There is something namelessly comforting that Sanji finds about being in the four walls of his kitchen that goes beyond just mere familiarity. Somehow within the confines of his cooking space the world seems a lot more manageable. Everything is in its place and all is right.
Or at least it should be.
He appreciates that he's been out of commission for a little while what with his injured wrist and then getting stabbed through the chest and as such the rest of their nakama have had to fill in his place and cook instead. It's a gallant thing to do and Sanji appreciates it vastly.
Really.
He is certainly not by any means looking at his disarrayed and disorganised knife rack and clutching at his hair nearly hard enough to yank it out.
Ok, so maybe he is freaking out a tiny bit. The kitchen is his solitary place to think and to be, as Robin put it, zen. He can't do that if people have been in here and messed things up. He pulls the knives out of the rack and spots a little grime on one of them and scuffs on another that suggest that they've been improperly used. In a desperate show of paranoia he holds each one up to the light, inspecting it for damage or mess and vowing never to let another living soul in here.
Zoro huffs and takes them away from him, pushing him gently away from his place at the counter top as Zoro starts to clean them and inspect the blades on his behalf. Sanji rifles through the cutlery drawer and finds that even the knives and forks are the wrong way around in the drawer as well. He sharply rearranges them, he's never ever letting anyone else in here. Zoro slides the knife rack back across the counter to him, all in their proper order, missing only the one that Sanji had identified as suffering minor damage.
Sanji desperately inspects the stores and tries to account for whether anything has been lost, mangled or used more than it should have been.
The sound of Sanji's knife sharpening block grabs his attention away from his current task and Sanji actually looks, really looks around and sees Zoro. The swordsman is standing in his kitchen looking every bit at home as he sharpens Sanji's knife back to perfection. He doesn't seem to notice Sanji's stare as he examines the blade this way and that in the light before deeming it complete, washing it, gently drying it off and sliding it back into its proper place in the rack. The place that he somehow knew without Sanji having to tell him.
He'd been all ready to kick the next intruder into his kitchen out but he'd not even properly clocked that Zoro was in his space. It was almost as if he completely belonged there.
It's a stupid assertion of course seeing as there was barely any time since Zoro had nearly straight up murdered him. The two of them aren't exactly on stable ground here. Sanji rests his head against the pantry door and continues watching Zoro easily move through the kitchen, setting things in their right place as if it's the most natural thing in the world to do.
It's not really a fair accusation to make.
Zoro didn't mean to nearly kill him. In fact he went through hell and nearly burnt down their home in an attempt to save his life. Most of their miscommunications had been down to bad information from Chopper, something that deep down Sanji still hasn't 100% forgiven him for, even if he is about at 99% forgiven due to the sheer awkwardness of the apology scene that Luffy had forced out of all of them.
Still, with all of that said there is zero reason for him to feel so normal with Zoro in his kitchen. There is even less reason for him to be standing there like a complete brain dead moron just staring at the guy. Seriously, he's only just got Zoro back as nakama, he's in no way willing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by letting the other man realise just what it is that Sanji feels, which he will if he keeps staring at him like a complete moron.
He should say something.
Sanji opens his mouth.
...he's got nothing.
Zoro glances over and seeing Sanji standing there with his mouth open like some kind of shitty fish. Quick! Think of something!
"So! I heard you sing before." Sanji blurts out and instantly regrets it because, oh you know, he'd heard Zoro singing by sort of stalking him around. Good job.
Zoro's reaction is enough to distract him though. It's like someone turned on a light behind Zoro's skin, changing his usual tan complexion bright red almost immediately. The flush spreads all over his ears, up to his hairline, everywhere! Suddenly feeling more at home Sanji's shitty smug grin comes out to play as he steps forward into Zoro's space, the challenge as old and familiar to him now as breathing.
"Oh wow, I've embarrassed the little marimo huh? I could pinch your cheeks, your blush is so cute." He teases, reaching out to do just that.
Zoro snarls and mangles out some sound before darting back in a flash too fast for Sanji to see. There's a flash of silver in his hand and suddenly Wado is out and in his hand.
"Not a threat that I think you'll follow through with somehow." Sanji says confident that the very last thing Zoro wants to do is to push another sword through his chest. He steps forward again and bats Zoro's already lowering sword away with his left hand, his right reaching up to Zoro's cheek.
For the sake of embarrassing Zoro he actually does pinch the scarlet flesh there, much to the swordsman's whined dismay. Sanji laughs out loud, he knows that his time to tease Zoro like this with no repercussions is short and will only last about as long as Zoro's oppressive guilt does, so he's going to get all of the mileage that he can out of it.
"Shit cook." Zoro manages with a snarl, pushing Sanji's hand away from his face.
"But look at that blush! Are you gonna sing for me marimo?" Sanji giggles and, holy shit that really was a giggle. He didn't mean to do that. He's meant to be teasing Zoro, not finding him actually adorable. Abort mission!
Zoro seems to sense weakness and parries back. Pulling Sanji's arm to the side and pushing back into his personal space so that their faces are only a fist or two's distance apart.
"Why? Sing to you?" Zoro challenges, his eyes drilling straight into Sanji's. Sanji panics for a second. Zoro is challenging him, his incorrect grammar and missing words aside he's asking mockingly if Sanji wants to hear him sing then, since he thinks it's so good.
Denying it will mean that Zoro will win, the only way to not lose is to play and push this strange game of chicken further.
"Well, you do sound lovely." He purrs at Zoro.
Zoro goes redder, not that Sanji had thought that was even possible.
A lone thought sidles sideways into Sanji's brain and awkwardly coughs as it makes itself known, almost as if it's ashamed to be turning up so late at all. That thought is the question 'is this flirting with Zoro?'.
The two of them hastily get some space between each other and both do a damn fine job of looking at anything in the room that isn't each other.
"So, um. Let me just get the..." Sanji trails off turning back into the cupboard to hide his completely dumb behaviour. He decides that he needs the bag of dried fruit at the top of the pantry, he wants to make a fruity curry sauce and getting the ingredients for that will distract his mind long enough for him to forget that he was just flirting with Zoro. Good lord is he dumb. He'd only just been thinking about the fact that he shouldn't let Zoro in on this... thing that he has for him and then he goes and flirts with him like that.
He stretches his arms up for the bag, rising on tiptoes. He feels the glue in his chest pull for a second before his lungs cramp and feel as if they shrink to half their size, as if something has snapped and shot them up in his chest like sad deflated balloons.
He makes a pathetic 'hurk' sound and tumbles forward into the shelves, smacking his forehead on one as he does so. His hands wind around his sides as he tries to wrench in desperate breaths and draw air into his body.
"Sanji!" Zoro yelps, appearing at his side and shoving a hand up the back of his shirt to check on the cut that Zoro put clean through him.
"I'm... I'm ok." Sanji wheezes out. He touches his own hand to the cut on his front, to the smooth warm glue on his chest. There's no bleeding, it was just a tug of the wound, that's all. He's fine.
His breathing levels out back to normal levels and even when Zoro steps back to let him get some space he still lingers close by, as if he expects Sanji to come down with a case of the vapours and fall over again.
"Can you get that? The big plastic bag." Sanji says helpfully, gesturing into the pantry as he leans against the door trying to stop himself from messing up his breathing even more. He's more or less breathing right again but he can't help but feel like something is still off kilter, as if he's about to hiccup and rip something.
Zoro emerges with the plastic bag and dumps it onto the counter top. He gestures at the opposite one that makes up the kitchen island and then to Sanji.
"Sanji. Get." Zoro says sternly and points.
Sanji frowns, there's nothing on that countertop that Zoro could want and he gets the feeling that Zoro isn't asking for Sanji to give him something more like... doing something. Zoro huffs and before Sanji can react Zoro's hands are on his hips and he's being lifted into the air like he weighs almost nothing.
Sanji most certainly does not let out a startled squeal at this and his face doesn't go red when one of those hands slides down over his ass and onto his thigh to pull his leg up as Zoro shoves him on top of the counter top until he's sitting on it.
"Stay. Tell me what... what to uh..." Zoro shuts his eyes and snaps his fingers, the word clearly on the tip of his tongue.
"How to cook." Zoro settles on and his expression brokers no argument.
Sanji is too busy trying to force the pandora's box in his mind shut again as images and fantasies of Zoro picking him up like that and pressing him into any flat surface escape one after the other, running riot behind his eyes.
"Sure." He forces out in a strained voice.
"Probably for the best if I just... stay here." Sanji agrees, his heart hammering so hard that he think he might faint if he moved again anyway.
Zoro nods clearly pleased and washes his hands, ready to start cooking and obeying Sanji's every command. There's a thrill of power that rushes through Sanji at that idea and he latches onto the idea of bossing Zoro around in order to make the rest of his mind and body quieten down. He has Zoro back now, he's not going to ruin this again.
A/N: so. It's been like... a year. .
Sorry about that. A whole shitload of stuff has happened to me since this fic died on me, including me spending the last nine months or so fighting a clinical depression. I'm still not out of it and may never be but I love writing too much to let this thing take that from me too. I love this fic and now that Love Me Dead is coming to a close I wanted to get back to it. I hope some of you out there are still interested in this fic and want to see it finished as much as I do. There's more to come so stay tuned. 3