Day 2 - Appetites
As soon as Zoro was far enough away, Chopper ran to Sanji, but the cook waved him off.
"I'm fine. Don't pay him any mind, Chopper. He's just being a bear because he drank too much last night. I'll kick his ass later and pay him back."
"Pay him back for what?" Usopp asked, curious.
Sanji piled meat and toast on Usopp's plate by way of reply. "He's just being an ass. I'd avoid him until lunch if I were you."
Usopp studied the swimming form in the distance as he chewed on a sausage. "Huh."
The rest of the morning went by calmly as the crew fished and foraged, napped and played. It wasn't often they got to just relax and unwind these days. The Grand Line was the sowing ground of the strong and ambitious, after all, and the nature of the log poses meant that they ran into other pirate crews fairly often. That afternoon, they were joined by two such ships and promptly attacked.
Sanji looked up from the large, stone-lined sand pit where he was carefully stoking the coals to the right temperature. He'd been slow roasting one of the pigs Usopp had caught since first light, and the meat was at a crucial point in the cook. When you were a pirate chef, however, you had to stir the soup with a knife on occasion. He'd been watching the other ships approach for some time with a wary eye, and as they beelined for the little caravel, he knew his dish would have to wait. Sighing, he stood and stretched. He wondered, not for the first time, if Luffy attracted trouble through some unseen energy field.
"Luffy! They're going for it!" he called. He went and collected his sandals as he made his way to the dingy they used to shuttle to and from the Merry. He nudged the sleeping swordsman with his foot as he passed. "Time to earn your keep, mosshead!"
Zoro merely grunted and rolled over.
Sanji stalked back and slapped his sandals together over the other man's ear, raining down grains of sand with each whack. "C'mon, you dozy bastard. What are all those muscles for if not fighting?"
Zoro seized Sanji's wrist in a crushing grip.
"Hey, don't damage the goods," the cook warned in a low voice.
"Yay, pirates!" Luffy bellowed, running up. "Let's go! Let's go!"
Zoro released him with a snort and followed after Luffy. They splashed through the water and clambered into the small boat, arguing about how to reach the Merry the fastest. Luffy wanted to slingshot them over, but Zoro—having suffered that mode of transport one too many times—shoved a paddle in the rubber man's hands resolutely. Sanji rubbed his wrist and joined them in the dingy.
"We'll do both," he said, settling down on a bench. "We'll get closer, and then you can grab the Merry, Luffy. We'll hold your legs, and you can drag us over in the boat."
Luffy looked gleeful at the prospect, Zoro less so. "But!" Sanji added firmly, "Let go before we get too close! Got it? Don't smash us into the ship!"
"Got it!" Their captain's laugh did not reassure him in the slightest.
They paddled out until Luffy was within range and got themselves into position. Luffy drew back as far as he could and with a snap, shot both arms careening towards the Merry. He grabbed onto the sheep masthead, and for one endless-seeming second, they held their position until the elastic force of his arms rebounded and pulled them forward with a deafening CRACK.
Sanji had one brief moment when he thought his shoulders would dislocate from trying to hold onto Luffy and the boat to wonder why he'd suggested such a suicidal plan before they were hurtling at breakneck speed for the ship.
"Let go, let go!" he was screaming. Or was it Zoro?
Both he and the swordsman released Luffy's legs and held on to the sides of the dingy for dear life as it zipped on towards the Merry's wall-like bow of caulked timber. Luffy released his own grip at the very last second and used the remaining momentum to catapult himself up onto the deck. Sanji and Zoro arrived less gracefully but in one piece as the dingy banged rather than crashed into the hull.
"Get off, you dumbass cook!"
Sanji picked himself up off the swordsman with a curse. He would not be suggesting that again. Zoro sat up with a scowl and checked his swords while Sanji used one of the paddles to bring them alongside the anchor chain. He held the craft steady, and Zoro clambered up the great iron links. Wedging the boat in place by threading the oar through the metal loop, Sanji followed suit.
By the time he vaulted himself over the railing, a full-blown, chaotic three-sided battle was underway on the deck of the Merry. Sanji ducked as an axe whistled through the air and surveyed the scene. Zoro, as expected, was already well entrenched and scattering enemy pirates left and right. He only had two swords out, which Sanji took as a good sign. That meant there was nothing or no one particularly dangerous, so it was more an opportunity to stretch their legs than anything else. For his part, he would have preferred leaving it up to the dedicated fighters so he could go back to cooking, but he figured the quicker they cleared the problem, the quicker he could return to his pig.
His eyes swept the deck, checking for Nami and Robin. He found their navigator guarding the entrance to the belowdecks area. She had smudges of ink on her forehead and looked annoyed—a sure sign she'd been interrupted while working. Even sweaty and streaked with black she looked lovely to his eye. Nami didn't really have any bad looks. Sanji resolved to bake her some orange tuiles later to make up for the inconvenience. Robin, he found perched on the roof of the galley. She seemed untouched and unconcerned by the fighting, but he saw the tell-tale signs of her Devil Fruit everywhere as pirates too near the railings were tossed over by seemingly invisible hands. She turned the page of a book slowly and winked at him when he caught her eye.
Assured that the ladies were safe, he took stock of the situation and decided he could best serve things by taking out the cannons on the starboard-side ship. It looked like Robin had turned most of them around, but the enemy pirates were cottoning on, and a few were being pushed back into position to fire on the Merry.
Sanji casually punted a blunderbuss-wielding foe in Zoro's direction and backed up to make a quick jump to the other ship. As he leapt over the gap, he heard Luffy's delighted laughter ring out followed by the boom of a mast toppling over. The enemy ship on the port side had drawn the short straw, Sanji mused with a grin.
He landed and dispatched a pair of knife wielding grunts before turning his attention to the cannons. Luckily, the two-masted sloop only seemed to have deck-side artillery in action. He bent over the railing to be sure, but the gunports on the boarding side were tightly shuttered. It seemed they hoped to take the Merry rather than destroy it. Their mistake.
Sanji gauged the angle and force needed and took a running start at the first in the row of six 8-pounders lining the deck. He connected solidly at the joint between barrel and carriage and tore the cannon straight from its rigging, sending it careening into the others. They scattered over the deck like pins, some tipping into the water, all unusable. His sandal became unusable too. He eyed the mangled flipflop resignedly and removed both shoes. Satisfied that there was no more threat to the Merry from the ship itself, he leapt barefoot back over before what remained of the sloop's crew could intercept him.
"Namiiiii~," he called, waving his arms. "Need any help?"
She looked up, clima-tact in hand and pushed her damp bangs off her forehead. "All good," she said. "We—"
A pirate knocked back by one of Usopp's concussive shots fell at her feet. With a snarl, the scarred man shot up and swung the long blade of a cutlass around. Nami stepped back, but in her surprise was slow to defend herself. Sanji surged forward.
Light flashed off a length of folded steel and blood sprayed in a high, gushing arc. Nami screamed as the hot, red shower splashed her from head to waist. The pirate was screaming too—his arm neatly bisected at the elbow.
Sanji came to a stop next to Zoro. The black blade, Kitetsu, was out, and the swordsman was studying his handiwork with undisguised pleasure.
Nami shakily wiped the gore from her eyes. "Oh my god, Zoro. You—"
The pirate was writhing and howling on the deck, drowning out her words. Zoro raised his blade to finish it, but Sanji grabbed his wrist.
"What are you doing?! These guys are small fry. You don't have to kill them!"
Zoro looked at the hand on his wrist and fixed the other man with a smoldering eye. Sanji held his ground.
The injured pirate scrabbled at Sanji's feet, and he stepped back in disgust as more blood splattered on the planks. When he looked back up, Zoro was smirking at him. The swordsman shrugged as if to say soft, and then grabbed the thrashing pirate by the scruff of his neck and threw him bodily to the other ship. The screams faded as the man flew through the air and landed behind one of the cannons Sanji had dispatched.
Nami was still wiping furiously at the blood.
"Zoro, what the hell?! You didn't have to go so fa— I'm going to have to take 20 baths to get this out! Ugh, it's…"
Zoro laughed. His eyes traveled up and down her body, lingering here and there on her red-painted cheeks, her carnage-streaked collarbone, and the gleaming wet rise and fall of her breasts. She didn't notice his gaze in her effort to clean herself, but Sanji did. He stood there shocked to his core, rendered speechless less by the violence and more by the idea that Zoro was looking at a woman with something other than irritation. He knew it was hypocritical for him of all people to be upset about it, but the naked lust in Zoro's eyes filled him with indignation.
"It looks good on you," Zoro told her.
Nami flashed him an angry look and spun on her heel. She slammed the door behind her as she disappeared belowdecks.
The battle had mostly concluded by then, and aside from a few stragglers that Usopp was picking off from his vantage point up in the crow's nest, the only sounds of fighting came from the port side enemy ship that Luffy was still decimating with great joy. There was another crash, and Sanji looked over to see the top of a mainsail fluttering down.
Zoro held Kitetsu up and let the blood run down the blade. He swept a thumb up the length, eyes intent on the crimson liquid, collecting it as he went. Sanji turned back to him to give him a piece of his mind, but Zoro suddenly stepped into his space. He raised the dripping thumb and slowly ran it across Sanji's cheek and into his hair. The blood still felt warm.
Zoro studied his handiwork, a small smile playing at his lips. "It looks good on you too." Then he strode off to join Chopper in flinging over the rest of pirates they'd collected at the bow of the ship.
Sanji gaped after him for a moment, then scrubbed furiously at his face. "You… You crazy asshole! What the fuck is your issue today?!"
Zoro's laughter floated back, rich and mocking.
...
Dinner that night was a strange affair. They ate aboard the Merry—Sanji having decided that the pig needed more time—but the party-like atmosphere after their victory was strained by half of the crew being pissed off at Zoro.
Sanji slammed a platter of perfectly butter-poached shellfish in front of the swordsman and refused to refill the proffered tankard with beer.
"Get it yourself, shitty mosshead."
"Aww, Sanji, he was just kidding! Weren't you, Zoro?"
Luffy wrapped his rubber limbs around them both and drew them in. Sanji glared daggers at the other man before disentangling himself. Zoro merely laughed.
Nami folded her arms over her chest. "I'm with Sanji. I had to wash my hair four times to get the smell out!"
"Mellorine~!"
"But wasn't that guy gonna gut you?" Usopp said around a mouthful of curried potatoes.
"I could have blocked it. I'm pretty sure…" she grumbled, waving off Sanji's offer of oysters. "But even so! You didn't have to cut his arm off, Zoro! That's too much!"
Zoro shrugged.
Sanji set down a bowl of grilled bitter melon by Zoro's elbow with a bang. "Don't you usually use the backs of your swords for those kinds of guys? I thought you didn't dirty your blades with unworthy foes."
Luffy was unconcerned. "If anyone threatens my navigator, they deserve what they get."
Usopp nodded his agreement. "That guy was trying to give Chopper a haircut when I first hit him. He was asking for it."
Robin sipped her tea without comment, but a hand appeared by the stove and turned down the burner on some sauce that was starting to smoke.
"Anyway," Luffy said. "We won, right? Let's just have fun!"
"Yeah! There's no need to fight, guys," Chopper squeaked. The little reindeer stood on his chair and raised his mug. "To victory!"
Nami ruffled his fur fondly.
Luffy and Usopp held their mugs up. "Yeah! To victory!" Everyone followed suit and the party continued, but Sanji couldn't shake the faint smell of blood that seemed to linger in the air no matter how many dishes he made.
After the party wore down and the Straw Hats went to bed, or in Zoro's case up to the crow's nest for the night watch, Sanji was finishing the cleaning up in the galley. He was usually quick to tidy, but that night he found himself preoccupied with unwelcome thoughts of the swordsman, and the dishes sat half-finished in the sink as his mind wandered. He unconsciously raised a hand to his cheek and wiped at the spot where the blood had been smeared. No matter how many times he'd washed he could still feel the sticky heat of it. He couldn't imagine how Nami felt, doused in the stuff.
"That shitty bastard. How dare he do that to her!"
He reached over and angrily drank the last mouthful of wine in his glass. He eyed the bottle and promised himself one more small pour when he finished.
"Who's a shitty bastard?"
Sanji almost dropped the glass. Zoro was standing at his elbow by the sink.
"…Don't sneak up on people like that!" he said, trying to cover his surprise by lighting up a cigarette.
Zoro watched the long fingers tuck the gold lighter back into a shirt pocket.
"Get out of my kitchen, mosshead. I've got dishes to finish."
"…What if I helped?"
"You? You never help unless it's your turn on the rotation."
"Maybe I just want company, then."
"Shouldn't you be on watch?"
"Let me help."
Sanji looked at him from the corner of his eye. He didn't seem to be joking, but something in the low rumble of words gave him pause.
"Yeah, well… Fine. You can dry."
Zoro moved into place beside him and looked around for a towel.
"There's one in the top cabinet, like usual," Sanji said with a roll of the eyes. "Even on our own ship you can't remember your way around, huh?"
Zoro uncharacteristically didn't rise to the bait. He simply plucked a towel from the shelf and waited expectantly. Sanji began to wonder if something truly was bothering the other man.
They washed and dried in silence for some time. Zoro's movements were precise and thorough. Sanji didn't even have to call his name to remind him like he usually did. As he handed him the last glass, Sanji decided to be mature about the situation and ask what the matter was. They weren't friends exactly, but he knew every one of the swordsman's moods—or had thought he did until today anyway—and something was definitely up.
Sanji took a drag of his cigarette. "So, what's going on with you?" he asked.
Zoro grew still.
"You've been a son of a bitch all day, and then you went all out on that nobody, and…" Sanji turned to look at him. The heat of Zoro's gaze made his skin prickle. "I mean…"
"You know him pretty well, don't you?"
"What?"
"You're always watching me."
A curly brow rose in indignation. "I am not! You're the one who's been staring at everybody like a creeper! The way you looked at Nami today was—"
Zoro bared his teeth in a wolfish smile. "What was it like?"
Sanji floundered under the shameless, inviting expression. His ears grew hot. "You've…just never showed any interest in women before! At all! It's…"
Zoro set down the glass and moved closer, leaning over Sanji's shoulder. They were of similar height, but the other man's bulk effectively blocked him in by the sink. The swordsman brought his face in close, and for one wild, surreal second Sanji thought Zoro was going to kiss him. The other man's breath was a warm tickle against his ear as he spoke.
"What do you know of my appetites?" he said softly.
"I…"
He leaned even more, pinning Sanji against the basin. Shocked to his core for the second time that day, Sanji froze as he felt a hand on the back of his neck. Strong fingers, calloused and rough from countless hours of sword practice, gripped him hard by the nape. The hand was fever hot against his skin. The tips of the fingers feathered through the blond hair.
Outraged, Sanji tried to straighten up, but the hand held him firm, as unmoveable as steel, and the hard lines of Zoro's torso and legs made a solid wall of muscle behind him. He found himself being slowly bent over the sink, the metal lip pressing uncomfortably into his hips. Sanji's heart drummed a staccato beat in his chest.
"Zoro—!" he choked out.
The hand on his neck stopped. Carefully and with great deliberation, Zoro set the towel down by one white-knuckled, soapy hand…and then the pressure was gone. Sanji felt the other man abruptly turn and heard him walk away. There was a pause, then the door opened and clicked shut.
Face aflame, Sanji stared at the dregs in the sink until he was sure Zoro was gone. With conscious effort, he uncurled his hands from the rim and straightened. The gentle rocking of the Merry made the water slosh to-and-fro in the basin. His cigarette floated on the foamy surface until the orange embers were swallowed by the bubbles and sank.
To be continued...
