"Sanji!"

Zoro rolled the thug's deadweight over, dug into his suit pocket and found the ring of keys. He jammed one after another into the manacles; the third one clicked in, and he wrenched off the cuffs and scrambled to his crewmate's side.

It must have just been shock; Sanji's breathing was even and his pulse steady. He groaned as Zoro took his hand from his throat, then came to all at once. Shoving Zoro away, he started to rise, only to seize up when he tried to move his legs, all his breath leaving in a sharp gasp.

"Easy," Zoro said, "it's just me--"

"I know it's you," Sanji snapped breathlessly. "Don't get blood on the suit, here!"

"Don't get blood on the suit?!"

"A good tailor's hard to come by on this damn Grand Line." Sanji sat up enough to adjust the jacket's collar, moving well enough, but for the clenched teeth and the sweat beading on his brow. "The buttons got ripped off, but the fabric's still good, as long as--hey, I said don't--"

"I'm not," Zoro said, who wasn't; he had wiped his hands on his pants. Very cautiously he felt along the cook's long legs, examining the damage.

"It's okay," Sanji said, tightly, through his gritted teeth. "They're clean breaks, Chopper'll have 'em fine in no time."

"Except you could've messed them up doing that," and Zoro nodded toward the unconscious thug.

Sanji shrugged jerkily. "Check the left," he said. "It might need to be reset."

Zoro pushed up the slacks and ran his hands down the break, feeling the unevenness of the bone under the flesh. "It hurts?"

"They both fucking hurt, idiot." The cook's breath was catching in his throat. "Can you do it?"

"It's going to hurt more," Zoro warned, bracing his hands on either side of the fracture. "You ready?"

"Hurry up."

Sanji didn't make a sound, but there was more blood on his lip when he was done. "Sorry," Zoro said. "It's set now. But you shouldn't move, we probably should splint 'em."

"With what?" Sanji's voice was raspy, but the color was slowly returning to his face.

"Um." Zoro looked around the cell, then sighed, reached across the floor for his black and his red katana and drew them from their sheaths.

"Forget it," Sanji said, watching Zoro lay the wooden scabbards along his shins.

"Give me your jacket, I'll need to tie them with something."

"Forget it," Sanji said again. "You've screwed up enough already, don't want to push my luck."

"Me, screwed up? Who's the one with the broken bones?"

Sanji shook his head, shrugged out of his jacket and in two sharp jerks ripped the sleeves off his shirt. "Since it's ruined anyway," he said, handing over the sleeves. "And who's the one with the bullet wounds, huh?"

"Better than getting my swords broken." Zoro tore the silk into several strips and began binding the sheaths to the cook's legs. "How are you supposed to fight now? Not to mention walk out of here?"

Sanji winced, driving his fists against the stone floor as Zoro knotted the ties. "You had any better ideas?" he panted in quick snatches of breath. "Get shot--a couple more times, maybe?"

"Not getting them broken at all would've been a good start. Damn cook, you didn't even try fighting back. If you'd just laid the guy out before he touched you--"

"Zoro, he had a gun to your head!"

"So? I could've handled it! They've shot me already anyway, right?"

Sanji closed his eyes, opened them again. "Your head, Zoro. Maybe you don't have much brains in there, but that means you need whatever you got."

His voice was unsteady, and not just with the strain of his injuries. "He wouldn't have pulled the trigger," Zoro said, slowly. "A bastard like that, he knew damn well if he did shoot that he wouldn't have had a chance to again before you'd be on him. It was a bluff."

"You don't know for sure."

"You should've risked it."

"Like fucking hell."

Zoro sighed. "Idiot." Sanji was glaring at him, more angrily than for any of his accusations of blame before. Like in addition to everything that he might have actually done wrong, it was also his fault the damn cook had the survival instincts of a depressed lemming. Zoro glared back. "Worry about yourself for once, will you? I'm getting sick of having to do it for you."

Which hadn't been exactly what he had intended to say, but it shut his crewmate up for a moment, at least. Finally Sanji sputtered, "Me!? I--"

Zoro didn't let him get any further. "Forget about it," he said. "Since Luffy and the others haven't found us yet, we should go find them."

Sanji stared at him for a moment longer, then shook his head. "Sure. Before that fat bastard gets back here."

"What, cook, I thought you'd claimed him."

The look his crewmate gave him was nowhere near as outraged as it should have been. Zoro especially didn't like the way it strayed over Zoro himself, pausing just a little too long on the bandages. There wasn't much new blood there, and he had been hurt worse plenty of times before. The damn bullets would barely leave scars, so why did the stupid cook have that peculiar flatness to his tone when he said, "Yeah, but there'll time for that later. Right now--"

Upon which he tried to stand, before Zoro could stop him. He made it almost to his knees, white face twisted with pain, before sagging back to the ground, bracing himself on trembling arms.

"Idiot," Zoro said again, putting a hand on Sanji's heaving shoulder. Just to hold him down, in case he had any other stupid ideas. "The adrenaline's worn off now. I told you, don't move, you don't want to mess up your legs any more. Just stay put." Gathering his own legs under him and bracing with his bared swords, Zoro climbed to his feet. The wall provided a convenient reference point to verify he was vertical, and his own bones were solid, unlike a certain stupid crewmate's. Moving his limbs did take more effort than usual, but putting one foot in front of the other he made it to his last katana dropped at the thug's side.

Hooking that sheath to his belt, he straightened up again--maybe a little too quickly, for everything went gray, like a sudden fog had wrapped around the lantern. Then Sanji was yelling at him, and the stone floor was hard and cold at his back, except for under his head. Which was, it turned out, because it was resting on Sanji's hand, which explained why the cook's voice was so loud.

"--pass out, you could've hit your damn head on the damn floor, what the hell, you needed a concussion, too, Zoro?"

Zoro blinked at him. "You--" He rolled to his side off of his crewmate, blinked at him again and noticed the distance they were from the door. "What the hell, you idiot? I told you, don't move!"

Sanji sat back, flicked his thumb impatiently at the fallen thug. "I was just checking to see if this guy had any matches on him. The assholes left my cigarettes but took the lighter."

"Too bad," Zoro said, leaning on his elbow as he levered himself up. "Why didn't you look for some when you were wandering around this place?"

Sanji was still glaring at him. "I had other things on my mind." Though Zoro found his crewmate's glare was like swimming in a winter sea; once you got used to it you didn't notice the cold at all. Or maybe he was just numb, or maybe it wasn't nearly as cold as it looked.

Sanji fingered Zoro's bandaged midsection, checking the tightness of the wraps. The swordsman batted his hand away. "Leave it alone, it's fine."

"Easy for you to say," Sanji grumbled, nonsensically, "you didn't see..."

"I got some rest, that's all I needed," Zoro said. He put his hands flat to the floor, pushed up until he was kneeling. His wounds protested the motion, but he ignored that stabbing pang and the hum in his ear. No time for that; besides, the bleeding had stopped, and he'd had far worse--

He didn't quite make it to standing, and all that kept him from falling face-first onto the stone again was Sanji's quick grab of his arm. The cook hauled him back, pushed him sitting again as he wryly remarked, "I don't think this is going to work."

"Maybe a little more rest." Zoro shook his head, as if he could dislodge the hornets that seemed to be buzzing angrily inside his skull. He couldn't even be mad at the cook, too infuriated by his own body's abject betrayal.

"Ah, almost forgot," Sanji said. He reached into his jacket, took out a roll of bread, slightly squashed, and a red pear. "Here. Sorry that fat bastard took the wine to wash it down."

Zoro accepted the food, then glanced at the cook. "You ate some too, right?"

"Just eat." When Zoro didn't, Sanji waved more emphatically. "Yeah, yeah, I stole a couple bites. Eat, already!"

With the way his stomach was knotted up, Zoro didn't think he was that hungry, until he bit into the fruit. A minute later everything was gone. "Thanks," he said, meaning it.

Sanji nodded, looking obscurely pleased in that particular way he did when anyone got fed. "You should have more liquids, too, but the dumb son of a bitch here doesn't have a hipflask, either." He indicated the thug. "But he's going to be out for a while, and so will his boss. There's time, even if Luffy and the others don't get here first. So you can rest now."

"Don't tell me to nap, I'm not a damn kid."

"Then don't act like one! Just--just lie down." Sanji pushed him, not very hard at all, but it was less painful to lie down than resist. "You were just saying you needed more rest," the cook pointed out.

Zoro would have argued, but laying still the buzzing in his head finally receded, and his crewmate was right. Little good he'd do either of them in this condition. "Sorry."

"For what?" Sanji asked. Weary, he sounded, just for that moment, in pain and exhausted and tired of hiding it. Zoro knew how he felt. It had been a long day.

"You know," he said. "For going to the marines and getting these idiots' attention and getting us caught. And everything."

"My fault, too," Sanji said. "You didn't make me go to that tavern or drink those drinks."

"Yeah, well, still. I'm sorry."

"Don't say that," Sanji said, crossly. "Not like that."

He wasn't in any mood to figure out what the cook was on about. "Like that--"

"Don't make it sound so goddamn final." His crewmate sighed, leaned back on his arms. "Should've been more careful. This never should have gotten this far. You, getting shot--"

"Like you're not hurt at all," Zoro muttered, but Sanji either didn't hear or ignored it.

"It is the worst feeling, isn't it. To just watch, to not be able to do anything. I'm sorry, too."

It occurred to Zoro that his crewmate might not even be talking about today anymore. "Forget it," he said. "You said it already--it's really their fault. These damn bastards. We just were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"I seem to be a lot," Sanji said.

"Unlucky."

"Yeah. Unlucky." That wasn't really a laugh, and that wasn't really a smile, and were either of them in better condition, Zoro would have bashed that look right off Sanji's face.

He didn't ask what was going through that blond head; he didn't really care. As long as it stopped. "Not as unlucky as those guys are, though, taking on Luffy and the others."

At least the cook's expression changed a little. "You almost gotta feel sorry for them."

"No, you don't."

"You're just pissed because you're not getting a crack at them yourself."

"Doubt fighting any of them would even count as aerobic exercise, much less training."

"Hopefully..."

Zoro raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you're worried about Luffy."

"Why'd I be worried about that idiot? It's Nami-san and Robin-chan, of course. What if they were the only ones on the ship? And I'm not there--"

"Either of them could handle it fine. Better than you, now, with those legs of yours. You're gonna be useless for days."

"Useless?!" Sanji squawked.

"Completely."

"See if I serve you anything but dry rice ever again."

"I'll just get Luffy to steal me something," Zoro said. "Since you're not going to be guarding the refrigerator."

"Shut up," Sanji said. "Just go to sleep like a good brat."

The customary waspishness had finally supplanted that disquieting edge in his tone. "Better get a tall enough stool that you can reach the stove sitting down, " Zoro added, and shut his eyes, got as comfortable as possible on the stone.

He didn't think he had made more than a grunt, so it was probably his involuntary wince that Sanji caught. "You okay?"

"Fine."

"Chopper'll bandage you up better," Sanji said. "Soon as he gets here. Should be anytime, he'll come with Luffy, if they gave my message right. And once we get back to the ship you'll get some real food."

"Thought it wasn't going to be anything but dry rice."

"Chopper wouldn't let me get away with that. Yet, anyway," Sanji said smartly. After a moment he added, more quietly, "Besides, I owe you."

Zoro frowned. "For what?"

The reply, at least, was a real chuckle, even if it didn't really make sense. "Forget it," Sanji said, not explaining. "Just sleep. As soon as anyone turns up I'll wake you."

"You better," Zoro said, and waited for his crewmate's impatient agreement before allowing himself to drift off.

to be concluded...

Happy holidays! As always, hope you enjoyed, and I'll see y'all - with the end of this and more fic - next year!