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It all started very slowly. So slow in fact they never noticed it. Not until they were both full, the content in their hearts already spilling out. It was something new and different and therefore never explored. Every step that they took to one another was reluctant, unsure, but like the sunrise, inevitable.
Most of the time they did not even know what was happening.
The first time they saw each other was on a ship. On a floating restaurant, the home of one of them. It was nothing spectacular. The blond was strangling someone and the green haired watched him. He watched as the pale hand tightened on the throat of the Marine officer, watched the officer spit out blood on the floor as he was threatened. When the officer fell to the ground, so did Zoro’s interest and he hadn’t thought about the blond for some time, thinking it was the last time they’d see each other.
He hadn’t heard the blond scream as he was sliced by a warlord, his dream suddenly so out of reach. He hadn’t heard him and he was sure he wouldn’t have cared anyway.
He saw him again on an island captured by fishmen. Luffy had convinced the man to join their crew as their cook. He looked at the man, trying to understand what his captain saw in him but the only thing he could focus on was how the sun reflected in his big, azure eyes. When he felt the other return his stare, he turned his head to the other side and scuffed.
He would find out later that those baby blue eyes could also contain a red flared anger, his emotions turning his face into a mask of power. He would come to understand that the man held strength in his legs and that he wasn’t hesitant to use it.
He would also find out that the man chased after people like a child chased after butterflies. He was always surrounded by someone, never truly alone. He saw him dance with girls and occasionally some guys, he twirled around them and kissed their hands. He laughed with them, a slight blush on his face but at some point he would excuse himself and leave them behind.
“How’s your wound?”
Zoro took a big sip from his mug and wiped his hand over his mouth to get the acces off it.
“It’s nothing.”
Sanji took a cigarette out of his pocket and lightened it. He puffed out the smoke and leaned on the wall behind him.
They didn’t say anything more but Zoro caught himself following the smoke as it circled around Sanji’s face.
The first time he thought of the cook as a friend, they were fighting over dinosaurs. Sanji had come up to his face and pushed his finger into his chest. He had said something about how his dinosaur wasn't even edible and how much smaller it was than his own. Zoro could only focus on how their foreheads touched and how the cook’s blond hair tickled him on his tan skin.
The sun stood high up in the sky when Zoro realized he had just made a new friend.
When Sanji started calling him marimo and mosshead or when he would initiate a fight, he would also understand that his feelings were mutual.
There was something intimate in the way the both fought each other. It reminded him of Kuina and how their friendship had made him stronger. There was something else too, but Zoro couldn’t quite put a name to it. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Sanji felt more like an equal and less like someone he needed to defeat.
Maybe it had something to do with the way Sanji's face lit up when he told him about the All Blue, or the way he listened attentively when Zoro spoke about his own dream. Sanji's hair was messy from the wind and the humidity in the air, which caused his blond strands to curl into small waves that resembled his eyebrows.
Maybe it had something to do with Zoro's struggle to resist the urge to tuck the cook’s hair behind his ear.
On an island floating in the sky, Zoro had realized another thing. Sanji sat beside him, having given him his food and then dropping on the tree bench where Zoro sat. Their shoulders touched each other every time Zoro put the spoon into his mouth. The food tasted godly which forced a small smile to creep onto his face. Sanji was staring at him, his cheeks red from the sun and a similar smile on his lips. They looked at each other and Zoro realized that he wouldn’t ever let the man go.
The first time Zoro felt his chest tighten from something other than friendship was when he was far away from the blond. Sanji was on a train full of enemies and determined to slay them all.
“Hey cook! Those men are dangerous.”
Sanji chuckled, “Are you worried about me, marimo-kun?”
The truth behind those words settled down in his stomach and pushed out all the air in his lungs. There was something between them and Zoro might’ve finally caught on to what it is.
“Like hell I am.” Because there was no way that the feelings in his chest really meant something.
Later, when Sanji fought the wolf guy and the weird clenching in his stomach had returned, he had ignored it, convinced that he was imagining things. The grin on his face though that had appeared the second Sanji did, was harder to deny.
Thriller Bark brought a lot with it. A new crew mate. A new sword. A new sacrifice.
Sanji wasn’t that happy about the last part. And he didn’t try to hide it either. He was yelling at him, he kicked the wall beside him and Zoro could have sworn he saw tears.
After his anger died down, the cook was still upset but in a much calmer way. He glanced at Zoro as if he would disappear any moment and every time their eyes locked, he looked away.
The first time they kissed he had felt more panic in his body than infatuation. They were standing next to each other on the deck, watching the sun disappear into the ocean, Thriller Bark long behind them. Sanji’s hand had found his bandaged chest and was traveling down the covered scar he had gotten in Baratie. The same hand cradled his face and then something changed in his blue eyes.
They were scared.
They both didn’t know what to do with love. One never experienced it and the other never cared for it. So when Sanji’s lips were suddenly on his, he was surprised, having thought they would just ignore all of this for the rest of their lives. But Sanji’s mouth brushed the panic away, replacing it with something a lot sweeter and powerful.
Sanji kissed him on the angles of his mouth, he kissed his upper lip and then the lower. Not one peck lasted more than a few seconds but Zoro felt overwhelmed. The hand on his cheek was the only anchor he had to reality.
Sanji had stopped kissing him, the hand didn’t leave his face though. He opened his eyes slowly and was graced by an image he would never forget. Sanji's face was red, the blush reaching his ears and neck, his lips were slightly swollen and those beautiful eyes were shining like they never did before.
Zoro put his hand on the cook’s neck and pushed him closer for another kiss. This one was longer and more intense but just as clumsy as the other ones. He pushed his body onto Sanji’s, let his hands roam over his skin and allowed himself to moan into Sanji’s opened mouth.
This felt vulnerable in a way that nothing had ever felt before. He swept away the tear on Sanji's face after they parted again, his own eyes misty from his unshed ones.
Sanji let out a small laughter and whispered into their shared space, “Took us long enough.”
He tucked one of his blond strands behind his ear and smiled, “Yeah.”
This was something.
And it could be so much more if they only let it.