Chapter Text
Zoro was stepping in the room when he was stopped by a foot on his leg. He turned his head back to look at the Cook in confusion.
"Let me wake him up. He'll wake the others up if he sees you, think you're dying or some shit."
Zoro stepped out of the room and let Sanji get in. Sanji headed to where Chopper was sleeping between the loud snores. The tiny doctor was laying on his back with one of his hooves on his chest and the other next to his head. His belly looked so squishy and Sanji decided to wake him up with a belly rub.
"Hey, Chopper."
A smile appeared on Chopper's face as he giggled a little bit before opening his eyes slightly. It took a few seconds before he fully gained conciousness and realized that Sanji was trying to wake him up, in the middle of the night. He jumped as he sat up and his eyes widened.
"WHAT'S WRONG?! DID SOMETHI-"
Sanji put a hand on the reindeer's shoulder as he gestured him to low his voice and whispered "Shh, you'll wake the others up. There's a slight issue and we wanted your assistance just in case. Now come outside where we can properly talk." He patted Chopper's shoulder reassuringly.
Chopper stood up, the worry in his eyes still remaining as he went out of the room. We? Who did Sanji mean by "we"?
Chopper's question was answered when he saw their swordsman in front of the door, wrapped in a blanket, shivering. Sanji quickly got out of the room behind Chopper and closed the door. He knew the reaction they would get from Chopper.
"OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU? YOU WERE FINE THIS EVENING. DID YOU-" Chopper hung his had low as the realization hit him. "You caught a cold while training in the Crow's Nest today, didn't you?"
Zoro looked away with a very mild, guilty expression on his face. "Mhm."
Chopper got closer to the Swordsman with a more merciful look in his eyes. He placed a hoove on the Swordsman's blanket and said "Please tell me everything that you've been feeling since you've been injured."
Zoro sighed as he turned his gaze back to Chopper. He was grateul that the tiny reindeer wasn't being a pain in the ass for not listening to him. Speaking of pains in the ass...shit. The witch. Ugh, the Witch is going to kill me for not listening to Chopper. Why does she have to be so annoying? I don't hate her, but sometimes I get very close to hating her. Even the Cook's more tolerable sometimes. Is he though? Nah. He is the most annoyi-
"MARIMO!! HEY, YOU THERE?"
Zoro saw a worried Chopper bouncing up and down in front of him, waving his hooves and a cook crouched down to his gaze, waving as well. The Swordsman shook his head and blinked as he regained his focus.
"Your moss head is zoning out again."
"AGAIN? WHAT DO YOU MEAN AGAIN?" Chopper was clinging onto Sanji's leg with wide eyes now.
"Well...We were up at the Crow's Nest and I was going to kick the Marimo in the shoulder, but whe-"
"WHY WOULD YOU KICK HIM IN THE SHOULDER, SANJI?" Chopper put his hooves on his cheeks, his eyes and mouth wide open and tears in his eyes. "His body is already declining, DO I NEED TO TELL YOU NOT TO FIGHT?! I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE CLEAR."
"I didn't kick him! Okay maybe just once..." Chopper sighed. "But that was before he zoned out! When I saw him zoning out after my initial kick to his head, I immediately stopped!"
The tiny doctor looked down. "Your kick to his head might be one of the reasons to his zoning out..." He turned his head to Zoro. "Did anything unusual happen when you received the kick?"
"I'M NOT SO WEAK THAT I'D LOSE MY MIND JUST BECAUSE OF A SHITTY KICK FROM THAT SHITTY COOK! AND NO, IT WAS JUST A LAME ASS KICK. DIDN'T HURT OR ANYTHING. IT WAS AS BAD AS HIS OTHER CRAPPY ONES."
"DON'T CALL MY KICKS SHITTY DAMN IT!"
Zoro snapped to look at Sanji but the pain starting from his head to his shoulders got way stronger as he turned his head so he flinched.
"Are you sure nothing unusual happened?" Chopper said with a worried look in his eyes. "Please don't lie."
"WHY WOULD I BE LYING?"
Chopper tilted his head to the side.
"Okay...Maybe it hurt a bit more than usual. BUT JUST SLIGHTLY."
"Anything else?"
"...And I can still feel the pain." The Swordsman's teeth chattered.
Sanji felt hot needles pierce into his head and shoulders softly. As soft as that can be, of course.
"And how long does the pain of Sanji's kicks usually last?" asked Chopper, horrified.
"Not more than a few seconds."
I wasn't even going to do it. The mossy shithead pushed me to do it. A little bit of guilt crept up on Sanji.
Chopper took a deep breath. "I need to do a proper check-up on you, NOW."
Chopper lead Zoro the way to the infirmary. Sanji had long forgotten about his watch duty and followed his crewmates as if he would be a part of the check-up as well. Both Sanji and Chopper were eyeing Zoro on their way to the infirmary because his shivering had gotten worse since Chopper had woken up. Zoro could feel the eyes on him and they bugged him.
"Why the fuck are you coming shitty Cook?"
Zoro didn't mind admitting his stupidity to and shivering next to Sanji but if his fucking kick fucked him up, Zoro certainly didn't want to give the bastard the boost of confidence. He also didn't like the idea of Sanji worrying about hurting him. They were equals and he wasn't so weak that a playful fight would break his whole system down. Even with a curse in his system.
"I want to see if you're so weak. Geting fucked by one kick of mine." Sanji said with a shit-eating grin on his face. The guilt in his chest mostly fading away and leaving its place to pride because he got a chance to annoy the shit out of the Marimo.
"Fuck off." The faintest blush appeared on Zoro's face out of embarrassment, but it wasn't visible in the crappy lighting of the ship at night.
"Oh for real Sanji, you don't need to come. We need you on the watch. I'll tell you if something happens, no need to worry." Chopper smiled innocently. Chopper knew what he said would piss Sanji off but after what he had done to Zoro, he deserved it!
A slightly visible blush appeared on Sanji's face and ears. "WHY WOULD I BE WORRIED ABOUT THIS DAMN SWORDSMAN? HE'S BASICALLY A LOG WITH MOSS ON TOP. I CARE MORE ABOUT THE BOOGER IN MY NOSE THAN HIM." He stormed off.
Chopper and Zoro got into the infirmary and Zoro sat on top of the bed. His least favorite bed. Whenever he got to see that bed something shitty happened so Zoro despised that goddamn bed.
Chopper closed the door and got a pen and a clip board and sat on his chair. "Last time I asked this you zoned out, so I'm asking again. Please tell me everything that has happened after the incident. Everything you've been feeling since being cut."
"Well..." Zoro thought for a few seconds and curled up into his blanket before continuing "I have had this weird tingling sensation on my left arm, ever since it got cut. But the cut was healing pretty fast so I didn't tell you about it, thought it was unnecessary. Then this evening had a weird feel around my throat but I had been yelling around the ship so I thought it was because of that. But when I was on the watch I felt so shitty that I had to leave it early to go and ask Cook to make me something to help with it."
"Something to help with it until the morning when I would tell you about it." Zoro added because he saw the will to chop him into pieces appear in the doctor's eyes.
"And what are you feeling right now?"
"I have this annoying ass shivering since I woke up. In fact, that was what woke me up. I woke up sweaty and with this shitty tremble. I had a stomach ache which turned into nausea and I spilled my guts out 30 seconds after waking up." He shifted his gaze from Chopper to his feet. "And I have this sharp pain in my head and shoulders. From the kick you know..." Zoro said those last two sentences as quietly as he possibly could.
After doing some final squiggles on his clip board, Chopper looked at Zoro to see if he wanted to add anything else. When he didn't receive any reaction, he got up from his chair and stood in front of Zoro.
"First of all, none of your symptoms, other than the tingling on your arm are unusual. Even the tingling isn't unusual, slight abnormalities are not uncommon when the immune system works a bit harder. Your symptoms do not worry me, Zoro. I could give you some medication right now to fix them. It's the rapid speed in which they are getting worse and more intense that worries me. I'm not exactly sure how to slow down the decline, but there's one thing that I'm certain of: I do not want you unconcsious before you start getting better. You told me several symptoms woke you up because of their intensity and you were better before going to sleep which means-"
Chopper got so caught up in giving Zoro a summary about his diagnosis and plan for treatment that he didn't realize the Swordsman's eyes were closing as he was slowly falling asleep. He jumped from where he was to the Swordsman's lap.
"HEY!! WAKE UP. I JUST TOLD YOU TO NOT LOSE YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS!"
Zoro tried to shake the sleepiness out of his head as he said "Just tell me what I'm supposed to do, I didn't understand a thing from what you said."
That gave Chopper a little frown and when the Swordsman realized the frown he tried to correct himself. "I just trust you and lack the brains to actually get the complicated stuff you talk about."
The reindeer smiled at the mention of his crewmate's trust on him. He jumped from the Swordsman's lap and explained everything in a more energized and simple way.
"I'm going to try to find a way to get you to feel better. Until then no sleeping, fighting, napping, drinking or anything else that can shut your brain off potentially. I don't know how long it will take, but I'll try to be as fast as possible."
Zoro's frown got deeper and deeper as the doctor counted everything he couldn't do. The only thing he liked that was not on that list was working out, which was the one thing he felt too weak to do. He couldn't meditate in this state either because of the stupid zoning out that freaked Chopper out. Ugh fuck, what the fuck am I supposed to do? I'll die of boredom even if I don't die from this.
"Are you not going to complain about, or protest the things I banned you from doing?" Chopper asked. He was kind of worried about how calm the Swordsman was about this.
"I got sick because I didn't listen to you and now you have to deal with fixing me because of me. I will be bored to death, but I can't complain. Not to you at least." Zoro said with a plain face.
The tiny doctor felt relieved because that was the most Zoro sentence he had heard coming from the Swordsman's mouth that night, except for the silly bickering of course, which meant his consciousness was not a matter of concern for now.
"I'm your doctor and I'm more than glad to try and fix your issues! It's just that this health issue could've easily been avoided..."
Chopper realized the Swordsman getting more thoughtful so in order to prevent him from zoning out he jumped as he said "Anyways, please try to stay awake as best as you can while I do a couple of tests on you. I'll let you go in a few, but I need you for a little longer before that."
Zoro nodded and surrendered to defeat.
Why the fuck would I be worried about a stupid fucking Marimo? I wish I had kicked him harder. Kicked him harder so that he would shut the fuck up. I will kick him in the balls as hard as I can if that shithead brings the stupid comment Chopper made up. I'll kick him so hard, this time he will black out because of the pain. Ugh it's so hard to live on a ship with an idiot like him. Stupid fucking idiot.
Sanji's temper cooled down a bit when he sat back where he was sitting 20 minutes or so ago. He looked at the place where the stupid shithead had been sitting next to him. It felt a little lonely and cold but he was so glad the idiot was gone that he just couldn't be bothered to mourn his absence. Sanji closed his eyes as he inhaled the fresh air of the sea into his lungs. He still had some time to himself before the sunrise and decided to spend that time clearing his mind and enjoying the serenity of the night, the way he usually did with his night watches. He looked up at the sky. It was even clearer than before, when he was with the shithead. It was scattered with stars and the more he looked, the more stars appeared, as they always did. He didn't know how or why that happened but it was as if they were waiting for him to notice them to start shining. He tried to imagine what a star would taste like. How big would a star be? Would there be anything edible on it? Stardust, maybe? Was that real? Sanji hoped that was real because when he was a child and before he'd heard about All Blue, his biggest dream was to cook the best dish in the world with a special ingredient: Stardust. He now knew that that was a silly dream, but a part of him still wanted to know if it was possible. In fact, he even had the recipe ready. All that held him back from trying the recipe out was the lack of the special ingredient...
"Cook-san."
Sanji was startled when he saw his beautiful Robin-chwan standing next to him.
"My angel, I apologize for I didn't see you. I don't know how I didn't realize your presence since your beauty outshines the moonlight and makes it seem pale and uninteresting!"
Robin chuckled at that.
"Is there anything I can do for my dearest Robin-chwan?"
"Thank you Cook-san, I thought I could accompany you in your night watch since I haven't been able to fall asleep." She sat next to Sanji.
Sanji felt giant hearts shape in his eyes as he jumped at the sudden closeness of the two. His beautiful Robin-chwan wanted to spend her precious time sitting with him? What more could he ask for?
"I'm so honoured my lovely." Sanji was basically drooling as he got closer and closer to Robin. He wasn't even aware that he was closing the gap between the two when Robin chuckled again and shifted.
"You were deep in thought when I came here, Cook-san. But also seemed at peace. I hesitated before calling your name. I wonder what you were thinking about..."
Robin gave Sanji a smile. A smile that asked for an answer. Her words had gotten him out of his lovestruck state and now Sanji was the one that seemed hesitant, hesitant to answer his angel. He didn't want to tell her about his stupid, childish dreams. He didn't want to waste her time on the silly dreams of a weak child. His most precious Robin-chwan deserved a much better use of her time.
"Oh I'm so sorry if it's a private matter! It was very rude of me to ask you about it before considering if you would actually want to talk about it or not." Robin had her hands in front of her as if she had dropped a glass vase and was apologizing for it.
Sanji wanted to kick himself in the ribs for making his precious call herself rude. He felt guilty, stupid and ashamed all at once.
"Oh no, my sweet! I can't believe I made you feel rude...It's just that what I'd been thinking about was so insignificant that I didn't want to waste your time on it."
Sanji's heart felt as if the Sun had risen and let all of its rays shine into his heart when he saw the smile his Robin-chwan blessed him with as she spoke with her melodic voice.
"I wouldn't be here if I thought listening to you was a waste of my time, Cook-san. "
Sanji would've usually melted at the spot after being treated so kindly by his Robin-chwan, but this time he was too busy trying to find a way to tell his angel about the sappy way he usually spent his night watch, without making it sound so romantic. He of course didn't mind being romantic towards Robin, it was just that he didn't like the idea of him being romantic outside of his interactions with women.
"Well my dear..." he turned his head up to the sky and turned his hand in its way as if it wasn't anything important "I'd just been looking at the night sky as I always do with these night watches."
"What a nice way to spend time during night watches Cook-san!"
"Thank you my sweet. I'd been wondering if stardust was real or not."
"Stardust?"
"Yeah..." Sanji uncomfortably shifted in his place and felt like he bored her out.
"Why?" Robin seemed interested and curious, contrary to Sanji's feelings.
To that question, Sanji's face lost all the little color it had. He felt the blood from all over his body get pulled into his heart and locked there. Locked along with all the memories he kept hidden from everyone, including himself. His throat, eyes and mouth felt dry and suddenly, he was back in the body of the weak, pathetic disowned prince of the Germa Kingdom. His entire existence was a mistake. A woman so delicate and beautiful as his mother was dead and such a tragedy must have had a proper reason behind it, a reason that could at least weaken the immense feeling of unfairness caused by it. However there was no such reason. A useless child who couldn't even defend himself was all the reason behind this tragedy and that made everything even more sorrowful. Sanji couldn't stand his own existence and just wanted everything to stop. The guilt, the abuse, the loneliness, the sadness... All of it. All he wanted was his mother to be back. He had missed her so much...If only he could get to hug her one more time. Feel her warmth around his whole being. If only she could stroke his hair and shush him to sleep, telling him everything would be okay...
Robin was utterly confused at the sight in front of her. All the life from their Cook's eyes from seconds ago had suddenly got wiped away, and all there was left of him, his being was a pale body with no sign of life other than occasional breathing. Robin had no idea what it was about "stardust" that turned Sanji into this, but there was just one thing that she was certain of: She had opened a very delicate old wound their precious Cook had. She felt indescribably guilty for forcing him to talk about his thoughts, she hadn't known it would‘ve turned out this way but there was no time for her to justify her own actions in her head. She needed to comfort their Cook and get him out of his mind immediately, before he had a serious breakdown.