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The sun has finally gotten to Zoro.
The dehydration, too.
Why else would he be hallucinating a hamster chewing through his ropes, wearing a hamster-size straw hat on its fuzzy little head?
The hamster finishes the job and scrambles down his body to the ground.
“Squeak squeak! Squeak!”
The hamster looks up at Zoro, little whiskered nose twitching excitedly. Zoro stares.
The hamster turns, runs a few steps, stops. Looks back up at Zoro.
“You want me…to come with?” Zoro tries.
“SQUEAK!”
Well.
He takes one last look at the shreds of rope hanging off his wrists.
Beats hanging around here, at least.
“His name is Luffy,” the boy (pink hair. glasses. wimp) explains. The hamster does a flip.
“Did you name him?” Zoro asks.
The boy (pink hair. glasses. wimp. exasperated) sighs. “No.”
Huh. So hamsters can name themselves. Zoro nods to himself. Okay. All right. Cool.
“Can you do another flip?” he asks the hamster.
The hamster lets out a giggle-like squeak, and does another flip.
Hamsters can eat Devil Fruits?
Zoro’s face splits in a grin, as various Marines, pirates, and unlucky bystanders go catapulting over the horizon.
Fuckin’ sick!
“Why are you following a hamster?” the girl (Ami? Jani? Orange?) hisses.
Zoro shrugs. “Seemed like a good idea at the time. Haven’t come across a better idea since.”
She gapes at him.
…It’s not much of a surprise when she leaves Zoro and the hamster (and some kid with curly hair) (and some shithead of a cook) stranded at the Baratie.
It is a surprise when, with blood dripping down her arm, the girl (Nami) (nakama) (Zoro’s to protect) looks down at the hamster, and pleads.
“Help me, Luffy!”
“Squeak squeaksqueak squeak….SQUEAK SQUEAKSQUEAK SQUEAK……SQUEAK SQUEAKSQUEAK SQUEAK!”
It’s very satisfying, watching the look on Arlong’s face as a stretchy hamster brings his park down around him.
They cross a mountain, they pick up a princess, they end up on a winter island.
Luffy the hamster bounces around the ship with his unending cheer the whole time. When Zoro is napping, he often wakes up to a fuzzy bundle tucked in the dip between his shoulder and his collarbone. When the cook is anywhere, he gets ambushed by a furiously squeaking furry projectile. Said projectile is only pacified by snacks or a suitably entertaining distraction.
(Zoro’s not blind. Zoro saw the cook putting seed mix in his suit pockets. Zoro knows the cook’s a born sucker.)
They meet Chopper. It’s new-ish, having someone on board who can actually understand the squeaks. Zoro now wakes up to one fuzzy bundle tucked into his chest and another, slightly larger fuzzy bundle tucked into his side. Sometimes he wakes up with a mustache drawn on him. Sometimes he wakes up to a breakneck conversation of hamster squeaks and reindeer snorts.
(Sometimes he wakes up to a kick, to which the only proper response is a sword.)
Even so–
“Squeak!”
“It’s three more days to Alabasta, Luffy,” Nami will absently say.
“Squeak squeak?”
“You can’t have a snack, lunch was fifteen minutes ago!” Sanji will shout.
“Squeak.”
“Oh? That reminds me of the time that I met the king of the seas! His palace was…” Usopp will lie.
“Squeakshihihihi!!!”
“Why are my weights covered in seaweed?!” Zoro will yell.
–the crew has mostly figured out how to understand Luffy without interpretation.
“Baby brother!” the man crows.
“Squeak!” Luffy squeaks.
After the dust clears, the Strawhats watch the brothers’ now-joyful reunion.
Nami leans over. “How the fuck do you have a hamster for a brother?” she whispers to Zoro.
“Maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time to him, too,” he whispers back.
He gets a solid shove in the side for that one.
The Strawhats make their way through the Grand Line, leaving chaos and seed husks in their wake.
Thriller Bark sucks. Sabaody really sucks. The two years with Mihawk could be worse, but Zoro misses his crew.
(Unbeknownst to Zoro, the moody twink they’d met at Sabaody spent that period of time pacing his submarine endlessly, asking himself questions like, “How the fuck did a hamster punch a Celestial that hard?”, and “How the fuck do you have a hamster for a brother?”, and “Why the fuck did I put so much effort into saving a hamster’s life?”, and, of course, “How is a pirate crew causing this much chaos led by a non-Mink hamster?”)
They meet the moody twink again. Zoro’s forgotten his name. He hears Luffy try to squeak his way through the twink’s name; sounds like…
“Oi, Squeakrao.”
“That is not my name,” Squeakrao growls.
“Whatever. You have a sword. Fight me.”
Squeakrao narrows his eyes. “...why?”
Zoro grins. “Because I’m gonna be the World’s Greatest Swordsman. And I gotta beat every other swordsman to prove it.”
Squeakrao stares at Zoro.
Zoro continues grinning.
Squeakrao sighs. “Fine. But after we get off the island.”
“Works for me.”
The moody twink, Squeakrao, asks Luffy for an alliance.
(Well. First he asks Nami, who says to ask Luffy. Then he asks Robin, who says to ask Luffy. Then he asks Usopp, who bursts out laughing, and says to ask Luffy.)
Luffy slingshots himself across the room in excitement. Squeakrao looks very much like the older boys at the dojo did the first time Kuina kicked their asses: an odd mix of shock, awe, and disbelief, indicating that something about one’s worldview has been put through a tumble dryer, smashed completely, and then reassembled with the use of a funhouse mirror and one’s non-dominant hand.
Ahh. Zoro never gets tired of that look.
Punk Hazard is fun, because he gets to talk to Tashigi a bit. Talking to Tashigi is fun because she, like Zoro and once Kuina, is one of the few people who is normal about swords.
Dressrosa is fun, too. Zoro gets in some good fights at Dressrosa. His swords did get stolen for a bit, but he got them back! It’s all good. And! He got to see the Tumble Dryer Smash Funhouse Reassemble look again. From multiple people.
Squeakrao’s arm got a little bit cut off, which did look like it sucked. It’s back on now, though, so Zoro has no clue why he’s whining about it. And he's healed enough to spar, which is the important part.
Zoro can't wait to see what's next.
There’s trouble on the horizon, but there’s always trouble on the horizon. It’s nothing new and it’s nothing to be stressed about.
Zoro settles back against the mainmast. His captain is tucked against his neck, telling him a story in squeaks and chitters. His stretchy little paws wrap around Zoro’s torso. The small straw hat rustles gently against his fur.
There’s trouble on the horizon?
Zoro knows they’ll be more than ready to meet it when it comes.