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There is an assumption amongst most people who know him that as the self-proclaimed ‘love cook’, Sanji must adore Valentine’s Day.
In theory, this is true; Sanji can think of few things more beautiful than an entire holiday dedicated to love in all its many forms, be it familial or friendly, platonic or romantic, and all shades in between. But in reality, Sanji has been working at a high end restaurant for pretty much his entire service career, and thus Valentine’s Day is actually his least favorite day of the entire year. Because while everyone else gets to spend it doting on their loved ones, Sanji is always stuck working in a boiling hot kitchen full of even hotter tempers while dealing with the absolute dumbest people on the planet, i.e. his customers.
“For the last fucking time, no!” he snaps at Koby when the poor waiter informs him that yet another dipshit (the fifth one tonight, and they’ve been open for less than two hours) has asked if they can put a ring inside of glass of champagne, or a bowl of soul, or any other manner of very stupid places to hide an incredibly expensive piece of jewelry. “No rings, no earrings, no bracelets, no fucking anything that belongs to a customer! I don’t care how nice they seemed, the last fucking thing I need tonight is something getting lost in a fucking pannacotta and someone losing their shit over it and blaming us!”
Koby, who is a very sweet, very nice young man and absolutely does not deserve to bear the full force of Sanji’s anger like this shuffles his feet awkwardly and says, “Okay, but this guy is insistent. Like, really insistent. Like, I think he might actually cause a scene if we don’t do this for him insistent. He says it’s a family tradition to hide the engagement ring—”
“Oh my fucking god,” Sanji seethes, fingers automatically moving to grab a cigarette before he remembers that he’s still inside the kitchen and cannot, in fact, simply pull out a smoke, which only serves to irritate him further. “Do these people not know how to fucking read? It was in the goddamn reservation fine print, clear as fucking day!”
“Of course they read it. They just didn’t care. Or they thought that surely they were special enough for us to make an exception,” Helmeppo says as he walks past with a full tray of precariously balanced drinks. “I told you you should have let me take that table, Koby. You’re not nearly enough of a bitch to deal with that level of shithead.”
Koby goes an alarming mixture of red and purple at the same time, and Sanji feels some of his anger ebb. He and Helmeppo and most everyone else on staff have done the whole Valentine’s Day song and dance routine countless times before, but this is Koby’s first at The Baratie. He’s still getting used to the fact that they actively kick customers out on a normal business day for being assholes, nevermind the busiest night of the entire year.
“What table is it?” Sanji asks, against his better judgement. “I’ll go talk to them.”
Koby directs him to a table where a pink-haired man in full Marine dress uniform sits, tapping his fingers in an impatient rhythm on the table. When Sanji approaches, he sighs loudly and says, “Finally! I told that imbecile of a waiter to get me a manager ages ago—”
Any grace Sanji might have been willing to extend evaporates in an instant. It’s one thing to be a garden variety dickwad; it’s another thing entirely to insult one of his waitstaff. Especially one as nice as Koby.
“Yeah, no, you’re done here,” Sanji cuts him off. “I don’t have time to deal with idiots that don’t read the rules before making a reservation. Please leave your table in a quiet and orderly manner, and know that if you don’t, you will be banned from ever setting foot inside The Baratie again.”
The marine gapes at him. “What the hell do you mean, leave? I made this reservation months ago, I’m not leaving! I’m going to be proposing to my girlfriend tonight!”
“Not here you’re not,” Sanji replies flatly. “Probably should have thought of that before you called my waiter an imbecile. Now get out.”
The marine goes positively purple with rage. “This—this is outrageous!” he sputters, shoving up from his seat to try and tower over Sanji, which doesn’t work very well considering he’s only got about an inch of height on him. “I paid the fucking deposit, I’ve been planning this for ages, you can’t just—”
“Not my fucking problem,” Sanji snaps. “Now get out of my restaurant.”
“You can’t do this!” the marine yells, spit flying from his mouth. “I’m an active-duty service member! I’ll—I’ll go to the press, this place will be ruined if you—Hey what are you doing, take you hands off me—”
The marine struggles against his grip, but Sanji holds fast as he shoves the man forward, weaving in between tables that are very politely pretending not to notice as Sanji marches him towards the door, teeth grit and blood nearly boiling from the sheer amount of anger pumping through him right now. “If I had a nickel for every fucking time some entitled piece of shit threatened to sink this restaurant, we’d have enough money to build a second fucking location,” he all but snarls as Viola (their beautiful, charming, and downright terrifying when she needs to be general manager) opens the front door for him with a delighted smile. “You know we have a reputation, right? The famous fighting cooks of The Baratie? You wanna know why we have that reputation?”
“I don’t—” the marine starts to say, but Sanji doesn’t let him finish.
“It’s because our food is so fucking good that people don’t give a flying fuck if we have to get rough with the customers every now and then. So if you wanna try and sink us, be my fucking guest, but you’re not going to succeed. Oh and also, you’re banned for life. Have a nice fucking night!”
And with that, Sanji tosses the marine outside. His yells of protest get cut off as the door slams behind him, and Sanji heaves a deep, deep sigh.
“Viola my darling, can you start calling people on the waitlist to see if someone can take our open table?” he says, mustering up a small smile just for her. “Oh, and get that asshole’s name from the reservations so we can make sure he never eats here again.”
“Done and done; I started calling once I saw you coming out of the kitchen,” Viola replies with a bright grin, which softens when she adds, “I think you should take five though, Sanji; you look about ready to blow a gasket.”
Sanji sighs again. “I feel ready to blow a gasket,” he admits, reaching up to run aggravated fingers through the fall of his bangs. “But the kitchen—”
“Will be far better off for the rest of the night if you take some time to blow off steam now as opposed to letting it build up and then taking it out on Patty and Carne,” Viola counters smoothly. “Besides, everyone else has taken at least one smoke break already. It’s only fair that you get one too.”
Sanji wants to protest that he doesn’t need a smoke break, what he needs is to return to the kitchen and cook—but Viola’s got a dangerous glint in her eye that says she’s ready to make Sanji comply with her suggestion whether he wants to or not, and the cooks aren’t the only ones at the Baratie who know how to fight.
“Alright, alright, fine,” Sanji says, holding his hands up in defeat. “But I want it known that I’m only doing so under duress.”
“Just so long as you are doing it,” Viola replies, and Sanji supposes he can’t argue with that.
The alley behind the restaurant is freezing from the winter weather when Sanji finally steps outside (Viola only said he had to take a break; she didn’t say he couldn’t stop back by the kitchen and check to make sure everything was still running as smoothly as possible first), but compared to the sauna-like temperatures of the bustling kitchen, the cold air feels positively wonderful against his sweat damp skin. He takes a seat on the old wine crate (lovingly nicknamed Ol’ Smokey by the staff for how often people sit and smoke cigarettes on it), pulling out his lighter and a crumpled, half-empty pack. The first hit of sweet, sweet nicotine into his lungs instantly calms the agitated buzz beneath Sanji’s skin, and he sighs in relief while blowing smoke out in a slow, steady exhale.
God he fucking hates Valentine’s Day. Sanji doesn’t know how the old man deals with it year after year—but then again, the whole reason he’s is in charge of the restaurant tonight instead of Zeff is because the geezer is still recovering from an angioplasty to make sure he doesn’t have a second heart attack in less than twelve months, so it’s not like he’s exactly a shining example of stress management.
Someday, when Sanji has his own place where he can make his own rules, he’s decided that he won’t even be open for Valentine’s Day. Then maybe he can finally celebrate it the way it’s supposed to be done: showering everyone he cares about with gifts, making treats for all his friends, spending a cozy evening in with Zoro so as not to inflict the same stress he so despises on the rest of the hapless industry workers forced to suffer through the holiday-induced madness. Spending any time with Zoro on Valentine’s Day, really. Sanji knows that this is only their first together as an actual couple instead of whatever weird and in hindsight painfully stupid friends-with-benefits thing they had going on before, and it’s not like Zoro expected anything from him given his own hectic schedule as an EMT; but however much Sanji might hate Valentine’s Day, it still kind of kills him that he couldn’t spend any of it with his boyfriend.
The hand shoved into a pocket to protect it from the February chill clenches around his phone, and for a moment, Sanji entertains the idea of calling Zoro, just to hear his voice. Then he shakes his head, berating himself for even thinking about disturbing his boyfriend when he knows Zoro is exhausted and in all probability still asleep, only having gotten off his shift at around 10am this morning because of some bad traffic accident he got stuck dealing with. And then Sanji has to berate himself for berating himself, because how many times has Zoro told him that it isn’t disturbing him if Sanji wants to call? That Zoro wants him to reach out, to talk to him when he’s stressed, to share whatever’s going on inside his stupid curly brain because it’s infinitely worse when he doesn’t? Not that Zoro’s much better (that is, after all, how they managed to spend six out of the last seven years in a fuck-ass situationship instead of fully and madly in love with each other like they should have been), but they did promise each other they would try.
It’s just a phone call, Sanji tells himself as he draws his phone out with hands he pretends aren’t trembling and pulls up Zoro’s number in his contacts. It’s not bothering him. And if he doesn’t pick up, it just means that he’s probably asleep. No reason to panic. None at all.
And yet Sanji can’t help holding his breath as he presses the call button, only to nearly slump over in relief when Zoro answers on the second ring.
“Need me to come bail you out of jail because you finally snapped and killed someone?” he asks without any preamble, deep voice low and amused in a way that makes Sanji’s heart melt a little because god, it’s so good to hear him.
“If I was in jail I wouldn’t be calling you on my phone, dipshit,” he replies without missing a beat, and Zoro laughs, bright and boy-ish.
“So you need my help hiding the body then.”
Sanji smiles crookedly around the cigarette clamped between his teeth. “Nah,” he says, feeling his stress melt away like cold butter hitting a sizzling hot saucepan. “Not yet, anyway.”
Zoro laughs again, and while most of Sanji’s tension will remain until at least the end of his shift and probably well into tomorrow (it is the busiest night of the year after all), at the very least he doesn’t feel like setting the restaurant on fire anymore.
“You still planning on crashing here when you get off?” Zoro asks.
“Only if it’s not too much trouble,” Sanji says immediately. “I mean, it’s gonna be super late, we probably won’t be done with closing until at least three, maybe four—”
“—and I work nights so I’ll be up until at least seven,” Zoro cuts in flatly. “Come on cook, you know I don’t give a shit about your weird restaurant life hours.”
“It never hurts to double check,” Sanji points out, and he can practically hear the eyeroll in Zoro’s reply.
“Curly, it’s fine. It always is. You know that.”
Sanji brings his cigarette up, taking a deep inhale and letting the smoke burn soothingly inside his lungs for a long moment before he breathes out. “Then yeah,” he says, more quietly than he means to, almost like he’s admitting a secret. “I’d like that.”
“Then I’ll see you later,” Zoro replies, and then after a brief pause, adds, “Also, if there’s any unfinished bottles of fancy wine that you could bring over—”
Sanji barks out a laugh. “Yeah yeah, I’ll get you your damn booze, you fucking moss-brained alcoholic,” he chuckles, stubbing the butt of his cigarette out against the bottom of his shoe before standing. “I gotta go. Pretty sure I can smell Carne burning something even from out here.”
“If you do kill someone, call Robin first,” Zoro says by way of parting. “She can probably tell you the best way to hide all the evidence.”
Sanji really hopes it won’t come to that, but then again, it’s barely past seven. The night is still young and full of possibilities.
Sanji does not end up killing anyone, though it’s a near thing—especially after yet another asshole trying to bully the kitchen into hiding a gift in their partner’s meal, someone having one too many drinks and upending an entire tray of food all over poor Koby, and an absolute pathetic attempt by some poor schmuck to flex his amateur wine tasting skills in front of his date, which didn’t anger Sanji so much as make him want to commit a mercy murder out of second-hand embarrassment.
Things start slowing down around eleven, though the last diners don’t actually leave until sometime after midnight. By the time closing duties are done and the obligatory post shift drinks amongst the team for surviving yet another Valentine’s Day have been guzzled down, it’s just past three in the morning and Sanji is basically dead on his feet. Luckily, Zoro’s apartment is only about a fifteen minute walk away, and Sanji uses that time to enjoy the briskness of the cold February air on his skin after a whole night spent in a boiling kitchen, as well as smoke two badly needed cigarettes to help settle his nerves, wound up as they are from the chaotic night.
The first thing Sanji notices when he finally walks into Zoro’s tiny studio apartment at around three-thirty am is the smell. Contrary to pretty much every stereotype that could be levied against him as a 20-something-year-old jock living in a bachelor pad, Zoro actually keeps his space fairly tidy (mostly because he has about ten worldly possessions to his name that aren’t clothes); if it ever smells like anything at all, it’s usually the coffee he makes upwards of four times a day or whatever he last heated up in the microwave. But the whiff that Sanji gets as he steps inside is something floral and woody and strangely familiar, and it takes a second for his exhausted brain to realize that it’s the rose and cedar smell of his favorite scented candles.
The second thing Sanji notices are the flowers. There’s a small bouquet of them next to the candle sitting on Zoro’s single sad square of counter space, tiny red rosebuds and pink chrysanthemums, filled in with eucalyptus stems and a single head of white snapdragons. They’re inside a canning jar that Sanji’s recognizes as one of his own from when he brings Zoro homemade pickles, which has been wrapped around the rim with a piece of ribbon sporting a motif of those candy hearts with cheesy sayings like ‘BE MINE’ and ‘U R CUTE’.
The third thing Sanji notices is the piece of toast set on a plate next to the candle and the bouquet. It’s a thick cut slice of milk bread that he recognizes instantly as being from his favorite bakery, smeared with a thin layer of butter and topped with strawberry jam spread into the shape of a heart.
The bag of half finished wine bottles Sanji brought with him from the restaurant drops to the floor with a dull thud right as Zoro walks out of the bathroom.
“Oh, hey,” Sanji barely hears him say over the sudden roar of his own thudding heartbeat inside his ears. “How was your shift?”
Sanji turns to stare at him, breath catching in his throat at the sight. There’s a slight dampness to Zoro’s hair and pinkness to his skin that suggests he’s freshly showered, and he’s wearing a soft looking t-shirt with equally soft looking sweatpants that sit low enough on his hips for Sanji to see a tantalizing hint of bronze skin stretched over the divots of his pelvic bones.
“What… is this?” Sanji replies in lieu of answering Zoro’s question, gesturing at the kitchenette. Even in the dim light, Sanji can see the faint red flush that blooms to life at the tips of Zoro’s ears in response, and his chest does something very funny and fluttery and honestly kind of painful that makes Sanji wonder if he’s about to get taken out by a heart attack, same as his old man.
“It’s Valentine’s Day,” Zoro mumbles, one hand coming to rub sheepishly at the back of his neck. “Isn’t shit like this what you’re supposed to do for your partner?”
At that, Sanji’s mind goes kind of fuzzy around the edges, heart thudding in his chest hard enough to break the ribcage holding it in place. He knows that Zoro thinks he isn’t very good at the whole romance thing, sees himself as too blunt and too harsh and not sentimental enough for something that’s supposed to be soft and gentle and sweet. And while it’s true that to an outsider, a candle and some fairy lights and a piece of toast with a jam heart might not seem like much, to Sanji, it’s everything. It means that Zoro cared enough to recall something he liked, cared enough to do something a little cheesy, cared enough to know that Sanji always has a little something to eat before bed so that he won’t wake up starving. It means that Zoro paid attention, and more than that, he remembered.
And Sanji honestly can’t think of anything more romantic than that.
“Come here,” Sanji demands hoarsely as he moves towards Zoro, reaching a hand out so that he can fist it into the soft cotton of his t-shirt as soon as he’s within grabbing distance. He uses his leverage to pull Zoro forward, until there’s no space left between them and Sanji can finish sealing the gap with a passionate kiss.
Zoro falls into it immediately, making a pleased little noise against Sanji’s mouth when he licks over the seam of Zoro’s lips, arms moving to wrap themselves around Sanji’s waist while Sanji sinks his unoccupied hand into the freshly washed strands of his hair. He tugs a little just to hear the sound that Zoro makes in response, something caught halfway between a gasp and a moan that has Sanji’s blood going molten.
He pushes Zoro back until he hits the wall with a dull thud, then lets go of his grip on Zoro’s shirt so that he can slip it underneath instead. Sanji palms at the warm skin of his stomach before going higher, until his hand reaches one ample pec and squeezes it while his thumb brushes over the nipple. Zoro groans softly against his mouth, his own hands tugging Sanji’s work shirt out of where it’s been neatly tucked into his chef’s pants before bringing them around to rest on either side of Sanji’s hips, thumbs dipping below his waistband so that they can rub tiny circles in the hollows that he finds there. Sanji breaks off the kiss with a gasp at that, laughing when Zoro whines and tries to chase his mouth.
“Greedy,” he chides teasingly, delighting in the way Zoro pouts in response.
“Can you blame me?” he huffs, even as the flush from his ears starts to crawl across his face, blotchy and red and oh so enticing. “I’ve been waiting for you all night.”
Sanji grins. “Yeah?” he says, bringing a hand around to begin playing with the fall of Zoro’s earrings, loving that he can feel Zoro’s answering shudder where Sanji is pressed up against his front. “Did you miss me that much, marimo?”
He doesn’t mean it seriously, only trying to tease so he can get a rise out of Zoro; but to Sanji’s surprise, Zoro’s blush deepens further as he scowls, embarrassed but defiant. “What if I did?” he challenges. “What’s wrong with that?”
Sanji’s heart does a goddamn olympic level backflip into the deep end of a pool. Thank god Zoro’s an EMT and will know how to start chest compressions when he inevitably collapses from cardiac arrest.
“Sorry to make you wait then, sweetheart,” he murmurs softly, leaning in to press a chaste kiss to one corner of Zoro’s mouth. He can feel the heat from Zoro’s cheeks against the tip of his nose, and it drives Sanji kind of crazy to think that he can get the normally unflappable Roronoa Zoro this flustered so easily, a headrush that not even the sweet, sweet buzz of nicotine can compete with.
“Yeah, well,” Zoro says, breath catching in his throat as Sanji begins to trail kisses along the sharp line of his jaw, “at least you’re here now.”
Sanji hums a vague noise of affirmation that gets lost when he captures Zoro’s lips with his again; slower this time, licking his way languidly into Zoro’s mouth so he can savor the taste and feel of it, warm and soft and spit-slick. He shifts to press a thigh up against Zoro’s groin to give him something to grind on, and Zoro immediately takes the invitation for what it is, rolling his hips along the hard swell of muscle and making the most delicious little noise in the back of his throat. Sanji drinks it down greedily, feeling half drunk with the wave of arousal that roils through him in response. Or maybe that’s the exhaustion from work, which is pressing insistently against the backs of his eyelids and fogging up his head in a way that Sanji finds extremely annoying and also increasingly difficult to ignore.
Very reluctantly, Sanji pulls away from Zoro’s mouth. Zoro makes a noise of protest at first, eyes fluttering open to glare at Sanji petulantly, but the irritated expression melts away as soon as he catches sight of Sanji’s face, morphing instead into a small but concerned frown. “What’s wrong?” he asks, perceptive as always.
Sanji sighs, sliding his hand out of Zoro’s hair so that he can use it to cup his cheek gently instead. “What’s wrong is that I would very much like to drag you over to your bed and then make sweet, ravishing love to you the way you deserve, but I’ve been up since five am yesterday and just spent sixteen fucking hours managing a very hectic kitchen on the busiest night of the year. It’s kind of a miracle I’m still conscious, and I don’t know how much longer I can stay that way.”
He grimaces, casting a guilty look over at the romantic little display of a candle and flowers and some toast that Zoro must have worked so hard on. Giving his sweet marimo a few hours of attentive passion seems like the least Sanji could do in order to pay all that back, but even as he stands here, Sanji can tell that he’s fading fast. His eyelids keep wanting to droop, and reality has started to skip a few beats here and there, fading in and out like a bad radio signal. He’s worked through worse of course, and for far less important reasons than showing Zoro just how much he loves him, but Sanji also knows that Zoro wouldn’t be very happy with him for trying to do so. “Sorry moss,” Sanji says, truly and deeply apologetic, and then somewhat irritated when Zoro’s response is to let out a loud snort.
“You think I didn’t know that you were gonna be exhausted?” Zoro replies, wrapping his arms around Sanji’s waist and leaning him more fully into his comforting bulk. “Relax curly. I have this whole thing planned out so you don’t have to lift a finger. Just sit back and enjoy it.”
Sanji blinks, and then squints at Zoro accusingly. “That’s my line,” he protests, used to being the one that indulges Zoro, pampering him and catering to his every need, especially in bed. The idea of Zoro being the one to do that for him instead sits strangely in the pit of Sanji’s stomach, like it can’t decide if this shift in their roles is good or bad.
“Yeah well, tough shit,” Zoro taunts, though there’s no menace to his tone, only a warm fondness that makes Sanji go weak at the knees, even more so when Zoro leans in to give him a soft, sweet kiss. “You take care of me three hundred and sixty-four days of the year, you stupid love-cook. Let me have this one.”
Part of Sanji—the part that only sees his worth in the service he provides to people, his value linked solely to what he can do for others—objects vehemently to this, flinching reflexively at the idea that anyone should be allowed to do something for him instead of the other way around. The other part—the one that’s getting a little stronger every day he spends finally together with Zoro, breaking down old walls to build up new boundaries, learning how to let himself be loved—thinks the first part is very stupid and should really learn how to shut the fuck up for once in its goddamn life. And surprisingly, Sanji finds himself rather inclined to agree. He blames the exhaustion for addling his brain.
“Alright,” he murmurs against Zoro’s lips, feeling the way they curl into a pleased grin at his response. “If you insist.”
Zoro gives him one more quick kiss before pulling back, grabbing the hand still groping his pec by the wrist and using it to tug Sanji towards the kitchenette counter. “Eat first,” he instructs, handing the piece of heart-shaped jam toast over to Sanji, who devours it in a mere three bites. He knows that it’s just strawberry jam and butter on a piece of milk bread, but it’s strawberry jam and butter on a piece of milk bread as made by Zoro, and that makes it all the sweeter, the taste lingering in Sanji’s mouth like slowly dissolving candy as he lets Zoro lead him over to the bed.
Sanji pulls his shirt off and lets it drop to the floor before taking a seat at the edge of the mattress, too tired and distracted at this point to care about putting it away properly. Zoro crawls into his lap immediately, slotting their hips together at the same time as he does their mouths; this kiss is as passionate as it is filthy, all tongues and teeth and breathless noises pulled from the backs of throats. Zoro grinds down on him and Sanji groans as he feels his cock twitch in response, interested despite the exhaustion weighing the rest of him down. That arousal only grows as Zoro begins mouthing at his neck and then moving downwards, sliding slowly off Sanji’s lap so that he can kiss and nip and lick his way over his chest and abdomen before finally coming to his knees on the floor, face buried between Sanji’s legs. He presses his nose and mouth against the rapidly growing bulge there, breathing in deeply before letting it out with a controlled exhale. Sanji feels the warmth of it even through the fabric of his pants and he groans, sinking a hand into the thick, green mop of Zoro’s hair; his nails scratch lightly at the scalp, and Sanji can’t help but grin at the pleased noise he gets in response.
“You’re such a fucking house cat,” he teases as Zoro urges him to lift his hips so he can slide Sanji’s pants and underwear off, the last word turning into more of a hiss as his erection is freed to the cool air of the apartment.
Zoro gives him a stink-eyed look for his comment, the effect of which is largely lost thanks to the inky blackness of his pupils within their thin rings of hazel-grey, gaze already wide and needy with desire. It also clearly doesn’t deter him from focusing on the task at hand, because as soon as Sanji’s pants are off his legs (his socks and the garters holding them up are left untouched, much to Sanji’s amusement), Zoro dives in to begin lapping at the half hard length of Sanji’s cock.
“Shit,” Sanji swears, hand spasming in Zoro’s hair as he wastes no time, licking his way up the shaft before taking Sanji into his mouth with no hesitation whatsoever. Sanji lets out a colorful string of curses that get lost with a long, loud moan as Zoro begins bobbing up and down, tongue hot and slick where it flutters along the underside and swirls around the tip. “Fuck moss, yeah that’s it, god you look so fucking good when you’re sucking cock—”
And he does, truly; pretty pink lips stretched wide, face flushed red all over, dark green lashes fluttering against his cheeks as Zoro works to take more and more of Sanji into his mouth while his cock rapidly fills out in full arousal. When his gaze flickers upwards Sanji can see that his eyes are already glassy, reflexive tears leaking out of the corners as he pushes himself too far too fast and gags around Sanji’s length; but like the stubborn bastard that he is, Zoro still refuses to back off, and Sanji can’t help laughing breathlessly when he chokes a second time.
“Still can’t take all of me, marimo?” he taunts, mean in the way he knows Zoro likes, sharp and just a little humiliating. Zoro glares up at him, a single tear breaking containment to trickle down the side of his face as he pulls back, letting Sanji’s cock slip free of his mouth with an obscene pop.
“Shut up,” he rasps, voice rough around the edges in a way that makes Sanji’s blood boil, heart beginning to pump fast and hard against his ribcage even though he can still feel the lingering exhaustion like a weight on every limb, weariness sunk all the way down into the bones from how long Sanji has been awake. He blinks a few times, fighting the heaviness that wants to drag his eyelids down; the last thing he wants to do right now is make Zoro rush, but Sanji’s also worried that if the mosshead takes much longer, he might actually fall asleep before he can get off (which is really more Zoro’s thing, and Sanji would hate to steal it from him).
Almost as if he can sense Sanji’s trepidation, Zoro moves to stand up, taking his shirt off in one fluid motion to reveal a large expanse of golden bronze abdomen and the toned mounds of his pecs. Then he shucks off his sweats, and Sanji is further treated to the sight of Zoro’s cock, already hard and chubby from where it peaks out between his folds. His mouth waters on reflex, and Sanji wonders for a moment if maybe he could rally himself enough to eat Zoro out for just a little bit; but before he gets very far with that thought Zoro returns, urging Sanji to lie down by pushing and prodding gently until he’s sprawled across the bed with Zoro straddling his hips.
Sanji’s body sinks immediately into the comforting embrace of the mattress, and he struggles to keep his eyes from slipping closed as tiredness settles over him like a blanket, soft and warm. It doesn’t help at all when Zoro leans over to kiss him slow and deep, tongue probing at Sanji’s mouth with only a light touch, almost like he doesn’t want to disturb him. He lets out a soft, pleased noise that makes the heat in Sanji’s stomach pulse in time with the insistent need at the back of his skull to sleep, sleep, sleep, and Sanji’s just about to break away and tell Zoro he might, possibly, maybe need to hurry up a little when he feels a hand wrap around his cock and start stroking just the way Sanji likes it—long and languid, squeezing at the base on the downstroke and teasing at the head with a thumb when coming up.
He groans against Zoro’s mouth where it’s still taking its time with kissing him, heels pressing into the mattress as Sanji lifts his hips further into Zoro’s touch. Zoro lets out a breathy laugh that Sanji swears he can feel all the way down to his toes, and then he’s backing off, straightening up as he aligns his hips over Sanji’s, cock still in hand.
Sanji blinks up at him slowly; it takes a second for his exhaustion-addled brain to catch up with what’s missing here, but when it does his hands immediately fly to Zoro’s hips to try and make him pause. He knows Zoro likes it rough, but there’s no way in hell Sanji’s letting the idiot try and take him dry with no prep. “Marimo, wait,” he pants. “Don’t just—”
But Zoro doesn’t listen, catching the head of Sanji’s dick against his folds before sinking down onto him in one easy, fluid motion, and Sanji lets out a truly pathetic noise as he’s hit with the sudden sensation of warm, wet, slick—slicker than he thought, slicker than Zoro should be without the use of any lube. And he takes Sanji in so easily, only the barest hint of resistance in the press of his walls around Sanji’s cock, the fit snug but nothing that feels like it could be painful on the receiving end.
“What…?” Sanji breathes out when Zoro settles fully down on him, delighted but very confused.
Zoro grins, sharp-toothed and smug. “Told you I had it all planned out,” he says, breathless but still holding the faint edge of a taunt, and Sanji’s eyes go wide as dinner plates.
“You got yourself ready for me?” he asks, staring up at Zoro in awe as the hands wrapped around his hips squeeze tightly, fingers digging into supple flesh hard enough to bruise. Zoro doesn’t really like masturbating, purportedly never having really seen the point before he started hooking up with Sanji, and definitely not seeing it after. The idea that he purposefully took the time to get himself wet and worked up (which isn’t always easy) makes fire catch inside Sanji’s body like he’s a marshmallow over an open flame, everything going hot and gooey and sticky-sweet all at once.
Zoro hums an affirmative as he rolls his hips, and Sanji groans loudly, already bucking to try and chase the sensation of Zoro clenching around him. Zoro gives a few more experimental undulations, like he’s searching for a particular angle, and Sanji feels the shudder that runs through him when he finds it, turning his still smug smile into something soft and pleased and just a little bit needy. “There we go,” Zoro murmurs, more to himself than to Sanji, and then lifts himself up halfway off on Sanji’s cock before slamming back down, starting to ride him in earnest.
It’s not like they’ve never done this before. In fact, Zoro on his lap is one of Sanji’s favorite ways of having him, but Zoro’s such a pillow princess most of the time that he rarely takes the initiative to move on his own; more often it’s Sanji either taunting him into action, or just bouncing Zoro up and down on his cock himself. Having Zoro like this—fully engaged, muscles visibly working underneath the beautiful bronze stretch of his skin, a litany of filthy noises spilling from his soft pink mouth in time with the rhythm of his hips—is such a rare and delectable treat that Sanji’s exhaustion starts fading into mere background noise because he doesn’t want to miss a single second of this. He wants the image of Zoro red-faced and trembling while he rides him burned into the backs of his eyelids, wants the echo of his needy moans and desperate whines inside his ears to never fade, wants to feel the sweat-tacky heat of his skin beneath his palms forever. He wants Zoro—clenching around his cock, wrapped in the tight embrace of his arms, stuck between his ribs and melting into the soft tissue of his heart.
“Fuck, sweetheart,” Sanji breathes when Zoro lets out a particularly loud noise, hands clenching in the sheets where they’ve planted themselves on either side of Sanji’s head for better leverage. “Oh you’re so beautiful like this, so fucking gorgeous, such a pretty little thing, all for me.”
Zoro moans, lashes fluttering against his cheeks as he struggles to keep his eyes open, dragged down by the waves of the pleasure coursing through him, pleasure that Sanji can feel leaking out around his cock, wet and dripping and making an absolute mess between them. His dick stands out even more now, the flushed red of it standing in sharp contrast to the surrounding green thatch of hair, which is dark and damp from Zoro’s slick and excess lube. It twitches when Sanji calls him pretty, almost like it’s trying to draw attention to itself—and who would Sanji be to deny such a sweetly made request?
Sanji removes one hand from its death grip around Zoro’s hips so that he can start thumbing at his poor neglected dick, rubbing small circles over the fat head with the kind of light, teasing touch that he knows drives Zoro’s crazy. Zoro lets out a strangled yell and drops from his hands to his forearms where he’s braced against the mattress, biting his lip against a whimper when Sanji doesn’t let up.
“Feel good, marimo?” Sanji can’t help purring, and Zoro lets out a loud, low groan.
“Yes,” he gasps as his rhythm begins to falter, hips stuttering as he clenches even harder around Sanji’s cock. “Hngh, yes, yesyesyes, just like that, fuck—”
He starts making a series of gasping little inhales that means he’s close, and Sanji is struck by the sudden realization that he doesn’t want Zoro to come on his cock—he wants him to come on his mouth.
“Stop for a sec,” he commands, voice completely fucked out but firm nonetheless, and like the good boy he is Zoro pauses, though not without letting out a sharp, disappointed cry.
“What the fuck?” he whines, shaking with the effort of not letting himself tip over the edge. “Why—”
“Wanna taste you,” Sanji explains as his hands move to urge Zoro off his cock, gasping as it leaves the sweet warmth of his pussy and gets hit with the cool air of the room instead. “C’mon, up, up—”
Zoro groans, muttering under his breath about ‘perverted shitty love cooks’ even as he complies, scrambling up the length of Sanji’s body so that he can seat himself on his face. He doesn’t bother with the pretense of trying to hover, instead letting all of his weight sink Sanji’s head back into the mattress and muffling his loud, satisfied moan. Sanji wraps a hand around his slick-soaked cock, pumping himself in a quick tempo while he laps greedily at the mess of Zoro’s folds, the taste of slick and lube and Sanji’s own pre blooming to life on his tongue, and Zoro lets out the most desperate noise he’s made all evening, high pitched and whining and shaky around the edges as he starts rocking his hips again. Sanji moans loudly in response, shifting his angle slightly so that Zoro can rut the hard swell of his dick along the flat of his eager tongue, and within seconds Zoro is coming, crying out as his thighs spasm around Sanji’s head and slick pulses out of him, dribbling down Sanji’s face and neck and onto the sheets beneath. Sanji follows close behind, cock kicking against his palm when his grip tightens nearly to the point of pain, hips bucking wildly as he rides out the orgasm.
The afterglow sets in hard and fast afterwards, compounded by Sanji’s sudden burst of exertion and weighed against the exhaustion that starts to make itself known again, pulling heavily as his limbs and eyelids with the siren call of sleep. Sanji can feel himself starting to fade as Zoro moves off him, sliding back down his torso until they’re chest to chest, nuzzling into Sanji’s neck and licking coyly at the mess he left all over his face. Sanji makes a vague, pleased noise, turning his head to seek out a kiss that Zoro grants readily; the hint of Zoro that he can taste inside his own mouth makes Sanji’s spent cock twitch, and he feels a pang of regret that he’s literally about to pass out, because otherwise he certainly wouldn’t mind going again.
“Should clean up,” he mumbles against Zoro’s mouth, words slurring together as sleep begins to drag him under. He tries to fight it, flopping one hand about in a useless scramble to search for something to wipe up that probably isn’t even there, but then Zoro moves to press his lips gently to Sanji’s forehead and murmurs against his sweaty hairline—
“Let me take care of it. You sleep.”
For once in his life, Sanji finds himself hard pressed to argue. He’s already half gone and rapidly slipping the rest of the way into dreamland, barely cognizant enough to get out a final, “Love you, moss,” before his eyes flutter shut.
The last thing Sanji hears before he finally blacks out is, “Love you too, curls. Happy Valentine’s Day.”