V: WARNING!!! This is by no means a happy fic. There is blood, tears, and character death. Once again, NOT A HAPPY FIC!!!
Red Smoke
The air wreaked of sulfur and blood, thin wisps of smoke dancing up to the overcast sky. Cries of pain and effort ripped across the landscape, and bodies that had forgotten how to process air came crashing to the ground. The earth was decorated with deep, angry gashes that served now as cups to the unyielding fall of blood. Steel flashed and sparked, as guns spat out their leaden projectiles, and limbs danced in vain. There existed nothing beyond the rage of battle, not a sky, not an ocean, the very world falling from existence as the maddened dance kept its fevered pace. And yet, even the cries of war fell silent for awhile, as two men waited for the inevitable to come.
Zoro cradled the head of an unconscious blonde in the basket of his legs, calloused fingers running gently over the quickening pale of the other's cheek. A stream of crimson ran from beneath Sanji's hair, rapidly coating the gold a shade of sickly red. The cook's sunken eyes revolved at a desperate pace behind their covers, an unintelligible slur of sound tripping from between his lips as his breathing was reduced to harsh gasps. And Zoro felt truly helpless for the first time in his life.
"Keep him awake!" Had been Chopper's final words of help, before the reindeer had been swept back into the tide of battle.
But for one to be kept awake, they first had to be awake. Sanji, unfortunately had been unconscious by the time the swordsman had been able to make his way to the fallen cook. So the task no became to wake the blonde, but how, Zoro could not say.
"Oi," called Zoro softly, as he carefully shook the cook's shoulder.
Sanji did not stir.
"Kuso-cook, snap out of it," He tried again, only to get nothing from the blonde below him.
"Baka," He spat, trying to turn his mask his concern as malice. "If you don't wake up I swear I'll slice open every last one of these marines, and then show your precious Nami-san the best fucking time of her life-"
"Nami-swan wouldn't touch you if you were the last piece of shitty-moss on this planet. Besides... I know from experience you don't work that way..." Sanji spat weakly, his eyes still closed, but a small smile flickered across his purple lips.
Zoro's breath left him in a wave of relief. "Think you know so much about me, do you eyebrow?"
"Marimo, I know things about you that would make your mother blush..." Sanji tried to chuckle, but only managed a small puff of air.
Zoro gave an indignant snort, "What I do is nothing compared to what you're capable of kuso-cook."
Sanji murmured incoherently as he began to fall from consciousness.
An icy grip of panic clutched the swordsman's heart. "Oi!" he tried not to scream, as he gently shook the blonde. "You can't do that. You've gotta keep talking."
"'m so tired Zoro," Sanji breathed, the sound barely more than a whisper. "Let's break tradition... and you talk for awhile." Each word came out as a near silent cry of pain as the cook struggled to make his lungs cooperate.
"No deal baka, you're not getting out of this that easily." Zoro growled, trying to keep the panicked tone from overtaking his voice. "If you can't think of anything to talk about then count."
"Zoro..." The sound was fleeting, and without force to carry it far beyond Sanji's lips.
"That's not a number idiot."
Something that could only be described as a sigh of the most resigned exhaustion, whispered passed the cook's lips. "One..." It was the most painful number Zoro had ever heard. "Two... three... seven... twelve..." The cook's voice faded out.
"No you don't." Zoro's tone was that of a parent of scolding a child. "Just keep counting damn it, that's all you have to do!" His emotions were quickly giving way to hysterics.
"God Zoro... I'm so tired... Just let me sleep..." The most miserable of requests whispered from the cook's lips.
"Not yet, you've gotta reach infinity first and then you can sleep." But Zoro knew full well that the cook was falling far too fast to be caught, but he choose to ignore this knowledge.
For awhile Sanji could only mime the movement of sound, his lips twitching like the last fleeting kicks of a drowning swimmer. But, finally, the cook's voice found a fleeting moment of traction "...love...Zoro..." were the words sacrificed by the final breath of air the cook had lost claim to, and everything became cold.
"Damn it, d- don't say that-" Zoro choked, aware that he was crying, but hardly cared. "You don't get to leave... y-you don't-" the words died, and Zoro surrendered.
Carefully picking up Sanji's limp form, knowing full well that the time for care had long since passed, he cradled the lifeless cook in his arms, letting his tears blaze trails of fire down his face. Around him the battle flared, the nameless cried, and smoke wafted solemnly towards the sky.
V: I told you it wasn't a happy fic. Why on earth did you read it?
