Archive of Our Own

Zoro’s judgments are always quick, and nearly always correct.

Sure, anyone could have seen the determination and sincerity shining from Luffy like the rays of the sun. But Zoro had also seen the quick, strategic thinking hidden underneath all of Usopp’s rambling. Zoro had known immediately that Nami was lying to all of them— lying and keeping secrets. It’s not Zoro’s fault that those secrets ended up justifying all of the lies. It doesn’t make Zoro wrong in his initial assessment of her.

Where it gets complicated is the goddamn waiter. The problem with him— with Sanji— is that Zoro’s impression of him refuses to settle. As a literal waiter, he’d be both caustic and ridiculous. As a fighter, he’s showy but can back that up with skill and strength. As a crewmate, he’s— frustrating.

Zoro would like to write him off entirely, but for some godforsaken reason Luffy likes him. Zoro does not trust Luffy more than his own instincts, but the two are rapidly becoming equal.

But even Luffy’s good opinion doesn’t stop Zoro from rolling his eyes when he realizes the waiter is missing from the celebration at Coco Village. The food had been served long ago, all of it enthusiastically devoured, and Sanji no longer mans his station, serving.

And what is that about, anyway? The man bristles when you call him a waiter, but Zoro has seen him serving more than actually cooking. He never seems particularly mad about it, either, as long as there’s a woman within ten feet of him, waiting for that service.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe Sanji has been summarily rejected by literally every adult woman in the village, and he’s sulking off somewhere to nurse his wounds.

Zoro would leave it at that, except— there are two figures walking back towards the town center from one of the further houses.

The first of them is a woman who’s probably in her forties. She wears it well, with her thick brown hair falling straight down her back and her chin held high. She’s got her hand tucked into the crook of Sanji’s elbow as the two of them walk together.

The waiter himself is half-dressed, at least by his own standards. He’s lost his blazer and tie somewhere, rolled his shirtsleeves up past his elbows. He’s completely turned towards the woman, listening to her with rapt attention and his blue eye shining like a silver coin in the moonlight.

The two of them stop at the village center— or what would serve as the center, if the village wasn’t currently made up of more burned out houses than functional buildings. The woman has to stand on the balls of her feet to reach up and plant a kiss on Sanji’s cheek.

“You’re a good boy,” she tells him, while he immediately goes red and flustered. “Thank you for everything.”

With that, she turns down a different pathway, towards another of the houses that’s miraculously still standing after the fishmen’s rampage.

Zoro isn’t sure what he just witnessed. Surely, surely, definitely, Sanji and that woman hadn’t—? But they’d been gone for over an hour, and Sanji had come back half-dressed, and now he’s standing dumbly in the village center and fumbling as he takes his lighter from his pocket. Downright bashful.

It’s impossible. But maybe Sanji’s compulsive adoration of women extends to those that are twice his age.

“Is this a thing you do?” Sanji asks blandly into the night air. “Just watch people all night?”

Zoro isn’t embarrassed at being caught. He strides towards Sanji, into the light, and shrugs.

“Keeping an eye on things is my job,” he says. He won’t apologize for scrutinizing Sanji, or any of the rest of them. Maybe after today no one is keeping secrets, but if there’s anything else that could go wrong and tip the entire crew into a bad situation, Zoro has to be the one who sees it first.

It’s only been a few days. He can’t think of Sanji as anything but an unknown variable. Like looking out the window and seeing clouds gathering overhead— maybe they’ll float by, not interrupting anything as they go, or they’ll turn dark at a moment’s notice and bring torrential rainfall. Sanji is a cloud just beginning to gray, no telling which way it's going.

Sanji laughs, interrupting Zoro’s thoughts. Hands cupped around a cigarette, he flicks his lighter on and then off again in one smooth movement. He brings the cigarette to his lips and inhales deeply.

“I think it might do you some good to relax a bit, mosshead.” Sanji’s grin, around the cigarette, is lopsided.

Zoro huffs. “That was your idea of relaxing?” He juts his chin in the direction the woman had gone.

Sanji blows out a breath, cocks an eyebrow in question. “That was being polite. Don’t they teach manners on whatever stone you grew up on?”

“Yeah. I’m sure Nami’s gonna be real pleased to hear how polite you were to one of her aunts, or something.”

“Really, what is your— oh. You’ve got to be joking. You’re not actually that dim, are you?”

Zoro growls on instinct, responding to the insult before processing Sanji’s words.

“Someone had to help that lovely woman do the dishes, you idiot. What, you think a party for the entire village just evaporated?” Sanji gestures with one hand, smoke following his motion.

Okay. So maybe that makes a bit more sense than any sentient woman actually agreeing to fuck the waiter. But what, he’d forgone another drink or dance in order to follow a woman to her kitchen and wash dishes for her? That’s hardly obvious.

But maybe it should have been. He’d thought so earlier, hadn’t it? Sanji is always serving someone.

“It is, though.” Sanji takes another long drag of his cigarette.

“Excuse me?”

“My idea of relaxation.” Sanji looks Zoro up and down, and there’s absolutely no misinterpreting that.

—

Sanji puts his lips around Zoro’s cock like he’s doing him a goddamn favor.

Zoro’s back hits a wall that’s barely still standing, only two sides of the house left, but it’s stable enough to hold his weight as his eyes fall closed and his head falls back.

Sanji’s on his knees in front of him. In the barely-there morning light, Zoro can’t even enjoy the image fully. But does he need to see anything, with the way Sanji’s lips are stretched wide over his cock? The way his tongue skips over the head?

One of Zoro’s hands combs Sanji’s hair back before gripping hard. Sanji jumps at the strain, mouth pulling away as spit drips from his reddened lips.

“If you want this to end with anything other than me kicking your ass, do not do that again.” Sanji’s gaze shines silver, reflecting Zoro’s desire, the same frustration. Does Sanji puzzle over Zoro the same way Zoro puzzles over him? Probably. At least Zoro is as straightforward as it gets, while Sanji’s every move is decorated and disguised.

Zoro groans in the back of his throat, presses his palm against the nape of Sanji’s neck instead. “How are you complaining this much when you’re the one gagging for it?”

Sanji snorts derisively. He doesn’t move away from Zoro’s hand, his lips returning to their slow, practiced undulation.

His skin is cool beneath Zoro’s palm, especially in comparison to his warm lips, getting warmer. His mouth is sealed over Zoro’s cock, trapping warmth and wetness together into a tight, tight fit.

“Yeah,” Zoro groans again. “Just like that.”

Sanji pulls back, tongue still circling Zoro’s cock, contrary just for the sake of it.

Instead of turning Zoro off, it sparks something deep in the core of him, arousal igniting more than it already has.

“You’re such a bitch,” Zoro tells him.

Sanji pulls back so that only the very tip of Zoro rests in his mouth. “Really? ‘Cause from here it looks like you’re the one who’s talking instead of just taking it, sweetheart.”

The contrariness of his words, the insinuation that Zoro is the one taking it, the mocking affection all wrapped in the elegant disdain of Sanji’s voice— none of it cools Zoro’s need.

Sanji pauses for a beat, smirking when Zoro only breathes heavily into the night air. Sanji presses forward again, pushing Zoro’s feet further apart to accommodate the width of his shoulders. Hand against his neck, Zoro can feel the beat of Sanji’s pulse in his veins.

Sanji noses along the seam of Zoro’s hip, licks down the line where hip and leg meet. He inhales deeply. THe most he’s smelling is sweat and sea and steel, but Sanji exhales with closed eyes, savoring it.

Zoro curves his fingers on Sanji’s neck, tightens his grip for an instant— a warning.

Sanji smiles into the juncture of his thigh.

He’s never in his life seen someone so gratified to be sucking cock. Relaxing, isn’t that what he’d called it? That relaxation has already claimed Zoro, despite the heat coiling tighter and faster inside of him.

Nothing about Sanji is loose or easy. Every move of his lips and tongue is precise, choreographed like a dance meant to lead Zoro closer and closer to the edge, stepping backwards only to pull him that much closer. He holds tension in his neck, the stretch of his shoulders.

Zoro dances the tips of his fingers down Sanji’s neck, teasing moments of contact almost too quick to notice.

Sanji inhales sharply, which only pulls Zoro deeper into his mouth. Sanji chokes, his mouth spasming between tight and lax as his body strains to breathe.

It’s that— the constriction coming and going in time to the heavy beat of Sanji’s heart— that pushes Zoro over. He presses his nails into Sanji’s neck in warning, but it happens too quickly for Zoro to pull away entirely.

Sanji sucks him through it, even as Zoro’s come fills his mouth and keeps him choked. Zoro goes softer in his mouth, but Sanji just barely pulls back, keeping Zoro warm and spent on his tongue.

“Fuck,” Zoro growls, when Sanji finally releases him. His come still paints Sanji’s mouth and the corners of his lips.

Zoro wants to yank Sanji up by the back of his neck and kiss him so hard that Sanji can’t speak for a week. He wants to press his fingers into Sanji’s mouth and push his come further back until Sanji gags on it. He wants to get his hands on Sanji’s cock and make him cry with it.

But before he can initiate any of it— anything at all— Zoro is stopped by Sanji shrugging off his hand. Sanji rises to his feet and brushes the back of his hand across his mouth. It only serves to smear the wetness in one direction. His breaths are visible in the way that his chest moves.

“C’mere,” Zoro starts to say, stepping forward, pants undone and soft cock exposed to the open air.

Sanji’s laugh twinkles like distant stars as he dances back, out of reach. “Mm, I don’t think so. You were the one who needed to be unwound a bit, weren’t you?”

Should Zoro be furious, or embarrassed? He can’t pull up either emotion, not when every part of him is loose in a way that throbs and reminds him of how tight he’d been wound only moments before.

“You’re not serious.”

Sanji laughs again, already turning away. “G’night, mosshead, no need to tell me how much you enjoyed it.”

“Waiter, what the fuck—”

He leaves Zoro standing in the crisp air as the sun barely peaks the tips of its fingers over the horizon.

Before Zoro kisses him, he’s going to kill Sanji first.

—

Sanji is someone who is always doing the absolute most.

Zoro has spent his life cultivating a calm mind, passion and fury and want unleashed only when he needs them. He appreciates time spent quietly, has gotten used to the sound of the wind and the waves as the Merry rocks slowly on the sea.

Sanji, on the other hand, is never still. If Zoro didn’t see him sleeping every night, he’d wonder if Sanji even did. Unless Zoro is on watch until sunrise, Sanji is always awake before him. Sanji is always in motion, stirring three different pots on the stove and taking something out of the oven only to replace it with something else and laying out plates and cutlery like a cardsharp dealing cards. He hums to himself, not any particular melody but noise just for the sake of it.

“Like a fucking seagull,” Zoro mutters, eyes closed as he leans against the Merry’s interior, arms crossed over his chest.

“Speak up, mosshead, we’ve missed your biting wit,” Sanji says from somewhere above him.

Zoro blinks. Everything is exactly as it was before he’d nodded off. Nami has a map and spare paper spread out on the table, glasses perched on her nose and hair pushed back from her forehead like she’s been running her fingers through it. Sanji, of course, is in motion. He spins back towards the oven, removing a dish and looking at it the way mothers tend to look at their infant children.

There is something seriously wrong with this guy.

Sanji saunters back towards them with a towel tossed over one shoulder, a round tray in his hands, and an expectant smile stretching his lips wide.

He emphatically does not think about the last time he noticed the stretch of Sanji’s lips.

Sanji presents the tray to Nami with a bow and a flourish. “Tangerine tarts, topped with just a dollop of fresh whipped cream, garnished with mint.”

The little orange desserts are small enough to fit in Zoro’s palm. Each is lovingly swirled with white cream and topped with a small sprig of green.

He’s been working on this for the entire morning. Making things so delicate and careful and pretty that are just going to end up in someone’s stomach.

Nami takes a tart between her fingers, bites halfway into it before eyes light up and she pushes the remainder straight into her mouth. A little shudder runs through her when the kick of the citrus hits her. She’s smiling when she licks the cream from her lips.

“Okay,” she says heavily, gravely, “that might have been the best single bite I’ve ever eaten.”

Sanji beams, the sunlight filtering through the window and making his hair shine like gold. Only when he’s put the tray down does Sanji drop his shoulders, smile lingering and overtaking the concentrated frown he’s been wearing all morning.

“Ah, I’m sure there are tweaks to make. Be honest with me, Nami, I want them to be perfect for you.”

Nami gives Zoro a sideways glance, the though clear: does this guy know that up until a few weeks ago I was happy if I had food at all?

She bites into a second tart. “If I think of anything I’ll let you know.

“Seems a bit pointless, if you ask me,” Zoro mutters, turning to look out the window and met only with the sun glaring straight into his eyes.

“What was that?” Sanji asks,

Zoro wants to say: it’s pointless for you to be so tense before someone tastes your food, when we all know the worst it’s ever been is merely “fantastic.” It’s pointless to be looking so frantically for praise when your skill is obvious. It’s pointless to spend all your energy serving other people.

What he does say: “You’ve been working for three hours and that’s not even enough food to feed a rabbit.”

Nami kicks his ankle. “Do you have to be an asshole all the time? Take a day off, maybe?”

Sanji scoffs. “Don’t worry yourself on my account, Nami. As for you,” he rounds on Zoro, “No one’s telling you to eat that, and in fact you’re not even allowed to. It’s a waste to give someone food they won’t even appreciate.”

How does he even know what a person will appreciate? Most everyone has a food or two they’re weak to. But Sanji is so stupidly particular, and not just about food.

He knew that Nami was in the mood for something sweet, just as he was the only one of them back in Coco Village to even think to help with the dishes. They’ve only been sailing together a few days. But Sanji is always ready with a glass of milk and a plate of meat hand pies for Luffy before their captain naps, so he won’t wake up famished. Sanji barely looks up when Usopp takes a seat in the galley and regales him with stories while he’s cooking, but then he’ll ask a particularly astute question and Usopp knows he’s been listening all along. They laugh together so loudly that Zoro can hear them from the other side of the ship.

Stupid waiter had even known how Zoro liked having his dick sucked. That’s a decidedly different genre from the rest of it, but it all follows a theme.

Sanji is always giving, always helping, always serving. Zoro has never seen him take anything back, display any of the selfishness that everyone has.

You have to be selfish, sometimes. How else can you acknowledge what you want and reach towards it?

“I appreciate things that matter,” Zoro mutters. He keeps his voice as flat as ever, so he won’t sound defensive.

“Ah, yes, our resident swordsman’s exquisitely discerning taste.” The mockery is clear in his voice, but Sanji is smiling when Zoro looks at him. His smile is knowing, like the two of them are sharing a private joke.

Zoro could make a lot of comments about Sanji’s tastes, but if he did in front of Nami, the both of them might try to toss him overboard.

Sanji hasn’t stopped moving, to the kitchen and back again. He puts a bowl down in front of Zoro with a roll of his eyes.

Zoro bites into fried octopus, still warm, and— goddamnit. This bastard really has cornered Zoro’s tastes.

—

He’s not still thinking about it. He doesn’t think about it at all. It’s just that—

True altruists don’t behave the way Sanji does. He’s not doing everything he does solely for the good or kindness of them. Zoro knows Sanji isn’t all kindness, has seen him kick a man’s knee so hard the joint inverted. Sanji grumbles through his days, so are his long hours of work for others even making the guy happy?

It’s not that he’s generous, either. The people of Orange Town were generous, Kaya was generous. They gave in gratitude, in support, and in good spirits. They gave as thanks for something already done, not expecting something in return. And that isn’t what Sanji’s doing.

“Here,” he barks, sliding a glass down the counter to where Zoro is sitting. “If you’re going to drink enough for five people, at least use a glass.”

Zoro looks down at the bottle he’s holding by its neck. He shrugs. He can definitely drink enough for five on a bad a night, much less a good one.

“Thanks,” he says, loudly enough that Sanji must hear him.

Sanji, instead of accepting this and moving on, tilts his head towards the ceiling and rolls his eyes. “You could just act like a civilized person, you know? Save us both a bit of trouble?”

Zoro scoffs, pressing his lips together so he doesn’t spit alcohol clear across the counter.

Sanji half turns. “Yeah? What’re you laughing at, then?”

“You’re joking, right?” Zoro knocks back the rest of his drink. “What trouble? Literally no one told you to serve people all day, waiter.”

Sanji’s cheeks go a vibrant red. It’s the most satisfying reaction Zoro has gotten out of him since that night in Coco Village.

“I know the concept of work probably escapes you, houseplant, seeing as you don’t do anything all day, but what I do isn’t serving anyone.”

Zoro hides his smirk in another sip. “Says the guy walking around with a serving tray half the day.”

That very tray is standing upright next to the sink, drying. Most recently, it had been used to take Usopp and Nami drinks while they sat on the desk and discussed something about the rigging that Zoro was only half listening to. Zoro did not get a drink, so it’s only fair that he’s swiped one for himself now.

“If you’re implying that I do a single think I don’t want to do, you—”

“Didn’t say that,” Zoro cuts in. “I think you want to do it, all of it. That’s what makes it a little sad.”

Zoro barely tracks Sanji’s movement around the counter before the heel of his foot connects with Zoro’s side.

“Fuck,” he growls, managing to catch himself from toppling over.

Sanji, close now, stares at him with a fire in his eyes that Zoro can’t parse. When he’s angry like this, hair out of place and lip curled, he looks so much better than when he’s flattering or simpering.

“I think,” Sanji says, taking a deliberate, deep breath, “that if you’ve got something to say, you should go ahead and say it. And if you don’t, get the fuck out of my galley.”

Zoro wants to say that if Sanji is so sensitive about being read, he shouldn’t telegraph himself so obviously. Anyone could pick up what Zoro has, if they watched carefully enough.

“I don’t, really,” Zoro admits lightly. Alcohol usually doesn’t hit him this soon, but there’s something emboldening him, loosening his lips. “If that’s what you want, fuck if I care. But if you’re the one angling for something, I think you should just say it instead of begging everyone around you to understand you.”

Sanji steps back as though Zoro has just struck him. His eyes go wide before immediately narrowing, brows furrowed and cheeks hot.

Zoro shrugs again, keeping his expression as neutral as possible. “You have us all figured out, don’t you? What we like and don’t like, everyone’s moods and energy, all of it. But you’re missing something pretty big.”

Confusion passes over Sanji’s face before the anger returns to mask it.

Zoro smirks, lips parting just enough for a flash of teeth. “Think about it. If you figure it our, maybe I’ll even give you a prize.”

He sets the glass on the counter but keeps the half-full bottle in his hands, sauntering towards the doorway.

Sanji grabs him by the wrist and tugs him backwards just before he crosses the doorway. The bottle slips from Zoro’s fingers and smashes against the floor, sending shards of emerald green glass flying. Sanji pushes Zoro up against the wall, gaze still furious.

Zoro waits.

Keeping one hand around Zoro’s wrist, bringing the other up to cradle Zoro’s cheek, Sanji leans in and kisses Zoro so angrily that it feels like burning.

Has Sanji gotten it yet? If Zoro’s right, in the first place? But they’re on the precipice of something a realization just out of reach,

Zoro’s never been afraid to take a risk. But it’s so damn satisfying to Shove Sanji over the edge before him, this time.

—

There’s no privacy on a ship the size of the Merry. Sanji kicks open the pantry door, and Zoro pushes him inside, and within moments they are tugging furiously at each other’s clothes, lips parting only for the barest breaths.

Zoro isn’t used to people have height or strength on him, and Sanji technically doesn’t, but there’s no denying the power in his body as he leans against Zoro and dips his head down into a kiss. The angle makes Sanji seem bigger than he is, broad shoulders casting shadows that obscure his narrow waist and long, lithe legs.

The illusion is just that— an illusion. Zoro gets his hands around Sanji’s waist and squeezes. Sanji wheezes out a breath, like air escaping a balloon. Zoro pulls Sanji towards him, arranges them so their legs are interspersed.

Sanji’s thigh is taught and strong when Zoro brackets it with both of his own. Even through their clothes, the touch there burns as hot as the first kiss had.

Sanji gropes along Zoro’s sides, getting under his shirt and touching across bare skin. The tips of his fingers are reverent, dancing so carefully over his chest, like he’ll learn Zoro by touch alone.

“C’mon, then,” Zoro growls into Sanji’s mouth, pulling Sanji forward by his hips. “Tell me what you want.”

Sanji’s hands pause against his chest, their touch suddenly cold. Sanji’s chest moves with the force of his breaths, but his feet are planted firm. When Zoro tugs at him, he can’t move Sanji any closer.

“Whatt?” Zoro trails one hand up from Sanji’s hip to his side, fingers digging in when he squeezes. “You have to have some idea—”

Sanji seals his mouth over Zoro’s, sucking on Zoro’s bottom lip with so much fervor that Zoro feels in growing sensitive and warm.

He retaliates by turning his head, licking a strip from Sanji’s chin up to his ear. Zoro bites on the skin just under Sanji’s ear and Sanji growls something that Zoro can feel in his own chest.

Everywhere he touches Sanji burns, the first starting against his skin and spreading inward, until all Zoro can think about is how the slide of his cock would feel between Sanji’s thighs, or under his fingers, or in his lips.

Sanji still hasn’t answered him. Zoro figures Sanji won’t allow anything he doesn’t actually want, but that’s not the same thing as asking for what he does. Not the same as truly asking for something, for himself.

Zoro scratches back down Sanji’s side and gets his hand beneath the waistband of Sanji’s pants, pressing down on his hardness to the echoing pulse of Sanji’s arousal.

Last time, he hadn’t gotten to do this. For all that Sanji had been the one on his knees, he’d kept control of the entire interaction. That fact alone doesn’t bother Zoro. Giving in and giving up control can be the best part of sex, under the right circumstances. But it still gnaws at the corner of his mind, the way Sanji wouldn’t let Zoro do anything for him in return. The way he hadn’t eve expected it.

Zoro pushes Sanji’s pants down and gets his hand all the way around Sanji’s cock, squeezing lightly to get a feel for it.

“I would’ve sucked your cock that night, you know? If you’d wanted me to.” If you’d have let me.

Sanji’s warm cock hardens so quickly that it must be painful. His mouth goes from Zoro’s cheek to his neck, landing on the soft space above Zoro’s collarbones. Sanji sucks at the skin there, his mouth just as good at this as it had been with Zoro’s cock.

“So, tell me,” Zoro murmurs in his ear. His voice never goes soft. It is flat and precise, or it is angry, or it is lifted by laughter— but even in his most intimate moments Zoro is not soft. He pitches his voice lower, his words textured as though Zoro is holding them in his mouth before pouring them into Sanji’s ear.

Sanji moans, louder than anything so far. Zoro squeezes him tighter in response.

He pulls away only for the space to undo his own pants with his free hand, to pull out his cock and press it into the same hand that he holds Sanji’s in, rubbing them both slowly up and down for a few long, deliberate strokes.

“Shit,” Sanji chokes, hands scrambling for purchase against Zoro’s skin. He rakes his fingers down Zoro’s sides, presses them into the uncovered skin of Zoro’s thighs, undone pants barely pulled out of the way.

Sanji’s nails dig into Zoro’s skin and Zoro quicklens his strokes in retaliation. It could be a smoother glide, but that doesn’t stop it from being good.

“I don’t want you to do anything but feel me,” Zoro tells Sanji, moving his thumb against the head of Sanji’s cock, “You can take it, I know you can—”

Sanji’s eyes flash open immediately, blue lost in the dim light, pupils too wide to tell if the color would be visible anyway.

“Fuck you,” he groans. “I’m not the one who’s—” He lifts a hand to the back of Zoro’s neck and yanks at the short hairs there.

Zoro grits his teeth to hold back the noise that rises in him.

“You will be,” Zoro tells him. His arousal has clouded his thoughts so much that he’s not even sure exactly what they’re talking about, anymore. “Come on, waiter. Give it up for me.”

Isn’t he always ready to give anyone what they ask of him, whatever he thinks they need?

This is no different. Sanji bends forward and kisses Zoro again, bringing them so close that Zoro can no longer see Sanji’s expression. But he knows when Sanji tightens in his hold, when Sanji inhales so sharply it sucks all the air from the small space, when he ducks his face to Zoro’s neck and shudders as he releases all over Zoro’s fingers and cock.

The fire burning under Zoro’s skin flares brightly before settling into a crackling, steady flame. He doesn’t let Sanji go, uses the softening cock and come to jerk himself exactly like he wants to. Sanji tugs on his hair again and Zoro shakes with his orgasm as his hand grows filthier and Sanji whines when Zoro squeezes too tightly.

They’re both breathing heavily, asynchronous patterns that push each other and overlap.

The adrenaline drops all at once. Zoro doesn’t bother trying to keep steady footing. Leaned against the back wall of the pantry, he slides down until his legs are spread in front of him. Sanji sinks with him, ends up on his knees with his face still hidden against Zoro’s neck, his harsh breaths almost tangible against Zoro’s flushed, sensitive skin.

Zoro blinks and expects to see Sanji entirely fuck drunk, spilled out and drained just as much as Zoro is.

Instead, Sanji pushes himself up and off of Zoro almost immediately. His shoulders are already tensed, his expression shuttered. He reaches for Zoro and wipes his down the length of Zoro’s cock, wiping off the worst of their come. He tucks Zoro back into his pants before he even bothers to look down at himself.

“You’ve got some fucking weird neuroses,” Zoro tells him, still slumped against the wall with no intentions of getting up anytime soon.

Sanji snorts a laugh. “Rich from the guy who wanted me to write you instructions in the middle of—”

Zoro’s eyes flare with his glower. “That is not what I was asking for.”

Sanji blinks, smirking face clouding over with a confused, dazed expression. He pats his pocket for his cigarettes, tips one from the box by muscle memory, not looking at what he’s doing.

“You’re a very peculiar houseplant.” Sanji waves a hand, cigarette between two fingers. “And since we don’t want all our meat smoked, not in a good way, I’ll be up on deck.”

Zoro doesn’t stop him from going as the high of his orgasm fades enough for him to think straight.

“Motherfucker,” Zoro spits. He’s slithered away again, without giving up anything like preference, like desire, like choice. Fuck, he’d still been more attentive to Zoro’s comfort than his own, hadn’t given Zoro the chance to hold him or kiss him in the afterglow.

Zoro doesn’t need either of those things, though he can definitely enjoy them.

Everyone needs something. He has to know, now.

—

They anchor the Merry on the far side of the island, to hide her there while half the crew goes into town for supplies. Zoro doesn’t bother with inventory, trusts the rest of them to handle it, and when he tells Nami this she rolls her eyes. Still, she doesn’t insist that he join the scavenging expedition. Zoro finds himself a warm, comfortable spot on the beach, lays back in the sand with the Merry in view so that he’ll see any unwelcome company before it can reach her.

It hasn’t been so long since they left Coco Village, but with the state of the village they couldn’t stock up on everything. Everyone already has lists upon lists of supplies they absolutely can’t live without. Zoro asks if they’ll be restocking the liquor and Nami rolls her eyes, again. Zoro decides that this means yes, of course, don’t worry about it.

Sanji dogs Usopp’s heels all the way down the beach, holding a carefully folded list and making Usopp recite all of his notes back to him, making sure he won’t forget a single detail. Usopp smiles all the while, even as he edges closer to the pathway every few moments only to have Sanji pull him back with an insistent hand on his shoulder.

“Oi, waiter,” Zoro calls out, “they have to actually leave to get anything.”

Sanji turns to glare at him, and Usopp takes advantage to grab the list out of Sanji’s hand and sprint down the path towards town, where Nami and Luffy had disappeared minutes before.

Sanji huffs and stomps over to Zoro. He stands over Zoro, casting his shadow right in the way of Zoro’s perfect sunbeam.

Zoro kicks his ankle with an annoyed growl. “Get out of my sun.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Sanji says flippantly.

Zoro groans and lets his eyes fall shut. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a control freak?”

“Excuse me?”

“Usopp can handle buying some rice and fish. He doesn’t need a thesis with footnotes.”

Sanji scoffs, kicking sand that ends up in Zoro’s hair. “Do you even know what a footnote is? Did you learn to read sometime in the past two days?”

“You’re so fucking annoying,” Zoro tells him.

“You’re the one who started it, asshole.”

Eyes closed, Zoro hears Sanji fumbling in his pocket, clicking his lighter on and off again.

“It’s all true.” There’s no point in making shit up just to piss someone off. It’s almost too easy to get under Sanji’s skin, all with things the waiter does all by himself.

“Just because I don’t sleep through the day and trust everyone else to handle things?”

“Trust is a good thing,” Zoro says blandly. “What, you’re saying you don’t trust Luffy?”

“Oh, for the love of—” Sanji mutters under his breath. “Not what I said.”

“Either way.” Zoro shrugs, probably looking a little stupid lying down in the sand as he is. “Admit it or don’t, you can’t let anyone else do something for you. Which means you don’t trust anyone enough to let them take care of yo— things for you.”

The silence stretches so long that Zoro blinks his eyes open to confirm that Sanji is still standing there. He is, cigarette perched between his lips, brow furrowed and jaw clenched in speechless frustration.

“Like you’re any better than me,” he says eventually.

“At almost everything, yeah.” Zoro smirks when Sanji immediately squawks in anger. “And definitely when it comes to this.”

Sanji kicks Zoro with the toe of his shoe. Given how hard Zoro knows Sanji can kick, he’d almost call this a love tap.

“You’re good at what, trusting people?” Sanji pulls the cigarette from his mouth so that Zoro will see the full force of his sneer.

“Yeah, actually. People who deserve it, anyway.” Zoro trusts his first impressions, doesn’t question his choices once he’s made them. And sure, maybe he hadn’t trusted Nami entirely, or at all, but there was a reason she was setting off his instincts. Now he trusts her so much he’ll go wherever she navigates them to without question.

Zoro reaches out and grabs Sanji by the ankle as soon as he lifts his foot for another kick. Zoro yanks and Sanji falls flat on his back in the sand, coughing up smoke inhaled too quickly and scrambling to turn and retaliate.

He has Zoro by the shoulders. Does he see it, too? The way they’ve pulled each other close in the exact same way they had in the pantry? Is Sanji’s blood also heated in two conflicting ways? Is that look of frustration hiding an unsated hunger in him, too?

“So, are you going to admit you have issues with sex, or are we gonna keep talking around this?”

To be clear, talking things out with people is not his job. Talking things out with Luffy is barely his job, much less counseling the rest of them. But fate has tragically cursed Zoro to be the only one of them unwell enough to want to fuck the waiter, and so there’s no one else to do it.

“Excuse me?” Sanji’s voice rises like steam in a kettle. He shoves Zoro off and gets back to his feet, dusting the sand off his slacks. “I don’t remember asking you for a review, shithead.”

It wouldn’t necessarily be a bad review. Just—

“You know it’s kind of more gay if you just want to suck cock for nothing in return, right?”

Sanji brings his foot down so quickly that he would’ve stomped straight through Zoro’s neck if Zoro hadn’t rolled sideways in time.

“What part of any of this,” Sanji says, furiously waving between the two of them, “makes you think I’m avoiding the gay option, here?”

True enough. Sanji is one of the fussiest, prissiest people Zoro’s ever met. He’s also incurably obsessed with women. He swears worse than most sailors despite the elegant curl of his accent, and he can’t keep himself off of Zoro’s dick. None of these are actually mutually exclusive.

“Oh, yeah?” Zoro challenges, frustrated that he hasn’t figured this out yet. “So there’s something else completely wrong with you, then?”

He rolls himself up into a seated position before Sanji can kick sand straight into his eyes.

“I didn’t hear you complaining before,” Sanji spits. “No one was making you enjoy it, either.”

Zoro shrugs that off, completely tangled in the knot that is Sanji and trying to find one loose thread to pull the entire thing apart. “What, so your chef dad knew you had a secret menu and was just fine with you sneaking off with his customers?”

“You’re disgusting, you know that? Are you a moss at all, or just pond scum?”

Zoro grimaces, his mind still caught on the image of Sanji skulking around the docks around the Baratie after hours, finishing off a cigarette and waiting for whoever he’d made eyes at, ready and eager to be on his knees.

Fuck, would that have been Zoro, if he hadn’t gotten himself flayed open by Mihawk?

“Look,” Zoro says finally, “I’m not particularly interested in quick and dirty with a guy I’m going to be at sea with for the next forever.”

Sanji stills, looking down at Zoro with his pale eyes round and confused. “What the fuck is the problem with that, anyway?”

“If you get off on giving head anonymously and then jerking off about it, after, that’s your own fucking business. But if you’re asking for me to be a part of that, I’m saying no.” He stands, just so he can stare Sanji straight in the eye.

The breaths pass between them in time to the roar of the waves crashing against the shore and receding out again.

“It’s not about it being anonymous,” Sanji grumbles.

Zoro bites down on the growl that rises in his chest. “Then what?”

Something vulnerable flashes in Sanji’s eyes, quick as the shadow of something much larger lurking beneath the sea.

It’s almost like he doesn’t know how. He’s always moving, always talking, always giving. It’s a control thing, definitely, but also something else. Like if he gives enough, he’ll fill all the space around him and won’t have to know— won’t even be able to tell— if he gets anything back in return.

Zoro flinches like something sharp has just pressed into one of his bruises, cutting straight to what is tender and vulnerable.

I could show you, he wants to say. I could show you what it feels like to take without worrying about what you have to give in return.

But Sanji would never accept that, least of all from Zoro.

“So?” Zoro demands. “You want to just keep running away, after? What is it you’re so scared of, anyway?”

Sanji’s eyes go hard and cold like ice. “I’m not scared of anything, you—”

“You don’t have another explanation. And I’m not going to just be a prop for whatever selfish thing you’ve—”

“Selfish?” Sanji hisses the word like it’s the worst insult he can imagine. “I’m sorry, but what is it you’re not getting out of this, because—”

Zoro steps towards him, grabs Sanji by the lapel of his jacket and drags him forward.

“You heard me, waiter. You’re either scared, or selfish, or both. And I’m not interested in being served.”

Sanji’s face is a furious, blotchy red, his entire body tenses.

“Take what I give you, or don’t,” Zoro says. “Your choice. But I’m done doing it your way.”

He won’t keep letting Sanji hide behind this aggressive service, this defensive martyrdom. The pleasure of an opponent or a partner— in a duel or in this— is the balance between them. If Sanji can’t take as good as he gives, Zoro has no use for him.

“You’re a stupid shithead, you know that?” Sanji says.

Zoro shrugs. He doesn’t need bluster, not when he’s told Sanji exactly what he thinks— gotten around all of Sanji’s misdirections to cut through to what Sanji thinks of himself.

“I could prove it.”

Sanji blinks at him. “Could you, really.”

Zoro huffs. “What, scared you’ll like it too much?”

“You’re really trying to goad me into this, aren’t you,” Sanji says flatly.

“It’s working, isn’t it?”

Sanji kicks him. “Shut the fuck up.”

—

Sanji stands with his back against the door, trying to keep the nervousness from his expression and looking all the more hesitant for his efforts. A cigarette is perched between his lips, unlit. His hands are behind his back, another effort to appear casual— but with the tension running through him, he only looks like he’s trying to guard his hands.

Zoro scowls from where he’s crouched on the ground. “We are absolutely not doing this if you’re going to look halfway to puking the entire time.”

Sanji grimaces, takes the cigarette from his mouth before it falls and twirls it between two fingers. “Romance me with small talk, mosshead.”

Zoro doesn’t deign to respond. Instead, he finishes tugging off his boots and takes a seat on the bed. He shoots Sanji a long look, but doesn’t ask or tell him to join Zoro on the bed.

A beat later, Sanji crosses the room. He stands by the bed for another long, dragging moment before finally sitting beside Zoro.

His cheeks are that now-familiar blotchy red, his mouth pressed into a thin line. If he wants to mask his nerves, he should’ve chosen any other disguise but anger— Zoro recognizes it too well.

It’s almost cute. Zoro presses his hand against Sanji’s cheek, tucking the longer strands of his blond hair behind his ear.

“Relax, waiter. You know you’re just going to kick me off if I do anything you don’t want me to.”

“Straight through the window,” Sanji mutters.

Zoro huffs a laugh. “You want me away from you that badly, you’re welcome to try.”

Sanji opens his mouth to retort— they’d keep each other at it forever, unless one of them interrupts. Zoro grabs Sanji by the chin and turns his face first one way and then the other. The stubble on Sanji’s face rubs at his fingers like grains of sand.

“I’ll let you choose, to start. Sight or voice?”

Sanji pulls away. “What?”

Zoro sighs with stressed patience. “You’re giving up one of them, but I’m being nice, so you can choose. Your sight or your voice?”

Sanji’s fingers dance across the bedsheets nervously. Zoro hadn’t been able to bet on which Sanji would be able to give up— his ability to see what Zoro would be doing to him or his ability to complain about it.

“Voice,” Sanji says quietly but firmly. His eyes dart around Zoro’s face, trying to read him, like he’s got to make good use of his sight now that he’s chosen to keep it.

Zoro can’t help the crooked grin that tugs on his lips. This might go even better than he expected.

He takes a length of black cloth and leans toward Sanji slowly, telegraphing his movements— the same way his sensei would when they’d spar, deliberate and obvious. Zoro tilts Sanji’s chin up and presses his tongue against Sanji’s lower lip, pressing in and tugging his lips apart.

He slips two fingers into Sanji’s mouth and pushes down on the flat of Sanji’s tongue until he gags with it. Zoro pulls his hand away and replaces his fingers with the knot he’s tied in the black fabric.

Sanji glares at him all the while.

Zoro smiles at him, patronizing. “Relax, waiter.” He winds the cloth behind Sanji’s head, tying it off firmly. He rubs his fingers across the black fabric going from the corners of Sanji’s mouth and then all the way around his head. Sanji stares at him all the while, only stopping to blink the strain out of his eyes.

“It’s not actually that hard to talk around, if you’ve got practice,” Zoro offers blandly.

Sanji’s eyes go wide, tracking down to Zoro’s mouth. Zoro smirks, slow and deliberate.

“You really are an idiot, aren’t you? So eager to get your mouth on me, and you never even thought about how good I must be with mine.”

Sanji’s jaw works as he bites down on the fabric knotted in his mouth.

“Thinking about it now, aren’t you? You want that?”

Sanji shakes his head— like he’s decided to automatically refuse everything and anything Zoro offers him.

“Liar,” Zoro says softly. He reaches for the second length of cloth and orders, “Hands, now.”

Sanji kicks Zoro in the shin in his haste to push himself away.

Interesting. If Zoro had told him to pick two out of three, would Sanji have given up his sight to keep his hands?

He sighs, again. “Trust me.”

Sanji shakes his head. Is it a reflex, or is he consciously refusing to trust Zoro? Which would be more insulting?

Zoro grabs Sanji by the wrist and tugs him forward. He keeps his grip as he positions Sanji to his liking— splayed across Zoro’s chest, face pressed into Zoro’s neck. Zoro takes Sanji’s other wrist and brings both of Sanji’s hands together behind his back.

Sanji whines when Zoro finishes tying the knot.

“I’d tell you to just relax and enjoy this, but we both know you’re not going to do that, are you?”

Sanji glares at him, chest rising and falling visibly. Without his voice and his hands, there are only so many ways he can express his displeasure with Zoro.

Zoro grabs him by the back of the neck and presses his lips messily against Sanji’s gag and all. Sanji makes a choked noise— utterly unable to reciprocate— and Zoro smiles before licking across Sanji’s spread lips. Zoro brushes Sanji’s hair back from his face as patronizingly as possible.

“Take the night off.” Zoro’s voice goes dark and quiet, “Let me serve you, for a change.”

Sanji huffs in response, but his eyes go dark all the same. That’s it— he’s getting there. And whether he has to tug him gently along or shove him over in one go, Zoro is going to get Sanji exactly where he wants him.

He pushes Sanji away from him, spreads him out on his back and nudges his thighs apart. Sanji moves to close them on instinct, squeezing Zoro between his legs. The heat of it is teasing— Zoro wishes he’d gotten himself undressed before this. But that might’ve made it impossible to stop himself from taking instead of giving.

He tugs Sanji’s pants down and tosses them aside. When Sanji is bare from the waist down, Zoro leans over to kiss a line down from his stomach to the V of his hips. He can feel every shallow breath that Sanji takes, the small movements when Sanji clutches at the bedsheets, hands tied to rest on the small of his back, neither crushed nor strained.

Zoro lifts his head and smiles darkly. There’s already drool dripping from the corner of Sanji’s mouth, his jaw clenched tight. Zoro runs his fingers down the line of it.

“Relax,” he orders.

Sanji bites down hard on the gag, more out of spite than anything else.

Zoro laughs. He rolls himself off the bed so that he’s on his knees, pulling Sanji’s legs with him so they lay on either side of him. It’s a feat with how long Sanji’s legs are, but Zoro maneuvers them so that his feet don’t quite touch the floor. It’d be counterproductive to allow him even the smallest bit of leverage. Zoro rests his hands on Sanji’s bare thighs and squeezes appreciatively.

“I thought you were the most attention-seeking asshole, at first,” Zoro says.

Sanji makes a noise like an aggrieved cat from the back of his throat, muffled by the gag.

Zoro pinches his inner thigh. “I said that’s what I thought.”

“And I was right— mostly. You want it, all the attention and appreciation you can get. But you want it on your own terms. You want to control the way people see you.”

Zoro pauses, looks down at Sanji with disdain. “Though why anyone who want to be seen the way you act is a mystery in itself.”

Sanji kicks him in the side. Zoro laughs. There’s a headiness to having Sanji at his mercy, to know there’s no way for Sanji to get the upper hand.

“But you set the terms, don’t you?” Zoro continues. “You make a fool of yourself, falling all over yourself to flirt with anything that moves, but that means you never have to deal with someone coming onto you.”

Zoro runs his hands down Sanji’s sides, squeezes his hips.

“You wouldn’t know what to do with that, would you? Is that how it was with me, too? Did you make a move because you couldn’t let me do it, first?”

The more Zoro says, the clearer the picture becomes. It’s true of everything, isn’t it? Sanji walks up to someone, tray literally held in front of him, delivering to them a perfectly chosen first impression, whether it’s the gracious chef or the unbothered asshole. If it’s his food, the person has taken a bite before they’ve even looked at him, and everything after is cast in the satisfied glow of whatever food he’s matched to them specifically.

Or it’s one of those awful pick up lines. He’ll know immediately if the woman he’s talking to is endeared or exasperated. He can lean one way or the other, not risking ending up somewhere he doesn’t want to be.

And if it’s not flirting, it’s the belligerent curses and grumbles. He sets the tone of every conversation, and if he never lets anyone else get the first word, he’ll never be caught off guard.

It’s exhausting.

“You’ve got to give it a rest at some point, you know.”

Before Sanji has the chance to react, Zoro pulls his hips forward and licks a stripe down the length of Sanji’s cock. Sanji’s legs immediately tense around him and squeeze. Above his head, Sanji groans. He waits until Sanji’s eyes flutter closed, and then Zoro sucks him as far into his mouth as he can.

Which, for the record, is pretty fucking far.

Sanji bucks his hips and chokes. Zoro presses forward to press his nose against Sanji’s groin. He holds Sanji still in his mouth, doing nothing but enjoying the feeling of him growing harder, warmer, bigger.

He uses both hands to press Sanji’s hips down on the bed, trapping him. Sanji can try to push himself up by his bound hands, but the angle makes that near impossibly and assuredly painful. His legs are free, but all he does is keep them circled around Zoor, embracing him in the only way he can.

Zoro pulls off of Sanji’s cock, takes a deep breath, and surges forward again. He gets Sanji in his mouth and sucks, sucks like he needs to hold onto him through only this point of contact, sucks like he’s desperate for it.

He doesn’t care about teasing tricks or building a specific rhythm. He holds Sanji in his mouth like it’s a competition, and he’s going to win at all costs. All of Zoro’s blade sharp focus is honed towards this one action, and Sanji shudders around him as his body tries to make sense of it.

It takes barely any time at all. Sanji doesn’t— can’t— warn Zoro before he’s about to come, but Zoro knows it anyway. Sanji squeezes him impossibly tighter, hips working uselessly against Zoro’s grip, and spills into the back of Zoro’s throat. His breaths are heavy in the air. The taste, sound, feel of him is the only thing Zoro can register as Sanji’s orgasm moves through him like a wave.

Zoro pulls back and licks his lips.

From the bed, Sanji watches him through half-lidded, completely dark eyes. He’s flushed all over, that furious red trailing from his face down to his neck and chest. He’s breathing so harshly that the movement carries to where his hips move under Zoro’s hands.

Zoro wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He shucks his shirt in one movement, turning away from Sanji to undress the rest of the way. The heavy feeling of Sanji’s stare never leaves his back.

He sits down on the bed and grips Sanji by the hair, tugging at it in short motions. Sanji’s eyes roll and he tips his head all the way back, exposing the underside of his chin and the full length of his neck.

Zoro leans in to speak right in Sanji’s ear.

“Now, are you going to stop being a bitch and let me take care of you?”

Something garbled and angry escapes Sanji’s lips despite the gag. But with it goes the last of his energy, his resistance. He lays breathless on the bed, previously tightly coiled body lax at least.

Zoro pulls and pushes Sanji’s body around like so much dead weight. All the fight has gone out of him, or at least gone dormant. His heavy breaths fall on Zoro’s bare back, his chin hooked over Zoro’s shoulder as he lays across Zoro’s lap. Their chests press together and with no way to hold himself up or to hold on, Sanji is left entirely at Zoro’s mercy.

Zoro’s own arousal is concentrated down deep in his gut, tightly held back by layers of self-control. Sanji, on the other hand, is sensitive all over. Every small movement makes him tense, and anything more than that has him biting down a whine.

Keeping one hand at the back of Sanji’s neck, Zoro works the other down Sanji’s back, past his bound hands and to the curve of his ass. He circles his fingers around Sanji’s entrance and Sanji shudders against him.

“You know it’ll feel good, don’t you?” Zoro asks, laughter in his voice. “Do you want it?”

Robbed of any ability to respond, Sanji noses his way along the cut of Zoro’s shoulder, up the curve of his neck. He gets Zoro’s earlobe between his lips and sucks on it, pulling on it harshly in rebuke.

The heat between them pulls them closer and closer together, even as it grows uncomfortable. It’s funny, isn’t it? When they’d met, Sanji had been surrounded by people who’d known him for half his life. Even in a different form, he should be familiar with intimacy. Zoro hasn’t been around anyone who’s known him for more than a week at a time for years. If anything, he should be the one resisting the contact, the closeness.

Or maybe that’s why Zoro can stand it while Sanji can’t. Zoro’s been tumbling into and out of beds with near strangers for years. He doesn’t have to fear any threat from those bedmates, never even has to worry about seeing them again. And he certainly doesn’t care what they think about it afterward— Zoro gives as good as he can, takes the same, and if his partners have any objections they better make them known in the moment. Otherwise, Zoro sheds those encounters as easily as he does every island he’s ever left.

Sanji would have had a ready supply of strangers passing by the Baratie. But maybe the fact of staying was the difference. Even if his partners moved on, Sanji would’ve been left in the same place. Maybe giving too much of himself only to be left behind is the thing he really avoided.

Where does that leave the two of them? Somewhere in the middle, or somewhere far beyond circumstances either of them are used to?

Zoro flinches when Sanji bites down hard on his ear.

“Fuck,” he growls, shaking his thoughts.

Sanji huffs a muffled laugh, bites down harder.

“Fucking asshole,” Zoro grumbles.

He shuffles the two of them back, holds himself up at an obtuse angle so that Sanji is practically laid out over him. He squeezes Sanji’s waist and ass with both hands.

“The nice thing about coming back for seconds,” Zoro says idly, “is that you learn what you like.”

Sanji makes a dismissive, incredulous noise.

And it is a bit ridiculous. But he’s gotten used to Sanji always talking back— and Sanji doesn’t let anything go, has to slide the last word in— so now that Zoro’s taken that from him, he’s compelled to fill the silence between them.

Plus, it’s entertaining to see Sanji fighting between his contrasting impulses, going back and forth between retorting to Zoro in whatever way he can and the involuntary, consuming reactions Zoro’s pulling from his body.

“Remember what you like, cook. Next time, I’m going to make it even better for you.”

—

Zoro’s own arousal is a pulsing, aching thing inside of him by the time he rolls Sanji over onto his back and holds himself up over him.

Beads of sweat dip into the lines of Sanji’s chest. His expression has long since gone fuzzy around the edges— mouth half open and eyes lidded like his body had given up in the midst of deciding what it was feeling. His noises are abortive in the same way— moans that Sanji bites down on before they reach their peak, little whimpers of pleasure that he swallows behind the gag.

Zoro pushes Sanji’s sweat-dark hair back from his forehead, and Sanji turns towards the contact, the touch burning the tips of Zoro’s fingers.

With great deliberation, Sanji pulls his eyes open and searches for Zoro. When their eyes meet, Sanji mumbles something incomprehensible through the gag.

“What was that?” Zoro asks, just to see the frustrated fire blaze in Sanji’s eyes.

It has taken this long, but Sanji is finally honest with him, his body open and demanding in ways his words never are. He’s still trying to speak through the gag, but whether it’s an entreaty or a demand or a complaint, Zoro can’t tell. Maybe for Sanji, all of those are the same.

Sanji grunts out a frustrated breath, the muscles of his stomach tightening. All at once, his legs come up and around Zoro, landing on his shoulders and creating a vice around Zoro’s neck.

Zoro is flooded with sensation, all of it Sanji— the burning heat of him clamped around Zoro’s face, cutting off his air; the salt-sweet-sour heady, overpowering taste of him; the smoothness of his skin against Zoro’s, despite the immovable steel of the muscles beneath; and finally Sanji’s gaze on him, piercing as a blade, all his focus and frustration honed to convey one thing.

But Zoro still wants to hear him say it. His licks over his lips, fighting to keep the smug smile at bay. He reaches forward and grabs one length of the black cloth, tugging it until the knot comes loose, leaving the spit-soaked cloth in Sanji’s mouth.

“Hurry up and fuck me,” Sanji spits at him, before he even draws a full breath, “Or I’m going to crush your windpipe, you absolute fucking bastard.”

He doesn’t bother to hold back his smirk now, not when he adjusts Sanji’s legs against his shoulders, and grips Sanji’s hips, and finally pushes himself into where he’s wanted to be for hours, or days, or weeks.

The thrust punches any remaining breath out of Sanji, and he chokes as his eyes flutter closed, freeing Zoro from the intensity of his stare. Zoro fucks into him with constant, unrelenting pressure. If Sanji tries to say anything, all he can manage are short groans that retreat into soft, gutted noises that reach inside of Zoro and yank his arousal up to the surface.

Zoro growls, gets a hand around Sanji’s cock and drags him with long strokes to completion, harsh and rushed and excruciating after the long build. He gets his lips on Sanji’s and gives him a kiss that is entirely teeth as he lets himself go where he’s wanted to be all the while, spilling into Sanji while forcing his own harsh breaths into the other’s mouth.

When the ties are undone and both of them are spent, Zoro basks in the literal afterglow, the amber light shining into the room lulling him into a state of perfect relaxation. Sweat slick and filthy as they are, Zoro still wouldn’t mind resting against Sanji’s heat for as long as he’ll allow.

Zoro is on his back, watching the motes floating through the light when Sanji murmurs something incomprehensible from behind him.

“Please don’t ruin this by talking,” Zoro says flatly.

That earns him a kick in the shins, which he should’ve expected.

“Not bad,” Sanji says, “but not quite five stars.”

Zoro turns onto his side and blinks at Sanji as he processes this. “What the fuck?”

“Your review,” Sanji says simply. “I don’t know how familiar you are with critique, mosshead, but I have points to make and you’re going to listen to every one of them.”

“Like fuck I am,” Zoro says.

Instead of pressing the issue, Sanji yanks Zoro forward and kisses him thoroughly.

“You, too,” he says, when he pushes Zoro away to breathe.

“Me,” Zoro repeats, not understanding.

Sanji has turned away from him when he says: “You, too. Whatever you like, whatever takes you apart, I’m going to learn that, too. You don’t get to do this to me and get off scot-free.” Sanji fumbles over the side of the bed, finally finding his cigarettes and lighter in the pile of discarded clothes. The lighter flicks on and then off, the sharp metallic noises ringing through the otherwise silent room.

Zoro scoffs. “There’s nothing to figure out, waiter. If I want something, I’ll ask for it.”

Sanji blows a mouthful of smoke to one side before turning to Zoro with a competitive, feral expression. “I’m sure that’s what you’d like me to think.”

The hunger and challenge in that expression spark something in Zoro that should, by all rights, be spent at this point.

“You’re welcome to try.”

—

Zoro’s mood remains as slow and rich as honey for the next few days, and so does Sanji’s. If the rest of the crew notice, they take care not to mention it, even if Zoro catches Nami giving him an assessing look more than once.

Today, they have dinner by the light of the dying sun. Sanji scurries around them once they’re seated, topping off each dish with seasonings particular to each of them— fresh ground pepper for Usopp, a squeeze of lemon for Nami, an extra ladle of gravy for Luffy. Sanji sets a tiny, shallow bowl of soy sauce by Zoro’s plate before finally taking his own seat.

It’s funny how quickly this has become normal. He’s never had someone cook just for him in his life, but in a matter of weeks he’s grown used to this. And there’s no point in telling Sanji that they’ll all eat from the same pot or that he doesn’t need to bother with such particularities— it won’t change him and he’ll be insulted at having been told.

His care is loud and boisterous when he wants it to be, but it is also this: routine, specific, missable if you’re not looking for it. The care works its way out of Sanji in everything he does, and now that Zoro knows what it is, he can’t stop noticing it.

When they’ve all eaten their fill and start filing out of the kitchen, Luffy stops in the doorway and turns around.

“Zoro? Aren’t you coming?”

Zoro is laid out lazily on the bench by the table, but at Luffy’s words he rolls himself up to standing. While Sanji is busy at the sink, Zoro begins gathering the dirty dishes.

“Nah, you go ahead,” he waves Luffy off. “Someone’s gotta help our shit cook with the dishes.”

Sanji doesn’t respond, either to the insult or Zoro’s declaration of help. But when Zoro stacks the dirty dishes next to him at the sink, Sanji pulls an extra towel from a drawer and throws it over Zoro’s face.

By the time Zoro’s pulled it back off, Sanji is elbows deep in the sink, handing Zoro a plate.

“You dry,” he says simply.

Zoro no longer knows if they’re fighting to reach past each other or struggling to make room for themselves on the same path. Sometimes, they’re reaching across a great chasm, fingers almost touching, understanding just out of reach.

And sometimes Sanji splashes Zoro with soapy water while they wash the dishes together, and he smiles as he does, and Zoro thinks—

Maybe I was wrong about him, after all.