Hello, everyone! I know it's been a long time since I posted anything (and longer since I posted The Zoro Tree -_-;), but I'm back! This is an almost immediate continuum to The Zoro Tree, with minimal timeskips. And GAWD. It is LONG. I should probably say that this is not the porn that was requested a time or two, even though I put a warning in the sum for nudity. So, you can not be more disappointed from here. ;D
It felt like it had been seven minutes and seven months at the same time. But, since Zoro was still wearing nothing but Sanji's coat and scarf as he sat on the couch in Sanji's apartment, he was leaning towards seven minutes as true.
Every time he glanced over at Zoro, happiness and worry swelled equally large in his chest. He was excited and mystified by Zoro's human presence, but, given the bizarre nature of his existence, Sanji was concerned about him. How long would it last? Would Zoro remain a human? Would he stay with Sanji if he did remain human? All of those questions would need answering, but how soon that would be, Sanji didn't know. He was content to let them remain untouched for as long as possible.
Getting up to the apartment had been a challenge, seeing as Zoro had never walked before in his life, let alone climbed up two flights of stairs. Getting him into the car had not been such an easy task either, but he had to thank his lucky stars that he'd brought his car to put Zoro in. It would've been much more miserable to walk all the way home with a butt-naked, green-haired grown man who couldn't even stand on his own. He would have to teach him how to do that.
"Are you warm enough yet?" Sanji asked, grabbing a thick old quilt off the back of the couch and tucking it around Zoro's legs. Just looking at all that exposed flesh made him feel cold, so he couldn't imagine how Zoro was handling it.
The tree-turned-man's eyes wandered around the room slowly, full of curiosity, and when they came back to Sanji he looked surprised. "How waaaarrm is enough?" he asked, apparently having trouble with the word.
Didn't count on that... "Well, can you feel everything? Fingers and toes accounted for?" Sanji asked, kneeling in front of Zoro.
"Uh..." Zoro was giving him a blank look, reflecting the expression Sanji imagined a dog might make if you tried to tell it about finances. "I... I guess? I can't feel my branches, but they already fell off, so what am I...?"
"Here, let me show you." Sanji took Zoro's tan hands in his and held them up so Zoro could see. "These are your fingers, see? Do they feel cold?" Sanji asked, grasping Zoro's fingers firmly to check for himself.
Zoro shook his head, then he looked confused. "Feeengurss..." he said, dramatically elongating the word. "You have some, too... You didn't have any limbs like mine, but mine are like yours now," Zoro observed. He experimentally flexed his fingers, slowly and clumsily taking hold of one of Sanji's hands.
The blond smiled, watching the wonder in Zoro's expression. "Yes. As a general rule, humans are made with hands and fingers like this," Sanji told him, remembering that the man had only just become a human. There were probably a lot of things he was curious about that would be obvious to Sanji. Teaching him about humans could prove to be really annoying or a lot of fun.
"You said something else, too. Something other than feh-fing-uh-ers. What was that?" Zoro asked, still staring at their hands with unbridled fascination.
"Oh, right. Since I only covered your torso and neck, I thought your hands and- My carpet!" As he'd uncovered Zoro's feet to demonstrate to him what they were and ask if they were cold, Sanji had noticed a smear of brown on the normally light blue carpet. The dark smudges led all the way back to the front door and probably continued out into the hall. But, they ended at Zoro's feet.
Zoro followed Sanji's eyeball trail with his own eyes and came to the same end. "Is something w-wuh-ron? Wrong?" he asked, looking down at the dirt covering his feet and legs like nothing was amiss. And he would, too.
"Just... sit here for a minute, okay? I'm gonna go run a bath," Sanji told him, standing with a slightly horrified expression. "That way you can get clean and warm at the same time. Yeah." Reluctantly, he left to run a tub. When he woke up that morning, he did not expect to be bathing a tree-man. Life's little surprises were kicking his ass today.
oOo
What the hell is a bath...?
Zoro perched in a very unsteady manner on the squishy surface the Sanji had set him on. It was a strange thing. Maybe a texture, or a con... consistency, he thought, something that he'd heard about somewhere, a feel that he hadn't been able to feel when he was a tree. He wasn't sure he liked it. He had always lived in the woods on and inside the hard-packed dirt and change would take some getting used to.
With an all-consuming curiosity, he looked around the confined space. He didn't know what to call it. It made him feel small and large at the same time, suffocated and safe but contained most of all. He didn't like being contained, though he'd felt that way maybe once in his whole entire life. He hoped he wouldn't have to stay there for very long.
Most of the shapes around him were strange and he couldn't think of a use for them. Then again, the only things he'd had a use for were parts of him: roots, earth, branches, leaves. Perhaps he would add the Sanji to his list of things he had a use for. Just perhaps. He wasn't sure exactly what the Sanji's use would be, but he had one, Zoro knew it.
But, coming back to the point, he had no idea where the Sanji had brought him. Everything was strange to him except his nature. Nature itself. There was so much new in that area, so much in so little space, he could hardly process it. He had to know. About the human places, so small and so full, and all the different things inside. Maybe he'd ask, but talking was such a bother. Maybe he'd just wait and learn by himself.
"Hey, Zoro, you alright in there? You're awfully quiet..." The Sanji's voice came from a hidden place and Zoro looked around. He couldn't see him. Was he really there? Was he hiding? That would be strange. But, Zoro supposed he could be performing some kind of human ritual. He'd been told by Kuina that humans had such things. Maybe that's what-
"Zoro? Can you hear me?"
Oh, right. He was supposed to answer, wasn't he? Humans and their talking... "Yeees," Zoro said, practicing the sound a little. At first, after watching and hearing humans for years upon years, it had been easier to talk, but he was tired. He didn't know how humans could do so much talking all the time. They don't really spend their whole lives using up energy for unnecessary movements, do they?
He heard a loud breathing sound and the Sanji came into view. "Thank goodness. I was afraid you'd... never mind about that," the Sanji said, coming and sitting down next to Zoro on the squishy expanse. "Ready to have your first bath as a human? Wait- this is the first time you've been a human, right?"
So many questions. Humans really talk too much. "Hell if I know," Zoro responded, not caring which question he was answering. It was a universal answer.
"Wow. Wordy, ain'tcha?" The Sanji smiled at him before he could catch on that he should be offended. "Regarding your being a human... We'll talk about that later, okay? For now, I'd prefer it if you couldn't defile my carpet so easily."
Zoro looked where the Sanji was looking again, but he didn't see anything wrong. The strange, fuzzy surface that acted very poorly as earth was such a light color, except for Zoro's earth. He fixed it. So, he didn't know what the Sanji's problem was.
"Hmm..." The Sanji was looking at him strangely, particularly at the strange human appendages that replaced his roots. "How are we gonna do this...?" the Sanji mumbled, seemingly to himself.
Zoro didn't want to ask, he really didn't, but he wasn't even close to sure what the Sanji was talking about. "Do what?" he asked in a voice that sounded harsh, even to his very new hearing cavities. The Sanji looked a bit upset, so he rephrased, hopefully in a nicer tone, "What are you talking about?"
The Sanji looked surprised. "Oh. I'm talking about getting you clean. You're tracking dirt everywhere."
"O-kay... is that a bad thing?" Zoro asked, genuinely confused. He wasn't exactly sure what "clean" meant, but it sounded fine. But the way the Sanji spoke about Zoro's dirt was questionable. Something very strange and very human was about to happen, Zoro just knew it.
"Don't take this the wrong way," the Sanji said to him, holding up his hands. "But, yeah. I strive to keep my home dirt-free, as do most people, I think. Maybe you don't understand since you've spent your life in the dirt, but it's not sanitary. Clean is better, I promise."
Promise? You promise? What good is that? "I don't know what that is su-upposed to mean. I don't want to be without my earth," Zoro said seriously. He didn't know what he was doing that made the Sanji laugh quietly, but he was certain it was unintentional. "What?" he asked defensively.
The Sanji shook his head, smiling like he did a lot since Zoro became a human. "Nothing. You're really a cute shitty tree-person, you know that right?"
"Ki-ki-ute? Cuute? What does that mean?" Talking was really getting on his nerves. He didn't know how much longer he would participate in the human practice of needlessly wasting air.
The Sanji smiled wider and clapped his hand on one of Zoro's new human limbs. "It means no matter what kind of stupid shit you say or do, I'll still forgive you. I'll still like you. It's a damn shame you're so adorable."
Holy hell, the words. No way was he responding. He did not have any such reflex against silence as humans seemed to have, so he would let it be. There was no sense in and no benefit to marring such a beautiful thing as quiet.
Only a faint sound from somewhere Zoro couldn't see kept the air around them from going completely still and that annoyed him a bit. But, he'd never been in full silence before since he'd always had creatures chattering and chirping all the time, so maybe he didn't want silence. Not entirely. Yes, that was right, if he really thought about it. Maybe humans didn't like utter silence either. Then he could understand the talking.
"Zoro? What are you thinking about?" The Sanji's face was very close to him and Zoro blinked. When had that happened? "Are you alright?" the Sanji asked, looking concerned.
"I don't like talking," Zoro told him plainly.
The Sanji made a weird expression that Zoro couldn't say he recognized. "I'd think after all this time of not being able to communicate, you'd like talking at least a bit..." That face he recognized. That was the sad face.
"I don't like to talk. It is difficult for me," Zoro clarified quickly, something he'd never had to do before. He didn't know why the Sanji would be getting upset, but his explanation seemed to fix it.
"Sorry. I didn't think of that," the Sanji apologized, smiling so brightly it hurt Zoro a little to see. He looked like he had years ago when they'd only just met. And, as vast a knowledge of human words as Zoro had for a tree, he could not come up with the right ones to describe how marvelous that was. How much it made something in his middle swell. "You don't have to reply so much, I guess. Just... don't go back to... being a tree."
He wouldn't want to, even if he knew how.
oOo
Sanji would sit there and just stare at him for ages if he had that kind of time. If he wasn't aware that there were things that needed to be done, most of them nitpicky and concerning Zoro. There was also his own life to consider, but he'd worry about work and his friends later. More important than all that, at the moment, was the dirt-covered, naked man on his couch.
"This is gonna be awkward," Sanji muttered to himself, standing from his spot next to Zoro on the couch. "Do you know how to get up?" he asked at regular volume, putting his hand out to Zoro. The leafy-haired man looked at him with a frown devoid of negative emotions entirely. It should have annoyed him, that perfectly blank face about something so simple, but he laughed. "Give me your hands. I'll help you."
Zoro looked down at his hands resting lazily on his lap and raised them curiously. Sanji met him in the middle and pulled as gently as he could so as not to throw Zoro off balance or end up as a heap of limbs on the floor. The tree-turned-man made a sort of gasp sound as he was heaved to his feet and he stumbled over the blanket that had fallen from his lap.
"Whoa, careful," Sanji said as if it would do any good after Zoro already tripped. He gripped the other man's arm securely and started making his way towards the bathroom as Zoro's only working leg. "Like this, see? Walk like this," Sanji told him, nodding his head down towards their feet and ignoring the wide opening in the jacket Zoro was wearing.
"I don't- This is strange-!" Zoro groaned in frustration, clumsily sliding his feet across the carpet and somehow managing to trip over his own toes. "Why do humans do this?! This is stupid!" he grumbled, attempting to right himself from where Sanji caught him.
The cook kept a firm hold on the unbalanced, squirming man. "Calm down, calm down, you'll fall, idiot," Sanji grunted, struggling with the surprisingly muscular form. "Just let me help you for now, okay? You don't have to learn all at once, it's fine if you take it slow-"
"You're the one making me do this shit!" Zoro shouted, flinging his arms out and simultaneously freeing himself of Sanji's grip. With an unceremonious "thunk," Zoro tumbled into the wall and fell to the floor.
Sanji stared down at him for a minute in shock. "Are you... okay?" he asked, reaching down towards the squirming pile of tan limbs and borrowed jacket.
"Don't!" Zoro snapped, haphazardly throwing his shoulder into Sanji's arm to stop him. "I can fucking do this... I've been watching you for years...! I know I can do this!" he ranted, shaking like the leaves that once adorned his branches. "I'm not useless."
That was too sudden. He hadn't said anything like that on the way to the apartment. What had changed in the few minutes since they got there? Was it something Sanji did? Were trees just bipolar by nature? He had no idea. He didn't know if he should take offense or back off and give Zoro some space. Waiting on the decision to clear itself up, he just kind of stood there.
Zoro clambered on all fours, attempting with great difficulty to stand and only succeeding in headbutting the wall.
When Sanji tried to help him out again, Zoro made no move to recognize the gesture. "You're a prideful bastard, huh?" Sanji put his hand under Zoro's elbow. "It'll take a lot longer for you to learn things sitting in the hall by yourself than it would if you listened to me," he told him, toning down the snark that he would have used towards most anyone else.
Perhaps a habit developed from being a tree for his entire life, Zoro quieted and became very still, staring at nothing in particular. If he was moving at all, Sanji couldn't see it. He was just sitting with his hands flat on the floor in front of him, utterly focused on something that wasn't for Sanji to know.
"What? Is this some kind of mood swing?" Sanji asked, tugging on Zoro's elbow lightly. "That's creepy, shitty tree. Stop that." No response. That was troubling. They'd had way too many silent moments in the last decade, too many scary quiet moments in the past month alone. The cook was very unsettled by it after a bittersweet period of conversation. "Zoro, you better not be messing with me or-"
"I want to do something by myself," Zoro interrupted, his words hindered by an accent of unfamiliarity. "I can do this. I don't need help."
At first, Sanji thought to be offended. Zoro was refusing his help when he was being for the most part amicable and it stung more than he'd admit. After all, he'd been taking care of the Zoro tree for a decade. Zoro was his closest friends in the strangest possible way and he'd like to think Zoro felt the same way. But, he thought about how he might feel being treated as if he couldn't do anything by himself, even if such was the case, and his offense faded away.
"Alright. You can do it," Sanji said, taking a step back. "Just don't slip and punch a hole through the wall or anything like that, okay?"
Zoro looked at him with a scrunched-up nose. "Wall...? Punch...?" he questioned in a tone that suggested he thought Sanji had made those words up. But, Zoro didn't linger much on the thought, apparently, instead shifting his attention and effort back to getting up off the floor.
"I've got a lot to teach you," Sanji mumbled fondly. There were a lot of things that maybe the Zoro tree already knew or learned by himself in all his stationary years, Sanji knew that, but there were still so many things he could tell Zoro.
The tree man got his feet under him with great difficulty, all the while staring in frustrated wonder at his own human body. Seeing that, Sanji wondered what it must be like for Zoro to go from being a tree, a smooth and silent entity, to being a person and having to walk and talk and all the simple things humans did naturally that trees never had to do. Even as he watched Zoro wobble and struggle, Sanji got the impression that he was remarkably good at adapting.
"Ha!" Zoro exclaimed, straightening his legs almost all the way and grinning triumphantly. "I did it. I'm not completely helpless, see?"
"You're speaking easier, too," Sanji pointed out, impressed. It seemed like Zoro was trying to rub the fact in his face, but he didn't care. It made him happy, both of them, actually. So, instead of rising to it, Sanji mocked depression. "They grow up so fast..." he muttered sadly with an exaggerated sniff.
As he pretended to wipe a tear from his eye, he heard a sound that he'd never heard before in all his twenty years. It was a strange, broken sound that was high and low at the same time, a combination that confused him just to think about. His mind could supply no answer as to where it might have come from, so, naturally, he looked around. And, yet another thing he hadn't witnessed ever before in his life was right in front of him.
Zoro was making a face that was inexplicably innocent and marked by a hurt that was anything but selfish and utterly striking. The cook was rendered speechless by that painfully sorry look, that unsure, apologetic expression. It was a deeper, more meaningful expression than he saw on most humans and he wondered if Zoro had had a face all along and had been practicing for that.
"Y-yuh-you caaan hup-hep... hellllp," Zoro was saying with one arm braced against the wall as Sanji stared at him, "ifff eee-you-you're ta-that uh-upseeet." His speech was so altered by emotion- concern, maybe- that it took Sanji a minute to process what he meant.
But when it hit him, it hit him hard.
"Oh." He fixed his expression from its false sadness. "Oh, God, sorry! I was pretending, Zoro, I'm not upset!" Sanji apologized, backtracking as quickly as he could to abolish that devastating gaze. "It was only a joke! Don't look so sad!" How a man who'd been a tree not thirty minutes ago could make such a face, Sanji doubted he'd ever know, and at the same time, he would never forget.
The Zoro tree's mesmerizing look turned to one of confusion and mild annoyance. "What? Why would you...?" With the shift in emotions, Zoro's words became clearer, his speech more put together. That, Sanji thought, may not be a good thing. The very strong urge to try and explain himself to a plant fell heavy upon his shoulders.
"I just- You were provoking me, so I- That was the worst thing I could've done, wasn't it? Sorry," Sanji sighed, shaking his head and reaching out to Zoro.
Dark eyes narrowed at him, the shallow suspicion of a somewhat experienced mind reflected in them. The blond feared for a moment that the soul who'd been insulting him from inside a tree trunk for years would employ the same temper in this situation. But, Zoro took his hand and let him lead the way with only that look and a few muttered words; "I don't get your humor."
Sanji couldn't help a laugh. "After all these years, huh? I'll have to teach you about complex human jokes," he told Zoro, clutching his hand tightly. The green-haired man, though he'd allowed assistance, was struggling to walk by himself. But, by God, he was doing it. "It probably won't take long... to teach you about jokes, anyway. You already know how to walk and talk."
"I've eg-eg... eg-ugh! Been around. I've been around long enough to know that much," Zoro told him, stumbling frustratedly in speech and in movement. "If I didn't, it would be more surprising."
The cook nodded. "I guess you're right." He looked over at Zoro as they reached the open bathroom. "Hey... how long would that be? How long have you 'been around,' I mean."
Zoro halted their progress in the cramped threshold. "I don't know. At least... At least two decades. But probably more," he answered, frowning. "Definitely more." The grip on Sanji's hand grew tighter as Zoro fell silent.
The sudden quiet Sanji had grown used to, the age uncertainty he had almost expected, but something about Zoro's speech threw him. A subtle inflection. A hint of pain and reminiscence and a glimpse of depth. What was he thinking about, that shitty tree? How dare he dwell on a past that made him sad? Sanji wanted to ask. He really, really did, but he didn't know how to phrase it, or even what the words might be to start that conversation about Zoro's life as a tree. So, he glossed over it, turning instead to the darkened bathroom and the sound of running water.
"Stand here a sec," Sanji said, apparently startling Zoro out of his thoughts. The cook let go of his favorite tree's hand carefully, leaving the other man in the doorway while he stepped forward to turn off the water and flick on the light.
"Wha...?" Zoro's forehead creased with confusion as he swayed in the threshold. He looked around slowly, taking in the details of the room that were likely not ringing any bells for him. "What is this... tiny space?"
oOo
The Sanji laughed, a beautiful high sound that Zoro doubted he could make, and he felt a little stupid. Just a little bit, though. But it was overshadowed by the happiness he always felt when the Sanji expressed his warm, human joy. He didn't know what was funny about what he'd said and certainly he'd be offended later, but he could hardly even mock being put out at the moment. "What's so funny?" he asked, smiling a little despite his pride.
"Sorry, sorry," the Sanji apologized, still chuckling. "It's shitty of me to laugh, but you... are really a lot cuter than I thought you were."
He said that word again. That weird one that sounded like he should be insulted by it. Cute. Zoro couldn't think of what it meant. He supposed it might be good, since the Sanji smiled when he said it, but he may also be making fun of Zoro like that. It seemed to him to trigger a difficult annoyed feeling somewhere inside his human form. He didn't like "cute," he decided.
"What's with that face?" The Sanji took his hands once more and sort of pulled him into the enclosed space. "It's nothing to get upset about, marimo-head."
"How do I know that for sure? And, don't call me that." Zoro felt his face twist like his leaves when they dried up in autumn. "You gave me my name, so call me by name."
The Sanji stopped, holding his new hands so very gently as he stepped in front of Zoro to face him directly. "Do you like your name, Zoro?" the Sanji asked, another of his luminous smiles coming to life. "Is it okay? Something you could live with as your moniker?"
Strange. That seemed random, but it was becoming clear to him that humans didn't have very composed thought patterns. Then again, during his extensive time as a tree, Zoro couldn't remember having any kind of intelligent thought process. "Yeah. I don't mind it so much," he answered, putting together Sanji's name for him and Kuina's name for him again in his head. "Roronoa Zoro... I could get used to that."
And somehow it appeared he'd said something wrong. The Sanji frowned with wide blue orbs, seeming to back away from Zoro a bit. He looked vaguely sad and Zoro didn't like that, not at all. His words, all his lovely voiceable words, drained away with the thought that he'd made the Sanji sad.
"Roronoa?" the Sanji questioned, frowning slightly. Zoro liked the way Kuina's name for him sounded coming from the Sanji, but he couldn't say that even if he wanted to. His human words were still hiding as the Sanji paused and let the name hang in the air. "That," the Sanji said after a long while, "suits you."
He didn't ask. Didn't he want to know? Zoro was certain the Sanji knew nothing of Kuina or his previous name, so he must be curious. Right? Wasn't he, as Zoro's human, obligated to ask? Didn't he care? Was he trying to offend Zoro? Why?
The Sanji was leading him to the very close other side of the room while he thought and when Zoro realized that, he stumbled. "Whoa, careful," the Sanji cautioned after Zoro had already almost tripped. "You were doing pretty well for a minute, there."
Zoro tried to say something, but all that came out was a weird sound that he'd heard little toads make as they passed him. He took a deep breath in and tried to expel the words like that, but he only felt his face expanding. Why was being a human so difficult?
oOo
The cook watched with a subdued kind of alarm as Zoro puffed out his cheeks. Maybe he should've been amused because the tree-turned-man looked like a giant four-year-old, but he wasn't very amused. His mind had delved past the wonderful delusion of amusement. Sure, it was still cute; no matter how sour his mood was, Zoro would always be cute. But with every partial piece of information swimming around in his head, amusement was covered up more and more.
"What's wrong?" Sanji asked, forcing himself to sound unaffected by recent information. When Zoro looked at him, the name Roronoa in his deep voice, spoken so affectionately, repeated in Sanji's head and somehow ended up resonating in his chest.
Zoro frowned heavily and Sanji could almost see the words forming. "Nuh-nothing," he stuttered, glaring hard at his feet as if that would make them cooperate. "I should ah-ask ee-you that."
He noticed. That look in his eyes, that serious tone- Of course he noticed. As far as Sanji knew, Zoro had spent his life until then observing everything, so obviously when someone he'd known, maybe the only person he'd known, for ten years was upset, he would notice. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe. But Sanji really didn't want to upset Zoro or completely ruin their evening with his selfish inquiries.
"Nothing's wrong," Sanji said with a smile. He cut his eyes to the tub pointedly, but Zoro was still looking at him when he looked back up. "What?"
Dark eyes narrowed at him. "You look... angry." Zoro sounded unsure about the word, but the observation didn't suffer for it. "You got wuh... weird a minute ago. When I said my full name."
Were trees normally that sharp? "You must be imagining it," Sanji told him, with a strong wave of guilt as the aftermath. He looked down and around, trying to seem like he had moved on, the subject had changed, and his eyes lighted on Zoro's dirty footprints. "We ought to get you into the bath before you rain dirt everywhere," he said mildly.
"Rain... dirt?" Zoro questioned, frowning in such earnest confusion it made Sanji laugh.
"Never mind that," the cook chuckled, removing the scarf from around Zoro's neck. "It's just a joke."
Zoro looked at him uncertainly for a long moment, but when Sanji undid the only two fastened buttons on his coat, Zoro was brought back out of whatever entirely too perceptive reverie he'd been in. "I like this," Zoro stated, crossing his new arms clumsily over his chest and preventing Sanji from taking the jacket.
The blond laughed again, loosely gripping the lapels of the jacket just above Zoro's crossed arms. "I know you do," he said, pulling at the gray fabric. "But, you need to get clean first, then you can put it back on, okay?"
"Ehhh..." Zoro voiced, eyeing Sanji's hands with the face of reluctance.
The cook moved one hand up to feel Zoro's face, curious as to why he would be clinging so tightly to a cloth he'd initially refused, and he gasped. He knew his own hands were below room temperature, but Zoro felt cold even still. "God, no wonder," Sanji muttered, rubbing Zoro's cheek with his palm in a failed attempt to warm some small part of him. "You're fucking frozen still."
"Fro...sen? I can moove still," Zoro told him, demonstrating by uncrossing his arms and flexing his fingers.
Taking the small opportunity he'd been presented with, Sanji pulled the coat down off Zoro's shoulders and it got caught on his bent elbows. "Not literally. Cooperate, will you? Just straighten your arms like- No, Zoro-" Sanji made a sound in the back of his throat to express his annoyance at Zoro doing the exact opposite of what he was requesting. He looked down at the tub full of steaming water for a second, then back at Zoro. "See that? It's warm water. If you sit in there, you'll be warm, but you can't get in there with this heavy coat on," Sanji reasoned.
He could tell from the look on Zoro's face that he didn't understand. "I can't?" Zoro asked, gazing thoughtfully down at the bath with his frown still in place.
"Just trust me, okay?" Sanji tried, raising his eyebrows imploringly.
Zoro's head snapped up and his eyes locked with Sanji's. He looked so damn serious all of the sudden, even though Sanji had thought he was treating Zoro a bit like a toddler. It looked like he might say something argumentative, something to the effect of "I'd really rather not" with a few more expletives, but then Zoro lowered his eyes slightly. The green-haired man dropped his arms at his sides and the jacket fell to the linoleum. "What now?" he asked gruffly, expressing what came across as human embarrassment.
Sanji's eyes started to trail down, but he caught himself before it got too dangerous. Focus, he told himself. Focus. "You, uh, step into the tub," Sanji instructed, rolling up the sleeves of his sweater.
oOo
It was just like walking, right? It should be. The Sanji only said to "step" into the very small space full of rain that appeared to have come from a weird shiny thing. It didn't seem like a very safe thing, but he would go for it. The Sanji had used her words, after all, so it was worth it just to try.
Zoro raised his strange human whatsit and took a step; one he may have hurried into a bit, he thought, because he wobbled more than he had before and felt some pain in the region of his roots. And then he had the strangest sensation-falling, if he recalled-something he'd felt before in the autumn when his leaves would all drop, only this time it was much stronger.
Acting on some foreign reflex, Zoro put up his human branches and his vision went away, and he didn't even know why, but a moment later he was surrounded by warmth.
"Maybe I should have given better instructions," the Sanji's strained, muffled voice said from somewhere very, very close. So close he could feel it. "You could get hurt like that, idiot tree…"
He couldn't figure out how to restore his sight, but it didn't matter so much at the moment. He could feel an awful, heavy pounding not so very far beneath his squishy human bark. A heartbeat, if he was drawing the right lines between things he'd heard and what he was feeling. It kind of hurt. It made him breathe faster and he didn't even know why. Everything was so mysterious, so new. "I'm not a tree anymore," Zoro acknowledged aloud, with the tiniest inflection he believed was nostalgia. He missed only having to deal with seasons and breezes and remaining stationary.
His vision returned when he felt pressure encircling him. He was more contained than he had ever been in his life, he didn't have any room at all, he was absorbing warmth from all around and his sight was so limited as a human, but he didn't feel constricted. He just felt… tingly? Happy? What was it that he felt at such an inopportune moment?
"Are you alright? Did you hurt your foot?" the Sanji asked, suddenly coming into view as Zoro felt himself being pushed back.
The physical warmth went away and he frowned. "No. I'm… not hurt." Zoro saw the Sanji's hands on him and felt the warmth he had been basking in localized to the Sanji's hands. "Why…?"
"Sorry. I should've known you wouldn't think to step over the edge. Trees being planted in the ground and all that," the Sanji said with a weak smile. "You have to go like this, see?" He lifted one of his smooth roots fairly high off the ground to demonstrate whatever it was he was getting at.
Zoro mimicked the movement with his matching root and he felt so damn exposed he wasn't sure he wanted to go along with that strange human ritual anymore. He couldn't balance like that. He had no idea how the Sanji could remain so still with his foundation in the air, but he did not think he envied the skill. In fact, if he could never stand quite right with one human root off the ground, he would not be sorry.
"Good. Now, move your leg over the edge of the tub. Like this," the Sanji told him, demonstrating again. Zoro did as he was told, shaking all the while, and the Sanji pushed down on his "leg." And then the warmest rain he'd ever felt engulfed his human root.
He sucked in air until he felt he would burst and let it all out with a whooshing sound. He really, really liked warm.
The Sanji lowered him down into the big, warm rain puddle and Zoro had to take another heavy breath. Why? He didn't understand the compulsion. It just seemed necessary. He looked up, then, at the Sanji to ask why he felt like he had to take such deep breaths, but he was interrupted before he even spoke by an expression. A sad, angry, bitter expression that he had a feeling he wasn't supposed to see.
Zoro was suddenly being stared at as well, which happened often enough. Neither Kuina nor the Sanji could ever tell he was looking right back at them because his seeing portals were made of bark just like the rest of him. But he wasn't a tree anymore, and yet, he still stared right back.
"What are you thinking about?" he heard himself ask in the most casual and clear human language he'd spoken yet. And even though it was an emphatic question, he thought he knew the answer.
The Sanji shook his head. "Nothing." But that wasn't it. "It doesn't matter." Why was he lying? Zoro was not experienced, and he didn't claim to be smart, but he could see it plain as day. "Feeling warmer?" Don't change the subject.
"Tell me," he ordered, very sternly, he thought. The Sanji looked at him straight, but he didn't say anything. "You m-ust want to ask. I can see it."
"Ask what?" The Sanji wasn't looking at him anymore, instead stirring the dirt-tinted warm water with his hand. "I don't know what you mean."
Zoro frowned. "About my name. Roronoa… Zoro. I know you… are confused about that."
"I'm not confused. So you had a name before I came along, so what?" The Sanji stood and picked something up from a weird little ledge. "God, the water's filthy already."
"Stop that," Zoro hissed.
"Stop what? I'm not-"
"Sanji."
"I-" He stopped. The Sanji dropped whatever he was holding into the water. He looked at Zoro. His pale face took on shade after shade until he was sunset pink. "I…" He crouched down beside Zoro, just outside the water pool. "What? What did you… Did I just- Did you… Could you say that… again?"
Zoro looked at him very seriously, trying to convey that he was determined, that he was asking an important question, but the Sanji was looking at him like the child he used to be; hopeful and sparkly eyed. "Sanji," he repeated. "Tell me the truth."
The Sanji's face twitched. "Okay," he breathed, "okay. Just... one more time. Please?" The Sanji reached out and pulled one of Zoro's upper branches from the water. "Please?" he implored again squeezing Zoro's fingers.
"Are you an idiot? Deaf, maybe?" Zoro asked. The Sanji had understood him just fine until then. Maybe he was just imagining that. Had he really not been listening and understanding? "I'm trying to find out what's ba-bothering you," Zoro told him, making himself very clear in volume and intent.
His human balked. "Excuse me?" The Sanji stared at him, still loosely holding his fingers. "I'm not deaf or an idiot! What the hell, plant?"
"And yet you still missed the important part," Zoro informed, trying to create an unimpressed face he'd seen the Sanji make a few times. Judging by the look he got in return, Zoro assumed he succeeded.
"I don't think I did," the Sanji responded hotly. "Do you realize that's the first time you've said my name?" The angry look behind his eyes, whether about being called an idiot or about Zoro's untold history, lessened until it wasn't visible anymore.
For some reason, Zoro felt his face get hotter than the rain water around him. "Y-yeah, so? Ee-you ha-have been hangiiing around long enough, I'd ha-have to say it soo-ooner or later," Zoro grumbled, struggling with human language after doing so well for a few minutes.
And for an equally elusive reason as why he'd gotten warmer, the Sanji laughed. "Is that right?" the Sanji asked, touching Zoro's face with a wet hand. His laughter tapered off into silence as he looked at Zoro and sighed. "It's a miracle. You're all warm now, ya damn tree," the Sanji said very softly, very quietly, and very much like there was something else he had to say.
oOo
The cook moved his hand from Zoro's cheek, pushed his sleeves up further and reached into the water for the soap he'd dropped. He didn't want to get into it; he didn't want to admit he was possibly jealous of some nonissue such as Zoro having a name. Maybe trees were "born" with names or maybe Zoro named himself; it was no big deal. But he had a feeling. An ugly, strong feeling that told him Zoro did not name himself, nor was he "born" with a name. It made him feel bitter and he really didn't want to pass that on to Zoro.
"Leg, please?" Sanji requested politely, putting his soapless hand out. It was awkward and strange, but he didn't expect Zoro could bathe himself. He just tried not to think about the fact that the man in his tub was naked. And given his previous reputation with the ladies, he considered ignoring the fact that there was a man in his tub at all.
Zoro looked at him blankly, still sitting with his knees to his chest. "What?"
"I'm gonna wash the dirt off your… Oh, forgot. Here." Sanji patted Zoro's left knee with his free hand. "Legs are equivalent to… roots, right? Well, your, uh, roots need cleaning. God, that sounds terrible." The cook tried to facepalm, but one hand was holding a bar of soap, the other was occupied on another man's knee, so he just buried his face in as much of his large sweater as he could for a moment. "I swear I am not going to molest you," he told Zoro, only to receive another blank look. Of course. Trees got molested all the time. Most likely no one had put the word to the action for Zoro, and even if they did, he probably didn't care.
The Zoro tree raised his left leg out of the water and stared at it questioningly. "Lehg… Huh," he said, wiggling his toes like a kid. "Weird."
"No weirder than 'bark,'" Sanji countered mildly. "Now hand it over so we don't have to be here all night."
"It's day time," Zoro answered, sounding automatic. "Is it a human thing to change the subject so much? Because you still aren't telling or asking me-"
"You're the one who distracted me this time," the cook said, shaking his head. Everything he could think to say sounded like a sigh in his head. "I don't want to ask. I'm not sure I'd want to know the answers," he told Zoro, looking down at the murky water and turning the soap over and over in his hand.
Zoro leaned forward, sloshing the bathwater up over the edge of the tub a little bit. "If you don't ask me about what you want to know, I'll just tell you everything," he stated like a muted threat.
Sanji couldn't think of when Zoro got under his skin, which was partially untrue, or when threats like gaining information started to affect him, but damn it all. Trees shouldn't know where and how to press the right buttons to agitate him so. Wasn't it unfair? Sanji thought so. He didn't want to know the answers to unkind questions swimming in his mind just beyond his reach and getting ever closer. Not at all. It was his damn Christmas and he would damn well enjoy it. That was his right.
But Zoro was giving him that look. The one that was so intrinsically Zoro, even though he'd only really known him as a man with a face for about an hour. He wasn't going to let it go, Sanji could tell. For a tree that Sanji was absolutely certain he loved, Zoro was one hell of a pain in the ass.
"Fine," Sanji sighed, shaking his head again. He gazed into the tinted water, and he wasn't so sure he wasn't looking for anything, and pursed his lips. Where to start? There were so many things that he didn't know the answers to. He didn't know anything about Zoro except that he was a feisty tree and became a feisty person. So what did he want to know first?
Zoro was staring at him with an increasingly worried expression, like somehow the hesitation was a bad sign. His dark eyes were fighting hard against something Sanji hadn't a hope of guessing and for a long, drawn-out moment, the cook thought about taking back his "fine" and making Zoro tell him everything starting whenever he judged was good. But the same gut feeling that told him someone else had named Zoro "Roronoa" told him he should ask specific questions.
"Okay… Are you planning on sticking around?" Sanji asked, the simplest, most unnerving and utterly strange question.
Zoro frowned, thoughtfully, Sanji hoped. "That's… What is that... supposed to mean? Was I-I... Did you wuh-w-w… w- Shit! I mean-" Zoro took a deep breath. "Is that a problem?"
"God, no!" Sanji spluttered before he could catch himself. And then he realized how damn clingy that sounded and quickly backtracked; "Well, if-if you want to, I mean… No. Not a problem." Shit, he sounded like a teenage girl. He waved his soap-full hand dismissively, perhaps an over the top attempt at nonchalance. That reminded him for a second that they were only in there to get Zoro clean. That thought was eclipsed momentarily. "Don't you... have people you'd want to visit?"
He blinked. Zoro actually blinked. The question had taken him by surprise. "Like… your friends?" he asked, furrowing his brow.
Honesty. He didn't have anyone. Sanji didn't know if that was good or bad. He had the same deliberation about Zoro remembering his friends. "We could visit them if you want, but they aren't who I meant," Sanji said, trying to just look Zoro in the face and failing embarrassingly. "I meant if you had someone… else. Somebody you knew before me or… You know. Someone."
Eloquent as always.
oOo
He should tell him. He needed to. The closest thing he'd ever felt to genuine guilt since Kuina had died was eating away at his insides. And that was a very powerful thing to realize. Nothing in his life could compare to anything about or relating to Kuina. Nothing and no one, except the Sanji. What happened to his stoic lifestyle, and why didn't he miss it more?
Zoro gathered all his wonderful human expression and flexibility and waved his hands to get the Sanji's wandering attention. He couldn't just blurt out the information the Sanji needed or wanted. All of it was so important and he wanted the Sanji to be looking at him when he voiced the events he had never told to anyone before. And as he opened his mouth to say the words, all the confidence he thought he had dissolved. And with it, his tact.
"She died," he blurted and the words stung his dignity and his heart. Why did he say that? That was the worst thing he could've done, short of turning back into a tree.
The Sanji's face stretched up and down. "What?"
"Sh-sh-sh-sheee… Ah-I di-idn't m-me-an to s-saaay it li-ike tha-t," Zoro amended, losing control of his ability to make eye contact. "Tha-at was stup-pid. I c-can't do thi-iss. S-sorry, but I-I d-on't- I- Sh-she- F-fuc-king shi-t! I sh-should… t-tell youuu, bu-t… Damn it! I c-c-can't-"
"Zoro, calm down." The Sanji shook his shiny golden leaves and looked at Zoro sadly. How many times would he turn that sad face on Zoro before he could fix it? It was not fair and really not helping. "You don't… I want to hear it, okay? But, you don't have to tell me right now. It's fine. I've waited ten years, remember?" The Sanji smiled at him and that just made Zoro feel worse about not being able to tell him in a coherent way what had happened to his first human.
But he still couldn't do it. He had already said the worst part, why couldn't he say the best ones? Why couldn't he say anything at all? It shouldn't be so difficult. So why the hell couldn't he just tell him?
The Sanji began a ritual that he told Zoro was called bathing. It was really strange in theory because its only purpose was to rid him of dirt, and it was awkward in execution because his human limbs were clumsy and he didn't know what was what when the Sanji asked for it, but somehow he liked it. Maybe it was the warmth, or the new sensation of being submersed in rain water, or maybe it was an instinctual human thing to like "bathing." But the feeling of being clean was nice, even if it stripped him of his last connection to the earth he once lived in.
He knew how long forever could be, but he felt himself brazenly thinking he wanted to stay in that bath forever. The Sanji was teaching him about his human parts and he didn't look sad and it was really warm and calm. Why couldn't things be easier like that instead of uncomfortable and strange? Was it too much to ask that they not be tensely forced into conversation?
But the Sanji wanted to talk to him. In addition, the water was getting cold. And something weird was happening to his fingers and toes. All of that together meant he had to get out of the bath and face the subject that he should be able to speak clearly on, which he had become increasingly nervous to talk about. He needed to get it over with, for the sake of he didn't even know what, but for the life of him he didn't want to.
"Here." A pale hand was offered to him and Zoro took it, reveling in the knowledge of wrists, elbows, shoulders and necks. How didn't he know before? Surely Kuina told him. "Up ya go," the Sanji grunted, pulling Zoro up to stand in the tub. "Wait there for a second."
Zoro stood much steadier than he had before, despite the ache in his "knees" that was similar to the first time he stood as a human. He watched the Sanji walk across the small space and collect a piece of cloth. "What is that?" he asked, shamelessly delaying the conversation that he could feel approaching.
The Sanji walked back over to him and flapped out the piece of cloth. "A towel," he answered, eyes averted. "Uh, turn around, please." His face was tinted a renewed shade of pink. Zoro wondered why he did that, but he decided not to ask.
Very, very carefully, Zoro shuffled around in the confining brown puddle. He didn't understand why he had to turn around. He considered himself to be patient, but he hoped he didn't have to stay like that long. It was suddenly very cold in that small space. His skin felt weird and he was shaking from his head to his toes. All that new knowledge of parts just to say he was cold. Pointless.
He was standing there for an awkwardly long moment without any idea what was going on behind him. He wasn't getting any warmer. Had the Sanji left? Zoro was about to shuffle back around to check when he heard a quiet sign that he was not in fact alone; "Shit…"
"What?" Zoro asked, twisting around to look at the Sanji out of the corner of his eye.
The Sanji was staring at him, but not at his face. The lifetime human was a strangely alluring reddish color and his mouth was open and moving a little bit, but he wasn't talking. The Sanji's head came up before his eyes did to look Zoro in the face. "Uh… Uhh… Oh! Oh, shit, sorry, I, uh… I must have, er, spaced out for a minute," the Sanji apologized quickly and somewhat unnaturally, wrapping the towel he was holding around Zoro's shoulders.
Zoro wasn't exactly sure what that meant, but he didn't believe it to be the truth. However, he wasn't sure what else to think, so he just went with it. He allowed the Sanji to assist him in getting out of the cold, murky bath, even though he most certainly did not need help. He was really getting the hang of being a human, no matter his opinion on expending air for useless reasons such as talking.
With the Sanji supporting him, the two of them hobbled out into the very thin pathway and towards an unfamiliar place. They stopped in front of what appeared to be a rectangular flattened tree with a shiny orb sticking out of it. Zoro didn't recognize that tree as one of his neighbors, but even if he had he would've snorted all the same at their stupidity. Why are you a rectangle? That's not what trees do.
The Sanji kept one arm around Zoro's middle for entirely unnecessary support and used his free hand to turn the strange shiny orb and push away the rectangular tree. Beyond was another confined space, but it was much, much larger than the pathway, so Zoro did not mind if they were going in there.
"Come on. You can sit down again in a second," the Sanji told him as if to comfort him. He'd been standing all his life. He didn't much care about sitting.
He was led to an oddly colored surface much like his original perch inside the Sanji's home, and set down there in his towel on the squishy object. Zoro could not honestly say he liked the unknown softness better than his earth, but it seemed preferable to the sticks that had been the first thing he'd ever sat upon as a human. It was kind of nice. Humans weren't totally strange in their choices, he decided.
Zoro didn't realize he was being stared at until he heard the Sanji exhale loudly. Then he looked up at the Sanji who had his arms crossed over his chest. He tried to ask what the Sanji was thinking about, because that mattered more and more to him every day he knew the Sanji, but he couldn't do it. Temporarily, his talking muscles were refusing to work.
Somehow, the Sanji noticed, though, and he half-smiled at Zoro. "Don't worry. I'm just not sure I have anything that will fit you," he explained, walking off to another flat, rectangular tree. "Tell me, how does a tree that never moves get more ripped than a kickass human like me, huh?"
"Ripped…?" That word didn't make any sense to him. Was he "ripped?" Was that a good thing?
The Sanji laughed as he pulled something out from behind the misshapen tree. "Yeah. I guess withstanding nature is good exercise." He stepped back over to Zoro and held up more random cloth. "What do you think? Is navy blue okay?" he asked.
Zoro looked directly at the scraps before him. Their color made him think of the things the Sanji had worn throughout the years and of the strange, floppy bark he was wearing as he stood in front of Zoro. "Yes," Zoro answered, holding out a hand for the nostalgically colored fabric.
oOo
He was making grabby fingers. He was actually making grabby fingers. Big, muscular, treeish man, Zoro, was being as adorable as Sanji had ever seen him. The way he was looking at the pajamas Sanji had presented him with, like they were a prized possession, Sanji felt a very strong, very not him compulsion to hug the hell out of Zoro.
"Stick out your arms," Sanji heard himself say, and he knew he was staring. Zoro was hardly an expert human, but he seemed to know what to do now better than he had when Sanji had presented him with his jacket and requested the same thing. He helped Zoro into the silk pajama top one arm at a time and the used-to-be tree gathered the fabric into his hand, letting his towel bunch around his hips. The color and material didn't really suit Zoro, Sanji thought, but he seemed to like it a lot.
Zoro didn't say anything as Sanji buttoned up his shirt. It was barely big enough to button up around Zoro's broad chest, but it worked. Even if it hadn't, he would've tried anyway. It probably wouldn't have worked out to have Zoro exposed in any small amount. After years of figuratively drooling over women, one man was making him literally salivate in a less than innocent way.
And, damn it all, why was he thinking about the fact that Zoro was naked rather than what should be more important? Wasn't he supposed to be thinking about his line of questioning? He did need to find out a lot and, maybe, answer a lot of questions so he should be more focused.
Zoro still wasn't talking, so he had nothing to distract him from the task of putting pants on the man himself, which was a very bad thing in his book. While Zoro was still seated on his bed and on top of the towel, Sanji started to dry Zoro's legs without actually looking at him. "Are you alright?" he asked, at first only to redirect his own attention, but then he realized Zoro hadn't said or done anything for a while.
The green-haired man grunted, which must have been his reply, because he didn't give any other indication. Sanji crouched down and looked up at Zoro. "That isn't an answer," Sanji told him, attempting to read the complex expression on his wish tree's face.
Zoro looked at him evidently annoyed. "I nuh-nuhh... Ugh. I'm ti-tired o-of taaalking," he stuttered quietly with an extra note of slurring at the end.
"Huh." The cook had actually worn him out with conversation. He didn't know what to feel about that. But, he supposed, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Zoro wasn't used to talking so much. He may not get anything else out of Zoro for a while. Damn. I didn't get many answers. I shouldn't have asked so many stupid questions.
Sanji sighed heavily, scrunching up the legs of the pajama bottoms in his hands. He had never thought that he would want to talk to someone so badly. When it came to Zoro, it seemed like his life before was a much duller version of the same. Everything and nothing had changed.
"O-okay?" Zoro put a hand on top of Sanji's head and stared at him inquisitively.
The blond had to work past the hand on his head before he could process what Zoro said. "Hm? What do you mean? 'Is it okay?'" he suggested, raising an eyebrow. "It is. I don't mind if you don't feel like talking." That may have been a lie.
Zoro shook his head and pushed Sanji's hair back a little. He seemed to be distracted by the blond strands, but when he refocused, he nodded at Sanji. "You," he said and coughed at the end.
"Me? Am… am I okay? Yeah. Yeah, of course I am. Do I look not okay?" Sanji asked, studying the dark circles under Zoro's eyes before ameliorating his speech. "Sorry. You don't have to answer that. I'm wearing you out." He really needed to get his act together as Zoro's… whatever he was to Zoro.
The cook set his attention back to clothing Zoro, but the green-haired man pulled his legs up. He frowned down at Sanji, showing just how serious a tree he was. Zoro didn't say anything, which Sanji felt he should be familiar with by that point, but he dragged his hand down Sanji's head to cup his cheek. Despite all his knowledge and smoothness, Sanji actually sat up straighter.
And then Zoro smooshed Sanji's face.
"What- what- what- what are you-?! Zoro, what the hrmm!" His lips were squished shut with the hand of a very unimpressed marimo-head. Sanji felt a twitch in his eyebrow and tried to tell Zoro to stop, but it just sounded like he was humming. He started to pry Zoro's fingers away, maybe so he could yell at him, or maybe just to ask why the hell he squished Sanji's face, but then the strangest thing happened.
Zoro laughed.
It started as a chuckle, a really deep fluke of a sound, then his smile grew wide and his eyes crinkled, a little more on the left than on the right, and he was really laughing. Sanji had pride enough to try and look offended that Zoro was laughing at him, but he was a little too busy laughing himself to fully commit to it.
The two of them laughed and laughed until it seemed like there wasn't enough air in the room for both of them to keep going. And then Zoro closed his eyes and began to snore before his head hit the mattress, leaving Sanji with an unconscious, half-naked man on his bed. Great.
oOo
He'd seen some dark nights in his time: moonless, rainy, dead-winter nights, without a shred of light anywhere to be seen. And yet, somehow, he was gazing with zero vision into a darker blackness than he'd ever seen before. What kind of weather would cause such a darkness? He'd always been able to see his neighbors before.
Thinking about what he couldn't do, Zoro realized he couldn't feel all his leaves on all his branches. He couldn't feel his moss collecting dew, or earthworms crawling around his roots. Nothing.
Wait. Wasn't he dying yesterday? The last time he was conscious? If he remembered correctly, then-
So he couldn't see because-
What about the warmth around him? That was new, so-
Maybe he was-
Was he really-
What about the Sanji's-
Oh.
He remembered now. He wasn't dead and he wasn't about to be, if he had any say in the matter. He was in the place where the Sanji lived. He was fine. They both were. Unless that was all some crazy dream…
Zoro sat up very quickly, a lot quicker than he maybe should have. That might have been proof enough for him, since he'd never been able to move on his own before, but he was not comforted by his mobility. He had to be absolutely certain, he had to find him. He could move, he could do it, he just had to get up and look and make sure and just be around his Sanji.
He swung his root-legs over to the side, trying to get off the surface that he vaguely remembered being on and his feet touched the squishy ground, but he couldn't get up. Zoro tried to push himself off again, met with failure again. Why? Wasn't he human? Couldn't he do that kind of thing?
A pressure around his middle- torso, wasn't it?- told Zoro the immobility may not be his fault. Whatever it was was holding him down, just like his roots used to. That was alarming at the very least and Zoro struggled against moist cloth to get to the thing that was holding on to him, which, he decided, was not likely a root.
"What are you doing?" Quiet. Slow. Annoyed. Sanji?
Zoro realized very suddenly that he could see just a little bit in the blackness when he spotted a somewhat yellowish grass-looking thing right next to him. He petted it with both of his human hands and it turned away from him, revealing instead the over-eye detail that he recognized as his human's trademark. Zoro exhaled.
The Sanji's arm was around him and pulling him down, not forcefully, but insistently. "Lie down already," the Sanji grumbled, opening a blue eye, turned nearly black in the darkness, just a little bit to peer at Zoro.
He lowered himself back down onto the soft elevated surface, keeping his eyes on the Sanji as he went. Then he tried to think of how they got there, what had happened, why he felt so heavy, anything at all, and nothing was coming to him. "Wuh-wuh-ugh." Zoro took a deep breath, focused his thoughts. "Wwwwhat… h-hap-happened? I ca-ca-can't… remeeember."
The Sanji snorted and squirmed up until he was looking Zoro in the face. "Of course you don't remember. You fell asleep faster than anybody else I've ever seen, including Luffy's narcoleptic brother," the Sanji informed him, lying very, very close to Zoro. "You had me goin' for a minute, but the snoring gave you away."
"S-nore…?" Zoro didn't know how that related to sleeping. All the sleeping he ever did was completely silent and without the heaviness he was feeling. He never knew that human sleeping was different.
"Yup. Pretty loudly, too. You sounded like a chainsaw or something," the Sanji told him, smiling slightly. "Sorry if that brings up bad memories."
He did have bad memories of chainsaws. But, they didn't stir at the mention of the treacherous object. They remained quiet so that Zoro could listen to the Sanji talk.
"I'm surprised that's what you latched onto, though. I thought for sure you'd ask how long it's been," the Sanji said, closing his eyes and breathing out through his nose. Zoro just watched him, transfixed by everything about the human, but nothing he could name. "It's been sixteen and a half hours, by the way. That's a long time to be sleepin'."
He was talking slowly. It was the Sanji's usual voice, Zoro knew, but it was different and groggy, maybe. He kind of liked that voice, and he didn't know why. Zoro guessed he liked it because the voice was yet another facet of the Sanji. He felt his face getting hot again.
"Are you still tired?" the Sanji asked, cracking one eye open briefly.
Zoro frowned. "I could sleep. But, I don't want to."
For some reason, the Sanji laughed breathily. "'Course not." He shifted around beside Zoro, an arm slung over Zoro's chest. "What, then? Ya hungry? Gotta piss, if you can even do that?"
He was all too familiar with the pissing concept. Animals and humans alike had used him as their piss recipient and he did not feel any sensation that compelled him to expel liquid onto someone else's roots. "No," he answered shortly.
"Okay." Another deep exhale. "Then why don't you want to sleep?"
That was a question that Zoro thought was easy, on the surface of it, to answer. But, then he thought about it and he was still tired. He was still heavy and he was still perturbed by the idea of talking. Of talking about Kuina, no less. But he did not want to sleep. Why? To be with the Sanji more? Of course. That had to be it. He'd missed sixteen and a half hours, according to his human, a long period of time during which they were physically close to each other, but he was a million miles away. That was it. He didn't want to lose time anymore.
"Hey, Zoro? What's wrong?" He was gripping the Sanji's arm, he realized, and he immediately let go. "You know you don't have to talk to me if you don't want to, but you also don't need to tell me that by squeezing the living hell out of my arm," the Sanji told him, his demeanor seemingly unaffected by Zoro's actions.
"That's not it," Zoro told him. He didn't know where he was going with that. He just shouldn't talk. Ever. But the Sanji was staring at him with both eyes, then, absorbing all the light in the room somehow. "I do wa-wuh-want to… ta-alk." He was getting frazzled again. Damn talking.
The Sanji's mouth pressed into a thin line. "You only do that stuttering thing when you're tired or nervous, plant. I've caught on to that much," he said, sitting up on his elbow. The Sanji studied his face for a few seconds before nodding slightly. And then he didn't say anything, even though Zoro thought he would.
Words seemed to bubble up in the silence. A lot of them, all at once, and he couldn't help but to try and say them. It all came out as kind of a loud grunt and he felt his face contracting into a very unhappy expression. How the hell did that sound happen?
The Sanji smiled at him encouragingly. He didn't laugh at the ridiculous noise, or verbally prompt Zoro, he just smiled and waited.
Zoro took a deep breath, about his millionth attempt at composing himself as a human, it felt like. And he didn't feel like he was going to explode trying to say it all at once. He just felt calmed down. Maybe he was getting the hang of being a human. Or it could just be the Sanji. He had a feeling it was maybe an uneven combination of the two.
"D'you… rem-m-meeember wh-what I sa-aid ear-earli-ier?" Zoro asked, frowning as he recalled it himself. She deserved a much better, nicer, stronger acknowledgement than just "she died."
The Sanji nodded, his expression melancholic.
"W-we-ell, sh-sh-sh-sheee- Ugh, sh-shee… Her-her naaame… w-was Ku-Ku-Ku… Ku-ina." That was much too difficult. He was talking slower than he should, painfully slow, and he was stuttering and he could tell the Sanji was waiting for him to explain himself. But he wasn't sure anymore if he wanted to explain or not. Was it pride in his way? Was it just that he didn't want to relive the past? Or that he didn't want to relive it with the Sanji?
"Oi. Moss-head." The Sanji tapped the side of Zoro's face with his fingers. "Calm down. We've got plenty of time," the Sanji told him, affectionately pinching his cheek.
Zoro breathed in, then out, very slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess we do."
Oh, yeah. That is my ending. But, I could be (very easily) persuaded to do another installment. ;))) Yes, I am a little bit addicted to writing for Tree-Zoro. Maybe that's a good thing. ;P Anyway! Reviews are... like, my favorite things. Ever. You cannot possibly understand how much a single review could brighten a very literally rainy day. :) And, yes. I am shamelessly asking for reviews. ;P