do you ever wonder why we're here

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.

Sanji freezes. The music keeps going and the guy blinks once, slowly, like he’s just remembered he has a face. His cheeks are flushed, colour creeping up from the collar of his soaked shirt and Sanji, who doesn’t know what the fuck else to say, snaps: “What the hell.”

The guy’s voice comes out rough, like it’s had to fight past something. “Sorry! You were just…” His gaze does one quick sweep before he apparently catches himself and yoinks his attention to the far wall. The flush deepens drastically. “Moving.”

Sanji stares at him, before a snort tumbles out of him. He reaches over to turn the music down. “Wow, what a poet. You got a name?”

“Zoro.” His jacket’s clearly drenched, shoulders glossy and dark and the shirt underneath’s gone heavy and clingy, outlining the broad line of his collarbones and the hard slope of muscle beneath in a way Sanji absolutely refuses to notice because he’s a fucking professional.

Sanji sets the tea towel down on the bench. “Right, and what are you doing back here then… Zoro?”

The poor guy looks relieved to have a practical question to answer. “The order was wrong and the app made me circle half the suburb then the customer was yelling and then I figured you were probably closed but I thought maybe if I come back anyway…” He trails off, glancing towards the empty pickup shelf like it’s going to miraculously offer backup. “I dunno. Redo it?”

Sanji stares at him again, just kind of lost because he almost would’ve preferred it if Zoro was rude about it. He knows how to handle rudeness. This soggy, awkward, unexpectedly conscientious appearance is much harder to kick, apparently. His stupid soft heart — the terminal condition he’s been trying to manage since he was a kid — chooses this exact moment to rear up and ruin everything. He exhales through his nose sharply. “You rode back in this weather.”

“Yeah.”

“To see if I could remake the food.”

“Yeah.”

Sanji wants very, very badly to remain annoyed but, as usual, his heart has other plans. He sighs. “Take the bag off before it drowns.”

Zoro shrugs the huge delivery bag onto the floor by the door, water immediately puddling beneath it in a dark circle. Sanji goes back and finds the ticket printout, matching it the other man’s app, and gets started because it’s just steak frites, really. Annoying, but simple.

“You don’t… have to,” Zoro says from behind him, kind of awkwardly and also kind of a little too late considering Sanji’s literally firing up the grill.

Sanji glances over his shoulder, tongs already in hand like some kind of weapon. “And let some poor asshole starve?”

Zoro leans against the door frame, still dripping on everything. He gives him a look that’s partly baffled and partly something warmer, something that makes the flush on his face look less like coming in from the rain and more like he’s been caught thinking things he shouldn’t. “Right. You care a lot, then.”

“About food?” Sanji snaps the tongs at him, flashing him a smirk. “No shit.”

Zoro’s mouth dips dangerously close to a smile and then he says, far too sincerely for someone create some kind of indoor lake on Sanji’s floor: “S’good.”

And Sanji has no fucking idea what to do with that except invent a nice, practical reason to fuss so while his pan heats up he starts trying to find a clean towel. He directs Zoro onto the nearest stool, until his long legs are sticking out at awkward angles and pegs are towel that Zoro catches one-handed without looking, which is… something, surely. He rubs the towel over his hair until it sticks up in wetted spikes.

Once Sanji actually starts cooking, the kitchen takes over. Steak his the pan with a satisfying hiss, butter foaming up golden around the edges. He works fast but without rush, crisping potatoes and flashing greens in hot oil and garlic until they’re bright. He corrects the sauce with a taste and feels Zoro watching him the whole time, enough that the back of his neck stays warm and that everytime he reaches for something he’s aware of the movement in a way he wasn't ten minutes ago. He keeps his own gaze locked on his work but every now and then he catches Zoro in the reflection of the fridge door or the steel hood, leaning forward with the towel draped around his neck, eyes tracking the motion of Sanji’s hands .

It’s different to being watched on the floor — this feels too much like the storm has shrunk the world down to this kitchen only, and the two of them in it.

Zoro clears his throat after a while. “You, uh. Flip? Fast.”

Sanji doesn’t look up, but he can feel the way his mouth folds into something. “Gets better crust that way. You leave it too long on one side and it’ll steam instead of searing.”

“Crust, right. And that’s… that’s good?”

Sanji shakes his head, fighting the urge to roll his eyes because it’s almost endearing, really. “Yeah, seaweed-head. That’s good.”

“Right, yeah. You… always cook this late or just when people mess up orders?”

Sanji scoffs, slicing the steak down after it’s rested adequately. He puts everything together in the box carefully, like he’s arranging a plate. “Only when delivery guys bring vegan pasta to the people who ordered steak frites. You plan to take this one to the right address or do I need to draw you a map and a little cartoon of the customer’s face so you don’t forget it again?”

Zoro takes the box with one hands, like it might explode, pulling the order up on his phone in the other. His face falls so immediately Sanji has half a mind to check if the poor customer died. “Oh. They cancelled.”

“What d’you —”

“They already refunded the customer.” He scratches the back of his neck, sheepish and frustrated all bundled up in one thunderous expression. “I guess I could still take it?”

Sanji closes his eyes and counts to three in his head, genuinely. He thinks about killing Zoro here and now, and then thinks about how annoying it’d be to drag the other man’s not unimpressive body all the way to the deep freezer and how pissed off Zeff would be about wasting valuable freezer space, and sighs. “Congrats on bringing me full circle from pissed to pitying, really. That’s impressive.”

Zoro’s mouth twitches. “You always like this after midnight?”

Sanji gives him a long, flat look. “You always this bad at flirting?”

Zoro blinks at him, ears plunging into a red so visible it’s almost comical. “I wasn’t — I mean. I was trying.” Sanji stares at him again before, against better judgment, he laughs, short and bright and helpless. Zoro’s expression shifts from embarrassed to defensive, but it doesn’t shut down. “That bad?”

Sanji purses his lips, considering him with exaggerated seriousness. “Honestly? Like watching a baby horse trying to use chopsticks. But you get points for effort. And for the cooking questions, very subtle.”

There’s something almost boyish in the flash of surprise that crosses Zoro’s face, oddly charming as it is, and he makes a show of looking at the window. “So. Storm’s still… I should probably wait it out. A bit.”

“No, really? Was the apocalypse outside not enough of a clue?”

Zoro ignores the dig with admirable calm. “Sorry for throwing out your… closing up or whatever.”

Sanji waves it off with the spoon he’s trekking to the sink. “Quit apologising so much, it’s ugly on you.”

“What… what looks good on me, then?”

It’s awful and clumsy and unpracticed, but it lands in Sanji’s stomach like a match lit and then tossed somewhere stupid and flammable. He turns away fast, finding plates to hide the heat that wants to crawl up his neck. “Silence. Silence looks good on you.”

Zoro laughs, quiet and surprised into it, and it does a funny, dangerous thing to the room. Sanji busies himself plating the food because there’s no universe in which he makes steak frites at this hour and eats none of them himself. He adds extra fries t one plate and more greens to the other out of habit, then swaps them because he realises he has no idea what Zoro likes besides apparently a determination to return to the scene of his own delivery crimes. “C’mon. If you’re waiting out the storm you might as well be useful and tell me if I need more pepper in this sauce.”

The storm drums on outside like it’s trying to make a point and Sanji directs Zoro to the staff table by the pastry fridge, sliding a plate across. Zoro looks at the food like it might just vanish if he thinks wrong. “You’re feeding me.”

“Oh, I’m feeding myself. You just happen to be in the blast radius.” He watches Zoro’s face as the other man takes a bite, unable to help it.

Zoro chews it slowly, carefully. “That’s… really good.”

“Obviously.” He feels stupidly pleased all the same, the way he always is, but made worse by the sheer openness on the face before him. The room settles around them, around the scrape of forks agahinst plates and the steady hiss of rain against the windows, chased by the occassional low grumble of thunder. Sanji stretches his leg out under the table, bumping their ankles together and smiling a little at the way Zoro’s ears go red again.

The conversation that follows should be awkward, maybe, but a strange kind of ease settles in. Zoro tells Sanji about the motorbike outside, that he’s had to patch up three times because the left indicator keeps dying and in return Sanji tells him about Zeff throwing a whole fish at Patty for overcooking rice a few weeks back. Zoro shrugs and says it seems reasonable and Sanji grins, shark-like.

At some point, Zoro clears his throat and moves a bean across the plate a truly glacial speed. “So. The… dancing thing.”

Sanji nearly chokes on a fry. “Yeah, nah.”

“I didn’t even anything. I was just going to ask… what it was.”

“Music, believe it or not.” At Zoro’s expression he sighs. “Samba.”

Zoro glances towards the prep station, where Sanji’s phone sits, still playing quietly. “You do that a lot?”

“When I’m alone.”

He nods slowly, like he’s trying to figure out how to actually put the next words down without embarrassing the both of them. There’s a sharp inhale and then he blurts, almost too fast: “Looked good.”

Sanji may or may not set the glass down a little too hard. There’s a small splash, maybe. Who can say. “You’re — what?”

Zoro leans back in his chair, looking infuriatingly relaxed now that he’s dry and fed and has apparently survived complimenting someone. “You said I was flirting bad. Maybe I’m improving.”

“Oh my god.” Sanji buries his face in his hands and, honestly, it’s hard to tell if he’s doing it so that Zoro doesn’t see the unexpected blush that thatches across his face, or if he’s doing it to keep his hands from reaching out and choking the other man then and there. He doesn’t know what else to do with all this, so he sets to cleaning, stacking plates and wiping benches and jotting notes about the sauce after all. He steals some fries off Zoro’s plate and gets his hand smacked lightly with a fork for it.

“I just fed you!”

“S’my plate now.”

Sanji flicks him across the ear and dumps all the dishes in the sink. “You’ve got nerve.”

“Yeah? You like that, too?”

It is, truly, an effort to keep his hands in the sink and not, say, fisting into Zoro’s shirt to pull him closer. He huffs and lets his phone start up again, music sliding in with velvet rhythm and rolling percussion. Zoro’s silent for a few tracks, before he clears his throat deliberately. “That one, too?”

Sanji hums and wipes his hands on the tea towel, leaning back against the sink to eye him. “You taking requests now?”

“Maybe.” The look Zoro gives him should not do anything to him, but unfortunately it does several things so Sanji retaliates by turning the volume up.

He hesitates just briefly, before committing because god knows the night is already stupid enough to permit one more bad idea. “You dance?”

“Not if I can help it.”

Sanji laughs softly and shakes his head, partly at the awkward tone and partly at the way Zoro’s grin is sitting on his face, easy and casual and real.

The thunder rolls further off, noticed with an unwelcome pang even though Sanji knows, realistically, that it can’t storm forever and that Zoro’s going to have to leave. He looks at the drying plates and the wet jacket hanging over the back of a chair and thinks, with awful clarity, that he’s going to remember this night for longer than he should and, worse, that he wouldn’t even mind if it happened again.

Zoro follows his gaze to the windows. “Looks better.” There’s a longer pause this time, before his voice comes again, awkward. “I could… come by again. Sometime. For food and whatever.”

Sanji’s heart gives a silly little thud, even as he stares. “For food. And whatever.”

“And whatever.” The smile on Zoro’s face turns small, quiet. Shy, maybe. He shucks his jacket back on, grimacing at how damp it still is. “Thanks for the steak.”

Sanji worries at his bottom lip for a second, before the recklessness gets the better of him., “Next time don’t wait until I’m closed.”

Zoro stills, glancing sharply at him, the surprise flickering into something warmer. Something that looks suspiciously like hope. “Yeah, alright.”

He heads for the back door but pauses at the threshold, just enough. His face has shifted into a disastrous pink. “You looked really good dancing.” Then he opens the door and disappears into the rain soft night before Sanji can throw anything at him, leaving Sanji standing there with his pulse beating high in his throat, wondering what the hell that was.

He’s barely had time to drag himself back to the menu when the door bangs open again, Zoro coming through like he never left, rain still clinging to his hair. He looks like he spent the entire ten seconds outside arguing with himself before losing, spectacularly. He rubs his nose, not quite meeting Sanji’s eyes. “Could you teach me. Like. Show me how. The samba thing.”

Sanji just fucking stares at him. The request hits a little harder than it should because he’s not a kid, he’s not an idiot: he knows this probably isn’t about dancing. The implication lands low and warm in his stomach, heat taking over his face before he can stop it. All he can hope is that the kitchen lights hide it.

“We can’t dance here,” he manages, gesturing at the spotless kitchen. “I just cleaned everything. This is a professional kitchen, not a —”

“I live, like, ten minutes away,” Zoro blurts, words tumbling out in a rush. His ears go even redder; he looks mortified and hopeful all at the same time, like he can’t believe he said it aloud but also can’t take it back now.

Sanji feels the flush deepen. He swallows, fighting the smile that wants to take over his entire face. “For dancing. And whatever.”

Zoro’s head lifts, relief flashing so open and unguarded that Sanji almost laughs again. Hope looks stupidly good on him. “And whatever.”

“C’mon.” Sanji grabs his own jacket, pausing only to turn the lights off. Zeff can deal with the menu tomorrow. “But if you step on my feet I’m kicking you out of your own apartment.”

The smile that hits Zoro’s face is the exact kind that does something complicated to Sanji’s stomach. He leads Sanji outside, to where the rain’s softened to a light drizzle, the air cool and clean. His motorbike’s still where he left it, glistening wet under the streetlights and he looks between them like he’s trying to figure out the logistics.

Sanji raises his eyebrows. “Ten minutes, right?”

“Eight, if you’re good.” He swings a leg over, waiting for Sanji to climb on. The seat’s cold and damp through his pants and Sanji hesitates properly for a second, before resting his hands on Zoro’s waist, solid and warm even through the thick jacket. The contact feels louder than it should, Zoro freezing for longer than he should.

Then he starts the bike and Sanji shifts closer, hands settling more firmly. The rain mist is cool on his face and he can’t stop staring at a tiny, wet curl of hair on the back of Zoro’s neck. As they pull away from the restaurant the city lights smear soft through the drizzle and all Sanji can think about is how ten minutes has never felt so short and so long at the same time.

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