The first rule of fandom is have fun. The second rule of fandom is find an enabler and become an enabler. Yes you should write that fic. What if it was even hornier? What if it was angstier? What if you wrote it just for me?
lucky catch
(Mermay) After last year's rescue, perhaps they start up a little seaside romance...a little bit of an illicit rendezvous on the salt and sand...
My favorite scenes in the LotR books are the ones where Legolas has vital information and just decides it's not important to share.
Like when Gandalf spent literal PAGES trying to figure out why the vibes were off in Moria and Legolas chimes in with just "it's a balrog :) that shit's evil :) we're so fucked :)" like what do you MEAN you knew already and just didn't tell him??
Or at the beginning of Two Towers when Aragorn thinks there's something nearby so he puts his ear to the ground to listen, and then like 10 minutes later is like "hmmm i hear horses" and Legolas is just like "mm yep. there are 105 blond bitches with spears" like you just let your friend put his face in the dirt and you can SEE them??
It's because legolas hasn't spent enough time with non-elves to remember that they don't know what he knows.
gandalf is scratching his head in moria, and legolas is thinking "oh man, the wizard noticed something off *besides* the obvious balrog that we all are aware of??"
"I wonder what aragorn is listening for? must be hard to hear, what with all of the horses. How many horses are there, actually? 1... 2... 3..."
"What do your elvish eyes see?" is Aragorn saying, as politely as possible, "Because the REST OF US are at a significant disadvantage, Prince Dipshit."
hey quick PSA but “reading before bed to wind down” only works if you’re normal about books btw. if you aren’t you are going to end up awake at 2:52am after finishing the whole book just trust me on this one
The thing about Secret Santa, Zoro decides, is that it’s a scam.
“Twenty dollar limit,” Nami had said, sweet and deadly, the group sprawled across at least half the Maccas’ booths. “You have to participate if you’re in the group chat.”
He retaliates by leaving the group chat, but she adds him back, merciless, and really that should’ve been his first clue trouble’s on the horizon. His second clue is when he pulls the little folded paper out of the hat and reads the name and his brain does a soft little error noise.
Sanji.
He doesn’t react in any way anyone can weigh. Just shrugs, crumples the paper in his fist and shoves it in his pocket. Normal. Totally normal. Definitely not like someone just handed him a live grenade with pretty handwriting.
Nami’s smile, when their eyes meet across the room, is way too pleased.
Whatever. He’s not going to overthink it. He’s just going to get a present like a regular functioning human and not like a guy who has had a crush on one of his best friends for four years and counting.
How hard can it be?
x
It is, in fact, impossible.
He spends two days wandering shops like a ghost. Sanji likes… cooking. Knives. Fire. Coffee. Pretty girls. Pretty boys. Yelling at Zoro. Espresso machines that cost more than Zoro’s entire savings. Sharp suits. Shoes that Zoro googles once and then exits out of very, very fast because those prices give him heart palpitations.
He briefly considers selling a kidney. Usopp catches him staring at a shop window full of chef pans and makes a strangled sound.
“Do not sell an organ for Secret Santa,” he hisses. “Nami’ll just raise the stakes. Also it’s not even legal. I think?”
“It’s just a pot,” Zoro mutters.
“It’s an $600 pot.”
Zoro scowls. “So?”
“Twenty. Bucks.”
He gets dragged home before he can commit financial self-harm. That night, he sits on his crappy futon staring at the ceiling, brain whirring. He wants to get Sanji something good, something that says he pays attention without actually saying he pays attention, because apparently that would be weird. Eventually, he does something drastic.
He goes to the Baratie.
x
Zeff clocks him the second he steps through the door and not the usual way, either, not the standard why is this moss-headed freeloader in my kitchen scowl. This one is narrower. Sharper.
Zoro considers turning around but he’s - he can do this. He squares his shoulders and walks up to the pass like it’s enemy territory, ignoring the way every cook side-eyes him like he’s about to steal a pan.
“Hey,” he says, because he’s just thriving at normal human interaction. “What does Sanji want?”
Zeff doesn’t answer right away, wiping his hands on a tea towel and gives Zoro a long, unimpressed once-over, all in one, like he’s assessing a fish and deciding if it’s worth filleting. He turns back to the prawns he’s shelling. “What’s this for?” he drawls. “Confession? Proposal?“
Zoro’s ears go hot so fast he almost hears it. “It’s for Secret Santa,” he grunts, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets. “Got Sanji.”
One of the dishies snorts softly. Zoro ignores them. “Got Sanji,” Zeff repeats, snorting. “Like you haven’t been buzzin’ around here like a big green fly for three years, loiterin’ whenever he closes.”
Zoro shuts the hell up.
Zeff clicks his tongue, turns back to the grill just long enough to flip a piece of fish, then speaks over his shoulder. “He doesn’t want your money, anyway. He’s got his own. More than you, judging by those sad-ass clothes you wear.”
“Thanks,” Zoro mutters, thinking of the $400 knife Sanji had called mid-range once.
“What he wants,” Zeff goes on. “Is people who give a shit and actually show it. Not just yap about it.”
“That’s not helpful,” Zoro says flatly. “At all.”
“Oh my god.” Zeff stares at the ceiling like he’s praying for patience. “You’ve got hands, don’t you?”
Zoro blinks. “You think I should make it?”
Zeff barks a laugh. “You’re good with them, right? All that griping you do about grip and hilt balance. Put it to use.”
Zoro feels his face heat again. “I’m not – it won’t be, like… fancy.”
Zeff waves that off. “He doesn’t need fancy. He’s got fancy in the drawer already. For the record,” he adds, almost grudging. ”You’re not the first idiot to look at him like that in this kitchen… but you’re the one who’s still here. That counts for more than you think.”
Zoro blinks. “Like what?”
“Like he hung the damn moon,” Zeff says blandly. “Don’t make it weird.”
Zoro absolutely makes it weird – in his own head – but his mouth just says, a little hoarse: “I can… figure something out.”
“Good.” Zeff turns back to his work, the conversation clearly over as far as he’s concerned. “Bring it by if you’re not sure it’ll hold. I’ll tell you if it’s crap.”
There’s a beat as Zoro turns to go. Zeff calls after him without looking. “Oi.”
Zoro glances back. “Yeah?”
Zeff’s stare is hard again, but there’s something steady under it. “He’s a stubborn little shit, but he’s not glass. You’re not either. You muck this up, it’ll hurt, but he’ll live. So will you.”
Zoro swallows. “That supposed to be comforting?”
“It’s supposed to be true,” Zeff grunts. Then, sharper: “You hurt him on purpose, though, I’ll deep fry your swords and chuck ‘em in the bloody ocean.”
Zoro doesn’t doubt that for a second.
He also can’t stop the tiny, traitorous curl of warmth in his chest as he leaves, already mentally sketching out an idea in more detail than any training plan he’s ever made and ends up on the lounge room floor three nights in a row, surrounded by Youtube tutorials, Perona guiding him over DenDen, scraps of canvas and a sacrificial old gi he cuts up for padding. He measures Sanji’s knife from memory. (which is not creepy, no matter what Perona says: he’s just seen it a lot. That’s normal, probably.) He sketches layouts. He makes a Pinterest board, which he will never, ever admit to a single soul.
By the fourth attempt, it starts looking like a real knife roll, with sturdy black canvas outside, soft inner lining so the steel doesn’t get scratched. A narrow pocket sized perfectly for Sanji’s favourite knife sleeve. Two extra slots for the beat-up paring knife and that one weird fish knife only Sanji uses. A line for rolling and tying it shut. Blue stitching, because his eyes are so fucking - yeah.
He sews until his hands ache and it’s still not perfect. The stitches are a little wonky in places. One corner is crooked and he pricks his finger so many times the fabric probably counts as a blood pact. But when he lays it out and slides Usopp’s kitchen knife in to test, it holds. He can almost see it already: Sanji shoving the roll into his bag before a shift. Unfurling it on the prep bench. Swearing when someone else tries to touch it. Using something Zoro made with his own hands every damn day.
His chest does something stupid and warm.
He folds it carefully, ties it, and tries not to think too hard.
x
On the other side of the mess, Sanji is so sure he doesn’t have Zoro. The problem, here, is Usopp’s handwriting.He’d reached into the stupid Santa hat, pulled out a folded scrawl, opened it, and squinted. “Is this… ‘Bffff’?”
Usopp had peered over his shoulder. “Oh, that? That’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
“Whose name is this?”
“That’s… that’s for me to know and you to find out,” Usopp had said, sweating. “Mystery. Intrigue. The Christmas spirit.”
Sanji had called him an idiot and assumed it was… maybe Chopper? Or Law? Maybe Law joined last-minute? The loop could be a C. Or an L. Or a seahorse having a stroke, frankly.
He buys Chopper backup idea gifts. He buys Law backup idea gifts. He spends a whole week being relieved that at least he doesn’t have to deal with moss-brain, thank fuck, that’d be a nightmare.
Then Nami’s laptop pings open in the kitchen.
“Oi, hand me the salt,” she calls, stirring something suspiciously expensive in a pot.
Sanji glides over, dumps way too much salt in just to annoy her, and his eyes catch on the screen, on the Secret Santa spreadsheet. He sees his own name, sure. Then, next to it, in beautiful Arial, clear as day now that it’s typed out: SANJI - ZORO
For three whole seconds, his brain simply bluescreens. Then: he snaps. “Oh, rack off!”
Nami slams the laptop shut with reflexes honed by years of dodging debt collectors. “No peeking!”
“You rigged this,” he accuses, pointing with a wooden spoon like an attorney. “You – you’re like, plotting something!”
“Allegedly,” Nami says, very pleasantly. “You’re welcome.”
Sanji spends the next thirty-six hours in a spiral. He doesn’t want to half-ass it, nor for this, which is already a problem because it’s meant to be stupid and fun. A silly little gift. Not oh no I want him to open it and feel seen and maybe smile and maybe not realise I’m in love with him??
He trashes idea after idea: Training gloves? Too obvious. New headphones for the gym? He’d never accept that. Protein powder? Too insulting. A shirt that says I’M WITH MORON with an arrow? Too revealing. It’s not until he’s halfway home one night, walking along the waterfront, that it hits him and he pauses on the jetty, the sea wind in his nose, the soft glow of the town laid out around him: their town. Their routes. Their places.
And, all at once, he knows exactly what he wants to make.
It starts with a little round metal box he finds in a craft store. He spends an hour sanding the logo off the lid and then another hour painting it dark green, then scribbling a tiny sloppy compass rose on top: N, S, E, W, and a badly drawn little sword as the needle. Inside, he lines the base with map paper and draws their town on a folded circle of card: the Baratie, Luffy and his brothers’ house, the shitty 24hr gym, Nami’s place, the soccer fields, the cliff lookout where Zoro pretends he’s just training and not also thinking about Things.
He does a few little doodles of seaweed hair, curls, a badly drawn ship, the one always out in the harbour that Zoro looks at sometimes like he might want to be on one day. He marks the routes between them as dotted lines, writing labels in the margins. He adds a scrap of paper tucked under the map: emergency return instructions: if lost, please report to nearest cook. And on top of that, nestled safe in the middle, he sets a tiny metal keyring: a little dull silver sword charm he’d rummaged out of a tray at the market. It had just been there, waiting. By the time he snaps the lid shut, there’s a snarl of nervousness in his stomach.
It’s stupid. It’s cheap. He’s going to get mocked for it.
But it’s also… them. Their little town. Their routes. The places Zoro always ends up and the one place Sanji always hopes he comes back to. He wraps it in brown paper with red string and for a full five minutes he considers not drawing a tiny heart on the tag.
He draws a tiny heart on the tag.
Then scribbles it out.
Then draws another one in the corner and pretends he didn’t.
x
They hold the party at Luffy’s house, because it’s the only place big enough to hold them. Sabo’s punch is just a bonus, and probably plays a role in why the house feels a little bit feral. There are fairy lights absolutely everywhere and someone’s taped tinsel to the ceiling fan (terrible idea but Luffy loves it). The coffee table is just… cheese. Only cheese. Usopp is fake sobbing into a bowl of popcorn while Mariah Carey hits that note for the third time.
Franky’s in a Christmas crop top that says HAVE A SUPERRR HOLIDAY. Chopper’s antler headband keeps slipping over one eye. Robin’s curled in an armchair with a mulled wine like a beautiful, festive cat while the rest of them find a loose circle on the floor, surrounded by a war crime’s worth of wrapping paper. Nami sits crosslegged at the front like a benevolent but terrifying game show host, her laptop open to the colour-coded spreadsheet.
“Okay!” she claps, way too pleased with herself. “Order matters. We’re opening in sequence so I can see everyone’s face. I want maximum embarrassment. I worked hard on this algorithm.”
Usopp mutters, “You mean rigging,” under his breath. She kicks him in the calf without looking and then leans into him, settling down into his side until his hand slips through hers.
“Sanji,” she announces. “You’re up third. Zoro… you’re last.”
Sanji’s stomach drops straight through his socks. “Why last?”
“No reason,” Nami says, absolutely lying. “Fate.”
Across the circle, Zoro sits in a mildly festive (it’s green?) shirt, one knee up, forearms loose over it. His stupid gold earrings catch the fairy lights every time he turns his head, gift tucked half behind his leg, wrapped in paper and twine, edges folded neat like he seriously measured them.
Sanji looks away before his chest can do something truly humiliating.
Luffy bounces. “Go, go, first one! I wanna see mine! Is this one mine? Nami, rig my name again –”
“You were never un-rigged,” she says sweetly. “Chopper first.”
Chopper unwraps a box of genuinely fancy pens and a set of tiny animal-shaped sticky notes. His eyes go huge and misty. “They’re… they’re so cute!”
“That one’s from me,” Robin says, smiling into her glass.
“Robin, they’re perfect,” Chopper sniffles. “I’m going to diagnose people so professionally.”
“Next,” Nami sings. “Franky!”
Franky tears through the paper and yells when he sees it: a monstrosity of a shirt stitched out of scrap denim and bright orange fabric, with MERRY DRIPMAS chain-stitched across the back.
“Who did this?!” he bellows, delighted.
Usopp raises a shy hand. “I, uh, made it? Don’t look inside the seams. I fought the sewing machine and lost twice.”
“You won where it counts!” Franky wipes at an imaginary tear, possibly a real tear, and immediately puts it on over his existing crop top.
Sanji inhales, palms stupidly sweaty. He reaches for the present with his name on it, medium-sized, heavier than he expected, wrapped in paper and… hand drawn little cartoon chef hats along the edge.
His breath snags.
Nami’s watching him way too closely. Usopp is, too. Chopper’s halfway behind his mug of hot chocolate, eyes big. Sanji peels the paper back carefully, like it’s delicate, like if he’s rough with it the whole illusion will shatter to find that underneath is a roll of canvas, bound with simple cord. The stitching isn’t exactly straight, but it’s… careful. Solid.
His throat goes dry as he unrolls it. Slots. A wider pocket at the end. Reinforced seams. A flap so nothing slips. The canvas is thick and heavy, the kind that’ll take years of abuse; the leather trim has been rubbed with something that smells faintly like oil and citrus, like someone stood over it and worked the treatment in by hand.
There’s a tiny stitched patch on the corner, a clumsy little embroidered cigarette and three green lines that are probably supposed to be swords. For a second, Sanji can’t see anything because his eyes are busy burning.
“Whoa,” Luffy breathes. “It’s like a little bed for knives.”
“That’s… really nice,” Chopper says quietly.
Usopp adds: “Damn, that’s sturdy. You could roll someone in that and they’d survive a fall.”
Franky nods gravely. “That’s craftsmanship, for real.”
Nami doesn’t say anything. She just looks between the knife roll and Zoro with a horrifically smug smile.
Sanji runs his thumb along one seam, feeling the unevenness, the tiny wobbles in the line; he’s spent enough late nights listening to Robin talk about handwork to recognise that not professional, not perfect, but intentional. Someone learning as they go. Someone ripping out stitches and starting again. Someone who wanted it right.
He swallows hard. “Who…?”
“You seriously can’t tell?” Nami scoffs, dry.
Across from him, Zoro looks like he wants the floor to open up. His arms are folded tight; the tips of his ears are bright red. “It’s not a big deal,” he grumbles. “Zeff - anyway. Should fit the knives ok.”
It clicks: Sanji pictures Zoro in the Baratie kitchen, standing where Sanji used to stand when he was sixteen and furious and starving for anyone to give half a shit. Zeff pointing with those big scarred fingers, saying, you got hands, use them.
His chest does something sharp and fond and painful. “You made this?” he hears himself ask, voice gone weirdly soft.
Zoro shrugs, eyes glued to literally anywhere else. “Didn’t have money for the fancy shit. I, uh… had some stuff. Was gonna make a sword bag. Figured this was more useful.”
Chopper claps both hands over his mouth. “That’s so rom – resourceful!”
Robin’s smile goes all knowing around the edges, watching Franky quietly mouth super romantic at Nami, who kicks him too, just for good measure.
Sanji’s fingers curl into the edge of the roll and fora second he has to look down, let his hair fall over his eyes so nobody can see his face. There’s a tiny knot of thread on one corner, uneven and ugly. He loves it.
“Oh,” he mumbles and it comes out thick with more than he means to show. He clears his throat. “You absolute sentimental dumbass. It’s perfect.”
Zoro glances over like he’s braced for mockery and seems almost startled by what he sees instead. His shoulders drop half a centimetre. “Yeah, well. Don’t get snot on it.”
“Next!” Nami crows, pouncing on the moment before anyone can cry. “Luffy!”
The circle moves on: Luffy opens a box full of ridiculous novelty sauces and creams. Usopp unwraps noise-cancelling earplugs, clutching them like holy relics, and thanks every god he can name. Robin gets a second-hand first edition of some obscure crime novel and looks quietly delighted.
“It was from an estate stale,” Usopp says brightly. “We don’t know if the stains are tomato sauce or blood!”
She clutches it to her chest.
Everytime Sanji glances up the knife roll is still there in his lap, heavy and real. Zoro’s gift remains hidden behind his leg. Eventually, Nami taps her screen. “Okay. Last one. Zoro.”
Zoro digs out the parcel with his name on it, small and light, the handwriting on the tag familiar, slanted sideways, handwriting he’d know anywhere.
His fingers are suddenly clumsy on the tape.
He peels it back and finds a rectangle metal tin, the kind you’d keep mints in. Someone’s drawn a compass on it in thin lines, slightly off-centre but charming as hell.
He pops the lid to find, inside, a tightly folded, hand-drawn map of their town, creased from being redone a few times, complete with little x marks with notes in Sanji’s handwriting: baratie (feed me), gym (don’t die), asl (steal ace’s snacks), beach (idiot training ground), your spot over the hill where Zoro likes to nap. There’s a smaller folded scrap on top that just says: if you get lost you’d better come back to at least one of these.
The room goes quiet in that way that says everyone is trying very hard not to gasp. Usopp breaks first. “Oh my god, he gave you a tracking device.”
“It’s not a tracking device!” Sanji snaps immediately, face already red. “It’s – it’s practical. You get lost in Woolworths, Zoro, you need all the help you can get.”
Zoro’s still staring at the tin. There’s a small rectangle of card taped to the underside of the lid and he peels it off, seeing how the front is another little hand-drawn compass. His heart does something he absolutely cannot show in public.
Robin makes a soft sound like she’s watching her favourite drama. Nami just looks painfully smug. “So. How do we feel about our completely random, not-at-all-manipulated gift assignments?”
Luffy beams. “Yeah, do you like it, Zoro?” he asks, leaning in.
Zoro clears his throat. His fingers are still curled around the little sword charm. “Yeah,” he says, a little rough. “Yeah. It’s… good.”
Sanji rolls his eyes too hard to hide how he’s smiling. “Don’t lose it, Moss.”
Zoro looks up, meets his eyes across the circle, and for a second the noise of the party blurs out, narrows down to just the knife roll on Sanji’s lap, the map in Zoro’s hands, and a room full of idiots pretending not to hold their breath for them.
Nami claps her hands together, slicing through the moment before one of them can short-circuit. “Alright! Presents done, emotional growth achieved, somebody top up my wine. Luffy, put on literally anything but that song.”
Luffy immediately puts on that song again.
The night dissolves into a warm, messy blur: Franky tries to teach Chopper how to dance, Usopp and Robin start a game of increasingly chaotic charades, Luffy attempts to juggle tangerines and nearly takes out the fairy lights. Someone starts a group selfie avalanche. Sanji ends up half in the kitchen, half in the lounge, refilling plates and swatting people with a tea towel when they try to steal food early.
Everytime he ducks back through the doorway, there’s another snapshot of the people he loves being loud and alive: Chopper asleep against Robin’s shoulder, reindeer headband slid sideways. Usopp sprawled on the rug, earplugs already in, demoing their noise-cancelling for science. Luffy curled upside down on the couch, legs over Zoro’s lap, still talking, still laughing.
Sanji moves through it all like he’s floating. He’s a little tipsy, a lot tired, and more full than he can ever remember being, not from food, but from this: his family, loud and warm and alive. Usopp’s terrible laugh. The way someone keeps refilling everyone else’s glasses without being asked. The tacky fairy lights. The stupid tinsel Zoro ends up with, wrapped around one bicep like some kind of reluctant festive gladiator.
Everytime Sanji passes the coffee table his eyes snag on the two gifts still there: the knife roll, carefully rolled and tied, waiting to go home with him. The tiny tin, sitting next to Zoro’s phone, glinting whenever the lights catch it. Eventually, it gets late enough that even Luffy starts yawning between mouthfuls of leftover chips. People peel off toward spare rooms or into Ubers. Outside, the street’s gone quiet; the air beyond the windows looks cold and soft, more grey than black.
Sanji tucks the knife roll under one arm, hesitates, then tucks the tin into Zoro’s hand as he passes.
“Nearly forgot this, Moss,” he says, aiming for casual and landing somewhere in the vicinity of too gentle.
Zoro’s fingers close around it on reflex. “I didn’t forget.”
“Sure,” Sanji drawls. “Would hate for your sense of direction to get even worse.”
He means keep it. Thinks: please keep it. Think of me when you look at it.
Zoro just huffs and shoves the tin into his pocket like it’s something precious and embarrassing. “Shut up and go home before Nami starts charging you rent somehow.”
Sanji grins and breaks off to do one last lap of the room because apparently he’s sentimental now, kissing Robin’s cheek, carefully extracting his shoes back from where Luffy’s been using them as a prop, letting Chopper cling to him for a sleepy thirty seconds. He ends with a hug from Nami that comes with a quiet, smug: “You’re welcome, by the way.”
“For what?” he mutters into her hair.
She just laughs and pushes him toward the door. “Go before Luffy starts asking for thirds.”
His grimaces when he steps out to the street; the night’s got that filthy warm, late-December heat to it that snakes into your bones and sets up shop. For a second he just stands there, fingers curled around the strap of his bag, knife roll pressed against his ribs. His chest feels stupidly full, like there’s not enough space for all of it, gratitude and terror and the ridiculous, reckless hope that maybe, just maybe, this is what being okay looks like.
He laughs under his breath, more exhale than sound. He’s got a job and a home and people who will stuff him full of pancakes and drag him out of bars and make him knife rolls with their clumsy, careful hands.
If things never moved past this – this warm, stupid, tangled peace – it would be enough. He tells himself that over and over and, god, he almost believes it. Then he turns toward the stairs.
“Oi.” Zoro’s standing half out of the doorway with one hand braced on the frame, the other jammed deep in his shorts. His hair’s a mess, tinsel still wrapped around his arm, cheeks a little pink from heat and maybe beer.
Sanji’s heart does a stupid flip. He smirks to cover it. “Forgot to insult me one more time?”
Zoro’s jaw moves, like he’s chewing on what to say and for a second it looks like he’s going to bail entirely; his fingers tighten on the door, shoulders bunch. Then he does something extremely on brand: he panics forward, three quick strides, sneakers thudding the landing. He catches the front of Sanji’s shirt in one fist and blurts, rough and too loud in the quiet street: “If – if I get lost again…”
Sanji’s breath catches. “Yeah?”
Zoro swallows. His hand is so warm. “D’you mind if I keep using you as the nearest cook?”
It’s such a Zoro way to say it, half a joke, half a confession, all sharp edges covered in stubborn. Sanji feels the words land behind his ribs like a match finding tinder. He knows he could laugh it off or he could say something flippant.
He could keep being a coward but he’s so tired of that. He closes the last sliver of space between them instead. “You complete idiot,” he says, very softly. “I literally made you a map.”
Zoro lets out a tiny laugh, shaky. Sure. “Yeah, well. Wanted to make sure I read it right.”
Sanji’s hand finds the front of Zoro’s shirt without him really deciding to move it there, fingers curling in the cotton. His pulse is roaring in his ears. “Then pay attention.”
Zoro’s eyes flick to his mouth, just once, and it’s all the permission Sanji needs to kiss him. Zoro makes a startled noise in the back of his throat and then he’s there, really there, mouth softening, hand sliding from Sanji’s coat to the side of his neck. His thumb presses just under Sanji’s jaw, grounding; Sanji feels the heat of it like another heartbeat.
The world bends to the air on his ears and the warm mouth against his, the faint taste of cheap beer and salt and something else he wants to map, name, claim. His brain sparks and blanks at the same time as Zoro pulls back a fraction, just enough that their noses bump.
“Okay?” he asks, voice rough, gaze searching.
“You really asking me that now?”
“Shut up,” Zoro mutters, but there’s a smile in it. His fingers slip down, catching Sanji’s wrist loosely, thumb rubbing over the pulse there like he’s checking it. “Seriously. Okay?”
Sanji lets the question sink in. All the ways this could go wrong, all the ways it already has, all the ways it never will. The fact that he’s still here, that they both are.
He thinks about Zeff’s kitchen. Their friends scheming. The map tin in Zoro’s pocket. The knife roll under his arm. He thinks about the younger version of himself who thought he didn’t get to have this, who thought wanting things was already a crime and he squeezes Zoro’s hand.
“Yeah,” he says, and it’s terrifying and electric and true. “Yeah. I’m… really okay.”
Zoro exhales, like someone cut a rope inside him. “Good,” he mutters, almost too quiet to hear before he kisses him again. “Quit smiling,” he complains almost instantly and Sanji laughs, grins. Can’t help it.
“Quit kissing me on the stairs like we’re in some shitty straight Christmas movie.”
“Gross,” Zoro snorts, but he doesn’t move away.
They stand there for another minute or five or ten, foreheads pressed together, hands tangled, the party a muffled blur on the other side of the door, the town breathing hot and distant below.
Eventually, Sanji clears his throat. “So, uh. You headed back in? Or you wanna walk me home so you can test drive that map?”
Zoro snorts. “Pretty sure the map says ‘report to nearest cook,’ not ‘abandon him on the street’.” He squeezes Sanji’s fingers. “C’mon. Show me the long way.”
Sanji’s chest goes warm and stupid all over again.
“Yeah,” he says, lacing their hands properly as they start down the stairs. “I can do that.”
2087
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