I did a thing. That thing being finish this chapter one day because I got super bored. I debated for a long time posting this, because I know many of you were probably pissed when I swore up and down I would finish this monster and then never did. I know, my bad, I suck. I stopped fanfictioning altogether, to be honest, and started focusing on my original work as I'm trying to get a book published. But it didn't feel right not to share this chapter with you once I finished it, even though I can't make any promises that there will be more of this story. So you have my deepest apologies, and here is the last chapter I wrote, period, for Stay a While. Hope you enjoy!

Also I finished this two years after starting so if I seem like a different writer towards the end of the chapter, that is why. If you don't despise me, feel free to check out my blog at Introspective Parking-Lot on blogger. It's...interesting. Thanks and try not to hate me! :D

The coffee pot sputtered, spitting out hot, caffeinated goodness like a disgruntled camel. Sanji shot it a disgusted glare before pulling out the ingredients he'd need for breakfast, rubbing still-bleary eyes and wishing he could just inject the coffee directly into his veins. Being in the habit of waking up at four in the morning every day for eleven years did not make the actual waking-up process any easier, which Sanji thought was unbelievably unfair, but what the hell was he supposed to do? Despite the shift of ownership at the Baratie work still started seven o'clock, and it still took an hour to get there, and the morons Sanji lived with still needed to eat breakfast, so when he thought about it not a whole hell of a lot had changed in his life despite the fact that the his former boss and sometimes-cantankerous-father-figure had passed away. He'd always hated that phrase, "passed away," like some train pulling out from a station in one of those shitty foreign films while a woman in a beige dress-suit waves a handkerchief as she slowly fades into the distance. It was like that, and that was stupid as far as Sanji was concerned. Death wasn't that romantic, or dramatic, or well-rehearsed. It was sudden and awkward and often just as simple as a flatline. Or at least that's what it felt like to Sanji, although to be honest he spent a lot of his time trying not to think about it.

But it felt…sort of okay, now, to think about it. In the abstract, maybe, not in excruciating detail, but in the detached sort of way that let him wake up every day, go to the same job he'd worked since he was a kid, make the same dishes, see all the same faces, but never really dwell on the one face he never saw anymore. To think about it, but not think about it. He knew he wasn't completely better yet, most likely never would be, but…he could function. He could function and he could pretend, and that was more than he'd been able to do just a few weeks ago, so he figured he'd count his blessings and not look too closely at it.

And Sanji supposed, eventually, he was gonna need to throw some sort of gratitude party. Or whatever. Some way to let everyone know he appreciated the fact that they were still around when he came out of his stupor. Not that he'd actually expected them to ditch him, but…well, he wouldn't have really blamed them if they had. So a dinner of sorts, nothing too over-the-top or obvious – not like he wanted to encourage any further conversation on the matter – but something nice. The lovely Nami in particular deserved a place of honor for cooking breakfast for all these Neanderthals every morning, and Chopper, too, since he'd pretty much spoon-fed said breakfast to Sanji – which he was honestly kind of fucking mortified to find out about after the fact – and just the general level of quiet support from all the rest of his nakama, and…

And Zoro.

It seriously made Sanji's skin crawl, how much he owed that asshole now. Hell, they barely tolerated each other on a good day, and here Zoro had pretty much single-handedly saved the cook from a slow and unpleasant death-by-cheap-booze. And if last night had been any indication, Zoro was almost amusingly incapable of dealing with gratitude, and Sanji was slightly-less amusingly incapable of showing the marimo gratitude, and so the best course of action for all involved seemed to be to just ignore it. And, hell, that fit Sanji's bill just fine; the less he had to admit that Zoro wasn't a complete fuck-up the better, but he couldn't shake the vaguest rankle that it left in his stomach. His stomach had been pissing him off lately, anyway, since it insisted on fluttering like a swooning little girl on odd occasions, all of which having to do with Zoro and that one time the sink broke and splashed Nami in the chest. The disturbingly wide gap in occurrences between the two sort of made Sanji want to cry, and then end his life with a cheese grater. And much like Zeff shoving off this mortal coil, Sanji was doing his goddamned best not to think about this, either.

So far, it was working out okay. Just so long as he wasn't taken unawares; had plenty of time to mentally prepare and keep any of his mutated pheromones in check, and he was pretty much golden. A really strange kind of nirvana. A sense of calm, achieved largely through deep breaths, soothing thoughts, and meditating on the latest Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. An aloof, semi-normal state of being.

"We got any coffee, cook?"

A state of being that was impossible to maintain at four o'clock in the goddamned fucking morning, apparently.

After the initial spasm of WHATTHEFUCKWHO!? tore through Sanji's nervous system, the raw, frayed ends were balmed with the ensuing sensation of HolyshitIthinkI'mblushingandIcan'tbreathe!

Sanji was not much of a morning person.

Whirling around, he took in the sight of the shitty swordsman standing just on the other side of the buffet table/kitchen counter, slightly wrinkled and sleep tousled and his brain sort of short-circuited before booting back up again in time to bite out, "Must you do that!?"

Zoro quirked an eyebrow. "Do what?"

"Never-the-fuck-mind. What the hell are you doing up this early?"

"I'm always up this early."

"Yeah, and you're always doing your weird sword routine, and then you go back to bed until breakfast is ready. You never drink coffee until you're ready to actually start your day, and that's never at four fucking o'clock in the morning, asshole."

Zoro blinked slowly, clearly too unconscious still to process much.

"I'm just gonna ignore how weird it is you know all that. Do we have any coffee or not?"

Sanji huffed, feeling his jangled nerves settling finally and yanked the pot out of the machine along with an empty mug.

"Knock yourself out."

Zoro took the offered items, grumbling nonsensically because words apparently eluded the marimo at such an ungodly hour. Everything seemed to be in order again, for the moment, Sanji busy futzing around the small kitchen, getting breakfast assembled, moving things and pouring ingredients and turning dials and mixing batter, and the quiet monotony felt like home. The only wrench in Sanji's culinary mellow was a certain green-haired, brain-dead, shit-head of a swordsman, whose unprecedented presence at the cook's kitchen table was seriously throwing off his morning routine. Even if he was just sitting there docilely, sipping occasionally from his too-hot coffee and staring sleepily at the counter, he was still there, dammit, and Sanji could hardly handle this jackass when he expected him to come lumbering through the room, much less when he popped up during the one fucking time of the day that Sanji really and truly had to himself.

Goddammit, this was not problem. There was no problem. This wasn't anything Sanji couldn't deal with, it would just take some time. His entire existence had been uprooted and tied in a knot, so it wasn't all that outlandish if his brain wasn't quite where it should be. He was still recovering. When everything calmed down, and all his baggage and shit got dealt with, this weirdness would go away. Sanity would reassert itself, or at least as much as it ever did in this fucking Bedlam. Sanji simply had to wait it out, and everything would be fine.

It would be. It had to be. He really didn't have a choice.

When the first couple pieces of French toast were just beginning to brown nicely, Sanji asked over his shoulder, "Are you awake enough now to answer my damn question?"

"What was it again?" was the vaguely slurred response.

Sanji heaved a sigh and despaired.

"Why are you up so early? And not doing your sword routine, asshole."

There was a brief pause as Zoro took another long gulp of coffee, possibly hoping it would work faster in larger doses. A muttered curse told Sanji it was still too hot, and he couldn't help but smirk a little.

"I start work today. Don't have time to do the swords in the morning anymore, so I gotta do it at night. Hate doing it at night. Hate waking up this early…"

The last trailed off, and soon snores were ricocheting off the close walls of the apartment, and Sanji groaned before reaching over and smacking the idiot with his spoon.

"Wake up, moron."

More grumbling, followed by slurping, and then an expletive or two. Annoyed grumpiness like that should not be endearing by any stretch of the imagination, and yet the cook was wrestling with what felt oddly a lot like a grin.

Shit and damn. This was not Little House on the motherfucking Prairie. The domesticity was getting disgusting. He could only be grateful that Chopper wasn't up yet, fists rubbing into over-large brown eyes and shaggy hair in charming disarray, because then any shred of self-respect Sanji may have entertained would have been thrashed. And Luffy…well, Luffy was honestly sort of repulsive in the morning. The less said about it the better, really.

"Where do you work, anyway?" Sanji asked, frowning as he scrambled some eggs in a pan on the adjacent burner, "It's like some big secret with you."

Zoro snorted. "It's not a secret, dumbass, I've just had other stuff to do."

The You were completely and utterly fucked up on two-bit booze for damn near a week and scaring everyone with the threat of alcohol poisoning and making my life a total fucking mess went more or less unsaid. Sanji felt vaguely chastened anyhow, and scowled simply out of principle.

"I work construction."

Sanji cocked an eyebrow, sparing a look at the swordsman over his narrow shoulder. "So like road construction?"

"Nope," Zoro said, still studying his coffee like it was some puzzle, and if only he could solve it, it would stop burning his mouth. "Iron worker. I lay down the infrastructure for office buildings and skyscrapers and shit."

Sanji thought of some of those buildings down on 42nd and 43rd street in lower Manhattan, thought of the frigid air that high up, pictured how they might sway in a fierce wind, and decided anyone willing to go that far off the ground for a living was insane, including the window-washers and the people who actually worked in the buildings.

"Figures you do something suitably dangerous and testosterone-filled," the blonde scoffed, trying to cover his slight sense of unease. He wasn't afraid of heights. That would be stupid, not to mention incredibly unmanly. He just didn't like them. At all. And that was perfectly reasonable, in Sanji's very humble opinion.

The swordsman simply shrugged at that. "It's a Union job. They pay well, they get me health insurance, cover any hospital bills I rack up, and because I have my journey-man's book I can get work damn near anywhere in the country. 'S worked out pretty well for me so far."

Ah yeah, Sanji thought to himself, turning back to the French toast, flipping two more pieces out of the pan and onto the waiting hot plate, that probably helped with the whole Hawk-guy thing. His mind cast back to that one afternoon having lunch in the pizzeria with Luffy and Zoro and his weird-ass gay friends, how he'd learned Zoro had lived with them for those few years before packing up and wandering all over the east coast looking for some bastard to fight, and figured having such a universal job like that was probably the only kind of job he'd ever get. It was honestly a bit depressing, not to mention the reminder of how at ease the idiot marimo had been in the company of his real friends sort of annoyed Sanji more than really made sense. It was in the same box with all the other shit labeled "Things-About-That-Fucker-Not-To-Be-Dwelled-Upon-Ever." It was a distressingly big box.

"What time are you heading out?" he asked to derail any unpleasant tracks his mind might jump to in a fit of masochism.

"Soon as I eat," was the terribly helpful reply, and Sanji sort of felt like mule-kicking the fucker across the room, just so some sense of equilibrium could be attained.

He dished up some of the already-finished food onto a plate and practically threw it on the table in front of the green-haired menace. "Then hurry the fuck up, asshat, you're distracting me."

Zoro snorted at that again, but opted for stuffing his face instead of replying. Sanji was vaguely gratified. He was also pretty sure Freud would have a field day with him.

If anything even halfway-decent could be said about the marimo, it was that he didn't fuck around with food. He ate every trace of it that was put in front of him, and he rarely ever complained. When he did, it was usually just to fuck with Sanji and not because he actually found any flaws with the cooking, and how Sanji was able to discern that eluded him, but there it was anyway. There was a flipside to it, however: Zoro might not ever waste food, but he also had a habit of inhaling it like the shit was going out of style. Kind of like he figured someone was gonna steal it from him, and in an apartment shared with a goddamn blackhole like Luffy, that was a pretty legitimate fear, but…well, it seemed more like instinct than a learned habit. It was hard to explain, and Sanji didn't bother too hard trying to figure it out, but it was also a bit irritating the way Zoro just bolted stuff down without even looking at what he ate, or saying two words of gratitude, or the simple off-handed compliment. Not that he cared what the fucker thought, or anything, but it was common-fucking-courtesy nevertheless.

He shook his head roughly. Stop thinking Sanji, he repeated, like a mantra. Stop thinking, stop thinking, stop thinking.

Some indefinable period of time later, he heard the scrape of utensils against an empty plate, the clanking of dishes being set into the stainless steel sink, and the chair being pushed back from the table. Feet padding across the floor followed, along with the low murmur of, "Thanks for the grub, cook."

Sanji paused then, completely frozen, felt his face heat up, and then promptly slammed his head into a cabinet.

He hated his life. He really, really, did.

Sanji still loved his work, for all that it was exhausting and frustrating and just the slightest bit awkward since Zeff died. Pattie was a marginally-effective boss at best, but luckily not a single employee at the Baratie had worked there for less than four years, so the whole thing was sort of like a well-oiled machine. Sanji was unspeakably relieved when he had finally returned to work and not a damn one of those salty bastards had given him a spare glance or asked if he was okay; they all just picked up where they left off and didn't breathe a word of it. The only time anyone had made any sort of overt mention of what Sanji may or may not currently be going through had been the night before, when Pattie came up to him while he was cleaning up his station before clocking out for the evening.

"Hey," he had sort-of grunted, and Sanji'd flicked his eyes up from a particularly stubborn bit of grease on the stove to regard his new boss.

"Yeah?"

"I think you ought to take less hours. For a little while."

Sanji had frowned, very suspicious and very forbidding. "Why?"

Pattie'd only rolled his eyes in response. "Because you've been here longer than anybody else and you're a fucking basket case. You already put in extra hours with the morning prep, so you might as well take off earlier at night. Besides, it ain't like you're anything special. The rest of us can pick up your slack without blinking an eye."

The blonde had been highly skeptical – next to Zeff, he was hands-down the best chef in the joint, and everyone fucking knew it, despite all their trash-talk – and the evenings tended to be their busiest hours. Yes the rest of the team was plenty capable, but could they really pull all that off?

"Look, you set it all up for us, we take care of the rest. You don't have to be here eighteen fucking hours of the day, idiot," Pattie had said, exasperation clear, and if Sanji really thought about it, he didn't technically need to even ask for Sanji's input.

So he'd sighed and agreed, hoping he didn't let on that he was kinda grateful to get a bit more time off. He couldn't explain it, didn't have any concrete reasons for why, but he still felt unbelievably drained. Which didn't make a whole lot of sense, because in the first week following his return to lucidity, Sanji had done pretty much nothing but sleep. But he was still weary, especially near the end of his shift, and if closing time just so happened to have always been when he and Zeff spent hours together, just the two of them, putting away supplies and hurling insults back and forth, well, it was no one's damn business but his own.

So as a result, he was home by about five in the afternoon, as opposed to 8:30, and it felt weird-as-hell. No one was home yet, even the shithead marimo was still gone, and wasn't that fucking surreal? Him having a job was gonna seriously mess with Sanji's head, after he'd grudgingly gotten used to the worthless asshole lazing about and taking up space and occasionally proving he wasn't a complete waste by doing some complicated home repairs, like that time Luffy somehow managed to get an entire wad of spaghetti lodged in the showerhead.

And Sanji hadn't even made spaghetti that night.

The only thing he really knew to do that would distract himself was to cook, but there was no one to cook for, and he didn't know when Zoro would get off work, or when he'd get home, or when either of the kids would show up, and hell if was he gonna cook something that no one fucking ate. He had standards, after all.

In the end Sanji decided his cooking supplies could use a good organizing, and his spice rack had been woefully neglected of late, and his utensils had somehow ended up scattered all over the kitchen in various different drawers – one particular spatula had ended up in the cereal cabinet, what the fuck? – and before he knew it the digital clock on the oven read 6:45 and the front door was being unlocked.

He was honestly relieved, and that made him feel the slightest bit pathetic.

The sliding door opened to reveal Zoro, shoulders slightly stooped and face flushed red from the cold air outside, shivering and looking vaguely miserable.

Sanji smirked. "Rough day at work?"

The swordsman's head snapped up, eyes wide. "What are you home early for?"

He shrugged. "Pattie cut my hours."

Zoro nodded and wisely didn't comment. "Just for tonight?"

"Nah, he said for a few weeks, or something. Anyway, how was it? You look pretty fucking terrible."

Zoro grimaced, reaching down to undo his boots and kick them off over by the far wall.

"Forgot how cold it got up there. Damn near froze to death."

Sanji knew it was mean-spirited, but he laughed at the swordsman anyway. "You idiot! You've worked this job before, haven't you?"

"Not for a while," Zoro growled in reply, dark eyes glaring without much heat, probably diverted to keep him from hypothermia.

The blonde huffed in a way that wasn't fond at all, and said, "Go get warmed up, asshole. Chopper'll have a fit if you get frostbite."

Zoro paused a moment, cheeks still unusually pink, and something about his expression shifted from disgruntlement to . . . something that wasn't quite so disgruntled. Fuck if Sanji knew what it was, but it made the butterflies in his stomach with nervous disorders wake up and take flight, and he kind of hated everything just then.

The bastard just smirked. "Sure thing, love-cook."

The butterflies clearly liked it when Zoro smirked. Sanji decidedly did not.

Shoving all thoughts of stomach defects and shitty swordsmen to the back of his mind, the cook turned back to the kitchen and decided that if Zoro was home now, it was probably a safe enough time to start preparation for dinner.

Zoro ambled back into the sitting area about twenty minutes later while Sanji was wrist deep in raw hamburger meat for beef stroganoff, wearing some weak-ass excuse for a sweater and a different pair of jeans. Sanji scoffed.

"You really are not equipped to deal with winter, are you marimo?"

"Shut the fuck up," Zoro muttered as he wandered into the kitchen, setting Sanji's teeth on edge because Zoro was never in the kitchen when Sanji was in the kitchen.

"The hell are you doing, asshole?" he growled, shoulders tight, body angling away from the swordsman even though there was a good six feet between them.

"I'm looking for booze, shit-cook, take a breath. God I can't wait till I get a paycheck and can finally buy some real -"

He broke off suddenly, brows furrowed in something like dark, dark fury, before it all cleared away in the next blink.

"Nah, nevermind. That'll have to wait," he sighed, looking stupidly like a kicked-puppy, which should just not be possible when the guy is 6'3'' and made of muscle and rage-issues.

"The fuck are you yammering about, marimo?"

"None of your damn business, curlicue," Zoro muttered, and shuffled off again.

Sanji noticed—and hated himself for it—that he hadn't taken the sake with him. It was curious and unprecedented and he was damn well not going to think about it. Shoving everything to the back of his mind—again!—he went about preparing dinner as sanely as possible.

Time stretched away from him like it always did when he immersed himself in the soothing routine and familiarity of cooking, the swell of pride and satisfaction at all the knowledge he had, the skill it took to use that knowledge, how perfectly organized his kitchen was and how easy it was to find anything he needed. This was why the kitchen was his haven, why it was a joy as well as a duty, and why it was extra-fucking-wrong when people just marched in like they owned the damn place. Like certain fuck-wit-green-haired-menaces-he-could-name-but-chose-not-to.

It wasn't too long before he heard dull snores coming from the living room, Zoro completely disappeared behind the couch but for one socked foot sticking out past the arm. Sanji was sort of tempted to go kick him awake just to be an asshole, but then he remembered the look of frozen misery on the idiot's face when he walked in the door and the oh-yeah-he-saved-your-life-sort-of, and the cook was gripped by a painful surge of impotent rage because he wanted to beat the hell of the meat-head swordsman for old time's sake, but he just couldn't. It was ridiculously unfair, but that nagging sense of indebtedness was still hanging around, and after the first full day of work at a physically demanding job, it really just felt like kicking a guy when he was down. Which was awful and absurd because it wasn't like Zoro deserved an ass-kicking any less than usual. Sanji just now felt honor bound to lay off. And that was terrible.

The apartment was silent and still; slow, deep breathing and the sound of Sanji mixing the flour into the white sauce the only noises, and something frighteningly like contentedness was filtering into the cook's brain, taking off the edge and sending dangerous thoughts like "this isn't so bad" and "I could get used to this" hovering around the blonde's overworked mind. But it was calm and quiet and good and Sanji was enjoying it because there was no way in hell it would last long.

It lasted five more minutes.

An obnoxious and incredibly outdated ring tone cut through the serenity of the apartment, ringing once, twice, three times before Zoro jerked up off the couch like he'd been electrocuted and sprinted across the floor to the bedroom he shared with Chopper, sliding on the living room rug and almost wiping out before he got there. Sanji had a brief moment to appreciate the déjà vu of this scene before the ringing cut off and he could hear Zoro murmuring quietly into the device. Sorely tempted to creep closer and eavesdrop, the cook now deeply regretted the choice of a meal that required so much babying to pull off because now he was stuck at the stove, stirring at a very controlled rate and adding very precise amounts of flour and making sure the burner stayed at safe temperature.

Seriously, fuck beef stroganoff, he thought darkly to himself, jabbing the mixture a little too roughly, because who the fuck was calling that marimo moron? Wait, wasn't that idiot friend of his, Johnny, the only one with the swordsman's number? Was this about that Hawk guy? Was Zoro gonna go running off to a duel now? Why did that thought conjure the image of Zoro and some random guy in period piece clothing, smacking each other in the faces with white gloves?

Shit, I need more sleep.

Said swordsman meandered back into the main room just then, cell phone still to his ear, head bent in concentration, before his face cleared and he nodded.

"Good. Good to hear. All right. Yeah, I'll talk to you later. Yeah, I'll tell him, don't worry. No, it's not a problem. No -" he broke off, squeezed the bridge of his nose for a second, took a deep breath, "No, really, stop. It's fine. Yes. We'll see you later, Vivi. Bye."

He clicked the phone off, shoving it in his pocket with a sigh and saying, "That was Vivi."

"Yeah, I gathered that, asshole," Sanji snarked. "She talked to Nami, then?"

"Yeah." Zoro moved back over to the couch, dropping back on it facing the other way so his head was hanging over the arm, still visible from the kitchen. "Yesterday she asked to come over after, in case stuff went bad. I guess it went better than expected, 'cuz she called instead."

"And how did it go?"

"Apparently they're dating now."

Sanji's stirring paused, the flat suddenly much quieter without the soft scraping in the background.

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah," Zoro huffed. "Apparently Nami felt the same, or same enough to give it a shot. Vivi said she was pretty surprised it was that easy. Still sounded shocked on the phone. But happy, at least."

"You don't seem all that surprised."

"Are you? Thought you knew these girls so much better than me, cook."

"Bastard," Sanji growled. "I'm not surprised, just. . ."

"What, disappointed? All the girls off the market now, and none for you?"

The tone was teasing, but it stuck in Sanji's craw anyway. He started stirring again, faster now, faster than was probably wise if he didn't want the white sauce turning into a frothy mess but the anger was coiling too tight in his stomach for that kind of prudence, and goddamit he did not feel offended, his feelings were not hurt!

"No, you asshole!" he bit out. "I love these girls and I'm not about to shit all over their happiness, I'm not that fucking petty!"

Stirring faster. He really needed to stop. He was ruining the meal.

"Sanji…"

And now he sounded all quiet and calm and fucking considerate, and Sanji just sort of snapped. Flung the spoon down on the counter, flipped the stove off, stormed out of the kitchen, Zeff told him to take this kind of anger out of the kitchen, don't let it fuck up the food, too fucking late for that, too, wasn't it, and—

"Listen you fucking bastard, because you obviously don't get it, but I adore these women and I think the world of them and I'll do fucking anything for them because all of them have had rough times and broken hearts and shitty circumstances they couldn't do a damn thing about, and you have no idea what they've been through, all right? So I'll treat them like goddesses, and I'll be happy when they find someone that'll take care of them, even if that person isn't me, 'cuz I never actually thought it would be, and it doesn't have to be, that's not what this is about!"

Zoro was sitting up now, fighter's instinct dictating he not be on his back for this, but his eyes were wide and his face stunned and worst of all he looked like he might actually fucking apologize, which would literally be the end of Sanji's world-as-he-knew-it, so he cut him off quick.

"And now the fucking food's ruined, thanks for that asshole, is there any other part of my day you'd like casually destroy? Fuck, I don't know why anyone puts up with you!"

Something odd happened to the swordsman's face just then, so fast Sanji almost missed it; almost like a wall dropped down, blocking off his features into just smooth indifference. In a moment like getting hit in head with a meat mallet the cook realized something so bizarre, so foreign, so completely mind-bogglingly unimaginable, his world-as-he-knew-it pretty much imploded anyway:

The shitty marimo actually had feelings. And Sanji'd hurt them.

Zoro took advantage of Sanji's complete "what-the-fuck" moment and stood from the couch, crossing back over to his bedroom, and closing the door behind him.

Now what the fuck was Sanji supposed to do about that?

Sanji did precisely nothing about it. He'd come up with various and sundry reasons why he didn't, why he shouldn't, why there was really no need and so what if the bastard's feelings were hurt, he's not exactly the nicest guy in the world anyway, so obviously he deserves it. Then, while Sanji had given up on the beef stroganoff entirely and was in the process of salvaging the meat for some sloppy-joes with home-made French fries, he decided it was time to quit lying to himself and admit that, in reality, he was a coward.

He was pretty confident he'd never been a coward before in his life. Cowardice was typically the last thing one could ever accuse Sanji of. But here was some muscled-up freak who barged in when Sanji didn't even fucking want him around and wound him up and pissed him off and insulted everything from his lifestyle to his clothes to the arrangement of his goddamn face, and then has the gall to turn around and be a decent fucking guy. More than decent, Zoro had proven to be, shockingly enough, sort of nice. On occasion. Like when he gives up his bed for a complete stranger; like when he's silently letting Luffy crawl all over him when others would be incoherent in rage; like when he's helping Chopper puke into a toilet, or when he's hunting Sanji down after a funeral to make sure he hasn't stumbled off the balcony, like when he's helping Sanji puke into a toilet or getting him to snap out of a deep depression before he destroys all of his braincells, or when he's letting Vivi cry on him and telling her the secret to happiness is just blunt and unflinching honesty because of course he fucking thinks that!

So, yeah.

Zoro: Isn't a Total Asshole All the Time. That was how he labeled the marimo in his head, like how Chopper was Too Cute for Reason, and Luffy was Oh My God How Did That Happen?

Anyway, Sanji was a coward, yada yada yada, what the fuck was he going to do about it? Because he wasn't about to go knock on that door and have it out with the swordsman. They might, unthinkably, start talking. Actually talking. About feelings, and all that shit, and Sanji would have to pickle his brain in acid and probably move to a different country because how would he ever escape a frank and open conversation with fucking Zoro and not somehow destroy his sense of self-worth in the process? There were the butterflies-with-nervous-disorders-who-liked-when-Zoro-smirked to take into account, and that was pretty much guaranteed to take things from awkward to suicidal in record fucking time.

But the thought of doing nothing caused those same butterflies to do really unpleasant things, like try to burrow through his stomach lining and tie his small intestines in knots. It just…felt…wrong. The same reason he'd been abstaining from wiping the floor with the moron's stupid-smug face was why he now, apparently, couldn't just let this dissolve on its own. Partially because he wasn't totally sure it would. Things had been…different. He was man enough to admit that. Things were different lately with the idiot-swordsman, had even been getting better, for a given value of the word "better," but that didn't mean it'd stay that way. It was all sort of new and maybe-kinda-fragile and, contrary to his immense sulking fit earlier that day, it probably wouldn't be too hard to make everything go back to how it was with a few below-the-belt insults and some well-placed spite. And that's what he'd wanted, wasn't it? For everything to be like it was? To not feel all weird and paranoid around the marimo, to not tolerate his presence, to not, dare he think it, actually be okay with spending enforced time with him? Hadn't that been his not-so-secret-wish for the last few weeks, ever since he was cognizant enough to realize shit was no longer status quo?

It was now, with a pan full of hot oil and the first free night from work in Sanji's living memory, with the very real possibility of Zoro going back to not-quite-but-might-as-well-hating him looming large that Sanji realized he may not actually want things to go back to how they were.

Right then, when he had probably already fucked everything up, anyway.

God, my timing sucks, he thought moodily and flipped the potato wedges over with a spit and a sizzle. He really didn't have the energy or mental strength to deal with this sort of fuckery right now; he was still in recovery dammit! He shouldn't be worrying about ruining stupid non-friendships when he'd very recently buried the first and longest-running meaningful relationship in his life.

Well, he tried as optimistically as he could, at least the shitty marimo keeps my mind off the shitty old man. For awhile.

He sighed and had mostly resolved to swallow his pride and finally apologize when the door to the apartment sailed open to admit an unsurprisingly deranged Luffy, with Usopp and Chopper wrapped up in each spindly arm.

"SANJI! I found Chopper and Usopp in the comic book store down the street! Usopp said it was research, but then he wouldn't let me see what he was looking at! And what does 'ecchi' mean?"

Usopp choked on air and turned violently red, shoving the other two away and straightening his knit cap slipping down the back of his head.

"It-it-it's about the, uh, magical Ecchi Kingdom, it's a sort of, uh, f-f-fantasy land and, um, they're besieged by terrible, er…..bagpipes."

"Bagpipes!?" Chopper goggled, brown eyes impossibly huge.

"Wooow! That sounds AWESOME, Usopp! Why didn't you just say that!" Luffy cheered. "We should go back and look at MORE Ecchi Whatever books!"

Sanji smirked. "Usopp, don't forget about the one with the giant tentacle monster."

"TENTACLE MONSTER!"

"GAAAH, that sounds too scary!"

"Ahahahaha, Sanji you are a kidder, that's, uh…not…"

"Chopper, we can still see you behind that stool."

When the chaos had died down and Usopp no longer looked two seconds from dying of terminal embarrassment, Sanji asked, "So what brings you round? Other than getting caught up the Luffy Whirlwind?"

"Oh, you know, he mentioned dinner and I thought 'My friends could greatly benefit from more wisdom bestowed by the Great and Powerful Usopp,' and since I hadn't, y'know, bestowed any in a while I thought it'd be-"

"—Kaya's out of town again, isn't she?"

"Boston," he said with a dramatic shoulder-slump. "Business, this time. I dunno, the apartment just feels weird without her. I mostly just wander around the city when she's gone."

Sanji smiled, fishing the French fries out of the oil onto a rack to dry and cool off.

"You seem like you're doing better, Sanji," he said, and then seemed to immediately regret it, slapping a hand over his mouth. "Sorry, totally sorry, I didn't mean—I wasn't trying to bring up any—what I mean is, you look, er…" and then gave up with a miserable grimace at the blonde chef. Chopper darted quick, assessing glances between the two, while Luffy stuck his pinky in his nose and looked over towards the windows.

Sanji snickered, grin maybe a little rueful, but what-the-fuck-ever. He knew he'd have to deal with this shit for a while yet, but everyone would move on eventually. God, he couldn't wait for that day.

"Don't worry, moron, I'm not about fall apart. I'm okay now. Really."

Usopp smiled, relieved and genuinely glad, so Sanji tried not to hold it against him. It wasn't nearly as hard as he thought it should have been, but with Chopper beaming blindingly at him too, he didn't really stand a chance. Luffy chuckled and nearly fell off his seat.

"I'm glad you're home to cook, Sanji! It's always better when you just made it! But the leftovers are awesome too. We're eating meat tonight, right? Is it almost done? I'm huuuuuuungrryyyyyyy!"

"Luffy, shut the shit up! And go wash that hand, I saw what you did with it! You aren't coming in my fucking kitchen with your diseases!"

Luffy cackled some more and flailed over to the bathroom.

"Hey," Chopper said with a frown, "where's Zoro? He's usually around when you're cooking."

Sanji felt a pang in his chest, which was pretty new, along with the shitty-awful butterflies turning vengeful again. Swallowing away the thing he told himself wasn't guilt, for fuck's sake, he said, "Think he's in your room, sleeping off his first day of work. He does construction, apparently, and the dumbass marimo forgot how winter worked so he almost froze to death."

"WHAT!" Chopper yelled. "I need to check for frostbite, discoloration, nerve damage! Did he mention if he had trouble feeling any of his extremities?"

Sanji had a suddenly horrible new definition of what Zoro's "extremities" might feel like and only just managed not to slam his face into the pan of still-boiling-hot oil.

"Nope. No idea. None at all. Go check for yourself," he croaked, throat desperately strangled with terror and other-things-that-don't-bear-thinking-about.

Oh GOD what a fucking terrible image that was! Jesus Christ where is the steel wool!? I will never unsee what my brain just conjured!

The sound of Chopper scurrying across the room and throwing open his bedroom door with a shriek of "ZORO, DON'T BE ALARMED BUT DO YOU HAVE GANGRENE YET!?" was only partially obscured by Usopp's concerned voice.

"Sanji, you okay?"

"Perfect. Great. Fine. Never better. Leave me the fuck alone, I'm trying to cook!"

Also trying extra hard not have eight identity crises simultaneously, but other than it's business as usual.

Luffy stumbled out of the bathroom in time to join in Chopper's panicked screaming—odd, he seemed a hell of a lot more composed when dealing with Sanji's imminent demise—by hollering about when dinner would be served and whether Zoro would live to eat it, which only made the little Med student panic harder. Usopp eventually got Luffy around the neck and sat him down to play Super Smash Brothers, and though the noise level didn't really go down, at least Chopper wasn't incoherent anymore.

Zoro finally emerged, amid Chopper's twitchy questions—"Are you sure you should be standing? You might be having a delayed reaction! How are your toes? Are you seeing double? Any shortness of breath? How many fingers am I holding up? Oh, come on, Zoro, you weren't even looking!"—and settled in the living room.

"Hey, Usopp," he said, as though none of that had just happened.

"Hey, you're not dying! Good to know!" Usopp said, not looking up from where Luffy was trouncing him viciously.

Zoro snorted and settled in to watch the game in silence. Sanji hadn't turned around during any of this. He did not look at the swordsman when he emerged. Okay, lie, he glanced out of the corner of his eye, but it was enough to know that Zoro hadn't looked over at him, and he was determined not to feel bad or slighted or anything stupid like that. Dinner was gonna be a long and awkward affair, he could already tell.

Dinner was a long and awkward affair, as per Sanji's predictions, but whatever funk was between him and the fucking marimo was masked by Usopp's grand-standing and Luffy and Chopper's complete inability not to get sucked into it. Sanji caught Zoro snickering at a few points and even the cook couldn't fight a grin from time to time, and as long as the noise kept up and they avoided eye-contact, it actually wasn't too bad. Sanji had his suspicions about Usopp's dedication to being that night's entertainment, and figured he hadn't been nearly as stealthy in his periodic glances to the swordsman as he'd hoped.

As long as the Long-Nosed asswipe didn't try and talk to him about any of it, he was fine. More or less.

The other bonus to Usopp's presence was Sanji had someone willing to do clean-up (who wasn't Zoro), wouldn't break everything he touched (like Luffy), and didn't make him feel like a dick when he ordered them around (Chopper and those goddamn puppy-eyes). Sure, he moaned and bitched, but Sanji just hollered over his shoulder, "You drop by unannounced and eat my food, you can fucking clean the fuck up afterwards, shitty bastard!"

And that was when the real awkwardness set in. With Usopp in the kitchen, and Luffy and Chopper having abandoned him to play video games once more, it was just Sanji and Zoro who were left with no real distraction. They both seemed to realize this at the same time, because they shared one wide-eyed look of Oh hell, this is gonna get weird, before Zoro spun on his heel and made for his room once more.

Sanji could let him go, he reasoned. He hadn't had a smoke break in a while, he could feel the addiction humming in his blood, not sanity-shredding yet but a gentle prod that, hey, I could destroy you in about half an hour if you don't do something about it now. Sometimes Sanji regretted getting hooked on the damn things. He could just slink out onto the fire escape, have a cigarette or fifteen, and just let this whole night slide by. Wake up tomorrow, start over with a fresh pot of coffee for the early-morning-phobic swordsman, and try not to ruin every fucking thing that didn't completely suck in his so-far shitty existence. Let his cowardice and hateful-butterfly-disease murmur disconcertingly in his ear while he tries and fails to sleep that night.

Or, he could suck it up, grow a pair, and nip this problem in the bud. Or something.

Sanji decided in that moment, just before Zoro could open the door to his room, that he would finally take the reins in this whatever-the-hell-it-was and make a move one way or the other. Revert everything back to the way it was? Or accept that things were gonna be different now and just dive head into it?

The choice, really, had already been made a long fucking time ago. Now Sanji just had to deal with it.

He was across the room in a few, quick strides.

"Hey, marimo," he said, hoping he sounded mostly normal and not about to come out of his skin, which was closer to the mark.

Zoro didn't say anything, but he did stop and cut the cook a glance over his shoulder. At least he wasn't ignoring him, which Sanji wouldn't totally blame him for if he did. Progress, or something.

"Uh, look, I just wanted to say that…about earlier. That was, uh…" Sanji trailed off, staring wide-eyed at the swordsman as a final, self-preserving wave of retreatretreatthiswayliesdestruction went off in his head, like it always did when he attempted anything that wasn't outright spite with Zoro. But no, he was an adult, goddammit, and more than that he was a man. A manly man. He could do this shit.

"What I mean is, er…"

Okay, so maybe not so much.

Zoro raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"Look, if it's gonna give you an aneurism, don't bother," he grunted. "Not that big of a deal, shit-cook. Just call it for tonight."

He turned for the door again, and Sanji could take that out, could let this fizzle and sweep it under the carpet and start over fresh tomorrow like he'd wanted to in the first place, but goddammit, no, that wasn't the point of this, that wasn't how it was supposed to go.

"No!" he said without thinking, maybe a bit too loud, and oh look at some point he'd apparently decided it was a good idea to grab Zoro by the elbow to stop him. Ignoring those shitty butterflies again, Sanji soldiered on. "Okay, I'm no good at this, and neither are you, so just shut the fuck up for a second. I said some stuff. It was shit. I've been doing that a lot, lately, and I don't…mean to. Exactly."

Zoro just shrugged, arm pulling against Sanji's hold on it but not actually breaking away. "You've had stuff going on."

Sanji seethed a bit at this, thinking of Usopp walking on tip-toes around him earlier. "Yeah I know that, asshole, I don't need to be reminded of it every time I turn around. It's also not an excuse. It's just…"

Sanji finally let go then, shitty butterflies making their dissatisfaction known but Sanji figured they could all go die in a fire. He muscled the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and jammed one in his mouth for something to do, mustering his strength for what would no doubt be a serious blow to his manliness-factor.

"Look, marimo-head, you're not a bad person. Most of the time. And I. Keep acting like you are. You've been…slightly less dickish about all this crap and. I don't always know how shit is gonna hit me. Right now. With all the stuff." Sanji waves his hand around to somehow encompass the two weeks he'd been mostly useless since his goddamn father died but there was no reason to get into that clusterfuck again. He is also not blushing even a little bit. "So sometimes I kind of…um…"

"Spazz out like a fucking crazy person?"

Sanji's head whipped up to glare at the swordsman, only to see something like a teasing grin on the man's face. He still glared, but Sanji made a deliberate effort to tuck some of his unrestrained rage back down before it could lash out and get him in more trouble. He settled for a low, "Oi, watch it asshole," and lit up his cigarette, feeling like he'd made some progress.

Yes, because not being a goddamn homicidal maniac is considered a step up from here. Christ I am in bad shape, aren't I?

"But really, shit-cook," Zoro said, voice low and body leaned up against the bedroom door, apparently settling in for a long conversation and how fucking horrifying was that thought? "I ain't one of your 'goddesses' or whatever you call them. You don't have to break your back worrying about my feelings, or some shit. This is how we are. S'fine."

Sanji tch'd to himself, blowing out sharp puffs of smoke. "Don't fucking lie, dumbass. I said something shitty and it got to you, okay, I fucking saw it with my own eyes. I don't wanna talk about feelings or anything, Jesus Christ, no! Just. I'm not actually trying to burn bridges here. Is all. I say some stuff but I don't…mean it that way. Not like I hate you, or anything."

Something about that last sentence tried to jog loose a hazy memory for Sanji, but didn't manage to turn up anything concrete. Just a weird sense of deja-vu and the vague impression of cool night air and the tang of too much good wine. Sanji shook it off, preferring to keep huffing on his smoke than do any more soul searching than was strictly required of him. Zoro had remained quiet, the two of them sort of huddled off to the darker side of the apartment out of range from the kitchen's overheads or the lone floor lamp in the designated living room area. Dark eyes were aimed at the floor, arms crossed over a broad chest, and Sanji eventually let himself glance up at the swordsman for some kind of reaction. Watched brows furrow and the lines of concentration deepen. He felt vaguely gratified that the asshole marimo was at least taking this seriously, although he looked like he might be taking it too seriously. Like hell did Sanji want him looking into this real deeply. Best not examined up close, all of this.

Fucking hell is he writing a manifesto in his head, what the fuck does he have to think about so much?

Just when Sanji's nerves were gearing up for another round-robin of "why on god's forsaken earth did you decide this was a good idea!?" Zoro deigned to reply.

"Okay," he said.

And nothing else.

"Wait, that's it?" Sanji demanded. "'Okay'? That's all you managed to come up with, kelp-for-brains? You took five goddamn minutes and all you have to show for it is a measly 'okay'?"

"What, did you want sit around braiding each other's hair, fuckwit? Do you actually want to keep having this conversation?"

"Well no, obviously, I just thought…" Sanji had no idea what he thought. 'Thought' had not much factored into this, if truth be told. Sanji bit his tongue and started grinding his teeth into the cigarette filter.

"Sanji," Zoro said, "do everyone a favor, mostly yourself. Stop thinking. You are shit at it."

Sanji growled at that, teeth shredding through thin paper but was surprised to find that much of his reaction was just for show. He didn't even feel that angry, it was more like a routine at this point. Like a game. A really fucking weird game that consisted of mutual antagonism and insults rather than anything like friendship. That's what it had always been moving towards, Sanji now realized. And maybe not-hating the swordsman would really just be…more of this. More biting banter and fisticuffs than watching TV and having heartfelt conversations. Although there'd been no lack of the latter lately, and Sanji was super prepared to never repeat this performance for as long as he lived, if possible. It gave the radioactive butterflies in his stomach way too many ideas. So maybe…there hadn't been anything to freak out about in the first place? If this was as bad as it got, if they could still have this contest of wills and snarky back-and-forth…well, maybe this was something he could tolerate after all.

Sanji sighed again, plumes of smoke twirling around their heads, and found to his surprise that he might have been grinning. A little. Smirking, really. Yeah. Definitely not a grin.

"You've gotta be the most obnoxious fucker I've ever had the misfortune of knowing," he said, tone less grudging than he'd expected.

Zoro did grin. Seriously grin. A grin he'd give Chopper, or Vivi, or his gay buddies Johnny and Yosaku. Not a grin he'd ever given Sanji before. Until right now. Shit, not good, abort abort!

He was pretty sure the butterflies were organizing a coup.

And he still wasn't blushing goddammit.

Just when Sanji was debating the best emergency exit route, Zoro demonstrated disturbingly good timing by murmuring a quiet, "Night, shit-cook," and retreating back into his shared room before Sanji had a chance to make an ass of himself again.

And just like that, he had done it. Really, truly done it. He had apologized, to the shitty marimo of all people, and without ever actually using the words 'I' and 'sorry.' He hadn't spontaneously combusted, or put his foot in his mouth at the very end to make everything way worse than it had started. Yes. This right here, was progress. He was getting somewhere finally in this hideously awkward and confusing morass of living with the moss-headed swordsman. The world might finally be looking up a bit. And okay, sure, maybe his cigarette was trashed and useless now. Maybe his face was a little bit warmer than usual. But if this was going to be a thing, a thing that he handled like a goddamn adult and not an escaped mental patient, maybe he should take Zoro's word for it.

Stop thinking.

Hell, seemed to be working just fine for that dumbass. Might just work for Sanji, too.

So. There. Um, hope you liked it? Eh heh heh...*takes cover from flying projectiles*