"I wish you a lifetime of moments too beautiful to capture on film."
– Taylor Swift
A one-shot inspired by Taylor Swift and her amazing ability to say beautiful, quotable things.
But don't worry, there's no Taylor Swift in this. Because that would be a bit weird...
Enjoy! Reviews will be appreciated :)
Sanji's had his new phone for all of two hours, and he's obsessed with it already.
But honestly, who can blame him? It has amazing high-quality front and back cameras, enough storage for thousands of photos, and makes a lovely clicking sound when he takes a picture.
And Sanji takes lots and lots of pictures.
You know how every group of friends has that one person who's known for their tendency to take photos of just about everything, from mugs of artful coffee to bunches of beautiful flowers to funny looking buildings and of course, themselves (you know – the selfie queen), and uploading it onto social media?
Well, Sanji is that person.
Not that he cares, of course, because he has no shame for these things.
He lifts his phone up again, and hears Zoro groan in despair from beside him.
Sanji ignores the tasteless moron, instead choosing to accidentally stomp on his foot really hard – oh, sorry, marimo, didn't see that there – as he walks past and tries to catch up with the wonderfully more understanding ladies ahead.
"Nami-swannnn!~ Robin-chwannn! ~" He stumbles, almost dropping his prized possession in his haste to walk faster, but manages to recover and prevent himself from looking like a fool in front of the two most beautiful ladies in the world.
Nami looks back first, sighing in exasperation when she spots the phone in Sanji's hand, but reaches out an arm anyway.
"Come on, then."
He beams at her, squishing himself in between Nami and Robin and raising his phone to the perfect angle.
Click.
The photo is clear, with Sanji's beaming face in the middle and Nami and Robin's angelic smiles on either side. Their faces are pink from the cold and crinkled from happiness, wind having ruffled their hair into artful swirls that frame their heads. The building in the background is a red-brick house, trees with red and gold leaves blowing to the breeze and leaving some loose ones to flutter to the ground.
It's a perfect shot, and Sanji presses a kiss that means nothing and everything all at once to both their cheeks as he lets them go. Robin pretends to be bothered, but the small, happy, real quirk to her lips gives her away.
Sanji doesn't have time to whip open his camera app again and take a picture before it's gone, but he thinks that if he had, the photo would have been infinitely more beautiful than the already perfect photo sitting in his phone.
He shrugs it off, turning back to the photo he does have and quickly captioning it: With my two favourite ladies in the whole entire world :), before posting it on Instagram with no filter – nothing could make his life more amazing than it already is – and following his friends to the café down the street.
xxx
They're at a club, and Luffy's done something stupid and gotten his finger stuck in the neck of a bottle of alcohol that Zoro had been in the middle of drinking.
Again.
Sanji giggles, tipsy and verging on drunk, but he has enough of a functioning brain left to fumble his phone out of his pocket, and film the hilarity that is Usopp trying in vain to win tug-of-rope with Luffy's finger against a half-empty bottle of vodka.
He may not remember this the next morning, but at least he'll have the evidence of the good times.
He leans against the table, and tries to steady himself as the lights seem to flash faster and faster in front of his eyes, and the music resounds louder and louder in his head.
A man starts grinding against his leg, and Sanji decides that he'll need both hands to push him off, so he stops taping his friends and puts his phone back in his pocket.
Turns out he needn't have worried too much about it, anyway, because the next second Zoro's there, warm, steady hands on his waist and firm but pleasant chest pressed to Sanji's back as he gently pulls him away.
"Come on Sanji, you're drunk. Let's go home."
He lets himself be dragged away, resting his head on a comfortable shoulder and letting his eyes slip shut, because he knows that no matter what, Zoro will keep him safe.
He falls asleep in Zoro's arms before he can even think of documenting this moment on his phone. The last thing he thinks, with the sound of Zoro's heartbeat lulling him to sleep, is that this moment wouldn't mean as much on film, anyway.
xxx
"Hold still, dammit!"
"Why the hell would I do that?! You're just going to make me look stupid, anyway!"
"Reindeers aren't stupid! Just ask Chopper!"
"Chopper's not here, idiot!"
"Eh. Your loss."
"Gahhh! So you're gonna make me look like a reindeer?! That's stupid!"
"I'm not going to make you look like a reindeer, this filter is! Now hold still, so I can take a photo and upload it to my story!"
"Rarghhhh!"
Zoro ends up letting him, anyways, just as Sanji predicted, because he knows that Zoro can almost never deny Sanji anything.
Zoro looks kinda cute in the photo.
Sanji tells him that, and then sends the picture to him (because Sanji wanted Zoro to create a Snapchat account and like he said, Zoro almost never denies him anything).
Zoro makes to throttle him, but Sanji laughs and darts away, taking the basket with him and moving himself to the fruit aisle.
Zoro joins him minutes later, and his revenge is the armload of beer that he dumps into their basket and refuses to carry.
Bastard.
xxx
Sanji finishes off the frosting, standing back and admiring the magnificent, wonderful, exquisite, dazzling, stunning, beautiful cake that doesn't even begin to portray a fraction of how magnificent and wonderful and exquisite and dazzling and stunning and beautiful Zoro is.
Zoro is lazy and grouchy and short-tempered and ill-mannered, but he's also perfect, and despite trying his hardest, even Sanji's best baking doesn't compare.
He takes a picture of the cake anyway, before Luffy can ruin his masterpiece.
The photo doesn't seem to mean enough.
The photo doesn't seem to mean even nearly enough, because it doesn't portray how much Sanji wants, more than anything else in the world, for Zoro to have a good birthday, or how much effort Sanji tried to ice into the cake just to make it even just that little bit more amazing, because Zoro deserves only the best.
The photo doesn't capture how much Zoro means to Sanji.
But hopefully the cake itself does, at least partially (because Sanji's an optimist, he truly is, but even he doesn't think anything could truly capture the entirety of what Zoro means to him), so Sanji carries his surprise into the lounge where he told Zoro to wait.
He leaves his phone in the kitchen.
xxx
It's late, and the nine of them are sprawled out in Zoro and Sanji's living room.
The lights are off, and Usopp, Chopper and Luffy are spread out on the floor, limbs tangled together as they sleep, half-buried under the mountain of blankets that they'd used to build their pillow fort.
Franky and Brook sit at the table, silently playing a game of cards in an effort not to wake the three asleep on the carpet, snuggled up in their pyjamas despite the heater keeping them all warm. Sanji's not sure how seriously they're taking the game, though, because he can see that more than half of Brooke's cards seem to be facing Franky instead of himself. It's nothing new.
Nami and Robin are quietly talking in the corner, each holding a mug of hot chocolate that wafts a sweet aroma around the room. They giggle, eyes crinkling, and press a delicate hand to their mouths in an effort to remain hushed when one of them says something particularly funny.
The television is on in the background, a low, steady hum that's almost enough to lull Sanji to sleep where he's sitting on the couch.
The buzz of his phone jolts him awake, however, lighting up with a text message, and he reaches for where he'd placed it on the table.
Wish him a happy birthday for me, eggplant.
He can't help but look over, then, at Zoro's form lying on the other side of the couch, snoring loudly enough that Sanji's surprised he hasn't woken anyone up yet. The light from the television flickers across Zoro's face, illuminating his features but also leaving half of him in shadow.
His hair is a tangle of moss on his head from when Chopper tried to braid it and failed (his hair is way too short), and he's drooling all over the couch, but to Sanji, he's never looked more beautiful.
I will. Later.
He hesitates, then. He could take a picture.
He could take a picture of Franky and Brook and their strange card game, and post it on Facebook – it's sure to prompt a few laughs from his followers.
He could take a picture of the ladies in the corner – their hair isn't immaculate and they look sleep-rumpled, but they still look perfect to Sanji. If he doesn't end up posting it anywhere, at least he'll have a copy for himself.
He could take a picture of the four that are asleep – or even create a Vine of their sleeping faces, he's sure that would be amusing.
But.
But, looking back over at Zoro and the crease marks on his face in the pattern of their couch, Sanji doesn't want to.
He could take the best pictures of his friends and use all the filters available and create the most entertaining videos, but even then, he could never do them all justice.
So he doesn't even try.
He puts down his phone, instead, and the snick of it locking feels like he's done something right.
He drags a blanket off of Luffy – the kid doesn't even stir – and cuddles up to Zoro with it wrapped around them. Zoro doesn't wake up, but he subconsciously wraps an arm around Sanji's waist, and that's more than enough for him.
He falls asleep with Zoro's snores by his ear and Zoro's breath ruffling his hair, and he doesn't regret putting down his phone.
Because all the most beautiful moments in life cannot be captured on film, and truthfully?
He wouldn't have it any other way.