For the fifth time that night, Sanji glared at the laptop in front of him and let out a small huff, and for the fifth time that night, Zoro looked up from his sword polishing to see what was wrong.
"Whatever it is you're trying to intimidate," he eventually told Sanji, "probably isn't receiving your oh-so-deadly glares through the computer screen."
Sanji rolled his eyes, shut the blue laptop, and took off the glasses he wore whenever he looked at computers too much.
Zoro looked actually him again, longer this time, and assessed. For all his indignation, the man didn't seem to be in such a bad mood, but Zoro had seen him go from casual to lethal in a split second, so it was hard to tell. The way he didn't hold any tension in the places that would indicate attack said he wasn't actually upset, but the way he was tapping his foot definitely said he was peeved.
"What's wrong?" he ended up asking.
To his surprise, the cook actually blushed. Sanji looked away quickly, lifting his hand to brush his hair back in a not-so-smooth attempt to hide his face, and muttered, "Nothing. Just some stupid crap online."
Instantly, Zoro knew two things. One, Sanji wasn't going to tell him what was wrong, but two, Zoro would probably pay money to see what caused the reaction. Sanji could (not that Zoro would ever admit it to his face) talk circles around him, so verbally tricking him was out, and if he started a fight in their new apartment, he knew he'd pay for it later. So. Time for something so dumb that only the cook would fall for it, the only way he knew how to distract Sanji. He knew that he only had a limited amount of uses left, but he was betting that this was worth it:
"Okay," Zoro said. "Well if you're done huffing and puffing at whatever T-Swift gossip article is up, could you make us some dinner? I believe I was promised some gooey rice tonight."
"You mean risotto, moss head?" Sanji said incredulously. But he was already moving toward the kitchen, his fingers counting off what ingredients he would have to pull.
"And add some of the pink things, too!" Zoro yelled after him for good measure.
"Why?" he could hear Sanji snap. "You don't deserve them since the shrimp clearly have a bigger brain than you do!"
Once he heard the water run as Sanji washed his hands, he dove for the laptop. Opening it, he quickly typed in "Kissthecook69" and hovered on the Internet browser. Sanji was tidy in many ways, but he hated closing tabs-especially if they were on incognito browsers that he would have to search for again, and Zoro was betting this was "incognito" worthy.
A few clicks, and sure enough, there it was.
Sanji's eyes followed his hands, trailing down the swordsman's broad chest, feeling the man's heart beat race and the rib cage hitch as his breath caught as Sanji's long fingers dipped below his pants. A devilish smirk crossed the blonde's face as he palmed the larger man's-
"What are you doing?!" Sanji screeched, side-kicking him into the wall.
Zoro couldn't answer for a second; he was too busy laughing, even with the already bruising ribs. "What is that?" he wheezed out, eyes tearing. "Did you write that?"
"No!" Sanji snapped, shutting out the rest of his incognito tabs. "It's these stories these people write about us, and one of my customers mentioned them to me, and I was just wanting to see what it was, and this is all your fault!"
"My fault? How is this my fault?!"
"I had a new customer today, a beautiful rose named Kendra, and she was charmed by my chivalry, but when she was leaving she mentioned how she didn't expect me to be so smooth in person. I asked why, and she said there were some stories about me online, all fiction, and that they specifically used the word 'noodley.' Noodley!" Sanji waved his arms at the insult. "So I had to see what they were about, and it turns out all these people are writing crazy stories about us being lovers and rivals and pirates and animals and all sorts of shit. And it started," he said, pointing straight at Zoro, "because of your ridiculous documentary!"
Sanji slammed his laptop down in front of Zoro and gestured at the long list of red headlines.
Zoro tilted his head, thinking. "One Man, Three Swords"-he had just been lucky he had talked his manager out of calling it "Three's a Charm"-had aired two years ago, and it had mostly followed him on his touring circuit as it led up to his second dramatic (and victorious) fight at Mihawk. Really, Sanji hadn't even been in the final cut that much except for a few home-cooked meals, some victory kisses, some grocery shopping excursions, some sparring.
"Do you know what the tag words are in this, marimo?!" Sanji was still ranting when Zoro tuned back in. "'Zosan' and 'fluff' and-" he grimaced, "'yaoi.'"
"We do do yaoi," Zoro laughed. He was rewarded with a kick to the face.
"Perverted bastard," Sanji growled, going in for another kick.
Zoro dodged this one, and lunged for the swords he had placed on the table. Five minutes later, their new apartment already had a hole in the wall that Franky would have to fix before the landlord saw, and a couple of Zoro's swings had come dangerously close to the decorative glass vases that Sanji insisted should be put in every room. Right as Sanji was coming in for a particularly vicious roundhouse kick, Zoro saw him tilt his head, angling it toward the kitchen. That's right, Zoro thought. He can smell the risotto's done.
Sanji's desire to drop everything and get to the risotto slowed him down just enough for Zoro to prepare to catch his leg. With a grin, Zoro raised it enough where he knew the cook would bend backward on instinct, and in a flash, he shifted his weight so he angled himself down, one arm up and around the cook's torso and the other reaching down to sweep out his legs so that he could drop on Sanji and roll with him without hurting the chef. One second later, Sanji was effectively in a Zoro cage.
"Let me go, marimo!" Sanji hissed. "Do you want fucking burnt risotto?!"
"I'm hungry for something else right now. Let's see if all your newfound yaoi reading can be put to good use-or are you intimidated you can't live up to people's expectations?" Zoro taunted.
"Oh, please, marimo," Sanji said, ever rising to the challenge. "Their words don't hold a candle to what I can really do to you."
Half an hour later, Sanji and Zoro were lying on the living room carpet, naked, eating very burned risotto out of a pot. When Zoro dared complain, Sanji stole his blanket.
/
A/N: I obviously do not own One Piece, and I wish I had half the creativity Oda-Sensei did. Thanks for reading, and feel free to tell me your thoughts on this if you'd like. :)