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“So, I wonder,” Shanks began, eyeing Zoro over his mug which was no longer overflowing with beer, “How’d anchor manage to rope you into following him? I mean weren’t you a bounty hunter? How’d you become a pirate?”
At his question, the party around them dropped to a murmur, attention drawn to the conversation from both crews. At first it didn’t seem like Zoro was going to respond. Instead, he took long, slow sips of his drink, as if contemplating his answer. Just when Shanks was about to concede to the fact that the meeting of Luffy and his First Mate would forever be a mystery, Zoro spoke, “He blackmailed me.”
The quiet murmuring of the party stopped. All heads swiveling to face Zoro and Shanks on their log by the fire. “Luffy?” Nami spoke up, her tone incredulous. “We’re talking about the same Luffy right? You’re saying Luffy blackmailed you?” Zoro simply narrowed his eye at her, “That’s what I said isn’t it, witch?”
“Stop calling Nami-san a witch, marimo.” Sanji admonished, never missing an opportunity to defend his precious Nami-swan or rile up his nakama.
Zoro grinned, showing his teeth in a mimicry of a challenge, “I’ll stop calling her one when she stops being one, ero-cook.”
“Why you—” Sanji bristled, raising his leg in preparation of a fight.
“Can’t you two knock it off for one night! Honestly, it’s like I’m sailing with bickering toddlers.” Nami all but screeched, irritation in her voice in a way that was exasperated but fond.
“Hey!” Zoro and Sanji said at the same.
“Back on subject though” Nami zeroed in on Zoro again, “What do you mean Luffy blackmailed you?” The two crews were equally interested in this turn of events. For one, the Red-Haired pirates were eager to learn more about Luffy and his adventures—of how he came to be the now emperor that he was. And the Straw Hats were curious to know about Zoro and Luffy’s meeting. Neither of them knowing the true beginnings of the crew.
“You mean you don’t know, Nami?” Chopper asked from his place perched on Robin’s lap, a trace of surprise in his question.
“Yeah Nami, I figured out of any of us you would have known how those two met.” Usopp said from his position across the fire next to his father. Yasopp and him had been catching up after a heartfelt reunion and lots of tears. They had both gone into the forest earlier to be alone but had rejoined around the fire once the emotions had settled.
“Nope.” Nami clicked her tongue, “Those idiots never saw fit to tell me anything. All I know is that Zoro was the first.”
“So, are you gonna tell us?” Sanji asked, speaking the question once more into the air.
Zoro crossed his arms, “There’s nothing to tell. Luffy blackmailed me, end of story. You all came along soon enough, so what’s the big deal?”
Nami scoffed, exasperated, resting her hands on her hips, “The big deal? The big deal is we don’t even know how the crew was formed in the first place!”
“We’ll we’re here now, aren’t we?” Zoro reiterated.
“Zoro’s just embarrassed!” Luffy’s voice broke through the playful bickering of his crew, he had been stuffing his face in an eating contest with Lucky Roo when the question was posed.
“Am not!”
“Are two!”
“Boys!”
“Sorry Nami.” Luffy giggled, “But Zoro’s special because I found him first!”
“Yeah, no shit, dumbass. We want to know how.” Sanji huffed out the last of his cigarette, fingers already reaching into his front pocket for his pack of smokes.
“Hmmm let’s see.” Luffy started, before locking eyes with Zoro over the fire. They seemed to have one of those silent conversations they could be found having sometimes. Those two had an uncanny ability to know what the other was thinking almost if on instinct. Their eyes held for a while before Zoro huffed and dropped his gaze, a sign of submission and resignation. Whatever Luffy was looking for though, he found.
“Yosh! So, I had heard about Zoro when I was still with Coby, and I thought he sounded perfect to join my crew.”
“Wait a second—you’re saying you sought out Zoro?” Franky said with a bit of shock in his voice. Every member of the crew had been specifically chosen by Luffy in a way, but none of them had necessarily been sought out. Sure, Luffy needed a chef, and he found a chef. Luffy needed a doctor, and he found a doctor. But Luffy hadn’t known of any of them before hand—meaning he hadn’t heard them by name and sought them out. The revelation that Luffy wanted Zoro from the very beginning wasn’t lost on the crew.
Luffy grinned, nodding, “Yeah! I knew he’d be the first! Anyways, we landed on this island that had a huge marine base, because Coby wanted to join the marines and I told him I’d help him.”
“You’re not talking about the hero of the Rocky Port incident marine Captain Coby, are you?” Shanks spoke up, curiosity in his voice.
Enthusiastically, Luffy confirmed Shanks’ suspicions, “Yeah! We’re friends! I helped him beat up this ugly hag that was keeping him captive on her ship.”
Shanks smirked and raised his brow in a way that said ‘that tracks’, “You never cease to surprise me, anchor.”
“I told you to stop calling me that,” Luffy pouted
“Sorry anchor, but you’re stuck with that nickname—at least until you become the Pirate King.”
“Get on with the story already!” Franky shouted, growing impatient with the derailing of the conversation.
“Oh right! So, When we got to the town, all the townspeople were really funny. They freaked out when we said Zoro’s name. Oh, and the marine guy too. But we went to the base anyways because I promised Coby, when we looked over the wall, Zoro was there in the yard tied up to a cross.”
“You were captured by the marines?” Robin asked Zoro.
“No.” Zoro shook his head but didn’t elaborate. Luffy was the one telling the story.
Luffy snickered, “He turned himself in!”
“Why would you do that, Zoro-san?” Brook had stopped playing his violin when the original question was posed. No one in the crew knew the story of how Luffy and Zoro became, well, Luffy and Zoro. Even Nami, the next to join was unaware of the circumstances surrounding their meeting.
Before Zoro could answer, Luffy interjected, “He saved a little girl! There was this other weird marine guy who was the head of the base’s son and he let his mean dog go around picking on the town. It almost bit this little girl,”
“—Rika” Zoro supplied.
“Yeah Rika! I wonder how she’s doing. So, Zoro beat the dog up. Turns out the weird marine guy didn’t like that and in return for not harming the town, Zoro agreed to be tied up for a month without any food or water.”
“What? Are you serious?!” Sanji exclaimed, knowing all too well the pain of starvation.
“Zoro! That could have had some serious adverse effects on your overall health! You need an exam right away!” Chopper worried from his place on Robin’s lap.
“I’m fine, Chopper. I’ve survived worse.” Zoro reassured.
“But—” Chopper began to protest.
Jimbe pat the young reindeer on his head in reassurance. “It’s okay Chopper, Zoro is healthy, you said so yourself.”
“Okay, okay so, to recap,” Usopp began, wanting to keep the story straight from Luffy’s telling, “Zoro defended a little girl from a rabid dog and was tied up to a cross in the yard of a marine base for a month to avoid harm coming to the town?”
Zoro nodded, confirming the story, “Yeah pretty much.”
“So, what happened next?”
“Well, Zoro had been there for three?” He looked over at Zoro who nodded in confirmation “yeah three weeks already and man did he smell bad!”
“Luffy!”
“What? Its true!” Luffy sniggered, “He saw me and Coby looking over the wall at him and yelled at us to get lost.”
“Kind of ironic don’t you think, moss for brains?” Sanji teased.
Zoro glared at the blonde, “What did you just say?”
“Boys!” Nami scolded, “Can we not get through one story without a fight?”
Luffy just laughed at his crew’s antics before continuing his story, “So then Rika, the little girl that Zoro saved, broke into the yard and brought Zoro some riceballs she made!” At this, Zoro decided to step in to clarify his point of view.
“I told her to go away. The marines at that particular base were very cruel, and the punishment for aiding me in any way was death. Even if it was a child.”
“That’s awful.” Brook gasped.
“Yeah.” Luffy agreed, “but before she could give them to Zoro, Helmet came back and threatened to kill her, she ended up being tossed over the wall. Helmet also stomped her riceballs down into the mud. When he left, I climbed down into the yard because I wanted to get a closer look at Zoro!”
“Helmet?” Usopp questioned, wondering if this were yet another case of Luffy giving questionable nicknames to people he’d met on his journey.
Sanji grit his teeth, nearly crushing the filter of his cigarette, “If I ever meet that guy, I’ll kick his ass for wasting perfectly good food.”
“But it wasn’t wasted, Sanji! Zoro ate it!” Luffy grinned, looking at Zoro in a way that made him squirm under the stare. It was as if Luffy were looking at something precious, something good.
“What?” Sanji breathed out, disbelief evident in his voice.
“After I asked him to join me, and he refused, he asked me to pick it up off the ground and feed it to him, so I did! It had to be gross though because she made them with sugar instead of salt, and it was more dirt than rice at that point, but Zoro ate every bit of it.”
Zoro bristled under the stares of the combined crews, feeling almost vulnerable—if that were possible for a person of Zoro’s will and ambition. Defending himself he said, “You’d eat it too if you hadn’t eaten in three weeks.”
Luffy wasn’t finished with Zoro’s story yet though, “Yeah but that’s not all! Zoro told me to tell her it was delicious!”
“Awww I always knew Zoro was just a big softie.” Nami teased, knowing that Zoro would hate to be called that.
Zoro clicked Wado a notch out of her sheath, “Say that again witch and I’ll cut your hair in your sleep.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” Nami shrieked, hands reaching up to tangle in her fiery orange locks.
“Oh, not to worry, Nami. I have eyes and ears everywhere.” Robin smirked, letting Zoro just exactly what she thought of his empty threat.
Luffy stole some meat from Lucky Roo, shoving it into his mouth, talking around it, “Anyways Coby and I were at a bar in town and Helmet—"
Zoro sighed, resigned to Luffy’s childish behavior, but still wanting to clear the air a bit, “It’s Helmeppo, Captain.”
Luffy bobbed his head again, clearly annoyed at being interrupted. “Yeah that’s what I said. Helmet! He came strolling in talking about how Zoro was gonna die because they were going to execute him in three days. He never planned on keeping his word.”
“How awful!” Brook brought a hand up to where his heart would be—if he had a heart that is—skull joke!
“So that’s when I decided I was going to break Zoro out and have him join my crew!”
“I thought you had already asked him, and he had refused?” Yasopp spoke up, reminding the Straw Hats that they were in the presence of another crew as well. The Straw Hats all looked at Yasopp before laughing at what had to be some sort of joke that the Red-Haireds were apparently not privy to.
“Well you see,” Usopp began.
“The thing is,” Franky continued
“You don’t really get a say in if you join the crew or not.” Sanji finished.
“What do you mean?” Beckman spoke up for the first time since the story had started. He had been content in just listening to the tale, enamored by Luffy’s high spirit and intrigued by the interrelationships of the peculiar crew.
Robin hummed, “Well, how do we explain it?”
Sanji sighed something soft and fond, a small laugh to his huff remembering his joining at the Baratie, “Luffy just decides, ya know? Once he’s decided you’re on the crew, you don’t really have a choice in the matter. Heck was it that he said when he asked me to join, and I said no? ‘I refuse your refusal.’ Or something like that. I think the only person who asked to join was Robin, but those were different circumstances.”
Shanks burst out laughing at this revelation, clearly greatly amused by Luffy’s insistent behavior which had apparently never changed. Luffy furrowed his brows, confused. He clearly didn’t think he had forced any member to join him. They had all needed him in some way, and he needed them. The only reasonable answer was that they would join his crew. They were nakama after all.
“Alright, I think I understand.” Shanks said after his laughter had died down, “What happens next?”
“I broke back into the base! I told Zoro that I’d set him free—if he joined my crew.”
“And I told the idiot that no I wouldn’t join him, yet again.”
“So what changed?”
“You’ll see. I guess I can take over a bit from here. Luffy decided he was going to break into the marine base to get me my swords back. During that time, Coby broke into the yard and tried to untie me. He told me that he was going to be a marine, just like how Luffy was going to be King of the Pirates one day. Of course, I thought he was joking, but Coby told me Luffy really believed it, and I think the little twerp believed it too.”
Nami sighed, resigned, “Well, can’t blame him. Luffy just has this effect on people.”
Luffy blinked, “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, Captain.” Robin said, smile ghosting at her lips.
“If you say so. “Luffy shrugged, picking his nose.
“Get on with the story!” Someone on Shanks’ crew yelled.
“While Coby was trying to untie me, he told me about the marines planning on executing me. Pretty soon though, some marines were in the yard, aiming to shoot. I knew that I wasn’t going to die there. That I couldn’t die there, but honestly, I didn’t really see a way out. Then Luffy came flying through the air, landing in front of me, taking on the bullets that were coming at my face. I thought I was seeing things. I’d never met someone with a devil fruit before. When I asked exactly what he was, he said, “I’m Monkey D. Luffy, the one who will become the Pirate King.”
“Zoro looked so surprised!” Luffy exclaimed, throwing Zoro a teasing look over the fire.
“Well, it is shocking to see firsthand.” Franky added.
“It still freaks me out sometimes.” Usopp shuddered
Zoro returned Luffy’s look with a squint, “Even so, he still didn’t untie me.”
“So what happened?” Jinbe questioned, “How’d you escape.”
“Like I told you before, He blackmailed me. Said He’d give me my swords back if I joined him. I didn’t really see another way out, so I agreed—on one condition.”
“What was the condition?” Shanks found himself asking. The party was silent, both crews eagerly awaiting the pact between captain and first mate, looking at Zoro with their full attention. But Zoro was looking at Luffy, and Luffy was looking right back at him. Again, it seemed the two of them were having a silent conversation, and just as Zoro went to open his mouth—
“Shishishi! That’s a secret!” Luffy laughed, and both of the crews sweatdropped.
“Well, there you have it. That’s how I joined.” Zoro said, breaking the weird not-tension in the air.
“So, the marines got their asses beat?” Sanji asked.
“What are you talking about, of course they did! It’s Luffy and Zoro after all!” Usopp exclaimed, no doubt in his voice that Luffy and Zoro would come out as anything but on top.
“Great. Now are we done here?” Zoro asked, returning to his depleting mug. The sounds around him had picked back up, the party returning in full swing to Brook’s starting of the music once again. Both crews enjoying the relaxed environment for the time being. In the New World, with all its unpredictability and chaos, it was hard to find time to just wind down and relax. And with the combined forces of both the Red-Haired pirates and the Straw Hats, no one was stupid enough to try and attack two emperors of the seas and their crews. So, the party reigned on.
Later, when both crews had returned to their respective ships, after the party had dawdled down to a slow crawl, Brook’s violin nearly lulling both crews to sleep, Zoro found his captain staring out over the pitch-black sea, standing at the rail of the Sunny, watching the moon light the tiny crests of the waves. It was times like these, when his captain was calm, relaxed, content, that Zoro found himself able to breathe a bit easier. A reassurance in the set of his shoulders that, for now, at least, everything was okay, and Zoro could put his guard down a little. He approached the rail and stood to Luffy’s right, where he had been since that fateful day and would be until the end.
“You left something out.” Zoro said, knocking his shoulder gently against his captain’s as he rested his arm on the rail.
“Hmm?” Luffy hummed in acknowledgement, a question in the tail end of the sound.
Zoro glanced at his captain once more before turning to look at the sea that was holding Luffy’s gaze, “You didn’t tell them.”
“Tell them what?” Luffy spoke, asking a question he already knew the answer to. But then again, that was Luffy, he played more ignorant than people gave him credit for. Zoro didn’t think for a second that Luffy didn’t know what he was talking about, but he answered anyways.
“You didn’t tell them about our promise.”
Luffy stayed quiet for a moment, watching the waves. Then, he spoke, “Zoro didn’t want me to.”
Zoro looked away from the waves to glance once more at his captain. He found Luffy looking at him now from under the brim of his ever-present hat instead of at the waves that seemed to have captivated him just a few moments earlier. It was useless in the darkness of the night, but it sat upon his head in its rightful place as the chosen crown of the future king. The namesake of their crew. The man the hat promised to return to refusing it in the end, for how could they be the Straw Hat pirates without it? Shanks had understood, Rayleigh too, that the hat wasn’t meant for anyone else.
He met his captain’s eyes, soft and knowing, in a way that made Zoro feel like he was being seen through. Luffy had this uncanny ability to make someone feel seen, and somehow Luffy knew—as he always did—that Zoro didn’t want the rest of the crew to know about their promise. He didn’t want to have their views of him change. Zoro had been on the receiving end of Luffy’s gaze many times, but he had yet to get used to the feeling. Luffy made Zoro feel strong. He made Zoro feel like he had a purpose again. Made Zoro a part of his family. Drove Zoro to chase after his ambition and supported him wholeheartedly. Zoro would never be able to repay him. But whatever gods there may be, he would go the hell and back fighting to show Luffy just how much he meant to him.
“I broke our promise you know.” Zoro admitted, after his heart stopped beating in his throat at the thought of telling Luffy. The confession wasn’t planned. But Zoro was done with secrets, and he’d kept this one close to his chest for years. He was ready to tell Luffy. Ready to tell him just how much he meant to him, just how far he’d go to protect him. But as he was about to spill, Luffy stopped him in his tracks.
“I know.” Zoro felt his breath stop. He was a tad worried, somewhere in the recesses of his mind that his heart had stopped beating too. He knew? Luffy knew? Knew what exactly? Did the shitty cook tell on him? Zoro’s thoughts began to spiral. Luffy put a hand on his wrist.
“Stop that.”
“Stop what, Captain?”
“Zoro’s thinking too much.”
They stood in silence for a little, after the order to stop thinking. Zoro keeping his captain’s gaze in a battle with himself to not lower his own. A testimony to the ways that Luffy could make—did make—Zoro feel. The anxiety that had ceased at his captain’s order to stop thinking was growing slowly in his gut, a tightening of his chest, and a difficulty to swallow. He wanted to look away, but looking away meant admitting defeat, and although this wasn’t a contest to anyone but himself, he hated to fail. Luffy’s eyes were locked onto Zoro’s one with an intensity that made Zoro feel transparent. Luffy could probably hear every one of his thoughts.
“I don’t know what exactly happened in Thriller Bark, but I know something bad happened. I won’t make you tell me if you really don’t want to. I’m not going to push, but know that I broke mine, too”
“What are you talking about?” Zoro furrowed his brow, the skin around his scar tightening in a way that wasn’t painful, just stiff.
Luffy frowned, “I said I’d commit harakiri if I ever came between you and your dream.”
“Luffy, no. You never could.” Zoro, still holding his captain’s eyes, began again, “You’ve become my new dream.”
Luffy tilted his head, a tad confused by Zoro’s words. “But Zoro wants to be the World’s Greatest Swordsman.”
Zoro huffed, almost annoyed at how dense Luffy could be sometimes, “What I’m trying to say is that that dream is just a steppingstone. I will help make you become King of the Pirates. I’ll be there by your side as the World’s Greatest Swordsman. Nothing less will be good enough for you.”
“Silly Zoro.” Luffy said after a beat, “You’ll always be good enough for me. World’s Greatest Swordsman or not---but you will be, so it doesn’t matter.”
And it was that simple wasn’t it? Luffy’s belief in him. Luffy’s love for him. The two of them were Luffy and Zoro and would be until the end of time. One’s name wouldn’t be spoken without the other’s following. The world would know their names. The Pirate King and his right-hand man, The World’s Greatest Swordsman. It had always been this way, since that day a lanky, sandaled teen in a raggedy hat strode into the marine base where Zoro was being held captive. They had become something more than each other and their dreams. And it would be that way until the end of time. Zoro couldn’t wait to see it.
“Aye, Captain.”