Archive of Our Own

The bar is dead. Exactly how Zoro likes it after a long time at sea. He can sit for as long as he wants and buy bottle after bottle without some drunk idiot bumping into him or worse, trying to hit on him.

He chucks a few berries down onto the wood top of the bar as he shuffles onto a stool and waves down the bartender. There's only an old lady playing cards by herself in the corner and a pair of middle aged men arguing. Zoro practically has the place to himself.

The last island they'd been at was a smelly metropolis with too tall buildings and too many people crammed into them. The bar he went to there had been more of a dance club. The music ended up making his ears ring so he left and got drunk on Sanji’s cooking wine on the Sunny which earned him a wake up kick to the face.

This new place they've settled at is an archipelago, one of those weird pirate havens scattered throughout the Grand Line. It's usually some island where a pirate has set up shop and established some sort of governance. It's a lawless kind of place with one minor rule: don't make trouble. So people don't make trouble. Instead they come here to rest, restock, and relax, and Zoro has big plans to relax after their stint in Thriller Bark.

He downs the first bottle the bartender gives him in record time and lets himself sink into the meditative relaxation of good alcohol. Everything's been so loud and busy lately that he hasn’t had time to just fucking breathe.

“Hey there, handsome.”

The voice is female and the words mark the beginning of an interaction Zoro wishes he weren't about to have. “Sorry, lady, you're barking up the wrong tree.”

Zoro and sex have never been too friendly. The other boys at the dojo turned thirteen and suddenly became horny monsters overnight. Zoro masturbates when he has to, but he has never once consumed a nudie mag with any sort of interest. One fell out of Sanji’s locker once and Zoro decided he wasn't missing out. He did blow his nose on one of the pages though.

Not heeding his words, the woman hops up onto the stool next to him and waves down the bartender. It puts her only slightly higher in his estimation that she doesn't try to wheedle a drink out of him. He's barely got enough money for his own drinks. He's not going to waste any on someone dumb enough to hit on him.

“Can't I want to talk to the notorious Roronoa Zoro?” she asks easily after telling the bartender her order. “It's not every day we get celebrities in these parts.”

“Celebrity,” Zoro says with a snort. He downs half of the bottle in his hand. It burns his throat exactly the way it should. “I'd have to be famous to be a celebrity.”

Zoro doesn't think a bounty makes him particularly famous. If anyone in their ragtag band is famous, it's Robin. And Luffy's getting up there.

The woman raises one of her perfectly arched brows. They're so smooth they look drawn on. In fact, her whole face of make up looks like a mask.

“It sounds like you're not the type of man to rest on his laurels. That's okay. I like humility.”

Done with the back and forth attempts at flirtation, Zoro finally turns to her. “Look, lady, I'm not interested. If you're looking for a partner for the evening, it won't be me.”

The woman holds up her hands in surrender. “Alright. No need to fly off the handle.” She reaches for her drink and the ice clinks against the side of the glass. “Would you at least let me buy you the next round? It's not often I get to meet someone with a bounty as high as yours.”

Zoro considers telling her to fuck off again because this still seems like a plot to weasel her way into his pants. But who is he to say no to a free drink?

The woman calls to the bartender before turning back to Zoro. “My name's Kalinda. Why don't you tell me about yourself?”

Zoro wakes up tied to a chair. Despite that, he's not too worried. A few ropes are child's play. He doesn't have his swords though and that pisses him off.

The last thing he remembers is drinking two more beers with that stupid lady hanging on his every word. He told himself he would return to the ship at midnight, and he remembers taking a piss in the filthy bar bathroom. After that, nothing.

It's not too hard to figure out he got roofied. It's a novel experience. His head feels a little cottony, but the sensation is fading quickly. Mostly his mouth tastes like shit.

“Dammit. I was hoping you'd be out for longer.”

The same woman from the bar swings into his field of vision. She looks much the same as she did when she was hitting on him, but she's changed out of her tight black dress into loose clothes that cover a lot more skin. Zoro frowns at her, unimpressed. He honestly doubts she’s any sort of threat and he has a few questions he wants answered.

“If you don't want me to kill you, you better start talking.”

“Please, you won't kill me. Your crew doesn't hurt women unless they have to.”

Zoro doesn't say that's the cook’s thing, but he also doesn't like the fact that people know that. It's a weakness that's too easy to exploit.

Zoro stays silent as Kalinda crosses the room. It's completely empty except for the chair Zoro is in. There's something absurdly creepy about that. The walls are a dark gray and the floor looks like concrete. He'd think it was a warehouse if it weren’t the size of a shed.

“Why'd you drug me, lady?”

“There’s a big market out there for women who want to have children but have few options.” She pulls a small glass container from her pocket. “They’ll pay a steeper fee for certain specimens. Especially if they come from famous men. And men as strong as you without a devil fruit? A hot commodity.”

She turns her eyes on Zoro and his stomach drops. Ah, shit, this lady’s crazy.

She approaches Zoro where he’s still lashed to the wooden chair in the middle of the room. “Don’t worry,” Kalinda says. “I made sure to dose you with an aphrodisiac while you were knocked out. This will be as fun for you as it is for me.”

That explains the weird fizzle in his gut. He thought it was the roofie or the impact of too much beer on his digestion.

Inexplicably, Kalinda drops to her knees in front of Zoro and as her hands reach for the close of his trousers, two things happen at once. First, Zoro flexes his arms and rips the ropes from his body so he can shove her onto her back. Second, the wall behind him explodes in a spray of stone as Sanji kicks his way into the room, followed shortly after by Brook.

“What the fuck, mosshead?” Sanji demands, standing in the rubble and breathing hard. “You disappear to have kinky sex when you knew we needed to leave in the morning?”

“I am not having kinky sex,” Zoro replies. He'd never do that with the awful woman who is currently trying to pick herself up off the floor. He doubts he’d do it with anyone. “This bitch drugged me, and I’m trying to get away.”

“And you're doing such a good job,” Sanji snaps, trotting over the scatter of stones to help her up. Like an idiot. “And don't use that word to describe such a fine lady. Madam, I'm so sorry for my crewmate. He was raised by wolves.”

Kalinda takes Sanji’s hand, but the moment she’s on her feet, she shoves Sanji in the chest. He’s knocked back far enough that he trips over where Zoro is still sitting stupidly in the chair and falls directly into his lap. Icy fog starts to billow from her body. It quickly fills the room enough to obscure her figure and when it finally dissipates, she’s gone. Zoro scoffs as the fog clears. After saying all that weird shit, she would be a devil fruit user.

He tries to grab Sanji by the waist with the intent to chuck him on the floor, same as the woman who wanted to suck his cock, but Sanji scuttles out of his lap before Zoro even makes contact.

“Why do you have a boner?” Sanji asks, scandalized with his eyes trained on Zoro’s crotch like he has a poisonous frog in his pants instead of his dick.

Zoro looks down and sure enough, his pants are slightly distended under the pressure of an obvious erection. He hadn’t even noticed. “Like I said, she poisoned me. I’ll take care of it when we get back to the ship.”

Sanji makes a face as he places a cigarette in the corner of his mouth to light it. “Please. I don’t need details.”

Brook appears at Zoro’s side to hand off his swords from wherever he rustled them up. Zoro’s grateful he doesn’t have to dig around for them given his current physical state. “Oh, it’s been so long since I’ve had a boner. Unless you count my actual bones. Then I have boners all the time! Yo ho ho.”

Zoro takes it back. He’s not grateful at all.

Getting back to the ship is an exercise in discomfort. It turns out walking with an erection for more than a mile feels pretty shitty. Sanji keeps eyeing him like he’s a pig in mating season, ready to fuck anything that moves. Zoro strongly considers whacking him in the head with the backside of Kitetsu. He resists. Barely. Because he’s pretty certain getting into a real fight with Sanji might push him over the edge into an orgasm he doesn’t want to have in Sanji’s presence or at all.

It's not that he’s into Sanji. Not really. It's just that sometimes Zoro thinks Sanji is nice to look at, and when they fight, his body is warm against Zoro’s, and a warm body is the last thing he needs at the moment.

Once they arrive at the ship, Zoro locks himself in the bathroom, masturbates twice and then, exhausted, rinses off in the shower before passing out in his bunk.

He wakes up what feels like only a few hours later with Nami slapping his cheek.

“Get up, you layabout,” she says. “We’re having a meeting.”

Zoro groans and knocks her hand away. “Fine. Leave me alone. I’ll meet you in the galley.”

Nami stands up straight and gives him a thoughtful look that spells trouble. “So Sanji-kun found you then?”

Zoro’s face burns as he gets out of bed. “What of it? One of you usually hauls me back to the ship when you decide you’re done waiting.”

“Yeah,” Nami says, watching him tug his shirt on before pulling his haramaki over his head. “But he was pretty certain you weren’t lost. He made everybody canvas the island to find you when you didn’t show up on time this morning.”

Zoro stretches his arms over his head and yawns. “I don’t give a shit about dartboard’s sixth sense for danger or whatever.”

“Have I told you that you’re an idiot lately?”

“Every goddamn day,” Zoro replies, already heading up and out onto the deck.

He doesn’t know what Sanji and Brook told the rest of the crew. He’s not interested in being teased about his almost sexual encounter, so he’s relieved when he steps into the galley and no one’s eyes turn to him.

In fact, everyone seems oddly serious, Luffy included, which never bodes well. Zoro is taken aback by the presence of a ragged stranger. His long black hair is greasy and pulled away from his face. Zoro recognizes his clothes as Usopp's.

This definitely doesn't bode well.

“Everyone,” Nami begins. “This is Fisher. We—found him on the island.”

The man surveys the crew with agitated energy. His leg shakes under the table, foot tapping on the floor. “Sorry,” he says and his voice is scratchy. “I’m a little nervous.”

Nami pats his hand and says, “Why don't you tell the crew what you told me?”

And that's when Zoro finds out he's not the only one who had an encounter with Kalinda.

“We're going to find this lady,” Luffy declares, “and we're going to kick her ass.”

“Hey!” Sanji barks from the other side of the galley where he's busy making soup. “We'll turn her in like the respectable pirates we are.”

Luffy makes a face that Zoro interprets as discarding Sanji’s objections. Zoro is certain this will end with Luffy kicking at least a little ass no matter what Sanji says. Though if Zoro read the situation correctly the night before, then she's not particularly dangerous, just batshit.

“What do you think this Kalinda wants by accumulating so much semen?” Robin asks, and Usopp gags in the corner. Nami pats him on the back supportively while Franky also makes a noise of distress.

“She sells it,” Fisher explains. “To the highest bidder. She's got all our physical traits in a log book and she uses it to…advertise. She was always talking about getting some samples that would set her up for life. She has a list of men that she's working through but she hasn't found any of them yet.”

Zoro winces at the idea of his jizz being sold to some person out there wanting to have his baby. Or worse, someone with a kink Zoro doesn't want to know anything about.

“If I understand correctly then,” Robin begins, “we are looking for this Kalinda woman in order to put a stop to her semen trading ring.”

Sanji deposits a bowl of soup in front of Fisher. “Can we stop talking about it? I'm getting hives.”

Luffy is practically vibrating, eyes darting between Fisher and the bowl of soup. He keeps his hands to himself at the dinner table for once—or maybe it's that Sanji is already on his way with another bowl—and says, “We're not leaving until we figure this out.”

“She doesn’t stay anywhere for long,” Fisher warns. He has more color in his cheeks now that he’s eating, and Zoro gets the picture he is very tired.

“Won’t she come looking for you?” Nami asks.

Fisher shakes his head. “I wasn’t a high earner. It made it easier to get away because no one was coming to collect from me. I doubt she’ll try to find me.”

“So we look for this Kalinda lady and give her what for?” Franky asks, knocking one giant fist into the palm of his other hand.

Robin’s face is grim as she pats his arm. “At the very least, we are going to rescue these men.”

Zoro can’t help but notice that Sanji has been quiet for some time. He’s got this look on his face like he’s personally offended by what they’ve just run across. Zoro doesn’t know why. Sure, it’s awful, but they’ve definitely seen worse.

Nami and Usopp step in and give everyone their marching orders. They want to take care of this, but all the information they have is what Fisher gave them, which isn’t very much information at all. He doesn’t know if she flies a flag or if she does, what the emblem is or if she's even a pirate. She has a group of people working under her, but he doesn't know if it's a crew. He’s not sure how long she stays at islands, only that he's been at this particular island for weeks after nonstop island jumping.

Everyone gets their task—Sanji’s to ask around with the merchants, Robin has an in with the local librarian after spending most of the day there, Luffy decides he’s going to search the forest because ‘she has to be hiding somewhere.’ Zoro doubts it’s the forest but he also knows that about fifty percent of the time, Luffy’s wild guess is the right one. He ends up taking Franky, Chopper and Brook as Usopp valiantly volunteers to stay back and watch the ship with their newest passenger while Nami grips Zoro by the wrist.

“You’re coming with me,” she tells him.

“Why?” Zoro asks as the crew disperses to their tasks.

Nami tugs him in the direction of the door. “I'm not going alone when there's some crazy devil fruit user out there.”

Zoro shrugs off her grip. “Yeah, and you’re a woman. She doesn't want you.”

“Well, maybe you need to come with me because if you don't, you're going to end up on the other side of the island when we’ll need to haul ass out of here.”

“Who says we’ll need to haul ass?”

“We always do,” Nami says and Zoro can't even argue. “And who knows? Maybe this Kalinda lady wants your semen.”

Zoro hasn't told anybody what happened and he won't. So it’s unnerving that Nami hit the nail on the head. “I can protect myself.”

“Yeah, yeah, you're such a tough guy. You never need help,” Nami says dismissively.

Zoro squints at her but doesn't protest when she grabs his wrist again and drags him off of the ship. Which is how he ends up stuck in a bar watching Nami flirt with the owner. She doesn't even buy Zoro a drink for his troubles. He's just forced to sit there while she bats her eyes and does that thing where she squishes her tits together. Zoro watches with both annoyance and a firm yearning for a beer.

When one slides on the table in front of him, he blinks at it, briefly confused if he somehow imagined it into existence.

“You look like you need a drink.”

Whatever relief had manifested at the sight of the beer disappears swiftly. It's a woman.

Zoro doesn't get hit on often. Usopp says he has a “don't fuck with me” aura that he should work on if he ever wants to find love. Zoro doesn't want to work on it because he honestly doesn't want to be fucked with. The fact that he's being hit on again in the span of two days has his hackles up, not even beginning to mention how the last one turned out.

“Leave me alone,” Zoro says and with some disappointment, pushes the beer back in her direction.

She looks nothing like Kalinda, blonde hair tugged into a tight pony tail and no make up. In Zoro's opinion, she's nicer to look at but the last thing he wants to do is have sex with her. The last thing he wants to do with anyone is have sex with them.

“I heard you were a tough nut to crack,” she says with a smile, not leaving despite the chilly response.

“I don't,” he says. “Crack that is.”

The woman eyes him up then laughs. “You're a virgin, aren't you?” She drops into the seat beside him and trails her fingers up his bicep. It gives him shivers in a bad way. “Don't worry, I'll be gentle.”

Zoro shrugs off the touch and turns a scowl on her. “Take a hint, lady.”

The woman rolls her eyes and grumbles, “Kalinda said you wouldn't go easy, but damn.”

The mention of Kalinda has Zoro immediately on edge. “You know Kalinda?”

It earns him another laugh. “Don't you? The bounty on your semen is high enough the whole island is in a tizzy.”

Zoro has a strange moment where his heart thuds in his ears, ringing in disbelief. The woman sidles up to him, sliding her hand over his chest. “I'll split it with you,” she offers. “15 million berries is nothing to sneeze at.”

Zoro chokes and rises to his feet. It knocks the chair over behind him and he snarls, “What the fuck, lady? Are you insane? I'm not going to sleep with you. Not for all the berries on the fucking Grand Line.”

“Well, you wouldn't be sleeping with me. I need your jizz so a hand job would probably be better—”

That’s the thing that cracks Zoro. He draws his swords without a second thought, and the bar bursts into shouts and murmurs. It’s the wrong thing to do but Zoro wants to kill something here and now.

“Where the fuck is she?” he demands, advancing on the woman who has the good sense to cower.

If he’s honest with himself, he’s not going to slice up a woman who had the bad sense to hit on him. But he’s not above a little threatening. He shows his teeth and takes another step towards her.

He would make good on his threat if Nami weren’t suddenly wrapped around his back, hands on his arms and tugging him away. “Put your swords away, idiot,” Nami hisses. “We’re trying to keep a low profile.”

With that, Zoro finds himself dragged out of the bar and shoved into the nearest alley by an irate Nami.

“If you make a scene like that, we will get kicked out of the archipelago. You know that. And we need to be in the archipelago to figure this out. So keep it in your pants.”

Zoro makes a face at the ill-timed metaphor. “It’s not my fault,” he says. “That lady was being a creep.”

Nami raises her eyebrow and drops her hands to her hips. “Oh?”

Immediately deciding that Nami does not need to know any more than she already does, Zoro backtracks. “Whatever. I’ll keep it in my pants.”

“Good,” Nami says firmly and then she grabs Zoro once more to drag him out of the alley.

“Stop grabbing me,” Zoro grumbles and Nami tosses him an exasperated look.

“The minute I stop leading you by the hand, you get lost, so you can suck it up and deal.”

Zoro sighs. Maybe he should have stayed on the ship.

“C’mon, big boy, I’ve got a room upstairs.”

This woman is older than the others and she has excessively sharp teeth. That doesn’t appeal to him any more than the five other women that have hit on him since they came into the bar. Despite what he promised, he is one wrong word away from losing it. The women have bought him drinks, tried to sit in his lap, literally offered anal sex and titty fucking and Zoro is done. He doesn’t know in what world those sorts of come-ons work, but he can only imagine the cook would be over the moon if he got this treatment. Zoro, however, wants to crawl in a hole until it’s over.

“You’ll be sleeping in it alone,” Zoro says without intonation, shrugging off the lady’s touch and seeking out Nami where she is engaged in a game of dice with an old man. He tries to get her attention, but she’s entirely focused on whatever move she’s about to make. It doesn’t even look like she’s trying to get information anymore, and Zoro is about to give up too. He doesn’t need to stay here.

Decided, Zoro marches over to Nami. He’s not sure if the woman follows, but he certainly hopes not. Zoro looms over Nami until she turns her attention to him, eyebrows up in expectation.

“Do you have a problem?”

“Yeah, I’m leaving,” Zoro says, and Nami rises to her feet.

“You can’t leave.”

“Why not?”

“You got kidnapped yesterday and Sanji-kun said—”

Zoro hisses in disgust. Of course the shitty cook told his beloved Nami. Now he understands why she's taking him everywhere like a dog. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s obviously a big deal,” Nami says. “This woman trafficks people for their genetic material and she wants yours.”

“She’s a nobody,” Zoro says. “I could kick her ass with one arm tied.”

A hand rests on Zoro’s elbow and tugs. “Are you Zoro?”

Zoro was so focused on Nami that the touch of the new person startles him. He yanks his arm away with too much force and it unbalances him. He falls directly onto the table behind him and the patrons sitting there swear as their drinks spill on the floor.

Zoro grunts, the wind knocked out of him as he looks up at another woman. This one has cropped black hair and full lips and Zoro is going from complete lack of interest to somehow negative interest.

Nami yanks him to his feet. “We’re leaving.”

Zoro finds himself shoved out the door once more. He stumbles out onto the twilit street and whirls on Nami. “What the fuck?”

“I could ask you the same thing!” Nami says. “Why is every single woman in a ten foot radius hitting on you?”

Some of the fight drains out of Zoro, swiftly replaced by embarrassment. It’s as if his body can only hold so much emotion and the embarrassment is so strong that it’s replacing the rage.

Before he can answer, a whole group of women round the corner of the building. The one in the front—clearly the leader—points at Zoro and says, “There he is.”

A giant wooden bolt shoots out of her finger and barely misses his arm. He suddenly realizes that maybe he's in slightly hot water when a second woman from the crowd tries to spray him with something that stinks of flowers.

“Holy shit,” Nami says, hand growing tight on his wrist.

Zoro grimaces. “I guess we gotta run.” He's already shifting on his feet while the woman tries to spray him again.

“If you don’t explain what’s happening when we get back to the ship, I’m going to triple your debt,” Nami yells at him as their feet pound on the cobblestone road.

He has a feeling he’s going to be paying Nami back for a long time after this.

Zoro arrives at the ship shortly after midnight. He got separated from Nami and didn’t get lost per se, but the ship is largely hard to find. He wouldn’t be surprised if they moved it.

He climbs up onto the deck and finds Sanji smoking a cigarette where he’s seated on the bench at the foot of the mast. He looks up at Zoro’s arrival and blows out a stream of smoke. “You’re late.”

“I didn’t realize I had a curfew.”

He moves to brush past Sanji and go up into the crow’s nest, but Sanji stops him with a foot stuck into his path. It’s easy enough to walk around it, but Zoro turns to Sanji anyway.

“What?” he asks, terse and wanting to get this situation done with.

“Nami-san wanted to speak with you,” Sanji says.

“So? I’ll talk to her in the morning.”

Sanji retracts his foot and grinds out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe before tucking the end into his pocket ash tray. “What’s going on, marimo?”

Zoro grinds his teeth. Of all the people on the crew, he wants to tell Sanji this the least, but it’s coming to his attention that hiding it won’t work. Practically every woman he saw today tried to sleep with him. If it keeps up, he might lose his mind. Or kill someone. He’s not particularly interested in either.

“That lady you saw when you found me,” Zoro says and Sanji nods. He looks so serious standing there in the moonlight. He’s not smoking and that puts Zoro on edge. “That was Kalinda.”

Sanji sucks on his teeth. “I put that together, mosshead. Nami said some weird shit was going down on the island. People were hitting on you?”

“What? And people can’t hit on me?”

“I don’t see why they’d want to. Sleeping with an overgrown mossball sounds like hell,” Sanji sneers.

It hits a weird chord in Zoro’s chest, and he pushes that aside. Sanji doesn’t want to sleep with him and doesn’t want to sleep with men in general. So what? Zoro doesn’t want to sleep with Sanji, and he doesn’t want to sleep with people in general either.

“She wants my jizz apparently,” Zoro says, biting the bullet. “At least that’s what one of the women said.”

Sanji’s mouth drops open which is in it’s own way satisfying. “Do they think they’re going to kidnap you? That’s a joke.”

“I think it’s more of a one and done thing,” Zoro says, thinking of all the women who offered to suck him off. “She wants my jizz and there’s apparently a bounty on it now.”

“A bounty?” Sanji says incredulously. He’s already fiddling with his pack of cigarettes. “It can't be that much.”

“One lady said half was fifteen million berries. You do the math.”

Sanji drops his cigarette and among all the bullshit, Zoro feels a flash of satisfaction. Same as he always does when he beats Sanji at something. Even something as stupid as this.

“Jealous?” Zoro asks with a smirk.

“No,” Sanji says, “I'm shocked anyone would want it.”

“My jizz?”

Sanji pinches the skin between his eyebrows and breathes out slowly. “Stop saying jizz.”

“What would you call it? Semen? Spunk? Love juice?”

“For fuck's sake,” Sanji says, looking at the sky as if asking for patience. “Don't talk about it that way. Don't you have any sense of romance?”

“No,” Zoro answers flatly. Because he doesn't. He never has and he doubts he ever will. “I'm going to bed. I'll talk to Nami in the morning.”

“If you don't, I will.”

“Yeah, you already tattled on me once, you'll do it again. I get it.” Zoro waves at Sanji dismissively before heading towards the men's quarters. Sanji says nothing behind him and Zoro considers the conversation over. He's not going to talk to Sanji about this or romance or anything regarding sex ever again.

Zoro can acknowledge that he broke the only rule on this damn island. Don’t make trouble. But it’s not his fault. Other people broke it first.

“We have to lie low while we're here,” Nami reminds them once the crew is gathered in the galley for another meeting. “Which means no beating up women and also trying to avoid angry mobs.”

“It sounds as if the mobs are less angry and more aroused,” Robin offers.

Zoro scrubs a hand over his face. So far this ‘meeting’ has consisted of him getting grilled on everything that happened and the whole crew trying to strategize about how to quarantine Zoro.

“Why can't he stay on the ship?” Usopp asks. “And away from mobs?”

Nami doesn't dismiss him outright but she does say, “According to a map I got from a bartender, and the information Robin extracted from the local librarian, it sounds like this Kalinda has set up shop on a different island in the archipelago. If we want to find her, we're going to have to island hop. Zoro will just get in the way if he bring him. He's a liability right now.”

“Excuse me?” Zoro demands.

Nami fixes him with a quelling look. “If you stay on the main island and are smart about it, you're in the best position to get information. We'll sweep the other islands to try and find her, but we need something concrete. Which you should be able to get from at least one of the women trying to get in your pants.”

“You want to use me as bait?” Zoro asks. He'd be less offended if it wasn't related to letting women flirt with him.

“Yes, and Sanji-kun is going to stay with you.”

Zoro’s stomach drops into his feet. That's the last person he wants around to watch him get made a fool of.

“No way,” he says at the same time as Sanji. They lock eyes across the galley and briefly, Zoro thinks Sanji might launch himself over the island just to kick his teeth in.

“Our cook is in the best position to help,” says Robin.

“We don't want you getting lost,” Chopper chirps. “It could be dangerous! We don't even know what Kalinda's devil fruit power is.”

“I can handle it,” Zoro insists through gritted teeth.

Nami looks as annoyed as Zoro feels. “Maybe,” she acknowledges, “but Sanji-kun brings certain skills you…don't have.”

Sanji grins and starts to do that thing where he wiggles under Nami's attention like a puppy about to piss itself. “Nami-swaann, I'm so honored that—”

Zoro pretends he isn't speaking and protests. “Hey! I can do anything curlybrow can do. Don't fucking patronize me.”

“I think what Nami means is that he can talk to women,” Usopp says. Then he winces. “Sorry.”

That's the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Or Zoro’s patience. He lurches to his feet and looms over Usopp. “And I can't?”

Usopp squeaks. “My lawyer said I'm not allowed to answer questions like that.”

It pisses Zoro off. It beyond pisses him off.

“And you think that squirming idiot can do it better?” he demands, gesturing at where Sanji is still cooing about receiving Nami's praise.

The words knock Sanji out of his simpering behavior and he bares his teeth at Zoro. “Ladies love me, mosshead. Have you ever even talked to a woman?”

“I talk to Nami and Robin,” Zoro says defensively.

“Let me rephrase: have you ever flirted with a woman?”

Desperate to not lose despite the way his shoulders are creeping up to his ears, Zoro says, “Nami--"

“Ew, gross, don't even lie about that,” Nami interrupts before he can finish his sentence.

Zoro glances over the crew, hoping someone might argue on his behalf but they are all steadily avoiding his gaze except for Luffy.

“I think it's a good idea,” Luffy announces, and that's it. Zoro can't say no now. “Zoro doesn't even like ladies. Of course he can't flirt with them.”

Zoro scrubs a hand down his face, exhausted. This is such bullshit.

“Sanji?” Nami asks, one final confirmation.

“I'll do it for you!” he sings, all smiles and heart eyes. It makes Zoro sick.

Then he turns to look at Zoro and the expression falls away, familiar irritation etching over his features. “Don't get in my way, marimo. I'll kick your ass.”

“As if you could,” Zoro says, but he knows he lost this particular argument. And maybe the crew is right. Sanji at the very least will be so loud around women that it distracts them from Zoro’s presence. That doesn't mean he's looking forward to it.

The crew leaves Zoro and Sanji on the docks of the main island without any remorse whatsoever.

“Stay safe,” Nami calls from the deck, giving them a wave.

Zoro hears Usopp say, “Careful, they can probably still kill you from this distance.”

Zoro huffs and turns to face the path that leads to a town peppering the face of a mountain. It's bigger than the town on the smaller island where they first made landfall and where Zoro had his untimely encounter with Kalinda. Zoro is hopeful the people here haven't yet gotten wind of his secondary bounty. He’s torn between thinking that it’s good to be in a busy place so he blends in and wishing this were the middle of nowhere so that less people can see the bullshit he’s about to go through.

“How do you want to do this?” Zoro asks with no intonation.

“Nami made it sound like there will be women after you wherever you go,” Sanji says. “So it doesn't matter. I'll take you to the hotel and we can go from there.”

“I'm not a kid, you don't need to take me anywhere.”

“Sure, marimo. I've never had to escort you to the ship or to a bar or to a bathroom in a new building. You are one hundred percent set up for success in a strange town where people might literally chase you in the streets.”

Zoro stares at him after that tirade. Sanji adds, “I'd put you on a leash if I could.”

Zoro grimaces in distaste and is forced to follow him on the path up to the town. Houses and buildings dot the landscape and Sanji seems to know where they are going so Zoro follows, if with some petulance. He doesn't understand why he needs a babysitter, but he's been firmly overruled.

They check in to the hotel that Nami told them to find— with price as a consideration—and to Zoro's frustration, they're assigned the same room. He's grateful it at least has two twin beds. He's only had to share a bed with Sanji once, and apparently, he'd brushed his foot over Sanji’s leg and had been shoved out of bed as a consequence.

“This place is minuscule,” Sanji says in summary of the room when they walk in. He's not wrong. The two beds are barely a foot apart, one jammed up under the window and the other nearly overlapping the tiny bathroom door.

“Your dick is minuscule,” Zoro mumbles as he peels off his swords and drops onto the nearest bed. A nap doesn't sound too bad at all.

Sanji kicks him in the chest hard enough that he flies onto the other bed.

“Hey!” Zoro rises to his feet near the window, stuck between the beds. “What was that for?”

“You know what it was for,” Sanji says, lighting another cigarette. “Now drop your shit off and let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

Sanji smirks, smoke drifting around him lazy rings. “To meet some ladies.”

The bar Sanji takes them to is about fifty percent too nice for Zoro’s taste. All the bottles have labels and the bathroom is too clean. That being said, Sanji bought the first round so Zoro won’t complain.

“Know that I am only doing this to keep you from whining,” Sanji tells him as he slides the bottle of sake across the table. Zoro’s taken aback by the choice. It’s his favorite drink, and he didn’t know Sanji paid enough attention to him to know that. It’s shockingly considerate.

“Funny that you think anything will keep me from giving you a piece of my mind.”

“Is it a piece of your mind if you’re just complaining about not being allowed to handle this yourself?” Sanji asks coolly.

The accuracy of the statement pisses Zoro off. He scoffs, “Whatever. It’s a stupid situation anyway.”

Sanji gives him a meaningful look that Zoro chooses to ignore, instead taking a large drink from the bottle Sanji bought. Sanji makes a face and says, “I brought cups for a reason.”

“Don’t bother,” Zoro says with his mouth full of sake. He can put up with the cook for drinks like these.

Sanji drinks his own cocktail slowly in delicate sips. It’s a pink thing with a cherry in it that would probably make Zoro puke. After a few moments of silence, Sanji says, “I can't believe I just have to sit here while you germinate.”

“You could have said no,” Zoro says carelessly, kicking one foot up onto the spare chair at the table.

“And have you dragged off and added to a harem?” Sanji replies. “Please. You're annoying as shit, but nobody should be put in that position.”

It's a change in tune from Sanji’s insistence that he's only doing it for Nami. It expresses that odd sort of care that Sanji has for the crew. Even Zoro. He understands it because he has it himself. If Sanji were in any sort of trouble, it wouldn't be difficult to set aside his general irritation with him for the sake of making sure he's okay. It's Zoro's job to protect the crew and it's Sanji’s too.

Because of that, Zoro doesn't snipe back in response.

He doesn't have the opportunity to either because only a beat passes before a woman approaches the table. Zoro's hope that word of his bounty hasn't spread here withers and dies.

“Excuse me, is this seat taken?” she asks, blinking her eyelashes at Zoro. The sharks have arrived.

“Yes,” Zoro grunts.

“No,” Sanji chirps and Zoro glares at him. “Please have a seat, mademoiselle.”

“Or you could fuck off,” Zoro says without looking at her and Sanji immediately stomps on his foot hard enough he thinks one of the bones in his toes splinters.

Despite the fact that Zoro is being as rude as possible, the woman laughs. “I heard you were closed off.”

She slips onto the chair next to Zoro and drops a gentle hand to his wrist. The smell of her perfume makes him want to sneeze. “Lucky you, I like putting in the work.”

“This is what you've been dealing with?” says Sanji in disbelief. Zoro doesn’t even have to look at him to know Sanji’s eyebrow is twitching.

“I’m not interested,” Zoro says again. He can feel the tension crawling up his spine. He’d said no last time and didn’t give much of a shit. Sure, he got roofied, but it had turned out fine. The current distress is caused more by the presence of Sanji at his side, watching him try to handle this and fumbling the whole thing. So he shuts it down further.

“Go find someone else to fuck if that’s what you’re after.”

The woman coos at him. Like he’s a little kid doing something cute. It makes the hair rise on the back of his neck, and the base of his spine goes clammy with sweat. It’s total bullshit that he can stare death in the face and come out on top, but being hit on makes him this uncomfortable. He wishes there were some sort of training so he could go through to not feel like this. The only thing he can think of is to let it happen more and he can already feel his balls trying to shrink into his body at the thought.

She leans in closer and drops her chin onto the back of her hand where she’s still gripping Zoro’s shoulder. “C’mon, you’re a big boy. I bet you’re big all the way down—”

The hand is pulled off his shoulder. Sanji has stood from his chair and come to stand between Zoro and this stranger.

“My darling, you can do so much better than this oaf.” He kisses her knuckles. “And I believe he said he wasn’t interested.”

The woman leans back, eyes narrowing at Sanji where he’s come to angle himself into Zoro’s space like she’s seeing him for the first time. “Blackleg Sanji. You don't look anything like your wanted poster.”

Zoro can practically feel the way Sanji is torn between dropping to his knees at the acknowledgment of a woman and the desire to stand up for Zoro. It pisses him off that Sanji thinks he needs to stand up for him at all. Zoro will take his help in a fight occasionally but they’re just sitting in a bar with a woman talking to him.

The woman’s eyes get huge. “Oh, I get it.”

“If you get it, get lost,” Zoro says despite not knowing what there is to get.

“I heard the two of you hated each other. That it sometimes got in the way in a fight,” she says, leaning in again but this time with a wry twist to her mouth. “They all say that if you have to go up against the Straw Hats, get Blackleg and the Pirate Hunter arguing. Then you’ll have an in.”

Zoro doesn’t like hearing that. Sometimes they do get a little distracted when they should be focusing on an enemy, but that's how they work. They always get the job done in the end anyways.

“I guess some people like that kind of relationship.”

Zoro blinks once. He opens his mouth. He should reply, but she might as well have hit him over the head with a bat for how well he’s managing to coherently understand what she just said. “What?”

The woman rises to her feet. “The bounty on you is high, but it's not worth getting in the middle of…that. If Kalinda wants it, she'll have to pay a prettier penny than the one she's offering. Nobody's gonna want to go against Blackleg for his man.”

If the first thing she said made him feel clobbered on the head, this is enough to knock him flat. Then she cocks her head. “Unless you’re looking for a third.”

Sanji’s laugh is high pitched and cracking. “I'm afraid not,” Sanji says. “He doesn't know his strength and I'd be too worried about him damaging a fair maiden such as yourself. None of us would have a good time.”

“It doesn't have to be a good time for me to get what I want,” she says and Sanji’s face falls, whatever mask of good humor dropping away.

“We said no.”

Blood drains from the woman’s face as if finally realizing what she's gotten herself into. “Right, ha, I should go then.”

She scurries off then, all the way out of the bar. Zoro turns wide eyes on Sanji who rips his hand from Zoro’s shoulder.

“Shit,” Sanji says.

“What did you do?” Zoro demands with mounting horror.

“It was an accident!”

“You grabbed me by accident and implied we were dating by accident?”

“I don't know. You looked like you were gonna puke and—I don't know!” he says, voice going shrill like whenever he sees a spider in the galley that he ends up telling Zoro to kill.

Zoro crosses his arms over his chest. He was not going to puke. “This is bullshit. Why would she assume we're together?”

“I don't like it anymore than you, believe me,” Sanji grinds out. He moves to sit down and adds, “I could live the rest of my life without ever having to do that again.”

Zoro slams a hand over his face and groans. “If this makes it worse, I'm gonna wring your neck.”

Sanji’s mouth goes thin. “Can’t you be grateful I got her off your back?”

“No,” Zoro says firmly.

Sanji responds with a sneer. “That’s enough,” he says. “We're leaving.”

“Leaving to where?”

“You are going back to the room. If we want information, I'll find it and you can stay out of the way. I'm not going to deal with any more of this today.”

“Isn't that why you're here?” Zoro asks. “To deal with this?”

“I'm here to protect your sorry ass from getting milked like a race horse and to get information that you can't.”

Zoro opens his mouth to retort, and Sanji hits him in the face with his balled up cocktail napkin.

“Just shut up for fuck's sake.”

The words are oddly tired, a little plaintive. So, for once, Zoro listens and shuts up.

Sanji leaves him alone in the room for the rest of the night. Zoro manages to sleep for most of it, but he finds that too much rest has him climbing the walls. So when Sanji returns a little after midnight, he's agitated to say the least.

“Have a good time?” Zoro asks, sitting up on his bed where he was busy staring at cracks in the ceiling.

“Can you give me a second before hopping down my throat?” Sanji takes off his shoes and tie, tossing the latter onto the tiny dresser in the corner. “I just spent four hours schmoozing and I'm tired.”

Zoro falls silent, weighing the pros and cons of keeping up the fight, but Sanji is already collapsing on the other mattress next to the window and shoving it open so he can smoke out over the street.

“I thought you’d like schmoozing,” Zoro says, getting up and crossing the room so he can prop himself up next to the window. “That’s your sort of thing isn't it? Mr. Prince?”

Sanji gives him a dark look out of the corner of his eye. “Don't call me that, mold for brains.”

“Then don't call me that,” Zoro retorts. Sanji scoffs and falls silent once more.

Through the open windows, Zoro can hear the sounds of the wind rustling the trees, the soft noises of the night drifting in between them. Zoro finds it soothes the remnants of his ruffled feathers after lying awake. All he's doing is standing there with Sanji in the middle of the night. There's nothing objectively soothing about that.

“Do you think they'll figure this out? The crew," Sanji asks, breaking the silence.

Zoro’s not sure what he's talking about. It's a stupid thing to say. “If they don't, you will.”

“Me?” Sanji taps off the ash on the end of the cigarette, contemplative as he lets it drop out the windlw.

“Yeah, you're always scuttling around figuring shit out.”

With an annoyed hiss, Sanji says, “I don't scuttle.”

“Sure,” Zoro says with no intonation.

Sanji sighs, exhaling smoke out into the dark. “Are you really okay with it?”

“Okay with what?”

“People chasing you around.”

“It’s annoying,” Zoro says with a shrug. “But there are worse things.”

“I guess there are,” Sanji says, tipping his head in thought. It's then that Zoro sees the smudge of lipstick on his jaw and his stomach turns sour. He doesn't want to listen to Sanji question his ability to handle this bullshit when he's just out there getting his dick wet apparently.

“Yeah, like having everyone think I'm dating you,” he sneers.

Abruptly Sanji extinguishes his cigarette on the window sill and rises to his feet.

“I'm going to go to bed,” Sanji tells him, not replying to his harsh words. “Do what you want.”

Zoro, somehow, feels like he lost an argument he didn't know he was having.

The number of women that approach Zoro trickles into nothing the next morning. It's hard to be so mad about Sanji's stupid stunt at the bar when he gets to both walk out of the hotel unbothered and eat his breakfast in peace the next day.

He can still feel eyes on him as they walk, a few heads peeping out of alleys. It's starting to go from inconvenient and annoying to downright creepy. Much as he hates to admit it, Sanji’s little accidental show the night before was worth it. Zoro's starting to consider that it might be a good idea to let people believe what they want to believe. However, if they're going to do that, Sanji will need to keep it in his pants and not come back to the room covered in lipstick and perfume. After all his bitching about the situation and needing Zoro to be on the defense, Sanji using the time here to get laid seems idiotic.

Now as they sit in a little bistro and Sanji drinks his fancy coffee and refuses to let Zoro drink before ten AM, he's starting to get more and more annoyed at Sanji's dumb decision to fuck around.

What if Kalinda wants his jizz too? What if one of his chosen trysts works for her? It's one of the stupider things Sanji could do and he pretended he was dating Zoro the night before so that goes to show exactly how stupid he can be.

“You know it's probably a bad idea to go hook up with some chick if we're playing house.”

Sanji sets his coffee cup carefully in its saucer with a pointed clink. “First, I never agreed to play house with you. Second, what the hell are you talking about?”

“You came back to the hotel pretty late. I'm not stupid. You smelled like you rolled around in some woman’s bed.”

Sanji scoffs, his nonchalance belied by the way he fiddles with his coffee spoon. “I was out getting information. Which involved flirting. Which you wouldn't understand if it bit you in the ass.”

“I understand flirting,” Zoro says. “It's just stupid and gross.”

“Gross?” Sanji squawks, voice breaking on the word. “It's not gross. It’s romantic and heart pounding. And it’s—”

“I like you.” Zoro deadpans. He's tired of being treated like an idiot just because he has no romantic experience.

Sanji chokes on the coffee in his mouth.

“That’s how you should do it,” Zoro says. “You say what you mean. None of this Hey, can I buy you a drink or you're so handsome, want to go somewhere quieter?”

He says the words in a harsh nasal voice while Sanji knocks his fist against his own chest to loose the liquid in his lungs. His face is turning red and Zoro’s pretty sure it's from embarrassment, not just lack of oxygen.

Sanji’s blushes are always funny. They range in intensity from ugly spots on his cheeks to a deep red that covers him from hairline to collarbone. Zoro loves making Sanji blush because when he blushes he gets even more embarrassed, like a hilarious feedback loop of shame.

“The flirting these pirates are doing is too heavy handed,” Sanji finally wheezes. “If they did it right, you’d like it.”

“Yeah, right. I have trouble imagining you not being heavy handed too.”

“I was good enough yesterday that I found out two things. Kalinda is a pirate. She flies a Jolly Roger, a skull with an icicle through the eye.”

Zoro remembers the flood of cold air that Kalinda had filled the room with and a few things slot together. “Is that all?”

“No,” Sanji says with obvious annoyance. He pauses as he goes through the process of lighting a cigarette. He's finished his coffee so this is apparently the next step in his little bistro routine. “I was told that she ate the fridge-fridge fruit and her body functions like a refrigerator. I'm guessing she uses it to transport specimens.”

Zoro makes a face. If the inside of that lady’s body is a fridge and she's always storing semen in it, he can't think of it as anything but disgusting.

“I also found out that most of the women bothering you aren't part of her crew. It's the news of the bounty that has them risking talking to you. Which explains why so many of them run off at the first sign of trouble. I mean, at least people aren't chasing you in the streets anymore.”

“This is so stupid,” Zoro says, tossing his fork down on his empty plate. He still has some toast to eat but he devoured the eggs well enough so Sanji can't complain at him.

“I won't argue with you there,” Sanji says smoothly as he takes another drag.

At least Sanji doesn't quarantine him to the postage stamp bedroom on their second day. He lets Zoro trail him from shop to shop as he hems and haws over spices and jams. Zoro’s starting to get antsy. He should really find a private spot to do some body-weight exercises or else he won't be able to sleep at all.

Sanji is busy inspecting some peaches as Zoro stands off to the left, surveying the street and bored out of his mind until a tall rat-faced man approaches him and asks, “Are you Roronoa Zoro?”

“Who's asking?” Zoro replies, eyes narrowed.

“You don't have to know my name to have a good time.”

Zoro groans and turns his gaze to the sky. Unbelievable. “Fuck. Are you kidding me?”

The guy leans against the wall next to him. “Unless you don't swing that way.”

“I don't swing any way,” Zoro snaps. “So get out of my face before I decide to cut yours off.”

The man shrugs. “Your loss.”

He places his hand on the wall. Creeping vines expand from his finger tips and before Zoro can even draw his swords, he finds himself encircled. He grunts and tries to rip himself free but there are too many and the strength of them defies nature. They are literally in the middle of the street, but no one is doing anything as the man engulfs him and begins to drag him into an alley. This is what they get for stopping in a pirate town and expecting anyone to give a shit about human rights.

Zoro strains briefly against the bonds when the guy jerks him onto the filthy ground between two buildings. The bastard laughs. “I guess it’s not my problem no matter what that bitch said about you and Blackleg. I can get your spunk however I want.”

Zoro would reply if a vine wasn’t currently constricting his wind pipe. The guy drops to his knees and leans in close. For a moment, Zoro thinks he’s about to get kissed and disgust rolls through his belly in a lurching wave. He curls his body hard enough to crack his forehead into the man's skull. Zoro’s own ears ring with the impact but the man's pained grunt is satisfying.

Without much recourse, Zoro flops onto his side and tries to reach his swords with the tips of his fingers but he can't manage it. He rolls the other way, feeling like a worm flailing on the ground. But if it gets the job done…

The man grabs his shoulder and shoves him onto his back. There are tears of pain in the guy's eyes as he growls, “Stay still.”

Zoro isn't sure what to expect next. There are vines binding his whole torso down to his crotch so the man will have to loosen them if he goes for Zoro's semen. And once they are loosened, Zoro's definitely kicking this guy in the dick.

But before anything else can happen, there’s a loud crack and the guy collapses against Zoro’s chest with a gasp. The vines loosen and Zoro’s able to shrug him off, finally looking up to see Sanji standing in front of him, cigarette smoking idly as he surveys the scene. The shadows of the alley highlight the angles of his face and darken the shadow of his lashes on his cheeks when he looks at Zoro.

“Can’t even leave you alone for a second,” Sanji scoffs. He’s got a bag on his wrist filled with some sort of fruit—peaches probably—and he’s shaking out his foot. He eyes the guy on the ground like a rotting carcass and kicks him over with the delicate toe of a single shoe.

“He’s not even good looking,” says Sanji.

“I don’t think good looking is a requirement for trying to steal my jizz.” Zoro says it without much thought as he rises to his feet. He’s stuck in Sanji’s observation about the guy’s appearance. He didn’t think Sanji even bothered to look at men that way. Not that Zoro doesn’t understand. He also knows when people are objectively good looking. Sanji is objectively good looking. It doesn’t mean shit in the grand scheme of things.

Sanji stares down at the man, then he glances up at Zoro. “This is a real problem, isn’t it?”

Bristling, Zoro says, “No. It’s not.”

“This guy had you on the ropes, mosshead,” Sanji points out. “If I weren’t here you’d probably have a stranger’s hand in your pants.”

“I would have figured it out,” Zoro insists, digging his heels in.

Sanji tosses up his hands. “You’re impossible. Don’t you think it’s important to know your fucking limits? It’s common sense. Do you want to leave the crew without a swordsman because you won’t admit that you’re in danger?”

Zoro doesn’t agree with the assessment. There’s no world in which a pathetic devil fruit user takes him out, but it’s hard to argue that he hasn’t had the best of luck over the last week. Two people have gotten the jump on him in the span of three days which is more people than have managed that in a long time. Is it because he doesn’t know much about sex and romance? Or is it because there’s so many of them?

He frowns at Sanji. “What am I supposed to do then? Come groveling to you?”

“No,” Sanji says firmly. “You’re supposed to do a better job keeping an eye out and also let me help when shit goes down.”

“Fine,” Zoro snaps.

“Fine,” Sanji replies, equally terse.

For once, they both let it lie.

“The women won’t talk to me,” Sanji says in defeat, slumping into the chair across from Zoro.

“What else is new,” Zoro snipes into the rim of his beer and Sanji kicks him under the table for the hundredth time in two days.

“Women love me,” Sanji says. “They just think my brooding boyfriend is sitting at a table ten feet away. They keep saying that they don't want to get in between us. How am I supposed to get any information this way?”

“Go somewhere else then.”

“I'm not leaving you by yourself. I’d come back and find you tied up on the floor.”

It's not untrue and all the more frustrating for it. Zoro resolves to train harder once he's back on the ship.

Sanji grunts in annoyance and turns his face away. He's not drinking and a question slots itself to the forefront of Zoro's mind.

“Why aren't you freaking out about this more?”

Sanji’s brows pinch and his fingers tap on the tabletop. “What do you mean?”

“Everyone thinks you're dating a guy, shouldn't you be losing your shit?”

Lightning quick, Sanji whips around to face Zoro. “A guy.”

It’s the stupidest thing Sanji could have said in response and Zoro treats it that way. “Did you think I was a woman or something? Been a man this whole time, cook.”

“That’s not—Are you the dumbest person alive?”

“Hey,” Zoro protests.

“I have literally picked up a guy in front of you.”

Zoro tries very hard to remember that and comes up blank. Something weird skitters in Zoro’s chest. It feels like envy but that doesn't make any sense.

Sanji’s flabbergasted face makes Zoro scoff. “Whatever. I'm not paying attention to the people you hook up with.”

His chest still feels weird and there's an odd pressure inside him telling him to pick a fight.

Sanji's eyes flick behind Zoro and he says, “Incoming.”

Zoro has a sudden realization. Even if he can't draw his swords in the bar, he has other ways to needle Sanji.

He reaches out and snatches Sanji’s hand, curling their fingers together. Inexplicably, it makes his brain shut off briefly, like being dipped in ice water, and when he resurfaces, he can only notice the heat of Sanji's palm tucked against Zoro’s. His chest feels weird again.

Sanji is staring at their joined hands like Zoro handed him a rotting fish. “What are you doing?”

Zoro squeezes his hand again. “Aren’t we doing this? Guaranteed creep repellent.”

Sanji's face is starting to go red, a tea kettle about to whistle. This is why Zoro did this, to make Sanji so uncomfortable that he breaks. It's certainly a different type of fight, but it's one Zoro will win.

Staring for a beat longer, Sanji says, “I thought you wanted to get more intel. This will—people will stop bothering you.”

“We have enough information,” Zoro says. “And if I have to have another gross person try to put their hands on me, then I won’t be responsible for what happens to those hands.”

Sanji grimaces. “Yeah, okay, I think the point is to not get us kicked off the island.”

Zoro points at him and clicks his tongue against his teeth. “Exactly. Making nice with you is at least slightly less disgusting.”

It's also going to be a lot of fun. But Zoro isn't going to tell Sanji that. He squeezes Sanji's hand and leans in with a smirk on his face. “Or are you too much of a coward?”

Sanji yanks his hand free. “Fuck you. I can do anything you can.”

“Sure you can, curly.” The abbreviated insult feels weird in Zoro's mouth. Oddly friendly, slightly sweet. He resolves to use it to make Sanji more embarrassed.

Sanji groans and scrubs a hand over his face. Once he’s calmed down, he points at Zoro accusingly. “Fine, but to be clear, I’d rather drown myself than be in a real relationship with you.”

Zoro gestures towards the door. “Go ahead.”

“Ugh, you’re such a—whatever.” Sanji gives up and holds out his hand once more. “Well?”

Satisfied and trying not to show it, Zoro bares his teeth instead of smiling as he takes Sanji’s hand once more. “First one to give up’s a chicken.”

Sanji’s eyes narrow. “Don’t even fucking start.”

“Cook,” Zoro says, trying to draw Sanji’s attention as they walk through a market where it seems the theme of the day is gardening. There are plants everywhere. Everything from flowers to spades, the place seems to have it all. Zoro is at a bit of a loss. He’s only ever gardened when Koushirou made him weed the peas whenever he got too enthusiastic in the dojo and broke something he didn’t mean to. He has no expertise with plants and no interest in them either.

However, Sanji is over the moon. He’s got this goofy grin on his face as he inspects plants that Zoro couldn’t name. The sight of it is odd. Zoro’s not sure he’s seen it before, but maybe it’s nice for Sanji to enjoy himself instead of being an uptight asshole for a second. There have been times when Sanji has put his claws and teeth away enough for them to have a decent conversation and this might just be one of those times.

Sanji looks up from where he’s brushing his fingers over a soft looking bush of leaves and scowls.

“What?”

Zoro takes back the charitable thought. Sanji might be interesting to look at when he's all fizzy and exciting, but he’s still an ass.

“What are you even trying to find?” Zoro asks, ambling over to Sanji’s side instead of standing around with nothing better to do than stare at him.

“Are you actually asking or are you being a jerk?” Sanji says.

Zoro swings up beside him and pokes the leaf of a plant. It bounces under the touch. “Actually asking.”

Sanji eyes him suspiciously but says, “I want a basil plant for the Sunny. I'm tired of buying it at markets and the dry stuff doesn't taste the same.”

“An herb thingy.”

“Yes, marimo, an herb thingy,” Sanji tells him. “But really I’m hoping some idiot will try to approach you so we can talk to them."

“I think that hope died when you acted like you were in love with me.”

“In love?” Sanji scoffs. “I didn’t act in love—”

“Don't be embarrassed. I'm easy to fall in love with,” Zoro says with a shit-eating grin. Then he tacks on, “Sweetheart.”

It's fun to watch Sanji grind his teeth before hissing, “No pet names. I'll puke.”

“What about mellorine or darling or dearest? You use those all the time.”

“Yes. For women who deserve to be treated like queens. Not a dirty mossball who wouldn't know romance if it slapped him in the face.”

Feeling ornery, Zoro places his hand on the back of Sanji's neck to give it a squeeze. Sanji shivers under the touch and Zoro's stomach flips hard enough that he pulls his hand away in surprise. The sensation presses down on him and all he can do is lean into the desire to piss Sanji off. Or better yet, embarrass him.

He leans in close, close enough to whisper in Sanji’s ear as he slides a hand over Sanji’s hip. “Is this romantic enough?”

To his surprise, Sanji doesn't shove him off. He shivers again and when Zoro retreats, Sanji’s mouth is thin, jaw ticking. “You're making fun of me, aren't you?”

Zoro pulls away and grins at him, a cresting feeling of satisfaction purring through him. Sanji is all red-faced and that counts as a win.

“I make fun of you all the time, dartboard. What else is new?”

“Right.” Sanji swallows hard and steps out of his space. “Maybe keep your little show for when it's necessary. It's pissing me off.”

Zoro holds up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. Whatever you say.” Sanji scowls at him and Zoro grins again as he adds, “Sweetheart.”

They end up sharing a meal in the hotel to avoid further scrutiny. Sanji shoves a sandwich from a cafe into his hand and bullies him back to the room shortly after their little gardening trip.

“Consider it a break from being watched,” Sanji explains as he shoves him into the hotel.

Zoro isn't sure the tiny hotel room is better than being stared at, but he won't complain.

“Did you find your basil plant?” Zoro asks, dropping down onto the floor so he can lean back against the bed as he eats.

Sanji takes a seat across from him and slowly unwraps the paper around his sandwich. “Did you see me with any plants besides you?”

Zoro flicks his crumpled sandwich wrapper at him. Sanji catches it and throws it back. It bumps against Zoro’s collarbone and falls into his lap.

“I don't know,” Zoro says. “Maybe it's small or whatever.”

“Not small enough that I could smuggle it around without you seeing it. We have bigger fish to fry than a basil plant I can buy at the next island if I'm that desperate,” Sanji points out. He takes a bite of his sandwich and chews thoughtfully. “One of the merchants told me that he thinks he saw Kalinda at a bar across town a few nights in a row. I want to go and get the lay of the land.”

“Do you have a strategy besides waiting for random women to come up to me so you can harass them?”

“And men.”

“You know what I meant,” Zoro growls, agitated by the reminder. “It’s your dumb idea that we sit around and you flirt with whoever was trying to get in my pants.”

“They’re most likely to know what’s going on!” Sanji protests.

“Yeah and there are plenty of people around town who will too. Criminals tend to know what other criminals are up to. That’s how they cover their asses.”

Sanji stops with a bite of his sandwich halfway to his mouth. “Since when are you capable of common sense?”

“Shut up,” Zoro replies. Heat suffuses his cheeks and he ignores it.

“No, no, you’re right, but all of the ladies I spoke to last night unfortunately knew very little. I already told you everything I found out.”

Zoro ignores the spike of frustration inside him at the mention of last night’s ladies. Sanji was being an idiot. They've covered that. “That was probably because you were asking the wrong questions. Too busy flirting.”

Sanji chucks a hunk of bread at his head. Zoro ducks and catches it in his mouth.

“I was using charm to get leads. Something you wouldn’t know anything about.”

“Oh yeah? I’ll show you charm, curly.”

Zoro doesn’t know the first thing about charm, but he’s not going to let up on any argument. He’s certain Sanji’s picture of charm is something Zoro would find immensely irritating.

Leaning forward on one hand, sandwich abandoned. “Is it charming to say you look pretty, cook?”

It's just teasing, not real. Zoro can say whatever he wants because it's made up. It's to get a rise out of Sanji. He's already turning pink, no longer chewing, eye as wide as a saucer.

Zoro smiles at him, feeling feral and hungry for something he can't name. It’s that same battle ready feeling he loves so much.

“Shut up,” Sanji finally manages when he tears his eyes from Zoro. He crumples the paper his sandwich came in as he stands and says, “I’m going to go to this bar and you're staying here. I don't want to deal with you.”

“Fat chance.” Zoro stands as well. “You go, I go.”

Sanji groans. “You're such an ass.”

“Right back atcha, curly.”

Sanji only hesitates by the door for a moment. “And stop being a jerk about the whole fake relationship thing. I get it. You think it's funny. But you're just acting like those assholes who won't stop hitting on you.”

Zoro is a few steps behind Sanji when he pauses. Sanji’s words strike a chord inside him. He hadn't thought—maybe he's being too much of a dick.

He swallows and says, “I'll let up.”

Sanji’s shoulders hunch and it takes him far too long to reply. “At least you can be reasonable.”

“Only if you ask nicely,” Zoro purrs, sweet as sugar. He'll drop the touching, but it’s too easy to make Sanji's hackles rise even with just his words to resist needling him like this.

“I'll ask nicely when you're dead.”

That makes Zoro laugh. He hasn't had this much fun in a while.

The bar is a bust. Everyone Sanji tries to talk to ends up rushing off before he can ask any real questions, and it's clearly pissing him off. All the information they already have is helpful but it's not enough. It doesn’t actually help them find this lady.

“Maybe we take the night off, curlybrow. Try again tomorrow,” Zoro says, finally relaxing in his seat. Not a single person has hit on him since his arrival and everything feels back to normal. “Nobody’s talking to us because they think you’ll beat their brains in if they shoot their shot.”

“We weren’t left here just so we could sit around,” Sanji points out with a huff.

“You're still doing your job if you're babysitting me, right?”

Sanji looks at him askance. “Are you finally admitting you need someone to look after you?”

“No,” Zoro says firmly. “I'm repeating what the crew told you to do.”

Sanji gives him the first genuine smile Zoro's gotten from him since they were kicked off the ship. Suddenly, Zoro regrets his whole make-Sanji-say-uncle plan. It feels like a dick move now, like he doesn't respect Sanji as much as he does. Sanji’s earlier words ring in his ears. Embarrassment is different than disgust and he’s not trying to disgust Sanji the way all these people are disgusting him.

“I'm getting the next round,” Sanji says, standing to head to the bar. Zoro has the sudden impulse to grab his wrist and stop him from going anywhere. He holds back and watches instead as Sanji speaks to the bartender. Zoro ends up caught in the expressive nature of his hands as he speaks. He's had brief thoughts about Sanji’s hands before. While he cooks. While he does those wicked hand stands. They look soft and smart and worth touching and Zoro thinks—

“All alone, tiger?”

Zoro hisses at the man who has dropped into the chair beside him. A handsome ginger with a big nose and an even bigger body. “Not interested.”

The guy seems undeterred, hand settling on Zoro’s knee. “You've heard about the bounty then?”

Zoro swats his hand away but the other replaces it. His skin is starting to crawl and he itches for his swords.

“I'll give you twenty million of it if you come out back with me. It'll be fast,” the man offers, scooting in so close Zoro can smell the sweat on him.

“Zoroooo.”

Sanji drunkenly swings into the space between the man and Zoro, placing his hands on Zoro's shoulders. His eyes are clear enough that Zoro knows it’s just an act. It's enough to dislodge the man's touch, but then Sanji goes a step further and drops into Zoro’s lap.

Zoro grabs Sanji by the waist to hold him steady, so shocked that he can't think to do anything else. He feels the flutter of Sanji's muscles through his shirt and his hands tighten reflexively. He tries not to gape at Sanji when he turns pissed off eyes at the man. “You can leave now.”

As the guy scoffs and vacates his seat, Sanji leans into Zoro’s neck and hisses, “If you keep groping me, I'm going to kick your teeth in. You'll be shitting bone fragments when I’m done with you.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Zoro says, distracted by the feeling of Sanji’s waist under his hand. It’s so small. Zoro had no idea that it would feel like that. He’s looked at Sanji enough to know the general dimensions of his body. He’s noted the way Sanji’s is slimmer than his own, but the size of it in his palm is absurd. He wants to squeeze it. For the first time in his life, the thought enters his mind: I want to see him naked.

He’s so blown away by the impulse that he digs his fingers into Sanji’s body in a way that probably hurts. Sanji answers by squeezing his shoulder tight enough to bruise. Zoro minds that less than Sanji probably thinks. The pain of it burns and pulses down between his legs and another first happens to Zoro in that moment. His cock kicks in his pants and it’s one hundred percent related to Sanji. He can’t even deny it.

Zoro has never wanted to have sex with anyone in his life. He’s always been glad he didn’t seem to be interested in it the way everyone else was because it seemed like a distraction. Now he feels unprepared.

Sanji shifts in his lap and all of the teasing suddenly seems like it was a monumentally terrible idea. He’d wanted a reaction but now he’s getting one in the wrong direction. He’d only wanted to embarrass Sanji after all the shit that comes out of his mouth like he thinks he's better than Zoro. This is just embarrassing for him now.

“Are you done?” Sanji asks, peeling off his chest. “I think we made our point.”

Sanji finally looks at him and Zoro has no idea what sort of face he’s making because Sanji’s expression flickers into something like shock. His mouth parts and he shifts his hips down onto what must be a noticeable bulge in Zoro’s pants.

“Oh,” Sanji says, sounding as off kilter as Zoro feels. The movement of Sanji’s body has sent a bolt of lightning right down to Zoro’s toes, but more than that, Sanji is staring at his mouth. Why is Sanji staring at his mouth?

“Are you—”

Sanji’s words trail off. His breath hitches and then he answers Zoro’s unspoken question by bringing their mouths together in the first kiss of Zoro's whole fucking life.

It sparks up into his brain that he should stop this, but the alien sensation burns and fizzles into his stomach like good wine.

Every problem solving ability he has flies out the window and a sound of enjoyment slips out against Sanji’s mouth. His lips part and Sanji presses the advantage, letting his tongue dip against Zoro’s.

Zoro has had a fair number of thoughts about kissing. A majority of them have been about how gross it must be, swiftly followed by curiosity about why people like it so much despite essentially spitting into each other's mouths. Zoro now understands why people like it so much. It feels fucking great.

His stomach is warm like he's had a whole bottle of the best sake. The kind that never gives him a headache. It's a different sort of drunk. A kind Zoro never thought he'd chase, but now he wants to swallow down as much as he can and see if a similar intoxication will follow.

“Fuck. I guess we're selling it now,” he says when Sanji breaks the kiss. He feels banged around and confused, knocked off balance. The words aren't right but he can't find any others. None of this can be right. If it is, then he's into Sanji. If it is, then he wants to kiss Sanji and he wants even more than that and none of that should even be possible.

His dick throbs and leaks in his pants. He's had erections before but they've always just felt uncomfortable. Not like this. Needy and focused on a specific person.

His hands fist in the back of Sanji’s shirt but before he can drag Sanji into another kiss—he thinks he’d like to be kissing about as much as he’d like to be drinking. It feels the same—Sanji scrambles out of his lap, nearly landing on his ass and only saved by the fact he can defy the laws of physics with his legs on a bad day.

Sanji’s hand flies to his own mouth. “Are you fucking with me?”

Zoro doesn’t know what he’s doing. He definitely was fucking with Sanji but now he feels like he’s being fucked with. He’s not sure if he likes it.

“Are you fucking with me?” he replies. His mouth is slick from their kiss and he can feel it when he speaks, lips parting differently, damp.

Sanji stares down at him where Zoro is still sitting beside the table. His erection is probably still visible, but Sanji is looking at his face. “Can you be serious for five seconds?”

Everything is happening too fast and Zoro’s mind can’t catch up. He’s still living ten seconds ago in the sticky sweet arousal of Sanji’s kiss and trying to figure out where the fuck the feeling came from. Has he always felt this way? Is this why he likes tackling Sanji to the deck so much, always noticing the heat from his body and the scent of his cologne beneath the ashen aura of smoke?

When Zoro says nothing, Sanji seems to give up, jamming a cigarette into his mouth and turning to go. “When you decide you want to stop being a dick, I’ll be at the hotel.” He tosses a small stack of berries in front of Zoro. “Maybe get your own room if you’re gonna be like this.”

Zoro has no idea what he’s talking about and it takes him a moment to gather the ability to pick up the money. By the time he does, Sanji is out the door and Zoro is left in horny confusion.

Seems like he needs to realign his worldview. And he knows the perfect way to do that. Even with the meager amount of money Sanji left, Zoro can buy at least three bottles of dogshit whiskey. Once he’s drunk, he’s certain everything will make a lot more sense.

Getting drunk doesn’t do much except make him stumble through the streets as he heads to the hotel. Only three people hit on him while he was drinking and they all fucked off fairly quickly when Zoro told them he was taken and the guy would hunt them down and ruin their lives if they fucked with him. It’s a little annoying that these pervs are more afraid of Sanji than of Zoro, but he’s also had his usual teeth taken out by his crew and their stupid don’t make a scene rules.

He’s feeling a lot better as he stumbles out of the bar in search of their hotel. It’s one of the taller buildings in town so he’s certain he can track it down eventually.

Over the course of his bottles of whiskey, Zoro came to several conclusions. Yes, he wants to fuck Sanji. Yes, he might have fucked that up with the whole making out in a bar thing, but he’s not stupid. Sanji kissed him first so there must be something there besides their usual animosity. Zoro spent the whole first bottle contemplating the fact that his repressed respect for Sanji that he usually buries under insults and name-calling has blossomed into a sort of recognition that he’s never felt for anyone before. Sanji can hold his own against Zoro and deep in his core, Zoro values that competition, this desire to succeed, the way Sanji pushes him to do more, be better, all the while protecting the crew and having Zoro’s back. He feels kind of stupid with it actually, knocked on the head and dizzy when he contemplates it too much. It’s probably romance but not the kind he’s been sold his whole life. Not the kind Sanji likes anyway. No floating hearts and kissy faces. Zoro wants to bite Sanji in half. He wants to chew up his heart just so he can swallow it. He has no idea if that's some sick sex thing or if that is how it’s supposed to feel. But Zoro can't imagine it any other way.

The feeling itself comes with a bitterness he can’t shake. Zoro doesn’t give up when he decides to reach for something and if he decides to reach for Sanji, he wants to do it right. However, Sanji’s flavor of wooing is so out of Zoro’s capability that he doubts he could ever even do the bare minimum. He wasn’t lying when he told Sanji that he can only understand all this without the flirting and wiggling. Zoro would rather die than wiggle.

Zoro only realizes that getting drunk and wandering through the streets of the town is a stupid idea when he’s hit in the face with a blast of cold air from the front and whacked in the head with something hard from behind. The hit makes him crumple as his vision spots with more than alcohol. A woman leans over him.

“Your semen might not be worth as much if anyone finds out you’re this much of an idiot.”

He tries to reach for his swords, a retort readying on his tongue alongside what he thinks might be vomit, when he’s struck once more and the world goes entirely dark.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Zoro growls when he finally wakes up. He’s strapped to another chair, this time with chains—lady wised up, he supposes. His head hurts like he was hit with an anvil, and he can feel the tacky pull of blood in his hair.

“I thought you’d stay knocked out longer,” Kalinda says, coming around from Zoro’s back and frowning at him as she untucks her shirt and pulls a few things from her body. Zoro barely understands the physics of it but he feels another blast of cold air as she steps closer. “You’re a real pain in the ass.”

Zoro struggles against the chains and finds them holding fast. What bullshit. “Did you not even run off after last time?”

“Of course not. This is my only opportunity to collect from you,” she answers. “I’m working through my list and the others have been impossible to track down. You fell into my lap. And now, I don’t have to pay the bounty because I’ll milk you myself.”

The use of milk as the chosen verb causes Zoro to make a face when Kalinda kneels down in front of him and sets aside a little jar on the floor besider her. Presumably for the ‘product.’

It’s Kalinda’s fault really that she gets kicked in the face. She put her face within kicking range and didn’t even tie his legs to the chair. Amateur hour really.

She lets out a cry of pain when Zoro’s boot connects with her chin and she falls on her ass, knocking her little creepy jar away. Zoro rises to his feet and barrels back against the nearest wall to smash the chair to bits. It’s made of metal and wood so only some parts break and the rest smashes into Zoro’s skin. The pain of it feels like an already forming bruise, but it’s enough to be able to loosen the chains and give Zoro back use of his arms.

As he shrugs off the bonds, he tries to suck air back into his lungs. Running bodily into a brick wall knocked the wind out of him because despite all his strength, he is unfortunately still human.

One step at a time, he approaches Kalinda where she’s kneeling on the floor, hand to her bleeding mouth. Zoro feels bad only briefly when she looks up at him with accusatory eyes and he thinks about that guy on the Sunny. He’s not the only one she did this to, and she deserves a mouthful of shattered teeth.

“Where the hell are my swords?”

The woman groans and it becomes clear that she can’t talk very well at the moment. A broken jaw will probably do that.

Zoro unspools the final chain from around his waist and stalks up to her, taking a knee so he can look her in the eye. She scrambles back on her hands, finally releasing her face so she can put some distance between them. “Did you think I wouldn’t put up a fight or something?”

She whimpers as Zoro curls his hand around her ankle and drags her bodily across the wood floor of the hut. “You’re lucky a guy on our crew would throw a hissy fit if I killed you or else you'd be dead right now.”

Without warning, the woman spits in his face and icy air starts to billow out from her body. He recognizes it from the last time she made her escape and he grabs her by the wrists to shove her onto the ground, holding her in place. She doesn’t manage to free herself so at least she’s not made of the cold smog, she just produces it.

“Hold your horses, lady,” Zoro says. “You’re not going anywhere.”

She twists on the ground beneath Zoro, rocking her body up to slam their torsos together in what is probably a move intended to throw him off. Too bad for her that he’s twice her size.

It’s just about then that Sanji slams into the hut with a kick to the bolted door. The light outside makes it clear that it’s early morning and Zoro has probably been passed out for a few hours. Sanji looks pissed as fuck, visible eye wild and hair stuck up in tufts like he didn’t dry it before bed.

Zoro sits up, trying to still hold Kalinda in place and says, “Hold on, cook, I’ve got a handle on—”

“Where the fuck have you been? Did you get so drunk you decided to fuck the first person who offered?” Sanji says and without hesitation slams his foot into Zoro’s chest, once more sending him crashing into the brick wall of the hut.

This time it hurts about twice as bad especially when he forces himself to say, “Are you stupid? That's Kalinda.”

Sanji finally seems to take in what’s really going on as his eyes fall to Kalinda where she’s once more swallowing herself in fog. He swears and snatches the chains from the ground. “Are these going to work?” he asks Zoro.

“I don’t fucking know.” Zoro lurches away from the wall and crosses the room to once more grab Kalinda and hold her in place. This time, Sanji helps wrap her up. He keeps apologizing to her as if that means anything. The busted lock she’d put on the end of the chains to keep them on Zoro isn’t useful and Zoro ends up holding the chain ends tight while Sanji rummages around the room for a better solution. All they find is two bundles of rope clearly brought by Kalinda herself and a couple of nails in a drawer alongside a dried out sponge. The rope definitely works better to tie her hands and feet than the chains.

Zoro stares down at their handiwork and rubs the growing bruise on his chest as Kalinda groans on the floor. Her mouth really does look like a mess and she’s unable to speak which is a boon at the moment. Zoro does her the favor of knocking her out with his boot before turning his attention to Sanji who is giving him a scandalized look

“You good?” Zoro asks.

“Why wouldn't I be good?”

“You sounded pretty jealous there for a second.”

“Jealous? What a joke.”

Sanji says it but he blushes horrendously as he looks away, smoking with more intention than normal.

Zoro lets it lie for the moment but resolves to ask later. If Sanji kissed him and Sanji is jealous then—

It might mean Zoro has a real chance if he decides to pursue this. The thought makes his heart skip a beat which he tries very hard not to think of as the stupidest response to a simple possibility.

Zoro puts that aside and asks instead, “What are you doing here?”

“The crew got here at midnight and you were nowhere to be found,” Sanji says. “They’d found her ship docked at one of the smaller islands on the far side of the archipelago and all the men have been freed. They didn’t find her. Obviously. But they got a description of her hideouts in the area from the rest of her crew. We were trying to check them out and I saw your swords outside.”

“Ah,” Zoro says. He reaches down to haul Kalinda over his shoulder and she goes like a limp sack of potatoes. “I guess we’re headed out then.”

It’s disappointing to say the least. He’s sober now but some of the realizations he came to when he was drunk still stand. He’d been hoping to figure it out when they were still stuck together and alone and now they’ll have the crew breathing down their necks.

“Luffy and the others will want to make a plan for her,” Sanji says, tipping his head in Kalinda’s direction before he starts the process of lighting up a cigarette. “We’ll probably need to track down a marine base. For now, we’ve freed them and are towing her ship.”

Zoro shoulders his way out of the hut and finds his swords stuck in a barrel outside which explains how Sanji saw them so easily. A stupid thing to do on Kalinda’s part. He takes a moment to affix them to his belt before falling into step with Sanji.

They walk in silence for a few minutes. Zoro’s turning over potential opening salvos in his mind and coming to the slow conclusion that now might not be the moment. He’s got a body on his shoulder and Sanji’s still radiating pissed off energy.

That’s confirmed when Sanji says, “Don’t tell the crew about the whole—you know.”

Zoro’s brow pinches. As far as vague statements go, that’s a winner. “I don’t actually.”

“The relationship thing,” Sanji says. Even in the dim dawn light, Zoro can see his blush. He realizes now that he likes the blush for less innocent reasons than he’d previously thought. He thinks it’s cute and unfortunately, sort of hot. “They’d give us shit for the rest of our lives.”

Zoro doesn’t say what he wants to. He doesn’t have the words quite yet. He wants to say that maybe they should try it out, make it worth telling the crew. Not something fake, something real, something Zoro wants to keep.

Kalinda stirs on her back and he swears, readying to head towards town. “Time to get to the ship.”

Sanji grabs his arm. “The docks are this way, dumbass.”

Zoro lets himself be tugged around and pointed in the right direction, resolving that if he doesn’t say anything now, he’ll figure out the words and say them soon enough.

When they get back to the ship, Franky chucks Kalinda in the hold of the Sunny after Chopper treats her injuries and doses her with a sleeping aid so she won't wake before they find somewhere to drop her off. Fisher has volunteered to help turn her in and tell the right story to the authorities, leaving the Straw Hats to high tail it out of there.

Zoro doesn't bother hanging around on deck, more interested in rinsing the blood off his face and finding a new shirt. A brief shower helps shake the remnants of a headache though the wound on the back of his head throbs a little. He should probably see Chopper. He won't.

It's barely eight o'clock and Zoro finds himself exhausted. He doesn’t want to put up with being teased by the crew so he swings up into the crow's nest to nap until lunch.

His hunger ultimately is what wakes him. The sun is high and the whole ship smells like baking bread. When Zoro slips into the galley, the crew is already gathered, eating with their usual gusto.

“According to all the information we have, the nearest inhabited island is about a day away,” Nami explains as Luffy gnaws on a whole turkey leg to her right. She looks vaguely annoyed by it, her eye twitching.

“You’re so smart, Nami-san,” Sanji coos as he swings around the table to place some sort of fancy drink in front of her. “What would we do without you?”

Nami doesn’t reply but she does pick up the drink and take a delicate sip. There’s a skewer in it with pineapple and cherries that she plucks out to nibble on.

“We’re going to leave Kalinda and her crew behind and then after that—”

“Nami found a treasure map!” Luffy announces around a very full mouth.

The moment Luffy says that, Zoro can predict the next few days of his life with great certainty. There’s something soothing about consistency amidst so much chaos. He picks up a fresh bread roll from the table and starts to eat. When he looks up, he catches Sanji’s eyes. Sanji immediately looks away and Zoro decides then and there that they definitely need to talk.

They've only been on the newest island for a day when Zoro seeks Sanji out. He'd been playing a fun game of when I see you, I run off that Zoro has decided to put an end to one way or another. And he did a little shopping to grease the wheels.

He finds Sanji in the aquarium bar around midnight, drinking something amber colored out of a small glass in the dark. Most of the crew is off on the island readying for the next big treasure hunt except for Franky who ostensibly stayed back for watch but that Zoro saw napping on the lawn.

Sanji looks more haggard than Zoro expected and when he steps into the bar, Sanji doesn't even look up.

Zoro drops his prize on the table and Sanji startles. “What is this? Are you bringing in more plant matter so you can have a friend?”

“It’s basil,” Zoro says, ignoring the dig. “You didn't get any at the last island.”

“This isn't basil.” Sanji brushes a finger over a leaf. “This is sage.”

Zoro grimaces. The lady at the shop told him where the basil plants were. Maybe this was mixed in amongst the others.

Sanji pushes the plant away. “Look, you don't need to rub it in by faking nice. I get it.”

Ignoring the bush of what he now knows is sage on the coffee table, Zoro hooks a finger around the bottle Sanji's been nursing. He takes a drink right off the top. Rum.

Zoro only manages a little before Sanji snatches it back, earning a sharp grin from Zoro. Sanji looks so scandalized, ready to fight, and Zoro would much rather he look like that than whatever despondent sad sack he was impersonating just now.

“I don’t know what I’d be rubbing in but if you tell me, sure,” Zoro says as he takes a seat beside him.

Sanji tosses back the rest of his drink and turns fully to face Zoro. His knee bumps Zoro’s and he hisses before trying to put space between them. Zoro stops him by shooting out a hand and gripping Sanji’s thigh. His body is so warm and Zoro can feel the tight cords of muscle under his palms. It's clear to him that he's touching a weapon and something about that gives his stomach a delicious twist.

Zoro runs his thumb up the inner seam of Sanji’s trousers. Not to tease but rather to feel the texture, the warmth of his body beneath it. Sanji sucks in a breath.

“That,” Sanji says. “I know you think it’s funny but it’s not.”

Everything clicks into place quicker than Zoro can process it. Sanji thinks Zoro is making fun of him for the kiss. For the fact that he obviously liked the kiss. Maybe he thinks Zoro has been making fun of him this whole time. To be fair, for a little while he was.

“I don’t think it’s funny at all,” Zoro says, as serious as he can be. Sanji’s body tenses and his eyes are wide. Briefly, Zoro feels like a predator bearing down on prey. It’s ridiculous to even consider that. He knows barely anything about what he’s doing. He probably shouldn’t have the upper hand.

He can’t say he minds it though. The look on Sanji’s face makes him want to rip and tear and consume. It registers as the desire to fight, but Zoro now knows it’s a different sort of urge growing inside him. Same direction, different end point.

High on the feeling, words slip out that Zoro doesn’t quite intend. At least not yet. “I think it’s hot.”

Sanji sucks in a short puff of air and his nostrils flare. His mouth parts once and then again. “What?”

When he was young, Zoro’s sensei accused him of too often leaping before he looked. Zoro proves his point when he gives into the teasing urge in his chest.

“Hey, curly,” he says and Sanji’s eyebrow pitches up. “Can I buy you a drink?”

Before Sanji can act on the irate look that comes over his face, Zoro closes the distance between them and kisses him.

It’s as mind-numbing as the first time. Zoro’s thoughts go dead quiet and all that exists in the moment is the warm press of Sanji’s mouth and the sudden tug of his hands in the front of Zoro’s shirt. It’s the heat of the side of Sanji’s throat where Zoro places his hand to hold him in place. Then all of that is drowned entirely by the wet slide of Sanji’s tongue against his.

He shivers and burns in response.

“How do you kiss like that?” Zoro asks, half-breathless and tugging at the front of Sanji’s shirt. Sanji’s eyes are once more on Zoro’s mouth, eyelashes downcast and making him look unfairly beautiful. “Fuck, you’re pretty.”

The overly porous brain to mouth filter that Zoro usually has in place has apparently broken down entirely.

Sanji’s eyes snap open and his hands fist tighter in Zoro’s shirt. “Excuse me?”

He sounds vaguely offended and everything had been going so well that Zoro pushes off the desire to rile Sanji up further with his words and instead pushes him onto the cushions. Sanji doesn't fight it and when he hits the couch, his hair pools behind him like liquid gold. Zoro bears down on top of him and sinks his hand into it.

“Didn’t mean it in a shitty way,” Zoro says, barely an explanation before he sucks on Sanji’s throat the exact way he's been imagining.

He tastes bitter like his cologne and there’s a hint of sweat and skin, and Zoro wants to drown in the scent of it, stay with his mouth pressed against Sanji’s throat forever. Sanji moans and tugs on his hair.

“Not too much,” Sanji gasps. “It’ll leave a mark.”

“Good,” Zoro hums, nipping at Sanji’s abused skin which earns him the best noise of all. A whimper.

Sanji pulls mercilessly on his hair until Zoro stops kissing his throat and pulls away. “No marks,” he repeats but it wavers.

Zoro hums and goes back to nuzzling Sanji’s throat, drunk on the warmth of his body and the potential for more. “What if I want to leave marks? What if I want everyone to know you’re mine now?”

Sanji’s breathing stutters. “This literally can’t be happening.”

Zoro doesn’t know what he's doing when it comes to sex. He’s jerked off plenty of times but never to some lewd fantasy. He knows how sex works. He’s crashed in brothels, he’s listened to the rest of the crew talk about hooking up on islands or—unfortunately—with each other. At the moment, the best he can do is whatever the fuck he wants. He wants to lick Sanji’s throat so he does. Then he wants to bite his ear because it looks cute and pink so Zoro does. It’s a good system especially when Sanji’s starts to shake under the attention.

“Why can’t it be happening?” Zoro asks after dragging his teeth over Sanji’s windpipe.

Sanji shoves him in the chest, not hard enough to register as rejection but with enough force that Zoro does stop what he’s doing. Though he still grips Sanji's waist with one hand because he’s more than a little obsessed with the way his fingers cup around it and how it cinches Sanji’s shirt to reveal the curve of his body.

“You spent the entire time on the last island mocking me for liking you and now you waltz in here, give me a plant and what? Want to hook up?”

All those things are true and Zoro can't exactly argue so instead he untucks Sanji’s shirt and slides his hand against bare skin. There’s a dusting of hair on Sanji’s stomach and that turns him on even more. He wants his mouth on every inch of Sanji’s body. He wants to hear him moan.

“Yeah,” Zoro says, “but…then we should keep hooking up.”

“Keep—” Sanji’s eyes narrow. His cheeks are wonderfully flushed and he hasn’t put a stop to the circles Zoro is rubbing into his stomach with his thumb. “You want to fuck around.”

“I want you to stop fucking around and I want us to only fuck around with each other. Whenever we want. For as long as we want.”

Sanji stares at him. “As in date. You’re describing dating.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever you want to call it.”

“You hate me,” Sanji points out.

“I think you’re annoying. Different things,” Zoro says and when Sanji’s face continues to look pinched, he adds, “You’re hot and I like fighting you. I don’t think other people do it the way you do. And it’s annoying when you hit on everything that moves. I’d rather you hit on me.”

“Half of that was insults.”

“Yeah and you like it apparently.” Zoro ducks his head to meet Sanji’s eyes. “Don’t you, cook?”

Sanji lets out a long shuddering breath, his thighs spread to either side of Zoro's hips, flexing against his body as one leg hooks around his ass to haul him closer. Zoro can’t help but feel that’s a pretty promising sign.

“So it’s not a joke?”

“Nope.”

“You like me?”

The word trips up Zoro’s throat but he manages, “Yeah.”

“Holy shit,” Sanji breathes and then his hands scramble for the back of Zoro’s neck, hauling him into another kiss.

If Zoro found their previous kiss intense, then this is something else entirely. It reminds him of the night in the bar when everything had crashed down on him all at once. It feels like it’s crashing again, his heart tumbling and crumbling. He grasps Sanji’s hip tight as Sanji licks into his mouth like he wants to climb inside and Zoro can understand the impulse. He feels it too.

Zoro drags Sanji’s legs higher around his waist. He shoves one hand messily up under Sanji’s shirt until Sanji breaks the kiss to push it away and start undoing his own buttons. It suddenly seems to Zoro that it’s a genius idea to get at more skin and he fumbles with Sanji’s hands, fighting for dominance over how best to open Sanji’s shirt. Despite the jostling, it doesn’t matter in the end. Sanji’s shirt parts and gives Zoro a gorgeous view of his torso, the pale skin and dark blonde hair, the curves of his muscles and the taut pull of his rosy nipples that Zoro deeply wants to suck on now that the opportunity has presented itself.

He blankets Sanji’s torso so he can lave his tongue over the soft rise of his chest and tug a nipple into his mouth. Sanji hisses again, the same sound as when Zoro was licking his throat. Zoro wants to get every part of Sanji in his mouth. His throat, his chest, his dick.

“Is there a trick to it?” Zoro asks once Sanji’s nipples are puffy and slick from his mouth. Sanji’s face is cherry red, a flush running all the way down to the base of his throat. That’s the look Zoro has been after this whole time.

“What are you talking about?” Sanji gasps, half-slurred. His voice is raspy as he speaks and the sound of it turns Zoro on even more.

At this point, Zoro’s dick is hard enough in his trousers that there’s a real chance he might come the second Sanji touches him. He tries to shove off the cresting feeling, but it’s difficult to ignore. Sanji’s hands are tight on his biceps, nails digging in, and the pricking pain reverberates in his gut, something he wants more and more.

“Sucking cock. Is there a trick to it?” Zoro explains, fingers dipping to the close of Sanji’s trousers. These are easy enough. Slip the button free and open the zipper. Pants are pants and Zoro knows how they work. Maybe he should think of Sanji’s dick in the same way. A dick is a dick. He knows how they work too.

Sanji rolls forward, hauling himself up with his hands on Zoro’s biceps as he says, a note of desperation in his voice, “Have you never…”

Embarrassment burns briefly behind the roaring heat of arousal in Zoro’s stomach. He dismisses it immediately. “Why would I? It’s a waste of time.”

Sanji’s face contorts. “A waste of time.”

Zoro hears it between the lines. Sanji, jumping to some wild conclusion.

So Zoro leans in and kisses his throat, a soothing gesture. It’s satisfying when Sanji melts in response. “Not with you. I’ll make the time.” He licks up to Sanji’s jaw and nips lightly. “If it’s you.”

Sanji swears and wraps his legs around Zoro’s waist, rolling their hips together with an intensity Zoro can feel everywhere their bodies touch. The hot line of Sanji’s cock strains through his open zipper, pressing against Zoro’s belly and he feels that too.

“I’ll walk you through it,” Sanji offers, not a hint of malice in the words. There’s a vulnerability in this for both of them and Zoro wonders if they will come out the other side unscathed. He doubts it, but he imagines it’s a sort of change that he wants, that will better him in the end.

Zoro slides off the couch and knocks the table out of the way in the process. The bottle of rum teeters and the potted plant tips over, spilling dirt across the surface. Zoro marks it down as a problem for later and reaches for Sanji to pull him into a seated position.

Sanji slaps his hands, protesting the manhandling and sits up on his own so he can peel down his pants and plant his feet on the floor. Zoro comes between his knees. His boxers have a pattern of kiss marks which is absurd and so Sanji that Zoro once more has the urge to take every part of Sanji into his mouth. He wants to chew on him, lick him, suck him down to his marrow. He doubts Sanji would like to know that.

He lets the urge push him to lick up over the band of Sanji’s boxers and bite right beneath his belly button. Sanji shoves him off and grumbles, “If you bite my dick, I’ll smash your balls off.”

The threat makes Zoro’s cock pulse.

Sanji slides his hand into Zoro’s hair, cupping the side of his head and his voice wavers as he speaks. “Pull my boxers down and use your mouth.”

It’s exactly what Zoro wants to do so he obeys easily. Sanji’s dick is something he’s never imagined and to hold it in his hand does a number of things to his body that he can’t fully name. The intimacy of it tightens Zoro’s chest, making it harder to breathe normally, the size of it makes his own cock ache, a sweet pain that rolls up under his pelvis and he wonders if he will come if he sucks Sanji's cock long enough.

Sanji grips the base with his own hand and grips Zoro’s hair harder. “No teeth and lots of spit.”

Zoro replaces Sanji’s hand with his own and then sinks down on him with all the intensity he feels. Sanji’s skin is hotter than he imagined, bitter too. Sanji leaks precome over his tongue and Zoro laps at it before opening wide and taking him into his throat.

“Holy shit,” Sanji says and his fingers are so tight in Zoro’s hair, some might actually pull free. The sensation of it spikes and rings through his body down to make his thighs shudder and his dick leaks a little more, a hard pulse into his trousers.

Sanji’s hips jerk and his cock hits the back of Zoro’s throat and Sanji swears when Zoro takes him that deep again on purpose. “Don’t you have a gag reflex?”

Zoro’s too busy sucking cock to answer. It turns out that putting Sanji in his mouth is everything he wants. He feels full and satisfied and every time he flicks his eyes up to check Sanji’s reaction, it’s to see another gorgeous picture of Sanji, cheeks flushed, mouth swollen and slick. Zoro briefly imagines Sanji’s mouth around his dick and his whole body sings with renewed intensity.

He licks a long stripe along the underside and then explores the shaft with his mouth, chalking the head with his palm just to feel the slickness on his hand. Sanji’s precome and his own spit mingling on his skin.

Zoro finds he likes drawing long lines up the length of Sanji’s dick with his tongue before sucking the head into his mouth. He likes it because it makes Sanji whimper and tremble and tug on his hair. When he flickers his tongue down on the slit, it earns him a jerk of Sanji’s hips, legs twitching. Zoro cups one hand on Sanji’s thigh to hold him further open and is unsurprised when Sanji says, “I’m gonna come. Marimo, fuck. Zoro.”

Zoro sucks him down again and takes in the slow fill of Sanji’s come in his mouth, bitter and salty and more than Zoro expected.

If kissing was something Zoro had never understood, this was certainly out of his wheelhouse. Now, though, he gets it. There’s a sense of satisfaction, of a job well done. The mess in his mouth is Sanji’s and when he pulls back, some drips down his chin and sticks to Sanji’s cock alongside Zoro’s spit.

Sanji tugs on his hair again, looking down at him like Zoro is something amazing. It shouldn’t warm Zoro’s chest the way that it does but he’s coming to understand that these feelings might be normal. This is romance. Or whatever that means to him.

He rises to his feet as Sanji drags him up, pulling him down into another kiss, mindless of the mess in his mouth as come smears between their lips and chins. Sanji moans into it and murmurs, “How are you a virgin? That was fucking—”

Zoro smirks. “I guess I’m just naturally talented, curly. I bet your first time was a wreck. Did you cry?”

Sanji pulls away with a scowl. “It’s an intimate and precious moment to lose your virginity—”

“You definitely cried.”

Sanji pushes Zoro’s chest, knocking him onto his haunches. “Just you wait. I’m gonna make you cry.”

Without any further consideration, Sanji drags Zoro up onto the couch and bullies him onto his back. He peels off his own pants in one swift motion, much more quickly than should be physically possible given how tight they are, and climbs on top of Zoro to straddle him.

“So we’re fucking now?” Sanji says, fingers dipping up under Zoro’s shirt.

“Fucking,” Zoro confirms. His heart is beating out a riot rhythm in his chest and he once more puts his hands on Sanji’s waist where he's straddling him. There are marks all over his chest from Zoro’s mouth and his cock is leaking spit and come onto Zoro’s zipper.

“More than fucking,” he amends and that earns him a smile. More a smirk as Sanji shoves the hem of his shirt and haramaki up, forcing Zoro to get with the program as he sits up and hauls it off.

Sanji’s little reactions to his words are pushing him to do something wild. It turns out that more than his blushes, Sanji's smiles are a strong motivating factor.

Once he tosses his shirt aside, Zoro pulls Sanji closer to him and drops his forehead to his shoulder just to feel him a little bit more.

“You look nice like this, cook. You look happy.”

Sanji's body shudders on an exhale in his arms.

“I thought you hated me,” Sanji admits. “I was kind of pathetic about it. Nami told me to get over you at least once a week. One time, Usopp tried to make me consolation cupcakes because I flirted with you and you told me to go fuck myself.”

“When was that?”

“Just after Drum. I made us drinks and came to find you in the tangerine grove and I asked to sit with you so we could talk and you got angry.”

Zoro does not remember that. He squeezes Sanji a little tighter, a hand on his lower back. “Seems sort of stupid to want it after that.”

“What can I say? I’m a hopeless romantic,” Sanji says, an edge of humor in his voice.

“You’re a hopeless something,” Zoro says and Sanji pushes him down onto the cushions.

“It didn’t help that you’re so fucking hot. Sweating and lifting weights all over the ship like you’re in some sort of muscle show.”

Before Zoro can speak, Sanji kisses him again. “But I couldn’t stop thinking about you. We'd fight and then we'd have fun and you did shit like bring me a plant I mentioned one time. Because you always listened to the shit I said even if you tried to kick my ass after.

“For a while, I thought it was a thing you felt too, but then you were a dick and I felt like I had to let it go if I didn't want to go crazy.”

“I felt it,” Zoro says. It’s a lot to take in, this shift in perspective. But he sees it now and he's glad for it. “Dumb semen stealing lady made me notice it, I guess.”

“Not to be grateful to her, but thank god,” Sanji says, kissing down his throat and now bare chest.

Most of Zoro’s chest is numb with scarring but Sanji’s kisses still tingle and more than that, it’s the knowledge of the tenderness in the gesture that has Zoro’s heart skipping a beat.

“Do you wanna lose your virginity, mosshead?” Sanji asks, teasing as he dips his tongue along the lines of Zoro’s abdominal muscles. “We spent a lot of time and effort protecting it out there.”

“Yeah,” Zoro says between waves of cresting arousal. “You can have it.”

Sanji pauses in his movements and looks at him oddly before suddenly jerking into motion. “Fuck. Okay. You’re going to fuck me. You definitely don’t have lube, do you?”

Zoro blinks up at Sanji, entirely uncertain about what he means. “Is lube a sex thing?”

Zoro knows men suck each other off and fuck each other in the ass but the details beyond that are blurry. He understands blow jobs better now but the rest of it is a blank page. He does imagine fucking Sanji only briefly and want rockets through him so fast that his ears ring.

“You’re staying right there and I’m taking care of it,” Sanji says.

Pantsless and only in his open dress shirt, Sanji goes off into the kitchen and Zoro is briefly impressed that he's willing to go in there naked. It's also sort of hot. He doesn't have long to consider it before Sanji returns with a bottle of oil. “This’ll do.”

He sets it on the floor beside the couch and reaches for Zoro’s trousers. He flicks open the button and then says, “Off."

Zoro does shimmy out of his pants and boots, all the while watching Sanji as he clambers onto the end of the sofa so he can reach for the oil and do something that immediately threatens Zoro’s sanity.

He wets his fingers with a small pour of oil, sets aside the jar and grips the back of the sofa with his clean hand before leaning forward so he can reach around himself and press his fingers inside. Zoro’s stomach seizes and he sits up. It all crashes into him suddenly that he is having sex. He is going to fuck Sanji. He was so certain that he would live his whole life without this and not be missing out and now he suddenly wants it so bad that his teeth ache.

“Show me,” Zoro says because who is he except someone who wants to absorb every skill he can.

Sanji hangs his head, breath coming at a different pitch. He slips his fingers free and moves to straddle Zoro again, an inelegant movement as he turns to face away, ass fully on display. Zoro squeezes one cheek. What he really wants is to bite into that pale flesh and see the marks of his teeth last for days. He’s pretty sure Sanji will hit him if he does it though.

“This is so hot. Holy shit.”

Zoro lets himself sink into the hypnotic rhythm of Sanji fucking his fingers in and out of his twitching hole. It looks so tight and Zoro would think it was uncomfortable if Sanji wasn’t making little sounds of pleasure as he leaned forward, one hand on Zoro’s shin, the other behind him working himself open.

Zoro doesn’t know how long it lasts. He alternates between groping Sanji’s ass and his waist. One time letting his thumb fall beside Sanji’s fingers so he could pull him open wider. He wonders what it will be like to be inside him. The drive to get Sanji off again pulses higher and higher. If he manages to get Sanji off with his dick, he’ll be riding that high for days.

Finally, Sanji pulls his fingers free. He drops both hands onto Zoro’s legs and breathes hard as he lowers himself on Zoro’s pelvis, cleft of his ass rubbing against Zoro’s aching length. He rocks his hips in some simulation of sex and Zoro feels like he can’t swallow as his own hips thrust up to meet Sanji’s movements.

One of Sanji’s hands falls between his legs and starts jerking himself off. He lifts back up and says, desperation so clear in his words, “Oil. Now.”

Zoro seeks around on the floor beside the couch without much purpose and when he grasps the container of oil, he spills some on his fingers anyway. He uses it to slick his cock and the touch of his own palm makes his hips jerk.

He fists his length and uses his other hand to grip Sanji by the hip. One of Sanji’s hands comes between his legs to join Zoro’s and together, they press the tip against Sanji’s slick hole. Even without sinking inside, the pressure is unlike anything Zoro has ever felt before. And then Sanji takes him in and his mind gives up the ghost entirely. He feels anchored only in the heat of Sanji’s body around him as he slowly rocks his hips down onto Zoro’s cock.

His hands roam wherever they please. Over the long scar at the base of Sanji’s spine. Pressing into the dimples just above his ass. Spreading him open to better watch the way Sanji takes him.

“This feels crazy,” Zoro hisses and Sanji takes him deeper which feels even crazier.

It’s when Sanji starts to ride him that Zoro loses it. He rises up and sinks back down in a rhythm designed to suck the soul right out of Zoro’s body. He leans back and braces his hands on Zoro’s chest, riding him like he was made to do it. It’s impossible in that moment to imagine wanting anything but this. The desire that hasn’t banked since their first kiss in the bar is finally fizzling to fruition, pumping adrenaline in Zoro’s body and pushing him to the very edge of his orgasm.

“Curly, fuck, this is amazing.”

Sanji’s body shudders but he keeps rolling his hips. “Shut up, marimo.”

For the first time in his life, Zoro wants to come. So often it is a chore, a thing he has to do in order to rid himself of an unwanted bodily function. Right now, Zoro can only think of it as something he wants as much as he wants his teeth in Sanji’s skin and his hands in Sanji’s hair. He reaches up and tugs on it then, bending Sanji further back just to know what he sounds like as he does. It’s a tripping gasp and another rolling movement of his hips. Zoro has a feeling that Sanji could ride him forever if he wanted but Zoro wants—he wants…

Zoro sits up and winds his arms around Sanji, stopping the roll of his body so that they are simply tied together.

“How'd you get so good at that?” Zoro asks despite knowing the answer. Sanji has had sex infinitely more times than Zoro and it shows in the confident way he moves.

Zoro slides his hand down to grip Sanji's cock and stroke him off. One hand stays on his waist as he works Sanji towards orgasm. It’s awkward to jerk someone else off. The angle is just slightly different even with Sanji's back pressed to his chest. But Sanji still huffs in arousal and tries to move his hips.

Giving up on the concept of keeping Sanji still, Zoro lifts him instead.

“What the hell are you—”

“On your back, curly,” Zoro says, words the softest they've ever been between them. “I want to try something.”

“What could you possibly want to try?” Sanji says but he does rise up and let Zoro pull out. He also squawks when Zoro grabs him and twists him onto the cushions exactly the way he wants.

His arms and legs flail so Zoro grasps one of his hands and shoves his thighs apart with the other so he can come between them. Instinctively, Sanji wraps his legs around Zoro’s waist and Zoro grins.

“I want to try this.”

As good as the view of Sanji’s back was, the way it arched, and even the sight of Zoro's cock disappearing into his body, this view is better.

“I wanted to see your face,” Zoro says and Sanji blinks up at him.

“My face?”

“Yes, you dumbass.”

Sanji’s answering smile is sly. “It sounds like you might like it or something.”

Without shame, Zoro ducks down to bring their mouths together but he pauses with his mouth a scant inch about Sanji’s. “Yeah, I do,” he says. Then he kisses him.

He's teasing Sanji but he also means it. He's still figuring out this whole “say what you feel” thing as much as he's also figuring out kissing. But that seems to be going just fine. Sanji loops his arms around Zoro’s neck as their kisses get messier. Zoro isn't sure if it's his fault because Sanji keeps trying to lick into his mouth and suck on his tongue. Zoro goes with it and likes it a whole fucking lot in the process.

Zoro's cock bumps against Sanji’s on his belly. The heat of it is tantalizing, sending a shiver down Zoro’s spine as he experimentally thrusts down. It's not slick enough but it still feels unlike anything Zoro has felt before. So much of this isn't like anything Zoro has felt before.

“Can I fuck you again?”

Sanji looks a little dazed when Zoro stops touching him. “Isn't that what you're doing?”

Zoro sits up and considers the situation, the angles and the limitations of the couch, before grasping the outside of Sanji’s thigh to haul him open. It bends Sanji’s body in a way that speaks of discomfort, but Sanji just keeps looking at him with heavy lidded eyes, undisturbed.

Zoro doesn't feel like bothering with grabbing the oil off the floor so he spits directly on Sanji’s exposed hole before pushing his cock back inside. The sound Sanji makes reverberates in Zoro’s ears, turned on and animal as he clutches Zoro’s fingers on the outside of his leg.

“Do you know how fucking good this feels?” Zoro asks.

“I've got an idea,” Sanji answers, chest contracting and expanding in quick gusts.

Something shifts in Zoro's belly. It's that winding twist of affection and attraction that he didn't understand for so long.

He moves his hands to Sanji’s hips to hold him still while he fucks inside, a brief moment before curling down to kiss Sanji’s neck.

“I want to do this every day,” Zoro says. “I want to bite your throat out so you don't forget. I want to keep you with me. Fucking hell.”

Sanji shudders out a breath and tries to embrace him but Zoro accidentally knocks him away when he rises up on his hands. His entire body is tight, pleasure a threat sliding around his spine. He doesn’t want to stop but his body can't do this forever. It's about to crumple under the weight of all this feeling, all this sensation.

“Do you get it?”

Sanji’s eyes are shining as he takes in shallow little hiccups of air with every thrust. Zoro tries to stay slow but he doesn't have the control over the way he wants to jackrabbit to the finish line. One day he will and then he'll be able to fuck Sanji for the hours and hours his body aches for.

“I get it,” Sanji says. “Of course I get it.

“Good,” Zoro replies before kissing him again. He can feel the slick of hot come still clinging to Sanji’s cock against his own stomach. He rises up onto his knees, drags Sanji bodily onto his cock and says, “Are you crying?”

Sanji's face twists up, he opens his mouth to speak and Zoro doesn't give him a chance. He fucks inside and this time, he lets himself take. There's tomorrow for the soft words he can't find. A different day for tenderness.

Sanji’s hands scrabble on the cushions and he starts to huff and hiccup as Zoro fucks into him. He thrusts as hard as feels good and as hard as earns him another sound. Sometimes it feels almost brutal even as Sanji tosses a hand over his face, unable to hide the spreading tears.

“Not—not fair,” Sanji manages between gasping tear-filled breaths. He’s weakly trying to jerk himself in between Zoro’s slowing thrusts and Zoro’s struck by the beauty of Sanji beneath him, covered in bite marks and come.

Zoro has always respected Sanji. Now he’s attracted to him. Somewhere in there is a warm feeling Zoro can only call romance. He doesn’t think he has the ability to use it in any directed way, not the way Sanji does, not the way all those people who tried to sleep with him did. That all feels false and useless. Zoro wants to hold and keep and protect. That’s what the feeling tells him is right.

Zoro finally comes back down to kiss Sanji, murmuring, “You're mine now, you know.”

Sanji babbles something incoherent, fingers dug into Zoro’s shoulder blades. Zoro sinks his teeth into Sanji's collarbone. Having any part of Sanji in his mouth is what pushes Zoro into his orgasm in a flash of intense pleasure that bursts through Zoro like a static shock. To his surprise, his eyes do sting as he comes down from the high of it. The crash of adrenaline taking him under quick and dirty.

He licks over the indent of his teeth as Sanji shudders and his body goes tight. There’s a moment of overstimulation when Sanji’s body clenches on his softening dick as he comes from his hand on his cock and Zoro’s dick inside him. Zoro pulls free a beat later, leaving a mess behind.

As he rises up to his knees, Sanji's face is a ruddy mess of tears and he looks like he had a nervous breakdown. His eyes are glassy and distant, and he lifts his hands in an aborted motion, reaching for Zoro.

“You were supposed to cry,” Sanji complains, tear streaked face scrunched up. He sounds drunk and Zoro understands the feeling. He’s glad he’s not standing up because he’s pretty sure his legs would give out. This is probably why people have sex in beds.

“Sorry, curly, if you want me to cry, you’ll have to do better next time.” Zoro leans down to swipe away some of the tear tracks, hands gentle on Sanji’s face. “Or maybe I’ll make you cry harder.”

Zoro knows he deserves the kick to the gut, but it’s the way that it knocks the wind out of him that makes him certain he’s in love.