Work Text:
"Sanji?" Hoofed hands tugged at his pant leg, drawing part of his attention down toward where the soft voice of Chopper came from. He was busy slicing vegetables for salad and counting down the time until the rest of his dishes were done as well, managing each item so it all came ready at the same time, and so glanced down at the reindeer-human in his short form only briefly. On the other side of the cabin he could hear Usopp muttering to himself as he searched through his toolbox looking for something.
"What is it, Chopper?" Sanji said absently, concentrating more on the angle of his cuts.
"How old were you when you first started to like girls so much?"
The knife skittered forward out of suddenly nerveless fingers, scattering thin-sliced carrots everywhere. Biting back the almost automatic reaction to shout 'it's none of your damn business!', Sanji looked down into the earnest – and so very innocent – face of Chopper and groaned. Part of him was painfully aware that Usopp had stopped pawing through his box of junk back there and was probably staring at the both of them at this very moment with his jaw on the floor and his eyes bugging out.
"Er… I… I suppose I was about fifteen or so, Chopper," Sanji said, glad that his voice didn't sound too strangled and the lie too obvious. "Why?" Chopper was a doctor; their ship's doctor. He wasn't going to ask him a birds and the bees kind of question, was he? Sanji thought, feeling a touch of sweat start on his brow along with an intensely urgent craving for a cigarette. No, probably not. That tough old lady, Doctor Kureha, wouldn't have neglected such an important part of Chopper's education. Which meant the question was probably going to be one of the really hard ones to answer… about feelings and shit. He bit back a groan of dismay, looking down reluctantly.
Chopper's eyes were huge and almost wobbly and Sanji's gut did a warning drop that told him to run now, and to run fast and to run far. Before it was too late. But strangely his legs wouldn't budge. So he just stood there at the counter, carrots scattered all over the place, staring down at the little reindeer as if he were the largest Sea King in the world come to eat the Going Merry and his ankles were chained together.
"I was just wondering, is all," Chopper said, frowning, his hoofed hand twisting at the fold of Sanji's pants he had in his grasp. It was enough to let Sanji know that the matter was important to Chopper. "I'm going to be sixteen in a few months you know and I haven't ever… kissed a, a girl. Yet, I mean. Except for Doctorine, but I don't think that counts."
"Why, is there… uh… I mean… do you want to kiss a particular girl, Chopper?" Sanji managed to ask, a part of his brain already raging that it had better not be Nami-san the little shit was interested in kissing… but thankfully he managed to keep that part under control for the moment. On the far side of the room, Usopp made a harsh gargling kind of noise and he inwardly vowed to the punt the idiot over the bow the next chance he got for being witness – no matter how unwillingly – to the uneasy predicament Sanji currently found himself in.
"N-no," Chopper said hesitantly, looking up at Sanji with a kind of wary and yet still confused desperation on his face. "I just… wondered… if it was okay if I still didn't want to kiss a girl yet." Then he added in a hasty rush, blanching slightly, "And definitely not Nami, okay, just so you know, okay Sanji?" Another part of him bristled more. What the hell was wrong with Nami-san anyway? Why didn't the little fool want to kiss her? Then he blinked himself back to something closer to sanity as Chopper went on, his voice shaking a bit now, " I-I just wondered when you first kissed a girl. And what it was like… what it feels like. Is it fun? And how come you keep trying to kiss Nami and Robin and even Vivi when they don't want you to… and how come they didn't want you to anyway, Sanji? Does it hurt sometimes or something?"
There was more choking going on from over Usopp's way. Probably desperately stifled laughter, if he knew the idiot sharpshooter. And he did. Long-nose was so dead later.
Remembering the inadvertent witness, Sanji got himself under control, lifting the hands he'd flattened on the counter up to tuck one casually in a pants pocket as he fished his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket with the other. "Hm. Dunno. What do you say, Usopp? Does kissing hurt sometimes? You kissed that girl of yours back on your home island all the time, didn't you?"
"Oh, did you Usopp? Really?" Chopper whirled around immediately, his eyes going huge and sparkly. Apparently he hadn't considered tapping anyone else as a victim for his questions. Sanji wasn't sure if he was flattered by that idea or not… "Tell me about it please, Usopp!" Chopper all but squealed.
"Did I kiss Kaya?" Usopp blinked hard, his face going pale and kind of shocked, but his eyes were also going soft and kind of dreamy too, Sanji noted with a frown. Which meant Usopp had definite feelings for that Kaya of his. Then he spazed, of course, eyes wide, face flushing bright red all the way out to the end of his long nose, all while spreading his hand out wide in front of him and waving them back and forth desperately in denial. "Nonono… I never kissed her! Not Kaya! She was rich and beautiful and I'm not… I mean, she was sick and feeling poorly and I didn't want to endanger her health. So I just told her stories every day to cheer her up."
"And she gave you a whole ship just because of that," Sanji said dryly, lighting his cigarette and taking a deep, restorative drag on it as Chopper took a half-step away from him, staring at Usopp now with that daunting intensity instead.
"No, she gave Luff… er, us the ship because Luff… er, we saved her life and her fortune from that sneaky lying cat bastard pirate, Kuro!" Usopp shouted indignantly. "I could have kissed her, but I was sca… being chivalrous! What about you, Sanji? Who was the first girl you kissed?" Usopp crooned mockingly, fists perched challengingly on his hips. "Or were you too sca--chivalrous too?"
"Oooh!" Chopper said. And before he knew it those damned shining, trusting eyes were turned back up to him again, begging for more information.
"A true gentleman doesn't kiss and tell," Sanji said loftily, shamelessly hiding behind his cigarette as Chopper's expression fell into gloomy disappointment. But it wasn't a topic Sanji was prepared to discuss with the reindeer-man. Particularly not when one's first kiss had been almost forced and happened only for several less-than-noble reasons – most of which had to do with thinking he was proving something to the shitty old man with his actions – while instead he'd just made a complete fool of himself. And he'd been barely thirteen at the time. Which also wasn't something Chopper needed to know.
Chopper already looked near to tears, making Sanji's heart twinge with guilt in his chest. He crouched down low, cigarette trailing from his lips, and put his hands on Chopper's shoulders. He thought he heard the main door open and close, and mentally cursed Usopp blue for taking the opportunity to run. He heartily wished he could too. "There's no hurry, Chopper," he said as calmly as possible to the nearly-distraught doctor. "You just take your time about it, look around, be sure of the person you pick and when it feels, right, it'll happen."
"But how do I know when it's right?" the reindeer-man wailed. "And what should I do then?"
Sanji sighed heavily. "Kissing is easy. It's just putting your lips against someone else's and pressing a little bit…"
Chopper sniffled, whispering pathetically until the last word, which rose on a sudden frightened wail. "But what if I do it wrong? What if I hurt her? I'd dieeeee!"
"Oi, stupid cook! What the hell are you telling him?" Sanji's head jerked up and he stared, stunned, right into Zoro's narrowed, furious eyes. Just the second most critical person he didn't want to walk in right then, of course. He recovered his poise quickly, returning Zoro's glare just as narrowly, awkward uneasiness and embarrassment changing gratefully to an anger that was safe to direct at a far more durable target.
"Don't walk into the middle of other people's conversations, moron," Sanji growled. "Chopper asked me, that's all."
"Asked you what?! How to be a pervert?! I doubt that," Zoro said menacingly, stalking over all indignance and glower to loom over the two of them where they crouched next to the counter. Sanji leaped to his feet to face him, bristling, while Chopper squeaked and cowered away from them both by pressing himself tight against the cupboards, eyes wide and anxious.
"No! He just asked me something you wouldn't know anything about you shitty seaweed head!" Sanji shouted. They stood inches apart, glaring into each other's eyes, hands fisted at their sides.
"So tell me before I beat the crap out of you then, you damn pervert-cook!"
Sanji all but screamed back, cigarette bouncing wildly between his lips, "He just asked me what it was like to kiss! You insensitive moron!"
Zoro's gaze got even more menacing and his words weren't much more than a growl. "Oh? So why don't we show him!" And then a hard hand was around the back of his neck, yanking him forward, and another hand was plucking the cigarette out of his mouth and tossing it in the sink behind him, and then, before he could think or even blink, Zoro's mouth was on his, hot and hard and relentless.
Sanji's brain locked up.
Zoro's tongue pushed through lips widened by shock. Stroked deep into his mouth. He parried it automatically, mind still gone, eyelids fluttering low. Hot. So hot and warm and skilled… he'd never imagined Zoro could actually be good at kissing… Not that he'd thought about the topic much. He groaned as a questing tongue slid around behind his lips. No way. Hardly at all. Oh and that most definitely was not his arm that was sliding around Zoro's neck in return now either. And it most definitely was not his hand that had settled on that damn ratty haramaki and was fisting in it, dragging the other man closer. It wasn't his leg either, winding around the other's thighs. Trapping them together as mouth devoured mouth, heated and urgent.
He'd already forgotten why this had started. Only cared that the interfering prick's mouth was hot and wet and deep beneath his own.
There was a wailing sound somewhere near their feet. Then a terrific clattering thunder across the floor, followed by a loud crash from somewhere that seemed very far away from them both, but was most likely at the door. The shrieking faded away, finally, outside. They both ignored the commotion, caught up in the touch, the feel, the taste of the other.
The kitchen was deathly silent until they broke apart for air, both of them panting deeply. Hands tangled tightly in hair or gripping shoulders. Legs entwined. Hearts pounding against each other.
"Idiot swordsman," Sanji gasped, glaring. He'd never expected Zoro do to something like this. Never in a million years. "Wh-what do you think you're doing..."
"Don't be stupid, cook," Zoro growled back automatically, frowning. His eyes heavy-lidded and gleaming with something that wasn't, for once, annoyance. But only barely.
"...stopping now?" Sanji murmured and dragged Zoro's face back down to his, making an answer moot.
-- end --