Rating : Bleh for ratings. T for nondescriptive smex and some swearing? Do tell if you think it's inappropriate...
Characters/Pairings : Zoro/Sanji. Luffy. Mention of several het couples in various levels of WTFness, and, as Zoro would put it, breeding Straw Hats.
Disclaimer : Still not mine, still not getting money for

Down the Line

La Courte Paille was renowned as the best restaurant in All Blue (therefore in the world), and widely acknowledged as a neutral area. In a one-mile radius circle around it, grudges and weapons were laid down, and peace made for the duration of the best meal of a lifetime. Fights still happened, nevertheless. The head chef was renowned as fiercely protective of his crew and art, and anyone disrespecting the food or the cooks was in for a good beating; it wasn't rare to see a marine officer or a pirate captain get thrown out before they dirtied the expensive parquet floor. A lot of threats had been made, but in over ten years no fleet had ever actually attacked; it was now rumored that powerful men in high places had placed a seal of protection on the restaurant. Apart from that, it seemed to be the only part of Grand Line that remained free of the neverending fight between pirates and marines.

The decoration was expensive but tasteful, made of drapes of fine silks and velvet, framed pictures of some of the most beautiful or impressive sights in Grand Line -the head chef had been to all of these places, it was whispered between waiters and customers when he was supervising the kitchen- over large windows that gave straight on the sea and sometimes provided, in the distance, the additional show of dolphins playing in the sunset. The base of the mast, however, was covered in yellowing, out-of-print bounty posters; cooks, waiters and customers alike had often commented that the quality of the environment would get one notch higher if they were taken off.

No one ever said it twice.

Two of the faces were world-famous, and those coming from far up the Grand Line sometimes recognized the queen mother of a distant sand country. The oldest gourmets remembered a man that had been dead for ten years, and all regular customers knew the reindeer man who came from the closest island several times a month. Neither face nor name of the other two was familiar to anyone.

The head chef never volunteered an explanation, even on the rare occasions when he got really drunk after a very good or a very bad day. He never explained, either, why a large round table that could seat up to ten people sat right under the posters and was never used, no matter how many people were waiting or how much money they offered. Or why, every day without fail, he would put a fresh flower in each of the three vases that were permanently on the table.

He was a genius in his art, not to mention an excellent fighter, and people generally found it best not to question his little idiosyncrasies. Anyone who couldn't deal with that soon found out that they couldn't deal with the man himself, and were promptly driven out; for the rest of the crew it became a natural part of the restaurant's daily life.

The area commonly accepted as "All Blue" had its own strange magnetic field, that had no equivalent even on the rest of the Grand Line. It was this field that lured fish out of their natural migratory currents and made this sea a renowned cook's and gourmet's paradise, but it also made communication via even the most recent Den Den Mushi absolutely impossible. In the ten years after the existence of the legendary sea had been proven, navigation had become easier, mostly because of the appearance on the market of terribly expensive but extremely detailed maps. Nowadays even rich landlubbers from one of the four seas could afford to travel all the way to La Courte Paille for a gourmet meal, without putting their life at risk. Too much.

Still, a bird carrying a message was a rare enough occurrence that it stirred everyone's interest, and by the time the head chef had it in his hand his whole crew was around him, anxious to know what it was about. He didn't even bother to try to get some privacy, or even space to breath, and carefully unfolded the wet piece of black cloth.

It sported three cuts of the exact same length, absolutely parallel and so close to one another that the cloth should have been ripped between them, but wasn't. Underneath them was drawn what looked like an abstract rendition of a pirate flag. There were no words, and the head chef rolled his eyes. "Did those morons ever bother to learn to write?" he grumbled, and threw the message away.

By the time the men of the morning shift were up on the next day, the flowers had been set in their vases, a huge barrel of cheap rum usually reserved for the cooks' personal use had been rolled under the mast in the dining room, and a slab of meat bigger than a healthy man was roasting on the open fire.

Apart from that it was business as usual, until the midday rush was almost over and a customer waiting for his dessert glanced out of the window and gasped at the sight of a small ship with no apparent means of propulsion and a widely known pirate flag came closer at ungodly speed. Tension and disbelief spread in the main room like wildfire, but by the time a waiter came running up in the kitchen to report, the ship was already slowing down to a stop right next to the restaurant, and the boisterous cry of "SANJIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ! FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODD!" could be heard from its deck.

The head chef rolled his eyes and, as if on cue, removed the gigantic slab of meat from its spit, skillfully put it on his biggest plate and headed towards the restaurant. In there, everyone was staring in terror or admiration at the two men that stood at the entrance - one bouncing on the spot and twittering excitedly to the other, who looked much calmer and almost sulky. Upon seeing the amount of meat that the head chef was balancing on one hand, the eyes of the Pirate King widened and almost glittered in fascination. "MEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTT!" he squealed, and somehow projected himself towards Sanji.

Two hundred customers cowered in terror as a strong leg caught the man in the stomach, then described a perfectly geometrical half-circle before sending him straight onto the mast. A wave of panic ran across the room. Who could possibly survive a direct confrontation with the infamous Monkey D. Luffy? There were tales all over the world of him being even greater than Gold Roger himself, of all the marines and pirates that had laid defeated at his feet. The strongest of men, the most powerful of kings bowed in respect and something like fear in front of this untouchable man.

"Stingyyyyyy..." he whined, rubbing the spot on his head that had heavily connected with the mast.

"At least sit down first, idiot," Sanji replied with a chuckle, only then making eye contact with the second man. The spectators, barely over the tentative conclusion that the Pirate King might not be about to kill everyone in sight, held their collective breath.

He was the youngest of the Shichibukai, the more informed people whispered to their friends or dates, having defeated and taken the place of Hawk-Eyes Mihawk some twelve years earlier. He was a man not to be angered, they said, the strongest swordsman in the world, whose three-swords style a lot of youngsters had tried and failed to copy. It was said that he now travelled the world aimlessly with little to no crew, occasionally protecting widows and orphans (and refusing the, hum, rewards some of the prettiest widows sometimes offered him). It was said that any sword he put his hands on became alive, sharp or dull according to his will, and he could divide an island in two with just one stroke of his Wadou Ichimonji. Common sense commanded to treat this man with the utmost respect and admiration.

"Oi, seaweed-head," the head chef said to the horrified despair of waiters and customers alike. "Go seat yourself." He pointed towards the large, never-used table under the mast. The bump on his head all but forgotten, Monkey D. Luffy sat down, looking impatiently and with something that looked suspiciously like drool at the corner of his mouth at the plate still in Sanji's hand. Roronoa Zoro's reaction was more dignified, a sharp nod before he walked stiffly and in eerie silence towards the table, the three swords hung at his right brushing together without ever clinking as he moved.

The waiters looked at one another, none of them confident enough to try to handle two of the most famously powerful men in the world, but Sanji himself, who had never let anyone treat him like a waiter without a sharp kick, was there already with a cheap notepad his hand, writing down in quick notes all the dishes that the Pirate King enunciated between hungry bites. Some assumed that the man had finally realised that these people were dangerous enough to sacrifice his most precious habits and values for the sake of survival. The quicker thinkers thought it might have something to do with the bounty posters, and maybe the table was not so much never-used as always reserved, but Roronoa Zoro sent a dreadful glare around the room, and all customers decided it was wiser to pay attention to their plates, and only that.

Despite the righteous protestations of the boldest of his cooks, Sanji secured himself a corner of the kitchen -when had it got to the point when he didn't have his own working spot anymore, he wondered- where he cut the ingredients with impossible speed, refusing all help in the preparation of this special meal. Fish, meat, even some vegetables - Luffy's tastes seemed to have widened a bit over the years- were roasted and stir-fried and boiled and deep-fried and beautifully arranged over a series of plates, until the largest rolling table in the restaurant was covered, on three different levels, of various delicious dishes from all over the world. Sanji got two waiters to push the meal to where his nakama sat, then took a few minutes to give instructions to the rest of the cooks before left the responsibility in someone else's hands for the first time since he'd started the restaurant.

By the time he was sitting at the table there was a lit cigarette between his lips, and he smoked almost absently, feeling more sharply than usual the pleasure of seeing people enjoying his food.

"Sanjiiiiiii ! So good!" Luffy piped out every now and then, right before he dived hungrily into yet another dish. Zoro ate and drank in silence but with regularity, only stopping once in a while to stick his fork in a wandering rubber hand when Luffy got too interested in his food.

He'd calculated the amount of food with high precision, Sanji silently congratulated himself as the table and barrel emptied and Luffy's enthusiasm for getting as much food in his mouth as his body allowed seemed to diminish. Indeed, he finished the food as Zoro emptied the barrel, and neither asked for more. "Woooooooh !" Luffy almost yelled, as noisy as always. "I missed your food! I never get food that good anymore!"

"Everyone's looking at us," Zoro grumbled in distaste as he slammed his tankard back on the table, without even bothering to comment on the food. Slightly annoyed, Sanji snorted.

"Of course they are. The Pirate King and the youngest of the Shichibukai, coming together to my humble restaurant? Surely it's a day to remember." Sanji stepped heavily on Zoro's foot under the table as the snort of "humble my ass" came to his ears, then pointed towards the mast. "Plus, it probably answers some questions." The three of them looked at what served as his photo album. Then Luffy grinned and went to lean on the mast right next to his own 350,000,000 belis poster. "So, did I change a lot?"

Not at all, was what Sanji wished he could say, but there were some differences. Luffy's hair was shorter now, and the familiar red ribbon had turned to black when the now world-famous straw hat had changed from a temporary loan to the memento of a dead man. But his face hadn't changed at all, save from the thin scar that ran from hairline to neck on the right side of his face. "You don't look one day older than you did when I met you," the shitty swordsman said, rolling his eyes, and Sanji found that beyond the cosmetic details, it was true.

Zoro, on the other hand, had aged. He didn't benefit from the power of a Devil's Fruit, and it was starting to show, in the thin lines at the corner of sharp eyes and some grey among the moss on his head. It wasn't a pleasant sight. In the privacy of his own mind, Sanji had been twenty for what seemed like ever; suddenly the sight of the swordsman made him feel his age, and fifteen overlooked years crashed on him like as many tons of bricks. And Zoro was looking back at him, no doubt doing the same kind of evaluation of time's damage on him.

"What about the others?" he asked, somewhat embarrassed, wondering what changes the other man was seeing. "Where is Nami-swan? I thought she was still your" he looked pointedly at Luffy "navigator?"

Zoro rolled his eyes yet again as Luffy sat back down at the table. "The witch went to the dark side," the swordsman said with what anyone else would have interpreted as distate, but Sanji recognized as the fondness that was reserved to his nakama. "She's a Marine now. She enrolled when Hina made admiral, and within five weeks she had her own division. From what I get, she gets to travel all around the world under the protection of the Marine flag and draw maps. And gets paid for it, too."

"They said she has the sort of talent you only see once a century," Luffy piped in, not even trying to contain the pride in his voice.

"As expected from my Nami-san" Sanji swooned, and barely dodged the scabbard headed for his head. "Wanna fight, seaweed-head?" he barked. Zoro smirked. "I don't think you're up to it," he said, and Sanji found that the old instinct of kicking the bastard to a bloody pulp was not dead. Not in here, he reminded himself. There was enough damage done to the furniture on a daily basis without him having an all-out fight with the shitty swordsman, he reflected. "You." he threatened, glaring at Zoro "will get it later." The matter settled to his convenience, he ignored Zoro's smug expression and turned his attention back to Luffy.

"So why didn't she come?" he asked, genuinely disappointed at Nami's absence. He hadn't seen her in the past eight years, and the last letter received dated from two years before. He saw his friends exchanging amused looks, and it was Luffy who spoke. "You remember the smoke-ossan?"

A lot of the people they'd met and fought in their first trip around the Grand Line had blurred in Sanji's mind, but this particular man would have been impossible to forget if he'd tried. Him and the girl that came with him. "Marine?" he asked just for the sake of getting a rile out of the seaweed-head. "Direct superior to his", he nodded towards Zoro "girlfriend?". Expectedly, the man glared and blushed all at once. "She was never my girlfriend!" he protested heatedly. "I don't know where you get that idea! She only-"

"Relentlessly chased you all over the world for two years," Sanji completed, smirking. "Anyway, what about General Smoker?"

Luffy seemed to search his memory for a moment, and Sanji wondered to what horizon his mind had gone to during the short interruption. Then his friend's eyes brightened. "He got her pregnant!" he said happily.

"Who, Zoro's girlfriend?" Sanji asked, his brow furrowed in confusion. He'd spent too much time away from Luffy to still be able to follow the questionable logic of his train of thoughts.

"Nami, you moron," Zoro answered, his smirk several times wider than Sanji's had just been.

"Yup!" Luffy added, seemingly oblivious to Sanji's horrified face. His beautiful and virginal Nami-swan? Expecting a baby? With a Marine who was what, fifty years older than she was? That had to be the end of the world. "She meant to come, but the doctor told her that travelling on the Grand Line in her state was a very bad idea. She said to tell you that she'd come here as soon as the kid was on solids, though. Whatever that means."

That put a little balm on Sanji's broken heart. Not enough, though. Even from the other side of the world, he would forever be trying to protect his Nami-swan. "Doctor?" he asked. "Maybe you should ask Chopper to go back with you. I'm sure she'd feel safer with him around."

"I think you would feel safer if he's around her," Zoro commented under his breath. "She has the best Marine doctors around her. Don't fret like that, shitty cook."

"Where's Chopper anyway? We thought we'd find him here..." Luffy asked, totally unaware of his former first mate's muttering and of the kick in the shins he got as a reward. Sanji shrugged.

"He comes down once or twice a week for a hot meal, but most of the time he lives between the hospital and the medical school. I wonder when he even finds the time to sleep. But if you stay here for a few days you're bound to see him." Of all the faces on the mast, Chopper was the only one that the crew and customers had seen repeatedly. Everyone else had dispersed all over the world. "I suppose you passed by Alabasta before coming here? How is everyone there?"

"We met up there, actually," Zoro answered. "They were celebrating the tenth-year anniversary of Vivi's reign."

"Zoro was kicking people's asses for money when I found him," Luffy added. Zoro scowled. "They were paying me to test their skill! What was I supposed to do?" Sanji smirked tauntingly as he lit yet another cigarette.

"She's doing well. The country is getting better and better. We didn't see Robin, though, she was off with the old king on some kind of archaelogical trip. Vivi says they were both doing good, but I think she still doesn't like Robin much."

"Of course she doesn't," Zoro scoffed, thwapping Luffy over the head. "Normal people don't forget the past as easily as you do." Which should have prompted the easy answer of 'you're one to talk', but Luffy pouted and he really did look seventeen, making Sanji feel like he was back in the galley of the Going Merry, back before their world had got complicated, political, hard. He loved his restaurant with all his heart, loved cooking there for a variety of tastes that far surpassed what little people he got to feed in the Straw Hat crew, but he missed his nakama sometimes, missed the late-night watches and the bantering, the occasional explosion coming from Usopp's workshop, the steady sounds of medicine being mixed and pages of books turned, the unwarranted clash of shoe against crossed swords and the way the light shone in Nami-san's hair at sunset.

"What about the long-nose?" he asked, trying to hide the bitter longing he was suddenly feeling. "Did he go back to his village?"

"Yup!" Luffy said. "That was a loooong time ago! Kaya is a doctor now, and they said they'd all be coming for a trip in Grand Line-"

"Because he has kids too. Three little monsters. Everyone's breeding," Zoro interjected.

"-as soon as they find someone to navigate them, so I guess they'll be coming with Nami in a year or something," Luffy went on, undisturbed.

"Kids?" Sanji asked, raising an eyebrow. His last bit of news from Usopp dated from ever further back than Nami, and he hadn't even known his friend had a girl. "Who's Kaya anyway?" Then another memory popped back to his mind. "Oh! The girl who gave you Merry, right? She waited for him all this time?"

Luffy nodded enthusiastically, and Sanji felt like drowning. So that was it? Of a crew that had had so many dreams, Usopp was the only one who got his fairy tale ending, going back home with a huge bounty on his head (the smallest among the Straw Hat pirates, but he probably didn't tell his family that his 70,000,000 belis were a joke to the rest of his crew) and dozens of extravagant tales, most of them probably at least based on reality. All of them... Nami-san was still chasing after her dream, but as a mandated Marine it was probably tedious now, as was sometimes getting up for another day of cooking, and only that, on a calm sea where no real challenge presented itself anymore. Robin-chan had finally found the Rio Poneglyph only to see it destroyed before she could read it, and even now, as she'd settled down as Queen Mother of Alabasta (which had come as a shock to all and a source of black despair to Sanji), he supposed she still felt the bitter disappointment of having had her lifelong dream crushed before her very eyes. Luffy had found the One Piece too young, way too young, and Sanji couldn't imagine what kept the man he still thought of as his captain going now. As for Zoro... the Zoro Sanji had known would have hated to be part of the Shichibukai, and while it was more convenient for the Marines to have it so, he couldn't begin to grasp how they'd gotten him to agree.

He wondered, sometimes, how many of his former crewmates wished they could have kept travelling around the world forever, always within reach of their respective dreams but never quite there. He knew Chopper did, because they talked about it sometimes when the reindeer wasn't too busy at his hospital, which really wasn't often enough.

The conversation went on until late in the evening, when Luffy started dozing off after another hearty meal and Zoro dragged him back on their ship for the night. Sanji had a million things to do, starting by assessing the damage done in his kitchen while he wasn't supervising, but he was feeling too dreadfully tired to bother, and he decided to himself that he just would kick his whole crew all the way back to Reverse Mountain if they'd done anything he couldn't fix in the morning. For now, his bed beckoned, and the alluring possibility of overdosing on good alcohol rather than on too much thinking.

Then Zoro came back. Swam back two hours later, barefoot, half-naked and swordless, then somehow found his way to the kitchens and threatened (possibly he'd just asked, but it was hard to tell when you weren't used to Zoro-speak) one of the waiters into leading him to the door of Sanji's room, were he stood smug and dripping as Sanji glared semi-drunkenly at him and the poor kid cowered in terror.

"You gonna share that?" Zoro asked with a smirk, pointing to the half-empty bottle still in Sanji's hand, and afterwards it was way too easy. To yank him inside and slam the door in whatsisname's face and forget the bottle entirely as they bit and grinded and thrust and didn't even bother to reach for the bed, fucking roughly against the door with only the minimum of clothes taken off, like in the good old times, such a good alternative to fighting sometimes. Afterwards they stumbled to the bed, Zoro's open pants dripping on the blanket and Sanji not caring much about it, and they remained silent as their bodies recuperated from the temporary exhaustion.

The alcohol had been pretty much driven from Sanji's system, and he had no qualms silently blaming Zoro for that, because now the thoughts were coming back and that was not something he wanted. It had been all nice and sensible at the time, when they were at sea for too long and frustration had to be worked out one way or another and sometimes it was more enjoyable to give pleasure than pain. There had been more than enough reasonable excuses not to bother about emotional entanglements, so they hadn't. Then they'd disbanded and it had been surprisingly easy to wave vaguely, throw a careless "see you around, shithead" over his shoulder, and not look back.

Yet now, fifteen fucking years later, all it took for Sanji to throw himself at Zoro was for the moss-haired moron to knock at his door and demand booze. It made him feel like a total slut. Which was stupid, because it was Zoro who'd come, and he'd reacted with equal enthusiasm and without the excuse of drunkenness. But the feeling was still there, and he didn't know what to do to shake it off.

It had felt physically good, at least, more than what little sex he'd had these past years. He really hadn't meant to cut himself off like that, it had just... happened. He'd been so fucking busy, and there was so much work involved in actually getting a pretty woman in bed. Maybe he should just dismiss the stupid dirty feeling and get his fill of fucking good sex before Zoro left. What little alcohol hadn't been sweated out of his bloodstream agreed that it was the sensible thing to do.

"How long are you staying?" he asked conversationally, and closed his eyes. The question was harder than he'd thought it would be, somehow.

"You know Luffy," Zoro answered with a long-suffering sigh, and the fondness in his voice would have been obvious to anyone. "Always moving on. He'll wait until he sees Chopper, but I don't think he'll stay much longer than that."

What about you? was the real question, that Sanji was hesitating to ask. Do you still rule your life according to his whims? But that would be unfair, he knew, and it would taste too much like bitter jealousy in his mouth. He'd been like Zoro once -and probably still was. Ready to follow their dork of a captain to the end of the world no matter what the cost. It was hard to be jealous of Luffy, even when you tried to.

"Me... I don't know," Zoro continued, making Sanji wonder if he had asked the question aloud. But when he opened his eyes, Zoro was staring at the ceiling, trying to find his words, and he knew that the answer had been spontaneous. He remained silent, patiently waiting for more, be it details or an explanation. Sanji knew from experience that babbling was the worst possible way of getting words out of Zoro.

Very aware of the attention he was given, Zoro shifted uncomfortably. "I've been... bored," he admitted finally. "There's no competition anymore."

Zoro had never been one of the heavy thinkers of the Straw Hats, but he did spend a hell of a lot of time meditating -and sleeping, yes, but there were subtle differences that Sanji had picked up on with time- and it was at these times that unwanted thoughts tended to spring up. Philosophical conversations were not the swordsman's forte, but he could think too much, and it wasn't hard, for someone who knew him as well as Sanji had, to see the shape his thoughts had taken over time.

No-one dared to seriously challenge Roronoa Zoro anymore and it made him bored, restless, impatient, in need of distractions. The title he bore was hard to get and heavier to keep. And at the moment he was undoubtely the best, but somewhere in the world, probably, a child was training hard, making promises to him- or herself, or a friend, and would soon be sailing around the world in the hopes to meet and defeat him.

When that time came, would Zoro be tempted to put himself at a disadvantage, if only for the thrill of being challenged? And if he was... did that mean Mihawk had been tempted as well? Was it possible that the man had lost to boredom and the sheer weight of the title, and not to Zoro himself? Which would mean that Zoro was not truly the best, that he could get better still, but there was no more opponent to make him so.

In the worst case scenario, Zoro hadn't reached his peak, and would never have a chance to.

"We'll see about that tomorrow," Sanji offered, sneering. "I haven't had a lot of occasions to warm up lately." The jibe was easy, but in truth he had no certitude that he could still match up to the swordsman as he had before, and it really wouldn't do to have his whole crew see him getting crushed, even by a member of the Shichibukai. But nakama came before such petty notions as pride and consequences and common sense, now as always, and he'd never denied Zoro a good fight anyway.

"Right," Zoro snorted, and didn't add anything. Sanji felt like kicking him in the head, but the angles were definitely not favorable, so he made it a promise instead. "I'll wipe the deck with your ass, shithead," he growled, but at the moment it was so nice not to move, not even to grab a cigarette or struggle out of what was left of his clothes.

"You're a fucking pain, I hope you know that." Zoro mumbled, but seemed to be as content with just laying there as Sanji was. "Yet so attractive," the cook said with a stifled yawn and a half-hearted smirk. "Now be quiet. I have over three hundreds paying customers to feed tomorrow, and that's not even counting the five meals of our beloved Pirate King." There was a mutter behind him that sounded like "wuss", and he raised an eyebrow. "But if you want to explain to Luffy while I'm too tired to cook for him..." and that was it, he knew, because Zoro's loyalty still lay with his captain first and foremost, even for something as silly (in Zoro's mind, not Luffy's or Sanji's) as the quality of his food. Indeed there was no answer, and the silence stretched on. He would have thought that the man had fallen asleep, but he'd been kept awake by loud snores way too often back when they were sharing sleeping quarters to believe that.

No answer had been provided, but that might have been because there had been no question asked. You didn't ask for motivations between nakama, or maybe it was just that they were both too cowardly -there had to be a less dishonorable word for this, but Sanji was too tired to try to find it- to try and make sense of whatever it was that lay between them. But it didn't matter now, because he was snug and comfortable and almost sleeping and still riding a rare afterglow. And tomorrow, in the bright daylight, he would have other things to worry about, and again, it wouldn't matter. If he thought about it moment by moment, it never would. Nor would it if he didn't think about it at all.

"G'night," he mumbled, shifting slightly to make himself more comfortable. For a long time there was silence, and Sanji was almost deciding that maybe Zoro had got something done about his snoring, when the mattress behind him shifted.

Sanji barely had the time to wonder if the idiot would find his way back to his own ship before he fell asleep.

Note : "La Courte Paille" is French for "The Short Straw". It's also the name of a chain of restaurants that have huge amounts of MEAT on their menu, and if you're placed properly you can even get to watch them cook it. Makes for good meta all over...