[Fic] New Adjustments: Part Five

[danyellaskyler]

Title: New Adjustments
Fandom: One Piece
Author: Danyella Skyler Silverfire
Website: Livejournal, or Fanfiction.Net
Rating: PG
Genre(s): Humor/Romance
Pairing(s): Sanji/Zoro mentions
Summary: Zoro wakes up with some changes. So now the Strawhats have to make some adjustments.
Beta: Bronze Tigress
Warnings: Genderswitch, which will never be explained. Ever.
Disclaimer: Checks reality meter (It's remarkably Magic Eight Ball shaped). Do I own One Piece? Nope still the right reality. Go eat a tuna sandwich instead. Damn.

Part Five
The Birds and the Bees

Word Count: 391

---

Ace glared in disgusted anger at the guards standing at the door and windows. He was unfortunately used to being kidnapped by certain parties - i.e., his grandfather - but he didn't think these people were Marines. They were dangerous though, shown by their ability to keep him forcibly there.

The door finally creaked open and admitted a large, cloaked man.

"Ah, good, you're here finally." The man sat down and pushed back his hood.

"Dragon?" Ace asked incredulously.

"How have you been, Son?"

Ace narrowed his eyes. "What do you want?"

"Well, you're now old enough for an important discussion," Dragon explained. "Tea?"

"Ah... sure." Ace reluctantly accepted the offered cup, and even then it was only because Whitebeard had specifically ordered him to be polite if he should run into his father. "What did you want to discuss?"

"Well, you're thirteen now..." Dragon began.

"I'm twenty," Ace corrected flatly.

"Are you sure? I could have sworn you just turned thirteen."

"I would think I would know my own age," Ace grumbled.

"Anyway, you are now old enough to have noticed certain things."

"Like my age."

"Indeed. Sugar?"

"No thanks, I'm good." Ace took a drink of his tea. "Nice blend. From the South Blue?"

"Correct. I have a good supplier."

"Ah, now about what you wanted to discuss?"

"Yes, very important talk." Dragon then proceed to launch into an obviously rehearsed existential lecture about animals of all things.

They were halfway through the metaphor laden lecture before Ace realized what Dragon was dancing around the topic of. Dragon was giving Ace The Talk. Alright, it was so filled with metaphors it took Ace's unfortunately experienced mind a while to figure it out, but once he did time seemed to slow down making the entire thing feel much, much longer than it actually was.

"So, any questions?" Dragon asked in conclusion.

Ace blinked and shook his head before speaking, "Are you crazy? You don't see me for seventeen years, and when you finally do, you get my age wrong, then give me The Talk!"

"Yes."

"Well, fuck you! I hate you, you crazy bastard! I hope I never see you again!" Ace yelled before slamming out of the room.

Dragon looked at one of the guards. "I think that went rather well. I could have sworn he was thirteen, though."

Just Curious

Word Count: 113

---

"So how'd you lose your virginity, Zoro?" Luffy asked.

"It's not that interesting," Zoro said blandly, ignoring Nami's incredulous look.

"Ah, come on, I want to know."

"Why?"

"Just curious," Luffy responded with a shrug.

Zoro eyed Luffy before answering, "I just walked into a brothel and announced I was looking for help to lose my virginity. I got offers for help from three of the whores and two of the clients. Not much more to it."

"You just walked in and announced..." Sanji asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, so?"

"I..." Sanji cleared his throat and shook his head. "Why does that not surprise me?"

"I have no idea," Luffy answered with a grin.

He Can Cook?!

Word Count: 1,173

---

Zoro eyed the plate of too-fancy-to-remember-the-name prepared meat that Sanji had set down on the coffee table in front of him. Not that he had anything against Sanji's cooking normally. Everyone knew that Sanji was an excellent cook just from the smell - good enough that Zoro had actually thwarted a few kidnapping attempts since meeting the blond. But it didn't change the fact that Zoro kinda missed the days when Sanji wasn't serving him the best parts. He missed slightly charred food.

Alright, it was because Zoro was pregnant, and Sanji took his duty of making sure that Zoro and the baby got every nutrient they needed very seriously. Zoro understood that, respected it even - to Sanji's face in fact - but he missed what Sanji served to the male crewmembers sometimes. Like now. "Can you burn this?"

Sanji's face froze. "Burn... this?"

"Yeah, like slightly charred."

"You want me to char..."

Zoro ignored the unimportant name of the dish. "Yes."

"You know what? Fuck you." Sanji stomped off stiffly, pissed at Zoro's insult to his cooking.

Zoro looked after him in surprise. "What's his problem?" Then he shrugged and started eating the food. Wasting the food would only put Sanji in an even worse mood.

Luffy grinned down at Zoro from his new favorite perch on top of Mr. Hardass' jar. "I can burn it for you if you want, Zoro."

Zoro paused, fork still in his mouth to stare at Luffy for a long moment before he started chewing. "No. That's okay Luffy." Zoro made a mental note to hide all the matches he could from Luffy for at least a few days.

At the Next Port

Sanji strolled back to the Thousand Sunny whistling. A day off, and away from everyone was just what he needed. Rested and relaxed, he felt he could handle the rest of the Strawhats again without resorting to murdering them all in their sleep.

Sanji frowned as he smelled cooked meat on the air as he approached the ship. 'Well at least they haven't starved, I hope,' he thought idly.

Coming down the stairs to the beach he waved at Brook, who was the first to spot him.

"You're just in time!" Brook said with a chuckle. "Zoro cooked barbeque."

Sanji blinked, rewound that statement and played it again. 'Does not... What?' "Did you just say Zoro cooked? Zoro can't cook!"

Nami shrugged as she grabbed his arm and dragged him over to the heavily laden tables covered with a lot of barbeque. Even by Strawhat standards. "More like burn to a good flavor, but yes, Zoro can cook. Kinda."

"He can smoke too!" Luffy added on, from where he was eying a platter that was supposed to be his plate with greedy eyes.

Zoro threw a large rock at Luffy's head. "No jerky for you!"

"I didn't know he could cook." Sanji rubbed his forehead in confusion. This was not what he had expected to come back to.

"I don't cook," Zoro snapped.

Sanji pointed at the long tables covered in barbequed meat. "Then what do you call that?"

Zoro looked over the meat dismissively. "To steal Nami's words, 'burned to a good flavor.'"

"I love the skewers." Usopp grinned and waved one of the aforementioned items.

"By the way, we're out of vegetables. And pineapples." Zoro told Sanji.

"We have pineapples?" Sanji asked in confusion.

"No, we're out." Zoro sighed and set down another platter of barbeque.

"Pineapples?" Sanji was still stuck on that one.

"We had pineapples, we need more pineapples." Zoro pointed helpfully to the barbeque pit. "For the barbeque."

"And skewers. Don't forget the skewers!" Usopp added.

"That looks good, bro," Franky said, from just behind Sanji.

Sanji jumped in surprise. "Where did you come from?"

"Looking for pineapples. We're out." Franky clapped him on the shoulder before turning to Zoro. "We should be getting a delivery in a couple hours."

Chopper swayed, swirly-eyed. "So many pineapples."

"Then stop eating the fruit skewers!" Zoro griped.

"Can you skewer this?" Luffy asked, holding up an arm with a shark biting onto it.

"I - you... Fine, whatever. Bring it over here." Zoro sighed and pointed to the pit.

Sanji carefully picked up a piece of chicken, and after spending a long couple of minutes looking it over, he took a tentative bite. "Zoro can cook."

"Hmm... Shark-fin soup?" Robin thoughtfully said as she daintily nibbled on a rib.

Franky's stomach gurgled. "I need a cola."

"We'll need tofu if you expect me to make that," Zoro said.

"...Tofu?" Robin tilted her head thoughtfully.

Nami sat drinking Zoro's usual booze. "I forgot how good Zoro is at burning things! We should open a restaurant!"

"I only burn things when I feel like it," Zoro reminded the tipsy navigator.

"But it actually lasts a couple of days!" Luffy said as if that was the most incredible thing he had ever witnessed. Which it probably was considering the combined appetites of the Strawhats.

"Because even you have a limit to how much barbeque you can eat in a day," Zoro pointed out in a rare show of modesty.

Sanji blinked at that bit of information. "Lasts? A couple of days? How?"

"I think I dropped some meat in my tea," Brook said cheerfully with his usual laugh at his might-be-a-jokes.

Chopper eyed a new skewer in his hand/hoof. "Is that peppers? What's the red stuff next to it?"

"Tomato." Zoro told the doctor.

"Oh, and the yellow?"

"Yellow pepper."

"We have pineapple," Luffy reminded Chopper.

Nami threw an empty bottle at Luffy. "You ate all the pineapple."

Luffy laughed. "Oh, that's right."

Franky sat holding a platter of meat he was sharing with Robin. "You sure cooked a lot, bro."

Zoro shrugged. "The mood doesn't strike often, but when it does, I end up cooking everything on hand. We also need more of the stuff that I used for the sauce and marinade."

"You know about marinade?" Sanji really wished he'd stop being surprised.

"I'm barbequing more meat than even Luffy can eat," Zoro reminded the cook.

"Oh, right..."

"By the way, Nami, we're out of your oranges," Zoro suddenly said in a form of creative masochism.

Nami snapped into alertness, though not sobriety. "What? Why?"

"Because you said I could cook with them," Zoro patiently reminded her.

Nami calmed down at the reminder. "Oh, right. Hand me an orange skewer."

"Actually it's a chicken skewer with oranges and an orange marinade, but okay." Usopp said as he handed her a few.

Sanji sat through one of the more... surreal meals of his life. And again, with the Strawhats, that was saying something. He felt as though his world had suddenly been shaken at it's foundations. Though he, and everyone else, kept a close eye on Zoro, to make sure the swordsman didn't overexert himself. Thankfully, Zoro was smart enough to have Mr. Leafy doing most of the footwork while he mostly just sat in a chair and minded the barbeque pit.

Love Letters?

Word Count: 233

---

Zoro, by his sixth month, had gotten used to the fact that he was now getting letters from people he had only met once, or not at all, as word got out about his condition. So a strange mail bird landing on the perch that now stood opposite Mr. Hardass' jar in the new lounge area on deck, was not a surprise. Unexpected yes, surprise no.

Sighing, Zoro climbed to his feet and walked to stand in front of the bird he held out a hand. "Hand it over."

After being relieved of its burden the bird took advantage of the hospitality of the perch with its stocked food and water dishes.

Eying the unfamiliar postage mark, Zoro flipped the letter over and opened it up only to suddenly hold it out at arm's length as he was hit with the overwhelming stench of cologne. "Whew." Carefully pulling out the letter he unfolded it and tried to see if it was important enough for him to read without letting it air out.

"Dear Miss Zera,

I hope this letter finds you in good health..."

Zoro frowned as he read through what was apparently a misaddressed love letter to some poor woman named Zera.

"What's that, Zoro?" Robin asked curiously.

"Wrong address. Can you see if you can get me an envelope so I can return it to the sender?" Zoro asked.

"Of course."