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”I’m sorry, Sanji. I guess I lost track of time.”
Sanji’s fingers tighten around the mouthpiece of the snail. He’s not angry. He’d never be truly angry with his darling goddess and best friend Nami. He just feels a little… disappointed.
“Worry not, dear Nami! Everything will be taken care of!”
”You sound stressed. I feel awful – but if you don’t want Zoro to stay with you, you could probably ask one of your chefs. I know Bernie would probably say yes.”
“It’s fine,” he says firmly. “I’ll just spend it with Zoro, then. Don’t worry.”
”I just don’t want you to force yourself if you don’t feel like it. There’s options, you know?”
“I know. It’s fine. It’s not what I planned, but it’s not like sharing a heat with him is a burden. I’ll call you in a few days, okay?”
”Okay, then. Have fun, you two.”
He hangs up and drops his whole head and shoulders down into a sigh.
He’s not lying. He spends heats with Zoro all the time. Okay, maybe only like less than half the time. Heats with an alpha are just kind of… intense. He’s not always in the mood for that, and the time he spends with Nami having a friendly heat is precious to him. She’s been gone since right after his last one on a visit to Alabasta, and he misses her. He’d never begrudge her the time she spends with Vivi! It’s just… After she’s been gone so long, he was looking forward to spending a couple of days just hanging out with her and catching up.
He crams his disappointment way down inside himself and straightens up. He’s got the rest of the meal prepping to finish so he and Zoro have food to eat for the next few days. He’s got to call the restaurant and let them know that he’s on his cycle. His nest could use some freshening up, and if he’s spending his heat with Zoro, he’d better make sure they have lots of towels in the ensuite.
He does most of the chores and makes it to the late afternoon before the mood swings get to him.
The house is so empty with everyone gone. It echoes and feels cold, and the rooms are slowly losing the scent of his precious family. He thought he was used to how everything’s been since he found the All Blue and settled down, but the heat’s got him feeling extremely sad and lonely about it. He wants Nami. He wants Zoro, too. Even though he knows the big lug should be home within the hour, probably smelling like fish, he can’t help whining and dropping the towels unceremoniously on the floor next to the bathtub so he can shimmy into a soft cotton nightgown and curl up in his nest.
He doesn’t know how long he spends sulking and whining under a pile of blankets and pillows before he hears the front door open and slam shut.
“Cook?”
He can probably smell him from down there. Sanji whines again and tugs the blanket tighter over his head.
Thumping footsteps on the stairs.
“Cook?”
His den door opens. He doesn’t poke his head out to look.
There’s a heavy sigh. “You idiot. Why’d you let it get this bad? You could have called the restaurant. They could have gotten hold of me.”
He hates how emotional heats make him, because just that gentle chiding makes him whine again.
“Hey, hey,” Zoro says again in that soft voice he only pulls out when they’re like this. “I didn’t mean it. Baby, can you let me in?”
He shakes his head. “You smell like fish.”
Zoro sighs again and chuckles. “Even like this, you’re such a priss. I’ll take a shower, then. You want to wait in the bathroom while I get the fish smell off?”
He’d like to protest that he’s not a dog sitting around waiting for its master, but he’s already started crawling out of the nest to follow after his husband. Zoro shoots him a warm smile but doesn’t try to touch him with his fishy hands.
Sanji takes a seat on the bathroom rug and watches silently as Zoro strips out of his sweaty clothes – pointedly throwing them into the hamper because he always throws them on the floor if Sanji doesn’t chew him out about it – and cranks the shower on. He closes his eyes and listens to the soft sounds of Zoro scrubbing himself down.
“Nami couldn’t make it, huh?”
Involuntarily, he whines. “No. Still a week out.”
“That sucks. I know you miss her.”
“Yeah…”
“It’ll be okay, Cook. I’ll take care of you.”
He knows he will. Sanji hums and leans against the bathtub. Just having Zoro nearby is making him feel less of that terrible melancholy that sets in when he’s left alone too long during his heat. The water cuts off, and he holds up a clean towel without opening his eyes just yet, smiling at Zoro’s muttered “Thanks.”
“C’mon, you big baby. Back to your nest.”
Sanji opens his eyes and trails his gaze up from the towel around his husband’s waist and up the muscular torso threaded with scars to his one eye. He lifts his hands up mutely. Zoro’s rough hands grab his own and drag him to his feet. One hand trails appreciatively down his ribcage, dipping into the smallest part of his waist before coming to rest comfortably on his hip.
“I like this one,” Zoro says, rubbing his thumb over the fabric of the nightgown. “It’s soft.”
“That’s why I picked it.”
He hums appreciatively and runs his hand back up to his lower back. Sanji lets Zoro lead him to the edge of the nest and push on his chest lightly until he’s lowering himself down into it.
“Lemme grab some sweats,” Zoro says.
“Don’t.”
Zoro raises an eyebrow. “Oh? I thought you were sad.”
“Feeling a little less sad now.”
Zoro grins and eases down into the nest beside him. “That so? Getting worked up already?”
“I’ve been going into heat all day.” Sanji pouts. “I’ve been waiting forever.”
Zoro stares at him mutely for a second before he ducks his head down and laughs.
“Don’t laugh!”
“I’m not laughing at you. You’re just so goddamn cute when you’re like this.”
Sanji protests by dipping his head in and pressing his nose directly to Zoro’s scent gland. His skin’s still slightly clammy from the shower, but the soap wasn’t strong enough to cover up his natural smell. On his heat like this, he swears the smell of him makes him high. He can already feel his body starting to respond – clinginess ratcheting up and a tingling arousal slowly rising in his lower belly. He nuzzles Zoro’s neck again.
“I’m gonna tell all your sword groupies you think I’m cute,” he mumbles.
“Cook, we’re married, of course I think you’re cute.” His big hands stroke up and down his sides over his nightgown. It’s not sensual, yet. Just soothing. Familiar. Comforting. “And you are. You’re so fucking cute. I don’t want anyone else to see you like this, but if they could, they’d agree. You’re fucking adorable.”
“I’m not adorable,” he pouts. “I’m a scary pirate, you know.”
“Oh, I know.” Zoro nudges him back so he can swoop in and start peppering his face and neck with gentle kisses. “You are… absolutely… terrifying…” he mumbles between kisses. He rolls them over so Sanji’s on his back with Zoro bracketed above him, the towel around his waist sliding off. “You’re really not… the cutest… prettiest… meanest little omega…”
He arches into a particularly lingering kiss on his throat. “Ah! I think you meant sweetest.”
“Nope. You’re a mean little thing.”
“Marimo~ You’re the one being mean now.”
“What?” He leans back to grin wolfishly. “I was being nice. Since you were so sad before.”
The sadness and loneliness feels like a distant memory now. Zoro’s right there and he smells so good, and he’s only smelling better and better as his own body’s responding to Sanji’s and going into a rut. He’s enjoying the gentle touches and compliments, sure, but his body’s starting to feel like it’s on fire. His panties are already damp and straining around his cock.
“Tell me what you want, Cook.”
“Touch me,” he begs, “Please, Zoro -!”
He’s close enough to watch in real time as Zoro’s single pupil widens until it swallows his iris.
“I can do that,” he says, voice rough. “Good boy, using your words.”
Normally, he’d protest that. On a regular day, he might even be the one bullying Zoro around and calling him the good boy. In the throes of his heat, though, the praise goes straight to his dick, and he moans into the open-mouthed kiss Zoro plants on his mouth.
His brain goes a little fuzzy. One part of him’s focused on how Zoro’s trying to kiss him senseless. The other’s mindlessly rutting against his leg, achingly aware that he’s still dressed, and Zoro’s already naked. He should do something about that. Probably. The solution escapes him as Zoro releases his mouth, only to kiss his way down his throat and back up again, lingering just underneath his ear. Warm, calloused hands smooth their way up his thighs, across his hips, up his chest, dragging the nightgown up with them. He whines when Zoro pulls away to help him pull the nightgown off.
“Shh, baby,” Zoro soothes. “Let me take care of you.”
“Mmkay,” Sanji responds hazily. “’s a good Marimo…”
He thinks he hears Zoro mutter “so fucking cute” under his breath, but he can’t be sure, because those hands and that mouth return to his skin with a vengeance. Each sweep of skin on skin leaves tingling in its wake – and the heat starts to take over with a vengeance as he clenches around nothing, empty and desperate. He’s just about to beg again, but he chokes over the words when Zoro leans down to lick his nipple, tongue flicking at the bud until it’s hard before he presses his teeth lightly against it.
“Ah, no biting!”
Zoro stops immediately and pulls back a little. “Sensitive?”
Sanji nods. “Yeah. Stupid… Stupid heat.”
“Not stupid. I like you like this.” He kisses the nipple in question like an apology. “You’re always taking care of everyone except yourself, Cook. This is the only time you let me take care of you.”
He laughs and tugs on Zoro until he comes back up to kiss him. “And the fact you’re gonna take care of me by putting your knot in me has nothing to do with it?”
“Mmm, maybe a little. Call it a perk.”
“I’ll call you something else if you don’t – mmf!”
Zoro swallows his startled noise in a kiss as he finally reaches a hand down to rub at the front of his panties. Coherent thought flies straight out the window.
“M-Marimo…!”
“Relax.”
He can’t relax, because his brain’s shutting down and going entirely into a heat haze. All he can do is rut mindlessly against his husband’s hand and moan to himself. It’s not enough not enough not –
“So impatient…”
Zoro grabs him under the arms and lifts him up until he’s comfortably propped on a pile of pillows before he shimmies back down. He wastes no time in mouthing at the front of his soaked panties, tantalizingly teasingly so close to providing some relief to the heat. Sanji helplessly bucks his hips, chasing the feeling, the cloth dragging on his skin. Zoro teases him some more by sucking kisses onto his thighs and the ticklish crest of his hipbone before he has mercy and pulls the offending scrap of cotton and lace off and down his legs, tossing it blindly over his shoulder. Then, without preamble, he ducks back down and swallows Sanji’s cock whole.
Sanji gasps and arches forward around him. Once, maybe, he’d been self-conscious about how small he is compared to Zoro, but that was before several years of Zoro waxing poetic about how much he loves his cute little dick. Plus, it makes it laughably easy for him to suck the whole thing down, which he tries to find excuses to do at every opportunity. And everyone speculates about Sanji’s oral fixation – Zoro’s just as bad.
“Marimo – Zoro – “
Zoro hums, and he flops back into the pillows with a moan. He’s too sensitive right now. God, his head’s spinning. Mindlessly he thrusts up into his husband’s mouth, chasing some kind of relief. Zoro doesn’t give him a moment to breathe. He groans and bucks harder when he feels Zoro’s fingers spread his lips open and circle his hole, spreading the slick there around until finally thrusting two fingers in at once to fuck into him in time with the bobbing of his mouth.
The heat has him too sensitive, too dizzy. Weakly, he grips Zoro’s hair, unable to do more than hold on and mumble out nonsense encouragements. Zoro hums, and he sees stars.
Sanji’s orgasm crashes over him unexpectedly. He arches forward with a wordless cry before flopping backwards, thighs twitching.
Zoro pulls off his softening cock and lays his head on his thigh, looking up at him through his unfairly long eyelashes.
“Feel better?”
“A little,” he gasps out. His head feels just a little clearer, but he can already feel the next wave of heat hormones building up.
“You’re so fucking pretty.” He feels Zoro’s fingers come back to idly trace the seam of his cunt, dipping in just a little to feel the fluttering aftershocks of his orgasm clench around his fingers. “You need a minute?”
Sanji shakes his head weakly. “No, I need…”
“Tell me what you need.”
“Don’t make me say it, asshole,” he says, the vitrol completely ruined by how his traitorous hips are thrusting to try to encourage the fingers in deeper. Even his cock is making a valiant effort to rejoin the party even though he just came. Stupid heat…
“I like hearing you say it.” Zoro grazes his teeth across his thigh, grinning when his leg twitches at the touch. “C’mon, Curly. Tell me what you want.”
“Fuck off.”
“Oh, you want me to go?” Teasingly, he moves to pull his fingers away.
“Wait – wait! Marimo, if you don’t fuck me in the next three seconds…”
“Impatient,” he scolds again. “You want my knot that bad? You want me to fuck a baby into you?”
He’s looking at Zoro, so unfortunately he has to watch his eye go wide when he clenches around his fingers at his words.
“Oh? What’s that?” He pulls out and crawls up to look him in the eyes, laying just enough of his weight down onto him to make him feel pinned. “Is that what you want, Cook? You want me to fuck you until you’re full and leaking?”
Sanji’s brain shorts out again. He thinks maybe he moans. Zoro’s hard cock grinds against his lower belly, so close and so far away. He ruts desperately towards it. He’s empty – so empty he’s going to die if he doesn’t get filled up right now.
“Please, Zoro,” he begs. “Please. I need your knot. Please, I need it.”
Zoro crushes their lips together. Whatever composure he’d been holding onto seems to have left the room. Sanji gasps when he’s grabbed again and rolled over onto his front. Zoro’s huge hands grab the span of his hips and drag him up until he’s on his knees and elbows. He lifts his head and – oh, he’s facing the crib Franky built for them. The one that’s been tantalizingly empty for months now.
“That what you want, Cook? You want me to put a baby in you?”
He mewls pathetically and arches his back more, dignity completely gone in the haze of heat hormones. He hears Zoro curse. He can’t pay more attention than that because he can feel the blunt tip of his dick pressing into him. Zoro’s hand comes down on the back of his neck and presses, and any bit of tension left in him melts into a puddle. He can only lie there making pathetically pleased noises as Zoro slowly presses in deeper and deeper until he bottoms out.
“Fuck,” Zoro curses over him. “Fuck – Sanji –“
He pulls out halfway and pushes back again, starting a steady pace. All Sanji can really do is hold onto the pillows under him and try not to drool as he’s stuck staring at the crib sitting there just waiting to be filled.
“You want it? I do – I wanna fill you up over and over until you’re fat and round.” His thrusts pick up speed, pushing Sanji forward until he lets go of his neck to hold his hips in place with bruising force. He grunts out, “Fuck – wanna knot you – you’re gonna look so good with my baby in you.”
Sanji makes another pathetic noise at that. His heat hazed brain latches onto the words, and he’s spasming closer to another orgasm at the thought. He wants that so bad. Wants to have Zoro’s baby inside him. Wants to be good. Wants to be a good boy and get fat with Zoro’s pups.
“Zoro,” he whines.
“Shh, Cook, it’s okay.” He slows down a little and lets go of his hips to run his hands soothingly over his sides again. He bends forward to nibble and kiss across any part of him he can reach. “Lemme take care of you, baby.”
“Zoro,” he whines again, “faster, ‘m not gonna break…”
He can feel Zoro’s lips on his skin stretch into a toothy smile. “Okay, babe, whatever you want.”
He pulls out again and flips him around onto his back again, bending his knees up to his chest and driving back in. Sanji helplessly loops his arms around his neck and holds on. In the new position, he can mouth along Zoro’s face and neck in between his own punched out groans and moans. Zoro presses closer to him, grinding his dick between their bodies as he clenches desperately around the cock driving into him. He loses some time for a minute, hazy brain floating somewhere in a half-satisfied need to be touched. He only half-hears Zoro’s grunted babble of praise and encouragements in his ear. He’s only startled out of his daze when Zoro nips his jaw and raises his voice.
“Sanji, I’m gonna knot.”
Ah, yeah, he can scrape his brain together enough for this. Zoro pulls out and takes a second to arrange the pillows behind him so he’s in a comfortable lean. Sanji crawls in his lap once he’s settled and guides him back inside. He braces his hands on Zoro’s ample chest and flexes his thighs, driving himself with as much rhythm as he can manage up and down. Zoro’s free hand comes to stroke his dick in time with his thrusts. He can feel the knot starting to swell inside of him. A few more thrusts, and he can’t move anymore. The knot fills, and he spills over Zoro’s hand with a cry.
He's got enough mental capacity to keep grinding through his orgasm until Zoro grabs his hips to still them and he feels the cock inside him jump, and he comes inside of him with a groan.
Gently, Sanji collapses forward, panting. After a few seconds, he arranges himself a little more comfortably in Zoro’s lap, wiggling a bit until they’re cuddled together, still tied for now. Zoro’s hands slowly slide up from his hips to wrap around his shoulders, and they rest together for a minute as they catch their breath.
“You alright, Cook?” Zoro finally grunts.
“Mmmm… Yeah. ‘M good.”
His dumb heat brain is finally clearing a little, satisfied with the knot inside him and the warm embrace of his alpha around him.
“Not too heavy, Marimo?” They’d had to do some trial and error before they found the best position to get tied in. Like this, they can both relax comfortably as they wait for the knot to go down.
“No, you’re perfect.” Zoro punctuates his statement by nuzzling his face until he turns enough for him to give him a sweet, lingering kiss.
Sanji laughs when he pulls back and sees the drowsiness in his eyes. “You falling asleep on me, Marimo?”
“M’not. Just resting my eyes.”
His heart does something warm and stupid when he looks at his husband nodding off underneath him. Overwhelmed, he ducks his head again and squeezes him with his arms and legs both before relaxing back onto his chest.
“That’s alright. We can nap a little.”
-000-
“Did you mean it?”
Zoro grunts in question but doesn’t look up from his very purposeful focus on pouring a glass of juice for him. Once the knot had gone down, he’d gone full alpha on him, carrying him to the bath and cleaning him gently before redressing him and cleaning up the worst of the mess in the nest. When Sanji had mentioned he was a little hungry, he’d brought up a plate of the sandwiches Sanji had fixed beforehand with all the pride of a caveman dragging home a beast for meat.
Sanji slowly sets his half of a sandwich down.
“What you said… Was it just rut talk or…?”
Zoro brings the glass over and stares at him with his weird alpha aftercare intensity until he takes a sip. Satisfied now that his omega is clean and warm and well-fed, he drops down to lounge beside him and snag his own sandwich.
“Which part?” He takes a big bite and chews, raising his eyebrows up and finally giving him his full attention.
“You know,” he says, feeling his face turning pink, “what you said earlier. About a baby.”
Zoro swallows his mouthful of sandwich and sets his down, too, reaching instead for Sanji’s hand and rubbing his thumb over his knuckles.
“You know I don’t say shit I don’t mean,” he says.
“I know, but…”
“Cook.” He lifts his hand and presses a kiss to the back of it. His one eye meets Sanji’s. For all his gruffness and bluster, when he looks at Sanji like this he feels like he’s going to drown in the intensity of tenderness on that scarred face. “Whatever you want to do. Whenever you’re ready.”
“Even if it’s soon?” he asks, voice small.
“As soon as you want. I’m here. Wouldn’t have married you and settled down with you if I wasn’t in it for the long haul.” He lifts his head more to kiss his mouth gently. His voice is a soft murmur against his cheek. “I want whatever you want to give me. As many babies as you want. Fuckin… tree swing by the porch. Little shoes by the door. Get a fuckin dog, even. We’re bringing your old man to live out here. Fill the whole house with our kids if you want. Whatever you need.”
“Zoro…” He blames the heat for how that makes his eyes feel wet. He tries to cover the feeling by kissing him again, but Zoro swipes his thumb over his eyelid when they part, catching a wobbly little teardrop there. He sniffs. “I love you. You know that, right?”
“I know.”
“Even if you drive me crazy.”
“You drive me crazy, too.”
“And you don’t change your socks enough.”
“And you use too much fancy shit on your face.”
“And you’re a caveman.”
“And you’re a priss.”
Sanji grins. “Think they’ll have green hair?”
Zoro’s answering grin is wolfish. “Probably have your dumb eyebrows.”
“Take that back!”
They tussle in the nest for a minute, a halfhearted play fight that doesn’t do more than get their blood pumping again. He’s probably going to be hit by another heat wave now. He’s not complaining. He nearly jumps him then and there when Zoro picks up their squashed, forgotten sandwiches and eats them without complaint, getting up to grab Sanji a fresh one.
“Probably not this time,” he says when Zoro sits back down. “I’ll need to stop taking my birth control, and you and Nami are about to leave to go get Zeff. But when you get back…”
Zoro’s looking at him like he wants to eat him whole. “After that?”
“Then you can put a baby in me.”
He barely manages to set his sandwich to the side before Zoro tackles him. A thought occurs to him as he’s pushed back down into the pillows, Zoro hungrily licking at his throat. Did he take his birth control recently? He’s been so busy with the restaurant… He can’t remember. Has he been taking it? Oh, well. He’ll just stop taking it now. He’s hardly going to get knocked up this quickly, right?
Right?
-000- 3 Months Later -000-
Sanji checks the calendar one more time before he lets himself panic. He shouldn’t panic. It’s just…
He’s late.
His heat should have started by now. He should be flushed with hormones and cuddled up in his nest letting Chopper dote over him since Zoro and Nami are gone. And so far… he hasn’t even felt a twinge of belly pain or the slightest inclination that he’s about to become a useless puddle of omega.
Okay, no panicking.
It’s fine.
He’ll just…
“Hey, uh, Chopper? Can I talk to you? In your infirmary?”
Chopper hops up from the couch. “Oh! Sanji! Is everything okay? Has your heat started?”
Sanji feels himself beginning to sweat. “Um, no, you see... That’s kind of the problem.”
Chopper’s concerned face falls into something a lot more serious and calculating. “I see… Follow me, then.”
It’s fine.
Twenty minutes and one positive blood test later, he sits on the couch with Chopper standing nearby with smelling salts, staring into the nervous eyes of his transponder snail.
“You can take another minute to process,” Chopper frets. “You don’t have to push yourself!”
“I’m fine,” he says. Truthfully, he’s still in shock. He’d been worried about it, of course, but it’s different to worry than it is to have it said plainly out loud. Still, “I don’t want to wait. He’s going to want to know right away.”
“Okay…” Chopper takes a seat on the coffee table, watching him like he’s ready to jump in and catch him if he faints.
Sanji takes a deep breath and dials in the number to the snail Zoro and Nami took with them. It rings twice before a familiar gruff voice says, “Yeah?”
“Zoro,” he breathes out. “Hey, I’ve got something to tell you.”
“Yeah? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s actually… the opposite of wrong. Is Nami there?”
”I’m here!”
“Ah. Good. Well…”
He takes a deep breath and glances at Chopper. The reindeer gives him an encouraging smile. He smiles himself, bracing for whatever’s going to happen next.
“I’m pregnant.”