"Stupid." Sanji berates himself, smacking his head against the wooden wall inside the pantry.
"Shitty." He adds, another smack against the wood.
"Idiot." He snarls.
At least, he thinks with a sadistic kind of optimism, Zoro didn't reject him or let him down gently. No, he just stood there in numb shock whilst Sanji ran off like a coward. Which is a great plan. It's not like he and Zoro are trapped together in a confined space and it's not as if he has a job which means that no matter what Zoro HAS to see him three times a day at least. Oh wait.
He sniffles and then sits wide eyed in the dark, stunned at the sound. His throat feels tight and he's sniffling. He warily raises a hand and touches it to his cheek. It's wet, he's been crying. He's been crying without noticing it and good lord are there no depths that he won't sink to today?
"Fucking... shitty... loser." He curses himself, leaning his head back against the wood. It's kind of sore where he's been smacking it there. He really should be careful or he's going to give himself brain damage and- great, now he's thinking about Zoro again.
He sighs and squeezes the bag of flour in his hands, picking at the edge of the seams and biting at his lip. He might have had the advantage back there, Zoro can't talk under pressure or when his emotions are running high, but he will talk eventually. Zoro couldn't reject him then and there or be "sympathetic" towards his feelings, but sooner or later it's going to come. He finds himself reminded of the training that Zeff gave him when he was a kid. He used to have a problem with falling badly if he ever got tossed across a room, which of course happened a lot. He'd tense up right before he hit the floor and it'd hurt so much. The hits that hurt the least were the ones that he didn't see coming, where he didn't have time to react. Zeff tried to teach him to fall properly but every time he knew that it was coming he just tensed up and it hurt so bad.
Zeff had taught him the theory of course, to roll with a fall and try to right yourself as soon as possible, to be relaxed so that your muscles don't get jarred from the impact. It took months of Zeff ambushing him and throwing him around before Sanji got it. It's a good thing too because Luffy often grabs him and Zoro and flings them off somewhere in his enthusiasm to get there quickly. He's able to land smoothly now whilst Zoro often ends up with his head lodged in the sand in a sprawled mess.
Goddamnit, he's thinking about Zoro AGAIN.
This situation is kind of like that. He knows that Zoro's rejection is coming and he's tensed up, waiting for it. It's going to hurt all the more for it too. He's going to spend the remaining time between now and when Zoro eventually speaks to him playing the scenario over and over in his mind and torturing himself. And then, because he's so goddamn efficient, afterwards he will then remember it in vivid and terrible detail. Wonderful.
He swallows nervously and gets to his feet. As much as he'd like to he simply cannot hide inside the pantry for the rest of his life. He unlocks the door and steps out into the kitchen. He's pleased to see that no one got in whilst he was hiding. He'd locked the kitchen door of course but there are some people to whom locks are no barrier (Usopp, Nami, Robin) and those who will just barge through regardless (Zoro, Luffy). He's unnervingly pleased to see that Robin isn't there. As much as he adores her this whole thing is her fault. She was the one who pointed out his sentimental reaction to Zoro's note, she's the one who tipped Zoro off to him acting weird. If she hadn't done that then Zoro wouldn't have gone looking for him and made him confess. In a round about way it's her fault.
He knows himself too well to think that he'll blame her for long. It's not in his nature to hold a grudge, much less so against a woman.
He rests his bag of flour on the table top and sighs. He went through all this for a fucking bag of flour, so he may as well use it.
He makes a pie, several actually. A steak and kidney pie which Luffy will no doubt devour. Two chicken and onion pies which will be snagged probably by Usopp and Franky and some of the others possibly too. A vegetarian one which will certainly grab Chopper's interest and a wild mushroom pie that he knows Nami likes. He sets up vegetables, bread, potatoes of both the mashed variety and the boiled. He sets the table up with cutlery, plates and everyone's favourite drinks.
He unlocks the kitchen door and sticks his head out. Zoro is sat on the other end of the ship, facing away from Sanji and looking out to sea. Sanji's stomach tightens in an anxious knot at seeing that Luffy is sitting with him and fishing. It loosens pretty quickly though, Zoro wasn't a gossip even before he lost and then started to regain his powers of speech. Zoro likely won't tell Luffy about what just happened.
He takes a deep, shaking breath.
"DINNER!" He yells at the top of his lungs and bolts back into the kitchen.
Then, because he is a mature and responsible adult, he crosses the kitchen, opens a porthole and escapes out of it. He lands upside down on the the deck outside, the floor connecting painfully with his neck and his ass in the air before he falls over in an ungraceful heap.
Somehow, somewhere Zeff knows that his training has been wasted on Sanji.
He rolls to his feet a little more gracefully and stays crouched out of view of the portholes.
"Where's Sanji?" Usopp asks in confusion.
"I saw him around here." Robin replies smoothly. SHIT. Of course she did, she sees EVERYTHING. She's going to tell Zoro and then Zoro will come out here and-
Sanji leaps upwards onto the wheelhouse and yanks the lever by the wheel, changing the number that it displays.
Zoro comes outside, Sanji can just see the edges of his green hair as Zoro looks around for him. In a second he's going to look up. Sanji flings himself overboard, broaching the surface smoothly with barely a sound or a ripple. He swims under the surface towards the ship and then sticks close to it. He makes his way around the hull of the ship, edging closer and closer to the side where the number dock is open. He'd pulled it open to the number that opens the hull so that the mini-merry can get out.
He paddles his way inside and hauls himself out of the small dock that the mini merry is floating in.
He is a grown man standing in the hull of a ship next to a tiny boat with a sheep head on it, dripping wet from head to toe. All so that he can avoid the man that he blurted his feelings out to. Sanji has the distinct impression that his life has gone horribly wrong somewhere and if he were perhaps to pinpoint the moment where it all started getting weird it would probably have to do with some rubbery asshole firing a cannonball into his restaurant.
He shakes himself off and squelches out of the room, up the stairs and down the hallway. He hides in one of Franky's small workshops and closes the door behind him.
Perhaps he can do this indefinitely. There must be a dozen sneaky escape routes throughout the ship if he was to look for them. He could lock himself in the kitchen, prepare a meal, yell out for it and then make a run for it. When he goes back to cook the next one he'll then eat the last one. It is probably a shitty plan but if he does enough mental acrobatics to not think about it then he can convince himself that it is sensible and entirely workable.
He sits there in silence. He would smoke but his smokes are all wet now and whilst he's perfected a method of drying them out so that they can be smoked again, it takes a few days and can't be done right then and there. No one wants a soggy cigarette, they don't burn and they are deeply unsatisfying.
He's starting to get almost bored when he hears the tell tale thumping of boots on the wooden hallway floor. They are specifically the sound of overly large combat boots worn by someone with absolutely no grace at all. Zoro.
Sanji wouldn't say this stomach fills with butterflies. It feels a little more like his stomach has filled with rabid bats, flapping their wings with menace in an attempt to eat him alive.
He leaps to his feet. He has, in his endless genius, locked himself in a relatively small room with no windows or doors, save for the one he came in through. The door that Zoro is getting rapidly closer to. Sanji walks around in panicked circles. THERE! There's a vent in the ceiling! It's pretty small but it looks like he could fit his head and chest through it at the least. His shoulders are too wide though, that's for sure. Perhaps if he could dislocate one then...
Zoro bangs the door open and Sanji leaps high enough into the air in startled fright to actually hit his head on the vent grating. He makes an undignified squeaking sound.
Zoro stands there in the doorway, filling almost the entire thing and barring any hopes Sanji has of escape. He is glaring at Sanji with the fury of a thousand burning suns and in his right hand he holds a plate with pie on it. Even having grown up with Zeff, Sanji is still not sure that he has ever seen a man looking so angry whilst wielding pie.
"I... ah... hi?" Sanji squeaks.
Zoro glares and advances towards him, pie in hand. The swordsman snarls and Sanji closes his eyes and winces. Maybe Zoro is going to throw it at him, to tell him that he won't eat anything made by someone like HIM. Maybe he's going to do all of that and then attack him with his swords.
Something blunt jabs him in the chest.
Sanji peeks one eye open. Zoro has shoved the edge of the plate into his chest and it glaring at him angrily.
Warily Sanji lifts his hands and takes the plate, his hands curling around the edges of the crockery. He notes that there's a knife and fork on there too. Zoro lets go of the plate and continues to glare at him.
"Uh." Sanji says, needing to fill the silence but having no idea at all about what to say. Zoro continues to glare.
"I just... uh needed some fresh air?" Sanji ventures, his voice venturing higher with the lie. Good god, his lie sounds as unbelievable as one of Usopp's right now.
Zoro looks even less impressed with that explanation and jabs him in the forehead with his finger and growls menacingly.
"Look, if you're going to attack me or yell at me can you just do it? Because frankly waiting for it feels awful, just... go on." Sanji demands, his voice and power of will wavering.
Zoro snorts, unhooks his swords from his belt and leans them against the wall. He sits down on the floor, leaning back against the wall and props his feet up on a small wooden crate. He looks almost casual.
Sanji stands there, his eyes rabbit in the headlights wide.
Zoro huffs, still mute, and raps his knuckles on the floor next to him before jabbing a finger in Sanji's direction. Zoro wants him to sit. In an anxious hurry and tangle of limbs Sanji almost collapses into the space next to Zoro, though still makes sure to keep a distance between the two of them.
He holds his plate in trembling hands and looks across at Zoro's swords. Zoro has disarmed himself so it's unlikely that he's going to react in anger and try to re-skewer him with his blades. At least he won't die for his confession then, that's something.
He leaps a little when Zoro leans into his personal space, but all Zoro does is reach out and grab the fork from the plate. He lifts it and then smacks Sanji in the forehead with it. Sanji takes the hint and grabs the fork. He puts his plate down on the floor and cuts at the pie with his fork, trying to focus all his attention on the task and as little of it on Zoro as he can. His hands are trembling. How has today gone so very wrong?
His stomach is in too many twisted and turned knots to really eat so he just pushes his food around the plate. Eventually, unable to bear the strain any longer he starts to speak. Because, you know, that worked out so well for him earlier.
"Are you gonna punch me and tell me that you're not like that or something?" He asks in a small voice.
Zoro does punch him then, in the shoulder and hard. He yanks on Sanji's right arm and pulls him back so hard that Sanji's back hits the wall. Zoro holds Sanji's arm up in front of his own face and then he reaches out and swipes his finger twice across the top of Sanji's forearm in the sign of an X. It takes him a moment or two for the words to come to him.
"We're nakama." He says numbly. Zoro sighs in a put upon manner and rolls his eyes as if Sanji had just said something as obvious as the sea is wet.
"So you're saying you're not going to hurt me for what I said." Sanji clarifies, searching Zoro's face for any sign that he's wrong.
Zoro lets him go and then just stares at him in a flat unimpressed manner that somehow seems to suggest that if Sanji continues in this particular line of questioning then he might just hurt him out of irritation.
"I didn't mean to say all that back there, I told you that I didn't want to ruin everything. I hadn't been planning on it, I just wanted to keep it to myself." Sanji explains weakly, poking at his pie a little more, separating the crust from the top of the pie.
He glances up at Zoro to see that the man's mouth is twisted unhappily. Is Zoro unhappy with what he said back there or unhappy that he's brought it up again? Had Zoro been intending on pretending it never happened? If so then Sanji has just gone and ruined that too.
'Or maybe' his heart whispers 'he feels bad that you're hurt, because he likes you'
Sanji grits his teeth and shoves down the idea. He's never listening to that fucking thing again, not after all this shit.
"Sorry, shouldn't be bringing it up again. I'm a dumbass." He mumbles, ducking his head and staring a hole in his plate. He's absolutely mangling this pie.
Zoro brought him boiled new potatoes too, he even got him some of the herb butter that Sanji had put on the side for the others. Zoro gets what cooking is like now. Zoro... didn't want Sanji to go hungry, or have to wait until everyone was gone to eat. Zoro stormed down here all angry because Sanji had abandoned a meal and he'd brought him some. It's the mushroom pie, the one he'd have picked himself. His eyes well up again and he stares at the ground until the feeling goes away but he's unable to do that and ignore the swell of 'I love you' that he feels for Zoro because of this.
Zoro sighs heavily and leans forward, touching Sanji's shoulder and turning him until they're looking at each other. Zoro takes a deep breath, raises a finger, looking serious and calm.
He says nothing.
He looks like he means to say something but nothing comes out. He scowls for a second, shakes his head minutely and tries again, dropping his 'I'm making a serious point here' finger to his side. Nothing comes out again. Sanji waits. Zoro tries once more.
"Arghfuarhlh!" Zoro manages in frustration. Well, he forced some sound out.
"I know how you feel." Sanji says weakly. Zoro slaps him on the side of the head and scowls.
"So you want to say something, but you can't manage to." Sanji says, unhappy with the direction that this is going.
Zoro nods and looks at Sanji pointedly. When Sanji says nothing Zoro makes his 'go on' sign.
"And you want me to play twenty questions to try to work out what you're trying to say about the whole subject that I didn't want to talk about in the first place, regret saying because it's probably ruined everything and makes me want to drown myself just thinking about it. That about right?" Sanji asks unhappily.
Zoro nods.
"I fucking hate you sometimes. I'd refuse but I'd feel too bad about it." he says, knowing that it's the truth. Refusing to help Zoro talk when he wants to would be nothing short of mean and exploitative.
"Okay." Sanji says with a deep sigh. He gives up on mangling his cooling dinner and instead massages the bridge of his nose, trying to disconnect himself from the words he's about to say.
"I take it that you do want to talk about what just happened back there in the store room." He says unhappily.
"Uh-huh." Zoro agrees. Well, at least he's a little bit verbal again now.
"Ok, is this going to be you telling me that you hate me and how dare I think anything like that about you?" Sanji asks, not looking at Zoro but wincing all the same. He's tensing up before the metaphorical blow again. He should listen to Zeff, relax, roll with it.
He's not looking at Zoro so the swordsman has to actually smack his arm to get him to look at him. When he does Zoro is shaking his head.
"Ok, well at least you don't hate me." Sanji sighs, the tension in him unwinding ever so slightly.
He continues down his mental path of things that he doesn't want Zoro to say to him.
"Are you trying to say, thanks but no thanks I see you like a brother and 'oh gee poor Sanji with his feelings'? Because I swear if you start patronising me I will stick my foot through your face no matter how I feel about you." Sanji snarls. He's angry now, angry is good, angry isn't feeling like he's going to cry.
Zoro throws back his head and laughs at that. Eventually the swordsman looks back at him, grins and shakes his head.
Sanji's treacherous little heart starts making excited noises.
"So. What then?" Sanji asks, raising an eyebrow.
Zoro sighs, looks at the ceiling as if it has the answers and it can answer for him. He then looks back at Sanji and gives him a theatrical shrug.
'I don't know'
"You... don't know what to say?" Sanji guesses hesitantly.
"Uh-uh. No." Zoro says and shrugs again.
"You... you don't know what you feel?" he says in a numb voice.
Zoro nods, looking a little brighter now.
"Oh." Is all Sanji can manage to say.
"Oh." He repeats again.
His heart is doing a little happy dance in his chest. He wasn't rejected. Okay, his affections aren't returned but his heart is trying it's damnedest to convince him that Zoro might do sooner or later. He shoves the thought down. He's NOT listening. He's not.
"You... we" Zoro asks, touching Sanji's shoulder and turning him to face him a little more.
"Okay?" Zoro manages, gesturing between them. Zoro's asking him if they're ok.
"Yeah marimo, we're ok." Sanji replies, his voice wavering.
Sanji is able to eat just a little bit now. He scoops up a bit of his pie with his fork and manages to eat it, the writhing and fluttering in his stomach having died down into almost acceptable levels now.
"Sorry, I've been acting like a total coward about this." He admits. He's speaking to Zoro but he's effectively admitting it to his plate.
"I just blurted that out and then ran off and then instead of facing you at dinner I escaped out of a porthole and threw myself overboard and hid in here. Real goddamn adult I am." He grumbles. Seriously, isn't he old enough to be past this?
"Nah." Zoro says with a shrug.
"What do you mean 'nah'?" Sanji asks, squinting at him.
"You're not- it's... big." Zoro manages. His brow is furrowed in concentration and Sanji can tell that it's that which is fucking with his speech. Zoro is... he's trying really hard not to say the wrong thing. He doesn't want to mess this up. But why? Is he just concerned about sticking his foot in it and hurting Sanji's feelings or is he trying to make sure that he's honest and work out for himself how he feels.
"Yeah, it's fucking big." Sanji concedes, returning his gaze to his plate.
"I don't even know what's going on with me." He mutters. His life was so much easier before all of these feelings.
The two of them sit in silence for a while whilst Sanji eats a little bit more.
"Hey, wait, I'm eating. Why aren't you eating?" He asks sharply. If Zoro gave him his own dinner then Sanji will force-feed him half if he has to stand on his fucking face and pry his mouth open with a knife!
"Already ate, went fast to find you. Wanted you to have yours, not Luffy." the other man answers with a wry laugh. He knows just how likely it is for there to be leftovers with Luffy around.
"Thanks for that." The cook nods and continues eating, resting easily that Zoro hasn't gone hungry. Although he is a little impressed at Zoro's eating speed, if slightly concerned about him getting indigestion later.
It's not exactly a peaceful or comfortable silence that Sanji eats in. The air between he and Zoro is heavy with awkward tension that neither of them wants to say the wrong thing into. Between his reluctance to bring up his feelings again and Zoro's inability to communicate clearly it feels like the air is full of words left unsaid.
"So. How long?" Zoro asks out of nowhere and Sanji nearly bites his fork in half.
"Please don't tell me you're asking me how long I've-" Sanji gulps. He doesn't say 'how long I've loved you' because he blurted out the L-word once already, he's not going to freak the other guy out more by saying it again.
"Yeah. How long?" Zoro repeats.
"I don't- I don't really know ok?" Sanji whines, putting his head in his hands and abandoning his fork on his plate. He suddenly doesn't feel like eating again.
Zoro pokes him in the shoulder, he's not going to let this go.
"I've always respected you. I mean, I've not always liked you because, you know, you're kind of an impolite, brutish asshole." Sanji answers.
"But you like me." Zoro replies, sounding smug.
"Yeah, apparently I have no taste." he shoots back, swatting Zoro in the chest and making the other man laugh.
"I don't fucking know man. It's not like I've got a hard on for brain injuries or some shit like that, but I guess it changed after that. You don't appreciate how much you need something or someone until you nearly lose them. I mean, we all loved Merry but when... we all knew how much we loved that ship after that. Even if we'd never actively thought about it before, you know?" Sanji says, trying to find the best analogue for his feelings that he can get.
"Yeah." Zoro agrees and the two of them share a respectful silence for their fallen nakama. They have the Sunny and the Sunny is great and loved by all of them, but so was Merry.
"And when you started spending time with me and I got to... I don't know. It's not like you're different now than you were before, I just feel different. It's me that's changed I guess. I never even liked guys, you know me, I love ladies!" He exclaims in frustrated anger.
How has this even happened? He had always pictured himself with some beauty like Robin or Nami, not some brute like Zoro. But Zoro is just what he wants. Zoro makes his heart race and his cheeks flush, he dreams of him and the thought of Zoro rejecting him just breaks him. He loves Zoro, he can't deny it.
"I don't know, I just... I just do. That's all there is to it." Sanji answers firmly and goes back to staring at the ground.
"I figured that I was being..." Sanji trails off. Stupid? Hopeful? Deluded?
He tries again.
"I didn't want to bring it up. I'd planned on not saying anything because-" Nope. There's no way that he can go down that path without sounding like he's begging for Zoro to feel the same back.
"The note." Zoro says, in an ah-hah tone of voice, as if it's just clicked for him.
"You know I'm a sentimental romantic moron, can you blame me for holding onto the one thing I had? If Robin hadn't said anything then none of this would have happened and I wouldn't have said- argh. It's not her fault, I shouldn't be mad at her." Sanji says, though he sounds more like he's trying to convince himself rather than Zoro.
Zoro makes an unconvinced noise.
"Well, whatever. It's too late, you already know." Sanji mutters unhappily.
Even if Zoro hasn't told him outright no, it's still not something that he wanted to talk to him about ever.
"I make- I made you." Zoro says.
Sanji looks over at Zoro. The swordsman looks unhappy, guilty even. He's looking down at his hands and scowling, Sanji thinks that he looks angry at himself.
"It's my fault, I was being a coward and avoiding you, remember?" Sanji reasons. Zoro has nothing to feel guilty about, frankly his reaction is better than anything Sanji had imagined. Well, except for his heart making him imagine Zoro saying yes and feeling the same. That wasn't really imagination though, that was utter delusion.
Zoro looks at him and his eyes are wide with seriousness, his gold eyes bright. He shakes his head firmly, his gold earrings chiming.
"Brave." Zoro says in his no-arguing tone of voice.
Sanji blinks at him dumbly. Zoro... Zoro thinks that he's brave. Brave for... for telling him.
"If I was brave you wouldn't have had to force it out of me." He replies, glancing away. Being under Zoro's gaze feels too hot and uncomfortable, like holding his hand too close to the stove when it's on.
"You can be brave under... under pressure." Zoro says wisely.
"Stop being so nice asshole, I'll start to wonder if Franky built a fake robot Zoro and replaced you whilst I wasn't looking." Sanji teases, elbowing Zoro in the ribs.
Zoro laughs and leans to Sanji's side, resting his head on Sanji's shoulder. Sanji shuts his eyes and just breathes. This didn't go as awfully as he thought. It's nice, just being close to Zoro like this, having him here. Zoro's been nice to him and not in a patronising way either. Not in a 'that's sweet but no' kind of way. He's been honest and sensitive to Sanji's feelings. He breathes deeply and feels himself relax. Even though Zoro doesn't know how he feels and even though Sanji is sure that he's going to come back and say that he doesn't really have any romantic attraction to him, even with all that, this is nice. If he can have this, then it's enough. When Zoro comes back and says the 'no' that Sanji expects, he at least feels a little safer in the knowledge that it's unlikely now to change anything between them. If Zoro was going to react badly then he would have done it by now.
He was all tensed up but there wasn't a fall to prepare for. Or perhaps he fell but didn't hit the ground. Maybe that's what this is, the weightless free fall between the blow and the impact. It doesn't feel like it though.
"You smell like wet sheep." Zoro says, shattering Sanji's blissful thoughts.
"Oh FUCK you! This is my wool suit, don't you dare make fun of me! I only jumped in the shitty ocean to avoid your dumb ass. It's wool, expensive wool too, what did you expect it to be like? At least my clothes get washed anyway, yours practically stand up by themselves when you take them off you gross neanderthal!" Sanji yells and elbows Zoro in the throat.
"I was having a moment! I was thinking nice things about you, but you're STILL an asshole." Sanji snaps irritably.
"Yeah, but you like it." Zoro responds with a shit eating grin.
"You're not going to let that go are you? It's not an excuse for you to get away with shit you know." he points out with a scowl.
"You like ME." Zoro says, re-emphasising for his point.
"Yeah, maybe I'm the one who hit my head. I should go see Chopper, I'm obviously really sick." Sanji deadpans.
Zoro seems to think about that for a second before leaning back and grinning at him. Sanji doesn't like that grin. That's Zoro's evil plan grin.
"Love sick." Zoro responds.
Sanji's. Jaw. Drops.
"I don't love you, I hate you, I'm going to kill you in your sleep and throw you overboard." He snarls, shoving Zoro over and kneeing him in the side. Zoro just laughs loudly. It's a good natured kind of laugh though, not at Sanji's expense.
The swordsman grins up at him as the fight pauses, leaving Sanji leaning against Zoro's shin, his fist half pushed into Zoro's solar plexus. Zoro grins and taps his finger on Sanji's forearm again.
"We're ok." He says simply.
Sanji sits back on his heels and knows that his face is red. Shit like this is why he feels what he does for Zoro. He might be a smelly, tactless brute but... he cares for his nakama. He's insightful and he has a good heart.
"Thank you." Sanji mumbles, picking up his plate and standing up.
"You know, for... bringing me dinner and not freaking out on me." He says stiffly. He's as uncomfortable thanking Zoro as Zoro is to him. Perhaps the two of them are just both new at it, they're far more practiced at arguing and fighting each other than they are apologising, showing gratitude or being sincere. It's new for them.
"Any time shit cook." Zoro responds, still down on the floor.
Sanji nods a little awkwardly and then, plate in hand, he leaves the small work room and heads back to his kitchen.