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The cook was at it again. Always doing useless shit.
At the moment he was fluttering around Nami and Robin like an annoying butterfly, disturbing Zoro from his nap as he fobbed off colorful cocktails and a tray of desserts on the women. Obviously they accepted them with polite smiles, but could he not see he was being a nuisance?
“Hey,” Zoro called out, not bothering to open his eyes despite his nap being ruined, “what supplies did you waste on all that?”
He didn’t have to open his eyes to feel the cook turn his attention on him, his giddiness dissipating.
“Since when are our food stores any of your business, mosshead?”
“It’s everyone’s business when you use it on unnecessary crap.”
“Crap,” Sanji repeated in an incredulous tone. He was on his way over to Zoro now, fawning completely forgotten. “Nothing I make is crap. And I know our stores and how to ration them. The only thing always at risk is the meat.”
That was true, and Zoro knew it. Picking a fight was just more fun. He cracked one eye open, feigning boredom, but the way curly brow held himself like a tightly coiled spring made him itch to grab his swords. He knew that stance by heart, could read it in the blond’s expression when the thread was finally ready to snap.
“Still a waste to make tooth-rotting junk just to get a woman to look at you.”
That did the trick. His hand moved quicker than his brain, drawing a sword just in time to block the vicious kick aimed directly at his head.
“For your information,” the blond snarled, kicking at him again, “everything I make has balanced flavors, including desserts! If you didn’t have such a shitty palate-”
Zoro flung the offending leg away, on his feet and swinging his sword in an instant. “Food is fuel, not a treat-”
“It fuels you whether it’s a treat or not!”
To both of their chagrin, their spat was interrupted by Robin’s…honestly creepy devil fruit ability, multiple hands sprouting out of the deck to hold them just out of arm’s (and leg’s) reach of each other.
“Boys,” she said with a wry smile between sips of her drink - a bright blue concoction with a pineapple slice decorating the edge of the glass. “It was such a peaceful afternoon before you started all that.”
“Just ignore them,” Nami said with a sigh. “They’re always like this.”
Zoro scoffed as the cook started falling all over himself apologizing to them. He relaxed his grip on his sword ever so slightly when Robin’s spare arms retreated and disappeared. She hadn’t been with them that long. It wasn’t her business if they fought, and it definitely wasn’t her business to be grabbing them with her freaky hands, but he would let that go.
Robin spoke again. “Sanji, if you want to prove that the treats are worthwhile, wouldn’t it be more productive to make something special for him, too?”
“That would be a waste of time,” they managed to answer in perfect unison. The cook shot him a nasty look.
“What do you mean a waste of time?”
“Well what did you mean?”
“I meant it would be a waste because you have the palate of a cockroach and you don’t appreciate anything.”
Zoro snorted. “Fine, I think it’s a waste because there’s no fruity drink or cutesy little cake you could make that I would like. I don’t do sweets.”
Curly brow had nothing to say to that, he just intensified his scowl and stalked back into the galley, empty serving tray in hand. Robin leaned over to whisper something in Nami’s ear, who giggled quietly.
Whatever. At least he could enjoy his nap.
And enjoy it he did. Next thing he knew, the sun was low on the horizon and Luffy was dragging him into the galley so they could all crowd around the table for dinner.
It was a pretty impressive spread, as usual. Curly had kicked up his game even more now that they had a second woman on the crew, all the plates neat and tidy, complete with useless garnishes. Well, mostly useless. Luffy ate everything on his plate like a garbage disposal, decorative or not.
Sometimes he ate everything on other peoples’ plates, too. Zoro swatted a rubbery hand away from his food, defending it as he shoveled it into his mouth.
“Try actually chewing it,” the blond snarked at the both of them as Chopper began perfectly emulating Zoro’s eating style from across the table.
“Anyone who stops to chew is losing their dinner to Luffy,” Zoro responded with a half shrug, mouth still full.
Not even seconds later, the little reindeer choked on his food. After a good slap on the back from the resident chef, he proceeded to hack up an impressive chunk of meat directly onto the table.
Luffy ate it before anyone could stop him.
“Dish duty,” the cook said flatly in Zoro’s direction.
He didn’t have to do what curly brow said. But he and the shitty cook usually shared dish duty anyway because of their wildly different notions of what constituted a clean dish, so all he really had to do was dry them. He stayed behind as everyone else piled out, haphazardly stacking up as many plates and cups as he could and dumping them into the soapy water filling the sink. Curly hung around too, digging in the back of the pantry. The clinking of bottles caught Zoro’s attention, perking him up as they were placed on the counter.
“Dishes can soak for a minute,” the blond said, inclining his head towards the table. “Go sit while I make dessert.”
If ‘dessert’ involved the booze that had just been set out, Zoro had no problem with it. He took a seat as directed, idly watching the Sanji’s back as he worked.
“Thought you were a cook, not a bartender.”
“Growing up at the Baratie, I spent plenty of time around the bar. Pretty ladies like pretty cocktails, so I paid attention.”
He should have expected a dumbass response like that. After what seemed like way too many steps for just making a drink, the blond moved away from the counter, sliding a glass in front of Zoro as he passed by to pick up the remaining dishes on the table.
The liquid inside was a clear, deep red that grew darker at the bottom, with a large ice cube bobbing in the center. A wooden pick was nestled next to the ice cube, three cherries neatly speared on it. Zoro eyed the whole thing dubiously. It looked…sweet.
“Does everything need a fancy garnish?”
“I don’t know, do you need to bitch about everything I do? Here, I’ll fix it,” he responded, though there wasn’t much venom behind it. He grabbed the end of the pick, stirring the drink before plucking it out and popping it into his mouth. The cherries were gone when he slid it out. He walked away chewing, back on his quest to tidy up the galley, and Zoro did not think about his mouth, or his lips, or anything of that nature. Because that would be weird.
He looked down at the glass again, picking it up to take a sip. And, much to his surprise, it didn’t taste like candy. There was a touch of sweetness, but then gin and tart cherries hit the back of his tongue. There were other flavors there too, sour and bitter, a little too subtle for him to pick out by name. He took another drink, savoring it.
It was good. It kind of pissed him off.
“It’s a cherry negroni,” the cook said, now elbow deep in sink water. His back was to Zoro, but it sounded like he was talking around a cigarette. “You’d probably like a classic negroni too, but we had cherries to use up from the last island.”
‘And I’d rather die than waste an ounce of food,’ he didn’t say, because he didn’t have to. Zoro knew that much.
“It’s not bad,” he muttered.
“What was that? Couldn’t hear you.” Smug energy was radiating off that bastard, but Zoro couldn’t take it back and say the drink was shit now.
“It’s fine. There’s just no reason to waste time making it when you could’ve just poured whatever cheap stuff we have.”
“There you go, back on that again. Putting in effort isn’t a waste. I like doing it. And I already know you have shit taste, that’s why I hide the cooking wine when your booze runs out.”
That much Zoro couldn’t argue, so he brought the glass over once he’d finished it off, tipping the melting ice out into the sink water.
“So next time,” curly brow continued as he rinsed a plate, “I’ll make you a paloma, you alcoholic bastard. And what was the other thing you said? A cutesy little cake?”
“I don’t want a cutesy little cake.” Zoro stepped to his other side, grabbing the plate to start drying it.
“Fight me then.”
“Maybe later.”
They still kept to the script, but it was always a little more subdued after dinner. One thing Zoro had to admit was that meals got a hell of a lot more satisfying after curly joined and they weren't eating soupy rice and burnt meat anymore. It wasn't like he was devaluing food when he called it fuel. It was damn important, especially to someone who trained the way he did.
The next time he grabbed a dish to dry from the other's hands, Zoro stole a glance at him. The setting sun was shining through the little galley window, bathing him in orange light that made his hair and skin almost reflect gold. His expression was soft as he focused on his work, the cigarette dangling from his lips still unlit.
But he wasn't looking at the cook's mouth. Or thinking about it.
Fuck.
Zoro tended to be up for sunrise most mornings. Not because of any kind of ‘seize the day’ type of attitude, but more because of his propensity to volunteer for night watch.
Sanji was up for it every day, though. He was right on time that morning, leaning on the railing, smoke drifting up from his cigarette in the last moments of night. He watched the sunrise, and from his perch in the crow’s nest, Zoro watched him. He had found himself doing that a lot, lately - finding his eyes drawn to the cook without meaning to. Like always, once the cigarette was gone, he took a moment to stretch before disappearing into the galley. The light inside flicked on, illuminating the small window, and Zoro turned his eyes back to the horizon.
He used to be ungodly curious about what the other got up to that early, but it turned out to be boring shit. Prepping for the day, checking on their pantry, making notes on what to restock. He had stopped doing it at night when he found out it could drastically change by morning if Luffy broke in for a midnight snack.
Sometimes he got a little obsessive with it. It was easy to tell if supplies were running thin, because he would incessantly check and recheck everything, pestering Nami about their ETA for the next island. He'd snap at Luffy a little harder for stealing food, too, so Zoro had taken to preemptively wrangling the captain himself when things got that way.
Luffy was an idiot, but he wasn’t callous, so it could probably be solved by a simple 'hey, I'm actually worried, please don't eat the food.' But if curly couldn't be assed to say it, Zoro wasn't doing it for him. He was free to pull his hair out fretting over the pantry all night if he wanted to, the proud bastard.
...Not that Zoro was paying that much attention to him. He just happened to be curious why the cook wasn't up for sunrise one morning. Then he just happened to find him asleep in the galley, slumped over the table surrounded by 6 slightly different iterations of their rations for the week, calculated down to the calories per serving. That was all.
With the sun steadily starting to climb higher in the sky, Zoro eventually made his way down from the crow’s nest, keen on finding a good spot for his morning workout. He had just gotten settled in with his weights when movement from the galley window caught his eye. Apparently he and the shitty cook weren't the only ones awake, because Robin was in there too, leaning on the counter.
They were having some kind of conversation, Robin turning her head slightly to follow that idiot as he flitted all around the galley. So damn annoying.
If he kept a close eye on the window during his workout, it was only because he still carried some mild distrust for her. Not because he cared what the cook was up to.
They made an unplanned pit stop at a small island around midmorning - there wasn't a hint of it on Nami's map, and she was determined to catalog it. Luffy was just excited to stretch his legs and get into mischief, as usual. Curly brow didn't seem too interested until he realized it was a tropical island, then he perked right up, announcing he was venturing off for supplies.
They tried to bully Zoro into staying on the ship so he wouldn't get 'lost', which was stupid, because he was just going for a walk on the beach. If someone moved the ship while he was gone and messed up his sense of direction, that was on them.
Surprisingly for an island on the Grand Line, nothing actively tried to kill him, though he did end up off the beach and in a thicket of trees...somehow. They were huge, stretching up towards the sky and filled with the heartiest grapefruits he'd ever seen. That was apparently what the cook had been after, as he was just ahead, plucking the ones he could reach and dropping them in a basket he'd brought along.
Sanji turned at the sound of him approaching, eye widening as he jabbed a finger in his direction.
"You stay over there! Don't come any closer!"
"Huh? What's with you?"
"What the hell is that thing?! On your leg!"
Bewildered, he looked down to see a fist sized beetle slowly lumbering up his thigh. It was impressive, the kind of thing Luffy would've loved to see.
"Just a bug," he responded, brushing it away. It unfolded its massive wings and took to the air and curly brow screamed, flinging a barrage of grapefruits at the thing.
90% of them pelted Zoro while the damn bug disappeared into the trees.
The rest of the pit stop went pretty much as expected - Luffy got into beef with wild animals, Zoro and the cook bitched each other out all the way back to the ship, and Nami bitched them out for that as she returned to the ship herself, because they were being 'too loud'. Smooth sailing, really.
Sanji pretty quickly disappeared into the galley with all the grapefruits he’d re-collected after pummeling Zoro with them, and that was that until the afternoon, when he reappeared looking much more put together, a tray of sweets balanced on his hand.
Why he constantly decided to come out and swoon over the women during Zoro’s designated afternoon naps would always be a mystery. While Nami was off sunbathing, Robin had chosen to take a seat closer to Zoro, finding herself a spot in the shade. He cracked an eye open in time to see her accept some kind of tart with a grapefruit slice on it from the tray.
“Thank you Sanji, this looks beautiful.”
“Not as beautiful as you,” he lilted, though his expression quickly soured when Zoro let out a derisive snort. “Piss off. Last one's yours.”
Just as promised, there was one dessert left on the tray that he reached out to take, though it was different than the tart. It looked like some kind of custard layered in a glass, dusted with a powder that smelled like chocolate. Anyway, even if he hadn't been serious about it, wasn't his original complaint that there were too many resources going to crap like this...?
“It’s tiramisu. Don’t stare at it, eat it.”
Demanding asshole. Zoro grabbed the delicate spoon already in the glass and scooped up a bite with all of the layers, popping it in his mouth. He would admit…it was pretty good. Whatever was layered in the middle had a strong coffee flavor, and the powder on top wasn’t sweet at all. It was clearly an attempt to cater more to him.
Hell of a lot of that cream stuff, though, and it was pretty heavy. Surprisingly, he didn’t feel vindicated when it was too rich for him to eat more than a few bites. Actually, he felt a little…bad as he put the spoon down. The cook glanced at the dessert and then back at him, expression curious.
“Too sweet,” he explained with a shrug. “Sorry.”
“Really? This is too much?” Sanji asked, looking mildly surprised.
He had no idea why he’d tacked the apology on. He told the guy he didn’t like sweets. Instead of the argument he was expecting, the cook squatted down, stealing the spoon to try a bite for himself. He looked thoughtful as he swallowed, like he was turning something over in his head. There was a smear of cream on his chin, and with zero input from his brain, Zoro's hand reached out and swiped it away, thumb brushing the edge of his lip.
By the time he realized what he'd done, curly brow was looking at him like he'd grown a second head, his goofy eyebrow raised.
"There was- you had some of that tirawhatever. On your face."
"Tiramisu," he enunciated slowly, still looking a bit spooked. "Thanks?"
Zoro nearly brought his thumb to his mouth before he thought better of it and wiped it on his shirt, immediately resetting the other’s face to one of disdain.
"There was a napkin under the glass, you slob."
"Oh, yeah." He rubbed at the spot on his shirt with the napkin, mostly just scrubbing cream and chocolate powder into the fabric as the blond rolled his eyes and stood up with the plate. "Hey, if you save that stuff, I'll try to finish it later."
"Luffy will eat the rest, so don't worry about it," he replied, already sauntering off towards the figurehead their captain loved to sit on so much.
“You were worried about hurting his feelings,” Robin said with a hint of amusement, closing her book with a quiet snap. “That’s very sweet.”
“As if. I just know he doesn’t waste food.”
“That’s also sweet. I’m afraid this one is my fault, I was the one who suggested tiramisu when we spoke this morning.”
“That’s what you were doing in the galley this morning?” he asked with a mild frown. “Talking about me?”
“He noticed you and I have some similar tastes in food and was interested in my suggestions.”
So the shitty cook finally gets himself alone with a woman and starts chatting about…Zoro’s food preferences? He didn’t think he would ever understand the guy.
“I don’t care about dessert, I’d rather just have booze.”
She laughed softly, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “Should I tell him that, or will you?”
“Tell him whatever you want,” he muttered, feeling awkward about the whole thing.
Maybe it was a mistake to rib the cook over what he did for the girls in the first place. He didn’t need to be fussed over, he’d happily eat what everyone else was getting at meal times. He'd tell him that at some point, Zoro decided, looking over at the figurehead to watch him and the tiramisu get dragged up by an overly excited Luffy.
Zoro wasn't a touchy guy like that, but he had to admire the openness. Love or hate, Luffy would make it obvious to anyone exactly how he felt. And if Zoro was more of a closed book, then the cook must've been one of those poneglyphs. He was never the same one day to the next, switching up his attitude at the drop of a hat based on factors Zoro hadn't come close to figuring out. The only thing he ever really felt certain of was when they were purposely pissing each other off.
Still, right then Sanji was laughing and smiling as much as he was kicking and shoving at their affectionate captain. So until Zoro had to get up and fish one of them out of the ocean, he'd just kick back and watch, an amused grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Sanji must have been really keen on using those grapefruits he found, because he themed the entirety of dinner around them. Colorful salads with some kind of dressing called a grapefruit vinaigrette (which Luffy would have to be forced to eat), seared fish with a grapefruit reduction (literally what did that mean?), and more of the grapefruit tarts he'd seen earlier that day. Apparently that wasn't all, because Sanji still hadn't sat down and was placing glasses in front of everyone.
"Grapefruit pink ladies for the beautiful ladies," he crooned, serving Robin and Nami first. "Grapefruit spritzes for Luffy and Chopper - virgin, for obvious reasons."
"You get a different drink if you've had sex?" Luffy blurted out, though he was promptly ignored by the entire table.
"Grapefruit mimosa for you," he carried on, sliding a glass to a pleased looking Usopp, and then finally one to Zoro, which was very blatantly lacking any garnish or frills. "And a paloma for our swordsman. Extra bitter, just like you."
Yeah, he would ignore that snarky little quip.
"We had the ingredients to make all this? You have a secret bar somewhere on the ship you're hiding from me?"
"Might have substituted a few things, but I made it work," the cook replied, finally taking his seat. "And if I did have a bar, I would have to hide it from you."
"Damn straight," he said with a grin, digging into his food.
And it was good. Well, it always was, but this time it was really something. Everyone was cutting up and talking between bites, Usopp and Luffy thinking up a new toast every few minutes to make everyone raise their glasses. Belatedly, Zoro noticed that the cook's was just water. And once he noticed that, obviously he had to take notice of the cook himself. He looked...happy. Not in the prancing exaggerated way he did when he was parading around whatever woman was in his vicinity, and not in the smug way he did when he managed to win one of their scuffles, but something softer. His shoulders were rounded, mouth curled into a relaxed smile as he leaned across the table to add something to a conversation between Nami and Usopp.
He was damn near radiant, but this time Zoro didn't have a sunrise or sunset to blame it on.
"Hey," he said, not loud enough to rise above the din, but enough for Robin's gaze to shift towards him when she realized it was directed at her. "Your turn on dish duty tonight?"
"That's right."
"I'll take it instead."
She smiled knowingly, chin resting on her palm. "Thank you, Zoro. I'll take that offer. I didn't know we had two gentlemen on the crew."
"Yeah, no, we don't even have one," he responded with a snort.
Slowly but surely the galley emptied out, with Luffy distinctly more giggly than usual - Zoro had seen him construct a super-straw out of four or five regular ones and use it to get into a distracted Usopp's mimosa, and the engineering was so impressive no one stopped him. The cook was off lighting up a cigarette after filling the sink with water, and Robin stopped to lean in close and whisper something to him before she finally left them alone. He shot Zoro a glance as the door closed.
"What are you taking on extra chores for? Trying to get another drink?"
"If the offer's on the table, I'm not saying no."
He took a puff of the cigarette, giving a half shrug. "What's your request?"
"Have one with me."
A brief pause.
"Why?"
"You didn't have one at dinner, so have one with me now."
Apparently the idea didn't sound too bad, because after a moment of thought, Sanji left his cigarette to smolder in an ash tray on the counter and mixed them up a couple. Just by watching, he was fairly certain he was getting a repeat of the grapefruit drink from dinner - a paloma? But the cook had a distinctly lighter hand with his own drink, and he'd used a couple of tangerines from their own trees for it.
He carried both glasses over to the table and sat, and as they both tried their respective drinks, Zoro thought this might have been the most cordial they'd been with each other all week.
"What's yours taste like?" he asked.
"Try it."
The blond slid his glass over as an offering, and just to be fair, Zoro slid his over in return. They both grimaced upon tasting them, prompting Sanji to let out a little bark of a laugh that Zoro thought he might be in love with.
"That's bitter as hell!"
"Yours is way too sweet."
"Yeah, well, I don't like the taste of alcohol. And I'm a lightweight."
"You would be," Zoro said as he took back his glass and washed the sweet tangerine flavor out of his mouth. "You know my tastes, wanted to see what yours are."
"It's my job to know everyone's tastes, I'm the cook."
"Aren't you taking it kind of far, though? All those different drinks for everyone, fancy meals every night, the desserts, trying to make things just for me. You don't have to do all that. It's not like you do anything special for yourself."
"That's what I like to do," Sanji replied, finishing off his drink. And maybe he was a lightweight, because his cheeks were the tiniest bit pink. "That's what my cooking is for. I like to see everyone happy."
He didn't waste any time clearing the table once his drink was gone, making a beeline to retrieve his abandoned cigarette and steal a few puffs of it as he selected what dishes to submerge in the sink first.
Zoro stood too, heading after him, but he had no intention of washing any dishes. Not yet, at least. Coming up behind him, Zoro's hands curled around the edge of the counter on either side of the cook's hips, blocking him in.
“So you live to serve, is that it?”
They weren't touching, but he was close enough to feel the warmth radiating off of his back. It felt risky, more than any of their fights, because he honest to god didn't know how this was going to go. The pause while he waited for the cook to say something, anything, was maddening.
“Sure,” he finally responded, drying his hands on a dish towel. Still caged in by Zoro’s arms, he turned in the narrow space between them to face him, a clear challenge in his tone. “So what do you want?”
The way things had been going lately, Zoro was pretty sure he knew what he wanted. Didn't make it any easier to say. His eyes dropped down to the other’s mouth. He hadn’t even found the words yet when the cook let out a short huff, plucking the cigarette from between his lips and pulling him in by a fistful of his shirt. Then he leaned forward to meet him halfway, pressing their lips together in a manner that was a hell of a lot softer than Zoro ever imagined it would be.
And yeah, he was finally past the point of pretending he hadn’t imagined it. But this was real. The hand holding the cigarette slid down to rest on his waist, the blond’s head tilting to better slot their lips together, and Zoro remembered all at once that he was supposed to be contributing. But by then curly brow was already pulling back, a hint of uncertainty in his expression as an awkward laugh escaped him.
“Was that- not-?”
Shit, he wasn’t letting the idea that he didn’t want that slide for even a second. He chased after him, pressed him up against the counter until there wasn’t a centimeter of space between their bodies and kissed him with the same energy their interactions usually held.
The cigarette was likely rolling around on the floor somewhere, because now there was a fist in his hair and nails raking across his back and he didn’t care if the damn ship caught on fire. The cook tasted like smoke, like tangerines, like alcohol - he wanted to commit it to memory, grasping his face in his hands and licking into his mouth with the fervor of a starving man presented with a meal.
Not that the cook didn’t give as good as he got. He wrenched Zoro’s head back by his hair for the briefest moment, catching his breath before diving back in to nip harshly at his lower lip. He shifted his hips where they were pressed together, making a muffled noise against Zoro’s mouth, and fuck, they were both hard.
Zoro’s hands went straight to his hips, hauling him up onto the counter, although-
He sort of forgot the sink was right there. Everything seemed to pause, both of them panting and flushed as Zoro came to the realization that the cook’s entire ass was in the sink, his gangly legs bent at an awkward angle. There was soapy water all over the floor, dripping over the edge of the counter.
The noise that came out of Zoro was not human. He stumbled back as he doubled over on himself, cackling at the sight, all horny thoughts completely out the window.
“Get the hell out of my kitchen!” curly brow howled with all the fury of a wet cat, kicking at Zoro’s abdomen with as much leverage he could get. Another wave of water sloshed out of the sink at the movement. “Fucking dumbass!”
“You’re the dumbass with his ass in the sink,” he wheezed, moving out of reach.
“You’re the reason my ass is in the sink!”
Oh, he was pissed. Zoro snickered all the way out the door, not interested in being around when a Sanji that angry got back on his feet. Too bad things got cut short, but he’d count himself lucky to avoid the awkward conversation they would’ve needed to have after furiously making out in the galley. It would be easy, now. He’d let it simmer and come to a head the next time they sparred. Maybe make the sink thing up to him after that.
Maybe over a drink.