Archive of Our Own ^beta

December

Sanji had never meant to get divorced. But who means to get divorced? He sits on his couch, looks at the blank wall above his television, now empty of the art Pudding claimed as hers when she moved out, and takes a long sip of wine.

His eyes drift to where his wedding photo used to sit on the television stand before his friends made him put it away. He can't sit here for another night and stare at all the reminders of his broken marriage. His heart can't handle it.

He pulls out his phone and thumbs open the group text that has been his mainstay for the last six months. 

The last two decades if he's honest.

Kinky Cook: If I don't get out of the apartment I'm going to scream.

Luffy immediately replies with a blurry image of some trees followed by a text.

Pirate King: Traffy says you can come hang out in the West Blue!!!!

Usopp’s message is next.

God: Sorry, Sanji! Kaya is out with her friends and I'm on toddler duty. Next time!

Nami: I'm picking Vivi up from the airport tomorrow morning super early or else I would.

Sanji drops his head against the back of the sofa. He has other friends he could call, but none of them are as familiar with his current state of misery. His phone pings again.

When he scoops it up, he sees it's not a message to the group chat but a direct message from Zoro. While that's not totally unheard of, he and Zoro definitely have the least direct contact among the East Blue crew. He still thinks of Zoro as one of his closest friends—just not as close as Usopp or Nami who he was on the phone with the day before crying when he found one of Pudding's lipsticks stuck at the back of bathroom drawer.

Zoro: I'm out at a bar if you want to join. You might not like it though.

Sanji: Why wouldn't I like it?

Zoro: Gay bar.

Sanji sends him back a middle finger emoji and asks for the address. He might be straight, but he's long grown out of his homophobic youth. Ninety percent of his friends are queer at this point, and it's just unfortunate luck that Zoro knew him before he'd stopped being a dick about it. Unfortunately, most of his friends knew him before he'd stopped being a dick about it. Thankfully, they still love him. Perks of the college bonding experience.

Sanji feels overdressed when he steps into the dimly lit interior of Drum. There are unpolished black tables strewn across the room half-filled with men of varying shapes and sizes. Sanji finally spots Zoro's familiar patch of hair at the end of the bar. It's no longer as vibrantly green as it was when they were young and he has streaks of gray at his temples, but it's still unique enough to catch Sanji’s eye.

“It's not a five-star restaurant, curlybrow,” Zoro says as Sanji slides into the bar beside him, killing Sanji’s hopes that his vest and slacks will go unremarked upon.

“I felt like looking good.” Sanji jostles Zoro's elbow on purpose when he sits because it's a longstanding habit at this point to needle Zoro a little bit whenever they get together.

“In a pink shirt?” Zoro asks, raising an eyebrow, the one with the notched scar through it. 

“I just got divorced. Aren't you supposed to be nice to me?” Sanji complains and Zoro huffs as he makes a face. 

“You'd hate that.” Zoro raises a hand to wave down the bartender. “I will buy you a drink though.”

Sanji can't complain about that.

**

January

Sanji stares forlornly into the pot and curses himself for his stupid habits. Pudding has been gone for nearly two months and he can't seem to break himself from making enough food for both of them. His fridge is stuffed with leftovers. He's going to have to feed the neighbors at this point.

Not for the first time, he wishes Pudding hadn't taken Rabiyan. The apartment feels completely empty without even their cat padding around in it. Devoid entirely of life.

Sanji sets down his spoon and pulls out his phone. He has people he can invite over. Friends who always enjoy his food when he brings it to parties and shared events. Usopp cried when he ate those cupcakes Sanji brought to Banchina's last birthday party. 

The thought makes him hesitate before he opens the group chat. Luffy is still in the West Blue, once more off on another adventure with his boyfriend. Usopp has his family. And Nami and Vivi are enough of a unit that he'd need to invite both of them. The thought of third wheeling makes his chest hurt. He's not ready for that.

Last time he needed a friend, he'd gone to that bar with Zoro and it hadn't been so bad. Two beers in and it had been downright relaxing. He forgets sometimes how steadying it can be to spend time with Zoro.

So instead of opening the old East Blue University chat, he pulls up Zoro’s contact and hits the call button, not bothering with a text. It feels weird to bypass the ease of texting and to go right to a phone call, but Zoro has always been slow to respond to messages unless he initiates.

He does pick up the call though.

“What's up, dartboard?”

Sanji notes the thread of concern in his voice and it warms him. He knows he doesn't call usually, and he understands the impulse to be worried. “I've got a weird question.”

Zoro is quiet for a moment. Then he says, “Alright. Shoot.”

“Want to come over for dinner? I made too much, and if I have to eat leftovers again, I'm going to lose it.”

It’s partially true. Sanji loves cooking. He gave up his dream of opening a restaurant so Pudding could open a bakery. He doesn't mind his steady desk job. Even though he doesn't love accounting, he makes decent money and he wanted to support Pudding and her business more than anything else.

And he does cook. He never stopped. It's always been more important to him to cook for the people he loves than for some faceless stranger overpaying for halibut in a restaurant. He loved cooking for Pudding the most because he loved her the most. That's gone now, and he just wants someone he cares about at his dining room table, eating his food. He wants to feed someone. He's tired of eating alone.

“I just got done in the shop,” Zoro says. “I need some time to clean up or I'll probably offend your delicate sensibilities.”

“I go to the gym with you. I'm used to your stench,” Sanji replies. The fact of the matter is that when Zoro is fresh from his workshop, he mostly smells like metal and heat, whatever sweat has gathered on his body dissipating or transforming into some other scent Sanji can't name.

“As long as you don't complain about it, I'll be right over. What'd you make?”

Sanji looks into the skillet. He sighs. “Jambalaya.”

“With shrimp?”

“How else do you make jambalaya?”

“I don't know. Sometimes you do weird shit.”

Sanji laughs. The sound surprises him and he realizes he doesn't know the last time he laughed at all. He's been stuck in a mundane routine of work-home, work-home. His friends are busy. He's been so exhausted with the weight of his feelings. What has he had to laugh about?

“See you soon, marimo. Don't get lost.”

“Fuck off,” Zoro grumbles, the words cutting off as he hangs up, but Sanji gets the gist.

Since it’s Zoro, Sanji goes to the wine cabinet and selects a bottle. A buttery Chardonnay that he thinks will go nicely with the food. Not that he thinks Zoro will appreciate the effort behind a wine pairing. 

After setting the table, he makes a small salad and putters around the kitchen cleaning up what he can. He's putting away the cutting board when the buzzer sounds so he dries his hands on the kitchen towel and goes to let Zoro inside.

It's immediately clear Zoro wasn't lying when he said he was just out of his shop. When Sanji answers the door and lets him inside, his hair is spiked up in odd places with sweat. He's got streaks of dirt on his neck and his jeans have obviously seen better days. Sanji glances at his hands and sees grime on his fingers.

“Don't you ever wash your hands?”

Zoro tugs off his boots. “You said you wouldn't complain.”

“About your smell. Go wash your hands. I'm not letting you eat metal dust.”

“I probably eat metal dust all day,” Zoro grouses, but once he finishes taking off his boots, he does wander down the hall to the bathroom. 

Sanji sighs, a long breath that releases some of the tension he's been holding since he invited Zoro over. He can hear the water running in the bathroom and something odd happens in his chest. This is the first time he's invited anyone over since Pudding moved out. It's the first time he's heard the sink running since the beginning of December. His throat clutches up, and he forces himself into the kitchen to grab the pot of jambalaya.

Zoro wanders into the small nook off the kitchen that has always served as the dining room and picks up the bottle of Chardonnay off the table, inspecting the label. “This looks nice.”

“Do you suddenly have taste in wine?”

Zoro casts him an arch look out of the corner of his eye and sets the bottle down. “I at least know shit wine when I see it.”

Sanji laughs again and everything feels easy for a moment. He lets it. “Just sit down, marimo. Eat the damn food.”

With a grunt, Zoro slides into one of the chairs. Maybe some preternatural understanding had come over him because he chose the seat Pudding had always sat in at their two person table. Sanji clears his throat before walking over, salad bowl in hand and takes his own seat.

Zoro hasn't waited for him, manners as always out the window. Sanji has had enough meals with him to know how he eats. Huge bites that stuff his cheeks and make it hard to believe he's actually chewing or tasting anything. 

Sanji takes a moment to fill Zoro's wine glass before pouring his own. He takes a sip, and then Zoro says around a stuffed mouth, “This is really good.”

Sanji pauses, wine ruminating on his tongue, before he forces himself to swallow. He hasn't had someone else eat his food since Pudding left. His body tingles. It warms. His face flushes and he tries to hide it behind his wine glass.

“Of course it's good,” he says. “You'd say anything was good if I put it in front of you.”

Zoro takes a moment to chew. His eyes lock on Sanji and he takes an extremely pointed sip of wine. “Don't fish for compliments. You know your food is good. You can't get shit like this anywhere else.”

Sanji is definitely flushed. His ears burn. He turns his attention to his own dinner, happy enough to eat in silence as long as he doesn't have to eat alone.

Zoro has always been good silent company. Sanji has a fairly strong memory of getting blitzed out of his mind at Nami’s wedding. Pudding hadn't been able to go—down with the flu and miserable and absolutely adamant Sanji still attend one of his best friend’s weddings. Zoro had sat with him at one of the tables as they drank together, not saying a word. 

“She took the cat, huh,” Zoro says.

So much for silence.

“He was her cat,” Sanji demurs. “She could do what she wanted with him.”

Zoro hums and Sanji thinks he might drop it there, a hope that dies when he adds, “Do you miss him?”

The shrimp in Sanji’s mouth turns bitter. 

“I liked having a cat,” he settles on after he finally manages to choke down the stupid shrimp.

“There are other cats,” Zoro says with some finality before shoveling the rest of his food into his mouth. “If you want to get one.”

“Maybe eventually.”

Zoro shrugs and washes down the obscene amount of food he was chewing with a gulp of wine.

“Why were you working so late anyway?” Sanji asks, changing the subject before he ends up biting through his fork in agitation.

“I got a big order from a collector upstate so I'm working on a greatsword. It's a huge fuck off thing. I haven't made anything like it in a long time,” Zoro says. He sits back in his chair, clearly done eating but also seemingly happy to sip at the wine in his glass.

“You like those stupid passion projects though,” Sanji points out. He remembers one specific instance when Zoro had made a decorative axe that he'd worked on for what felt like forever. He'd been obsessed with the thing.

“Yeah, my passion. Not some weirdo with more cash than sense.”

Sanji stands and collects their plates before moving back into the kitchen. To his surprise, Zoro follows with the pot of jambalaya. Even as Sanji starts to do the dishes, Zoro continues to collect the various things from the table and returns them to the kitchen, finally reappearing with the bottle of wine and using it to top up Sanji's glass.

“Have a drink, curlybrow. You look like you need it.”

Sanji grimaces as he turns on the hot water to fill the sink, but he does pick up the wine glass to take a long sip. “Is it that obvious?”

Zoro draws up next to him and knocks his foot against Sanji’s. His sock catches slightly against the seam of Sanji’s work khakis, and it makes Sanji realize he never even changed out of his work clothes when he got home. He shuts off the water and reaches for a plate. He never has enough dishes for the dishwasher anymore so he always does them by hand. It fills his evenings better than sitting on the couch wishing things were different.

“It's obvious to someone who's known you for over twenty years,” Zoro says. He holds his hands out expectantly. “You wash, I can dry?”

Sanji blinks at him as he rinses the plate in his hands. “You don't have to—”

“Just give me the damn dish,” Zoro says and practically snatches it from his hand.

It's been a long time since Sanji had company at the sink. Maybe a dinner party at Nami’s and even then it was hectic and harried. Here, now, Zoro is quiet. He takes the dishes when Sanji hands them off, dries them efficiently and sets them in the rack.

When it's done and Sanji walks Zoro to the door, Sanji isn't sure what comes over him when he asks, “Would you want to do this again?”

Zoro finishes lacing up his boots and then rises to his full height. “Have you feed me delicious food and drink good wine?”

“Uh…yes?”

“Yeah, sure,” Zoro says with a shrug. “You know my number.”

With that, Zoro leaves and Sanji’s apartment is empty once more.

**

February

Stretched out on the couch, one hand tossed over his face, all the lights off, Sanji groans. 

Valentine's Day. He'd known it was coming and yet here it is, still striking his heart like a hammer.

When he'd gotten married at what people had told him was the young age of twenty-six, he'd been thrilled. He was marrying the love of his life.

And he'd always loved Valentine's Day. He would save up for gifts and surprises. He would cook all of Pudding's favorites. He would give her a massage and three orgasms, and it was his favorite holiday because he got to spoil his one true love.

So sitting on his couch alone is only making his mood worse. He wonders if she's out with the guy she left him for. He wonders if he treats her half as good as he did. Worse, he wonders if Pudding had ever even liked the way he treated her.

Sanji groans again and rolls over into a ball. He should get up and eat something, but he doesn't want to.

His phone pings, and he uncurls an arm to pick it up from where he dropped it on the floor.

Zoro: Are you home?

Sanji debates lying, but in the end, honesty wins out.

Sanji: Yeah, why?

Zoro: I'm downstairs.

Sanji doesn't even have a chance to sit up before his buzzer rings. He could ignore it, but Zoro is stubborn enough to buzz the damn thing for the next fifteen minutes until Sanji breaks. So instead of continuing to rot on the couch, he forces himself up and shuffles to the door to let Zoro up, flipping open the lock so that he can come in before returning to his spot on the couch. 

The moment the door opens Zoro grunts and say, “Are you smoking again?”

“I had one cigarette I bummed off my neighbor an hour ago on the balcony. I'm wallowing. Don't harass me about it,” Sanji replies, shoving the throw pillow over his face because he doesn't want to look at Zoro. 

The pillow is unceremoniously wrenched from his grasp, and he's confronted with Zoro's face as he peers down at Sanji over the back of the couch. “Nami said you'd be in rough shape but damn.”

“Thanks,” Sanji says sarcastically. “That makes me feel good. What are you even doing here?”

“Nami sent me because she was worried about you,” Zoro says, disappearing in the direction of the kitchen. 

“Oh.”

Sanji stares up at the ceiling, feeling stupid for having forgotten that his friends care about his wellbeing. 

“I'm turning on the lights,” Zoro warns and suddenly Sanji is bathed in the warm glow of a lamp. He squints against it. When had it gotten so late? “When did you eat last?”

His voice is some distance away so Sanji sits up and once more pulls himself off the couch only to find Zoro in his kitchen. There are grocery bags on his counters and Zoro is picking through them, focused, intent, and thoughtful.

“What are you doing?”

“Answer my question first.”

“Uh, I think I ate breakfast.”

No, he did eat breakfast. He had an orange. The pith had gotten stuck in his teeth.

Zoro waves him off. “I'll make you something. Go shower. You look like roadkill.”

Sanji acknowledges that he hasn't brushed his hair in a while, but the benefit of having it so long is that he can toss it into a bun when he doesn't feel like washing it. But it's been three days since his last shower. 

“I can cook,” he insists, scrubbing at his eyes. “Go sit down.”

Zoro crumples the edge of the bag and finally looks at him. “You. Go. Shower.”

Sanji hesitates. It feels wrong to leave someone else in his kitchen. “I—” Zoro stares at him and Sanji realizes he's not about to win this battle of wills with the amount of energy he has at the moment. “Fine.”

“And shave,” Zoro tosses after him as he heads down the hall.

Sanji flips him the bird which feels like enough of a rebellion that it satisfies his frustration at being coddled.

He wants to be mad that the shower feels as good as it does but the emotion doesn't come. It feels too good to wash his hair. The scent of his rosemary shampoo is too relaxing. He should have known this was what he needed.

In the end, he does shave enough to clean up his beard and he pulls his hair into a towel-dried bun before tugging on the pajamas he brought in with him. His apartment smells like rice when he leaves the bathroom and he has a faint fear that Zoro’s going to incinerate his rice cooker, but he only finds Zoro chopping vegetables as the rice bubbles away.

“Don't come in here,” Zoro says, pointing at him with the knife in his hand. “Sit.”

“What if I killed you?”

“Go ahead and try,” Zoro replies. “I've got at least twenty pounds on you and you haven't been to the gym in two months.”

Sanji drops into the chair at the table and puts his head into his hands. “Fuck, has it been that long?”

“I haven't seen you there. So unless you changed your workout routine…”

Sanji hates that Zoro’s right. He hates this. He's been too tired for the gym. He goes to work. He comes home. He eats. He sleeps. He feels like a machine that he's maintaining and he's maintaining it poorly.

The smell of garlic and ginger reaches his nose and he's forced to turn his attention back to Zoro as he starts to sizzle aromatics in the pan. He wants to get up and help but also: “I can't remember the last time someone cooked for me.”

Zoro dumps his chopped vegetables into the pan and stirs them around with a flat wooden spoon rescued from the utensil holder. “Pudding didn't cook?”

“I like cooking.”

“Doesn't seem fair,” Zoro observes.

Sanji’s thoughts roll to a halt as he stares at Zoro's back. Zoro continues to work at the pan in silence, his shoulder blades moving under the soft material of his gray t-shirt. It brings Sanji a strange comfort to realize Zoro is here in his kitchen. He isn't alone for the first time in days. It makes his heart ache in a different way than it has been for the last week. 

“Hey.”

Zoro glances over his shoulder. “What?” 

“Thanks for this.”

Zoro doesn't say anything and Sanji tries to decide if he wants to be embarrassed. They've been friends for twenty years, but their relationship has primarily been defined by thrown elbows and friendly insults. Gratitude isn't a common exchange between them.

“You can thank me with some more of your fancy wine,” Zoro says so Sanji moves to retrieve a bottle.

“I guess it's a holiday,” he acknowledges. “Any requests?”

“You're the expert.”

“I like when you admit that I'm better than you at things,” Sanji says, finally selecting a riesling to briefly chill. It will be good with the ginger in the vegetables.

“Why don't you have a date?” Sanji asks after sticking the wine in the freezer. He grabs the wine glasses and sets them on the counter before leaning against it.

“Why would I have a date?”

Sanji supposes that's fair. Zoro hasn't really dated anyone long term since he and Luffy had their thing senior year of college. Sanji had been so certain they would get married—or at least go the distance—but then Luffy decided to travel across the Grand Line for a year, and Zoro didn't want to, and they broke up. He's never asked Zoro how he felt then. He and Zoro weren't the closest when they were fresh out of school.

“I don't know. Maybe not a date. Some hook up or whatever you do,” Sanji says.

“Can you get me bowls?”

Sanji retrieves two bowls and passes them over as Zoro says, “I'm not going to pound some twink on Valentine's Day. It sends the wrong message.”

“I didn't need to know that much about your sex life,” Sanji says, wrinkling his nose.

Zoro shuts off the rice cooker, and then removes the stir-fried vegetables from the burner. Sanji expects to serve up his own dinner, but Zoro surprises him again by filling up both bowls and pressing one into his hand.

“You're the one who brought it up,” Zoro points out.

Sanji can't deny that.

When he takes the first bite, he realizes two things. First, he is hungrier than he gave himself credit for and second, Zoro can actually cook. It might be plain, but nothing is burnt and the spice levels are decent. There's good flavor even if it's just sautéed vegetables and rice.

“This is good,” Sanji says, not turning around as he hears Zoro retrieve and start to open the bottle of wine. “I didn't know you could cook.”

“I'm forty years old and single. What do you think I've been eating?”

“Microwave dinners? Trash?”

“I think you have a warped opinion of my lifestyle,” Zoro says before returning to the table with the full glasses of wine. Sanji takes a moment to really consider him as he sits down to eat.

“What is your lifestyle then?”

“I work in my shop. I make stuff. I talk to clients. I go to the gym. Last weekend I drove to the beach and sat on the shore for a few hours because I had nothing to do.”

“You're insane.”

Zoro gives him a speculative look. “What do you do to relax?”

“I watch cooking shows,” Sanji says after a moment of thought. He also reads recipe blogs and tries to fix the recipes when they're bad. Last year he tried to take up knitting but he wasn't good at it. He supposes he could try again.

“And you like that?”

“I just said I do it to relax.”

“We should watch one after this,” Zoro says before he starts to stuff his mouth full, prompting silence, and Sanji doesn't know what to say in response either. He's once more reminded that he doesn't spend time with Zoro like this, not one on one. They hang out when their friends come together as a group. They meet up at the gym once a week and lift weights in silence. Sanji likes that relationship. Even then, they haven't done that in two months.

He takes a breath.

“I'm sorry I didn't invite you over again.”

Zoro cocks an eyebrow.

“I said I would. For dinner.”

Sanji doesn't know why he avoided it.

Except that's a lie too. He knows why. It's the mess in the kitchen. The stacked up mail. The fact that he hasn't cleaned the bathroom in three weeks. He doesn't want people to see that. Least of all Zoro who always teases him.

“No skin off my back, dartboard,” Zoro says, scraping the rest of his rice into his mouth.

Sanji wants to make amends but more than that, he's done sitting in this apartment with nobody to talk to. “No, we should—what if we did it weekly? Or every other week?” 

“Are you that lonely? You'd think you'd have better options than me,” Zoro asks, a thread of humor wound through his words.

Sanji goes quiet and Zoro notices. His face falls. “Shit, Sanji, I didn't mean it like that.”

“No,” Sanji says, pushing his half-eaten meal away. He can save it for later. When he's actually hungry. “You're right anyway. It's fine.”

Zoro frowns at him. Then he tosses back his wine. There's so much of it that some drips down the corner of his mouth and wets the collar of his shirt. “How about Fridays?”

Sanji stops twisting the too-loose fabric of his pajama pants between his fingers. He must have lost weight for there to be that much excess fabric. “I can do Fridays.”

“Good,” Zoro says like some grand edict. “Now show me your dumb cooking show.”

“After the dishes,” Sanji presses.

“The dishes can wait for a goddamn minute,” Zoro insists. “Nami sent me with a box of fancy chocolate. We can eat that and then dishes.”

“Fine, fine,” Sanji says, trying to sound irritable, but it feels out of reach. Then he realizes something. “Wait, you don't like chocolate.”

“You can eat it,” Zoro amends. “Stop being difficult.”

Sanji laughs and it's the lightest he's felt all day. 

**

March

He had considered cancelling his birthday dinner, but he'd been more than aware than Nami would have come to his apartment to physically drag him to the restaurant. So instead, he is seated with his four best friends since college and their partners at his favorite restaurant while he feels mildly sick to his stomach and tries not to think about his ex-wife.

He knows they aren't trying to act coupley, but it's a side effect of the fact that they've all been together for at least ten years and Luffy doesn't understand the concept of personal space. 

“It has been a nightmare finding a decent contractor for the downstairs bathroom,” Nami says as Vivi nods. “The last guy we used for the upstairs shower overcharged by an insane amount so I refuse to hire him again. Right, babe?”

“I don't think you should have to spend that long on the phone negotiating a price with a contractor,” Vivi says between bites of swordfish.

“Oh, I can send you the contact info for our shower guy,” Kaya says.

“I thought you didn't like that guy either,” Usopp says.

“He did so good with the tile though,” Kaya says, one hand on Usopp’s arm. “You could barely tell it had been replaced in that one corner.”

Sanji leans back in his seat, swallowing down the salmon in his mouth that feels too dry for the quality of food usually served in this restaurant. His elbow bumps into Zoro’s and when he glances at him, there's a wry smile on his face like he's entertaining a joke only he knows.

“Has it always been like this?” Sanji asks under his breath.

“Welcome to being single,” Zoro says.

To Sanji’s surprise, he and Zoro have kept their shared dinner promise. Maybe it's too soon to tell but for the last two weeks, Zoro has come over for dinner. Sanji makes whatever he feels like after a long week. Zoro eats like a hog at a trough, says it's delicious and then he leaves.

But they also talk. In a way they haven't for a long time. 

Zoro shows him pictures of what he's working on in his shop. Sanji complains about his coworkers. Two weeks and it already feels like a solitary bright spot in the blur of gray that his life has become.

“Was I this insufferable?” Sanji asks, glancing across the table where Law is wiping sauce off the corner of Luffy's mouth with a napkin.

Zoro pats his thigh in a way that Sanji can only characterize as patronizing. “You were worse.”

Sanji grimaces. He tries to put himself back in the days of his marriage before things started to turn sour—before Pudding fell in love with someone else. He'd always been an affectionate person. He wanted Pudding to know he loved her. For the world to know how much.

Then she'd called it suffocating and ran off with her bakery clerk.

He scrubs a hand over his forehead. “Yeah, probably.”

“You know,” Zoro begins, “when I say mean shit to you, you're supposed to say mean shit back. If you don't, then I just feel like an asshole.”

Sanji shoots him a glare. “You are an asshole.”

“You two are getting along,” Vivi says, interrupting with a sweet smile in her words.

“We're bonding over our bachelor lifestyle.” Zoro pitches his voice a little louder to be heard across the table.

“God, you two out on the prowl together sounds like a nightmare,” Usopp says. “You're not allowed to wingman each other ever. I think you'd start a bar brawl or something.”

“What are you imagining?” Sanji asks, not even following that line of logic. “I haven't hit on someone in sixteen years. I think that's the real problem in your scenario.”

“You're so romantic and handsome, Sanji,” Luffy declares, “I'm sure someone would fall in love with you no matter how bad you are at it. Traffy, isn't Sanji handsome?”

Law taps at the side of Luffy's face in reprimand, disgustingly sweet in a way that goes against his flat tone when he says, “Yes, Sanji’s handsome. But maybe you don't say shit like you'll be bad at it.”

“It's fine,” Sanji says, dismissing Law's defense of him. “It's true.”

“It's like riding a bike,” Zoro says, leaning closer to him once more. “You just have to remember how to do it.”

“Once I'm ready,” he says. He doesn't like the direction of the conversation. He knows his friends are trying to help, but Pudding left at the beginning of December. It's only been three months. He doesn't think a heart heals that quickly. At least not his. Chewed up as it is.

“We'll support you no matter what,” Nami says with the same smile that always used to make Sanji’s heart flutter when they first met. Now it just warms his belly with an affection for his friends. They have their lives. They don't really understand. But they are trying their best and that's all he can ask for.

**

April

Sanji is sitting on the floor of his kitchen, holding his phone in one hand, a felt mouse in the other and trying not to cry. He's been doing better about not staying in bed on the weekends. He's started cleaning the apartment more than once a month.

To his detriment because as he swept under the stove, a felt toy mouse popped out onto the linoleum and he was flooded with memories of Rabiyan and Pudding to the point that his legs stopped working. The cold floor is more comfortable anyway.

Maybe it's stupid. Maybe he shouldn't. But his thoughts careen back to a conversation he had with Zoro in the middle of January and before he can stop himself the phone is ringing out.

It might be a Saturday but Zoro picks up after the third ring. “Everything okay, curlybrow?”

Sanji sucks in a shuddering breath. “I want to get a cat.”

There's some rustling through the line and briefly Sanji wonders what he interrupted. “Then get a cat.”

“Would you—”

Sanji looks up at the fluorescent kitchen light. It needs to be cleaned too. 

“Spit it out,” Zoro grunts.

Sanji rubs the tail of the felt mouse between his thumb and forefinger. “Would you come with me to the shelter?”

“Today?” Zoro asks, taken aback.

Sanji suddenly regrets calling. There's something raw about this. Admitting what he needs. Finally even acknowledging that he is lonely. “You don't have to.”

“It's fine. Jeez.” Zoro clicks his tongue. “Put the claws away. Do you want to drive?”

The tension in Sanji’s shoulders uncoils. “I—Yeah. I can drive.”

Zoro huffs out a breath like a bull. “Pick me up in thirty.”

Knowing he has somewhere to be, Sanji forces himself to his feet as Zoro hangs up the phone. 

It's ten in the morning and he's still in his pajamas so he quickly changes into presentable clothes before checking the nearest shelter website. When he sees that it's open, he feels relieved to know that he won't lose his momentum. Then he pulls on his shoes, grabs his keys and heads over to Zoro's place.

Zoro bought a two bedroom house on the east side of town five years ago. It's small but it allows him to store his weirder pieces that he carts to and from exhibitions. Whenever he sees his friends' houses, Sanji feels a stab of envy. He always wanted to own a house. To live that dream with his wife. Have two or three kids and grow old together. But he knows he should be grateful because it was one less thing to tear apart during the divorce.

When Sanji pulls to a stop at the curb in front of Zoro's place, Zoro trots out onto his stoop dressed in loose black jeans and a cozy looking baseball tee. Sanji has a moment of difficulty trying to slot the image Zoro paints into his mind and he doesn't understand why. He watches Zoro lock his door and run a hand through his hair before turning to give Sanji a little wave of acknowledgement before he heads towards his car.

“Do you still want to get a cat or did you change your mind?” Zoro asks as he slides into the passenger seat, his weight jostling the car.

“I'm not changing my mind,” Sanji says firmly. “I need to do this. Pudding took the cat. Our cat. I want something to take care of. I deserve it.”

Zoro clicks the seatbelt in place and then gives him a look, a flicker of a smile. “Yeah, alright. I like the sound of that.”

Once more Sanji has that feeling, a sense that something doesn't fit. Zoro is looking at him with a grin Sanji doesn't know if he's earned, and yet Sanji thinks Zoro should smile like that more often. It makes the dimple carved into his cheek with time appear even more deeply.

Sanji tears his eyes away and flexes his fingers on the steering wheel. “Okay.”

He ends up being glad he brought Zoro because when the septum-pierced desk staff at the shelter tells him that he needs an appointment to look at cats, they clock Zoro two steps behind him and clearly leap to what Sanji can see is not an unreasonable conclusion. Because what forty-year-old man needs emotional support to adopt a cat?

“You and your boyfriend can look in the two rooms down the hall and to the right,” they say with an understanding smile as they hand Sanji a clipboard. “The first room is kittens but the adoption fee is higher. The papers explain that. If you want to meet any of the cats, you can let me know.”

Sanji grips the pen he was given tight in his hand. He wants to correct their assumption, but also it's clearly done him a favor so he ignores it. What's the harm really? “Thank you,” he says congenially instead. “We'll be back soon I'm sure.”

As they walk away, Sanji hisses under his breath, “I can't believe they thought we were dating. Aren't you supposed to not assume people's sexualities these days?”

“Well,” Zoro begins and Sanji can already tell he's going to crack some stupid, unnecessary joke, “your pants are pretty tight.”

Sanji pauses in front of the room housing kittens. “Wow. I see how it is. You know, you're actually gay and you wouldn't know fitted jeans if they bit your ass off.”

“I need freedom of movement. I do a lot of lifting,” Zoro says, following after Sanji when he pushes into the room. Zoro does a few lunges as if to demonstrate his efforts.

“And that means you can't use a belt?”

“Belts are annoying when you have to piss,” Zoro says and Sanji's gut reaction is to shove him into the door as it closes.

“God, when was the last time I told you that you're disgusting?” Sanji grimaces before turning away. “Because it wasn't recent enough.”

Zoro laughs in response to his horror, a loud guffaw that drowns out the chirping meows of the room. “One day I'm going to find a gross habit of yours and I'm never going to let you live it down.”

“I thought my gross habit was the nosebleeds,” Sanji says before drifting to the first cage where two lanky orange kittens lay tangled together in sleep. He doesn't want to disturb them so he moves on.

“Yeah, but you don't do that anymore. I need something fresh.”

Sanji dips his fingers into the cage of a little calico kitten named Lola and it toddles over with an excited mew. “How do you pick a cat?”

Zoro makes a soft, considering noise. “I don't know. How did you pick your last cat?”

“Pudding did,” Sanji admits. “I guess I just don't want it to be scared of me.”

“Why would it be scared of you?”

“I don't know,” Sanji says, moving to the next cage to peer at a pair of mismatched cats, one black and one white with tan spots. “Pudding used to go off into another room after our fights and I guess I'd like to avoid something like that. Feeling disliked.”

“You know your relationship sounds like total garbage.”

Sanji freezes. Then he turns to look up at Zoro where he's still standing in the middle of the room letting Sanji wander around and inspect cats.

“Excuse me?”

“It never sounds like your wife was very nice to you.” Zoro's jaw is tight when he speaks, tendons in his neck flexed.

Sanji stands. “She was,” he says, ignoring the pang in his breastbone as he speaks. “Our relationship was great actually. I think so anyway. It didn't—things didn't get bad until the last two years. She met someone. She resented me. Or that's what she said.”

“That sucks,” Zoro says simply. It's quite a declaration, but Sanji can't deny it.

Curiosity spikes in Sanji. They've never talked about it, but they're closer now than they used to be so he can probably ask. “Don't you know what that's like? To have a relationship fall apart.”

Zoro raises an eyebrow, and Sanji has an acute sense of being perceived. It's intense enough that he turns back to look at a squat orange kitten who is busy eating.

“Not really. The break up with Luffy was pretty mutual,” Zoro says. “And all my other relationships were barely relationships at all.”

“Why didn't you ever date anyone after Luffy?” Sanji says. He's at the end of the line so he moves to the other side of the kennels. It's more sparse there but there are still a few kittens to take a look at. “You're not the type to uselessly pine after someone.”

“And you know what type I am,” Zoro challenges, finally crossing closer to Sanji to look at the cats with him.

“If you tell me that you've been in love with Luffy for the last eighteen years, I'm going to judge you.”

“Some friend you are,” Zoro tosses out, but it's teasing enough that Sanji knows he doesn't mean it.

“If it's not that, then what?”

“It's just hard for me to be attracted to people if I'm not friends with them first,” Zoro explain. He puts his fingers through the bars of one of the cages and rubs the nose of a gray cat. “That's why it worked with Luffy. Other than that, I don't meet a lot of people.”

“You've only ever been attracted to Luffy?” Sanji asks incredulously. This reminds him of a conversation he had at a New Year’s party a few years ago with their friend Chopper when he tried to explain what asexuality was. Sanji couldn't fathom it at the time. No sexual attraction. Might as well say water wasn't wet.

“I didn't say that,” Zoro protests. “There were other people.”

Well, Sanji needs to know more about that. “C'mon. Who?”

“There was a guy in high school. And someone I knew at college before Luffy.”

“And nobody since?” Sanji asks. He can hardly believe it. He dated Pudding for two years before they got married and even for the sixteen years they'd been together, he'd still been attracted to other people. He's only human.

Zoro however seems unimpressed and uninterested in the conversation. Like sex and romance aren't important. “Like I said, I don't really meet people.”

“Zoro,” Sanji says, very serious. “When was the last time you had sex? Please tell me it wasn't in college.”

Zoro groans. “It wasn't in college. Sometimes I have sex with people when I want to. I get horny, curly. I'm not celibate or whatever you have in your head.”

“So you have sex with people you're not attracted to,” Sanji says as he pieces it together. Despite saying the words, it still doesn't make a lot of sense to him.

Zoro knocks his foot against Sanji’s shoe. “Why are you such a pervert?”

“I've just never thought about this!” Sanji says. “It never occurred to me you could even do that.”

Zoro starts to laugh again and Sanji is forced to admit there's something inherently musical about it. A gentle sort of honesty in the sound. He glances up at Zoro just to watch him but realizes that Zoro is already moving to crouch down next to him and pet the cat he's bothering, a lanky black kitten named Umi. 

“You're so horny. Of course you're horny.”

“It's not being horny,” Sanji protests. “It's wanting to be close to the person you care about. To make love to them. It doesn't seem right to just…fuck.”

“Maybe you should try it sometime,” Zoro says. “It can be pretty satisfying.”

Sanji can't imagine that. It sounds detached and cold and lonely, but he also acknowledges that maybe he and Zoro are just vastly different when it comes to love and romance.

The kitten he's petting is purring like a motor as it rubs hard against the front of the cage, trying to get more pets. Sanji looks down at it and strokes its nose.

“I like him,” Sanji says as Umi bats at the cage door. “I think I might adopt this one.”

“Why don't you ask to play with him a little before you get too invested?” Zoro suggests and Sanji knows he's right.

And when he's in the little room with Umi, Zoro sits on the bench along the wall and watches while he uses a feather toy to try to get the cat to play. It works for a bit but it seems like the cat is more interested in crawling over his thighs and settling in his lap, tiny paws kneading the excess fabric of his shirt. He looks at Zoro and finds him with a small smile on his face.

“I don't think that cat will avoid you,” he says.

Sanji scratches Umi between the ears. “You're right. I don't think he will.”

**

May

Luffy isn't always in town for his birthday so when he is, they always have a big blowout to make sure the celebration can tide him over in case the next one happens over video call.

This year Nami and Vivi are hosting, their sprawling backyard filled with the East Blue University crew and the friends they've made since college. Franky is on the grill and Sanji tries not to be resentful about losing out on being in charge of the food as he sits in one of the deck chairs by the pool and nurses a beer, reminding himself that he provided all the side dishes which people are currently enjoying. 

Robin slips onto the chair beside him, sipping one of the mai tais that Jimbei made. She looks as regal as she always does, and Sanji has a feeling he’s about to be interrogated.

“How are you, Sanji?” she asks as an opener, cool and composed.

“I'm doing well,” he replies and for the first time in a while, he wants a cigarette. He quit five years ago and he only folds occasionally. His last one was on Valentine's Day, but he wishes he had something to do with his hands, some way to cover the expression on his mouth. So he takes a drink instead.

“You haven't been by the community center in a while,” she says. 

Sanji grimaces. “Ah, well, Pudding goes to those classes.”

“She hasn't been,” Robin says. 

Sanji taps his fingernails against the neck of his beer bottle. It's a fancy porter that Law likes and it turns out Sanji doesn't, but he'll finish it anyway.

“You should think about coming back,” Robin says. “We all miss you.”

With that, Robin stands up and heads over to check on Franky. She places a hand on the small of his back and smiles as she says something into his ear that makes him laugh one of his big booming laughs. A wave of intense melancholy crests inside Sanji and he looks at his sandals. He should get in the pool where maybe the water will wash it away.

“You look like you ate a bug,” Zoro says, looming over him. Sanji half heartedly tries to kick him in the shin, but he steps out of the way.

Zoro has been wandering around only in his dark green swim trunks, as unselfconscious as always despite the scars on his arms and chest from being more reckless with his work when he was younger. Turns out literally playing with fire is dangerous.

A loud sound on the other side of the pool draws both of their attention as Luffy sprints across the lawn and then cannonballs into the deep end of the pool. Law shouts something unintelligible as Luffy surfaces, already laughing.

Zoro drops into the chair that Robin vacated, and it creaks a little under his weight.

“No one will be mad if you leave.” Zoro says it casually, but even then it irritates Sanji. Despite that, he feels defeated more than anything.

“Is it that obvious?”

“You've been sitting in the corner alone on Luffy's birthday.”

Strains of guitar music drift through the air and that means Brook has started to play over by the firepit on the other side of the house. Franky calls out that food is ready and a few of Sanji's friends wander over to get their burgers.

“Robin says I can take cooking classes at the community center again,” Sanji says as he watches Usopp drop an entire hamburger patty on the ground and look like he is sincerely considering eating it before Kaya steers him back to get a different one. 

“And you couldn't before?”

“Pudding and I went to them. I—” Sanji breaks off and finally gives up on the beer he doesn't actually want to drink. He sets it on the ground next to the leg of the chair and rests his elbows on his knees, hands hanging between them as he tries to think how to explain himself. “I didn't want to see her.”

“And?”

Sanji pinches the bridge of his nose and then presses his knuckles into his right eye. He doesn't get migraines but there's a first time for everything. “Robin says she doesn't go anymore and it just makes me wonder if she ever wanted to go at all.”

“Hey, maybe she wants to avoid you too,” Zoro offers and it feels like a monumental realization. Which is so fucking stupid because of course. Of course Pudding has her own reasons.

Sanji flops back into the deck chair with a huge groan. He knows he's being dramatic, but he feels choked by the very real fact that this is happening. He's divorced. He's been divorced for nearly half a year. He needs to get on with his life and stop living in stasis.

“I need to get over myself,” he says to the slowly purpling sky.

“What else is new?” Zoro says with a snort.

Sanji rolls his head to glare at him. “I will shove you in the pool.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Okay,” Sanji says, surging to his feet. “Get up.”

Zoro blinks up at him. “What?”

Sanji grabs him by the wrist and tugs hard, pulling until Zoro relents and stands too, an obvious question on his face. “I'm shoving you into the pool.”

And then he does.

He'd say that's just about when he starts to have fun.

**

June

Zoro calls him at seven on a Saturday morning. Sanji has gotten a lot better at being out of bed before eight on the weekends over the last month or two but even he thinks that is excessive especially since they just saw each other the night before. Zoro had been excited (or as outwardly excited as Zoro ever is) about running a booth at a convention a few towns over and he'd shown Sanji some pictures of the pieces he'd be selling. 

“God, marimo, what?” Sanji asks as he rolls over and curls his hand around his phone against one ear, smooshing his face into his pillow.

Umi chirps, disturbed where he was sleeping beside him and moves down to sleep next to Sanji’s feet.

“I need you to come help set up my booth at the convention,” Zoro says.

Sanji rolls into a seated position. “I think when you ask someone for a favor, you're supposed to put the word please somewhere in there.”

Zoro lets out a sound suspiciously close to a wheeze and all of Sanji’s teasing goes right out the window.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“I woke up with a fever,” Zoro admits. “Feel like trash. I'd normally ask Johnny, but he’s an island over for his kid’s graduation.”

“Shut up,” Sanji says, tossing off the blanket and moving to get out of bed. “You don't have to explain. I'll be there. Do you want me to come to your place or meet you at the venue?”

“My place,” Zoro says. He coughs and Sanji’s throat itches in sympathy. 

“Give me thirty.” Sanji is already planning a get well kit that he's certain Zoro will balk at. “And take some ibuprofen right now.”

Zoro hangs up on him.

When Sanji arrives at Zoro's house, the summer heat is already starting to pick up despite the fact that it's only eight. He's glad he wore shorts and an equally short sleeved shirt for whatever Zoro's going to drag him into.

Predictably, when Zoro answers the door, he squints at the thermos in Sanji’s hand. “What is that?”

“Lemon and ginger tea. You're drinking at least a cup while I do whatever heavy lifting.”

“It's twenty-five degrees out. I don't want hot tea.”

“You're drinking it,” Sanji says, shoving the thermos at Zoro's chest. He takes it with a scowl. 

“I just need to load your car with a few more boxes. All my pieces are in my car already,” Zoro says, leading Sanji into the kitchen. He does pour a cup of tea and sip at it; though he gives Sanji the stink eye throughout.

“Point me in the right direction then,” Sanji says. He drops the bag in his hand on the kitchen counter which makes Zoro pause before giving him instructions.

“What's in there?” He's starting to sound stuffy and Sanji’s not sure he should even be going to this convention. He is sure if he said that, he'd get punched.

“I brought you stuff for your cold,” Sanji explains. He sifts through the bag and extracts some unopened cold medicine, a box of tissues, and a few sachets of tea. “I didn't have time to make you any soup but I brought the leftovers from yesterday. I can always come by and cook if you need me to.”

Zoro picks up the box of tissues. He turns it over in his hands as if he’s never seen a box of tissues before which is immediately contradicted by his next statement. “You think I don't have tissues?”

Sanji snatches the box back and holds it to his chest defensively. “It’s called being a considerate friend.”

Zoro grabs the box, yanking it free from Sanji’s grasp. “Yeah, yeah, dartboard, okay. I’ll think of you fondly every time I blow my nose.”

Sanji tosses a packet of ginger tea at Zoro’s face, pleased when it hits him squarely in the nose. He wrinkles it in response and manages to miss catching it by a hair so that it lands with a little crinkle on the linoleum. “Now where are these boxes?”

“In the spare room. They’re on the bed,” Zoro says, ducking down to pick up the tea bag and put it back on the counter. He goes to follow Sanji, but Sanji waves him off.

“Drink your tea. I can get it.”

Zoro’s house isn’t that large and while the kitchen is tucked away in the back of the house, the bedrooms are down the front hall beside the bathroom. Zoro has always used his spare bedroom for storage so despite the fact that there is a bed inside for people to crash on, it’s wedged in the corner and often has various things stacked on top of it. Two boxes labeled Table Stuff are dropped onto the plain black comforter. Sanji picks one up, finds it light, and realizes he can easily carry both outside at once. 

He would do exactly that if his foot didn’t collide with a box that’s awkwardly sticking out from under the bed, knocking off the top. He squats down to readjust it and finds a variety of photographs he’s never seen before. A lot of polaroids from college. Some developed photos from weddings. It’s like a little East Blue University Crew time capsule except it’s not buried in the ground. 

There’s a picture of Nami and Vivi crying at their wedding as they try to eat their wedding cake. A picture of Usopp holding Banchina at the hospital. Pictures from parties in college. Luffy doing a kegstand. Even pictures of Sanji and Pudding throughout the years. At friendly dinners and parties. Sanji sobbing while trying to say his vows. He looks ridiculous and snotty and happy. 

Zoro appears sporadically. In group shots, often looking like he’d rather not be in the photo at all. Sanji forgot how fucking jacked he was in college. It makes him laugh just to see a photo of him next to Usopp on the quad. Usopp looks like a beanpole in comparison.

Even though he’s rifling through the stack, he realizes he doesn’t see any photos of him with Zoro. Not just the two of them together. It makes something squirm in his belly as he digs through the static images. He’d known when he and Zoro started having their weekly dinners that it was a distinct shift from how their friendship used to be. They weren’t exactly two people who would be pulled into a photo together for the sake of it. 

Stirred up by the realization, Sanji puts the lid back on the box and slides it back under the bed. He grabs the two Table Stuff boxes and goes back out to his car, loading them into the backseat before finding Zoro where he’s draining the dregs of the thermos. 

“Are you ready to go?” he asks. He has this strange urge to yank the thermos out of Zoro’s hand and slam it on the counter. He knows beneath that urge is a stronger one. He wants to hug Zoro. He feels this pressure inside him, all those photos a sharp reminder of how big Zoro’s heart is.  Further evidence written over the last six months in every single moment where Sanji asked for some stupid favor and Zoro just showed up because he knew Sanji needed it.

But Sanji isn’t going to hug him because he knows that is a bridge too far. However, at the very least, he can help him out.

**

July

“Please,” Sanji says into the speakerphone. He’s in the middle of flaking salmon to put in the middle of the onigiri for dinner as Umi chirps at his feet, asking for a bite. This is special I’m-asking-you-for-a-favor food so he’s making Zoro’s favorite. Plain, pickled plum, and smoked salmon onigiri; one of each. “I do not want to go to this thing alone. Do you know how stupid I’d feel?”

Zoro grunts on the other side of the speaker. Sanji knows he’s in the middle of cleaning up his workshop so he doesn’t pay it much mind and simply waits for a response. “Then don’t fucking go.”

“These tickets were over ten thousand berries each,” Sanji reminds him.

“I think the last time I went to a concert was on some stupid date at least five years ago with an idiot Nami introduced me to,” Zoro says. “And I know I didn't like it.”

“Well, this isn’t a date and I’m not an idiot,” Sanji says as he starts to form the warm rice into balls. For whatever reason, Zoro prefers hand-shaped triangles so Sanji tries his best. Zoro has all sorts of food that he likes that Sanji has never made before; unique curries and soba; miso soup and omurice. Sanji had spent ages learning to cook the egg right.

“Agree to disagree. You’re the stupidest person I know,” Zoro says and Sanji makes a noise of indignation. It feels like bickering for the sake of it which Sanji has grown pretty fond of. Over the last month or so, their weekly Friday dinners have turned into whatever-day-of-the-week dinners and sometimes it’s more than once a week at that. Sometimes Zoro will text and sometimes Sanji does. Sanji even cooked at Zoro’s house once, but he swore to never to do that again because he found out Zoro doesn’t even own a whisk.

“Just come with me,” Sanji says. He acts a bit more put upon than he needs to in order to keep up the game. “I’ll buy all your drinks.”

“You really must be desperate,” Zoro says. “You win, curly. When is it?”

“Tomorrow,” Sanji admits, bracing himself for a fight when Zoro swears.

“You couldn’t have told me sooner?”

“I got the reminder email today. I’m sorry, okay? I made onigiri for dinner tonight if you want it,” he offers.

“Yeah, yeah,” Zoro says with a sigh. “I’ll be by in an hour.”

Sanji hums to himself as he finishes shaping the rice balls, glad to have a plan and pleased to have company to look forward to.

But when he meets up with Zoro outside the venue the next day, he’s unsurprised by his scowl.

“You’re going to buy me so much alcohol,” Zoro says under his breath as the guy at the door swipes their tickets and gives them over-twenty-one bracelets.

“Maybe you’ll have fun if you keep a good attitude.”

“I’ve seen too many teenagers to have fun,” Zoro says. “Do you like teenage girl music, targethead? Is that what I signed up for?”

“The band just has multigenerational appeal,” Sanji says smoothly and Zoro scoffs before making a beeline for the bar in the corner.

It isn't the largest venue, a revamped old playhouse but the center floor is full of people already. Sanji decides immediately that they'll skip that and go upstairs onto the balcony. He's not looking to get crushed.

Zoro is tapping his hands on the sticky bar top when Sanji catches up to him. 

“What do you want to drink?” Sanji asks, leaning in close to be heard over the din of people. They've always been about the same height, so it's easy for Sanji to place a hand on Zoro's shoulder and dip his mouth closer to his ear.

Zoro angles his face so he can answer and Sanji tips his ear so he can hear him.

“Just whatever's on tap,” Zoro says. His breath is warm on Sanji's neck.

Ignoring the goosebumps caused by the sensation, Sanji waves down one of the bartenders and places his order. He's not really interested in drinking tonight so he's happy to order and pay for Zoro's drinks.

Once he hands it over, Zoro takes a deep drink and smacks his lips like he's some sort of cartoon dad. Sanji laughs and pats him on the back. “Pace yourself, marimo. I won't scrape you off the floor.”

“Since when have I ever had to be scraped off the floor?” Zoro says, pushing back off the bar. They still have to lean in to hear each other and there's something funny to Sanji about having to notch in close just to toss barbs back and forth.

“C'mon,” Sanji says before giving up on the teasing so he can grab Zoro's wrist and start to haul him upstairs. “Let's find a place to stand.”

Zoro lets himself be dragged and they find a small corner of the upper balcony that isn't too packed with people just as the opener takes the stage. The guitar fills the space, loud enough to rumble the floor so Sanji taps Zoro's elbow to get his attention before leaning in one final time. “Just let me know when you need a refill and I can do a drink run.”

Zoro has a funny look on his face but he gives Sanji a thumbs up as the first song starts to play. Maybe he's surprised that Sanji is being so considerate, but they made a deal and Sanji always follows through.

He does take Sanji up on it twenty minutes into the opener, nudging his elbow into his ribs and lifting up his empty plastic cup as a signal. Sanji snatches it without complaint which he thinks is a sign of their blossoming friendship and his own growth and—Zoro so owes him.

When he goes downstairs, he ends up waiting for a bit in line and he spaces out to the sounds of a band he doesn't recognize, only returning his focus to the present when someone bumps into him. He turns to steady whoever stumbled and comes face to face with a gorgeous brunette. Her lips are painted a sweet cherry red. She apologizes as she rights herself.

“I'm so sorry,” she says, grasping his forearm for balance. “Somebody bumped into me.”

“It's okay,” he rushes to reassure her. The line moves and they shuffle forward. His old chivalry kicks in and he can't stop himself from asking, “Can I get you anything to drink?” 

She gives him a blank look before a smile spreads over her face. “Sure. How about a gin and tonic?”

“Your wish is my command,” he says with some of what he thinks of as his old charm before turning to place the order. 

“What if I wished for your number?”

Sanji turns, surprised by such a forward line. He tries to find a good way to respond but all that comes out is, “I'm sorry. I just got divorced.”

The woman puts a hand to her mouth and her brow pinches. Thankfully, her drink is delivered and she stammers out some sort of gratitude before running off.

Sanji grimaces as he takes Zoro's beer back upstairs just as the opener's set wraps up. He hands off the drink to Zoro and they watch the people move around downstairs for a moment. Then he says, “Someone just hit on me.”

Zoro takes a beat to reply in confusion, “Congratulations?”

Sanji watches the people on stage change the set up between bands. He thinks about all the work going into the concert and realizes he's glad he didn't skip out on it.

“It was weird.”

“Do you think you want to start meeting people like that?”

Sanji makes a face. “I don't know. I don't think so.”

“Maybe you just need to try it out,” Zoro says. “We can go to some bar or whatever and you can see what it's like.”

“Didn't Usopp say we're not allowed to wingman for each other or the world will explode.”

Zoro leans in. “You. Me. Bar. Let's get you laid, curly.”

Inexplicably, the goosebumps rise once more on Sanji's skin. Maybe that means it's a good idea.

**

August

Sanji tugs on the buttons of his vest, realizing that he's put back on the weight he lost after his divorce so he actually fills out the thing pretty well. All the muscle is back and then some.  

“So we're doing the fancy thing then?” Zoro asks, propping one shoulder against the door to his bedroom. Sanji thinks it's an unfair question because Zoro looks great. Fucking blacksmith arms. Zoro may have softened with age, but his biceps never did. His black t-shirt is making that very clear.

“I'm trying to look good,” Sanji says.

“You always look good,” Zoro says irritably before pushing off the door so he can stride across the room and start to tug at Sanji's buttons. “You just look like a waiter. Do the button down without the vest. And put your hair in that messy thing.”

Sanji pushes Zoro off so that he's no longer forcefully undressing him. Zoro doesn't need to tug at his clothes like that. Sanji hasn't had anyone do that in nearly a year and the last person was his wife. He doubts she'd ever done it with quite so much violence.

“Fine, fine, stop pushing me around,” Sanji says before moving to hang his vest back up. “Where are we going anyway?”

“Alabasta,” Zoro replies and Sanji turns to gape at him.

“You want to go to a club,” Sanji demands.

Zoro shrugs, all nonchalant which Sanji can hardly believe. “We drink free there.”

Which is true. Vivi's family owns Alabasta and they've all drank for free there for a long time. Not that they go. Mostly because going to a club is for single people under the age of thirty-five which Sanji is not.

“Aren't we too old for that?”

Zoro crosses his arms and his eyebrows go up. “How old do you think you are? You're forty-one. Not in the grave.”

Sanji sighs before turning back to look in the mirror. He tugs on the tails of his light blue shirt, acknowledging that Zoro was right. He does look better like this, more casual and relaxed. His shoulders look a little broader too and when he reaches for a hair tie from the bedside table to put his hair up, he realizes that he might have a shot. He's not entirely sure he's ready to sleep with someone like Zoro alluded to, but maybe he could get someone's number. And if he's feeling daring, maybe a kiss.

Zoro pats him between the shoulder blades. “Less scraggly now.”

Sanji whips around to glare at him. “Excuse me. I never look scraggly.”

“I've seen your pajama pants,” Zoro says, evading Sanji’s efforts to punch him in the arm. “How would you describe something with a hole in the asscheek?”

“There's not a—” Sanji breaks off. He hasn't bought a new pair of pajama pants in a year so Zoro might actually be right. “I need new pajama pants.”

Zoro breaks out in a laugh. One of his big ones that stretches his mouth, showing off a flash of his weirdly perfect teeth. “Or you could wear them until the ass falls off.”

“I'm not you,” Sanji says, brushing past him to head to the door. “I like having nice clothes.”

They end up taking a taxi across town because for once, Sanji is planning to drink and driving might end up being a bad idea. The guy at the entrance to Alabasta takes their names and they're shown to a VIP booth. It would feel fancy and exciting if Sanji hadn't done it before a gazillion times a decade ago.

It's early enough that patrons are thin on the ground but music still thumps through the dark room. The dance floor is bathed in blue light, but it's barely full as he and Zoro slide into the booth, shadowed in the far corner of the room.

“How are we doing this?” Sanji asks, feeling sequestered. The music is muffled but he still has to pitch his voice louder. It reminds him of the concert and he wonders if he should sit on the other side next to Zoro so they can actually hear each other.

“I think we drink and then you talk to people,” Zoro answers, gesturing towards the bar.

Sanji decides it's time to go for it. Now or never. And pushes himself out onto the sticky floor. It’s not too busy at the bar so he's able to order relatively quickly—whiskey soda for himself and a local red ale for Zoro.

Once he's back in the booth, he tries not to feel overwhelmed by the music he doesn't recognize and all the people who seem much younger than him. 

“What's going to get you to relax, curly?” Zoro asks, knocking their feet together under the table.

“About three more drinks,” Sanji says. He's mostly joking, but Zoro cocks a brow in challenge which spells disaster if he ends up listening to whatever he's about to say.

“For the next thirty minutes, drink every time you see a crop top,” Zoro says.

Sanji groans and kicks his foot against Zoro's once more. “I'm absolutely not doing that. I'll die.”

“What do you want to do then?”

“I don't know. Talk to me,” Sanji says, eyes flicking over the group of twenty-somethings that just spilled in. 

“And that's going to relax you?” Zoro asks doubtfully.

“Do you think I don't like talking to you?” Sanji replies, distracted by a pair of girls loudly laughing by the bar. They are cute but they are far too young. He wonders if this was a good idea at all.

When he looks back at Zoro, the other man has a strange expression on his face. It flits away as he takes a pull from his beer. 

The truth of it is that he does like talking to Zoro. It's only become more clear over the last few months as they've spent more time together. Zoro can handle it when he gets irritable. He matches him when he's feeling competitive. They have the same sense of humor, crowing over stupid things that people do and mocking each other mercilessly.

Sanji takes a swig of his drink. “Alright, dumbass, play a game with me.”

Zoro’s eyebrows creep up. Tired of shouting, Sanji scoots out of the booth and jams himself in next to Zoro who shuffles slightly away even as their knees bump. 

Gesturing towards the bar, Sanji says, “Him.” He indicates a tall man with a neatly cropped beard. “What do you think he's going to order?”

Zoro snorts, a noise barely loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the club. “That's a beer guy.”

“Tap or bottle,” Sanji presses.

Zoro leans in, elbows on the table. “Tall boy.”

The bartender sweeps back over and slides a beer glass to the man and Zoro grunts, irritably acknowledging defeat even as Sanji prods his arm. “Big scary blacksmith was wrong.”

Elbowing Sanji harder than he thinks he deserves, Zoro says, “How does this even work? We can't tell what people order unless it's a beer or hard liquor.”

“Keep it generic,” Sanji says as he rubs the spot on his ribs that Zoro abused. 

“And what do I win if I kick your ass at this too?”

Sanji takes umbrage with that but he says, “I'll take you out to dinner instead of cooking next week.”

Zoro rolls his eyes. “Why would I want that? Your food is better.”

Sanji’s ears feel weirdly hot and the music is suddenly a touch louder, echoing in his skull in a way it wasn't before.

“Then I guess I'll make whatever you tell me,” he offers with a laugh before directing his attention back to the bar.

Zoro points at a woman lingering at the corner waiting to flag down the bartender. “Her.”

Sanji hums in consideration. She’s very beautiful. Curly red hair. Sharp nose. “Something strong and sweet.”

“You would say that about a woman,” Zoro says and it's Sanji’s turn to elbow him.

She ends up with something pink, a lime wedge on the rim, so Sanji feels fairly correct in his guess. 

After that, they lose track. Pointing out marks and taking guesses, getting it wrong more often than not. Sanji wants to say he is winning but it would be a lie. They're both doing awfully. But it’s stupid and lighthearted and he is relaxing.

It's his turn to pick someone out of the line and the club has filled up significantly. He's grateful for their dark corner table. His eyes catch on a pair at the bar and a different question floats to mind. 

Turning to Zoro, he knocks the back of his hand against his chest to get his attention. It's unnecessary really given how close they are together but the atmosphere of the club has made everything feel hectic and pressurized. Like if he doesn't grab at the thing he needs, he won't get it and right now, he needs Zoro’s attention.

“Those two,” Sanji says, gesturing as subtly as he can manage. “Date or friends.”

Zoro angles in the booth, looking towards the couple that Sanji has indicated. They're leaning against the bar, chatting lightly. The girl is wearing a tight pink dress cut up mid-thigh and the guy looks barely presentable in comparison in shorts and a t-shirt.

“Is that what we're doing now?” Zoro asks wryly.

Sanji is glad he switched sides of the booth because he can hear Zoro more easily even if it does mean they are pressed fairly close together. Zoro’s thigh is lined up tight against his and their feet knock occasionally. It would maybe be uncomfortable if it were anyone else. Too much sudden intimacy and warmth. But it's just Zoro. Sanji’s known him for a long time and even now, he knows him better than he thought would ever be possible.

His favorite food (onigiri). Most embarrassing childhood memory (best friend complaining about her boobs). Why he has three piercings (favorite number—simple as that). 

“I'm curious,” Sanji insists, shifting slightly. Their knees bump again.

Zoro’s eyes move over his face and then flick back to the pair at the bar. They hang there for a long moment. 

“Date,” Zoro says decisively.

“What makes you so sure?”

“She's too dressed up.”

“Maybe she wants to hook up,” Sanji points out just as the guy slips his arm around the girl's waist. 

Zoro slaps his hand on the table in triumph and the movement ultimately puts more distance between their bodies. Then Zoro downs more of his drink. “I told you, curly.”

“How would you even know that? I'm the romantic one. You don't even date,” Sanji complains.

“You're too focused on all the wrong stuff,” Zoro says as he leans back in the booth, stretching his arm out behind Sanji before ducking close so they can hear each other over the loud sounds of the growing crowd and the music. “Like it's not just sex and attraction. People have different types of connections that make them want to be together.”

Sanji droops back against the booth and his hair knocks against Zoro's forearm. He doesn't move to pull away. Sanji doesn't know what time it is, but his body tells him that it's late. That he's tired and should rest. “I miss having sex.”

“That's not what you were supposed to get out of that,” Zoro says, a laugh evident in his words.

Sanji calls him out on it, dropping his fist to Zoro’s thigh in some form of admonishment. “Don't laugh at me.”

“You make it too easy,” Zoro replies before he drains his drink. “You could probably go out there and talk to somebody. Make it happen.”

Sanji turns his attention towards the bar and tries to pick out someone. A woman who piques his interest enough that he could force himself over the hurdle of nerves that still sits tight in his gut.

“Who would you hit on?” Sanji asks, trying to deflect so he doesn’t have to take action.

“Which woman?” Zoro sets his empty glass down. “Are you drunk? None of them.”

“Not just—” He shakes his head. “Anybody. You could pick anybody.”

Zoro scrubs a hand down over his mouth and he retracts his arm from behind Sanji. It takes a certain amount of warmth with him that Sanji hadn’t noticed was there. “Going up to somebody in a bar isn’t exactly my style.”

“What is your style?” Sanji presses, curious enough that he doesn’t think it’s weird to ask the question.

“Not saying no when someone hits on me if I’m in the mood for it.” Zoro knocks his elbow into Sanji, obviously wanting to change the subject. “Move. I want another drink.”

Sanji lets himself be pushed out of the booth. Only because it's that or let Zoro crawl over him and that seems a bit excessive just to be stubborn. “I should get a water or I'm gonna get a headache.”

“I can get it for you.”

“Trying to get rid of me, marimo?” Sanji challenges before trailing after Zoro whether he likes it or not. Zoro doesn’t protest further and when they end up at the bar, Sanji points down the line at two men in deep conversation. “What about them? Date or friends?”

There’s a large crowd in front of them waiting to be served so he and Zoro are stuck trying to wedge their way forward. Zoro tilts closer to see around someone’s head and makes a face. “What do you think?”

“I was wrong last time.” Sanji takes a moment to take down his hair and shake it out. He’s too warm. There’s too many bodies in the space and the nape of his neck has started to sweat. As he pulls it back into a bun, he bumps his arm against Zoro’s shoulder. “But I’d say friends.”

Zoro’s brow furrows and when Sanji lets his arm fall, he ducks in closer. “What did you say?”

“Friends,” Sanji repeats a little louder and Zoro nods.

“That’s what I would say too,” Zoro replies as they manage to push into an empty spot to order. Zoro’s hand comes down to Sanji’s lower back to guide him into the small space and it’s hot through the fabric of his shirt. The temperature only emphasizes the sweat pooling on his skin and something pulses hard in Sanji’s belly, an odd discomfort that skitters through his pulse.

Zoro leans heavily across the bar and Sanji tracks the movement of his mouth as he calls his order to the bartender. He feels oddly dazed, blood pumping hard enough that he might as well be on the thrumming dance floor. Zoro turns and presses a glass of cool water into his hand. His eyebrows go up.

“You okay?”

Sanji bypasses the question and the strange muffled feeling in his ears. He leans back towards Zoro so he can ask, “Do you remember that time we came here and Law fell asleep on the dancefloor?”

Zoro laughs. The breath disturbs Sanji's hair. “Luffy carried him around all night.”

“Until they got kicked out,” Sanji corrects, grinning too.

“Why bring that up?” Zoro asks as he turns to grab his drink and drop cash on the bar.

“If I fall asleep, will you carry me around?”

Zoro scowls at him. “Are you already that tired?  It's only—” He tugs out his phone and his expression shifts. “It's twelve thirty.”

“What?” Sanji demands. They are starting to get shoved out of the way by people eager to get their drinks and it's reminding Sanji that this is both a sweaty and precarious position. “We should leave, shouldn't we?” he shouts over the mass of bodies.

Zoro grabs his wrist and tugs him closer to the wall. Their table has been usurped by some group who must also have the VIP label. “I thought you wanted to meet someone.”

Sanji shakes his head. Tendrils of hair stick to his neck. He lets a hand come to hover by Zoro’s side, feeling like he needs to keep him in place as he leans close. “I don't care. I had fun.”

Zoro doesn't answer. He leans away and chugs his beer in three huge gulps before dropping it on the shelf that runs along the wall. “Alright. Let's go.”

Sanji leaves his half-empty water glass behind and they make their way outside. It's busy there too and it becomes clear they are going to have a hell of a time getting a taxi. At least the summer air is comfortable as they wait.

When they finally manage to grab a car, Zoro defers to Sanji. “I'll get the next.”

Sanji shakes his head, annoyed. “You'll be waiting forever. Just come home with me.”

Zoro stares at him for a moment, clearly contemplating something.

“It's really fucking late,” Sanji says, voice scratchy with overuse. “You can crash on my couch.”

Zoro unceremoniously shoves him into the backseat and scoots in after. Answer enough even when Sanji stomps his toes in the footwell for being a dick.

“It's a good couch,” Sanji protests. “I slept on it for a while after Pudding moved out so you won't suffer.”

Zoro glances at him as the car pulls onto the road and Sanji realizes he's said something unnecessarily revealing.

He turns to look out the window and Zoro asks, “You're doing better, right?”

Sanji wants to snap at him but he knows it's because he's tired. Zoro hardly deserves it. “Yeah,” he answers, still not looking at him. 

“Good,” Zoro says. It's quiet for a moment and Sanji briefly tunes in to the low sounds of pop music coming from the cab. Then Zoro says, “But if my back hurts after sleeping on that thing, I'm kicking your ass.”

Getting ready for bed with Zoro is a quiet affair. Sanji unlocks the door and shows him the linen closet before handing him a spare toothbrush. When he offers to make up the couch, Zoro waves him off and says he can do it himself. It's a little past one and they are both slightly punch drunk. Sanji realizes this when he struggles to take off his pants because he's so tired and also when he peeks out into the living room to check on Zoro, only to find him standing there staring at the blankets in his hands like he's never seen bedding before.

He leaves him to figure it out.

As expected, Sanji wakes up in the morning to itchy eyes and the distinct feeling of not getting enough sleep. Despite that, light is pouring in through the cracks in the blinds and there is no way he is going to be able to get back to sleep. His finely tuned body clock won't allow it.

Honestly, he feels like shit.

Sanji drags himself out of bed, surprised that Umi isn’t meowing at his feet as he makes his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Once he feels even slightly more revived, he goes down the hall towards the kitchen, pausing when he sees Zoro asleep on the couch with Umi curled on his belly.

He’s snoring lightly and one arm is drooped off the side of the sofa, knuckles dragging over the floor. A similar sensation to the night before kicks in Sanji’s stomach, prickling up to his throat and pounding in his ears as Zoro huffs and lifts his hand to toss it over his face. The blanket Sanji gave him is too short and his socked feet stick out at the end of the couch.

The cat wakes up at Sanji's slow pad into the living room and lets out a questioning meow, hopping down to trail Sanji into the kitchen once it's clear he's up for good.

Zoro finally rouses at the smell of coffee—or perhaps the bubbling of the machine does it, a hardly inconspicuous sound. He ambles into the kitchen, sleep heavy, as he scratches at a sleep wrinkle etched across his cheek. “I better get some of that coffee.”

“You feeling okay?” Sanji asks, turning to set his frying pan to heat.

Zoro stretches and yawns, shirt pulling tight over his chest and biceps and riding up enough that Sanji can see the soft green of the hair on his belly. “Yeah. Little stiff but nothing a bit of working in the shop won't fix. How about you?”

“Once I eat something, I’ll be fine.” Sanji’s already halfway to extracting some bacon and eggs from the fridge when he says it. 

“Okay, okay,” Zoro says like he's trying to soothe a horse. Sanji doesn't think he seems harried but maybe he does. “I'll eat too and then I'll get out of your hair.”

“You don't have to go anywhere,” Sanji says. “You know that.”

Zoro snags a mug from the cupboard and moves to pour himself a cup of coffee. “Eh, I've got to finish a commission and I'm a little behind.”

Sanji starts to lay out bacon in the pan. Just the smell is bringing him back to life. “Send me a picture when it's done.”

“I was actually going to ask you to help me pick my display for my next event,” Zoro says, pulling out his phone with one hand and using the other to set aside his mug before he starts tapping at the screen. “I've got the Metalworker’s Association thing up north. I always pick up a few referrals so it's smart to display things I've got in the shop and stuff I've done before.”

Sanji flips the bacon before glancing up at Zoro. “You should include your last commission. That knife set was gorgeous.”

Zoro frowns and pauses as he flicks through photos on his phone. “I don't do cutlery very often.”

“I'm just calling it like I see it. You could do photos of that and also have some weapons laid out. Show range.”

“That's not a bad idea,” Zoro says, half to himself as he grabs his coffee and wanders over to the dining room table, conversation forgotten. Sanji is used to Zoro doing things like that so it doesn't bother him. He simply turns his attention back to the bacon and starts flipping it out onto a plate.

Once Sanji finishes frying eggs—Zoro likes his over-hard like a weirdo—he takes the plates to the table where Zoro is still busy flicking through photos of his work. Fully expecting to eat in silence, Sanji is taken aback when Zoro puts his phone aside and asks, “What are you going to do with your day?”

“Probably clean,” Sanji says. “Umi needs his litter changed over. I might take a nap.”

“Boring,” Zoro says but it doesn't sound like a judgment.

Sanji scrapes some eggs onto his fork. “Yeah, in a good way.”

Zoro does leave after he eats. He offers to help with the dishes but Sanji waves him away. If he has a deadline, he should get to work.

As Sanji cleans up from breakfast, he wonders if Zoro has made it home and if he's already started on work. He hasn't woken up with someone in the house in nearly a year. He's glad it was Zoro and not some woman he'd brought back to sleep with. He wishes Zoro could be there more often. That he hadn't had to leave. That he could have stayed and hung out at Sanji's house all day. They could have done chores together and Sanji could have cooked while they watched stupid television, Umi curled on the couch between them.

Sanji drops the pan in his hand and some half dried bacon grease explodes across his bare feet. The emotion he's feeling registers suddenly, slotting sharply into place. He misses Zoro. Except Zoro left less than half an hour ago.

The last person he felt like this about was his wife. And he felt like that because he was in love with her.

Sanji crouches to pick up the dropped pan. He lets it slide into the sink and then sags against the counter beside it. That can't be right. Something else is going on.

Sanji is forty-one years old. He has only ever been attracted to women. He might have married the woman he lost his virginity to, but he made out with Nami once and he's been attracted to other women when he was married. Which is normal. It's not like he did anything about it.

He tries to think of any time he might have been attracted to a man and he comes up blank. He imagines Usopp and nothing stirs in his mind but the usual fondness. Then Luffy and Law but it's much the same. Brook engenders nothing different. Nor do Franky or Jimbei. As he's rifling through the rolodex of men he knows, Sanji suddenly remembers the first time Luffy's brother, Ace, visited and how he definitely hit on Sanji several times. Sanji remembers not minding very much despite only just coming out of his more homophobic period. 

Had that been…

It wasn't like he had wanted to make out with Ace. Unless…had he?

With unsteady hands, Sanji turns to get a glass from the cupboard. After a few breaths it's easier to go to the refrigerator and fill the cup with water from the filter. He stands with the fridge door open and drains the cup entirely before setting it down and letting the door swing shut. He doesn't feel better.

As if detecting something is wrong, Umi winds around his ankles and meows. Sanji looks down at him and is reminded of the worker at the shelter who thought he was dating Zoro.

Sanji drops his forehead against the fridge door and it crinkles the takeout menu held by a magnet on the surface. 

He pulls Zoro up in his mind and like the first breath of air in the morning, his chest fills with a soft comfort. He has that same desire from before. To call him and ask for him to come back over. He just wants Zoro here. He wants Zoro with him.

This is fondness but it feels like so much more.

Sanji just doesn’t know if that means romance. Or—

Sanji thinks about the warm, heavy press of Zoro's hand on his lower back. The way it had made something thump in his belly. A hard tug. 

It can't be right. It can't. 

And even if it is — it's not — Sanji isn't going to do anything about it because he likes things the way they are. Comfortable. Happy. He's so happy.

**

September

The farmer's market is never quite as busy during the beginning of autumn which is a shame because some of the best produce shows up come September.

Sanji wanders in front of a booth selling squash and hums to himself. “Hey, Zoro.”

When he doesn't get an immediate reply, he turns and finds Zoro several booths down talking to a woman about her jewelry display. Probably some metalworking thing if Sanji had to guess. 

It's starting to get cool so Sanji has opted for a warmer peacoat, but Zoro has only shrugged on a beat up jean jacket. He's got his hands stuffed in the pockets as he leans over the table, face lit up, mouth ticked on one corner. Sanji can't help but think that his face is more dynamic than he used to give it credit for when he thought of Zoro as something of a boring brick wall. He sees the way his smiles shift. His eyes crinkle slightly. The rise of his eyebrows. It's so evident that Zoro is always thinking hard, coming to some decisive conclusion.

Sanji looks at his feet and stuffs his hands into his own pockets before he wanders over to Zoro's side. “What are you looking at?”

“She does all her own metalworking,” Zoro says, clearly impressed. “I wanted to know if she was tabling at the Pirate Age Fair coming up. She'd make a killing.”

The woman shakes her head. “I don't have the time. I just do some of these markets.”

Zoro takes one of her cards and slips it into his pocket. “You should think about it.”

He finally looks at Sanji, brown eyes still alight. “What's up, curly?”

“I wanted to know if you like acorn squash,” Sanji chokes out. “There’s a booth. And they… look nice.”

Dinners with Zoro over the last two weeks haven't changed very much. Sanji had been worried that something would shift in his own behavior and Zoro would know he'd had his moment of untimely panic. But it hasn't. 

However, occasional things slip through. They'll be doing dishes and Sanji will smack Zoro with a towel and he'll feel some strange wave of affection so bright and strong that he knows exactly what it is. Or they'll be watching television after dinner and a specific tension will curl in Sanji’s stomach. He knows. He does. 

But holding out an acorn squash just to have Zoro stare down at it like it might bite him is better than anything else. Why would he want to change that? It's just nice to spend time with someone who makes him feel this way. Forget the rest. It doesn't matter that they've been friends for twenty years. It doesn't matter that Zoro’s a man. Sanji is still not sure where the lines of attraction begin and end. It all feels so innocent and pure and new. Sanji has what has to be a crush for the first time in nearly two decades and he wants to savor it.

“I don't think I've ever eaten that,” Zoro says. 

“Do you want to try it?” Sanji asks, tossing it lightly in his hand. “They're good with butter and cinnamon.”

“I'll try whatever you make. It's always good.” Zoro is busy inspecting a butternut squash, speaking offhandedly and making Sanji lose his goddamn mind.

“I can also make butternut squash soup if you'd rather have that,” he offers. He picks up one and hands it over to the man running the booth.

“Sounds weird,” Zoro says, wrinkling his nose.

“What happened to ‘I'll try whatever you make?’”

“I'll try it,” Zoro says. “Doesn't mean I'll like it.”

“I'm going to force-feed you so much squash,” Sanji warns, paying the man at the booth before tucking it into his bag.

“I didn't know you were into that,” Zoro says with an annoying smirk.

Sanji groans and shoves his bag into Zoro’s chest. “Shut up. You're carrying this, you overgrown piece of grass.”

“Okay, perverted cook,” Zoro teases and Sanji is forced to march away towards the apple cider donut stand just so Zoro can't see how embarrassed he is.

**

October

Sanji hasn't seen Zoro in a week. They usually have their dinners. Then at least one meet up at the gym. Sometimes they go to the farmer's market or meet for lunch or coffee on the weekend depending on their schedule. They see each other all the time. It's been like this for months, slipping into each other's company like a frog comfortably simmering in water.

Zoro is off at his Pirate Age fair, tabling in order to sell his work and get commissions. He said it's the event that gets him the most work every year so it's important. Sanji refuses to bother him. He's busy. Sanji is busy too. Life goes on even when Zoro isn't on his couch or at his dining room table.

To Sanji’s surprise, being alone in his apartment isn't as unbearable as he thought it would be. He has Umi and he's rediscovered the art of entertaining himself when he's alone. He's taken up organizing his own cookbook, compiling recipes from online and writing down the ones he knows by heart. He wants to try to teach a few of the easy ones to Zoro just for the sake of it. 

Sunday afternoon however means a grocery run. It's Zoro’s last day at the fair so it's likely he'll come over tomorrow and Sanji wants to have the ingredients prepped for something he'll like. He's very aware that what he's doing comes from a place dangerously close to romance, but he can't stop himself. It doesn't matter anyway. He's been behaving this way for nearly two months and Zoro hasn't put a stop to it yet.

He's not spoiling Zoro in the same way he spoiled Pudding. He doesn't think he wants to, but there is a drive inside him to take care of Zoro. To make sure he's fed and happy. He wants to see the curve of Zoro's mouth when he eats something he likes. He wants to watch Zoro sink into his couch, comfortable and relaxed like a big cat basking in the sun. He wants Zoro happy.

But Zoro-happy looks different than Pudding-happy. It's a new sort of sweetness. Sanji could hold it in his mouth until it dissolves. He wants the taste to linger as long as possible.

There is an all purpose market that Sanji likes to go to for most of his shopping, but there's a fishmonger he prefers to shop at because the quality of sea king meat at most markets is subpar. Zoro loves sea king meat and even if it's a little expensive going into the winter months, Sanji doesn't mind splurging a little. 

(He's hopeless.)

He comes home a little tired but with a completed shopping list. It's as he's putting everything away that there's a brisk knock at the door.

Sanji pauses with a can of beans in his hand before setting it aside to answer the knock. Usually someone would have to buzz him before coming up so it must be one of his neighbors.

The unexpected sight of Zoro in the doorway runs a line of immediate excitement right to Sanji’s stomach like a hook sinking to the bottom of a river.

“Marimo,” he says. “How did you—”

“Someone was leaving so I snuck in,” Zoro says. “Are you just going to stand there?”

He has a bag slung over his arm and he looks unimpressed by Sanji’s inability to understand his presence in his building.

“Fuck off,” Sanji manages. “Come in.”

Zoro slips inside and takes off his shoes as Sanji shuts the door. “Isn't it your last day at the fair? What are you doing here?”

Zoro gives him a weird look as he stands up straight. “It's four o’clock. The fair ends at two. I thought I'd stop by for dinner.”

Frowning, Sanji ducks back into the kitchen. “Not that I can't make us dinner, but you could at least text me.”

“I did text you.” Zoro pulls his phone out of his pocket, wakes up the screen and wanders over to the kitchen counter where he shows Sanji their text thread. Sure enough, he'd sent a text a few hours ago letting him know he'd be coming over around four.

Sanji checks his own phone and finds that it's off. He rolls his eyes at himself. “Sorry. I've been busy.”

“If you need me to go, I can,” Zoro offers.

“No, it's fine,” he says. He's far too pleased to have Zoro over to see him leave immediately. “I just need to finish putting groceries away.”

Zoro slips his phone back into his pocket and stands up straight. “I have something for you.”

Sanji's heart flutters.

Setting his canvas bag onto the counter, Zoro extracts a jar of something. “The booth next to mine was selling ‘aromatic’ jams.” The air quotes are clear in his tone. “They looked like shit you'd like.”

Sanji takes the jar Zoro hands over and inspects the label. Lavender lemon marmalade. His chest starts to tighten inexplicably as he pulls the bag across the counter to look through it.

It feels romantic. Romantic in the same way that buying Pudding two dozen roses on her birthday felt. Except entirely different. Sanji wants to call it better. He wants to write off all that effort and all those years but he knows he won't. He loved Pudding with his whole heart and it's not her fault their relationship didn't work. She didn't cheat. She fell out of love and handled it badly. 

What Sanji feels now isn't better than the love he felt for Pudding. It's different. He's still trying to understand the shape of it. And he's simply grateful it exists.

He pulls out another jam. Pear and wild thyme. “Thanks for thinking of me. Do you want to try it?”

Zoro makes a face. “No way. It sounds disgusting as hell.”

Sanji laughs. Yeah. Different.

**

November

Sanji pounds on the door to Zoro's workshop, annoyed that he's been put on moss retrieval duty and further annoyed that he understands why. The group chat has a fucking name for them now. Like they're a unit. Zosanji. The first time Usopp used it Sanji wanted to throw his phone at the wall.

There's a lot of banging through the door and Sanji has a feeling he's not going to get anywhere with his knocking so he shoves the door open and steps inside. It's about ten degrees hotter inside Zoro's workshop which is really a shed he built a few years back in his backyard so he could stop paying for studio space. 

Sanji freezes in the entryway, not so much due to the heat but because Zoro is in the middle of pouring some sort of dust along a knife that he has pinched in the forceps in his hands. He glances up at Sanji before turning and shoving the knife into the furnace in the corner.

He's wearing glasses. Black-rimmed, cute-as-hell reading glasses. 

“What are you doing here?” Zoro asks before withdrawing the knife and setting it on the anvil where he starts smashing it with a hammer. He's wearing the rattiest t-shirt Sanji has ever seen so the way his forearms flex is fully on display. The collar is soaked with sweat. Sanji feels weak in the knees.

Whatever questions he had about if he was attracted to Zoro wither entirely. This isn’t just romance. This is something else. Something that makes his stomach hot and his brain light up with filthy possibility. He wants his hands on Zoro in a way he hasn’t thought about before. Everything has been disgustingly innocent until this very moment as he watches a bead of sweat run from Zoro’s temple down his neck and into his collar.

“You weren't answering your phone and it's six o'clock,” Sanji says, shouting to be heard over the sound of the hammer colliding with metal.

He can be normal. He can be so very normal about this.

Zoro once more turns to toss dust over the blade and then shoves it back into the furnace. “I need to finish this and then we can go.”

“Aren't you going to shower?”

“It's my birthday party. I can be as dirty as I want.”

Sanji gives up in the face of that and leaves the workshop, heading back towards the house where he slides open the back screen door and goes inside.

He really only manages a few steps before collapsing into a chair at the dining room table. Before now, his feelings had been so innocent and warm and now his dick is half hard in his jeans. 

Sanji has always had a high libido. In college, he used to masturbate three times a day (twice back-to-back in the morning and once before bed). Once he got married, he was just grateful Pudding was sort of able to keep up, but he still masturbated daily. He'd never needed to watch porn because his brain was more than creative enough to get the job done.

However, in the wake of his divorce, he struggled to get back into the rhythm. So many of his fantasies revolved around his wife and trying to turn them towards faceless women was too difficult. Sometimes he succeeded in simply focusing on sensation, but such success has been sporadic at best. So this feels new and exciting and almost relieving.

He presses the heel of his hand against the line of his zipper just to find some relief. The pulse of pleasure is short-lived and he drops his head back, throat bobbing on a heavy swallow as he forces his hand away.

He should have known the fuzzy feelings would lead to this. Whatever simmer he was living in was bound to boil over. How long has it been since he was attracted to someone like this? He’s seen women on the street and thought they had good legs or pretty faces. The woman who had hit on him at the concert was gorgeous. But he hasn’t had lust, the purity of desire swirl inside him since before Pudding started to withdraw from the relationship years ago.

It’s like he’s waking up from a too-long hibernation, heart kicking back to life as he shakes off sleep. His body thrums with want. He knows this feeling so intimately that having it slot back into his life makes him feel like he was missing an entire sense for months, his existence muffled into a bleak expanse of nothingness.

He presses a hand to his chest where his heart is threatening to run away with itself and fights down a smile that probably makes him look crazy.

Maybe it should matter more that Zoro isn’t a woman. Maybe he should care that this rewrites his sexuality in a way that he doesn’t understand yet. But there is such a loud and cacophonous euphoria sweeping through him that he couldn’t think about anything else even if he wanted to.

The door slides open and Sanji jumps in his chair, slapping his hand down onto the table like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t.

“I’m ready when you are,” Zoro says as if the world hasn’t tilted on its axis. He shuts the door and turns to Sanji with a pinching frown on his face. “Why the hell are you sitting in the dark?”

“I forgot to turn on the light,” Sanji replies before standing. The wave of emotion has crested and is slowly passing into eddies of calm. He needs to think. He will. For now, it’s Zoro’s birthday and that’s the most important thing. He tugs on the front of Zoro’s shirt and enjoys the heated pulse of arousal in his gut that rises in response to touching Zoro’s chest and feeling the damp heat of his skin through his shirt. It’s exciting to experience the answering heat in his own body. “Go change your clothes, you disgusting piece of mold.”

Zoro knocks his hand away much to Sanji’s regret. “You’re such a nag.”

“Not everyone tolerates your sweaty ass,” Sanji reminds him. “We’re going to a real restaurant so put on different clothes. I don’t care about the rest.”

Predictably, Zoro makes a face and flips him off as he heads to his bedroom.

As he watches him go, Sanji is ninety percent sure he’s in love with him.

**

December

Zoro hasn’t changed at all and yet Sanji’s perspective has shifted entirely. It makes him notice things that he ignored before.

“Hey, curly,” Zoro calls from the kitchen while Sanji cleans up the living room. “I think your coffee maker’s busted.”

As if some sort of dam broke the night they went out to Alabasta, Zoro has started staying over on the weekends. He sleeps on the couch and then they have breakfast and coffee together. Some days he lingers, running errands with Sanji or one very memorable day, they just hung out on the couch and marathoned an entire television series until it was dark. Sanji wonders if Zoro would have stayed over a second night if Sanji hadn’t had work the next day.

Zoro has a bag of his things stored in the hall closet, a spare toothbrush in the medicine cabinet. He borrows Sanji’s shampoo when he stays over, balking at using his conditioner—calling it ‘a waste.’ 

Every time he leaves, Sanji is caught up wondering what Zoro would do if Sanji kissed him and the more time they spend together, the more certain he becomes that Zoro would kiss him back. 

Sanji stops pulling the blankets off the couch and wanders into the kitchen to inspect the coffee maker. He doesn’t have any sort of fancy model. It has two buttons: on and clean. When he comes up beside Zoro, Zoro presses the on button but the light doesn’t turn on. Sanji frowns and nudges him out of the way with his hip.

He expects Zoro to move away but their elbows knock as Sanji pulls the cord from the wall in a general effort to ‘turn it off and on again.’ When he does plug it back in, the on light still doesn’t work and he swears. Zoro’s hand suddenly comes down to his hip, pushing him to the side. The touch lights up his body like a wick incinerating at the first kiss of a flame. 

“I'm gonna shake it,” Zoro says decisively which pulls Sanji from his moment of horny distraction.

He grabs Zoro’s hands before he can pick up the appliance. “Don't fucking shake it. What's that going to do?”

“Make it work again,” Zoro says like it's obvious and logical and not the dumbest thing Sanji’s ever heard.

Sanji lowers their hands. “Okay, marimo, how about we don't play maracas with my ancient coffee maker and just go pick some up down the street. I can get a new machine later today.”

Their hands fall between them, Sanji’s fingers curled around Zoro’s palm on one side and his wrist on the other. Zoro doesn't pull away, his hands tucked close to Sanji’s belly. “We went to the cafe yesterday. You want to go again?”

“It's an emergency run,” Sanji insists. He feels daring and light as he runs his thumb along the soft skin of the inner side of Zoro's wrist. “We won't eat there. Just coffee.”

Zoro still doesn't pull away. Sanji’s heart beats in his ears, his chest, his belly and thighs. It all flutters to a new rhythm. 

Zoro turns his hands, fingers sliding over Sanji’s briefly before he knocks his knuckles against Sanji’s stomach, a teasing touch. “Fine. You're paying.”

“Are you punishing me for having a broken coffee pot? An act of God that isn't my fault?” Sanji asks, pushing Zoro with the back of his hand in return.

“Yeah, I am,” Zoro says before tugging on a lock of Sanji’s hair. Then he retreats from the kitchen entirely. Sanji sucks in a short breath. His skin tingles as he watches Zoro go to the door to put on his shoes.

When Zoro straightens up, he looks over at Sanji. “Are you coming or not?”

“Give me a second,” Sanji grouses, forcing himself to move after his frozen state. 

Sanji wants to sink his teeth into this feeling. He nevers wants to let it go.

**

January

Sanji settles into bed. His back hurts a little after a long day in his desk chair. It's the new fiscal year and it's always a hellish turnover.

But he does have a favorite way to unwind.

He didn't see Zoro today. They last got together on Sunday for brunch and a matinee action movie that was worse than the reviews made it out to be. 

Despite that, Zoro had sent him a text with an attached image of his latest commission. A pair of swords with gold hilts. They looked gorgeous and Sanji said as much. Well, what he said was, I can't believe a mossball could make something that nice, but the sentiment was there.

Sanji runs his fingers over his bare belly, a small smile on his face when he remembers Zoro’s reply. A simple skull emoji. He's such an ass. 

Letting his hand drift to the waistband of his boxers, Sanji thinks back to the last time Zoro stayed overnight. They had been on the couch, sitting together closer than normal. The tension in Sanji’s stomach had been so sweet. He'd been caught deliciously in what ifs. What if Zoro moved closer? What if he touched me? What if I touched him?

Sanji hasn't felt things like that in decades. The exhilaration and freedom of it makes his stomach cartwheel. 

He slips his hand under the waistband of his boxers and palms himself gently as other thoughts start to crowd his mind.

It's so easy to think of Zoro in these moments. His hard-to-earn smile. His gorgeous eyes. The warmth of his hands. Fuck, his hands.

The skin on Sanji's arms pebbles as his cock kicks under his palm. He doesn't know what sex between two men really looks like, but he can imagine it easily. He can picture pressing his hands along the soft expanse of Zoro’s muscular chest, sliding his fingers across the build of his belly where fat covers his hard-earned muscles. He can imagine kissing him, the way his thin lips would open under Sanji's soft kisses, the burning heat of his tongue.

Sanji gives his cock a few easy strokes. He's almost fully hard and his breath is stuttering up out of his lungs. 

He wonders how gentle Zoro would be or if he would be rough. Firm and directive. Would those hands hold him to the bed as they kissed? Or would Zoro let Sanji take the lead? Pudding never had a preference and they often took turns being the more dominant partner. Sanji had liked that. Would Zoro?

He imagines he would. Zoro would be soft and firm in turns. Maybe he would do that thing where he blushes when he feels too vulnerable, cute and pink around the ears, the only place the flush is evident on his face.

Sanji's hand speeds up on his cock as his breath hitches and he turns his face into the pillow. 

He wants to kiss Zoro. He wants to know how he feels in his arms, the steady weight of him. What does his hair smell like? The crook of his neck. Sanji used to love coming up behind his wife and wrapping his arms around her waist so he could rest his chin on her head. How would Zoro like to be touched? How would their bodies fit together?

He comes to the thought of Zoro running his hands through his hair, the phantom sensation of nails on his scalp enough to tug his orgasm up from his toes so that it tingles in his stomach. He savors the mess of it, splayed out on the sheets as he stares at the dark ceiling.

He should probably tell Zoro how he's feeling.

He just hates the thought of seeing their relationship change even if the potential of more seems so unbearably sweet.

**

February

When Zoro comes over, Sanji is monumentally proud of himself. He's made Zoro’s favorite foods, purchased a high end sake, and finally found the brand of mochi that Zoro said he liked one time. It's the most he can do without entirely going over the top. He's not going to buy two dozen roses for Zoro on Valentine's Day and they don't have the sort of relationship where orgasms are in the picture. Not yet.

Zoro hangs up his jacket and ambles over to the breakfast bar where he drops a box of chocolates. “For you, shithead.”

“Wait,” Sanji says. “Seriously?”

“You liked them last year,” Zoro replies, mildly annoyed. “If you're dragging me over on Valentine's Day, I wasn't going to let you lecture me about coming over empty handed. So, chocolates.”

Sanji picks up the box and notes that it's the same type as last year. High quality and equally delicious. “I wouldn't lecture you.”

“Sure, curly. Whatever you say.”

“Just go wash your hands,” Sanji says, exasperated. “Dinner's ready.”

Zoro at least obeys the directive and heads off to the bathroom. Umi trots after him, meowing a small greeting and Zoro mumbles something in response. Sanji starts to set the table, feeling pleased and domestic and happy to have someone to spend Valentine's Day with.

When Zoro comes back, he sits at the table and asks, “How was work?”

“Ah, not too bad.” He sets the sushi he made in the middle between them. Zoro likes simpler rolls so he made a salmon and avocado roll, and a crab and cucumber. He also made a rolled omelet because he'd been working to learn it after Zoro mentioned enjoying it in the past. “You?”

Zoro tears his eyes from the food. “Finished a project. So, good, I guess.”

“You're so descriptive,” Sanji says, teasing a little as he hands over the chopsticks and takes his own seat.

Zoro reaches for a piece of omelet and stuffs it in his mouth, no qualms about talking while he chews. “Do you want me to write you a novel?” 

“I like hearing about your day. Is that a problem?” Sanji replies, nudging Zoro’s chopsticks out of the way so he can get a piece of sushi. He could easily choose a different piece but he wants to be a bit of a shit. Zoro grunts and knocks their knuckles together, stealing the piece from under Sanji.

“I don't have a lot to say,” Zoro says, rice-mouthed and casual. “You could tell me more about yours.”

Sanji drops his chin into his hand with a sigh. He was trying to be romantic and considerate but Zoro walked all over that plan. “The woman with the cubicle next to mine got flowers from her boyfriend. She was pretty excited about it. I guess they just started dating so she didn't expect anything.”

Zoro picks up another piece of sushi. He jams it in his mouth. He chews. “Did it make you think about…”

Sanji pokes at the omelet before taking a piece. “Sort of. I don't miss her anymore if that's what you're asking. Not really.”

“It wouldn't be weird if you did,” Zoro acknowledges. “You're Mr. Romance Hero, lifelong vows, heart on your sleeve. You're not just going to get over your wife.”

Sanji’s stomach twists with nerves. He doesn't know if this is the moment to talk about it. His big, heart-swelling feelings. “I don't know. It's been over a year. Why would I sit around pining when there's someone else out there?”

“More fish in the sea you mean?” Zoro asks with a wry twist to his lips.

Sanji knocks their chopsticks together again. “Something like that.”

**

March

Sanji expected to feel worse about turning forty-two, but he just feels a certain sense of satisfaction as his friends all hug him goodnight after dinner at the usual restaurant down by the shore. Luffy is off on another island adventure, but Sanji doesn't mind because he got an enthusiastic happy birthday phone call on his way to work.

“Don't stay out too late, you two,” Nami chides with a smile directed at Zoro and Sanji before falling into step beside Vivi.

Sanji wants to protest the implication, but he is about to drive Zoro home because they came together. 

Usopp and Kaya give them a wave and disappear off towards the parking lot. Sanji tucks his hands tight into his pockets against the early March chill and turns towards Zoro. “Did you want to head home too or…”

“What else would we do?” Zoro says, nudging him towards where they parked the car a few streets over.

“I don't know!” Sanji protests. “Maybe you wanted to stay out.”

“It's Wednesday,” Zoro reminds him as they cross the empty street. “I'm not fielding your whining texts tomorrow because you stayed out too late.”

“I don't whine.”

“I can pull up our text history if you want proof.” Zoro turns to him expectantly when he comes to a stop beside the passenger door of Sanji's car.

“Insufferable,” Sanji says, clicking his key fob to unlock the car.

“Yeah, you are,” Zoro says before swinging himself inside.

Sanji’s heart gives a little excited patter and he gets into the driver's seat. It's not a very long drive to Zoro's house but Sanji’s mind plays out a lot of familiar fantasies. Dropping Zoro off and finally kissing him goodnight. Confessing his feelings here as they drive across town. Reaching for his hand where it's curled on his lap.

He doesn't do any of that. He sits and enjoys the silence, happy to be with Zoro for a few more minutes.

When he pulls into Zoro’s driveway, he expects Zoro to say goodnight and get out of the car immediately. When a beat passes and he doesn't, Sanji puts the car in park and turns to him. “What?”

“You should come inside,” Zoro says, giving Sanji both pause and nearly a heart attack.

“Why?” he asks, trying to sound normal. This does not mean anything. He knows it doesn't. 

Zoro scowls at him. “I have something for your stupid birthday. Don't ask so many questions.”

Heart thumping for a thousand different reasons, Sanji flexes his hands in his lap. “You didn't have to—”

“Just come the fuck inside,” Zoro says with an exasperated sigh.

Sanji shuts up and follows Zoro into his house. He ends up on Zoro's old couch that he's complained about time and again— it's nearly ten years old and the springs under one cushion must be entirely busted. He sits on the other end while Zoro gets whatever gift he's purchased.

Sanji didn't do anything for Zoro's birthday in November. Perhaps he should have. He'd been too caught up in the novelty of his feelings to do anything like that. He'll do better this year.

Zoro comes back into the room with a black roll of fabric that he shoves into Sanji’s hands. It becomes immediately clear to Sanji that he's holding a set of knives and when he unfolds the roll, his breath catches.

“Zoro,” he says as his fingers drift to the handles. “You made these?”

“I'm not going to buy you shitty knives,” Zoro says, crossing his arms and when Sanji looks up at him, he sees the discomfort on his face. 

“I'm going to feel weird using them,” Sanji admits, touching the tip of the paring knife through the sleeve it’s in as Zoro finally sits next to him.

“What else would you do with them?” Zoro asks. He's sitting closer than Sanji expected, the sink of the broken cushion forcing them side to side. “I made them so you could cook with them.”

Sanji is silent. He stares down at the knives for a moment before rolling them up and setting them aside. He gives himself permission —it’s his birthday—to let gravity pull him closer to Zoro. Sanji brushes his fingers over the outside seam of Zoro’s jeans and Zoro shifts slightly but doesn’t pull away. Instead, his hand slips down into the slim space between them on the couch and Sanji lets their fingers touch as he brings his hand beside his, pinkies pressed together. 

He feels like he can’t fucking breathe.

“Thank you,” he says, shocked that his voice comes out normal, if slightly quiet.

“Don't mention it,” Zoro replies and Sanji's heart beats and beats.

**

April

It all spills out of Sanji on April twelfth just after he puts the pasta through the strainer. He turns around to say something to Zoro and sees him filling Umi's bowl without prompting. 

It's too much and Sanji’s thoughts shut down and reboot and he says, “I'm in love with you.”

Zoro stops scratching Umi between the ears and with an agonizing lack of speed looks up at Sanji. “You were married to a woman for fifteen years.”

Sanji’s heart is galloping against his ribs, running an impossible race. He doesn't need to be nervous about this. He knows how Zoro feels. It is wrought with care in each of the knives he presented to Sanji. It unfurls every morning in the way Zoro climbs off the couch even when it makes his back hurt. Zoro might not love him in exactly the same way but there is a depth and breadth of emotion there that means something between them.

“Fourteen,” he corrects as he sets the pasta pot back on the stove. “Why does that matter?”

Zoro rises to his feet. The pasta sauce bubbles away behind Sanji, a low murmur. “I'm not exactly a woman.”

Sanji breathes. “I know.” This, of all things, is easier to explain. “But I miss you when you aren't here. I think about kissing you every time you are. I want to be with you. Really with you.”

Zoro’s face is so blank that Sanji could paint a picture on it. He takes a step forward and nudges Sanji back against the kitchen counter, effectively trapping him into the corner beside the sink.

“Okay,” Zoro says. “So, we date.”

“We date,” Sanji confirms, wrapping his hand tight in the hem of Zoro's faded shirt just so he won't move away.

Zoro touches him too, hands on his hips. The touch is new and shocking, zinging up Sanji's spine even as the warmth grounds him in a way he didn't expect.

“Not that I'm complaining, but why are you bringing this up now?”

“I'm tired of pretending we don't like each other,” Sanji says honestly. What he really wants to be doing is kissing Zoro.

Zoro hangs his head for a moment, hand flexing where it's come to brace on Sanji's hip. “You're so full of yourself. How were you so sure I liked you?”

Sanji knees him in the thigh and Zoro presses their foreheads together probably harder than is warranted. 

“It's not that,” he insists. “It's that I know you. I trust you. You brought me jam.”

“The stupid jam?” Zoro says incredulously. “In October? You've felt this way since October.”

Sanji knees him again. “I was savoring it.”

“Dumbass.”

Sanji readies a retort, but it dies a simple death when Zoro kisses him.

Not even a moment passes before Sanji knows that he will be obsessed with it.

The edge of the sink digs into his lower back but it doesn't matter because all he can focus on is the gentle press of Zoro’s mouth. So soft compared to the way he's holding Sanji so tight. His lips are damp, a wet heat as he kisses him once and then again, mouths parting and coming back together. The way it makes Sanji's body react like an entire symphony striking its first chord is everything Sanji imagined. He remembers feeling this way before. He remembers being in love and wanting. Always wanting.

He grasps at the firm expanse of Zoro’s back, fisting his hands in the worn material of his shirt as he kisses him too. He allows himself to get lost in it, ignoring the fact that the pasta is gumming up in the strainer and the sauce is going to overcook.

He hasn't kissed anyone like this in over a year. He hasn't wanted to. He opens to Zoro easily, kissing back fiercely and with a need built from months of shuttered arousal. His tongue presses into Zoro’s mouth, a soft touch that quickly turns messy when Zoro fucking moans. Sanji licks into the sound, swiping his tongue against Zoro’s again just to see if he can pull free another sweet and filthy noise.

The kiss breaks and Zoro steps back. His ears are pink and Sanji wants to kiss him again so he grasps at his shirt so he can't pull away. “Let's go to bed.”

“You're just going to leave the pasta?” Zoro asks and Sanji groans, releasing him so he can shut off the sauce.

“Zoro,” Sanji says, serious as the grave. “If we eat dinner right now, I will be so distracted that you will want to chuck me out that window. I will toss the pasta in oil and it’ll survive.”

“Am I a bad influence on you?” Zoro asks.

Sanji immediately answers, “Yes.”

The pasta gets oiled. Sanji’s hands get washed and then he gets to tug Zoro back to his bedroom. Once Zoro bumps into the mattress, he drops into a seat onto the bed. Their legs notch together and as Zoro tips his head up to look at Sanji, he runs his hands up the outsides of his thighs. “What do you think, curly?”

Sanji has a strange moment where his throat tightens. Maybe nerves. Maybe too many contradictory emotions. He swallows hard. “I've never done this before.”

“Had sex?” Zoro asks, arching a brow. Then he grins. “No wonder you got divorced.”

Knocking him back with a hand to the shoulder, Sanji chides, “Shut up, you dickhead. I haven't had sex with a man.”

Zoro's smile softens. “I know. Let's just see how it goes. We can just do what we like. You want to have sex, yeah?”

Sanji runs a hand through Zoro's hair, satisfied by the texture there. “I do.”

Zoro slips his palms up Sanji's thighs. “That can be anything.” He taps his fingers on the seams of his pockets. “Hands. Mouths. We've got options.”

Zoro hooks two fingers in the waistband of Sanji’s jeans and tugs. “What do you think?”

“I think we get undressed and see what happens,” Sanji says, pulling away so he can undo the buttons of his shirt. Zoro stands back up and tears his shirt over his head. The minute it's tossed aside, his eyes glue to Sanji’s torso, a look intense enough that Sanji’s face starts to heat. He hasn't blushed in years, and he doesn't want to start now because Zoro of all people is clearly checking him out. But maybe it's because it is Zoro that his body is going haywire.

He drops his gaze and undoes his fly so he can shove down his pants. By the time they're off and pooled on the ground, Zoro is laid out on the pillows in only dark gray boxer briefs. Sanji is momentarily surprised he even had underwear on, but that's wiped away by the picture he paints. He’s tugged down Sanji’s comforter and is comfortable on his white sheets. His golden skin is beautiful and bare and Sanji can see some of the burns on his chest from his work. 

Moving to the bed, Sanji crawls up to lie down next to him. Arousal is starting to bubble in his belly and it's harder to focus on anything else in the face of that. 

“If it's easier for you, you can run the show,” Zoro offers, fingers trailing over Sanji’s hip. “Do whatever you want. I'm pretty game.”

Sanji curls up on his side, allowing himself to face Zoro and Zoro does him the service of rolling to face him as well.

“I think it would be easier if you took charge this first time,” Sanji admits even if it's a little embarrassing.

Zoro is quiet but his fingers continue to play over Sanji's hip in a gentle rhythm. “If you don't like something, just say so.”

“When have I ever kept it to myself when I don't like something?”

Zoro grins, sharp and handsome, before ducking forward to press their mouths together. It's somehow relaxed enough that Sanji finds himself softening under it. He loves kissing. Fuck, he loves kissing. He loves kissing someone he loves.

Zoro’s hand sinks into his hair, tugging him a little closer as their lips part and the kiss deepens. A thrill of novelty passes through Sanji when he runs his hands over Zoro’s chest. He can cup his muscles and thumb his nipples, giving them a light tug, which is familiar. But Zoro’s body is simply different than what he's used to and it excites Sanji in a way he should have expected and yet he didn't at all.

Zoro moans into his mouth at the touch of Sanji’s hand. 

“Are you sensitive?” Sanji asks, nudging his mouth over Zoro’s jaw, interested in the light texture of Zoro’s stubble on his lips, the way it catches on his beard. 

Zoro pushes him onto his back. “I thought you were letting me lead.”

“I didn't think that meant hands to myself,” Sanji says. He runs his hands over the delicious give of Zoro’s belly. He likes the slight softness over his muscles. “You make such cute noises.”

Zoro scowls down at him. “I'm going to get you to make so many noises.”

Sanji ignores the rush of excitement he feels in response to that and the way his dick twitches. “Sure, marimo. Whatever you say.”

“I do say.” Zoro trails his fingers up Sanji's side. He's not ticklish and yet the skin pebbles.

He doesn't wait for a response before beginning to kiss Sanji’s neck, then his collarbones. He traces his waistband with the blunt edge of his nails and says, “Take these off.”

Sanji doesn't hesitate to reach down and peel off his boxers. Zoro rolls to the side to allow space but the moment of separation is brief and when he returns, he simply runs his palm over the exposed line of his hip.

Maybe Sanji should feel naked or embarrassed or nervous but Zoro has seen him in so many states. Drunk off his ass in college. Sobbing incoherently at his wedding. Pathetic and morose and needing a friend.

Especially that last one.

Sanji wraps a hand around the back of Zoro’s neck and tugs him into another kiss. Zoro grunts in surprise but doesn't protest and seems to relax into it when Sanji parts his lips and lets it grow wet, a little needy.

His cock has started to fill against his belly, almost fully hard, and he feels Zoro occasionally bumping against him too. It's enough to set up a simmer of excitement in Sanji’s stomach as he pulls at Zoro's shoulders. 

“I like touching you,” Sanji admits. His hands linger over Zoro's shoulder blades and then he lets them come down to his sides.

Zoro slides down the bed and buries his face in Sanji’s chest. “Fuck, curly.” 

Sanji doesn't know what to do so he runs his hands through Zoro's mossy hair and waits until Zoro finally raises his head to press a kiss to his sternum. “I like touching you too. Tell me what feels good.”

Drawing a line down Zoro’s arm, Sanji hums. “A lot of things. I like kissing “

Zoro grins up at him from where his knobbly, stubbly chin is digging a groove into his chest. “Do you? I couldn't tell.”

Sanji pinches his arm, pleased by his hiss of discomfort. “I like oral. If you need me to be gross about it.”

“Giving or receiving?” Zoro asks.

Sanji answers honestly, “Both.”

“Well, sucking dick is a little different than eating someone out so let me take care of you and we'll see—”

“Who cares?” Sanji asks, wriggling so he can sit up on his elbows. “It might be different, but what if I like it?”

“Are you asking to suck me off, curly?”

“Maybe I am,” Sanji bristles and Zoro’s grin takes on a competitive edge.

“Let's work up to it,” Zoro says. “But first, I'll show you how it's done.”

“I've had my dick sucked, marimo. I know–”

His words wither when Zoro ducks down and licks a wet stripe up his length, tonguing the head briefly before grasping his cock in his hand so he can sink down on it.

Zoro’s mouth is warmer than his hands, furnace-hot, and it's been so long since Sanji has had sex that the sound he makes is equal parts primal and pathetic.

“Zoro,” he gasps, carding his fingers through Zoro’s hair and disturbing his earrings. His thighs shake when Zoro drops all the way down to bury his nose in the hair at the base of Sanji's cock. 

Zoro hums and slides back up to the tip. He darts his tongue over the slit once before doing it all over again. Sanji loses himself to it. He wants to watch because it's only been a few months since he realized how beautiful Zoro is and Zoro keeps glancing up at him with his gorgeous brown eyes, mouth stretched on his dick. It's such a lewd, tantalizing picture. But it also feels too good and Sanji’s eyelids keep flickering shut until it's all he can do to press back into the pillow and gasp Zoro’s name, orgasm building tight between his legs.

“Zoro,” he repeats, this time a warning. “I'm close. Fuck.”

Zoro doesn't stop what he's doing. He continues his steady rhythm. Instead, using his hand to roll his balls gently and then tap a finger just behind them, massaging the sensitive skin there. It sends him over the edge immediately, a groan peeling out of his lungs as his toes curl and he says Zoro’s name a final time.

Zoro works him through it, carefully holding his cock as it softens when he sits up and swallows. The roll of his throat is a terribly erotic sight.

When he moves back up Sanji's limp body, he kisses his cheek, but Sanji makes a noise of protest. “Kiss me for real, marimo.”

“It's going to taste like spunk.”

“I don't care,” Sanji says, pulling at him so he can get his kiss. 

It does taste bad, but there's something intimate about that. Sanji lets them roll onto their sides so Zoro doesn't have to keep holding himself up, blacksmith arms or no.

“You do like kissing,” Zoro says when Sanji finally pulls back to relax against the pillow for a moment.

Sanji flips his earrings between his fingers. “I like how it makes me feel close to the person I love.”

Zoro’s expression changes. Just like in the kitchen, he looks fairly gobsmacked.

“What's so surprising about it, marimo?”

Zoro rolls onto his back to look at the ceiling and Sanji follows, resting his head on his shoulder. Sometimes he and Pudding snuggled like this so it doesn't feel too strange even if Zoro is twice her size.

Zoro's arm comes around his back and he starts to trace idle shapes over his spine. “I was really into you in college.”

It's Sanji’s turn to be shocked. Maybe he should have known, but back when they first met they'd done nothing but snap at each other, competing to be number one in Luffy's friendship before mutually realizing that's not how Luffy kept score. Then they fell to other competitions failing all else. It was only after school—after Luffy left— that their friendship turned into something that other people might recognize as friendship at all.

Sanji’s not going to say any of that.

“Have you been holding a torch for me this entire time?” Sanji teases in favor of lightening the mood. “It must have been a dream come true—”

Zoro pinches his ribs. “I'm not an idiot. It was a stupid crush. I was practically a kid. Then you got married and I got over it.”

“But the feelings came back, didn't they?” Sanji asks, unable to be anything but earnest. He's curious how this happened for Zoro. Maybe it will help him make sense of how it happened for him. “Why?”

“You asked me to dinner. We started hanging out more. I started to think that maybe you weren't as straight as you always said you were.”

That doesn't really illuminate anything. “What made you think that?”

“You started touching me all the time.”

Sanji shuffles through his memories but that doesn't seem right. “What? No, I didn't.”

“I didn't say I minded,” Zoro says. “You can always touch me.”

Sanji buries his face in Zoro's shoulder, surprised to find he likes the way he smells. Masculine sweat and metal. It's a familiar smell after so long around Zoro but less familiar is the bubble of arousal in Sanji’s belly in response to the scent.

“Do you want me to try to suck you off?” Sanji asks.

Zoro’s fingers brush through his hair as Sanji looks back up at him. “Why don't we call it for now and you try next time?”

Sanji kisses one of the scars on Zoro's chest and lingers in the light euphoria that comes at the knowledge there will be a next time. Of course there will be. “Do you want to stay over?”

“You owe me dinner. Why would I leave?”

Sanji rolls his eyes as he sits up. “Get the fuck out of my bed and go brush your teeth.”

Zoro grins but at least he does as Sanji asks.

**

May

Sanji savors the weight of Zoro’s body on top of him, looping his arms around his neck and letting out a soft groan as they kiss. He rocks his hips up against Zoro and feels his dick pressed right up against his own through their underwear.

They'd meant to go to sleep, but it's Saturday and it's not totally uncommon for them to end up kissing a little before falling asleep. Sometimes they grind against each other like this. 

Sanji still hasn't made good on his blow job offer and he really wants to. But he has jerked Zoro off once and they have rubbed their cocks together on Zoro's belly with Sanji in his lap, all lube slick until they came.

They are having sex. It's just clear to Sanji that Zoro’s libido is significantly lower than his. He doesn't initiate. He just follows Sanji’s lead. At first, Sanji thought it was because Zoro was letting him get used to their relationship, but he's come to understand that Zoro doesn't really think about sex the way Sanji does.

“Is it okay if we fool around?” Sanji asks between heavy kisses. 

That's new too. He's never had to ask. Zoro seems so passive in a way that Pudding never was. Sanji doesn't mind exactly. There's something unexpected about it and in that, an inherent sweetness.

“What did you have in mind?” Zoro asks as he rises up on his hands to look down at Sanji. 

Sanji doesn't love the loss of his pinning weight but it does give him the opportunity to knock Zoro onto his back and crawl on top of him, straddling his thighs. “I want to go down on you.”

Zoro blinks up at him. “Oh.”

“Is that all you've got?”

“I won't stop you,” Zoro says as he slips his hands through the ends of Sanji’s hair. 

Sanji runs his fingers down over his belly, enjoying the warmth of his skin and the slight jump of Zoro’s muscles under his touch. His cock is tenting his boxer briefs and there's a dark patch at the very tip, soaking the light blue fabric. It's sexy and obscene. Sanji scoots down the bed to suck on it.

“Holy shit,” Zoro bites out the very moment that Sanji closes his mouth over the fabric. There's deep satisfaction in that.

He does want to shock him. He wants him to fall apart too. Because Zoro can make him fall apart just by grasping his hips and letting their tongues press softly together. It makes him wild and he wants Zoro to feel exactly the same way.

The taste is bitter. Chalky almost. But it's mostly that of fabric and soap as he sucks on the tip of Zoro’s cock through his underwear, letting his mouth grow wet with spit. He might not have done this before in particular but he knows what good oral looks like and at least some similar principles must apply.

Scooping his hands around Zoro's thighs, he squeezes lightly before moving up to trace his tongue up over Zoro's happy trail so he can dip it into his belly button. A hand tangles into his hair and pulls the strands that have fallen from his bun onto the top of his head.

He glances at Zoro.

“If you think I'm not watching every second of this,” Zoro warns.

It makes Sanji laugh, a moment of levity breaking through the storm of arousal. “Do what you want.”

He pushes a light kiss against a mark on Zoro's hip, a little scar he doesn't know the cause of. Then he tugs on Zoro's waistband and together they pull off his last item of clothing.

At this point, Sanji has seen Zoro’s dick several times. He's held it in his hand. Still, every time he sees it, he feels a quiet lurch in his stomach. It's another distant roll of thunder in that storm. He wants Zoro.

It's easy then to slide back down and slowly spread his legs apart, hot kisses pushed along his inner thighs before he starts to lick up the line of Zoro’s dick. He lets it be a bit like eating pussy, but he also tries to do what he likes when someone sucks him off. Wet, drooling kisses to the head. Open-mouthed, sucking pulls on his sac. Zoro seems to like it, hand everpresent in Sanji’s hair, small moans drawn up from his chest.

Sanji loves how expressive he is in bed. The right touch and out comes some sweet sound. 

Finally, he grasps Zoro’s cock in his hand, once more overtaken by the size of it, a few inches too long for his palm—and it's not like his hands are small. But he wants to try to take it in his mouth. As much as he can at least.

The moment he takes Zoro in, he's abruptly reminded of the brief period when he was quitting smoking several years back and, in an effort to replace the habit, had tried to suck on lollipops whenever the urge struck. Zoro in particular had mocked him for having “an oral fixation.” 

It strikes him now when Zoro's dick slides into his mouth and his own cock pulses with the sheer enjoyment of the sensation that he might have been right. It stretches his lips, heavy on his tongue, different than the effort of licking into a cunt but just as good. It tastes and smells of spit and sex and Zoro. Sanji starts to get dizzy with it as he takes him in deeper, letting his drool run down his shaft to slick his fist.

“Oh, fuck, Sanji,” Zoro breathes, hand momentarily going tight in his hair before releasing and then readjusting.

Sanji pulls off with a sharp gasp, spit still connecting his lips to the head of Zoro’s cock. “What do you like?” he asks as he strips his length with his hand.

“Don't ask me that,” Zoro says, half a whine as he finally releases Sanji’s hair so he can toss a hand over his face. 

“I thought you were going to watch,” Sanji teases before working his tongue down over the head of Zoro’s cock where it's exposed over the foreskin. 

“Why are you still talking?” 

Sanji mouths down the shaft before rising up on his knees. He pulls his hair free before once more tugging it back into a more effective ponytail. “Because it pisses you off.”

It's easier the second time to take more. To shove past the barrier at the back of his tongue that says it's too much and that he needs to stop. He thinks back on what Zoro had done to get him off and he sucks gently, rising up to the tip before dropping back down. He finds delight in the sound Zoro makes, in the small rise of his hips and the twitch in his thighs. He likes the burst of salt on his tongue.

When he finally pushes too far and gags, Zoro makes a choked noise that Sanji wants to hear again despite the unpleasant sensation in his throat. He pulls off, breathing hard as his stomach settles back into place.

“Is there a trick to that?” Sanji asks hoarsely and when Zoro's eyes meet his, they are glassy, complimenting the flush crawling up his face to his ears. He hasn't seen Zoro get embarrassed for a long time. He used to enjoy prodding the emotion out of him but this is gorgeous and arousing and he wants to bite down on his sweaty throat.

“Your dick is smaller than mine,” Zoro wheezes. “So it’s easier.”

Sanji pinches his hip meanly which earns him an interesting twitch in Zoro's cock. 

Zoro blows out a breath. “You don't have to deep throat for it to be good.”

Sanji hums. Maybe not today but he will learn how to do this. He's always been good at giving head and that's not going to stop just because he’s working with cock instead of cunt.

So for now he lets it go, instead working Zoro with his hand for a moment, palm eased by spit before he finally ducks to swallow him back into his mouth. He relaxes into the rhythm of it, bobbing his head and closing his eyes. He lets Zoro’s sounds guide him. The hitches in his breathing. His drawn out groans. He likes when he finally breaks and swears over and over, Sanji’s name so sweet in his mouth.

“Sanji,” he warns, legs twitching hard as he reaches for his hair. Sanji considers if he really wants to take Zoro’s semen into his mouth, but he's curious. He's horny. His dick aches. 

So he keeps going and when the heat of Zoro’s come fills his mouth, he fucking chokes. But that choking comes with an odd rising heat between his legs. It turns him on, he realizes. Even if he wasn't prepared for the rush of bitter salt.

He sits back and swallows, a mess of come on his chin and slowly dripping down his neck. Zoro is breathing hard. His cock is softening against his belly, spit wet and spunk covered.

“How was it?” Sanji asks as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He needs to gargle with something.

“Give me five minutes,” Zoro groans and all Sanji can do is laugh.

**

June

Sanji wants Zoro to fuck him.

He's made the monumental mistake of starting to watch gay porn which brings him to the further monumental realization that he is very bisexual and whatever attraction he has to Zoro isn't a one and done. He likes big muscled dudes with fat cocks. Okay.

It's a lot easier to swallow that realization after literally swallowing a cock. He's glad he has Zoro to push into bed and nibble on and bruise whenever he feels like even if it gets him raised eyebrows afterwards. Like Zoro knows he's going through it.

“How are you horny every time I see you?” Zoro asks when Sanji starts to pull him towards the bedroom before he's even finished taking off his shoes.

“Good blood flow,” Sanji says. “Strong imagination.”

Zoro extracts his hand from Sanji’s grasp and grabs him in a winding hug. “Can we eat first at least? I'm tired and I missed lunch.”

Hooking his chin over Zoro’s shoulder, Sanji returns the embrace. Zoro smells of his workshop. All metal and ash. There's sweat threaded through the smell but Sanji doesn't mind. He sometimes wants to shove his face right into Zoro’s neck and absorb the smell into his lungs so that it never leaves.

“You shouldn't skip meals,” he admonishes, rubbing softly over the spot in Zoro’s back that he once confessed gets sore.

“I got busy with the piece I'm working on and I wanted to make it over here in time,” Zoro says.

Sanji pulls away just so he can head into the kitchen to dish up the curry he made. He was going to leave it until after they fooled around but he doesn't mind eating first. 

“If you're too busy, you don't have to come over,” Sanji chides as he gets down bowls.

Zoro trails after him. “I wanted to see you.”

Sanji knows that Zoro feels the same way he does. He hasn't said the words exactly but he drops shit like that all the time. And whenever he does, Sanji's heart fills up and threatens to spill over. 

He hands off a bowl of beef curry and rice. Zoro takes it without saying anything before heading over to the table. Umi makes an appearance and winds around his legs when he sits down.

Sanji wants Zoro to fuck him, but it can wait because this just might be better.

**

July

“Do we have to tell them?” Zoro asks with a grimace as they stand outside of Usopp’s house, holding a gift for Banchina's birthday. 

“I think they already know,” Sanji replies. “Either that or the whole Zosanji thing is just them riling me up.”

“They're definitely riling you up,” Zoro says, mouth tipped in a smirk.

“And it doesn't piss you off at all?” Sanji counters.

“Shit about you usually pisses me off so what's one more thing?” 

Sanji snatches the gift from Zoro’s hands or he tries, but Zoro holds it out of the way. Sanji drops his hands to his hips and frowns at him. “Are you kidding?”

Zoro ducks in and kisses the frown on his face, drawing out such a surprised sound from Sanji that he almost chokes.

“Are you guys going in or are you going to make out on the porch?”

Sanji peels away from Zoro and turns wide eyes on Nami who looks back in wry amusement. Vivi is on her heels, obvious delight on her face. 

“Congratulations,” she says, kind as always.

Sanji’s face burns. It's not that he's embarrassed about being with Zoro. There's something exciting about it actually. He wants to sit down and tell people that he's dating someone he's known for over twenty years. That his partner is a hot blacksmith who always burns the eggs when he tries to make breakfast. And that Sanji loves him.

It's more that he didn't expect to have Nami of all people—the only other person he's ever kissed besides Pudding—discover them in the middle of something like that.

Nami smiles at him and places a hand on his arm. “I'm happy for you, Sanji.”

It's when she breezes past and into Usopp’s house that Zoro leans over and stage whispers, “I don't trust it.”

Sanji stomps on his foot. “Don't question Nami.”

**

August

Zoro’s hair has gotten too long. Sanji knows this because he's busy tugging on it while Zoro swallows around his dick and the strands keep slipping through his fingers. His arms are wrapped around the bottom of Sanji's thighs, allowing Zoro to hook his legs over his back as he works his cock.

They've had plenty of sex since Sanji finally said something in April, but he still hasn't managed to ask for what he's been fantasizing about. He's even started using his own fingers when he masturbates, but he's not as flexible as he used to be and his arms get tired. He wants Zoro to do it. He wants him to do it yesterday.

Sanji groans as his cock pulses against the roof of Zoro’s mouth. He pulls on Zoro's hair and relishes the wet gasp of Zoro letting his cock fall from his mouth, followed by the lewd slap of it against his stomach.

“What if—”

He breaks off when Zoro nuzzles his thigh.

“Stop that,” Sanji says, twitching a little. “I’m trying to talk.”

Zoro smirks and nips his inner thigh, but he does stop, readjusting to let Sanji's legs down to the bed so he can listen.

“Would you ever want to have sex?”

Zoro gives him the most unimpressed look Sanji has ever seen. “What do you think we're doing?”

“I mean—” Sanji rolls his eyes. “That I want to fuck.”

Eyebrows climbing, Zoro sits all the way up so he can drop his hands to the crests of Sanji’s hip bones. “I like the shit we do. But if you want, you can fuck me.”

Sanji wiggles up so he can sit against the headboard. His erection is dying, but he's pretty sure that's temporary. “I was hoping you'd fuck me.”

“Huh?”

If Zoro looked surprised before, it has nothing on the incredulity that drops over his expression.

“I've been watching porn—”

Zoro slams his hand into his forehead. “Why am I not surprised?”

Sanji slaps his shoulder. “What's that supposed to mean? Don't make that face at me.”

“It means once a pervert always a pervert,” Zoro says but there's nothing mean about it. He pets a hand down Sanji’s thigh and Sanji traces his knuckles with the tips of his fingers.

Zoro is so beautiful. Sanji likes the streaks of gray in his green hair. He likes the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes. Zoro always looks at him like he's the only thing that exists in the room, focused and thoughtful. It's a sweet sort of honor to be the center of his attention. It was probably what made Sanji fall in the first place. One of many things. That simple act of feeling seen.

“I watched it because I was curious if it was more than just you,” Sanji admits as Zoro thumbs the soft skin of his hip.

“And?” Zoro asks it without judgment and Sanji knows no matter how he answers, Zoro won't mind.

“I guess I forgot to notice I'm attracted to men.”

Zoro laughs. He laughs so hard he ends up clutching at one side of his chest, fingers splayed. “You would be so obsessed with your wife that you wouldn't look around.”

Sanji crooks his knee so he can knock it against Zoro. “Hey, I noticed other women.” Zoro gives him a doubtful look. “Sometimes.”

Zoro chuckles again but this time he moves up Sanji's body and falls down on one hand so that he can kiss up the side of Sanji's neck. “There’s nothing wrong with loving hard. It's just the way you are.”

Sanji tips his head back, giving Zoro more room to work. The sensation of his mouth pressing down on the thin skin of his throat once more pools heat between his legs and he cants his hips up against Zoro's, savoring the bump of Zoro’s cock against his. It's damp with sweat and precome, but not wet enough to ease the drag of their skin together.

“Do you want to do it or not?” Sanji asks, digging his fingers into the scant softness at Zoro's hips. 

Zoro hums gently against his skin. “Tap out if you hate it.”

An evasive answer but an answer all the same. It sends a thrill up Sanji's spine and makes his cock pulse as Zoro urges him to roll over.

“On your stomach, curly. You'll like it better if I'm not twisting your legs around.”

Sanji wants to complain about how this makes it harder to kiss, but for this first time he will defer to Zoro's expertise. He and Pudding never had anal sex. She didn't want to and he wasn't going to press it. He liked all the other things they did. He liked making love to her. He'll like making love to Zoro too when they get around to it. It's just that if he doesn't have this particular fantasy fulfilled soon, he's going to wank himself raw.

Zoro pulls out of bed for a moment and Sanji tips his head onto his folded arms to watch him dig around in the bedside table for lube. He pauses for a moment. “You don't have condoms.”

Sanji rises up on his hands. “Oh, baby, are you worried about getting me pregnant?” he coos and Zoro whacks him on the ass with the bottle of lube. Sanji squawks and smacks his hand away.

“Can't you take a joke?” Sanji says.

“I'm asking,” Zoro says, “because some people don't like how it feels to have come leaking out of their ass.”

“How am I supposed to know if I like that or not?” Sanji asks archly. 

“I'm trying to be considerate,” Zoro says as he slides back in next to him, tucking the sheets further down as he goes. “Would you relax? This is going to suck if you're wound up.”

“You wound me up,” Sanji grouses under his breath, but he does lay back on his stomach, enjoying the soft pass of Zoro’s hands on his back. It thumps blood heavily in his cock and he allows himself a few indulgent grinds against the mattress.

“Already enjoying yourself?”

“You're just petting me,” Sanji points out.

Zoro presses a kiss in the middle of his spine before shamelessly groping his ass. It's a new sensation. His wife had touched him there occasionally, mostly grabbing him when they fucked, urging him to move faster. But not this indulgent squeeze. It tickles and turns him on simultaneously, making the top of his back arch as his forehead drops onto his arms.

Zoro’s thumbs push into the meat of his backside, pulling him open. It's exposing in some ways, but it's also what he signed up for. He hears the click of the lube cap. Then the slick, cool press of Zoro’s fingers tracing his hole makes him shiver.

This is better than when he does it. He sighs, shuddering into the mattress as his hips twitch.

“You're really sensitive,” Zoro says, awe in his voice. 

Sanji wants to say something back— that's what they do: give and take. But he's melting a little, entirely distracted. Then Zoro presses the tip of one finger inside him, pausing to let him get used to it. Sanji fists the sheets.

“You can go faster,” he manages to croak.

Zoro at least obeys and sinks his finger in deeper. Sanji can tell he's seeking his prostate on each gentle thrust, a soft curve of his finger hooking down until finally he presses a second finger inside and—

“Fuck—”

Sanji tries to twist around on instinct as his legs tense and his cock jerks against the bed, spilling precome over the sheets. But Zoro’s hand presses down into the middle of his back to hold him still as he thrusts in again, and Sanji cries out, sinking his teeth into his hand.

This is miles better than when he did it himself.

Without meaning to, Zoro’s name falls from his mouth. Over and over, muffled into the skin of his hand as he works his hips back into his fingers, hungry for more. He didn't know his body could feel like this.

He has always loved sex. He probably always will. What's wrong with enjoying all the ways his body can feel good? But how has he missed this entirely different facet of pleasure?

Zoro grips his hip and fucks him a little deeper, not faster or harder, simply opening him with a determination so stereotypically Zoro that Sanji closes his eyes at the thought of what that determination means for being fucked.

“Can you—”

He was about to ask for Zoro's cock but a third finger slips into his hole and he huffs hard, moaning around the stretch. He never managed three by himself. It's strange. Zoro angles down on his prostate and Sanji kicks the bed.

The mattress shifts and dips and Zoro presses up against his side so he can kiss his shoulder. “Feeling okay?”

Sanji makes an unintelligible noise that makes Zoro snort against his skin. “Good to know.”

His fingers slip free and he's back behind Sanji. Once more there's the click of the lube bottle. He expects Zoro to pull him onto his hands and knees but he adjusts his hips only slightly, knocking a pillow beneath him.

His hands are back on his ass, one thumb pulling on his hole and Sanji is gasping because Zoro’s cock is so warm as it pushes against him—into him. This is nothing like he imagined. He feels split open. Skewered and stretched. But also Zoro is inside him. 

It's that same overwhelming feeling he always gets from sex. It rushes over him as he keens and slaps his hand back behind him. He wants Zoro to hold it. He needs Zoro to hold it.

Thank fuck, Zoro seems to understand as he twists their fingers together, pushing their joined hands into the bed as he rocks into Sanji. He's not fully inside, letting Sanji adjust as he grips one of his hips and continues to squeeze his hand.

He only starts to thrust in deeper when Sanji looses a high whine and tries to shift his hips. It's a sound he’s not sure he's made before but he doesn't care very much if it gets him what he wants which is an indulgent rock of Zoro’s body against his and— finally —the press of Zoro’s pelvis against his ass. 

It's slow. It's Zoro releasing his hand and hooking his arm around Sanji's chest so he can press their bodies together while they move. Sanji understands why Zoro propped him up on the pillow because the angle presses him against his prostate with each stroke.

Sanji might be choking because this is not like the porn he watched. This is tender and sweet and it makes him feel like he is so incredibly treasured. Not that he expected Zoro to pound him and call it good, but he'd expected some rough treatment. A little at least. He'd been excited by it—not that he would say it.

But this has him spiraling in a different way. He's tossed in a sea of emotion that he knew he felt, but being reminded is almost too overwhelming. He grabs Zoro’s arm and tucks his head down, instead letting his pleasure crest as each of Zoro’s thrusts grinds his cock into the pillow and sends him closer to orgasm.

Zoro presses his mouth up against his ear, breath a soft huff of exertion. “How do you feel?”

“Fucking great,” Sanji admits between his own gasps. He feels chewed up. He doesn't know if he's going to survive this.

“I'm not gonna last if you keep making noises like that,” Zoro warns and Sanji didn't even realize he was making noises.

He shakes his head, hair finally falling free of the bun he'd pulled it into. “Just fuck me.”

Zoro nudges his mouth against Sanji’s throat. “If you turn your head, you can kiss me.”

So Sanji does and that is his undoing. Their mouths meet and he becomes utterly aware of everywhere their bodies touch. The slickness of Zoro’s chest against his back. The spread of his hands on his hip, on his chest. Everytime his cock slides home, Sanji imagines he can feel the heat, the subtle throb of blood. 

He's never felt more in love with Zoro than he does in this moment.

And he comes, body shaking, to the abrupt thought: I want to marry him.

“Holy shit, you're so tight,” Zoro groans as they seperate and his mouth comes down to scrape over Sanji’s shoulder.

Sanji loses a moment of time to the spots in his vision and the twitch in his limbs but when he comes back to himself, Zoro has dropped his forehead against his back and he's breathing hard, hips still.

He's a little disappointed he missed the end.

He doesn't so much like the feeling of Zoro pulling out and Zoro was right, the mess of come between his legs feels strange even if there's a tingly warmth to the knowledge that a part of Zoro is still inside him.

Zoro snorts as he climbs out of bed, leaving Sanji in a heap atop his come-covered pillow.

“I take it you liked that.”

Sanji tips his head to look at Zoro. “I fucking loved it.”

**

September

Sanji looks up when Zoro pushes open the sliding screen door, but he doesn't stop stirring the mushroom soup. It's a new recipe and he wants to get it right.

“Smells good,” Zoro says, brushing some sweat off his face with his shoulder. “Do I have time to shower?”

“It'll be done in ten minutes. Can you shower in ten minutes?”

Zoro scoffs, already halfway down the hall towards the bathroom. “It's like you don't even know me.”

“Wash your fucking balls!” Sanji yells after him, shaking his head when he hears Zoro call him a dirty word in response.

He's inevitably ended up spending more time at Zoro's house since it didn't make sense for Zoro to constantly be traveling over to his place when he was working on projects late into the evening. But what that meant was sometimes Sanji would be forced to haul over some kitchen supplies or leave behind toiletries he'd rather not buy two of.

He whisks sour cream slowly into the soup and thinks, not for the first time, that it might be nice not to have to haul his shit back and forth. He has a silly fantasy he plays over in his head about moving into Zoro’s house, about waking up together everyday and planning renovations and buying a new couch and—

He tries not to focus on it too much.

It's just as he's clicking off the burner that Zoro emerges from the hall shirtless with his hair barely dried. He wanders over to Sanji, smelling sharply of cottony soap, and hooks his chin over his shoulder to peer into the pot.

“Mushrooms, huh?”

“They were on sale at the market,” Sanji explains, reaching back to scrub at his head. Zoro grunts and pulls away to get down the bowls. Sanji hides a smile as he trades a spoon for a ladle—Zoro at least has one of those.

Zoro hands off the bowls and Sanji fills them one by one before they move to the table. It's quiet but he doesn't mind. Sometimes he forgets that they've only been officially really dating for five months because in his head he's had these bubbly, warm feelings for a year.

Sanji has never been one for slow relationships. He asked Nami out after meeting her the second time. They fizzled after three weeks. Pudding was the same and he asked her to marry him two months in and the only reason they waited was because she wanted to finish culinary school and he wouldn't dream of pressuring her.

Sanji is fast. Zoro once said he loves hard and that is more than true. Except this love with Zoro, by comparison, is so very slow. He wonders if it is because Zoro is slow. If his methodical nature has bled into their romance and slowed down the way Sanji wants to blow him over like a hurricane.

None of that stops Sanji from saying, over bowls of creamy mushroom soup, “Do you want to get married?”

Zoro doesn't even look at him when he replies, “Not really.”

Sanji’s pretty new couch picture dissolves in his head. He stands and takes his bowl into the kitchen. “Right.”

It's a fair rejection. He knows that. It also makes his heart crumple like a wet paper bag so he focuses on rinsing out his soup bowl, only belatedly realizing that he didn't eat very much of it. He sets it aside so he doesn't waste it.

He clears his throat as he changes course to wash the cutting board. “Why not?”

Zoro picks up his bowl and follows after him. “I just never have. It sounds like a nightmare. If I want to be with someone then I'm with them.”

Sanji turns and leans back against the counter to face him. He has a bone to pick with that. “It's romantic.”

Zoro sets his bowl down on the counter with a sharp clink of his spoon. He advances on Sanji, expression falling into serious lines. “Sanji. Were you asking me to marry you?”

“And?” Sanji replies before knocking Zoro back so he can finish cleaning off the table.

Hands immediately grab his waist and yank him back against Zoro's chest. “I don't want to get married,” Zoro says again. “But I want to be with you for the rest of my life.”

Sanji sags in his hold. He understood where Zoro was coming from when he said no but his heart wants to hear words like this. He'd always rather hear words like this.

“That sounds like marriage,” Sanji says, turning in his embrace.

Zoro rubs a hand up his back. “That shit’s stupid. I say I'm gonna be with you then I'm with you. That's it.”

Sanji realizes then that maybe he was wrong. It's not that Zoro has been slow. It's simply that he doesn't want to move because he's happy exactly where he is, Sanji’s little hurricane or no.

“As long as you don't have some stupid rule against living together then I'm fine with that.”

“Oh, yeah, we can do that whenever.” Zoro pulls away briefly to cock his head. “Did you want to move in?”

Sanji twists one of his nipples a little meanly. “Yes, you dumbass.”

**

October

Sanji scowls at the bolognese recipe he's scrawled out in his recipe notebook. He found it online and when he made it the night before there had been something wrong with it that he couldn't put his finger on. He taps the back of his pen against the paper and grunts in irritation.

“If you frown any harder at that notebook, you'll light it on fire,” Zoro says from where he's sitting on Sanji's couch reading on his phone. Umi is curled up at his hip and Zoro idly scratches his ears. 

“I want to fix that sauce recipe from yesterday but I'm trying to figure out what was wrong with it,” Sanji explains. The pen in his hand goes between his teeth for a moment so that he can worry the back of it.

“Tasted fine to me,” Zoro says but he does put down his phone and look over at him.

“It could have tasted better.”

Zoro is quiet for a moment and Sanji scribbles out a few options in the margins—more garlic, different broth. Then Zoro interrupts his thoughts again. “Before you took that accounting job, you worked at a restaurant, right?”

“Oh yeah,” Sanji answers immediately. “Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be a chef.”

Zoro stands and wanders over to the table. He comes to a stop behind Sanji to look at what he is writing. “Why didn't you keep with that? You're good at it.”

“Ah, well.” Sanji suddenly feels awkward. They've had enough conversations about Sanji’s ex-wife that he knows Zoro thinks he didn't stick up for himself. “Pudding wanted to open a bakery and I wanted to support that. Accounting was more stable. It used my degree. You know.”

To his surprise, Zoro doesn't say anything snide. He slides into the chair across from Sanji and grabs his notebook so he can thumb through it, not even asking permission. The mannerless oaf.

“You're not with Pudding anymore,” Zoro says, striking with that blunt simplicity he always has right at the heart of the matter.

“What?” Sanji asks with a scoff because that's easier than entertaining what Zoro is suggesting. “Am I suddenly supposed to switch careers? Open a restaurant?”

Zoro shrugs and pushes the notebook back across the table. “You could. Or something else if you didn't want to go that far. Don't people write their recipes online these days?”

Sanji blinks down at his messy, cobbled together book of recipes that he began to put together over the last two years. 

He could do that.

**

November

Zoro curls a little deeper into the couch and lets out a sigh, head resting on Sanji's lap. He continues to run his fingers through Zoro’s hair gently and he ignores the fact that his dick is hard.

He's come to understand that sex with Zoro is first of all, amazing and second, occasional. More often than not, they end up doing things like this. Cuddling. Or kissing.

Sanji is not complaining. He got used to a new pattern of self-love when he was single and it's more important to be in a relationship with Zoro than to harass him about sex at every turn.

“You're horny, aren't you?” Zoro asks, half asleep and not even opening his eyes.

Except sometimes Zoro sniffs it out like an erection-seeking bloodhound.

Sanji trails his fingers down the side of his neck. “It's your birthday. Don't worry about it. We were out late.”

And they had been. Sanji had kindly vetoed the usual dinner with friends in order to take Zoro to the museum downtown because the current traveling display is Pirate Age weaponry. He'd been like a kid in a candy store and is now suffering the subsequent tuckered out consequences just like a toddler.

Shrugging off Sanji’s touch, Zoro sits up with a grunt and a cute, sleepy blink. “C'mon, curly, let's have sex.”

Sanji stands with a little laugh. “Let’s get you to bed. How about that?”

Zoro grumbles but doesn't protest further as Sanji bundles him back to bed. They make a pit stop in the bathroom and brush their teeth and when Sanji finally tumbles Zoro into bed, he wraps Sanji so tightly in his arms that his heart feels like it might burst.

Who needs sex when he has this?

(They fuck in the morning anyway.)

 **

December

Sanji gently puts down Umi's carrier in Zoro's spare bedroom. He's meowing fiercely but Sanji knows he'll adjust soon. The whole house smells like Zoro who Umi is obsessed with and now that they're in an actual house, Sanji bought him a cat tree which is placed in the front window so he can watch Zoro’s bird feeder. He's going to live like a king.

“Yeah, yeah, calm down, buddy.”

Sanji’s lease had come up at the end of November so it just made sense for them to make the move they had been casually talking about.

Sanji is thrilled.

Zoro is… enigmatically making space for Sanji in his life.

There's a sharp knock at the door and Umi lets out a despondent chirp.

“Hold on,” Sanji says to both of them before bending down to unclick the door to the carrier. Umi rockets out and immediately huddles under the bed, making Sanji laugh.

Knowing it's a good idea to leave him in a smaller space to adjust, he opens the door and scoots out into the hallway before shutting it behind him.

“What's up?” he asks Zoro who has an amused look on his face.

“Everything's unpacked except your precious kitchen shit,” Zoro says.

Sanji slings his arms around Zoro's waist and drags him into a tight hug which just gets him a questioning noise.

“Don't call it kitchen shit. I need that stuff if I'm going to start taking photos for the blog,” he admonishes into the fabric of Zoro’s t-shirt where he's buried his nose against the top of his shoulder.

“What's the preferred term then, curly?”

“Beloved utensils,” Sanji says decisively.

“You're a freak.”

Sanji kisses him before pinching him in the ass. “And you're going to help this freak unpack his kitchen.”

Zoro scowls but doesn't protest as he follows Sanji down the hall.

**

Twenty Years Later

Sanji wakes to the sound of his alarm, momentarily confused as to why it's going off on a Saturday before remembering he has plans.

“Shut that thing off. It's too early,” Zoro complains, rolling over and tossing an arm over his waist. He buries his face in the pillow beside Sanji’s head which forces Sanji to pull away so he can sit up.

“We have to get up, you bag of bones,” Sanji says, shoving his cold toes against Zoro's calves. “Or do you want Aoi to think we forgot her?”

Zoro groans and rolls back over, letting his arm flop over his face. “Why did she have to go to school four hours away?”

“It's better than in the North Blue or something.” Sanji gets out of bed and stretches, savoring the crack in his back as he yawns. “I'm going to shower but once I'm out, I'm kicking you out of bed.”

Zoro lets out a mighty snore, already dead to the world, so Sanji fishes out a new pair of underwear from the dresser before ambling into the bathroom.

Driving four hours north isn't his favorite thing either but having his daughter home for her spring break is so he won't complain too much. He can leave that to Zoro even if he knows that the stupid marimo is just as excited to have their daughter back home for a few days.

He's halfway through shampooing his hair when the bathroom door opens. He can't open his eyes but he can hear the sounds of Zoro brushing his teeth before the shower door creaks open and he feels the burst of cool air as Zoro steps in with him.

“Decide to join the land of the living?” Sanji asks, moving to rinse the soap from his eyes.

Zoro presses up against his back and nudges his nose behind his ear.

“Wait a fucking second,” Sanji says, not sure what has Zoro so handsy this early when he was just bitching and moaning in bed, but he doesn't want to blind himself so he finishes rinsing off before turning to face him.

Zoro snags a minty kiss. “Happy anniversary.”

Sanji blinks at him. “What?”

Zoro frowns. “Anniversary, curly.”

“No, it's not. Our anniversary is April twelfth and today is—”

It hits Sanji that he has fucked up. He's been so focused on thinking of this as the day they are picking up Aoi that he forgot their anniversary.

They started dating on April twelfth. Sanji always remembers their anniversary. The very first year they were together Sanji dragged Zoro to a climbing gym and then they went out to sushi after, all sweaty as they got a little drunk on sake. One year Sanji did get Zoro flowers and he had laughed and laughed and laughed.

Just like he's doing now, great guffaws that scrunch up his face and dig out the grooves of his crow's feet. “I can't believe you were the first to forget.”

“Shut up,” Sanji grouses. “We can do something next weekend. After we drop Aoi back at school.”

Zoro’s laughter fades and he hooks an arm around Sanji's waist. “I don't actually care, curly. Do whatever you want.”

Sanji tugs Zoro closer as his heart starts to beat a little faster. It's all that warm skin, slick now with water as Sanji passes his hands down over Zoro’s chest, his belly and settling onto his hips. Twenty years together and it's clear on Zoro's body that his partner is someone who feeds him well. Sanji loves it. The evidence of how well he cares for Zoro writ over his very being.

“What happened to needing to get ready?” Zoro chides as Sanji sneaks his hand lower and shamelessly gropes his cock. He's not hard yet but Sanji has no doubts he can get him there.

Sanji presses a kiss to his neck. “We've got time, marimo.”

And they do.