Ch. 5

Well, actually, no, he didn't. He lied through his teeth.

What was he supposed to to? Tell Zoro all about the Lust Potion and what it had been doing? When the marimo was starting to act so nice? He wouldn't let thr truth ruin that. Not if he could help it.

So he'd lied and told Zoro he was being haunted by a series of horrifying, each staring Zoro...dying. A hundred different bloody, savage ways.

Zoro had laughed when Sanji'd finished, telling him they were just dreams and he was being stupid for letting them disturb him. "I'm not going anywhere, Angel Boy," he had said, smiling reassuringly.

"But they were so vivid..." Sanji'd argured, forcing more tears to his eyes. They seemed to have quite a strange effect on Zoro, like they had the power to make him human. Sure enough, instead of making fun of him for crying, the marimo sighed.

"The worst dreams are."

From there, Zoro tried his damnedest to cheer up and comfort the cook, as if he was genuinly concerned about him. As the swordsman helped him to his feet, Sanji wondered if he'd been fed an Empathy Potion or something. It was like he was looking at Trans-Zoro. Where the old Zoro was sharp and rough, Trans-Zoro was soft and gentle. His stride was smooth as he walked Sanji up the stairs, and he completly ignored the crate of booze, the whole reason he came down there in the first place!

After the semi-creepy heart-to-heart with Zoro, Sanji felt as if a couple of tons had been lifted fom his shoulders. So what if the lust potion was pointing him towards Zoro? It wasn't like it was telling him the future or anything. It was really just telling him who had agrivated most of his emotions. And so what if he didn't like Nami anymore? There were plenty of woman in the world; odds are one of them would fall in love with him. Besides, Nami was happy with Luffy. The chef could tell romance was blooming between them, and very quickly, too. If Nami was happy, Sanji was happy.

"Sanji! FOOD!"

The cry cut short his contemplations. Three days had passed since he'd talked to Zoro about his dreams. He stopped going to the crow's nest to do his thinking (at Zoro's request) and had resumed his place at the dinner table. The marimo had smiled like he'd never smiled before when Sanji had joined them for lunch. After catching Sanji's eyem he let it slip and looked away, but Sanji could tell by the tightness of his mouth he was doing his best not to smile again.

"I just fed you!" Sanji yelled back to his captain, secretly happy the idiot was hungry again and making it known. Luffy had been exceptionally quiet while Sanji was moping. He was impressed the rubbery captain could go that long without yelling.

"Yeah, like, five days ago!"

"Try five hours."

"Whatever. ."

"Yeah, go do your stuff, love-cook, its lunch time," another voice added from behind him. He needn't turn to know it was Zoro, but did so anyway to glare at the man. Zoro leaned against the wall of the galley, cocky smile in place. To the untrained eye, this smile was no different from any other smile the marimo smiled, but Sanji knew better. It was a secret kind of smile, a special smile only Sanji saw through. The two had shared many secret smiles since their chat. Zoro prided himself on being the one who finally got through to the cook, but he hadn't told anyone about what they'd disscussed. "Its a secret," he told the crew when questioned. "If he wants you to know, he'll tell you himself." Sanji said he didn't want to tell, and that they should forget about his angst and get on with their life.

And so, they had.

"Shut up, marimo bastard." Sanji retorted, spinning around on the railing he was perched on and sliding off.

The two glared their usual glares until their mouths slipped into their secret smiles. Then Luffy yelled for food again, and Sanji entered their kitchen.

He set about the preperations at once, heating up skillets slicked with cooking oil, fillinf sauce pans with water, peeling vegtibles. It wasn't long before he was in his zone again, flitting around the kitchen, flipping this, stirring that, tasting this. He had learned quickly to make larger portions of all the entries-with Zoro and Luffy on board, the normal porportions dwindled and dissapeared long before they would have had five completly nornal people had been eating.

Today he made relativly simple dishes; a potatoe stew, meat and cheese sandwiches, rice pudding, mutton right of the bone for Luffy, a few different types of salad and soup, a variation of spagehtti with a more buttery sauce, and a few bowels of vegtibles and fruits.

He then plated the dishes, adding a decorative basil leaf here, arranging the food carefully and perfectly as he'd done hundreds of times before. Once upon a time, people would marvel at how the dishes looked. How the arrangment was extrodinary. But since joinging Luffy's crew and sailing on the Merry, no one praised as highly as they had on the Baratie. His nakama just praised the taste. But he'd still never be able to break his habit of dressing the plate.

Sanji stood back, happy with his work and evaluating the presentation of each. When finished, he took of his apron and picked up each dish, balancing them all on his outstretched arms. Then he left the kitchen and started to set up the table. The majority of the crew hardly used silverware, but he still brought some out just in case they got a sudden case of manners.

It wasn't long before the jackels showed. Luffy and Usopp stared at the food hungrily, as if it would be their first meal in years. Sanji saw them watching and made a big show of rearranging the plates. He moved one around the table, then another and another until a few minutes had gone by. Then he looked up at his nakama.

"Dig in!" He called, and the two rushed to their seats, grabbing up one or two of everything in their reach. Zoro and Nami showed up a few seconds later. Sanji pulled a chair out for the navigator as she neared the table. She smiled thankfully at him, sat down, and pulled the soup dish closer.

When Sanji turned back to sit in his own chair, he found someone had stolen his plate. "Luffy!" he reprimanded. "Give me back my food!"

Luffy's cheeks were bulging with the food he'd already stuffed in his mouth, but somehow he was able to stick his tounge out at his cook without loosing one piece. Give him ears and a puffy tail, and Sanji could guiltlessly compare him to a a squirrel.

Something soft smacked against his temple and forced his head sideways. Reaching up to investigate, he found the remains of a half-eaten sandwich. Zoro, who'd thrown it, smiled, looking smug.

"Eat that, Ero-cook."

The table went unnaturally silent. Everyone on the Merry knew Sanji had a zero tolerance for wasting food, because he'd been so close to death after starving for many days. They all stopped eating to watch the impeding explosion.

With carefull slowness, Sanji wiped all the could of the sandwich off his head and shoulder, taking a deep, calimg breath. Then he gave Zoro a warning glare. The muscles in his jaw flexed. His free hand balled into a fist. He stood up tall, to his entire 5 foot 9 inch height. And, as the crew watched, transfixed, on the very edge of their seats, Sanji walked stiffly over to Zoro, who crossed his arms arrogantly to the oncomming threat, lopsided smirk growing more prominant.

His face had been an impassive mask, tight lipped and dead eyed, but as he looked down at the smiling swordsman, and Zoro stared back up at him, a slow, dangerous smiled formed on his lips.

"No, Zoro," he said, raising the remains of the sandwich. "You eat it." With that, he shoved his hand into the marimo's face, smearing it with meat and cheese and white bread. Zoro gave a surprised sound and grabbed Sanji's arm to push him away. He tried standing up, but bumped his knees on the table. He fell back into the chair hard, tipping it backwards and bringing Sanji with him. They both cursed as they landed, but with one look at each other, they dissolved into laughter.

The crew, meanwhile, looked on, amazed and shocked that the two weren't killing each other, until Luffy screamed, "FOOD FIGHT!"

What came next became just a blur in Sanji's memories. Food flew through the air, the table was knocked aside and the chairs used as sheilds. Everyone was laughing as they got drenched in their lunch. Luffy, tried desperatly to keep the meat out of harm's way, but it too became part of the chaos on deck.

And then there came the wrestling.

Luffy had dumped the entire bowel of rice pudding on Zoro's head, and in retaliation, the marimo grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him through all the crap at their feet. While he was doing that, Usopp put his snipper skills to work and got a perfect head shot with a handful of stewed potatoes. Nami turned over the plate of spagehtti sauce over him, and Sanji, to top it off, upended the salad bowel. The crunchy green leaves stuck to everything else that Zoro was splattered with. He looked like someone had used kitched ingrediants to tar and feather him.

"That's a good look for you, marimo,": Sanji laughed, plucking a peice of crust off his jacket and flicking it at him. "You can barely see all the green!"

Zoro huffed out a breath. Then, with a roar, he threw himself at the giggling group, grabbing Sanji and Usopp before either could dodge and pushing them into the mess with their captain. Zoro proceeded to climb on top of this moutain of human and food scraps, but as he balanced himself on Usopp's back, Nami attacked and pushed him off. The other three got up while they could, not caring about the slop sticking to them, and dog-piled Zoro. The swordsman struggled for a moment, tryinto to shift the trio's weight so he could slide them off.

"One! Two! Three!" Nami called out, slapping the deck. "Roronoa Zoro looses the mighty battle!"

Zoro cursed loudly. Then he, along with everyone else, laughed until tears stung their eyes and suffocation clutched at their breath.

"Okay, guys," Sanji said breathlessly as the laughter died down. He wiped...well, something off his face, looking down at his clothes and wondering if he could salvage the suit. "You know the rules. Dig it."

~~~ZsZsZsZs~~~

Sanji shook his damp hair out of his face, combing it through with his fingers, checking for any stubborn pieces of food. When he found none, he wrapped a towel around his waist.

"Hey, Luffy, shower's all yours!" he called to his still-dirty captain. The rubberman had been picking at some dried...thing on his elbow, but now looked up, making an appreciative noice. They were now in the process of cleaning up their mess. Sanji hadn't made his nakama eat the crap that used to be their lunch, but he refused to make them dinner because of it. With the exception of Nami, of course. Everyone had already used the shower and those who'd gotten in first had nearly cleaned up the entire mess. He felt sorry for his friends, though-since he was the only proper gentleman on the ship, he was also the only one who bought soap whenever they made port. And he was unwilling to share. The men could've gotten clean without soap, but the smell had remained when Zoro had tried. So they had purchased fruity and flowery scented soaps from the navigator. And that made Sanji laugh.

He slipped into the men's quarter, dropping the towel from his waist when he had his suit in his hands. He pulled it on and left the cabin to see how much Usopp and Zoro had progressed.

"Wow," he murmured when he saw how shiney the deck now was. Though, the liar and marimo both looked ready to collasp.

"Yep. They can be really dilligant when they put their mind to it," Nami giggled. Zoro and Usopp looked as though she'd cracked a whip at them.

After talking a bit more to his nakama, he gathered the dishes that hadn't been broken in the fight and took them to the kitchen for clean up. He smiled as he thought about all that had happened since falling into the sea...No, since picturing himself with Zoro. Had he not, he wouldn't have sough the solitude of the storage room, Zoro wouldn't have seen him crying, and he wouldn't be laughing with his crew like nothing had happened. And to think, it was Zoro who'd pulled him out of his funk, when he was the one who'd caused it as well.

He finished with the dishes, setting them on a drying rack and leaving them to the air. He reached for his towel, discovered it was gone and stooped to retrieve another. He was opening the towel drawer before he remembered he'd hidden the Lust Potion in there. He hadn't thought of the lust potion since the night of his rescue. There'd been no time for it, as he'd been to busy rectifying his life to let his mind drift back to it.

Pushing the towels back to view the vial's hiding spot in the far corner on the draw, apprehension gripped at his throat, shocking stealing his breath.

The vial was gone.