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The sound of an explosion jerks him from sleep.
Adrenaline jolts through him, his sword in hand before his eyes have even fully opened. Marines, it's always the fucking Marines, right when he's hit that perfect place in his nap. He staggers to his feet, blinking away sleep to—
“Get down!” Usopp shrieks from the crow’s nest, but before he can duck, another bang reverberates overhead.
Wet splatters his hair, oozes down his neck. His mind leaps to fear, towards abrupt ends and shattered dreams before his brain sluggishly registers that whatever's seeping into his shirt is far too cold to be his.
It's green, for one—now that he's regained his head—a viscous goop that drips down his chest when he plucks at his shirt. His hand comes away covered in seeds, small and black where they litter his palm, slick with slime.
“Up there!” Usopp shouts, but when Zoro follows the line of his finger towards the trees lining the narrow channel, no visible enemies hide in the branches.
The Merry’s furled sails barely brush the leaves when a series of blasts rips through the sky.
Zoro dives for cover as slime pods splatter against the deck. One catches his shoulder, bursting into a cascade of seeds that bounce and scatter when his boots skid through them. He grabs the handrail, yanking himself up the stairs towards the cover of the galley when the kitchen door flies open and Sanji barrels outside instead, fire in his eyes.
“Dammit, Usopp,” Sanji barks, shoving past Zoro with complete disregard for the imminent danger overhead. “I just served tea. Can we not have one moment of fucking peace without you dicking around with those shitty impact dials—”
Another bang explodes overhead, and as slime soaks Sanji's hair in green-tinged goop, Zoro can't help but snicker. Somehow he still looks good—he learned two islands ago that Sanji always looks good, but—
Sanji whirls on him, seeds flinging out of his hair when he turns.
“What the hell are you laughing at?” he snaps, giving him a glare that sends Zoro’s hand reaching for a second sword. “It’s not like you look any better, you mossy-haired bas—” A trio of blasts interrupts him, striking close enough to his loafers that he dances back, barely keeping his toes from the worst of it. “Usopp! Fucking read the room!”
“It’s not me!” Usopp hollers down, his indignation carrying all the way from where he’s huddled out of sight below the barrel of the crow’s nest. “Did you hear me say any of the things I say when I launch things? It’s the trees! They must be spontaneously combusting or—”
Another barrage sounds, seed pods splatting into goo on the deck as the Merry slips through the last of the channel and into a peaceful cove. Beyond it, gentle waves stretch towards the horizon, breaking on the sandy shoals just off the beach curving around them.
The easy conversation of the jungle birds resumes as though it's never been interrupted, the transition from chaos to life as usual so abrupt that it can only be categorized as Grand Line nonsense. The ship is a wreck, the deck littered with plops of gunk and seeds, but somehow Luffy’s completely unscathed when he bounds through the mess, arriving just as Usopp descends from the crow’s nest to join them.
“I swear, it wasn’t me,” Usopp hastily reiterates before Sanji can accuse him again. “Everything was fine before we went beneath those trees, and then—”
“BAM!” Luffy finishes, grinning like mad. “You two are covered in slime! How come you didn’t dodge?”
“Didn’t have a chance to,” Zoro mutters, grimacing when he peels himself out of his shirt. Goop clings to his skin, already gone tacky dry when he swipes his bandana over his face.
“Goodness,” Robin murmurs, emerging from the galley with Nami on her heels. Chopper peeks around them, eyes wide when he takes in the state of the ship.
“My darlings, please—” Sanji throws out a hand to stop them from coming any further. And really, even if the slime is inconvenient, the amount dripping from Sanji’s hair is at least entertaining. Seed-speckled goo clings to his collar, slicks his tie to his chest. He pulls a face when he licks his lips.
“I certainly hope this isn’t toxic,” Robin remarks, frowning when a delicate, conjured hand swipes a fingerful of pulp from the deck. She rubs it between her index finger and thumb, examining one of the seeds. “Some plants are caustic enough to cause permanent damage if touched.”
Usopp audibly gulps, hands clasped around his upper arms when he shrinks into himself. “Oh, I’m definitely allergic to this,” he agrees, nodding furiously.
“Damage to us or Merry?” Nami clarifies as she steps gingerly around Robin to survey the deck.
“How lovely of you to worry for me,” Sanji warbles, sticky hands clasped together. “Mellorine, I assure you, I feel absolutely fine. In fact, my heart beats with pure adoration for—”
“It would depend on the chemical composition of the seed pulp,” Chopper reasons, wrinkling his nose at a smear of goop oozing down the handrail. “Human skin provides a natural barrier, but with enough exposure, it could fail.” He gasps, horrified when he realizes, “You're both at risk for phytocontact dermatitis! You need to go wash immediately! You’re not feeling any burning, are you? It hasn't gotten in your eyes, has it? What if it causes blindness?!”
Zoro trades a glance with Sanji, surprised to find a twinge of commiseration etched over his face. He doesn’t feel like his vision’s changed. Not recently anyway. The worst thing he’s been noticing lately is that weird flutter in his gut every time he looks at their cook too long, but that certainly didn’t start today.
“Think we’re fine, Chopper,” he assures the tiny reindeer. “Just sticky, is all.”
“We can anchor here while we sort it out,” Nami offers. “The cove is deep enough even with the tide out that we won't beach Merry.”
“Always so wise,” Sanji simpers, shuffling closer to her with a series of schlecks when his loafers stick to the deck. “A supply run wouldn’t hurt us either. Fruits, vegetables—game if we can catch it.”
Luffy’s head eagerly bobs. “Oooh, beach barbeque,” he suggests, full of hope when he turns to Sanji.
“If we’re going ashore, we can get a sample of one of the leaves,” Chopper says. “It’s not a plant I’m familiar with, at least from the smell, but if we could find it in one of our identification guides, then we’d know for sure if it’s harmful. It might even have medicinal purposes,” he realizes, perking up. “We’ve barely scratched the surface on what jungles can provide to the world of medicine!”
“Yeah, those explosions were cool,” Luffy marvels in a tone that rides the line between advocating for more and stating facts.
“Which is why we're not going to antagonize the trees,” Usopp quickly cuts in. “We barely brushed those branches, and it was enough to set them off. Whatever we do, we do it carefully. With gloves and goggles.”
“And in the meantime, you two can stay behind and clean up,” Nami decides.
Sanji immediately wilts. “But Nami, I—”
“Perhaps it would be best,” Robin reasons. “If there’s anyone more capable of restoring Merry to her usual glory, I can’t imagine where we’d find them.”
Zoro sighs, because of course this is how his day shakes out. Stuck behind with the only idiot who'd preen at being given orders to clean because now Sanji's drawn himself up, mustering the bravest face he can while covered in dripping goo.
“For you, I promise,” he declares to Robin, one sticky hand pressed to his chest. “No matter the risk, the ship will be sparkling by the time you return.”
“But wash first, okay? With soap,” Chopper says, looking specifically at Zoro though he can’t imagine why. “If this slime has any sort of oil in it, you’ll need soap to break down the chemicals.”
“No problem,” Zoro shrugs, heading for the bunkroom. “C’mon, Dartbrows. Sooner we start, sooner we finish.”
It’s only a few moments later that he realizes there might actually be a problem. Not necessarily with bathing, though irritatingly, Sanji’s managed to nab the shower first, leaving him with a single bar of soap and the sink as his only option unless he wants to stand around with his thumb up his ass while the prissy cook hogs the hot water.
No, the real problem is that he’s overextended his wardrobe. His pants have somehow escaped the slime, which is great because they’re his last clean pair, but he’s completely out of shirts. It’s a minor problem—hell, he goes shirtless half the time anyway—but with all the talk about phyto whatever and goggles, he decides he should probably wear something and the only clean something he has is an old shirt he’s mostly outgrown that finishes somewhere above his belly button.
With a resigned sigh, he yanks it over his head, still trying to wrestle his arms through the too-tight holes when Sanji emerges from the washroom.
“What the hell is that?” Sanji immediately yelps, scandalized enough that Zoro worries for half a second that there’s an actual, real problem instead of the cook just being a dumbass about fashion.
“A shirt,” he bluntly returns, striding over to the broom closet now that he’s redressed.
“I can see it’s a shirt,” Sanji snips, “but—”
“Then why’d you ask?” Zoro asks, rolling his eyes. Unfortunately, they’ve only got one mop—he’d be so much faster with three—but since he’s grabbed it first, he might as well call dibs.
“It’s just,” Sanji fusses, voice cracking on the hint of a whine. “What—”
“You get the bucket,” Zoro delegates, because delegation is leadership and there’s no way he’s letting Sanji be in charge. He thrusts the bucket at Sanji’s chest on his way back through the bunkroom, mop in hand when he heads for the ladder.
Sanji fumbles the bucket, but manages to catch it, his face a flustered pink when Zoro pauses halfway up the ladder. He wouldn't have stopped at all, but it looks like the cook is finally about to say something useful like—
“You mossy-haired idiot,” Sanji splutters, glaring up at him. “You didn’t take off your boots?! Look at this fucking mess!”
And sure enough, the bunkroom is criss-crossed with sticky imprints of every step he’s taken since he came down the ladder, complete with little pockets of seeds stuck in the pattern of his treads.
“Oh,” he offers lamely, grimacing an apology when fury settles across Sanji’s face.
“Get out!” Sanji explodes, punctuating his order by jabbing a finger towards the deck. “I will clean this up since apparently I’m the only one with enough common sense to purport myself appropriately. I can’t believe that in the time it took me to take one shower, you managed to double our work. I could be out there, having a jungle adventure with Nami and Robin, finding exotic spices for incredible dishes—protecting them from danger! But instead, I’m stuck here, with a slime covered asshole intent on making my life miserable.”
“If it’s that slimy, you should’ve cleaned it while you were using all the hot water,” Zoro retorts. “I could be training—”
“How much more training could you possibly need?!” Sanji snaps, exasperated. “You barely fit in that shirt as it is!”
“Because it’s half a shirt,” Zoro points out.
“Exactly,” Sanji hisses. “You just—just stay up there and start cleaning the deck,” he orders, clutching his bucket.
“Stay down there and clean the bunkroom,” Zoro fires back, because like hell he’s taking orders.
“Fine,” Sanji declares.
“Fine,” Zoro parrots, seizing the last word before he lets the bunkroom hatch slam behind him. He stomps across the deck, extra loud so Sanji can hear him, still simmering when Sanji emerges an hour later.
He bites his tongue when Sanji sidles up alongside him with his dinky bucket and sponge, apparently set on fine tuning the places Zoro’s just cleaned with his mop.
There's a grim desperation to the way he's tackling his work, his concentration so resolute that he doesn't even look up when Zoro clears his throat.
Zoro leans on his mop, studying him closely enough that the weird little flutter in his stomach kicks in, and the day suddenly feels much brighter than before.
Maybe Sanji’s also having some kind of reaction to the plant slime, because he'd swear the cook’s face is three shades darker than it usually is, the tops of his ears a brilliant pink where his hair’s shifted forwards while he scrubs the deck.
“Oi,” he tries again, flicking water Sanji's way when the cook ignores him. “Oi. You sick?”
“No, I'm not sick,” Sanji grits, his hand a blur where he's committed to scrubbing a hole in the deck. “You're sick.”
Zoro gives himself a cursory onceover. “I'm not sick,” he concludes. “I just meant, your face is all blotchy. You sure you’re not allergic to that goop?”
Sanji glares up at him at that, his eyes brilliant blue against the pink of his cheeks. “My face isn't blotchy,” he bites out, despite being the blotchiest Zoro's ever seen him—except for maybe that time Nami bought that teal and white striped bikini and Sanji had spent the afternoon— “Idiot,” Sanji adds for good measure, snatching up his bucket and sponge when he stands. “By the way, I took the liberty of washing your disgusting shirt. The sun's warm enough out here that it should be dry by now, so you can take off whatever this is,” he gestures, capturing the entirety of Zoro's sweaty crop top with an elaborate wave of his hand, “and put your stupid clothes back on.”
Zoro blinks back at him. “I didn't ask you to do that though,” he finally says.
“The words you're looking for are, thank you,” Sanji informs him, his gaze lingering on the fabric stretched over Zoro’s chest. He sets his chin, dragging his eyes up a beat later to issue a haughty, "You're welcome,” before setting off towards the bow.
Zoro tilts his head, still leaning on his mop while he watches Sanji select his next cleaning target.
“Why's it bothering you so much?”
“It's not bothering me at all,” Sanji replies, obviously lying through his teeth. “Focus on mopping, why don't you? I'm tired of cleaning up all the seeds you've missed.”
“I haven't missed that many,” Zoro mutters, jabbing his mop at a particularly nasty smear of goop on the stairs.
If anything, he's more inclined to blame the seeds than his own lack of diligence. For one, they're strangely squirmy. He'd swear they were evading his mop if it didn't sound so ridiculous. And for two, they stick so stubbornly to everything that it almost seems like they're determined to burrow into whatever they touch.
He's on the brink of broaching the topic, but Sanji's been twitchy enough since getting slimed, and if they're going to fight, he'd rather have a proper one instead of the verbal jabs they've been trading all afternoon.
Even when the rest of the crew returns in high spirits, baskets brimming with fresh tropical fruits and a few root vegetables Sanji seems thrilled to throw on the grill, there’s an underlying edge in the air that he can’t quite name, can’t quite shrug off.
He feels fine, as far as rashes and blindness are concerned. Merry seems fine. Even that weird flush in Sanji's cheeks has faded.
But whatever it is lingers throughout the rest of the evening, clinging to the shadows beyond their campfire, just out of sight every time he glances over his shoulder.
He's still unsettled when he turns in for the night, and as he lies there, assessing all the dark shapes in the bunkroom for potential threats, he thinks he sees—no, he's sure he sees—
Squinting at the outline of Sanji's ass in the hammock above him—don't ask him how well he knows the familiar curve of it, he's already spent far too much time thinking about it—he's just able to make out the silhouette of something new, clinging to the canvas.
And he's only being cautious right? That's part of his job, keeping the crew safe.
So he pokes it with the tip of his scabbard. And then again for good measure.
“Do you mind,” Sanji hisses in a whisper, glaring down at him over the edge of his hammock. “I'm trying to sleep.”
How he manages to balance the motion against the waves so well, Zoro will never know. Even with months at sea under his belt, he’s still wrestling with the best way to avoid dumping himself out of the damn thing every time he wakes up.
The little cluster of leaves sways with the motion of Sanji’s hammock. Frowning, Zoro prods it a third time, just to be sure. The plant coils back into shape the moment he withdraws, firmly anchored.
“I said, cut it out, asshole,” Sanji grits, throwing himself back into his sleep position and out of sight. “Don’t make me come down there, Moss, I swear—”
“You see any of that plant growing up there?” Zoro asks, still frowning when the hammock above him jerks and Sanji’s head pops over the side again, haloed by the curling ends of his hair.
“No, Moss, I don’t,” Sanji sneers, clinging to the pretense of patience gilding his snide undertone. “The only plant currently bothering me is the one that won’t leave me the fuck alone when I need to be up in approximately two hours and thirteen minutes to start on breakfast.”
Zoro grunts a reply, squinting through the darkness at the leaves above him. He’d swear there were more of them, even if it seems impossible, but how could it grow in a matter of minutes?
“You sure you cleaned all those seeds up?”
“Am I sure,” Sanji mocks, huffing as he settles back into position. Zoro can picture him, glaring up at the beams above them, that sharp little twist to his lip he always has when he’s at his most sarcastic. “Need I remind you that only one of us regularly tidies a work area? Of course I’m sure. Besides, I’m not the one that got the seeds everywhere down here in the first place.” His hammock lurches. He’s on his side now, probably rolling his eyes, biting his lip like he’s itching for a cigarette now that he’s been thoroughly roused from sleep. “Leave it to you to pick the most inconvenient time to develop a concern for hygiene.”
Zoro scowls up at the gentle back and forth of the Sanji’s hammock. He’d swear the plant’s moved again, but the shifting shadows in the belly of the ship make it hard to be sure. The temptation to poke it again itches through his fingers. If it felt more like a threat, he’d wake the crew, but as Sanji’s breathing evens and slows, he finds himself matching the rhythm.
He keeps an eye on the plant as long as he can, and falls asleep counting leaves.
***
“It’s mistletoe,” Usopp proudly announces at breakfast the next morning. “But not just any mistletoe. This kind uses an explosive method of seed dispersal.” He leans forward, warming to his tale. “The plant lets water pressure build in the pods until—POW!” His palm smacks the table, knocking the syrup sideways and nearly tipping Nami’s orange juice.
Sanji catches the syrup before it spills, deftly righting it on his way to refill his coffee from the pot he's learned is safest on the counter.
“Isn’t that awesome?” Usopp enthuses. “If I could harness that power for Kabuto, or—or if we could use it for Merry! If there was danger, we could burst up out of the water and—” He whistles, matching the trajectory of his hand soaring over the table.
Luffy's jaw drops as he tracks the path of Usopp’s imaginary ship. “But wouldn't we want to fight the danger?” he asks as his awe fades into a frown.
“Well, that depends on the danger, doesn't it?” Usopp shrugs. “What if it's four sea kings and also Marines? We can't fight all of them at once.”
“Hmmm,” Luffy ponders. “But what if it was only three sea kings?”
Shaking his head as the debate continues, Zoro tunes them out in favor of watching Sanji fill the sink with suds and gather the first of the dishes.
In another beat, that little flutter is back.
“You know,” Nami murmurs, leaning close so only he can hear. “You should have kept some mistletoe to see if you could get it to grow. A kiss for every berry’s the going rate.”
“Tch, like I'd pay beri to kiss anyone,” Zoro mutters, though he can't help the way his hand tightens around his coffee mug when Sanji stretches over the counter to snag a stray spoon.
Nami shoots him a glance when she reaches for her juice. “No, per berry,” she emphasizes.
“That’s what I said,” he grits, releasing his coffee mug in favor of slouching down in his seat to shove his arms over his chest.
“Gods grant me patience,” she sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I have maps to draw. That channel we went through yesterday won’t update itself.” She stands from the table, tugging the book out of Usopp’s grasp where he and Luffy are poring over a cross-sectioned diagram of a seed pod and flips it around so it faces him. “Take a look—you’ll figure it out.”
Against his better judgment, Zoro leans forward, frowning while he scans the passage she’s indicated. A kiss per berry—he groans with the realization, fully blaming Nami for the misunderstanding. But now that he’s committed to the page, he might as well finish.
Mistletoe is parasitic, the chapter shares next. With shallow roots, it invades living wood—
“Living wood?” he wonders out loud, earning an arch of one of Robin’s brows as she drinks her tea.
“Living wood refers to trees obviously, but I also have this theory I've been working on since Skypiea,” Usopp eagerly interjects, encouraged by Luffy's rapt attention. “I saw this incredible thing—you'll never believe it.”
Zoro offers him an agreeable grunt, though he’d be the first to admit his attention slips away when he catches the word kiss floating innocently on the page he’d been reading. Luck is the next word that leaps out, and hell, he enjoys luck as much as the next guy—if refusing to kiss someone under the mistletoe is bad luck, he’d better aim for the opposite.
He's still deciding that he definitely has no ulterior motive, when he notices the illustrator hasn’t quite captured the right size or shape of the seeds. He’s never been much of an artist, nor is there really any need for him to be when Usopp clearly takes the prize, but he has spent an inordinate amount of time cleaning up the little buggers during the past day and that pretty much makes him an expert.
He squints down at the page, trying to decide if it's is an actual mistake in the book or what Usopp calls artistic expression when—
“From how intently you’re studying that chapter on parasitic plants, I’m curious to see if you’ve recognized any relatives,” Sanji observes, snide enough that it feels like an invitation.
“Tell you about it on deck,” Zoro proposes, and the smirk he receives in reply is everything.
In a matter of minutes, leather kisses steel.
He relaxes into it, savoring the delighted race of his pulse, the sweat prickling across his skin as they gain momentum.
Finally, this. Because this feels right, this feels—
Wrong. Suddenly. Jarringly. A static hitch in the rhythm of traded blows as Sanji lunges for a kick that nearly connects and Zoro raises his sword, sunlight glinting on the sharp edge of the blade he’d been sure to keep from facing the cook just a breath before—
Wrong, as Sanji’s hair skims a snarl of leaves clustered along the underside of the beam he’d just ducked beneath.
Wrong, as the golden strands catch in the vines and Sanji’s foot doesn’t quite meet the deck in the way he’d planned and Zoro’s sword swings too close—the chaos of a dance unsynced.
Sanji’s eyes go wide, tensing for the inevitable impact.
And he can’t let that happen. Fuck his pride, fuck this fight, there’s no way in hell he lets that happen, not now, not ever. He—
Kitetsu clatters to the deck as Zoro twists, dives—his hand cradles Sanji’s head when they land in a tangled heap on the deck, breathing hard.
Sanji stares up at him, the expression on his face a mess of confusion and shock, still bracing for a hurt that hasn’t arrived.
But somehow it feels right again, pressed against him like this. The flutter in his stomach flares, curling into something hungry and eager.
“What the hell,” Sanji strains, trying to throw him off. “You shitty, second-rate swordsman! You were this close to—” He falls silent when Zoro's fingers slip into his hair, gentle as they comb through the gold spilling over his fingers to find—
Sanji's eyes cross as he focuses on the leaf Zoro's holding just beyond the tip of his nose.
“Mistletoe,” he breathes, his gaze flicking to find Zoro's.
“It's in the bunkroom too,” Zoro quietly adds, realizing more and more that he's still sprawled out on top of Sanji, pinning him to the deck.
“How'd it grow so fast? Hell, how'd we not get it all?” Sanji mutters. “I scrubbed my shitty hands raw—it must have been you that—”
“It wasn't me,” Zoro scowls. “There's no way you—
Above them, a creeping sound crackles along the wood, an insidious splintering as the plant writhes, sending offshoots crawling across the beam.
“Fucking bastard plant,” Sanji swears, and this time Zoro lets him up. He raises onto his toes, stretching to uproot it from the beam when Zoro yanks him back down.
“Wait,” he orders, retrieving Kitetsu. “Don't touch it. Let me.”
A delicate flick of his wrist sends the leaves fluttering to the deck. Satisfied, he sheathes his sword, pleased at how efficiently he's dispatched the threat.
“You didn't get the roots though,” Sanji says.
And from where Zoro's standing, that sounds a lot like criticism. His lip curls.
“Like hell I did. Shaved it closer than you shave that chin,” he retorts, stomping closer to check.
Sure enough, the scraggled ends of the roots poke out from the beam, audacious enough to bloom a fresh, new leaf while they're still standing there watching.
“Well, shit,” Sanji assesses.
And he can't help but agree.
So they call an emergency meeting.
“It's not mistletoe,” Sanji states, pinning the leaf to the table with an accusatory finger. “This is something different—it's making us fight.”
Nami arches an eyebrow. “You're telling us it's been this plant all along?”
“Well, no,” Sanji back tracks, his cheeks flushing a delicate shade darker. “What I'm telling you is that this fight was different than how we usually fight. It's complicated, Mellorine, I—”
“Making you?” Luffy asks, dangerously quiet when he regards first the plant and then Zoro and Sanji in turn.
“If it's in the mistletoe family, it stands to reason that this plant is also parasitic in nature,” Robin muses. “And therefore quite possible that it's feeding off of the ship, or even emotions if they run high. The impact this could have is catastrophic.”
Usopp gulps. “Mistlefoe,” he breathes, horrified. “It could destroy Merry.”
“It could destroy us all,” Robin calmly agrees.
“Robin!” Chopper shrieks, on the brink of panic. “What if the roots start burrowing into us!?”
“Well, obviously we won't let that happen,” Sanji cuts in, giving him a reassuring smile.
“But why you two?” Nami asks. “I don't feel any more combative than usual.”
Sanji glances at Zoro, that blush still barely there in his cheeks.
“‘Cause we got slimed, is my guess,” Zoro shrugs.
“If that's true,” Chopper sniffles, scrubbing a hoof beneath his nose, “then you'll have to be the ones to contain it. What happens if it spreads and then we all can't stop fighting?”
Zoro's stomach does an uneasy lurch. He knows the strengths of their crew as well as he knows their weaknesses. Pitted against each other, no one survives.
“That won't happen,” Luffy evenly states. “There's no one better for this job than Sanji and Zoro. If the plant wants them to fight, all they have to do is not fight, right? They can do that.”
“Can they, though?” Nami asks, openly skeptical.
Luffy studies the leaf another moment.
“Definitely,” he decides, beaming up at her. “And then we'll have another party!”
Zoro meets Sanji's eye over the table as Usopp claps him on the back and Chopper hugs as much of Sanji as his hooves can reach.
Not fighting isn't his usual method of resolving conflict, but hell, why not.
“I have just the tools for the job,” Usopp says, disappearing for a moment to return with a boat hook and a large, canvas bag. “I think these are your best hope. You're our best hope,” he rephrases, placing a grave hand on Sanji's shoulder and giving Zoro the sort of nod he'd expect before charging into a doomed battle. “I have gloves too, if you want them. And goggles. And protective face masks, a rubber apron you'll have to share, a pair of hip-high waders, and a hat that can also be used as a floatation device in case of an emergency.”
Zoro nabs the boat hook just as Sanji reaches for it.
“Appreciate it, but I think we'll be fine,” he declines, shoving the thought of how close they'd have to be to share an apron firmly from his mind.
He doesn't wait for Sanji to quit fawning over the girls before he steps out of the galley and into the sunshine, eyeing their first target.
It's a modest cluster of leaves on the underside of the rearmast, within reach of his boat hook, but only barely so.
He positions himself beneath it, and then thinks better of it, given that bit about proximity and kissing in their field guide.
It seems simple enough—does he even need Sanji? But the answer makes itself clear when he struggles to dislodge the mistlefoe, despite having soundly hooked it.
“So, you really think we're going to defeat this shitty plant with random acts of kindness?” Sanji hails from the galley door, his collection bag tossed jauntily over his shoulder when he saunters up to join.
Zoro tries another tug at the mistlefoe, pursing his lips when it doesn't pull free. It's far-fetched, but it's not as though anything else along the Grand Line is any more normal.
No, not random acts. Deliberate ones.
“Your eyes,” he starts, looking Sanji square in the face. The expression he finds written across it is guarded and unsure, wary with the slightest hint of curiosity. “Are blue.”
Sanji raises an eyebrow.
“They remind me of the ocean,” Zoro persists, determined to finish. He's sweating now—fuck, why is he sweating? “They're very… nice.”
And as he prods the base of the mistlefoe, this time it pops free, landing neatly in the open bag Sanji's holding beneath it.
“Oh, this won't be bad at all,” Sanji decides, the slight pink in his cheeks notwithstanding.
They find the next bundle of leaves growing from the helm, slightly larger than the first.
“Your hair looks like moss. Healthy moss. Very nice, green, healthy moss,” Sanji says, frowning when Zoro tries to hook the plant and it doesn't budge. “You… are pretty good at using swords,” he tries next, panic threading across his face when Zoro shakes his head after another failed attempt. “I liked the way you looked in that crop top yesterday,” he blurts in a rush, blushing to the tips of his ears.
The mistlefoe falls into his waiting bag, the plank where it had been lodged completely smooth.
“What?” Zoro dares to ask in the stunned silence that follows.
“If you repeat that to anyone, I'll fill your lunch with razor blades and no one will believe I did it because I'm so damn pleasant to be around all the time,” Sanji warns, stepping closer to jab his finger into Zoro's chest.
“Tch, pleasant, my ass,” Zoro snorts, but he can't deny the little thrill Sanji's confession has ignited. “And also, pretty good at using swords?”
“Don't let it go to your head,” Sanji advises, leading the way down into the bunk.
The mistlefoe growing along the bottom of his hammock has spread, spanning almost all the way from anchor to anchor.
“Well, this is just fucking compromised at this point,” Sanji decides. “Don't we have spares?”
Zoro shrugs.
“Let's just trash the whole thing,” Sanji says. “We’ve got the beri for a new one if there aren't, and I'm sure Nami won't mind. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, right?”
“Uh,” Zoro contributes, wondering if they know the same Nami.
“But we'll have to do it together. Otherwise my hammock will fall on your hammock, and then the whole thing's fucked. And maybe don't talk either. Don't give it any fuel.”
Gingerly, they time it right, mirroring each other when they unclasp both ends of Sanji's ruined hammock—and then realize they'll need to fold the stupid thing inside out to best trap the mistlefoe.
Zoro grits his teeth when Sanji flips the canvas the wrong way again. How fucking hard is it to fold a hammock? Longways, both ends meet in the middle, flip it left—whatever Sanji's mouthing at him is definitely obscene while he waits for the cook to course correct. He steps closer, fumbling when Sanji either tries to collect all the ends together or shove the ends at him, and now they're holding hands, barely keeping the compromised hammock from brushing the floor.
“Stop it,” Sanji whispers as though the mistlefoe can hear him.
Even their damn fingers are tangled at this point, and he can't quite—can't get—
“No, you stop it,” Zoro says, because he's not lowering his voice for a damn plant, and all of a sudden the hammock starts writhing.
A horrible tearing sound rips through the canvas, and Sanji curses, dropping his hold on the hammock to grab his collection bag.
There's a brief scuffle—he's fairly sure he ends up hugging Sanji at one point—and then somehow they come out victorious with the hammock wadded into the bag with the rest of the mistlefoe.
They're both breathing hard, and that weird flutter in Zoro's gut kicks in hard. Honestly, it might be contagious, because Sanji almost looks like he feels it too.
“Are there anymore?” he asks instead, and after thoroughly checking the ship with special attention to every limb of Nami’s precious orange trees, they find one more cluster of mistlefoe, tucked high in the rigging of the mainmast.
“We'll both have to climb up,” Sanji grimly determines. “Maybe we can just fling this one onto the water instead of catching it.”
“Maybe,” Zoro agrees, enunciating around the boat hook clamped between his teeth.
They reach the crow’s nest, awkwardly crammed close while they decide the best way to proceed.
Even on his toes, he can't quite get there, and despite how appreciative he is for the opportunity to ogle Sanji's ass when the cook stretches out over the lip of the barrel, the reality of it is that Sanji can't reach either.
“If we climbed out of the crow’s nest,” Sanji starts, hesitant to finish.
Zoro leans over the barrel, contemplating the drop below. “It'd be over fast if either one of us slipped, I can tell you that much.”
Sanji nods. The wind teases through his hair, ruffling the ends while he thinks. “What if you picked me up. We could trick it into thinking we're dancing.”
“Giving that plant an awful lot of credit, don't you think?” Zoro asks, proud he's managed to curb the urge to verbalize any of the wild thoughts that have just popped into his head.
“At this point, I don't even know what I'm thinking,” Sanji mutters.
And after the brief power struggle that ensues while they fight over what goes where—he can't believe how big his hands feel spanning Sanji's waist when they finally find their place there; the thought alone is almost enough to distract him from their mission entirely—
“You're going to have to dip me,” Sanji says, looking as though he can't believe the words that have just come out of his mouth.
“Dip you?” Zoro repeats, buying time while his brain catches up. “Like into the ocean?”
Sanji’s attention whips from the mistlefoe to him, his hand clutching tight around Zoro's forearm. “You better not fucking dip me into the ocean from clear up here. I'm—” he swallows, like it's hard to say, “I'm trusting you not to drop me.”
A gust of wind tugs at his hair, shivering through the mistlefoe leaves at the end of the yard.
“I won't drop you,” Zoro promises, and means it.
Sanji's lips press tight, and then he nods, inching out over the barrel of the crow’s nest with Zoro's hand supporting the small of his back and his legs locked around Zoro's waist. He stretches, straining to snag the boat hook into the leaves and then pulls. And pulls. And shifts his angle, pulling again.
“I can't get it,” he says, and now Zoro can hear how breathless he is, tuning into the shaking fatigue in his core. “Zoro, I—maybe if you gimme a shitty compliment or something—”
And damn it all, his mind goes blank, unable to conjure a single nice thing to say except,
“I think I might really like you,” he softly admits, even though it's probably lost in the wind and feels like baring his soul.
The last cluster of mistlefoe leaves falls into the waves beneath them.
He hauls Sanji back to safety, clutches him to his chest when the cook gives him a wobbly, “Really?”
And what happens next, well… He's always done fairly well for himself, hasn't he? Who needs mistletoe when he can just leave it to luck.