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“Merde!” Sanji cursed, probably a bit too loudly, as yet another fern managed to smack into his face. His annoyance with the island they’d landed on had been growing throughout the entire day, and now that there was no Zoro to cleave down the foliage in front of him because, as usual, the mosshead had managed to get himself lost again, his temper was truly reaching a boiling point.
It was unbelievable. Sanji had turned his attention away from him for two seconds to take care of the dinosaur he’d slain, only to turn around and find the swordsman gone from the area, only trace being his footprints leading off into the jungle.
So now here Sanji was, trying to follow prints of a man you’d think was drunk given how little sense the path he took was, gross dinosaur blood quickly drying beneath his fingernails, and plants smacking him in the face every other step he took.
Once he’s found the damn fool, he’ll take a minute to deliberate over the choices that got him to this point.
Sanji was close to just calling it quits and cutting their losses when he heard the sound of something being sliced, followed by a low human noise from somewhere ahead of him.
Odd.
The sound kept repeating as he continued forward, and not too long after he could make out the indistinguishable pink of the trousers that Nami had dressed Zoro in, so he’d be easier to find in case he got lost. Sanji made a quick mental note to make a batch of those tangerine and ginger cookies she was so fond of to thank her for her brilliance.
“There you are!” He called out, stepping into the small clearing, rubbing his hand on his bloody apron to try and get at least some of the blood off his hands.
Looking back up, the sight that greeted him was unusual at best. Zoro was standing with one of his swords unsheathed (The one he’d claimed was cursed, specifically), bandana tied around his head and sliced pomegranates lying around his feet. “What the hell are you doing?” Sanji asked.
Zoro tossed another pomegranate into the air, slicing it in a perfect arch as it came down, letting the two slices join the rest of them by his sides.
“Training,” he replied, his voice surprisingly chipper, “The pomegranate is the most formidable opponent.”
“Well,” Sanji said as he started to untie his apron, not interested in figuring out what the hell that was supposed to mean, “While you were making a fruit salad, I carved up the entire T-Rex by myself.”
He pulled the neckstrap over his head, careful not to let the bloody fabric touch his hair, “The femur was so big it almost broke my boning knife, he continued, not even sure if the mosshead was listening or if he was too focused on his pomegranate quest.
Zoro stumbled forward suddenly, one of his knees hitting the forest floor as the noises Sanji had been hearing from afar returned, and first now, with the man in front of him, did Sanji realise that the sound had been giggling.
“Boning knife?” The swordsman asked, barely able to contain his gleeful laughter.
“Are you literally like, five years old?” Sanji asked, feeling a headache come on that he usually only got when dealing with annoying customers back at the Baratie.
Zoro didn’t answer him, instead staying crouched by the pomegranate massacre, giggling almost like a madman. It was reminding Sanji too much of the annoying clown that they’d been forced to deal with not too long ago, and having that memory resurface was just making his day worse.
“Hey what’s your problem?” He asked, not afraid to let his annoyance seep into his tone. In the middle of his laughing fit, Zoro had tried to cover his mouth with the hands not holding the supposed cursed sword, but the muffled giggles stopped abruptly at the question.
“I don’t know,” he replied, his voice considerably more strained and tense than a second ago, raising the hairs on Sanji’s neck, “It’s like I can’t stop- stop laughing,” he managed to force out, his previous cackling resuming.
Sanji furrowed his brow, looking the swordsman up and down. It was certainly strange. It’s not that Zoro never laughed, but it was certainly more of a rarity (especially around Sanji), and it was usually nothing more than a humorous exhale, or even a deep chuckle on a good day. But now the man was kneeling on the ground, laughing with a giddiness Sanji’s never heard before, over a boning knife.
Sanji carefully stepped around the pomegranates (All sliced perfectly even, he took note with quiet interest), peering down on the foolish-looking swordsman, taking in his expression. His hair and most of his brow were covered up by the bandana, but the rest of his face was split open in a wide grin that was stretched almost unnaturally across his flushed face.
Zoro only needed to briefly glance up at him before dissolving into another fit of giggles, his mirthful eyes baring the slightest hint of yellow under the sun, “You- you-“ he tried to stutter out, but was just interrupted by more laughter.
Sanji kneeled in front of him, using his hand to push back the black bandana to feel his forehead for a fever, “What’s going on with you mosshead?” He murmured, noting that while the skin was a little hot from the sun beating down on them, he couldn’t detect a fever of any kind, “You manage to get drunk out here or something?” He cast a look at the pomegranates to see if any of them were fermented, but they all looked both ripe and uneaten.
Zoro, as he should have expected, didn’t give him anything close to an answer, but he did seem to almost lean into Sanji’s touch, his eyes crinkled and teeth on full display. It was impossible not to think that the expression and action almost combined into something cute.
Sanji recoiled a little at the stray thought, his eyes diverting away from his face, and he found himself looking down at the discarded fruit around them with a frown. The animals would eat the stray pieces, so the food wouldn’t be wasted, but it was still an annoyance. Zoro had cleared almost all of the trees around them, so he wouldn’t be able to collect any for the pantry.
“You’re so annoying,” Zoro near squealed, bringing Sanji’s focus back onto him. He was still leaning softly against Sanji’s hand, but his face had split into an even wider grin that looked near painful, “You’re always making that face at me, it’s-“ he was once again interrupted by his own laughter, but now that Sanji was looking at him up close could see how truly wrong he looked, his body shaking with his giggles like a puppet pulled in strings, and his smile stretched over his face like it had been carved.
“Mosshead-“ Sanji pulled his hand back, a creeping horror starting to seep into him. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but there’s something deeply wrong, and he needs to find the others. Maybe Nami or Vivi will know what’s going on with the swordsman.
The cook made a move to stand up, but before he could get his footing his wrist was grabbed and he was pulled forward, crashing straight into the mosshead's broad chest and sending them both to the ground.
“What the hell?!” He shouted, trying to peel himself off but finding himself being stopped by a hand looped around his waist. Instead he just braced against the ground and peered down on the grinning swordsman, all worry being replaced by overwhelming annoyance, “Mossy, let go, we need to go find the others.”
“Noooo,” he crooned, his right hand gripping tighter around the blonde’s waist, his left coming up to play with Sanji’s hair that fell into his face, “Stay, you’re so- you’re so funny-“ he giggled, looping some of the blonde strands around his fingers.
“Well I’m glad I’m amusing you,” Sanji scowled, giving up on pulling away from the hold the swordsman had on him. His legs had landed awkwardly behind him, and with how tightly Zoro was holding on he couldn’t get to a point of using his leg strength to pull away. Instead, he was stuck, lying on top of a giggling piece of algae, playing with his hair like a cat with a feather toy. He tried swatting at his hand, but it only sent the man into more hysterics, so he quickly gave up on that.
“You’re so…mad all the time,” Zoro snickered, pulling on a few of the strands and guffawing when they bounced back into their slight curl, “Always- always mad at me, and I don’t know why.”
“I’m not mad,” Sanji said, a little mad.
“Yes you are,” Zoro retorted with a snort, “Your brows are all frowny,” The hand playing with his hair pulled away, instead finding itself on Sanji’s face, one of the fingers trying to smooth out his frown. Sanji indulged him, only for a second, and was met by a wide, giddy grin as a reward.
God dammit.
“Mossy,” he tried, looking down at the man who was back to playing with his hair, now by blowing at it between fits of giggles, “Moss, you’re drunk or something. I need to get you back to the ship.”
“I can see why Luffy likes you,” The swordsman snickers, somehow tugging him closer, “You’re funny looking.”
“That’s not-“ Sanji cut himself off, not seeing the point in arguing with the mosshead when he’s so out of it. He instead used the hand that wasn’t braced next to Zoro’s head to try to tug away at the hand holding him hostage, but no luck.
Just as Sanji was contemplating the pros and cons of breaking his oath as a cook and slapping the shit out of the man beneath him to get away, Zoro leaned forward and pressed his lips to the blonde's nose. It was quick, barely even a peck, yet Sanji felt a blush spread across his cheeks as he stared down at the swordsman who’d burst out laughing at the sight of his flush.
“What?! You-!” Sanji stuttered, but was cut off as the mosshead planted another kiss on him, this time his chin, squealing as Sanji’s face turned beet red, “Zoro!” He put his free hand on the swordsman’s face, holding it down to prevent him from kissing his face again. That of course didn’t stop the laughing, but it would’ve been a miracle if it did.
“And you call me a plant!” He cackled, free hand reaching up to steady itself against Sanji’s shoulder, “You look like a tomato!”
“Merde,” Sanji cursed, trying to think of some way to regain control of the situation. As it stood, he was trapped on top of a most likely drunk swordsman who wouldn’t let him go, and had now decided that his new favourite way of amusing himself was to plant kisses on his face, both of his hands occupied with holding himself up and holding the mosshead down to stop the aforementioned kissing from happening.
That minute of deliberating over his life choices would need to be extended, it seems.
As he was trying to figure out some semblance of a strategy, Zoro seemed to have gotten bored with straining against Sanji’s hand, and instead used his own free hand to quickly grab onto Sanji’s neck and pull him down. The blonde had been unprepared for such an action, and before he could pull himself up again, another kiss had been planted, this one on his forehead.
“Would you stop that!” Sanji shrieked, pulling away as far as he could, shaking his head to try and get the hand on his neck away from him. As expected, Zoro didn’t give him a reply beyond giggling and nuzzling into the hand on his face.
Unbelievable.
“I swear mosshead, if you don’t have a good explanation for this I’m gonna use your stupid swords as skewers to cook the dinosaur,” He muttered, looking around to see if there was anything around them to help his predicament, but finding only sliced pomegranates, ferns and said swords that he wouldn’t touch if his life depended on it.
“You’re so pretty,” Zoro said suddenly, his voice still giddy and giggly, but considerably softer than before. Sanji’s mind screeched to a halt, his eyes widening as he looked down on the man who was grinning goofily up at him.
“What?” Sanji squinted down at him, not sure what he was looking for, but he was only met with the same stretched-out grin and brown eyes that looked more yellow than usual.
“Your hair is like- like strands of hay,” He giggled, reaching up again to touch said hair, “Or like- like the hair on a piece of corn.”
“Corn silk,” Sanji said reflexively, and was met with a shining grin.
“And you know- you know all of these food things that no one else knows, and when you- when you talk about it your eyes sparkle!” Zoro made a fluttering motion with his hand, to emphasise the apparent sparkle of his eyes. The hand distracted him for a second, and he giggled as he waggled his fingers back and forth.
Sanji meanwhile could feel his brain try its best to keep up with and make sense of what the fuck the swordsman had just said. The only conclusion he could come to was that nothing made sense and he should just give up.
“Mossy-“ Sanji started, but was rudely interrupted by more gleeful chortling.
“Mossy!” He repeated, failing spectacularly at mimicking Sanji’s accent, “You speak so funny too! And- and you always use these names and they’re- they’re hilarious.”
“But! But if I ever try to call you Blondie or something, then you- you try and kick my face!”
Sanji remembers that incident. Probably a bit of an overreaction, but he’d had a rough day of trying to keep Luffy away from his resting sourdough and Usopp from gouchjang, so he’d been quite irritable when Zoro had barged in and demanded to make him a post-training snack, followed by the new nickname. After the kick he’d of course served him a plate of leftover dumplings, cause even on his worst days he won’t refuse his crew food.
“Not that I’d minded much of course,” Zoro continued, looking up almost wistfully, “You look really silly when you- when you fight, you know that? All twirly and- and spinny and ridiculous!”
Sanji rolled his eyes, intimately familiar with this opinion. Every time they’d spar, or get into a fight with someone (Which was more often than he’d assumed when he joined them just a few weeks ago), Zoro would scoff at his fighting style, as if he had some point of superiority because he fought with three pointy sticks instead of the regular two.
“But then you do your ridiculous kicks, and they- and they work!” He threw his hand in the air in some grand gesture, probably trying to mimic some fighting move but struggling to do so because of how much he was shaking from laughter, “You twirl around with your perfect hands in your pockets, and- and a guy goes flying across the room! It’s incredible!”
God dammit, the stupid blush is back. Zoro’s eyes light up at getting the reaction he wanted, and he tries to lean forward to do god knows what, but is stopped by the hand still placed firmly on his face. He doesn’t even seem to mind not getting his way, instead sticking out his tongue to try and lick Sanji’s hand between his giggle fits.
“I tell you this mosshead, you better be fucking drugged or something,” Sanji muttered, his flush refusing to go away. This was too much. Combination of a drunken giggly swordsman who still hasn’t relented on his grip, and everything that had come out of said swordsman’s mouth that Sanji was sure to be just drunken babbling (Or at least that’s what he tells himself to get his heart to stop racing), plus the spots on his face where Zoro had planted his lips were still tingling, it was all just too much.
“‘M not drunk,” he giggled very unconvincingly, especially since the continuous laughing had made him start to hiccup, “I’m just really happy,” the mosshead made another attempt at lurching himself forward, and once again laughing at his failed attempt to do so.
“Why are you so happy then?” Sanji asked
“I don’t know!” Zoro cackled, only interrupted by the occasional hiccup, “I just am! Isn’t it funny?”
Before Sanji had a chance to try and pick at that thread, Zoro tilted his head to the side where Sanji had his right hand planted and stuck his tongue out, successfully licking the inside of his forearm (That’s still covered in some T-Rex blood, which can’t be sanitary).
“What the hell moss?!” Sanji’s reaction is immediate, taking his left hand off of Zoro’s face to use it to brace himself, while wiping the other on Zoro’s shirt to get his saliva off his skin. Unfortunately, that left him open to attacks, and just as he’d gotten the worst of the gross spit off his skin, Zoro surged forward and kissed him on the corner of his mouth.
Sanji nearly explodes as he stares at the laughing, hiccuping swordsman, his brain short-circuiting on all fronts.
Nothing makes sense. Nothing about Zoro makes sense. Nothing about the island they’re on makes sense. The only thing making sense to Sanji at that moment was to somehow find his way to his kitchen and mindlessly work until his feet gave out beneath him, if only for a chance to calm his thoughts at least a little. Cooking always helped with that.
Zoro didn’t care about his internal dilemma. He instead leaned forward again, his face angled so that he’d surely kiss Sanji’s mouth this time, and Sanji was still too frozen to do anything but silently brace.
But no contact was made. Zoro stopped less than an inch away from Sanji’s face, their faces so close he could feel his breath ghosting across his lips. Not only had the swordsman in front of him frozen in place though, but he’d also gone strangely silent, no stupid giggles ringing out across the clearing, the only sounds coming from the bugs around them and the multitude of ancient animals off in the distance.
Sanji looked up from the mosshead's lips to meet his gaze to possibly understand what had just happened, and when he did it seemed the spell had broken as Zoro pulled back violently with a curse, pulling his right hand back and pushing Sanji off of him.
Sanji was quick to spring to his feet, taking a few steps back in case the swordsman decided to grab him for another impromptu cuddle session. He quickly pulled his hand through his hair, trying to smooth out the parts that Zoro had messed around with.
The swordsman was still on the ground, his face devoid of a smile for the first time since Sanji found him, his brown eyes wide as he stared up at the blonde.
“Cook, I-“ Whatever he’d meant to say after that Sanji would never know, as his face once again split into a wide grin, the sun ahead making his eyes glint yellow, “Cook!” He repeated with a cackle, throwing his head back so it nearly thumped into the ground beneath him, “You know! That sounds almost like-!”
“Okay I’m done with you!” Sanji yelled, throwing his hands in the air, headache returning in full force, “I can’t-“ He cut himself off with a sigh, glancing down at the swordsman who seemed to find his frustration as amusing as he did everything else, “Look, Mosshead, I’m gonna go find the others, so just stay here and for all that is holy, don’t move! Okay?”
Of course Zoro gave no answer, apart from chortling to some joke Sanji wasn’t privy to.
The better option would probably be to take Zoro with him, to make sure he didn’t wander off again as he was so prone to do for some reason, but Sanji just couldn’t deal with that right now. Having the swordsman walking next to him, giggling and clinging to him and making comments about how pretty and strong he is and trying to kiss him?
Nope. Not in his pay grade. He doesn’t have a pay grade, but if he did it would not cover drunk swordsmen trying their darnedest to break down any walls he was trying to keep up.
Sanji sighed and cast a final look at Zoro who was laughing at something so hard he was clutching his sides, and then turned back towards the path he came from to hopefully find Luffy, or just anyone else who could take care of their drunk mosshead problem.
As he walked back towards the Merry, sack of dinosaur meat slung over his back, his apron laying forgotten back in the clearing (he made a quick note to retrieve it when they went to collect the swordsman later), he thought back to Zoro’s lips hovering inches away from his own, even though he tried to repress it as he did with most thoughts like that.
Fuck. They’d talk about it later.