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I know I messed up and it might be over, but let me call you when I’m sober.
I’m a dandelion, you’re a four-leaf clover, but let me call you when I’m sober.
Sanji Black wakes up with the most massive hangover in the history of mankind. And he has had his fair share of hangovers, not that he’s proud of it, it just seems to be how his life is going. It’s what you get when you like wine and live with two raging alcoholics.
It’s too early. Too damn early to be alive and hungover. Sanji would have stayed in bed if he hadn’t known from experience that his survival depends solely on water and aspirin right now.
He stumbles out of bed, clutching his head, trying to remember exactly what he drank for it to get this bad. Come to think of it, he can’t remember much of yesterday at all, which is alarming. Staring at himself in the mirror with a dissatisfied frown, studying a bruise around his left eye he suddenly sees a flash from the day before, or night maybe, either way, Zoro is smiling and laughing and the whole thing is disturbing. Zoro doesn’t smile a lot. He looks radiant and alive, swinging a bottle of …whiskey? Maybe, and did Sanji mention that he’s laughing?
What? What the hell did they do?
Sanji frowns harder and glares at his reflection, in all its bruised glory. He promised himself he wouldn’t drink with Zoro anymore. It’s practically suicide by alcohol poisoning to just think about it. Besides, he and Zoro barely get along on the best days, and they always end up fighting when they’re drunk.
Doesn’t help that he’s so fucking pretty, either. Or, well, pretty might not be the word. Zoro has green unruly hair that he doesn’t do anything with except make Perona cut it every month. For practicality . He’s tan and covered in scars from fencing and fighting and generally being an aggressive asshole, picking fights with scary people that anyone else would run away from. He works out so much and to such excessive lengths that it most likely does more damage than good, and he is just generally a quiet and stoic person.
But he’s also got cheekbones cut by Jesus Christ personally, could likely lift a ton and also has unlikely straight and white teeth. And when he does smile… It’s almost worth all the other shit Sanji has to put up with from him, because he just lights up and looks like a real human being for once. And for the two and a half years he, Zoro and Luffy have lived together, he still doesn’t know if Zoro is straight or not. It’s so goddamn draining.
His head hurts. And he keeps seeing flashes of the day before, he and Zoro running through a dodgy alley, sprinting for their lives while Zoro has that manic look in his eyes.
He sees Zoro at the counter of some bar, ordering a “spooky candelabra fruity-thing” while keeping a totally straight face even though that is obviously not what the drink is called.
He sees Zoro staring him dead in the eye, his eyes alight with pure fire, and then recalls the sharp pain of a fist to the face. He lifts his own hand to feel the bruise on his cheek and wonders what the hell is going on.
Downstairs there is no sign of anyone. Sanji walks to the kitchen almost on autopilot, and makes himself a simple omelet while he searches his brain for more information. It just keeps getting stranger and stranger as he remembers more.
He sees himself sitting opposite Zoro on what looks like Zoro’s bed, playing some kind of drinking game, laughing so hard there are tears in his eyes. Then Zoro, after taking a swig of the bottle next to him, looks at him very seriously. “I think I like you.”
Sanji snaps back to the present and jolts so hard that the entire omelet flips out of the pan and into the kitchen sink, making a huge mess along the way. His mind keeps playing it over and over on repeat, Zoro’s intense golden eyes and “I think I like you”.
He stands there like a mannequin and contemplates the quickest way to die, right there and then. What the hell happened, and what did he say afterward? He has a bad feeling about it, and he knows he needs to talk to Zoro to find out- anything, at this point. But the entire house is quiet, uncharacteristically so since it’s noon. Even Luffy should be up now.
Luffy! He has something to do with this, he knows it, and Luffy is a lot less intimidating than the other option. Sanji grabs a gallon of milk from the fridge, in case he needs to pour it on Luffy to wake him up, because there simply isn’t time to get water from the omelet covered sink.
Luffy’s room is the first one on the second floor from the stairs. Sanji doesn’t bother knocking because like Zoro, in all the time he’s lived here, he has never seen either one of them bring someone home for the night. And thank God for that, because the walls are pretty fucking thin.
“Luffy!” Sanji shouts, going straight for the lump on the bed. “Luffy, wake up God damn it, this is important, wake up!”
A bush of black hair pokes out of the lump and Sanji holds the milk up for him to see. “I will pour this in your bed, don’t test me, you miscreant.”
“What the hell Sanji,” Luffy yawns, glaring at him with one eye. He sounds terrible. “What did I do? Did you just call me a mistletoe?”
Sanji sits down on the bed and partly on Luffy, who groans.
“I don’t know what you did last night,” he starts. “But I do know it’s something. So, get up.”
After a few minutes, Luffy manages to collect his limbs and sit up, making Sanji get him some clothes off the floor. He looks expectantly at Sanji. “So?”
“So, run me through last night,” Sanji says, impatiently, again hearing Zoro’s low voice saying “I think I like you” in his head for the nine-millionth time since he was downstairs. It still makes him shiver.
“Last night?” Luffy yawns. “Well, I got home and took off my shoes, then my jacket-“
“Just the highlights,” Sanji groans.
“ Fine. I got home and you were watching TV, some cooking show, and I said “let’s watch this BBC alien documentary!” and you said “fine” and Zoro came and watched with us.”
Sanji remembers that part, nothing unusual about that. “Okay? And then what.”
“Then I said “hey I got some shady stuff from a guy I know, wanna try it out?” and you both said no.”
Luffy smiles absently, and then his eyes fly open. “Wait, did you do a bunch of weird shit last night?”
“Yeah,” Sanji says, a bit annoyed, because Luffy is so fucking slow all the time .
“That’s why I’m asking, because I can’t remember why. Do you know something?”
Luffy looks extremely guilty. “Eh- I might have left a bottle on the table that was empty when I got back home a few hours ago. It’s a drug mixed with alcohol, and I think you and Zoro might have drunk it all…”
Sanji smacks his hand on his forehead and immediately regrets it from the pulsating pain in his skull. “You what?”
Luffy shrinks. “Maybe you thought it looked like absinthe, or mixer. I don’t know, all I know is you two didn’t want to try it out, but later the entire thing was empty, and you’re not supposed to have that much on just two people. I think.”
Sanji’s heart falls a bit. If Zoro was under the influence of some weird drug Luffy got from a dodgy guy then maybe he didn’t mean it, and could have said anything. He did say “spooky fruity candelabra” and Sanji had never thought he would hear that coming out of Zoro’s mouth. It probably didn’t mean anything, and Zoro doesn’t like him, and everything in the world can die right now for all he cares.
“Sanji?”
“What,” Sanji says, his voice as dead as he feels, both physically and mentally. Luffy looks concerned.
“Have you seen Zoro? I mean after last night?”
He hasn’t. And if only Sanji could piece the night together maybe he could make some sense of this all.
“He’s not here?”
Luffy shakes his head. “No. He left with a bag. Stormed right past me.”
Oh, fuck.
Roronoa Zoro wakes up on a trash bag in pouring rain. That is his first observation, and the second one is that he feels like he got run over by a semi-truck. His head seems like it might fall off any second, and he can already make out a bruise right across his nose, around his eye, and on his brow. He’s in an alley that smells of garbage and rat poison, he’s still dry because he slept by a dumpster, and he has no fucking idea how he ended up here or where exactly this is.
He does vaguely remember it having something to do with Sanji. And he might be pissed at him, but he can’t remember why. Well, that’s nothing unusual, Zoro guesses. He’s pissed at Sanji half the time anyway, for one stupid reason or another.
He manages to get on his feet somehow, dangerously dizzy, and stares down at the trash bag underneath him. His old baseball cap is sticking out of a hole, and when he looks closer he discovers that the bag is full of clothes. His clothes.
What’s even weirder is that Zoro doesn’t usually get hungover. If he does, it’s sort of a mild, dull headache, and it passes within the hour. This isn’t like that; this is worse than… Well, let’s not be dramatic, but it’s bad.
He grabs his trash bag in disdain and wonders what the hell happened last night. There’s only one way to find out, and that is to retrace his steps. He knows that from military training, and it used to work there so why not here.
Zoro stumbles out into the street and is blinded by daylight, even in the heavy rain. Not that he cares that much, but he probably looks downright dangerous right now, blooming bruise on his face, stubble on his chin, dirt all over plus he’s carrying a damn trash bag. He has real bags! Good bags! Why did he pack his shit in a trash bag and go to sleep on it?
The questions are endless.
Across the street is a café, and Zoro prays that they’ll serve him because he could kill for some breakfast. He’s never been this hungry.
When he walks through the door, he’s suddenly reminded of something. He sees Sanji, in a dim-lit bar, flirting with the bartender for another drink. She loves it, Zoro remembers thinking, this skinny blonde guy using all his best lines on her, it’s so clear in her eyes.
He doesn’t care to know why that makes him feel so uncomfortable.
Okay, weird. Did he and Sanji go to a bar? They never go anywhere together; they can barely have a single conversation before they’ve exhausted all possible conversational topics.
His head hurts as he orders “coffee, black, thanks, no, nothing added. Maybe make that double, actually.” The cashier looks terrified.
“Uh,” Zoro starts, and the girl behind the counter shrinks visibly. “Where exactly is this?”
She looks confused. “Corner of Revel Boulevard and Kent?”
Shit, alright. He’s on the opposite side of town from where he lives.
“Okay so… If I need to get to Thousand and Sunny, what metro line do I get on?”
The night before, around 9 pm
It’s Friday, and Friday means Master Chef. It’s the only night of the week Sanji has off from work except for Sunday, and it’s his time to relax. Sundays, he studies for his bachelor but Fridays… They are holy. No bastard can tell him what to do tonight.
That usually means yelling at incompetent people on Master Chef for an hour, and then getting drunk either at home or at some other party. If Luffy’s there, strike “drunk” and replace it with “absolutely shitfaced”.
But tonight’s not one of those nights, he’s staying in tonight, there’s a marathon on and he’s got wine at the perfect temperature in the kitchen. Sanji doesn’t know when he became a 40-year old woman, but he doesn’t mind or care, really.
He’s seen two episodes already when Luffy comes home, buzzed as always, leaping over to him on the couch.
“Hey, Sanji!” Luffy grins, and Sanji smiles, despite himself. Luffy is a pain but also like a little brother, and maybe this wine makes him happier.
“Hey, Lu. What’s up?”
And then Luffy goes on and on about some footprints or something that had been found or covered up, in any case, it’s about aliens, and Sanji mainly tries to keep up with the TV, just nodding along occasionally to the story.
After a while Zoro comes through the door, looking fashionably worn out, probably straight from the martial arts academy. At least he has the decency to look tired, or else the whole thing would have pissed Sanji off to another dimension. It’s the only negative thing about Fridays, when Zoro comes home all fresh from the shower and glowing with some gross post-workout light, and Sanji’s wine has had enough effect on him that the internal filter in his brain doesn’t stop him from pining a little bit. Usually, he’s fine. Sober Sanji is reasonable and knows that Zoro’s probably straight, or not interested in him at all, and an ass, and the whole thought should be ridiculous. Except right now it isn’t, and he watches Zoro move in the corner of his eye, picking Luffy up with one arm and putting him down on the floor.
“Hey!” Luffy says, grinning at Zoro, because as much as he wants to sound annoyed he just loves Zoro and is always happy to see him. Sanji was almost jealous of them when he first moved in here, because the two of them have such a unique friendship that most people never even get close in a lifetime. He grew into it though, and knows that even though is Zoro is Luffy’s oldest friend, Sanji’s the one who makes the food. That counts for a lot.
Zoro dumps down in the lounge chair and closes his eyes while Luffy starts yapping about the same footprints he told Sanji about. He’s probably only half listening, but the thing is, when you live with Luffy for long enough you unwillingly start believing some his insane alien theories – so he’s likely listening a little.
They’re quiet for a bit while Sanji yells half-heartedly at the TV, now on the fourth episode in a row, before Luffy says “Guys! You wanna watch a documentary with me? The BBC one?”
Sanji is starting to get sick of Master Chef anyway, and Zoro seems to lack the energy to say no, therefore it takes Luffy about three milliseconds to find the ratty old DVD they’ve seen ten times, they’ve seen all of them ten times at least, and put it on.
Present time
Sanji is pacing. Thinking, and pacing. He’s starting to remember more from last night, and honestly, it’s a bit overwhelming. He remembers the bar they were at and he remembers trying to get free drinks for them from a pretty bartender. He can see Zoro’s face in the poor light, he can see how his eyes looked almost liquid gold. It’s like he can feel the piercing stare on his body even now, many hours later, unnerving as that is.
It feels like he did something wrong, and he’s been racking his brain trying to find out what.
I think I like you. I think I like you. I think I like you.
Sanji’s going to drive himself fucking crazy. His skin is crawling, his head is spinning, his face hurts and he still hasn’t eaten anything. He feels so bad, he’s not even sure he wants to remember why anymore.
Zoro sips on his coffee, staring at a guy on the metro that won’t stop shamelessly looking at him. Probably because he’s dirty and beat up and carries a trash bag of belongings, but it’s still rude, so fuck him. Fuck it all right now, because bits and pieces of last night are swimming around in his brain and they make absolutely no sense. He knows he was home with Luffy and Sanji. They watched the BBC documentary, Zoro had a few beers, it was a stellar Friday evening. His muscles had felt pleasantly sore from training all afternoon and he had no plans, meaning either being dragged around to strange parties with Luffy or just going to bed early for once. That would have been nice, in retrospect.
He remembers how Sanji looked, casually dressed, hair in his eyes all soft and natural. His shirt was a little too big for him, sliding off one shoulder, and he was wearing some kind of sweatpant-shorts, stacked on the sofa in a way that shouldn’t even be possible for someone who is not a professional gymnast. The thought hadn’t occurred to Zoro before, but he realized that Sanji felt comfortable around him. Otherwise, he would have been in slacks, sitting up straight, product in his hair. But this was Sanji at his most relaxed and that meant, on some level (even though Sanji hates him) that he trusts him. It’s a nice feeling.
Zoro sits on the tube alone and wonders why it had to be Sanji. He’s angry about it to be honest, because this wasn’t what he imagined at all, he was a loner and for years thought he was asexual or aromantic or something that made him not need or want anyone else. And then Sanji moved in, barged into his life and messed it all up, tore his world apart and then turned out to absolutely hate his guts.
That’s got to be ironic on some level.
Sanji hates him and he’s not entirely sure why, it’s just always been like that. However, he doesn’t particularly enjoy being hated so he yells back at him and fights him and stares him down, because it’s as close to getting what he wants as Zoro gets.
It’s been some time since he bummed himself out like this, so he goes back to staring at Mr. Rude on the opposite of the car and shuts his thoughts off.
Suddenly he sees Sanji from last night, standing right in front of him in an alley.
“I don’t think you can , jackass,” he says, but he’s grinning, a stupid, huge, honest grin, and then Zoro punches him straight in the face.
He doesn’t think he’s ever been this confused in his life.
The night before, around 11 pm
Luffy leaves and Sanji doesn’t mind. It’s classic Luffy, he always has a party to go to because somehow he is friends with every human being on the planet. So, Fridays through Sundays (and most nights of the week if we’re being honest), Luffy is off at some party. But what’s weird is that Sanji and Zoro are alone now, and it doesn’t feel tense or strange. Some show about birds is on in the background, Sanji has emptied his bottle of wine and Zoro has one leg thrown over the armrest of his chair and a beer in one hand. He looks content.
Sanji isn’t even in the mood to bicker right now, he feels at ease. He moves to get up and get a fresh bottle of wine but notices one on the table, the label faded and unreadable.
“Hey is this yours?” Sanji asks, looking at Zoro with the light from the TV dancing on his face and the commentary droning “this particular breed is on the smaller side, but its colors are extraordinary…”
He blinks and looks at the bottle in Sanji’s hand. “Nope, never seen that before. What is it?”
“Dunno. Wanna try it?”
Sanji feels strangely proud when he walks to the kitchen for glasses, like it’s an accomplishment that he and Zoro are civil with each other. It’s probably because he’s a little tipsy, he figures, falling back on the couch once again and pouring up two glasses of the unknown liquid.
It tastes spicy, strange but good, and by the look on Zoro’s face, he seems to land on the same conclusion. And it’s strong, really strong, Sanji has to fight the urge to cough because Zoro just downs the whole thing with a pleased look on his face and he’ll be dead before he loses face in front of him.
They drink for a while and Zoro looks prettier and prettier. Not because of the alcohol but because Sanji’s brain completely gives up on stopping itself. He feels himself get looser and looser, limbs just hanging around, barely supporting him on the couch.
“Does this feel strange to you?” Sanji asks, studying his own hand in amusement. “Look, my hand is fuzzy.”
Zoro looks dazed, glancing over at Sanji. “ You look fuzzy.”
“I do?”
This probably should have raised some eyebrows but it didn’t, instead Zoro giggled and it was the most delightful, ridiculous sound Sanji had ever heard, and it spiraled them both into a laughing fit.
“Sanji,” Zoro says after a while, grinning with his whole face. Sanji can’t believe Zoro would say his name (it doesn’t happen a lot, mostly he goes by “shit cook”, “blondie” or “jerk-off”) at the same time as smiling. Unbelievable.
“Yeah,” he says, almost a little out of breath by it all.
“You wanna go to a bar?”
Somehow Sanji and Zoro end up in a bar that Sanji doesn’t know the name of, he feels so fluid, so light and young and awesome . He doesn’t have the brain capacity to think of much else than Zoro anyway. They sit down and he recognizes the bartender, she must have been to one of Luffy’s parties or something, so naturally, Sanji turns on the old charm to try and get some cheap drinks.
“Hey,” he says, and she seems to recognize him as well. “Working so late?”
She smiles and rolls her eyes a bit. “It’s my job.”
God, what was her name?
“Nami,” she says, a sly grin on her face. “Wouldn’t want you to break something in there trying to remember.” She taps his forehead with her finger, making Sanji smile bashfully, and taps him two beers. “On the house,” she says. “But just this time. Say hi to your boyfriend.”
Sanji grins and blushes and why doesn’t he have any control over his body?
“Not my boyfriend,” he says, with as much integrity he can muster at this point. Nami smirks. “But I will say hi.”
Zoro looks at him funny when he gets back, but grins when Sanji gives him a beer. They talk for a while and Sanji feels increasingly weird and blurry around the edges, but in a good way, he thinks. Drinks are flowing and Zoro decides to try something new, ordering a “spooky candelabra fruity-thing” and Sanji almost pisses himself laughing because what even is he going for with that.
They’re drunk. Okay, very drunk. Sanji doesn’t think he’s ever been this drunk. He can’t see straight, walk straight, think straight… in every meaning of the word. Zoro looks like he’s reached the peak in his life. He has never seen him have this much fun or look so happy, he’s always off brooding somewhere, and that comes from Sanji, the fucking emo king . Zoro kicks at a pebble outside and laughs at it, supporting himself on Sanji’s left side even though he’s not in shape to do any supporting as of now.
“I can’t hold the both of us,” Sanji slurs, giggling at Zoro when he looks at him. Everything’s gone now, all of Sanji’s façade of smirks and feigning disinterest, it’s all just out there now and he’s probably spent the most fun hours of his life with Zoro of all people.
“You can’t? Don’t you lift?” Zoro grins.
Sanji rolls his eyes but smiles through it. Classic Zoro to start talking about lifting .
“I do, actually. Not much though, I mostly do leg stuff.”
That kicks Zoro into a long monologue about martial arts and how important it is to train the right muscles. Sanji looks at him when he talks and feels like he might be the luckiest person alive right now. Zoro’s eyes are glowing and he’s smiling through all the words, tapping on Sanji’s arms when he talks about biceps or whatever. He looks passionate and strong and quite goddamn sexy. Then he says something that clearly demands a response and Sanji was a bit too lost in Zoro’s face too keep up.
“What?”
“I said, I bet you can’t win a fight with those arms,” Zoro repeats, competitive fire in his eyes. Sanji scoffs, and decides to play along. “Aha. You wanna go right now huh? Huh?”
Zoro laughs and dodges Sanji’s half-assed punch. “You could never knock me out.”
Sanji throws another fake punch and tries not to smile. “Yeah? A hundred bucks?”
“You’re on,” Zoro says, his voice low. He’s standing in front of Sanji, his breath making clouds in the air. Sanji realizes it’s cold out, but he doesn’t feel it at all.
He looks into Zoro’s eyes, looks at his smug grin, and then punches him square in the face. The adrenaline is rushing through him and it feels incredible. Zoro spins and catches himself before he plants his face in the concrete, even in this state, just like Sanji knew he would. He’s fought Zoro enough times to know.
He spits blood on the ground and then breaks out in an insane laughter as Sanji helps him up. “You owe me a hundred bucks,” he says hoarsely, lip bruised and the skin around his eye turning purple. God, what Sanji would do to him if he could. Instead, he says:
“How about, all or nothing, you knock me out.”
Zoro looks at him for a second and it’s so much. Sanji tries to breather quieter, tries to not be so fucking obvious, but he’s right there and he’s so close.
“I’d hate to bruise your face, blondie,” Zoro grins.
“I don’t think you can, jackass ,” Sanji says, and he can’t keep from grinning back.
And then Zoro’s fist collides with his face.
Present time
Zoro hauls the trash bag on his back and tries not to mind the looks he gets. Fuck them, fuck these people, and fuck Sanji because somehow this is all his fault. He’s sure of it.
He passes into familiar surroundings after riding two different lines, and finally feels himself relax a little. He only got lost two times on the way here, which honestly must be a record, and now he can finally walk on autopilot. Zoro has lived in this particular part of town for almost fifteen years and he knows every corner and pebble.
Inevitably his thoughts wander to Sanji, and he realizes it’s almost been three years since he moved in with Luffy and himself. He remembers how he and Luffy argued over renters, how he had fought for Sanji before he even knew him. Luffy wanted some freak with hypnosis glasses so honestly, he would probably have wanted anyone else, but there was something about Sanji that intrigued him. Plus, at the time he seemed like a reliable renter. Which was correct of course, Sanji is the most annoying person in the world when it comes to money.
Zoro thinks back to when they met for the first time. Sanji strutted into their tiny house in slacks, and Zoro remembers that because both him and Luffy looked like they lived under someone’s stairs. He never cared much about how he looked but there was something about this snobby French guy that made him feel self-conscious. Back then he even had a slight accent, which Luffy thought was super cool of course. Zoro is convinced to this day that the only reason Sanji abandoned the French accent for good was that Luffy kept wanting him to teach him.
The interview Luffy and Zoro had with Sanji was almost embarrassing to think about.
They had two questions:
1) Do you have money?
2) Do you pay on time?
That was it. Luffy said two was enough because he had “an excellent judge of character”, and Zoro honestly didn’t think he cared. Sanji ended up asking all the questions. How old was this house? Three or four bedrooms? When was the kitchen last renovated? What was the neighborhood like?
The way Sanji had looked at him then was different from how it was now. On some level, even though Zoro most of the time only has one level, he’s sure he knew already back then that Sanji was special.
After the “interview” they said goodbye at the door, Sanji with an unlit cigarette between his lips and an unreadable expression on his face.
“Get back to me?” He had said, honestly, like he genuinely wanted him to.
“I will,” Zoro replied, and realized then and there that he wanted no one else to live there.
Zoro walks for ten minutes and even does some lunges on the way, because people are already staring so he might as well get some exercise. His head is a mess. He keeps seeing glimpses of the day before, and he can’t seem to piece them together. What he knows for sure is that they were at home, watched the documentary, then he remembers something about birds on the TV and the way Sanji’s hair veiled his face. Then he knows they were at a bar and he thinks he might even remember what bar it was. It’s not far from their house and in walking distance from the corner Zoro is at now, so he changes direction and ponders what the hell he drank to get so shitfaced.
Bars always look ridiculous in daylight. It seems so cold and foreign, if he didn’t know this was his favorite bar he almost wouldn’t recognize it. It’s nearly empty and, Zoro suspects, not officially open, but since one other dude is drinking beer at the counter he might as well have a look. The radio is on playing a pop-rock song that Zoro doesn’t know and the whole thing just feels out of place.
“Hey,” Zoro says, because why not. The guy glances over at him and suddenly he’s beaming, slapping Zoro’s shoulder.
“You’re still alive,” he says, and Zoro doesn’t understand shit. “Good on you, man.”
“Who are you?” Zoro says, making the other man laugh.
“We played pool last night,” He replies. “You beat the crap outta me. It was a good time.”
“Right,” Zoro says, having absolutely no memory of that. “Do you know where I went after?”
“No idea. Where’s the other guy?” Mr. Pool Man asks him, looking around. “Sanjay?”
Zoro smiles despite everything. “I don’t know.”
Back outside Zoro picks up his trash bag and turns to go home. He decides to take a shortcut through the alley behind the bar, and when he’s right in the middle of it he suddenly remembers everything, like a goddamn That’s So Raven moment. He sees them here, Sanji with blood running from his nose onto his shirt and a huge grin on his face.
“I guess you really got me now,” Sanji says, and Zoro can feel how he laughed, how his stomach almost hurts still.
He sees everything so clearly now, sees blood on the concrete, how they staggered home in the night, Sanji’s low laugh in his ear like a secret. He follows his memory of them back to the house, God, he remembers tripping on the stairs, how Sanji’s hands steadied him and got them both safely inside.
He remembers being a slurring mess, standing in the tiny hall, he sees himself stumble out of his shoes and he sees Sanji knocking his shoulder in the doorway. He follows the mental image into the livingroom, where he had grabbed more beer and Sanji grinned at him from the stairs. He remembers Sanji saying he wanted to change his socks, for some fucking reason, and then Zoro went to wait in his own room because apparently, they were drinking upstairs. And then Sanji comes into his room, he has a bottle of whiskey and he’s a mess, eyes huge and Zoro remembers thinking that he looked high.
The night before, around 3 am
Sanji doesn’t know why he can’t feel his eyes. Can he usually do that? Strange. Either way, something is off. This is not regular drunk, this is… More. Has he been drugged? Well, no matter, he’s happy, Zoro is his best friend. In the universe.
“Hey, Zoro,” Sanji says, his lips numb. “You’re my best friend. You are.”
Zoro seems to be soberer than him because he looks at Sanji with substantially more depth than he thought was possible right now, and smiles carefully before he turns and goes into his own room.
Sanji struggles to remember why he’s not going with him, and then suddenly notices his left sock is sliding off his foot. Right, new socks. He rummages through his dresser and thinks that Sober Sanji will hate him tomorrow for making a mess. This Sanji doesn’t care, whatever he is, and digs out his favorite socks with the little fishes on. It seems like getting the old socks off and the new ones on takes five minutes, but let’s be realistic. It’s probably a bit longer. Sanji sees the whiskey bottle he got for Christmas on his bedside table, and decides that this day is as good as any.
Then he opens the door to Zoro’s room and doesn’t know why he feels nervous. Zoro’s sitting cross-legged on the bed, and his room is surprisingly neat and tidy. He realizes that he’s never been in here before.
“This feels like college,” Sanji giggles, as Zoro opens a beer. “Like a college party.”
Zoro grins and tosses him a beer, which Sanji very gracefully misses because his hands are busy trying to support his weight on the bed frame and holding a bottle of whiskey in the other.
“Nice,” Zoro says, but he’s smiling, and Sanji feels like he’s being set up. Like this is an episode of Punk’d and any minute a whole TV crew and a random celebrity will jump out of Zoro’s closet, smack him on the shoulder and laugh. And Zoro won’t be this nice and pretty and soft, and nothing is real.
He sits down on the bed, which feels even more like college, and hesitantly pulls his legs up. Then Zoro has a deck of cards and suddenly he’s pulled into a drinking game that he only half understands, it’s something about not getting the jack. The jack is bad. He ends up drinking the beers while Zoro happily relieves him of the whiskey.
Sanji cannot believe this night. Part of the reason why he can’t keep up with Zoro’s game is probably that Zoro himself is so distracting. He’s in the same clothes he was earlier that night, a pair of dark jeans and a white, plain t-shirt, and it should be impossible to look so good in something so simple. Maybe less is more on Zoro. Whatever. In any case, he looks gorgeous and tan and strong and Sanji somehow ended up with the jack again, and has to drink. Now he’s out of beer and he and Zoro share the bottle, passing it back and forth between them, even though Zoro undoubtedly drinks just out of pleasure at this point.
“I always liked whiskey,” Zoro says, completely coherent, which is just unfair. “My father used to drink whiskey.”
“Cheers to him,” Sanji says, concentrating hard not to seem like such a lightweight. They each drink from the bottle and then Zoro drops his hand of cards on the bed.
“How is your father?”
Sanji thinks, chewing his lip for a few seconds. “I don’t really have one,” he admits, and when Zoro looks at him he almost expects to see pity on his face, like everyone else he’s told. Instead, he sees something warm and foreign and quickly decides not to think about it.
“Yeah, I was… I’m an orphan, and I never officially got adopted, but I got a job, so I started working for the restaurant that I’m at now. And the owner, Zeff, I guess he’s sort of my dad. In a way.”
Zoro nods and takes another swig, handing the bottle to Sanji. “That sounds nice.”
“He’s a dick,” Sanji laughs, making Zoro smile in surprise. “But he loves me, even though it’s tough love. I got to be who I wanted to be.”
They’re quiet for a while and Zoro sighs. “My dad had a hard time with me.”
Sanji can’t believe that this is something that is happening now, he and Zoro trading life stories and talking about their families. It’s weird, but nice weird, and suddenly he thinks that this will all be over tomorrow when they’re no longer drunk or whatever. It’s a crushing kind of thought.
“A hard time?”
Zoro looks at the floor, then the wall, then at Sanji’s fish socks and smiles.
“Yeah. He didn’t take it too well when he found out that I was dating a boy.”
Sanji blinks and his heart speeds up to inhuman rapidity. He might not even like guys now. Maybe it was a one-time thing. It could be anything, Sanji knows nothing about Zoro’s past, but this seems an awful lot like fate throwing him a biscuit.
“Yeah?” Sanji says, and his voice is shaking but he looks straight into Zoro’s eyes. “I’m sorry, that’s horrible.”
It’s kind of a huge thing to tell someone. Sanji knows the feeling of betrayal and hurt, knows how it feels to be left outside in the cold, quite literally, by your own family no less.
“It sucked,” Zoro says, like it’s something that can’t be helped. “That’s why they shipped me off here in the first place.”
Sanji offers him the bottle and Zoro chugs the rest of it.
“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
Zoro looks at him for a moment, like he’s nervous, bruises on his face purple against his tan skin. Sanji doesn’t know what to do with his hands now that the bottle is empty and the card game is over, fiddling with his fingers. Zoro looks timeless. Like he’s a marble statue from another age, like he will still be beautiful two hundred years from now and studied by art students.
“Sanji,” he says, voice soft and eyes clear, hands folded in his lap. He pauses for a long time and then he says it. “I think I like you.”
Present time
Sanji’s throwing up. He’s not even sure that fully describes what’s happening to him right now, which is more like a demonic force violently leaving his body. Through his mouth.
He gets up on wobbly feet and looks at himself in the mirror for the second time today. Like a slap in the face he suddenly remembers, he sees everything, sees Zoro’s hands clenched in his lap and feels sick.
He’s such a fucking dickhead.
Where the fuck is Zoro?
Sanji is panicking now, if he ever was. He hates himself. His brain won’t stop playing everything over and over and it’s making him dizzy. He slides down the wall and lies on the bathroom floor while the image of Zoro spins in his head.
He hears Luffy passing in the hall and hopes he’s not heading here because he can’t deal with anything.
Zoro sits on his own bed and stares on the wall, where Sanji’s head occupied the air space last night. He had looked so beautiful, and drunk, and maybe, God, maybe Sanji doesn’t even remember what happened. How fucking convenient that would be.
He sighs and tries not to see the look on Sanji’s face when he’d told him that he liked him.
Last night around 4 am
Sanji sits there, frozen like a fucking criminal in court for several minutes, and just stares at his hand. Zoro likes him. Zoro goddamn likes him. It’s something he’s wanted for so long that now that he has it, he doesn’t know how to process it. He never thought this far, he always figured that there was no way this would ever happen. And now he’s here and he can’t remember what words are, barely his own name, there’s only Zoro, Zoro, Zoro.
“Zoro…” he croaks, voice strained, and he can’t look at him or he might catch on fire. He doesn’t know what to feel because he feels everything now, and he doesn’t know if it’s because he’s drunk or because he’s emotionally stupid . He wants to tell Zoro that he’s the prettiest human being he’s ever seen. He wants to say that he wants him and needs him, that he’s never felt this way about anyone. He wants to kiss him and touch him, cook all his favorite meals all the time and compliment him on his stupid green hair. He wants Zoro to know that they’re tied together in a way Sanji didn’t think was possible.
But then, without a word, Zoro gets up and out of the bed, fists clenched. Sanji looks at his legs, looks at the yellow seam of his jeans.
“I can’t believe…” Zoro mumbles, just standing there, looking at the floor. “I’m an idiot. Just fucking…” He pauses and Sanji hates himself more than anything in the entire universe.
He tries to say something, any fucking thing! But his mouth is a desert and his entire body is heavy as concrete, and he can feel Zoro’s eyes avoiding him.
“Just get out.”
Sanji feels tears in his eyes and he’s so fucking pissed at himself he wishes Zoro would punch him in the face, again, this time with feeling. Fucking break all his bones.
He drags his body like a corpse out of the room and physically flinches when the door slams behind him. Tears stream down his face as he collapses on his own bed, that smells nothing like Zoro, and blacks out.
Zoro, on the other end of the door, smiles bitterly, because he deserves this for being such a fucking moron, and starts throwing all his shit into the closest thing he can find. Then he grabs the last of the whiskey and climbs out the window. He hasn’t cried since he was a toddler but finds himself wiping at a tear on his cheek as he rounds the corner of the street, and swears to himself that he’ll never let it get this bad again.
Present time
Zoro’s phone lights up and his body jerks on the bed. He’s got one of those ancient phones with the tiny displays and worn buttons, not one for taking pictures and Spotifying, or whatever the kids are doing now. It makes a melodic little sound and Sanji Black lights up on there, with a message attached.
“Can we talk?”
Bold, Zoro thinks, his heart beating holes in his chest. He wants to be pissed at Sanji. Actually, he wants to hate him, because he could at least have turned him down nicely and not made him look like such an idiot. He types a message back.
“Yes.”
He could never hate Sanji. Not ten seconds after his phone starts ringing, and he looks at it in horror before picking it up. Well, nothing could be worse than it is right now anyway.
“Hey,” Sanji says, his voice rough.
“Hi,” Zoro replies, mouth dry, and this feels horrible, like meeting for the first time and trying to be polite. He hates small talk and being polite, especially with Sanji, whom he used to be able to say whatever he wanted to. Guess that’s changed now.
“Where are you?” Sanji inquires, something strange in his voice. Before Zoro can answer Sanji says “Scratch that, actually… are you okay?”
Zoro shuts his eyes and thinks about home, thinks about the tiny houses and the warm weather. “I will be,” he mumbles, because it’s true, even though this is the worst fucking thing ever. It’s not like Sanji was his best friend before either. It was just this night, this one night they needed to loosen up, maybe they were best friends for a couple of hours in there. He doesn’t know. It still sucks.
“I won’t,” Sanji suddenly says, and it’s like everything stops for a second. Zoro doesn’t understand. And he feels even more confused when he hears the hinges on his bedroom door creak, opening for Sanji, who stands there on the phone and looks like he expects to be punched.
“Such a drama queen,” Zoro mumbles, despite everything, making a hint of a smile appear on Sanji’s face.
“I’ve got to go,” he says into the phone, and Zoro rolls his eyes. He didn’t expect Sanji to come into his room now, to see him like the fucking mess he is, curled in on himself on the bed like a pathetic high school kid with heartache.
“It’s fine,” Zoro says, before Sanji can make any awkward excuses or apologies. He knows that Sanji wouldn’t intentionally be a dick in a serious situation, he and Sanji have their differences but he must genuinely care at least a little about him. He gets out on the floor, determined to make this as painless as possible.
“Really, let’s just forget about it, I’d rather not talk about it- “
While Zoro’s talking Sanji throws his phone on the bed, takes three determined steps and effectively stops Zoro’s half-assed speech by pressing his lips against his.
It’s sweet and short-lived and when Zoro returns to earth Sanji’s right there, looking sheepish and almost insecure. It’s a weird look on someone who always seems so confident.
“What…?” Zoro says, the word coming out of his mouth slowly, like he’s underwater. Sanji just kissed him. His pulse is racing and Sanji’s eyes have never been so blue.
“I don’t know what happened,” he starts. “Last night, I mean.” He says it softly, almost like a sigh. “I only freaked out because, shit, Zoro, I’m in love with you. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know if you even felt that strongly about me, or if you were just drunk.”
Zoro smiles, looks at Sanji’s lips while he’s talking and wonders why they’re both so stupid. Well, mostly Sanji.
“I’m never that drunk,” Zoro says, grabs Sanji by the front of his shirt and pulls him into a crushing kiss. “Stupid dork.”
“Says the one with the Star Wars figurines in his room,” Sanji mumbles, making Zoro laugh.
Seeing Sanji this close feels strange. Zoro can see the specs of dark in his irises, the way his blonde eyelashes catch the light. He lets his eyes wander over his skin, his lips, the way Sanji’s hair falls into his face like it’s where it’s supposed to be. He looks vulnerable, Zoro thinks, in a beautiful way, and he realizes what a huge risk this was for Sanji as well.
He’s never been able to look at him like this before. It feels like a massive privilege.
Five months later, a Tuesday at 12 pm
Sanji’s making lunch for himself in the kitchen, glaring at the pile of dishes in the sink from what seems to be a food experiment Luffy must have conducted in the middle of the night. God knows what he even made, he can see the mangled remains off eggs, maybe ham and some blue stuff that he doesn’t even want to know what is.
Well, he’s not going to clean it up, either way, he’s not touching that with a ten-foot pole.
He shakes his head and returns to his sandwich, a masterpiece if you ask him, consisting of goods he only brings out when he’s home alone. Plated and finished he takes his sandwich to the couch and admires it for a moment, while the TV turns on and the DVD from yesterday starts playing from the part where they stopped last night. It’s an insane theory of how the Stonehenge is an alien base or something, Sanji stopped asking questions about these movies a long time ago.
Suddenly the unmistakable sound of Luffy’s flip-flops fills the room, and Sanji turns to see him jogging through the door with his signature carefree grin.
“Hey Sanjiiiiiiiii,” Luffy says, and Sanji rolls his eyes fondly.
“Hey.”
“Zoro’s not coming today,” Luffy continues, watching him kind of eerily. “Says to say hello though.”
Sanji tries not to be disappointed, he knows Zoro’s going through hell at the academy but it still sucks. He was going to make his favorite food, and he hasn’t been able to see him much lately. He misses him. He still can’t quite believe that Zoro is his boyfriend .
“Okay, guess that’s fine,” Sanji says, and he can’t stop himself from being a little pathetic about it.
“HAH!”
Sanji blinks, sure that he heard Zoro just now. Luffy just grins and then Zoro suddenly jumps out from behind the door, grinning like a dork.
“I knew you missed me!”
Then he runs over to Sanji on the couch and Luffy chants “honor for Zoro!” whatever that even means, and then Zoro is up in Sanji’s space and he smells like metal and sword oil and God, Sanji really missed him.
“You fucking idiot,” Sanji says, Zoro grins and Luffy jumps on top of them on the couch, laughing like it’s the happiest day of his life. Zoro kisses him and Sanji feels warm and fuzzy and lucky to be surrounded by love.
“Kissy-kissy,” Luffy sings, pouting at Zoro. “Give me a kiss, too, Zoro! Kiss kiss!”
Zoro guffaws and rolls off the couch, gracefully escaping from Luffy, who is now chasing him around the living room.
“Kiss me, Zoro! I love you way more than Sanji does! He only likes you for your awesome hair!”
Zoro makes puke noises over the sink, and Sanji laughs because he's living with the biggest idiots in the universe.
Thank God.