Work Text:
HIDE AND SEEK
He’d already found Luffy, stuffed inside one of the lockers.
He’d already found Usopp, swimming with the fish in the aquarium.
He’d already found Brook, stripped to the bone and camouflaged between Nami’s tangerine trees.
He still hadn’t found Chopper.
The little reindeer had been the one to drag him into the game—had woken him up from a nap just to beg him to play—and Zoro had agreed because… Well, simply because there was no denying Chopper, not when he looked at him with big, pleading eyes. He had asked to be the one seeking, though, if only to have an excuse to remain laying with his eyes closed for a little longer — and now was regretting his choice.
Sunny was considerably bigger than Merry, but was still a relatively small ship. Even with his, ahem, special sense of direction, he could tour the entire vessel in little time. The other three hiders he had found quite easily (maybe Luffy would have lasted a little longer if he hadn’t been giggling), but now he had lost count of how many times he’d registered every room, more and more in depth each time, to no avail.
It was as if Chopper had vanished.
Eventually Zoro found himself back on deck, scratching his head in thought. Luffy and Usopp, who had joined in the hunt, were soon by his side, the two of them equally confused.
“He can’t have just… left the ship, can he?” Zoro mused out loud, putting into words what no doubt the three of them were thinking. “I can’t find him anywhere.”
“I thought that maybe he was hanging overboard,” Usopp informed, “but Luffy and I already checked all around and even under Sunny — nothing.”
Luffy nodded in confirmation. “We even looked inside the cannons,” he added for good measure.
“Maybe he was hanging from the side,” Robin quipped then. She and the other adults (plus honorary grown-up Nami) had set up a table on the grass and were calmly working through a mid-afternoon snack. “Until he slipped and fell to the sea, meeting his demise due to the curse of the Devil Fruit.”
Usopp shrieked in panic, as usual the most affected by Robin’s macabre sense of humour, and Luffy gasped and made to run towards the railing, no doubt to jump after Chopper and save him. Zoro grabbed his head just in time to stop him and, ignoring the way Luffy’s body kept running as his neck stretched, focused his attention on the tea party.
Jimbe and Nami were chatting over some maps. Franky was fidgeting with some new invention. Robin had an open book on her lap. Brook was nibbling on some biscuits. There was something way too casual about them — Zoro frowned.
“You know where he is,” he accused, and would have crossed his arms before his chest if he wasn’t still holding Luffy’s head to prevent him from diving overboard.
“Maybe,” Nami grinned deviously, “but we promised not to tell.”
“Oh, so he didn’t fall,” Luffy said in relief. He stopped running and Zoro let go of his head lest his rubber body ran into his; Luffy yelped as his neck shrunk back, his head and body crashing together and sending him flying a few meters before he landed on the grass with a loud thud.
“You’ve known all this time?” Usopp cried. “You could have told us!”
“But that would be cheating!” replied Jimbe, placing a hand over his heart in theatrical outrage. “And there’d be no point to the game like this, just as if you were allowed to use haki.”
Zoro scoffed. He had toyed with the idea of searching the ship with his observation, frustrated by the lack of results, but even if it was a silly game he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of cheating so blatantly.
“You could give us a clue, at least,” he offered, not very convinced.
“Nah, man.” Franky raised his eyes from where they were focused on his gadget and ran his fingers over his mouth, pretending to close a zipper. “Our lips are sealed.”
“Yes, yes,” Brook nodded encouragingly. Then, after a beat of silence: “I don’t have any lips, though.”
Zoro groaned, partly at the joke and partly at their unwavering refusal to help, and was making up his mind to search the entire ship again when:
“Wait, Zoro!” Usopp called. He had leant closer to the crewmates around the table, rubbing his chin in thought. “If they know where Chopper is hiding then he can’t be too far from here. He’s probably on deck.”
“Ooooh that’s clever, Usopp!” Luffy laughed excitedly, clapping his hands together. “Where exactly on deck?”
“I don’t know that. Yet.” The sniper leant even closer, the tip of his nose nearly brushing Robin’s cheek as he pierced her with his glare, and started naming random places, trying to spot the slightest shift on Robin’s neutral expression.
That wasn’t going to get them anywhere, but Zoro considered that Usopp’s previous deduction made sense. If nothing else, it prevented him from having to find his way through the intricate insides of the ship again, so he decided to follow that train of thought. However, there weren’t many places on deck where one could hide, not even someone as tiny as Chopper, and he found himself completely at a loss the more he looked around.
The game had gotten more frustrating that it had any right to be.
“Oi, Franky, he’s not in you, is he?” he asked, already knowing it was more than unlikely.
“There’s no in me, bro,” Franky laughed in reply. Patting the large spheres at his shoulders, he added: “These beauties are filled to the brim with weapons.”
Zoro stared, his eye narrowed into a suspicious glare. When Franky realized where he was looking at, he sighed in annoyance and opened his stomach, revealing only bottles of cola inside.
Dammit.
Usopp, as predicted, had been unsuccessful at trying to get anything out of Robin, and ever-unhelpful Luffy was searching Brook’s afro.
With a tired sigh, Zoro thought that maybe it was time to admit defeat.
As if she’d read his mind—and he wouldn’t put it past her—Nami grinned and, “You can give up,” she informed. “But Chopper said that if you failed to find him, then at the next island you’ll have to go shopping with him and bring back as much candy as you can carry.”
He didn’t have to consider it for long. There were worse punishments for losing than getting to spend time with a delighted Chopper, and it wasn’t like he didn’t already play pack mule for the stupid cook he called his boyfriend. Besides, if he kept looking he’d only get more frustrated and eventually use his haki, even subconsciously, and he really didn’t want to resort to that.
“Alright, Chopper, you win,” he said, raising his voice so that it’d be heard from anywhere on deck. “I give up. You can come out now.”
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then he heard giggling, far closer than he’d expected, but Chopper was still nowhere to be seen. He looked around in shock, his confusion mirroring Luffy and Usopp’s, until he remembered the game was technically over and he could use haki now. Observation wasn’t his forte, but at this short range he should be able to sense just about anyone. He closed his eye and focused his senses, brushing past those at the table and ignoring the other two, searching his surroundings until he finally sensed Chopper and—oh.
Oh.
His eye snapped open and he glared at an empty spot on the grass, where he could distinctly hear the giggling coming from now.
“I fucking hate you,” he stated.
This earned him a loud, boisterous laugh that rose over the quieter giggles. A moment later, the figure of Sanji materialized on the spot.
The cook was wearing that stupid suit of his, headphones and shades and all, the cape wrapped around him where he sat. He pulled the mask down to reveal a wide grin, his delight more than evident.
“Poor marimo,” he laughed, not looking remotely concerned. “You lost.”
“Yes, yes!” came Chopper’s voice, and a second later his head emerged from under the cape at Sanji’s lap. “Marimo lost!”
As if they’d been rehearsing—and at this point Zoro was willing to believe they had—the cook and the doctor made the same face at him, pulling down at one eyelid and sticking out their tongues with a loud ‘bleeeh’.
Zoro was vaguely aware of Usopp hanging his head in shame and crying out his stupidity for not having thought of that (he had, after all, spent a long time helping remodel the suit, changing all the Germa symbols for their jolly roger), and of Luffy rapidly switching between claiming that was cheating and loving the cool superhero suit, but for the most part his attention was focused on Sanji and Chopper. The cook had jumped to his feet, holding Chopper in his arms, and they were laughing together, celebrating their victory. Chopper’s victory, in fact, since Sanji hadn’t been part of the game at first — he’d probably stepped in after Chopper asked for help, and Zoro found he couldn’t really be mad at them for the stunt.
It had nothing to do with the fact that his little reindeer looked unbearably cute; or that Sanji’s smile was making his insides flutter.
Maybe he felt a teeny-tiny bit jealous as he saw them hug between cheers — although he wasn’t sure exactly who he was jealous of.
He was probably frowning, he realized, when Sanji’s gaze landed on him again and his laughing grin softened at the edges.
“Aww, marimo, don’t be mad,” he cooed, skipping gracefully to his side. “You just were outsmarted,” he added, poking his cheek with a finger. “I would have thought you were used to that by now.”
“Don’t be mad, marimo,” Chopper parroted, switching arms and making himself comfortable on Zoro’s shoulder. “I promise I’ll let you have some of my candy.”
Zoro hummed, pretending to consider the offer. “Alright,” he said in fake resignation. “But invisibility suits are forbidden from now on in hide and seek.”
Chopper squealed in delight, then jumped to the floor and rushed to where Luffy and Usopp were already asking for a revenge round. Zoro watched him go, fondly, allowing himself to forget for a moment that he wasn’t alone.
He was only mildly surprised when he felt Sanji’s arm sneak around his waist, drawing their bodies together, and fought back his smile when lips he knew all to well pressed to his cheek, where he’d been poked only moments ago.
“Are you mad?” Sanji asked, his concern genuine despite all his previous teasing.
“No,” Zoro answered easily. And then, just because he felt like being a little mean: “With him,” he added.
“Aw, shame,” the cook sighed, and Zoro knew he hadn’t fooled him. He received another kiss—on his lips this time—and then Sanji was grinning at him again, cheeky in a way only he could:
“I’ll have to find a way to make it up to you~”