New Life

Title: New Life: Chapter 8
Author: Genuinelie(s)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine.

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Chapter Eight
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Sanji awoke sometime later with the disconcerting feeling that someone was watching him. A thin stripe of moonlight was the only illumination in the dark cabin, making Sanji strain his eyes to see. Zoro was still sleeping beside him, snoring like he had bees stuck up his nose.

Squinting, Sanji made out a dark shape perched by their feet. “Who’s there?” he demanded quietly.

The shape leaned forward, and Luffy’s face came into focus. With Zoro’s arm still cushioning his head and his own arms still wrapped around the other man’s chest, Sanji felt a deep blush crawl up his neck to his cheeks.

“Just me,” Luffy whispered.

Embarrassed, Sanji shifted, wincing slightly at the pain in his stomach, but retracting his arms and pushing himself up until he was seated at a shallow incline against his pillow. Zoro didn’t wake. “This, uh-” Sanji started.

Luffy grinned. “I know you guys sleep together. It’s ok.”

Sanji’s cheeks burned. He cleared his throat. “So what’re you doing here?”

“Wanted to see how you were doing,” Luffy said simply.

“In the middle of the night?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Also,” Luffy gave him a sheepish grin, “I was hungry.”

Sanji smirked at him. “Sorry, chore boy, but you’re gonna have to fend for yourself. At least for a day.”

Luffy grinned wider. “That’s ok. That just means I can have all the meat I want.”

“It does not!” Sanji growled, alarmed. “We have days before we reach All Blue -”

But Luffy laughed at him. It had been two years since their captain had been quite so airheaded as to eat all their supplies. So Sanji settled back against the pillow, seething mildly.

An especially loud snore from Zoro broke the moment. Luffy lost his grin and instead stared wide-eyed at his injured cook. It was the blank stare he got on his face whenever the young Pirate King tried to think.

It always made Sanji nervous. “Spit it out,” he said.

“I’ve never seen Zoro that shook up,” his captain mused.

That made Sanji uncomfortable. “Yeah?” He drawled. “That just shows what an idiot he is. I’m fine.”

Luffy cocked his head. “He lost someone before, did you know that?”

Sanji had gathered it from the little the swordsman had said over the years about his promise and his damned swords, but he didn’t know the details so he gave an uncommitted shrug. “Yeah? So? Why’re you telling me this?”

“I like Zoro. And I like you. And both of you are kind of my first mates, although I guess Zoro is now if that’s ok with you.”

Sanji gave a slight nod at this. He wasn’t offended, and actually, he had just assumed that’s how it would be from the moment Zoro found them. He had no desire to be first mate to begin with. He was a chef, and he was good at it, and that was enough. He had always felt like he was wearing a designer suit that didn’t fit well in that role anyway.

At Sanji’s nod, Luffy continued, “I guess what I’m saying is, I want you both to be happy. So be careful, ok?”

Sanji swallowed. “With what?”

“With Zoro.” Luffy frowned at him, as though irritated he wasn’t getting it. It was the true speech of a best friend, and suddenly Sanji felt very alienated in Zoro’s bed.

Sanji frowned at him. “Aren’t you worried he’s going to hear you? He’s right there.”

Luffy shook his head and pointed. “Naw. See that twitch by the corner of his mouth? That means he won’t wake up for anything. At least not easily.”

Sanji didn’t ask how Luffy knew that, and he didn’t really like the knot of jealousy it formed in his stomach either. He didn’t think they had been like that, but when it came down to it he didn’t really want to know.

“So why’re you telling me this now?”

Luffy grinned at him. “’cause you can’t go anywhere.”

“Little brat,” Sanji muttered, groaning and closing his eyes.

Silence fell over the cabin. For a long moment Sanji thought Luffy had left. But then he heard a quiet whisper, “Sanji? It’s not like that. We’re just best friends. And it’s ok.”

The tense knot in his stomach loosened. Sanji let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

He fell asleep before he could see whether Luffy stayed or left.

*****

Sanji was woken up a second time by a high keening sound. Blinking open his eyes, he saw that it was still the dead of the night, although the stripe of moonlight on the floor was a little closer to the wall.

After a moment he realized the strange sound was coming from Zoro. Peering at his face, he saw this lips moving.

“Kui-” the swordsman whispered, but his eyes were still clenched tight. Sanji felt movement, and looking down he saw Zoro’s hands clutching erratically at the sheets.

“Oi.” Sanji whispered. “Oi, marimo. Knock it off.”

Zoro muttered something, but didn’t stop his twitching.

Sanji jabbed him in the arm. Zoro flailed an arm, hitting Sanji squarely in the stomach. “Oof!” He coughed, then growled louder, “Oi! Dumbass! Wake the hell up!”

“Can’t...de-” Zoro mumbled in response. “-gotta beat...”

Sanji glowered at him. Beating? Was the fucker dreaming about him?

“Yeah, you beat me,” Sanji snarled at him finally, then added, “...in your dreams.” And tomorrow I’m really gonna kick your ass, Sanji noted silently.

That seemed to do the trick. Zoro settled down, and his unnerving, frantic muttering fell back into the easy rise and fall of a snore.

Sanji sighed. “Marimo,” he muttered. A moment later Zoro flung an arm across his chest, rolling over to face him. Sanji didn’t shove it off.

He stared at Zoro’s now-peaceful face. His eyebrows were still clenched slightly, looking annoyed even in his sleep. It was still strange to him that sleeping next to the swordsman felt as natural as fighting him. And neither activity really diminished the desire to do the other. Sanji acknowledged that the conflicting desires of fucking and kicking the swordsman were what made their relationship whole.

Their earlier conversation came back to him.

"If you'd told me this was an option, shit swordsman, I would have spent less time kicking your head in."

"I thought you'd kick it harder."

"Maybe."

"Because of Nami."

He didn’t know if the bushido was right or not. Sanji liked women. He liked the effort it took to woo them, he liked how they thought, he liked kissing them and he liked sleeping with them. He hadn’t changed. He still liked women. But no woman he had ever been with had given him the feeling of wholeness that he felt by being with the snoring lummox beside him.

It wasn’t that he was against it. It was just that it had never occurred to Sanji to like men.

Nami had been perfection, but their relations (not, Sanji sighed to himself, a relationship) had always been a mix of pleasure and heart-wrenching soul-crushing pain. As had all of his relations with women, if he thought hard enough about it. But he enjoyed it. He liked the chase, and the effort, and how it kept him from ever getting bored.

But the strange thing was, was that it was almost the same with Zoro. The constant bickering, the pull for power, the fights that were always a match of equals. And how neither man ever seemed to hold back, either when they were fighting or making love.

Making love. Sanji’s wheels ground to a halt. He hadn’t called it that yet, either aloud or to himself.

Zoro was drooling slightly into the pillow, his green hair mussed. The crease between his eyes had cleared, and for once the swordsman looked peaceful.

Sanji smiled at him, for once without the smirk. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Zoro’s open mouth.

The other man’s lips responded, and a second later the swordsman blinked open bleary eyes. Sanji pulled back, studying him. “Oi,” Zoro mumbled sleepily. “Tired. Sleep.”

“Yeah,” Sanji said, and leaned forward again. He nibbled at Zoro’s bottom lip, then thrust his tongue gently between his teeth.

Zoro closed his eyes again. For a moment he responded by stroking Sanji’s tongue with his own, but a second later his mouth went slack and he snored right into Sanji’s throat.

Sanji finished his kiss and pulled back, chuckling.

“Love you,” he mumbled, content that he was the only one who knew.

He let the pull of sleep drag him back under.

*****