Come Back

by smileysoul

Sanji's convictions have ended up harming the crew more than he ever expected. Zoro can't stand the way the cook seems to slowly lose himself after this. Can he manage to bring him back? (Zosan and rated M for further chapters, just in case)

34. Chapter 34 - The Itch

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Chapter 34

The Itch

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Zoro was, not to anyone's surprise by now, in quite a bad mood.

He closed the door behind his steps with less aggressiveness than he had originally mustered when he had opened it, hitting him at the very last second that Sanji was sleeping and Chopper would kill him if his carelessness dared to interrupt his rest.

He was fast to forget Chopper's orders not to move too harshly, though, as he proceeded to stomp downstairs, jumping every two steps in order to save the time it would take to step on one at a time. Nami, who was on watch, had been pestering him long enough for him to decide it was time to flee and do it fast, else he'd throw a tantrum and risk waking up the annoying sleeping beauty he had for a roommate and, maybe, strangle the redhead in the process.

For the past few days, his life had been kind of a constant stressing challenge.

There was the fact that Chopper had kept him locked in that damn room longer than he could stand, to start with. It was only three days ago when the reindeer had decided that Zoro was free to go for a 'gentle' walk around the hotel gardens or pick his own food at the buffet restaurant they had downstairs as opposed to spending all day long in between the same four walls and having his food brought to him by his crewmates. He suspected it had been exactly them who had teamed up in order to force a bit of a break out of Chopper. He also suspected that the reason would be the fact that they must have been considerably fed up with Zoro's increasingly insufferable mood, which he had no one to pour onto except for them. Since they had to take turns to watch over Sanji, they also had to stand Zoro barking shit at them for no valid reason, so they had ended up begging for Chopper to let him leave the damn room thus leaving them alone. Zoro couldn't really blame them. He actually thanked them dearly; he was about to go nuts.

Just that the gardens became boring within about the same time it took for Zoro to get lost, and he was about to go nuts again because he needed out already, dammit.

There was also the fact that he had been kept locked in that damn room with Sanji: which meant he had been spending almost all of his breathing hours around the blonde. Taking into account his current inner turmoil regarding the cook, the extra hours spent with him didn't help one bit.

It was decidedly better now that Sanji kept waking up every now and then, reassuring him of the fact that he wasn't a corpse (which had been a huge trigger to his obsession while Sanji had been permanently unconscious), but it also meant that he got to interact with him. And, even if he had already decided that straight avoiding him would only backfire (as it had done before), he also knew that his promise to get rid of his inner issues with the blonde could use some time away from him, which he wasn't being granted.

Sanji got to sleep longer and way more often than Zoro thanks to the sedatives Chopper still administered on him, but he was just as fed up with the situation as the swordsman was. They weren't ones to be kept locked up, much less still on a bed, which was Sanji's current predicament.

It was no wonder that they were both irritable enough as to turn every single conversation into an argument, which would've been fine if they had been able to fight it out, but they weren't allowed to, which meant they had to ultimately keep it in and bottle it up; things they weren't good at.

By now the tension was very much real and tangible and all of their interactions grazed the edge of exploding. Zoro would very much appreciate the possibility to punch Sanji in the face and turn it into one of their usual all-out fights which they both loved, the kind that got rid of tense situations within the blink of an eye, but it's not like he could do that, so he was pretty much screwed and doomed to a life of self-restraint.

The experience was testing his already limping self-control which he had vowed to regain, and Zoro wasn't happy about that. It wasn't only the lingering need of a fight at the end of each of their arguments playing with him, it was also the peaceful and seemingly irrelevant moments that kept putting him to test. Such as when Sanji was sleeping. Sometimes his breathing would be way more imperceptible than usual and worry would creep on him as Sanji's resting figure resembled the one he had been forced to live with while they still didn't know if the blonde would ever wake up again. Just that now there were way less tubes and medical stuff stuck to the blonde's body, not to mention the fact that Zoro knew Sanji would indeed wake up in a few hours, maybe just a few minutes, because the cook was fine. Which meant his slightly anxious moments spread here and there along the day didn't have any solid reason to lay on.

He was doing better, though. Before Sanji had woken up, anxiety had taken over Zoro, turning him into someone he didn't recognize. Once the blonde had finally opened his eyes, he found himself feeling way chiller and controlled. But that's only because, right before that, his situation had been quite extreme and nothing like Zoro; anything was better than that.

It hadn't gone away, it was most definitely there in the way his brain would overthink shit in the silence of the night, in the way he'd find himself checking on Sanji without his consent, in the way he felt extra trapped in that room by the mere fact that Sanji was there with him, which wouldn't have worried him before as much as it would've simply pissed him off.

Or in the way he found himself staring at Sanji for no valid reason at all more often than not.

But he was doing better, he swore. Or he would've if their arguments and the fighting ban hadn't become a ticking bomb which they couldn't really let explode. That was building up and making it seem like his issues with Sanji were being thrown right at his face as he felt his scarce self-control sliding away from his hands.

That is also why he almost broke a rolling trail and nearly caused a concussion on a waiter as he aggressively stomped into the buffet restaurant located in the first floor of the hotel and collided into them, barely saving the silverware and the poor man's skull at the last second as he managed to keep the trail balanced and hold the waiter by his elbow while trying to keep his heart down his throat.

"Oh my God, sir, I-" the waiter babbled as he scrambled to his feet with an 'I-have-seen-Death-walk-by' expression making his face seem like he was about to have a stroke while he tried to compose himself. "I am so sorr-"

"My fault, my fault," Zoro growled under his breath as he pushed the tray towards the waiter for him to hold and shut up.

Then he stomped, less aggressively this time, towards the buffet counters with a deep scowl and his nerves fried. He filled a plate worth of anything he had a craving for, knowing full well that he was throwing through the window the healthy diet Sanji had imposed on all of them, and sat down on an empty spot by the window, glaring outside as if the exterior he had been banned from stepping on was at fault of everything going wrong in his life.

It was fairly early in the morning, early enough as for the place to have just a few commensals and ooze peacefulness. Last night's parties around the city had died down just a few hours ago and it was safe to say that most of Terevera's citizens and visitors had attended at least one of them, as they'd do every single night as long as they could afford it, so most of them were still sleeping in: that was also the reason why the buffet was open all day long and breakfast options were extended until they mixed with lunch, knowing that most of their clients would show up passed noon. No need to mention how happy Luffy had been when he had known that, but even the wealthy hotel couldn't keep up with their captain's unreasonable needs, which always caused problems between the staff and the human vacuum that insisted in sucking every last crumble of food to be served on a daily basis, putting in danger the rest of the guests' feeding in the process.

Waking up early had its perks, though; Luffy was usually asleep by then, which meant Zoro wasn't the one in charge to clean up the mess after him while trying to avoid them being kicked out of the hotel. The rest of the crew didn't seem to have picked up on that or maybe they just didn't really care as long as they could sleep their hangovers away, and so they were the ones to go through all the trouble when they went for breakfast with their captain right when the restaurant was the most crowded which, put all together, turned into the most conflictive moment of the day. Zoro was usually back in his room by then, but that didn't mean he was much better off since that also meant he was back with Sanji.

Zoro sighed and stuffed his mouth. All in all, breakfast was his breather and probably his most precious private time lately, so he took his time to enjoy it, postponing going back to his room as much as he could while keeping in mind that he had to leave slightly before his problematic crew made their way downstairs, else Nami would order him to stay and fix the mess for them.

At some point he found his brain finally disconnecting and managing to keep Sanji out of the picture as he concentrated on hating life and the prohibition to leave the damn hotel with all of his might. By the time he raised his head, he noticed there was a pretty obvious gap between his table and the rest of the taken ones. It was pretty hard to ignore the fearful glances thrown his way; he must've been glaring pretty hard. Maybe they had picked up on the fact that Zoro wanted to murder something and had decided to stay out of harm's way. Clever choice.

Zoro finished his plate and stood up to fill another one, frowning at everyone he caught looking at him. The waiters hadn't even bothered to ask him if he needed help with anything, they had learned to keep their distance, and Zoro was fine with that. He wanted to be left alone.

When he sat back down he sighed again as he threw a longing gaze out of the window, feeling an itch in every cell of his body as restlessness took over him. He really needed out.

Just as his thoughts went back to a plan to sneak out of the damn hotel, a crash and a few yells gathered his attention. A boisterous laugh and loud apologies made him close his eyes tight and count until ten in order to keep himself from killing someone. What was his luck? Another crash and a few more yells had him slamming his hand against the table, standing up with a fierce scowl and a roar.

"Luffy!"

His captain sent him a confused look from where he was standing in between a mess of broken platters and lots of food scattered on the floor, half of it already stuffed in his mouth. The staff were surrounding him with desperate expressions, but they had stopped yelling at him as soon as Zoro had started.

"Zoro! What are you doing here? It's quite early!" Luffy blurted at the same time pieces of masked food fell from his mouth. Luffy wasn't one for manners.

"My very fucking line," Zoro growled as he made his way towards the mess.

What the hell was Luffy doing there? He always overslept. His gaze settled on one of the waiters as he forced himself to pull an apologetic look, which he sucked at but still needed to do if he didn't want the board of the hotel kicking them out since they were testing their patience on a regular basis in quite extreme ways.

"I'll keep him with me, sorry about that," Zoro masked in distaste. He wasn't one for apologies.

He took a hold of Luffy's ear and dragged him behind him, ignoring his complaints. It was all he could do to not strangle the raven haired kid.

"Okay, you sit down right here and don't move," Zoro ordered with a prominent stab in each of his words as he pushed Luffy on a chair in front of his, forcing him to sit down.

"But-"

"I don't want to hear it. I'll pick your food; you are forbidden to come anywhere near it, got that?"

"But-"

"I swear, Luffy, I'll tell curly-brow to fucking diminish your food portions once he gets back to cooking if you touch anything else," Zoro threatened.

Luffy looked offended as he had ever been. "But it's not fair!"

"Move an inch and I'll tell him to keep meat out of your meals."

Luffy clacked his mouth shut and glared hard at him, feeling beyond betrayed and outraged. Zoro didn't give a fuck. He had just wanted to have a quiet morning away from Sanji and now he was stuck dealing with Luffy's mess and playing babysitter because their captain had opportunely chosen that particular day to wake up early and start giving shit to the hotel staff.

He came back with several platters worth of all kinds of food in order to make sure that Luffy ingested enough as to whine less later, but not as much as to upset the restaurant's staff further. He swore one of these days they'd lose their patience and kick them out. Just as Zoro was one strand away from losing his.

"I stood still."

"Eat this and shut up. You are giving me a headache," Zoro groaned as he massaged his nose and went back to eating, his short-lived peace broken.

Luffy was surprisingly energetic that morning. He normally felt like shit the day after partying hard and, from what Nami had told him when she had started her watch over Sanji, last night hadn't exactly been chill for the Strawhats. Zoro internally whined. Not only was Luffy energetic, he was fucking talkative as well.

He was spurting the first things that came to his mind, which made no sense to Zoro, and he swore the conversation didn't even have a point to begin with. Zoro settled for looking at Luffy in annoyance and confusion and nod or shake his head every now and then, since he couldn't possibly have a decent comeback to half of the things Luffy said. At some point he just tuned him down, concentrating on his food and giving up on following Luffy's train of thought.

He had the suspicion that his captain hadn't yet gone to sleep. He had seen him like this a few times already, and it always happened after he had gotten really drunk. There was a small breach between drunk Luffy and snoring-his-life-away Luffy in which the alcohol effects started to recede and his brain gave up on inventing new tricks to amuse himself and his public, a small breach of time in which Luffy became a) voraciously hungry, much to Sanji's dismay, and b) a nonsense-spurting specimen who didn't know when to stop talking or what he was talking about for that matter. It was just Zoro's luck that he had been the one to have to deal with it today.

Luffy had been going on about how much he missed Sanji's food, all the while whining at how there wasn't enough in the platters Zoro had brought him, but Zoro had shut him down as soon as the thought of Sanji's homemade breakfast irrupted in his mind, making him frown. It surprised him how much he actually missed it, as much as it pissed him off. If Sanji ever knew that, he'd make his life hell. He got angry at himself and glared hard at his dish, engulfing the last bit of scrambled egg and taking three large sips of his orange juice with almost an aggressive demeanor, trying to force the thought of Sanji's meals out of his mind before it rose the question of when Sanji would be able to cook again, which he wasn't in the mood to think about.

"By the way, what's it like?"

Zoro came back from wherever he was keeping his thoughts from going as his brain detected a change of topic, which required his attention back if he didn't want Luffy sulking and whining about the fact that Zoro wasn't listening to him, which Zoro didn't have the patience to put up with anymore. He gave Luffy a questioning look. Luffy being random was quite their day to day routine, and he had been so for the past twenty minutes, but even Zoro got lost with him sometimes. One never knew what came next with Luffy, and he could just hope he wouldn't ask him about how babies were made.

"What's what like?"

"Living in perpetual denial."

Zoro choked on his own saliva and he swore that had been a close call. "What?" he managed with a strangled voice.

"Nami said you seemed to enjoy it but I don't really get it. Do you really enjoy it? What are you in denial about anyways?"

Zoro swore he was going to kill that bitch.

---

"What the fuck did you tell him?!" he barked the moment he barged into his deeply hated hotel room.

Nami turned around in her seat to send him an unimpressed look.

"Who did I tell what?"

"Don't play dumb!" Zoro irritably yelled as he threateningly stood in front of her with an accusing finger pointed at her face.

Nami frowned at him, both in annoyance and confusion, the gesture coming out as quite authentic and believable.

"Zoro, I honestly don't know what you are on about," she tiredly replied.

She hadn't gone to sleep yet since she had started her watch right after the party had ended, and she was honestly having trouble staying awake.

Zoro didn't buy her confusion for a second. Her furrowed eyebrows only managed to irk him more, if that was even possible.

"Don't you fucking lie, witch!"

"Oi!"

Zoro blinked in surprise when Sanji's voice interrupted whatever Nami was about to retort, causing both of them to turn their heads towards the blonde, who was making an effort to sit on his bed, sending a deadly glare at Zoro.

"You're supposed to be sleeping," Zoro intelligently babbled, suddenly feeling his stomach drop in nervousness. It's not like Sanji could know what Zoro was talking about, but the fact of having him aware of Zoro's outburst made it seem like he had been caught red-handed. Which was stupid, really, since not even Zoro knew what he was talking about. Nami's words, which Luffy had repeated, could've referred to anything or nothing at all, it didn't necessarily have to be related to the blonde, but Zoro had had that feeling ever since Luffy had spurted the question, and he couldn't shake it away. What exactly had Nami meant and what exactly had she said?

"Not if you break in here yelling like a caveman," Sanji huffed, his tone clearly pissed off. He scrunched his eyebrows for a second and the thought hit Zoro that the blonde might be having an actual headache, but Sanji was fast to compose himself and go back to his glaring marathon. "Also, don't you dare yell at her again or I'm going to kick your sorry ass."

"Sanji, you need to rest," Nami's calm voice interceded.

Which made Zoro automatically snap.

"Shut your-"

"Don't be rude to her!" Sanji barked, not letting him finish whatever he was going to spit.

And really, Zoro's patience had seen better days.

"Can't you leave me alone?!" he yelled, his tone tight and high-pitched with stress.

"I will when you leave her alone," Sanji firmly replied.

Nami rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, sending them an unamused look. This kind of scene had been the usual ever since those two had been put together under the same pirate flag, but the confrontations had only gotten worse ever since they had been stuck in that room, and it was never fun for the one on watch to witness.

"Sanji, I'm fine," she cut in with a sigh. Then she gave a pointed look at Zoro, silently demanding what the hell was going on. She was sleepy and she didn't have time for this.

Zoro stressedly glared at her, then at Sanji. He went back to face her and turned her around so that his back was facing Sanji and the blonde couldn't see Nami's face behind him.

"What did you tell Luffy?" he angrily whispered.

Nami squinted her eyes, not really getting what Zoro was talking about. That until her eyebrows shot high and her expression became one of surprised awareness. So she had told him something.

"Ooops," she let out, planting both her hands in front of her to keep her distance from Zoro.

"'Ooops' what?"

"Never mind, I was drunk. Never mind, never mind," she waved away with a sly smile. She looked both surprised at the memory and amused by it.

Which made Zoro's temper boil.

"Oi! What the hell did you-"

Just as he had taken a menacing step towards Nami, a hand grabbed the back of his shirt and harshly turned him around, after which Zoro found himself being kept in place by Sanji's fist around his collar.

"Stop. Annoying her," Sanji ordered with a deep scowl, which Zoro returned instantly.

And, really, Zoro was usually in control of his own actions; he was especially careful of his reactions when he knew somebody needed him to measure them (which Sanji objectively needed right now), but his instincts finally kicked in full-force and he suddenly had his forehead clashing against Sanji's and his fist grabbing the blonde's shirt.

"You are asking for it, shit cook!"

"Hey, you two stop it already!" Nami groaned behind them, her face reading 'done'.

"Wanna fight me?" Sanji growled back.

By now he had also lost his composure and was letting himself be driven by his natural instincts, by how he knew how to end arguments their way and not the sensible one. Sanji was honestly tired of letting arguments die and end up in frustration for the sake of his own health.

Both of them missed their own way to handle things, as dysfunctional as it may seem to outsiders, and it had only taken one of them to use his hands for the other to react and for both of them to break the dreaded boundaries and welcome the fight. They were too pissed off, both at each other and at the world, and they had been bottling up too much as to care about what was sensible or not anymore.

Sanji felt adrenaline running through his veins the moment Zoro's hand got a hold of his clothes. His feet itched for contact and he knew, by the way Zoro's fingers twitched, that the green head itched for his confiscated swords as well. He only realized he had let a smirk come out the moment he saw it on Zoro's face.

"I told you to stop!" Nami ordered, her tone biting. Chopper wasn't going to like this and she was too tired as to physically pull them apart. Not to mention the fact that she was 200% done with both of them by now.

Zoro's arm flexed as he shoved Sanji back without getting rid of the fabric in between his hands, which made him follow Sanji's steps right away. Just that Sanji was supposed to shove back or kick him. Instead, he tripped. It's not like anyone would have noticed had they been watching, but Zoro's hand against Sanji's chest felt the slightest quiver in the blonde's balance the moment he placed his last step on the floor, and he could definitely read the surprise in his eyes as he realized he didn't have everything under control.

Zoro wouldn't have needed to do so, but he pulled Sanji back the moment he felt it: a slight twitch of his biceps and Sanji was back in balance, his body closer to his.

It was right then when their fighting thirst broke. It turned to ashes the moment they both felt the minuscule misstep. It burned down the moment Zoro saw confusion cross Sanji's features, the moment he knew Sanji's sight had clouded for a second as the blonde blinked four times and looked straight into Zoro's eyes with a stern expression mirroring his.

Zoro felt frustration come back full-force, hitting him in the face like a slap. He clenched his jaw, knowing that his pent-up sour mood's outlet was being blocked again and was going to be so for a considerable amount of time. He wasn't good at self-restraint; not when he had a challenge in front of him and he couldn't take it. And it was taking a toll on him, especially when he had so much frustration caged inside to let out.

Sanji's hand lessened the pressure on Zoro's shirt, almost letting it go, barely resting his fingers against it, and that was when Zoro realized his eye had been planted on Sanji's lips for a good ten seconds, which he was now hyper aware of. Sanji was frowning at him and, in between the frustration he was oozing, Zoro could read a warning.

Just that he didn't take it.

His eye was still fixed on Sanji's lips, which were too close for comfort yet too alluring to stop looking at.

Sanji's hand finally let go of him and Zoro felt the tension in how Sanji's jaw clenched painfully.

Maybe it was that last gesture that made Zoro snap back into reality, his eye shooting straight towards Sanji's blue ones in a slightly freaked out tic as realization hit him.

"Fuck."

Zoro let go of Sanji as if his hand had caught fire. He was deeply aware of Nami's presence behind him all of the sudden, which made him turn back and glare at her, not sure of what to do with himself.

Fleeing sounded inviting.

And so he did.

"Where are you going? You need to rest as well," Nami wearily asked from the door frame, poorly hiding a tiny bit of concern which Zoro would never admit having sensed.

But she didn't have much time to get annoyed at the greenhead's sudden disappearance. Her attention was caught by the fact that Sanji didn't bother yelling back at Zoro or scolding him for ignoring her. By the time she glanced at him, he was sitting back in bed with a dark frown tinting his features in a worn out way Nami had never seen him show. When he noticed she was looking at him, he gave her a small smile and a quiet apology. Next thing she knew he was laying on his side, sheets covering his shoulders and face towards the wall so that Nami couldn't get a glimpse of it.

Nami rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time that day and sat back down on her chair, wishing for the last half hour of her watch to go by fast. She needed some sleep. And she needed to be away from that pair of ungrateful idiots. If they ever knew all the trouble she was going through for them, Zoro would surely be less of an asshole to her, but it's not like she would ever tell them.

She cursed herself a bit, though. Someone had introduced to the Strawhats one of Terevera's most successful drinks last night, which they had abused of, and she had gotten pretty drunk (like, really drunk: the drink looked like nothing, but it had hit them in the face with the force of a truck after a few pints), but that didn't excuse out-of-topic comments slipping her lips in front of careless people like Luffy. It had been an innocent remark, really, a random thought she had put out loud in between sips as she had been complaining about how stupid Zoro and Sanji were, but it turned out it hadn't only been Robin listening; Luffy was also by her side.

Name clicked her tongue. Oh, well.

As for Sanji, if his mood had been bad up until now, it had only gotten worse in a matter of seconds. Just when he had found an outlet to his frustrations, his body had messed up with the opportunity. He was angry at himself, angry at his weak body. It's not like it had been a big misstep, but both of them knew when things weren't 100% alright. Months before they would've still fought, wounded or not, just for the fun of it, just to let their frustrations out, but things had slowly been changing lately and they now found themselves being more thoughtful towards each other. Not only that, they had received a pretty clear ultimatum from Chopper: they weren't allowed to fool around and this time it was a serious order. Sanji's overdose had gotten the worst out of Chopper and they both knew that messing up with him wouldn't cut it anymore, at least for a while, so they stuck to obeying the medical protocol, even if was clearly taking a toll on their patience.

That hadn't been what had unsettled him the most out of everything, though.

He pressed his lips together, clenching his teeth and cursing around in the privacy of his head.

He had seen the way Zoro had stared at his lips.

His stomach had dropped and it was now churning violently in an ocean of pent-up tension.

His levels of frustration, which were already high, had skyrocketed, and he found himself not knowing what to do with himself anymore.

---

"Chopper!"

Zoro's fist knocked hard against the rich wooden door at a frantic pace. He was standing outside the room Chopper, Luffy and Usopp shared and he knew almost for sure that both the long-nose and their doctor would still be sleeping since they had probably only gotten in bed two or three hours ago, but he decided he didn't give a fuck if he woke them up. They were all partly responsible of his distress after all, especially Chopper.

"Oi! Open the damn door, I need to talk to you, come on!"

He didn't normally talk like this to the reindeer. If he was to be honest, he did have a soft spot for their doctor, and he would always have extra patience and tactfulness when interacting with him, but his restraint had reached its limit and his mood was at its lowest, so there was no special treatment this time around.

"Hey! Chopper!"

He then heard muffled sounds coming from the other side of the door, and he slammed his fist against the hard wood once more for emphasis before falling silent and waiting for them to let him in. He heard a faint click and next thing he saw was Usopp's sleepy face looking both confused and pissed off.

"What is going on?" the snipper whined the moment he saw Zoro's scowl. "You woke me up, I have barely slept, man, couldn't you just-"

"I need to talk to Chopper," Zoro prodded.

He made it to force his way passed the sniper and inside, but he stopped mid-step as he took notice of Usopp's change of expression. It went from barely awake and whiney to full-on aware and worried, which had Zoro frowning back at him in disconcert.

"Is Sanji okay?" Usopp asked, fully serious this time.

Zoro blinked in bewilderment, his heart skipping a beat at the mention of Sanji's name, the same feeling of nervousness hitting him like a hammer. Why was Usopp asking about Sanji? What did he know? What did he-?

Then realization assaulted him and his freaked-out frown softened as he tried to find coherent words to answer him with.

"He is fine," he successfully managed to reassure him, internally berating himself for being an idiot.

He had done it again. He hadn't realized he had been doing it until now, but it had been happening a lot lately: every time someone mentioned Sanji or slipped a comment which Zoro's brain somehow (and sometimes irrationally) linked to the cook, Zoro got that weird feeling of having been caught, a feeling triggered by the thought that everyone else seemed to know something he didn't. Every time Sanji was mentioned, his automatic reaction would be wondering why he had been mentioned in front of him, and what hid behind those words. Which was idiotic. For the most part, there was never a hidden meaning, it was just a random comment which Zoro somehow turned into a threatening chimera in his head.

He had just thrown a tantrum at Nami without really knowing what Luffy was on about (even if he was pretty sure it did have something to do with Sanji, if he had to take Nami's usual knack for complicating his life into account). If he had to be rational, his reaction had been way too overly-exaggerated and probably unnecessary.

Just now, he had gotten blocked at Usopp's question simply because he hadn't been expecting him to somehow bring the cook into the conversation, which he had done out of the blue. It had been stupid. Of course Usopp would ask. Zoro was permanently sharing his time with Sanji and he had practically barged into their room at an unusual hour with a pretty hysterical attitude calling for their doctor; anyone would've assumed there may be something wrong with the blonde.

Zoro groaned and walked inside with his temper boiling. He did have a problem. Not only was he slightly obsessed ('slightly' because he wouldn't admit to anything else), he was also paranoid now.

He blamed it all on the stress and frustration of being locked up.

And this is why he was there.

"Chopper," he called, taking a small detour to find Chopper staring at him from Luffy's empty bed, more than likely not knowing what was going on. He looked more asleep than awake.

Zoro walked towards him, his steps far from his usual nonchalant ones. He felt and looked nervous and fidgety, and that was unusual enough as for Chopper to knit his eyebrows questioningly, trying to clear his head.

Zoro didn't give him the time to start processing what was being said to him before kneeling down in front of the reindeer and starting on his rant.

"Look. I have been obedient. I have done what you wanted me to do, I have behaved," he pointed out, his tone clearly pissed off. "But I need out. And I need out now, Chopper, not in a few days when I am feeling better because there's no feeling better if I have to spend one more second in between these fucking walls."

Chopper openly frowned at him. He was about to say something, but Zoro cut him without a second thought.

"I am asking nicely so that you have a chance to put your own conditions if that'll leave you feeling less stressed out about this. But if I get a no, I'll still flee this damn shitty hole, and I'll do things my way-"

"Will you shut up?" Chopper snapped. He was scowling hard, and even if he looked way more adorable than menacing, Zoro knew that the reindeer was genuinely annoyed, which made him do as he was told for once.

Usopp was staring at them from his bed, frown in place and fingers intertwined. He just wanted to go to sleep, to be honest. Yet he couldn't bring himself to try to kick Zoro out: the swordsman was clearly stressed out and about to burst, and the fact that he was showing it was alarming in itself. He had seen it coming. Zoro wasn't made to be locked up, much less with Sanji as a roommate, much less after they had all been scared to death when Sanji's heart had stopped beating, which had put a stress yoke on each one of them but had affected Zoro way more than it had affected the rest, leaving him acting a bit out of character for a while now. They had all seen it, even if they hadn't really commented on it. And Zoro had been bottling it up ever since without a real outlet to use, since Sanji was his usual way out and he wasn't a possibility right now. Usopp was genuinely surprised that Zoro hadn't yet broken shit.

"I am letting you out," Chopper reticently conceded. Which surprised everyone in the room. None of them had expected Chopper to give in this easily. "I was about to, anyways."

"You were about to?" Zoro asked in angry disbelief.

"Yes, I was planning on discharging you tomorrow, but if you're going to suffer a stroke over a few more hours I might as well just do it now," he groaned, his voice thick with sleep.

Zoro blinked a few times, not really knowing what to say next. He had been planning on ranting for hours until he got his liberty back, and he was planning on being pretty aggressive about it, so he was a bit at loss of what to do right now.

"I bet there's a 'but'," he suspiciously pointed out.

"There are several 'buts' indeed, but it's not like you have a choice," Chopper stubbornly replied, his frown deeper and all the more adorable, yet severe. Chopper was a weird combination of adjectives; it usually confused the hell out of Zoro, who couldn't decide if he wanted to yell at the reindeer or use him as his personal teddy bear.

Not that he'd ever own or want a teddy bear, of course.

He settled for rolling his eyes for good measure in aggravation.

"List them."

"You don't get to go out alone."

"Wait-"

"You don't seem to understand. This is not negotiable, by any means," Chopper cut him, his tone as professional and severe as it could get. When he went into doctor mode he really did a 360◦ turn personality-wise. "Either you accept or I tie you down in a bed, don't go thinking I'll let you do what you want without my supervision, because I am intent on resorting to drastic measures this time around since neither you nor Sanji seem to understand the meaning of common sense."

Zoro looked way beyond outraged at that, but Chopper didn't give him the chance to start an argument.

"You don't get to go out alone," he repeated, more firmly this time. "I don't want you picking fights and getting hurt again."

"But I am fine! For fuck's sake, Chopper, it wasn't me who was gravely injured! I've been way worse and up and working in less than 12 hours, stop treating me like I'm a weakling!"

"And here I thought you wanted out," Chopper airily sighed, leaving Zoro with his mouth open and finally clacking shut. His patience was about to burn to ashes.

"What else?"

"You are going to let me examine your wounds before you go out and you are going to let me sleep first. Which means you will be able to go out tonight with us when we attend whichever party Nami decides we'll be going to, but not before."

They shared a leveled defying glare, but Zoro didn't open his mouth to complain. He needed Chopper's permission and he had just decided he'd grab onto anything he offered as long as it meant leaving his room and the hotel.

"Also, you are not drinking tonight. I don't want alcohol messing with the stuff I am still administering to you. Are we clear on this?"

Zoro let out a huff as his eye rolled to the ceiling in frustration, but he ended up nodding. He was pissed off. He didn't like these conditions. Especially not the last one. Definitely not the last one.

"Okay."

"Cool. Now let us sleep."

"About time," they heard Usopp mutter in relief.

---

Music was blasting through speakers and Zoro swore he had never seen as much madness concentrated in one place, which is saying a lot taking into account that the Strawhats were specialists in installing madness everywhere they went to.

Okay, if he were to be honest, he had been in equally as mad parties before, but this one could be counted inside his personal top 10 list.

Everyone, except for Robin, who had stayed with Sanji, was there, and Zoro could already feel his heart beating at the same beat the music had set, a small smirk slipping as adrenaline tickled him in the slightest tantalizing way.

"You don't get to drink," Chopper reminded him.

Zoro looked back at him with a scowl and waved him away.

"I'm being serious."

"Me too," Zoro yelled over the deafening noise engulfing them. "Now let me be."

Chopper was about to retort again, but Usopp conveniently appeared by his side and dragged him away towards the bar.

"He can't drink!" he faintly heard Chopper screech at their backs, but Zoro could only grin. Usopp was saying something as well, something about a drink, but Zoro couldn't quite grasp what his words meant. Damn, it was loud.

Zoro patiently (and frustratingly) waited for Usopp to get his first pint of the night without giving in to the need of getting one himself, then got dragged back to the very center of the mess, where Luffy was already doing something stupid which made them laugh like hyenas straight away.

Even without drinking, he had a feeling it was going to be a good night.

That's why he couldn't quite explain why, even after a good two hours of being dragged around and laughing at the most idiotic things his crewmates could muster, he still had that nagging feeling creeping into him. It was the kind of restlessness that turns into an itch, one that can't be scratched away and bugs you all night long, keeping a permanent tight knot in your chest. It wasn't necessarily bad or fun-impeding, but it was there and very presently so.

Maybe he had too much stress bottled up as to have gotten rid of it yet, no matter how much he had been laughing and yelling over the last few hours. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that everyone around him was wasted while he had to deal with everything while being sober (and, yes, Zoro didn't really get drunk no matter how much alcohol he actually downed, but there was a solid difference between having a warm buzz in your system and not feeling it at all).

Maybe frustration was still hitting him like a truck.

At some point he saw a flash of blonde and something in his chest twisted. It wasn't Sanji, obviously, but everything inside him had screamed his name. Zoro frowned, feeling the itch hit him tenfold. Fuck. Just when he was into having a good time and worries had started to fade away… Why did Sanji have to be imprinted in his thoughts pretty much 24/7? He had just seen blonde hair, it's not like there aren't millions of people with that hair color around the world!

And there went one of the main reasons for his permanent restlessness. He had gone out that night in order to stay away from Sanji, in order to avoid things like these happening, yet there he was, growing anxious over a flash of blonde hair.

He did try to go back to the mindless state he had been sinking into all along the night, but from then on he kept seeing flashes of that same shade of blonde, which always managed to get his attention from wherever he had it placed.

It was a woman. A stunningly beautiful one, for that matter, that was something Zoro could objectively appreciate. Zoro was way more drawn to attitude than he was to physical appearance, without a doubt, but it was her hair that stole his glances, and then her eyes, whose shade of blue he was familiar with. At some point he found her looking back and Zoro blinked his stupidity away. Enough of that game. Any other night he might have just decided to go for it and have fun, but his incomprehensible restlessness had his wits blocked.

That until she walked to him and Zoro found himself leaning against a wall with his arms crossed and the blonde standing in front of him with an amused smirk.

"Hello," she teasingly greeted over the ruckus.

Zoro was definitely not drunk, nor could he possibly be, but there's that point in parties where you lose your hearing and end up in a daze in which the most prominent feeling you can process or comprehend is the beat of the music reverberating through your body and bones. By then, your brain is only half registering what is going around you and your thoughts start to sink into lethargy. That was exactly the state of Zoro's awareness right now. If it wasn't for the itch that kept telling him there had been something off with him since the start of the night, he would be pretty much as good as if he had been tipsy.

"Hi," he muttered, knowing she wouldn't be able to hear him. Yet she grinned.

"Want a drink?" she offered.

Zoro raised an eyebrow. Again, any other night, he would have already accepted and, maybe taken her somewhere private.

He did feel like having some action tonight, he now realized, maybe that's what the restlessness was really all about. The mere thought of having some (which usually didn't affect him all that much) made the itch sharper, which led him to easily guess what his body was suggesting him to do in order to relieve the stress and frustration he knew were low key torturing him. Sex was as good a weapon against tension as any.

But it was that same itch that led him to shake his head. "I can't drink. Doctor's orders."

She chuckled and Zoro wondered what the hell was so funny. He was miserable right now, excuse her. He couldn't help but notice she had a beautiful smile, though.

"There's this drink we have here," she yelled. When Zoro scrunched his face in an effort to hear better, she boldly took a step closer and proceeded to resume yelling in his ear. "There's this famous drink in Terevera: it barely contains alcohol but the effects are just as good! You may want to try that!"

Zoro titled his head to the side a bit so that he could properly look at her with a frown very present in his features.

"I'm not doing drugs."

He wasn't exactly surprised when she burst out laughing, but he couldn't help but stare at the way her hair slightly bounced on her shoulders, his eye locked on her strands, which somehow had been catching his attention all night. The 'why' wasn't that that much of a wonder if he was to be honest with himself, but he refused to keep on connecting everything he thought about or felt with the annoying blonde they had for a cook. Enough is enough.

"It's not a drug, honey, it's just a drink. Didn't take you for a paranoid," she mocked. "It's similar to beer, taste-wise. Just that with about five times less alcohol and, well, sharper effects, if you will. It's a specialty here in Terevera, I'm not trying to pull your leg. I've seen a lot of doctors agreeing to their patients drinking that, if that's what you're worried about."

"Why are you insisting?" Zoro bluntly asked, eyebrow raised in suspicion.

To which she raised an eyebrow in response, mirroring his expression, just that she tinted it with a smug smirk.

"Because you're worth my insistence, Mr. Victor," she seductively muttered. He almost wanted to scoff. She had just identified herself as a fan. "Feel like keeping me company while I go order a drink for both of us? You'll thank me later, I promise: it's the best in town."

Zoro stared at her for a good ten seconds before the itching managed to untangle a knot in his stomach and Zoro pushed himself away from the wall and dangerously close to her.

"You lead the way. But I'm not having sex with you, Miss Stalker. I'm just in for the booze."

"I don't recall offering you sex, have I?" she teasingly smirked.

And Zoro smirked in return.

Had it been any other night, maybe a few months ago, they would be elsewhere by now, doing exactly what Zoro had told her they wouldn't be doing tonight. But tonight wasn't any other night.

Was it?

---

Zoro was on his fourth pint when a freaked out Chopper appeared in his line of sight, yelping something at him, which he didn't really understand until he had him yelling in his face.

"I told you not to drink!" he screeched.

Zoro gave him an unimpressed look, his senses slightly numb and his reaction a tiny bit derailed before he turned around to point an accusing glare at the sassy blonde that had been chatting him up for almost an hour now.

"Told you."

But instead of looking surprised or bothered by the intrusion, she merely perked up and drew the kind of expression every single person with a thing for cute things would draw every time they saw the little reindeer: that of adoration.

"You are soooo cute!" she yelled, taking a hold of Chopper and effectively snatching him away from Zoro, who took the chance to down what was left of his drink before Chopper could get rid of it. "Are you the doctor?" she asked.

Zoro tuned them down as Chopper started yelling at her the usual shit he'd yell at anyone who dared compliment him, but it only got him hugs and a lot of petting in return. The swordsman looked ahead and blinked a bit. The woman, who had introduced herself as Vanessa, had told him that the drink didn't have that much alcohol to begin with, but he was slightly swaying and feeling a bit numb. Which had him blinking in annoyance. He didn't normally get to that point even if he downed fifteen pints in a row (which he had done many times before), but here he was, feeling slightly off and confused. Not the bad kind of confused, more like the 'not that much in control of where I am looking or what I am doing' kind of confused. Which was rather foreign to him since he only ever got like this on few occasions. His whole body had considerably relaxed, but the itching had seemed to increase with every pint he drank, which had him feeling way more restless than he had been feeling at the beginning of the night, yet way more accepting of that condition than he had initially felt, if that makes any sense.

In the slight jumble that Zoro's brain went through for what felt like an eternity, he heard a clack and found another full pint in front of him. A second glance told him that Chopper was nowhere to be seen.

"Where is Chopper?" he absently asked, ignoring the drink for a moment.

Vanessa smiled at him, sipping at her own new drink.

"The cute reindeer? I chased him away," she chuckled.

Zoro raised an eyebrow but ended up smiling in amusement as he realized Vanessa's cutesy act had only been exactly that: an effective plan to get Chopper away from them. She didn't really look like the 'I die for cute things' type anyway.

"This one's on me," she added while pointing at Zoro's still untouched drink.

He looked at it for a moment, something in the back of his mind suggesting that he shouldn't take it, but he didn't really process the thought as he mindlessly did so and started sipping at it.

"You said there wasn't that much alcohol in it," he muttered, half accusingly. He wasn't sure if she could hear him over the blasting music, but he didn't have the mind to raise his voice to make sure that she could.

She still seemed to make up the words he had spoken, though, since she was fast to answer.

"I did say that it had sharper effects than alcohol, though, didn't I?"

Zoro's gaze travelled to the smirk she was sporting, and he found himself lazily smirking back. His body felt warm and indolent, almost as if nothing could stress him out anymore, just that the ever-present twists in his chest and stomach kept alternatively doing wonders to unsettle him every now and then. He was feeling eager for something, and his body had a good idea of exactly what it was, just that his remaining presence of mind kept tugging him back.

"Feeling the effects yet?" she asked, leaning closer with a smile.

He looked down at her, analyzed her beautiful blonde hair, her taunting lips and her deep blue eyes. He wasn't easily interested in people, but when he felt inclined to start something with someone he did so in quite an intense and straightforward way, since it normally meant he did need the contact. And maybe it was because of the itching, maybe it was only because he really needed said contact to get rid of the ever-present tension he couldn't stand anymore, but he had to admit to himself that he was attracted to that woman, and she was pretty clearly interested in him as well. Which made him wonder why he hadn't yet made a move. If he had really wanted to, he would already be doing the do somewhere else.

His stomach dropped and he felt a surge of desire run through his hazy state.

Maybe he did want to.

She seemed to notice how his eye had laid on her lips for longer than necessary and she jumped down from her stool in order to make herself some space in between Zoro's legs, right in front of him, faces close.

"Do you have a cute girlfriend waiting for you back home?" she boldly asked, knowing smile still in place. "Is that why you are doubting?"

Zoro could've easily said no. Or he could have just told her that he did have a girlfriend and cut the flirting from scratch.

"I don't do cute," he grunted. He felt the need to blink a bit as a foreign sensation got up to his head and destabilized him a bit even while being seated. She hadn't been joking when she had warned him of the effects of that drink being sharper than the ones alcohol induced, but it still hit him as weird. Was it how it felt to actually be tipsy?

She laughed.

"Oh my God, it really hit you."

Zoro didn't know why he lazily smiled back at her with amusement written all over his features when he wasn't all that amused to begin with, but he didn't seem to be much in control of his actions.

Vanessa had really beautiful blue eyes, he randomly noticed, not for the first time that night. They were the same shade as…

Vanessa leaned closer, tentatively so, and all thoughts vanished from his far from sober brain. One last flash told him that he would regret this later on, but he didn't consciously register it as her lips grazed his and his awareness was swept away by the overwhelming need of physical contact. He didn't actively decide on responding to the kiss, but he was most definitely pressing back, and hungrily so, which elicited a hum of content out of Vanessa, which he felt through his lips.

The itching calmed down a tad, being overpowered by desire, and Zoro low key felt satisfied that he had just found an effective way to release his frustration.

She hooked her arms around Zoro's neck and Zoro lazily but firmly brought her closer by her hips as he deepened the kiss, letting all of his frustrations be poured in the action.

"Aren't you eager?" Vanessa snickered into his lips.

Zoro ignored her words, partly because he couldn't really hear them over the general noisy atmosphere, and partly because his mind was somewhere else, far away. The moment he had found lips to kiss, his brain had disconnected, which he now realized was exactly what he had needed for a long time now. It wasn't lust as much as it was the feeling of abandon and simplicity that he had been craving, something uncomplicated such as human contact: a pair of lips he could kiss, a body he could use to vent his exacerbation on since he wasn't allowed any other way out when he desperately needed one.

Zoro had occasionally used the company of women to unwind his pent-up tension, which was a great way to achieve it, but it's not like he had ever needed it. He was in no condition whatsoever to think straight right now, but if he had been able to put his brain to work for a second he would've realized that there was a reason for that, and it was Sanji. Sanji, who was always there and willing to take a fight or start one; Sanji, who could take whatever Zoro threw his way without blinking; who would actually make Zoro sweat; who would rile up his adrenaline and leave him drained of any existing frustration by the end of their fights; Sanji, who was as much the cause of most of his stress as he was his way out of it.

Sanji, who, for the first time, wasn't there and available to take what Zoro needed to throw out of his organism.

And, even if his brain was most definitely not processing these musings, his mind must have taken him somewhere near that line of thought because Sanji suddenly popped in his mind.

Sanji, who was back in their shared hotel suite, who was probably sleeping and oblivious to everything going on outside of his slumber. Sanji, who he had almost kissed that morning out of an aborted fight that had left them both hanging amidst trying to achieve what Zoro was getting right now: physical relief to all of their personal and shared pent-up tension.

Zoro groaned into the kiss and pushed further, getting a hold of Vanessa's thighs and forcing her on his lap in order to create more friction. His body readily agreed with the action, but his mind seemed to still be reticent as it started wreaking havoc inside him, flashing him with annoying images of him and Sanji making out, the memories vivid inside his head, which was supposed to have stopped thinking a while ago.

This was supposed to make him forget about everything, this was supposed to make him find relief, but it was only making his anxiousness grow, which his (more than definitely) drunk brain cells confused for lust and the need to go further in order to get the itch to stop.

Vanessa slid a hand under his dress shirt and Zoro let his travel south and get a hold of her butt, which became a rather aggressive gesture straight away as the itch controlling his body convinced him of the fact that there wasn't enough contact. This wasn't having the effect it should have had. It was definitely not enough.

At some point, they breathlessly took a second to pull away in order not to choke, the intention of getting somewhere private clearly readable in their eyes. Zoro had been about to pull her out of his lap and drag her somewhere else when his stomach plummeted to the ground the moment he realized what was missing.

He hadn't noticed it when he was sober, he hadn't noticed it when he had started being tipsy either, but he saw it clear as day now. He had been dragged by that blonde mane but what had pulled him in had ultimately been her eyes. They were a shade of blue his sober mind had been fast to compare to Sanji's, a shade of blue his tipsy mind had thought to be the exact same as Sanji's. It's funny how drunken people seem to lose sight of reality, how they seem to stop understanding what's going on around them, yet they sometimes notice the smallest details they would've never put their attention on had they been sober. Maybe it was the way light seemed to shine differently for him, the way things seemed to happen in slow motion, the way his attention got deeply caught by irrelevant things for longer than he could perceive, but it was right then when Zoro noticed that he had been so very wrong.

Vanessa's eyes weren't Sanji's shade of blue. Not even close to that. They were deceivingly similar, but Sanji's spark was lost in them. Their blue wasn't impossible. He squinted his eye, making a conscious effort to discern the ocean in them (given his inebriated state, he actually thought she may have part of it encaged in her irises as much as he was positive that Sanji held a small portion of actual ocean in his), but it wasn't there. Not even a trace of it.

Zoro's expression lost all passion as he blankly stared at Vanessa's eyes, an unreadable expression taking over him.

The drunken and fairly simple thought crossed his mind that Vanessa wasn't Sanji.

And so he understood that the itch wouldn't fade away, not even if he got to fuck her hard in an empty toilet stall, as it was apparent in both their gazes that they both had wanted at some point. And it's not like Zoro had stopped wanting it, but his intoxicated logic made it pretty clear that he just couldn't do it.

Because she didn't bottle up the raging ocean Zoro loved to challenge inside, she didn't know how to handle him like the damn cook did; she wasn't the reason for his itch and so she wouldn't be able to make it go away, simple as that.

"What the fuck do you think you are doing?!"

Zoro was genuinely surprised when the screechy voice he had just heard registered as Nami's, who he now noticed was standing inches away from his and Vanessa's faces. He frowned in confusion, mildly annoyed but mostly lost at what exactly the redhead that had been pissing him off all day was doing there. Did she want to join? Ew, no, he wouldn't touch her that way in a gazillion years, excuse her. He was about to drop that information to her when Nami started yanking at his shirt, yelling at him to stop grabbing the blonde's butt and at her to get off Zoro, which had Zoro's frail train of thought collapsing in favour of growing even more confused. Was Nami jealous? Did she want him for herself, no sharing? He was about to inform her that he would only ever consider touching her if she forgot about Zoro's debts forever (which he knew she would never do), when Nami rudely interrupted his current poor words-forming capacity by getting a hold of the front of his shirt and shaking him hard, which caused his head to spin violently.

"Hey, snap out of it! What the fuck are you even doing?!"

Zoro looked at her in utter puzzlement as he wondered what the redhead was on about, but then his attention got caught by Vanessa actually getting off his lap, which had him looking back at a pair of blue eyes that didn't bottle up the ocean. A pair of eyes that got angrily fixed on Nami.

"And you are?" Vanessa challengingly snapped, hands on her hips.

Well, if he had to be honest, angry Vanessa was hot (like, really really hot), but that didn't cut it anymore. That wasn't enough as for him to yell at Nami to piss off (since Nami had no right whatsoever to cockblock him), which he could've very easily done, more so with how lowered his filters were due to his state. But he didn't.

"My girlfriend."

Zoro couldn't quite decide who was more surprised with his sudden intervention: Nami, Vanessa or himself. But there he was, wrapping his arm around Nami, who was looking at him in utter disbelief until she seemed to snap out of it and thankfully followed the game.

"Not anymore, you prick! There'll have to be a lot of apologizing on your part for me to even start thinking of forgiving you!"

Then she shoved him away and stomped into the crowd, her acting skills leaving Zoro feeling quite impressed and derailing his own act. This is where he was supposed to dramatically follow her and lose Vanessa in the process, wasn't it? He had seen it often enough in parties as to know how it worked, but his brain was apparently not cooperating with him. Shit, he was wasted and it was only getting worse.

"Really, now?" Vanessa broke in, eyebrow raised.

Zoro scrunched his nose. Why did she look like she didn't believe him at all?

"She's a great actress but I can't say the same for you."

Zoro was now scowling hard, what was definitely not a pout starting to form in his lips. "That's a bit offensive."

"Man, you really are drunk," Vanessa huffed, exasperation showing through. Then went back to serious mode. "Okay, mind telling me what's really going on? You had stopped way before she interrupted."

Zoro blinked at her, trying to focus. Having only one working eye made seeing properly a bit of a struggle sometimes, but he swore he had never seen double before and it was starting to feel like he was right now. Despite how some remainders of his sober self were contemplating the situation as ridiculous and frankly pathetic, and despite the overall confusion and lack of balance, something kept dropping in Zoro's stomach by the second. Frustration was reaching high levels again, hitting him with double the vice as he once again saw an exit to his problems being blocked, this time by himself.

But there was a heavier weight than that:

Vanessa wasn't Sanji.

His eyebrows furrowed as he tried to concentrate on something in particular rather than the many guilty twists his stomach and chest were going through for quite a remarkable amount of different reasons.

When he raised his head again (which he kind of regretted since it started spinning at a dangerous pace that had him clutching the counter for stability), he was hit with the urge to start breaking things out of frustration. He hadn't signed up to star in a damn soap opera, yet his life was beginning to resemble one.

"So?"

Vanessa was clearly not happy. When Zoro didn't manage an answer, the blonde lost her patience.

"Come on, it's not like you weren't enjoying it!" she exclaimed, gesturing to Zoro's half visible boner.

Zoro looked down at it in slight disbelief, verifying the fact that yes, he had been enjoying it. And half of his instincts were screaming at him to get it over with and just chase his release, which she was handing to him, but the other half were screaming Sanji's name and reminding him of the absurd fact that her eyes didn't hold his shade of blue. Which really is an extremely stupid reason to ground a 'no' in when your body is clearly giving you signs that you need to get laid once and for all, but it somehow struck him as crucial.

Her blonde hair and blue eyes had been what had drawn him to her first, the similarities with his blonde (wait, his blonde?) being quite noticeable, yet they had also been what had pushed him away. They kept reminding him of Sanji when he had been trying to get him out of his head, which was counterproductive.

Zoro groaned, angry at himself.

"Look, I… this can't be, I'm sorry if I led you on, but I'm not doing this," he ended up blurting out, his pose defensive. He was usually able to deliver these kind of declinations in a much more straightforward and nonchalant way, he swore, but right now he was having trouble forming words, let alone formulating a coherent and dignified full sentence that wouldn't embarrass himself any further.

Despite him thinking he must have been looking and sounding ridiculous, his actual exterior was far from how unsure and defensive he felt inside, as it sometimes happens when you are drunk and perceive reality in a whole different way than it is actually being displayed. His face was noticeably red with inebriation, but his expression was solid and final, his eyes speaking of detachment.

"I should probably slap you."

"I technically did tell you we weren't having sex," Zoro defended.

Then he wondered what the fuck he was doing. He was wasting his time. Having this conversation was only aggravating his inner turmoil, and he was starting to feel trapped under the perspective that he would have to keep it in without anybody to vent it on. Shit. Why was Sanji injured in times like this? He could've beat the shit out of him and this would already be done and over with, no Vanessas or anyone else involved for that matter.

"Listen, I need to go look for my girlfriend before she dumps my sorry as."

Well, that had been lame. It had sounded an awful lot like something he would've said about Sanji, but he wasn't in his greatest creative moment right now. And why the fuck did he keep thinking about Sanji?! It was all his fault, dammit, always intruding in his thoughts and making things go askew!

"Shit."

"That would've sounded more convincing had you said it right when she left and not two years later, but I never had much faith in your acting skills, so, anyway…"

"Shut up!" Zoro seethed, suddenly snapping. "That sounded an awful lot like him, damn it, drop it already!"

His random rambling was probably not making any sense, but really, he was furious. And it was only getting worse by the moment.

Vanessa stared at him with wide eyes.

"There's a 'him'?"

And that's when Zoro processed what he had just said and his stomach dropped and his face went pale and cold sweat broke down his spine. Shit.

"No."

"You know what? Fuck it! This was supposed to be easy, not a damn chess match against a drunkard. If you want your guy, go chase him, I'm done with this."

Vanessa indignantly turned around and Zoro felt the urge to stop her in her tracks for the sole purpose to clarify that there wasn't a 'him' whatsoever, but his body didn't really process the order to start moving, so he stayed there, loud beating in his chest; he didn't know if it was the beat of the music or the one his own heart was stabbing him with.

Oh, shit, this had gone so bad for something that could've been so easy.

Zoro glared at the boner poking in his pants, and he would've kept glaring at it until dawn hadn't someone interrupted him again.

"Way to pull an act."

He blinked twice and then looked at Nami, engulfed by confusion. Just to specify, it was angry confusion this time.

"Were you planning to follow me at some point or…?"

"Drop it, Nami, you are giving me a headache," Zoro groaned, pinching his nose.

When he swayed to the side, Nami held him by his arms and stabilized him, eyebrows knitting.

"Wait, are you drunk?" she suddenly asked in disbelief.

"No," he slurred out.

Nami's eyes grew the size of a plate.

"Oh my God, you are. What the hell did you even drink?"

"Not that much…"

"That's not what I'm asking. What did you drink?"

"There's this famous drink in Terevera… she told me about it, but I can't…" he closed his eyes and steeled himself, trying to go back to his train of thought after losing it for a moment. "Can't remember the name-"

"Oh, shit."

"Shit, what?"

"How many pints did you have?"

"Do you know what drink I'm talking about?"

"Oh my God, Zoro, focus! How many?"

"…five?"

"Oh, shit."

"Why do I feel like you are…" Zoro scrunched his nose and thought of that word he had heard Sanji use a few times by now. "Patronizing me?"

Nami ignored him. "We tried it last night, someone recommended it to us as well. We didn't think the effects would be this severe so we also drank… too much of it. It was a disaster."

Zoro looked at her with furrowed eyebrows, suddenly remembering the painful-to-watch state of his nakamas that morning, not to mention Luffy's especially hyperactive behavior in the food court, which he now understood as him still dragging the effects of the damn drink on him.

"How much is too much?"

"Well… locals recommend two pints maximum. As in, when you want to end up really drunk. More than that gets your brain cells into hibernation, apparently."

Oh. Now Zoro was starting to understand things. Now he was starting to understand why this had affected him when normal alcohol normally wouldn't. So is this how you feel when you are… drunk? Was he drunk, really?

"Things don't make sense," he complained, even though he didn't even know what he was saying or referring to for that matter. "Nothing makes sense anymore."

"Okay, Zoro, listen to me. Do you even know what you were doing just now?"

Zoro stared at her, weary and tired about everything. Just as much as he was ready to explode. A weird combination indeed.

"I knew exactly what I was doing. Why did you feel the need to intervene? Is cockblocking people fun to you?" then he thought of another possibility he half remembered having considered before in a flash and scrunched his nose. "Were you jealous?"

"Shit, no!"

"Thanks fuck. That would've been awkward."

"Shut your face. And no, you didn't know what you were doing, that's why I came to kick some sense into that lonely brain cell you have floating in your skull, see if you stopped doing shit that can fuck things up furth-"

"Can you please stop sounding like him?!"

A blink later, he realized what he had just blurted out. His eye snapped open as his stomach twisted in panic and his gaze locked with Nami's, who was already staring at him in what he could only label as shock. The background sound of music seemed to be gone, even if it was still stabbing his eardrums insistently.

Fuck.

Even if Nami's intuition had been playing a huge role in all of her actions, she had honestly not been expecting Zoro to drop something like this in front of her. Ever. Any other time she would've teased him or gloated in the confirmation of something she had been suspecting all along, but the only thing she found herself able to do was to stare at him as the actual extent of the issue they were dealing with hit her.

Zoro was momentarily terrified, silently wishing Nami hadn't heard what he had just said over the blasting music. Because, if she had, if he had just blurted something like that to one of his crewmates, he was fucked. Never mind the fact that 'him' could be anyone, and most definitely not necessarily someone he was currently obsessed with. Those things weren't even taken into consideration as mitigating circumstances, didn't even cross his mind; not when he was somehow positive that Nami could read through those words if she had happened to hear them.

Things went back into motion and music seemed to fill his senses again as Nami blinked an opened her mouth, forcing Zoro to make an effort to listen.

"The hell did you just say now?" she yelled in a clearly annoyed tone. "Didn't hear you. You better not be insulting me!"

Zoro looked at her in disbelief, but relief washed in as soon as the words left her lips. Thank fuck she hadn't heard! Thank fuck stars had aligned that one time in his favour, if only for a change! However, he knew that staying there any longer could grant him another slip of his tongue, and, not for the first time that day, he felt the need to flee and do it fast. He was in no condition to control himself or what he said, so what was left of logic inside him decided not to risk it further. He had fucked up enough for tonight. So much for having a great night out.

How the hell had he even gone so fast from tipsy to drunk? Had the effects of the drink hit him all at once and only after a while?

"I'm going back," he muttered. He felt his hands slightly trembling and his eye was going out of focus.

"What?!"

"I need to go back!" he yelled over the annoying noise drowning their voices.

Nami blinked at him but was fast to nod, almost as if his idea had been the best one she had heard all day.

"Need me to get you there?"

Was Nami being nice or was he so wasted that he could no longer discern her evilness being thrown at his face?

He was fast to shake his head, taking a step back in a slightly freaked out manner. He wasn't going to risk talking to anyone. He might blurt something equally as shitty as everything he had been saying and doing tonight.

"I know how to get back."

Nami raised both eyebrows and Zoro frowned. Was that a condescending look she was sending him? Well, fuck her.

"You'll get lost."

"Leave me alone," he growled as he waved his hands in front of Nami in an attempt to indicate her to get the fuck away. Which must've looked lame, because Nami was staring at him as if his gesture had been just that.

The place was starting to feel claustrophobic for how big it was. Zoro started looking around in a snappy way, the itch crawling up his throat and starting to become unbearable. He needed out right now.

He didn't see or hear Nami sigh, so he was caught off guard when she got a hold of his elbow and started dragging him across the crowd. He yelled something at her, not really sure about what he had said and hoping it wouldn't be anything embarrassing, but she turned around and lightly slapped his mouth as she glared hard at him, which had him feeling even more put off as he stared at her in bewilderment.

"I'm leading you to the front doors, stop whining!" she informed him as she started pulling at him again.

Hold the fuck up, he hadn't been whining! He yelled something in those lines but either the redhead didn't hear him or she ignored him (probably the second one).

"There you go," she huffed once she had pushed him through the doors and out in the mildly cold air of the night, which had him blinking at his surroundings in confusion, trying to understand where the fuck he was standing right now. He swore last thing he was aware of was being amidst the crowd in the center of the hall, how had they crossed what was left so fast?

"Are you sure you'll find your way back on your own?" Nami asked without convincement, basically because she knew she was about to let Zoro get lost in Terevera.

If she hadn't deemed it absolutely necessary for him to leave the party about right now before he would be any more detrimental to himself (wasn't she a good person), she wouldn't have left him on his own, but she knew he needed out and she knew he needed to be alone. She wasn't an idiot. At that point she could clearly see that Zoro was starting to be scared of himself. They both had realized by now that Zoro didn't know how to deal with himself being drunk since he had never been this inebriated in his life, and losing his cool and self-control had him obviously freaking out and acting out of character. Staying with him to make sure he got home would only make it worse as he'd only get all the more defensive. She was slightly in awe that he hadn't yet started breaking stuff.

"I know what I'm doing, witch!" he snapped, stomping away and leaving her standing alone right in front of the door.

Nami raised an eyebrow to the darkness and let out a deep sigh, trying not to worry too much about the way things had just seemed to reveal themselves as more complicated than she had initially thought they were.

"You are welcome, you immense idiot," she muttered, rolling her eyes and starting to feel a headache forming. Honestly, she didn't know why she kept going out of her way to help his sorry ass when all she got back in return was that attitude.

"Is everything okay?"

Nami turned around to find Usopp looking at her with a worried frown.

"Saw you running around with Zoro and he didn't look all too well."

Nami smiled a bit, patting his shoulder.

"It's fine, it's just that he drank too much of what we drank last night. He was just a bit confused."

Usopp half-heartedly returned her smile, but she could still see concern in his eyes.

"He's been… well, not really acting like himself lately," he carefully commented, almost as if he didn't fully want to make assumptions or suggest anything in particular, keeping the statement as just an observation.

Name studied him a bit and shrugged. She was slightly tipsy as well and she would've enjoyed a bit of gossip and teasing, but neither Nami or Usopp were looking for that at the moment. Much less Nami, who was now starting to realize that the less meddling in they did, the less they'd complicate the issue for those two idiots (leaving punctual interventions just like hers right now as an actual option since sometimes they did need a nudge).

"I didn't mean to gossip," Usopp was fast to defend when she didn't answer, suddenly feeling like he had commented on something he shouldn't have. "I was just worried and-"

"I get it. I am kind of worried too, but I honestly think he's just stressed and going through a rough time right now, I don't think it's something to worry about on the long run… hopefully," she nudged him.

She would have liked to believe her words a bit more, but she couldn't erase the feeling that this was only starting and about to get even more messed up.

Usopp didn't seem all that convinced either, but he didn't press the subject any further.

"I don't think he is fully aware of how much he owes you."

Nami looked back at him and gave him a wicked smirk. "Oh, he does. I remind him every day, it's not like he's going to get away with not paying back his debts."

And they both knew Usopp hadn't really been talking about money, but they both let it slide and went back inside to where the party was being thrown, full-on intending to enjoy the rest of their night Strawhats' style.

---

Brace yourselves, because you're about to hear something unprecedented: that was the first time in his life Zoro didn't get lost on his way back home. It was the first time Zoro didn't get lost in general, period.

He was, at the very least, surprised when he found himself at the hotel doors, not really able to recall how he'd gotten there. If he'd had some sense of direction and the mental ability to remember what he had just done, he would've known he had taken all the right streets and turns, getting there in record time and not missing a single turn or intersection. But he couldn't remember nor had there been anyone there to witness it, so no one would ever believe him when he tried to tell them that he had gotten to the hotel on his own; history would never remember such a unique fact and so no one would ever acknowledge that he had once in his life gotten his path right.

Such a shame, really.

He refused to believe it had anything to do with the fact that he was wasted, which was as much a unique situation as him getting his destination right (and so the only change in his routine that could explain such an extraordinary thing happening), so he mentally praised himself for the success and thanked whatever there was to thank that the streets of Terevera hadn't changed positions yet again (yes, he was seriously considering a global conspiracy against his person in which everything around him moved for the only purpose of getting him lost).

Not that he had much time to celebrate, though. On his way back to the hotel, his anxiety had somehow managed to increase as his hyperactive brain started considering everything he had done wrong tonight while he tried not to smash his face against walls every time he lost his balance (which was every two or three steps).

Things were less wobbly by now since he had been walking for a while and breathing fresh air, but his brain was still far from put together. How the fuck had he managed to lose all of his self-control in such a short time-span? He didn't remember half the things he had blurted out, but he was pretty sure he had made a fool of himself, plus, he had managed to drive away his only source of release that night, which had him wanting to punch a wall. His skin was crawling and all he could do not to flip shit was to clench his jaw and curse out loud, earning weird looks from the people he walked by.

He hated being drunk: it had turned him into a mess and each one of his frustrations seemed to be hitting him tenfold, making him itch for something, whatever, that could make it better.

He must've said something pretty indecent right then, because a woman turned around to watch him with a bewildered expression, but Zoro couldn't for the life of him process what he had just blurted out nor did he remember opening his mouth. At that point, he deemed it wise to go the fuck back to his room and keep himself away from humanity until the worst had passed.

And he honestly didn't remember how he got to his room either, but next thing he knew he was bursting through the door with a groan, forgetting for a second that the cause of his misery was right there. When it hit him, his eye snapped to where a sleepy Sanji was turning around in bed with a confused expression, hair disheveled and eyes squinted, and his stomach dropped to his feet at the sight, stupid nervousness hitting him in the face the second he laid eyes on him.

There went the insufferable itch, making him wish there was a physical way to scratch it away from his body.

"Are you okay?"

He almost jumped a foot in the air when Robin's voice caught his attention, forcing him to notice her sitting on a chair by the end of Sanji's bed. Shit, he had totally forgotten she would also be there. He sealed his lips in a painful lock the moment he felt them part, keeping anything that was about to go through them inside, just in case. He had embarrassed himself enough for tonight.

"Zoro?"

"Leave me alone," he groaned, quickly making his way to the bathroom in what felt like pretty evident swaying.

He didn't take notice of Robin's surprised gaze following him, and he had already forgotten about Sanji staring at him from his bed, forcing himself to close the bathroom door behind him and find purchase against the sink, exhaling for good measure.

Now that he had stopped moving, the lightheadedness got worse as the floor started moving under his feet, forcing him to grip the sink harder, his eye fixed on his own reflection in the mirror. His face wasn't all that different from how it usually was, but the though hit him that he looked like shit. The one notable difference he didn't really register was the fact that he wasn't scowling. The usual expression had left his features for them to bathe in confusion and slight vulnerability, but mostly helpless frustration.

Zoro growled and started aggressively splashing water against his face, trying to force the dizziness to go away. If that was what being drunk felt like, he didn't want to be drunk ever again. It wouldn't have been that bad (it would've almost been as funny as it was disconcerting) if his brain hadn't twisted his thoughts against himself. If he hadn't been already on edge and the alcohol hadn't happened to test him further, it would've almost been an interesting experience, but his brain couldn't handle it right now. It just turned everything more extreme than it probably was, his restlessness turning into anxiety.

He wondered why people would hate themselves so much as to willingly put themselves into this kind of state of inner turmoil and overboard emotions and actions. He didn't like it. He had never liked losing control and he had none left in his hands at the moment.

While he was concentrated on murmuring at the floor tiles to stay the fuck still under his feet and also hating life, he didn't register the bathroom door being carefully open nor the presence behind him. That until he lifted his face to angrily stare at himself in the mirror and maybe start some rant about how he should pull his shit together once and for all and instead saw Sanji's reflection leaning against the door frame and watching him with a weird look shadowing his eyes.

Which made him jerk up in surprise, almost letting out a very unmanly screech that he managed to keep down his throat by pure luck.

He didn't turn around. He was too occupied trying to calm his violently churning stomach down as he stared at Sanji through the mirror, eye wide open and knuckles white against the sink.

Sanji didn't comment on how he had quite obviously freaked out just now, he just observed his reflection for a while. Zoro couldn't read him at all. Not with how everything around him seemed unstable and about to spin.

"Robin just left."

Sanji's voice sounded slightly weird to Zoro's ears, and he couldn't quite pinpoint if it was because he was drunk and processing things like shit or because Sanji's tone came out as tired. Maybe both.

There was a long pause between Sanji's comment and the moment Zoro responded, the greenhead's brain derailing the whole process as it first registered the words, understood them, thought about what to answer and formulated his own sentence. All the while his train of thought would halt here and there as his eye lingered on Sanji's reflection for too long. Sanji didn't seem to have the need to rush him, rather than that, he just seemed to be analyzing him.

"Why are you telling me this?" he found himself murmuring, half surprised that his words had come out as understandable.

Sanji shrugged, quite lazily so, and Zoro's skin broke in goosebumps. Was it only him and his unhelpful brain imagining things, or was Sanji acting in that kind of deliberately slow and lazy manner that gets one feeling as if he's about to be jumped at? Whatever it was, there was something about Sanji's attitude that had his itch intensifying by the second.

"What's wrong?" asked the blonde.

No, it wasn't that much the whole dragged sluggishness of their interactions that was most definitely setting a heavy atmosphere around them as it was the way they were staring at each other. There was something about Sanji's gaze that weighted in Zoro's stomach like a rock: the blonde was trying to figure him out, but there was also the lingering feeling of caution and weariness adding to that. Something Zoro couldn't possibly find the words to describe given his state, but he could most definitely feel it as restrainedly raw.

Was it only him and his fucked up brain cells playing games on his sanity or were there a lot of unspoken words in the air? Because, to him, it somehow felt like there was a completely different conversation going on there, one they weren't voicing out loud, one that had nothing to do with Robin leaving or what was wrong.

The itch was present and sharp enough right now as for him not to be able to ignore it. The twisting in his stomach seemed to have resorted to a heavy knot he couldn't untangle, and something in his chest was starting to make it hard to breathe. Maybe it was all of his needs and urges trying to break through the walls of self-restraint he had been imposing on himself.

Sanji leveled him with a hard stare. "Zoro, I am talking to you," he coldly grunted. "What's wrong?"

And, as it happens when people get drunk, Zoro didn't know why that particular question (which had already been asked before without triggering such reaction out of him) made him snap, but it did, and it was sudden and painfully clear the moment a snarl tinted his features. The words he had been about to blurt were 'you are what's wrong'.

What he said instead, only barely able to filter his thoughts in a whole different way at the last second, was "I fucking hate you."

And, really, he did. Everything was that bastard's fault. Sanji looked all collected while Zoro was a fucking mess, and the fault was all his for harvesting a fucking obsession in Zoro's brain, for making him have to face new sides of himself he had never even know existed. He was blaming everything on the alcohol, but it's not like he could keep fooling himself indefinitely: Zoro had long lost the control he still pretended to hold in his hands, no need for alcohol or shitty drinks to be in the picture, and he was beginning to believe he had known it all along.

Sanji didn't look surprised. He kept staring at him with that heavy gaze that had everything inside of Zoro wreaking havoc, probably oblivious to what he was putting Zoro through. Which only caused Zoro's temper to boil even more.

"I fucking hate you," he repeated, his tone cutting and aggressive. He finally turned around to face Sanji, looking menacing.

The moment he locked eyes with Sanji's blue ones, his mask shattered and all of his hostility became tinted with frustrated helplessness. That got a reaction out of Sanji, who suddenly looked as shocked as he had ever been, something in Zoro's expression managing to break his collected exterior.

Zoro didn't give a fuck.

"I hate you so much," he snarled.

Next thing he knew he was stomping towards Sanji, who took a small step back out of reflex, but that's as far as he went before Zoro's calloused hands harshly grabbed the sides of his face and hot lips crashed against his, knocking the breath out of him and driving his mind to a halt as his stomach dropped right when Zoro's did.

There went Zoro's last bit of self-restraint.

TBC

---

A/N: sorry about the late update, it's been really busy lately! This was a long one, I really hope you enjoyed it! Again, thank you for all your lovely reviews and for everyone who keeps on subscribing and supporting this story; it makes me incredibly happy and willing to continue writing! Have a great week, everyone!

(Also, writing drunk Zoro was a bit of a challenge since it's new territory, but I had fun doing it, it gave me the chance to pull at the character towards where I needed to a bit more. I hope it still remained believable, I still tried to mantain a feasible OOC, something that I could picture Zoro actually doing or thinking had he ever been drunk... I hope I kind of achieved that, let's see how you find it)