Chapter Text
It's nothing new.
There's this disgraced family off on the outskirts of a paradise island, a family that had been swindled of all their coin and titles by a spiteful man. It's clearly a case of underhanded harassment. Of course, naturally, the Strawhats come to find these people friendly and meek and Luffy decides with a resolute fist and a mouthful of raisin bread that they're going to help dammit.
They just need to get to a certain Sir Duncan, cousin of the Duchess, to whom, conveniently, simply adored weddings.
Sanji's heart had twitched unpleasantly at the word.
It's said that if she finds interest in you, then you can be sure to expect her invitation (powdered in gold and smelling of hickory) to hold the affair at her estate amongst the rose gardens and ivory fountains. So Nami, clever little tangerine that she is, decides to marry Sanji and Robin off, to have them meet with this Duchess and woo her over. Though she adores weddings, she spares only enough finances to cover one gallant affair every year. Luckily for them, that time of the year had yet to pass.
Sanji doesn't argue, because of course he'd been the only viable option. Zoro was a moron, Usopp was skittish, and Franky had no tact.
They'd have to beat out the visiting, grabby-handed nobles and win her favor, and they decided to do so not with honorifics or fancy accessories or faux personalities, but with reputation.
Who wouldn't want to host a notorious pirate wedding, with an entourage of over 500 million berries in bounties in the front row alone?
If they win her over, then they have clear access to her cousin via the reception, and ample opportunity to shake him down of the land titles and dowry he'd stolen. No one would be the wiser.
Problem is, Sanji isn't entirely too fond of weddings right this moment, just having narrowly avoided a rather costly one not but just months ago.
Problem is, not even the dapper sight of Robin in a white gown could ease the worms in his gut.
Problem is, he makes the mistake of running into the Duchess in the wedding boutique with a certain irritable bit of seaweed merely steps behind him. And the Duchess, with a certain gleam to her gaze, had expressed immense interest and pleasant shock at the idea of the swordsman and the cook getting married.
Shit.
"I know quite a bit about your crew, or I know enough from what the papers divulge. They did a special on you guys a while back. You used to work at the Baratie, correct? A chef there too?"
Sanji smiles obligingly. "I'm surprised you've heard of it all the way out here."
"I haven't," she shrugs, "but the papers say it's a nice place. That where you met the swordsman?"
They pick through colored fabric. She hasn't necessarily invited them yet, but she'd fluttered about them a little at first and announced vaguely that she'd help them out for the day. She'd stopped by to consider colors for those nobles that'd been docked splendidly at the port across town, but those egg colored curtains have now been tossed aside in favor of their own person.
Zoro stands back there, gaze distant and uninterested. Sanji wants to kick him, but their new impromptu cover might be ruined if they go about acting like they usually do. So he taps his foot against the floor every so often instead, biting into his cheek.
"Met the whole lot of them there, though he'd been a bit of a brute back then," he's saying as she plucks a field of blue from the bulk, holding it up to his complexion.
She smiles. "Even the drapes must compliment the bride, or," she furrows her brow, "grooms? I have to say, this is all really quite fun, I've never held a ceremony for two men before."
Sanji pauses, and even Zoro seems to tune in with a twitch of his ears. She was going to hold the ceremony?
"Excuse me," Sanji starts politely, but she cuts him off abruptly by tossing him the heavy roll, thumbing through a few more.
"Of course, you'll find no better than my estate. I only spare time for one a year, for quality's sake as I'm sure you understand, so you better count your blessings that the two of you are entirely too fascinating to pass up. The swordsman and the cook," she says once more, considering it with relish, "I can't imagine the amount of people that'd want to come and see it!"
Zoro frowns at her arrogance and Sanji blocks him from her line of sight.
"We can't thank you enough."
"Listen," Sanji's rough voice fills the silence, "we gotta do this for the captain okay, and for those poor sacks of dirt on the outskirts. They've been bullied and harassed into giving up everything they own. Unless you wanna make a scene we do this the way Nami planned it, and we be grateful it's working out like it is."
Zoro grunts, leaning back with his good eye closed, arms pillowing his head. "Fine by me cook."
"Oh?" Sanji grumbles, "Then stop acting like you're part of the décor. Chat her up a little, feign interest- I don't care what you do, just stop acting like you couldn't give two shits about this wedding, yeah?"
Sanji puffs irately at his smoke. In all honesty, perhaps at least one groom behaving in a disconnected manner wasn't all that suspicious. There'd been plenty enough at the Baratie receptions. Unlike Sanji, most men were Neanderthals.
He just didn't like being in this alone, and even the moss-head could make for good company if he tried.
"Your rings," Nami rushes in, hair in disarray. Twenty minutes left before their sappy carriage ride. The Duchess had wanted to give them a proper tour, as if they needed any more convincing. Zoro had attempted to opt out of it, but Sanji had plucked him by the ear and dragged him along, robbing him dry of all liquor.
"I had to dig through a shit load of our bulk to find two that matched closely enough. Who wants the big rock?"
Sanji accepts it after an unhelpful silence, wiggling his fingers a little in the light as Zoro slips his on without a second glance.
Nami ducks into the bathroom when someone knocks on the door of their cute little cottage rental, and the drive up is pleasant enough in the hush of the cart. Sanji regrets that later, however, when the Duchess points out that the driver had remarked on their worrisome silence.
"A little pre-marriage dispute," she ventures a guess, plucked brows arching up shapely.
While Sanji's trying to think of a lie he notices the whispers and stares of the gardeners. Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro. Still they insisted on calling him that?
He wondered why none of them whispered his name, why so few murmured Blackleg Sanji, recently acknowledged as Sanji Vinsmoke.
"Ah," the Duchess seems to grin then, fanning herself a bit in the afternoon heat. "Jealousy, maybe? Perhaps you don't like all the attention he gets? I suppose I can understand, it's one thing to have that one attractive friend, but to have that forever attractive partner, can get a bit daunting for sure."
Sanji does his damnedest not to make a face. If anyone was the attractive friend here, it was him.
"Yeah, cook," Zoro smirks, and Sanji damns the idiot's selective hearing, "don't be so jealous. You're always wearing nice things to try and make yourself look better anyway. Just think of me as another pretty accessory."
"Oh shut it you moss-headed freak," Sanji snaps, Zoro grinning though the blood has rushed from the blonde's face and down into the queasy pits of his stomach. Shit.
The Duchess merely snorts, muttering something about how life was merely foreplay and continues on, pointing out the intricacies of her yard. Sanji falls back to bump shoulders with the idiot. "Dammit Zoro," he whispers, "just be nice for once."
"What," Zoro taunts, "can't control yourself?"
"Oh yeah," Sanji hisses, "you're simply irresistible, it's a wonder I haven't kicked you in the teeth yet."
Zoro's finally got some life to him, and Sanji frowns, wondering if he should just rile the guy up every now and then as a preemptive to conversation. Better to be the couple that bickers than not a couple at all.
"Hey moron," Sanji whispers, "don't let all this attention get to your fat head. They're only looking at you because they don't know why a guy like me would ever settle for a lowly primate like yourself, got that?"
"Oh yeah?” Zoro takes the bait, "The fuck is that supposed to mean?"
The Duchess points out a lovely tumble of violets trimmed neatly into a heart.
"Means that no matter what those people think, the Duchess here obviously favors a cultured individual like myself."
C'mon moss-head, take the bait.
"The fuck would I care if she likes me or not?"
Dammit you stupid moron.
"Everything alright boys?"
"Couldn't be better," Sanji forces on a stiff smile, and he can just feel the amusement radiating off of him. He'd be getting a boot to the teeth later for sure. First, Sanji had to make up for appearances.
"Oh no, I completely get it," she dismisses, and Sanji stops mid drink. "You do?"
"Sure," she sips at her cup daintily, "couples like you, I see them all the time. Rile each other up a bit, throw around a few haughty words, snap at each other some with bared teeth and all. They seem to be the happier ones in bed anyway, that’s for sure. Of course, who am I to stop them, I'd invited them after all, and I am nothing if not understanding. I must know though, so as to warn the night maids, but do you intend to make a mess of my beds as well?”
She's smiling coyly at him, as if hinting that there were no wrong answer here, but still he splutters a bit and drowns his blush in that bitter tea. He's getting horrible flashbacks of Kamabakka, flashbacks that he shoves down with a couple of finger sandwiches. Good thing Zoro was out with the cousins, hunting or some shit.
"No m'am, I think we'll keep our privacy private, if you don't mind."
She laughs a little, and they enjoy the oncoming meal in quaint silence.
He thinks maybe for once it's all going well. She mistakes their normal behavior for feistiness and Zoro is being a relatively good boy and not saying anything too stupid or ape-ish.
It's when she's having them fitted for tuxes (Sanji spouts his measurements off like a grocery list) that the deeper meaning of it all seems to hit the both of them simultaneously.
Their eyes meet from the atop the pedestals, a bit wide in understanding that holy shit they were getting married. This was. . . this was all for a greater end, but in reality, in all actuality, it was still very much real. There’d probably be certificates of authenticity to go along with it even.
They were getting married.
“Hey shit cook,” Zoro rumbles despite himself, “you’re not looking so good.”
The man taking his measurements peers up at him, and yeah, Sanji can tell he doesn’t look good because his hands have gone clammy and his neck is a bit warm in that uncomfortable cold-hot kinda way.
Good thing that woman wasn’t here, good thing she’d left it up to the poor old soul down there who fidgeted every time Zoro made a displeased noise. Maybe this man would tell her, as the driver had— he’d tell her that the cook had this horrible look to his face, one that was very obviously plagued with regret.
Zoro barks at the man to hurry up with it and they leave there in quick stride.
“Zoro,” Sanji breathes finally, “Zoro, we’re getting married.”
“Yeah,” the idiot snorts, though his antsy fingers betrayed his careful calm, “glad you caught on.”
Sanji’s incessant chewing of his unlit smoke seems to bother Zoro, who groans and rubs at the back of his neck in turn. “Listen, it’s not that big of a deal. As long as it doesn’t mean anything to you, then it doesn’t mean anything at all, you got that love cook?"
Sure. Sure, he’s got that. Definitely.
“It doesn’t bother you?” Don't lie moss-head.
Zoro wiggles his nose a bit, considering himself carefully for once. “Yeah. But I guess- well at some point it might’ve bothered me more, but we’ve been though so much bullshit already that it kinda makes walking down the aisle seem like an unpleasant detour. Literally the worst that could happen is that I gotta kiss your ugly face.” Even as he says it his expression morphs a little, a flush to his ears.
Sanji would’ve retorted, really, but those flashbacks are kinda hitting him harder now, and he kinda chokes a little in surprise.
“Oh,” a small smile curls across Zoro’s face then, “finally backing down from a challenge, are we?”
Stupid idiot, stupid stupid stupid.
“Will it be your first, mossman,” Sanji teases instead, if only to stall his own mind. And it works too, when Zoro gives him this funny look.
“Yeah.”
The Duchess finds them later, bringing along a line of women that flaunt flowers and heavy center pieces.
Sanji wonders if he should tell Zoro.
It’ll be his first too.