A/N:

Hahaha... I'm not late at all, what ever do you mean? I was so stumped, my dudes, and then I was sent that one picture/drawing of that subtly creepy diner (by Jeff Lee Johnson) that gets worse the longer you look at it... and now we are here. Hope y'all enjoy it.

"Zoro. Hey, Zoro! Zo-ro," a voice hisses, and the bed beneath him shakes as though an earthquake is happening.

He stirs, brow furrowing as he remains caught somewhere between sleep and awareness.

"Luffy?" he grumbles, not opening his eyes. He's unhappy with the disturbance even if it is Luffy. "Wha'fuckin' time 's it?"

Luffy giggles and Zoro instantly becomes suspicious as a puff of hot air hits his face in time with the sound. The bed gives a faint squeak when Luffy shifts above him. It's when his pillow dips to one side that he realizes his head has been bracketed by two palms.

His eyes snap open, panic flaring because— shoulders, neck, face. Where will the claws hook in to drag him under this time?

He jolts upward, right smack into Luffy, but this time isn't like the last. Teeth clash and click against each other instead of noses and foreheads. Lips mash awkwardly in a kiss that jumbles his brain, making it scream no stop get off and yes more stay all at once.

Luffy gasps against him, already retreating from the kiss, but he doesn't pull away fast enough. Zoro's stupid, stupid hands feel the need to grab his shoulders in a bruising grip and push so hard that Luffy's head whips back, then forward again when Zoro doesn't let go. He holds him at arm's length for an excruciating moment, the weight of it suffocating yet elating. Everything he wants is in front of him, warm beneath his trembling fingertips, and he can't even bring himself to say yes because he's so fucked in the head. His fingertips dig into flesh until Luffy hisses in pain, uttering his name.

"Fuck!" he curses, hands flying off of him like he'll scald him with his touch. Maybe that's true.

"Zoro?" Luffy tilts his head, worry present above all else in his tone. "It's okay, you know."

"Jesus fucking christ. No, it's not. I'm sorry, I just—" he tries to explain, gulping down oceans of feelings to regain control. "It's not— you didn't do anything wrong, I'm being stupid. And that was an accident anyway, right? I mean—"

Luffy grabs his wrist in silent protest as he tries to run a hand through his hair. Zoro resists yanking it out of his grip, letting a slow breath in then out through his nose. He finally manages to look at him afterward. What he finds in those starlight eyes makes his pulse accelerate, and Luffy can surely feel it.

"That wasn't a complete accident, was it?" Zoro guesses.

He shakes his head, blunt as ever. "Nope. I was thinking and thinking about earlier and I couldn't sleep, so then I was gonna ask, but..."

"And that was your first fucking kiss?"

"Yep."

"And…" Zoro gulps, speaking slowly, "you wanted it to be me? Out of all the fucking people you could have chosen, you chose me?"

Luffy looks at him weirdly. "Duh. Of course I'd pick Zoro!"

"No," he blurts, the word barbed with disbelief. He squirms under him. "Just— no. That doesn't make sense. What the fuck? Weren't you saving it for someone?"

"Yeah, I was." Luffy pokes him in the chest a few times, gaze intense. "For you."

Zoro takes another deep breath. He stares at him for a good ten seconds in confused turmoil, then abruptly rolls over, burying his face in his pillow. "Well, goodnight," he garbles through its plush.

"Zoro!" Luffy squawks indignantly. He nudges the teenaged lump beside him. "Stop hiding from me!"

"Not hiding. Sleeping," he grunts in response, face feeling so hot he worries the pillow will catch on fire. Steam might actually come out of his ears, just like in a shitty, trope-plagued cartoon. His life is a running joke all on its own, so why the hell not?

"I hate talking, too, okay? You know I do." Zoro can't see it, but he knows that Luffy's got the pout of the century on his face; the whining is a dead giveaway. "But this time it's probably a good idea. That's what Ace always tells me when big things happen!"

With a laborious sigh, and a mental note to throttle Ace later, Zoro gives up on trying to make the pillow swallow him like a gaping hole to hell. He rolls back over. "Can't we just pretend that it isn't a big deal?"

Luffy's stern glare is answer enough.

"What do you want from me?" Zoro scowls up at him. If he acts like The World's Assiest Asshole™ Luffy will give up on his crush, or whatever made him initiate that kiss. He'll be spared from a lot of Zoro's toxicity in the long run.

He pauses so long that Luffy frowns and answers his question, hand finding his in the darkness. "I want you to tell me it meant something."

It meant everything.

Aloud, Zoro scoffs. "I won't say that. What else do you want to hear? That we should do it again?" He shakes their clasped hands mockingly, stomach twisting with each lie. He starts telling the truth instead. "Join hands and run into the fucking sunset? Because you should know better. That's not going to happen, not with me, because I'm..." He looks away, skin crawling and too filthy to deserve his touch. "I'm nothing. This is nothing."

Luffy shakes his head. "You said you won't, not that you can't. And if it's so bad, why haven't you let go of my hand?"

At that, Zoro does pull his hand away, but only to jab the heels of both into his eyes. "Stop it! Stop analyzing me, okay? I can't do this. You don't understand, but I can't— and I don't want you to—"

He feels more than sees Luffy back up, can't decipher much past the way he's attempting to curl in on himself.

"Okay, okay." Luffy moves to his side of the bed, his voice dropping to a murmur. "I promise I'll stop, Zoro. I'm... I'm sorry. For everything."

"It's fine. Me too," Zoro croaks out, hands still pressed over his eyes, which very clearly shows how not-fine this entire situation is. There's no fixing it right now. He isn't brave enough.

"I'm gonna go back to bed."

"Okay."

The awkward silence lightens with Luffy's sleep-heavy breathing soon in the mix. Zoro continues to stare blankly at the ceiling. He resists the urge to get up and punch a hole in the fucking wall, if only because it would wake the bed's other occupant.

He digs his nails into his forearm instead. It's not hard enough to draw blood, but it leaves deep, crescent-shaped indents easily felt by a skimming finger. He grits his teeth, knowing this might leave angry, red marks for the others to ogle at tomorrow morning. He barely cares because, at the moment, it's too satisfying.

Zoro will just have to pretend the kiss never happened and hope Luffy does the same.

Usopp has not given Mariana back to him yet.

Zoro realizes this when they're supposed to be arriving at the next hotel and it's just— not there. He would know. He's been counting down just how long he has to go before he and Luffy are alone again like it's his predetermined time of death.

Fog seems to seep from the cracks in the road, cut only by eerie moonlight and Merry's fluorescent eyeballs.

And then, in the distance, he sees it.

"Holy shit balls."

Usopp gives a nervous meep. "Oh, no. Nope. Not again, no—"

Chopper leans forward to see what they're looking at, only to blink and rub his eyes like it'll go away if he tries hard enough. "Please t-tell me that's not…"

Ace plasters his cheek to the window, awe-struck face lit in garish red by— "Denny's."

Luffy snorts awake. "Eatin' time!"

Nami sighs, resigned. "I get the feeling this won't end until we go in, anyway. Everyone out."

They're seated by the same weary, nameless waitress. She brandishes a handful of crayons in various stages of use, chucking them toward the napkin holder with such force that Sanji yelps when one ricochets into his shoulder.

"New paper tablecloths. Hooray," she deadpans, doing the saddest jazz hands Zoro's ever seen, and walks away with their orders delivered. "Enjoy your meal."

Nobody brings up how impossible this entire thing is, least of all Zoro. He's determined to let nothing faze him after the first go-around in this place. Or that first night of successfully finding a cryptid.

He pretends his heart stays steady when he notices— certain things. Namely, that they are not alone in this hell-diner tonight.

"So, guys," Zoro attempts to at least talk about it, "is it just me, or does the Denny's seem especially cursed tonight?"

Nami's expression goes manic, even as she firmly says, "Nope. It's just a waffle house."

Ace wrinkles his nose. "Hold on, Denny's isn't a Waffle House at all."

Nami thwaps him with her menu. "A waffle house is any food institution that serves waffles. I think you're thinking of IHOP: the International House of Pancakes."

Franky frowns. "Didn't they change that to International House of Burgers?"

"I'm pretty sure that was just an internet meme."

Chopper continues drowning his entire plate in syrup without even looking, staring off into space as he says, "Internet-ional House of Burgers."

"Yes." Franky tips the nozzle flat and tries to put it next to the napkin holder, but only ends up assaulting the table cloth with liquid sugar when Chopper doesn't let go. "Ah, shit."

"Those were new!" Robin scolds, seemingly for the hell of it as she takes a very unbothered bite of her hashbrown.

"And paper." Nami buys into the madness. "That will be one dollar."

Franky makes shooing motions at her open palm. "I'm not paying you!"

Sanji hums absently. "My life is a fucking internet meme."

"Same," Usopp says.

"Mmmm, bananas~" Luffy adds, apropos of nothing, considering none of them have a single slice of banana on their plates.

Zoro doesn't even get it but now he's staring and Luffy notices. His lips form a smile that turns Zoro's chest into a goopy mess and it's barely been one day of avoidance but it feels like Luffy hasn't smiled at him like that in a week.

"I maintain that Waffle House is a whole other animal," Ace says, jolting him out of his— mood. "Speaking of animals, something is breathing under the counter next to us. Sounds fucked up."

Usopp points as discreetly as he can. "I'm pretty sure that woman has a tentacle around that kid."

Zoro swirls his mug and hears a disturbing clink that is definitely not ice. "There's a—" he digs for a moment with his fork, eyebrows flying toward his hairline as he lifts the object "—fucking skull in my coffee. Wonderful."

"At least it's not human. Too small."

"Gee, thanks, Robin."

"Of course." She tilts her head in another direction. "If it's any consolation, there seems to be an eyeball on that customer's plate."

It's not, but Hancock's increasing horror certainly is. She seems to have no idea what to make of their environment or how any of them are reacting to it.

Nami determinedly looks at her cursed menu. "Waffle house."

They all tense up as the mother and son start walking toward them.

He tugs on his mom's tentacle as they pass their table. "Mom, mom!" he shrieks, pointing with the rude enthusiasm all kids, even demons, seem to possess. "Look, it's a real-life Medusa! Mom, look at her snakes!"

He practically shoves his finger up Hancock's nose. Zoro would think he'd succeeded in doing so, by the look on her face. Her mouth parts, either in shock or to verbally grill the kid.

Tentacle Mom beats her to the punch, pulling her son away. "Don't look, dear. Remember the stories."

Gasping, the kid squeezes his eyes shut. "Oh, right, sorry! She's so ugly she'll turn you to stone!"

Zoro snorts a laugh. "Got that right," he mutters, absently jabbing at the skull in his drink. "Not sure she needs the fuckin' snake for that though."

The line of Hancock's shoulders stiffening draws his eyes back up. Seated across from her, Zoro can see the way her bottom lip trembles, the way it always does before the crocodile tears start. But they don't, and Zoro's stomach sinks. She undrapes Salome from her neck with carefully mechanical motions and plops the snake across Ace's shoulders.

Before anyone can say a word, she's across the restaurant and out the door.

Zoro glances around their awkwardly silent table. Luffy and Chopper look— sad. The rest look somewhere between confused and sheepish.

"Yikes," Sanji says, and Zoro inhales sharply through his teeth because—

'Yikes' means I fucked up.

"Ugh," he groans, shoving himself to his feet using the table, "fine, but don't blame me if murder happens and you find my corpse being devoured by creatures of the night."

She doesn't look at him as the door opens, leaning cooly against the wall like there aren't tear-tracks drying on her cheeks.

"Why did you follow me?" she asks, voice made of steel.

"Because I'm— sorry," he says simply. "I thought it was funny because I'm a dick and you've been kind of a nightmare, okay?"

Her eyes widen and she finally turns toward him. "Me, a nightmare? You're the one who—"

"No!" Zoro surprises even himself with the vehemence of his refusal, but she makes him so angry, always playing the damn victim— "No, you're the nightmare. I said one or two things about you that hurt your feelings, huh? Is that it? Well, I fucking apologized! You didn't, and you've been ruining my life since you got here! Now even Luffy's acting weird and doing and saying all this— this stuff and—" He takes a pause to bite back a scream and pull at his hair. "This is so stupid!"

But all he knows is that none of this was happening before Boa motherfucking Hancock, and he wants it to stop.

"Luffy?" Hancock laughs, but it's a humorless sound. "Are you really going to blame me for your boy problems?"

She's calm enough that it starts to calm Zoro down too. He rolls his shoulders, letting most of his anger fizzle out rather than holding onto it for dear life.

"Look," he says after a moment, "I know you like him."

Hancock's eyes narrow. "I can say the same to you."

Zoro stiffens. "So fucking what? Congrats, you have eyes."

"He's been kind to you too."

His glare crumbles. He sighs, shoulders sagging as he leans one against the wall. "I don't know why, but yeah. He's—"

"Brutally honest," she interrupts, voice cracking. "That boy will not shut up about you no matter how many times I try to get to know him. And that really says it all, doesn't it?"

His heart climbs into his throat. "Says... what, exactly?"

"He doesn't want me to know him. He'd rather go over every microscopic observation of someone else than answer a simple question, or try to know me. I've tried everything and he won't respond to it. I don't understand where I'm going wrong."

"Okay, but," he says, halfway amused, "it's Luffy. He does whatever the hell he wants and everyone else is just along for the ride."

"It's Luffy. Right." She hums, tapping sarcastically at her chin before glaring at him. "That means next to nothing to me when you say it. I have never been more intrigued by a person in my life and he won't even look my way." A shrill little disbelieving laugh leaves her. "I can't fathom why, when his other options consist of a veritable circus crowd."

"Wow." Zoro shakes his head, knowing he'd thought the same, but that was different from Hancock actually believing it. "First of all, Luffy is the goddamn ringleader of that circus. Second, you've been treating us like the shit on the bottom of your shoe."

"Because you are!" she snaps, eyes darting to him before zeroing in on her nails, posture straightening. But she doesn't look as regal as she aims to, just uncomfortable. "Those beneath me can't judge me. They can't— I won't be told I'm wrong for the way I live my life. I'm aware of the things you plebeians say behind my back, but you're so insignificant that it couldn't begin to matter! People need to be able to take a little criticism or they'll never—"

"Oh." Zoro inhales sharply. It all makes so much sense now. "You lash out just like me."

She just took a different path. She embraced it instead of shoving it down, and down, and down until she didn't have to look at the ugly truth. Zoro doesn't know how to let the thing that unmade him build him back up again, even tentatively, like Hancock has seemed to.

Her eyes blow wide in fury. "I am nothing like you," she spits, whirling on him, arm extended to—

Zoro flinches backward, head ducking for the incoming slap, but her finger only jabs into his chest. He stares at it for a moment as her eyes drill into the top of his head. He tentatively meets her gaze and nearly flinches again at how— upset she looks.

Her hand drops back to her side in an uncharacteristically jerky movement, fingers clenching.

And then they just— stand there. Both knowing but verbalizing none of it. Or Zoro thinks they have a mutual understanding, at first.

"I was not going to hit you," she near-whispers, gaze slanting to the ground as a frown pinches her mouth.

"Sorry." He hitches one shoulder in a sloppy imitation of a shrug, still unsettled. "Kind of a reflex. Especially with… someone like you."

"Well, I wasn't!" she insists, and god, he hopes she isn't going to cry again. "However lowly you think of me, likely as nothing more than a bitchy whore, at least know that."

"Jesus, Hancock." Zoro winces, her words lancing through his gut, turning it. "That's not it. You're not just some… some—" She's not his favorite person, but it's— a piece of fucking glass coming up his throat. He can't say it.

Her eyes go hazy, far away even though she's looking right at him. "You know, I… I didn't have to try hard. It didn't matter if I tried hard. Because I am beautiful. That's… all I am."

His chest tightens. "That's not—"

She huffs and shoots him a bitter, silencing smile. "I got out of the house once. I dug around in the flower garden to get a rose for my mother… or maybe it was one of my sisters? So hard to remember, it was so long ago. I wound up scratched and bleeding. Typical childhood injuries.

"When I was found, the rose was smacked from my hand. Hard enough to sting but not hard enough to bruise. I remember the shoe coming down and crushing the flower I'd hunted for, and I was shaken, scolded for doing it because look at your hands! What if you scar?

"What I'd done, what I'd accomplished, didn't matter, you see… for I am beautiful." She swallows, gaze dipping to the ground for a short moment. "And beauty sells."

Zoro swallows, guilt sinking like a rock in his stomach. "That… fucking sucks, Hancock."

She quirks an eyebrow, as if to say I pour my heart out, and that's it? What she actually says is, "Anything more to offer since you're so good at detailing my shortcomings?"

His filter flings itself to outer fucking space. "Childhoods are always fucked. Slight silver lining? At least you're kind of getting paid for that shit now."

Hancock's brow scrunches. "What do you—" Her expression smooths out, features slackening in startled horror. "Oh. You— oh."

"Shit." Zoro's fingertips feel numb when he drags them through his hair. His breathing imitates his heartbeat, fluttering fast and choppy. "Look, I—"

"I understand."

He chances a glance at her, relaxing incrementally when she seems serious. "Yeah, I guess you might."

She gnaws her lip, the most nervous gesture he's seen out of her this entire time. "Does Luffy...?"

"No. He—" Zoro switches tracks a bit, trying to save them both the trouble and astonished she even asks. "None of them know. He just, uh, saw her slap me one time?"

Hancock's shoulders hunch in and she shakes her head. "Why on earth would you go and tell me, then?"

He huffs derisively. "Well, you said it. You understand."

As much as anyone… can't, honestly. God, what the hell is he saying?

She nods, humming in consideration. "He might. Your... little band of weirdos might."

Bitterness plasters itself to the back of his teeth. "Because we've been so accepting of you?"

"...Yes." She falters for no more than a millisecond, but he catches it. He's kind of touched she cares enough to try to spare his feelings with the lie anyway. "As much as any group of strangers would be."

"Hancock," he says and must sound desperate enough, pathetic enough, to get her to really look at him. "I met them only a few weeks ago. I can't drop that shit on them now. There's no— there's no right time."

"Maybe not," she concedes. "That doesn't mean they'll abandon you."

That—

Fuck, that hits him so hard he almost gasps aloud. Like she really took a swing and knocked the air right out of him. Trust her to choose such blunt words and bowl him over in one sentence.

"Bullshit." He laughs, only a little hysterical. And even though it's Boa motherfucking Hancock and it's the last thing she'll want to hear— "He kissed me last night and I— I flipped the fuck out. Over nothing. I have no goddamn clue why he wants anything to do with me at all."

"Perhaps you should ask him," Hancock says, and she sounds— amused. Resigned. "Inferior as you are, in comparison to myself, something tells me I'd lost him to you before we ever met." She turns away, walking out from under the overhang into the parking lot. "I'm stubborn, yes, but not stupid. He won't change his mind."

Zoro balks. "What?"

"Keep up, musclehead. I give!" Her shoulders hitch high like an irate cat. "For the first time, I give. Do me a favor and stop sabotaging yourself." She huffs, head swiveling around in search of something. "Where the fuck is that damned ugly van?!"

Hearing her curse so scathingly throws him off for a heartbeat. He can't help the low chuckle he lets out as he comes to stand next to her. Sighing under the bright glow of the Denny's sign, he shrugs. "Last time we had to use Furbie as a homing beacon, so you might have to ask Ace."

She blinks at him. "He didn't have that monstrosity when we sat down."

"He didn't last time, to start with, either. I don't think it matters."

She gives the Denny's sign a nervous stare. "What is wrong with you people?"

Zoro unclips Mariana from his belt loop, holding her up for Hancock to see. He hasn't the faintest clue when she'd come back to him, and he doesn't think Usopp is slick enough to have returned it without him noticing. "My best guess? Various curses."

"You just carry that with you?"

"She likes me. It's insurance."

"I am verbalizing right now, in her presence, that we have struck a truce."

"I might not be the one you have to worry about. Usopp took her for a day and I don't know if he wanted to get back at you or Sanji more."

"That's the long-nosed one with the glaring crush, yes?"

"Bingo."

"Oh, please." She rolls her eyes. "Surely he knows I'd never entertained the thought? And Nami too?" Hancock grimaces. "Why are so many of your friends interested in that one?"

Zoro shrugs. "You're asking the wrong person. He kind of makes me wish I wasn't gay."

Their combined laughter splits the night, his a chortling snort that makes her shake her head disapprovingly through giggles.

Once it tapers off, they stand in half-comfortable silence, staring out at the foggy nothing.

"For what it's worth, you're not ugly. And you're not just... beautiful or— or some whore. You're pretty alright when you're not actively trying to insult us." He shrugs, turning just enough to see her reaction. He can't get too sentimental here, so he adds, "Most of all, you're a contradictory pain in the ass."

Her smile wobbles a little. "Yes, well. Perhaps there's more to you than..." she flicks his bicep with a roll of her eyes, "merely dumb muscles."

Zoro's answering smile feels just as shaky, but the moment shatters when the restaurant doors bang open.

"We gotta go!" Nami races between them, grabbing a wrist each.

"My dick went up in flames, bro!" Franky mourns, sniffling.

"Your what did what?" Hancock shouts as she runs.

Nami stops bodily dragging them, then seems to rethink letting Zoro follow her and grabs him again. "Zero internal compass. Anyway, Ace set the paper table cloth on fire."

"I drew a pineapple in a Santa hat!" Luffy chirps, proudly raising his hand.

Robin frowns. "I started writing out the Bee Movie script. I had a decent amount completed before all of my dreams were... quite brutally murdered."

"That's why I set it on fire. No one needs that immortalized."

"And then," Nami says, "something behind the counter woke up and ate the soda machine."

"So, naturally," Robin chimes in, "that was the last straw."

Hancock shakes her head. "…My life gets weirder every moment I spend with you people."

"Not us," Usopp corrects her. "Luffy."

Franky nods. "You get used to it."

"No," Hancock insists, "it is absolutely all of you combined, not just him."

Zoro and Chopper glance at each other. "Thanks," they say, in unison, "it's the trauma."

Courtesy of CC...
Hancock: "Sex sells and I deserve to be paid more."
Zoro: "You guys are getting PAID?!"

I feel halfway bad for laughing as hard as I did when she sent this in response to the chapter as a whole, because of subject matter, but... oh well, we been knew that my humor is questionable at the best of times.