AN: This a two-shot (because I'm too lazy to make it a one-shot :L) But I hope you enjoy it all the same.

Warnings: Angst, quite graphically described wounds/situations and language all topped off with some Yaoi goodness (:


On this bed I lay

Losing everything

I can see my life

Passing me by

Was it all too much?

Or just not enough?

Wake me up, I'm living a nightmare

(Three Days Grace: Time of Dying)


He felt the bullet hit. How it tore through flesh and muscle and what little fat he had before sinking into his stomach. There was nothing at first, no pain- nothing. Then a sudden explosion of it wracked his body and made time slow down as he fell forward. Weapons slipped from useless hands and clattered pathetically to the deck beneath. His body followed shortly after. He writhed on the blood soaked ground, his own blood blending with that already on the deck. He felt the wooden boards beneath his cheek, the quick gasps of air going into his lungs before being snatched out again. His stomach burned something ferocious and around him his nakama were no longer distinguishable from the swarming Marines.

He lay, forgotten and alone on the deck as the others battled furiously around him but their shouts were muffled against the loud thud of his heart in his ears. By now, any other dying person would've panicked but he remained calm and accepted his fate. 'It's okay,' he thought, 'At least I die in battle- the way I wanted it to be'.

He closed his eye calmly, the other lost during those two years of seperation, and made to die quietly when a scream jerked him back. A figure was running at him but his hazy vision made it hard to see who and it wasn't until they were close could he pick out a few features from the blurs. He made out long legs and blonde hair, a distinct smell of tobacco and gentle yet strong hands pulling at him to roll over. When he was on his back, something pressed firmly on the wound in his stomach. Pain flared and he would have cried out if he had the energy to. He felt himself being pulled up and his back lean against something hard. A silky material rubbed on his ears as arms reached down from behind him.

"Don't you die. Don't you DARE die!" The voice. A hoarse, broken baritone. It muttered over and over, "Don't die, don't die, don't die, don't die..."

He looked up, just managing to throw his head up, to see who held him. He forced his eyes to focus and what he saw made a weak smile tug at his lips. Dark glazed eyes met brilliant blue, "Sanji..."

The world swam and it hurt to breathe. He barely registered Sanji above him looking down in horror, the way the cook's free hand brushed his face briefly before screaming, "CHOPPER!"

The world fell into darkness.

"NO!"


Zoro watched as they worked on his body. It was laid on the medical cot and the swordsman looked at it from his perch on Chopper's desk. It was limp and there was something unnerving about the way it flopped down and up on the mattress as the cook pummeled its chest.

Sanji had been at it for the past three minutes, giving CPR relentlessly. The force of his hands going down made the body's ribs creak warningly and its lips were moist from where the cook had forced air down its throat. Zoro hopped down off the desk and walked closer to the cot. He drifted past the little reindeer who was pulling out equipment left, right and center, screaming at the cook to keep trying just a little longer. The swordsman stood at the head of the bed and looked down at his sickly pale and broken carcass. The sheets it lay on were smeared in red and the green coat Mihawk had given him was carelessly thrown into a tattered and stained lump at its feet. Suddenly Sanji pulled up from compressions and swiftly wiped his brow, drawing a bloody smudge that matted and plastered his fringe. The look on the cook's face was one of crumbling determination, "Chopper, it's not working!"

Sanji's blood stained fingers were knotted on the messy bedsheets and Zoro saw the glitter of tears building up. Zoro frowned and reached out, but his hand passed straight through the blonde, "Sanji..." he murmured.

"Keep trying, Sanji! You have to keep trying!" Chopper ordered, making Zoro jump as the little doctor ran straight through him. His short arms were overloaded with equipment and he dumped it on the small table beside the cot. He picked up a syringe with a hoof and the swordsman watched as it was plunged into the body's arm, "Keep going, Sanji or the adrenaline shot won't work and there'll be no chance! I'll start on his stomach, you carry on until you have a pulse!" Chopper looked like he was fighting back tears and Sanji nodded before attacking the body's chest again.

"Come... On... Shit... Swordsman... Don't... Quit... On... Me... Now!" Sanji grunted between each shove of his hands. He continued like this for a while until he shot up and Zoro watched as his body's mouth was pried open and the cook's lips slotted over them.

Zoro's chest twisted as he watched the heart aching display in front of him. For so long he'd wished those lips would have brushed against his. He'd spent many a night in the boy's room, laying on his bed and staring at the ceiling until early morning just wondering what it would be like if Sanji kissed him. He'd worked up the courage time and time again, before and after the Mugiwara's two year seperation, to tell the cook exactly how he felt but every time he'd confronted Sanji he had made some poor excuse or just simply turned and walked away.

Some time ago, Zoro remembered telling Luffy that there was nothing he regretted. For the years they had been traveling together that had been true, until now that is. Zoro sat on the very edge of the cot and looked over his shoulder to see Sanji still giving mouth to mouth, "I'm sorry," Zoro whispered, "I'm sorry, Sanji... I should have told you before I became a crappy ghost..." Unsurprisingly, the blonde cook didn't hear the apology as he started on the body's chest again.

"I was an idiot," Zoro continued, regardless of the fact his words fell on deaf ears. He just had to get it off his chest, "I take back the words I said. I love you, shitty cook," He looked at Sanji sadly, "You're the only thing in my life that I regret-"

"Sanji, is there any change? Is there a pulse yet?" Chopper's voice cut off Zoro's lament and he turned to see the reindeer looking up from the wound he was operating on. Sanji fumbled under the body's jawline and pressed his fingers in desperately. There was a moment of silence in the room and Zoro saw the way Sanji's visible eye scrunched shut and the white teeth gnawing at his bottom lip. The cook took a deep, shuddery breath.

"No, Chopper... There-there's nothing..."

A long silence settled in the infirmary as Sanji's words settled in. Outside, the sounds of battle still rung loud and clear but inside time seemed to have stood still. Chopper was the first to move after a while. He climbed down off the chair he was using as a ladder to reach and made his way over to the desk, picking up a pen and pulling a sheet of paper off a pile to the side. Zoro heard the deer sniffle before saying, "Sanji... Wh-what time is it?"

Zoro knew exactly what the doctor was doing the second he asked that question. Zoro was dead and now the certificate had to be signed to make it official. Even though he was a pirate, Chopper liked to be professional and go about things the right way. Zoro looked back at Sanji who was stood staring numbly at the swordsman's body below him. He was pale and drawn, the hair over his right eye was rigid with blood as was his lips and hands. He had a hollow look in his blue eyes and, for a second, Zoro wondered if it was the cook who'd died, "It's ten to five..." He said, just managing to force the words out. Another silence settled, broken only by the scritching of Chopper's pen. Even the fighting outside had come to an end.

Chopper stood up and opened the infirmary door. He changed to his Walk Point, "I-I'll let the others know... I won't let them come in all together... We... Should all say our own goodbyes I think..."

Sanji nodded, lower lip trembling. Chopper looked back briefly, "Could... Could you cover him with one of the clean sheets, Sanji. I don't think they'd want-" The reindeer broke off as tears began to fall. Zoro wanted nothing more than to grab the doctor and give him the tightest hug, but he knew there was no point in even trying- he'd just pass straight through.

"It's okay. I understand..." Sanji whispered. The cook waited until the door had swung shut after the doctor before moving and when he did, Zoro was shocked. The blonde leaned straight over and pressed his soft, living lips to Zoro's body's cold, dead ones. Zoro watched from his place by the bed as Sanji broke away, silvery tears trickling down his cheeks, "Wake up, bastard. Don't leave me like this," he muttered, his forehead pressed against the body's, "Please... Please don't... I'll do anything. Just don't go, Zoro."

Zoro blinked, he hadn't heard his name from the shit-cook in so long and he'd just grown used to 'Marimo' or 'bastard', "Sanji..." He whispered.

"If you can hear me please, please wake up. I can't... I didn't... I wanted... I love you, you stupid bastard. Come back," Sanji's fingers twisted the bloodied sheets to the point where his knuckles turned white, "Get up. Get the fuck off this bed and stop messing around. You can't die, Zoro. I won't let you do this! It's not fair!" His voice was getting louder, angrier, "Do you have ANY idea how SELFISH you're being?! Get up! Your Captain needs you, the crew needs you, I NEED YOU!" Sanji wailed, the tears were flowing freely now, hot and angry. A snarl twisted his lips.

Zoro reached out and placed a ghostly hand on Sanji's shoulder, not realising until the last second that he couldn't touch him when he passed straight through. He growled angrily. He was mad at the Marine who'd shot him, he was mad at himself for letting his guard down in a fight and, most of all, he was furious at himself for not telling the cook his feelings now that he knew the blonde felt exactly the same way back! He tried again, swiping his hands at Sanji in a desperate attempt to grab the cook. Each time his arms passed clean through and each time Zoro got angrier. He swiped again and made to raise his other hand when he realised he couldn't. He pulled his right arm but his hand was heavy and didn't want to cooperate. He frowned and followed his hand down with his one eye to find his hand completely submerged in his dead body.

And it was stuck fast.

A warm feeling began swimming up Zoro's trapped arm and, to his amazement, he saw some colour returning to his corpse. Only faintly, but he could see it. Sanji was sobbing into his body's neck freely now, saying things that Zoro couldn't make out under the sobs, "Sanji! Sanji, look!" He willed the cook to look up, to see the colour flooding back into the once dead swordsman's face. Zoro was ecstatic. He still had a way back! He was literally just clinging on to life!

Zoro plunged his other hand in without a seconds hesitation and watched in awe as the body's eyelids fluttered softly. 'Please, Sanji,' he thought, 'Please you have to look!'

The swordsman was sinking in, now elbows deep in his own stomach, laughing hysterically. He couldn't believe it. He wasn't going to die. He had a second chance at life and at Sanji!

Speaking of Sanji, he looked to see the cook still crying and still not noticing the slowly stirring swordsman. Zoro smiled, he'd see in a moment, and closed his eyes before pushing forward deeply, sinking entirely back into his own body.

To say Blackleg Sanji was surprised when the dead body of Roronoa Zoro sat upright was an understatement.

A huge fucking understatement.


AN: Just a question for the next and final chapter. Do you guys want a kid-friendly ending or a *ahem ahem* more mature one? (: Let me know so I can change the rating if necessary ^-^