better late than never?! day 6: fashion for @sanusoweek !!
x
Sanji regrets agreeing to this roughly three minutes after his boots hit the island, not because he doesnât like islands - he does, in the way he likes anything that comes with new produce and the possibility of a decent meal - bur because Usopp has latched onto him with the manic, bright-eyed intensity of a man whoâs made a plan and wonât be be stopped by mortals.
âSanji,â Usopp says, already steering him down the main street like Sanji is a trolley and not a person, âI need clothes.â
Sanji lifts an eyebrow. âYou have clothes.â
Usopp makes a sound of deep personal offense. âI have rags. I have trauma stitched into fabric. I have shirts that have seen things.â
Sanji snorts, adjusting his cuff. The dayâs and the air smells like citrus in the coastal town, made up of white washed buildings, canvas awnings and bright painted signs. Market stalls. Little cafes. The kind of place that sells handmade sandals for too much money and calls it artisan.
Usopp points at a boutique with a glass front and a sign that reads LITTLE HORIZON in curling gold letters.
Sanjiâs foot catches and he stops short. âAbsolutely not.â
Usopp tugs. âAbsolutely yes.â
Sanji squints at the window display, at where linen shirts are arranged like museum pieces and pants draped like theyâve never been sweated through. Thereâs a mannequin in a ridiculous hat that looks like itâs one breeze away from taking flight.
âWeâre pirates,â Sanji sighs. âWe donât shop in places that look like they sell soap in decorative jars.â
Usopp grins. âWeâre pirates. We do what we want and I want to look hot.â
Sanji opens his mouth to insult him and gets derailed by the sheer sincerity of the statement. He clears his throat. âYou already do.â
Usoppâs eyes widen. âReally?â
Sanji regrets everything. âI meant,â he snaps quickly, âYouâre already presentable. Itâs not a crisis.â
Usoppâs grin turns feral. âYouâre nust nervous because this is a fancy shop.â
Sanji scoffs. âIâm nervous because youâre going to pick something horrible and then blame me.â
âExactly!â Usopp chirps, triumphant. âSo you have to come. For quality control.â
Before Sanji can argue again, Usopp pushes open the door and a bell chimes, soft and polite and insulting as they step into cool air that smells like cedar and perfume and something faintly floral. Sunlight pours through the windows in warm stripes; the place is quiet in that careful way, like it expects you to behave.
Sanjiâs spine instinctively straightens. Usopp, of course, immediately picks up a scarf.
âLook at this,â he whispers, reverent. âThis is⊠this is like⊠expensive pirate captain energy.â
Sanji plucks it out of his hands. âThis is like âlost at sea but make it couture.â Put it down.â
The attendant appears like a ghost with excellent posture, a young woman in a crisp vest and immaculate pants with her hair pinned back smile practiced. âPlease let me know if youâd like a fitting room.â
Usopp puffs up, suddenly shy in the way he always gets around people who arenât part of the crew. âUh, yes. We do. I needâŠâ he gestures vaguely at his whole body. âA new me.â
Sanji makes a sound through his nose, amused despite himself. âStart with basics like good fabric and a good fit. The rest is personality.â
Usoppâs head turns. âYouâre taking this seriously.â
Sanji lifts his chin. âSomeone has to save you from yourself.â
Usopp looks delighted. âOh, this is gonna be so fun.â
Sanji rolls his eyes. âYouâre going to try on three shirts and get tired.â
Usoppâs already darting toward a rack of jackets. âWrong. Iâm going to try on everything.â
Sanji learns, ten minutes later, that shopping with Usopp is⊠a lot. Thereâs no pace to it, no dignified progression from rack to rack, no thoughtful consideration of cut or fabric or occasion. Usopp moves through the boutique like a brightly coloured cyclone with a budget he does not personally intend to pay, snatching up shirts on impulse and holding jackets against himself at odd angles, disappearing into the fitting room only to burst back out again before Sanji has even finished critiquing the previous disaster.
The first shirt is catastrophic. Itâs patterned and loud and aggressively tropical, all leaves and impossible little flowers in shades no sober person should ever wear above the age of twelve. Usopp steps out in it with the hopeful swagger of someone fully convinced heâs unearthed a hidden masterpiece.
âAbsolutely not.â
Usopp looks wounded. âWhat? Itâs bold.â
âItâs a tablecloth.â
âItâs not a tablecloth!â
âItâs exactly a tablecloth,â Sanji counters, getting to his feet and circling him with the grave attention of a tailor assessing structural collapse. âA loud one. The kind of tablecloth a mediocre resort puts on its worst terrace tables to distract from bad seafood.â
Usopp looks down at himself and then back up, stubborn. âIt says Iâm adventurous.â
âIt says you lost a fight with a fruit stand.â
Usopp scoffs and tugs at the hem. âYou have no vision.â
âI have vision enough for both of us, clearly.â
They bicker over that shirt for a full three minutes before landing, by some miracle, on a compromise: a darker pattern, still lively enough to satisfy Usoppâs instinct for flair but grounded in richer tones, all burnt rust, deep brown, the sort of palette that makes his skin look warmer instead of swallowed. The minute he changes into it, the whole effect sharpens and Sanji notices at once.
This is the problem with having eyes and taste and a brain built to arrange beauty where he finds it: once he starts looking properly, he sees everything. And what he sees in Usopp now is⊠different.
Itâs not only the shirt, is the thing. Itâs also Usopp himself. It catches Sanji with strange force, because yeah, obviously everyone changed during the time apart. You donât get scattered across hellish little fragments of the world and come back the same shape - Sanji knows this. Heâs seen it in all of them: Luffy with more gravity, Nami harder at the edges in useful ways, Robin somehow quieter and more dangerous all at once. Zoro quieter, sterner.
Usoppâs changed too. Heâs not simply taller and not simply less gangly than he used to be. Thereâs more of him now in ways that have nothing to do with height and everything to do with conviction. The old nervousness hasnât vanished - it lives on in his gestures, in the expressiveness of his face, in the quicksilver energy of him but the body carrying all that energy has settled. Filled in. Thereâs breadth now at the shoulders, real shape through the chest and upper arms, lean muscle where once there had mostly been angles and determination. More than that, thereâs⊠ease.
Thatâs what gets Sanji: Usopp moves like his body believes him now, like somewhere over those two years of fear and invention and impossible survival he made peace with the fact that heâs allowed to take up space. Itâs in the way he stands after stepping out of the fitting room, one hand on the curtain and the other pushing back his sleeve. In the way he rolls his shoulders like heâs testing the shirt and doesnât instinctively hunch smaller while doing it. In the way the clothes stop wearing him and start answering him instead.
Sanji had not, until this exact moment, realised how much he still carried the old shape of Usopp in his mind, the liar with the too-thin wrists and all that fragile East Blue bravado wrapped around a body that hadnât yet caught up to the scale of his own stories.
That boyâs still in there, sure, but heâs not the whole of him anymore.
Usopp ducks back into the fitting room and emerges a minute later in something much simpler: a soft white linen shirt, open just enough at the throat to suggest confidence rather than carelessness. Nothing flashy or trying too hard but the kind of clothing that only works if the person inside it can hold a line without apology.
Sanji looks up and something in his mind misfires, just enough to make the next breath arrive late because the shirt does exactly what a good shirt should do: it clarifies. It strips noise away and lets the body and posture do the talking. The linen catches the light softly. The white throws warmth into Usoppâs skin. The rolled sleeves make his forearms look longer, stronger. The collar leaves the elegant little v of his throat visible and -
Sanji realises, with immediate internal alarm, that heâs staring at Usoppâs collarbone. He drags his gaze back up by force.
Usopp, bless him, only looks a little self conscious as he rubs the back of his neck and says, âIs it⊠too boring?â
Sanjiâs mouth has gone strangely dry which is an outlandish reaction, entirely bloody disproportionate. Heâd like to file a complaint with his own nervous system, actually.
âItâs clean,â he says finally, aiming for some kind of professionalism and hitting something a touch too careful. âClassic. Good fit. You lookâŠâ He finds the simplest true word and says it with a little more force than necessary. âGood.â
Usoppâs smile blooms, warm and bright unguarded. âYeah?â
And there it is again, that small, odd, deeply inconvenient rush in Sanjiâs chest, the stupid little satisfaction of having said the right thing and watched it land exactly where intended. Of seeing Usoppâs face light up because of something Sanji noticed and named correctly.
Usopp turns a little, checking himself in the mirror from one angle and then another. âOkay. Okay! Maybe I can be a fashion guy.â
Sanji, grateful for the return of banter because sincerity was beginning to feel a little too prickly, snorts and folds his arms. âDonât get cocky.â
Usoppâs eyes flick to him in the mirror, sharpening at once with mischief. âSays the man who used to wear a shirt with a live swan on it.â
Sanji freezes and the silence that follows is the silence of a man seeing murder as a clean and practical option. âIt wasnâf a swan!â
Usopp turns, delighted already. âIt was absolutely a swan.â
âIt was a crane,â Sanji retorts, scandalised down to the bones. âAnd it was a statement.â
Usopp laughs so hard he has to catch the fitting room curtain with one hand to keep from folding in half. The sound of it bounces bright off the cedar walls and polished floorboards, irreverent and impossible not to answer with at least a little warmth. âA statement of what, exactly? That youâll fight a yonko in a bird-themed blouse?â
Sanji points at him with the full, righteous outrage of an artist whose work has been misunderstood by philistines. âYou watch your mouth.â
Usopp wipes under one eye, still laughing. âYouâve made some real interesting choices, Sanji.â
Sanji draws himself up. âMy choices are impeccable.â
Usopp lets his gaze travel over him with theatrical care, all of Sanjiâs lifelong devotion to sharp lines and deliberate elegance made flesh. âYour taste is impeccable! Your execution is sometimesâŠâ
Sanji narrows his eyes. âFinish that sentence and die.â
Usopp grins. âDramatic.â
Sanjiâs mouth twitches despite himself. âIâm a dramatic man.â
âYou are,â Usopp agrees and he says it with affection so plain and easy that Sanji feels the word - fond - settle somewhere he does not usually allow things to settle.
He looks away first, pretending interest in a rack of folded pants because his chest has gone way too full in a direction he doesnât want to look at too closely right now. âTry the blue ones. Youâve got enough earth tones now.â
Usopp beams like heâs been handed a medal. âOh, weâre building a wardrobe.â
Sanji sighs through his nose, already doomed. âApparently.â
Usopp complains theatrically at the rest of Sanjiâs suggestions, obeys anyway, then reappears grinning like a man playing dress-up with the one audience whose reaction actually matters.
That, Sanji thinks later, may have been where the trouble truly started, in the fact that Usopp cares what he thinks. Which is bizarre, frankly, because plenty of people care what Sanji thinks when he knows what heâs talking about. Food, knives, fabric, weather, women, flowers, wine, presentation⊠heâs spent his life cultivating taste because taste is one of the few forms of control the world canât easily beat out of a person once it takes root. Itâs not like itâs new to be consulted but what is new is the way Usopp watches him while he speaks, with the easy, unguarded trust of someone willing to put himself in someone elseâs hands for an hour and see what shape they make of him.
Sanji hadnât known that could feel intimate.
Now, standing in this little boutique with folded linen and sunlight striping the polished floorboards, heâs beginning to suspect almost anything can. A fitted vest makes Usopp look like he belongs in a saloon in the middle of some lawless town, cards hidden in one pocket and at least three lies behind his smile. A dark jacket with narrow lapels gives him the improbable air of some action novel hero, sharp and windblown, one good speech away from an explosion. A pair of pants sits lower on his hips than the others and Sanji has to drag his gaze back up so quickly it feels like physically yanking something on a leash.
No. Absolutely not.
He cannot be standing in a boutique at two in the afternoon having thoughts about Usoppâs hips and his mind, traitorous and efficient, tries at once to rationalise the whole thing, tries to remind himself that heâs liking this for mechanical reasons, but itâs not the whole truth. Because yeah, heâs observant and he notices details. He can tell from a distance whether a sleeveâs been cut on the wrong grain or whether a seam will pull badly under real use. Thatâs real. Thatâs skill. Itâs just⊠not the reason his chest has gone strangely light every time Usopp steps out in something that fits him well and looks delighted by Sanjiâs approval.
The truth is more embarrassing and softer: Usopp keeps looking at him like Sanji can be trusted with this. Like Sanjiâs eyeâs sharp enough to help and kind enough not to make a joke out of the helping, like he can stand there in half-buttoned shirts and let himself be seen without expecting cruelty for it. Thatâs the part Sanji didnât expect to move him; not the clothes or even the beauty of seeing someone sharpen into their own lines but the trust. The lack of armour.
The realisation that heâs genuinely enjoying himself lands so suddenly it almost startles him. Not only because heâs right, though he generally is, and not only because Usoppâs taste, while chaotic, is redeemable with supervision. Not even because the boutique itself is pleasant in that expensive, carefully curated way that offends Sanji morally but satisfies him aesthetically. More than that, heâs enjoying being with Usopp like this, enjoying the back-and-forth, enjoying being useful in a way that has nothing to do with cooking or feeding people until they soften around the edges enough to call it love. It catches him so off guard he has to turn away under pretence of checking a rack of shirts just to regroup and Usopp steps out in a moss green shirt and Sanjiâs regrouping is rendered immediately useless.
The colourâs rich without being loud, deep enough to throw heat into Usoppâs skin and make the gold-brown undercurrent in it come alive. The cut is good, all clean through the body and broad enough at the shoulders but neat at the waist. The fabric sits lightly over muscle that didnât used to be there in this way, or at least not with this quiet certainty. The collar sits a touch uneven against the line of his neck, one side folded in just enough to ruin the whole effect.
Sanji frowns before he can stop himself. âHold still.â
Usopp blinks. âWhat?â
But Sanjiâs already moving. Thereâs no thought in it, only instinct, one step, then another and heâs in Usoppâs space with both hands lifting to the open throat of the shirt. He pinches the fabric lightly between finger and thumb, drawing one side straight to smooth the seam down flat. The shirtâs cool from the shop air but Usoppâs skin under it is not. Thatâs the first immediate, useless thing Sanji notices: a simple living warmth at the base of the throat and along the collarbone where the linen falls open.
The second thing is that Usopp goes completely still, the kind of full-bodied stillness that happens when someone has become suddenly and acutely aware of proximity and no longer trusts himself to move inside it without making the moment worse. Sanji feels it in the pause of Usoppâs breathing, in the held line of his shoulders, in the way the easy chatter goes out of the room all at once, leaving only the little sounds that were there before and beneath it: the rustle of fabric under Sanjiâs fingers, the faint creak of the floorboards when one of them shifts weight, the murmur of the shop attendant helping someone near the front.
His own awareness sharpens in answer, climbing him slowly, like heat up the spine, like some careful blue flame finding its way through kindling. His fingers linger just a fraction too long at the collar where they should be, smoothing the linen flat, at the edge of Usoppâs collarbone The touch is nothing but the pause afterward isnât.
Usoppâs eyes drop, not to his hands but to his mouth and the moment that lands, the whole thing changes.
oh, Sanji thinks, not in words exactly but more in the bodily shape of realisation. A shift under the ribs. A sudden dangerous awareness of the line from one thing to another, the way this has become something else. Something thinner in the air, like the roomâs been emptied of enough oxygen that both of them are now breathing too carefully.
Sanjiâs hand slides down before he can stop it in a smoothing motion, palm flattening over the front of the shirt to settle the fabric where it catches except the shirt doesnât need smoothing anymore and Usoppâs heart is beating hard enough under Sanjiâs hand that the lie collapses on contact. Sanji can feel the fast, live hammer of it through linen and skin and bone and the way his own pulse answers instantly, traitorous and wild and for one suspended beat they just stand there, too close and too quiet.
Sanji can smell cedar from the shelves and the faint clean soap on Usoppâs skin under the long day. He can see, with terrible clarity, the exact shape of Usoppâs mouth when he forgets to smile. The small pulse in his throat. The way his lashes cast a shadow and Sanji understands, with the full certainty of someone looking over the edge just before his footing goes, that if he leaned in now, Usopp wouldnât stop him. The realisationâs so clear it might as well be physical. He could close the tiny strip of air between them, could feel what that mouth tastes like. Could put one hand behind Usoppâs neck and tilt him just slightly and Usopp, standing there with his breathing gone careful and his gaze fixed on Sanjiâs mouth like itâs become the centre of the room, would let him because he wants to.
Sanji sees the kiss before it happens, feels it gathering, the tiny unconscious lean in both their bodies, the way the room seems to contract around the line between their mouths. The way his own hand on Usoppâs chest has stopped pretending to smooth fabric and has simply stayed, open and warm and traitorously pleased by the fast rhythm under his palm. Heâs going to do it, thatâs the whole terrifying truth. Not maybe and not almost: heâs going to lean in and kiss Usopp in a boutique full of linen and cedar and soft afternoon light and some stunned stupid part of him has already accepted this as not only possible but inevitable.
Then -
âAhem.â
The sound cracks through the moment like a dropped tray.
The shop attendant has materialised at their side with the uncanny timing of a polite ghost. She smiles brightly, professionally, with absolutely no sign that she has noticed anything and every sign that she has noticed everything. âExcuse me. Would you like me to ring those up or would you like to see our accessory section?â
Usopp jerks back so hard he nearly trips over the hem of a discarded pair of pants and Sanjiâs hand snaps to his own side with such speed the skin of his palm feels cold where Usoppâs heartbeat used to be. Heat floods his face, not just a blush but a full-bodied riot, the sort of temperature spike that ought to set off Marine alarms.
âUh,â Usopp squeaks before he clears his throat and, somehow worse, says: âAccessories! Yeah. Accessories.â
Sanji would like to die.
The attendant, perfectly composed, nods like this is a deeply ordinary request from two men who definitely did not just stand in the middle of her boutique one breath from kissing. âOf course,â she smiles and glides away.
Silence rushes in behind her and Usopp looks up at the ceiling like he might find a god there.
Sanji stares at a rack of belts like itâs personally betrayed him, mind ringing with the sole coherent thought that he was going to kiss Usopp. Worse, Usopp was going to let him and the second thought lands deeper, meaner. Not because it frightens him but because it doesnât and beneath the shock and mortification and wild internal scrambling there is a bright, shameful thread of something like joy.
Usopp glances sideways at him, cheeks are flushed and mouth softer than it was ten minutes ago. His eyes are bright with the same stunned disbelief Sanji can feel in his own bones but under that disbelief thereâs something warmer. âSo,â he says, the casualness of it such an obvious lie that Sanji almost loves him for trying. âUh. Do I⊠need a belt?â
Sanjiâs laugh comes out strangled. âYou need to stop talking.â
Usoppâs mouth quirks. âThat bad, huh?â
Sanji drags a hand through his hair, the sudden craving for a cigarette arriving so fast it feels like a headache. âIâm gonna throw myself into the sea.â
Usopp laughs quietly, face still flushed. âAfter we pay.â
Sanji points at him without looking because actual eye contact at this stage may kill him. âDonât get smug.â
Usoppâs grin goes small and helpless and delighted all at once. âIâm not smug. Iâm justâŠâ
Whatever he was about to say is already there in his face: happy and pleased and a little dazed and Sanji, who can handle bravado and banter and dramatics all day long, has no fucking idea what to do with simple gladness. His throat tightens and he looks away because motionâs safer than thought, and thought is infinitely safer than whatever happened in the middle of that green shirt.
âPick a jacket,â he says, voice a little rougher than he means it to be. âYou need one that doesnât make you look like a circus tent.â
Usopp lights up again instantly, changing with beautiful, reckless speed. âYes, chef.â
Sanji scowls on reflex. âDonât call me that.â
Usopp laughs, already halfway to the racks again, and Sanji follows because followingâs easier than standing still with the ghost of another manâs heartbeat still alive in his palm.
He tells himself, as they sort through jackets and argue over lapels, that it was nothing. A moment, a misfire, an unfortunate collision of good lighting and nice fabric and and his own overdeveloped sense of aesthetics.
But the warmth in his chest doesnât go away. It stays there, stubborn and glowing, all through the rest of the fitting and the choosing and the final armful of purchases and when Usopp holds up two jackets and asks: âWhich one makes me look cooler?â
Sanji answers too quickly, too honestly: âBoth,â and then has to pretend the heat in his face comes from the shopâs lighting, which is absurd because the light in hereâs cool and lovely and absolutely not to blame.
The worst part isnât that he almost kissed Usopp - the worst part is that some treacherous, newly awakened corner of him is already thinking about how easy it would be to fix that collar again.
How simple it would be to step into his space one more time. How next time - if there is a next time - he might not stop with his hand on Usoppâs chest and his mouth a few centimetres away from trouble.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Qualityâ Free Actions
Free to watch âą No registration required âą HD streaming
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
đ locked for non ao3 users but got permission from the author
Title; Presumed Dead
Written by: inkinmyheartandonthepage
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Catagories: m/m
Relationships: Buck/Eddie
Tags: Athena Grant and Bobby Nash are Evan Buckley's and Maddie Buckley's Parents, Hurt Evan Buckley, Evan Buckley Needs A Hug, Confused Evan Buckley, Irritated Evan Buckley, Pre-relationship Evan Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Evan Buckley Whump, Evan Buckley Loves Eddie Diaz, Evan Buckley Deserves Better, Worried Fire Fam, Worried Eddie Diaz, Protective Eddie Diaz, Comforting Eddie Diaz, Emotional Eddie Diaz, Eddie Diaz Loves Evan Buckley, Eddie Diaz Needs A Hug, Relieved Eddie Diaz, Firehouse 118 Crew as Family, Worried Firehouse 118 Crew, Firehouse 118 Family Feels, Protective Firehouse 118 Crew, Protective Athena Grant, Athena Grant Acting as Evan Buckley's Parental Figure, Worried Athena Grant, Minor Athena Grant/Bobby Nash, BAMF Athena Grant, Worried Bobby Nash, Bobby Nash Acting as Evan Buckley's Parental Figure, Protective Bobby Nash, Worried Howie 'Chimney' Han, Worried Henrietta 'Hen' Wilson, Presumed Dead, only the bad guy dies, Evan Buckley's Jeep is Stolen, Theft, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Family Feels, Evan 'Buck' Buckley Lives, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, The Universe Does Scream, Buddie
Words: 4,439
Summary:
The fresh air was supposed to have been good for Buck. A small hike that he had done a million times. A nice hike that gave him a workout and at the same time allowed him to sift through his thoughts and feelings and to focus on what he really wanted.
Instead, heâs stuck in the middle of nowhere at a rest stop watching some asshole drive away in his jeep.
OR
The 118 crew arrive a fender bender only to find it's Buck's jeep on fire and the body inside dead and burning.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
đ locked to non ao3 users but got permission to share from the author
Title: High On You
Written by: prettyboybuckley
Rated: E
Catagories: m/m
Warnings: creator chose not to use
Relationships: Buck/Eddie
Tags: Shotgunning, Recreational Drug Use, Underage Drug Use, Buck is 18 Eddie is 22, Age Difference, Best friend's brother, Crushes, Weed, Making Out, Frottage, Hand Jobs, for like a second, Rutting, Laughter During Sex, Alternate-Universe, Pining, First Kiss, sex while high
Words: 4,827
Summary:
Summary:
"Sophia know you're out here?" Eddie asks after they've passed the joint back and forth for a bit.
It takes a few seconds for Buck to get out of his head, too focused on how soft Eddie's shirt looks and how it hugs his biceps so nicely. He looks all cozy and Buck wants to cuddle him. And maybe also lick him, a little.
OR: Buck has a giant crush on his best friend's brother. When he's alone at the house with Eddie, things take an unexpected turn. There might be weed involved
My notes: Possibly my favorite AU universe of all time (the sequel, which will be next in my queue is my favorite AU in general)