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The vegetables were on the stove, low heat, and the fish was waiting on the cutting board. The sauce would come later; he would make it while the fish was on the flame. He smiled as he flipped the vegetables with a practiced shake of the pan. The routine was pleasant, planning every meal carefully to everyone's tastes, always trying new dishes and fine-tuning old recipes.
He looked over the contents of the pan. It was just about ready to add the - his stomach dropped as the ship rocked over large wave, nausea hitting him without warning. He was too dizzy for a moment to think as his vision of the tilted cabin swam, colors running together and lines becoming crooked like a messed-up piece of art.
The cabin slowly set itself back to normal and Sanji's head cleared after taking a few deep breaths. He unclenched his grip on the counter. That was strange, Sanji thought. I don't usually get sea sick.
Well, whatever. Back to the fish.
Sanji was halfway through making the sauce when he found himself feeling unusually tired and dazed. His limbs did not seem to want to move quickly, and his focus was beginning to sag. He would stop stirring for a few seconds, as if forgetting what he was doing, before blinking a few times and resuming. Damn, that was annoying. The midnight watch shift last night must be getting to him.
He grabbed his spice mix and threw a few pinches into the bowl. The colors separated and spread over the surface of the liquid, slowly dispersing out to the edges. Sanji watched, transfixed, as the specks swirled on the top of the creamy sauce. They looked like dancers, didn't they? Like ice skaters, circling around a frozen milk lake. For a moment he swore he could see limbs and heads take shape from the spice flecks as they swirled around each other in a colorful waltz. Some of the dancers began sinking into the sauce, as if they had come across a hole in their makeshift ice rink, and their tiny arms flailed as they sank. More started sinking, and Sanji could hear their screams...
Sanji jolted as the door to the galley banged open.
Embarrassed and ready to snap at someone, he turned around. A green mass strode through the door.
Just Marimo, here to grab some sake. Not important.
Sanji turned back to the sauce on the counter, ready to take out his frustration by beating it. Normally he'd just start a fight with Moss-head, but he'd be out of the kitchen faster if Sanji just ignored him, and he really needed to finish dinner. He'd grab the cheap stuff out of the lower cabinet and then be on his merry way, leaving Sanji with his wacko sleep-deprived mind.
Surprisingly, Marimo didn't go for the sake cabinet. He was walking straight for Sanji, judging by the sound of his steps.
Wonderful. That's just my goddamn luck.
"What do you want." Sanji growled.
The swordsman walked nonchalantly towards the other side of the counter that Sanji was working at, not answering until he was seated in the stool right in front of him.
"Have you looked out at the sea during the past hour?"
Not seeing where this conversation was leading, and having zero patience left for chatting with the last person he wanted to see right now, Sanji snapped,
"What, is there a storm coming, or has our Moss-for-brains gotten suddenly poetic?"
Marimo grunted. "It's green."
"Are you sure it's not just your ridiculous hair that's affecting your eyesight? I bet there's some kind of fungus growing in there."
Why didn't he just ask for an explanation and be done with it? Oh right, because it's Moss-head, and his nerves are frayed to the last possible strand.
He expected an insult or at least a growl, but instead Marimo just gave him a deadpan stare that made his blood turn cold.
"Nami started feeling ill around mid-day, said her eyesight seemed weird, but that she'd sleep it off in her room."
Sanji started. Nami-swan? Was she all-
"Which wouldn't be all that strange if it wasn't for Usopp. He started shaking while he was fishing off the deck. Didn't even notice it at first until Luffy asked what was wrong. After that he started crying and freaking out. Kinda scared the rest of us. He's with Chopper in the infirmary."
What? Seeing things, feeling ill...
"What about Luffy?" Sanji asked, trying to keep alarm out of his voice.
"Passed out snoring on the deck, after muttering about how green everything was for a half hour. I'd blame that woman for all of it if I hadn't seen her up heaving over the side of the ship just a moment ago."
He meant Robin. Sanji wanted to kick his ass for saying that, but he let it slide for now. He was busy mulling over the information that had just been given to him. He didn't quite know what to think about it. If this green sea was affecting everyone badly, they should get out of there, but then again, they would likely pass through it soon if they just stayed on course. Anyway, nothing that serious had happened yet.
But his job wasn't to worry about things like that. Right now, the best he could do would be to make something everyone could eat. People felt better when they had something in their stomach, after all.
Sanji looked back over to the fish and cream sauce.
"I should make something lighter, soup probably..." Sanji muttered, trailing off at the end. It'd have to be a simple one, dinner was only in an hour. He could eat the fish, and Marimo could too, probably.
"You feeling sick?" Sanji asked.
"No."
"Aren't you usually training this time of day?"
The swordsman muttered something about "too much commotion to concentrate."
Whatever. He'd make enough soup for everyone, and everyone could eat what they wanted. He'd save the leftovers for his bottomless pit of a captain.
There was a silence. Marimo hadn't moved from his seat yet. Ugh. Sanji turned back to the sauce and began stirring again, hoping he'd get the hint.
"What about you?" The voice broke the silence jarringly.
"What?" Sanji asked genuinely. His mood had subsided a bit.
"Have you thrown up over the side of the ship yet?" His words were supposed to be mocking, Sanji guessed, but his tone was somehow...
"Is Moss-head worried about me? I don't believe it." Sanji said with a grin. He quickly took the fish off the burner and turned to face the swordsman so he could properly tease him.
Just then, the ship went over a wave, tilting the cabin and throwing Sanji off balance. The wave had the suddenness of a cannonball hitting the ship, but the large rolling quality to it sent his stomach plummeting.
The cabin was still tilting, even after the wave stopped, or was that him that was swaying? His head was spinning too much to tell. It felt just like the first wave, only worse. Everything was blurry, and the edges of his vision were gray. He thought he might pass out, or be sick right there on the floor (please no, not in his kitchen!), and there was this burning in his arm...
It took him a couple seconds to realize that it was the warmth of a hand trying to steady him, and a couple seconds longer to realize it was Marimo, Zoro, and when had he gotten so close? Another hand came up to rest on Sanji's shoulder and stayed there until Sanji pulled through the worst of it, nausea passed and vision returned to normal. The only thing left was a bit of dizziness, and it was this that he blamed for not immediately pushing Zoro's hands away.
If anything, Sanji leaned into Zoro's touch. Embarrassed, he stepped back off balance and was close to falling over, but Zoro held him, pulled even closer to him. Sanji reached out and clutched Zoro's arm for support, and finally looked into Zoro's face.
It was hard to focus on something so close to his eyes, and Zoro was close, very close. It made him disoriented, but he couldn't look away from the expression on Zoro's face. It was so foreign on him that Sanji almost didn't recognize it, especially since it was directed at him, his rival, the "shitty cook" with a bad attitude and probably Zoro's least favorite person on the ship. He was looking at him with... affection.
Sanji let it sink in, this attention he was getting. He let it sink into his bones and his gut and his head, but it didn't make his situation any clearer. In fact, Zoro was giving him this heady feeling that made everything seem muddled, as if he were intoxicated by his presence. It felt... actually pretty nice, compared to a few moments ago.
And then, Zoro moved his arm, the one that Sanji was grabbing onto, meaning his was shifted along with it and fuck he still didn't have all of his balance back yet. Sanji didn't know what he was doing until he felt a light brush against his hair, and then a hand on his cheek, gently tilting his head up. They were looking into each other's eyes, Zoro's hand was on his face, and Sanji was still gripping his forearm...it was intimate, too intimate for them.
"Zoro -"
He doesn't know what he would have said. He didn't have anything in mind when he started, and anything he might've come up with was cut off. It was hard to talk, or even think, when you were being kissed.
Oh...
His lips were soft, insanely soft, and he was treating Sanji all gentle-like, like he was something special. It was the most surprising part about the whole thing, even more than the kiss itself. Sanji had always imagined that Zoro would be rough, sloppy (not that he ever imagined Zoro kissing, nope, definitely not).
The way Zoro embraced him, encouraged him when Sanji reciprocated without even thinking, really, was how Sanji treated women, or how he imagined treating women. Being on the receiving end wasn't something he had ever imagined, hadn't thought he wanted. But he did right now, obviously, because he released Zoro's forearm to pull the hair at the back of Zoro's head, deepening the kiss.
Zoro let out a surprised sound, a soft one like a question. Sanji answered with a kiss, and another, and another, until they were struggling to get enough air. And then when they had to pause, Sanji bit Zoro's bottom lip, because while Zoro seemed content to play nice right now, Sanji wasn't. Zoro didn't seem to mind. He moaned, low and guttural, and Sanji swallowed the last of it so he could feel the vibrations between their lips.
They would have gone on longer, indefinitely maybe, but a high pitch scream startled them and they jumped apart.
They were both panting, and their clothes were askew. Somehow Sanji had regained enough of his senses so that he wasn't stumbling around anymore, but it felt like his mind had short-circuited, especially when he noticed Zoro's bleeding lip from where he'd bit him. He could feel heat spreading through his body (especially down lower) when Zoro brought up his hand to wipe away the spit and blood from his mouth, his eyes electric and on Sanji.
He snapped out of it, though, when another wail came from outside.
"That sounds like Chopper." Zoro's voice was steady, but very quiet.
He finally stopped staring at Sanji, and was looking towards the door. This gave Sanji the opportunity to straighten out his clothes and fidget with his tie, and also allowed him to hide his very, very red face. He expected Zoro to leave then, but he didn't make any move to. He was still standing right in front of him, and even without his gaze on him, it was too much right then.
"Go."
Sanji turned away from him and towards his food. Even then, Zoro didn't leave.
"Sanji..."
Even without seeing him, he could hear the worry in his voice. After mentally sighing (who knew Zoro could be so sensitive?) Sanji turned his head and smiled as genuinely as he could and said,
"It's okay. Go help Chopper."
Zoro searched his face and seemed satisfied. He gave a curt nod, turned, and calmly strode out the door.
Sanji stood still at the counter, even after he left. For several minutes he did nothing, and then he too walked out the galley door.
Sanji stared out at the sea for a while, smoking a cigarette. It really was green. It was a disgusting shade, too, like pea soup vomit. He didn't even finish his smoke before going back inside to make the soup for dinner. Being out there was giving him a headache.
Later, when they were out of the strange sea and exchanging stories, Sanji allowed himself to relive that moment in the kitchen. He didn't tell the others, and neither did Zoro (although Sanji did mention the skaters on the cream sauce, which gave everyone a good laugh), but he looked at Zoro when he described his experience with Chopper in the infirmary, and he could see it reflected in his eyes. Hearing the others though, from Chopper's fit leaving medical supplies strew everywhere (that had been what the wails were about) to Robin being sick every few hours, Sanji couldn't help but feel he had gotten lucky.