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“I’m asking your permission to marry the cook.”
Zeff’s knife paused mid-air above the pork he was trimming, his mustache twitching. His motions resumed moments later, though they were somewhat strained.
“You want to marry the eggplant.”
It wasn’t a question, so Zoro didn’t answer. He simply stood, alone in the Baratie’s kitchen at midnight with this grumpy nightmare of a chef, resting his hand atop his katanas. He’d been waiting for an opportunity like this for days, ever since the Sunny had pulled up to the floating restaurant and the chefs had been working overtime to fill the Pirate King’s endless appetite; to make matters worse, Sanji had seamlessly returned to his role as sous-chef for their time there, making it near impossible for Zoro to corner Zeff without Sanji catching sight of him. After the cook had fallen asleep that night, Zoro had snuck down to the cupboards to steal a bottle of quality sake, but Zeff was already there, as if it was not unusual for a man his age to be working past midnight with no customers in sight.
“And you’re asking my permission? Is this the dark ages or something?”
Zoro blinked. “What? Uh, no, I just—”
Zeff cut him off before he could finish, throwing his tools down onto the table.
“You know what? Since you asked, the answer is no.”
“What?”
“You have to beat me in a fight first.”
“What?!”
Zeff shot him a bored look, rolling down his sleeves.
“You say anything other than what?”
Zoro balked, staring at Zeff like he’d made a bad joke. There was no way this geezer truly thought he could beat the strongest swordsman in the world in a fight—but what was his game, then? Did he want to make sure he could protect the shit cook?
Zoro nearly laughed at the thought. The last person who needed his protection was the damn cook.
Did he want to make sure Zoro was properly dedicated to Sanji? He doubted it—Zeff may be crazy, but he couldn’t see the man putting his life at risk against Zoro’s swords when he could just as easily ask him a question or simply threaten bodily injury. There was a good chance that Zeff was just messing with him, though. If that was the case, well, Zoro ought to humor him—once he got a few hits in on Zoro, he’d surely have his fill.
Zoro drew wado with a smirk, gesturing for Zeff to make the first move.
“Get out of the damn kitchen first, grasshead. I’m not having you slicing up all this expensive equipment.”
He rolled his eyes, but acquiesced, turning his back to the chef to walk into the dining room.
This was a mistake. The geezer was fast—much faster than expected—as he planted his pegleg into the base of Zoro’s spine and pushed, sending him crashing into one of the dining tables. Zeff’s kicks may not be nearly as strong as the cook’s, but that didn’t mean they were weak; Zoro’s back twinged as he jumped back to his feet, blocking the next kick with the flat of his blade, not wanting to break Zeff’s prosthetic.
The old man smiled, jumping onto a table and using his momentum to swing forward and jab his pegleg into wado, leaving his other leg free to connect with Zoro’s ribs. Zoro jolted, pushing Zeff back with a controlled slice to create space between them.
Shit. I can see where the cook gets it from.
“Don’t hold back on me, brat. You’ll never get my blessing like that.”
Zoro’s jaw clenched, his fist tightening on the hilt of his weapon.
“Careful what you wish for, old man.”
He sent a flurry of attacks towards Zeff, still only using a small fraction of his strength and speed, but able to put his opponent on the defensive. In addition to the skill gap, he’d been fighting Sanji for years—he knew all of Zeff’s tricks by now.
Or at least he thought he did.
For as came within two feet of the chef, angling the tip of his blade towards his throat, Zeff threw a white powder from his pocket straight into Zoro’s face, causing him to cough and drop his guard for a fraction of a second. This was enough for Zeff’s flesh foot to slam into Zoro’s solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him and throwing him backwards.
Relying solely on haki due to his good eye being blinded by what was apparently flour, he swung the sharp edge of wado towards Zeff’s left leg, aiming to take out his base before his pegleg could connect with Zoro’s temple. Zeff chuckled, jumping into a back handspring that required far too much agility for an old man.
“When will you start getting serious, green bean?”
“You’re as annoying as your damn son,” he snapped back, rubbing the flour from his eye with his forearm.
“Where do you think he got it from?” Zeff asked, meeting Zoro’s blade with a spartan kick, though the swordsman easily fended it off.
“Oh, I know exactly where the shit-head gets it from. Just like I know you’re both too stubborn to give up when you know you’re outmatched.”
Zeff just grinned, jumping backwards and forcing Zoro to pursue as he moved fluidly over tables and chairs, doing his best to shove them in Zoro’s path. After the fourth seat was thrown at his head, each half dropping to the floor after meeting his blade, he growled.
“Can you just—” He started, interrupted by a flying vase that spilled water down his front upon being cut. “Put down the fucking—” Fine porcelain plates shattered against wado’s hilt. “Listen, you shitty old man—”
“You kiss the eggplant with that mouth?” Zeff taunted, now throwing balled up tablecloths in his direction to be torn to ribbons.
Zoro blushed at the words and Zeff took advantage of his momentary distraction to dart from his vision as another tablecloth flew, rushing to kick at the side of his knee. Zoro prioritized blocking the blow with wado while trying to blindly catch the airborne tablecloth, only partially succeeding—his arm was now tangled in the fabric. He grumbled, shaking it off as Zeff sent kick after kick, trying to push him off balance.
Zeff’s eyes widened as Zoro moved faster than he had all night to catch the chef in the chest with the dull edge of his katana, sending him flying through two tables and into the wall. When he tried to stand, Zoro was already there, the point of his blade pressed gently against his jugular vein. Zeff squinted, trying a last-ditch effort to hook his feet behind Zoro’s ankles to pull him down, but it was foiled by a second sword that he’d pulled faster than Zeff could see.
“Do you yield, old man?”
As the words left his lips, Zeff smirked right as Zoro felt a familiar presence enter the room; in that moment, he knew he was doomed.
He didn’t dare to look behind him at the disaster they’d made of the dining hall, but he didn’t need to—he could feel the cook’s pulsing anger all the way from here. So Zoro simply stood there, blade still held against a smug Zeff’s throat where he stared up as the swordsman triumphantly.
After what seemed like an eternity of listening to the cook’s light steps crunching over broken plates and bisected tables, a scarily gentle voice sounded from across the room.
“Marimo? Can I ask why you’re holding a sword to my father’s neck?”
Zoro didn’t move, feeling strangely like he could relate to the stillness of a lizard realizing it’s in danger. Even facing down Mihawk for his title hadn’t felt this deadly.
He heard and felt Sanji stepping closer to him, now only a few feet away.
“I asked you a question, Zoro.”
His eye widened at the sound of his given name from the cook’s lips. He’s serious, huh?
A single glance down at Zeff told him he’d be getting no help from that front. The man was practically giddy watching the proceedings, probably glad that he hadn’t had to surrender by the time Sanji showed up.
“Um. It’s, uh…not what it looks like?” Zoro tried.
Apparently, this was the wrong answer.
Wado and kitetsu were crossed in front of him in an instant to block a heavy, flaming kick from the cook. They fell into their usual rhythm, though Sanji was flushed with rage and clearly releasing it into his blows. Zoro focused on blocking, allowing the cook to take out his anger on him.
All of his attention was centered on the cook, needing to push his observation haki to its limits to predict Sanji’s lightning-fast moves and avoid getting his skull shattered. In the milliseconds before a wooden leg suddenly swiped him off his feet, he realized Zeff was no longer sitting against the wall.
His back slammed onto the floor with a jolt and he was pinned down almost immediately by the cook’s foot and his father’s prosthetic, their limbs digging into his ribs solidly. Sanji’s mouth was pressed into a thin line, but Zeff—the bastard—was grinning.
“Do you yield, grass-head?” He taunted, pressing his prosthetic in a little harder.
Zoro glanced between the father and son, thinking in the back of his mind how it was strange that two men unrelated by blood could resemble each other so closely. It may have brought a smile to his face, had he not remembered what yielding would really mean. He glared at Zeff, gripping his wooden leg meaningfully.
“Not for this, old man. Never for this.”
Zeff stared at him, unmoving, as if assessing every part of the swordsman at his feet. Then, he started laughing—huge belly laughs that had his mustache bouncing up and down and tears leaking from his eyes. Zoro blinked in confusion, Sanji not looking much different.
“What the hell are you laughing for, shit geezer? This dumbass destroyed your dining room!” Sanji cried, pressing his weight further onto Zoro’s chest. Zeff waved at him dismissively, looking back at Zoro with a glint in his eye.
“You’ve shown me what I needed to see, green bean. My answer is yes.”
Then he turned around, still chuckling, and left the dining room.
Zoro couldn’t contain his smile, nor the small laugh that bubbled out of him as he raised a relieved arm to rest against his forehead. Zeff, the crazy bastard, had given Zoro his blessing to propose to Sanji. Sure, he’d practically forced Zoro to destroy the Baratie in the process, but he’d still seen Zoro and decided that he could make his kid happy. His perfect, shitty, kind, irritating, potty-mouthed kid—the very same man that had Zoro’s heart beating out of his chest and who he fell more and more in love with every day—and he thought Zoro was worthy of him.
Sanji removed the foot pinning him down, kicking his shoulder where he lay.
“What the hell is going on? What did you ask him? Why did you break the entire damn dining room?!”
The wrinkle in Sanji’s brow and the pout of his mouth nearly overwhelmed him—this was the man he would marry. Though technically dependent on what the cook said to his proposal, Zoro already knew in his bones that this stubborn, beautiful, swirly-browed cook would be his forever.
Sanji only looked more frustrated when Zoro just sent him a dopey smile as he pushed up from the ground. He stepped back and crossed his arms when Zoro tried to approach.
“C’mon, curly. We had a bet and I won,” Zoro grinned.
“And you had to break everything to win?” Sanji challenged grumpily, though he finally allowed Zoro close enough to run a hand along his exposed forearm. Zoro nodded, staring at the man he’d eventually get to wed, feeling his heart stutter in his chest at the rich blue of his eyes.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked quietly, leading Sanji to snort and step back.
“Not until you clean all this shit up, marimo. I’m still pissed at you.”
“Please, Sanji?”
He knew for a fact that the cook practically melted any time Zoro said his name, or any time he actually said please. Put those two together and Zoro was guaranteed to get his wish.
As expected, Sanji sighed, rolling his eyes fondly as he stepped into Zoro’s space to press their foreheads together.
“What am I going to do with you, marimo?” he whispered, finally pressing his lips sweetly against Zoro’s, who smiled against him. He could live here forever, held by Sanji’s treasured hands and tasting the sweet smokiness of his lips.
They separated a few moments later, Sanji stroking his cheekbone with his thumb before stepping away entirely. He laughed lightly at Zoro’s resulting pout.
“Clean this mess up and you can have more, moss-head. I’m going back to bed,” he turned his back, running a hand through messy golden hair as he walked away. “Goodnight, marimo.”
“Goodnight, curly.”
The smile didn’t leave his face until over an hour later, when he finally climbed into bed with the blond and drifted into sleep.