Chapter Text
The music played so loud, the trim in the car rattled.
“Don’t - Don’t doze off.” Law swatted the back of Zoro’s head, skimming his green crew cut.
Zoro’s eyes widened.
“I’m NOT dozing off.” The irritation was palpable.
“You were dozing off.”
Law perched ass deep in the passenger’s side with his long bird-like legs above the glove compartment. Seat-back, head in netted hands.
“Put something better on, then. This stuff’s weak.”
Law rolled his head over.
“It’s metal. Not loud enough for yah?”
“Change it.”
Law rolled his eyes down at the old ipod. Wires connected it to a false tape-deck converter shoved into the vacant space in the dash like an oversized graham cracker that the car could not fully bite into.
Scroll, Scroll.
BUSTIN BUSTIN BUSTIN
MAKES ME FEEL GOOD!
“You are not.”
Law rolled back into his chair comfortable. “Just keep drivin, driver.”
The night was pitch black, and the lights on the car were a dim sort of urine-yellow that only bled out a dozen or so feet in front of them. The corn fields had been reduced to just a hazy, grey texture flowing past, lulling the eyes to inattention.
Zoro slammed on the brakes, lurching the pair of them forward. A faded stop sign snuck in out of the darkness. Weighted dumbbells in the trunk bopped and rolled forward, hitting the back seat.
“Watch it, man. You’ve taken this road before, right?”
“Yeah don’t worry about it. It’s not like there’s anybody here anyway.”
Pushing on the gas, the wheels and gravel biting to life, he moved through the empty four-way stop. Empty black silhouettes of trees and tall grasses slid silently by. Not a light was to be seen flickering on the horizon for miles.
Such was the midwest at night with nothing to do, miles away from anywhere interesting to be.
Short people got… no reason…
Short people got.. No reason…
Short people got.. No reason to live.
“No. Come on, man. I’m going to tear you a new asshole in a minute.”
“How tall are ya, Zoro?”
“...I’m not short, dammit.” His steering got coarser. 5’10” was completely normal.
“Shorter than me.”
“You’re just fucking tall, you have those gross skinny legs like some flamingo bastard.”
Law frowned. For some reason, he hated flamingos, and that’s why they spent the last weekend teeing off on the local flock of plastic yard birds.
Law shifted his feet on the dash.
“..Ya really think they’re gross?”
“Nah I was just joshing. You got nice legs, man.” Zoro spoke in that husky, sing-song voice and looked over furtively.
“...”
Zoro smiled. “Did it work?”
“What is this, Gay chicken?”
“Your turn.”
“…Your-Your…” Law searched for words. He was a sharp and aloof sort but he had a tough time with these carefree games. “Your arms are so thick, daddy. I want them to crush my head.” He blushed and nearly choked saying it, too absurd. But it couldn’t be helped. Casual one-upmanship was much of their friendship.
“Wahahaha!” Zoro laughed. “I didn’t know you felt that way!” He reached his right hand over to Law’s undefended chest and gave him playful spider tickles, which Law rebuffed immediately in shock and disgust.
“HEY!! Don’t fuckin’--”
“You lose.”
The car veered a bit, causing Law to lift a defensive arm to steady the wheel. “Keep your hands on the wheel! Stupid.”
“Yeah, I am.”
The car fell silent for a few minutes, even Law was getting drowsy. Then a calm song came on the playlist, and Law started to drift out into the black abyss the car window offered.
“Hey, Law.”
“Mmm.”
“Keep me awake, will you?”
Law straightened up. “Y’ever wonder where Nami been sittin’ at lunch some of these days?”
“Yeah.”
“She been hanging around that Luffy kid a lot lately.”
“You think she’s mad we haven’t taken her for a spin lately?”
“Nah she said your car sucks.”
“Teh. He doesn’t even have a car.”
“Well, he has a tractor.”
“Yeah. He drove it to school every day last week. It’s embarrassing.”
“Well, I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. So it’s the biggest AND the most expensive piece of equipment on the lot. That counts for something. right?”
Zoro thought for a moment, recalling with detail Luffy rolling up into the school parking lot, all smiles, with his giant red farm-grade combine harvester.
“...Girls don’t like tractors, man.”
“And I quote “She thinks my tractor’s sexy.”
“There’s not a SINGLE factual thing that has EVER been said in a country song.”
“That boy’s getting action, I’m telling you. I saw her ride in the front with him.”
Zoro looked over disgusted. “Pics or it didn’t happen.”
Law raised his eyebrow, then opened his phone, flicking through a photo album. “I got one right here. Usopp sent me it.”
“No way.” Zoro couldn’t help spying over the wheel at the corner of Law’s phone.
“Here.” Law held it up perpendicular to the wheel.
Zoro snuck a glance. “What?”
It was a pretty clear shot of Luffy laughing at the helm of an enormous red tractor, holding up double peace signs, while Nami is giggling along next to him.
“Unbelievable.” He kept spying at it to get a closer look. His eyes less and less on the road.
“Hey Hey! That’s enough. Wait til you see a stop sign or something if you want to gawk at it eh?”
“That might be ages... Ah whatever. Fuckin’ country boys.”
Zoro’s mind stirred. He was not proud that he accidentally thought Luffy was lucky for being born a farm boy. He doubted he even had internet out there in the boonies they truck him in from. Kid was backwards, man.
Of course, they were all country boys.. In some sense of the word. But a pecking order among country folk singled out the lowest of the low from the generally low. And Luffy was just one of THOSE guys. From butt-fuck nowhere. Where Zoro and Law lived, the clusters of suburbia were like gasping pockets of air under lake ice. And everyone wants to drive somewhere far away just to breathe a new bubble of air; that’s why you get a car. And maybe later, someday, you'll chain your escape pocket-to-pocket out into warmer ocean where all the bright summer islands are. Before then, you’re shackled to your parents and that one lone dirt-blasted yellow bus that came to drag you to the faraway world of school…
The appeal of Nami in the front seat wasn’t quite it, she was a trophy friend if flaky. Something about being bested by Luffy of all people. The kind of person who is the living, breathing symbol of all the wretched drowning water. Nay, is complicit in making the vast acres of nothingness. He was the very thing everyone wants to get away from.
He pushed the shifter. Damn, he thought. I atleast take care of my car. It was my uncle’s but I fixed it up. It’s shit, but it’s mine. I have a way out of here. Doesn’t that count for anything?
The ticking of the song selector.
“Oh no, what now.”
I got a brand new combine harvester
An' I'll give you the key
Come on now let's get together
In perfect harmony!
“It’s Luffy’s song.” Law muttered.
Something like a combination of a sneeze and a laugh emitted from Zoro. “Why do you have these songs?”
The pair yukked it up.
“Need a song for all ‘ccasions, dontchaknow.”
“Haha, yeah. I spose so.”
The car had been quiet for a few minutes now, the playlist reaching the end of its shuffle without anyone noticing. It was just the grumble of gravel underneath and the soundtrack of the night.
He pulled up to a stop sign. A sea of corn shadows in every direction.
“Hey, Mr. GPS. Which way do I turn again?”
Silence.
Zoro looked over. The ipod had slid out of Law’s hands into the corner of the seat, the black hair of his head was all he could see sunk deep inbetween the seat and door handle.
“Shit.”
The turn signal plunker turned on and Zoro veered off down one of the roads.
Author's note: the only reason Zoro stops at stop signs is because he doesn't know if Law is going to give him a direction. Otherwise, he would blow them all like any normal country kid.
Zoro began to blink rapidly, eyes wanting to close. The world was dark and unfeatured, just the yellow lights pouring over the tar and chipped stone road passing underneath. He wiped his sagging eyelids with the back of his arm. Tar and chipped was good, right? Out of the gravel atleast. One step closer to asphalt.
But the dark road went on and on. His mind wandered. A little worried he’d effed up, but.. He couldn’t wait to rub Law’s nose in the fact that he’d fallen asleep.
Zoro smiled, and yawned.
Yeah, that bastard has another thing coming. He's gonna get it after all that teasing...
Zoro’s eyes started to middle. Then they closed. His brow began to sink comfortably into the scuffed braiding of the steering wheel.
Law jostled awake. Whatever he was in, was rocking a bit too fiercely, bumping his forehead into the tacky plastic handle of the door.
He roused, propping his hand on the door and looked around.
The piss-yellow lights were muffled and flashing through hundreds of rippled corn leaves and tassels - plants crackling and slapping at the hood of the car.
And Zoro next to him, he was completely head-empty asleep on the steering wheel.
“ZORO!!!” Law lurched over, pushing and pulling fiercely on his arm.
“...Nehhhh???”
“FUCK!!” He leaned full over the man’s arms and took the wheel, impatient for him to wake up.
The car veered through buffet after buffet of corn rows. Where the heck was the road?
Law yanked the side of the wheel down, sending the vehicle barreling in another direction through the overgrowth.
“Hey!!” Zoro now awake protested, wrestling for control back of the steering wheel. “Stop gunning it! Get your foot off the gas willya!” Law lifted and jammed one of his long bird legs into the driver-side floor pan.
“Get out of here I got it!” He yanked the wheel the other way, the yellow lights bobbing up and down had flashed up a pale silhouette so close that it caught them both off guard.
Smash.