Because a few have asked - this is not intended to be yaoi. It is a relationship story, however, so go ahead and interpret the relationship however you'd like. Just giving fair warning that this isn't a "kissing book".

The wind died, leaving a deafening stillness. "Sanji," Zoro finally ventured, but his throat was as dry as if he hadn't had a drink himself in two days. He licked his lips, tried again--calmly, don't want to startle him--"Sanji, what are you..."

Sanji opened his eyes, turned his head toward Zoro, a couple meters away and not daring to come nearer, at least until the blond got a more secure grip on that railing. It was still close enough to see the blank look in his eyes, recognition coming too slowly. When it did, they widened, and Zoro heard his breathing quicken. "Zoro," he said, "I--"

"Here, I'm right here," Zoro said hastily, but when he started to move forward Sanji threw up one hand to fend him off. Zoro froze; Sanji was leaning too far out to have a stable footing on the balcony, holding himself now with just four fingers curled loosely around the railing. "Sanji," Zoro said, not moving, calm, stay calm, don't snap, "it's okay, I'll stay put--Sanji, just lean back a little, before you--"

Sanji didn't move, suspended there with his hand outstretched as he blinked at his crewmate, slowly. "I was waiting. Have to tell you...you didn't see..."

"No, I didn't." Zoro slid one foot forward, just a small step, too slow and easy to even be noticed as he shifted his weight. "I wasn't there, I didn't see any of it. What happened?" Two more steps brought him to the railing, though Sanji was still out of reach. "What was sixth death?" He glanced down, to the grounds below, the gardens, the wide circle of pebbled path directly beneath.

It wasn't really that far down. Luffy had tossed him much farther on occasion. Admittedly those times he had landed in water, or on Luffy's rubber body, but he was fairly certain he could survive the fall, if he could manage to land on his feet. He would just have to make sure he threw himself off with enough velocity to catch Sanji before they hit. Should have a couple seconds at least...

"Sixth death." At that whisper Zoro's attention shot back to his crewmate's face. Sanji's lips were twisted into what might have been a grin, if his eyes hadn't been so empty. "There wasn't a sixth death. It got...interrupted." The wind picked up again, catching the tails of his black jacket and blowing his hair into his eyes.

"Interrupted?"

"My fault. It was my fault." Sanji shoved the blond tangle out of his face with his free hand, his grip on the balustrade slipping a little. "That's what he said, and he was right."

"Sanji, just grab the damn railing!" Screw staying calm, or figuring out what the hell he was talking about--

Before Zoro could lunge for him, the blond looked back, and something in his eyes stopped the swordsman in his tracks. "No," Sanji said. "You don't understand." His throat worked, but with nothing to swallow he choked a little on the dryness. "Th-They're all..."

"We went through this already, it was just a--"

"Not the Baratie," Sanji said, and though the wind had calmed again, Zoro shivered all the same. "Not a vision. The goddess--she didn't have the chance to show me anything. Before the sixth death even started, they came. Like you said. They got impatient, waiting for us, so they came."

"What?" Zoro's own hand wrapped around the balustrade, tight enough to crack it, as if he might be in danger of falling off himself. "What are--"

"My fault, he said. They came looking for us. For me. They all came to save me, they thought I could be..." Sanji stared at Zoro, so focused he might bore a hole through his eyes, that grin that wasn't a grin at all stretching his mouth out of shape. His husky voice wavered, an atonal, emotionless singsong. "Nami-san came, Nami-san came to help me. We were in the temple, the hall below the fountain, with the water falling all around. The priest was chanting, and the priestess, and all I could think of was how much I wanted just one sip of that water.

"And then, before they could finish, before they were done with the preparations, Nami-san came, with Robin-chan, and everyone else behind them. They came to help me, and the priests were shouting, but they came--tried to stop them, the priests did, I did, and the priestess, she was crying. But the goddess isn't listening to her now, and the goddess--her ceremony, she wouldn't suffer intruders..." His tone was rising, gradually, like the wind before a stormfront. "My fault, all of them, they came for me, and I--no!" Zoro had moved toward him, and Sanji twisted back, swinging himself around to face the balcony, the toes of his shoes skidding on the ledge. Zoro froze again, and Sanji shook his head, a sharp rattle, as if he were casting off water. "You didn't--I have to tell you first, so you--"

"You can tell me inside, I'll listen, just give me your hand, Sanji--"

"You don't understand--it was me!" Sanji kicked one banister, and while the strike was nowhere near his usual power the stone fractured with a crack like a thunderbolt. "Me--all of them--" His voice was fracturing, too, breaking under a different blow. "You didn't see it, how--"

"What happened?" Zoro ground out. "What'd you see?"

"I saw--" His eye was wide enough that Zoro could see the entire gray void of the sky reflected in the hole of his pupil. "I saw the goddess. She was beautiful, so damn beautiful. She raised her arm, and I saw--those flames, my fault, and everything went blank, and when I could see again, he--they--all of them..."

He drew a breath, the air rattling in his chest like dry gravel. "They're dead, Zoro. Chopper, Usopp, Robin-chan. N-nami-san. Luffy. They're all dead, and it's my--"

"Bullshit," Zoro growled. "They aren't here, they never were, this is just another damn trick, another--"

"No vision. Nothing they showed me," Sanji said. "I wasn't looking into any damn pool this time. This wasn't the ceremony! The priests, they didn't know, they weren't expecting it any more than I was. When they broke through the door, Nami-san and Luffy and the others, the priests shouted at them to stay back--no one allowed at the ceremony, but the priests, and me, and the goddess--but they came anyway. For me. They came, and they--"

"They weren't here!" Zoro would have heard them come, if it were all of them--and it would have been, if they had decided to come looking for him and Sanji, if Luffy had decided it was time to leave, they all would have come. But he would have seen them, heard them.

The hall below the fountain, Sanji had said, somewhere underground like the kitchens, or even deeper, while he had been climbing the tower, and that thick granite could block all sound. And he didn't know when Sanji had actually been taken, or how long he had slept.

But he would have known, if they had really come, he would have had to know. These were their crewmates they were talking about. The whole temple would have known. Hell, the entire city would have heard. "It couldn't have really happened, Sanji, just get off the damn--"

"It couldn't have," Sanji said, and his voice cracked. "Couldn't have, but it did. They're dead--"

"Stop it."

"They're dead and it's my fault."

"Stop it," Zoro demanded. "Even if it had--it didn't, they're not, but it wouldn't be your fault, you said yourself it was that bitch goddess--"

"Not just the goddess," Sanji said, his voiceless rasp too harsh to be a whisper. "Not all of them." He looked down, and Zoro followed his gaze to the balcony's ledge, his too precarious footing. His black shoes--their usual polish was smattered with rusty stains, and the cuffs of his pants were darkened, damp.

There was the faintest coppery taint in the air, that Zoro hadn't noticed before, but now it turned his stomach, for all that he was long accustomed to the smell of blood. "Sanji--your shoes--"

"Sanji of the Red Leg. Do you think anyone calls me that?" Sanji raised one foot enough to regard the bloody shoe. The other sole slipped a little on the stone, tipping him that much more perilously into empty space, though his grip on the railing didn't tighten. "Never really thought of it before, but I learned from the master, didn't I, someone should get the title, if he's not bearing it anymore..."

"Whose blood, Sanji? Yours--"

"Not mine. Not then." Sanji shook his head, even harder. "He was screaming at me, screaming it was my fault, and before the goddess touched them...he was right, it was my fault, but I couldn't think, I couldn't breathe. There was nothing, and when I could see again...both of them, at my feet, and the blood--all that water and I couldn't reach it, couldn't wash it off, they wouldn't let me--"

"It didn't happen," Zoro said, had been saying for some time, to tell by how familiarly his tongue shaped the syllables, though he didn't remember interrupting. "It didn't happen, it didn't happen--"

"Zoro." How the hell could Sanji sound like that, all of a sudden so damn calm, still hanging out over that drop while he asked, with ludicrously reasonable composure, "You've got your swords, right?"

"Huh?" Zoro stared at him. "Yeah, of course." Hard to miss, weren't they, the three scabbards at his hip as always.

"All right," Sanji said, and then he held out his hand, so matter-of-factly that Zoro took a second to get it.

Then he did, and shot forward to grab him, locked his fingers around the cook's wrist and hauled him in. Sanji shifted his other hand to vault over the railing, clumsily, and he stumbled on the balcony's tile as Zoro yanked him to the window, not gently, and shoved him into the chamber.

Only after Zoro had banged the window shut behind them, rattling the glass, did he release Sanji's arm. The blond took a few mostly even steps, put a hand to the wall to steady himself and said, with that same preternatural calm, "I didn't actually believe it myself, you know. I didn't think the goddess was real, until I saw her there."

"Sanji, whatever you think you saw--"

"She was only there for an instant, one second, then she was gone. But we all saw her. And Nami-san, Robin-chan, they weren't afraid. While Luffy and the others went for the priests, they headed for where she'd been. Then the goddess was there again, just long enough to see how beautiful she really was. She raised her arm," and Sanji's own arm lifted to parody that gesture, a languid sweep like a conductor calling forth a melody. "There were flames, blue flames. The goddess melts the ice, that's what they say, and blue's the hottest fire, the best for cooking. She was closest to Robin-chan--it was so fast, but it wasn't fast enough.

"Her face, Zoro, Robin-chan's face, for that one instant before she burned too fiercely to see anything at all--her eyes were even brighter blue than the fire. She didn't even try to cry out, she just looked at me. But Nami-s-san..."

He faltered, hands curling into fists, a desperate hold on something imperceptible. "Nami-san had long enough...to scream...and it was my name. I think it was my name. The fire--the priests held me, there were, I don't know, five or six of them, and they're not fighters here but I couldn't--too damn weak, I couldn't get free. She fell, she was trying...rolling on the ground, beating at herself, but the fire wasn't on her, it was inside, those flames bursting out of her skin, her blood might have been oil... The smell...and she was screaming, until her throat burned..."

A red line of blood seeped from Sanji's clenched fist over the crease of his palm, welled up and dropped to the carpet. Zoro couldn't move. It's not possible, he wanted to say, but they had both seen too many things. A devil fruit eater, feigning the trappings of a deity? Or something even less imaginable? Anything was possible. This was the Grand Line.

It wasn't real, even if the goddess might be. He couldn't figure out how to say that; his tongue might as well have been nailed to the roof of his mouth.

Sanji spoke like he had no choice, a desperate jabbering, one word tumbling after another in an avalanche, impossible to hold back once started. "Chopper, he tried. They were all shouting at him to stop--I think I was shouting, I couldn't hear myself, and they wouldn't let me go--but he still tried. He tried to help them, and the flames were so high--he cried, too, but he wouldn't quit. He tried to put the fire out, made himself big to blanket them with his body, tried to smother it. And then he was burning, too, all his fur, going up like a torch. A flambé," and a convulsive laugh tore from his chest. "All three of them, Robin-chan and Chopper and Nami-san--Nami-san's hair, it's always been lovelier than any fire, I always thought, that red-gold shine, not like that blue--"

"Sanji, snap the hell out of it!" Zoro commanded.

Sanji was babbling too fast to catch his breath, he was going to suffocate himself if he kept it up, and Zoro lifted his hand to slap some sense in him. But at the gesture his crewmate caught himself all at once, broke off his raving to block with enough force to wrench Zoro's arm back. The blond drew a sharp breath, met Zoro's eyes and said, nearly rationally, "No, you have to--need to let me tell you. If I stop I won't be able to do it, and you need to under--"

"I don't need to know anything. It was just some crazy nightmare, it wasn't real--"

Sanji rocked back a step, reached down and wiped his hand across one shoe, then drew himself upright again, showing his fingers to Zoro, the dried brown stains. "That blood's here, isn't it?" He rubbed his fingertips together. "I'm not seeing things? No dream, right?"

"That's..." It was blood, Zoro knew that rusty shade too well to be fooled, but wherever the hell it had come from--

"It happened so fast, there wasn't a chance for the others to do anything. Even Luffy." Sanji had found that eerie composure again, his voice flat and his face blank. Zoro decided he preferred the hysteria. Better madness than nothing at all. "He and Usopp, they had started to rush the priests, but then they just were staring. And I...if they'd come alone, if Nami-san hadn't come, if Robin-chan hadn't, or Chopper, they would have--if it had just been Luffy, he's fast enough, the goddess might not have... Something like that, I was shouting something like that. Then Luffy looked at me.

"He looked at me, and he was angry, you almost never see him that angry, but you can't forget it once you have. 'Your fault,' he said, 'It's your fault,' and then he said, 'I'll never forgive you,' and then he was charging at me, knocking the priests out of the way. They might have just been sticks of wood, he threw them aside and came for me and then I don't remember, everything went white, I don't remember anything. Just their screams, I could still hear them screaming, her screaming, Luffy--'I'll never forgive you,' and maybe he was crying. Maybe I was. I don't know.

"Then I was standing there, alone, and Luffy was lying at my feet, and Usopp--Usopp, he should have run away, shouldn't he have run from that? At least Usopp should have...but he was there, sprawled half on top of Luffy, like he'd tried to protect him. Their eyes were open, not looking at me, couldn't look at anything, but they weren't burned. There was just the blood, on them, on the floor. On me.

"The goddess didn't defend me, the priests...they didn't have to. He was right, he was right, my fault, but I wasn't thinking, I couldn't think. Not until later, I was here again, back in this damn room, and I knew you'd be coming. Had to wait, knew I had to tell you, Zoro, but... I didn't think I could, but I had to. You had to know. So now..."

He sucked in air, used that lungful to pull his back straight and lift his head, meeting Zoro's stare unflinching. Deliberately he raised his arms, spread them out, then tilted back his chin to bare his throat, his eyes still locked with Zoro's. "Your right," he said. "Take it."

"Take--"

"Like you told Mihawk," Sanji said. "Dishonorable for a swordsman to strike from behind."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Zoro choked.

"You've got three swords, don't you? You don't have to use the white one, I know that means some damn thing to you, don't need my blood on that one, but the others--"

"The hell would I--"

"What else do you want to know, Zoro?" The knifelike edge to Sanji's voice echoed off the stone ceiling, rang against the walls. "Do you want to hear the sound Chopper made, how high he cried out, until his tears boiled in that fire? Do you want me to tell you what was left, when the flames finally died? Burned down to bones, those charred heaps, you couldn't even tell they once were...couldn't recognize them, not even Nami-san, except her arm was stretched out toward me, and the fingers, black skeleton crumbling to just a charcoal outline on the stone..."

"Sanji, it didn't--"

"Do you want to know what Usopp's chest looked like, with the white ribs sticking up, cleanly snapped--how long, do you think, will lungs still try to breathe, how long before the heart pumps out all the blood, and his spine was broken, he couldn't move, couldn't do anything but lie there and slowly die. Or Luffy--Luffy, for him it was fast, it must have been fast, with the side of his head caved in like that, all the blood pouring into his hat and leaking through the straw. His eyes were open and they looked surprised, not in pain, not even angry, just shocked--"

"Stop it, Sanji." Zoro didn't mean to whisper but he wasn't sure if he actually could hear himself at all. "Stop it, please."

"What more do you need to hear, Zoro? What else do you want to know?" Sanji's voice was stretched too tight to quaver, thinned to the breaking point. "Why are your swords still sheathed? You forget how to use a blade--"

"Like hell," Zoro said, and heard his own voice shake. "It was just a trick, just a damn lie." Had to be--forget everything else, no way Sanji would be strong enough to take down Luffy, even in full health, much less this state. Especially if Luffy were angry.

--if Sanji had misunderstood, somehow, delirious as he was, if Luffy hadn't really been attacking, hadn't been expecting an attack from one of his trusted crewmates--if he had been overcome with the shock of seeing the others, right before his eyes--

Bullshit, all the goddess's fucking deception, and no way was he going to be her tool. The attendant wasn't supposed to be present for any of the deaths, but the rules must have changed, because this one wasn't over. Just part of a ritual, in reality his crewmates were gathered on the Going Merry by now, waiting for them, all his crewmates, alive and well, except the one here, but damned if he was going to let this death be anything more than ceremony.

His hands closed around the hilts of his katana, and Sanji exhaled, relief dimming the last life in his eyes, even as his shoulders stiffened in resolved expectation.

With a flick of his fingers, Zoro unclasped the scabbards from his belt, grabbed all three swords and flung them aside, not looking to where they cracked against the wall and clattered to the floor, the blades clinking in their wooden sheaths. "Like hell," he said again.

There was a long moment that he thought the air might have turned to stone around them; Sanji was paralyzed, still as if he were trapped in glass, and Zoro wasn't sure if he could move or breathe himself, didn't even try.

When Sanji did break free, it was only to draw a shallow breath. His pale lips barely moved, his voice distant. "I know you've never liked me," he said, "but I didn't know you hated me that much."

"Yeah." Zoro's own voice seemed to his ears as hollow and far away as the sound of the ocean inside a seashell. "Yeah, I hate you, you damn cook. You arrogant bastard, like you'd ever be strong enough to kill Luffy. Like you'd ever actually fight Usopp. Like you'd ever let Chopper burn; like you'd ever just stand by and do nothing while someone hurt Robin, or Nami, no matter how many goddamn men were trying to hold you back--you lying son of a bitch, you really expect me to believe any of that?"

"If you don't believe it," Sanji's thready rasp barely carried to him, "if you do...it's still true. Every one of them, all their dreams, everything we ever did...because of me, all because of me..."

He lurched, and Zoro thought he was about to fall, but then he was moving, much faster than Zoro would have expected him capable of, going for swords scattered by the wall. Or maybe the window again, the balcony beyond it. It didn't matter and Zoro didn't care. He checked Sanji's rush, throwing himself into the blond's path and wrestling him back.

Sanji fought. Not at all his usual coordinated, calculated assaults, but Zoro was unprepared for the manic strength in his wiry limbs. An elbow clipped his chin and he saw stars, and then Sanji had torn free, was whirling around in a wild kick that, even given his condition, could have taken his target's head off. Zoro dropped and rolled, instinctively diving for his swords laying by the wall.

--and goddamn it, it was unbelievable enough that Sanji was strong enough to fight back, but he sure as hell shouldn't have had the presence of mind for that kind of scheming. "You son of a bitch!" Zoro growled, and lunged up, slammed his shoulder into Sanji's chest hard enough to knock the wind out of him and then locked his arms around his crewmate's thin frame, closing his arms to his side.

Sanji struggled violently, flailing with all that madman's strength; Zoro just held on, swearing through clenched teeth when the toes of the cook's hard shoes smashed into his shins. But adrenaline and misery couldn't make up for the last couple days' deprivations, and seized this close, Sanji wouldn't have been able to get off any good kicks even if he had his usual power.

He was going to damage himself more if he kept it up. Zoro grimaced, then whacked Sanji on the back with his open hand. The blond stiffened, spine arching rigid through the jacket and bandages as an agonized whine escaped his throat.

"Sorry," Zoro muttered, desperately hoping he hadn't reopened any of those wounds. Blood loss was about the last thing he needed now; he would have too damn little energy reserves left after this.

"You bastard," Sanji hissed, "if you're too much a coward--"

Zoro didn't let go, didn't relax his grip. "Who's the fucking coward, trying to run away from what he says was his fault?" He tightened his arms, careful not to put too much pressure on his back. Sanji's blond hair was getting in his eyes and he shook it off as well as he could, said quietly in his ear, "It wasn't real, it didn't happen. You didn't do anything and they're all alive."

It sounded like it hurt Sanji just to breathe, the warm air shredding his parched throat. His shoulders under Zoro's arms were heaving as he gasped for breath. "If you don't have the courage to believe it, if you don't have the guts to--you weren't there--"

"Then wasn't it my fault, too?" Zoro asked. "I wasn't there, I didn't do anything to help them."

"If you...you weren't allowed either..." Sanji's shudder was hard enough to shake Zoro as well. He reeked of smoke, residue of all those cigarettes soaked into his suit and his skin, overwhelming the stench of sweat and blood. "If you'd been there, you also would've..."

"Sanji," Zoro cut him off, "what was sixth death?"

"I told you." Sanji tried futilely to pull away, squirming and clawing like a cat too tightly clutched. "There wasn't one, it didn't--"

"You said they started it," Zoro reminded, "chanting or whatever. What'd they tell you before that, before you saw Luffy and the others, what'd the priest say it was going to be?"

"The death..." and the ghost of that crazy laughter quavered in his voice. "Everything, death of everything, everything's dead."

"It couldn't have been everything," Zoro said, reasonably, "or what would they save for last? Come on, Sanji, what was sixth death?"

"Sixth death..." For a long minute Sanji only breathed, his chest moving against Zoro's. Finally he whispered, "Sixth death. Second death of the goddess. Death of hope."

Zoro froze, momentarily caught by the desolation of that loss.

Sanji drew himself up, not taking advantage of Zoro's paralysis to free himself but gathering what had to be the last of his will to say, steadily, "It's your right, as the only one left. It's your right, don't you owe them, don't you want revenge--"

"If it was real," Zoro said slowly, "if it was your fault, if they really are all dead--I sure as fuck am not going to kill the only nakama I have left."

"You..."

Sanji only mouthed it, and then he folded, so suddenly it might have been a trick, all strength in his body giving way at once. Zoro shifted to catch him, support him, the blond deadweight slumped against him, lighter than he should be, even for the skinny cook. He was shivering, short spasms jolting him.

Zoro tipped his head forward, put his forehead to Sanji's. He was too hot, even in this warm room, feverish though his skin was dry. "...don't understand," he was muttering, barely giving enough breath for the words to be audible, and his teeth clenched around them. "You don't understand, they're...all...you should..."

"No," Zoro said, "they aren't, and I won't, and it wasn't your fault. You didn't do it, whatever it looked like. It wasn't your fault, Sanji."

"Even if it wasn't," Sanji gasped, "even if it wasn't me, they're still..."

Zoro took a couple steps back, Sanji stumbling with him, until the back of his knees bumped into the couch. He let himself drop, not letting go so they fell onto it together. Sanji curled around himself like an animal rolling into a defensive ball, burying his head in his arms, trying to hide himself. There wasn't enough water left in him for tears but his shudders stuck in his throat like sobs. "Couldn't...I wasn't strong enough..."

If it were possible for a man to will his own heart to stop, Zoro thought, this death would already be real. "It didn't happen, Sanji, it didn't happen. It was just a trick, you were seeing things, they're all still alive." It didn't do any good; even if Sanji would listen, he was beyond the point of understanding. But what else could he do? If Sanji could only fall asleep, let all of this go--if Zoro dared he would have just knocked him out, but he couldn't be sure Sanji would wake up again. He felt too damn fragile, like a blade struck too many times, until it would shatter under the lightest blow.

"You just have to get through this, and then you can see them all again, they're waiting for us. Nami's waiting for you, and Robin, you'll get to see them again. This will be over by tonight, there's only one left," and now he was the one babbling, but some of it was getting through, enough that Sanji turned his head a little, into Zoro's shoulder.

"They're..." he mumbled, "they're...I'm sorry, Nami-san, I'm sorry...everyone...I'm sorry..."

"Nothing to be sorry for," Zoro said, "not your fault, and it wasn't real anyway. You don't have to apologize, you just have to make it through this damn thing, that's all, just hang on, a little longer..." Eventually he ran out of words, and Sanji wasn't trying to say anything anymore.

Sanji was trembling, the chills so continuous he was almost vibrating, as though like crystal under a sustained note he were going to crack apart, and Zoro held him, as if he could keep those pieces together with the strength of his arms alone. Nothing more he could do, too damn little, but it would be enough. It was all he could do, so it had to be enough.

to be continued...

More fan art - so cool to be getting it! Please give them nice comments, so they'll draw me more... Naye now has a deviantart account, and she's put up a couple more great pics:
naye.deviantart.com
And Gnine has posted a gorgeous one from this last chapter; if you liked reading it, don't miss it (I am so putting the pencil sketch on my wall. Even if I have to steal it.)
gnine.deviantart.com