Zoro’s words had echoed endlessly in Sanji’s head since he’d said them creating within him what he can only classify as a blooming crisis. Sanji had explicitly said “ladies” could call him Prince not crusty algae-brained gorillas.
It had frozen Sanji dead in his tracks despite the adrenaline of fighting coursing through him making him giddy. The smell of blood and sand and sweat clinging to the dry desert air seemed to whoosh from his senses which zeroed in on the swordsman. Suddenly the expanse of dying land became an island of just the two of them and Sanji’s ever sturdy feet felt they might betray him.
If he wanted to mock Sanji, he would have simply said mocked his moniker, not added a possessive “my” in front of it.
If he wanted to piss Sanji off, he would have said it louder and more boldly instead of affectionately mumbling it to himself.
If he wanted to flirt with Sanji, well, Sanji had never seen the swordsman flirt with anyone and wondered whether he even had it in him. Why Sanji would be the object of the swordsman’s non existent flirting seemed more an absurdity than some sort of malicious intent on Zoro’s behalf.
He’d sat with this through the days afterward when he could reflect on the fight and everything that had happened in Alabasta. He was sitting with it as they relaxed in the bath house together with the king. He was sitting with it now after they’d all peeped on the girls and been punched with “happiness” from Nami flashing them.
Zoro hadn’t bothered to look, sitting there unperturbed and disinterested and it rankled Sanji. He really thought he was so much better than everyone else, didn’t he? He’s not better than a king, though. And he’s not better than a prince… his prince. Insufferable. Did he think he was a girl or something? That there was no need to look at them because everyone should be sneaking peeks at him? A ridiculous thought, the bastard was the equivalent of discarded masculinity made sentient.
“You too good to look at boobs?” Sanji snarked at him.
Zoro raised one eyelid to lazily gaze at him before shutting it with a scoff. Somehow the action was smug and self satisfied and it pissed Sanji off more. He wanted to rile Zoro up, to make him feel the kind of uneasy that Sanji felt when he’d said “my Prince” and the comment had popped up unbidden and unwanted a thousand times a day since then even in the midst of fighting for his life. How even now when they were days past it, he still had “my Prince” playing on a loop in his crap head.
“You think you’re one of the girls? Maybe we should be peeping at you, stupid Moss,” Sanji said.
Zoro’s face changed from a resting scowl to an amused expression like he got when Sanji said something particularly stupid to bother him. However, that usually was followed by Zoro being legitimately bothered so…
“Well your prince is looking at you now,” Sanji added, malice dripping from his words.
“Shut up,” Zoro sighed and turned his head away from him. The faintest hint of reddened cheeks caught Sanji’s eye before Zoro’s face was turned.
It wasn’t really working, it seemed. Being a dick was taking him further from his goal of bothering Zoro. He wanted Zoro to feel the same kind of personal crisis he was feeling, to sit there ruminating and emotional over Sanji’s words in a messy approximation of justice. And then it dawned on him, if Zoro wanted to be one of the Prince’s ladies, then he’d treat him like one of the Prince’s ladies.
“Oh Zoro-Chan you look so handsome with your big muscles,” Sanji cooed. “Just baring your chest and showing such strength and power, my heart can’t take it!”
The shade of red that consumed Zoro’s face and trickled down to his chest was something Sanji could confidently say he had never seen on Zoro, ever. Something inside of Sanji registered this in a place he would probably never admit to having, even bottles deep or under threat of death.
Zoro quickly got up from the bath and grabbed his towel in a move Sanji would call “shyness” if he didn’t know the swordsman better than to call anything about him shy.
“Ah Zoro come back,” Luffy whined. “Sanji was just kidding. Weren’t you Sanji?”
“Oh the big strong sensitive Marimo, don’t leave,” Sanji cooed again.
He watched as Zoro’s body tensed and the blush somehow deepened.
“‘S fine. Too hot, done anyway,” Zoro croaked in response.
“Pfft, fine,” Luffy replied and pouted.
“Maybe we’re all a little overheated,” Usopp said in the placating diplomatic way he did. He, however, was looking specifically at Sanji when he said it which drew the attention of the rest of the bath companions.
“Yeah, Sanji, you look pretty hot too,” Luffy agreed.
“You’re all red— like Zoro.”
Adopting an effective battle technique that also dealt damage to himself was not going to work. A begrudging stalemate erected itself in place.
“Do you have to be such a damn pervert?” Zoro spat.
Sanji’s eyes snapped to the swordsman behind him. It had been enough to hear him audibly and obnoxiously huff at every interaction Sanji had in this damn market let alone be called names simply for delighting in the presence and attention of beautiful women.
“What exactly is perverted about complimenting beautiful women?”
Zoro scoffed in reply, looking petulantly away from Sanji’s piercing, accusatory gaze. There it was again, this quiet kind of truth clawing under the icy surface that comprised their usual interactions. It made something in Sanji crack, a want that felt like treading on a frozen lake, wondering if the surface was going to break and swallow you, or if you could safely find your way across.
“Is my little Mossy jealous,” Sanji said the words with precision, a precision notably at odds with the chaos swirling inside him at the moment.
“You’re really a dumb ass, you know that?” Zoro replied.
The intimacy of being alone, together, in this crowded place of strangers, far from the prying eyes of their crew, far from anyone who would know or care about them, made Zoro’s blushing cheeks feel profound somehow. If it meant nothing, why would he react like that? And if it meant nothing to Sanji, why was his heart trying to escape his chest in every direction?
He swallowed, too rough, as though his body had forgotten how to do simple tasks he’d otherwise unconsciously excel at. In for a beri, in for a billion of them…
Sanji flamboyantly brought his arm to the air and the other to his chest, donning a peaceful, coy expression as he turned to face Zoro, walking backward through the stalls.
“Oh how the gods have blessed me on such a fine day only dwarfed by the beauty of such a Moss as you! As though the earth herself rose up and kissed your head, your eyes echoing the storm gazing upon such a sight as yourself brings to my heart. A tempestuous blessing to overtake me, but a humble admirer of such heavenly…”
Zoro’s face had contorted into a kind of constipated tomato if Sanji had to call it anything. He didn’t bother to consciously log how it twisted his insides with excitement beyond confirming this new means to torment Zoro was a thrilling divergence from the norm.
Sanji smiled smugly and they said little else beyond the necessary for the rest of the day.
They’d been sitting in the water too long: no wind, no nothing. Luffy draped himself over the railing, bored and sighing; Usopp fiddled nervously with his gadgets while Nami did her navigator stuff trying to calculate when and where they might catch a wind. Chopper and Robin sat playing games while the idiot Mosshead worked out. He was always working out. Always shirtless. Always pushing himself as his stupid tan skin glistened in the sun, sweat trickling down the ridges of his stupid muscles, as each part of his body rippled and responded to the pressure the swordsman challenged them with. Sanji leaned, smoking, watching, pissed that Zoro was so captivating to him. Pissed the swordsman never seemed to notice him— a thought immediately banished from his mind with an aggressive drag on his cigarette.
Zoro’s self-satisfied voice cut through Sanji’s melancholy thoughts, sharp and piercing like Sanji imagined he cut down his enemies. Annoying to be on the receiving end of his violence, despite the notable lack of malice and the underlying twinge of affection. Could affection kill? Could affection cut you open and leave you bleeding and useless in its wake?
You wanna play dirty, I’ll play dirty, Sanji thought.
But really, it was boredom he would tell himself. It was tit-for-tat. Implying Sanji was a girl staring at Zoro, then Sanji would imply Zoro was a girl hitting on Sanji. Fair is fair. He ignored the cliche that skittered across his mind like a cockroach: all’s fair in love and war.
“Oh my sweetest most beautiful Mosshead-Chan, how I am blessed with the privilege of your presence, to witness the incomparable beauty that is your sweaty muscle crap,” Sanji cooed in what he hoped landed as sarcasm but feared sounded too authentic to be taken lightly.
Zoro smirked, his usual blush notably absent. The curl of his lips sent Sanji’s heart lurching into his throat.
Flags have been designed around the colors that flashed across Sanji’s face in rapid succession before he choked out a “whatever” and holed himself up in the galley.
