Mixed Up (ZoSan)

Oceanographer's Choice

Though he was only asleep for about an hour, when Sanji woke up, he felt as though he'd been asleep for days.

Momentarily out of sorts, he continued to lie on the couch for a moment, attempting to regain a sense of place before he tried to sit up. His thoughts were disorganized and felt thick, as though they'd congealed into a soupy mass and were unable to maneuver through the thin passages inside his brain. Staring up at the ceiling, he attempted to navigate through them with little success.

Overwhelmingly groggy, he grunted and sat up, trying to make sense of the odd sensation circulating inside his head. It was like he had a headache, except his head didn't actually hurt; the absence of the pain still left his mind feeling like it was being compressed and impounded upon with either gauze or fuzz, and no matter how he rubbed at his forehead, it wouldn't clear. The sensation was unpleasant, leading Sanji to decide that if this was how smoking weed felt every time, he probably wouldn't do it again.

He shut his eyes and tried to clear his head, but the fuzzy, soupy feeling persistently remained. Sighing, he opened his eyes and immediately went to grab a cigarette, only to find that his pack and lighter had gone missing.

Confused, he patted down his pants pockets and even went through his coat, but all he found was an absence of his things. Setting his coat aside and aware now of his surroundings, he glanced around and saw that both Zoro and Nami had disappeared. The bong was still on the table, but when he turned in his seat to look into the kitchen, he saw that neither one of them were present in the immediate vicinity.

Rubbing his head to try and clear it once more, Sanji stood up, noticing that the bass was in its stand and Nami's boots were lined against the far wall, but Zoro's were gone.

"Hey," he mumbled, shuffling in his socks towards the short hall he'd seen Zoro go down earlier. He'd forgotten he'd taken his shoes off prior to falling asleep, and was almost taken by surprise at the way he slid across the floor. He caught himself and stopped at the halls entrance and blearily looked down its depths, wondering if his host and guest had retired into the back. "Anyone home?"

He waited by the entrance for a moment before turning away when he got no response. Unwilling to snoop into Zoro's private rooms, Sanji wandered into the kitchen to get himself a glass of water, hoping to rid himself of the cotton-mouth he'd woken up with. Smacking his lips lazily, he began to search through the cabinets to find where Zoro kept his cups, and found them stored on a high shelf.

The height was no challenge to Sanji, who helped himself to a plain green glass. When he turned around to access the tap, he was surprised to see the plate of food he'd brought sitting empty on the counter amidst other dirty dishes beside the sink.

Excited, he wondered what Zoro had thought of his cooking and brightened up considerably, thinking about how he wished he'd been awake to see him eat it.

Looking around the empty apartment again, he wondered where they might've gone. He really wanted to ask the punk's opinion of his cooking, but with the both of them gone, he was left only to speculate. He looked back down at the plate, and felt his old work habits begin to pester him. Zoro had a multitude of dirty dishes scattered around the sink, and Sanji knew that, if this were the Baratie's kitchen, this sort of thing would have gotten a chef fired instantly. A dirty workstation was unprofessional, after all.

Shrugging to himself, he glanced around for a sponge and some dish soap, figuring he'd pass the time constructively until the punks decided to show themselves.

He crouched down and opened the cabinet under the sink and saw an almost entirely unused bottle of Joy and a dried out old sponge sitting among various discarded grocery bags. Grabbing hold of them, he shut the cabinet and stood up, setting them aside on the countertop as he rolled up his sleeves and turned on the water.