On alien shores 8
Sanji awakes on his side the next morning and stares at the painting on the bedroom wall of his and Zoro's flat. He is, once again, not in the Sunny. He presses the disappointment down and decides to stay in the comfortable bed a little longer. The bed is warm and soft around him and since he feels so sorry for himself he might as well stay here a little while, especially considering as the alternative is getting up and seeing Zoro who is not Zoro. He heaves a sigh and stares at the painting on the wall opposite him some more, it's a small rowboat sitting in still crystal blue water with a beach in the background. It makes him feel homesick for the ocean. As he stares at the painting a memory washes over him as gently as the clear water of the painted ocean.
He's walking down the street, it's cloudy and looks like it might rain. Suddenly to his right he spies a dumpster. Leaning against its side, almost obscured in the shadow, is a painting in a dark wooden frame. He stops suddenly and stares at it, Zoro bumps into him from behind and swears as he struggles not to drop anything. He and Zoro are both laden with heavy bags and boxes.
"Oi, watch it!" Zoro snaps re-arranging a bag under his arm. Sanji ignores him and excitedly puts his bags and boxes down on the ground and dashes over to the painting. It's so serene and beautiful. He looks around but it has indeed been left by a dumpster to be thrown away.
"Why would someone throw this away?" he breathes in awe, running his fingers along the fine brushwork.
"Cause the frame's broken and it's a sucky painting, it probably only cost a fiver in the first place. Come on, we have stuff to move." Zoro says irritably behind him.
"It's not sucky you asshole! It's pretty, I like it. And if someone else is just gonna throw it away then I'll take it!" he declares standing up and picking the painting up with him. The frame is indeed broken in the corner but he’s sure that he can find a new one for it easily enough.
"What? No! I don't want some ugly-ass dumpster painting in our new place!" Zoro exclaims.
Sanji's temper snaps at that, he's sore from moving boxes and bags all day and Zoro's pissy attitude isn't helping at all.
"Fine! Who cares what I want anyway? Let's just do what you want like always!" Sanji yells angrily dropping the painting, storming past Zoro and snatching up his bags and boxes.
"Hey wait! I didn't mean that, Sanji come back here!" Zoro yells after him unhappily. Sanji ignores him and stomps up the stairs with his heavy luggage. He drops the stuff in the empty flat and turns on his heel huffily and breezes past Zoro coming up the stairs over burdened with boxes. He ignores Zoro's voice as he tells Sanji to just listen, to be reasonable, as he tells Sanji that he's sorry.
Sanji is glad that he doesn't see Zoro on the next lap from the moving van to the flat with boxes but after a few times more without seeing the man he wonders where the hell Zoro is. He pauses in the flat and listens, he can hear a banging sound. He scowls angrily and stomps into the bedroom, Zoro's probably bashing about and breaking stuff like the clumsy bastard he is. As he makes his way into the bedroom the banging sound stops. Zoro is straightening the frameless painting on the wall. He pauses obviously sensing Sanji's presence.
"Happy now?" he mutters gruffly not looking right at Sanji.
Sanji looks from Zoro to the painting and melts a little inside. Zoro did actually listen to him and instead of being a bastard about Sanji yelling at him for no real reason other than being tired and irritable. Instead of being an asshole back he tried to do something nice.
“I hope you’re happy now, cause I sort of took out half the plaster on the wall putting that nail in. So this dumpster painting ‘aint coming down.” Zoro grumbles folding his arms sulkily. Sanji snickers as he spots the pile of plaster scattered at the skirting board. He snags Zoro by the collar and presses a kiss to Zoro’s temple.
“You’re secretly a sappy guy, you know that?” He smiles against Zoro’s skin.
“I’m never going to understand you, am I?” Zoro remarks looking at him sidelong.
“Hm, nope. Isn’t that what keeps you interested?” He laughs. Zoro snorts at him and catches Sanji’s jaw in his hand, he leans forward quickly and kisses Sanji gently on the lips, it’s soft and sends little shivers through Sanji.
“Something like that.” Zoro breathes against his lips.
Sanji lays in bed and feels a sympathetic little shiver run through him at the memory of Zoro’s kiss. He wonders if Zoro does kiss like that, if that memory was real. Slowly he gets out of bed and walks closer to the painting. It is nice and he feels a bit of a pull towards it. Curiously he pulls the canvas away from the wall with one finger, the bottom hinges away from the nail that the painting is hanging from. Sure enough half of the plaster on the wall behind the painting is missing and showing bare brick.
He takes a step back and closes his eyes. So, the memories are real then.
He steps backwards a little more until his calves hit the edge of the bed, bonelessly he falls down and tries to clear his head. Does this mean that his old memories, the memories of the Grand Line and his life there, are nothing but a dream? No, he can’t believe that, he won’t. But… he can’t deny that these new memories seem to be just as real. How can both of them be true?
He tries to think a little more rationally. Suppose that this is an entirely different world and that the memories that are coming back about this place are real. It almost feels like the memories are leaking from the objects and people in this place right into his brain, maybe this world is making him fit into it. That doesn’t mean that his world isn’t real too, perhaps there are many worlds. Perhaps you can fall from one to the other like sailing from island to island. If this world is real and has its own version of his nakama and his life, then where is this world’s version of him? He woke up in the bed of this Sanji, and he’s stepped into this Sanji’s life to a degree. Perhaps they swapped places?
Does that mean that this world's Sanji woke up in his world the way that his work up in this world? Shit, that'd be bad. It's been hard enough for him to adjust to this comparatively normal world. This world seems safe, in the entire time he's been here his life hadn't been in danger once, not unless you counted Zoro's demon bike. In his world however he and his nakama are constantly in mortal peril, usually this many days after landing his nakama are in trouble of some kind. Would his double be able to cope after such a safe life? It was hard enough for him to deal with the constant threat of death and he was used to it. God, what if his double died or something? Would that kill him too?
Would his nakama even know that it wasn't him? Or would they just think that his memory had gone funny like his nakama here thought? And hell, what if his double tried something on with Zoro thinking that his Zoro would react like the Zoro here? He doesn't know which idea worries him more, that his Zoro wouldn't respond positively and then when Sanji got back to his own world he'd have to live with that, or the idea that his Zoro might respond like this Zoro does.
Sanji is jolted out of his thoughts by a loud bang and a shout. Sanji strains his ears and can make out the rather hearty cursing that Zoro is so fond of. Sanji pads to the door in bare feet and his soft long pyjamas, cautiously he peeks around the edge of the door. Zoro is crouched on the floor trying to pick up manila files one handed whilst rubbing the top of his head with the other hand. To his side is a half empty black plastic box with similar files spewing out of it. Judging from the high shelves on the wall with similar looking boxes on Zoro was trying to get one down when it fell on his head. Zoro is now cursing in a different language, apparently having exhausted the bad language that he knows in English. He only realises that he’s laughed when Zoro looks up at him in surprise and his face flushes bashfully.
“Sorry to be crashing about so early and waking you up.” Zoro apologises straightening up and putting his files in the plastic box. With a grunt he hefts the now full box and carries it over to the small coffee table.
“I was awake already.” Sanji shrugs and moves towards Zoro. The other man is clad only in boxers at the moment and Sanji would be lying if he said that it wasn’t somewhat… distracting. In lieu of staring though he makes his way around the sofa and looks over Zoro’s shoulder as the man quickly flicks through the files one by one as if looking for something. Sanji catches glimpses of photos of people but he has no idea who any of these people are or why Zoro has files with their pictures in.
“What’re you doing?” He asks curiously.
“Hm, looking for something. I don’t know what though. I’ve got a nagging feeling that some missing piece of this puzzle is in one of my old files but I’ve no idea what one. Hopefully it’ll jump out at me.” Zoro murmurs distractedly replacing yet another file in the box and flicking through a new one, this one he rejects almost immediately, the same with the next two. The final one in the box isn’t even glanced at once Zoro catches the name on the file. With a disgruntled sigh Zoro picks the box up off of the table and walks back over to the high shelves, the muscles in his back flexing appealingly.
Sanji shakes his head as if trying to shake these thoughts loose. Two sexual thoughts about Zoro in as many minutes? It must still be that dream getting to him. Still… he glances back up at Zoro who is trying to replace the box on the shelf. It wobbles alarmingly and Sanji dashes over before Zoro can brain himself again with the stupid box. He reaches up and supports the box with his fingers at the last moment. He has to stretch as Zoro has a fair bit more reach than him despite being only an inch taller.
“You’re gonna drop it, idiot.” He snaps, stretching up on his tiptoes to help Zoro guide the box to the edge of the shelf without knocking any of the others down. Zoro doesn’t seem to be paying much attention and Sanji foolishly makes the mistake of looking down from the box at Zoro.
He is so very, very close. Sanji’s eyes can’t even focus clearly on him he’s so close. He can, however, spy the darkened gaze that Zoro has on his mouth. He doesn’t have enough time to panic before Zoro’s mouth is on him for real, not a dream this time, not some barely recalled memory but the real thing. The kiss isn’t passionate Sanji thinks, not like the first time you kiss someone, it’s the kind of gentle and affectionate kiss that you have with someone when you know that you can always have more. It’s a neat and insistent press of lips that has Sanji sighing into the kiss, it’s only when Zoro takes this as an encouraging sign and deepens the kiss that Sanji realises just what’s going on and launches himself away from Zoro with a slightly terrified squeak. He catches the slightly startled and hurt expression on Zoro’s face before the box falls onto the man’s head now that it’s unsupported by Sanji’s hand. Zoro curses loudly and clutches his head again for the second time that morning.
“I’m so sorry!” Sanji blurts impulsively and dashes forward again to help Zoro pick up the box and files.
“Nh, it’s okay. I get it, you don’t remember any of this. I shouldn’t have done that.” Zoro says shaking his head and gathering up his scattered files.
Sanji bites his lip and doesn’t say that it’s okay, he doesn’t say that the kiss has left him tingling and cursing himself for pulling away. He closes his eyes firmly so as not to look at Zoro’s barely clothed body and reminds himself that this isn’t his world, that this isn’t his Zoro.
It certainly isn’t, this Zoro just managed to politely tell him that he wasn’t upset despite him rejecting him regardless of how long they’d been together by Zoro’s memory. He’s not sure how the Zoro he knows would respond to that, but he’s pretty sure that the Zoro he knows wouldn’t be so gracious. Zoro’s always been quick to fight if he suspects that Sanji is insulting him in any way and you can’t get much more insulting than being rejected by your significant other with the added implication that your sexuality is no longer open to them.
In fact this Zoro is almost nothing like his. His Zoro fights with him for no reason and, sure this Zoro has goaded him a few times playfully since he’s been here, but it’s been just that, banter and not a real fight. Nor has this Zoro made any attempt at cutting him in half with a sword or belittled his strength. Heck, this Zoro hasn’t even put his feet on the dining table!
He opens his eyes and looks at this Zoro carefully. They look exactly the same, but this Zoro has been able to be different enough for him to appreciate the man’s good looks. Zoro seems to spot his scrutiny after he manages to finish replacing the box on the shelf without dropping it on himself again.
“What?” He asks with a curious tilt of his head.
“You’re just… so different to the Zoro that I know.” Sanji answers standing up awkwardly. This Zoro hasn’t been especially receptive to talking about what Sanji remembers of his world, it seems to put him in a bad mood. Today is different though apparently as Zoro laughs merrily.
“Oh what, your swashbuckling pirate Zoro?” Zoro snickers.
“What does that even mean? How do you even buckle swash? That doesn’t- just shut up.” Sanji says exasperatedly.
“So how’s your Zoro different then?” the green-haired swordsman asks with a challenging grin.
“Well, he always fights with me. We’re always screaming at each other and he’s never pleasant to me, not like you. He’s so impossible to get on with and I swear he just fights with me and insults me because he can, he doesn’t do it to anyone else really. He has no manners and he’s got no appreciation for my skills!” Sanji cuts himself off because he really could go on all day with the list of things that Zoro does that piss him off. He can already feel the Zoro-induced irritation starting the build under his skin at the very thought. He takes a calming breath and continues.
“But you, you’re… different. You’re not like him at all. Why are you so different?” He asks quietly. He looks at Zoro who is watching him with some interest.
“Hah, I’m not really. I used to be just like that, it was the only way I could get a rise out of you, you just ignored me otherwise. I didn’t know what else to do, I didn’t exactly have any experience with that kind of thing.” Zoro laughs lightly, his hand slung casually on his own bare hip.
“What do you mean you didn’t have any experience?” Sanji asks perplexed.
“Asexual remember? Well, except for you. So when I met you I had no idea what else to do. You ever seen little kids on a playground around the age that the boys work out that they like the girls? They don’t know what to do or even understand it enough to know what they’re feeling, so they just go over and punch them or pull their hair because it’s better than doing nothing.” The other man explains with a laugh.
Sanji just stares at Zoro. That can’t be possible, that the Zoro he knows on the Sunny really is attracted to him and just doesn’t know how to deal with it, can it? All this time, all those arguments, and Zoro was just… what? Pulling his pigtails like a little kid or something? But… what about this Zoro?
“Well, what changed with you?” He questions shakily.
“Ah, well, I still wind you up. It’s always been fun so I’ve not given it up completely, but things go better when I’m not deliberately being an ass to you. That and I’ve discovered a far better way to get under your skin.” Zoro smirks at him. Sanji almost dreads to ask but he’s never been a good one at resisting curiosity.
“What’s that then?” He asks challengingly, whatever Zoro can do to get under his skin he’s sure he can take it. He’s spent months putting up with Zoro’s constant irritating behaviour, this Zoro seems nowhere near as bad. In comparison what could he possibly do?
“You really wanna know?” the marimo asks quirking an eyebrow at him.
“Yeah.” He retorts feeling self-assured, he’s not going to back down. And he needs to show Zoro that the kiss didn’t bother him, that it was just that it was a surprise and that his leaping back was because of that not as an insult. And either way he’s not going to back down from a challenge now is he?
Zoro gives him a wary look and steps closer but Sanji doesn’t waver. Zoro’s hand reaches forward and buries itself in Sanji’s hair behind his right ear. With a curious and slightly wary look on his face Zoro’s blunt fingers scratch at Sanji’s scalp, almost as if he was a cat or something, it’s… pleasant. With a look that even Sanji can translate as ‘oh good, I’m not going to get my face kicked off’ the marimo leans forward. Sanji tenses a little but holds his ground even as Zoro’s large warm hand comes to rest on his other hip. Zoro’s stubble grates against his jaw pleasantly and he uses his hand in Sanji’s hair to tilt his head slightly, opening up his neck. Zoro’s lips come to rest almost painfully gently on the skin just behind his jaw and under his ear. Then Zoro opens his mouth with a scrape of teeth across Sanji’s apparently very sensitive skin and presses his tongue to Sanji’s hammering pulse-point. He hears himself gasp as the hand that Zoro has on his hip slides under his clothes, the edge of his thumb nail dragging sparks that skitter across Sanji’s skin. The rest of Zoro’s hand pulls him forward against the thigh between his legs and oh. Getting the hint Sanji plasters himself to Zoro as the other man runs a hand up his spine and continues biting and kissing down Sanji’s neck.
Suddenly Zoro steps back away from Sanji with a devious grin on his face. Absently he scratches his jaw and smirks at Sanji.
“Well, I’m off to shave. See ya.” He grins and disappears into the next room.
And so Sanji finds himself standing in the living room half hard and feeling a little shell shocked. He shudders slightly and scrubs at his neck with his hand. Zoro’s right, that’s a much more effective way of getting under his skin. He doesn’t know whether to chase after Zoro and kick his head off for being so bold and teasing him or to chase after him to shove him to the floor and straddle him. Damn.