Chapter 7—Battle of the Jealous Pirates! Zoro v. Hancock!
After the kissing, the bittersweet smiles, and the barely-stifled laughter, Zoro had almost forgotten how sad his captain had looked when he'd been laying there so lifelessly, and when he'd been screaming about how he didn't want to be pirate king. Night cast itself upon the walls and festered across Luffy's heart and mind, bringing with it new tears. This time no words accompanied them—no shocking revelations of wanting to give up on his dreams, or even his own life, because Luffy was asleep.
His face nuzzled against Zoro's chest, damp eyelashes tickling his skin. Zoro himself was also asleep, but just as they had talked to each other in their sleep in the men's quarters, so they did now, even in this strange place and this strange situation.
"Ace," he wept.
"Luffy . . . don't cry."
"Why?"
"Shh, I'm here." Zoro pulled him close, feeling his own cheeks flush as he snored. One of those snores caught in his throat, and lead to a cough, which pushed him to the borders of wake. Quiet sobbing was the only sound, while outside everything bore that stillness and silence that comes with the hour three a.m. The moon waxed huge in the window, like it was spying on them, ringed by an azure sky.
"Shh, Luffy," he moaned sleepily.
"N-no." A gulping sound as the pirate tried to be brave and swallow his tears, but as the nightmare advanced, they wouldn't stop. "Ace. Don't die! Not for me!" A scream pierced the night, while a fist tried to shoot at Luffy's own head—even in slumber he was self-destructive—and landed a blow on Zoro's instead.
"AH!" Zoro bolted upright, his eyes entirely white, jaw gaping. The fist snapped back. It tried again. And this time, it found it's target.
"Why!" Zoro pinned his arms, but he'd already managed to give himself a black eye—and it hadn't even woken him up. "Kill me."
"Luffy. Wake up." Coarse hands gently shook him, while Zoro stared at his bed-mate with stern worry. "Luffy." It didn't work, but rubbery arms had now corkscrewed around his own arms, a leg around one of his own legs. Another leg circled weirdly about his torso, the pressure smushing their bodies together, making Zoro's lips hover inches over Luffy's. A kiss. A kiss would do it.
The moon poured milky light on them as his mouth planted itself on Luffy's. He felt almost guilty, doing this while he was asleep—it felt like the kiss was stolen, taken by force from a man who couldn't say no. His cheeks burned. The catatonic mouth didn't press back, lips frozen in a dream's kingdom. But the sobbing softened, to gentle streams of water trickling down his face.
A knock at the door—and Zoro couldn't move. The doorknob turned. Oh god. They were going to just . . . come in here? When he was tied up by Luffy's body like this? The door creaked open. He thrashed his leg in pointless panic as a light clicked on, filling the room with a very awkward scene. Boa Hancock just stared, trying to understand what was going on.
The covers were over them to the waist, and their shirts were off.
"Zoro," Luffy moaned in his sleep.
"Ah!" she gasped. Zoro turned a horrendous shade of crimson.
"I-IT'S NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE! HE'S ASLEEP!"
"I-in his sleep even? You rapist! HENTAI!" She shrieked, and proceeded to beat Zoro with open palms as hard as she could, while at the same time trying to avoid hitting Luffy.
"Gah! Yamete!" She hit very hard for a woman, but still, the hits weren't doing much good with respect to getting Zoro off him. She started to pull his leg instead, which didn't do much good either, noting the grip Luffy had established. "AH! You're pulling my leg off!"
"Shut up, rapist! Luffy! Oh, poor Luffy!" That's when Luffy looked up, finally awakened by the excessive commotion.
"Zoro? What's going—" He stopped that thought, evidently deciding he didn't care—and snapped all his limbs back to their original positions. This caused two things to happen. One, Hancock hadn't stopped pulling on Zoro's leg, so the sheer force she'd been producing had nothing to resist it, and he went flying into her. Second, it made the covers come off, and not wanting to see Luffy naked for the first time in a situation like this, Hancock closed her eyes.
In the darkness behind her eyelids, Hancock could feel someone pounce on her, could feel lips press to hers, and in her love-struck blindness, she could only imagine it was Luffy. She blushed, but her eyes flicked open to find—Zoro.
The force of the strong pull towards Hancock had sent Zoro spinning three-sixty in the air, and when he landed, it was on Hancock. What's worse, he had somehow managed to land on her in just such a way as to press their lips together entirely by accident. His eyes went wide with terror, his body entirely paralyzed. She pushed him off her.
"AH! Does your carnal lust never stop, Roronoa Zoro? First you rape Luffy, and now you try to rape me! Mero Mero Mellow!" Her hands formed a heart shape, pink floating hearts popping out, pouring through Zoro's chest, but with absolutely no effect. She balked. "W—how . . . ?"
"ZORO!" a familiar voice roared out somewhere behind his back. "I'm gonna kick your ass!" Hancock smirked.
"Allow me to help you, Luffy."
"Shut up! I'm gonna kick your ass too! Gomu Gomu no . . ."
"Luffy!" Zoro could see where this was going. "It was an accident!"
"Pistol!"
Zoro wanted very badly to leap out of the way, but he still couldn't move. The fist impacted with his face, sending him flying into the wall.
"S-stop it, Luffy! I wasn't—"
"Pistol!" Blood trickled down his lip. That punch had sent him flying into the room next door, but Luffy still didn't stop. "Gatling Gun!" There was nothing Zoro could do but fight him—and his swords were on the other side of the room he'd just been pushed out of. He dodged the next attack, running past Hancock, who lay sprawled on the floor, breathing heavily, tears in her eyes. The swords were within his grasp when an uppercut hit him from behind, throwing him off his feet and onto his face.
He got up, fingers closing around hilts which fit into his hands like they were an extension of his arms, of his soul even. The swords were in his hands and mouth now. Good. But when he looked up, Luffy was just standing there, gasping, tears streaming down his face for the millionth time in the past week. The swords fell. "Luffy . . ."
"Shut up!" The captain's fingers clenched, shook.
Hancock managed to sit up, her face resting in the palms of her hands. It was . . . unthinkable. But he had said he was going to kick her ass. Hers. The woman who had helped him, had such strong affection for him—could he even doubt her intentions? Could he really think she'd kissed Zoro on purpose? "Luffy," she begged. "I didn't kiss him on purpose! I didn't . . . I didn't." Her massive chest was heaving, her eyes very, very sad.
"Luffy. Hancock. Let's just assume everything was an accident. He pulled me on him when I was asleep! And I . . . I didn't try to kiss you! It just happened!"
The snake empress raised a tired hand to her chest, feeling her own heart pound. It made sense. They weren't naked, like she had first thought—and Luffy'd had his limbs wrapped around Zoro. Zoro had really been the one being held down, evidently by a man who had just randomly tied him up like that in his sleep. How could her faith in her love have fallen so far, that she doubted one of his crewmates, a person he'd hand-picked as a nakama? That she'd speculated back then, when the swordsman first burst into her private quarters, that Luffy was picking Zoro over her?
Luffy had clearly just missed his friend, who he was more familiar with, and wanted to spend time alone with him. She inhaled deeply, trying to regain some dignity and composure, trying to think of an excuse for jumping to such a debauched conclusion—and then she felt her cheeks turn pink when she understood Luffy's reaction to the "kiss." He was jealous of Zoro, thinking the man had been making a move on his . . . his . . .
His woman.
She almost fainted. "Luffy," she gasped. "I'm sorry for making you jealous. But, I believe him. That kiss was an accident." Of course, in Luffy's mind that apology read, I'm sorry for making you jealous (of me). He still had no idea what went on in this woman's mind—how she thought her relationship was with him. How she'd misread his lips at Impel Down, and thought he'd mouthed that he loved her.
"It's . . . it's okay, Hancock. Zoro." His face was drenched in shadows as he looked down on them—but even when he lay back on the bed and the chandelier blanched his skin, made light the dark, it was impossible to know what he thought.
"Now what did you come in here for?" Zoro spun a sword in his fingers, the tip impaled slightly in the floor.
"Roronoa Zoro . . . Gomenasai. For what I accused you of." Her head hung low.
"I didn't ask for an apology. I asked what's going on."
"I wanted to tell you, Luffy—another one of your crewmates showed up in Shabaody. We sent the ship to get her a few hours ago, so she should be arriving any moment."
Whatever dark thoughts had been twirling around in the captain's head instantly vanished at the thought of seeing another nakama, and he lurched upright on the bed. "Really? Who is it, Nami or Robin?" A stone settled heavily in Hancock's gut at the mention of her competition. It was bad enough when she'd found out there had been a third woman on his crew who he hadn't mentioned—though she supposed that was a good sign, if Luffy found her forgettable.
"Neither of them." Luffy and Zoro exchanged a glance of confusion. "I think the name was . . . Sanji."
"Sanji? Sanji's not a girl," Luffy noted, and tipped his head to the side. His face was so serious as he tried to work the problem out in his head that it was absurd.
"Sanji got mistaken for a girl?" The smile on Zoro's face refused to die down.
And that's when a silhouette frolicked daintily through the door. Zoro's eyes started at the feet, noting a pair of shiny, red high heels. . . .
