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“Turn around, Luffy.”
Luffy swivels his head to face forward, untwisting himself from that unnatural rubber position. Sanji’s hand rests on his shoulder, waiting.
He picks up another lock, measures it with his fingers, snips at the ends. Luffy continues to chatter happily about Shanks’ crew, unbothered by the interruption, as tufts of his hair fall to the floor around them. The air in the kitchen sits warm and welcoming, caressing the back of Sanji’s neck with fingers of heat from the oven where it hums around a fragrant apple pie. The smell of cinnamon and clove surrounds them.
He's most comfortable cutting hair here – the kitchen is where he’s always done it, where he learned from one of the guys at the Baratie, where there’s always light and space and time.
And he’s the only one on the ship who can do it, at least with any measure of skill. He’s good with his hands, good with a blade, patient to Luffy’s rambling, the lilt and fall of his voice as he jumps from topic to topic. Every minute or so Luffy forgets he’s meant to be still and twists his neck to look at Sanji; to ask him a question, or to make sure he’s still there. He needs reminding to face forward every time.
It’s always a bit of a mission to get him in the chair, and more so to get him to stay there for the ten minutes Sanji needs; but Luffy’s just had dinner and he’s a little sluggish, so all he can do right now is tap his feet and talk a mile a minute while Sanji nods and cuts.
Of course, Sanji enjoys it. A little time snatched here and there in the quiet of the evening while a dessert bakes to completion in the too-short measure it takes him to finish up his work, roll up the newspaper on the floor, and straighten the chairs. Luffy is his last one today and by far the most difficult, but he fills Sanji’s heart with that smile and that laugh and so he cherishes it, every moment. And it’s always over too soon.
He taps Luffy’s shoulder. “Okay, all done.”
Luffy springs from the chair, already halfway out the door as he yells “Thank you Sanji!”
Sanji hears him out on the deck moments later – “Ooh it feels so nice! Look, Robin!”, and a crowing noise of approval from their archaeologist, telling Luffy he looks less like a pirate urchin.
Sanji smiles to himself in the quiet, moving a lock of dark hair with the toe of his shoe across the newspaper on the floor. It covers a photo of Moria, now disgraced after his loss to Luffy mere days ago.
He sighs and starts to clean up – but a shadow falls across the chair and he straightens to see Zoro leaning on the doorframe, arms crossed. Sanji can’t read the look on his face. It could be a grimace – it’s certainly not a smile.
Zoro nods. “Got time?” He’s already stepping into the room, closing the door behind him.
Sanji steps back and motions to the chair. He moves behind it as Zoro sits, settling in against the wooden back with a pained sigh. He’s still stiff with healing cuts and bruises, though his ridiculous recovery time means he’s moving about and training already, rather than confined to the sick room in agony.
Almost mechanically Sanji moves forward and starts to work. He doesn’t need to ask Zoro what he wants, because the few times he’s done this, it’s always been the same.
The air in the warmth of the kitchen is tinged with something tangy as well as sweet now, and the smell of spiced apples tingles on the back of Sanji’s tongue. He wets his lips, suddenly self-conscious in the heat. It’s as though Zoro can see him, though he quietly and patiently faces the wall as little green tufts fall. They dust his shoulders, which Sanji notices with a start are bare.
Okay, stupid bronzed marimo. What are you up to?
Zoro’s the sort, almost as much as Luffy, to change the air in any room he enters – though with Luffy it’s a subconscious thing, a natural thing. Whether it’s his love or his anguish or his anger, it’s always an afterthought to whatever he’s feeling inside.
With Zoro it’s… direct. Learned. A sharp weapon, like a blade.
Or… well.
Sanji can’t quite tell what he’s wielding today.
“That smells good,” Zoro mumbles.
“Mm, Nami-san requested apple pie after dinner tonight,” Sanji hums. A little quieter, matching Zoro’s tone – “You could have some too, if there’s any left.”
Zoro doesn’t respond, except to give out a light snore.
Bastard. He’s asleep.
Sanji can’t help but laugh, softly and to himself.
He stops cutting and places the scissors on the table behind them, where a comb, a razor, and a small water spray bottle also sit.
He hums quietly as he removes the pie from the oven. The top isn’t bubbling yet, but he inserts the kitchen thermometer anyway, tapping a foot while he waits.
Just a few more minutes.
He feels keenly Zoro’s presence in the room, the two of them behind a closed door, cushioned by a familiar lazy warmth. From outside the faint sounds of Luffy, Chopper and Usopp amusing themselves with some game permeate, and fainter still a mechanical noise reverberates – Franky, working on a new project.
Everything is right, and safe.
Robin hums over a book, Brook sips his tea, Nami takes in the last of the evening sun and waits for a slice of pie with cream, and a cool evening breeze ruffles the short little hairs at the nape of Luffy’s neck.
And Zoro sleeps.
So Sanji takes a seat behind him, resting his arm on the back of the chair and lowering his chin to it, giving himself a good view of the pie in the oven.
He fights the urge to give in to drowsiness – he’d never fall asleep while cooking, of course, but it’s so warm and so lovely, and he’s finding himself oddly enamoured by Zoro’s soft snoring. Sleep would be a wonderful way to escape from that.
He glances over – immediately captured by the back of Zoro’s neck, the slight slant of it where his head dips towards his chest. From here Sanji can just see the dark curve of his eyelashes brushing his cheek, and the red that sits high on his cheekbones. His upper arms and back have that same blush too, where the brown of his skin isn’t speckled by white sun spots. It doesn’t surprise Sanji that he finds Zoro beautiful – any half observant person so inclined probably would – nor does the thought that he might do something about it, given reason enough. The latter takes up a small but not unfamiliar spot in the back of his mind, along with a few other things he’d rather not address without severe and consistent prompting.
The top of the pie begins to bubble. Sanji sighs, and wearily stands.
After the pie has cooled a little, after he’s taken slices to Nami, Robin, and the boys, Sanji returns to the kitchen to find Zoro awake and yawning hugely. Sanji stares into the back of his throat as he closes the door again, trapping the heat inside.
“Are you done?” Zoro grumbles.
“I’ve barely started,” Sanji says, a slight scold in his voice. “You fell asleep.”
“So what?”
“I’m not cutting your hair while you sleep! That’s…” he trails off. Zoro stares at him and shrugs.
“Well, whatever. Just give me a minute.”
Zoro doesn’t look at Sanji as he’s served a slice of pie with cream, though he makes sure Sanji catches his noise of gratitude.
He eats in silence as Sanji cuts. The air around them jumps with the snick of the scissors, the scrape of a spoon in a bowl, the slight hum in the back of Sanji’s throat that now and then breaks free.
Sanji sees the light dusting of tiny green hairs on Zoro’s shoulders, and without thinking he brushes them away, using just the back of one hand.
Zoro reacts as though he’s been shocked – his shoulders jump and the spoon clatters in the bowl, reverberating like a gunshot in the quiet kitchen. Though he’s immediately apologetic, Sanji can’t help but marvel at Zoro’s sudden loss of composure.
“Sorry, sorry,” he mutters.
Zoro says nothing, but goes back to eating – faster and with more determination, as if to prove something.
When he’s emptied his bowl he passes it to Sanji, who takes it without thinking. It goes to the sink behind them, and Sanji returns again to the chair and those shoulders, scissors ready. He cuts more slowly now, though he’d hesitate to say why.
A quiet minute passes like this, the entire thing a type of pause. Sanji worries at these intermissions, trying to find meaning in the silence. No doubt Zoro thinks nothing of it at all.
Sanji reaches the back of Zoro’s head, and swaps the scissors for the razor.
Obediently Zoro tilts his head forward. Sanji wonders at this. Is he usually so malleable? Is it the heat?
He begins to shave, trimming away the stray hairs that have spread in the last month or so down the back of Zoro’s neck. The muscles there shift ever so slightly under the blade – an involuntary kind of thing, like goosebumps, or a yawn. Of course Zoro has his body under control again; he’d let it slip for just a moment, and really Sanji shouldn’t be made so curious by that. Anyone would freak out a little at having their shoulders brushed by a warm hand in the heat of a ship’s kitchen, in the haze of an autumn island’s evening rocked by the swell of the open ocean.
Now Sanji finds the hair on Zoro’s left ear, just a single tuft resting there in quiet defiance of its brothers. He plucks it away and sends it towards the newspaper at his feet. Zoro sits, statue-like.
There at the nape of his neck, too – all scattered and bright against the brown. He begins to methodically brush them away, putting a little pressure into the movement, as though he’s loath to be too soft about it.
“Forgot to get you a towel,” he says, another gunshot in the warm quiet. “It must be a little itchy.”
“It’s fine,” Zoro says, but he’s angled his head further forward as though to make it easier for Sanji’s hands to touch him. When he realises this Sanji stalls, and stares. It’s Zoro’s turn to feel eyes on him – deep blue and hooded by the heat. Sanji wishes he’d be undone by it just a little – if he could show it in the easy slant of his shoulders, hear it in the hitch of his breath.
But Zoro’s patient, so Sanji gets nothing.
He brushes the rest of the hair away, places the razor on the table, and stands behind Zoro, feeling a quizzical look playing over his face. He’s finished, but he doesn’t want Zoro to go. He imagines him standing, nodding his thanks, and walking outside to join the others, and as the thought of the door closing behind him plays over Sanji’s mind he moves forward without thinking, and place a hand on the back of Zoro’s neck.
And Zoro presses back into Sanji’s palm, with a tiny, satisfied moan.
The sensation that travels through Sanji’s body hits him like an electric shock, raising alarms as it goes. From his chest to his stomach to a hot aching pit in his pelvis it races, an uncontrollable and wholly embarrassing surge. He feels like a puppet to his own desire – he’s controlled by want and need now, and what he wants and needs sits in front of him, made pliable by the heat, the pie, his touch.
With two hands Sanji skims Zoro’s shoulders, all the warm gorgeous width of them, dragging his fingers from end to end and forward to Zoro’s chest, pausing a little as he finds the sharpness of his collarbones. Zoro puts his head back so that it rests on Sanji’s stomach, the faintest hint of a smile playing over his lips.
Sanji doesn’t want to speak – it could ruin the moment – but he feels like he has to.
“Is this –” he starts.
“Shut up,” Zoro sighs. “Please, cook.”
Zoro speaks as though he’s angry at his own words, though his eyes are closed against them, soft and fluttering ever so slightly.
As Sanji brushes his hand forward to swipe stray green hairs from Zoro’s chest, Zoro opens his eyes and stops him – takes his hand like it’s nothing, like it’s easy, and stills.
All melts away. In perpetuity, the kitchen sits warm and silent.
Zoro finally stands, keeping Sanji’s hand in his own. There’s an air of insecurity in every action he takes from that moment ‘til the next, but still Sanji finds himself pushed a few steps back to the cabinets behind, slowly and much too fast all at once.
“Are you done?” Zoro says quietly.
“Yes,” Sanji breathes.
He knows then what Zoro intends to do, and almost closes his eyes against it – but gasps and goes wide-eyed instead as Zoro takes his face in both hands and kisses him, a little too hard to be tender, a little too hungrily to be misunderstood.
The lip of the bench cuts into the small of his back, pressed in by the swordsman, and the warmth of Zoro’s bare chest lights his entire body on fire before he finds presence of mind to return the kiss, pulling Zoro in closer.
It doesn’t make sense to fight it, not now. Not after the pain and turmoil of Thriller Bark, not after the fear of losing him forever. He’s here, and so beautiful and alive and Sanji tries to put all of that thankfulness into the moment, however long it may last.
But all too soon Zoro’s taking a step back, releasing Sanji to run a hand through his newly cropped hair. Green dust, unsettled, falls again to his shoulders.
And Sanji, flushed and feeling undone, stares, wondering if he’d given too much, too soon.
Sanji clears his throat and licks the salt from his lips.
“Just for giving you a haircut, huh?”
“Don’t expect it.”
“Four weeks or so… it’ll get long again.”
Zoro turns away, heading for the door.
“Then I guess I’ll be back.”