"ACE!?" Luffy yelled as his brother skidded on the floor.
~!~
"Hey Luffy~! I thought that I'd drop by, but Franky was at the door and he said that I shouldn't come in, so I jumped past him and busted in instead!" Ace smiled one of the D. Brother's famous grins.
Sanji and Zoro panted as they lay on the floor in a pile. The swordsman had somehow landed across the cook's chest during those few seconds of turmoil. Zoro panted from the effort of the complicated 'battle' that the cook and him were in while Sanji panted from that and the energy he spent trying to get Zoro out of the way as well. Who knows what would have happened if he had left the swordsman in Ace's path.
"Oh… Sanji, Zoro… I didn't see you two! What are you doing on the floor?" Ace cocked his head to the side like a dog at his own question.
"Dying…" Both of the males replied in unison.
"Funny… now what are you two really doing down there?" Ace made a funny face as he asked the question again.
"We told you, we're dying… we almost did just a minute ago, so why can't we die now?" Zoro grumbled when he noticed that Sanji wasn't going to answer him a second time.
"What do you mean you almost died? Who the fuck was it? I'm going to kick their god damn ass when I see them!" Ace made a fist in the air angrily.
"I want to see that… considering that person was you." Zoro heaved out with a small laugh before focusing on breathing again.
"Wait, what?" Ace stood there dumbfounded.
"Ace, when you came flying through the door, you almost hit them while they were fighting. Though they weren't really fighting, it was more like dancing since they weren't hitting each other." Luffy explained with a sigh before waving goodbye to his friends. "I'm going to go get something to eat, want to come Ace?"
"Food? Hell yeah!" Ace shouted as he ran after his younger brother cheerfully, completely forgetting about what he almost accomplished in doing.
"Don't forget to patrol the grounds when you're done getting yourself back together. You're next period has been taken out and replaced with hall duty, so don't mess things up." Nami reminded the duo before stepping out of the room. Robin smiled as she flicked the light on so that they could see everything better instead of sitting in the dark for quite a while.
Zoro and Sanji just laid there and panted heavily as they tried to catch their breath again. The swordsman shut his eyes to relax, but couldn't slip into a meditative state because his mind was on the not-so-subtle rise and fall of his head that rested against the cook's chest. Not one of them attempted to move from that spot. They just laid there for a few minutes until their breathing evened out and Sanji was no longer gasping for air.
"Damn it marimo, get the fuck off." Sanji grumbled as he shut his eyes tight.
"You're the one who pulled me down you know… making a move on me are you?" Zoro smirked as he sat up.
"Fuck you too… I just saved your ass from becoming pulverized marimo… could have cooked you up and everything too~" Sanji winced as he sat up and stretched out his back.
"Now what did you do?" Zoro eyed up the cook expectantly.
"Nothing… I just twisted my back a little far and pulled something." Sanji barked back.
"Is that even possible? You can bend backwards in half and not hurt yourself, but you twisted a bit too far and ended up pulling something?" Zoro asked in bewilderment.
"I have limits too you know! I'm not superhuman!" Sanji scolded the swordsman as an audible pop sound came from his back.
Zoro winced at the sound as Sanji relaxed his back and let it curve until another pop was heard. He breathed out as he slid forward and touched his toes before bending in half, touching his chin on the floor between his legs. The swordsman watched him with a bit of awe at the way he could bend and still not injure himself like any normal human would have done already. It was something he was starting to find himself glued to every time he came downstairs to find the cook doing his morning stretches in the living room.
"When you do that it still seems impossible to injure yourself when twisting or bending…" Zoro pointed out.
"You try twisting and bending to get out of the way of a fast-moving object in time while dragging a two hundred pound clump of moss with you, then tell me if you hurt yourself or not." Sanji pointed out before gracefully getting to his feet in one swift motion.
"I'm not two hundred pounds you know… I'm nearly two hundred pounds and most of it is muscle." Zoro tried to defend himself.
"I only weigh a little over half of that! It's still going to hurt!" Sanji shot back.
"Yeah, yeah…" Zoro grumbled as he got to his feet and the two began their rounds. 'If this is going to be a daily class now, I have no clue how I'm going to handle being around him so much…' Zoro thought to himself.
The two boys finished their rounds and spent the rest of the period talking and playing some athletic games like two-man soccer, two-man basketball, and two-man races. They went back to class when the bell rang and got situated in their regular seats, everyone else thought that they had skipped history last period and had just come back for the heck of it.
~!~
It was the next day and Zoro had walked with Sanji to school again. He actually walked beside the swordsman this time instead of on the other side of the road. Zoro fought hard to keep the smile off his face at the cook's actions compared to yesterday. They were running a little bit late and had to jog instead of just walk, but that didn't bother the swordsman.
They got to the school and into the classroom just in time as the bell rang. Everyone sat in their seats as their teacher came into the classroom to start the lesson. Zoro couldn't keep his eyes off the cook except for when the cook almost caught him staring a few times. This kept up until lunch time. The swordsman opened his mouth to ask Sanji to lunch only to be interrupted.
"Sanji~! Wanna come to lunch with us?" Ace waved from the door with Luffy hanging on his shoulders.
"Sure!" Sanji replied as he pulled the bento out of his desk and ran off to the D. Brothers.
Zoro stared after the blonde wide eyed. He wasn't expecting Ace to ask, nor was he expecting the cook to accept so fast. It was bad enough that the swordsman estimated that it would take him at least three minutes to get Sanji to go to lunch with him. The swordsman grabbed his bento and stalked up to the roof as calmly as he could, but apparently not calm enough when Usopp stared at him questioningly.
"What's wrong with you?" The sniper asked.
"Nothing…" Zoro grumbled as he sat down beside the door and unwrapped his bento. He made sure not to sit in front of the door again.
"You know that I know that that is a lie… now what's really wrong?" Usopp scooted closer to the swordsman to urge him to speak.
"It's nothing that you would understand." Zoro shot back before digging into the bento hungrily.
"Something's up between you and Sanji, huh?" Usopp sat back to watch the swordsman's expression turn rather guilty rather fast.
"Nothing's up…" Zoro steeled his emotions and continued to eat.
"Is it because he went to lunch with Ace instead of you? Or because he's spending more time with Ace when he could be spending that time with you?" Usopp inquired with a knowing smirk.
Zoro's eyebrow twitched when Usopp stated his thoughts, making the sniper raise an eyebrow questioningly. "So what if that's it…" The swordsman snarled back, finally giving in.
"Oh, so you're jealous." Usopp smiled knowingly.
"Am not!" Zoro snapped back before finishing his handmade bento.
"Do you want some advice, or are you just going to waltz in blindly… I can give you some tips." Usopp asked as he scooted a bit away from the swordsman for safety.
"Oh fuck off Usopp, I can handle myself…" Zoro grumbled angrily as he leaned back and tried to meditate.
"Ooh, so you're going to try him out huh?" Usopp grinned before quickly running back into the school.
"Darn liar…" Zoro's face flushed at the man's comment earlier and he tried very hard to concentrate on meditating instead of that comment and the damn shit cook's face.
~!~
Zoro woke up from a small nap that he had taken during his last class only to find Usopp, Franky, Nami, Robin, Luffy, Ace, and the damn shit cook huddled near his desk. They were talking excitedly among one another in hushed tones. He noticed that Ace stood a bit too close to Sanji, but tried to ignore it saying that it was his imagination in his mind. All of them looked to Zoro while he kept one eye cracked open ever so slightly so it looked like he was still asleep.
"What are we going to tell him?" Nami asked quietly. "He probably kept sleeping through our whole conversation so he hasn't heard a thing."
"No." Sanji stared blatantly at the swordsman. "He's awake."
"What are you talking about? He's obviously still sleeping." Ace rolled his eyes to emphasize Sanji's misunderstanding with a slight grin.
"He woke up a few minutes ago… I doubt he overheard anything, but he's awake and pretending to still be asleep." Sanji stated matter-of-factly.
"How can you even tell?" Ace grumbled irritatedly.
"His breathing is no longer as labored as it is when he sleeps, his eye is open ever-so-slightly, and if you address him with an insult, he'll be up your ass in a second." Sanji pointed out as he strode up beside the swordsman. "Won't you?"
"Shut up… perverted shit cook." Zoro mumbled.
"So… you have to be watching his every action to get that." Nami pointed out.
"Nope. When you sleep in the same room and live in the same house, you tend to breathe nasty marimo air in and you end up learning a few things. Like how he shaves his legs some months." Sanji expertly dodged the angry swipe of Zoro's elbow.
"I DO NOT!" Zoro roared with a beet red face as he lunged for Sanji over the desks.
"Then how do you explain how you own a woman's razor that is always wet after your baths and always sits on the corner of the tub with green hair stuck to it? Huh?" Sanji hit a soft spot and smirked as Zoro's eyes widened in shock and his face flared the color of a tomato.
All of their friends laughed and giggled while trying to hide it. Ace just outright laughed as loud as he could, causing Zoro's face to turn a darker shade of red. The swordsman turned his anger to the source of it all and glared as hard as he could. Sanji stood there smirking evilly to himself with a little bit of triumph. This ticked Zoro off even more to the point that he was beginning to think of ways to murder the blonde as messily as possible.
"You're so dead!" Zoro growled in a low tone so that only Sanji could hear him.
The smirk on Sanji's face left the moment Zoro barreled some of the desks over to get to the blonde. Everyone else backed up against the wall as far as they could to get away from the dark aura emanating from the swordsman. Sanji concentrated on his every attack and the placement of the now disturbed desks that littered most of the room. Luckily, their little group was the only bit of human life nearby right now.
Sanji took off out the door with Zoro hard on his heels. The cook used his momentum and flexibility to whip around corners and over obstacles. It was during one of his insanely fast turns that he collided in something hard. He smacked his forehead and nose off of the thing before hitting the ground hard on his back. Zoro went to turn the corner and noticed the cook lying on the floor with blood running from his nose and a hand clamped over it, trying to stop the bleeding.
The swordsman stopped dead in his tracks as he noticed the person that Sanji had collided with. It was one of the top delinquents in the school, Enel.
~!~
Sanji rolled to the side and curled into a ball due to the pain. His back had snapped like a wet towel at the sudden stop of motion, making it throb with pain. Blood oozed from his nose and onto one of his good shirts, ruining the fabric for good. There would be no more wearing this shirt with the stains in it now. It was history. Enel turned and faced the cook with a wicked smile gracing his features.
"Watch where you're going… or there won't be a next time." Enel walked away without striking out at the blonde, which surprised Zoro.
The cook groaned in pain as his ribs started to hurt too. His sudden noise had brought Zoro out of his thoughts and walking up to the blonde. Sanji peered up at him with an expression that clearly said "Oh shit!" Zoro bent over and pulled the cook effortlessly off the floor.
"I'm not so low to attack someone who's already injured." Was all the swordsman said before casually walking back to the classroom... or… where he thought was the right way back.
Sanji's hand snagged on his shirt and faced him the other way with a light gurgling noise that sounded somewhat like "You're going the wrong way idiot." Zoro grumbled a light response before stalking off in the direction the cook faced him.
It took Sanji and Zoro a while to get back to the classroom because Zoro tried turning at every corner even though the cook had told him to go straight. When they entered the room, everyone noticed the blood dripping down the blonde's shirt and started glaring at the swordsman angrily. Nami, Robin, and Luffy ran up to the cook and started asking him a ton of questions while Franky crossed his arms and Usopp's legs started to shake. Ace started sending him dangerous glares with an evil aura around him.
"Zoro, you're such a dick!" Ace sneered from his spot. "Why the hell would you hurt Sanji?"
"Ace, stop…" Sanji choked out when he finally managed to stop some of the bleeding. "It wasn't Zoro… I kind of ran right into someone's back."
"Whose back did you run into? You look like you were either punched by Zoro or hit a wall face first." Franky spoke up.
"The idiot ran into Enel's back." Zoro grumbled almost too quietly.
"Wait, Enel… you mean that Enel? The one who skips all his classes and still passes because he threatens the school board?" Ace paled, Franky looked dumbfounded, Luffy's eyes widened, Nami's jaw dropped, and Robin stayed stoic as Usopp asked about which Enel Zoro might have been talking about.
"Yes… that Enel…" Zoro's expression stayed blank as he leaned against one of the still standing desks.
Sanji was forced into a desk as everyone started poking and prodding at him. They were worried and were just trying to do the right thing, but fuck did it hurt! It hurt so much that he wasn't even wiggling or fawning over Nami and Robin right now. The world would blur every here and there and the cook knew that he was exhausted as well as badly injured. All he wanted to do was go home, get a warm blanket, and sit in front of some sort of fire. He didn't even feel like taking a bath right now, it hurt too much and he was too tired to even think about it.
"So… I guess we'll be postponing that for a few days until Sanji feels better…" Nami looked at the blonde while he was spacing out a bit.
"Yeah… that would be better for us all. How does Friday sound?" Robin asked.
There was a chorus of "Good" that came from everyone in the room except Zoro, who didn't have a clue on what that was about, and Sanji, who felt so drugged out right now he didn't give a shit on what was said. Everyone slowly dispersed from the room and Nami instructed Zoro how to take care of Sanji before she left.
'Why the hell do I have to take care of his shitty ass after what he said?' Zoro growled angrily in his mind before getting a good look at Sanji. 'Okay… I see what she had meant by him not being able to get home without supervision.'
Sanji lolled his head forward until it hit his chest. He didn't have the strength left to keep it up for a long amount of time. The cook could feel Zoro's hard stare as he half-lidded his eyes to ease the small headache he was starting to get. It was definitely time to get home.
"Oi, shit cook… still alive?" Zoro grumbled when he noticed Sanji's lack of awareness.
"…mhmm, fuck off…." Sanji gave a half-hearted reply as he felt his shoulders slump more and feel heavy.
"Time to get you home…" Zoro mumbled almost inaudibly as he bent down and pulled one of Sanji's arms over his shoulder.
The cook leaned heavily against him and growled at the sudden pressure in his feet. 'He must be worn out on top of the slight blood loss…' Zoro thought inwardly before hauling the cook's ass out of the chair and down the halls. They only got lost for about thirty minutes before Zoro found the exit. Sanji had albeit given up on even walking and hung limply against the swordsman's shoulder. It took Zoro a moment of debate in his mind before he effortlessly threw Sanji over his shoulder and carried him home.
~!~
Zeff and Koshiro stood by the door with angry expressions. They had seen him carrying Sanji down the street and rushed outside to make sure that what they saw was really true. After noticing the blood, Koshiro had gone back inside to find the first aid kit while Zeff stared Zoro down like a hawk. It wasn't unusual for the older blonde chef to get angry at the little things Zoro did to his little "eggplant."
"He had a nose bleed and passed out." Zoro informed the older man before walking into the house without a break in his pace.
"How did he get that nose bleed?" Zeff raised an accusing eyebrow at the swordsman.
"It wasn't me this time… he ran into someone's back while running through the supposedly empty halls." Zoro shrugged Sanji off his shoulder and into his arms before making the trip to his bedroom. The cook fell limply against his chest as he carried him bridal-style to the bedroom.
"Mhmm, okay… I'll ask him about it when he wakes back up." Zeff walked away as Zoro stared at the man's retreating form with a look of being accused, which was true.
Zoro rolled his eyes in annoyance before pulling the door to their bedroom open. He laid Sanji in the cook's own bed like he had done a few times before, and slipped his blood soaked jacket off. It took him only a few seconds of rummaging through the cook's drawers to find sweatpants and a loose t-shirt. Koshiro dropped by long enough to hand the swordsman a first aid kit and some damp towels before disappearing down the steps.
Sanji grumbled and wiggled slightly as he slept. The moving was starting to annoy Zoro as it made it harder to wipe the cook down and change his clothes. It took the swordsman some patience and firmly pinning the cook's limbs to the bed to finally get him cleaned up. He pulled the covers over him and stared for a few seconds before changing and sliding into his own bed for some early sleep.
~!~
Zoro woke up at his usual time only to find the cook still in bed. He was now sprawled across the covers while hanging half way off the side of the bed. The swordsman sighed before dragging himself out from under the covers and over to the cook's bed. Sanji looked up at him with half lidded eyes like he was still trying to wake up.
"What the hell are you doing, cook?" Zoro looked down on the blonde with a pitiful expression.
"Shut… the fuck… up…" Sanji mumbled as he tried to twist his body back into a sitting position only to get more twisted around himself.
"Is this what you do every morning?" Zoro kneeled down to get more level with the cook's eye sight so that he wasn't looking down so far to try and look in the blonde's eye.
"No… not every… day…" Sanji finally managed to wiggle out of his awkward knot and flop to the floor with a thud before sitting up correctly. "I'm just tired…"
Zoro tried to hold in his laughter at the sorry sight before him as the cook hit the floor. He held it in long enough for the cook to speak before a snorting sound escaped. Sanji glared at him half-heartedly before wobbling to his feet and walking slouched over to the kitchen. The swordsman followed him out just to see what he would try to cook up while he was still half asleep.
"What's for breakfast?" Zoro asked teasingly with a small chuckle.
"Uhgg… pancakes? Bacon..? How about bacon pancakes?" Sanji looked over at Zoro questioningly for an answer to his thought up recipe.
"Hmm… sounds good enough if you don't burn it." Zoro grumbled before teasing the cook again. "Though anything you make is shitty so it doesn't really matter."
"Shut the fuck up asshole." Sanji snapped before digging through the fridge and grabbing milk, eggs, butter and bacon.
Zoro watched as Sanji whipped the flour, salt, and baking powder out of the cupboards as well as the pans. The cook reached for the knives and Zoro lifted an eyebrow while smirking. It took the blonde not three seconds to shift into his "cooking mode" and start slicing the raw bacon into perfect diced pieces. He cut the pieces in a swift, fluid motion, making Zoro's eyes grow a few millimeters.
Without looking away from his slicing, Sanji flicked on one of the burners on medium heat. He threw a medium sized pan onto the burner with a teaspoon of oil to simmer while he finished cutting the bacon into pieces. Zoro watched him start sifting the flour, salt, and baking powder together into a bowl before throwing the bacon onto the heated skillet. While frying the bacon quickly, Sanji mixed in the milk, butter, and egg into his dry mix and whipped it until smooth.
It took the cook a whole three seconds to pull the three-quarter cooked bacon off the skillet and mixed into the batter before he replaced the medium skillet with a smaller skillet and added a teaspoon of oil to the new skillet. Whipping the ingredients together, Sanji thoroughly and evenly mixed in the bacon before pouring enough into the skillet to cover the bottom thinly.
"Why are you waiting for your food here? Go to the damn table and stop stalking me." Sanji turned his attention to the swordsman who still stood in the doorway.
"This is way more interesting though." Zoro smirked as the cook's cheeks flushed slightly.
"Just fucking get out." Sanji muttered before turning back around and flipping the pancake effortlessly.
Zoro stood there and watched Sanji cook until his plate with one pancake was shoved into his chest. "There'll be seconds later…" Sanji grumbled before pouring another pile of batter into the pan.
"What if I want my seconds now?" Zoro quirked an eyebrow as he began to dig into his delicious syrupy breakfast while still waiting in the kitchen.
"You're going to have to fucking wait shit head!" Sanji snapped as he flipped the second pancake.
"And what if I don't want to wait?" Zoro asked as he shoved the last bit of pancake in his mouth.
"Too fucking bad!" Sanji growled before throwing the next pancake on Zoro's plate with another drizzle of syrup.
Zoro blinked in surprise at the cook's contradicting words and actions. He heard the other two males in the house clambering down the steps and raced to the table so that Zeff wouldn't accuse him of harassing Sanji after beating the shit out of him, even if it wasn't him this time. As expected, Zeff glared menacingly at Zoro again.
"I'd advise not staring at the clump of moss for too long unless you want to get infected too." Sanji came around the corner with two more plates of pancakes. He was probably using two skillets by now to feed them all.
"I won't get fucking infected eggplant. You're the one who spends more time around him then I do." Zeff pointed out as Sanji plopped the plate down in front of him.
"I've already taken precautionary measures. Like taking a bath every time I'm touched or avoiding close contact at all times. You don't even have any Marimo-away… so don't even fucking start about me getting some damn marimo infection." Sanji retorted before sliding back into the kitchen gracefully.
"I'm not infectious…" Zoro mumbled around a mouthful of pancake.
"Yes you are. You're just not infectious in the way you think." Koshiro spoke up.
There was a loud clang that came from the kitchen and everyone at the table turned to look at the kitchen door. A quiet "Shit!" was heard before another clang. Zoro sat there with some food hanging out of his mouth in mid-chew. Sanji poked his head back around the door.
"I'm good. It was nothing." Sanji grumbled before noticing the food practically falling out of Zoro's mouth. "Uncouth bastard! Don't fucking sit there with your shitty mouth hanging open so that fucking food falls out! Learn some god damn table manners fucking marimo!"
~!~
They got to school almost ten minutes late because Sanji insisted on beating Zoro up for wasting food by letting it fall out of his mouth. For being late, the teacher made them stand in the hallway together. Everyone in the classroom laughed at their punishment before the teacher silenced them.
"Why the fuck do I have to fucking stand out here? It's not my fucking fault that we were fucking late." Sanji growled under his breath.
"You were the one who attacked me." Zoro pointed out before sliding down the wall to sit instead of stand.
"That's because you wasted food!" Sanji pointed a finger in Zoro's face accusingly before starting to dig through his pockets.
"What are you doing?" Zoro raised an eyebrow questioningly as Sanji kept digging around.
"Looking for my cigs… I can't remember if I grabbed them or not." Sanji's searching started speeding up as he frantically searched. "Shit…"
"You can't even smoke them right now, so why the hell does it matter?" Zoro let his eye lids droop so that he could get some rest.
"It's still a fucking problem! I need them for lunch!" Sanji snarled grumpily.
"You'll be fine for one fucking day. Hell, not even a day… just a few hours. It's not like it'll kill you." Zoro grumbled sleepily.
"I'm a fucking addict, okay? I need my damn cigarettes!" Sanji snorted just before the classroom door flung open and the teacher called them back in.
~!~
Sanji fidgeted in his seat all morning. By lunch, he was starting to tap his fingers or toe just to take his mind off of the lack of nicotine that he would have to suffer through. Zoro watched him jitter more and more as the hours until lunch passed. It usually wasn't this bad on a regular day. He would only start staring at the clock every few minutes normally, but he was starting to go nuts.
The bell rang and Sanji was the first to shoot out of his seat and down the hall to the cafeteria. Zoro followed leisurely at his own pace. His mind still trying to think up of why Sanji was acting this jittery already. Then it hit him.
"The stupid shit cook hasn't smoked all morning… has he?" Zoro thought to himself before it dawned on him that Sanji hadn't smoked since lunch time yesterday.
Zoro waltzed into the cafeteria to see Sanji already getting his food and sitting in a far corner. He kept tapping his fingers on the tray when he sat down and started staring at the clock as though the time would just speed up. It was getting bad. The swordsman stood in line until he got his tray and headed to the far table.
"Stop tapping shit. It's getting annoying." Zoro looked down at the cook who shot him a glare as he sat down.
"Shut the fuck up! I haven't had a damn cigarette all fucking day!" Sanji snapped irritatedly as he kept right on tapping.
"Then find something else to do other than tap shit." Zoro snorted as Sanji shot him another glare but reluctantly stopped and focused on eating.
Ace somehow managed to see the two of them and came rushing over with a wide grin and two trays filled with food. Zoro fought hard not to roll his eyes at the eldest D. Brother when he sat down beside Sanji. Sanji barely noticed Ace for stuffing his mouth with food like Luffy. The older male must have noticed Sanji's frantic distraction because he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a light and placed it on the table between Sanji and himself.
"I'll let you have a few if Zoro promises to come to the club tomorrow night." Ace didn't look up from his food as he told Sanji the conditions.
"He doesn't have to promise… I'll just drag his ass with me…" Sanji started to try and quickly grab the pack off of the table only to get his hands slapped by Ace.
"No. He has to promise." Ace smirked evilly as he took a bite from a double cheeseburger.
Zoro looked over at the cook to see him practically pleading with his eyes. "I promise." Ace obviously didn't expect Zoro to actually promise because his bite of cheeseburger fell back down to the tray with a light thud. Sanji grabbed the pack of cigarettes so fast that Zoro thought that Ace was about to lose a tray of food at the same time.
"Oi, Zoro, slide over slightly…" Sanji grumbled as he pulled a cigarette out of the pack under the table.
"Why should I?" Zoro raised his eyebrow at the use of his real name.
"I want a fucking smoke now! If you don't fucking move, so god help me your fucking green balls will being in your god damn throat in three seconds! Get it?" Sanji growled threateningly.
"I get it… calm down." Zoro scooted over slightly like asked in order not to lose his manhood so early in life.
Sanji pushed and prodded him a little more into the position he wanted before sinking down and pressing his back against the swordsman's side. The blonde slouched down in the seat until everyone in the cafeteria couldn't see him. He flicked the lighter a few times shakily until the cigarette lit up and he sucked in a breath of nicotine.
"Ahh… thanks Ace…" Sanji slid down against the swordsman's side some more as he started to relax.
"No problem~ thought you might need them from the way you were starting to freak out like a nervous little girl." Ace mumbled around a mouthful of another double cheeseburger.
"Shut the fuck up Ace!" Sanji snapped before taking in another lungful of nicotine.
Zoro was starting to smell the tart, smokey smell of Sanji's cigarettes after a few seconds. Other students that had smelled the cook's cigarette smoke were looking around a bit but decided to leave it be when they thought of what might await them at the end of the smoke trail. Ace would chuckle every time Sanji would reposition Zoro so that he was blocking everyone else's view.
~!~
Sanji got through the rest of the school day without any more cigarettes than the three he smoked during lunch. At the end of the day, he was starting to watch the seconds tick down like normal instead of the tapping he was doing earlier. After class ended, Zoro grabbed his bag and Sanji's when the cook shot out of the room anxiously while forgetting about his bag and the swordsman.
"Hey! Shit cook! Sit your ass down!" Zoro called after the blonde only to see him stop dead in his tracks and turn around, blinking in confusion.
"What is it Zoro?" Sanji asked with a light tilt of his head. Zoro shivered at the use of his name, but not in a good way. The only time Sanji would use his real name was when he wanted a favor.
"You left your damn bag. I'm not carrying it all the way home for you either." Zoro growled as he came up to the cook and threw Sanji's bag at him.
"Oh, thanks…" Sanji mumbled before turning back towards the road home and started speed walking nervously to the house.
"That was weird." Zoro thought to himself as he half-jogged just to keep up.
Sanji bursted through the doors and headed straight into the kitchen to look for his cigarettes. Zoro followed him in and picked his bag up off the floor as he began digging around frantically for the missing pack. He pushed past the swordsman and went running up into their bedroom and started pulling the drawers out as far as they would go and rooting around in them frantically.
"Zoro…" Sanji screeched nervously. "I can't find them…"
"Where do you usually keep them?" Zoro tried to stay as calm as possible while the cook was starting to freak out even more.
"Either in my drawers or on the bed… bed!" Sanji started flicking through his covers until he came up with a pack.
"Fucking bastards! There's only one left…" Sanji slipped the single cigarette out and grabbed his lighter feverishly. He lit up the cigarette and rushed down the steps.
"Where are you going?" Zoro raised an eyebrow questioningly as the cook grabbed some money out of his drawer and slid on his coat.
"To the store to get more before I go crazy." Sanji nearly made it out the door before his wrist was forcefully yanked back into the house.
"I'm coming with you so that Zeff doesn't chew me out when you get home half dead." Zoro pulled him back into the door fully before letting go to grab his coat and slide it on.
"I can take care of myself!" Sanji barked back angrily before whisking back out the door with Zoro hot on his heels. The swordsman struggled to slide his coat on in time and lock the doors while keeping up with the cook's long strides.
Sanji walked into the downtown area with confidence. His stride never broke as a few gang members walked out of alleys to see who was on their turf. They followed the duo at a distance in order to watch their every move. It took the cook a whole three minutes to find a small drugstore that was tucked away into a corner and waltz in like he owned the place.
"Hey~ got any more cigarettes?" Sanji started talking before he even made it to the counter. Zoro hung back and walked around aimlessly while watching the small gathering group of people near the door.
"We might still have a load, why?" Someone with a long square looking nose looked over the counter from digging around in the display case.
"How much would you consider a load? I need at least two to three dozen packs to get me through another two, three weeks." Sanji smiled lightly at the man when the other recognized who had walked into the store.
"Ah, Sanji… we have your usual amount in the back. We saved it up from our last shipment. Lucci said that you should be back in here any day now." The cashier started ringing up what Zoro took as Sanji's usual amount.
"Thanks Kaku… I hadn't noticed I was running out, otherwise I would have been here a few days ago." Sanji leaned up against the counter casually as he rummaged through his hastily grabbed money.
"I was wondering why you were here on a weekday." Kaku pointed out before bringing up Sanji's total. "Two hundred fourteen and twenty cents."
"Here… thanks again Kaku… I'll take them in a box since I am devoid of transportation right now." Sanji declared as he handed over the money.
"I'll message Fukuro to put your order in boxes then…" Kaku typed something into a walkie-talkie before turning his attention back to Sanji and dropping his voice to a whisper. "So who's that green puff you brought with you?"
"That's my father's friend's son… adoptive son I believe. I'm not quite sure what moss-covered rock he came out from under though." Sanji sighed and began to nervously tap his fingers again.
"So… his hair… is it dyed or just… natural?" Kaku leaned against the counter to get a better look at the second male to enter the store this evening.
"It's apparently natural. His leg hair is the same god damn color. Even though he shaves it all off in the shower." Sanji smirked as he remembered his little secret that he told everyone the other day to get the swordsman to respond.
"Damn… that's kind of hot." Kaku eyed Zoro up hungrily and the swordsman awkwardly tried to shuffle behind some isles and disappear.
"Fuck. Stop going gay on me. I don't want to come home to find you two having sex in my bedroom, so don't even think about it." Sanji made a disgusted face at the thought. "Don't you have Lucci anyway?"
"Lucci won't listen to anything I have concerning my sexuality… so no, I don't have Lucci." Kaku sighed and straightened up. "How are you going to explain the reason why I know your order exactly and what you like?"
"He followed me… so I have nothing to say other than telling him to keep his mouth shut and not tell Zeff. You know what would happen if that old fart knew I came down here regularly." Sanji stared out the door blankly before perking up at the sound of the back door opening and a shuffling sound.
"Sanji~ your cigarettes!" Fukuro called out with an odd laugh that tended to make Sanji want to kick him in the head all the time.
"Here!" Sanji turned towards the isles that Zoro had disappeared in before taking a deep breath. "Dumbass marimo! Get you fucking ass over here and carry this damn box since you fucking followed me here!"
Kaku winced slightly at the outpour of cuss words before watching the green haired man dart out of the isle and over to Sanji in seconds. The swordsman took the box of cigarettes carefully and gratefully. It took Kaku only a few seconds to even guess what Sanji might have said to the man to turn him into a willing slave. Sanji and Zoro left the small drugstore with an enthusiastic wave from the blonde and headed on home.