My precious ships

Sanji makes a startled sound that disappears straight into Zoro’s mouth because this time it is a kiss, messy and guileless because Zoro doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing, he just wants. Wants more of that taste, more of that heat, more of the way Sanji’s mouth feels against his. His brain is just white noise and concussion and the single screaming thought that Sanji’s kissing him back and nothing has ever felt this good in his entire miserable existence. He kisses like he’s starving, all teeth and tongue and desperation, licking into Sanji’s mouth on pure instinct to taste again, sucking on Sanji’s lower lip. A wrecked sound tears out of his throat before he can stop it, worsened by the way Sanji’s hand finally leaves Zoro’s shoulder to fist in his hair, hard. Fingers tangle in the green strands and tug Zoro’s head back at an angle that makes the kiss deeper and Zoro moans into it, the sound muffled and needy. 

His free hand slides up under the edge of Sanji’s coat to find the hem of his shirt and push, palm landing on bare skin that’s hot and smooth, finding the dip of Sanji’s waist. He groans again, fingers spreading wide with trying touch every centimetre at once, dragging Sanji closer, hips lifting off the deck on pure instinct and – 

oh.

Sanji’s knees slots neatly through and around Zoro’s thighs for balance and when Zoro grinds up the friction against the solid muscle of Sanji’s thigh punches the air out of his lungs. He does it again without thinking, rutting up in short, desperate rolls of his hips, chasing the pressure, the heat, the relief. The way Sanji makes a sound that Zoro wants to hear for the rest of time.

The hand in Zoro’s hair tightens, pulling just enough to hurt in the best way, the weight of the blonde settling heavier until the heat between their bodies spikes, until Zoro can feel the way Sanji fits so precisely against him, and then his hips snap forward again, too much and not enough. He’s never felt another body moving against his with so much intent, never tasted anyone like this and he drags Sanji down harder and closer, until he can feel the other man’s heat hammering against his own chest, can feel the way both their breathing hitches everytime he grinds up. He can’t stop making noises – these low, keening sounds that get swallowed up between them until Sanji’s free hand slides down Zoro’s chest, down to his hip and pulls, guiding Zoro’s rhythm, making the grind slower and deeper and more deliberate. Sanji’s thigh is solid and warm and there; everytime Zoro rocks up, Sanji moves down to meet him, perfectly controlled even as his mouth is anything but.

Zoro thinks, briefly and wildly, that he’s going to die. This is how he dies, rutting against Sanji’s thigh on a wrecked deck in the middle of a fucking battle while Sanji kisses him like he wants to eat him alive. His first kiss and it’s already the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

Sanji shudders, hips stuttering in their rhythm, grinding down harder for one perfect second and Zoro sees stars. Then – Sanji’s hand tightens in his hair and he jerks back, enough that the kiss breaks with a wet sound that goes straight to Zoro’s dick. A thin string of spit stretches between their swollen mouths for one obscene second before it snaps. Sanji’s lips are shiny and red and raw, pupils blown so wide the blue is almost gone. He’s panting.

“What the fuck?” He manages, breathless and hoarse.

Zoro looks up at him, vision swimming and lips tingling, fingers splayed against hot skin. He can’t make his brain work. Can’t make his mouth form words. All he can do is stare and want and bite down on the whine that wants to break free, the please that’s sitting on the back of his tongue.

“You tell me,” he forces, rough and stupid, probably. “You started it.”

Sanji gapes at him. There’s a flush moving high and fast across his face now, from throat to cheekbones, horrifically bright even under all the grime and battle debris. “I was doing CPR, you fucking idiot.”

“Looked like kissing.”

“It was resuscitation!”

Zoro’s mouth twitches. His hips twitch too, a tiny, involuntary roll up against Sanji’s thigh that makes both of them suck in a sharp breath, makes Sanji’s eyes flutter shut for one little heartbeat. “Felt like kissing.”

That earns him a look of such murderous embarrassment that it’d kill lesser men. Sanji opens his mouth, probably to say something mean and creative but he never gets the chance.

“Oh, whoa!” Usopp’s voice hits the moment like a thrown brick.

Both of them freeze, and Zoro turns his head just enough to see that, beyond the ring of broken railing and broken buildings and enemy bodies and discarded weapons, the rest of the crew’s waiting. Usopp’s eyes are huge behind his goggles and Chopper’s already halfway through vaulting a piece of wreckage towards them, face already cycling through six different shades of panic. Nami has her staff in one hand and both eyebrows somewhere firmly near her hairline, her mouth trembling like she’s trying very, very hard not to laugh. 

For one awful, awful beat, nobody says anything and then Luffy points at them and grins. “You were kissing!”

Sanji gets off Zoro so fast he leaves a scorch mark on the deck, flame whipping up just as quickly as it dies. 

“I was not –” Sanji snaps but clearly stops himself because, well. He very much was. His lips are still wet and his shirt’s rumpled and he looks debauched in a way that makes Zoro want to bite him.

Or maybe Sanji can bite him – he’s not fussy.

Usopp’s face goes through about six emotions in under a second, all of them humiliating as hell. “Dude,” he says to Zoro, aghast and also a little impressed. “You almost died and that’s what you did with it?”

Zoro, still on his back and still trying to remember whether or not his ribs are attached correctly, drags one forearm over his eyes because god knows if he has to look at any of them right now he’ll throw himself into the fucking sea. His mouth still tastes like Sanji. His hips still want to move. He bites at his own skin for a second, then exhales. “Worked, didn’t it?”

“It was CPR!” Sanji snaps.

Nami makes a sound suspiciously close to a laugh but Chopper reaches them at last and drops to his knees beside Zoro, all doctor now despite the obvious scene, hooves already pressing at his shoulder and forehead and pulse points in brisk sequence. “Do not move!”

Sanji stands a few metres away and absolutely refuses to look at anybody, especially Zoro, which is interesting because Zoro can still feel the shape of his mouth and the grip of his hand and the way their bodies had been moving together like they were trying to crawl inside each other’s skin. 

Chopper shines a light into his eyes. “Follow my finger.”

Zoro does, mostly: his attention keeps dragging sideways to Sanji, who has his arms folded now like he’s trying to physically hold himself together. He’s glaring out at the sea, ears red ad neck redder. When he finally glances at Zoro there’s a whole damn fight in that look – and an entirely different thing underneath that, hotter and more dangerous and much less easily survived. Zoro almost groans through his teeth.

“Can you stop eyefucking each other for, like, five minutes?” Nami drawls pleasantly. “We’re still technically in the middle of a battle zone.”

That breaks the moment enough for Chopper to get his hands on Zoro’s jaw and turn his face back toward the light. “Focus!”

Zoro focuses, mostly: his chest still feels weird, all lit up from the inside, too full of air and pain and the phantom press of Sanji’s body over his. 

“Are you dizzy?”

“Sure.”

“Are you nauseous?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you remember what happened?”

Zoro thinks about it. “Got hit.”

Chopper nods, apparently satisfied that his brain’s probably still inside the skull where it belongs. “Don’t sit up yet.”

It’s a little too late: Zoro’s already pushing himself onto his elbows, gritting his teeth at the pain that flares down his side and through his shoulder.

Luffy, still grinning, crouches down by Zoro’s boots. “So, if any of us stops breathing Sanji’ll just… kiss us too?”

Sanji rounds on him, face thatching bright, bright red. “No!”

Robin’s smile deepens. “A shame. It seems effective.”

“It was a medical necessity!”

Zoro can’t help but laugh and, sure, it hurts like hell but it’s worth it for the way Sanji’s face goes crooked, just for a second. The cook looks like he might kill him with his bare hands and that, more than anything else so far, reassures Zoro that he’s probably going to live. The next few minutes become all practical chaos: Chopper takes command while Luffy and Usopp are sent to help secure the rest of the field and gather the wounded enemies that are still worth tying up. Robin calmly checks the horizon, the crew moving the way they always do. 

Through all of it, Sanji hovers at the edge. He kicks a broken pike out of the way before anybody trips over it, lighting a cigarette before immediately crushing it under his heel with a curse that makes even Luffy blink. Eventually, Chopper gets enough bandaging done to be satisfied that Zoro’s injuries are, if not minor, at least survivable without immediate surgery. “You’re not dead,” he says sternly. “But you came very close to making me miserable.”

“Sorry.”

Chopper narrows his eyes, then pats his shoulder and hops away to tend to someone else. Zoro pushes himself up to sitting, slower this time, grimacing at how the deck swims before it rights itself. When he looks up Sanji’s still there, hands shoved in his pockets. HIs shoulders are still a little too rigid and Zoro can’t stop looking at the way the other man’s mouth is still swollen. Can’t stop remembering the way said mouth had felt wrapped around his tongue and the way Sanji had ground down against him like he wanted to feel every last centimetre of the swordsman.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Sanji mutters. His jaw tightens. “Don’t make a habit of that.”

Zoro looks up at him from the wrecked deck, bandaged and bruised. “You worried about me, Curls?”

Sanji’s eyes flash to his face as that blush comes back again, high and sudden, crawling down his neck to disappear under the collar of his shirt. “I was trying not to get stuck giving you chest compressions all afternoon. You’re heavy.”

Zoro lets that sit for a second, watching the way Sanji’s gaze drops to his mouth like he can’t help it, like they’re both counting down the minutes until they can be alone again. He feels his own smile come, heartendingly and disgustingly genuine. “Yeah? So you kiss everyone you think is dying like that?”

Sanji looks like hes genuinely considering kicking him back into unconsciousness, but instead he stalks closer to lean down close enough that Zoro can see the pulse at his throat. “Guess you’ll have to find out.” Then he straightens and stomps off before Zoro can answer, coat flaring behind him.

Zoro grins like that’s a compliment and it does something stupid to Sanji’s stomach, which he handles by glaring harder. Luffy slams both hands on the table, hard enough for every single cup to do a little jump. “I love you guys!”

Sanji flicks ash into the tray. “Uh-huh. When are we leaving?”

“When I’ve decided I’m done enjoying your suffering,” Nami returns pleasantly, not looking up from her cards. Usopp, who has lost the last three rounds in a row, visibly wilts.

The wait turns out to be short — Nami cleans house, absolutely rinsing Usopp and Chopper both, and then declares it bedtime. Luffy stands and sways, pointing at the door with great purpose. “It’s on the sea,” he says wisely and Nami just nods along agreeably, linking their arms together to guide him through the labyrinth of stained chairs and tables. Chopper and Usopp file out behind them in a staggered herd, breaking out into a shanty Sanji’s pretty sure they’ve made up on the spot and is at least twenty-two percent swear words.

Which leaves Sanji at the bar with Zoro and the bartender, who starts wiping down the bench like she’s seen what every variation of closing time entails and has stopped caring. There’s still faint music from somewhere, threaded through with laughter from a nearby table and the steady, low hiss of the gas lights but it’s quiet enough that Sanji feels the shift, the way the space between them feels bigger and smaller at the same time now that their usual buffer has left.

Sanji exhales smoke, offering the bartender a sympathetic smile that she ignores, and watches the way Zoro’s peering into his glass. He thinks about leaving him here but… he doesn’t really like the way his chest tightens at the thought, Zoro loose-limbed and too open to the world. It’s not that Zoro can’t handle himself — he can, obviously — but drunk Zoro says things, sometimes, and Sanji would rather that not be witnessed by this strange little town. The swordsman’s never been built for speeches, but when he’s like this little truths slip through the cracks, things that are usually welded shut behind stubbornness.

Once, after a hard fight, Zoro had said very quietly you fight like you mean it and had mumbled smells good one time when Sanji had walked past him holding nothing at all.

He drains the last of his drink and sets the glass down with care. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Zoro stares at him. “Where?”

“Back to the inn? Before you start a fight with the furniture or something.”

Zoro seems to consider this, giving it a thoughtful nod. “Furniture’s got it coming.”

“Fucking hell,” Sanji mutters, tossing coins onto the bar. “Get up.”

Zoro grumbles, but he’s steady enough on his feet that Sanji’s forced to acknowledge for the eighteenth time that Zoro can hold his liquor just fine. He just can’t hold his mouth.

Outside, the air hits cool and sharp, the town gone quiet around them. THere’s the sound of distant waves sdkf hushing ?? at the dock, almost lost under the sound of their boots scuffing on dirt and loose stone. Sanji keeps half a step ahead out of habit, horrifically aware of all the things he can ignore when the rest of the crew is here, like the sound of Zoro’s gait and the warmth radiating off him whenever he accidentally drifts closer and the way his presence just fills space, solid and inevitable.

“You’re quiet,” Zoro says after a while and Sanji scoffs. “Usually you’re… yapping.”

Sanji makes an insulted sound. “I do not yap.”

“You do.” There’s something almost fond in it and Sanji feels it settle somewhere under his ribs, before he kicks it clean out of him. They pass a shuttered shop, a stray cat darting from under a cart somewhere and, further still, someone starts singing a mournful tune.

Zoro’s voice, when it comes again, is lower. “You did good today.”

“What?”

Zoro doesn’t really look at him, eyes locked forward on the road like it’s the safest place to put his attention. “The — in the fight. Kept it from getting worse. You keep things… steady.”

The word hangs between them and Sanji tastes it, tentative, like the first note of spice in a sauce, wartmh spreading under his ribs. He wants to make a joke or deflect or to pretend he doesn’t feel the way that single word lands somewhere deep and soft. Instead, he clears his throat. “You’re drunk.”

“Mm.” Zoro’s head tilts, a little offended. “I know where the ground is.”

“That’s not —” Sanji sighs because honestly what’s the point of arguing schemantics with a swordsman who is currently made of loose, warm edges.

Zoro finally does look at him, eyes dark and too aware for someone who’s been drinking this much. “I’m not sayin’ it because I’m drunk. Just… sayin’ it.”

Sanji’s throat tightens. He can’t think of a single reply that doesn’t condemn either of them, so he shuts his mouth until they finally reach the inn. It’s one of those cheap places that smells like dust and mould and has an attendent that looks like h’s given up on the very concept of happiness. He gives them an aimless nod as they pass through, Sanji trying very hard to be normal and a responsible crewmate who can go to his room and lock the door and not think about how soft Zoro’s voice was when he said steady.

He gets to the second landing and turns right without thought, thinking only about this until he stops in front of his door to fumble around for the key and then it hits him that Zoro is still… there.

The swordsman sways slightly behind him. “This's yours. My room’s…?”

Sanji closes his eyes and thinks about just throwing them both down the stairs and being done with it. “Your room is on the other side.”

Zoro squints down the hallway, like it’s the doorway to another planet. “Huh.”

Sanji turns and stares at him. “Why did you follow me?”

Zoro scowls at him with the baffled honesty of a drunk, who doesn’t really understand the question. “You were walking.”

“You were supposed to be going to your own room!”

“You were supposed to be goin’ to my room.”

Sanji splutters, face catching alight in a way he does not appreciate when they’re in such close quarters. “Why would I go to your room!”

Zoro looks at him a beat too long, then shrugs with maddening simplicity. “You know.”

Sanji’s heart does a very undignified and frankly painful leap. He grits his teeth. “Go find your damn room before I kick you down the stairs.”

Zoro looks oddly pleased by that. “You think about kickin’ me a lot.”

And it’s not wrong but — Sanji’s face heats further, somehow. He almost wants to put his hands to it just to see if it burns. “It’s a hobby.”

Zoro leans in a bit, close enough that Sanji can smell the sake still on his breath and the faint sweat under it. “I don’t mind.”

Sanji’s whole body goes rigid and this, this is exactly why he wanted to leave the other man at the bar! This idiot who says shit like that and doesn’t seem to realise it’s like a loaded gun pointed straight at Sanji’s ribs. He swallows hard, forces himself to open the door and step inside it. He slams the door shut behind him, ignoring whatever look is crossing Zoro’s face.

He leans his head against the forehead against the wood and exhales, kicking off his boots and dragging his hands down his face with a groan. He peels off his jacket and runs water in the sink to wash his face like that’ll reset his brain because all he can think about is Zoro in the hallway, walking down it like he’s half asleep, maybe knocking into doors or falling or laughing or saying soft to nobody.

He dries his hands too hard and tells himself it’s not his problem: Zoro’s an adult. A terrifying adult, in fact, an adult who can cut people in half and who has survived way worse than a night of alcohol. He paces the room once and then twice, skin tight and light too bright and hallway too quiet, and then his chest tightens with something that feels suspiciously like worry but wants very, very badly to be something else.

“Fuck it,” he mutters.

Outside, the hallway smells like stale carpet and he moves down it, rolling his eyes at the way Zoro’s door is half open, the room inside untouched. Sanji swears under his breath and scans the hall, walking until he comes across Zoro half slumped against the wall like the hallway’s a good a place to sleep as any.

“Idiot.” Sanji scowls, hands on his hips.

Zoro’s eyes open slowly, a little unfocused until they find Sanji and settle, like the world’s clicked into place for him. “There you are.”

Sanji’s stomach does something awful. “What do you mean there you are! This isn’t hide and seek, Mosshead.”

“You left.”

“I told you to go to bed!”

Zoro’s mouth quirks. “I’m sittin’.”

Sanji just kind of stares at him, hopelessly and helplessly fond and infuriated in equal measure, before he pulls the other man up. Zoro comes easily, solid weight shifting as he stands, warm and close and tall, even slouched. He looks at Sanji with the heavy lidded focus he gets sometimes, like the world’s narrowed down to one thing worth seeing. Sanji tries his best to ignore it, hauling him down the hall towards his own room. The door shuts behind them with a soft click that feels louder than it should.

The room is suddenly full of Zoro — his height, his weight, his heat, the smell of him. The way he looks around slowly, a little muddled. “This’s your room.”

“No shit.”

“Why’m I here?”

Sanji drags him to the sink and kind of splashes water at him, in some halfhearted attempt to wash the other man’s face. “You were gonna sleep in the hallway like a stray. You could’ve gotten hurt.”

Zoro looks genuinely confused, water dripping down his face. He makes zero move to wipe it off. “By what?"

“By… life.”

Zoro watches him for a moment like he’s trying to parse that, gaze dropping — to Sanji’s hands, maybe. To his mouth, maybe. Sanji can’t tell. The whole room feels like it’s tilting. “You worry too much.”

Sanji laughs once, brittle, and throws the towel at him. The fact that Zoro catches it with ease makes Sanji want to throttle someone. “You don’t worry enough.”

“You smell like smoke.”

This is the part where he should be smart, Sanji knows, but his pulse stutters something awful and his tongue feels too big for his mouth and all he can feel is Zoro’s attention, like heat on skin. “I smoke?”

“Yeah,” Zoro agrees, like the answer has layers. “I know.”

“Oh my — shut up.” He grabs him by the front of the shirt, reefs it off and shoves him towards the bed. Zoro stumbles back onto it, surprised, then looks up with a crooked grin. He throws the blanket over Zoro with far more force than necessary, but Zoro only laughs under it, not nearly muffled enough.

“Oi,” Zoro says after a bit from somewhere under the pile, voice drowsy. “Stay.”

The word’s so plain it lands like a weight in Sanji’s chest and he wants to say no. He wants to say shut up again. He wants to say you’re drunk and you don’t mean it and you’ll regret it in the morning and i can’t afford to want what you’re offering.

Instead, he turns his head just enough to look at how Zoro’s still half under the blanket, mess of hair poking out, eyes nearly shut but still locked on Sanji. Like it’s the last thing he intends to look at before sleep takes him, and Sanji’s feet are moving before his brain can catch up. He sits on the edge of the bed carefully, watching Zoro’s hand snake out to close around Sanji’s wrist. His breath is shaking. “Just. Go to sleep.”

“Mm.” Zoro brushes his thumb over Sanji’s pulse once, slowly.

Sanji stays.

He tells himself it’s because Zoro’s still drunk and probably needs watching and because leaving him alone feels like leaving a knife on the edge of the table in rough seas. He doesn’t tell himself the other thing — that this is the closest he’s allowed himself to want Zoro without consequence and that the open look on Zoro’s face when he said steady is going to live in Sanji’s ribs for a long, long time.

In the quiet, Zoro’s breathing evens out and his breath loosens but his hand doesn’t let go, and Sanji stays until his heartbeat stops trying to climb out of his throat and until the night outside feels less like a threat and more like a hush. Then, carefully, he shifts back against the pillows and lets his shoulder brush Zoro’s under the blanket. Zoro makes a small sound in his sleep and leans in, unconscious and sure, and Sanji stares at the ceiling until sleep takes him, too.

x

In the morning, the sun doesn’t ease in. It slams, throwing a hard stripe through the gap in the shitty curtains to land straight against Sanji’s face. He wakes up already exhausted, the kind that sits behind the back of his throat and eyes after a night spent mostly awake listening to someone else breathe and fighting the stupid, dangerous urge to reach out.

He stares at the gross, water stained ceiling for a long beat and tries to reassure himself it’s physically impossible to die from a crush. Next to him, Zoro’s hair’s a disaster, flattened on one side and sticking up on the other. There’s no stubborn set to his mouth, just a faint crease from the pillow across his cheek. Sanji wants him to wake up so that they can get this over with and also doesn’t, because Zoro will wake up and they’ll both put the armour back on and go back to being blades that know exactly where to cut.

Shifting carefully, he tries to ease his arm free without rocking the whole mattress but the bed is creaky and cheap and awful and Zoro’s eyebrows pull in at once, eyes snapping open and instantly sharp. The softness drains out of him so fast it’s almost funny — his gaze snaps across the room, checking the door and the window and the floor and the table, cataloguing threats and exits before it lands on Sanji. For a second, he looks like someone staring down the barrel of a rifle, whole body going still.

Sanji, who has faced sea kings and warlords and his own worst instincts without flinching, recognises that specific kind of freeze: panic trying very hard not to show its face.

“Why am I here?”

“Good morning to you too.” He considers lying for a second, but the truth is funnier and for once Zoro deserves to sit in the consequences of his own choices. “You were falling asleep in the hallway. Very dramatic, very you.”

Zoro stares at him like he’s trying to drag the memory out of whatever ditch the sake threw it into. “I… went to my room.”

“You went to my room,” Sanji corrects, almost gentle.

Zoro sits up slowly, blanket sliding down his chest and he looks, horrifyingly, like someone who woke up in the wrong bed and is still deciding whether he’s been robbed or, like, accidentally married. He looks down again and narrows his eyes. “What happened?”

Sanji frowns. “What’d you mean what happened? I just told you.”

“I mean…” He looks up at Sanji’s face again like he’s searching for evidence: bruises or marks or some signs of irreversible damage. The words sound like they’re being dragged out of him kicking and screaming. “Did we… did we fuck?”

Sanji stares at him and at first there’s nothing in his head at all other than white, blank shock. Then his brain lurches violently back to life. “What?”

Zoro’s expression shuts tight, like he’s only just realised he’s said somethjing that can’t be unsaid and also has the potential of changing their entire trajectory. He huffs, the tips of his ears gone pink in a way Sanji wants to bite, maybe. “I don’t know! I woke up in your bed.”

Sanji can feel the laugh building, terrible and helpless, and he presses his hand to his mouth. A sound escapes him anyway, half strangled, and Zoro’s face darkens. “Sorry! I’m not —” he starts and has to immediately stop because he is laughing now, shoulders shaking despite every scrap of brevity he tries to muster.

Zoro glares at him. “It’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” Sanji wheezes and then he laughs again and he can’t decide what’s worse: the shaking laughter or the stupid, awful, dangerous hope that’s risen in him so fast it’s almost nauseating. There’s a part of him that has to wonder why this is what Zoro assumed and if Zoro’s ever thought about it or if Zoro’s ever imagined it. Has some stubborn part of him ever wondered what it’d be like to wake up in Sanji’s bed for reasons that have nothing to do with alcohol? He forces himself back under control, sobered by the idea of Zoro wanting this on any level. “No, Moss. We didn’t.”

Zoro blinks. “No?”

“No,” Sanji repeats, sharper now because god knows the shape of Zoro’s relief might kill him, if it comes.

Zoro’s shoulders lower a bit before they lock up again. He looks back at the blanket pooled around his waist, expression embarrassed but not disgusted. Not horrified or appalled or anything Sanji was expecting. “Oh.”

The warmth in Sanji’s chest doesn’t die, unfortunately. He smiles around it, dropping his face into his hands. “You were just drunk and talking shit. I figured if you fell down the stairs I’d be the one stuck carrying your dead weight and you’d find a way to be an asshole about it, so.”

Zoro’s mouth twitches a little, not a smile but too knowing to be nothing at all. His fingers flex around his own blanketed knees. “And I didn’t… do anything?”

“No.” Sanji’s heart does something somewhere at the other man’s tone, the way that something quieter has crept under it. Fear, maybe — not of what Sanji might say to embarrass him but fear that he took something. Traded something. “You just… asked me to stay.”

Zoro freezes, throat visibly working. “Did you?”

“I mean, I’m here.” His own hand tightens in the blanket, inhaling at the way the room goes painfully still, wholly aware that Sanji’s just admitted something way more intimate than anything Zoro assumed they’d done.

Zoro’s hand lifts slightly, like he might reach for Sanji’s wrist again or like some sober part of him remembers what the drunk part wanted and can’t decide whether to apologise or ask again. He rubs at the back of his neck instead of doing either. “So.”

“So.”

“I should… go.”

Sanji’s stomach drops, even though it’s the obvious choice. The sane, sensible, safe choice. He bites his own lip like that might hide the sting of the words anyway. “I guess so.”

Zoro nods stiffly, swinging his legs off the bed and for one tiny, wild second Sanji almost says stay, almost says wait. He watches Zoro reach for his shirt, all broad and scarred in the morning light, watches the way Zoro pauses with something clumsy and almost pained in his expression. Like he wants to speak but can only find blunt objects. “Thanks.”

“For saving you from the haunted hallway?”

“Yeah. That.” He hesitates, before pulling the shirt on and heading towards the door. He stops with his hand on the knob, voice quiet. Strained. “If I… said anything stupid, just… forget it.”

Sanji wants to say no and wants to say i can’t and wants to say i remember evyerhitng that matters and i think maybe you do, too. Instead, he lifts his chin and gives Zoro the only kindness he can manage right now without both of them bleeding all over the floor. “Go wash. You stink, Moss.”

Zoro’s mouth curves over one shoulder, quick and bright. “You don’t hate it.”

Sanji chucks the nearest pillow at him and Zoro catches it one-handed, snorting with laughter before disappearing out the door, leaving Sanji to sit there with his chest aching and face too warm, staring at the place Zoro just was.

Sure, they didn’t do anything and nothing hapopened but Zoro had thought it could have. And for now — for this one morning — that’s more than Sanji’s ever let himself hope for.

x

“Hey,” Nami says suddenly, voice bright with danger. “Sanji.”

Sanji doesn’t look away from the field. “If you’re about to ask me to buy you a souvenir, the answer is no.”

She points at the big screen without even turning her head. “Look.”

Sanji glances up to where the camera feed’s sweeping the crowd, picking out faces and couples and people who look like they’ve been drinking. Everytime the screen lands on two people sitting close a little graphic pops up of two cartoon lips, a heart, the words KISS CAM in aggressive glitter font. A teen couple kisses too eagerly and the crowd roars, two middle aged women kiss and throw up double peace signs and the crowd roars louder. A guy tries to kiss his friend; the friend shoves him away and flips off the camera and the crowd goes downright feral.

Usopp is vibrating like he’s about to pass out. “If it gets us… if it gets us!”

“It won’t,” Sanji says firmly.

It does. 

The stadium is huge, sure, but the universe is petty as fuck and fate is nosy. Worse, Sanji has the kind of luck that ensures anything humiliating will happen to him in high bloody definition. When he looks up the big screen is suddenly, horrifyingly, the slice of the row where Sanji and Zoro sit shoulder-to-shoulder. The KISS CAM graphic pops up like a death sentence, cartoon lips bouncing. A little heart pulses and Sanji feels every cell in his body light up with panic.

Nami shrieks with laughter while Usopp howls. “Oh, this is classic!” 

Luffy stands up on his seat and is immediately, violently, yoinked back down by every pair of hands around him. 

Sanji’s face goes hot. “No fucking way.” He turns automatically toward Zoro, ready to hiss something threatening, but Zoro’s already looking at the screen, calm as death. He lifts two fingers to his mouth and makes a lazy little motion, like he’s telling the camera to stop and then he mouths, clearly and unmistakably: he’s straight. 

Sanji’s blood turns to ice, apparently. His brain stutters, trying to decide which part of that statement to be furious about first because it’s not wrong, it’s also just… not right. Maybe. He’s still figuring it out.

The crowd boos playfully, the sound hitting Sanji like a wave, but Zoro keeps his expression perfectly neutral, like he’s not actively detonating Sanji’s entire life in front of approximately twenty-two thousand people.

Sanji stares at him, mouth opening uselessly but Zoro doesn’t look at him. He keeps looking at the camera before he points at Sanji with a little dismissive wave, like: not him. And then, because the universe has a cruel sense of comedic timing, the guy sitting on Zoro’s other side leans in. He’s maybe mid-thirties, hat pulled low, smelling faintly of beer and cheap cologne, with the kind of face that says he’s here for a good time, not a long time. 

He looks at Zoro, at the big screen and grins like he’s just been handed a dare. “Well,” he says, loud enough for the nearby seats to hear. “If he’s straight…”

He leans in to kiss Zoro and Sanji’s entire body goes cold and hot at the same time. Zoro doesn’t jerk away or shove or look startled or – he turns his head just enough, barely, to meet it halfway like kissing some stranger on a fucking jumbatron is no big deal, and Sanji’s stomach drops through the floor.

Jealousy is an ugly word that Sanji’s never, ever liked. Jealousy feels like ownership or insecurity, like a thing weak people do because they can’t handle themselves. Sanji doesn’t get jealous. He’s above – 

His hand shoots out, grabs a fistful of Zoro’s jersey at the collar and yanks, hard, until the guy’s kiss lands on air, lips smacking uselessly as Zoro gets pulled out of orbit.

The stranger blinks, startled. “Hey!” 

Sanji doesn’t even look at him; he pulls Zoro in and kisses him.

The crowd loses its mind. Sanji loses his own mind in a quieter way because Zoro’s mouth is warm in the way it shouldn’t be, because Zoro is usually all sharp edges and stubbornness but here, right now, Zoro’s lips are soft enough to make Sanji’s chest ache. For one single second, Zoro goes still with surprise before he kisses back, his hand coming up to lock his fingers at Sanji’s waist, pulling him closer with the kind of blunt certainty Zoro does everything. Sanji’s heart slams against his ribs like it wants out. The kiss is messy, too fast and too public, fueled by pure spite and something else Sanji’s been denying for so damn so long it’s practically a second religion at this point. He hears the stadium roaring around them and Luffy screaming like he just saw fireworks against Usopp’s incoherent shrieks.  

He also hears, distantly, the tiny sound Zoro makes against his mouth – a little choked-off noise – and it’s the hottest thing Sanji has ever experienced in his life. He pulls back just enough to breathe, keeping his forehead locked to Zoro’s because he’s pretty sure that iif he puts any distance between them he’s going to die of embarrassment.

Zoro looks at him with his eyes half lidded and mouth open, expression utterly unreadable in the way that always makes Sanji want to punch something or kiss him again or take him home and never leave his bedroom, ever.

The Kiss Cam is still on them, the graphic is now throwing cartoon confetti like it’s celebrating a national holiday. The guy on Zoro’s other side is staring at Sanji like he just witnessed a crime. “What the hell, man?”

Sanji finally turns his head toward him, smiling nice and sharp. “Get your own,” he manages and, hey, if his voice is shaking a little, well. Seems fair, all things considered.

The guy holds up both hands in surrender, laughing. “Okay! Okay! Fuck me!”

Zoro, expression still, murmurs into Sanji’s ear, too low for anyone else to hear: “Jealous.”

Sanji’s entire body lights on fire, even as he jerks back to glare at the other man. “Shut up.”

Nami leans across Luffy with the grin of a shark. “So, are you two done pretending you’re not insane about each other or d’you need it to come back for a second round?”

Usopp looks like he’s about to faint. “I’m going to be sick. In a good way.”

Sanji covers his face like he’s trying to erase himself from reality but Zoro’s hand, warm and unbothered, settles on Sanji’s knee. The crowd’s attention is elsewhere now, chasing the next spectacle but Zoro’s hand stays put, heavy and solid. 

“You okay?” He asks and his tone is normal which seems worse, somehow.

Sanji’s mouth opens, several things dying to come out, starting with a denial or a cuss or a joke. Hell, he'd settle for a furious lecture about consent and public humiliation and Zoro being the worst. What comes out instead is thin and honest and horrifying. “Why didn’t you stop him?”

Zoro blinks. “Why would I?”

Sanji’s throat tightens. “Because… because you don’t just… let some random guy kiss you!”

Zoro’s eyebrow lifts. “But I should let you kiss me?”

Sanji freezes, the part he’s been trying not to name sitting between them like some kind of landmine. He stares at Zoro, helplessly furious with him for being right.

Zoro leans closer, voice low enough that it becomes private. “You don’t have to figure it out right now, Curls.”

He swallows hard and does the only thing that won’t make him combust and stands. “I’m getting a drink,” he mutters, too fast.

Nami looks at him with plain surprise. “We’re in the middle of an inning.”

“I don’t even know what that is,” Sanji snaps, and spins off toward the aisle.

Zoro catches his wrist, just enough to give him pause. His gaze is steady. “Don’t run too far,” he warns and Sanji’s chest tightens, knowing damn well he should pull away and pretend none of this happened and go back to being that guy who flirts with women and never has to look too closely at his own feelings for one of his best friends. Instead he glowers,  the only safe expression he has left, and stalks up the steps toward the snack stand like his dignity depends on it. Tragically, though, his dignity’s already dead on some camera feed somewhere, getting replayed in someone’s roll with heart emojis, probably. 

His mouth still feels like Zoro, skin still remembering Zoro’s hand. His brain keeps replaying Zoro mouthing he’s straight with that stupid calm like it wasn’t a knife to the gut and a gift at the same time. 

When he returns with a drink Zoro is still there, leaning back in his seat like nothing happened. He barely looks up when Sanji drops into his seat and shoves the drink into Zoro’s chest out of pure aggression. “Here.”

Zoro takes it, blinking. “Uh, cheers?”

Sanji watches his throat move with each swallow and hates his life. He takes a long sip of his own drink and tries to swallow down the panic and the want and the humiliating hope that is starting, against his will, to grow. Then he mutters, barely audible: “Just. We can talk about it later.”

Zoro’s hand settles back on his knee, his mouth folding into something soft and crooked, sipping at his beer like the tips of his ears aren’t going pink. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

x

It doesn't deter the cook, though. But it does make his ridiculous curly eyebrow twitch a little. He takes a few steps closer, bringing in his scent of smoke and sea salt. Unsurprisingly, Sanji pulls out his pack of cigarettes, tapping the bottom to his open palm so one stick can pop out for him to grab. It's an interesting habit, a neat trick; one that Zoro's seen him do since they've met but still finds fascinating.

Then again, anything the cook does with those pristine hands is fascinating.

Zoro blinks, catching himself fall into that pool of untouched thoughts. Nope, not going there. He's had two years to separate all that from the rest of him, and it's gonna stay that way. Even if Sanji's eyeing him with a strange kind of interest in his sea-blue eyes.

This isn't the look of someone that wants to pick a fight.

"What?" Zoro asks again, feeling like he needs to move so he shoots back up to his feet.

"About what happened back there," Sanji starts, clearing his throat. He inhales, the cherry of his cigarette glowing bright red. He holds the smoke in, probably letting it seep into his veins, causing a buzz. When he exhales, its from one corner of his mouth, thin lips tilted to one side.

Zoro rakes his mind for what he can possibly be trying to talk about. The island wasn't anything to write home about but there were some dumb pirates that looked like rookies that made it this far into the New World by sheer luck. Their captain tried to ruffle Luffy's feathers, which surprisingly didn't work but rather reversed the feeling when Luffy's bright smile made the other captain furious.

Zoro's not sure who the idiot'd been, but he'd swiped all the food to the ground and wasted it. Before Sanji could lose his cool and demand whatever his prissy ass would've demanded, Zoro'd snatched the fool by the back of his neck and slammed him down against the soiled floorboards.

"Don't waste food, you shit for brains," he'd said, annoyed as hell because on the floor were perfectly good onigiri, yakitori and takoyaki amongst rice and curry. "You're gonna eat all this off the floor or I'm going to gut you with my swords."

The cook'd been acting weird since then.

Now, in the present, Zoro clears his throat. "Uh. Which part?"

"The one you clearly know I'm thinking about," Sanji says, with just a hint of exasperation. When he gets like this, all bothered and shit, he tends to have a weird growl in the back of his throat as he speaks. It's pretty interesting.

He finishes his cigarette, flicking the butt towards the sea. He turns back to Zoro, his blond hair in his eyes in that annoyingly attractive way of his. "It was... Well, it's definitely changed my opinion of you. For now."

Zoro scoffs, raising an eyebrow. "Luffy's told you about the little girl and the onigiri from Shells Town."

"Yeah," Sanji drawls, coming closer. Zoro eyes the lack of space between them with a little bit of panic and a lot of interest. "But it's different than witnessing it."

Okay, that is fair.

Zoro half listens to the others still coexisting loudly on the deck proper. He stands there, with little distance between him and Sanji, feeling awkward and not knowing what to do with his hands, or his legs. Or just himself in general, to be honest. He turns his attention to the sea and her waves. Then he turns back to Sanji.

"Changed your opinion... how?" he finally asks, though he thinks he knows the answer. But he just wants to check. Wants to make sure.

You can never be too sure with someone as skittish as Sanji. He could be working himself up to send Zoro flying into the sea with a mean kick, for all Zoro knows.

What happens next makes Zoro's brain short-circuit:

Sanji takes his hand in his. It's much smaller than Zoro's, more delicate-like compared to Zoro's larger one riddled with calluses and scars. Sanji's is pale and thin. Zoro furrows his brow, but that's as much as he's able to do because in the next second, Sanji tucks his other hand behind his back, dips down and brushes his lips to the back of Zoro's hand.

The touch of Sanji's lips to his hand now makes his nervous system go haywire. Zoro sucks in air through his teeth, staring at the top of Sanji's very golden head with a scandalized expression. Then Sanji lifts his head up, never letting go of Zoro's hand, and looks at him.

Looks at him.

With a soft smile with infatuation tucked in the corners, his entire expression coy, his eyes glittering.

Zoro feels like his heartbeat is being too damn loud. He feels like his heart is literally thumping against his chest so hard, an imprint is showing on his skin. He feels his face grow incredibly hot, knows it's grown red with a flush of embarrassment.

Worst of all: he knows the same exact expression the cook's looking at him with is mirrored on his own face.

Stupidly, he mumbles: "Oh."

One evening, a few weeks into Sanji joining them, Zoro’s just finished his own workout brain when the cook drops to the deck like gravity’s a mere suggestion. The movement is so controlled and so effortless that Zoro’s eyes betray him instantly. They trace every knob of spine as his brain supplies the usual combat notes, fast and furious: flexible, quick, excellent striking range, hips open like —

And then the wall in his head cracks and a brand new, completely unauthorised thought struts in because how far could Sanji bend if Zoro put his hands on those hips and pressed?

He nearly trips over his own feet, stomach doing something complicated and treacherous. His skin suddenly feels two sizes too small — he can feel his pulse in his throat, in his wrists and lower still, body reacting like Sanji just drew a fucking sword instead of just. Stretching.

Sanji doesn’t look up. He keeps his head bowed, hair slipping forward to curtain one eye with one palm flat on the warm deck. His breath leaves him in a measured exhale that Zoro has no business noticing. The cook always treats his own body like some finely tuned instrument he actually respects, and something about that precision is making Zoro’s brain fold in on itself in all kinds of brand new, humiliating ways. He shifts deeper into the stretch, hips tilting and ribs compressing, spine staying impossibly straight — and Zoro’s body lights up like a signal flare, heat punching low in his gut, sharp and sudden and definitely not from the workout. His palms itch with the phantom urge to grab. 

Sanji’s voice drifts up, muffled against his own knee, lazy and amused. “You still alive over there, Moss? Or did I finally break that thick skull of yours?”

Zoro makes a noise. It's a tiny, pathetic little cough that sounds suspiciously like his own body selling him out. He forces his voice flat. “S’fine.”

Sanji’s laugh is low and way too happy about it. He finally lifts his head, eyes glittering with so much mirth that it makes Zoro want to chuck him straight into the ocean. “Looks like your thoughts are doing squats.”

Zoro glares at him. “Shut the hell up.”

Sanji’s grin widens as he changes position, swinging one leg up until his heel’s gliding past his own shoulder like it’s the most natural thing in the world, toes pointed. The shirt rides higher, fabric pulling taut across his torso, outlining every shifting ridge of muscle in his abdomen as it tightens to hold the pose. Sanji’s breathing stays calm and steady, like he’s not currently defying human anatomy for kicks and Zoro’s brain flatlines again.

He thinks if you hooked a hand behind that raised knee and pulled him in, he’d fold right against you like — Zoro slams a door on that so hard the hinges scream. His face is on fire. His ears are on fire. He’s, like, three seconds from walking to the railing and hurling himself overboard just to cool the fuck down.

Sanji holds the stretch like he knows exactly what he’s doing. “Cat got your tongue?”

Zoro’s jaw works but absolutely zero safe words come out.

“Oh my god.” He lowers the leg with deliberately agonising slowness, clearly savouring every inch of Zoro’s suffering. When his foot touches the deck he leans back on his hands, loose and relaxed, looking at Zoro like he’s a fascinating new species of idiot. “You’re staring.”

“No, I’m not.”

Sanji’s smile turns wicked. “Mouth open and everything.”

Zoro’s hands curl into fists. “I was… assessing.”

“Assessing,” Sanji repeats, deadpan. “That what the pirate hunters are calling it these days?”

Zoro can feel the heat crawling down his neck, pooling lower. Sanji’s gaze flicks over his face and for half a second the teasing flickers, something sharper flashing underneath. Interest? Curiosity? Like Sanji’s testing the water and finding it a lot hotter than expected. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“For what?”

Sanji’s grin goes positively demonic as he twists into a new stretch, torso spiraling slow and deep, one arm reaching across his body while the other anchors him. “Expanding your worldview. Try not to pass out on my deck, Mosshead. Usopp just mopped.”

Zoro drags a hand down his face like he can physically scrub the heat away. “Rack off.”

“Mm.” Sanji hums, already flowing into the next impossible position, casual as breathing. “You wish.”

x

Arguably, the only good thing about Sanji being on board — aside from the constant stream of food perfectly tailored to their every mood, need and want — is that he’s great to spar with. Zoro never tells him this out loud and, frankly, wouldn’t know how without making it sound like a threat, but the fact is there all the same, as quiet and insistent as any other weapon he keeps strapped to himself. Luffy is fun to fight, sure, because Luffy’s all chaos and rubber and endless energy, but Luffy doesn’t match him, exactly. Luffy… overwhelms. 

Sanji, though… Sanji reads the shift of Zoro’s shoulders the way Zoro reads the twitch of Sanji’s thigh before a kick. Their spars have become something sharper than training and softer than a real fight: a private language made of steel and sweat and the shared understanding that they both know what it means to stand between the crew and whatever the sea throws at them. It’s the only place they meet like this, outside of the dogpile crew naps where Sanji’s head ends up on Zoro’s shoulder sometimes. On the deck, blades and legs flashing, they speak the same tongue: protect the crew, push each other harder, stay alive together.

So when Sanji kicks off his shoes one humid afternoon and says: “Oi, Mosshead. You got time to lose again?” Zoro feels that familiar low spark in his chest and calls it a normal reaction.

It’s a good session at first. Normal and familiar, planks warm under their feet. Zoro’s blades hiss through the air while Sanji’s kicks are sharp and pointed, spinning like wind and spite, each one landing with the kind of strength that makes Zoro’s blood hum. They’re both breathing hard and grinning through the sweat, trading insults the way other people trade handshakes.

And then Sanji feints low, boots skidding on the deck, before exploding upwards in one of those ridiculous twists that shouldn’t be possible for anyone who isn’t made of rubber. Zoro reads the motion and twists to block, but Sanji’s already flipping the other way, body cutting through the air like smoke. One second he’s in front of Zoro and the next he’s on him, legs hooking over Zoro’s shoulders like they belong there, thighs clamping down hard and sudden around his neck. Sanji’s full weight settles forward, hips sliding in close, until suddenly the soft insistent heat of him is pressed right against Zoro’s face.

Zoro freezes, both their weights balanced on his own two feet, two swords still gripped tight. Sanji’s got one hand fisted in Zoro’s green hair for balance and the other braced casually on his own thigh like this is nothing, like he does this every day and Zoro’s brain goes white. The reaction is immediate and overwhelming: the pressure of Sanji’s thighs against his cheeks makes every breath come short and shallow, his lungs working harder just to pull in air that tastes like salt and smoke and skin. He can feel the faint, living pulse of Sanji’s body through the thin fabric, the way his muscles shift and tighten when Sanji adjusts his balance. His mouth is right there, lips still parted with surprise, brushing damp cloth, and something hot and restless starts crawling up his spine like a slow fuse.

He knows his face is burning. He knows his ears are burning. His grip on his swords has gone white-knuckled, tight enough to ache, unsteady in a way he never is during a fight. 

Sanji laughs above him, bright and cocky, the sound vibrating straight through his thighs into Zoro’s skull. “You giving up yet, Mossy?”

Zoro doesn’t answer. Can’t. He can feel sweat sliding down his temple, can feel the way his chest is rising and falling too fast and too shallow. His entire body gives a confused, heavy throb he doesn’t want to think about right now. Sanji shifts his weight a little, hips rolling forward a fraction, and Zoro makes a small, involuntary sound against him, choked off at the last breath.

His hands are shaking. 

Sanji goes quiet for a second, before his free fingers slide under Zoro’s chin, tilting his head back so he can see Zoro’s face. His thumb brushes once, lightly, along the edge of Zoro’s jaw. “This position suits you, you know.”

The words land like a spark in dry grass; Zoro can feel how they make the restless heat in his gut twist harder, sharper, still frozen with the terrifying knowledge that his body’s doing something he has no control over. Sanji watches him for another beat, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes and Zoro’s balance, already shaky, finally gives out. They go down together, Sanji riding the fall gracefully before twisting at the last second to land on his feet while Zoro hits the deck on his back with a heavy thud, eating wood. Sanji stands over him, one boot planted lightly on Zoro’s chest, looking down with a smirk. “Guess you can’t handle me on top of you, huh?”

Zoro stays on the deck for a long time after the other man saunters off, frozen with the mortifying realisation that he wants Sanji to come back and sit on his face again. The thought is bright and filthy and warm and it settles under his ribs like a new vow he never meant to make. 

It gets infinitely worse, after that. Everytime Sanji drops into a stretch Zoro’s eyes find him like magnets, like his gaze has a mind of its own and it’s decided Sanji’s spine is the most interesting thing on the entire fucking ocean. In his defense, he tries to fight it at first. He swims faster and lifts heavier and runs extra laps around the ship just to sweat the thoughts out, but the second he sits down to catch his breath there’s Sanji again, folding himself in half like it’s nothing. 

Zoro’s brain supplies the same unhelpful commentary on loop.

look at that hip look at the way his back stays long bet he could bend backwards over the railing 

He dreams about it now, awful vivid dreams where Sanji’s on the deck with Zoro’s hands guiding the stretch, pressing until Sanji exhales right against Zoro’s throat. In the dreams Sanji laughs and says harder and Zoro wakes up with his sheets damp and tangled around his hips like he’s fifteen all over again. He jerks off in the crow’s nest and in the shower at all stupid hours of the night like an idiot, one hand clamped over his mouth and the other working fast and mean because if he goes any slower he’ll think about it too much. He thinks about it anyway, about Sanji’s heel near his own shoulder and how easy it would be to fold those long legs up and open and the way Sanji’s abs would tighten under his tongue, and comes so hard he sees stars.

“Idiot,” he hisses into the dark, wiping his hand on his shirt like that erases the evidence, not knowing if he means himself or Sanji or whatever bullshit’s put him in this situation. 

The days blur together into one long haze of trying and failing. He trains harder than he has in months, getting up before dawn while the deck’s still damp. He goes through kata after kata until the movements start feeling like punishment, three swords flashing in the first pale wash of morning. He pushes until sweat blinds him and his wrists ache and the old familiar pleasure of effort turns into something meaner, figuring that if he can just… empty himself through muscle and repetition and pain then there won’t be anything left over for this stupid crush.

The problem with that logic, though, is that everytime he stops to breathe there's a flash of blonde at the edge of the deck or a drag of smoke near the rail or the sound of his voice carrying from the galley with that clipped arrogance, like every word has to elbow its way out first.

In the mornings, Sanji still comes out and stretches like the whole world belongs to him, body bending in ways Zoro wants to physically bite. Trying not to watch is like a whole-ass private discipline: Zoro rotates between keeping his eyes on the horizon and then his eyes on his swords and even his eyes closed, even though that’s embarrassing as hell to resort to. Each time, he lasts maybe ten seconds before his gaze drags back like it’s hooked there, finding Sanji’s thighs or the long line of his arms under thin fabric. 

He dreams of Sanji above him and under him and around him, laughing at him and gasping for him, all of it wrong and impossibly, horrifically vivid, until he wakes breathless in the dark with the shame already rising before he’s even fully conscious. He tells himself over and over that this is just a stupid phase but his brain doesn’t get the memo, his dick sure as hell doesn’t get the memo, and he resolves to stomping around after breakfast each morning like he can scowl it out through spite alone.

It doesn’t work, so eventually he resorts to other methods.

They make port at a sleepy little island with too many bars. The crew scatters almost at once, ducking off to find supplies or cards or drinks or just wandering about. Zoro picks a bar at random, plants himself at the back like he’s trying to melt into it, and orders two sake and then another, just for kicks. Around him, sailors laugh too loudly in one corner while some poor soul tunes a fiddle (badly) near the back. He drinks like he’s trying to drown the god-awful itch under his skin in shitty alcohol and bad air and it almost works, right up until a man slides onto the stool next to him. He’s got a smile that belongs in sketchy bars and knows how to ask for trouble without sounding too impolite about it, and he buys Zoro another round before Zoro can think of how to refuse.

The man’s knee is close enough to his under the table to count as intention, voice low and suggestive when he says: “You look like you could use somebody who knows how to keep up with all that muscle.”

Zoro stares into his cup and thinks, sure, okay. He can do this, probably. Fuck knows he never has before, but Usopp’s always banging on about there being a first time for everything. He can go with this guy and let himself get handled and get this stupidity out of his system. He can prove that wanting is just plain old wanting after all, that a body is just a body and that Sanji isn’t some… awful, persistent, completely singular catastrophe.

The stranger touches his wrist lightly. “C’mon,” he says, amused now, clearly reading Zoro’s silence as shyness or reluctance. “Ain’t asking you for marriage.”

Zoro takes a deep breath and lets himself be led out the back door, where the alley’s narrow and rank, crates stacked against one wall. The stranger turns easily, stepping into Zoro’s space with the confidence of a man who has done this countless times before and Zoro thinks fine. do it. get it over with.

The man kisses him and Zoro —

He tries, really. He grabs the man’s waist, if only because that seems like the right place to be grabbing, and even lets the guy mouth at him a little, lets him smile into it, lets him press closer like they’re going somewhere obvious before his asshole traitorous brain calls it quits. The second the stranger’s hand slides from his chest towards his belt, Zoro’s brain pictures Sanji’s hands at a cutting board, fingers sure and quick and infuriating or Sanji’s foot braced on deck, right before a kick. Sanji’s voice going spiked and dangerous when he’s angry. Sanji’s shirt riding up to reveal that perfect trail of dusky hair. 

Sanji’s laugh.

Zoro jerks back like he’s touched a stove and the stranger blinks at him. “Whoa. You alright?”

Zoro steps away hard enough his shoulder hits the wall behind him. “S’nothing.”

“Didn’t look like nothing.” The stranger rolls his eyes a little, but the corner of his mouth quirks in understanding. “Ah. Wrong guy, then.”

Zoro’s ears burn with anger so sudden and stupid it feels adolescent. He mutters something that might be sorry if heard from a great distance and walks out of the alleyway without looking back. He buys a bottle of whisky on his way past the bar and drinks it in the street until the lights blur and the whole island tilts a whole dirty degree off level. By the time he gets back to the Merry, the sake’s done nothing but loosen the misery enough to make it louder. He climbs to the crow’s nest because if he sees Sanji right then he might actually throw a punch from sheer humiliation or kiss him, and, honestly, he can’t tell which would be worse. 

All that effort of trying to get Sanji out of his system, and all it teachies him is that this isn’t some generic problem or some stupid teenage lust from being trapped in the same tiny space as another guy his age.  It’s just… Sanji. Just irritating, brave, reckless, heart-endingly kind Sanji.

After that, there’s not much point in fighting it anymore.

He finds himself in the galley at all kinds of werid hours with no real reason to be there, leaning in the doorway while Sanji cooks or preps. Half the time he hears himself blurt out some useless thing just to have a line into the room. “Those knives… look sharp.”

Sanji glances up with one eyebrow raised, like he’s worried Zoro has some kind of lethal head injury.  “Wow. I sharpened the knives and now the knives are sharp. Imagine.”

Zoro grunts and rolls his eyes and stays anyway. He’ll talk about nothing or anything: the shitty weather, the last island, Luffy eating, Usopp’s inventions. At one truly tragic point he starts telling Sanji about a broken hinge on the deck hatch. Anything, apparently. Any stupid scrap of subject matter that’ll let him stand there another five minutes in the warmth so he can watch Sanji’s hands move. He stares at the easy precision of each motion, before catching onto Sanji’s mouth whenever he talks, the curl of it when he’s smug or the way his tongue flicks out when he tastes a sauce off his thumb. 

One afternoon Zoro’s meant to be sleeping off a headache from getting decked in the temple with a sword hilt during a brawl, and instead he’s in the galley again with one shoulder pressed into the doorframe, watching Sanji section oranges at the bench. Sanji hums without turning. “Something you need, Moss?”

Zoro should leave right then but he hears himself say: “No,” like a bloody idiot, too fast, and knows he’s fucked up because Sanji makes that pleased sound in his throat that usually means he’s scented someone’s blood. 

“No?” Sanji turns slowly, the knife loose in his fingers like he’s deciding whether to peel the next orange or try to slit Zoro’s throat with it. Both options are equally likely. “My mistake. Must’ve been imagining all the staring, then.”

Zoro’s arms fold tighter across his chest. “I’m not staring.”

Sanji makes this low, smoky hum that vibrates straight down Zoro’s spine, unconvinced and amused and downright mean. He reaches for another orange with excruciating laziness, tendons flexing under freckled skin, and the scent of the orange bursts with the cut. He peels it in one long spiral. “Starting to lose count of how many times you’ve been in here today. Yesterday. The day before. It’s becoming a pattern, you know.”

Zoro says nothing, because his tongue feels too thick and his brain is a screaming mess of shut up shut up he knows he knows. They can both count. They can both infer. At this point it’d be a fucking miracle if Sanji hasn’t figured out that Zoro’s been dragging himself through this fresh circle of hell every day.

Sanji sets the orange aside with maddening care before he turns properly, leaning one sharp hip against the bench. His smile is all teeth. “Should I be concerned? Is our little Mossy nesting?”

“Shut the fuck up.” Zoro’s scowl feels carved into his face, but his pulse is hammering so hard he can feel it in his throat, in his wrists, in the sudden heavy throb between his legs. He’s spent nineteen goddamn years not thinking about other bodies — especially not this one — and now it’s all he can focus on, from the wet shine on Sanji’s lower lip to the faint scar near his collarbone that Zoro wants to lick at until Sanji gasps.

“Riveting conversation, as always.” Sanji flicks the tea towel over his shoulder and steps closer, crossing the distance between them like it’s nothing, until the toe of his shoe nudges Zoro’s boot. His voice drops into that rough register that never fails to make the swordsman’s knees feel a little funny. “D'you trail every man around the ship like a starved alley cat, or am I just lucky?”

Zoro can almost taste the want on his own tongue and for, one reckless heartbeat, he doesn’t care that he’s probably going to be shit at this. Doesn’t care that he has no smoothe lines and no practiced hands, that he has no idea where to put his mouth except everywhere. He can figure it out. He’ll bite and suck and grind and learn because it’s Sanji and the thought of Sanji’s tongue in his mouth and Sanji’s hips pinning him and Sanji’s teeth against his throat — it’d be worth learning for.

He swallows, hearing how hoarse his voice comes out. “Pretty smug for someone who isn't telling me to get out.”

There’s the tiniest hitch in Sanji’s perfect mouth and Zoro clocks it like a victory, satisfaction blooming hot in his chest because good. Let him feel it, too.

“And if I did tell you to stop?” Sanji murmurs, fingers brushing the front of Zoro’s shirt, right over the sternum. It’s light and teasing, before his hand tightens in the fabric hard enough that Zoro’s breath kind of catches, whole body going rigid with that sick, awful hope. Sanji’s close enough now that Zoro can count the eyelashes framing those blue eyes, can feel the warmth of his exhale against his own mouth, can smell the orange on his fingers and the tobacco on his tongue and the raw, living heat of him. And then the asshole presses the small bowl with the peeled orange into Zoro’s hands, instead. “There. You came all this way, wouldn’t want to send you off empty handed.”

The silence that crashes down is deafening. Zoro stares at the bowl like it’s betrayed him, before glowering back up at Sanji’s face, heart jackhammering with rage and humiliation and the sheer whiplash of the last five minutes. His fingers clamp around the bowl so hard the ceramic cracks; he can still feel the ghost of Sanji’s knuckles against his chest.

“Seriously?” he grits out through clenched teeth.

Sanji lights a fresh cigarette with a flick of his lighter, exhaling deep to loosen a plume of smoke that curls between them. He moves back to the bench, hips rolling just enough to make Zoro’s mouth water. “You seem a little high strung lately. The vitamin C should help.”

“I hate you,” Zoro snaps but it comes out raspy and cracked and way too damn honest for his liking.

Sanji glances over his shoulder and there it is, that little crinkle at the corner of his mouth, the nearest thing to a real smile Zoro’s seen all day. Soft and knowing and almost fond. “Oh, you really, really don’t.”

x

They hit a small port town with some misshapen tavern that smells like spilled beer and very old sweat and very, very cheap perfume. It’s kind of place where the piano is missing at least six keys and the bartender looks like he’s either regularly gutted or gutting. The crew’s loud and hungry and grateful for ground that isn’t trying to kill them, so Zoro loses track of them pretty quickly as they move through the building like they’re trying to ransack it. He’s seen Sanji in enough of these places to know that he’s usually halfway to a table of women by now but is surprised to find that the cook’s still next to Zoro at the bar, ordering something for himself that’s way too fancy for this joint. He doesn’t even sip it, just turns the glass slowly between his fingers and watches Zoro like he’s waiting for the exact moment Zoro forgets how to breathe.

Which happens roughly every single time Sanji looks too directly at him, so. It’s not exactly a lengthy wait.

“Well?” Zoro scowls, knowing if he doesn’t say something he’s going to start grinding his teeth into dust. “Not going to bother some poor girl?”

Sanji’s eyebrow rises. “Do you want me to?”

“No,” Zoro snaps. “It’s just a…”  He can’t say question because he doesn’t want Sanji answering it. He grinds his teeth, just a little. “It’s weird. For you.”

Sanji’s smile sharpens. “Oh, you’ve got opinions about my behaviour?”

A woman a few seats down smiles at Sanji with the kind of expression people share when they’re used to being smiled at in return. She tosses her hair, touches her cleavage, the whole routine but Sanji doesn’t even look. He just… keeps watching Zoro, and Zoro’s stomach does something mean and hot. It’s not that Sanji ignored her, exactly, because he’s not stupid enough to think he owns the blonde. He doesn’t want to own anyone. He just… likes it when Sanji’s attention finds him and stays. 

He leans in a fraction and murmurs, barely loud enough to be heard over the piano massacre: “What’s wrong, Moss? Don’t like watching me flirt?”

Zoro’s fingers tighten around his cup. “You know I don’t.” 

Sanji just laughs and tips his head back, stealing the cup right from Zoro’s hand and finishing it off. 

The same damn night the world does it what it always does, and explodes into violence. Bounty hunters swarm the dock with steel flashing under moonlight because that’s how life for the Straw Hats rolls, apparently. Zoro carves through the first wave like paper, Wado singing, blood hot on his face and, somehwere, Sanji does some stupid spinning kick that’s completely unnecessary, landing on the balls of his feet and flicking his hair out of his eyes like he knows Zoro’s watching.

Wado almost kisses the deck, Zoro recovering just in time but pissed about it. He wants to murder Sanji for it and also wants to kiss him for it and — 

It doesn’t stop. Days blur into a fever and sparring turns into torture and then naps become a different kind of torture. Meals are almost the worst of it, Sanji leaning over the table with veins standing out on his arms while he serves extra rice. Their knuckles graze sometimes and Zoro’s mouth goes dry with how badly he wants to suck those fingers clean. Evenings are almost unbearable because Sanji moves through the ship like he’s doing it on purpose, stretching his hamstrings on the rail or smoking in the crows’ nest or just. Watching Zoro from across the way like someone would hunt prey across the fields. 

One golden afternoon Zoro plants himself against the mast with his arms folded, tired and sore from this morning’s skirmish, more than happy to pretend he’s just part of the ship for a few hours. The sun’s playing nice and the wind’s tugging nicely at his hair and he’s very nearly asleep when Sanji drifts into his shadow, looking him up and down with that infuriating, slow concentration that always feels like he’s sizing Zoro up for a coffin or, worse, a bed.

“Help me stretch.”

Zoro’s eyebrow twitches. “No.”

Sanji hooks one ankle overhead, the whole line of him tightening. “It’s important to keep limber, you know. Some of us use our bodies for more than, what, getting lost? Lifting weights?”

“Funny,” Zoro mutters. “You’re the one who keeps putting your body in my space.”

Sanji’s grin sharpens. “Aw, is it bothering you?”

Zoro could pick any of a thousand insults; he could talk about Sanji’s shitty attitude or his even shittier dress sense, or the way his jokes are borderline unbearable. He inhales slowly, physically wrangling the upcoming flinch back, choking the aversion to putting words to whatever this is. Says the truth like it’s a blade, because it’s not like Sanji doesn’t know. “Yeah.”

Sanji’s face kind of stutters and there’s a glorious half second where that cocky mask slips and something naked flashes underneath, all surprise and heat and the tiniest crack of oh, flashing so bright Zoro feels it like a punch. “Well. You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

Zoro holds it there, jaw set, refusing to move an inch because it’s suddenly vitally important that Sanji sees he’s not joking. “And you’ve got a funny way of trying to get my attention.”

Sanji scoffs, but it falters halfway. “Please. You’re not that interesting.”

Zoro looks up at him, fighting every urge to drag this into an argument because that’d be easier, somehow. Instead, he rests his wrists on his drawn knees and says: “Fine. Show me, then.”

Sanji visibly hesitates, like he’s deciding whether Zoro’s carting around bravado or obedience and probably clocking that it’s both, packaged in the same stupid stubborn shell. “Bossy,” he says, but his mouth curls around it like he likes the taste. He folds forward again, fluid, palms flattening to the deck beside his boots with insulting ease as his spine finds a perfect arch. His shirt rides with the movement, exposing the dip of his lower back and the twin dimples Zoro’s been wanting to sink his teeth into for weeks. 

Zoro’s watched him do this a hundred times and has never once felt normal about it.

“Go on,” Sanji says, voice muffled by the angle. “Let’s see if the mighty swordsman can touch his ankles without crying.”

Zoro exhales through his nose. He rolls his shoulders, buying time and pretending it’s about loosening up and not about the fact Sanji is right there and Zoro can feel his eyes like heat.

Then he bends, almost relishing in the fact that this is something Sanji's clearly underestimated: the fact that years of sword mastery aren’t just strength. It’s also hips and ankles and core and breath and the discipline of mobility so he doesn’t tear something mid fight and die stupid. He goes down steady and unhurried, refusing to rush, getting his fingertips down first and following with his knuckles. Then the pads of his fingers sink to wood and, with a small shift of weight, he gets down even more, his forearms lengthening and hamstrings biting, the stretch clean and satisfying. 

He doesn’t need to look up to feel the way Sanji’s gaze has snapped to him, or the way the air changes. Zoro feels the attention land in his own body like a perfect hit, blood rushing everywhere all at once with the thrill of genuinely surprising Sanji. Of stealing the upper hand in a game Sanji usually runs like he invented it.

“Problem?” he smirks, still folded over because standing up right now would feel a little too close to giving ground.

Sanji’s scowl snaps back into place but it’s a flimsy thing now, all edges and absolutely zero weight. “Fine, you can bend. Congrats.”

Zoro’s mouth twitches. He stays down another beat just to be annoying about it before he straightens slowly, vertebra by vertebra, like he’s got all the time in the world. He watches Sanji’s track the movement and feels something trill deep, deep inside of him. “You sound disappointed.”

Sanji’s eyes narrow. “Touching the floor doesn’t make you special, seaweed-brain.”

“Special enough you’re staring.”

That one hits: Sanji folds his arms like he’s barricading himself. “Fuck, you’re unbearable. Fine, try this.”

He drops into a deep twist that Zoro’s seen in flashes, maybe, but never this close. One leg goes long and the other bends, torso folding over the extended thigh with an arm braced and the other reaching overhead in a clean arc. His throat stretches taut, looking like something carved to demonstrate the concept of agility but cursed with a smartass mouth that ruins it on purpose.

Sanji’s eyes cut sideways, smug even mid stretch. “What, you afraid you’ll pull something?”

Zoro feels the way his smile turns slow and almost mean. “Afraid I’ll embarrass you.”

He drops into it and, sure, it’s not perfect because he’s not a freak of nature like Sanji, but it’s damn close enough that his body lines up with the shape. Close enough that the stretch sings through his side and his balance holds firm and that he can feel — almost viscerally — how much Sanji expected him to fuck it up. His skin buzzes with the satisfaction of it, bright and almost cruel.

Sanji stares at him like he’s personally offended by Zoro’s body. “You practice this,” he says, accusing, like Zoro gone and committed fraud which is ridiculous: it’s not Zoro’s fault Sanji’s always underestimating him. 

“I train.”

Sanji looks like he wants to insult him and also maybe like he wants to touch him, which is a delicious contradiction to see on the other man’s face because he’s usually so sure of his own lines. There’s a flush crawling up his neck so vibrantly that Zoro could bottle how badly he wants to lick it off. “Get up.”

Zoro snorts, knowing he’s grinning just enough to be insufferable. “You want a rematch already?”

“Get. Up.” Sanji says again and for a beat Zoro pauses at the tone, thinking maybe he’s pushed too far — and then Sanji’s fingers close hot and rough around the back of his neck, thumb pressing neatly into the pulse hammering at his jaw. “Get up so I can shut that mouth of yours.”

The second Zoro straightens, Sanji fists his shirt and slams him back into the mast with enough force to rattle the ropes overhead. Zoro’s spine hits wood, jolt going straight through him to spark behind his eyes, but Sanji doesn’t give him time to recalibrate. The kiss is all teeth and tongue from the first second, Sanji’s hands still tangled in Zoro’s shirt like he’s afraid Zoro will disappear if he lets go. Zoro groans, raw and starved, and then he’s kissing back, hands finding Sanji’s hips until fingers snarl through the fabric. Sanji’s knee slots between his legs, pinning him there, and Zoro’s whole body lights up with the realisation that this is exactly how the blonde fights, too: close and relentless, all pressure and control. He bites Zoro’s lip just enough to make Zoro gasp, then uses the opening immediately. Zoro’s head knocks back against the mast but he doesn’t even care because Sanji’s mouth is on his and the world’s shrunk down to exactly this. His fingers slide up Sanji’s spine, hips jerking forwards instinctively to ride the other man’s thigh like he can’t help it, pulling him in harder and Sanji makes a sound into the kiss that Zoro’s going to remember for the rest of his life.

Sanji breaks the kiss just long enough to drag his mouth down the side of Zoro’s throat, teeth scraping skin like a threat, like a promise. Zoro’s whole body jerks. “Sanji —”

Sanji hums against his neck, voice vibrating into bone. “Mm?”

Zoro just kind of chokes on nothing; he doesn’t even know what he meant to say. His hands tighten bruisingly on Sanji’s hips, dragging him back up because he wants that mouth back, he wants —

“Wow!” Nami’s voice rings down from the upper deck like a gunshot and Sanji freezes. Zoro makes a noise that might be a growl, but god knows he’ll deny it until his dying day.

Usopp’s voice follows, delighted and scandalised in equal measure. “The deck? Really? You couldn’t wait five minutes to get below?”

Sanji jerks back like he’s been dunked in cold water, blue eyes blown wide and cheeks going violently, violently red. He stares up at where Nami’s leaning over the rail, her grin awfully sharp. “Don’t mind us, carry on! We’ll just… keep charting the wind direction.”

Usopp cackles and high-fives her. “For science!”

Sanji makes a strangled, wrecked little sound and finally drops Zoro’s shirt, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Zoro doesn’t move. Can’t. He’s still pressed to the mast by nothing but the sheer overwhelming weight of what just happened, mouth swollen and tingling and still tasting like pure Sanji. Even with the others watching, he can’t stop looking at the way Sanji’s throat is flushed dark, pulse jumping visibly under the skin, eyes blown wide and glassy. He’s so tempted to just lean in and crowd into Sanji to kiss him again, Usopp and Nami be damned.

He grinds the back of his head back against the mast, embarrassment veering sharply into frustration as he snaps, furious and mortified: “Go away!”

Usopp cups his hands around his mouth, already backing up. “Oh, we’re already gone! Emotionally! We’re scarred for life!”

Nami’s laughing so hard she’s wheezing, one arm slung around Usopp’s shoulders as she drags him back, shouting something about using protection and exhibitionist tickets. Their giggling dades down the deck like a pair of evil seagulls and then it’s quiet again. Just the hush of the ship and the waves and the relentless thunder of Zoro’s heart.

Sanji just stands there, hands flexing uselessly at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them now that they’re not touching Zoro. His cheeks are scarlet, that pretty colour smearing all the way to his jaw. He opens his mouth, probably to fire off some cutting insult because everybody knows that’s his emergency exit at any given time, but Zoro beats him to it. He touches his own split lip with his tongue like he’s checking it’s real, reaching out slowly and carefully to close his fingers around Sanji’s wrist. The skin there is fever hot.

“Rematch,” he says, low and edged with something raw and hopeful that feels terrifyingly close to begging. His eyes stay locked on Sanji’s, steady despite the flush still burning his own fact. “Just you and me.”

Sanji stares at him, visibly thrown. For one gorgeous moment his eyes go wider, almost wondrous, like he can’t believe they’re getting another shot at this. Then his mouth curves, slow and shaky at the edges but real, so fucking real, and it lights something huge and warm and in Zoro’s chest. “In private,” he agrees, thumb brushing the corner of Zoro’s mouth. “Unless you want Nami auctioning off front row seats to watch me ruin you.”

Zoro’s grin cracks wide, following the other man down towards the galley like he was always meant to.

x

Four.

That's how many times it happens before Fuu comes up to him about it. Sanji feels like his skin will melt off his bones as he eyes the older lady's approach, sweat accumulating on his forehead and making his blond fringe stringy.

"Sanji," she starts, her voice soft yet firm. He tries very hard not to flinch. Her face is in that stage where wrinkles start to form and show her age. He finds her crows feet absolutely precious. "The kitchen staff have a concern."

Fuu isn't part of the kitchen staff. And she isn't part of the leadership branch on the Orbit, either. But she's something. Someone to go to when something needs to be addressed but no one wants the leaders coming around digging their noses where they don't belong. She's fair, the older kitchen crew say. She isn't easily swayed from the truth and she won't sugarcoat her words.

Sanji opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

Fuu looks at him with that carefully blank expression for just a moment. Just a brief moment. And then it disappears, like a mask shattering into pieces. There is a softness that Sanji hasn't had anyone gift him since his mother died and Reiju finally, finally had enough of standing by and watching the others torment him.

"Come here," Fuu says and grips his thin fingers when he's close enough. "You don't have to tell me. Or any of them. "

Sanji starts to shake.

It's been seven whole days since he escaped Germa. And any second now Judge will come for him. He's so sure of it. He can't relax, he can't settle down, he can't let anyone in.

And yet here this lady is, not knowing all Sanji's been subjected to yet assuring him it's all over now.

Sanji stiffens when he feels those hands come to rest on his shoulders. He knows the kitchen staff has sent Fuu to talk to him because he's flinched and shut down four different times upon seeing one of the line cooks raise their arms. To grab a pan, to grab a pot, to grab a spice Sanji can't reach. Each time it'd been something so simple and mundane and each time Sanji had thought it'd been a strike coming down on him for being weak and slow.

"It's alright now," Fuu tells him. "Whatever it was before, it's not here now. " She looks into his eyes. One of hers is starting to get milky, like she's losing sight. "I heard you want to learn how to cook."

Sanji opens his mouth again, but when he's unable to speak he nods his head. He clears his throat. "Yes."

Fuu smiles. "Good. I'm sure Haru would love to teach you some things."

She reaches for his head. A test, maybe.

No.

He has to stop seeing things like that, if he wants to move on in life. Sanji inhales deeply, wills himself not to flinch away.

Fuu pats his head affectionately.

The blood on the weather-worn rocks is dry, chipping off in flakes and being taken by the wind. It's always windy here, in the middle of nowhere with nothing to conceal them from the elements.

Sanji's skin is pink and raw. His eyes are always dry and his hair is greasy and tangled. He stands to the side, his hands clenching closed and snapping open a few times. Like his heart beat as it pumps a consistent, loud beat.

Licking his lips stings but a sick part of him welcomes the pain. It's better to focus on it than on the knot sealing the trunk of what's left of the old bastard's leg.

"Your leg," he finally manages to say. His voice a garbled mess from disuse. At the beginning, he'd talk out loud to himself. He ran out of things to say very quickly. He repeats, "Your leg."

The old man sucks at his teeth and looks away. His dirty blond hair is as tangled as Sanji's and his impressive moustache droops, the bows at the end of the braids gone and in their place simple knots. His cheeks are sunken and his skin is paler than Sanji thinks it's supposed to be.

"You don't have any food," he says.

The anger he feels has no real target. He's angry at the world, at this fucked up life he's been given. What has he possibly done to deserve any of this? It's like being in Germa all over again, his brothers torturing him and his father gleefully allowing it all to happen.

The world hates him.

And he hates the world right back.

"I don't," Zeff says, resignation thick in his voice.

"You ate your leg."

Zeff finally spares him a single glance. His eyes are a different shade of blue than Sanji's, more mixed with green than orange and gold like his are.

"I did."

Sanji feels himself teeter at a precipice. Over the edge is fury and behind that, he does not know what sort of feeling lies in wait because Sanji falls and rage takes over.

"Why," he screams. "Why would you do that for someone you don't even know?! Why did you give me all the food?! I didn't deserve any of that!"

He is a failure.

He is weak.

He is worthless.

He screams until his throat goes raw. His voice cracks and the way his body convulses in its search for air makes Sanji dizzy. He wheezes, placing a hand over the rocks that serve to separate Sanji's side of the cliff from Zeff's.

"You done?" the old man drawls, looking at him with a blank expression. His bushy eyebrows start to furrow, looking Sanji up and down. Maybe realizing how pointless his sacrifice had been. "You ate all the food?"

Sanji grits his teeth but says nothing.

Zeff nods all the same.

Sanji wonders if drowning will be painful. And then he thinks he's so weak he's even afraid to die.

"I believe in the All Blue too." A pause. Sanji's breath stutters. "She's out there. I know it."

The safest Sanji's ever felt is in pitch darkness, the sea roaring around him, the ground the hardest bed he's ever had. Curled up into Zeff's hard side as he screams and sobs in sadness, in fear, in anger.

But he endures.

A large hand drops on Sanji's head.

They're staying at an inn where Zeff has found a job in the kitchens. Turns out, the gold and jewels he had in his sack covered a little over half of the down-payment for his dream sea restaurant. The rest, he's working his ass off to get in this town.

Blinking, Sanji looks up.

Zeff is a giant. Not as tall as Judge, but tall all the same.

Sanji's begged to let him help with work but Zeff refuses. Instead, he's gone out and spent his dumb, stupid money on math books and the like with stupid problem solving questions. He doesn't want an idiot in his restaurant, he says, so he tasks Sanji with work to do while he's away.

"Your head's huge, little eggplant," he says. He's teasing him, Sanji's learned to understand. "Looks like we have a lot of work to do."

"Huh?"

"What, those workbooks got your brain fried?" Zeff raises a bushy eyebrow. He juts his chin in the direction of the small kitchenette. Zeff laments on how tiny it is and how little he's able to do in it, but it's their little kitchen and Sanji's learned a lot in there too. "Food, you little shit. We got to get food in that belly of yours so you can get strong enough to carry that big head."

"You're such an asshole," Sanji growls and Zeff's laugh is loud.

The look on Zeff's face when the Baratie is finished is the most precious thing Sanji has ever seen. He'll never, ever say it out loud and he'll never, ever mention it again.

But he tucks it somewhere safe. Somewhere near his healing heart where he'll carry it in silence forever.

Monkey D. Luffy's smile is blinding.

"I want you to join my crew," he says with a laugh. It's infectious and Sanji has to work hard to keep his own chuckle down his throat. "I want to eat your food every day!"

"Sorry," Sanji says. He's already decided long ago that he'll stay here forever to pay Zeff back for everything he's done for him. "I can't."

The old geezer doesn't know about this decision, and Sanji wants to keep it this way. He's everything but ungrateful and Zeff saved him from the world and from himself. He owes him everything.

He walks out the kitchens and to the lobby where people dine. There's a cacophony of chatter happening, like there always is on the Baratie. His eyes scan the place and land on a ragtag group of delinquents staring at the menu and looking troubled the further down the list they go.

He walks over, adjusting his suit-jacket as he goes.

There's a beautiful ginger sitting in between two idiots. She is the most beautiful woman he's seen in the last fifteen minutes. Her eyes are the color of copper and her freckles are like kisses from the stars.

To her right sits a boy with curls hiding under a hat, sweating buckets at the menu or perhaps at what the other guy sitting across from him is muttering. That guy has stupid green hair sticking up in unruly spikes, full lips parted as he speaks under his breath.

When he looks up, gray eyes finding him instantly, Sanji grits his teeth.

He'll kick him, he thinks.

Except, later that same gray-eyed, green-haired idiot just about dies in front of his old man's restaurant. Sanji can't help but scream at him to give up on his ambition.

What good is it, if it gets you killed?

"Zoro!"

Sanji looks at Luffy's expression. It's a cross of agony, of fear, of shock like he'd never once thought Zoro could be defeated. Angry at himself for doing so, he kicks his shoes off and runs to chase after the fool down into the sea.

What good is your ambition if it gets you killed?

It's a thought that Sanji continues to ponder over for the next 48 hours. There's a voice in his head that tells him he's grown comfortable here, that he's forgotten his dreams, that he'll whither away and become nothing. It strangely sounds a lot like Zeff but the real Zeff only glowers at him and says nothing.

Damn Luffy and his stupid idiot Marimo of a crewmate.

They've both come to wreck his peaceful life, uprooted him from the life he's chosen to live and have reminded him of how much more there is out there.

Out there.

Somewhere.

The All Blue continues to exist, hidden in some corner of the world, waiting to be found, waiting to be explored.

He closes his eyes, hands resting on the handrails as he smokes. He can't let those thoughts resurface. He's made up his mind. This is where he belongs.

He'll work here, live with Zeff and then take over whenever the old bastard dies or simply decides to retire. He'll go on food supply runs, he'll continue to make his own creations in his spare time and he'll fight with the old man because it's the only way he knows how to show how much he loves.

It'd been a decent life the first time he thought of it.

Now it feels brittle.

Every inch of his body aches after that fight with Don Krieg and his stupid pirate crew. Gin's sacrifice weighs heavy in his chest, like Luffy's stupid proposal and Zoro's stupid ambition.

He'd known who he wanted to be mere days ago. He'd known the life he was going to live. Now he feels like he's caught between a rock and a hard place, knowing what he's meant to do and what his true, undisclosed desires are.

"Don't catch a cold."

If it's embarrassing, Sanji doesn't feel a single ounce of it as he falls to his knees and bows forward until his forehead touches the deck. Tears of devotion and gratitude blur his blue eyes as he tries to swallow his sobs but seems to fail to do so.

"Zeff," he calls, remembering the sight of his missing leg back on that rock they'd been stuck on, remembering his laugh in the inn they'd called home for months, remembering that look when he first laid eyes on the finished Baratie. "I will never forget all you've done for me. Thank you for all you did for this stupid little eggplant!"

When he looks up, there are unshed tears in Zeff's eyes but his expression remains the same as he's always remembered it to be. Hard, lips in a downturn.

And yet.

Sanji's seen that expression in those green-blue eyes. Once---only once. When the Baratie was first unveiled to them and Zeff looked like it was the most precious thing in the world and it was all his.

He looks at Sanji like that now as they part ways for first and last time for how ever many years Sanji is destined to sail the seas. Like Sanji is the most precious being in the world and he is all Zeff's and to love someone is to let them go.

Sanji grits his teeth and turns away. It's now or never.

Zoro looks like he's dead on his feet.

His skin looks pale and clammy, sweat like second skin. His chest wound as reopened and the blood that spills is steady, covering his front.

His lips, when he speaks, are white and chapped. His eyes, when he spares Sanji a glance, are a little unfocused. "I can give you ten minutes."

Sanji opens his mouth to demand what the hell he's talking about. But it clicks, it makes sense. He looks at Zoro, really looks at him. A part of him wants to protest; he'll die if he leaves him here to face Arlong alone. But that's not important, is it?

He means, it is but it isn't. He knows what Zoro's priority is and though Sanji wants to stay and help him, he knows what his own priority should be. He grits his teeth and gives a firm nod.

In the next moment, he's running towards the water as the sharp song of blades echo behind him. A part of him hopes this is the right call, that Zoro will persevere and not only give him those ten minutes but also find a way to stay alive.

It'd be a damn shame if his first stint as part of the Straw Hats gets the captain's most devoted knight killed.

Later, after they've inevitably won.

The music is loud but not as loud as the laughter and the relief in the air. Lights twinkle like fireflies as Cocoyasi rejoices and celebrates their liberation from Arlong's dictatorship.

Sanji grins as he watches Luffy and Usopp dance with the villagers. They have absolutely no grace, either incapable or unwilling to follow the beat of the drums. It's the funniest thing he's witnessed in days, weeks even.

He continues to walk to his destination: an alleyway housing a sulky Marimo. Earlier in the day, he'd been screaming bloody murder while his chest wound got properly stitched up. Now, though he picks at them consistently, he wears fresh bandages across his chest.

Zoro sits with his legs crossed and his sword resting on his lap. As Sanji'd thought, the tankard of ale in his hand is just about empty and to avoid standing up and having to socialize, the silly Marimo just nurses the last dregs.

"Here," he says with a sigh as he sinks down next to him.

Zoro looks up from the ground he's studying and at the proffered booze. He raises an eyebrow for a moment but takes it, incapable of looking at a gift horse in the mouth.

Sanji is homesick and he knows that he will be for days and even weeks. He's expecting Zeff's yells but they never come and he's ready for one of Carne's snarky remarks but those are gone too. Instead, what he has now are four potential friends to make new habits and memories with.

He spares Zoro a glance from the corner of his eye.

"How's the wound?"

Zoro tilts his head to look at him, eyes half-lidded like he's bored or sleepy or both. "Fine."

Ah, Sanji thinks.

Of course the idiot that grabbed his attention is as chatty as a wet sock. He bites the inside of his cheek. The silence that falls between them is surprisingly comfortable. Zoro drinks his booze and Sanji's eyes shine as he drinks in the festivities happening in front of them.

Sanji's life of piracy is heavily detailed by the brief and stolen moments after a big fight. No one knows this of course, because all the world knows is the chaos he and the Straw Hats leave in their wake. But he thinks it's what he remembers the most. Like life continuing to happen in increments despite the greater picture.

In Little Garden.

The galley is quiet and a little dim as Sanji sews a thread through Zoro's tanned skin with a needle. The cuts on his ankles aren't as bad as the one on his chest, but they'd been deep like the idiot really did intend to cut his feet off.

He's no doctor, but he watched enough of the cooks take care of a cut from a knife to know what he's doing.

Zoro doesn't make a sound, his lips pressed tight as he stares at him work with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

"Idiot," Sanji mutters again. He pauses, the needle pinched in between the thumb and forefinger of one hand while he snatches his cigarette from his mouth with the other. He tilts his head to the side to exhale smoke. "What the fuck were you thinking?"

Zoro rolls his eyes, looking away from the half-shut cut on his ankle and to Sanji's blazing glare. His skin looks like caramel under this lighting. Outside, Sanji can hear the others laugh as they talk with Dorry and Brogy.

"I don't know, cook," Zoro finally drawls. "I guess I was thinking that I needed to get out of the wax to help Nami and Vivi. And I guess I was thinking of fighting those bastards. But I'm not too sure. I could have just wanted to cut my feet off for the shits and giggles."

"Don't be a little smartass," Sanji growls, pointing at him with his cigarette. "It doesn't suit you, damn moron."

Zoro's lip curls in a sneer and Sanji meets it head on with a nasty look of his own. Luffy's loud laugh from outside cuts through the hostility and both their faces soften to neutral expressions.

This close, Sanji notices the faint splatter of freckles on the apples of Zoro's cheeks. Golden, almost lost against his natural tan. He clears his throat and looks back down at his work.

"Don't do it again," he mutters, the back of his neck growing hot.

Zoro snorts, wiggling his toes just to piss Sanji off.

"We know it'll definitely happen again."

Sanji sighs. "Yeah."

In Skypea.

Sanji knows he still smells like burnt flesh and yet he pours every bit of his love into the meal the Sky people deserve after all this shit with Enel's fuck ass bullshit.

He watches them all eat the fruit of his labor, grinning at the looks of awe that each one of them has on their face after a bite.

The drums are loud and the percussion is sizzling. Sanji bites back a groan as he eases down into a sitting position, watching them dance around an enormous pit of fire. Luffy's there, of course. Luffy loves to dance. And not far behind is Usopp.

Nami is lost in the throng, but if he tries hard enough he can hear the tinkle of her laugh float and dissipate up in the sky, like smoke.

He hears boots on the broken pavement and he knows it's Zoro before he even looks up. A tankard of ale hovers in front of his face and Sanji shifts his cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other with the tip of his tongue.

He follows the length of that tanned, muscled arm up to Zoro's face. He still has those dumb goggles resting on his head, just at his hairline and ruffling his growing green spikes. Sanji'd be lying if he said they weren't endearing.

"Are you gonna take it or not, shitty cook?"

Sanji grins, taking the tankard and allowing their fingers to brush despite the touch hurting his sensitive skin.

It's strong and bitter down his throat. Of course it is; Zoro likes the strong stuff, forgetting that not everyone has an iron-clad tolerance. But Sanji has always enjoyed a challenge and so he gulps down some more.

"You really let him burn all of you, huh?" Zoro mutters as he crouches down next to him. "Got a death wish?"

"Dont be a hypocrite," Sanji laughs, curly eyebrows raised. "Don't think I need a lecture from our suicidal houseplant."

When he looks over at him, Zoro's already staring.

In the middle of some stupid games.

"Cook," Zoro gasps, blood trickling down his nose, into his mouth, down his chin. His eyes are like hurricanes. Gray and wild. "Lend me a hand for ten minutes."

Sanji can hear his heartbeat in his ears. He thinks he has a couple of broken ribs and his ankle may or may not be sprained. Zoro doesn't look much better if by the way he rolls his wrist is anything to go by.

And yet a traitorous part of himself thinks he's never looked lovelier: covered in blood and blotched with upcoming bruises.

"Ten minutes?" he rasps, pulling a cigarette from his pack. "I think that's enough."

In Enies Lobby.

The buzz after everything that has happened is almost insufferable. Sanji almost wants to pick at his skin until it peels off. It's a feeling he hasn't felt in years, one he has not missed for a single moment.

He's restless.

He sits and he bounces his leg.

He stands and he paces.

He scratches on the inside of his elbow.

The Merry's gone, her voice still echoing in his head like a ghost. Robin almost got taken from them. Usopp's not part of the crew any more.

Everything's going to shit.

Everything is shit.

Sanj runs a hand through his blond hair and tugs. Just to see if he can. Just because he can. In moments of high anxiety and turmoil, he subconsciously falls back to old habits, hidden memories resurface for brief moments, like blinks, like the glow of fireflies they wink in and out of life.

"Cook?"

Zoro walks into the room. There's a nasty gash on his lower lip, red and alive. He's eyeing Sanji like he can pinpoint all the things wrong with him. When Zoro stops in front of him, Sanji thinks he's going to say something scathing, something that'll knot and twist Sanji's insides and get them going in a fight.

Instead, Zoro fishes something out of his pocket.

It's a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

Both new.

"They..." Zoro clears his throat. "The other ones were ruined. In the water."

"Yeah," Sanji agrees, though Zoro hasn't said anything that needs agreeing to. He reaches over and accepts the gifts.

Zoro runs a hand through his hair. It's gotten longer, the spikes slicking back, looking rounder as they do. If that even makes sense---it makes sense to Sanji. With his movements, his earrings tinkle together and grab Sanji's attention. The golden bars sway for a moment until they grow still.

"Do you think Usopp will come back?" he asks, his voice a croak. It's his turn to clear his throat.

Zoro rubs at his jaw where a nasty bruise is still in the midst of blooming. His eyes are staring out the window where the sky is a clear blue and the sounds of Water Seven trickle in through the cracks.

"Yeah," he says. A moment later he tilts his head to look at him. "He will. When he's ready."

"Before we leave."

"Before we leave," Zoro agrees.

Sanji nods his head, hoping despite knowing that Zoro is right. He looks down at the pack of cigarettes; it's his favored brand. Something lodges itself in his throat. A part of him is afraid at being so perceived and yet there's another part, a bigger and stronger part that sings. At being noticed, at being known.

"Zoro, I---"

He sucks in air, eyes fluttering shut as he feels the press of Zoro's forehead against his, large hand cradling the back of his neck.

All of them almost died a few days ago. All of them have declared war against the World Government.

Sanji exhales a soft breath.

In Thriller Bark.

Sanji babbles to Zoro's prone body.

It's the only way he can keep the images away. The sight of him, a lone figured, battered and bruised, more blood than man, clinging to life by the thinnest thread. His glazed look. Distant and gone, so far fucking gone.

Chopper says he died for a moment. He'd been muttering to himself, the little guy, grief-stricken and so very afraid. Sanji'd heard him though.

And now he can't shake the thought. The feeling.

So he bargains.

If he wakes up, he'll make him more onigiri.

If he wakes up, he won't hide the sake.

If he wakes up, he'll be honest.

If he wakes up---

When he'd set out to join the Straw Hats and committed to finding the All Blue for both himself and Zeff, he'd never thought he'd be so afraid to lose someone the way he's afraid in this very moment that Zoro won't ever open is stupid gray eyes and be stupidly obnoxious.

"You're a bastard, you know," he whispers, hating that he always comes back to this very argument. Except it's not an argument because no one is fighting him back. "It should have been me. I'm the one that's so replaceable. You should have let me do it. Luffy needs you."

When Zoro wakes up and the crew showers him with tears and affections, fear dissipating like smoke, Sanji hangs back and watches from afar.

Blackleg Sanji as been through so much, too much, to have him stop and once again become afraid. He's in his place of birth, his once upon a prison and the man before him is no father of his.

He refuses to see him as his father.

His father has blue-green eyes and graying dirty-blond hair. An impressive moustache he once braided but now just chooses to tie silly little bows at the end to. He can cook absolutely anything in the world and he delivers a mean kick and, most importantly, he'd made Sanji feel loved.

He made Sanji feel wanted.

It'd planted a seed within him that's grown and grown and continues to grow up to this moment, leaving no room for doubt. If Zeff's love planted the seed, Luffy and the Straw Hats has consistently watered it, filling him with life and love and and the will to keep going. To dare anyone to tell him otherwise.

"And yet I can't let them die," he whispers, on his knees in front of Luffy's weak and starving body. "I can't leave them. I--"

"Shishishi," Luffy weakly laughs. "Of course you can't. It's who you are... You're the nicest person in the world."

Sanji looks at him, thoughts of how weak he is for wanting to save the very people that once hurt him to the point of wanting to die. And with such simple words, Luffy has made him feel like it's okay to want that.

That it's not a weakness.

It's a strength.

Luffy shifts, accepting the basket of food. Everyone in the crew's favorites because Sanji misses him more than air, more than rest, more than peace. He wants to go back home. He wants to be in the comfort of the galley where sometimes Robin keeps him company by reading a book while he cooks. Where Usopp comes and asks for something spicy. Where Nami sits in the shade of her tangerine trees and laughs so freely.

Back in the Sunny where Franky promises to add a new project to the kitchen, even if Sanji never asked, but he'll do it because he knows it'll make Sanji smile. Home, where Chopper tries to sing Bink's Brew while Brook plays the melody.

Home where Zoro is, always annoyed with him and yet always lingering, always at arm's reach.

"I want to go home," he tells Luffy. "But I have to save them first."

"Okay." Luffy's smile is blinding.

After the Raid, Sanji sits in one of the Palace's gardens.

Now that there's not an impending fight looming over him, he closes his eyes and relishes in the warmth of the Flower Capital's warm weather. It's quiet here, because the palace is big enough that wherever the others are, being rowdy and loud and full of celebration, he can't hear them.

It's been hell, he thinks, to wonder if he's susceptible to become like his siblings. Unfeeling, unforgiving. But worse of all, it's been hell to feel like his mother's sacrifice had been all for nothing. That she'd shortened her life for absolutely nothing, when she could have stayed alive and by his side.

And yet what kind of life would that have been? To stay in Germa, with Judge and his children, with his mother as his shield from the horrors they'd always wanted to subject to him.

He would have never met Zeff.

He would have never met Luffy or the Straw Hats.

He would have never seen as much of the world as he has.

He would have never met---

"Cook."

Zoro.

Sanji swallows, listening to the rustle of Zoro's yukata as he sinks down next to him. He knows he's found him by pure chance, that Zoro's lack of direction still rings true even now. A smile twitches at the corner of his mouth.

"Marimo--"

"Cook--"

Sanji snorts, opening his eyes to look at his counterpart with a wry expression. Zoro should really be wearing his bandages but it seems like he's picked them off again. Chopper will have an aneurysm.

"Go ahead," Sanji says, waving a hand.

For all that he thinks he knows Zoro, he seems to have gotten something wrong. He'd thought he'd find a furious Zoro unwilling to accept him back in the crew, the way it'd been with Usopp years ago. He'd thought that Zoro would be disgusted at the sight of him.

Granted they'd been in the middle of an oncoming war, but even now after it's all over Zoro looks at him like he's the answer to a question Sanji isn't aware of.

"About that call," Zoro starts and Sanji shakes his head.

"I'm being honest," he says, shifting so he's facing the Marimo. "It's not necessary anymore. In the moment, I felt like I was going to lose myself."

Zoro looks at him, features still ashen after another near death experience. In this silence Sanji thinks he can almost hear Lady Hiyori's shamisen.

"And now?"

Sanji licks his lower lip, wishing he'd pocketed his pack of cigarettes before he left his room earlier. "Now, I think I'm well on my way to understanding a lot of things."

Zoro hums and looks away from him. His hair has grown again, messily brushed back, tuffs falling over his forehead. His yukata is a deep emerald that compliments his caramel-colored skin.

"I'll still do it," Zoro finally says, his voice low and soft. "If I need to."

"I know." A part of Sanji knows he wouldn't want it any other way. He looks down at the soft grass under them, to where Zoro's hand rests, his fingers spread.

Sanji's heartbeat sings and his nerves are fleeting. He reaches over, touches Zoro's hand. He's warm, is the first thing he thinks. They both use their hands to do the things they love, is the second.

He'd like to kiss him, is the third.

Zoro's jaw twitches before he turns his head to look at him. The apple of his cheeks are splotched red and it's so lovely, how it brings out those freckles.

Sanji leans forward.

He plants both elbows on the table, leans forward and asks: “How do people get together?”

Nami doesn’t look up. “Bribery.”

Robin sets down her cards with exquisite calm and feral curiosity. “There are many methods. When you say together, what are you hoping for?”

Luffy hums. “I dunno. Romance. Like, when people start doing the whole kissing thing.”

That does it: Nami’s hand stills and she turns her head slowly, scenting blood in the water. “Why are you asking us this?”

Luffy gestures with both hands, broad and obvious. “Zoro and Sanji are still being stupid and it’s been years now.”

Robin makes a small sound that contains several years of detailed observation, probably. Nami presses her lips together in that way that means she’s trying not to laugh and also trying not to admit Luffy’s right about something. “You noticed.”

Luffy scowls. “I’m the captain.”

Nami’s expression turns fond as she leans back in her chair, tapping the cards against the table a few times like she’s trying to align her thoughts. “Okay, hypothetically. If two idiots were in love —”

“They are.”

“Yes, of course they are. Anyway, with any two normal people one would just confess because they have, say, emotional intelligence.”

“Boring,” Luffy mutteres, then thinks about Zoro staring silently at walls instead of talking and Sanji setting things on fire with his eyes because someone was nice to him. He clicks his tongue. “That probably won’t work here.”

Nami’s mouth twitches. “Probably not.”

Robin lays a card down. “Sometimes danger can clarify what people are unwilling to say.”

Nami points a card at Luffy before his grin can get too wide. “Do not put them in danger on purpose or so help me!”

“I wasn’t gonna,” he sulks, only mostly lying.

Robin chuckles. “There is also forced proximity, when two people are placed in a situation where avoidance becomes impossible. Sharing a room, that sort of thing.”

“This crew is a disease.” Nami pinches the bridge of her nose.

“A lively one.”

Nami ignores that, leaning forward to narrow her eyes at Luffy. “The point is, those two don’t need more chances to yell at each other. They need a situation where the yelling finally runs out.”

Luffy nods slowly, absorbing this, thinking about a place they can’t run and a place where fighting isn’t enough. A place where Zoro can’t just sleep through his feelings and Sanji can’t smoke them away. Robin smiles behind her fingertips. “Or they could come to a mutual understanding through consistent emotional vulnerability.”

Luffy stares at her, deflating a little. “Oh. Boring again.”

Nami must see his thoughts forming, because her eyes get sharper and her voice drops into the tone she uses before she brings down thunderstorms and ruin. “No. You are not specifically creating a disaster to get your crew to kiss. Why don’t you just talk to them about it?”

“If I tell them Sanji will yell. And Zoro will pretend he didn’t hear me.”

“Zoro always pretends he doesn’t hear people.”

“And then they’ll both be worse,” Luffy continues, with the certainty of someone who knows his crew down to the marrow. “Sanji will make too much food and get made if Zoro eats it, and Zoro will sleep somewhere dumb and they’ll fight for days and pretend it isn’t because they wanna kiss.”

There’s a little silence, soft with the afternoon light and the sweet sway of the Sunny beneath them, Robin’s expression going a little distant in the way it does when she’s thinking of histories no-one’s written down or scars people carry like secret maps. “Sanji-san does have a talent for retreating from sincerity.”

“You mean sprinting from it,” Nami mutters. She throws her cards down onto the table. “Look, if you want it to happen you need an environment where they can’t run away from it.”

“Okay!” Luffy’s already half-standing, renewed energy fizzing under his skin because it sounds like Nami’s talking about a quest and a quest is perfect — they have tasks and monsters and running and probably meat, if you look hard enough. Quests give people things to do with their hands when their mouths are being useless.

Nami catches his wrist before he can launch himself out of the room. Her eyes are serious and warm, because Nami’s always been good at knowing when something is funny but still matters. “Listen. Don’t force them somewhere they can’t choose. THose two are idiots, but they’re our idiots. They need a push, not a cage.”

Robin nods. “And perhaps remember that sometimes people need to arrive at happiness believing they found the path themselves.”

Luffy thinks about it very hard and grins. “So I make the path for them to find.”

She smiles. “Close enough.”

Usopp’s easy to find, because god knows the sniper’s always in the middle of something that looks like a warzone but definitely smells like an apology just waiting to happen. He’s in the workshop, where the benches are cluttered with his genius, from tools to coils of wire to jars of seeds and scraps of leather. There’s something in the corner that looks like a welded frog wearing a tiny paper hat. Usopp’s bent over the bench with his goggles pushed up into his hair and his tongue caught between his teeth, hands moving with precision, brilliant and probably mildly explosive.

Luffy leans against the bench and taps the frog. It starts ticking, alarmingly. “How do people get together?”

Usopp goes still, face doing something extremely interesting, starting with panic and then understanding and then delight and then horror and then, finally, some type of solemn resignation. “Is this about who I think it’s about? Because oh my god, finally.”

Luffy frowns. “Finally?”

“Luff, I’ve been living inside a stage drama for months. Months. Years, even! Do you know what that does to a man? Do you understand what it’s like to eat breakfast while two people argue about pepper and make it feel like foreplay?”

Luffy considers this. “No.”

“Exactly!” Usopp points at him with a screwdriver. “You’re free! Your brain’s uncluttered. Mine has become some kind of haunted… theatre.”

Luffy leans forward, emboldened, eyes bright. “So you know how to fix it.”

“I didn’t say that.” He glances at the door like he’s considering escaping, before apparently remembering that escaping Luffy’s impossible at best. “Romance is delicate, you know.”

“They aren’t delicate.”

“That’s the problem!”

Luffy rolls his eyes and hoists himself up onto the bench and waits it out. He’s good at waiting when he wants something, even if his whole body hums with impatience and his toes tap and his shoulders rock. He’s learned to wait with the enormous confidence of someone who knows the world will eventually give him what he wants, one way or another.

Usopp lasts eleven seconds before he drags both hands down his face, spreading soot everywhere. “Okay. Okay, we need a strategy. We’re dealing with two emotionally constipated combat monsters who think vulnerabilty’s something you punch. We need pressure, not bad trauma pressure — definitely not trauma pressure, we’ve got enough of that around here. We’re stocked with trauma. We’re overflowing. We could sell it wholesale.”

“Pressure.”

“Right! A situation where they have to rely on each other, you know? Like, emotional pressure.”

Luffy knocks his heels against the bench and thinks about what Nami had said. “Like a quest. But a good one.”

“No such thing as a good quest with you lot. But yes, unfortunately. Probably.” The frog ticks louder and he turns and yelps: “Not now!”

Luffy grins at him. “You’re really good at this.”

Usopp preens. “Yes, well, genius is a burdern. Anyway, they already trust each other. That’s the hard part and somehow they did it. You just… have to give them somewhere to put the rest.”

“The kissing.”

“The feelings,” the other man corrects and then groans. “But yeah, sure, probably also the kissing.”

He saves Law for last, because Law is… different. Nami gives advice like she’s sharpening knives and Usopp like he’s building a bomb and hoping for the best. Robin gives advice like she knows the ending and is just patiently waiting for everyone else to catch up. Law, though… Law gives advice like he’s removing something from beneath the skin, which seems fitting. It’s always careful and reluctant and annoyed that it’s come to him in the first place.

Luffy borrows the Den Den from the navigation station and, yes, he’s not technically supposed to touch Nami’s things without asking, but Nami is asleep, and Luffy is brave, and the snail is sitting there looking extremely available, so. Luffy rocks on his heels while the snail’s antennae quiver once, then twice, then three times before Law’s narrowed eyes and tired mouth and little spotted hat are translated absurdly onto the creature’s soft head. “Why are you calling at this hour?”

“I have a question.”

“No.”

Luffy laughs. “I didn’t ask yet! How do people get together?”

Law’s silence makes the DenDen’s little mouth stiffen. “What?”

“How do people get together?” Luffy repeats, patient. “Like kissing and romance and stuff.”

Law’s stare sharpens, the tiny snail’s eyebrows drawing together. The room seems to grow quieter around them, the sea hush pressed up against the windows like it wants to listen, too. Law’s voice comes out slowly. “Why are you asking me that?”

Luffy shrugs, letting his body slump against the wall. “I mean, it’s obvious, right?”

“Obvious,” Law repeats, carefully, like he’s measuring this word for word. “You should be sure, before you do anything. If you change something like that it can be… difficult to return to what you had before.”

Luffy frowns. “Why would I want to go back? If it gets better, it gets better.”

The silence after that is enormous. The DenDen is very, very still. Then Law mutters: “You make it sound simple.”

“It is simple.”

“No, it certainly is not. People aren’t always sure what they want and sometimes wanting something does not mean you can keep it. Sometimes crossing a line costs more than you expect.”

Luffy listens with a frown. Law says things like this sometimes— heavy things, dark things, things with old blood still on them. Luffy doesn’t always understand all the pieces but he understands the shape, understands when Law’s talking about something that hurt him.  He understands when the other man is holding a knife by the blade and pretending his hand isn’t bleeding. He chews his bottom lip, watching the way the moonlight spears the sea beyond the window. “So, what do I do?”

Law takes a slow breath, quiet long enough that Luffy starts poking at the DenDen’s cheek until the poor snail looks offended. It does, however, get Law talking again, even if his voice comes out more strained than usual. “Make it clear you mean it. Do you mean it?”

Luffy nods immediately. “Yes.”

Law’s voice lowers. “Completely?”

“Yes!”

“You understand it may change… everything.”

“That’s the point,” Luffy snorts, cheerful and absolute. “Everything’s supposed to change.”

Law goes silent again; Luffy can practically feel him thinking through the line. Too many thoughts, probably, because Law always has too many thoughts. They crowd behind his eyes and make him look older than he is. Finally, he sighs. “Then meet me at the next island.”

Luffy grins at once. “Okay! Thanks, Traffy! You’re the best!”

For one strange, suspended second, neither of them says anything and all Luffy can hear and feel is the Sunny breathing around him, holding him firm. Then the call clicks off, the DenDen’s face melting back into its own sleepy expression, antennae drooping and Luffy sits there for exactly two seconds, vibrating before he launches himself out of the room and bolts down the hallway to find Nami.

x

The island waits for them in layers of green, rising from the sea like something ancient and yet somehow half asleep, all black cliffs veined with silvery water and jungle spilling down towards the shore in glossy waves. Vines hang from the trees like ropes, every flower too bright and every insect too loud. Somewhere deep beneath the canopy, something heavy moves and sends birds shrieking upward in a burst of wings.

It’s probably dangerous and definitely interesting and ultimately perfect, so Luffy’s already grinning by the time the Polar Tang surfaces in the cove. The sea foams around her as she settles, steady and strange beside the Sunny’s bright, open warmth. The Tang always feels different to Luffy, quieter and sealed, a den full of secrets. Like its captain, really. Law looks tired, because he always looks tired. He also looks sharper than usual, something stiff in the line of his body, guarded and deliberate, like he’s spent the entire trip here preparing for an ambush but the ambush is just… Luffy saying hello.

Luffy lights up anyway, waving with both arms. “Traffy!”

Bepo waves enthusiastically. “Hi, Luffy!”

“Bepo!” Luffy yells back, thrilled.

The Heart pirates spill onto the shore in a loose cluster, boots sinking into damp sand, voices rising as they greet the Straw Hats. The two crews mingle in that strange, easy way they have now, still separate and still their own odd shapes but familiar enough to share jokes and complaints and stolen snacks. Usopp immediately begins explaining something to Penguin with large gestures while Chopper runs straight to Bepo, Nami talking to Shachi for exactly three seconds before he looks frightened.

“We’re gonna fix it today,” Luffy vows and Law’s mouth tightens. His hand shifts near Kikoku’s hilt as his voice drops. 

“And you’re still sure.”

“Yep,” Luffy says cheerfully. “I made a plan.”

Across the beach Sanji’s unloading supplies with far more force than necessary, Zoro hovering nearby with his swords and doing absolutely nothing useful, which is apparently enough to make Sanji’s shoulders creep up toward his ears.

“You could help,” Sanji snaps without turning around.

Zoro tilts his head. “Looks like you got it.”

Sanji whirls, cigarette flashing between his teeth. “That’s not the point, seaweed-head!”

Zoro’s mouth twitches. “You asking for help?”

“I’m asking you not to stand there looking useless!”

It’s worse on the island, somehow. Away from the routine of the ship, stripped of breakfast and chores and familiar corners to hide in, the tension has nowhere to soak. It hangs in the humid air around them, bright and charged as heat lightning. Sanji moves like he’s one insult away from either kicking Zoro into a tree or kissing him hard enough to bruise and Zoro watches him like he’d accept either outcome.

Luffy’s grin spreads slowly because yeah, this is going to work. Law follows his gaze and whatever he sees makes his face go blank in a way that isn’t blank at all. “Wait… what exactly are we fixing?”

Luffy points with both hands. “Them!”

Law doesn’t move, not at first. For one strange second, Luffy thinks Law looks almost disappointed, before he turns his head away, voice perfectly flat. “Of course.”

Luffy grabs Law’s sleeve and pulls him toward the tree line. “C’mon on! Adventure! Zoro, Sanji, let’s go! You guys are strong, you can help us explore!”

Sanji’s lips part in some kind of halfhearted sneer around his cigarette. He looks like he wants to argue but unfortunately Luffy has chosen one of the few compliments Sanji never knows how to deflect without becoming awkward. But then Zoro snorts and Sanji immediately recovers. “Something funny, Mosshead?”

“Didn’t say anything.”

“You breathed like an asshole.”

Zoro’s grin is small and mean and almost fond. “You listen to my breathing a lot, Curls?”

The silence that follows is so loud even the jungle seems to pause. Sanji’s ears go faintly pink and Usopp makes a tiny choking sound somewhere behind Nami. Luffy rocks on his heels, thrilled, feeling the thread between Zoro and Sanji draw tighter and tighter, tight enough to hum. Law sees it too, apparently: his mouth thins.

“Fine,” Sanji snaps, slamming the crate down. “Someone has to keep you from wandering into a sinkhole.”

“You’d miss me.”

Sanji’s whole face does something dangerous. “I’d miss having something stupid to kick.”

“Eh, same thing.”

Luffy laughs and launches himself toward the trees, letting the jungle swallow them whole.

The beach’s clean salt wind disappears behind a wall of green heat, the air turning thick enough to drink, practically: water is constantly dripping from somewhere unseen, pattering onto leaves and sliding down trunks and gathering in the curled throats of flowers big enough to cup in both hands. The ground breathes underfoot, soft with moss and old rot, insects whining about in shimmering clouds.

Luffy leads like he always does: straight forward, no fear, trusting his instincts like the world’s on his side because, hey, it often is. Zoro follows slightly to his left, silent and alert, one hand resting near his swords. He always becomes quieter in places like this, absorbed into danger’s rhythm. His eye tracks movement in the underbrush while Sanji follows on Luffy’s right, complaining under his breath about the humidity and the bugs and swordsmen who think good hygiene’s optional. He moves beautifully despite all that, cigarette somehow still lit in air too wet for fire to make sense. Every few steps his gaze cuts toward Zoro and every few steps Zoro’s gaze meets it and then both of them look away like they’ve been caught stealing.

Law brings up the rear, coat brushing damp leaves, face composed in a way that suggests he’d rather be cutting out his own appendix with a spoon. Luffy glances back at him and grins anyway. They walk until the trees thin just enough to reveal a cliff face rising ahead, black stone slick and sunlight spilling over the ledge high above, bright and tempting. The wind moves differently here, carrying the sharp cry of birds and Luffy stops so abruptly Sanji almost walks into him. “Let’s climb the cliff!”

Sanji squints up at the cliff with a sullen little scowl. He adjusts the backpack he’s brought, scuffing the toe of his boot into the ground. “This is stupid.”

“Yep,” Zoro agrees and starts climbing anyway. Sanji looks like he might choke them all out of sheer spite, before he clicks his tongue and kicks off the ground, Skywalking upwards with each step cracking the air beneath his feet. He passes Zoro halfway up just to be petty and Zoro’s grin flashes, feral. “Show off.”

Sanji doesn’t look down. “Keep climbing, decorative moss.”

Law stands still for a moment, considering, before blue light blooms around him, clean and cold against all the jungle’s damp gold. Space bends and then the next thing Luffy knows, Law’s on a ledge halfway up the cliff, coat settling around him with insulting calm.

Zoro looks over from where he’s gripping a vine. “Cheating.”

Law snorts. “Efficiency.”

Sanji lands on the top edge first, arms crossed, hair bright in the sun. “God, you’re both insufferable.”

Zoro drags himself over the ledge a moment later and stands too close to him on purpose. “Both?”

The jungle falls away below as the cliff top opens around them, a green sea rippling under the wind. The breeze is cooler up here, clean enough to cut through the humidity, carrying salt and bird cries and the smell of lush greenery. Above them, the sky is full of wings as huge seabirds wheel on the currents, their long tails scissoring through the light. Their bodies are dark as ink against the sun, throats flashing red when they turn as they ride the wind with ease, sporadically dropping into violent dives and screaming at one another like thieves.

Zoro squints up. “Those gulls are huge.”

Law, who has apparently been personally offended by this error, sniffs. “They’re not gulls. They’re frigatebirds.”

Zoro glances at him. “What’s a frigatebird?”

Law stares. “A bird.”

Sanji snorts. “Brilliant. Doctor and scholar.”

Law ignores him with the strength of a captain who’s had to make ignoring idiots into some kind of survival skill. “They can stay in the air for weeks as their feathers aren’t waterproof, so they can’t land on the water. They like to steal food from other birds mid flight.”

Zoro’s interest sharpens. “They steal it?”

“Well, they harass other birds until they drop or regurgitate food.”

“Respect.”

Sanji turns on him, betrayed. “Respect? For aerial mugging? Quit bonding with him over criminal birds.”

“Jealous, Curls?”

Sanji’s whole body goes rigid. “Of a… bird?”

“Of Traffy.”

Law’s eyes close. “Do not involve me.”

Luffy watches, chin in both hands, practically vibrating with joy because there’s that thread again, running from Sanji’s clenched jaw to Zoro’s lazy smile, from Zoro’s attention to the pink climbing Sanji’s ears. Every insult pulls it taut, silence twisting it tighter. They look like they’re fighting, but Luffy knows fighting. This is something else wearing fighting’s clothes.

The sun’s started sinking toward the western edge of the island and the jungle shifts around them in kind, afternoon heat melting into evening gold. The leaves stop shining and begin glowing deep green at the veins, vines rimmed in light. Something sings from the canopy, low and sweet and something else answers by shrieking like it’s been murdered. The frigatebirds snatch fish from each other mid air and sweep upwards and upwards again and again, triumphant and rude. Zoro watches them with obvious approval and also watches Sanji, because he’s always watching Sanji. His gaze keeps flicking back to the side of Sanji’s face, heavy in the late sun, before he looks back toward the birds.

Luffy’s grin softens.

They’ve climbed and argued and almost maybe complimented each other. No-one has kissed yet, which is disappointing, but god knows Luffy’s learned from Nami that some treasures take time to dig up and from Usopp that rushing explosives is bad unless you want your eyebrows gone.

He decides on snacks, thinking maybe people talk better when they are eating. Sanji knows this better than anyone, which means he can’t even complain when Luffy uses it against him. “Snack time!”

Zoro sits down on a flat stretch of stone with the immediate obedience of a man who supports a good snack attack regardless of whatever motive lies beyond it. Sanji, on the other hand, gives a long-suffering sigh, but he reaches into his pack to produce wrapped rice balls, sliced fruit, little skewers of grilled meat and a tin of something sweet dusted with sugar. He lays everything out on a plaid cloth with more care than he’d ever admit to using. Luffy watches his hands along the way; Sanji’s hands are always good to watch, quick and precise and tender when he thinks no-one’s paying attention. They arrange food like small promises and brush crumbs away and tap ash off cigarettes. They bandage wounds while his mouth complains about idiots.

Luffy loves those hands because they feed his crew and thinks — knows — Zoro might love them for that, too.

Zoro reaches for a skewer but Sanji smacks his hand without looking. “Wash your hands.”

Zoro makes a show of looking around at the absolute lack of water within reach before deliberately taking the skewer with his fingers.

Sanji’s eye twitches. “Were you raised in a cave?”

“Dojo.”

“Same thing.”

Zoro shrugs and bites into the meat, probably not even clocking the way Sanji tries not to look pleased when he hums low in approval. Luffy, who’s been waiting for an opening and also chewing three rice balls at once, decides this seems like a pretty good place to start. “What’s important in a partner?” 

Everyone stops. A frigatebird howls overhead and the three men with him do not move at all, until Sanji finally turns his head to stare. “In a what?”

“A partner,” Luffy clarifies around rice. “Like, if you’re with someone.”

Sanji looks at Luffy for several seconds and then at Law, then at Zoro and finally back at Luffy. Suspicion sharpens across his face. “Why are you asking that?”

“Because I wanna know.”

“That’s never been a safe answer from you.”

“It’s true!”

“It can be true and unsafe.”

Zoro swallows down whatever he’s been chewing, expression distant as he stares off into the sky. “Strong.”

Luffy points at him, delighted. “Strong is important?”

Sanji scoffs, recovering his ground because mocking Zoro is easier than engaging with the question, apparently. “Of course that’s your answer. Romantic as a brick through a window.”

Zoro glances at him with a narrowed eye and a pursed mouth. “You like strong.”

The pink comes back to Sanji’s ears, darker this time. “I like competence, there’s a difference!”

Zoro’s mouth curves. “Sure.”

Luffy leans forward with his chin in his hands and studies the both of them, their matching flushes and averted eyes. “So, competence is important?”

Sanji looks like he has just realised he answered a question he meant to avoid, judging by the way his shoulders stiffen. Smoke slips from his mouth in a thin, annoyed line. “Sure,” he says finally. “Competence, obviously. You should be able to trust someone not to fall apart the second things get difficult.”

Zoro snorts and Sanji’s gaze cuts to him, ruthless. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“That was a very loud nothing, asshole.”

Zoro rolls his eye and glares out toward the ocean. His voice comes out low and sure. “You like people who don’t run.”

The words settle between them like something heavier than teasing and for a moment the whole world seems to hold its breath around them, from the birds high above to the sea far below, to the cloth between them weighted with food and fading sunlight. Sanji’s cigarette burns untouched between his fingers. His mouth tightens and Luffy watches him, carefully, because Sanji is so loud when he’s hiding. He fills rooms with smoke and shouting and all those sharp, bright manners. But… sometimes something gets past the noise, something small and true, and then Sanji goes terribly quiet.

“Yeah,” he says, finally. Softer. “Maybe.”

Luffy feels warm all through his chest, even as he turns back to Zoro. “What else?”

Zoro gives him a flat look, implying just how badly Luffy’s betrayed him by continuing the conversation. “Why d’you need to know?”

“It’s important to me.”

Law makes a quiet sound into his tea that might be pain. Zoro’s eye narrows but he answers anyway; Zoro always answers Luffy eventually. “Someone who keeps up.”

Sanji laughs once, sharp. “God forbid anyone walk at a normal speed while you get lost behind them.”

Zoro ignores him. “Someone who can stand beside you in a fight.”

Sanji’s expression changes again, just a little. His gaze drops to the food, to the sunlight pooled gold over the fruit slices. His fingers flex against his knee and Zoro continues, slower now, like he’s pulling the words from somewhere stubborn. “Doesn’t have to follow. Doesn’t have to lead. Just… there.”

The wind lifts the edge of the cloth. Sanji’s hand comes down to hold it in place at the same moment Zoro’s does, fingers touching and for one long breath neither of them moves. Sanji finally snatches his hand. “Very poetic. Did the birds inspire you?”

Zoro’s mouth twitches. “Maybe.”

Luffy laughs, delighted, and glances at Law. “What about you, Traffy? What’s important in a partner?”

Law’s head lifts, face blank in a way that makes Luffy pause. The late sun catches the gold of his eyes and makes them look warmer than usual, less like a surgeon’s instruments and more like something buried deep under glass.

“Trust.” The word comes out flat, but Luffy knows Law well enough to hear when flat means careful. Sanji’s expression sobers and, opposite him, Zoro goes quiet too. Law rests one wrist over his knee, fingers loose, tattoos dark against his skin. “Someone who sees the worst possible outcome and stays anyway, who doesn’t confuse fear with weakness. Someone who understands that running toward danger is not the same as being brave unless you know what you’re protecting.”

Luffy listens, chewing slower now, frowning at the way Law’s voice has changed again. It does that sometimes, dropping lower and sharper at the edges, like he’s talking about a battlefield and a hospital room and a promise all at once.

“Someone who comes back,” Law adds quietly.

Luffy smiles again, frank and true, unable to help it. “I always come back.”

Law’s gaze flicks to him and, for that single moment, everything in Law’s face opens and closes too fast for Luffy to understand. It makes Sanji look away and makes Zoro glance between them with sudden, lazy interest. Law exhales, slowly. “Yes. You do.”

Luffy grins, pleased to have understood at least that part and Sanji coughs into his fist. “Fuck, that was embarrassing.”

“Said the one who said competence like you were hiring waiters or something,” Zoro mutters.

“Excuse me? Your answer was just strong, you emotionally bankrupt cactus!”

“Strong matters.”

“Yeah, well, congrats on your taste in, what, walls!”

“Walls don’t kick.”

“Not with that attitude!”

Luffy giggles into his food, pleased all the same. He watches Sanji hand Zoro the last skewer without looking at him and watches Zoro take it without teasing and watches Law watching him from the corner of his eye, expression tucked away again but not gone.

Love, Luffy thinks, is strange. He knows people make it hard because they’re scared or because they think wanting means losing or, hell, sometimes just because they’re too proud to say stay here when they could say idiot instead. But the feeling itself seems simple to Luffy: it’s just wanting someone at the table. Wanting them in the fight. Wanting them to eat first or last or more.

Wanting them to come back and to stand beside you by choice.

Luffy loves his crew like that, big and easy and ferocious. He loves them in a way that has teeth, enough to tear down walls and punch gods and declare war and steal food and share food and chase. Enough to wait and laugh and bleed and believe. He knows Zoro and Sanji love like that too. They just haven’t noticed the shape of it yet.

The sun dips lower still, rimming every stone with light. The birds become black cutouts against the burning sky. The jungle below is already gathering blue shadows in it and Luffy dusts the crumbs off his shorts, set on the second act.  He beams at them. “Okay! Law and I are gonna go back now. You guys need to stay here overnight.”

Sanji stares at him, wind lifting his hair softly around his face. He looks like he’s considering throwing Luffy clean off the cliff. “Fucking excuse me?”

“To make sure the island’s safe.” Luffy shrugs, because he hadn’t actually thought of a solid reason for this part just yet. It makes sense though, with the birds and the… beautiful jungle and whatnot.

Zoro looks at Luffy for a long, assessing moment. “The island?”

“Yep.”

“This cliff?”

“Yep!”

Sanji gestures a little too aggressively at the open sky and the entirely peaceful plateau. “From what, exactly?”

Right on cue, one of the frigatebirds screams overhead and Luffy takes it for the gift it is. He points upwards. “That! It might be dangerous.”

Law looks annoyed. “They're not dangerous.”

“See, Traffy says it’s dangerous,” Luffy tells Sanji.

Sanji throws both hands into the air. “I’m trapped in a nightmare made of idiots!”

Luffy smiles at him, bright and warm, but softer now too. “You can do it,” he says and knows it’ll work, because god knows Sanji can argue with nonsense forever and can kick logic into pieces and set fire to reason and call everyone involved several creative names but he can’t argue with Luffy trusting him, not really.

Zoro shifts beside him, silent, gaze sliding to Luffy first before returning back to Sanji. He lies back against the stone with his hands behind his head, like staying overnight on some random cliff was his plan all along. “Fine, whatever.”

Sanji whips towards him. “You know this is stupid!”

Zoro closes his eye, mouth softening as he settles in. “You’ll live.”

“I’ll kill you before dawn.”

“Eh, I’d like to see you try.”

Sanji makes a furious sound but he’s already peering at the food and the angle of the wind and the coming dark, clearly making camp in his head despite his verbal protests.  Luffy starts tugging Law back towards the foliage, almost surprised that Law actually lets himself be pulled. Behind them, Sanji shouts: “If I die up here I’m haunting you first, Luffy!”

Luffy cups his hands around his mouth. “Okay! That sounds fun!” By the time he’s dragged Law halfway down the cliff path, he’s decided that leaving them alone is a good idea in theory and a terrible idea in practice because if he leaves them alone then how’s he meant ot see whether or not it’s working? He stops so suddenly Law almost walks into him.

Law catches himself with a sharp inhale. “Straw Hat.”

Luffy turns, finger to his lips. “Shh. We’re hiding.”

“No,” Law hisses immediately, tugging his hand free.

“Yes,” Luffy argues, already crouching so he can peer through a gap in the leaves. From here, they can see the clearing spread out under the wide sky and the way Sanji’s still standing near the food spread with both his hands on his hips, glaring at Zoro. 

It’s a perfect view. An excellent bush. Luffy reaches up to tug insistently at Law’s coat until the other man huffs with irritation and slinks down to his knees. “I crossed half the sea for this.”

“Yeah!” Luffy whispers happily. “Thanks!”

In the clearing, Sanji’s getting down to business. “We need shelter.”

Zoro doesn’t even open his eye. “Sky’s clear.”

“Sky’s clear now.”

“So?”

“So weather changes, you brainless compost heap.”

Zoro grins. “You scared of rain?”

Sanji points at him. “I’m scared of waking up with moss growing on me because you think damp rock’s a mattress.”

“That happened once.”

“It happened twice!”

Luffy guffaws and leans into it becuase this is good and familiar: bickering is how Zoro and Sanji circle anything that matters, the sound they make when they get too close to saying something real. Still, after a while, it’s also a little… boring. They spend nearly ten minutes arguing about whether to build a lean to beneath the trees or sleep closer to the cliff edge where the wind’ll keep insects away. Sanji makes several excellent points and Zoro makes one point, which is that if something attacks them he’d rather see it coming. Sanji responds that this assumes Zoro will be awake, which historical evidence just… does not support.

Law watches in silence, arms folded over his knees and Luffy glances at him. “Sooo. Bepo looked happy.”

“Bepo is often happy.”

“Because he’s nice.”

Law’s expression shifts almost imperceptibly. “Yes.”

Luffy smiles at him, softer now. “You look less tired. Less like you’re gonna bite someone.”

Law’s mouth almost moves, close enough to giving in that Luffy feels warm with victory.

Below them Sanji’s apparently won the shelter argument, because he’s now dragging broad leaves and flexible branches into a tidy pile while insulting Zoro’s entire worldview. Zoro, despite claiming shelter is unnecessary, has gotten up to gather wood and is moving through the edge of the clearing with that grounded strength of his, cutting fallen branches down to size with quick and efficient strikes.

Sanji watches him from the corner of his eye, badly.

“You know,” Law drawls, “For people supposedly unaware of each other, they’re remarkably committed to stalking.”

Luffy’s grin stretches wide. “Right?”

As the hour drgas on the world around them turns honey thick, evening pouring across the plateau in slanting bands, catching in Sanji’s hair until the blonde looks almost molten. Fireflies wake one-by-one and at first it’s only a few sparks tremble in the undergrowth. Then it’s dozens, blinking through the dusk in soft pulses and gathering around the clearing where Zoro and Sanji are building their temporary little world. The air fills with their glow until it looks like the stars have come down early.

Sanji pauses with an armful of branches and just looks, face gone quiet in the light, all the usual noise slipping off him for a moment. “Damn,” he whistles and the word comes out softer than it was probably meant to, soft enough that even Zoro looks up to see where fireflies tremble around Sanji’s knees, winking in and out of the world.

“It’s beautiful,” Sanji admits and behind the leaves, Luffy makes his body be still, recognising that certain kind of quiet that comes over their cook when he’s caught by something lovely. It smoothes the sharpness from his mouth and loosens his shoulders, making him look younger and older at once, like the boy he used to be and the man who survived him are standing in the same light.

Zoro glances around at the open sky and the slow pulse of fireflies, and the last red seam of sun caught on the far edge of the sea. “Yeah, looks good.”

Sanji’s expression shifts back toward familiar territory, one eyebrow rising and mouth beginning to open, but it doesn’t quite make it. The softness is still there, betrayed by the light, by the way his gaze lingers on Zoro’s face like he’s trying to decide whether to laugh or hide. “Miracle of miracles,” he mutters. “Roronoa Zoro thinks something looks good.”

Zoro shrugs, eyes on the twigs in his hands. “Lots of things look good.”

Sanji lets out a laugh under his breath, a little thin. Nervous, maybe. Startled, definitely. Like something in Zoro’s voice has hooked under his ribs. “Do they now? Bet you can’t name three.”

Behind the thicket, Luffy breathes so loudly in anticipation that Law presses one hand firmly over his mouth before disaster can happen.

In the clearing, Zoro looks back down at the kindling. For a man who can split steel, face down monsters and walk into a war like it’s an errand he suddenly looks deeply frustrated by the fact that words exist. He shifts a stick from one palm to the other, thumb dragging along the bark, slow and rough, catching on a sharp edge he doesn’t seem to feel. His jaw works visibly, shoulders set too squarely, like he’s bracing for a blow no sword on earth can block.

“The sea,” he says finally.

Sanji snorts, though his eyes don’t move from Zoro’s face. “That barely counts, everyone likes the sea.”

“The Sunny.”

“Ugh. I guess that’s better,” Sanji allows grimly. “Sentimental, even. I’m disturbed.”

Zoro’s thumb stills against the bark, fireflies blinking and for one scary heartbeat Luffy thinks Zoro might stop there, that he’ll retreat into a grunt or an insult or the silence he wears like armour sometimes. But then Zoro inhales once, sharp, and says: “You.”

The sound seems to pull back from Zoro and Sanji, leaving a hollowed space between them where the word lands and stays. Sanji stares at him, the branches in his arms shifting slightly, leaves whispering against each other. “What?”

Zoro’s grip tightens until one twig cracks in his hand.

Luffy feels something open in his chest because he knows — he knows — Zoro is brave in all the ways that are easy to see. He’ll step in front of blades and jump into lightning and fight his way into impossible odds. He’ll bleed until standing becomes a kind of argument and will take pain into his body like it is simply another weight to lift, over and over. But this? This clearly costs him somewhere, letting himself want something in a place where wanting can be answered or refused. 

His mouth pulls into a grim line. He looks, frankly, like he’d rather be stabbed than continue this conversation but Luffy also knows that once Zoro’s committed then he’s in. “You look good,” he says, rougher this time. “That’s three.”

Sanji doesn’t move. The dusk deepens around him, the firefly light turning his stunned stillness into something almost holy and unbearably human.

“Oh!” Luffy whispers behind the leaves, eyes wide and sparking. Law’s hand clamps tighter over his mouth and Luffy holds himself very still, trembling with the force of not jumping from sheer glee.

In the clearing, Sanji visibly swallows. “You can’t just say shit like that with your stupid swords and your stupid face and just… you’re supposed to call me a shitty cook and ruin the whole moment.”

Zoro’s mouth curves, barely, even as he stands slowly, kindling forgotten. “Fine, you’re a shitty cook. You still look good.”

That does it: Sanji crosses the space between them, hands fisting in the front of Zoro’s shirt to pull him into a kiss. He kisses Zoro like he’s trying to win an argument and survive it all at the same time, fierce and precise and furious, and Zoro kisses back like patience has finally worn through to hunger. Sanji makes a muffled sound against Zoro’s mouth and Zoro huffs something almost like a laugh before catching him by the waist and steadying him. It becomes something warmer and slower, a wonder so naked it makes Luffy’s heart feel too big for his chest.

Zoro’s grip at the other man’s waist goes careful and grounding, thumb pressing once into Sanji’s side, like a small steady answer. They break apart only a few centimetres, Sanji’s forehead resting against Zoro’s. He looks dazed and bright, mouth redder than before. “You’re so bad at this.”

Zoro’s smile is real, so fucking real. “Worked, didn’t it?”

Sanji laughs and kisses him again and, honestly, not cheering at the top of his lungs is one of the hardest fucking things Luffy’s ever done, actually, which is saying something considering he’s fought emperors and sea monsters and Nami. Unfortunately, though, Law still has one hand wrenched into the back of his vest and the other hovering near his mouth like he’s prepared to physically silence him again if necessary. Also, Sanji and Zoro are still in the clearing, wrapped up in each other in the bluish gold dark and even Luffy understands that some victories are loud only later.

His chest is so full it almost hurts.

He made the path, he did. He asked the questions and listened to the answers and dragged the right people to the right cliff and left the right amount of snacks and invented a dangerous bird situation with very little planning. And now Zoro and Sanji— his Zoro and his Sanji, who trust each other with blood and blades and still somehow needed help trusting each other with softness — are standing under the first stars, kissing like the world finally, finally makes sense to them.

Beside him, Law exhales through his nose. “Now we leave before your cook notices us and attempts murder.”

Luffy nods very seriously. “But they’re still kissing.”

“Which is exactly why we need to leave, because the kissing won’t stay kissing at this rate.”

Luffy considers this and figures it makes sense, probably. He lets Law tug him backward through the brush, though he keeps his neck stretched as far as possible until the last sliver of the clearing disappears behind leaves. He catches one final glimpse of Zoro pulling Sanji’s shirt off and is so damn delighted about it he makes a noise only dogs and Chopper might hear.

They slink down the narrow cliff path, half crouched at first, even when there’s no longer any reason to crouch. Luffy does it because sneaking’s fun sometimes and Law does it for three steps before straightening with as much dignity as possible, brushing leaves from his coat. The trail falls away from the other two, cutting through fern and moss and stone still warm from the day. The fireflies flash between the trunks, caught in the dark like little lanterns Luffy wants to scoop.

Instead, he walks with his arms flung behind his head, sandals scuffing stone, humming under his breath. 

Zoro and Sanji are together. Or almost together? Or kissing, at least, which is close enough to together that Luffy’s gonna count it unless Nami says there are legal forms. The island is beautiful, the plan worked and Law is here and that part makes Luffy happy too. “Thanks for coming, Traffy.”

Law’s mouth tightens but the corner of it almost moves into a smile. “For coming to watch you manufacture an emotional wilderness exercise?”

Luffy laughs, bright and open, and the sound goes skipping down the trail ahead of them. Law winces like laughter is something that can attract predators and, hell, maybe it can but Luffy’s always thought predators are more interesting when they come over themselves. The happiness has nowhere to go, so it fills all of him: his chest, his arms, his knees, the soles of his feet slapping against the path. He bumps his shoulder into Law’s arm, careless and affectionate. “For coming to help.”

Law looks like he wants to be annoyed and he is annoyed, probably. Annoyance sits on him naturally, like his hat or his coat or the dark circles under his eyes, but Luffy also knows by now that Law’s annoyance has layers. Some of it is real and some of it’s just habit, but some of it is a blanket he throws over anything warm before anyone else can see it. Sometimes there’s something tired and folded carefully away there, a map Law doesn’t want anyone else reading because it shows where all the soft places are buried. 

The cove appears through a break in the trees ahead and the sight of it makes Luffy’s whole body soften. The Sunny’s glowing, round and beloved and ridiculous, frankly, against the darkening water. Her lion figurehead catches the last scraps of sunset and grins out toward the sea like she knows a secret. Beside her, the Tang rests pale and quiet in the tide, lanterns low along her hull, less like a ship than something that surfaced from a dream. Both vessels rock gently in the evening water, side-by-side, as voices drift up from the beach in faint, broken threads. 

Luffy breathes in the awareness of his people. His crew below, his swordsman and cook above, Law beside him and his heart feels stretched wide enough to cover the whole damn island. He doesn’t even notice Law stop walking until he realises the space beside him has gone empty. He turns back, blinking. “Traffy?”

Law stands in the middle of the path, half in shadow and half in the last shreds of light filtering through the leaves. He almost looks carved out of the hour itself: dark coat, pale skin, the brim of his hat cutting his eyes into something difficult to read. His face is turned slightly away. “Earlier, when you… when you asked about partners.”

“Oh!” Luffy brightens at once. “That worked, too! Sanji said competence but he meant Zoro. And Zoro said someone who keeps up but he meant Sanji. And you said someone who comes back and that was good, too.”

Law’s jaw shifts. “Yes, that.”

Luffy waits; he’s getting better at waiting for Law. It’s definitely not a perfected skill, but it’s better and that has to count for something. He knows Law’s words come slowly when they matter. They have to climb over too many bones. Finally, Law asks: “Have you ever thought about it?”

Luffy tilts his head. “About what?”

“What you would want.” His eyes come back to Luffy’s face then, sharp and unreadable beneath the shadow of his hat. “In a partner. In a… partnership.”

Luffy blinks. The truth is, he’s thought about lots of things. He’s thought about meat and the sea and adventure. He’s thought about being Pirate King and helping his crew’s dreams. He’s thought about whether clouds taste like anything and whether beetles know how cool they are and how to punch things bigger than him. How to keep his friends smiling. How the One Piece might feel under his hands when he finally finds it.

He hasn’t thought much about being with someone, not like Sanji and Zoro, with kissing under stars and hands at waists and quiet, burning attention. Not like that. Luffy loves easily and completely. He loves with his teeth and his fists and his whole rubber heart; he’s never had much use for sorting love into separate boxes. Crew, friend, ally, brother, mine. Those words matter but they overlap in him like waves, all part of the same endless sea.

“I dunno,” he admits, honest and Law’s expression tightens, the tiniest amount. This time, though, Luffy sees it: the carefulness around Law’s mouth and the way his shoulders go still. The small, almost invisible way he prepares himself, like he’s asked the question while already bracing for the answer to hurt. Law’s clearly thought about this. Law’s clearly thought about it a lot. “Oh. You wanna know for real.”

Law’s mouth presses thin. “I asked, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Luffy frowns. Then, because the truth is suddenly standing right in front of him, shy and sharp and wearing Law’s face, he adds: “But it matters to you.”

Law looks away, jaw clenched and Luffy can’t help but think about what Law said earlier, about someone who sees the worst possible outcome and stays anyway and someone who doesn’t confuse fear with weakness and someone who comes back. About how he’d said he always comes back, because it was true, but Law had looked at him like the truth was a wound.

“Traffy,” Luffy says quietly, and steps a little closer. 

He can be careful when he wants to; his crew has taught him that too. Nami with her maps and scars, Robin with her silences, Chopper with his small hands. Sanji with food set down gently in front of someone who needs it and Zoro with wounds he lets Chopper touch because trust is sometimes staying still.

Luffy can do careful.

For Law, Luffy can do real fucking careful.

“I never thought about it much. Being with somebody.” Law’s face doesn’t change, but something in him goes quieter. Luffy continues, because once he finds the truth, saying it is easy. “I’m gonna be Pirate King and I’ve got my crew and there’s always stuff happening. Islands and fights and food and people crying and bad guys needing punching, so… I didn’t think about… dating?”

Law’s voice is low. “I see.”

“But.” Luffy scratches his cheek, thinking hard. His thoughts are rarely tidy things, is the problem. They don’t line up in neat rows the way Nami’s do; they move like waves and beasts and hunger, crashing into each other and running ahead and doubling back. He makes himself think very carefully about what he wants to say here. “If I did, I’d want someone strong.”

Law still doesn’t look at him. “Of course.”

“Not just fighting strong.” Luffy taps his own chest. “Here, too. Someone who says no to me but still comes with me. Someone smart but not boring-smart. Interesting-smart? Someone who knows things about birds and bodies and islands and plans and gets mad if I don’t always listen… but helps anyway.”

Luffy sees Law’s expression shift like dawn starting.

“Someone who cares about their crew,” he continues, quiet but firm. “A lot. Even when they act like they don’t. Someone who looks scary but is nice to bears.”

Law closes his eyes. “Bepo is not —”

“Someone who saved me,” Luffy cuts in, feeling the air between them shift in a way he’s only heard about in stories. He looks at Law and realises, with a warm, simple wonder, that he’s not describing a made up person. He’s describing a person who came when Luffy called even though he thought it might hurt, who complains and stays and sees the worst possible outcome, calculating every terrible angle of it, and stands there anyway. 

“Oh,” Luffy says again. He knows wanting. He knows hunger and the shape of someone reaching without moving their hands. “You want to be with me.”

Law’s fingers flex once at his side. He looks at Luffy for a long moment before he says, very quietly: “Yes.”

Luffy feels something bloom in his chest, surprise at first, followed by warmth and a pleased, curling excitement that feels a little like seeing an island on the horizon and knowing there’ll be something wonderful there. He grins, slow and bright. “Oh,” he says, for the third time, because sometimes the first two are just practice. “That’s… good.”

Law’s face does something truly complicated. “You understand what I mean?”

Luffy steps closer again. “Yeah.”

Law studies him, searching for something, maybe doubt or confusion or even the wrong kind of ease. Luffy lets him look because it seems important: Law trusts hard evidence only, so Luffy gives him his face and his smile and his stillness, as much honesty as he can fit into one body.

“I don’t know all the rules,” he admits. “About… dating.”

Law lets out a breath that’s nearly a laugh. “That much was clear.”

Luffy’s hand curls around Law’s sleeve first, familiar fabric under his fingers. He tugs, gentle instead of demanding, and rises onto his toes, watching the way Law leans into him before Luffy has to pull any harder. That makes Luffy’s grin soften, even as he presses a kiss to Law’s cheek.

Law looks at him like his entire world’s been rearranged. “Oh. That was…”

“You want another one?” Law’s ears go very slightly pink and Luffy’s eyes widen with delight. “You do!”

“Lower your voice.”

“You do!”

“Straw Hat.”

Luffy grins up at him. “Luffy.”

The jungle seems to hush for a second. Law looks at him, and this time whatever he feels doesn’t disappear fast enough to hide. It stays there in his eyes, startled and raw and almost unbearably fond. “Fine. Luffy.”

It sounds different when he says it, careful and rough, like a word he’s wanted but not let himself touch until now.

Luffy laughs and grabs his hand, pulling him in the direction of their ships because now there’s even more to celebrate and Nami definitely needs to know at least one of his plans worked. Law lets himself be pulled. After a few steps, his fingers shift in Luffy’s grip, settling properly and Luffy’s grin feels enormous.

Behind them, high on the cliff, Sanji and Zoro’s fire begins to glow through the trees like a small, stubborn star. Ahead, the ships wait in the cove, full of light and noise and people Luffy loves.

x

anon: asks for zosan

me: ok but how about lulaw sjdfk sorry beloved i simply cannot control my brain