Archive of Our Own ^beta

oi

where r u

Yeah so 

Actually

We’re not coming

???

Change of plans 

Enjoy my little Merry <3

the fuck you on about witch

House’s for you and Sanji this weekend

no

Yes

Zoro, you know what to do

DON’T fuck this up

DON’T call me whining

Zoro has never dialled a call so quickly in his life. Thankfully, the line connects on the first ring. 

“Witch,” he greets her, quiet enough so as not to be heard by the other man in the house, but making it a point to sound as pissed as he can nonetheless, “what the fuck? ” 

“I literally just told you I don’t want to hear your whining. Hang up and go make babies with the love of your life already.”

There are several unlikely, if not factually impossible things he’d love to point out in her last sentence. He chooses not to solely because his patience’s hanging on a thread and he doesn’t want to waste precious energy. 

“Woman, I swear, if you and the others don’t get your asses up here, I will–” 

“Zoro,” she interrupts, scarily calm and borderline saccharine. “I am speaking on behalf of all of us, your dear friends. Enough is enough.”  

Zoro grunts. 

“It’s been years, Zoro, years.”  Nami continues, her voice now turning serious. “ You’re miserable, Sanji’s not doing any better, and you’re making all of us miserable, too. I’m this close to sending you my therapy bills, you idiots, this close.”  

“I’m not miserable.” He mumbles, vaguely placated by her scathing words and the mental image they conjure. He can see her and her angry frown, holding a slice of very thin air between her index and thumb right in front of his nose. 

“You are. You both are, hell, we all are. And I’m tired of it. So, this is it. Your chance to fix it.”

“Right,” Zoro scoffs, pretending he’s too pissed to care about how hurt she sounded, “because you say so?”

“Zoro.”  

Her tone leaves no room for debate. After another beat of silence, resigned to the fact that fighting his current predicament will bring him nowhere, he opts to simply ask her, “but how’s this gonna fix anything, uh?” 

“Man, you have a whole weekend. Alone, together, in the prettiest place on earth, if I say so myself. It cannot not be romantic, not even if you try your hardest to fuck it up. It’s perfect, you just have to fucking take the chance and talk to him, Zoro.” 

Zoro sighs. She makes it sound like it’s easy, but he knows damn well there’s nothing easy when it comes to them. Nami must feel the scepticism in his silence, because she keeps talking, more solicited. 

“Listen, it took me a whole lot of effort to make it happen, and look, I’m not even asking for anything in return! D’you know how hard it was to keep Luffy from blabbering and ruining the whole thing?”  

She says it like she’s done some sort of good deed, like Zoro should be thankful for it and not sulking the way he is instead. 

“But you know what’s been even harder? Watching you, my closest friends, year after year, persistently choosing to be so fucking masochistic, like you’ve been doing us a favor in torturing yourselves. Do I really have to tell you for the millionth time how stupid you’re being?” 

She sighs, as if just the thought gives her actual, physical pain, and Zoro is still mad at her for putting him in this situation, but the exasperation in her voice does make him feel a little self-conscious. Just a little. 

“Just go,” she continues before he can say anything to defend himself, “spend time with him, enjoy it as you always do, then fucking talk to him, Zoro, alright, you need to get over whatever it is that’s–”

“I can’t just talk to him–”

“Okay, then skip the talking, man, who cares! Jesus, you two are fucking made for each other!”

“What’s that supposed to—“

“Zoro.” 

A quiet second passes. 

“What?”  

“You’re one of the bravest people I know. So stop being a scared, whiny child and go talk to your man. Don’t call me again until it’s to tell me how great the sex was, alright? Bye!” 

“What— Wait!” 

Zoro’s so desperate to keep her on the line that he again chooses not to address her saying things like your man or her allusion to a hypothetical sex he’s quite certain he's not going to get. 

“What the fuck do I even tell him when nobody shows up?”

“I don’t care, make up something! Tell him we all got diarrhoea on the way and went back home. Whatever! ”

“What–” 

“And stop pouting, Zoro, I can hear it.”

He guiltily retracts his bottom lip, schooling his face back to normal. Nami’s always been scarily able to read him, dragging out of him things he wished he could have kept buried under the thick layers of stoicism that usually work on everybody else. The amount of blackmailing material she’s managed to collect over the years thanks to this particular skill of hers should probably concern Zoro more than he lets it.

The thing is, he’d never thought it'd come to this. This as in: his best friend longconning him as a last desperate attempt to finally make him face his own track record of poor choices and emotional constipation. Because he’s been too much of a coward to do so on his own for the past however many years.

He’s feeling a confused mix of angry and embarrassed as he’s rarely ever felt. It’s just that the whole thing does sound quite pathetic, put like that. 

“Bye, Zoro!” 

The call disconnects without giving him a chance to whine nor insult Nami further, and he’s alone again, crossly staring at the screen of his phone: dark, quiet and useless, much like how his own brain currently feels. 

His glaring is eventually interrupted by a warm, deep voice coming from the hallway. 

“Oi, idiot, who were you talking to? I’m done with the groceries, if you care.” 

Zoro can only wait for the inevitable to happen. From the bed where he’s sitting, frozen, he carefully stares at the open bedroom’s door, hearing the unmistakable approaching sound of steps hitting the creaky stairs. His brain is still too busy dwelling on the absurdity of it all to define a plan of attack as quickly as the situation calls for. After a second, Sanji’s face peeps from the hallway into the room, his slender body quickly following. He stops, casually leaning a shoulder on the doorframe, and by the smug expression on his face Zoro can tell he’s going to be irritated by whatever is about to come out of his mouth. 

“Thanks for the help, by the way! Wow, I was so moved by your kindness, genuinely,” Sanji says, sarcasm obvious in his voice. He presses a hand to his own chest for added pathos, “your helpfulness was overwhelming , Marimo, I swear, truly, you shouldn’t have killed your back only to help poor lil’ old me–”

“Ugh, shut up already, shitty cook.” 

Sanji glares at him, but it’s with an amused glint in his eyes. “I swear, every time there’s something to do in the house you magically fuck off, how’s that?” 

“That’s a fucking lie, I’ve–” 

“Well,” Sanji interrupts, pointing his index finger at him, “from where I’m standing, it looks like your ass’ been sitting comfortably on the bed for the past 20 minutes, while I was trying to fit all that stupid beer you made me buy into our tiny ass fridge.” 

Zoro grunts, it hasn’t been a comfortable 20 minutes for him, that’s for sure, but what would this idiot know?

“Maybe you shouldn’t have bought all that food, then, uh? We had to spend an hour in the fucking produce aisle, and then another hour looking at different cuts of meat–” 

“Oh, then please, do tell, what would you feed on if I hadn’t bought all that food uh? Rice and beer? No, no, don’t fucking answer me, I don’t want to hear it.” Sanji dramatically raises a hand to stop a rebuttal Zoro wasn’t even trying to make. “Also, you sound like you’ve never spent a weekend with Luffy in your life, seriously. I’ve barely bought enough.” He shakes his head at him, then finally asks, “where are they, by the way? Usopp’s not replying to my texts.” 

He’s looking at Zoro expectantly now, still holding his duffle bag over one shoulder. He looks a bit grumpy and slightly dishevelled, blonde hair matted weirdly on his forehead, blue eyes tired from the long drive. He is unfairly beautiful, and Zoro almost feels like crying.

He doesn’t cry, of course, because he’s Zoro and because he’s a 25 year old adult who has handled far worse in life without shedding a tear, but it’s a close call. The thing is, Zoro would describe himself as an honest, sensible man. He is also a terrible, terrible liar. He’s sorely aware that the right and only thing to do now should be telling Sanji the truth, that Nami conned everyone only to set the 2 of them up in her empty lake house, because she’s a megalomaniac convinced she can force them to be happily in love with each other. But that’d mean opening a can of worms he’s not ready to dissect just yet and, if he has to be honest, he’s not sure if he’ll ever be. 

Also, it’s not like he’s scared of her, okay, but he has always been kinda wary of contradicting Nami too much. So–

“Uhm, yeah, Nami just called.” He hears the words leave his mouth on their own accord and immediately regrets them, but once he’s started he can’t stop. He does his best to keep his voice neutral, “apparently they all got some weird stomach virus. They had to turn around.” 

“What?” Sanji drops his bag on the floor as concern takes over his face. Zoro feels like the most awful human being on the planet. “What virus?”

“She said they all got diarrhoea, cook. I didn’t really have a chance to ask for more details.” Which is technically not that much of a lie, Zoro thinks to himself in a lame attempt to cleanse his already fatally dirty conscience. 

Sanji looks thoroughly disgusted, but not less worried. “Even Luffy?” He insists, “he never gets sick, cast-iron stomach, that fucker.”

Zoro shrugs helplessly, refusing to add more detail to what is already shaping up like the biggest scam he’s ever been a part of. 

“Fuck, I knew that place they ordered from yesterday was shit.” Sanji exclaims unexpectedly, shaking his head in disapproval. 

Zoro tunes him out as Sanji continues to bitterly babble about how nobody ever listens to him; he’s heard this same spiel a thousand times, after all. He does keep a close eye on Sanji’s face though, if only to monitor his emotional state. Any flick of an eyebrow could help him prepare for whatever the cook will throw his way next; it’s a skill he learned out of necessity, over the years, to read Sanji’s emotions on his face. Now, he goes from mad to worried to mad again in the span of a minute, his eyes squinting in concentration as he tries to recall exactly what everybody ate the night before. Surprisingly, he finally seems placated as his recounting comes to a conclusion.

“–of course, must have been the mussels, it’s the only thing the two of us didn’t eat and they did look like they’d been frozen for fuck knows how long. Guess we got lucky, uh? Unless you’re shitting yourself, too, Marimo?” Sanji finishes with a smirk, and Zoro finally releases the breath he didn’t realise he was holding.

He can’t believe he’s actually getting away with this idiocy. He can’t believe Sanji just made it make sense on his own, unprompted and unquestioning. Zoro still gives him a glare, for good measure, and doesn’t elaborate on the fact that he is, in fact, shitting himself, if only metaphorically and certainly not because of the non-existent intoxication the cook has just diagnosed on the others. The glaring doesn’t last long though, as Sanji is quick to take his own phone out of his shorts’ pocket. Zoro nervously watches him, knowing there’s only one person he could be calling right now. The phone rings 5 times, and Nami thankfully doesn’t pick up. There’s a buzz signalling an incoming text right after Sanji lowers his phone with a disappointed frown, and Zoro knows the least the witch can do now is to keep the half-assed cover they have sort of agreed on. Still, the whole 3 minutes of silence it takes for Sanji to finally raise his gaze from the screen make Zoro break into a cold sweat. 

“She says they didn’t make it further than the ring, and had to go back home. But to not worry, that Chopper says they’ll be fine in a couple of days.” 

He’s relieved his lie did not blow on his face but, at the mention of Chopper, Zoro feels the weight of bad karma hanging on his head getting heavier and heavier.

“It’s a pity they’ll miss the weekend though,” Sanji continues, longingly typing back what Zoro is certain is going to be a way too cheesy reply, “Nami had been planning it for so long, she must be heartbroken!” 

“Right,” Zoro croaks out. Sanji doesn’t have the faintest idea how far off the mark he is with that one. “So. What should we do now?” 

Sanji shrugs. “I don’t know, unpack? And there’s still to open all of the blinds and bring the chairs and table outside, you know, if you want to make yourself useful, for a change.” 

Zoro stares at him. He didn’t expect Sanji to be so indifferent to their current predicament.

It’s not like it’d be weird for them to spend time alone, they do it all the time. Being here though, just the two of them for a whole weekend, feels different. They’ve been at the house for roughly half an hour and the absence of their usual getaway companions is already incredibly loud. Without their friends around, the house feels way too quiet, intimate almost, with its high windows facing the shimmering waters of the lake and the peaceful, barely inhabited hills around it. Not that Zoro would ever claim to know anything about romance, but Nami was sort of right, he can concede that. It does look like a setting out of one of those stupid rom-coms Sanji loves so much, and the two of them usually go to great, great lengths to avoid finding themselves in this kind of situation. He’s not fully convinced they always succeed at that, but that’s a whole other problem for a whole other time. Right now, he needs to find a way to pull himself out of this mess. It’s not just the house, alright, it’s the fact that this place has always worked some kind of obscure magic on Sanji, softening him in a way Zoro’s always found unsettling. Every time they drive up here, his face starts gleaming like the fucking sun , and every time Zoro sees it happen, another bit of his precarious sanity leaves him for good. 

Maybe he’s being dramatic, but the truth stands, and that’s that here, alone with Sanji, he doesn’t trust himself not to succumb and end up doing exactly what Nami wants him to do: blurt all of his feelings out, dump them on Sanji with all of their weight, finally forcing them both to address the elephant in the room. 

Yeah, no. He definitely cannot let that happen. 

“I meant,” he tries again, desperately searching his brain for words that are not we should get the fuck out of here right about now , “shouldn’t we just– You know, go back home? If the others aren’t coming. Or, I mean…” 

He trails off, doing a terrible job as usual at eloquently communicating with Sanji. The cook looks confused throughout Zoro’s babbling, but then his face rapidly colours up, and when he speaks it’s in that piqued voice of his that Zoro knows is reserved just for him, specifically for when he’s majorly fucked up. What does it say about him that it still makes him feel special?

“Do you know how long it’s been since I had a weekend off? Of course you don’t, I can’t even remember it!” 

As a matter of fact, Zoro perfectly remembers when Sanji’s last weekend off has been and he could retell exactly how they’ve spent it, and he’s positive that Sanji knows this, too. Still, he wisely chooses not to point it out and rather to quietly wait for the end of Sanji’s rant. 

“I am going to stay here and I am going to enjoy it, despite your ungracious company,” Sanji hisses, flapping his hands in the air like the dramatic bastard he is, “or even better, why don’t you go take a bus home if you really can’t stand this? I ain’t gonna drive your sorry ass back, that’s for sure, you ungrateful loot.” 

With that, he storms out of the room, and Zoro’s back to helplessly staring at his own hands. 

~~~

They’ve been friends forever, the lot of them. They met in Uni, all living in the same shitty student residence, bonded over the unforgiving experience of sharing the floor’s kitchen with Luffy. On Zoro’s first day there, while he was still trying to unpack in a somewhat organised manner, Luffy had opened his room’s door without knocking, jumped unceremoniously on his bed, and declared their rooms were right next to each other and that they were going to be best buddies. Zoro wasn’t really given any other option than to indulge him. Quickly after came Nami and Usopp, Sanji and lastly, Chopper. For the most disparate and absurd reasons, they all fell into Luffy’s orbit, from which they had soon discovered there was no escape. As time went by, they grew tighter than probably any of them had initially intended to. The thing is, they soon figured out they were all some sort of fucked up, and they were there for each other when it mattered. They ended up sharing all that being broke ass students meant, from caffeinated all-nighters, to summer break trips, to endless dorm parties followed by missed morning lectures. But they also shared the arduous journey of becoming adults, having each other’s backs through the struggle of having to understand who you are and carve some space for yourself in the world. And so here they are, almost a decade later, all with their own overpriced rents to pay and shitty jobs and somewhat put together existences, yet still as co-dependent as they used to be when they were 18 and had no fucking clue how to live. 

He didn't plan for them to become a family, just as much as he didn’t plan to fall in love with Sanji. It just sort of happened and, in both cases, when he’d realised it was already too late. 

~~~

Zoro remembers shaking Sanji’s hand for the first time, after having watched him make a fool of himself trying to hit on Nami with the sleaziest line of all time, and thinking: what a moron . It clearly hadn’t been a case of love at first sight, rather more of a slow and inexorable thing that grew and grew and still keeps on growing, with no intention of stopping. Zoro doesn’t have a rational explanation for it, it still doesn’t make any fucking sense to him. 

If he tries hard enough though, he does have a string of moments bookmarked in his mental Sanji file, the ones he deems worth noting when thinking back on how the hell he ended up effectively and irreversibly in love with that same moron, that than became sort of his best friend, but also his nemesis, the only person who he fully trusts, yet can drive him up a wall with the sheer power of annoying remarks and snarky words. 

There’s the day before Zoro’s first ever exam: Human Anatomy , that bitch. He understands, now that he’s an actual P.E. teacher, why he had to go through that as a 19 year old, but at the time it just felt like the most overwhelmingly boring challenge he ever had to overcome. The night before his test, he had been going through a thousand flashcards to try and desperately memorize all the fucking muscles and bones, and for a string of events he doesn’t recall anymore, Sanji ended up staying up late with him. They spent hours sitting on the shitty sofa in their dining area, Sanji quizzing him over and over again, kicking him on the shins for every wrong answer. He’d find it terribly annoying, back then. Now, when he thinks back on it, he can only remember Sanji’s stupid determination to help him out and his victorious smile when Zoro finally got most answers right. 

Then, there’s that cursed night the two of them unintentionally got drunk on cheap beer, towards the end of their first year, and ended up challenging each other into doing increasingly stupid shit. He doesn’t know how they’d found themselves playing the stupid game, but he blames it on the alcohol and that tendency the two of them have to turn everything into a competition. By two in the morning their brains were thoroughly intoxicated and kept derailing them towards the silliest things. Things that should have been harmless, like Zoro daring Sanji to lick the floor, or like Sanji daring Zoro to kiss a girl. 

“But I’m gay,” Zoro had confusedly replied. 

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. That’s why I’m daring you to kiss a woman , duh, a man would be too easy.” 

There had been no girl around, though, which forced Zoro to text to an oblivious Nami the exact words: ‘oi can we make out tomorrow so I don’t lose against the cook? He says asking you it’s cheating cause you’re gay too but you still a girl so I win’ . He never did make out with Nami, thank god, but she still uses that story to taunt him once in a while. Zoro can’t really blame her, it was one of his lowest points, possibly, and he’s had a fair share of those. Still, embarrassing himself with Nami had been the least of his problems. See, at that moment, the only logical thing he could think of was returning the favour and challenging the cook to go kiss a man. He had expected an easy win with that one, because even if they hadn’t known each other for that long at the time, just as much as everybody already knew Zoro was gay, they also knew Sanji was the most annoying of the skirt-chasers around. 

So, Zoro had been totally unprepared for how what was about to happen was going to tilt his world on its axes. Because Sanji didn’t look at him in disgust and immediately admitted defeat like Zoro had expected. No, the fucker just laughed at him. Maniacally, that is. It’s a sound Zoro can still hear in his own head, as clear as if it was yesterday. 

“Oh God, look at your face! You think you got me,” Sanji had hiccuped, fingers trying to stop the tears escaping the corner of his eyes from how hard he was laughing, “How daft can you be, seriously, mosshead? I thought you knew ! I’m fucking bi , you clueless shit, of course I’ll kiss a man. Go find me a good one and I’ll even put on a show for you.”

To this day, Zoro remembers those exact words and the drunken, teary-eyed smirk that accompanied them. It’s all imprinted on the walls of his frontal lobe, the way Sanji’s face had coloured up, from the laughing and who knows what else, his watery eyes full of mirth, how he had looked young, silly and whole too amused by Zoro’s undoubtedly dumbstruck face. 

The real problem was that as soon as the words were out of Sanji’s mouth, Zoro couldn’t stop thinking that he was kinda interested in this show Sanji had just offered, maybe even taking an active role in it? Which had been, well, kind of unsettling. More than realising his gaydar was for shit, even, and that was a low blow. Sanji, bisexual? It didn’t add up. Or maybe it did and he had tried hard not to see it. Whatever. Until that night, Zoro had Sanji listed under the “annoyingly hot and annoyingly straight” category of dudes he begrudgingly ogled in a you’re too hot for your own good but I wouldn’t touch you even with a ten-foot pole sort of way. For some mysterious reason, knowing Sanji was bi had somehow made him question that postulate. He had never thought of touching him in any way other than to kick his ass, and yet only the possibility that Sanji could have been into it - it being Zoro touching his ass but not to kick it- if incredibly remote, had still shaken Zoro to his core. For quite a while, he genuinely hadn’t known how to process this newly acquired information. 

Much like he hadn’t known how to process the constant pull he felt towards Sanji. He knows what it was now , but when he was a useless 20 year old, the only thing he’d known was that Sanji was the most annoying human being on the face of the earth, and they needed to spend so much time around each other solely out of spite, to pick fights, rile the other up and get under each other’s skin. Which was something they were incredibly successful at, too, and still are, to be fair. 

In hindsight, he is probably self-aware enough now to admit that it might have been just pulling pigtails the whole time.

Possibly. 

Regardless, Zoro still believes that fighting with him so much has been, and sometimes still is, the best way to get to know Sanji, so he doesn’t regret it.

What he does regret is his younger self’s cluelessness. He had been daft, as Sanji had put it, and not only to the other’s sexuality. He hadn’t even realised how jealous he had always been, not even the way he’d find himself growling every time he’d spotted Sanji in too close proximity with another human being had managed to clue him in. He’d been too stubborn, back then, just brushing everything off and into the overall “reasons why Sanji annoys me” pile. And, jealousy was a feeling Zoro hadn’t really experienced before, he had never been possessive over anything else other than his precious katanas. And yet there he was, suddenly turned into an even grumpier version of his usual self by any little twirl the cook would do around a pretty face, not even understanding why. 

Unsurprisingly, if Zoro had no clue what to do with any of that, Nami, as usual, was a step ahead. The first time she confronted him about it, it was the summer before their last year as students. Sanji was going to be gone the whole break for a pastry training seminary camp of some sort and Zoro had admittedly been sulking, tormented by the thought of Sanji being away for weeks, surrounded by smart people who shared his passions and interests, no less. 

A week after Sanji’s departure, Nami had sat him down with a six-pack of his favourite beer, and as they worked their way through it, she had simply said, “I think we finally gotta have the talk , Zoro.”

“Which talk ?”

“The one were you tell me you’re in love with Sanji, I pretend to be surprised about it, then I tell you to pull your head out of your ass and fucking tell him already, for everybody’s sake.” 

It was an interesting concept, being in love. Zoro had never been, nor he ever thought he would be. He never was interested in things like love. He watched people around him talk about it, and it felt momentary , in his mind. A fragile thing that sparked and died faster than a campfire. Something he wasn’t destined for, ‘cause he didn’t like to waste time on momentary things. He understood sex, and he understood friendship, and loyalty and care for other people. 

But what the fuck was love supposed to even be?

“You could say, my friend, love it’s just a mix of them all. You’ll be good at it, I’m sure,” Nami had said, when he tried to elaborate the fuzzy thoughts in his brain. 

She hadn’t been wrong, that’s the funny thing. Nami was rarely wrong, if ever, but he would never tell her that. 

Still, at the time he had genuinely believed it was going to be just a stupid infatuation, an attraction going a bit too far, something that would go away with enough time. A summer apart from each other was gonna help, and by September everything would have been okay. Except that Sanji had kept texting him, saying unbearable things like, “no one has green hair around here. Boring .” And the more time passed, the more Zoro would learn how fundamentally good Sanji was, the kind of good that warms your insides like a hot meal on a cold night. Time taught him about Sanji’s reckless kindness, the one that made him want to take others’ burdens onto his own shoulders and just give without asking anything in return, never losing faith in people despite having all reasons to do so. It showed him how to navigate through the infinity of complex layers that made up Sanji’s personality. Time made him realise he loved the cook’s snark and his prissy facade, but he loved even more all that was too often hidden behind it. So, really, time only made Zoro fall for the bastard harder. For years, Zoro had kept trying his best to just ignore it, that bubbly feeling that gurgled in his stomach every time Sanji appeared in the room. Nothing ever worked. Not the endless string of people Sanji had dated over the seasons, much less the poor guys Zoro had tried to date himself. 

At some point, he just stopped trying and simply accepted the reality of things. 

Zoro didn’t do things half-way, it’d been stupid of him to expect otherwise. 

His love wasn’t momentary.

~~~

“Oi, Marimo! You’re gonna stay in your cave the whole evening or do you care for something to eat, too?” 

Sanji’s loud voice coming from downstairs shakes Zoro out of his stress-induced nap. His sister used to tell him that sleeping wasn’t a mature way to cope with problems, but he always disagreed on the matter. He does wake up with a clearer mind, as a matter of fact. 

He can do this. 

He yawns and stretches, then takes a deep breath, in and out. He immediately notices a few things have slightly shifted in the room around him. Mostly, three things stand out: he’s not wearing shoes anymore and he’s pretty sure he did fall asleep with them on; there’s a white linen sheet covering half of his body that wasn’t there when he fell asleep; Sanji’s duffle is left open and half unpacked on the bed next to his. 

Zoro has to purposely slow his breath down yet again. 

Technically, he shouldn’t be surprised. This is their room, after all. When time came, it happened almost naturally for them to take ownership over the small bedroom with the twin beds. Nami had immediately claimed the master bedroom, while Chopper had placed himself on the living room’s cranky sofa-bed he had gifted to the house himself. As Sanji and Zoro had both categorically refused to share a bunk bed with Luffy, not many options were left. Still, he somewhat expected Sanji to take advantage of the extra space, given the chance, instead of sticking to sharing this tiny room with him. 

The shoes and the sheet, though, that he didn’t see coming, not after the tirade Sanji’d stormed off the room with earlier. It’s not uncommon for Sanji to indulge in these little acts of kindness towards the people he cares about, Zoro included despite all the shit he gives him, it’s an item on the long list of reasons why he loves the damned idiot so much. Still, Sanji’s unrelenting kindness directed towards him never fails to leave Zoro blindsided. And it’s quite the image, if he thinks about it, Sanji untying his shoelaces and pulling his shoes off his feet carefully so as not to wake him up, covering him with the sheet ‘cause the air is chilly tonight and the room is draughty, the windows from one too many centuries ago. 

“Marimo? You still asleep, for real ?! You’re worse than a toddler, I swear… Bring your ass down here!” 

Sanji’s shouting has gotten louder, and it startles Zoro off his daydreaming. He huffs, looking resentfully at his trainers, perfectly lined up by the door. He pushes the sheet off himself and finally tries to collect what’s left of his resolve to go and face the music. 

They’re in Nami’s lake house, alone, for 48 hours. 

It’s no big deal.

He takes another steading breath, and gets up.

~~~

“I missed this place.” Sanji says, wistfully taking another sip of his red wine. 

They’re sitting at opposite ends of the big sofa, both enraptured by the view out of the big bay window in front of them. The sun is setting on the lake, painting the sky in a mix of oranges and purples Zoro will never get tired of. 

Nami’s lake house had been their summer project after Chopper had graduated, and they all finally had enough savings and time to invest on it. Nami had inherited the small estate from her late mother, but the place had needed so much work to become inhabitable again that she’d never really put the effort in until they decided to do it together. Everybody contributed how they could. Usopp is the only engineer of the group, and therefore pretty much the only one who knew what needed to be done and how, so he probably has his rights when he yaps about how useless the others were throughout the process. Nevertheless, Sanji had discovered a new talent for whitewashing, Zoro had carried the heavy things, Chopper had taken care of all the tasks that required patience and precision, and Luffy had cheered them up when they’d needed the extra boost of motivation. Nami ended up doing what she’s always done best: order them around while laying on the sofa with a freshly made drink. 

It had been barely furnished, the first weekend they all stayed there together. But Usopp had already restored the wooden kitchen counters and upgraded the stoves, and there were a bunch of mattresses on the living room’s floor, together with the sofa-bed coming from Chopper’s grandma, and that had been enough for them to call it a home. They even gave it a name, because Luffy insisted it needed one to really become part of their crew, and just like that The Merry came to be. 

Over the following couple of years, they’d kept adding bits and pieces. Second-hand furniture passed down by distant relatives, photo frames to scatter on the walls, a half-functioning microwave from Sanji’s dad's kitchen. Bedrooms started to shape up, along with a somewhat decent living room ensemble, and the kitchen got equipped enough so that the cook was finally happy with it. The wooden stairs still creak, there’s a post-it with instructions on how to work the flush taped right above the toilet, and they cannot keep the garden properly groomed for shit. It’s their home, though, even if Nami keeps reminding them that her name is the only one on the deed and they are all just a bunch of free riders. 

Zoro’s always loved it. Regrettably, he loves it even more right in this moment, with only him and Sanji in it, washed in the sunset hues. 

Foolishly, he lets his mind wander to a home that doesn’t exist, one that has both and only his and Sanji’s names on the doorbell. One with a big kitchen island like the cook’s always dreamed of, a bedroom with a big wardrobe in which Sanji’s suits and frilly shirts would forever take more than half the space, a living room with a big bay window just like the one Sanji’s staring at now, to watch countless sunsets from. 

He forcibly shrugs himself out of it, and drags his eyes away from the Sanji’s profile too, for good measure. The more time he’s forced to endure him in these lights, in this house, the harder it gets to stay away from these pointless fantasies that only serve to push him further down the hole he’s already dug for himself. 

“We really don’t come here as often as we used to, these days, uh?” 

Sanji speaks again, nostalgia pouring from his every word, and Zoro understands where it comes from, but he also doesn’t. He hates it when Sanji gets like this, when he makes himself older than he actually is, as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders, as if all the good things were already behind him. He doesn’t fault him for it, he knows overthinking is part of who Sanji is, but he still feels the need to scold him and shake him out of it, most of the time. 

Now, he just wants to tell him that they can come here whenever Sanji wants, that he’d bring him here every weekend if it’d make him feel lighter, if it’d make him happy. Lamely, he just says, “yeah, we haven’t been back for a while.” 

Sanji shakes his head, disillusion clear in the downward curve of his mouth. “We’re getting old, Marimo. We work too much.” 

“Tsk. You work too much. By choice.” 

Sanji glares at him like he always does whenever Zoro points the obvious out to him. 

“I have to, mosshead. I have responsibilities , I have to take it seriously, Zeff’s retiring and I can’t just–” 

“Cook, there’s a difference between taking it seriously and working yourself to death.” Zoro says, exactly like he’s already done another hundred times. “I’m sure your old man doesn’t want you to burn out before you even get to run the place on your own, for fuck’s sake. You deserve the rest, like everyone else.” 

Sanji laughs, but it’s a bitter sound. He then drags his eyes away from Zoro’s face and back to the view. 

“You have to stop sounding like him.”

“Mhm?” 

“You sound like Zeff, always complaining about me working too much, always trying to get me to slow down.” 

“Yeah,” Zoro mutters, “it’s ‘cause we have functioning eyes and brains.” And because we care about you , Zoro wants to add but again, he knows better than to do so.  

“I can take it, you know? You don’t have to worry.” 

Sanji does his best to keep his tone casual, teasing, but Zoro knows him too well to not hear the real question behind his words.

“It’s never been about if you can take it or not, cook,” Zoro tries his best to not sound too annoyed by the fact that that’s even being questioned. He’s never not wishing for Sanji to give more credit to himself, and to the people who believe in him, too. “I know you can. I just think you don’t have to kill yourself over it.” 

Sanji’s eyes are back on him. They quietly look at each other for a second, and Zoro holds his gaze with no difficulty, this time. Then Sanji huffs, diverting his eyes once again. 

“You’re just lazy, Mr. Teacher working a 20-hour week,” Sanji ends up saying, deflecting, just as Zoro expected him to. 

“And you’re an asshole,” it’s the only fitting reply. 

There’s more levity in him when Sanji chuckles this time around, amused probably by Zoro’s grumpy delivery more than by his actual words, but Zoro still considers himself satisfied. They silently enjoy the final splashes of colour on the horizon, Sanji sipping on his wine and Zoro on his third beer. The old TV still hums in the background even if they’ve stopped watching it long ago, but the faint sounds somehow keep them company nonetheless. 

It’s almost pitch dark when Sanji speaks again. 

“It’s nice, the quiet, isn’t it? It’s never been so quiet around here with all those fuckers to feed and keep entertained, I guess.” 

Zoro smirks, unable to pass down the occasion to tease, “are you saying you’re enjoying my ungracious company, cook?” 

 “As if,” Sanji mutters, stretching his left leg out to his side, determined to shove what he can reach of Zoro’s thigh with his foot. “What I’m saying is: you’re low maintenance, Marimo. Like those plants you don’t have to water and they stay green nonetheless. You just need enough beer, and that’s it.” 

Zoro groans through Sanji’s whole spiel, while also trying to stop the offending foot from digging holes in his right thigh. He should think of a rebuttal to get back at him, and he should definitely push Sanji’s foot away now that he’s finally managed to get a hold of it, but instead he lets it land on his lap and keeps it there with a firm press of his hands. They’re both quiet as he starts to draw pointless circles on Sanji’s ankle with his thumb. The cook makes a protesting sound at the tickling sensation, but after some wiggling he gives up and lets it happen, shifting to rest his back fully on the armrest and bringing his other foot up to join in on Zoro’s lap. Inexplicably, there’s no panic in Zoro’s stomach, even though the contact with Sanji’s skin still makes it flutter. He’s sure there’s a flush on his cheeks’, and maybe on Sanji’s, too. He doesn’t dare to look up and check, though, stubbornly choosing to focus on the invisible patterns he’s intently tracing on Sanji’s skin. It’s not new, this kind of proximity between them, far from. It started the first time Zoro felt delirious enough to stop one of Sanji's self-deprecating rants with a hug. He’s not sure what had gotten into him that day, years ago, but in the moment it felt like the only thing left to do. And he had been right, as the sudden lock of Zoro’s arms around him had left Sanji too stunned to do anything but shut up and breathe. Since then, it has been small, incremental little things. These days Sanji reaches out to fix Zoro’s hair or the collar of his shirt more often than not, with a nonchalance that still makes Zoro’s brain stutter every time. It’s small moments of bliss, usually followed up with some sort of insult, to compensate, but Zoro takes them all with the eagerness of a kid being offered candy outside of the designated meal times. 

Eventually, the sky’s dark, their glasses empty, and they’re forced into motion. Sanji retreats his feet from Zoro’s lap to get up and Zoro immediately yearns for the lost contact. They banter a bit more, doing the dishes and fixing up the kitchen together, because Zoro’s method is never really the right one and Sanji still feels the urge to point it out whenever they end up cleaning together. It feels easy, this back and forth between them, Zoro thinks, and then he wonders how, why does it always feel easy yet impossibly overwhelming, to be with Sanji like this? 

“Let’s get ready for bed, Marimo.” After a non defined amount of time, Sanji’s voice pulls him out of his head once again, “I’m tired and I want to go fishing early tomorrow morning.”

Zoro can’t come up fast enough with any valid excuse to keep them there, so he silently follows Sanji upstairs. 

~~~

The thing is, Zoro is aware his relationship with Sanji is not normal. 

You see, he’s not completely oblivious, despite what his friends might think. Yes, it did take Nami spelling things out for him to realise he was actually in love with the idiot, but he’d been just a kid back then. 

Now he knows that their bickering was just a symptom of an inexplicable, twisted sort of attraction that kept pulling them towards each other, and still does. 

And he knows he’s the only one Sanji trusts enough to be fully himself with, and that it works both ways. Sanji has access to his most vulnerable side, to memories Zoro’s never cared to share with anybody else. He knows Sanji hasn’t received enough kindness growing up to fully believe he deserves to be cared for, too, but somehow he still lets Zoro scold him for working too much, or for sleeping too little. He lets Zoro pick him up from the restaurant on Saturday nights when he has the Sunday off, and he lets himself get dragged to Zoro’s apartment instead of his own, because at Zoro’s he can forget his responsibilities for a little while, get a night of sound and undisturbed sleep, followed by a Sunday of unapologetic laziness the cook would never allow himself otherwise. 

Zoro also knows that when Sanji shows up at his door unannounced, it’s because he had a rough day and needs someone he can freely vent to, not only someone who can take his awful mood and turn it around, but also someone that is not afraid to call him out on his self-deprecating bullshit. He knows he’s that person for Sanji. And he hopes Sanji knows he’s the only one able to pull Zoro’s out of his head when it gets too dark in there. When Zoro goes quiet and pensive, there’s no point in pressing, but when Zoro’s truly angry, then screaming is the only way through to him. Sanji knows when to wait and when to push. 

Zoro is also painfully aware of the fact that most of his colleagues are dead sure Sanji is his boyfriend. He can’t blame them, after all. Sanji shows up at the school where Zoro teaches a bit too often, and too often it’s to bring Zoro his lunch, that he cooked and arranged in multiple tupperwares with way too much care. Almost just as often, Sanji ends up staying with him to eat together. He knows Zeff and the cooks’ at the Baratie tease them for behaving like an old married couple, and that Sanji has long given up on screaming at them to try and make them stop. 

He knows it’s been years of becoming so much to each other that calling Sanji a friend feels belittling, and yet that’s what they both still do as per a mutual, unspoken agreement. 

Or, actually, a spoken agreement. They did talk about it, only once in their lives. Whenever he tries to make this point to Nami she insists it’s bullshit, but Zoro can’t wash the memory out of his brain. Their graduation’s party, both shitfaced, inebriated with that lethal mix of alcohol and freedom that only being finally done with school can give you. Zoro remembers them dancing too close to each other, and he remembers Sanji unceremoniously saying, just loud enough to be heard by Zoro over the blasting music but not by the people around them, “I kinda wanna fuck you”. He remembers choking on his own spit, unable to say anything for ten whole seconds that felt like a lifetime, but then Sanji kept talking, only making things worse, “and I kinda think you want to fuck me, too.” 

“Yeah,” Zoro could only say, trying to make it sound like a question but failing miserably.

“I really fucking hate you,” Sanji sighed. 

Zoro was confused. 

“You don’t get it, do ya, Mosshead? It’d be a terrible, terrible idea.” 

Zoro was even more confused, and still unable to participate in the conversation.

“Me and you? We’d crash and buuurn , Ma-ri-mo. What would be of our little gang, then, uh? Kids of divorce they’d be, all of them. It’s a fucking terrible idea, I’m telling ya.” Sanji was slurring by that point, and yet what he said made so much sense to Zoro’s drunken brain, because isn’t that what had always scared him, too? To fuck things up beyond repair. 

“Don’t ever fucking flirt with me ever again,” Sanji concluded, resolute in his words yet still moving his body dangerously close to Zoro’s, as if his brain had to still connect the dots and inform his hands they had to leave Zoro’s pecs. 

“I don’t flirt with you,” Zoro finally said. He owed at least that to his scarred pride.

“You do!” 

“I… don’t?” Zoro was starting to second guess himself. 

“You-your fucking arms? You are never wearing a shirt?” 

Zoro wasn’t following. Sanji must have read the question mark on his face, 'cause he stopped listing things and decide to send him to hell.

“Just, fuck off, okay, just don’t! Okay?”

“Okay! Then you don’t, either!”

“I would never!” 

“You would! You do! You just said you wanted to f–”

“Fine! Then you don’t and I don’t!”

“Fine!” 

“Fine!”  

And that’s how it ended, the most important and nonsensical conversation of Zoro’s life. An hour later, he was holding Sanji’s hair back as he emptied his stomach on the side of the street.

And nothing really changed after that. The next morning it was like nothing happened, and maybe nothing did. He sort of hoped Sanji’d forgotten about the whole exchange, but he’ll never know for sure. He only knows they never talked about it ever again, yet they both consistently tried and failed at keeping the stupid promise he thinks they made to each other that night. 

It’s not like they actively flirt with each other, Zoro doesn’t even know what would classify as that within a relationship that looks like theirs does. But they could never really get rid of it, that tension between them, that gravitational pull that brings them together, that makes them clash and bicker for a lack of a better outburst. They kept growing closer, and instead of doing so like best friends would, like he and Luffy did, Zoro and Sanji stayed in this messy, tense, co-dependent, sexually charged thing that has always been Zoro and Sanji’s relationship, and that doesn’t seem destined to change any time soon. 

Nami thinks they’re self-entitled idiots. 

Zoro agrees, he truly does, but he also knows why they’ve never talked about it again. 

It’s because it’s too fucking scary, that’s what it is, as much as it hurts his pride to admit it. 

Because what if Sanji was right? What if they will crash and burn, and ruin the best thing that ever happened to the both of them?

Zoro isn’t one to give up on something he really wants, nor one to indulge himself in what ifs , but the magnitude of this whole thing has always granted the extra care and overthinking he would never reserve to anything else. He doesn’t take lightly the value their little group of misfits has in his life. He never had much of a family of his own growing up, and he’d been the biggest loner all throughout highschool, but then these fools stormed in and somehow decided to stick to him, with him. When he thinks about family, it’s their faces popping up in his head. He knows he could go on and live his life alone and be okay, but he long accepted the fact that he doesn’t want to anymore. 

He doesn’t want a life without them. He doesn’t want a life without Sanji in it.

And he knows Sanji feels exactly the same way. 

So what if they can’t handle this big, uncontrollable thing between them, and the result is a broken friendship and a family that can’t stick together anymore?

It irritates him terribly, this uncharacteristic cowardice of his. And yet he can’t do anything about it. Just as much as he couldn’t avoid being drawn to Sanji in the first place, he can’t avoid being paralysed by the fear of making that one last step towards him. 

At times, he finds himself resenting Sanji for it too, for not having forced them into just facing this already, even just to yell at Zoro to fuck off, that he got it all wrong, that he just wanted a fuck when he was too drunk to think clearly and that’s all there ever was, nothing more.

He knows it’s unfair. 

Because isn’t he the first to believe that it’s okay to just enjoy and be grateful for the relationship they do have, instead of wishing for something more, something as unpredictable and fickle as love can be? 

Because Zoro’s love is not momentary, but what if Sanji’s is?

So, they don’t talk about it. Because they’re not ready yet, and maybe because this is what they’re ever destined to be. 

And it’s fine, it’s really fine. 

He just needs to go through this weekend, ignore Nami’s calls for the following week, and then everything’ll be back to normal. 

~~~

They’re sitting at the end of the long wooden dock in front of the house, their usual fishing spot. It’s impossibly warm outside considering how chilly it’d been the night before, the air already terse with humidity even if it’s barely 9am. They’ve gone fishing together on this very lake many times, but usually it was together with at least Usopp, if not with all of the others. Minus Nami, of course. She always found the activity terribly boring, somehow preferring to lay down completely still to be fried by the sun, as if that’s any better. Zoro will never get her, nor women in general, but he understands, to an extent, that fishing might not look like the most exciting pastime. Usopp and Luffy do make it oddly entertaining, but it’s always too much of a loud affair, with them, a ruckus more than anything else. What Zoro has always loved about the activity is the peace of it. And he’s also always loved the way Sanji goes about it, all determined focus and occasional ramblings about this or that type of fish. Sanji loves talking about food, that is, and fish might as well be his favourite. It makes him lose his usually composed demeanour, to talk about things that make him happy, and Zoro just enjoys seeing that unabashed giddiness on his face. Today is no different. As expected, once their fishing rods are prepped and their hooks are in the water, Sanji gets all crinkly-eyed as he goes on and on about the lake’s different species of bass, and Zoro is grateful they’re already sitting down because the first golden smile Sanji unconsciously throws at him is enough to turn his legs to jelly. 

They chat for a bit, but there’s mostly companionable silence between them, occasionally interrupted by their grunts and gasps and the accompanying teasing at any pull of the rods. They have turned it into a competition for who catches more, because of course they have. Despite how he grunts at him, Zoro doesn’t actually mind when Sanji preens on a successful catch. So what if he’s growing pathetically soft, Sanji’s smile is to blame. It is what it is. 

They stay there for however long it takes for them to catch 2 big enough fish to be considered edible and not to be thrown back into the water, and by the time they’ve carefully repackaged their gear, the sun has risen high enough to make them both drip in sweat. Zoro stares as a drop runs a trail from Sanji’s temple down to his neck, and gulps. 

“We should swim,” he blurts out, mostly to distract himself from haunting thoughts of how Sanji’s skin would taste under his tongue right now. Speaking’s not a distraction enough, so he strips his shirt off and stands up, as if keeping his body busy could magically divert the course of his mind.  

Sanji raises an eyebrow at him from where he’s still sitting, smoking on his cigarette placidly, picture perfect of nonchalance. Zoro hates him and his calm, beautiful face. 

“Gotta bring that inside first, or it’ll rot in the sun,” the cook says, hinting to the ice bucket where they’ve dropped the fish with a flick of his chin. 

Zoro shrugs, “isn’t that what the ice is for?”

Sanji rolls his eyes at him, “yes, but it’s a thousand degrees, in case you haven’t noticed, Moss-for-brains. Ice melts .” 

He drops his cigarette in the half-filled plastic glass he’s been using as a makeshift ashtray, then he goes to stand, picking the bucket on his way up to fully vertical. Zoro must have been hit by a heatstroke, because the moment Sanji’s standing in front of him, shoulders to the lake, he gets hit by a silly idea. He stands a little taller, then, and opens his arms out, effectively blocking Sanji’s way back to the house. Sanji raises a questioning eyebrow at him. 

“Marimo? Get out of the way.”

Zoro smirks. 

“Nah.” 

“Move, now”, Sanji hisses again. 

Zoro shakes his head no once again, confiding in his predatory grin and the stance of his body to do the job. It takes another long second, but then Sanji’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly right before quickly rolling skywards, the understanding of Zoro’s intentions finally dawning on him. 

“What are you,” Sanji sighs, exasperated, “fucking twelve ?” 

His eyebrow’s ticking in annoyance, and Zoro feels delirious. 

“Drop the bucket and surrender, Cook. I don’t wanna waste the fish.” 

“Why do you have to be like this,” Sanji mutters, so low that it sounds more like a scolding to himself rather than a question to Zoro. 

“You have 3 seconds, Curls. One, two–”

“I do hate you,” Sanji interrupts his countdown with another sigh, but he does turn his back to leave the bucket back on the corner of the dock, easily accepting his defeat. 

Zoro’s almost disappointed by how easy that was. He would’ve expected the cook to put up more of a fight, the countdown thing has never worked once–

“Fuck,” it’s the only thing Zoro has time to say before he’s stumbling over the edge of the dock, taken aback by the sudden force of Sanji’s body colliding with his. 

In the split second he has before going down, Zoro manages to hold on for dear life to whatever bit of Sanji he can reach, determined to not be overtaken at his own game. Sanji growls, trying to disentangle himself, but the deathgrip Zoro has on his leg finally manages to cause him to lose his balance and in a matter of seconds they’re both underwater in a messy tangle of limbs. 

The lake’s water’s cold, but pleasantly so. It did manage to do what Zoro hoped, extinguishing the burning edge of his thoughts. Once they break the surface, Sanji is glaring at him through the strands of wet hair matted on his face, shouting unflattering epithets rendered completely ludicrous by the fact that he effectively looks like a disgruntled wet cat. Zoro laughs at him. Sanji shoves him underwater once again.

They fight pointlessly for a bit, shoving each other in the water, but they’re sort of laughing too, and Sanji looks like he comes from a whole other world, sparkly eyes and red cheeks. Zoro feels as light as the leaves floating next to them. It’s nice to be reminded how young they are, how stupid they can still be together. It’s another one of those moments when not blurting out what’s on his mind gets incredibly difficult, but Zoro’s always been stronger than the butterflies in stomach. He forces them all back in their cage, shushing their complaints, and convinces himself he’s as chill and carefree as the smile currently sitting on Sanji’s face. They’re so close he can count the drops of water on Sanji’s cheeks, and he can’t stop himself from thinking, would the world end if I’d kiss you right now?

“Okay, enough of you, big man child,” Sanji says, spluttering a bit of water as he finally puts some real effort into trying to swim away from Zoro, pushing off his shoulders, “let me go! I gotta clean up, store the fish, cook, you know, do what adults do.” 

“Bo-ring,” Zoro sing-songs, but he lets Sanji go and swim away back towards the dock. 

He stays there floating on his back, letting the water’s surface sustain his weight while his eyes follow Sanji’s movements back on dry land. He has to crane his neck a bit, but he’s still able to get a full view of Sanji shrugging off his wet tee and shaking his hair out in a poor attempt at drying himself up. It shouldn’t be that sensual, not with how methodically he’s going about it, but Sanji’s swim shorts are really short , his legs go on for days and his shoulders and arms’ muscles tense perfectly as he squeezes the water out of his tee. Zoro might be strong enough to not sputter I love yous left and right, but he’s only human, after all. There’s too much bare skin to look at, and so he allows himself to get lost in it, unabashedly staring at every cord of muscle’s little tugs and strains. 

Finally, Sanji picks up the ice bucket, drapes his drenched tee over his shoulders, then turns towards the water once again in search of Zoro’s gaze. He finds it immediately, and Zoro’s not sure if Sanji noticed he was already being watched, he’s not sure if it’d even matter. There’s still a faint, amused smile on Sanji’s lips when he salutes him with his middle finger, shouting for him to bring inside the rest of their shit once he’s done being a kid. 

Zoro is so in love it hurts. 

~~~

Sanji lets him man the grill. It’s one of the few cooking-related tasks Zoro’s ever allowed to take care of with almost no supervision, along with opening wine bottles and making tea. Coffee too, sometimes, but he’s yet to perfect his technique, according to Sanji, and if the blonde’s morning coffee is not right then he’ll be pissed the whole day, so Zoro doesn’t risk it too often. 

The grill, though, that he thrives at. He forgoes the tee to defeat the scorching heat in front of it, even if Sanji keeps glaring at him, screeching about how dangerous it is to grill half-naked, and how insanitary it is, too. Zoro just shrugs and lets him rant, throwing in some pointed retort here and there, just because it wouldn’t be as fun otherwise. 

They eat the fish with gusto, sitting on the outdoor patio, and when he wakes up from his post-lunch nap, Sanji’s still sitting on the long chair next to him, avidly reading his book. 

“Morning, princess,” he murmurs without tearing his eyes away from the page he’s on. 

“‘M not a princess,” Zoro mumbles, yawning while trying to recollect his bearings. 

Sanji snarks, “yeah, no shit .” He closes his book and looks up to Zoro with finality. “You smell like a smoked fish carcass, ‘m not even joking.” 

Sanji’s reflexes are quick enough to make him jump up just in time to avoid Zoro’s kick to the back of his chair. He gets around the patio with a chuckle, unperturbed by the attack, and when he passes Zoro on his way to the table, he still lets one of his hands quickly brush Zoro’s mussed hair out of his forehead. Zoro would love to state he didn’t immediately lean into the fleeting touch, but that’d be a lie. Sanji comes back only a second after to hand him a glass of fresh water he hadn’t realised he so desperately needed. Sanji shakes his head at him as he empties it in one long gulp. 

“Go have a shower, Marimo. Then we can find something to do tonight.” 

“We don’t have to do anything tonight,” Zoro almost whines, because they really, really don’t. He could stay laying down here on the patio doing nothing next to Sanji for the rest of his days, and he’d die a happy man. 

“I know.” Sanji smiles down at him, and it’s one of those smiles that don’t mean anything good. “But I saw on Instagram there’s a night market at the village.” 

Zoro grunts. “Who even has Instagram around here?” 

“Pat from the bakery,” Sanji replies calmly, going back to lounging on his long chair. 

“Why do you follow Pat from the bakery?” 

“Zoro,” Sanji deadpans, opening his book again without giving Zoro a second glance, “go have a shower.” 

Zoro grunts once again. “This village is literally one street.” 

“And that’s exactly where the market will be.”

“It’s the most boring place on earth.” 

Sanji doesn’t dignify him with more words, but he does raise his gaze from the book once again to give him a pointed glare, one that leaves no space for arguments. Zoro groans, defeated. He’s not proud of himself for how quickly he caves, but Sanji’s face has always had mysterious powers over his own resolve. 

He gets up and stalks back inside, ignoring Sanji’s satisfied smirk. 

~~~

The ‘night market’ is literally what Zoro predicted: the village’s main street crowded with precarious stalls on each side of it and way too many tourists mingling about. There’s anything and everything, from local recipes turned into street-food to silly souvenirs, random decor objects, jewellery, clothes and so on. 

Sanji, of course, wants to see everything. He’s wearing beige shorts with a light blue linen shirt, the first three buttons left undone. His blond hair is slightly curled by the humidity in the air, and he looks way too good as he twirls around each and every stall, praising the artisans for their craft, chit-chatting with every vendor. Zoro just follows him around, trying to keep up with him, always trying to keep up with his restless energy. He watches Sanji smile and charm everybody’s metaphorical pants off, and even if Zoro’s always hated shopping, he enjoys this , at least. It reminds him of what they do on some Sunday mornings, when the cook’s off and Zoro agrees to accompany him to the market down the street from Zoro’s place. Of course he agrees, he always does, even if it means using one of his precious mornings off work to walk around overcrowded streets carrying heavy bags, instead of sleeping till 11 o’ clock. He gets to watch Sanji go ballistic over the price of eggs, get all excited for it finally being peach season, or gush over flowers that’ll end up in a vase on Zoro’s living room’s table. So, there’s that. 

Tonight Sanji is way more cheerful than during their Sunday’s grocery runs, though. He’s not bitching about almost anything, other than Zoro and his tendency to get lost in a crowd, that is, but Zoro guesses that’s unavoidable even when the cook’s in the best of moods. He truly doesn’t mind the unflattering names Sanji’s currently calling him, mostly because they’re accompanied by Sanji’s hand reaching for Zoro’s own, and even if he does it only to make sure he won’t wander off, it still makes Zoro’s insides go stupid.

He’s too distracted by the feeling of Sanji’s thumb rubbing on his to notice the old woman excitedly waving at them from a small fried fish stall. Sanji quickly drags them towards her by holding onto his index finger, and maybe there’s no malice in her face, but Zoro notices her eyes drop down to their joint fingers and then fly up again up to their faces, and the way she smiles at them still sends his thoughts off on a tangent. Sanji lets him go a second after, and it’s possibly just because he needs both hands to grab the plate she’s waving at him, but still. Regardless, Zoro doesn’t really get the chance to dwell on it. While Sanji chews pensively on the taster she offered, the old lady keeps blabbering, telling them she was born and raised here, that her recipe is a secret one handed down for generations, that they will never find fried fish made that well anywhere else. Finally Sanji capitulates, he buys them a portion each and thanks her profusely before they start to walk away, paper cones full of small pieces of fried fish in their hands. It’s the second sample of food they’re trying tonight and Zoro, as usual, is unimpressed. 

“What?” Sanji asks him, raising an eyebrow at the scowl on his face. 

“I don’t get what all her fuss was about. The one you make is better,” Zoro mutters around a bite, making Sanji scoff. 

“What d’you even know?” He shakes his head, “it’s fried to perfection.” 

“Yours’ better,” Zoro repeats, making Sanji scoff harder. 

“You just always say that.” 

“Because it’s always true,” Zoro shrugs, “have yet to taste anything better than whatever you make.” 

He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, because it is, but the words still make Sanji look constipated like he always does at the mere possibility of being at the receiving end of a compliment.

“The shit you say, sometimes, I swear, makes me want to kill you,” Sanji groans, irritated, looking up at the sky and then back down at the paper cone in his hands, desperate to hide the obvious blush on his face. Zoro still catches a glimpse of it and it’s more than enough. Because yes, he says these things to Sanji because he thinks them, but also because watching the flush make its way through Sanji’s annoyed face is the guaranteed reward each and every time, and it’s way too good to pass on it. 

He knows it’s a dangerous game, this being honest with Sanji about Sanji. He knows if he ever lets his guard down he’ll end up saying too much, something too big, admitting to something that can’t be laughed about and overlooked like everything else. But Zoro can’t help it, in spite of himself, just as much as he can’t help twisting the knife now that he has Sanji already flushed and squirmish. 

“What?” He says with faux innocence, “as if you don't like it when I say shit like this.” 

Okay, maybe he does flirt with him, sometimes, just a little. But does it count as flirting if it’s the god honest truth? 

Sanji makes an outraged gasp, but Zoro just smirks at him with a cockiness he truly can’t afford. Sanji shoves him, embarrassed out of his mind, to then direct a kick right to his ankles. Zoro dodges expertly, right on time to avoid being tripped, and he can only laugh at Sanji’s increasingly disgruntled state. After a couple of minutes of pointless bickering and wrangling, Sanji gives up with a huff and grumpily strides past him onto the next stall, but he’s smiling, open and bright, and Zoro feels like he’s just won the lottery. 

They’ve been at it for almost two hours when they finally stop in front of a rackety table full of local, homemade spirits. Sanji goes through all of the sample bottles, smelling each one of them and offering the ones that pass his first examination on to Zoro. 

“Okay, no, I think you’d like this one better,” he says, passing him another open bottle and taking back the one in Zoro’s hands before he even had the chance to even say anything about it. “Can you smell the thyme?” He asks him, somewhat urgently, then adds, as a way of explanation, “you love thyme.” 

Zoro doesn’t even know what thyme looks like, but he trusts Sanji’s with his own tastes more than he does himself, so he decides to humour him. He brings his nose closer to the hem of the offered tiny thing, and just like for the other thousand he got handed by the cook, he can only smell alcohol. 

“I trust you, cook,” he shrugs, handing it back. “Just pick one.” 

“You’re useless,” Sanji sighs, but he promptly turns towards the stall’s owner to ask for a bottle of the apparently-thyme-based spirit. 

“Let me take this,” Zoro immediately offers, pulling out his wallet, and eventually manages to have his request fulfilled, shushing Sanji’s complaints about it. He never likes it when Zoro pays for their things, doesn’t really let it happen too often. Zoro bumps his shoulder, “it’s only fair, curly. You know better than me who’s gonna drink most of this, anyways. Your skinny ass won’t be able to handle more than a glass.” 

“My skinny ass?” Sanji hisses, affronted, turning around to properly glare at him. “I’m perfectly ass-endowed, thankyouverymuch .” 

Zoro’s painfully aware of how perfectly Sanji’s ass is endowed, in fact, if only for the inordinate amount of time he spends subtly staring at said ass, but he tries his best to not fall into Sanji’s trap and stoically avoids further commenting on it, choosing to silently shrug at the cook’s indignation.

“You’re just a drunken brute with an abnormal alcohol tolerance,” Sanji continues. 

“And you’re just a lightweight who can’t handle anything stronger than wine, if that,” Zoro retorts, feeling their bantering’s back to a safe territory. 

“Bullshit,” Sanji says, “I can handle anything.”  

Zoro smirks back at him. He starts counting on his fingers as he speaks, “Our freshmen’s party. Your birthday party that same year, and my birthday the year after. New Year’s Eve of… well, every fucking year since I’ve known you–” 

“Fine, fine –” 

“Luffy’s party last month,” Zoro continues, talking over Sanji’s attempt at interrupting him, “Nami and Vivi’s engagement dinner. Patty’s housewarming–”

“Oh shut up, shut up . You made your point, just shut up now,” Sanji grimaces, shoving Zoro’s shoulders with intent. Whenever Sanji’s being too cocky about his alcohol tolerance, Zoro pulls up this same list of the most memorable times he had to hold the cook’s hair back while he yacked his guts out after barely a few cocktails. Every time, without fail, The List manages to shut Sanji up. The List, goes without saying, never includes their graduation party. Zoro’s not proud of how much of a chicken he is about the whole thing. 

Finally, they reach the end of the market, ending up where the main and only street of the village flows into its main and only square. Some folk band is playing something obnoxious on a rackety stage right in the middle of it. Despite the music being awful, there’s a somewhat decent crowd cheering on the square. There’s a couple a few metres away from them, holding each other in a tight embrace and laughing as they rock their bodies out of rhythm. He wonders why he and Sanji aren’t doing the same. He knows there must be a lot of reasons, but at this very moment he doesn’t believe any of them to make sense. 

None of them ever made sense. What the fuck have they been doing for all this time?

“It was a nice market, wasn’t it?” 

Sanji’s oblivious to the torments that just hit him. He looks unreal as he smiles towards the stage, unbothered by the cool summer breeze ruffling his blond hair, and Zoro’s so, so fucked. 

“I guess,” he says, because it’s the only thing he can get past the lump that has just formed in his throat. 

Sanji chuckles, “you’re such an asshole.” 

And Zoro sort of agrees with him. They both are, to be fair. For the millionth time since they’ve been friends, they just had what any other person in the world would effectively describe as a date , a date that they quite clearly both enjoyed, and they’re just standing here in this stupid square, listening to this even stupider music, chit chatting as if nothing’s amiss. 

It’s not enough, they’re not close enough, and Zoro’s suddenly overwhelmed by how much more he wants but can’t have. The sudden need almost makes him giddy, but mostly bitter, too. Nights like this make him have reckless thoughts. They make him believe they could have something incredible, if only they were brave enough. Because yes, what they have is already good, great even, but wouldn’t it be even better if he could reach for Sanji’s hand without needing an excuse to do so? If he could kiss him and hold him and tell him what truly was on his mind, whenever he wanted to?

He needs to meditate, maybe do some heavy lifting, maybe smash his head against a wall. He wants to go back home and drown himself in that bottle of liqueur they just bought. He’s also scared shitless by the idea of being alone with Sanji and a bottle of the strong kind. A bottle Sanji picked exactly to Zoro’s own fucking taste.

He grunts in frustration, too aware of being the cause of his own pain. The distressed sound brings Sanji’s attention back to him. 

“All good, Moss?” Sanji asks, innocent concern on his face. 

Zoro nods, feigning nonchalance. 

“Do you want to go home?” Sanji asks, and Zoro genuinely doesn’t know what to do with himself, so he stays quiet.  

“Let’s go,” Sanji concludes, after having spent a second reading into Zoro’s mind through his eyes, quickly succeeding in finding the answer he was after. As usual, he does a better job of sorting through the mess in his brain than Zoro does himself. 

“Time to try that spirit. C’mon.”

~~~

The thyme thing is strong and, to no one’s surprise, Zoro loves how it tastes just as Sanji predicted. Again to no one’s surprise, Sanji’s already on his way to tipsy, only just starting on his second glass. 

They’ve been drinking and talking shit for the past hour, sitting on the carpet of the living room with their backs to the sofa and the bottle resting on the floor between them. Zoro’s eyes stumble on Sanji’s profile every couple of seconds, unable to keep away for too long. He watches him, and he knows he does so with the usual reverence he reserves to this specific activity. In his head, he hears something vaguely resembling Nami’s voice screaming: ‘just kiss him, you fool! ’. He shushes it, like he always does. 

“Why are we on the floor, again?” Sanji asks, voice louder than necessary.

“Dunno,” Zoro replies, because it’s easier than to actually explain why he decided to make them sit there, why the floor felt safer than the couch as a location to get drunk together on. As he takes in Sanji’s body unapologetically sprawled on the carpet, he’s not so sure if that was such a good idea anymore.

He only knows that Sanji’s lost another two buttons on his shirt and Zoro’s about to lose his damn mind for good. 

“This reminds me of Uni, Marimo,” Sanji says with mildly inebriated amusement. “You and me, drinking on a Saturday night with no valid reason to do so.”  

Zoro can’t hold back the smile at the memories Sanji’s statement brings back to him. They did do a fair share of that, when they were younger, sometimes alone, sometimes with the others, especially Nami. It’s been a while since it’d been just the two of them and a bottle, it might even be the first time it’s with no other place to get to nor anyone else to meet afterwards. Another of those situations they’ve probably started to craftily avoid as years went by. Considering his current precarious mental state, it was probably one of the rare wise decisions he should give credit to their past selves for. 

“Well, it was mostly me doing the actual drinking while you were babbling nonsense after one glass–”

“Not this again, Marimo,” Sanji groans, downing another sip, “can you try and not be a pain in my ass for more than 5 minutes?”  

Zoro shrugs, deciding to cut the cook some slack and drop the teasing. “We’ve always had our reasons, though. To drink,” he adds, when Sanji doesn’t immediately catch on.  

When he finally does, he curiously looks up at him, “oh, yeah? Enlighten me, then.” 

“Well, I guess, we were in Uni… and it was Saturday .”  

“Of course,” Sanji nods with mock solemnity, “valid points. What else?” 

“We had to forget about school’s shit, mostly.” 

“Right,” Sanji nods again, “and?” 

“And we were too broke to afford better ways to entertain ourselves.”

“It pains me to admit, but you’re right, mossy,” Sanji agrees, eyes lost into his half empty glass. After a few seconds of silence, he grimaces as he’s hit by another thought, “I guess I also did it to forget about my pathetic love life.” 

Zoro tries not to wince. “Yeah, that you did.” 

“It was never a good scene, was it?” Sanji asks, frowning. 

He has no need to provide any additional context, the words are enough to make a few painful memories pop up in Zoro’s brain. He shrugs, forced into silence by his survival instinct. 

“Every time, you used to give me your disappointed scowl,” Sanji reminisces, making a poor impression of said scowl back at him. Somehow he’s not yet discouraged by Zoro’s evident show of disinterest in continuing this specific conversation. He sighs, and in a most likely alcohol-induced bout of oversharing, he adds, “I hated it, that look on your face. You must have thought I was really pathetic.” 

Zoro is desperate to change topics, but he’s also unable to resist the urge to rectify Sanji’s false statement.

“I never thought you were pathetic.”

Sanji gives him a look. 

“I didn’t,” Zoro repeats, frowning. “You just get a bit whiny when you’re drunk, it’s annoying,” he adds, gesturing to Sanji’s currently pouting face to reinforce his point. 

“Fine,” Sanji concedes, and the fact he doesn’t react to being called annoying is a major red flag. “But you were disappointed in me, weren’t you?”

“I–. I mean,” Zoro stutters, trying to buy himself some time. There’s a huge, red neon sign spelling ‘DANGER’ all over this conversation, he feels like he’s walking on a minefield. He tries to go for a mitigated version of the truth, because he’s not sure he’d get away with full-on lying under this level of scrutiny.  

“You just kept putting yourself through the same bullshit over and over again. I just didn’t get it.”  

Unfortunately, Zoro considers himself a seasoned navigator of the turbulent sea that was the aftermath of Sanji's break-ups. Regardless of who the cook was dating, it’d always go the same way: after a few months of bliss and being sprung on by the pretty thing of the moment, Sanji would end up hurt, ghosted or dumped with no reason, or all three altogether. What really drove Zoro up a wall was Sanji’s total obliviousness to his own worth, his total resignation to a bar too low to demand the level of care and love he’d deserved. It was exhausting to witness, not to consider how heartbreaking it was, too, for a whole different bunch of reasons. It’s been a while since he had to sit through one of those pitiful nights. Even if he knows there must have been someone, at least for a casual hook up, it has now been a couple of blissful years since the cook had brought up any new partner, and Zoro’s selfishly grateful for the reprise. 

Not that they ever really talked much about their respective romantic lives. By another one of their unspoken agreements, it had quickly turned into one of those topics they go the extra mile to avoid. Reason for which, Zoro hopes Sanji finally decides to gracefully accept the answer given and move the fuck on to a more fittin topic for their current predicament. Hell, even discussing Sanji’s morning skincare routine would be better than this . 

But Sanji doesn’t budge. 

“You didn’t get what?” 

Zoro looks up at the ceiling, hoping to find hidden in its plaster the way to get out of this conversation in one piece. Unfortunately yet predictably, the ceiling doesn’t hold any wisdom nor any secret portal into an alternative dimension where they’re not sitting on this floor, too close for their own good, sharing a bottle of too strong thyme liqueur. Pity. 

“Cook, remind me, why are we talking about this, again?” He asks, gaze stubbornly stuck upwards. But Sanji pokes him on the side, forcing Zoro to look down at him. He’s abruptly confronted with his stupidly beautiful blue eyes, his perfect grumpy face, his red cheeks and messy hair. The poster child of drunken determination. 

“Why shouldn’t we?” He says, and it dangerously sounds like a challenge. “We talk about everything,” he continues, and Zoro thinks no, we don’t , but doesn’t interrupt Sanji to point it out. “Just say what you have to say.” 

“I’ve already said it a million times.” It’s technically a lie, but Zoro cannot believe Sanji doesn’t already know what he thinks about this particular subject. “You’re just being a shithead.” 

“You’re the shithead.” 

“ Sanji ,” Zoro groans. 

“Zoro ,” Sanji retorts, in yet another impressive show of maturity. “If you’ve said it a million times already, then saying it once more shouldn’t be so difficult, uh? What is it that you didn’t get?” 

Zoro sighs, empties his glass, and gives up. If this is the hill he dies on tonight, he decides, he should try to make it a good one. He studies Sanji’s eyes again, to understand if this is really what the other is asking of him, if Sanji’s actually ready to take a peek under the curtain that’s currently doing a very poor job at hiding the elephant in the room. 

Sanji’s gaze doesn’t waver, and so Zoro speaks. 

“I didn’t get how you didn’t realise you were giving yourself away to people who didn’t deserve it.” 

Sanji scrunches his eyebrows together, “I don’t think that’s what I–” 

“Cook,” Zoro interrupts, not willing to listen to another second of Sanji’s nonsense. “You would have lightened yourself on fire if it’d make any of those fuckers warm and happy.”

Sanji stops in his rebuttal to ponder Zoro’s words, seemingly mollified by the undeniable truth in them. He still sounds vaguely annoyed when he says, “So?” 

“ So? ” Zoro raises a brow, “so none of them ever deserved it, they just took advantage of it. Of you. And instead of telling them to fuck off, you just let them, every fucking time, only to cry about it afterwards. I didn’t get why you did that to yourself. I still don’t.” 

Sanji’s taken aback, but only for a second. “Easy for you to talk shit, Mr. ‘I-forgot-my-emotions-at-the-bottom-of-the-Pacific-Ocean-so-I-can’t-be-hurt-by-fucking-nothing.”

“Ah,” Zoro sneers, recognizing the poor attempt at diversion and expertly glazing over it. “Don’t even try to make this about me. You know I’m right.”

“Why don’t you fuck off,” Sanji sputters, piqued. “You’ll be surprised to know, people don’t usually come with instruction manuals and side effects disclaimers. I know they didn’t deserve me, now.” He gives him another reproachful look before asking, “what’s that to you, anyways?”

Zoro sighs. He feels that’s all he’s been doing for the past twenty minutes or so. He could just tell Sanji to fuck off and probably, eventually, get away without having to continue this conversation. Maybe it’s the alcohol making him reckless, or the fucking house’s whole atmosphere , or maybe he’s just too tired to keep up the fight, but he thinks in for a penny, in for a pound , and speaks. 

“You’re incredibly dumb, cook,” Zoro says, doing his best not to sound too defeated. “But not that dumb.”

Sanji stays quiet for a long second, and Zoro’s suddenly scared again. He doesn’t regret the words, but . Sanji just stares at him, and Zoro can see it when it hits him, the realisation of what it is they’re actually talking about, what they have been talking about, shifting the features on Sanji’s face from frowning to something else entirely that Zoro can’t really pinpoint. There’s something alighting Sanji’s eyes again, but Zoro doesn’t want to read into it, he can’t.

The silence stretches for a minute too long to be comfortable, and that’s a first for them, uncomfortable silences not a thing they ever do. Silence has always been a safe space for them, a space they lounged in lazily and proudly, but now it just feels like a dead end street they got themselves into while running for their lives.

“I–” Sanji starts, stopping another second to collect another ounce of resolution, “I think I’m owed a little more than that.”

Zoro simply stares at him, too unsettled by the cook’s determined eyes, mind too busy trying to figure out what the hell is Sanji’s after with this whole conversation. What does he want him to say?

“What do you want me to say?” he actually ends up asking, because he’s unable to find the answer alone. 

“The truth.” 

Somehow, the almost indignant way Sanji says the word, as if Zoro’s being lying to him every time he’s ever opened his mouth, makes Zoro tick. Now he’s not only tired and confused, but also vaguely pissed. 

“Yeah alright,” he scoffs, “but do you really want to hear it, cook?” 

Sanji doesn’t immediately scream at him, which is worrying. He just watches him with the same annoying intensity, eyes never leaving him even while he brings his head up to polish off the remains of his own glass. 

“You know what drives me insane, uh?” Are the words that finally leave his mouth, as he stomps his now empty glass down on the floor. The anger Zoro expected is finally here, clear in Sanji’s voice, and it’s comforting, in a way, even if it’s accompanied by words he won’t like. “You’ve always just sat there, right, judging them , judging me, when you’re no better.” 

“What the fuck does that even mean? I’m not judging anyone–”

“Oh but you are, aren’t you? High and mighty, judging everyone from up there with your imperturbability and your rationality–” 

“It’s not about my rationality , you idiot, it’s about you being a fucking masochist, giving yourself away to people who didn’t fucking deserve it.” 

“And how the fuck do you know who deserves me or not?”

“Nobody deserves you!” Zoro explodes, finally unable to hold himself back. 

“Nobody fucking deserves you,” he repeats, more quietly this time. He only has a second to process what he’s said, to widen his eyes in stupor, but then anger overtakes, and he groans in frustration, loud once again, annoyed with himself for having been defeated, for caving. He looks up at the ceiling, and then again into Sanji’s wide eyes, and this time he knows he's gone too far. He’s finally gotten himself to a place from which he doesn’t know how to get back, and for once it’s not for his lacklustre sense of orientation. He doesn’t even know if he actually wants to get himself out of it, and that’s the scariest part of it all. 

He feels like a weight lifted off his shoulders, but at the price of a clutch holding his stomach hostage.

Then Sanji laughs.

“Fuck, you’re unbelievable. And you’re also so fucking wrong ,” he says, unnaturally calm, once he’s recovered from his, frankly inappropriate, bout of laughter. Almost conversationally, he adds, “and a coward, too.” 

“A coward? What the fu–” 

“Why haven’t you ever told me any of this? You always say every fucking stupid thing that passes through that goddamned green head of yours, and then this …” Sanji sighs, gesturing vaguely to the space between the two of them, “you’ve never told me the truth about this. Why? ” 

They stare at each other for a minute, or maybe an hour, Zoro’s not sure. They stay quiet, but Sanji is smiling, and it’s a nostalgic thing, almost sad, and Zoro is sure that they’re understanding each other regardless, even without words. He could just say neither have you , and start another one of their endless, petty finger-pointing competitions, but he doesn’t want to, not right now, not about this. He does want to know why Sanji has also never brought it up, after that one time he did only to immediately shut it down all by himself. But not now, now Zoro needs to give his own answer, admit to his own truth. 

Why has he never told Sanji the truth? 

“‘Cause I’m a coward when it comes to this , apparently,” he finally lets out, chuckling almost hysterically, gesturing to the space between them just as Sanji did a moment before. He doesn’t know how or why they’ve ended up finally having this conversation, on the carpet of Nami’s lake house on this random Saturday night, sipping on a spirit Sanji chose just because he knew Zoro would love it. But they are and they’re four or so years too late, and he’s still not ready for it.  

“Ha, Zoro Roronoa: a coward. Who would have thought?” Sanj shakes his head in mock disapproval, and Zoro should be ashamed, perhaps, but he feels Sanji’s body shift towards him, the already tight space between them getting smaller. Zoro wants to touch him, and hold him, and he feels like he can, now, he feels like he should . That long ass list of reasons why he’s not supposed to seems so incredibly pointless, all of a sudden. Why aren’t they touching yet? 

“Well, I guess, I am too,” Sanji continues, cutting through Zoro’s incoherent thoughts, “you know, a coward.” He speaks all soft and light, as if he hadn’t just completely wrecked Zoro’s entire existence. “I look at you, sometimes, and I get so mad that it hurts, like, here,” he adds, touching the centre of his chest with his perfect, slender hand. “Because I have you, always, but I don’t , really, do I? And I think… I did this to myself, haven’t I?” 

Zoro takes a deep breath, “do you mean…?” 

“Graduation’s party?” Sanji finishes, playing with his fingers in his lap. Zoro never thought he would ever hear him acknowledge that dreaded night out loud, but so many things he never would have thought possible happened in the last 5 minutes, so why is he even surprised at this point. 

“I remember it, if you’re wondering,” Sanji continues, “of course I do. It still fucking haunts me. And I know I was an utter idiot but– I just thought, you would have…” he sighs, then adds “I don’t know what I thought, alright. I was stupid. But then you never seemed to… want to do anything about it. And I shouldn’t have put it on you, but I just… you know… figured… made peace with the fact that you didn’t want to do anything about it, that maybe I wasn’t worth it.” 

He trails off, shrugging as if he hasn’t just said the worst thing Zoro has ever heard him say. He wants to scream at him that he hasn’t figured jackshit, that he must know he is the most worthy thing of Zoro’s life. He tries to speak and tell him exactly that, but Sanji smiles and the hand he raises to Zoro’s cheek effectively stops his crusade. 

“And yet,” he continues, pointedly, a hint of something good back in his voice, “you still look at me like this . And what am I supposed to think? I just…don’t get you.”  

“You do,” Zoro’s too quick to say, somehow coming back to his wits despite how deep into the abyss Sanji’s words and touch have just sent him, “get me, that is. You always have, better than anyone else. And you are worth it, more than your stupid brain can ever comprehend.” 

“You keep saying shit like this,” Sanji sighs, furrowing his brows, bringing his hand back to fidget nervously on his lap. “But what does it mean, Zoro?”

“It’s the truth,” Zoro shrugs. Sanji’s annoyance immediately brings him back to a safe space, one he knows, one where he can smirk and tease just like always, as if they weren’t having the single most significant conversation of their lives, “you asked for it.” 

“That, I did. Have yet to hear it, though.” 

And Zoro’s still not ready for it, but he knows he has to, he knows he has to let those three very specific words go, after guarding them for so long. It’s now or never. 

“I love you,” he says, proudly, finally. 

Sanji’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly, he would have missed it if their faces weren’t that close. Then he smirks, “yes, and?” 

Zoro frowns, “I am in love with you.” 

“Yeah,” Sanji smiles brighter than ever, but he says nothing more, and Zoro would have bought into his cocky act if it wasn’t for the way he’s clasping his hands together to keep them from shaking, and his cheeks are flushed when he turns to fully face him, the space between them reduced to nothing. 

Zoro is desperately in love with him. He still wants to punch him in the face right now. “You could be less of an asshole, sometimes.” 

“I probably could,” Sanji agrees, “what are you gonna do about it?” 

It’s an opening, an invitation as good as any, so Zoro takes it, ‘cause he’s done being a coward about this. 

He’s pretty sure he can hear Nami’s sigh of relief, and all of his friends’ too; in some remote angle of his brain everyone he knows is popping a champagne bottle open, screaming fucking finally . He’s kissing Sanji, and it feels so simple now, as their lips slot together and their legs get tangled on the carpet, and Sanji’s hands finally come to settle where they belong, on his face, in his hair, on his neck. It feels as if touching like this and kissing like this are the only things they have been doing since day one. It should have been, or maybe not, maybe this whole charade was meant to happen. He only knows this feels like home and his home is Sanji and he never wants to leave. 

“Took you long enough,” Sanji murmurs to his lips, short of breath, a couple of minutes later. His eyes shine with a mix of giddiness and poorly disguised self’consciousness. Zoro kisses him again because now that he can he doesn’t see why he shouldn’t. 

“Took you long enough,” he still feels the need to add, because no one said they would stop being petty with each other just because their tongues have finally made friends.

Sanji groans, “I don’t know why I love you so damn much, honest to God, you’re such a fucking pain in-” 

He stops in his trail, realising the words that just left his mouth, and groans again because Zoro is smirking like the cat who got the cream. 

“It’s so very you, to tell me you love me for the first time while also insulting me and calling me names in the same sentence.”

“Yeah, well,” Sanji stutters, embarrassed but smiling through it, “you wouldn’t have it any other way, would you?” 

The confidence in his voice is incredibly attractive on top of being abundantly justified, and Zoro doesn’t have it in him to do anything other than shrug, admitting to it with a grin. 

“I do love you, you know,” Sanji continues, repeating the words with more softness, this time. “I also think you’re an annoying pest, but I always had a penchant for terrible ideas.”

The words strike him, and Zoro is not insecure about this, not with the way he feels Sanji’s hand claiming space on his thigh, but he still takes the chance to ask, “do you still think this is a terrible idea?” 

Sanji looks at him, and then at the ceiling, and then back at him. He’s considering the question without dismissing it, which Zoro doesn’t know how to feel about. He does feel useless for needing reassurance right now, but he does. Him who has only ever wanted honest truths and pragmatic realities, right now just needs Sanji to tell him they’ll be alright even if no one can know for sure. 

“I think we’ve convinced ourselves it would be for the longest time. I have, at least. Since the first time I saw you, I thought oh this would be bad . I don’t really know why. You were… you, so unfazed and confident and rational… and I was, you know, just me– wait, let me finish, let me finish!” He raises his hand to cradle Zoro’s cheek, placating. “You said it yourself, that I kept giving myself away to people who didn’t deserve it. Some of them might have been assholes, yes, but it was me too, not knowing how to let myself be loved. I guess I still don’t really know how. And yet, it never stopped you. For how impossible it was to love me, you just kept doing it. Little stubborn piece of moss. And it terrified me.”

“What changed?” he asks, resisting the urge to tell Sanji that loving him was so easy for Zoro he ended up doing it despite trying his best not to. “You’re not terrified anymore?”

“Oh, I am. Fuck if I am. You’re the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me. But I’m tired… I’m tired of losing time, and being scared and just… I don’t know, Zoro. Why should we keep fighting this? You’re good to me, and I think I’m good to you, too. Maybe it can be as easy as that.” Sanji’s confidence again makes Zoro’s heart soar. It also makes him horny, for reasons he’s not willing to dissect just yet, but mostly he’s so proud he could burst his chest open. “So no, I don’t think we’re a terrible idea. Perhaps I never did. What about you, Roronoa?”

Zoro could say a lot of things. He could give him a speech like the one he’s just received, matching Sanji’s almost word by word. 

At the end, he just sticks to a very critical, fundamental truth. 

“When we were there, at the end of the market… I just realised I couldn’t go through spending with you another night like tonight without losing my fucking mind for good.”

Sanji kicks him away, but he laughs in resigned amusement. Zoro manages to wrestle him back into his arms once again. They kiss just because they can, and Zoro has to resist the urge to devour him whole. He’s dreamed of this more times than he’s willing to admit, he’s dreamed of Sanji’s hands and his tongue on his skin, and now it’s actually happening and he can’t believe how good it feels, how perfect the way their bodies slot is. He’s already half hard in his pants, and the urgency with which Sanji’s hands are slipping under his shirt means he’s not bound to stay that way for much longer. The moment Sanji’s warm tongue lands on his ear lobe, Zoro feels the urge to ask one last question before he lets his brain descend into oblivion.  

“Do you get why , now?”

Zoro’s aware he’s not really making much sense. He hasn’t really explained himself, not one bit, if he’s honest. He’s not convinced he could ever explain why the remote chance of losing Sanji had paralysed him to the point of denying himself something he truly, really wanted. But he still asks, because he knows Sanji does get it, he gets him , despite it all. 

“Surprisingly enough,” Sanji whispers, stroking his belly with his thumb as if it was the most normal thing in the world and not a successful attempt at depriving Zoro of his last coherent thoughts, “I think I do.”

~~~

Sanji is sprawled on top of him on the sofa, head on his chest and fingers combing through Zoro’s hair lazily. They’re both still gloriously naked and unabashed about it, Sanji’s glowing in his post-orgasm bliss, and Zoro thinks that’s his new favourite version of him. He’s looking forward to discovering many new versions of Sanji that will only be his , and he realises he has from now till forever to do so. Fuck, he’s thinking so many embarrassing thoughts and he can’t control them anymore. They’re still sticky, and sweaty, and they didn’t have any lube so Zoro ended up using some oil from the kitchen to stroke them both in his hand, shushing Sanji’s complaints about wasted food very quickly with a pointed flick of his wrist. He didn’t manage to convince him to fuck on the counter, though, but Zoro’s not deterred. They have time for it. 

“I love you,” he says, because he can.

“You said that, yeah,” Sanji says, and he’s insufferable, but then he looks up at him, smiles and says, “I love you, too,” and Zoro is fine, Zoro is totally okay. 

He wants to lay here like this for the rest of eternity, or maybe go for round 3, but first there’s something important he has to do. With the hand not busy keeping a hold of Sanji’s body, he searches the floor for his discarded jeans. Sanji grunts at him, clearly annoyed at his mattress’ disrupting behaviour. Zoro shushes him with a kiss on his head, and post-sex Sanji must be more lenient than his usual self, because he doesn’t immediately start questioning why Zoro is picking up his phone, simply shrugs and lets him type away without giving him another glance. One day he’ll have to tell him the truth about how this weekend came to be, too, he realises. He’ll figure that one out in due time. For now, he lets his phone drop back to the floor without waiting for a reply, both his hands now free to get back to that glorious place which is the perfect curve of Sanji’s ass. 

The cook lifts his head from his chest, raising an interested eyebrow at him. “Yes?” he asks feigning innocence while fully leaning into Zoro’s touch. 

“You know, there’s a lot of beds in this house. There’s one big one nobody’s using, which I think is a bit of a waste, isn’t it?”

“We aren’t fucking on Nami’s bed, you heathen,” Sanji shakes his head at him, but he sounds almost fond, not as determined as he usually does when scolding Zoro. 

It might as well sound as a yes let’s fuck on Nami’s big bed to Zoro’s ears. He’s done wasting time, so he strengthens his grip on Sanji’s bum and swiftly shifts their body, planting his feet on the ground and getting up from the sofa. Sanji shrieks at the sudden movement, but he’s quick to recoil and wrap his incredibly long and perfect legs around Zoro’s waist, letting himself be carried up the stairs into Zoro’s arms. 

“What the fuck, Marimo?” Sanji’s flushed, looking down on him with startled eyes, but also definitely into it given how his dick is perking up, flushed between their bodies, and Zoro needs him on that bed right fucking now. 

~~~

the sex was amazing

I still hate you

but thanks, I guess

You’re paying for my drinks for the rest of the year

Love you both very much a lot xx

Don’t fuck on my furniture

Oh god my bed

Stay away from my bed

Fuck it’s too late for that isn’t it

Zoro

Please