Sanji has always disliked seeing doctors. This isn't to say that he dislikes Chopper at all, that'd be incredibly hard to do, but it does mean that he's uncomfortable being poked, prodded and examined when he feels perfectly fine. And he does feel perfectly fine, his memories are okay and he's not forgotten anything, it's just that the world is suddenly not matching what's in his brain. That's the world's problem though, not his.
Chopper however seems to think that the problem is with him. He's had torches shone in his eyes, his temperature taken, blood tested, he's been questioned about obvious things like 'do two and two equal five?', they even stuck him in a massive machine that looks at your brain and been asked questions. He's told Chopper a few facts about his life and about Zoro, Chopper's face went a funny colour when he said about Zoro's three swords and his fight with Mihawk. This however is too far. Chopper has sat him down after sending Zoro out of the room on a flimsy errand for coffee and asked him the dumbest question ever.
"Sanji, if… if this is a prank that's accidentally gone too far then you should tell me. I'll work out something to tell Zoro, I'll say that I fixed you. But if you've… invented this whole thing yourself, now would be the time to say." The kid, who looks barely over a day older than sixteen and claims that he's Chopper, says nervously with his fingers nervously picking at his white coat.
"You think I'm making this up?" he snaps angrily. He's put up with all of these stupid tests and questions about his life and now Chopper has the gall to ask him if he's just doing this for kicks?
"I'm not accusing you of anything! I just… I hope you are. Because if you're not then I've almost no idea what's wrong with you, which means I have no idea how to fix it." Chopper answers meekly. Sanji glowers at him but feels his resolve crumble when the kid's bottom lip trembles sadly.
He flops back in his chair bonelessly and sighs deeply.
"I wish I were making this up. But I've woken up in a world I don't understand or remember, what else can I say?" He sighs.
Chopper nods at this and sighs pretty deeply himself. Sanji finds himself caught between being unable to believe that this kid is Chopper on account of him not looking anything like the doctor and not even being the same goddamn species as him and completely accepting it. All you have to do is look at the kid's body language and hear his voice because those two just scream Chopper in flashing neon lights.
"About… about you and Zoro. I… in your memories what's your relationship with him?" Chopper asks quietly, apparently taking advantage of Zoro's absence to ask this pressing question.
"I hate Zoro and he hates me. He's a rude, sloppy, irritating bastard." He answers sharply, his temper already frayed with the irritating events of today.
It's then that he notices something, it's not a sound but rather the sudden cessation of a sound that had been there previously and ignored. Like noticing that a clock has stopped ticking he notices the sudden absence of thunking boot steps. With a creeping horror he looks up to see Zoro framed by the open door with two white cups in hand frozen where he stands. Sanji's never thought of Zoro as a person with a great emotional range outside of rage, sleepiness, poor table manners and being an annoying git. But Zoro's face now is all different kinds of hurt that Sanji's never seen on him before, as if Sanji's just ruined the most precious thing ever, Zoro didn't even look this hurt when Robin betrayed them at Water-7.
Zoro shakes his head after a moment and steps forward, roughly pushing one of the white cups into Sanji's hand. Startled he takes it. He looks down into his mug feeling something almost like guilt niggle at him until he notices that this drink isn't coffee, Zoro was sent out for coffee and that's not what he's brought back.
"This isn't coffee." He states numbly as Zoro stomps off to the other side of the room and leans against the wall and scowls at the floor.
"Yeah, and neither's that piss they serve in the machines out there. I wasn't gonna bring you that, so shut up and drink." Zoro snaps tensely. The marimo levels his scowl at Chopper now, causing the little doctor to visibly flinch.
"So can you fix him or what?" Zoro demands brashly.
Chopper starts babbling nervously about brain chemistry and other boring crap like that so Sanji tunes him out, it's not like he understands any of that medical mumbo jumbo. Hesitantly he takes a sip of the drink that Zoro brought him. It's not coffee, it's tea. Not especially good tea mind, and Sanji would bet his boots that it's due to the quality of the tea bag, but it's served the way he likes it, no sugar at all and just the teensiest splash of milk to lighten the flavour. He looks suspiciously at Zoro who's thankfully paying attention to Chopper's ramblings and not him. How on earth does Zoro know how he likes his tea? He's been sailing with the man six months and they've never had tea together. He's seen Zoro accept it from someone as a guest but he's never made any for himself and certainly he's not made any for Sanji.
"So basically you've no idea what's wrong and you can't fix him." Zoro says, his voice cutting through Sanji's thoughts. He looks up at Chopper who appears incredibly stressed out.
"That's not what I said. Memories are tricky things, we barely understand them enough as is. Maybe all his memories will come back just like that," Chopper says clicking his fingers, "or maybe not at all, or perhaps only bits and pieces will return. It's impossible to say which. There's no magic pill I can give him that'll just undo this, you've both just got to work at it and try to stay calm. My guess as to what has happened is that something in the night caused him to lose his memories, possibly a stroke of some kind or an infection, and what little memories he could retain got mixed in with some dream he was having. Perhaps his brain tried to weave the two into a semi-coherent narrative." The doctor explains.
"That just sounds like a more technical version of what he said." Sanji points out, jerking his head in Zoro's direction. He catches the sly smirk flittering across Zoro's face for a second before Chopper speaks up to defend himself.
"That's not- look, I'll look more at the test results and get a few colleagues to have a look, see if they've got any ideas. For the meantime you two go home and take things easy, he needs to avoid stress so no work and don't leave him unsupervised either." Chopper commands in his best doctor voice before standing up and shooing them out of his office.
Standing in the hallway with Zoro Sanji starts to feel a little uneasy. He's woken up in some strange world with no idea of anything that's happened and of all the rotten luck he's stuck with Zoro. He doesn't know what he's supposed to say in this situation. And from the uncertain look on the marimo's face the other man is feeling equally adrift.
With a decisive noise Zoro jerks his head to the right in an obvious 'follow me' motion and strides off confidently down the corridor to the right. Sanji actually lets him get a few paces before the feeling of amusement gets too much and he speaks up.
"Hey, it's this way dumbass." He points out snarkily. Zoro pauses at that and turns back to face him, with a hint of uncertainty on his face he looks from Sanji to back down the way he was going then back to Sanji again.
"I'm pretty sure that it's this way. I remember coming this way." Zoro says with a level of certainty that Sanji can hear dropping with every consecutive word.
"Then why does my way have signs pointing to the exit and the reception that we came through?" He points out with a devious grin and gestures to the signs hanging from the ceiling. Zoro's face is a priceless mix of embarrassment and determination.
"That was… deliberate. To make you feel better. I knew it was that way really." Zoro says lying through his teeth.
"Wow, even Usopp would be ashamed of that lie." He snipes as they set off down the right path out of the hospital. When Zoro doesn't respond Sanji glances over at the other man who is frozen in place and Sanji finds himself almost completely disarmed by Zoro's brilliant beaming smile. It's not that he's never seen Zoro smile like that, though it is rare, but he's certainly never had it directed at him.
"What?" He asks, feeling like the ground has shifted from under him again, everything was so normal a moment ago and now the world is back to being strangeville.
"You remembered something right, about Usopp I mean." Zoro grins happily.
"I- it was an insult, dumbass." He responds uneasily.
"Oh good, you're acting more and more like you by the minute. Let's go home, idiot-cook." Zoro laughs affectionately bumping his shoulder against Sanji's and continuing down the corridor leaving Sanji feeling unnerved and ill at ease.
He follows Zoro through the rest of the hospital in complete silence except for when he has to change Zoro's direction to the right path. Zoro for his part seems content to remain quiet as they walk together through the hospital. Sanji's mind however is racing, seeing Chopper and arguing with Zoro had taken his mind off of things a bit, but now all he can think about is the strangeness of the situation that he's in. He's following Zoro back to his bike to go home. Now home is an odd place, if the place that he woke up in is indeed his home then something very strange is going on here. The clothes in the wardrobe were definitely his, that much is clear, what little he saw of the kitchen made it look like something he'd dream of having and there were photos about the place of the two of them. He more than likely lived there, so it probably was indeed his home. However he'd woken up in bed with Zoro and Zoro's sword had been on the mantelpiece, it didn't look like it'd just been left there instead it looked more like the place that Zoro kept it, although he had no idea why the marimo didn't have it with him at all times. All this implied that he and Zoro lived together and furthermore slept in the same bed, that taken with the overwhelming concern that Zoro had shown him and his face when he heard him saying that they hated each other suggested… well. It suggested something that wasn't and couldn't be the case.
It suggested that they were in some sort of… relationship. This, clearly, would never ever happen for several reasons. Firstly was that he and Zoro fought endlessly, the two of them could barely have more than five minutes of conversation without breaking out into an argument and often they'd be lucky if they made it that long. Secondly Sanji was all about the ladies, and okay yeah, in the privacy of his own head he might admit that a few attractive men had caught his eye over the years but he'd never done more than drunkenly kiss one, he certainly wouldn't throw himself into a relationship with one, much less Zoro. And… okay, when he first saw Zoro his eyes had wandered a little over the man appreciatively, that was until Zoro had opened his big mouth and rubbed Sanji entirely the wrong way. In fact it was Zoro's tendency to rub him the wrong way that irked Sanji so. He was always rude and irritating for no reason, he didn't show the right respect for the ladies and most of all he'd go and do something heroic and noble just frequently enough for Sanji to think that perhaps the man wasn't all bad before reverting to his previous behaviour. All of those things pointed quite clearly to him and Zoro ever being anything more than nakama as having a snowball's chance in hell.
And it wasn't just him either, Zoro clearly thought about as much of him as he did of Zoro. He seemed to love goading and winding Sanji up more than anything. Further to that he'd never ever seen Zoro cast so much as an appreciative glance at him or anyone for that matter. Hell Nami could walk past Zoro in the skimpiest bikini you could imagine and Zoro wouldn't so much as look, in fact he'd seen it happen, she might as well have walked past him wrapped up head to toe in clothes for all the attention Zoro paid. And even if ladies weren't Zoro's thing it wasn't as if the rest of the crew was especially generous with clothing, after all Franky barely wore anything and between the whole male crew they had almost every body type a man could choose and none of them seemed to do anything for Zoro. The man seemed to have all the libido of a rock.
So what the hell were he and Zoro doing living together and sharing a bed?
In all the time he'd been mulling over those thoughts he and Zoro have arrived back at the green death machine that Zoro brought them here on. He feels that he has to say something about this madness, he has to have some real answers.
"Zoro, why do we live together?" He asks quietly. Zoro pauses, his helmet halfway to his head. The marimo squeezes his eyes shut and lets a calming breath out of his nose before lowering the helmet again.
"Do we have to talk about this?" he replies without meeting Sanji's eyes as he tensely taps a finger on the side of the helmet.
"Uh, yeah we have to talk about it." Sanji snorts, if it wasn't important he wouldn't be asking about it would he? And it's hardly a little question is it?
"Well why do you think?" Zoro answers snippily and turns a key in the front of the bike and bends to unlock the chain from around the front wheel.
"I think that we must be in some sort of… relationship together, which is crazy. And I'd appreciate a goddamn answer from you, and look at me when I'm talking to you!" Sanji snaps irritably, kicking the armoured back of Zoro's jacket. Zoro moves quickly, he always has. In one quick move he's grabbed Sanji's foot and spun around so that he's facing him, it's only Sanji's flexibility and good balance that's stopped him landing on his ass from that movement. He experimentally jerks his leg but Zoro's grip is solid, his face is about two inches from Sanji's own and his scowl is fierce, at least some things are still the same then.
"I'm not going to talk about this with you, so drop it. I can't deal with that right now so just… stop. Okay?" Zoro says, his voice softening as he drops Sanji's foot, clearly prepared to drop this argument. Sanji however is not at all prepared to do that, he needs answers and he won't be denied by Zoro!
"What do you mean you can't deal with it? I'm the one who's woken up with no idea of where I am or what the hell's going on! You're perfectly fine, so answer me!" Sanji snaps, pushing back at Zoro with his foot now that the other man's been foolish enough to let go of it. This time when Zoro catches his foot he actually does push back with enough force to send Sanji falling onto his ass. The swordsman looms over him suddenly, his face like a thundercloud.
"No, I'm not fine! I had to wake up to find that the love of my life remembers barely a goddamn thing about me and most of what he does remember is wrong! I'm the one who had to listen to you saying to Chopper that you hate me and why. I'm the one that just spent three hours watching you go through tests I didn't even know existed and sick half to death with worry that you might have brain cancer or something else fatally wrong with you! So, no, I'm not prepared to hear on top of all of this that you'd rather cut your own hands off than be with me!" Zoro yells at him. His eyes are wide and somewhere between furious and terrified, his fists are shut tight but Sanji can see that they're shaking. Zoro looks like he's torn between punching him in the face and falling to pieces himself, and from what he's just said Sanji's not sure that he's wrong about that.
Zoro winces and crouches down on the floor in front of where Sanji's still sat after Zoro toppled him over. He watches Zoro almost… crumple as his expression becomes tired and wrung out. Sanji hadn't thought about Zoro at all, he's so used to assuming that Zoro can deal with himself that he's never really thought about how the other man feels about anything. He's certainly never worried about hurting the other man's feelings. But he supposes that if his assumption that he and Zoro are in some sort of… relationship is correct then it makes sense that Zoro might have a certain amount of emotion invested in his wellbeing. He watches Zoro's face as the other man quickly tries to build his calm back up and paper up the cracks in his façade that their argument just ripped open, it's almost painful to see.
"Do you think you can just… leave off about this for a while?" Zoro mutters quietly as he cards a hand through his own marimo green hair.
"Sure, I can wait. Just don't knock me on my ass again." Sanji concedes, trying to lighten the mood in an offering of peace. He'd not thought about upsetting Zoro and now that he knows he has he feels a little bad about it.
"Won't make any promises about that, besides, if you were any good I wouldn't be able to." Zoro grins back challengingly as he stands up in one smooth motion.
Sanji feels his jaw actually drop. Zoro was a wreck just a moment ago and he tries to be nice and pleasant so the other man will forgive him and now Zoro's back to insulting him? Sanji clenches his teeth irritably and wishes desperately for a cigarette, he's pretty sure he wouldn't smoke quite so much if Zoro wasn't always so fucking irritating!
"Bite me moss-head! And I'm not getting on your stupid suicide bike either!" He snaps and kicks Zoro in the back of the knee and pulls himself to his feet as well. Zoro laughs loudly and climbs on the back of his bike and puts his helmet on in what looks like a well practiced movement.
"Oh, so you're walking home then are you? Good thing you know the way back on foot or else you'd be out here with no shelter, food or money. Or would you rather get on the bike?" Zoro says tauntingly through his open visor, his voice only slightly distorted through the green helmet. After a second Zoro teasingly holds out the helmet that Sanji wore on the way here, Sanji looks from the helmet to Zoro and back again. He considers the fact that he's no idea where the hell he is and that Zoro's right in pointing out that he has no money or any other way to survive on his own right now.
"Shut your stupid face and drive." He growls, snatching the helmet from the now laughing Zoro and putting it on as he reluctantly climbs on the horrible green machine of death. Predictably Zoro doesn't drive slowly or carefully like a nice person would. Instead he repeats his earlier behaviour of apparently trying to kill them at high speeds. As Sanji clings onto Zoro's chest for dear life he tries to stop Zoro's words from echoing in his head because they're doing funny things to his brain.
'the love of my life'