Sanji finds that he's fitting in nicely to life in the band. Everyone is friendly and he feels really quickly that he's known them for a long time. The others all make an effort to catch him up with information if they're ever recounting a story or anecdote about people or places that Sanji doesn't know.

Everyone, that is, except for Zoro.

Where life with everyone else is smooth and easy life with Zoro is rough and difficult. It seems like the guitarist is deliberately going out of his way to blatantly ignore Sanji or fight with him. Zoro throws him looks of disdain and venom as if Sanji had run over his precious bike or something. Sanji has tried to avoid him, but that doesn't help. He's tried talking to him and that if anything makes it worse.

He'd be okay if Zoro wasn't going out of his way to make his life actively difficult. Zoro can apparently get out of his room through his window and into Sanji's via his by going over the roof. Zoro then decided to shove Sanji's desk chair under the door, climb back out and then lock himself in his room and refuse to help. Franky had to take the door off of its hinges to get him in!

When they practice they don't have any choice but to be close as Nami has permanently removed the other microphone in the studio, much to Chopper's agony, and is making them practice together. She shoves them close together around the same mic and threatens to tape them to the floor if they don't stay there. She's had to tape Zoro again at least once in every practice, the other man apparently can't stand to be near him.

In fairness, her idea is kind of brilliant. When they're so close they simply can't sing over each other and they're instead forced into an uneasy kind of harmony. It sounds better but it still feels forced to Sanji.

He doesn't know how long it'll last but he's just decided that thinking about it is as pointless as trying to argue with the weather. He just has to let it happen and hope that Zoro will wear himself out of his one man hate campaign eventually. It'd probably be over quicker if Sanji could resist fighting with him, but he just can't.

When Monday morning rolls around Sanji has busied himself in the kitchen. He's making breakfast for everyone. Nami really did give him a job to cook for the band and so far he's actually really enjoying it. He's taking requests from everyone bar Zoro, who simply declared that anything Sanji made would be awful anyway and that started a yelling match that made everyone else's ears hurt. Other than Zoro it's… nice.

His mind has always wandered when he does mundane chores, and washing up is no different. He's cleaning up after breakfast and his mind wanders back to the Baratie. He's spent every night since he's been here staring at his phone willing the old man to call or do something to indicate that he misses him, or that he's made a mistake, or even just to apologise for being an ass about it all. But he's heard nothing at all, not from Zeff or from anyone else at the Baratie.

In all honesty he's hurt.

He knows though that Zeff will never come and say anything to him, not now, not now that he's committed himself to avoiding him. So Sanji is going to have to see his old man himself if he wants to ever see him again. He dries his hands on a dish towel and checks his phone once more but there are still no messages. He's still scrolling through his empty messages, refreshing them just in case, when he nearly bumps into Nami in the hallway on his way out.

"Oh! Sanji, sorry about that." She apologises quickly.

"Oh no, I'm sorry! Forgive me my flower!" Sanji pleads for her forgiveness, earning him a small amused smile.

"Well, I wanted to find you anyway, so you saved me a job. Here, take this." Nami says, pressing something into his palm.

Sanji frowns in confusion and opens his hand. In it is a phone, it's an iPhone in fact, a version or two up from his old one. It's fancy and white and feels fresh out of the box.

"For me? Why?" He questions, looking back at her.

"We all have them, or those of us that can be trusted with them anyway. Luffy has something more or less unbreakable and Brook can't cope with smart phones so he's got something old. Franky has an android because if you bring apple devices near him he all but hisses." Nami says rolling her eyes and flipping her hair behind her ear in an irritated huff.

"But Nami, you don't have to. I've already got my own." He says, holding up his older model to prove it. He doesn't want to put her out of her way, not for his sake!

"Don't worry about it, use the new one. It's all paid for and it's got all the things we use to keep our schedule on, it shows when practice is and everything. And I've set you up a twitter account too, it helps to promote the band, something I'm sure you'll take seriously." Nami nods, looking expectantly.

Well, how can he possibly let her down?

"Anything you want Nami-swan!" He coos adoringly at her.

"Great! Put whatever you want up there, we try to make our accounts quite personal. I've already linked your account to all of ours. I'm sure you'll get the hang of it. Anyway, I have to be off." She chirps happily and bounces lusciously out of the house with Sanji staring all the way after her.

Sanji loiters in the hallway for a bit, looking at his new phone. He's never used this twitter thing before, but he knows enough about it to make sense of it. Nami's set him up a name on there SHsanji apparently. Looking through the people that he "follows" it seems like several other band members are on there too, most of them have more or less the same name format of SH and then their name. He scowls as he finds that Zoro has been talking shit about him on this thing but decides to let it go. It's no different from what Zoro's been saying to his face in fairness.

Sanji flicks through Zoro's tweets some more, the other man seems convinced that Sanji is going to quit, or at least that he can make him. He's wrong on both counts of course, but it still riles him nonetheless.

Before he's even finished thinking that thought the overly loud stomping of motorcycle style boots echoes down the stairs. Sanji looks up with a frown, Zoro has a bicycle not a motorbike, those boots are stupidly heavy and unnecessary.

"Nami! Oi, Nami!" Zoro hollers in a most ungentlemanly way as he stomps down the last few steps. Zoro spares him a brief glance, a look that is akin to one someone would give to gum stuck on the underside of their shoe.

"Nami's already left, idiot. You probably kept her waiting too long." Sanji snorts at the idiot's misfortune as he turns to face the idiotic guitarist, pocketing his new phone as he does so.

"What?! But she said five minutes, I'm EARLY!" Zoro squawks indignantly and rushes around looking as if Sanji might be lying and Nami might be hidden around the corner.

"Ah shit, I'm going to be an hour late for work at this rate!" Zoro exclaims unhappily, running for the front door.

"I'll take you." Sanji offers smugly. He knows full well that Zoro can't drive and his only other option aside from the lift he'd clearly been counting on was to bike it to work, something which was at least a 45 minute trip, if not longer. He offers for two reasons, one because he wants to savour the feeling of making Zoro be polite to him, or civil at least to earn his ride, and secondly perhaps if he does prove that he's an okay guy then Zoro will stop hating him so completely.

"Fuck that." Zoro snarls at him over his shoulder and stalks out the door. Sanji scowls and follows him.

"Okay, be like that. I'm only going the same way, a trip that will probably take me less than twenty minutes driving." Sanji sighs innocently as he follows Zoro to the garage and unlocks the driver's side door.

Zoro doesn't say anything for a while but freezes instead. Sanji smirks at him and leans expectantly on his door, waiting for Zoro to crack.

"Okay." Zoro mutters bitterly, stomping and clomping towards Sanji's car in his big heavy boots. Sanji smiles triumphantly and hops in, he doesn't unlock Zoro's door just yet though.

He watches as the green headed guy yanks on his door handle, clearly surprised that it doesn't open. Sanji rolls the window down.

"Say please." He orders smugly.

Zoro gives him a look that suggests very clearly that Zoro would probably rather chop his own dick off than do that. He bites the inside of his cheek, scowls, stomps about for a bit and then returns to the window with the most evil glare Sanji has ever seen.

"Please." the guitarist spits out like the words are poison. Sanji allows himself a smug grin and unlocks the door and turns the engine on.

"Seeing as you're already being an asshole you won't mind if I take my bike in the back either." Zoro adds and picks up his bike, throwing it on the back of Sanji's car. He thinks of the blue machine as his car, but in reality it's technically a truck it's got a flat bed at the back but he only ever used it if Zeff needed him to haul shit around, not something he's likely to be doing much of now, not unless Nami needs him to move something for her lovely self. Though now the back of his truck is filled with bicycle, well, whatever.

Zoro throws himself stroppily into the passenger seat and buckles in, though he tries to sit as far over in his seat as possible, putting as much distance between them as possible. Zoro's acting like he's allergic to Sanji's very presence. He should probably be offended but this is funny as shit to him.

He throws his arm over the back of Zoro's chair as he looks out the back window to reverse and pretends not to notice how Zoro jumps away from him. He turns the vehicle around and speeds off, he doesn't want Zoro to be late, if he is it'll quite spoil his ability to gloat.

"Where's your radio?" Zoro asks after a little while, looking at the crater in Sanji's dashboard that used to be home to the car stereo.

"I ripped it out." Sanji answers distractedly, changing lane and merging into new traffic.

"With what? Your bare hands?! Why?" Zoro asks in shock. Sanji laughs, he didn't actually rip it out with his bare hands, he had attacked the thing with a screwdriver and ripped it out in pieces. Either way the furious removal of the radio had left quite a few gouges in his dashboard.

"Well, I've got a stupidly good memory for music, it's how I've learnt all of your songs so quickly." Sanji begins to explain.

"You don't know all of my songs." Zoro cuts in with a scowl.

"Shut up," Sanji shoots back with a glare, "I only have to hear a piece of music once or twice for it to be stuck in my head forever. Usually that's useful but it's as annoying as hell with radio jingles. I lost my temper and took it out." Sanji answers.

"You're weird." Zoro observes with a squinty look at him. Sanji doesn't have anything else to say to that and just hums one of their songs instead while he focuses on driving. He speeds into the city, slipping in and out of traffic like a pro and only slows a little when he gets onto the city itself. He doesn't know exactly where Zoro works.

"It's fourth and Blue." Zoro says, as if reading his mind.

"Hey, the Baratie is on sixth and blue, that's where I'm going." Sanji remarks in surprise. Zoro works only two blocks away from where Sanj's lived for almost his entire life. He's probably passed Zoro on the street a hundred times without realising it!

"You going back home to ask your old man to take you back in?" Zoro asks, his voice gentle and curious. Now that riles Sanji right up. That gentle pitying tone getting under his skin so much more than the anger or the passive aggressive shit Zoro's been pulling.

"No!" he snaps back curtly, his fingernails biting into the steering wheel.

"Why are you going then?" Zoro presses.

"None of your goddamn business. Where the hell am I parking?" He growls. Zoro looks at him with interest for a few moments before simply pointing across the road. Sanji cuts someone up to get into the parking behind the building and it's only when he stops that he sees what kind of building it is.

"You work in a coffee shop?" He questions, feeling surprised.

"That's why I got you to drop me here, moron." Zoro shoots back, his voice deadpan and eyeballing Sanji like he's brain damaged.

"So you're what, a little waitress?" He grins out the window at the green haired guy. His grin only becomes wider as he practically sees Zoro's hackles raise at the comment.

"I'm a barista, fuck face. Not all of us get jobs from Nami where we're paid to flounce around making pastries, some of us have to earn a living." The guitarist snarls furiously.

"Well, maybe if you could sing…" Sanji smirks, baiting him.

"Go drive off the pier!" Zoro spits, chaining his bike up and stomping inside the back of the coffee shop amusingly angry.

Well, that certainly made Sanji feel better. He turns around in the small coffee shop car park and nips across the road and around the corner until he's in the Baratie's car park. Giving Zoro a lift certainly took his mind off of the anxiety of seeing his old man again. He sighs and slides out of the car, shutting the door behind him. He fiddles with his keys, procrastinating before having to go up to the door and find out if Zeff has changed the locks.

He takes a deep breath and steels himself. He slides his key in the lock and turns it, the door opens. He looks inside, Zeff is nowhere to be seen and anxiety hums in Sanji's stomach. His phone pings again and he looks it to see Zoro bitching about Nami deliberately abandoning him so that Sanji had to give him a lift. Sanji grins, she probably did do that, she's so clever trying to help them get along. It's not her fault that it seems to be a worthless cause.

The door slams behind him and he realises that in the moment of being distracted by Zoro's idiocy on his phone his anxiety had disappeared and he'd kicked the door shut behind him and dropped his keys into the bowl by the door. Huh.

"You'd better not be trying to come back." Zeff's voice says from the top of the stairs. Sanji looks up and scowls.

"No." He says back tightly.

"Good." Zeff retorts simply.

The two of them stare at each other for a few more seconds, neither seeming willing to break the silence.

Sanji cracks first, he almost always does.

"I've got a new phone, from the band. Thought you should have the number in case…" Sanji's lie trails off. Why would Zeff want to call him again? He's not made any effort to do so.

"What's the number?" Zeff asks, coming down a step to two. Sanji looks up at the stoic old man and restrains the smile that he wants to wear, so the old geezer does still care then…

"I'll call you with it, I know how awful you are with technology. Then you can just call me back on it. Patty can show you how." Sanji says, quickly dialling the old man's number and calling it. Sanji hears a distant ring upstairs and then hangs up.

"You left some things." The bar owner says after a few moments, jerking his head up the stairs and going back up.

"I didn't exactly have a lot of opportunity to pack." He argues back, following to their previously shared apartment above the bar. The old guy just grunts at that, offering no real opinion.

Seeing nothing else to do Sanji goes into his room, or rather, his old room. He was in rather a tearful hurry last time he was there and the place is quite a mess. Sanji grabs a bin liner and packs a few more sensible things, things he would have missed given the time. His favourite soft woollen knitted v neck sweater for example, or his hoodie with the waves on it. He'd just thrown in what had been to hand last time, but it hardly made for a good wardrobe.

Finally done with packing he swings the two bags he has left over his shoulder and nearly walks into his old man in the hallway. Zeff eyes him gruffly from under his eyebrows.

"Well, try not to be a shit to people." Zeff offers as what passes for helpful paternal advice in his world.

"Screw you old bastard! You can't talk, you're an asshole to everyone!" Sanji screeches, entirely overreacting. From the wince that Zeff makes he can guess that he was probably a bit loud there.

"Get out, shitty kid. You're the reason I'm going deaf. Maybe when you're gone for more than a week my hearing will come back properly!" Zeff snaps and kicks him in the back.

"I hope your eardrums fall out!" Sanji yells and stomps out of the front door. He throws his stuff in the car and drives home, fuming the entire way.

His altercation with Zeff puts him in a shitty mood all afternoon, one that doesn't get better when Zoro returns either. Though the guitarist is just ignoring him and avoiding him, which is about the best outcome Sanji has at the moment. As long as he's not off messing up Sanji's shit or locking him out of his room again, then all is well.

He makes a delicious moussaka for everyone for dinner, with oven baked sweet potato on the side, as well as couscous, bread, olives and hummus for everyone as well. The whole band are effusive with their compliments all through dinner, all except Zoro of course. Zoro kicks his seat back so he's balancing on the back two legs and scowls at the ceiling with a displeased huff of breath.

"That was SO amazing Sanji! You have to make more!" Luffy gasps enthusiastically. Robin giggles and Brook nods in agreement. Sanji smiles and lights up a cigarette for a nice post dinner smoke.

"You're more than welcome Luffy, though I've no idea how you can eat so much." He smirks around his smoke.

"Ahh, but it's sooo good!" The drummer praises him.

"Look, either one of you just cut to the chase and suck his dick already or we go practice, cause I'm getting sick of hearing this." Zoro grumbles, rocking his chair back forwards onto all four legs. The rest of the table looks at Zoro with wide stunned eyes.

"Well, I'm gonna let you all contemplate that, either way I'll be in the studio." The guitarist adds, standing up and turning to leave.

"You bastard!" Sanji spits, leaping to his own feet and glaring harshly at the punk-haired stroppy teenager of a guitarist's back.

"Hey, I'd stay there if I were you. It might be your lucky night." Zoro sneers at him over his shoulder.

"And you stay there all night it'll certainly be mine." The guitarist adds under his breath as he actually leaves.

Sanji grinds his teeth together so hard that the cigarette that he'd just placed between his teeth splits, filling his mouth with tobacco and the fibres of the filter. Sanji spits it out angrily and goes to throw it in the bin, all the while visualising kicking Zoro's ugly irritating face in.

"I really don't get what's up with my guitar bro. I've never seen him like this at all." Franky frowns, gathering up the plates.

"Mmm, Zoro can be a little abrasive sometimes but I've never seen him hate anyone like this before. It's just so strange." Brook agrees, collecting glasses with his long bony fingers.

"It really isn't anything to do with you, but sorry for him all the same." Nami sighs, rubbing her forehead as Franky picks up her plate for her.

"I get that I was never going to be his favourite person after Baby's-" Sanji starts as he washes his hands, but Nami cuts him off with what (despite her elegance and beauty) can only be described as a screech.

"AGH! Don't SAY that NAME." Nami orders him angrily, making Sanji jump.

Their manager's face is livid and her hands are tense fists on the table top.

"I hate her so much, don't even say that name Sanji! Oooh, if I ever see her anywhere near Zoro again I'll… I'll-" Nami hisses, scrabbling for just what she might do if she happens upon the previous singer.

"Pour boiling hot bleach down her throat?" Robin suggests, in an elegant voice, looking at Nami over the top of her wineglass. Nonetheless the very suggestion of such torture makes Sanji's vocal chords wither up in sympathy of such a brutal idea. In fact it makes everyone in the room stare at her with wide shocked eyes, even more so than Zoro's earlier crude comment.

"Yeah… that'll do." Nami agrees after a moment.

"Just… don't mention that name." Nami adds, shooting Sanji a look. Sanji's still too horrified at the mere idea to even speak. Bleach in your throat would be enough to kill you but boiling bleach!? It would be an understatement to say that it appears that Baby's exit caused wounds in more people than just Zoro then.

"Good god Robin terrifies me." Franky mutters as he washes the dishes. Sanji just squeaks pathetically.

"Still, Zoro's right. We should go practice. So come on, let's go, leave the cleaning and move it." Nami says, standing up and clapping her hands. Everyone else seems to shrug, put down whatever they were dealing with and file off. Sanji of course comes along with but begins to reassess his earlier assessment of it being Zoro who had everyone else bending to his whim. On the contrary it seems like Nami is the one everyone listens to and Zoro's apparently sudden insanity regarding him is just temporarily throwing that out of balance.

Sanji swallows, getting his throat to relax and comforts himself with the idea that he'd far rather be living under Nami's beautiful mercy than Zoro's foul mouth and awful manners.

He enters the studio, making Zoro look up and fix him with one of those looks that tells Sanji just how pleased the guitarist is at his containing to be alive, which is to say, not at all.

"Well that was quick, are you always so disappointing?" Zoro shoots at him sarcastically.

"Get fucked." Sanji argues back, kicking him off of the bean bag on the floor that the moss head is sprawled on. Sanji drinks and warms up his throat a little whilst everyone else attends to their more visible instrument. A lot of people don't appreciate that a voice is an instrument just like any other, and Sanji knows full well he really should warm up more than he does. All the same, when the others are ready Nami tells them what song they're starting with. It's one Sanji's listened to about ten times already, but not one that he's played with them yet.

It's a love song, of sorts anyway. A bitter broken love song that Sanji would bet Zoro wrote after Baby rightfully abandoned the rude underserving ass. When he's heard Zoro sing it it's almost as if he can't contain himself and could almost scream. It clearly affects the song. Sanji knows full well that he can bring more control to the piece than Zoro can, that'll put him in his place.

Zoro begins playing, the guitar takes up a fair portion of the intro. Sanji closes his eyes and settles into the music. Despite his antagonistic relationship with the guitarist he's actually very very good. Sanji's never heard him drop a note, misform a chord or accidentally scratch the strings. He swallows, licks his lips, and begins to sing focusing on the scaling up of power throughout the lines.

""Self-loathing is quaint,"
you told me, showing restraint.
Now you're gone and I'm lost,
In the swells I am tossed -
bobbing and choking and losing the fight in the fog.
You said, "Forever..." Tell me, why can't you stay?

I'd ride in your pocket all day,
but I just don't fit.
Say the word and I'll change.
I'm throwin' a party tonight.
I drink more than a sailor on shore.
Pour the rum in my eyes, tell me lies."

The lyrics are rather self-indulgently sad, if very creative. Sanji would never write lyrics like that, not that he can write at all. Zoro lends his voice to the parts where he's needed and Sanji continues, trying to ignore the way Zoro's judgemental eyes watch him.

"Oh, oh-oh-oh, Oh, oh-oh-oh
Drunk since Saturday,
without you, without restraint.
It still stings where you stung.
Water swings in my lungs.
I'm starving for words that would ration my sadness away.
Tell me, "Forever..."
Tell me you'll come back to stay.

I'd ride in your pocket all day,
but I just don't fit.
Say the word and I'll change.
I'm throwin' a party tonight.
I drink more than a sailor on shore.
Pour the rum in my eyes, tell me lies."

Sanji continues but Zoro's judging look gets harder. He clenches his hand into a fist and focuses on his technical ability and how he knows it's better than Zoro's. He makes the notes smooth and the transitions seamless. He lets his voice arch over the lyrics, delivering them cleanly and clearly, not half shouted out like Zoro's version is.

"You were the mermaid for me
'til one day you found your feet
leaving me in this god-awful bottle
a model of heartache and grief.

I'd ride in your pocket all day,
but I just don't fit.
Say the word and I'll change.
I'm throwin' a party tonight.
I drink more than a sailor on shore.
Pour the rum in my eyes, tell me lies."

He finishes feeling pleased with himself. He looks to Zoro to see the other man watching him quietly. Sanji thinks that he might have actually impressed the other man for a moment before the guitarist takes his guitar off, sliding the strap over his head with a sigh.

"This is a waste of my time. Why did you even hire him Nami? He can't do this job." Zoro says, turning to look at Nami through the window.

"What the hell?!" Sanji snarls, shoving Zoro in the shoulder.

"Get lost, cook. I wasn't talking to you." Zoro snaps back irritably.

"You were talking about me! Look if you've got a problem with my singing then let's hear it, or are you just going to admit that your problem is with me because you just don't want anyone in this job no matter how well they can sing!" Sanji accuses furiously.

"You CAN'T sing!" Zoro screams in Sanji's face.

Now that actually makes Sanji step back, the rage flowing off of the guitarist is palpable, his energy giving his words far more force than they truly deserved. Zoro sighs and pinches his own nose in frustration.

"Don't get me wrong. You have range, better than mine. You can hold a note better than I can and you've got more power in your lungs than I do. I'm not blind, but you're not singing. You're mimicking." Zoro says with a sigh, putting his precious guitar down in its stand.

"Of course I'm mimicking, I didn't write the songs." Sanji points out.

"Then you fucking make them yours, you're supposed to own what you sing. I might not be a great singer but at least I own something when I do it. I put my emotions into what I sing, you just copy the sounds of someone feeling something. You've got all the emotional range of a sponge, and it shows. You can't sing about love because you've never been in love, and you can't sing about loss because I don't think you've ever lost anything worth losing." The guitarist says, pointing an accusing finger in Sanji's chest.

Sanji can only splutter indignantly at that frankly ridiculous accusation. Zoro's the one who's too emotionally retarded to realise that Sanji isn't the same person as his ex-girlfriend and to therefore stop taking out his issues about getting dumped onto him. Zoro's the one who seems to only have three settings of personality, namely stupidly angry, irritatingly indifferent or nauseatingly sarcastic. How dare Zoro accuse him of having no emotional depth?!

"What, so you had a girl break your heart and that makes you special somehow? You think that somehow you get some great singing power just because you've suffered a little? When really what happened was you got slapped and broken up with in front of a crowd. You just hate me because I'm not her, you're the one not in control of their emotions." Sanji snarls back viciously. Zoro's eyes widen and Sanji all but drinks up the flash of pain the runs through the guitarist's face.

"I'm plenty in control, and at least I have emotions beyond spite and anger, unlike you." Zoro says coldly.

"But hey, since I'm so biased, anyone else is welcome to tell me that I'm wrong. If you're such a good singer ask any of them if they believed you when you sang." Zoro challenges, gesturing to the rest of the band. Sanji looks over to see everyone staring tensely at the two of them.

"He'll get it Zoro, trust me." Luffy says confidently. Sanji winces, hurt slightly at Luffy's words. Whilst the other guy's confidence is nice, the fact that he thinks Sanji will get it says very clearly that he thinks that he doesn't have it now.

"Maybe let's call that a night." Nami suggests weakly from her place behind the glass studio wall.

"Get a new job." Zoro says quietly to Sanji before turning and walking out.

Sanji bites his lip and resists the urge to scream. He feels awful, both from the argument and saying something so cruel when he'd promised not to but also because his new friends apparently think that Zoro has a point. A well of self-doubt fills him, maybe he shouldn't be here.

"You'll get it." Luffy repeats, slapping Sanji on the shoulder.

"I didn't realise that I didn't have it." Sanji sniffs, tugging his shoulder away.

Luffy looks at him thoughtfully for a few moments before turning to the window.

"Chopper, send Sanji the file of that song. Let him listen to it later." Luffy calls.

"Sure thing!" Chopper nods and starts typing.

Sanji excuses himself quickly, not letting himself meet Usopp's eyes. He doesn't know what expression the keyboardist will be wearing right now but after what Sanji and Zoro had just said he doesn't want to see. Everything just feels like it's falling apart.

He climbs the stairs up to his floor, his attention only pulled to the world outside the window when he hears the sound of tyres on gravel. He looks out of the window to see Zoro pedalling away on his bike, leaving a spray of gravel in his wake.

His phone pings and for a moment he thinks that it must be Zoro saying something malicious about him on twitter again but to his surprise it's not. Evidently one of the things Nami has put on his new phone is something to share files between them, and the one that's come into his phone is entitled "drunken lament – Sanji" and it's an audio file.

He sighs and goes to his room. He plugs his big headphones into his phone and listens to Zoro's version first. To him it still sounds sloppy and uncontrolled, Sanji just can't ever let himself sing like that, but even so he can hear the emotion in Zoro's voice, even if it overrides his singing ability.

Then he listens to the recording of his own. It's still pretty raw, Chopper hasn't quite worked all of his magic on it yet- not that he'd expect him to for what clearly isn't going to be a final take of the song. Even so it's a little strange hearing his own voice pumped into his ears.

He listens.

His voice is controlled, he can hear a few places where he could improve his control but… well. Zoro might have a point. Technically speaking the song is good, his voice is strong, controlled, on key and otherwise very good. But there's no real life to it. He sees what Zoro meant when he said that he didn't believe Sanji when he sang. The song is about love and loss and desperation but when he sings it they seems like just words.

He sings the song again, quietly to himself, just loud enough so that he can hear. He tries to put emotion into it, to feel that tangled mix of love and desperation that the song alludes to but he just can't. He hasn't ever felt that for someone. So he tries to fake it, he tries to imagine it but it sounds even more false than before.

He flicks through Zoro's songs, the ones that are about feeling crazy or life in general he can do and the ones about crazy fantastical situations like Lake Pontchartrain he can do easily. But as soon as it veers into that snarled love/hate feeling he falls flat. So many of Zoro's songs seem to be like that, about loving someone and being destroyed by someone, they speak of having someone rip your heart out and hating them for it but still in love. It just doesn't make any sense.

The more songs he tries the more despondent he becomes. Is he really too young to do this? Is he too naïve of how the world work or how love really is to sing about it? He certainly doesn't want the experiences that Zoro has had, not the unpleasant ones anyway, but does he have to have them in order to be able to carry the songs off? Should he actually just… go home?

Thankfully his sense of spite kicks in. Fuck that. He wasn't just going to roll over and let Zoro have his way. So spite is the only emotion Zoro thinks he has? Well fine, he's going to learn how to sing as if he's felt all that Zoro has felt and he's going to be better than Zoro thinks he is and he's going to make that punk-haired ASS eat his own words!

Fuming he leaps off of his bed, not even bothering to take his headphones out and instead leaving them around his neck. He quickly descends the stairs and steps quickly over to Usopp's room. He knocks on the door and after a short pause opens it.

Usopp's room is full of windows. He has a corner room and windows stretch from floor to ceiling on two walls of his room, they give views of the front of the house and the grounds to the side, it feels like some amazing lofty perch. From the ceiling delicate mobiles hang, not like child's mobiles but elaborately balanced things made of copper, all twirling gently in some non-existent breeze.

Usopp is sat, looking at him with surprise, on a long ornate wooden bench seat pushed against one of the windows.

"Sanji." He remarks, putting his book down and looking at the singer with curious brown eyes.

"Tell me about Zoro." He demands, coming into the room.

"Considering the last thing I told you about Zoro-" Usopp begins with a frown.

"I know, I messed up, I shouldn't have said what I did. I just… Zoro was right okay? I listened to it, I'm just… faking those feelings, and not well either. If I stand any chance of doing this well I'm going to need to get into Zoro's head, he's the one who wrote these songs, well, him and you." Sanji concedes. He drags a frustrated hand through his hair.

"I want to be in this band, and I like the music, I want to sing it well but… if I can't feel what Zoro was feeling when he wrote them… or at least can't imagine it then what chance do I stand? So please, help me?" he pleads.

Usopp's expression softens and he sighs. The keyboard player pats the bench next to him and Sanji comes in and sits down. He pulls his knees up and looks at Usopp hopefully.

"Tell me… tell me what it was like when they were together. What did he see in her, why was she with him? If she really betrayed you all so badly then what makes you say that he still loves her?" Sanji questions all in a rush. He needs to get into Zoro's head, he needs to feel what he felt, or else he might as well leave.

Usopp leans back and chews his lip a little, Sanji doesn't know if it's in thought or reluctance to talk.

"You don't use any of this against Zoro, okay?" Usopp orders him quietly.

"I swear, I just want to understand the bastard." He agrees, understanding full well that if he does break his word again he'll probably be kicked out of the band altogether.

"When I was seven my mother died, leaving me all alone. There was an orphanage nearby so I didn't have to go anywhere really, but it wasn't exactly somewhere where people cared about you, you were just a space in a bed." Usopp says bitterly.

"Shit, I'm sorry." Sanji apologises awkwardly.

"That's not the point of this story, this is about Zoro." Usopp says, shaking his head and making his curly black hair shake.

"Zoro was the only kid at my school who didn't look at me like… like…" Usopp seems to struggle for the words but Sanji is able to fill them in just fine on his own.

"Like there must be something wrong with you?" Sanji states softly. The keyboard player looks up at him with startled eyes, his expression fades to a curious kind of understanding.

"My mother left me and my old man when I was five. Just… one day she wasn't there and never came back. Go on." Sanji says quickly, not wanting to linger especially on that tale at all.

"Well, Zoro was my friend. He stopped the other kids from picking on me, he looked out for me, we were buddies. Even though he had a home and father and a sister, he still hung out with me. His sister played guitar, the white acoustic that Zoro has. She was so much better than him and it drove him mad, no matter how much he played and practiced she was always better. It was so funny." Usopp chuckles to himself. Only… only then Usopp's face turns sad and he looks out the window silently for a moment, long enough for Sanji to wonder why if Zoro's sister is the one who owns that white acoustic in the video how come Zoro has it. And it's long enough for him to realise that this bit of the story doesn't have a happy ending.

"She died. It was an accident but, she died. Zoro's father couldn't take it and Zoro ended up living with me in the orphanage. But he was still the one looking out for me, even though he was the one who…" Usopp shakes his head and trails off.

"He's like that you see, Zoro. He thinks of everyone else ahead of him, he'd do anything to help the people he cares about. He's not this evil bastard you think he is." Usopp sighs, looking Sanji in the eyes.

"He's not exactly done a lot to convince me of that." Sanji points out.

"He's not usually like that." Usopp reasons.

Sanji bites his lip and considers that a little more.

"So, Baby?" Sanji prompts.

"Well, we didn't have parents any more. Some people do and perhaps… shouldn't. Baby went to school with us, you got to know all the other musicians that the school, a fight for securing practice rooms and everything. Baby had parents, or a father anyway." The keyboard player says distantly.

"He was… awful. He'd hurt her, get violently angry. Zoro found out and… well, he did what Zoro always does. He stepped in. He tried to get her out of there, tried to help her out when things got bad. But that kind of thing doesn't just stop, so one day he just wouldn't leave. Nothing Baby or I said would make him go so instead of hurting her Baby's father attacked Zoro instead, and unlike Baby Zoro fought back. He nearly got himself killed in the process too, if you ever see him without his shirt on then you'll see the scar that he got defending her." Usopp sighs.

That… that surprises Sanji. He's always considered himself the kind of guy that would go to any length to defend a woman but it seems that Zoro isn't so dissimilar from himself in that regard. Except he'd never grab Nami like Zoro did. But… well, the red-haired beauty did say that Zoro wouldn't have hurt her in a million years he was just… what was the term she'd used? Barking and not biting?

"That got him locked away, which was what Zoro wanted I guess. But, somewhere before or during all that… I'm not sure when exactly they became a thing. And I guess it's hard to break a bond that you've gone through so much for you know?" Usopp shrugs.

"I thought that they'd drift apart or something eventually but… something was wrong there and I don't know what. It was like she could make him do almost anything that she wanted, I don't think he could say no to her." The other man frowns unhappily.

"He said no when she tried to take him with her." Sanji points out, trying to disguise his guess as a simple statement.

"He told you?" Usopp asks sceptically. Sanji laughs and shakes his head, as if Zoro would tell him that.

"Baby had said choose on the video and immediately went off to form her own band after stealing a bunch of your songs. If Zoro's the main writer it doesn't take a genius to figure out that she had intended on taking him with her. You think he regrets saying no to her?" He questions.

"I don't think he regrets saying no, I think he regrets that she asked. I think maybe part of him is still waiting for her to come back, I don't think he entirely wants her to but I know some of him does. But of course, if the job's no longer open because you're here, well… that means it's really over." Usopp theorises with a shrug.

"Well that'd explain it a little I guess." Sanji grumbles. Zoro still doesn't need to be quite such a huge unreasonable bastard about it. Even if Sanji does represent the end of his relationship for good with Baby it's not as if he'd ever actually leapt between them and run off with her or anything. Hell he's never even met the woman!

"What was she actually like though?" He asks with a frown. People keep telling him what she did or how much she hurt Zoro but no one's ever actually told him what she was really like.

Usopp seems to think for a moment, perhaps trying to come up with a fair assessment of her character.

"Messed up, I guess. She needed to be needed by someone all the time. Like, if you needed her help with something she was all over that, she liked to feel important. She knew how to make Zoro happy and the fact that Zoro was happiest with her often seemed to make her happy. I don't think she liked that he was happy with us too though. She didn't like that he could do songs without her, or that he could write with me as well as her." The other man scowls angrily.

"She could be cruel too, but Zoro would always say it was nothing. I tried to keep out of it and whenever I did try to intervene I got the feeling I made it worse. But, it doesn't matter now, he's away from her." The keyboard player says with an air of finality as he gets up from the bench. Sanji senses that the conversation is over.

"Thanks, I guess. I promise I won't say anything." He vows as he stands up.

"Good." Usopp nods.

Sanji takes his leave then, heading back upstairs to his room. He falls back on his bed and re-listens to all of the songs that he's been unable to really sing. He tries to put himself in Zoro's shoes, to imagine how it must feel to be bound to someone like that, through such a traumatic and painful history.

As Zoro's words play through his ears through his headphones he thinks about Zoro stepping between Baby and her awful father. That is something that he can really imagine doing himself. Perhaps that's where he should start relating to Zoro, it's… a common point of reference as it were. From there he can use his imagination. He can imagine saving a girl, imagine falling for her. But perhaps… perhaps even though you've had a dramatic fairy-tale beginning doesn't mean that it's meant to be. But how to you disentangle yourself from someone like that? Perhaps Zoro is proof that you can't really.

He starts to drift off, listening to the music on repeat. His last thought when he drifts off is wondering just what this scar of Zoro's is like.

By morning he's somehow unplugged his headphones from his phone, which is lost for a little while in his bed and takes some searching to find. Still, he thinks that perhaps he might be starting to get it now. For once he doesn't head to the kitchen right away to start cooking, instead he diverts to the studio. It's empty and quiet so he slips inside the main room, knowing full well that it'll automatically be recording and he can listen back to it later.

Seeing as the rest of the band isn't here he's going to need some music. He slides his headphones back over his ears and picks the first love song that jumps out at him. When he'd first heard this song he'd thought it was about having broken up with someone and sleeping with them again because you were listening to your dick. But now he thinks that perhaps it's about being separated from someone who you really know is bad news, someone that your head is telling you not to be with, but your heart gets in the way. When he listens to Zoro sing it he can hear the way he almost pleads for her and where he's all but yelling that it's a terrible idea.

He presses play and leans into the mic. Zoro's guitar brings him in as he starts to sing and feels Zoro's conflicted emotions.

"Here I am, at home again, this rainy avenue
put me in my proper place, I'm not the one for you,
but you're here now, can you come in?
It's freezing...
I'd found a way to blur your face and smear the words you said
You made me feel alive again, I wish we'd never met
but you're here now, can you come in?
I'm freezing..."

He can just imagine Zoro standing in the doorway of this very building. The rain pouring down outside and Baby at the door, asking him to let her in. He keeps his eyes shut and imagines Zoro's indecision. He shouldn't let her in but he wants to so very badly. His head saying no and his heart saying yes.

"I finally let go and learned to live without you,
after all those weeks alone, but now you're back for more.
I'm tryin' to fight it off but there's a mutiny below.

There were nights when I was sure your love was all I had
Pining at the door you left through, God it hurt so bad,
but you're here now, you're making eyes
I'm breaking..."

He feels Zoro starting to waver, to give in even though he can see how much it'll hurt. He can feel that Zoro knows in his head that it'll hurt but how could he say no? He remembers Usopp's words about Zoro finding it almost impossible not to help people. If he was in this situation Sanji would put his money on Zoro letting her in.

"I finally let go and learned to live without you,
after all those weeks alone, but now you're back for more.
I'm tryin' to fight it off but there's a mutiny below.
I finally let go but there's a mutiny below.

"Just one more night..." you ask so tenderly - a softer side
I'd longed so long to see.
So long…"

He can almost see the cold and drenched woman at the door of the house and Zoro cracking, the sense that his heart might convince him that this time might really be different.

""You slip inside, we'll work it out
tomorrow...

I finally let go and learned to live without you,
after all those weeks alone, but now you're back for more.
I'm tryin' to fight it off but there's a mutiny below.

I finally let go,
I'm tryin' to fight it off but there's a mutiny
from everything left but my soul.
I can't hang on - let me go."

Sanji slides the headphones off of his ears and looks at the mic. He's no real idea what he sounded like there, but it felt right. He should get Chopper to cut the song and put it into a file so that he can listen to it and then perhaps trying to sing it again when he can hear his own voice in his ears instead of Zoro's.

"Wow." A voice makes him jump about a foot in the air.

In the doorway to the studio is Zoro but behind him is Nami, it was her who spoke. She's peering excitedly at him around Zoro's arm, her beautiful smile big and beaming. But it's Zoro's expression that he's drawn to. It's… well, Sanji isn't sure what it is. There's surprise there on that dumb face but Sanji can see an echo of all the emotions that he'd just imagined, as if Zoro wasn't quite there but was instead seeing the vision in Sanji's head. Perhaps it had been real.

Zoro squints at him for a moment or two, as if sizing him up. Under this scrutiny Sanji stands up a little straighter, juts his jaw in a challenge. He's just begging Zoro to find some other flaw to accuse him of. No matter what Zoro says to tell him that he can't do this job, no matter what Zoro demands of him he'll surpass his expectations and imagined limitations. Zoro can bring it.

But Zoro says nothing. He takes one step back, then another and then turns to go, with one last fleeting look at Sanji. He doesn't run off, he's not emotional, he's not angry. He just leaves. At first Sanji's pissed. But then he considers that Zoro had no criticism, no biting remark about him not being good enough, no demand that he leave. Nothing.

Sanji grins as Nami compliments him, saying how she knew he'd get it. But what matters to Sanji is just how much he proved Zoro wrong.

"Come on, let's have breakfast, yeah?" Nami smiles at him and tugs his arm as she leads him to the kitchen.

Sanji makes whatever the rest of the band wants, calls for pancakes, cooked sausages, fruit and more. He serves it all up happily. Zoro remains tellingly silent. Sanji is nice about it, he doesn't gloat at all. Not even when Nami tells the others just how good Sanji was and how Chopper enthuses about perhaps trying to cut his performance together with already recorded music for that song to see how well it fits. Nami discusses recording it again with Sanji's voice instead of Zoro's and releasing it as part of his debut to the band.

The guitarist still stays mute through all of that, though this time he sticks around to wash up whilst Sanji dries and puts away and Franky brings dishes to the sink.

"Shit Zoro, again? You know for someone who rides a bike as often as you do, you're remarkably bad at it." Franky exclaims from behind Sanji.

Sanji turns back around from replacing glasses in the cupboard to see Franky pulling at Zoro's sleeve and pulling his arm out of the water. Zoro's long black sleeves are rolled up to his biceps to keep them out of the water and fresh bruises litter his forearms, even more so now that he looks Sanji thinks he can see a purpling bruise on the guitarist's chin too.

"Blame joggers who run at stupid hours of the night dressed entirely in black, not me. Either I swerve to avoid them or I run them over." Zoro snaps, pulling his arm back and scowling at the washing as he scrubs a plate.

"At least you have an excuse for looking like you got dragged through a hedge backwards then Zoro." Nami teases playfully from the table, her dazzling with amazing Sanji as always.

Sanji tunes out their argument. The thought of Zoro and injuries makes him less curious about Zoro's apparently noble attempt to save a runner's life by suddenly taking his bike off-road and, from the sounds of it, down a ditch. Instead he becomes even more curious about this apparent scar under his shirt that he got instead of Baby. Now that he'd like to see.

Songs are both by Ludo this time. Drunken Lament and Mutiny Below