Chapter Text
(now)
There has to be a Devil Fruit that mimics the torture the cook puts Zoro through with his obnoxious voice and his pathetic twirls and his stupid pretty face. Wherever that fruit is, Zoro wants to hack it into tiny, unrecognizable pieces and scatter them across the Grand Line so no one has to suffer like him.
(Except he can't do that, since the cook has made it so no one wastes food and Zoro can't have that idiot's voice hovering in his head any more than it already has been.)
“The poor l-l-ladies won’t have anything fr-fresh to eat! And I’m g-going to have to tell them it was b-because dumb musclehead here picked a fight again!”
Zoro scowls as the cook complains more theatrically than usual, his flair for the dramatics leading to high-pitched, grating complaints that make Zoro’s ears ache in a way that their fight with the ice Devil Fruit user couldn’t have hoped to accomplish.
Admitting that would make the idiot smug, though, so Zoro grits his teeth and stays silent.
“How can I serve p-precious Nami-s-swan with these cold h-hands?” He waves his hands in Zoro’s face, and Zoro's fingers burn with the urge to grab them, intertwine their fingers. Stupid. “My angel deserves w-warmth and soft touches and, and d-defending your stupid ass g-got me hit by the ice! N-now it’s freezing!”
“You weren’t defending me, asshole!”
The Freeze-Freeze blast had hit the cook. Not Zoro. Because Zoro knows how to fight and dodge poorly aimed hits by weak Devil Fruit users (even when his body may be possibly, slightly aching; something he won't admit, as First Mate and to this idiot). The cook being hit feels like a failure on Zoro's part, even though it's his own fault.
“F-Figures that's what your empty s-skull hears,” the cook grumbles, purposely loudly. His visible eye narrows. “You were j-just s-st-standing there! I kn-know you’re a moron, but—”
“I was about to end that guy when you twirly-ed yourself into my way!”
“You weren’t h-hit because of me! How about a th-thank you, you m-miserable, mossy oaf!”
The cook had been doing one of his elaborate handsprings over toward their battle, the ice attack hitting him squarely in the chest mid-twirl. None of this was to protect Zoro.
Zoro doesn't need, can't need, protection. Even if that’s clearly the way the cook wants to spin the story. How pathetic, the shithead is so desperate for attention he’s trying to seem like a hero to the women.
Unfortunately for him, Zoro doesn’t have the patience for the cook’s nonsense.
“Getting yourself hit isn’t an excuse to be so whiney, stupidbrows.” Nothing new for this idiot. He rolls his eyes. “I’m not about to thank a curly moron for always getting in my way!”
The cook glares. “W-well because of me, y-you won’t have fr-frostbite on top of your c-current injuries.” Zoro scowls at the mention of his (still healing) Thriller Bark ailments. Does the cook think he can pity Zoro because of them? Zoro feels his face heating, anger seething. He isn't weak. “So you c-could stand to be more grate—”
“It’s not cold, moron.”
He ignores the cook’s protests, frowning at whatever direction the cook is directing them toward. He clearly isn’t right, either, since their fight had been in an open field, and they’re not currently headed toward the water. And people say he’s bad at directions. Stupid cook with his stupidly long legs taking them the wrong way.
“Where are you taking us?”
“S-Silly, directionless, M-Mosshead.” Despite the cook’s crazy directions and constant whining, the Thousand Sunny does start coming into view. “S-see?” Smug bastard.
Huh.
Shut up, dumb Love Cook. “Quit your damn whining, it’s sunny as hell right now.”
The cook pauses, contemplative in a way that raises Zoro’s defenses. His swirly eyebrow rises. Wado readies for the obvious dartboard target. “Y-you. . . aren’t c-cold.”
He can hear the cook’s teeth chattering, and there’s a pink flush to his cheeks and the tip of his nose that makes Zoro’s stomach churn uncomfortably. His mouth looks almost red. Soft.
Damn it.
Zoro scowls at the cook’s lips. He's past this. “Shithead.” He licks his lips, dragging his eyes away. He needs to stop doing this. “You’re so annoying.”
He wasn’t with the cook or Luffy for the majority of their Drum Island experience, but Usopp had no shame laughing about—and regaling the story so the stupid nosebleed cook could make fun of—Zoro stumbling around in the snow wearing no shoes or shirt. Zoro’s confident that his tolerance of the elements is higher than most, especially considering how he needs to be able to weather and inevitably fight most elements to be the World’s Greatest Swordsman.
If he could survive Drum Island with only pants, this is just another overly dramatic complaining session from local idiot curlybrows.
It doesn't matter how cold the cook looks, hunched into himself and breathing into his hands as he shivers. It doesn't matter that it makes Zoro want to hold him and keep him warm.
He would do that for any member of the Straw Hats.
“I sh-should’ve known. Moldy plantlife has no need for the warmth of the s-sun.”
Zoro’s fingers inch toward his blades again—the dumb curly eyebrow looks eager to be sliced—but he instead takes a breath, choosing to walk past the cook and focus on getting back to anything more tolerable than this.
Even the witch forcing him to take on more debt for breathing is preferable to his more recent interactions with the cook. Though maybe, on one of his good days (smiling and friendly, overly generous and twirly with his food, harsh words dampened, awkward attempts at touches, nothing Zoro wants to deal with). . .
He hears the click of a lighter, a quiet inhale and drawn-out exhale, and the air begins to smell of smoke. It’s familiar, routine. They walk in silence until there’s a sudden hand on his shoulder. Gentle, like before.
Like they hadn't messed anything up between them.
“Wr-wrong way, s-s-silly Marimo.” The cook’s hand feels like ice through his shirt as he tugs Zoro in the opposite direction. His heart sputters. He’ll have to take this up with the witch for moving the Sunny before their return.
“Shut up.”
The cook’s touch is a new form of torment, since they've been avoiding it since leaving Thriller Bark. They’d just gotten to casual touches, lingering hands, shoulder brushes, offers to wrap bandages. The cook's mocking flirting. Their k—
“W-wait.” His grip tightens, and he leans toward Zoro, blue eye wide and contemplative. “You really aren’t c-cold.” Somehow his gaze is more piercing than usual. He always thinks too much.
“I said I wasn’t cold.” Zoro forces the cook’s hand off his shoulder, rolling his eyes to hide that the gesture ached more than it should have. He can’t give the idiot more ideas. They do this in short bursts for a reason, and the cook's tendency to spiral in overthinking isn't something Zoro can deal with right now.
"You're so primitive, I d-d-didn't think y-you had a c-concept of temperature."
“I don’t need to twirl around like a perverted moron to generate body heat.”
“Well.” The cook’s hands are shaking, fingers paler than usual so the blue of his veins is visible. Zoro feels a jolt of something in his gut, a bit unsure. "You're an ugly o-o-oaf so you h-have nothing p-perverted to w-worry about."
Is he really cold or just playing it up as they get closer to the ship so he can beg for attention?
(Except that Zoro knows the cook isn’t like that. When it really counts. They’re similar in this way, though the cook is frustrating in his beliefs of what he deserves, more obnoxious in his stubbornness that hasn’t been repairable.)
"Dumbass."
Obnoxious as he is, Zoro won’t let a crewmate suffer if he has the power to do something about it. Even if the crewmate is a loserbrows cook.
“Coming from the mossy b-brute with no sense of r-romance or d-d-direction,” the cook gestures toward the Sunny, which has appeared out of nowhere in a different direction than Zoro expects—but is the cook referring to something specific because he sounds mad—“it’s e-easy to see why I wouldn’t b-believe you.”
Despite his complaining, the cook looks torn for the briefest moment, visible eye flicking toward Zoro’s arm as he looks almost like he’s going to grab Zoro again. Zoro frowns—he’s not about to become a traveling heater on top of being the cook’s pack mule and dish boy—but he isn’t heartless, and if his crewmate really is cold. . .
Zoro bumps their shoulders.
"Hey! W-Watch where you're g-g-going!"
It’s rough. They don’t slot together very well with their similar heights. If anything, it makes them more aggressive to keep bumping each other on the best of days, though today isn’t one of them. The cook makes a soft noise anyway, reminiscent of before Thriller Bark, one that Zoro knows he’s going to remember for a long time.
“Zoro . . .” The cook leans into the touch in a way that is too careful, like the movement needs to be fragile or the moment will break.
Zoro doesn’t want it to end. He knows the cook doesn’t want it to end either.
Soft blond hair tickles Zoro’s nose. The cook smells like smoke, sea salt, and something sweet, whatever pastry he'd been making before they’d been sent on this failure of a supply run. His breathing is soft. His visible eye is closed, long lashes pressed to his cheek.
Zoro. . . could stay like this for a while.
He remembers pieces, dizzy memories in and out of hazy vision, the cook’s hand in his (soft, because he cares too much) while he healed at Thriller Bark. He remembers tender touches and grating words when the cook served as the ship’s doctor, so many islands back it feels like a lifetime.
Dartbrow has always been a little odd when it comes to touch. For someone who flounces around proclaiming a love for romance and the experience to match, it’s been woefully clear that the Thousand Sunny’s idiot cook not only has no meaningful experience in that department, but that he’s unusually uncomfortable when it comes to male touch in general. He's too perverted to reject a woman’s touch, but when it comes to men and even his male crewmates. . .
The cook just isn't good with touch. And he's so quick to heated anger and a flared temper when that boundary is crossed.
He’s most at ease with violent touch, if his fights with Zoro are anything to go by, but that thought trails to darker ideas Zoro isn’t willing to think about. They’d been working on it without talking about his past.
His hand twitches at the cook's side. He wants to intertwine their. . .
The thought jolts him out of the comfort of the quiet moment. He's been pushing past those feelings, moving on. No distractions from his goals. No more of the cook's nonsense.
It’s the way he aggressively pulls back that makes the cook scramble away.
His cheeks are flushed, a glow that travels down his neck. He’s always blushed easily, and Zoro enjoys doing things that embarrass the cook for this reason.
Now, he looks horrified. Humiliated. Unsure. “I. . .” He wraps his arms around himself. Shit. He's spiraling. “I. . .”
Zoro is sure he mirrors the cook's blush, his own face uncomfortably warm.
His thoughts flash to the soft noise the cook made (the whispered Zoro) and he grunts, wants the memory to go away. This isn’t them, this isn’t what they—
No! He scrambles for something to say—Pervert! Moron! Kinky cook!—but he’s saved because twirlybrows is more aggressive. Defensive. Sensitive.
(Hurt.)
“What w-was that?” A powerful kick aims at his head, and Zoro ducks and pulls Shusui from her sheath to block the prickly moron's kick. "Don't touch m-me!"
“Dumbass cook!”
There’s a flurry of fast movements where they both aim kicks and swipes at each other, a forced return to normalcy instead of embarrassment. Sometimes Zoro thinks they've made progress, and, other times, the cook shoves his boundaries up again like they'd never worked on fixing them.
“Shitty swordsman!”
Zoro enjoys the pull of his muscles, the ease of blocking and ducking and swinging, of equal grounds with the cook. His arm shakes as he parries one of the cook’s kicks, and suddenly the cook is holding back with him, and—
The idiot can’t be that cold if he has the energy to be this annoying.
Zoro isn't weak.
He sidesteps the cook’s next swing. “Too cold to fight me properly, twirly cook?”
The cook narrows his eye. “Y-you— You're the one who's injured!”
Furious, angry, seething, Zoro rolls his eyes and begins making his way back toward the Sunny. If the cook thinks he can treat Zoro like he's fragile. . .
“Mosshead!” Zoro isn’t sure how they got to the ship so quickly based on the path they’d been taking, but he’s not about to reject a faster return to comfort and away from the cook. "The Sunny's that w-w-way!"
As he starts to board, he’s hit with a wave of relief to be back on the ship.
He can hear the rambunctious chatter of his crew, safe—and warm, take that, stupid shitty pretty lovecook—and clearly way too comfortable.
“Zoro!” Chopper totters over to hug his leg. “Usopp said you and Sanji were. . .”
“N-Nami-swan! Robin-chwan I’m b-back!” The idiot begins twirling his way toward the women, and Zoro scowls and looks away. Why does he bother?
He pats Chopper’s head, focusing instead on his friend’s soft fur and happy voice.
“Did you get in a fight again?” Chopper tugs at Zoro’s pants. “You didn’t bring any supplies back.”
Right. They’d never even made it to the village to restock.
Their arguing—the cook started it, though!—had caught the Devil Fruit user’s attention embarrassingly quickly, and Zoro may have jumped into the brawl just as embarrassingly quickly.
“Just some idiot with ice powers.” Zoro shrugs, making his way to the side of the deck to settle for a nap.
It’s been a long day, and the fight with the Freeze-Freeze guy didn’t make things any easier. The witch said they maybe had a week for the log pose to reset, and after the failure of today’s tasks, he’s knows he’s getting stuck going back to the town for food and supplies with the cook again.
Maybe if they run into Freeze-Freeze again he could force the lovesick idiot into some stupid frozen pose just long enough for there to be some peace and quiet.
“Zoro! Are you hurt?” Chopper searches Zoro for visible injury. “You didn’t pull any of your stitches did you?”
Chopper nods resolutely when he notices nothing after a quick but thorough check-up.
“Check the cook,” Zoro nods in the direction of the kitchen, a smirk at his lips, “he spent the whole trip whining instead of getting supplies.”
While neither of them enjoy the medical attention Chopper forces their way, it would be beneficial for Chopper to see if there is any lasting impact from that Freeze-Freeze Fruit. The cook had to have felt something to have leaned into Zoro like he had, after everything that's happened between them.
And if it means extra annoyance from the cook because of all the fuss—and the blame for the missing supplies—Zoro isn’t complaining. Bastard deserves it.
“What!” Chopper turns toward the sounds of Nami laughing and the cook stuttering her praises.
Between his lovestruck ramblings, though, he’s staring at Zoro. His expression is unreadable.
“Were either of you hit by ice?”
He drags his gaze from the cook, shaking his head to force his thoughts away from shitty pretty blonds with shitty stupid issues.
“Ice?” Usopp pops up out of nowhere, making Chopper jump. Zoro takes that as a sign to settle down for a nap. “Did I ever tell you about the time I had to fight fifty, no, two hundred ice soldiers when I was first leaving Syrup Village?”
“No way!” Chopper squeals.
“Each soldier had a powerful weapon that blasted ice with every swing! But they were nothing compared to the Great Captain Usopp’s mastery of the fire sling—”
Zoro closes his eyes, comfortable as Chopper eats up every theatrical tale Usopp weaves.
His body aches more than it should after a fight with such a weak Devil Fruit user—especially one he didn’t even have to fight, since the cook tripped into the brawl and got himself blasted with ice so all it took was one sword swing to send the guy running—and it must be obvious if even the asshole cook thinks he has to hold back.
He needs to train harder, heal faster, if that's what the cook thinks. He refuses to get the idiot's pity again.
Whatever.
As far as he’s concerned, that moment outside the ship was one of their training sessions for the cook to become more comfortable with the crew. He thinks of the cold touch of the cook’s hand (soft despite his harsh words, a gentle caress reserved for only their private moments). He frowns.
No. The idiot's back to normal temperature now.
(They're both back to their normal relationship now.)
The Sunny rocks gently, the soft splash of the waves against the hull relaxing. He hears the softer sound of Robin turning her book’s pages, Luffy laughing at whatever he has found to entertain himself, Nami very loudly reminding the cook about their lack of supplies. . .
(then)
It’s the idiot cook’s turn for watch, and he’s fallen asleep at the table in the Merry's galley.
Of course he can nap on the job, but when Zoro is sleeping hours before it’s his turn, this moron thinks it’s fair game to yell and kick and break everything on the Merry in an effort to make Zoro seem like the bad crewmate. Dumbass bastard.
He usually wakes Zoro up with harsh kicks and obnoxious words (followed by a plate of food that Zoro doesn’t know he needs and will never vocalize appreciation for no matter how slightly barely possibly okay it tastes), but Zoro isn't an annoying jerk like the cook, so he settles for the kinder approach of roughly shaking his shoulder.
It’s almost imperceptible, but Zoro is observant. He has to be, to understand his opponents’ movements, to understand the needs of his crew. He has a job that he takes seriously, as First Mate to the future Pirate King and soon-to-be World’s Greatest Swordsman.
Zoro’s hand is above the cook’s head, reaching downward, when the cook startles awake. He sees Zoro’s hand, poised almost like he’s going to hit him, and he flinches.
Flinches.
Zoro’s heart freezes in his chest. "The hell?"
He doesn’t mind causing this reaction in opponents. Let them cower in their fear, let them tremble, let them understand what it means to face the future World's Greatest Swordsman. And if they’re in the middle of a spar and Curlybrow gets overwhelmed with Zoro’s strength, that’s more than fine, it’s exhilarating fighting the cook, overpowering the cook, touching the cook as he finds himself above him. It's satisfying. Thrilling.
But this? This doesn’t sit right.
Not with the idiot who picks fights with him over every stupid thing. Not with the jackass who treated him like a rival the moment they first spoke. Not with the infuriating, lovesick bastard who throws himself headfirst into chaos just to prove he’s worth something.
The idea that the cook—the same moron who’s kicked Zoro into walls hard enough to break them, without hesitation—would think, even for a second, that Zoro might actually hurt him?
It feels like Mihawk's slash across his chest, like he's failed.
His job is as a protector, the right hand of Luffy, the First Mate that the crew can rely on. He is steadfast, dependable, loyal. He helps.
“Uh.”
The cook sits up. His expression smooths out, and he reaches for a cigarette and his lighter. Zoro sees his hands tremble through the movements. They shake even as the cigarette makes it to his pouting lips.
They both don’t say anything. The air smells like smoke.
The silence is enough that Zoro knows the cook is deep in thought, turning what he had done in his head, deciding how to play it off. It’s obvious from the tense set of his shoulders and the faint twitch of his jaw that his brain is working overtime, spinning some excuse, some way to play it off like nothing.
Liar.
Finally, after the cook finds a way to be annoying and exhales a plume of smoke directly in Zoro’s face—and he doesn’t cough, despite the smell, he’s stronger than that, and he knows this is the cook's way of trying to find something else to poke at, the cook’s choice defense of pissing Zoro off—he raises his stupid swirly eyebrow.
“My turn for watch, Mosshead?”
Zoro’s fingers itch to grab Wado Ichimonji, something stable to keep him from knocking this idiot upside the head. He’s frustrated. He wants to yell, to demand why the cook thought Zoro would hurt him. He fucking flinched, and Zoro needs answers.
But they aren’t like that.
Their fights are training, sparring, letting off steam when the cook is being particularly annoying. They push each other. Flinching isn’t their language. It's not how things are supposed to be between them.
“Got a problem?” The cook stands, looking angry. Defensive as he always gets if Zoro so much as breathes in his direction.
He’s clearly ready to pick a fight just to cover his own tracks. Defensive as always, like he can’t handle even a second of Zoro’s silence without spiraling.
Zoro doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know what to say, and it's the silence that makes the cook angrier. His sneer twists into something uglier, sharper, meaner.
He knows Zoro knows something.
"Fine," he spits. He kicks at Zoro’s abdomen—effortlessly blocked by a sword hilt, because Zoro is fast and the cook is a twirly idiot—making his way from the galley without a glance back. "Shitty swordsman." He leaves without trying to drag out the argument as usual.
The silence he leaves behind is suffocating.
Contrary to the cook's constant insults, he's not stupid. He’s the First Mate of the future Pirate King and he’s going to be the World’s Greatest Swordsman. He notices things. He notices everything.
Zoro exhales slowly, his grip tightening around the sheath of his blade. He saw the cook’s instinct when he’d been in that vulnerable state, the moment where one's body reacts before their brain can catch up. That wasn’t an instinct to fight. That wasn’t an instinct to kick.
It was an instinct to protect himself.
Zoro knows where those instincts come from. Unbidden, memories flash to a life before he’d joined the dojo, instincts he’d forced out of himself because they would hold him back from his dream. Fear and desperation ingrained so deep it took years to train them, fight them, away.
He’s strong now, but he hadn’t been back then.
The cook. . .
Zoro doesn’t want to think too much more of the Merry’s irritating shitty cook. He shoves the thoughts (concerns) back, looking around to see if there are any bottles. He needs a drink.
“Stupid, secretive moron,” he mutters under his breath, glaring at nothing.
(now)
“Hey!”
He’s startled awake by the gentle kick. Before he can faceplant to the lawn from his sitting position, instinct takes over. He grabs dartbrow’s ankle midair—he’s freezing to the touch, suspicious enough that Zoro’s mind immediately flashes back to their earlier interaction outside of the Sunny—and yanks the cook downward before he’s subject to further abuse.
“Damn it, M-Mosshead!” He manages to keep his food offering safe, but he doesn’t make any effort to free himself from Zoro’s hold. Zoro can feel the tension in the cook’s leg melt in his hand, subtle but noticeable, like even his muscles are giving up in the cold.
Zoro glares, loosening his hold and letting the cook's leg drop. Dumbass.
The cook makes a soft, involuntary noise of protest, but Zoro ignores it. He shifts to sit upright as the cook flops down next to him, making a big show of sitting just far enough away that they don’t touch even as he hands the plate over and lets their fingers brush.
“What?” he grunts.
“F-figured you needed a s-snack after your failed efforts at ph-ph-photosynthesizing." His teeth are chattering. "Lazy b-bastard.”
Zoro eyes the plate.
The onigiri looks fine, but the shaking, gloved hands offering them are another story.
The cook is bundled up in his winter island gear, a thick jacket, fluffy scarf pulled up to his nose, but the guy still looks terrible. Worse than usual. His irritating blue eye is hazy, his obnoxiously perfect posture slumped, a weariness to his graceful yet annoying presence. Shivering hard, he huddles into himself, pale cheeks exposed just above the scarf.
Zoro’s fingers itch to brush the cook’s hair from his face.
“Still cold, Curly?” He bites into the onigiri with practiced indifference, pleased with the flavors despite the face he makes. He has to keep the cook from becoming too smug. The cook shoots him a sour look. Works every time. Zoro smiles, smugly. “Talk to Chopper?”
“Wh-why would I d-do that?” the cook sneers, but the usual aggressive effect doesn’t work as well when he’s bundled up like a weak little toddler.
“You’re shaking like a damn wimp.” Zoro gives him a pointed look, not bothering to finish chewing as he speaks because he knows it bothers the cook. “Pretty sure I saw you trip right into that Devil Fruit guy’s attack. Aren’t you s'pposed to be good with your feet, Twirly?”
“I d-didn’t trip!” He's leaning toward Zoro like he’s about to start a fight, but he stops himself at the last second. His teeth continue to chatter, and Zoro notices the way his arms tighten around himself.
"Could've fooled me." Zoro’s tempted to poke fun—the cook would do the same or worse if the situations were reversed—but he looks so pathetic that Zoro can't bring himself to roast the idiot properly. He's not as much of a jerk as the cook.
“I sh-should’ve let that stupid b-blast hit you!"
Zoro feels his anger flare again, ready to swipe his blade at this pity. It's Zoro's job to take care of the crew. "You didn't protect me—"
"M-mold doesn’t thrive as well in c-cold t-t-temperatures. . .” His voice trails, and he shivers harder. "Y-You deserve. . ."
Zoro swallows his food immediately, slamming his plate down. Frustration at being pitied or not, he can't let a crewmate suffer. “Cook.”
His eyes are dark beneath his bangs, expression unreadable. Zoro can’t tell if it’s pride, exhaustion, or something else keeping him quiet.
A beat passes.
The unspoken words make it to Zoro—it's like it was between them, before, when the cook sometimes needs more than he's been getting—and he sighs, crosses his arms, looks away. At least the cook is trying to ask. It’s more than his usual. It makes Zoro feel something. He wants to make the cook ask, but he’s also okay with just this.
It's how they communicate.
Zoro exhales, shifting. He crosses his arms and looks away, pretending to find the sea interesting. Ignorance is the only language the cook can speak when he’s like this, and Zoro doesn’t have the patience to wait for him to spit it out. He stretches out one of his legs just enough that it brushes the cook’s calf.
The cook stiffens for a split second, then inhales. A soft gasp, surprised but not unwelcome.
Keeping his gaze on the water, he stays perfectly still. The cook will protest regardless.
It’s stupid, the two of them sitting in silence, legs touching but gazes pointedly apart. Zoro focuses on his second onigiri, though his thoughts are all over the damn place. He imagines the cook resting his head on Zoro’s shoulder, the soft tickle of blonde hair on Zoro’s jaw, the tender touch of precious hands pressing—
Zoro clears his throat to shake off the image.
They’ve been awkward like this before, but there’s something different about it now that Thriller Bark has passed. It's training again, sure, but worse.
If only the cook could always be this tolerable.
(Except he has these moments, soft and unsure, and he taunts Zoro with them, with stares and words and small favors he never mentions but that he clearly overthinks. And Zoro loves them and he hates them and he's had to stop them from distracting him, from hurting him.)
The sound of something crashing in the kitchen jolts them both to reality.
“L-Luffy, you fucker!” The cook is standing quick as ever—despite being so pale earlier, there is a clear flush to his cheeks now and Zoro knows it isn't from the cold—sparing no second glance at Zoro as he runs toward the galley, almost clumsy with how stiff his movements are. “Y-you better eat e-everything, shitty M-Mosshead!”
The Sunny feels quiet again, but his skin tingles faintly where their legs had touched.
“Idiot.” He’s not cold like the cook, so his chest feels strangely warm.
(then)
It’s a small stumble on the Merry's uneven floors, nearly imperceptible, but for the normally perfect-postured cook to be the one limping makes it stand out. He needs to notice these things as First Mate, but, more importantly, he needs to notice the things that will bring the arrogant twirly cook down a peg or two.
“The fuck’s wrong with you?” Not exactly what Zoro means to say, but it gets the point across. You’re a little fucked up, aren’t you doesn’t seem like it’d go over any better. Whatever. It’s enough to drop the cook’s irritating stupid smirk, at least.
Zoro wants to punch his mouth.
“The only thing wrong,” the cook snaps, “is your presence in my galley, shitty Mosshead.” He slams Zoro’s dinner plate onto the table, glaring so strongly Usopp shifts sideways to get out of the crossfire. Smart.
Lucky for Usopp that Zoro only has Wado right now—their next stop needs to be somewhere with swords; he is incomplete like this, unable to fight at his strongest—so the damage to the Merry can’t get out of hand.
“Want to explain what happened, then, prissy bastard?”
He doesn’t drag his eyes from the cook, but he notices Nami and Usopp shift their focus to the cook, too. Meanwhile, Luffy shovels food into his mouth, purposely ignorant of the fight about to break out in favor of the opportunity to take everyone’s food. His brilliant idiot captain, at his finest.
The nosebleeding moron opens his mouth then shuts it again, turning to smile at Nami instead of addressing Zoro. Shocker. "I’m so sorry you have to hear this, sweet Nami-swan! This dumb brute has no sense of civil dinner conversation! Not like you!”
“Dinner or not”—Zoro stabs the fish on his plate aggressively, keeping it from Luffy’s stretching, greedy hands—“you owe this to the crew.”
Dartbrow seems nervous at that, gaze shifting amongst everyone as he puts an unlit cigarette to his lips. “Oh? And I suppose our local moldy moss is the judge of owing people things?”
How is it possible for someone to be so annoying?
Zoro knows they need a cook. Sailing the Grand Line without one is asking for death. And Luffy did choose one of the okay cooks from the Baratie. He did.
But why did Luffy have to choose the pretty blond (with the fitted suits around strong legs and a nice ass, with a quick tongue and sharp words on bitable lips), when they could’ve just taken any pirate cook from that restaurant who would be significantly less frustrating. . .
He thinks of the way the cook curled into himself so many nights before, flinching away from Zoro.
He thinks of his own admissions to Kuina, how strong he knew he had to become, how he knows what weakness really is.
He thinks of his role on the crew, strongest after Luffy, the protector.
Damn it.
He sighs, stands from the table, starts toward the deck. “C’mon.”
Before I stab you right now goes unsaid but very much heard.
Usopp makes a wounded sound, as though he is the one being called for a verbal berating from Zoro. Nami smacks his arm and he whimpers again.
Luffy has already stolen Zoro’s plate before he’s even made it out of the galley. "Haffunroro!" He is chewing so loudly he almost drowns out the sounds of the cook’s grating voice.
Zoro hears the idiot’s grating simpering to Nami—Don’t worry, my angel Nami! No, there won’t be any fighting at all! No, you don’t have to join us! It can’t be that important of a conversation with such an idiot neanderthal! Are you worried for me, Nami-swan? Worry no more, I’ll be back for you!—before the tap of dress shoes limping on an injured ankle finally follows him out.
Zoro doesn’t need to look at the galley door to know that Nami and Usopp are leaning against it, eavesdropping. He rolls his eyes.
“What,” the cook spits, after they’ve stared at each other in silence for an uncomfortable minute.
“Explain.”
“Explain what, you sentient cactus?”
He gestures at the cook’s left ankle. The asshole sneers.
They’re getting nowhere. Unsurprising, considering the little conversation they’ve had since their abrasive interactions at Arlong Park. Zoro scowls, impatient. He’s the First Mate, and the cook needs to admit to the weakness that got him injured. Yet another one on his growing list of obvious weak points.
The Straw Hats are a small crew, and everyone needs to be at their best. Zoro feels responsible, and this shithead doesn't seem to care.
Zoro places a hand on the cook’s shoulder. His flinch is subtle, enough that Zoro is keenly aware of the way he tenses immediately. Zoro isn’t the most comforting figure, and he hasn’t had too much physical interaction beyond Luffy (and Usopp clinging to him) since joining the crew, but it feels like he’s touching a tombstone, cold and stiff and depressing.
"Stop touching me." The cook’s visible eye darts from Zoro’s face to his hand, and he’s quick to shrug Zoro’s hand away, hands shaking as he lights the cigarette that’s been unlit between his lips this whole time.
"Hmm."
“We’re not friends.” He exhales, and the scent of tobacco makes Zoro wrinkle his nose.
“I had no idea.” This is the dumbass he’s supposed to call a crewmate. "What's that have to do with anything, shitcook?"
“So I don’t want you touching me.”
“Like I want to touch your prissy ass!” Don’t grab Wado, don’t grab Wado. “That’s why you launched yourself off a cliff?”
“I did not—”
“Then explain.” He crosses his arms, hoping he looks as strong as he usually is when he has his three swords. "You're so weak you can't grab a crewmate to save yourself?" How's Zoro supposed to protect the crew with this idiot throwing himself into danger's way for no reason? How's Zoro supposed to protect him?
Well, two swords down, he’s still stronger than this moron.
He’d prove it, but the easy defeat of someone with an injured ankle won’t bring him much pride.
They really need to find a sword seller.
Zoro reaches out his hand. The cook is thin—he has a narrow waist that Zoro can wrap his hands around and thin hips that would press well to Zoro’s thighs and he's lean enough to easily fit in Zoro’s arms—which is just an innocuous observation that a master swordsman needs to have when faced with an annoying, reckless shithead who picks fights like he breathes air.
“When was the last time you washed your hands, Mosshead?”
Point being, the cook would be easy for Zoro to grab and swing back to safety.
“Grab on, moron!” He waves his hand at the cook, who is idiotically dangling off the cliffside. They’d gotten into an argument that caught the attention of some annoying, nearby pirates, and the ensuing chaos led to their shitty cook falling off the side of the cliff after these guys.
“But then I have to touch your mold!”
“Shut the fuck up, eyebrows! You think I want your prissy princess hands near me?”
He almost doesn’t realize when shitty eyebrows does take his hand.
The cook’s hand is soft, warm, steady in his. He squeezes it in his, gentle, pleased with the size—the cook has longer fingers than he does, smaller palms though, but how would it feel if their fingers intertwined, he wonders—and then he hears the shocked gasp of his useless. Stupid. Shitty crewmate.
"Ohh. . ." It should not sound as. . . sensual as it does. Zoro's grip tightens.
"Cook—"
“I-I—!”
It’s almost unforgettable, the way he yanks his hand away, face a stupid bright red. He’s flailing as he falls backward, and there’s a loud crack when he lands.
What. The. Fuck.
Did the cook let go because it was Zoro? He’s so quick to go toward Nami, seems fine with Luffy hanging all over him. Is he really more willing to break his legs than have Zoro help him?
Is he that pathetic? Weak?
“Cook!”
The cook taps some of the ash off his cigarette, mind clearly elsewhere. The way he’s standing shows how clear it is that he’s favoring his right foot. He's so obvious in his weaknesses it's disgusting.
“Don’t touch me again.”
Zoro wishes he had three swords. He wishes the cook had two functioning ankles, so it wouldn’t mean that Zoro’s touch led him to jump off a cliff. He wishes, not for the first time, that Luffy had chosen literally any other person to serve as their cook.
He wishes they didn’t have to have this conversation at all.
(now)
Zoro munches on the onigiri the cook has given him. The breeze is mild, just enough to ruffle his hair but not enough to cause a chill. From his spot, he’s stuck watching the idiot love cook twirling from the galley with a tray of snacks in one hand and that irritating, plastered-on lovesick grin that somehow doesn’t crack even when his pretty lips are tinged blue.
The sunlight makes his hair look like spun gold.
“F-F-For you, Nami-s-swan!” The cook’s teeth chatter with every word he says, but his voice doesn’t falter and his beaming smile remains bright. He leans toward Nami with a tray of small, heart-shaped sandwiches, his words syrupy and tone as grating as ever. “Made w-with e-extra love and a k-ki—”
Nami takes one of the sandwiches then eyes him with a puzzled frown. “Sanji, you look terrible!”
The cook twirls, though his movements are sluggish, his jacket fluttering dramatically behind him as he bows to her with dramatic flair and puckered lips. “No n-n-need, Nami-saaaan!” He manages half of a hug, looking stiff and cold. “All I n-need is o-one of your w-w-warm hugs to th-thaw my p-poor heart!”
Zoro’s chest feels a bit tight, and he bites harshly into another onigiri. Shitty curlybrowed moron.
“Get off!” Nami shrieks and punches him straight to the deck. “You’re freezing!”
The tray spins—the cook catches it in a shivering blur, sandwiches unharmed—but he stays down, ass in the air and suit pants tight enough that Zoro swears under his breath and takes another bite just to keep himself from saying (or thinking) something worse.
“Serves you right, dumbass!” Zoro shouts, hoping his town sounds as angry as he feels, that it doesn’t show the uncomfortable churning in his gut. He forces himself to laugh, but his eyes narrow at the cook’s stupid, shivering frame.
“N-No one asked y-you, you u-un-unromantic br-br-brute!” he spits, then continues, much more sweetly, “Your p-p-punches are like s-soft kisses, m-my perfect m-mellorine! I treasure them a-all as g-gifts from y-you!”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He can’t stop watching how the cook’s shoulders twitch, how his hands curl around the tray like he’s afraid to drop it, even if his numb fingers can barely close. Shouldn't the Devil Fruit have worn off by now?
“That. . . actually hurt,” Nami mutters, rubbing her knuckles. “Why are you so cold, Sanji-kun?”
The cook rolls onto his side and smiles up at her, teeth still chattering. “O-Only on the outside, N-Nami-swan. . . M-My heart is b-burning for—”
“Shut the hell up!” Zoro finally snaps, much louder than he means, the onigiri in his fist a sad excuse of a rice ball now. “You’re bothering everyone, you frozen jackass.”
The cook stiffens on the lawn deck. He turns his head to glare at Zoro with cheeks flushed from cold. Or maybe it’s embarrassment. Zoro hopes it’s humiliation from his stupid antics.
He wishes he were asleep instead of hearing this. Instead of seeing the cook throwing himself at Nami again. Instead of watching him use the Freeze-Freeze shit to perv on his crewmate. Pathetic.
“What’s y-your pr-problem, Mosshead?” the cook snaps, but his voice stutters halfway through the insult as another shiver wracks his body. He’s soaked in sunlight but absorbing none of it.
"You’re making me cold just looking at you, dartbrow.”
The cook falters for a split second, then he gracefully stands again, looking suave in his prissy suit underneath layers of jackets even as he visibly shivers. His hands look red as they clutch his sandwich tray. His precious fingers barely curl, and he brings his left hand to his mouth and breathes into them.
“Not a-all of us c-can be hot-bl-blooded s-sword-wielding m-m-morons,” he sneers as he gives Nami the sandwich tray. There’s something frustrating in the way his breath fogs and disappears too fast. “E-Excuse m-me, Nami.”
Zoro shivers, staring at the rice smeared all over his hand. The cook walks stiffly as he makes his way to the men’s quarters, teeth chattering.
Nami stares at him, eyebrow raised. Zoro shoves the remains of his brutalized onigiri in his mouth, puffing out his cheeks and glaring at the deck where the cook had fallen. Can’t waste food.