{{{Prompt, plot and tips supplied by the wonderful b_sparkles I have had so much fun writing this with her! It was silly and light and fluffy - just what a dream should be XD }}}

. . .

Hngh… lips…

Soft, sweet and smoky.

In his dreams the taste was warm.

It was a heat that lingered, tingling on Zoro's lips and suffusing his entire body. The bitter taste of cigarettes didn't matter when he held Sanji close and felt the warmth of his skin. It was a feeling that had stayed with him, long after the Prince and his perfect ass had shuffled, embarrassed, out of sight.

He woke with the taste of smoke on his lips and the warmth of sweet, sweet dreams still with him. He had meant to consider Sanji's request to join the crew overnight but before his mind had even turned to it, his body knew the answer.

Sweat rolled off Zoro's back and cooled in the stiff sea breeze. The swordsman's view was of the ocean - perfectly calm - as he leapt from one side of the deck to the other, twisting and turning his flexible body into a variety of impossible strikes. The cold helped to clear his head and looking out across the ocean helped him to gain perspective.

It stretched out in every direction, huge, insurmountable, blue. It was the barrier to all his achievements but the road to his success. He felt its simple strength and its humble power in every roll of the ship. He used the force to make his own movements stronger, flowing like water from strike to strike, his eyes bright with focus.

He didn't think, as such. He just moved - with the grace and determination of a born warrior he let his body do all his contemplation. He had a lingering ache in his right shoulder, where he had pulled a muscle ever so slightly beating up too many marines a week ago. There was also a slight tightness when he swept his body to the left due to a knot in his back, but after an hour or two it loosened up. He felt comfortable, confident and in control. He could feel the power of each strike flow through his body, building momentum all the way from the decks below his feet, through every muscle of his conductive body to the tip of his glinting swords.

His body was responsive, alert and strong. No hesitation. No hassle.

He trusted his body.

Where his mind would query and race and sift – turning through meaningless words and motions – his body would simply accept. It was his greatest ally and confidant, trusted above all others.

…and it liked Sanji.

Zoro could tell by the lingering heat that coursed through him whenever the blond got close enough, by the slight catch in his breath when the memories raced back, the taste of smoke on his lips when he woke…

That kiss.

Normally nothing really excited him… his body was numb after years of training to reduce his sensitivity and boost his tolerance to pain. On the good side, he was now inured to all but the most extreme forms of torture. On the not so good side, he wondered if he had sacrificed his ability to feel the things that others took for granted… now he knew that wasn't true, he wasn't numb. That one short kiss left him tingling and hungry for more. It wasn't going to end well. Pretty soon he was just going to scruff the guy and drag him off to the first empty hammock.

Even though it was annoying to admit, he was glad. His body still felt those desperate rushing throbs of lust that his mind had almost forgotten; put aside in his endless quest to be stronger, faster and ever closer to his goal. But there was something more than lust. There was something heavy and aching in the bottom of his chest, a tight dark spot that sucked the air from his lungs like gravity. Like a planet erupting inside him… His mind was fighting against it fiercely but to his body it was as plain as the taste of smoke lingering on his lips…

…it was a fact so simple and so obvious that his confused mind didn't even have the words for it. An ache… an empty heavy spot was all it was but to Zoro, it was a truth as huge and crushing as the vastness of the ocean.

Stupid body was always right.

So what would he say?

Stay.

Stay here with me.

No. With us. Definitely us.

That's too fucking girly. This is my ship after-all…

Zoro slowly sheathed his katana and drew a deep breath. Sanji just felt right. For the crew, for him. He was usually so cynical… all that lovey dovey crap made him want to puke.

Stupid cook. He wasn't what Zoro had expected from a Prince; he was clever and fiery and violent. He was pretty fancy though, all clothes and ladies and cooking…

But he trusted his body.

It was the one thing in his life that had never let him down.

"Well?"

Sanji stood in his most dramatic pose, one hand on his hip, the other loftily waving a smoking cigarette, which he jabbed in the air for punctuation.

"Well what?" Zoro growled as he brushed past the Prince and headed in the direction of the cargo hold.

It had been this way all morning. Sanji would ask Zoro whether he had made up his mind and the hulking Neanderthal would wander off in the opposite direction as if he hadn't heard a word of it.

"You know what!" Sanji shouted, waving a fist at the retreating green Marimo head.

The small cabin boy dropped down in front of him, sporting his usual inane grin. Sanji had realised by now that the boy didn't talk, but he was surprisingly good company. He was clever and he didn't mind drying the dishes so the Prince had managed to find a little time for him. He looked down at the grinning imp and tousled his hair with a distracted smile.

Why was Zoro suddenly so weird? Well, weirder. After all the flirting and cracking jokes about ravishing the Prince it seemed like the one kiss they shared had taken the wind out of his sails. For the Captain of a renowned pirate ship, he seemed to the Prince to be a bit of a wuss.

Sanji huffed in frustration and lit a cigarette. He was trying not to let it get to him but he was so caught up in this that it was hard to distance himself enough to think clearly. He wanted to be a part of this family so much, to have that familiar connection, a place to call home. He had missed being close to people so much during his years of training at the palace, always being told who he could talk to, where he could go. Zoro had such a great group of people here… and there was something about the stubborn moss-head that was comforting. Despite being a grumpy fuck Sanji knew that he could trust him and rely on him. Zoro would never betray him or use him to his own advantage. It made him want to stay more than ever.

Sanji's trademark confidence wavered as a thought invaded his contemplations. There was no way that Zoro could have gotten over him, was there?

No.

No way!

He was gorgeous, talented and he could cook. What more could anyone ask for? But Zoro was perverse… the man used three swords. That has to be a symptom of something. Maybe he was one of those guys who only wanted someone as long as they weren't interested… That would make sense of some of his bizarre behaviour. If that was what he wanted, then the Prince would be happy to oblige. No one but NO ONE played harder to get than Sanji!

The blond gave one curt nod of determination and stepped forward, nearly tripping over the young boy who was still standing perilously close. As he regained his footing Sanji remembered the lad's name - Scamper. He seemed to have lived a hard life for someone so young, maybe one day the Prince could do something about that, in the rare likelihood that he became King of Erhardt. At least someone like this wouldn't reject him and confuse him, like a certain stupid-head Marimo. Children were always so open and honest, so truthful.

It was nice to have the simplicity of the company of a child after his farther tried to marry him off. How could he do that? As if his own son meant less to him than trade opportunities! It was time for him to make a new start, time for him to embrace the future. There was one problem though, if he wanted his future to be on this ship, then he would have to get around Zoro.

The boy head butted his stomach then laughed silently, bringing Sanji down from his lofty contemplations.

"Ah, Scamper," Sanji said, laughing at his own preoccupation, "I'm just so confused by your idiot Captain, what does he want from me?" He smiled down at the wide brown eyes, not really expecting a response. The youngster burned with emotion and raced away, waving his arms around as if he was trying to take off. Sanji managed to pick up something about picking flowers and a collection of gestures that looked like they were either a heart attack or a severe bout of food poisoning.

"Zoro wants me to cook?"

The boy made his arms into a big 'X' and shook his head furiously. He repeated the picking flowers gesture and then threw his arms into the air, staring at Sanji expectantly.

"He wants me to be his gardener?" This was just getting silly.

Scamper rolled his eyes and began making rather disturbing gestures that seemed to involve very big breasts and other parts of the female anatomy… Whoa. That was a little bit wrong.

"Now, now… I think that I get the point…" Sanji said hastily, just trying to get the boy to stop. He turned away, a little embarrassed and found the entire crew standing silently behind him, their fist jammed into their mouths and eyes streaming with suppressed laughter.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU STARING AT!" Sanji growled, as he huffed off down the corridor to give the swordsman yet another piece of his mind.

Zoro strolled down the wooden corridor between his room and the wheelhouse. He turned a corner and there was Sanji. Even though it was impossible - Zoro had just left the Prince behind him, so he obviously couldn't be here – there he was. He was smoking furiously and tapping his foot in that foaming-at-the-mouth-I'm-going-to-kill-you way that he reserved for special occasions. Zoro saved them both some time by starting the argument himself,

"I can't just decide by myself," the Captain said, "I have to ask the crew."

"Then ask the damn crew! They all like me! It's only YOU that has a problem, Marimo!" Sanji shouted back, his ears had already turned slightly pink with rage.

"I don't have a problem, shit-cook. You're the one following me around howling like a banshee."

"What the hell are you saying shitty moss-head?" Sanji growled, low and dangerous.

Zoro turned and faced the indignant Prince, "It's just hard to do my job with you polluting my personal space with your bitching."

The pink tinge spread from Sanji's ears as he tried to suppress his anger enough to get out some kind of response. Zoro sighed and resigned himself to enduring *another* tirade. It was going to be a long day.

The Captain was trying to figure out how to tell the crew that he wanted the Prince to stay, but the fiery blond wasn't going to give him two seconds to figure it out. They had been arguing about it for at least an hour. It was definitely time to do something about this. Zoro did not do lectures.

The swordsman pivoted, catching Sanji mid-gasp as he tried to choke his bile down long enough to start shouting again. He knocked the Prince's legs out from under him with a waist-high sweep, pushing him down when he tried to flip to his hands to regain his balance. It was a lucky strike, but Zoro had always been a lucky guy. He leaned in, pinning Sanji to the floor and staring daggers into his eyes. At least while he was pinned to the floor he couldn't jump out from behind every piece of furniture on the ship and try to kick Zoro in the head. Very mature. On the other hand, the whole pinning thing wasn't helping in other ways. His body was making its plans for the leggy blond more than clear…

Zoro shifted his hips to the right and just hoped that the rather distinctive tent in his pants wasn't as glaringly obvious to Sanji as it was to him.

"I do not HOWL! How dare you!" Sanji fumed, wriggling in an attempt to break Zoro's grip. Great, he got his voice back. The swordsman could feel the innate strength in the powerful muscles grinding against him. He was so sure that the Prince could get away if he chose to but instead he struggled, frothing and foaming with royal indignation.

"You have to give me time to ask them," Zoro said firmly, "I can't just throw them into this!"

The Prince tilted his head up and blew smoke into the Captain's face, despite the rough physicality of their struggle, he had still managed to keep a firm hand on his lit cigarette. His perfect pout formed one undeniable word, "LIAR!"

Zoro narrowed his eyes against the sting of the smoke, he felt an overwhelming urge to just lean down and kiss the struggling blond… to have that sweet taste of smoke and heat on his lips again. He leaned down and hovered, his face only a few achingly short inches from that perfect pout. Sanji's expression was unreadable, his bright blue eyes intent with some thought that Zoro could not interpret. He wanted to move, he wanted to kiss him so badly but the look in his eyes, the burning indignation, stopped him in his tracks.

"You don't know what you want, do you?" the Prince whispered.

The warm air from his breath smelt like his lips tasted, Zoro could feel the hunger building as he moved slowly closer… just before his lips brushed those soft pink petals, Sanji spoke again, all of the softness gone from his imperial voice,

"I'll tell you what you want. You want me, Marimo. And I don't know if I'm in the mood for all your bullshit."

With one sharp heel to his ribs, Zoro was hefted across the room. By the time he bounced off the rear wall, he found that he was in an empty corridor.

What the hell was that all about?

Che.

At least he had some time to think now… with the way Sanji was looking at him with that perfect stupidly blue eye, he couldn't put this off any longer.

"So what do you all think?" Zoro asked the assembled crewmembers.

Nobo sprawled across the bench making a skin-crawling noise of metal scraping on metal as he sharpened the blade on one of Rosa's ridged knives. Blue wobbled in the corner, seeming to defy physics as he hovered on the stringy clear tentacles that served him as legs. Scamper was somewhere in the room but Zoro had lost track of him, he loved to hide over furniture and drop bits of fluff onto anyone the chose to sit down near his little trap. Zoro had woken up once completely buried in what had to be an entire cotton field worth of fluff. How the kid had managed it, he would never know.

The rest of the crew were jammed into the available nooks and crannies, calling them 'motley' would be harsh but not entirely inaccurate. He'd had Rosa rustle them up because if he did it, one of them inevitably missed the meeting. It wasn't like they didn't respect him, but for some reason he couldn't get from one end of the ship to the other without getting stuck in some weird supply cupboard that he had never seen before. He swore that Sarah had a phantom assistant that moved everything around when he was asleep. What else could it be?

"How do you know he's genuine?" Poker asked solemnly. He had jammed himself into a wicker chair in the corner and it was creaking and sinking slowly to the floor in protest. His eyes were gummed with sleep but he was still clear and concise, for such a big guy he had a neat way of folding himself up into the tiniest spaces.

"How many chefs do we need anyway?" Blue grumbled into his tentacles.

The crew glanced at each other waiting for anything else to be said, and then they all looked at Zoro.

"What?" he growled, in a general challenge.

"You're the Captain!" Rosa said impatiently.

Zoro glared at her. Why did she think he had called this damn meeting? He didn't want to let Sanji join the crew if someone was just going to poison him… he glared at Blue.

The wicker chair gave an alarming creak and Scamper crawled out hastily from behind Poker's chair. He stood in front of Zoro and beamed up at him.

It seemed the cook had one vote at least.

Zoro looked around the room. Everyone was waiting for him to decide.

"He's staying," the swordsman said, ruffling Scamper's hair. The boy hugged him and ran off to gesticulate the good news to the blond.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall…

"What the hell am I going to do then?" Blue demanded.

Zoro rolled his eyes and drew a breath in order to tell Blue exactly what he could do. Rosa cut him off though, standing with her back to the Captain and talking to Blue in a soothing voice,

"Didn't you always want to work on the ship with Sarah?" she asked. Sarah was the shipwright and general handy-woman. She fixed leaks, breaks, tears and gaping holes quicker than anyone Zoro had ever met. She also had long blonde hair, sweet plump cheeks and a generous figure. Nice if you liked that kind of thing.

It appeared that Blue did.

"Well… I guess I could maybe…" Blue smiled sheepishly at Sarah, who winked lewdly in reply.

Trust Rosa to have it all planned out in advance. It occasionally made Zoro wonder exactly who made the decisions but he still got to pursue his dream so it didn't really matter…

"Perfect! Sarah, come over here and get your new apprentice. You're always saying you could use another pair of hands," Rosa grinned, making this sound a lot ruder than it should have.

After shoo-ing the new team out of the room, Rosa turned on the Captain, "You going to tell him then?"

"Why don't you?" Zoro shot back. It was her stupid plan anyway!

Rosa just started at him.

He returned the stare.

Together, they waited as the crew filed out of the room. Zoro stood his ground.

Rosa stared at him some more and raised one pencil-perfect eyebrow, as if to say 'just how dumb are you?'

"Kami!" he huffed, stamping his foot in annoyance, "Captain, my ass," he grumbled as he strode out of the room to share the good news.

"Shit-cook," Zoro said, addressing the lump on the bed.

"Just go away. I don't want to join your stupid crew anymore."

Zoro blinked at this news. What had he been making such a fuss about, then?

"Ok. Fine," the swordsman huffed, one hand hovering on the door handle.

"You don't want me anyway," Sanji mumbled into his pillow.

A smile twitched on Zoro's lips. He hadn't realised how much he wanted Sanji to stay until he heard those words and for one terrible second, he had really thought that the Prince wanted to leave. Instead he was just throwing a royal sized tantrum. For some reason, it made Zoro want to tickle him.

Well, that would be his random impulse for the day.

To distract himself from the images of them both cavorting on the bed, Zoro took a deep breath and prepared to start the speech that he had been planning all day, the speech where he told Sanji how he felt and exactly how much he wanted the cook to stay…

But the words caught in his throat. He wasn't a lover, he was a fighter and that was why this sexy arrogant man was everything he ever dreamed of, wild and angry with his hair all messy and his eyes burning with passion…

"Well, target-brow…" Zoro turned so that his irrepressible grin was facing the other way, "get down stairs and start doing our laundry."

Sanji gave him a look that would have melted a mere mortal and Zoro didn't blink. "I'm not going to do your fucking laundry, Marimo."

"But you could be my French maid… might help you to clean up that filthy mouth. Doesn't it make your delicious food taste spoilt?"

"No. Fucking. Laundry."

"That's mutiny then," Zoro shook his head sadly and drew a katana a few inches from its sheath for effect, "what's the point of having a blond cook who won't wear a maid outfit?"

Sanji began to wave a fist, warming up for a good royal tirade, when he realised the implications of what the swordsman was saying. He was a member of the crew. He was one of them.

And Zoro said his cooking was delicious. Of course!

Sanji turned back to face his Captain, colour starting to creep into his cheeks. "I'm still not doing the laundry. I'm a Prince. Do you have any idea what that means? Well for a start, it means no laundry.." Sanji lined up his fingers to count of his list of demands but the Captain got there first,

"You want to be on the crew, you pull your damn weight. If that means laundry, then you do laundry, rookie!"

Zoro leaned forward, drawing the blade he had grasped a moment ago only for show.

"I'm not touching some soiled piece of scrap that has been on your ass. It's not happening!" Prince Sanji stood to his full royal height and raised one powerful leg so it was hovering dangerously over the swordsman.

They both took one long, controlled breath and then leapt at each other.

Zoro meant to beat the shit out of the mouthy bastard.

He did.

At least, that was what he told himself as his lips met the soft taste of smoke that haunted his dreams and his confidant body took over from his poor, confused mind.

"What the hell is that?" Blue asked, rolling with his curious tentacled gait over to where Rosa leaned against the railing.

"That, the hell, is love." Rosa replied, smiling down at the boiling storm wreaking destruction across the deck. The Prince's long legs wove between the bright flashes of Zoro's swords reflecting in the sunlight. With all the sweat and straining muscles it was quite hypnotic, she had been watching the two men compete for what seemed like hours. After the noise that she heard from Zoro's cabin the night before, she was amazed that they had the energy to fight.

"Oh," Blue said, looking back down at the screaming pair as they wrestled and fought. His long blue face sagged and he sighed with the force of the defeated. "Why the hell didn't anyone just tell me?"

Rosa leaned a little further out to get a better view and smirked, "It was funnier this way."

"Thanks Rosa. Anyone every tell you you're an evil bitch?" Blue enquired with another weary sigh before squelching off below deck.

"You're welcome," she said to the salty air and then she settled in for as long as the spectacle lasted, to enjoy the view and grin at the sight of her Captain - the man who was always in control - totally loosing his head.