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“You should introduce me to your dad.”
Zoro finally speaks the words that Sanji had been dreading hearing. They’re laying on the deck of the Going Merry, late at night, looking up at the stars. Date night isn’t an easy thing to arrange when you’re a pirate. There’s not many places you can go unless your ship is at port for once, and there’s not a lot of privacy you can get on a small ship like this. Laying on the deck together and stargazing when the rest of the crew was asleep was always a solid option though, but you did run the risk of falling asleep on deck and getting woken up by water spraying onto the ship and hitting you.
“You’ve already met Zeff.” Sanji lifts his head off of Zoro’s chest so he could look at him with what he hopes comes off as confusion and not as barely disguised pain.
“Okay. Yeah, I’ve met him.” Zoro rolls his eyes in endeared exasperation. “I mean you should introduce me to him as your boyfriend, not just as one of the guys you went out to sea with.”
There it was. That was the confirmation that this was exactly the conversation he didn’t want to be having. Sanji’s face wears an expression like he just bit into a lemon as he thinks about how to phrase this. This entire ordeal is embarrassing to him. He knows it’s stupid, but it’s not something he can help.
“I… can’t introduce you to him as my boyfriend.” Sanji finally says. “Like… I can’t do that literally ever.”
“Why not?” Zoro asks, narrowing his eyes in confusion as he lifts his head up off of the deck.
“I just… can’t.”
“Does Zeff not know you like guys?” Zoro presses, trying to figure out what the root of the problem was. “Do you think he would freak out if he found out?”
“No, that’s not the issue.” Sanji shuts down that line of reasoning immediately. “He’s known that for a few years now. I think the old man’s actually hoping I marry a man and not a woman so the chances of him having to deal with grandkids goes down. It’s not a guarantee, he knows that, but it’s still a lower chance than some of the other options.”
“Well, if that’s not why you can’t tell him, then is it something about me? Do you think he’ll… not approve of me and demand we break up or something like that?”
“No, the issue is…” Sanji cringes, well aware that he’s digging himself deeper into this hole with every word he says. “The issue is that he would like you too much.”
“…Do you think he would try and hit on me or something?” Zoro’s face scrunches up in disgust. “Because I don’t think he was the kind of man to try and get with his son’s partner, but-“
“That’s not it either, he wouldn’t like you like that.” Sanji runs a hand down his face in embarrassment. “He’d think you’re really great and he would want me to marry you. He wouldn’t want to be with you in any way. He’d like you in the way he’d like you as a future son-in-law.”
Zoro just stares at him, the bewilderedness and confusion on his face increases every second. The gears are turning in his head, but they aren’t doing anything up there.
“I fail to see how this is a problem.” He finally says after a moment. “Your dad likes your boyfriend and approves of him so much that he wants you to marry him. That’s objectively a good thing, Sanji.”
“It’s not. Not in this case it isn’t.”
“How is it not a good thing in this case?!”
“It’s just…” Sanji lets out a slow exhale before continuing. “Oh, this is so embarrassing. Do you remember that disagreement we had about two nights ago? The one around dinner time?”
“The disagreement we had around dinner a couple days ago?” Zoro repeats, his eyebrows furrowing as he tries to remember. It was such a minuscule thing, it doesn’t surprise Sanji that Zoro forgot about it. “You mean the one we had when you were making that sauce that-“
Zoro stops in the middle of his sentence. The realization dawns on him, and his boyfriend watches it happen in real time. Zoro pushes himself up into a proper sitting position, rather than just having his head and shoulders lifted off of the desk. He looks down at Sanji with an expression that shows he thinks the blond is absolutely crazy.
“Are you seriously telling me that your dad can’t find out that me and him are in agreement that-“
Two nights ago, Sanji was making dinner for the crew. This wasn’t anything special by itself. Sanji made dinner — and every other meal — for the crew all the time, that was his job as the ship’s cook. What made tonight’s dinner a little special was that it was something new.
When they stopped at port last, they had the chance to try a new restaurant. Most people would expect a cook to be offended that his crew would rather stop at a restaurant than eat his cooking, but Sanji didn’t take it personally. It wasn’t an attack against his skills, his friends loved his cooking and he knew it. It was just nice to have something different every once in a while.
Truth be told, Sanji was actually excited to go to whatever restaurants they passed by on the Grand Line. New restaurants meant new food he’s never tried before, and that meant new recipes he could learn. Sometimes he had to figure out how to create them from scratch, but usually he could talk someone or another into writing it down for him.
That didn’t mean he always followed the instructions to the letter, though. In fact, he often didn’t. Like many chefs, he made little changes here and there, making the recipe his own. Sometimes he put different herbs in, and sometimes he changed what vegetables were in it entirely. Other times, he made adjustments for his crewmates sake, like doubling the protein for Zoro and Luffy, or taking mushrooms out of a recipe for Usopp, or figuring out how to swap the fruit in a dessert for tangerines for Nami on her birthday.
But, admittedly, sometimes he just did it for his own somewhat selfish reasons.
The restaurant the crew had stopped at served a wonderful pasta dish. It used penne as a base, and had a tomato and meat based sauce that had just a slight kick to it. Everyone else thought it was to die for, and Sanji thought it was good, that it was great, even… but it could be better. It’s just a small issue of the wrong amount of the wrong herbs. That’s the problem Sanji had with most dishes he altered. A lot of people thought any green herb that tasted good could go into any dish, and it would be fine. Sanji disagreed.
He was almost done with the sauce when he heard the door to the kitchen open. Sanji turned around with a sigh, ready to tell Luffy to stop being impatient and to go wait on deck. Instead, he was met with a very different sight than what he was expecting. A very different, and much more welcome, sight.
Zoro gently pushed the kitchen door closed with his foot, his hands busy finishing up toweling his hair off. He must have just gotten done with bathing after training. Sanji was a little disappointed that he had put his shirt back on already, but even with it on, his boyfriend was… wow.
“Whatever you’re cooking smells good.” Zoro stated, placing his towel around his shoulders. “It always does, but still.”
“Thank you.” Sanji scooped some of the almost done sauce up in a spoon and held it out for Zoro, his hand cupped under it so none happened to drip onto the floor. “Here, taste this for me.”
Sanji didn’t let anyone help him cook, usually. It wasn’t anything against his crew. There was nothing wrong with them, not really, and Sanji loved them more than anything. They just happened to be very chaotic and very messy. Was that something Sanji disliked about his crew? No. He wouldn’t change that about them for the world. But he also wouldn’t allow that in his kitchen.
The one thing he did allow was taste-testers. He trusted his crew enough with that job. Sometimes that honor fell on Nami, or Robin, or Luffy, but usually Zoro was the one who ended up doing it. Luffy wasn’t always very happy about that, because he always wanted to taste what was being cooked, but Sanji didn’t care. He was dating Zoro, and that meant Zoro got dibs on being his taste tester.
The green haired man didn’t even take the spoon from Sanji. He just leaned forward and sipped from it, letting his boyfriend hold it for him. Sanji didn’t mind. He actually liked it. It was this little oddly domestic thing they had stumbled into doing.
“Mmm… it’s good…” Zoro mused, licking a small bit of sauce off of his lips as he thought it over. “…but it’s missing something.”
Sanji cringed a little at that. It wasn’t because his cooking was being criticized. It was because he was trying to take something out of the sauce without it being too noticeable. For a moment, Sanji hoped that Zoro wouldn't recognize what was different about his version of the sauce.
“…I think this needs more oregano.”
Sami regretted teaching this man how to tell the difference between different common herbs and spices. Ever since Zoro discovered what oregano tasted like and knew how to name it, he’s been obsessed with the stuff. Any meal that had any amount of oregano in it didn’t have enough oregano in it for Zoro. Sanji hates it. He has to kiss this man, and it would be a delightful experience, except he has to grapple with the fact that, if Zoro had his way, kissing him would leave the taste of oregano in Sanji’s mouth just from how much of the herb Zoro would be eating.
“It does not need more oregano.” Sanji protested immediately, covering his sauce pan back up with its lid. “You are just crazy and think everything needs more oregano, when it doesn’t.”
“No,” Zoro doubled down, “I swear the version at the restaurant had more oregano in it.”
“I don’t think your sense of taste can be trusted about that.”
“Why? Because I’m not some fancy cook like you?” Zoro raised an eyebrow at Sanji’s excuse.
“No, because you were drunk. I’m surprised you can even remember how what you ate tasted. I’m surprised you can even remember what you ate.”
“I wasn’t drunk.”
“I watched you drink four beers, at minimum.”
“You say this like that’s enough for me to get drunk. I was barely even tipsy.”
The worst part is that Sanji couldn’t even argue with that. He knew his boyfriend’s alcohol tolerance was genuinely insane. He swore that if pirating and bounty hunting hadn’t worked out, Zoro would be out there making bank on drinking competitions.
“Okay, yes, the original recipe had more oregano in it.” Sanji sighed, finally giving up on bullshitting his boyfriend. “But it really didn’t need that much.”
“The amount of oregano was fine. They could’ve put some more in there, actually.”
“…You are out of your mind.” Sanji rubbed the bridge of his nose, exasperated. “You are just like Zeff, you are both insufferable when it comes to oregano.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that both of you like a genuinely deranged amount of oregano in everything you eat. Orange is disgusting, and I’m not going to pretend it’s not, and I’m not going to tolerate having two people now trying to convince me I’m wrong. It’s unrefined, it’s overused, and it’s only good in about half the quantities that most other chefs insist on using it in.”
“Have you ever considered that you’re the one who’s wrong?” Zoro shot back. “Maybe Zeff is onto something. He has been a cook longer than you have. Maybe he knows something that you don’t.”
“Oh don’t you even start!”
“Oregano.” Zoro says, like he has to take a moment to process just how stupid this was. “You won’t tell your dad that we’re dating because… we both think you’re absolutely insane for your hatred of oregano?”
“…yes.”
There’s a moment of pure silence. Zoro just stares at his boyfriend. Usually he would see Sanii under the moonlight and be struck by how beautiful he was. Right now, Zoro was just struck by how silly his boyfriend could be, to put it nicely.
“Sanji…” He starts, unsure as to how to even express what he was thinking.
“I will not be outnumbered in my own kitchen.” Sanji interjects before Zoro can say anything else.
“Outnumbered?!” Zoro repeats back to him, confusion and exasperation growing by the second.
“Yes! Outnumbered!” Sanji says like it’s supposed to be obvious and like this is supposed to be considered a reasonable reaction. “I am not going to have two people try to convince me that not using oregano is wrong! I am fine having one of you in my kitchen at a time, but I will not have the two of you teaming up against me!”
“Sanji, we are in a different sea entirely than the Baratie. How in the hell is he supposed to… ‘team up with me’ on getting you to stop avoiding oregano like the plague.” Zoro tries to reason with his boyfriend.
“…Well, I’d have to bring you back there to introduce you to him as my boyfriend, wouldn’t I?”
“You could also just tell him we’re dating over a den den mushi when we get to the next town, if us being in the same room as each other is apparently that much of a problem. How are me and him supposed to gang up on you then?”
“…what if we got a den den mushi on the Merry?” Sanji weakly tries to make an excuse. “Then you can call him at any time when you need backup.”
“Why would I ever do that?” Zoro deadpans. Then he sees the look on Sanji’s face and he sighs, softening his expression. “…if I promise not to get your father involved with the whole oregano thing, will you stop being dumb and tell him we’re dating?”
“You promise you won’t have him help you convince me to put more oregano in my dishes?”
“I promise. I’ll even back you up on your dumb herb choices, even if I disagree with them, if he starts on it when I’m around.”
“…Yeah. Okay. I’ll call him once we get to port. I’ll tell him.”
“Thank you.” Zoro sighs in relief.
He lays back down on the deck, getting cozy again. Or, at the very least, getting as cozy as one could reasonably get while laying on a ship deck. He gently pull: Sanji back down to lay against his chest. His boyfriend isn’t the biggest fan of laying on the deck like this, which is why Zoro was acting as a pillow for him. That, and because he likes cuddling with his boyfriend like this. They both won this way.
Zoro closes his eyes, relaxing and just enjoying the moment. He was supposed to be stargazing, but he felt so comfortable he could fall asleep just like this. Well, he could fall asleep anywhere, but laying on the deck like this was still nice. The argument had been put to rest, he had his boyfriend’s head pressed against his check, and all was right in the world again.
“Hey, that cluster of stars looks like a horse.” Sanji mumbles, tilting his head a little to get a better look at the sky.
Zoro cracks his eyes open again. It takes him a few moments to find the group of stars that Sanji is looking at. Part of why is because it doesn’t look like a horse at all. It looks like it maybe has four legs, or at the very least three of them, since one of its front legs looks too wiggly to be an actual leg. And its neck is way too short to be a horse’s neck, and its tail is way too stubby and not nearly thick enough to look like it’s made of hair.
“That doesn’t look like a horse at all.” Zoro disagrees, scrunching his nose up a little. “It looks like some kind of weird dog.”
“No, it doesn’t!” Sanji scoffs, pointing up at the sky. “Look at how long its legs are! Dogs don’t have legs that long, it’s got to be a horse. And don’t you see its tail?”
“Its tail? You mean its tail that’s shorter than its snout? Aren’t horse tails supposed to be really long?”
“Okay, first of all, horse tails can be short. Second of all, that tail isn’t short. Its tail is clearly going down to the middle of its legs!”
“The more you try to convince me that that bunch of stars looks like a horse, the more I begin to believe that Chopper needs to check your vision.”
“I need my vision checked?!”
Yep. All was as it should be between them again.