They got to the palace when the dance had already started, but nobody seemed to mind. A vicious bulldog of a woman guarded the entrance, blocking their way with an unfriendly expression. "No weapons allowed inside," she growled, looking at his swords, which he had clasped to his side with a thin belt under his jacket. Franky waved two badges with the word 'bodyguard' painted on them in red letters. She inspected them for a long time before grudgingly letting them through.
Zoro appraised the room with a professional glance, noting the layout of the tables, the people present, the placement of the windows. Everything was so fancy, with spider glass lamps hanging from the ceiling, all sorts of golden paintings on the walls and great velvet curtains falling over the windows. He groaned mentally. This place was too refined for him.
The man they were supposed to guard was apparently some hot-shot businessman who dealt in diamonds. He was immensely fat, and chewed on a cigar that seemed to grow from his beard, but had a general friendly air about him. Chopper and Usopp were standing firm on either side of him, taking their duty very seriously. "…And, don't forget, always watch your surroundings like a hawk," the marksman finished his list of bodyguarding guidelines. Chopper nodded seriously.
Nami was talking to their employer, her eyes shining, meaning it was probably about the money – or diamonds, knowing her – they would receive in exchange for their services. Luffy, as always, stuffed his face, his obligations completely forgotten. The air-head blonde was nowhere to be seen at first, but then Zoro spotted a throng of women converging around one point, and he presumed that was him. He consciously refused to look for Robin.
Someone entered the space he always watched around himself, his zone, from behind him. He turned, hand on his sword, but it was just Vivi and Koza walking together, her arm in his. She, too, was dressed in an impressive golden dress, blue hair tumbling down in a waterfall, looking every bit royal. Her companion kept staring at her like a lovesick goon. "Hey," she greeted with a smile.
"Hey, bro," replied Franky, nodding at both of them. It occurred to Zoro then that they didn't know each other. It didn't seem to stop them from immediately jumping into a heated conversation about candy. Go figure. If a royal princess, a rebel leader and a cyborg had something in common, it was candy. Candy united the world.
He drifted away from all the insanity, looking for a bit of calm. And beer.
He found the beverages table one one side of the hall, out of the way of the dancers. But all they had was expensive wine with fancy French names. The cook and Nami would have liked it. He didn't. He set it down with a grimace and, reminded of his hunger again, decided to join Luffy, who was currently attacking a whole boar by himself at the food table. "Mish ish good," he mumbled appreciatively. "Hey, Shoro, want shome? Theresh fplenty!"
"Yeah," he grumbled, sitting down next to him. For some reason, he was feeling depressed. It was this place. All those dressed up nobles and the fancy cutlery. It made him feel lost.
But his hand paused on the way to his mouth, the food completely forgotten as he spotted Robin out of the corner of his eye. Don't look at her. Don't look at her. But his eyes seemed to have a will of their own. He turned slowly, his gaze trailing over the curves of her black dress and her bare leg appreciatively. He wasn't even drunk. But damn, she was... How had Franky put it? "Smokin'."
"Huh? What did you say?"
"MrshNothin'," he mumbled, resuming his eating. Who was that guy talking to her? He looked like one of those sophisticated nobles. His clothes were immaculate, with jewels and golden threads hanging all over the place. He held himself with confidence – no; not the confidence of a rogue who knew his own abilities, but rather the arrogance of a spoiled kid who always had others do the fighting for him. As Zoro watched, she smiled and nodded, and he took her by the waist and led her to the dance floor, where couples were already twirling in a fancy vals. A knot twisted in his stomach. Zoro didn't dance, but right now he would have traded places with that noble without a second thought.
Franky miraculously appeared and sat next to him, leaning back on the table. "So," he started, following his line of sight. After a pause, he added, "I'd say he's trying something with our little kitten." Zoro shrugged, ignoring how the knot got tighter and tighter as the dumbshit pulled her closer.
Franky looked sideways at him. "Are you just going to sit here?"
He shrugged again. Robin and the man twirled to an edge of the dance floor. She said something, he kissed her hand - Zoro's guts burnt with acid - but then the princeling left her, weaving through the crowd to the beverages table. Franky knocked him on the ribs. "Your chance, dude." When Zoro didn't make a move to get up, he grinned and added, "Or are you not man enough?"
Robin watched as a blob of green hair approached among the crowd. Zoro was scratching his head, in that way he often did when he was puzzled (most of the time), uncomfortable (rarely) or nervous (hardly ever). He was quite the amusing sight, dressed in a Sanji-type suit and green tie that made him shift uneasily, his three swords still at his waist, and looking every bit out of place in the elegance of the ballroom.
He caught her eyes, then looked away, cursing under his breath, but didn't stop walking. "Hey," he greeted, finally stopping in front of her. "You look… Great." His eyes raked over her body in a blatant once-over. She couldn't help it; her heart rate quickened.
"You look like you'd rather be covered in blood and dirt," she replied, a twinkle in her eyes.
"Yeah. Well. I would," he confessed, his tone leaking a mild annoyance. "So…" He trailed off, and she raised an eyebrow, taking pleasure in making him squirm. She had to admit it was sort of cute to see him trying so hard to be articulate when normally all he did was grunt. "You having fun?"
She chuckled. "Yes, very much. I haven't gone to one of these dances in a long time." She smiled with feeling. "I was starting to miss it."
Zoro was momentarily stunned by that smile and then swore to himself again. He was out of his depth here. Why had he let Franky convince him to do this? He had to do something about his stupid manly pride. He sighed, and then decided to give up and act as he always did, leaning back on the wall and looking up. This thing with Robin would never work anyway. They'd been friends for so long that anything else was hard to imagine. He looked sideways at her. Hard to imagine… Yeah. She liked princelings with golden clothes that would sweep her off her feet, not awkward swordsmen.
He sighed again, relieved that he'd finally decided on something. It wasn't going to happen, and that was that. "At least one of us is happy," he grumbled bitterly. "Do you know what the deal is with this stupid mission?"
"More or less. That man," she gestured towards their fat, beardy client, "has come to negotiate with King Cobra the opening of a new diamond mine near Yuba. Unfortunately, the soldiers are quite busy helping to rebuild the towns all across the country, and security can never be too tight… It would be bad if anything happened to him. The negotiations would mean a great opportunity for the kingdom to boost its economy and re-establish its trade with other nations. If somebody wanted to hurt Alabasta while they're still recovering, going after this man would be one of the best ways to do it." Zoro noted the calm professionalism of the assessment, wondering if it was a leftover habit from her days as an assassin.
"Do you think something will happen?"
She looked pensive. "Probably, in my opinion. Some of Baroque Work's Millions are still free, and Alabasta also has enemies outside its borders." She lapsed into silence, and then smiled. "But nothing Luffy can't handle."
Zoro smiled in return. "Only if he stops stuffing his face."
Not too far from them, Sanji was feeling like he was in heaven. I mean, look at all these beauties, dressed in graceful but risqué dresses, just the way I like them, all paying attention to me. Yum. They crowded around him, probably thinking he was some rich young prince or at least a noble by the way he was dressed. He certainly wasn't going to be the one breaking to them that he was, in fact, just a measly pirate acting as a bodyguard.
Putting an arm around a blonde, he spotted Nami and waved. "Hey, Nami! Over here!" She gave him a look he didn't quite understand and turned her back to him. Cold. Oh well. His attention wandered back to the blonde, who was giggling and smiling up at him, showing an impressive cleavage. Definitely, this was heaven.
Right then Chopper smelled something weird. He tuned out Usopp's ramblings for a moment and cocked his head, trying to figure out what it was, but with the mix of food smells and smells of people he couldn't be quite sure. "Do you smell that?" he asked anyway.
Usopp made a show of sticking his long nose up in the air and sniffing loudly. "Nope. What is it?" One would think that such a long nose could be actually of some use, but it was entirely the opposite. Gravity tended to make snot clog up at the beginning of it and air usually had trouble passing through, which was also the reason for his nasal voice.
"It smells a bit like… Gunpowder?" People's heads curiously turned towards the reindeer when he said the word, at the same time as he realized the horror of it. "Gunpowder!" In an instant he changed to his biggest form and pushed their fat client behind a table, and then the whole room exploded.
Robin looked up at Zoro, who had pinned her to the ground a second before the explosion, as soon as he'd heard Chopper shout. He was now lying on top of her, the planes of his body pressed hard against her, one of his arms cushioning her head and the other around her waist. He looked back at her, very conscious on their position, his lips suddenly dry. He had to moisten them before he could speak. "Are you all right?"
Robin chuckled. The movement caused a friction between their tightly-pressed bodies that almost made Zoro groan - he forced himself to remain completely still and absolutely NOT grind his hips into hers no matter how much his body was begging him to... goddammit. The tension seemed to be only on his part, though, because she wasn't even looking at him. Her blue eyes were fixed on a spot above his shoulder, amused. "Yes."
Zoro turned his head, wondering what she was laughing at, and found himself nose to nose with a huge block of stone hanging just above them. With a start he realized it would have crushed them both, and all the people on the ground near them, had not a hundred of Robin's arms been holding it up.
He blushed, embarrassed that it was actually her who had saved him and not the other way round. She probably thought him stupid for wanting to play knight. He looked down at her again, knowing he was supposed to get off and push the block of stone away, but now, for some reason, he was having trouble abandoning his perfectly immobile state.
He could feel the rising and falling of her chest pressing up against his. It was driving him mad.
Their eyes locked. In the space between the ground and the rock they were safe from all prying eyes. He looked down at her swan's neck and swallowed. The urge to kiss it, to caress it with his tongue, was much stronger than before. She seemed to have noticed it this time, because when he looked back up at her face her blue eyes were wide and her lips slightly parted, her breath blowing warmly over the corner of his jaw.
As his lips were about to graze her skin, someone from the outside lifted the rock off them. Zoro immediately rolled away from her and stood up, pretending in his head that nothing had happened. He watched out of the corner of his eye how Sanji offered his hand to help Robin up.
Jesus.
What had he been about to do?
A.N.: Don't worry, just one more chapter to go before this little four-shot is over. As always, reviews are greatly appreciated :) What did you think of Zoro in a suit?