Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

As she shoulders open a sticky, lop-sided door, the most beautiful person Sanji's ever seen says, "And here's your room!"

Person? No, an angel. No way she came from this plane of existence.

"You're perfect," he sighs.

"Rent is eleven hundred a month." Her smile puts the sun to shame. "Utilities included. Since you'd be helping out by subleasing on such short notice, the landlord's willing to waive the security deposit."

Sanji suspects a few arms had to be twisted for that deal, but he’s known Nami for all of fifteen minutes and there's already a non-zero chance he'd cut off his own foot if she asked for it. Not that she would—what's a foot to a goddess?

A spider the size of his fist scuttles up the wall of the bedroom she’s showing him, which has clearly seen better days. It reeks heavily of mildew. The carpet in the corner looks burned, like someone dropped an iron there and let it linger. 

Nami leans in and peeks up at him from under her lashes while twirling a strand of bright orange hair around her long, delicate finger. Her shirt is cut dangerously low, and Sanji’s only a man. He’s not strong enough to resist looking. 

"How soon can I move in?"

She claps her hands. "As soon as the check clears for your first month's rent." 

A shiver of ecstasy runs down his spine. Soon, he'll be living with this absolute smokeshow, waking up to her beautiful face and bangin' body every day. Luckily he came prepared—his checkbook's in his coat pocket. And Nami—sweet, thoughtful, wonderful Nami—has a pen ready for him before he has to ask.

Heaven. This is heaven.

"So, is that your room?" he asks, nodding toward the closed door on the opposite side of the hallway. 

"Huh?" She slides the folded check into her bra and squints at him. "Uh, no. I don't live here. I'm just helping a friend out—he's not great at this stuff. Did I not mention that? Whoops."

He. A pit starts to form in Sanji's stomach.

"Oh."

"Sorry—I assumed you’d notice the pheromones. This place reeks, right? Well, that's what happens when two idiot alphas decide to move in together." She pauses. "No offense."

"Right, the pheromones." Sanji knocks the heel of his hand against his forehead. "Duh. My mistake." 

All at once, he needs a smoke. Or three. 

"Zoro's not home much," Nami continues, already texting someone at a thousand words per minute. "You probably won't see him for a few days, and when he's here he mostly sleeps. That's why Luffy bailed. Couldn’t stand being alone all the time."  

She snaps her phone shut and gives him a thumbs up.

"I'm gonna go deposit this baby, and I'll let you know when you've got the all-clear to move in."

Later, after she's locked the apartment again and they're headed down to the parking lot, Sanji summons his courage and shoots his shot.

"Do you want to grab a coffee or something?"

"Bank closes at five.” There’s that smile again, brighter than any star in the sky and sharper than any knife in his collection. "See you later!"

And just like that, the most beautiful person he's ever seen walks away. And what a joy—an honor—it is to watch her leave.  

In the end, he's left with a pack of cigarettes, the enormity of what he's just agreed to, and a growing sense of dread. Moving out of the old man's place already felt huge and daunting and overwhelming enough on its own. Moving into this shithole with a stranger? With an alpha stranger? 

Lingering on it won't do him any good. He already signed the check, and Zeff was always going to nag him into moving out one way or another. At least this place is just a few blocks away from the restaurant and his old place, so Sanji'd never be too far in the event of an emergency.

That's what matters. Everything else is just noise.

So he tells himself. But still he lingers in the parking lot, driver's seat reclined all the way back and window cracked to let the cigarette smoke filter out and the balmy summer air slide in. One, two, three cigarettes later, he sits up, drops the parking brake, and goes about his day. Same old, same old. 

The check clears on Wednesday, so he moves in the following Saturday. 

Zeff has to prep the restaurant, but he lends him his pickup truck to make the move easier, and they both gamely ignore the others' teary eyes when Sanji accepts the keys. During the drive, it strikes Sanji twice over that he’ll probably never live with Zeff again. It’s a thought too big and too heavy to have while gripping the wheel of a car, and it damn near knocks the breath out of his lungs. 

At least there's Nami, putting the whole neighborhood to shame in a bright yellow bikini top, low rise jeans, and a sky-high ponytail. 

"You're late," she complains. "Oh well. Here's the key, and here's some numbers if you need anything."

She hands him a list, and he wastes no time looking it over. There are numbers for the landlord, maintenance, a nearby takeout place, and his new roommate. Zoro. Even the shape of his name gets on Sanji’s nerves, which feels rude to linger on in Nami’s presence so he starts studying the wi-fi network name and password instead.

"Zoro got called out of town for a job, so the place is all yours for a few days." She looks over her sunglasses at him. "Don't steal anything, 'kay?"

"No stealing," he agrees immediately. "You can believe in me, Nami dear!"

What's he gonna do? Not obey her every word? Yeah right. 

Nothing in that dump could be worth all that much anyway. Based on what he saw the other day, at least.

"Good," she grins. "Alright. Have fun!" 

Once again, he watches her go. It is, hands down, the best part of his day. 

The rest of the evening he spends unloading the boxes and small furniture he fit in the bed of Zeff's truck; later, when Patty and Carne show up with the rest of his things, they argue over getting his bed upstairs and wrestle over the box of Sanji's beloved magazine collection and wolf down a gourmet pizza. 

It's all such noisy, sweaty, stinky work that Sanji barely has time to think about anything else. Not the ache of already missing Zeff, not the dread of living with another alpha for the first time in eight years—nothing. 

The others leave a little after midnight. They bitched and moaned all day long, but it's not lost on Sanji that everything was unpacked and put together. There are no more plates to stick in the cabinets or candles to peel out of bubble wrap. The tiny two-bedroom-one-bath apartment is probably as clean as it's been in a decade, and Sanji's sleek, gleaming furniture sticks out like a sore thumb next to the grubby, moth-eaten couch and the teetering tower of loose DVDs and video game disks stacked next to the entertainment center.

If Zoro's living room was sparsely decorated (to put it mildly), the kitchen was absolutely empty. A jar of pickles had been left in the fridge and forty individual packets of hot sauce were in a drawer. The only dishware to be found was a stack of paper plates and fistful of plastic forks. 

Not anymore, of course. Now the cabinets, drawers, and countertops are stuffed with Sanji's pots and pans; glasses and mugs; ladles and spatulas. Plus a small army of spices. It's hard not to feel a surge of pride taking it all in for the first time: his own kitchen.

Assuming his roommate never uses it. Which—given the pickles, hot sauce, and single-use cutlery situation—seems to be the case.

It's not until he's showered, slid into his pajamas, and climbed into bed that the homesickness starts to creep in.

His new room is too small and not dark enough. The light from a nearby streetlamp filters in through the blinds and the curtains. The ceiling fan rattles in a different rhythm than the one back home. The air conditioning actually works, so he's not sweating at all, even under his blankets.

He doesn't fall asleep for a long time.

His dreams are blurry, hazy things. Someone's there, but he can't see who. So he opens his mouth and gulps in the air, trying to see by taste and smell. Even in his dreams, he senses nothing. Even in his dreams, something's wrong with him.

Time passes slowly those first few days. He calls Zeff each morning to nag and be nagged at, smokes his cigarettes on the balcony, and keeps himself busy by cooking unnecessarily extravagant meals for one. It's an easy, uncomplicated sort of life. 

There's novelty to living alone: finally he can jerk off in the shower without feeling scrutinized for how long it takes to "wash his hair." Other than the gross couch, everything in the shared spaces is his, which fills him with a weird sense of pride. Maybe that's odd, feeling proud of a place with peeling and discolored paint on every wall. And yet.

He still keeps his magazine collection in a box under his bed though. Some habits aren't meant to be broken. 

It's not until Thursday—damn near a week later—that he finally meets his new roommate. It happens like this:

Sanji rolls out of bed just after dawn, stumbles into the bathroom for a piss then out to the balcony for a smoke, and gets to work on an omelette. Somewhere between sautéing the mushrooms and dicing the onions, the front door suddenly bangs open.

And Sanji, a young alpha who was taught self-defense by a cranky old ex-sailor and who is still not totally awake, reacts on simple, brutal instinct to protect a space he has subconsciously come to think of as his.

He throws his knife.

The second it leaves his fingers, he knows he's made a horrible, life-in-jail kind of mistake. But it's too late. No take-backs. All he can do is watch, cuss, and pray.

It pierces the dry wall by the door, missing the sleepy-eyed green-haired man standing in the doorway by less than an inch. He stares at it for a long time, then turns his attention to Sanji.

"You the new guy?" he asks.

His voice is low. He shifts the duffle bag slung over his shoulder and looks entirely unbothered.

"Uh huh," Sanji admits. 

Zoro nods. "Cool."

He yanks the knife out of the wall, kicks the door shut behind him, and disappears down the hallway, dropping the knife on the counter as he passes. 

The entire encounter feels surreal. Sanji's lived with alphas who would have julienned him for a lesser offense. Hell, even Zeff would have dressed him down for a good half hour for damaging a perfectly good kitchen knife like that. But Zoro acted like having a knife thrown at him wouldn't even crack the top five most interesting things to happen to him this morning. 

What kind of monster is this guy? 

Sanji shudders. His whole body feels tense and wound up; he'd physically anticipated a fight, even if he wasn't consciously aware of it. He sighs and collects his damaged knife, looking down at the blade forlornly. 

As far as first impressions go, it could have gone worse. But it could have gone a helluva lot better, too. 

Like most things, it's not worth stewing over. They don't see each other again for three days.

That’s how Sanji’s new life begins: with a beautiful babe cashing his check, a knife in the wall, and a vague sense of foreboding. Like, at any given moment, the other shoe could drop. Zoro could give up the ghost and come into that stereotypical alpha temper Sanji knows too well. Then Sanji’d really be up shit creek without a paddle. 

“That’s your problem,” Patty accuses late one night when they’re both rolling silverware. “All you do is bitch about alpha-this and alpha-that. You’re an alpha too, you know! Skinny brat.” 

“Every rule has an exception,” Sanji counters. “Like when Zeff says everyone in this kitchen pulls their weight, no one thinks that includes you.”

They end up in a heated competition to stack their silverware as high as they can. But they fight dirty and Patty’s tower of cutlery ends up collapsing and Zeff cusses them out about it until he's red in the face. Then he puts Sanji on dish duty the rest of the week, which is a pain in the ass, but whatever. Sanji’s stack of silverware remains upright and perfect—he won this round, just like every one that’s come before and every one that will come after.

“See?” Patty spits. “Stereotypical alpha if I ever saw it.”

“Better get your eyes checked then, you overgrown toe.”

The thing is—though Sanji’d never say it out loud—Patty’s not wrong. Sanji’s competitive and stubborn. He also spends a lot of time curating a very specific image for himself, and he takes a lot of pride in his cooking. He’s got a short temper and doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut, and he’s sensitive about all sorts of weird, illogical shit. All typical, stupid alpha mannerisms that he couldn’t shake even if he wanted to. 

But none of that ever felt like alpha to him.

To him, alpha is a father and brothers who stand heads and shoulders taller than him, who respond to any situation with violence, who mock and belittle and—

And Sanji? Sanji is nothing like them.

He’s the exception to the rule. But if he’s the exception, what the hell is Zoro? With any luck, he’ll continue to be away from the apartment for long stretches of time so Sanji will never have to find out.

But Sanji’s not exactly the world’s luckiest guy. So when he comes home after a shift one night to see Nami—gorgeous in a purple mini dress and heels longer than his neck—fussing over Zoro’s new leg cast, he takes a few moments to process what this means for his life, appreciate Nami’s curves, and long for a smoke.

“What were you thinking?” Nami demands. “Jumping off a building? Forget about your broken leg, you could have broken your neck!”

“There was a mattress.”

If looks could kill, Nami would have murdered Zoro three times over by now. “A mattress.”

“A big mattress.”

Before she can tear into him for how utterly unhelpful that clarification is, the stranger in Sanji’s kitchen opens the refrigerator and says, “Whoa! Look at how much food there is!”

“It’s the new guy’s,” Zoro grouses. “Don’t touch it.”

“Do you really think he’d mind?” The man in Sanji’s kitchen is wearing a boiler suit, and his long, dark, curly hair is gathered in an impressive bun on the top of his head. “This is a lot of food…”

“Just ingredients, right now,” Sanji agrees.

Nami and guy-in-kitchen jump at the sound of his voice; Zoro just glances his way, then tips his head back to frown at the ceiling. Sanji peels off his coat and hangs it on the coatrack by the door and starts to roll up the sleeves of his shirt. It’s not the first time he’s been sized up, but even Nami’s hawk-eyed scrutiny feels like a caress.

“Give me ten minutes and I can have something hot for everybody.”

The man in the kitchen—Nami introduces him as Usopp—stumbles out of Sanji’s way to perch on a bar stool overlooking the galley kitchen. Behind him, Nami continues to chew Zoro out, barely pausing for breath. And the lucky, unappreciative bastard just snaps at her.

“Would you cut it out already?” 

“Would you stay still for a minute?” 

“If I got any stiller I’d be dead.”

“Just die then!” 

“Oh, I bet you’d love that, witch.”

“What’d you call me—”

“So your name’s Sanji, right?” asks Usopp. “You really saved Zoro’s butt moving in so quick, you know that?”

Sanji dumps a small mountain of diced vegetables into the skillet. 

“Yeah, Nami mentioned the last guy bailed, right?”

Usopp nods. “Luffy’s not great at things like ‘contracts,’” he explains. “It didn’t help that Zoro left him here by himself most of the time.”

“When I warned him not to,” Nami cuts in. She’s got one of Zoro’s cheeks pinched between two fingers and is pulling on it, which is a good look for him. “But someone decided not to listen.”

Zoro jerks his head away to glower at her. “What do you want from me? I had to work, or do you forget who co-signed this place with me?”

She sighs like the weight of the world is on her shoulders. Sanji’s fingers itch to take that burden from her and massage the stress away. “I should have known I couldn’t trust you two with my credit. That’s on me.”

“You can count on me if you ever need help, Nami!” Sanji promises. He’d rather die than let her credit drop even a single point.

Zoro scoffs. “Yeah? Wait ’til you find out how much this place actually—mmph!”

Nami’s covered his mouth with her hand. “Less talking,” she hisses. “More healing.” A beat. Then: “Oh gross!” She snatches her hand away and rubs it on the musty, dusty arm of the couch.  “What are you, ten?!”

Zoro puts his tongue back in his mouth and smirks. “Maybe.”

“Dinner’s ready,” Sanji announces, already plating four servings of his shrimp fried rice. “But if you lick her again, I’m going to cut your tongue out and serve it up next.”

The apartment goes quiet.

“Bon appétit,” he adds.

Then the laughter starts. Usopp and Nami double over with it, Nami pointing at Zoro and teasing, Your face! Look at your face! while Usopp tips his head back and guffaws.

“For the record, that wasn’t a joke,” Sanji says, but that just makes them laugh harder.

“For the record,” Zoro snarls, “I’d kill you before you could even try, Curly.”

Sanji’s curled eyebrow twitches. “What was that, mosshead?”

The bickering flips Nami’s switch. “Okay, no. Cut that out right now.”

Usopp’s covering his nose. “Yeesh, quit it with the pheromones you guys. Some of us are trying to eat.”

Sanji looks away from Zoro and cuts off the stove. He can feel himself flushing to his hairline. Had he been releasing pheromones? He hadn’t noticed. Shit. He scoops two of the plates off the bar and brings them around to the couch.

“Eat up,” he says, shoving one plate at Zoro. “For you, my sweet,” he says, offering the other to Nami.

She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling as she accepts it. Sanji’s counting that as a win.

“Holy crap!” Usopp all but shouts. “I think this is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

It’s like magic. With just that praise, the weird, tense mood bleeds away, replaced with the happy, appreciative noises of the well-fed. Pride bubbles up in Sanji’s chest. He clears his plate, then steps out onto the balcony to soak up a job well done. Physically, he’s tired from a long shift, but mentally and emotionally? He’s light as air. Nothing can touch him, like this. It’s a high, one that cooking and cooking alone can give him.

He takes a long, slow drag off his cigarette and exhales the smoke out his nose. 

After a while, Usopp and Nami convince Zoro to set up shop in the living room for the next few weeks.

“You’re not going to be moving around much,” Nami reasons with him. “And your mattress is like a rock. The couch might not look like much, but it’ll be way better for you while you’re recovering!”

“I hurt my leg, not my spine,” Zoro argues. “Let me sleep in my bed, woman!”

“I dunno, I think I agree with Nami,” says Usopp. “This way, Sanji will be able to keep an eye on you and make sure you’re not sticking weird stuff under your cast when your leg gets itchy.”

“You think I’m not tough enough to ignore a little itching?” Zoro demands. At Nami and Usopp’s heavy silence, he raises his voice. “I don’t even get itchy!”

“I’ve heard some dumb shit in my life,” says Sanji, “but that takes the cake. What do you mean you don’t get itchy?”

Zoro’s jaw tightens. “What it sounds like. I don’t get itchy.”

“Everyone gets itchy. Are you saying there’s something wrong with you? Should we haul your ass back to the hospital?”

“I’d like to see you try—“

“Wow, twice in one night?” Nami scolds. “Stop it, you two. Zoro, you’re sleeping on the couch. At least for the first few nights. Sanji, you’ll help him out if he needs anything, right? He’s going to need a few days to get used to the crutches.”

“Will not—“ Zoro starts.

“Anything for you, Nami,” Sanji swears.

“Perfect!” Her smile is tight. “Problem solved. Right?” She directs the question at Zoro. He glares at her until she repeats, “Right, Zoro?”

“Whatever.”

“Why are you suddenly so stubborn?” Usopp asks. He’s taken it upon himself to stack all the dishes in the sink, but Sanji waves him off before he can start washing them. “You never gave Luffy such a hard time.”

“Well, what do you expect?” Nami sighs. “Luffy’s Luffy.”

Whatever that means, they all seem to accept it with a round of shrugs. Nami disappears into Zoro’s room and returns with a couple of pillows, and Zoro lets her stuff them under his knees and ankles before Usopp drapes a thin, soft-looking blanket over him.

“Aw,” he says, rummaging in his pocket. “This is actually pretty cute. Hold on, I’m getting a picture.”

“Huh?!” 

“Oh, good idea!” Nami squats near Zoro’s face and flashes a peace sign. “Cheese!”

The camera flashes, and once again Nami and Usopp dissolve into peals of laughter. 

All things considered, it’s a pretty good end to a long, hard day.

Just as Nami decided, Zoro camps out on the couch for most of the next week. Sometimes he talks in his sleep—disjointed grumbles and the occasional gibberish—but he rarely snores, and usually all it takes to make him stop is nudging his pillow to change the angle of his head and neck. Simple enough. And since he sleeps like a log, that never wakes him. All the better.

But it’s not like he sleeps all day, and whatever his job is, he’s apparently not allowed to come back until his cast comes off in six to eight weeks. Which means that for the first time since he moved in, Sanji can pretty much count on seeing Zoro awake at least once every day. 

Which, you know. Sucks. 

At first it’s easy enough to play the part of a good, easygoing roommate—he enjoys having a reason to cook for more than one person, actually. Zoro doesn’t have enough stuff to make a mess, and Sanji would sooner light himself on fire than sit on that couch, so it should be fine.

The problem is biological: alphas get territorial. 

There’s shades to it, of course—they’re not animals, no matter what crap those fringe fundamentalists like to peddle on college campuses. But on some instinctual level, Sanji is wired to be aware of the presence of other alphas. He’s also wired to take pride in spaces that feel like his, and for the last several weeks, he’d unintentionally adapted to thinking of the kitchen and the living room as exactly that. He was allowed to roam free and unchecked for too long in the apartment.

And now Zoro’s staking a counterclaim on a six-by-four corner of Sanji’s “territory,” and it’s starting to drive Sanji nuts.

Morning? There he is, one hand on his stomach and the other arm flung out so his knuckles brush the floor. Afternoon? There he is, struggling to find his balance on crutches and wobbling his way between the living room and the kitchen and back. Evening? There he is, trying to sneak his fork off the plate Sanji gave him and probably plotting to use it to scratch the skin under his cast.

“I thought you didn’t get itchy,” Sanji snaps, snatching the fork back before Zoro can shove it between the couch cushions.

“I told you already, you bastard. It’s not for scratching!”

Sanji’s raises his brows. “Is that right? What’s it for, then?” 

A muscle in Zoro’s jaw tightens. “Self defense.”

“Aw, is the little moss ball scared? Having nightmares?”

“In case you didn’t notice, shitty cook, I’ve been reading a lot of news this week. There have been eleven car break-ins on our street in the last month.”

Sanji looks around the apartment. “Does this look like a car to you?”

“Better safe than sorry,” Zoro insists. “Now give me back the damn fork already!”

The first few times they did this song and dance, Sanji had the grace to laugh at him and walk away. What could Zoro do? Chase after him on crutches? 

But each passing day has worn Sanji into a grumpier, less gracious version of himself. So tonight goes a little different.

“Listen here, asshole,” he snarls. “Nami put me in charge for as long as you’re in that cast. Keep arguing with me and you won’t be eating with anything but your hands for the next two months.” 

He turns on his heel to stomp away. Then Zoro nails him in the back of the head with one of the shitty, moth-eaten throw pillows with so much force it nearly takes Sanji off his feet.

“What the hell was that!” he shrieks, steadying himself against the closest wall. “Did you just try to kill me? With a pillow?!”

Zoro crosses his arms. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Before Sanji can strangle him, someone knocks on their front door.

“Oh, great,” Zoro sighs, slumping down into the couch. “If that’s the witch, I’m not here.”

“Call Nami a witch one more time and I’m going to shove this down your throat,” Sanji swears, shaking the cushion at Zoro before hurling it back at him. 

He catches it, the bastard. 

The person on their doorstep is a somewhat familiar face to Sanji. They’ve been in elevators together and crossed paths in the parking lot a time or two. Sanji’s never seen him in anything but scrubs, and he always looks exhausted. Today, he’s in sweat pants and a black t-shirt and an extremely tacky hat, with circles under his eyes that say he could use a few decades of sleep, give or take.

“Could you guys keep it down?” he asks. “Some of us have early mornings.”

“Sorry about that,” Sanji sighs. “We were just—“

“Is that Traffy?” Zoro shouts.

Sanji looks at the stranger. The stranger nods, but he doesn’t look happy about it.

“If it’s Traffy, let him in. I want his opinion on something.”

Sanji makes himself scarce, but the walls are thin enough that he can hear most of the ensuing conversation.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Traffy’s saying for the third time. “Six weeks is the standard. If that doesn’t work for you, take it up with your actual doctor. Not me.”

“Six weeks for a stupid fracture? It didn’t even hurt that much!”

“Six weeks at least. Pull any more stunts and you’ll have to wear it longer.”

A thump, like Zoro’s knocked his thick skull into the wall. If he dented it, Sanji’s going to make him patch it then strangle him.

“You’re killing me here,” Zoro grumbles. “Six freakin’ weeks like this?”

Neither of them speak for a while until Traffy asks, “When will Luffy be back?” 

“Luffy?” Zoro laughs. “Your guess is as good as mine. Last I heard his brothers swept him away to another country. Might not hear from him for a few months.”

“And that’s… normal?”

“As normal as anything else, with Luffy.” Zoro’s voice sounds different, thick and syrupy warm with affection. “He’ll come back eventually, when he gets bored. Always does.” 

They exchange a few more words before Traffy leaves, but Sanji's already stopped listening.

As the days pass, Zoro gets more comfortable on his crutches and starts to get back to (what Sanji assumes is) his usual routine. Random groceries end up in the refrigerator alongside all of Sanji’s stuff: protein shakes, fish, and a frankly unreasonable amount of pickles. 

“Seven jars.” He counts them again in increasing disbelief, cursing under his breath. “No one needs this many pickles.”

It wouldn’t piss him off so much if he wasn’t convinced Zoro is doing it just to fuck with him. But of course he is—he has to be. What other reason could a guy have for getting seven jars of pickles! There’s not even any variation to them; each and every jar is the same brand of dill spears. And, crucially, Sanji’s never seen him open one. 

It grates on his instincts and his nerves, but it’s not the worst thing that comes from Zoro moving around more. Not when he’s been leaving pools of water on the bathroom floor after every shower and leaving every pair of shoes he owns by the front door. He’s only wearing one these days—why are they all there in pairs? What was the purpose, if not specifically to make Sanji mad?

Then there’s the hair dye.

Sanji finds it in between shifts at the restaurant. He got through the opening shift without an issue but when a migraine started swelling up behind his eyes around midmorning, he knew he’d be running home at the first opportunity to get his meds before customers started arriving for dinner. So when he gets home, he beelines for the kitchen—then stops.

Zoro’s nowhere to be found, but residue from moss green hair dye is drying in a plastic black bowl right by the kitchen sink, and a variety of brushes and combs have been left—still covered in dye and god-knows-what-else—to dry out at the bottom of the sink. The sink that’s not technically Sanji’s but is Sanji’s in every way that counts. Now splattered with runny green hair dye.

“He’s dead,” Sanji swears to whatever higher power might be listening. “I hope he likes being on crutches, because when I’m done with him he’s gonna have to use them the rest of his life.”

The memory plagues him all through the dinner rush. His sink, abused. His space, desecrated. So far, he’s resisted actually biting Zoro’s head off because he was able to ascribe most of his irritability to latent alpha instinct—which Sanji, like many modern alphas, thinks himself entirely above.

But messing up his sink? That’s personal. Now he’s just some guy pissed off at his shitty roommate. 

That he can work with.

Some part of him revels in it, actually. He steams through dinner service and closing tasks and the whole car ride home, sure, but something else simmers just below the surface: eagerness. Now that he finally feels justified to really start a fight, he’s practically planning it in his head. His hands might literally be on the two and ten, but in his mind’s eye they’re wrapped around Zoro’s thick, stupid neck.

So maybe he’s not entirely above all those latent alpha instincts after all. 

But Zoro’s not on the couch when he gets home, which really takes the wind out of Sanji’s sails. Water’s running, though, so he strips off his jacket, kicks aside no fewer than five of Zoro’s shoes, rolls up his sleeves, and glares down the hall at the bathroom door. 

Then he waits. 

And waits. 

And waits some more.

As he waits, he thinks about his sink. About the pools of water in the bathroom. About the constant, low-grade hostility Sanji’s been keeping under wraps for the last couple of weeks while Zoro clearly isn’t losing any sleep over him. Intentionally or otherwise, he hasn’t given Sanji a moment’s reprieve since he broke his stupid leg. So why should he be allowed to shower in peace?

“Wrap it up, asshole!” Sanji hollers, beating his fist on the bathroom door. “We gotta have a little chat.”

“Haah?” 

“You heard me! Wrap. It. Up. Or I’m dragging you out myself.”  

A squeaking sound. The water stops. There’s cussing, thumping, and a wet foot slapping on dry tile.

Zoro throws open the door and a cloud of steam billows out into the hallway. He’s wearing a shower cap to protect his freshly-dyed hair and has wrapped his cast in some sort of contraption made of trash bags and duct tape. 

“What the hell, blondie?!” 

“I should be asking you that!” Sanji shoves a finger in his face. “Next time you dye your hair in my kitchen, I’m shaving your head. Got that?” 

“Your kitchen!” 

“My kitchen,” Sanji agrees. “You can keep buying as many pickles as you want, it doesn’t make it less mine and we both know it.” 

Zoro bats his hand out of the way, but Sanji steps closer and brings it up again.

“I’m not done yet, you bastard. Stop leaving all your shoes by the door! Do you know how many times I’ve almost broken my neck tripping over your shit?!”

Zoro smirks. “Sounds like a skill issue, if you ask me.”

“But I didn’t ask, did I?” Sanji bellows. “If I had it my way, I’d never have to see your stupid face or your stupid green hair again! But seeing as we’re contractually obligated to live together now, the least you can do is stop living like a damn animal!”

He feels a little winded after that, but he stabs his finger into Zoro’s chest one final time for emphasis and refuses to break eye contact. 

Zoro watches him for a moment, then leans in a little. He may have Sanji beat in sheer bulk but they’re pretty much the same height; if he’s trying to loom, it’s not going to work. 

It occurs to Sanji, way later than it should, that Zoro is naked and wet from the waist up. If he were less pissed off right now, he would back down and mutter, Put some clothes on, already, and that would be the end of it. But in this moment? 

“We’re doing this?” Zoro asks. “Like, for real? Right now?”

Sanji’s eyebrow twitches. “Yeah. Right here, right now, for real.” 

Zoro shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

And then they’re kissing.

No. Kisses are soft and warm and bestowed on him by soft and warm women who put their hands on his shoulders and angle their faces up to his. What Zoro does to him meets none of those criteria: he grabs Sanji by the chin, yanks him into position, and smothers his lips with his. Their teeth knock, and it makes Sanji’s whole skull rattle. 

Sanji’s been kissed almost as many times as he’s been sucker-punched. Whatever this is feels like the unholy bastard baby of both.

It takes him too long to unfreeze. The thing that finally does it is the slimy, unwelcome press of Zoro’s tongue against his top lip. He flings out both palms and shoves with all his might, and it says a lot about his state of mind that he doesn’t even enjoy watching Zoro flailing around trying to find his balance in his boot.

“What the hell?!” they both shout at each other in eerie unison. “What is wrong with you?”

A stormy silence follows. Sanji smears the back of his hand over his mouth and glares at Zoro who rubs his chest where Sanji pushed him and glares right back. His still-very-naked-and-wet chest. What the hell. 

“Are you crazy?”

“Am I crazy?!” Zoro hisses. “You were the one coming onto me!”

“Coming—coming onto?!” Sanji’s voice breaks, going high and pitchy with incredulity. “We were fighting!”

Zoro’s brow furrows. “Yeah, and?” 

“And nothing! That’s it, end of sentence! We were fighting!” He feels ridiculous, like he’s having to explain some impossibly simple truth to a toddler who’s just not getting it. “News flash, asshole: you don’t kiss people during a fight!”

“When their pheromones are screaming kiss me, I do!” 

Sanji would be less flattened if Zoro had hit him with a bus. 

“They weren’t.”

“Better get your nose checked, cook, cuz I know what I smelled.”

Sanji slaps a hand over his own nose, like that’s what’s betrayed him here—and in a way, it has, but he thought that issue was dead and buried ten times over by now. 

“You first, mosshead!” he insists. “Even if they were—which they definitely weren’t—I’m an alpha!”

Zoro’s expression twists, and he squares his shoulders and crosses his arms across his chest which kind of makes his pecs look like—no, Sanji shuts that shit down before his brain can take it any further.

“So?”

“So,” Sanji takes his hand off his face to gesture between them, “alpha and alpha doesn’t exactly mix, moron. You wanna make out with someone, go find an omega.”

He’s expecting a lot of things, but he’s not expecting Zoro’s smile. It’s sharp—all teeth and no joy.

“Wow,” he says, mirthlessly. “Fine, I see how it is. We done here?”

Sanji crosses his arms. For some reason, it feels like a defensive gesture. Like instead of projecting strength and confidence, he’s somehow trying to make himself smaller. 

“Don’t dye your hair in the kitchen anymore,” he insists. “And if you’re going to pile up all your shoes, just… move them out of the doorway.”

“Fine,” Zoro spits. “Anything else?”

“Dry off the floor before you leave the bathroom.”

It’s not lost on him that Zoro’s not making any counterdemands here, and Sanji’s not naive enough to believe he’s just being a good and reasonable roommate. No, there’s something sinister lurking behind Zoro’s condescending look. 

Well. It was only a matter of time before he showed his true colors. Sanji knew that from the beginning. 

“Whatever,” Zoro sighs. “Can I finish washing up now?”

Sanji nods curtly.

When the bathroom door slams shut again, he flees.

That night, he dreams of the house he lived in before he had a place to call home. Of his sickly, doting mother and the men who poked and prodded him with all sorts of medical tools before he even started school. He was a baby—too young to make real, lasting memories—when they first discovered his inability to sense pheromones, and it became the singular focus of his so-called father to fix him. So while he doesn’t really remember most of it, that doesn’t stop the nightmares.

Come morning, he finds Zoro sprawled out on the couch and snoring, his shirt hiked up by a hand resting on his belly. Sanji studies him and that long stretch of tanned skin. He’s handsome in that stereotypical alpha way Sanji’s always hated: big, strong, and brightly-colored. Built for flexing, drawing attention, and not much else. What does he even do for a living? Sanji’s never cared enough to ask, and Zoro’s never talked enough for it to come up naturally. 

Nami mentioned him being out of town for work, but other than that—what does he do?

You know who does stuff? Sanji.

He cooks; he shops; he cleans; he dresses well; he takes care of himself, because at some point someone had to do it. He makes himself useful with his hands, not just his muscles. 

And yeah, sometimes he’s wondered what that says about him as an alpha. But he’s never even liked alphas to begin with, so is it really some great loss if other people don’t think he lives up to what they’re supposed to be? 

None of these are new thoughts to him. But something about Zoro’s mouth against his has stirred it all up again. What did he mean when he said Sanij’s pheromones were screaming Kiss me? Where does that bit of information belong in the sea of misgivings he has about his presentation?

That’s a question for another day. For now, Sanji has a fish market to get to and a life to live. One that, gods willing, ought to be blissfully free of kisses from other alphas from here on out. More than anything, he wants things to go back to normal—or their version of normal anyway. Whatever normalcy they had before Sanji came home to hair dye in his kitchen. 

But in the days that come, when Sanji gets his wish and Zoro acts like nothing happened that night, it unnerves him. 

Now that he’s more confident on crutches and there’s less of a chance he’ll need Sanji’s help for anything, Zoro starts sleeping in his room again. The piles of shoes stay near the front door, but kicked aside where they’re marginally harder to trip over, and the pickle jars max out at nine. For a while, they achieve something close to peace in the kingdom, even talking casually over dinner a couple of nights. 

Sanji stays on his toes, though. He saw the look in Zoro’s eye when they wrapped up that last conversation; it’s not one he’s gonna forget anytime soon.

But he’s bracing for a direct assault; maybe an elbow to his gut or an insult to his face. What he’s not prepared for is coming home to a teal-haired beauty with downturned eyes and the longest eyelashes he’s ever seen digging between the cushions of the world’s most raggedy couch. When he sees her, he immediately turns around, walks outside, and checks the number on the door twice before believing his eyes.

“Excuse me.” Her voice as beautiful as a songbird’s and twice as enrapturing. “I’m Hiyori. You must be Sanji.”

“You can call me whatever you’d like,” he assures her, with feeling. 

She hides a giggle behind her fingers, and oh what Sanji would give to kiss every one of her dainty fingertips. He’s in love and lightheaded with it already.

“I was just looking for a marker.” She gestures to the couch. “Zoro said he thought one might have slipped in here…”

“And he made you go look for it?!”

From his room, Zoro shouts, “Hey! You think I wanted that?”

“I told him not to move,” Hiyori explains. “He should be resting, don’t you agree?”

Luckily, Sanji keeps a few permanent markers on hand in the kitchen—just in case—and he procures one for her right away. “I wouldn’t want you risking your pretty nails rooting around in that, Hiyori dear.” 

Even her name is beautiful. It tastes like honey on his tongue. 

She accepts it with big eyes and a bright smile. “Oh, thank you! This is perfect!”

“No, you’re—“ he starts to say, but she’s already down the hall, disappearing into Zoro’s room and closing the door behind her.

Sanji stands in the living room, feeling unmoored and conflicted. On one hand: it’s always a joy to serve a lady. On the other: now she’s in Zoro’s room. Just the two of them. Alone.

“Hey, what are you doing, woman?!” Zoro barks, and Hiyori makes a conciliatory sound, soft and sweet.

Sanji snatches his keys off the counter and flees.

Problem is, he doesn’t have anywhere to go. The restaurant’s closed; Zeff’s probably already asleep. And friends—well, Sanji doesn’t really have friends. 

So he ends up chain-smoking on the sidewalk outside their building. He’s not sure how long he’s there, but at one point Traffy wanders up—presumably from the nearby bus stop—looking haggard in a set of scrubs.

“Want a smoke?” Sanji doesn’t make a habit of offering, but the guy looks so worn out he makes an exception. 

“I want a bath, an edible, and seventy-two hours of uninterrupted sleep,” Traffy says, walking right on by. Up close, his dark circles seem to have dark circles. “Have a nice night, though.”

Yeah, that’s fair. Sanji pockets his pack and exhales a puff of smoke up into the inky dark night. It reminds him of college, in a way. Not that he ever went, but he knows enough of the stereotypes; maybe there wasn’t literally a sock on the doorknob in this case, but he got the picture.

Loud and freakin’ clear.

Now he just has to forget about it. And that’s proving to be a pain in the ass.

Because all Sanji can think about is Zoro’s chapped lips pressed hard against his. The tension in his forearms when he crossed his arms over his chest. The edge in his tone when he’d said Fine, I see how it is. The look in his eye—that damn look! The way Sanji knew in that moment he was up to no good, and now here’s Hiyori, a veritable goddess and—

Is she an omega? Did Zoro take his advice and find someone appropriate to make out with? Or… is she an alpha? Is that what Zoro likes after all? What Sanji wouldn’t give for his nose to work like everyone else’s in the goddamn world for just one night, just to answer this one stupid question and put his restless thoughts to bed.

He smokes his pack empty that night. He doesn’t see Hiyori leave the apartment before he trudges up and sneaks back into his room. The next morning, Zoro wolfs down breakfast, and Sanji pretends not to notice the elegant, looping Hiyori signed on his big dumb boot.

If it stopped with her, that would probably be the end of it. Sanji would fixate for a while, but he’s good at getting over stuff. The madness would pass.

But a few days later, a tall and handsome man knocks on their door. He’s wearing a baseball cap, a zipped-up sweatshirt, and an easy grin. 

“You alive back there, Roronoa?” he calls into the apartment as he kicks his shoes off.

“Gettin’ tired of waiting!” Zoro hollers back. “Any day now, Kaku!”

Sanji leaves before hearing anything else. But it doesn’t stop him from inventing scenarios later that night, when he’s tossing and turning in bed and too aware of Zoro’s noisy sleep talking coming from down the hall. Kaku must have left the door open when he dipped; when Sanji passed by on his way to the bathroom earlier, Zoro’s entire room smelled damp and sweaty. The memory of it follows Sanji into his dreams.

The dreams are shapeless things, full of color and suggestion and not much else. But Sanji wakes up aching and hard and buries his face in his hands as he wills his body to obey. 

When Zoro kissed him, what did his mouth taste like? 

The thought plagues him as he makes breakfast. He doesn’t stick around long enough to see Zoro eat it; the last thing he wants to worry about is what his pheromones might be screaming now.

For as long as he can remember, he’s hated other alphas on principle and the memories of a father and siblings who made his life a living hell. Though he can’t exactly sniff them out, it never takes much effort to spot alphas in the wild—most of them like to brag, after all. But even the quiet ones are hardwired to want attention. To dress up, to wear makeup, to dye their hair, to make themselves big and to stand out. 

And for a long time, Sanji found comfort in those social norms. Being able to spot an alpha from a mile away meant being able to avoid them if he so chose. And choose he did—at least in the case of alpha men. But now he’s realizing a fundamental flaw in this approach: he's stuck sharing space with an alpha all the time, and he’s not at all prepared for how it’s affecting him. 

Frankly, he’s starting to feel crazy.

That night Zoro comes home late with a dark-haired, bespectacled beauty in tow, both of them drenched from the rain.

“Just two more weeks?” she’s asking, obviously frantic. “I can’t push filming back any more than that, you know. We’ll have to reapply for our permits.”

“I heard you the first time, dammit!” Zoro snaps before shaking his head like a wet, mangy dog. 

Sanji’s picking up his stuff before they’re even past the entryway. “Don’t talk to a lady like that, asshole,” he snips on his way out. 

“Don’t tell me what to do, shitty cook!” Zoro hollers after him.

When Sanji shows up on Zeff’s doorstep, waterlogged and brimming with frustration and fury, Zeff sighs—a deep and ancient sound, probably full of every nag in the universe—and lets him in.

Horrible questions start to float around in Sanji’s mind. Questions like what if? As in: what if he hadn’t confronted Zoro that night? Worse: what if he hadn’t pushed Zoro away when he did? Would he have succeeded in licking his way into Sanji’s mouth; would they kiss the way they argue? What would his mouth taste like? His skin? If Sanji hadn’t stopped him, would he have stopped himself?

Truth be told, Sanji knows he’s the one driving himself nuts at this point. But it’s like a bruise he can’t stop pressing; it aches, but he’s too fascinated by his own reaction to stop.

“Wanna talk about it?” Zeff asks him the next morning.

“Old man,” says Sanji, “there aren’t enough words in all the languages in the world combined to express how much I don’t want to do that.”

“Ungrateful brat.” He dumps a small mountain of bacon onto Sanji’s plate. “See if I offer to do anything nice for you ever again.”

Something about Zeff’s gruff, unconventional affection helps Sanji regroup. First things first: he has to eat his breakfast before it gets cold. Nothing gets better on an empty stomach.

Whatever’s going on with him and these feelings will just have to wait.