/EDIT/ Hey guys! WHEW, I'm working on the first chapter now, sorry it's taking so long ;o; I've gone through this prologue first and edited bits I didn't like, as well as spelling mistakes and so on, the next chapter will be up some time this week! (Maybe even tonight if I don't act like a lazy little shitbucket), thanks for being so patient with me! xx

A/N: Hello everyone! Poppy here ;u; So I've moved accounts so 'start fresh' and forget all my past fics, but anyway, this is my first fic on this account and it is Zosan and maybe Sanzo, but I haven't decided as of yet. It is pre-time skip and rated 'M' for later chapters, just trust me on this one /winkwink

Anyway, enjoy this baby, I will try to update at LEAST once a month, but if it gets popular maybe once a fortnight, then once a week, and so on ;u;

This is the prologue, let me know what you think xx

"Shitting hell," a tall blonde clenched his fingers tighter around a small crimson lighter as the chill of the winter air around his bit at the exposed skin of his cheeks, taunting the fact that his lighter had most probably just died. "Shit, where am I going to find another one at this time of night? Fuck."

Sanji Blackleg threw the used lighter into the gutter and stomped out the cigarette he has just accidentally crushed between his teeth in anger on the side of the pavement. He internally fumed for a few futher seconds before he grumbled and picked the lighter back up, pocketing it because littering wasn't what a gentleman did. And Sanji was a gentleman if anything.

Huffing to himself, he pulled at his scarf, pulling it over his mouth as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his favorite double-breasted jacket. He prowled the streets, well past midnight, after an awful attempt at sleep. Originally Sanji had thought the walk and a smoke would do him some good and calm him down enough to engross himself in a forgein film in the hopes he would fall asleep trying to read the subtitles. However that clearly wasn't the case as he turned the corner and saw an open twenty-four-hour drug store.

Letting himself in the brightly-lit store, the blonde head nodded towards the cashier as he walked towards the counter, "I'll take a pack of the Twenty Black Diamonds and a lighter, please."

He rooted around in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled note, laying it on the counter in front of the worker who took it and stuffed it into the till without even looking at it. Sanji was going to comment but didn't bother when the cashier handed him the right amount of change, not bothering to so much as grace the lanky blonde with a look when he told him to 'have a good night'.

"'Have a good night' my ass," Sanji mumbled, working his hands as quickly as he could over the plastic wrapping, ripping it off and stuffing it into his jacket pocket, along with the rest of the packet after he took a pair of cigarettes out, propping one behind his ear and the other between his lips. He clicked the lighter a couple of times before the small safety flame lit up and he set the end of the cigarette alight, pocketing the lighter after.

He leaned against the drug store's wall, which he wouldn't have even considered doing during daytime as, once again - gentlemen don't lean. But it was way past most civillians' bedtimes and, damnit, he was tired.

Sanji took a deep drag of the cigarette, keeping it dangling between his chill-chapped lips as he exhaled the smoke through his nose, closing his eyes as he began to let the nicotine relax his anxious muscles.

However his rush didn't last long before the icy wind picked up and blew Sanji's cigarette out straight from his lips. His saphire eyes opened in surprise but it was too late to reach out for the lost cancer stick as the wind began tugging at his scarf, too. But this time as the blonde reached for the end of his unravelling scarf, his cold hand brushed against a much warmer, much larger one.

Sanji looked up to where the source of the hand came from and was a little shocked to see such a muscled, thick, handsome man at the end of the hand. The man was tall, built - a little stocky even - with olive skin and grass green hair. 'How odd,' the blonde internally mused, his eyes lingering over the man's face.

"Your scarf," a husky, deep voice held Sanji's attention and the blonde accepted the other end of his scarf, not letting his eyes wander from the other man's. The man gave a ghost of a smile and went to walk past him. Sanji acted without thinking.

"Wait!"

The man visibly flinched and stopped mid-step, turning just his head to give Sanji a somewhat annoyed glance, "what now, Mr. Curly-brow?"

Ignoring the obnoxious comment, Sanji didn't know why he just did what he did or even what he was going to say to the man next. So he let his gut take over. "What's your name?"

This got the man's attention, he turned fully around and walked back over to Sanji, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his tan leather jacket, nudging his chin under the wooly collar, obviously trying to warm himself up. "Zoro. Zoro Rorona. Why d'ya wanna know?"

Without knowing why, Sanji's brow twiched with irrtation. "No need to get snappy, muscle-head."

"You didn't answer my question."

That shocked Sanji a little. He hadn't expected this stranger, Zoro, to be so blunt. "T-thanks, I guess." The blonde held out his hand to the other man, "Sanji Blackleg." Zoro hesitantly shook the smaller man's hand, quickling replacing it back into his pocket after.

"So Sanji, what're you doing wandering around at this time of night?"

'Is it not a bit soon for the personal questions?' Sanji thought, but he let it go, relaxing his previously tensed shoulders and grasping the second cigarette from behind his ear, finding his lighter and lighting it up quickly. "Can't a guy have a cigarette at.. almost half past two in the morning?"

Zoro laughed a little at that, "I guess."

"What about you, moss-head?"

Clearly, the sunkissed man had not been expecting such bluntness from the blonde either. He smirked under the privacy of his jacket before answering, "I just finished work."

Sanji raised a curled eyebrow at this, "what sort of place finishes work this late?"

"Hmm, well why don't you shut that pretty little mouth of yours, walk another few blocks down the way I just came and find out? I'm heading home. G'night Goldilocks," Zoro teasted, reaching out to pull a few strands of sunshine hair out of Sanji's face as he walked away, not looking back.

Sanji was astonished; a little confused, mildly annoyed and kind of turned on in a strange sort of way. He'd never met such a dickhead, but Zoro wasn't a dickhead in a bad way, more of a tolerably sexy way. Sanji didn't have much experience with guys, and what little he had was always with smaller, more feminine men. He enjoyed feminity, protecting women and cherishing them. Sanji Blackleg was a complete ladies man.

However he was also a complete idiot when it came to love. And he never really 'lucked-out' with the ladies.

Try as he might, time after time Sanji was rejected by women who needed a more 'dominant' man. But the blonde didn't understand this because in his mind the most 'manly' thing you can do for a woman is to cherish them, treat them gently and with the grace they deserve. He was clearly chasing the wrong types of women.

Not to get him wrong though, Sanji had been in many different relationships, dozens lasting for a night and a handful lasting longer. He just figured he hadn't found 'the one' as of yet. But he was sure he would, someday.

Shaking these stray thoughts away from his mind, Sanji finished his cigarette, stomped it out and continued to walk down the street, keeping what Zoro had said about his place of employment in mind, eyeing the shop windows that were still alight and open. And these came far and in between at this time of night.

So far Sanji had catalouged one other drug store, one liquor store and two strip-clubs as he quickly paced down the roads, headed towards home his. That's when he saw it.

Brightly alight with an almost tacky neon sign hanging on a red-brick wall, reading 'The Thousand Sunny'. Analysing the window display, a large and morbidly skinny manequinne wearing nothing but a leather kind of bikini and a red ball-gag stood, surrounded by velvet pillows and an array of collars and other less obviously sexual trinkets.

Sanji visibly cringed, his eyebrows furrowing together in distaste. No, sex toys weren't really Sanji's 'thing'. Women were godlike and should only be touched with the most pure intentions. Sex was beautiful, not dirty. And for himself, nah, sex toys were still in poor taste.

He stood for a minute or so, just bathing in the gaudy ambiance of the store. 'So this is where he works then? Huh, I figured he'd be doing something a little more...masculine than this.'

However, Sanji let that thought pass with the wild wind that was picking up, yet again, wisping around his head and howling down his ears. Shuddering, he wrapped himself tighter in his jacket and began back down the street, faster than before, suddenly being hit with a surge of tiredness and an intense urge to crawl into bed and wrap himself up in a duvet-caccoon like all 'manly-men' did. In private.

A few minutes later he arrived back at his appartment block, entering the building and finally ridding himself of the bitter night's air. His cheeks, now rosy from the wind, becan to shine under the luminosity of the overly-bright, hospital-like lights that ran down the run-down corridor.

Sanji hated his appartment building, it really was a mess. It hadn't been done-up or even renovated in years, and the years certainly took their toll on the like of the greying floral wallpaper, which was peeling at the seems.

The blonde almost ran to his appartment door, at the very end of the corridor, appartment 309. He rumaged around in his pocket for the door key, eventually finding it, the small key covered in a fading pattern of flames, which the previous owner of the appartment must have thought looked very 'cool' but in fact was the complete opposite. Sanji resented everything about this place, he really did.

Pushing open the rotting off-white door, he walked into his home, turning on the dim lights and locking the door. He shrugged off his jacket and hung it over the back of his posh black-leather couch. Yes, the building was disgusting but at least Sanji could fawn over and spoil his living-quarters. And he did just that.

The apartment consisted of a conjoint living and kitchen area, complete with a pair of leather couches and an armchair, a four-person rounded kitchen table, a small breakfast bar, a large fridge-freezer, a stove and oven, a closet (which Sanji used as a 'pantry' of sorts), a long and thin coffee table and a reasonably sized plasma-screen TV. It also contained a decently sized bathroom with a bath-cross-shower, toilet, sink and erend cupboard for towels and the like. Both rooms were very modernly decorated with black and white furnashings.

Then there was his bedroom, more 'crowded' than the other rooms, including his queen-sized bed (because why sleep on anything less than luxary? Especially if you have company), a large desk which housed his laptop and an array of novels, a bookcase next to the window, a wardrobe that ran across one whole wall and a small set of drawers by the side of his bed. His dirty clothes littered the floor and there were some take-out cartens stacked on his desk.

Now, Sanji was usually a very tidy person who liked to keep his clothes, mainly suits, in good order in his wardrobe, and he would never normally eat take-out food. But lately Sanji's foster father, Zeff, had kicked him out of his restaurent, telling him to 'find himself' out in the world outside of the Baratie. So with minimul funds and only an apartment sold to him by a friend's friend for a 'decent' price, Sanji moved far far away from his family and friends and was now jobless and knew no one. And he'd been like this for just over a month now.

Sanji had done odd catering jobs for come nearby food venders and restaurants but it was only enough to furnish his appartment and not enough to buy a good amount of food supplies. Plus he hadn't managed to get half of the kitchen equipment he needed to cook in it yet. So, for now, he was on a diet of mainly cheap-ass junk food and coffee. Not that he had enough energy to care right now.

Sanji crossed his livingroom and slunk into his bedroom, not bothering to close the door or to undress as he nudged back the thick duvet with his foot and slid inside, wrapping himself up tightly like a barrito.

And as he went to sleep that night, one of the last thoughts to flitter through Sanji's mind was of that tanned man, smirking and teasing him on the street. 'What a mossy-headed anigma..'