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Sanji stirs from sleep to a soft tapping noise that he can’t pinpoint at first. He frowns as his dream slips away, rolling over and squinting at the window as the tapping continues. There’s a shadowy figure outside, balanced precariously on the sill. His heart rate spikes as the thought of an intruder trying to break in crosses his mind, before he realizes he knows that silhouette.
With a sigh, he throws his blankets back and slips out of bed. He crosses to the window and pulls it open with the most annoyed expression at his disposal on his face. “The old man’s gonna make a kebab outta you if he catches you comin’ in the window like this.”
Zoro just smirks as he slips into the room. The chilly winter breeze follows him in. “No, he won’t. Zeff actually likes me.”
“Exactly,” Sanji says, closing the window once his idiot boyfriend is inside. “Which means you coulda just come through the front door like a normal person.”
“Eh. Where’s the fun in that?”
There’s a retort on his tongue, but Sanji finds his mouth occupied before he can open it. His eyes close and he kisses back on reflex, melting into the arms that wrap around him. It lasts for several moments that feel both too long and too short; he breathes in Zoro’s familiar cologne and thinks this is what true contentment is.
Zoro is the one to pull away first, and Sanji blinks out of the daze that single, simple kiss put him in. Dammit, he’s so easy. “Merry Christmas,” his boyfriend murmurs, close enough their lips brush, and Sanji scowls.
“You woke me up at—” A glance at the clock tells him it’s two-forty-seven. “—three in the fuckin’ morning to tell me Merry goddamn Christmas? You could have just texted. Jesus Christ.”
“Wanted to tell you in person,” Zoro replies with a shrug. “More romantic or some shit.”
Sanji opens his mouth, then closes it again without saying anything. The bastard is throwing his own words back at him and he hates it. He hates it because he doesn’t dislike it, even if it is hours before the crack of dawn and Sanji could be warm in his bed and asleep right now.
“I hate you,” he grumbles finally. It’s undermined by the way he tucks his face into his boyfriend’s neck and continues to cling to him. “I’m breakin’ up with you. You’re a headache and I don’t have to put up with this. I won’t put up with this.”
“You love me,” Zoro states, smug. He presses a kiss to Sanji’s temple, like some tender, caring sweetheart. “You wouldn’t know what to do without me.”
Sanji knocks their heads together softly and closes his eyes as fatigue sets back in. “I’d be livin’ my best life,” he mutters sleepily. “Tell your sister I’m returnin’ you to the store. I want my money back.”
Zoro laughs, low and warm, and squeezes him. “Sorry. No refunds. All sales are final.”
“Damn.”
“Kuina wouldn’t let you give me back anyway,” he continues, swaying gently from side to side as if rocking them. It doesn’t help Sanji’s sleepiness at all. “She says I’m a tolerable level of irritating now because I spend most of my time with you. If you give me back, she might actually kill me.”
Sanji snorts. “Because you’d be inconsolable without me and spend all your time cryin’ into your pillow while listening to angsty break up music, right?”
“...Yes.”
It’s such a reluctantly genuine admission. The image of Zoro curled up in his bed, silently crying into his Mihawk body pillow as a twangy country song about heartbreak blasts from his sound system (because that’s the kind of music this arsehole listens to when he’s in his feelings. Such a lack of taste, eugh) tickles him to the core. Sanji chuckles softly, then a little louder until the hysteria, brought on by lack of sleep, sets in and he has to tuck his face into his boyfriend’s hoodie to muffle the noise so they don’t wake up his dad.
“You’re impossible,” he gasps, grinning up at the shithead he’s decided to call his own. Sanji cups Zoro’s pinkened cheeks, feeling how chilled they are from being outside against the warmth of his fingers. “Guess I’ll have to keep you, then. So you don’t go imposing your idiocy on the world.”
Zoro leans into his touch. “...That means you weren’t serious about breaking up with me, right?”
Sanji stares for a beat, wondering what he sees in this boy, then leans in to kiss him. God, he loves this stupid fool.
He means to draw things out, maybe deepen it because thinking about how much he adores Zoro always puts him in the mood for a good makeout session, but his plans are interrupted by a deep, long yawn. It has him scrunching his nose and shaking his head like a cat, and he hates that his brain immediately goes to that comparison because it means Zoro’s does, too.
Zoro proves him right by gazing at him fondly and saying, “Cute as a kitten.”
Sanji flips him off. “Go fuck yourself.”
“Love you, too.”
“Gross.”
Another yawn escapes him, and Sanji decides he’s going back to sleep. He shoves Zoro towards the bed while tugging on his hoodie. “Alright, c’mon. Off.”
“If you want me naked, you just gotta ask,” Zoro teases, letting him pull it up over his head. Sanji sneers in response to the smirk he’s given.
“Take your shoes off before I make you go downstairs and sleep on the couch,” he says instead of any of the other things he wants to say. He’s not sure he can stay awake long enough to finish anything he’d start by doing so. “If you get dirt on my sheets, I’ll fuckin’ kill you. I just did laundry.”
Zoro apparently needs no more prompting. He kicks his boots off and shucks his jeans, leaving him in the plaid boxers with the silhouette of a reindeer on the crotch—the red nose right at the tip of his dick imprint—that Sanji remembers came in the pack of underwear Nami had given him in their Secret Santa exchange on the last day of the semester before winter break. It was a gag gift they’d all howled with laughter about, but trust his obtuse significant other to actually wear it, and unironically at that.
Sanji looks between the boxers and his boyfriend with a deadpan expression. “Tell me you weren’t hopin’ for sex while wearin’ those.”
Zoro glances down at his underwear and grins when he looks back up. “What, Rudolph not sexy enough for you?”
“Not in the slightest.”
His judgmental expression earns him low, warm chuckles, and Sanji rolls his eyes as he climbs into bed next to his boyfriend, who holds his arms open for him. He pinches Zoro’s side on principle before snuggling into him, and Zoro dramatically says Ow before tangling their legs together. Sanji immediately relaxes against him, closing his eyes and letting exhaustion begin dragging him away.
It’s quiet for a few moments before Zoro shifts around. “Oh, yeah. I have something for you.”
“Can it not wait until the sun is actually up?” Sanji drawls, peeved when his personal heater pulls away to dig in his pockets.
“No.” Zoro finds what he’s looking for and turns back towards Sanji. Sanji manages to drag his eyelids open enough to see a small wrapped gift in his hand held between their bodies. The bow is a little lopsided and the wrapping paper is slightly torn on one corner, but it’s otherwise mostly intact.
Sanji’s curiosity piques despite his fatigue, but he doesn’t take it. He lifts a brow as he looks at Zoro. “What is it?”
Zoro holds it out. “First gift of Christmas,” he murmurs, tone sweet as honey. It travels down Sanji’s spine like warm cider, making him shiver. “Can’t take the chance that you open anything else first later.”
“Think you’re that important, hm?” Sanji teases, but he reaches for the gift anyway. He shakes it gently, not hearing anything rattle around inside, but there’s some weight to it. Jewelry then, maybe, based on the size of it, but it’s possible that it’s also a palm-sized rock. Usopp did that one year—his dad had taken him to the beach for the holidays and he’d come back with cool rocks and seashells that he’d gifted the group. Sanji still has his piece of clear quartz that Usopp had claimed was a rare large diamond.
He blinks at the flick to his nose and glares at his boyfriend. Zoro isn’t phased by it and pokes him in the head as well. “Just open it, asshole.”
“Maybe I’ll shove it up your arse.” Sanji sticks his tongue out but turns his attention to the gift as instructed. The paper crumples under the great might of his tearing fingers and he wads it up and tosses it over his shoulder to be properly disposed of later. The box is surprisingly high quality—velvet, he thinks—and has the logo of a local jewelers on the top.
The same shop that they’d passed by a couple of weeks ago and Sanji had half-jokingly pointed out a—
Anticipation thrums through his veins as Sanji gazes at it, heart beating faster as thoughts of what it might be cross his mind in rapid succession. He swallows thickly and can’t quite make himself look his boyfriend in the eye. “Zoro.”
“Sanji.”
He sounds way too nonchalant for the gravity suddenly pressing into the room, making it much harder to breathe. Sanji only notices his hand has started shaking when a rougher, warmer one wraps around it to steady it. His eyes flick up to the dark ones watching him with steady confidence and way too much fondness. It helps the tight feeling squeezing his ribs loosen.
If Zoro isn’t nervous, then Sanji has no reason to be, either.
With a bracing inhale through his nose, Sanji uses his thumb to push the lid of the box up. He almost closes his eyes to prolong the suspense, but he keeps them wide open as the silky interior of the box is revealed. Immediately he hones in on the single item nestled within.
The soft Oh, thank God that whooshes from him makes Zoro cackle, but Sanji is too busy basking in relief to care.
The ring tucked into the silk pillow is not, in fact, the engagement ring he’d pointed at a couple of weeks ago and jokingly told his boyfriend he wanted for Christmas. This ring, while definitely real gold like the other, is much slimmer and more simple.
It’s a promise ring.
All the tension seeps back out of him, and Sanji leans forward to tuck his face into Zoro’s chest. His still chuckling boyfriend wraps his arms around him and pulls him close, chest rattling with his amusement.
“Do not,” he threatens into Zoro’s neck, “scare me like that again. I thought you were gonna make us that sappy, cheesy couple that gets engaged on Christmas. You nearly gave me a fuckin’ heart attack, dipshit.”
“Nah, I wouldn’t do that to you,” Zoro snickers. He kisses Sanji’s head, then his cheek, before tilting his head down to kiss his lips. “I’m saving that for graduation.”
Sanji pulls back in a panic, nearly falling out of the bed and heart rate spiking again. His eyes feel like they’re about to pop out of his head in his shock. “You’re not serious. Are you serious? Zoro, please tell me you’re not gonna propose to me at fuckin’ graduation.”
Zoro just smirks at him, pulling out the promise ring from the box that had fallen from Sanji’s loosened hold and deliberately sliding it onto Sanji’s ring finger. “Guess you’ll find out at graduation.” A yawn overtakes him and Sanji has to fight the immediate urge to do the same. “C’mon, Sanj. It’s late. You need your beauty sleep or you’re gonna be a troll all day.”
“I—” Sanji continues to stare at him in bewilderment. There’s too much to process, so he focuses on the most important part. “Just— who are you callin’ a troll, you meat-headed walking bunch of moss?! Get out of my bed, you can sleep on the couch after all! I’m not puttin’ up with this offense any more.”
To his great displeasure, his insufferable oaf of a boyfriend does not immediately bow to his whims; instead, Zoro just kisses him one more time before snuggling beneath the comforter and tucking Sanji against his chest.
“Prettiest troll I’ve ever seen,” Zoro mumbles, already halfway to sleep. “My favorite troll. Best present I could’ve asked for...”
Goddammit, how is he so sweet even when being so annoying? Sanji huffs, exasperated and amused simultaneously, but quits his fighting, relaxing into the body behind him and once again letting exhaustion come over him. It’s useless to struggle when he’s pinned like this by these beefy (warm, secure, safe ) arms, and the bubble of affection bursting in his chest makes any irritation he might have been feeling dissipate completely.
Hard to be mad at the boy he loves with all his heart, after all.
The last thing he manages is a quiet Merry Christmas, love as he smiles at the ring on his finger before closing his eyes and letting his dreams carry him away.