Chapter Text
The best for Nami, always.
It makes sense. Without her expertise, the rest of them would be dead in a day or two, and Sanji fucking plates her meals like he’s serving the Empress. Luffy and Usopp come next, and the kid is second, even though he’s the captain. Zoro after them, and he always gets whatever is left over. The uneven cut of red meat, the piece of chicken with part of the breading torn away, the vegetables that weren’t perfectly shaped. Maybe Sanji thinks Zoro will complain. Thinks he’ll say something, refuse to eat or pick a fight, but the joke’s on him. The worst food that Sanji makes is better than the best stuff Zoro ever had before this.
Sanji last, and he doesn’t sit with them. He eats in the kitchen. He used to keep the door closed, but maybe he’s more comfortable these days, because he leans on the stove and occasionally throws out quips as he wolfs down whatever is left over. If they leave food on their plates, he eats it without complaint, though Nami is the only one who ever does.
Sanji’s a whore, too.
He’s not even shy about it.
Whenever they stop, there are always women. It’s not hard for Sanji. He looks good in a suit and he knows how to wear one. He can talk about things that aren’t fighting. He knows how to pair wines or something like that– Zoro isn’t sure what it all means. They only occasionally turn Sanji down. More often, they come onto him, and he never comes back to the ship until it’s time to leave.
One day, they’re all drinking in the bar of a port town whose name Zoro can’t remember, and a woman and her husband tell Sanji they like the way he looks. He grins widely and leaves with them, and Zoro nearly chokes on his drink. The alcohol goes down wrong. It burns his throat.
It never occurred to him that that idiot liked men too, but the way Sanji fawns over Nami suddenly seems facetious. A game the two of them are playing with each other.
Not that it means anything, or that Zoro would ever say anything.
There couldn’t be a more perfect way to fuck up the crew dyanmic.
Fuck, Sanji looks good though. It was simpler when Zoro thought he never had a chance. When he never thought about it because there was nothing to think about. He resolves not to think about it now.
…and so it goes like that, there are long, boring stretches at sea interspersed with the most insane bullshit Zoro’s seen in his life. He sleeps through the former and fights his way out of the latter. He eats the best meals of his life. He refines Three Sword Style. He’s not stupid, he knows this is the best thing he’s ever had and he doesn’t want to ruin it, so he more or less keeps his promise to himself and doesn’t think about Sanji at all.
It happens when he’s sitting in a booth in a bar with Nami. She’s got maps and charts spread out in front of her, along with pieces of a smashed log pose. Zoro worries about her and he doesn’t. She’s a once-in-an-Age navigator, and even though she can mostly take care of herself, there are dangerous people out here. He doesn’t want to die on the Grand Line because some dipshit with Devil-Fruit powers rolled up and snatched her out of a bar.
She’s saying something, just using him as a sounding board, really. Zoro makes noises of acknowledgment occasionally, but he has nothing to contribute to a high-level discussion of navigation. For fuck’s sake, he was embarrassingly old when he learned to read and write.
“Look,” says Nami. She points and he does.
Sanji is here, across the room, drinking with some guy. They must have come in while Zoro was distracted. The guy is taller than Sanji is, a swordsman, dark hair, visibly a bounty hunter. He’s got a killer-mark tattoo on his left arm with at least a hundred lines on it. Sanji laughs at something the guy says that isn’t even funny. It’s—
Oh, no. Absolutely not.
There’s no way.
The guy buys Sanji one fucking drink (and it’s not even the stuff Sanji likes) he tosses it back like it’s nothing, and they leave together. Debatable if he even saw Nami and Zoro in here, the wall of the booth probably blocked the view. The guy puts his hand on the small of Sanji’s back and Zoro realizes his knuckles are white on the grip of his sword. He forces himself to calm down.
“Did that—” Zoro glances at Nami instead of doing anything stupid. “—just happen?”
”Oh yeah,” she says, pouring over her notes. “He’s definitely got a type.”
Zoro snorts. “Could have fooled me. Do you—?”
Nami glances up at him.
”Like him?” he asks, because why else would she have pointed it out.
”It’s not like that,” she says. The scars where she stabbed herself stand out in the light, the tattoo doesn’t completely cover them up. “We’re just playing around.” Then, so casually that she could be asking what time it was, “Do you?”
”As if.” Zoro rolls his eyes. “I can barely stand him.”
*** *** ***
Zoro has a sleepless night imagining Sanji in bed with that other swordsman. Imagining Sanji’s fingers digging into some other guy’s back, his legs wrapped around some other guy’s waist, his teeth scraping against some other guy’s neck.
It’s not like Zoro’s never been with a woman. There have been a few. It just never clicked. He’s supposed to like them, he knows that, and he’s put an enormous amount of effort into trying to, but he doesn’t really feel anything when he looks at them. Never felt the urge to get married or have kids. His first time with a man was different, it felt right in a way it hadn't before. It’s more complicated though, forbidden in some places, but probably not on the Grand Line, come to think of it. Everything out here is too crazy for people to give a shit about what other people are doing.
Sanji certainly isn’t hiding it.
Zoro can’t sleep, so he rolls out of bed to go take a cold shower.
He checks the water levels, figures there’s enough that there won’t be a fight about it in the morning and doesn’t bother to draw any. It’s dark, but the lights from the port filter in, everything has this eerie blue glow.
Sanji is cleaning himself up in the bathroom when Zoro goes in, and the cook jumps, startled. His shirt's torn, his knuckles are bloody. That’s odd, he never fights with his hands. There’s–
There’s a fucking handprint on Sanji's throat, the bruises already yellow-purple.
Zoro decides on the spot that he’s gonna kill the guy who put it there. Probably won’t even be too hard to find him. Can’t be a whole lot of bounty hunters with hundred killer-marks in this town. The only thing that stops him from leaving right now is—
“You alright?” he asks.
“I got jumped,” Sanji lies, and then lies again. “I handled it.”
Right, he didn’t see Zoro and Nami in the bar.
Zoro looks Sanji up and down, but he doesn’t really know how to take care of another person. Doesn’t know what to say or what to do.
“Any broken fingers?” is the best he manages.
“Don’t know,” says Sanji, but he manages to get a cigarette into his mouth and light it.
“Let me take a look,” says Zoro, and he half expects a quip or a sarcastic barb in response, but Sanji’s body language becomes a fraction less hostile and he moves to make space, leaning on the sink counter.
Sanji holds his hands out and they’re rock steady, even though he must be coming down off one hell of an adrenaline rush. There are more yellow-purple handprints on his wrists, up under the sleeves of his shirt. Gods, fuck. Zoro takes Sanji’s hands in his and turns them over, bending each finger, checking the range of motion.
They’re not exactly pretty, though Sanji has the long, slim fingers of an artist or musician. His hands are covered in nicks from knives and discolored patches from being burned. Oven doors, fire, hot oil, Zoro can’t tell exactly, he’s not a tradesman, and Sanji smells like woodsmoke, blood and sweat, salt air.
“Nothing broken,” Zoro declares. “You should tape these, if you’re going to fight with them.”
Sanji snorts softly, but he seems relieved. “You’re an expert?”
“Yeah, actually.” Zoro lets him go. “I’ll clean them up.”
“Like I need you to,” says Sanji, and he rolls his eyes, but he allows it.
Zoro pushes the other man’s sleeves up for him, washes his knuckles off. He finds some alcohol and Sanji flinches but isn’t a fucking baby about it when Zoro pours it over them. He washes them again and wraps them in bandages, snug but not too tight. It's amazing to watch Sanji maneuver the cigarette throughout the whole process, and the man smokes like he’s got a personal vendetta against his own lungs.
“You see the guys?” Zoro asks.
“What guys?” Sanji raises an eyebrow.
“Who jumped you,” Zoro says, because Sanji can’t possibly have forgotten the lie he told a few minutes ago. He doesn’t even know what he’s getting at, if he’s trying to bait Sanji or not. Maybe he just hopes the other man will want to talk, but about what, Zoro isn’t sure.
“Right.” Sanji watches him, evaluating. “What if I did?”
“We could go beat their asses,” Zoro says.
“I said I handled it,” Sanji snaps the words out. He taps ash off his cigarette, into the sink. “Nothing happened, and even if it did, I don’t need you to protect me.” He pushes himself up off the counter. “Save it for Nami and Usopp.”
He edges around Zoro and goes. Not even a thank you.
*** *** ***
Sanji is up before all of them, making breakfast.
Rice omelets and fresh, crisp vegetables. Shredded potatoes soaked in some kind of spice mixture and pan fried, but somehow they aren’t oily. Bread that Sanji baked earlier this morning, still warm and hard on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside. Nami gets a fruit salad to go with hers, the tart green apples sliced into spears and the sweet red berries cut to look like roses.
Zoro’s omelet is torn, but as if he gives a fuck what it looks like. He could have put away five helpings easily, and he shovels his food down as he thinks about how hard it’ll be to find the guy who put his hands on Sanji.
Luffy wants to leave, already bored with this island, and he and Nami are talking about whether or not it’s a good idea. She wants more time to examine the log pose, consult with some of the people here, and chart their course, and Luffy huffs and complains a bit, but says if she’s gonna do that, he’s gonna go exploring. Usopp wants to look for parts in the marketplace. Zoro would normally find a shady place to take a nap in at this juncture, but he chances a glance at Sanji, sees the high-collared and long-sleeved shirt the cook is using to cover the bruises and decides that yeah, he’s gonna go kill that guy.
He tells them he needs to go look at swords and no one questions it.
It’s pretty simple, actually. If there are bounty hunters here, there’s either a mark or an office too, and Zoro finds the office first. The receptionist is a woman, and the most notorious pirate hunter in the East Blue has been through this song and dance a thousand times before, though admittedly, never looking for another bounty hunter. He asks her about the bills, he flips through the various offerings and pretends to read them, then he suggests that he might need a partner to handle some of these. She lets him see the roster too, and he picks the guy out in a second.
Galian the Blade.
Gods, what a fucking dork. Got a hundred and thirty-four marks, though. Nothing to laugh at. They only give those out for bringing in special bounties. Devil-Fruit users, that kind of thing.
“You know how I can contact him?” Zoro asks.
The receptionist’s eyes flick down to the roster, then back up to Zoro’s face. She looks at him like he’s the most out-of-touch idiot on the planet. Maybe he is.
“Yeah,” she says, “but that’s not going to help you. He’s in the hospital.”
“He’s what?!”
“Someone beat him within an inch of his life last night.” The receptionist says, disinterested. “Broke both his arms and most of his ribs.”
“Someone?” asks Zoro.
“Galian probably had it coming.” The receptionist shrugs and leans in a bit closer. “Wouldn’t be the first time he’s gotten violent, so it was probably some girl’s father or brother who did it. Anyways, his guildies are all out right now, hunting the guy down.”
I handled it. I don’t need you.
Okay, yeah. Maybe they’re both fucking idiots, because Sanji thinks he can fight a whole bounty hunter’s guild and because Zoro just left him alone on the ship and never even considered that possibility. He turns and goes, the receptionist bewildered, but that’s most people who have to deal with their crew. He clears the distance from the street to the nearest rooftop in a single leap, the streets are too crowded. The tiles are loose in places, but he sprints, heading in the direction of the port.
He wonders if anyone else from the guild saw Sanji go back to the ship, but if he’s dealing with bounty hunters and even a few of them are competent, the answer is that they can probably track him down, and it’s not a particularly long stretch from there to the thirty-million bounty Luffy’s got on his head.
Fuck! Gods!
Zoro wonders when his life got so complicated.
From the rooftops, it looks like Sanji left to go shopping for food. The hunters caught him in the market, tried to jump him for real this time, and Zoro lands behind one of them, doesn’t bother to unsheathe, and the swing is graceless, but it catches the closest bounty hunter directly in the back. No guard. The guy’s feet leave the paving stones of the road and he goes flying into the harbor, probably not dead, but Zoro’s not especially concerned with him.
There are maybe twenty more, plus the ringleader. Sanji’s got another guy down, his foot on the man’s throat, pressing hard.
”Fuck off!” he calls out, when he sees Zoro. “I said I was fine!”
”You don’t look fine!” Zoro calls back. “You want to fight twenty guys, you three-piece dipshit!?”
“It’s a blazer, moron!”
“Eat shit!”
Sanji flips him off, but he points to his left with his other hand. The bandages still on them, the message clear. Zoro can handle half.
…and he does, easily.
They both do.
*** *** ***
”You think I can’t tell how you look at me?” Sanji asks.
”How do I look at you?” Zoro asks, in return.
They should find the others and get out of here, but instead of that, Sanji wields Zoro into his bedroom and shoves him down onto the bed. Everyone else is still out. They have the whole place to themselves.
“Take your shirt off,” he orders, as he climbs on and sits down on Zoro’s hips.
Zoro does it immediately. He’ll save regrets for later, and Sanji’s fingers trace over the diagonal scar that lances through his chest, the touch electric. Zoro feels it in the chambers of his heart. That simple touch plus the pressure of Sanji’s weight gets him embarrassingly hard. It makes him feel like an untouched boy all over again.
Sanji seems to sense that Zoro is less experienced by far, and he shrugs his suit jacket or blazer or whatever the fuck it is off and lets it fall off the side of the bed. Then his shirt and his belt come off. Sanji’s— he’s got this pinched, snatchable waist with thick thighs and sculpted calves. He’s toned everywhere, but all of his actual muscle build is in his legs. Zoro knows Sanji looks like that because he nearly starved to death and he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to say anything about it.
One of Sanji’s hands closes in his hair and he pulls them closer and they kiss. It’s like fucking kissing an ashtray and Zoro never wants to stop. It occurs to him that his hands should be somewhere he and he grips Sanji’s waist with them.
They’re grabbing at each other, pulling off the rest of their clothes. Zoro kicks off his boots, Sanji undoes the sash of his pants and Zoro tilts his hips up and lets Sanji slide them off. Zoro feels like he’s moving forward on nothing but momentum. He doesn’t really have a plan for this, he never imagined getting this far.
“Ever done this before?” Sanji asks, then amends it. “With a guy?”
“Only a few times,” Zoro admits.
”You’re hot,” says Sanji, and he’s looking down at Zoro like he’s hungry, his gaze sharp and eager. Zoro wants Sanji to look at him like that all the time. “You know that, don’t you, mossball?”
“Thanks…?” Zoro says, and he’s rewarded with a wry look that tells him he’s not being nearly sexy enough. Wait, shit. He should have said something in return, and he blurts out, “You too.”
It’s true. As good as he looks in a suit, Sanji looks even better naked. His cock is cut, and they don’t really do that in the East Blue so he must have come from somewhere else originally. No body hair, narrower than Zoro is, slim and taut and not nearly as muscular. Sanji is flushed from the fight, washed with adrenaline and excitement. Zoro wants to touch him everywhere.
Sanji grins widely and swings off of him, and for a second Zoro thinks he’s fucked up, that Sanji is going to leave, but all he does is fish something - a little bottle of oil - out of a drawer and comes back with it. Zoro knows this part, but instead of handing it to him, Sanji puts one knee on the bed and tips some out onto his fingers.
“Lay on your back,” he orders, and just like before, Zoro can’t come up with anything to do other than obey. He does it, propping himself up a little on pillows to watch Sanji, who’s got one hand between his own legs, spreading himself. Either he doesn’t trust Zoro to do it right or he’s putting on a little show. Zoro isn’t sure. Maybe both.
Sanji tosses him the bottle. “Make yourself useful for once.”
Zoro does as he’s told again. Tips some out onto his fingers and coats his cock with it. Almost the second he’s done, Sanji knocks his hand away and straddles his hips again, bracing his legs and tilting himself back to find the right angle.
“Are you—?!” Anything else Zoro intended to say is lost as Sanji impales himself. He’s tight inside, clenching and velvety wet, and Zoro digs the fingers of one hand into the sheets and the fingers of the other into Sanji’s thigh.
Sanji doesn’t let him set the pace, and it’s rough and imperfect as they each struggle to be in control. When he did this before, those few times, Zoro had always been the one in charge, but that doesn’t happen here. He takes Sanji’s hand and kisses his bruised wrist, and all that does is make Sanji smirk.
“Hopeless romantic,” the other man says.
“Maybe,” says Zoro, and maybe he is. He sits up and takes Sanji’s cock in his hand, stroking him off as the other man rides him hard. It takes a minute, but he gives up and lets Sanji control the pace, and they’re both breathing hard from struggling against each other, bracing against the bed.
Zoro’s close, the pressure nearly unbearable, but he has enough self-control to last until Sanji’s back arches and he spills out over Zoro’s chest, covering his mouth with one hand to keep from crying out. They were alone before, but someone might have come in while they were distracted. He clenches tightly and Zoro fucks him through it for a bit before it’s too much and he spills inside, painting Sanji’s guts with his seed.
As soon as it’s over, Sanji rolls off of him and lays bonelessly in the sheets, gazing up at the ceiling. His eyes are gray-blue, the color of stormclouds.
“You okay?” Zoro asks, he grabs some of the sheets, bunches them up and cleans himself off a little.
“Fine,” says Sanji, he sounds far off.
Zoro wonders if he just fucked up his entire life, and Sanji reaches over to the nighttable, taps a cigarette out of a crumpled pack, puts it between his lips, and lights it with a match he strikes off the headboard. There’s a black groove in the wood where he does it, and the scent of tobacco and woodsmoke mixes with the smell of sex and the salt of the ocean. He takes a long drag, exhales into the air, and then offers it to Zoro, who declines.
“I don’t ever want to talk about this,” says Sanji after they’ve been laying there for a while.
Zoro glances at him.
“Don’t want to ruin anything,” says Sanji.
”Neither do I,” Zoro lies.
”Good,” says Sanji. “Get up. Go take a shower. I’ll make dinner.”