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"Snow! Snow!" Luffy whooped with so much joy, you'd think he'd never seen it before in his life.
He had to ram the door with his shoulder several times before it finally gave way and let him outside. He burst onto the deck just as he was, in only his vest, and with a running start, threw himself into the snow, laughing boisterously and waving his arms and legs.
"Let's build a snowman!" he called out, inviting a slightly disheveled, just-woken-up Zoro to join his fun.
"Pass," Zoro grumbled, scratching the back of his head. However, he was quickly awakened by the snow that found its way into his boots the moment he stepped onto the deck.
"Then let's make snow angels! I already made one!" Luffy grinned widely, pointing a finger at his creation—the imprint he had just left in the snow.
"Looks more like an ass," Zoro muttered, squinting sleepily and tilting his head. But Luffy wasn't upset, because his rubber body had finally tired of resisting the cold, and he hurried back to the men's quarters to grab a jacket and a pair of mittens.
Zoro shook his head, watching him go. He took a deep breath, feeling the frost seep into his lungs, prickling from the inside like a thousand tiny needles. The Grand Line was such an unpredictable place that in one damn night, they'd gotten more snow than Shimotsuki would see in an entire winter. Going Merry, looking like it was sleeping under a thick white blanket, seemed almost cute to him.
The peace of the frosty, sunny morning shattered the instant the back of Zoro's head connected with a jacket that had been thrown at him.
"You'll freeze your ass off and keep me awake with your chattering teeth," Sanji drawled, looking down at him casually from the upper deck.
The damn cook always showed up where he wasn't wanted or welcome.
"I don't give a damn about your concern," Zoro growled, his face reddening from either anger or the cold, but he put the jacket on anyway.
To be perfectly honest, it was pretty thoughtful of the cook. Everyone knew Zoro caught colds easily, despite his intense training. And he knew it perfectly well himself, but he consoled himself with one small victory: the cold itself didn't seem to bite into him the way it did Sanji, who shuddered and cursed at the first sign of a chill.
Which was pretty weird, considering he never actually got sick, even though Zoro had witnessed him do extreme things, like swimming in freezing water (don't ask — they'd once dropped Luffy into an ice hole).
It was almost lunchtime, and the weather was worsening; clouds had covered the sky, which just moments ago had been crystal clear. By a group vote — or more accurately, by Nami's unilateral decision — it was decided they would spend the night on the island, after first clearing the ship of snow. According to her complicated calculations, no more precipitation was expected, but the sub-zero temperatures would hold for another day.
"Clear the deck, or we won't be able to disembark," she said in a commanding tone. Several shovels and one tiny scoop landed in the snow at the guys' feet. "And hurry up, it's going to get colder soon."
"Yes, Nami-san! Don't worry, my love for you will keep me warm!" Sanji was the first to grab a tool, eager to please her, and Zoro just rolled his eyes at his unquestioning obedience.
If they worked together, the guys could have cleared the ship in a half hour, but things went sideways (as usual). Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp soon abandoned their work. At first, they were just snickering, communicating with gestures only they understood. Then, shortly after, they started getting hit in the back of the head with snowballs. It didn't take long for the shovels in their hands to turn into catapults, and with shrieks and shouts, they began tumbling in the snow and shoving it down each other's collars.
In the end, the only ones left working were him and the shitty cook. Zoro wasn't particularly enthusiastic, lazily shifting snowdrifts and half-heartedly tossing snow overboard. Sanji, on the contrary, was giving it his all, working up a sweat, desperately wanting to please the witch. For a moment, Zoro almost thought the snow around his feet was melting from his sheer effort.
He glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, and a heavy, unpleasant feeling twisted in his gut.
Sanji wasn't wearing any gloves.
He'd overheard him looking for them that morning and even asking Nami about the loss, but Zoro knew it was pointless— the idiot trio had torn them up a couple of weeks ago trying to stretch them over Chopper's antlers. Unable to find them, Sanji had come out to shovel snow barehanded, his damn pride not allowing him to ask for help.
And it made Zoro sick.
The frost clawed and bit, trying to get under his skin, and if Zoro's hide was so thick and scarred he barely noticed, Sanji was shaking like a leaf within half an hour. You'd think the physical labor would warm him up, but the cook's delicate hands had grown so stiff that he soon found it hard to even move and hold the shovel.
He knew how much Sanji worried about his hands; he even kept them in his pockets during fights whenever possible. He'd heard from him more than once that a cook's hands were his most valuable asset. So why was he silently enduring the pain now, working so diligently?
A clump of snow hit Sanji in the back of the head from somewhere, making him drop his shovel and hop around, trying to shake it out from under his collar.
"You damn i-diots! I'll m-make soup out of you, L-Luffy!" he grabbed his shoulders, trying to hold onto what little warmth he had left, but it was too late.
His only answer was their collective laughter.
"The hell are you st-staring at, M-Marimo? L-looking for a f-fight?" he chattered, noticing Zoro's intense stare.
Yep. His 'love' wasn't doing a great job of keeping the cook warm.
Zoro snorted and turned away, trying to get it all out of his mind and get back to work. His threats were empty anyway; in this state, he couldn't even put up a fight.
Suddenly, he heard Sanji cursing loudly behind him after dropping his cigarette in the snow and nearly losing his lighter right after. The damn idiot was so obsessed with his nicotine addiction that he'd tried to light up even in this freezing cold.
Unable to help himself, Zoro cautiously glanced back again, and his gut twisted once more at the sight of Sanji wiping his red nose and trying to pull his jacket sleeves down over his hands for a bit of warmth.
No. This couldn't go on.
Zoro spat, threw his shovel down, and caught Luffy by the collar as he ran past.
___
Sanji pursed his cold lips in frustration, realizing the futility of all his efforts. It felt like he was frozen not just on the outside, but on the inside too, to the point where even his breath no longer provided any warmth.
He heard Luffy's indignant yells, which morphed into sounds suspiciously resembling drowning. Frowning, he turned towards the noise and saw Zoro stomping decisively in his direction.
The snarky remark on Sanji's lips never made it out before Zoro grabbed him by the wrist and, with determination on his face, started fiercely pulling something onto his hand.
"Hey, hey! Wh-what the hell are you doing?!" he stammered, bewildered by this turn of events, but Zoro wasn't just ignoring him — he wasn't even hearing him.
It took him a few seconds to understand that the stupid swordsman was shoving his hand into a large red mitten. Sanji froze stupidly, his mouth hanging open in surprise as he watched him perform the same trick with his second hand before nodding to himself in satisfaction.
"Love isn't a fire, it won't keep you warm, idiot," Zoro snorted right in his face and walked off with a sense of duty accomplished.
Sanji stood motionless for another minute, as if the cold had frozen his nervous system. An interesting scene was unfolding before his eyes: Zoro shoved a shovel into Usopp's hands and dragged Luffy out of a snowdrift by the scruff of his neck. He scolded them like a commander chewing out inept soldiers, after which they went back to work, hanging their heads. Without taking his eyes off this spectacle, he absently reached for his shovel, only to find that Zoro had taken it with him.
Why did he do that?
No, that wasn't the right question. First and foremost, he needed to figure out: "What the hell was that?!"
Sanji swallowed hard. The cold had somehow retreated, and it definitely wasn't because of the mittens.
The snow had melted by nightfall.
___
"Oi, Marimo! What are you, a polar bear? Zip up!"
"I'm not cold," he grumbled, and to be perfectly honest, that wasn't entirely true.
"Are you kidding me?" the cook retorted, already turning and walking over to him. "Quit showing off and give me your hands!"
He couldn't refuse him, so he obediently let his rough, scar-covered hands be enveloped in the warm embrace of the knitted mittens. Seeing it wasn't helping much, Sanji, without a second thought, leaned down and tried to warm them with his own hot breath.
"Cook, we're going to fall behind the others," Zoro reminded him quietly, though right now, he wanted nothing more in the world than for this to continue.
"It's fine. If we get lost, your great sense of direction will save us," Sanji joked with no malice, exhaling onto the reddened palms again and rubbing them in a rhythmic motion.
Zoro smirked, feeling warmth spreading across his cheeks, coming from somewhere deep inside. Probably from his stomach, which was still full of a delicious breakfast.
"My sense of direction is fine," he grumbled for the sake of formality and immediately fell silent, unable to ignore the waves of affection washing over him.
"Are you any warmer, or am I wasting my effort here?" Sanji squeezed his hands firmly in his own and looked up, meeting his gaze.
A warmth bloomed in Zoro's chest, quickly igniting into a blaze — no, not just a blaze, a full-blown wildfire.
"Yeah," he gave Sanji's hands a gentle squeeze in return, "much warmer."