OOC Log Post: Sanji and Zoro
Who: Sanji and Zoro
What: Practicing yoga, because Zoro is an injured idiot and sparred Sanji before he was really recovered, here, and after a lot of yelling Sanji brought up yoga as an alternative, easier-on-the-body training strategy. :)
Where: Crow's nest of the Thousand Sunny, docked at a winter island
When: Tuesday, January 5th, early in the morning, before everybody else was up.
Rating: R for language, I suppose, but it's basically PG-ish. :)
Additional Note: There are links to the various yoga poses throughout the log, to help your imagination. :)
First, a visual aid (yes, that is Sanji):
Zoro poked his head into the crow's nest and looked around. Hm. No Sanji yet; he hadn't been in his bunk either, even though it was still early. Getting something ready for breakfast while everyone was still asleep, maybe? Or sulking over his crushing defeat in poker yesterday and his many coming humiliations, more likely, heh. Well then, no harm in taking a little nap until the cook decided to show up...
The swordsman climbed into the lookout and settled himself cross-legged against a wall; he was snoring lightly in seconds.
Sanji paced around the galley, utterly failing at doing breakfast preps and instead sucking on what he thought was going to be his last cigarette for an entire fucking week. He wasn’t actually sure - maybe the dare hadn’t started yet? Had they set an exact time? Sanji couldn’t remember. He glowered down at his dwindling cigarette, willing it to last forever, and then promptly shot a triumphant look at the booze cabinet. At least he could take reassurance in the fact that Zoro was going to be denied his vices, too.
Much to his chagrin, his cigarette did eventually die. Sanji’s hand almost instantly twitched toward his pocket to grab another one, but he quickly reminded himself he’d left his pack in his locker that morning when he’d switched out his good pants for exercise gear. Sighing, he forced the entire thing from his mind and went to join Zoro in the crow’s nest - Zoro who was sleeping in the crow’s nest.
Sanji rolled his eyes, and made sure to raise his voice probably too much when he spoke. “Too early for ya, marimo?”
At the disturbance, Zoro's snoring abruptly halted and he slowly cracked his eyes open to glare at the cook, rubbing a knuckle irritably into his ear. “No. You're just late.” Then he noticed the cook's hand fidget next to the pocket of his workout pants like he wanted to reach for something, and smirked. “Ohh, nervous already, huh? Day's hardly begun, let alone the week.”
“Not nervous, asshole,” Sanji said, climbing the rest of the way into the crow’s nest and kicking the trapdoor shut behind him. Quickly, he started stretching out his arms, mostly in an attempt to keep his hands occupied. “And I’m only late because I was busy looking through one of Nami-san’s magazines.” He smirked over at Zoro. “Trying to find a nice, pretty dress for you to wear~”
Zoro's teeth ground together unpleasantly at the reminder. Nami's skimpy type of clothes! Like hell! “Who says you get to pick, shit-cook?” He pushed himself to his feet and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms and scowling. “The bet was cross-dressing, not you using me as a substitute dress-up doll to relive the okama island you miss so much.”
In an instant, Sanji’s leg was up and bent at the knee, ready to lash out and kick Zoro in the face. He only paused because he figured it’d be a bad idea to knock the idiot’s last two brain cells loose. “That place was a fucking nightmare, I don’t miss it!” Sanji scowled, lowering his leg again and instead pulling his foot up behind himself in another stretch. “But fine, you wanna girl yourself up on your own, that works. I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with.”
A few split-seconds late in bringing his arms up to block Sanji's abortive move, Zoro let them fall when the other man grudgingly shifted into a stretch, irritated as hell at himself for this second failure of reflexes. The cook having to go easy on him, what the fucking hell. And that was what this morning was about, not the admittedly diverting fallout of their poker match.
“Whatever, pervert-cook. I'm not gonna welsh on the bet, don't worry.” He eyed Sanji's bent leg. “...Uh, should I be stretching or something?”
Sanji switched legs, raising an eyebrow at Zoro. “You normally stretch before workouts, yeah? But no, yoga essentially is stretching, so you’re good. M’just warming up, it’s fucking cold outside.” He dropped his leg, twisted his torso from side to side a few times, then plopped down on the ground, shifting until he was sitting cross-legged. Then he looked up at Zoro and gave him a slight grin as he gestured to the ground in front of him.
“Hm.” After a moment Zoro sat down and mirrored the cook's position. He'd been inside for a while already, no need to warm up, he guessed. He tilted his head at Sanji questioningly. “Now what?”
“Now we start.” Sanji let out a deep breath, pulling his feet in as close to his body as he could and resting his hands on his knees, palms facing up. “The first part will probably be familiar to you, because it’s kinda like meditating.” He sat up straight, rolling his shoulders once. “Basically, you just breathe. Keep your back straight and your body relaxed, and breathe in deeply through your nose, right down to your stomach.” Sanji took a couple deep breaths, watching to make sure Zoro did the same. “Just let your mind clear, try to expel all the tension from yourself. Feel your belly rise and fall with each breath. You want to keep up this type of breathing throughout all the positions and sequences we do. It should always be steady and controlled. If it starts going irregular, that means you’re pushing yourself too hard and you should modify whatever position you’re in until it’s something you can do.” Sanji leveled a stern glare on the man across from him. “Yoga is not about overexerting yourself, got it?”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. It was one little K.O., you can stop nagging,” Zoro grumbled, purposefully relaxing his body and falling into a steady rhythm of deep breathing with the ease of many years' practice. Seeing Sanji had little trouble doing the same, he lifted a brow at him curiously. “You can do this but you can't meditate?”
Sanji raised one shoulder in a half-shrug, looking a bit sheepish. “I don’t have the patience for meditation,” he admitted. “You only gotta do this for like ten to twenty breaths, then you move on.”
That sounded like the cook; Zoro rolled his eyes a little, breath still slow and even. “Uh-huh.” Hm. Weird how this kind of breathing had become an automatic stepping stone over the years-Zoro could actually feel himself wanting slip further into actual meditation. He fixed his gaze on Sanji to focus.
Having Zoro's eyes suddenly focused on him made Sanji want to fidget. Instead he cleared his throat lightly, and released a final breath. “Anyway, moving on... Okay, so the thing about yoga is that...you gotta leave your ego at the door when you're doing it.” Sanji moved up onto his knees, scooting back a little further from Zoro. “Because some of the positions are-well. You'll see. Alright, get on all fours.” He planted his hands on the ground in front of him. “We're gonna do Cat-Cow stretches.”
“Cat-Cow...?” Zoro's brow furrowed a bit as he eyed Sanji's pose dubiously, but he went on all fours the same way. He didn't see what was so ego-breaking about this, despite the stupid-ass name. After a moment he shot a skeptical glance sideways. “...This doesn't feel like it's doing anything, cook.”
“Because we haven't started yet, you moron,” Sanji said with a roll of his eyes. “Make sure your palms are under your shoulders and your knees are under your hips, then you're gonna drop your stomach towards the floor and lift your ass-er...tailbone towards the ceiling.” Sanji demonstrated, directing his gaze upwards. “That's the cow pose. Then from there you round your back and drop your head so you’re looking at your stomach...inhale...and that's the cat pose. When you exhale, move back into cow pose.” He shot a look at Zoro to make sure he was following along. “It stretches out your spine.”
...Okay, this felt ridiculous to be doing, not to mention the embarrassing what-the-fuckery of listening to the cook's description. But. Zoro narrowed his eyes at the ground to avoid looking at Sanji as he felt the satisfying pull all along his stiff spine from the silly little exercise. “Hmmmm...”
“Keep moving with each breath, inhaling and exhaling deeply for six counts.” Well, Zoro wasn’t protesting yet, that had to be a good sign. Sanji moved into the cow pose again, letting his eyes slide shut so he could focus on his own body's movements for a moment. He automatically went to transition into the next position after his last exhale, before remembering at the last second he was supposed to be narrating. “Ah - from your last cow pose, you're going to move into Downward Facing Dog. So press down with your hands and push back, raising your hips and straightening your legs, and yeah, your ass is gonna be sticking up in the air now.” Sanji craned his neck around, watching Zoro upside down. “Let your head hang and press your heels against the floor. Your back should be flat - flat, marimo, yours is too curved. If you can’t straighten it, then bend your knees till you can.”
Zoro wanted to at least say something about the ass up in the air part, but then he caught sight of the cook's face-blandly quirked, swirly eyebrow of expectation, upside-down-so he just scowled, flattened out his damn back, and ignored the muted protests from his calves. “This is easy,” he said obstinately instead, muffled into his hanging shirt as he briefly bent down his head.
Sanji snorted in amusement. Of course this was easy. They still had a ways to go, though. “Breathe,” was all he said out loud. “Six breaths. Then walk your hands in towards your feet, and - stand up.” Sanji grunted as he pulled his torso up straight, and then shook his arms out lightly. “Again, bend your knees if you need to. And that's your warm-up! Next we're doing Sun Salutations.”
His side gave something of a pang as it tightened when he walked his hands to his feet, but Zoro kept breathing deeply and it eased out as he stood up. It felt kind of weird to be doing something physical one-on-one with the cook that didn't involve combat of some kind. Even the snowball fight had been competitive. Them alone up here, Sanji's steady voice giving instructions, and Zoro mimicking his every move...Weird. He clenched and released his hands lightly to facilitate the bloodflow, then shook his head a little, concentrating on his breathing again to banish the atmosphere that was probably only in his head. “Alright, let's go,” he said abruptly.
The next sequence of poses was also pretty simple and straightforward. Sanji had little doubt that Zoro would be able to get through them easily enough, but he was still going to watch him closely. The idiot was obviously still sore, not that that was something either of them was likely to let slow them down. Sanji simply nodded at Zoro’s abrupt words, eager to get to the more complicated stuff himself, and dove right into the next steps, leading Zoro through them. Bending forward again in a hamstring stretch with his palms flat on the ground, stepping forward into a lunge, pushing back into Downward Facing Dog again... They held each position for the same number of breaths, with Sanji listening carefully to make sure Zoro’s breathing stayed controlled.
“Okay,” he said after they’d lowered from Downward Facing Dog into a plank position. “Come down as if you’re going to do a push-up, but pause when your upper arms are parallel to the ground. Keep your body level - this one should be a breeze for you, don’t you do like five-thousand push-ups a day?” Sanji shook his hair out of his eyes, glancing over at Zoro as he held his position. “Bring your hips a tad lower.”
Even injured, Zoro could hold this pose for days. He'd stopped thinking about and picking apart each position individually and just reacted to the cook's movements and words, letting himself sink into the flow of it and letting the twinges and aches flow around and off of him. His eyes fell to half-mast as he held himself suspended without effort, and his breathing was very slow as he adjusted slightly and then waited motionless and patient for whatever came next.
…Not fair. It’d taken Sanji ages to be able to hold this one without breaking a sweat. He wasn’t surprised, though - Zoro’s upper body strength was nothing short of insane. “Inhale and drop your hips,” Sanji murmured, “push up with your arms and look up, and now we’ve got Upward Facing Dog.” He shifted from that position back into Downward Facing Dog, then another lunge, and from there retraced his steps back into a hamstring stretch again. With a final exhale he straightened for a moment…and then made Zoro repeat the entire process on the opposite leg. “What do you think so far?” Sanji asked once they’d completed the second Sun Salutation run-through. He propped his hands on his hips, looking honestly curious.
Zoro surfaced out of the half-trance he'd fallen into and shook himself a little as he straightened. He rotated one ankle after another, thinking. “Not bad. It's kinda like what I expected, once I got past how weird it seemed at the beginning,” he admitted, then rolled his shoulders in a motion that was half shrug and half stretch. “Like a slow kata. Relaxing and focusing.”
Sanji grinned and nodded, seeming pleased with his answer. “You’re pretty damn good at following directions,” he said, absently locking his hands behind his back and stretching out his chest. He quirked an eyebrow at Zoro, looking amused. “You should let me order you around more often, I kinda like it.”
...Idiotic cook. Zoro narrowed his eyes. “Don't get used to it.” Then he snorted. “Try it when you're not teaching me something and I'll show you how well I take orders from someone who's not Luffy.”
“Oh don’t worry, I know you’re a stubborn asshole. I’ll just enjoy this while I can.” Sanji dropped his arms, looking around as he rolled his shoulders. “Guess we’ll do balance stuff next for a couple positions. Then inversions.” He smirked slightly. “Inversions are fun.”
“What, fun like challenging?” Zoro cocked his head a bit. “If so, can we skip to those?” Not that he really expected them to, exercises usually built up in order for a reason.
“Hm...challenging, sure. And no.” Sanji brought his hands together in front of his chest, looking pointedly at Zoro and waiting for him to do the same. “We'll get there eventually. I like balancing, though. We're only gonna do a few of 'em.”
Zoro put his hands together with a smirk so faint it was more a tilted smile. “We praying, cook?”
Sanji rolled his eyes with an amused snort. “Yeah, that's exactly what we're doing.” He shifted his weight onto his right foot and lifted his left leg, bending his knee and bringing the sole of his foot up to rest on his inner right thigh. “Alright, we're starting in tree pose.” Sanji held himself perfectly still, waiting for Zoro. “Just bring your foot as high as you can manage.”
Zoro wobbled just a hair as he pulled his leg up as far as it would go; he stabilized easily enough, but frowned just the same. Hn, just proved his point about the importance of order. If they'd done this balance thing at the beginning he probably would've been too stiff to place his foot much higher than his knee. Irritatingly below par, but not something to get preoccupied with right now.
“...Not bad,” Sanji said, keeping his eyes locked on Zoro's. As long as he'd been doing this, he still found that staying focused on a single point helped him keep his balance. “Now the advanced version...” He lifted his arms up towards the ceiling, his palms still touching. Then, slowly, he opened his arms and lowered them until they were parallel with the floor.
“Whoever made this up had a weird definition of 'advanced',” Zoro muttered. He mirrored the cook, but shifted the focus of his gaze away to the wall after a moment. Eye contact wasn't exactly helping his concentration.
Sanji grinned a bit to himself, lowering his arms so he could return to the starting position. “Not everyone starts off as freaking athletic as you already are,” he said, repeating the entire process on his opposite leg. From there he took hold of the foot resting against his thigh and lifted it up high behind him. “King dancer pose,” he said, straightening one arm out in front of him.
Zoro eyed the new position with just a little consternation. Okay, that was a little bendier, and was definitely going to pull on his side. He tried it anyway and to his slight surprise and satisfaction, wavered only for a second, although he certainly ached some. “Hah,” he said under his breath, then felt ridiculous.
Watching Zoro contort his body was certainly...interesting. Sanji made sure not to let his eyes linger too long. He cleared his throat, arching his back even further, and reached over his head with his free hand to grab his foot as well. “And,” he grunted, making sure he kept the leg supporting his body steady, “…advanced version.”
When he glanced to the side to see how “advanced” this next one was, Zoro's mouth fell open a bit and he wobbled severely. He dropped out of the pose abruptly to keep from falling over and clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle a snort of laughter. Impressively flexible as it was...“That one makes you look like that Bon Clay,” he blurted out.
…Sanji nearly faceplanted. “-What?!“ he spluttered, instantly losing all focus and causing his balance to falter. “I-WHAT??? The hell, it does not, I don’t look anything like that guy!!” He quickly dropped his foot and, without missing a beat, swung his leg around, halting when his foot was only an inch from Zoro’s face. “Say it again,” he all but growled, face an angry red color.
...That face was too fucking hilarious. Zoro rearranged his own expression into something guileless. He pretended to ignore the foot hovering dangerously before him, but leaned back and tensed in anticipation. “Bon Clay,” he repeated blandly. “All you need to do is twirl and say 'Stop jooooking around.'” No, it was impossible to keep a straight face. He broke into a broad smirk involuntarily.
“YOU-” Sanji didn’t hesitate again - the asshole was asking for it, looking all smug like that, and he was almost healed…ish. Whatever. Sanji brought his leg back… “Shut up, you shitty swordsman!” …And then let it fly.
There it was. Ready this time, Zoro's smirk briefly shifted into a grin and he caught Sanji's foot on his mostly unhurt crossed arms, grunting a bit as the force of impact drove him back.
He'd expected the block and without missing a beat, Sanji used the force of his own kick as leverage, pushing off of Zoro's arms and snapping his other leg around at Zoro's side.
Well, he'd more or less asked for that, Zoro supposed as he was kicked across the room into the wall. He sprawled against it, knocked sideways and hurting all over, but laughter under his breath shook his shoulders even as he nursed his side and hauled himself to sit upright.
...Okay, he’d sort of expected him to block that one, too. Sanji landed lightly on his feet, crossing his arms and scowling over at Zoro. “Way to just totally fuck up the atmosphere,” he said, annoyed that the other man was still laughing and completely Not Worried that he’d just let himself get launched into a wall.
After a brief moment where his mouth tightened imperceptibly, Zoro snickered with a dismissive wave, “What atmosphere, it's just yoga.” A light grin stayed on his face as he used the wall to stand up stubbornly. “Just don't do any more poses that look like that guy and we'll be fine.”
“Yeah, and you fucked up the yoga atmosphere!” Sanji snapped. “Now my focus is all shot to hell.” He dropped his arms to his sides, still scowling, and then let his eyes slide shut and visibly tried to force himself to relax again. After taking a few deep breaths, he looked back at Zoro. “You shoulda just stayed on the floor,” he said, ignoring the urge to repeat the previous position on his other leg and instead just moving onto something new. “Guess we'll stretch you out again real fast,” he continued, and lowered himself to his knees.
Zoro rolled his eyes but moved to the center of the room and dropped down again, steadying his breathing back into rhythm. “Alright, alright.”
Sanji glowered a bit as he settled in and got as comfortable as he could on his knees. “This one's easy,” he said, reaching back and grasping his heels with his hands. “You're just gonna do this - camel pose. It stretches out pretty much the entire front of your body.” He tilted his head back and pushed his hips out, arching the entire line of his spine.
Zoro stared at the cook, mouth suddenly a bit dry, before he noticed his breath was coming a little faster. He cleared his throat, jerking his eyes sideways, and hastily brought it back under control. Maybe this hadn't been such a good...no no, it was fine. Just stretching, right. The swordsman half-heartedly tried out the pose after sneaking one more glance, but could barely touch his ankles let alone get as far back as Sanji before the abused muscles along his front started complaining. “Nn. Not-that easy.”
“Seriously?” Sanji glanced over at Zoro, brow furrowing. “Huh. Well. Hold that pose, then, don't even try the next one.” With that, Sanji let go of his feet, slid his hands around to hold onto his knees, and did a full backbend, dropping his head backwards until it touched the ground in a perfect Little Thunderbolt Pose. He grunted a bit as he did it, his muscles straining, but it was easy to just take a couple breaths and focus instead on the satisfying pull.
That. Was just utterly obscene. Zoro's breath hitched in his chest, eyes running heatedly over the long, curved line of Sanji's body, the jut of his hips, the extended downward sweep of his neck and throat-Zoro lost his balance and tipped over backward with a grunt, arms flailing out behind to keep him from falling flat on his back. Fucking hell the cook was flexible; of course he knew that, but seeing it like that was just-interesting in a completely academic and not hot-enough-to-melt-metal sense, shitdammitfuck, he was still staring.
Sanji’s eyes shot open when he heard Zoro fumbling. He tried to turn his head to see just what the hell he was doing, but it was a little difficult in the position he was in. With another grunt and gritting his teeth, Sanji’s pulled himself back into an upright position, then looked over…and immediately snorted in amusement. “Alright there?” he asked, not even bothering to hide his grin. He knew that look. He also knew just what that pose looked like and he knew exactly how well he could do it. Sanji’s grin widened, a bit of smugness creeping into it.
Shitty cook, that smirk was too much to stand for, even if it was completely justified. “Fine,” Zoro said stiffly, hunching a little and glaring daggers at the ceiling now that Sanji wasn't doing that anymore and Zoro's gaze could come unglued, and his brain return to something approaching normal function. “Just got tired of holding that pose, that's all.”
“...Uh-huh,” Sanji said, absently stretching his legs out in front of him. “I’m sure that’s exactly what happened.” He glanced up at the ceiling like he was trying to figure out what was so interesting up there, then shifted another amused look at Zoro out of the corner of his eye. “Idiot. Alright, inversions! You can do handstands and shit, right?”
Smug bastard. At least he'd managed to keep from fucking blushing. Zoro grumbled under his breath, but finally looked back down at the cook, lifting an eyebrow with a small frown. “'Course. I balance weights on my feet while I do handstanding pushups.”
“It's actually more of a headstand, I guess, we're not gonna be on our hands. But yeah, this first part will be easy for you. Actually...most of these aren't too bad. Bit awkward...” Sanji looked thoughtful for a second, then shrugged. “Whatever. Anyway - so start with a headstand!” This was an easy position for Sanji to lift himself into and he did so with little fuss, letting his weight rest mostly on his forearms to keep it off his neck and head. He'd forgotten to tuck his shirt in, so it ended up slipping partway up his chest, but he ignored it and focused on keeping himself balanced. “You wanna keep your body in a straight line. Utilize your core strength and try to stay still. And breathe.”
Zoro's eye ticked at the cook's exposed stomach with its abs-but this was about focusing, so that was what he was damn well gonna do. He steadied out his breathing yet again and swung into a headstand, pointing his toes at the ceiling and holding himself perfectly straight.
A couple moments passed before Sanji spoke again, as he was concentrating on the steady in-out in-out of his breathing and making sure his head stayed clear. Eventually he lowered his legs and shifted around until his was lying on his back, arms resting by his sides. “The next one…” he started to say, as he lifted his legs straight up again - and then kept letting them lower until his toes touched the floor behind his head, “…is entirely inappropriately named the plow pose.” He interlaced his fingers behind his back, and then turned his head to watch Zoro with a slight smirk. “Your turn, marimo.”
Inappropriately named, my ass. Zoro didn't even come out of his headstand, just stayed stubbornly vertical and clung to his breathing. As long as he looked at the cook upside-down, he could see it as ridiculous. “Don't think I bend that way, cook,” he said, grinding his teeth.
“No?” Sanji lifted an eyebrow at him. “Hmm. Guess you won't be able to do this one either, then.” Then he dropped his knees to either side of his head, pressing them as close to his ears as he could manage. “Ear pressure pose,” he said, and was determinedly Not Embarrassed at the weird shape he'd just contorted his body into. It was easier to remind himself that, hot damn, he was one flexible son-of-a-bitch. Might as well be proud of it.
Hah, that would look ridiculous upside-down or right-side up...Except then Zoro's mind flipped the cook's image for him and threw in a little cursed imagination, and he wobbled, teetered, and crashed with a yelp. He completely and utterly blamed coming out of the stand for the headrush and his burning face, certainly not the image of Sanji with his ass in the air and knees bracketing his ears-pressed-fucking shitty hell.
That shithead had to be doing this on purpose. Zoro put a hand over his eyes and resolved to keep it there until the cook was not bent like that anymore.
...Sanji couldn't help himself - he totally lost it. Which was really unfortunate because laughing was kind of hard and a little painful to do when you were all scrunched up and half crushed and your chin was digging into your chest. Pulling out of the pose properly would take too long, so Sanji just collapsed onto his side instead, legs sprawled all over the place…and kept laughing. “What - what the hell was that??” he managed to gasp out in between snickers, fully enjoying the red glow splashed across Zoro’s face and even consuming his ears. He noticed the way Zoro was covering his eyes and only laughed harder.
“Shut the fuck up you shitty dartboard-brow bastard,” Zoro ground out, lifting his bottom few fingers to peek cautiously over when it sounded like the cook had-uncurled. Oh, thank fuck. Except now he was laughing so hard he could barely breathe, fucker. And Zoro couldn't get his face to cool off fast enough, shit. “That's enough goddamn yoga.”
“Wait, wait!” Sanji reached out with a hand and tried to get himself under control, sucking down huge gulps of air and only allowing a few stray snickers to escape him. “Calm down, geez, I told you there’d be some weird ones.” It was impossible to wipe the grin off his face, though, so Sanji didn’t even try to. He flopped onto his back, stretching out his legs and resting his hands on his stomach, and looked up at Zoro. “I got one more - it’s totally normal! Just get on your back.”
“That wasn't just weird, it was-never-fucking-mind!” Zoro growled, scowling furiously and avoiding the cook's eyes. “...I'm going to kill you if this one is something weird, shithead.” But he was already half on his back anyway, so he just grudgingly shifted over. “And it's the last one.”
“Obscene?” Sanji supplied blithely. “And I already said just one more, that would imply this is the last one, dumbass.” He lifted his arms straight above his head, arched his back a bit, and just…stretched. “This is all it is,” he said, a satisfied moan rumbling in his throat. “A full-body stretch. Kind of a cool-down, I guess.” He pointed his toes and rolled his shoulders, making sure he could feel the pull all up and down his body.
...Absolutely doing it on purpose. Zoro tried to block out Sanji's sighing moan, but it had already reverbrated down to his toes, so he just shuddered a little and wanted to kill something even more. Preferably something shitty-cook shaped. Robbed of that option, he irritably stretched anyway. Once he did, rolling out all the little kinks, he actually couldn't help giving something of a lingering “Hnnn,” himself, so maybe it wasn't just the cook being an unfair, torturous asshole. It drove away some of the shifting restlessness the man had caused, too, so that was something.
Sanji’s ears pricked at the soft sound Zoro made, and despite himself he couldn’t keep his gaze from being drawn over to him. He made a…really attractive picture, all sprawled out like that, stretching and arching up and- Sanji dragged his eyes away before he tried to do something stupid, and sat up somewhat abruptly. “And we’re done,” he said, automatically patting down his pockets before remembering he didn’t have any smokes on him. Damn.
Zoro relaxed out of the stretch but didn't sit up like the cook, just crooked a leg upright and laced his hands under his head, turning some to look at Sanji narrowly. “Hn. Good. The beginning wasn't so bad, but..." His voice trailed off into a near-incomprehensible mumble. "...think you were making shit up at the end.”
“I was not making shit up,” Sanji said with a roll of his eyes, continuing to search through his pockets with a steadily deepening frown. He paused after a moment, turning to shoot Zoro a quick smirk. “I'm just flexible. Very. Flexible.” Then the smirk dropped and he promptly scowled again. “Fuck, do you have a piece of gum or something??”
“Freakishly flexible,” Zoro muttered, eyebrow twitching a bit in irritation at the cook and at his own unhelpful imagination. At Sanji's already obvious cigarette anxiety, however, a smug grin immediately took over his face. “No, I don't have gum, question-brow. Gonna have to find some other way to occupy your m-” mouth, he absolutely did not say. “-yourself,” he backpedalled quickly, mentally smacking his head against a wall.
...Ha. About the only thing making Sanji’s sudden and nearly desperate need for a smoke bearable was the fact that his little extreme body-bending act was clearly getting to Zoro. Sanji pushed himself to his feet with a grin, stretching his arms above his head a final time so that his shirt rode up slightly - might as well get one last hit in (he briefly wondered if maybe he was being a little evil, but quickly discarded the thought) - and then moved over to the trapdoor and pulled it open, speaking as he went. “Che. Probably gonna have to ransack the galley for shit to chew on.” He glanced down, frowning at the snowdrifts on the deck below, and then abruptly perked up. “Oh, maybe I’ll do some baking today!”
Zoro's eyes zeroed in on the strip of revealed skin, and he seriously contemplated kicking the shitty eyebrow out the trapdoor to fall to his snowy death. That satisfying image helped him say evenly, “You do that, cook.” He settled in further, closing his eyes to ignore Sanji more completely and obviously. “I'm going back to sleep.” After doing some heavy weight-lifting, maybe, but the cook didn't have to know that.
Sanji snorted. “Why am I not surprised?” he asked, lowering himself through the trapdoor. “I’ll see you later, marimo.” Sanji climbed a couple steps down, paused, and then popped his head back up into the crow’s nest. “Hey,” he said curiously. “Did it help? I mean, do you think you’d do it again?”
“Hn.” Zoro considered that, then subtly flexed and shifted different muscle groups, testing. A little more limber, a little less sore. He reluctantly concluded that there had been at least a small benefit to the exercise. “It helped some,” he conceded, and tilted his head to give the cook a dry look. “I might do the first half again.”
“You might as well do it all.” He grinned. “Then maybe one day you, too, will be able to get your knees up over your head.” And with that, Sanji disappeared down the ladder again.
Zoro snorted derisively as the cook left. Yeah, that was gonna happen...With Sanji gone, he sat up to eye his heavy weights speculatively. There should be time for at least a thousand or so swinging reps and a nap before breakfast-his arms weren't that injured, and he was all stretched out now, so it wouldn't be overexertion....
The swordsman stood up to get to work.
What: Practicing yoga, because Zoro is an injured idiot and sparred Sanji before he was really recovered, here, and after a lot of yelling Sanji brought up yoga as an alternative, easier-on-the-body training strategy. :)
Where: Crow's nest of the Thousand Sunny, docked at a winter island
When: Tuesday, January 5th, early in the morning, before everybody else was up.
Rating: R for language, I suppose, but it's basically PG-ish. :)
Additional Note: There are links to the various yoga poses throughout the log, to help your imagination. :)
First, a visual aid (yes, that is Sanji):
Zoro poked his head into the crow's nest and looked around. Hm. No Sanji yet; he hadn't been in his bunk either, even though it was still early. Getting something ready for breakfast while everyone was still asleep, maybe? Or sulking over his crushing defeat in poker yesterday and his many coming humiliations, more likely, heh. Well then, no harm in taking a little nap until the cook decided to show up...
The swordsman climbed into the lookout and settled himself cross-legged against a wall; he was snoring lightly in seconds.
Sanji paced around the galley, utterly failing at doing breakfast preps and instead sucking on what he thought was going to be his last cigarette for an entire fucking week. He wasn’t actually sure - maybe the dare hadn’t started yet? Had they set an exact time? Sanji couldn’t remember. He glowered down at his dwindling cigarette, willing it to last forever, and then promptly shot a triumphant look at the booze cabinet. At least he could take reassurance in the fact that Zoro was going to be denied his vices, too.
Much to his chagrin, his cigarette did eventually die. Sanji’s hand almost instantly twitched toward his pocket to grab another one, but he quickly reminded himself he’d left his pack in his locker that morning when he’d switched out his good pants for exercise gear. Sighing, he forced the entire thing from his mind and went to join Zoro in the crow’s nest - Zoro who was sleeping in the crow’s nest.
Sanji rolled his eyes, and made sure to raise his voice probably too much when he spoke. “Too early for ya, marimo?”
At the disturbance, Zoro's snoring abruptly halted and he slowly cracked his eyes open to glare at the cook, rubbing a knuckle irritably into his ear. “No. You're just late.” Then he noticed the cook's hand fidget next to the pocket of his workout pants like he wanted to reach for something, and smirked. “Ohh, nervous already, huh? Day's hardly begun, let alone the week.”
“Not nervous, asshole,” Sanji said, climbing the rest of the way into the crow’s nest and kicking the trapdoor shut behind him. Quickly, he started stretching out his arms, mostly in an attempt to keep his hands occupied. “And I’m only late because I was busy looking through one of Nami-san’s magazines.” He smirked over at Zoro. “Trying to find a nice, pretty dress for you to wear~”
Zoro's teeth ground together unpleasantly at the reminder. Nami's skimpy type of clothes! Like hell! “Who says you get to pick, shit-cook?” He pushed himself to his feet and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms and scowling. “The bet was cross-dressing, not you using me as a substitute dress-up doll to relive the okama island you miss so much.”
In an instant, Sanji’s leg was up and bent at the knee, ready to lash out and kick Zoro in the face. He only paused because he figured it’d be a bad idea to knock the idiot’s last two brain cells loose. “That place was a fucking nightmare, I don’t miss it!” Sanji scowled, lowering his leg again and instead pulling his foot up behind himself in another stretch. “But fine, you wanna girl yourself up on your own, that works. I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with.”
A few split-seconds late in bringing his arms up to block Sanji's abortive move, Zoro let them fall when the other man grudgingly shifted into a stretch, irritated as hell at himself for this second failure of reflexes. The cook having to go easy on him, what the fucking hell. And that was what this morning was about, not the admittedly diverting fallout of their poker match.
“Whatever, pervert-cook. I'm not gonna welsh on the bet, don't worry.” He eyed Sanji's bent leg. “...Uh, should I be stretching or something?”
Sanji switched legs, raising an eyebrow at Zoro. “You normally stretch before workouts, yeah? But no, yoga essentially is stretching, so you’re good. M’just warming up, it’s fucking cold outside.” He dropped his leg, twisted his torso from side to side a few times, then plopped down on the ground, shifting until he was sitting cross-legged. Then he looked up at Zoro and gave him a slight grin as he gestured to the ground in front of him.
“Hm.” After a moment Zoro sat down and mirrored the cook's position. He'd been inside for a while already, no need to warm up, he guessed. He tilted his head at Sanji questioningly. “Now what?”
“Now we start.” Sanji let out a deep breath, pulling his feet in as close to his body as he could and resting his hands on his knees, palms facing up. “The first part will probably be familiar to you, because it’s kinda like meditating.” He sat up straight, rolling his shoulders once. “Basically, you just breathe. Keep your back straight and your body relaxed, and breathe in deeply through your nose, right down to your stomach.” Sanji took a couple deep breaths, watching to make sure Zoro did the same. “Just let your mind clear, try to expel all the tension from yourself. Feel your belly rise and fall with each breath. You want to keep up this type of breathing throughout all the positions and sequences we do. It should always be steady and controlled. If it starts going irregular, that means you’re pushing yourself too hard and you should modify whatever position you’re in until it’s something you can do.” Sanji leveled a stern glare on the man across from him. “Yoga is not about overexerting yourself, got it?”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. It was one little K.O., you can stop nagging,” Zoro grumbled, purposefully relaxing his body and falling into a steady rhythm of deep breathing with the ease of many years' practice. Seeing Sanji had little trouble doing the same, he lifted a brow at him curiously. “You can do this but you can't meditate?”
Sanji raised one shoulder in a half-shrug, looking a bit sheepish. “I don’t have the patience for meditation,” he admitted. “You only gotta do this for like ten to twenty breaths, then you move on.”
That sounded like the cook; Zoro rolled his eyes a little, breath still slow and even. “Uh-huh.” Hm. Weird how this kind of breathing had become an automatic stepping stone over the years-Zoro could actually feel himself wanting slip further into actual meditation. He fixed his gaze on Sanji to focus.
Having Zoro's eyes suddenly focused on him made Sanji want to fidget. Instead he cleared his throat lightly, and released a final breath. “Anyway, moving on... Okay, so the thing about yoga is that...you gotta leave your ego at the door when you're doing it.” Sanji moved up onto his knees, scooting back a little further from Zoro. “Because some of the positions are-well. You'll see. Alright, get on all fours.” He planted his hands on the ground in front of him. “We're gonna do Cat-Cow stretches.”
“Cat-Cow...?” Zoro's brow furrowed a bit as he eyed Sanji's pose dubiously, but he went on all fours the same way. He didn't see what was so ego-breaking about this, despite the stupid-ass name. After a moment he shot a skeptical glance sideways. “...This doesn't feel like it's doing anything, cook.”
“Because we haven't started yet, you moron,” Sanji said with a roll of his eyes. “Make sure your palms are under your shoulders and your knees are under your hips, then you're gonna drop your stomach towards the floor and lift your ass-er...tailbone towards the ceiling.” Sanji demonstrated, directing his gaze upwards. “That's the cow pose. Then from there you round your back and drop your head so you’re looking at your stomach...inhale...and that's the cat pose. When you exhale, move back into cow pose.” He shot a look at Zoro to make sure he was following along. “It stretches out your spine.”
...Okay, this felt ridiculous to be doing, not to mention the embarrassing what-the-fuckery of listening to the cook's description. But. Zoro narrowed his eyes at the ground to avoid looking at Sanji as he felt the satisfying pull all along his stiff spine from the silly little exercise. “Hmmmm...”
“Keep moving with each breath, inhaling and exhaling deeply for six counts.” Well, Zoro wasn’t protesting yet, that had to be a good sign. Sanji moved into the cow pose again, letting his eyes slide shut so he could focus on his own body's movements for a moment. He automatically went to transition into the next position after his last exhale, before remembering at the last second he was supposed to be narrating. “Ah - from your last cow pose, you're going to move into Downward Facing Dog. So press down with your hands and push back, raising your hips and straightening your legs, and yeah, your ass is gonna be sticking up in the air now.” Sanji craned his neck around, watching Zoro upside down. “Let your head hang and press your heels against the floor. Your back should be flat - flat, marimo, yours is too curved. If you can’t straighten it, then bend your knees till you can.”
Zoro wanted to at least say something about the ass up in the air part, but then he caught sight of the cook's face-blandly quirked, swirly eyebrow of expectation, upside-down-so he just scowled, flattened out his damn back, and ignored the muted protests from his calves. “This is easy,” he said obstinately instead, muffled into his hanging shirt as he briefly bent down his head.
Sanji snorted in amusement. Of course this was easy. They still had a ways to go, though. “Breathe,” was all he said out loud. “Six breaths. Then walk your hands in towards your feet, and - stand up.” Sanji grunted as he pulled his torso up straight, and then shook his arms out lightly. “Again, bend your knees if you need to. And that's your warm-up! Next we're doing Sun Salutations.”
His side gave something of a pang as it tightened when he walked his hands to his feet, but Zoro kept breathing deeply and it eased out as he stood up. It felt kind of weird to be doing something physical one-on-one with the cook that didn't involve combat of some kind. Even the snowball fight had been competitive. Them alone up here, Sanji's steady voice giving instructions, and Zoro mimicking his every move...Weird. He clenched and released his hands lightly to facilitate the bloodflow, then shook his head a little, concentrating on his breathing again to banish the atmosphere that was probably only in his head. “Alright, let's go,” he said abruptly.
The next sequence of poses was also pretty simple and straightforward. Sanji had little doubt that Zoro would be able to get through them easily enough, but he was still going to watch him closely. The idiot was obviously still sore, not that that was something either of them was likely to let slow them down. Sanji simply nodded at Zoro’s abrupt words, eager to get to the more complicated stuff himself, and dove right into the next steps, leading Zoro through them. Bending forward again in a hamstring stretch with his palms flat on the ground, stepping forward into a lunge, pushing back into Downward Facing Dog again... They held each position for the same number of breaths, with Sanji listening carefully to make sure Zoro’s breathing stayed controlled.
“Okay,” he said after they’d lowered from Downward Facing Dog into a plank position. “Come down as if you’re going to do a push-up, but pause when your upper arms are parallel to the ground. Keep your body level - this one should be a breeze for you, don’t you do like five-thousand push-ups a day?” Sanji shook his hair out of his eyes, glancing over at Zoro as he held his position. “Bring your hips a tad lower.”
Even injured, Zoro could hold this pose for days. He'd stopped thinking about and picking apart each position individually and just reacted to the cook's movements and words, letting himself sink into the flow of it and letting the twinges and aches flow around and off of him. His eyes fell to half-mast as he held himself suspended without effort, and his breathing was very slow as he adjusted slightly and then waited motionless and patient for whatever came next.
…Not fair. It’d taken Sanji ages to be able to hold this one without breaking a sweat. He wasn’t surprised, though - Zoro’s upper body strength was nothing short of insane. “Inhale and drop your hips,” Sanji murmured, “push up with your arms and look up, and now we’ve got Upward Facing Dog.” He shifted from that position back into Downward Facing Dog, then another lunge, and from there retraced his steps back into a hamstring stretch again. With a final exhale he straightened for a moment…and then made Zoro repeat the entire process on the opposite leg. “What do you think so far?” Sanji asked once they’d completed the second Sun Salutation run-through. He propped his hands on his hips, looking honestly curious.
Zoro surfaced out of the half-trance he'd fallen into and shook himself a little as he straightened. He rotated one ankle after another, thinking. “Not bad. It's kinda like what I expected, once I got past how weird it seemed at the beginning,” he admitted, then rolled his shoulders in a motion that was half shrug and half stretch. “Like a slow kata. Relaxing and focusing.”
Sanji grinned and nodded, seeming pleased with his answer. “You’re pretty damn good at following directions,” he said, absently locking his hands behind his back and stretching out his chest. He quirked an eyebrow at Zoro, looking amused. “You should let me order you around more often, I kinda like it.”
...Idiotic cook. Zoro narrowed his eyes. “Don't get used to it.” Then he snorted. “Try it when you're not teaching me something and I'll show you how well I take orders from someone who's not Luffy.”
“Oh don’t worry, I know you’re a stubborn asshole. I’ll just enjoy this while I can.” Sanji dropped his arms, looking around as he rolled his shoulders. “Guess we’ll do balance stuff next for a couple positions. Then inversions.” He smirked slightly. “Inversions are fun.”
“What, fun like challenging?” Zoro cocked his head a bit. “If so, can we skip to those?” Not that he really expected them to, exercises usually built up in order for a reason.
“Hm...challenging, sure. And no.” Sanji brought his hands together in front of his chest, looking pointedly at Zoro and waiting for him to do the same. “We'll get there eventually. I like balancing, though. We're only gonna do a few of 'em.”
Zoro put his hands together with a smirk so faint it was more a tilted smile. “We praying, cook?”
Sanji rolled his eyes with an amused snort. “Yeah, that's exactly what we're doing.” He shifted his weight onto his right foot and lifted his left leg, bending his knee and bringing the sole of his foot up to rest on his inner right thigh. “Alright, we're starting in tree pose.” Sanji held himself perfectly still, waiting for Zoro. “Just bring your foot as high as you can manage.”
Zoro wobbled just a hair as he pulled his leg up as far as it would go; he stabilized easily enough, but frowned just the same. Hn, just proved his point about the importance of order. If they'd done this balance thing at the beginning he probably would've been too stiff to place his foot much higher than his knee. Irritatingly below par, but not something to get preoccupied with right now.
“...Not bad,” Sanji said, keeping his eyes locked on Zoro's. As long as he'd been doing this, he still found that staying focused on a single point helped him keep his balance. “Now the advanced version...” He lifted his arms up towards the ceiling, his palms still touching. Then, slowly, he opened his arms and lowered them until they were parallel with the floor.
“Whoever made this up had a weird definition of 'advanced',” Zoro muttered. He mirrored the cook, but shifted the focus of his gaze away to the wall after a moment. Eye contact wasn't exactly helping his concentration.
Sanji grinned a bit to himself, lowering his arms so he could return to the starting position. “Not everyone starts off as freaking athletic as you already are,” he said, repeating the entire process on his opposite leg. From there he took hold of the foot resting against his thigh and lifted it up high behind him. “King dancer pose,” he said, straightening one arm out in front of him.
Zoro eyed the new position with just a little consternation. Okay, that was a little bendier, and was definitely going to pull on his side. He tried it anyway and to his slight surprise and satisfaction, wavered only for a second, although he certainly ached some. “Hah,” he said under his breath, then felt ridiculous.
Watching Zoro contort his body was certainly...interesting. Sanji made sure not to let his eyes linger too long. He cleared his throat, arching his back even further, and reached over his head with his free hand to grab his foot as well. “And,” he grunted, making sure he kept the leg supporting his body steady, “…advanced version.”
When he glanced to the side to see how “advanced” this next one was, Zoro's mouth fell open a bit and he wobbled severely. He dropped out of the pose abruptly to keep from falling over and clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle a snort of laughter. Impressively flexible as it was...“That one makes you look like that Bon Clay,” he blurted out.
…Sanji nearly faceplanted. “-What?!“ he spluttered, instantly losing all focus and causing his balance to falter. “I-WHAT??? The hell, it does not, I don’t look anything like that guy!!” He quickly dropped his foot and, without missing a beat, swung his leg around, halting when his foot was only an inch from Zoro’s face. “Say it again,” he all but growled, face an angry red color.
...That face was too fucking hilarious. Zoro rearranged his own expression into something guileless. He pretended to ignore the foot hovering dangerously before him, but leaned back and tensed in anticipation. “Bon Clay,” he repeated blandly. “All you need to do is twirl and say 'Stop jooooking around.'” No, it was impossible to keep a straight face. He broke into a broad smirk involuntarily.
“YOU-” Sanji didn’t hesitate again - the asshole was asking for it, looking all smug like that, and he was almost healed…ish. Whatever. Sanji brought his leg back… “Shut up, you shitty swordsman!” …And then let it fly.
There it was. Ready this time, Zoro's smirk briefly shifted into a grin and he caught Sanji's foot on his mostly unhurt crossed arms, grunting a bit as the force of impact drove him back.
He'd expected the block and without missing a beat, Sanji used the force of his own kick as leverage, pushing off of Zoro's arms and snapping his other leg around at Zoro's side.
Well, he'd more or less asked for that, Zoro supposed as he was kicked across the room into the wall. He sprawled against it, knocked sideways and hurting all over, but laughter under his breath shook his shoulders even as he nursed his side and hauled himself to sit upright.
...Okay, he’d sort of expected him to block that one, too. Sanji landed lightly on his feet, crossing his arms and scowling over at Zoro. “Way to just totally fuck up the atmosphere,” he said, annoyed that the other man was still laughing and completely Not Worried that he’d just let himself get launched into a wall.
After a brief moment where his mouth tightened imperceptibly, Zoro snickered with a dismissive wave, “What atmosphere, it's just yoga.” A light grin stayed on his face as he used the wall to stand up stubbornly. “Just don't do any more poses that look like that guy and we'll be fine.”
“Yeah, and you fucked up the yoga atmosphere!” Sanji snapped. “Now my focus is all shot to hell.” He dropped his arms to his sides, still scowling, and then let his eyes slide shut and visibly tried to force himself to relax again. After taking a few deep breaths, he looked back at Zoro. “You shoulda just stayed on the floor,” he said, ignoring the urge to repeat the previous position on his other leg and instead just moving onto something new. “Guess we'll stretch you out again real fast,” he continued, and lowered himself to his knees.
Zoro rolled his eyes but moved to the center of the room and dropped down again, steadying his breathing back into rhythm. “Alright, alright.”
Sanji glowered a bit as he settled in and got as comfortable as he could on his knees. “This one's easy,” he said, reaching back and grasping his heels with his hands. “You're just gonna do this - camel pose. It stretches out pretty much the entire front of your body.” He tilted his head back and pushed his hips out, arching the entire line of his spine.
Zoro stared at the cook, mouth suddenly a bit dry, before he noticed his breath was coming a little faster. He cleared his throat, jerking his eyes sideways, and hastily brought it back under control. Maybe this hadn't been such a good...no no, it was fine. Just stretching, right. The swordsman half-heartedly tried out the pose after sneaking one more glance, but could barely touch his ankles let alone get as far back as Sanji before the abused muscles along his front started complaining. “Nn. Not-that easy.”
“Seriously?” Sanji glanced over at Zoro, brow furrowing. “Huh. Well. Hold that pose, then, don't even try the next one.” With that, Sanji let go of his feet, slid his hands around to hold onto his knees, and did a full backbend, dropping his head backwards until it touched the ground in a perfect Little Thunderbolt Pose. He grunted a bit as he did it, his muscles straining, but it was easy to just take a couple breaths and focus instead on the satisfying pull.
That. Was just utterly obscene. Zoro's breath hitched in his chest, eyes running heatedly over the long, curved line of Sanji's body, the jut of his hips, the extended downward sweep of his neck and throat-Zoro lost his balance and tipped over backward with a grunt, arms flailing out behind to keep him from falling flat on his back. Fucking hell the cook was flexible; of course he knew that, but seeing it like that was just-interesting in a completely academic and not hot-enough-to-melt-metal sense, shitdammitfuck, he was still staring.
Sanji’s eyes shot open when he heard Zoro fumbling. He tried to turn his head to see just what the hell he was doing, but it was a little difficult in the position he was in. With another grunt and gritting his teeth, Sanji’s pulled himself back into an upright position, then looked over…and immediately snorted in amusement. “Alright there?” he asked, not even bothering to hide his grin. He knew that look. He also knew just what that pose looked like and he knew exactly how well he could do it. Sanji’s grin widened, a bit of smugness creeping into it.
Shitty cook, that smirk was too much to stand for, even if it was completely justified. “Fine,” Zoro said stiffly, hunching a little and glaring daggers at the ceiling now that Sanji wasn't doing that anymore and Zoro's gaze could come unglued, and his brain return to something approaching normal function. “Just got tired of holding that pose, that's all.”
“...Uh-huh,” Sanji said, absently stretching his legs out in front of him. “I’m sure that’s exactly what happened.” He glanced up at the ceiling like he was trying to figure out what was so interesting up there, then shifted another amused look at Zoro out of the corner of his eye. “Idiot. Alright, inversions! You can do handstands and shit, right?”
Smug bastard. At least he'd managed to keep from fucking blushing. Zoro grumbled under his breath, but finally looked back down at the cook, lifting an eyebrow with a small frown. “'Course. I balance weights on my feet while I do handstanding pushups.”
“It's actually more of a headstand, I guess, we're not gonna be on our hands. But yeah, this first part will be easy for you. Actually...most of these aren't too bad. Bit awkward...” Sanji looked thoughtful for a second, then shrugged. “Whatever. Anyway - so start with a headstand!” This was an easy position for Sanji to lift himself into and he did so with little fuss, letting his weight rest mostly on his forearms to keep it off his neck and head. He'd forgotten to tuck his shirt in, so it ended up slipping partway up his chest, but he ignored it and focused on keeping himself balanced. “You wanna keep your body in a straight line. Utilize your core strength and try to stay still. And breathe.”
Zoro's eye ticked at the cook's exposed stomach with its abs-but this was about focusing, so that was what he was damn well gonna do. He steadied out his breathing yet again and swung into a headstand, pointing his toes at the ceiling and holding himself perfectly straight.
A couple moments passed before Sanji spoke again, as he was concentrating on the steady in-out in-out of his breathing and making sure his head stayed clear. Eventually he lowered his legs and shifted around until his was lying on his back, arms resting by his sides. “The next one…” he started to say, as he lifted his legs straight up again - and then kept letting them lower until his toes touched the floor behind his head, “…is entirely inappropriately named the plow pose.” He interlaced his fingers behind his back, and then turned his head to watch Zoro with a slight smirk. “Your turn, marimo.”
Inappropriately named, my ass. Zoro didn't even come out of his headstand, just stayed stubbornly vertical and clung to his breathing. As long as he looked at the cook upside-down, he could see it as ridiculous. “Don't think I bend that way, cook,” he said, grinding his teeth.
“No?” Sanji lifted an eyebrow at him. “Hmm. Guess you won't be able to do this one either, then.” Then he dropped his knees to either side of his head, pressing them as close to his ears as he could manage. “Ear pressure pose,” he said, and was determinedly Not Embarrassed at the weird shape he'd just contorted his body into. It was easier to remind himself that, hot damn, he was one flexible son-of-a-bitch. Might as well be proud of it.
Hah, that would look ridiculous upside-down or right-side up...Except then Zoro's mind flipped the cook's image for him and threw in a little cursed imagination, and he wobbled, teetered, and crashed with a yelp. He completely and utterly blamed coming out of the stand for the headrush and his burning face, certainly not the image of Sanji with his ass in the air and knees bracketing his ears-pressed-fucking shitty hell.
That shithead had to be doing this on purpose. Zoro put a hand over his eyes and resolved to keep it there until the cook was not bent like that anymore.
...Sanji couldn't help himself - he totally lost it. Which was really unfortunate because laughing was kind of hard and a little painful to do when you were all scrunched up and half crushed and your chin was digging into your chest. Pulling out of the pose properly would take too long, so Sanji just collapsed onto his side instead, legs sprawled all over the place…and kept laughing. “What - what the hell was that??” he managed to gasp out in between snickers, fully enjoying the red glow splashed across Zoro’s face and even consuming his ears. He noticed the way Zoro was covering his eyes and only laughed harder.
“Shut the fuck up you shitty dartboard-brow bastard,” Zoro ground out, lifting his bottom few fingers to peek cautiously over when it sounded like the cook had-uncurled. Oh, thank fuck. Except now he was laughing so hard he could barely breathe, fucker. And Zoro couldn't get his face to cool off fast enough, shit. “That's enough goddamn yoga.”
“Wait, wait!” Sanji reached out with a hand and tried to get himself under control, sucking down huge gulps of air and only allowing a few stray snickers to escape him. “Calm down, geez, I told you there’d be some weird ones.” It was impossible to wipe the grin off his face, though, so Sanji didn’t even try to. He flopped onto his back, stretching out his legs and resting his hands on his stomach, and looked up at Zoro. “I got one more - it’s totally normal! Just get on your back.”
“That wasn't just weird, it was-never-fucking-mind!” Zoro growled, scowling furiously and avoiding the cook's eyes. “...I'm going to kill you if this one is something weird, shithead.” But he was already half on his back anyway, so he just grudgingly shifted over. “And it's the last one.”
“Obscene?” Sanji supplied blithely. “And I already said just one more, that would imply this is the last one, dumbass.” He lifted his arms straight above his head, arched his back a bit, and just…stretched. “This is all it is,” he said, a satisfied moan rumbling in his throat. “A full-body stretch. Kind of a cool-down, I guess.” He pointed his toes and rolled his shoulders, making sure he could feel the pull all up and down his body.
...Absolutely doing it on purpose. Zoro tried to block out Sanji's sighing moan, but it had already reverbrated down to his toes, so he just shuddered a little and wanted to kill something even more. Preferably something shitty-cook shaped. Robbed of that option, he irritably stretched anyway. Once he did, rolling out all the little kinks, he actually couldn't help giving something of a lingering “Hnnn,” himself, so maybe it wasn't just the cook being an unfair, torturous asshole. It drove away some of the shifting restlessness the man had caused, too, so that was something.
Sanji’s ears pricked at the soft sound Zoro made, and despite himself he couldn’t keep his gaze from being drawn over to him. He made a…really attractive picture, all sprawled out like that, stretching and arching up and- Sanji dragged his eyes away before he tried to do something stupid, and sat up somewhat abruptly. “And we’re done,” he said, automatically patting down his pockets before remembering he didn’t have any smokes on him. Damn.
Zoro relaxed out of the stretch but didn't sit up like the cook, just crooked a leg upright and laced his hands under his head, turning some to look at Sanji narrowly. “Hn. Good. The beginning wasn't so bad, but..." His voice trailed off into a near-incomprehensible mumble. "...think you were making shit up at the end.”
“I was not making shit up,” Sanji said with a roll of his eyes, continuing to search through his pockets with a steadily deepening frown. He paused after a moment, turning to shoot Zoro a quick smirk. “I'm just flexible. Very. Flexible.” Then the smirk dropped and he promptly scowled again. “Fuck, do you have a piece of gum or something??”
“Freakishly flexible,” Zoro muttered, eyebrow twitching a bit in irritation at the cook and at his own unhelpful imagination. At Sanji's already obvious cigarette anxiety, however, a smug grin immediately took over his face. “No, I don't have gum, question-brow. Gonna have to find some other way to occupy your m-” mouth, he absolutely did not say. “-yourself,” he backpedalled quickly, mentally smacking his head against a wall.
...Ha. About the only thing making Sanji’s sudden and nearly desperate need for a smoke bearable was the fact that his little extreme body-bending act was clearly getting to Zoro. Sanji pushed himself to his feet with a grin, stretching his arms above his head a final time so that his shirt rode up slightly - might as well get one last hit in (he briefly wondered if maybe he was being a little evil, but quickly discarded the thought) - and then moved over to the trapdoor and pulled it open, speaking as he went. “Che. Probably gonna have to ransack the galley for shit to chew on.” He glanced down, frowning at the snowdrifts on the deck below, and then abruptly perked up. “Oh, maybe I’ll do some baking today!”
Zoro's eyes zeroed in on the strip of revealed skin, and he seriously contemplated kicking the shitty eyebrow out the trapdoor to fall to his snowy death. That satisfying image helped him say evenly, “You do that, cook.” He settled in further, closing his eyes to ignore Sanji more completely and obviously. “I'm going back to sleep.” After doing some heavy weight-lifting, maybe, but the cook didn't have to know that.
Sanji snorted. “Why am I not surprised?” he asked, lowering himself through the trapdoor. “I’ll see you later, marimo.” Sanji climbed a couple steps down, paused, and then popped his head back up into the crow’s nest. “Hey,” he said curiously. “Did it help? I mean, do you think you’d do it again?”
“Hn.” Zoro considered that, then subtly flexed and shifted different muscle groups, testing. A little more limber, a little less sore. He reluctantly concluded that there had been at least a small benefit to the exercise. “It helped some,” he conceded, and tilted his head to give the cook a dry look. “I might do the first half again.”
“You might as well do it all.” He grinned. “Then maybe one day you, too, will be able to get your knees up over your head.” And with that, Sanji disappeared down the ladder again.
Zoro snorted derisively as the cook left. Yeah, that was gonna happen...With Sanji gone, he sat up to eye his heavy weights speculatively. There should be time for at least a thousand or so swinging reps and a nap before breakfast-his arms weren't that injured, and he was all stretched out now, so it wouldn't be overexertion....
The swordsman stood up to get to work.