Shot Through the Heart

Chapter Two

"All right, great, I found it!" Nami cried triumphantly, a magazine flapping behind her as she came running into the galley.

"I SAID, stop looking at me!" Zoro turned and shrieked, his blood pressure still patently off the charts as he tried to stay casual about the fact that Sanji was leaning over the table and staring at him, grinning.

"Zoro-kun is so passionate!" Sanji chirped. The assembled audience of Luffy, Usopp, Robin, and Chopper cringed and shuddered from the utter weirdness of it all. No one was really paying attention to Nami.

She stomped her foot and shouted, "HEY! I have some information! About Love-Love Island and what happened here!"

"Why didn't you have it before?" Zoro growled, and scooted back and forth, expertly dodging Sanji's hands as they tried to grab for his swords, "stop it!"

"I just wanted to polish your swords for you…" Sanji pouted, by this point crawling on top of the table.

Robin snickered, but no one seemed to notice. They'd gotten used to the fact that she derived more than simple amusement from certain things. Everyone chalked it up to her age and left it alone.

"Because it was an article in a pulp magazine!" she held up a copy of 'Mysteries of the Grand Line', a cheap serial that was quite popular with those who had never actually sailed the Grand Line, "I always thought it was just a story, but apparently it's true!"

She flipped through the magazine, trying to find the correct page. Meanwhile, Zoro was trying rather loudly to explain that his swords didn't NEED polishing, as Sanji pestered him with other requests to do simpering, menial tasks.

Nami read aloud, "Love-Love Island, so named for its startling land formation very similar to a heart, was a famed honeymoon destination for the wealthiest citizens of the Grand Line…..blah blah blah….until a pirate by the name of Cupid the Matchmaker began to terrorize the island with her peculiar brand of trickery. The irresistible beauty, using the powers of the mysterious Ai-Ai Fruit, would cause visiting newlywed husbands to fall in love with her, afterwards easily walking away with everything they owned. The hapless men would remain devoted to Cupid for the rest of their lives, leaving the wives alone on Love-Love Island, bitter, betrayed, and completely untrusting of beautiful women—' well that certainly explains things, '—even when the tourists began to avoid Love-Love Island, Cupid continued to patrol the sea surrounding it, easily pillaging merchant and pirate ships with her devilish wiles. Cupid is not considered armed and dangerous, but for the psychological havoc she has wrought, she is Wanted by the Marines for—' it doesn't say anything indicating that the effects can be reversed!"

Zoro inched toward the door, dragging a clinging Sanji along. "Let! Go! Of! Me!"

"I'll never let go, Zoro-kun! I'll never let go!" Sanji sang sweetly. Usopp appeared as if he might be sick.

"Oi, Zoro," Nami reached over and plucked one of Zoro's ears, holding him at bay for a few moments, "this is fun to watch and all, but we have some serious research to do if we want to save your sanity – and Sanji's. Before you kill him, or yourself, or both, might you consider taking one for the team? At least until we figure out what to do, here?"

Judging from Zoro's expression, it seemed that Nami had just asked him to slit an infant's throat. " 'Take one for the team'? And just what is THAT supposed to mean!"

Nami pointed sternly. Sanji was climbing him like a tree, but Zoro managed to stay paralyzed with anger and shock. "He'll probably be much easier to handle if you just let him do as he pleases! All he wants to do right now is fawn over you – it's not like you can complain about having a personal slave, now, right!"

Zoro growled in his throat, and twisted his lip in a moment of wondering whether it was worth it to argue with Nami. Finally, he addressed the skinny blonde hanging from around his shoulders. "Oi! Cook!"

"Haaiii?" Sanji replied, eager to please and happy to be acknowledged.

"Make me something to eat."

Sanji was off of him immediately, bounding toward the counter as if dancing on air. "Of course! Of course! Whatever Zoro-kun desires!"

Nami watched carefully and actually saw Zoro smirk, as he crossed his arms and went on. "Yeah, I'd like the absolute finest meal you can make. With lots of meat. And something battered in rum."

"Hai, Zoro-kun!" Tying his apron behind his back, Sanji kicked one leg back and posed.

"What are we supposed to eat?" Luffy asked feebly, his fear beginning to set in.

"You're not hated in town – I supposed you can go find something at one of the restaurants," Nami explained. Luffy barely heard her words before he set off, "meanwhile we can try to get to the bottom of this. There has to be SOME way to get Sanji back to normal…"

"Um, just don't be EXTREMELY quick about it," Zoro muttered, "I do want whatever's he's fixing for me."

"You do know he'll probably want to feed it to you by hand, right?" Nami almost whispered in passing. Zoro bristled, but didn't have a comeback prepared before Usopp and Chopper hurried past. Chopper tugged on his pant-leg, and Zoro glanced down.

"Do you want me to stay?" Chopper asked.

"Why would I need you to stay?" Zoro asked coldly, but not quite as harshly as he would have addressed any of the others.

Chopper looked a little puzzled with his own reasoning. "Well….he just looks pretty crazy….he might hurt you…"

"He won't hurt me."

"But—"

"Trust me. I'll tell you when you're older." He patted Chopper on the head, and the reindeer skittered off after the others, with Robin bringing up the rear.

"Anything you'd like for me to pick up for you in town?" Robin asked, her tone expectedly snide.

"Yeah, a muzzle might be useful for that creep if we can't figure out some way to make him behave."

Robin breezed off with a chuckle at this.

After some time of nervous waiting, hoping perhaps that Sanji had forgotten he was there, Zoro lifted one foot and scratched the back of his other ankle. How did Nami handle this, he wondered to himself. She milked Sanji's affection for all it was worth, but she seemed much better at doing it.

In the midst of his reverie, Sanji walked up, holding a spoonful of something. It must have been whatever was smelling so wonderful at the moment. "Taste," he commanded happily, and held the spoon up for Zoro. Though he narrowed his eyes as if in warning, Zoro opened his mouth and allowed himself to be fed the sample.

Whatever it was, it tasted delectable. Spectacular. Better than anything Sanji had cooked for them before. But then, he had to remind himself, Sanji did always try a lot harder for the women, if he tried for the men at all. As Zoro swallowed back the concoction, he noticed that Sanji was waiting on pins and needles for his approval.

"It's good," he managed, averting his glance, feeling almost dumb to be offering the cook any sort of encouragement.

"Thank you," Sanji bowed at the shoulders, and backed up to the stove. With a curious glance over his shoulder, he added, "Zoro-kun, would you like to sit down? The sauce might take a while to simmer."

Zoro shifted uneasily. How embarrassing. "Yeah, sure, I guess." Embarrassing, and surreal on top of that. He walked over to the table as if creeping past a wolf, and took a seat carefully. When he finally looked up, Sanji was, as expected, staring at him. "WHAT! What are you looking at?" he shouted.

"Zoro-kun is very handsome." Sanji explained with a smile.

At this, Zoro's stomach did a little flip-flop. Having never heard such a compliment before, he'd always expected to be informed of his good looks by someone of the opposite sex, at least. And certainly not by I Sanji /I , if it came down to that. He stared blankly for a moment, his eyes fixed on the blonde, his lips narrowed uneasily, and finally stammered a reply.

"St-stop that! That makes me uncomfortable!" He cried. In fact, the whole situation made him uncomfortable. But, judging from Nami's assessment of the situation, saying so wouldn't really help his cause.

"I'm sorry!" Sanji drew back slightly, and his face melted into an apologetic look, "I just can't look away, because every time I do, I want to look at you again!"

"This is so twisted." Zoro muttered to himself, and leaned into one hand, cringing.

"I'm sorry!" Sanji cried, more crazed than before, and fell onto the bench next to Zoro. He rested his face against the swordsman's shoulder, and begged, "please don't hate me! I'll do whatever you ask!"

"Keep yourself busy and don't ever come near me."

"…except that."

"Why did I expect as much?"

Sanji actually looked as if the thought of not being in Zoro's immediate presence had him in I pain /I . With a melodramatic flourish of his wrist, Zoro rolled his eyes and pronounced, "Fine. Siddown if you want to, just…I'm not big on talking, all right?"

"All right," Sanji replied, his tone kittenish as he pulled himself onto the bench beside Zoro. Again, Zoro had to wonder if he was just being his usual, overly abrasive self in this situation. It could be considered mostly harmless, if he looked at things from an outsider's point-of-view. He'd shared a living space with Yosaku and Johnny, and in those two years he'd seen them indulge in more platonic physical contact than most romantic couples could stand. But something about the way Sanji cuddled next to him, wrapping his slender arm around Zoro's, pressing him shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh…it just irked him in a way he couldn't begin to explain.

"Hey, hey," he squirmed a bit next to Sanji, feeling a bit trapped, like a blonde barnacle was clinging to him, "not so…tight, okay?"

"I'm sorry, am I hurting you?" Sanji eased his already-gentle grip on Zoro's arm, and managed to sound genuinely concerned. It was only a split-second thought that kept Zoro from slapping him across the room with what would have been a dire implication of war on any other day.

"N-no! Just…listen, I don't—"

He wondered, for a second, in a thoroughly unusual moment of double-thought, if there would be any side-effects if he totally brushed off Sanji's affections.

Or was that what he was really thinking, at all? Was it just that the words "I don't like you" were so quick on his tongue? He'd never really thought about it, before. What those words really meant.

He didn't I hate /I Sanji, much as he wanted to put his head through a wall most days. He was a good person, a respectable fighter…even if he could be a grade-A doofus at times like these…in fact, most of the time…

"Zoro?" Sanji ran a finger through his earrings, tickling a spot that was far too sensitive for Zoro not to start back in shock.

"Don't do that!" He clapped a hand to his ear, eyes wide and fearful, teeth bared as if Sanji were some monster intent on eating his soul. A blush rose, despite all his inner urgings that it didn't. The cook only shrunk back a little, poking his index fingers together, looking more repentant than Zoro had ever seen him.

"…sorry…" Sanji said softly. For a long moment, neither spoke. The surreal quality of the scene sank into Zoro's brain again, as he slumped against the table and tried to look nonchalant about the outburst. There was no good reason this should feel so awkward. No good reason why his nerves were so rattled by something as simple as Sanji being less than a breath away. He'd expected to feel disgust, maybe ennui, but certainly not something as compromising as this.

Unable to stay away, perhaps feeding off the closeness of Zoro like a sort of Devil-Fruit-induced drug addiction, Sanji sidled close again, and tentatively leaned against his shoulder. He was tenser this time, ready for any sharp movements he knew Zoro was wont to make. But still, they didn't speak. The food bubbled and crackled and sizzled in three separate pans on the stove, and that was the only soundtrack.

Zoro looked at the wall, straight ahead. He was contemplating, as deeply as Zoro could possibly contemplate. About as deep as a birdbath.

There were instincts being tugged at. Past thoughts he'd long considered harmless were fluttering to life once more. And, with slow realizations that he'd hoped to never reveal to himself, or the crew, or I least /I of all Sanji, he knew why, at the very beginning of this whole fiasco, an inexplicable terror had gripped him.

Sanji sighed deeply - a high-pitched, blissful sigh. Zoro gulped by contrast.