The next
night Zoro had knots. New knots.
"Idiot,"
Sanji said with a profound smugness, "You don't just magically
get knots in your back from lying in bed. Don't think I'm not up
at sunrise, shithead."
Zoro
mumbled something along the lines of "Bakayarou".
The door
swung open and closed. Usopp's heavy footsteps clanked down the
stairs into the spacious room. "Sanji, Chopper wants to know when
you're coming to make dinner."
"Can't
he come and ask himself?"
"Ano…that
has something to do with it. Luffy hasn't had any meat in the last
four hours."
Sanji
swore colourfully. "I told him that Chopper wasn't here to be
eaten…"
"Hey,
you're the one who said that he was the emergency rations."
"I was
joking!"
"And
since when does Luffy understand when someone is joking?"
A pause.
"Tell him I'll be done in twenty minutes. The shitty swordsman is
having too much fun making my job harder."
"Sure,"
Usopp started to leave as he spoke, "But don't you think you're
having too much fun spending time with the 'shitty swordsman'?"
Silence. The door slammed shut.
Zoro
laughed into the pillow. "He's right, you know. All you can do is
think about the next chance you have to screw around with me."
Sanji said
nothing, fishing in his pocket for his lighter. "You think I'm
doing this because I want to? I'm doing it because Nami sleeps
beside me. Nothing more. You got it?"
"Then
what was…you know…the kiss for?"
"Hey. I
wanted you to shut the hell up. Now would you please be quiet? Unlike
you, I have something that needs to be done and I don't like it
prolonged."
A long and
uneasy silence ensued as Sanji lit up, filling the air with the sweet
perfume of poison and commenced his task. Zoro knew he could tell he
had been out training but didn't really care. Sanji's hands were
all he really cared about at the moment.
His hands.
Fingers
like tiny stars; firm, yet gentle. Sporadic movement in a planned
pattern. They curled and uncurled and pressed and rolled with precise
movement, the tender and intimate commanding of intricate muscle. So
much unlike his own fingers, square, thick and virtually useless on
his own.
The
bastard began to chat to fill the silence. "Tell me about Kuina."
"Why?"
"Just
'cause I want to know in case you wake me up again in the middle of
the night."
A pause.
"Did I wake anyone else up?"
"Ano…no…"
"Don't
screw around. Chopper's a light sleeper. Just where were you
sleeping yesterday night?"
There was
no answer and Zoro knew he had made a small victory. Or was it? It
just confirmed that the cook was- though it couldn't be
true- sleeping right outside his room the night before. He shuddered
at the thought.
Finally,
the cook spoke. "I'll answer that if you tell me about Kuina."
"Not a
fair trade. I get to ask you a question of equal…um…discomfort."
"Fine."
Under his breath, "Bakayarou."
Zoro
grinned. "Glad to know how you think of me." He thought for the
perfect question and realized exactly what he wanted to ask. "So if
you're a cook, how come you're so goddamn skinny?"
The bastard answered by extinguishing his cigarette at the base of Zoro's spine. "Nicotine. Suppresses my appetite." He left without bothering to retie the bandage, cursing the swordsman who knew he was lying.
"But," said Kuina, gently stroking his hair, "You're not weak anymore. You could probably beat me 'cause you're all big and strong and I'm just a girl."
"Shut up."
"Naturally. Now that you're so strong, you're forgetting about me."
"I'm not strong, okay? I broke my back and have to have a bastard cook coddle me to make me better."
Kuina laughed and brushed back a strand of daisy-yellow-tinged hair. "Who's a bastard?" She casually removed the fuming cigarette from her mouth and tossed it aside. "After all, you don't have a father either."
There was a cold sweat pouring down his brow when he awoke to the scrape and shift of a ship reaching land. He was wrapped tight in the sheets and didn't have to worry about more hurting, but an uncontrollable longing to see where they were took over his mind, numbing it and leaving him in half-shock for something he had taken so for granted.
He put the two of his hands under his shoulder blades and tried without success to push himself out of bed in what should have been a ridiculously simple and easy push-up. His brain fired off anger and fear to the numb nerves that guided the touch of applied muscle to cold surface. Anorectics fear softness. Zoro feared atrophy. He turned over slowly onto his back.
The door
fell open and shut and the light, self-assured footsteps of the
resident female came clicking down the stairs.
"Rise
and shine, bastard."
"I'm
up, Cook-Who-Loves-Men."
"Shut
up. We need to get your hunk of meat out of the door, and you're
definitely not making it harder for me today."
"What
the hell?"
"We
stopped at an island with a hot springs, and Chopper decided that it
might speed up the recovery you seem so adamant about slowing down if
we left you in one for a couple of hours."
"…Not
going. Not like this."
Sanji
grinned and started to pull back the sheets, revealing a very prone
swordsman. "Aww, the widdle swowdsman feews so weak and scawed
awound people…get used to it." He leaned in close to Zoro's
face, leering and taunting with the sweet movement of his lips.
"Nope."
"Yes."
"You
kiss like an ashtray."
"You
kiss like a dead fish." He leaned in closer.
"…Spiral-eye
bastard."
"Girly-earrings
asswipe." Closer yet, now with his hands on Zoro's shoulders to
keep the injured party from possibly injuring him.
"…Fuck. You."
Oh, he had
struck some kind of chord that he would be sure to exploit if Chopper
had not come in at that moment (not eaten, thank you very much) with
bandages and a really weird look on his face when he saw the position
of the two.
"Um…Sanji…I...need...someonetowrapupZorosohecanbetransportedandyoulikebondagesocanyoudoitokaybye."
Chopper was gone faster than meat on supplies-restock day.
"Damn,"
said Zoro, "Nobody ever told me that a bondage freak would be my
masseuse."
"Shut
up."