Archive of Our Own

i. the head chef

He falls in love on the Baratie.

He falls in love with middle-aged women who stroke his cheek when they order, gloved hands, the feel of silk on his skin. He falls in love with the slit skirts of lunar pale socialites, the patterned bow-ties of greying men. The way someone looks at him over a wine glass. A finger running down a menu.

He falls in love with boys on the line, too nervous to meet his eyes, boys who ask him to join them for dish duty, who touch his fingers when they pass him warm crystal-cut glasses. Boys who lean in the doorway to cold storage, who look at him so beautiful, so betrayed, when Zeff hawks them by the collar out into the cold.

He falls in love with pink-shelled reptile eggs and seawater syrup. Perfectly seared tuna steaks, those red berries you can only get on the north coast of the Avant Islands, how they stain purple down into grooves of his fingerprints — the sound a whisk makes against a bowl — the metal taste of a cold spoon. The last week of the year you can catch lionfish before they swim south again.

He falls in love with his own body, the awful things it can do. Lies awake looking at his two legs, poking at his ribs like they still stick out. The exhaustion that keeps him upright, the hunger that’s never really faded out. The thing his face changes into, the things he can make people do with it, the way people mime his smile back at him, helpless, and him helpless, too.

Zeff doesn’t get it. Never gets it.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” he tells him, a shot of brandy after the latest heartbreak, a quick kick to the back of the knee when he’s moved on the next day. Rolls his eyes at each new romance, every time he meets the latest love of his life. Takes him off the line, puts him on front of house, then on dishes when he can’t stop falling for the customers he waits on. 

“Rescued the biggest idiot in all the Blues,” Zeff keeps saying, pushes him out of his office on the latest plan to propose to the latest girl.

“Stop giving yourself away,” Zeff grumbles, the next time he finds him drunk and weepy after hours, a level of fatherly intervention neither of them are comfortable with, not looking at each other, but Zeff still sitting down to share a drink.

“Take better care of yourself,” with a cool hand to his forehead, a fever he worked all day through, the pretty girl who blushed at him across the dining room, came for lunch and stayed for dinner. And Sanji staring mindless, unseeing up at this old man, his shitty old man, burning and thick with sickness, and thinking — 

It was you who taught me this.

Always in love, that’s the core of it, sweet like an apple. Love, can’t help it, doesn’t want to. Wants to pare off any part of himself that he can, for anyone who would want it. Wants to feel it, lean into it, wants to swoon into morning with something already sweet on his teeth. Tastes it, every day. Is hungry, starving, all the time. A caved-in pit of desire and of need. The foreground of his life. A craving of lovesickness. 

ii. the sister

On the Conami Islands, Nami’s sister.

Enormous moon over the party and Sanji’s sweating over his stove, feeling good, overheated and easy, a line of people to feed that just seems to refresh itself, that seems to grow as much as he feeds it, like he could never give them enough.

Nojiko shrugs him off, and that’s fine, he rolls with it, smiling after her, still flushed and pleased with her clever eyes, the blunt cut of her blue hair above her shoulder. In love with the deadpan rejection, smooth on her face, with how she’d eaten his food quick and greedy. His head thumps with his own body, his blood sings, his eyes finding each small, pretty smile, each strong shoulder in the crowd, heart beating out after Nojiko as she goes.

And there’s Zoro behind her. 

Like the next line in the play, he thinks. Come to pick up the thread.

Oooh, back for seconds! And: At least I don’t need three swords to prove I’m a man. Sanji watches Zoro’s careful blank face, his reptile eyes, and can’t help it. Can’t help leaning in a bit, smiling his best smile. Can’t help touching Zoro’s hand as he passes the plate back, an invitation, a parting blow — Zoro’s face as he leaves.

Hot night, hot food. Sanji stares across the party after Zoro, steady, keeps staring at him in between each serving. Replays the easy annoyance fizzing at the edge of him, watches Zoro ducking Luffy’s hug, Zoro stilted with Nami looking down at her shoes, Zoro ignoring Usopp. Feels a familiar churn in his gut, close to curiosity, more like compulsion. He stares, knows Zoro knows, knows Zoro is pretending not to know. 

Hot night, so Sanji lets it be hot, doesn’t take off his jacket, lets his cheeks pink and his heart pound, feels his own blood, his own body. When Zoro looks back, over his shoulder, Sanji stares flushed and lips parted back at him, waits, waits, for Zoro to be the one to break eye contact.

He does.

Sanji feels the smile grow across his face.

Zoro comes back for thirds. 

*

Of course he’s fucking with him.

It’d be nice, to say he didn’t mean it, to say it was accidental, at least at first. It’d be nice if he were that kind of person. But it wasn’t. It never is, with him.

It's fun, is the thing. It’s easy. Nami just rolls her eyes at him, Usopp finds it all funny enough that it takes the fun out of it. Luffy — is Luffy. It’s Zoro whose shoulders come up, almost imperceptibly, who frowns, tries not to frown, who stares disdain after him and says even less, meditates more, dodges the kitchen. 

It’s Zoro, his dark green hair, his tawny cheekbones, angry mouth. Sanji can’t help it, never could, and the more he sees it the more he has to do it, leaning in mid-battle, smelling the sweat of him, baring his teeth, watching for his pupils to dilate, leaning in that bit more. 

He finds excuses to touch him. Blinks innocent at every scowl. Smiles, the way he knows how to smile, crinkled and easy and boyish, smiles the way always works. Plays it as well as he knows.

Zoro avoids him. Which is just — adorable. Takes his meals outside. Trains endless, monotonous circles around the mast with his bandana around his head and, then, when Sanji takes to fishing shirtless, around his eyes. Sanji doesn’t even need to say anything, just sharpens his knives at the kitchen table, sleeves pushed to his elbows, hair in front of his eyes, and Zoro’s like a jack-in-the-box, compulsive — 

“Gonna stop pretending you can cook yet, waiter?”

“How about we drop you off at the next island, waiter?”

“Sure you know how to handle those, waiter?”

Glance up. Lick your lips. Smile.

Zoro, still stony faced but now red, the next words already dead on his tongue, making a sudden exit. 

So, yeah, he can turn it on. Yeah, he takes his top off more than exactly necessary. It’s good. It’s fun. It’s Zoro, who is so serious, so unsmiling. He stares at him until he looks up, pretends to have just looked up himself, frowning, wordless question, why are you staring at me, Zoro instantly berry-red and snapping, “I’m not.” Snapping, “Cause you’re — fucking ugly.”

Zoro, pretending to nap by the mast, tense as a scared child, when Sanji comes to bring him snacks, his favourites, perfected over the nights sailing together, lets him read whatever he likes into it. 

“Don’t want your fucking food,” Zoro says, has to say, and it’s so funny that Sanji just has to as well, when he caves and finally reaches for the rice balls, has to say, “Good boy.”

Zoro goes still all at once. Slow, like a scared child, looks up. And Sanji beams at him, makes sure his eyes are soft and steady, eye contact a touch longer than it should be, turns back to the sea and grins to himself when Zoro, after a long moment, flees.

iii. the navigator

Nami —

Nami.

Of course he’s in love with Nami.

She does her mapwork at the kitchen table mid-morning, pen moving with the tilt of the boat, bright orange head bent close to the parchment. Sanji loves the ink she gets on the side of her hand, the way she stretches her neck left, right, after a particularly detailed patch. Loves her stony concentration, feels it giddy in his belly when she barely looks up at his offers of tea, coffee, cakes, company. 

“You need to leave her alone,” Zoro keeps telling him.

“Jealous, mosshead?” Sanji responds every time, cackles when Zoro’s face goes sick.

Nami doesn’t get it, either. Looks at him with suspicion she can’t quite shed, like she’s trying to work out what he wants from her, a lifetime of tallies and bartering and theft. Of nothing being given.

“For free?” she always jokes, voice flat but half-there, wariness like a skin, him placing a warm plate of small tangerine tarts down in front of her. A flourish, arm polite behind his back, the waiter again, another kind of game. 

“Hell, I’d pay you,” Sanji says, silly voice and everything, hams it up, but there’s still something tight in her face as she half-smiles, pulls the plate over to her. 

She’s beautiful all the same, hurting him right in the throat. The worst part — the best part — is that he doesn’t want anything from her. It’s so real, every time, real as his own heart in his hand, like he could just vomit up some sudden swell of emotion, like he’s gonna balloon-pop out of his skin, Nami hesitantly pulling at pieces of the tarts, putting them in her mouth like a test, then quick one after another, as though someone might take them away.

Doesn’t work. Next day, he tries a tangerine glaze on the ham Luffy nearly sniffed out in storage. Tangerine ice cream the day after, infused gin the following week. Scratches notes out in the night, quantities to be adjusted, how soft her shoulders came down, how much she sighed back into her chair. How genuine the smile.

“You like it?” he asks, can’t keep the hopeful note out, and Nami looks kinda guarded, kinda bemused back at him, and he does backflips in his mind. Zoro, next to her, stares down at his plate in that flat way of his, and doesn’t answer when Sanji calls. 

(He’s still avoiding him. 

Sanji loves it.)

Nighttime and he’s sure he’s got the right recipe this time. His side is aching after Arlong Park, a scrape that won’t quite scab, but he likes it, lets the pain guide him to new ingredients, the clearest kind of love he knows. He's checked it in the mirror, this exposed strip of flesh good enough to eat, enflamed red as an apple, meaty and rare. Would probably be healed by now if he wasn’t so committed to this search, weeks now of late nights hunting for the right dish, the right flavours, the thing that will finally win her over. But this is more important, he knows. Is entirely sure. This is what matters.

Onto his second pot of tea, scratching out yesterday's pickling recipe that had only seen her thank him on her way out, when Zoro half-stumbles in through the doorway, sleep-soft, freezes comically mid-step when he spots Sanji at the table.

Midnight gone, Usopp on watch, so an alcohol hunt. Sanji props his chin on his hand, waits, smiles that smile that always gets Zoro fish-faced. Predictably, Zoro just stands there, looking dumb.

“Tea?” Sanji says finally, still smiling, and Zoro manages to scowl back at him. Doesn’t respond, of course he doesn’t, so Sanji slides the set’s second cup across the table.

Then, “I thought this was the bunk.”

Not even an alcohol hunt then. Sanji snorts into his palm.

Zoro doesn’t move, demands, “What’re you doing?” 

So suspicious. So cute. Sanji pours out the tea, the steam warm in his face, keeps his eyes on Zoro. 

“Having tea,” he says, slowly, so Zoro’s moss-brain can follow it. 

Zoro stays there, hand on the door, shifting his weight back and forth. Like an idiot. 

“You’re always up late,” he says.

Very observant. Sanji pushes the second cup to the other side of the table, makes sure that he leans over enough that his collar gapes down, that Zoro can see down his shirt. 

Zoro doesn’t sit, hand still stuck on the door, eyes just below Sanji's face and cheeks pink. When he looks back up, Sanji is smiling all charm, best he can, and Zoro blinks, snaps, “Why d’you look like that?”

It’s a testament to Sanji’s service skills that he doesn’t laugh. 

“Like what?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

Scowling worse. “Don’t want your fucking tea.”

“No?” 

“Why don’t you sleep? Tell me what you're up to.”

Sanji looks at him calm, casual, taps his notebook with a finger. Rolls the word out his mouth — “Plotting.”

Zoro’s face, pinched-tight and so resolved, so ready for this to be a fight, the only way a man like him knows how to interpret another man. It’s warm and wriggling in Sanji’s gut. Familiar, almost, the male rage of the kitchen, the dismissal on the Orbit and the disdain on the Baratie. Familiar, but not really, not when Zoro’s eyebrows come down over flint-hard eyes, when he looks so lovely, so out of his depth.

“You’re not gonna win,” Zoro bites out.

It’s only when the door cracks shut behind him that Sanji slumps back into his seat, laughing into his palm. Stretches, rolls his neck, feels warm and good and hungry. Feels invincible, edible. 

On his side, his wound is seared like a steak. No one here now, so he pulls up shirt, inspects it. Touches a finger to his side, brings it to his face slick red. 

Tastes it. 

Forgets.

*

Marmalade — it’s the marmalade that gets her. 

That evening, Zoro is glaring at the notebooks stacked neatly on Sanji’s kitchen counters. He was muttering something to Nami and Usopp when Sanji came to serve the table — Nami and Usopp twinning looks of bewilderment back at him — so he pressed his chest up against Zoro’s shoulder as he passed the mains across, just to feel Zoro go still, see the blood rushing to his face.

Another good night. Luffy is on his third course, came before the others for the special meals Sanji makes just for him. First as taste-tester, but Sanji quickly realised the feedback would always be the same, so now just as a happy customer, happiest customer Sanji’s ever had.

“I know what you’re doing,” Zoro says by his side at the counter, in a low, sure tone that says, I really don’t. He’s keeping his body just far enough from Sanji’s, which is just quite sweet, really.

“Oh?”

“Plotting,” Zoro says, like it’s got great significance. Lands a hand, heavy, on Sanji’s pile of notebooks, which — yeah, Sanji’s not sure when the last time Zoro washed his hand was — but Sanji can roll with it, can drink down that annoyance, when there’s much more fun to be had elsewhere.

“You’re not gonna get to me,” Zoro is saying, so serious, Sanji can’t get enough. “I'm not fooled by this whole act of yours. And if you keep trying whatever you're trying, I’ll —”

Gonna last a while. Sanji zones the threats out, focuses on his plating, the clean symmetry of the eternal circle of it, wiping the rim, tunes back in at one point to catch — “the whole crew of them and not one fooled me and you think” — more of the same. Turns the plate round, round, to make sure it’s good from all sides. Glances across at Zoro, finds him staring expectantly. Wanting an answer.

“I have no problem beating the shit out of you,” Sanji says, just to watch Zoro’s face do wonderful dumb things, because of course that’s what he’s into.

Of course. 

Sanji turns back to his plates, hums to himself. 

“Just bullying at this point,” Nami says, dry, wonderful, when he serves her, lets him squeeze her shoulder as he goes past. Sat again next to Usopp, Luffy happily picking at his hair, Zoro sneers at her, slumped down low in his seat.

“I think you’re really gonna love this one, Nami dear,” Sanji says, setting the plate down. Nami looks at him the way she usually does — unsure, calculating — but peers curiously at the dessert when he puts it down, anyway. 

It’s a tangerine cake, this time, his fourth attempt at marmalade with the tangerines from her trees. Zest in the sponge, less sugar than last time, orange-infused water he got right sometime before dawn. Third variance on the marmalade, peel chopped more finely this time, long and thin strips, less lemon. It's the marmalade, he knows. That's what's gonna make it.

Nami tries it, pauses, and then. There it is — tangerine peel, face tipped up and open to him. A smile. A real fucking smile.

He’s found it. 

He might cry. Feels the sudden blast of the sleepless nights that led to this, feels the thrumming ache of his side, but —

“It’s just like the ones they make back home,” Nami says, happy and so very beautiful. “The jam is just like — how did you do that?”

“Just want you to be happy, my love,” he says, completely honest, and her smile this time is smaller, sweeter, like she knows it's honest, too.

Sanji grabs the back of her seat to stay upright, tries to play it off. Zoro is looking from the pile of notebooks on the counter to the jam jars to Nami, her smiling, like it’s new to her face, but — smiling. He's looking at Sanji, too.

Sanji can't help himself.

“Want something, mosshead?”

Head tilt, smile. A plate outstretched. 

Whatever expression was growing on Zoro’s face slips off. He snatches the plate from Sanji, storms out of the kitchen, frothing insults over his shoulder. Sanji grins after him, then down at Nami, and she’s grinning, too, now, and with the bang of the door, sending him soaring, she's laughing.

iv. the liar

“I’ve actually never been turned down,” Usopp is saying, sprawled across the bench in the kitchen, picking dramatically from a plate of sliced melon. “It’s actually a pain, really, because the women — the ladies, they just never stop coming, y’know? Never stop throwing themselves at me. Why, once, back when I ran the village’s agricultural committee —”

Sanji got the melons, hard yellow-skinned like a lizard, on the last island, got them half-price in exchange for short-grained rice from the island before. The trader was a middle-aged man, papery-crinkled smile as he’d looked at the rice, can’t grow this type here, boy, and looked at Sanji with such uncomplicated warmth — Sanji was invaded, heart in his throat, smiling back.

“ — and now I’ve got this lifetime ban from all bakeries in the East Blue.”

It’s a good story. Lies, of course, but Usopp is gesturing with his wrist as he says it, hand and mouth wet with the melon, and Sanji decides to believe it anyway. Why shouldn’t he? Luffy, the One Piece, All Blue — he’ll believe anything. He lives his life believing.

“Why are you telling me this?” Zoro asks, deadpan, across from Usopp. He’s back in the phase of shadowing Sanji in what he clearly thinks is a threatening manner, but comes off more like a duckling on the tail of its mother. He slips looks at Sanji while Usopp talks, blushes angry red when Sanji catches him, throws a piece of melon in the air and catches it in his mouth, winks.

Usopp puts his melon slice down, leans across the table.

“To help,” he stage-whispers. “With your situation.”

The face Zoro makes — priceless.

Sanji likes Usopp. Likes his coiled energy, his moving mouth, the speed he talks at and the forced swagger, the way he makes himself slouch down in any seat and how drunk he gets at each island stop. Likes his love of spicy food, blowing out with puffed up cheeks, eyes watering, insisting it’s fine, only accepting glasses of milk when the others have cleared out of the kitchen.

“Thanks, man,” Usopp will say, sweating. “Not that I needed it or anything, y’know, I'm actually something of a spice expert, a spice warrior one could say, I can show you my collection sometime, so, like, no need to tell anyone, wouldn’t wanna upset Luffy about his milk —”

And Sanji will mime zipping his mouth, smiling warm and inordinately pleased when Usopp claps a hand to his bicep, leaves it there.

So he cooks curries, enough chili to numb the mouth, rubs his fish with enough spice to sting. He lets Usopp acclimate to one level and then notches it up. “You can take it?” he asks, every time, and Usopp, eyes bright, says, “Yeah, yeah,” snot and tears on his face but crazed grinning, Nami rolling her eyes and calling them both idiots, Luffy cackling and Zoro, of course, Zoro frowning between both of them like he can't figure it out.

Sanji gets it, though. Gets Usopp. His own pain is getting sweeter, like it’s caramelising. He cooks with one hand light over his wound, feels a thread of heat between the stove’s fire, the charring meat, and his own flesh. When he drinks with Usopp — nights Nami works on her maps and Luffy is already snoring asleep — it’s numbed, a bit, and Usopp says between glugs of milk, “Bet you’ve never been hurt,” kinda jealous, and Sanji leans in, conspirator, “Never,” and they hold each other’s gaze a moment before cracking into laughter.

Zoro acts guard dog, in case Sanji is gonna snap Usopp’s neck once he’s passed out or in case they’re gonna fuck. Three swords across his lap and silently accepting the shot glasses Sanji slides across to him, almost flinching whenever they touch. 

“Need to make sure you’re not poisoning us,” Zoro says. Sulks.

Sanji keeps his gaze. “Just admit you want to spend time with me.” 

Zoro chokes on his shot, Sanji already re-focused on Usopp, wonderful in the swing of his story. Sanji watches his lips, the lovely wideness of his eyes as he tells his tales, bright against his dark skin. The light in the kitchen swings low and buttery along with the ship in the evenings, their drinks tipping with it, the fifth or so time they’ve done this, and Usopp’s tolerance still shit, leaning heavily against Sanji’s side, Zoro stiff and uncomfortable opposite them.

“I was actually a captain before this,” Usopp tells him, and Sanji grins, “Me, too —”

“— no, no, I was —“”

“— I was —”

And they collapse fizzing with alcohol and lies, with the power, with the world rearranged. Zoro stares flatly at them, never gets the jokes, and Sanji can’t help knocking his foot against Zoro’s, grinning childish and alcohol-happy when the contact makes Zoro jump. When Zoro swears at him, he blows him a kiss, and Zoro knocks back another shot as if that disguises the flush all the way up to his hairline.

“Damn, you're mean,” Usopp laughs, throws an arm around Sanji and steals his drink. Sanji lets him.

“I'm a delight,” Sanji says. “You wanna ask the girls back at the Baratie and hear how nice I am.”

Zoro snorts. “Sure.”

“You want me to prove it, sword-boy?” Sanji says, obvious and shameless, a hand going to his top button and undoing it in slow, exaggerated movements. 

Usopp laughs again — Zoro looks murderous — and tugs Sanji closer in a way that jostles all the way up his side, lancing pain hot through his body, like boiling water poured down him, and Sanji turns the wince into an answering laugh, ducking his head and swallowing a small, hurt gasp, Usopp still laughing at his side. He reaches for the bottle, clearly hasn't numbed himself enough, and finds it empty.

Finds, when he rights himself, Zoro frowning, thoughtful, at him.

Feels like he's been grabbed by the throat. Not the face he usually gets from Zoro, his usual suspicion and oblivious awkwardness, something quieter and something serious, considering, eyes like a spotlight on Sanji, lighting everything dark and crooked up.

“Need more,” Sanji says, shaking the empty bottle, just to say something, feels off-footed and flailing suddenly, feeling the whole stretch of his wound blazing down his body.

“I think you’ve both had enough,” Zoro says. 

Sanji makes himself grin, same old charmer, nods at Usopp, who is slumping further and further down against him. “Enough? This guy? He can take it, can’t you, mate?” 

Usopp makes a muffled noise against Sanji’s shoulder. 

Sanji leans in across the table, says, “Can you take it?”

Zoro doesn't even blush. “Fuck off.”

Sanji snickers still, disentangles himself from Usopp and stumbles his way to the cupboards, hunting noisily for another bottle, and his hand goes to his side automatically, and hears —

“You hurt?”

Glances over his shoulder, surprised. Usopp is already passed out, snoring face-down on the bench, and Zoro sits there tight-muscled and trained expression, like a little kid. He’s not even meaning to this time, it’s just the low-level discomfort, just the booze, the way Zoro is trying so hard —

“Stop it,” Zoro says, low. 

Sanji turns it up a few notches instead, tips his head to the side. “Stop what?” 

Zoro scowls, shoulders hunched up just enough, riled up good and just how Sanji likes him and Sanji feels righted again.

“Fuck off,” Zoro says. Stuck on repeat. 

Sanji smiles wider.

“It’s not funny,” Zoro says, which. It is. “You're hurt. I can tell.”

None of that. Sanji walks slowly over to him, predator to prey, Zoro tensing as he closes in. Too-schooled expressionless, hands fisted on his lap, watching warily as Sanji approaches — doesn’t break eye contact as he slides into the booth by his side.

“What’re you doing?” 

“Nothing.” Sanji leans his shoulder into him, little touch, warmth, then leans against him properly, breathes in deep enough that he knows it will move Zoro’s body, too. For here, Sanji can just look up under his fringe and see the curve of Zoro’s flushed cheek, the hard set of his mouth. He can feel the animal pound of his heart.

“You're trying to distract me,” Zoro says.

Sanji hums, drops his head onto Zoro's shoulder, and feels his own pain, feels Zoro's intake of breath. Sits there, kinda sleepy now, Usopp making snuffling noises horizonal on the other side of the table, and Zoro very warm under his cheek. Maybe he is too drunk, because his eyes are closing and his breathing is evening out, and the hurt isn't that much, anymore, can barely feel it at all. 

“You little shit,” Zoro says eventually. 

Sanji grins to himself, says more to Zoro’s neck, “You think?”

When he struggles his eyes open again, he sees Zoro glaring at the place where their knees are touching like he can remove the feeling with willpower alone. Sees the recipes pinned above his sink, the bread he's proofing, the Flame Island chilis he's drying out for Usopp's next round. Sees the curve of Zoro's thigh against his, hard muscle, warmth, and closes his eyes again.

Zoro doesn’t respond.

He doesn’t move, either.

*

He probably should have seen to this sooner. 

But he’s always been like this, found it easier. His body as just its outline, a tool, an extension of a knife, a spatula, a stove. Pissed Zeff off to no end, burns hidden til they puss, a broken ankle he keeps walking on, but he could just never make himself care, the click of Zeff’s peg-leg like a metronome in his brain — it never mattered.

On the next island, a woman sells medicinal herbs at a half-constructed stall. Recent storm, she explains, hunched over like she’s twice her age, tired somewhere abiding, greyed-out and sleepless.

“Some of the finest herbs I’ve seen, miss,” Sanji tells her, means it. The trader blushes, smiles shy and sweet, and Sanji’s chest chokes a bit, her face suddenly beautiful in a way it hadn’t been before, and he’s considering making a genuine play for it, a date, a wedding, just a handful of children, when his wound throbs again, hot metal under his skin.

He tells her his crewmate is injured, likes the soft sympathy it draws out. She tries to give him a discount, but he pushes the money into her hands anyway, silent apologies to the lovely Nami, nearly skips away thinking of the trader's hair and shoulders and sandals.

It’s Usopp that sees him applying the paste that night.

Half-twisted in the mirror, shirt pulled up, the medicine thick and cooling. Pungent herbal smells. The light in the boys’ room is always thin, the wood very pale, almost white, so that it seems glowing, even at night. Usopp stands uncertain at the doorway, lit from behind by the light from the corridor, making awkward coughing noises instead of talking, looking —

“You okay, man?” 

— lovely.

“Nah,” Sanji says, all broad cheeky smiles, like it’s a lie, and that’s good enough, for him, to make it one. 

Usopp — gets it. Gets it right away. Big, white-toothed grin, like a little boy, relaxing instantly. He lets it drop and Sanji is glad, very glad, that it was Usopp who saw him. 

“So, spice warrior,” Sanji says, tugging his shirt back down. “Wanna show me what your arsenal?”

Usopp brightens. When they bustle out of the boys room, Zoro is there. Of course. He looks quick, suspicious, between the two of them. His hand is on his sword.

“What were you doing in there?”

“Nothing,” Usopp yelps, at the same time Sanji says, “Fucking.”

Zoro makes — a noise, some kinda mosshead noise that Sanji will leave for the biologists to translate, and Usopp shrieks rather wonderfully at Sanji’s side. Drags Sanji away by the arm, babbling incoherent apologies at Zoro at they go. Later, in the workshop Usopp has commanded, cross-legged on the floor, guided tour through Usopp’s weapons, Usopp is chuckling to himself, saying, “You’re too much, man. He’s gonna kill you one day.”

“Don’t say you’re wishing it was you,” Sanji says, sat there on the floor with him, half-grin his way, plans to make his favourites tonight, and Usopp laughs, and that’s something beautiful, honestly, something that requires no belief at all. It really is.

v. the captain

Sanji loves Luffy. Immediately, fundamentally, new kinda helpless. 

“This is so good!” Luffy yells — really yells — each meal, making grabby-hands for Sanji’s arm, his face, food smeared around his mouth, under his nails. “You’re the best cook ever!”

Luffy asks for seconds, thirds, essentially unlimited top-ups, and Sanji says yes every time. Isn’t sure he could stop feeding this boy, hasn’t ever wanted to stop feeding anyone, ever, really. First time someone matched his own unbounded hunger, his endless need to fill. The man he was meant to cook for, he thinks some late nights, marinating close to midnight, never convinced his stocks are enough. 

“You’re the best,” Luffy keeps saying. “My cook’s the best. Don’t you think so, Zoro? Zoro? Zoro?”

Zoro ignores him. Gets poked repeatedly in the face. 

“Zoro? Zoro?”

Zoro looks like he’s about to have a seizure. 

“Well, I think you’re the best.” Luffy smiles at Sanji and Sanji can’t help but smile back, completely occupied by Luffy’s easy love, easy joy — the first time he’s ever seen it in someone else — overrun by it. 

Zoro ferries dirty plates back to the sink to escape Luffy’s poking, to glare at Sanji on each pass. 

“You don’t like me, Zoro?” Sanji asks, casual, arranging drinks on a tray and balancing it on one hand.

“I will — beat you,” Zoro says, stilted. 

Sanji takes a step towards him, chests almost touching, tray perfect, says, low, “Beat me?”

Zoro whitens, stares without computing, turns and walks away like a man being chased. At the table, Nami and Usopp collapse into laughter, Luffy looking brightly between them all, chirping, “I don’t get it!” and immediately after, “I'm hungry!”

Sanji loves him.

Loves him even more that night, having guilelessly charmed a table of girls to join theirs at the tavern, Luffy crouched on his seat like a monkey, talking too-fast for the girls to even keep up with. The bar’s lights are half-broken, the air thick with alcohol and the sweat of men long at sea. Luffy ends up draped over him, almost piggy-backed in a wooden booth, yammering close in his ear, seemingly bored of their guests already. Sanji uses an arm to keep him steady, an eye on Nami fleecing a table of sailors on the other side of the room, Usopp shouting something close to Zoro’s face through a crowd of salt-smelling men. Zoro meets his eyes and mouths fuck off when Sanji winks at him.

“ — happy?” Luffy is yelling, and Sanji turns back to him, confused, repeating back, “Happy?”

“Course I’m happy,” Luffy says. He shifts so he’s sat more on the bench than on Sanji, kicking his feet under the table, milk through a pink straw. “Wanted a crew and now I got a crew.”

“That simple, eh?”

Luffy nods, bright and serious. “Yep! I was always meant to have you.”

It runs warm and light through Sanji. He knows, he does, that Zeff loves him, in his odd, clenched way. Decades at sea, at the helm, and the old man was never one to reach out, to touch, to actually say it. Sanji wasn’t, either, by that point. But Luffy — leans his head on his shoulder while he talks. Plays idly with his hand, turning his ring round and round. Shouts praise between bites, shows up earlier for mealtimes every day, blabbers on while Sanji cooks, stopping only to peer around Sanji's body with a stretched-out neck, to make a rogue bite for any unattended ingredients.

“I wanna know if you’re happy,” Luffy says, peering pleased up at him, arms around his chest, and Sanji can't even care as the girls make their exits without a goodbye, can't really look away from Luffy at all. 

“I’m happy,” Sanji says. He is. Happy on the ship, happy with the sea. Loves the wideness of it. Stunned by the sun every morning he wakes up on a new stretch of water, by the expanse of the horizon and the shocking blue of it all. Everything bigger than he could’ve ever guessed, all right in front of him, ready to be tasted. He's happy.

Luffy frowns, loudly slurping the last of his milk. “I dunno,” he says. “I don't get you. If you want something, you should have it.”

Sanji grins. “I want everything, captain.”

And that's always been true, too. Isn’t that what the All Blue is? Every fish, every spice, every taste. Abundance, unending fulfilment, a place to feed the pit of him. The whole of it. And the bottomless maw. The part of him that stays on that Rock.

“Then you should have everything,” Luffy says, like it's simple, and Sanji loves him even more.

He soon finds himself back at the bar, Luffy and Luffy's words cleared from his mind by the narrow-eyed smile of the barmaid. He leans excessively across the table, two buttons undone, looks up under his fringe and smiles bashful, makes himself look uncertain, shy. Have everything, he tells himself, and it sounds like Luffy in his head. Take everything you want.

It works. By the time he’s got his and Luffy’s drinks, the barmaid is leaning across the bar, too, a thin hand playing with his undone tie. Sanji thinks about staying, maybe staying forever, but then he’s looking away instead, not really sure why. Across the room, Zoro is staring back at him, Usopp motor-mouthing at his side. Staring at him the way he stared that night they drank with Usopp, when he saw Sanji's playing and through it to his hurt. Dark eyes and darker face, and Sanji's never known how to be calm, not when he's being looked at, not with that serious, slow way Zoro is looking at him now, like everyone else in the bar has feathered away.

Zoro's fist is tight on his beer glass. Not looking away, and Sanji things it's gonna crack. That horrible, hungry look on his face.

“Here,” says the barmaid. 

Sanji jumps. Turns back to her, gorgeous and open, thinks, Stop it, and says, “I think I’ve fallen in love with you.”

She looks startled at him and he smiles hopelessly at her and she, somehow, smiles back. He waits until Nami’s distracted Zoro with a round of shots to escape. It’s better, sometimes, when they don’t want him. It’s never what it should be. The love never overlaps right with the love it’s meant to, their touch reverbs, puts images of everyone else in his mind. People can't love the way he loves, he thinks, sometimes. People weren't meant to.

His mouth feels dry and tastes like nothing, so he drains his glass in one tug before he gets back to Luffy's table. Luffy is there, talking with a new group of people Sanji doesn't recognise, just Luffy's way, his gravity pull, and Sanji turns heel to find Nami, instead, not wanting to see that devotion right now. Not wanting someone who wants him.

Sometimes he thinks he’s had it with other people’s bodies. He has had them — their pieces — enough.

*

They carry Usopp back between them. 

The weight has Sanji swallowing winces, has him back in the kitchen knocking back another shot — brandy, spiced from the last summer island, thinking of the bronzed man who’d let Sanji taste each bottle before he’d bought them, who’d watched him swallow, whose dark hair had curled with sweat at his temples.

“You’re hurt,” Zoro says again, no preamble, just that direct way he has, slamming the kitchen door behind him like they hadn’t just wrestled Usopp — singing — into his hammock.

Sanji leans against the counter, regards Zoro as if he’s thinking about it. Has already decided, slamming back another shot, and Zoro startles when Sanji goes for his buttons, “What are you doing —” but quietens as the shirt parts, as Sanji lets him see.

The wound is wider, now, redder. The size of a handprint in burnt blood, wrapped up to the bottom of his ribs, yellowing around the edges, skin tight enough that he can’t lean to the side much, can only sleep flat on his back.

Zoro approaches him quietly, eyes fixed. He touches a hand to the side of it, just fingertips, and Sanji's watches his own belly suck in with his breath.

“You should tell Luffy,” Zoro says, hand still there.

Sanji laughs, just a bit. “I’m a sailor,” he says. “Sailors know how to tend to their own wounds.” Looks up into Zoro’s face. “We tended to yours.”

“Stupid,” says Zoro, not looking away from his side, barely even addressing him. “Too careless with yourself.” Pause. “Not good for Luffy.”

Sanji can’t help but grin at that, likes the way it nearly splits his lip. He could never tell Luffy. He loves Luffy and loving is this, he knows, knows it like he knows that Rock. Love is Zeff on a stool at the back of the kitchen after each shift, rubbing creams into his stump, drinking his pain down. Love is Luffy, willing to fight and die for a home he'd spent not a night in, choking up seawater on the dock he could've left on.

No. Couldn’t tell Luffy.

“Wouldn't want to worry sweet Nami,” Sanji says. “What'd she do, eh? Without me?”

Zoro's eyes lift, now, his serious spotlight stare. “Why are you like this?”

“I dunno,” Sanji says, kinda honest, kinda lying, the only way he knows how to be. “Been like this forever. Can’t help it.”

Zoro's hand is still on his stomach, the two of them close and quiet in the night, and maybe alcohol, maybe infection in the blood, but Zoro looks kinda perfect in the half-light of the kitchen, dark eyes over cheekbones, shark-like and unblinking, so Sanji stares back at him unabashed, enjoying the ache and the heat. Enjoying beautiful things. 

“Stop it,” Zoro says, and he’s said it before, but it’s sweet now, it’s quiet and he’s looking up tired to meet Sanji’s eyes, and it’s funny, this is funny, Sanji’s not doing anything at all.

He could say something here, something genuine and old, difficult, something true. Could reach out, peel things back. But that’s something a real person would do. And he’s never been that. He’s never, he realises, done this game with someone who’s never seen it as a game at all.

Zoro’s still staring at him, blinding. A machine, with machinery eyes, with single drive and desire, and Sanji feels kinda skinless about it. Doesn't know what to do with it, now, has only ever wanted widely, indiscriminately, doesn't understand Zoro's ruthless focus. Doesn't understand, not really, why Zoro's looking at him this way, always looking at him, touching him still and tender, barely space between them, neither of them smiling, Sanji — not even trying to keep him and him, here anyway.

It's Zoro who leans in, and Sanji throws a hand up between them, instinct, panic, watches the shudder pass through Zoro’s face, the eyebrows coming down, the mouth falling, watches a whole collapse in a second, tastes it like a vinegar, best in class, infused maybe — watches that vinegar roll down Zoro’s face.

“You fuckin’ —” 

Fist slam on the wall next to his head.

“You just fucking about?” Zoro says, low.

Sanji starts, “What —”, trying for his usual smartmouth, shit talk, his effortless effort, but Zoro gets him by the collar, slams him hard against the wall again, Sanji’s head cracking against the wood.

“Stop fucking about,” Zoro says, like he’s saying a secret, and he’s not flushed, he’s not stuttering, not anymore, his fists tighter in Sanji’s collar, pushing air out of his throat. “I don’t fuck about. If you wanna do something, do it. Otherwise fuck off.”

His face is very close, serious and intent, his eyes narrowed on Sanji’s, won’t let him slide away, twist out, all the moves he’d usually make, all his counter-offensives.

“What,” Zoro says, bites it out. “Do you want?”

It’s what Luffy asked, really, but it’s not. It’s not something Sanji’s ever been able to answer. Wants everything, all the time — wants to be eaten whole. Wants more than anyone could ever give him, has always known that, has already taken so much, so why ever ask again? 

Zoro stares, searching, his eyes moving between both of Sanji’s, and whatever he sees there, it's not enough. Of course it isn't. Sanji's always known that, too, so he lets him let go of his neck, lets him push back away, lets him walk out, and stays there leaning against the wall, head tipped back, until he's smiling again, Luffy's voice still seizing through his brain: You can have everything.

You can have everything you want.

*

Zoro’s avoiding him again. 

It’s less funny, this time. 

vi. the cook

He keeps it under wraps another week. Tells Usopp he recovered ages ago, hides a wince when Nami shoulders past him. Lets Luffy crawl up his back to tuck his chin on his head, watch him cooking from behind, bears the weight happily, smiling up at his captain, cooks faster, feeds his crew more. He gets through a week.

The marines come pre-dawn. Sanji’s watch, a clear cold night, so he spots them first. Sounds the alarm, then goes to meet them.

Nami guides the ship out of cannon range, perfectly, expertly, Usopp half protecting her, half hiding behind her. Luffy swings from his own elongated arms from the rigging, sends one of the marines who'd managed to board screaming over the side, Zoro already gutting another just beyond him.

Not sure what blow it was that got him. Feels only the thrill, really, bubbling pain already and it might have been that, might've been the way Zoro wrenched his sword out of someone's unmoving back, but Sanji's on the floor suddenly, coughing out — blood, he thinks, dark tar in the night, and someone standing over him. Mad flashes of, of all people, Patty, and he's on his back now, sees Zeff bent above him, swearing, “I told you to take care of yourself,” disappointed and angry, but Sanji's been angry with Zeff for years, too, angry to have been given so much and to be like this, and now he thinks he might not be anything at all.

Returns to life, Zoro hovering over him, Luffy a quick blur in the background, haze over everything. Usopp, maybe, far off, Nami spinning beautiful, the whole sky above them. He's coughing up something warm and wet, his head feeling detached from his body, his whole chest cracked open, it must be, the way Zoro is staring stricken down at him.

“Fuck are you doing?” Zoro is shouting, shouting something more, but Sanji feels dunked in hot soup, feels at boiling point. Zoro reaches for him and he flinches back, instinctual, Zoro jolting back at that, too, saying stuff that Sanji can't hear, but loves anyway. Loves the horrible face that Zoro is making, greying out, and he's thinking of those rice balls he hasn't made for a couple of weeks now, thinking of how lovely Zoro is like this, as his vision starts to fuzz away.

This time, the smile bleeds red down his chin.

*

Sanji is fourteen. A nervous girl pushes him into the storage room and presses a dry, childish kiss to the corner of his mouth. He is in love. 

Sanji is sixteen. Zeff has kicked out the older waiter he found in his bed, not even time to collect his belongings, to wait out the snow outside, and the desperate look the waiter throws over his shoulder, caught in Zeff’s fist, cold blaring in from the doorway, it is so, so sweet. It’s love, Sanji knows, it’s love. 

Sanji is nineteen. They’re restocking on an autumn island layered in still-crisp orange leaves, a curt cold breeze under his collar, his hair blown off his face. Faces in the marketplace, under the bar lights, in his own mind. He falls for every one he sees in those stalls. Everyone he knows.

It’s like service, he thinks sometimes, like serving. Giving, after taking so much. Sometimes he can’t even tell the difference. Zeff, knife out on the Orbit, slamming him eight-years-old against the wall, the way the ship cracked in two in the waves. Zeff, the empty ocean, the grey grey grey of the island. The bits and blood on the stone. 

His love is a sea, full of salt and things to eat. Sustaining and shallow. Moving, something that cannot be held, a monster, he thinks, sometimes, the beast from the Rock that will always curl up right there, where he should've died, where he's stayed, waiting for another monster rise from the horizon.

Sanji is nineteen and he’s in love.

Of course he's in love. He's loved him this whole time. Has been in love his whole life.

He doesn’t know how else to be.

*

Comes to in a hammock.

It’s Nami, the first time, frowning beautifully down at one of her maps, in a wooden chair at the side of his bed, her feet tucked up under her. She looks up at his noise, leans forward to put a cool, dry hand on his forehead, saying only, “We got you, sleep now,” and he dissolves back into blackness with his stomach in sweet knots.

Next Usopp, “I told them about the medicine,” whispered in his ear, “It wasn’t a secret, right?” and Sanji tries to weakly grab at him, apologize, maybe, tell him it was all bullshit, but he never manages to make contact. He can’t find him.

Properly comes to with Luffy lying pressed up against his side in his hammock with him, close enough that his face is blurry even when Sanji blinks, blinks to try to make him clear. Luffy smells like sweat and seawater, like the smoked paprika Sanji bought two weeks ago from a oval-faced trader, and he stares steady at Sanji, not frowning, not smiling, a hand on his hot cheek, his ever-beating heart.

“Don’t do that again,” Luffy says, quiet, solemn.

Sanji — smiles. Lifts a weak hand to place over Luffy’s. “Aye aye, captain,” he croaks, his own voice sounding strange and strained, but Luffy smiles back anyway, settled, like that was all he needed to hear.

“Think I figured it out,” Sanji manages. “What I wanted.”

“I love my cook,” is all Luffy say, and Sanji puts his other hand on Luffy’s cheek, smiling weak and defenceless, and falls back asleep, Luffy’s breath slow in time with his own.

*

Wakes up. Wakes up. Wakes up.

Zoro doesn’t come. 

Unclear how many days, but Sanji’s already done with waiting, has never had the patience, not for this. He sleeps, wakes, wants. As soon as he’s able, he half-falls out of the bed, a hand on the wall as he gropes his way out of the boys’ room, along the corridor, out onto the deck, where he knows, somehow, Zoro will be.

He is. Solid and still at the railings, his back to Sanji, a pillar cut across with his three swords at his hip. Sanji’s stomach curls up at the sight, shivering, the black sky all around the ship bigger than he’s ever noticed it before, the cut-cold of the night quick through the bedsheet he’s thrown around himself. He feels naked, almost, without his shirt, suit, his tie, barefoot in loose pyjamas and a t-shirt he doesn’t recognise, hair he hasn’t washed for however long he’s been asleep. Feels raw, with Zoro there so strong and steady, with the sea straining up against the ship as though beckoning.

“Mosshead,” he says.

Zoro ignores him, hands only tightening on the railing and still looking out to sea. Sanji limps towards him, feeling giddy with rest and with proximity, gets close to him by his side, reaches out to touch his wrist —

“No,” Zoro says, flat. Doesn't look over.

Sanji gets a hand on him, the bones of his wrist, very warm where he is only cold.

“Mosshead,” he says again.

Again, Zoro says, “No,” same flat voice, same dead madman eyes glaring out at the sea. “Stop it,” but Sanji’s not even doing it, his hand reaching up now to his face, the sharp slice of his jaw, skin shockingly soft, “Don’t —” Zoro’s hands coming up in defence now, to push him away, maybe, but Sanji’s never listened to him before, so he just grabs him by the face with both hands instead and tugs him around and kisses him, hard, painful, sweet with the stars like icing sugar above. 

Zoro gasps a bit into his mouth, hands that meant to shove him away suddenly grabbing at the sheet about his shoulders instead. Gasps, starts back a bit, but Sanji chases him, has never let him get away, has never given him space, peace, has always wanted more, wanted him out of his mind —

Long moment, and Sanji pulls back, dizzy smile and punch drunk, still holding Zoro’s face, Zoro frozen fisting tight on his bedsheet, pulls back just enough to smile stupid in Zoro’s face, inches apart, Zoro breathing heavy, pink. Zoro takes a shuddering breath in, opens his eyes, and it's like turning the sun back on, Sanji thinks madly, days and days asleep, it's like daylight.

“You're still an idiot,” Zoro says.

Sanji lets him have this one. “I know.”

“Won't bother saving you again.”

Murmured against his lips. “Won't have to.”

Some tensions slides out of Zoro, his grip going slack and then tight again, his eyes searching Sanji's face.

“This means I win,” Zoro says, actually looks very serious about it.

“I win,” Sanji says, just to piss him off, moves his hands to get his fists in Zoro’s collar, knows it’ll narrow Zoro’s eyes, blow out his pupils, knows it’ll get Zoro all crazy in the head. 

It does. Stupid Zoro. Getting a hand in Sanji’s hair, getting everything mixed up. Doesn’t even understand the game. Has no idea what he’s agreed to, how long and lowly Sanji can love someone, lichen on a ship, how much he’s fucked up by allowing this.

“No more,” Zoro says, and Sanji has to laugh at that, stupid Zoro, tightens his hold on Zoro’s collar, gets another hand behind his neck, where his skin is soft and damp with sweat, sleep. 

“No idea what you’ve got yourself into,” he says, happy, says, “fucking idiot,” tugs at him and grins wild, says, “Stuck with me now.”

Romantic cliches, but he’s always believed in those anyways. Believed in love, over all. Falls in love on purpose, every time, leans greedily into it, hands outstretched and decadent.

“Fucking idiot,” he says again, and Zoro smiles back, finally, and it’s like pulling the curtains wide. Scoops his face up into his hands, drags him in, and it’s like every other time for Sanji, and it’s nothing like has ever come before, nothing he’s ever felt before, nothing at all, and all he can think is —

Well. 

It was fun while it lasted.

vii. the swordsman

He falls in love on the Merry .

“Fuckin’ again?” Zoro groans, butter-brown and braced with a hand on either side of his face, scowling, beautiful, a surfeit of sun on the deck. “Who’s even left?”

Under him, Sanji just grins, and drags him down with greedy hands and belly, and loves, can’t do anything else, has never been able to, does it in taste and smell and salt, with the entire of his body, with this hunger he’s never filled, loves, loves, loves.