Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Zoro feels it the next morning when he rolls out of his hammock; the echo of having sex with Sanji last night. It's not pain, exactly. More an awareness of his own asshole that he doesn't usually have. Images of exactly what use it was put to last night up in the lookout rush in with the morning light slanting through the porthole, in vivid detail: the unfamiliar burn of another man’s cock breaching him, the bone-deep satisfaction of that burn, the way it had sunk into every muscle in his body as he lowered himself down, down, down, until he’d taken it all. Begging for it, spreading his legs for it. Sitting on another man's dick and riding it, the hunger in Sanji’s eyes when he’d shoved Zoro onto his back and had him. The deep satisfaction and unimaginable wetness when he’d spilled inside.

Fuck.

Zoro stretches, and uses the cover of that stretch to lean into the feeling; the ache of his thigh muscles, the twinge in his ass, the strange feeling of emptiness–as if, now that he knows what it’s like to be full, he’ll never feel anything but hollow without it.

He twists his hips, feeling sinuous in a way he never has before, a way he would never have even thought about before.

He remembers the way Sanji swore when he finally got his dick inside him, the tight pitch of his voice, the tortured expression on his face, like he was experiencing so much physical pleasure it had become painful. And Zoro realises that the memory makes him feel aware of the power of his body in an entirely new way.

He finds he likes the fit of this new feeling. The way it settles in his body like muscle memory, like the first time he set his feet into a guard position and unsheathed a sword.

The angle of the light suggests it's still early, but he's alone in the boys’ sleeping quarters. Everyone else must be already awake. That, in itself, isn't unusual; Zoro keeps hours that never seemed all that odd until he was sharing living space with other people, people who tend to sleep at night and be awake during the day instead of cat napping as and when the mood strikes them and staying conscious to train for long hours, even days, in between.

It makes sense that those who weren't up all night on watch are already awake, somewhere. But where the hell is Sanji, who was up later than Zoro last night? Who stayed aloft, awake, while Zoro came down below deck at the changing of the watch, their fingertips brushing against each other in a silent goodnight as he slipped past and down the rungs inset in the mast, through the lower hatch to the bedroom, setting out his hammock in the dark before dawn. Still post-coital lax, saturated with more physical contact than he’d had from another human being in years and yet, somehow, feeling strangely bereft as he lay there alone, while the ship rocked with the newly awakened wind, and he finally fell asleep to the sound of Luffy’s snoring.

And why does Zoro care? Why is he casting his gaze about the room hopefully, why does something inside him fall at the sight of the cook’s neatly stowed hammock on its hook on the inner wall? It makes him feel vulnerable. Pathetic. Did he expect to wake up in Sanji's arms like some sort of fucking princess? Like a bride with her new husband, the morning after giving herself away? That's not what this is. Nothing like it has been promised to him.

Still. A part of him can’t help comparing sex with Sanji to the moment Mihawk cut him down. Both changed him, invaded his body and made it theirs, made him theirs.

Both left him alone afterwards.

In the galley a breakfast that seems excessive, even compared to the cook’s usual standards, weighs down the long table.

The aroma of it hits Zoro before he even reaches the door, wafting down the narrow corridor; butter and dough, seafood, citrus, the compelling richness of freshly brewed coffee and, woven almost imperceptibly amongst it all, the ashy bitterness of the cook’s cigarette smoke.

Zoro's stomach rumbles, and he suddenly realises that he's ravenous.

In the kitchen the rest of the crewmates are gathered around the long galley table, while Sanji ferries platters of food from the countertop.

There's a tablecloth on the table. Zoro blinks at it. Is there usually a tablecloth? Has he just never noticed it before? And there, there are neatly folded white napkins by each place setting, and in the centre a vase of herbs that look freshly cut from the miniature herb garden that the cook installed over the sink when he first came aboard, below the bigger of the kitchen's portholes.

Zoro's never seen the place look so damn fancy.

He meets Sanji's eyes over the table and instantly feels all the blood in his traitorous body rush to his face at the sight of him.

Oh, he thinks. You were inside me last night.

Sanji's wearing his blue shirt. The one that makes him look even blonder and bluer-eyed than usual. It's impeccably neat, pressed to within an inch of its life, and Zoro didn't even know they had an iron on board, but somehow the thought of it, of Sanji in the kitchen at dawn in his underwear, painstakingly pressing each item of clothing, is so domestic that it takes his breath away.

He's got a white apron tied around his narrow waist and he smiles at Zoro when their eyes meet, warm and soft. Shy, maybe, in a way that he never normally seems to be.

Zoro has no clue what to do with it.

“Zoro!” Luffy exclaims, cheerfully. His is the only cheerful face at the table, Zoro notes. Usopp and Nami both have the common sense to not be morning people; she's got almost her entire face in her favourite coffee mug, while he's seemingly fallen asleep again on the wooden table top.

“Good morning, captain,” Zoro nods.

He swears he can feel the chef's shy smile shift into a self-satisfied smirk when Zoro limps ever so slightly on his way to the table, his gait affected by that new, private ache.

“What the hell’s all this?” he grunts at the grand serving plates of ridiculously fussy food, to hide his wince when he sits. And okay, perhaps he could've expressed that a little more graciously–for a moment he thinks he sees Sanji's face fall, but it passes too quick for him to be sure.

“Food!” Luffy replies, happily, picking up what looks like a piece of fish in some kind of yellowish sauce and dropping it into his mouth. He yelps when Sanji raps his knuckles with a ladle.

“Don’t eat off the serving dishes with your fucking fingers. Were you raised in a barn?”

“No,” says Luffy, his smile never wavering. “I lived in a crawl space under a dock near Makino's bar when I was a kid. And I guess for a while I lived in the jungle, when Grandpa would leave me there to fight animals and get stronger. Oh! And I also spent a lot of time in this really big junkyard after Grandpa left me, with some other kids who didn’t have parents. We were trying to find things to sell to get money.” He tilts his head, thinking. “There weren't serving dishes at any of those places, though. Or tables. Or food, except what Makino gave me out of the leftovers at the end of the night, or what I could kill in the jungle. Your food is so much better, Sanji!”

Zoro watches Sanji's face go through a complicated series of emotions. He's seen this happen on multiple occasions, now, when people are confronted with Luffy's blissfully unaware anecdotes about his fucked up childhood.

Zoro doesn't really get it. They all had fucked up childhoods, right? Luffy, Nami, Usopp… and he doesn’t know exactly what the cook’s got lurking in his past but, contrary to appearances, Zoro's not an idiot, and he’s picked up that the guy's history is far from sunshine and roses. So why does his face look all… pinched like that, right now?

“Here,” Sanji says, eventually, his voice kinda rough, and he piles a large portion of food from each of the serving dishes onto Luffy's plate. He clears his throat; Zoro watches the movement of it, the subtle tremor of the muscle. “Here we have scallops benedict, with a brown butter hollandaise. And this is smoked goosefish frittata, you'll like that one, and a ricotta and crab soufflé with a dill mousse… et voilà, a classic croque madame, made with the last of our salted hog, can’t really go wrong there… and grilled sunbream with steamed rice and a miso soup. I caught the bream myself this morning with Usopp's fishing machine, that thing is a fucking godsend...”

The mountain of food grows and grows.

Luffy's eyes go wide and delighted. “Woah. Thanks! You're the best.” He smacks Zoro's shoulder affectionately. “Isn’t Sanji the best?”

For a beat, their eyes meet again. Blue-green, the colour of the sea where it deepens beyond the coastal shelf of the islands. Pretty. Almost too pretty; but there’s steel there, too. Something tempered and sharp.

Zoro feels like the breath is frozen in his lungs. You were inside me.

“He's alright,” he eventually manages to mutter. He ignores the way Nami snorts into her mug.

Sanji doesn't ignore it. He perks up at the sound, as if she'd sighed out his name with fucking hearts in her eyes.

“And for our beautiful navigator…” He sweeps a pristine white plate off the counter and goes down on one knee to place it in front of her. “Sea buckthorn crepes, with tangerine coulis and a dark chocolate ganache.”

She blinks, seeming somewhat dazed at the sudden appearance of so much sugar. She tugs the plate closer cautiously, and stares at the artfully arranged pancakes. The idiot chef has arranged the chocolate sauce and the orange goo into two stylised and intertwined hearts. “Sanji, this is exquisite.”

He winks coyly at her, and Zoro feels his good mood start to evaporate into thin air.

“How fitting,” he says, “for a woman as exquisite as yourself.”

She rolls her eyes and Zoro makes an unnecessarily loud retching sound, smirking when Sanji scowls at him across the table.

He reaches over Usopp's still-sleeping torso, though, and tugs the dishes with the sunbream and miso close enough that he can help himself liberally to both.

“Good?” Sanji asks, nonchalantly, when Zoro takes his first bite. He's taken his own seat at the table, directly across from Zoro, and there's a wicked, teasing light in his eyes that says he already knows what the answer's going to be.

The food's good. Ridiculously good. The soup is spicy and sour, with smoky cubes of tofu and the wild, green bite of the same fresh herbs as the ones in the vase. This close Zoro can smell them, grassy and alive, pungent where the stems were cut.

The fish is tender, sticky with ginger and some kind of pickled root vegetable that Zoro can't identify.

It's better than anything Zoro's ever put in his mouth before in his entire god damned life.

Not that he's going to admit that. The cook’s ego's big enough already–any bigger and it'll sink the ship.

“It’s fine,” he grunts.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Sanji shake his head, that shit eating grin still fixed on his too-handsome face, blonde hair falling in a pale curtain over one eye. “Heathen,” he says, so fondly that it makes Zoro's skin prickle, self-conscious.

“So,” says Luffy, his mouth obnoxiously full of food, stretching out one rubber cheek. “What’s the plan? We're moving again, right?”

All eyes turn to Nami.

There's a smear of chocolate just under her lower lip. Sanji, Zoro notices, is staring at it like he's hypnotised. It makes Zoro's stomach turn.

She swallows her mouthful of fancy pancake before speaking.

“We're moving again,” she confirms, and the general cheer that goes up at that is enough to rouse Usopp. He gladly and enthusiastically returns the captain’s high five, before asking exactly what they're celebrating.

“We are officially no longer becalmed,” Sanji informs him.

“Ohhh. I knew that.”

“Course you did.” Sanji gives him a wink.

Zoro's stomach turns again. He glares at the food. Should've known better than to trust anything cooked by that pervert waiter.

“Anyway,” Nami continues, pointedly. “If this wind keeps up we'll reach Loguetown before noon.”

Luffy's eyes are shining. “Our last stop before the Grand Line.”

“And it had better be a short one,” she says, in a voice that brooks no argument. “Loguetown will be crawling with marines, and now you've got a bounty on your head.”

Luffy beams, as if she's paid him a high compliment.

It's contagious, Luffy's happiness. His excitement, his sense of adventure. As compelling as firelight to a moth, and easily as dangerous. Zoro can't help but return that grin when it finds him, can't do anything but nod in approval and confirmation: You're my captain. The first man who's ever been worthy of commanding my loyalty, and it's yours. All of it. You own it; my sword, my strength, my devotion.

Movement in the corner of his eye makes his grin fall away.

Sanji leans towards Nami. “Permit me,” he says, and dabs at the chocolate on her chin with one of the pressed white linen napkins.

“Oh,” she says, distractedly. “Thanks. But Luffy, you've still not said why you want to stop in Loguetown.”

Luffy's grin only widens and widens on his stretchy, improbable face. “Are you kidding? I want to see the place where the king of the pirates was executed!”

“You want…” Nami’s face falls. For a moment it looks like she might be about to burst a vein. “Are you kidding? That's the last place any of us should be! Out of all places… the biggest tourist trap on an island swarming with marines, the place that's going to be the most locked down, the most heavily guarded…”

“I'll be careful! I won't draw any attention, I'll just sneak in and take a look. No one’s gonna notice!”

“That’s insane. Zoro, back me up here.”

Zoro shrugs. “Don't look at me. I'm not the captain.”

He takes another bite of sunbream and lets the sounds of their bickering wash over him like sunlight, mind clear of everything but the way Sanji had wiped her lip, infinitely gentle, and the timbre of his voice, low and intimate. Permit me.

*

Sanji corners him on the steps leading down to what would, on any normal ship, be the gun deck. On the Going Merry, it’s mostly used to store Usopp’s tools, barrels of liquor, and any non-perishable food items that Sanji wants to hide from Luffy.

“Hey. Can we talk?” he says, all gentle and soft, like somehow having the guy’s penis in him has turned Zoro into a porcelain doll overnight.

Zoro shrugs. “Sure.”

He heads down into the not-gun-deck.

He’s been experimenting with meditating down here over the last few days. He prefers to be up on the main deck, where he can feel the wind in his face and the salt in the air is so thick he can physically taste the ocean. Or, better still, up on the lookout, aware of the bounce and sway of each wave as they crest it. But there are fewer distractions down here. The other crew members tend not to bother with this room unless they want something from it. And Zoro has been feeling… oddly distracted, lately. Unable to focus on his training and meditation as easily as he normally would.

It’s concerning.

Dust rises in clouds from the boards of the lower deck with each footfall as they walk, and hangs in the motes of light filtering down between the upper boards. The click of Sanji's metal soles is hypnotic, like the tick of a grandfather clock.

They stop and face each other a few paces apart, like they're facing off for a duel.

Zoro wishes they were. This is more fucking awkward than any duel.

He crosses his arms over his chest and stares Sanji down. “Okay. Talk.”

Sanji's got a weird look on his face. Zoro doesn't like it.

But then he takes a half step towards Zoro and reaches out a slender hand, makes contact, hand slipping round to the back of Zoro's neck and squeezing. Firm. Warm. So warm and so reassuring, and some of the tension leeches out of Zoro's spine before he can help it.

His throat is still ringed with bruises from their sparring yesterday afternoon. Sanji had leapt at him feet first, knocking Wado out of the way and wrapping his long, powerful legs around Zoro’s neck, the force of the impact throwing Zoro down onto his back on the deck, muscular thighs squeezing his vulnerable throat, depriving him of oxygen until he saw stars.

Sanji’s fingers are on that ring of bruises now, digging in tighter, pressure on pressure, and it’s like everything goes suddenly hazy at the edges.

“There you are,” Sanji murmurs, and Zoro's head tips forward of its own accord, landing on a broad shoulder.

He closes his eyes and drifts.

They stand like that for a moment in silence. It's not terrible. The cook’s thumb rubs soothing, achy circles on the nape of his neck, where Zoro’s green hair is clipped down to almost nothing.

Then Sanji stirs, and says, gently, “I wanted to check how you're doing, after last night?”

And Zoro feels the tension rush back in.

“‘m okay,” he mutters.

“Yeah? Cos you seemed kinda off at breakfast.”

Twined hearts in chocolate and tangerine. A woman as exquisite as yourself.

It's not that Sanji means anything by it; Zoro knows he doesn't. Knows Nami would gut the cook with his own kitchen knives if she thought he did. Zoro never particularly cared about it before, mostly he found it funny, and enjoyed mocking Nami for it mercilessly.

So why does it bother him now?

He clenches his core and takes a step back, shrugging off the hand on the back of his neck and its confusing, addictive pressure-pain on his day-old bruises.

“I'm fine.”

Sanji stares, sceptical. Zoro feels undressed by those piercing blue eyes.

“Don’t you have shit to do?” he snaps, perhaps a bit harsher than he'd meant to.

The breath that Sanji exhales at that is exasperated but not angry, Zoro's pretty sure. Exasperated is fine. If he's going to be living on such a small ship with Zoro he's going to have to get used to exasperation.

Zoro's been on his own for a long time now. He can’t change who he is just because he and the cook… do what they do.

“Yeah,” Sanji relents, after a tense moment. Like maybe he understands. Or maybe he just can’t be bothered to argue. “Yeah, I do. Plenty. But I'll catch you later, though, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Zoro replies, eyes fixed on the deck, the dust, those stupidly shiny black shoes the cook always wears. “Sure.”

*

When Sanji was sixteen a group of girls only a few years older than him started visiting the Baratie every weekend. Saturday evening, their busiest service. Normally that slot was booked out months in advance, years in the case of special occasions, but these girls were dripping with money; enough that Daddy dearest could fork out for the bribery needed to reserve a weekly table at the most coveted restaurant in the East Blue, in Sanji’s section specifically, and insist that he was serving instead of cooking for that shift.

They were daughters of the aristocracy, fresh out of whatever finishing school their parents had seen fit to send them to. Old money, money attached to land and power, and Sanji was young enough that it left a bitter taste in his mouth, reminding him a little too forcefully of things he wanted to leave dead and buried in the black soil of the past.

Still, it couldn’t be denied that they were gorgeous. Gorgeous in the way that only rich girls could be gorgeous; which is to say that they’d very obviously never worked a day in their lives, and had entire armies of hairdressers, stylists, cosmetic surgeons and makeup artists at their disposal. They wore only the finest, newest, most flattering clothing, they dripped with jewels, and they seemed to hold everyone–including each other–in the deepest, most scathing disdain.

As a group, they were exhausting. They nitpicked the food, loudly complained about everything from the wait time to the other guests to the way the sodding waves rocked the ship, and they pinched Sanji’s arse whenever he walked by their table.

But they tipped ludicrously well, and when you got them one on one, some of them were kinda alright.

One of them, at least.

Her name was Aurélia.

Aurélia had long silver hair, a wicked sense of humour, a penchant for butterfly oysters, and daddy issues big enough to be visible from the fucking Grand Line. And Sanji had loved her.

Loved the way she’d toss her hair and call him an idiot, loved the look in her eyes when they caught his across the busy restaurant floor and she’d bite the straw of her dirty martini like she was thinking of his fucking mouth. He loved the hitch in her breath when they’d fool around in the mop cupboard out back of the cloakroom; it was proof that he could make her feel good, and it gave him that same satisfying feeling of competence that he got from successfully putting together a complicated dish. He even loved the disdain in her voice when she sent food back: “It’s just a steak, oh my god, how do you mess up something so utterly basic? What a joke. Do you even know who my father is?”

So, he’d gone to Zeff and asked for the next six months of his wages in advance.

The old bastard had frowned at him suspiciously, moustache twitching, knife going still in his hand.

“Why?”

“None of your fucking business, old man.”

He’d pointed the paring knife at Sanji like a finger. “You watch your mouth, little eggplant. And I think you’ll find that it’s entirely my fucking business if I’m asked to pay six fucking months of any of my employees’ salary upfront.”

So Sanji told him he was going to buy an engagement ring for his future wife. And the shit hit the fucking fan.

There was yelling. There were a few thrown dishes, and a few thrown exclamations of “you are sixteen bloody years old, you little shit,” but Sanji had remained resolute. Aurélia was worth it.

In the end, Patti had touched Zeff’s shoulder, mid-rant, and gently suggested that maybe some lessons could only be taught by experience. And Zeff… Zeff had looked so fucking weary at that. Resigned. Like he felt every single one of his years, all in a rush.

“You're right,” he’d said, simply, all the bluster knocked out of his sails, and he’d looked at Patti beseechingly. “But I can’t fucking watch it.”

Patti nodded. “I know, boss. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

So Zeff had marched to the office, looking like every step pained him in a way it hadn’t since he first got the damn prosthesis, and came back with Sanji’s advance.

And as soon as he could get a day off to go with the supply boat to Pastinake Island, Sanji had spent the lot of it at the local jewellers.

Hours, it had taken, choosing that ring. Platinum, of course: the colour of her hair. With the biggest, most beautiful solitaire diamond he could afford, sparkling and lovely. The jeweller set it in a red velvet box, and Sanji carried it around in the inner pocket of his suit jacket the rest of the week, until Saturday rolled around.

That night, every part of the meals he served them was perfect. He saw to that himself. Every morsel of food, every delicately placed garnish, every freshly mixed cocktail.

It was the usual group; Eglantine, who always spoke so loudly she could be heard from the fucking kitchen, Ninitte, haughty Clémense and her sister Cléore, who looked down their noses at everyone and everything they came across, Héloïse, already giggling behind her hand at something, and Aurélia.

She was resplendent that night. Like she knew it was special; like the two of them were just that much on the same wavelength. She wore a deep grey gown, several shades darker than her hair, that pooled around her feet and seemed to flow, like water, when she moved.

Sanji was glad he’d worn his smartest suit, and taken the time to shine his shoes before service began. He placed the last butterfly oyster on its bed of ice, carefully wiped the edge of the plate, and swept it up into the air.

When he set the plate down in front of her, Aurélia’s exquisite face creased in a puzzled frown.

“I didn’t order this.”

“Compliments of the house, Madam,” Sanji assured her, smiling winsomely.

“Do I look like I need free food?” she asked, frostily.

“N-no! Not at all, Madam. I only meant–” He rubbed anxiously at the back of his neck, and plastered the smile on harder. “I mean, these are from me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course they are.” Héloïse let out a fresh round of giggles, and Clémense and Cléore exchanged glances.

“Why don’t you try them?” Sanji prompted.

“I know what butterfly oysters taste like.”

“Ah, but this is a special recipe.”

“Ugh. Whatever.”

She cracked the topmost oyster, opening the milky white, wing-shaped shell.

Inside sat the diamond engagement ring.

Sanji dropped down on one knee.

“Oh my god,” exclaimed Eglantine, meanly. Loudly. “The waiter. I’m going to die of second hand embarrassment.”

“What are you doing?” Aurélia hissed.

“Aurélia Andilet-Whittinghurst,” Sanji began.

“Get up.”

“Will you do me the honour–”

Héloïse very nearly screeched with laughter. “This is hilarious. Wait until everyone hears.”

“–of giving me your hand in marriage?”

“No!” Aurélia snapped, emphatically. “What the actual fuck, Sanji.”

Ninitte, sweet little Ninitte with the unfortunately horsey teeth, gave a syrupy sweet false smile and patted Aurélia’s shoulder. “I had no idea you were this charitable, Aurélia dear, to be on first name terms with the staff.”

It seemed like everyone else in the restaurant had fallen silent, just to watch.

There was a rushing in Sanji’s ears, like waves on a rocky shore.

“But I love you,” he heard himself say, as if from a distance.

The laughter seemed to come from everywhere. All around him.

“Well you shouldn’t! We barely even know each other, it’s weird.”

“But we. All those times, in the store cupboard.”

“That was just fooling around! What’s wrong with you?!”

“Oh Aurélia.” Clémense sounded both scandalised and delighted. “You little tramp. Just wait until your father hears about this.”

“Shut the fuck up, Clémense,” Sanji’s future wife spat. “Like you’ve never indulged in a bit of rough. We all knew about it when you shagged that dancing instructor.”

A chorus of ooohs went up round the table.

Clémense seemed to puff up like a spine-adder, poisonous and enraged. “How dare you. At least Alphonse had the decency to not humiliate me in front of an entire restaurant.”

An impeccably mixed dirty martini was splashed into Clémense’s elegant face.

“Ladies,” Sanji began, in an attempt to cool things off. “Surely there’s no need for–”

“You’re the reason Mama fired Alphonse?” Cléore demanded, rising to her feet.

“Well it was certainly never going to be you, little sister, was it?”

A loud slap rang out across a dining room full of customers who had largely, by this point, abandoned all thought of their own meals in favour of watching the entertainment unfold.

Ninitte had her hand clasped to her heart, her face a picture of distaste. “What a temper, Cléore. I suppose it must be that North Blue blood making itself known. So unladylike!”

“What the devil do you mean, North Blue blood?”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry. I thought the rumours about your Mother were well known.”

Sanji ducked as another drink went flying. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Patti hovering nearby. “To return to the matter at hand,” he attempted, raising his voice to be heard above the rapidly escalating commotion. “I really think that if you give me a chance, I can prove to you just how good a husband–”

“Oh my god, he’s still going,” Eglantine brayed, no doubt audible in the kitchen, the bar, hell probably from fucking space at this point. “Please tell me someone’s getting this on a video transponder.”

“You’ve always been an unmitigated bitch, Ninette.”

Héloïse’s laughter reached a pitch that, Sanji was pretty sure, could shatter glass.

Aurélia turned to her, sopping wet, clumps of skyberry daiquiri stuck to her eyelashes, making her mascara run down her cheeks in two purple-black trails. “I don’t know what you’re laughing at,” she sneered. “You were the one who absolutely insisted we all come and waste our Saturdays at “the trashy restaurant with the pretty blonde waiter”, weren’t you?”

While witnessing the ensuing fight, three things became clear to young Sanji.

First: Despite what you might think, posh girls could throw a fucking punch.

Second: It doesn’t matter how hard he’s trying to stay out of it, if you make enough noise on the dining room floor, head chef Zeff will come out of the kitchen and kick you out of his damn restaurant no matter who your father is.

Third: That while he could take just about any personal insult you could imagine against himself, Sanji could never, ever, marry a girl who called the Baratie trashy.

He knows he has a tendency to fall for a pretty face a bit too quick. To read more into things than he should. And so he’s been trying really bloody hard, with Zoro, to not fall into that old trap; to keep things as casual as he can. To stick to Zoro’s pace.

Still, it stings like a bitch to be brushed off like this.

He tries to work out if it’s something he’s done wrong, something he can fix. Did Zoro not have a good time last night? Is he regretting it this morning? Does he wish he’d saved his first time doing that for someone special, rather than Sanji?

Sanji lights up a cigarette when he reaches the deck, letting the rush of the nicotine calm him and telling himself that Zoro’s just being Zoro. He’s a terse little ball of moss, and he needs time to process stuff; especially change.

All Sanji can do is give him that time, and hope he’s still wanted when Zoro figures it all out for himself.

*

It stays with Zoro throughout the day, nagging at him like an old injury in bad weather. The way Sanji fawns over Nami, the way he spoke to Nojiko back at Coco Village. The way he kisses the hand of the port official when they finally reach Loguetown, and flirts with her until she forgoes the usual docking fee and doesn’t bat an eye at the transparently false names they give, or the giant fucking jolly roger flying from the mainmast of their ship.

She's shorter than Zoro, the docking official. Sanji has to bend the long, slim line of his body down so far to touch his lips to the back of her small hand that he looks like a reed of barley bending in a fierce wind. She's wearing some kind of uniform, as a city official, but it's the kind that's a skirt and blouse rather than the unisex sort that the marines wear. The skirt is fitted and short, the shapely lines of her legs ending in black, high heeled shoes that look like they'd be annoying to walk in.

It's ridiculous, Zoro thinks. There's no way she could effectively fight in an outfit like that. Especially with her cleavage spilling out from the open top buttons of her blouse, a hint of lace visible underneath, like two fucking water balloons on the front of her chest.

She giggles at Sanji and touches her hair a lot, and he leans into her space like he wants nothing more than to breathe the same air as her.

Zoro busies himself with aggressively tying off the hawsers and tries to telepathically push them both into the sea between the dock and the ship.

Luffy disappeared almost the instant the Merry touched the dock, to Nami's very vocal dismay, slingshotting himself off towards the inner city to look for the execution platform where the former pirate king met his grisly end without bothering to wait for any of them to accompany him.

Zoro heads back into the interior of the ship for one last check round before they all head out after the captain, and when he's satisfied that everything's in order he leaps over the gap to the dock to find the port official has already vanished.

“Hey, Moss-head.” Sanji slings an arm around Zoro's shoulders, casual, overly familiar, and the smell of his poncey fucking cologne is so vivid that Zoro finds himself thrown back into the sense memory of the previous night; the scent of it on his bare skin, the way it mingled with their sweat and the barely-there undertone of the cooking oil. The words good girl echo in his mind like a gunshot. “The lovely Ms Nami and Usopp are going clothes shopping, and I've got to restock our groceries. Wanna come give me a hand?” He squeezes Zoro's shoulder with one of those big, slender-fingered hands, and Zoro wills himself not to lean into the warmth of it. Not to think about how far those fingers had reached inside him, how they'd taken him apart. “I'll even let you show off all that upper body strength and carry the bags.”

Zoro ducks out from under his grip without meeting his eyes. “Sorry. I'm gonna go look for replacements for my swords before we hit the Grand Line.”

Sanji frowns, and something in Zoro's chest drops like a stone. I've disappointed him. He ignores the feeling, squashes it down hard until it’s small and dense as a lead bearing.

“We could shop for swords at the same time. I’m sure the others wouldn’t mind.”

“I prefer to do it alone.”

He doesn't let himself look at Sanji, so he doesn't see how he takes this. He feels it, though: the coolness in the moment's pause before Sanji steps in closer again to speak.

“Look, what’s going on, pet? What’ve I done? I can't fix it if you won't tell me.” His voice is taut with concern.

Zoro's head snaps up at the word pet, self-conscious, but Nami and Usopp are a way off down the pier, still arguing about their spending allowance. “Don’t call me that in public.”

Sanji holds his hands up. “Okay, fine. But the question stands.”

“I'm fine.”

He feels Sanji's eyes on him, from his boots all the way up to his hair. “Are you?”

“Yes.”

Sanji makes a soft, frustrated sound. Then he rolls his shoulders and shrugs. “Alright then. We'll meet back at the ship later.” He claps Zoro on the shoulder again. More business-like this time. More distant.

Zoro aches.

“Good luck with the sword-hunting, man.”

It leaves a sour taste in his mouth, like tea steeped too long.

Koushirou-sensei would tell him to meditate on the problem; but that was his answer to everything.

Still, Zoro attempts to turn it over in his mind, letting the cloud of his feelings whirl and then settle, like storm-stirred layers of ocean sediment gradually returning to calmness and order.

Sanji is what his mind returns to, in both its agitated and rest states. The way Sanji is with women, the way Sanji is with men; the way Sanji is with Zoro. Sanji at his back in a fight, as natural and as necessary as the air in his lungs. Sanji’s bruises on his skin. The heat in his eyes when he looks at a pretty girl, like the banked embers of a fire; the way his voice drops low and his mouth curls up on one side, as if he and the girl are sharing a private joke.

Zoro can't understand it, and he can't understand why it bothers him. His mouth twists in annoyance as he slinks from merchant to merchant, inspecting their wares, and he wishes he could just stop thinking altogether.

He never used to think this much about anything but fighting.

Perhaps that's all he needs: a good fight. When he's fighting, his brain goes quiet, still as a pond–glassy and cool. When he's fighting, there's no room for anything but motion and instinct. Survival. Reflex. The muscle memory he's spent years training into his body, honing, sharpening to a fine, deadly point.

If you'd told him even a month ago that he'd be stomping around a strange city moping over a pretty boy, he'd have laughed and threatened to gut you.

He's not jealous, because that would be ridiculous. It would be… that's not what this is, okay, and Zoro might be inexperienced when it comes to this crap but he's not an idiot. He knows a few fumbles between shipmates means fuck all, especially to someone like Sanji.

Zoro was there. He was convenient. That's all. So what if he'd never…

Fuck, he needs a drink.

There's a weird prickling feeling at the back of his neck that's been bugging since they docked, like the static in the air before a thunderstorm, and it's making the newly healed wound across his torso ache. Like he's being watched. Like there's some predator close by that only the primitive, animal part of his brain can recognise.

He sheaths the two swords he's finally managed to find and heads to the nearest shitty bar.

As he walks he feels those new swords settle next to Wado, touching his leg on every other step. Getting to know each other.

Yubashiri's a solid blade, Zoro knows it, he can feel it, like that old bat Emi from Shells Town could feel it in her knee when bad weather was coming. It feels dependable. Obedient.

Nothing like Kitetsu.

Kitetsu is a cloud of cigarette smoke curling around Zoro's hip, possessive and dangerous. His hand rises before he can even register he's doing it, and he fingers the hilt. Down, boy.

It's getting late now, the sun swooning into the arms of the horizon in a messy splash of orange and pink, and Zoro's not exactly one hundred percent sure quite where he is after wandering round glowering at his own shadow all day, but he knows he's somewhere on the very outskirts of town, where the businesses sputter out into dwellings, and the dwellings into crofts, barns, stables. So he's mildly surprised to find the bar fairly busy, inside. He takes it as a good sign–clearly the booze here is either very good, very cheap, or both.

A few heads bob up at his appearance in the doorway, but they look him over and quickly return to their own drinks.

So Zoro makes his way to the bar. The pub, though small, is warmly lit by the candlelight of a dozen wall sconces, and combined with the low evening sunlight that filters through the small, clean windows, it casts the place in soft tones that make Zoro feel booze-sleepy already.

So he almost misses the prickle at the back of his neck getting stronger, more persistent, until it's a buzzing that sets his teeth on edge and–

A pair of golden eyes watch him approach, their owner lounging insouciantly against the wooden bartop.

Zoro freezes.

Mihawk doesn't look surprised to see him. In fact, he's holding two drinks–holding one of them out to Zoro, identical glasses of wine such a rich, dark red it puts the burgundy silk of his ruffle-sleeved shirt to shame.

Zoro stares at him like a fucking idiot.

“You.”

“Roronoa Zoro.” That cultured, elegant voice. Smooth and plummy, rich as the wine in his hand. An expensive voice. A voice Zoro's thought about incessantly since their encounter at the Baratie, simultaneously the best and worst fight of his entire life. The voice that had disparaged him and his years of training, and then in the next moment called him magnificent. And he's saying Zoro's name. “I had a feeling we might run into each other.”

“What are you doing here?”

Mihawk raises an elegant eyebrow, and Zoro's hands find the hilts of his swords.

“Having a drink,” he replies, mildly, gesturing with the glass of wine that Zoro still hasn't taken from his outstretched hand. “It’s generally the done thing in such establishments.”

Zoro's mind races so fast it starts to trip over itself. Why is he here? What does he want? Has he changed his mind about coming after Luffy? Every single one of Zoro's wounds aches, the ones that Mihawk gave him and the ones he picked up at Arlong Park, and each bruise Sanji's left on him during the past couple of weeks of sparring. Still, if this bastard's here for Luffy, Zoro will put himself between them without hesitation.

“If you want a re-match…”

Mihawk rolls his eyes. “Please. There are bigger fish than you in this particular little pond, Roronoa.”

Zoro frowns, and tries to work out exactly what the fuck that's supposed to mean, and why Mihawk saying his name like that, Roronoa, makes the newly formed scar across his torso hum.

He takes the drink before he can think better of it, downing it in one long swallow. It tastes vaguely expensive, as far as he can tell in the brief time it takes for the entire thing to slip down his throat.

It's worth it for the look of bemused horror on Mihawk's face.

“Heathen. That wine cost more than your ship.”

“What are you doing here, if you're not after us?”

Mihawk shrugs a single shoulder. “It’s a popular tourist destination, the dying place of the erstwhile king. Perhaps I wanted to take in the sights of the East Blue while I'm here.”

“Yeah, that's bullshit.” Zoro may not know much, but he knows a lie when he hears it. Even when it purrs out of the throat of the man he might just admire most in all the damn Blues.

“Or perhaps there are other pirates in the world besides Monkey D. Luffy and his band of misfits,” Mihawk chides. “Other forces at play. Forces which might, even, draw a man like myself to an island such as this. An island with a dark history, but–” he swirls the burgundy red in his glass, then takes a slow, prolonged sip, holding the wine on his tongue for a moment that stretches like rubber before holding Zoro's gaze and swallowing. “–truly magnificent wine. A pity the former has somewhat eclipsed the latter when it comes to this place's reputation; they used to be famous for it. Now they're known only for what they destroy.”

“Right. Thanks for the history lesson. Do you run tours as well?”

“None that you could afford.”

Zoro should leave. He should head back to the ship, if he can work out where it is, and let the others know about Mihawk, and that they need to get out of here. Fast.

But it’s hard to tear himself away. Mihawk is terrifying, just being this close to him sets Zoro's fight or flight responses on fucking fire, every survival instinct screaming at him that he's in danger.

But he's also devastatingly handsome. Zoro can acknowledge this to himself, now, in a way that he couldn't the first time they met. In a way he wasn't even aware of back then, a way that was all subliminal and instinctive, like the fear.

Sanji's the one who changed that. Opened Zoro's eyes, made him confront the feral beast of his own want.

He wants, now. It's a dim, distant thing compared to the far more immediate sense of danger, but it's there. Mihawk lounges on a bar stool, calculatedly indifferent, his dark red shirt only partially laced, leaving a long, pale vee of exposed skin that's wider at his prominent collar bones, narrowing to a thin, laced slit at his abdomen.

He was shirtless when they fought, Zoro remembers. Wearing a long, dark overcoat that's now conspicuously absent, along with his hat and his sword; though he still wears the tiny, golden, cross-shaped dagger around his neck that he'd insulted Zoro by duelling him with.

“Where’s Yoru?” Zoro tells himself he's asking for tactical reasons. Not because the thought of laying eyes on the blade that opened him up more deeply than anything ever had before makes something inside him sit up and beg like a hungry dog.

“Upstairs.”

Zoro blinks. “What.”

“I rented a room. I do sleep, you know, from time to time.”

His expression is unmoving, but he's laughing at Zoro.

And okay, yes, the thought of Dracule “Hawkeyes” Mihawk, one of the seven warlords of the sea, greatest swordsman alive, perhaps who ever lived, eating and drinking and sleeping like some kind of mere mortal, is jarring. It's something Zoro's never even considered. But he's not about to admit that.

“Fight me again,” he breathes, instead, helplessly.

“No. Have another drink.” Mihawk beckons to the barkeep with two imperious fingers, and Zoro can't help comparing them to Sanji's. Every bit as elegant, he thinks, though not quite as slender. Perhaps not as long. Heavily decked with rings that glint in the candlelight like fragments of captured flame, hypnotising. Zoro realises he's staring, and darts his eyes away.

Mihawk sets the new glass in front of him. “Try to savour it this time.”

Zoro immediately pours it down his throat again, just to piss him off. Mihawk shakes his head indulgently, and signals the barkeeper to leave the bottle.

*

Usopp's still complaining about this being the third store Nami's dragged them into to watch her try on approximately twelve thousand different items of clothing, which only goes to show what shockingly unrefined taste he has.

The chance to witness the beautiful Ms Nami modelling such a wide array of outfits, from dresses to jeans, winter jackets to (somebody pinch him) bikinis, is truly an honour and a privilege, and one that Sanji takes very seriously.

She throws back the heavy changing room curtain and steps out in a gently flared, extremely short white mini skirt and a racer-back tank in the exact shade of tangerine as her hair. Sanji clasps his hands to his heart and affects a physical stagger at the sight of her.

“Stunning,” he tells her, with emphasis. “Exquisite. Radiant.” He catches her eye and winks. “And the clothes aren't bad, either.”

She rolls her eyes and turns to Usopp, who is slumped in a velvet-upholstered chair with his chin in his hand, doing a pretty good impression of a man trying to teach himself how to sleep with his eyes open.

It's honestly a wonder he's not audibly snoring at this point.

“What do you think?” Nami asks him. And then, when no reaction is forthcoming, she kicks the closest leg of the chair. “Usopp!”

Usopp's chin falls off his hand and he sits up with a start. “Uh. Yeah. What he said.” He waves his hand blearily at Sanji. “Looks great. Hey, Sanji, is it dinner time yet?”

“Ugh. You're both useless.”

The salesman, who has been lingering nearby with berry signs in his eyes while Nami tries on almost his entire stock, leans in. “If I may say…”

“You may not,” Nami cuts in. “Of course you're gonna say it all looks good, you're the one selling this stuff.”

The man’s expression freezes for a moment, then he gives another pained smile and obsequious bow. “As you say, Madam.”

Sanji rubs at his mouth to hide his grin.

It's a nice place, this. Smaller than most of the stores they've visited so far, but younger. Stylish. More of a trendy sort of vibe. The kind of place where fashionable young things from wealthy families come to spend all their parents’ money.

Not their Nami, though. Her money's her own; she's fucking earnt it. It’s yet another item in the list of things he adores about her.

The carpet is plush and thick under Sanji's oxfords, the lighting carefully designed to be flattering. Stylised mannequins are dotted around the place, impossibly tall and slender, their limbs artfully posed, each dressed to show off the shop's wares.

Opposite Sanji is an entire stand of tinted glasses; aqua blue, bubblegum pink, pastel yellow with heart shaped frames.

He lets his gaze roam, checking if they have any in orange.

“Perhaps,” Usopp's saying, “the, uh. From a purely practical standpoint, of course.” He clears his throat. “The, um, length of the skirt…”

Sanji turns to glare icily at him. How dare he insinuate that Nami's choice in clothing is anything but–

“Yeah, I was thinking that too,” Nami agrees.

Sanji blinks, momentarily devastated, then resumes glaring at their sniper, turning the temperature down to even frostier levels. If that bastard has made Nami think she needs to cover up even one inch of those beautiful thighs, he will personally carve him up and serve him on toast–

“Hey, sales guy,” Nami calls. “Does this come in a shorter length?”

This… might be the best day of Sanji's life to date.

He considers himself something of an equal opportunities romantic–a connoisseur of beauty in all of the flavours (and genders) it might come in–but there’s no denying that, aesthetically speaking, women are in a class of their own.

There’s a sensuality to a woman like Nami. Soft-haired, soft-shaped, soft-voiced, the curve of a hip and the swell of her cleavage, the delicate pink of her lip tint and the bright citrus scent of her shampoo. Sanji appreciates it on a level beyond flirtation. He appreciates the artistry of the way women present themselves, how it appeals to each of the senses like a perfectly crafted meal.

The way it appeals to the part of him that had, as a small boy, wanted nothing more than a toy doll of his own, to brush her hair and dress her in fine lace, and admire her.

Sales guy's eyebrow twitches, and he sketches another bow. “Unfortunately not, Madam. However we do offer a bespoke alteration service in store, and I'm certain it wouldn't take long to raise the hemline an inch or so…”

“Three inches,” she says, decisively, turning this way and that in front of the full length mirror.

The fussy salesman's eyebrows very nearly hit his hairline.

“Ah. If I may, three inches would take this garment to a very risqué length. Perhaps Madam would reconsider–”

Sanji stands up to his full height and takes a step into the guy's personal space. His polite smile never falters. “I think Madam knows exactly what she fucking well wants,” he explains, tucking his hands into his pockets and staring the man down, projecting that intimidating aura of just you fucking try me that years of working with Zeff had taught him. “Don't you?”

The salesman's eyes widen, his gaze flickering from Sanji to Nami, who is entirely absorbed in her own rather stunning reflection and pretending not to hear, and Usopp, who seems even more panicked than the salesman, and can only shrug helplessly at him.

“Of–of course. My apologies, Madam. Three inches, I'll make a note.”

He scurries off to the counter on the pretext of finding a notepad, clearly eager to put as much distance between himself and this particular group of customers as possible.

Usopp snorts. “That was hilarious. I think that guy was about to pee his pants.”

“Hey, I was perfectly polite.”

“Course you were, man! I mean, I wasn't scared. But not everyone can be as fearless as the brave Captain Usopp.”

Nami and Sanji exchange amused glances.

“At least Zoro's not here,” she says.

Sanji must not be able to hide his reaction quick enough, because her keen eyes track something on his face, her pretty mouth narrowing. Damn. He's always worn his heart on his sleeve, unable to keep his feelings fully hidden despite his best efforts.

“What's going on with you and Zoro, anyway? You've both been weird all day.”

Sanji plasters on his most disarming smile. “Who knows what goes on in that moss ball's brain? Don't let it trouble you. He’ll’ve forgotten whatever he's sulking about by the time we get back to the ship, I guarantee it.”

“Hmm. He looked pretty grumpy before we split up at the docks.”

Usopp makes a sceptical noise. “I didn't notice anything.”

Nami gives him a look that seems to say you wouldn't. “He turned down the chance to follow Sanji around while carrying heavy stuff.”

And oh. Sanji hadn't realised she'd been listening to that.

Lesson learned: assume Nami is always listening.

Usopp is undeterred. “He needed to get new swords. Zoro loves swords!” He mumbles the next bit under his breath. “Bet he didn't have to try out every sword in every store on the damn island, either.”

Sanji coughs to distract Nami from setting fire to Usopp with her eyes. “See? Nothing cheers that man up like pointy sharp things. He'll be right as rain by this evening.”

“If you say so.” She doesn't look convinced, but that's alright. Zoro will be fine.

And if he isn't? Sanji has more than a few tricks up his sleeve to set him right again.

“As long as whatever lover's quarrel you two are having doesn't affect the smooth running of the ship,” she continues.

At the word lover, Usopp falls off his chair with a clatter.

Sanji feels his forehead twitch. “Lover's quarrel?” he says, slowly, as if the idea of him and Zoro being lovers had never even occurred to him before. “Whatever can you mean by that.”

“Don’t give me that. I'm not an idiot.”

“Um,” says Usopp. “Yeah. Me neither. But if I was, which I'm not, I'd probably ask what the hell you know that I don't know, and why you kept the good gossip to yourself. I thought we were bros!”

She shoots him a look that would have had even Luffy shaking. Brave Captain Usopp only rolls his eyes. “Girls can be bros, Nami. Jeez. I thought you were a feminist.”

“If anything were going on between the moss-head and myself,” Sanji interjects, in a probably futile attempt to protect the owner of the shop from the property damage involved in Nami breaking a chair over Usopp's head, “I can assure you you'd both be the very first to know about it.”

“I have eyes,” Nami retorts, bluntly, and for a moment she reminds him so much of Zoro that he can see why the two of them are such good friends, despite their apparent differences. “And ears.” She raises her eyebrows significantly.

And ah. Ah, shit.

“Oh shit,” says Usopp. “You've heard them?”

Sanji drops the pretence. His broad shoulders sag. “Please don't make a big deal out of this around Zoro.” His use of their first mate's actual name for once seems to shock them more than the revelation that Sanji and Zoro are fucking. “And don't tell Luffy yet.”

Sanji really has no idea what this is, this thing that he and Zoro have started. And yeah, perhaps he should have figured that out before fooling around with him, certainly before taking his fucking virginity, social construct or not, but god help him, he's only human. And Zoro is… Zoro's a whirlwind. A force of fucking nature. Beautiful and stormy and dangerous, impossible to resist. Impossible to deny.

And Sanji's spent years fucking around with beautiful people who were only ever passing through, only ever looking for some fun with the pretty chef they knew they'd never be seeing again, and he doesn’t know how to handle seeing the person he's sleeping with every day, waking up in the same room as them, eating at the same table, without getting his foolish fucking heart involved.

Nami's giving him a pitying look. “Do you really think Luffy doesn't know?”

Sanji starts. Because, uh, yeah, that's exactly what he thought. That, out of all of them, Luffy would be the last one to figure something like this out.

He's so innocent, their captain, for all the dark shit he's apparently been through already in his short life. Strong, yes, loyal and capable and inspiring, yes, Luffy's a man who can convince people to change the entire course of their lives, to chase their impossible dreams, with just a grin and a few fucking words, but romantic relationships? Sex? Sanji just assumed that was outside his wheelhouse.

“He sees more than you think,” Nami says, as if reading his mind.

Usopp nods sagely. “Yeah,” he says. “Me too.”

She smacks him on the back of the head, and finally heads back into the cubicle to change.

When they finally leave the shop, several bags heavier, the sun is already slipping under the horizon. The grey cobbled road is bathed in reddish-pink glow, and the windows of the shops and businesses that line each side of the street are illuminated with lamplight. There’s a new chill in the air, and Nami frowns.

“That’s weird. I think there’s a storm coming, but I could swear there was no sign of it earlier.”

She has a gift for reading the weather, perhaps better than anyone Sanji’s ever met in all his years at sea, and he trusts her judgement implicitly.

“We should head back to the ship,” he says. He’s got a bad feeling in his gut, like something’s coming that none of them are quite prepared for, and he doesn’t like the thought of Nami and Usopp being caught up in it.

A good chef knows to trust his gut.

“But we’ve still not found Luffy,” Usopp protests.

Luffy’s a stupid kid, but he’s also the man who’ll be the pirate king. And he quite literally bounces back from just about anything. In this moment, Sanji’s far more concerned about the two decidedly less bouncy crew members in front of him.

“The captain’s a big boy, he can take care of himself. Besides, the sooner we get back to Merry, the sooner I can get dinner started. If that doesn’t get him home, nothing will.”

And it’s true that Luffy has some sort of sixth sense for meal times. He sniffs them out like a bloodhound; half of Sanji’s work since joining the crew has been keeping him away until the food’s in a fit state to be eaten.

Usopp visibly perks up at the mention of dinner, and even Nami seems swayed by Sanji’s reasoning. “Alright,” she says. “We’ll leave Luffy to Zoro.”

At the mention of Zoro, that ache in Sanji’s gut kicks up a gear.

Don’t be ridiculous, he tells himself sternly. Zoro’s a force of fucking nature. You should be more worried for the storm, coming face to face with that guy. If it pisses him off, he’ll cut its fucking eye out. Leave it blind.

*

Zoro can’t believe he's here, getting wasted with the greatest swordsman the world has ever known. So far.

They're several bottles in, and Zoro has taken up residence on the barstool next to him, matching him glass for glass, feeling the watery frills of that red shirt brush against his bare forearm every time he moves. The room has started gently spinning, the booze is strong, but the other man is watching him with something like grudging respect every time he finishes another glass of the stuff, so it's worth it.

This is great. He's going to get such a good grade in Dracule Mihawk.

So why can't he stop thinking about the damn cook? He wonders where he is right now. If he got the damn groceries and went back to the ship, or if he's out at some other bar, drinking with Nami. Or the dock lady. Or some other pretty girl; there seems to be no shortage of willing female company where that bastard's concerned.

“Did you know that your sword is cursed?” Mihawk's saying, casually.

“Hm?”

“Your sword. This one.” He runs a hand down Kitetsu's sheath, and Zoro shivers like he can feel it on his own skin. It’s… intimate, another swordsman putting his hands on Zoro's katana. Mihawk's fingers are heavy with those jewelled rings, and Zoro thinks he hears Kitetsu whine like a kicked dog, and cower into his side. “It’s cursed.”

“Yeah. I heard something like that from the guy who sold it to me.”

He doesn't say I like it. Doesn't say I'm cursed, too, and nowhere near as finely made.

The funny thing is, he thinks Mihawk hears it anyway. He stares at Zoro for a long moment, the heavy weight of his attention suspended on a thread that feels too fragile to bear it.

Zoro blushes, and necks the rest of the bottle without bothering with a glass, and Mihawk tuts like an old woman.

“Careful, Rabbit. I'm not going to hold your hair back if you overindulge.”

“I can hold my drink.” The room sways a little. Why are rooms always doing that? “And who the hell are you calling Rabbit?”

I don't hunt rabbits with a cannon.

Mihawk just smirks.

If I'm the rabbit, Zoro thinks, he's the wolf. I belong in his jaws.

The memory springs to mind, suddenly and vividly, of Sanji's mouth biting down so hard on a nipple that Zoro immediately climaxed. Zoro can still feel the mark his teeth left, the warm sting of it. It feels like a caress. A reminder.

He wants to look at it; to strip down in front of a mirror and admire the patina of mottled blue Sanji has left all over his body, whether from fighting or fucking.

It's the same thing, something inside him whispers. It has Mihawk's voice.

He steals another look at the man beside him. There’s not a mark on him, not anywhere that's visible. Zoro wonders if he's ever been permanently marked, and if so, where that mark is hidden. He wonders how long it's been since he faced an opponent who could even temporarily mark him, and what that porcelain-pale skin would look like marred with bruises.

“You're staring,” Mihawk informs him, neutrally.

“Sorry.” Zoro snaps his gaze away, back to his own hands on the bar top.

“Why? You're quite welcome to stare.” From anyone else it might be a flirtation. From Mihawk it only sounds mildly confused. Perhaps a little bored.

“I was wondering how easily you bruise,” Zoro confesses.

Mihawk seems to consider this. His eyebrows pull ever so slightly in the middle, a thoughtful sort of frown.

Zoro realises he's staring again, and takes another good swallow of wine.

“You know,” Mihawk says, “I don’t remember.”

“Huh.”

Dimly, distantly, Zoro thinks he hears the slow rumble of thunder.

Chapter Text

“–and he’s so damn smug, y'know? Thinks he knows fucking… everything about everything. Jackass. Sometimes I wanna take my sword and slice him open from stem to fucking stern, make him bleed for me.”

“Sorry, are we still talking about the chef?”

Zoro startles, almost surprised to remember Mihawk is still there. “Yes. Keep up.”

Mihawk gives a pained sigh which manages to convey his deep regret about all the life choices that have led to this moment.

“Thinks just cos he has a big dick and he knows how to use it that I'll be at his beck and call like some… some fucking girl...”

“You're fucking the chef?”

Zoro feels himself blush again, and sees Mihawk notice it. It makes him think of last night, blushing in Sanji's arms. You blush so fucking sweet.

He clears his throat. “So what if I am?”

Mihawk seems more interested in this than he has in anything else Zoro's said all night. “Fascinating,” he proclaims, and his gaze falls to Zoro's throat, the base of which, he knows, is purple with bruises.

“Well, technically,” Zoro's mouth says, before his brain has time to catch up, “technically he's fucking me.” Once. Not that Mihawk has to know that.

Unless the blowjobs count as fucking? And the… the hand stuff. Fuck, why is this all so complicated?

Mihawk looks like he's trying not to smile. “Yes, Rabbit. I rather thought.”

Hang on. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Only that I've never had a man beg me to cut him quite as beautifully as you did.”

Zoro's gut swoops with a sudden rush of embarrassment and weird pride. He hides it in his wine glass. This stuff is pretty good, he decides. Strong, for wine, and not too sweet. But it's starting to give him a headache, and the price is astronomical. He wonders just how deep Mihawk's pockets actually are–then decides he doesn't give a shit, as long as the booze keeps coming.

“I didn't beg,” he mutters into the bottom of the glass.

“Not with words.”

What does that mean?

Zoro doesn't meet Mihawk's eyes when he says, “But you have had other men ask for… that. Before.”

“Oh yes.” He can hear the smirk in the guy's voice when he replies, can picture the cool, arrogant twist to his mouth. It does things to Zoro's insides. “Did you think you were the only one?”

“No, I–” Zoro might be too drunk for this conversation. “I didn't even know I was one.” He’s not sure that sentence makes sense, but Mihawk's a smart guy. He'll get it. He gets Zoro, generally–far better than most do. “But the cook knew. Fuck knows how.” Recognised it in him, like Mihawk had. “Shit. Is it that obvious? Does everyone fucking know this about me?”

“How should I know?” Mihawk makes a moue of distaste, and looks more uncomfortable than he has at any other point this evening. “Most people are dull, in all possible ways. I have no interest in what they think they know.”

Zoro knocks his glass against the one resting in front of Mihawk. “I'll drink to that.”

“So you're fucking the chef, but you don't like him.”

Zoro's skin prickles in irritation. “I like him fine. I just can't stand him.”

Mihawk gives him a flat look. “Tell me I was never this young.”

“Yeah yeah, you're older than the fucking mountains, I get it.”

“Careful.”

Zoro relishes it; the frisson of danger that shivers its way up his spine at that note of warning in his velvet-smooth voice. He's drunk enough that he even relishes the heat in his cheeks, the blush that Sanji likes to obsess over, that he called sweet.

“So you like him, and you can't stand him. And you're… jealous, as I understand it?”

“I'm not jealous. I just can't get… certain things… out of my damn head.” He waves his hand around by his ear like he’s trying to swat a fly. “I can't concentrate on anything else any more, it's driving me crazy.”

“And you've decided to make that my problem.”

“Well you're the one who didn't want to fight.”

Mihawk chuckles ruefully. “Oh Rabbit. I always want to fight.” Zoro swallows, tongue suddenly thick in his mouth. Danger, his mind whispers, and his heart trips over itself in its mad rush to beat. His eyes fall to the sheathed dagger that hangs from Mihawk's unblemished throat. “But some of us have a more refined sense of self control. Speaking of which; why don't you tell me exactly what these certain things are that you can't get out of your head, when it comes to that chef of yours? Perhaps the experience that comes with being older than the fucking mountains will be of some use, hm.”

Ugh. Where to start? “He likes women.”

A raised eyebrow.

“I mean, he likes both. I think.” Zoro senses that he’s still not making much sense. “But the way he acts around women is different. You know? Fuckin’... chivalrous.” He thinks he was attempting to say that disdainfully. Instead, though, it comes out full of a wistful sort of longing. “Always kissing their damn hands and… calling them pretty, and shit.”

“And you want him to stop?”

“No,” Zoro scoffs. “I don’t give a damn. It’s just how he is, it doesn’t mean shit.”

“I see.” Mihawk steeples his hands on the bartop in front of himself. “But you're upset that he doesn’t call you pretty, or kiss your hand. Is that it?”

Almost. Closer, certainly. “No, he–” Zoro blushes, and scowls at the floor. “He does. Do that.” Mihawk's other eyebrow rises to meet the first, so Zoro rushes to clarify. “Only sometimes, when we’re alone. I mean, when we’re–” he feels the blush intensify, and it’s more embarrassing than the words he’s struggling to get out. “When we’re alone alone.” He puts enough emphasis on the word that he’s sure Mihawk will get it.

“When you’re having sex?”

Fucking hell. “Yeah,” Zoro sighs, scrubbing his face with a weary hand. Subtlety never suited him anyway. Fuck it. “When we’re having sex. And that's… I wouldn't want him to do that shit in front of other people, anyway. It's private. But I told him–” is he really admitting this, to a man he’s admired since he was a little kid playing swords? “–that I like it when he treats me like a girl.”

Silence.

He risks another glance to the side. Mihawk’s staring at him intently. Studying him like a naturalist might study a rare species of butterfly, the full force of his attention on each minute detail of Zoro’s pinned wings.

“So what’s the problem?” he asks, eventually. Quieter, like the words are only for Zoro to hear. “He treats you like a girl, you enjoy it. Are you ashamed of that?”

“I’m ashamed of nothing,” Zoro spits. “The problem that it’s not the same.” He slams the fragile-stemmed glass down on the bar a bit too hard, frustrated with his own inability to explain–it itches on his skin like an insect bite.

He closes his eyes. Tries to sift out the chaff of his useless emotions, leaving only the grain at the core of it all.

Finally: “It’s not real. It's just words. I know I’m not actually.” He gestures to himself helplessly. And quietly, almost under his breath, he releases the word he’s been searching for. “Pretty.”

Not pretty like Nami. Not pretty like Nojiko, or like any of the girls he’s seen Sanji stare at with that hungry light in his eyes. Zoro’s a tool: well-maintained, deadly sharp. Functional.

A pause. Then Mihawk gives a disbelieving huff of not-quite-laughter. “Is that what you think?”

Zoro blinks his eyes open. The candlelight hurts; it feels too bright. Outside, sheets of rain batter the windows. The yellow of Mihawk’s eyes has deepened to something like flame.

“Come, Rabbit,” he says, abruptly, in a tone of such quiet authority that it’s clear he’s used to being obeyed without question. He stands–he’s tall, god, Zoro had momentarily forgotten how tall–and starts to weave his way through tables to the foot of the wooden staircase leading to the upper floor.

“What–where–”

“Quickly, if you don’t mind,” he tosses back over his shoulder. “We don’t have all night.”

A little unsteady on his feet, and not quite sure where he’s going or why, Zoro stumbles after him.

*

The wind that had been so still not twenty four hours ago is steadily building to a squall that threatens to break their little caravel free of its moorings and wreck her on the rocks north of the dock.

“It doesn’t make sense!” Nami fumes, tearing out a clove hitch on one of the starboard braces and letting the line race out, the yard swinging hard around the mast as the sail catches the new wind. She raises her voice to be heard over the roar. “Three barometers on this ship. Three! And not one of them so much as hinted at the pressure change you’d expect from a storm this size.”

She catches the loose end of the rope as it whips past and thrusts it into Usopp’s hands, brushing hair wet with the driving rain back out of her face. “Take in the slack and tie that off. Securely.”

“I take it this means dinner’s on hold?” Usopp hazards.

Sanji shrugs apologetically. “Sorry, man.”

Usopp sighs. “I figured.” He busies himself tying off the brace.

Meanwhile, Nami pulls Sanji further aft. They’re somewhat sheltered here by the forecastle, which breaks the worst of the wind.

Nami’s voice drops low and serious. “We’re in trouble,” she says, without preamble. “This storm? Means business. We need to get out of here now.”

“Can’t we wait it out? If we lash her securely enough to the dock the three of us can head inland, find somewhere to shelter until it passes. Then we can collect our idiot captain and our idiot first mate and–”

She’s already shaking her head. “The storm’s heading in too fast from the west, and this?” She gestures expansively at the Merry and the sea beyond; the high waves battering the ship from the rear, the wind lashing the single mainsail sheet they’ve got unfurled, raindrops fat and cold and coming in nearly sideways off the sea. “This is only the outermost edge of it. And if it hits head-on… when it hits head-on, the shore will be to leeward of all the ships on this side of the island. And none of them will make it out the other side intact. The only way Merry gets through this is if we strike out for open ocean before the worst of it arrives.”

The reassuring smile Sanji’s been wearing all afternoon finally slips away, lost in the wind.

He feels like the bottom of his stomach has fallen out, leaving nothing but a cavernous space behind. Any sailor will tell you that one of the worst positions you can possibly be in at sea is trapped between a storm front and the land–even a sailor who spent most of his life so far on a floating restaurant.

But they can't set sail without the rest of their crew. Luffy and Zoro are still missing and it's been long enough that the nagging worry at the back of Sanji's mind has grown so loud he can barely think over it.

“Sanji.”

If the storm hits and they're still here on the ship at the dock, that's… it’s not survivable. They’re not even out of the East Blue yet and they’re not going to survive...

“Sanji,” Nami repeats, taking him by the elbows and giving him a good shake. She waits for him to make eye contact. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Usopp and I will get the Merry ready to sail. You’re going to go find Luffy and Zoro and bring them back here, quickly. You can do that, right?”

Can he? Yes. He has to.

So he nods, and wishes he could light a cigarette to calm his fucking nerves. Bastard storm won’t even let him have a fucking smoke. “You can rely on me,” he promises, because it'll be a cold day in hell before he ever lets a beautiful woman down.

He gets ready to leap across the widening gap between the Merry and the shore.

“Sanji,” she calls, and he pauses just long enough to look back at her. “I mean it. One hour and I’m taking this ship out, whether the three of you are on it or not.”

Her eyes are wide with fear, but her jaw is set. Determined. And in that moment he admires the steel core of her so strongly that, for a second, it’s nearly overwhelming.

“Don’t worry about us. Get Merry ready, make for open water if you have to.” Situations can change fast, Sanji knows. If the speed of the storm picks up, even an hour might be too late. “Just be safe. As long as we survive, we can meet up again.”

A single, solemn nod. “One hour, Sanji.”

He takes a few steps back to get a good run up to the rail, and then he’s off.

*

Luffy’s had a great day, all told. He found a bar where he could get a drink of milk, heard some really cool stories about the pirate king, and managed to avoid all the marines, just like he promised Nami.

And now he’s spotted his old friend, Buddy the Clown, here in the crowd of tourists in the square by the old wooden execution platform!

“Hey!” he calls out. “Hey, Buddy! Buddy, over here!”

Nami’s going to be so pleased with him.

*

The room Mihawk’s renting is at the furthest end of the hallway, right on the front corner of the building, up against the gable. The ceiling slopes with the thick, dry thatch of the roof, dipping down too low for a grown man to be able to stand fully upright under it on that side of the room. The bed is set sideways against that wall, and there’s a dark wooden wardrobe against the opposite, taller one. The furnishings look old but clean and neatly kept, and someone’s already come in to set a fire going in the grate and light the heavy, old-fashioned lamps.

Zoro toes his shoes off and waits in the doorway, feeling simultaneously both too drunk and not drunk enough for whatever this is.

“In.” Mihawk hooks a finger in the vee of his shirt and tugs him over the threshold. He nudges the door shut behind them; it shuts with a heavy wooden click.

“Are you going to kill me?”

He laughs, and doesn’t remove his finger. Instead he drags it lower, parting the vee further, applying pressure where the pale fabric of one side of the shirt is wrapped over the other and tucked haphazardly into the haramaki. The shirt begins to slip free, starting to expose the bare, scarred skin of Zoro’s chest, though he pauses before much more is exposed than the top inch or two. His cat-like eyes burn. They’re fixed on the top of the long, pink, diagonal scar as it’s revealed, and the gleam in them is possessive. Approving.

Zoro feels naked already under the intensity of that stare.

So he tugs his shirt the rest of the way open himself, shoving the haramaki down low on his hips so that the entirety of the wound is visible. It’s Mihawk’s, it belongs to him. He should be able to look at it if he wants to.

Mihawk freezes for a moment, then he touches the jagged line of that scar, cool fingertips lingering on places where the skin is puckered, or the edge especially ragged.

“Messy,” he murmurs.

Zoro swallows. It’s loud in the quiet room; the chatter of the bar downstairs has been muffled to nothing but a far-off background hum, the wind is an outcast beyond the closed window and heavy storm shutter, the rain’s pattering is dulled by the soft straw of the thatch.

He's drunk. Too drunk to work out if this is supposed to be some kind of hook-up or some kind of assassination, and definitely too drunk to care.

“The cook had to re-sew it when the sutures broke at Arlong Park.”

It's one of Zoro's favourite memories. The almost overwhelming sting of it, the blood tacky on his skin, Sanji’s steady hands stitching him back together, his clever, wicked fingers all over the wound.

Mihawk makes a considering sound. “So this will be the second time I've made you beautiful for him.”

Zoro has no idea what that means. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s at that moment that he catches sight of Yoru, suspended from a hook on the near wall beside the door. It’s tall as a man, that sword, and lean, hungry. Thirsting.

Everything rushes in him at the sight of it: blood and breath. Wado Ichimonji sighs in its sheath.

“A man could get jealous,” Mihawk comments, amused. “Do you look at your young man the way you look at my sword?”

Zoro doesn't know. In this moment, he doesn’t care. He's too busy trying not to fall to his knees in front of Yoru, to open his lips and put his wet mouth to the metal…

“Eyes on me, Rabbit.”

Mihawk clicks his arrogant, infuriating fingers in front of Zoro's eyes.

Zoro scowls at him.

“Don’t pout. I don't usually give makeovers to young miscreants, you know. You should be grateful for my time.” He raises an expectant eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Yes sir,” Zoro answers without thinking, some deeply trained reflex to respond immediately and respectfully to a master swordsman when he uses that particular tone. Then– “Wait. Makeovers?!”

There's a faint hint of a smile on those immaculate lips. Zoro squints. Is he wearing makeup? Or does his face just naturally look like that; eyes black-lashed, dark-rimmed, lips dewy with peach, cheekbones contoured with dusty shadow?

“I’m going to make you feel pretty, Roronoa Zoro. What you do with that is up to you.” He shrugs. The dark red silk of his blouse ripples, catching the flickering light. “At the very least you'll know how to keep your boy's attention.”

Zoro doesn't say What the hell makes you such an expert? He doesn't say Where’s the boy whose attention you're trying to keep?

For all his failings, Zoro knows how to recognise a master in any given field when he sees one. So instead, he only asks, “How?”

And Mihawk smiles like a wolf, white teeth flashing, and opens the left-hand door of the wardrobe.

Inside is a riot of lace and satin, hanging sachets of lavender and the rich smell of beeswax on leather.

Zoro frowns and tries to work out what he's seeing here. The garments are black, for the most part, with some red, and some the colour of sweet, over-ripe plums, and they all…

They all look like women's… undergarments.

“These are ladies’ clothes,” Zoro says, flatly.

“No,” Mihawk corrects him, in a tone like he's bored. “They're mine.”

“Yours?!”

“Does that shock you, Rabbit? How provincial.”

Zoro's gaze drops down to the front of Mihawk’s shirt, the crotch of his trousers, trying to catch any sign that he's not kidding. That he really is wearing some sort of silky fucking women's lingerie under his clothes.

Mihawk's smirk widens and, as if in answer to the question on Zoro’s face, he undoes his shirt with a single twitch to the dark lacing, letting it fall dramatically off one shoulder and open, giving him the smallest peek at a sculpted, unblemished, hairless chest…

…and the wine coloured, cupless brassiere that hugs it.

Zoro gapes. Everything else fades to white noise.

He thinks Mihawk is speaking, but no sound reaches him. Nothing exists in the entire god forsaken world but that scrap of lace, that exposed skin.

The bra is such a dark red that it's almost purple: Mihawk's pale skin is stark against it in contrast. The straps that rise up over each strong shoulder are shiny and thin, impossibly delicate. The two empty half-moons where the cups should be draw the eye like an arrow to its target, right to the centre of each of his pectorals: two tiny, dusky pink nipples, rosy in the firelight. The lace below is scalloped, like a stylised ocean wave along the rib cage.

This is how Zoro dies. A heart attack at age twenty on the floor of some backwater inn, slain not by the warlord's blade but by his fucking underwear.

“Close your mouth, Rabbit. You'll catch flies.”

“You.” Zoro's mouth closes. Opens again. Closes.

“You want to be feminine for him,” Mihawk says, as if this is all very reasonable and not at all fucking insane. As if he deals with this sort of thing all the damn time. “At least in certain… specific contexts. And from what I can tell, your beau is a man who appreciates sartorial elegance. A fine fabric; a tailored fit. Why not use that to your advantage?” He circles around Zoro slowly, his footsteps measured, no sudden movements, until he's standing directly behind him, peering over his shoulder at the contents of the wardrobe.

“Besides.” His mouth is so close to Zoro's ear that he can feel the small, warm stir of his wine-tainted breath. “They’re exquisite to wear. A sensory revelation.”

He takes Zoro's hand and places it on the skirt of a black lace camisole hanging from the rail; lets the waterfall of fabric run through their joined fingers.

“You'll like it,” he purrs. “I promise.”

*

Sanji ducks into a doorway as a group of marines jogs past, hiding in the shadows until they’re out of sight and the fading sound of their footsteps has disappeared into the storm. He uses the windbreak of the porch to finally get a cigarette to light, and sucks in a grateful lungful through the damp filter.

There are more marines now than there were earlier. This is the third group he’s run into. And they’re moving purposefully, not patrolling but running from place to place strategically, accompanied by the crackle of small, portable snail phones.

Something’s going down. And if something’s going down, the one thing you can bet on is that Luffy will be right in the bloody middle of it.

There’s been no sign of Zoro yet. Not entirely surprising; that idiot can get lost going from one side of the ship to the other. But they’re on a time limit, here, and the bad feeling in Sanji’s gut is only getting stronger by the minute.

He tells himself that Zoro’s probably already with Luffy. Those two have a knack for turning up right where they’re supposed to be, right in the nick of time. He’ll find them, kick their arses back to the ship, and they can all get the hell away from this place and its rancid fucking vibes as quick as possible.

Up above, the sky is as dark as a bruise, layers of opaque cloud muddying the moonlight. The wind whips the warm air from his lungs. He stubs out his smouldering fag end on a nearby wall and sets off after the group of marines that just went by. They were heading towards the centre of town, where he knows, from the beautifully drawn map Nami showed them before their arrival earlier, the tall buildings of the inner city open up into a wide, paved square.

It’s the only lead he’s got.

*

Zoro jolts with the force of each strong pull. Expensive wine churns in his otherwise empty stomach, and he considers how mortifying it would be to vomit on Dracule Mihawk’s bed. Even a temporary bed in a room he’s only renting for a handful of nights, and which Zoro is currently bent over, elbows on the eiderdown quilt, head dipped below his bare shoulders.

“Hold still,” Mihawk reprimands him, sharply.

“I am holding still,” Zoro grits back.

“Hold stiller.”

“I can’t hold still if you’re yanking me around.”

A big hand squeezes Zoro’s waist in warning. “Try.”

Fucking warlord. Fucking world’s greatest swordsman. Fucking… bastard.

He’d dragged Zoro through a small side door into a bathroom, earlier, stripped him off with brutal efficiency and dumped him into the small, enamelled tub. ”I’m not letting you anywhere near my nice things until you’re presentable.” Prissy, stuck up…

He’d scrubbed Zoro from head to toe like a farmer might scrub down a prize winning pig before the village fair. Zoro’s skin is still scalding from it. And he’s never been bashful about his body, never seen it as anything but a tool, a weapon–but then, he’s never expected to be naked in front of Dracule fucking Mihawk either.

Mihawk had barely glanced at Zoro's body, though, while he was in the bath. Only washed his hair like a child who couldn’t be trusted to do it himself, and then stroked some sort of oil into it that smelled kind of like Sanji’s cologne.

“What’s the point of all this?” Zoro had groused, feeling about as happy as a wet cat.

“The point, little frog, is to make yourself delectable. So you don’t go to your young man's bedroom like you’re staggering in fresh from a week in the gutter.”

His fingers were gentle on Zoro’s scalp, for all the scathing tone of his cultured voice. And Zoro tried to master his body’s instinctive response to that gentleness; the way it made him want to shiver and lean into it, to roll belly-up and expose all his softness.

“Swordsmanship is an artform. And so is seduction.” Mihawk threw a towel at his face. “Dry off and come back through.”

Then he disappeared back to the bedroom, taking Zoro’s clothing with him.

So Zoro stepped out of the bath, rubbed himself down roughly with the towel, then tied it around his waist. That was when he caught sight of his reflection in the steam-fogged bathroom mirror: damp green hair, bleary eyes, a constellation of bruises and a long, angry scar.

How could this be beautiful?

Mihawk's voice called from the other room. “Sometime this evening, Rabbit.”

Ugh.

When Zoro made his way back through, Mihawk had been stood by the open wardrobe holding what looked like some kind of ancient torture device. It had several panels connected by strings; each panel was black and had a sort of shiny pattern to it that reflected the light. There were red ridges running down it where the panels met, and two narrow strips of red satin where the strings were attached to rows of small silver eyelets.

“What the hell is that?”

Mihawk gave him a disappointed look. “You've never seen a corset before? My, we are sheltered, aren't we.”

“Why should I know anything about women's clothing?”

“It’s not women’s clothing. We’ve already covered this.” Mihawk tilted his head to one side, looking for all the world like an owl eyeing a vole in the dark leaf litter. “Do you think I'm a woman?”

Zoro's eyes fell to Mihawk's immaculately groomed jawline with its dark, artfully sculpted smudge of facial hair, his broad shoulders, flat chest, narrow hips, the slight bulge of his crotch.

All of this, he knew, could mean nothing.

“I don't know. You tell me.”

“No. Come here and I'll lace you into this.”

Zoro scowled, but he did as he was told.

Now, Mihawk puts his not-inconsiderable strength into tightening the strings on the back of the corset, jerking Zoro's body with each tug, making his earrings jump. Zoro can hear the music of it, the soft chime of metal on metal on metal.

It's a strange sensation. Not, he has to admit, entirely unpleasant.

He's not used to feeling physically small or weak. Even with Sanji there's an understanding that, despite the games they've started to play, they're actually pretty evenly matched, strength-wise. When they spar, Zoro wins about half the time. Maybe a little over half.

He's painfully aware that that’s very much not the case with Mihawk. His torso is marred with the knowledge.

And something about that, combined with the slowly increasing pressure around his middle, like an all-encompassing weight pinning him down, and the way he's jerking like a ragdoll under Mihawk's strong tugs, is sinking him like a stone into that vague, murky state he sometimes finds himself in when Sanji hurts him.

He doesn’t have words for this state. Doesn’t really think of it in terms of words: it’s too ethereal for that. Like something from a dream that you only half-remember on waking.

It’s not only pain that does it. That one time Sanji let him put his mouth on him–he knows he felt it then, just from the weight of Sanji’s cock on his tongue, the way he’d manipulated Zoro’s body to exactly the use he wanted to put it to, the steady rhythm, the pressure at the back of his throat like something trying to give...

He drifts in that feeling quietly, now, limbs gone lax in a way that alcohol alone can never quite achieve, face almost touching the soft eiderdown on Mihawk's bed.

It smells of him. He must've slept here at least one night already. It's a spicy smell, all burnt sugar and incense. Deeply, compellingly masculine–and if Zoro had had any doubts about his newly awakened sexuality, this would put them to bed. Because through the fog that is his current mental state, he recognises that he’s so powerfully attracted to Dracule Mihawk that even the smell of his bedsheets is turning him on.

It's a distant thing, the arousal. Vague. He feels detached from it, a total lack of urgency, content to merely float along under Mihawk's hands while the corset is laced and tied.

When it's done, Mihawk has to tap his elbow to gain his attention. Zoro realises he hadn't even noticed.

Huh.

A pair of strong hands help him upright. The room is soft and blurry at the edges, like looking through a grease-smeared window.

“Hm,” Mihawk says, and Zoro thinks, dimly, that he might be embarrassed to be seen like this if he was in his right mind. The towel is still around his hips, but above it the corset presses his waist in, rearranging him, making the flesh curve in like the middle of an hourglass. “How does that feel? Can you breathe?”

Slowly, a little delayed, Zoro nods. He can breathe fine. He likes it, it's good to be held so firmly. He feels contained. Safe.

“Good,” Mihawk says. He trails a finger along the top of the corset, where it spans Zoro's chest just below his pecs. “It’s showing off your tits beautifully.”

Zoro blinks, slow and syrupy. “I don't have tits.”

“Oh Rabbit.” The look Mihawk gives him is pitying. It makes Zoro's cheeks burn.

He's still hazy, and the filter between his brain and his mouth is disrupted enough that he hears himself murmur “I like it when you call me that.”

Mihawk's eyes sharpen dangerously, zoning in on Zoro's placid face. He studies him for a long moment. Zoro can't quite summon the energy to be self-conscious about it.

Finally: “Fascinating. Just from a little manhandling?” he asks, nonsensically.

Zoro frowns. “Huh?”

“Never mind. Don't get too comfortable, I'm not quite done with you yet.”

And he turns back to the compartment full of silk and lace.

*

When he overhears, from a couple of civilians scurrying by as they evacuate, exactly where Luffy is and what trouble he's gotten himself into, Sanji's first thought is that it sounds about right.

His second thought is that they are unequivocally fucked.

“Excuse me,” he tries, stopping the bigger of the two men with a hand to the chest and flashing them a hopefully-nonthreatening smile. “I couldn't help overhearing you talking about a pirate being taken hostage on the old execution platform.”

The big guy would be quite intimidating to someone who hadn’t grown up being trained in the fine art of kicking the shit out of anyone causing trouble during the dinner service, even if they are ten times your size. He frowns and gives Sanji a cautious up-and-down look. “What of it?” he grunts.

Unthreatening, Sanji tells himself. Try to act fucking normal for once.

“I don't suppose you gents happen to know if he was alone, or if there was someone with him? Perhaps a young man about yea high, mossy green hair, anger issues? An overabundance of swords, like maybe he's compensating for something? Body that won’t quit?”

“No,” the man’s smaller companion replies, helpfully. “I saw it with my own eyes; only just got out of there before they locked down the whole square. There was no one like that. The straw hat guy was on his own and the other crew got the jump on him.”

“Another crew? So it's not the marines?”

“Why d'you wanna know?” the first guy demands in a deep growl, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

Sanji mentally scrambles for a moment. “Because I–” Think, Sanji! “I'm a journalist! Just started a few weeks ago. I'm in the area doing a, uh–” Hold it together! “a retrospective on the death of the Pirate King, twenty years on.” He flashes a winning smile. “But now my editor wants me on this right away, she thinks it could be a big scoop. And she’s not the sort of lady I’d like to disappoint, if you catch my drift.”

The big guy's face immediately brightens, all trace of looming aggression clearing like a sudden pause in a storm. “Of course! Wow, talk about the right place at the right time, huh? What are the odds!”

The little guy, in contrast, barely comes up to his friend's elbow. He's practically bouncing where he stands, full of an excitable energy that makes Sanji feel exhausted just looking at it. “Yeah,” he says, “you're in luck, man. You don't get much more newsworthy than rival pirate crews taking over the platform where Gold Roger himself was executed. You gotta get over there, capture the action as it all goes down!”

“I bet you'll get a promotion after this,” big guy chimes in. Then a wistful sort of look comes over him. “You know, I always wanted to be a journalist.”

Sanji stares. This guy is built like a brick shit house, taller than Sanji and almost wider than he is tall. He looks like he could bench press the entire Going Merry. His hair is shorn down to a thick, dark stubble, and he's heavily tattooed on every visible patch of skin from the top of his head down. His belt is a piece of iron chain.

Sanji doesn't think he's ever, in his entire life, seen a less likely looking journalist.

“Do you need our names, for the article?” the smaller guy asks, eagerly.

“Uh. Sure. But first–”

“Okay well I'm Phill Darbondy, and this is Brix.”

“Spelled B-R-I-X,” Brix adds, and helpfully points to a heavy black tattoo of the name that runs down the length of his forearm.

“First,” Sanji persists, eyelid twitching, “as eyewitnesses, please tell me everything you can about what happened, gentlemen. Spare no detail.” He pulls out the notepad he'd pickpocketed from the sales guy at the trendy clothes shop, the one with all of Nami’s measurements recorded in it, and flips it open to a blank page.

He needs to know as much as possible in order to come up with a plan.

*

Mihawk ends the call on his transponder snail, and fixes Zoro with an intense stare.

Zoro tries to focus on him in return. He couldn't quite follow what Mihawk was saying to whoever it was on the other end of the line, and he's not sure if that's because of the fogginess of his brain or because Mihawk was speaking in some other language, but he’d enjoyed listening to the sound of his voice and drifting.

“Your captain’s in trouble,” Mihawk declares without preamble, and Zoro feels the words run down him like a shower of ice, sobering and waking him up all in a rush.

“Luffy's in trouble? Where.”

He reaches subconsciously for the katana at his hip, only to remember that Mihawk removed them earlier–along with Zoro's clothes.

Shit. Shit. How long has he been here playing dress up while his crew were in trouble?

“Give me my swords. I need to go help him.”

“Yes, I thought you might say that.” Mihawk collects the sword belt from on top of the dressing table and offers it to Zoro with a quirk of his lips, the three hilts facing him.

This time, Zoro barely notices the shiver that seeing another man's hands on his swords causes. He takes the belt–and abruptly realises he has nowhere to put it. He's still in his fucking underwear.

In Mihawk's fucking underwear.

Mihawk seems to find this hilarious. He's smiling that condescending, closed-lipped smirk, and he scoops Zoro's shirt off the back of the chair. “Still not quite firing on all cylinders, I see. Do you usually go down this hard, or should I be flattered?”

Zoro has no idea what he's talking about, and even less patience to find out. He needs to get to Luffy, now.

“Who were you talking to on the snail phone?”

“A friend.”

The most powerful swordsman in the world holds Zoro's shirt out, helping his arms into it like he thinks he can't dress himself. This might be a new personal low point.

He's not asking for the corset back, though, Zoro notices.

“What friend?”

“One with a tendency to ask annoying questions. I suspect the two of you would get along.”

The pants next, and Zoro grabs them out of Mihawk’s hands before he can get any ideas. Slides them up his own damn legs, and tries not to blush at the way they settle over the gauzy fabric underneath.

After lacing him into the corset, Mihawk had had a lot of fun adding to the look with various other… pieces. Then dabbing beeswax onto his lips and lining his eyes with kohl. Treating Zoro like his own personal doll, and all the time Luffy was getting in trouble, his crewmates needed him–

“You're spiralling, Rabbit.”

“I am not,” he snarls.

Wordlessly, with an air of infinite patience, Mihawk hands over the red and grey striped cloth of the haramaki. Zoro gets it situated on his hips, then Mihawk bats his hands out of the way with a soft tut of disapproval and smooths the two sides of his shirt down oh so carefully over the stiffness of the corset, tucking the lower edges in neatly. Far neater than Zoro would have bothered with.

He scoops up the sword belt from the bed, next, where Zoro had dropped it in order to dress himself. Then he steps in until they’re almost touching, chest to chest, and Zoro has to crane his neck up to meet those amber eyes, the black ring around the pupil zeroed in on him like a marksman's target. Uncanny eyes, unblinking as an owl. He reaches behind Zoro with the belt, carefully wrapping the well-worn leather around his waist, then leans back just enough to fasten it at the front, drawing the tongue through the buckle, adjusting the haramaki to cover all but the right hand side, at his hip, where the three sheaths are tied with sageo cord to the belt's leather.

“There,” he says, all smugly satisfied, and he's still right up in Zoro's personal space, his hands on Zoro's hips possessively, and Zoro's not got time for this. “Don’t you scrub up well, little Rabbit?”

Zoro leans into the heat of him helplessly, just for a moment, one moment of weakness.

God, he's so warm.

“I'm still wearing your…” Zoro doesn't even know what to call them. “Clothes,” he settles on.

“You are, aren't you.” Mihawk touches his stomach, fingers deft and warm even through the thin cotton of his shirt and the stiffness of the corset beneath, and fuuuuck it would be so easy to bend and mouth at those fingers, to drop down on his knees and offer everything, anything Mihawk wanted to take from him.

Zoro thinks of Luffy, of Sanji, and holds steadfast.

“I intended for you to keep them,” Mihawk tells him. “They make you feel beautiful, don't they? Like this does.” His fingers shift upwards, and unerringly find the scar on Zoro's chest. “Tell your gentleman friend that I'll put it on his tab.”

Then he’s backing up, heading towards the door that leads down to the bar, dragging Zoro along in his wake.

Outside, the storm is raging. It's angry, Zoro could swear it. The rain has paused, for now, but a fierce wind blows the last of the cobwebs from his brain, sobering him up abruptly.

He needs to find Luffy, now.

Mihawk lifts an eyebrow, gaze trained on the dark clouds brooding overhead, and says “Interesting.”

He doesn't sound interested. He still sounds bored as hell. But that's not Zoro's problem right now.

“Did your friend say what kind of trouble Luffy's in?”

“The usual kind.” His eyes never leave the sky as he waves his hand in a vague sort of gesture. “Revenge, mayhem, death. That sort of thing.”

“Death?!”

“Hm. I've heard it's an occupational hazard.”

“I don't have time for this.”

Zoro stalks off, deciding he might as well leave Mihawk to his skygazing and find Luffy himself.

“Wrong direction, I'm afraid, Rabbit.”

Zoro spins back towards him, fuming.

Mihawk's eyes glitter in the flickering streetlight. “That way leads deeper inland, away from the city.”

“So Luffy's in the city?”

He tilts his head again, gives Zoro that weirdly intense, considering look. As if Zoro's the one being confusing. “Can’t you tell where he is?”

“What do you mean?”

A bolt of lightning forks the sky, and a few seconds later the air rumbles with the deep voice of the thunder.

“It doesn’t matter. Follow me; I'll take you to him.”

“You will?”

“Why not. I have some time to spare before my appointment, and it's only good manners to return a borrowed toy to its rightful owner.”

Yeah. Zoro's not touching that.

Mihawk sets off down one of the identical looking cobbled roads, quick enough that Zoro has to sprint to keep up.

“What’s the appointment?” he calls, voice raised to be heard over the wind.

If Dracule Mihawk has to see a fucking dentist then Zoro’s going to walk into the ocean and never return.

One side of Mihawk’s mouth twitches. “Just an arrangement with an old friend.”

*

“Excuse me, sir, but you can't be here. We're evacuating all civilians from the centre of town due to an ongoing serious incident.” The marine repeats the words by rote, bored and barely paying attention to anything outside of the shoddy barrier that's been erected across the unevenly cobbled road.

They're young. Probably a new recruit. Sanji could take them out no worries, but the issue is the group of others further in, standing guard in their ugly uniforms, too far away for their features to clearly be seen at night in this weather. If they're all on the same level as jobsworth, here, it shouldn't be a problem. But in a sea with marines like fucking Garp running around it's better to be safe than sorry.

Sanji’s just about to turn back and see if he can find another way into the square when one of the two men flanking him decides to speak.

“He's not a civilian,” Brix announces, with an air of great importance. “He's a journalist.”

Sanji feels the expression on his face freeze.

“That’s right,” pipes up Phill Darbondy, from the other side of Sanji. “That means you've got to let him in; freedom of the press, innit.”

The marine sighs, casting their eyes to the heavens as if pleading with some greater authority.

“The evacuation order is in place for your own safety. We can't guarantee the wellbeing of anyone who enters the vicinity of the execution platform at this time.”

“You think safety is of any concern to a man hot on the scent of breaking news?” Brix demands, scornfully.

Sanji does a small double take, blinking at him in surprise. He hadn’t expected quite such a passionate defense from these guys he randomly picked up, and now can’t quite manage to shake.

The marine pinches the bridge of their nose. “Look, I don't really–”

“Do we have a free press or don't we?” Phill demands.

“Sir, I must reiterate that the incident is serious and ongoing...”

Brix steps forward menacingly, and he must be at least ten fucking tons of pure, rippling muscle. Sanji starts to ever so slightly panic. “Step aside,” the big guy demands, puffing out his chest. “This young man's career hangs in the balance.”

“I've taken a note of your badge number,” Phill adds. “The eyes of the world are upon you.”

Sanji swivels back to the marine and smiles tightly. “What they said.”

“Fine,” the marine accedes, finally. “But be careful, and don't say I didn't warn you!”

And they lift the hastily erected barrier and usher Sanji through, still flanked by his two new best mates.

A feeling not unlike hysteria starts rising in him as he's swept along with the tide of these two extremely unlikely champions–but he tells himself that this particular tide will, at least, carry him closer to Luffy.

He takes a deep breath and plunges beneath the waves.

The closer they get to the town square, the quieter the streets become. They still see marines and, from what Sanji overhears from those marines and their crackling radio updates, there are still quite a few civilians on this side of the barrier, but mostly they seem to be confined to the main square.

Every time the marines come anywhere near Sanji, Phill and Brix start loudly declaring “Press! We're press!” until the group fucks off.

It's actually pretty bloody convenient.

At one point a rather harried looking woman with a camera overhears them and comes sprinting over. “You're press?” she checks. “Me too. Do you know where the action is?”

“Follow Sanji,” Brix tells her, with a sniff of self importance. “That guy, there. He's a journalist, and he's hot on the trail.”

“Perfect, thank you!” She falls into formation alongside them, camera swinging from its strap at her side.

Around another corner, a trio of middle aged men with snail transponders and little name cards dangling from around their necks are arguing loudly amongst themselves.

“Press?” Brix hazards, and the three men pause mid-bicker and look over as if someone's called them by name. “This way.” Brix beckons them over with one beefy, ink-stained arm, never breaking stride. “Fall in line, that's right, no shoving.”

By the time he reaches the alley behind the square, Sanji has amassed a gaggle of around sixteen journalists, eight photographers, two news presenters, a camerawoman and a sound guy, plus Brix and Phill Darbondy who, it turns out, work in bricklaying, and have been contracted to repair a damaged section of wall in the main square–which was why they'd been in the area in the first place.

“So you've got your fifteen basic types of cement,” Phill's explaining to one of the newscasters. She's pretty and blonde, and keeping pace with the group even in stiletto heels, which is an impressive feat in itself, and her eyes are beginning to glaze over as Phill's lengthy response to her polite ”And what do you do?” continues unabated. “Rapid hardening. Extra rapid hardening. Quick hardening–not to be confused with quick setting, mind you–”

At that moment Sanji's group bursts out of the alleyway and onto the square. Right at the back of it, in fact, behind the legendary execution platform and some way away from it, beside a series of archways and a partially collapsed section of wall that's been neatly cordoned off, and which has a metal toolbox and a large pile of haphazardly stacked bags of cement mix that look like they were too-hastily shoved under a tarpaulin that keeps flapping around in the high wind.

“This is where we was standing when it all started kicking off,” Phill explains, grandly.

Sanji takes it all in at a glance: the mixed crowd of civilians and pirates being buffeted by the wind, the cordoned off area of damaged wall that Brix and Phill must've been repairing, the marines dotted around the outskirts of the square in positions they clearly and misguidedly think are stealthy, the huge wooden scaffolding in the centre with Sanji's captain right on fucking top of it, being held captive by…

“Buggy the fucking clown,” Sanji growls murderously. “Knew I should've kicked that fucker's head into the sea when I had the chance.”

“Wait,” Brix says slowly, turning to face Sanji head on. “You…” Sanji winces, braced for whatever's coming. All he has to do is grab Luffy and get the fuck out of here, he tells himself. So what if he accidentally misled one or two… or thirty people. “You've interviewed pirate captain Buggy?”

“Uhh.”

“Holy shit. You're an amazing journalist!”

The group of newspeople crowds around, eyeing Sanji with open awe.

There comes a time when a man simply has to accept whatever it is that fate insists on repeatedly thrusting in front of him.

“Yes, I did,” Sanji replies, confidently. “Interviewed the shit out of him. So I can tell you right now that he's a narcissistic bastard with a grandiose sense of self importance who loves the sound of his own voice. Martel?”

The blonde with the stiletto heels perks to attention.

“Take your crew and offer him a live interview. He'll leap at the chance.”

“On it,” she says, and tucks a stray curl of her pretty hair behind her ear. “Thanks Sanji. Serin, Huygo, you're with me!”

She straightens her blouse, takes a deep breath, then strides off purposefully towards the front of the platform, heels clicking on the cobblestone, the other two close on her heels. “Excuse me! Hello there, excuse me, Mister the Clown?”

Sanji grins. Okay, that's phase one of the plan. Now for phase two. “Journalists?” The majority of the group falls in this category; they gather round attentively. “There are platoons of marines hiding badly in the alleyways and upper floors of buildings around the square; there, there, right under there, and… up there, see in that window? They're going to have a lot more info than we do on all of this, and I reckon now would be a great time to pester them for some on- or off-the-record quotes.” He claps his hands and the journalists start to scatter, chatting excitedly. “Don't take no for an answer!” Sanji calls after them. “They're a public body, they should be answerable to the public. Right?” There’s a general murmur of agreement, and even a few cheers. Mostly from Brix and Phill.

Speaking of whom…

“I've got a special job for you two in a minute, so don't go anywhere.”

Two pairs of eyes widen in awe.

“For us?” Brix asks, in a hushed tone of disbelief. As if never in his wildest fucking dreams did he imagine that he might one day be of assistance to a man pretending to be a journalist.

“For you,” Sanji confirms. “It’s a job that requires a certain skillset that, out of all of us here, only you two gents possess.”

Brix looks like he can't quite decide whether to faint or start openly sobbing. Phill Darbondy strokes his arm supportively. “There there, mate. You can count on us, Sanji! Can't he, Brix?”

Brix nods speechlessly.

“Great. Now, photographers–”

“Oh my god,” one of the nearby journalists gasps. “It's one of the Seven Warlords! And he's with the demon pirate hunter!”

An excited and somewhat terrified murmur ripples through the small remaining crowd surrounding Sanji.

“That's Dracule Mihawk!” someone says. “Mister Mihawk, sir, over here!” Then the sound of a dozen cameras clicking.

Sanji's eyebrow twitches. With a deep, dark sense of foreboding, he turns to face the far side of the square.

*

The tight lacing of the corset doesn't negatively impact Zoro's movement as much as he'd feared. If anything, it makes him more aware of the way he's holding himself; his posture, his stance, it’s all neater. More tightly controlled. The slink of his hips, though, is new–it reminds him of this morning, how he'd felt waking up after being fucked in the ass for the first time the night before. Powerful. Sexual. He feels Mihawk's eyes on him as they round the next corner and lets his stance widen, his hips roll even looser, just to hear the soft catch of his breath like a snare tightening around a rabbit.

Soon he’s half-hard from the thrill of it, cock-teasing a Warlord of the damn Sea. One who marked him, dressed him, put his claim all over Zoro’s body. His cock’s rubbing against the French lace that Mihawk had eased up his bare thighs earlier. He’s not used to wearing any underwear at all; the sensation of it is new and distracting.

So distracting that he’s almost startled to finally reach the square at the centre of town and catch sight of Luffy at the top of a huge wooden platform, pinned in a set of stocks with that fucking clown standing over him with his stupid clown sword.

One glance confirms that Luffy's immobilised. Totally powerless to escape on his own, and it’s honestly a little embarrassing.

Mihawk shoots him a pointed look, as if to say This guy? Really? Out of all men to entrust with your devotion, you chose him?

Zoro ignores him. “Luffy!” he calls.

“Hey Zoro! How’s it going?”

“Better than you, from the looks of things.”

“Don’t make chit-chat while I’m executing you!” Buggy fumes.

And, well. Shit. Execution definitely doesn't sound great.

There’s a commotion going on on the far side of the square, now. Zoro spares a glance; it looks like a bunch of those parasites from the press clamouring for Mihawk's attention. Then he frowns at the sight of pale blonde hair right smack in the middle of the group. Surely that's not…

“Look, Sanji's here, too!” Luffy yells. “Wow, this is so great! I might be about to be killed, though.”

Sanji. Zoro tries to catch his eye but he's surrounded by people, talking to them in rapid succession like he's giving instructions.

Where the hell did he find all those people, and why are they happily taking orders from a pirate cook??

“There’s no might about it,” insists Buggy. “We've won. You've lost. Now I'm going to chop your head off in front of all these nice people.” He throws two fingers up and poses for what looks like some sort of film crew down in the square.

The square itself is otherwise full of a dangerous mix of Buggy's crew and civilians. Dangerous because the civilians are going to get in the fucking way, and make it hard to work out exactly how many they're up against.

Zoro unsheathes the two newest of his swords, Yubashiri and Sandai Kitetsu; he wants to see how well they play together. Kitetsu, in particular, vibrates with anticipation in his hand.

“This is going to go badly for you, clown,” Zoro warns.

“Well, it seems like you have this under control,” Mihawk comments, unconvincingly. “I think I'll give my regards to your chef before I make myself scarce.”

“Like hell you will!”

“I wasn't asking permission, Rabbit. Besides, you've got rather more pressing things to worry about, haven't you?”

He's infuriating, but he's not wrong. A dozen or so of Buggy's lackeys are closing in on Zoro; he barely has time to tie his bandana above his eyes before the first of them is upon him.

The next time he has a moment to glance round, Mihawk is nowhere to be seen.

*

Mihawk's massive ooh-look-at-me-haven't-I-got-a-big-penis sword swings in a graceful arc, blocking Sanji's path.

“Can I help you?” Sanji demands.

“I wouldn't bet on it,” Mihawk retorts.

“We are actually a little busy, in case it escaped your notice.” Sanji tries to stay focused: Rescue Luffy. Get him and Zoro back to the ship before their time’s up. Freak out about the Situationship’s fucking celebrity crush showing up with him out of the blue later. “What are you even doing here?”

“Returning some lost property of yours.” Sanji follows his gaze over to Zoro, who is currently single-handedly taking on at least ten of Buggy's followers. And winning. Ridiculous, impressive, beautiful man.

“Zoro ain't property.”

“Perhaps not. But he is yours.”

Sanji doesn't have time for this. Phill and Brix have scurried off to the half-repaired wall as instructed, the photographers are getting in the way of Buggy's crew as much as possible, taking close up photos with full flash right in their faces, while the journalists distract the marines and the news crew slow Buggy down by stroking his enormous fucking ego, and now it's time to fight.

Sanji rolls his neck and shakes out his shoulders. Oh, he's ready for this. He's been ready all fucking day.

Then that annoying fucking voice pulls him up sharp again when it drawls, “I just wanted you to know that I find myself growing rather fond of your pet Rabbit.”

Pet… rabbit? “Are you talking about Zoro?”

“Hmm. If I ever find you've been remiss in taking care of him, in any way…” Mihawk tilts the big sword, so that the blade glints wickedly.

Sanji blinks for a moment in a sort of stunned confusion. “I'm sorry, is this a shovel talk? From you?” The man who nearly bloody killed Zoro a few weeks ago. The man Zoro talks about while he and Sanji fuck. The man who just showed up with Zoro out of fucking nowhere after he’s been missing in action all fucking day.

Mihawk hums, as if agreeing with the sentiment. “We live in perplexing times, do we not?” Then he dips his head, making the feather on his absurd hat jiggle. “Take care, Sanji of the Straw Hat Pirates.”

Then he sheathes his euphemism and off he fucks.

Dramatic bastard.

He might at least have given them a fucking hand with all this, if he was going to appear randomly out of the fucking ether and talk shit. Sanji kicks the nearest pirate square in the balls to vent his frustration. The pirate drops with satisfying rapidity, and Sanji doesn’t wait; he follows the momentum and ducks down, swiping his left leg out in a graceful arc and taking two more enemies down at the ankles.

Fucking hell, there are a lot of them, and they’re all guarding the sodding platform. When Sanji last saw Buggy he barely had a body, let alone a crew of this size. It’s gonna take too long to reach Luffy at this rate.

So he changes tack. He has to get to Zoro, he decides. Together, they’re an unstoppable force–they’ll reach Luffy in time even if Sanji has to kick Zoro over there.

He’s only managed half a dozen paces when he hears a bellow of sheer distress that can only come from– “Zoro!” He kicks the next pirate in the side of the rib cage, sending them flying across the square, and glances ahead.

A familiar mop of green hair. A blur of metal. No blood, yet.

Zoro’s still besieged by Buggy’s crew, but he doesn’t look injured. No, instead he’s staring wordlessly, helplessly up at the platform. At Luffy.

Heart hammering in trepidation, Sanji turns his eyes upwards. From this angle, and in the dark of the evening and the heavy storm clouds overhead, all he can make out is the gleam of Buggy’s sword as it falls towards Luffy’s throat.

No, he thinks, numbly. NO. Distantly, he thinks he hears Zoro screaming.

Then the deafening crack of thunder, and a blinding flash that puts every camera to shame.

Chapter Text

By the time they get back to the ship Nami's pacing the deck like a captive bear while waves taller than Sanji try to slam the entire vessel onto the wooden dock. Lightning is forking a jagged path through the sky every other minute, Usopp is halfway through inventing the life jacket (only slowed by the fact that he can't seem to stop openly weeping in fear), and Zoro's eye makeup is running messily down his cheeks in the heavy rain.

Which. Is something Sanji's going to put very carefully into a box in his head labelled “To Think About Later.”

At least Luffy is in fine spirits.

“See?” he yells over the storm, grinning widely as he stretches his arms out ahead of them to the mainmast, catches hold of it, and slings himself up onto the deck in one bound. “I told you it would all be fine!”

Sanji breaks into a sprint, but Usopp's already there to intervene before Nami can murder their captain in cold blood.

“I might just put this away somewhere safe. So it doesn't get damaged in the storm,” he says as he removes the brass sextant from Nami's hands just as she's lifting it menacingly towards Luffy’s grinning face

“But the storm's getting better!” Luffy protests.

Sanji's not so sure that's true. It’s easing off a bit, sure, but the rain and the wind are still battering them like scampi, and the rumble of thunder is close enough he can feel it in his bones.

He and Zoro reach the side of the dock at the same time, and there’s an awkward moment where they each gesture to the other to climb the ladder first. In the end Zoro grasps Sanji's offered hand with a roll of his kohl-smudged eyes, and uses it to pull himself up onto the ropes.

Sanji feels an absurd little thrill from it. I won.

“Haven't you ever heard of the eye of a storm?” Nami's demanding when the two of them reach the deck. “It gets quieter when we've reached the dead centre and we're about to be dragged through the other side of it!”

Zoro and Sanji exchange glances, then wordlessly get to work untying the hawsers.

*

Hours later, when the sea finally calms and they’re far enough from land that they can’t even see Loguetown any more, Usopp and Luffy are the ones who volunteer for the first watch. Usopp because he wants to start making repairs already to the storm damage Merry has received while in their care, Luffy because he found the whole thing exciting and he wants to ride out the last few hours of bad weather from his favourite perch on top of the figurehead.

It's a testament to how exhausted Nami must be that she only shrugs and tells them they better not screw anything up while she's not around to fix it, before staggering off to her bedroom for a well earned rest.

Sanji and Zoro head down, too. And when the hatch to the men's cabin shuts behind them, they're alone together for what feels like the first time in fucking ages–though in reality it's not even been twenty four hours.

They face each other in the centre of the room and neither of them goes to unhitch and set up the hammocks. Instead, Sanji reaches out and swipes away one of the wet black trails dripping down from the corner of Zoro's eyes with his fingertips.

“This is new,” he comments, lightly, voice rough from shouting over the wind, and it's interesting just how quickly Zoro's face falls.

“It's stupid.” He scrubs at it with his fist, which only smears the inky trails around more.

“Hey, no, come on now.” Sanji tugs Zoro's hand away. He pulls the sleeve of his own damp white shirt down to cover his thumb, then uses that to gently, carefully neaten him up. He wipes away the excess kohl that's run down either side of his nose in the rain, leaving only a smudgy, smoky trace lining each eye.

It's not as precise as it had been when Zoro had first appeared earlier in the Loguetown square. But it's, somehow, much more Zoro.

“There,” Sanji tells him, and he runs a thumb along Zoro's clean cheek. “Perfect.”

Zoro gives a little disbelieving snort. He's not making eye contact; instead his gaze is fixed somewhere around Sanji's midriff. “Mihawk did it.”

Sanji feels his eyebrows try to climb into his hairline as he tries to work out where to even start when it comes to processing that. When Zoro had turned up with Mihawk, Sanji had assumed the marines had sent him after them again. Not that he and Zoro were off somewhere doing each other’s fucking makeup like girls on a sleepover. What the fuck.

“I was worried about you,” he says, simply, and a bit of hurt escapes into the words.

“I can handle anything Buggy can throw at me.”

“That's not what I was worried about.” He sighs, and scrubs a tired hand over his face. “You been off with me all day. Then you just. You fucking vanished, and I couldn't find you when I needed to.” It’s not until the words leave his mouth that he lets himself feel the full force of it: the worry, the fucking helplessness. He’d not realised how quickly he’d gotten used to always having Zoro at his back, being able to rely on it. It’d been disconcerting to temporarily lose that certainty.

A look of genuine guilt crosses Zoro’s pretty face, and that's not what Sanji wants. He doesn't want Zoro to feel guilty for worrying him, he wants to know what was the matter, and what he can do to fix it so it doesn't happen again. He wants to know he's not entirely fucked this up before it's even properly gotten started.

“I didn't mean to “vanish.” I told you I was looking for new swords.” He gestures to the three sheaths hanging at his side, as if to prove it. “But I was in a bad mood, and I must've taken a wrong turn somewhere. Fucking city streets all look alike. And I ended up in the same bar as him.”

Ah. Right. Him. The man who could take Zoro away from Sanji in more ways than one.

“Shit.” The first time Zoro encountered that man, he nearly died. Sanji wasn't there, didn't see anything of that fight but its aftermath, and that alone is enough to have him scared shitless of a repeat. “How did you convince him not to kill you?”

Zoro scowls. “The same way he convinced me not to kill him.”

Sanji crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. He’s got no fucking patience left for this bullshit, this misplaced bravado. Eventually, Zoro’s shoulders slump. “I asked him to fight me, but he refused.”

“You asked him? Are you fucking insane?”

Those dark eyes flash like lightning. “I'm not a coward.”

“No, you're an idiot.” He can’t help it. The thought of what that man could do to Zoro is fucking terrifying, alright, Sanji’s not too up his own arse to admit it. He could kill Zoro like other men would step on a fucking ant, and that’s not because Zoro’s weak. Zoro’s a fucking monster, they weren’t far off when they called him the demon of the East Blue. But Mihawk’s a warlord of the fucking sea. He’s on another level, no matter how hungry Zoro is to defeat him.

Zoro's quiet for a moment. Then: “Fuck you,” he says, ever so quiet.

He's still soaking wet from the rain, his clothes clinging to him, his hair an even darker green than usual, and it’s only at this moment that Sanji notices that he's shivering. It's almost imperceptible, like the hurt on his face that quickly mutates into the usual defensive anger that seems to flare between them constantly–they needle each other, get under each other's fucking skin like nothing else–and Sanji feels like a piece of shit.

Because he's spent all day wishing he could make things right, and then the moment he gets Zoro alone he makes him feel like shit.

Nice one, Sanji.

He lifts his hands, a gesture of surrender, and wonders if the rain has completely fucked his cigarettes. They were in his jacket pocket, and his jacket was so wet he took it off hours ago. “Look. I didn't mean that.”

“Yes you did. Don't coddle me.”

Zoro stomps off to the inner wall and unhooks one end of his hammock. Starts tying it out ready to sleep, a familiar scowl on his face, never lifting his eyes to look at Sanji. Then he strips off his swords, wiping them down with one of the spare blankets to dry off the rainwater. Figures, Sanji thinks, that he’d take care of them before even attempting to sort his own self out.

His pretty lips are an even duskier pink than usual, and Sanji still has no idea how or why bumping into the warlord who tried to kill you could possibly turn into said warlord putting fucking makeup on you, but he wants to know. He wants to explore this tense, fragile new thing without throwing Mihawk's name at Zoro like a grenade.

“Zoro,” he says. Gentler. A plea. “I'm an idiot. Come on, let me see your pretty face. Tell me everything, I promise not to be a dick about it again.”

“Seems like an unlikely promise,” he mumbles, but there’s a tiny glint of humour to it, now, instead of just grump. A scrap of their usual banter. Sanji feels himself on firmer footing for hearing it.

He crosses the cabin to Zoro's side just as he's finishing up with the swords, and he puts a tentative arm around the smaller man’s shoulders and rubs his upper arm, trying to warm him up a bit.

“Shit. You're shivering cold.” Zoro makes a little grumbling noise, but he leans into the warmth of Sanji's body. Sanji has the helpless thought that it's pretty fucking adorable, grumbling and all. Fucking hell, he's got it so bad, this is embarrassing. “We should get you into something dry, love. Then you can tell me all about Mihawk and the makeup, and I promise I’ll be good.”

Zoro visibly hesitates. He looks up into Sanji's eyes uneasily. “Yeah. About that.”

“About what?”

“The…” He shrugs awkwardly. “The face stuff. It's not. The only thing Mihawk did to me.”

Sanji feels his blood run cold and bitter as ice. “If he forced himself on you…” Warlord or no, Sanji would kill him. Nothing would be able to stop him, no force on the entire ocean.

“What? No! Not anything like that, fuck, what’s wrong with you.”

Sanji exhales a breath of pure relief. “Thank god.” If Zoro wanted it, then Sanji could find a way to be cool with it. They don't own each other, and even if they did he's pretty sure Dracule Mihawk would always be Zoro's exception. How could Sanji expect him to turn down the man who caused this whole fucking… sexual awakening that he’s been going through? Sanji’s a man who knows his limits. He knows he can't compete with that. But if Mihawk had taken liberties…

Zoro's looking at him oddly. From this close, Sanji can see each of his eyelashes, can smell rainwater mingled with sweat and a faint sage-and-vetivert fragrance he doesn’t recognise.

“He said he’d make me beautiful for you,” Zoro says, very quiet and solemn. Like it's not the most batshit insane thing Sanji's ever heard in his life. Like it doesn't make him instantly, blindingly hard.

He doesn't even know what he's going to say until the words are out of his mouth. “You don't need makeup to be beautiful to me.” As soon as he’s said it he knows it’s true. Zoro’s dark eyes, his pouty lips, his scarred chest and his slender waist, the strength in his arms and the determined set of his jaw, the way his hands grip his swords, the way his mouth stretches around them, even his mossy fucking hair, he’s gorgeous, he’s a work of art, a wet fucking dream, and fuck, Sanji’s an idiot, he should’ve been telling Zoro every moment of every fucking day…

Zoro frowns at him dubiously.

Sanji takes a steadying breath. “But if you wanna wear it…” the words fall out of him all in a rush, “then fuck, sweetheart, I'll spend every minute telling you how gorgeous you look in it.”

Zoro blushes at that. Shit, he's so fucking pretty when he blushes. Mihawk's an idiot if he thinks makeup could ever hope to replicate the sweet pink flush of it, or the way it makes Zoro so fucking awkward, like he can't bring himself to so much as make eye contact while it's happening.

Sanji can't resist him a moment longer. He tips Zoro's chin up and kisses him. And Zoro lets him; goes pliant and eager as anything, melts into Sanji’s arms like he’s been waiting for it, opens his mouth sugar-sweet and lets Sanji absolutely fucking plunder it.

He doesn't taste like Mihawk. He tastes like himself, just the same as always. Like sake and metal and spit, like rainwater and a desperate longing he only half understands.

But underneath it, ever so faintly, is the sweetness of whatever Mihawk smeared on his mouth. Floral. Waxy. A rose-and-honey taste that reminds Sanji of Turkish delight.

It makes his stomach churn with something that might be arousal, or might just be good, old-fashioned jealousy. He slips his arms around Zoro's tight little waist (god, the shape of this man drives him fucking crazy) and pulls back just to see the way the lipstick has smudged messily around his thoroughly-kissed mouth.

He licks his own lips and tastes it there, too. Imagines them smudged with pink, a mirror of Zoro's.

He feels Zoro tremble in his arms.

“Shit. Let's get you out of these, yeah?”

He plucks at Zoro's wet shirt, tugs it out of the haramaki that's tied around his hips.

“Sanji,” Zoro begins, uneasily.

He's wearing some kind of undershirt beneath; Sanji can feel the stiffness of it through the damp fabric. Zoro never normally wears underwear of any sort, and Sanji wonders, somewhat guiltily, if his wound is flaring up again. If maybe Sanji was a bit too rough with him last night, and he was in more discomfort this morning than he was letting on–enough that he felt the need to wrap his torso again like he did the first week after his injury.

“Sanji, wait–”

Sanji works the haramaki loose and lets it drop, the damp fabric of the shirt falling after it from Zoro's shoulders to the floor with a wet slap, revealing…

Sanji gapes.

He thinks maybe he has a brief out-of-body experience.

Because Zoro, fucking Roronoa Zoro, Roronoa “I regularly forget to eat or bathe because I'm thinking about swords too hard” Zoro, is wearing fucking lingerie.

Not just any lingerie either, oh no. An honest-to-god corset, all black on black, expensive fabric and intricate boning that's clearly been specifically constructed to fit a masculine form. To manipulate it. To push up the perfect little handfuls of Zoro's well formed pecs, to squeeze in the sides of his trim waist and give the illusion of hips beneath. To give him curves.

What the fuck. What the fuck.

Speechless with shock, Sanji pulls open the fastening of Zoro's trousers with trembling fingers, shoving them artlessly to his ankles.

“Holy fucking shit.”

The scrap of black lace covering Zoro's crotch and hugging the curve of his arse can only be described as sinful–clingy little briefs that leave absolutely nothing to the imagination. There's a tiny black satin bow just at the jut of each hip bone.

Sanji thinks the bows might be what actually kills him dead.

Zoro crosses his arms over his chest defensively.

“Nope,” Sanji finds himself saying. “No way, fucking hell, let me look at you, darling, I have to look at you, shit.” He coaxes Zoro's arms back down to his sides and holds them there. He’s wearing actual fucking stockings, sheer, held up at the tops by suspenders attached to the lower edge of the corset. “Fuck. Fuck. Do you have any idea what you look like right now?”

“Yes,” Zoro mutters, mulishly. “Mihawk showed me. He had a mirror and he made me look.”

Sanji is briefly incandescent with rage at the thought of another man seeing Zoro like this, marching him up to a mirror and letting him see how fucking exquisite he looks. He can’t even think about Dracule Mihawk without wanting to kick something. Hard.

“I don't know if I want to kick him in the balls for that or shake his fucking hand,” he confesses, brokenly.

“Don’t do either of those things. Stop being weird.”

“It's not weird to be jealous when the guy I'm fucking fucks off for the day to dress up in fucking sexy lingerie with another man. A man he's got a giant fucking crush on.”

Zoro blinks. Narrows his eyes. “You're jealous,” he says, flatly. “Of Mihawk.”

No fucking shit. “Wouldn't you be?”

“No. Mihawk's not a woman so I know you wouldn't be interested.”

Oh. Oh. That brings Sanji up short pretty fucking quick. Because there is so much to unpack in that small sentence.

He reaches out and tentatively squeezes Zoro’s shoulder, carefully avoiding… anything he’s wearing, shit, he can’t even let himself look at it or he’ll be too distracted to speak.

“Zoro… do you think I'm only into women?”

“I think you have a well noted preference.”

“That’s…” Sanji deflates. He can’t really deny it. He likes both, okay, he’s bi and proud of it, but there’s something about a beautiful woman that just hits different. Usually. “Okay, that's fair. Not entirely accurate, but fair.” He rubs his thumbs over Zoro’s wrists. Slender; powerful. God, he wants to drink in the sight of him, wants to commit every detail to memory so he never forgets it. “I’m bi. Bisexual, yeah?” He doesn’t even know if Zoro understands what that means; it’s all so new to him. “I like men and women and every-fucking-thing in between.” He lets his hand linger on the bare, damp skin of Zoro’s shoulder. “I like you. Idiot.”

Zoro edges closer, the toes of the waterlogged boots he's still wearing nudging up against the tips of Sanji's oxfords, his trousers around his ankles. “You don't have to be jealous of Mihawk,” he mutters, staring fixedly down at the floor. “I got drunk and talked about you the whole time, until he got fed up and said he was going to teach me how to keep your attention.”

Sanji could smack his head into the damned mast. Beautiful, adorable, fucking frustrating man.

“You've had my attention from the moment I fucking saw you, you dick. You don't need anything else to keep it.”

Zoro grins, still shy but now turning just a little bit wicked. “So you don’t like it?” He kicks off his boots and his trousers, then spins in a slow circle, letting Sanji see from every angle. The pert little swell of his arse under the black lace is lethal, Sanji knows he won’t recover from the sight of it. The way the flesh of his thighs bulges out ever so slightly over the tops of the stockings. “Should I take it all off?”

“Ohh fuck, baby, you're killing me.”

*

Zoro’s been half-hard for hours despite the storm, the frothy lace at his crotch rubbing silky and teasing all over his cock. Even the fight in the square couldn't cool it, even the risk of death–his own or Luffy's–or the frantic dash back to Merry in the freezing rain, marines hot on their tail, lightning splitting the sky.

He's been half-hard so long that he's started leaking, the lace panties getting a damp spot there by the tip, smearing it around. He thinks of Mihawk touching the scar on his chest and saying “Messy.” What would he make of this mess? Perhaps he'd be mad at Zoro for ruining his pretty panties. But just what did he expect? Zoro already told him he gets off on all this girly shit; that means it makes his dick hard, means things are gonna get messy.

Anyway, he didn't say anything about wanting them back.

Zoro imagines giving them back like this, all sticky and gross, and blushes. Perhaps Mihawk's the sort of pervert who'd like that. Perhaps that's why he gave them to Zoro in the first place.

Sanji thumbs at the wet patch on the lace and groans extravagantly, and Zoro has to hand it to Mihawk. He said he'd teach Zoro how to hold Sanji's attention, and he certainly has that attention now. It's laser-focused on him: Sanji's eyes, his hands, his obsession.

“Fuck, your pussy's so wet, darling, your pretty knickers are soaking.”

Zoro's stomach gives such a sudden, violent lurch that for a moment he thinks it's the ship cresting a wave. He tries to hide it behind a scowl. “I don't have a…” He gestures awkwardly at his crotch area.

“A pussy?” Sanji purrs, and there’s a glimmer of amusement in his eyes, like he finds it funny that Zoro can't bring himself to say it.

“I'm not actually a woman, you know.”

Sanji shrugs. “The first lady I ever went down on had a cock.”

Zoro's brain short circuits a bit at that mental image: Sanji with his face between a woman’s legs and a hard dick half-way down his throat, fucking hearts in his eyes. And Sanji, damn him, notices. “You like the thought of that, huh?” He pets Zoro's erection through the damp lace, smearing the wetness around, and leans in close to murmur against Zoro's ear. “I ate her out for hours, Zoro.” He shivers every time he hears his own name from Sanji's mouth. Thinks he likes it even more than he secretly likes pet, likes darlin’ and sweetheart. “I couldn't get enough of it. She came three times before she made me stop; otherwise I think I'd have gone on all night.”

Zoro closes his eyes as a shudder runs through him, and pushes his prick urgently into Sanji's hands.

“You wouldn't stop me, would you, love? You'd let me have my fill of you, even if it started to hurt. Cos you're a good girl, aren't you, Zoro?”

Zoro makes a sound that can only be described as a sob. He nods helplessly, not trusting himself to speak.

Sanji tuts. “C'mon, beautiful, you can say it. Let me hear you. I'm a good girl, Sanji.”

Fuck. “I…” Sanji nods encouragingly, stroking Zoro's cheek with the back of his hand. “I can't.”

“Course you can. My girl can do anything she puts her mind to.”

My girl. “Oh god.”

“Come on. Close your eyes.”

He closes his eyes. It's almost a relief to be given an order he can follow instead of one that feels like going overboard in a storm.

“Take a deep breath.”

He takes a deep breath. Lets it fill his lungs and steady his shaking hands.

“Good. You're doing so well, darling, I swear to god, you're a treasure.”

He wants to do well. Wants to prove himself to Sanji. He wants it so much it's overwhelming, sometimes.

“Now breathe out, and just… say it. I'm a good girl.. Just four little words, pet.”

“I–” Within the phrase Sanji wants him to say is the smaller, no less terrifying three word phrase: I'm a girl. “I'm a–” Zoro feels like the words are choking him. He summons an inner fortitude gained only through years of meditation and training, and forces it out. “–good girl.”

He’s breathless. Winded by the effort of speaking four impossible words into existence.

“Yeah you are,” Sanji sighs, happily, and he brushes the lightest, most chaste kiss onto Zoro's quivering mouth.

It feels like a benediction.

“Now. Are you gonna be a good girl and let me taste your pretty cunt?”

All the air falls out of Zoro’s lungs so quick it’s dizzying.

“Why are you like this?”

“Cos you enjoy it. And I live to make beautiful women happy.”

Zoro hears Mihawk's voice in his head: Do you think I'm a woman?

Is that what Sanji thinks? Or is it just play?

Would it matter either way?

Isn't this what he wanted, to know how it would feel to be treated like one of Sanji's pretty girls?

“How do you know what I enjoy?”

Sanji chuckles, and touches Zoro's cheek. Zoro can't help leaning into that touch. “I know you.” His long fingers slip into Zoro's hair, caressing his scalp. Zoro shivers with the pleasure of it. “For better or worse, something in me recognises something in you. You know what I mean?”

Helpless, Zoro nods. He does know. He knows Sanji, too; sometimes it feels like he's always known him. It doesn't make sense, but that doesn't stop it being true. They're two sides of a coin, the two of them; a coin that Luffy's always flipping. They're two wings of the same bird, working in concert, each useless without the other. Two swords wielded by the same warrior, one filling the right hand and one the left. They could destroy each other. They could complete each other.

“If I was a beautiful woman,” Zoro begins, haltingly, and he doesn’t miss the way Sanji's eyes spark. “How would you treat me?”

The spark catches. Starts to spread. “If a woman as beautiful as you came to my bedroom dressed like this…” He trails a hand down Zoro's side, following the curve of his waist in the corset, the unfamiliar roundness of his slender hip, the luxurious black lace covering it. He catches Zoro's hand and, never breaking eye contact, he bends low and kisses the back of it. “I'd consider myself the luckiest man in the East Blue. And I'd promise her a night to remember.” His eyes are glinting in the lantern-light of the cabin, smouldering like a banked fire, and Zoro wants. He wants more than he’s ever wanted anything that wasn’t facing him with a sword in its hand.

“Okay.” Okay. “Okay, you can. You can–” he gestures vaguely, face burning with embarrassment. “With your mouth, like you said, you can... If you still want.”

They've not really done that yet. Zoro’s had Sanji's dick in his mouth, and it was transcendent, he's not been able to stop thinking about it since; he'll be working out on the foredeck and suddenly the memory of the weight of Sanji’s cock on his tongue will be so present in his memory that, for a moment, he'll completely forget what he was supposed to be doing.

And Sanji licked him, all too briefly, when they fucked.

But he's never felt someone's mouth around him. Never wanted to feel it before Sanji, never had a single thought about any of this until that day when Sanji put him on his knees on the galley floor and fed him his cock until he was drunk with it.

“Oh yeah, baby, fuck, let me taste you. I bet you taste so fucking good.”

He backs Zoro over to the couch that’s pushed up against the mast. When the backs of Zoro's legs hit it, he sits automatically. Sanji drops onto the floor in front of him, his lanky body sprawled on the wooden boards, and he puts a hand on each of Zoro's thighs and pushes, opening him up to the room and his own hungry gaze.

Zoro's cock is leaking again. A steady stream, like he really is a girl and Sanji's making him wet. “You're making me wet,” he says, quietly, and he's proud of the fact that his voice doesn't tremble.

“Is that right?” Sanji's eyes are greedy. They rake over Zoro’s damp lace-covered crotch like a physical touch, hot and possessive. “Well never let it be said I don't take responsibility for my actions.” He bends his elegant neck and mouths at Zoro wetly through the lace.

It’s like nothing Zoro’s ever experienced in his fucking life; the silky heat of Sanji’s tongue and the friction of the textured lace fabric enough of a contrast that it fucks with his head, makes him so turned on he’s drunk with it. He sucks air through his teeth. His head drops back onto the couch and his hips twitch unbidden, thrusting his groin up into Sanji's face.

“Ah ah,” Sanji tuts. “That’s not very polite, sweetheart. Hold still for me, there's a good girl.” And he pins Zoro to the firm cushions of the couch, strong hands biting into Zoro's hips, and dips his head again. His lips are confident, knowing; his breath hot and damp. He licks at the wet patch that spreads from the top of Zoro's dick down to his balls over and over, like a cat. Zoro's cock goes from half hard to fully, achingly rigid in a span of time so short it might be embarrassing.

He doesn't know where to put his hands. He tries setting them on Sanji’s head, but it feels too much like he's trying to control the pace of things, even when all he's doing is stroking Sanji's hair, letting the spun gold strands of it flutter through his fingers like gossamer. He tries putting his hands down at his sides, to stay still, but god it's hard to be still when a beautiful man's licking and mouthing at your dick like it's a goddamn delicacy. So he settles for placing them on Sanji's shoulders. Strokes the sides of his neck with his thumbs, dips them under the collar of his shirt, damp but still immaculate under his waistcoat.

Sanji makes a pleased hum and opens his mouth, fastening it around Zoro's still-clothed cock and sucking gently.

In an instant everything is plush wet heat. The only thing that exists in the entire forsaken world is the slick muscle of Sanji's tongue, the humidity of his mouth, the wet cling of the lace Mihawk dressed Zoro in. Sanji’s mouth is so hot, it’s almost a shock after the chill of the rain. Like slipping into a hot bath dick-first. The stiff boning of the corset digs into Zoro’s waist where his body is bent into a sitting position; he’s painfully aware of what he’s wearing, and what he’s not.

He’s moaning. The sound makes Sanji look up at him all sharp and smug, like the cat that got the damn cream. “You like that, sweetheart?” He kisses the tip of Zoro’s dick through the lace again, open-mouthed and lingering. “Knew you would.”

He mouths at Zoro’s cock some more; slides his wet, swollen lips down the shaft of it and gently sucks one of Zoro’s lace-covered balls into his mouth; holds it there, wet and warm and overwhelming, before letting it go again.

Zoro can’t think. He can’t tear his eyes away from Sanji, doesn’t want to miss a moment of the sight of it, the way he’s staring back up at Zoro intently like he’s studying his responses, the way his mouth is wet and messy and a bit dusky from Zoro’s lipstick, the way his big hands are holding Zoro down tight enough to bruise.

Zoro moans helplessly and his legs, instinctively, try to spread even further apart. Sanji groans. “There’s my good girl,” he says. “Trying to show me your pretty cunt, sweetheart?”

Zoro’s face is on fire. He feels like he’s falling apart, like he’s a hair’s breadth from coming, like he might never live this down. But he bites his lip and whimpers “Uh-huh.”

Sanji tugs sharply at his hips, and Zoro slides down to something approaching horizontal, the lower half of his body hanging off the edge of the couch. Then he lifts Zoro’s legs, coaxes them up over his shoulders; the silky fabric of the stockings catches on his pretty blonde hair, mussing it. The sight makes Zoro feel crazy. And he can still feel it where Sanji fucked him last night, still aches inside, sweet and new, but he already wants Sanji’s dick back inside him, thinks he might never feel right again unless it’s there filling him up. He tugs at Sanji’s hair helplessly.

“Sanji.”

“Sanji’s got you, darlin’.” His stupid accent is thicker than ever. It makes Zoro’s head spin.

“I want–”

“What d’you want, hm?” He grins up at Zoro, face tilted next to the hard line of Zoro’s erection stretching the lace panties, and winks. “Tell me, and maybe I’ll let you have it.”

He wants his cock back in that wet mouth. He wants Sanji inside him. He wants to be good. He wants things he can’t even put into words.

“Fuck me,” he begs. “Please, Sanji.”

Sanji’s grin sharpens. “Yeah? You not sore from last night? I saw the way you were walking this morning.”

Zoro whimpers. Sanji puts his fingers between the cheeks of his ass and pets soothingly over his hole, only a thin layer of lace between them. “Needy little thing, aren’t you, princess?”

“Oh god.”

“I’ll consider it. But I’ve not had my fill of you yet–I’ve barely had a fucking taste.” He dips his head and sucks at Zoro’s dick again, and Zoro hates the fucking panties, wants them gone, no barrier between his achey dick and Sanji’s skillful mouth, but Sanji seems determined to suck every trace of Zoro from them; he’s laving them with his tongue, taking a mouthful of the fabric into his mouth and sucking, biting at the lace with his teeth, he slurps at the fabric and his eyes close as he lets out a shaky groan. “Fuck, the taste of you.”

“P-please,” Zoro pleads, head thrashing on the back of the couch.

“Please what, baby?”

“Please.” How can Sanji expect him to make words? “Please, your–your mouth, oh my god.”

Sanji licks the length of him. “You like my mouth, baby?”

Zoro nods desperately, and Sanji chuckles. His breath is hot on Zoro’s cock. He loosens his grip on Zoro’s hips and slides his hands in, towards the centre, to tug the underwear to one side, exposing him, and oh. The air is cool on Zoro’s damp skin, and god, shit, he wants Sanji’s mouth back on him right now, but Sanji’s just staring at him, taking in the sight of his leaky cock like it’s a fucking four course meal, all wide-eyed and greedy. Then he sticks out his pink tongue and laps at the sticky fluid leaking from the tip like a cat with a saucer of milk, and Zoro feels like he’s dying. His fingers tighten unthinkingly in Sanji’s hair, and Sanji grins, wicked, and sinks his mouth down onto Zoro’s cock in one slow, slick motion.

The noise Zoro makes is inhuman. A pitchy yell, curdled and very nearly painful. It’s too much, it’s too intense, pleasure this concentrated was never meant for a body like his to handle. He's built for fighting, for pain and struggle and strength, built to endure. Not to be… the only word he can come up with is worshipped.

“Oh,” he sobs, and he doesn’t recognise his own voice. “Oh.” He can feel the clutch of Sanji’s throat. How is he doing that? Letting Zoro in, letting him so deep inside…

Slowly, inexorably, Sanji pulls off. Goes back to licking, kittenish, at the tip. Zoro whimpers at the loss, helpless, and Sanji chuckles at him fondly, like this is all so fucking amusing. Then he moves further down, noses at Zoro’s balls, so vulnerable like this, and then lower still, beneath them, coaxing Zoro's thighs even further apart until he's open, so wide open it feels like he might just break.

Sanji's voice, when he speaks, is husky and thick. “That’s it, beautiful. Let me look at you, just let me–” Then he's bending down and…

“Oh, oh!” Zoro squirms at the first wet swipe of Sanji's plush tongue over his bare hole.

“Fuck, baby, your pussy tastes so good.”

“Fuck.” How is Zoro supposed to handle that? “My… m-my…”

He feels Sanji grin there against his most intimate skin. “Your pussy,” he says, voice low and smoky like it gets when he's flirting with–with a pretty girl.

“My…”

“C'mon, baby, say it. Say it for Sanji.”

Zoro squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. He hears Sanji make another amused little sound, and feels the puff of breath against his spit-wet asshole.

“Not there yet, huh? That's okay, sweetheart, we'll get you there.” And he returns to the task of demolishing Zoro with his tongue. Laps at Zoro with flat swipes, drooling all over his hole like some kind of beast while Zoro pants shocky little uh, uh sounds that he can't keep locked in his throat. Kisses him there, wet and filthy, presses his lips to the puckered skin, drags his teeth over it, silky and dangerous. Sucks at Zoro's perineum, nose nudging at his balls.

Zoro's neglected dick twitches against his abdomen, so hard it hurts, and Zoro feels like he's crawling out of his own skin. Like he can't breathe, like the corset is all that's holding him in one piece but also like it's squeezing him so tight he can't fully inhale. He goes to grab his dick and stroke it, fuck, he needs something, the tease of all this wet, soft, indirect stimulation building higher and higher is going to kill him…

“No.” Sanji's voice is dark. Possessive. He knocks Zoro's hand away. “That’s mine.”

“Sanji, please. I need.”

“What do you need, baby?”

“T-touch me.”

“I am touching you.”

He is. He's rubbing his long fingers back and forth over the sloppy mess he's made of Zoro's hole, stroking and stroking but never penetrating, even when the tip of his middle finger catches like Zoro's body wants to pull it inside.

“Touch my. M-my.”

“Your what, Zoro?”

Zoro sobs. “My dick, touch my fucking dick, please...”

“Not yet, baby. I'm having too much fun. Your fault for having such a sweet little cunt, yeah?”

“Fuck, fucking… fuck me, then, get on with it, put your damn fingers ins-oh!”

Sanji’s started mouthing at him again, circling Zoro's hole with the stiffened point of his tongue, and Zoro cants his hips, shame forgotten, tries to push himself down onto Sanji's wicked mouth.

Sanji smacks his thigh sharply, the sound of flesh on flesh utterly obscene. “Don’t rush me, poppet,” he warns, darkly, and Zoro thinks he might come, the feeling is so overwhelming, his balls draw tight, he jerks his hips, rutting his cock against nothing but air, oh god, he's going to come just from this, he’s going to humiliate himself, he’s going to–

Sanji squeezes the base of him tight, painfully tight, chasing the orgasm away.

Zoro cries out, back arched, eyes fixed unseeing on the wooden ceiling above, pain rushing through him in waves that radiate out from his crotch. Then it's over, and he slumps down onto the couch bonelessly, passively, floating like a ship on a wide ocean, his painfully hard dick still twitching, almost forgotten. His arms drop to his sides, his legs fall. He feels dazed. Half a step out of pace with himself. Sanji could do anything, absolutely fucking anything to him right now, and he'd just lie here and let it happen, let it wash over him like a warm, slow tide.

The room spins gently, dreamily. Everything is soft at the edges.

“There we are,” Sanji croons, all smug satisfaction. “There’s my sweet girl.”

Zoro tries to nod. He's Sanji's girl. He'll be anything, anything he wants. Even the need to come is a distant thing, now; too distant to reach.

“You're gonna lie back like a good girl and let me eat your pretty pussy, aren't you, baby?”

Dreamily, Zoro nods. He can’t think of anything he wants more.

“Atta girl.”

He's not sure how much time passes. All he's aware of is Sanji's mouth, his tongue, his hands petting at Zoro's thighs, soothing the red hand print he'd left there. He knows he gets close to coming again when Sanji points his tongue and forces it past the loosened ring of muscle and into Zoro's ass, fucking him with it like a dick, but Sanji grabs the base of his cock again and squeezes, hurts him so good, keeps it from happening.

“Thank you,” Zoro whispers, words slurring together, as trails of tears run from the corners of his eyes down into his hair. “Thank you, thank you.”

“You still want my fingers, love?”

“Yeah.” Zoro's voice is more breath than speech. It trembles out of him.

“Where d'you want them?”

Zoro shivers. “In my. P-ussy.” The word stutters on his tongue. He swallows hard. Do you think I'm a woman?

He's not a woman, Zoro's pretty sure. Both himself and Mihawk. But he likes this with a fierceness that can't be denied, likes it when Sanji treats him like a woman, makes him feel pretty and coveted. Likes it when Sanji calls his asshole a pussy, calls his pecs his tits, likes to close his eyes and imagine he's Sanji's girl, his pretty little wife spreading her legs and doing her duty to him, fuck, he likes it so much it makes him dizzy.

“Good girl,” Sanji purrs, and he slips two fingers into Zoro. They go in easy, he's all sloppy-loose with Sanji’s spit where he's been going down on him for what feels like hours, and Sanji groans like he's drunk on the sight of it. “Fuck, baby, sweetheart, you're so fucking pretty, look at your pretty little cunt. It's mine, isn't it? Tell me it's mine, angel, tell me you belong to me.”

“Yeah,” Zoro gasps. “It's yours, my. My cunt is yours.”

“Shit.” Sanji’s head drops and he shudders, a full-body shudder that Zoro can feel, even in the fingers inside him. He stays like that for a moment, and Zoro is dimly, distantly worried that he's broken him. But then he surges up again and presses his entire god damn face between the cheeks of Zoro's ass, lips shoved up against the sensitive skin in a way that's absolutely obscene, tongue forcing its way in between his two stretched fingers, and Zoro barks out a sound like he's been stabbed in the fucking gut. Sanji’s tongue starts to fuck him again, deeper, wet and greedy and Zoro's never felt so open in his entire life, never felt so hungrily wanted, and Sanji’s fingers are sliding deeper, seeking, and when they touch his prostate Zoro's spine turns to liquid fire. His back arches like he's being electrocuted and he feels Sanji moan, the sound lost inside him.

“S-sanji.” He doesn't know what he wants, what he's asking for, but Sanji gives it to him anyway. Pets at that sparking place inside him that makes his cock leak like a broken faucet, dripping wet and sticky on the bottom edge of the corset. Pets and pets at it, lifting his head and cooing nonsense at Zoro in a voice that's utterly wrecked.

“You're so good, baby, you know that? Prettiest fucking thing I've ever seen in my life, shit, have you got any idea what you– Fuck, that's it, darlin’, you take it so fucking good, you're perfect, my perfect little lady–”

Something’s building in Zoro like a storm. He thinks he might find it frightening, if he was in his right mind. As it is he's still dreamy and vague, floating on pleasure and praise, unable to make his brain grip onto anything. It all falls through him like sand. He gives himself over to it; the rising pleasure, the haze, the hypnotic sound of Sanji's fucked-out voice murmuring filthy devotion at him, the tight grip of the corset, like some part of Mihawk is still holding him, the smell of his hair oil, the smell of Sanji's sweat and his own pre-come, the incessant pressure on his prostate, the fingers stretching him open, loose and sloppy from Sanji's mouth, and oh god, “Oh god, Sanji, Sanji.”

With a hoarse cry he starts coming, helplessly, all over himself, without so much as a finger on his cock. And it doesn't stop. Sanji fingers him through it, firm, demanding, merciless, while Zoro howls and howls and spills all over himself, copious and messy, clinging to Sanji's fine blonde hair like a lifeline, shuddering.

“Good girl. That’s it, give it all up for me.”

Sanji doesn't stop. Not even when the drawn-out orgasm finally peters out, when it gets overwhelming, then painful. Not when Zoro's howls turn to shocky little whimpers and he twitches like he wants to get away from the fingers still moving inside him, the mouth that's now closing, soft and insistent, around his limp, spent cock, suckling gently at it in a way that's so painfully too much it brings fresh tears to Zoro's eyes.

He licks and suckles it clean, then holds it in his mouth, tonguing at it gently while Zoro twitches and whines at the overstimulation and doesn’t ask him to stop.

He drifts. Lets it happen.

*

Sanji's dick is going to fucking rupture if he doesn’t pay attention to it soon, but the taste of Zoro is addictive. Like nicotine, he wants it in his mouth to an extent that’s unhealthy. Zoro’s cock is already firming up again under his attentions, getting chubby and thick, filling Sanji’s cheeks and making his mouth water all over it. He tastes musky, earthy and fresh as a heavy rain. It's a delicacy Sanji could spend the rest of his life savouring.

He lets it go reluctantly, lifts his head to take a look at his boy. His girl, tonight, and fucking hell, he needs to send Mihawk a fucking thank you hamper or something, because this? This is relevant to Sanji’s interests, okay, in a way that is so extremely specific it feels like it’s been designed in a lab to hit every single sexual fantasy he’s ever had.

Zoro's as relaxed as Sanji's ever seen him, lying almost flat on the sofa with his legs and arms spread, chest rising and falling in slow, unhurried breaths like he's meditating, corset still tightly laced, panties absolutely bloody wrecked, the stocking on one leg slightly askew. His cheeks are flushed, his hair damp, the green darkened to something forest deep and luscious, and he's staring down at Sanji with wide, wet eyes.

Sanji kisses the bare skin just below the corset's lower hem. Lets his lips drag, his tongue dart out to taste the sweat and salt of that skin.

“Fuck me,” Zoro rumbles, low and wrecked. “Please.” Sanji feels the vibration of it in the torso under his lips, and smiles.

“Tempting.” He kisses the stiff material of the corset, the satin all smooth and sleek, leaves a trail of kisses up it until he finds skin again; the tiny, perfect little handfuls of Zoro's pecs, shoved up by the corset into something ever so slightly softer and more apparent than usual. “Fuck me, your fucking tits. I swear to god…” He cups them in the palms of his hands, squeezes them until a breathy sigh shivers its way out of Zoro's chest. Gives into temptation and buries his face in the shallow valley between them, groaning into the warm flesh. The one on his right–Zoro's left–is bisected by Mihawk's scar, a ragged white line of pale tissue that doesn't quite reach the nipple.

Thank fuck. Zoro's nipples are a work of fucking art, small and brown, pebbled with arousal and with the cool air. Sanji licks at one of them, then helplessly sucks it into his mouth, grazing it with his teeth because he knows Zoro likes a bit of bite.

Sure enough, he gasps out a weak little moan. Deep, dazed. Beautiful.

Sanji allows himself to be distracted for a while mouthing at Zoro's tits until they’re puffy and red, sucking little bruises onto the skin like a fucking teenager.

“Sanji,” Zoro breathes. “Please.”

“Alright, treasure, I got you. I got you.” He wants to put his dick in Zoro's pliant, willing body. But even more than that, he wants something he's not had in entirely too fucking long, something he’s been hungry for for weeks. “Here, pet, you lie down on the sofa. Legs straight out, just like that. That's it.”

He gets Zoro settled on his back, head on one of the cushions, feet just sticking out off the other end of the sofa. Zoro goes so easy, lets himself be manipulated into place, and fuck, Sanji’s out of his mind with it, how placid and passive he is in this state, all lax-limbed and sleepy.

“Here, baby, let's loosen this up.” He reaches for the hook and eye clasps that run down the front of the corset. “Don't want my special girl fainting on me, do I?”

Zoro pouts a little at that. It's so fucking cute that Sanji has to bite the inside of his mouth hard at the sight of it.

“Want to keep it on,” he grumbles.

“I know, baby. But I want to undress you.” He trails a finger down the line of clasps. Zoro seems half-convinced. “You'll let me do what I want, won't you, sweetheart?”

Slowly, Zoro nods. Like he can't help himself.

“There’s a good girl.” Every time he says that, Sanji notices Zoro shiver. It's fucking fascinating. “Hold still for me, beautiful.” He unhooks the clasps one by one, working his way up until Zoro's torso is exposed, the two sides of the corset lying open under him.

Zoro's stomach quivers. Sanji bends to kiss it, soft and brief. “Pretty girl. Beautiful girl.” Zoro whimpers, and the sound makes Sanji grin. “Now you just lie there nice and still for me, yeah?”

He nods, and his face is so serious that Sanji can't help stroking his cheek affectionately.

He stands and stretches, arms above his head, bending to one side then the other, before shucking off his waistcoat and untucking his shirt. He spares a moment to wish he had a fucking cigarette, then roots round in the wooden chest of his neatly stored belongings to come up with the jar of oil they've been using.

He's half way through unbuttoning his shirt when he hears, very quietly: “Do you prefer it when I'm a girl?”

He freezes. Looks over at Zoro, who's still lying exactly where Sanji put him, his eyes tracking Sanji across the room.

He wants to answer quickly, defensively, to say course not and reassure Zoro that he likes him any fucking way he pleases, but there’s something under the question that makes him pause. A heaviness that he's not quite sure what to make of yet.

So he forces himself to continue unbuttoning the shirt, unhurried, and to answer in a measured tone of voice, gentle and steady.

“Do you prefer it, Zoro?”

Zoro makes a frustrated sound. “I don't know.”

Sanji waits. Gives it time.

Eventually: “I think I. I don't know. I like it, I like you noticing me. It makes me feel…”

“Feel what?”

Another frustrated sound, almost a growl. “Good. Powerful. Is that bad?”

Sanji chuckles. Tosses his shirt aside and crosses back to Zoro, sitting beside him on the very edge of the sofa and reaching out to tuck a strand of his pretty hair behind his ear. “No, love. It's not bad.” He bites his lip, but can't hold back the grin. “It’s fucking hot, though.” Zoro's hair is so soft. He buries his fingers in it, scratching lightly at his scalp. “You are powerful. You know that, right?”

Zoro shrugs, frowning. “In some ways.” He touches one of the ruined bows on the pretty lacy underpants he’s still wearing, though they’re shoved to one side, wrinkled perhaps beyond saving. Pity. “This is a different sort of power. I'm not used to it.”

“That's okay.” He strokes Zoro's cheek again and he leans into it, thick eyelashes fluttering shut. “You’ve got time to get used to it, there’s no rush. I'm not going anywhere.”

Zoro swallows. Sanji watches the working of his throat. “You aren't?”

It's a small moment of revelation. “Oh baby. Is that what you were freaking out about this morning?” He watches Zoro shrug stiffly. Idiot swordsman. “I'm on the crew. I'm not gonna leave.”

“You could still be on the crew but not… not here.” He sweeps a hand, and it encompasses himself, the sofa, the space between them. “You're always flirting with girls.”

“Do you want me to stop that?”

A huff of a laugh, and a glimpse of a smile. “Nah. It's funny seeing you embarrass yourself.”

“Oy!” Rude.

“I guess I was just worried that you… that this is just a placeholder, until you find the right girl.”

Sanji sighs. He’s already found the right fucking girl; he’s looking at her right now. “Damn. This is all my fucking fault.” Zoro's shaking his head, opening his mouth to argue, but Sanji stops him with a finger to his lips. “Let me talk, kitten. I was worried you were getting in your own head about this shit, I know sex hasn't always been your thing–” To say the fucking least. Sanji will never get over being the first person to so much as kiss Zoro, damn– “and I thought you needed space to sort your head out. I was trying to…” He sighs. “I know I can be overbearing, I've been told enough fucking times. I didn't want to assume you wanted… I didn't want to pressure you.”

Zoro's frown only deepens. Shit.

“Who told you that?” he says, and it takes a moment for Sanji to parse what he's referring to. Overbearing.

“Plenty of people. Lovers, crushes, one night stands.” He chuckles ruefully. “Women, men, it doesn’t fucking matter. I have a history of rushing in full pelt with my eyes closed and my arms open, it freaks people out.”

It's humiliating to admit it. But he owes Zoro the truth, the reason why he's so fucking shit at all this stuff.

“Then they're idiots,” Zoro states, firmly, in a tone that brooks no argument. Sanji sucks in a breath and his eyes cut to Zoro's face. He's serious. He’s fucking serious. Sanji doesn't know what to do with that. “You need to stop wasting your time on cowards.”

…and what can Sanji say to that but a bewildered “Okay.”

Zoro nods once, like it's settled.

Maybe it is.

“You gonna fuck me now?” He's looking at the jar of oil in Sanji’s hand.

Sanji shakes his head. “I, uh. I thought I'd ride you, if that's okay.” He rubs self-consciously at the back of his neck.

Zoro inhales sharply, and his entire body goes still. “Why are you asking?”

“Because I'm a fucking gentleman, dick head.”

“Well fucking stop it. You know how I like it; you've known from the start. I don't want you to ask, I want you to take.”

Oh mother fucking… Sanji's hands curl up into fists.

“Fucking hell. Okay.”

Another nod. Jesus, this man's going to be the death of him.

“Hold on tight, then, baby.

*

The most transcendent, overwhelming thing Zoro has ever experienced in his life was the moment when Mihawk took Yoru and cut him down, clavicle to hip, so deep and true he felt himself treading the thin bridge between life and death.

The feeling of Sanji sinking slowly down onto his cock is a close second, though.

Zoro's lying flat on his back and Sanji's straddling him, powerful thighs on either side of Zoro's hips, trapping him in place. He's bracing himself with a hand on Zoro's bare chest, which also serves to pin Zoro down, and his handsome face is screwed up tight, like all his focus is within himself, concentrated on where Zoro’s cock is entering him.

In contrast to how careful he'd been with Zoro last night, he barely did anything to prepare for this. Just swiped some oil into his hand and stroked it onto Zoro's dick before lining himself up and just fucking going for it. I’ve got plenty of practice, sweetheart, trust me, he’d grinned when Zoro had expressed concern that he’d hurt himself. Been a while, but it’s like riding a bike. All muscle memory; the body remembers.

“Fuuuuck,” he groans, now, as he takes that final inch and settles on Zoro, flexible thighs splayed, a look of sheer bliss on his face. He rolls his shoulders, neck loose, lips ever so slightly curled up in a smile. “It’s been far too fucking long. Fuck, I missed this.”

He shifts his hips, luxuriating in the sensation, and Zoro bites down on his own tongue so hard he tastes iron.

He can't speak. He can hardly breathe. His dick is trapped in the slick, hot grip of Sanji's insanely strong body and he's never felt anything like it in his entire miserable existence, nothing that ever approached this level of sheer, unendurable ecstasy.

Sanji rotates his hips again, sighing happily to himself, and Zoro's hands go to his hips without thinking, clinging on for dear fucking life.

He thinks he makes a sound. Probably something embarrassing, judging by the way Sanji's smiling down at him, one side of his mouth twitching up in an amused smirk.

“You holdin’ up okay, there, pet?”

Zoro swallows tightly. Tries to loosen his grip on Sanji’s pale hips but he can't, he can't.

Sanji uses those ridiculously strong leg muscles to lift himself an inch or two, then drops back down heavily with a huff of breath and a smug little hum of pleasure.

“Fuck,” Zoro gasps, panicked. “Wait, fuck. I'll come, I'll come.”

“No you won't,” Sanji laughs, breathlessly, and rises and drops again. “Not until I'm done with you. You're my good girl, yeah? You want to please me, don’t you, Zoro? So you're gonna be nice and still and keep that pretty dick hard for me.”

Zoro heaves a breath that's more of a sob. Sanji tilts his hips, shifts the angle of Zoro's prick inside him to exactly where he wants it. “Ohhh yeah,” he moans, “yeah, yeah, shit, that's it. So good, Zoro, you're doing so good, baby.”

He seems so damn big like this. He's got maybe an inch of height on Zoro, nothing at all, but up above him like this, astride him, he's just… overwhelmingly big: broad chest rock hard with lean, well defined muscle, thick thighs that might as well be carved out of rock, there's not an ounce of spare body fat on him anywhere, nothing soft, nothing plush. Just density. Just strength, and build, and Zoro admires him so fucking much. Zoro's trapped underneath him, held down, powerless, and he can feel his eyes starting to roll back into his fucking skull–

“Hey,” Sanji says, sharply. “None of that.”

Zoro's startled away from the edge of orgasm by the sudden, intense sting of a big hand slapping his damn face, what the fuck. The shock and the sting send him skittering back towards the waves of whatever spell he'd been under earlier, when everything was hazy and vague and all he wanted was to make Sanji happy with him.

Shit.

“More,” Zoro pants, turning his face to present the other side of it to Sanji like a gift. “Please.”

Sanji's eyes flash, bluer than a clear sky, and he backhands Zoro firmly across the other cheek.

The waves start to wash over him. His cheeks sting, hot and buzzing, and his hands fall away, finally, from their death grip on Sanji.

“More?” Sanji asks, and Zoro's dimly aware that he's started moving, quicker than before, bouncing on Zoro's dick in a way that Zoro knows won't be able to take for long without coming–and he can't come, not before Sanji's done with him, not when he's trying so hard to be good, to be useful–so he nods frantically.

“Uh-huh,” he says and, like earlier, it comes out embarrassingly high and whimpery.

Sanji smacks him again, right across the jaw, and that's it. Zoro's gone.

Sanji’s so damn strong. The pain is exquisite, warm and blunt, and he can feel the marks starting to bloom on his skin and knows everyone will be able to see them tomorrow, everyone will know, and the thought of that should be humiliating but it’s not. It’s not.

He's vaguely aware that Sanji's crooning nonsense at him again, hips working in tight little circles as he bounces, but he only catches snatches of it as his awareness zones in and out.

“...anything for my sweetheart, my beautiful little–”

“...fuck, baby, Sanji loves your fucking dick, holy shit, gonna ride it till it fucking breaks...”

“...oh baby, don't cry, shh, don't cry.”

Zoro frowns. Is he crying? He touches his face–his shaking fingers come away wet.

Huh. He supposes he must be.

Reverently, Zoro reaches that same wobbly hand out and touches Sanji's chest. Pale, flushed, dusted with hair so fine and blonde that it’s almost invisible. He touches Sanji's body like it's brand new to him, feels every ridge of his abdominals, the prominent cords of his obliques. He's a work of art. A sculpture. Zoro can't believe he's allowed this.

Suddenly his orgasm is right there, creeping up on him at a hundred fucking knots, and this time he knows there's nothing he can do to stop it.

It feels like an act of god. Like a storm with no eye, no pause for breath.

“S-sanji,” he stutters, and he feels more tears squeeze their way out of his eyelids. “Sanji!”

“Not yet,” Sanji moans. His head is thrown back, his eyes closed. The long column of his throat is quivering. “Not yet, not yet, don't come, Zoro, don't come, sweetheart, I'm so close, let me– let me–”

Zoro tries to cling on, he tries so fucking hard. “I can't!”

“You can. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, that's it, right there, that's my good fucking girl, I'm coming, I'm coming, Zoro, fuck, don't stop–”

Zoro could swear that he feels Sanji's orgasm, experiences it as vividly as if he'd just come himself. He's squeezing rhythmically around Zoro's cock, jizzing all over Zoro’s exposed belly, marking him all over again, and fuck, Zoro's done it, oh god, he held out and gave Sanji pleasure, he's done well, Sanji will be pleased with him.

He comes so hard he momentarily blacks out.

*

He dreams of thunder and smoke, and when he opens his eyes it’s to the sight of Sanji’s long body curled up on the ledge by the cracked-open porthole, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

He doesn’t notice Zoro’s awake, so Zoro takes a moment to just watch him. Trying to puzzle him out. Trying to work out why he affects Zoro like this, what it is about him that makes him so crazy, makes him feel and say and do things he’s never dreamt of before. His arms are wrapped around his knees, he’s so damn flexible it makes Zoro’s stomach jitter, and he’s staring out into the dark, shoulders hunched, in his stupid expensive boxer-briefs with his shirt on but unbuttoned, and he looks more vulnerable than Zoro’s ever seen him look before.

He barely knows this man. And yet. And yet, somehow, he knows him down to the very bones.

“It stopped raining,” he croaks, eventually, and watches Sanji twitch in surprise at the sound of his voice.

When he turns his broad, cheeky smile on Zoro it’s like the sun coming out. Like opening his eyes after so long in darkness that the light itself is painful.

“Well hello there sleeping fucking beauty. About time you joined the land of the living.”

Zoro gives him the finger. He’s been wiped down, he realises as he stretches out on the sofa. His tear-tracked face, his messy torso, even (he blushes) between his legs.

Sanji hops down from the ledge and comes over, a look of gentle concern on his face. “You okay? Think I was a bit rough with you, sorry about that.” His eyes roam from Zoro’s face, no doubt still red from being hit, to his chest, which sports a colourful collection of bruises and teeth marks, down to his still-bare dick, lying soft and quiet against his inner hip.

“It’s fine.” That’s an understatement, but Zoro’s not good with words like Sanji is, can’t put the way he feels in a way that’ll make sense to anyone outside his own head.

“You sure? Cos I think the others might–”

“I like you,” Zoro interrupts, and Sanji’s startled enough that he seems to lose his train of thought.

“Uh,” he says. “What?”

“I like you,” Zoro repeats, slowly, as if Sanji’s being particularly dense.

Sanji stares with his mouth open like a fish. It’s funny. Zoro grins, and stretches again, feeling every delicious ache.

“I, uh. I like you too,” he says, eventually.

Zoro’s grin only deepens. He puts his arms up under his head and closes his eyes, settling into the sofa cushions and feeling Sanji’s eyes on him without having to look, hot and heavy and adoring. “I know.”