Chapter Text
Zoro sat on the edge of the bed flipping his phone around in his hands. Unfortunately, the wheezing of the cheap AC unit in his hotel room wasn’t enough to drown out the rambling in his head. He’d much rather watch the droplets of condensation race down the window than make the call he needed to make.
For the past few months now he’d been traveling across the country, hopping from kendo competition to kendo competition, and he’d finally made it to the finals – albeit broke and in debt. However, if he were to prove himself at the national championships in two days, he’d be able to jumpstart his kendo career and not have to worry about where his next paycheck was coming from. It had always been his dream to make a living off the art, and he’d sacrificed too much to fail now.
But of course, he’d read the address wrong on his last destination – booking his hotel in a completely different town that was much farther from the airport than he had intended. The Uber ride from his hotel to the airport would cost him a near fortune that he just couldn’t spare at the moment, and there was a far cheaper option he could explore. Miraculously, he knew someone in the town who could give him a ride.
And unfortunately, it was his ex.
He and Sanji had broken up about two years ago and haven’t spoken much since – besides Zoro needing to grab things from Sanji’s apartment they were living in together, negotiating the Netflix account, and canceling Christmas plans. The whole process was like a gift that kept on giving, except the gift was pain, and the giving was more like a vicious taking away.
Their breakup was mutual in the sense that neither of them really wanted it, but inevitable in the sense that both of them knew it had to be done.
But all that being said, he really needed to get to the finals, and if it meant groveling to Sanji and asking him for a ride to the airport, he’d even do that. So, hoping his number wasn’t blocked, Zoro finally clicked on the contact he never deleted and called Sanji.
Just when Zoro thought he’d heard the last ring, Sanji answered. He nearly jumped off the bed – his back going rigid and upright.
When it was becoming awkward waiting for the first hello, Zoro finally said it.
“Hey.” He heard Sanji murmur in response through the airwaves. Zoro couldn’t detect any sort of emotion from it. If anything, Sanji sounded confused, but not immediately angry.
“Hey,” Zoro choked out awkwardly, despite having already said hello. Wracking his brain, he had a hard time remembering why he’d called in the first place.
Sanji sighed on the other end, “do you need something?”
Zoro flinched because, well, yeah. He did. “Um, right, so…” He explained his situation to Sanji, starting with how he’d made it to the finals, how he was flying out tomorrow, and how he needed to go to the airport but couldn’t afford the Uber there because of his mistake. He blushed hard when Sanji snorted at him after mentioning that.
“So, can you drive me to the airport? I swear I’ll pay you back gas money once I get paid,” he asked with fragile hope.
“The airport’s, like, an hour away on a good day.”
Zoro felt his heart clench. It wasn’t like Sanji had any obligation to or investment in Zoro’s life whatsoever, and the reminder hurt like hot coals.
“When’s your flight?” Sanji asked after a moment of thinking.
“7pm,” Zoro responded, nearly holding his breath. He was about to rip the sheets with the grip he had on them below.
“I have work at 3.”
“That’s okay!” Zoro interrupted quickly. “You can drop me off real early! I don’t mind waiting at the airport however long. I just really need to get there.” After his outburst, Zoro cringed at himself for how desperate he sounded. On an ordinary day, he was an incredibly prideful man, but when it came to his swordsmanship and his goals toward it, you could find a vulnerability here, a humility there. He also deeply hoped Sanji still remembered how important this was to him.
Sanji hummed, and it sounded like he switched his phone from one ear to the other pensively. “If we leave at noon, I can get you to the airport by 1 or 1:30, and then I still have time to get back home and get ready for work.”
Zoro fell back onto the bed with a massive exhale. He felt like a 100 lb. weight was lifted from his shoulders. “Thank you,” he spoke, breathless. “I… really appreciate it,” he struggled to add.
He heard a sharp tch on the other end of the line. “You just better be ready when I get to the hotel. If you’re not out by 12:01, I’m leaving.”
Zoro rolled his eyes. “Well, thankfully, I don’t have to wait for you and your pretty princess routine to get out of the bathroom anymore. So now I should be on time.”
“Oh, spare me,” Sanji spat back. “There’s a good chance you won’t find the front door of the hotel to get out. Need me to play Marco Polo until you find me outside?”
“Marco Polo, huh? He sounds real nice. You got his number too, Casanova?”
Sanji hung up, and Zoro wished he had bitten off his own tongue before he finished his retort.
Yeah , he thought to himself bitterly as he shoved a pillow over his head. Tomorrow’s gonna be so fun.
Zoro woke up at 6am. He had spent the entire night tossing and turning, probably fell asleep around 2am, and yet he still woke up at 6am and couldn’t fall back asleep.
There was just too much on his mind. Yes, he was still stressed about the car ride with Sanji, but the competition was looming closer, and all of the emotion that came with that was starting to finally reach him. Needless to say, he was on edge and tired.
After somehow occupying himself for 5 more hours, he left his hotel room to check out at 11am and sat on a bench right outside the front doors of the hotel until Sanji arrived. With his small duffel bag at his side, he shifted in his seat a million different ways as the hour would allow. Nothing felt comfortable at the moment, and the worry that Sanji wouldn’t actually show up pricked him in all the wrong places.
Every time a car peaked around the corner of the driveway, his stomach lurched, but none of them had an annoying blonde head behind the wheel. He huffed an irritated breath that was caught in his chest and opened his phone to play Candy Crush or something mind-numbing until he absolutely had to look up.
At the sound of gunshots, Zoro lept out of his seat, playing hot potato with his phone as he tried not to drop it. His head whipped toward the direction of the noise, looking to see what he needed to take cover from. Instead, what he saw was that goddamn, raggedy-ass, blue 1999 Oldsmobile that Sanji drove relentlessly and that was apparently still missing its dumb catalytic converter, despite Zoro not having seen it in over a year.
It was the same car Sanji had driven when they had met…and when they had gone on their first date… and when they had moved in together. That’s not an odd fact in it of itself, except that it was a complete shithole, even then. If you asked Sanji, it was a precious gift from Zeff, who had given it to his son when he’d first gotten his license. If you asked Zoro, it was a hand-me-down the old geezer had given up when he had wanted to buy a new car with power windows.
The last he remembered, though, Sanji had been saving up for a new one over the past few years. Surely by now he would have enough dough to at least get something used but newer, right?
Checking his phone to see the time, he rolled his eyes when he saw it was exactly noon. No doubt Sanji had waited to pull up until the hour hit exactly to seem godly.
Grabbing his duffel bag as he waited for him to pull up, Zoro swallowed uncomfortably against the feeling that he was going to vomit. Weirdly, he wished he had a mirror to look into before seeing him — not like that should matter. Not like Zoro should care about his appearance around his ex.
But what would Sanji look like? Zoro hadn’t seen him in a year and 3 months — not like he was keeping track.
Who cares? Zoro reprimanded himself in his head. People change and look different. Doesn’t mean anything. He continued to chant denials in his head until Sanji pulled up, nearly running over Zoro’s toes.
The window of the car was rolled down — a consistent stream of cigarette smoke wafting out — and Sanji stared at Zoro as he came to a standstill. And Zoro stared back, silently, save for the aching sounds of the car coming to a full stop. The air was punched out of his gut for a split second, and he blinked a few times while looking away, blaming the smoke for the sting in his eyes.
Sanji looked like… well, Sanji. And all that meant to Zoro was that he still looked perfect. Maybe his hair was an inch or two longer, and maybe that actually suited him well, and he should’ve let it grown out sooner, and he should also stop frowning so much because his face looked best when—
Sanji’s eyes quickly looked Zoro up and down before the bastard snorted and flicked the ash off his cigarette and onto the ground.
Maybe, actually, he should just go die.
“Thought you were gonna get rid of this hunk of junk,” Zoro lashed out.
“Thought your forehead wouldn’t get any bigger.”
Zoro maturely resisted the urge to whip out a pocket knife and slash Sanji’s tires – which would probably be a favor to the car – and instead huffed and walked around to the other side. He threw his bag in the backseat before trying to open the passenger door. When it didn’t open, he glared at Sanji – even baring his teeth to get him to stop being such a prick.
Sanji, in turn, raised his hands and mouthed sorry, sorry as he leaned all the way over to manually unlock the door. Zoro smirked at that, ready to spew a slew of insults to make fun of his stupid ass car. Opening the door for real this time, he flung himself into the seat to make the vehicle wobble and creak obnoxiously. Pulling the door shut, he re-locked it.
When Zoro turned his head to dish it out to Sanji, he didn’t have a chance to open his mouth – too occupied with grabbing the tupperware that was immediately shoved into his chest.
“Here,” Sanji said curtly before trying once, twice to start the engine back up.
Scrunching his face, Zoro studied what had been handed to him, and he let out a shocked “oh” before he could stop himself.
Sanji sighed loudly, at some point having started on an entirely new cigarette. “You said you can’t afford an Uber, which means there’s no way you can also afford the shitty, expensive airport food. So, I made you lunch.” He gripped his steering wheel tighter, causing the already ripped pleather to tear a bit more. “Eat it on the way,” he grumbled.
Opening the container, Zoro looked at the onigiri inside, and it did make him happy. Although, it was laced sour because the gesture brought back memories of what they used to be. And if he knew any better…
He pulled one of the rice balls apart slightly to see the filling. And sure enough, it was pickled plum. Any time Sanji made him onigiri when they were together, he could tell how he was feeling toward him that day by what filling he put inside. It was like Sanji’s own version of putting sticky notes on lunch boxes – a secret code between them.
Pickled plum meant that he hated his guts.
Still, Zoro took a large bite out of it, thankful to have something to occupy him so that they didn’t have to do any small talk and so that he wasn’t able to say anything to make Sanji drive them off the road. Maybe he should’ve thought of a few things to start a conversation and be the first to set the tone, but anything that came to mind would probably make him want to cry or promptly send his head through the windshield. Nonetheless, they had a whole hour to go, and staying silent for the entirety of it would be an impressive feat for them.
So it started with the radio.
“Touch it again, and I will play the baby shark song until your ears bleed,” Sanji barked in warning.
Zoro’s hand froze midway to the knob on the dashboard. “As if. You don’t even have bluetooth capabilities in this crapbox.” It wasn’t his fault he just couldn’t find the right station at the moment.
Sanji turned his head slowly toward Zoro, staring at him directly in the soul. “I will sing it.”
I actually liked it when you used to sing , echoed the intrusive thought in Zoro’s mind. And to expel it at once, he shoved his fist into the radio, hard . In response, the display flickered, and two of the channel buttons became stuck – causing the system to glitch and screech and try to play both stations at once unsuccessfully.
“Why did you punch my car?!” Sanji shrieked.
“It was an accident!” Zoro shouted back over the noise. He frantically tried to press the buttons to get them to unstick, but nothing he did was working, in fact, it might’ve gotten louder.
“Fix it!”
“I’m trying!”
Sanji swatted Zoro’s hands away to attempt his own effort in fixing the radio.
“Keep your eyes on the road, dumbass!” Zoro yelled, pushing Sanji’s face forward and promptly yanking his hands away when the other man was about to bite him.
Sanji shivered visibly in his seat. “Keep your nasty hands to yourself!”
“Oh?” Zoro shouted incredulously. “Usually you’re begging me to touch you–”
Sanji slammed his foot hard and fast on the brakes, causing Zoro’s sentence to be cut off as he was choked by his seatbelt. Just as fast as he had braked, he resumed his position on the gas as if nothing had happened.
“You did not just do a fucking brake check in your garbage car!” Zoro growled. “Are you trying to get us killed?!”
Sanji’s hands looked like they were about to rip the steering wheel off, and he chewed on the inside of his cheek without a cigarette to calm him down. He was staring straight ahead at the road, but Zoro could tell he wasn’t really looking at it – his mind occupied with something else.
“What was that?” Zoro asked loudly when he realized Sanji had started mumbling something to himself.
“I was saying !” He nearly screamed, and Zoro watched the speedometer reach 87. It was not a speed he would advise to reach in this car. “It must have been so fucking hard for you to spare even an ounce of your time with me! To give something other than your precious swords attention! To think about me for once – so sorry for asking something from you!”
Zoro’s face fell instantly. This was not something he’d ever heard of from Sanji, and it was definitely not a conversation he wanted to occur in this manner. He stared at him, trying to figure out how he should respond, while also still fiddling with the volume dial and hoping it would work.
“Curls.”
“No!” Sanji continued to rant, unperturbed by the pandemonium around them. “You don’t get to call me that! You don’t get to pretend like I still mean something to you! Just drop the act and go to your competition and leave me out of it!”
Sweat started to collect on Zoro’s back as he nervously watched the speedometer pass 90 miles per hour. He was trying to focus on Sanji’s words, which felt like sour milk at the bottom of his stomach, but with the noise from the radio, the zooming trees around them, and the way smoke was beginning to rise from the hood, he was having a tough time maintaining any stream of consciousness.
Wait, was he really seeing smoke coming from the hood?
“Sanji!”
“What?!” Sanji roared, but once his eyes refocused on the road – and on what Zoro was furiously trying to point out to him – he gasped. Releasing his death-stomp on the gas pedal, he let the car slow down gradually before the power steering started to go out. “Shit,” he muttered, throwing on his hazards, braking until he couldn’t brake anymore, and gradually let his car roll to a stop on the right shoulder. They didn’t need to lift the hood to know that his engine had overheated and failed.
Even still, he and Zoro got out of the car to stare at it as it smoked – opening up the hood and watching the cloud billow up and away into the sky. The other cars on the highway sped by, mocking them for their standstill, and something caused Zoro to chuckle lightly.
“What’s so funny, shithead?” Sanji spat at him bitterly.
“It’s just…” Zoro paused for a beat. “I haven’t seen this much smoke since we watched Titanic together, and it made you so sad you wouldn’t stop chain smoking for a week.”
Sanji stared at the broken car, slowly nodding his head up and down.
“I’m gonna kill you.”
He swung his right leg around directly aimed for Zoro’s head, and all Zoro could do in the short amount of time was raise one forearm to block. Sanji, now facing him completely, drove his left leg directly into Zoro’s gut.
Zoro staggered backward with a growl. But honestly, talking was going to get them nowhere, and this alternative was for the best. So, after regaining his own footing, he lunged forward to body slam Sanji – grabbing him and throwing him onto his back on the ground. Now on top of him, Zoro reeled back his left fist to clock him in the jaw.
Before it could connect, Sanji twisted underneath him with a yell. Bucking his hips up, he grabbed Zoro’s right arm to pull him down and flip them over. They were dangerously close to rolling over the edge of the shoulder and into a ditch of trees and bushes, but neither of them seemed to care.
As Sanji took advantage of Zoro’s loss of balance and started to flip them over, Zoro changed his tactics. Grabbing onto Sanji’s shirt with both hands, he used the momentum of their rolling to pull Sanji close and headbutt him, hard . They both groaned and sucked air through their teeth from the blow.
After some more tussling and collecting a few cuts, scrapes, and bruises from the concrete, they finally relaxed and sat on the side of the road next to each other. Sanji resuscitated a crumpled cigarette from his pocket, and Zoro watched him relight it with practiced ease.
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“I’ll call a tow truck,” Sanji sighed. Grimacing from the aftermath of their brawl, he lifted himself off the ground and walked a few feet away to make his call.
Zoro watched him walk away for a moment, licking at his split lip. He mulled over what Sanji had shouted in the car before it all broke down, and it made him feel a little bit like roadkill. Had he been thinking about Zoro just as much as Zoro had been thinking about him all this time? He looked down at a scrape on his palm and pressed his thumb into it. If Sanji had been thinking about him, clearly it wasn’t in an “I miss you” type of way, so he decided to just drop it.
“Okay, tow truck’s coming soon.”
Zoro looked up at Sanji standing next to him, but he was preoccupied with his phone.
“Have to tell Zeff I’m gonna be late for work.”
Zoro pressed his thumb deeper into his palm, really feeling bad now for the whole situation. Of course the universe would screw him over in the most important moment of his life, and of course it would involve the guy who used to be the most important person in his life. He felt like he was losing two halves of his whole all at once.
He decided to stay seated on the ground and not speak a word the entire time it took for the tow truck driver to arrive – only occasionally looking up every once in a while to watch Sanji pace back and forth from the car, to a little ways down the road, to a tree, to the car again.
After what felt like eternity, Zoro finally saw a tow truck mosey its way toward them. He checked the time, and it was 1pm. Backtracking in his mind, he and Sanji couldn’t have been on the road for more than 30 minutes before everything went south, so they should be about 30 minutes from the airport, if traffic remained relatively clear like it was now.
When the truck pulled up in front of the car, Zoro watched as a short man in sandals, jorts, and a vest with no shirt underneath hopped out of the vehicle with a “hup!” He had his hand resting on top of the straw hat he was wearing – wispy black hair poking out underneath – and he looked over at Sanji and him with a full-toothed grin. Zoro stared a little too long at the small scar on his cheek.
“Hiya there!” He beamed. “Car crapped out on ya? That’s too bad.”
Sanji awkwardly shuffled forward, eyeing the man suspiciously. “Uh, yeah. Something like that. Thanks for helping out.”
“No problem at all – it’s my job!” The tow truck driver tipped his hat toward the both of them. “Name’s Monkey D. Luffy. I’ll getcha outta here.”
Despite his unconventional appearance, Zoro couldn’t help but feel better in his presence. They needed someone in a good mood to counter their gloom, and if that meant an open-toed shoe tow truck driver, then so be it.
Sanji was off to the side filling out some paperwork, and Zoro really did not want to bother him. So, looking for something else to stare at besides the cars zooming by, he inched closer to where Luffy was rigging up the car and observed his actions.
“So, where were you two headed before this happened?” Luffy paused for a second to consider two different metal chains in his hands. His eyes darted between them a few times before he eventually picked the left one.
Zoro side-eyed him. “The airport,” he responded gruffly.
“Oh!” Luffy exclaimed, throwing one chain around his shoulders and wrestling with the other. “Goin’ on a trip?”
Zoro sulked a bit and leaned on Sanji’s car. “I’m supposed to compete in the national kendo championships tomorrow, so I’m flying out today.”
“Wow!” Luffy shouted from under Sanji’s car. For some reason, his entire body was underneath, which Zoro didn’t think was absolutely necessary, but what did he know. “You must like swords.”
Zoro laughed at that. “Well, it’s kinda my dream to make it big in the field. Make my entire career on kendo. Become an expert that others look up to.”
Luffy poked his head out. “Become the greatest swordsman in the world!” And his goofy grin and lopsided hat only made Zoro’s smile grow wider.
“Yes! You get it!” He yelled, probably louder than necessary, but it felt good to be understood like that.
“Well then…” Luffy grunted as he wiggled out from under the car and stood back up. “We gotta get you to the airport at all costs.” He clapped a hand on Zoro’s shoulder, and Zoro was surprised by the force of it.
“Thanks.” He responded. “‘Preciate it.” Something passed between their eyes, and they didn’t notice Sanji standing stiffly near them. He cleared his throat, and Luffy turned around to face him.
“The, uh, paperwork,” Sanji muttered while handing it to him.
“Thanks!” Luffy grabbed it, folded it a few times, and shoved it under his hat. “Alright, I think that’s all hooked up.”
“You think…?” Sanji asked quietly, glancing anxiously at his car.
“Hop in the truck. I’ll give you guys a ride to the airport,” Luffy gestured with his arm for Zoro and Sanji to follow him as he went to climb back up to the front seat. Zoro smiled and started to follow.
“I don’t know…” Sanji started, not moving from his spot. “Maybe I should just call an Uber.”
“Nah, let the nice man take us!” Zoro smirked at him before climbing up into the passenger side.
Outnumbered, Sanji took a deep breath in before following Zoro to the other side of the truck. The front had three seats, and since Zoro had gotten in before Sanji, that meant he was sandwiched in the middle between him and Luffy. He didn’t mind it so much, though.
“Hope you guys like Judas Priest because that’s what I’m playing,” Luffy warned as he started the truck. The radio started blaring “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” as soon as everything turned on. Sanji winced at the noise.
“No way!” Zoro exclaimed in shocked happiness. “This is exactly what I’ve been wanting to listen to!”
Luffy pulled back onto the highway a little more abruptly than it seemed Sanji would’ve considered safe – his grip on the grab handle above him proof of his unease. He didn’t say anything, however, and his gaze was fixed sternly out the window, so Zoro decided to give him some space.
“Yeah, my brothers are really into this, so that’s how I got into it,” Luffy explained. He and Zoro continued talking over the music as they made their way toward the city. They ended up having the strangest things in common, despite being opposites in everything else, and the knots in Zoro’s shoulders felt like they were slowly relaxing the longer they talked.
“Hey, there’s a cop car coming up behind us with its sirens. Might wanna move to the side and let them pass.”
Zoro glanced over at Sanji, having barely heard him over the music and chatter. Peeking in the rearview mirror, he confirmed what Sanji was seeing.
“Ah, he’s right, Luffy. You might need to pull over into the shoulder a bit,” he relayed the message over to him like the game telephone.
Luffy also stole a quick glance into the rearview mirror, but rather than agreeing with Zoro and Sanji, he just continued on his drive.
Actually, he was definitely speeding up instead.
Sanji shifted in his seat, eyes glued to the side mirror. “What is going on?” He muttered while Zoro leaned toward him slightly to peer into it as well. They watched as one cop car became two, and then two cop cars became three with an unmarked, black van.
“Damn,” Luffy belly laughed next to Zoro, and he and Sanji both snapped their heads to stare at him. “I thought they wouldn’t notice me in this tow truck I stole.”
“You what ?” They both shouted in unison. Sanji twisted his body to directly look out of the back window in panic.
“Do you even work for the company?!” He shrieked.
Luffy shrugged, and with a snicker he answered, “no, but the phone rang, so I answered.”
Abruptly, he started weaving in and out of traffic, cutting people off dangerously and honking so they would move, lest he hit them. Sanji watched in abject horror as his car skidded behind them. Zoro wondered if he should somehow stop Luffy – grab the steering wheel or shove his foot off the pedal – but they were going too fast that interfering would be dangerous for all of them.
“We don’t want any part of this!” Sanji continued to shout. “Just drop us off!”
“Relax, relax, I got this,” Luffy asserted. A car had to swerve out of his way before getting hit, and he yelled a “sorry!” out the window followed by another laugh.
At this point, Zoro was hoping that Luffy, in fact, did have everything under control and could shake the cops off because he really didn’t have the time to deal with getting caught by the police. Even if he could convince them that he wasn’t complicit in whatever was going on, the hours spent gathering his statement would surely make him miss his flight.
“You might be able to shake them if you take that exit,” Zoro pointed out for Luffy. “It has a low visibility turn, and if you drive straight instead of turning, you’ll end up on a really long, private driveway that they won’t suspect you’ve taken.” It was a driveway Zoro knew well, for reasons he wasn’t going to admit.
“Ooo, will do!” Luffy’s eyes set ahead determinedly as he barreled forward. In order to get to the exit, they had to pass a bridge that went over a wide river below, and it was becoming increasingly harder for cars to move out of Luffy’s way and for the cops to keep their pursuit.
“You’re helping him?!” Sanji protested, both hands now on the grab handle.
“Do you want to deal with the police today?!” Zoro countered.
Just as Sanji opened his mouth to respond, they heard a loud creaking of metal behind them. They both turned around to watch one of the chains dislodge from underneath Sanji’s car right as Luffy made another sharp lane change.
The Oldsmobile detached from the truck, drifted backward a few feet, and then promptly blew up when a police car rammed into it.
“Okay,” Sanji squeaked and faced forward – not able to look at the years of his life that just turned into the cheesy special effects for an action movie he never signed up for. “Yep. You can just drop me off over the bridge now.”
Zoro, unsure of how one could console a person in this situation, went to reach for his hand.
“Sounds good!” He heard Luffy say next to him, and the next thing he knew, they were making a sharp right turn straight into the guardrails. They broke through them like paper before Zoro could reach over to get him to stop.
