Most people imagine that people drift lazily into consciousness, like a cloud floating through the sky, gentle and slow. Perhaps that was true, but Zoro didn't think so, in his experience you were unconscious and then there was pain and then you knew that you were conscious. As such when Zoro felt pain explode in his skull he decided that he was apparently conscious now. He tried vaguely to remember why he had been unconscious previously but nothing was coming to him.
He kept his eyes shut and his body relaxed as he ran quickly through his mental checklist, all his body parts seemed to be attached and none felt painful. Or at least not painful in the way that hinted at a fight. He felt a dull all-over ache, like when you had the flu and your bones hurt.
There was some noise that kept repeating itself, it had been for a while and it was starting to annoy him. He'd heard it when he first woke up of course but his brain had scanned through sounds that he knew and labelled it as 'not lethal' and shoved it to the back of his priority list. But now that he knew he was alive and in one piece he decided it was worth investigating. It was an annoying little sound. Shink. Click. Shink. Click. Shink. Click.
He was lying on his side in a bed, he opened his eyes and the world swam into focus. Something shiny danced in his vision and it focused itself helpful into the form of a small silver lighter, Sanji's lighter to be specific. Long nimble fingers toyed with it. Sanji's thumb flicked the lighter open with a deft flick of his nail, only to be pulled back before the flick of his other finger snapped the lighter shut again. Shink. Click. Shink. Click.
Now that the noise had identified Sanji and his stupid lighter as the source he decided to work out why Sanji was here, and where exactly here was. He could feel the roll of the ship beneath him and there were very few proper beds on the ship, Nami's, Robin's and the bed in the medical bay. From the antiseptic smell in the room he guessed the latter. He couldn't quite remember why he was here but Chopper wouldn't have put him here for no reason, so why then was Sanji here?
He tilted his head to look up at Sanji. The cook's face was creased with some emotion that Zoro couldn't quite read. There was rage there, bubbling below the surface, but there was something else there too but Zoro couldn't place it with it distorted with Sanji's quiet rage mixed in. He should probably say something, he leant up to speak.
"Guuuh." He managed. His tongue felt thick and suddenly the world swam and his head hit the pillow again as he fell on his side.
He heard a dull thunk and a gasp. He opened one eye and saw Sanji's shoes, the man had stood up. But neglected on the floor between his feet was his lighter. Zoro frowned, he wasn't sure he'd ever seen Sanji drop that thing, he was always so damn precious with it. He'd light one of those stupid cigarettes and tuck it away again safe in a black pocket. But now it was on the floor and Sanji wasn't picking it up.
Oh, hold on, Sanji was saying something. He should probably pay attention.
"-oro! Can you hear me? Are you- Zoro?"
Sanji's voice sounded foggy and distorted, as if he was talking from a long way away. He managed to groan in response.
Strong hands rolled him onto his back, which was probably a good thing. Once again the world came into view and he could see Sanji looking down at him with worried eyes. Eye. Stupid hair.
His brain felt foggy and wrong. He moved his hand and tried to rub his head, it felt sore still. He managed to smack himself in the face first but then a little more of his motor skills came back and he rubbed his forehead. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on controlling his tongue.
"What?" He finally said, opening his eyes. Sanji's face finally spread into a smug grin.
"I see you finally decided to rejoin the land of the living. We thought you weren't ever gonna wake up, trust you to sleep like a rock for two days." Sanji smirked at him.
Zoro tried to wrack his brain for why on earth he'd been asleep so long, he didn't remember a fight and he didn't feel hurt either.
"What happened?" He grumbled, sitting up and trying to ignore the world around him spinning.
Sanji's visible eye widened and he tilted his head at Zoro.
"You don't remember?" he asked, surprise evident in his voice.
"Would I 've asked if I did?" Zoro slurred, shooting Sanji a withering look. Sanji rolled his eyes, or rather, eye at Zoro.
"You had an allergic reaction to some food." The cook explained all to briefly.
"A what now?" Zoro blinked. He'd heard those words before, but never bothered to pay attention to what they meant. Wasn't it like food poisoning or something?
"An allergic reaction, you dumb marimo. Despite eating peanuts your whole life, or whatever it was in that dip that reacted to you, your dumb body decided to freak out about it now and try and kill itself." Sanji explained with a sigh.
Zoro let this thought roll around his brain for a while before speaking. He didn't remember having any allergic reaction, in fact the last thing that he could remember was Sanji being all smug about how fucking spicy he'd made dinner. After that it all got blurry and fuzzy, he wasn't sure how much time he'd missed exactly.
"So," he eventually said, "you poisoned me then."
Sanji straightened up at that and glared briefly at Zoro before glaring down at his own shoes. Zoro raised an eyebrow at that, normally an accusation like that would have prompted a full on verbal war.
"I didn't poison you. You had an allergic reaction, it could have happened at any time, with anything. There's no way I could have known." Sanji ground out through gritted teeth in what sounded almost like rehearsed lines. Zoro grinned at that, so the cook had a sore spot did he? Only one thing to do about that, and that was to poke it.
"I always knew that you'd try and kill me with your food some day shit-cook. I'd better warn the others in case Luffy drops dead from poisoned meat." He grinned nastily.
Sanji stood up so fast that his chair slammed to the floor behind him. Zoro watched with distant interest as the cook's hands clenched and unclenched tensely before one hand dived into a black suit pocket and retrieved a cigarette. The cook clamped it between his teeth as he patted himself down for his lighter. Zoro grinned darkly and decided not to tell the cook where he'd dropped it. With an irritated huff Sanji strode quickly to the door, only stopping to glance over his shoulder on the way out.
"I'll tell Chopper you're awake." He said tersely before slamming the door behind him.
Zoro snatched the lighter up from the floor before flopping back on the bed with a giant smirk. Oh, he was going to have weeks of fun out of tormenting Sanji with this. If there was anything Sanji prided himself on outside of his pristine suits it was his cooking, so playing up the poor victim of Sanji's poisoning would be brilliant material. And as an extra bonus he now had Sanji's only lighter so the cook was gonna have a damn hard time smoking.
The next few weeks were going to be fun.
Shortly after that Chopper had come bursting into the room wailing about how he was so sorry that he was asleep when Zoro had woken up, despite it being about two in the morning, and how he was a terrible doctor and so on. Zoro simply wasn't able to stand seeing the little doctor so sad, so he allowed himself to be poked and prodded and tested on for the next hour. He half wondered if the little doctor didn't exploit Zoro's soft spot for him at times like this. Eventually Chopper seemed satisfied with his results.
"You should be okay." He smiled, looking relieved as he slipped off some device that looked like a giant arm band off of Zoro's arm.
"Good to know. Now where are my swords?" Zoro demanded, he'd already asked this question three times in the last hour but Chopper had kept brushing him off by telling Zoro not to interrupt his examination. But now the little doctor had no excuse not to answer him and it seemed that he knew that too. The little reindeer looked down at the ground meekly, his large pink fuzzy hat covering his face.
"You're not ready to train yet, and I know if I give you your swords back that's exactly what you'll do." Chopper answered quietly.
"I feel fine Chopper! Just tell me where they are!" Zoro insisted exasperatedly. The little doctor meekly shook his head at that.
Zoro grunted in frustration and stood up quickly, if Chopper wouldn't tell him where his swords were then he'd just find them himself. There were only so many places that you could hide something like that on a ship. However just as he straightened up he felt his head tingle and his vision go blank for a few moments. He stumbled forward, all sense of balance momentarily lost, and just managed to catch himself from falling completely by grabbing the edge of Chopper's medical desk.
"See! You're not fine! You had a really bad allergic reaction and you didn't respond well to the medicine I had to give you, it's still clouding your system. You need to take it easy." Chopper reprimanded him.
After a second or two Zoro found his vision clearing and Chopper's little worried face appeared before him. He didn't feel hurt but Chopper was right, he was still weakened. He wasn't used to being out of action without being in enormous pain, and the only pain that he had to speak of was an irritating headache.
"Come on, Sanji agreed to help me test what exactly it is that you're allergic to." Chopper says herding him out of the room.
"You mean he wants another chance to try to kill me." Zoro snorted feeling amused with himself. The serious expression on Chopper's face made Zoro freeze.
"Don't say that, he's felt absolutely terrible about what happened. He's hardly slept and he's insisted on looking after you whenever he could. This whole thing has really upset him." Chopper insisted seriously, his little furry face filled with concern for his nakama.
And Zoro has nothing to say to that because he just cannot imagine Sanji caring that much about Zoro's health, even if his decline in health was caused by Sanji's cooking. The idea is so alien and suddenly his mind snaps back to Sanji's tense face when he teased Sanji about poisoning him. Feeling slightly unnerved he let Chopper lead him up to the galley.
When they get inside the galley Sanji is hunched over the sink glaring into the water in it, Zoro has no idea why but it's hilarious seeing Sanji treat an inanimate object with such malice. And his previous feelings are forgotten.
Chopper announces the reason why they're here and Sanji stands there for a moment in silence chewing his cigarette from one side of his mouth to another in a way that Zoro has to try very hard not to be fascinated by. After a beat Sanji sighs as if helping Zoro is the last thing that he wants to do, which is probably is. He opens a drawer in the counter and pulls out a key. The cook strides over to a door with it and unlocks it, which surprises Zoro because he can never remember that door to Sanji's food storage room being locked. From there he pulls out a big sealed cooler box and works the combination lock on that, eventually with a look of caution Sanji opens up the box.
"What the hell have you got in there?" Zoro asks raising an eyebrow because Sanji's looking at the contents of the cooler as if it were about to explode and kill them all.
"All the ingredients for everything that you ate and anything else in my cupboards that had the same ingredients." Sanji answers flatly without taking his eye off of the contents of the box.
"My money's on the peanuts, do you want to start with them or something else?" Sanji asks Chopper in a warmer tone of voice.
"You said that you had fish in there?" Chopper asks opening his little medical bag and pulling out a pen and what looks like some kind of metal toothpick.
"Prawns, yeah." Sanji answers with a serious voice and passes the minced prawns to Chopper. Zoro has a bad feeling and realises just how bad never being able to eat seafood again would be considering that he lives on the ocean and it's sort of part of the deal.
Chopper explains that he is going to scratch Zoro's skin a little and then introduce a little of each possible allergen to the skin and see if he reacts. Chopper instructs him to remove his shirt, which Zoro does with a sigh because he doesn't really see the point in all of this.
Zoro winces when the seafood is rubbed briefly against his scratched skin, the idea of minced prawns being rubbed on him is kind of gross. All three of them wait expectantly for a while before Zoro eventually speaks up.
"Am I supposed to feel something or what?" he asks rolling his eyes. The only thing that his skin feels like is slightly covered with icky prawn paste, hardly a life threatening situation.
"You should have by now, that's a relief." Chopper sighs happily and scratches Zoro's skin again slightly further along Zoro's back. Zoro isn't quite sure that he thinks of this as a relief as it just means that he's going to be scratched up some more and have more random foodstuffs rubbed on him. He wasn't really paying attention until the sudden burning on his back makes him yelp and straighten up.
"What the hell was that?" he yells, trying to reach to scratch at his back where it burns. Sanji catches his hand before he's able to scratch that infernal itch.
"Don't scratch." Sanji says absently, his fingers tight on Zoro's wrist. Zoro watches with some fascination as Sanji's visible eye flicks from Zoro's shoulder to his face, seeming to take in every detail. Sanji's fingers loosen on his wrists after a few seconds as he turned to look at Chopper.
"He doesn't look like he's reacting." The cook said cautiously, his blue eye flicked back to Zoro's face interestedly again.
"No… he doesn't seem to be." Chopper agreed as he examined Zoro's back.
"Well what the hell was that then? It itches!" Zoro complains as he tries to suppress the urge to reach over his shoulder and scratch at the tingling itchy spot on his back.
"Chilli, don't scratch." Sanji reminded him as he let go of Zoro's wrist and turned back to examining the box.
"Well no wonder it itches!" Zoro snapped irritably. He wonders vaguely if Sanji is being sadistic to him by getting Chopper to rub chilli on an open wound.
Sanji cautiously removes a packet from the box and looks warily at Chopper. Zoro can't see what exactly it is from here and nor does he especially care as long as it's not salt or vinegar or something that they're rubbing into his scratches this time.
"I think this is going to be the one." Sanji says cautiously as he looks from the packet to Chopper and back again.
"Only a very little bit." Chopper warns as Sanji delicately open the packet and after a bit of rummaging he carefully hands a single peanut to the small doctor. Zoro feels the small scratch on his skin and then friction as Chopper carefully rubs a small section of his back around the scratch with the nut.
Zoro looked from Sanji to Chopper as they stared at him expectantly. This whole thing was stupid, couldn't it just have been a one-off reaction to some bad food the cook prepared? He wasn't exactly feeling any results from this stupid test now that Chopper had stopped rubbing chillies on him.
"This is stupid." Zoro said flatly.
"You don't feel anything?" Sanji asked raising an eyebrow at Zoro. His face shows surprise, apparently Sanji was really convinced that this one would do… something. Zoro doesn't actually have any idea what reaction they're expecting as he has absolutely no memory of the entire 'allergic reaction' escapade. As such he's incredibly startled when it happens.
"No, it feels just- AGH!" Zoro yelps, his back arching sharply.
"Agh! It burns!" he yells, reaching up to scratch the suddenly scorching patch of skin on his back.
"Don't!" Sanji snaps, grabbing both of Zoro's wrists to restrain him. Zoro tries desperately to wriggle out of Sanji's iron grasp but it's no good, god the itching is driving him insane! He rolls his shoulders in the futile hope that his shoulder blades might scratch that itch from underneath his skin.
His skin feels like some horrible mix of crawling and burning, as if his back were both on fire and covered with hundreds of tiny itching insects. He distantly hears himself yell and scream and whine at everything including the horrible feeling on his back and Sanji preventing him with all his might from scratching at it.
"That's definitely a reaction!" Chopper shouts, as if it needed to even be stated because even Zoro's worked that out by now. But he grabs something from his medical bag and Zoro doesn't even see what it is, and he doesn't care. All he can mentally process that he needs to do is stop that burning on his skin, he feels as if he's on fire. He tries again to yank his hand out of Sanji's grasp but only succeeds in slamming the man into the counter as Sanji's grip holds firm.
Suddenly he feels something cool touch his back and in an instant the burning intensity of the pain and fire in is back stops being so bad that he was considering cutting his skin off. He feels his jaw twitch under the strain, his back still itches furiously but it was at least calming down now. And in the same way that one injury can make you numb to another until it stops hurting it's only when his back stops itching so painfully another itch flares up in his consciousness.
He stared down at his wrists in Sanji's hands and watched with mixed horror, fascination and pain as red blotches slowly spread out up his arm from under Sanji's fingers on his left wrist. With words failing him he managed to yell and drag his other hand over to his arm and scratch furiously before Sanji gasps and releases Zoro as if just touching the swordsman burns him.
Finally freed from Sanji's restraining hands he scratches intensely at his wrist before Chopper pulls off his medical gloves with a snap and pulls Zoro's arms apart, because at this rate he's going to scratch clean through the skin and start attacking his tendons and muscles. Chopper slathers more of the blessed cooling cream that he'd put on Zoro's back onto his wrist.
In retrospect Zoro had feels ashamed, he can deal with immense amounts of pain but his body suddenly reacting in this way is just so unbearable and unexpected that he could hardly control himself. He was aware at one point that Chopper had given him an injection of something in his arm, though he had no idea what it was. When he comes back to his senses he's slumped over the counter, his arms limp and Chopper was saying something to Sanji.
"It's not anaphylaxis, just a bad topical reaction." Chopper says soothingly to Sanji. Zoro sluggishly looks up at Sanji who is compulsively washing his hands at the sink. Absently Zoro wonders how long Sanji has been doing that and how long he'd been out of it on the counter because Sanji's hand washing has an almost manic edge to it. But Chopper's words seem to smooth some tenseness in the sharp lines of Sanji's back that Zoro can see even through the man's expensive suit.
"He's going to be fine?" Sanji clarifies hopefully as he dries his hands on a clean dishtowel before throwing it in the small wash basket that Sanji has for the kitchen towels.
"He'll be fine. A little drowsy but fine. I made this so that it shouldn't have the same psychoactive effect as before." Chopper said from behind Zoro who was starting to notice that the world looked soft and out of focus and that his head felt pleasantly fuzzy.
"It looks really nasty though." Sanji said in a worried voice as Zoro felt long, cool fingers press against the skin of his wrist. He groans in pleasure at the cooling sensation and tries to focus on Sanji's face above him. Blonde hair and a big blue eye shifts into focus and he sees for once a genuine and warm smile directed at him rather than one of the girls. It makes something in Zoro's belly coil hopefully and he hates himself for it and hopes that his allergic reaction is going to be enough to cover up the reddening of his face from that look.
"Hey there. How do you feel?" Sanji askes quietly, cold fingers still against Zoro's wrist in a way that makes Zoro's blood sing.
"Numb. And fuzzy." He answers slowly. Chopper pushes his way into his line of sight and examines Zoro's face and feels his forehead. Zoro crushes the little disappointed feeling that flares in his chest when Sanji's hand slips from his wrist.
"Do you feel light headed Zoro? Trouble breathing? Does your tongue feel okay?" The doctor asks so quickly that Zoro doesn't even have time to begin to answer between each new question.
"I'm fine Chopper." Zoro grumbles, pushing himself up with his elbows so that he is sitting straight on his barstool.
He looks around Chopper to see Sanji tugging up a clear bag of food from the floor, upon closer inspection Zoro can see that it was the entire contents of what had previously been in Sanji's locked cooler.
"After I'm done throwing these overboard and cleaning the kitchen, do you want breakfast?" Sanji asks disinterestedly as he straightens up with the bag over his shoulder. Zoro isn't sure that his eyebrows could climb any higher up his head as he stares dumbly at the cook. He rolls the sentence around in his head a good few times before answering.
"You're throwing away food? Perfectly good food?" He asks stunned. Sanji looks at him over his shoulder like he thinks that Zoro is a moron.
"It's not perfectly good food, idiot. It'll kill you. And all the other stuff in here's been touching it, I'm not taking the risk." Sanji replies matter-of-factly.
"You'd rather throw food away than see me die? So when did Franky replace you with a robot double huh? Cause no way are you Sanji." Zoro snorts disbelievingly and grins at Sanji in a way that he knows annoys the cook.
"Is it really so hard to believe that I'd rather waste food than see you dead?" Sanji asks, his voice holding a tone that Zoro can't quite place and dearly wishes that he could because he has a terrible feeling that he's missing something there. Zoro doesn't answer and after a second or two Sanji tuts disdainfully at him and turns to leave.
"If you keep being an asshole then you won't get any breakfast and I'll kick you overboard along with the stupid peanuts." Sanji snaps and stomps out of the galley.
Zoro blinks at the galley door as it swings shut. Okay, so maybe that wasn't true. Sanji was nakama after all and he'd probably rather waste food than see Zoro die, but Zoro had thought with the cook's obvious distain for him that it'd be a pretty close run thing. But Sanji had almost seemed… offended at the idea that he didn't care about Zoro. The more Zoro thought about Sanji's behaviour the less sure that he was that Franky hadn't replaced Sanji with some sort of robot, because Sanji wasn't acting like usual towards him.
"You shouldn't be so mean to Sanji, he's been really worried about you." Chopper reminds him again. Zoro absently apologises in an attempt to keep the kid doctor happy, he couldn't stand to see him sad. Chopper insists that if Zoro were to feel unwell at all or if he were to experience any of a long list of symptoms he was to see Chopper immediately. And fighting and looking for his swords are completely banned activities.
And so Zoro was left alone in the galley for a few minutes whilst Sanji disposed of any food liable to kill Zoro.
In the quiet warmth of the room Zoro took the time to look down at his wrist properly now that his head was a little clearer. His skin was red and blotchy but he could see the outlines of the cook's fingertips and thumb in bright red relief on his skin. Apparently Sanji had managed to transfer some peanut dust or whatever onto him when he touched Zoro. It looked as if where Sanji had touched him with his right hand was branded and burnt into Zoro's skin, as if Zoro didn't already know by instinct every place that the cook had ever deemed to touch him outside of a fight.