Chapter Text
you hand touching mine.
this is how galaxies collide.- Sanober Khan
The first time they kiss, Sanji is willing to blame it on the circumstances. They’re drunk, on alcohol, adrenaline, and the even more addicting feeling of having won a fight against a god.
So, it’s an accident, fueled by his blood boiling bonfire hot, and by his lingering fear of seeing his friends shoot over the edge of Enel’s ship and disappearing.
They’re dancing, at first, all of them, wild and loud and uninhibited. Let loose. It’s a free fall and Sanji enjoys the rush, the feeling of his stomach dropping, the uncertainty of knowing whether he’ll land safely.
And then, suddenly, he’s pressed close to Usopp, his laughter ringing in his ears, his body a live wire, moving against him as if he wasn’t still covered in bandages. Sanji throws an arm around his shoulders, still dancing, in synch and painfully alive.
His grip is too tight, maybe. Usopp looks at him, grin so wide it seems to split his face in two, face so close Sanji can smell the grilled fish and red wine on his breath.
Sanji looks. Lets himself look.
Usopp is always moving, almost as bad as Luffy in that way, just completely different in that his shaking limbs are no comparison to Luffy’s excited fidgeting. Now, he’s close enough, though, close enough for Sanji to see every minuscule twitch of his brows, of the way the corners of his mouth curl up, of the way his eyes have grown wide with happiness.
Someone pushes into Sanji’s back and Usopp laughs and catches him around the waist as Sanji’s cursing into his ear. They’re pressed flush together now, chest to chest, and Sanji…
It’s an accident, really, the way he sways and catches Usopp’s lips with his own.
Just an accident.
Usopp’s mouth is hot and wet, and there’s still laughter stuck to his lips, or a song, or a surprised yelp, Sanji’s not sure. Sanji’s not sure about a lot of things, like what his heart is doing in his chest, for example, or how it feels so good to feel Usopp’s tongue against his, or why he doesn’t stop.
They don’t stop. Not when one of the Shandian warriors whistles at them, not even when Usopp pulls back, blinking.
“Wha—,” he gets out but Sanji just kisses him again, kisses those chapped lips, grips his fingers around Usopp’s arms, still wrapped in bandages. Still hot to the touch.
And maybe, maybe. Sanji’s not sure. But maybe he feels Enel’s electricity racing through him, through both of them, little shocks that make the hairs on his neck stand up, that push his heart into different directions.
“San—,” Usopp mumbles between one kiss and the next, because he’s always the one to stop, always, he’s the sensible one, the over-thinker, why can’t he just stop thinking, why— “Sanji, what—”
“Dammit.” Sanji drags himself off of Usopp. “What!”
For some reason, this — stopping — is harder than anything else. And Sanji still can’t seem to get his hands away, can’t seem to stop gripping Usopp tight, too tight, probably. He can feel the warmth of his body under his fingers.
Usopp looks at him, eyes wide and confused, pupils blown wide. The light from the fire dances over his face, his lashes painting dark shadows over his flushed cheeks.
Everything about him looks warm, and Sanji wants to lean in and lick the heat off of his skin.
He catches himself, looks to the side.
Suddenly, every noise he’d blocked out in the last few minutes comes crashing back in, the music, the crackle of the fire it mixes with, and over it all the voices of his crew, dancing and laughing and singing.
Sanji flinches back.
“Sanji,” Usopp says, again, and why does his own name grate in his ears all of a sudden? “Why—”
“No reason,” Sanji says, voice just a tad too rough. He clears his throat. “Just. Forget about it.”
He smiles, tries to at least, and Sanji’s been always good at smiling, it’s one of his best features. So, he’s certain it’s a good smile, sure, confident.
Usopp still looks at him like he’s grown a second head. Or, at least that’s what it feels like, because Sanji’s still averting his eyes.
“No reason,” Usopp echoes.
Sanji can’t tell if he’s surprised or mad or hurt. He itches for a cigarette, starts digging through his pockets for a lighter, his movements just on the wrong side of frantic.
“Yeah,” he says, and for some reason his fingers still shake.
Stupid.
“Yeah, it’s a heat of the moment kinda thing, ya know?” He flicks at the lighter until a flame catches the end of his cigarette, and inhales, finally. “Because of the alcohol, and the whole mood here. We won against a fucking god, right?”
“We won against a god,” Usopp parrots.
Sanji frowns. “Goddammit, Usopp.” And maybe his voice is too harsh, too cutting. But it helps him trample his own too fast heartbeat into submission. “We almost died. Things happen, it doesn’t mean anything.”
And it doesn’t mean anything. Right? Because it can’t mean anything.
Right.
He turns around and starts pushing through the celebrating crowd, forces himself too look straight ahead, not looking for his crew, not looking for anyone. For some reason, he feels Zeff’s eyes on his neck, like that time he caught him smoking for the first time.
“What are you doing, brat?”
“Shut up,” Sanji mumbles around the cigarette in his mouth, “shitty geezer.”
He reaches the edge of the party, where the Shandia and the Sky Islanders have put up some tents. The ruins of the Golden City loom over everything, tall and dark, the wind blowing between them whistling of their history. Even their shadows, only just kept at bay by the bonfire, appear ancient.
There’s something tragically beautiful about ruins, Sanji thinks as he walks past the crumbled walls, past rows and rows of empty houses and dark windows.
People used to live here.
These houses used to be homes.
Cricket was right, just as Noland had been right all those years ago. He’d seen this city, had seen the treasures, had known the people.
Sanji breathes in deeply, his cigarette almost burned down.
Noland the Liar. He remembers the story so well, can almost imagine his mother’s voice telling it, a fairytale from far, far away.
“The liar always knows the truth, don’t you think? He must’ve known the truth. Or believed his own lie.”
“The liar always knows the truth.” Sanji huffs, turns his eyes up to the sky. He’s not so sure about that anymore.
Noland hadn’t known the whole truth, after all, looking in the wrong place all this time. Dying believing in his own truth, his own dream, because what else was there?
Sanji drops down onto the ground, parts of a crumbled wall at his back, feels soft moss and cold stone through the thin fabric of his shirt. Feels the shadows creeping over his head.
He’s one of them, a shadow, a ruin, something cold to the touch.
What did this place look like before Enel found it? Was it as glorious as all the fairytales described it, shimmering just as bright during the night as it does during the day, as if someone had dropped a bucket full of light over the buildings?
Now, it’s stripped down to its bones, all broken edges and sharp corners standing out like the teeth of a sea king.
One of the shadows is moving towards him, coming closer. It takes a while until Sanji can make out the figure. Usopp’s almost standing directly in front of him, then.
“What do you want?” He’s too cold again, too unaffected, the words like ice in his throat. Even though he can still feel the ghost of Usopp’s heat under his hands, a phantom pain that stuck to him as soon as they touched, that won’t leave him now.
“You didn’t—” Usopp huffs, his voice small but frustrated. With himself, or with Sanji, or with both, Sanji can’t tell. “You didn’t have to leave. Not because… not because of me.”
“Yeah, I did,” Sanji says, and regrets his choice of words immediately.
Usopp hunches in on himself even more, draws his shoulders up to his ears. “Oh.”
“Not like that, don’t be stupid.” His cigarette has burned to the filter and he flicks it away, watches the glowing orange spot disappear into the ruins. “I just.”
He just what?
Sanji doesn’t understand himself most of the time, how’s he supposed to explain it to someone else?
But Usopp came looking for him and he deserves an answer, even if he keeps glancing to the side, averting Sanji’s eyes, and looking like he’s being punished for something.
Deserves it because of it.
Because he’s part of his crew, is his friend.
So, Sanji tries. Looks at himself and really tries.
“I got caught up in the moment,” he starts, pulls a face at himself, even though he knows the truth in his words.
Well. Knows part of the truth, at least.
“It’s the adrenaline, the beer, the party.”
The loneliness, the loneliness, the loneliness.
“I… I get that. I guess.” Usopp has his hands hidden in his pockets. He stands stiff, all of his usual jitters swapped out for the tension in his shoulders.
Sanji hates it. He wants to reach out so badly, wants to brush it off of him.
“You do?”
“Sure,” Usopp says, even his shrug clipped. “I’m not that naive, you know.”
Like this, Sanji can’t tell if he’s lying. Which would be okay, probably, but he also can’t tell if he’s telling the truth.
“I was just there. Could’ve happened with anyone, right?”
Sanji stares. “Right,” he says, but his whole body seems to scream against it.
What?
But Usopp forces a smile onto his face and he finally, finally looks at Sanji again, so what else is there to say?
“And we did both almost die.” Usopp’s smile wobbles a little but it stays on, stubbornly. Usopp’s good at stubbornness. “Several times actually.”
When Sanji closes his eyes, he can still see Usopp lying on the deck of Enel’s ship, Nami reaching out for him.
When Sanji closes his eyes, he can still see Nami and Usopp’s backs as they fly over the railing.
When Sanji closes his eyes, he can still see Enel, his lightning buzzing in the air around him, staring at him.
So, Sanji keeps his eyes open. He doesn’t even blink.
“Thanks for coming back for me,” he says, and it comes out easier than expected.
Usopp stares, then his smile seems to lose some of its tension. “Well, thank you for not sacrificing me. Just. Don’t do that again.”
“Don’t not sacrifice you again?”
“Don’t sacrifice yourself again!” Usopp kicks at Sanji’s shin, softly, before carefully sitting down on the ground beside him, a few feet away. He still holds himself wrung tight like a spring. The bandages peaking out from underneath his collar probably don’t help.
Not with the tension.
Not with Sanji’s image of him.
And neither with the image he has of himself.
“Sometimes,” Sanji says, carefully. The white of Usopp’s bandages shines like starlight in the night, blinking out at him. He can navigate his uncertainty by looking at them. “I just want to hold on to something. Someone.”
He breathes out, huffs a laugh at himself. It sounds brittle, a lot closer in texture to the ruins he’s sitting against than he’d like.
“Me too.” Usopp’s voice is close to a whisper. He’s still not looking at Sanji, instead fixating on his hands, nibbling at a scratch on his thumb.
“So,” Sanji starts, and he can’t stop the words, just like he can’t stop his heart from racing, “do you wanna?”
Usopp looks up at at, because of fucking course he does. Even in the dark Sanji can see him narrow his eyes at him, and even in the dark he can see the full-blown panic, mixed in with a whole lot of suspicion.
Sanji knows what he’ll say before Usopp even opens his mouth.
“What?”
“You know,” Sanji says, leaning back on his hands, cocking his head so his hair falls into his face, so his chest is turned towards Usopp, so he can spread his legs just a bit wider.
This is a game he knows how to play. This is a game he’s good at, just like he’s good at smiling.
Doesn’t mean he can’t feel his heartbeat in every part of his body, blood racing through him at an exhilarating speed.
Doesn’t mean his hands aren’t sweating, doesn’t mean he isn’t longing for another cigarette, just to have something to do with his hands while Usopp only stares at him again.
Doesn’t mean he isn’t afraid of fucking this up.
“I—,” Usopp starts, blinks, swallows, starts again, “I think I know. But. But I don’t know. And. And if you don’t mean it—”
“Why wouldn’t I mean it?” He leans further back, turns until his whole body is angled towards Usopp, nudges his knee with the tip of his shoe.
A nervous, shrill laugh bubbles out of Usopp, leaving his mouth open around a disbelieving grin.
“Because of Nami? Or Robin? Or Conis?” He shakes his head. “Because I’m me? Because you’re you? Take a pick.”
And Sanji gets that. Gets all of it.
He knows the image he presents on a daily basis, it’s carefully curated after all. But even if they’ve spent the last few months in close quarters, almost every moment together, and even if Sanji’s not even sure what living without them feels like.
Even then.
It’s only been months. They’ve barely scratched the surface of each other’s shells.
Instead of answering, Sanji kicks Usopp again, softly, presses the toe of his shoe into Usopp’s thigh. “You haven’t answered my question.”
Hesitation is something that seems built into Usopp’s DNA, so Sanji’s not really surprised when he still holds himself back, only looking down at Sanji’s foot.
“It wouldn’t mean anything,” Sanji says, much lighter than he feels. He doesn’t want to force it, of course he doesn’t, but he’d take anything, at this point.
He still feels Usopp’s lips on his own, the pressure of a warm, safe mouth. If he had the choice, if it were only up to him, he’d take that again, take this warmth, this secure knowledge of a body he can trust almost as much as his own.
He isn’t alone in this, though. So, he’ll take anything he can get.
If this kiss in front of the bonfire is it, then that’s okay. It’s okay, it’ll be okay.
“What does that even mean?” Usopp replies, shaking his head.
“Just what we say it does.” Sanji shrugs. He caves, then, pulls another cigarette out of his pocket. He’s probably going to need it.
“And what are we saying?”
“Usopp,” Sanji huffs, taking a drag and letting smoke fill his lungs, calm his frayed, electrified nerves.
And it’s a mistake, it’s most definitely a mistake, the way his tone gets too impatient, like he’s pushing when he’s trying not to.
In an uncommon show of anger, Usopp narrows his eyes, pushes Sanji’s foot away from him.
“I haven’t done anything like that yet, okay? I haven’t… I haven’t done anything yet, so don’t… don’t.” And again, quietly: “Don’t.”
Well. It’s not like Sanji’s done a lot, either. But Usopp doesn’t need to know that, now, does he.
“So,” Sanji drawls, carefully this time, “you do want to?”
“Yeah, well.” Usopp throws his hands up, pulling a face. “Maybe I do.”
Maybe isn’t no. But it’s not a yes, either.
“Okay.” Sanji pulls his legs back a bit, giving Usopp space to breathe, although he desperately wants to reach out, to touch. He taps the ash off the tip of his cigarette instead.
“I’m not. I’m not saying, I don’t want to,” as if Sanji hadn’t understood, “I just— I just need to— We need to t— We need to talk about this.”
He looks panicked again, like he had when they’d climbed up to Enel’s ship to save Nami. Panicked but determined. At least, that’s what Sanji hopes.
It’s what he’s counting on, then and now.
“We are,” he says, “aren’t we?”
The suspicious look in Usopp’s eyes doesn’t disappear but Sanji thinks he can see some of his anxiousness vanish when he looks up.
“I don’t know,” he says, and the way he’s cocking an eyebrow makes Sanji’s stomach drop. “I still don’t know what you want. From this, I mean. From me.”
If he’s being honest, Sanji doesn’t really know, either.
But Usopp doesn’t need to know that.
“Just sex,” he says, again, much lighter than he feels. The cigarette helps, probably, with covering up the insecurity in his voice, twisting it into something rough and smoky.
“Just…” Usopp clears his throat. “Just once?”
“If you want to.” Sanji shrugs, as nonchalantly as he’s able to when his blood rushes through him like this.
“And if I don’t want to?”
Sanji prides himself to at least look like’s good at this, so he catches himself before his smile gets too excited. He can’t help the way his heart skips a beat, though.
“Then,” he says, and slowly, purposefully, presses his cigarette into the ground beside him, “it could be more than just once.”
He’s come on to Usopp twice tonight, too fast both times, too hasty in his need to touch, so it feels right to let Usopp come to him this time. Feels right to let Usopp reach out and put a tentative hand on his ankle.
His fingers are cold and shaking but they still seem to burn his skin and Sanji has to fight against the shiver rolling through him.
“I’m trying to be braver,” Usopp murmurs, letting his hand trail up to Sanji’s knee.
Sanji wishes he could see his eyes but Usopp’s looking at his own hand and Sanji can’t really blame him. He’s mesmerized himself.
“You can say stop anytime,” Sanji gets out, and watches as Usopp drags himself closer until he can lean over Sanji, until he can run his fingers up the inseam on Sanji’s thigh.
“Okay,” Usopp says, his voice high. “You too.”
For a second, Sanji wants to laugh. In no world would he want this to stop right now. But he nods because he does remember Zeff’s sex talk, even if it had been the most uncomfortable moment of his life.
“What are you doing, eggplant?” he hears Zeff’s voice in his head again, rough but soft, almost on the wrong side of concerned.
Just like that time he caught Sanji looking at one of the new line cooks too long, the one with a wife and two little kids at home, the one who’d be gone in a couple of months.
They were all gone in a couple of months.
He pushes the memory away, pushes every thought of Zeff to the back of his head, fists his hands into Usopp’s shirt and pulls him on top of him.
Sanji swallows his yelp, pushes his tongue into his mouth unceremoniously, and gets swallowed himself in return. By Usopp, by Usopp’s mouth, wet and hot and clumsy and perfect, the slide of his lips against Sanji’s just this side of needy, a mirror of his own wethotclumsyperfect want.
For some reason, Sanji had expected Usopp to be lighter. Maybe it’s his build, the kind of slim and wiry that tells Sanji a story of malnourishment, even through his wide clothes.
But having Usopp’s weight on top of him now, he’s actually heavier than he would’ve thought. It’s a good thing, he thinks, as he’s being covered by his warm, familiar body, as he’s being pressed into the ancient earth of Upper Yard.
Sanji grasps at Usopp’s shoulders, pushes his suspenders off and the top of his overalls out of the way until he can get his hands under his shirt. Until he can feel warm, soft skin under his hands, can let his fingers stretch over his ribcage and up, up, over his chest.
Usopp gasps into his mouth.
“San—,” he starts, and never finishes because Sanji’s thumb strokes over his pecs.
“Shh,” Sanji murmurs, pressing open kisses into the corner of Usopp’s mouth. “Take this off, come on.”
And Usopp just. Does.
He sits up and pulls his shirt over his head, his bandana coming loose in the process, so he just chucks it aside with the shirt.
When he looks down at Sanji again, something strange happens. Something strange within Sanji, who can only stare up, his hands splayed over Usopp’s thighs.
It’s so dark around them, the night like the inside of a pocket they’re tucked away in. But as Sanji looks up and Usopp looks down, his hair falling into his face in tight curls, Sanji can see the stars.
He’s never been so close to them, he realizes, and wonders why they don’t appear bigger. Just more of them, thousands and thousands of stars, the sky alight with them. Surely, there’s a good, physical explanation for that, but at the moment he can only wonder.
Then, Usopp leans down again, licking into his mouth until Sanji’s breath catches in his throat.
He can just swallow the sound threatening to escape his chest as Usopp trails wet kisses over Sanji’s jaw. His hair tickles Sanji’s nose and he smells of the bonfire, only wood and warmth.
“Mh,” Usopp breathes. His fingers are tangled in Sanji’s shirt, trying to get the buttons to open. Trying and failing.
“Wait,” Sanji says, pulling his hands off of Usopp’s chest.
“Sorry.” Usopp sighs, leans his head against Sanji’s shoulder.
“Yeah.” Sanji has to force himself not to moan. Usopp’s heavy breath on his collarbone makes him shiver, though, makes goosebumps break out over his arms, makes his stomach drop.
The only reason he doesn’t fumble with the buttons himself is because the movements have become so intrinsic to his life, dressing in the kinds of clothes you shouldn’t make out on the ground in.
At the moment, he couldn’t care less, especially when Usopp starts mouthing at his neck, and he almost rips the last button off.
He must’ve made some sound, then, because Usopp stops, pulls away enough to look down at him.
Sanji almost, almost whines.
“You— um. You okay?”
“Yeah,” he says, before grabbing the back of Usopp’s head and pulling him down again. “Never better.”
It’s clear as hell that Usopp’s nervous, even when he holds onto Sanji like a lifeline. His hands are shaking so much they’re almost shaking him with them, and they never stray below the belt.
Not that Sanji’s complaining.
Usopp makes up for his insecurity and not knowing where to put his hands with a trial-and-error method of putting his mouth every place it can reach. He latches onto Sanji’s neck for a while, trails off to his collarbone before pressing wet, open kisses against his chest.
Sanji leans into it, shivering under the attention, under the soft hold Usopp has on him without even trying, without even knowing he’s doing it.
If he’s as inexperienced as Usopp says he is, how good will his kisses get with time and practice?
Much, much practice, if Sanji gets a say in it.
He curls his fingers into Usopp’s hair, suppresses the urge to push Usopp’s head where he wants it, instead bucking up into his body, desperate to get some friction.
A high, startled noise escapes Usopp as he pushes back, almost on instinct. He looks at Sanji with wide, wide eyes.
“Am I—” He clears his throat. “Am I doing this… this right?”
“Yeah,” Sanji breathes. Then, it’s his turn to cough. “But. You. You missed a spot.”
It sounded better in his head.
Still, Usopp seems to get the message, if the way he breathes in sharply is anything to go by. And considering that he almost immediately flicks his tongue over Sanji’s nipple.
Shit.
Sanji tightens his grip in Usopp’s hair, bites down on his lower lip, trying not to let anything embarrassing fall out of his mouth as Usopp bites and sucks and licks until it’s almost too much.
Until it’s too much.
Sanji can feel the want in his toes. It snakes up his legs, curls around his arms, lights a fire deep inside of him he didn’t even know he had.
“Just, just, just,” he gets out, and it takes all of his willpower to push Usopp away.
He has no idea how he hasn’t come yet.
“Just,” he says again, when Usopp’s mouth is no longer attached to his chest, “go slow. Slower, I mean. Just. A bit.”
“Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry,” Usopp says, pulling away and sitting up on his haunches, “I didn’t mean to— I don’t really— I don’t really know what I’m doing, I’m sorry.”
And that hadn’t been Sanji’s intention at all.
“Don’t panic.” He pushes up onto his elbows. He needs to think, clearly, but it’s difficult with Usopp basically sitting on his crotch.
Maybe this would be easier if he was on top. But he likes being here, under a warm body, shielded from the night, pressed to the ground.
And, to be honest, he’s not that much more experienced than Usopp, anyway.
Still. He’s the one who wanted this in the first place, he should know what to do. Right?
“How about,” Sanji starts and he pulls himself out from under Usopp, backwards until his shoulders hit the wall behind him. He leans up against it, then holds out his hand. “Like this?”
Usopp shuffles over to him, places his knees on either side of Sanji’s legs and sits down on his lap. “Like this?”
“Like this,” Sanji answers, his hands on Usopp’s hips, guiding him down until he presses against him. A shiver runs through him, sweet sweet pressure on his cock making him see stars.
He blinks up at Usopp, just barely noticing the way he’s watching him, his mouth hanging open, his eyes focused.
“Like,” Usopp breathes and rocks down against Sanji, “this.”
He pushes down again, panting, a shiver going through his body. His hands find their way up Sanji’s bare chest until he cups his face in both of his palms.
When he leans down to kiss Sanji again, unrefined but tender, something in Sanji starts to ache.
It happens suddenly, without warning, Usopp’s fingers brushing over his cheekbones like an electric shock to his system. Sanji’s not sure if he wants to push into it, follow it to its source, be caught in it — or if he wants to run away.
He’s been struck by lightning a few times too many these days.
His solution lies somewhere in between: He doesn’t shake Usopp’s hands off, instead shoves his pants down as far as possible and his hand inside.
Usopp whines right into his ear, a high-pitched cry, and his hands fall to Sanji’s shoulders, holding on. He shakes apart like this, right there in Sanji’s lap, his breath hot in contrast to the cool night air.
When he tenses, suddenly but not surprisingly, Sanji catches him before he falls against the rough wall behind them face first.
“Sanj—,” Usopp gets out, breathless and caught somewhere between a moan and a plea. His fingers dig into Sanji’s shoulders like he’s Merry’s railing in a storm, the only thing between the angry sea and safety.
“Yes,” Sanji breathes, the ache in his chest like the chain of an anchor, dragging him out and under. And it’s the only thing he can say for a minute after that, just small, gasped sounds, “yes, yes, yes”, as Usopp continues touching him, his hands finding their way between Sanji’s legs, his mouth burning marks against the softest parts of Sanji’s neck.
He doesn’t know what to feel, after, when they’ve both come down from their respective highs, getting sticky and cold and still neither of them is moving. Usopp leans against him, his forehead on Sanji’s shoulder, his body a grounding weight on Sanji’s thighs. Sanji can look past him into the ruins, and up into the night sky. There are so many stars.
“You know,” Usopp says, quietly, breath ghosting softly over over Sanji’s neck, “we could’ve gone into one of the tents.”
Sanji snorts and Usopp adds on, “not that I’m complaining!” His voice that familiar, panicky shriek again.
“Night’s still young,” Sanji says, trying to sound sly, trying not to seem to eager even as Usopp gets up and pulls him to his feet.