Author's notes: I did think about splitting this up into chapters, but there didn't really seem to be any point (other than the review factor, which probably was more tempting than it should have been), plus I think the scenes really should be read as one piece (oh, ha ha.) instead of broken up. The flow doesn't work quite so well when in a splintered form, I think. This story has been sitting on my computer for some time, and I've spent a couple of months tweaking it occasionally, to no avail. I like the idea but I can't really seem to get it to work, the characterisation doesn't sit right. However, this is the best I seem to be able to twist it without going insane, so I'm very sorry that you didn't get something better for your long coming fic, Madarr. I know it's not Zoro/Sanji as you requested and is instead Sanji and Zoro simply being Sanji and Zoro, but hopefully it still meets at least some of your requirements.
Captured.
Zoro and Sanji get captured. A lot.
i
"This is not my fault."
The day had started rather nicely, as days that go to hell often do. A nice, cool sea breeze had meant that Sanji had carried the taste of the ocean with him even as he dodged through stalls of spice and tang, bringing a sense of familiarity and comfort to otherwise foreign shores. He could have spent days in the bustling open market, immersed simply in the smells and flavours that stained the air, and had it not been for little things such as 'big storm coming from the west' and 'we will leave without you, dipshit', Sanji had a feeling he might have done just that. The storm itself Sanji didn't really fear – he'd lived through enough of those to think of them as solely a new source of food. However, his best knives were still onboard, and the last time he'd left them unguarded for any length of time Usopp and Luffy had decided to use them to re-enact Zoro's latest victory.
Sanji smirked slightly at the memory. They'd learnt never to do that again.
So, Sanji had fully intended to return to the ship before the storm swept across the island, making any sea voyage unlikely for a couple of weeks at least. He'd left the market early to make sure he got back before the pasta he'd bought became too infused with the delicious scent of the soufflé he'd picked up especially for Nami. He'd even stepped around the gapping, blindingly obvious, you-must-be-a-total fucking-idiot-to-fall-into hole that masqueraded as a marine trap along the main route back to the docks.
And it had been such a nice day. Fucking Zoro. Fucking hole.
"Idiot cook, are you even listening to me?" Zoro had lost any right to speak – let alone to demand any sort of response – the moment he'd dragged Sanji down into his oh-so-special hole. He'd pointedly ignored the other man for the last half an hour, other than those first few moments that had been a flurry of limbs instead of words. If Zoro wanted to talk, he could speak to himself. At least then he'd be having a discussion with someone with the same, single digit, IQ.
"Zoro," he started slowly, his voice dangerously low. "It is raining. I am cold. My ingredients are ruined, the fish is already starting to smell, and poor Nami has most likely starved to death during my absence." Zoro snorted, and Sanji's eyes narrowed. "And, on top of that – on top of the death of my beloved and rotting fish carcasses, I'm stuck down a damn hole WITH YOU!" Sanji's tone was not the only thing that rose with the last couple of words, and in a splinter of a second he was swinging a leg at Zoro's head, aiming a kick at Zoro's gut, spinning up onto his hands so that he could be ...
Splat.
Flat on his back in the damn, impossible to get a proper grip in, mud.
"Heh."
There was perhaps a third reason why he also hadn't spoken to a smirking Zoro since he'd attacked the man after he'd been dragged into the hole by a far too heavy Zoro.
"Asshole."
With a scowl, Sanji half slid, half crawled back to his corner of the hole, ignoring his many bumps and bruises in favour of lighting another cigarette. They didn't last long down here, the rain turning the thin sticks into a stem of mush after only a few moments, but those initial bursts of nicotine meant that Sanji could almost, almost deal with Zoro.
"So, it was as good for you as it was for me, then?"
Hated face, meet smelly fish.
ii
It wasn't a hole slowly filling with mud, but other than that, Sanji couldn't find much else to be thankful for. He was still wet, his feet were still useless, and Zoro was still horrifyingly there to share his misery. At least, Zoro was still there and should have been sharing his misery.
He didn't have enough cigarettes to deal with something like this.
"Hey, fungi-head, there's a new breed of moss growing in your hair. I think it may actually be an improvement."
No withering glare. No oh-so-witty-but-only-in-Zoro-land retort. Zoro's left toe may have twitched, but whether it was symbolic of something more subtle than Zoro was usually capable of, Sanji wasn't entirely sure.
And, fuck. He was not wondering about the philosophical nature of Zoro's fucking toes.
"You know, it's bad enough sleeping when there is work to be done," Sanji drawled around his cigarette, allowing the smoke to deliberately drift in Zoro's direction. "And don't give me that biological clock shit, unless you've got some pretty hard evidence that shows that sleeping patterns are determined by when it's your turn to do the damn dishes, I'm going to maintain the opinion that you're full of crap." Sanji narrowed his eyes at the other man. "However, however, it's particularly pathetic to have to make me haul your arse out of a mess that YOU got us into. Again."
He rattled the chains that were nipping hungrily around his ankles. Still feeding.
"I'm not coming over there," he added eventually, distastefully eyeing the small space that separated them. The meter and a half was far less than he preferred, especially when that meter and a half could only be breached by scuttling across it on one's butt.
Sanji did not scuttle, he strode.
Scuttle, however, was exactly what he did when Zoro still didn't respond, although since no-one was there to witness the humiliating move, Sanji decided that it didn't count. Still unresponsive, still out cold, the only real difference between this Zoro and the one who spent half his life stretched sleepily on the deck of the Merry was the lack of snoring.
Sanji shoved a chained foot roughly against Zoro's left cheek.
"Hey, sleeping beauty. There aren't enough hours in a day to fix the hand fate dealt you."
It was freezing. Of course it was bloody freezing. This kind of thing never happened in sunny, dry oasis's. Sanji was pretty damn sure that, if they had BEEN trapped at a hot, sandy oasis (with belly dancers, oh please let there be belly dancers) that Zoro's back wouldn't be rippling was tiny tremors. The moron's nose was also turning a ridiculous shade of blue.
Fuck Zoro and his inability to wear anything remotely resembling actual clothes.
"You're about to join one hell of an exclusive club," he growled darkly as he clumsily lay down on the damp floor next to the most unappreciative sleeping partner he'd ever had.
iii
A whole month. A whole, four-and-a-half-and-not-even-bloody-February month.
"It's not-"
Glare of death.
"Oh, come on-"
Glare of doom.
"You were-"
Glare of leftovers and water downed wine for ever and ever and fucking ever.
"Fine. Be that way. Stupid cook."
He could do holes in the ground. He could do crappy prison cells that resembled more closely holes in the ground. THIS however was something he could not do.
A month. A whole month of not ending up in some trap with Zoro. Sanji should have known that it had been too good to last for long.
And Zoro was looking pissed. Given that no-one was currently grinding away at his precious swords, Sanji wasn't entirely sure why. It wasn't his usual 'captured and humiliated' pissed look - god knows Zoro had had enough time over the last few months to perfect THAT. This look of pissed-offedness was something entirely new.
Not that Sanji cared.
He hadn't paid any attention to the first hours of their capture, knowing that when an opportunity came that he'd be able to take it. If, in a worst case scenario, he somehow did miss the sliver of chance to escape, he begrudgingly knew that Zoro would probably pick up the slack. But those first few hours had given way to a few more, and suddenly each minute had become … obvious.
Waiting was slowly losing its position as a viable option. Unfortunately, there wasn't exactly a whole row of alternatives waving their hands and just begging to be picked.
The light fall of footsteps just beyond their cell's door were exactly what Sanji had been tensely waiting for, and he slowly moved himself into a position that wouldn't limit his ability to knock someone's head off with a powerful kick even though his wrists were currently manacled above his head.
"Don't move." Zoro's quiet words were practically a command. Sanji's eyes narrowed in response, but Zoro cut off any verbal retort with a dark gaze. "Stupid cook, do what you're told for once." There was no time for a response to THAT (and there had definitely been one coming, order or no), as the door swung open, and two guards entered.
Zoro was a swordsman, and one who was admittedly rather decent at handling his weapons of choice. Yet, even without his swords, Zoro had an ability to be frustratingly effective with whatever resources were left available to him. Zoro's kick wasn't anywhere near high enough and the angle was several, key degrees off, but even a brick that only just manages to hit its target is still enough to level the average person. Henchman number two was stupid enough to try and interfere, but it was the fact he obviously hadn't done his research and was carrying a bloody sword that did him in. A kick, a flip, a backward triple somersault – and now Zoro was just showing off – and the hilt of the sword was suddenly in Zoro's mouth.
Game over.
It took only seconds for Zoro to slice through the cold steel of his own bindings. They were bindings that no sword should have been able to slice through, but swords somehow stopped being simply swords once Zoro got his hands on them. It was only a few seconds more before Zoro had swept up the keys from where they had fallen by HN2's side. Seconds.
"I told you to not to move," Zoro growled as he stood in front of Sanji, not that it stopped him from pulling at his bindings. It might have, in fact, encouraged him to aim a kick at Zoro's shins that might have just connected. And, Zoro should have struck back, should have made some smirky comment about how good Sanji looked dripping in chains. But that serious, pissed look was still there, and instead Zoro was silent as he tackled the lock at Sanji's wrists with a slight clumsiness that seemed out of place, considering how good Zoro usually was with his hands.
Now there was an unwanted image that was going to stay with him for the rest of the day.
Right now, however, all he desperately wanted was his hands freed. He didn't feel the chains fall loose, although he heard them clatter to the ground at his feet. A moment, just a moment of panic threatened to interrupt his sheer coolness and total control, but then fucking Zoro was there again, hissing angrily in his ear.
Don't. Fucking. Move.
Moron.
Then, those large, rough hands were wrapped around his own, holding them in place as though they hadn't freed him from the chains but replaced them. Sanji swore, he threatened. He promised tasteless broths that would commit genocide on Zoro's taste buds, but Zoro just …
Zoro just looked pissed.
They spent forever like that, Zoro masquerading as someone gentle and Sanji cursing him for every moment of it. It was when forever felt like it was almost up that he felt the phantom touch of Zoro's finger's softly massaging his wrists. He closed his eyes and sank bonelessly back against the wall, pretending the shudder that raced down his shoulders belonged to someone else.
God. Oh god.
Then: pain. Hot, searing, the-world-is-fucking-ending pain. His knees buckled, and Zoro – the bastard – let him fall. Sanji didn't care as much about that as he might of in any other situation where it didn't feel as though his hands had been dipped in gasoline and then used to set fireworks alight. Something that may have sounded almost liked a choked sob escaped through parched lips. It was not, of course, an actual choked sob, because if Sanji didn't cry (and he didn't), he also most certainly didn't cry in front of Zoro.
The not sob wasn't one of pain. Or, more accurately, was not simply only one of pain.
Too tight. They had been much too tight. His hands and wrists were still darkly bruised, and there were parts that would take days for feeling to return, but at least the terrifying taint of numbness was starting to be replaced by an angry, burning splash of red. They felt clunky and unnatural, and everything was swollen to a ridiculous level. But, damn it, they were still there, they were still his.
Fucking Zoro.
"We haven't got all day, idiot. Marine base, remember?" The words cut through the haze of pain, and before he could stay himself, Sanji shot Zoro a look of pure incredulous.
Zoro snorted stupidly (not that this was abnormal) in response.
"Pins and needles. Your feet still work, don't they?"
Well enough to kick Zoro square in the head. Now THAT was how it was done.
iv
Sanji had always thought that there was nothing worse than being stuck alone in some cave/hole/prison cell/kitchen with Zoro as the only source of company. He either bitched about how things weren't his fault, had the indecency to get knocked out so that Sanji had to be the one doing the bitching, or was acting almost human.
Sanji preferred his Zoro stupid and on the other side of the ship. It was more pleasant, for one thing, and also far less confusing. Zoro had a habit of being able to process complex thoughts when locked away somewhere, and it unsettled the status quo far too much for Sanji's liking.
"Uh, so you guys do this often?"
Zoro was being blessedly quiet at the moment, and he wasn't even that way because he was in a state of unconsciousness. Scowling in a rather dark manner that Sanji for once appreciated, he sat slouched uncomfortably in the far corner of their cell, his annoyed gaze holding just a tiny slither of desperateness.
"I mean, this is sort of your thing, right?"
Zoro let out a low growl at the back of his throat. Sanji simply lit another cigarette. His twentieth in the past 40 minutes.
"Not, not that that is necessarily a bad thing, of course! Although while I, the mighty Usopp, have admittedly never suffered indignities such as this as frequently as you two have, I am sure that there are positives that you have both drawn from of your constantly despairing circumstances."
If at all possible, Zoro seemed to tense further, and Sanji stretched his legs experimentally. Neither action was noticed by their current emcee.
"We all know the stories of how cell mates who spend a lot of time together get rather … close … after all, and you both seem to enjoy spending time tied up or in chains …"
"I'm going to kill him!" Zoro snarled as he launched himself at Usopp, only to be thrown off course as Sanji smashed him over the head with a well placed kick.
"Don't be a fucking idiot," Sanji said calmly, a new cigarette appearing almost magically to replace the one he had managed to stub out before deflecting Zoro's blow.
"Sanji's right!" Usopp's nervous laughter echoed through their small cell. "Don't be, an, uh, idiot, Zoro." Usopp faltered under Zoro's angry glare before regaining his sense of false bravado. "Otherwise, you shall suffer my wrath!" For a moment, Sanji watched on as Usopp speared the air with 'mighty chops of doom' before lifting his composed gaze to met Zoro's incensed one.
"If we don't get rescued soon, we'll need something to eat eventually."
Zoro smirked dangerously before slouching back against the wall in a more leisurely manner as Usopp's chop froze midair.
"Uh, Sanji?"
Sanji ignored him, instead taking a drag of his cigarette.
"San-Sanji?"
"I wouldn't bother him, Usopp," Zoro said with deliberate seriousness. "Listening to other people has a habit of making him hungry."
Usopp didn't say another word until they were rescued three hours later.
v
They say that you learn things about another person when you are held in captivity with them for a long length of time.
On their third day, Sanji learnt something completely unexpected about Zoro: he was one hell of a bastard.
Wait, he had known that already.
On their seventh day, Sanji thought that he may have gleaned something new about the other man purely by accident, but he'd remembered the next day that he had actually known that Zoro occasionally wore odd socks.
On the twelve day, Sanji did discover that Zoro did not like the thought of eating mouldy bread. The fact that it was the first bit of food that ha been thrown into their cell in six days had Sanji convinced that Zoro would soon develop a taste for it.
On the fourteenth day, Sanji was proven right (surprise!), but not before the bread had overdosed on penicillin. It was silently agreed upon that Sanji would be in charge of all food that got tossed through the door from then on.
After a while, Sanji stopped measuring the days so much, and started counted how many cigarettes he went through. After 50 cigarettes, Zoro remained the same, uneventful lug he'd been before. After 82 cigarettes, Zoro did reveal a new layer, but considering that it was one consisting of dirt and grime, Sanji didn't think it really counted. After 102 cigarettes, Sanji was starting to feel just the little bit antsy, and decided therefore that Zoro was as well. It was a start.
"It doesn't, you know." Zoro didn't turn his gaze from its spot on the ceiling as Sanji went to light another cigarette. "Reduce your appetite, starve off hunger. Whatever. It's just a marketing ploy." The hand holding the cigarette wavered for just a second. "You'd be better carrying around stockpiles of actual food than 10 packets of those things everywhere you go."
"Perhaps," Sanji said after several long moments, stretching backwards on his own tattered bed, clouded eyes deliberately emotionless. "Perhaps I'm just watching my figure." Zoro didn't even grace his response with a reply. "Besides, I don't know of any rations that would fit so easily into my jacket pockets." And, sometimes, the illusion was almost enough. Zoro replied only with a snort, before throwing a small roll of bread at him. Eyes that were suddenly childish glanced down at it, before giving way to a more familiar expression. "You've been keeping some aside."
"Only fair, considering that you haven't been portioning things properly these two weeks." Zoro still didn't move, but he didn't need to. His self-satisfied smirk was in every aspect on of his tone.
On the forty-ninth day, Sanji learnt something unexpected about Zoro: he was one hell of a bastard. He also wasn't quite as good at maths as he thought he was.
They should have been held captured somewhere. The setting was perfect (an afternoon forced to spend alone with each other), the means were there (after their last fight had go just a touch out of hand, Nami had made Zoro leave his swords on the ship) and the weather was dark and damp, threatening to drown them all the moment someone even dared gently prod at the billowing rain clouds.
Sometimes, Sanji really loved being a pirate. 'Sometimes' happened to be whenever he wasn't stuck down a hole somewhere with Zoro.
His kick sent the next idiot spiralling overboard, and Sanji allowed himself a moment to admire his own handiwork before blasé sending the crewmate who tried to sneak up on him in the same direction. THIS was how boring afternoons should be spent; beating the crap out of people who thought it was good idea to drug his friends and whisk them away. In fact, the only way this could possibly be any better was if …
"When you want to stop prancing around like a ballerina and join the real fight, let me know you shitty cook."
Yeah.
Sanji's sure to be clever reply was momentarily delayed by a sudden rush attack from four of the pirates. It was a good idea in the sense that attacking one-on-one had not worked for any of them, but a bad idea in the sense that it meant that Sanji could dispose of them all in one, swift kick.
Which, naturally, he did.
Stepping over the moaning mess of bodies, Sanji glanced up at Zoro and smirked. Sometimes, words really weren't necessary. Zoro snorted and went back to slicing and dicing in a way that would never be allowed in Sanji's kitchen; although Sanji did momentarily allow for the fact that Zoro wasn't using the cutlery he was more accustomed to. Zoro's swords were back on the Go Merry, and the other man seemed none to pleased at having to lower himself to using such poor substitutes. Zoro's swords were certainly distinctive, even to someone such as Sanji.
It was why, when he raced around the portside deck and was about to force his way down into the cabins below, he recognised one of Zoro's swords instantly. The pirate (although Sanji felt the word only applied very loosely) had obviously grabbed the sword from the Go Merry in a wayward attempt to feel like a decent swordsman, something that would have perhaps played out better if he could actually hold the stupid thing properly. Smiling just slightly, Sanji leaned casually against the cabin's exterior, digging out a cigarette and calmly lighting it, ignoring completely the fighting that was still going on around him. It was almost a minute before the pirate noticed Sanji watching him, his eyes filling automatically with fear as his desperate gaze dashed quickly from the sword to Sanji then back to the sword again.
The pirate, for better or worse, was not a complete fool. He recognised the danger he'd put himself in by being found in possession of one of Zoro's precious, precious swords.
Sanji smirked, cocking one perfectly styled eyebrow.
The pirate threw the sword overboard.
Shit.
What the pirate did next, Sanji had no idea. In fact, he had no idea what the other pirates around him did either, as the moment the sword hit the water Sanji launched himself up onto the railing and dived after it. The waves crashed over his head, pinpoint accurate bullets of rain penetrating the surface and following him down. The water was always smothering in the midst of a storm, cloudy and rough and deliberately binding in a way that had convinced Sanji that its depths could be found rooted in the deepest hell. As he fought the crushed swirl of rips and currents, desperate eyes searched for any hint of metal, but instead there was just blue sieving green sieving into a misty grey …
There.
Crap.
He kicked harder, losing the muted glint for a second before it seemingly morphed back into vision. Slowly, slowly it took on solidity, although now the world in general was starting to mist around the edges. He could almost, almost reach it …
And the sword was sinking handle first.
Fucking Zoro.
He grabbed it, all the same.
He wasn't entirely sure how exactly he returned to the surface – although he was fairly sure it involved a little thing called swimming - as the next thing he remembered was somehow pulling himself back onto the boat. His own weight alone he could have probably carried as he moved slowly towards where blobs that resembled his crew members were waiting expectantly, but he'd also soaked up half the ocean which meant that each step felt like he was still battling the waves.
"You idiot, the middle of the fight is not the time to be going for a swim." Zoro's biting comment met him as practically slunk over, a ridiculous level of smugness in his tone that seemed almost too over-the-top for even Zoro. "Not that you were exactly much of a help in the first place."
Head still bowed beneath the weight of the water that clung to him, he thrust the sword out at Zoro. The movement lacking the anger he'd intended it to have, and when Zoro remained peculiarly silent, Sanji found the energy to somehow lift his gaze, cloaked as it still was by streaks of heavy blond hair. Sanji didn't recognise the strange, flicker of emotion that brushed across Zoro's features, too wet and too cold to focus on anything more complex than staying standing.
"You're bleeding."
No shit.
Zoro narrowed his eyes.
"You're bleeding on my sword."
Sanji rammed the handle into Zoro's face. He'd had a little bit more strength left than he'd thought, after all.