Chapter Text
Zoro used to pride himself on his gaydar's accuracy. His instincts had so far always been right, being able to tell from a glance- Yep, that person's queer. or Nope, this one won't appreciate me flirting with him. During his time as a pirate hunter, it served him well, helped him avoid getting into fights at the dingy bars he frequented, fights that could've easily broken out because of some men’s fragile senses of self. Which is why meeting a certain blonde cook immediately bothered him. Why couldn’t he figure this one out? Why was this one different?
It irked Zoro that upon meeting him, a whirlwind of limbs, blue eyes and a cigarette dangling from his cocky smile, something in his gut flip-flopped, instead of the usual, clear feeling he usually got when he met men, like a natural yes/no answer. Obviously, the lovesick fool greatly admired women, ceaselessly shouting his love for them at any opportunity. But he had met many a man like that who still sought to warm his bed- and Sanji was... well, Sanji. His simple existence riles Zoro up like no other. And why does it even matter to him what the shitty cook’s preferences are anyways? Zoro tells himself it's because it feels like a challenge.
Like a pendulum, his certainty on which team (or teams) the blonde bats for swings wildly on a day-to-day basis, at each new piece of information, for every step he learns to know the cook and accept him as a nakama. He notes the man’s grooming habits and fashion preferences- rare are the men at sea who bathe daily or decide to wear a three-piece suit when constantly assaulted by salty sea air. He notes the uninhibited way Sanji pours himself, his love and care for others, into his dishes and little acts of service. But ultimately none of Sanji's both aggravating and endearing mannerisms that Zoro patiently collects prove anything at all. There's only one real way to know- and that's determining if Sanji has ever shown an ounce of interest in men before. Zoro's ears also always perk up and listen intently whenever the conversation steers the cook towards talk of his past dalliances, but, just his luck, while the stories of bedding clients at the Baratie are very entertaining, none of the words used rule out any particular gender.
He bides his time, surely someday Sanji would slip up and mention something more specific about the people he’s slept with, right? Their name, their clothing, their body- one day Zoro would figure out if the shitty cook likes men.
Their crew grows, they visit more islands, fight increasingly dangerous adversaries...and sure enough one day, his luck turns. It's one of their typical victory feasts, and he spots a drunken Usopp gather the crew around him to inquire about people’s "types".
Childish.
His face still schooled into a nonchalant, neutral expression, he does his best to hide how desperately he waits for Sanji to speak up about his type, only to once again be met with more general terms about people- someone with a kind heart, dependable, an equal… he’s so concentrated on trying to pick out any gendered terms he doesn’t notice the weird look Nami throws his way at each new descriptor in Sanji’s list of desirable traits.
At a low point, Zoro briefly considers simply asking the damn man, or any of his friends, but just the thought of giving up now steels his determination even more. There isn't a fucking chance in hell he’ll ask about Sanji’s sexuality to the crew, lest they immediately understand how bad he has it for the stupid cook.
He’s always known Sanji speaks French, finding it endearing whenever the cook curses (even at him), whenever he goes into small little rants to himself, or the face he makes when he can only think of a word in French, rapidly snapping his fingers until it comes back to him. But it’s only when they get to a town where Sanji speaks to a vendor excitedly about his produce that he realizes just how much this thing, this endearing thing that’s always been there, truly affects him, and his face burns at how different the cook’s voice sounds when he actually speaks it, how enchantingly low and throaty the foreign syllables ring in his ears.
Attached to living another day, he decides that stealing a book from Robin is a bad idea, and resigns himself to ask her directly for a favour. He swallows his pride and asks if she can lend him a French learning book and a dictionary, curious as to whether he can learn it a bit, and understand whatever the hell Sanji keeps cursing and muttering about around him, and what kinds of insults he’s been throwing his way. With her ever mysterious smile plastered on her face, a chain of Robin’s arms retrieve two books from her library and hand them to him.
“Do come to me if you have any questions, Mr. Swordsman. My French is pretty good if I do say so myself.”
He’s out of the room, red as a beet, before she even finishes that sentence.
Learning the curse words comes to him unsurprisingly quickly given how often he hears a litany of « putain de merde », « fait chier ! » and « enfoiré! » spilling from the blonde’s distracting mouth.
He’s very happily surprised when he learns that French is apparently a heavily gendered language- and that he can glean someone’s gender just from whether the adjectives applied to the subject are masculine or feminine. Now if the stars aligned and the cook would talk about his love life in French …
Zoro starts by going through the basic first chapters, taking great pains to hide and quickly dissimulate the incriminating object in his haramaki anytime someone walks in on him- especially the witch. He would never hear the end of it.
Weeks, months pass, and he advances further in the lessons and his vocabulary grows, although he often goes to his dictionary for the more… colourful insults Sanji throws his way. He never says a word of French himself, not knowing how he could even justify knowing any without looking suspicious, and pretty sure his pronunciation would be way off anyways. But he starts to really enjoy it, being able to understand even a tenth of the things Sanji thinks he can say without the crew (save Robin) understanding. Makes him feel closer .
And then Saobaody happens. His crew scattered across the world, shattered and battered as his heart, his purpose, his pride. And now he doesn't have time to think about learning French, not if he wants to get strong enough. Not if he wants to protect his nakama. His family. He throws his entire self into training, he defeats those stupid baboons, he begs Mihawk to take him as an apprentice. Anything to stop something like that ever happening again. He'd make sure of it.
It's on a completely unremarkable day, sat at the dinner table with Mihawk and Perona and munching on his steak, that his mentor asks for the salt (Passez moi le sel, s'il vous plait ), and he executes himself without thinking. A quiet settles over the room and he looks up to see those intense red eyes boring into him, unnerving as ever.
"You speak French?"
"Not really," he grumbles, not wanting more excuses to think of the shitty cook, and his shitty cooking, and his stupid curly brow.
"Then you will. Consider this a natural continuation of my trying to beat some manners into your brutish mind."
Two years of swords training and French lessons later, and he can't wait to use his newfound skill to his advantage. His pronunciation may still be shit, but thankfully there need not be any speaking from his side. Zoro grins to himself, looking at the silly cook gleefully running around Saobaody's market, bubbles of supplies in tow. He’s missed the dartbrow more than he can admit.
With his now solidified grasp of the language, (nearly fluent, by Mihawk’s estimate) he slowly begins to understand that what he at first though was a mistake on his part- that he must’ve missed a part of a sentence, or mixed up some words- was not an error at all. It turns out, some of the French things that Sanji yells at him aren’t insults at all .
In fact… they’re sometimes downright complimentary.
And that's definitely a problem for Zoro, who now not only needs to keep pretending that he doesn’t know what Sanji is saying, but needs to pretend he doesn’t understand it when Sanji screams at him that he has a “stupidly pretty face” or that his “tits are even bigger than Nami’s and how is that even fair” . He doesn't know what to make of it, and he pointedly ignores the glimmer of hope lighting up is chest.
And then one day… the stars align.
It’s another post battle party, and the cook has been drinking a bit more than usual, a tightly gripped glass of wine in his left hand, a cigarette in his right. Zoro is nursing his very own barrel of Ale when he hears the conversation turn to more gossipy topics, as it usually does the further into the night they are.
“Chopper was really into that nurse on Zou, wasn’t he?” Usopp starts to poke fun at the crew’s youngest member, laughing as the reindeer turns red and tries to deny it.
“I mean it makes sense that she’d be his type! Right Nami?” he beckons his partner in crime to join in on the teasing.
Nami nods at him, grinning wickedly as she switches the target. “Yeah, not all of us can be into rich little blonde girls can we?”
“You’re right, some of us are into rich blue-haired princesses,” he shoots back.
"At least I had the balls to do something about it before I left her island-"
Zoro is already tuning them out when Sanji sits down next to Robin just a few feet away, across from him and the campfire, his tongue loosened from a few too many refills and unconsciously reverting to his native tongue.
"Ils ont de la chance, ces deux là," he gestures to Usopp and Nami.
(They're lucky, these two.)
Robin smiles at the cook, wordlessly prompting him to continue his thoughts.
"Ce que je ne donnerais pas pour avoir quelque chose de plus qu'un coup d'un soir." Sanji sighs wistfully, lighting his cigarette. (What I wouldn't give to have something more than a one night stand.")
Robin chuckles. "Ne sont-ils pas satisfaisants? " (Are they not satisfying?)
At this point Zoro has tuned everything out, intensely focused on hearing what the blonde has to say, and not at all feeling a small churn of jealousy in his stomach for whoever shared Sanji's bed. His heart initially skips a beat at the plural masculine pronoun ('ils' ) used by Robin before remembering its actual neutrality in this context, as it's referring to the ""one night stands", a masculine word. Damnit. French is so dumb.
"Tu sais bien que jamais je ne dirais de mal à propos des belles demoiselles qui ont bien voulu m'accorder ne serait-ce qu'un baiser ou une étreinte. J'ai de la chance rien que d'avoir pu exister en leur présence ."
(You very well know I'd never say a bad word about any of the beautiful ladies who've been kind enough to give me even a kiss or an embrace. I'm lucky just to have existed in their presence.)
Zoro feels his heart drop, a heavy feeling settling in his stomach. He's always known the pervert cook has been into women. Why was this hitting him the way it was? His eye darts up at his two crewmates, confirming that only Robin has noticed his eavesdropping. She opens her mouth to say something but Sanji continues, the glow of the flames dancing against his flushed skin beautifully.
"Et dans mon état normal tu sais que, par respect pour les sensibilités d'une dame, je ne te divulgue pas beaucoup de détails sur ceux qui font l'affaire le temps d'une nuit. "
(And in my normal state you know that, out of respect for a lady's sensibilities, I don't divulge many details about those who do the trick for a night.)
Ceux. That's a masculine word for "those", isn't it? Zoro shakily takes another sip of his drink.
The archeologist's smile widens. "Oh, ne te fait pas de soucis pour mes sensibilités. Je brûle d'envie d'en savoir plus, et ne m'épargne pas les détails... "
(Oh, please don't worry about my sensibilities. I'm burning to know more, and don't spare me the details...)
"Je ne suis que ton humble serviteur...si ça peut te faire plaisir " (I'm but your humble servant…if it pleases you). Sanji's cheeks seem a tad more flushed than before. "En vrai ce n'est pas qu'ils ne sont pas satisfaisants...c'est qu'il ne sont jamais... assez. "
(It's not that they're not satisfying…it's that they're never...enough.)
" Ah?” Robin plops her head in her hand. “Et que recherches tu? Qu'est ce qui serait..."assez"? "
(Ah? And what are you looking for? What would be… "enough"?)
The cook lazily exhales another cloud of smoke, and nervously looks around. His eyes eventually settle on Zoro, and indecision flits across his eyes for a second before continuing. Zoro can feel his gaze, can almost make out the deliciously unfocused expression on the blonde's face in his peripheral vision. His heart feels like it might beat out of his ribcage.
" Lui. " (Him.)
Zoro forgets how to breathe.