okay so !!!! so what if you’re a jealous and possessive pet? like your boy tells you it’s okay to play with the other boys and the other pets and even encourages you like sucking their cock or riding them or eating out one of the other pets but the image of him doing that with someone else’s pet just shatters you. if they’re in a different room that’s bad but being able to see it happen is even worse. you can see the smile they give and the sounds they make and you thought you were special to them but it doesn’t feel like that — how would the boys reconcile something like that?
like knowing the other boys and pets are sharing and playing and you feel bad, especially when they’re all together and everyone is playing but your boy is the only one who’s not and it tears you up because you want him to enjoy and have fun but the thought of him kissing someone else or fucking them, finishing inside them… you could cry.
(bonus angst where one of the boys goes and visits another pet and comes back smelling like them, maybe marked and obviously fucked, and you hadn’t necessarily talked about that yet and it just crushes you and you refuse to sleep in the same bed as them for…. well, for awhile.)
UGH. YOU. I LOVE ANGST.
im a whore for hurt/no comfort so ill try to help write something here cuz if it was me, they can kick rocks. but its not. So.
for the first part, oh man. It's a bottle-it-in situation, imo, because i feel this in my soul. The low grunts you worked so hard to wrestle out of them are easily tumbling out of their mouth now, because of your hard work. It's something so gut-wrenching because that face of ecstasy should only be for you? Then the insecurities kick in. What if they're prettier, what if they're tighter, what if they're simply in another league altogether? (this is me as a hit dog that is hollering)
he's never treated your playdates as a chance to essentially cheat without cheating, he honestly only wanted you to make friends—wanted to expand on the kink you live and breathe by. But regardless, that's how it feels. And this is where the shutdown begins. The silence, the lack of enthusiasm for wanting to put on your collar, the distancing, and when he says, "Does my pet want to play with me today?" you burst into tears. Ugly sobbing, loud wails.
He freezes, for a second, because never in the time you've been together has he ever heard you cry like this. It's agonizing and when he immediately throws himself at your feet, he tries to cup your face with his large hands when you jerk yourself away from his touch.
You've never rejected his touch.
His heart cracks with hairline fractures because this is his love, his future that's falling into pieces in front of him and you don't even want his comfort. He lowers his hands and fists at the fabric of his trousers to hold back from reaching out to you.
For the first time in a long time, his eyes well with tears, and he swallows thickly, trying to open up his throat a bit to be able to say something, anything.
His voice warbles as he says, "Baby, talk to me." He gives you plenty of time to respond, but you don't. Once the tears are exhausted and your body is worn out, you simply turn your head to the side, eyes away from him. The tears that had distorted his vision now fall, dripping onto the cold floor he's still kneeling on. You don't even want to look at him.
"Talk to me, baby, please." His forehead touches your knee. "Please." His tone is desperate as he begs. The sight of a man who's killed people with his bare hands, sniveling by your feet pulls at your own heartstrings. Sigh.
"Would you like to know where you erred?" He whips his head up to look at you, nodding like an idiot.
"Your mistake, was assuming I wanted to share and be shared." He opens his mouth to say something, but you're not here to listen to him. He's here to listen to you.
"No. You presumed I wanted to the same as the other pets, just because we share the same kink? I had to sit there and watch— listen to you fuck someone else, and I couldn't say anything because then I would've been the buzzkill."
You clench your jaw and look directly into his eyes. "Do you know what it's like? No. You don't. You forget that the boys are your friends, your brothers in arms. Not mine. I sat with acquaintances, at best, and had to stomach whatever the fuck that was."
"I no longer wish to—" but he panics here, adapts a crazy-eyed look and cuts you off.
"No, no, no. Please, god no. You're my everything, you, I—" he hiccups, and his shoulders start to shake once he wraps his arms around your waist, and lowers his head onto your knees again, and chokes out, "I am nothing without you. Please."
Having cried all your tears, your sadness fades into sharp, biting anger. "It didn't seem like it though. You were quick to pass me around like some harlot. You're just gonna give me to anyone you see? Hm? What about the neighbor that has been hitting on m—" and he jerks his head back up, eyes deadly, dark with hostility.
"I'd fucking kill him for even having the audacity to ask if he could touch you the way I do."
Scoffing, you say, "And that's how I felt. Fucking strangers touching what should be only mine, kissing what is only mine," your tone turns hushed, "what I thought was mine, anyway."
Holding his gaze, you purse your lips. "I need time to think. You broke my trust. I'm not sure how to move forward from here."
--
this is too long im sorry uh, so he gives you all the time in the world, all the space you need, for which you're grateful. He's not overbearing, never crowds you. never says anything out of line. He seems fully repentant, dotes on you like his only reason for existing is to keep you as happy as you can feel. He tells you he loves you every bloody day, even if you don't repeat it back. He says it firm, unwavering.
And that's the balm that allays the pain in your heart. But you love him, still, so so much. With a deep breath, you tell him that you're not going to leave him, that you love him still and that's why it hurt the way that it did. But he'll have a ton of groveling to do.
The shaky smile he gives is full of relief. He pulls you to him, in an embrace so tight that you can barely even breathe. And after, he holds your face so tenderly, as if you're made of porcelain, and asks for a kiss, one you agree to. It conveys everything he's been sayings all this time, that he loves you.
and months pass, intimacy slowly turns back to what it was, but with reverent kisses and worship spilling from his lips. Words so sweet, that you break down in tears mid-act because you feel something finally shift back into place. Ofc, he freaks because "Darling, oh god, what's happened" but you pull him in for a kiss, and just tell him that you love him so much. His smile is soft as he says it back.
Then you pull out the collar again, and he panics but you calm him. That you feel ready. You want to play with your owner, and your heart is in his hands, to please take care of it.
A couple of tears fall from his eyes as he clicks your collar back around your neck and swears to never hurt you this way again.
Playdates turn into him being the only one to touch you and vice versa. And he answers to no one when they ask why.
i had a good time im sorry its so long I JUST LOVE ANGST PLEASE.
I hope i gave you what you were looking for ❤
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hiii i'm a new follower and i love your writing so much
ik u said no requests in ur bio but i just finished reading ur sanji fic.. so even if ur still not taking requests i'd just like to throw in an idea that u may or may not feel like using in the future, up to you (i'm requesting this with opla sanji in mind but if u wanna use it for zoro that's cool too)
k so imagine reader being invited to a friend's wedding, & being excited to go until they find out their ex is coming too (with their partner of some amt of yrs). so now reader is pressured to bring someone w/ them & ends up asking their best friend sanji bc they don't want others thinking they're still hung up on the past.
wedding dress
opla!sanji; 6,544 words, pining with a happy ending, fluff and a tad of angst, flirting, lovesick!sanji, whipped!!!!sanji, no "y/n", zeff is a whole mood, confessions, sanji-appropriate nickname usage, modern!au?
summary: you invite sanji to be your plus 1 at a wedding
a/n: im so sorry this took so long. but. better late than? never? also, there is a tiny bit of rehashing for ep 6 of the live action for sanji and zeff's relationship so... spoilers?
It’s a chilly, overcast kind of day when the call comes in. And in retrospect, Sanji thinks he should’ve known better when he’d seen your name on the caller ID. He’d hesitated, because by god if it wasn’t his New Year's Resolution to get the hell over you this year, but it’s almost December again and he still can’t help the way his heart races at the sound of your voice.
“Hey sweetheart — long time no talk!” he answers after a brief moment of contemplating his entire life, dusting his flour-covered hands on his apron.
“Hey! Sorry for calling so… out of the blue…” your voice is still as sweet as ever, and the way his stomach twists at the tinkle of your nervous laughter makes him want to kick himself. Still, he forces himself to stay calm, clearing his throat as he checks the oven — it’s almost done pre-heating.
“Now you know what I said about actin’ a stranger — just because you moved halfway across the entire world doesn’t mean we ain’t best friends anymore, right?”
It’s what you’d said when he’d been standing at the airport, three seconds from dropping to his knees and begging you not to go. But he hadn’t, because he knew how hard you’d worked for this — for this opportunity abroad, to study art in the birthplace of the Renaissance itself, in the heart of Italy.
“And… you might be able to come visit me, right?” you’d said, rocking on the balls of your feet, your eyes full of what Sanji could only call false hope — which is always, always the worst and most painful kind.
Sanji had swallowed and nodded and said something or other about Europe and fine dining, but there’s a terrible, prickling heat eating up the back of his neck and a voice that’s screaming at him to pull you to him and kiss you. He doesn’t. And he regrets it to this day.
“Ah — right… I’m actually calling because… I’ll be in the area in about a week and…”
Your voice pulls him out of his reverie and he clears his throat, hitches a smile to his face that he knows you can’t see but he’s sure you can hear.
“Oh! That’s great, darling! You’ve gotta come for a drink, I’ll whip up all your favorites — we can make a night —”
“It’s actually for a wedding.”
There are a few moments in everyone’s lives when they learn the true meaning of a thing for the very first time — elation, pride, stomach-twisting guilt, and… fear. True fear, the kind of fear that shakes the muscle from your bones and sends them tingling, threatens to overwhelm you with numbness. Fear, that pushes adrenaline through you like a drug, forces the world into a terrifying, all-consuming focus.
Sanji feels the fear coursing through him, wild and contentious at your words.
A wedding.
Your wedding? Perhaps?
He can’t bear to think of it; he’s so terrified he can barely breathe.
Then comes the moment after, the wave of everything else that the fear had washed away — confusion, anger, guilt (always guilt, for some reason), because isn’t he supposed to be happy for you? For you, the person he loves most in this entire world, to find love, to know happiness. He should. He should.
“Oh.”
Sanji sags back against the hard, metal counter. Almost mindlessly, he reaches into his pockets with shaking hands, digging around for a smoke.
Your breath is soft in his ear, too far across the phone line and a thousand miles of ocean.
“I originally wasn’t even planning on going — she’s not a very close friend — we had like one class together but —”
And within the span of a minute, Sanji also learns relief. The kind that melts the world around you into sizzling butter and champagne bubbles. The kind that makes you want to lie down on the ground and scream.
“— it was so close to your restaurant so I said yes but I didn’t know he was gonna be there and —”
You’re still talking, rambling like you do. And it takes nearly everything inside Sanji to pull himself back to the conversation.
“Sorry, love, who did you say was gonna be there?”
“My ex — you know the one —”
Sanji grimaces, flicking on his lighter with still-shaking fingers.
“Mm, yeah I do. The tall, dark-haired bastard who —”
“Yeah well — he’s gonna be there too and I just —” he hears you swallow hard and take a long, steadying breath. An unnameable something is calcifying in the depths of his stomach as he waits for you to collect yourself.
Curiosity? Why had you called like this, so suddenly, about a wedding where your ex was going to be? Concern? Were you thinking of going back to him?
But slowly, as you stutter through your next few words, the unnameable thing obtains a name — dread.
“— I just don’t think I could do it myself, y’know? And — and you were the one who got me out of it wh-when I decided to break it off with him so…”
Sanji takes a long drag of his cigarette and casts his eyes up at the high, white-slabbed ceiling of the kitchen, scored with long strips of bright, fluorescent lighting that floods the entire room in a direct, unforgiving glow.
He closes his eyes and counts to three.
“Course I’ll come with you, darlin’. It —” he wets his lips, taps off a bit of ash from his cigarette, and sucks in through his nose, clearing his throat of the words still lodged there, “— it’d be my honor.”
Relief — he hears it in your voice, and by gods he can almost see it — the way your whole face would light up, washed as if by the setting sun, your eyes wide and dark, your cheeks flushing his favorite fucking shade of pink and —
“Thank you, thank you, thank you! I really owe you for this one —”
Sanji makes a valiant effort at a nonchalant chuckle; it comes out sounding like a dog with a bit of bone stuck in its throat instead.
“Nonsense — what are best friends for, anyway?”
There’s a tiny pause where Sanji can feel the words best friend scraping along the insides of his mouth, barbed and harsh, leaving his tongue feeling raw and metallic.
“You really are the best friend anyone could ask for,” your voice is soft and honest and Sanji wants nothing more than to chuck his phone into the industrial blender.
You tell him that you’ll send him the details, that you can’t wait to see him soon, that you’ve got a world and a half of catching up to do, that you’ll buy him so, so many drinks, and that you’ll come bearing presents. He laughs at the right times, makes soft noises of consent and agreement, and when finally, finally you tell him goodbye, he clicks off the phone and takes another long drag of his smoke.
And then, he whips his hand back and throws the cigarette butt into the large sink, where it tinks against the metal and sizzles sadly in the murky dishwater.
“Real sucker for punishment, aren’tcha, lil’ eggplant?”
Sanji groans, turning around to find Zeff with his arms folded, the hip to his bad leg propped against a counter.
“Will you fuck kindly off — can’t you see I’m going through a thing here?”
Zeff snorts, clunking unevenly towards him.
“You been going through that thing for the last year and a half since you chickened outta askin’ her to stay so —”
“I didn’t chicken out — I — it was her dream to go to Florence and study —”
“And what was your dream then, ey?”
Sanji bangs his palm against the counter and sighs, “It’s not like I could leave you here with —”
“With what? A thriving restaurant business that I started? A guest list out the door and round the corner —”
“I — I helped!”
Zeff rolls his eyes, “Ah sure ya did, but I never asked you to, did I?”
Sanji huffs, pressing his tongue to the roof of his mouth to stop the torrent of horrible, sad, acrid things he could say and could never mean, so he swallows them back down. When he looks up next, Zeff is still standing there, but there’s a softness around his eyes.
He opens his mouth a few times, but eventually, all he says is, “The oven’s over heatin’.”
Sanji swears and jumps up to tug open the oven door. A wave of hot air whooshes out and nearly catches him in the face. Behind him, he can hear Zeff’s dark, gravelly chuckle, and the dull clunk of his wooden leg.
“You burn the kitchen down, you pay for it.”
And then he’s gone again, leaving the door swinging behind him, and Sanji very much alone with the too-hot oven and a counter full of things he can’t really remember the recipes for anymore.
Nearly a week later, Sanji finds himself standing at the airport, rocking on the balls of his feet, nearly in the exact same place as he’d been a year and a half prior. Except this time, you’re not walking away from him. You’re walking back towards him. He wonders if there’s a name for deja-vu in reverse and comes to the realization that that’s just called… a memory.
And memory seems to work in strange ways now, images superimposing themselves on top of one another — the flicker of a film lens, the bat of an eyelash, the shadow of a smile crimping the corner of your lips. All of this, he sees in the here and now, but he sees it in the air around you too, shimmering and mirage-like — all his memories and dreams of you layered over the shape of you. Your memory like a ghost of itself, trailing behind you as you walk towards him, a shy smile on your face, your cheeks flushed from travel and the cold and —
He doesn’t let himself hope. Not this time.
“Hey!” your voice is just as bell-like as he remembers it, pitched a little higher than it usually is, probably out of nervousness. But it still feels like a kick to the guts. Sanji forces himself to smile.
“Hi, love,” he says, leaning down as you reach him, but the motion aborts halfway because — is it still appropriate to hug you like he’d always done? To press his lips to your cheek or your hairline and revel in the bright citrus of your shampoo, to soak in the butter and cream of your skin like he used to?
There’s an awkward half-second pause before you’re standing up on tip-toe and Sanji’s heart nearly drops out of his ass as you lean in. But then — your lips skim by his cheek and your arms are around him, and stupid, stupid, stupid heart — thundering in his chest like horses or hooves or fists or thumping rabbit’s feet — leaping into his throat and pattering against the base of his tongue as he wraps his arms around you and holds you close. But it’s not close enough. It’s never close enough.
He breathes and distantly, a part of him notes that you still use the same shampoo.
“Hi…” your voice is warm by his ear, a bit muffled, but he can’t help the way it makes him shiver, “It’s… so good to see you.”
He nods, not trusting his own voice to do the normal thing and, oh, you know — work.
“I’ve — I’ve missed you.”
He makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a cough as he nods again. He feels your arms slackening around him and a fierce, terrifying thing is flapping its wings in his stomach, screeching at him not to let you go. But he does — like he did before.
“I — I missed you too,” he says, though his voice sounds flat and scratchy and he clears his throat again.
A dozen different expressions flicker across the lovely planes of your face and finally, it settles on endeared exasperation.
“Please don’t tell me you still work through like three packs of smokes a day.”
Sanji laughs then, shaking his head as he reaches over for your luggage, “Nah — well, maybe not three but —”
You whack him softly on the arm.
“I actually tried to quit right after you left.”
“You did?”
Sanji shrugs as the pair of you start to make for the exit. He feels your gaze go slanted and shrewd.
“How long’d that last?”
He smirks, “Few hours.”
You whack him again and this time, he dodges out of the way just to bask in the bright spark of your laughter as you chase after him.
“Seriously though, you know how terrible they are for you!”
“Sure do,” he says, tugging one out of his pocket as soon as he clears the airport doors, pivoting left towards the parking garage. You have to jog to keep up with his longer strides, your breaths misting the air between you in silvery puffs.
He makes no move to light it as he helps toss your luggage into the trunk of his car, sliding into the driver’s seat. You huff as you wiggle into the passenger’s side.
“Then why —”
Sanji waits patiently for you to buckle your seatbelt before pulling out of the parking space, one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting soft against the middle console. He slates you a glance.
“Cause,” he says, fixing his eyes back on the road, an easy smirk twisting his lips, “it’s a metaphor.”
You groan, sinking into the seat, “Just because you read John Green one time —”
“Oi, I’ll have you know I read his entire bibliography after you showed him to me.”
“Ugh, whatever you manic-pixie-dreamgirl-loving ass.”
“Yeah, whatever — you actual manic pixie dreamgirl.”
You smile and Sanji allows himself the brief and aching delusion that the past year and a half didn’t happen, that you never left, and that you’d never leave. That you’d always be here, warm and laughing and just within reach.
The rest of the car ride is spent in mundane conversation, in how was your flight and tell me about Florence and how’s Zeff doing these days and I wanna know about your latest dish. It’s light and easy, and Sanji lets it warm the air around him. By the time he pulls into the front of your hotel, all the unsaid words from the past year and a half have soaked through his socks and into his shoes. It sloshes out onto the pale pavement as he opens the car door.
He helps you roll your luggage up into the lobby and tells you he’ll be here at 3PM to pick you up tomorrow. The venue’s just three blocks away.
“Yeah, I’ll see you then,” you say, pursing your lips, waving as he backpedals towards the automatic doors.
“You’ve still gotta send me pictures of the dress you’re wearing — I gotta find a matching tie.”
You laugh, a bit embarrassed, “Right — and here I thought I might surprise you.”
Sanji freezes, eyes wide.
“O-oh! Er — well, you can just — just tell me what color or —” he waves vaguely, “send a picture of a corner of the dress — just so I have something to color match against —”
You nod, eyes glittering, eager once more, “Oh! That’s a good idea — I’ll do that.”
“Great,” Sanji says.
“Great!” you echo, perhaps a bit too chipper.
He gives you one last smile before turning and striding from the hotel, firing up the engine as calmly as he can, forcing himself not to turn and check if you’re still watching him through the brightly lit, sliding glass doors. He allows himself a glance through the rear-view mirror as he pulls away from the drive and his heart skips a beat when he realizes you’re still standing there, right in the middle of the lobby, fingers wrapped around the handle of your suitcase, your eyes fixed on the shadow of his retreating car.
He lights the smoke the second he turns the corner, your shadow no longer in his rear-view mirror.
That night, Sanji dreams in fits and leaps, flashing images and long, sticky streams of could-have-beens —
He dreams of your laughter in a white-tiled kitchen, of powdered sugar and eggshells cracked and leaking on an exposed wood counter, chopsticks clinking against a thick glass mixing bowl. He dreams of your voice echoing off the shower tiles as you sing off-key, the way you used to when you’d sneak into his college dorm for movie night and a midnight snack. He dreams of coffee mugs and errant rose petals and dandelion seeds blowing in the wind. He dreams of dancing with you in his arms in a darkened dorm room that morphs into a bigger room with a softer carpet, one that he’d never seen before but he knows implicitly (like bodies know) is his home — it has pictures on the walls, trinkets lining the far bookshelf, your favorite scarf draped over the back of the well-worn sofa.
In the dream, you pull your head back from where it's pillowed against his shoulder and smile up at him. He leans down to kiss you, his lips hovering half an inch from yours.
Sanji jerks awake to the sound of his alarm, fingers fumbling for his phone, groaning as he smashes the orange snooze button and flips over to bury his face back into his lumpy pillow.
“Ah… fuck.”
It’s not the first time he’s had that dream, and he knows it won’t be the last. But it’d been so real that night, real enough to make him wonder if it just might come true.
He rubs at his sleep-crusted eyes and peers blearily at all the notifications on his screen. There’s a text from you with a picture attached. He clicks it open to find a short message attached to the picture — I really did want to surprise you…
He blinks for three seconds at what looks like a blurry picture of studded black silk before he remembers —
“Send me a picture of a corner of the dress — just so I have something to color match against.”
He allows himself a laugh, swinging his feet out of bed even as he types back — you coulda just told me it was black…
He watches the three little dots appear and disappear a few times, chewing on his bottom lip, before the text appears — well there are different shades of black, right???
Sanji laughs, shaking his head.
sure there are.
A string of tongue-out emojis, followed by an equally long string of middle-finger emojis.
He spends the rest of the morning fussing over which specific black tie to wear before settling on one that he’s quite sure is the exact same shade of black as your dress (and yes, he does have quite the collection of black ties), before tugging his best suit out to press.
It shouldn’t feel so easy, slipping back into the rhythm of things, of texting and smiling and hearing your voice in his head when he reads your texts. It shouldn’t feel so easy to forget the months of radio silence and guilt, the oppressive, resonant weight of what might have been if either of you had done a single thing different that day at the airport — he wonders if he should’ve reached for your hand, he wonders if you’d ever looked back.
He hadn’t. He couldn’t let himself.
He is waiting for you in the lobby at 2:45, wearing a hole into the plush Persian carpet, collecting strained looks from the concierge who had assured him three times in the last four minutes that he’d already rung up to your room and that you’d said you were on your way.
“Wow, you’re early — sorry I took a while — I couldn’t figure out what to do with my hair and —“
Sanji lifts his head and thinks distantly that all those rom-com cliches of a guy looking up, time itself slackening, the room smearing sideways around him, the music going slow, the lighting soft — all of it is painfully, startlingly true after all.
Because there you are, walking towards him, still saying something, but he can’t make out the words anymore because time isn’t really a thing anymore, is it? He can’t focus on that and also the dark glimmer of your dress, the way the neckline skates just beneath your collarbones, barely skimming the skin there before it slips down along the slope of your shoulders in a way that makes his breath unspool inside his chest like loose threads.
And in the slanted, ethereal light of the winter afternoon, your dress looks like it’s cut from a swath of darkest midnight, moonless and scattered with stars.
You blush as Sanji attempts to pick his jaw up off the floor and hitch his lips into something resembling a smile.
“W-wow… you look…”
Your smile is shy as you press your palms against the dress, looking down, “Thanks… you don’t think it’s… too much?”
Sanji shakes his head, feeling dazed.
“No! I mean — it’s —“ his mouth is dry, drier than he ever remembers it being, and suddenly it’s very hard to swallow and Sanji isn’t even sure the muscles in his neck know how to perform the action, let alone force words out alongside it. He struggles for another few seconds, his jaw working furiously as his eyes skitter down and back up the shape of you.
“You look… perfect,” he says, finally, because the word has been ricocheting around his chest like a stray bullet and he had to let it out somehow.
“Thanks — you don’t look so bad yourself,” you say, your voice breathy in a way that makes Sanji’s stomach squeeze.
He offers you his arm, and you glide forward to take it.
He drives the three blocks to the wedding venue in a daze, his mind spinning slow and off-axis, tilted so by the gentle waft of your perfume, the lullaby of your voice as you chatter nervously about this and that and the weather, I mean, can you believe it’s gonna be an outdoor wedding in the winter? He wonders briefly why you’re so nervous, and then he’s reminded of the reason he’s even here at all — your ex will be here. Ah. Right.
“Ready?” he asks, offering you his arm again as the both of you follow the meandering stream of arriving guests toward the paved outdoor garden area where the ceremony is due to take place.
“No, but… you’re here so…” you let out a breath and for a second, Sanji almost thinks he hears the hint of an ache in your voice. An ache like an old scab picked at too many times, like unrequited love, perhaps. It’s an ache with which Sanji is so intimately familiar that he immediately tamps it down and vows not to think about it again for the rest of the night.
There are stiff-backed waiters wandering around with plates of hors d’oeuvres and thin flutes of bubbling pink champagne.
Sanji grabs two glasses and hands you one.
“Cheers, then.”
“Bottoms up,” you say, tossing back the entire flute in one.
Sanji cocks his eyebrows, grinning as he follows suit, smacking his lips.
“Alright then, I guess if that’s how you’re playin’ —”
Your laughter is light, if a little strained, but he remembers how quickly bubbly drinks tend to go to your head and makes a concerted effort to slow down. You make it all the way through the actual ceremony without bumping into your ex, though you do lean over and grab Sanji’s hand as the bride and groom exchange vows — something about love being a choice, one that they promise to make every morning of every day for the rest of their lives — and he looks over to find you misty-eyed, bottom lip caught beneath your teeth.
“Sap,” he whispers, leaning over. It earns him a choked laugh and a half-hearted elbow in the ribs, but it’s worth it to see the tension melt from your shoulders.
Sanji turns back towards the bride and groom, exchanging rings now, and unbidden comes the images of you and him standing where they are — you in a dazzling white gown, him still in a dark suit, but one perhaps of more expensive material and much better tailoring. He thinks about all the things he might promise you, wonders at what you might promise him in return —
“I promise to love and cherish you —” you might say.
“I promise to make all your favorite foods,” he might say.
“I promise not to touch your emotional support le creuset pans.”
“I promise not to make you taste all my experimental dishes —”
“Okay, but what if I want to —”
He imagines the way the crowd would titter, how the officiator would affectionately clear his throat. He imagines Zeff’s warm, well-worn laughter, rough and a little torn at the edges because he’s just as sentimental as the next guy behind all the beard and gruffness. He imagines the crowd smiling up at the pair of you, the way you’d squeeze his hands to get the both of you back on track —
He jerks out of his reverie as you tug your hand away from his to clap, and it takes him a beat to realize that everyone else is clapping and cheering too. He blinks — the bride and groom are kissing, pulling apart as the music swells around them and they link hands to walk back down the aisle.
Sanji clears his throat and hurriedly gets up to clap as well, his eyes trailing the radiant smiles on both the newlyweds’ faces. Another sharp ache sings through him but he feels your hand in his again and he can’t tell if he wants to grip you tighter or pull away. They’d both hurt just as much, wouldn’t they?
“C’mon, let’s get inside — I wanna judge the catering with you,” you whisper, your breath tickling his cheek, and he knows without having to look that you’re standing on your tiptoes, your chin almost propped on his shoulder.
He fights down a bout of shivers and smiles, “My favorite part of any formal event, honestly.”
You laugh, “I know — me too.”
So you spend the entire dinner service whispering to each other about the food —
“God, this steak is so well done I think it just might dislocate my jaw —”
“What’s in this sauce?”
Sanji chews thoughtfully before making a face, “Dunno, but it’s got oregano.”
“Oh the cake looks good though.”
“Yeah, but we both know how much sugar and butter goes into that right?”
You nudge him with an elbow, “Weird, cause I’m pretty sure happiness is also made of sugar and butter.”
“Well for me, it’s always been…” but Sanji trails off, biting his tongue. No. He can’t say that — not now. Not here.
Because for him, happiness has always just been you.
So instead, he swallows passed his own mouthful of regrets and attempts a lopsided grin. And thankfully, your attention is drawn elsewhere by a loud peal of laughter before he has to make a shitty joke about happiness being a well-lit kitchen and a gas-lit stove.
You’re both at least a bottle of champagne deep when it finally happens, inevitable as a summer storm — your ex saunters up to you on the dance floor, sporting a grease-slick grin, eyeing you up and down like a piece of well-cut meat. Sanji is at the bar, grabbing more drinks and you’re catching a breath of fresh air just outside the dance hall.
“Well, well, well — look who it is.”
Sanji turns sharply at the sound of the voice, his eyes narrowing — Asshat. Fantastic. The bartender is putting the finishing touches on two custom cocktails but blinks, confused, as Sanji swipes both drinks out from the bar and casts him a hurried grin.
“Thanks mate, these look great,” Sanji raises the cocktail glasses at the bewildered bartender before hurrying off, slowing ever so slightly as he reaches you, straightening his spine and smoothing out his shoulders.
“Here, got them special-made for you,” he says, pressing the cocktail into your hand, cutting into something that Asshat is saying.
“Oh! Thanks — oh wow, this looks so good!” you beam up at him, taking a sip.
“Oh wow, didn’t know you were still hangin’ out with this guy,” Asshat says, hooking his thumbs into his belt-hoops and jutting out his chin.
You frown, pressing your lips, “Excuse me?”
Asshat scoffs, posturing, “I mean, when we broke up, it was cause o’him right? So I just thought you might’ve realized what a mistake that was and —”
Sanji barely has the time to feel offended before Asshat is gasping and stumbling back. You’d tossed the remainder of your drink straight into his face.
“What the —” Asshat sputters, his fists clenching, but quick as anything, Sanji swipes out a leg that catches him right in the shins and makes him stumble. In one fluid movement, Sanji pushes his own drink into your hand before reaching out the other arm to steady the now flailing Asshat, catching him around the shoulders.
“Whoa there! Seems like you’ve had a bit too much to drink, my friend!” he says, loud enough for the people around you to hear. He thumps Asshat on the back in a would-be kind gesture before tugging him close, still coughing, and hissing in his ear —
“Listen here, you asswipe — you’re gonna turn around and walk away and stay the fuck away from us for the rest of this wedding, you understand? I’ve got plenty more o’this for ya if you don’t, got it?”
Sanji scuffs his foot along the gravel-covered ground in a motion that could easily be mistaken as fidgeting, but you know better. And so, it seems, does Asshat, who scoffs and shoves Sanji off him with a glare, but after another second, straightens his drink-soaked jacket, turns, and stalks away.
You let out a long breath, swallowing hard.
“Hey darlin’… you alright?” Sanji turns and bends down to level his eyes with yours.
“Y-yeah — thanks — you didn’t need to —”
“Nah. Course I did — it’s why you invited me, right?” he allows himself a lopsided grin that borders on self-deprecating and you look up, eyes wide.
“No! I — that’s not —”
“It’s okay, love — I promise I’m not offended —” Sanji’s babbling, he knows he is — but he has to, because the alternative of letting you speak, of letting you confirm what he already knows to be true (that you’ve only ever seen him as a best friend, that you love him in all the ways except for the one way he wants you to, in the one way he loves you) is too much. He tucks his hands in his pockets and shrugs up his shoulders, pulling them up towards his ears like armor.
And then you lean in and kiss him, and every single word he’s ever thought of saying just to fill the silence turns to mist and mornings on his tongue. His mind turns blissfully blank and when he regains consciousness (or has he? Because isn’t this the dream he’s dreamt every waking moment of his life for the past… however many years?), he thanks every god he can name that he feels his fingers in your hair, his other hand cupping the soft curve of your jaw. He tastes your uncertainty against his lips and presses in, hoping, praying that if he just kissed you hard enough you might understand.
When you pull away, he can’t help the satisfied purr that curls up his chest at the pinkness in your cheeks and the slightly glazed-over look in your eyes.
“O-oh — sorry I —”
Sanji shakes his head, leaning in to push his forehead against yours.
“Nah, nah, nah — if you tell me that was a mistake now I might just turn around and never speak to you ever again — because don’t you dare —”
You let out a helpless laugh, shaking your head as you reach up to cover his hands with yours. It’s only then that he realizes they’d been shaking. He swallows and he thinks he can taste every single morning after for the rest of his goddamn life in the whisper of your breath.
“It — it’s not, I wasn’t —” you close your eyes and Sanji holds you still, foreheads still pressed. Distantly, Sanji is aware that people are cheering, that more drinks are being poured, that the dance floor is probably a mess. But he doesn’t care. He doesn’t think he’ll care about anything else ever again — why would he? Now that he’s got you.
“Shh… take your time, love… we’ve got all the time in the world.”
He feels the relief take you, and then you’re falling into him, burying your face in the lapel of his suit jacket, probably smearing it with your foundation. Vaguely, Sanji considers framing it when he gets home.
“I’m… I’m sorry it took so long — I’m sorry I didn’t — that I wasn’t…” you curl your fist into the material of his shirt and thump him lightly on the chest, even as he laughs and wraps his arms around you.
“I know, darlin’… I know.” Sanji presses his lips into your hair and can’t help a smile.
Finally. Finally.
Your hair smells like citrus shampoo.
Finally.
“I thought about you every single day,” you admit, your voice small when you finally pull back to look at him again. He thinks there might be tears in your eyes, or maybe it’s just the starlight caught in the thick night sky of your lashes.
“Did you now?” he asks, fumbling for some semblance of normalcy amidst this night of revelations.
You nod, fervently, and god he wants to kiss you again. Briefly, he wonders if he should, if he’s allowed to now. Instead, he smiles and cocks his head.
“So? What changed?” and he can’t help the tiny note of hurt out of his voice, the slightest shiver of disbelief. After all, cynicism is a hard habit to break.
Especially after so many years of practice.
You shrug, sighing, “Nothing — everything. I mean — I’d always… but then I thought — you had your career as a chef and I didn’t even know what I wanted to do with my life. But it —” you lick your lips, and Sanji nearly breaks when you tear your eyes away from his. He wants to force you back, to soak in the dark and bright of your gaze till he can see the world exactly as you see it.
“It’s always been you…” you say.
At this, Sanji does break. He tips your face towards him with a thumb and a forefinger and leans in, waiting for you to pull back, bracing for it. But you don’t — instead, you press in and close the space between you again, and again, and then again.
He wants to tell you — he needs to tell you that it’s always been you too, that there’s never been anyone else. From the moment he first laid eyes on you, he’s known, even though both of you were children back then, and neither of you had any idea what “love” actually meant. He knew then, too.
“Love…” his voice trails off, but you smile, and he knows you know, knows that you can hear it in the rawness behind his voice, in the softness of his breath, in the way it shakes.
You make to kiss him again. But your lips hover half an inch from his and you stop. Sanji sighs.
“What — why’d you stop?”
Your smile is sweet and sharp, honey glinting on a razor’s edge, and he knows that he has you. And maybe that he’s always had you and was just too blind, too terrified, to see it.
“Haven’t you heard? It’s a metaphor.”
Sanji groans, “Fuck your metaphors.”
You bat your lashes, pulling an expression of mock affront onto your face.
“Well at least wine me and dine me first —”
Sanji licks his lips, “What’dyou think I’ve been trying to do for the last ten years?”
Your breath catches.
“Oh.”
Sanji smirks and kisses you again, slowly this time, languid and deep. Unhurried. He luxuriates in the way you go soft in his arms, in the way he can feel the gentle hitch of your breath as he runs his tongue along the edges of your teeth, coaxing you towards him, closer and closer and closer.
The hardest, angriest part of him wants to swallow you whole, bite down just to hear you hiss, to taste your blood on his tongue. To make you feel even a sliver of the pain he’d felt. He tamps it back down — there’s time for that later.
Instead, he forces himself to pull back and allows himself the satisfaction of watching you chase him, pursing your own lips with a bashful look away, your cheeks dark.
“So,” Sanji takes half a step back, puffing out his chest in the best imitation of a fuckboy at a wedding party, “wanna get outta here?”
You let out a helpless laugh, falling into his side. He lets the sound ring through him like so many silver bells.
“Yeah, I’d love that.”
He chuckles, looping an arm around your middle and leaning towards your ear.
“Your place, or mine?”
You roll your eyes, “I’m pretty sure I still have a toothbrush at your place.”
Sanji hums, “You still have a whole drawer at my place.”
You smile up at him, open and happy and sincere, “Then… I guess that’s your answer then.”
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