Sanji was awake, this in itself was not unusual, Sanji was awake a lot, probably more than the rest of the crew. He got up early to cook breakfast, and he stayed up late cleaning the dishes from dinner. So the fact that Sanji was awake was not abnormal, nor was the fact that he was the only one awake, it was however unusual that it had been quite some time since he'd gone to bed and yet he was still not asleep. He'd been lying awake staring at the ceiling above him thinking about Zoro, or more specifically how Zoro was in the infirmary because of him.

He'd never hurt anyone with his food before, he'd never had anyone choke on a carelessly left fishbone, he'd never given anyone food poisoning, and up until now no one had ever had an allergic reaction to any of his food. But now they had. Sanji had scavenged through Chopper's medical textbooks and browsed through a few basic medial books that Robin had in her possession, they interested her because of their previous owner's history rather than their content, and he'd found out what had really happened. He'd heard Chopper mention in his medical babble when asked about what had actually happened to Zoro that the swordsman had gone into anaphylactic shock. Sanji hadn't known what that'd meant. So he'd found out.

Now he kind of wished he hadn't. That wheezing sound that Zoro had been making, that was his airways swelling shut, his skin going bright red wasn't from the heat of his food or the coughing but it was his whole body screaming against what Sanji had fed him, his skin swelling was from his body attacking him from the inside out. All because Sanji had fed him something. Apparently people died from this. Sanji had known that reactions were dangerous and unpleasant but he'd thought that people who died from it did so because they didn't get to a doctor or because no one treated them. Turns out that there was every likelihood that Zoro could have died even with Chopper there. Chopper could have had to cut his throat open to help him breathe, and even that wasn't certain to work.

And it was all. His. Fault.

It didn't matter that he hadn't known, or that Zoro had never so much blinked when Sanji had fed him the ingredients in that dip before in other meals. What mattered was that he had cooked it, he had served it, and it had nearly killed his nakama. And it wasn't like Zoro was any better now, the drugs that Chopper had given him were both making Zoro stoned and making him suddenly fall asleep. And even when he wasn't asleep Zoro was so drowsy that he could hardly do anything.

So there Sanji was, lying in his hammock at god knows what time of night feeling guiltier than he ever had in his life. Well, almost as guilty as finding out that Zeff lost his leg for him, but then again, that had been Zeff's choice. Zoro hadn't known that Sanji's food would almost kill him, he didn't take that risk for a reason, it just happened. Zeff had known that sacrificing his leg to save Sanji would mean he couldn't fight like he used to, Zoro hadn't known that eating Sanji's food would make him come this close to dying and never being the world's greatest swordsman.

Sanji growled and sat up. He stared where he knew the clock was in the room. It was… dark 'o'clock. Named so because it was too dark to see the fucking clock! He muttered and left the men's bunk room, he clearly wasn't going to sleep now. He stalked into the galley and surveyed it. The place was clean of course, Sanji never left the kitchen until it was. He sighed and sidled over to the sink. He'd already washed and re-washed every utensil in his kitchen that could have possibly come into contact with the dip's ingredients. And then he'd washed everything that hadn't. Twice.

Every surface was sparkling, he knew that even the tiniest amount of an allergen to someone who had a food allergy could set them off. The only way he could make the place cleaner was to ask Franky just to rip the kitchen out and build him a new one. Anyway, Zoro hadn't reacted to the soup so he'd cleaned enough.

Which was a pain because he needed to do something to stop his mind going on and on about Zoro and his stupid allergies. So Sanji decided to go through his cupboards. He supposed it was most likely to be the peanuts in the dip that cause the reaction, more people were allergic to them than chillies, but… one couldn't be too careful. He searched through every cupboard for nuts and for chillies and anything that had either in and crammed them all into an airtight box. He locked it and then he put it in the back of a storage cupboard where he kept his kitchen cleaning equipment. Then he locked the cupboard. After that he took the precaution of washing his hands about six times and then all the sides of his kitchen.

He leant back against the work surface and sighed, it wasn't even starting to get light outside of the portholes yet. His nerves were fried, he wanted to know how the dumb Marimo was doing so he could relax and stop torturing himself over something that he knew rationally wasn't his fault. Knowing that didn't stop him feeling bad though, food was supposed to heal people not hurt them.

He leapt about a foot in the air when he heard the crash outside. He skidded out of the galley and onto the ledge faster than he would have liked to admit. Down below on the grass deck of the Sunny Chopper was being dragged along by Zoro, who was apparently not completely restrainable even in Chopper's largest human form. Zoro was struggling against Chopper's large furry hands on his chest, trying to get away from Chopper and to… where? The way he was going he was going to head off of the edge of the ship. Was the swordsman hallucinating or something? Chopper slid his large furry leg sideways and pushed Zoro's legs out from under him, the swordsman squirmed and shouted in the Doctor's arms as he was thrown over Chopper's shoulder fireman's lift style.

"Hey, is everything okay?" Sanji called out as he jumped down to the lawn deck.

"Everything's fine," Chopper said looking over his shoulder at Sanji. Zoro pushed himself against Chopper's back and looked up at Sanji and grinned happily, it was almost a Luffy like grin.

"Sanji." He said happily.

"Zoro, how are you feeling?" Sanji asked, wondering why he was talking to Zoro like he would a child.

"I'm hungry." Zoro whined. Sanji briefly wondered why stoned Zoro talked as if he was Luffy and then considered what Luffy would sound like in the same situation, probably not much different really. You couldn't get much more irrational and weird than their rubber captain already was.

"I can make you something to eat." Sanji replied quickly, after a second he wondered why he'd jumped to offer the swordsman food at dark 'o' clock at night when normally he'd tell him to piss off and wait until morning.

"Yes!" Zoro exclaimed excitedly.

"No." Chopper said turning around quickly to head back to the infirmary.

"Sanji didn't get up in the middle of the night just to feed you, you need to sleep. You need to get better." Chopper said firmly to Zoro and started walking back towards the infirmary.

"Argh! No!" Zoro snarled trying to punch Chopper in the back, he squirmed some more.

"Give me back my swords so I can fight you! I wanna eat!" Zoro demanded.

"I don't really see any incentive for me to do that, Zoro." Chopper sighed. Zoro growled and made a decent attempt to knock Chopper's hat off of his head, unfortunately because of the doctor's antlers all Zoro's attack did was tilt it at a jaunty angle. Zoro leaned up and looked pleadingly at Sanji.

"Sanji! Help!" Zoro begged reaching out towards the cook. Sanji's legs were moving before he realised it, and his mouth was working without the help of his brain too.

"Hey, I don't mind. I'm already up." Sanji said quickly, brushing Chopper's lab coat with his fingers. Zoro grinned and grabbed Sanji's wrist with a smile.

"It's fine, he needs to sleep and rest to get better." Chopper answered, taking another step. Zoro whined in protest and tugged on Sanji's arm. Now Sanji was being dragged along by Chopper too!

"Really, it's no problem. Look, he probably thinks it's dinner time anyway. He didn't eat any lunch, except for that damn dip. So his body's probably so out of it that he thought the soup was lunch and now he's hungry for dinner." Sanji explained. Zoro meanwhile had grabbed Sanji's shoulder and appeared to be using him as an anchor to pull himself out of Chopper's grip with, either that or he was trying to climb off of Chopper and onto Sanji.

"And I'm guessing that he needs full time supervision anyway, and you can't give that if you're tired from not sleeping. You need to go to bed for a few hours, and while you do I'll feed him and keep an eye on him." Sanji continued. Zoro's arms were now halfway down Sanji's back in his attempt to squirm his way off of Chopper. Chopper jerked his shoulder with Zoro on causing the swordsman to slide slightly back to where he'd been a moment ago. His fingers dragged their way up Sanji's spine as they did so, making Sanji shudder in a way he'd really rather not think about.

"I was… falling asleep when he escaped. I must have dozed off." Chopper admitted quietly.

"See?" Sanji sighed sympathetically. Chopper sighed and let go of Zoro who promptly flung himself off of Chopper's shoulder and onto Sanji, where they both promptly landed in a tangled heap on the floor. Zoro laughed victoriously in Sanji's ear, apparently pleased with his escape. The fact that said escape had more to do with Chopper letting him go than Zoro's escape abilities apparently didn't put a damper on the marimo's mood.

"Unf." Sanji grunted shoving the cackling swordsman off of him.

"Once he's done eating take him back to the infirmary, he does need to sleep." Chopper said rubbing his tired eyes.

"So do you." Sanji said raising his curly eyebrow. Chopper turned to leave but paused, he looked over his shoulder at Sanji.

"Don't let anything he says get to you, he doesn't know what he's saying or doing." Chopper said warningly. Sanji decided not to point out that if he let everything the swordsman said hurt his feelings that he'd be a mental case by now, and really, he was more than used to ignoring the stupid moss-for-brains swordsman anyway.

"So… he's hallucinating or something?" Sanji asked raising an eyebrow and looking down at the marimo on the grass deck, the weirdo's hair blended in perfectly with the grass.

"No, not hallucinating but… he's just saying whatever thought he has and doing whatever he thinks of. He's got no mental filter or impulse control, so don't let him get to you, he's not trying to be mean or anything." The doctor explained, Sanji nodded in agreement, that was fair enough.

"And don't kick him." Chopper added as an afterthought and straightened his crooked hat.

"I'm not in the habit of kicking sick people, especially not when I made them sick." Sanji said huffily.

"Don't blame yourself, I'm going to sleep for a few hours then… call me if you need me." Chopper yawned loudly.

"I think I can handle one stoned marimo." Sanji snorted pulling Zoro to his feet.

"Come on, food." Sanji said stalking back towards the galley with Zoro trailing behind him happily. Sanji ventured a glance at the swordsman as he held the door open for him at the galley, not trusting the marimo to be able to hold a door open and walk in his state. The swordsman looked undeniably strange without his swords on his him and Sanji wondered how much of his staggering was from his sluggish reflexes and how much was down to him being not weighted down like he usually was. Though with Zoro acting like he was he could certainly see why Chopper thought it wise to remove the weapons.

Zoro stumbled into a seat, nearly fell off of it and then righted himself again. He laughed at himself and steadied himself on the stool by the kitchen counter and watched Sanji as he made his way around to the other side. Sanji regarded him quietly, his eyes were still huge in the light and his behaviour was clearly still off. But he looked a little better though; his skin wasn't quite as red as it had been before, although it was still very patchy in colour.

"What do you want then?" Sanji asked gesturing to the kitchen around him. Zoro tilted his head and seemed to think about this for a second before his face cracked into a huge grin, Sanji chalked one up against Zoro apparently not filtering his actions, he certainly wasn't acting like the stoic swordsman that Sanji knew.

"Sushi!" Zoro exclaimed happily. Sanji raised an eyebrow at this.

"I'm not cooking you sushi at god knows what time in the morning. It's too fucking complicated, pick something else." Sanji grunted scratching his head.

"But… but you make the best sushi in the world!" Zoro whined. Sanji's eyebrows climbed yet higher as Zoro pressed his head against the counter top and pressed his hands together as if in prayer.

"Please, you have to make me some." Zoro begged. Sanji could feel the evil grin on his face. No brain to mouth filter? Check. So, Zoro really thought Sanji's sushi was that good then did he? Good enough to beg for? Oh, this would be priceless. Normally he was above kicking a man when he was down but it was so good to actually hear that the marimo liked his food despite all of his snide comments, and if his sushi really was that good as far as Zoro was concerned then the possibilities were endless. He could imagine it already.

'Zoro, take these back to the ship for me!'

'Do it yourself!'

'Fine, no sushi ever again for you then…'

'What? FINE!'

Oh god, that was going to be brilliant. Not to mention how embarrassed Zoro would be when he realised that he'd admitted this fact to him. Oh yes, Sanji could eek MONTHS of teasing out of this revelation.

"Best sushi in the world huh?" Sanji asked grinning darkly.

"Yes, best. EVER." Zoro nodded enthusiastically.

"Sushi it is then." Sanji said practically purring. Never let it be said that flattery didn't get you anywhere with black leg Sanji.

Sanji started preparing his rice, normally he'd let it rest in the water for longer before hand, but he had a hungry marimo to feed right now, so he'd skip that part. It took him a little while to realise that Zoro was watching his every move intently, which was a little unusual, he usually didn't cook in front of an audience or at least not for long. But Zoro was watching him like he was the most fascinating thing in the world. It was… a little creepy if Sanji was honest. Eventually he couldn't stand it anymore.

"What?" he snapped spinning around and starling the swordsman so much that he almost fell off of the barstool. Zoro's hand flew to his hip for his swords, it look a little while of staring at his empty hip before he relaxed slightly and looked back up at Sanji.

"What?" Zoro asked back, sounding more confused than anything.

"Stop… staring. It's creepy." Sanji chided him and went back to cutting carrots. After a moment Zoro's face fell and he frowned at Sanji.

"You don't like me at all do you?" Zoro asked quietly in a voice so small that Sanji's hands stilled and he had to just stare up at the marimo. Zoro looked… a little crushed if Sanji was honest. He opened and closed his mouth a few times.

"I mean, I know we fight and stuff. And shout. But, you don't like me do you?" Zoro said staring down at Sanji's frozen hands.

"No, and you don't like me either." Sanji finally managed to say huffily.

"I like you." Zoro said honestly, looking Sanji right in the eye.

God, I see what Chopper meant…

"Sure we fight and shout and scream but that's fun. But you don't actually like me." Zoro repeated before shrugging looking away. Sanji just stared, Zoro looked… hurt almost.

"Oi," He said finally, rapping the stupid swordsman on the knuckles with the flat of his knife, "you're a slob and you annoy the shit out of me, but I like you. You're my nakama."

Zoro's back straightened slightly at that and he looked sidelong at the chef who had since turned his attention back to the food that he was preparing.

"Would you like me if we weren't nakama?" Zoro asked after a moment or two. Sanji's back stiffened at that.

"How am I supposed to know, idiot? I've never known you and not been your nakama." Sanji finally retorted, feeling fed up of this weird conversation. He almost wished that he had the absentminded odd Zoro from this afternoon back, even if it did mean that Zoro would try and steal his leg and molest his calves.

"What about when we first met?" Zoro asked smugly, apparently pleased at being able to think of an example.

"No, I didn't like you then. But did you like me then?" Sanji retorted knowing the answer already. Zoro laughed at that.

"No, you were loud and obsessed with that sea witch." Zoro snorted, but suddenly his face became serious again.

"You're always obsessed with them. And they've both betrayed you. You let them walk all over you." Zoro growled angry.

"Don't talk about them like that, besides, they both had good reasons. And we're all together now so what does it matter?" Sanji retorted, his own temper flaring up at this. He should have just let Chopper take him back to the stupid infirmary and damn his conscience.

"I've never betrayed you." Zoro pointed out.

"Tch." Sanji tutted dismissively and turned his back on the swordsman. The oil in his pan was hot enough now and he needed to fry the carrots for the carrot kinpira while the rice cooled. Knowing that the swordsman couldn't see his face now he allowed the troubled look to return to his face. Why was Zoro even bringing all of this up? Did he really think everything he was saying and really feel like that or were they just passing thoughts that he couldn't censor out?

He swished the carrots around in the oil. True, Zoro had commented before that Sanji was dumb for treating the girls the way he did but he's just put that down to the marimo having well… moss for brains. But did it actually bother him? He'd never even thought about the thick-skinned marimo having feelings before so much less was the idea there that those feelings could be hurt. But really, was that his fault? Zoro never acted ruffled about anything bar arguing with Sanji and it wasn't like that bothered Zoro, in fact Zoro had as much as said a moment ago that he liked fighting with Sanji.

So were Robin and Nami really bothering him so much? Or rather… how Sanji treated them? That was ridiculous, they were ladies, they had to be treated properly. And it wasn't as if Sanji treated Zoro any differently to the other men in the crew.

Sanji winced slightly. Even internally the lie felt bad.

Okay, so he treated the swordsman bad, so what? Zoro had never been his best friend either. And it wasn't like the two were likely to sit down together and drink tea and discuss their feelings. Perhaps he should then take this rare opportunity of honesty from Zoro to find out what the problem was here.

Yes, he should definitely say something. Besides, if the conversation went badly he could just claim that it never happened and the moss-brain imagined it.

Sanji turned, mouth open, prepared to bite the bullet and demand to know what the marimo was really thinking… only to find said swordsman sleeping on his folded arms on the countertop. He sighed, so much for that opportunity. He peered closely at the sleeping Zoro, his cheeks were red and patchy still, and Sanji thought that he looked stupid all red like that. For a start he clashed with his own hair.

"I guess you really were tired, huh." Sanji sighed and turned back to his cooking. He wouldn't wake Zoro until his (second) dinner was ready, Chopper had said that he needed his rest after all.

A while later and Sanji was glaring at the arrangement of sushi on the plate before him trying to work out if it was visually pleasing enough to serve. A few moments of scrutiny later and Sanji nodded, apparently satisfied. He shook Zoro's shoulder lightly, Zoro snored. Sanji shook him a little harder, this resulted in a slightly interrupted snore but still the marimo was asleep.

"Oi!" Sanji snapped, jabbing Zoro in the temple. Finally Zoro opened his eyes and grunted at Sanji.

"Food." Sanji said waving the plate in front of his face. Zoro's eyes opened properly at that and he grabbed the plate excitedly and began inhaling the sushi faster than Sanji would have believed was possible for anyone who wasn't Luffy. Sanji sighed and rolled his eyes, Zoro still had no manners, stoned or otherwise.

Sanji's fingers twitched and he tried to resist the urge to light another cigarette, remembering Choppers previous prohibition on making Zoro's inflamed lungs more irritated. Still, he thought as he watched Zoro scarfing down his food, at least he seemed to be enjoying it. Zoro was licking his fingers clean now and from the pleased sound that Zoro was making at the back of his throat Sanji could guess that the sushi was appreciated.

"Mm, 'at was good. 'nkyou" Zoro grinned sleepily as he handed the plate back to Sanji.

"You're… welcome." Sanji ventured uncertainly. He tried to search his memories for any time when Zoro had thanked him for anything, much less a little midnight snack. Sanji grinned as he washed the plate quickly, so the marimo did actually have some manners deep down then, he just deliberately ignored them. Sanji wasn't sure if that was better or worse. He set the clean dish in the rack and looked at the now fed Zoro, he was already starting to nod off to sleep again.

"Come on, you need to go to bed or Chopper'll kill me." Sanji said shooing the green-haired man from his kitchen.

"But-" Zoro protested as Sanji shoved him out of the kitchen and turned the lights off in the galley as they left.

"Argue with me and I'll kick you all the way to the infirmary." Sanji threatened, shoving Zoro in the right direction.

"Well I'll-" Zoro started, his hand reaching to his still empty hip. Zoro looked down at where his swords should be and scowled.

"You'll what?" Sanji grinned shoving him again. Zoro gave him another death glare and then stalked off in the wrong direction.

"Oh good, you're going the right way to the infirmary." Sanji lied sneakily. Zoro about-faced and walked the other way, in the actual right direction this time. Sanji followed inserting various lies such as 'that's the wrong hallway, the infirmary's the other way' and 'oh no, not that door' until he'd tricked the navigationally-challenged marimo into walking himself right into the correct room.

Sanji smirked nastily and shut and locked the door behind him.

"Hey! You lied!" Zoro said accusingly.

"I know, I'm a terrible person. Ensuring that you follow the doctor's orders and don't make yourself sicker, I'll never be able to live with myself." Sanji deadpanned, shoving Zoro in the direction of the bed. Zoro yawned and looked at Sanji thoughtfully.

"You're not getting out of here, the door's locked even if you could beat me to get out. And right now you couldn't fight your way out of a wet paper bag, so I'd reconsider that thought." Sanji answered before Zoro could even open his mouth.

"I've got better things to do than fight you, ero-cook." Zoro said haughtily, as if he hadn't just been considering attempting to overpower Sanji and escape out of spite.

"Of course." Sanji agreed, settling into the chair by the door. Zoro glared and grumbled unhappily but eventually got into bed. Sanji watched him trying to fight sleep out of spite, but it wasn't long until he was dead to the world and curled up under the blanket. Sanji smiled to himself and settled himself lower down in the chair he was in, which was surprisingly comfortable. He yawned and tried to remember to stay awake, where had his earlier insomnia and restlessness gone? Sanji stretched his legs and peacefully settled down to an almost sleep, his half open eyes watching Zoro for any signs of escape attempts.