Whoops, sorry if this came out too long. ._.;

For the first time in ages, Zoro found himself unable to sleep.

Well, that was partially a lie; he had certainly gotten a little bit of sleep that night—the dream that haunted the forefronts of his memory was proof enough of that—but he'd awoken a couple of hours ago and had no luck trying to fall asleep again since.

Shifting his stiff neck to glance at the alarm clock on his bedside table, he winced. 6:30AM. Alright, so maybe "a couple of hours ago" was a bit of an understatement. With a tired groan he turned back to face the shadowy ceiling, taking a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth. He repeated the pattern a few more times, but his lungs felt just as heavy.

Unlike most of his dreams, this one was excruciatingly vivid to him even after counting the water spots on his walls a dozen times over. He could still hear dream-Sanji's voice ringing in his ears, sultry and teasing.

"Hey, Zoro, let's play a game."

That's always what it was, wasn't it? Even in his dreams, he couldn't go ten goddamn minutes without hearing those words. It was infuriating.

He squirmed to unravel his limbs from his blankets and rubbed at the fabric creases on his chest, nearly jumping out of his skin when his fingers grazed over his scar and he recalled dream-Sanji touching him there. His mind reeled back to the way it felt when those fingers followed the line from his shoulder down to his hip, tracing slow, tantalizing swirls on his skin when they reached his belt. A hot breath had followed them down, imitating a torrent of steam along the dips of his abs, and Zoro remembered and actual, genuine moan escaping his lips as he urged the man to continue.

It'd been the most mind-numbingly passionate wet dream he'd experienced to date. Not that there had been all that many, in comparison to what he assumed would be the norm, but still. For him, it was a wake-up call of the highest degree; one he had never asked for, and sure as hell didn't need in the middle of the goddamn night. He was no stranger to daydreaming about the cook, more jokingly as a masochistic way to pass time, but this was different; this had been prompted by nothing but his own desires. There was nothing facetious about it.

Seven days blond-free, and this was what he was reduced to. Not getting to see Sanji lately was starting to fuck with his brain. The subject of his dream could have been anyone, or nobody in the real world at all; but part of him was very obviously trying to make up for the lack of pestering cooks in his life for the past week. The fact that he had no idea why the man had disappeared was a little disquieting, but since nobody had made a big deal of it or even bothered to mention anything to him, he assumed it must have been something boring and work-related; or, at the very least, temporary. There was nothing to worry about, but that didn't stop his subconscious from filling in the gaps in his social quota, apparently.

He rolled over onto his side, eyes squinting shut as he tried to ignore the smoldering hot wrench in his gut. "Calm down, marimo… Whoever gets there first loses." His toes curled as he recalled that heated whisper, and the grind of hips against his that had gone along with it.

It bothered the hell out of him how easily he had accepted that line. He'd gone along with it without question, taking dream-Sanji up on his challenge without even considering an alternative. He was getting used to the games and the bets, so much so that his own subconscious was starting to make them up all on its own. What kind of bullshit was that?

Flinging himself up from his pillows with a growl, he welcomed the sobering, chilled air on his skin as the blankets fell away and pooled in his lap. His bed was offering no relief, but maybe a cold shower would. The wooden floor of his bedroom creaked under his weight as he slid off the mattress, not bothering to find any clothes as he stomped out into the hallway. He lived alone, after all; there was nobody around to care if he showed some skin.

However, after standing under the spray of icy water for nearly half an hour, throwing on his work clothes for the day sounded a lot more tempting; he grabbed his typical black pants and overlooked a white collared shirt for a gray one instead, in mild hopes that the darker color would pull attention away from the shadows under his eyes. It was a lot more clothing than he was used to wearing around his apartment; then again, there was nobody around to make fun of him for being overdressed to hang out in his own place, either.

Making his way through the oversized and vacant kitchen, he squinted with an irritated frown as the rising sun reflected off of the glass tabletop to momentarily blind him. He really needed to buy some curtains; but one glance at his open and empty wallet sitting over on the living room couch was enough to make him scoff at the idea. He didn't have money to spare for crap like that; practically every penny he earned went toward paying rent. The cost had been a lot easier to manage with more than just his income to foot the bill, but now such luxuries were in the past. And the idea of moving somewhere else made his stomach churn, so he put up with it.

However, he'd be lying if he said it was easy; he had enough to get by, but tended to cut corners almost a little too sharply. He skipped meals more often than he actually had them, and often wore out clothes to the point of finding inch-wide holes in the fabric. But the addition of fabric softener, admittedly, did seem to be giving his clothes more longevity. Perhaps Sanji had some domestic wisdom, after all. Not that he had any intention of mulling that over.

Picking his meager wallet up off the couch cushion and stuffing it into his back pocket, he checked the time on the cable box; 7:17AM. It was still way too early to clock in on time, but Shanks wasn't against people occasionally starting their work day a bit ahead of the group. And making an hour's worth of extra pocket change would certainly be useful. As if on cue, his stomach growled loudly, and he rolled his eyes in spite of himself. Yeah, he could stand to earn another trip to the grocery store.

Having made up his mind, he grabbed his briefcase from the floor next to the barren bookcase, giving his apartment one last glance over to make sure he hadn't left anything on. When he was only met with the glaring light of the living room window and the muffled hum of the refrigerator, he turned to slip on his shoes and leave.

On his way out, he was met with an all too familiar sight; a picture frame adorned the wall beside the doorframe, displaying a candid photo of a preteen girl, smiling brightly up at the cameraperson with a sheath in her hands that was a white and unmarred as her smile.

Reflecting the image's grin back at it despite the tired ache clouding his head, he tapped his knuckles against the wall underneath the frame with a hollow clack. "I'm heading out, Kuina. Keep this place safe while I'm gone."

Only silence followed him out the door, but even so, his eyelids felt a little less heavy, and his heart a little less chaotic.

xxx

The continued absence of Sanji was debilitating. Even with the man out of his hair, Zoro had barely gotten a single page of work done in a timely fashion that day. He kept watching the door, anticipating the moment when it would finally fly off its hinges to reveal the man that would no doubt have a ton of stories to tell about wherever the hell he'd been. That moment never came though, no matter how many times he'd been pulled out of concentration by a creak or rattle on the other side of the door.

Despite starting the day early, his lack of productivity kept him holed up in his office long after the others had gone home. He had even worked through lunch, if the mindless fidgeting he'd accomplished could even be called that, but it hadn't helped his case in the slightest. Shanks had casually suggested once or twice that he simply call it quits and try again the next day, but Zoro had refused. He had a duty to finish, after all.

It wasn't until an hour past closing that he finally forced himself away from his desk long enough to get some food into his system. The break room was a very different place when it was empty; the table seemed far too big for one person, and the lack of scent in the air save for his own dish of white slop left a lot to be desired. He tore through his food as quickly as his stomach would allow, none too keen on wasting time in a room that unsettling.

The common hallway was flooded with a golden orange glow by the time Zoro headed back to his office. He could practically hear his bed calling to him from halfway across town; but he was so close to completing his work, so damn close to calling it a day that he didn't allow himself to dwell on it. The food had given him the last push he needed; now that he was undoubtedly going to be alone for the rest of the evening, he could get his work done without any distractions. At least now he could give up on his baseless hope of seeing Sanji until the next day rolled around. No cook, no problem. Who even cared, really?

However, when he entered his office and caught sight of the man sitting on top of his desk, a melancholic expression not even directed at him as he slowly closed the door with a stunned click, something in Zoro's chest swayed.

"I thought I already told you not to break into my office," he said, unmoving from his spot by the doorway. Sanji turned to him with a sideways tilt of his head, his distant look replaced with a smirk of equal dullness. Dark circles under his eyes painted his irises a shadier blue than Zoro recalled, making his naturally pale complexion an even more faded tone. If the concept of a sexy zombie were even remotely logical, one would likely look similar.

"Door was open. I'm happy to see you too, moss head." His tone was laced with a languid sarcasm, tired and airy as he took a drag off of a lit cigarette.

"You look terrible," Zoro muttered, ignoring his own mind's inward mantra of holy shit, he's here long enough to tear his eyes away from the man and walk over behind the desk. His chair squeaked as he slumped into it and spun to face the remnants of his work again. "Where the hell have you been, lately?"

"Damn, I'm flattered you missed me so much." Another long drag, and heavy exhale.

"I didn't miss you at all," he retorted a bit too vehemently, just barely moving his papers out of the way in time for the blond to uproot himself and slide over to the middle of his desk, facing the chair with his legs dangling aside either armrest.

"Oh yeah...?" Sanji asked, pausing a moment to hide a quiet yawn behind the hand that held his cigarette. The loose tie around his neck swayed in front of Zoro's face as he slouched over with his elbows resting on his thighs, bending down until their tired eyes met. "Then why do you care where I was?"

"Who said anything about caring? It was just weird," not to mention horrible timing, considering Zoro had been left entirely to his own bewildered devices immediately following their silent little confrontation. "I mean, I was planning on kicking your ass for the stunt you pulled in that meeting, but then you just... disappeared."

"Wait, you mean you really don't know?" Sanji raised an eyebrow in his direction, lingering for a moment before turning away to idly thumb through Zoro's documents as he spoke. "I was covering for Franky's vacation time. I thought someone would have told you."

Zoro blinked lethargically, letting the information sink into his already muddled brain as he reflexively swatted Sanji's hand away from his work; he received a light kick to the side in response, hardly forceful enough to even catch his notice.

He had rightly assumed the blond's disappearance had been work-related, but he had no idea the man had been out roughing up customers for money all week. Admittedly, the mental image of Sanji smooth-talking procrastinators and kicking the shit out of cash-swindling weasels was one he secretly didn't mind filing away to meditate over when he was better rested.

"Someone needed to make his rounds for the week," Sanji continued, stubbing out his cigarette and tossing it into the trashcan. "Side note; holy shit, you have a lot left to do here."

"Yeah, I do. Luffy and I had to cover your share of the work for this week." Zoro gave the scattered pile of papers now crumpled up to his left a short glance. If Sanji was going to be returning to his normal job, his own productivity was likely to go back to normal as well. Unfortunately, that didn't quite solve his current dilemma of needing to finish for the night; and the curly-browed blight himself seemed awfully set on getting comfortable right in the middle of his work space. "So can you cut to the chase and tell me why exactly you're here?" He asked, frowning up at the man on top of his desk with a mixture of confusion and annoyance. It was truly amazing how quickly he could go from feeling relieved to downright irritated in that man's presence.

"Oh, no reason," Sanji replied, shifting his hazy gaze up to the ceiling in some semblance of indifference. "I was just... in the mood for a shoulder massage, and was sort of under the impression you wouldn't have anything better to do."

Zoro shifted back in his chair, eyeing the other man incredulously. Part of him was tempted to try pinching himself, just to make sure he wasn't dreaming again, but even his mind wasn't capable of coming up with a proposition quite that stupid. "You seriously expect me to believe that?"

"And what's wrong with that, shitty moss-brain?"

"I don't know, everything?" Suggestive implications aside, there were so many things wrong with that statement that he didn't even know where to begin objecting.

Sanji leaned back on his hands, head tilting up in that way he always did whenever he was feeling a little testy. "I'm tired as hell, and those arms of yours obviously aren't just for show. Tell me how that's illogical."

Pointedly ignoring the flutter in his chest over the comment about his body for the moment, Zoro took the bait. "Well, for starters, you had no way of knowing I'd still be here this late."

Sanji's visible eye narrowed puzzledly at him, and he dug into his back pocket. "This-... what? It's not that late, is it?" He grumbled, pulling out his phone. From his spot closer to Sanji's hand-level, Zoro could make out a 8:49PM in the top right corner of the screen, next to the silhouetted school of fish that constituted the man's bright-as-fuck-blue lockscreen photo. Sanji winced, and shoved it back into his pocket with a quiet huff. "Alright, yeah, fine. That's not why I came here. I was just stopping by to file my report for the week, but I saw your light was on, so..." He trailed off, yawning again. When Zoro waited for him to continue, however, Sanji's gaze drifted to him and then flickered to the floor, his tired look shifting to a stupid half-smile.

If what he said were true, just how long had he been sitting there waiting for Zoro to come back? It could have been anywhere between a few minutes and half an hour, if the time he'd seen on the cellphone's screen were accurate. "So, what?" He asked, still not sure what exactly Sanji was getting at.

"Like I said already, idiot. I'm tense. You're strong. Give me a hand."

Zoro wasn't exactly one to brag all that often, but, well, he didn't really mind when other people did it for him; especially when "other people" were not particularly lacking in the traits they were attributing to him. Even more so when those traits pertained to his physical abilities. On top of that, he was no stranger to the human body; years of training and sustaining injury had made him expertly knowledgeable in muscular health. Lending the man a hand to rub out some knots wasn't outside the realm of possibilities.

"If you do it, I'll take over cleaning duty for you next week," Sanji added, his grin faltering a little as one of his hands slowly drifted up to fidget with his hair, as he so often did when he was feeling uncomfortable.

Zoro's gaze scanned his frame carefully, taking in the way he hunched over slightly and kept his weight to one side. The cook was breathing in an uneven pattern, and chewing on his lip even more than usual. Zoro was familiar with symptoms of physical exhaustion; and the way the man seemed to struggle to keep himself upright concerned him a bit. There was no doubt in his mind that Sanji was a lot more than just "tense"; he looked like a wreck in almost every way a person could. He had no idea what it had taken to demolish the man so thoroughly, but considering he was hardly in top condition himself, he had no right to call him out on it.

"...Okay, I get it. Forget I said anything, I'm out of here," Sanji grumbled under his breath, shifting to slide off the desk. But when Zoro caught him by the wrist he stilled, looking back down at him with a pout. "What?"

"It hurts, right?" He released his grip when the other man stopped moving, drawing back to roll up his sleeves.

Sanji's visible eye widened. "It doesn't-… it doesn't hurt, dumbass, it-"

Zoro knew immediately that he was lying. "Just turn around and shut up." He didn't mean for the order to come out so harshly, but Sanji complied without putting up a fight, eyeing him suspiciously for a moment longer before pulling his legs up and turning around on top of the desk.

Zoro had to stand up to be above his shoulder-level, sliding his chair back out of the way with a quiet squeak. Other than the two of them, the office was staggeringly silent, which was still uncomfortable to him even though he pined for the calmness most days. Somehow, this was different.

The longer he stood there without saying or doing anything, the more awkward it was likely to become; so he cracked his knuckles and got to work, hesitating for only a moment before he pressed his fingertips into the man's shoulders, tracing out from the base of his neck, then back in. Sanji tensed up under him with a quiet gasp, but relaxed before Zoro could question it. Taking that as a signal to continue, he dragged his thumbs along the blond's shoulders, digging in deeper whenever he came across a contortion in his muscles. There were a hell of a lot more of them than he was expecting; the man had more knots than a damn sailboat. It was almost impressive that he was even managing to sit up straight in the first place.

"...I thought working the streets was supposed to be fun," he mused, in a half-hearted attempt to fill the void of sound. "Why are you so drained?"

Sanji paused for a moment, before shrugging a bit under his hands. "Ah, well, you know… The job is a fuckload to handle when you're not used to it. Lots of... running around and stuff." It was a lackluster response at best, but the sudden strain in the man's neck hinted that he shouldn't push the issue any further.

Zoro hummed in response, hands shifting lower, kneading into the tight knots around his spine as the man arched into his touch with a short growl. "A-ah, shit…"

He frowned, shifting his stance to dig his fingers in deeper. "Ready to admit it hurts yet?"

"Only when you knead into bone, shitty marimo," Sanji snapped back, peering over his shoulder with a salty glare.

Was that bone? Zoro glanced down with a frown. It was hard to tell when the knots he'd found were practically just as solid. Shifting back up away from his lower back, he readjusted his focus to the man's neck, guiding him to face back the other way with a carefully executed series of strokes. He could have sworn he felt Sanji shiver under his touch, albeit as slight as it was, which brought a shit-eating grin to his face as he continued his ministrations.

"What are you—mmmgh—doing?"

"You're about one bad twist away from getting a neck sprain," he explained, keeping the man's head in place as he rubbed into the muscles behind his jaw and under his ears. "Quit moving and let me fix it."

Sanji grumbled something under his breath in response, but Zoro didn't catch it. Whatever it was, it was likely an offhanded and slightly insulting bullshit remark anyway; nothing he was dying to hear. Especially not when he had the man's neck literally in his grasp and a wavering sense of morality due to exhaustion as well. Strangling just wasn't usually his style.

It didn't take all that much to get his neck back into acceptable shape, so Zoro absent-mindedly began working his way back down to his shoulders, then his arms, trying with all his might to ignore the mischievous temptation to pinch the underside of his biceps in the process. It was sort of stunning to him, in a way, how much he could potentially be able to do in that moment. The faith that Sanji was putting in him, whether he realized he was even doing so or not, was difficult to process.

His fingers traced over the man's ribcage, to his spine, then back out again; there were so many things he could do if he wanted to. He dug his fingers into the spaces, rubbing back and forth. Sanji squirmed a bit under his touch, knuckles whitening as he gripped the desk tighter. For once, even though the opportunity had presented itself so perfectly, Zoro just didn't feel like bringing pain to the blond in the slightest; not even a harmless punch to the kidney. He wanted Sanji to feel good; to feel better, or at least not on the brink of collapsing in on himself, if that were at all an attainable goal.

After giving the space between his shoulderblades some much-needed attention, Zoro drifted down to the small of his back, pressing in his thumbs and massaging outward. He slid his arms around Sanji's waist, pulling him close and shamelessly taking in that scent he'd so begrudgingly been thinking about for so long, as his fingers continued working him in. Just what could he get away with, if he chose to try? His eyes widened when the blond sunk backward in his grasp, his head resting on Zoro's shoulder. His heart throbbed harshly in his chest, the sudden burst giving him a completely unnecessary adrenaline rush as his fingers twitched and curled into the other man's well-fitted shirt. But he crashed almost immediately, burying his face into Sanji's neck with a heavy exhale. The urge to say something was overwhelming, but nothing came to mind but fuzz and static.

They stayed that way for what he could only vaguely recognize as not long enough, before the feeling of drifting to sleep literally jerked him back to attentiveness. He cursed under his breath, stumbling back into his chair as he rubbed his eyes, trying to fight his way back to a state of alertness.

"Huh?" Sanji swayed from the sudden lack of support, catching himself on the edge of the desk before he peered back over his shoulder, eyes fluttering like loose filament in a lightbulb. "Y'finished…?"

"Yeah." He strained to get the word out, swallowing once to diffuse the tightness in his throat. "Uh… How was it?"

"Wasn't bad," Sanji sighed contentedly, turning around all the way to face him with a sleepy smile. "Do my feet next, they're killing me."

"Hell no." Zoro wasn't all too keen on getting close to the weapons that had nearly dislocated his jaw a week prior, nor was his patience prepared to deal with another ten minutes of fucking around instead of working; getting home at some point before morning rolled around was becoming a pipe dream a lot quicker than he cared for, and nearly falling asleep had jumbled up his nerves all over again. "I have shit to do, remember?"

"Oh, c'mon, marimo…" He murmured, his tone laced with a newfound tranquillity. "Don't leave the job half-finished."

As Zoro shifted to sit up properly in his chair with a hefty sigh, Sanji's foot raised to poke his shoulder, prodding him with the tip of his shoe. Yet again, he was reminded how insufferable the blond could be. He reached over to grab the offending extremity, giving the shoe a squeeze to get him to stop.

"Agh, bloody fucking hell!" Sanji hissed, and his body flinched away from Zoro's touch with a violent twist. Zoro let go immediately, completely caught off guard by that level of reaction. "Shit, that was-... O-on second thought, you're right. Let's just do that some other time, okay?"

"What the hell was that?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at the man who then sat with his knee half-pulled to his chest and his visible eye snapped shut.

"Fuck… uh, well, I sort of-..." Sanji stammered, gritting his teeth as he opened his eyes and looked down at himself. With a heavy exhale through his nose, he crossed his leg over his lap and very carefully started taking his shoe off. "Y'know what, you should just take a look for yourself."

The man looked like he was performing brain surgery, slipping one finger in behind his heel at an agonizingly slow pace, and another on either side. He squirmed out of it gradually, then bit his lip and tugged it off all at once, and both of them let out a breath when the shoe finally fell to the floor; although, Zoro still didn't know what the fuss was about.

From what he could see, it looked fine, no swelling or anything. But the way Sanji traced a finger testingly over a few spots before trailing up to tug down his sock was raising some red flags. Something wasn't right, and he wanted to know what it was.

Unfortunately for him, however, Sanji only got it down to his ankle before he sucked in a breath and hesitated. "Actually, you, uh… think you could help me out with this part?"

Zoro glanced up at him questioningly, but complied when the man didn't say more. He moved his chair back a bit so the man could extend his leg out into his lap, and slowly peeled off the thin black fabric. It stuck strangely to his skin in a few spots, pulling away with a puzzling resistance, and he could hear Sanji biting back a groan. But Zoro could immediately see why; the man's foot was covered in thin bandages and red marks all over, dried blood spots coating his skin and coverings. The sock's color had made it impossible to tell before, but it had suffered the same fate as well. "What happened?" He tried to keep from sounding too concerned, despite the awful wrench in his chest as he traced over the stains.

"Got myself into a knife fight without a knife," Sanji started matter-of-factly, with what could have either been a sigh or a laugh, idly running a hand through his hair and keeping his line of sight anywhere but forward. "I told the guy to fight me like a man, but he didn't listen. Still won, though."

"But your shoes don't have any cuts. Did you fight him barefoot or something?" Zoro turned the man's foot around in his hands to examine the wounds. Some of them peeked out from the scattered bandages, though they seemed to have been coated in ointment at the very least. They were obviously made with a cheap blade, and likely hurt like hell. It was no wonder the blond had flinched so violently before; how he had even walked all the way to the office was beyond him.

"Are you stupid? Of course not. I had to run home and get another pair before coming here," Sanji chuckled quietly, shaking his head. "Fucking ridiculous, isn't it? Leaving a fight with your own damn blood on your shoes, I mean."

"You seem like you're used to it," Zoro replied under his breath, leaving out the fact that fighting exclusively with his legs was decidedly the more ridiculous part of the equation.

"Hardly," the man scoffed, flashing a crooked smile in Zoro's direction. "Where I come from, fighting with knives is considered shitty behavior."

"I can't really relate to that." Zoro cracked a half-grin of sorts in response, but it dissipated when he examined the man's heel and found a nasty cut that traveled up along the blade of his foot, covered loosely with bandages that were fresh, but already seemed to be peeling off. "Is the other one the same?" He asked, hoping that perhaps the blond had only needed one foot to take the man down, and had managed to limit the damage to one side.

"It's not as bad."

Not as bad, from what Zoro was coming to understand, meant it was still pretty "not good" by any average person's standards. He shot Sanji a disbelieving look, then sighed and let the man's foot slip carefully out of his hands and back into his lap. "Take off that other shoe, then. I'm going to fix these shitty coverings."

"Shitty?" Sanji's nose wrinkled in some semblance of disgust. "They're... not shitty." Proof that they were, in fact, very shitty lied in the way the man's voice shifted nearly as much as his gaze as he spoke.

"A five-year-old could have done better than this," Zoro retorted, lacking the usual bite that his words would have at this point in an argument. The bandages actually weren't all that terrible, and his statement was really only valid if the five-year-old in question was himself, but the way Sanji's exhausted face flushed red in embarrassment made the taunt worth it. "It's fine, just sit still. There's a first aid kit in my desk somewhere."

Digging through the drawer to his left, he shuffled a few folders around and procured a white box, setting it on top of the unfinished work on his desk. Sanji spared the papers a glance that looked almost a little guilty, struggling not to fidget as Zoro peeled off his less-than-adequate coverings. The damage underneath was expected, but Zoro was surprised to see that any particularly sensitive part of the underside of his foot remained undamaged. The wounds that he suffered were deep, but he'd clearly made sure to keep himself in a functional state. Suddenly it didn't seem all that ridiculous for the other man to have walked all the way to their office; and Zoro, although he was conflicted about admitting it, was impressed.

Sanji, for once in his damn life, remained silent throughout the whole ordeal, fingers occasionally curling tightly into the desk whenever Zoro pressed too hard. He didn't speak up until Zoro was halfway through reapplying the bandages. "...I wonder if Franky has to deal with shit like this a lot."

"I doubt it. That guy's practically made of steel, right? Knives wouldn't do much."

"I bet he's bulletproof too," Sanji snickered, leaning forward with his forearms on his thighs. "Come to think of it, I've never seen him eat…"

Everything always came back to food with him, didn't it? "What, you think he might be a robot?"

"I'm just saying we shouldn't write off the possibility."

Their conversation drifted into another bout of silence, leaving Zoro to redirect his attention to the job in front of him. He applied another butterfly bandage carefully, his shuffling hands and the squeak of his chair as he shifted to get a good angle providing the only noise on their entire floor for a few long minutes.

This time, it was his turn to speak up. "...Some of these wounds are deep. Didn't really peg you as the tough type."

Sanji snorted indignantly, and Zoro's eyes flickered up to find a sleepy scowl aimed in his direction. "And I didn't peg you as the affectionate type, yet that hug earlier was-"

"What hug? I never hugged you, I was just doing what you asked for." Zoro cut him off quickly, cheeks getting hot as he applied the last of his bandage supply. Shit, he'd been relatively certain the blond had been too drowsy notice. That had definitely been a mistake; one entirely due to exhaustion, and something he was absolutely hellbent on not discussing further. At least, not when he had no idea what his sleep-deprived mind might decide to say about it.

His fingers traced over his handiwork, skimming for any unnoticed imperfections, and Sanji let out a content sigh, his head rolling back and to the side. "...You know, your hands aren't as unwieldy as they look. I should make you do this sort of thing more often."

"You can't make me do anything," Zoro muttered, pointedly running his thumb over one of the spots he'd been avoiding. Sanji hissed under his breath, leg going rigid for a moment before he relaxed again.

"Oh, so you admit that all of this has been voluntary, then...?"

If that wasn't a loaded question, he had no idea what was. Zoro refused to say anything in response, avoiding eye contact as he bent down to pick the discarded shoes up off the floor. He shoved them into Sanji's hands with more force than necessary, then rolled his chair back, forcing the legs on his lap to slide off. The other man seemed to get the hint, examining the bandages for himself before carefully sliding his shoes back on with little effort.

"Hey, Zoro," he spoke up again, obviously holding back a yawn.

"Yeah?"

Standing up from his perch on the desk, Sanji began aligning the unfinished papers back to their original place. "How about we get to work on these documents?"

Momentarily stunned, Zoro sat in his seat and stared at him blankly. Sanji was, without prompting, offering to help him? Surely he must have wanted something; to make another trade, or another bet. If there was anything Zoro didn't need that night, it was another goddamn game. "Go home and sleep. This is my work to finish."

"Well, technically it's mine too," the blond mused, walking with a half-limp to grab one of the extra chairs from the other side of the room. He pulled it over to the back side of the desk, and plucked a pen from the from the pencil holder near the corner, snatching a paper from the top of the stack to examine. "And you need sleep as much as I do. At least this way, there'll be hope for both of us tonight."

Well, that argument was sound. Even so, he couldn't shake off his hesitancy. "What's the catch this time?"

Sanji thought for a moment, tapping the pen rhythmically against his chin as he stared up at the ceiling. "Hm… If you don't argue anymore, I'll make you lunch tomorrow."

That… was not at all what he was expecting. His lips curled into a knowing smile, and he slid his chair forward until they were side by side. "You're not so bad, curly." Not bad at all.

"Sh-shut up and get to work, marimo. We're not staying here all night."

Although they did get to work, and they did finish before daybreak, neither of the two of them had managed to make it home before drifting off, using their arms as pillows on top of the desk, and each other's sides for balance.

For the first time in ages, Zoro found himself sleeping perfectly.

Aww, these sleepy little dorks were so fun to write. ;w;

Also, yay, it's summer! :D Updates might be a bit more frequent, but I'm also working on this really awesome fic for the Science Fiction and Fantasy One Piece event too, and that's going to be a long one. Like, 50k words long. And it's due in July. ._. Yeesh. Wish me luck, I'm gonna need it. xD