Notes: Originally posted on LJ, Jan. 2007.
Archive: NO.
Rules
By Miki
As a general rule, Sanji found that there were certain people who grated on his nerves.
There were people he liked, and people he hated, and people he never wanted to have anything to do with.
There were useful people, and people to be used, and people who asked for things, and people who you asked for things and people who got in the way, and people who kept out of the way, and altogether, he thought there were way too many people on this damn ship who had been tramping through the galley doing all of those things today!
All he'd wanted was a little peace and quiet so he could get down to work on Nami's birthday present, and what had he gotten?
A freaking parade.
That's what.
A freaking parade of freaks who were freaking tramping through and trying to eat his toppings and stick their noses in his food and make off with the dinner when they thought he was only paying attention to lunch!
The only person who hadn't been into the ship's kitchen today was the one who Sanji had actually been expecting.
Even Nami had come in and looked around; looking for a pencil, or so she'd said, but Sanji didn't mind because he never minded when it was beautiful, wonderful Nami.
She made him feel happier from the inside out, and just seeing her face was enough to make him try to forget all the other stupid people trying to snatch his ingredients from under his nose.
But Zoro hadn't come in.
Sanji had gone up to the deck that morning, wondering if the stupid swordsman had fallen asleep on his shift and if perhaps that was why he hadn't been in to get any food yet today, or at least interrupt his preparations and annoy him.
But apparently that wasn't it, since Zoro was having a conversation of sorts with Usopp at the other end of the ship.
Sanji frowned, going back inside to continue his work on Nami's present – a rather elaborate cake he'd been planning for a few weeks – but he glanced at the bench covered in specks of flour and sugar, and felt more than a bit annoyed.
He didn't know why, but the feeling that Zoro was ignoring him somehow grated at him, and he didn't have anyone to take his annoyance out on because he'd already given Luffy a kick to the head when he'd tried to put a whole box of chocolate pieces into his mouth.
Stupid rubber boy.
Hadn't even taken them out of the cardboard.
Didn't he know cardboard would give him indigestion?
Sometimes Sanji suspected he was feeding a whole herd of damn goats, not people.
As he finished stirring his mixture and frowned down at it, he realised he'd probably mixed a little too much in his distraction.
He hadn't mixed the icing yet though, but he always made a little extra of that anyway, since that stupid swordsman usually came in and stuck his fingers everywhere and Sanji then had to fix everything to make it perfect all over again.
Sanji suspected he did it just to drive him crazy.
He hated to admit it, but Zoro was good at that.
He drove him crazy and made him feel uncertain as though Zoro was pulling the ground from under his feet and turning everything upside down and inside out.
Leaving fingermarks and taking off the toppings was worse than eating the whole damn cake.
Then an idea struck him, and he fished around in one of the cupboards until he found a small tin just the right size.
(S)
Zoro swallowed and eyed Luffy's bag of lollies with a greedy eye.
Damn, he'd been sure it was nearly lunch, but apparently it wasn't, since Nami was bustling around and the stupid cook hadn't been out of the kitchen yet to call them all in.
Zoro leaned down on the ship's railing and stared out at the ocean, bobbing up and down with the ship's movement.
Some days were so busy he couldn't even stop to think, and other days on the sea, he found himself bored and thinking the same things over and over again.
Routines were hard to try to keep to, but there were certain things he tried to do every day; marking them off his mental list.
Taking detours to the kitchen was just one of those things; pissing off the stupid cook and making him simmer.
He wondered if Sanji had noticed he hadn't been in to bother him today.
But then, Sanji was probably too busy thinking about Nami to think about anyone else.
He didn't really care about the shitty cook either though, so they were probably equal.
He just used those visits to pass the time, and because annoying Sanji was amusing.
But he had better things to do with his time anyway, like pushups.
(S)
As a general rule, Sanji never went out of his way to do anything extra for men.
For women, yes.
Nami, especially so.
The small cake he'd made sat next to Nami's larger one on the bench, and the mere fact that it was sitting there and the thought that he'd made it with Zoro in mind, made Sanji want to take it and shove it anywhere where no one else could see it and where he could happily deny its existence.
He was almost horrified at the thought that he'd actually done anything considerate at all for the swordsman.
Although when he thought about the fact that Zoro was likely to come sticking his fingers in the cake toppings just to piss him off, he suspected he was just as likely doing himself a favour as he was doing Zoro one.
As he leaned back against the wall and surveyed his work, he couldn't help but notice a strawberry was out of place on the small cake's topping.
He straightened it, but it seemed to slip back down to its previous spot, and Sanji realised with irritation that he'd let the topping set already and that the strawberry was only going to stay in its rightful place if he somehow managed to glue it there.
It irked him somehow, because even if the stupid thing was for Zoro, it had to be perfect.
A part of him thought it was stupid that he'd gone to all the bother of icing the stupid thing, and even working a small pattern of berries on the top, just as he'd done for Nami's present.
And besides, Zoro probably wouldn't even notice it and still go sticking his damn fingers into the bigger one.
He didn't have time to think about it any longer though, because at that moment, the door was opened rather forcefully and Zoro strolled in, looking somewhat sweaty like he'd just finished doing his – how many was it now? A thousand? Two thousand? – pushups for the day.
Sanji twisted his lip in irritation and pushed a glass of water across the bench.
"Here," he said, not because he liked to be nice to Zoro, but because having water pre-prepared made sure the stupid man was out of the kitchen faster, taking his sweat and swords with him.
Zoro eyed the cake in the centre of the bench.
"It's for Nami, so don't stick your dirty hands on it," Sanji growled, one foot half ready to give a kick to Zoro's head, should he try to touch it.
Zoro didn't, surprisingly, though Sanji thought he saw the man's fingers twitch.
He stood back from the bench, one hand resting lightly at the handle of one of his blades.
"Didn't you know, girls like diamonds, not cakes, you shitty cook?" he said, and downed his glass of water quickly.
He slammed it back down onto the bench, and Sanji frowned in confusion.
"Oi," he yelled out, louder than he needed to because Zoro was heading for the door faster than he'd thought he would.
Zoro turned and gave him a look Sanji couldn't quite understand.
Was it annoyance or anger or just apathy?
He didn't know.
He wanted to ask Zoro why he wasn't trying to get at the icing or eat the toppings or trying to piss him off.
"What's up with you today?" he asked instead, but when Zoro didn't rise to the bait, Sanji knew something was up.
Zoro ignored the question and, wiping his forehead on his arm, walked out the door.
(S)
Sanji squeezed his hands around the plate and closed his eyes.
He could feel the tension in his body rising into the back of his neck and his temples.
He stalked out onto the deck and looked around, and found that Zoro was rather easy to find.
He was lying on his back, one leg bent at the knee and his forearms hiding his eyes from the sun.
"Hey," Sanji said, and kicked his leg.
The kick came out harder than he'd meant it to, but he didn't apologise.
"You know, some of us actually work when we're on this ship," he pointed out.
"I am working," Zoro grumbled.
Sanji wished he had a cigarette.
He wished he had something in his mouth to give him an excuse not to talk.
He should just hand the stupid thing over or else throw it over the side of the ship.
If Zoro didn't actually sit up and look at him in less than five seconds, he'd probably settle for the latter so they could go back to being annoyed at each other.
Well, he was annoyed at least, he thought.
"Oi."
He kicked Zoro's leg again but it wasn't hard enough to give him any satisfaction.
"What?" Zoro snapped, finally removing his arms. "What do you want, stupid cook?"
Sanji bit his tongue – almost literally – and dropped the plate above Zoro's head.
Good thing if it hit him.
He'd deserve it.
Zoro struggled for a moment; at first surprised and then panicked as he reached out his arms to catch the thing that was about to drop on his face.
He sat up with it and glared up at Sanji, not ceasing his glare even when for a moment, all he felt was surprise at the object on the plate.
"What's this?"
Sanji raised an eyebrow and fumbled as he lit a cigarette, taking a long drag.
"You're stupid but you're not blind, are you?"
Zoro eyed the cake, and Sanji wondered if the idiot was trying to make a point of sorts.
"I thought you were making this for Nami," he said.
"Stupid," Sanji retorted, "hers is bigger."
Zoro looked up at him for a moment.
Sanji couldn't help the panic rising in him.
"Hers was made with love, and yours was made with leftovers," he clarified, just so that Zoro didn't start thinking he was actually anywhere near Nami's level.
Nami's cake was bigger, Sanji reminded himself. And he wouldn't drop it on her to give it to her either.
He'd present it to her, just the way he'd planned, and maybe if she was sufficiently off guard, he could sneak a kiss from her.
He definitely wasn't about to kiss Zoro.
Looking down at him, he wondered who would.
Who would want to kiss such a stupid, stubborn marimo head?
Not he.
A strange kind of tightness was making his body feel tense, and he sucked in a breath of air, trying to release the feeling from inside him.
He waited until Zoro had taken a bite before walking off quickly to where Nami was standing at the bow of the ship.
She looked beautiful, as always, standing with her hair lit with sunlight and her arms extended above the railing.
Zoro was still on his mind though, and there was that weird, unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach.
He wanted to turn around to see what Zoro's face looked like.
He couldn't help wanting to know if Zoro liked the cake or not, because if he didn't, he definitely wasn't wasting his time on that idiot again.
Well, he told himself that, but in the back of his mind, he was already wondering if he shouldn't try making a different kind of sweet next time.
As a general rule, Sanji didn't bother with being nice to Zoro.
They drove each other mad, but they fought beside each other when it counted, and they were part of a team.
But as Sanji gave in to his curiosity and turned around to glance at the swordsman, he stopped in his tracks and felt something resembling pride welling in him.
Zoro couldn't have known what his face looked like, and certainly, Sanji had never seen him looking like that before, but it made his heart beat a little faster.
It excited him somehow…
That he could produce that sort of look on someone like Zoro.
He always seems to set everything out of place and upside down, and he drove Sanji crazy and they annoyed each other and they fought sometimes, and yelled a lot…
But for the moment, Sanji thought that the out of place and upside down feeling inside him really wasn't so bad.
Really, when it came to rules…
Sanji had concluded a long time ago that Zoro was always never going to fit in with his rules.
Luffy seemed to have a complete disregard for rules, and Nami seemed to think they were made to be broken.
Perhaps they were.
Or perhaps it was just that Zoro was good at rewriting them.
.fin.