I needed a break from the epic angst that is Chivalry Makes Dead... so, this is me, sticking my toe in the shallow end of ZoSan. Let me know what you think!

I was struggling between the urge to write and the urge to make art, and thatshittycook over on the tumblr suggested I draw something cute and fluffy, and WhiteCourtain suggested that I do both or just sleep. So I chose to follow both suggestions. I imbibed, and then I slept, and then I wrote something cute and fluffy, and then I drew a cover image, and there you go.

All spoken words in this come from the song "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. I really picture this as a doujinshi, but my panelling skills are non-existent, so we'll settle for a oneshot for now.

I do not own One Piece.

Sanji made sure to slam the front door to his apartment building as hard as humanly possible as he exited, a satisfied smirk pulling at his lips as he heard the damned near deafening bang echo around inside the historic building. He was pretty sure that the old bat in 1F would complain, but the cook honestly didn't give a shit. Let her complain. If they got thrown out, maybe he would never have to see that stupid, shitty, sake-guzzling moss head ever again.

Throwing his hands angrily in the air, Sanji stormed down the steps and onto the sidewalk, his body all tension and twitching nerves. Several passersby paused in their travels to cast wary and worried looks upon the pacing, muttering blonde, but he paid them no heed. Sanji was seeing red. He couldn't remember what it was that he and the idiot moss-for-brains had argued over, but it had quickly escalated out of control, as so many of their frequent disagreements did. Sanji growled low in his throat and went to toss his hands over his head again, only to change his mind halfway and stuff them in his pockets with enough force to nearly tear the lining. Why did that shithead have to be such a goddamn, fucking…shithead? He rolled his eyes and groaned. He was so angry that even his vocabulary in his internal dialogues was suffering. Shithead is a shithead. How goddamn eloquent.

Dejected and exhausted by his own fury, Sanji wandered toward his apartment steps, deciding that it might be best to smoke his anger away before he ended up air-strangling that one moss-covered lamppost down the block (which definitely hadn't happened before). Plopping himself down on the second step, he pulled a slightly bent cigarette from his pocket and, after a couple of unsuccessful tries that he would never admit to, managed to light up. Inhaling deeply, Sanji held the smoke in his lungs for a moment, reveling in the dichotomy of the sun-warmed stone beneath him and the cooling evening air. Slowly, the tight knots in his back, shoulders, and stomach began to untangle and unwind, and he finally relaxed, exhaling a breath of smoke into the crisp twilight. Letting go a frustrated huff, Sanji propped his elbow on his knees and rested his chin in his palm. It had absolutely, positively, definitely been the moss head's fault—whatever it was—but he still felt guilt clawing at his heart. Dammit all, but he was tired of always being the one to apologize. Was he really the only one that wanted this so badly? Was he always going to have to admit defeat and concede? That wasn't how these things were supposed to work. If the grass green lummox didn't want to put equal effort into this, then he could go and rejoin the local plant life, as far as Sanji was concerned.

He twitched slightly as he heard the door open, and the heavy booted steps that only one person in the whole world could make. Speak of the devil. A flash of green hair and an ungraceful grunt told him that Zoro had taken a seat beside him, and Sanji made a bigger show than necessary of scooting a couple inches away. They sat in tense silence for several minutes, Sanji's thoughts a blur as he sorted through his long list of clever, scathing retorts to whatever might come out of his damned irritating lover's mouth.

"Oi, Curlybrow."

Sanji frowned at the rude nickname, and took another drag from his cigarette, drawing out the silence before answering. "Marimo."

"Do you remember that day you fell out of my window?"

The blonde jerked upright where he sat and only barely avoided whirling to look Zoro in the eye. What was this? Some sort of half-assed attempt to make his forget his rage by making him relive painful memories? Of course he remembered that day.

He had been visiting this very apartment, when it had only belonged to the moss head, for the first time. Sanji had perched himself on the window sill as he smoked, so as not to permanently imbue the furniture with the pungent odor secreted by his death sticks. He had been startled by something—a car horn or a door slam or a shout or whatever—and overbalanced. If he closed his eyes, he could still feel the air whipping past him as the sidewalk rushed up to meet him, and see Zoro's panicked face as he unsuccessfully leaned out of the open window to try to catch him. It had felt like the world came to a standstill when he made his bone shattering landing. Sanji remembered regret at a budding relationship never seen through flashing through his mind as he felt his leg, hip, and arm break on impact. He had been certain that he would die that day. He and Zoro had only been seeing each other for a couple of weeks at that point, but the moss head had stuck faithfully by him during the slow and painful recovery. It had been the first time that Sanji really felt the stirrings of love for anyone. He frowned and bit down on the filter of the cigarette. He wouldn't let the stupid marimo distract him from his current anger so easily.

"I sure do; you came jumping out after me," he finally answered, hoping that he delivered the words with enough biting venom to effectively indicate his lingering irritation.

"Well," said Zoro, seemingly unfazed by Sanji's hateful tone, "you fell on the concrete, and nearly broke your ass, and you were bleeding all over the place, and I rushed you off to the hospital. You remember that?"

What was this supposed to be? Some sort of shitty guilt trip? Was he going to complain about the money he'd spent on gas or something? "Yes, I do."

"Well, there's something I never told you about that night."

Sanji felt cold dread settle over him. Well, shit. What hadn't Moss Head told him? He had been pretty dosed at the hospital. Had he done something embarrassing? Did he go streaking through the emergency room? Or make some long slurred heartfelt confession? He remembered that the nurses had been really cute. Did he have some sort of massive nasal hemorrhage that he had conveniently forgotten?

"What didn't you tell me?" he asked cautiously, turning to look at his lover for the first time during their conversation.

"Well, when you were sitting in the back seat smoking a cigarette you thought was gonna be your last…" Zoro paused, and Sanji found himself leaning in, suddenly very invested in the normally stoic man's narrative. "…I was falling deep, deeply in love with you."—Zoro smirked and turned to make eye contact with the suddenly wide-eyed, shocked blonde.—"And I never told you until just now. How about that?"

Any anger that he had felt was immediately forgotten. Did the shitty bastard just say that he loved him? Not just that, that he was deeply in love with him and had been for the last year and a half? Zoro's aversion to the "L" word had always been a sore spot for him, and here he was, saying it out loud, in public.

Sanji knew that his grin was nearing face-splitting size, but he didn't care. Zoro loved him. He had just said so. With an excited "Alright!", the blonde launched himself at the green-haired wonder, his half-finished cigarette forgotten on the sidewalk, and locked their lips in a passionately bruising kiss as they landed in a tangle of limbs on the steps. Their lips and tongues meshed naturally for several minutes, with neither of them fighting for control as they normally did, but balancing one another in perfect harmony.

They finally stopped when they had to come up for air, and they lay on the cooling stone steps for a moment, their foreheads pressed together, as they caught their breath. Panting excitedly for air, Sanji ran his fingers through Zoro's oddly-colored hair, keeping his eyes closed for fear of breaking the spell that had fallen over them. When Zoro tilted his chin up, and planted a soft kiss on his lips, he felt the unspoken question vibrate through his body with a thrill of excitement.

Forgiven?

Sanji grinned against his lover's mouth, and wrapped his arms around his neck as he returned the kiss.

Forgiven.

~Home is when I'm alone with you.~