Warning: descriptive wounds/horror

There is nothing like seeing true fear on a person's face.

"ZORO!"

There is no room to mock it and no intention to either, especially when the other is feeling the exact same way.

"ZORO!"

There was too much space between them now, pushed apart by the swarm of bodies pressing in. Mangled, rotting bodies. Their faces bore so very little likeness now to anything that could be considered human resemblance. Swollen limbs and mouths, blackened lips split and engorged purple tongues lolling out like feral dogs. Whites of eyes a burning red from burst blood vessels and skin a blue and grey complexion, strips of decaying flesh hanging off them and swaying violently with each movement, flapping as the animated corpses jostled.

The sound. Oh God, the sound. Unlike anything anyone could ever comprehend. Grating shrieks of dried and torn vocal chords, the smacking of their lips over their tongues with the saliva congealed to that of a viscous liquid like mucus. The gargling of bile and blood from whoever was their last meal rattling in their throats and chests. And Sanji was screaming and screaming and screaming. Zoro had his mouth open but whatever noise he made was lost in the cacophony of pure sound, an orchestra of death. This was the stuff of nightmares. No, too tame for nightmares.

This was the stuff of Hell.

Sanji was backed up on the other side of the room, scrabbling for purchase as he clambered up higher onto the top of a stack of crates, and screaming every second he fought to live. Zoro was up on the metal stairs leading down, the door right behind him. He was paralysed, so consumed with horror to move, to even process what to do in his mind. One word slammed him in the head over and over, relentless and brutal.

Sanji. Sanji. Sanji.

The blond seemed to have lost all ability to do anything now he'd reached the top of the boxes. He was panicking, that much was clear. His eyes were wide and Zoro didn't even think that Sanji knew he was crying, hot wild tears spilling from terrified blue eyes, and every time he so much as glanced down he made a strangled cry at the undead lurching up, trying to snag his legs. Sanji had reached his limit, shutting down into a mess so that he couldn't even fight back. His chest moved tumultuously under his torn and stained shirt with every heaved breath he took. This was fear in its raw form. Zoro had never seen it on the blond before and he wished he'd never had.

Sanji seemed to find his voice, "ZORO!"

His name was a desperate, primal scream, that split the man's voice halfway through with a choked sob, and it somehow managed to reach into him and punch him in the face, spurring him into the reality of what he was seeing.

"Oh God, oh God..." Sanji sobbed, barely able to snatch his feet away in time and narrowly missing a large hand swiping for him.

Zoro yelled across to him but didn't know if the noise would carry over, "Don't use your legs! You can't fight them like that- that's what they want!"

He couldn't cut through them, not with just one sword. How could he have been so stupid to have left the others behind in the car? But he couldn't leave Sanji either or he'd be torn limb from limb. Zoro was gasping desperately, clutching at his own hair with sweaty hands. His blood was electrified and his heart pummeled his ribs painfully hard.

"I don't- I don't know what to do!" Zoro cried, wailing out the truth although he wanted it to be a lie. He knew what this would mean. He couldn't. He wouldn't.

"Then go! Save yourself!" Sanji yelled and, despite his crying, Zoro could see he meant it.

"I can't leave you, damn it!"

"You have to!"

"But-"

"JUST FUCKING DO IT!" Sanji screamed, surely breaking whatever vocal chords he had left.

And it was stupid and it was awful and it was cowardly but he was fuelled with panic and Zoro turned tail and ran, throwing himself out of the door, sprinting for their car, ignoring the wail that he didn't want to believe was Sanji's, and clambering into the vehicle. But he started the engine and he waited.

He waited for Sanji to come out that building. Waited for that impossible moment where the blond would bolt out completely unscathed and jump into the passenger's seat, demanding he floor it. And this time, this time he swore to whatever was upstairs, that he'd tell Sanji that he loved him. This time he wouldn't back out. He wouldn't settle for telling himself any longer that the blond didn't love him too. He was through with being afraid now. He loathed it.

It took him a while to process it as the adrenaline settled in his body that his swords were there, all three of them together now and he realised he could still help Sanji. He grabbed them into one arm, swung open the door.

And stepped out into silence.

No more noise. No more screaming. No more Sanji's voice.

Zoro's mouth ran dry.

No. Oh, shit. Sanji, no.

No more Sanji.

The days and months after dragged in what felt like a lifetime and when the government had reclaimed life back from the zombies and humanity was slowly coming back to its senses after the cure was distributed to those not too far gone Zoro wished it hadn't happened at all. Back in the chaos of living a year in an apocalypse, Zoro had had a priority after Sanji was gone- survive and nothing else. Now that there was no need to defend himself or scavenge for supplies he found life to be meaningless without the blond. Almost every night was lost from either insomnia or restless nightmares of that day. He'd hoped for a few weeks that Sanji's name would be read out on the list of ex-zombified patients on the radio as the government tried to reunite what little people had of families left. After the fourth week, he gave up hope and cut his losses.

Now he drank. They offered support to people like him nowadays- the survivors- but he refused adamantly to attend or seek help. A coward like him didn't deserve it. He'd abandoned Sanji. He should have fought, even if that meant they both died. But he had been so overcome by fear that he'd acted irrationally and Sanji had paid the price for it.

He stared up at the ceiling of the refugee shelter provided by the humanitarians and the army, laid flat on his back on the uncomfortable bed. The radio was on quiet, hissing with static between the voices sometimes and, as he drifted off to sleep, he pretended to hear Sanji's name being read out, just so he could feel something out of the numbness of the days gone by.

The scathing hissing echoed up the cold concrete corridor of the basement, chasing up after Zoro as he ran. His swords slapped against his thigh with every step but he couldn't draw them. He couldn't kill it.

It was fast, he could hear it behind him gaining ground relentlessly and in a few seconds he was sure it would be upon him. He was a moron, a fucking idiot. He shouldn't have come back here. His lungs were burning and his muscles stinging with the build up of acid but he spurred on.

But it was as he reached the corner that it got him.

A powerful force against his side sent him sideways, knocking him off balance and throwing him into the solid wall with a harsh slap enough to rattle his bones. He slumped to the ground from the shock, unable to make sense of the now blurred world around him.

A weight on his chest a smell so vile he gagged, vomiting into his own mouth slightly. The stench of decay, bitter, harsh, and stagnant. It hissed into his face, thick spittle spraying up his features, and the sound grating against his eardrums and at that moment his eyes decided to come back into focus and he wished they didn't because now he was faced with the horror that he'd seen not five minutes ago when he looked in that room. Because whatever this was, it couldn't be Sanji.

Its flesh was sallow, sunken around the sockets of its bloodied eyes, and its blond hair was brittle and completely gone in places, showing the raw skin of a scalp. Half of its right cheek was missing, a chunk of flesh bitten away savagely leaving a hollow where yellowed teeth grinned through at him, pieces of flesh and things he couldn't make out stuck between them in large, gooey chunks. To Zoro's horror, he realised that the hissing was not coming from its throat, but from the gap in its face, the saliva bubbling up and drooling down its chin.

He didn't want this to be Sanji. He refused to believe it. But there was no denying the swirled eyebrows above those bleeding eyes, the fine hairs matted with black stains from something he was better off not knowing about. It bared its teeth, though it wore Sanji's skin there was not a trace of the man he'd fallen in love with in there anymore, and it dived down.

Zoro cried out and swung up his arms, holding the creature at bay with a strong grip around its throat. It didn't seem to deter the creature wearing Sanji's face, after all why would it bother a monster that didn't need to breathe? Something cleched hard in his chest at seeing Sanji's face above him, rotting, growling, and contorting itself to try and get at his flesh and it was foolish to do so but he weakened his grip, some insane thought somehow convincing him that he could reason with such a mindless creature. He felt a dampness on his face that had nothing to do with the zombie's spit, "Sanji..."

But whatever he was hoping for didn't come. There was no realisation dawning in Sanji's soulless eyes, no weakening of his agressiveness; if anything he got more feral. In one brutally fast motion, Sanji attacked and grabbed at Zoro's face.

The green haired man tried to push the thing away but it had secured on over his open left eye and tore downwards, tearing jaggedly through with its splintered nails. Zoro screamed as it ripped through, sinking through flesh and soft tissue, scraping away at the lens of his eye. Burning pooled there, the sight went black, leaving him with his barely open right eye and its contorted vision through hot tears. Fired up by the white hot agony sizzling on his nerve endings, Zoro threw the decaying body of Sanji's from him in a rush of adrenaline. He scrambled away and tried desperately to get to his feet but his knees kept trying to buckle in shock.

He threw a hand up to his face, but snatched it away at the unbearable pain it caused him. His hand was almost black with blood, thick and hot. He swayed as he pushed himself up and stood. He could feel the blood running down his face, the stench of metal on his nose mingling with the heady stench of Sanji. He wanted to vomit but the thrill of fear and the horror of what Sanji had become was preventing him from doing anything.

He saw Sanji moving on the ground, gargling fluid out of the gap in its face and shaking its head as though dazed. Zoro pawed at the swords on his hip and drew out Wado. He held it out in front of him, legs wobbling and mess oozing out of the tear in his face. He felt light headed. The room was swimming.

Sanji snarled, deep, guttural, mucus leaking out of its mouth and nose and it locked its reddened eyes onto Zoro. Zoro raised the sword threateningly.

The creature hacked and Zoro saw the fleshy mess of part of his face collected under the fingernails of its right hand. Sanji licked around its mangled maw, smearing the thick snotty discharge further. Zoro took a shuddery breath.

Oh God, Sanji.

He remembered the way the blond used to smile at him. His soft blue eyes. The way he used to get mad when Zoro mocked his eyebrows. He remembered the hands that made them food when they were hungry, that washed him with antiseptic and wrapped bandages when he was wounded. Zoro trembled and he hated himself for it, but this was still Sanji. Deep down somewhere, Sanji had to be there.

And Zoro couldn't kill him.

When Sanji lunged Zoro brought his arm across, cracking the hilt of the katana against the creature's skull. The effect was imminent. Sanji crumpled to the ground and didn't move. Zoro suddenly choked a little, dropping his weapon with a clatter and let his knees buckle. What had he been thinking to come back here? Sanji was too far gone to help now...

He slumped forward, the floor cold under his knees and shins, and his face throbbed painfully hard, as though it were pulsating under the skin. He was an idiot. An idiot. An idiot. He wanted to yell, to hit something, to take his anger out on anything, but when he looked at Sanji's form, at the monster that man had become he slammed his hands onto to the ground regardless of the pain it caused him and heaved a sob.

What had he done? What had he done?

Salty water ran down one side of his face, blood ran down the other, "Fuck..." He cursed, spitting the word out between coughs and juddered breaths.

What the fuck had he done?

That was the last time he ever saw Sanji. He never went looking again.

Zoro woke up to the sound of high pitched laughter as a group of children ran past his tent. Judging from the glow seeping in through the canvas roof, he gauged it to be mid morning. He rubbed at his one working eye with the heel of his palm, the other scarred shut in a mangle of damaged tissue that had ran down his cheek. That had given the medics here quite a scare when they'd peeled back the bandages and saw the sorry excuse for what Zoro called self care; it was hard trying to sew skin back together through the reflection in a small shard of mirror whilst being so dosed up on alcohol so as not to feel a thing.

He'd lost the eye completely now, the medics having removed it in some kind of surgery he apparently 'needed'. He was told it was to a deep set infection and he'd spent weeks in the medical bay much to his displeasure. They'd offered him a glass eye replacement but he'd turned it down, he didn't really need it anyway.

Getting to his feet, Zoro got ready for yet another day he didn't want to go through. Another pointless day where he didn't need to fight, or hunt, or run away. He'd no idea what to do with himself anymore. His hands trembled as he slipped on fresh clothes and he gave up trying to lace his boots after the fifth attempt when the shaking became too much and he tucked the laces in down the sides.

He put on his rucksack where he kept most of his belongings and struggled to buckle his belt and katanas around his hip through the tremors. He'd go for a walk. A pointless walk along the wooded area of the refugee camp. He wouldn't leave the place, he never did, but carrying his belongings with him reminded him of the days where survival was his goal and he was able to trick himself into thinking he was doing something with purpose, was able to trick himself into going on for just one more day.

He zipped the tent doors up and left, trekking up the dusty road that ran straight through the centre of camp, dodging the odd screeching child that seemed to have no sense of the fact that there were obstacles around it. It didn't take long to reach the small crop of woods; only a twenty minute walk from his tent. He wandered on inside.

Surrounded by trees, the foliage, and the damp earthy smells, there was a sense of clarity here that Zoro got from nowhere else. Though there was nothing to fear anymore, his body instinctively went into survival mode. He stuck to the shaded areas, listening attentively for noises not made by him. Here he knew what to do. Out there, in a world without the zombies, he was lost. What was he supposed to do? There wasn't a meaning anymore. It wasn't like he had anyone; no family, no friends. He had no one who needed him. He sat down between two thick roots of a tree, leaning against its trunk as he simply sat and listened.

He could hear children laughing and people chatting faintly in the camp, see the smoke between the trees from the cremations of those that they could not save, all burnt in bulk to save time and space. Zoro grew accustomed to the smell after a while. There was the rustling of a doe not that far in front of him as she ran her snout along the ground, snuffling for food. Zoro watched, unable to truly relax, and he doubted that he'd ever feel safe again after living through all that. He supposed that that was natural.

It was sometime later that he heard the rumble of engines in the distance where he knew the entrance to the camp was and he frowned, it was rare they had visitors. He got to his feet, spooking the female deer and she bolted off in a skittish run, and made for the edge of the wood where the tree line dispersed slightly and the road was visible. He leaned against one of the few tree trunks and watched as from the right three school buses with the red medicinal cross spraypainted on trundled past. He could barely make out any of the new patients but he knew from the black star sprayed on the door that these were all once zombies.

The third bus soon began to move past but this one seemed to have more livelier action on it even if it was a few small movements. Curious faces looked out from underneath blankets, pale and tired, but they weren't the ones Zoro was looking at.

The man's face was pale and sickly, suggesting he'd only recently been cured. His blue eyes where looking straight at him, narrowed, suspicious, and there was a squared of wadding gauze taped onto a whole half of his lower face and Zoro was willing to bet what little he had that there was a healing wound from a missing strip of flesh that used to show teeth. Zoro spewed up the name even though he knew the other couldn't hear, "Sanji?!"

The man seemed to be scrutinizing him, looking at his lip movements before his eyebrows, his stupid goddamn swirly eyebrows, raised in surprise and he pressed a hand against the window, his mouth moving but Zoro didn't need to hear it to know that Sanji was calling out his name. A few other people on the bus were watching the exchange curiously, some looking confused and others smiling slightly. But before Zoro knew it the bus had moved on and was making its way quickly down to the medical bay and he moved faster than he had ever moved in his life, running after the procession of vehicles because Sanji was alive.

It was crazy. It was impossible.

But Sanji was alive.

Sanji had changed a lot, and for the better too since the last time Zoro saw him he was a mindless monster that clawed off part of his face. Now they stood just looking at each other, taking it all in. Zoro would have thought he was too close to the other if this was anyone else, but Sanji didn't seem to mind and Zoro liked being this close, feeling the warmth radiating off the blond's body and knowing that he was real, that Sanji wasn't dead.

The blond talked a little weirdly, but Zoro put that down to the covered wound where he remembered Sanji's teeth showing through. He spoke with more movement out of the side of his mouth that wasn't injured, making him mutter sometimes and it was hard to catch everything he said the first time around. But Zoro was patient and waited no matter how stressed Sanji got because of it. After a few tries, he was able to grasp Sanji's question.

"What happened to your eye, mm-mo?"

Zoro knew he meant 'marimo' from the amount of times Sanji had taunted him with that in the past, but his speech impediment stopped him from saying it properly. The blond sat down on the bed the medical bay had provided him with and Zoro sat too.

He shrugged, "It's nothing."

"The hell it is, shit head."

Zoro laughed and Sanji smiled as well as he could, nudging the other man in a way that made Zoro feel so alive because Sanji really was here, he really was real. Sanji placed a hand on the green haired man's shoulder,

"Why don't you tell me your story mm-mo and I'll tell you whut happend to me?"

Zoro smiled sadly, he knew that Sanji would not like some of what he would have to say, like how he lost his eye, but they had time to work through the repercussions and the horror of the stories that had appallinginly once been their lives. It seemed almost surreal to be standing in a room with a once zombie who he had fallen in love with and then presumed to be dead. But, you know, they had all the time a zombie free world had to offer to sort it out.