Recently I am obsessed with the idea of Sanji being a very talented (latin) dancer. I mean these legs are made for samba :p I imagine him just casually swaying his hips to the music while working alone in the kitchen and thinking no one sees him.
ask me how this turned into a meet cute bc idk <3 but it did <3
x
By the time the Baratie’s finally empty, it feels less like a restaurant and more like the shadow of one. The dining room’s been wiped down to a shine, hanging lights dimmed to a low amber glow. Outside, the storm has settled in with real commitment to the bit, water lashing the street in silver ropes.
Zeff had left twenty minutes ago, barking at him not to stay all night which in Zeff speak really just means lock the place up properly and remember human beings need more than coffee and spite to survive. Carne and Patty had fled at the first crack of thunder, delivery tablet finally dark and silent, and Sanij had stayed because he’s got a to-do list a kilometre long and nowhere else to be. He starts writing tomorrow’s specials, trying to put words to the half-formed shape that’s been needling the back of his skull all evening like a splinter he can’t dig out. Sometimes the quiet aftermath of the kitchen feels less lonely than going home too fast to an apartment that still smells too much like his own silence, his own skin.
He’s got flour on the thigh of his pants and a tea towel looped through his apron strings, a pencil tucked behind one ear and an unlit cigarette behind the other, music blaring. It’s something old and brassy, bright horns cutting through the empty kitchen like sunlight through storm clouds, underpinning a rhythm section that refuses to sit still. There’s vocals rich and teasing, the singer laughing her way through heartbreak, one track bleeding into the next and before long the volume’s cranked high enough that the hanging ladles tremble faintly on their hook.
He tells himself to keep focused, to keep still, but there’s a beat that hits, the kind that lives in the hips and the shoulders and the soles of his feet and suddenly the tea towel’s in his hands and he’s moving. The tray he’d meant to rack gets tucked under his arm, the perfect height for a partner’s waist. He’s good at this, he knows, in the same bodily way he knows exactly how long onions need before they sweeten, or how far he can reach before a pan tilts off balance. Movement’s always been easier than language. In motion, the constant low awareness of life quietens into something simpler, something that belongs to only him.
He slides across the tiles, the shush of rubber against the tile syncing with the drum, hips rolling and weight shifting, pulling his spine along like the tide. The tea towel flicks and snaps at the air on the off beats. He spins once, quick and controlled, to slide a stack of clean plates onto the high shelf, motion carrying him through without a wobble. He springs back and grabs for the menu notebook, laughing under his breath. The rain hammers the windows harder, a steady roar that should feel like interruption but somehow just becomes part of the percussion and he’s in the middle of a ridiculous little turn when the room in the air just — shifts.
He straightens on instinct, shoulders squaring, breathing catching high and quick in his chest, staring at the man in the doorway. For one stupid second Sanji’s brain supplies ghost, which is ridiculous because ghosts probably don’t dress like that and look like that. It takes Sanji an embarrassingly long moment to recognise the Uber Eats guy from earlier, who’d come in during the dinner rush with rain on his helmet and an expression like he’d rather be getting punched than navigating the pickup shelf. Now, he looks like the storm’s personally decided to make some kind of example outta him, green hair plastered across his forehead, water beading on his eyelashes to slide in slow tracks down the side of his throat. One hand is still braced on the door frame, like he forgot how to enter a room properly.
Sanji freezes. The music keeps going and the guy blinks once, slowly, like he’s just remembered he has a face. His cheeks are flushed, colour creeping up from the collar of his soaked shirt and Sanji, who doesn’t know what the fuck else to say, snaps: “What the hell.”
The guy’s voice comes out rough, like it’s had to fight past something. “Sorry! You were just…” His gaze does one quick sweep before he apparently catches himself and yoinks his attention to the far wall. The flush deepens drastically. “Moving.”
Sanji stares at him, before a snort tumbles out of him. He reaches over to turn the music down. “Wow, what a poet. You got a name?”
“Zoro.” His jacket’s clearly drenched, shoulders glossy and dark and the shirt underneath’s gone heavy and clingy, outlining the broad line of his collarbones and the hard slope of muscle beneath in a way Sanji absolutely refuses to notice because he’s a fucking professional.
Sanji sets the tea towel down on the bench. “Right, and what are you doing back here then… Zoro?”
The poor guy looks relieved to have a practical question to answer. “The order was wrong and the app made me circle half the suburb then the customer was yelling and then I figured you were probably closed but I thought maybe if I come back anyway…” He trails off, glancing towards the empty pickup shelf like it’s going to miraculously offer backup. “I dunno. Redo it?”
Sanji stares at him again, just kind of lost because he almost would’ve preferred it if Zoro was rude about it. He knows how to handle rudeness. This soggy, awkward, unexpectedly conscientious appearance is much harder to kick, apparently. His stupid soft heart — the terminal condition he’s been trying to manage since he was a kid — chooses this exact moment to rear up and ruin everything. He exhales through his nose sharply. “You rode back in this weather.”
“Yeah.”
“To see if I could remake the food.”
“Yeah.”
Sanji wants very, very badly to remain annoyed but, as usual, his heart has other plans. He sighs. “Take the bag off before it drowns.”
Zoro shrugs the huge delivery bag onto the floor by the door, water immediately puddling beneath it in a dark circle. Sanji goes back and finds the ticket printout, matching it the other man’s app, and gets started because it’s just steak frites, really. Annoying, but simple.
“You don’t… have to,” Zoro says from behind him, kind of awkwardly and also kind of a little too late considering Sanji’s literally firing up the grill.
Sanji glances over his shoulder, tongs already in hand like some kind of weapon. “And let some poor asshole starve?”
Zoro leans against the door frame, still dripping on everything. He gives him a look that’s partly baffled and partly something warmer, something that makes the flush on his face look less like coming in from the rain and more like he’s been caught thinking things he shouldn’t. “Right. You care a lot, then.”
“About food?” Sanji snaps the tongs at him, flashing him a smirk. “No shit.”
Zoro’s mouth dips dangerously close to a smile and then he says, far too sincerely for someone create some kind of indoor lake on Sanji’s floor: “S’good.”
And Sanji has no fucking idea what to do with that except invent a nice, practical reason to fuss so while his pan heats up he starts trying to find a clean towel. He directs Zoro onto the nearest stool, until his long legs are sticking out at awkward angles and pegs are towel that Zoro catches one-handed without looking, which is… something, surely. He rubs the towel over his hair until it sticks up in wetted spikes.
Once Sanji actually starts cooking, the kitchen takes over. Steak his the pan with a satisfying hiss, butter foaming up golden around the edges. He works fast but without rush, crisping potatoes and flashing greens in hot oil and garlic until they’re bright. He corrects the sauce with a taste and feels Zoro watching him the whole time, enough that the back of his neck stays warm and that everytime he reaches for something he’s aware of the movement in a way he wasn't ten minutes ago. He keeps his own gaze locked on his work but every now and then he catches Zoro in the reflection of the fridge door or the steel hood, leaning forward with the towel draped around his neck, eyes tracking the motion of Sanji’s hands .
It’s different to being watched on the floor — this feels too much like the storm has shrunk the world down to this kitchen only, and the two of them in it.
Zoro clears his throat after a while. “You, uh. Flip? Fast.”
Sanji doesn’t look up, but he can feel the way his mouth folds into something. “Gets better crust that way. You leave it too long on one side and it’ll steam instead of searing.”
“Crust, right. And that’s… that’s good?”
Sanji shakes his head, fighting the urge to roll his eyes because it’s almost endearing, really. “Yeah, seaweed-head. That’s good.”
“Right, yeah. You… always cook this late or just when people mess up orders?”
Sanji scoffs, slicing the steak down after it’s rested adequately. He puts everything together in the box carefully, like he’s arranging a plate. “Only when delivery guys bring vegan pasta to the people who ordered steak frites. You plan to take this one to the right address or do I need to draw you a map and a little cartoon of the customer’s face so you don’t forget it again?”
Zoro takes the box with one hands, like it might explode, pulling the order up on his phone in the other. His face falls so immediately Sanji has half a mind to check if the poor customer died. “Oh. They cancelled.”
“What d’you —”
“They already refunded the customer.” He scratches the back of his neck, sheepish and frustrated all bundled up in one thunderous expression. “I guess I could still take it?”
Sanji closes his eyes and counts to three in his head, genuinely. He thinks about killing Zoro here and now, and then thinks about how annoying it’d be to drag the other man’s not unimpressive body all the way to the deep freezer and how pissed off Zeff would be about wasting valuable freezer space, and sighs. “Congrats on bringing me full circle from pissed to pitying, really. That’s impressive.”
Zoro’s mouth twitches. “You always like this after midnight?”
Sanji gives him a long, flat look. “You always this bad at flirting?”
Zoro blinks at him, ears plunging into a red so visible it’s almost comical. “I wasn’t — I mean. I was trying.” Sanji stares at him again before, against better judgment, he laughs, short and bright and helpless. Zoro’s expression shifts from embarrassed to defensive, but it doesn’t shut down. “That bad?”
Sanji purses his lips, considering him with exaggerated seriousness. “Honestly? Like watching a baby horse trying to use chopsticks. But you get points for effort. And for the cooking questions, very subtle.”
There’s something almost boyish in the flash of surprise that crosses Zoro’s face, oddly charming as it is, and he makes a show of looking at the window. “So. Storm’s still… I should probably wait it out. A bit.”
“No, really? Was the apocalypse outside not enough of a clue?”
Zoro ignores the dig with admirable calm. “Sorry for throwing out your… closing up or whatever.”
Sanji waves it off with the spoon he’s trekking to the sink. “Quit apologising so much, it’s ugly on you.”
“What… what looks good on me, then?”
It’s awful and clumsy and unpracticed, but it lands in Sanji’s stomach like a match lit and then tossed somewhere stupid and flammable. He turns away fast, finding plates to hide the heat that wants to crawl up his neck. “Silence. Silence looks good on you.”
Zoro laughs, quiet and surprised into it, and it does a funny, dangerous thing to the room. Sanji busies himself plating the food because there’s no universe in which he makes steak frites at this hour and eats none of them himself. He adds extra fries t one plate and more greens to the other out of habit, then swaps them because he realises he has no idea what Zoro likes besides apparently a determination to return to the scene of his own delivery crimes. “C’mon. If you’re waiting out the storm you might as well be useful and tell me if I need more pepper in this sauce.”
The storm drums on outside like it’s trying to make a point and Sanji directs Zoro to the staff table by the pastry fridge, sliding a plate across. Zoro looks at the food like it might just vanish if he thinks wrong. “You’re feeding me.”
“Oh, I’m feeding myself. You just happen to be in the blast radius.” He watches Zoro’s face as the other man takes a bite, unable to help it.
Zoro chews it slowly, carefully. “That’s… really good.”
“Obviously.” He feels stupidly pleased all the same, the way he always is, but made worse by the sheer openness on the face before him. The room settles around them, around the scrape of forks agahinst plates and the steady hiss of rain against the windows, chased by the occassional low grumble of thunder. Sanji stretches his leg out under the table, bumping their ankles together and smiling a little at the way Zoro’s ears go red again.
The conversation that follows should be awkward, maybe, but a strange kind of ease settles in. Zoro tells Sanji about the motorbike outside, that he’s had to patch up three times because the left indicator keeps dying and in return Sanji tells him about Zeff throwing a whole fish at Patty for overcooking rice a few weeks back. Zoro shrugs and says it seems reasonable and Sanji grins, shark-like.
At some point, Zoro clears his throat and moves a bean across the plate a truly glacial speed. “So. The… dancing thing.”
Sanji nearly chokes on a fry. “Yeah, nah.”
“I didn’t even anything. I was just going to ask… what it was.”
“Music, believe it or not.” At Zoro’s expression he sighs. “Samba.”
Zoro glances towards the prep station, where Sanji’s phone sits, still playing quietly. “You do that a lot?”
“When I’m alone.”
He nods slowly, like he’s trying to figure out how to actually put the next words down without embarrassing the both of them. There’s a sharp inhale and then he blurts, almost too fast: “Looked good.”
Sanji may or may not set the glass down a little too hard. There’s a small splash, maybe. Who can say. “You’re — what?”
Zoro leans back in his chair, looking infuriatingly relaxed now that he’s dry and fed and has apparently survived complimenting someone. “You said I was flirting bad. Maybe I’m improving.”
“Oh my god.” Sanji buries his face in his hands and, honestly, it’s hard to tell if he’s doing it so that Zoro doesn’t see the unexpected blush that thatches across his face, or if he’s doing it to keep his hands from reaching out and choking the other man then and there. He doesn’t know what else to do with all this, so he sets to cleaning, stacking plates and wiping benches and jotting notes about the sauce after all. He steals some fries off Zoro’s plate and gets his hand smacked lightly with a fork for it.
“I just fed you!”
“S’my plate now.”
Sanji flicks him across the ear and dumps all the dishes in the sink. “You’ve got nerve.”
“Yeah? You like that, too?”
It is, truly, an effort to keep his hands in the sink and not, say, fisting into Zoro’s shirt to pull him closer. He huffs and lets his phone start up again, music sliding in with velvet rhythm and rolling percussion. Zoro’s silent for a few tracks, before he clears his throat deliberately. “That one, too?”
Sanji hums and wipes his hands on the tea towel, leaning back against the sink to eye him. “You taking requests now?”
“Maybe.” The look Zoro gives him should not do anything to him, but unfortunately it does several things so Sanji retaliates by turning the volume up.
He hesitates just briefly, before committing because god knows the night is already stupid enough to permit one more bad idea. “You dance?”
“Not if I can help it.”
Sanji laughs softly and shakes his head, partly at the awkward tone and partly at the way Zoro’s grin is sitting on his face, easy and casual and real.
The thunder rolls further off, noticed with an unwelcome pang even though Sanji knows, realistically, that it can’t storm forever and that Zoro’s going to have to leave. He looks at the drying plates and the wet jacket hanging over the back of a chair and thinks, with awful clarity, that he’s going to remember this night for longer than he should and, worse, that he wouldn’t even mind if it happened again.
Zoro follows his gaze to the windows. “Looks better.” There’s a longer pause this time, before his voice comes again, awkward. “I could… come by again. Sometime. For food and whatever.”
Sanji’s heart gives a silly little thud, even as he stares. “For food. And whatever.”
“And whatever.” The smile on Zoro’s face turns small, quiet. Shy, maybe. He shucks his jacket back on, grimacing at how damp it still is. “Thanks for the steak.”
Sanji worries at his bottom lip for a second, before the recklessness gets the better of him., “Next time don’t wait until I’m closed.”
Zoro stills, glancing sharply at him, the surprise flickering into something warmer. Something that looks suspiciously like hope. “Yeah, alright.”
He heads for the back door but pauses at the threshold, just enough. His face has shifted into a disastrous pink. “You looked really good dancing.” Then he opens the door and disappears into the rain soft night before Sanji can throw anything at him, leaving Sanji standing there with his pulse beating high in his throat, wondering what the hell that was.
He’s barely had time to drag himself back to the menu when the door bangs open again, Zoro coming through like he never left, rain still clinging to his hair. He looks like he spent the entire ten seconds outside arguing with himself before losing, spectacularly. He rubs his nose, not quite meeting Sanji’s eyes. “Could you teach me. Like. Show me how. The samba thing.”
Sanji just fucking stares at him. The request hits a little harder than it should because he’s not a kid, he’s not an idiot: he knows this probably isn’t about dancing. The implication lands low and warm in his stomach, heat taking over his face before he can stop it. All he can hope is that the kitchen lights hide it.
“We can’t dance here,” he manages, gesturing at the spotless kitchen. “I just cleaned everything. This is a professional kitchen, not a —”
“I live, like, ten minutes away,” Zoro blurts, words tumbling out in a rush. His ears go even redder; he looks mortified and hopeful all at the same time, like he can’t believe he said it aloud but also can’t take it back now.
Sanji feels the flush deepen. He swallows, fighting the smile that wants to take over his entire face. “For dancing. And whatever.”
Zoro’s head lifts, relief flashing so open and unguarded that Sanji almost laughs again. Hope looks stupidly good on him. “And whatever.”
“C’mon.” Sanji grabs his own jacket, pausing only to turn the lights off. Zeff can deal with the menu tomorrow. “But if you step on my feet I’m kicking you out of your own apartment.”
The smile that hits Zoro’s face is the exact kind that does something complicated to Sanji’s stomach. He leads Sanji outside, to where the rain’s softened to a light drizzle, the air cool and clean. His motorbike’s still where he left it, glistening wet under the streetlights and he looks between them like he’s trying to figure out the logistics.
Sanji raises his eyebrows. “Ten minutes, right?”
“Eight, if you’re good.” He swings a leg over, waiting for Sanji to climb on. The seat’s cold and damp through his pants and Sanji hesitates properly for a second, before resting his hands on Zoro’s waist, solid and warm even through the thick jacket. The contact feels louder than it should, Zoro freezing for longer than he should.
Then he starts the bike and Sanji shifts closer, hands settling more firmly. The rain mist is cool on his face and he can’t stop staring at a tiny, wet curl of hair on the back of Zoro’s neck. As they pull away from the restaurant the city lights smear soft through the drizzle and all Sanji can think about is how ten minutes has never felt so short and so long at the same time.
if your animal is lying on the floor, furniture etc, it’s important to take a picture of them. then, if they move or shift in any way, it’s important to take another picture. with this technique, you can take many pictures of your animal
