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“sanji.”
it’s a beautiful day at sea. the sun is shining bright outside and the weather is just hot enough that he needs to roll up his sleeves and undo the first couple buttons of his shirt. sanji exhales a hearty amount of smoke away from his working station, and flicks his hair out of his eye when he finishes, intent on paying attention to the task at hand and on ignoring the hungry puddle of rubber whining about his kitchen.
unfortunately for him, his captain is a stubborn, relentless man, “sanjiiiiiii…,” who is absolutely habituated to getting his way. it’s not fair that sanji has come to grow fond of him - too fond and too knowingly fond, after a late night a handful of islands back, when sanji had woken to make luffy a midnight snack and ended up pressing him against the kitchen counter to lick remnants of apple pie off his mouth. luffy just giggled and kissed him back until dawn, because while he might not be the brightest man in the world, he was always smart in the ways that mattered.
now, sanji keeps calmly cutting slices of hard cheese, in time to luffy’s tapping on the very same counter. that’s a pretty common harmony around the galley, and sanji already knows he’s gonna give in (and worse, luffy already knows he’s gonna give in), but today he’s gonna hold it out as much as he can.
“sanji, when is the food gonna get ready? i’m hungry…,” and his stomach makes a pitiful - if sanji didn’t know better - sound. the beat of silence that follows is answer enough in itself, no point in sanji wasting his breath with the thousandth iteration of food’s gonna get done when it gets done, shitty captain of the week.
the bread is almost done and it smells heavenly, of course, so sanji sympathizes to his captain’s plight, but- he can’t stop thinking about what was said at the table this morning. and as everything usually is, it’s entirely the marimo’s fault.
it was very simple: luffy was lifting his head from his plate and he hadn’t even looked up before sanji knew, out of sheer familiarity, he was gonna ask for more sausages. sanji was already handing luffy the plate when he started to mumble his request, around a mouthful of food. it was nothing out of usual and no one would have even noticed - not even sanji! - but zoro just had to scoff and say you’re so easy on him, love cook.
sanji was not proud to say that he spluttered in place for a few seconds, and it was infuriating that this only made marimo’s grin grow wider. luffy tilted his head, confused as to why he had grabbed at zoro’s coat to better scream in his face, and everyone else was watching the usual shenanigans with amusement (except usopp, the poor unlucky soul who had sat between them and was trying very hard to get out of the way alive). it was just a commentary, a common bait between sanji and zoro, and he didn’t know why it had struck a chord now.
“sanji-” his captain is still going on, probably more out of habit than anything else by now. sanji, on the other hand, is puffing angrily at his cigarette and slicing ham and salami with more force than the meats deserve. was he really- easy , on luffy? well, he is probably a little weaker than he ought to, sometimes, but easy ? that couldn’t be. it’s not like the marimo is any better, anyways! he saw zoro not even blink the other day when luffy ran across the deck jumped onto his back to cuddle and take a nap, while he was lifting his weights . he just kept doing his reps with an added weight of rubber boy on his shoulders. the very same day he glared at usopp for tripping nearby and making him lose count, the brute! so, if sanji was easy, then zoro had to be, too. “what’cha making?”
luffy’s voice sounds a lot closer than a few moments before. there’s a presence peeking just over his shoulder, but his captain already knew to warn before touching him when he was holding sharp knives or focused on food.
“sandwiches.” he eyes the piles of neatly stacked ingredients and reaches with a hand to turn off the oven where the bread has finished baking. “crew’s spending the day outside, it’s gonna be too hot for anything heavier at noon.”
“hmmmmmm,” luffy hums in something like assent while sanji sets the bread on a tray to cool down enough for slicing. a rubbery arm’s slowly making its way around his waist, but it surprisingly doesn’t try to sneak food away - just holds onto him. luffy’s breathing gets closer and soon a chin is settling on his shoulder, “can you put anything in a sandwich?,” he asks, sounding thoughtful.
sanji does not lean back into his captain’s body and his comfortable warmth, and no one can prove otherwise. he closes his eyes, taking a final drag of his smoke and then extinguishing it. “... why do you ask?” it’s suspicious, because usually nothing good came from luffy having kitchen-related ideas (with the particular exception to the events that led to sanji remembering the taste of luffy’s tongue every time he licked his lips).
he seems to ponder it for a while, rubbing his cheek against sanji’s. the edges of the strawhat tickle sanji’s nape, hanging from its string haphazardly. “put sausages in it!,” he can feel luffy’s smile forming, “please?”
“didn’t you have enough sausages at breakfast already?” but it isn’t a no and he can’t be thinking about how zoro might be - it hurts his pride just to think it - right . maybe he really is easy on luffy, has grown soft for him. he’s grinning, can’t help it. “besides, wouldn’t that just be a hot dog, then?,” because he always has to be a little contrary, in the end.
“i did! but they are really good! i wanna have them again!,” luffy wiggles around, enough to show his excitement at the prospect, but not to dislodge the way he’s clinging to sanji. “and aren’t hot dogs sandwiches too?”
sanji takes pause, leaves his bread knife on the counter and turns around in his place to stare at luffy with the corner of his eye. “so anything that’s between pieces of bread can be a damn sandwich now?,” and he is- slightly offended at the notion. “regardless of form or content? you stick whatever in bread and then just- fucking call that a sandwich?”
luffy is laughing and nodding, fingers squeezing sanji’s sides (which isunfair, because he knows sanji’s ticklish). “yeah, why not? why wouldn’t it be a type of sandwich? you’re putting all this stuff in ours,” he motions for the cheeses and meats and vegetables in front of sanji, “what’s the difference?”
“you’re an idiot,” sanji sighs, with purpose, “there wouldn’t be names for all of them if there weren’t differences.” he picks up the bread knife again and sets about cutting his fresh loaf. “if you play around with the around then yeah, anything can be a sandwich, but,” and how have they even gotten there? it is telling that sanji never even answered whether he would take out the leftover of the goddamn sausages for luffy. there was never a question on that. “they are all different things.”
he doesn’t need to see it to know that luffy’s pouting dramatically and slumping over sanji. (it’s cute. sanji won’t be caught dead saying it out loud.) “i don’t get it. i think they can all be sandwiches. and that you should put sausages in it! sanji, sanji! put sausages in it, the ones from breakfast!”
“okay, fine! i’ll give you your precious sausages at lunch,” easy , zoro’s voice isrepeating, mockingly, on his mind. well, not as mockingly as it might have been on their early days, but irritating enough to make a vein pop out on sanji’s temples. “but here. look.”
he takes two slices of bread, one in each hand, and turns around in the circle of luffy’s arms - which is difficult, as his grip is always on the smothering side. his captain is smiling at him, and he’s all warm pressed to sanji’s front, slipping down and letting his weight loose. luffy isn’t very heavy, but it still makes him hold onto sanji with more force, almost but not quite hurting his ribs in the process. his pointy chin is pinching sanji right at the collarbone, so he can probably feel the way sanji’s heart speeding up. it’s only not embarrassing because it’s luffy , who doesn’t know shame, who knows sanji .
“ok,” he clears his throat, ignoring his cheeks heating up with a very apparent blush. “two pieces of bread,” then he presses the aforementioned to the sides of luffy’s face, “what are you?” and hopes that it will stick, because luffy is, for all intents and matters, not a sandwich, and at most would be a sandwich of idiot , obviousl-
but luffy is just staring at him, eyes soft and bright, as he says, “yours.”
and, to be fair, that was an extremely good answer and doubled as an efficient way to completely shut sanji up. (his heart is thumping loud in his ears and on the four blues, sanji might just love hi-)
then luffy starts laughing, shishishi so happy it travels through the galley walls and fills the entire ship. it echoes and it’s such a pleasant noise sanji would be smiling along if he wasn’t too busy overheating from pure emotion. zeff always said he was a bit too dramatic for his own good, so it makes sense to sanji that he could just drop down right now and it would still track for his character. the thing is, luffy’s sort of holding him up, by this point, and sanji still has the bread pressed to his cheeks. “sanji got all red!,” his captain ( his ) is saying, and his grin is still making sanji a little dizzy.
“s-stop that,” he shoves a hand to cover luffy’s face and the infuriatingly attractive affection coloring it. luffy, of course, chomps down on the bread like the little monster he is and then mumbles pretty at him, which doesn’t help.
luffy’s arms are tightening, tugging him even closer, urging him to drop his hands and give in. sanji goes, falls forward into his captain’s hold, kisses his laughter away. it’s okay, he can be easy for this.
(sitting just outside the galley, back to the outer wall and face to the sun, usopp sighs. he leans his head onto zoro’s shoulder, “ah ah, lunch’s gonna be late, won’t it?”
zoro just scoffs, not hiding the fondness underneath it. “‘told you the shitty cook was easy on him. he pretends he’s tough and all, but he always gives in to luffy’s pouting.”
and honestly? usopp won’t comment on that only because he’s still recovering from getting in between zoro and sanji, but really there’s something to be said about the so-called ‘monsters’ of this ship and how they end up being soft all the way through. he sighs, again, and then settles down to nap with zoro - it is a beautiful, cozy day, after all. robin and brook’s conspiratory chuckling on the upper deck and the background of sanji humoring luffy’s sandwich-related thoughts through fixing lunch lulls him to sleep.)