Dance With Me

Sanji looked like he was having a great time, and it was starting to piss Zoro the fuck off. There was something about the way he was being passed from woman to woman during the island's festivities that irked the swordsman beyond all reason. He watched the Straw Hat crew's cook as he danced with the happy civilians, smiling and laughing without a care in the world to the upbeat sound of the band's performance.

Sanji definitely knew how to dance—his body moved like he was made for it—and Zoro found himself comparing his graceful movements to when they fought one another, noting that the motions weren't much different at all, only less aggressive. He had seen the cook dancing and fighting many times, and it never ceased to excite him, but he was so deep in the pit of denial about the reasons why that he sometimes wondered if it were even possible to climb out.

The party was lively, the booze was good, and the company was spirited and accommodating to the pirates who saved their little village from the group of ruffians trying to set-up camp in their once peaceful hometown. It hadn't been a difficult fight, but the citizens threw them an enormous block party anyway. Zoro watched from the sidelines, taking large swigs from a flagon of beer with a disinterested countenance that masked his true scrutiny of the Shitty-cook.

Sanji was migrating closer to Zoro now, swapping dance partners with each verse of song and swinging his hips in time with the rhythm. An inexplicable impulse pulled Zoro from his chair as the blond neared him in the crowd. He didn't know what possessed him to do it, but he cut into the line of dancing women without consciously deciding to, catching the cook's hand on one of his turns.

Zoro reeled Sanji in, spinning him like he had seen the other man do a hundred times, and suddenly the two of them were moving in perfect synchronization with only the smallest moment of hesitation from Sanji when he caught sight of his green-haired partner. Zoro's brain shut off the moment the blond's fingers closed around his, and then his body simply moved as if he were in a trance, alternating between following and directing Sanji's motions as they took turns leading the dance.

Sanji was distinctly aware of the abnormality of the situation, but he had grabbed Zoro's hand and followed through automatically with the required turn before fully registering who his new dance partner was. He would have stopped and snapped something rude at the swordsman had his surprise not been so paralyzing—it was less the fact that he was dancing with Zoro that shocked him than the inconceivable notion that the swordsman was actually a good dancer!

The two men were effortlessly twirling and stepping in harmony with the other's movements as though they were professional dance partners rather than bitter rivals. It was so well-coordinated that the surrounding party-goers immediately gave them a wide birth to extend the reach of their turns. Sanji had completely tuned out the growing audience, meeting Zoro's gaze for the first time during a particularly intimate brush of their bodies. They were moving so naturally through the steps and reacting automatically just as they did when fighting.

That gave Sanji an idea—he dropped into an abrupt backbend over Zoro's arm, hoping to throw him off with the unexpected addition to the routine, but the swordsman wasn't phased in the slightest. A warm hand gripped the back of his thigh, helping him to complete the flip and recapturing the cook's hand as he straightened out of the bend. A grin broke out on their faces in unison, and the dance quickly evolved into a complicated series of handstands and lifts that showed off Sanji's unique fighting style and Zoro's incredible strength. The new moves required a fair bit of contact, hands roaming around waists and under thighs as the blond's lithe figure was wrapped around and over the swordsman's broader form in impressively artistic contortions of his flexible body.

Zoro spoke for the first time when one of Sanji's moves landed them face-to-face, skin flushed, sweat beading on their foreheads, and grins yet to fade. "You know that party table kick course thing you do?" he asked breathlessly. Sanji nodded. "Put your hands on my shoulders," Zoro suggested, his gaze challenging.