A/N: Here's my submission for kumiko-sama-chan's ZoSan X-mas Exchange! To help wrap up the event, I decided to go with some good old canon universe fluff. If you're here and somehow missed out on the amazing stories that preceded this one, go read them! Seriously!
And an extra suuuper Happy New Year to my lovely followers for putting up with the pause in my current projects while I finished this. ; u; That said, Romeo+Lancelot and Epilogue Delivery both have two chapters almost ready to go, so look forward to it!
Alright, enough out of me. Hope you enjoy!
Snow crunched audibly underfoot as Sanji shifted his weight from one side to the other. Disconcertion was far from an emotion he often felt, but there he was, hands fidgeting uncomfortably as his eyes searched the horizon for anything of remote interest to pretend to focus on.
The deck of the Thousand Sunny had been overtaken entirely by a sheet of white; not even the trees exhibited any color after a day of sailing through the snowfall. Even the footprints meandering across the deck did nothing to bring the grass back to the surface; the frozen precipitation was too dense, and only packed in tighter with the added pressure. There was only one single patch of green left on the ship to break up the monotonous grayscale of the winter scene; unfortunately for Sanji, however, that patch of green seemed to be avoiding him like the plague.
It was warranted, though. Sanji couldn't blame him. It was only natural to avoid your shitty boyfriend if he'd neglected to give you a fucking present on Christmas, for god's sake.
"Boyfriend, huh…?" The foreign word, still new and strange to say aloud, left a bitter taste in his mouth as he stood alone in the darkness. As a self-proclaimed hopeless romantic, that was the last thing he should have been doing.
Although Christmas had come and gone nearly a week ago, the marimo's would-be gift still resided regretfully in his possession; he'd gotten cold feet at the last minute. What the hell was wrong with him? Tons of things, surely, but that was beside the point.
For Christmas, he'd tailored the man a new haramaki by his own hands; something to replace the shabby old thing that he insisted on wearing every damn day. Rather than that familiar green color, though, he'd opted to fashion the clothing from black cotton; a subtle echo of his own epithet to openly declare the man as his, in a way. He wondered if Zoro would catch on to the deeper meaning. With an inward snort, Sanji dismissed that idea immediately; the prospect was unlikely at best, he knew that.
His fingers curled into the neglected cotton fabric as a harsh breeze grazed his hands. He couldn't keep this up forever, could he? He'd cave long before Zoro ever would; if it were to be a test of patience, Sanji could never hope to win.
And, damn it all, he missed the feeling of Zoro's presence. How many days had it been since he last heard the man's sultry baritone whispering in his ear? He missed the inconspicuous touches and fleeting hints of Zoro's scent in the air as he hung around in the kitchen for hours on end. He could remember with perfect detail the last time he'd felt the man's hot breath on his neck, and calloused hands stroking his… well.
He'd gotten used to the sensations so quickly; it was cruel to have them ripped out from under him so suddenly, even if it was his own fault. It wasn't like he didn't want to make Zoro happy, god knows he wanted to; seeing that man's smile made him want to sing from the mountaintops, for fuck's sake. But there was a distinct limit to how much change he could handle all at once, and this whole "gift giving under the classification of lovers" thing was definitely new territory for them. However, the damn senseless marimo had taken the situation in stride; how the hell had he managed to do it so easily? Had the man no shame?
"Here," he'd said, and tossed Sanji the shoddily wrapped box in his hands like he'd given him an empty plate after dinner or something equally as meaningless. "I got you these because your attacks have been feeling weaker, lately. Figured you could use a little help." The infuriating smirk tugging at his lips had been impossible to miss, but was subtle all the same. The words were designed to get a rise out of him (which they had), but not necessarily to start a fight (which they hadn't); it was what came next that did that.
Sanji had opened the box the moment it fell into his hands. Shoes. Of course it had to have been something so fitting. The new ones put his battle-worn pair to shame; reinforced with metal, heavy as shit comparatively, but obviously nothing he couldn't handle. The craftsmanship was impressive as well; they were practical first and foremost, but certainly didn't sacrifice style for utility. They wouldn't affect his power all that much, realistically, but the thought put into the offering was just as delightful as it was frustrating.
Which was why, no matter what, he couldn't let Zoro know what he'd working on for so long. He lied through his teeth, claiming that he hadn't bothered to procure anything for the holiday, and Zoro would have to help himself to the liquor cabinet or whatever in lieu of an actual gift.
"Like I care, dumbass," the marimo had replied, but the slight pout on his face was unmistakable. "I wasn't expecting anything."
It was the worst reply he could have possibly given, because Sanji was the type who loved vigorously and incessantly and nothing about the situation suited him in the slightest, didn't the other man realize that? On any normal occasion, the moss head's offering would have been met with relentless, heated kisses and a slew of mindless sweet nothings in his ear; not that cold indifference and some semblance of a half-hearted thanks.
When he wasn't acting like himself, it always fell to Zoro to kick him into shape, so to speak. So, naturally, when the man refused to take up that role, it left him unable to do a damn thing but wallow in his own shitty tactlessness.
That said, being avoided for nearly a full week was more than Sanji could bear.
"Do you really wanna start the new year fighting again?" Luffy asked, leaning over the railing next to him a little bit further than necessary, arms haphazardly dangling over the edge of the ship like two wiggly noodles.
No, of course he fucking didn't. Fresh beginnings weren't supposed to be bitter. He didn't want to start off the new year with exactly the same aimless conflict as ever; what would the point of that be? Resolving to abolish their bickering forever would be a laughable hope, but they could at the very least make an honest attempt to start with a clean slate. Even that would be better than this.
"If you just talk about it, I think it'll work out okay," the captain's eyes were glued on the sea, but Sanji didn't miss the small glint in them. "Zoro probably already understands."
And the more he thought about it, the more he realized it was probably true. Zoro may have been an idiot, but he was still very perceptive. There was no way he wasn't at least mildly suspicious that Sanji had been hiding something over the past week. He was likely just waiting for Sanji to bring it up himself, in the end; a tactic that had apparently worked out perfectly in his favor. "Yeah... I guess you're right." As a gentleman, he could admit defeat when he faced it.
"That's the spirit!" He turned to Sanji with a beaming smile. "Okay then, it's time to make out!"
"You mean 'make up', right?"
"Oh, is that it?"
Their already brief conversation was cut even shorter by a sudden clatter from inside. There was a loud squeak of chair legs grinding against the wooden flooring, and the door swung open moments later with a level of force that likely would have knocked it clear off it's hinges had the architecture been anything less than perfect. "Who's making out with whom, out here?" A familiar tone called, cutting through the night air with a chill that rivaled the snow's. His expression was a rare mixture of flustered and exasperated, but still managed to look just about as intimidating as ever.
Unfortunately for Zoro, the severity of his glare was offset entirely by the soba noodle that had somehow managed to get stuck to his cheek during their last meal. Upon noticing this, there wasn't a damn thing Sanji could do to hold back the laugh that erupted past his lips; it was a lost cause. He had to hold his stomach to keep from doubling over. Whatever awkward tension that could have possibly come with the beginning of their inevitable conversation was completely obliterated; at least, for the moment.
"Why are you laughing?" The moss head's nose scrunched in distaste, arms folding over his chest as he moved out of the way to let their sprinting straw-hatted captain back through the doorway.
"Nobody's making out with anybody. You just-" Sanji had to pause to retain his composure, stifling the last of a few chuckles as the man moved closer. "You have soba stuck to your face, moron."
Attempting to glance down at his own cheek to no avail, Zoro shrugged and promptly swiped the black fabric from Sanji's grasp in one swift motion.
The absence of the gift left his fingers unprotected from the winter air, but that was the least of his worries; as soon as he realized what had happened, his heart stopped dead in his chest. "Hey, wait, give that back!"
But it was far too late for that; his face was already buried in the plush material, wiping away the leftover food before Sanji had the chance to stop him. There was a brief pause, one that couldn't have possibly lasted more than a few seconds but felt like an eternity, before he peeled it away from his face. "...This isn't a dish rag."
"No, it isn't! What the hell, marimo?!" He made a hasty reach for the fabric, but Zoro's free hand latched onto his wrist before he could tug the gift away.
Holding the offering before him with a puzzled look, it didn't take long for the light of realization to flicker in his eye. "Wait, this is-"
"Just shut up and take it, alright? I don't want to talk about it."
"This is what you've been hiding all this time?" His face hardened, examining the cloth in his hand with fixated frown. "Figures. You have needle spots all over your fingers. How long have you been working on this?"
He was almost surprised that the man had the perception to notice something so barely visible; but of course he did. He always did. "Since a week before Christmas, I guess..."
"You're an idiot," he grumbled, his tone notably less delicate than the hold on his wrist. "You shouldn't have bothered with something like this."
"So you don't like it, then?" Sanji inwardly cringed at his own inflection; it had come out far more detached than he'd intended, as if he really didn't give a shit either way. Which, obviously, wasn't the case at all. Not even slightly.
"No, I do, but-…" his voice trailed off, but his gaze hung persistently on the hand in his grip. His expression twisted into one of mild distress, then irritated anger, then something resembling exhaustion, but he said nothing. His leer seemed to hang on every individual pinprick, silently trying to erase them all by sheer willpower alone or something pointless like that.
"You know," Sanji started, in a half-hearted attempt to reclaim the man's attention. "You're supposed to kiss wounds like that, not stare at them. Didn't anyone ever teach you that? "
"Why?" His face fell flat, wholly unimpressed by the sad excuse for a taunt. "Using saliva to heal wounds is just a myth, it doesn't actually help."
Ever the romantic; but Sanji would be lying if he said he didn't find the man's obliviousness endearing as hell. "Never mind. Forget it, you neanderthal."
More silence; the hand clutching his wrist shifted down with some slight reluctance to interlock their fingers. "...They're practically healed already, though. That's good."
"Yeah." Sanji let out a short exhale, inwardly reveling in the nearly forgotten feeling of Zoro's hand in his. His mind was screaming at him to pull the man into his arms, to kiss him senseless, to do something, but he couldn't bring himself to do anything but stand there and stare at him. Somehow, if only for a brief minute, that was enough.
For a moment, the only sound between them was the ambient noise of the ocean below. "...I'm going to wear it, you know."
"You sure it wouldn't make a better dish rag?" he asked in an almost mocking voice, cracking a slight smile at the sudden red tint overtaking the other man's cheeks.
"What, you don't believe me? I'll put it on right now." To prove his point, he tucked the black fabric under his arm and made short work of his clothes, dropping the discarded fabric into the snow without so much as a moment of reluctance.
"Wh-what?" Sanji half-sputtered and half-coughed, pausing only for a second to appreciate the view before launching himself at the other man to take back the gift. "Don't get undressed outside like it's no big deal! How stupid are you?! Give it back, you can just try it on later!"
"What difference does it make?" He snapped back, attempting with some mild success to squirm his way out of Sanji's grasp.
"It's the middle of winter, put your clothes back on!" Muscles tensed as they strained to yank the black fabric in their respective directions; and before he could blink, Sanji was on his back, landing in the snow with a muted thud.
There were hands on his thighs, reflexively trying and failing to restrain his legs before he had the mind to go on the offensive. Out of spite more than anything else, he broke free of the grip and promptly drove his foot right into the man's rib cage; the moss head's face remained unfazed, but the repressed grunt that he hadn't managed to hold back made apparent the damage Sanji had dealt. But the other man was just as relentless; shoving a knee between Sanji's legs, he threw himself over the blond and effectively out of the line of fire, pinning him by his shoulders as he reached for the fabric that had ended up on the ground a few feet away. Their limbs tangled, both trying to restrict the other as much as possible despite the fact that neither was accomplishing much of anything. Not that they ever did.
He sucked in a sharp breath and paused, eyes flickering up to meet Zoro's as his frigid hand made solid contact with his bare chest. He'd almost forgotten how unreasonably warm the man could get; he was like a space heater, even in the middle of winter. It felt a hell of a lot nicer than he would have liked to admit. However, it definitely was not the right time or place to get turned on, damn it.
But if Zoro had thought the same, he clearly didn't care.
The snow underneath them was melting into his hair as he was pressed back, but the sudden, firm warmth on his lips erased any perception of cold from his mind. Zoro didn't wait so much as a moment for him to respond; heated hands were securing his head in place, then brushing his hair back, then gripping at his shoulders with excited vigor. The gestures were mindless and desperate, reflecting the longing that Sanji himself had been feeling for days.
If the first kiss was fierce, the second was downright ferocious; throwing caution to the wind, Sanji's tongue muscled its way past closed lips without warning. Zoro made a startled noise, and the blond took the opportunity to smoothly switch their positions mid-kiss, coaxing the man onto his back and settling on his hips; he was rewarded with an enthusiastic groan that reverberated in his mouth and sent an elated shiver down his spine. This; this was what he'd missed the most. Not just the stimulating arguments, or simply the intimacy on its own, but the way it felt when they operated in unity. If fighting against the other made him feel powerful, working off of each other made him feel outright invincible.
With the lack of air gradually catching up to them, the exchange devolved into a myriad of short-lived kisses mixed with barely audible breaths. Their precision was less than perfect as their lips met over and over, either because of the lack of practice or because it simply just didn't matter.
But hell if it hadn't been satisfying; he'd been waiting far, far too long for that. "You can't just kiss me like that out of nowhere, fuck," Sanji groaned, hands lingering on the other man's chest as he forced himself back. "That's just not fair."
"I can't?" The query was downright sultry; a perfect match for the eager look in his eye. He wanted more; no surprise there. "I'd like to see you try to stop me."
"Not right now, alright? I could have sworn I heard something rip," Glancing down at the gift that had been abandoned to the side in the midst of their scuffle, his suspicions were sadly confirmed. The seam had been torn right in two; it would be a quick fix, but he'd been hoping that it wouldn't have torn so easily in the first place. Then again, no clothing could ever survive a tug-of-war between the two of them, could it? He didn't dwell on it for too long. "Shit… Well, just give me a bit and I'll fix it."
"The hell you will," Zoro snarled in response, giving the blond's needle-spotted hands a pointed look and snatching the fabric from his hands with little effort. "Give it a rest. I'll fix it myself."
"Oh no you won't; with your big meaty hands, you'll just fuck it up more!"
"Oh yeah? Evidently, you're not exactly the king of delicate crafts either!" The heat that had subsided between them was reviving at full force, as if it hadn't ever dissipated in the first place.
But before they had a chance to reignite their endless feud, the door swung open again. "Come on, guys, it's midnight! Get in here, already!" The redhead standing in the threshold had her arms folded firmly over her chest, but her knowing, cat-like grin dispelled any hint of threat behind her stance.
"Sanji, New Year's Day feast!" Luffy exclaimed from inside, more a demand than a request.
"We just had the soba an hour ago," he called back in mild exasperation. "Wait a while longer, would you?" But it was an empty suggestion; one that would no doubt go completely disregarded. So he stood, brushing the snow off of himself with a sigh through his nose. Rolling around on the deck for a solid five minutes or so had soaked him to the bone; assessing his clothes for damage later wouldn't be enjoyable in the least. But, though he would never admit so, he thought the altercation had been more than worth it.
"Sanji, wait."
The use of his name made something in his stomach wrench excitedly; fighting or not, it wasn't something he often heard. "...What do you want now?"
"I, uh..." There was a short pause as Zoro stood to his feet. He gave the blond a once-over, then shifted his gaze to the ground before taking hold of his hand again. "I don't hate you."
Sanji had to hold back a snort, raising his free hand to hide the stupidly wide grin that he couldn't keep off of his face. "Yeah… I don't hate you too."
There was a comfortable silence as they made their way back inside, but the matching smile Zoro sported said more than he could have possibly put into words.
"...This whole thing was totally stupid, wasn't it?" Sanji mused under his breath, closing the door behind them.
"No, you're stupid."
Well, maybe that was true.