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X X X
“I—You can’t be serious. You honestly expect me to believe that?”
Didn’t he hear you? You said nothing happened. He should leave you alone now.
“...What the hell, Zoro, you are fucking unbelievable. Here, just hang on, we’ll get you to Chopper.”
A strong wrist grabs yours and effortlessly unfolds your arms from across your chest, not even reacting to the rivers of blood streaming from every wound on your body. You’re barely conscious when the cook drapes your arm over his shoulder and takes some of your weight for himself. At least, you think he does. There was some point during the night where you stopped feeling gravity, and as far as you can tell, you’re weightless. But the moment someone is actually holding you up, all the weight comes back, and suddenly you’re crumpling down onto his shoulders. He swears a bit under the sudden weight, but his grip on your wrist stays, and by extension, so do you.
“Come on, you ass. Making me do all the work again? Pathetic.”
You must be hallucinating. He’s never this nice to you. But it kind of works, and you manage to right yourself enough to shift the weight between you. A weird part of you thinks that, if you could walk on your own right now, you’d totally kick his ass for that dumbass stunt he pulled during the fight. What kind of bullshit was that, thinking he could take your place? He wouldn’t have survived this. But you did. And now you’re both alive, instead of just you. You were protecting your crew, he doesn’t get to take that from you.
“You’re mumbling, mosshead. Shut up, save your strength,” Sanji snaps, and you wisely stop mumbling whatever you were saying. You don’t know what you said. Hopefully nothing too idiotic. You blink a few times, slowly, each taking you longer and longer to open your eyes. But the two of you drag forward, away from the rubble, away from the bloodstained crater, step by step, until you can make out vague human shapes in the distance. Probably some of the others who survived the attack. You hope everyone’s okay. Hope Luffy’s okay.
Is Sanji okay?
Hm. Normally, you don’t care, but. He tried to save you from Kuma, and you saw him get his ankle all bust up, right? How is he even walking, and carrying you?
Maybe he’s not as much of a scrawny little shit as you thought.
Sanji snorts beside you, giving way to a laugh that you can feel rattling through your remaining ribs. Ow. “Wow, fuck off. You’re such a tool—hold on. CHOPPER!”
Your ears ring for way too long after that, and it takes a few moments of staring up at Sanji’s moving mouth to realize that you may have just collapsed. This is fine. Maybe, maybe you just need to sleep this off.
Voices fade in and out around you, some familiar. But the cook is still there, looking uncharacteristically worried as Chopper gives him a roll of bandages and tells him to help with something. He pulls off his torn suit jacket and carefully places it under your head, which suddenly hurts like nothing you’ve ever...well, actually, you guess you can’t say that anymore. Normally you’d complain, just a little.
Nothing about today is normal.
Like the fact that the back of the cook’s shirt is stained through with blood that you hadn’t noticed before. That’s not normal. He’s never weak enough to get hit like that.
As he pulls his hands back and starts wrapping the bandages silently around your forehead, his left shirt sleeve rides up slightly and you see
~ ~ ~
Fuck.
You swat idly at your wrist as your soulmark acts up—not for the first time today, actually, fucking inconvenience—and try to drown it out in the flood of water rushing over your hands. Of course, it doesn’t work, because soulmarks fucking hurt when they act up, so you just ignore it and scrub those dishes harder, like the mark will go away if you just take out all your frustration on this one particular plate. Whoever your soulmate is, they must be dying or something right now. Good. Fuck ‘em. Romance would be awesome if it didn’t hurt.
For the next ten minutes, you pretend to concentrate on your cleaning, which you also pretend works. The pain slowly wanes, but the lingering ache is still impossible to ignore. You hate this shit. Why does your soul babe have to go so batshit crazy and make you feel like your wrist is gonna fall off every ten fucking seconds? You also pretend to not be pissed that you’re the one doing the dishes and not the shitty marimo, like he was supposed to be. You already cook for the bastard, and he can’t even show the basic human decency to do the damn chores? His injuries have been healing up just fine, and if he can walk, he can help. Well, since you’re so gracious, you stopped waiting for him and did it yourself. Maybe you’ll stick some razor blades in his next meal as payback—he likes knives, right? Technically you’re doing him a favor. He should consider it a gift.
It’s been five days since the Sunny left Thriller Bark, and ever since Zoro woke up, he’s been even more obnoxious than usual. An absolute mess. Dropping plates when clearing the table. Disappearing to any place on the ship you wouldn’t expect him to be. Tripping randomly without warning, leaving you and others to catch him so he doesn’t eat shit. Talking more than usual and going on random tangents that make fuckall sense, until he just stops suddenly and bolts to the other side of the ship. It’s ridiculous, and it’s going to drive you off the deep end. He’s been bad before, but this? Absolutely incorrigible. Maybe Kuma messed up his head the way he messed up your ankle, maybe you should cut him some slack.
Fuck, though, the respect that Zoro begrudgingly earned after the incident is already wearing pretty thin. Luffy’s savior or not, there’s only so much pity you can have when the man’s every waking second is a test of patience.
As you put the last of the plates away, your wrist stings again, and this time you’re not expecting it and you react audibly before you can bite it back. “Shit.” You grab your wrist in an effort to mask the pain, but it doesn’t work. “Shit, that’s...fuck—“
“Heh?! I-I’m awake!” Chopper splutters to consciousness loudly behind you, startling you—you didn’t even know he was here.
“Chopper, wh—OOF!”
The air straight up exits your lungs as Chopper dives for you, immediately screeching a million different things about your health and your injuries, Sanji, your injuries! Like you need reminding.
“Relax, Choppe—ow, hey! Chopper, I’m fine!” you wheeze, prying him off of you as gently as you can and placing him down on the counter. That doesn’t stop him from immediately clambering back onto your shoulder to check for himself.
“No, you’re not! You need to rest, you dummy,” Chopper huffs at you, his eyes boring new holes into the bandages peeking out from under your shirt. “You were stabbed, remember? And you nearly broke your ankle while trying to fight Kuma! If you don’t rest, you won’t get better, and then we won’t have our cook.”
“Hey, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yes, you are! You’re going back to bed and staying there until our next meal.”
“I don’t have time for that,” you groan back. “Because that stupid swordsman didn’t show to help with the dishes, that’s my free time gone. I’ve gotta start prepping dinner now if we wanna eat before nine.”
Chopper jumps down to the counter and sits on the edge, hooves kicking slightly. “Huh? He didn’t? That’s strange, he’s usually pretty good with helping out around the ship.”
You scoff and move over towards the stove, ignoring the continuous throb in your wrist as you pick up a large pot and set it down over the burner. “Sure, he can lift pots and wash dishes. Indispensable, clearly. But he’s acting all funky, so since he can’t even find the decency in him to show up, I’ve got this covered. And don’t worry about my injuries, they’re not that big a deal.”
Your esteemed doctor gives you a knowing look, and as he does, casually shifts his attention to your wrist. “Uh-huh. That’s why you’re definitely not favoring your left hand over your right right now. Are there any other injuries I should know about that you’ve been keeping from me?”
Shit. He noticed. “Nope,” you grit out, determined to avoid a visit to the doctor’s office if you can help it.
“So it must be your soulmark then?”
You splutter unflatteringly and whirl around to face him—he’s got a knowing look on his face, far too mature for his age and size. Surprised, you find you can barely form a complete excuse. “I—I, uh, well, how, I guess—“
“I’ve been noticing you nursing your left wrist ever since the party on Thriller Bark. There were no injuries when I checked, so it has to be your mark. Can I see?”
Fuck. After taking a quick look around to make sure no one’s in earshot, you sigh and hold out your wrist. It’s not too much of a gamble with Chopper—you’re pretty sure he won’t be able to see it.
Chopper hums in acknowledgement. “So it’s there?”
“You can’t see it?” you ask, purely for confirmation since, again, you already know he can’t.
Like you expected, he shakes his head. “No. But you would know better where it is than me, so if you say the aches come from there, I’m sure you’re right.”
You hum back at him, not sure what to say, as the two of you stare at your pale, blank wrist. Sometimes you almost think you can feel the outline of the mark, your soulmate’s emotions carving it like a ink tattoo into your flesh. They must be frustrated, like you. Really fucking frustrated, if the pain is any indication. You’d give anything to see what’s causing this stabbing under your skin—but then again, maybe it wouldn’t be so great to know who you’re destined to be with. You like to think you’ll find love on your own, and the soulmate stuff will come with it later. That maybe you’ll just choose the right one on the first try.
Wow, this self-inflicted pressure isn’t helping. Focus on the task at hand, Sanji. Worry about the love of your life and your mental health later.
“I should get back to cooking,” you say, a little flatter than expected, and quickly try to offset the attitude with a warm smile. Chopper’s worry thaws slightly in his features as he smiles back and jumps down to the floor. “Really, buddy, you don’t have to worry. It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“Okay...I guess, but only as long as you’re not overworking yourself. And you’re sleeping extra tonight, or so help me!”
“No promises,” you quip back with a wink.
Chopper sticks out his tongue in retaliation. “Hey, I mean it! What’s for dinner?”
You shrug, pulling out some other pots and pans from under the counter. “Oh, nothing special. We’ve still got some of that Sea King left from Tuesday’s fishing trip, I’ve got some ideas.”
“Ooh! That sounds awesome!”
“Plus everyone’s favorites for dessert.”
His eyes light up as he squeals in excitement, a string of thank yous following him out the galley door.
As his voice fades, you don’t give yourself a moment to think about anything else, pouring your heart and fucking soul into the meal preparation. The ache slowly fades, buried in the sounds of sizzling oil and fire and metal clanking against metal. As usual, you feel a bit better in your element. You’re sure that this meal is gonna make everyone happy, and that’s all you need to keep you going. Nothing else.
Who needs a soulmate?
X X X
You make it about ten minutes into dinner before you can’t fucking take it anymore.
“Sorry,” you say sharply, standing abruptly and ignoring the pain it causes you. Speed is more important than that, though, and you’ll take any pain your escape causes you. You make sure not to meet anyone’s eyes as you push your chair back and step around it towards the galley door.
“...neh, Zoro, where’re ya going?” Luffy calls over to you, his confused voice muffled through mouthfuls of food. You don’t answer—you don’t think you can. You just know you have to go, so you do. Other voices call out to you, concerned, but they all blur together and you ignore them and leave, making sure the door clicks shut on your heels. Your stupid-ass brain can’t help but notice that one voice is unbearably silent, and that only makes you go faster.
The moment the galley door closes behind you, you realize that you left your swords in there in your rush. But—no. No, you’re not going back in there. Not with him.
You slump with your back to the wall outside the galley, staring up at the night sky as you try to control your breathing. You haven’t panicked like this since you were a kid, you think. Hell, you’re not even sure if you’ve ever been like this before. The crew’s voices murmur softly from inside the room, probably talking about you, how you’re acting weird, how this isn’t like you, apologizing over nothing, how you’ve been weird ever since Thriller Bark. How it’s not like you to flee like a coward without addressing the problem.
Fuck, this isn’t good. This is just downright bad. You can’t do this for once. You need air, and better air than this. Air that doesn’t smell of good food and laughter—air that isn’t a reminder.
You’re climbing the ladder up to crows nest before you quite realize that you’re doing it. It’s one of your favorite places to take a nap, though you get the feeling you couldn’t sleep even if you tried. The only sounds you hear are your heavy, panting breaths—not of exertion—and the wind rustling the sails softly around you.
When you get to the ladder that leads inside, though...it doesn’t feel right. You shake your head and go inside, immediately opening a window and continuing the ascent. Undeterred, you climb precariously higher, over slick surfaces and windowsills, until you’re above the crows nest and right next to the flag.
The air up here is clear of all those things you don’t think you can handle right now. Like the crew. Usually you’d die for them in a heartbeat—fuck, you’ve proved it at this point, but...no. It’s nobody’s fault but yours, you can’t take this out on them. You just need to breathe a bunch and get this out of your system. If that’s a thing you can do.
Everything aches from the climb—you’re not healing as quick as you’d like. That’s probably the lack of sleeping. And the climbing, that’s probably not great either. But this is also probably as close as you’ll get to rest for now. You exhale in false relief and slide down until your back is to the base of the flagpole and your eyes on the stars. It’s nice and dark out, but there’s enough light from the stars and moons to cast a soft glow over you and the decks of the Sunny.
You don’t sleep, unsurprisingly. Instead, for who knows how long, you exist in this uncomfortable limbo between thinking too hard and not thinking at all. Your jaw feels locked, tight and uncomfortable as you try to tell yourself that this isn’t a big deal. That you just need to shut the fuck up and get the fuck over this. What does it even matter?
Who needs a soulmate?
You thought you didn’t.
At least, you did until you saw your mark on the shitty cook’s wrist.
The image is burned into your eyes, and ever since you woke up after the Kuma incident, every time you caught sight of blonde hair and a curly eyebrow and cigarette smoke, it’s all blurred together into a tangled mess of stupidity and self-reflection that has your brain spontaneously combusting. Kuina was the one who told you about soulmarks, too many years ago now. You’re supposed to immediately know when it’s yours, not from the supposed psychic link or whatever, but from seeing it. It’s a reflection of you. And it only took an instant to see yourself, reflected back at you in green ink over his veins, only mere seconds before passing out.
You didn’t think you’d have a soulmate, girl, guy, or the technicolor rainbow in between. And if you did, you really weren’t expecting it to be the only asshole on this crew you’ve actively considered stabbing.
The system works. Nobody knows why it exists, or how, but it works. If your mark is on someone else and you see it, they’re an important part of you that you’re missing, that you can’t live without. You could find someone the old-fashioned way, or you can comb every inch of them with your eyes, looking for yourself hidden somewhere on their skin. You never tried either approach, since nobody ever really mattered like that, but you found yours anyway, and...
Well.
Usually you handle things well. But that’s when things aren’t this hard to handle. You’ve trained to be a swordsman all your life, so swordplay comes easy. But you didn’t train to have a soulmate. To deal with that. To deal with maybe not being on your own.
Also, to deal with your missing piece being Sanji.
A shadow falls over you suddenly, immediately followed by a pair of arms colliding directly with your still-healing chest.
You mutter more than a few curses as Nami scrambles off of you, untangling herself from your flailing limbs and grabbing onto the flagpole for support. “Fuck! Shit, sorry, I wasn’t looking. How the hell did you get up here anyway?”
“Me? How did you get up here?!” you snap back at her, and for emphasis, you shove her the rest of the way off of you and towards the Jolly Roger. “Would it kill you to trip and fall on someone else?”
Her voice shivers with nerves as she slowly seats herself to your side, at the base of the flagpole. “Well, I wouldn’t have had to come find you in the first place if someone hadn’t been a blustering idiot and nearly tripped over his own stupidity in an effort to escape dinner! Sanji would’ve shot you himself if Robin hadn’t held him back.”
You try not to visibly tense at his name and fail, instead trying to pass it off as a shiver. Except it’s not cold at all tonight, and the look she gives you tells you she’s not buying it.
“What’s gotten into you, Vice Captain?” she mutters, a more serious sentiment hidden beneath the playful tone she uses. She pulls herself up slightly taller, staring you down. “You’re the biggest mess I’ve seen, and that’s after Luffy cleared your spot at the table. You’ve got some explaining to do.”
“There’s nothing to explain,” you lie through gritted teeth. “I’m perfectly capable of handling my own recovery, and I wasn’t that hungry for the cook’s shit food anyway.”
“Even though you’ve barely eaten and slept all week? Shit food is still food.”
You look up at her, somewhere between curious and embarrassed that she noticed. You don’t think you even realized the eating part. Maybe you’re not as perfectly capable as you thought.
“I’m not an idiot, you know,” she continues. “Sanji keeps bitching to everyone in his own, charming way that you’re acting weird as all fuck and he’s pissed. And when he’s the one who says it, you know it’s legit. Something happened on Thriller Bark to you two, didn’t it? Besides you both nearly dying—I’ve known you for a while now, and I doubt that would fuck you up like this.”
You stay silent, since you can’t think of a reply that might throw her off the scent. She’s right. Dying doesn’t bother you nearly as much as the precarious situation you’re in right now. Why are all the people on this crew so damn insightful when it comes to calling you out?
The silence lingers for a moment.
“Half.”
“...What?”
“If you talk to me right now, no bullshit, I’ll...forgive half your debt to me.” She says it like she’s giving up her firstborn child for a cult sacrifice. “Hm. What is it at now? Higher than your bounty, I’m pretty sure, so you know I’m serious when I’m offering you a business transaction this good. Is that enough to get you to cut the crap?”
...She’s right. It’s a good deal, she’s had a stranglehold on your empty pockets since day one, and you’ve never really paid her back for anything you borrowed. Plus, it’s Nami. In a weird way, she does know you best. Besides Luffy, the two of you have shared enough near-death scrapes in your voyages to fill a whole damn encyclopedia.
You nod, trying to make it less hesitant than it feels. Fuck. Feelings jam, here we go. This should be excruciating.
“Good,” she says, sounding torn between victory and mourning her lighter wallet. “So, sailor. What’s on your mind?”
“Uh.” As you expected, you draw a blank on what to say. This is very not your forte. “Stuff?”
Her glare pierces right through your skull. “Oh, real funny, wiseass. I said cut the bullshit. What happened with you and Sanji on Thriller Bark?”
You immediately feel your defensive instincts kicking up. “Nothing happened. He got me to Chopper and then, well, you saw the rest.”
“UGH.” Nami drags a melodramatic hand over her face. “No, no no. You sad, useless gay, I’m not talking about that kind of stuff. You two do it yet or what?”
Every syllable of that sentence proceeds to give you whiplash so violent you immediately jolt to a seated position.
“...Pfft.” Nami begins to laugh tauntingly as your cheeks rise in temperature to match the surface of the sun. “Oh my god, I was just trying to get a reaction out of you, but holy shit, Zoro, your face!”
“whAT?” you squawk at her, volume higher than you’d like. You try to suppress it to a whisper, but even you can tell how bad you’re failing. “No, it’s not fucking—I-I mean, uh—we’re not—no!”
“Hehe. Your reaction begs to differ, buddy.”
“No, it’s—fuck, Nami, it’s not that!”
“What? Embarrassed it was your first time? That it?”
“I—how are you even coming up with—“
“Well, if it’s not that, then what is it?”
“Not him,” you snap on reflex, even though you know it very much is. “Look, I thought you wanted to hear me out, so stop asking dumbass questions!”
Nami looks at you, contemplative for a moment as the last of the laughter settles into a pondering smile. Then she sighs and moves as if to stand.
“I guess our deal’s off then. A shame, philanthropy was fun while it lasted. Ah well, off to spread the news that the dynamic duo has boned. Oh! Hey, I think Brook would love that one!”
Your eyes widen. “You fucking wouldn’t.”
“Is this a challenge, o terrifying Pirate Hunter?”
“W—NO?! What the hell, you’re fucking insane, you know that?”
“Takes one to know one.” She shrugs and straightens up fully, but her bravado falters as she looks at the steep drop below. “Oof, this should be fun. Later, Zoro—“
“I saw his soulmark,” you blurt out.
Nami freezes. For a moment, time does too.
Suddenly the silence is excruciating, and you kind of keep going before you can stop yourself. “It was, uh, kind of like a tombstone? One of the cross ones, but old and broken, like it’d been smashed, and there was a sheathed sword driven into the ground in front of it and a bandanna around the hilt. Like—“ You fumble for your bandanna and pull it loose from your bicep, holding it out to her like proof. “Not like. It was mine. And the sword was Wado, I’d recognize it anywhere.”
Nami’s eyes scan over you, the bandanna, and then you again. Maybe she sees something in your expression you’re not getting.
She exhales, then moves back against the flagpole and leans her full weight against it, arms folded. “Ah. So it is a Sanji thing.”
You don’t say anything to that—it’s kind of obvious what your answer would be at this point. You make a decent attempt to avoid eye contact and almost manage it, but her contemplative silence eventually wins out and you manage to look at her.
“Does he know?”
You shake your head.
“Was it on his left wrist?”
When you glance up in confusion, she shrugs again. “A few days ago, Chopper came to me and Usopp for some info on soulmarks. He explained that Sanji’s mark’s been acting up since Thriller Bark, and he’s been trying to hide it. If that’s when you saw it and started acting all funky...you know what that means, right?”
...Oh.
“That I’m causing it. Fuck.” You feel stupid. This entire time, you’ve been so focused on the calamity crushing down on you, you never even stopped to think what might happen to him if you freaked out like this. Psychic link and all. What an asshole move on your part.
“Don’t blame yourself,” Nami says quickly. “Look, trust me, it’s not easy when you’re figuring stuff out and you have a soulmate. I’d grab Usopp to say more about the rough patch he had with Kaya, but he’s helping Chopper downstairs. Viv and I were just lucky ours worked out how they did.”
You make a soft noise of acknowledgment, your mind wandering back to your adventures in Alabasta, watching the two of them gravitating together like their worlds orbited each other. You guess you were happy for them. You still are. Nami’s happy, which makes the crew happy, which makes you happy, you guess. Fuck, you’re not used to thinking about yourself.
“What do I do,” you mutter, only half-asking her. You have no fucking idea how to handle this. Clearly, you have to handle it somehow, since causing any crew member pain unintentionally is unacceptable, even if it is that bastard with the brows. “Fuck, maybe I just need to grow a pair and deal with this.”
“Well, not exactly.” She exhales hard. “You can’t just ‘deal with it’, not when it’s hurting you both. It’s not something you can just ignore, either, or magically whoosh away. Soulmarks don’t fade—one way or another, you’re connected to him, and he’s connected to you, and that’s whatever you choose to make of it. Whether it means you just enjoy his cooking occasionally or you decide to get down and dirty with the devil, that’s entirely up to you.”
You stare at her flatly as she grins, clearly proud of herself. “...You know, you have such a way with words. Five minutes with you and I’m already considering seppuku.”
“Then my work here is done.” Nami blows you a coy kiss, which you retaliate to with a middle finger. “At least you’re considering a course of action now, right?”
“Yeah, because seppuku would make the whole problem go away.”
“Alright, edgelord.” She rolls her eyes. “All you have to do is be yourself, Zoro. Soulmates don’t have to be inherently romantic, but they do have to be true to you. Trust me, I know it sounds like flowery bullshit, but it’s really whatever you want to make of it.”
“You’re right, it does sound like flowery bullshit.”
“Hey, I’m trying, alright? I’m not some love counselor or motivational speaker, I’m a navigator who’s gonna sail the world with the best damn crew by my side.” Without any further fanfare, she pulls herself upright and cautiously starts sliding down towards the windows. “If you let a little soulmark get in the way of anyone’s dreams, yours or otherwise, you’re not really doing yourself justice. Maybe think about that once you do decide to grow that pair you’re missing.”
She doesn’t wait for a reply. With the skidding of swift feet and a small shriek, she’s gone.
You exhale slowly, feeling more than a little nauseous, for more than a few reasons. You think that’s the most you’ve talked about anything that’s ever bothered you in your entire life, and that was barely ten minutes. Nami seems to know what she’s getting at, though. You really do need to just suck it up, and, be you, you guess? Huh, you’re really good at doing that instinctively, but on command? Haha, no. It’s a good thing you don't get into stressful situations like this more often, or you’d just be a ticking time bomb at all times.
The more you reflect on how weird you’ve acted this week, the more it dawns on you that you’ve just been a colossal asshole to the cook since the whole Kuma deal. You don’t think you’ve said a single word to him. And you barely even slept or ate all week, meaning you weren’t keeping the best watch or helping run the—oh, fuck, you were supposed to help with the dishes earlier today. Instead, the cook had to do it himself, while you were freaking out, and making his mark hurt, which would have made it harder to do his job, which wasn’t really his job but yours. What a dick move.
Maybe...
Maybe you can make up the lost time.
~ ~ ~
When you wake up the next morning, everything hurts. There’s a dull ache in your muscles and your joints creak in protest as you roll out of your bunk bed. You’re still wearing the same clothing you had last night...you think? Fuck, everything’s a blur.
As you look around the men’s cabin, you realize that everyone else is gone, their beds either made or abandoned. Shit, did you oversleep? That means you didn’t make breakfast. Shit.
Suddenly you couldn’t be more awake. You throw off your clothes and shower at light speed, frantically trying to remember what happened last night. You don’t really remember getting ready for bed, you... Okay, there was that whole thing at dinner with the shitty swordsman just booking it, and you remember getting pissed about it but being held back by Robin, then Chopper offered you a glass of wine while you were venting which you thought was weird at the time, and then you woke up here. He must’ve put something in it to make you sleep—in his defense, he did warn you before dinner that you needed to rest. Maybe you threw too much of a hissy fit after Zoro left last night and Chopper figured it was bedtime.
Still. That doesn’t change the fact that you missed a meal, and left the galley in a mess last night. Unacceptable. You’ll have to make it up to everyone with lunch.
You dress at a more relaxed pace, even though your mind’s running rampant through your mental recipe book. Only once you leave the room do you realize that your soulmark isn’t hurting anymore. Thank fuck, hopefully that shitshow’s over with.
You make your way out onto the deck quickly and quietly, doing your best not to be noticed as you slink into the galley and hit the lights.
UH.
Your mouth drops open, just a bit, as you look around. It’s spotless. The table and counters cleared, the dishes all put away, the floor even looks like it might have been swept. You were fully expecting a cleaning nightmare in here, but it’s as clean as the day you first set foot on Sunny.
Well, except for one extremely noticeable pile of garbage.
Slowly, and frankly a little bit in awe, you move towards the bar and stare at the completely insensate Roronoa Zoro, who’s snoring like there’s an industrial strength vacuum lodged in his windpipe. His bandanna is wrapped around his forehead, probably to keep his hair out of his face? He doesn’t have much though, so whatever. One of his elbows is on the table, hand twitching in the air, and judging by his face being firmly planted on the bar, he fell asleep like this. In his other hand, there’s a dish towel. Besides the unsightly puddle of drool forming where his mouth meets the counter, the entire galley is practically sparkling.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.
Still, paranoia and your deep-seated rivalry with the man doesn’t stop you from checking every square inch yourself to make sure he didn’t fuck everything up. But he didn’t. Everything’s in the right place, which is honestly pretty surprising. He must pay a lot of attention when helping you out around here.
“Huh,” you breathe softly, pulling a cigarette from your pocket. You light it with a quick flourish of your lighter. “What do you know, you’re not that useless after all.”
He stirs slightly and you freeze, but when he goes back to snoring you allow yourself to relax. This is weird. A feeling towards Zoro that isn’t linked to wanting to punt his head off his shoulders like a football? Inconceivable. But, no, you’re definitely not upset. This is probably him realizing he’s been a total asshat this week, and this is his way of making it up to you. About damn time. Plus, a small part of you was worried when you noticed he also wasn’t sleeping—that’s your thing, damn it. So it’s good to see him practically unconscious, finally. Maybe both of you finally got a good night’s sleep last night.
Again, Zoro shifts slightly, clearly still out, and contorts his body away from you somewhat, and as he does his shirt rides up a bit on his lower back and you’re really not expecting what you see.
You don’t know how long you spend staring at his soulmark, body frozen in place. It feels like hours. Years, maybe more. It’s. Well, there’s kind of no getting around it. It’s you. A cigarette with a wisp of smoke, curled into the indisputable shape of your eyebrows. The ashes falling from the lit end of the cigarette spell out a faint “66”, blocky and stylized just like you remember.
At this point you don’t even have the willpower to try and deny it. There are so many questions this brings up, none of which you ever thought you’d be thinking about. Does he know that it’s your mark on his back? Is it some sort of joke? And...fuck, you don’t want the answers to these. You can feel the terror root itself in your bones as you wonder how long he might have known that you might be...not just into the ladies. That’s something nobody on the crew knows, and a question even you don’t fully know the answer to yet. And does he know about Germa? Is all this stuff why he was freaking out? Is he the reason your soulmark’s been hurting, because he’s thinking about you? Is he freaking out as much as you are right now?
After your extended momentary panic attack, you remind yourself to breathe, inhaling thick cigarette smoke and closing your eyes. Maybe when you open them, it’ll be gone?
You open your eyes and are disappointed.
Abruptly, you dash around the counter and lean against the stove, making sure you can’t see him in any of the reflections on the far wall. This is ridiculous. Zoro’s not supposed to be your soulmate—he barely even qualifies as an ally half the time. And you’re still kind of a skeptic on the system anyway, Zeff raised you like that. Zeff never had one, and most of your patrons at Baratie never had one, but they’d still been on dates, they’d had connections, they’d been happy. So you’ve just sorta hoped that you would never find out if you had a soulmate or not. That you could find someone you could care about yourself, without fate needing to intervene and tell you your choice was right.
But, alas, here he fucking is, marked and all. Throwing your world upside down, yet again.
Just like he did on Thriller Bark.
You try not to think about it. The shame of being knocked out by him after trying to save his life—everyone’s lives—and knowing that he did it to save you. The crippling guilt that wracked your body when you saw him, standing in a pool of his own blood, when it should’ve been you there, not him.
Now you know that the two of you are connected, whether or not you want to be.
Zoro moves again, this time shifting so his head is resting on his arms, and you can’t stop watching the way he moves and breathes. He went out of his way to save you, rather than let you die. It’s still such a novel feeling for you, the idea of people wanting you to be alive. Even though you and Zoro have clashed enough to make your conversations downright contemptible, he still would rather die than let you die first. And he’d do the same for anyone else on the crew, right?
Still. He’d never tried anything like that before. He would never knock the others down to save them from their own stupidity.
Only you.
Maybe. Maybe you’re going about this soulmate thing all wrong. Maybe it’s not exactly romance like you usually see. Maybe it’s more, or something else entirely. Maybe a soulmate is just someone you can’t live without.
Or, someone who wouldn’t want to live without you.
When you put that spin on it, you don’t feel as confused as before. It makes sense like that. The two of you are a pretty good team when you’re not at each other’s throats. You’ve saved each other’s asses plenty. And when you can collectively pull your heads out of said asses, you make a damn dynamic duo.
You start preparing lunch quietly, deciding not to actively wake Zoro. As you ponder the situation, you also decide not to tell him you saw his mark. What good would that do? You still want to find your soulmate someday, and if he just happens to be right here at the counter snoring like a baby, then hey, your search is that much easier.
Besides, who needs a soulmate?
Compared to a crewmate, a soulmate is nothing.