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Mr. 9 sat in the corner with his hands tied behind his back, Zoro and Ussop watching Sanji sharpen his knives, Zoro was starting to doze off.
The scrape of metal against each other filled the room, rhythmic and almost soothing, and Sanji hadn't looked up once since they'd started this whole interrogation thing.
"There's a special relationship between a chef and his knives," Sanji muttered, not to anyone in particular, just observing aloud the way he sometimes did when he was working.
Zoro looked at him, eyes drawn to the upturn of lips. "It's a tool."
"It's more than that." Sanji still didn't look up, his visible eye fixed on the blade in his hands. "A blade is what separates someone who knows recipes from someone who can actually cook."
"That's the difference between us," Zoro said, and there was a dip in his voice that made Sanji finally glance up, eyebrows raised. "You cut things that are already dead."
Sanji's face darkened (a familiar tell of competitiveness that Zoro had learned to watch for over months at sea), he set down the knife with deliberate care. "I already said the difference between us: Technique, talent, and style."
"Style," Zoro repeated, and his mouth quirked at the corner, smirking.
"Something you wouldn't know anything about, marimo."
Before Zoro could respond (and he had a response, something cutting and perfect that would have made Sanji's face lighten up, where he tried not to smile), the door opened and Nami walked in.
"It's snowing," she yelled, with barely constrained mirth, “I love the grandline, seasons keep changing!”
And Sanji's whole face changed, lit up, Zoro almost dropped the sword he was holding. "Snow? We can make sorbet!"
Usopp appeared behind Nami, already grinning. "We should build a snowman!"
Sanji and Ussop started arguing immediately (because of course they did), voices overlapping as Sanji insisted sorbet was more refined and Usopp countered that snowmen were classic, and then they were both running out the door, still bickering, leaving Zoro alone with their tied-up prisoner.
Zoro stayed where he was, arms crossed, trying not to think about the way Sanji had looked when he smiled. Failing miserably not to reminisce everything about the cook for longer than he wanted to admit.
Mr. 9 was watching him with a glower that looked uncomfortably close to amusement.
"So this is what has become of the great Roronoa Zoro, pining like some maid." Mr. 9, taunted, and there was weight behind the words, implication Zoro didn't particularly want to unpack.
Zoro walked over, slow and deliberate, until he was standing directly in front of their prisoner. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Mr. 9's smile widened, "Reduced to this…"
Clearly he was provoking him, Zoro didn't play along, because what was there to say that wouldn't prove the point? He grabbed his swords and walked out.
Whisky Peak looked weird, cactus building everywhere.
Music poured out of open doors, it got louder as they walked deeper into the town. People everywhere, smiling and waving and welcoming them with the sort of enthusiasm that should have felt suspicious but somehow didn't, at least not to Luffy.
A guy with funky hair met them at the dock (tall guy, thick mustache, smile that was just a fraction too wide to be entirely genuine) and spread his arms in greeting.
"Welcome, welcome! Pirates are always welcome in Whisky Peak! Come, eat, drink! You're our honored guests!"
Luffy was already grinning, already sold on the whole thing. "I like this place."
The crew scattered within minutes, pulled in different directions by their various interests. Luffy toward food (obviously). Nami towards a poor nun, she would probably con. Usopp toward a gathering crowd that seemed ready to listen to his overexaggerated stories.
And Sanji, because apparently the universe had decided Zoro hadn't suffered enough today, was immediately surrounded by women.
Two of them, specifically. One with dark hair and a red dress. The other blonde, smiling. They hung on Sanji's arms, laughing at whatever he was saying, and Sanji (because he was Sanji and this was what he did) leaned into it with that easy charm that made Zoro's jaw clench, stomach coiling tightly.
Zoro watched Sanji's whole posture shift, face painted with an eternal smugness and very much animated, the way it always did when he was performing for an audience that appreciated him.
"There's a bar over there," the guy with funny hair’s voice broke his glare, Zoro was already moving toward it before the man finished his sentence.
Zoro took a seat at the counter without bothering to look around, because he already knew what he'd see if he did.
His traitorous eyes betrayed him and found Sanji.
He drank his beer, glaring holes into the two women Sanji was entertaining, swooshing his hand, mesmerizing them with his bartending skills and producing a blue cocktail liquor.
"It's all on me," Sanji smiled. Zoro looked away, almost breaking the bottle he was holding.
Sanji always keeping a bottle of sake for Zoro when he came to him at night, standing beside him, smoking while Zoro grunted in appreciation, taking a huge chug from the bottle.
Sanji making onigiri in the middle of night, when Zoro had pushed himself too much and stomach grumbled from physical exertion of it.
Sanji this…Sanji that…
He tried to listen to Ussop’s tales, almost nodding off, only to be startled by the giggling coming from a few feet away from him.
Zoro's eyes found him immediately without even trying, like a moth drawn to the flame, Sanji was still with the two women. They were talking and laughing, one of them touching his arm. Sanji leaned in closer to hear what she was saying, and Zoro's jaw locked.
He finished his first bottle faster than he probably should have, pushed it forward, snapping. "Give me another."
Fifteen minutes passed (Zoro counted, which was pathetic, but there it was). Sanji was producing another liquor cocktail, not paying attention to him.
Sanji hadn't looked at him once.
Hadn't even glanced in his direction, didn’t seem to notice or care that Zoro was sitting here alone at a bar in a strange town drinking himself into a mood that was getting darker by the minute. With all the flashbacks of Mihawk instigating him on his poor sword skills and Sanji ignoring him, something inside him ripped.
Zoro set his bottle down hard enough to rattle.
"Hey, Chore Boy."
His voice cut through the noise of the bar loud, rough, carrying an edge that made a few heads turn, Sanji's back was to him, shoulders shifting slightly, that told Zoro he'd heard.
But Sanji didn't turn around.
Zoro tried again, keeping his voice casual even though there was nothing casual about the way his hands were clenched around his bottle.
Sanji instead nodded towards the other taller girl, "You're looking a bit dry over there. You want a drink?"
Fuck him and fuck this.
Sanji resumed his talk with the woman in the red dress, not even acknowledging whatever Zoro had said. Sanji's hand drifted to rest on the counter near her, almost touching but not quite.
Zoro's teeth gritted hard enough to hurt.
He stood abruptly, chair scraping back loud enough to be satisfying and grabbed two more bottles from the rack behind the counter without asking permission, and caught Sanji's reflection in the mirror that hung on the wall.
Stupid cook.
Zoro glared at the back of Sanji's head for about five seconds.
Then he left, bottles tucked under his arm.
The streets were quieter now, most of the celebrating happening indoors, and Zoro walked without any real destination in mind.
He gulped the bottles down and threw them away, trying not to think about the fact that he was sulking like some kind of teenager who'd just been rejected.
He knew it was stupid. Sanji could talk to whoever he wanted, could flirt with strangers all night if he felt like it, ignore Zoro completely and that was fine, that was allowed, they weren't anything to each other except crewmates who happened to argue more than strictly necessary and spend time together in the night as nakama.
Except it didn't feel fine. Especially when his hand had touched Zoro’s when they held onto Ussop during the grandline crossing, the sudden spark that zipped down his spine, Sanji’s eyebrows going high enough to hide behind the blond hair, clearly being affected by it as well.
Zoro hated that he couldn't just let it go, thoughts of the cook consuming his very being.
He turned a corner and took piss. Only to be interrupted by two men aiming to kill him.
Here we go…he sighed, pinching his nose in annoyance.
***
Itching for a fight, with Mihawk and Sanji riling him off.
The fight was brutal, when you were outnumbered by everyone in the room to one and end up harming them all.
Bodies everywhere, weapons clattering to the ground, Zoro cutting through them with an efficiency that probably should have felt satisfying but mostly just felt hollow. His muscles burned, his breathing went ragged, but he kept going because what else was there to do?
Mr.9 egging him on while he hid behind his men like a coward he was.
Someone kicked him from behind, and he went flying through a door, crashing into a wall hard enough to make the room spin.
When his vision cleared, Sanji and Usopp were tied up in the corner, looking guilty and mortified.
The two women from the bar stood over them with knives in their hands each, Zoro didn’t think twice before cutting them both counting his slay count.
Sanji's voice cut through the ringing in Zoro's ears.
"Hey, mosshead! Are you gonna free us?"
Zoro stood, ribs protesting, head still spinning slightly, and walked over to them.
He kicked one of the knives cluttered on the floor towards them.
It skidded to a stop at Sanji's feet, blade gleaming in the dim light.
"You're good with a knife, right?" Zoro smirked, mocking him, Sanji's visible eye narrowing at him.
"Are you serious?"
"You said it yourself." Zoro turned back toward the door, toward the sounds of fighting still happening outside. "Special relationship between a chef and his knives."
"I'm tied up, you bastard!" Sanji’s face flushed. Ussop looked between them both with a resigned huff.
"Technique, talent, and style," Zoro cocked his brow, throwing Sanji's own words back at him, that felt petty and satisfying in equal measure. "Figure it out."
"Zoro!"
But Zoro was already walking out, because he still had more people to fight and staying would mean having to look at Sanji and Zoro wasn't ready to do that yet, not when his chest still felt tight from being ignored at the bar, he was still angry about things he couldn't quite name.
Little Garden turned out to be exactly what it sounded like a garden if you can call it that and the crew had been arguing on who should do what, when Sanji announced his intentions after the loud roar from inside the giant green woods.
"I'm gonna go hunt some dinner," Sanji was already scanning the jungle with that focused look he got when he was planning a meal.
Zoro heard his impulsive petulant words spill before he could stop it. "How? By kicking it to death?"
Sanji turned to glare at him, and there was a challenge written all over his face. "You think you could do better?"
"Than you?" Zoro pushed off the railing and walked closer. "Yeah."
They were standing too close again (seemed to be a pattern lately, this inability to maintain proper distance when they were competing), and Sanji's visible eye was bright, the color of the clear sky dragging Zoro in, much to his forlornness he wanted to stare at them all day along.
"Let's make a bet then, shall we?" Sanji clapped his hand, his voice dipped a few octaves, more intense. "Whomever kills our dinner wins!"
Zoro nodded, heart going funny at Sanji's unperturbed attention on him.
This is going to be fun.
"You're on," Zoro chuckled.
They headed into the jungle together.
The jungle was thick with exotic, probably extinct overgrown plants Zoro couldn't name, humidity that made his shirt stick to his back.
"I know what I'm doing, It's around here somewhere." Sanji argued when Zoro challenged his skills. "Are you questioning my hunting skills?" Sanji’s voice rose, adjusting him with a menacing scowl.
"Skills? Like you have any." Zoro’s voice came out rough.
“You’re one to talk!”
Zoro crossed his arm over his chest. "Pirate hunter. Remember? Trust me."
Zoro pointed in the opposite direction, but Sanji shook his head.
"What makes you think it went this way?" Sanji asked.
"Admit it," Zoro looked at their pathway, giving up. "We’re lost."
Sanji crouched down, examining tracks. "We are on track marimo, I'd say the animal has pretty sizable claws."
Zoro looked at the tracks. "I mean, judging by these tracks, its chicken soup for dinner."
“Chicken soup,” Sanji smiled victoriously.
Zoro’s stomach did a somersault.
Seeing no sign of any animal, he cleared his throat, "Thought we were hunting, cook, not poking dirt, we should have just trusted my pirate hunting skills."
"Hunting takes patience," Sanji pointed a finger at him, and turned around moving ahead. "Pirates and animals behave differently."
And Sanji was right, much to Zoro’s dismay.
The animal was a massive T-REX, roaring and coming at them, Sanji landed a loud kick to its neck, at the same moment Zoro's blade cut through its side, Sanji aiming for joints and weak points, Zoro providing the raw cutting power through thick hide and bone.
The creature turned on Zoro, and Sanji was already moving, another kick to destabilize it, and Zoro used the opening to drive his blade deeper.
It went down hard, shaking the ground when it hit.
Zoro enjoyed this more than he would admit, Cook was perfect to fight alongside with.
"I killed it," Sanji yelled.
Zoro looked at him incredulously. "You kicked it twice. I'm the one who actually brought it down."
"My kicks destabilized it. You just finished what I started."
"That's not how this works."
They glared at each other, breathing heavily, Zoro almost, almost grabbed the blonde by his nape and smashed their lips together.
Sanji declared he was going to slice it nice and thin, and make dinner with his kill.
Zoro walked closer, and his smirk widened. "Face it, cook. You lost, that’s my kill."
Sanji stepped forward closing the distance between them until they were almost chest to chest, and Zoro could feel the heat coming off him, his jaw was clenched, hands balling into fists at his sides.
"I didn't lose," Sanji hissed. "You're just too stubborn to admit it, I’m better."
"Better," Zoro repeated, almost teasing him. "Right."
They stood there, too close, definitely too close, close enough that Zoro could count Sanji's eyelashes (if he wanted to which he definitely didn't), and Sanji's chest was heaving from exertion, there was dirt on his shirt and blood splattered across his shirt that wasn't his.
Zoro couldn't stop looking at him.
Kiss him, do it, now is the right time.
"What?" Sanji snapped, underneath the irritation, he looked uncertain and breathless.
"Nothing. I'm admiring my victory."
"Your victory." Sanji laughed, but it came out bitter. "You wish."
Zoro's smirk didn't fade, if anything it got wider, pronounced, and deliberately infuriating, and he watched Sanji's eyes narrow further in response.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Sanji asked the tip of his ears going pink, and there was a shiver in his voice that Zoro couldn't quite identify.
"Like what?"
"Like..." Sanji gestured vaguely, hand moving between them, that didn't clarify anything. "That."
Driving Zoro crazy.
"I don't know what you're talking about." he whistled, clearly enjoying Sanji’s perplexed reactions.
"You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
Sanji made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, turned away sharply enough that his shirt flared. "Forget it."
Zoro watched him go, feeling victorious, most definitely not about the dinosaur, Yeah. Definitely won that one.
The ship was quiet with most of the crew asleep, and Zoro sat in the galley with a bottle of sake and thoughts he was trying very hard not to have.
The door opened quietly.
Sanji walked in, hair messed up in a way that suggested he'd been running his hands through it with a cigarette on his lips.
"You're still awake," Sanji mumbled, and his voice was careful, it made Zoro's guard go up automatically.
"Could say the same about you."
Sanji walked to the counter, dampening the snub of his cigarette on the ash tray and pulled out his knives.
"You could have just cut me loose," Sanji griped finally, not looking up from his knife. "Back in Whisky Peak. You could have just cut the ropes."
Zoro took a drink, let the burn of it settle in his chest before answering. "Where's the fun in that?"
"The fun is in not making me saw through ropes with knives while tied up."
"You managed it pretty well." Zoro cocked a brow at him.
"That's not the point." Sanji snapped.
Zoro set his bottle down, looked at Sanji properly for the first time since the cook had walked in. "What is the point?"
Sanji didn't answer right away, just kept cleaning his knife with those careful, methodical strokes that Zoro had watched him do a hundred times before.
"Great, now you’re ignoring me again, I should get used to it, so it doesn't hurt much." Zoro grunted, and the words came out before he could stop them, before he could remember that he wasn't supposed to care about things like this.
Sanji's hands paused mid-stroke. "What?"
He threw caution to the wind and admitted.
"At the bar. In Whisky Peak." Zoro's jaw tightened, but he kept his voice grounded. "You were ignoring me."
"I was working." Sanji didn’t meet his eyes, hands shaking around the knife.
"You were flirting." Zoro rolled his eyes.
"I was being hospitable, gathering intel."
"With strangers who tied you up and tried to kill you," Zoro pointed out, and there was an edge to his voice now, feeling so sharp that he hadn't entirely intended but couldn't quite take back.
Sanji set the knife down and turned to face Zoro fully. "I heard you."
Zoro looked at him, as if slapped. "What?"
"At the bar. I heard you." Sanji crossed his arms over his chest, and his visible eye was fixed on Zoro's face with an intensity that made it hard to breathe. "The mirror. I saw the whole thing."
The admission hit Zoro harsher than it should have, because if Sanji had heard him, if Sanji had seen him, then the ignoring had been deliberate, had been a choice, and that somehow made it worse.
"Then why didn't you answer?" Zoro rasped, and his voice came out rougher than he'd meant it to.
"Because you were being an ass to me the whole trip." Sanji dropped the knife on the wooden table, and ran his hand through his hair, messing it up.
Zoro resisted the urge to run his own hand through them.
"I asked you for a drink, Cook."
"You called me Chore Boy and glared at my back. Just like my old man Zeff used to do, to rile me up." Sanji pressed the heel of his palm firmly against the table.
"I was trying to get your attention."
"You had it." Sanji's voice went quiet, "You always have it."
Not knowing what to say to the admission, like a fool, Zoro picked up his bottle, held it out in offering.
Sanji stared at it for a long moment, before walking over, taking it from Zoro's hand.
Their fingers brushed in the exchange, and Zoro felt the touch all the way down to his bones.
Sanji drank, throat working as he swallowed, and Zoro definitely wasn't watching the line of his neck, oh, he wasn't thinking about what it might feel like to put his mouth there, then Sanji handed the bottle back.
"You fight like an idiot," Sanji hiccuped and giggled.
"You got tied up like an idiot." Zoro fired back, not missing a beat, offering him the bottle again after he’d taken a swig.
"Those women were very convincing."
"They tried to kill you, Cook." Zoro exhaled sharply.
"I know that now."
Zoro smiled (not quite fully, but close enough that he had to duck his head to hide it).
Sanji handed the bottle back, and their fingers brushed again, slower this time, more deliberate, like maybe it wasn't entirely accidental.
"Why were you jealous?" Sanji asked, and his voice was quiet but direct and so Sanji, that made Zoro's stomach drop.
"Who said I was jealous?" Zoro huffed affronted at the insinuation, despite being accurate.
"You grabbed two bottles and glared at me." Sanji's cheeks flushing from the liquor.
“You were being a bad bartender!”
"That's bullshit."
Zoro didn't argue, what was the point when they both knew Sanji was right, and the truth was sitting right there between them like a large boulder.
Sanji stepped closer and they were back to that dangerous distance from earlier, that reckless space where Zoro could count his eyelashes if he wanted to, which he definitely did this time, taking in the freckles on the arch of his cheeks, like constellation of stars, Zoro would love to map with his tongue.
"You were jealous, then." Sanji was confirming it now, softer this time, like he was testing out the words.
"Yeah," Zoro admitted with a rough grunt, looks like it was the night for honesty he hadn't asked for. "I was. Talking to them like they mattered more than me."
"They didn't. None of them do." Sanji whispered.
“Almost had me fooled."
Sanji's visible eye searched Zoro's face (looking for something, though Zoro wasn't sure what), and when he spoke his voice was rough. "You're terrible at this."
"At what?"
"Communication."
"Yeah, well." Zoro grabbed Sanji's collar, because if they were doing this, if they were having this conversation, then Zoro was going to do it on his terms, he tugged him forward. "I'm better at this."
He kissed him, crashing their lips together, it felt better than his dreams, real and vivid.
Sanji made a startled sound, high and surprised, and then his hand fisted in Zoro's shirt and he was kissing back with an intensity that made Zoro's head spin.
It wasn't smooth, their noses bumped, teeth clicked, the angle was wrong and they had to adjust, but it didn't matter because Sanji was kissing him back, and was making these small sounds in the back of his throat.
When they broke apart, Sanji was breathing heavily, his pupils were dilated, lips blooming red and swollen, looking thoroughly kissed making Zoro want to do it again, immediately.
"That was—" Sanji started.
"Technique, talent, and style," Zoro smirked, and watched Sanji's expression shift into something between exasperation and amusement.
Sanji laughed, actually laughed at his words, bright and surprised, Zoro had never heard from him before, directed at him. "You're such an ass."
"Yeah." Zoro kissed him again, slower this time, taking his time with it. "But you like it."
"Unfortunately."
Sanji's hand slid up to cup Zoro's jaw, "Next time, just ask me to have a drink with you. Skip the sulking."
"I wasn't sulking."
"You absolutely were." Sanji giggled.
"Where's the fun in just asking?" Zoro smiled, entranced by his giggles.
"The fun is in not wasting a whole night being jealous."
Zoro pulled him closer, until there was no space left between them, he could feel Sanji's heartbeat against his chest. "Deal."
When they broke apart this time, Sanji was grinning.
"Do you still think you won the dinosaur competition?" Sanji looked at him through his thick lashes.
"I know I did." Zoro gulped and smirked.
"Delusional."
"Confident."
"Same thing."
Zoro's hand tightened in Sanji's shirt, silk fabric warm from body heat, expensive and probably ruined from how he'd been yanking on it, his voice dropped deeply. "You want to keep arguing or you want to do something more useful with your mouth?"
Sanji's grin turned sharp, all teeth and challenge. "That depends. Are you going to keep being smug about it?"
"Probably." he offered a cocky grin.
"Then yeah." Sanji pulled him down into another kiss, harder this time, more demanding, like he was trying to prove a point Zoro was more than happy to let him make. "I'm gonna keep arguing."