[One Piece: Zoro/Sanji] Prompt: Emotions
Title: First
Fandom: One Piece
Characters: Zoro x Sanji
Prompt: 18-Emotions
Word Count: 893
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Summary: Going Express AU; a work-related injury brings Zoro and Sanji closer.
A/N: I’ve had this in mind forever, but I’d wanted to write more UST before I wrote this, but…well, it’s just not happening for me. XD So I gave in and wrote this.
Sanji’s shaking knee was giving him away. Everything else about him proclaimed a cool, calm exterior, and if it wasn’t for the uncomfortable trembling of his damn knee, none of the other passengers on the Going Express would be able to guess there was a heaviness weighing down on his mind.
That heaviness? A certain green-haired cop who hadn’t shown up for their scheduled group brunch.
He’d worn a nice shirt-with the first few buttons undone enticingly-and a dashing vest and fedora, and even cologne. He’d looked damn good. And he’d sat and chatted with the ladies and Usopp and Luffy, and fed Chopper bit of foods underneath the table, and tried to pretend like he wasn’t watching the café door.
“Zoro’s not coming today.”
He’d looked at Nami, cheeks reddening as he’d hastily and unconvincingly assured her, “That guy is the furthest thing on my mind.” But he’d been unable to keep from adding, “I just figured-I haven’t seen him in over a week.”
“So you didn’t hear?” Eyes closed, he could still hear her voice telling him, “He got shot on the job.”
His head supplied him with endless images. Some druggie (high or angry or desperate or all three) pulling a trigger; a burst of noise and blood, and Zoro’s body down on the sidewalk or the street or the alley, and-
And he tried to tell himself that it couldn’t have been all that bad, it couldn’t have been because Nami had told him that Zoro was at home, and he wouldn’t be at home if it’d been that bad, he would’ve been at the hospital and-
-Zoro in the hospital, barely breathing, blood spilling out of an open chest wound and staining his uniform and the whiteness surrounded him-
As soon as the train doors slid open, Sanji was running.
[-]
After several frantic knocks, the door opened slowly and Zoro’s Groggy Face looked out at him. “What?”
“Let me in, asshole.”
Zoro stepped back, eyes narrowing. “What’s with the attitude?”
Sanji ignored him and went inside, letting the door slam shut behind him; Zoro winced and twisted his finger in his ear, grumbling something inaudible under his breath. Sanji crossed his arms over his chest and scrutinized the body before him-tired, but not dying, nowhere near dying, in a T-shirt with a panda on it and jeans and mismatched socks.
“Where is it?” he demanded to know, feeling all his shitty feelings welling up in his throat even though the idiot was obviously just fine.
Zoro exhaled softly through his nose and rolled up his right sleeve. “It just grazed me,” he said, revealing a clean, unstained, perfectly white bandage just below his shoulder. “Didn’t they tell you that?”
“Why the hell didn’t you?” His anger escaped in his words and in the kick he aimed at the cop’s stomach (an instinctive move from his youth that he’d used on anyone dumb enough to pick on him or torment a girl in front of him).
Zoro grabbed his foot before it could make contact, starting to look a little pissed off himself. “What the fuck is your-”
“You tell me first.” Sanji yanked his leg free and stepped close, close enough to grip the panda shirt in his hands, wringing the material as he spoke. “Next time anything like this happens. Every time. I want to be the first and I want to hear it straight from you, got it?”
Zoro looked at him in a hard and searching manner, and the darkness of his eyes couldn’t hide the emotions inside of them. In that one moment, all of the questions and wonderings Sanji ever had about the nature of their relationship, about Zoro’s feelings for him, were clearly answered.
“Got it,” he said, quietly.
Sanji’s grip on the shirt released. “Good.” And then, in one smooth, quick motion, his arms were sliding around Zoro’s back and their lips were pressed together.
Within seconds, Zoro’s hands had knocked off his fedora and were buried in his hair, bringing him closer as their mouths opened and their tongues argued; Sanji tasted just the slightest hint of toothpaste, like the other man had hastily run his brush over his teeth while Sanji had been banging on his door.
His hands dropped to Sanji’s vest, undoing the buttons urgently. He murmured, a little breathless, into their kiss, “I want-”
“Where’s your bedroom?”
The vest was shed, Sanji’s shoes left behind in the hallway, and they stumbled into the dim room, falling onto the bed. Sanji was mindful of the bandage as they finished undressing; he kept his eye on it throughout, watching as a tiny blossom of red bloomed, physical activity reopening the wound. Zoro took his face in his hands, redirected his gaze, and promised, “I’m fine.” This time.
For a brief second, Sanji considered stopping this, leaving now before he set himself up for endless worry and possible heartache and going out to find a nice, safe accountant or kindergarten teacher to fall in love with.
He stayed. Eyes closed, head tilted back, he wrapped his legs around the other man’s waist, rolled his hips upward, smiling when Zoro mouthed at his neck and told him he smelled nice, a river of emotions running through him and spilling out between their bodies.