Zoro awoke to footsteps, unfamiliar, and in the strange surroundings his instincts reacted before his conscious mind kicked in, so he was standing with two swords drawn by the time the intruder could take a third step. A alarmed squeak was the only response. The room was dark, but by the door stood a woman, illuminated by the wavering candle balanced on the bundle in her arms.

Recognizing the blonde acolyte who had guided him that afternoon, he sheathed his swords. "Sorry about that."

"I'm sorry to disturb you, sir," the woman said quickly. "Elder Orwalsh asked me to bring these here." She knelt to place on the floor a pile of white cotton cloth and a pewter pitcher and basin, then went around the room and used her candle to light the four lamps suspended from the ceiling. The golden light flickered warmly on the rich hues of the rug. Though there was no fireplace, the chamber was warm, despite the wind he could hear blowing outside the windows; the heat must rise from the rooms below.

"If there is anything you wish, sir," the acolyte began to ask, but Zoro shook his head.

"I'm fine. You know when this third death's going to be over?"

It might have just been a trick of the firelight, but her face seemed to pale, with an almost sickly cast. "Very shortly, I think," she said, and before he could ask anything more she had retreated out the door.

Zoro shrugged and stretched back out on the bench, but before he could drop off he heard footsteps in the hall outside. Slower pace than usual, but the hard soles against the stone floor sounded in distinct contrast to the slippered feet of the priests and acolytes. With a twinge of annoyance--he could use more sleep--Zoro sat up again, to watch the silk screen slide aside and Sanji enter.

He was dressed, but his jacket was draped over his arm and his untucked blue shirt was only secured by two buttons, the collar hanging open with no tie in sight. His strides were steady, but slightly too slow, taking a little too much effort to put one foot after the other, and he stopped only a few feet past the door, to regard Zoro with cross composure. "What the hell are you still doing here?"

"Done already?" Zoro inquired.

"Yeah. I told you, it's fine. Piece of cake." The cook's voice was scratchy, and his wan complexion wasn't an illusion of the light. Sweat beaded on his cheeks and chest, darkened his shirt. "You can go anytime."

"Yeah, I could." Zoro nodded toward the pitcher, basin, and cloth on the floor at his feet. "Someone just brought that. For you?"

"Don't you have some important training to do? Or napping?"

"I'll have time to do that here, looks like."

With slow and obvious effort Sanji brought up one hand, pinched the bridge of his nose. "If you were my friend," he said tightly, "you'd leave now. I'm asking you to."

"That's if I were your friend." Zoro frowned as he stood. "What the hell did they do to you?"

Sanji glared at him through the grid of his fingers. "I told you, no big deal."

"Except you're swaying where you stand."

"No I'm not."

"And you're getting blood on the rug." He pointed to the drips dotting the brightly colored weave.

"Dammit." Sanji lifted up his foot, grimaced at the scarlet rivulet running down the back of his shoe. Then, abruptly, and with a look of surprise that indicated he wasn't expecting it anymore than Zoro, he sat down on the floor, legs folding under him. Through gritted teeth he released a short breath, then said, calmly, "Would you mind bringing over those bandages?"

Zoro collected the cotton as well the basin and pitcher, while Sanji undid the couple buttons holding his shirt closed. He hissed as he moved, a grating sound in the back of his throat as he pulled off the shirt and bundled it up.

It was soaked through, dripping dark crimson over his hands. Sanji set it aside, folded over the blood, picked up the pitcher and poured into the basin. The liquid ran clear as water, but a sharp odor rose from it, strong enough that Zoro's nose wrinkled. Definitely not drinkable. Sanji dipped a rag into it, wrung it out and then curled up his arm to bring it to his back with a shudder.

Zoro got up and circled around him. Sanji twisted around, trying to hide his view, too late. The lamps were bright, unforgiving as they shone on the vicious red stripes crisscrossing his back from his neck to the waistline of his pants. Some were hardly scratches; a few drove deep enough that the flesh was flayed back. There were too many lashings to even guess the number, leaving not so much as an inch of untouched skin.

Zoro whistled low, in spite of himself. Sanji, hunching over braced on his outstretched arms and drawing breath in quick harsh pants, glared up at him, before dunking the cloth back in the basin. Scarlet swirled through the water, and then he reached around to the wounds high on his shoulders.

"Eighty-four," he said abruptly, and Zoro's gaze jumped from those injuries to his face, half-hidden behind his blond hair. Sanji's jaw was clenched, gaze focused on the carpet's intricate weave as he carefully patted his back. "Eighty-four priests, acolytes, monks, and whatever else they have here, in this temple. I counted." He twitched as the cotton brushed one of the deeper cuts, the cloth slipping from his paralyzed fingers to spatter pink stains on the rug.

Sanji cursed under his breath. Zoro crouched, picked up the rag and pulled it away when the blond tried to snatch it back, only to wince at the sudden motion. Fresh blood welled up along his back.

"Don't be an idiot," Zoro told him. "Not that I'd expect any better of you," he added obligatorily.

"I don't--"

"Just lie down, will you?" He would have pushed him down but there wasn't any place to put his hand, not if he didn't want blood all over it.

With a grimace, Sanji sighed and lay down on his stomach, resting his chin on his crossed arms. Zoro rinsed the rag in the basin again, leaned over him to dab away the blood clotted around the longest stripe. Whatever was in the water must sting, from how Sanji's spine arched, but he didn't say anything.

Washing off the blood didn't help much; wherever he wiped it away he found more marked flesh, red and swollen where the skin wasn't broken. But the medicine slowed the bleeding, and most of the wounds were shallow. He worked slowly and carefully, cleaning all those myriad scores and covering them with fresh strips of cotton. "So, what," he asked finally, "they all got a swing at you? All eighty-four?"

"Third death. Death of mercy," Sanji said, a singsong lilt to his hoarse voice, as if he were reciting. "All of them, except the priestess; she wasn't there. As many hits as they wanted, I think it was, once the whip was in their hands. Tried counting who got how many in, but I lost track--" He caught his breath sharply at the touch of the cloth, inhaled shortly and resumed, "Most of them, it was only one, and a lot of them, barely felt it...but there were a few, don't think they liked me very much. Either because of the priestess, or...our reputation seems to have gotten around."

"Met some kids today who'd heard we were pirates," Zoro mentioned. He paused in his ministrations, hand posed over the wounds. "Those kids, they were acolytes, I think..."

"None of the young ones hit hard," Sanji said. He frowned, brow furrowed in anger as much as pain. "Dammit, they even made the girls do it...some of them were crying. Tried to tell them..." He shook his head, dropped it back onto his folded arms. "But when it was the high priest's turn, he only raised the whip once. And everyone after that only took one hit. So really...isn't as bad as it could've been." He coughed.

"Sounds like you could use a drink."

"Thanks so much for the reminder." His voice was even hoarser.

"Sorry." The basin was running red. Zoro brought it to balcony and emptied it down the drainage channel, refilled it with clean liquid from the pitcher and started to work on the lesser damage. There was enough cotton to bandage everything, and most of the wounds probably weren't deep enough to scar, as long as nothing got infected. He wondered if whatever was in the water was more for the medicinal purpose, or to keep it from being drunk.

"It'd have been better if they were enjoying it," Sanji said. His fingers, curled around his arms, dug in until the flesh whitened, though his rasping voice was steady. "But even the bastards who hit a lot, they were too damn serious about it." He coughed again, a dry hacking.

"Maybe you should keep quiet," Zoro said. "Your throat's sounding pretty raw."

Sanji turned his head enough to eye the swordsman through the fall of blond hair. "Guess you didn't hear it, up here."

"I didn't hear anything," Zoro said, truthfully.

"Wasn't much." Zoro could hear his teeth grind. "Just...the last few. When they hit what'd already been hit. Hurt."

"I bet."

"You think I was crying all along? Yeah, I must've been wailing like a baby, soon as they started tapping me. Bet you're pissed you slept through that."

"Asshole." He swabbed the grooves imprinted between his shoulderblades. A shudder ran down Sanji's back and Zoro stopped, soaked the cloth again and dribbled more water to loosen the dried blood. "I sure as hell would've screamed. Burst their damn eardrums."

Sanji's laugh was dry and rattling as his coughs. "What, and that'd be winning?"

"It wouldn't be losing."

"I'm not going to lose." Behind the blond hair Sanji glared. "Maybe I'm not a total psycho like you, but I'll be damned if some stupid ceremony is gonna kill me." He put his head down again, closed his eyes and relaxed a notch. His breathing was too fast for sleep, however, and his back still was rigid, tensed against the ministrations. Zoro doubted he would rest comfortably tonight anyway, with those injuries.

He emptied the basin again, filled it with the last in the pitcher and cleaned the final shallow scratches. Even after soaking in the water, the cloth was still stained, and he frowned at the rusty hue. "You did lose some blood here."

"No, really?"

"If you're not gonna be drinking anything to get it back..."

"Shut up." Sanji didn't raise his head, words muffled by his arms. "I'm trying to pretend you're Nami-san and I can't do it when you won't close that fat mouth."

Zoro slapped a cotton bandage down, and Sanji jerked. "Sit up," Zoro told him. "Need to wrap this around to hold everything together." The cook complied, and he strung the cloth strips under his arms and across his chest, wrapping it tight enough that Sanji's breath caught. He bit his lip and said nothing, though by the time Zoro was done his pale complexion was that much closer to white and sweat had broken across his forehead. Cautiously he stretched, extended his arms and winced only a little.

"All I'm saying," said Zoro, "is that you better not get into any major fight, or you might end up flat on your face in the middle of it."

"Yeah, you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" If Sanji's grin was small and tight, it was no less sarcastic for that.

Zoro ignored it. "You don't know if you'll have to fight," he reminded instead. "You don't know what the next deaths are."

"Thanks, yeah, I remember that, too." Moving with care, Sanji reached for his discarded shirt, wrinkled his nose at the brown bloodstains as he went through it and retrieved his cigarettes. Taking one out, with his other hand he dug into his pants pocket for matches, then settled himself back on the floor, long legs stretched out in front of him and leaning back on his arms as he smoked.

"We probably should get some sleep," Zoro said, as the cigarette burned down to ashes.

"Nothing stopping you."

Zoro got up from the floor, extinguished all but the lamp hanging over them. "There's room on the bench for both of us."

Sanji snorted. "How could you sleep without rolling off, with it curved like that?"

"It's not that bad." He lay down on it, adjusting his swords not to knock against his hip and curling his legs around to match the curve of the pillar the bench circled.

Sanji made no move to rise. "Not sleepy anyway."

"If it's really hurting--"

"You'll kiss it and make it better?" Sanji arched an obnoxious eyebrow in his direction. "When the hell did you become the mother I never had?"

"When you started whining like a two year old."

Sanji stubbed out the cigarette in the basin, blew out the last curl of smoke. "Asshole."

"Bastard."

"No one's making you stay."

"This is your own damn fault."

"The door's right there."

"I know where it is."

A long moment passed, and then Sanji stood, too quickly, wavering for a second before he found his footing. He blew out the lamp, the sudden darkness blinding. When Zoro's vision adjusted, Sanji had sat down again, white bandages and white skin becoming a faint, ghostly shape in the starlight from the surrounding windows. He was lighting up again, the match's brief yellow flare soon vanished back into the dark, leaving the single coal burning at the end of the new cigarette.

"They take their ceremonies seriously, here," he remarked quietly.

"I noticed," Zoro said.

"I'm going through with this."

"I know."

"Three down. Practically halfway there."

"Just shut up and go to sleep," Zoro suggested, and suiting actions to words, he closed his eyes and put his head down.

He was dozing off when he heard his crewmate's quiet voice. "...Zoro."

"Yeah."

Sanji hesitated. "Never mind," he said finally. Then added, "But I'll tell you one thing."

Zoro yawned. "Uh-huh?"

"That high priest of theirs? He may be a big guy, but he hits like a girl."

"Heh."

"G'night, Zoro."

"'Night," Zoro said.

to be continued...

You asked for it...

Qautrina - this fic is an exercise in keeping them in char in spite of everything. Wish me luck ^^; Eike - why is everyone so worried about 'mindless fangirl praise'? We're all of us fangirls (or boys) here! I squeal as loud as any of us...and probably higher-pitched than most. Jadefuchs - false advertising, hmm? Well, I'll warn now that this is gonna be long, but hopefully it'll live up to the summary. And, er, yes, I like writing the Zoro-Sanji dynamic, that's pretty much what the fic is about... Sano's Honey - have a theory that Sanji does think of Zoro as his best friend; look at how he was with Zeff and the others he was closest to on the Baratie. Sanji's not exactly socially well-adjusted. ^^; Don't believe that *Zoro* thinks this, mind... And Demeter - a cult of friendshipping? heh. I actually find friendship easier to write than romance, but that could be because romance tends to bore me, unless it's grounded in more complex relationships...