Archive of Our Own

i.

Cocoyasi is humid and almost unbearable.

Zoro sits in the mouth of an alley, lit by dim lanterns that cast shadow over his features. The ale is nice, but he has to drink it as fast as possible if he wants to enjoy it while it’s still chilled. And normally, Zoro doesn’t mind chugging ale like water. Sometimes, though, he likes to enjoy the booze. Nurse it a little, even.

The tankard makes a noise as it’s bumped into, fighting for its life to remain upright. Some ale sloshes over the brim a bit, reminding Zoro it’s been a while since he’s taken a generous chug.

“Quit it,” he grumbles, snatching the tankard to both save the contents from spilling on the dirt ground and to drink it all. It’s annoyingly room temperature and he has no one to blame but himself.

Narrow golden eyes look up at him and Zoro fights the fondness that rises up in his chest like a tidal wave.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he mumbles, but he reaches over so that his companion can bump her scaly forehead to his knuckles. Zoro grins despite himself, touching the snow-white scales with reverence, curling one of her tendrils around his forefinger. “You menace.”

The first time Wado Ichimonji turned into a small white dragon, Zoro’d still been a bounty hunter causing chaos all around his part of the East. He’d been in a dingy inn and he’d toppled over the chair he’d been sitting on and slapped a hand to his mouth to keep the yell bubbling up his throat at bay.

Wado hasn’t grown since that time, still small and wiry.

Now, Zoro loves her in ways he fears he’ll never be able to properly explain. He grins again when she climbs up his arm to curve her lithe body around his shoulders. Her favorite perch.

“Fine,” he sighs, feigning his exasperation. “If you must.”

Wado huffs air through her nostrils, warm against the sensitive skin of Zoro’s neck.

“Hey, Mosshead-–” Sanji pauses where he’s come to stand on the opposite side of the alley’s mouth from where Zoro’s sitting. His eyes are glued on Wado, mouth open, one hand in the pocket of his trousers and the other clutching the handles of two tankards. “Oh… I….”

Zoro stares at him, unimpressed.

“You have a…”

Wado huffs again, lifting her head to look at the cook with narrow golden eyes. Zoro reaches a hand up to rub his finger against her snout to pacify her.

“You never seen a dragon?” Zoro asks, an eyebrow raised.

Sanji seems to finally catch himself and for a brief moment Zoro sees the telling signs of a snide remark. But Sanji's eyes fall on Wado again, curiosity and apprehension in them. He settles for shaking his head as he slowly lowers himself down to sit. “No, actually. I haven’t.”

He says it like it’s the most obvious thing. Like most people wouldn’t ever encounter a dragon. Which… is a fair assessment, though Zoro’ll never tell him that.

Not every katana cultivates the spirit of a dragon. It takes a lot for it to happen; a lot of battles, a lot of care and a lot of time. For example, the twin blades that broke at the hand of Mihawk didn’t have dragon spirits; they’d been regular swords. Too ordinary.

Wado Ichimonji is a katana passed down from one talented swordsman to another. Now she’s in his care and it seems like Zoro’s ambition has been feeding her well enough, like those before him, to satiate her into deciding to finally hatch.

“Here,” Sanji mumbles, his eyes wary as he continues to stare at Wado. He’s handing him one of the two tankards he’s brought. “I figured…” He waves his empty hand in the air to convey what he seems incapable of saying.

Zoro grunts.

The village continues to celebrate their liberation. The sound of the drums and trumpets loud and persuasive to those like Luffy and Usopp that ignore their injuries and dance with the rest of the crowd. There’s food being handed off, tangerines incorporated one way or another. Laughter, loud and free of burden.

Zoro studies Luffy’s new recruit: the slope of his nose and the curling ends of his golden hair. At the restaurant, Zoro’d been unimpressed. Here, he vaguely remembers patches of them fighting together. Kicks that broke bone, that broke necks and bashed skulls in. 

He hums to himself, hiding his curious expression behind his chilled new tankard of ale.

Around his neck, Wado never looks away from the cook either, her eyes unblinking as they glow in the dim lighting. It takes a long time, but she seems to reach her conclusions and they appear to be in the cook’s favor. Wado lowers her head, curling around Zoro’s throat like a scaly chain.

ii.

Of course, he should have known Yubashiri and Kitetsu would have souls incubating within them. They’re both powerful blades, with the latter being cursed and unruly.

Yubashiri hatches first, curious when he uncurls himself, form long and scales dark like ink. Beady black eyes blink up at him for a brief moment before the young dragon scampers up the handrails Zoro’s leaning against. His claws scratch along the wood as it moves, jumping back down and exploring the world around him.

He’s every bit the opposite of Wado: dark where Wado is light. Two opposing sides, meeting in the middle by way of the golden accents of their scales and horns.

Zoro’s sitting on the deck, his heart racing despite himself. Yubashiri tilts his head as he pauses long enough to eye him. Like he’s getting his first good look at Zoro’s corporeal form when, before hatching, Yubashiri has been nursing a partnership with Zoro’s spirit.

Wado huffs, possessive.

“Be nice,” Zoro mutters, eyeing Yubashiri’s every move.

The dark dragon lazily sways his tail back and forth, almost like a dog that is pleased. It cracks a smirk on Zoro’s face, amused as the two dragons size each other up. They seem to be speaking to each other in a language only the two understand; with Zoro, they communicate through strength, through battle. With each other… Well. Whatever this is.

Zoro tucks his chin on his open palm, watching them and trying to catch any shift in their wiry muscles. Around him, the crew make a cacophony of noise as they do their own thing to pass the time. He mildly hears Usopp tinkering and he vaguely registers the cook and his flowery shit that he always springs on Nami.

The Merry’s steady sailing makes for a nice breeze. The sun makes Wado’s white scales and the golden horns on Yubashiri’s head glimmer and shine.

When they come into an impasse, the dragons bump foreheads, scales making a kind of sound that makes Zoro grind his teeth.

“Done dick measuring?” Zoro asks with a light laugh.

Wado turns to him, indignant.

“Sorry,” he apologizes.

Sanji comes, then, a serving tray balanced on the tip of his fingers. He seems to have already passed out the rest of the refreshments because there’s a single one at the center of the serving tray. It explains why Zoro’d thought he’d heard the low and smokey timbre of the cook’s voice, passing off compliments to the witch, commenting on Usopp's projects, yelling at Luffy to be careful. Typical Sanji things that Zoro has already learned to tune out. He's a loud one.

Wado huffs in his lap, as if capable of hearing his thoughts and calling him out on his bluffs. Zoro pets her white scales.

“Here’s this, ugly Moss…” He pauses, his eyes on Wado. He always stares at her, but Zoro is always incapable of deciphering his look. Sanji’s blue eyes slowly shift to Yubashiri, still perched on the handrails Zoro is resting his back against, claws digging into the wood to keep him balanced. Yubashiri cocks his head to one side, studying the cook with unabashed curiosity.

Zoro stares at the bump in Sanji’s throat constrict as he swallows.

“Two dragons.”

Zoro points, “Yubashiri.”

“Didn’t you just get Yubashiri?” Sanji asks, growing stiff when the dragon in question scampers off the hand rails in favor of curling himself around the cook’s feet. “O-oh….”

Yubashiri continues to curl, going in between Sanji’s legs and around and back again, like the number eight but lying on its side rather than upright. When he finally stops, he's tangled his long body between Sanji's legs, his head on top of one of Sanji's shoes. Almost like trapping him in place. Wado has moved from Zoro's lap and is now sitting in the space left between the cook and Zoro. She tilts her head, almost purring.

“Do they speak?” Sanji asks, grabbing the smoothie from the serving tray and finally handing it to Zoro. “Like… not talk… But also, maybe talk?”

Zoro rolls his eyes.

“When Wado’s being a menace,” he affirms. “She makes a chirp.”

“A chirp?” Sanji asks, blinking. He looks at Wado again. The wiry gray mane following the length of her spine thick and coarse. His voice softens, “A chirp.”

Wado huffs, looking away from him and climbing up Zoro’s arm. She’s very hot and cold with the cook. She seems curious of him, interested even. But the moment she catches a whiff of the interest being reciprocated, she huffs and turns away.

Seeing Wado climb him, Yubashiri loses interest in Sanji’s leg and scampers across the floorboards and climbs Zoro's other side. It makes Wado very annoyed, making a growling noise in her throat.

“Be nice,” Zoro says.

Yubashiri chirps.

“Oh!” Sanji looks mesmerized. “A chirp!”

Zoro narrows his eyes at him, not knowing what to call the little alarm-like bells going off in his head. Not the fight or flight ones that he’s used to either. Different.

Wado purrs, almost as if she hears them. Zoro scoffs and chugs his smoothie down.

Sandai Kitetsu is a fiery red dragon and Zoro doesn’t realize he’s hatched until he hears a yelp while they wander in a jungle. He turns, Yubashiri curled on the top of his head and Wado around his neck.

A dragon hangs from Usopp’s nose. It’s scales are sharp and red like blood, tendrils shifting in the air like whips.

“Zoro,” Usopp whines. “You just hatched another egg and it’s trying to eat me.” He sobs, ever dramatic. “I’m not tasty, Mr. Dragon. Please, look, I’m all skin and bones.”

Luffy’s laughing, reaching their sniper before Zoro can. He grabs Kitetsu without a thought, both hands around the dragon’s middle as he pulls him off Usopp’s nose. “Silly dragon. You can’t eat my sniper.”

Kitetsu hisses, tongue long and split at the tip similarly to a snake’s. It tries to bite Luffy’s nose next but Luffy stretches his neck back to stay out of reach.

“We got a problem child,” he yells.

Zoro walks back from where he’d been walking at the front, in the middle of a bickering session with the cook. He’d been in the middle of explaining why he should be leading their party through the jungle all the while Sanji had been laughing at him for even considering it. He wishes Kitetsu’d bite him.

“Kitetsu,” he growls, taking him from Luffy. “What is your problem.”

Sandai Kitetsu snaps his sharp teeth at him and Zoro stares back, unafraid and unimpressed. It’s ultimately what makes the dragon calm down a bit, like the lack of a reaction from him has put him in a sour and pouty mood. He skitters on the ground, looping around the legs of the crew and sniffing as he goes.

Zoro lets out a long exhale, his gray eyes locked on the red dragon. He brings up the rear of their group now and his shoulders tense when Kitetsu pauses near Vivi’s legs. What could be the consequences of your dragon biting a royal figure, he wonders? He doesn’t really have time or patience for jail.

But Kitetsu scampers away from Vivi’s ankles without any sort of problem. He sniffs every Straw Hat, hissing at Luffy’s rubbery limbs and snapping at Usopp when he catches whiff of the sniper’s fear. He eyes Sanji with annoyance and curiosity. The same way Yubashiri and Wado do.

“Pro'lly the food,” Zoro suggests with a shrug at Sanji’s scandalized look over his shoulder. Like hell if he knows the will of his dragons outside of a fight.

Kitetsu doesn’t turn much after that. He rests at Zoro’s hip, thrumming with thirst for blood and battle. He’s a beautiful katana, red like the blood he seeks, his tsuba and kojiri and tsuka-gashira all matching in brilliant gold.

Yubashiri, also transforms far less than Wado though his mischief reigns supreme over his warrior heart. He likes to skitter around the Merry’s deck, bumping his scaly forehead to anyone within reach but jumping away when Nami or Vivi try to pet his ebony scales.

It’s worse when Zoro wants to clean them.

All three shift and manifest into their dragon forms, snapping their sharp teeth at his cleaning instruments with a disdain that even he cannot replicate.

Zoro sighs one day, the Merry steadily sailing for Alabasta. He’s listening to Chopper make a home of the previously unused sick bay, rummaging around and singing to himself. And the cook is in the kitchen, testing things and scribbling in his cooking notebook.

Zoro thinks he’s going to have a good day. He’ll clean his katanas, he’ll nap on the deck near Nami’s trees, and then he’ll fit in some workout time in there too. Probably some form practice. Maybe some weights. It’s getting too muggy for that though. He doesn’t think he’ll like Vivi’s homeland much.

He hates the suffocating warmth.

Settling onto one of the seats in the galley, he aligns his choji oils and other accessories, pulling Yubashiri out from his place at his hip. His saya is glossy and black with no other complimentary color other than the gold of the tsuba. Not like Sandai Kitetsu who has bits of white that, when in dragon form translates to his ventral scales. Or the gray accents in Wado’s tsuka that make up her wiry mane when she transforms.

Zoro slowly unsheathes the blade, but the steel is only halfway out the saya before, in a poof of curling smoke, Yubashiri glares up at him with pitch-black eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Zoro scoffs, brow pinched in annoyance. “You’re acting like I’m doing a crime here.”

He snaps his teeth at him, skittering out of his reach and down to the ground where it walks around and sniffs at all the scents.

When he tries for Kitetsu, the same thing happens. His glare is far more venomous than Yubashiri’s, golden eyes glinting with a promise of retribution if Zoro so much as tries to reach for the choji oil.

“Are you kidding me?” Zoro mutters, incredulous.

Wado does not wait for him to reach for her. She transforms, climbing up his side with a grace only she can don and taking her perch around his shoulders. Her tail twitches, the fin-like vertebrae decorating the tip scratching at Zoro’s chest and catching on his shirt.

“Looks like you have trouble,” Sanji says with amusement.

Zoro looks up and finds him leaning against the counter, chin supported on his opened palm. There’s a shine in his blue eyes, amusement and something not quite like fondness but similar enough.

“They hate being cleaned,” Zoro explains. And then adds, voice growing loud so the dragons know he’s speaking to them. “Even if it’s in their best interest. When rust starts to take over, no one better come crying to me.”

Yubashiri chirps, climbing him up like a furniture and wrapping himself around his forearm, resting his upper body on Zoro’s palm.

Thinking his siblings are on to something, Kitetsu abandons his chewing on a throw pillow and scampers towards Zoro. He makes his perch on the top of his head. A long and weary sigh escapes him, half of it for show while the other can't believe this is what his life is becoming. He stays perfectly still while the dragons slowly fall into a lazy snooze on the varying parts of his person they have claimed as a bed.

Zoro locks eyes with a very amused Sanji and sighs again.

iii.

“My,” Nico Robin says, a leg crossed over the other, elbow supported by her knee, chin supported by her palm. “You must have a strong will, Swordsman.”

Zoro looks away from his dragons, letting them claim their usual posts: his head, his shoulders and his arm. He does not trust the woman, and he doesn’t understand why Luffy does so.

But Zoro hadn’t been in the caves with his captain and the ex-Baroque Work’s second in command. So he can’t say what transpired between the two for her to gain Luffy’s trust. He’ll just remain wary, he supposes, side-eyeing her and making his disdain as obvious as possible.

“What are you talking about?” he demands.

Sanji, who’s climbing up the steps with snacks and refreshments, looks scandalized at the tone Zoro uses on one of his precious flowers.

“I’ve never seen someone with three dragons,” Robin says, her voice soft and serene. She’s clearly unbothered by Zoro’s mistrust, and he knows she’s very aware of it. “Much less, with one.”

Zoro narrows his eyes.

He’s gotten the hint that Robin knows a lot about the world. He’s heard her converse with Nami, mentioning her hobby of reading history tomes and the sort. She must know about the katana souls, he supposes. He won’t ask her anything, though. He knows enough about it and he refuses to trust someone that tried to kill the crew and his captain.

At his shoulder, Wado lifts her head up and follows Sanji’s form with her eyes as he stops in front of Robin and hands her a parfait with fruits and vanilla wafers.

“They hatched soon after he got them,” Sanji offers, blind to Zoro’s look of betrayal. “I was under the impression that it takes years of battle and partnership for a dragon to hatch.”

“Indeed,” Robin murmurs, smiling down at the heart-shaped strawberries. “A blade must spend a long time in this world after being forged by a swordsmith.” She chews daintily, hiding the bottom half of her face with a hand she sprouts at her neck. “Not all blades have the making to harvest a dragon, after all. It requires a certain method of forging, and specific quality of materials.”

Sanji stands, fascinated. Zoro can’t tell if it’s at the explanation or his stupid penchant for women and everything about them.

Wado tilts her head, her narrow gold eyes still pinned on Sanji. Her tail whip sharply, breaking the sound barrier as it rises up and snaps down time and time again. Almost as if she's unhappy at Sanji's obnoxious behavior towards Nico Robin. Almost, Zoro thinks and feels embarrassed at the thought, as if Wado is jealous.

“Fascinating,” the cook murmurs, remembering what he’s here for and handing Zoro the last parfait. His has fruits and wafers too, but the yogurt seems to have been expertly whipped and mixed with matcha and -- Zoro takes a bite -- something sweet enough to give it good flavor but not enough to ruin it for Zoro’s lack of preference for sweetness.

Zoro hums, annoyed at how delighted he is.

Wado turns to him, inspecting the way Zoro enjoys his treat. She turns to Sanji again, gaze calculating.

All three of his dragons stand at attention whenever the cook is near. Or, well, not stand as they do not move from their slouching and lazing about over Zoro. But their eyes, their undivided attention, doesn’t steer from Sanji until he tends to leave their vicinity. Wado’s especially intense in this ritual, much like she is now.

It seems that Nico Robin notices this, her gaze all knowing, all seeing. It’s been a week and a half since they’ve left Vivi and Alabasta and Robin has joined them. But Zoro, though he knows it’s impossible, feels like Robin’s lived for ages. Like she’s immune to time.

“Fascinating,” she says with a thin smile, repeating the cook's earlier sentiment. Her brown eyes shift from the dragons, to Sanji, to Zoro.

When Yubashiri shatters in Enies Lobby, Zoro’s heart sinks into the pit of his stomach. The blade breaks into thousands of pieces but all Zoro sees is his black dragon dying.

His piercing black eyes loose their mischief, sharp teeth glinting one last time before he starts to evaporate into smoke, his soul leaving to rest.

He thinks of Yubashiri curling himself around his arm, resting his scaly head on Zoro’s palm and staring at him with deference. He hears his little chirps when he’s bickering with his siblings. He remembers the first time he’d transformed, curled into a tight ball and then unfurling to inspect the world around him.

Something inside Zoro feels like it cracks. Perhaps the place where the bond he shared with Yubashiri lived. Empty and hollow now that he’s gone.

Zoro wants to reach for him.

But there’s no time.

Not when they’ve declared war against the World Government. Not when they have to rescue Robin from being unfairly killed.

Zoro picks up the blade-less tsuka and presses it close to his chest. It’s a moment of weakness, one he allows himself without any judgement.

“Hey.”

It’s the cook, his voice soft and apologetic. Both things he’s never thought Sanji would aim at him. When Zoro looks up from the black and gold tsuka -- childish grief trying to will it to transform again -- Sanji’s look mirrors a fragment of what Zoro feels.

“I’m sorry,” the cook says after a long moment of hesitance. His blue eyes drop to the tsuka in Zoro’s bloody hands.

Later, in what feels like years when in reality it’s hours at most. They stand and watch the Going Merry’s last stand. Grief is a pain Zoro is used to, loss like an old friend and heartache the house both sentiment have built inside him.

When they all climb onto the little boat after they bid the Merry their last good byes, Zoro pulls Yubashiri’s tsuka from his pocket. His grip tightens briefly, like the fleeting regret that courses through his veins at another lost friend.

He reaches over, tossing Yubashiri’s tsuka onto the deck for a proper burial. The fire that takes Merry takes Yubashiri too, hot on Zoro’s skin like the unbearable heat of summer island weather.

Sogeking sobs next to him and Nami cries at his other side. It’s like a hymn as they watch the fire eat at Merry’s planks and wood, her sails and her figurehead. The flames take all their memories, the innocence and naivety that the five of them brought into the Grand Line, the laughter and the bickering. They are memories that burn and melt into the spaces between each plank.

Sanji lights a cigarette, his blond hair shadowing his face. His elbow bumps into Zoro’s and he can’t tell if it’s deliberate or not. But strangely he finds it comforting.

He thinks he sees a black dragon climbing up the Merry’s sheep figurehead. It’s gone after a blink.

Wado and Sandai Kitetsu don’t transform for a long while after Yubashiri’s departure. They don’t even fight when Zoro cleans them.

Zoro isn’t a man that feels things like regret. When it blooms, it’s brief like a heartbeat; there a moment before it’s replaced by indifference in the next. He’s a man that’s always sure of himself and his actions because hesitance is deadly in the life he lives.

And yet there’s something about losing Yubashiri that kinda makes him a little sluggish. It doesn’t last long, thankfully, because this too is something Zoro doesn’t practice. But it’s a form of grieving for his dragon.

It’s different than a simple katana being shattered and broken. To lose a sword that’s hatched a dragon soul is different because that blade had been alive, had dipped into the true feelings of its wielder, had shared their strength, had harvested the ambition. It had been alive. And now it's not.

He bounces back up, of course. He always does.

Zoro has a job to do, a promise to keep. He must get Luffy to the top, to the edge of the precipice and get him crowned King of the Pirates. He must become the world’s greatest swordsman, leaving triumph and conquest at his wake. Mountain-high so it’ll reach Kuina, wherever she is.

His time with Yubashiri had been brief, and their bond had been strong despite it. And now Zoro buries it somewhere in his heart, somewhere in his soul where it grounds him.

“Here,” Sanji says the night before they’re sequestered by Thriller Bark.

Zoro looks away from the stars where he sits on the Thousand Sunny’s crow’s nest. He hadn’t realized the cook had made his way up here. He looks at the offering: a trio of onigiri and a bottle of sake.

At his questioning look, Sanji scoffs. “Snack. Since it’s your watch shift.”

He takes the plate in one hand and the bottle in the other. Something else that’s been weighing him is his sudden awareness of the cook. Different than his usual: the way he keeps him in his peripheral as a rival, as an equal.

Now, he notices things like the undone buttons at his throat, showing the dip of his collarbones and a golden freckle that’s rather interesting. He catches the scent of the sea and smoke when they’re sharing the same space, the calluses in the cook’s hands, different from Zoro’s yet all the same.

It’s distracting and annoying. And he knows that if Wado and Kitetsu were in their dragon forms, they’d stare at Sanji the same way they always do: unwavering and filled with wonder.

“Thanks,” he finally mutters, refusing to look up at the cook lest he gives himself away by the heat on his cheeks.

He thinks Sanji will leave after his delivery, but instead he takes a seat next to him on the bench. He pulls a cigarette out and lights up, the cherry bright red in the low lights.

“I’ve wondered,” he murmurs, crossing a leg over the other. “You think Dracule Mihawk’s big ass sword has a dragon?”

Zoro chews, looking at the harsh and foamy waves of the sea.

“Maybe,” he answers. “Probably yes.”

Sanji hums both in acknowledgement and fascination. “Wonder what it looks like. Gold, maybe. Seems to be a common color in scales.”

“Black, mostly,” Zoro offers. He takes a swig of the sake, feeling contentment as it goes down his throat, leaving a trail of warmth. “Silver. You gotta look at the coloring of the blade. It translates into the dragon’s scales.”

Sanji hums again, twisting at the hip to look for an ashtray.

“And your dragons?” he asks, bringing the ashtray close once he finds it.

“You’ve seen them, cook,” Zoro scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

“Oi!” Sanji glares at him, his legs shifting. Zoro watches the movements, almost wishing he’d try for a kick. A spar sounds nice, even if it’s nearing midnight. “Don't be a dick! I meant: we haven’t seen them.”

Zoro’s unoccupied hand lands on his two swords, their thrumming vibrating up his arm. “They’re upset about Yubashiri still.”

There’s a buck, like the blades are scandalized he’d say that.

“Right,” Sanji breathes, pulling out a new cigarette. “Even dragons mourn, I suppose.”

iv.

Zoro wakes up to a sensation he both knows well and has never felt before. His body feels aflame, every muscle burning, his skin raw and stinging and aching.

He shifts, having enough strength to lift his head for a second. He’s more bandages than man. He drops his head, a skull-splitting migraine making a home in the back of his left eye. Breathing hurts, like his lungs aren’t strong enough for the intricate process, his chest incapable of expanding and contracting like normal.

He makes a noise, like he’s struggling to breathe. Perhaps he is.

Darkness overtakes him again.

The second time he wakes up, he hears Chopper fussing over him, his soft child-like voice garbled with tears and worry. He’s changing his bandages, sticky with blood. Zoro knows this because he feels the distinct sticky peel of the bandages from his skin.

“We can’t lose you,” the little doctor is mumbling. “I know you’re stable now, you big jerk, but I can’t get over the way you looked. Why would you do that? What happened?”

Nothing happened, Zoro thinks.

It triggers a memory. Standing in front the castle’s rubble, most of his blood splattered on the rocks and boulders than in his body. Death, like an old friend coming to visit. Coercing him to come with it, like it always does. And like always, Zoro refuses.

Luffy’s pain, so acute, so heavy a burden, so very capable of drowning and overtaking his most devoted follower.

The cook’s look of shock and anguish. What happened here.

Nothing happened.

Nothing happened.

Blue eyes are staring at him when he wakes up a third time. They’re glassier than he remembers, complexion pallid in a sickly way. Zoro sighs wetly, that migraine still persisting.

“Mosshead,” Sanji whispers, looking relieved in a way that upsets Zoro. This isn’t how their dynamic should be. Zoro’s the one to quietly pine, the cook oblivious and content in the presence of the fairer sex. “You’re awake!”

Zoro hums, wanting to sit up but feeling too dizzy to do so. He clenches his eyes shut before opening them again. He now notices Kitetsu and Wado curled around Sanji; the former on his head, the latter around his neck.

Zoro’s face grows hot, not with fever.

His dragons around Sanji is a form of intimacy that he is not ready to even consider. Yet there they are, traitorous little bastards, looking at him with an alertness, taking in his every twitch and move.

“Are you alright?” Sanji asks, sniffling in a suspicious way. “Are you hungry? I suppose an appetite is the last thing on your mind, huh? How are you feeling? Does it hurt anywhere specific?”

“Cook,” Zoro’s voice is a croak of disuse. “Shut up.”

Sanji’s face pinches, thin lips curved around unsaid words. It looks like he wants to tell Zoro off, which sounds enticing. But he doesn’t, and it’s a very un-Sanji like move. Zoro listens to the ringing in his ear for a little longer before he turns to him.

“Bastard,” the cook finally whispers, his stupid curly brow furrowed. “Why would you do that?”

Because Zoro believes in Luffy and he believes in his own unwavering resolve. If he died after the Warlord’s attack, then he didn’t deserve to be alive. It’s a simple way of seeing things. Straightforward, the way Zoro prefers things to be.

He doesn’t answer the cook, knowing he wouldn’t understand. Or maybe he would, and that in itself is the whole problem that Zoro doesn't wish to touch. It’s an argument he doesn’t want to waste time on, anyway. Instead, he struggles to lift an arm up, bandaged finger pointing at him.

“They like you,” he murmurs. He looks at Kitetsu, curled into himself, his head resting just over Sanji’s forehead, thorny bits poking into Sanji’s skin but not hard enough to tear. Wado huffs, hiding her scaly face in the crook of Sanji’s neck. It’s embarrassing to watch.

Sanji’s pallid face grows splotchy pink. It’s an amusing yet rather nice sight.

“Marimo.”

Zoro swims back to consciousness, feeling the sway of the Sunny against the waves as they sail away. Vaguely, he can hear the sad melody of a violin. He furrows his brow, eyes still closed shut.

He’s ripped his bandages off because they make moving around hard, but every cell in his body still aches. He’s better, Chopper says, but he’s not back to normal. Not healed entirely.

“Marimo.”

He hums, inhaling sharply and feeling a stinging pain on his side. It’s a whisper, soft like the night. Zoro tries to shift, but every bit of his body protests.

“Marimo-–”

“What the hell do you want?” Zoro finally asks, opening an eye and glaring at where he’s sure Sanji’s form stands. Everyone around them is snoring: Franky loud and obnoxious, Usopp loud and silly, Luffy loud and honking.

“Is there a reason why a black dragon has been watching me sleep for the last three hours?” Sanji finally asks, leaning forward so Zoro can see his blond hair. It’s sleep-ruffled, his fringe messy and leaving his hidden eye just slightly visible.

Zoro rolls his eyes. “Yubashiri’s gone, cook. I don’t have a black dragon anymore.”

Did he forget or something? Did Zoro receive the blows and Sanji is feeling the amnesic after effects? Dumb idiot.

Sanji clicks at his tongue, moving closer to Zoro’s bunk. There’s something in his hands and Zoro lifts himself up on his elbows to glare at him and then at whatever he thinks he needs to look at.

There’s a dragon in Sanji’s hands, dark because he’s almost invisible in the lack of lighting in the men’s quarters. His horns are black and only their golden tips are visible. His tendrils are gold too, twitching as he eyes Zoro with the eyes of an ancient soul. They’re a dark red, glinting like he knows secrets of this world that one can’t fathom. He probably does.

“What…” Zoro reaches over, the muscle of his bicep pulsing. He’s way older than Kitetsu and Wado, he knows. He can see it. He has dark a mane around his scaly head, a beard under his sharp snout. “Shusui.”

The dragon doesn’t make a noise but his eyes glint with approval.

“The sword you got in Thriller Bark?” Sanji asks. Zoro had forgotten the cook’s presence. “He’s a dragon too?”

Zoro hums, accepting the bundle into his hands. He thinks the cook will leave, but instead he takes a tentative seat at the edge of Zoro’s bunk. Shusui is the same size as Kitetsu and Wado, small and lithe, muscles under his scales wiry. But he’s heavy, his mane long and unruly.

“Not surprised,” Zoro admits, shifting Shusui to one hand so he can pet the scales on his forehead. “The swordsman that gave him to me was incredibly powerful.”

Sanji hums.

Zoro wonders why Shusui went to Sanji before coming to him. It’s a thought that lasts for a brief moment. There’s no point in steering around it: his dragons know of his growing feelings for the cook. They like him, because their master does.

He thinks of how Wado has watched Sanji from the moment he joined the crew. Like even then, in Cocoyasi, where Zoro had found the cook annoying and inconvenient, she knew the cook’s worth.

Sanji reaches over, thin finger petting the mane around Shusui’s head, shifting, lowering to follow and curl at the end of Shusui's golden tendril.

v.

Shusui isn’t like Wado or Kitetsu. He shows himself the least, choosing to transform in the middle of the night and coming to rub himself against Zoro before ultimately making his way to Sanji. He doesn’t skitter or scamper like the others. There’s a dignified way to his movements.

Wado and Kitetsu, in the few times he’s transformed along with the dragons, submit to him. Wado with an air of grace and respect, Kitetsu with more hesitance of relinquishing his violent tendencies.

And yet, despite it all, Shusui also refuses to be cleaned.

Zoro groans, throwing his head back as all three dragons curl away from the choji oil. They’re due to reach Sabaody in a few hours and all Zoro wants is to clean his swords to kill some time.

His ribs still ache when he moves and, stubborn as he is, working out has been proving incredibly difficult. He’s already had a cat nap under Nami’s tangerine trees, awoken by the witch herself so he’d move some barrels for her when she has two perfectly usable arms to do it herself.

Now, all he wants is a little time to clean his blades!

Shusui looks judgemental when Zoro tries to reach for him.

“C'mon, old man,” Zoro scoffs. “You afraid of a li'l oil?”

Shusui doesn’t fall for the bait, too proud and regal as he sits at the far edge of the table. Zoro grumbles under his breath, pinching the bridge of his nose for some patience.

“When are you gonna give it up, Moss,” Sanji calls with a laugh. He’s in the kitchen, taking up inventory so they can restock in Sabaody. “Looks like this is one battle you won’t win.”

All three dragons turn to the cook upon hearing his voice, each one intense and attentive. Kitetsu has gotten into the habit of nipping Sanji’s wrist. It must hurt, but the cook doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even react.

It’s dizzying.

“Stop looking at him,” he whispers to them and all three dragons turn to him, indignant. “Back at you, slobs. Can’t keep a secret.”

“What’s he mumbling about over there, guys?” Sanji asks the dragons and Kitetsu chirps as he skitters off the table and towards the cook.

All three dragons react to the crew. Their affection for them alive because of Zoro’s love for all eight of them. Wado likes to spend time with Luffy on the firgurehead, a thing that drives Zoro insane because if she falls into the sea there goes his most important katana. Kitetsu likes to bite at Usopp’s nose, finding thrill and enjoyment in the sniper’s wails.

Shusui doesn’t manifest much, but he likes to be near Robin. Sanji, too, but it’s Robin he sits near, his red eyes staring at her like he knows what she is.

It’s intimate. It is a vulnerability that Zoro had no choice in offering.

He sighs, resting his chin on his palm as he watches the dragons move around the galley like they own the place. Watches the fond curve of Sanji’s thin lips; a smile that’s much different than the one he offers everyone else.

That’s the last time he and Wado, and Kitetsu and Shusui share space with the cook. He thinks he’s going to die this time around, staring at the Warlord with pain-filled glassy eyes.

He’s being carried by Usopp, his swords thrumming at his sides but not transforming.

When Kuma’s attack comes to him, his eyes lock with Sanji’s blue ones. They’re opened wide and filled with raw horror, mouth open as he screams Zoro’s name.

It’ll be two years before he sees him and Luffy and the rest of the crew again.