"Soup's on, bastards!"   

Sanji's voice carried throughout the ship and into the girls' quarters. Nami leaned over her work and tried to finish another cartographic calculation before the cook called her and Robin. In her rush, she stumbled over the numbers and found herself having to start over again. She finally found her mistake but she didn't want to redo the calculations. Then she realized that she hadn't heard her dinner call.

"Robin, did you hear Sanji ask for us?"

The woman looked up from her book. "I didn't."

Nami stretched. "Maybe he's preparing something extra special for us and it's taking longer to finish."

Robin turned another page. "Perhaps."

Nami stared at her desk. She'd been sitting at it for most of the afternoon and that last problem had destroyed any shred of her patience with her work. "You want to go up anyway?"

Robin said nothing but put down her book and followed her out of the room. The sounds coming from the galley were lively. "Sanji-kun? Is din-STOP RIGHT THERE, LUFFY!"

Hands blossomed around the two dinners, safeguarding it from Luffy's grasp. There was a muffled cry of frustration from his stuffed face but he changed his target and reached out for Chopper and Zoro's plates instead.

"You started without us." The anger simmered in Nami's voice.

Sanji was leaning over his own plate and eating instead of standing at attention by the table. He spared the two latecomers a look - like it was some boon bestowed on the undeserving, Nami observed. "I said, 'Soup's on' about fifteen minutes ago. Are you two deaf or something?"

Nami felt the blood drain out of her face. She was just about ready to stick her sandal up Sanji's leather clad -

Robin moved past her. "Navigator, our dinner is getting cold. Shall we?"

Nami sat down. While she picked at her meal and plotted, Luffy got himself an elbow in the face for trying to take Zoro's dinner.

"Oh, Sanji-kun?" Nami's voice was so sweet it would put someone in a diabetic coma.

"What?"

"Could you pass me the salt?"

Sanji kept his eyes firmly on the dinner in front of him. He muttered something about being insulted that she thought it needed seasoning.

"Sanji-kun?" she repeated.

"Blind and deaf now? Usopp, pass her the salt."

"I'm eating."

"Do you want boot for dessert?"

Ussop rolled his eyes and threw Nami the shaker. She was busy giving Sanji the evil eye so it landed in the middle of her food, covering it with a tiny pyramid of salt. As thanks, Ussop got a kick in the shin under the table twice, once from a pair of expensive heeled sandals and once from a steel toed boot.

"Luffy! Stupid! Stop!" Chopper cried as Luffy made another attempt at food theft.

Zoro belched.

And Nami made up her mind that this had gone on long enough.

====================

Tank top. Check. Short skirt. Check. Hair in place. Check.

Nami frowned. Everything was in order, so it wasn't her. Whatever was going wrong with Sanji was his problem - that or he had been hypnotized by evil pirates in the last port and sent back to the ship to be stupid at her. The idea of an evil Sanji was very appealing; it meant she could deal out lots and lots of pain and feel less bad about it than usual.

Sanji was washing the dishes. And if this were the real Sanji and not an imposter, he would have asked her if he could get her anything by now. But he was ignoring her.

"Sanji-kun?"

He washed dishes and grunted. She had gotten proficient at 'grunt' ever since making Zoro's acquaintance. That one had meant that he was listening, just not answering.

She decided that she would be understanding and give him a chance to explain his lapse in manners. She stood next to him. "Now, Sanji-kun, I don't know what happened to you at the last island - "

He pushed a towel into her hands and held out a dripping plate.

She threw the towel on the floor. "I'm not here to dry the dishes!"

He turned and leaned up against the edge of the sink. Nami gave him her best "fear the rage of the Navigator" look; a gaze which could reach even Luffy's buried self-preservation instincts, but the cook seemed very unimpressed.

Unimpressed. With her.

She gave him another once-over of doom, letting her eyes burn him with the wrath of a wronged woman. He thought he was so special, standing in the kitchen with his glasses and his shirt, which he'd probably stolen out of Zoro's closet and those stupid pants she was sure had cost a fortune because pants that looked like that weren't cheap.

Not a pair that looked that good.

Her gaze of wrath got hijacked when he searched his back pocket for his cigarettes. His very tightahem. Tight back pocket.

There was a moment of utter terror as Nami tried to explain to herself that she had been staring at his backpocket where wallets are. Yes! Wallets! She was attracted to wallets!

"So what do you want?" he muttered.

All thoughts of wallets were driven away. She remembered her purpose and wronged sensibilities.

"What I want?" She stepped forward, waving her finger right under his nose. "I want to know what is going on here, Sanji-kun!"

"Nothing. Are you done?" He turned away and started washing dishes again.

Nami blinked. "Look, I assumed - "

"When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me."

Nami gasped. "What did you say?"

"If you're not going to help, I've got work to do."

The door slammed shut behind him. Sanji waited until he heard her stomp away then slumped against the sink, face in his hands.

It had been the hardest evening of his life. He'd wanted to pass the salt to Nami-san. He would have gladly been her condiment cabana boy for the rest of his life and -

And he picked up a glass and got to work. Bad Guys didn't think phrases like "condiment cabana boy." No way. Bad Guys had "condiment cabana girls" at their beck and call. Yes, they did.

Then Nami had come into the kitchen and shut the door and he had been so sure that this was It. This was the Day, the very Moment that he'd been waiting for.

And then he asked the question, 'What do you want?' He'd been so clever slipping that in. He had known, okay, hoped that she would say him. Or mention him somewhere in the answer.

But she hadn't and then he'd blurted that horrible saying. Where had he heard that? Oh yeah. When he'd been living on the Baraties. Now he was thinking like Patti. Wonderful.

He was sweating too and he bet if he moved, his pants would squeak. Was anything worth this?

The door opened again and Sanji had just enough time to get into his Bad posture, which was much like his normal posture but without the leather. This time his frustration with the whole situation made it easy for him to growl, "Are you just deaf or are you dumb too?"

"What'd you say?"

It was the swordsman. Zoro started rummaging through the refrigerator while Sanji muttered about annoyances and swordsmen who were gonna turn into lard-asses if they kept eating between meals.

"Hey."

Sanji turned around to kick Zoro in the face out of principle and caught a beer awkwardly. Sanji glared at the bottle and then at the swordsman.

"Here's to finally getting a pair." Zoro lifted his drink in a mock salute.

Zoro was impressed. It took a lot to impress him but tonight had been impressive. That dumbass cook had finally wised up. Women weren't around to be fussed over. They were just around. Sometimes they were useful for things like directions or ... more directions. But that was it. The only time they were interesting was when they had a sword and were challenging you to a fight.

Finally Sanji had figured it out. But why was he was staring at his beer like it was poison? "Aren't you going to drink it?"

"No."

"Not good enough for you?" Zoro had always been suspicious of Sanji's familiarity with drinks that had umbrellas in them.

"It's not the drink. It's the company."

Zoro left the cook in his kitchen, figuring he could enjoy the beer better outside. You tried to be nice...

And Sanji wondered if a person could drown himself in a sink.

===============

The pen skittered across the paper. Nami sucked air through her teeth and wadded up the third map she'd ruined in ten minutes.

Robin looked up from her book. "Is something wrong, Navigator?"

"Yes." Nami glared at wastebasket. "I can't draw a straight line."

"Do you need a hand?"

Nami considered what that offer could cover. "No thanks."

Robin returned to her reading and said, "You're in good company tonight. Cook-san seemed to be troubled, too."

Yeah, troubled in his head, Nami thought. "You noticed that?"

"Certainly. He was acting very odd."

"He's acting like a ..." She trailed off into a mumble but her meaning was very clear.

Robin turned a page. "From what I understand, I don't think that's his intention."

"'What you understand?'" Nami repeated. "He talked to you?"

"Oh no." The woman smiled. "But you know what they say. 'These walls have ears.'"

Nami was 100 percent more creeped out about by her new roommate. "Robin?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you mean that figuratively?"

Robin went back to reading her book. "Hmm."

Hoping that 'hmm' meant 'yes,' Nami returned to the kitchen.

===============

Tank top. Check. Short skirt. Check. Hair in place. Check.

The cook was trapped in the kitchen. And she was going to get to the bottom of this tonight. But not bottoms with leather. No. That wasn't what this was about.

Using thief skills that she'd honed since a small child, she turned the doorknob and snuck into the kitchen. Sanji hadn't gotten anyone to help him dry.

"Sanji. Look at me."

If he was surprised, he didn't show it. "Why should I?" he growled.

"Just look at me." She put her all into making herself sound as sweet and nice and most importantly, as hurt, as possible. "Please?"

Sanji spun around. "Can't you just leave me alone?"

Nami had never heard such angry words come out of face so twisted by anguish.

"What?" he hissed, but the strain of keeping a scowl in his voice and one on his face was too much.

Nami looked at him with her most soulful expression. "I just wanted to say that ... "

Sanji's cigarette trembled at the corner of his mouth. "Yes?"

"I just wanted to say that I can't wait for you to get over this mental crisis you're having. And I liked your suit better." Nami turned on her heel and walked out the door.

She knew that her plan to snap Sanji back to reality could actually drive him further into insanity. But whatever the outcome, he'd learn to always be impressed with her.


Home