Sanji glanced almost lazily at him as he took his cigarette out of his mouth, “I could just knock you out, right?”
“Ye-No!” He shook his head rapidly, “No no no, th-that won't work! I set the terms of awakening, and once I set it, nothing else will work! It has to be a kiss or nothing, so-”
Sanji dropped his cigarette. Before it hit the ground, he had closed the distance between them, kicking the bounty hunter square in the chest with a burning foot and through the nearest.
“Well, damn,” Usopp and Nami gently placed Zoro down as Sanji walked through the hole in the wall to check on him, “You really did a number on him.”
Sanji hummed noncommittally as he bent over the bounty hunter. Out cold, still alive, but would probably wake up with one hell of a headache and a sore everything else.
“He's taken care of,” Sanji sighed as he re-entered the room, “How's the moss doing? Is he awake?”
“No,” Nami sighed, biting her thumbnail as Usopp tried to shake Zoro awake with no result, “Looks like we really will have to find someone to kiss him awake.”
“There must be someone,” Usopp shook his head, “Someone on some island must have caught Zoro’s eye…”
“Even if there was, how the hell are we going to find them?” Nami snapped at him as Sanji approached Zoro, “Backtrack and ask everyone we ever met if they have a crush on Zoro?”
“What else are we gonna do?” Usopp shouted as Sanji knelt down next to him, “It's not like we have many options here!”
“Hey, Marimo,” Sanji lightly poked his face, “Wakey wakey, it's almost dinner time.”
Nami pinched the bridge of her nose, “We can think of what to actually do once the rest of the crew is gathered. Sanji, can you carry Zoro back to the ship?”
“What?” Sanji pouted up at her, “I'm not carrying him just because he's being lazy. He’s a big boy, he can walk by himself.”
“This is serious,” she rubbed her temple, “Just put your stupid rivalry away for two seconds so we can-”
Before she or Usopp could stop him, Sanji leaned forward and pressed his lips gently against Zoro’s.
“No!” Usopp and Nami shouted as they lunged forward, but it was too late.
“Why did you do that?” Usopp whined as he gripped his face, “Now you’ll fall asleep too!”
“We’ll be down our three strongest with no way to wake you!” Nami groaned, “Granted we still have Jinbei and Robin, but still.”
“C’mon, Princess Marimo,” Sanji said as he ran a hand through his hair, “Time to wake up. I gotta start dinner.”
“Huh?” Zoro grunted as he cracked his eye open, “Is it morning already?”
Nami and Usopp gaped at him as he sat up and stretched, slowly blinking to full awakeness.
“Yeah, we're having dinner for breakfast,” Sanji rolled his eyes as he stood up and offered Zoro a hand, “Do you hear how stupid you sound?”
“I just woke up,” Zoro grumbled as he grabbed his hand, letting Sanji pull him to his feet, “What's your excuse?”
“My excuse for-?” Sanji cut himself off, his eyes growing wide as he glanced behind him, “Shit.”
“What?” Zoro's brow furrowed, instantly in guard as his hand fell to his sword hilts, “What's wrong?”
“If you're awake, that means Luffy’s awake,” he growled as he turned away, “And I never finished putting the food away!”
“Damnit,” Zoro growled as he followed after him, “What the hell did you do that for, stupid cook?”
“Well maybe if someone didn't need to be rescued I could’ve finished without any problems!”
They began their usual bickering as they made their way back to the ship, their foreheads pressed together, knees and elbows coming up to jostle the other.
Going on with their normal, typical banter, as if nothing of importance had just happened.
“So, uh,” Usopp said as he stared after them, “If Sanji woke Zoro up with a kiss, that had to be a true romantic kiss, wouldn't that mean…”
“That they're in love?” Nami said, her eyes wide and mouth falling open, “Yeah, yeah that's what it implies.”
“And if Sanji kissed him without hesitating,” Usopp continued, “That means…”
“That they both know it? And have probably been together a while?” She nodded, “Yeah, seems like it.”
“Oh.” Usopp blinked as he turned toward her, “Did you know?”
She shook her head, “Not a damn clue. Did you?”
“Psh, what?” He laughed a little too loudly, “Of course I did!”
“Liar,” she sighed, and nodded after the couple a few feet ahead of them, “We should head back.”
“Right.”
They quickly caught up with Zoro and Sanji, still shouting right in each other's face.
Listening to it now though, Usopp and Nami could almost hear the love being exchanged in between the insults, the secret affectionate language only the two of them could understand, how each “Idiot” and “Shithead” could easily be an “I love you.”
Almost.
They didn’t claim to understand their love, but that made it all the more special, all the more uniquely theirs.
And, at the end of the day, that was what mattered most.