Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Being in a relationship of sorts with Zoro – if he could even call it that – is nothing short of mind-boggling for Sanji. 

See, Sanji always dreamed about falling in love, the warmth it would bring him as a result, a romantic at heart ever since he was young. He dreamed of holding hands with a beautiful woman, waking her up to roses and breakfast in bed, kissing the surprise off her face. Every day, he would remind her of how loved she is, write her sonnets of her beauty and pamper her with love and attention so that she’d never have to lift a finger in his presence. Then, they’d get married and have three kids that looked like them both, who he’d also shower with the love he never received while growing up. 

But instead of all that, he ended up with Zoro , shattering all his dreams and fantasies over his head. He ended up with Zoro, who he always swore that even if they were the last two people on earth, he would never give him a second glance. 

Zoro, who he always argued with, the two of them never seeing eye to eye on anything because he’s an idiot who could never see reason. A brute in nature, always choosing violence because he doesn’t have enough brain cells to think of anything diplomatically. A savage who always reeks of sweat and whatever else because he never showers, is of the very wrong opinion that a weekly dip into the sea is an adequate substitute. The owner of an unsophisticated palette that can only discern food into the two categories of gross and not bad because he long since ruined his taste buds with all the booze he drinks. 

(And yet Zoro has the gall to make fun of Sanji for his smoking habits? How incredibly rude.)

He’s someone Sanji should have never ended up with, let alone fallen in love with, and yet he somehow found himself doing both. He fell in love with Zoro so hard, that despite all of his dreams and fantasies for himself, he found himself able to let them go if only to live out another fantasy with Zoro. By Zoro’s side precisely. One he doesn’t even have to dream about because whatever they have, what they’ve had for years now, has been perfect. 

Things were good with Zoro. They fought each other every day as equals, but when push came to shove, they’d also fight together, which was never anything short of exhilarating during the heat of the moment. Zoro, even if he was horrible with words, always listened to Sanji and he cared. He was always there, always attentive, and he loved Sanji in his own emotionally constipated Mosshead way that Sanji came to understand fluently over the years. 

He even kept that stupid weed that Sanji gave him offhandedly, later admitting to him with red-tinged ears, that he named it Curly. And well, Sanji would be lying if he said that his heart didn’t swell several times finding out about that, which he channeled into sex. Mind blowing sex, though the sex with Zoro was never anything short of amazing. 

So, yeah, things with Zoro are still at odds with the fantasy that Sanji had of himself his whole life, but they’re also good. Perfect, even. He wouldn’t have it, or Zoro for that matter, any other way. 

Though, hell would freeze over first before Sanji ever admitted any of this aloud to anyone. 

Sanji’s favorite person to spend time with when he’s not in the kitchen is usually Usopp. 

Luffy is often too loud and too voracious for Sanji to handle in large doses. Nami and Robin are too perfect for him to bother them with his constant presence — and it would also be bad for his fragile heart to be around such beautiful women for extended periods of time. Chopper is like a son to him, but that also makes it harder for him to cuss around him lest he traumatize him. Brook is fine, but he also has an uncanny way of seeing right through Sanji, which often leaves him disconcerted. And in many ways, Sanji still struggles to be around Franky and Jimbei, a strange awkwardness clinging to him whenever he’s in either of their presences. 

And Zoro…well, sometimes Sanji doesn’t know how to exist around him. Not when their relationship is still so foreign to him. Isn’t sure if he should fight him or if he should hold him softly. Should he cuss at him or whisper sweet nothings against his lips? Is he supposed to allow Zoro his space to sleep and train or if he should force himself into his life so Zoro can know he cares? 

Unfortunately, there’s no handbook on these kinds of things, especially between two men as emotionally constipated as the pair of them are, at least not that Sanji knows of.

And yet, Sanji is caught between wanting to treasure the relationship they currently have, offering Zoro a kind of vulnerability he never allowed before, while also being deathly afraid of losing the dynamic they already have. The dynamic that made Sanji fall in love with Zoro in the first place.

Usopp is the easiest person for Sanji to be around as a result. Someone he can be himself around, taking a pause from all the negative thoughts and emotions that always threaten to drag him down under. With Usopp, it’s easy to listen to his wild stories and get lost in them, humming softly around a cigarette as Usopp shows him a gadget he’s working on. 

With Usopp, there is no fear nor hesitation, only casual warmth. 

“Wanna see what I’m working on?” Usopp grins at Sanji, nudging his shoulder. “There’s some pretty cool stuff in the workshop.”

Sanji doesn’t really think in terms like ‘friends’, but he thinks if he were to say who would fit that bill for him within the strawhats, then it would easily be Usopp. 

He nods. “Sure.”

Usopp leads him to the workshop that he shares with Franky, humming along the way. The workshop to Usopp is like the kitchen to Sanji; a sacred place. It’s a room that’s exploding in vibrant colors — decorated with all of Usopp’s own graphic paintings on the walls of his many adventures with Merry as the centerpiece in most of them —with random pieces of metal hanging from the ceiling and so many gadgets in varying stages of development littered across the tabletops. It’s cluttered, artfully so, with tools of random shapes and sizes that Sanji could never dream of knowing the name of let alone their function, scattered all over the place. There’s two workstations within the workshop, one for Usopp, the other for Franky. 

Sanji smiles. Despite this being a room full of nothing but alloys and cold metal, there’s still something so immensely warm and cozy about the workshop, nonetheless. 

“Make yourself comfortable.” Usopp gestures towards a wooden stool, grinning at Sanji. A cup immediately rises from the metal table on its own, a teapot attached to a metallic arm filling it with a warm cup of fresh tea before rescinding again, taking Sanji off guard because that certainly hadn’t been there the last time he’d come here. Usopp laughs at his bewildered expression. “That was Franky’s idea. The tea is for me, though, because tea makes him a bit funky.” 

Sanji takes a sip of his tea, ruminating over the taste. A bit too strong, not sweet enough, good enough for Usopp’s palette but not his own. Still palatable enough to drink, but not necessarily to enjoy. He might recommend Franky add a bit more sugar to the tea stock when he sees him. He watches Usopp as he sifts through random blueprints and the gadgets, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he tries to find something that might interest Sanji. 

Unnecessary, Sanji thinks, because anything he could show him would probably be interesting to him. Science was never his forte for obvious reasons, but Usopp has a way of going about it in a way that’s fun and engaging rather than dredging up painful memories he’d rather keep buried. 

As long as Usopp isn’t forcing him to try out any of his gadgets or weapons on himself, Sanji doesn’t mind. 

“Got it!” Usopp finally says, turning around with a wide smile as he sits down across from Sanji. Another teacup appears, automatically filling itself with fresh tea, which Usopp accepts gratefully. He proffers something small towards Sanji, looking almost giddy with anticipation. “What do you think?”

Sanji considers what looks like a thin wristband, but in its center, there’s a compass lodged in the middle. It’s made out of a bronze metal, the compass rather than protruding from the center like Nami’s does, it’s embedded in the center. It looks delicate, elegant. 

“A compass?” Sanji implores. He takes another sip of the bitter tea. “What makes this different from any other compass?”

“This one is a Usopp creation, so of course it’s different.” Usopp rubs his nose with his finger, pride brimming in his tone. “There’s a compartment where you can insert a tiny piece of a person’s vivre card, so you can track down that person easily, since vivre cards are a lot more difficult to actually follow.”

That pitch is enough to have Sanji’s attention snagged. He brushes his thumb against the still compass, contemplating how transparent he can allow himself to be in front of Usopp. 

“That sounds pretty useful,” Sanji says carefully. “Did you make this for anyone in particular?”

Usopp shakes his head, but his lips tilt upwards into a sly grin. 

“You always said no when I asked you if you wanted me to make you any gear,” Usopp says, crossing his arms with all the pompadour of someone who’s caught wind of something he shouldn’t have. “But now you’re suddenly interested in my modified compass of all things?”

Sanji glares at Usopp, pulling out a cigarette from the breast pocket of his blazer, lighting it deftly as he takes a quick drag. He typically hates anything related to science, crops up all the wrong memories from his childhood; experimentations, pain, failure. He doesn’t want any gadgets or anything to slot onto his body that could possibly alter him into something he doesn’t know. It’s petty, stupid, and Sanji knows that Usopp is nothing like Judge, but it still grates on him the wrong way. 

But this compass that he holds in his hands seems harmless. 

“It sounds useful to have,” Sanji says slowly, trying to sound indifferent in how he posits his reply. “We’re always getting lost in battle.”

“ We . Right.” Usopp takes another sip of his tea. “But this compass will only link you to one person because it can only take one vivre card.”

“That’s fine.”

 Sanji hopes that the cloud of smoke that he’s shrouding himself in is enough to hide the blush that’s creeping across his skin. Zoro always told him that he blushes too easily, that it tells too much when he does. He can’t help it.  

“Then who is it?” Usopp leans forward. The look he gives Sanji tells him that he already has an inkling. “I have to know who it is so I can make a vivre card and modify the compass for you.”

Sanji grits his teeth, hating the way a pit opens in his stomach, his fingers trembling around the cigarette. He feels as if he’s dug his own grave with the question he prompted, and now it’s time for him to lie in it. That or pretend he doesn’t want the compass at all, when he wants it so, so badly. 

It’s just Usopp, he reminds himself. He knows he wouldn’t say anything, would only tease, but wouldn’t do anything beyond that. He’s his…friend, after all. 

“For Zoro,” Sanji finally says, blowing out a cloud of smoke. He lifts his chin, meeting Usopp’s gaze with a leveled one of his own, daring him to make fun of him for the statement. “You know how easily he gets lost.”

Usopp, uncharacteristically, doesn’t make fun of him. Rather, his gaze softens as he nods, smiling in understanding. 

“That makes sense. I know how you’re always looking out for him,” Usopp says lightly. 

Sanji feels his whole body light ablaze with mortification. His first instinct is denial, but he knows it’s true. That the main reason he’d ever ask Usopp to make anything for him to wear is because it’s something that would link him to Zoro. A way for him to know that he’s safe. For him to find him in the thick of battle, because they always fight better when they’re side by side.  

So, he tries to lie instead. 

“I do not —”

“You do,” Usopp interrupts him pointedly, making Sanji break his gaze in mortification for being seen through so easily. “But that’s okay. I can adjust the compass for you, just need you to get me one of his fingernails so I can make the vivre card.” 

Sanji wrinkles his nose as he imagines snagging a fingernail from Zoro, finding the notion a bit gross, but it’s also manageable. He’s lucky that Zoro has learned how to fall into a somewhat deep sleep in his presence, a sign of trust, so he should be able to get one then. 

He sighs, running his fingers through his hair, blonde locks falling through his fingertips loosely. 

“Okay.” Sanji chances another glance at Usopp whose eyes haven’t dropped from him once. He licks his bottom lip, resisting the urge to wring his hands together. “Why aren’t you making fun of me?”

“Caring about another person and wanting to make sure they’re okay isn’t something to laugh at.” Usopp traces the rim of his teacup. “This might sound ironic coming from me, but I’m just glad you didn’t lie to me.”

“Lying is more so your thing than mine.” Sanji takes another drag of his cigarette, deflecting. 

“Lies are always easier to default to than honesty,” Usopp replies, the words cutting through Sanji. “Lies are a shield; honesty means vulnerability.”

A flicker of guilt flashes by Sanji because he did try to lie to Usopp, the admission wrested from him with extreme difficulty. Though, he has a feeling that Usopp is talking about more than just the compass, which is both terrifying and comforting. 

Sanji doesn’t know what to do with the remains of his cigarette until the table automatically provides an ashtray for him. Something that Franky and Usopp must have installed with him in mind because he’s the only smoker on the crew, just on the off chance that he might come to visit, which makes him swallow around a lump in his throat. 

Maybe Usopp sees Sanji as a friend, too. 

“Thank you, Usopp.”

One day, Sanji hopes he can be properly honest with him. 

Falling in love with women was easy. They were beautiful, soft, and perfect creatures. One glance, one smile, and Sanji was instantly smitten. He existed to serve these women, to love them, and loving them came naturally. 

On the other hand, loving Zoro — no, loving men — didn’t come naturally to Sanji. 

It was a concept he didn’t think he was allowed to entertain, even if his eyes often lingered on some of the built chefs and pirates at the Baratie sinfully, a pit of guilt opening in the base of his stomach each time. He’d look at their muscles, how they flexed, how strong they were, and he’d find himself trembling with a visceral emotion he wouldn’t realize till much later was ‘want’ . He would see the way they tossed their heads back as they laughed so freely, all rough around the edges with no decorum to be found, and he’d yearn. 

But it was easy enough to stuff those feelings into a closet and never put labels to any of them, aggressively flirting with the beautiful women who visited the Baratie instead. Women are beautiful, they are easy to love, and that’s how it should be. Flirting that never went anywhere because of how offputting Sanji could be, superfluous relationships that always ended with Sanji getting dumped because he was too much, too intense, was something he’d grown to find comfort in. 

There was comfort in the fleeting trysts with women, in putting so much effort into the mask he always wore, Sanji could almost convince himself he was just like everyone else. The game of charades he was playing with himself could almost pass as real. 

But then Zoro happened. 

Zoro with his brilliantly shining sense of integrity, willing to die for his dream, taking Mihawk’s sword without flinching, shaking Sanji to his core. Even afterwards, he was petty and brutish, always fighting with Sanji for no reason, but he was also loyal and strong. If he was a brute in daily life, he was elegant and beautiful when he fought, Sanji often mesmerized as he watched the glide of Zoro’s katanas cutting through the air and his enemies without an ounce of hesitation or fear. 

He shined, his earrings glinting in the sunlight as he fought his enemies with grace, and that was when Sanji realized that Zoro was beautiful. Zoro was simply a dreadful combination of the graceful beauty that Sanji always admired and the raw masculinity that Sanji shamefully desired, forcing him to always have his eyes on him despite himself. 

Where falling in love was usually easy for Sanji, with Zoro it was hard. The process itself was unpleasant, and when he fell hard, nobody was there to break his fall when he fell. Leaving him bruised and achy, a few broken bones, and scars that never quite healed properly.

“What are you thinking about so hard?” Zoro asks, sidling up next to Sanji by the Sunny’s deck. “You’ve been here for a while.”

Sanji turns towards Zoro, his heart already racing in his chest loudly as he drinks in his handsome features, his fingers twitching with the urge to touch. He always wants to touch Zoro, to be touched by him, actively craves it after so many years of never being touched by anyone. 

Nobody is around, he notices, so he could steal a touch if he wanted. A kiss. 

“Just thinking about your ugly mug.” Sanji grins around his cigarette. 

It was really only a matter of time until the heart he always held on his sleeve fell into the palm of Zoro’s hand. He tried to deny it for a long time – but every time he saw Zoro training each day, every time the sole of his shoe collided with Zoro’s swords when they sparred, every time Zoro instinctively tried to shield him on the battlefield – Sanji only fell harder and more irrevocably in love with Zoro. 

“That so?” Zoro muses, grinning as he plucks the cigarette out from between Sanji’s lips. “That’s funny ‘cause I was thinking about your stupid curly brow, too.”

Sanji rolls his eyes, ready to retort when Zoro closes the distance between them with a kiss that has Sanji’s heart singing and his fingers trembling as he fists them in the lapels of Zoro’s yukata. Kissing Zoro is something he will never get sick of, can never get enough of, kisses him like he’s his favorite meal that he’s experiencing for both the first and last time.

When they pull away for air, Zoro snickers against his lips, prodding his finger against Sanji’s brow. 

“There you go,” Zoro whispers against his lips, his fingers interlocking with his. “You look prettier when you’re not thinking so much, Love Cook.”

Zoro has been calling him that a lot more lately, Sanji notices. Love Cook that is. In a way, it feels like a term of endearment, making Sanji’s heart swell a little each time. His lip twitches, a smile threatening to form across his face. 

“Whatever.” Sanji rolls his eyes, caressing Zoro’s cheek right underneath his scarred eye. “Kiss me again, Mosshead.” 

His heart hadn’t been his to have for a long time now, but now that he also holds Zoro’s heart in his own palm, he thinks that might not be too bad an exchange. 

Like Sanji said, the sex with Zoro is always great. Mind-blowing even, but Sanji would never admit that aloud, lest he inflate the stupid mosshead’s ego any more than its current state.

Every time Zoro fucks Sanji, he fucks him like he can’t get enough of him. Like it’s their first time together, but also their last. He fucks Sanji like he’s the only person he sees, the only one he cares about. Fucks him with so much vigor, it always makes Sanji’s eyes roll back and his toes curl with a pleasure he’d never known before. 

Getting fucked by another man shouldn’t feel as good as it does, especially when said man is someone as brutish as Zoro. But maybe that’s exactly why it feels so good, because Zoro fucks Sanji so roughly, the aggression in every stroke making him see stars. 

Sanji has always liked it a little rough, always loved it when Zoro didn’t hold back on him when they sparred, but loves it even more during sex. Thrives on it when Zoro pulls on his hair, bruises his hips, whispering words in his ears that are so embarrassing that he could cry. Zoro doesn’t know how to hold back when he’s sparring, and especially not during sex, and Sanji loves that. 

They don’t really engage in foreplay, the sex always quick and messy, straight to the point. Sanji doesn’t really care because the explosion of feelings in his chest every time Zoro so much as touches him is always enough, thinks that actual foreplay would make him self-combust. Neither of them are patient enough for that. 

And every time they finish, Zoro lazily jerking Sanji until he comes too, Zoro will always knock out cold over his body. Lazy ass that he is, but Sanji doesn’t mind it too much, enjoys the heavy weight of his body pressed against his own like a blanket. He also likes watching Zoro when he sleeps. He always looks most relaxed while he’s sleeping, a lot less broody with no furrow to his brow or a downwards tilt to his lips. Rather, he just looks soft, at peace. He’s typically a light sleeper, too, the lightest of touches and sounds enough to rouse him from his slumber, but Sanji takes pride in the fact that Zoro only ever relaxes around him. He sleeps well, even snoring sometimes, so that means Zoro’s guard is let down around him.

That he feels safe when he falls asleep next to Sanji’s side.

“Sorry about this, Mosshead,” Sanji whispers, pulling out a nail clipper he’d stashed underneath the couch, very careful to cut Zoro’s nail without him taking notice. Zoro doesn’t so much as stir, a deadweight on Sanji’s chest, snoring without any care in the world. “Thank you.”

Laughing quietly, Sanji takes the fingernail, pocketing it in a small plastic bag and zips it carefully. He’ll need this for the compass later, but he would rather die first before telling Usopp just how he got it. Some things are better left unsaid. 

Just like how Zoro doesn’t need to know that Sanji is coddling him once more, knows how much Zoro hates it when Sanji worries over him. 

‘Stop trying to act like my mother, Dart Brow, it’s annoying.’

‘Is it my fault that I want to look out for you?’

‘Yes. So stop it. I can look out for myself.’

Sanji shakes the unpleasant conversation from his mind, reminding himself that while he is being overbearing, it’s for a good reason. 

Limb by limb, Sanji slowly Sanji extricates himself from Zoro’s hold so he doesn’t wake him up, wincing at the dull ache in the base of his spine and the come that trickles out of his ass. He keeps on telling Zoro to pull out before he comes, but Zoro never fucking listens, so Sanji always has to clean himself out afterwards. He rolls his eyes, bending over to get dressed when he finds Zoro’s yukata discarded on the floor.

Curiously, Sanji picks it up, surprised to see the fabric is a lot softer than he expected it to be. It’s made of a nice material, and it’s a shade of emerald-green that complements Zoro’s skin tone. Sanji casts a glance at Zoro’s sleeping form on the couch, shoulders relaxing when he notices that he’s still completely passed out and snoring peacefully, returning to the yukata that’s resting between his fingertips.

Taking in a deep breath, Sanji buries his face in the fabric, and inhales. Breathes in Zoro’s musky scent, consuming the heady mixture of sweat and the hint of something a little earthy, and sighs. It’s a scent he shouldn’t like, but he’s actually addicted to it, because of how inherently Zoro it is. Loves how manly it is, makes him think of all the afternoons Zoro spends bathing in the sun as he trains with his yukata pulled down, his muscles straining with every flex. Sanji watching him as he passed by, realizing with the kind of weights that Zoro can bench, that he could probably bench him if he wanted to.

Just the thought has Sanji’s spent cock twitching in interest, ignoring it for now as he pulls on the yukata instead. The yukata is so big on him, loose around the shoulders and falling past his hands, just because Zoro is that big now. When he ties it around his waist like a robe, lacking the articulate finesse that Zoro has because he’s more of a suit and tie guy, he feels as if he’s wearing an oversized dress.

And well, Sanji hasn’t worn a dress since Kamabakka island, so it’s a bit disconcerting. He’d sworn to himself when he disembarked from that island that he’d never wear a dress again, that he’d lock away that part of himself with a lock and key, but here he is. He tells himself it’s not a dress, it’s just a different form of fashion than what he’s used to, but the way the yukata slots over his body makes him react despite himself.

Sanji catches his reflection in the window, and it’s almost as if he’s back in Kamabakka again. In a dress, albeit without the makeup, and…he feels pretty. His eyes widen, fingers touching the windowpane, looking at the estranged stranger who stares back at him, a sense of yearning he didn’t know he still possessed wraps his throat in a chokehold.

That’s him, or it could be him if he simply let it.

Hands wrap around his waist tightly, making Sanji startle, just now realizing that his reflection is joined by Zoro’s, his chin resting on Sanji’s shoulder. Sanji watches Zoro’s lips tilt upwards into a smirk.

“Don’t you look pretty?” Zoro muses, pressing Sanji’s body flush against the window frame, his hard cock pressing against his ass. “Maybe you should wear my clothes a little more often, you look hot.”

Sanji lets out a small whimper, molten heat pooling in the base of his stomach, that one word making blood rush to his ears.

“You think I look pretty?” Sanji implores breathlessly.

“The prettiest.” Zoro whispers the words against his lips right as he claims them with a harsh kiss that’s more teeth than tongue, biting his bottom lip until Sanji can feel his teeth break skin. “I should fuck you like this.”

Typically, Sanji would complain. He’d tell Zoro that they already fucked enough today, that Zoro already made him come three times and he’s spent, so he should go fuck his own fist for all he cares.

But this time, Sanji feels too hot underneath his skin to say that, finds himself nodding instead.

“Yeah.” Sanji licks over his bottom lip, the metallic taste of blood exploding on his taste buds. “You probably should.”

Which is how Sanji finds himself being pressed against the window, the yukata bunched around his waist as Zoro fucks directly into him without any prep. Not like they need it because his hole is still loose from their last round, Zoro’s come acting as a lubricant, making Sanji’s eyes roll back. And every time he looks at himself in the reflection, he feels his own cock twitch where it’s pressed against the glass because of how he looks. So fucked out, so flushed as he rocks his hips back into Zoro, his oversized yukata falling off his shoulders just enough to give Zoro access to latch his teeth onto the crook of his shoulder and leave another mark along with the litany of hickeys that are already there.

Sanji keens, because like this, he feels like a woman being taken by a man. His dress bunched up to give easy access, getting fucked full by a man much bigger than himself. His eyes roll back, the pleasure consuming him in waves.

“You look like such a whore like this,” Zoro says, fucking his cock right into his prostate. “Does seeing yourself get fucked get you going, Love Cook?”

Sanji shakes his head, whining when Zoro shoves him harder against the glass until it starts to creak, the new position applying a delicious amount of pressure against his cock. He’s so sensitive, too, because he’s already come three times, so every touch has his whole body shivering with a desperate need.

His eyes sting, batting his eyes as he tries his best not to give into the temptation to cry.

“Zoro, please —”

Zoro’s hands tighten around his waist, fucking Sanji harder, faster. “Answer the question, Cook.”

“Yes,” Sanji gasps, his teary blue eyes stare back at him in the reflection. “I fucking love it.”

He knows that Zoro is possessive, loves seeing Sanji in his own clothes, but for Sanji, he loves seeing himself like this. Being praised for being pretty while he’s wearing something that looks and feels like a dress, getting fucked like he’s a girl, Zoro fucking him so hard until he sees stars.

Zoro always has an uncanny way of seeing right through him.

“There we go.” Zoro wraps a hand around his cock. “Was that so hard?”

Sanji can’t find it within himself to respond, instead melting against the windowpane as Zoro fucks into him messily while tugging on his cock in tandem, his climax hitting him so hard that he almost blacks out. Sanji groans, a guttural sound that’s wrested from the recesses of his chest, his come staining Zoro’s yukata and the window in front of him in white. Whines as Zoro fucks him through his climax, fucking him well into oversensitivity, Sanji’s whole body wrought with twitches.

“You want me to pull out, right?” Zoro muses, pulling out without any preamble, turning Sanji around to finally face him. Drinking in his flushed cheeks and the tilt of his lips as he holds his still hard cock in his hand. “On your knees.”

While Sanji typically hates taking orders from Zoro, always feels a visceral reaction to disobey whenever Zoro tries to boss him around, he finds his knees wobbling as he immediately collapses to his knees with the yukata fanning out around him. He looks up at Zoro expectantly then to his cock right in front of his face, so heavy and thick with the tip dripping pre-come. He almost wants to taste it, wonders if it would be salty or bitter, he’s never actually done that before.

Rather than ask him to suck him off, however, Zoro instead wraps his hand around his cock and tugs. He fucks his own hand, sneering at Sanji with one eye, his fingers playing with the tip of his cock as he pulls the foreskin back. Sanji licks his bottom lip, about to ask if he could try please, just wants a little taste.

But he doesn’t get a chance to because Zoro comes all over his face and his collarbones, completely catching him by surprise, strips of white come staining his cheeks and getting in his lashes and hair and in the dip between his collarbones. He blinks once, twice, processing what just happened, especially as Zoro smears the come across his cheeks and spreads it against his bottom lip. He applies pressure there, forcing Sanji to open his mouth for him, his thumb slipping in as the incredibly salty taste of come overwhelms his palate.

“Now, you look even prettier,” Zoro tells him smugly, pulling his thumb away.

Sanji wonders if Zoro knows the effect those words have on him, feels the blood pooling in his cheeks and his ears, averting his gaze from Zoro. He has to know, elsewise he wouldn’t keep calling Sanji pretty like this, making him so weak in the knees and his heart fluttering like a wild bird in his chest.

“Looks like you were literally fucked dumb.” Zoro throws his head back to laugh, the sound teasing and melodic. “But the others will be looking for us soon, so let’s get cleaned up.”

“I…don’t make fun of me, but I literally don’t think I’m capable of walking right now.”

Naturally, Zoro does make fun of him, takes the piss out of it and laughs while Sanji glowers at him. He really can’t move, though, his knees creaky and his thighs like jelly. Sanji certainly doesn’t swoon, however, when Zoro picks him up bridal style, holding him like he weighs nothing and plopping him back down onto the couch. Nor does his heart flutter when he smiles at him softly like Sanji is the sun itself, massaging Sanji’s thighs methodically, until he can feel the sensation come back to his legs again. If anything, Sanji only huffs, turning away so Zoro doesn’t see the dust of pink that stains his cheeks, because he knows Zoro would never let him live it down if he did.

But, of course, Zoro never misses a single thing. At least not where Sanji is involved.

Even if Sanji realized he'd loved Zoro a long time ago, acceptance was still hard for him. In many ways, it still is. 

He loves Zoro, but he still only meets Zoro in hidden corners and in stolen moments of time with them alone, terrified that the rest of the crew will see them and find out. Zoro doesn't seem to care, doesn't show any signs of alarm when Usopp almost walks in on them or when Luffy makes a comment that hits a little too close to home, but Sanji’s heart lurches in his chest every time. Fear and a twisted sense of shame cloying in the base of his stomach. 

And the worst part is that he knows it's irrational, knows that the crew would accept them. That Nami-san and Robin-chan would accept them. But there's still that fear, that fear of being regarded differently, of the words 'Oh, it all makes sense now why he's like that' being said so casually. 

Sanji doesn't want to be perceived any differently, primarily because his own self-perception is something he's struggled with since he was young. 

He loved to cook, but Judge told him off for it. Told him that it was a hobby for the weak, for women, as he slammed his dish of freshly made food to the floor. He loved flowers, was intimately aware of the language of flowers because his mother loved them too, but his brothers always mocked him for it and called him a girly girl. Even his appearance, which he always liked to make sure he looked his best in smart suits and nice cologne, was commented upon by other chefs on the Baratie with a word that took him some time to learn the meaning of.

Queer. 

He remembers how the word caught him off guard, the expressions on the other chefs' faces sneering yet scrutinizing, like they were searching for proof of something they knew was there. Sanji remembers asking Zeff about it, because he was only fifteen and he didn't understand. 

'Zeff? What's a queer?'

'Why do you ask, boy?'

'Because that's what the other chefs have been calling me lately. A queer.'

'Ahh, fuck. I'll be sure to tear them a new one for that, but don't mind them too much.'

'But what does it mean?'

'It means that you're a little bit different than the rest. Who you love and how you love, or even the way you perceive yourself is…different and that's fine. You should never view yourself as any less for it.'

'But what if I don't want to be different?' 

'There is no shame in being different, little eggplant, because you'll be loved for it regardless.' 

At the time, Sanji was still confused, but he did know that he didn't want to be different. That being different usually meant being isolated, and he'd been isolated all his life. He wanted to be like the others, so he swore and smoked like them, and he even tried to love the same way as them.

With time, it became a habit, something he didn't have to think too hard about. He was just Sanji, Sanji the love cook. 

Zoro came first, making him struggle with emotions he never wanted to feel, but his final nail in the coffin was Kamabakka island. 

There, Sanji was forced to grapple with both his sexuality and his gender identity. The Queens there told him that the only people who came to their island were men with the hearts of women, and that had been difficult to accept. It was even harder to accept shedding his external layer of suits and ties, donning dresses and makeup instead. 

In a way, those suits and ties felt like his armor that he hid behind, and without those to hide behind, he had to finally look at himself in the mirror. And who he saw was a man who was wearing a frilly pink dress and makeup.

And he… liked it. A lot actually.

Something about wearing dresses, about embracing a femininity he always tried to push away, felt liberating. The other Queens calling him beautiful and pretty – compliments he’d never been given before – made him preen instead of getting turned off, as hard as he tried to deny it. On Kamabakka island, there was no shame for who he was, only a fierce love and acceptance he’d never known before.

There was also understanding. All the Queens telling Sanji their stories of who they were before Kamabakka island, of how they tried to conform in a society that continued to reject them, about how much pride they took in who they are now. They loved who they were, and there was something beautiful in that, something that Sanji couldn’t help but envy a little.

He also listened to them talk about men. And they talked about men a lot. They talked about how they liked their men; muscular, manly, someone who could make them feel small and protected, but also someone who would accept and love them for how they are. They also talked about sex, about what they liked in bed, what they wanted their partners to do to them.

Sanji doesn’t think he’d ever blushed so hard in his life as he did when he would listen to those conversations. That is, until they turned the conversation to him.

‘And what about you, Sanji-chan?’

‘What about me?’

‘Come now, Sanji-chan, don’t be daft. What kind of men do you like?’

Sanji absolutely didn’t think about Zoro as soon as the question was asked, immediately shoved the image away before it could completely form.

‘I – I don’t like any men. I only like women.’

‘Right.’ A Queen, Angela who Sanji got on with particularly well, snorted. ‘And the sky isn’t actually blue.’

‘Technically it isn’t –’

‘Sanji-chan. You’re not fooling any of us here.’

‘I only like women,’ Sanji repeated, fisting his hands in his dress, sounding more unsure this time. ‘Truly. Women are beautiful, they’re soft, feminine. Perfect.’

‘Sometimes it sounds like you want to be like them instead of be with them,’ Angela commented offhandedly, her words striking through Sanji’s chest like a flaming arrow. They hit too close to home and Sanji didn’t want to think about it at all, because liking dresses was one thing, but what Angela was implying was a whole can of worms he had no intentions of opening. ‘But even if that’s the case – it’s okay to like men even if you love women. Sexuality is fluid, a spectrum.’

‘I guess so.’ Sanji shrugged, feeling uncomfortable.

‘Okay, Sanji-chan, let me rephrase my question.’ Angela smiled at Sanji. ‘What kind of person do you like?’

‘Uh, I guess someone who is beautiful,’ Sanji said, then immediately winced because of how shallow that sounded. ‘Not just on the outside, like, the inside matters too. And someone strong, too, so I wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally hurting her. But also, if they were loyal, nice to me, not always making fun of my eyebrows would be good.’

‘Hmm.’

‘Good with kids, good with the crew and Luffy is also super important.’ Sanji continued. ‘Someone who’d appreciate my cooking, who can distinguish between flavors and doesn’t just think about booze all the damn time.’

‘I see.’

‘And well, mostly, just someone who would care about me. Someone who would love me.’

‘It sounds like you’re describing someone in specific, Sanji-chan.’ Angela squeezed his hand, smiling at him sympathetically. ‘Are you already in love, Sanji-chan?’

Zoro, Sanji realized then, he’d been describing Zoro the whole time. He swallowed.

That whole conversation had thrown Sanji for a loop, but he’d finally been able to accept without a shadow of a doubt that he was in love with Zoro. Completely and utterly in love with him, even two years apart doing little to diminish that love for him, yearning for him every day. Wondering about how he was doing, hoping desperately that he was okay and safe. He was hurt when Kuma banished him, and he was going to be all alone without anyone to take care of him or cook his favorite meals for him or to make sure he didn’t over-train. He was going to be alone, nobody to make sure he doesn’t get lost or bicker with him over every little and big thing.

While Sanji spent most of his days on Kamabakka island trying to run away from his sexuality and the uncomfortable truths about himself that the Queens tried to force him to accept, he also thought of Zoro often. Writing letters to him, telling him about his days, about all the bottled up feelings he’d never be able to say aloud. They were letters he’d never send, but there was something soothing about writing them, made him feel a little less alone. Made the ache in his chest without his crewmates, without Zoro, a little less painful.

Sanji also made sure to keep every single letter, even as he was leaving from Kamabakka island. He didn’t have the heart to burn them or leave them behind, little pieces of his heart packaged in every letter that he didn’t want to let go of just yet.

After Kamabakka island, however, Sanji tried to pretend none of it happened. He tried to shove all of it in a closet, pretending that all of it didn’t exist. 

In all the ways that mattered, though, Sanji failed. 

Chapter Text

Falling in love with Zoro was a gradual process for Sanji; one he tried his best to resist and deny, but could never truly avoid. Just like how the sun always rises in the east, the inevitable passing of time, aging us as we grow older, Sanji falling in love with Zoro was always an inevitability, a rite of passage. 

Maybe it started at the Baratie, when he saw Zoro shine bright and resilient with his insistence on dying for his dreams. 

Or possibly, it started in Arlong Park when they fought together for the first time, a unit that moved together so swiftly, Sanji felt almost nostalgic. As if he was fighting with an estranged friend he hadn’t seen in years, but were falling back into familiar steps once more. 

It may have been in Whiskey Peak, when they were hiding away from the loud banquet together, and Sanji got to really talk to Zoro for once. Was able to see a small glimpse of who Zoro was underneath his brute strength and mannerisms. The world felt like it was slowing down then, the loud music and shouts quieting to white noise, and for a short period of time, they were the only two left. 

Or it was Little Garden, where they bickered and competed against each other for the first time, declaring a rivalry against each other, a flame that shined so bright, it never died down after all these years. Something fun, something that made Sanji’s blood simmer with anticipation and fun every time he butted heads with Zoro. 

Perhaps it was in Water 7, when Zoro expressed his concern over Sanji for the first time. His voice was so soft and urgent, imploring him in the only way Zoro knew how, for him to stay safe. He almost cried then, because prior to that moment, Sanji didn't think anyone besides Zeff had shown him any concern like that before. A quiet promise whispered to himself that today, at least, he would come back in one piece. 

Alternatively, there was Thriller Bark, where Zoro fought so valiantly in the face of death. And when Zoro stood there, standing in front of Kuma — who to Sanji at the time, appeared more like a Grim Reaper than a Warlord —he felt his heart in his throat. He couldn’t lose him, he couldn’t bear living in a world without Roronoa Zoro in it, so he would take the fall instead. But Zoro didn't let him, stupid and selfless as he always was, and Sanji never forgave him for it. 

Maybe, Sanji thinks, it was all of the above. Not any singular moment isolated in time, no, it was the big ones and the small ones all coming together to form a kaleidoscope of moments and times together, that Sanji could no longer run away from. He was in love, but with each passing day, he kept falling harder and harder. 

And one day, when he saw Zoro for the first time in Wano after coming back from a sham of a wedding he couldn't go through with —beautiful but tinged with hurt as he looked at Sanji because he’d left him — he knew without a shadow of a doubt. He was in love with Zoro, and this love wasn't ever going to go away, and so he wanted to do his best to cherish it. 

One of the things that Sanji worried about when Zoro and him decided to be in a relationship —no label marking them like boyfriends, partners, lovers — is that Zoro would tire of him.

He doesn’t mind that they didn’t have a label, something neat for him to put on a box to know exactly where he slotted into Zoro’s life. It was the way he labeled all the spices and ingredients in his kitchen with meticulous love and care, after all, because he liked being organized and knowing where each thing belonged. And yet. While there’s some comfort in labels, there’s also liberation in not having a label. They don’t need a label, not really, because Sanji knows that Zoro loves him.

Zoro’s love is quiet, shown not through words because Zoro has never excelled in that department, but through his actions. 

Evident in how he tends to Curly, until the simple weed flourished into a magnificent tree that takes up a solid third of the crow’s nest with its vibrant color and sheer size. It's in the way Zoro will drape his jacket around his shoulders when he’s cold because Sanji hates the cold but Zoro is indifferent to it. Established through the mutual trust they have while they’re fighting side by side, Zoro’s eye will always be on him, confident that Sanji will be able to hold his own but always ready to intervene if he thinks Sanji might get seriously hurt. 

“You’re starting to get rusty, Mosshead,” Sanji challenges Zoro, not meaning the words for a single second. He cocks his eyebrow, raising his knee as he prepares to strike. “Don’t tell me you’re going soft on me.”

They’re once again in the crowsnest, secluded from the rest of the crew, and Sanji has too much time to kill and too many thoughts to burn. Hopes desperately that Zoro doesn’t see through the front he’s projecting — or god forbid, ask him if something is wrong and if he wants to talk about it — and instead takes the bait. Takes up Sanji’s impromptu request for a fight without asking any questions. 

He just needs this, needs the distraction, needs Zoro. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Zoro shifts to place the hilt of Wado Ichimonji between his teeth, Sanji’s heart skipping a beat as he watches Zoro finally get serious about their spar. “You’re already soft enough as it is without me softening you up even more.”

If there’s anything for Sanji to not be insecure about, then it’s the fact that Zoro loves him, this knowledge is nestled deep in his heart, whispered in his ear with every heartbeat. That doesn’t, however, exempt him from the fear that his love may wane. 

“The only thing that’s soft here are your attacks,” Sanji argues, chest heaving as he parries all three of Zoro’s swords with a swift kick. “Keep that up and I’ll fall asleep while we’re fighting.”

He’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Zoro to tire of him. To tire of the slow moments in the crow’s nest or his kitchen, traversing through foreign islands with their shoulders brushing together, finding them dull rather than idyllic. To Sanji, those stolen moments of domesticity mean everything to him, but to someone like Zoro who always wants his blood pumping with the adrenaline of a fight, would he be content with merely spending time with Sanji without the context of barbed insults and bloody fights or even sex to keep them together? 

“We can’t have that,” Zoro grits around the hilt of his sword. He lunges forward, almost slicing Sanji in the gut if not for his quick reflexes saving him in the nick of time. “Gotta keep you on your toes.”

“Hah. I’d like to see you try.”

The fact of the matter, though, is that Sanji is always on his toes with Zoro. He isn’t allowed to let his guard down for even a single moment, lest he lose his head if he ever did. 

Sanji can keep up with Zoro now, just barely with the skin of his teeth, but what will he do when Zoro reaches a level of strength that Sanji can no longer propel nor challenge? Zoro is always training, always throwing himself into near-death situations so he can keep pushing himself to the limit, getting stronger and stronger, a man worthy of being Luffy’s right hand man and the best swordsman the world has ever seen. But what happens when Sanji, the mere cook that he is, can no longer keep up with Zoro? His joints too creaky to spar, his body too slow to keep up with the elegant dance of Zoro’s blades?

What will happen when Sanji is no longer Zoro’s equal, but his inferior? Will Zoro still love him the same then, or will he be bored of the man he’s become? 

What if, even worse than all that, Zoro sees the man that Sanji is beneath underneath all of his layers and decides that he no longer likes what he sees? Decides then that he wants to leave? What then?

“And if I succeed in making you yield?” Zoro asks him, two of his swords pressed so close to Sanji’s face, only the sole of his shoe preventing the steel from cutting him up into ribbons. “What’s in it for me then?”

Sanji feels oddly breathless, something he blames on the exertion of the fight, and nothing with the voracious hunger that Zoro gazes at him with. 

“I wouldn’t know because I would never yield to you,” Sanji replies, kicking Zoro off himself with a strong force, watching him skid backwards. “Though, I might have to pose that question to you.”

Zoro grins, a manic expression stealing across his face, closing the distance between them once more. This time, though, he’s much faster than before. So fast that Sanji can hardly follow his movements, not until he feels the wind knock out of his chest because his back has collided painfully with the wooden floor underneath him, Zoro’s blade poised against his throat.  

Sanji can hardly breathe, his lungs burning in his chest, Zoro staring down at him with a grin that makes his whole body light ablaze. He could probably set his leg aflame with a Diable Jambe, throw Zoro bodily off of him, regain his upper hand in the spar they’re having because he so sorely hates to lose. 

But he does no such thing, paralyzed in place, as transfixed on Zoro as he is on him. Mesmerized as he watches him slowly extricate Wado from his mouth, a trail of saliva follows the sword hilt, breaking as he pushes it back in its scabbard. There shouldn’t be anything remotely attractive about what Zoro is doing, especially not with Enma’s blade grazing the skin of his throat, blood breaking the surface and staining the pristine steel red. 

And yet, Sanji feels as if his whole body is melting, molten lava cloying at the base of his stomach. 

“Yield,” Zoro whispers. 

How many times have they landed in this situation before? With Zoro trying to force him to submit? How many times has Sanji resisted him, always finding a way to level the playing ground once more? He can already think of at least ten different ways to get himself out of this precarious position underneath Zoro, to shift just enough so that Enma’s blade wouldn’t be poised directly against the hollow of his throat, ready to cut and make him bleed. Once he's done that, all he'd have to do is kick Zoro off him, push his heel down onto his chest and switch their positions so that Zoro is the one begging for mercy. 

And yet, Sanji feels that urge waning, his pride curiously subdued. The sound quiet and muffled over the sound of his own surmounting lust and desire. 

“I yield,” Sanji replies, the words coming with more ease than he’d ever expected. 

“And what will you give me in return?” Zoro prompts, lips tilting upwards into a grin that Sanji recognizes. 

The triumphant grin, the one he wears whenever he’s bested a particularly tough opponent, the adrenaline and euphoria from a spectacular fight still thrumming through his veins. It’s a look that Sanji has seen many times — when Zoro has faced opponents much stronger than him —but it’s the first time he’s seen it directed towards him. His own heart swelling and expanding in size, ricochets against his chest, creating a tattoo on his ribcage where it threatens to come out. 

Victory looks good on Zoro, as loathe Sanji is to admit it. 

“Anything,” Sanji breathes. 

Zoro’s swords clatter by Sanji’s side with a clang that reverberates within the crowsnest, but Sanji doesn’t flinch at the loud sound. Doesn’t have the time to because Zoro is already pressing a kiss to his lips, hungry and desperate as he nips at his bottom lip, wanting to consume Sanji’s every breath. Sucks on Sanji’s tongue until he’s breathless, tugging on his blonde hair until he’s breathless and throbbing against Zoro. 

It’s always like this nowadays when they fight; violence bleeding into lust, pain melting into pleasure. He wonders if it’s always been like this, but they’ve just become worse at curbing the hedonistic urge, neither of them above defaulting to the other’s touch.

If anything, the sting of loss only singes Sanji’s veins, his body burning even hotter with that desperate want.

Sanji moans as he latches onto the lapels of Zoro’s yukata, needing Zoro closer, closer, so close that their bodies are slotted together without any room left between them. His thighs ache pleasantly as Zoro pushes his thigh back so far until it’s nestled over his shoulder, slotting himself in between his hips, rutting his cock against Sanji’s. Zoro nips at the length of Sanji’s jaw, over his stubble, leaving a bruise that Sanji would surely need makeup to cover. 

Then, in Sanji’s ear, he says, “I don’t want anything, I want everything. ”

“Yes.” Sanji nods, eyes rolling back as he feels himself unravel underneath Zoro. “I’ll give you everything. ‘m yours.”

Zoro is insatiably greedy, wanting to reap everything that he can out of Sanji until he’s been wrung dry. But if it’s for Zoro, Sanji finds that everything is a reasonable price to pay as long as Zoro decides to stay. 

And Zoro, the doting lover that he is, obliges him. Grunting as he pulls Sanji’s cock out of his pants, shifting as he pulls down his own pants to reveal his own cock, spitting into his hand audibly as he wraps his hand around them both. It’s so gross, feeling Zoro’s spit around his cock, that Sanji moans as his own cock twitches with unkempt arousal. There’s no finesse to his movements, but the calloused touch of Zoro’s hand over Sanji’s cock, jerking them both at a pace that’s so mind numbingly fast, Sanji can’t help but come in the palm of Zoro’s hand after three strokes. 

“Fuck,” Zoro groans, mouthing at Sanji’s throat against the new scar that he left on his skin, lapping up the blood that’s beading to the surface. The sting of pain from the motion, eliciting another spurt of come to fall from his cock, especially as Zoro presses his lips to Sanji’s once more, forcing him to taste the coppery taste of his own blood on his tongue. “You’re perfect.”

Sanji nods, mindless as he holds Zoro through his own climax, his fingers fisting in the fabric of Zoro’s yukata. Holds him as Zoro’s muscles give out underneath him, collapsing onto Sanji’s already spent body, his chest heaving in tandem with Sanji’s. Rising in accordance to each time his own chest lowers, both of them in perfect sync. Sanji listening to Zoro’s every grunt and the pounding sound of his heart that threatens to drown out Sanji’s own heart drumming incessantly in his ears. 

This is what Sanji needed, he thinks. Not really a fight, but that carnal want and desire to reaffirm his own stance in Zoro’s life. That floatiness that follows an orgasm, turning off the thoughts in his head for a little while, nothing but Zoro’s loud presence to engulf him in his captivating warmth. 

He wants to hold onto this, to have this with Zoro every day forever. 

Most nights, Sanji sleeps normally, getting his seven hours of revered beauty sleep. Some nights, however, Sanji dreams. 

Lately, those dreams have been recurring, too. 

Sanji’s dreams always veer into nightmare territory, though. Over the years, he always had the same nightmare, has seen it so many times that he has it memorized. A version of himself that’s much younger, still brimming with the innocence of youth, trapped in a leaky dungeon that reeked of rot and was coated with insects and rats. An iron mask atop his head, so heavy that he could barely lift his head underneath its weight, three other children with faces that resembled his own —children who were supposed to be his siblings yet never offered him the affection or caring that should come with that title — pointing and laughing at him like he’s nothing more than an attraction in a zoo. 

The same words would be whispered to him directly into his ears, yet loud and deafening. 

‘You are a failure.’

‘You will never amount to anything.’

‘You should have never been born.’

And yet, the words that always haunted Sanji the most over the years were the words Judge told him when he saw Sanji getting beat up within an inch of his life. 

‘Help me, father, please.’

‘Why should I?’

Somehow, those words haunted him more than anything his brothers could have said, scarred him even more than Judge telling him to shed his family name because it shamed him to be associated with someone as weak as Sanji in any way. No matter how many years pass by, no matter how many nightmares he has, the chill that settles deep in his bones from the frostiness of Judge’s gaze still offsets him. A gaze that was devoid of any emotion towards his son, rather, if Sanji could glean any emotion from that gaze, all he could see was contempt. 

Over the years, that nightmare started to visit him in decreasing frequency, and Sanji started to foolishly think that maybe he was healing. That perhaps the time he spent away from Germa was enough to scab over old wounds, that perhaps the pain he lived through was something he could put behind him, so he could start moving forward. He found the love of a father from Zeff, offering him a kind tenderness he hadn’t known since his mother had died. He found the warmth of a family, unconventional as it may be, in the strawhats.

It was easier like that, to try and forget. To focus instead on chasing a dream that may be nothing more than a fantasy, supporting a captain to whom he owed his life, and falling in love with another man who held his heart in a vice grip that he no longer felt any desire to relinquish the possession of. 

Until Whole Cake Island that is. 

Whole Cake Island, the place that unearthed every one of his worst fears that he’d so meticulously buried over the years. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, no choice but to face all the demons of his nightmares, realizing with abject hopelessness that he hadn’t changed at all over the years. That he was still a weak, cowardly child wearing an iron mask. One who defected from his crew —his family —and committed sins against them that he’d never forgive himself for. All to fulfill an ultimatum set above his head to let go of his crew, of the only man he ever loved, so he could marry another for the sake of a family he only related to in blood who would have rejoiced in his death. 

And worse than all that, Sanji could feel himself change at his core, turning into someone he’s no longer recognizing. Doesn’t know how much of it is paranoia, how much of it is truth, but that fear follows him into his nightmares.

His nightmares started with the same formula, the same dialogue, as they always did. That is until they morphed into something much more sinister. 

No longer a child, but he still feels just as small. Instead of a leaky dungeon, he’s in a vibrant place teeming with pastel colors coated in confectionery and sweets that make his teeth rot with how sweet they are. An iron mask is still on his head, but this time, his hands are shackled too. A threat, a promise, that if he were to disobey, he’d lose the only thing that’s precious to him. 

‘You will show your usefulness, boy, it’s your duty as my own blood to do so.’

Sanji runs through winding streets of confectionery, his legs heavy as lead as they sink in cobblestone made of gingerbread, hardly cutting any distance as he moves. He tries to escape, tries to find Zoro so he can at least explain, but he’s nowhere to be found. Instead, Sanji finds himself in a wedding hall. A beautiful girl standing at the end of the aisle, one he could have maybe loved in another life if he didn’t already give his heart to another, a gun hidden in her dress. 

His duty as a Vinsmoke, as a strawhat, as Zeff’s son is to die in this wedding. 

Except the nightmare twists, and instead of sweets, he finds himself surrounded by dead bodies. Luffy hanging as a centerpiece, broken and bloody. Nami, Brook, and Chopper are hanging next to him, marionettes whose strings have been cut. He feels his blood turn to ice, his stomach curdling with the last thing he ate, the urgent need to vomit overwhelming him. Except when he turns to his left, he sees Zeff’s head on a platter being served to him by none other than Judge himself. 

‘Didn’t I promise you his head if you disobeyed?’

Sanji shakes his head, the iron mask suddenly all too heavy atop his head, suffocating him as he struggles to draw breath. He backs away from him, refusing to look at the face of the man who took him in as a son, gaunt and lifeless. His back collides into something soft yet cold, turns around to see the wall behind him lined with the bodies of every queen he came to love from Kamabakka island. In the forefront are Ivan and Angela, hanging from ropes, their necks angled awkwardly, their eyes void of any life.

All around him, he can hear the cackling sound of Judge and his brothers’ laughter, crowding in on him, increasing in volume until his eardrums threaten to rupture. Big Mom sits at the front of the wedding, dabbing her lips with a handkerchief, and it comes back stained red not with lipstick, but with blood.  

“No, no, no.” Sanji shakes his head, his chest ready to collapse onto itself, unable to draw any breath into his lungs. His vision starts to form black spots, his hands clammy, and he wants nothing more than to escape this nightmare of his own creation. “Make it stop. Please.”

‘Didn’t you say you’d marry me, Sanji?’ the girl asks him, but he can’t remember her name, can only see a blur instead of her face. ‘Didn’t you promise me that you’d take care of me? Don’t tell me you forgot.’

His knees give out underneath him, and Sanji finds himself on the ground, flinching at what he sees on the ground. It’s Zoro on the ground, his one eye open, all three of his swords shattered on the ground by his side. Sanji crawls toward him, his whole body wrought with tremors so violent, he can barely move. He takes in the red that stains Zoro’s yukata, a fresh wound cut straight through his chest, so much blood spurting out of the cut that Sanji doesn’t even know how he could begin to stem it. 

“Why?” Sanji whispers, voice breaking around a sob. “You weren’t supposed to be here.”

On his wrist, rests the compass that Usopp handed him, but it’s completely still. The vivre card within it burning, the embers turning to ash. His heart plummets to the base of his stomach, shattering into a million little pieces, a sob wrenched from his chest. 

With trembling hands, Sanji reaches out towards Zoro, wanting to find a way to stop the blood. To breathe life back into him, because he can’t bear living in a world where Zoro isn’t in it. Because why else had he sacrificed himself then? If not so that everyone he loved could prosper? 

And yet, Sanji is realizing with stark clarity that his own life wasn’t worth enough to sacrifice, because he still lost everyone else in the process. 

‘Why did you leave?’ Zoro asks him, his voice accusatory. ‘Why did you leave me?’

Sanji opens his mouth to reply, but his throat is clogged, doesn’t know what he would have said even if he could speak. He can’t speak, because there’s an audible clink against his iron mask, a gun pointed to the back of his head. 

‘A final farewell to the blot on the Vinsmoke family.’

This is all his fault. He’s so sorry —

Sanji startles awake, his whole body drenched in sweat, tears clinging to his eyes. That nightmare had been so much worse than all the ones that preceded it, the terror and despair still clinging to him like a shadow, wrapping his heart in a vice that makes it hard for him to breathe. Frantically, he checks the compass on his wrist, letting out a sigh of relief when he sees it’s still intact. A reminder that it was all a nightmare, that Zoro and everyone else, are all still alive. 

The modicum of relief, however, isn’t enough to wash out the horrible anguish that pervades throughout his entire body. Curling up into himself, Sanji finally lets the tears he’d been holding back throughout the entirety of his nightmare, flow. 

Sanji sniffs, taking in a shuddery breath, one after the other, but he still can’t calm down. The rest of the guys are still sleeping in their hammocks peacefully fortunately, so Sanji mustn’t have been too loud during his nightmare. Or when he cried afterwards. 

Fuck, he really needs a smoke. 

He climbs out of the hammock with some difficulty, his legs are shaky a bit around the knees, and lets out another deep breath through his teeth as he tries to stand. He doesn’t bother with dressing properly because it’s the dead of the night, only grabbing a knitted cardigan to drape over his shoulders and his cigarettes. 

Leaving the men’s quarters, he’s immediately met with a gust of cool air that’s simultaneously jarring and calming, drying the remnant of tears that were still clinging to his cheeks. While he initially planned to go to the kitchen, fix himself a cup of tea, nursing its warmth while he took a smoke, he decides to stay on deck instead. The cold air, tinged with the promise of morning rain showers, and the scent of the sea, acts like a balm to his exposed wounds. Compelling him, drawing him to the side rail where he can watch the waves gently rock the Sunny, taking her towards their next destination. 

Sanji stands there pensively, blonde hair blowing in the wind, smoking a cigarette idly, the only light provided to him is that of the burning embers of his cigarette and the blanket of stars overhead. He looks down, trying to see his own reflection mirrored back to him in the murky waters, but he sees nothing but darkness reflecting back at him. 

A hand rests on his shoulder, startling Sanji from his reverie, but only slightly because he knows it’s Zoro without even looking behind him. 

“You don’t usually wake up at this hour, Cook,” Zoro says. 

“Neither do you,” Sanji replies, his voice hoarser than usual, thick with all the tears he shed. He hopes Zoro doesn’t notice. “It’s sometime past three.”

“I’m the ship watch, you know I’m a light sleeper,” Zoro explains, leaning against the deck to Sanji’s side, scrutinizing him as best he could in the darkness. “If my haki picks up on anyone moving about in the dead of night, I’ll come down to examine it.”

“Well you can go back to sleep.” Sanji turns away, blowing out a cloud of smoke that immediately dissipates in the cold wind. “I’m just taking a smoke.”

“That so?” Zoro muses. “Then I’ll keep you company.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

The words come out harsher than Sanji expected they would, wincing as soon as they land, but the damage has already been done. He steels himself against Zoro’s reply, shoulders tense, holding onto the cigarette between his lips like it’s his lifeline. 

“What’s wrong with you, Cook?” Zoro prompts. “You’re acting weird. You won’t even look at me.”

“Maybe I don’t want to look at your stupid Mosshead face,” Sanji replies churlishly, not wanting to say it’s because he doesn’t want to look at Zoro right now, and be reminded of his lifeless body in his nightmares. He doesn’t want Zoro to look at him either, find the tear tracks on his face, the signs of grief still clinging to him. “Just leave it, Mosshead.”

Zoro isn’t having any of that, however. Instead, he forces Sanji to look at him, his fingers digging into his face as he studies him. From top to bottom as if assaying him, searching for anything amiss, and Sanji hates the way the furrow of Zoro’s eyebrow softens when he drinks in his face properly. 

He also hates the relief that slams into him at seeing Zoro in front of him, alive and full of nothing but tenderness and unwarranted concern for him, rather than broken and lifeless. 

“You were crying?” Zoro asks, posing the question carefully. 

He knocks his hand away, ready to walk away from this conversation and Zoro, but Zoro snakes a hand around his wrist. His grip is strong, bruising around his wrist, would have been strong enough to snap it if he didn’t have an exoskeleton made of steel. 

“So what if I was?” Sanji counters, his hackles rising defensively. “Why does it matter?”

“It matters.” Zoro grits his teeth together, his irritation clearly starting to rise in response to how difficult Sanji is being. “Because you matter to me.”

Sanji’s heart jolts in his chest, giving a response other than a sunken dead rock at the pit of his stomach, and he laughs mirthlessly. Zoro is too good for him. 

He doesn’t deserve him. 

“It was just a stupid nightmare,” Sanji finally says, offering Zoro a small piece of himself. “I’m still coming down from it.”

“What was it?” Zoro asks. 

Sanji weighs the question, not quite knowing how much he should reveal to Zoro. Doesn’t know how much vulnerability he’s able to offer in this hour, feeling weak and drained, the nightmare leaving him frail and withered beyond his years. 

They never talked about what happened the week he disappeared, too, when he went to Whole Cake Island. They met again in Wano, and Zoro seemed content to pretend that Sanji never left, didn’t ask any questions so why would Sanji offer any answers? That’s how Sanji preferred it anyway, their relationship wasn’t about sharing vulnerability and deep conversations, it was about raw and deep passion that blazed bright but died fast. 

The beseeching expression on Zoro’s face, makes Sanji feel the urge to open up, if only marginally. 

“It started out as a memory and then it ended as a premonition,” Sanji finally says, taking a long drag of his cigarette, letting the smoke consume his lungs, before he lets it out slowly. “A premonition of what could have been anyway, if I let things unfold the way I initially intended it to.” 

“A nightmare isn’t a premonition, you’re being too harsh on yourself,” Zoro replies. 

Sanji thinks of the broken bodies of everyone he ever loved strewn across the wedding hall. He looks at Zoro and it’s so easy for him to remember how dead he looked in the nightmare, how fresh his blood was on his chest, how it stained his hands. 

‘Why did you leave me?’ 

Sanji closes his eyes, trying to banish the memory from his mind, and failing. 

“It felt so real.” The taste of ash from his cigarette is bitter on his tongue. His voice sounds distant, as if he’s hearing himself talk through a door, but the words aren’t coming from his own mouth. “I was back there again, but it was so much worse.”

Ash from his cigarette falls to the deck, burning the white paint that coats it, and Sanji absently wipes the ash away. The pad of his thumb stings, but the pain is welcome, a reminder that he’s left the horrific dream sequence he’d been trapped in, and he’s back in the real world. Safe and sound, as are the rest of the people he cares about. 

“Back in Whole Cake?” Zoro prompts, taking Sanji’s hand and brushing his fingers over Sanji’s burnt thumb. Not a salve, but a distraction. “You never talk about it.”

“That’s because there’s nothing to say,” Sanji replies. 

“Don’t lie to me, Sanji.” Zoro glowers at him, applying more pressure on the palm of his hand. 

Sanji shivers, because Zoro rarely ever uses his given name, not even when they’re having sex. The use of his name, hearing it raspy and hoarse on Zoro’s tongue, makes him feel as if he’s been doused with a bucket of hot water. The tension leaves his shoulders, smiling at Zoro weakly. 

“I don’t want to burden you,” he whispers. He closes his eyes, blocking out the intensity of Zoro’s gaze so he can speak without cowering. “I don’t want to show you the worst parts of myself; the selfish, the cowardly, the ugly. I want to preserve the version of me that you’ve come to know over the years, the one that has nothing to do with my family or the name I discarded so many years ago.”

“What version of you?” Zoro cocks his eyebrow. “The woman-crazed perverted freak? Or the stupidly petty version? Or is it the version that sucks at computing anything outside of his love for women?”

Sanji’s eyes snap open as he gapes at that, aghast, his ire rising at the comments. How could Zoro be so rude right now while he’s so visibly upset? He doesn’t need Zoro to start picking at his flaws even more right now. He’s about to give Zoro a piece of his mind when Zoro raises his hand so he can continue, uninterrupted. 

“You’re flawed, Cook, I already know that.” Zoro takes a step closer towards Sanji, one hand still in his hand while the other wraps around the nape of his neck, starkly warm against the cold night air. “But you’re not selfish, a coward, or ugly. If anything, you’re frustratingly the opposite of all those things.”

Sanji swallows a lump in his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing uncontrollably in his throat. His eyes are starting to sting again, which is nothing short of mortifying, because he doesn’t want to cry in front of Zoro in any context aside from his brains getting fucked out of him. 

He laughs, the sound congested and tremulous.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re calling me beautiful,” Sanji teases.  

“It would be the truth, though, wouldn’t it?”

Sanji’s heart swells, bleeding with emotion, pooling in his cheeks. He’s lucky that the dark of night covers them like a veil, the starlight offering meager illumination, but not enough for Zoro to see the warmth that covers his cheeks. 

I love him, he thinks, so much. 

“Don’t get mushy on me just because I’m feeling upset right now,” Sanji scowls. He lets his head rest in the crook of Zoro’s shoulder, sniffling as he feels his tears fall again, staining the soft fabric of Zoro’s yukata. “I’ll kick your ass.”

Sanji didn’t want to cry now, but the tears find him anyway, his heart brimming and bleeding with a surplus of emotions than he knows how to deal with. Fear from his nightmare intertwining with the love he has for Zoro, a desperate urge to push Zoro away to protect his own heart, warring with his selfish desire to hold him tight and never let him go. 

Zoro answers his selfish pleas, however, by wrapping his arms around Sanji, holding him close to his chest. 

“You can kick my ass later,” Zoro replies. “When you’re feeling better.”

Sanji nods. “Just hold me now.”

Zoro squeezes him against him so tightly, Sanji can barely breathe, but that’s just how he likes it. Tethers him. Reminds him that Zoro is still here, alive and well, still loves him all the same. And Zoro, for his part, doesn’t ask any further questions about his nightmares or his time in Whole Cake Island. He remains silent, an unspoken promise lingering between them that one day, when Sanji is ready, he will talk to him about it and Zoro will be there to listen. 

Rather than drill him, Zoro does as Sanji asked of him, holding him until the sobs no longer wrack Sanji’s frame. His hand rubbing small circles into his back is a constant anchor, his warmth bleeding into his body, providing a shield from the cold. He holds Sanji until both their knees start to creak from standing so long, dark starting to crack, the sun splitting the clouds over the horizon in shades of pink and orange, the promise of rain carried in the morning wind. He holds Sanji until he starts to tire, and Zoro scoops him up in his arms which Sanji is too tired to protest against. Lets Zoro carry him into the kitchen, a place that’s become a sanctuary to him now, settling him down on the makeshift cot by the wall that Franky installed for him. He hovers over Sanji, draping him with a blanket so he can finally rest. 

As Sanji’s eyes — heavy with fatigue and tears he had shed — begin to droop, he wraps his hand around Zoro’s wrist. 

“Please don’t leave me,” Sanji pleads, his voice slurring around the words. “Please.”

It’s morning now, so Zoro should be leaving now because nobody knows about their relationship, but the idea of Zoro leaving him makes his heartbeat spike with a potent dose of panic. 

“I won’t,” Zoro replies, his voice distant and far away, a mere echo. “I promise.”

Sanji nods, eyes closing for the last time as he finally falls under, sleep taking him in its clutches once more. 

And this time, when he sleeps, no more nightmares come to haunt him. 

Sanji awakes next to a crick in several joints in his body from falling asleep in an uncomfortable position, swathed in so much warmth, he’s positively sweating.

Opening his eyes groggily, his eyelids weighted down with the remnants of sleep, sunlight streaming in. There’s a steady knocking against the door that’s so loud, the person in question might as well be knocking against his own brain. Sanji is ready to curse, a colorful stream of expletives ready on his tongue until they suddenly turn to ash as the rest of his surroundings start to come into startling clarity. Like the fact that he’s sleeping with his entire body, lanky and 90% limbs as he is, slotted against Zoro’s body that’s all compact muscle.

They’re wedged in his tiny cot in the kitchen, a place that’s not really suited for sleeping unless the person sleeping on it is a small child or Chopper, so no wonder every bone in his body is creaking in protest. He can’t imagine that Zoro, the one who is curled against the wall to allow Sanji a cushion of comfort, would wake up feeling much better than him. But then again, Zoro can sleep in any position that he’s put in.

For him to sleep this deeply, however, even with all the incessant pounding against the locked kitchen door, indicates that Zoro must be either exhausted or at peace. A vulnerability he can only offer Sanji himself by falling asleep with him like this.

“Stupid Mosshead.” Sanji rolls his eyes.

Sanji considers how peaceful Zoro looks, the scowl he always wears absent for once, leaving Zoro looking closer to his actual age. Twenty-one, so much younger than he likes to act, and Sanji can’t help but smile as he traces the scar on his face. A hidden story in that scar that Zoro doesn’t seem eager to tell, just like how Sanji cages his own past close to his chest.

‘Please don’t leave me.’

The words wash over Sanji belatedly, several beats too late, fiery hot warmth spreading across his skin. He’s slightly mortified that he exposed himself like that in front of Zoro, for letting himself cry into his shoulder, but there’s also comfort in how Zoro didn’t judge him. Rather, he held him, didn’t leave just like Sanji asked him to.

A smile tugs at his lips, letting out a sigh, feeling lighter than he expected himself to after exposing such a personal part of himself the previous night. Thinks that if he’d shown that part of himself to anyone else aside from Zoro, he would have killed himself from the weight of the humiliation that would have inevitably followed, but he only feels lighter now. Freer.

“Sanji!” Luffy’s muffled voice rings through the door, pounds on the door again, the wood rattling in its frame. “I’m so hungry, please open up.”

Sanji laughs at Luffy’s voracious appetite at such an early hour of morning, gently extricating himself from Zoro’s hold. There’s a crease in his eyebrows that eventually follows, but he continues to snooze, and Sanji drapes the blanket that once covered them both over Zoro properly.

“Yes, yes,” Sanji mutters, lighting a cigarette as he unlocks the kitchen door, watching Luffy stumble through the doorway. “On it, Captain.”

“You took forever to wake up, Sanji,” Luffy whines. “I’m so hungry.”

“Sorry, Luffy,” Sanji replies, blowing out a cloud of smoke. “Slept in.”

If Sanji were to worry about what Luffy might think about finding Sanji and Zoro sleeping together in the kitchen, then he shouldn’t have because Luffy doesn’t even cast a second glance at Zoro’s curled up figure in the cot, sleeping soundly in the corner. Instead, he sits at the table with the eagerness of a child who’s about to have his favorite meal, kicking his legs and licking his lips in preparation. Sanji rolls up his sleeves, prepping some eggs and vegetables, contemplating a quick and easy omelet and sausages for breakfast this morning so Luffy doesn’t end up eating himself or one of them because of his hunger.

There’s something so normal about it, about Sanji and Zoro sleeping together, waking up in the morning by his side and getting up to prepare breakfast for Luffy. He hums, listening to Luffy ramble on about a story of his childhood he’d kept tucked away safely in the recesses of his memories, a quest he’d embarked upon with Ace and Sabo. Zoro awakes because of how loud Luffy is being, but he doesn’t seem to mind, grunting as he takes a seat across from Luffy at the table and grins at their captain’s tales. He quite enjoys watching the easy way Zoro complements Luffy, the kind of ease that comes along with the territory of being Luffy’s first mate, matching his energy so effortlessly despite how wildly different they both are. 

Sanji turns to throw the eggs into the skillet, his back to Zoro and Luffy, stealing a smile for himself. This morning is so normal, imbuing Sanji’s chest with a lightness that contrasts jarringly against the heaviness he’d felt only hours prior. A reminder that no matter how horrifying his demons are, he has people who care for him, people who will stay. A whisper in his ear telling him that this happiness is something he’s allowed to have, to cherish. 

At the end of the day, as loathe as Sanji is to admit it but Zoro was right, his nightmare was nothing more than just that. A nightmare. 

Chapter Text

The one time Sanji put on Zoro’s yukata in the crow’s nest wasn’t the first time he’d worn a yukata, nor was it the first time he had to grapple with his own androgyny. His masculinity warring with the femininity he wanted so desperately to both deny and embrace. 

No, he distinctly recalls coming to Wano, days after the rest of the crew already made their way there. Nervous, apprehensive about the rest of them rejecting him after his abdication to Whole Cake Island. He was unsure, but he had to support Luffy, so he pushed it all aside. 

So, he put on the yukata that was given to him so he could fit in, yellow and white stripes, fitting his body like a glove. Loose and airy, but complementary and flattering, as if he was wearing a dress. His hair was also made longer thanks to Kinemon, so long that he had to pin it up in an elaborate updo so it wouldn’t keep falling in his face. 

And he liked how it felt, how his body finally felt at home for once, the way his hair cascaded down his back when he finally took out the pin that held it all together at the end of the day. In the mirror, he saw a stranger, but he also resembled Sora. Or what he remembered of her, beautiful and delicate with her soft smiles and long blonde hair that reached her back. 

Sora, his mother, was the only one who never mocked Sanji for liking the things he did. Flowers, cooking, animals. Even if they were inherently feminine in nature, she never made any comment on it, only continued to shower him with the same love she always did. 

Sometimes, he wondered if Sora was still alive today, if she would have offered him the same love and gentle kindness if she knew her son loved a man and wanted to dress like women. Part of him, the small part of him that wasn’t drowned out with endless self-loathing and doubt, would like to think that she would. 

He also remembers running into Zoro in one of the corridors one night, things still stiff and awkward between them, but not entirely broken yet either. There was a chasm of hurt between them, several questions left unasked and thereby unanswered, and a distinctly loud voice that was screaming at them both that things were different now. And yet, there was also the relief. The comfort in knowing that Sanji was back, that they could move past this as long as they were both here to do so. 

Zoro gave him a long, hard look then, one that made Sanji squirm. As if Zoro was seeing right through him, seeing into the depths of his darkest secrets and deepest desires. 

When he reached forward, closing the distance between them, Sanji found his breath hitching. He didn’t know what Zoro was doing, if he wanted to punch him or kiss him, but he did neither. No, he only grabbed a long strand of Sanji’s golden hair that he’d let down prior to taking a bath, and held it between his fingers pensively. 

The hair wasn’t real, not really, but Sanji could swear he could feel the touch. As if Zoro was touching him . 

‘Long hair suits you,’ Zoro told him then, curling the strand over his finger pensively. ‘You should consider growing it out someday.’ 

Sanji couldn’t reply, not when his tongue was a swollen mass in his mouth, his heart beating a million miles per second in his throat. It was such a simple comment, one that probably wasn’t entirely intended as a compliment, but it left Sanji feeling winded. He doubted that Zoro would ever understand how much a comment like that meant to him. He nodded instead, watching as Zoro dropped the strand of hair, and walked away from him. 

And he yearned, for what, he wasn’t quite sure. 

Every few hours, Sanji likes to make his rounds around the Sunny. 

Usually, Sanji begins his rounds after breakfast, taking into consideration that not all the strawhats share their meals together because some of them like to sleep in and some like to eat at the crack of dawn. So, somewhere around noon, Sanji will start his brunch rounds. He'll go to the workshop to offer Usopp and Franky some biscuits, coffee, and cola. A fresh pot of red tea with mint leaves for Brook and a tray of scones. Some sausages and beef sandwiches for Luffy. Onigiri and sake for Zoro. 

And so the list goes. It's easy to keep track of what each strawhat likes, their dietary restrictions and what nutrients and vitamins to make sure are balanced into each meal so they can stay healthy and strong, has a notebook with notes on each strawhat. Although Zoro’s page – the likes full of nothing but onigiri, sake, and meat – never fails to make Sanji frown in disdain because of how tasteless he can be. 

His favorite part of those rounds, however, is serving the women, of course. 

That’s when Sanji is allowed to get the most creative with his brunch meals, Nami-san and Robin-chan are always verbally appreciative of his experimentation with the delicacies he serves them and seem to enjoy the fruity concoctions that he mixes up for them. Sanji knows that Nami-san has a sweet tooth, but nothing too creamy, and loves a spritz of alcohol in the drinks he serves her. Robin-chan, on the other hand, prefers savory snacks with a carbohydrate base like butter biscuits and potato piroshki, and prefers coffee with her food. She’s quite similar to Usopp in palette, but he’d never tell a fine lady that, of course. 

“What do you girls think?” Sanji hums, clasping his hands together eagerly. “Is the food to your liking today?”

“The food is delicious as always,” Robin replies smoothly, smiling as she takes a sip of her coffee. “Thank you, Cook-san.”

“Yes, it’s amazing!” Nami gushes, sighing over a bite of apple pie. “Bless.”

Sanji’s heart swells, warmth pooling in his cheeks as he melts at the praise, so happy for his food to be appreciated. This is the serotonin he gets out of cooking, can’t help but love Nami-san and Robin-chan a little more just because of how kind and perfect they are. 

It took Sanji some time to realize that the love he holds for them, while very deep, is platonic in nature. He loves them, loves their beauty, their kindness, but he isn’t in love with them. A feeling that’s reserved for a stupid Mosshead who couldn’t offer him more than a grunt as a thank you when he offered him a plate of sushi and a glass of sake earlier. 

“I honestly wish I knew how to repay you for your kind generosity, Cook-san,” Robin says, brushing her finger against the ridge of her book. “You’re always spoiling us.”

“Right?” Nami replies. “Surely, there’s something we can do for you in return.”

Sanji shakes his head, lips pulling into a smile, chest warm by their kindness. 

“A cook’s duty is to cook, I don’t make you meals because I’m expecting something in return —”

“Nonsense.” Nami waves her hand, dismissing Sanji’s words effortlessly. “Surely, there’s something we can do.”

She taps her chin considering Sanji carefully, scrutinizing him from head to toe, making him feel as if she’s seeing right through him. An uncanny ability of Nami-san’s, the way she seems to always glean each person’s deepest and darkest secrets without them ever being whispered aloud, something that both amazes and terrifies Sanji. Doesn’t want to know what Nami could find when she looks that deeply into him. 

Then, an innocuous smile curls across Nami’s beautiful face, one that leaves Sanji feeling unnerved. 

“A makeover.” Nami’s eyes sparkle, standing up to look at Sanji carefully. She brushes her fingers against his blonde locks, touching his cheek, pinching his jacket. “There’s so much we can do with you, you do look quite feminine, after all.”

Sanji’s cheeks burn, mortification curdling in the base of his gut at her words. Reminded all too much of the Queens words in Kamabakka island. 

‘Only the men with the hearts of women fall on this island.’

“Oh, I swear I didn’t mean anything rude by it,” Nami backpedals, taking a step back to gesticulate her hands wildly at him in a placating manner that’s only serving to exacerbate Sanji’s mortification. “It’s just —hasn’t anyone ever told you that you’re very pretty, Sanji-kun?”

Sanji’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. As much as he wishes the answer to that question would be a baffled no, but alas, the answer to that question is yes. It's been told to him by the other cooks in the Baratie, gripping him tightly in a headlock as they teased him that made it hard for him to breathe in more ways than one. The Queens on Kamabakka island were always beacons of flattery and positivity, each Queen making sure to tell him what a lovely darling he was each day. 

And Zoro never let Sanji forget that he found him pretty. Always letting the word slip from his tongue when they were bickering, even more so when they were having sex, their chests expanding with liquid hot want and the burning embers of desire. 

Being called pretty always caused Sanji’s chest to constrict, his stomach to flutter, like he’d just drunk his own weight in sparkling cider. As a man, it's not a word he should take any pride in, but he'd still preen, nonetheless. A sprinkle of shame to sour the feeling, yes, but outweighed by how much he liked the word. 

Especially when it came from Zoro. 

“No,” Sanji replies, finally answering Nami’s question. The simpler response. “It hasn't happened before.” 

“Well that's a shame because it's true,” Robin interjects, standing up to give Sanji the same analytical look down. “You’re very pretty, Cook-san – very dapper, yes – but still pretty.” 

“Won’t you let us dress you up, Sanji-kun?” Nami asks, clasping his hands in her own. “Please? Consider it our token of gratitude for all the tailored meals you make for us.” 

And Sanji is just a man. He's weak to the pleas of women, especially when said women are Nami-san and Robin-chan, doubly so when his hands are engulfed in Nami-san’s much smaller and softer hands. 

How could he ever say no?

“Alright.” Sanji smiles. 

After all, a makeover is pretty harmless. What’s the worst that could happen? 

The answer to that question is a lot. 

Sanji stands in the middle of the women's quarters, a place he'd only ever dreamt about sneaking into before his relationship with Zoro, and he’s about ready to self-combust. Everywhere around him, there’s something so distinctly feminine in the room. The walls are a warm color of pastel green, the beds look cozy and warm instead of the flimsy hammocks that leave Sanji’s back feeling creaky in three different places, and there's the scent of floral perfume permeating the air rather than sweat and whatever else Sanji can pick up on in the men's quarters. The room is small, yet organized with all the clothes neatly folded and any miscellaneous items tucked away in its proper corner on the hair dresser. 

Sanji hasn’t been surrounded with so much femininity before, his entire nervous system starting to shut down with an overload of stimulus being crammed into it from his mere presence in such a place. 

“Please make yourself comfortable, Cook-san.” Robin gestures towards the chair by the hairdresser. “Don't be so stiff and sit down.”

“But don’t get too comfortable either,” Nami says, continuing her daunting task of rummaging through her shared closet space with Robin, tossing clothes out behind her haphazardly. She turns her head around to glower at Sanji, challenging him to argue with her. “If I see you sneaking in here when neither of us are around, Sanji-kun, just know that it's the last thing you’ll ever do.” 

Sanji withers a bit under the intensity of Nami’s glare, wincing because he’s certainly earned that disdain and distrust, but he nods vigorously to show his sincerity. Overstimulated as he is, his veins thrumming with excess energy, Sanji can barely think about anything perverse at the moment anyway. 

With some difficulty, he sits down, back ramrod straight and his hands folded in his lap carefully in his efforts to look trustworthy. He lets himself look around, his eyes catching on the scattered mess of makeup and hair products on the hairdresser. His eyes study the colorful shades of pink and red, so many different things, and he’s suddenly reminded of the days he spent applying heavy lipstick and blush to his own face. Recalls how, at first, he looked terrible with how much makeup he caked onto his face, but just like with cooking, he learned. His fingers steady as he applied kohl to his eyes, red lipstick to his lips, learning that more doesn’t always mean better. No, there was beauty in the simplicity. 

He’d looked so different then, would hardly recognize the person he was if he saw himself in the mirror, but he often misses the freedom he’d felt then. 

‘Sometimes it sounds like you want to be like them instead of be with them.’

Maybe there was some truth to those words, as loathe as Sanji is to admit it. 

“Here!” Nami exclaims, tearing Sanji from his thoughts. “I found it! We can pair this with the blazer you’re already wearing. You’re got a white tank on underneath, right?”

Sanji feels a hot flush creep up his neck at the mention of his undershirt, never much a fan of showing his own skin like Zoro and Franky always did so shamelessly, but he nods in affirmation. 

“Yes,” Sanji replies apprehensively, only further unsettled by Robin’s amused laugh. 

“Good.” Nami turns around, grinning as she shows Sanji what looks like a plaid skirt. It’s very clearly Nami’s style, with shades of midnight blue and white criss-crossing together in an intricate pattern. “Put this on!”

“I beg your pardon, Nami-san?” Sanji plasters a nervous smile onto his face. “That’s a skirt .”

“I know it’s a skirt, dummy. I got this a few years ago because I thought it was super cute,” Nami elaborates, her fingers pinching the fabric between her fingertips. “But I made a mistake at the checkout and it’s like, three sizes too big, but I think it would fit you! You have a small waist, and it’s blue, so it’ll make your eyes pop. C’mon, try it on, Sanji-kun.”

“But it’s a skirt,” Sanji repeats, his hands clenching around the fabric of his slacks. “I couldn’t possibly wear that —”

But you did wear something similar before, a treacherous voice whispers at the back of his head, and you liked it too. 

Sanji banishes the thought with a mental kick, has no room for such mutiny within the recesses of his own head. 

“A skirt is just another item of clothes,” Robin interjects, smiling at Sanji amicably. “I agree with Nami-san, it would suit you.”

“What she said!” Nami says, “Come on, Sanji-kun! Just this once.”

Her eyes are glittering with excitement, which makes Sanji feel guilty, finds it incredibly difficult to protest against. She probably doesn’t get chances like these often, but he’d promised himself that he’d never wear a dress or a skirt again after Kamabakka. 

(The two instances of playing charades in a yukata don’t count, of course, because those weren’t actual dresses.)

Sanji, however, doesn’t know how to reject a request beseeched to him by any woman. So, he grits his teeth and swallows, fingers twitching as he accepts the proffered garment, feeling as if he just incriminated himself by accepting it. 

The fabric is so soft in his hands, the blue standing out starkly against his pale skin. 

“Alright.”

“Come on, Nami-san, let’s give Cook-san some privacy to change,” Robin says, pulling Nami out of the room. 

“Remember. No funny business, Sanji-kun.” Nami reminds him, making a cutting motion over her throat as a thinly veiled threat. 

Sanji nods, feeling faint, he doesn’t think he could have done anything weird or perverse even if he wanted to. The click of the door behind them making him jump. He’s alone now, supposed to change, the fabric of the skirt taunting him. He closes his eyes, taking a deep breath, telling himself that it’s just clothes. Clothes don’t have power over him. 

He sheds his clothes, making sure to fold each item neatly onto the chair because he’d be damned if he made a mess of Nami and Robin’s room, and starts putting on the outfit that Nami set aside for him. He keeps on the white wifebeater like Nami instructed him to, one he usually wears underneath his button-down shirts, clinging to his torso like it’s a second skin. He puts on his black blazer again, the soft fabric feeling foreign against his arms without the button-down shirt as a barrier, so he rolls up the sleeves so it could feel more natural. 

Then, the last item, the skirt. He takes a deep breath to calm his racing heart, letting it out slowly through his teeth, slipping it on. As he puts it on, he hopes that this garment that was clearly bought in the women’s section wouldn’t fit him, but it does. The skirt is high-waisted, but they’re a little loose around his waist too, which makes him feel a bit mortified. Takes his belt that he’d left to the side, pushing it through the holes to cinch the waistband, tightening it. There’s a draft down below, a ripple of goosebumps erupting on his body from the sensation, but he ignores it in favor of finally confronting his reflection.

Sanji turns around, finally daring to look at his own reflection, surprised at what he sees. The outfit was rather simple, and yet he feels like he’s looking at a stranger. He looks feminine, especially with the high-waisted skirt flowing down until they settle at his mid-thigh, his thigh garters holding up his socks looking rather indecent now despite how he wears them every day without thinking twice of them. And yet, with the dark hair that lines his arms, peeking out from the wide neckline of his wifebeater, his calves, he still looks distinctly masculine. 

He likes how he looks and that’s the thing he’d been scared of the most. 

This outfit looks so much more flattering on him than the pink frilly dress from Kamabakka that’s buried at the bottom of his suitcase in the men’s quarters. Something he should have burned, but hadn’t been quite able to do. 

“Sanji-kun, you better not be doing anything weird —”

Sanji jumps, hadn’t even heard the door open again. He turns around, looking at Robin and Nami with a stricken expression, feeling as if he’d been caught red-handed doing something illicit. They, however, don’t look at him with disdain or disgust. 

Rather, they both look surprised. 

“Oh wow, you look so pretty,” Nami says, smiling widely at him. “I knew this outfit would look great on you.”

There’s that word again. Pretty. Hates the way his stomach flutters at the praise, the tips of his ears burning with warmth at the compliment. 

He feels pretty, too, if he’s being honest with himself. 

“You do look good,” Robin adds, tapping her chin. “You just need some accessories, maybe curl your hair a little bit.”

“And makeup, definitely makeup.” Nami bounds towards him, a devious expression on her face as she wields a brush and eyeliner in her hands like they’re weapons of mass destruction. “We’re going to make you the prettiest, Sanji-kun.”

Sanji realizes then with startling clarity that lunch might have to be a little bit late, but if it’s for the sake of the girls, then it’s alright.

Lunch is indeed late, and Sanji is filled with a new-founded appreciation for how much time goes into women looking so beautiful each day.

Sanji wraps a strand of curled hair around his finger, biting down on a glossy lip as he watches everyone eat their lunch. He waits for someone, anyone to comment about his appearance, to tease him for dressing up like a girl, but nobody does. Usopp, Nami, and Luffy are currently bickering too loudly, drowning out everyone else, while Franky and Robin are conversing in low tones. Jimbei and Nami are engaged in a conversation about the weather under the sea, the discrepancies between land and underwater, while Chopper hums a happy tune as he digs into the cotton-candy flavored tarts Sanji prepared for him earlier. 

Nobody seems to mind that Sanji is currently seated at the table in feminine clothes, that he’s wearing a face of full makeup —painted onto his face with much more artful precision than what Sanji could ever do for himself on Kamabakka —his nails painted a light shade of sky blue to complement the plaid skirt he’s currently wearing. 

Except Zoro that is, who is currently staring a hole into Sanji’s face from across the table. He’s hardly touched his food, which Sanji usually finds incredibly offensive, but he has a feeling that Zoro isn’t hungry for food right now. 

Sanji averts his gaze from Zoro’s, shoving a forkful of food into his mouth, but he can hardly taste it. Even if nobody seems to care about his appearance, he can’t help how antsy he is, waiting for the mockery to come. For Zoro to eventually tell him that he hates how he looks, that he likes it when he looks less like a woman, because unlike him, Zoro doesn’t have an iota of interest in women. Likes the chiseled lines of men, the compact muscle under his fingertips, the testosterone that reeks from them in waves after a battle or during sex. 

He shouldn’t be yearning for Zoro’s approval, but he can’t help but care what he thinks of how he looks right now. 

“Cook,” Zoro says, pulling Sanji from his thoughts. “Lunch is over.”

Sanji blinks, looking right and left, only to see that everyone had excused themselves and there’s now a mountain of dishes for him to wash. Hadn’t lunch just started? How is it already over? Had he been that lost in thought?

Now, it’s just Zoro and him in the kitchen. 

“Oh,” Sanji says, standing up. “I must have gotten sidetracked, my bad. Best get started on the dishes.”

Zoro, however, blocks him from moving a step forward. Is standing right in front of him, an entire door of a man, and Sanji hates how small he feels right now. They’re the same height —the one centimeter difference between them doesn’t mean anything goddammit —but Zoro towers over him now. Sanji finds it difficult to hold Zoro’s gaze, not when his face has been so inscrutable during lunch and even right now. 

Why must he be so nervous around Zoro?

“Mosshead, I have dishes to do —”

“Forget the dishes.” Zoro’s hands wrap around Sanji’s waist, his fingertips almost meeting in the middle, the warmth of his hands bleeding through the fabric of the flimsy tanktop. “You look…different.”

Sanji lets out a gasp, his teeth digging into his bottom lip, the taste of strawberry lip gloss bursting on his tongue. 

“Different how?” Sanji prompts. 

“Girly,” Zoro grunts, pulling Sanji close so he can press his hard cock to his hips. “Pretty.”

Sanji’s heart pulses frenetically in his throat, making it difficult for him to swallow around it, warmth spreading like wildfire across his entire body. 

“I take it that you don’t hate it?” Sanji brushes a strand of hair behind his ear. 

This is why Sanji was so nervous around Zoro earlier. It’s because Zoro matters to him, and what he thinks of him matters, too. He wants to please him, wants Zoro to find him pretty, to be unable to get enough of him. 

Sanji muffles a groan as Zoro shoves him against the kitchen table they were all just dining at, the dishes behind him clattering audibly. 

“ Yes. ”

Zoro crashes his lips against Sanji’s, breathing him in, a hint of aggression as he kisses Sanji with more fervor than usual. He bites down on his bottom lip, brushing his tongue against Sanji’s, sucking on it, wresting a groan from his chest. Sanji tries to shove Zoro away, hyperaware of the fact that they’re in the kitchen and the kitchen is absolutely off limits, but his hands betray him by only pulling Zoro in closer by digging his fingers into his broad shoulders. 

A gasp falls from Sanji’s lips when Zoro throws him onto the dinner table, the legs creaking from the force of it, pushing his legs apart so he can stand in between them. Zoro brushes his lips against Sanji’s chin, mouthing against his stubble, his hands tightening around the small of Sanji’s waist as he presses a kiss into the crook of Sanji’s shoulder. 

“Mosshead,” Sanji tries, his logic starting to wane and fade as he angles his neck to offer Zoro more access. “I told you the kitchen is off-limits.”

“It’s just one time, we fuck in the crowsnest all the time.” Zoro shrugs, mouthing at the dip between his collarbones. 

If Sanji wasn’t completely drunk on lust and this prickly warmth that’s set deep in his skin since the moment he put on this stupid outfit, he would have kicked Zoro in the head. He would have told Zoro he doesn’t care. To keep it in his pants until they can fuck at a more opportune time and place. 

He wouldn’t have widened his legs, his own hard cock protruding so obviously underneath the skirt that Nami so graciously offered him earlier. He shouldn’t have moaned as Zoro’s fingers brushed against his hard nipples, pinching them, through the thin fabric of his tight wifebeater that barely leaves anything for the imagination. 

That was the beginning of his downfall. 

“But anyone could walk in,” Sanji protests, hates how whiny he sounds, even to his own ears. 

“And?” Zoro prompts, cocking an eyebrow. “They’re lucky I didn’t fuck you on the table right in front of everyone while they were eating like the pretty whore you are.”

The words make Sanji’s head floaty and buoyant, molten hot arousal cloying in the base of his stomach, brings a hand to his face only for it to come back bloody. The bright red blood contrasts against his pale skin, the light blue color of his nails, until he vaguely registers that he’s having a nosebleed. Fuck. He’s so horny right now, he might pass out from it. 

“You seem to like that idea,” Zoro muses, tongue lapping the blood that drips from Sanji’s nose while his hand rubs small circles into Sanji’s bare thigh, making him keen. “Do you want me to fuck you in front of everyone? In front of the girls you’re so obsessed with? In front of Luffy?”

That’s not it, of course not, would never want to taint the crew’s eyes like that. But how is Sanji supposed to tell Zoro that getting called a ‘pretty whore’ had his whole body going haywire with needy lust without self-combusting in the process? 

Sanji shakes his head, but he can’t speak, not when Zoro is licking every drop of blood on his face like it’s a delectable meal. Seems to enjoy it much more than the meal he’d prepared for him earlier, and his cock certainly doesn’t throb as a direct result. 

Zoro shoves his tongue into Sanji’s mouth, forcing him to taste the coppery taste of his own blood, and he likes it more than he should. 

“You’re a freak,” Sanji whispers against his lips as he pulls away. 

“Look who’s talking,” Zoro parries back, flipping up his skirt to reveal how hard Sanji is in his underwear, a wet spot in his underwear. “You obviously love it.”

Whatever quip that Sanji was about to offer Zoro wilts on his tongue when Zoro pulls down his underwear, letting it bunch around his loafers, his bare ass against his sacred dinner table. Every fiber of his being tells him how wrong this is, that he’s desecrating his kitchen which is his own temple of sanctity, but in the same vein, his blood only burns hotter with the intensity of Zoro’s heated gaze on him. His cock twitching, pre-come dribbling down from the tip, as Zoro licks his bottom lip like he sees a delectable meal, like Sanji is the most delicious thing he’s ever seen, and he’s ready to feast. 

It’s fine, Sanji tells himself, it’s just this once. 

“Wanna see your ass,” Zoro states, turning Sanji around with a flick of his hand, pressing Sanji down against the table. He lets out a winded gasp from the movement, ready to curse Zoro for how barbaric he’s being, when he feels Zoro roughly grope his ass underneath the fabric of his skirt. “The view is better here.”

“You’re just obsessed with my ass,” Sanji grumbles, not quite understanding why because his ass certainly isn’t voluptuous. “If you’re gonna do something, just do it now before someone walks in for fucks sake.” 

“Don’t be so prissy,” Zoro replies, squeezing Sanji’s ass hard enough to bruise. “Now it’s time for my dessert.”

Sanji hears the soft thud of Zoro sinking down to his knees, feels his hands roughly part his ass apart. His blue nails curl against the wooden table, biting down on his bottom lip to keep his voice down so the whole crew doesn’t hear him, as Zoro’s tongue strokes his rim. They hardly ever do foreplay, let alone oral, so Zoro eating out his ass is something that has every nerve in Sanji’s body standing on end with arousal. 

He closes his eyes shut, taking in a deep breath to center himself, unable to stay calm as Zoro greedily fucks him with his tongue. Especially with the visual of Zoro’s face in his ass, hidden by the hem of his skirt, Sanji’s cock probably dripping all over his yukata because he always gets so wet when he’s this aroused. Zoro is driving him insane with how he’s getting so deep with his tongue, stretching him out with it, and Sanji is getting a very real demonstration of the things that Zoro can actually do with that tongue. A question he’d always asked himself whenever he saw Zoro fight with Wado Ichimonji wedged between his teeth.

Another drop of fresh blood falls from Sanji’s nose onto the table when he feels Zoro spread him open with his fingers, fucking him with two fingers alongside his tongue, further opening him up. As if insistent on driving Sanji over the edge, Zoro massages Sanji’s taint, stimulating him from both the outside and the inside. Sanji keens, eyes rolling back, because he loves being filled up to the brim. Loves getting fucked a little too much for a man who’s supposed to primarily love women, the blot of shame he’s forced himself to accept, because he’d be remiss to deny himself the pleasure that Zoro gives him so generously. 

“Fuck,” Sanji groans when Zoro’s fingers finally find his prostate, his voice hoarse and broken, too loud despite his best efforts to keep quiet. “Fuck me, Zoro, or I’ll fucking murder you.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Zoro retorts, pulling off his rim with a pop that makes Sanji squirm. Gasps when Zoro grabs a fistful of his curled hair, pulling his head back roughly so he’s forced to look at Zoro, his lips tilting upwards as he sees the evidence of his fresh nosebleed on his face. “You should see yourself right now, you look like a slut that’s desperate for cock.”

The words are so crass, so derogatory, but Sanji can’t help but melt at them. Nods eagerly, wanting nothing more than Zoro’s cock to fuck him full, till he can’t think anymore, because nothing fills him up so well as Zoro’s cock does. 

“I am,” Sanji says, bringing his fingers up to his face to stem the nosebleed, but only manages to stain his fingers further with more blood. “So just fuck me properly, dumbass.”

“And how could I ever say no to that?” Zoro muses. 

Zoro drops Sanji back onto the table unceremoniously, repositioning himself behind him. Bracing himself, Sanji bites down on his bottom lip until he breaks the skin, as Zoro bottoms out inch by inch. Just the tip has him feeling so full, but the more Zoro fucks into him, Sanji feels every crevice of himself getting filled up to the brink. 

Once Zoro has completely bottomed out, his cock snug inside of him to hit all the right spots, he gyrates his hips in small motions. His way of getting Sanji used to his cock before he starts fucking him properly, but Sanji doesn’t want Zoro to be considerate or gentle with him today. Pushes his hips back against Zoro’s, the tips of his ears burning. 

“Move.”

“Don’t bitch about me being a brute later then,” Zoro grunts. 

Sanji wouldn’t dream of it, he thinks, as Zoro immediately shifts to fuck him properly. Bending over him so that his chest is pressed against Sanji’s back, his cock pistoning in and out of him so fast, the legs of the dinner table starting to creak and the dishes on the table clattering noisily. That might pose an issue, someone might come to investigate, but Sanji can’t bring himself to care when every thrust is positioned directly against his prostate. 

Zoro’s lips find Sanji’s nape, kissing him right underneath his hairline, his hands fastened around his waist underneath the skirt. There’s a fierce desperation to Zoro’s movements, like he simply can’t get enough of Sanji, but he might just be imagining it. 

“Harder,” Sanji begs, voice breaking. “More.”

“So needy,” Zoro replies. “But fine.”

Zoro obliges him, fucks Sanji even harder, three plates falling and clattering with a loud crash onto the floor from the force of it. Zoro is so strong, Sanji thinks, so big and strong and he’s fucking me so good. Sanji’s nose bleeds so profusely that he’s starting to feel lightheaded, can’t think about anything except how his whole body has become a hotwire of pleasure. His prostate buzzing with each thrust, his cock dripping with neglect.

If Sanji is being honest with himself, Zoro isn’t the only one on edge, because if there’s an edge, then Sanji has already toppled off it a long time ago. He’s so desperate, so needy for more. 

“You seem close,” Zoro remarks, wrapping his hand around the base of Sanji’s cock. “Don’t you want to come, Love Cook?”

His vision is also starting to get spotty, black spots forming in his periphery, the dishes in front of him starting to blur and fade out. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees stars explode behind his eyelids. His chest is going to give up on him. 

He’s going to pass out, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t get to come before doing so. 

“Yes.” Sanji’s hole spasms around Zoro’s cock, clenching and unclenching wildly. “Wanna come so bad.”

Zoro groans, burying the sound in Sanji’s neck, biting him hard enough to make Sanji wince as he draws blood. 

“Good. ‘Cause I wanna come too.”

Zoro, impossibly, picks up the pace even more. Fucks Sanji even harder, his hand moving in tandem with his wild and sloppy thrusts, fingers teasing his tip on each upstroke. His head is starting to feel so floaty, so cloudy with pleasure. It’s so good, so perfect that Sanji has to bite his own arm so he doesn’t let out the litany of moans that are trapped in his throat, eyes rolling back with pleasure. 

All it takes is one particularly hard thrust against Sanji’s prostate, feeling Zoro’s come filling him up and making a mess out of his insides, for Sanji to finally come. His come hitting the floor, and probably the skirt that Nami so graciously gave him, but Sanji moans weakly as he comes for what feels like forever. As Zoro fucks him through his own orgasm, his whole body twitching uncontrollably with oversensitivity and spikes of pleasure that are suddenly becoming too much for him to bear. 

Zoro made a mess out of him again, Sanji can’t help but think with despair as the whole world starts to go black, and his kitchen this time too. He won’t forgive him for this. 

When Sanji next comes to, he’s still in the kitchen, but he’s no longer splayed out atop his dinner table. Rather, he’s settled in his little kitchen cot, Zoro’s green yukata draped over him like a blanket. He’s also still in his outfit from earlier, the skirt fanning out over his thighs, but there’s questionable white stains on the fabric that Sanji unfortunately knows the source of. 

He blinks away the dejavu from waking up in such a similar position in the same place, only a few weeks apart, albeit under wildly different circumstances. Fuck, Sanji never thought he would desecrate his kitchen in such an unholy manner, he’s a failure of a cook. Zeff would have made him walk the plank if this ever happened in Baratie. 

Sanji doesn’t know what came over him, his self-control is usually better than this. 

Slowly, he looks up to find Zoro still in his kitchen, standing at his sink. He’s shirtless, too, which is a visual Sanji absolutely shouldn’t be enjoying at all. Quashes it as his neck prickles with annoyance, standing up too quickly, tripping over Zoro’s yukata and just barely finding his footing before he headplants into the dinner table. 

“Be careful,” Zoro admonishes him, turning away from the sink. There’s suds of soap on his hands, a whole pile of dishes in the sink behind him. “You’re clearly not well, you lost a lot of blood earlier.”

“How long was I out of it?” Sanji demands, gripping a chair tightly as he uprights himself against the heavy weight of gravity that’s trying to tip him back onto the floor. “And why are you washing my dishes?”

“It’s been ten or fifteen minutes, give or take.” Zoro shrugs, turning back to the sink. “I’m washing your dishes ‘cause you’re unwell, and washing dishes is something any brainless bloke could do.”

Sanji’s heart softens despite itself. Nobody has ever offered to help him with the mountain of dishes he has to wash each day on the Sunny, something he’s long since accustomed himself to since he worked at the Baratie, but it’s still strangely considerate. 

“Are you calling yourself a brainless bloke?” Sanji quirks an eyebrow, covering his face to hide the smile that’s starting to bloom there. “Acceptance is the first step to getting better, afterall.”

“Shut up, I don’t wanna hear that from you,” Zoro replies without turning towards Sanji, placing a dish on the drying rack. “You’re the dumb pervert cook who fainted during sex because he hasn’t been taking care of himself properly.”

“That’s not true,” Sanji argues, taking a step forward so he can help Zoro with the dishes. It is his duty after all, refuses to throw that onto Zoro, stands tall as he stands to his right so he doesn’t notice how close Sanji is to passing out a second time. “I was just…feeling a lot, I guess.”

“You haven’t passed out during sex before.” Zoro refuses to budge from the sink, but he offers Sanji a dish to dry, knows that Sanji needs to keep his hands busy for his own sanity. “Are you sleeping well?” Are you still having nightmares? is the question that Zoro is actually asking him, but isn’t vocalizing aloud. 

Sanji hums, drying the dishes that Zoro proffered to him and then drying the other ones in the dish rack. He can surmise that he’d been out of it for more than ten to fifteen minutes from the sheer number of dishes Zoro has already washed, a prickle of guilt surging in his chest. 

“I’ve been sleeping, maybe three or four hours each night,” Sanji tells Zoro. “No nightmares, but I’ve been struggling to fall asleep.”

“Yeah?”

“Hmm, I think it’s anxiety,” Sanji admits. “Wanna tire myself out before I fall asleep so I don’t have time to think, the energy to have dreams let alone nightmares.”

That’s putting it lightly. Ever since his last nightmare, Sanji has spent hours putting off sleep each night, staring at the ceiling while he tried to get comfortable in his hammock. He’d listen to Luffy and Franky’s loud snores, the gentle rocking of the sea, zoning in on those sounds so he could stay alert and awake. His tired, bloodshot eyes, long since adjusted to the darkness would try to find patterns in the shadows on the ceiling. A game to keep himself occupied, thinking about anything except sleep, about his past. 

Sleep would always come to claim him eventually, a fitful bout that never left him rested because he’d have to awake again at the crack of dawn to prepare breakfast, but he would have tired himself so much that he needn’t worry about seeing Vinsmoke Judge or Zoro’s dead body in his sleeping hours. 

“You think too much,” Zoro remarks, handing Sanji another plate to dry. His technique is slow, less efficient than Sanji’s and takes up way too much soap, but he’s not in the mood to lecture him right now. “It’s not good for you.”

“And you don’t think at all,” Sanji deadpans, nudging Zoro with his shoulder playfully. 

“You should just sleep with me in the crowsnest,” Zoro says casually, his face a mask of neutrality that Sanji can’t decipher. “You’d probably sleep better there.”

Sanji is quiet for a few moments, considering the request. It probably didn’t come out of thin air, everything with Zoro is always deliberate. Most couples usually sleep together, don’t they? They share a room, share a bed, sleep together even without a sexual context to bring them together. 

It would make sense for Sanji and Zoro to start sleeping together, they’ve been together for over a year now, too. 

But what would the others think? There’s no way they wouldn’t find out. 

“I could,” Sanji offers noncommittally, shoving the thought to the back of his head, refusing to ruin the moment with his own negativity. “You have an extra blanket to spare? It gets pretty cold up there.”

“I’d keep you warm.” Zoro smirks at him. 

“Fucking unbelievable,” Sanji groans, kicking Zoro’s shin, because of course, sex is the primary thing that Zoro is thinking about. All that man ever thinks about is violence, booze, and sex, he swears it. Then, chancing a glance at Zoro before he loses his nerve, he whispers, “So I take it that you liked it.”

“Liked what?” Zoro asks, playing dumb. 

“ Me, ” Sanji supplies, pointing at himself. His face is burning, his chest is tight with embarrassment. “Me like this.”

“I did,” Zoro replies. “I do.”

“I was worried you’d find it gross,” Sanji admits, laughing mirthlessly. 

“You’re always worried about all the wrong things,” Zoro says. “But no, you’re not gross. You’re a lot of things, but you’ve never been gross.”

Sanji closes his eyes, his long lashes coated with mascara fluttering against his cheeks. 

“And it — it wouldn’t bother you if I dressed like this again?” Sanji dares ask. 

“No,” Zoro replies, rising off the last dish in the sink. “You should dress however way you want to, and if that’s in a fucking dress, then so be it. It just so happens that you look good in said dresses which is a bonus point.”

Absently, Sanji dries off the last dish, wondering if Zoro is aware of the effect his words had on him. It was easy to get affirmation from the other Queens on Kamabakka island, because they’d all chosen that path, and they wanted Sanji to be the same. Nami and Robin were both so kind, showering him with praise and flattery earlier, but they were women and it was clear that Nami just wanted the opportunity to doll someone up. 

But Zoro telling him that he can do what he wants, that he still finds him attractive regardless, fills him with a well of warmth that he doesn’t know what to do with. 

It was approval that he hadn’t known he’d been searching for, not until it was given to him. 

“I love you,” Sanji whispers. 

“Hah?” Zoro frowns. “You keep on mumbling, I can hardly hear you.”

“I was just calling you a Mosshead idiot.” Sanji rolls his eyes, his heart swelling with affection for his dumbass partner. Zoro opens his mouth to retort, but Sanji cuts him off by resting his head on his shoulder. “Can I sleep with you tonight then?”

“I already told you that you could,” Zoro replies, wrapping a hand around Sanji’s waist.

“Then I'll take you up on that offer.” Sanji turns Zoro’s face towards him, pressing a kiss to his lips, chaste and sweet. “Thank you, Zoro.” For everything. 

Chapter Text

The strawhats have embarked on yet another adventure.

This time it’s something a bit more traditional than usual. A break from the pursuit for poneglyphs and the elaborate heists to take down near invincible pirates. A break from searching for the One Piece, although that’s always simmering on the backburner. 

No, this time, they’re taking a page out of Buggy’s book, and they’re on a treasure hunt. 

The idea was Usopp’s, presenting them with a treasure map that he found on the previous island, a shit-eating grin on his face as he watched Luffy’s eyes light up with the promise of an adventure, Nami’s with the scent of gold. And an adventure, there would be, because to retrieve the treasure, there’s a series of items they have to get first. Each item would give them a hint to the next item, each item on another island, helping them close in on the treasure by the end of it.

Sanji doesn’t mind an adventure or two, a breath of fresh air between the fights for their lives.

The first island that the Sunny anchors at is a rare autumnal island, one that’s bursting with the same shades of warmth of a sunset on the horizon. The trees are large, hulking, decorated with leaves in vivid hues of red, yellow, and orange mixing to form a vibrant palette that’s impossible to look away from. The dirt path is lined with strange animal creatures – hybrids of squirrels, bunnies, and deer all conglomerating together to form a strange third other thing – and wild herbs. He makes a mental note to check out those herbs later, might find some that he could add to his food for an extra splash of exotic flavor. Though, he’ll have to make sure he goes along with Chopper so he doesn’t accidentally pick up anything poisonous either. 

The weather is also tinged with a hint of cold, and while Sanji hates winter islands more than any other island, he finds himself enjoying the chilly tinge of autumn. It’s just chilly enough for Sanji to wear a warm knitted blue sweater, a scarf, and loose slacks. His hair, which he’s been growing out a bit, is tied up in a small ponytail at the base of his scalp, letting his fringe fall over his face, so long that it grazes against his chin now. 

He might trim it soon, probably should, but he’s been putting it off. 

“We’re gonna go treasure hunting!” Luffy announces, wrapping his arms around Nami and Usopp’s shoulders. “See you guys later!”

Nobody even gets a second word in edgewise before Luffy is already running off, his party composed of Nami, Usopp, Franky, and Chopper all struggling to keep up with his pace, while the rest are left in their dust. Sanji looks at the others, each already starting to go their separate way, including Zoro who’s already turning walking away from him. Before he can even think twice of it, his fingers find the sleeve of Zoro’s yukata.

“Where the hell are you going, Mosshead?” Sanji prompts, furrowing his brows. “You’re going to get lost.”

“Gonna go find a bar,” Zoro supplies. “Want some booze.”

“But what if you get lost?” Sanji digs his heel into the ground. “Who will find you then?”

Sanji knows that if there’s one place Zoro won’t get lost whilst looking for it, then it would be a bar. It’s the only location he has a sixth sense for. But still, there’s always the possibility that something could go wrong, because something always does go wrong whenever Zoro is left to his own devices.

“You will,” Zoro replies smoothly, placing a hand on Sanji’s hair and ruffling it. “Don’t worry so much.”

Sanji? Worried? About the Mosshead? Of course not. He never worries about him. Except maybe he does, just a little bit. Every time they go to a new island, Zoro always insists on exploring by himself and always, always, gets lost. And whenever he gets lost, he always gets himself in trouble.

Then it’s up to Sanji to fret, worry, and try his damn best to get him out of that trouble.

“I’m not worried,” Sanji dismisses him, flicking Zoro’s hand away from his hair so he can fix it again. “Didn’t you say you’d be my pack mule today?”

He knows full well that Zoro said no such thing, doesn’t even have much that he wants to buy from this island, but he challenges him to say otherwise.

“I guess I did,” Zoro replies, playing along with Sanji’s impromptu request. He takes a step closer, tapping Sanji’s wrist, right where the compass Usopp gave him lies. “Come find me in an hour. Once I have some booze in my system, I’ll do whatever you want.”

Sanji’s ears tinge red with liquid hot warmth at being called out so blatantly, hadn’t known that Zoro realized already what the compass was for. A link between him and Zoro, so he wouldn’t have to worry about him as much, so he could find him with ease. A clear sign of how much Sanji cares about Zoro despite his best efforts to look indifferent.

He nods curtly, hoping that Zoro doesn’t pick up on his mortification, but judging from the lazy smirk on his face, he already had.

“Or you could come along with me for an hour, be my pack mule, and then we’ll get some booze in your system,” Sanji tries.

God, he must sound so desperate and needy right now.

Sanji wonders when he’d become so needy and desperate for Zoro’s company. When had the amount of time he spends with him fail to become enough? When had he started to crave every moment to be spent by Zoro’s side?

“You wanna be with me that bad?” Zoro prompts, pulling Sanji in closer by his scarf. “That’s unlike you, Love Cook.”

“Is that so bad?” Sanji juts out his chin. “You make it sound as if my company is burdensome.”

“Only a little,” Zoro muses. “You’re quite high maintenance.”

Sanji, once again, wonders how he fell in love with the most unromantic man on the planet. Why couldn’t he be normal? Why couldn’t he appreciate Sanji’s efforts to take Zoro out somewhere that’s not the deck of the Thousand Sunny, somewhere nice for once? Why couldn’t he swoon and fall into Sanji’s arms like a beautiful maiden would? 

Why must he tease Sanji until he feels as if his face is on fire with mortification? 

“Fine,” Sanji says, a tinge of disappointment welling in his chest. “I’ll go find you later, since I’m so high maintenance to be around.”

“Don’t be like that.” Zoro wraps his hand around Sanji’s wrist, bringing him in close. “I’ll be your pack mule, but you’d better pay for my booze.”

It’s a paper-thin excuse, one that Zoro is offering Sanji to help him save face. Sanji tugs at his sweater sleeves, wondering how desperate he’d look if he showed him how desperately he wants to say yes. Then, he realizes that he’s already made a fool of himself in front of Zoro, so it doesn’t matter.

Sanji hates the way his heart hangs on his sleeve, so easily swayed by Zoro’s words and his stupid smiles, giddiness rushing over him. He nods eagerly. 

“I’ll take you to the nicest tavern this island has to offer,” Sanji promises, his voice coming out breathy. “But only if you make it worth my while.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard,” Zoro replies, tugging on his hand. “Lead the way, Cook, so we don’t get lost.”

Sanji covers his face with his hand so Zoro doesn’t see the stupid grin that’s starting to form behind it. He still isn’t sure when he became so dependent on Zoro’s presence, but as long as Zoro doesn’t seem to mind, then he’ll continue to cling to him anyway. 

Naturally, Sanji takes Zoro to the marketplace first. 

He tries not to be self-conscious as he does so, looking at the local cuisine that’s being sold in each kiosk. He feels hyper-aware of Zoro, even though they’ve done this hundreds of times before, but it feels different now. The word ‘date’ keeps flitting over Sanji’s head, teasing him, impossible to ignore. 

Sanji feels an impossible urge to please, to make sure Zoro has fun today, bewitched by Sanji’s presence. He wants to touch Zoro’s wrist, feel his heart beating wildly in the artery underneath. Wanting more of Sanji’s company, of Sanji himself. 

Except, Sanji doesn’t even know what people do on dates, because he hasn’t ever been in a relationship before. He’s dreamt of being in one, dreamt of the loud proclamations of love, hearts flying and flowers blooming everywhere, but he doesn’t know what makes up the in between. What he’s supposed to do and say to appeal his partner. 

And if he wants to do that, he probably has to up his game. He grunts, buying some of the cold cuts of the hybrid animals that inhabit this country, already ready to move on. 

“Ma’am,” Sanji asks the vendor quietly, so Zoro doesn’t hear him, after passing her the correct amount of berries. “Is there anything interesting to do on this island?”

The elderly woman smiles, a glint of mischief dancing in her eyes, as she pockets the money Sanji handed her carefully. 

“What do you mean by interesting?” 

“You know.” Sanji gesticulates vaguely. “Interesting. Nice. Pretty? Fun? Just…something different than what you’d see on any other island.”

“I wouldn’t know about sights on other islands, I’ve never been anywhere but here; this place is my home. Has been since I was a girl,” the old woman replies wistfully, a far away look in her eye as she loses herself momentarily in the memories and nostalgia of youth. “But we do have some things worth seeing.”

Home being a single place? Sanji wouldn’t know anything about that, having had lived his whole life at sea as he has, but there’s something that sounds appealing about it. About spending so many years in a singular place, knowing it like the back of his own hand.

“Yeah?” Sanji leans in closer so he doesn’t miss a single word. “Like what?”

“There’s a fireworks festival in the evening in the townsquare,” she elaborates. “Lights going up in the sky, one after the other, beautiful. And if you go by the by, you’ll find a creek. It’s quite the romantic spot for a date too, there’s a legend that a couple who watches the fireworks from that spot will stay together forever. Used to go there all the time with my late husband.”

Sanji’s face reddens, shaking his head in protest, but the old woman merely cackles in amusement. 

“It must be nice to be young and in love,” the old woman tells him, smiling as she pats Sanji’s hand. “Treasure it, young man, and treasure him. He hasn’t stopped watching you for a second.”

Sanji instinctively turns behind him to see where the old woman is pointing, and sees Zoro out on the main street, kicking a stone idly. All while his eyes are on Sanji and the old woman, an inscrutable expression on his face. 

When their eyes meet, Zoro drops his gaze and looks elsewhere. 

Sanji returns his attention to the old woman, face warmer than a tomato. He conjures many words of denial and excuses, but they all wilt before they can make their way off his tongue. For some reason, now, those words all seem insignificant in the eye of a stranger who is regarding him with nothing but warmth and fondness. Instead, he gives her a simple “thank you”, before finally standing up and taking some of her advice. 

“Let’s go, Mosshead.” Sanji smiles. “I heard of some place nice.”

The creek that the old woman told Sanji about isn’t done any justice by her simple description of it. 

It’s nothing short of enthralling. A creek of crystal clear water, reflecting the rapidly darkening sky above it, the fallen autumnal leaves swimming on its tranquil surface. All around them, there are dozens and dozens of tall and majestic trees, boasting vibrant shades of red and orange. At the base of each tree, there’s a smattering of flowers in varying stages of blooming, standing tall and bright. The air is cooler here, Sanji can almost smell the coolness in the air, refreshing as it gushes into his lungs and fills him with a distilled calmness. 

However, when Sanji cups his hands in the water of the creek, it’s perfectly warm to the touch. Fascinating. 

“Isn’t this place beautiful, Mosshead?” Sanji looks at him, smiling at him expectantly. 

“Sure.” Zoro shrugs, getting comfortable as he props himself up against a tree, crossing his arms behind his head and closing his eyes. “Wake me up when you’re ready to go. Drinks are on you.”

Sanji gasps indignantly, because how could Zoro be so indifferent to such a beautiful sight? He gets up, kicking the bark of the tree behind Zoro, watching a cluster of red leaves fall atop Zoro’s green hair, making him resemble a Christmas tree more than a person. 

“Don’t sleep,” Sanji tells him. “The fireworks haven’t started yet.”

The legend reverberates in the back of his head. Forever, the old woman said, which sounds nice. Sanji would like to have a forever with Zoro. 

But Zoro has to be awake for that. 

“I don’t care about fireworks,” Zoro replies. “‘m just here ‘cause I was following your lead.”

Sanji grits his jaw, feeling immensely frustrated, because why does he have to be the only one who tries at all? The old woman was wrong about Zoro. There isn’t a romantic bone in his body, he’s just a dumbass who doesn’t think about anything but booze and sex. 

He’s about to give Zoro a piece of his mind when he’s interrupted by a booming sound, a clap of thunder overhead, and a sudden downpour of rain that drenches them both. Sanji more than Zoro, because he’s the one who wasn’t standing underneath the tree’s shade for shelter. 

For a moment that seems to last a century, Sanji merely stands there, nonplussed. Unable to react to the phenomenally bad luck. 

“I don’t think they’re gonna be doing any firework shows in this weather.” Zoro laughs at him, standing up as he squeezes his shoulder. “But we should go find shelter before we get totally drenched.”

Sanji, for lack of anything better to say, sulks as he follows Zoro’s lead. So much for a nice date. 

As expected, with Zoro leading, they find themselves in a tavern in record time. His internal compass only kicking in when it’s leading him towards booze, so that they only took two unnecessary detours in the middle. 

The doors are rickety and the lights are dimmed, a flame roaring in the hearth to imbue the tavern with a cozy warmth. In a corner, someone plays an uplifting tune on the piano, setting an ambiance of lightness that Brook and Luffy would have loved had they been here. The patrons all seem to be regulars, men and women conversing with a familiarity that only comes from knowing someone for years. Even the bartender carries a winsome grin across his face as he polishes his glasses, a fluid rapport between him and the gentlemen by the bar that everyone seems to be enjoying chipping in on.

“I'll get us some booze,” Zoro says. “And food.” The second part tacked on as an afterthought, making Sanji roll his eyes. 

Sanji feels slightly out of place as he stands in the middle of the tavern, a stranger drenched from the rain standing in the midst of so many faces that are already familiar to each other, but it's a feeling that Zoro clearly doesn’t share as he orders them both a round of drinks. He’s also largely used to it by now, the nature of their lives as pirates means that they're always adrift at sea, never staying in one place for more than a few weeks at most. Hell, it was like that ever since he was a kid, working on the Baratie, which never stayed at one location for more than a few weeks at a time. Like that, every new face he met eventually starts to fade in his memory, until they become nothing more than a story to reminisce upon.

Really, the only constant in Sanji’s life now would be the strawhats, and the adventures they embark on. He loves it, loves the freedom that comes with it, but distantly wonders if this sense of comfort that comes from settling down is something he'll ever have one day. What would it be like, he muses, if home wasn’t always drifting at sea but a place?

Maybe when he finds the All Blue, and opens his own restaurant, he thinks idly. 

“Drinks.” Zoro slams two pints of beer on the rickety wooden table in front of Sanji, the contents sloshing over the edge. With more ease, Zoro offers a plate of rice with a side of grilled fish and vegetables. “And food.” 

Sanji takes his own pint of beer, scrutinizing the glass for cleanliness, frowning because he doesn’t really care for beer at all. It doesn't stimulate his palette at all and is made for people like the Mosshead who have no ability to taste properly. Whenever he likes to indulge, it'll be with a fine glass of wine. 

The food also looks a bit bland, the rice too soggy, but Sanji would never complain about food. Any food is good food. 

“That’s the good stuff.” Zoro wipes his mouth, having already downed half his pint in one go. He reclines in his chair, his posture already looser with the alcohol coursing through his veins. 

Sanji sips at his beer, hiding a grimace behind the glass, nodding to show his assent. He studies Zoro through the amber tint of the beer in his glass, hating how good Zoro still looks despite being just as drenched as he is. Sanji, who caught a glimpse of himself in a glasspane, looked like a drowned rat with his blonde hair plastered to his face in wispy tendrils and his blue sweater a heavy weight atop his shoulders. Alternatively, Zoro looks graceful; the rain water only making his green hair a shade darker, reminding Sanji of wide planes of forest and freedom. The suds of water run down the sharp cut of his jaw, dipping in the crevice between his collarbones, the glint of his three earrings in the dimmed lighting of the tavern. There’s a smile on Zoro’s face, wide and content as he guzzles down his beer like there’s no tomorrow, drops of alcohol scaling down his chin. 

He looks handsome, bedazzlingly so, and Sanji can’t help but resent him for it. 

“Hey, don’t tell me you’re still upset about the fireworks.” Zoro frowns. “You can see them anywhere else.”

“I’m not.” Sanji shakes his head. “Forget about it.”

Sanji is certainly sulking, but it isn’t just because of the fireworks. He hides his pout by taking a swig of his beer, waiting for the alcohol to start coursing through his system so he can forget all about his naive stupidity from earlier. 

A romantic date with Zoro? Sanji must have been delusional. 

“You’ve been acting weird all day, Cook.” Zoro comments, already polishing off his first drink and signaling the barkeep to get him another glass. 

He has, and it’s embarrassing to be called out on it. He definitely doesn’t want to say anything about it, let alone how much he’d been looking forward to carrying out the dumb myth the old woman told him about. 

How disappointed he is that they didn’t. 

“You need to drink more,” Zoro says, plopping down next to Sanji and tipping Sanji’s pint towards his mouth. “You need to loosen up, Cook.”

Sanji chokes as the alcohol is forced down his throat, has no choice but to swallow the acrid drink, much to Zoro’s amusement. He hears him snicker, tugging on his ponytail to tip his head back, forcing the entire pint down his throat till the very last drop. 

Zoro slams the empty glass down, Sanji coughing because he can swear some of the beer went down the wrong airpipe. He must look a mess right now; ruddy cheeks, wet hair that’s starting to frizz up in the tavern’s warmth, beer running down his chin messily. His blood is already starting to singe his veins, the alcohol making him heady. Sanji snarls, fisting the emerald-green lapels of his yukata, wanting nothing more than to wipe off the smarmy grin on his face. 

“You fucking asshole —”

“Let’s have a drinking contest,” Zoro challenges, cutting off Sanji to signal towards a waiter to get them a round of shots. “We haven’t had one of those in a while.”

The reason they haven’t had a drinking contest in a while is because every time they do, Zoro wipes the floor with Sanji. He can barely hold his alcohol compared to Zoro, already feels tipsy from downing that one pint of beer all too quickly. Still, he can’t help but get stupidly competitive once they’ve started. 

Zoro, on the other hand, looks as nonplussed and annoying as ever. 

“The stakes?” He licks his bottom lip, the taste of alcohol and a fresh challenge bursting on his tongue. Sanji doesn’t miss the way Zoro’s eye flit towards his bottom lip. “There’s no point in a contest without them.”

Zoro hums pensively, only a moment of thought, until his face twists into the kind he usually saves for the bedroom. The depraved expression he usually holds when he’s about to wreck Sanji until he can barely walk the next day. 

Sanji fidgets, losing a bit of his nerve. 

An arm wraps around Sanji’s shoulders, bringing him closer until Zoro’s warm breath is directly against his ear. 

“Loser has to suck off the winner,” Zoro whispers. 

Molten hot warmth pools in the base of Sanji’s stomach at the proposal, an image flitting by his mind of Zoro on his knees for him. An image that shifts, morphs as their positions change, Sanji on his knees with his tongue stuck out. Waiting. 

He’s never sucked a cock before, the concept nasty and depraved to him, and incredibly taboo. But his tipsy brain is curious. Wonders how it would feel to have his mouth stuffed full with cock, if it feels the same as getting fucked from behind. 

Sanji downs a shot of what he presumes is hard tequila, hoping the burn of alcohol down his throat would erode the filthy images in his brain. It doesn’t. 

“You’re on.”

Sanji knew that taking on a drinking challenge from Zoro is the equivalent to signing off his own soul to the devil. He’d literally dug his own grave and now he has to lie in it. 

He doesn’t know how long they’ve been drinking or how many drinks he’s had. He stopped counting somewhere after the fifth round of drinks, or was it the seventh? He isn’t sure. All the drinks started to blur together, especially around the part where they gained the attention of the other patrons in the tavern who started to cheer for them, hollering in excitement with each drink they downed. They even started forcing drinks into their hands, more and more, countless shots that burned on their way down. 

Every time Sanji saw Zoro downing another drink, nothing but a light dust of pink on his cheeks to show he’s affected at all, Sanji would only bristle and down another two drinks to counter him. With each drink, he’d feel his head grow fuzzier, his blood burning hotter. 

His body is wanting. 

“Have you admitted defeat yet, Curly Brow?” Zoro asks him, his voice muffled through the cotton stuffed in Sanji’s ears. 

He is absolutely smashed right now, but he would never admit defeat so easily. 

“I – I can keep going,” Sanji slurs, slamming another glass on the table. His head is heavy as lead, feels it hanging as it knocks into the wooden table. “Day I admit defeat is the day I die.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t be so dramatic,” Zoro replies. “Time to throw in the towel.”

Gingerly, Zoro lifts Sanji’s plastered body off the table. He throws Sanji’s arm around his shoulder, wrapping an arm around his waist. His warmth bleeds through the fabric of Sanji’s damp sweater, the burn of loss and lust mixing together. 

Because Sanji did lose, right? And even through his drunken stupor, Sanji knows what loss means, his whole body buzzing with the realization. Will Zoro ask Sanji to deliver on the terms of their challenge now? 

His feet drag, his weight entirely carried by Zoro, the heat of alcohol and want starting to fester in his bloodstream. He drapes himself against Zoro, his skin overheating as he presses a wet kiss to Zoro’s throat, teeth scraping against the fluttering pulse underneath. 

“A room,” Zoro states gruffly, pushing Sanji’s face away from his throat much to his disgruntlement. “For two.”

Sanji hears the distinct jangle of metal —keys, he realizes — and wonders where they’re going. The Sunny doesn’t need keys, and it’s so far away too, but Zoro is already dragging him away. Up a flight of stairs which Sanji can’t help but trip on, whining as he stubs his toe, and again when he bumps into Zoro’s broad shoulders. 

Why is he built like a door like that? It’s so hot, but also so unfair of him precisely because of how hot it is. 

“Has anyone ever told you — hic —how hot you are before?” Sanji implores as Zoro pushes him inside the room. He hums, pushing Zoro against the door forcefully, letting his fingers trace all over Zoro’s face, against the scar that lies there. “Because you’re hot, so hot.”

Zoro shoots him a funny look, but he doesn’t extricate himself from Sanji’s grasp. 

“You’re drunk off your ass,” Zoro says instead. “You’d never say that if you were sober.”

Sanji is not drunk, he thinks. He’s just a little tipsy, a little floaty, but he still feels everything too acutely to be properly drunk. Like the fact that his body feels as if it’s been lit ablaze, or the fact that his cock is hard in his pants, begging for attention. 

The important stuff. 

If anyone is drunk, then it’s definitely Zoro. Sanji can see the persistent flush on his cheeks, ruddy with the tint that only alcohol can give him, and Sanji preens at the fact that he was even able to get Zoro to such a state. 

“But it’s true,” Sanji protests, offended at Zoro’s dismissive reply. “You’re hot, perfect even. Always makes me so unwell.”

“Yeah?” Zoro asks, hands wrapping his hands around the small of Sanji’s waist so that their hips are flush against each other. “You’re not so bad yourself, Love Cook.”

“Want you, Mosshead.” Sanji gasps, rutting his hips against Zoro’s, breathing in the hot puffs of air that Zoro lets out on every exhale. “Please.”

“You’re drunk,” Zoro grunts, head rolling back against the door behind him. 

“So are you,” Sanji argues. “‘sides, I always want you. Drunk or sober.”

The words just keep falling from his lips, unbidden, no filter to inhibit them. It’s liberating, feels light with it. 

“You’re killing me,” Zoro rasps. 

Sanji drops to his knees, looking up at Zoro expectantly, watching his eye widen as he does so. He smiles at him dopily, nuzzling Zoro’s hard cock in his pants, can almost feel the engorged veins through the fabric of his pants. 

“Cook, you —”

“Loser sucks the winner’s cock, right?” Sanji prompts, mouthing the tip of Zoro’s cock through the fabric of his pants, relishing in the sharp inhale Zoro takes in as a result. “I lost so lemme suck you off.” 

Without waiting for a response, Sanji pulls down the elastic band of Zoro’s pants to reveal the hard cock that lies underneath. No underwear because Zoro is a heathen who doesn’t believe in the importance of undergarments, but when he’s this inebriated, Sanji can’t help the way his own arousal cloys as a result. Zoro is so dirty, so nasty, and yet Sanji must be broken because he only finds it even more attractive. 

Sanji’s eyes droop, watching the cock in front of him with rapt attention. He’s seen it so many times before at this point, but now that he’s so close to it, he feels as if he’s seeing it for the first time. Each ridge, every vein, the dollop of pre-come that’s beading down the tip. It’s all new to him. 

“I’ve never done this before, but I’ll make it good for you,” Sanji hears himself promise, the incense of a challenge igniting within his chest once more. 

After unlocking the meaning of the word ‘queer’ when he was much younger, Sanji started to pick up on the words that were synonymous with it for sailors. Words that sounded like slurs, whispered with an undercut of mockery and sleazy mirth, eliciting a rambunctious round of laughter from the round table of pirates. Words like ‘fairy’, ‘fag’, and ‘homosexual’. 

One of the words that stuck with Sanji the most, however, was ‘ cocksucker’. A word that spoke for itself, the definition written between the letters. A man who sucked cock, who got on his knees, servicing another man with his mouth. It was supposed to be demeaning, but the first time Sanji heard it —a pirate calling another marine that, a dark glint in his eye as he did, during a particularly nasty scuffle on the Baratie —his whole body had frozen. Not with ice, but with liquefied heat, the image tainting his mind. 

An image of himself on his knees, a cock being shoved in his own mouth. His mouth salivated around his cigarette then, all too small in his lips all of a sudden. 

“How are you gonna make it good if you’re just staring at it?” Zoro smacks Sanji’s cheek with his cock, brushing the tip against the corner of his lips, smearing it with his pre-come. “Get on with it, Cook.”

“Okay,” Sanji breathes, his whole body wracked with shivers. Shivers that tells him he wants more, rather than shudders that tell him he wants less. “Jus’ needed a moment. Sorry.”

Hadn’t Sanji decided then and there to smother that illicit desire? Shove it in a compartment of his mind that would never resurface as anything more than a guilty pleasure or a wet dream. A promise to himself that he’d never put a cock in his mouth, because it would mean accepting all those slurs he’d heard whispered on the Baratie, claiming himself as exactly that. A cocksucker. 

And yet, here he is, brushing his nose against a cock. He’s salivating, lashes fluttering as he presses a kiss to the tip of said cock. His body consumed with lust at the small sound Zoro makes, beckoning Sanji to wrap his lips around the tip of his cock properly, suckling it. A shallow movement, testing the waters, letting the taste of pre-come explode on his tongue. He’d always wondered what Zoro would taste like, and to an extent, he tastes exactly like he expected him to. Salty with a tangy aftertaste to it, exquisite. 

He decides to blame it on the alcohol coursing through his veins that’s clouding his judgment.

Sanji dares himself to move down on Zoro’s cock, taking him deeper into his mouth, encouraged by every sigh and grunt he hears above him. His cock is a heavy weight on his tongue, filling up his mouth so much that he can’t help but drool around it, strings of saliva dripping down his chin.

Fuck, having a cock in his mouth feels so much better than he ever thought it would. So much better than a cigarette, fills him up so well, makes his head so floaty with nothing but Zoro and cock. 

“Move,” Zoro grunts, his fingers tugging on the base of Sanji’s skull, pulling Sanji’s hair free from the band that holds it back so it can fall around his face. “Or I’ll just fuck your face instead.”

He moans at the pressure of his hair being tugged on, the sound reverberating around Zoro’s cock inside his mouth. He should, Sanji thinks, fuck his face that is. Fuck his throat, then fuck his ass, use him till he can’t think anymore. 

Zoro takes that as his consent, pushing Sanji further down on his cock until it reaches the back of his throat, feeling precariously close to gagging. His nose is buried in the thatch of hair at Zoro’s navel, shoving his face onto his cock with the same vigor he would if he’d been fucking his ass.

He should have known that the way to Zoro’s heart wasn’t through a romantic date in a scenic area, but through his dick. And Sanji can’t really bring himself to complain either, his own cock so hard that it hurts. 

Tears well in Sanji’s eyes, falling down his cheeks, can barely breathe around the cock that’s being forced into his mouth. So deep down his throat, so heavy and thick. He could die like this, asphyxiated by Zoro’s cock, his own cock straining in his pants, begging for attention that Zoro has no intention of giving. 

He sinks his hand inside his own pants, desperate as he wraps his hand around his own cock, tugging on it in tandem with Zoro’s thrusts within his throat. 

“Fuck,” Zoro groans. “‘m gonna come.”

Sanji moans when Zoro forces his cock all the way down his throat, coming down his throat as he thrusts shallowly into his mouth. Sanji, through the blurry vision provided by his own tears, forces himself to watch Zoro coming underneath his lashes. Watches the way he shudders through his own orgasm, his body spasming as he fucks Sanji’s mouth, tanned skin flushed with sweat and desire as he falls apart because of Sanji himself. 

He can’t help but preen, his own orgasm slamming into him, his whole body wracked with shivers as he stains his hand with come. 

Once Zoro lets go of Sanji’s head, pulling out slowly with an audible sigh, Sanji already feels as if he misses the weight of that cock on his tongue, in his mouth. The taste of come on his tongue has him feeling drunk, an effect much more potent than the alcohol in his bloodstream. 

“Fuck, did you already come just from sucking my cock?” Zoro asks, peering down at the wet spot in Sanji’s pants and the come on his hand. “That’s kinky.”

Sanji nods, brushing his nose against the side of Zoro’s cock, watching it twitch in interest. 

“Was I good for you?” Sanji asks, brushing his tongue against Zoro’s spent cock, licking the tip of Zoro’s spent cock. He wants to make sure that not a single drop of come is wasted, has always been taught to never waste a single meal. “I was good, right?”

“Yeah.” Zoro shivers, his body clearly overcome with oversensitivity, but he nods. “Fuck. I should challenge you to drinking contests more often if this is how the night will end each time.”

Sanji smiles. God, maybe he really is a cocksucker afterall. 

They decide to take advantage of having a room and a proper bed for the night, fucking in so many different positions, Sanji feels dazed by the end of it despite sobering up entirely at some point throughout the night. Sobering up from the alcohol anyway, because throughout the night, he felt high. Running on nothing but the intoxicating fumes of greedy lust and desire.

Zoro fucked Sanji on the bed, in the shower, against the window. He fucked Sanji so hard on the bed, fucking him until the bed eventually gave out underneath them, the sudden swooping motion of the bed collapsing making Sanji come so hard until he saw stars. 

He’d also let out a litany of sounds he’d typically never allow himself to make, but only did so because Zoro placed a hand to his throat. A threat, a promise. 

‘You'd better not hold back. I want to hear every single sound.’ 

Sanji obliged him, letting the fever take over, and letting out every sound he'd always forced himself to hold back. 

The night was long, but with Zoro on top of him, it felt like it stretched into infinity. 

Morning breaks, and with it, so does the feverish haze that had overtaken Sanji like a spell. Or a curse, because Sanji didn’t feel like he was quite in his right mind. He doesn’t even know when he fell asleep, wonders if he’d passed out instead, cracks his eyes open slowly to bask in the sunlight that’s streaming through the curtains. 

Slowly, the memories of the previous night start to crop up one after the other, and Sanji is overwhelmed with mortification. Usually, when they’re having sex, his filter is weaker than usual, but when he was drunk, his filter was nonexistent. He must have looked absolutely deranged in front of Zoro last night. 

Sanji groans. Zoro’s ego is going to inflate astronomically after all this.

He shifts, ready to get dressed while facing away from Zoro, and pretending none of the embarrassing things he did and said didn’t happen. He’s even ready to gaslight Zoro if need be. Except Sanji feels a pair of arms wrap around Sanji’s middle, bringing his back flush against a strong chest he knows all too well now. 

He sighs. There goes his plan of sneaking out. 

“Morning. I got you something,” Zoro tells him, his voice raspy and gruff. “Gonna need your lighter though.”

Confused, Sanji grabs his lighter from the bedside table. He’d retrieved it at some point in the middle of the night, needed a smoke in between rounds to calm his palpitating heart. He turns around in Zoro’s hold, proffering him the lighter. 

Zoro takes it silently, pulling out a nondescript grey stick, and then he lights it from one end deftly as if he’s done it a million times before before placing it on the bedside table so it doesn’t singe the bedsheets. Sanji’s eyes widen when he sees the end of the stick light up, sparks flying from it, a pretty and bright shade of gold. 

“Are these…” Sanji trails off for a moment, placing the word in his befuddled mind. “Fireworks?”

“Mm.” Zoro nods. He brushes his hand against the nape of his neck. “You seemed disappointed that you didn’t get to see them last night, and we’re supposed to be leaving this afternoon, so I figured I’d bring the fireworks to you.”

Sanji groans, burying his face in the pillow. He was so upset last night that all his best laid plans to court Zoro failed, to an irrational degree in the light of day, that he got himself drunk and acted like a fool. Zoro, on the other hand, remained unfazed and even went out of his way to do something so inadvertently romantic that puts him to shame. 

Maybe Zoro is the true romantic between the two of them, Sanji thinks. He doesn’t deserve him. 

“I hate you,” Sanji says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Don’t talk to me.”

Because he doesn’t want to know how fast his heart is racing right now, just how affected he is by that gesture. 

“Hah?” Zoro exclaims indignantly, struggling to pull the pillow off Sanji’s face, which is rude because Sanji was trying to suffocate himself with it. “Why are you being such a —”

Sanji isn’t quite sure what expression he must be making, but Zoro falters, holding the pillow in his hand like he isn’t quite sure what to do with it. Rather, he seems to be drinking in Sanji’s face, as if etching it into memory.

He suddenly feels self-conscious, fixing his fringe to make sure both his eyebrows aren’t showing. 

“Being a what?” Sanji asks, voice small. 

“Forget about it.” 

Zoro drops onto the bed next to Sanji, dropping his pillow onto his side of the bed so Sanji can’t reach for it again. Sanji gawks, sitting up to poke Zoro’s face. 

“You just wanted to call me a bitch, didn’t you?” Sanji says. “See? Now that’s the Mosshead I know.”

“Whatever.” Zoro rolls his eye. “Someone’s hyper this morning.”

Zoro tugs on Sanji’s arm, the one he’d been leaning onto, so he loses his balance and collapses onto Zoro’s chest. Zoro snakes his arms around his bare torso, bringing Sanji’s body flush against his own. There’s a certain gleam in his eye that Sanji has come to know with time. The gleam before a fight, but also before sex. 

“But I also know what to do about that.”

Sanji laughs against Zoro’s lips when he presses them together, their teeth clanging together as a result. Sanji smothers it down, the humor and the happiness that are swelling in his chest, indulging himself in the languid kiss that holds the promise for so much more, all while the sparks of the fireworks are going off next to them. 

Even if they couldn’t carry out the old woman’s myth, Sanji would be damned if he ever let Zoro go, now or any time after that.

Chapter Text

Sanji has been having nightmares again. 

They all start out similarly enough with Sanji in the iron mask, but ending differently each time. Sometimes, he’d find himself in the Baratie again, surrounded by the broken bodies of Zeff and the chefs he’d learned to call family. Other times, he’d find himself in his kitchen, cutting up what he thought was a normal slab of meat, only to find that his knife was cutting into Luffy instead. 

Nowadays, the same twisted nightmare set in Whole Cake Island haunts him almost every night now, the frequency of them alarming. Except that’s not all. No, the nightmares have started to warp each night, taking on an increasingly malevolent tone with each successive nightmare. A specter that’s living inside of him, hell-bent on making sure Sanji can’t get used to the terrors, that he’s always terrified beyond his wits. 

Emphatic that Sanji is unable to run away, trapped in place as he watches the terrible events unfold before his eyes. 

‘Why did you leave me?’ Zoro always asks him in each nightmare, the words cracked around the mottled blood rising in his throat. ‘What did I ever do to you?’

“I — I didn’t mean to.” Sanji tries to stop the stem of blood, gushing from Zoro’s old scar on his chest, but there’s new blood. Fresh, staining his fingers in red. “Please believe me.”

‘I thought you loved me, but all you’ve ever done is leave me behind.’

Tears well in Sanji’s eyes, stinging, falling over when he blinks. A shuddering gasp as he watches Zoro choke on his own blood, coughing it up, spraying Sanji’s face with it. 

No amount of telling himself that this is nothing more than a nightmare allows Sanji to actually believe it. To grapple with the tangible knowledge that the broken body at his hands doesn’t actually belong to his lover. How could he believe it when death hangs heavily in the air, can taste it on his tongue, feels it underneath his fingertips. So tangibly real, that he’s no longer sure what’s reality and what’s conjured by the demons that reside inside of him. 

Sanji buries his face in his blood-stained hands. “I’m so sorry, Zoro.” 

‘I don’t forgive you.’ 

The last words Sanji hears before a hole of despair opens up underneath his feet, ready to swallow him whole without leaving anything to spit out. 

Sanji wakes up, drenched in sweat, tears clinging to his lashes. Shudders as he tries to shake off the remaining dregs of his horrifying nightmare, breathes in deeply to calm himself. Zoro’s arm tightens around him, and Sanji knows already that he’s woken him up, but he can’t bring himself to feel too bad about it. There is relief in knowing that Zoro is still here, that he’s still alive, that he doesn’t curse Sanji’s very own existence. 

Because most nights, Sanji is certainly cursing it himself. 

“Are you alright?” Zoro asks him, brushing a hand through Sanji’s damp hair. His voice doesn’t sound groggy with sleep, but alert, which makes Sanji wonder if he’d been awake for a while. Watching him writhe and suffer in his nightmares. He hopes that he didn’t say anything while he was sleeping. “You had another nightmare, didn’t you?”

At first, when Sanji started sleeping with Zoro every night —sneaking out of the men’s quarters after making sure everyone fell soundly asleep so he didn’t raise any suspicion —the nightmares lessened. He could finally sleep again, addicted to Zoro’s warm embrace, and most of his nights were blissfully sound. 

But it was only a temporary fix, fading into the background for a while, waiting. Biding time, until Sanji let his guard down, stopped being so anxious about what awaited him once he fell asleep. 

And then, they struck, visiting him again with a vengeance that left Sanji breathless and out of his wits. The jagged ends of his anxiety lancing him straight through his chest, clutching his heart in a vice, making it so difficult for him to breathe that it intimated the feeling of drowning. 

“Yeah.” Sanji grabs a cigarette, lights it with trembling fingers. If he doesn’t have a smoke now, he might just lose his mind. “Don’t mind it.”

“You should talk about it.”

“And I think you should shut the fuck up and mind your own business.” Sanji elbows Zoro roughly, eliciting a pained gasp from behind him. “This isn’t a fucking pity party.”

Sanji doesn’t care what Zoro thinks. He won’t fucking talk about it, would rather die first. He won’t tell Zoro about his guilt, about his fears, because the last thing he needs is for Zoro to agree with the nightmare version of himself and leave him. 

No, it’s better that things stay the way they are. Fragile, yes, but also in no need for fixing. 

He takes a drag from his cigarette, blowing it out, the nicotine filling his lungs already placating him marginally. Warming him up from the inside out, abating the chill that clung to his bones. 

“Fine, suit yourself,” Zoro replies. “Just wallow in your own self-misery then, it’s what you do best.”

“Fuck you,” Sanji replies, a flare of anger spiking in his chest. “You’re really trying to piss me off, aren’t you, Mosshead?”

“Not particularly.” Zoro extricates his arm from around Sanji, turning around on the couch so he’s facing the cushions instead of Sanji. A position that must be so deeply uncomfortable, especially with two grown men sharing the couch, that Zoro would only do that if he was truly fuming at Sanji. “Goodnight.”

It’s not the cataclysmic end to the argument that Sanji was expecting, instead fizzling out into nothing as Zoro visibly shuts down in front of him. Almost as if Zoro isn’t even mad, but disappointed. Tired. 

It should probably be worth something that Zoro didn’t berate him for disturbing his sleep, nor did he kick him off the couch or tell him to leave and sleep in the men’s quarters. Instead, electing to make himself uncomfortable rather than escalate this any further. 

Rather, that makes Sanji feel even worse. Wordless as he sinks back onto the couch, on the very edge of it, so his body doesn’t touch Zoro’s. Doesn’t want to deal with how shitty it would feel if Zoro flinched away from his touch, pressing even further into the couch cushions, so they don’t touch. 

Sanji feels the guilt splinter in his chest, but he pushes past it, and curls up as best he can on the cramped couch until he resembles a ball. The compass whirs, pointing to Zoro’s body behind him, and yet he feels so far away despite only being centimeters apart. Wants to tell Zoro to wrap his arm around him once more, feels too cold without it, but he’s too proud to do so. 

Instead, he smokes another cigarette, and hopes that will fill the void instead. 

When Usopp had mentioned the treasure map, promised them an adventure, they’d all been on board for it. 

Now, three months and five different islands into their journey with nothing but a wild goose chase and almost getting arrested by the marines multiple times, Sanji is a bit —a lot—irritated by it. He’s starting to feel as if this treasure is nothing more than a hoax, the map nothing more than a fake because there’s way too many of those. Or worse, a trap, but Usopp is insisting that surely on the next island, they’ll locate it, and Luffy is always enabled all too easily by Usopp and his grandeur promises of adventure.

And, naturally, wherever Luffy goes, then Sanji and the others will always follow.

He doesn’t mind the adventure, but if Usopp’s treasure map leads them straight into a den of lions only to find a poorly drawn drawing of a penis at the end of it, Sanji will tear him a new one.

‘Just learn to take it in stride.’ Zoro shrugged when Sanji ranted to him, a cigarette burning between his fingers. ‘As long as Luffy is having fun, even if there’s no treasure in the end, what does it matter?’

Sanji hadn’t known how to respond then, didn’t know either why his fuse felt so short, why the frustration was finally starting to gnaw at him because of this detour that was seemingly taking all too much time. He didn’t used to be like this, wanted to laugh it off like the rest and take it in stride, but he only felt restive instead. 

With his…spat with Zoro hanging over his head, Zoro frigid and avoidant in the light of day, Sanji is more irate than usual. Preparing the bento boxes for their ‘next adventure’, he thinks snidely, with too much force behind his hands, his hand falling down with too much strength as he chops the vegetables, leaving scars in the cutting board underneath with each slice. 

One day, Zoro will tire of all this, Sanji thinks. Of all the baggage Sanji is carrying, how jagged and rough around the edges Sanji is. And then, when Sanji pushes Zoro away, Zoro won’t push back. He’ll simply shrug and leave Sanji behind. 

When he cuts his finger, blood spurting out from his fingertip, he gasps. Finally broken from his trance, laughing mirthlessly as bright blood runs down his finger to stain the rest of his hand, so similar to the sight in his dreams. 

“Fuck, I’m really losing my grip.” Sanji laughs mirthlessly. 

The next island they disembark on is a spring island. 

The island is laden with an undertone of pink, flowers blooming everywhere, winding streets with rivers and swan boats for transportation, a mix between Water 7 and as much as Sanji loathes to admit it, Kamabakka island. The cherry blossoms are abundant and are scattered on the sidewalks, the delicate floral scent lingering in the air, everyone airy and light as they ambled about their days.

It fills him with a sense of nostalgia, reminded of long afternoons basking in the sunlight while watching the sea, sampling new recipes and frolicking in the meadows in a dress. He’d always tried to push those visuals away before they could form properly, distancing himself from it, from the Sanji of those last two years.

Now, wrapping a long strand of blonde hair around his finger, the shame doesn’t burn him as much as it used to. It’s still there, curdled in the base of his gut, but it’s not as potent. Not as overwhelming as it used to be. 

The masculine Sanji who is good at fighting, cooking, and women can still be the same person as the feminine Sanji who likes flowers, dresses, and men, right? Two sides of the same coin and all that. 

The locals there didn’t even seem to mind having pirates in their midst, everyone smiling and waving at them amicably as they passed by. A child even stopped at Sanji’s feet to offer him a piece of paper, which he accepted, only to realize it was an origami cherry blossom. He was bemused at the gesture of kindness, smiling as he patted the little girl’s head, tucking the cherry blossom in the breast pocket of his suit.

Luffy grins at them, a similar cherry blossom wedged in the band of his straw hat.

“Me, Usopp, Nami, Zoro, and Franky are gonna go treasure hunting!” Luffy exclaims, basically listing off the only crewmates who are still remotely excited about finding the ‘treasure’. The rest of them, like Sanji, have long since lost interest in this pursuit for treasure and wanted nothing more than to move on to anything else. “The rest of you guys can do whatever you want. Have fun!”

“I’m going with Luffy’s team to make sure these knuckle heads don’t get into too much trouble,” Nami says, pointing at Luffy and Usopp who are already making bets about how many people they’ll have to beat to get to the treasure. “And also because if there really is treasure…well, as the ship’s appointed treasurer, I have to be there to make sure the money gets distributed…fairly.”

Zoro scoffs, folding his arms over his chest. “Treasurer is a funny term for gold digger, but I guess they’re basically the same thing.”

“Mosshead!” Sanji clenches his fists, hackles rising at Zoro’s blatant rudeness. “How dare you talk to Nami-san that way?”

Sanji certainly doesn’t wither when Zoro ignores him, doesn’t even offer a glance his way, as if he hadn’t spoken at all. 

“Zoro,” Nami croons, smiling at Zoro amicably. Sanji watches in satisfaction as Zoro already starts to take a step back, visibly intimidated by Nami. “Keep up the attitude as much as you want, but don’t come crying to me when you can’t afford to buy any booze because your smart mouth cost you your allowance.”

“That’s playing dirty.” Zoro frowns.

Sanji hates that he looks so cute when he pouts like that, feels his cuteness aggression rising, stricken with a sudden urge to fight Zoro to get rid of it. He quashes the feeling.

“When have I ever played fair?” Nami prompts, snickering. She tosses her bag at Zoro who catches it reflexively. “Carry this for me.”

“Whatever.” Zoro rolls his eye, but he doesn’t argue, shouldering her bag over his shoulder. 

Zoro turns around, waving at them, but his gaze lingers on Sanji longer than the rest. It’s the first time he’s looked at Sanji properly since the previous night, and Sanji swallows, wondering what he could possibly be thinking. Can’t tell if he wants to cuss him out or gather Sanji’s face in his hands and kiss him in front of everyone else. Even after all this time, nearly a year into their relationship, Sanji still can’t quite get a read on Zoro. 

Then quiet enough, so the rest don’t hear, Zoro touches his hand briefly, but Sanji feels a jolt down his spine. 

“Wanna come along with our party, Curly Brow?” Come with me, is what Zoro implies but doesn’t say aloud, but Sanji catches onto it anyway.

An olive branch. Zoro’s way of telling Sanji that he’s not angry, to let go of last night, put it behind them. 

But it’s not that simple for Sanji.

Sanji swallows, because he does want to go with them. It would be natural for him to go with them, he usually goes wherever Luffy goes anyway, but now he’s second guessing it. Everyone knows how annoyed Sanji is by this quest, Usopp going out of his way to avoid Sanji so he doesn’t have to hear another earful because of it. If he were to disregard all of that to go along with Zoro and the rest, what would they think? Would they think that Sanji only chose to go with them because he wants to be with Zoro?

They wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but he wouldn’t be able to live it down either.

“Nah, I’m good. I’ve had my fill with treasure hunting to last me a while,” Sanji lies. Zoro furrows his brow, frowning in a way that makes Sanji’s heart heavy, so he coughs. “Take care of Nami-san,” Sanji tells Zoro. Take care of yourself. Don’t get lost, and you’d better not get hurt or I’ll throttle you, are the words left unsaid, but he knows Zoro will pick up on them anyway . “I don’t care about the rest.”

That, and honestly, Sanji needs space. Needs space from looking at Zoro, seeing his dead body every time he blinks, haunting him with his words in every waking moment. 

He can’t be around him right now. A thought that creates another splinter of guilt to lance through his heart, more painful this time, but he ignores it in favor of plastering a smile across his face. 

“Yeah, yeah, worry about yourself for once, Love Cook.”

Zoro waves at him a final time as he treks off with Nami who keeps him from straying off the right path. Sanji watches his silhouette as it fades, a dot of green that he follows until he can no longer see it, feeling strangely wistful. 

“Cook-san?” Robin places a hand on Sanji’s shoulder, pulling him out of his thoughts. She smiles at Sanji, one of her half-smiles that are unreadable, the one that makes Sanji feel uncomfortable. Scrutinized. As if he’s being read like an open book, all his secrets laid bare for her to read. “Would you like to go shopping with me? Jimbei, Brook, and Chopper are keeping watch of the ship, so it would be nice to have some company.”

“I’d love to, Robin-chan.” Sanji bows lightly. “Lead the way.”

He thinks, at least, if he’s with a beautiful woman like Robin, he won’t have to think about Zoro for a little while.

Robin takes Sanji on a little adventure around the island which helps take his mind off things marginally.

They go to a cafe first, the pair of them conversing casually over tea and lemon cakes, Sanji doing most of the talking while Robin listened. Then, they walked through the traipsing streets, Sanji marveling at the colorful array of flowers, at the beautiful women. There’s a few shops that line the roads, and Sanji follows Robin through each one, fingers brushing against the soft fabric of feminine clothes on the racks. 

He never returned the skirt Nami gave him, wears it sometimes, even when he's alone. No sexual intention behind it, just because he wants to feel the soft texture against his thighs, wants to feel pretty. 

‘And it — it wouldn’t bother you if I dressed like this again?’

‘No. You should dress however way you want to, and if that’s in a fucking dress, then so be it. It just so happens that you look good in said dresses which is a bonus point.’

The words still ring in his head, his chest tightening as he replays them for the umpeenth time. 

His eyes linger on the dress for a long time, so long that he doesn’t realize Robin’s gaze on him, already having bought what she wanted. She pulls him to their next destination, Sanji following behind her dutifully, casting a wistful glance towards the dress on the rack as he leaves the store. 

Next, they go to the bookshop. 

It's a cozy shop, shelves of books lining the walls from top to bottom, an array of collections and subgenres that could probably satisfy even the pickiest of readers. Robin, naturally, gravitates towards the books on archeology but some pieces of literary fiction, too. She hums as she reads the summary on the spine of each book, lost in her own world, so Sanji lets himself get a little lost too. He picks up some new cookbooks with recipes to try out, always likes to try making the local cuisine of every island he visits while adding his own spin to the dishes so they can still feel unique to him, but also lets himself wander towards the romance section.

Most of the books have covers with a woman and a man on them which makes Sanji squirm a little, feeling a bit self-conscious. Feels as if that any one of the patrons or the booksellers would be able to look at him and immediately tell that Sanji doesn’t belong here, but no such thing happens, so Sanji lets his shoulders relax. Picks up a few books, scanning the blurbs on the back with mild interest. All along the lines of boy meets girl, and their lives change when they fall in love, some for the better while the others hold a tone of tragedy. He keeps looking at the books idly, merely trying to kill time until Robin is done picking up the books she wants, till he picks up a cover with a cartoon drawing of two men on the cover. Standing face to face to each other, smirking at each other, but there’s a touch of yearning there, too.

Sanji traces the cover, examining the expressions on the characters faces, before turning it over to read the summary. 

‘An explosive enemies to lovers romance between two princes from warring kingdoms across opposite ends of the sea. The prince of Asteria, Lars, is to marry the princess of Dovetail to foster peace and harmony between their lands. Lars doesn’t want to get married to a girl he doesn’t know, but he feels as if he must for the sake of his kingdom. Tension rises, however, between the prince of Asteria and the brother of Dovetail’s princess, Wilem. Wilem disapproves of their marriage, assuming a sinister plot is brewing from Asteria, his suspicion and protectiveness over his sister making him treat Lars with cold contempt. Over the course of his courtship of Dovetail’s princess, Wilem thaws out around Lars, treating him with a warmth and kindness that Lars had never known. A reluctant friendship is formed between both princes, Lars’ heart melting around him in a way it absolutely shouldn’t, finds himself shamefully wishing that it was Wilem he was marrying rather than his sister.

A story of two enemies who toe the line between hate and love, of prejudice and understanding, and ultimately, a tale of forbidden love that always finds its way.’

Sanji’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, feeling entranced as he reads the summary, already feeling immersed in it. He wants to read the book, wants to know if the prince gets his happy ending, how he gets his happy ending. He’d never seen a queer book before, hadn’t met any queers outside of Kamabakka island, so he didn’t know that people wrote love stories about them.

Nor did he know he’d ever be able to see himself in one of them.

“I didn’t know you liked romance novels, Cook-san,” Robin says, making Sanji hastily hide the book behind his back. She chuckles amicably, peering behind his shoulder to look at the book he’s holding in a death grip. “I quite enjoy them myself on occasion. Have any of them caught your fancy?”

“I don’t particularly care for them,” Sanji replies gruffly. He wishes he had a cigarette on hand right now, but the bookstore prohibits smoking indoors. “Just looking.”

“Is that so?” Robin hums. She points at the book hidden behind his back. “What’s that? It looks interesting.”

“It’s nothing,” Sanji replies, subconsciously bringing it closer to his chest. “Just a book.”

“Well all books are just books, aren’t they?” Robin muses. “That’s the funny thing about books. Good books, bad books, they’re all just books at the end of the day.”

Robin doesn’t press it any more than that, but she doesn’t leave either. Rather, she hums while she peruses the books on the shelf, probably looking for something that suits her fancy. Sanji, however, can’t help but feel like he’s being pressured. Like she already knows what he’s holding his hands, why he’s holding it in his hands.

He knows he’s being paranoid, but he doesn’t like treading in dangerous waters, wants to swim back to shore. Desperately, he grasps at straws for something, anything, to say, so Robin will forget about the book in his hands that he refuses to let go of.

“How are things with Franky by the way?” Sanji prompts, fingers twitching around an invisible cigarette. “On the topic of romance I mean.”

“Franky?” Robin implores, finger tracing the spines of the books on the shelves. She’d been smiling the whole time, but with the mention of Franky, Sanji notices how her smile softens around the edges. Something warmer and more open. “Things are good with him. He makes me happy.”

Sanji can certainly see that. He remembers being disgruntled when he saw how Robin and Franky slotted together after Enies Lobby, felt oddly protective too, because Franky was the brute who beat up Usopp and instigated the whole fallout between Usopp and Luffy. How could a guy like him ever be a good fit for a lady as perfect as Robin? But then, Sanji realized how kind and attentive Franky was, how he was the only one on the crew who could genuinely make Robin laugh.

He doesn’t know what happened between them in Enies Lobby, but Sanji knows that when Robin came back to them, she was different. More open, less guarded, ready to let them in and to love rather than fear them altogether. It was a good kind of different. 

When Franky was around, Robin lit up. She looked happy, happy to be alive.

“That’s good.” Sanji nods, smiling at her. It’s not even a lie, because he genuinely is happy for her that she found that kind of happiness with another. “As long as you’re happy, then so am I.”

For a time, Sanji was jealous of that easy happiness that Robin had with Franky. Not because she didn't deserve it — she certainly did after the life she led — but because he yearned for the kind of love and happiness that she had, too. Something he'd deemed himself unworthy of, thought he'd never be able to have for himself. 

It occurs to Sanji that he hasn't been jealous of Robin in a long time now, though. Maybe because he has his own person to love and be happy with, even if it's still not as easy. 

Just like how Robin has changed, softened after dating Franky, he wonders if loving Zoro has changed him at all. If the others see him and think he’s different now, or if he’s the same person he’s always been. 

“That’s very kind of you, Cook-san.” Robin smiles at him. Then, “What about you and the Swordsman?”

“It’s fine.” Sanji busies himself with picking at the corner of the book in his hands, then his eyes widen. He chokes, staring at Robin in panicked disbelief. “Wait, what?”

“Well, you were so kind to ask about my relationship with Franky, so I thought it only fair to extend the same courtesy to you.” Robin tilts her head to the side. “Are you fighting now? Is it a sensitive time to be asking?”

Sanji doesn’t know how he’s supposed to act in a situation like this, has never been called out on this. Has never even fathomed talking about his relationship with Zoro to anyone who isn’t Zoro himself. 

“No — I mean — it’s not like that — how did you — never mind, I can’t —” Sanji keeps on tripping over his words, not knowing how to formulate one question without immediately contradicting himself, thoughts going a million miles per second. Finally, “Did Mosshead tell you? Did he tell everyone?”

Robin’s gaze softens, sensing his panic, placing a hand over Sanji’s shoulder. He thinks it’s meant to anchor him, but instead, it only serves to make him feel more panicked. More ashamed of the truth getting out. Of everyone looking at him differently. Frantic thoughts dating back to days, weeks, months, wondering when the crew must have started treating him differently.

When had they messed up? Was it because of all the nights he snuck out of the men’s quarters to sleep with Zoro in the crow’s nest? Was it the time they fucked in the kitchen? Was it something else? Everything?

“Don’t worry, Cook-san. The swordsman didn’t say anything,” Robin says. “It was just obvious to me if I’m being honest? The way you two exist around each other, always revolving around each other’s orbits, always fighting but always caring. When you two are together in a room, it’s like nobody else exists — which is something I understand. So, yes, it was easy for me to piece it together.”

Sanji swallows, averting his gaze from Robin’s. “I see.”

“There’s also no shame in it, Cook-san.” Robin forces Sanji to look at him. “There is no shame in love, regardless of the form it comes in or who you love. You don’t have to be embarrassed.”

Sanji hasn’t really had this conversation with anyone since Angela on Kamabakka island, and even then, he couldn’t really let her in. With Robin, it feels different. She’s like an older sister to him, reminds him of Reiju in some ways, but even kinder than her. There is comfort in her words, and also a desperate want to let her in.

A feeble hope that maybe she might understand him, that she won’t shun him.

“You can’t say that. It’s not normal,” Sanji whispers. “ I’m not normal.”

He finds that he can’t speak the word out loud, can’t say the word ‘queer’, feels as if the word is a blight or a curse. He can’t say it, but Robin seems to understand, her face pinching in understanding. 

“You are,” Robin replies firmly. “You’re normal and you’re great. You are our lovable cook with a heart too big for his chest. Neither me, nor any of the others, would ever view you differently for that, Cook-san.” She squeezes his shoulder once more. “You won’t be left behind again for who you are, not by us anyway, because we’re your crewmates.”

Sanji’s eyes sting, nodding once. It’s like Robin addressed all of his insecurities, reading them all out loud like an open book, dismantling them one by one. Of course, they won’t disappear just like that, but he feels a sense of tranquil calm wash over him. Instead of the constant baseline of shame he felt, there was a modicum of acceptance there, too.

Words of validation he hadn’t known he’d needed acting as his salvation.

“Zoro makes me happy.” Sanji sniffs, finally answering Robin’s question. “Really fucking happy, happier than I’ve ever been. He’s thicker than a brick, incredibly rude to women, and a total barbarian, but he’s also…perfect. I love him so much.”

It’s the first time he’s ever spoken the words aloud with the intention of them being heard, always lacing them in a whisper or burying them in Zoro’s skin so he wouldn’t hear them. Now, though, that they’ve been spoken aloud and heard by another, there’s weight to the words that he could no longer ignore. 

Robin nods, smiling at him softly as she pats his shoulder.

“And he’s the only person who’s ever loved me, even with all my flaws,” Sanji continues, taking a juddering breath. “He loves me even though I’m a perverted womanizer reject prince. I don't deserve him.”

The words fall from his lips like poison, feels like a sinner at a confessional, but even uttering the words he's been carrying with him for so long don't make him feel any lighter. If anything, speaking them aloud only gave them more weight, made them weigh heavier on his back than before. 

Now that he's spoken the words aloud, he can't run away from them any longer. No, he has to face them now, and nothing has ever scared him more. 

"I don't think that's true," Robin says. “There is a lot to love about you.”

“I can’t even tell him that I love him, though,” Sanji says, holding the book in a vice grip against his chest. “Just the thought of our crewmates knowing that we’re together makes my skin crawl. Even this conversation is making me want to jump off the Sunny during a storm if I’m being entirely honest. Zoro doesn’t get it, he never would because everything is always so simple and straightforward to him. He’d just take it the wrong way, think I’m ashamed of him. ”

And I was so mean to him, Sanji thinks, So horrible to him when he just wanted to help me.

“Well, are you ashamed of him?” Robin implores, her tone non-accusatory, but it still makes Sanji flinch.

Is he ashamed of Zoro? After all, he did leave him earlier when Zoro asked him to go with him. The words ‘Why did you leave me?’ echo loudly in his head, but Sanji pushes them away. 

No, he tells himself, it’s not like that. There’s no way that’s true. He isn’t ashamed, he loves Zoro. Strong, bone-headed Zoro who cares about him and loves him more than anyone else, who holds him every night to ward off the bad dreams and has accepted Sanji at his best and his worst.

How could he ever be ashamed of him?

“No. Of course not.” Sanji shakes his head. He’s quiet for a few moments, wishing once again that he could just smoke a damn cigarette right now. “I’m just…ashamed of myself mostly.”

Ashamed of himself, the person he is, the things he’s done. He doesn’t deserve to be with someone as good as Zoro is. 

“I don’t know how to take that shame away from you, Cook-san. After all, shame is a heavy cross that the bearer has to carry on their own,” Robin says softly. “But you won’t be able to truly love the swordsman if you can’t even accept who you are properly.”

“I don’t even know how to do that.” Sanji laughs mirthlessly.

“You start by letting yourself buy the book you so desperately want to buy, the clothes you want to wear, too,” Robin says, eye twinkling knowingly. Sanji can’t help but flush, mortified by how easily Robin read him like an open book. “And by being kind to yourself. And to the swordsman, too. Give him a little more credit, try to let him in, he might end up surprising you.”

Sanji is silent for a few moments, heart jackhammering in his chest, climbing all the way up to his throat. He nods, finally easing his vice grip over the book.

“Thank you, Robin-chan. You’re really the best.”

The Sunny feels empty without the rest of the crew on it, no rambunctious laughter from Luffy running rampant through the ship, but it’s not something that Sanji is unused to. They always rotate on each island to see who will keep watch of the ship, and while it’s not Sanji’s preferred position, he’s accustomed himself to the restive nature of being a guard. He’d do anything to protect Robin, afterall. 

He looks down at the compass on his wrist, whirring in multiple different directions, which elicits a fond laugh from Sanji because he can only imagine Zoro’s directionally challenged ass being pulled in every single wrong direction while Nami tugs him back on course. 

It’s only been three days since Zoro left with the others, but Sanji is already craving his company, wishing not for the first time, that he’d gone with them when Zoro asked him to come along. 

Sanji groans, climbing up to the crow’s nest. If the kitchen is Sanji’s special place, then the crow’s nest is his sanctuary.

It’s the only place on the ship where nobody bothers to look for him, mainly because they know this is where Zoro often is, and nobody likes to interrupt Zoro while he’s training or napping. That and the others are lazy, nobody wanting to climb the long ladder leading to the crow’s nest just for Zoro to kick them down again because they’re disturbing his daily routine. 

Except Sanji that is, the exception to Zoro’s rules apparently, the only person who he doesn’t kick out when he comes to visit. It’s flattering, of course it is, so Sanji takes full advantage of it. Uses the crow’s nest when he wants somewhere to be alone, when he needs to get out of his kitchen, out of his own head. Zoro is good at not talking a lot when Sanji clearly needs the space to ruminate, but he’s also good at getting Sanji out of his own head when he’s thinking way too hard. 

While Zoro is away, Sanji makes sure to come by the crow’s nest every day, mainly to take care of Curly. Partly because he likes being in a space that’s so inherently Zoro, sees all the ways he’s imprinted onto the space and made it his own. With Curly the plant, of course, but also with all his training weights scattered across the floor and a few stray yukatas that smell of him draped across the couch. The blanket and pillow that are folded neatly on the couch are a new addition, something Zoro brought when Sanji started to spend his nights here because Sanji couldn’t sleep if he wasn’t at least halfway comfortable. 

‘You’re such a pillow princess,’ Zoro told Sanji, draping a blanket over his frame. 

‘I don’t think that’s the right term for it,’ Sanji grunted, cozying up under the warm blanket. ‘I can’t fall asleep unless I’m warm.’

‘Then just hold me and you won’t be cold,’ Zoro replied. ‘You know I run hot.’

‘Shut up, Mosshead, I’m trying to fall asleep.’

But Sanji had still snuggled up to Zoro then, slotting his own lanky frame against Zoro’s bulkier one. He remembers how Zoro’s heart thumped against his ear, steady but also accelerated, the only sign that he was affected by what was happening. It made Sanji feel better, knowing that Zoro’s heart was beating in tandem with his own racing heart. 

Despite how cramped that couch was, how he woke up with his back creaky and a knot in his neck, Sanji had never slept better. 

Currently, Sanji is splayed out on the couch, the book he bought in his hands. There’s a cigarette dangling from his lips idly, the embers flickering in the sunlight. Curly, the plant, frames the windows with its large vines and thorns, flowers blooming with a vibrant shade of yellow, thriving under Zoro’s care. He can’t help but think of Zoro every time he sees it. Of them. Every time he waters it, seeing Curly flourish so much in the sunlight and continue to grow, his own heart grows and swells accordingly.

It feels like it was only yesterday that Sanji had carelessly given Zoro a weed as an afterthought, only to find out that Zoro tended to it, nourished it to the beautiful state that it’s reached today. Of course, Zoro, mosshead that he is, would have a green thumb when he sets his mind to it. Sanji snorts at his own pun, a puff of smoke falling from his lips.

“Sorry you’re stuck with me, Curly.” Sanji pets its leaves fondly. “Your dad will come back soon, promise.”

Five nights and six mornings come and go before Sanji sees any hint of his crewmates. 

Sanji tried calling the den den mushi that he'd given Zoro, but to no avail, the connection always going dead. The same thing happened when he'd try to contact Nami and Franky, which made him realize they must be somewhere with no communication networks. Which is fine. He isn’t worried, not when they have Luffy and Zoro there, but he is antsy. 

With each successive day that passes without the others coming back, Sanji’s regret about not going along with them continues to surmount exponentially, can barely breathe underneath its weight. 

Sanji long since finished shopping for provisions, bought everything they needed, and kept on overcooking during every meal. Cooking for a crew of ten, especially when he puts Luffy’s voracious appetite into consideration, yet they never show up so the food eventually goes cold instead.

Sanji curses, putting all the excess food in containers to store in the refrigerator, because he can’t seem to stop overcooking. He even bakes. Sanji is pretty good at baking, too, but it’s not something he indulges in as often as cooking. Usually, he only bakes when he’s stressed, so his kitchen is full of an array of colorful cookies, cupcakes, cakes, and brownies. It’s literally Chopper’s heaven, keeps smiling and gushing every time he stops by the kitchen to see Sanji meticulously decorating a new set of confectionary. That at least helps Sanji feel a little less mortified about how much he’s baked these last few days. 

He also smokes like a chimney, going through pack after pack of cigarettes. Fingers twitching around the cigarette, cursing when he singes his fingers on the lighter. 

It would be better if Sanji had an enemy to fight to keep himself busy, to feel like he’s doing something, but the island they're docked on remains stagnant. There are no outward signs of animosity or hatred, passersby mostly ignoring them altogether save for the little kids who want to play with the new and shiny visitors. For all intents and purposes, this island looks safe, friendly even. 

At first, he enjoyed how quaint he island is, but now it’s really starting to grate on his already frayed nerves. He needs to being doing something.  Leaving is out of the question, however, because even with the compass as his guide, he has no idea where the map took them. He would be looking for them for days, would probably get lost himself, and might not even find them in the end. That, and he’d be jeapordizing the part of the crew that was left behind on the Sunny, and he’d never forgive himself for that. 

Sanji stubs his cigarette in the ashtray, immediately lighting another one with a disgruntled sigh. 

"They'll eventually come back," Jimbei tells Sanji. "You don't have to worry about them." 

Sanji considers the hulking Fishman who sits across from him in the kitchen, happily eating some mochi that Sanji prepared just for him because he'd mentioned once that it was his favorite dessert. He'd made some matcha flavored ones, too, not too sweet and a delicacy from the far east regions of East Blue because he thought Zoro would like them. They're also green, a color that Sanji can't help but associate with Zoro now. Not like Zoro is here to try them, but still. 

Sanji has a strange relationship with Jimbei. He's a comforting presence, much older than the rest of them, and incredibly strong too as a past warlord of the sea. He was also there for Luffy when he lost his brother and he's never shown anything but loyalty towards him. That's all that should matter, really, is how loyal he is. 

But his loyalty and strength also worry him a bit. Makes him scared that one day, Luffy will realize that Jimbei is so much better than Sanji, and he'll replace him. No longer one of his wings, just his cook. 

It's an irrational and stupid thing to worry about because he knows Luffy doesn't think like that, but he can't help it. Especially when it feels like the only thing he’s capable of doing these days is baking and looking down at his wrist, at the compass that’s been oddly still for the past 48 hours, so his irritation is augmented as a default. 

"I'm not worried," Sanji replies flatly. "I don't know why you'd assume I am, but I'm not."

It also means that Sanji is less amenable to accepting words of wisdom or whatever from Jimbei. Jimbei is his crewmate, sure, but that doesn't mean that he has to be his friend, too. 

"It's alright to be worried," Jimbei says calmly, unfazed by Sanji’s callousness. "I’m merely stating that you don't have to be. Luffy-kun is strong, he won't let anyone get hurt." 

"I'm not worried," Sanji repeats, closing his eyes so tightly, he sees a kaleidoscope of stars erupt behind his eyelids. "It's just been a long time is all." 

"Aye, it has been." Jimbei nods. 

"I should have been with them. I'm not made for sitting out of the action like this." Sanji takes another restive drag of his cigarette. "Someone might be hurt." 

"All you can do is wait, Sanji-kun." Jimbei takes another mochi, nibbling on it passively. "Worrying and imagining worst case scenarios won't make them come back any faster." 

Sanji barely resists the urge to curse. He should have known that talking to Jimbei would be useless, because he's so stupidly logical in a way that Sanji doesn't need when he's feeling like… this. 

"I know that. And I'm not worried by the way, I'm fine."

"If you're not worried then, is it because you miss them?" Jimbei implores innocuously. 

Sanji freezes at that, stricken with mortification because he didn't think it would be that transparent. He pauses, because he doesn't want to admit it. To admit that maybe he does miss them, Zoro, a little bit. Or a lot. He's gone two years without him, and while those two years were hellish, this singular week without them feels even worse. 

He keeps on thinking about Zoro, wondering about him, wishing and regretting the fact that he didn't just go with him. Because even if they face enemies, even if they get hurt, there's comfort in knowing that he'd have Zoro’s back. That he wouldn't be without him, without someone to take care of him and fuss over him. 

He just wants to be with Zoro, feels his heart throb with a pain that worsens with each day on the Sunny without Zoro’s stupid mug on it. Only their plant, Curly, to keep him company.

‘Why did you leave me?’

The words echo in Sanji’s mind, a broken record at this point because of the recurring nightmare in Zoro’s absence. He hates that it has started to feel like an omen of sorts, his gut clenching in foreboding every time he replays the words, but no answer follows.  

"I'll take that as a yes," Jimbei says. He smiles at Sanji, something wide that warms Sanji’s chest. "I didn't know you had such a soft side to you, Sanji-kun." 

'You know, Love Cook, you're quite soft underneath all your thorny layers,' Zoro whispered to him once. 'I can't say I dislike that part of you.'

Sanji remembers that afternoon well. How he'd gotten Zoro a scarf, something to keep him warm on the winter islands because he was always dressed in that light yukata that barely provided any warmth. He remembers how Zoro stared at it in awe, the emerald-green fabric lying between his fingertips, before he wrapped it around Sanji’s neck and pulled him in close for a kiss. Whispered those words directly against Sanji’s lips. 

The words had taken him off guard then, made him stiffen, all his hackles raising. When he was young, Judge always called him soft as an insult, one of his defects that his siblings fortunately didn’t possess. Even when he saw him again for the first time in years, that’s all he had to say, that he was too soft. It was a term that Sanji grew to resent as a result, tried so hard over the years to harden himself so nobody would ever insinuate that he was weak like that again.

When he looked at Zoro, however, he only saw fondness and endearment. There was no judgment or condescension there. If anything, Sanji could tell that rather than seeing him as less, Zoro liked that part of him.

His heart raced then, fluttering and beating a hundred miles per minute, faster than he could ever hope to keep up with. His smile was shaky, then, because he'd realized just how much he liked to give. How much he wanted to make Zoro happy, that it made him happy, especially when he saw Zoro wearing the scarf. Even when it was much too warm to wear it, a little piece of Sanji he always carried around with him, which meant more to Sanji than he'd ever know. 

Before, a comment like Jimbei’s would have resulted in him knocking him out, but now? Sanji merely smiles at Jimbei. Maybe he is a little soft underneath his rough edges, after all.

"I suppose I am," Sanji muses. 

"Well there's no shame in that." Jimbei laughs heartily, finishing off the rest of the mochi with enthusiasm. "Just make sure they know how much you miss them when they're back, I'm sure it'll make them happy." 

Sanji hums, taking a bite of the matcha mochi he made for Zoro, enjoying the bittersweet taste that rolls across his tongue. Telling Zoro that he misses him would require a degree of boldness and transparency he’s still not sure he’d be able to offer. And yet that’s the only way he’ll ever be able to move forward, relinquishing himself from the shackles of his own shame and self-loathing. 

For Zoro, he really wants to try.  

On the tenth day since the strawhats departure, Sanji goes up to the crowsnest, a fresh scroll of paper and a well of ink in hand. 

He hasn’t written any letters since Kamabakka island, hasn’t had any need to since he’s always in close contact with Zoro’s ugly mug, but he feels the desire to now. A strange pull to put all the words he can’t say aloud down to paper. Another letter Sanji will never send, but he knows he needs to write. 

Sanji stares at the blank parchment for a few moments, ink dripping from his quill onto the paper, staining it with a blot of dark ink. He isn’t quite sure what to say, rarely ever knows what to say when they’re face to face, let alone when Zoro is so far away from him and all Sanji can do is miss him. 

So, he decides to start with the easy part. Once he starts writing, the words don’t stop.  

Dear Mosshead,

I hope we meet again soon. The Sunny without your ugly mug there, always sleeping or working out or bothering me, feels empty and lifeless. I miss stumbling over your sleeping body on the deck. I miss sparring with you over stupid things. I miss your warmth when you hold me so close like you never want to let me go. 

Most of all, I just miss you. Silly, I know, because it’s only been ten days. But it’s also been ten days since we last fought, and all I have left of you is a plant and my nightmares that keep me up at night, so they seem to be much longer to my restless mind. See? Now you’re no longer allowed to make fun of me. 

And I’m sorry, truly, for being so difficult to love. I’ll try to be better, if you give me another chance to.

Love,
Your Dumbass Love Cook

After an entire fortnight of waiting, the strawhats finally return. They come back while Sanji is sleeping in the crow’s nest, his new book resting atop his face to block out the stream of sunlight. 

“Sanji!” Chopper yells from down below, tearing Sanji from his fitful sleep. “Luffy and the others are back! Oh my God, they’re finally back!”

Sanji immediately awakes at that, stumbling as he trips over the blanket, the book falling to the floor as he races towards the ladder. He stubs his toe in his haste, causing him to curse, but he doesn’t slow down any. Everything else can wait, but Zoro is always going somewhere. Always getting lost, always out of sight, always somewhere far away from him. 

Sanji’s heart claws at his throat with the desperate need to see Zoro again because goddammit he missed him so much, he needs to make sure he’s okay, kiss him and then kick him in the shin for making him not worry so much about him.

It’s been fourteen days. Two weeks since he’s last seen Zoro.

Sanji is jittery as he joins the rest of the crew —his mind already whirring with recipes he can make to replenish their energy, is sure that Luffy must be absolutely ravenous and Zoro will be begging for booze —but the occasion isn’t as joyous as he expected. Robin, Jimbei, Chopper, and Brook are silent as they stand at the deck of the ship instead of cheering. Rather, they’re somber, a heavy blanket of dread settling over Sanji’s shoulders. 

He joins them, his chest tightening with the realization that something is very wrong, cigarette falling from his lips as he pushes past Jimbei and Chopper to see what they’re gawking at in such shock. A heavily injured Luffy and Zoro being carried by Usopp and Franky respectively, neither of them moving at all. Sanji tells himself that they are both unconscious and nothing else, not what they actually look like when they’re both so still, blood dripping from their limp frames.

Usopp and Franky don’t look all that great either, Nami’s face deathly pale, and Sanji’s heart drops.

“We’re so sorry,” Usopp says, voice breaking around a breathless sob.

Sanji’s heart drops.

Chapter Text

Sanji tries not to descend into a fit of panic as he watches all of his worst nightmares start to materialize to real life before his eyes. There’s no point if he starts to panic, however, so he reigns it in. Places a mask of nonchalant indifference atop his face, a desperate attempt to distance himself from the despair that’s lapping at his feet. 

There’s no time for it while he’s standing there in the medical room, feeling incredibly useless as he watches Chopper fret around the room so fast, he almost looks like a blur. Nami, Robin, and Usopp are helping Chopper, handing him tools as he asks for them, and Sanji wants to help too. Really. But he can’t move, he’s frozen in place, as if under the effect of a Freeze Freeze Fruit. Luffy and Zoro aren’t dead, but they’re somewhere close to it, and Chopper is trying to prevent that from happening. He keeps on throwing around medical jargon like trauma, internal bleeding, and sepsis around — terms that none of them really understand —but they all know they mean nothing good.

Sanji doesn’t feel like he’s entirely there while he watches Chopper suture the open wound in Zoro’s abdomen, cleaning the matted blood on Zoro’s forehead that caked over from where he apparently smashed his head against a rock. 

Vaguely, Sanji listens as Usopp recounts the story, without any of his typical bravado, about how the treasure map led them to an uncharted area of the island. How that part of the island was cursed, ancient spirits that haunted the land attacking them with their power sharpened by a grudge lasting several thousand years. Usopp said that none of their attacks would land, haki was rendered useless, the spirits didn’t want to let them go. They wanted the poor unfortunate souls that came to satiate their greed and ambitions for treasure to become one with the land, blood feeding the soil, further empowering them. A curse. Luffy and Zoro protecting them from the array of violent attacks is the only reason why they’re still alive at all.

It’s no wonder the island inhabitants didn’t give a second glance to pirates coming to their island, were so abnormally kind to them. It probably wasn’t the first time that pirates came in pursuit of treasure, and that naivete allowed them to act as easy sacrifices to the land that allowed the rest of the island to prosper. It was all a ruse, a trap. 

Sanji wants to throw up. 

“It was horrible,” Usopp finishes with a shudder. “I thought we were all going to die.”

“Terrifying,” Brook chimes in. “I can’t even imagine a haunted island.”

Everyone gives him a pointed look to Brook which he seems to be the only one oblivious to. 

Sanji feels queasy, his stomach knotting and clenching, his fingers twitching as he lights another cigarette. Self-loathing fills his gut, telling him that he should have been there. That if he hadn’t been so self-absorbed, so worried about how the others would perceive him, maybe things would have been different. Maybe if Luffy had him by his side, too, then Zoro wouldn’t have had to carry the heavy burden of protecting everyone by himself. Zoro always fought better when he didn’t have to worry about protecting other people, stupidly caring oaf that he is. 

Yes, Sanji wasn’t there, but that’s exactly what leaves him at fault for what happened. Things could have been different had he been there, he’s sure of it. Zoro and him always work better when they’re together rather than when they’re apart. 

He shouldn’t have left Zoro behind. 

Three days later, Luffy awakes.

He yells about wanting meat, which Sanji more than happily provides, finally feeling useful for once. He’s no good at changing dressings, or cleaning out open wounds, but food? He can do food, it’s the only thing he can do. Luffy feasts on his food voraciously, but his smile doesn’t reach his eyes like it typically does, tinged with worry that only his oldest crewmates would be able to pick up on.

Sanji gets it, because Zoro still hasn’t awoken, but Chopper keeps on saying it’s only a matter of time. They all cling to those words, reminding themselves of how resilient Zoro is against death. He’s strong, he’s been to hell and back more than once, so he will undoubtedly pull himself out this time as well.

The compass on his wrist, the vivre card in its center steadily burning, tells a different story. Sanji has to force himself to take it off and bury it in his drawer, far away from his sight. He can’t bear to watch Zoro’s life force burn away before his very eyes, lest he break down entirely. 

‘I came back from hell just to kill you’ are the words that Zoro told him in Wano, didn’t he? His way of binding himself to Sanji, entwining their fates together as one. The words had made Sanji frazzled then, disconcerted with their emotional weight. Now, he wants nothing more than to put his faith into those words, believing that Zoro will make good on his promise and come back to him. 

Because he’s worried, incredibly so. It’s the kind of raw fear he’d only ever felt once, when he found Zoro in a pool of his own blood at Thriller Bark, because he’d been stupid enough to knock him out so he could take on Kuma by himself. Something he’d never forgive him for, remembering the way his heart had cracked seeing Zoro’s body wracked with wounds everywhere, barely even alive.

It should have been him then, too, and yet Zoro always puts Sanji first. Then and now.

Sure, he’s gone through this more than once, but the worry always nags at the back of his mind. The voice tells him that Zoro is reckless, that one day, his recklessness will get him killed. One day, his recklessness will have permanent consequences, and Sanji won’t be able to help him. Keeps thinking about that as he sits by Zoro’s bedside, watching his chest rise and fall, sleeping without opening his eyes once.

What would he do, he wonders, if Zoro actually died? With their last exchange being Sanji pushing him away, scathing words and forced indifference? He doesn’t know, but the mere thought is enough to plunge his heart into the pits of despair, so he quickly deflects before dwelling on it for too long. Rather, he busies himself with cooking and baking every confectionary he can think of, but none of the food is up to par, unable to process anything that’s happening around him. 

Can’t think about anything but Zoro, who looks so dead already.

He can’t help but think of his own mother, sitting by her deathbed, watching life slowly leave her body. How powerless he’d been to prevent it, how powerless he feels now. He remembers how his mother requested talking to her, that it soothed her, even when she was too tired to open her eyes near the end.

Ever since Zoro came back, Sanji hadn’t uttered a single word to him. Partially because he thinks it’s useless to talk to someone who can’t even hear him, but mostly because he’s terrified of speaking to Zoro and receiving no reply in return. The silence would suffocate him. 

Sanji leans forward in his chair, changing the wet compress on Zoro’s forehead because the fever is still burning away at him, wiping away the excess perspiration. His wounds have started to close up, but the infection he contracted from leaving his wounds untended to is still gnawing away at him, deadly and persistent despite Chopper’s rigorous empirical antibiotic treatment course. 

Gently, so as to not disturb Zoro in his endless slumber, Sanji pushes back the green strands that have started to grow out. He wishes that Zoro would glare at him the way he always does when he dotes on him too much. Zoro always hates being taken care of, which might be why he’s so bad at taking care of himself. Always so ready to throw himself in the line of danger to protect his crewmates, which Sanji finds equal times admirable as it is incredibly frustrating.

“Won’t you wake up, stupid Mosshead?” Sanji whispers softly, finally speaking his first words to Zoro in over five days since his return. “Please? I —I’m worried about you.”

Sanji, of course, receives no reply, which is just as devastating as he expected it to be.

After seven more days, Zoro finally cracks one eye open.

Sanji is by his bedside like usual. He hasn’t really left it at all except to cook meals so the crew doesn’t starve, immediately returning by Zoro’s side once the food has been plated and served. He knows the others give him lingering looks for it, a certain curiosity to their gazes that make Sanji’s neck prickle, but he shrugs it off. Luffy, if anything, seems to be happy with him for it.

‘See, I knew that you cared about Zoro.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Uh huh. Is that why you never leave his bedside?’

‘I gotta make sure to be the first face the Mosshead sees when he wakes up so I can rub it in his face that he let himself get taken out.’

‘Okay, Sanji. Whatever makes you feel better.’

Luffy’s parting laugh as he left the medical room still haunts Sanji. Still, he can’t quite bring himself to care too deeply what the others think. Not right now anyway, not when Zoro continues to straddle the thread between life and death. 

He promises himself that once Zoro awakes, he will love him proudly. He won’t leave him again. 

Sanji is scribbling some recipes in his notebook by candlelight, messing around with some spices that could bring out the flavors more potently, when he hears a familiar grunt. He peers over the rim of his notebook, seeing Zoro’s dark eye stare back at him, and Sanji swallows.

“You’re awake,” Sanji breathes.

“I’m awake,” Zoro replies. He cocks an eyebrow at him. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

Sanji doesn’t know what kind of face he must be making right now, but he’s sure it’s definitely nothing flattering. Especially if it’s projecting all the feelings he’s feeling inside, a whole mess of emotions he couldn’t even hope to untangle from one another. Sanji shakes his head, plastering a smile onto his face.

“I’ll go wake up Chopper.” Sanji stands up abruptly, his chair skidding away in the process. “You’re finally awake – your dumb ass was out cold for twelve whole days – so I’m sure Chopper will want to check up on you. Okay, bye.”

Zoro wraps a hand around his wrist, which halts Sanji in his steps. He could definitely shake him off if he wanted to, but Sanji doesn’t. At least not yet.

He also missed the feeling of Zoro’s touch, hasn’t felt in roughly three and a half weeks now, which is three weeks too long.

“You stayed here the whole time, didn’t you?” Zoro prompts, his grip loosening around Sanji’s wrist when he realizes he isn’t going anywhere. “I could feel your presence.”

How had Sanji ever survived two years without Zoro? He doesn’t think he could ever do that again. 

“Hah. You’re delusional.” Sanji laughs mirthlessly. “Dream on, Mosshead. You must be nursing a concussion from hitting your head too hard.”

“You’re lying,” Zoro muses. His lips tilt upwards into that insufferable sneer that Sanji both hates and loves. “You missed me.”

“I did not. ” Sanji shakes his head. “You’re so full of yourself. I just – I wanted to make sure you didn’t choke on your own vomit as you slept.”

This is all coming out so wrong, Sanji despairs at himself. Why can’t he ever say what he’s thinking? Hadn’t he promised himself that he would be honest with Zoro? Tell him how he actually feels? 

And yet, here he is, making a fool of himself once again by caging his feelings behind barbed words and thorny lies. 

“So caring,” Zoro says, taunting him with the same words Luffy told him. He moves his hands over the length of Sanji’s arms, making him shiver despite himself. “How sweet of you, Love Cook.”

“I told you it’s not like that —”

Zoro cuts him off with an uncharacteristically strong tug that he had no way of expecting, making Sanji trip over his own two feet, toppling onto the bed. He’d have crashed right into Zoro himself if not for Zoro’s vice grip on his hips that keep him aloft, his hands so hot, he feels as if he’s going to burn a hole into the fabric of his sleeping shirt.

Surely, Zoro doesn’t want to have sex right now. Surely, even Zoro isn’t that depraved.

“I missed you too, you know,” Zoro whispers in his ear. “I haven’t had a taste of you for so long.”

“You have to be joking.” Sanji presses his hands against Zoro’s chest to push him away, immediately dropping them when Zoro winces from the pain. “You’re still injured, we’re in the medical room, we can’t —”

Zoro takes Sanji’s hand, places it atop his groin, making him feel how hard he is. Sanji gasps, molten hot heat pooling down the base of his stomach.

“Look how much I need you, Curly.” Zoro pushes Sanji’s fringe aside, exposing his flushed face for him to drink in. He always liked to look at Sanji’s face when they were alone, all of it, never made fun of how his eyebrows looked either. “I thought you said you’d take care of me.”

“I didn’t say that.” Sanji hopes that Zoro can’t hear the quiver in his voice, can’t see the tremble of his bottom lip in the dark. “You’re just horny.”

“I am. Incredibly horny and you’re so pretty.” Zoro presses kisses all over Sanji’s cheeks, against his forehead, against his lips. Sanji can’t help but moan, melting into the kiss against himself, Zoro bringing him closer by the nape of his neck. Then, directly speaking the words against his lips, “Won’t you spoil me just this once?”

“But we’re in the medical room,” Sanji protests, shivering as Zoro’s hand starts to snake its way up his shirt. “What if someone walks in?”

“They won’t,” Zoro replies, voice muffled against Sanji’s skin. “It’s dark. I can tell they’re all sleeping.”

Sanji curses, feeling his own arousal exacerbate a hundred folds as Zoro sinks his teeth into the crook of his throat. He’s starting to feel his own sense of reason slip away, his own pants starting to tent with need.

Zoro’s touch has always been too addictive, impossible to ever say no to. Because, goddammit, Sanji has missed Zoro’s touch too. 

“You’re going to open your wounds.” Sanji shakes his head, trying to maintain a semblance of restraint. “I don’t want you to get hurt again. We can do that later, when you’ve recovered properly.”

“You’re right.” Zoro nods, lying back down on the bed. Sanji stares at him incredulously, shocked that Zoro would agree so easily. “That’s why you should do all the work this time, Love Cook. Doc’s orders that I shouldn’t strain myself.”

“You are a literal heathen,” Sanji whispers, “A savage. A brute. You only think with your cock.”

Zoro’s hands wrap around the small of Sanji’s waist, bringing him in closer with a vice grip that will certainly bruise by morning, rutting his cock directly against his. Sanji swears he doesn’t mean to rock his hips against Zoro’s, hair clinging to his forehead, his breath coming out in small pants. Sanji feels desperate, already mortifyingly close, because it’s been so long. The constant mantra going through his head that he can’t believe that Zoro is still alive, that he’s touching him like this, fucking him so good like nobody else ever could.

He wants Zoro so bad. No, he needs him, needs to feel him. Feel every inch of Zoro against his body, and inside of him. Which is warring with the dwindling logic of his brain telling him that they shouldn’t, that Zoro is still injured and there’s still so many things left unsaid between them that they have to address. 

“At least I’m not always having nosebleeds whenever I see a pair of tits.” Zoro shifts to grope Sanji’s ass, squeezing them hard enough to elicit a winded gasp from Sanji. “Though, these are pretty nice, too.”

He feels the last shred of reason that he’d been clinging onto snap, leaving him an empty husk that’s void of anything but lust and desperation. 

“Shut up,” Sanji replies breathlessly. He bites down on his lip, gnawing at it, dropping his voice an octave. “How do you want me?”

Zoro grins at him, removing his hands from Sanji’s ass to fold them beneath his head.

“Ride me.”

Sanji’s face warms at that, mortified at the request. “I haven’t done that before.”

“There’s a first time for everything, Curly.” Zoro cocks an eyebrow. “You have strong thighs, so it shouldn’t be an issue for you.” He grunts. “Also, I can’t really move right now.”

Sanji grits his teeth, humiliation and arousal intermingling together into one amorphous entity that settles in the pit of his stomach. 

“Fine,” Sanji says. “I’ll give you what you want. Only this once, so you’d better enjoy it.”

“You’re so easy,” Zoro remarks. “That’s what you always say.”

Sanji doesn’t deign that with a response because he knows that Zoro is right. Rather, he curses underneath his breath about entitled mossheads, Sanji starts stripping out of his clothes. Makes sure to arch his back a little as he takes off his shirt, feeling as if he’s regaining his footing with Zoro as he marvels at his bare body, all too quiet as he takes off his pants and his hard cock curves towards his abdomen.

“What a nice view,” Zoro comments. 

Zoro only ever praised him sparingly, was never too good with his words, but the way he looks at him always made Sanji feel wanted. Beautiful even. Dark hooded eye that seems to drink in every crevice, committing each piece of him to memory, always wanting to touch and to claim.

Before Zoro, nobody had ever looked at Sanji like that. And no matter how many times they’ve done this, Zoro always looks at him the same way. If anything, the fire that blazes in his gaze only intensifies over time, as if he simply can’t get enough.

And naturally, Sanji can never get enough of Zoro as a result either. Gets drunk on Zoro’s want for him, too.

“You talk too much,” Sanji says, “I like it better when you stick to your monkey man grunting.”

“Bitch.” Zoro rolls his eye. 

“Keep up that attitude and you won’t be getting any tonight.” Sanji glares at him sharply. 

Zoro falls silent at that, which Sanji would have laughed at if not for his treacherous hands that continue to wander, touching him all over. Tracing every rib, every knob on his spine, re-exploring his body anew, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake. 

Sanji bites down harshly on his bottom lip, ignoring the jolts of arousal that pool in the base of his stomach with each touch. 

Clumsily, Sanji grabs the tub of ointment that Chopper kept by the bedside, sending him a silent apology for the very non-medical way he’s about to use his ointment. He lathers his fingers in it, a fierce blush spreading from his cheeks all the way to his chest at about what he’s about to do. He takes a juddering breath, leaning over Zoro to get into a better position as he moves his fingers past his painfully hard cock, roaming over his taint, to massage his hole.

This isn’t the first time he’s touched himself like this — he’d experimented a few times with a deep-seated sense of shame festering in his gut every time he came into the palm of his hand because prostate orgasms always got him so much better than the normal ones — but it’s his first time doing it in front of Zoro. Typically, Zoro is the one who spoils him in bed, and Sanji just takes everything that Zoro has to offer and never asks for much more than the given understanding that Zoro will make him come.

Now, it’s Sanji’s job to pleasure Zoro because he’s injured, partially because of his own fault for leaving him behind. No, it’s up to him to give him a show that won’t put him back to sleep, keep him entertained, his eye always trained only on him.

“ Hah — Zoro,” Sanji groans as he pushes in the first finger, sweaty forehead pressing against Zoro’s cheek, his breath fanning shallowly against the hollow crook of his throat. Feels his own sweat scale down his forehead to the bridge of his nose, falling onto Zoro’s skin underneath, but Zoro is motionless underneath him. Does nothing to help Sanji as he stretches himself out with one finger, his cock leaking onto Zoro’s bandaged abdomen, which is nothing short of mortifying.

One finger becomes two, Sanji scissoring himself open, already feeling so full with only two fingers because of how tight he is. They normally fuck several times a week, so his body isn’t used to having nothing inside for so long now, which pushes him even further over the edge. Especially with Zoro’s heated gaze on him, his body emanating heat in waves underneath him, can feel how hard he is against his thigh. His biceps are bulging, flexing imperceptibly, implying that his patient restraint is starting to run thin.

Good, Sanji thinks, he deserves it for teasing him so much. Knowing how much Zoro wants him right now makes his burning mortification shift into arousal, wants to make Zoro feel just as desperate as he currently is.

“Stop taking so much time,” Zoro grunts, proving his point. “Get a move on with it. Wanna be inside of you.”

Sanji rolls his eyes, but he nods, biting his lip to stem the moans that so desperately want to fall from his lips when he adds the third finger. He already feels so full, feels his own walls clamping around his fingers in anticipation of the massive cock that’s about to fill him up. Loves getting fucked a little too much, especially when Zoro hits his prostate in a way that clears his head of all the annoying thoughts that are always clouding it. Sanji shifts, taking care to avoid Zoro’s wounds, so he can push his fingers deeper. Looks for that spot that Zoro always seems to find so easily, the one that always makes him see stars, gasping when he finds it.

“Ahh fuck,” Sanji’s voice is a few octaves higher than usual, eyes rolling back as his fingers massage against his prostate. “ Zoro .”

“That’s enough,” Zoro says. “You’ve prepped enough.”

Sanji doesn’t respond, nuzzling Zoro’s throat as he presses his lips to his carotid artery, feeling how wildly Zoro’s heart beats in his throat. So alive, so on edge, entranced by Sanji himself. He fucks himself on his fingers faster, trying to find his prostate with every thrust, rutting his cock against Zoro’s abdomen like a bitch in heat. What he’s doing right now is so wrong on so many levels, he feels like a dirty whore, but that’s part of what makes his blood singe his veins, what makes him want so much.

He's so lost in the pleasure he’s giving himself, in the orgasm that he’s on the precipice of, that he doesn’t even notice when Zoro shifts underneath him. A strong hand wrapping around his hand, forcing it out of his hole, leaving it fluttering around nothing. Sanji lets out a wrangled gasp which fades into a moan as Zoro manhandles his hips like he weighs nothing, exerting his strength on his body in a way that makes him melt.

“I said that’s enough,” Zoro reiterates. He lines his cock with Sanji’s hole. “Don’t be greedy.”

 Sanji feels his eyes roll back as Zoro finally bottoms out, filling him up in the best way that only Zoro could do. He feels him deep in his stomach, clenching around his cock, his own cock dripping onto Zoro’s abdomen. But Zoro doesn't move, only squeezes Sanji’s hips. 

"Get a move on with it before my cock falls off." Zoro raises his eyebrow. 

"Keep giving me orders like that and I'll be the one biting off your cock," Sanji threatens, albeit lacking any heat because his thoughts are so hazy right now. "Just give me a moment. It's been a while." 

"Don't threaten me with a good time, Cook," Zoro replies, but he still nods. Sanji can tell from the way that he's gritting his teeth and the bruising grip around his hips that he's feeling it just as much. "Any day now." 

Sanji doesn't respond in lieu of shifting his hips, gyrating them, squeezing Zoro’s cock in the process. Zoro gives a guttural groan to that which goes straight to Sanji’s own cock, lifting himself up slowly before sinking back on Zoro’s cock. Feels so much fuller now with Zoro’s cock inside of him opposed to his fingers, his thighs already straining as he starts to move faster and faster. He tries to search for his prostate, biting down hard on his bottom lip when he finds it to stem the slew of expletives that threaten to fall from it, stars exploding behind his eyelids every time Zoro’s cock brushes against it. 

Zoro’s thumbs rub small circles into his waist, probably to soothe him, but it only serves to make him more desperate. Flexes his thighs to fuck himself harder on Zoro’s cock, a broken muffled moan trapped in his throat. 

“Fuck, I missed this,” Zoro says, his grip on his waist bruising despite how injured he is. “Missed you.”

Sanji decides to blame the sting in his eyes on the way Zoro’s cock is slamming against his prostate, and not on Zoro’s words themselves. He nods frantically, thighs straining as he tries to take Zoro in even deeper inside. Needs to feel every single inch inside of him. 

“Missed you too,” Sanji gasps.

He leans down, biting down a moan at how the shift in position makes Zoro’s cock fill up every crevice, so he can kiss Zoro. He’s just about forgotten how he tastes, doesn’t care if his breath will smell nasty or not, just wants to feel Zoro’s lips on his own. Breathes him in like he’s the air he needs to breathe, tongue moving against Zoro’s as he re-explores him once more. 

When he breaks away from Zoro, there’s a predatory glint in Zoro’s eye, that tells Sanji that the kiss was only an appetizer to him. 

"Wanna ruin you." Zoro licks his bottom lip.

Sanji doesn't get a chance to process that ominous statement before Zoro shoves him down on his cock, pistoning his hips in a way that makes Sanji see stars. A whimper falls from his lips from the onslaught of rough thrusts directly against his prostate without any mercy, collapsing onto Zoro’s chest to muffle his groans. Zoro laughs, kneading his ass, groping his cheeks tightly and spreading them apart before letting them go, rubbing circles into his sensitive skin with his calloused fingers. 

He then shifts his hand from Sanji’s waist to the base of his stomach, where it’s bulging with the outline of Zoro’s cock, pressing down hard on it. Sanji doubles over, winded, his whole body a hot wire of sensitivity and an incessant urge to come. 

“Zoro, please,” Sanji begs, albeit doesn’t know what exactly he’s begging for. If it’s for more, or for less, or for something else entirely. “Want it so bad. Want you so bad.”

Molten hot heat coils in the base of his stomach, familiar and demanding, reminding Sanji of how on edge he's been for weeks now. Wants to come so bad, rocks back on Zoro’s cock as he wraps his own hand around his own cock, tugging at it without any finesse in search of his climax. He tugs at it, playing with the tip while he mouths at the pulse in Zoro’s throat, feeling himself tighten around Zoro’s cock as his orgasm slams into him without warning. Sanji muffles his moan in Zoro’s skin that tastes salty with sweat, spilling into his hand and onto Zoro’s stomach, eliciting a groan from Zoro.

Zoro, however, continues to fuck into Sanji. Fucks him through his orgasm and well into oversensitivity, forcing him onto his cock and directly against his prostate, until one particularly aggressive thrust leads to him spilling inside of Sanji. He whimpers because he always hates it when Zoro comes inside – this is a lie, he actually likes it a little too much – and he comes for what feels like forever. His come fills him up as he thrusts upwards into Sanji lazily because he can barely move now, his thighs feeling like jelly now, fucks him so full with it until it starts dripping out from around his cock.

When Zoro pulls out, Sanji lets out a whine at the loss because he feels so empty now, the oozing feeling of come trickling out of his spent hole making him cringe. Zoro makes up for it, however, by wrapping his arms tightly around Sanji in an embrace that knocks the breath out of his lungs. He can barely breathe, and he knows that it must hurt for Sanji to be pressed so close to Zoro’s chest like this when he’s still so badly injured, but Zoro doesn’t show any sign of wanting to let him go. Sanji opens his mouth, ready to protest when Zoro squeezes Sanji tighter.

“Let’s just stay like this for a little while,” Zoro prompts.

Sanji can’t find it within him to say no to that. Rather, he settles atop Zoro’s chest, all corded muscle, scars, and bandages. Situated himself conveniently enough that he can listen to his heartbeat directly against his ear. A steady rhythm that’s a little bit faster than what’s typically normal for humans, but still beating, still alive.

Zoro is still here, and really, that’s all Sanji could ever ask for in this moment of time. 

With the sheets stripped and cleaned, Sanji haphazardly buttoned up once more albeit without any pants, and Zoro’s bandages changed to the best of Sanji’s ability because of the sweat and exertion; they finally let themselves rest. Fortunately, Zoro’s wounds didn’t open up again with all the physical activity they just did, because Sanji would have died trying to explain what happened to Chopper for that to happen. 

The medical bed is a small one, but Sanji still manages to slot himself against Zoro’s body on it, limbs awkwardly arranged so he can fit onto it, used to even more awkward maneuvering on the couch in the crowsnest. A leg thrown around Zoro’s, his head perched on one hand while he brushes Zoro’s green hair back behind his new bandages. It’s a precarious position, would probably topple off if he shifted a little to the right, but he doesn’t plan to sleep here.

He'll just stay till Zoro eventually falls back asleep, or till dawn breaks and the other crewmates start to wake up and start demanding breakfast and coffee, whichever one comes first. With how wide-awake Zoro currently is, conversely to how sleepy he usually is, Sanji thinks it’ll probably be the latter. He doesn’t mind sacrificing a night of sleep if he gets to spend more time with Zoro, though.

It’s not like he’s been sleeping much at all these past weeks, plagued by too many nightmares to find much solace in rest. 

“Your hair has gotten longer, Love Cook,” Zoro remarks, curling a strand around his finger. “It suits you.”

Sanji hadn’t been planning to talk right now, didn’t want to wear Zoro out with conversation when he just woke up, but that comment takes him out. So casual, so offhanded, that Sanji can’t help but feel his hackles rise instead. 

“You’re such an asshole, you know that, Mosshead?” Sanji tells him, pulling away from Zoro’s chest to glower at him properly. “You disappeared with the others for two weeks, then came back almost dead for another twelve days, and all you can think about is getting your dick wet and talking about my fucking hair.”

He genuinely didn’t want to have this conversation with Zoro right now, feels a little too vulnerable, like his heart has been scabbed raw. But he keeps on thinking of the deep scars left on Zoro’s body when he changed his bandages, how badly hurt he was, how long he’d been out cold for so long. How dead he looked on this very same bed, like he’d never wake up again.

How can Zoro simply come back from death’s door and act so normally like he’d just come back from a particularly long stroll where he got lost along the way? How can Zoro talk to Sanji so normally as if he doesn’t blame him for everything that’s happened? 

“I don’t like to dwell on the past.” Zoro yawns, looking entirely disinterested in Sanji’s anguish. “’m here now, aren’t I?”

“You almost died ,” Sanji repeats, because Zoro can’t seem to get that through his thick skull. “How are you so…uncaring about that fact?”

“I don’t care ‘cause I didn’t,” Zoro replies. “Swords and haki don’t work on vengeful spirits apparently. Lesson learned.”

“I tried calling you so many times on your denden mushi, but you never replied,” Sanji continues.

“It never rang, we couldn’t reach the ship either.”

“I kept on wondering if I’d ever see you alive again,” Sanji says, pulling out a cigarette blindly from the bedside table. He lights it, taking a drag to calm himself down, not caring that the cloud of smoke is blown directly at Zoro’s face. His chest is tightening too much, his eyes stinging. “You’re so selfish.”

Sanji knows he’s being unfair to Zoro right now, especially because he just woke up a few hours ago, but he can’t help it. He’s emotional, angry, and relieved all at once. He needs to get it out of his system, and no, the sex wasn’t enough to get it all out.

He also needs to distract himself from the guilt and the self-loathing that threaten to swallow him whole. And what better way to distract himself from all the negative emotions he doesn’t want to feel than by projecting them all onto Zoro instead?

“Is that so?” Zoro replies, his face passive, giving Sanji absolutely nothing, which only serves to piss him off even more.

“Did you even think about me at all?” Sanji asks, voice breaking.

“Of course, I did,” Zoro says, meeting Sanji’s eyes with an intensity that makes him falter. “You shouldn’t worry about me so much. I have no intentions to leave your side, no matter how hard you seem to want me to sometimes.”

It’s the closest thing to an ‘I love you’ that Sanji will ever get from Zoro, and it leaves him choked up, his heart swelling with a well of emotion he doesn’t know what to do with. An explosion of spring blooming in his chest.

“Fuck you, I wasn’t worried about you at all.” Sanji takes a drag of his cigarette.

“You’re not a very good liar.” Zoro plucks the cigarette from between his lips, replacing it with his own lips, kissing Sanji till he’s breathless. He pulls Sanji onto the bed, approximating their distance once more so he can kiss him all over. “I also know that you missed me.”

“Only a little bit,” Sanji lies, squeezing Zoro’s neck to bring him in closer for another kiss. Greedy for more, wants to kiss and touch and fuck Zoro until he forgets how scared he’d been these past weeks. “Stupid Mosshead.”

Zoro grabs Sanji’s hand, and he doesn’t think anything of it until he feels a band slipping over his ring finger, which makes him falter. He pulls away, confused, to look at his finger and startles when he sees a gold ring with a blue gemstone in the center. If he’s not mistaken, he’d assume that this is sapphire. It also fits his finger perfectly, almost as if it was made for him. 

What?

“It’s a ring, dumbass Cook,” Zoro tells him, brushing a kiss to Sanji’s fingers, right over the ring. “And I nabbed this for you while we were there. This is probably the treasure that they were originally looking for which set off the cursed spirits.” Zoro grins at Sanji, the smile he always gives him when he’s about to challenge him to a fight. “It’s most likely cursed, too.”

“You got this ring for me?” Sanji reiterates, trying to make sure he heard Zoro correctly. “I thought there was no treasure? Won’t Nami-san want to put this in the ship’s inventory –”

“The treasure was this ring, and I stole it,” Zoro repeats himself, already sounding bored. “Don’t tell the sea witch, though, because she doesn’t know.”

“Why though?”

“Because.” Zoro shrugs. “I saw it and it looked nice, and blue, so it made me think of you. Thought you’d like to wear it.”

Sanji looks at it again, properly this time, seeing how the sapphire glints in the moonlight. This ring would probably cost at least three hundred million berries on its own judging from its weight, or that might be because it’s cursed. Maybe that’s why Sanji suddenly feels like he can’t breathe around the heavy weight of his heart in his chest, like he never wants to take off this ring again.

“You thought I’d want to wear a cursed ring?” Sanji prompts. “One that almost got you killed?”

“If anyone would be able to wear it without getting affected by it, then it’s probably you, Cook.” Zoro grins at him. “Besides, it looks good on you.”

Distantly, he wonders if Zoro realizes how romantic this is. That this is most possibly the sweetest thing Zoro has ever done for him, his heart rising to his throat as he looks at the band around his finger. Sanji nods, swallowing around his heart with difficulty.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re proposing to me,” Sanji says softly. 

“Take it however you want.” Zoro shrugs. “Proposal or not, I’m yours and you are mine.”

Sanji’s breath hitches in his chest, his heart beating so fast, he’s starting to feel lightheaded. Zoro is too good for him, he thinks. Always putting him first while Sanji didn’t even go with them because he was feeling petty and resented Zoro for wanting to unravel his vulnerabilities, all while being ashamed of what the crew might have thought of him if they started to connect the dots about the true nature of their relationship. 

He truly doesn’t deserve him.

“I’m sorry, Zoro,” Sanji says, eyes stinging again. The words he’s kept trapped for so long start to tumble out, unbidden. “I shouldn’t have pushed you away. I should have gone with you, should have been there. If I was there, you wouldn’t have gotten so hurt —”

“Don’t be stupid,” Zoro dismisses him so easily like it’s nothing. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

This Zoro is nothing like the Zoro that haunts his nightmares. This Zoro doesn’t blame him, doesn’t ask him why he left. Rather, he simply loves Sanji openly and beautifully, and Sanji wants nothing more than to be worthy of that love. 

Of the ring he’d just given him. 

“Please listen to me.” Sanji shakes his head. “I left you. I’m always hiding, pushing you away, and that’s because I’m so ashamed. Ashamed of myself, ashamed of the kind of love I carry – I’ve always been weak, different, and so very… queer – and as a result I never thought this love is something I was allowed to have. So, it was easier to let you go first instead of waiting till you inevitably got sick of me and left first.”

“Sanji –”

“Let me finish,” Sanji continues, shuddering under the heavy weight of his emotions. “But I want to love you properly, Zoro, proudly and without shame, that way I can feel like I deserve to stand by your side. I don’t want to leave you anymore.”

It’s only after he’d spoken those words aloud, pushed gently by the kindness of his friends, that he feels liberated by them. As if these words are enough to unshackle him from the unbearable cross he’d been carrying his whole life. 

“I’ve always known you’re weird about these things, always getting lost in that pretty head of yours, and I didn’t really care,” Zoro says after some time. “I knew that with time, you’d figure it out. I never resented you for any of it.”

So Zoro always knew, even without him saying anything. Always so painfully understanding, so patient, waiting for Sanji to find himself. 

Sanji nods. “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel lesser than.” I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like I didn’t love you.

“Don’t worry. I’m not as insecure as you are.” Zoro snickers, patting Sanji’s head. “Just don’t take off that ring and we’ll consider it even.”

It pains Sanji that Zoro doesn’t even see anything to forgive, but he nods, swearing to himself that he’ll be better. That he’ll become someone worthy of standing by Zoro’s side, someone worthy of wearing this ring on his finger.

But for now, Sanji promises that he’ll never take off the ring. If Zoro risked his life to get him this ring from hell, then Sanji will be damned if he ever takes it off.

“I love you, Zoro,” Sanji says, finally telling him the words he’d been holding back for so many years now. “So much.”

“I love you too, Love Cook.” 

The words that Sanji never thought he would hear said aloud to him sound so much better than Sanji could have ever dreamed. 

Chapter Text

Dawn will soon be upon them, their time together before the rest of their crew wakes up is almost up, but Sanji doesn’t want to leave yet. He’d been away from Zoro for so long now, that he can’t quite bring himself to be apart from him just yet. 

Sanji rests on Zoro’s chest, drawing a line across the old scar that lies there, feeling oddly nostalgic as he reminsces over their beginnings. The memory of the first day he’d seen him flashes by his mind. It’s been so long now —four years, give or take —but it feels like it was just yesterday that Sanji was waiting tables at the Baratie when the place he once called home got bombarded by Don Krieg’s pirates. They’d been saved then by Luffy, a debt that Sanji doubted he’d ever be able to repay, but he’d carry that gratitude for the rest of his life. 

That was also the day where Mihawk cut down Zoro, Sanji watching him put his life on the line for a dream, something so bold and stupidly brave that he’d been rendered speechless. Horrified, indignant, but also awestruck by the gusto of this idiotic swordsman he’d only read fables about in the daily newspaper. His heart had shifted then, watching this man take a sword to his chest, looking death in the eye with a grin on his face. 

It was the look of a man who was so self-assured in himself, in who he wanted to be, and Sanji wanted nothing more than to be like that. To chase the things he wanted head on like that, no fear to hold him back, no regrets to weigh him down. 

It’s almost funny how even after all these years, Sanji still feels the same way. Wants to be like Zoro, chase his dream of the All Blue, but also to have Zoro himself. Not in the possessive way, but in the all encompassing way, where he could proudly proclaim Zoro as his. An extension of himself. 

“You know, Mosshead,” Sanji breaks the amicable silence that lingers between them. “I think it’s been almost a year since we — we became whatever we are now.”

This is a lie. Sanji knows that it’s been a full year, that in only three days, that will mark the anniversary of the day Sanji so boldly asked Zoro if he’s in love with him. The memory stands out so starkly in the back of his mind, his chest tightening, can’t believe that amidst his own euphoria he’d allowed himself to be so momentarily bold.

A boldness that seems to have dried up, because a whole year later, and Sanji still struggles to tell Zoro exactly how he feels. But he’s trying, and that’s what matters most, doesn’t it?

 “That so?” Zoro muses, brushing Sanji’s fringe back. “It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.”

“Yeah, it feels like it was only yesterday, but also that it could have been years ago.” Sanji shifts on the infirmary bed, grabbing a cigarette, lighting it. “Wistful, isn’t it?”

A year isn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things, Sanji knows. Especially not when they’re at sea, on a grand adventure that could last any time between a couple months to twenty years. And yet, that’s a whole year of his life that he’s given to Zoro, shared with him.

In this year, he’s reached a state of dependency on Zoro where he can no longer fathom a time where they aren’t always side by side, bickering but also helplessly in love.

Zoro shrugs. “You’ve always been more sentimental than I am.”

“True.” Sanji rolls his eyes. There’s no use waiting for Zoro to share his semantics with him, that’s simply not how he is, but he appreciates him for not making fun of him for having them. Then, softer, “We’re getting closer to the One Piece, I feel it.”

Zoro twirls a strand of his hair around his finger. “Hmm.”

“It used to feel like a pipedream,” Sanji rambles. “Luffy, this crazy pirate running on nothing but a dream and his own conviction, but now it feels so real.” He swallows, daring himself to say what he wishes to next. “It makes me – it makes me feel like the All Blue is probably real. After achieving this much, coming this far, I can let myself actually chase that dream that was supposed to be nothing more than a child’s tale.”

Sanji waits for it. For the cruel laughter. For the mockery. For the dismissal.

He waits and waits, but it never comes, Zoro’s expression remains the same. The shadows dancing across his face in the fading sunlight make him look softer around the edges, fonder.

“And you’ll find it,” Zoro replies, voice brimming with confidence. “I know you will.”

Sanji nods, averting his gaze as he smokes his cigarette down to the filter, letting out a final drag before he blindly flicks it to his side. He closes his eyes, trying to summon the boldness he’d had mere hours ago when he told Zoro he loves him, wanting to let out the question that’s been weighing down on his tongue for so many months now. Even heavier now with a band on his finger.

He opens his eyes, sitting up so he can look at Zoro closely, brushing his fingers against his cheek.

“And you?” Sanji finally lets himself ask. “What happens after you defeat Mihawk and become the greatest swordsman? After Luffy finds the One Piece? What then?”

Because Sanji knows that it’s not an ‘if’, but a ‘when’. It’s only a matter of time until Zoro becomes the strongest, shines so bright that most of the normal mortals like himself will be unable to meet his eye. 

Zoro meets his gaze, steady, no doubt or hesitation.

“I thought the answer to that was obvious.” Zoro crosses his arms.

“It isn’t,” Sanji replies, edging closer towards Zoro, feeling oddly desperate now that the words are out in the open between them. “Care to elaborate?”

“I’ll always be Luffy’s right hand, he’s my one and only captain till the very end,” Zoro replies gruffly.

“He is mine too, you know how much I care about Luffy –” Sanji argues, bristling at the unspoken implication that Luffy meant any less to him. As if Sanji would ever stop being a strawhat just because they found the One Piece.

“But if you decide to stay with Luffy after he finds the One Piece, then I’ll stay by your side,” Zoro continues as if Sanji hadn’t spoken. “And if you want to set out on your own adventure to find the All Blue, I’m sure Luffy wouldn’t mind if I stayed by your side as long as we both promise to visit often.”  

Sanji’s eyes widen because he didn’t expect that in any capacity. That Zoro would ever choose to stay with him over being with Luffy, knows how endlessly loyal Zoro is to Luffy. The reason why he’d dreaded this conversation, why he carried so much insecurity, is because he always felt like this relationship had an expiration date. It’s what made him cling to Zoro so much, so desperate to try and get his fill of him before it was too late. Wanted to have a stock of memories to tide him over for the inevitable day where they’d have reached the end of the grand line, their dreams achieved, the pair of them going their separate ways.

And yet, here Zoro is, proposing the opposite. Says the words so easily as if he’d decided long ago that he’d never leave Sanji’s side.

“Are you serious?” Sanji asks incredulously. “You know that you don’t have to stay with me, right?” But I want you to stay, so, so badly.

“Yes.” Zoro grins at Sanji. “Don’t we have to stick together so I don’t get lost without you?”

The compass on his wrist twitches, spinning restlessly, but resting on Zoro as it always does. Sanji’s heart swells, the force of a thousand splendid suns burning in his chest, festering and consuming him whole.

He nods, shoving the lump in his throat down. He leans down, careful not to touch his wounds, pressing his lips against Zoro’s. Tender, sweet, brimming with all the words he can’t say but wishes he could convey to him. 

“It’s a promise then.” Sanji meets Zoro’s smarmy grin with a shaky one of his own, tremulous with the weight of his own emotions. “To our dreams and our futures; shared together, side by side.”

The smile that Zoro gives him is soft, his fingers brushing through the golden locks of Sanji’s hair, telling him that even without saying anything, Zoro still understands. 

“Let’s make the most out of the years we spend together, Love Cook.”

Zoro is so good, too good for Sanji, but he hopes that one day, he’ll be worthy of being the man that Zoro chooses to stand beside. 

Coming out is something that Sanji never thought he would do. 

Sanji thought that his queerness was something he could bury if he tried hard enough, if he loved women purely enough. But it wasn’t something he could escape, could never be anything other than what he is. A queer man who is in love with another man, one he wants to dedicate the rest of his life to. 

And if he wants to do that, then he needs to tell the other strawhats. His crewmates, his family. They need to know, because Sanji isn’t ashamed, he doesn’t want to live with this shame anymore. 

But he’s scared, the shadow of fear that he’s lived with his entire life isn’t one he can shake off so easily. 

‘You know you don’t have to do this,’ Zoro told him. ‘I told you that I don’t care who knows about us, it doesn’t change anything.’

‘It does, though,’ Sanji replied. ‘It matters. I have to tell them, or at least, I have to tell Luffy.’

‘Well, you don’t have to be alone while you do it. I’ll be there, too.’

Once Luffy was brought up, Zoro couldn’t argue, and the conversation ended there. Because it was true, neither of them wanted to lie to their captain, not even by omission. 

And one day, Sanji will tell the rest of the crew too —though he has a feeling they all, like Robin, had their own suspicions —but he has to tell Luffy first. 

Sanji, however, appreciates Zoro for sitting by his side as they corner Luffy in the kitchen. A delicious meal composed of medium rare steak and potatoes gratin cooked for Luffy in Sanji’s hopes to butter Luffy up. Sanji waits and waits for Luffy to say something about the obvious elephant in the room, the green one in the shape of a certain swordsman sitting by his side, but he says nothing. Luffy instead contents himself with talking loudly about an array of things ranging from meat, his stag beetle collection, and quite a bit about Trafalgar Law which makes Sanji cock an eyebrow. 

Sanji’s fingertips tremble underneath the table where his hand is firmly clasped in Zoro’s, clammy with cold sweat, but Zoro doesn’t seem to mind. Only sips on his booze with his unoccupied hand. Meanwhile, Sanji can’t even look at the food he cooked, didn’t serve a plate for himself because he’s so nauseous with nerves. Can’t even bring himself to light a cigarette, things his fingers would tremble so much while lighting it that he’d burn himself. He needs to say something, but his lips are clamped shut, can’t form a single coherent word around the lump in his throat.

Often, Sanji would wonder how Luffy would react if he ever found out about their relationship, because Luffy’s opinion matters the most to him, perhaps just as much as Zeff’s. He imagined that Luffy might not understand at first, that he would have to spell it out for him. He imagined that even if it took Luffy some time to understand, maybe he wouldn’t be too upset about it, because he remembers how friendly he’d been with Bon Clay and Ivan, so maybe he would be the same to him.

With Luffy, the nicest person in the world, there should be nothing to fear. And yet, there’s still something terrifying about it.

“The food is so good, Sanji!” Luffy exclaims, polishing off his plate and licking his fingers. “Thank you!”

Sanji watches with a hint of panic as Luffy pushes his plate away, ready to leave now that he’s done scarfing down the meal Sanji painstakingly prepared for him in a matter of minutes. Zoro squeezes his hand, giving him a direct look that Sanji immediately understands. 

‘Do you want me to do it?’

‘No. I’ll do it.’

“Luffy,” Sanji rasps, tightening his fingers around Zoro’s hand, his anchor. “Can you — can you wait for a minute?”

“Hmm?” Luffy cocks his head to the side.

“There’s something I —no, we —want to tell you,” Sanji says, averting his gaze. “I —so, about the Mosshead and I, we —”

“It’s okay, Sanji.” Luffy grins at Sanji brightly. “I already know.”

“Know what?” Sanji blanches. Luffy has always been incredibly astute, but is he that astute that he already picked up on his secret relationship with Zoro?

“That you’re in alliance.” Luffy tips back on the back legs of his chair, teetering precariously on them. “Isn’t that what you wanted to say?”

“I — not really? It’s not quite like that.”

“Isn’t it?” Luffy considers him underneath the rim of his strawhat. “You guys are both in an alliance! Like me and Traffy.”

“Like I said, I think it’s quite different.”

“I don’t think it is,” Luffy says. He takes off his beloved straw hat, fishing a ring out of the red sash, shining gold with a heart engraved in it. “See?”

“I think he has a different definition of alliance, Cook,” Zoro says wryly. 

“No fucking shit,” Sanji whispers, oggling the golden ring, flabbergasted. 

Is that a wedding ring? Luffy is married to Law? The realization comes to him, impossible to deny once he’s finally seen it. All the moments of Luffy doting on Law, worrying about Law, and disappearing on the Sunny for stretches at a time without anyone knowing where the hell he went. 

Sanji suddenly feels incredibly faint, his cigarette falling out from between his lips. His captain is literally married, and Sanji had no fucking idea. He turns towards Zoro desperately, seeing that he’s watching Luffy with thinly veiled amusement which tells him that even Zoro didn’t know and he’s Luffy’s right hand man. And that it changes nothing for him. 

“Well, if you put it that way,” Sanji says slowly, clearing his throat. “Then I guess we are allied, just…not to that extent of alliance.”

Zoro lifts his clasped hand with Sanji above the table, showing Luffy the ring on Sanji’s finger. Sanji startles, eyes widening as his eyes flit between Zoro and Luffy. 

“Yet.” Zoro grins. “But one day we will be. Do we have your approval, Luffy?”

Yet. Zoro wants to marry Sanji, not today, but someday soon. Intertwining their lives and hearts together in life and in death, forever together. Sanji’s heart aches, a vivid image of himself in a white suit that contrasts against Zoro’s dark suit, all their friends and family there to watch them irreversibly tie their lives together. 

He wants it, wants it so much that his heart aches.

“Absolutely! I like you guys together when you’re not always pretending you don’t care about each other.” Luffy tucks his ring back in the sash of his hat carefully again. “And I call dibs on being the officer.”

“You mean officiator?” Zoro laughs, knocking back a swig of sake. 

“Yeah, that!” Luffy grins. “I’m happy for you guys.”

Sanji’s eyes water, sniffling as he wipes away the tears that well in his eyes. He really is blessed with the best partner and captain in the world. 

The relief slams into him, leaving him feeling spent, wondering why he’d ever worried so much in the first place. 

“Wait, why are you crying, Sanji?” Luffy gasps, hands hovering over Sanji in alarm. He turns to Zoro in desperation. “Zoro, what do we do? I think he’s broken.”

“Don’t worry about him.” Zoro only laughs though, squeezing Sanji’s shoulders. “He’s just happy.”

And it’s true, Sanji is the happiest he’s ever been in his life, to an extent that it almost terrifies him. Almost. But instead of being scared, Sanji decides to cherish this happiness instead. 

Sanji’s primary purpose in life is to be a cook to the strawhats, first and foremost, but his secondary purpose on this mortal plane is to be a foil to a certain Roronoa Zoro. 

If Zoro’s bounty hits a billion berries, then Sanji’s bounty should hit a billion and one berries. If they fight, then Sanji must emerge as the victor, or at least make damn sure that neither of them can claim that they won. If Zoro does something nice for the ladies, then Sanji must do something even better, more chivalrous than whatever Zoro did. And sometimes, it’s as simple as if Zoro goes left, then Sanji will simply have no choice but to go right. 

(All while dragging Zoro with him, because with Zoro’s broken internal compass, he would inevitably get lost.)

Just because Zoro and him are in a relationship now, soon to be married at that, doesn’t mean that Sanji will ever stop competing with him at every turn. He needs to keep Zoro on his toes, thwart him every step of the way, because that’s simply the only way they know how to exist around each other. 

So, naturally, if Zoro gives Sanji a ring, he will panic. Not because the ring is essentially an engagement ring, a manifestation of all the love and yearning they’ve held for each for so many years. The weight of it heavy on his finger, his heart. That is surely part of it, but that’s not all of it. 

No, Sanji’s primary concern is that Zoro proposed first with a ring he got whilst almost dying in the process , and now Sanji will never have a chance to one up him. He even got the chance to propose to Sanji directly in front of Luffy, totally uncaring of Sanji’s fragile heart. This is so clearly a K.O., a complete defeat that Sanji can never come back from. It’s not fair that Zoro would show him up on the Autumn Island, and then again with two proposals, decimating him emotionally beyond repair. Something that should be feasibly impossible when Zoro typically doesn’t have any emotional capacity beyond that of a wooden door. 

But Sanji wants to try, wants to give Zoro a romantic gesture so loud that even Zoro is forced to acknowledge it. He wants Zoro to know just how deeply Sanji’s love can run, that his love for him can be as beautiful and bright as his when it’s not mired by shame and self-doubt. 

He’s the romantic between the two of them, goddammit, so his pride is on the line here. 

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so Sanji resorts to the one thing he never thought would see the light of day. But his pride overrides his mortification as he cracks open his suitcase, buried within the dusty cupboard in the corner of the men’s quarters, and takes out a stack of letters. Letters that all date back to even before Kamabakka island, when he was younger and full of a love so fierce that it scared him, all addressed to the same person. 

Zoro wasn’t supposed to ever read these letters, and just knowing the kind of confessions he’d poured onto the parchment, has him second guessing himself. Would his illiterate ass even be able to read Sanji’s looping penmanship? Wouldn’t Zoro make fun of him, call him a sappy loser? Would he understand just how much of Sanji’s heart was poured on the page, etched into each letter and confession?

But when Sanji rereads the latest letter, the one he wrote to Zoro while he was gone for so many weeks, he steels his resolve. He’s got nothing to lose. 

‘I’m sorry, truly, for being so difficult to love. I’ll try to be better, if you give me another chance to.’

If Sanji wants to make good on the promise he wrote down by his own hand, if he wants to be worthy of Zoro, then he will have to try to be brave. 

Sanji is, of course, nervous as he hands Zoro the stack of letters.

His hands are sweaty, he’s sure that he got splotches of sweat onto the envelopes, and he had to give himself five different peptalks to even get himself to come up the crowsnest with the letters in tow. He’s still running on the high of coming out to Luffy a few days ago, though, so he pushes forward. Zoro, still bandaged and in a state of healing from his near death experience, looks bewildered as Sanji wordlessly hands him the stack. So many letters, two years worth of them, all bound together by a singular red string. 

“What’s all this?” Zoro asks, cocking an eyebrow. 

“Letters, moron.” Sanji rolls his eyes, setting down a bottle of sake by Zoro’s side. “I hope you know how to read.”

“Yeah, yeah, I read just fine, I just don’t read gay porn.”

A hot flush of embarrassment coats Sanji’s cheeks, remembering how just the other day, Sanji walked in on Zoro reading his book that he must have forgotten in the crowsnest. His brows were scrunched as he skimmed over the words, and when he saw Sanji, he started narrating the words at him. 

‘This the stuff you like to read, Pervy-Cook? Wil fucking Lars with his ‘sword’?’

‘Why are you reading that?’

‘Because you left it here. You should tell me though, do you want me to fuck you with my sword, Pervy-Cook?’

Of course, Zoro didn’t get the nuance of the book, couldn’t see anything past the smut that was in it, and teased Sanji endlessly for it. It’s endlessly mortifying, he doesn’t think Zoro will ever let him live this one down, but he also caught Zoro reading the book more than once when Sanji popped into the crowsnest. 

“Whatever, just read the damn letters.”

Zoro snickers as he unties the red string, letting the letters topple unceremoniously onto the couch. Sanji winces, noticing just how many there are when they’re all strewn messily onto the couch without any rhyme or rhythm. This feels like a mistake, his fingers twitching to pick them all up in his arms and run, but then he notices the ring on his finger. The gold band, the sapphire nestled in the middle reflecting in the sunlight, and he reins in that temptation once more. 

Zoro picks up the first letter by random, his snicker falling into something softer when he notes the messy scrawl of his name atop the envelope. There’s a pause, his eye flickering back to Sanji, his expression inscrutable as he breaks the wax seal on it. 

Sanji finds that he can’t bring himself to watch Zoro read his thoughts at his most vulnerable, so he makes to leave, but Zoro wraps a hand around his wrist. 

“Stay,” Zoro orders. 

Sanji’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, but he nods once, sitting on the couch with all the letters and feelings for Zoro filling the gap between them. 

He told himself he wouldn’t leave Zoro’s side anymore, after all, the promise that finally made his nightmares stop haunting him. 

Idly, Sanji brushes his fingers against one of Curly’s luscious petals, noting how vibrant the plant has become once more now that Zoro is back to tending it again. A blatant display of favoritism, Sanji thinks wryly.

From the corner of his eye, Sanji can see Zoro reading over the letter, doesn’t utter a single word the whole time. 

Once again, Sanji goes through all the probable possabilities of Zoro making fun of him, of bluntly asking him why he’s showing him something so sappy. He prepares himself for it, but the laughter never comes and the scathing words never fall. Rather, Zoro is quiet as he reads the letter slowly, as if he’s drinking in each and every word. Absorbing them, processing them, committing them to memory so he never forgets them. Puts it back in its envelope once he’s done with a level of meticulous care that he’s never seen Zoro show to anything besides his swords, and opens the next letter. 

He repeats this cycle for some time, quietly reading each letter and carefully putting it away, and it starts to drive Sanji mad. He can’t keep just watching Zoro read like this, not knowing what he’s thinking, feels as if the mortification might swallow him whole. 

“Won’t you say something?” Sanji all but begs. 

He’s never felt so vulnerable in front of Zoro before. Not even when he laid himself bare for him, nor when he shared his darkest thoughts to him, or when he cried into his shoulder. 

This is Sanji showing Zoro himself, in his truest and ugliest form, but Zoro is still here. 

Zoro doesn’t respond at first, finishing the letter in his hand, folding it and tucking it away next to the pile of all the letters he’s already finished. For a moment, Sanji wonders if Zoro heard him at all, but then he looks at Sanji. Really looks at him, as if he’s seeing him in a new light for the first time. 

If that’s the case, then Sanji hopes that Zoro likes what he sees. 

“I missed you, too,” Zoro finally says, taking Sanji’s hand in his own. The one with the ring on his finger, thumbing over the sapphire in the center. Sanji shivers, feels as if Zoro is taking his heart into the palm of his hand. “Every day that I was on that haunted island, training with Mihawk and Perona, I thought of you. Of Luffy, too obviously, but the idea of seeing you again — fighting you and showing you how much stronger I’d gotten, seeing how strong you’d become while we were apart —that was what got me through my worst days.”

Sanji closes his eyes, wondering not for the first time about the horrors Zoro went through, the ones he pretends don’t exist. Thinks about the scar that blinded him, a story there that he never cared to share. But, once again, Zoro speaks as if that part didn’t matter. 

He speaks as if he’s the only one who ever mattered. Not his pain, not his trauma. Just him and their silly little feuds. 

“But you didn’t even love me yet at that point,” Sanji argues, unable to understand. How could he mean so much to Zoro, even then?

“I think I always did, but I was ignorant,” Zoro replies. “I didn’t want to see what was right in front of me, not until I couldn’t hide from it any longer.”

It would seem that neither of them are any good when they're apart, lost without the other, two halves of one whole. But that doesn't matter anymore, not when Sanji has no intention to ever let Zoro go again. 

“I see.” Sanji nods, fingers flexing in Zoro’s hands. 

Zoro brings Sanji’s hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles, something he must have pulled from that godforsaken book. Sanji will have to burn it, because if Zoro is going to keep doing smooth things like that, his heart will never survive it. 

“And in response to your most recent letter,” Zoro says, maintaining eye contact with Sanji. “You’re not difficult to love, if anything, loving you was the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”

Sanji’s heart climbs to his throat, a breathless laugh falling from his lips, averting his gaze from Zoro so he doesn’t have to see all the emotion that must be bleeding through onto his face. But Zoro isn’t deterred, tilting Sanji’s face towards him once more, kissing him so softly that it punches the breath out of his chest. Sanji melts into the kiss, hoping that he can convey all the love he has for Zoro through this kiss, though he thinks Zoro already has an idea anyway. 

In this game of hearts and romance, Sanji supposes he must admit his own loss, because wherever Zoro is concerned — then he’s lost a long time ago. But if it’s Zoro he’s losing to, then Sanji will lose every single day if it means he gets to stay by his side.