Sanji has a lot of time to think now that he's dead, there's nothing else to do except talk to Zoro. And since Zoro's human he's got other stuff he needs to be doing like working or sleeping. So Sanji spends his time thinking. That old line about 'there'll be time to sleep when I'm dead' is crap, he doesn't sleep at all now. This is why in the small hours of the morning, when Zoro is just asleep from getting back from work an hour ago, Sanji is floating in the air outside Zoro's apartment building. It's a good thing that he's awake too because if he could sleep like a living person he wouldn't have spotted Smoker walking towards Zoro's building, trailing a stream of cigar smoke behind him.
"What're you doing here?" Sanji muses to himself and floats down for a look. Smoker enters Zoro's building and without paying much attention walks up the stairs until he arrives at Zoro's front door. Sanji's curiosity is aroused, why does Smoker know where Zoro lives off by heart?
Smoker hammers loudly on the door until it's eventually yanked open by a pissed off looking Zoro. Zoro's got dark circles under his eyes, his pyjamas are crumpled and his hair is pointing every which way. He looks a fright and his unpleasant expression directed at Smoker isn't helping the overall look of him.
"What?" Zoro demands gruffly.
"I should be asking you the same thing." Smoker says with his arms folded across his chest.
"What?" Zoro repeats sounding confused and irritated at the same time.
"I'm talking about this. Last night the police arrested this man for trying to commit murder for a young woman's inheritance, he's also under investigation for the murder of a young man who tried to warn her." Smoker says flicking open the newspaper under his arm and showing it to Zoro. The psychic manages to keep his face in a neutral scowl for a moment whilst he glances at the paper, feigning ignorance at the story.
"Well, good. Someone managed to stop a criminal all by themselves and reveal their other crimes too, good thing some people in this city know how to do police work because your department couldn't find its ass with both hands." Zoro retorts, looking up from the paper and shooting Smoker a hostile look. It seems that Zoro is a lot less pleasant to the man when he doesn't want a favour. Interesting, Zoro is anti-social and awkward but not so much hostile as a knee-jerk reaction, what's Smoker done?
"Funny thing about that 'by herself' thing. She said that a scruffy looking, green haired, loudmouthed guy turned up at her house and told her all about it. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that would you?" Smoker presses.
"No." Zoro answers in a very bad impression of nonchalance.
"Don't lie to me you little weirdo, I know it was you. My question is how did you know what to tell her?" the cop demands with a scowl.
"He's not a weirdo!" Sanji snaps and kicks through Smoker's back making him shudder suddenly. A smirk quirks at the edge of Zoro's mouth as he tries not to look at Sanji with Smoker standing just there.
"He's just fishing, Zoro. If he had any proof you'd already be down the station, right?" Sanji points out and sticks his hand through Smoker's head for good measure.
"Cold?" Zoro asks with a slight smirk as Smoker tries to repress another shiver.
"Your building is freezing, so yeah. Now answer my question!" the cop says snappishly.
"Hasn't this asshole ever heard of the word please? And doesn't this guy have better things to do?" Sanji snorts.
"I didn't tell her anything, and even if I had, that's not a crime. Shouldn't you be doing some actual police work instead of bothering me?" Zoro replies, apparently feeling buoyed by Sanji's support.
"Don't get smart with me, kid." Smoker orders with a glare that makes Zoro shrink back behind his door a little.
"I'm not- that's not what I-" the green head flounders.
"If you're involved in something Zoro, like Kuro's gang or something, that's giving you this information then you need to tell me. People could get hurt if you don't." the white haired man says scoldingly. Zoro's face darkens at that comment.
"What difference does it make to you anyway? When I tell you that someone's committed a crime or that you've made a mistake you don't do shit about it! People don't die because of what I do, they die because of what you don't!" Zoro shouts, his rage giving him a voice.
"You can't be angry about your parents forever Zoro." Smoker says quietly.
"Sure I can! You promised me that you'd catch the person who killed them and you didn't! You said that you'd do your best to work out if Robin's death actually was an accident and you just gave up! You said that you'd bring the gang members who killed Ace and Luffy to justice and you never caught anyone! What do you even DO? Even if I did tell Kaya about Kuro then someone's life was saved and a murder was solved, that's more than you can say!" Zoro yells furiously.
"Cases don't always pan out like you want them to Zoro, you need evidence to convict people in court. And I get that it's frustrating, but you can't go meddling in other people's cases like this, what if you'd been killed?" Smoker insists angrily.
"What does it matter? There's no one left alive to miss me!" Zoro shouts and slams the door straight in Smoker's face.
"Jerk." Sanji says disdainfully to Smoker as he floats through the front door after Zoro.
"I never told you her name!" Smoker shouts through the door, Zoro smacks his head in the realisation of his mistake but says nothing and stalks off down the corridor.
Zoro flings the paper at the living room wall and throws himself down on the sofa face down. Sanji decides not to say anything and instead decides to wait for Zoro to make some kind of move. Sanji certainly isn't going to say that he can see Smoker's point, if the cop can't get enough evidence to convict someone in court then there's not much that he can do, however if he can't get that evidence because his police force is incompetent then that's another matter. Still, if he was Smoker he'd probably be a bit suspicious of where Zoro was getting all of his knowledge too.
He glances down at the paper on the floor and looks at the picture of Kaya, she looks determined and strong, it's a better look on her than grief. He stares at the picture for a moment more before noticing what's different.
"Guess we know what "surprise" Usopp had planned for her at his house. Come check this out." Sanji grins, motioning Zoro over. The psychic grumbles but makes his way over to the fallen paper and picks it up.
"What am I looking for?" He asks eventually as he rubs his eye sleepily.
"Look at her hand, her left hand." Sanji grins and points. On her hand is a sparkling ring, on her ring finger no less. Usopp had been planning to ask her to marry him, it was romantic and sweet and Sanji would know, he loves that stuff.
"Poor Kaya." Zoro says instead. Sanji slowly realises that whilst the ring might be a touching reminder of Usopp for her it's no doubt also hurting her too, reminding her of what she should have had. Just like how he was reminded of how he and Zoro could have been friends if he hadn't died. They both look at the picture with mixed emotions for a few moments longer.
"Well, I'm awake now. I might as well start watching that footage." Zoro says eventually in a slightly numb voice.
"Good idea." Sanji chirps happy for the distraction and settles down next to Zoro who's turning his laptop on as he speaks.
They first watch the final cut version together, as it would have been shown on TV. Sanji watches it with the critical eye of a chef and out of habit starts dissecting all of the things that he can do better next time until he sadly realises that there won't be a next time. He winces a little inside at how hammed up and over the top he is when he wins, Creuset looks fuming to have lost to a nobody and especially when he's rubbing it in that way.
"You're a real gracious winner I see." Zoro says sarcastically.
"I… may have gone a little far." Sanji concedes, remembering Robin's harsh words.
Zoro then starts queuing up the rest of the video feeds to watch in order, he starts with the one on Creuset. Sanji finds some interest in watching the other man cook up close, he was too busy on the day with focusing on his own food to worry about anyone else. That's one thing that Zeff always taught him that he always respected, when you're cooking you can't be worrying about anyone else's problems or anyone else's drama, it's all about the food.
He's always endeavoured to put things aside when he cooks, it's almost meditative for him. And yes, he can still maintain a conversation whilst doing it, the Baratie gave him that skill, but it's never anything more than banter.
Technically the Creuset is skilled but it seems like his mind is elsewhere after about fifteen minutes in, he started off confident and now he just looks stressed. Sanji isn't in the shot so he can't tell what it is that he's doing that's making the other man look like that. He watches the other cook glancing from his food to across the way at Sanji's station, as the feed goes on for a few minutes he's looking more and more often until he suddenly pauses, all his attention rapt on Sanji. He stares for a whole five seconds before flicking his attention back to his deflating meringue with a look that can only be described as murderous.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What got you that look?" Zoro asks wide eyed pausing the shot.
"I- I don't know." Sanji answers honestly even though it was probably a rhetorical question.
Zoro pops the frozen feed of Creuset into a new window and opens up the file menu on his computer, after a moment of scanning he opens the camera feed that was focused on him and plays it. He notes the time on the frozen video of Creuset and opens Sanji's feed to a minute before that time and plays it.
An image of him at his finest bursts onto the screen, he isn't being interrupted or distracted by the host and he's just… cooking. His face shows focus and joy at what he's doing. He remembers this moment, the sauce was coming together perfectly and he was in his element completely. Zoro watches the video silently as it plays on.
The video Sanji puts his hand into his jacket quickly and pulls out his blacked out bottle of herbs, he unscrews the cap and takes a sniff. Pausing first he tests the sauce with a spoon and adds pepper, still holding his bottle of herbs in his left hand.
"Oh, Sanji! What do you have there?" The enthused announcer asks in her perky voice, her red curls bouncing around her shoulders merrily.
"Ah, my flower! Nothing special, just my own blend of herbs and spices. Every cook has their own signature mix and this is mine." His video self smiles gallantly at her.
"How exciting! So this is your big secret ingredient!" the announcer says peppily and watches as he sprinkles in his cut herbs and spices.
"You could say that!" the video version of him laughs happily and tastes the sauce and grins madly.
Zoro pauses the video at that moment and minimises it into its own little window side by side beside Creuset's, the times match up exactly.
"You didn't tell me about this." Zoro says after a moment of silence, his eyes fixed on the screen.
"What's to tell? There's nothing special in there, just herbs that I cut and prepared myself – we were allowed to do that before the competition." Sanji shrugs, suddenly he gets what Zoro is getting at.
"You think I cheated!" He accuses Zoro, horrified that his friend would think something so base of him.
"I don't, but it sure looks like he does." Zoro answers glumly looking at Creuset's frozen murderous face.
"But… but it was all supervised." He protests weakly, surely he can't have been killed over herbs?
"Oh, and you couldn't possibly have bribed the supervising person? Zeff owns that whole restaurant of yours, he could have come up with the money to do it, even if he scraped the barrel it'd be a sensible investment. A young, attractive guy like you wins a competition like that from out of nowhere? Your business would have exploded with customers." Zoro says harshly, finally looking at him.
Sanji is frozen staring at Zoro, he doesn't know what to say. He didn't cheat, Goddamnit he didn't! But, he doesn't think that Zoro is actually accusing him of doing so, he's just… pointing out the obvious conclusion. Zoro's face suddenly softens sadly.
"This is just speculation." Zoro murmurs quietly and turns back to the laptop and plays Sanji's feed. Unfrozen in time his other self slides the bottle back into his jacket pocket and continues cooking.
"Did you have that on you still? At the after party?" the psychic asks gently.
Sanji searches his admittedly patchy memory, he doesn't remember taking the bottle out. Numbly he nods at continues to stare at his innocent, unsuspecting and living self. Zoro plucks Sanji's autopsy report off of the floor and flicks through it.
"Personal affects: lighter – broken causing shards in legs, one pack of tobacco – half full, rolling papers – one missing, four keys on a chain – broken and removed from hip, wallet… there's no bottle here. Hm." Zoro scans through the laundry list of the rest of Sanji's injuries, thankfully silently.
"There's no mention of glass if your chest or a smashed bottle. If that was in your jacket when you fell, it'd be here." Zoro says gently.
Sanji sits at Zoro's side in silence, he wishes that he could cry. If he was still alive he's sure that he'd be bawling by now, but he just doesn't have the prerequisite parts to do so.
"Robin was right, I brought this on myself." He says tightly to himself. If only he'd not been so stupid, if he'd thought about how something like that could look, if he'd not been so cocky about it. If, if, if!
"What?" Zoro blinks at him in shock.
"Oh shit." Sanji groans. He wasn't supposed to mention Robin, Zoro wasn't supposed to know about her.
"I… I followed you to work one night. Invisibly. I was just… curious I guess. Robin showed up, she talked to me. Said that you couldn't see her because you knew her when she was alive, said it was some psychic rules bs." He explains roughly.
"Robin? MY Robin?" Zoro asks blankly, his eyes wide.
"Tall? Beautiful? Blue, slightly terrifying eyes? A little brutally honest perhaps?" he laughs numbly.
"That'd be her. Well, shit." Zoro replies clearly reeling from the news. He stares straight ahead again at the laptop, clearly not looking at it though at he processes this information.
"What a bitch." Zoro eventually concludes.
"What?" Sanji squawks horrified at this sudden declaration from a guy who was supposed to be like family to her.
"Don't get me wrong, I loved Robin. She was more than just family to me, family are people who love you because their DNA tells them to. Robin cared about me when I was no one to her, she chose me to be family. But, hell, the woman could make a saint feel guilty." Zoro laughs in a worryingly hollow sounding voice.
Zoro turns to him then, his eyes sincere and honest. He touches his hand to the spectral outline of Sanji's shoulder, there's no substance there but Sanji can feel the warmth from his skin seeping into the… the essence of him.
"This wasn't your fault. Regardless of how dumb or cocky you might have been. Even if you'd been a total dick about the contest and waved your title in his face you wouldn't have deserved this. He, or… whoever did this, had no right to end your life. There's no justification for what that person took from you and you didn't deserve it, nothing you did brought this upon you, this is not your fault." Zoro insists sincerely.
Sanji wants to cry. He wants to bawl and weep and sob at the unfairness of all of this. Zoro is being kind enough to move him to tears and he can't! But he does feel angry. Angry, upset and hurt.
"But its not like I had nothing to do with this, I know I didn't deserve to be tossed out of a window but if I hadn't made him suspicious or been an idiot about this whole thing then I could actually be alive and here with you rather than-" He cuts himself off harshly and waves his hand through Zoro's arm to demonstrate his point.
"If you were alive we wouldn't be here, that's sort of the point." Zoro grins wryly at him.
"I don't mean here solving murders, I mean here. In your place, with you. Just… hanging out or whatever. Robin showed me what could have been, we would have met right after the competition. We could have…" He trails off again though. He doesn't know what he could have had, but he knows down to his cold dead bones that he wants it. Zoro looks off sharply at that and stares back at the laptop screen.
"You wouldn't be here. Look at you." Zoro says emptily as he watches the living video Sanji doing his thing.
"You're… talented, smart, ambitious… attractive. Someone like you wouldn't- you wouldn't be here." He continues, his face is almost terrifyingly blank.
"I would so! You don't get to decide that! Robin showed me what would have happened, we clicked, we would have-" Sanji protests.
"Then what Robin showed you was a lie! She's not above doing that you know. We would never have been anything!" Zoro snarls, forcing himself to his feet and turning his back on Sanji. He starts to object again but Zoro overrides him.
"I mean, are you stupid or something? You're the one who followed me to work despite me telling you not to. Did you notice my hordes of friends there? Or how overwhelmed I am with phone calls from everyone who likes me? The closest person that I have that treats me like a human being is Smoker and he thinks I'm a 'weirdo'! People who don't see dead people can sense that there's something wrong with me, and they hate it. You would have sensed it too. So don't say that it would have been anything else. You're nice Sanji, believe me I know, but even you wouldn't have looked twice at me." Zoro shouts angrily at him.
Sanji's temper snaps at that. How dare Zoro insult him like that? How dare Zoro accuse him of being shallow like those assholes he works with? Didn't all the time that they'd spent together mean anything to Zoro or hadn't the man learned anything about him? His rage balls up inside of him until Sanji feels it practically spiralling out of his chest. He focuses on that power and lunges forward knocking Zoro off of his feet and flat onto his back on the ground. He scrambles quickly and forces Zoro's hands onto the ground and leans over Zoro having pinned the rest of his weight by sitting on his hips.
"You listen to me, asshole. You don't get to tell me what I would and wouldn't have done, I'm the expert on me. And I like you, I like you when I'm dead and I'd have liked you when I was alive." He snaps at the trapped man. He can see through his translucent fingers that he's going to leave bruises on Zoro's wrists from gripping so hard.
Zoro's face is a mixture of startled and embarrassed. Sanji presses on whilst he still has the power to hold Zoro down and make him listen.
"You're strong and you're brave, you're selfless and dedicated… I'd give anything not to have died. I could've… we could have…" Sanji trails off. He drops his gaze from Zoro's eyes because the psychic's expression is just too open for Sanji to look at, it feels almost wrong to see such honest emotion. Zoro's look throws off pain, loneliness and a deep open affection, clearly Sanji isn't the only one who wishes he wasn't dead. He drops his gaze to Zoro's mouth because it's easier to look at than his dark, hopeful eyes.
An almost inaudible gasp escapes Zoro's lips before he bites into his bottom lip with his teeth, as if to restrain the sound that's already released.
A strange part of Sanji's mind whispers to him temptingly. Kiss him. His eyes widen at the thought and at the same moment he feels… movement? His sense of touch isn't so acute now that he doesn't have a body, but he can feel Zoro's warmth and he can feel pressure to an extent. He glances down at himself and under his own gaze he becomes more transparent. Suddenly he realises what that sense of movement that he'd felt had been. Zoro is… well… ah… excited? Either that or he's managed to smuggle something strange into his pants that Sanji hadn't noticed until now.
He glances up at Zoro. The marimo's face is scarlet and Sanji can read his expressions as they war on his face, lust, shame, embarrassment, anger.
"Get off of me!" Zoro yells and tries to shove at Sanji. Suddenly he's intangible again, the rage that had fuelled his brief physicality abated in his surprise. Zoro scrambles to his feet and moves through Sanji. He stands, taut and tense, practically vibrating with embarrassment.
"Zoro-" He starts, he doesn't want Zoro to think… well, he's not certain what he wants Zoro to think. It feels like too much of his brain is missing and he's not quite getting this situation, like he's been not quite getting loads of things since he's been dead. He's sure that if he had a body right now he'd know what he was supposed to be feeling, but he doesn't. His moment of hesitation costs him though as Zoro interrupts him.
"Just go!" the man snaps.
"No, Zoro we need to-" He tries again. Besides, it's not like Zoro can make him leave. Just as that thought passes through his mind Zoro shouts something.
Sanji isn't sure that he knows what it is that Zoro shouted, it's more than just sound, it's a force of some kind. It makes Zoro glow for a moment and over his skin flows words in a language and script that Sanji can't read in letters made of light. In an instant the words explode outwards like a net working in reverse. They shove him hard and hurl him backwards out of Zoro's home. He's through the other side of the building before he manages to catch himself.
Quickly he flies back towards Zoro but he smacks into the faint white bubble as he reaches the door to Zoro's place. The words slide incandescently across the surface of the bubble like the tiny rainbow reflections on a soap bubble in a pan. He shoves at it but it doesn't budge.
"Zoro." He whines sadly and pushes with futility at the barrier.
It seems that Zoro can keep him out.