Sanji is just about done clearing up the Baratie for the night, he's got all of the tables cleaned, the cash is locked away and the lights are dimmed. This job usually goes faster if he has Zoro lurking around waiting for him and helping out but he's not seen Zoro for three days. He's not heard from him or anything. It's not that he hasn't been this long without seeing him before, he's been away for work before and shit but he'd mention it first and usually keep in contact via snarky text messages.
But for three days he's not seen or heard from Zoro at all. No text, no call, nothing. He's starting to get seriously worried. He looks at his phone again just in case.
'Oi asshole, pick up your phone, I'm getting worried that you're dead or something.' That was the text he sent Zoro after the lunchtime rush but he didn't get anything back then either.
He calls Zoro's number, it goes straight to voicemail.
"Zoro, it's me. Look, I'm kind of worried that I'm gonna find out you slipped in the shower and broke your neck or something so I'm gonna come over to yours and use my key to get in. If you want me to leave you alone or not come over then just call or text me or something. Seriously man, just… fucking get in touch." He mutters down the phone and hangs up.
He locks the Baratie up and heads straight to Zoro's. He fingers the key on his keyring that opens Zoro's place, he's never used it but Zoro gave it to him after that one time when he locked himself out and had to get a locksmith out to let him in. Sanji had thought it charmingly domestic at the time and fawned about it in private for some time. This wasn't the situation he'd envisaged using it in.
He makes his way into Zoro's building and jumps up the stairs two at a time, as he reaches Zoro's floor though he hears yelling.
"GODDAMNIT ZORO LET US IN!" One yells, a female voice.
"I WILL KICK THIS DOOR IN IF YOU DON'T LET US IN I SWEAR!"
Sanji peers around the edge of the stairwell and sees Nami and Robin standing in the hallway by Zoro's door, Nami is yelling at it but Robin has turned to look at him.
"I have a key." He says quietly, holding it up and suddenly gaining both of their attention when Robin pulls on one of Nami's pigtails to get her to look.
"Sanji! Of course you'd have a key! Give it here!" Nami gasps, running towards him.
"Wait, when was the last time you heard from him?" He asks, looking at the two ladies as he walks closer to Zoro's door with Nami at his heels.
"I saw him last night but he slammed the door in my face as soon as he opened it. I've not heard anything from him though." Robin answers.
"The rest of us haven't heard from him in like three or four days. I'm really worried." Nami agrees.
Sanji knocks on Zoro's door, feeling the worry coiling in his gut.
"Zoro? It's Sanji, can you let me in?" He calls through the door. No reply comes and when he presses his ear to the door there's no sound coming from inside.
"Okay, I'm opening the door." He calls and slides his key into the lock.
He unlocks the door and pockets the key again as he opens the door.
As he steps in the first thing that hits him is the overwhelming smell of alcohol, it smells like everything in the place is drenched in vodka or something. The second thing that strikes him is the fact that the place is trashed. Furniture is flipped and broken and there are fist sized dents in the walls. Sanji steps inside and feels glass crunch under the sole of his shoe. Cautiously he lifts his foot up and sees that there's a massive lump of clear glass in his shoe. He plucks it out and turns around to see a big stain on the wall with an explosion of glass on the floor around it. There's a crumpled Jack Daniels label in the middle of it that gives Sanji a pretty good idea about what might have been in the bottle.
"Oh god Zoro…" Nami breathes in horror, surveying the room.
Robin doesn't say anything though and instead rushes to Zoro's bed and pulls back the pile of covers to reveal a completely unconscious Zoro underneath them. In Zoro's slack hand is a half empty bottle of sake.
"Well, he's breathing at least." Robin announces, running her hand over Zoro's forehead.
"Why would Zoro do this?" Nami asks, looking around in shock. Sanji doesn't say what he's thinking which is to wonder why Zoro could get this emotional about something and not call him, weren't they friends? Didn't Zoro think that he could trust him?
"Maybe the piece of paper on the table with the big knife sticking out of it might be a clue." Robin points across the room.
Sanji strides across the room, determined to know what put his best friend and secret love into such a state. Nami is softly talking to Zoro and trying to rouse him out of his unconscious state.
Sanji pulls the knife out of the paper and reminds himself to berate Zoro for treating a cooking implement so poorly at a later date. As he pulls the knife free he realises that there are actually two pieces of paper there. He slides the papers towards himself and begins to read.
To his surprise the logo at the top of the first sheet that jumps out at him is for a local school.
"Dear Mr Roronoa,
Due to the following photo being sent to the school and the threat of circulation to students parents we feel that we cannot continue to employ you in your current position. If you insist on conducting yourself in such a depraved manner you should look into an alternative occupation.
With immediate effect your position as part time (20 hrs weekly – flexible) substitute teacher and teaching assistant is terminated on the grounds of gross misconduct.
Your security ID will no longer function at the school and your email account has been terminated. Your possessions will-"
Sanji couldn't read any further due to the massive knife gash in the page. Sanji blinks in shock. Zoro's a teacher? Shit, he never would have guessed that. Or rather Zoro was a teacher, seeing as he's been fired. Sanji can't see the aforementioned photo but there are scraps of a photograph on the floor that Sanji would guess was it.
He pulls the paper apart from the one below that it was embedded in. This one says much the same, that Zoro was fired with immediate effect due to unacceptable behaviour unbefitting of someone in his position and the threat of this mystery photo being circulated. Only this one was from the boy scouts of America, apparently Zoro was a teacher/leader for the local group. Emphasis on the "was" there.
"What is it?" Robin asks, appearing at Sanji's side so suddenly that it makes him jump.
"Zoro's been fired apparently." He answers, handing the papers over.
As Robin holds them up Sanji spots that something else was embedded on the back of the last sheet of paper, held there by the damage from the knife bending the paper around. Curiously he plucks it off of the paper and realises at first touch that it's a photograph. He flips it over and his jaw drops.
Zoro is naked on it but he's not alone. He's on his knees on bed, his chest pinned to the mattress by the large hand of the guy fucking him from behind. Sanji's face flushes scarlet as he takes in the shot of Zoro's dick and the way that his face is pulled into an expressive howl of bliss.
He squeaks guiltily and drops the photo. God, he shouldn't be looking at that! Zoro wouldn't want him to- oh GOD! He scrunches his eyes shut and tries to erase what he's seen but he can't, he's forever going to know what Zoro looks like when he has sex and that's completely not going to help his already unhealthy fixation with Zoro.
Regretfully he slides his eyes open again and peeks at the photo, his heart swells and breaks. Because, yes, Zoro is apparently into guys and if he's wished for that to be so once he's wished for it a thousand times. But his heart is cracking open because evidently the kind of guys that Zoro likes are nothing like Sanji. The guy making Zoro show that gorgeous expression is about twelve fucking foot tall or something and has biceps the size of Sanji's head. Zoro's never going to want him if he likes guys like that. And this is all ignoring the fact that Zoro is obviously spoken for. The sharp ache in Sanji's chest makes him want to cry, he just loves Zoro so damn much and seeing him with someone else makes him hurt so badly.
"Oh no." Robin murmurs, looking at the photo.
"Zoro you idiot, you let someone photograph you." Robin breathes, touching the picture.
"Who did this? Someone did this to him to hurt him, who would do that?" Sanji demands, his pain turning to anger. How dare someone hurt Zoro like this? Someone that Zoro evidently trusted too! If it was the guy in this photo Sanji isn't sure he's going to be able to stop himself from committing murder.
"Go 'way." Zoro slurs from across the other side of the room.
"No, Zoro you need to drink some water, get this alcohol out of your system." Nami orders him sensibly.
"Fff 'm 'wake need t' drink mor'." Zoro replies groggily.
Sanji rips his eyes away from the picture to see Nami trying to wrench the sake bottle out of Zoro's hands without pulling him off of the bed. She's not having much luck, it seems that even when he's barely coherent he's still freakishly strong.
"Let go of that Zoro!" He orders, marching over to the bed and smacking the back of Zoro's hand. In the marimo's startled surprise he lets go of the bottle, the sudden lack of grip on it makes Nami fall backwards onto her ass with the bottle in hand. She hastily gets it away from him.
Zoro looks up at Sanji blearily, his eyes bloodshot red and his face pale and pasty looking. He's clearly not been eating or taking care of himself in any way at all. He's half on and half off of the bed, balancing unsteadily on one hand as he looks up at him.
"Sanji nooo." Zoro whines, reaching towards him with his free hand.
"Can't- no… can' be here. See and then… no…" Zoro whines, reaching for Sanji and grabbing his jeans to haul him closer.
"No, go. Jus' go! You can't see, lost everything else, can't lose you. Can't." Zoro insists desperately and drunkenly as Zoro tries to steer him towards the door and falls off of the bed in the process.
"God Zoro, what are you on about? Get up." He chides, pulling Zoro to his knees. Zoro slumps against him, his head buried in Sanji's neck.
"Don't wan' you to see." Zoro moans against his skin, setting a shower of sparks up Sanji's spine.
"I've already seen you drunk now Zoro, me going won't change that. Come on, we need to get you sobered up. When's the last time that you ate?" He sighs, pulling Zoro to his feet with some difficulty.
"No, can't… see… photo. Can't!" Zoro insists, drunkenly shoving him away.
"Oh boy, how much has he had? I've never seen him like this." Nami murmurs to Robin, looking through the bottles in the kitchen bin. Sanji suspects that there's a lot there.
"The photo?" He frowns. It dawns on him that Zoro means the photo that was attached to Zoro's dismissal letters, Zoro's trying to keep him from seeing because… Zoro thinks he'll lose him? That's what he said wasn't it?
"Zoro, I've seen it already. I don't care, I'm not going anywhere, let's get you something to eat." He insists, moving back in close to Zoro and wrapping his arms around Zoro.
"Sanji…" Zoro whines, shaking against him, his fists balling in the back of Sanji's shirt.
"I've got you." He promises, stroking Zoro's back. He's going to find whoever did this to Zoro and he's going to kill them.
"Robin, does Zoro have any bread or pasta over there? He needs something to soak up this alcohol." He asks, looking over at her.
"He doesn't… but we'll go out and buy some. I think I'll get him some painkillers and sports drinks whilst I'm at it. Come on Nami." Robin nods, tugging on Nami's arm. Sanji walks Zoro back to his bed and drops him on it. Zoro whines and curls up on the covers, drunkenly tugging one over himself.
The girls leave with sympathetic smiles and promises to be back before too long. He sighs and decides that he may as well start to clear up the mess that Zoro's left. As he steps to do so though a hand grabs his leg and Sanji looks down, startled.
Zoro's red rimmed eyes are looking up at him and seeming to plead with him not to go. Sanji steps back and sits down on the edge of the bed. Zoro shuffles up to him and with a thump rests his head on Sanji's thigh. He combs his fingers through Zoro's short tangled and messy hair.
"You're a mess." He says softly, with an affectionate smile.
"I know." Zoro whines drunkenly into Sanji's hip.
"Y'saw it? The..." Zoro asks hesitantly.
"I saw the photo Zoro, I don't care, I'm not leaving." Sanji says, quietly mindful of the hangover that Zoro may well be developing right now.
Zoro doesn't say anything but Sanji feels his hand tighten a little more on the back of his t-shirt. He strokes through Zoro's short green hair, his feelings a fighting mess within him. He loves Zoro, of course he does, he loves him more each time that he sees him and unlike his usual relationships where he builds up this fantasy idea of what someone is like, ideas which fall apart and destroy the few romantic relationships he does have when they turn out not to be like that. With Zoro... with Zoro he's constantly surprised. Every new shade and side of him, every new part, every unexpected weakness and surprising strength... they all just make him care for Zoro more.
He's conflicted because on the one hand he loves Zoro romantically, he has a hot flare of jealousy for that lucky bastard in the photo. But on the other hand he has this feirce protective instinct for the man. Which is stupid, because Zoro is clearly capable of taking care of himself, or usually is, a quick look around the room tells him that Zoro's not so capable right now. He wants to grab Zoro up and keep him somewhere away from the world, away from shitty employers who would fire Zoro for finding out something that he can't help and isn't wrong, away from anyone who would ever hurt him. He wants to hide Zoro underneath himself and snarl at anyone who would dare touch him.
It scares him.
"I haven't been honest with you either Zoro. You shouldn't have felt like you had anything to hide from me because... we're no different. I've had... boyfriends. Lovers, whatever you want to..." Sanji trails up as he notices Zoro looking blearily up at him with wide eyes.
"You're too drunk for this conversation. Go to sleep, idiot." Sanji sighs, stroking Zoro's hair once more before settling the other man off of his lap and back into the bed. He fusses for a moment or two with his duvets before standing up and deciding to fix Zoro's place up.
Sanji starts to clear up. He puts used bottles in bags to throw them out, frankly astounded that Zoro hasn't died of alcohol poisoning from drinking all of this. He sweeps up broken crockery and plaster from the walls and throws that out too.
There is the occasional self-pitying hung-over whine from Zoro's direction when Sanji makes too loud of a clang with glass bottles but other than that the moss head seems fine.
He avoids the photograph on Zoro's kitchen counter, deciding instead to deal with the main room of Zoro's small apartment. Within a reasonably short space of time he's able to get the place looking something closer to presentable, or at least not looking like there's been a bar fight in there within the last 24 hours.
"Sanji, we're back." Robin calls, peeking her head around the door.
"The place looks a little better now." Nami notes, looking around the room.
"It'd be hard to make it worse." Sanji agrees with a sigh and takes the shopping from Robin. He cracks open one of the sports hydration drinks. Despite all of the drinking Zoro's been doing it doesn't look like he's been drinking anything other than alcohol for some time so he's no doubt horribly dehydrated.
"Zoro, wake up. Drink this. It'll help you sober up quicker and stop the hangover being so bad." He orders, shaking Zoro's shoulder and pressing the drink into his hand.
"Noooo." Zoro protests, trying to squirm away in drunken uncoordinated stupor.
"So help me Zoro I will hold you down and pour this down your fucking throat if I have to. DRINK IT." He snaps. Zoro blearily scowls up at him but does what he's been told.
Sanji places the rest of the shopping on the clear space on Zoro's kitchen counter and pops two slices of bread into the toaster. He glances down at the counter and catches sight of Zoro's naked body on the photograph, the way his skin is flushed and slick with sweat as if-
He growls to himself angrily and flips the photo and then puts a packet of crackers on top of it. Goddammit.
"Don't worry my lovelies, I'll take this from here. I'm sure the last thing you two want to do is see this drunken slob flail around all day." Sanji smiles tightly at them, gesturing to the plastered moss head.
"F'k you." Zoro slurs at him.
"Yeah, I don't want him to throw up on me. Call us if you need us though Sanji? I'm just glad he's not dead." Nami sighs.
"He's been fired though. We'll see if we can talk to him when he's a little more sober and see what we can do. I just can't believe that Zoro let someone photograph him like that, he's usually so careful. Which makes me think that he didn't know." Robin frowns, looking across at Zoro who is now curled up under a pile of duvets. Or at least Sanji presumes that he's under there, he's not seen him leave and that's roughly where he was before he apparently decided to pull all of his covers over him. Sanji sees the barely touched sports drink on the floor and scowls. He will make him drink it.
He frowns, he's heard about how awful some organisations can be about finding out that they have gay staff, especially organisations that deal with kids as Zoro's apparently do. Even so he's pretty sure that it's illegal to fire someone on that basis, but he doesn't know if that photo complicates things. What the hell happened?
Nami hums in consideration and picks the photo up from under where Sanji had angrily stored it.
"You think this guy photographed him without Zoro knowing? I mean... how? He's a little... occupied." Nami comments, flushing as she looks at the picture.
"There's all sorts of ways that you can photograph someone without them realising. I think I might go and find him and ask him just how this photograph was taken and how it was sent to Zoro's employers with a threatening letter." Robin says, her tone icy and threatening. Both Sanji and Nami look at her in surprise.
"You know this guy?" he asks, his eyes wide.
"Yeah. Daz Bones. He works at the university with me, I introduced the two of them years ago because Daz had a project that needed Zoro. He came to the evening where Zoro brought everyone he knew to your restaurant. I didn't know they were like this though." Robin answers, her gaze cold as she plucks the photograph from Nami's hands.
"Let's go have a few words with him, hm?" Nami suggests, cracking her knuckles dangerously.
"Agreed." Robin nods.
"Zoro always used to insist that his method was better. That he'd have friends and lovers and keep them separate, then no one could ever break his heart. I always told him it was stupid." Nami adds softly, looking over to Zoro's bed. He's so messed up over this, Sanji wonders if it's a broken heart or just broken trust that's done this to Zoro. Perhaps he's just grieving over his lost jobs but either way he's hurting and Sanji wants to fix it and get revenge for Zoro.
"You didn't know… about Zoro did you?" Nami asks him, jolting Sanji out of his train of thought. He considers pretending that he doesn't know what Nami means, but he doesn't want to insult her intelligence like that.
"No, he never told me." Sanji says shaking his head.
"Look after him, we have someone to track down." Nami orders and Sanji smiles agreeably at her. The two ladies leave on their clandestine mission and Sanji sets himself to the task of cooking what he can for Zoro with what equipment Zoro hasn't broken.
He manages to scrape together a passable risotto, something easy on the stomach with stock and vegetables to get Zoro's system running again. He'd never serve it at the Baratie, Zeff would brain him with a frying pan if he caught him trying to, but then he'd have more to work with there.
He takes two bowls of it to Zoro's bed and sets them down on the bedside table. He shakes Zoro awake and presses the bowl into his hands.
"You're going to eat all of this." He states. He doesn't ask, he's telling Zoro. His body needs the fuel to get rid of this alcohol and he will get even if Sanji has to shove it in his mouth himself.
Thankfully it doesn't come to that. Zoro sits up and eats quietly, his shoulder pressed to Sanji's and when he's done Zoro drops his head to Sanji's shoulder and just sits there. Zoro's not exactly a physically affectionate person usually but if he does make contact Sanji can usually tell a lot from it.
"Stay?" Zoro asks, whisper quiet.
Sanji nods. He can't deny that voice. Zoro shuffles back, still a little drunk and pulls Sanji still fully clothed into bed with him. Sanji shoves down the ache in his heart and pulls Zoro close and lets him fall asleep. After a while Sanji is pulled under with him.