Italics someone's thoughts
Disclaimer: I do not, nor ever will, own OnePiece or any of its characters.
Once upon a wonderland, a ship of gold fell through the sea and shattered on the ocean floor. Scattering the pieces of their hope into dark caves where people rose from the ashes and thrived, changing in the ever going battle for survival. But now the battle is lost, the hearts of the people are dead and what is left is not quite human.
~Wonderland~
There is one time when the straw hat crew is truly content, when the day is done and Sanji's warm dinner sits in their stomachs.
When their lively captain has made himself content to play cards with his sniper and doctor. When the marimo has finished his evening training, the cook has finally finished the dishes and is to tired to say more than "Robin-san, Nami-chan good night."
When even the Grand Line seams to be settling down after a long day, "It can wait until tomorrow," it seams to say to the moon, as it slowly begins to show its glint over the horizon, turning the sunset clouds into stripes of gray that paint the starry sky. This is when the straw hat crew is truly content...
...unfortunately today was not one of those days, today was one of those days when thunder clouds cracked overhead and rain pored down by the barrel soaking those below, turning a once marimo colored head a much darker color than it was supposed to be.
"Luffy! Zoro! Secure all loose objects on deck! Sanji! My micans! Brook! Take the wheel!" The Strawhat pirates desperately scrambled around the deck, rushing to perform the various tasks that their lively navigator had assigned them.
The rain pored down soaking them to the bone, damn that's cold Zoro thought his hands racing to tie down the canon that Usopp had been using for target practice, trying to make something resembling a decent knot with his numb fingers, that dumbass what was he doing leaving the canon in the middle of the fuckin' deck!
Zoro could faintly feel his icy fingers slip around the rope—it just wasn't working!
What was with this storm! It had been going on for hours, never slowing, never showing any sign of stoping, it was annoying! He couldn't even remember when his fingers had started to go numb, but by now all of the feeling had been completely leeched out of them. Leaving the frustrated swordsman fumbling with a knot that usually would be no problem.
Shit! Another blast of lightning cracked overhead sending the three dumb-asses (as Zoro liked to call them) into twitching piles on the ground. The long-nosed sniper whimpering about how the brave captain Usopp once fought a great storm monster when he was only four, dumbass.
Zoro turned his attention back to the uncooperative rope that still refused to form a knot, muttering about stupid snipers and annoying storms.
The ThousandSunny rocked sending foaming waves over its icy rail, sending strike after strike as if the Grand Line itself was angry at the small band of pirates and was determined to sink them.
Zoro saw the towering wave seconds before it slammed into him, giving the swordsman just enough time to grab something to anchor himself down and the nearest devils fruit user, who turned out to be Chopper.
Zoro curled around the furry body doing his best to protect the already shivering seventeen year old from the worst of the relentless ocean.
He took a deep breath and pressed Chopper to his chest numb fingers turning white as they clenched around the Sunny's railing.
He could feel the salty water slam into his body knocking the air, painfully, out of his shaking chest damn, it's cold. Sharp slivers of water bit at his face and arched back pulling with frozen hands at his clothes, hair, and the small body, clinging with what little strength it had to its only hope of life.
Zoro's muscles renched painfully as he strained to keep himself and his young charge from getting dragged over the white railing and into the endless black waters of the ocean.
Zoro fought the urge to take a breath as the seemingly endless wave surged over and around him.
Finally it crested and crashed down on the other side of the Sunny, shaking the ship, Zoro knew it was only due to Franky's genius in shipbuilding that it hadn't capsized around them.
He pulled Chopper off his shirt with a gentleness he reserved only for the young reindeer. Chopper was shivering wildly and his trademark pink and blue hat had been pulled off one antler.
"Oi Chopper." The swordsman said urgently slightly worried that his nakama's tiny body had gone into shock from the cold water.
"Oi Chopper!" He said, louder this time and with a slight hint of worry,
"OI- Zoro was stopped by a slight cough from the reindeer that was followed by hazel eyes slowly opening up and blinking against the rain "Hi Zoro, something wrong?" The doctor said shakily bringing a small sopping wet arm up to rub his eyes,
"No, nothing at all Chopper." Zoro sighed, carefully setting his young crewmate down on the marshy deck of the Sunny,
it's hard to believe this was ever grass Zoro thought poking the tip of one boot into the soggy deck of the StrawHat's pirate ship, where am I going to sleep?
The twenty-one year old swordsman turned his gaze back to his companion,
"You alright?" Chopper looked up at the green-haired man and nodded giving a brief thankyou before slowly scurrying of to check on Luffy who was lying on the deck with white eyes, he hurriedly started to give the other CPR a small spout of water coming from his idiot captains mouth.
Zoro sweatdropped.
Suddenly realizing that Wadou Ichimonji and Sandai Kitetsu had been pulled out of their sheaths during the crest of the wave, he scrambled in a very un-Zoro-like manner to where he spotted them a few seconds later, at the same time the ocean bulged sending another wave crashing down on the other side of Sunny.
Icy water shot at Zoro pulling him towards the railing of the ship. He felt the hard Adam wood crack across his lower back at the same time that his head connected with the solid iron of the canon that he was supposed to tie up.
Every bone of his body rung, a steady throbbing started to pulse it's way across his spine and in his temples. The exhausted swordsman looked out at the rest of his crew scrambling about at different jobs, vision blurred by the sheets of rain still falling and a slender trickle of blood running from his skull down across leaf green eyes.
Zoro felt tired, but not in the usual way, he recognized the feeling that was starting to creep across his vision, he was losing consciousness.
No, gotta...gotta stay...awake, can't lose...fuckin...ocean.
The swordsman of the StrawHat crew thought's slurred, the black dots at the edge of his vision expanded, swallowing Zoro in darkness.
Sanji steadied himself as the Sunny swayed again waves crashing angrily across the lower deck,
Shit! Gotta secure Nami-san's micans!
The cook turned slightly just in time to see a pair of black boots go over the rail leaving a dark red stain on the grass where the man had just been, THAT SHITHEAD!
"MARIMO!" Sanji yelled, running down the stairs to the lower deck where he grabbed the rail, knuckles white, and leaned out over the raging water far below "ZORO!"
All that met his searching eyes was a bloodied black bandana floating on the cresting waves, there was a crash, and all that was left was a memory.