It was a surprisingly peaceful day aboard the Thousand Sunny. No great catastrophes, no marine attacks. The only excitement of the day had been a surprise visit from Luffy's brother, and once the pair's raucous greeting had died down to a low roar, things began to settle again. Now the ship was rather calm as Ace had escaped to the galley for a quick meal before rejoining his brother to exchange updates about, well, pretty much everything.

Luffy had been immensely disappointed when he had been unceremoniously booted from the kitchen. Of course it was his own fault; he'd just eaten lunch and still Ace's inquiry after food had the Straw Hat captain nearly knocking the gallery door off its hinges. He'd been informed that he could "damn well wait for dinner" and that Ace would only be separated from him while he ate. Luffy didn't need another excuse to deplete the ship's supplies, that was for sure.

So Luffy waited anxiously outside and Ace disappeared into the galley and the ship was calm save for the muffled chatter of the members of the crew who cared to learn more about Luffy's brother while they waited for the man himself to return.

Too bad this sort of atmosphere could never last. No one should have been surprised when chaos broke out, although the source was rather unexpected...

Someone in the galley let out a wild curse, shortly followed by a loud clattering sound of something metal hitting the floor. There was a pause, then, "You bastard, get back here!" came Sanji's voice raised in outrage, accompanied by a series of loud crashes and yells of surprise.

"It was an accident!" Ace cried as he dove behind the dining table to escape the volley of kicks that were aimed at his head. Certainly he could just turn to flame and bypass physical damage altogether, but then he ran the risk of burning the cook and Ace was pretty sure Luffy would never forgive him if he harmed the blond. Er, anymore than he already had. On accident!

Sanji nearly flipped the dining table in his pursuit of the fire-user, and Ace had to use both hands to keep it on the floor. It was currently his shield, and he did not want it moving.

"You bastard!" Sanji bellowed. "You could have killed me!"

"I think I'm in more danger here," Ace said quickly as he shuffled behind the table, countering the blond's movements and keeping the object between them.

"You threw a fireball at me!" Sanji cried indignantly, knocking a chair aside as he made a lunge for Ace, but the other man managed to escape to the opposite side of the table before Sanji got him.

"Well you startled me," Ace insisted, eyes darting to the exit over the blond's shoulder.

"All I did was wake you up!" Sanji snapped. "I thought you were dead or something. You fell asleep in your food! Who does that?!"

"Not like I did it on purpose," Ace countered, but it didn't do anything to help his cause.

"You're worse than the marimo. And after I even fixed you something special because you dragged your sorry carcass onto the ship like you were starving!" Whether Sanji was more offended by the fireball to his face or the insult to his food, Ace wasn't sure.

"It was delicious?" Ace quipped in an attempt to placate the enraged cook.

Sanji roared and dove over the dining table.

With a yelp of surprise Ace ducked and dove under the table, then made a hasty – and rather graceless – retreat to the galley door before the blond could recover.

The fire-user ran out on deck and almost smack into Zoro, who had been coming to investigate all the screaming. The swordsman stared after Ace as the fire-user ran and hid behind Luffy, then turned to open the galley door. He was nearly plowed into a second time when Sanji flung the door open, but luckily the cook stopped short when he saw Zoro standing there instead of Ace.

"Watch it, dartboard, you almost--" The rest of Zoro's sentence died in his throat when the swordsman got a good look at Sanji's face and broke into hysterical laughter.

Sanji stiffened and turned on his heel to hurry back into the galley, slamming and locking the door behind himself. Standing by the door, he listened as Luffy's voice inquired about what had just happened and Ace offered a quick explanation.

There was a moment of silence beyond the door and Sanji strained to hear what was happening. Then Luffy and Zoro both started laughing out loud and Sanji cursed vehemently and stormed over to the sink.

That was it. Neither of those idiots were eating until Ace was off the damn ship.

Or, Sanji thought dejectedly as he caught sight of his own reflection in the surface of one of the frying pans, at least until his eyebrows grew back.

~ ;3 ~

Misleading summary is misleading? No it's not what are you talking about. -run away-

Okay I know I'm mean! XD No need to remind me of this. But I don't hate Sanji! I promise!
And no, I have no idea why I felt the need to char Sanji's eyebrows off. YES HIS EYEBROWS OMG D: it just sort of happened. o^o I was thinking, I wanna write something with Ace, and the line "am I missing an eyebrow?" from Mythbusters popped into my head. XDDDD Hope Ace wasn't too OOC.... I'm not exactly well-acquainted with him. o_o Sorries!

Also sorry to Sanji fans! Don't worry, they'll grow back! 8DDDD -slaughtered-

And, er, just assume this was before the whole Impel Down thing. :'D Tiiiiime waaarp. -jazz hands-

-double slaughtered-