Beer Induced Love

It was a late Saturday night, the crew was just starting to settle down from that days activities on the Thousand Sunny out at sea. Nami had gone into her quarters, and came back out on deck wearing thin pajama pants, and a snug t-shirt for the night. Nico was on her umpteen millionth book for the day, while Franky was hammering in the last nail on the board in the training room that Zoro had broken for the third time that day while training. Usopp and Luffy were currently still on the railing of the ship, locked in their heated battle of who would catch the biggest fish before they both were to go to bed. Chopper was in the ships nursery, re-bandaging Zoro again for the thirteenth time that day. Vivi had decided to go to the Water Seven for a vacation from Alabasta, when she and Karoo, her loyal duck, ran into the Straw Hats again, in which she also decided to join them again, and she was currently tending to Nami's tangerine bushes. That leaves our womanizing and flirtatious cook, Sanji, he was getting dinner ready, and preparing that night's beer for everyone, which would have a citrusy tang to it thanks to Vivi's hard work.

"Again, I really appreciate all of your hard work, my beautiful queen." Sanji cooed over Vivi as she and Karoo brought in a few more buckets for the cook, knowing that she would have to explain where all of the tangerines went to Nami.

"You are quite welcome, and how many times do I have to tell you Sanji, I'm not queen of Alabasta yet." She told him, giggling at his complements, just like a few months ago. Oh how she has missed the excitement of this crew in their daily lives, and all of their weird quirks.

"In my eyes, you shall forever remain my beautiful queen," Sanji said, magically producing a sparkling red rose out of sheer air, and handing it to her. "No matter who you might be interested in." he finished his statement, giving a sideways glance at his idiot of a captain, of whom was the only one on the ship that didn't know that Vivi liked him. And if he did, he was sure as hell good at hiding what he truly knows, seeing how he surprises everyone almost all the time.

"D-do you think that I have a chance with him?" Vivi blurted out to Sanji, and immediately covered up her mouth as soon as she finished speaking. Her face went at least 20 shades of red as Sanji looked at her, completely dumbfounded by her question.

"Why, of course you do, my beautiful queen, the only problem that I see is getting him to see that you like him." Sanji commented, clearly still surprised. "And, if he does know, then making him see that you really do want to take things to the next level in your guys' friendship would be the hard part." Sanji finished, trying to see how she could do that, but his eyes for some reason kept wandering over to the curly haired male sitting right next to the captain.

"Your right, I think I'm going to go talk to Nami about a plan since she's known Luffy a lot longer than I have, thank you so much for your help Sanji!" Vivi exclaimed, startling Sanji a little, she then placed a quick kiss on his cheek, and ran off to go get Nami. The kiss had caused Sanji to nosebleed himself straight back through the kitchen doors, and head first into the oven door, smiling like an idiot.

-Later at dinner-

What puzzled him the most was that he had watched as Usopp had brought the fish up to him, and watch even more when he went running back off to get Luffy's bucket of fish for dinner. It was beginning to annoy Sanji that as he was setting everyone's plates out for dinner that as he walked by Usopp, he caught himself checking out the younger marksman's ass as he went by. As he sat down to enjoy his own meal, he was hoping that he could drown out these thoughts of his in the already finished brewing grog from a week prior, with the help of moss heads taste testing for him.

Dinner continued, seconds, thirds and fourths were all passed out, and he still caught himself looking at his younger male namaka. Sanji was praying that all of the quick glances were because he was trying to figure out how he ended up with such a long nose. But all the while, everyone was having fun that night at the dinner table.

Sixth

Seventh

Eighth

Ninth

Tenth

On Sanji's eleventh beer, after everyone had left the table a long time ago, he still continued to drink, still hoping to get Usopp out of his head, but failing greatly. No matter how much he drank, it seemed that the younger member of the crew seemed to infect his mind even more. That is until Sanji had heard a small knock on the kitchen door, to which he grunted slightly, letting the knocker know that he was still in there, and still alive and awake in there. The door opened carefully, as in to still not scare him, and he saw the long nose poke in before he even saw the marksman's face.

"Hey Sanji, you doing alright?" Usopp asked as he walked in fully, closing the door behind himself in the process. "You seem to have been drinking a lot of beer at dinner today, and I wanted to make sure that you didn't pass out in here, since ya know, nobody really saw you leave here." Usopp said, stumbling over his words occasionally, then brought his black eyes back up to meet Sanji's blue-grey ones. "Is today some kind of anniversary for something happening to you, Sanji?" Usopp asked, suddenly fearing that he might be intruding on something.

"No, it's nothing like that, Usopp, it's just, I've had something on my mind for the past few hours, I guess I didn't realize how much I was drinking." Sanji reassured, getting up, and stumbled a little bit on his walk over to Usopp.

"Alright, well, if you need anything just le-" Usopp started, but was cut off by a hug from Sanji that left Sanji's thin lips dangerously close to Usopp's neck, causing the poor marksman's face to go fifty shades of red.

"Stay with me for a little, I need your company for a little bit longer, please." Sanji whispered into Usopp's neck, pulling the shorter male closer to him, adjusting his own arms, and burying the, still surprised, marksman's head into his own neck in the process of it all. "If that's alright with you, Usopp." Sanji questioned, and Usopp could smell the grog on the cooks' breath when he spoke to him.

"Y-yeah, that's fine with me." Usopp responded, finally getting his composure back, and giving the cook a slightly awkward hug in return. The two separated after a few more seconds, and Sanji was escorted back to the table by Usopp, who had refilled Sanji's mug, and got himself one in the process.

-A few more mugs of grog later-

The time was now midnight thirty, and the two were trying to keep their drunken laughter down, as in to not disturb anybody else on the ship. The two had talked about almost everything, from how much of a bitch Nami can really be, how stupid the captain was for not noticing that a PRINCESS was head over heels in love with him, to just how much they hated Zoro sometimes. They had also talked about their pasts, who they hung out with, and what they use to do, but for some reason, the two were avoiding one simple conversation.

"I can't believe that you *hic* really use to like her." Sanji slurred a little, looking over at Usopp after a quick drink.

"I *hic* know, right?" Usopp responded with a chuckle, now smiling at the blonde haired, love-struck fool, known as the Thousand Sunny's cook.

"But that does leave me to wonder, you say that you used to like her, but that you have moved on, right?" Sanji said, still slurring his words a little.

"Y-yeah, why do you m-mention that, S-sanji?" Usopp stuttered in his drunken state, not liking where the conversation was going already. Usopp would never admit it, but he was always a bit jealous of Sanji, not because he got the attention of a lot girls, but because he seemed to treat almost all guys like dirt, weather he was joking or not, it genuinely hurt Usopp to watch Sanji.

"So, who do you like now then, if you don't mind me asking that is?" Sanji questioned, honestly wondering if Usopp could ever like someone as arrogant as himself for some odd reason.

"N-not at all, but you have to promise me one thing," Usopp responded, getting a nod in response to that statement of his, "You have to promise not to get mad, or to freak out on me when I do tell you, ok?" Usopp stuttered out horribly when he asked.

"Of course not, I would never freak out on you for liking the same beautiful woman that I like." Sanji stated, seeming very proud of what he had just said. Sanji knew that there was no way that Nami would like someone like Usopp, and he honestly didn't mean any harm by that thought either.

"I-it's not Nami." Usopp said, which immediately gained a quizzical look from the cook as a response to his statement. "It's not even a girl that I like, actually." Usopp whispered, more towards himself than to his namaka, but Sanji picked up on it.

"Then is it Luffy?" Sanji asked, completely catching Usopp off guard. "You both are extremely close to each other after all, so I really wouldn't be all that surprised by that if it really was him, that is." Sanji stated to a still, very surprised and drunk Usopp, who seemed a lot more truthful while dunk than he was sober. And unbeknownst to Usopp, Sanji was the type of drunk to remember a lot of what happened.

Ever since he joined the Straw Hats, Usopp realized that he wasn't as straight as he thought he was, and he was guessing it was because he had never really had this much adventure before. It was probably also because almost all of the people that were close to his age either hated him, or tried to ignore his very existence all together. So when he joined the Straw Hats, he started to experience more, and got to realize more by more that he was actually gay, and not straight at all.

"Well, do you like Luffy?" Sanji's voice brought him back to reality again at the question, which received a very swift 'no' head shake from Usopp. "Then, who is it?" baffled, Sanji was even more curious now than he was a few minutes ago about who this mystery man was that Usopp was crushing on.

"It's you, Sanji." Usopp whispered so quietly that Sanji had to strain to heat him, but was astounded by what he had heard. Just to make sure that he heard the marksman right, he decided to ask him, just to make sure.

"W-wait, did you just say," Sanji started, trying to get the last word out of his mouth, "Did you say, me?" he finally got the question out, much to Usopp's surprise that he was even heard at all with his confession.

"Y-yeah, please don't hate me." Usopp choked out, trying not to cry at all while speaking. Much to his surprise, he had gotten a very firm hug from Sanji, seeing as to the fact that in their conversation, their chairs had been gradually scooting closer to each other.

"I could never hate you, Usopp." That came as a relief to you younger male, but Sanji still continued. "You're actually the reason as to why I was drinking so much today, actually. I was trying to figure out why I couldn't get you off my mind for the past week, actually." Sanji admitted, totally taking Usopp off guard.

"R-really?" Usopp asked, completely shocked by the blondes confession just then.

"Yeah, really." Sanji, again, reassured Usopp with a light chuckle, and pulling him in a little bit more in a tighter hug, and kissing Usopp's left cheek lightly. "You're fucking adorable, you know that, right?" Sanji finished, earning a deep, scarlet red blush from Usopp.

"You could have fooled me twice." Usopp responded, very shaky. Usopp then stood up, and stumbled over to refill their mugs with grog.