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"I’m fine, Chopper!” Sanji protested, except it sounded like “Ib fib, Chobber” because Sanji most certainly was not fine, judging by his sweaty hair, flushed cheeks, pale complexion, and running nose.
“No, Sanji, you most certainly are NOT fine! You’re running a dangerously high fever and have snot dripping down your face. Get. Back. In. That. Bed.”
Zoro snickered from the door connecting the galley and infirmary. “Ha. Sucks to suck, shitcook.”
“Oh, fuck you, mosshead,” Sanji grumbled, flipping Zoro the bird as he blew his nose. “I know you got caught in that freak goop, same as me.”
“Yeah, but obviously it didn’t work on me because I’m built different.”
“Yeah… built stupid,” Sanji grumbled, then blew his nose loudly.
“It’s possible you got effected first because of the damage to your lungs from your decade of smoking,” Chopper mumbled passive-aggressively as he organized his supplies and notes on his desk.
Sanji pouted. He was starting to get comfy in the pillows when he sat up with a start.
“Wait! Lunch! Who’s going to cook lunch?!”
"Not you!" Chopper yelled. "Don't make me tie you down to the bed like Zoro!"
Sanji stilled, narrowing his eyes. His intimidation attempt was promptly ruined by a huge sneeze.
Zoro doubled over with laughter.
"Don't worry about lunch, sickie. We can figure it out. We've done it before."
Sanji made a whiny noise but it looked like the medicine Chopper had given him was finally pulling him down into a nap.
Chopper rounded on Zoro now that the cook had finally calmed down.
"You. Go shower and bathe. If you start feeling even a little bit congested, march your butt straight back in here, got it?"
Zoro grumbled, but obeyed the doctor, trudging off to the bathhouse to wash off the weird ooze that had soaked both him and the cook.
It really did look like they had walked into a waterfall of snot.
They had been walking through the jungle on some random island, looking for provisions and bickering all the while. They weren't often paired together for exploring because of their tendency to argue, but Zoro had gotten separated from the group and Sanji always seemed to be the one to find him. They were arguing about how to get back, when a huge pitcher plant tipped over and doused them in viscous green fluid.
Naturally, the cook had gone berserk and blamed Zoro for it, particularly rambling about how his suit was ruined and declaring he'd have Nami take the payment for dry cleaning out of Zoro's allowance.
Zoro wasn't happy to be wet and sticky either. It was a sensory nightmare. He had been about to say so, when the cook started sneezing so powerfully that he was lifted into the air, like when he got nosebleeds.
It was, frankly, ridiculous.
Zoro chuckled to himself at the memory as he peeled off his tacky robe, grimacing at the sensation. It had probably been even worse for Sanji, with his copious amounts of body hair.
Zoro looked around the changing area for Sanji's suit. The cook had charged straight to the bathhouse the moment they saw the Sunny, before Chopper came running after him. The little doctor's sensitive nose and ears smelled the weird goop and heard the sneezes from the infirmary.
Zoro grimaced as he worked shampoo through his hair. He didn't soak in the tub often, but he did at least rinse off daily—he wasn't sure if he had ever gotten this disgusting from anything. It was like that time Nami made him gel his hair for some event, but everywhere.
As the snot-like dried ooze sloughed off his skin, Zoro contemplated the rest of his day. Obviously, he had to do some training. There was probably an exercise he could do to prevent whatever weirdness was infecting the cook from getting to him too.
Zoro decided against soaking in the tub (as usual) after his shower, even though Chopper told him to. Thankfully, someone had snuck in and swapped his nasty clothes while he showered, so he was able to change into something clean.
After he changed, he started to head to the crow's nest to train, but his stomach growled, reminding him he had told the cook he would help figure out lunch.
Nami was generally the first choice to cook when Sanji couldn't, so he headed up to the library to find her.
"Hey, witch, are you gonna make lunch since the cook is out of commission?"
"You got beri for my labor?" Nami responded without looking up from the map she was drawing.
Zoro groaned. Robin snickered from the couch where she was reading some dusty book.
"Hey, what about—"
"No," Robin cut him off.
"But I—"
"No. All I can make is sandwiches and I don't have the energy to make enough sandwiches to feed Luffy, let alone everyone else. Check with Franky, but I suspect, he, Usopp, and Jinbei are busy."
With that, Zoro felt multiple arms pulling and pushing him out the door.
"Ughhhhhh, fuck."
He dragged his feet to the galley to assess the food situation before it got too late.
The aroma of roasted chicken permeated the galley air and smacked Zoro in the face when he opened the door.
"Oh, fuck yeah. The cook must have started that before we went on the island."
In the wall of the galley was a fancy new oven that Franky had installed specifically for roasting meat. It could be used for anything, he'd said, but the whole thing had been inspired by something they saw on an island recently, which looked to be what Sanji had been thinking of this morning because a dozen chickens were perfectly roasted as they rotated past the glass.
"I can work with this. Maybe the cook has a recipe I can use."
He glanced along the shelves until he found the book he was looking for; its bright yellow spine hard to miss. He rolled his eye as he read the title: Cooking for Dummies (and Two Lovely Ladies).
At some point, Sanji had decided to compile some of his recipes into an easy to follow format so that the more trustworthy members of the crew (that is to say, not Luffy) could cook if he wasn't able to do so for some reason. After Wano, it hadn't really been needed, but that was also what had inspired and motivated him to do it. Zoro remembered a drunken night in the galley when the cook told him his plan.
The book was mostly simple things like onigiri, pasta, and burgers. Even basics like cooking rice (which Zoro was already an expert in, thanks) and boiling eggs had entries.
There has to be something like soup in here, Zoro thought as he thumbed past "How to Cook Meat So You Don't Die, Idiot" and "Stir-frying Vegetables So They Don't Suck (and You Don't Die)." Finally, he found it: "Soup Isn't Just Boiling Shit."
It's like he thinks we're stupid or something.
He looked at the recipes in the soup section critically. Soup sounded like it wouldn't be too easy to fuck up, he could make a lot of it, and soup is good for sick people. Right? He thought he's heard Chopper or the cook or someone saying that once.
There were really only five recipes to choose from because the cook's notes said he "can't trust you bozos with anything more complicated." Zoro's options were miso soup, chili, beef stew, curry, and chicken soup.
He looked at the book, then at the wall of roasting chickens.
Well, that's one choice handled.
The chicken soup recipe looked simple enough. Stock, onions, carrots, celery, some herbs and spices, chicken, and a carb. There was even instructions for making it creamier that didn't seem too hard. Plus, the cook had written out multiple carb options to choose from.
While he was debating his next move, a timer dinged from the chicken cooker.
"Oh, shit. How do I get in there?"
Obviously, it was locked like the fridge and pantry, but Zoro wasn't sure of the combo for the lock. Over time, he had figured out the combo on the fridge, but, surely, the cook wouldn't reuse it, would he?
He spun the dials—2-6-7-3—no luck.
He tried swapping the numbers. He knew the fridge combo was Robin and Nami's birthdays. Sanji had drunkenly confessed it to him one night (not the drunken confession he had been hoping for, but that's neither here nor there).
7-3-2-6
Click
The door opened, releasing more chickeny goodness into the air.
He started salivating as the roasty aromas got stronger. When the timer went off, the heating element turned off too. To prevent any Luffy-based problems, he closed the door so he could gather the rest of the ingredients in peace. The recipe said it made about a dozen normal-sized servings from one to two chickens, two onions, four carrots, four stalks of celery, and some herbs and spices. With Luffy, he would probably need to double, if not triple, the recipe.
Definitely gonna triple it. Three-soup style.
Zoro started to pull out the ingredients, but when he saw the number of onions he was going to need, he paused, then put everything away.
He poked his head into the infirmary to speak to Chopper.
The cook was passed out on the infirmary bed, his hair splayed out, looking like a rat's nest and like rays of sunlight. His arms were all over the place. His mouth hung open and drool was making a shiny line down his chin into his goatee. He looked awful.
Cute, Zoro thought, unbidden. He glared at the cook to try to convince himself he thought otherwise.
"Hey, Zoro, what's up?" Chopper whispered from his desk, where he was grinding herbs and making medicine.
"Hey, Chop, can you guard the kitchen from Luffy for a bit? I need to get something from my locker before I start cooking lunch."
"Okay!" Chopper chirped. "Just leave the connecting door open so I can hear both rooms."
Zoro did so and jogged off to the men's bunkroom.
He dug through the messy pile in the bottom of his locker, where he kept random, rarely used things, until he found them: his goggles from Elbaf.
Cutting onions with one eye was annoying enough without even considering the burning from the fumes.
Within the crew, Zoro had a reputation of being a selfish lunkhead who only focused on training, drinking, and napping, but he was one of the more observant and thoughtful members when he wanted to be. He had spent a lot of time in the galley (because the relative quiet was good for naps and no other reason) and had learned a lot about how Sanji cooked, including how to perfectly dice half a dozen onions and where Sanji stored everything (except the sake).
Goggles secured, he began prepping the vegetables. He was wearing Sanji's stupid pink apron and humming to himself, since that's what the cook did, which meant it was the correct technique.
Once the vegetables were prepped, he took six chickens out of the chicken oven and got to work picking the meat off the bones. He saved all the scraps from the veggies, the bones, and the skin to freeze to make stock, just like he always saw the cook doing.
As he went to put the scraps in the freezer, he realized he forgot to take out the quarts of stock he needed for the soup. Thinking quickly, he dumped them all into the stockpot and put the pot in the chicken oven to defrost in the ambient heat. In the meantime, he did some dishes and prepped the dough for the dumplings.
He covered the bowl of dough with a damp cloth and checked on the stock. It was melted enough to put on the stove and start getting it to a boil, which he took as a sign to start sauteing the veggies. He remembered someone saying to look for the edges of the onions to get see-through to know when they're done, so when he saw that, he dug a little hole in the veggies to show the bottom of the pot and dumped the garlic and herbs into it.
Once they were fragrant, he melted a chunk of butter and sprinkled everything with an equal amount of flour, per the recipe. Then as it was looking coated and didn't smell like flour anymore, he slowly added in milk and stirred, watching the flour-coated veggies bloop and gloop. Once all the milk had been added, he started to ladle in the warm, but still defrosting, stock to the pot.
He brought the soup up to a boil and reduced the heat so it was bubbling less crazily. He ladled some soup into a little bowl, like he sometimes saw Sanji do and tasted it.
It wasn't bad, but it tasted off. Not like Sanji made it.
He went back to the spice cupboard and got more thyme, rosemary, salt, and pepper. He even grabbed the bay leaves. He didn't know what they did but he remembered seeing them on the ingredients list.
He smelled the bay leaves. They were sort of… earthy, but sharp-smelling. He threw a bunch into the pot with a big pinch of salt, some more rosemary and thyme, and some generous twists of black pepper. He stirred and let it simmer for a moment, then took another taste. It was already way better.
He slowly added the shredded chicken now that all the stock was properly seasoned and at the right temperature. When it began to bubble again, he dropped spoonfuls of dough into the boiling soup, then covered the pot with a lid. He set a timer for fifteen minutes and quickly tidied the kitchen while the dumplings cooked.
He carefully washed and dried the knives he had used and made a note to sharpen them after lunch was done. He didn't have time for the rest of the dishes, but they were at least sequestered in the sink and soaking when the timer dinged. He took out a dumpling and cut it in half to check if it was cooked through—it was and it was delicious.
Zoro grabbed nine bowls and set the table, then ladled a hearty serving into each bowl.
He stuck his head out on the deck and yelled, "Soup's on!"
"What?!" yelled Usopp from under something.
"Lunch is ready!"
The crew ran into the galley and took their seats. Luffy ate half his bowl in one bite.
"Wow, Zoro! This is great! Almost as good as Sanji's!"
Zoro's ears turned as pink as Sanji's apron.
"He's right," Nami said, carefully blowing on a spoonful of soup. "This is shockingly good."
"Yeah, well, it's from that dumb cookbook the shitcook made for us. Guess it came in handy."
The crew happily slurped their chicken and dumplings, chatting about the things they discovered on that morning's island.
Zoro was pleased that the crew was enjoying his food, but he couldn't help but feel a twinge of anxiety about how the cook was going to judge it.
Usopp offered to do the dishes while Chopper checked on Sanji, so Zoro could bring in some soup himself.
"I don't wanna take credit for your masterpiece, man," was all Usopp said as an explanation.
Zoro rolled his eye, but grabbed a bowl and made up a tray for Sanji.
When he entered the infirmary, Sanji was awake and looking much better than earlier as Chopper checked his temperature.
"What do you want, Mosshead? Here to brag that you're not dying like me?" Sanji grumbled, holding back a cough.
"You're not dying, you're just dramatic. I brought you lunch."
Sanji squinted and looked at him suspiciously.
"Where did this 'lunch' come from?"
"My ass."
The air crackled with their standard air of challenge until Zoro broke the stalemate—he was tired and ready for an extra long afternoon nap, since he missed his morning nap.
"I made soup using that stupid cookbook you made for the crew. This is yours."
"It was really yummy, Sanji!" Chopper beamed as he put away the thermometer and hopped off his stool. "Zoro did a great job! The dumplings were so fluffy!"
Zoro handed the tray to Sanji. Their fingers brushed. Zoro looked shyly at Sanji's stupid blue eye that wasn't covered by his dumb hair. Sanji's expression was unfamiliarly soft.
"Thanks, Moss," Sanji murmured.
"No problem, Cook."
💙🤒💚
The next day, Zoro was napping in the sunshine behind the galley, stretched out like a cat. He'd been more tired than usual since yesterday, but he figured it was probably some sort of sleep deficit from messing up his nap schedule to make that soup.
A shadow cut through his sunbeam and the air filled with the scent of tobacco, cologne, and fish. These warning signs were promptly followed by a sharp poke of a well-polished shoe in his flank. He grumbled and looked up at the dickhead interrupting his nap.
"What do you want, dickhead? I was napping."
"I know, I just—" Sanji seemed uncommonly nervous. He looked fully recovered from whatever weird illness he had had the day before.
"Spit it out, man."
"The soup you made yesterday was really good. It's a recipe Zeff used to make for me when it was stormy, especially when the Baratie was new. Yours… yours was just like his."
Zoro sat up and blinked, absolutely baffled.
"Seriously? You're not just like… being nice or something?"
Sanji huffed a laugh and squatted down in front of Zoro, grinning sarcastically.
"Please. When have I ever just been nice to you?"
Zoro shrugged, Sanji had him there.
"Anyway, I wanted to thank you." He stubbed out his cigarette in his pocket ashtray. "I've wanted to do this for a while, and, well, fuck it."
Sanji leaned in and pressed his lips ever so softly and briefly against Zoro's.
As far as first kisses went, it wasn't anything amazing. They both had chapped lips. Sanji's breath smelled like ash, Zoro's smelled like sleep. And Zoro had been so startled that he barely had time to react, so his mouth wasn't even closed and he didn't return the kiss.
Sanji pulled back, blushing hard.
"Sorry, that was terrible. Forget—"
Zoro straightened and pulled Sanji back in by the tie, returning the kiss with chaste determination.
"You're welcome. I'm glad you liked the soup."
He smirked and they stayed there, just looking at each other, foreheads almost touching, like when they fought.
AH-CHOO!
Zoro sneezed violently, clunking their foreheads together.
"Ow, fuck," Sanji laughed as he fell off balance onto his ass. Zoro just kept sneezing.
Sanji stood, helping Zoro up as the sneezes overtook him.
"Well, looks like it's your turn. Let's get you to Chopper. I'll make you some soup for lunch today."