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Dojo’s Pizza was objectively the worst pizza joint in town. It was located near the community college, which was the only reason it’s been able to stay afloat for so long, taking advantage of broke and hungry young adults who just needed something in their body to make it to the next day. Sanji could relate, no stranger to eating whatever he could get his hands on, but that didn’t make it any less abysmal.
The problem was the lack of consistency. You had a 25% chance of getting the best pizza of your life, with fresh toppings, perfectly melted cheese and flavorful sauce. Most of the time it was pretty mediocre, nothing to write home about, but something you could shove in your face before passing out on the couch. But sometimes, you got utter garbage, when the cheese stuck to the top of the box and it all tasted like yeast and the bad half of a tomato. Just a glob of paste in your mouth that made you feel worse than if you hadn’t eaten at all.
Sanji was familiar with that too, and it was not an experience he enjoyed repeating.
Perhaps the most egregious thing about Dojo Pizza was the delivery boy. Zoro was only nineteen but talked like a sailor thirty years out at sea. His customer service skills were laughable; he mumbled like his mouth was full of marbles, only looked Sanji in the eye when he was glaring at him, and he always crumbled up the money and stuffed it into his pocket instead of neatly putting it into his wallet. More often than not he was also the one answering the phone, and despite calling in regularly at least twice a month, Zoro made him go through the whole ordeal of getting his name, number and address each and every time.
Sanji was a chef, a proper one, with awards and a restaurant and a full kitchen staff to prove it. On any given night he was fully capable of making himself an elaborate meal, complete with dessert, and it would taste better than anything else being served on his side of town. But he was also forty, and after days and weeks of bending over a hot stove and catering to all sorts of clientele, he needed a break. And maybe, just maybe, he enjoyed a trashy pizza now and then, for no other reason than to humble himself. He used to cook just like this when he was starting out, getting it perfect one day and missing the mark the next. It wasn’t like he would starve if he got the type of pizza that made his stomach curdle. He had the money to blow on a twenty dollar gamble.
So after closing up just a bit earlier than usual after a hectic lunch rush and a dull dinner seating, Sanji put in the call. Zoro answered on the fourth ring, shouting at someone in the background. Probably that Monkey kid or his older brother, the one who liked to freak Sanji out by grabbing the pizza tray with his bare hands straight from the oven. He didn’t so much as greet Sanji before saying:
“That’s twice in two weeks, Curly. Are you having that mid–life crisis I keep hearing about?”
This fucking guy.
Sanji pressed his lips together in a thin line, refusing to take the bait. “So you’ve upgraded to caller ID. Does that mean you’ll stop needlessly asking for my information?”
“Nope.” Zoro popped the P obnoxiously. “Name, number and address please.”
At least he remembered his manners. Sanji ordered a a medium sausage and pepperoni, rolling his eyes fondly at the hooting and hollering in the background, He even mouthed along with Zoro as he tells him the total. He absolutely needed to stop eating here.
“We’ll be there in thirty minutes or less,” Zoro mumbled the very much not true company slogan. “Or your order is half off.”
Sanji hummed. “Oh, bring me some of the little cinnamon pretzel bites, too.”
Zoro grunted. “Why didn’t you order them to begin with? I have to redo the total now.”
Sanji snorted. “No you don’t. There’s no way you’ll be here in under thirty minutes, so those will be covered under the ‘half off’ agreement.”
The earliest Zoro has ever made it to his house was forty-two minutes, and he didn’t even have the excuse of bad weather or heavy traffic to cover his ass. The guy would get lost finding his way out of a paper bag, so why they designated him the driver was beyond Sanji’s realm of comprehension. The one and only time Ace delivered his pizza he did so in just twenty-five minutes, a fact that had Zoro fuming when Sanji teased him about it later. He could complain to management, but he was positive an old skeleton was running the place. Besides, he enjoyed Zoro far too much to lose the kid his job.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes!”
Sanji laughed, snorting a little. “If you’re here that early, Mossy, I’ll give you a kiss. Don’t forget the cinnamon bites!”
He hung up before Zoro could respond. He scrubbed a hand over his face and groaned; why did he say that! Look, a little teasing was fine, Zoro was far too cute when he pouted, but implying anything more was out of the question. Sanji has never addressed the elephant in the room that was Zoro’s attraction to him. He was flattered, of course. Zoro was young and passionate and muscular and the kind of dumb that made you want to take a bite out of him. The way he talked about his hobbies, his friends, his plans for after college was so very endearing. Sanji could tell that underneath that grassy head of hair was someone with goals. A purpose.
Not to say that Sanji didn’t have those things, he was currently living them actually, but Zoro had so much life to live and so many things to see and do and fail at, and Sanji really didn’t want to be one of those failures. Hooking up with the older guy while delivering pizza was such a cheesy porno trope, the kind of thing even Sanji couldn’t jerk off too during his younger and much more debased years. This was nothing more than just a passing moment of human connection. A flirty grin here, a flick to those golden earrings there, and he was done. He had to be.
While he waited, Sanji went around the house and finished the chores he had been neglecting all week. He changed the sheets on his bed, vacuumed all the rugs, and redid the white board calendar on his fridge. On his way to take out the trash Sanji noted that nearly thirty minutes had passed since he placed his order. Which meant he had at least another fifteen minutes left until Zoro showed up with a deep furrow to his brow.
He circled back to the kitchen and made a quick note of things he was getting low on, a few spices he needed to order for the restaurant, maybe new dishware for the upcoming holiday season? The Baratie was not a themed restaurant by any means, but the decor has largely stayed the same since he took things over from Zeff. Would a flashier design distract from the food itself? He debated on this purely inconsequential thought to cover up his nerves.
It had now been over forty-five minutes, and there was still no sign of Zoro.
Sanji was hungry, yes, but after how determined Zoro sounded over the phone, he couldn't help but worry that the idiot had gotten into a wreck while pushing the speed limit. It wasn’t that late, but with autumn in full swing the sun set much earlier, and the surrounding neighbors of the pizza place didn’t have many working street lights. What if Zoro ran into a fire hydrant, or a person, or hit the curb and flipped upside and exploded?! Sanji quickly turned to the news, and then checked his phone, but there were no reports of a pizza delivery gone wrong.
Was he really just lost? It’s not like Sanji lived far away, and he ordered frequently enough that his address should be saved into Zoro’s GPS on his phone. Did he delete that information after every order too? Was he that inept at reading landmarks that no area ever looked familiar to him? Surely nobody was that unlucky!
Finally, after an hour, there was a heavy knock on the front door. Sanji sprang to his feet with a speed he only used to catch waiters bringing out the wrong dish, and swung the door open wide, ready to interrogate this kid within an inch of his life. But upon seeing Zoro his mouth hung open in shock, eyes growing as wide as dinner plates. What…what…
“What’s my time?” Zoro demanded, holding the box of pizza, along with a smaller box of cinnamon pretzel bites, out in front of him. He was seemingly unbothered by the fact that he was shirtless, covered in bruises and scratch marks and leaves, and was bleeding slightly from a cut on his forehead. Sanji felt like he was going to pass out.
“What the hell happened to you!” Without much thought Sanji yanked Zoro inside, slamming and locking the door like they were being chased down in a horror movie. “Where the hell have you been? Who did this to you? Why are you here and not at the police station filing a report!”
Zoro groaned and rolled his shoulders, looking off to the side to avoid Sanji’s worried yet somehow still accusatory gaze. “I knew I should’ve gone home to change first, but then I would’ve been even later.”
Was that all he could think about?! “Sit down before you fall over. Give me that.” He snatched the food from Zoro’s hands then lightly kicked him towards the couch. He tossed the boxes onto the kitchen table before storming into the bathroom for his first aid kit. When he returned Zoro was right where he left him, remote in hand as he flipped through the channels. As if he stopped by to hang out all the time. A if he wasn’t covered in cuts and bruises and an hour late!
Sanji held his breath until he felt dizzy, then let it all out slowly through his nose. His smokes were in the bedroom and he didn’t want to leave Zoro unattended for another second. He sat gently on the couch, fearing that any sudden movements would have Zoro falling apart like a house of cards. The young man didn’t even look phased, and Sanji knew that Zoro had gotten into worse fights than this. But the logic of that couldn’t be heard over the sound of his painfully throbbing heart.
“How did you end up like this?” Sanji reaches over to pluck a leaf from his hair, biting the inside of his cheek when Zoro shuffled closer in a hurry, bashing their knees together.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Zoro said before anything else. “I had Ace start the pizza while you were on the phone, and I had the address already punched in before I got in the car. I was going to be early this time, I swear.”
Sanji didn’t give a flying fuck about the pizza, but the way Zoro looked at him, begging him to believe that he had done all he could to beat his record of forty-two minutes, made Sanji want to cradle his head to his chest. Instead he moved on to wiping down Zoro’s cuts with an alcohol pad, pleased that most of them had already started to scan over, but grieving at the ones that were more fresh. He was exceptionally delicate with the one on his forehead.
“How did you get all these?”
“Got jumped.”
Ice flooded Sanji’s veins. Despite the fact that Zoro was alive and well right in front of him, that didn’t stop his traitorous mind from picturing him bleeding out in an alley somewhere. ”What?”
Zoro, who had closed his eyes and leaned into Sanji’s delicate touch, frowned a little when the older man stopped moving. “It’s when a group of people ambush—“
“I know what it means!” This kid was going to be the death of him. “Who? Where? Why? Did they take anything?”
Zoro pushed against Sanji’s unmoving hand with his forehead, and only when he went back to cleaning and dressing the minor wound did he start talking. “I knew I would be early, so I stopped at a corner store to get you that weird flavored water you like. The one with the chopped up fruit inside?”
Zoro patted himself down as if he could conceal anything despite being shirtless and wearing tight jeans. “Shit, left it in the car. Lemme—“
Sanji didn’t let him move a single inch. “Why were you getting me anything while on a delivery? That’s very unprofessional.”
The brat had the audacity to roll his eyes. “I left the car door unlocked when I went into the store, saw someone trying to make off with the food. I stopped him, but then his buddies showed up out of nowhere. One guy had a bike chain but he nearly took out his nuts pretending to be a ninja with it.”
Of course the guy who took kendo classes since near infancy would mock anyone of lesser skill. Not that the idiot didn’t deserve it, trying to hurt Zoro like that. It wasn’t even good pizza they were trying to steal! Maybe it’s a good thing it was Zoro there and not someone more vulnerable.
“They barely touched me, but my phone fell from my pocket and into a puddle, so I lost the GPS tracking. I figured I could find your place by memory but it’s. You know, pretty dark out.” He shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck in an adorably flustered gesture. He forced himself to clear away the medical kit so he didn’t do anything stupid with his hands, like pull Zoro into his lap and squeeze him until his ribs cracked.
“And the fact that you’re actually growing grass out of your head?” Sanji waved said leaves aloft before heading to the kitchen to toss them, along with the soiled alcohol wipes. He washed his hands for longer than he needed to, keenly aware of Zoro’s footsteps as he followed after him.
“I saw some kid walking by and was gonna ask for directions, but then realized how creepy that would seem, but then he saw me and started crying about his cat being stuck in a tree, so I went and got it down for him.”
This was all becoming too much. Sanji braved himself against the sink and tried to laugh, as if the story of unfortunate events were humorous rather than earth rattling.
“And your shirt?”
When Zoro didn’t answer Sanji turned and found him gazing at his feet, lips twisted to the side in a look of pure embarrassment that Sanji had never seen before. “Tripped on your curb into another puddle. Shirt was wet and gross so I took it off.” He heaved a deep sigh and drew his shoulders up to his ears before fixing Sanji with a look filled with desperate determination. “Can I get a do-over? I feel like this time shouldn’t count.”
Sanji held his breath for a count of ten, studying the young man across from him in the hopes that less oxygen will help him think more rationally. It was just a pizza. At the end of the day it was mediocre pizza that was more favored by rats in the dumpster than people. And he knew, working in food service, that pleasing the customers was an important part of the whole show. But Zoro wasn’t doing all of this for just any customer. He was doing it for Sanji. He was doing this because it was for Sanji.
Fuck.
“Mossy.” Sanji nearly bit through his tongue at the way Zoro’s face widened into something sweet and open. “I am going to kiss you now.”
Zoro’s eyes grew wide, utter shock coloring his body. “I thought you’d only do that if I got here early,” he mumbled, leaning into the hand playing with earrings. Sanji tugged gently on the lobe while his other hand came around to cradle the back of Zoro’s head.
“Consider this my reward, then.”
Zoro’s mouth was warm, his bottom lip bitten all to hell, covered in healing wounds that Sanji didn’t hesitate to bite and reopen. Zoro clutched him tighter, groaning beautifully, hips jolting forward. All of Sanji’s carefully built walls came crashing down, and soon he had Zoro pinned against the wall, hands roaming his bare chest while the young man tried to fight for the upper hand. On another night Sanji might have let him win, but after all the trouble he went to just for him, he didn’t want the kid doing anything besides looking pretty and pliant in his bed.
“How about you get cleaned up, and I’ll make us some real dinner.”
“Join me?” Zoro asked, eyes wide and eager. Still, Sanji pretended to think about it just so watch him squirm.
“I suppose someone has to keep you from getting lost.”