Disclaimer: nothing is mine, songs, characters and names alike.
HildyaOrul: welcome back, my friend! I've missed your reviews and your encouraging words! :) No spoilers, but as usual, your words are making me rethink some stuff... Damn it, I had something good planed out and now another idea is forming! I can't decide! Why you do this to me? -_-
A One Piece Twist
Chapter 8
Sanji was still totally pissed at Zoro three days later. The bastard had been annoying him to no end, and the blonde could barley tolerate being in his presence, yet he found his eyes gravitating to tbe plant head against his will.
He loved the way the stupid swordsman laughed, and rubbed the back of his neck when he was nervous or at a loss of what to say. Sanji found it endearing when the moss brain cussed at Luffy and Ace when they managed to steal his food, and pouted untill someone took pity and brought him more.
The cook scowled. Was he going crazy? Who in their right mind would find those things about the green baka likeable? They were aggravating, that's what they were!
Sanji banged the pots into the kitchen sink. Then he clutched his head in his soapy hands and sighed.
"Hey, ero cook!" A familiar/annoying voice called out to him.
Sanji rased his head and watched Zoro from the door way.
"What the fuck do you want, asshole?" He asked harshly, the pretense of civily completely gone after the incident with Gin.
Zoro rolled his eye. "Your old man wants you to go to town to get some shit. The guests are complaining per usual- what the fuck is on your face?"
Sanji wiped his his hands dry in a dish towel. Then looked into the shiny surface of a nearby hanging pot.
He could see that the soap from his hands had gotten on his face, giving him a bazaar appearance. He couldn't resist the laugh that bubbled from his chest as a memory of him and Nami surfaced.
He was still chuckling as he wiped away the white foam. "Yeah, whatever, moss head. Go find Brook and tell him to meet at the car."
Zoro looked at him like he was crazy, but curtly nodded, and left the kitchen doorway. The cook was a little confused at Zoro's lack of response to his insults. It was unusual for him to be so passive. Whatever. He didn't have the energy to worry about it.
He went to find Mihawk, and discovered the man in the library of his office.
"Yes?" The dark haired man asked, casually, turning the thin page of a book he was reading in his favorite plush reading chair.
Sanji tapped the toe of his shoe of nervously against the hard floor.
"I need the list of items you'd like me to get," he said quietly.
The senior swordsman raised a brow. "Well come here," he said.
Sanji stumbled into his foster father's personal space. He had never been allowed permission to enter before, and so he was little more then shocked when tbe older man granted him entrance.
"Here," was all he said as he held out a slip of paper out to Sanji. "And don't forget the mail," he added as the blonde took the list from his fingers.
"Yes-yes, sir."
Mihawk nodded and turned his attention back to his book. Sanji took this as a dismissal, and left quickly.
He went to the car and expected to see the tall, afro sporting musician, but instead saw a head of spikey grren hair.
"What the hell, marimo? You couldn't follow simple instructions other than photosynthesis?" Sanji asked the man leaning against the car.
Zoro straightened, and twirled the key ring around the tip of his left index finger.
"Brook's too busy," he said, "He asked me to drive you," then he got into the car.
Sanji furrowed his brows in confusion. There it was again! The moss brain was ignoring the bait Sanji was laying out. He was acting like he was pissed off, but what the fuck did HE have to pissed about? It's not like Sanji did anything wrong to him. It was the algae who had been causing all the problems around here!
He climbed in to the car beside Zoro, and buckled his seat belt. He looked beside him and saw Zoro white knuckling the steering wheel.
"You do know how to drive, don't you?" He asked skeptically.
"Fuck off, curly que," he replied tightly. "Car's are just not my thing of expertise. " then he threw the car into reverse and backed out, weaving between the parked cars of the guests like a professional Nascar driver.
"Holy shit!" Sanji shrieked as the car was thrown into another gear, Zoro jerking the wheel, causing it turn the vehicle forward.
His heart was pounding rapidily, and adrenaline rush made his body shake. He was clutching the arm rest and the door handle on the roof of the car with a tight grip.
"You are fucking insane!" He exclaimed angrily.
In response, the plant head hit the gas pedal.
"This is just fan-fucking-tastic!" Sanji exclaimed sarcastically, throwing his hands up in disbelief as he read the sign on the door : 'Closed for the day due to much needed repairs. Sorry for the inconvenience.'
Zoro stood beside him, arms crossed, looking at the sign in concentration.
"What?!" The blonde snapped, "Don't blow a fucking gasket, moss brain! There is nothing you can do by staring at it!"
The said plant glared at him darkly, but it seemed half hearted, like his main thoughts were somewhere else.
He huffed and got back into the car, and waited for Zoro to get in. Gosh, he was so damn aggravating!
He eye balled the swoards man as he climbed into the drivers seat and clipped his seat belt in. He thought back to Gin's story for about the one hundreth time. Zoro... a jealous person? An ass, yes. A prick, yes. A person so jealous that he'd kick his brother out in the street to get what he wanted? Sanji had no clue. Zoro was a mystery to him.
The cook got out and smoked a cigarette as the marimo fiddled with the gas pump on the gas machine. He knew Zoro came from money. Gin made that much obvious, but that didn't explain anything, and instead made it more complicated.
"...So..." the blond said awkwardly as Zoro pulled onto the highway to go to the next town after filling the car tank with gas, "what got you into kendo?" Anxiety pulled at his heart, and they hadn't even been in the car five minutes. He needed to distract himself somehow, right?
Zoro seemed a little surprised Sanji had asked such a civil and personal question.
"A person I care for once told me to make something of my self."
Sanji blinked. "But why, though? From what Gin said, your family is loaded, right?"
Zoro laughed bitterly, his eye darkening. " That is exactly the reason why. I want to be known not by who I'm related to, but by my own accomplishments. Good or bad. Gin would know all about that, wouldn't he?
The disdain in Zoro's voice for Gin trailed off as his mind wandered to his own world again. His eyes became distant and his body went on auto pilot. Was his dislike for his brother really that strong?.
"What about your eye?" He asked Sanji a moment later.
"Huh?" He replied wittily.
"Your eye, dart brow. Why is it always covered?"
"Why the hell do you want to know that?"
"Well, since we're playing 20 questions here, I wanna know." Zoro answered.
Sanji sputtered, but thought about his answer. "That's none of your fucking business!"
"Oh," Zoro said, clearly offended. "So you can ask me shit, but I can't ask you? You certainly had no qualms about being like that with Gin!"
" You could've chosen not to answer, shit head! And Gin told me all about himself. I didn't once bring up myself!
"So you're a gossip, huh? Like being a nosey bastard that encrouches in other people buisness!"
"Bastard!" Sanji yelled at the man next to him.
"Shit cook!"
"Moss for brains!"
"Damn dart board!"
They went back and forth with their yelling match, all the while Sanji was slowly forgetting about his vehicle anxiety. This was the Zoro he knew: snarky, hotheaded, and a huge pain in the ass.
"That's it!" He shouted. "Stop the damn car, shitty swoardsman! I'd rather walk the rest of the way!" Come to think of it, shouldn't they have reached the next town by now?
Zoro just huffed, not slowing down.
"You think I'm fucking kidding?" He snarled, grabbing the door handle and pushing it open, "I said Stop. The . Damn. Car."
The moss brain seemed to finally get his message. "Are you insane?!"
Tires screached as Zoro hit the brakes, rubber skidding over asphalt. Sanji stuck up his nose superiously, and got out of the car, then slamming the door in Zoro's face.
"I'd be insane to want to be in your presence a second more!" He yelled at the marimo, then turned to walk down the empty road.
"Sanji, wait!" He heard Zoro call. The sound of a door opening and closing proceded another call. "Wait, come back-"
BOOM!
The ground shook, and his knees buckled as he was pushed forward by a strong blast of heat and hot air. The hard ground scrapped his palms alittle, and he felt his knee caps hit the pavement with a enough force to leave bruises, but his thoughts were proccupied by the sight before him as he turned his head around.
The car that he had been in only moments before lay in a black, smoking, and firey heap of scrape metal before his eyes. Sanji stood up shaking, and realized that he hadn't even seen the marimo.
"Zoro!" He called out, trying to hide the worriedness in his voice. No answer came in reply. "Oh shit!" He exclaimed in a whisper. "Oh shit, shit, shit!"
He stumbled forward, his eye searching frantically for the familiar swatch of green hair.
"Zoro!" He tried again, but a pregnant pause was his only answer
The blonde hurried to the drivers side of the used to be car, and his heart jumped into his throat when his saw a lump of black and smokey clothes on the ground, four yards or so away. Sanji hopped over the gaurd rail and sprinted to the still man.
"Zoro, thank God! Are you..." a sob was held back by a blood streaked hand as the blonds words caught in his throat. The moss headed swoardsman lay completly still, his dark eye looking up lifelessly at the blue sky above them.
Sanji fell to gis knees. Oh, God, this was all his fault! Rationally, of course, that was impossible, but he still felt like had when woken up in the hospital and found out Zeff was dead. Some how, Sanji felt like if he had done something differently, things wouldn't have ended this way.
His pale fingers reached out to take hold of Zoro's lifeless hand. "I'm so-"
Hacking, and not done by himself, interrupted Sanji sincere appology.
"Sweet Jesus," Zoro wheezed harshly, pounding his chest. " I guess that experiance can be scratched off my bucket list!" He winced and looked at Sanji with a soot covered face.
"What's the matter, shit cook? You look like you lost your beat friend." He grinned. "Were you worried about little old me?"
"As fucking if, baka! Why would I be worried about a stupid little ball of moss like you?" He sputtered indignatly, crossing his arms across his chest.
Zoro sat up, tucking one leg underneath him and coughed some more.
"And what an dick move, pretending to be dead like that! You are SUCH an ass!"
Now that relief had replaced his sadness, anger was about to have another go.
"I wasn't 'pretending' any thing, dumbass!" Zoro snarled like an injured animal. "The wind was knocked out of me, and I hit my head pretty hard... I think that I might have a...concussion or...something..." he yawned as his words slowed and his eye drooped. "Taking a nap sounds pretty good, actually."
He gave Sanji a dopey smile and began to close his eyes. Sanji was worried now.
"Oi!" He said loudly at the man on the ground infront of him, "Don't you fucking fall asleep!" He slapped Zoro's face, but nothing happened.
It was then Sanji panicked. He tried to think of how the hell he got to the conclusion he had many times later that night, but some how he had and he could never take the decision back.
The cook grabbed Zoro by his shoulders and smashed the marimo's lips against his own. Zoro stiffened against Sanji, causing the blonde to pull away, satisfied that the dumbass at least reacted to THAT, but then Zoro did somethimg that was unexpected: he wrapped his arms around Sanji and kissed him back.
Sanji felt Zoro's warm tongue run over his bottom lip, and before he realized what he did, he opened his mouth to let him in. The cook let out a small whimper as he was kissed harder by the strong man in front of him. Zoro tasted like smoke and salty sweat, but also something distinctly Zoro. The two men clung to one another, only half aware of their actions, and Sanji derliously wished it would never end.
Their mouths fought for dominance, and the cook felt his fingers entwine in soft hair, hair he knew belonged to a certain marimo. He felt Zoro growl deeply, possessively, and pulled at Sanji's bottom lip with his teeth. Heat was building up in the said cook's stomach untill it was a raging fire. Then he realised that it was ZORO who was causing the feelings in side of him.
He roughly shoved Zoro away, and leapt to his feet while wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. What. The . Fuck.
The marimo looked up at him, the shock clear on his face, too. His mouth opened and closed like a fish several times before he uttered a single syllable.
"S-s-sorry!" Zoro appologized to him, then got to his feet so quickly it made him sway a little.
Before Sanji got the guts to go over there and help him, Zoro had already rightened himself.
"We need to find some one to help us. You know where we are, curly que?"
Sanji ahook his head. "Not a fucking clue."
"Oh great! That's just fricking fantastic," he mumbled, then turned away from Sanji and serveying the road in front of him.
Sanji was relieved, confused, and dissapoimted all at the same time. First of all, he was thankful Zoro had tried to clear the awkwardness, but at the same time he was confused and dissapointed that Zoro had dismissed the kiss like it was nothing. Had Sanji been the only one to feel the way he had?
Zoro was going crazy inside! Sanji Prince had just kissed him, and Zoro had kissed him back! God, he was on Cloud 9! His emotions shot through him like he was a teenager again, instead of being 23. He quickly reigned those feelings in though, not wanting to freak Sanji out. Then he saw the look of pure horror on his face. That stabbed Zoro through the heart and destroyed his pride. Was he really that revolting to the cook?
He scowled and turned away, totally confused where to go from here.
"Well, at least we have service," Sanji said with a hopeful voice, holding up his cell. Then a moment later, "Shit, my battery died..."
Zoro almost broke down and kissed the cook again because his face was just so damn cute! Zoro noticed that the blonde stroked his goatee lightly when he was in deep concentration. He shivered as he recalled that soft goatee against his face.
"Oi, are you okay?" The blonde man asked.
"Just peachy," was his reply. "There is only one way to go from here," he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Oh, really?" Sanji asked sarcastically, " And which way is that, pry tell?"
"Forward, duh!"
"Gosh, you are such a smart ass, marimo," the blonde said tiredly. "Which way would you suggest, oh wise one?"
Sneering, Zoro pointed in the direction he thought was best.
"Then we are going the other way," the blonde declared, walking down the road.
As the blonde marched despite loud protests from Zoro, the young swordsman decided to put his feelings away untill he could take them out later and examine then when he was alone. Things were just too weird right now. He reached for the hip that usually held his swords, and found it empty once again. He sighed as he walked after Sanji, studying the bright blue sky. It was days like these that he had loved as a child. That SHE had loved... Zoro clentched his hands into fists at his sides. Today was just one confusing minute after another.
I hope you all liked this chapter! PLEASE REMEMBER TO REVIEW! And thanks you to all of you guys that are reading too! I love you all! ^-^
