A/N: This story is dedicated to my sister, whose cookies I adore! If she's baking for a particular person, she does the thing with the plates. The signs are slightly different, though. If this shows up in the new again, it's because I made a small edit. (Effin' typos... *grumble grumble*)
Warnings: None.
Continuity/Spoilers: After Alabasta/ Umm... Robin is mentioned in passing?
Pairing: None intended.
Disclaimer: All characters and locations herein are the intellectual property of Eiichiro Oda and various others. Not mine. I wish.
Cookies
Sanji was baking cookies. The heavenly aroma wafted across the deck, drawing the attention of the entire crew. Nami and Robin remained where they were. Knowing Sanji, the cookies would come to them. Everyone else began planning their own cookie obtaining strategies.
Luffy had always been straightforward...
"COOKIES!" The captain came barreling through the door to the galley and promptly came sailing back out.
"They're not ready, yet! Stay out!"
Luffy sat sulkily next to the door. He was bound and determined to get the first cookie. He was the captain after all!
Meanwhile, Sanji checked on the first batch of cookies. He removed the cookie sheet from the oven and began to sorting them onto two plates. The plate on the left sat behind a small paper sign that read "For Nami-san and Robin-chan" with many small flowers and hearts around the edges. The sign for other plate read "For General Consumption." The first cookie was just right, so it went on the left plate. The next was a little too brown around the edges: right plate. Cookie three was more oval than round and a bit smaller than the others: right plate. At the end of the sorting, five perfect cookies sat on the left plate, and seven not-so-perfect on the right.
Sanji turned back to the counter, but then paused as he sensed a threat to his cookies of love. He whirled around to see a hand reaching for the cookie plates. The hand was attached to an arm that stretched all the way back to the galley doorway. The chef kicked the hand to the ground and ground his heel on it.
"Ow! Sanji!" Sanji hated that particular whining tone... "I'm hungry!" He rolled his eyes and scooped up a cookie from the General Consumption plate and placed it in Luffy's palm. The hand was gone in a flash. "Yummy!"
"That's it for now, you hear me? No more until I say so!"
"Aww... Fine."
He baked several more batches of the first variety (gingersnaps) and then moved on to butter cookies. He had recently purchased a cookie press while supply shopping and decided to try it out. One shape it produced was flowers, and he hummed to himself as he stamped little dough flowers onto the cookie sheet. He frowned at the fact that they weren't all as uniform as he would have liked, but placed the first tray into the oven anyway.
A short while later, he looked at the cookie plates. He smiled at the plate on the right, with it's lovely, buttery-yellow flowers and sugar crusted gingersnaps. His lovely ladies deserved nothing less. The plate on the left was a mound of rejected flowers covering a small layer of gingersnaps on the bottom. He quickly whipped up two of his signature fruit drinks and carried the special plate out to the girls.
"Oi, losers," he called on his way out, "your cookies are on the table. If I were you, I'd make them last, you won't be getting any more for a while!"
There was a stampede for the kitchen and then the crew all rushed back out with handfuls of cookies. Everyone split off to protect their precious treats from the crew's filching captain.
After a prolonged fawning session, Sanji returned to his kitchen and was surprised to see that there were still cookies on the plate. He must have made more than he thought! He also noted that someone had dug down to the bottom layer to get to the gingersnaps. He scowled. What? His butter cookies weren't good enough for somebody? He set out on a quick search.
He ran into Luffy first, as the capatain was , unsurprisingly, on his way back for seconds.
"Those cookies are really good, Sanji! I like 'em!" Sanji might have felt more complimented if he hadn't known that his captain would probably eat anything.
"Did you try any of the gingersnaps?"
Luffy shook his head. "Naw, I like the flowers!"
Usopp was up on the stern. His cookies, too, were gone, but the crumbs left behind were all yellow. To be certain, he asked.
"Did you eat any of the gingersnaps?"
"There were gingersnaps?" Okay, so it wasn't him, either.
Chopper was below deck in the boys cabin. He was carefully working his way through a small stack of butter cookies, one petal at a time.
"These cookies are awesome, Sanji! Thank you for baking them!"
The chef couldn't help but smile at the small reindeer. The doctor had been the only one of the boys to thank him. "You're welcome. You didn't happen to try any of the gingersnaps, did you?"
"Uh-uh. I just grabbed a few off the top of the pile. Why?"
"No reason." His smile turned into a scowl as he turned to head back up the stairs. That left only one person. He should have known. He walked swiftly toward the only location he had yet to search: the crow's nest.
Zoro was facing away from him when he reached the top of the ladder. "Oi, marimo, you got a problem with my baking?"
Zoro looked over his shoulder, a gingersnap hanging half out of his mouth like a smoking gun. "Huh?"
"What're you digging to the bottom of the plate for? My butter cookies are perfectly good and there are more of them, so eat them first!"
"I did eat some," Zoro defended himself. "I just like your gingersnaps better. I figured if I wanted to be sure I got any that I'd better snag some while I had the chance. Luffy's probably down there inhaling the last of them as we speak."
Sanji supposed he couldn't really fault that logic, but he would die a very painful death indeed before he let the swordsman off easy. "Yeah well, just take them off the top from now on, got it? Nobody wants your filthy mitts all over their cookies!"
"Whatever..."
He headed back into the galley and saw that there were only a few cookies left. He bit into one of the gingersnaps and grinned. They were pretty good...