Chapter Four

Commencing the Falsifications

Floating, floating, floating, floating, floating

See me here in the air

Not holding on to anywhere

But holding on, so beware

I have secrets I won't share

-"Clowns (Can you see me now?)", T.A.T.U

~0~

The first day of work, true work is the most exciting, in his silent opinion. It is the day when things really begin to distort in his mind, when colors sharpen, and he laughs more freely. It feels good to have a lover, to have something to slip into, to feed on. Damn fine.

He lies there, in the warmth of the bed shared between them, almost drowsy with his own gluttonous scavenging. He can almost believe that he is Sanji Jambe, young French millionaire, abroad in Japan for the advertising sector of his silverware company. He can almost believe he has found a nice, friendly lover for once, someone whom he actually cares about.

It is so close, he can almost taste it. That bittersweet taste of almost.

He slips in one naked leg between the man's legs beside him, just as if he really liked to snuggle and is immediately rewarded with a strong hand trailing up the length of his thigh. He shivers, pretending to love it.

No…he does love it.

"You're-you're the best lay I've had in years." the deep rumble above him is amused, rueful, slightly awkward. Blunt and forward. So strange. Unrefined and the furthest thing from cultured. A coarse voice. The sincerity in it converting it into some absurd paradox.

Sanji sighs inside. Zoro, apparently, is not a sweet talker. That's just as well, it's always been the same. First comes the sex, then the fluffy, melting compliments, then the wine bottles shipped to his room, the expensive cigars. The Givenchy shirts and the Armani diamonds appear magically, as if he was a woman. But it is all a farce, they all want intercourse. They want to fuck. But, shit, so does he.

"I think you're the best lover I've ever had." Sanji murmurs back. Add a touch of defensive embarrassment, a sprig of tired admiration, and a side dish of subtle lust with a sprinkle of satisfaction, and he has created a beautiful dish of sexual deception. He is, a chef, to the last blood cell in his deceitful body.

"Naw, don't fuck with me." Zoro's playful jibe throws him of guard for a beat; there's a brief milisecond in which Sanji realizes with horror that he has no idea how to respond to that innocent jibe.

No fucking idea.

But then, it comes. And there must not have been a significant pause because Zoro did not look in the least suspicious , but Sanji's heart races like jackhammer in his heart.

"Don't fuck with you? Are you sure that is what you want?" he smiles, he lets his eyelids droop and his blond hair slide over an eye. Playful, nice, raunchy. How he had used to live. Was it really so hard to act like himself? Can it be that he has lost who he really is with all the coats he has shed?

Zoro ignores his double entrade with a grin, which is so open and so honest, Sanji immediately smiles back, happy that the man's trust has been gained so quickly, with so little fuss. Was his body so mesmerizing? All he had was a cock and a hole. It confuses him. And immediately, paranoia settles its bloated body on his chest, seeming to constrict his heart.

"Liar…How many others have you left behind?"

It's such an innocent question, and the complete lack of suspicion has the hackles on Sanji's neck flaring, ready for the guns and the dogs. How many had he left behind? What did this man mean? Was he asking how many he had murdered? How many he had slipped into and sucked dry? What did this man mean? What could he possibly mean?

Sanji continued to slide his leg up and down Zoro's legs, snuggling his head into the other man's neck, "I'm not sure what you're asking…"

Zoro chuckled, and Sanji froze slightly. It was always laughter which condemned. Always laughter was the last thing he heard before they turned against him, if they had been savvy enough to wise up to his sweet nothing. They would laugh at him because inside they were scared. Frightened at how close they had come to falling into his rancid claws. Because it usually wasn't savvy which saved them, but chance, a mere caprice which had smiled their way.

"I'm asking you how many men there have been before me, Sanji." Zoro said, a quiet rumble in the semi-darkness. A warm, reassuring hand traced small, meaningless circles on his shoulder. If this continued for longer, he would go mad. No, he would not. He would stay there and control the emotions that were threatening to eat him raw.

How long had it been since he had felt such sincerity in a man's actions? How long had it been since he had felt such warmth? How many layers had he shed since there was even this kindness?

Oh, god, this amiability would be the end of him.

"There's no one who's been quite like you." Sanji answers instead, smiling even though Zoro would not be able to see that curve of the lips which means so much. But maybe Zoro would hear it in his words and be at ease. In any case, smiling is good for him. It helps him get into the mood and revel in it.

"I can say that same thing about you." Zoro replied, the hand at Sanji's shoulders wandered down to trail along his arm. It gave him a shuddering, shivering sensation. It was too intimate. Let Zoro fuck him, let him force him down to his knees and wrench his jaws open and shove his hardened cock all the way his damn throat. Let him do anything and more!

But, oh save him from these gentle touches and small smiles of care! Release him from that particular obligation.

Sanji breathed deeply of Zoro's scent, slightly exhilarated at the proximity of the warm and gushing jugular, "I can't believe I met someone like you so far from home. I'm French, you know. You're not Japanese, I can tell…American?"

To begin with, a small introduction on his own part. What was the recipe called again? Deceit with succulent sauce of secrecy? A dish of survival of insincerity. What was it called? What did it matter? What mattered was that no meal was ever baked without the cook providing his own ingredients, manipulating them with expertise, and offering them to the culinary gods which might or might not exist.

"I know. I know all about you, Sanji." Zoro murmured, "I'm sorry. I had to find out…before." The hand gripped his shoulder tightly in a warm, apologetic fashion.

"I understand, don't worry." Yes, worry. Worry, because you didn't find out enough. You didn't find out nearly enough. All you know is shit. Because it is shit. Pure and utter shit.

Would he not calm down? His heart was racing, frightened like a child. He had been here times before, what was different?

Zoro was speaking, "But yeah, I'm American. It's pretty lonely out here in the land of the rising sun; all my friends are back in America. I knew I was crazy to accept the job transfer."

"Well, you have some you can talk to…and now you have me." Sanji murmured; saturating his voice with exactly sixty-six percent amusement.

"Do I?" Zoro murmured back, a slight longing fringing his voice like some modest fig leaf. "I nearly went out of my mind when you disappeared." He chuckles softly. Embarrassed, oh, he is embarrassed.

"I don't understand why. I'm nothing special." Sanji answers, reaching up to trace a light hand across a strong jaw. Understanding full well. Understanding his mute charisma which draws. Understanding the very Venus fly trap of his soul.

A warm, reassuring hand covers his own, pressing him to the tanned skin, forcing him to touch, to feel, to treasure, "No, you are. Sanji."

Sanji moves his hand restlessly, trapped against foreign skin, "Why?"

"I don't know."

No. Because he's beautiful, because he's hot, because he's gorgeous, because he fucks like a porn star, because he's talented, because he fucks, because he fucks, because he fucks.

Where is it? That self-occulting hypocrisy? That ravenous sexual appetite that only a true whore can alleviate? It is not like he can't act the lover, but he's so used to playing the fucker that this unusual tenderness is dizzying him.

"You don't know." Sanji repeats softly. The man is telling the truth, Zoro is telling him the truth. Sanji knows the truth when he hears it. Oh, veritas, that sensuous and cavorting woman whom he has parted ways with long since. Not embraced to her side, he can see her clearly when she struts by.

But what has he said? Oh, it goes two ways. A repetition or a statement which stands in solitary. Duality, like himself. The curse of always analyzing. He should watch more carefully his mouth; it is more used to being filled than talking.

Zoro's laughing again, it sounds both wonderful and terrifying to him, "No. I really don't know Sanji. I mean, it's more than just finding someone like us."

"Like us…" Sanji repeats softly. "Nevermind then…tell me about yourself, since you seem to know everything about me." Inside his mind, a little notebook comes out, hand with pen inside poised right above blank yellow sheets. His memory opens, a mouth filled with sharp teeth to catch it all.

"Eh…not much there. I'm just a guy that got a little above his actual comfort zone." Zoro shrugged, "I guess you know all about the hub-bub going around about my promotion? The shit's everywhere."

"Sort of." Though he knew probably more than Zoro himself. But for now he was ignorant. A fool.

"Yeah. Critics think I'm too young to be trusted with the nation's military security. Well, it's not like I alone make the decisions for the army. I just see what's going on and suggest what I think is the most plausible. Nothing too big…I really don't see why people are getting so riled about it." Zoro laughs, again playing his hand across Sanji's upper arm, and then wanders to his head, twirling strands of hair across his fingers.

...it's not like I alone make the decisions for the army. I just see what's going on and suggest what I think is the most plausible…Subject exhibits sincere bemusement over the public opinion of his position. Subject confesses his subordinate position towards his superiors, but also admits his key position as a military advisor. End.

"Me neither." Sanji shrugs again, "I don't even understand half of what you're saying. Military advisor, navy, army…they're all the same to me."

Zoro chuckled. "No, the navy is a different branch. I'm sort of like the Chief Military Advisor to the Chief Military Advisor. If that makes any sense. I help the helper in other words," he laughed, "Am I confusing you?"

Sanji shrugs lightly, his hand rested softly on Zoro's chest, his head cradled to the side of the other's arm, "All I know is that you're a pretty big fish…" he danced his hand down Zoro's muscular stomach, "With a pretty big-"

Zoro burst into a rumble of chuckles and grabbed his hand before Sanji managed to wrap it around his lax penis. He raised it to his lips and kissed it instead. Looking up through lowered eyelashes, Sanji saw that Zoro had closed his eyes, and was playing with his hand, now ungloved. Running the back of it against his chin, placing the palm on his check and snuggling into it. A ghost of a smile hovering above that look of happiness and peace.

It sent strange goosebumps up Sanji's spine and the urge to withdraw his hand flared deep within his stomach, a sudden desire which slithered throughout him like black honey.

Take his hand back. Take it back. Take it back before he kisses the palm and the spaces between the knuckles. Take it back before he places those chaste lips at the tips of the fingers and so kills him.

He slips like oiled silk on top of the man who had claimed his hand for himself, and in the voluptuous movement, he reclaims it. The hand is lost to the sudden mixture of sensitive flesh. Sanji is half way up Zoro's stretched out body, which is slightly propped by a few forgotten pillows. He gives his body so he can reclaim his heart.

A hand shifts through his yellow hair, affectionate; distracted.

Zoro's black eyes observe him, a small smile at the lips, "Aren't you ever tired from having sex?"

"Who said I wanted sex?" Sanji muses, his chin propped on Zoro's chest. He looks up candidly at the other man.

"I assume from your position that you wanted to have sex?" Zoro answers, grinning openly.

Sanji chuckled, but his eyelids drooped, "Why? Is it because I can do this?" Shifting his head a little, he flicked his tongue out and danced it across the dusky brown bud, tongue tickling the sensitive underside.

The small gasp and minute shifting of flesh underneath him was his award. The hand which had not strayed far from his head, twisted painfully in his hair and all but crushed his mouth to the man's chest. Sanji took it as a silent request to open his mouth and suck hard, which was what he did.

The little nipple was tight and hard in his mouth and he covered it with saliva, liking the way Zoro pinned him down and liking even more the growing length pressed into his stomach. Liking best of all the heavy breathing and the small hisses when he bit gently. Liking it, loving the way he could manipulate the man and the situation to fit him like a glove. They were in his courtroom now, honey.

Forcing his head up, Sanji looks at Zoro, eyes queerly blazing, "Well? Are you just going to sit there when I'm doing this?"

"I'm asking you if that's too much for you?" Zoro answers, the expression on his face struggling between need and care. "Aren't you-"

Sanji stilled and his expression dropped. But inside, he smiled.

"If you don't want to have sex with me Zoro, by all means tell me. I don't want to force myself upon you." He got up halfway, and on his knees looked woodenly at the greenhaired man, knowing full well that his erection almost points accusingly at Zoro.

"This is why I told you it wouldn't work," Sanji said, injecting just the right note of shame and crushed hope in his speech, "I take up too much of your time and energy, I know." He made to get off. Wondering if he was being too melodramatic. Perhaps he should swear a little, get angry?

And just as he expected, Zoro caught his hand fast, and Sanji turned to him, heart thumping, "Sanji, don't be an idiot. You know I want to have sex with you again. I just don't want you to think I'm demanding it."

Sanji smiled, "Well then, what are you waiting for monsieur?" He loves calling Zoro that. Loves reasserting the falsity of his identity to the very face of the man he is so slyly deceiving and getting away with it.

Zoro yanked him down and rolled roughly on top of him, kissing his neck and shoulders in ways which made Sanji shudder. Then there were their erections shifting against each other, rubbing and grinding, turning their bellies to heated lead.

"Stop. Stop. Zoro." Sanji panted, tuning his face away and placing a restraining hand on the hard chest above him.

Zoro did, lips poised above his jugular, "What?"

There was a few seconds silence as Sanji played the part of being so completely unwound by Zoro's caresses that he needed some time to recollect his senses. But his body was somewhere else, far away. His mind was frozen, counting the seconds, directing his senses.

"Do me rough." He said, putting a little drag in his words, "Stop being so gentle with me. I'm not going to break. Use me. That's how I want it. Come on."

"Sanji…" He wasn't sure whether there was a warning in the tone of his name or not.

"Goddamn it Zoro. Fucking use me." he twisted up, and shoved Zoro to the side, managing to swing his legs over the bed and get off. "I'm letting you take me, why can't I ask something from you?" Just the perfect bite in his words, just the perfect hurt. His performance was perfect, ideal. It brought him more satisfaction than the sex ever did. This was a movie, he was the Actor and the audience was the mindless spiders in the corners of the room. He can hear their applause, the clapping of their thousands and thousands pairs of black, wiry legs. He can feel the weight of their many, many lidless eyes.

There were a few seconds in which Sanji felt a pang of fear as he heard nothing behind him, and his mind was already figuring out some excuse to stay in the room but then he felt the hands on his waist and he knew that this time, the sex was going to blow him away. And the knowledge delighted him darkly.

Zoro spun him around and dragged him back to the bed. Sanji felt his back hit the bed and then Zoro's mouth was on his mouth and his hand was between his legs. He fought back with his body. Grinding up, thrusting his body unashamedly in time to the one above. The movements rough, dirty, obscene, beyond description. Nasty. Filthy. All those words which said that it was too sensuous for it to be right.

The lips above his paused, Zoro looked down into his eyes, "Sanji. You said you wanted it this way, okay? I'm just letting you know that you won't be able to walk for a while. I mean, there's not going to be a special word." Black eyes looked down on him, eyebrows drawn in tense concentration.

Sanji favored him with another lazy look, "That's what I want to hear, but don't disappoint me…Think of all things you want to do to me and then do them without asking me. Take me. Dirty me the fuck up. I'll open my mouth or spread my legs whenever you want me to."

He would have said more, he would have continued to fill Zoro's ears with all those delicious desires of total capitulation. Would have continued to drip the honey from his liar's mouth and saturated the man with such beautiful and arousing falsifications. He had entire volumes of such deceitful prose stored within his head like some perverted and malevolent Shakespeare. He would have put Milton to shame.

But Zoro cut him off, seizing him and jerking him roughly down, bringing him to his knees , his legs uncomfortably squashed by the bed.

"Come on. This is what you want, isn't it?" Zoro whispered, his black eyes glittered softly as he looked down at Sanji's upturned and flushed face. Sanji felt the back of his head seized and shoved forward, and he opened his mouth so that the motion would guide the erection inside his mouth.

He nearly gagged and dry heaved as the cock went in too large and too fast and too suddenly. But then he stifled the impulse, reared in the feelings and focused on relaxing his throat and slurping at the hard length. Zoro was grunting and gasping above him, breathing laboriously at each movement of Sanji's mouth.

His head was yanked back, and his body seized and lifted further onto the bed, back flat against the sheets. Sanji, looking down, saw Zoro climb lightly up, cock wet and shiny, eyes running all over his spread body. He spread his legs invitingly, erection unashamedly exposed. "Come on."

Zoro smiled, "Not yet." And from the way he climbed on top of him, Sanji knew what was expected of him. He opened his mouth again and sucked at the heavy sac on top, the angle wrong for the continuation of lathering up Zoro's cock. He moaned, using his mouth to suck and his tongue to tickle. Maybe if he shifted a few centimeters; the angle irritatingly wrong.

It wasn't for Zoro. Sanji shuddered as he felt the hot mouth wrap around his length and suck the head tightly, tongue digging into the slit and running beneath the head. All he could do was lick Zoro's balls and suck desperately at the sac, his hands gripped the thighs above hard enough to leave bruises.

He was almost ready to climax. Sanji could feel the sensations vibrating frantically along his cock and in the very pit of his belly, He cried out something unintelligible, resembling Zoro's name.

In a second Zoro's mouth was off of him and Sanji was face to face with Zoro. "You're not coming for a while Sanji." He whispered and kissed him hard, messy. Not seeming to care whether Sanji enjoyed the kiss or not. He loved it. He could handle this, this impersonal sexual intercourse. The hotter it flared the more he welcomed it, knowing that this was what he was used to.

And before Sanji even grew comfortable with the kiss, Zoro withdrew, sliding off the bed. "Get up."

Sanji did, face flushed and heart thumping, He didn't want to say anything and break the spell. Wordless and impersonal.

He stood there, in front of Zoro, hands loosely at his sides, eyes both submissive and defiant, the arousal matching the man's in front of him. He had to say something.

"I told you this would be fun. I know-"

Zoro's eyes ran all over his body, "Turn around." The lazy motion of his hand was strangely cool.

Sanji did, knees slightly weak with the force of the desire in the other man, but he leaned over the bed, settling his weight on the sheets and spreading his legs so that Zoro could take him. Gripping the besdsheets, his pants quick and light, the smile hidden from view. Loving the exposure.

He heard Zoro squirt something and there was a small sigh of pleasure behind him as Zoro lubricated himself.

And then the hands at his waist held him as Zoro pushed his cock inside. Sanji let out a strangled moan as the entrance impaled him. His hands fisted beside his head and gripped the sheets tightly. And the quick, brutal thrusts nearly made him scream with delight and pain. It hurt and felt overwhelming.

Above him, Zoro withdrew, panting, and slid halfway in, pausing. "You like be taken like this Sanji? Like this?" and the rough directness of his next thrust caused Sanji to moan and nod his head against the sheets, eyes squeezed shut.

"Or do you want it slow?" and Zoro slid in again, achingly slow. His voice was husky, low. "Like this?"

Sanji shook his head, a moan slipped through his lips at the torturous pace. It was choking, that sensation of sex withheld from a lust too brazen and primal for even the merest form of inhibition, "No. Fas-ter."

Zoro refused, the cock inside him drew in and out slowly. And Sanji thrust his ass back in desperation to get filled and fucked. To get grilled and used to the very last drop of semen in his sac had been sucked out and drunk. Zoro's things slapped the back of his own; and he groaned at the sudden, harsh appeasement.

Zoro sounded breathless and amused, "I'd do that more, but you seemed to like it." The fast, rapid fucks that followed, the heavy hand on the small of his back, the other gripping his ass, the brutality of the sex nearly blinded him and he would have very well lost it again, before his partner, had his own need not been trapped beneath his body, causing discomfort and a dark relish in that very discomfort.

But he sank his teeth into consciousness and fought his orgasm with claws, ripped his sex from his mind and tried to be the perfect mannequin. Sensuous and plastic. Detached and available. The hoarse grunts and heavy breaths being dragged from his throat with every delicate, noiseless thump of ballsack on ass provided the counterpoint to the aroused pants somewhere above him.

His knees hurt.

Sanji struggled up, knowing that the time had come for resistance and feeling more than aroused as Zoro shoved him down again and gave it to him like he wanted it, without mercy or pretense, without mercy, without safety, without grace or good manners. An absolute exploitation of his very sex. He growled and tried to twist away from the hands pinning him down. He was resisting, not because he didn't want to. He resisted, because he liked the suppression.

"I thought you said you were going to spread your legs?" Zoro grunted from behind him and Sanji stilled his movements at once. Pretending to be trapped.

Looking behind him, he smiled again, lips curving in sultry amusement, "Hmmm…I don't remember that."

Short, meaningless struggle in which nothing was changed except the time. Later. Sanji, still bent over and still suffering the plundering of sex and the utter taking of his being. Grunting whenever Zoro settled too heavily on him, gasping and crying out when the other plunged in deep and sent that paralyzing wave of sensation through him; burying his head in his arms and gritting his teeth impotently when Zoro took it into his head to draw fully out and leisurely impale him on something which was heated and hard and the bane of his existence.

Their minds had ceased to exist, converted to nothing more than an extension of their erections, if that. It wasn't just the sex that was hot, it was the room which had turned into hell's antechamber. The hands on his body burned and molded with his own, the sweat steamed and hissed, the bedcovers warm. Skin tingling and blushing. Toes absurdly ice cold and utterly forgotten. The merging of their sexes, the pith of the carnality they had so impiously constructed, was incinerating.

Where to even describe what was happening between them, on the bed, in this room which had ceased to exist to two beings so fully submerged and lost and trapped within each other? Where to begin to describe the indescribable? To say hot and hard is all very well; but to bring these two entities to life, to show their potent power, to show the manner in which these two things come together and fuck a person to something beyond themselves?

No, he had never been able to put his work into words. It would be like drawing a three dimensional object on a two dimensional surface.

His hips bucking, hands curling tightly, nails biting into the flesh of his hands. Later he would see the miniscule drops of blood, the tattered flesh. But right now, there was a something that they called a cock, as if only that hardened piece of flesh which could induce such terrifying emotions, could only be related by that hard, thick word hitting the back of the throat and making one feel slightly dirty, perverted, and ashamed for having said it. It was there, blocking him.

Fighting orgasm, the cock inside and then not inside and then halfway or three-quarters in, was the weapon which aimed to deprive him of what he most jealously hoarded; his much loved privacy, his beloved secrecy.

The way Zoro did everything possible to break him, plummet him beyond redemption.

Slipping, feeling the world crumble away from him; the bed begin to fade, his own monstrous and unrequited pleasure begin to rear its sleek and sated head. Moaning, crying out, shuddering out the names of gods or of a god as if only heavenly will could grant him salvation now. God, oh gods. God, God, God, how it felt.

Or maybe sex was dying and he was calling out for some sort of unction because he had done so much ill in this world and what's more he knew it before he passed on; it felt much like dying, and the dying was fine.

Because Sanji felt it. Felt it in everything he called his body, felt that incoming wave which they called orgasm, and climax, and cumming; but what it was they didn't know for sure and so they made it taboo and restricted it and placed fees on it and placed a price on it and did everything they could to demonstrate their knowledge and fear and envy of whatever it was—

That he was experiencing, the hidden tidal wave, the stickiness where there was hidden white. The sudden stillness of all movement. Somewhere it had happened and sometime he had come and come back but because he couldn't describe it, it had passed with only a blank space to accommodate it and to testify that there had been one and that it was no more.

"Wow," he croaked, every nerve tingling as he hit Earth and the bed felt lovely. Soft and comfortable. "I just died."

Zoro groaned in response, "You and me both." And he hit the bed, "One word—fucking phenomenal."

"Shut up…I don't care if I never hear that word again."

~0~

Their position was as before, nearly an hour later. The only difference was that Sanji could feel the marrow in his bones tingling heavily, a product of his own exhaustion and the weight he now carried on his broad, white shoulders. He was passing lines without care, burning bridges behind him without a second thought. He was drawing in this man irrevocably. Unforgiving and merciless, a human tarantula.

Zoro had him tucked into his side, as if trying to by a show of affection, justify their merciless, vicious sex. Sanji smiled, as if Zoro needed to justify anything to him. Why couldn't this man understand that he was his personal whore? That he was everything and anything? Father, brother, friend, whore, lover?

The man was undeniably strange. Zoro was undeniably strange. Zoro. Zoro. Zoro. Zoro. The word tickled him.

"The second time around killed me," Zoro grunted in deep rooted satisfaction above him, a hand was back to ruffling his hair absent-mindedly and ghosting over his bare shoulder, "I don't care what you say, that's the last time."

"For tonight." Sanji all but purred, relishing the warm touches on his exposed neck and torso, feeling in them a repressed sense of triumph. His own complete and total recovery was imminent.

"You're impossible. You can't even get up right now," Zoro snorted, and bent and placed his lips softly in his hair, "I can't understand how…"

"What? I like it?" Simple Zoro…I've grown used to it and also I'm rather amused by it all. I'm not the one who's getting fucked when you force your cock inside of me. It's you who's getting fucked. In more ways than one.

"No…how you let yourself handle it. I mean…even if we're—" Zoro suddenly looked embarrassed, shy. Looking ready to discuss the deep and fundamental aspects of their non-relationship. But it wasn't the time for that. No, not yet.

Sanji closed his eyes and pretended to sleep.

~0~

He awoke as soon as he heard the front door close from across the apartment. His blue eyes snapped open and he was up, sliding out of bed, ignoring the beginning of an ache down there. There was a note on the bedside-

Sanji-

You didn't really have any ready made stuff in the pantries and I didn't want to cook and mess up your kitchen so I'm heading out to get some breakfast. Hope you like bagels. You should stay in bed. Sorry if it hurts. My slacks have your spit all over them, so I took a pair of sweat pants from your closet. Hope you don't mind.

Zoro

Blunt and to the fucking point. Sanji snorted laughter before stopping himself suddenly, confused. What the hell was he laughing at?

Perhaps the note. It certainly was worlds apart from the usual. Perhaps just the manner in which it was written. Perhaps because he thought it was funny in his own strange way.

He put the note back and padded back to the bed, still naked. He found what he wanted almost immediately. Zoro's jeans, crumpled next to the bed. Did Zoro really think he sucked him through the thin, black fabric so wantonly without a purpose? If so, then the man was nicely deluded.

Sanji sagged his knees and delicately reached for the slacks, not wanting to stress his lower body just yet, though probably not enough time had yet passed for the serious hurt to begin. Once the soft material was in his grip, he fished his hands through the pockets, looking, fingers searching. Zoro had likely taken his wallet, but there could be still something—

A receipt for a hamburger and fries. A scrap of paper with nothing writ upon it. A ball of lint. Thirteen cents.

Sanji muttered in annoyance and switched pockets. Nothing in there. He tried the back pockets.

A slip of paper. There was a strange sketch on it which seemed meaningless and on the other side, a pen scrawl simply said, 'Call Kizaru. Don't—' and something which looked like 'forget' though it could be 'forge' or 'force', but was most likely, 'forget'.

He was careful not to scrunch the paper up, careful not to leave a sweat print behind or place the pads of his fingers directly on the surface, handling it only with the very tips of his nails. And he memorized the sketch and name quickly; but still that was not enough. Sanji walked quickly to a nearby dresser and slid out a drawer, pulling out a small, thin digital camera and a notebook. In less than a few seconds, everything had been documented. Even the time and place in which Zoro had eaten his hamburger.

Seconds later he was back in bed, as if he had never left it. Everything was back in the pockets and the slacks were back on the floor as though they had never been desecrated. Everything was back to abnormal.

The front door opened again around fifteen minutes later; and Sanji knew it was Zoro from the heavy, patient tread of his shoes on the rugs. And before long, the green head showed itself in his private, impersonal sanctum.

A small packet hit his chest, warm, and he reached up and took it with a smile, "Thanks."

"No problem. You okay?"

"Sure," was his jovial answer and taking out the warm bagel neatly devoured it underneath Zoro's eyes. When he was finished, he glanced up at Zoro questioningly, "You're not eating?"

"I ate on the way here. I was famished," Zoro shrugged and grinned suddenly, a smile which lit up his whole face, "You really take the energy out of a man, you know."

"So I've been told," he smirked; and laid back in the rumpled bedsheets with his arms behind his head, not before he saw Zoro's grin falter and fade. He had stolen it successfully. Add thief to assassin and you were in his court, honey.

There was a heavy hesitance in the air before Sanji heard Zoro speak again, voice tempered with the faintest flavor of jealousy, the faintest note of reproach.

"So…is this some kind of one night stand?" Zoro asked from where Sanji could tell he was leaning against the doorway of his room, hands in pockets of sweatpants that didn't belong to him. "Nothing special?"

The guy was not sugar-sweet. The time for romance and fluff had passed, if ever there had been a moment for it. The bait that would draw him in was rough and tough. Zoro was the kind of man who enjoyed the bit for the challenge he drew in it, not for the sweetness of its meat.

He grabbed a pillow and threw it at the other man, not bothering to even look at him, "Baaaastard…how many times do I have to tell you that this is something else? You think I do what I did for you for everyone, eh? Is that how little you think of me?"

"No, course not—"

"Then shut up. I'm not leaving you anytime soon. You count on that marimo," Sanji cut him off, "You're different. You're cool. I like you—I'll stay."

"I like you too Sanji." So simple and roughly sincere and to the point and objective and everything he wasn't, everything he had used to be. It was like seeing a mirror of himself, slightly warped and much cleaner. Zoro chuckled again and Sanji was slightly disturbed to find that he found it a pleasant sound. "I guess we're together now. Whatever that means."

"You're even wearing my sweatpants."

"Your slobber is all over the crotch of my slacks."

"It's dry by now." That formal, slick incubus inside of him withered a bit and cringed in mortification as Zoro called his salvia, slobber. It was a nasty word, it had nothing to do with the precise, formulated creature he fancied himself to be. He did not slobber. Never before had anybody told him that; and he had done much with his mouth, his tongue, and his saliva.

Zoro had no idea that these thoughts were clouding his mind, making him uncomfortable. "Maybe, but it still would have felt weird. Anyway, I have to go work. Sorry for leaving like this—"

"You apologize too damn much Zoro," he breathed, a little annoyance in his voice which, miraculously, he did not have to fake. He had known for a while now that Zoro needed to go do his job and had been anxious for the departure. He, too, had to work. But the marimo just would not go. The marimo just stayed there, hands in pockets, gazing at him as if trying to burn the image of his bare chest and stomach into memory. To etch it forever in his mind.

"I'm sorry," Zoro said, and the smile in his words was oddly endearing, "I—I just…this is the first time…"

"First time fucking? I doubt it," and for some reason the speech that he was suddenly, absurdly listening to had captivated his attention. Again, the freshness of the emotions, the novelty of the sincerity, struck him erratically. Where were the tender, moist lips on his and the dirty nothings whispered into his ear before they left? Zoro was across the room, fully dressed, and telling him that it had been his first time. What? What? What?

"No. it's the first time someone's stuck in my head longer than he should be." And the footsteps left, giving away the slight embarrassment the other man was feeling. The sound of the door closing was unimportant, almost anticlimactic.

~0~

Author's Note: Thank you for reading and reviewing! But let me just say that all military titles and information are utterly fabrications of my own ignorant mind. I'm going to try to keep the chapters short, 13 pages or so, it goes better with the literary atmosphere. Oh, damn. Shit. For the record, my mind gets really woozy if I work on this story too long.