Archive of Our Own ^beta

She falls asleep almost the second her head hits the pillow.

Really, it was genius of Nami to drag herself into a shower first before laying down, no matter how much she just wanted to collapse and sleep for a thousand years. Otherwise she would have passed out just as she was; covered in sweat, dirt, and other unmentionables. As it is, she takes the worlds’ fastest shower, makes sure Sanji and Luffy are settled, and conks out the second her tired, aching body gets horizontal.

Nami rouses when the door to the women’s cabin creaks open, flooding the otherwise dark room in the dim light from the hallway. This would inspire nothing short of absolute fury in her, if she were awake enough for complex emotion. But she’s not, so she just shifts to the side enough that she can smash her face into the pillow, and ignores the intruder.

Surely, if there was an actual emergency, the alarms would be on. 

“Psst,” Luffy rasps. 

Nami thinks he’s trying to be quiet, but it’s Luffy, so instead of a whisper, the sound she gets is like four snakes trying to start a hissing quartet.

Gods, she’s tired.

“Nami? Are you awake?” It’s a real tragedy that none of them were ever able to teach Luffy how to actually whisper. Maybe if she had invested her time upfront, this wouldn’t be happening and she could get just an hour more— “It’s really important.” 

Ugh. 

With a groan, Nami leverages herself upright, squinting into the brightly-lit doorway and the familiar shape that lurks just inside the room. Her still-damp braid has stuck uncomfortably to the side of her neck and for the love of fuck if this isn’t actually important, she will commit murder.

“Luffy? What’s the matter?”

“We’re gonna’ have a wedding,” he says incomprehensibly. Which— no. Absolutely not. Haven’t they had enough of weddings, lately? She’s certainly had enough for a lifetime, thanks.

“What are you talking about? What wedding?” Nami demands as coherently as she can while running on only two-and-a-half hours of sleep. 

“Mine and Sanji’s,” Luffy declares. 

She goes from barely-awake to fully-awake and extremely confused in approximately two seconds. Nami starts to scramble out of her blanket cocoon, because really, she needs eyes on Luffy for this conversation. Detangling herself from her favorite quilt simply isn’t happening, not at this hour and certainly not without risk of damage to herself or her furniture, so she settles for slinging it around her shoulders like a cape.

“Yours and Sanjis?” She whispers back at him, careful of Carrot, as she trips into her slippers.

When she gets close enough, Luffy pulls her gently by the arm out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her. There’s none of the tells in his face that Luffy is pulling a prank. He can’t lie for shit, especially not to her, and it’s quite honestly the first thing she’s looking for, here.

“Sanji and I want to get married,” Luffy says, frank and open.

“Okay but… now? Not, I don’t know, in a decade? Or even a week from now? You mean now-now?” He just blinks at her, guileless.

“That’s what I said,” he beams.

“Okay but… here?” She squeaks. By here she means, on the Sunny, with not even half the crew, and not even twelve hours since the battle ended?!

“Well, not here-here. We wouldn’t get married in the hallway, that’s dumb. In the kitchen, obviously!” 

Nami blinks. Right. Obviously.

She shuffles a bit so that she can hold her blanket-cloak closed tight around her with one hand, leaving the other available to pinch the bridge of her nose in preparation of the migraine that she’s sure to develop. 

“And what does Sanji think of this?” she asks, knowing that Luffy’s ideas sometimes (oftentimes) get the best of him and he’ll start things before even attempting to consult the necessary parties. 

“He’s making the cake now!” Luffy says with a grin that pulls at the still-raw split in his lower lip. Hell, even his black-eye is still faintly visible, a fading purple-and-yellow shadow on his upper and lower lid. And yet he’s standing here, giddy at three-in-the-morning, talking about marriage. “And don’t worry,” he adds, knowing full well that Nami is, in fact, worrying, “Chopper is doing decorations and Brook will do the music. We just need you to do the office-inating part.”

“‘Officiating’?” Never mind how Luffy already managed to get Chopper and Brook and Sanji on-board, he wants her to do what now?

“Yeah, that! We want you to do it,” he tells her, simple as anything and flattering to the core, despite how goddamn bizarre this whole exchange is shaping up to be. “C’mon, Sanji said he’d have some coffee for you.” And with that, he starts dragging her down the hallway by her free-hand.

“Wait— Luffy! Don’t you want me to change?! I’m in my pajamas!” She whisper-shrieks, still cautious of waking their Mink guests. Her too-long, blush-pink sweatpants scuff the wood floors with each stumbling step and the tee-shirt from Brook’s tour that she’s appropriated for it’s comfyness is so oversized that it hangs down to her knees. Plus, her hair is a damp, frizzy mess. “Wait, don’t you want to change?!” Luffy, for his part, is more bandages than actual clothes. 

“No? Why does that matter?” 

“You’re not even wearing a shirt!” Is the greeting that the rest of the kitchen gets, followed by Luffy’s confused, “So?”

The kitchen table has been moved up against the wall and the chairs stacked on top, leaving a great deal of floor-space open. Brook is perched on the countertop, his leg bones crossed gentlemanly, tuning his violin and humming faintly. Chopper, in heavy-point form, is hanging left-over duckling-yellow streamers from his own birthday party on the back wall. Bafflingly, the kitchen smells divine. Fresh coffee percolates on the counter space that is not occupied by Brook, and the smell of fresh baking lingers sweet in the air. Hunched over the food-prep space, Nami finds Sanji, perfectly frosting a dozen red-velvet cupcakes. Atop the perfect towers of white frosting, he’s artfully placing strawberries and raspberries.

“Hi Nami,” Chopper waves, sleepily smiling her way. At the same moment, Sanji jumps, registering her voice, and spins around to pour her a cup of coffee.

“Was he an ass about waking you up? I told him to be gentle about it,” Sanji asks sheepishly. Nami is helpless to do anything but take the offered, steaming mug, blinking owlishly at him.

“I was gentle!” Luffy assures, bounding over to Chopper to help him finish hanging the streamers.

“You’re getting married?” Nami asks into her mug. She doesn’t quite know what else to say, but it feels important that she get this right, and affirming that this is actually happening seems like as good a place as any to start. 

And Sanji—blushes. Turns as red as the cupcakes from the eyebrows down. When he smiles at her, it’s shy and soft and boyish. Nami knows what he’s going to say before he even opens his mouth and says it.

“Yeah. Yeah, we are,” he murmurs, sounding a bit in awe of it himself.

He’s looking anywhere but at her, quickly re-occupying himself with the final four cupcakes. She’s surprised that he’s dressed down as much as he is—a worn pair of sleep pants and a plain shirt with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows. His socks don’t make a single sound against the flooring. Something about Sanji looking so at home, so comfortable, puts something in her to rest, something that reared up protective and righteously angry when she saw him so tightly strung, tense enough to snap throughout this whole fiasco. But now, he’s here. He’s home. He’s theirs again, and even beyond that, Sanji carries himself like he’s a thousand times lighter. 

“Alright,” she says, gathering resolve. Quickly as she dares, Nami drains her mug. “Luffy, c’mere for a second! Chopper, when you’re done with that, could you run down to Usopp’s workshop and see if there’s anything we could use as rings for now? I need to go upstairs and draw up a marriage license.” 

When Luffy bounds over to her, Nami shrugs out of her blanket and drapes it carefully across his shoulders, tying the ends together around his neck—a makeshift cape.

“I’ll be damned if I let the future pirate king go without a cape at his own wedding,” she teases. Luffy beams. 

Looking back, Sanji doesn’t know when it started. 

Maybe it didn’t even have a single starting-point, or maybe it does, and it began when that wide-eyed, smiling little shit crashed into his life and demanded that he set sail with him as his chef. Maybe it started when Luffy pulled out all of Sanji’s deepest, most treasured dreams into the space between them with nothing but his enthusiasm and conviction. Or maybe it started many, many years ago, in a castle where he wasn’t quite loved like his brothers were, in a dungeon where he was not loved at all, on a rock in the middle of the sea where there is no such thing as love to be found. 

Lonely children grow into lonely adults. And, as loathe as he is to admit it, the loneliness of his own childhood never really went away. He got better at hiding it, sure. And, well, Sanji knows that he is loved—by the cooks on the Baratie and certainly by Zeff. But knowing it to be true doesn’t quell the deep, aching wanting in him that demands more. And knowing it to be true doesn’t stop the even deeper, more instinctual fear that just because he is loved now does not mean that they will continue to love him later. 

Sanji doesn’t know when it starts, but he knows how it is:  he’s in love with Luffy. 

Maybe the thing in him that loves Luffy like the moon loves the ocean was born a very long time ago in a very dark, damp and unforgiving stone dungeon; born of longing and needing and wanting, so very desperately, for anyone to care. 

Because Luffy cares so much that it makes Sanji’s knees weak. It is impossible to look at him and not know the depth of his caring for his nakama. And oh, even beyond that, there is the very special kind of caring that is reserved for Sanji and Sanji alone—the bringer of food. And it’s. Enough. 

(Certainly enough to quell the insatiable, terrified, lonely child in him. And, gods help him, it is enough to whet his appetite for more.)

He can’t name when it starts—can’t pinpoint when, exactly, he started to love his impossible captain—but he can say when they start. 

They start on Jaya over two years ago, when Zoro and Luffy and Nami come back from town, the boys inexplicably bloody and brutalized.

“What happened?” And fuck, Sanji hates how panicked he sounds, rushing to meet the trio, two-thirds of which are bloody and battered to hell and back. Nami’s shoulders hitch with suppressed sobs and the tear tracks down her face betray that she’s been crying for ages, now.

Sanji reaches her, first, arms open and face slack with surprise and worry (oh, holy fuck, so much fucking worry it’s blasted entirely past worry and straight into rage) and the worry only grows when Nami simply folds into him with a hiccuped little sob, clinging to his jacket and pressing her wet face against his shoulder. He holds her immediately, keeping her close to his chest and letting her ride out the rest of the tears against him, even as his eyes find Luffy’s and he continues to shout. 

“What the fuck happened?! Oi, answer me you shitheads!” And Nami just cries harder against him, her fingers spasming with how hard she’s clutching at his clothing and he aches for her and— 

There is glass glittering in Luffy’s skin. 

Little shards of glass are wedged into the side of his face and trail all the way down his neck, wet with blood and amber liquid, like someone broke a bottle against him. Something spasms in Sanji’s chest. He squeezes Nami close just once before he lets go, stalking up to Zoro like a man possessed. 

He grabs him by the collar and shakes him as hard as he fucking can and never once has the urge to just fucking throw a punch been so fucking tempting . Zoro meets him head on but otherwise unaffected, littered with dozens of his own injuries. 

“What the fuck happened, huh?! How did you—how did you two end up so—!” A wordless cry of inarticulate rage escapes him. Sanji practically spits in his face with the fury of it. 

Why is Nami crying so hard? How are you so stoic even with blood dripping into your eyes? How did he get so fucking hurt when you were right fucking there? You were right fucking there—! 

“We won, Sanji,” Luffy says as if this explains anything. 

“There is glass in your face,” he replies, voice cracking. He grips Zoro harder to make up for it. 

“If we fought back, they would have won,” Luffy states, calm as anything. 

Sanji has never been angrier. 

“Captain’s orders,” Zoro says, infuriatingly. Fuck, how are they so calm? 

Chopper shrieks for a doctor somewhere past Sanji’s shoulder. Robin is soothing Nami with her steady voice and Usopp is shouting something Sanji can’t bear to pay attention to. Overcome with rage, he barely stops himself from throwing that punch. It’s such a tempting thing, at this moment. 

He lowers his voice so that Luffy won’t hear. 

“You’re a shitty fucking first-mate,” he spits at Zoro. 

And he stalks away, fuming with so much anger that he can hardly bear it. 

(Glass in his face, glass embedded in the fragile skin of his neck, blood on his lip, busted open and so red—) 

He comes to Luffy only an hour or so later, Zoro having already been treated. Sanji knows he shouldn’t, but he just can’t help himself. He wants to be close. Needs to be close. Needs the reassurance that Luffy is there, still. That he didn’t lose him, of all things, to a stupid bar fight that they easily could have won. So he prepares a snack—jerky and sweet cheese wedges and some tart fruits for balance—and knocks on the door to Chopper’s infirmary.

“Oh, good!” Chopper sighs when Sanji comes in. “I need to get our extra bandages from Usopp, you can make sure Luffy doesn’t escape while I’m gone.”

Luffy gives a sheepish laugh and an insincere, “Sorry, Chopper,” that the little doctor barely hears before disappearing, the infirmary door closing behind him with a click. “Is that for me?” Luffy asks, smiling at him through his bloody, split lip. Sanji’s stomach swoops dangerously and he curls his toes as hard as he can in his shoes, grounding himself with the pain of it.

He can’t think of a snappy comeback—not with Luffy looking at him like that. So, like the heartsick idiot he is, Sanji blurts, “Of course” and has to hasten to justify, blushing from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, “You always get hungry when you’re injured. It’s—It’s not. Special or anything.”

Luffy takes the platter and, bafflingly, sets it to the side. He reaches out a hand, his unbruised, unbroken knuckles a jarring contrast to everything else about him that screams: I’ve just been in a fight.

“C’mere,” Luffy urges. 

Sanji swallows.

“Saaaanjiiii,” he drawls, beckoning insistently. “C’mereeee.”

And he really has no reason to believe it’s disingenuous—no reason at all to suspect that Luffy is the kind of person that would shame or mock someone for a crush, let alone pick up on a crush if not explicitly told, “I have a enormous gay crush on you”—no reason to say no.

Luffy’s tactile with everyone, Sanji reminds himself, and reaches out to take Luffy’s offered hand. Don’t fuck it up by making it into something it’s not.

Luffy pulls, tugging at Sanji until they’re sitting side by side on the cot. Oddly enough, Luffy doesn’t let go of his hand once he has it. Not for the first time, Sanji curses Chopper’s rule against smoking in the infirmary—the only thing that would be able to settle his nerves right now is a cigarette. This is weird. It feels weird.

(Like it shouldn’t be allowed. Not this. Not with him.)

“I know you’re mad,” he says, startling Sanji out of his anxious spiral. “But you shouldn’t be. It was about pride and we won. If we had fought, we would have lost.”

Sanji swallows the rock stuck in his throat, swallows the useless protest but you got hurt and you shouldn’t have. “I understand,” he says, carefully. “Doesn’t mean I like it.”

“I know you don’t like to see us hurt,” Luffy says like that won’t make Sanji blush a thousand shades of red, like he won’t immediately protest that worrying about your friends is manly, actually, but he continues before Sanji can get hung up on it, “But I’m fine, see?”

And Sanji looks.

It’s a mistake. Even roughed up, even bloody and dirty and reeking like a glass of moonshine, he’s beautiful. Faint freckles, long eyelashes, shiny scar under his dark and lively eyes, sun-browned skin and thin lips… Sanji looks and Luffy— 

Luffy catches him staring.

He jerks back to reality, a cold splash of horror and embarrassment and stinging self-recrimination, but before he’s even had time to put distance between them—to stand up, to leave the room, to jump straight into the ocean, anything— Luffy grabs him gentle around the back of the neck and draws him in until they’re pressed crown to crown.

“Luffy—”

“Sanji,” he echoes, and there’s no space between them, no space at all—Sanji can almost taste the metallic blood on Luffy’s breath—”I want to kiss you. Can I kiss you?”

And Sanji— 

He’s only human. He surges forward to meet Luffy halfway. 

(This kiss is only the first of many.)

A man’s past is his own, and Luffy never pries (although sometimes, he wants to). He understands Sanji. He knows how Sanji is; Sanji is his cook, afterall.

Sanji is quick to doubt that affection is genuine. He finds it easier to hold himself at arms length, always buttoned up and ironed and tucked away, unreachable. He reacts to praise like he’s never had it and like he doesn’t believe it, unless it’s Zoro, in which case he’s all bravado. He’s lonely, sometimes, even when surrounded by people. He’s kind to a fault, loves fiercely, and tries very hard to hide it.

In private, Sanji loves to touch and be touched. When they’re alone, they’ll kiss and kiss for ages, until Luffy’s lips go numb with it. Sometimes they’ll lay together, Sanji sprawled out on the couch and Luffy lying on top of him, his back to Sanji’s chest, bracketed by Sanji’s legs. Sanji will talk for hours and hours if he’s asked about something he likes and he always gets embarrassed when he notices, no matter how many times Luffy promises him that he loves it when he gets carried away, loves it when he enjoys something so thoroughly that he gets lost in it. He knows all the sounds Sanji makes when he’s sleepy and doesn’t want to get up. He knows all the ways Sanji smells—how he smells when he’s sweaty after a fight and how he smells right out of the shower. He knows that sometimes, Sanji has nightmares that leave him shaking and sweaty and nauseous, and no matter how hard he tries he can’t fall back asleep afterwards.

Luffy knows how Sanji is but what he doesn’t know is why.

Not until Whole Cake Island. 

They’d never really talked about the future. Neither of them are really the type. And even when they started kissing and became something more , they didn’t talk about it. It just was. It was easy. Natural. 

It’s not until now, after all is said and done, and the two of them are laying in the grass among Nami’s garden, staring up at the stars with their fingers intertwined, that Luffy thinks to ask.

“Do you want to get married?” 

Sanji jolts, startled by the question, and then lets out a sigh. Luffy turns his head to look at him, hair hissing across the grass. His face is drawn up tight and pensive and Luffy wants to smooth the wrinkles away with his fingers.

“I always assumed that I would. I used to think about it, as a kid. Planning a wedding. There was always some… faceless lady. Beautiful but… no one real. I think I’d like to. To stand with the person I love and say the words. Exchange rings and wear them and always know. Shove cake into each other’s mouths. The first dance. It would be… nice. Real. Not political. Not a circus. Real,” he says, every word more thoughtfully chosen than the last. There’s something in his voice that aches. Something that wants.

“What if we got married?” Luffy asks. Sanji’s head turns in the grass until they’re laying facing each other, nearly nose to nose. While they’re here, Luffy steals a quick kiss, reveling in the fact that he still can. That Sanji stayed. That he chose them, finally, and let them help when he couldn’t help himself.

“Would you want to?” Sanji asks when they part. He tastes like cigarettes and Luffy makes a face, briefly. It’s not his favorite taste in the world, but he doesn’t hate it. How could he? It’s Sanji.

“I’ve never thought about it. But the cake and the dancing sounds nice.” And he can imagine the rest of it, with Sanji. Doesn’t even have to try that hard to do it, either. It would be… easy. Natural. “What are the words? How does it work?”

“Well, you need somebody to officiate. Someone with the authority to declare two people married. There’s a certificate and you need a witness to sign to legitimize it. In some places, the local government keeps track of those certificates. Makes and keeps copies and records. You have a ceremony and the couple exchange vows. You can write them yourself or the officiator can provide standard ones for you. Different cultures do different things. For some weddings, it’s customary for the couple to break a glass together, or for the officiator to bind their hands together. Most exchange rings, I think. And at the end, there’s a kiss, and you sign the papers and you’re married. During the party afterwards, there’s the cake and the first dance and stuff. But it doesn’t have to be big. It could be small, too. You’ve really never seen a wedding before?” Sanji asks.

“Well, I guess I have now,” he drawls, teasing. Sanji grimaces.

“No, you crashed a wedding. And the actual wedding didn’t happen. It doesn’t count.”

A few moments pass in comfortable silence as Luffy turns over the explanation, running through the components like he’s running his thumb across Sanji’s knuckles; steady and slow.

“Nami could do it. The marriage-ing part.”

Sanji giggles. “What, now?”

“Well,” Luffy pauses, still thinking it through. “How long would it take you to make a cake?”

“Maybe an hour, depending on—wait. Wait. Are you serious?” Suddenly, Sanji pushes up, leaning back on his elbows and looking down at Luffy, his mouth half-open in something like shock and something like… like hope. Luffy matches him, wiggling until he’s sitting up, too. 

He replies, “If you want to.”

Sanji swallows. “Are you asking? Really, seriously asking?”

Luffy can imagine it so easily; him and Sanji. Him and Sanji together. Saying the words and having the dance and eating the cake… and then the knowing. The always knowing that you belong to someone and they belong to you. And he looks into Sanji’s visible eye, shining so, so blue, and he just… knows.

“Yeah,” he breathes, leaning forward until their heads knock together. “Do you wanna’ get married?”

Sanji swallows. Closes his eyes. All his breath leaves him in a shaky, shuddering exhale. He squeezes Luffy’s hand. “Yes,” he whispers. “I do.”

The words cause a pleasant shiver, a tingle down Luffy’s spine. The energy of it is like electricity and Luffy can’t not lean forward and capture Sanji’s lips with his own. Maybe there’s something to be said for articulating things, after all.

They break away when Luffy snorts, laughing.

“What?” Sanji murmurs, hands cradling Luffy’s head so soft and soothing and right.

“Zoro’s gonna’ be soooo mad,” he giggles, breathless with the anticipation of Zoro’s shocked-horrified-indignant- you-did-what-with-the-cook look. 

Sanji snickers and says, decisively, “All the more reason to do it, then.” 

Nami draws up a damn-fine marriage certificate, if she does say so herself. 

By the time it’s done, Chopper is already back in the kitchen and he and Brook are winding rings together out of metal wire, clipping and dulling the sharp ends with tools they’ve appropriated from either Franky or Usopp. All in all, they don’t look half-bad. Certainly good enough for the time being.

“Can we do it now?” Luffy asks, bounding up to her like an excited puppy.

“That depends on you,” she nods to him and Sanji. “Do you want me to do the traditional vows? Or would you rather write some yourselves?”

“Ourselves,” they say almost at the same time. 

Stupid, love-sick dorks, she thinks, fond.

“Nothing beats personally-written vows,” Brook stage-whispers to Chopper, who blinks up at him in sleepy awe.

“Well, how long do you need?” Nami asks the boys again—the grooms, and isn’t that a thought? 

“Oh, I already know what I want to say!” Luffy chimes in. And before Sanji—who is already anxiously bouncing his leg and looking like he’d do anything for a cigarette right about now—can overthink it, before he can stress-bake another dozen cupcakes or fret about the fact that Luffy is wearing a blanket and he’s in pajamas, Luffy rushes around the countertop and takes him by the hands. “C’mon,” he urges, excited but gentle, always gentle when it matters.

“C’mon, Nami, c’mon,” he chants, dragging Sanji, stumbling and laughing, over to the back wall that Chopper decorated. She shoots a fond look of exasperation towards Brook and Chopper as she moved to take her place between the two, her back to the wall, the certificate and a pen in her hands.

“The five of us,” she begins, already smiling at the sheer absurdity that is her life, “are gathered here to witness the union of one Monkey D. Luffy, future pirate king, and Blackleg Sanji, world-class chef.” Luffy is too distracted to realize it’s his turn to talk, rocking back and forth on his heels, looking up into Sanji’s eyes like he’s hung the moon and the stars. She prods him in the ribs. “Your turn, dummy. My time isn’t cheap, you know.” 

“Enterprising as always, dear Nami-san, yohohoho!” Brook titters in the background.

“Oh! Right!” Luffy stills and takes a deep breath, grinning hard enough to nearly re-split his lip, He makes quite the picture, half naked and dressed in ruddy bandages, wearing his straw hat, a black-eye, and a blanket-cape with a considerable train behind him.

“Wait,” Sanji interjects, cheeks faintly pink. “I want—can I go first, actually?”

Nami defers to Luffy, who nods.

“I have to say it before I overthink and can’t say it at all. Luffy, you… you drive me fucking crazy,” he begins with a little laugh. “I could have pictured a future for myself a thousand times and never gotten it right. Nothing could have prepared me for you. I… I want to say something about when I knew I loved you, but I can’t, because I don’t know when it started. It was natural. Like water over heat gradually coming to a boil. I didn’t have to think, I didn’t have to decide. I just… love you. 

“I know you won’t agree, but I have a lot to make up for. And I want to. I want to spend all my time fighting for you, fighting at your side. I want you to be the first person to eat at my dream-restaurant. I want to build a house together by the All-Blue once you’re the pirate king. I want to be your cook until we’re both old and grey and I can barely hold a spatula anymore. I want you, in any way I can have you, forever. 

“No one has ever heard my flaws and thought them to be my best qualities. No one has ever understood and valued by dream like you do. No one has ever driven me so crazy. No one has ever pushed me so hard.”

His eyes that had been brimming with tears through the whole speech finally spill over, two wet tear-trails down his blush-flushed face. Nami feels her own eyes water. Chopper is openly weeping. Luffy reaches up and brushes Sanji’s tears away with gentle fingers. He leaves his hand cupping Sanji’s cheek and he leans into the contact, closing his eyes and smiling so, so wide. 

“That’s,” he huffs out a laugh, watery and tremulous, “That’s it.”

“Luffy? Your vows?” Nami prompts.

He retracts his hand from Sanji’s face, retaking his grip of Sanji’s hands instead, and clears his throat. Nami isn’t sure what to expect from him and she waits with bated breath.

Luffy opens his mouth and says, simply and only, “Sanji, I love you.”

And, yeah. That tracks.

Sanji laughs, watery and emotional. “I love you too.”

“Chopper, the rings?” Still sniffling and overcome, he shuffles over to them, placing the two hastily constructed but really not all that bad rings in her open palm. “Now, Sanji,” Nami begins, placing the smaller of the two rings in his hand. “Do you take Luffy to be your lawfully wedded husband, till death do you part?”

With nothing but love and joy and awe in his eyes, Sanji replies, “I do.” The ring slips on Luffy’s finger as easy as anything. 

“Luffy, do you take Sanji to be your lawfully wedded husband, till death do you part?”

“Absolutely,” Luffy says, working the ring onto Sanji’s finger with a little too much enthusiasm to be entirely comfortable for him, but Sanji doesn’t complain.

“Then on my authority as the navigator of this fine vessel, I pronounce you husbands!" And then, laughing, she says for Luffy's benefit, "You can kiss now.”

And they do.

She’s far past the point of being exhausted, but Nami will remember this night in vivid detail for the rest of her life. She’ll remember how Luffy smeared ink all the way up his own arm when signing the certificate and how Sanji dragged him bodily over to the sink to wash it off before he ruined the table cloth or her blanket. She’ll remember the perfectly creamy vanilla buttercream frosting on the cupcakes and the wet smack of Sanji and Luffy simultaneously cramming cupcakes into each others’ faces, laughing boyishly at each other until Sanji got frosting in his eye. She’ll remember how they could barely keep their hands (and mouths) off each other, and she’ll remember only letting the egregious displays of affection go on principle, since it was their wedding night. She’ll remember the dance that was really more of a controlled disaster, Sanji trying—and completely failing—to lead Luffy around the kitchen in a waltz and how he eventually settled for minimizing casualties over any attempt at grace. The violin piece Brook plays is beautiful and bleeds perfectly into a round of Bink’s Sake at the end, at which point Luffy loses all sense of decorum and starts singing loud enough that she’s worried that the Vice Admirals themselves could hear them all the way from marine headquarters.

Eventually, they bid their goodnights. Brook has to carry Chopper to bed, as exhausted as the poor kid is. Nami isn’t above begging to be carried, either, but she’d rather Sanji got to continue doing this than spend even one second doting on her, this being swaying hand-in-hand with his husband to a tune only they can hear.

In the morning, she’ll find the materials to frame their marriage certificate, and hunt down a suitably prominent place aboard the Sunny to hang it. But for now? Her bed is practically calling her name.

She makes it all the way back to her room before she remembers that Luffy still has her blanket.

“Fuck it,” Nami whispers to no one but herself.

She’ll make do with the sheet.