Full Disclosure
Chapter 11: Birthday Cake
Sanji was sick. It was a fact that Zoro couldn't escape from, not when he had to listen to Sanji being congested over the phone all the time, and especially not with Sanji's self-inflicted quarantine that had kept Zoro from seeing him for the greater part of the week since Valentine's Day.
They were currently on the phone for the fourth time today, and Zoro hoped like hell that Sanji would never retire if he was this bothersome when he had nothing better to do. He wondered if he could just reach through and strangle Sanji. "Don't call me until you feel better," he said instead.
"'M fine. I don't even feel that awful," Sanji moaned, heaving in a loud sniffle. "I'm just bored."
"I'm not gonna fucking ask you again," said Zoro. "Do you want me to come over."
"I don't want you to get sick."
Zoro contemplated hanging up on Sanji, and had to force himself to suck in a deep, calming breath. "I didn't ask if you wanted me to get sick or not, I asked if you wanted me to come over."
Sanji made a nasally humming noise, and finally sighed. "Yes."
"Okay, that's all you had to say. Do you want me to bring you anything?"
"Actually... could you stop by the store?" Sanji asked, suddenly all cheer. "I wanna make comfort food for myself, but I don't want to go."
Zoro finally gave in and made a loud noise of frustration, which caused Tashigi to pause in front of his open office door and give him a questioning look. "Yes. I'll stop by the store. Give me a list."
Sanji named off several specific ingredients, then asked for another bottle of Nyquil, and finally they hung up and Zoro could get back to work without worrying that Sanji was actually dying of boredom.
When he left the station at the end of the day, he stopped by the store and got everything that Sanji had asked for (spicy sausage, heavy cream, and several different kinds of vegetables), plus a six pack of beer for himself, then headed over.
The first thing he realized upon entering the apartment was that it was kind of scaldingly hot. And though he'd assumed from the phone calls that Sanji would be laid up in bed trying to get better, he had been wrong, as the light in the kitchen was on, and he could hear Sanji banging around inside.
He frowned as he crossed the living room and came to a stop in the kitchen archway. "What the hell are you doing?"
Sanji looked up from where he was rolling together little mounds of potato, and shrugged. "Prep work," he said. In person, his voice was much more congested than Zoro had previously thought, and he had a dead look about him thanks to his sunken eyes, complemented by grayish bags underneath that only barely hid behind his glasses. On top of that, his hair hung unstyled around his face, sitting in loose, uncombed waves, and he hadn't bothered to dress himself decently at all, instead wearing a pair of sweatpants (which Zoro hadn't even thought he'd owned) and a sleeveless muscle shirt. He was a pitiful sight, frankly.
"Go sit down, I'll take care of this," said Zoro as he put down the grocery bags on the counter and began unloading them.
"You don't know how to make it," Sanji said, brows scrunched together.
At this point, Zoro was ready to pick him up, fireman's carry style, and haul him into the bedroom. There might or might not be handcuffs involved in the equation as well, and not in a sexy way. "Is it really that hard for you to just sit down and rest?"
"Not everyone is lazy all the time like you," said Sanji as he picked up a knife and began to slice the roll of potato something-or-other into small pieces. At the very least, his cooking seemed to be completely on par with a regular day, and he did it without really even focusing on it. "Besides, I slept all morning. I can't sleep anymore."
To a person like Zoro, that sentence made absolutely no sense. There was always room in him for a nap. And though he knew that Sanji was kind of a busybody, Zoro had at least assumed that he'd try to take care of himself. "It'll slow down your recovery," he warned.
"I have the weekend to recover."
"Will you please just go and lay down?"
"Nope," said Sanji as he finished chopping up the dough and moved on to washing and coring habanero peppers over the sink.
They were both incredibly stubborn people when it came down to it, Zoro knew. Sanji relented easily sometimes, but if he got his mind fixed on something, he wouldn't let go. Like a tick. Zoro grimaced, knowing that this was one battle he was going to have to back down from. "Fine. What can I do to help you then?"
"Put a sautépan on and cut the carrots into half-moons?"
Zoro got to it, and for a while, he and Sanji worked together in silence. When they'd gotten their respective piles of carrots, onions, celery, and peppers chopped up, it all got tossed into the sauté pan with crumbles of spicy sausage. Then Sanji supervised as Zoro pushed the mixture around in the pan, occasionally reaching around his waist to take his hand, guiding it through the motions of moving things efficiently so that they didn't overcook.
It was kind of bizarre. Zoro didn't know if Sanji was feeling restless and wanted to be the one in charge of everything, or if he was actually trying to let Zoro do most of it, only interfering when he saw the need for it. All the same, Zoro was glad that the fevered heat of Sanji's body was pressed against his back, leading him through the process of cooking, because it meant he could monitor Sanji's condition more easily.
Once Sanji deemed it ready, they dumped the sautédmixture into the gently-simmering stock pot, along with several different kinds of seasonings and a couple bags of peas and corn, and put the lid on, and Zoro finally saw his chance to hustle Sanji toward the couch.
For an hour or so, they let the soup simmer, Zoro only standing occasionally to stir it or to pour the carton of cream in. That entire time, he forced Sanji not to move from the couch, only allowing him up to boil the gnocchi. Still, that only took ten minutes, and soon they were sitting back down on the couch with full bowls of spicy sausage and gnocchi soup, which they both devoured as quickly as they could. Sanji even went back for seconds at one point, which he rarely ever did.
"I feel so much better now," he groaned, patting his stomach once he'd put his empty bowl on the coffee table.
Zoro understood; a single bite of the soup had been hot enough to make his own sinuses feel perfectly clear, after all. "You still need to be resting."
"Are you my fucking mom or something?"
"I sure hope not," said Zoro darkly.
Sanji coughed out a laugh and slid up the couch, laying his head contentedly in Zoro's lap. There was a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead, and he still looked a little pale, but it did seem like he was feeling a bit better.
"You're lucky I have another bottle of beer here," Zoro said, putting down the one he'd just emptied on the side table.
"Why's that?"
"I'd push you off to get more."
"Why do I like you again?"
"Don't know."
"Neither do I. You know what really sucks the most about being sick?"
"Hm?"
"Feeling so awful that you can't even think about sex without feeling like death."
Zoro laughed, petting Sanji's hair back. "I thought you said you didn't feel that bad."
"I lied. This is the true sign of illness."
"Okay. Let me call Chopper and ask him what to do if your need to have sex is suddenly destroyed," said Zoro, with no intention behind his words.
"He would probably hang up on you," Sanji said, smiling. He shifted upward, so that his head slid further into the dip of Zoro's thighs, and Zoro placed a hand down on his chest, which was slowly rising and falling.
"Probably."
Sanji said nothing in return, so Zoro laid his head against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes, but didn't sleep. At some point, Sanji shifted, sniffling and letting out a cough as he pulled the throw blanket over his legs, then settled again.
"What do you want to do for your birthday?" Zoro asked after a while, not even tipping his head up to look at Sanji.
"I don't know. Whatever you want to do," Sanji said sluggishly, as if he had been on the verge of falling asleep.
"You don't have to spend it with me, you know. If you want to do something with your dad or your friends or whatever..."
"No. I wanna spend it with you. Besides, Ace said we're going bar-hopping on Saturday, so we can do something on my birthday." Sanji paused and coughed hard, then let out a moan of pure, melodramatic suffering. "Assuming I'm not hungover. Actually, you should come with us. That way if I'm hungover, at least you'll be in the same boat."
"I'm not a lightweight like you," Zoro said, finally looking down at Sanji, who cracked an eye open to glare up at him.
"I might be sick, but I'm not too sick to break your mouth with my foot."
Zoro bared his teeth at Sanji in a challenging smile. "Try it. I'll toss your skinny ass out a window."
"Okay. Maybe I'll hit the ground hard enough that I can breathe again. Or maybe I'll die, then I won't have to worry about having a cold ever again," said Sanji.
"Don't joke about that."
He must have said it in a particularly serious manner, because Sanji's eyes opened and he bit his lip, seeming unsure. "I'm sorry."
Zoro felt his own face being drawn down into a frown, even if he didn't intend it to. He felt the sudden need to leave the room, but he forced himself to stay sitting, not willing to let it get to him.
Sanji coughed loudly before speaking again. "I... whatever I did. I didn't mean it."
"Don't worry about it," said Zoro, but he averted his gaze from Sanji's, and didn't put forth any effort to draw him into another conversation. He was more annoyed with himself than Sanji anyway, because his fucking brain was so screwed up that he couldn't even joke with his boyfriend without turning it serious and imagining how awful it would be if Sanji didn't die, if he had to suffer like Kuina had. Pointedly, he turned on the television, determined to make himself think of anything else.
Eventually Sanji fell asleep in his lap, mouth hanging open so he could breathe, and Zoro carried him into the bedroom. But he didn't join Sanji there. He sat out on the balcony in the cold night air, forcing his thoughts into silence for a long, long time before finally going to bed.
For the record, therapy was not something Zoro had voluntarily gone looking for. It had been Shakky who'd suggested it, and then Kuina had encouraged it, but it had taken him a long, long time to be alright with the idea of needing help. He wasn't the kind of person who had severe enough problems to warrant therapy.
So he had thought. But as he got older, his ability to forget got worse instead of better, and by the time he was 26, Zoro found himself unable to think about anything but Kuina's accident during the day, and he couldn't escape from it in his dreams either. It was a vicious, never-ending cycle that disrupted his work, his relationships, and his ability to function, and it took nearly nine years of torture for him to give in and let Shakky recommend Dr. Beckman to him. By that point, he wasn't even sure if his problems could be fixed.
Therapy wasn't a magical cure-all, not that he'd expected it to be. It didn't make the dreams go away, or make them immediately bearable. It didn't stop him from feeling guilty more often than not. And it took him months to figure out how to even talk about his feelings, let alone articulate them. Longer still to realize that he wasn't just confined to talking about the lingering thoughts of Kuina's accident, that he could talk about anything he wanted to, really.
At this point, for him, it was like paying for a friend. One who was completely nonjudgmental, exceptionally good at listening and giving advice, and whom Zoro didn't have to see anywhere but here. Most of the time, he could forget that Dr. Beckman even existed, if he wanted to.
Almost all of his sessions had normalized at some point over the past two years, to the point where he talked more often about the things in his life that had nothing to do with Kuina than the things that did. His new over-arching theme seemed to be Sanji, as Dr. Beckman had latched onto that topic with a kind of voracity that was almost worrying to Zoro. It must have been akin to picking at a scab for therapists, Zoro guessed. He'd found a childhood friend with whom Zoro had bad blood, and wanted to pick away at that concept until Zoro opened up and bled all the bad out.
"What about your relationship with Mr. Black?" Dr. Beckman began after they'd finished their set of opening questions and answers. "Is it stable?"
"Yeah. I guess so. We don't have actual fights much. It feels easy," Zoro said. It was true their relationship would seem a little off-kilter for some, but he liked the way they were. He liked messing with Sanji, and being messed with by Sanji. He liked the teasing and the play-fighting and the real fighting, the swords against legs fighting. He liked it when Sanji was soft and kind and he liked it when he was hard and mean. There wasn't a single thing he could think of that didn't feel right.
"You don't fight, but do you often feel anger toward him?"
"No. He's done bad things to me before but he's different now. Understanding, and a lot calmer."
"So time apart has been good for your relationship," Dr. Beckman said, then pulled out a cigarette from the packet sitting on the table beside his chair. "Do you mind?"
"Go ahead."
"Time apart has been good?" he prompted again, lighting the cigarette with a match and taking a deep inhale.
"I guess so. But there are parts of him I missed out on, and that bothers me."
"Why is that?"
"There's just times when I realize some of our friends know more about who he is now than I do," said Zoro, thinking of Ace. He took a sip of water and cleared his throat, then scratched his arm. It wasn't that he was uncomfortable, but Dr. Beckman always made him feel like he was being intensely scrutinized, every word examined deeply.
"Is that a bad thing?" Dr. Beckman asked. He took another draw from his cigarette, and let the smoke out of the corner of his mouth.
Zoro took a moment to figure out how to articulate himself, and when it came out it still wasn't exactly how he felt. "Maybe. I'm not entitled to know everything, but I want to."
"You learn about people as they feel comfortable sharing themselves. For instance, you haven't told him about your PTSD. Why is that?"
"It's not like I freak out over the accident that often anymore," said Zoro. He tore at the label on his water bottle, eyes diverted from Dr. Beckman's so that he wouldn't see the lie, and hoping that he couldn't hear it either.
"But it still affects you. Perhaps it's not present in day-to-day life but he'll eventually become privy to it. You don't think you should tell him ahead of time?"
"Can't I just play it by ear?"
"I think maybe you think it makes you seem weak, and that's the exact opposite of how you want to appear in his eyes," Dr. Beckman said. He put out the cigarette butt in the ashtray beside himself, and took a sip of coffee from his mug. "But you have to remember that the things that affect us don't always show on the outside. And perhaps he has just as many problems as you do, and taking the first step toward vulnerability would help you both."
Zoro shrugged. "He's a model of normality. I doubt he's anywhere near as fucked up as I am."
"I imagine everyone seems fairly normal to you."
"Why's that?"
"Surely it's not because you have deep-seated abandonment issues, a severely persistent case of PTSD, a massive guilt complex, a standing grudge against your father, whom you believe stopped caring the moment your mother died, and you're one drink away from becoming an alcoholic," Dr. Beckman said with a completely straight face. "Perhaps you spend so much time thinking about your own problems that you don't recognize the problems in others. I'm not saying you're self-involved, and it's very important to take care of yourself. But you shouldn't assume that everyone else is walking around in the world without a burden on their back just because your own overwhelms you."
"Any other psychoanalysis for me, doc?" Zoro asked, somewhat stung at how true that was.
"Of course. I think the only reason you enjoy your job is because it gives you a sense of power over anything at all. But you also grow to hate people more because of it, and in a way it frightens you. Drinking used to be your only way of coping with it, now you find refuge in Mr. Black too because he lets you get away with not talking about it, so you can forget for a while. You want to be doing something better in life. But you have no idea where else to take it."
"Now you're just jumping to conclusions."
"I wonder," said Dr. Beckman.
Between work, having to get back home, and meeting up with everyone else, the day before Sanji's birthday was chaotic. Luckily though, the last of his cold was gone, and he was fully prepared for a night of drinking, as evidenced by the greasy hamburgers and fries he'd been putting on plates when Zoro walked into the kitchen. He glanced up and smiled in greeting, and when Zoro came over to give him a kiss hello, he graciously turned his face to the side so Zoro could get at him a little easier.
"Hey," he said. "I figured we'd have time to eat before we left but you're a little later than I expected, so we'll have to hurry."
"Sorry. Tashigi needed help with something."
"I'm not mad," Sanji said. "Just kinda... ready to get this over with."
"You don't want to go?" Zoro asked as he pulled a couple bottles of water from the fridge. He passed one to Sanji before starting in on his burger.
Sanji uncapped the bottle and took a quick swig before speaking. "It's not that. Some of our friends just figure they may as well go all out if they're going to go at all."
Zoro didn't really have to guess who he meant. Ace and Luffy could escalate an incident quicker than you could snap your fingers, and Franky and Brook were nearly as good at it. "So everybody's going to be there?"
"Yeah, I think so."
"Hm. That's gonna take some maneuvering."
"Yeah. Hurry up and eat."
Zoro did so. It only took him about five minutes to clear his plate, where Sanji took a little longer considering he had to wipe his mouth after every single bite.
Finally though, they were out the door. It was perfect weather to walk in, the temperature having calmed down to a breezy 60 degrees in the past week, and considering that they were meeting the rest of the group only a couple blocks from Zoro's house, they took full advantage of the fact.
The light jacket that Sanji had shoved him into was really the only concession Zoro ever made to the changing of seasons. Sanji, however, had completely rotated his winter wardrobe out. His warm sweaters and cardigans had been exchanged for mid-arm henleys and long-sleeved button-ups with the cuffs turned up. Zoro was starting to develop a kind of Pavlovian response to the sight of Sanji's bare forearms, which were much stronger than he'd originally thought, and watching the veins of his wrists flex whenever he did something with his hands was almost mesmerizing. It didn't hurt that his tattoos were partially revealed on an almost full-time basis now, which sometimes made it hard for Zoro to look away.
They arrived to the first bar of the night later than they'd planned on. It was one of those quiet, nicely-decorated places that was owned by some young entrepreneur and patronized by equally young entrepreneurs who all thought they were living in the 50s. It was more like a lounge, really, and there were plenty of women with retro pincurls and faux-vintage cocktail dresses, and men with slicked-back hair and suspenders.
The only people who really fit in were Sanji, Brook, and Robin, and the rest of them stuck out like sore thumbs. Zoro didn't even know why they were at a place like this, unless Sanji had decided on it, because he was sure he wasn't imagining the strange looks they got from almost everyone else in the room.
Luckily, they didn't stay long. A few cocktails were had, enough to get the buzz going before they all became rather sick of having the stuck-up richies glaring at them, then they paid and headed down the block to their next destination.
The second bar was much more their style, with several different types of beer on tap along with classic, greasy bar food, and the jukebox was loaded with Queen, Springsteen, and The Who. They settled into a booth with a couple pitchers of beer and some baskets of cheese fries, and got down to business until most of them were tipsy enough to be led through a boisterous rendition of "Fat Bottomed Girls" (accompanied by the other patrons) that left Sanji blushing even as he laughed, and Zoro had to lean over and press a fond kiss to his mouth.
He wasn't sure if it was that exact moment that caused him to be blindsided by adoration for Sanji, or if it was just because they were a little buzzed and surrounded by their friends and it felt so good and right in that moment. But frankly, it didn't matter what the reason was, because he finally had Sanji back, and they were happy, and he could imagine spending the rest of his life like this.
"This feels right," Sanji murmured against Zoro's ear, his hair tickling Zoro's neck, bristly stubble scraping his cheek, and warm breath setting his earrings to clinking together.
Zoro had to wonder if Sanji had been reading his mind. "What does?"
"All of us together like this."
Zoro hummed in agreement, and took a long gulp of his beer. Rounds were being ordered one after the other, and there seemed to never be a lull without a drink. Some of them were taking better advantage of that fact than others, and it would only be a matter of time before it became a full-blown competition.
Sure enough, Luffy had a suggestion not even half an hour in. "We should play a drinking game!"
"Yeah? Like what?" asked Sanji.
"Drink every time Luffy mentions wanting to eat meat," somebody stage-whispered slyly.
"Every time Zoro and Sanji disappear into their own world," someone else suggested.
"Or we can drink every time somebody at this table wants their ass kicked," said Sanji.
"Whenever Brook starts singing," another voice chimed in.
"Every time somebody at this table feels like their masculinity is in danger," Nami said.
"Or every time Zoro drinks five beers to everyone else's two," said Brook.
"How about we take a drink every time I shove my sword down somebody's smartass throat."
"The only person who wants your sword is Sanji," Brook said disdainfully.
"Every time someone at this table comes up with a bogus drinking game idea," a waitress chipped in as she passed by.
"Yeah, let's go with that one," they all agreed.
Of course, soon most of them had reached the stage where things slipped from their mind like water through fingers, and the drinking game was forgotten.
Sanji was on the edge of being among them. In all fairness, he was decent at holding his alcohol, but he was so skinny that it only took about four glasses of beer on top of the previous bar's cocktails to get him a little sloppy.
"You okay?" Zoro asked as Sanji nearly slipped off the edge of the booth laughing at something Ace had said. It was rather amusing to see how animated he was around others when he was a little drunk, as compared to how he became either sultry or sincere with Zoro.
"Yeah, fine," Sanji said. He grinned at Zoro, and almost had his head slammed face-first into the table when Luffy pushed him forward, trying to get out of the booth.
"Sorry!" he said as he pushed Zoro forward too. The next moment he was down and headed for the bathroom, flip-flops slapping noisily on the tile.
"That kid," sighed Franky.
"Like older brother, like younger brother," Nami agreed.
"Hey!" Ace's eyebrow was raised, clearly taking offense at this.
"It's kind of true."
Ace grumbled, but relented.
Luffy was back a few moments later, looking pleased with himself, and Zoro and Sanji scooted forward so that he could get back to his place beside Nami without any undue damage to themselves. It was probably too much to expect that Luffy would sit still and get back to drinking though, because he started squirming around and generally annoying everyone not even ten minutes later.
"I broke the seal," he kept groaning, and finally gave in and crawled over Zoro and Sanji once again, then wobbled toward the restrooms, accidentally opening the door to the women's room before doubling back for the men's. Nobody at the table felt even a little bit bad for laughing at him.
They stayed at the bar for an hour longer, letting the alcohol stagnate in their veins enough to get some of them a little more sober. By then, Chopper and Usopp had decided to call it a night, much to the complaint of Luffy, and the group slowly started gathering themselves together to leave.
"Where are we going next?" asked Ace, looking to Sanji for an answer.
"We should go dance," Franky interrupted, and a few people chipped in their agreement. It wasn't what Zoro would have picked, but Sanji didn't disagree (or agree) with it, and it was his birthday, so it was his choice.
But it seemed that his choice was entirely different, because he stayed still when everyone but he and Zoro had stood up. "You guys go ahead," he said. "We're gonna hang around here instead."
"Fine. We'll probably only stay for an hour or two, so let's meet up at Shakky's," said Nami.
"Alright."
They headed out the door, and he and Sanji were left alone. Though there were still many rowdy patrons throughout the room, it was almost too easy to ignore them when Sanji slid closer despite no longer needing to be tucked in tight.
"Wanna go back to your place for a quicky?" Sanji whispered in his ear.
"No."
"Wanna have a quicky in the bathroom?" he asked, undeterred.
"No."
"Would you like to have any kind of sex at all in the next month?"
"I'm not bothered by it, really," said Zoro, just to see Sanji puff up and turn red with annoyance. He realized they'd probably gotten past the honeymoon stage, and that they weren't both walking around on eggshells anymore. It was alright to be moody, or downright scathing with each other, and it was alright to be a little bit less than nice. Zoro was glad for that. It was kind of weird to see Sanji fighting so hard against his own nature of sarcasm and tough affection. By definition, he wasn't a kind person, or even a mildly tolerable one.
Still, Sanji let it go, and they had another couple drinks, talking about nothing of great importance. It was so normal that an outsider could have mistaken them for close friends, and something about that idea annoyed Zoro. He wrapped an arm low around Sanji's waist, and didn't move it until they finally got up to leave, paying off their share of the tab.
They took a cab up to Astoria, where everyone was presumably already waiting for them at Shakky's bar. Sure enough, when they got inside, Luffy started shouting and waving his arms around wildly to flag them down, and they headed over to squeeze themselves in amongst the group, being immediately passed a couple glasses of beer.
They had only been sitting there for about fifteen minutes when the bar got noticeably quieter and Shakky and Kuina parted the crowd, both holding opposite ends of a platter containing a huge cake with exactly twenty-eight lit candles sticking out of it.
Sanji smiled drunkenly up at them as they slid the cake onto the table in front of him, and Zoro leaned close to whisper in his ear, echoing Sanji's exact words from that first night they'd spent together: "Make a wish."
There was a pause as Sanji thought, then he pursed his lips and blew as hard as he could. The flames went out, and Shakky and Kuina both leaned forward to start pulling candles out, and then everyone but Zoro and Sanji began to sing Happy Birthday, which the rest of the bar quickly joined in on, and Sanji was shouting at them and trying to get them to be quiet. He probably looked pleased underneath his blush, but Zoro couldn't really tell.
Soon there were slices of cake being cut, and when Luffy's hand shot out of nowhere to try and grab a plate, Shakky grabbed him hard by the wrist and began to bend it back. "Birthday boy gets the first piece," she said dangerously, and Luffy deflated, easing back from his half-sprawled position over Nami and Ace.
Once Sanji had a plate in front of himself, everyone waited patiently for him to make a decision about his first bite, which he ate slowly, savoring it.
"How does the fancy cook like it?" Shakky asked. It was apparent that she'd already eased into teasing Sanji the same way she did to Zoro. At the very least, Sanji seemed pleased about it, as if he was glad to be accepted so easily.
"It's really good. Did you make it?" asked Sanji. He seemed to have reached the stage of drunkenness where he forgot all about manners, and had just started shoving cake into his mouth as he spoke.
"No. We got it from a bakery," Kuina said.
"Mm. It's amazing."
"Good." And with that, plates of cake were passed around to everyone else, satisfying Luffy for the time being. Zoro passed up his own slice, but Shakky brought out a bottle of his favorite vodka and a shotglass, so that was fine by him.
The amount of cake diminished over the course of the hour, and slowly, almost everyone seemed to head off from the booth to hang around elsewhere. Zoro was left with Sanji, Shakky, and Kuina, and the three of them began coming up with plans despite no input from Zoro.
"We should all go to dinner sometime," Kuina said, tapping at the table with her short nails. "Do a better job of catching up, maybe."
"I always thought you hated me," Sanji said, drunkenly honest.
"Nah. You're like a little brother to me, you were just really annoying. More annoying than him, even," Kuina said, pointing an accusing finger at Zoro. "Obviously you're a bit better now."
Sanji looked pleased, and ducked his head a little. "Thanks."
She laughed and smacked him on the back, making him sway forward. "C'mon, you honestly think I'd act awful toward you? Zoro's got good judgment, I don't think he'd be with you if you weren't half decent."
And Zoro wanted that to be true, but he wasn't so sure. It would take a lot for him to push Sanji aside. At the very least, he was entirely secure in the knowledge that Sanji was half decent, and he was fairly sure that he didn't have to worry about a repeat of their last failed relationship with each other.
Kuina and Shakky wandered off a few minutes later, but not before delivering a kiss apiece from both of them to Sanji's cheeks. Sanji was distinctly pink-faced, and Zoro had to laugh at him. "Having fun yet?"
"I was always having fun. Maybe I should be asking you that question," said Sanji, sneaking another piece of cake onto his plate.
"I've got vodka, of course I'm having fun."
"Hm. Go ask Shakky if they have any milk."
"It's a fucking bar, why the hell would they have milk?"
"Fine, I'll go ask," Sanji said, and slid over Zoro to get out of the booth. It was a move that was entirely too focused right on certain areas of Zoro's lap that would have been incredibly excited about the position if he weren't a little too drunk to get it up.
He grumbled and walked behind Sanji to the bar, where Shakky was speaking to an older man with a scar over his right eye. They leaned there patiently, waiting for her to finish talking, and it gave Zoro time to check around the room and see what everyone was up to. Nami, Luffy, Franky, and Ace were playing cards with a couple of loud, rowdy construction workers, and Brook was talking with extremely exaggerated hand gestures toward Robin. And Kuina was standing behind the bar with Shakky, so that meant everyone was fine where they were.
He slanted his gaze back toward Sanji, whose eyes had flicked to the side where a pretty woman was sitting at the bar further down, laughing at something her friend was saying. His eyes flicked up and down her frame once before sliding guiltily back to Zoro. "Sorry," he said.
Zoro shrugged his shoulders. "Whatever. As long as you don't actually try to go home with her."
"I don't wanna go home with anybody but you," Sanji said dopily.
And sure enough, when they left at the end of the night, they left alone, though they were somewhat more saddled down than they'd been at the beginning, with a few bags full of gifts and a set of tickets for Luffy's next boxing match. From the bar, they meandered toward the subway station, and it was the drunkest Zoro had been in a long while. There was nothing elegant about it all; they were both pretty sloppy, and weaving all over the sidewalk. At one point, Zoro managed to trip himself up in a turnstile, and Sanji didn't stop chuckling to himself for nearly ten minutes.
At last, they were in a mostly-empty subway car on the way home, obstinately clinging to a rail rather than sitting down. It was kind of nauseating, but then Zoro was a belligerent drunk, often doing the exact opposite of what he actually wanted to do. Sanji was slumped against his back, chin on Zoro's shoulder, hands curled into the pockets of Zoro's jacket.
"Falling asleep back there?" Zoro asked.
"Mm, nope. Cold now."
"Should have brought a jacket."
"I did. Didn't I?"
"... Did you?" Zoro tried to think back to the beginning of the night, though it wasn't easy in his current state, and he thought he vaguely remembered that Sanji had been wearing something over his short-sleeved button-up. "Shit. Was your wallet in it?"
Sanji shifted against him as he presumably checked his pockets. "Nah. Everything's right here. I'll miss that jacket though."
"We can go back and get it tomorrow."
"I don't remember where we left it. It's fine." He leaned up against Zoro's back again and went silent, chin digging hard into the join of Zoro's shoulder and neck. It was almost comfortable despite the awkward positioning, Sanji doing his best to surround Zoro, bumping against him every time the train hit a rough spot on the tracks.
They disembarked in Prospect Heights a while later, and as they wandered down streets, Sanji became increasingly distracted, lagging behind further and further.
"What's your problem?" Zoro asked, pulling to a stop in annoyance.
"I have to pee."
"We'll be home in a couple minutes, you can pee then," Zoro said.
Sanji whined dramatically. "I really have to."
"Well what the hell do you want me to do about it?"
"Cover me."
Zoro gave him a disbelieving look, eyebrows up and mouth slightly open. "I'm not gonna cover you while you take a piss on a public street."
"C'mon. It'll be like old times."
"Old times took place in a field in the middle of nowhere," Zoro said.
"Zoro..."
"No. We're two minutes away from home, you can hold it that long. Unless you want me to arrest you."
Sanji went silent, petulance radiating from him the rest of the way home. When they got inside at last, Sanji dropped his bags and headed straight for the bathroom, and Zoro took his time getting out of his shoes and coat. At some point, the door to the bathroom opened again, and then the back door opened and closed, Sanji probably going out for a cigarette. In the kitchen, Zoro poured a couple glasses of water, then took them out onto the back porch.
Only he had to pause in the doorway. There was an unkempt-looking black cat sitting on Sanji's lap as he smoked his cigarette, using one of his hands to pet the cat behind the ears. It looked all too pleased to receive attention, and Sanji was cooing at it quite happily. It was so ridiculous that Zoro had to laugh.
Sanji turned his head to glower at Zoro. "Shut up."
"Making friends?"
"Yes. I feed him all the time," said Sanji.
"You feed a stray cat in my neighborhood. I'm not surprised. Here, drink this," Zoro said, and passed Sanji the glass of water. He guzzled it down thirstily and placed it beside himself, put out his cigarette and tossed it into the trash bin, then carefully lowered the cat back to the pavement.
"Goodbye, Meow Meow," he muttered, giving it one last pat, and Zoro bit his lip hard to keep from bursting into laughter again. Sanji stood up, and they headed back into the house, where Zoro got another refill for the both of them.
"Drink," he said as he held Sanji's glass back out. "I don't want to hear you whining tomorrow about being hungover."
"Whatever," Sanji said, though he downed this glass as well.
They finished up, placing their empty cups in the sink, then began flipping off lights and locking doors to head upstairs, where they struggled to get ready for bed. Sanji could barely hold himself up long enough to strip out of his clothes, and then he sat on the bathroom floor while brushing his teeth so that Zoro tripped over him on the way to do the same. But at last, they crawled into bed together and got settled.
"Did you know we've been together almost four months now and I'm not even sick of you yet?" Sanji asked after a while. His head lolled to the side on the pillow, hair falling into the soft streetlight coming in through the windows. It glowed orangey-golden in the near-darkness.
"Did you think you were going to get sick of me?"
"A little. I was worried that I would. But I didn't want to."
Zoro turned his face up toward the ceiling. There was a small patch of deep green paint on it that must have gotten there last time he'd painted the bedroom. "Do you get sick of people easily?"
"Maybe. I've never stuck around long enough to see if I do," said Sanji. His voice was slowly becoming quieter and quieter, but not as if he were about to fall asleep.
Zoro hummed in reply, content to leave it at that.
But Sanji continued. "I wonder why you're so different."
"You must feel obligated to be with me."
Sanji was silent, and slowly Zoro turned his face to look up at him, expecting to see him fallen asleep. But his eyes were wide open and he had a blank look on his face.
"What's wrong?" Zoro asked.
"Mm? Sorry, I zoned out for a minute."
"Go to sleep if you're tired," Zoro said, a warm note of fondness in his voice.
"I'm not. I was thinking, we should go on vacation some time. Together."
"Yeah? Where to?"
"I dunno. Anywhere."
"Is that what you want for your birthday?"
"I guess. But not anytime soon, wait until summer."
"Fine. We'll go somewhere then. Together."
Zoro didn't feel awful at all the next morning. Sanji, however, refused to get out of bed or open his eyes, and generally grumbled and whined a lot until Zoro gave up and went downstairs to fix breakfast on his own.
It was while he was in the kitchen eating toast that he began to get an idea, and he knew that it would likely blow up in his face, but all the same he found himself looking up a recipe for chocolate cake. It wasn't surprising that he had all the necessary ingredients, not with Sanji's tendency to bring his own and then leave them behind, but all the same, there was some part of Zoro that was immeasurably pleased about how Sanji had left his mark on Zoro's home in this manner.
So he spent the better part of his morning figuring out how to bake a cake. It was at once much easier and much harder than he'd thought it would be from watching Sanji do it, and entirely too messy, but surprisingly not a complete disaster. He'd managed to bake the cake too long, then the piece he cut off from the top to make it level was a little too salty, and the kitchen would likely never recover from him splattering milk everywhere when it came time to make the frosting.
But it was done. It wasn't pretty, and it had a flavor that was more confusing than good, but he'd tried. And now he knew that he was never going to bake again.
At the very least, Sanji didn't witness any of it, considering that by the time he rolled out of bed, it was well after four in the afternoon, a fact that he was very grumpy about.
"You should be used to this," Zoro said, when he'd had enough of listening to Sanji sigh about how the day was already practically over. "How did you spend summers as a teenager again?"
"Shut up. I can't sleep in anymore, I'm an adult now."
"Could have fooled me."
"You know what, Zoro? You can shut your shitty mouth and get me some coffee if you know what's good for you," Sanji said. His eyes were slitted against the light, and Zoro forewent teasing him anymore, just got to work putting the coffee maker on.
Sanji climbed up onto one of the barstools and put his head down, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. When it did, Zoro fixed a cup for him just the way he liked it (far too much sugar and Sanji's fancy Cinnabon creamer), then placed it in front of Sanji, who finally seemed to have found some amount of joy in his otherwise awful world.
"Happy birthday," Zoro said gruffly, and dropped a kiss on Sanji's cheek as he gulped at his coffee.
"Mm. Thanks. ...Why does it smell like something's burning?" he asked after he'd downed half of the cup.
"Uh," Zoro said. He groped frantically around in his mind for any kind of excuse that wasn't related to his failed attempt at baking a cake. "I left my sandwich from lunch the other day in the oven too long."
Sanji chuckled into his mug. "You're really useless in the kitchen without me around, aren't you?"
You don't even know the half of it, Zoro thought. "I was distracted."
"Okay, well try not to burn the house down, moss-for-brains. What time are our reservations for?" he asked, and it was obvious to Zoro that he wanted to spend as much time lazing around as possible. For all that he was up and about the second he awoke, he was entirely too lazy when left to his own devices.
"We have to leave here by six."
With a grumble and a quick stretch, Sanji climbed off the barstool and walked his cup over to the sink, draining the rest of it before rinsing it out. Then he went upstairs, presumably to take a shower. Zoro considered having a nap in the meantime, and he'd even gotten upstairs and back into bed before Sanji came out of the shower and proceeded to dress himself, which Zoro was distracted into watching. He put on boxer briefs, black dress pants, and the marigold-colored button-up that Zoro was quickly growing to love, but when that was all over, Zoro closed his eyes, ready to fall asleep. Except Sanji refused to let that happen, instead nagging him to get up.
"We have another hour," Zoro groaned, and shuffled further toward the center of the bed so that Sanji would stop pinching him in the side.
But it didn't work. Sanji leapt onto him, knocking the breath out of his lungs, and came to rest with his palms over Zoro's shoulders, staring down at him. "Get up."
"I can't get up when you're on top of me," Zoro said.
"Excuses."
"Go away, let me sleep."
Sanji huffed and dropped his full weight on top of Zoro, scratchy facial hair scraping against the side of Zoro's neck.
"Do you ever think about shaving all that off?"
"You don't like it?" Sanji asked, and rubbed his chin all over Zoro's neck until it burned.
"I don't mind it."
"Hm. You always shave your face, so you don't understand the benefits."
"I look weird with facial hair."
"Or maybe you get annoyed when people ask about why it's green," Sanji said, relenting on the beard burn and trailing his rough fingertips over Zoro's scalp instead.
"How do you know it's green?"
"I've seen your pubes, I'm not an idiot," Sanji said, pushing off of Zoro. "Unless you dye them too."
"There's something seriously fucking wrong if you think I'm the vain one in this relationship."
Sanji scoffed. "Whatever. Would you please get up and get dressed before I have to do it for you?"
Zoro grunted and wrapped his arms around a pillow, drawing it under his chest. "No."
There was silence in the room then. It stretched until Zoro got curious, and he turned his head to see that Sanji was inside the closet, bent over picking through everything on the floor. He huffed out a breath in annoyance, beginning to feel unable to ignore Sanji's increasingly desperate attempts at getting him up.
"Thought you said you didn't have any dress shoes?" Sanji asked, and held up the pair that Zoro had worn to Kuina and Shakky's wedding.
"They were in there?"
"Yeah. Here," Sanji said, and tossed the shoes at Zoro's face. He swatted them out of the air, and stood slowly, bones creaking as he crossed the room to the closet and pushed past Sanji so he could find something to wear.
In the end, he dressed himself much the same as Sanji had - dress pants with the black button-up from his previous excursion with Robin and Kuina, then the dress shoes. It was just as uncomfortable as he remembered it being, and he made a face as Sanji fixed the collar of his shirt. "Stop grooming me."
"I'm making you look presentable, shut up."
"You're making me sit around in this getup for the next hour when you know I hate wearing this bullshit."
"Well I like it when you look nice, so you can kiss my fucking ass," Sanji said, and yanked hard on the hem of Zoro's shirt, forcefully tucking it in.
"At the rate you're going, I'm never going to touch your ass again."
"No complaints here."
"Fuck off," Zoro growled, pushing the pointy tip of his shoe into Sanji's ankle. The smile Sanji gave him was sharp and mean, and Zoro didn't have any problems kissing it right off his face.
The restaurant they'd booked reservations for a couple weeks ago was much, much nicer than Zoro had expected it to be. There was no mistaking what two people would be here for together - it wasn't the place to have a business dinner, a graduation celebration, or a family get-together. No, this was the kind of place you took somebody to propose to them, or for an anniversary dinner.
Or to have a romantic birthday dinner with someone you really cared for. Zoro grimaced as he looked around the room, noting that most of the people here were overtly intimate with each other. There was hand-holding, sugary looks, and he'd bet any amount of money that there was some footsy going on too.
"I hope you don't expect me to act like that with you," he whispered in Sanji's ear as they were led to their table.
Sanji nudged him in the side, smirking. "You don't like me enough to hold my hand?"
"I didn't come here to hold hands. I came here because it's your birthday and you wanted to," said Zoro.
"And what if I want to hold hands on my birthday?"
"... I'd do it. I wouldn't be happy about it though."
Sanji's smirk had faded down into a playful smile. "I'm just fucking with you."
They were seated and took a couple minutes to look over the menu, Sanji throwing out comments every so often about what sounded good. Zoro noticed that he was completely avoiding talking about the wine list though.
"You don't want wine?" he asked.
Sanji's face actually turned a little green at the prospect, and he shook his head quickly. "No. I think I've had enough alcohol for a while. What are you going to get?"
"I dunno," said Zoro, letting his eyes continue to trail over words that meant absolutely nothing to him.
Sanji drew in a soft breath, and shook his hair back into its place covering his right eye. Over time, Zoro had come to notice that he often had one eye or the other covered with his hair, and he wondered why that was. Even when they were alone, it was rare to see both of his eyes. "Mm. Well, everything here is good, but the seafood will be especially fresh today... Also, I'd recommend going for the more unique dishes. Risotto and ravioli are all well and good but those are things you can eat anywhere else, and for a lot cheaper too."
"I'll keep that in mind," Zoro said, amused both at the fact that Sanji seemed to turn into a high-class waiter while explaining the menu to him, and that he thought that kind of advice would actually benefit Zoro any.
Still, he eventually ordered braised veal and agnolotti topped with herb butter and sharp white cheese, while Sanji chose roasted lamb with vegetables and white truffle penne. Zoro wasn't expecting much, but when it came out, it smelled delicious. And he soon realized that it tasted just as good as it smelled; it was an incredible meal, and as much as he wanted to hold Sanji's cooking in the highest position of esteem forever, Zoro had to admit that this certainly gave it a run for its money. Whoever had made it obviously cared, and wanted it to show.
"I can't believe I'm nearly thirty," Sanji said as they were wrapping up.
"Why?"
"It's just, do you ever think about how much time has passed since we were kids?"
Zoro knew that a lot of time had passed, but it wasn't something that really felt astonishing to him until that moment. If he really cared to do the math, he could figure out exactly how many days, hours, minutes, seconds Sanji had been in his life. More astonishing was just how many years he'd survived without Sanji. It was strange to consider that, for all that their lives were intertwined, Sanji hadn't actually been there for so many important things that had shaped Zoro. "Huh."
"Soon we'll be officially middle-aged," Sanji said, cutting off one of his final chunks of lamb. "A third of our lives are basically gone."
"You don't really sound upset about that."
"Nah. Why should we fear getting older? I don't want to spend my time worrying more about where I'll be in a couple years than on what I can be now. I want to focus on the present, but the future is important to me too."
Zoro liked the sentiment of it, but there was no way he could possibly do that himself. His youth was everything he had; there'd be a point someday where his joints would ache too much to practice the way he did now. The force behind his blows would weaken. And finally, he'd be too old to be taken seriously. Time was his enemy. Maybe for Sanji it was something to look forward to, and in a way, Zoro wanted the knowledge of being older, but he wanted to hold off on it for as long as possible.
In all honesty, though, he would let it come, if only to share more moments like these with Sanji, for as long as he could.
They were all the way home, undressed, and Zoro, at least, was in bed before Sanji started acting strangely. He'd been searching through the pockets of his discarded pants and the dresser drawers for a good five minutes now, and Zoro could do nothing but stare from his position in bed.
"What are you doing?" he asked as Sanji got down on his knees to look through the nightstand drawers.
Sanji glanced up for just a second. "I can't figure out where the hell my phone is. What are you doing?"
"Nothing."
"Great. I'm gonna go check downstairs for it, then I'll be right back up," Sanji said with a wink that implied exactly what he wanted to do when he returned.
Zoro laid back against the pillows, debating between letting himself fall asleep or staying awake for Sanji. Sex was awesome, but sleep was necessary, and besides, they could fuck after he'd had a nap.
He'd managed to get settled and ready for a nap when Sanji came back in, phone in one hand, plate containing a fork and a single slice of Zoro's failed chocolate cake in the other.
"So," Sanji said, putting the plate onto the nightstand by Zoro's head. "What's this?"
"... Nothing."
"Really? Because it looks like chocolate cake. Why would you possibly have chocolate cake?"
"Because... no reason," Zoro said shiftily.
Sanji made a noise of dissatisfaction and crawled over Zoro to get to his own side of the bed before leaning over and taking up the plate of cake again. "Did you make me a cake for my birthday?" he asked in a gentle, non-judgmental tone.
Zoro sighed, embarrassed for some reason. "... Yeah. It's not going to be good though. I fucked it up a lot."
"We'll see," said Sanji, and he forked off a bit.
The face he made upon popping it into his mouth was one of consideration, but not disgust. "It's not bad," he said. "It's definitely not perfect but..." He paused and took another bite before speaking again. "That's fine. It's kinda cute that you made me a birthday cake."
"Shut up."
"Really. Thank you."
"Whatever. It's your birthday and you didn't want anything, so I figured I could do something for you."
Sanji kept eating until the entire piece was gone, and even scraped up the bits of crumbs and tiny smears of icing on the plate before putting it down. "You're really pretty thoughtful, you know? You shouldn't be ashamed of it."
Zoro was silent, forearm covering his eyes until Sanji leaned over and pulled it away. The kiss he gave Zoro then tasted cloyingly sweet, but he surrendered to it anyway, letting Sanji show his thanks how he preferred to. It wasn't as though it was really a hardship.
"Good birthday?" he asked when Sanji finally pulled back.
"Good birthday," Sanji confirmed, and leaned in for another kiss, one that drifted off-course and migrated down the length of Zoro's neck to his bare chest, nibbling along his scar until the skin there felt more numb than usual. Sanji's hair tickled across his stomach as he worked his way further down, hands tugging Zoro's boxers off just enough that he could get his mouth on Zoro's cock.
One of the things that Zoro had come to learn was that Sanji rarely liked to suck him; it was something he saved for moments when he was in a good mood, or as currency to have his way. Sanji wasn't exactly selfish in bed, but he definitely knew what he wanted, and stuck to it - a complete 180 from Zoro, who was the kind of person that got off on getting others off.
Still, he figured he could let Sanji do what he liked, and he threaded his fingers through Sanji's hair, cradling the back of his skull as he moved his head up and down teasingly, his tongue flicking across the tip of Zoro's cock on every upstroke.
Zoro had figured it was foreplay, so it shocked him a little when Sanji kept going even after he was hard enough. Not that he was complaining, but... "Hey. I thought it was your birthday?"
Sanji pulled up and off, looking confused. "Yeah?"
"So don't you deserve to be taking it easy?"
"Oh. I'm fine with this," Sanji said, nuzzling back down to place a couple licks along the length of the shaft. "I want to."
Zoro went quiet, unable to deny him, and Sanji got back to it until Zoro got an idea and shoved him by the shoulder back onto the bed.
"Hey-" Sanji said, annoyed, but Zoro ignored him, tugging his underwear down just enough that he could get Sanji's cock out.
Then Sanji seemed to get the point, going to his knees and climbing over Zoro's face before getting on all fours and going back to sucking at Zoro. It left their bodies perfectly parallel, and Zoro was able to pick his head up and get at Sanji's cock, swallowing him down as well as he could. At first it was somewhat strange and uncomfortable, stifling as if he could choke at any second, but they got it figured out well enough.
The problem was that Zoro was just too fucking close. Considering Sanji's prior treatment of him, that wasn't surprising, but he liked it when he could get Sanji off first.
At this point, he was fairly well-versed in what Sanji liked, and he put that knowledge to good use. Plenty of suction and long, deep strokes had him straining into Zoro, pushing his hips down as much as he could without causing too much discomfort. Best of all, he had groaned and pulled his mouth off of Zoro's cock, unable to do much but clutch the sheets as he attempted to balance on that fine line of perfect pleasure. It was enough to back Zoro down from the precipice.
And with that out of the way, he could slow it down a little, stop being so frantic to get Sanji caught up. He drew his mouth back, not even pausing when Sanji made a disappointed sound at the loss. Throughout it all, he'd been inching Sanji's boxers down further, and now he could slowly trail his tongue upward, sliding over Sanji's balls before flicking across his hole.
Sanji squirmed back against him, and a sense of smug satisfaction filled Zoro. It wasn't that he wanted Sanji wrapped around his finger, but every time he did something and Sanji seemed to be into it, he still felt overwhelmingly powerful.
So he continued, pressing in firmly until Sanji made a choked noise, legs trembling as if to fight from bucking against Zoro. He seemed to be completely distracted from sucking Zoro off now, which was kind of annoying, but at the same time, Zoro was so absorbed in taking care of him that he hardly noticed.
He had to admit, there was some perverse quality to this that he particularly enjoyed, holding Sanji across his back while he licked him open. And the noises Sanji made when he did this were profoundly different than the ones he made when Zoro fucked him; they were quieter, breathier, but deeper in a way. He could actually feel the vibration of groans as Sanji laid his head down on Zoro's thigh, wet heat of his mouth returning to its previous position.
It was hot as hell. But it was tiring too, and eventually he let his mouth fall away, instead sliding a finger into Sanji while licking at his cock. It didn't seem to upset Sanji a bit, so after a few moments, he pushed in a second and let Sanji press down into his mouth and up into his fingers, working himself between Zoro's hand and mouth. All the while, he was back to sucking at Zoro, and it wasn't long before the both of them were unable to hold off.
The fingers of his other hand gripped tight on Sanji's ass in warning before Zoro slipped over the edge, hips jumping up just slightly before he caught control of himself and forced them back down into the mattress. And that was it for Sanji too, coming with a few more thrusts of Zoro's fingers inside him.
Sanji collapsed sideways onto the bed after Zoro had finished wringing him of every single drop, seemingly too liquified to even move his head up to the pillows. Zoro laughed hoarsely and tugged at him, trying to get him to come back up.
"C'mon, get up," he said, swatting Sanji across the ass until he rolled over in increments, and finally swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Zoro stood and followed him into the bathroom.
It was a strangely funny sight, to see them both standing naked and flushed in front of the mirror as they brushed their teeth and washed their faces, preparing for bed as if nothing had just happened. He bumped his shoulder against Sanji's, and Sanji bumped back, smiling.
"It wasn't a good birthday after all," he said, taking his toothbrush out of his mouth. "It was the best."