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It happens like this: it’s late, and Sanji is stressed and Zoro is drunk, and circumstances left to their own devices always produce an outcome.
Sanji is in the Merry's kitchen working on preparing ingredients for dishes he’ll make tomorrow when Zoro stumbles in. Nami and Usopp are away on the shore, and Luffy’s sleeping like a dead man in the skiff, so it’s just the two of them aboard; though for Sanji there might as well not be anyone else, when the stove is on, just him and a cigarette and a dish to make, one step after another.
Which makes it all the more startling when Zoro plants a firm hand on Sanji’s shoulder, turns him around, and—cutting board and knife and bowl still in Sanji’s hands—presses him against the nearest wall, mumbling something incoherent.
Sanji gasps, “Shit,” in surprise, and then, “what the hell do you think you’re doing,” and finally, “god, you’re fucking drunk, aren’t you.” It’s becoming a common sight, lately, Zoro on the deck with a bottle rather than just his swords cradled against his side like they’re his children. Sanji thinks it’s weird as hell—it’s like if he slept with a frying pan, for god’s sake—but he hasn’t said anything about that or about the alcohol, because the going's been rough and it’s not his place. If Luffy wants to reprimand his crew for developing a drinking problem, he’s more than welcome.
Sanji’s job is to shut his mouth and make the food, and, for preference, not set the ship on fire with his cigarettes.
Shocked back to the present by Zoro’s hot breath against his neck, Sanji says, “Just how much did you drink this time, you boozehound,” and tries to push him cautiously off without dropping anything off his cutting board.
“Not enough,” Zoro slurs, “not enough to not think about him,” and then his bleary eyes are meeting Sanji’s, and Sanji doesn’t think Zoro even sees him, then. Zoro’s red-faced, and his breath smells horribly of whiskey.
Sanji doesn’t think he wants to know who him is. He can guess, but he doesn’t need confirmation; he’s the cook, not the bartender, and it’s not his job to lend his ear to the crew for their problems (except for Nami, maybe; he’d gladly do it for Nami, any day.) “What,” he manages to say, perturbed by how close Zoro is leaning, his upper body keeping Sanji up against the wall, “what do you expect me to do about it, goddamn.”
“You’re not him,” Zoro rasps, and then Sanji freezes, wide-eyed, because Zoro’s hand is pushing up through his hair, over his ear, oddly tender. “Your hair’s the wrong color.”
“Is it,” Sanji manages to get out.
And then he stops talking, because Zoro is kissing his neck, and god, god, Sanji doesn’t know how to deal with this.
It’s not that Zoro’s a guy; Sanji spent ten years working at the Baratie, for fuck’s sake, he’s been there and done that. (Everyone knows what they say about sailors that spend too long at sea, after all, and Sanji doesn’t know if that’s true or if it’s just something ingrained, the willingness to go to bed with any other warm body regardless of gender; either way, the most famous floating restaurant on the East Blue had had no shortage of beautiful patrons.)
What it is is that it’s Zoro, inscrutable scary-faced tough guy Zoro who sneers at Sanji’s carefully-kept suits and calls him love cook any time he's not happy, which is often.
And now here’s Sanji, between Zoro and a wall, Zoro’s lips on his neck and the cutting board and bowl and knife he’s holding precariously aloft slipping out of his grasp, and he doesn’t know what to do.
Zoro’s attractive, he thinks. He’s never thought about Zoro that way—mainly because he’d been sure at the start that Zoro would deck him for the suggestion, and later because he could see where Zoro’s affections lay—but now that he does the thought is appealing enough.
He wants, in that moment, to let go and let Zoro do exactly as he likes, to let him fuck Sanji in place of the man Zoro’s thinking of and whose name Sanji refuses to actually think in this context. It’s been a long time since Sanji was with anyone—not since a heated night spent with a woman from Nami’s island during the celebrations after Arlong’s death, over a year ago—and it’s tempting, so tempting, to let someone pull off his tie and his shirt and let them, let Zoro, do anything he likes.
Except.
Except Zoro might regret it, once he’s sober. Except it might ruin things between them, and that kind of problem on a ship with barely enough elbow room to not have to actually be shoving each other in the side nonstop could be ruinous.
Zoro licks behind his ear, and Sanji drops the cutting board and the bowl both, only stopping short of dropping the knife. “Shit,” he hisses again, and stares at the ceiling.
It’s a testament to how distracting Zoro manages to be that the wasted food isn’t the first thing on Sanji’s mind.
Another lick, and a damp kiss, and Zoro’s broad hand spread out over Sanji’s chest; and Sanji’s saying, “Oh,” and, “fuck,” and trying to remember whether anyone intended to come back aboard during the night, and mostly willing his knees not to feel so weak under the onslaught.
“Zoro,” he says at last, after another minute of infuriatingly sensual kisses that have Sanji tipping his head back against the wall, unwittingly exposing more of his neck. His cigarette has long since been snuffed out. “Zoro, wait. You’ve had way too much to drink.”
“You always smell like tobacco,” Zoro grunts, and, a smirk curling his lips and showing his teeth. In such close quarters it’s somehow less threatening and unbearably attractive. “You fucking chimney.”
“And you’re always covered in sea salt and don’t shower enough,” Sanji tells him, “and you sweat like a pig.”
Zoro shuts him up with a kiss to his mouth, this time, and his fingers are combing through Sanji’s hair again, pulling his bangs away from where they tend to hang over his left eye. Sanji feels oddly exposed, for all that it’s hardly a difference, and Zoro smiles like a predatory cat and says, “I was wondering if maybe you had a scar. But no, you just—hide half your face.” A sigh that wipes away the grin. “He has a scar. Under his eye . . .”
And Sanji can’t listen to this anymore, can’t stand here with Zoro’s hands and mouth on him while Zoro’s had so much whiskey it’s a near-miracle he’s standing and can’t stop talking about the man he’s in love with who doesn’t love him back.
Sanji flips the knife he's still holding so that the blade is carefully held against his palm and pushes Zoro off with his free hand, giving him a nudge with his knee for good measure. “Sleep it off,” he says, and he sounds breathless even to himself, and he can still feel every touch of Zoro’s and he’s sure his hair is standing on end where Zoro’s hands have gone through it. “Sleep it off, and if you want me when you’re sober, I’m all yours. Until then—”
“Fuck you,” says Zoro. He slumps sideways against the wall, all his weight pitched against his shoulder, and his eyes are narrowed, dark slits in the barely-lit cabin. Sanji scrambles to pick up the bowl and the cutting board and sets down the knife on the table. “Fuck you, who are you to decide if I’m sober enough to make decisions.”
“The guy that’s been cutting off inebriated restaurant patrons since he could talk,” Sanji says, frankly, and reaches shakily for where he’s left his pack of cigarettes on the counter, away from where he was preparing the food. What he dropped is on the floor, now, but just by Zoro’s feet, and he can’t bring himself to stoop beside him, not now when Zoro’s gaze is so heated and Sanji wants—
—when Sanji wants. He lights a cigarette instead, and vows to come back to rescue as much as he can, because food on a ship won’t go to waste so long as he has a say, even just onions and carrots; and then he tucks his hands in his pockets and bails for the exit, shoulders hunched, torn between wanting to run both hands through his hair to resettle it and wanting leave it a mess for as long as he dares.
“I would’ve fucked you good,” Zoro growls after him, and Sanji doesn’t quite run out of the cabin but it’s a near thing, and it’s only the sharp aftertaste of the tobacco and the cooler air of the outside that keeps him from turning right around to answer the taunt.
He walks to the stern, away from his kitchen, and slides down its back wall until he’s sitting, arms thrown over his knees, staring blankly out into the starry sky. He can hear Usopp and Nami’s voices in the distance, where they’re no doubt sitting around a bonfire, and Luffy’s snores.
Everything is as it always is when they manage to make a quiet landfall, and the only thing out of place is the taste of Zoro in Sanji’s mouth under the taste of cigarettes, and the memory of him so, so close, breathing you’re not him and I want to fuck you.
“God,” he says, to no one at all, to himself, takes another drag of his cigarette.
And he presses a hand to his face and tries, very hard (and without an ounce of success) to put Roronoa Zoro out of his mind.