Tonight I'll dream while I`m in bed
When silly thoughts go through my head
About the bugs and alphabet
And when I wake tomorrow I'll bet
That you and I will walk together again
I can tell that we are gonna be friends
Yes, I can tell that we are gonna be friends

-"We're Going To Be Friends" The White Stripes

XxxX

Sanji had maybe gone a bit overboard with the food. He was forced to carry his weight limit in food up to Luffy's apartment, where this party was taking place. He was slightly nervous, what could he say? He didn't often make friends like this, it was out of his comfort zone but he decided he was going to take this as an opportunity to do something positive with himself. He had to do something, that's why he was here after all, something had to change. He didn't want to be sucked down by old recycled thoughts, he wanted something new to think about. Fuck the environment, although it was only metaphorical recycling.

Sanji raised his hand to ring the doorbell. About nine seconds later Luffy pulled open the door.

"Sanji!" he shouted and his eyes were immediately drawn to the bounty of food he was balancing precariously on his person, "You brought food!" It was as if he was the lone hero who had rescued a dozen starving babies from a burning orphanage. Outside of Luffy's mind, however, it was more like being a delivery guy. Luffy probably made delivery people feel special.

"I said I would," Sanji smirked as Luffy took some of the containers and pulled the bartender inside. Everyone else was already there, Sanji was ever so slightly late, half because he had to lug over all this food and half because he didn't want to be that awkward first arrival.

As they set the things onto the counter Luffy began opening everything while Sanji took a look around. Zoro was sitting in the corner, trying to ignore his arrival while a young man chatted animatedly to him. Sanji assumed that this must be Chopper because he was the youngest one there. Nami was on the other side of the room talking to a man with dark skin and frizzy black hair who Sanji did not recognize.

With the food safely set out Luffy called attention to himself, although he could hardly speak properly with all the saliva watering from his mouth. "Everyone this is Sanji, half of you already know him but he works for Nami as a bartender. Sanji, that is Chopper, he's a doctor-"

"Not yet, you bastard!" Chopper shouted, although he looked the opposite of upset about the comment.

"-Brook couldn't make it, Nami said he's preforming at some other bar tonight but you probably already know him anyway. That is Usopp, he is Zoro and my boss." He pointed to the man Nami was talking to.

Sanji gave a rather weak wave, rubbing the back if his neck. Zoro noticed the appearance of the nervous tick and was slightly surprised because from what he'd seen Sanji was generally good around people, although right now he was pretending not to pay attention to Sanji so he did not voice this observation.

Nami, on the other hand, was curious about the food. "What did you bring us, Sanji?" she asked, peering over at the food. It smelled amazing.

"Ah." Sanji stepped over and began to examen his food. It had all survived the journey in okay condition, but okay was never good enough; a fact which made Sanji's head throb.

Relax, no one cares. Just let it go. Breathe. Ignore your insecurities and go on with your life, you fucking dumb ass.

Luffy let out a whoop of joy and swooped down on the food like a most vicious and vindictive seagull. Nami saw the attack coming and went to swat him out of the way but he managed to get away with a chicken leg, which was then stuffed glutinously into his mouth. His eyes grew wide and shone with glee.

"Ish sho goo!" he exclaimed, grabbing for another but Sanji, in seeing the wonderful Nami grow alarmed at the sight of Luffy and food, thought it wise to block his path. He grabbed him by the wrists, keeping his hands stationary, and looked to Nami for advice.

"If anyone wants food, get it now or Luffy will eat it all," Nami announced, filling her plate with food. The others followed suit while Sanji held off a ravenous Luffy, which was a feat of its own.

The chorus of approval began shortly after. Singing a sweet melody through Sanji's ears and straight into his fucked up little soul, which went all wobbly with joy. Sanji prided himself in his cooking abilities, his food was his pride and joy after all. He was glad to receive complements on the quality of his food, even they probably didn't know what to look for in good professional cooking.

Zoro was the only one who said nothing about the food. He kept a straight face and ate like a robot, giving no indication of what he thought. It was irksome and frustrated Sanji to no end.

"This is amazing!" said a wide eyed Ussop, through a mouth full of food, "Why do you work for Nami when you can do this!?"

"He used to work for some fancy five star restaurant in Columbus," Nami chimed in, looking in awe at the food and not seeming offended at Usopp's comment about the job she provided being beneath him. "Why the hell did you quit?" she asked.

Sanji looked uncomfortable, "Uh, the owner and I had a bit of a falling out, so I quit." There was something a little off about this statement but no one questioned any further, instead they enjoyed the wonderful food Sanji had bestowed onto them.

After everyone had had their fill Sanji let Luffy vacuum up the rest with alarming speed and efficacy. Watching this horror unfold, Sanji was struck by the idea that scientists should clone this young man and have him clean up meat packaging factories with his mouth. He had a feeling he would get it done faster and with more efficiency. On second thought that idea was slightly revolting, bloated meat covers Luffys sucking up scraps off the ground. Oh god, why was he thinking about this? Change the subject, hurry!

"Is he always like this?" Sanji asked meekly, dismayed with his rapidly disappearing feast.

"Yep," Usopp chirped, "Luffy could eat a village's worth of food in less than twenty minutes. Hey, have I ever told you guys about the time I saved an entire village by killing a giant lion and roasting it for a feast?" He then spun a ridiculous tale of how he did just that.

As the evening progressed Sanji found that all previous worries were unfounded. Everyone, minus Zoro, was wonderful. They were an odd bunch but they all seemed to get along exceedingly well.

They all found it amusing that Luffy had dragged another person over into their little group, apparently he had brought everyone together in one way or another. Luffy seemed to be a leader of sorts for them, or at least they respected him enough to listen when he was expressing an opinion about something. They affectionately called him "captain" apparently due to the fact that after buying a motor boat, he had named the Going Merry, he had also ordered a fancy captain's hat off the internet and wore it on his first outing over top of the straw hat he always wore. It was a little weird to see someone wearing a straw hat in the middle of January. But the captains had Sanji could now see hanging on the wall on a nail where a picture should probably be. As far as Sanji could tell Luffy was just a great guy at heart and he had chosen an interesting bunch for his crew.

Sanji got the chance to talk with Chopper for a while. The kid was really sweet, Sanji caught onto that right away. When Sanji asked him about how school was going his smile brightened and he began to talk animatedly about a lot of things that went way over Sanji's head, but it was still just nice to see that he was so in love with what he was doing, a lot of people didn't know exactly what to do with themselves, it was good that he did.

The conversation was brought to an abrupt end when Luffy started choking on something and Chopper had to rush over to help him. The rest if the group seemed oddly unfazed by this so Sanji assumed that this wasn't the first time something like this had happened.

After that he struck up a conversation with Usopp.

"So, I hear that you are the boss of those two morons," Sanji's said pointing to Zoro and Luffy, who were playing Mario Cart with Nami, while chopper watched. The two of them were in the kitchen.

"Yep, they have to do whatever I tell them," Usopp laughed dramatically which Sanji took as a sign that he was stretching the truth a little bit.

"Are they hard workers?" They seemed like goofballs who would slack off or find somewhere nice to take a nap. Sanji wished he knew something more about the guy because he didn't really want the conversation to be centered around Zoro and Luffy.

"They get the job done. Although, I could do it singlehandedly and I just choose not to. I like to let you mortals feel like you have something to do. But yeah, Luffy is good for moral and menial tasks and Zoro is pretty good at lifting things."

"I'll be he is, with all his stupid muscles," Sanji mumbled. He might not admit it but he envied Zoro's body a little bit. It wasn't fair that he had a mlanly man body and not like that of a tall flat chested girl. Not that Sanji looked like a flat chested girl, he just looked like a skinny guy, his brain just made him hate his body because it sucked.

"Yeah, but muscles aren't everything. I can move objects and hearts but showing acts of astounding bravery," Usopp claimed, placing a hand over his chest.

"I would love to see that," Sanji grinned, wondering what the other man would do when caught in a lie.

Usopp hesitated for only a second before boldly boasting, "I'll show you courage." His knees wobbled slightly as he picked up a banana from a bowl on the counter and carried it to the door leading to the living room, where everyone was sitting. Sanji moved with him, anxious to see what he would do.

Usopp lifted the yellow fruit and took aim, holding the banana like a boomerang. After one mock throw Usopp flung the banana forward. It turned head over heal before hitting Zoro directly in the back of the head. Zoro let out a startled sound and whipped around to see who had thrown the banana at him but Usopp had already ducked out of the doorway leaving behind Sanji, who was laughing hysterically.

"Did you throw that at me?!" Zoro yelled, pointing at the offending banana as he stormed toward the chef.

Sanji shook his head through his laughter. Honestly he didn't care if Zoro thought he had done it, he could take the brunt of Zoro's rage, he didn't think Usopp probably could. Luckily, it didn't look like Zoro had believed him anyway.

"You wanna go, shit cook?" Zoro asked squaring his shoulders.

"Yeah, bring it on, seaweed head." Sanji took a step into the room. They were about two seconds from leaping forward and beating each other to death when Nami sighed loudly.

"Can you two idiots just stop, if you start fighting in here you'll tear the place apart." She walked over and picked up the banana. "Does anyone want this? I think it bruised on this side so I'll just throw it away." She started for the trash can.

"I'll eat it, my dear," Sanji said, lifting his hand and catching it when Nami thew it his way. Zoro gave him a look of disgust as he pealed the banana to reveal a slimy, bruised side.

"You're actually going to eat that?" Zoro asked incredulously. The others were going back to their game. Usopp had at some point come in and innocently taken Zoro's remote.

"Well, I'm not just going to waste it," Sanji said taking a bite.

Zoro continued to glare, the idea of biting into a banana like that made him want to gag, he didn't like bananas in the first place.

"Stop staring at me," Sanji fussed, "It makes me feel uncomfortable while I'm eating such a phallic object. Should I eat it more subductively? Is that what you want?" He took a large bite and smacked his lips unattractively, laughing obnoxiously through his nose.

Zoro glared at him some more then pushed Sanji's cheeks together with his index fingers, making the banana inside them slide around in a gross, squishy way. Then he turned back to the couch.

"You made me lose my seat," he complained.

"Usopp's better than you anyway," Sanji said. It was true, Zoro was really awful at Mario Cart.

"So what? Now what am I supposed to do?"

Sanji shrugged, taking the last bite of the banana, which he had devoured disturbingly fast.

Zoro eyed the banana peal for a moment, "I dare you to take a bite of that," he challenged.

"Really? You can't find something to do so you're going to dare me to eat banana peal?"

"Yep, and it's double dare so you can't back out."

Sanji rolled his eyes, "Alright, fine." He lifted the one part of the peal to his mouth and took a bite. The taste was bitter and made his tongue curl. It took all of his control not to gag or spit it out. Instead he chewed quickly and swallowed. When he got it down he opened his mouth to show that it was gone. He felt slightly sick but he was glad that he got it down smoothly. Zoro, however, looked disappointed.

"Your turn," Sanji said, lifting the peel. Zoro grimaced but took the peel into his hands all the same. He gave the empty peel a sad look, deciding they he had brought this onto himself and took a bite of another part of the peel.

It was positively revolting. Zoro could feel his gag reflex kicking in so he swallowed it whole, rather than chewing. He tried to stifle the noxious feeling that bubbled up inside him.

"I think I win, plant head," Sanji grinned.

Zoro glared at him, "Shut up," he groaned, slumping against the wall. He had forgotten that every time before he thew up his mouth tasted like banana peels. That with the added physical presence of the banana in his mouth was almost too much. He slid down the wall and waited for his stomach to recover while Sanji thew away the peel and joined the others on the couch looking way too happy with himself. Damn him.

From there everyone proceeded to become increasingly drunk. Everyone except Chopper, who refused to drink, and Luffy, who had slipped into a sever food coma much to Chopper's dismay. The remaining four adults started off a drinking contest because they were smart, responsible people.

Usopp was first to tap out, meaning he threw up and then passed out in the bathroom. Chopper spent a solid ten minutes panicking before determining that he would be okay using his epic doctor skills. The other three kept going for a while after that. Nami was second to go, she knew when she was beat and decided to stop before she was forced to stop like Usopp, she was too dignified for that.

Sanji and Zoro didn't go for very long after that. Zoro showed only few signs that he was intoxicated, while Sanji was totally shit faced, really Nami could have beaten him if she had really wanted to but he just didn't know when to stop.

Sanji thought Zoro seemed like less of a douche when he was drunk, or maybe that was just the alcohol affecting his thoughts. Whatever, it didn't matter anyway. Sanji's thoughts were starting to blur into a foggy stream if half formed ideas. Half formed ideas were really the best kind.

"Ah like your friens," Sanji stated, his speech slightly slurred. They were both leaning against the front edge of the couch Luffy was sleeping on. Sanji wasn't quite sure how they ended up there but he supposed that it didn't really matter much anyway.

"Great," Zoro responded, what was he supposed to say to something like that? This made Sanji fall into a fit of laughter. What a comedian.

"Ya know, marimo, sometimes I think you're not so bad, but from now on I'll think back to how you didn't say my food is good and I'll get upset with you again," he rambled, focusing on making his speech understandable.

"You're upset that I didn't say your food is good?" Zoro inquired, what a baby. He was glad that his behavior irritated the cook, that was the goal after all.

"No," Sanji said a little too defensively as he gave Zoro a weak little shove.

"Sorry to disappoint you, shitty cook, but I'm not going to stoke your ego now that I know your some kind of big shot."

"I am a big shot," Sanji mumbled, "A big shot of pure fucking unadulterated awesome. Only Zeff cooks better than me and he's an old man. Fuck that guy." He kicked out his leg a little bit like he was imagining hitting Zeff with it.

"Who's Zeff?" Zoro asked.

"The owner of the Baratie, the place I fucking worked at, duh. Try to keep up, moss head, I don't like waiting for people to catch up," Sanji said in a sing song voice.

"Is he the one you got in a fight with?" Zoro asked, ignoring the blond's taunting.

Sanji looked confused for a second. "I always fight with Zeff, he's just being difficult as usual."

"You always fight with your boss? How have you not been fired?" Zoro suspected it had something to do with the fact that he was such a phenomenal cook. Damn him for being so good at something.

"Because I'm good and I can take a kick to the gut without crying like a big baby," Sanji spat.

"What?" Was being a punching bag part of the criteria for being a cook? That somehow didn't seem right, but what did Zoro know about fine dining?

"I'll kick your ass if I need to," Sanji said with narrowed eyes.

"I'd like to see you try," Zoro scoffed.

"If I weren't drunk off my ass right now I would so kick your ass. Come back when I'm sober so I don't fall on my face."

"I bet you'd fall on your face even if you weren't drunk," Zoro guessed.

"That is where you are wrong, sir, and now I feel it is my manly duty to challenge you to a duel. If I had a glove I would slap you with it or throw it down or whatever but I don't so there. The gauntlet has been thrown down," the bartender said seriously., making a motion of throwing a glove to the floor.

"I warn you, I fight with very sharp swords and I won't hesitate to cut you in half," the swordsman said sticking up his nose and turning away like he was too good to fight the cook.

"Oh yeah, well I don't believe you. I think that somewhere in your fucked up little marimo head you like me and you would be sad if you cut me in half. Plus police and stuff, you wouldn't get away with it." He shrugged. If he did get chopped in half then he hoped that he could come back as a ghost and haunt Zoro for killing him. Make that mother fucker pay big time. He would totally come back as a poltergeist.

"Are you willing to test that theory?"

"Yes," Sanji said with confidence, "at your convenience." Giving a little flourish of his hand and a mock bow, always the gentleman he was.

"We could do battle tomorrow," Zoro suggested. He would love to kick Sanji's ass sooner rather than later while there was still doubt.

"No," Sanji whined, "I'll be hung over as fuck. I want to be on top of it when this shit goes down. And why did you have to say it like that? You make it sound like we're playing battleship."

"What time do you get off work?" Zoro asked after a pause, choosing to ignore that last comment

"Like fucking late."

"Well, I don't want wait until next weekend so what time do you get off?"

"Midnight," Sanji said flicking his hair like a teenage boy with a pocket comb.

"That's fine, I have the keys to a little dojo. Give me your phone, I'll give you the address." He made a hand-it-over motion with his hand.

Sanji handed over his phone, although it was more like he shoved it into Zoro's face, completely ignoring his hand. "Just text it to me, my number's on the screen. So on Monday I'm going to get off of work and head to this mystery dojo to do battle royal with a plant head? Is that right? Sounds pretty fucking dodgy to me."

"It's fine. We will do this," Zoro promised, shaking his clenched fis at the empty air.

Sanji made a face. "I feel like you're asking me out, it's kind of weird because I'm not saying no. I'm not gay, don't listen to what they tell you," the cook warned seriously, his expression souring.

Zoro snorted, "Oh yeah, what will they tell me?"

"That I'm a pretty boy who couldn't snag a girl if he tried," Sanji scowled at the totally false statement.

"Sounds pretty accurate to me," Zoro laughed.

"Shaddup." Sanji gave him a kick to the ankle, or rather tried and sort of just spazzed out. "You don't know me."

"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure I've got this aspect of you figured out." Every time Sanji spoke with a girl he laid it on waaaaaay to strong. He was either overcompensating for something or he just really sucked with cross gender interaction. Either way it was pretty pathetic.

"Fuck you," he rubbed his face, trying to get rid of the sleepiness. He didn't want to fall asleep yet, there was still so much to do. Beside the tv, which was directly in front of them, there was a window threw which he could see a few twinkling stars and the bottom of the moon.

Sanji tilted his head to the right, trying to see more of the dark sky. He also just so happened to tilt his head just right so that he now had his head resting against Zoro's shoulder. He didn't even notice until Zoro said something, he was too focused and too drunk.

"What the hell are you doing?" The marimo asked gruffly, although he wasn't shoving the blond away, which seemed contradictory to his tone.

"Trying to see the stars," Sanji responded, "You can't see them in the city very well. It's not much better here. It's kind of sad," he sighed.

"Stop leaning in me," Zoro insisted but this only made Sanji lean more heavily against him. He was too lazy to move the pest so he just made an irritated sound and leaned his head back onto a pillow behind his head.

Sanji was content to ignore Zoro's irritation and fixate himself on the medium sizes window, through which he was staring. He liked looking at the open sky, it made him feel like he was staring into the faces of the gods. Like it wasn't so bad if they were watching him as long as he was watching them as well. He had gone out west once and he saw more stars out there than he had ever seen before. It felt even more foreign when they were driving through the Badlands. Strange sedimentary formations rose ominously from the ground making the land look alien and weird.

He wished he could go back there. He had been eight at the time and he was out with Zeff for some conference. It didn't matter how fantastic the landscape was, all he wanted to do was gaze at the stars as the moon rose and fell. Waxed and wained.

Maybe he didn't really want to go back there. Maybe he just wanted to go back to that age. He was still fairly innocent then and he didn't understand how the universe worked, really he still didn't but at least then it was acceptable to behave childishly about things. It wasn't so much acceptable as expected. Now it was expected for him to deal with things like a grown up, but that was hard and not a lot of fun.

Sanji didn't realized he had slipped into a daze until he heard along sigh from Zoro. It appeared as though Zoro had fallen asleep. Now he was the only one still awake. Sleep sounded like a pretty good idea actually, logically at least. Sanji really didn't like sleeping very much. He always felt like it was a waste of time to spend half of your life sleeping. He also did not like dreaming. His dreams usually weren't nightmares per se, but they were usually unnerving somehow. Then he would wake up feeling unsettled. Plus, he never felt like he got enough sleep no matter how long he was unconscious.

Sanji wondered what Zoro was dreaming about now, or even if he had lapsed into REM sleep yet, allowing the dreams to come. He didn't know how long that took. He still had his head resting against the swordsman's shoulder. He felt too content to move, looking up at the stars and not having to crane his neck. Some part of him knew that he should probably move but the larger part didn't care.

After a few more minutes of gazing at the window and listening to even breathing Sanji felt his eyelids start to droop. The world around him started to blur together as he tried to blink himself awake to no avail. Dammit, if he fell asleep like this it would be awkward in the morning. He tried to move his body but found the action impossible. He fought off sleep for only a few moments more before being dragged down by his sleep deprived brain.

XxxX

When Sanji woke up his head was throbbing and he was very uncomfortable. It took a moment for him to recognize that he was in Luffy's apartment, staring at a tv remote that was lying on the floor. It took only a few more seconds for him to realize that he was half slumped on Zoro making him feel warm on one side and cold on the other, fuck the guy was warm but man was Sanji's neck stiff, not exactly the most comfortable position. He was half tempted to just go back to sleep because he reeeeeeeally didn't want to get up but it would be an awkward place to be when they were both wake, to be sure and Sanji wanted to get out of it as smoothly as possible without detection. The awkward own out over the need for sleep, for once.

Moving very slowly Sanji lifted his head from Zoro's shoulder. It was more like peeling it off really, his face probably had an imprint of the fabric of Zoro's shirt on it. As he tried to shift away Zoro began to stir. When Sanji raised his line of sight to look at him he realized that his eyes were open. Soooo awkward, fuck.

Apparently their brains were wired to have different reactions because instead of pretending it didn't happen, like Sanji wanted to, and trying to get out of it Zoro shoved Sanji away from himself. As Sanji tried to remain upright one of his hands managed to slap Luffy in the face as he was sleeping on the couch behind them. This caused the man to wake with a shout which woke Chopper, who was curled up on a chair.

As soon as he was awake Luffy began shouting about wanting breakfast.

"Sanji, make food I'm starving," he whined loudly enough to make Sanji's head throb as he tried picking himself up off the ground, glaring at Zoro.

Zoro just flipped him off and stood up, walking toward the kitchen.

Sanji, who was feeling disgruntled from the sudden shove and loud shouting so soon after waking up, stumbled to his feet and brushed off his now wrinkled shirt. Before he could respond a shoe flew from a doorway connecting in the middle of Luffy's forehead with a, "Shut the hell up!" From Nami.

Sanji chose to ignore this event as he made his way to the kitchen to check the fridge, where Zoro was pouring himself some orange juice. Sanji stuck his tongue out at him and opened the fridge doors. There wasn't a huge amount of useful food but there was a ton of bacon and a large amount of eggs so at least he had something to work with.

Everyone seemed to materialize at the kitchen table as the smell of food wafted through the apartment in all a variety of different moods. Ussop, of course, looked like death, Nami looked more irritated than normal, Chopper looked fine, and Zoro looked very, very unhappy. Ungrateful bastard, he should feel blessed to wake up to Sanji's gorgeous face.

Sanji swiftly served the table with the grace and ease that came from experience. Of course everyone loved the food even those who wouldn't admit it. Zoro.

The group parted ways after that, things to do, people to see, that sort of thing. Sanji didn't have anything to do that day, just sit around and try not to think until he fell asleep.

XxxX

A/N: Bananas are awful. I taste them every time before I puke.

And I just have to say RIP Leonard Nemoy, Spock is my superhero.

I had to update on Sanji's birthday, I just had to. But I sooooo hate waiting to update.

Thanks.