Archive of Our Own ^beta

When Roronoa Zoro first ran into the random lady pestering him to buy some plants from her shop, he had meant to politely decline her and continue on his very straight and extremely efficient path across whatever island Nami had Jinbei dock Sunny at.

Normally, he ends up forced to walk around with Sanji. Which, if you ask Zoro, means they’re probably going the wrong way. But other than the inefficiency in which Sanji chooses to walk through towns, when Zoro ignores how annoying he is and how much it pisses him off to watch the stupid ero cook flirt ceaselessly with every woman on his path, Zoro might be inclined to admit — in his head, and only ever in his head — that he doesn’t so much mind Sanji’s company.

Going on grocery runs with the cook is fine. Gives Zoro something to do, keeps the cook from yapping about having to carry the boundless amounts of food he’ll need to fill Luffy’s bottomless pit of a stomach until they reach the next island, — which Sanji doesn’t complain about doing, per se, but he would never allow Zoro’s help if he didn’t want or need it, — and Zoro gets to use it as strength training because the cook truly does buy a fuck ton of food for Luffy and the crew.

That’s not what happens today, though. This island happened to be half a day’s trip from the last, so the kitchen is plenty stocked. Sure, Sanji might still buy a couple of things on his own if they pull his interest, but nothing he will need a pack mule for.

Zoro huffs at the thought of being used as a pack mule so willingly, but it’s a win-win situation for him, so he keeps his mouth shut. He even earns a couple bottles of sake with every successful trip, so whatever.

This, however, — not being glued to Sanji’s side, — is how he runs into the flower lady that just won’t leave him alone. She seems nice enough, though extremely persistent. What kind of woman puts herself between a man with three swords and his destination?

For her gull alone, Zoro humours her.

“I’m not really the flowery type,” Zoro says, though he does allow her to usher him back over to her plant stall from where she had stopped him in the middle of the street.

“Nonsense.” She dismisses him wave of her hand, but she’s just playful enough that Zoro doesn’t feel put off by her. “They don’t have to be for you,” she says. “Maybe a friend.” Then she quirks a brow at him, her lips curving up just the slightest bit. “Or a lover.”

Huh.. meddlesome. Just like Robin. Zoro hates to admit that he already finds he doesn’t so much detest her presence, though her words don’t mean much to him.

“Don’t have a lover,” he grunts. As true as it is, he does also mean to dissuade her from the convoluted idea that Zoro might actually buy something here.

Even still, his eye scans the plentiful potted vines, bushes and flowers she has set about her stand.

She hums, not too dissimilar to the way Robin smirks around a sip of her tea when she hears a blatant lie she won’t comment on. Suddenly feeling defensive, Zoro crosses his arms over his chest.

He doesn’t have a lover. Or a prospective partner at all, for that matter. Zoro doesn’t care for that stuff. It would take away from his training time and slow down his track to becoming the world’s greatest swordsman. He doesn’t need that kind of thing in his life.

She doesn’t press, so Zoro doesn’t bother petulantly declaring her wrong.

“This, here. These are carnations,” she says, moving on as she indicates a pot of red flowers with a bronze hand decked out in a large set of gaudy-looking rings.

Except — not that Zoro knows much about that stuff other than what Perona, with a surprising amount of back up from the non-particularly chatty but very aesthetic conscious Mihawk, managed to beat into his skull during his two year stay at Kuraigana — Zoro thinks they actually look quite nice on her.

When Zoro glances back up to see the woman’s expectant expression, he rolls his eye and huffs, arms still folded over his chest. “I know what a damm carnation is,” he murmurs.

In truth, he thought it was a rose.

What? It has a bunch of petals, and it’s a seductive red. That’s, like, textbook rose. He can’t be blamed for that.

The woman hums and nods, pretty much ignoring him as she continues her explanation. “The red ones symbolize romantic love.”

She says it like it’s a random fact, innocent and conversational, but Zoro can see what’s going on here as she grins behind the honey-brown framing pieces of her otherwise chocolate-brown hair.

“They’re nice to have in a garden, or if you choose to keep them in their pot or harvest them, they also make a nice centre table piece if you’re interested in a more vibrant, intimate look.”

Zoro raises a brow, his gaze crossing over the cornecopia of colours strewn here and there as he tries to ignore that. He would call the stand an eye sore, because the amount of colours is kind of making his head hurt, but it’s actually beautifully displayed. Even Zoro, with his untrained and not particularly interested eye, can’t deny that.

“What’s that?” He points with his chin, trying to move away from the icky carnations. They’re nice, don’t get him wrong, but Zoro has absolutely no use for them. Well, he has no use for any of this, but if he’s going to humour the shop keeper at all, it’s not going to be under the pretence that he has a lover waiting at home for him.

Ha, when Zoro thinks about it, he can imagine Sanji folding immediately for this woman. God, he would probably buy the entire stalls worth from her. Gift it to Robin to keep in her flower bed on Sunny, some for Nami of course, and the rest to any woman he sees.

The thought is ridiculous. Especially because Sanji would probably find Zoro to make him carry all the flowers while he gives them away, and the only thing Zoro would get for his troubles is some warmed sake at the end of the night.

When it’s carrying groceries, Zoro doesn’t mind so much. Plenty of the food is going to end up in his stomach anyways, and the cook makes a mean dish no matter what he has on hand. But carrying around flowers and watching Sanji flirt all day long?

Zoro at least deserves to see the shitty cook embarrass himself by turning that same attention on him by the end. Maybe offer Zoro a flower while on one knee, too. The cook would hate every second of it, and his face would be beet red. That could be fun.

Zoro groans inwardly and ignores the way his head is starting to throb. Sanji is always a headache for him. That is nothing new.

“These?” She points to a group of purple flowers.

“Hmm?” Zoro shakes his head, returning his attention to the woman he managed to forget he was even talking to — who is now smirking at him like she can see through his very soul. Her piercing gaze is.. not unfamiliar at all.

Clearing his dry throat, Zoro nods. He hadn’t actually pointed at a specific place, he just wanted to move her attention.

“Sure,” he sniffs, then rubs the underside of his nose with the back of his pointer finger. It suddenly feels a little itchy, but nothing too crazy. He can probably blame this on Sanji, too, somehow.

The woman grins to herself. “I thought you knew your flowers, mister swordsman.”

Yes, Robin indeed. Just like their resident archeologist. Nosey and scheming. The shitty cook would absolutely love this lady.

He loves all ladies.

Ugh, that piece of shit is so fucking annoying.

“These are lilacs, as the colour suggests,” she says, ghosting the back of her long, blue nails over a group of light purple blooms. “There’s also white lilacs, though. Over here.” She points to a near identical set of flowers in white. “They symbolize innocence and purity. But these purple ones you chose, they symbolize the first emotions of love.”

“You’re shitting me,” Zoro grumbles. The woman laughs, and Zoro realizes he must have said that out loud. Whatever. He’s trying to move away from the whole love ordeal, not press further into it. “You got any flowers that aren’t all lovey dovey?”

She turns to smile at him, hand cupping another purple flower. He swears, if this one means love at first sight, eternal intimacy or some bullshit like that—.

“The monkshood flower, also known as wolf’s bane, has a sort of superstitious meaning. ’Beware, a dangerous foe is near.’.”

“Oh.” Yeah, now that Zoro thinks about it, this woman even has the same innocent malevolence as Robin. Her smile is.. soft, yet cunning. Spooky, yet disarming. “That’s kind of bad ass, actually,” he says, lips tugging up in a smirk.

But then he thinks it over, and if anyone on the crew is going to know the meaning, it’s Usopp. He would never be able to sleep with a flower like that around. Again, Zoro reminds himself that he has no intention of actually buying from this woman at all.

The woman nods. “Yes, I could see you enjoying such a plant,” she says, eyeing him carefully. “But something tells me this isn’t the one for you.”

Zoro’s eyebrows pinch together a bit, but he nods anyways. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “I don’t think so either.”

She hums and patters around, then comes back with a pot filled with a tall, green bush. “I think this bramble will treat you nicely.”

Zoro scoffs. Of course she would pick a lame looking bush. “Is it the hair?”

She glances up, like she’s just realized, then laughs behind her bejeweled hand. “No, but I dare say that only makes it better.”

She hands him the large pot of climbing leaves, and when Zoro takes a better look, he realizes there’s thorny stems sprouted amongst the leaves. From there, small, five-petaled flowers bud.

The plentiful flowers are cute, if Zoro had to use a word to describe them. Pretty, even. Really pretty.

He doesn’t think they’ve fully matured yet, but their centre is a gorgeous shade of yellow. The elongated petals halo that yellow in a pale white, and it reminds Zoro of something. Looks oddly familiar, though he’s quite certain he’s never seen this plant before.

“What do these mean?”

She cocks her head to the side, eyeing the bush for a moment. “They have a plethora of meanings amongst different religions and societies. My personal favourite, however, is ‘acceptance and appreciation of the unexpected and small sweet things of life’.”

Zoro hums. That sounds an awful lot like something he does with his crew everyday. From the East Blue, starting their adventure on the Grand Line, exploring the New World, all the way to the idle — but never lacklustre — time they shared on Merry and now on Sunny.

Zoro nods, reaching into his pocket while holding the pot tight against his hip with his other arm. It’s a little awkward to maneuver it around, the pot quite large and its bushes tall enough to rival Chopper in brain point — actually, on second thought, they might just be a decent amount taller — but Zoro manages it easily enough.

“How much do I owe you?”

It would seem he’s doing more today than simply humouring the lady, after all. With a grunt to clear his tingling throat, he reminds himself to blame the cook for this. It’s always the cook’s fault.

For no reason at all, Zoro wonders what Sanji will say when he brings the bush back to the ship.

The woman grins and shakes her head. “You take it. That’s a gift from me,” she says. “The care instructions are on the card slotted in the soil.”

Zoro tilts his head, considering it, but there’s a nagging echo of a steel plated boot pressing into his side that makes him sigh and shake his head. “If I don’t buy this off of you, my crew’s cook is gonna have my ass. He’s annoying like that.”

It’s not as though Zoro would lose that fight, he would just rather avoid it.

The woman laughs softly. “Your cook, huh?” She only accepts half of the beries Zoro holds out to her. “He might like that plant,” she adds casually. And then she disappears behind a curtain that Zoro has to assume leads to a back room that houses more plants.

Huh. Weird. Very Robin like.

Zoro hikes the pot up his hip and pockets the left over change. As he’d only went out for a drink and Nami never spares even a single extra berie, he hardly has enough left over to even graze the beginnings of a buzz. Zoro decides continuing to the nearest bar is now a moot endeavour.

With a reproachful sigh, Zoro turns back the way he came as the flower lady’s last words bounce around his head.

Sanji would like the plant? What does that matter? Why would he give these to him, of all people? Zoro mulls it over on his way back to the ship, distantly wondering how the town managed to change so much from his first walk through.

He stares at the plant, brows furrowed. What about this screams Sanji?

Well, aside from the fact that it’s annoyingly plain and boring. The prickly thorns are just like him, too. Pain in the ass, annoying, shitty cook.

And so maybe the flowers remind him of the champagne yellow of Sanji’s hair, but it’s the thorns that sell him. Certainly nothing else.

Zoro’s laughing to himself when he finally returns to Thousand Sunny.

He isn’t surprised to find Robin effortlessly draped over a lawn chair on the main deck, already watching him. As she sips away at her afternoon tea from her place under her parasol to ward off the harsh sunlight, — the book she had no doubt been studying until she heard Zoro perched nearly in her lap, — she quirks brow at him.

“You’re back early,” she says. Not a question, but an observation.

Zoro sneers at her, though good natured. “Yeah, cause I know where I’m going.”

And then, quite promptly, he nearly trips and breaks his nose on a sound dial Usopp left on the deck floor.

The dial screams in protest at Zoro in his own voice when he steps on it. Above his own shouting, he hears Usopp cackle and, if Zoro’s memory serves correctly, run away with the bottle of sake Zoro had been nursing that night before the long-nosed nitwit decided it would be a good idea to pull a prank on him.

Robin grins, unconvinced. Zoro frowns and rolls his eye.

Whatever, that was just a misplaced thing with bad timing. He knows where the hell he’s going.

“What’s that you got there?” she asks, and Zoro chooses not to be freaked out by the eye that pops up on his shoulder to get a closer look at the pot in his hands.

She could have gotten up, but where’s the fun in that, right?

“Some shitty plant for the equally shitty cook.”

Robin’s evil smile makes a reappearance, the shopkeeper’s an all too innocent mockery of the original. “Oh?” she muses slowly, voice dripping with something akin to curiosity, but dark enough that Zoro doesn’t want to press into it. “You bought flowers for Sanji?”

Zoro opens his mouth, then, grimacing, slams it shut again. He doesn’t think it’s possible to spend time around Robin without at least grabbing the shovel to begin digging your own grave.

“No,” he grits through his teeth, making a shooing motion in front of his shoulder to get her to remove the eye. She does, and he frowns. “I bought flowers cause some lady pestered me into it. It just so happens to be the lamest bush I’ve ever seen, so it only seems right that curly should be the one in possession of it.”

“Uh-huh.” She nods, still smiling.

“You know,” Zoro says as he begins to stomp away. Not at all towards the galley to immediately drop off the plant for the shitty cook, thanks. “The shop keep was just like you. Annoying, meddlesome, cunning. Witchy.” This is likely why she and Nami get along so well.

“I see. So you admit there is something to be meddlesome about,” she says, and thought it’s phrased like a question, Zoro knows it isn’t one. It almost never is.

Zoro doesn’t answer. Robin likely didn’t expect him to.

Okay, sooo, maybe he does end up in the galley directly after that, and maybe he does present Sanji with the stupid bush. What Zoro isn’t ready for, though, is the embarrassing blush that’s soon to spread across the back of his neck.

His plan was to enter the galley, slam the pot down on the counter, have the cook yell at him for pissing him off some way or another — likely by dirtying his precious kitchen counter — and then declare the plant was for Sanji after they fight. Zoro would have left happy after that. Sated.

Instead, Sanji doesn’t even seem mad when Zoro barges in like he owns the place.

“Oh, Marimo,” Sanji says as the door swings open with far too much force to be casual. Still, Sanji is casual about it and doesn’t so much as flinch. He even goes as far as to recognize Zoro without ever looking up from the bowl he’s whisking away at.

Bastard.

When he finally does glance up, brow quirked presumably because Zoro hasn’t actually said or done anything since entering the galley like a jackass, Sanji blinks a couple of times. And then he has the audacity to snort.

“The fuck you walking around with a mini-me for?”

Zoro frowns. This, he should have seen coming. This much is normal.

“Screw you. It looks nothing like me,” he mutters, jilted enough by the comment to finally move further into the kitchen and slide the pot onto the counter. Far softer than he had originally inteded to.

Fuck.

Sanji’s eye tracks over the plant quickly, bright blue and curious, then back to Zoro’s hair. He laughs outright. At least the plant lady had the decency to try and hide it, but Sanji doesn’t give a shit about that.

“Yeah, sure,” he snickers, then waves a grumbling Zoro over as he moves to the stove. “Come try this for me.”

Zoro raises a brow, skeptical of the cook’s demand. “You tryna poison me, Curly?” He says it, but he also stalks over to Sanji’s side without further preamble.

Zoro watches Sanji dip a spoon into a pot on the active stove top, blow a couple of times at the hot liquid, then cup his hand under the bowl of the spoon before he holds it just before Zoro’s mouth and rolls his eyes.

“Just try it.”

Sanji doesn’t bother dismissing his question, and he doesn’t have to. He is passionate about what he does, and that includes feeding even Zoro. He would never poison anyone, whether they deserve it or not.

With a groan and an unnecessary eye roll because he can never let Sanji one up him, Zoro leans in closer. Sanji watches him with near bated breaths; bright blue eye soft and searching. Zoro’s stomach twists and turns at the sight.

Huh. He didn’t even realize he was hungry until now.

He supposes that happens often when he comes into the galley. Normally, Sanji is already in there halfway through whipping something up, or is willing to feed Zoro after vehemently declaring that he won’t.

That doesn’t seem quite right, though. However eager he is to enjoy any food Sanji makes, Zoro knows he isn’t hungry. In fact, with Sanji around, always paying such close attention and putting diligent care in to their every meal and overall diet, Zoro hardly ever has the chance to feel hungry anymore.

So why is it that he always feels so starved whenever he enters the galley?

A flicker in his mind, a hazy image of gold, blue and soft hues of pink. Zoro ignores the truth stubbornly swirling in his gut and poking at his subconscious.

When he parts his lips, Sanji brings the spoon the rest of the way, cupped hand hovering just under Zoro’s chin as he tastes the contents of the spoon. Sanji watches the food disappear into his mouth, gaze stalling there for a moment — like Zoro might spill some, because Sanji doesn’t condone wasting even a drop of food, — before Sanji looks over his expression.

Zoro feels hot. He feels hot and inexplicably restless under Sanji’s scrutiny, so he clears his throat and takes a step back, swallowing the creamy liquid on his tongue.

Sanji is still watching him with that bright eye. Scorching cerulean and deep berry blue — a blazing fire amidst a wind swept sea. And then, his lip quirks up to the side a bit. “Well?”

Oh, right. Zoro was supposed to be taste testing, wasn’t he?

“It’s good,” he murmurs, because like hell is he going to inflate the cook’s ego by giving him some grand compliment. “Your shit’s always good, you ass. Why you asking me?”

Sanji gives him a contemplative look before turning back to the pot. “You’re the one who only recently divulged that you don’t even like sweet things. I thought about torturing you and making dozens of saccharine treats, but that goes against what I stand for,” he says, adding something to the pot that Zoro doesn’t care enough to pay attention to. “So I’m trying to see what level of sweet you can tolerate.”

“I can tolerate anything,” Zoro says stubbornly. Obviously this is the case, otherwise Sanji would have realized years ago that Zoro doesn’t care for deserts.

Is Sanji looking down on him? Why does it matter? He’ll eat anything the cook makes. It’s never bothered him before, and that’s exactly why Zoro never mentioned it until he was blatantly asked a few days ago by a buzzed bakery owner he and Nami had been drinking with at a local bar — Nami’s guard dog had not been far off, and it wasn’t long before the information was making it his way like some important, shocking news.

“As long as it’s edible, I’ll eat it,” Zoro says, suddenly feeling irritable. “And even then, I might still eat it if there’s reason to. I don’t know what you’re playing at, Cook, but don’t go around switching shit up for me like I’m weak or something.”

Sanji groans and drags a hand down his face. And then he swings around and kicks Zoro in the shin.

“I’m not pitying you, you insufferable oaf,”he grits, accentuating each word with an incessant press of his finger to Zoro’s chest.

The attack is harmless, if it can even be called an attack with the hard limitations Sanji has placed on his hands, so Zoro merely frowns at him.

“This is for my own sanity more than it is for you and your useless palate,” Sanji sighs, pulling back to light a cigarette and place it between his lips. “I know what I make is amazing. I know you’ll eat it regardless. But to be the best — which may not have been what I was originally after, but is something I would nevertheless like to accomplish along the way of finding the All Blue — I have to be able to cater to even the most barbaric of tastebuds.

“That is to say, in case you didn’t understand since I’m not talking in caveman, yours.”

This, Zoro thinks, is now an attack. He swings a sword, and Sanji kicks it back down, unblinking. Unfazed. Unsurprised.

“So I’ll ask again.” He steps even closer, just as unperturbed by the danger Zoro and his blades posses as he’s always been. “Do you like it?”

Zoro presses with another swing, Kitetsu singing maniacally as she clashes with the metal sole of Sanji’s shoe.

Stupid, asshole cook. Zoro doesn’t care about the sweetness. This is pointless. But if it is to grow stronger, to further develop a part of his dream and goal in life.. Zoro can’t consciously stand in the way of that.

“A little sweet,” he grunts around Wado’s hilt.

Sanji’s boot grazes Zoro’s side and clips his rib. Right where Zoro had imagined he would get hit if he didn’t pay the flower lady. As if he still gets kicked.

Is it because she didn’t take all the money? Fucking hell.

“What even is it? Just tastes like sugar and milk.”

Sanji grumbles under his breath about Neanderthal’s brutish tastebuds and lack of culinary intellect. Zoro doesn’t bother protesting, only because he doesn’t care.

“It’s a custard, moss for brains,” he mutters around his cigarette. A plume of smoke billows out of his mouth and halos his golden hair, and Zoro thinks that looks familiar in a way that isn’t just him watching Sanji chain smoke daily. “And it does not simply taste like milk and sugar.”

Ha. Simply just means he’s right. There is milk and sugar in it.

“Whatever you say,” Zoro pauses to duck under Sanji’s next kick, swinging low with a shouting Enma.

Sanji jumps high, and Zoro uses the momentum to push up and shove him back with a shoulder to the gut. He grins when Sanji stumbles back on his feet before quickly resettling himself. He raises a boot menacingly, always ready for more in an instant.

“Ain’t a custard supposed to be all..” Zoro pauses to find the right word, but when he can’t find it, he just waves Kitetsu vaguely. “Custard-y?”

Sanji frowns and brings his boot back down at that. Zoro resheathes his swords as he watches Sanji shove his hands in his pockets before drudging back over to check the temperature of his sugar-milk. He puffs on his cigarette before turning off the stove.

“It’s not done, idiot,” Sanji grunts, but he doesn’t yell any further. The insult seems quite light-handed, so Zoro has to assume he’s found Sanji in a good mood.

Sanji in a good mood spells bad news for Zoro. The man becomes chatty and mouthy; and good mood, chatty, mouthy Sanji usually leaves Zoro feeling all weird inside. Off centre, like it’s his first time out at sea all over again.

“What are you back so early for?” Sanji asks after a few moments of silence. He’s distributing his milky, saccharine mixture into a bowl before he covers it and sets it aside.

Zoro doesn’t know much about cooking, but he’s going to guess the custardization — or whatever the hell fancy word the cook would use — comes from letting it set.

When the question finally registers, though, Zoro frowns and looks back up at Sanji. “What is with you people?”

Sanji scowls. “Who people?”

“You. Robin. She said the same thing when I came aboard. The fuck can’t I come back to the ship I live on for? You guys planning a party without me or something?”

Sanji snorts. “If I wanted to have a party without you, Marimo, I wouldn’t hide it from you,” he says, leaning his hip against the counter.

The back of his arm brushes a leaf, startling him momentarily. Once he realizes it’s merely the plant, Sanji turns to play idly with its foliage between delicate fingers.

“But no, you just normally get lost until at least sundown,” he says, then lifts his gaze to snicker at Zoro. “Like your stomach leads you back to me by time you get too hungry to stay out any longer.”

That.. is partially true.

“Screw you,” Zoro huffs for not the first time today, but once again, there’s no bite behind it.

Sanji can tell, if the distant grin that spreads on his face is anything to go by. He keeps playing with the plant. It belatedly — Zoro a little distracted by the fond look in Sanji’s eye as he glances over the plotted plant, — reminds Zoro of why he’s here in the first place.

“I came back to drop that off for you, actually,” he says, then adds, “asshole,” in a murmur as an afterthought. The whole thing comes out petulant and pouty, like he’s somehow been forced into gifting Sanji, of all people, a plant when he could have very easily said no to the shopkeeper and been out enjoying a drink.

Sanji hums and nods. And then he pauses, brows furrowing together before he turns to face Zoro properly. “This? For me?”

Zoro looks off and nods.

“From who?” Sanji asks, stepping too close for Zoro’s comfort, but he wouldn’t dare show weakness in front of Sanji. If he’s not going to step back, then neither is Zoro.

Zoro doesn’t answer. Sanji deduces all he needs to know from that silence alone.

“You — got me a plant?” he muses, voice a little airy. “Huh….”

Zoro turns back when Sanji finally makes a little space between them again. He intends to snicker as he divulges the reason behind why he’s giving it to Sanji, to laugh at the annoyed scowl Sanji gives him as he learns about the thorny-pain-in-the-ass joke Zoro made. But when he looks over, Sanji is eyeing the plant fondly again. More so than he had beforehand.

Clearly he doesn’t understand the joke here. Clearly he doesn’t realize that this is an insult more than anything else. A gag gift, Zoro insists to no one at all.

Sanji grins at the plant, studying its budding flowers. “It’s kinda cute,” he says after a moment.

Zoro huffs out a heavy breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding. “Yeah..,”he says softly, the back of his neck flushing.

God, this wasn’t the plan. This wasn’t the plan at all, and Zoro feels more out of sorts than he would have had Sanji just been his good mood, bubbly, annoyingly charming, chatty self.

And the thing is, Zoro could easily rectify this. He could easily tell Sanji right here and now why he’s giving this stupid bush to him, and it would fix all of this awkward energy. Except, Sanji looks so happy — such stupid, innocent, pure joy over a fucking plant — and like hell is Zoro going to ruin that for him, of all people.

“Thank you, Mossy.”

Mossy. It’s what Sanji calls him when he’s feeling particularly nice. This time, though, it does something stupid to Zoro’s brain. Makes him falter and feel a little light headed. Makes his stomach twist and turn into knots. Makes his knees feel weak and unsteady under his own weight.

“Whatever,” Zoro scoffs, trying to hide the way his flush is spreading from the back of his neck to the highs of his cheeks.

Sanji glances up at him — a soft smile still plastered on his lips, sea blue eyes twinkling like the fucking stars above, curly eyebrows relaxed from the usual scowl lobbed Zoro’s way, faintly freckled cheeks dusted a soft pink, — yellow hair haloing him in a curtain of gold and everything.

When Zoro thinks about it, he supposes the shade of yellow in Sanji’s hair does perfectly match the centre of the plant.

The plant that Zoro recalls thinking is pretty. That he thought looked familiar. Now he can’t help but see Sanji in those budding flowers, his golden hair haloed in a plume of white smoke.

Sanji is really pretty, isn’t he?

Sanji’s smile tugs a little wider. A little playful and teasing at Zoro’s expense, too, but Zoro feels anything but irritated by that like he probably should.

He needs to cut this tension before he makes a fool out of himself. “The custard-“ what about the custard? Sanji quirks a brow, curious. Think, Zoro. Think. “What’s it for?”

Okay, not something he usually asks the cook, but it’s good enough. This will do.

Sanji rolls his eyes, but the action holds the same fondness he had been scrutinizing the plant with — though, maybe a hint of tired resignation lies somewhere beneath.

What was the plant called again? A bramble bush? Sounds kind of dumb, but if Sanji likes it, whatever. Zoro does, too.

“Luffy wants crêpes for dinner,” Sanji declares flippantly. He points to a bowl of dry ingredients on the counter that he had been whisking before Zoro burst into the galley like an ass. “It’s more of a breakfast or brunch food, but I’m down if that’s what he wants.”

Zoro grins, trying to ignore the residual warmth that still taints his cheeks and neck. He can tell there’s more to this to warrant Sanji’s lacklustre response. “What kind of obscure meat side-dish did he ask for this time?”

Sanji sighs, walking to the fridge before waving Zoro over. Zoro pops his head in under Sanji’s arm and takes a look at the meat and peppers skewered on sticks, marinating in a shallow dish.

“Crêpes and shish kebabs?”

Sanji nods, a little gravely. “I don’t know what goes through his mind, but it certainly has nothing to do with corresponding flavours.”

Zoro pulls out from under Sanji’s arm and shrugs. “I dunno, it doesn’t sound half bad.”

Sanji closes the fridge as he nods and puts out his cigarette in his pocket ashtray before sliding it back into his pocket. “You would think so, wouldn’t you.”

Not a question. Sanji, for some reason or another, had already played out this conversation in his mind and expected Zoro’s response.

It’s a jab. Zoro knows it’s a jab. Normally, he would start a fight over it. Instead, he watches as Sanji gently flicks a leaf on the bramble bush and grins to himself before moving over to wash his hands then continue with the crêpe mix.

Pretty. He is stupidly pretty.

“I’ll have to talk to Nami about putting it up in the tangerine grove tomorrow, but I think it would look really nice there.”

Zoro nods distractedly. He doesn’t understand why Sanji is so enthralled by a bush over half of his height, but it makes Zoro’s heart stutter. He is left baffled by this whole situation, utterly confused, and maybe a little smitten.

Sanji gets permission from Nami to plant the bush in her garden.

Zoro thinks he heard her demanding he plant it with Usopp’s pop greens, to which Sanji had swooned and agreed before pausing to muse about the fact that Usopp’s plants would steal all the nutrients and kill the bush.

There was more arguing on both of their parts, or more so Nami arguing and Sanji half agreeing only to then gently disagree, but in the end Nami allows him to use a small portion of the grove for his plant, and Sanji’s pockets are left empty of his weekly allowance.

Something about Sanji actually disputing with Nami over a plant Zoro gave him makes Zoro feel all weird and giddy inside. Maybe he’s just a little proud of the cook for finally growing a pair.

Whatever it is, Zoro snickers to himself about it while ignoring the way his stomach flutters at the thought.

Robin eyes him quietly as she drinks her morning coffee, so Zoro decides to go train in the crow’s nest before he takes his first nap of the day.

The next island is a spring island filled to the brim with colourful flowers, most Zoro’s never even heard of before. The air is practically pure pollen, and it’s not like Zoro has an allergy or anything.. but it’s so much that his eye feels like it’s on fire, and it’s somehow dry as a dessert and dripping like a rainforest at the same time.

Chopper forces Zoro into his office, even though Zoro insists — through an extremely healthy and totally normal dose of sneezing and sniffling — that he’s perfectly fine.

Sanji snorts as he watches the little reindeer drag him away to the sick bay. Zoro gives him a very friendly middle finger in return, and Sanji just grins and sticks his tongue out at him.

Tch. Ass.

Chopper nods along as he gives Zoro his check up. He likely ignores Zoro’s rant about how he doesn’t have any allergies because he’s strong, and being allergic to flower dust is weak, but Chopper allows him to finish before speaking again.

“Sure,” Chopper says once Zoro’s done, tapping at his clipboard with a pen.

The dismissive tone throws Zoro for a bit of a loop, but he supposes Chopper has always taken his job of keeping their crew all heathy very seriously. This is a no bullshitting zone, Zoro probably the one who knows that the best.

Though he’s normally brought here kicking and screaming — not literally. He would never — Zoro always feels a little spark of pride watching Chopper work and slip into his serious, doctor mode.

“Any other symptoms other than the visual?”

Zoro frowns, mulling it over. “My head kinda hurts,” he sniffs, “but that’s nothing. It’s not even an allergy symptom, is it?”

Chopper squints at him. “What do you think an allergy is?”

Zoro shrugs, trying and failing to fend off a sneeze. “I don’t know. Getting sick or dropping dead ‘cause you touched a nut or something stupid like that.”

“Zoro,” Chopper sighs heavily as he hands him a box of tissues. Zoro takes it, albeit grumpily, then wipes at his runny nose while avoiding eye contact. “Allergies aren’t a weakness. It just means your body reacts differently to certain things.”

“Yeah, reacts weakly to nuts.”

He eats nuts all the time — when he drinks, for starters, as proposed by Chopper himself. Even though the little doctor doesn’t drink at all, - both because he is too young and he refuses to steadily kill his liver, among other things as he had put it with a pointed glare to Zoro, and then to Sanji who he always pesters about the prospect of lung cancer, - the nuts had been a decent suggestion and goes quite well with his choice of beverages — so clearly this isn’t an allergy.

In fact, maybe he should go raid the galley for some peanuts and beer while the cook is out, if they have any on deck. If not, Zoro’s never been a stranger to the sake storage.

“Nuts aren’t the only allergy!”

Zoro rolls his eye. Is that so? He genuinely didn’t know. “Fine, what’s the diagnosis?”

Chopper hops down from his rolling chair with a tired huff and prances over to his shelve of medicine. As he mixes a couple ingredients, he glances a little sideline over at Zoro, who sneezes quite bodily into the crook of his arm, which then sends him into a fit of more sneezing and coughing.

Chopper gives him a look that Zoro blatantly ignores. “Well, considering your symptoms of dry, itchy and runny eye; runny and stuffy nose; obviously sneezing and an apparent cough; a headache and— did you say anything about your throat?”

Zoro frowns. He didn’t, but… “it’s a little scratchy,” he admits petulantly.

“Yeah,” Chopper says, looking back at his bowl and continuing to mix the ingredients together. “So it seems like you have a slight pollen allergy.”

“No, I don’t,” Zoro grits, ignoring the irony of sneezing immediately after saying it, because that’s not possible. First of all, that’s stupid. Second of all, no he doesn’t. “I’ve been near flowers before. If you haven’t noticed, I’m still very much alive.”

Chopper nods like this is obvious. “There’s two possible explanations for that,” he says. “One, allergies can appear over time. You may not have developed it until recently. Two, it’s only an extremely mild allergy so it hasn’t affected you before.

“Seeing as you were at a flower shop only a few days ago and were fine until we got to this particular island, I’m going to have to say it’s the latter.”

Zoro chooses to ignore the fact that his nose had felt a little itchy that day, now that he thinks about it. His head had hurt, too, and now he can’t help but wonder if it truly was the cook or not.

Then Chopper turns a glare on him. The juxtaposition between his cold stare and cuddly body gives Zoro strange flashbacks to Punk Hazard. “And you’re alive, are you?” he says, hopping down with a freshly formed pill in hoof. “I suppose that’s no thanks to me?”

He sounds.. like he’s been spending too much time with the cook. Zoro grumbles petulantly under his breath, wondering distantly how they made the switch from Chopper taking naps in his lap or riding on the top of his head when they’re out and about, to Zoro getting scolded like he’s the little doctor’s child.

Chopper then smiles again as he walks over and places the pill in Zoro’s hand before shoving a glass of water into the other. “It’s more than likely the absurd amount of pollen that’s getting to you. So, to be sure, take this pill and stay on board. I’ll check up on you again in about an hour, and if you’re not feeling any better we’ll run some more tests.”

Zoro opens his mouth to protest, but Chopper gives him his stern doctor look again that immediately shuts Zoro up.

“Don’t you dare leave this ship, Zoro,” he says, pointing a hoof at him. “In fact, go take a bath. It’ll probably help your symptoms once you get any of the residual pollen on you cleaned off.”

Zoro frowns, but he nods and pops the pill in his mouth anyways, swallowing it down with the water only because Chopper gives the neglected glass a pointed look.

This is dumb. This allergy is dumb, and so is this island.

“Can I go now?” Zoro murmurs, voice a little throaty and nasal. When Chopper nods, Zoro ruffles the fur on his head under his bright blue hat. “Thanks, Chopper. You’re the best.”

Chopper grins and punches him in the thigh. “Shut up, you big dummy,” he says, grinning and doing a cute little flustered dance that Zoro can’t help but smile at. “You can’t flatter me with those words.”

Zoro does take a bath, like he was instructed by his doctor. Though it irritates his nose further and even constrict his breathing to a worrisome degree at first — turning the subtle scratch in his throat into an all-consuming burn and near inability to breathe — it eventually does make Zoro feel a lot better.. once that all subsides, he means.

It’s not as though he ever doubts Chopper, but Zoro was kind of hoping he was wrong about the whole allergy thing.

Whatever. Zoro knows he’s not weak, even if his body might be. He’s only human, after all.

How unfortunate.

He stays on Sunny all alone as his nakama get to have fun on the new island, and it’s sucks, but Zoro knows it’s for the best.

He does wonder what Chopper would do if he snuck off, but halts when he remembers the last beating Chopper gave him for taking off his bandages when he said not to. He had even waited until Zoro was finished fully healing so as not to hurt him, so it had felt like the attack came out of nowhere.

Chopper can be as much of a force to be reckoned with as Nami is, when it comes to his job as the crew’s doctor.

So Zoro sulks around Thousand Sunny, grumbling under his breath about how miserable he is as he sips away at his pilfered sake that Sanji tries to hide from him. Chopper likely won’t be happy about him drinking either, but this is something Zoro can probably get away with.

“Is this how you feel, girl?” he murmurs from Luffy’s spot on Sunny’s figurehead. He leans forward to look hef in the face, hanging a little upside down in the process. “Kinda bites, doesn’t it? Sorry we leave you so much.”

Zoro gets the feeling that Sunny doesn’t mind, though. That she’s happy to be on their adventure with them. Understands that there’s things they need to do on land that she just can’t be there for.

She doesn’t have as clear of a presence as Merry did in the end, but Zoro still feels as though he can hear her as much as he can hear the cries, hums and singing of his blades during a fight.

Kitetsu cries out for blood. She demands pain in her a twisted songs of terror, and Zoro gives her what she wants when a fight is serious enough to demand of it. Enma’s screams and shouts are terrible and loud, deafeningly overpowering, but Zoro has begun to get a good grasp on her the same way he has Kitetsu.

Wado.. she doesn’t talk much. She hums in content here and there, sighs when Kitetsu and Emma act up and demand more than they’re due, but that’s about it. She’s good to Zoro, just like Sunny.

“You’re a good girl,” he sighs, patting Sunny’s head. And then he hears a snort that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

His hand twitches for his swords, his brain intent on cutting down the intruder first then asking questions later, but his body quickly relaxes and recognizes the presence before he himself does.

“You so lonely you start talking to yourself?”

Zoro scoffs and pushes off Sunny’s figurehead, careful not to spill his bottle in the process. “I wasn’t talking to myself, you shitty cook. Since when am I a girl?”

Sanji furrows his brows at that, looking Zoro over contemplatively. “Yeah, I guess you’re not,” he says slowly, then his gaze lands on the sake Zoro stole and he frowns.

Too bad, he’s not getting it back. Zoro earned this fair and square playing pack mule.

Zoro rolls his eye. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

Sanji shakes his head to dismiss him. “So, who were you talking to?”

Zoro flushes. This is suddenly embarrassing. It’s not as though Franky and Usopp haven’t been caught doing it, even Luffy sometimes does when he wants to reach land faster, but Zoro doesn’t want to just outright tell Sanji that he was talking to Sunny.

“That’s none of your business,” he says instead.

Sanji frowns. “Whatever, I just came back to see if you were still alive.” He pulls the finished cigarette from between his lips before putting it out and away in his pocket ashtray, then tucks the tray back into his jacket. “Chopper said he needed to check on you, but he’s a little busy right now.”

Zoro huffs a bemused laugh. “What’s so important that the doctor couldn’t come check on his fatally ill patient?”

Sanji’s cheeks grow warmer, and is that a blush? Is he blushing? Why is he blushing?

“He-,”Sanji starts, before shutting his mouth and frowning deeply.

He looks off towards the island for a moment, awkwardly rocking on his feet. When he turns back, his cheeks are still a little pink, but far less than before. Zoro almost thinks he imagined it.

“Luffy got him mixed up into something he can’t get away from just yet.. let’s just say we don’t exactly have a doctor at the moment.”

That should be concerning, but after the amount of times Luffy has gotten them into and then right back out of trouble, Zoro just shrugs. The flush, he realizes, likely means Sanji had something to do with it this time.

“Come, Marimo. Gotta make sure you’re not dying from some undiscovered plague.” Sanji doesn’t wait for Zoro to agree to go with him, Sanji merely turns and begins walking towards the sick bay.

Zoro takes another swig from his sake bottle and grumbles under his breath about how he doesn’t have to follow Sanji’s bossy ass. Even still, far less gracefully than the long-legged cook who all but dances across the deck, he falls in line anyways.

Zoro supposes he must have already noticed at some point, but he’s never truly paid attention to just how agile Sanji is even outside of a fight. The best way he can describe him is feline. Somewhere between a confident predator and its counterpart, the alluring prey.

It’s a strange thought to have, so Zoro averts his gaze.

Instead, as they settle into the sick bay, Zoro lays back on the medical gurney and watches Sanji slip into an extra lab coat Chopper has that is far too big for the little doctor. It only fits Sanji, Nami, Robin, and maybe Usopp if he squeezes in, though his arms might be too buff — the same for Luffy as of late.

That being said, the coat is specially for the former three as they’re the only ones allowed to help when Chopper needs an extra hand. Franky has a super-ban from ever helping, especially because Luffy would happily accept any robo replacements he may offer.

Sanji looks good in the lab coat, Zoro thinks. Distractingly good.

So good, even, that Zoro doesn’t mention it when he realizes that Sanji has a flower in his hair. And fuck, as if he can read Zoro’s mind, Sanji reaches up and starts playing with a petal absently. The soft grin that immediately spreads across his face makes Zoro want to scream. But in a warm, fluffy, gushy kind of way that should make him feel sick to his stomach and want to tug his hair out — yet it doesn’t.

From there, Zoro just tries to keep his mouth shut. Some part of him hopes that he’ll get to watch longer that way.

The atmosphere in the sick bay is charged, to say the least. Sanji’s hands are all over Zoro; checking his pulse, then his forehead — and, really, any exposed skin he can reach, which is a lot considering Zoro hardly ever wears shirts under his long, green coat — for fever; knuckles brushing over his chest as Sanji listens to his heart rate with a stethoscope.

Zoro’s pretty sure majority of this isn’t necessary. It’s a damn allergy, he hates to admit. A mild one at that. He’s not actually dying, and Chopper didn’t do half the shit that Sanji is doing to him right now.

But that being said, Zoro can’t find it in himself to complain like he normally does. And it’s all because Sanji still looks so stupidly good.

He’s wearing a soft yet concentrated expression, his cheeks still dusted a light pink. A similar shade to the glossy, pale pink of his lips, Zoro realizes, because he really has nowhere else to look as Sanji leans over him. But that isn’t it. That isn’t what has Zoro staring. Well— that’s not all that has Zoro staring.

It takes Zoro a while to place the name, but in Sanji’s hair, tucked between a canopy of wavy, golden tresses, is a white tiger lily. Zoro knows this flower, if only because it has a badass name.

There are stems that reach out from the middle of the bloom, reminding Zoro of the teeth sticking out the maw of a Saber-toothed Tiger, so they’re kind of hard to forget though Zoro knows that’s likely not where it’s namesake comes from.

Zoro’s feeling a bit better since he took the medicine Chopper made him. A lot better, but maybe it’s making him feel a little delirious. When Sanji slaps his wrist and takes away his sake, instead of fighting him on it, Zoro only hums and grins in return. When Sanji leans in to check if Zoro’s eye is still red and puffy, Zoro reaches out his now free hand to thumb over a white petal.

Sanji freezes, eyebrows twitching as his gaze flicks over Zoro’s face quickly. His blue eye, at once a calm night’s sea and a wildly raging fire, widens, shadowed by long, dirty-blond lashes.

“Oh-,” Sanji says, pulling back. “Sorry.”He swallows audibly then clears his throat with a shake of his head. “Fuck, sorry. Came to check on you and brought the damn death plant with me.”

Zoro leans up on his elbows from where he had been lazing on the bed and allowing Sanji to do all the work.

So he likes watching Sanji play nurse, so what?

Sanji looks so cute — cheeks flushed pink, partially obstructed by a sea of silky golden waves, all bundled up in the white lab coat. It’s unbelievable how much Zoro’s enjoying simply watching him.

And then Sanji raises his hand.

“No,” Zoro says, grabbing Sanji’s wrist when he moves to reach for the tiger lily. “Leave it,” He drags Sanji a little closer, the rolling chair he’s perched on clicking noisily over the wooden planks until Sanji‘s knees are pressed right up against the side of the mattress. “I’m not gonna die over a single flower.”

Sanji chews at the inside of his bottom lip — a nervous tick Zoro has learned Sanji resorts to when he doesn’t have a cigarette to calm his nerves. This, or he taps his foot incessantly.

It isn’t often that Sanji goes without a cigarette, but Zoro is near him constantly enough to know his tells and the two places he routinely never smokes in. He isn’t allowed to in the sick bay, so that’s a given, and by choice he doesn’t smoke when he handles the crews’ laundry because he is thoughtful and kind.

When he does have his cigarettes, far more often than not, he either pulls in a heavy drag or rolls the filter absently between his pink lips.

Sanji’s lips are so pretty, aren’t they? All of him is, really. That should probably piss Zoro off, but it doesn’t. Instead, he feels warm and tingly inside.

“You know, the pollen falls off these pretty easily,” Sanji murmurs quickly. “I can just throw it-“

“No.”

Zoro doesn’t know why he’s fighting this so hard, but he needs Sanji to keep that stupidly pretty flower in his stupidly pretty hair. He needs to see Sanji grin as he plays with the petals mindlessly, like he had been when they first arrived in the sick bay.

“Zoro-.”

Zoro. It’s not often Sanji calls him by his name. Just like every other time, it makes Zoro’s heart stir.

God, even Sanji‘s voice is starting to sound good to him. Low and smooth, a soft accent from both his time spent in the North Blue, then meeting new people from all over the East Blue on the Baratie. The distinct way Sanji curls his words around his tongue scratches Zoro brain oh so perfectly.

He feels breathless.

“What’s the verdict?” Zoro presses, trying to will away the heat that threatens to consume him whole the longer he looks.

Even still, he does not dare look away.

Sanji sighs and rests his hand against the gurney mattress. Zoro doesn’t let go of his wrist, and Sanji doesn’t kick him in the face for it. This is going strangely well.

“Well, you don’t seem to be exhibiting any of the symptoms Chopper has written down anymore,” Sanji says, consulting the clipboard in his lap with his free hand. “I’m gonna mark down that yes, it is an allergy, and yes, the medicine has improved symptoms. About you being released from ship arrest, though.. I think Chopper would throw me overboard if I did that without asking him first, so I guess you’re stuck here with me.”

Zoro grins at that. “I don’t mind being stuck with the nurse,” he murmurs, teasing, and Sanji turns an extremely interesting shade of pink.

He yanks his arm away from Zoro, which Zoro only minutely mourns the loss of its warmth, then shoves back on his rolling chair. He kicks off so hard that he ends up slamming back first into the other wall, and after staring wide eyed for a moment, Zoro can’t help but laugh at him.

“Shut up, you mangy mutt!” Sanji barks, which is kind of ironic. He runs a hand through his hair, soothing his distress, then once again situates the flower delicately within the canopy of gold silk that is his hair.

“You know.. it kinda looks like you,” Zoro says suddenly.

Sanji frowns at him, unimpressed. “I look like a flower with octopus tentacles coming out of its mouth?”

Zoro grins and snorts. “Yeah.”

“What the hell,” Sanji whispers to himself.

Maybe Chopper’s medicine is still making him a little loopy, because Zoro keeps talking. Maybe Sanji just makes him want to talk.

“Pale and freckled,” he murmurs, looking over the flower’s freckled petals, then at Sanji’s honey dotted cheeks. Zoro diligently studies him and the way the champagne yellow of Sanji’s hair dances around the flower tucked so neatly behind his ear. “Actually, with that in your hair, you look even more like the flowers in the bramble bush. Yellow haloed in white. Like a fucking Angel or something.”

Sanji’s eye widens, his flush deepening. “Oh, I—.”

He what? Sanji doesn’t normally stammer, but here he is, at a loss for words.

Well, Zoro supposes that’s his fault. Did he really just tell the cook he reminds him of an Angel? It’s true, but….

“Thanks,” Sanji says after a moment, lame considering the way he usually goes on and on with the ladies. Zoro has to laugh to himself about how easily he has flustered the man who spends everyday wooing and charming people. “I’m gonna go water the bramble….”

Zoro nods. Grins at the thought of Sanji taking such good care of the plant he gifted him. “Will I be getting another visit from the pretty nurse Angel today?”

Sanji kicks him in the calve before he storms out of the room with Zoro’s pilfered sake in hand, and Zoro simply lays back down on the sick bay bed and cackles.

Yes, he thinks. Chopper’s medicine has definitely made him loopy. Delirious as hell.

Sanji tends to the bramble bush often, just as passionately as he handles food. The thought makes Zoro’s chest squeeze, and this time Zoro thinks that maybe it’s more about Sanji than it is about the bush.

Zoro starts to spend more of his free time on Sunny’s top deck or in the galley. There’s no reason as to why he would rather work out on the deck or nap on the dining room couch than his beloved crow’s nest.

He definitely doesn’t keep a close eye on the bramble bush, because that would be ridiculous. And he certainly wouldn’t stay on the top deck just so that he can watch the cook dance in and out of the galley below, nor to see him crouch down by the plant when he comes up to murmur sweet compliments to its flowers as he waters them. That would be utterly absurd.

“Look who’s talking to himself, now,” Zoro teases one day as he watches the cook coo at the tall bush.

Sanji merely huffs out an amused laugh in response, and the sound warms Zoro inexplicably.

So, clearly something is different aboard Thousand Sunny. Zoro knows it, Sanji has to know it, and based on the glances and smirks he’s been getting from his nakama lately, Robin isn’t the only other crew mate who knows it.

Zoro supposes it’s hard to miss. It’s so obvious that it might as well be written on a banner and strung from the balcony above the main deck.

Zoro and Sanji are friendly with each other. And, oh yeah, Zoro bought Sanji a fucking plant with his booze money, in case anyone missed that, it would probably say. In big, obnoxiously coloured, swirly letters, too, because Usopp’s an ass like that and he definitely made the banner in Zoro’s imagination.

It’s.. strange, but it’s not bad. Not bad at all. It’s just that, well, he and Sanji haven’t fought in a really long time.

Sure, they’ve had petty scuffles, have brought down blades and kicks on one another over more serious debates, but they haven’t fought over every single thing like they usually do. Like they used to do.

They can actually stand to be in a room together without bickering over whether the sky is pink or purple. They can go out for grocery runs without Zoro acting he doesn’t want to go and Sanji pretending he doesn’t want or need him to come.

Sanji even joins Zoro for his routinely nightcap, sometimes to share a drink, other times just to keep Zoro company and chat while Sanji finishes his last cigarette of the day.

They are.. civil, is a way to put it, and the entire crew has noticed.

“You ever feel like you’re being watched by a bunch of hungry vultures waiting for their meal?” Zoro muses as he helps Sanji wash the dishes after supper one night.

Sanji laughs around his cigarette at that. “I’m a chef, Mossy. I’m always being watched by hungry vultures,” he says, then snorts conspiratorially. “Namely, Luffy.” He knocks his shoulder against Zoro’s — playful where it had once been an act of annoyance.

Zoro hums, grins to himself, and passes a freshly washed plate to Sanji. “You know what I mean,” he murmurs back.

Sanji allows their shoulders to brush again as he wipes the plate dry. He pulls away to put the dish in its respective cupboard, then slots himself right back up against Zoro’s side and nods. “Yeah,” he says — soft, airy, a plume of smoke painting a halo around the crown of his head. “I feel it, too.”

Zoro nods.

The conversation ends there.

There’s a turning point to everything, isn’t there? Maybe Zoro and Sanji’s turning point was the gift he gave to the cook.

He thought that was their turning point, at least, but maybe it’s actually the day Zoro sees the fully bloomed flowers start to die.

He mentions it to Sanji, expecting him to be crushed by the revelation. To at least be a little surprised. Instead, Sanji grins like this is great news.

“You heard me?” Zoro asks, because something isn’t adding up here at all.

Sanji nods with a distant smile on his face. “Yeah, I saw a couple petals start to fall off a few of them when I went up to water the bush this morning.”

What is going on right now?

This is the same Sanji who had smiled directly at Zoro for the first time upon receiving the bush? The same Sanji who tends to that very same bush every single day, like it’s his life line that he needs to protect at all costs?

This is the same Sanji who Zoro, for some stupid reason, believed cared about the plant as much as Zoro needed him to. Zoro needs Sanji to care about this plant as much he cares about the way Sanji tends to it. The way Sanji loves it.

“And that’s okay?” Zoro asks, a little pointedly.

“Yeah, I think so.” Sanji shrugs, not at all bothered by the sharp acidity that laces Zoro’s tone — much like he’s never shied away from the keenly honed edge of Zoro’s blades. “It’s about time, really. I was starting to get a little anxious that the petals wouldn’t fall off.”

Okay. Zoro is not going to overreact over a plant. He pulls in a deep, calming breath through his nose, clears his throat, and excuses himself from the galley.

The cook nods and waves him out like he usually does. Or, like he’s been doing for the past month.

A month. Zoro has had the wrong idea for an entire month. Zoro stupidly thought that Sanji felt the same way he did for a month. Zoro thought that Sanji liked—

Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Zoro’s overthinking this. He’s been overthinking this from the start.

He heads to the crow’s nest to work out today. Sanji says he’s surprised to see him up there when he finds him to bring Zoro a snack, but he doesn’t seem to mind Zoro’s absence from the top deck or galley.

Maybe Zoro has been in Sanji’s way all this time. He didn’t mean to do that. He thought— he sighs, chewing the dessert Sanji brought up for him. Still a little sweet, but better. This is so much better.

Something about that, about the fact that Sanji is still tweaking his recipes just for him, hurts Zoro’s chest more than he can explain. It should make him happy, make his stomach flutter and his chest squeeze, but instead Zoro just feels his head pound. It makes him more confused about everything he’s mistaken for signs from Sanji for the past month.

Zoro takes a much needed nap after he finishes eating.

Sanji doesn’t come to find him again until supper.

Zoro goes to Usopp. His reasoning? Well, it’s not like anyone will believe Usopp about this anyways. So Zoro decides to confide in the long-nosed sniper, because he needs to complain about this to someone.

Immediately, Zoro begins to regret it.

“Yo, Usopp,” he calls, pulling up to where Usopp is sat on the lawn with his back against Sunny’s railing.

Usopp holds up a finger for him to wait, so Zoro halts and watches him. He’s got pop greens and dials spread out all around him, tinkering with his Kabuto slingshot. When he finds a place he is comfortable leaving off at, he lifts his gaze.

“What’s up, Zoro?”

“I wanna ask you something—.”

“Oh!” Usopp shouts, then whips his head around like he’s scoping out the vicinity.

Zoro watches him with a confused and concerned furrow to his brow. What the hell is he doing?

Zoro can tell with his haki that there’s no one around on deck, let alone any threats near by. — Zoro knew not getting that monk’s-foot-wolf’s-mate-whatever-the-hell-it-was-called-flower was a good idea. The guy’s paranoid as shit already. — Once Usopp seems to come to the same conclusion that Zoro did an entire thirty seconds ago, he grins.

“Shit, okay, I’ve been waiting for this. I knew you would come to me, Zoro. We’re bros!” Usopp sits up straighter and crosses his legs, then slaps a hand to his thigh as the other reaches up to push his goggles from his eyes to rest it above his hair. “Sit, sit,” he says, ushering Zoro to take a seat before him.

Zoro has no clue what is going on, but he sits anyways— albeit skeptically.

“Okay, give me a sec. I mean I knew you were coming, but I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

Zoro gives him a moment to collect his thoughts, whatever they may be.

After a solid minute of Usopp making a face of consideration with no indication that he’s about to start speaking again, Zoro starts to think that maybe he should have went to someone else. This isn’t going very well already, and why the hell had Usopp been expecting him in the first place?

“So,” Usopp says after what feels like an eternity, his expression suddenly falling serious. “This is my first shovel talk, but—.”

Incredulous, Zoro interjects. “Shovel talk?”

Usopp furrows his brows then frowns. “Yeah, the whole scare the shit out of you before you can even think about hurting Sanji thing. Aren’t you here to, like, ask me for his hand in mar—?”

“No!” Zoro cuts him off again. He tries to hide the way his cheeks burn a furious red, but he doesn’t think he has any luck with it.

“Oh, am I supposed to be giving Sanji the shovel talk?” Usopp tilts his head in consideration, and while Zoro’s busy staring at him like he’s talking in the ancient script of the poneglyphs, Usopp seems to come to a conclusion and nods. “Yeah, I guess that makes more sense. Maybe Chopper should be the one to give you one on Sanji’s behalf.

“Threaten to give you the wrong meds or conveniently catch a case of amnesia and forget all of his medical training when you need patching up, or something like that. Although, we all know he would never follow throu—.”

Zoro groans, rubbing a hand over his face. “No shovel talks.”

“Okay..” Usopp scratches his head through the curtain of thick black curls that hang over his shoulders. He props an elbow on his knee then leans his temple against his closed fist. “I’m a little lost here, man. Whose side am I on?”

“This has nothing to do with the cook!” If Zoro had managed to hide the crawling blush on his neck and cheeks before, then his tone just gave him away entirely. Usopp quirks a brow, unimpressed, and Zoro decides he isn’t going to lie. He doesn’t lie. “Not exactly, at least.”

Usopp nods, thankfully disregarding Zoro’s outburst. “Don’t worry, I’m your big bro! I’m here to help you!”

Zoro frowns. “I’m two years older than you.”

Usopp shrugs and flicks a flippant hand like that means absolutely nothing to him. “And? Whose advice are you seeking?” Silence. The only sounds are the soft waves of the harbour they’re docked at sloshing against Sunny‘s hull while the rest of the crew ventures inland. “Exactly. Mine. That makes me two years wiser than you.”

“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea—.”

“Noooo, Zorooo! Come on, humour me! You’ve never come looking for my advice before!” He’s whining, clutching at Zoro’s wrist as he tries to stand up, and Zoro only stays because he loves Usopp, annoying ass and all.

“Fine.”

“Great! God D. Usopp is here to help, so go ahead and tell me your troubles.”

He sounds way too damn cheerful for someone Zoro is actively about to lament to, but, well, Zoro can’t claim to be surprised. Even Perona couldn’t bring Usopp down, and hell if Zoro doesn’t know what Perona is capable of.

In a way, he should fear this part of Usopp.

So, only slightly put off by the huge grin on Usopp’s face, Zoro lays everything down.

“It.. I don’t know, it pisses me off that he’s just letting the flowers -that I paid good money for, by the way - go all green and die,” Zoro says, finishing his abbreviated story of Sanji killing their lo— the plant Zoro gave to him.

He left out the part about Sanji accidentally leading Zoro on, but, you know, that part wasn’t important to share to the long-nose. And maybe Zoro didn’t spend as much beries on the bramble as he is leading Usopp to believe, but it’s better to allow him to assume Zoro’s concerned about the waste of money rather than overreacting over nothing.

Sure no one believes a word that comes out of Usopp’s mouth anyways, but there is only so much he can make up on his own.

And Usopp — who Zoro came to because he genuinely does feel close to the man, who he had only stayed for because Usopp would have probably cried and complained for the next week had Zoro left him high and dry after giving him the chance to play big bro (seriously, where the hell did that even come from?) before leaving — is looking at Zoro like he’s a Kuraigna Baboon.

Honestly, it makes Zoro miss Perona’s pestering. At least her constant withering and pitying looks didn’t bother him nearly as much as Usopp looking down on him like he’s an idiot.

If Zoro didn’t love his nakama so much, he would consider listening to Kitetsu’s cries for blood right about now.

“Come on, Zoro. What the hell? What did you think they were? Just prickly flowers?” Usopp nudges him like that’s the most absurd thing ever, like it’s a hilarious notion, but isn’t that exactly what a rose is? Everyone seems to like those just fine….

“The fuck’s wrong with that?” Zoro bites, but Usopp is too far gone to worry.

He puffs out his chest, excited to - genuinely - be the expert on something. “They’re not dying, Zoro. They’re budding.”

That doesn’t make any sense. They already budded, bloomed, and now the flowers are turning green at the centre, the petals shriveling in on themselves and falling off. Is Usopp fucking with him?

“Unless they’re like caterpillars and have some kind of obscure double blooming process, then I have no clue what the hell you’re getting at.”

Usopp scratches the side of his nose thoughtfully. “Huh.. yeah. It’s exactly like that, actually.”

He is. Usopp is most definitely fucking with him.

Zoro should kill him.. but he won’t. Instead, he groans. “Don’t lie to me, Usopp.”

Usopp gasps and clutches his chest, affronted. “Dude, are you kidding? I would never lie, Zoro. Especially not to you,” he says, then grins and rubs the underside of his nose with the back of his hand. He’s all smug with his chest puffed out again, and Zoro can’t help the little smile that tugs at his lips.

Usopp might be annoying as hell, but Zoro knew that about him from the get-go. He wouldn’t have invited him on the crew if he didn’t like him, and Zoro wouldn’t have given him a second chance after Usopp left the crew if Zoro didn’t love him.

“A God’s word is gospel. I can’t go around spouting nonsense to my loyal disciples.”

Zoro huffs a short laugh, and lays down. “Whatever, I’m going to sleep.”

This conversation may have proved to be unfruitful, but at least it calmed Zoro down and.. fuck. It cheered him up, didn’t it?

Usopp frowns as Zoro gets comfortable on Sunny’s main deck lawn. “Don’t you want to know what it is?”

Zoro closes his eye, then folds his arms behind his head and shakes his head with a grin. “Nah, Usopp. I’m good.”

He’s heard enough stories from the man for the day. It’s almost like getting a bedtime story, Zoro thinks with a yawn. Only it’s still the middle of the afternoon.

“Suit yourself,” Usopp grumbles, and Zoro drifts off to the sound of Usopp quietly returning to his work on his Kabuto.

Zoro doesn’t avoid Sanji after the fact, but he returns to his usual routine. Or, at least the one he used to do a month ago.

Sanji still seeks him out in the crow’s nest, and maybe he is the more civil, more amiable, still post-bramble Sanji, but Zoro can handle as much. He just has to remember that what Sanji feels for him is nothing like what Zoro feels for Sanji.

Sanji is simply being friendly, no matter how absurd that would have sounded to either of them a month ago. Zoro is.. well, he’s trying to get over whatever it is he’s feeling for Sanji, because clearly that was misplaced and misguided.

He wants to blame Sanji for how lost and miserable he’s been feeling as of late, but he can’t. It’s not Sanji’s fault that Zoro read too strongly into his actions.

Sanji has always been a kind person. He is as soft and sweet as he is strong, and even when he hates, he still manages to show the way he cares so deeply. It is an integral part if his personality.

Of course he would open up to Zoro after he stopped being such a dick to him all the time. Of course he would appreciate a pretty gift as a peace offering after all he’s done for Zoro and their crew. And of course, when that gift’s life starts to eke out, he wouldn’t mind because it’s already served its purpose.

It is the natural order of things. The cycle of life and nature.

Zoro is overreacting, he knows he is, so no, he does not avoid Sanji. He can still be Sanji’s.. friend, if that is what he wants from Zoro.

It hurts when he thinks too much about it, so Zoro sleeps. He spends most of his free time sleeping, training, with Sanji and/or drinking sake, — which, now that he thinks about it, isn’t something exactly new to the past month and change at all, — but it helps Zoro ignore that tug in his chest. The squeeze of his heart. The desire and want in his soul to be something more than he is allowed.

He can admit it. He is.. fuck, one second, he can admit it.

Zoro is head over heels for Sanji.

He’s known that for a while, though he tried to ignore the feelings as best he could. But for Sanji’s sake, so that they can keep this better relationship they have built over the past month or so, Zoro can put his own feelings aside. After all, he’s put them aside pretty much the entire time they’ve known each other.

Maybe this is just another form of exercise. Resistance training, but one that he never gets a break from and hurts like fucking hell.

He can do this.

He can do this.

Zoro can do this.

When Sanji brings Zoro dessert a few weeks later, — where he’s sat, leaning against the railing of Sunny’s main deck and watching fondly as the rest of the crew play around the grassy lawn — it isn’t all too surprising.

When Zoro realizes that he’s the first person to have been served, however, — and that includes Nami and Robin who Sanji always serves first, even when Hungry Hungry Hippo Luffy is practically gnawing at Sanji’s ankles he’s so quote/unquote hungry, despite being fed an hour before, — it throws him for a loop.

This, Zoro thinks, is not right. Is not normal to any timeline he’s shared with Sanji — before or after the bramble.

This — the look on Sanji’s face, the highs of his cheeks dusted a blotchy pink like it’s cold out when it isn’t in the slightest — makes Zoro’s resistance training feel like it’s amounted to absolutely nothing.

Sanji’s got the corner of his bottom lip tucked between his teeth as he holds out the plate for Zoro, and he looks, for lack of better words, nervous. Though foreign, the bashful expression looks absurdly good on him.

Maybe it’s just Sanji in general.

Zoro’s heart is hammering in his chest, the reverberations pulsing in his ears, bobbing in his throat, and fuck, he wants. Zoro wants so fucking bad.

Maybe he can’t do this after all.

“Here, Mossy,” Sanji says, eye bright and all-consuming. Like staring into an open flame as it actively devours you.

But that’s not right. Zoro knows that’s not right. That’s just his imagination, his overactive and exceedingly hopeful mind playing dirty tricks on him. Sanji does not want him the way Zoro does he.

Zoro clears his throat, suddenly parched, and reaches out to accept the plate. “What’s this, Curly?”

Sanji’s gaze flicks away. It’s probably for the best — even if Zoro wishes he could continue to stare into that blue abyss for just a bit longer, or some time verging on forever — because Zoro is feeling a little ravenous. He doesn’t think it has anything to do with the delicious smelling food in hand.

“I know you don’t like sweet things, and you’re not a fan of treats or desserts as a whole, but.. well, I thought you might like some of this blackberry cobbler,“ Sanji says, and as Zoro eyes over the plate in his lap, — thinking that he kind of likes sweet things.. namely one that starts with an S, ends in an I, and is the most kind, caring, annoyingly sweet asshole in the entire world that somehow reduces Zoro to thinking like a fucking sap, — Sanji adds a little hastily, “I mean, seeing as you’re the one who got them.”

Zoro quirks a brow at that. He does plenty of grocery shopping with Sanji, he even went on an another run with him three days ago, but never once has he been given the credit of getting something. Nor does he remember them buying any berries as of late.

“When did I do that?” he hums, taking a bite.

It’s sugary, no doubt, but the blackberries are just sour enough to mask the cookie-sweetness. It’s a dessert, something Zoro never would have bothered with if it weren’t Sanji who made it, but the flavour is tart, not particularly saccharine, and fuck, it’s really good. Easily Zoro’s favourite desert Sanji’s ever made.

“This is fucking amazing, Cook,” he says, uncaring that he just outrightly complimented the man he usually bashes left and right.

Zoro takes another bite, humming at the pleasant balance of flavours that perfectly matches his tastes.

Sanji’s cheeks flush deeper as he watches Zoro finish his dessert in record time, still no brisk winds or hot heat to offer him an excuse. Then he sighs and crouches down to meet Zoro at eye level. “You remember that plant you got me. About nine islands back?”

Zoro nods, putting his plate down beside him as he looks off a little petulantly. “You mean the flowers that died?”

Of course he remembers. He hasn’t gone back to see them since before his chat with Usopp. He can’t bring himself to.

Sanji’s brows furrow together before he frowns at him. “They didn’t die, greenie.”

Zoro scoffs, rolls his eye then rests his gaze on his lap. “They were looking pretty damn black and blue the last time I saw them.” Not literally, but they looked pretty beat up. Sanji understands.

And because he understands, Sanji pokes a finger against the middle of Zoro’s chest. When Zoro doesn’t look up at him, Sanji does it again. And again, over, and over, and over, and over, incessant until Zoro gets annoyed and grabs his finger, snapping his gaze back up to glare at him.

“Would you stop that!?”

Sanji’s grinning now, and he looks like the fucking sun. A bright, near blinding, white smile; cheeks and lips flushed pink around an equally rosy nose, all haloed by golden hair. His eye shimmers like stars, and just like always, Zoro feels lost in it. Lost in Sanji.

Fuck.

Fuck, this isn’t fair. How is Zoro supposed to resist when Sanji looks at him like that? How is he supposed to believe that Sanji doesn’t feel the same way Zoro does when he’s smiling so broadly at him like that?

“It didn’t die, Zoro,” he says again, and Zoro’s breath hitches.

It isn’t every day that Sanji calls him by his name, and though he certainly does it more often than Zoro calls Sanji by his, it manages to make his stomach flutter every single time. His heart skips a fucking beat.

Zoro’s cheeks are pink. He knows they are. They’re hot, and flushed, and so is his neck and the tips of his ears, but Zoro is too busy staring at the Angel before him to care. Because he had meant it that day, all those weeks ago, when Sanji had checked up on him in Chopper’s place.

Sanji is an Angel on Earth, and fuck, maybe Zoro admits he knew it wasn’t the medicine talking back then, too. Chopper’s good like that. The pills didn’t even have the slightest drowsy side effect.

Zoro thought he could do this, could just be friends with Sanji as long as he put a bit of distance between them again, but this is proving really difficult. He — he doesn’t know if he can keep this up.

“Come with me,” Sanji says, standing back up, a hand held out for Zoro.

Normally, Zoro would ignore it. Would roll his eye and declare that he’s not following Sanji’s orders. Would scoff and shove the offered hand away, getting up on his own if he really needed to go with him.

This time, however, Zoro can’t help it.

This time, Zoro follows the urge to slip his hand into Sanji’s — still holding onto that hope that maybe he was right about the signals he had been picking up from the man. When their skin meets, calloused fingers sliding against a smooth, flawless, well taken care of and dedicated hand, Sanji is a warm ray of sunshine beaming down onto Zoro’s flesh.

Sunshine. That is what Sanji is, isn’t it? He is bright. He is good. He is the sun above and the sea below. He is the all-encompassing light that brightens every day, even when Zoro pretends that Sanji doesn’t brighten his own.

Sanji tugs Zoro up to his feet with a surprising amount of upper body strength, then drags Zoro along behind him.

Zoro is so lost in the warmth of his skin, in the way that Sanji continues to hold his hand in his precious fingers as he leads Zoro across the deck even though it’s no longer necessary, that Zoro doesn’t even notice the smirks and snickers the rest of their nakama give them as Sanji drags him up to Nami’s tangerine grove.

When they get there, he ushers Zoro to kneel down beside where he’s already began to crouch. “Look.”

Zoro does, and there’s no longer the half dead flowers, but instead a patch of … blackberries?

Zoro blinks at them, trying to understand. “You.. switched out the flowers for berries?”

Sanji rolls his eyes and snorts his amusement, but he looks oddly fond. Just like the day Zoro gave the plant to him. It makes Zoro’s chest squeeze. “You really know nothing about plants, do you?”

Zoro grumbles. “That’s Usopp’s thing. When I talked to him about it, he started making up shit about caterpillars, so,” he trailes off, finishing with a shrug.

Sanji quirks a brow at that, a similar expression to the one that washed over Usopp’s face when Zoro brought it up the first time. “I’m not exactly sure what he said to you, but it doesn’t sound too far fetched. I probably wouldn’t have explained it that way myself, but I can definitely see how it could be like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.”

Zoro grimaces. “Oh, fuck,” he groans. “Not you, too.” None of this makes any sense. Caterpillars to butterfly, while that is still utterly insane to Zoro, that’s decently normal. A flower dying then magically becoming a fruit?? That’s lunacy.

And yet, Zoro neither snorts nor rolls his eye like he had when Usopp agreed with him. Maybe that’s because Usopp’s an ass who’s cried God D. Usopp, Almighty Warrior Captain one too many times, but there’s something about Sanji that makes Zoro want to trust him inexplicably.

Sanji takes the hand still clasped around Zoro’s and brings it up to the bush. “Look,” he says again, and so Zoro does. “This one is still in the beginning of its transformative stage.”

The flower he brings Zoro’s hand to looks similar to the way most had looked when he was last here. Turning green in the centre; white petals shrivelled in, half already having fallen off.

“And then there’s a couple stages before they get to here.” He moves their hands over to a green bud with a bit of red beginning to flush its tip. Zoro could easily imagine it being a young raspberry.

The green at the base of the flower‘s sickly looking petals, he’s starting to realize, are simply the leaves of the berry.

“And once they grow older, they ripen into blackberries,” Sanji says, fond again.

“Oh,” Zoro says, feeling a little foolish. He’s an idiot, isn’t he? “I didn’t know blackberries came from flowers.”

If he had just listened to Usopp the first time around, he probably would have learned the truth far sooner. But in all honesty, it sounded like Usopp was just screwing around.

Whatever. Zoro prefers the lesson from Sanji anyways. Getting to watch his pleased expression; to feel Sanji’s skin on his as he idly thumbs over the backs of Zoro’s knuckles. And then, the action seeming a little mindless, Sanji shifts his hold so he can intertwine their fingers properly.

Zoro watches, dazed, realizing for the first time that, despite his hand being much thicker than Sanji’s own lithe one, they fit together quite perfectly.

Sanji nudges Zoro’s shoulder, soft, reclaiming his attention with ease. It’s playful, tender as they both look up from their tangled hands to meet each other’s gaze, and fuck, Zoro has missed this.

He hasn’t allowed himself to get this close to Sanji in the past few weeks, and after a month of brief touches and innocent grazes to absolutely nothing outside of petty fights, that was probably the hardest part of holding himself back from Sanji.

Sure, this much closer, warmer, on purpose touch is different than anything they’ve ever shared, but Zoro has missed any contact Sanji is willing to give him. Or, Zoro supposes, any touch he, himself; is willing to receive.

Sanji doesn’t pull away once he’s got Zoro’s attention like he normally does. He lingers against Zoro’s shoulder, faint smile growing a little wider, a little warmer, as he looks over to continue watching the plant — the blackberry bush.

Zoro leans into that touch, too, wondering if maybe Sanji has missed this nearly as much as he has.

“You really never noticed that fruit bearing plants grow flowers, too?” Sanji asks softly, a little amusement lacing his voice. “I mean, I know your sense of direction is terrible, but come on, Mossy.” Mossy.. God, it’s such a stupid nickname, but Zoro is really starting to love it. “Look above you.”

Zoro does look up, as directed, and he’s a little underwhelmed to find Nami’s tangerine trees standing high and grand before them. But when he pays attention, and he means really pays attention, he starts to notice the small, white flowers that grow on their branches.

He’s never looked at them close enough to notice before, but it’s not like Nami ever lets him tend to her precious plants. The only ones allowed to touch this soil pot are Usopp (this is a recent development since returning to sabaody with his pop greens), Robin, Sanji (who has been threatened with a worrisome, essentially life enprisioning debt if he messes up even a single branch on one of her trees), and Nami herself.

For the record, of all the people not allowed to touch Luffy is on the top of the list.

“Actually, all fruit grow from flowers,” Sanji says. “Nuts, too.”

Zoro grumbles a little petulantly under his breath, because really, why should he have known that?

“The plant came with care instructions, Marimo.”

Zoro frowns. “And?” What the hell’s that supposed to mean?

“The name of the plant, and a detailed explanation of the stages of the berries growth process and how to care for them during each stage was on the card,” Sanji explains. “Did you really not even glance at the name?”

Oh, yeah. Zoro had forgotten about the care instructions pretty much immediately after the lady told him about them.

Zoro does not respond, and Sanji shakes his head.

“So.. when you gave them to me,” he starts, pausing to suck in an audible breath through his nose. “If it wasn’t because the flowers blossom into a fruit and I’m a chef, nor because I’m Black Leg and they’re blackberries— what about them reminded you of me?”

Zoro shurgs. “They have thorny stems and you’re a prickly pain in the ass,” he says honestly.

Maybe a little too honestly, because Sanji’s eye narrows by the smallest increment. His brows flicker a soft furrow, lips twitching like they want to curl in on themselves and screw to the side.

All of it is gone so quick, so easy to miss, that if he weren’t Zoro, if he weren’t the same person who is always on Sanji’s ass, who sees him pretty much every moment of every day, — through his happy moments, his sad moments, his surprise, shock, bordem, anger, and most importantly his disappointment, — he might not have noticed.

Sanji looks off to the horizon as the sun pulls low to kiss the sea goodnight, his face turned away from Zoro entirely. Then he hums and nods.

“Oh,” he says, and though he quickly schooled his expression, though he sounds nonchalant to the untrained ear, Zoro knows. Zoro can hear it. He can hear it all too well.

The soft click in the back of Sanji’s throat, the distant strain around the word, the feigned detached drawl of his voice. It makes Zoro’s chest hurt, his stomach wrench, his throat tighten and bob as his body spikes cold. Zoro rarely gets cold unless the weather calls for it, but he is freezing right now.

His hand squeezes around Sanji’s gently. Tight enough to get his attention, but not enough to hurt him. Never enough to hurt the hands the man holds so dear to his heart and his passions.

Sanji looks back at him, and by now, the only indicator that he might be feeling a little down is the brighter pink to his nose and cheeks and the flickering glow in his eyes, glassy.

Fuck.

Fuck, Zoro didn’t want to hurt him. That is the last thing he ever wanted to do. Even when he wanted to blame Sanji for all of his pain the past few weeks, even when they claimed to hate each other for the three years prior, Zoro has never wanted to hurt Sanji.

“That’s not true,”Zoro says quickly. He rushes it out like he is the only thing standing between the execution of an innocent man and his salvation.

Sanji blinks at him, slowly, like he’s trying to hide the way his eyes have glassed over. Like he’s afraid that, if he goes too fast, his tears might spill over.

No, no, no. Zoro has never wanted this. God, he has wanted to throw Sanji overboard for something as stupid as waking him up from a nap before, has threatened to cut him to ribbons for calling him a dumb name, but he has never wanted to make someone so strong and resilient cry. Has never, ever wanted to make Sanji cry.

Zoro feels like his insides are clawing away at him, trying to force their way out of his throat as a lump forms there.

“I didn’t mean it,” he says, pressing closer into Sanji’s space. Sanji’s brows furrow like it’s painful to even be around him right now, and that hurts.

This is Zoro’s fault. This is his fault for running his mouth like a jackass without explaining. He needs to explain everything.

“I didn’t mean it. Not like that,” he insists, throat raw, voice raspy. If he had the patience to listen to himself right now, he might think he sounds desperate.

That’s probably because he is.

Sanji huffs out a shaky breath that sounds like a laugh, but it lacks all of its usual humour.

“Didn’t mean what, Marimo? It’s no secret that you hate me,” he says, soft, low, a near broken whisper, and no. “I can’t blame you. It’s not like I make it easy on you to like me, but I thought — when you gave me the plant.. I don’t know.”

That is not true. It might have been, before, but that is not true anymore. It hasn’t been true in awhile. In years.

“Sanji,” Zoro says. The word is so foreign on his tongue, but he likes it. He likes the feeling, the weight of it on his tongue, the way it bounces and curls around the inside of his mouth.

Sanji’s eye widens, his cheeks flushing an even deeper shade of pink, the color almost impossible, and Zoro wonders why he hasn’t called him it before.

He is an idiot.

Zoro is such a fucking idiot.

“Sanji,” he says again, releasing Sanji’s hand only to cup his face.

Zoro’s heart soars when Sanji immediately leans into the touch. Leans into him.

“I don’t hate you. I— yes, when I found the plant, I had meant it as a gag gift to call you a prickly son of a bitch because I’m an asshole, but if that was the only reason I could have easily just gotten something without the pretty flowers. A— uh- I don’t know,” Zoro huffs, searching for words. “A fucking cactus.”

Sanji quirks a brow at that. “Cacti grow flowers, too,” he says, because he’s a know it all, but Zoro likes that about him. He likes that Sanji is annoying, and bratty, and mouthy, and chatty, and mean, and sweet and so, so, so kind and forgiving.

Zoro is not done explaining, though, and for once he curses himself for not being better at expressing himself. Sanji is so good with words, and then there’s him.

A Neanderthal, Sanji would supply if he could hear Zoro’s thoughts, and that makes him grin a little.

He needs to try harder, at least this once, for Sanji’s sake.

“What I’m trying to say is that the flower itself reminded me of you. Bright, kind, soft— don’t look at me like that, you crybaby, you totally are soft,” Zoro laughs when Sanji glares at him. “But that doesn’t make you any less strong.” Zoro grins even wider, thumbing over Sanji’s cheeks, and Sanji lets him.

Smooth, warm. Nice.

Zoro continues, voice a little softer. “You are beautiful, handsome, stunning, elegant, gorgeous, attractive,” he says, rattling off every synonym he can think of as Sanji huffs a surprised but pleased laugh in Zoro’s hands. “So fucking pretty, and when I saw the flowers, a bright yellow with petals around it like a damn halo, I couldn’t help but think of you, my grouchy golden boy, always haloed in smoke.”

Sanji pouts, sagging into Zoro’s hold on his cheeks even more. “Did you have to the add grouchy?”

Zoro quirks a brow. “You forget who you’re talking to, sunshine? You’re lucky I said anything good at all.”

Sanji rolls his eyes, but he leans closer into Zoro’s space. “That was actually pretty sweet, Zoro,” he says, humming softly. “I didn’t even know you could say so many nice things at once.” He nuzzles his cheek against the palm of Zoro’s hand, then blinks those golden lashes with dirty-blond roots up at him curiously. “And sunshine?”

Zoro is the one flushing now. “Well.. you’re all super pretty and glow with your golden hair and stupidly handsome face,” he mutters, dropping to rest his forehead against Sanji’s own, hands falling to soothe over the sides of Sanji’s neck.

Being nice is draining. How does Sanji flirt with and charm the ladies all day? Zoro’s only surviving this torture because Sanji clearly likes the praise. He probably knows Zoro’s struggling and is enjoying that, too. Sadistic fuck.

“It’s like the sun shines out of your fucking ass. I can’t help gravitating around you,” Zoro heaves through a sigh.

Sanji smiles playfully, tilting his chin to nudge Zoro’s cheek with his perfect nose. “So you like me for my ass?”

Zoro rolls his eye. “Remember when I said you’re an annoying pain in the ass?” he growls. Sanji merely grins and nods. Zoro leans in closer, murmuring, “I meant it,” as his lips ghosts just over Sanji’s mouth.

Zoro’s heart thrums wildly in his chest when Sanji doesn’t pull away. And then Sanji presses forward to meet him the rest of the way, and Zoro hums, raising his hand again to tilt Sanji’s chin up with the side of his finger so they can slot together properly.

Sanji’s lips are soft against his, searching and gentle, but it doesn’t take long for his touch to become insistent and demanding. His lips taste sweet with a soft tang when Zoro darts his tongue across the seam, like he had been taste testing the cobbler to make sure it had a flavour profile Zoro would enjoy, and something about that reminder makes Zoro’s gut spin.

Sure, he likes anything Sanji makes, but sweets are far from his favourite. The fact that Sanji has been up in the kitchen tweaking the taste until it was just right for Zoro— Zoro pulls Sanji closer until he has to clamber into his lap to stay up right, and good. Zoro would have him even closer if he could.

Sanji moans in surprise, but he comes willingly. Eagerly, he settles his arms around Zoro’s shoulders then buries his fingers in short, green hair and tugs, deepening the kiss. When Sanji parts his lips around a gasp, Zoro gladly takes the invitation to lick into his sweet and tangy mouth.

Sanji tastes amazing. Zoro wants to do this forever.

He doesn’t care if it’s the blackberries he’s tasting on his tongue right now. He wants to kiss Sanji every waking moment of every day. Wants to kiss every inch of his skin, if Sanji will have him.

And then, because he is greedy, Zoro wants to kiss his cheeks, his forehead, his hair, wherever he is allowed, even when Sanji sleeps. A soft and delicate brush of lips to show how deeply he cares for the man, even if Sanji won’t be up to recognize his affections.

Sanji groans when Zoro sucks his tongue into his mouth, swallowing his sounds of pleasure and the taste of him down with a groan of his own, and Zoro is trying to compute it all to memory.

When his hands slide down the sides of Sanji’s neck, over his shoulders, down his arms to then wrap around his narrow hips and squeeze, Sanji gasps and rolls himself against Zoro’s lap.

When Zoro slips his fingers under his dress shirt, one hand snaking around to feel Sanji’s skin and graze up and over the small of his bare back, Sanji arches into him and huffs a muffled moan into the kiss.

When Zoro’s dull nails drag gently over Sanji’s flesh, Sanji tugs at Zoro’s hair again. Harder this time, nodding his head, kissing Zoro more fiercely, and Zoro does his best to map out Sanji’s body. To memorize his every response to even the littlest of touches. Like how Sanji’s breath stalls when the knuckles of Zoro’s other hand ghosts over his abdomen.

Everything is so new and exciting, and though Zoro wants to lose himself in it, though he wants to lean forward and lay Sanji out against Sunny’s upper deck and see how many reactions he can draw out of him, see how many Sanji is willing to give him, Zoro has to reign himself in.

It is with extreme willpower that Zoro finds the strength to pull away from Sanji’s lips. But Sanji, Zoro should have known, is greedy too. Is needy and demanding. He presses forward for more, kisses, licks, and nips at Zoro’s bottom lip before he begins pecking across his cheek, down the slope of his jaw, and over his throat.

“Zoro,” Sanji sighs, hot breath against Zoro’s skin, a little desperate. Zoro feels it too. “Zoro.”

“Sanji,” Zoro grits, trying his best to restrain himself. Knowing that Sanji wants it, too, isn’t helping at all. “I- we— fuuuck.”

They can’t, is what Zoro is trying to say. Not right now. Not right here. But his words are failing him.

Sanji huffs a laugh against the curve of Zoro’s neck. “I know,” he says, then releases a wistful sigh. “Sucks, though. I really want to.”

Zoro’s grip on Sanji’s hip and waist tightens, nails digging into the soft flesh there. “Next time.”

Sanji nips at the junction of his neck and shoulder, earning a groan from Zoro before he licks over the bite to soothe the sting. “Is there going to be a next time?”

Zoro nods, a little dazed. “If you want there to be.”

Sanji kisses his throat one last time before Zoro pulls back to look at him. Pink cheeks and nose, glazed over blue eye, mussed golden hair, cherry red lips kiss swollen and plump.

“Yeah,” Sanji says. Nods. “I want there to be a next time. And a time after that.”

Zoro hums, pleased. “What about after that?”

Sanji nods again. “Plenty more after that. Maybe even eternally.”

Zoro stares at him, blinking a few times. Then he laughs, because this is absurd. Just this afternoon he thought this man didn’t want anything more than friendship with him, and now they’re here, all wrapped up in one another with Sanji perched in his lap and demanding more.

“Are you asking me out, Sanji?” Zoro purrs, leaning in closer with a smirk.

Sanji groans and turns his head away, a hand coming up to push blindly at Zoro’s face. “Don’t look at me like that,”he grumbles quietly. “I just finally let you go.”

When Zoro laughs again, incredulous and a little flattered that he seems to be having the same effect on Sanji that Sanji has on him, Sanji turns back and grabs Zoro’s chin so he can stick him with a sharp glare. Then he pulls Zoro in and steals another kiss, this one quick.

“And yes, I am asking you out.”

Oh.

Oh, shit. Zoro likes that. Zoro really, really likes that.

He nods, smiling wide. “Then I’m not sleeping with you next time.”

Sanji blinks. “What?” he asks, baffled. Then his expression sags into a frown. It’S nearly a petulant pout. “Why not?”

Zoro doesn’t know whether to be absolutely flattered and smitten with this man, or to coo at him for being so fucking adorable.

He has to kiss him again. He just has to. Zoro steals a peck, groaning when he feels Sanji’s frown perk back up into a grin, and he then steals another.

“‘Cause,” he says, and because he feels like it, Zoro steals yet another kiss. Sanji has clearly ruined him. Zoro is obsessed. “You have to buy me dinner first, and we don’t reach the next island for another.. week? I would like to kiss you like this again before then. Preferably as soon as possible.”

Sanji pulls back to laugh, and he sounds delighted. Delightful.

Zoro has always known Sanji has a nice laugh, but he’s never heard it so close before — all bubbly and just for him. He wants to listen to him laugh like that all the time. Record it on one of Usopp’s sound dials and listen to it like a fucking Angel’s song.

“Three days,” Sanji corrects, but Zoro wonders if he’s truly right about that. It is Sanji who tends to travel through towns a little awkwardly, after all. “And can’t I just make you dinner?”

“Oh, you’re really eager for it, aren’t you?”

Sanji grins, pleased with himself as he leans down to knock Zoro’s nose with his own gently. “A little.”

Zoro shakes his head, not quite in disbelief but something akin to it. “Get your ass off of me before I lose my resolve.”

That’s more of an admission than all the sappy compliments were, he supposes. Zoro never loses his resolve.

That’s the scariest thing about liking Sanji. It’s so raw and unpredictable. He can never control anything.

Sanji slips off of his lap, snickering to himself, likely about Zoro’s internal dilemma. He’s such an asshole, but god does Zoro really like that.

Zoro looks back to the plant, because he might actually lose it if he keeps looking at Sanji’s kiss swollen lips and satisfied expression. Most of the flowers have turned into green or red buds, a few black berries lining the stems. Likely what’s left over after Sanji picked a batch for the blackberry cobbler.

Zoro frowns. “Since when do blackberries come from raspberries?”

Sanji blinks at him, at the bramble, then exhales a snort of amusement. It’s an utterly atrocious sound.

It’s adorable as hell.

Fuck, Sanji is ruining him.

“It’s not a raspberry,” Sanji says from where he sits in front of Zoro. He leans forward to consider a red bud between his fingers. “I do suppose it looks like one, but blackberries just ripen from green, to red, to black.”

“Next you’re gonna tell me green and red peppers are the same thing.”

“If you mean bell peppers, then yes, they are,” Sanji says simply.

Zoro clearly knows nothing about fruits and vegetables. That’s okay, though, because he has Sanji. And Usopp, he guesses.

“There’s permagreen peppers that stay green even after they’ve fully ripened, but green, yellow and red bell peppers are all the same fruit in different stages of life. That’s why red peppers are sweeter. They’re the most ripe.”

“Fruit,” Zoro murmurs, leaning in to press his nose against the crook of Sanji’s shoulder from behind. Sanji stirs a little, but he doesn’t pull away, and Zoro likes this. He’s missed the old closeness they built, yes, but he also likes this new closeness that Sanji so easily allows him to take. “Peppers are fruits?”

Sanji sighs.

Not an annoyed huff, the sound is too soft and slow for that. Maybe a pleased one. As if in answer, Sanji leans his head to the side and offers Zoro more of his neck as a slender hand slides back into Zoro’s hair, urging.

Zoro hums, pleased as well, before he slides up to kiss Sanji’s bared skin.

He’s so needy, but he wouldn’t be Sanji if he weren’t. Zoro might be more than a little needy for him, too.

“Yeah,” Sanji hums when Zoro gets his lips on his throat. “Most people call them vegetables, likely because they’re not as sweet as, say, a strawberry, but their botanical classification is a fruit.”

Zoro doesn’t give one fuck, and he thinks Sanji knows that, but he loves hearing Sanji talk. Loves when he gets all chatty and starts explaining things that Zoro doesn’t really need to understand, like the know it all he is.

He used to find it annoying when Sanji first joined the crew. Used to avoid chatty Sanji because he couldn’t understand why he felt so nervous and tingly around him. Can you believe that?

Past Zoro was an imbecile.

“How are botanical classifications made?”Zoro murmurs, scooting closer to slot himself directly behind Sanji.

He knows he kicked Sanji off his lap just a minute ago, but Zoro can’t help it. It’s like giving in to every ignored impulse he’s had for the past three years. And there have been a lot.

Sanji groans when Zoro rakes strong teeth over the thin skin of his neck. He tilts head back to rest on Zoro’s shoulder, the hand in his hair tugging — but instead of pulling him away, Sanji urges Zoro closer again.

“The seeds,” Sanji gasps, a little warbled by his panted breaths, but Zoro nods anyways. “Fruits have seeds, vegetables don’t. You know tomatoes are fruits, right?”

That, Zoro did know. He always wondered, somewhere very distant, why that was.

“Mm.” He nods, nuzzles deeper into Sanji’s shoulder. He raises his hands to hold Sanji’s hips, willing down the urge to slip his fingers under Sanji’s shirt again. “So,” Zoro starts to say, pulls away to nudge the back of Sanji’s head off his shoulder with his nose in his hair.

He smells good. Sea salt, seasonings, some fancy, pretty boy shampoo and conditioner combo. He smells like roasted vanilla and something spicy, the lingering scent of cigarette smoke that always clings to him evident in the foreground. Even that smells good. Smells like Sanji.

“So,” Sanji repeats, tipping his head to the other side when Zoro begins kissing down the opposite column of his neck.

“Raspberries.” A nip that makes Sanji groan. “Blackberries.” Zoro soothes his tongue over the spot. "Difference?"

Zoro expects Sanji to make some joke about him talking like a caveman, but he seems busy right about now. That satisfies Zoro. He does good for Sanji, and that, more than getting to follow his own urges, pleases him.

“They’re — fuck, oh my god, um—,” he trails off with a whimper when Zoro sucks a bruise into his skin, and the raw sound of his voice makes Zoro’s brain swim.

Sanji’s grip on his hair is so tight it hurts, but Zoro likes it. He likes it. He likes it so much.

“The difference? Well, the colour, obviously.”

Zoro bites hard for that. “Smart ass.”

Sanji huffs a laugh, petting Zoro’s hair to get him to dislodge rather than retaliating. It’s new, but not bad. Not bad at all.

Zoro lets go and kisses over the spot.

“There’s a few differences,” Sanji says. He tugs Zoro’s head away. Probably so he can think, but Zoro frowns anyways. And then Sanji turns around to face him, kisses his lips — once, twice, three times because he’s so amazingly greedy and needy — and Zoro’s disappointment ebbs away in an instant.

“Taste, for one,” he murmurs into the kiss before pulling back fully. “Raspberries — and black raspberries, for that matter — are sweeter, though the latter has a more tart flavour.”

Zoro groans. “If black raspberries and blackberries look the damn same, and they’re both tart, then how the hell isn’t that just a blackberry?”

Sanji grins and leans forward to wrap an arm around Zoro’s neck and kiss his lips again. Their constant touching and reaching for one another is verging on desperate, but Zoro doesn’t mind. He’s reeling from the attention. The eager affection.

“Okay, okay, let me make this simple. Raspberries have hair, blackberries don’t. Blackberries are usually bigger. They also have a shiny coat, and a white or green centre called a receptacle. That’s the part that comes from the cane when harvested,” he says, pulling a single berry from the bush to show Zoro the inside. “A raspberry, or black raspberry, is hollow on the inside when plucked. Their receptacle stays on the cane.

“Like I said, raspberries are sweeter. Blackberries are tart, yes, but black raspberries are like a middle ground between the two flavours.”

Sanji glances up at him, to where Zoro is staring at Sanji’s kiss swollen lips again. Zoro wonders what they would look like if he hand fed Sanji raspberries. Maybe some black raspberries and blackberries, too. What colour would his lips be then?

“Did you get any of that, Mossy?”

Mossy. He really, really loves that stupid nickname.

Zoro glances back up to the bright blue eye watching him and nods. “Yeah, hair, no hair.” He stopped listening after that, if he’s being honest. Sanji is just too distracting, and knowing that he actually wants Zoro in return?

Sanji laughs. “You are the worst,” he says, but he leans in to capture Zoro’s lips with his own anyways, and Zoro hums appreciatively.

He could get used to this, if Sanji allowed him to. He could get really used to this.

There’s the faintest beginnings of a tickle in the back of his throat, and, distantly, Zoro realizes that must be his supposed allergy acting up for spending so much time far closer to all the plants on the top deck than he ever does — even when he used to train up here all the time, he didn’t usually get this close to the soil pots.

The feeling is a little annoying, sure, but it isn’t anything Zoro can’t handle. It’s nowhere near as bad as it was on that one spring Island. And then Sanji kisses him soft and slow, more passionately than he even flirts or presents his food, and Zoro genuinely forgets about the itch as a whole.

But then, as much as Zoro knows Sanji, Sanji appears to know him just the same. It isn’t long before he’s ushering Zoro off the plant filled deck then back down to the galley for a nightcap.

The main deck is suspiciously clear of the rest of their crew when they make their way down the stairs, and while that makes Zoro’s cheeks flush because they clearly know, he also silently thanks them for clearing out.

Funny enough, Zoro and Sanji don’t start fighting like they used to again until they made things official that night in the galley. Zoro supposes they must have just been in that awkward phase where everything felt all gooey and fragile, and neither of them were willing to snap the slowly forming tether between them.

Well, as it turns out, that tether is more like a bungee cord. When they fight, it pulls and tugs and snaps viciously in the air as it’s yanked taut, but in the end, that string holding them together always comes back as strong as ever.

The next time Zoro is stopped by a random florist, he doesn’t humour the pestering. Instead, he immediately points to a pot of white tiger lilies and a second, two year old bramble bush — he’s learned that berries tend to fruit biennially and the blackberry bush he got last year just happened to already be in its second year of life, so he figures he might as well get Sanji another one to tide him through till the blackberries are ready for harvest again next year.

He doesn’t bother asking what kind of fruit they will bear. Part of the fun is guessing when Sanji prepares a meal with it.

Zoro happily purchases the flowers and bramble, then brings them back to the Sunny for the cook — who will likely pester Zoro about activating his allergies, then baby him incessantly until one of Chopper’s allergy pills kicks in.

That doesn’t sound like a bad evening at all. With a dopey grin on his face and a slight itch in his throat, Zoro makes his way back home to his Sanji.