Chapter Text
Zou was an absolute racket even after Luffy’s group leapt over the side of Zunesha.
Despite the new plan, Zoro still felt uneasy. No, unease wasn’t the word for it. Agitated was probably a better description. Distracted, too. He hadn’t had enough alone time to meditate and he got the feeling he wouldn’t for a while. He had hoped the trip to Wano on the Polar Tang would at least be a little relaxing, he expected there was a good chance being 400 meters under the ocean would offer some quiet.
He was sorely, bitterly mistaken.
Law’s crew, the Heart Pirates, were ridiculously rambunctious and in constant motion, a jarring opposite to their stoic captain. Zoro wasn’t sure what he expected. They had partied like animals on Zou, why wouldn’t they be loud and obnoxious? He imagined Law would at least have a quiet hour or something similar, maybe even just a quiet room, but it would seem the only silent place aboard the ship was Law’s private quarters that he’d had engineered to be soundproof. Worse yet, the creepy surgeon forbade anyone other than his crew from encroaching on this space.
Zoro was stuck trying to find zen crammed between a dozen sweaty pirates on a ship that, for being in the icy bowels of the sea, miraculously still managed to feel like a sauna. Franky had explained why that was but Zoro hadn’t really been paying attention. He’d found some quiet in the library but Robin had already parked herself firmly into one of the two leather couches and was reading a book so big she had to prop it up with two extra arms sprouting out of her knees. He took another lap around the submarine to find somewhere else to meditate but it seemed his best bet would be to accompany the archeologist.
He’d gotten comfortable on the floor, tucked against a looming bookcase that had extra planks hinged onto the front of each shelf to prevent them from spilling over. Zoro would tell Franky about it if he wasn’t so sure Robin hadn’t already floated the idea to the shipwright. There was a soft whirring that filled the entire sub, getting louder or quieter depending on how close he was to the engine room. The library seemed to be as far as it possibly could be from the noise but the gentle hum was still present. It worked decently enough as white noise for Zoro to ignore it. This semi-silence was only interrupted by the soft turn of pages as Robin read a book on what looked to be about horticulture in the North Blue. Why she was reading up on that topic, Zoro didn’t know but he wasn’t curious enough to ask. He had his own thoughts to think and, more importantly, purge.
Since his arrival on Zou, no, since Luffy’s conversation with Cat Viper that he just happened to overhear—he had definitely not been seeking it out—he was thinking about that shithead cook. His knee-jerk reaction to the knowledge of Sanji’s abandonment had been; Good. One less pain in my ass. But once that feeling subsided and he began to truly feel the loss he was left with a resounding why? It wasn’t like he and Sanji got along but they’d come to some semblance of an understanding, if Zoro was interpreting the cook correctly—he was often told he was bad at reading between the lines. The feeling simmered for a while, then it began to fester. Quickly.
What was Sanji’s abandonment if not flat out betrayal?
Of course, Luffy insisted on going after him, on getting to the bottom of this and hearing Sanji out, but Zoro’s initial response of letting the shit-cook go started to feel like the right one. For an hour or two, as he ruminated on Sanji’s letter and Nami’s first hand account, he denied, telling himself the cook would be back before the sun went down. Then the sun went down and he bargained, wondering if somehow this was his fault. Like he was doing a stages of grief speedrun. But now? On the Polar Tang, miles away from Zou and ground zero of Sanji’s perfidy. Now, he’s angry.
He sighs through his nose and ignores the quick glance Robin darts his way, ignores her knowing smile even more. The way that woman seems to read minds confounds him. As someone who needs directness, her ability to pick up on even the most subtle of mood changes impresses and aggravates him to no end. He rests his hands in his lap and draws in a slow breath, closing his eye and focusing on the thick smell of ammonia and ozone the Polar Tang tends to absolutely reek of, forcing Robin and whatever her smarmy look meant far out of his mind. He focuses on his senses, touch, taste, scent, hearing. The feeling of the ship under him, the eerie stillness unnerves him. No rocking, no rough waves. It’s… unusual. Next. The bitter taste of sake in his mouth from dinner earlier. A loud affair with small meals and smaller cups.
The booze Sanji bought tended to be tastier, a dryer, lighter flavor.
His face screws up to the side and he wills the cook out of his brain space. Focus. Senses. The nasty smell of the sub bothers him more than he thought it would. Living on a pirate ship, he’s accustomed to smells of all varieties, most unpleasant, but the Polar Tang’s scent is just jarring. He hopes he’ll get used to it during their journey but a cynical part of Zoro’s particular mind screams that he won’t. He takes another deep breath. What does he hear? That same mechanical humming, gentle hull creaks that disturb him more than he’s willing to let on. The sensations are all so sharply foreign that he struggles to find any semblance of peace. Doesn’t help that his brain keeps deciding to circle back on his earlier trains of thought. He would do anything to steal a bottle of sake from the kitchen but since the Polar Tang houses more pirates in a smaller vessel, all food is rationed and locked up after meals. Liquor included since apparently submarines need constant attendance and can’t afford unscheduled drunkenness. Leave it to Law to sail the most complicated vessel on the Grand Line.
He sniffs harshly in a futile attempt to clear the smell from his nose. Usually that works on the Sunny since open air brings all different kinds of flavors but the stale stillness of the sub is consistent, irritably so.
“Something on your mind, Zoro?” Robin asks out of nowhere.
“No,” is his immediate response. Perhaps a little too fast.
She hums and it’s a sound like victory. He cracks his eye open to level her with a glare. She’s wearing a pair of reading glasses that make her look a little bugeyed and he finds that she’s already staring at him, that same smug look still spread on her elegant face. Zoro might be gayer than cum on a mustache but he knew Robin was a beautiful woman and, like all beautiful women, she’s hard to ignore. At least that was something Sanji tended to say. And just like that, the subject of today’s brooding rears his bastard face. Robin must have been able to see it like a thought bubble floating above his head because then she says;
“You’re worried about Sanji.”
Not a question.
“Worried isn’t the word I’d use.”
He could think of probably thirty others. Furious. Enraged. Livid.
Disappointed.
Why, he’s not sure. Why would he be? It’s not like Zoro’s surprised. The cook had always been a complete dipshit. Why wouldn’t he up and leave on a whim?
Robin hums again and drums her fingers over the page of her book.
“I see.”
He wishes she wouldn’t but that’d be like asking her to stop breathing. Robin will always be seeing and thinking and knowing. She was an assassin spy when they first encountered her for fuck’s sake. He’d wish they kicked her off the boat after Alabasta if he didn’t love her like a sister, which was information even waterboarding wouldn’t get out of him. Thankfully, she drops it and returns to her book but that doesn’t really help things. If anything, it leaves him with suspicion. Robin doesn’t stop asking questions until she’s sated—and it usually doesn’t take many to do so—but the end of her ‘interrogation’ means she’s gotten what she was after and Zoro doesn’t know what she was able to ascertain from his stony expression. He wants to tell himself he doesn’t care but that would be a bold faced lie.
Robin, despite not being the strongest of the crew, is certainly the most dangerous Straw Hat and she’s not above using her superior intellect and tact on the rest of them. Zoro huffs out an anxious breath he tries to disguise as an irritated sigh and ignores the gentle quirk of her lips before he closes his eye again and returns to his meditation. Robin and her big, fat brain can fuck off right into the sun. He doesn’t need her judgement, just her silence. He’ll let her know when he wants input but, knowing Zoro, that’ll probably be never.
“Way to go, moss,” Sanji drawled around a freshly lit cigarette. “It got away.”
Zoro scowled at him, brows low over his eyes, but didn’t dignify the cook’s remarks with a response. He wasn’t interested in saying anything to that asshole, especially not if it was raising to his barbs. Zoro found the best way to get under the shithead’s skin was to give him the silent treatment and there was nothing Zoro relished in more than bothering Sanji.
Zoro slashed down some sagging foliage to clear the way as they stalked their now long gone quarry, no fault of Zoro’s mind you. Sanji decided that in the very moment they’d stumbled upon a group of hulking beasts, he should spark up a cigarette. Just the gentle flick of a match striking sent the herd into a frenzy and they took off into the wilderness.
“Y’know, and correct me if I’m wrong-”
“You’re wrong.” Zoro broke his silent treatment vow not one minute into it but he couldn’t help himself with Sanji giving him such an easy target.
Zoro could hear the squeak of Sanji’s perfect teeth as they clenched together and bit his cigarette filter in half.
“Listen here, asshole!” Sanji hollered and a flock of birds burst out of a nearby tree into the sky. “You’re getting us lost and you’re not even trying to be tactful about hunting. I haven’t seen any evidence of anything going this way. Hell, you’re actively cutting shit out of the path. No way a fucking herd of animals came through here!”
“Then stop following me,” Zoro bit back as he sliced away more brush. “At least I’m not scaring everything away with the nasty smog coming outta my mouth.”
“You’re the one making sure we go hungry tonight!” Sanji threw a hand up but continued after Zoro. “Do you want us all to starve? Do you want to be on this island for the rest of your stupid life?”
Zoro blew out a breath. Relax. If we fight, it’ll just make hunting harder. I don’t have to respond. He had no idea what either of them were thinking, doing this together. It would’ve been better if they just split up but Sanji had insisted, throwing Zoro’s supposed ‘directionlessness’ in his face as the excuse. He cut down a bush and noticed some scratches on a nearby tree.
“Look.” He pointed with his sword. “Evidence. Happy?”
“No,” Sanji ground out and put another cigarette between his lips. “Not with you around.”
He lit it with a match and shouldered past Zoro with a click of his tongue. The cook stopped in front of Zoro’s discovery and stared at it with his chin in his palm as his other arm tucked across his body and drummed his fingers over his ribcage.
“These look like territory markings,” he said and looked around the clearing they found themselves in. “There might be a cave or something nearby. Some kind of den.”
Zoro rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’ll believe that from the guy who grew up in a restaurant.”
“Better than the guy who grew up as a shrub. I’m surprised something hasn’t started eating your head thinking it was grass.”
Sanji smirked around his cigarette, that haughty little tilt of his lips, just a sliver of teeth peeking out. That look irritated Zoro like none other. Like the cook knew something Zoro didn’t. Like he was better than Zoro. No doubt that terrible notion was fact in the blond’s nicotine poisoned mind, but Zoro knew better, as usual. So, he wasn’t sure why that made him blow up. It wasn’t even a good jab, overused and boring. Obvious, easy, low-hanging. A million other adjectives for uninspired. Zoro had no real reason to get as angry as he did at Sanji’s words alone. Really, it had been the shit-cook’s shitty face that pissed him off. So full of himself and conceited like Zoro was some mindless pleb he’d happened upon. Zoro didn’t like it when people tried to make him feel less than and Sanji seemed to love it.
So, Zoro did what Zoro did best and lunged at him, swords drawn and teeth bared.
“You and your shitty little excuse for a beard are fuckin’ dead,” he hissed as he swung at Sanji. “I’ll show you grass. You’ll be pushing up daisies pretty soon.”
Sanji blocked, easily, smugly, that same stupid look on his stupid face.
“You wish, marimo. You’re the one who’ll be reunited with your people soon enough in the dirt.”
They fought. It wasn’t anything new or interesting. Same set of typical attacks that had turned into routine at this point, like some kind of lethal dance number. Sanji twirled and hopped like a ballerina wearing oxfords and Zoro only grew angrier. A few more swings and kicks, a couple of lackluster insults they’d both heard before. Zoro had begun to feel stupid, reminded of his discipline training and how he was actively undoing years of meditation while simultaneously giving himself grey hairs, when Sanji managed to kick one of his swords out of his hand. Yubashiri’s hilt brushed against Zoro’s fingers before it spun in a high arc and planted itself a few meters away from them. Sanji let out a surprised little laugh as he stared at it before he turned back to Zoro and smirked.
Zoro saw red. Fuck the training. Fuck mindfulness or meditation or balance or any of that other bullshit. He balled his now free hand into a fist and popped Sanji in the mouth. The cook hadn’t expected it, if the way his eyes widened as his now smashed cigarette fell out of his slack jaw was anything to go by. Sanji stumbled back, a hand pressed to his chin. He looked up and Zoro saw blood on his teeth. He must have split his lip. Good. Zoro advanced. He gripped Sanji by the throat and pinned him against the tree with the claw marks. His fingers squeezed along the delicate pulse point under Sanji’s jaw, ignoring the way it fluttered under his touch. If the cook was scared, even better. That’s what he got for fucking with Yubashiri.
“Alright, asshat. I can handle the insults and the mockery and all your other pretty boy bullshit ‘cause you’re useful,” Zoro’s grip tightened on Sanji’s neck and he could feel the bob of his Adam's apple on his palm, “but if you fuck with my swords ever again, I’ll take your fuckin’ head off. Got it?”
He leveled Sanji with a glare that could shatter glass, a scowl pulling at his lips. Sanji stared at him, grin a little nervous, grip loose around Zoro’s forearm until he watched Sanji’s eye widen and his mouth pulled into a tight line. Zoro was about to say something else. What, he wasn’t sure since any and all other thoughts flew from his mind like the birds Sanji scared when blood began to trickle from the cook’s nose. Two lines of crimson from his nostrils slid down to his mouth, pooling in his cupid’s bow and filling the seam of his hard pressed lips. The shock of it kept Zoro rooted in place, stiff as a board. So much so, his grip clenched a little harder around Sanji’s neck and a whiney noise slipped past the cook’s lips. At that, both of their jaws dropped and Zoro leapt away from the cook like he’d just sneezed on him.
They couldn’t look at each other, both finding either the ground or sky infinitely more interesting all of a sudden. Zoro only took a little peek and found that Sanji was offering up the side of his face covered by his bangs, only his tight jaw and the tip of his nose visible as he wiped up the blood with a handkerchief. Zoro glanced towards his sword, still stuck in the ground at an angle, before he looked back at Sanji, a little more boldly this time. The cook still wasn’t looking at him and Zoro watched Sanji’s hands shake as he tried to light a match for the cigarette hanging from his trembling lips. Zoro chewed the inside of his cheek, face feeling hot as he gave Sanji a once over, then a twice over. Anything he wanted to tell the cook was trapped behind his teeth but it wasn’t like he had any idea of what to say to begin with. He didn’t know what to think either. He didn’t know what this meant. Gaze dropping, he stared at Sanji’s shoes. He was tapping his toe in a staccato pattern as he continued to struggle with his match.
Zoro looked back at Yubashiri, keeping his gaze steady on the blade even as he heard Sanji’s cigarette crackle to life. He went to collect his sword.
Day two on the Polar Tang and shit has already gotten old. Zoro doesn’t know how they manage, but the Heart Pirates grate on his nerves to the point where he makes the library his near permanent residence, alongside Robin. Usopp and Franky get along like a house on fire with the rest of the crazies and Kin’emon… Well, Zoro’s not sure what Kin’emon and his group are doing. Momo’s probably holed up like a dumb baby again. But, if he’s being fair, Momo is literally a child.
Today, Robin is reading a book on warmongering countries in the North Blue. A little stack of books sit on the side table closest to him and they all have ‘North Blue’ in the title. So far, there seems to be a theme in her literature of choice and Zoro vaguely recalls that the North Blue is where Sanji comes from. He wonders how the hell the cook’s family made it to Whole Cake from there and, more importantly, why the fuck they would. Sanji marrying some broad could not have been so important that they’d scale Reverse Mountain, cross all of the Grand Line, and venture deep into the New World for it. They must have a lot of time on their hands and one thing Zoro knew about people who had a lot of time on their hands is that they tended to have a lot of Beri in their pockets too.
Of course the cook came from money. If he wasn’t from that shit-hole restaurant, he would come from some glittering palace, the fucking nancy dork. Scared of bugs and getting his hands dirty. Zoro imagines it’d be Sanji wearing the dress at the ceremony but instead of the half-snort he expects from himself, his face grows a little warm and he has to adjust in his seat a bit. Robin flips a page with a touch too much flair for her to have not noticed his sudden rearrangement. He wants to bark something snotty at her, tell her to mind her own business, but that would be nothing short of an admission that something is wrong. He dutifully keeps his mouth shut and tries to return to meditating. They’ll be in Wano before he knows it. Then he’ll have ample distraction and plenty to do. He won’t be holed up in this sweltering sub, stuck a billion miles under the ocean, or subject to Robin’s knowing fucking looks.
He and Robin have always had this weird little bond. Both being the silent type—for reasons that could be similar but probably weren’t—and they were better at observing than making conversation. The main difference between them is how expressive Robin is compared to Zoro, which a) isn’t hard to do and b) she isn’t even much better than him in that department. Robin has been manipulating her emotions for years to survive. Zoro has been suppressing his. It isn’t a crazy distinction but contrasting enough for Zoro to consider it as he focuses on his breathing while his mind wanders. He’s gotten to the point in his meditation session where he’s allowing his thoughts to happen to him but isn’t giving them the chance to take root. It’s a difficult exercise that requires heaps of discipline. Something Zoro has in droves.
The cook has terrible discipline. The twitchy, agitated fucker couldn’t hold still if he was nailed to the floor. Even in sleep, he tosses and turns like his bed is made of needles. He smokes a pack a day, bites his nails to bloody stumps, and lets his knee jump when he sits like it’s propelled by Franky’s patented cola power. Sanji can never sit still. It’s one of many things about him that frustrates Zoro. Zoro is good at sitting still, waiting, patience, analyzing. Sanji is flighty, overstrung, easily spooked, quick to anger. Not like Zoro is the picture of zen by any means but comparatively? He might as well be a statue.
Stop. Enough about the shit-cook.
Zoro grits his teeth, eye twitching as he fights to keep it closed. He hears a soft hum from Robin. Maybe a laugh, maybe she read something interesting. Who knows? Zoro didn’t care. She could be reading porn right next to him and he wouldn’t give a shit. He straightens his back, a few concerning cracks echoing in the tiny room, and lets out a long breath as he schools his features to be passive. There’s no point in getting worked up about some bastard a million miles away. The asshat will go and get married to some ditz and be happy as a clam while Zoro actually helps Luffy achieve his dream, not actively derail it. Does Sanji even realize what he's jeopardizing? Does he not understand how selfish he’s being? What world does the fuckstick live in where Luffy doesn’t go after him? Why wouldn’t the captain rush to drag the cook back kicking and screaming? Did he go to Enies Lobby with his eyes closed? Luffy loves Sanji just as he loves the rest of his crew, although he probably loves Sanji’s food even more than the man himself. Who is Zoro kidding? No, Luffy cares too much to be that shallow. What a fucking idiot the cook is. Can’t see what’s right in front of him.
Zoro finds his hands have balled into fists when his knuckles crack sharply from squeezing them too tight. He glances down at his lap and loosens his fingers. He stares at his rough, calloused hands for a minute and thinks of Sanji’s smooth ones, delicate almost. What kind of man has delicate hands? He thinks of the cook’s thin wrists and soft palms. The permanent hangnails around his perpetually red and bleeding cuticles. The cook takes great care of his hands when he isn't chewing them to pulp. Zoro remembers the day Nami had yelled at him for it. Sanji had bandages all over his fingers after leaving Water 7, a perfect storm of Usopp’s defection and Robin’s perceived betrayal coupled with everything that happened at Enies Lobby. His precious hands took the brunt of his anxiety and Nami had been whipped up into a frenzy over it. So, she painted his nails a deep blue as a way to get him to stop gnawing on them. It worked, the love-cook adamant on preserving Nami’s work, until they started to chip and eventually wear off or grow out. Nami had given him the bottle but he never painted them again. Zoro used to catch him rolling the bottle between his fingers like he was thinking about it but he never did. The only other time he’d ever seen paint on Sanji’s fingernails was after they returned to Sabaody. A pale pink, so light it nearly matched his skin. Zoro had noticed it right away. So did Robin. But neither she nor Zoro said anything and for all Zoro knew, no one else noticed. Sanji never did tell the crew what happened in the Kamabakka Queendom. He was different in more ways than one when he returned but Zoro had been unwilling to give him too much attention. Even if he wanted nothing more than to…
He looks back up and Robin has a smile on her face but she’s still staring at her book. Zoro scowls and, in a burst of sudden anger, like she’d somehow caught him thinking about Sanji, he barks;
“Got something to say?” His voice is gruff and strained, like he hasn’t spoken all day. Now that he thinks about it, he can’t remember if he has.
Robin doesn’t even look at him but her smile grows regardless until she lets out one huff of a laugh through her nose and shrugs her shoulders as she flips a page. She doesn’t say anything and Zoro half wishes she would. He doesn’t want to be stuck with these thoughts. He’d prefer a little back and forth with the archeologist over being trapped in his head. He realizes suddenly that what he’s looking for is distraction and the one person who distracts him best has fucked off to some distant island to marry a girl he’s never met. Zoro’s anger isn’t extinguished but something new joins it, something far more somber and bleak. If he isn’t so certain that Luffy will bring Sanji back, he thinks he wouldn’t be so upset. The fact that Sanji’s abandonment will be rectified is what makes Zoro think the cook’s whole martyr act is such bullshit. Sanji must be crazier than he thought if he thinks he gets to leave after everything they’ve been through. Something small and sad inside of Zoro wishes he went with Luffy but he stomps it to death until it’s nothing more than a brown stain on the carpet of his brain and screws his eyes shut in a futile attempt to refocus.
The cook doesn’t deserve to clog up Zoro’s mind. Sanji and his bullshit can stay on Whole Cake for all he cares. Zoro has a mission, a goal, a duty to his captain and crew, and an alliance to keep with Law. He isn’t going to up and leave with a reassuring smile like he actually plans to ever come back. He has promises to uphold and a country to infiltrate. He isn’t going to let some decade old baggage come pouring in from the North Blue and steal him away from the people he’s sworn to protect. He isn’t making his crew chase after him because he lives in some fantasy land where they won’t. He knows what he’s doing and where he’s needed and he understands the stakes.
Zoro thought Sanji was smarter than this. Zoro thought a lot of things about Sanji. He’s starting to believe the cook’s promises don’t mean anything.