Do me a favour, break my nose!
Do me a favour, tell me to go away!
Do me a favour, stop asking questions!

-"Do Me A Favor" Arctic Monkeys

XxxX

Monday night Sanji was in his usual state of absent mindedness. He even poured Zoro a drink before he even realized that he was there. The phrase that brought him back into awareness was: "I'm going to beat you into the dirt, shit cook."

"The fuck you are," Sanji retorted automatically, although he wasn't sure what this plant head was even talking about. At least he wasn't going to be weird about waking up together. Not that it was too weird, only a little weird and defiantly not worth thinking about a lot. It just sounded weird when it was worded that way. Nope, ignore that whole train of thought, suppress it at all. Aaaaand done.

"I guess we'll see, won't we?" Zoro said with a dangerous smirk.

Sanji squinted his eyes like he was trying very hard to remember something, "Wait, I challenged you to a duel, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did and I take these challenges very seriously," Zoro nodded.

"Well, good because I'm not backing out. So how are we doing this? I guess I'll just go from work but what are you going to do for the next, like, six hours?"

"Take a nap, get my katanas, and get over there." He shrugged, there wasn't much else for him to do after all.

Sanji frowned slightly. "You better not ditch me, if you ditch me I'll be pissed, I'll poison you the next time you come in here." It was a serious threat and some little part of Sanji was worried about being stood up like a chump. This little part was then squashed down, also like a chump.

"I'll keep that in mind but I'll get there early to open the place just so you don't worry your delicate little head," Zoro assured flashing a condescending smile.

Sanji ignored the mocking tone and chose to listen only to his words. "Good. And how, may I ask, do you have the power to open this place? Because I'd really rather not break in." Braking into a dojo was not something he wanted to be arrested for, thank you very much.

"Do I look like some kind of punk to or something?" Zoro asked in all his green haired, ear ring wearing, punkish glory.

Sanji gave him an unimpressed look, "You really want me to answer that?"

"Your lack of faith is insulting, luckily I don't need it. The guy who pretty much raised me owns the place, so I kind of grew up there," Zoro sighed, it was pretty convenient for him to show up and train there. Sometimes he would teach classes there too, when he had the time. He was shockingly good with kids.

"Pretty much raised you?" Sanji lifted an eyebrow.

"Yeah, pretty much." It didn't seem fair to share his childhood when Sanji wouldn't share his, not that he particularly cared. Because he didn't.

"Fine, I get it, whatever," Sanji pouted, he was also convinced that he didn't care about Zoro's childhood. It was good to know that they were both in a state if uncaring toward each other. Not that either of them knew it.

"So, Luffy likes you, and you know what that means?" Zoro asked, shifting the conversation in a different direction.

"No, what?" Sanji asked, reluctantly.

"It means he's going to want to hang out with you," Zoro said like it was totally obvious. It kind of was obvious but Sanji was expecting something else for some reason. The way he said it sounded like it would be something profound or something.

"Well, good, because I don't really have many friends around here yet." He didn't have many friends in general, let alone in this area but everyone he had met seemed okay to him thus far.

"Yeah, you seemed awkward around everyone at first," Zoro said without thinking. Damn, that made it sound like he had been paying attention, which he totally hadn't been doing at all. And paying attention was just a step away from starting to care.

"I don't get out often for that sort of thing," the cook said, pulling a face.

"Are you saying that you have no friends?" Zoro asked, although he already knew that no one could put up with his bitchyness. He just wanted to rub salt in the open wound because he was a fucking dick.

"No, I'm saying that I spent a lot of time at work and therefore I have little time for such things," Sanji said evenly.

"Things like having friends?"

"Yeah, maybe a little bit. Shut up, you're just trying to be mean!" he huffed, scratching at the back of his neck.

"Well, with Luffy you are probably going to be overloaded with friendship, so prepare yourself." Luffy's friendship was a force that could make the earth spin backwards or destroy any small planet. It would be overwhelming to a friendship noob.

"Thanks for the warning, loser," Sanji smiled as he headed off to clean up the glass from a cup some idiot had dropped, shattering it to pieces. Broken glass was the worst. You could never tell if you had cleaned it all the way up, then you end up with shards of glass stuck in your foot. Once Sanji had walked around for two days with a thin shard of glass stuck in the calloused skin near his pinky toe after he dropped a box of glass Christmas ornaments for the restaurant on the floor. He hadn't even noticed for a while but when he noticed a slight pain he looked and saw a glimmer in a cut. When he pulled the shard out with a pair of tweezers it was actually pretty fucking big and painful looking.

Shaking these thoughts aside, Sanji cleared up the glass, helped some other customers, and returned to Zoro again.

Not long after that Zoro finished off his drink and stood. "Right, see you after midnight then?"

"After midnight," Sanji agreed, although this still felt uncomfortably like a weird date to him. Whatever, if anything bad happened he could always repress it. He was pretty good at repressing things. He cringed at his own thoughts, damn that sounded depressing and sketchy as fuck.

The hours he spent working seemed to pass more slowly than usual. He was reluctant to say he was excited for this, but he was. But he hadn't had a good fight since he'd moved here and that seemed far too long ago. Not that he expected Zoro to be good because that would be putting faith in him, but he didn't think he would be total shit. When the time finally arrived for him to leave he walked smoothly and quickly out the door after a quick goodbye to Nami. He moved not too quickly, just quickly enough.

He double checked the address on his phone and texted Zoro that he was coming. The place was not very far away, within walking distance, although it was probably a fifteen minute walk. Halfway there Zoro texted back that he was opening the place so the lights would be on when he got there.

And they were, rather bright through the large display window. Sanji loved it when martial arts places like this had big open displays, when kids took classes there they looked like adorable little soldiers or something. It was half disturbing and half super cute.

Sanji quickly pushed open the door, trying to escape the biting cold. Inside it was warmer but not nearly warm enough. As soon as he stepped inside Zoro walked in from the back, swords in hand.

"Hi," Sanji greeted, chirpily. He was kind of excited about this and he couldn't completely suppress his good mood just for the sake of appearances.

"Hi," Zoro said back, sounding rather awkward.

Sanji let out an uncomfortable bubble of laughter, but quickly tried to halt his actions although that just made it harder to control. Like laughing at a funeral. "Sorry, you just looked so uncomfortable."

"Shut up, it's my face, I can't help it," Zoro grumbled, scuffing his foot against the matted floor.

"Whatever, so how are we going to do this?" Sanji asked, hands on hips.

Zoro drew one sword but left the other two within reach, "Get ready, we'll see how long you last."

Sanji discarded his coat and other belongings, "Oh ho, those are brave words for someone about to get their ass kicked. I'm insulted that you don't even think I'm worth two swords when you can apparently defy logic and use three."

"I have no way of know if your all talk so you should be glad I'm so merciful." He did have a point there.

"But you're still going to use a real sword? Not a practice one so I guess I'm not being totally underestimated," Sanji smirked ask Zoro glared at him, unable to deny the point he had made.

The two tensed as they drew closer together, waiting for that first move to be made. Zoro let Sanji make that initial strike. The kick was solid and held more power than he had anticipated. He was thrown off balance slightly and nearly didn't recover before the second strike came. After that he was more wary. The kicks came in quick succession and Zoro found that he had to exert a large amount of effort to block them. Defiantly worth two swords but he held out with one as long as he could easily manage, just to make Sanji angry.

He grabbed his second sword, much better, he could go on the offensive now. Sanji blocked or dodged his every move. Little bastard was flexible. As the fight proceeded and they grew tired, both managed to land a few good hits. Nothing fatal, of course, they didn't want to have to call in an ambulance or anything; that would he such a pain in the ass. But they would both have some colorful bruises tomorrow for sure. Sanji more so than Zoro because he bruised more easily. It always looked like someone was whacking in him the shins because he would lean them against the edge of his desk at home and would then develope ugly bruises.

When Sanji kicked Zoro across the floor onto the mat the fight ended. Well, he didn't just kick him. Zoro had landed a hard hit to the gut and Sanji had reflexively kicked out with more force than intended. They both collapsed, chests heaving burning cold air like beached fish.

"That all you've got, shitty swordsman?" Sanji managed to gasp out. "How am I still not worth three swords?" He was moderately insulted.

"I only Wado for serious fights," Zoro said, looking at his prized white katana where it rested against the wall.

"Why, is it your favorite or something?" Sanji guessed, following his gaze.

"Something like that, yeah," he replied thoughtfully.

They were quiet for a moment. Sanji was flopped down on his back so that he was staring at the end of the room. He didn't notice at first but he was actually staring at a collection of framed photos, some of which held a familiar face. The blond rolled over onto his stomach and army crawled over to get a closer look. Sure enough there were quite a few pictures of Zoro at various ages winning at an assortment of places. Also scattered among the pictures there were those of an older man, who he assumed to be the guy who sort of raised Zoro, and a little girl with dark hair but all those pictures were old. There were one or two of both Zoro and the girl together and neither of them looked happy to be sharing the same space.

Zoro, on the other side of the room noticed his interest and called over to him. "What are you looking at?"

"Who's this girl?" Sanji said, not turning from the photos.

Slightly confused, Zoro got up to see what exactly the moron was referring to. He paused at the images on the wall, they were rather like a monument of his progression in his goal and a reminder of why he was on his mission.

"This girl," Sanji said as he felt Zoro near, pointing to the girl in the picture.

Zoro breathed a sigh, "Her name was Kuina."

"Was?" Sanji felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, he got the impression things were about to get depressing. Why did everything always have to be so sad? What did life have against happiness.

"Yeah, she died when I was eleven, fell down the stairs and broke her neck." He spoke calmly and bluntly, it happened a long time ago and while it still upsetting it was tolerable in a normal sort of way after all this time.

Sanji cringed at the bluntness of the statement. "I'm guessing she was important?"

"Yeah," he let out a dry laugh, "She's the reason I want to be the best."

"And how is that?" Sanji turned to looks at the swordsman.

"You asked a lot of questions, you know that?" asked Zoro, meeting Sanji's eyes with an amused expression on his face.

"Yeah, and I'll keep asking until you tell me the answers," the blond rolled his eyes impatiently.

Zoro's face pinched in irritation but he kept talking anyway, "She used to kick my ass every time I challenged her and we promised each other we would be the greatest sword fighters in the world. Then she died and I carry her sword with me." He looked over at his white katana again, her white katana. "I will become the best or die trying," he swore, sounding one hundred percent confident in his abilities.

"Always keep your promises, eh?" Sanji smiled at that. He got the Zoro was the type of person who would keep a promise come hell or high waters.

Zoro nodded, "Always."

"Yeah, you seem that type. Well, I'm positive you'll end up doing one of those things, so I guess I wish you the best of luck on that. And I hope that you do that first thing and not the second." Sanji gave him a half smile, he hoped that Zoro became the greatest swordsman. Such a lofty goal seemed impossible but Zoro was determined and crazy, so Sanji felt he had a chance.

"Hey, don't back out of this conversation yet," Zoro smirked in amusement, "I just shared something really personal now it's your turn." A fair trade off.

"What do you want to know?" Sanji looked once again very uncomfortable, his hand rubbing the back of his neck.

"It doesn't have to be your deepest darkest secret or anything," Zoro assured, "Just, I don't know, something. I don't know, just pick something."

Sanji's eyes traveled in a large loop as he tried to search for something to say. "Uh, Zeff, the guy who I used to work for, is my adopted father," Sanji offered.

That didn't quite seem personal enough, so Zoro decided he would chance opening a can of worms. "Why were you adopted? I mean, why were you put up for adoption, not why did someone bother to adopt you. You don't seem so horrible that I don't understand why you would be adopted. It's that other thing I said," he babbled. Get a grip, man, you are better than this.

"I feel like this is more personal than what you shared," Sanji huffed, he was biting his lip now.

"Fine," Zoro whined, time to share something more personal then, "My parents didn't really give a shit about me so I ran around in the streets until I found this place and Koshiro let me train here. This kind of became my real home." Zoro crossed his arms and looked away.

"Are they still out there?" Sanji asked, "Your parents, I mean."

"Yeah, I mean, I haven't heard that either of them died so I'm guessing that they are, but I haven't talked to them in a very long time. And I don't plan on it." It had been years and years, to be correct. They refused to give custody to Koshiro, so Zoro just stayed at his house anyway from them because it was better than that shit hole he called home. They had moved away about five years ago, he heard from some friend of theirs and he was glad to know they were gone.

"There, now we're good. Why are you so against sharing things about yourself?" Equivalent exchange, bitch.

"Why do you want to know?" Sanji said defensively.

"Because you won't tell me. Now go on and tell me," the swordsman demanded, this was becoming frustrating.

"Ugh, fine," Sanji gave it, Zoro had honestly expected more resistance, "If you really want to know. So when I was like five or something I sort of turned up in the middle of nowhere."

"You what?" Zoro's brows knitted together in confusion.

"I don't really remember it but apparently some family found me while they were out on a camping trip. I didn't remember were I had come from or how I got there. I could remember easy things, like my first name or birthday or common knowledge things for kids my age but nothing to identify myself right out. The police couldn't find my parents or any records of where I had come from. So yeah, that's how I became an orphan."

"How could you not remember anything?" It seemed very off, maybe the blond was brain damaged after all.

"I don't know, they gave me like a full medical exam but I didn't have any brain injuries or anything. Although, apparently when they were looking me over I was screaming and struggling so much they had to sedate me. That I remember. Fuck, I hate doctors." He shuddered like he could feel their gloved hands holding his limbs down. "Then I had to go through living in an orphanage for a while. Zeff used to volunteer there and I always tried to help out in the kitchen and that's how we met. Then there were some incidents with the other kids and Zeff took pity on me and decided to adopt me."

"I doubt he adopted you just because he felt bad for you," Zoro said looking unconvinced.

"I guess not, he wouldn't feel bad for me because he's a heartless bastard," he huffed, "But yeah, that's my weird childhood," he smiled.

"Dude, that's fucking bazaar," Zoro said honestly.

"Yeah, I know. I just wish I could remember..." He trailed off, his fingers were digging deeply into the back of his neck, breaking the skin. Sanji didn't seem to notice, although his expression was pinched. A strained reaction, interesting.

The swordsman grabbed Sanji's wrist in order to stop him from further injuring himself. The blond jumped slightly when he was touched.

"Why, do you do that?" Zoro asked, nodding to his hand.

"I don't know, I just do. It's a habit. It comes with repressed memories and all that jazz, you know?" At least that's what the therapist said.

"I'll take your word for it," Zoro said, digesting this new information, mentally filing it away under the category of 'shit cook'. Sanji looked at his phone for the time; 1:50 AM. It was late and Zoro had to work tomorrow.

"It's late," the blond said, "We should probably get going." He didn't really want to go, he was enjoying Zoro's company, even though he was asking hard questions. He just wanted to give Zoro an excuse to get away from him.

"You're probably right," Zoro sighed, running a hand through his hair. He didn't really want to go either but he did need his sleep.

"I'm always right, marimo." An impish grin stole it's way across the chef's face.

"Shut up," the Japanese man shoved him as he stood up next to Zoro.

"We should do this again. Maybe not so late next time." A valid suggestion.

"Yeah," Zoro agreed, "You doing anything Saturday?"

"Nope, are you?"

"Why would I ask you if you were doing anything if I were doing something?"

"Good point. So, Saturday then?" he asked hopefully.

"Saturday." Zoro stuck out his hand, he felt like it was something they should shake hands on for some reason.

"It's a date," Sanji said as he shook said hand. Then with the other hand he smacked himself in the head, back peddling, "Wait, back up, that's not what I meant. Just ignore me, it's late and I am exhausted."

"Good deal, I was planning on ignoring you anyway." His hand was released and they started walking their separate ways.

Sanji flipped him off before grabbing his things and heading toward the exit. "See ya tomorrow, marimo," he waved before walking out the door, having heard Zoro's grunt of acknowledgment.

XxxX

The next day Sanji stood behind the bar, resting his elbow on the counter. He was holding a thrilling conversation with an older gentleman who was apparently a dirt scientist, which sounded like possibly the most boring job ever.

He was glad when Zoro walked in and sat down as an excuse to get out of that inthralling one way discussion. He lifted the sake he had waiting onto the counter top.

"Sore, marimo?" He asked, sliding over the cup.

"No," he said indignantly, "But I think I have a shoe print bruise on my chest."

Sanji snickered, "At least it doesn't look like someone beat you with a whipping stick like a school child from the eighteen hundreds."

"I don't think they beat kids like that."

"It was close enough. Living in the eighteen hundreds would fucking suck."

"Yeah, pretty much the only things I know about the eighteen hundreds comes from Little House on the Prairie," Zoro said, not thinking about what he was admitting to.

"Okay, one, that is pathetic; lots of stuff happened in the eighteen hundreds. Two, I can't believe you either read or watched Little House on the Prairie," he laughed.

"Shut your stupid face, my teacher fucking read it to my class in fifth grade and then I had to watch the show in a history class."

"And you didn't retain any of that information from that class other than what Laura Ingles-Wilder taught you?"

"Apparently not," Zoro shrugged.

"I guess at least you remembered something."

"Yeah, but like imagine going to the doctor and having to explain bruises like that."

"I would just tell the truth, it wouldn't be that difficult. But I guess it would be funnier to let them wonder about it or be really awkward about it." Sanji smiled at the thought.

"Yeah, now imagine having hemophilia."

"Hemophilia is a real mood killer, why did you have to bring it up?"

"Because I was thinking about bruises."

"I think vampires would probably like hemophiliacs. It would make their job easier."

Zoro shook his head, "A good vampire keeps their pray alive to feed on again later."

"You know what I hate about movie vampires?"

"What?"

"When they don't have fangs until they go to bite someone and then somehow their teeth magically become pointed and long. It just bothers me," Sanji huffed.

"But they would tear up the insides of their mouth if they had big fangs all the time."

"When I was little I always wanted to be a vampire and have vampire fangs," Sanji sighed

"That's a little weird."

"Yeah, I used to try wiggling my canine teeth to make them come out so I could have grown up vampire teeth. But they were never loose."

"Well, you have adult teeth now, so they must have gotten loose at some point," Zoro said, staring at Sanji's mouth as he ran his tongue over his teeth.

"Actually, no. They never got loose. I had all my canine teeth pulled by the oral surgeon."

"Why?"

"Because my teeth all came in late. I don't think I lost any until third grade. I lost my last one in eighth grade, and between then I had ten teeth pulled because they weren't getting loose, and my gums were lasered to pull my incisors down, and I still have one baby tooth because there was never a tooth under it," Sanji smiled, flashing his lovely adult teeth.

Zoro wrinkled his nose. "That sounds awful, but my dental history is debatably worse. When I was in third grade I got rushed off to the hospital because one of my molars had a cavity that became abscesses and my face swelled up so badly that I couldn't open my eye on that side of my face."

"That sounds really fucking painful. I've never even had a cavity."

"I don't actually remember it hurting but I had a fever and Kushiro had to take me to the hospital and there was this huge thing with my parents being total assholes but they pulled the tooth before the infection spread to my brain. That was good. And I looked up abscessed teeth on google images once and my face was more swollen and less disgusting than every picture there."

"You could have died like that one ancient Egyptian queen. Fuck, can't remember her name. Whatever, like her."

"Hatshepsut," Sanji recalled, "She was like fifty, with diabetes, and bone cancer but the abscess killed her."

"Yeah, anyway, I had this other tooth that had a cavity so long that the nerve died. That one I remember hurting. I was up on one of the islands and they didn't have any painkillers so I was miserable. They had to pull that one too and they put a metal cap on the tooth next to it. Thankfully, they were both molars and baby teeth so there is no evidence."

"What, you didn't want to be one of those people with really disgusting teeth?"

"No, I can't stand disgusting teeth. Don't ever look them up on the internet, it will make you want to puke."

"Why the hell would anyone look that up anyway?"

"Curiosity is a terrifying force."

Sanji laughed, "Right, well the dentist and orthodontist both hated me, I was a terrible patient and I felt really bad about it every time I came in."

"Hang on, you had braces?"

"Yeah, I looked like a total dork, as I'm sure you would imagine."

Zoro grinned, "My teeth were so awesome and straight that I didn't need them. Are they as painful as everyone says?"

"Actually, mine didn't hurt that badly. Apparently I was lucky, and I have a higher threshold for pain. I didn't have to have like a pallet expander or anything though."

"What did your teeth look like before the braces?"

"Uh, the bottom was all fucked up and I had a tiny gap between my teeth. Not like a really obnoxious one you can't stop staring at, just barely noticeable," Sanji assured.

"I'm always going to imagine you with a massive gap in your teeth now," Zoro grinned

"No! It wasn't even a big gap, don't fucking do that!" Sanji put a hand over his mouth like he could stop Zoro from picturing it.

"It could be worse. I've seen pictures of Luffy as a little kid. He used to suck his right ring finger only and it totally fucked up his mouth. They like morphed around the shape of his finger and it looked like one of the posters of bad teeth you see in the dentist's office."

"Did his adult teeth just come in normal then? Because they look fine now," Sanji asked in surprise.

"No, he had to have a fuck ton of dental work done. I think he had braces in middle school and then again in high school. Plus, he had to crank a pallet expander. And that is why you don't let your kids suck their fingers until they are in second grade and have calluses on their fingers."

"That's so weird, seriously. Ugh, talking about this just makes me want to brush my teeth. I have dreams where my teeth get knocked out sometimes."

"Are they nightmares?"

"Not really. In the dream it freaks me out but I'm fine because I know that I can just get it fixed."

"That's very rational for a dream."

"Yes, yes it is. I am a very rational person."

Zoro snorted. "When I look at you I don't really think 'rational person'."

"And what do you think, might I ask?" Sanji asked indignantly.

"I usually think 'wow, look at this dork trying to be cool. Shut up and pour me some alcohol'." Zoro grinned.

"Well, when I look at you I usually think 'dick'," he paused for a second, "I mean, as in 'you are such a dick' not as in I think about your genitalia when your talking to me. Although I guess now that I'm saying that I am also thinking it so... That's just- I should stop," he shut himself up.

Zoro had his face in his hand, "Oh god, you just made that way more uncomfortable than it had to be."

Sanji rubbed the back of his neck, "Yeah, I'm really sorry. Sometimes I can't filter myself when I really should."

"I think we all do that sometimes. You just take it that extra step that takes a special kind of talent that no one in the universe wants."

"I feel like it should be down sort of disease. Now I want to spread it around the world. I bet it spreads like an STD," the blond decided.

"And I will be going now," Zoro said, standing up and paying.

Sanji pouted slightly, "Goodbye, you fucking weirdo."

"I think you'll find that you are actually the fucking weirdo." He turned and walked out so as not to get dragged down by another amazingly stupid conversation about who the fuck knows what with the shit cook.

XxxX

A/N: Ha ha, Zoro's not the only one with lofty goals, ha ha *cries deeply* I hate everything.

I've been to Laura Ingles-Wilder's house in Desmet South Dakota, I liked it there but it was very flat. You know, because it was on like a prairie. Ignore me, I'm stupid

Thanks.