It wasn't the first funeral Zoro'd ever been too.
No, the first funeral Zoro had ever been to, he was eleven and soaked to the bone on a rainy, muddy, freezing morning in early spring when the last traces of snow had just barely melted. No churches were involved, but a traditional, Japanese funeral procession had taken place, down a sloppy, dirt trail leading to a private cemetery just behind the dojo. The coffin -- because it was a coffin, not a polished, well-to-do casket, but a plain wooden box -- was lowered into the deep, dark grave that steadily filled with water. Incense burned on a portable alter under cover of a curtain. Lilies were thrown. Everyone went home afterwards.
But this was the second funeral. And it wasn't a dank, drippy, spring morning, but a razor-cold afternoon in late fall. On Halloween, as a matter of fact, and the irony was almost morbidly humorous. There were churches this time around; all harsh angles and emotional sterility. Austere and detached. It seemed like the wrong sort of place to bid farewells to a departed loved one.
Zeff.
Died the night of the party. He'd been rushed to the hospital and resuscitated for roughly six hours: traditionally just enough time to see a priest, but Zeff had declined and in fact laughed in the doctor's face when he suggested it. He had, however, demanded that a lawyer be brought in to revise his will last minute, and Zoro had no clue what could possibly need to be changed so late in the game, but the old man died not too long after the ink had dried on the paper, so it must have meant something to him.
He'd had a persistent heart problem since he was thirty-two, apparently, and just hadn't bothered to care enough. This much Zoro had gleaned from the people around him. Gleaned, because no one would talk out-right about the old man, his earlier life, how he got his peg-leg. Nothing. They were all tight-lipped, like they had something to hide for him. But Zoro had an inkling that the reason no one talked too openly about Zeff was because of his protégé.
Sanji.
Zoro had looked around, during the eulogy, and saw Vivi crying on Nami's shoulder, as the orange-haired girl stroked her arm, tears running down her face; he saw Franky wailing while Robin serenely patted his hand. Luffy was holding a trembling Chopper, looking full of acceptance and respect and hope; and he saw Usopp whispering comforts to Kaya as she hid her face in his chest. Up near the dais of the church, sitting at the organ, Zoro watched Brooke pull a handkerchief out of his shirt-sleeve and dab his eyes. Even some of the workers from the Baratie were weeping. Everyone seemed remorseful and sad and reverent.
Everyone except Sanji.
He sat through the whole service, face tight, angry lines furrowing his brow, fingers twitching slightly in his suit coat pocket, no doubt having a nicotine freak. He didn't look sad. Or remorseful. Or reverent in anyway. He just looked pissed. Angry, as though Zeff dying was an insult to Sanji's cooking, or something equally as bizarre. He looked like Zoro had felt the night of the dinner party, when Smoker had mocked his past difficulties: Sanji looked betrayed.
And -- as it so happened -- Zoro understood the feeling.
He'd wager Sanji didn't care; wasn't interested in hearing Zoro's tale of mutual suffering, and if it had been only a month earlier, Zoro wouldn't have even considered sharing that kind of information. But Sanji just seemed stuck, and everyone else in their group of friends either didn't see it, or didn't know what to do about it.
Zoro did know. And so, he figured, it was his responsibility to try and do something.
Besides. Shit-cook's food wasn't quite up to par when he was moody.
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
"And then I said, 'BACK, YOU EVIL FIEND!' And do you know what happened next?"
"NO! WHAT!?"
"…..he blew up!"
"EEEEEEEEHHH!!!!"
"USOPP, I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU DON'T SHUT UP, I'LL COME OVER THERE AND SLIT YOUR -- "
"NAMI, LOOK OOOOOOOOUT!!!!"
Screams of profanity and the sound of things breaking echoed around the small apartment room where all the friends had retired after the funeral. Laughter and shouts that were steadily slurring due to the steady stream of booze provided by none other than Franky nearly masked the rousing tune of an Irish drinking song coming from near the windows where Brooke had set up his Casanova keyboard. Music and dance and laughter and exuberance, and Zoro was pretty much out of his element. With only one other funeral reception under his belt, he was utterly unsure how he was supposed to conduct himself with this oddly up-beat gathering. Weren't these things usually somber?
But figuring that anomaly out wasn't really at the top of his priority list at the moment.
Well, the top of his priority list was actually defeating Mihawk, but below that, and slightly above buying some new whetstones, was locating the goddamned shit-cook. Bastard had hung around for the first half hour, making sure all the food was ready and in place, and then the idiot hadn't been seen since. At least not that Zoro had noticed, and after doing a thorough scourge of the apartment, was very nearly convinced that the asshole had actually left the party, if "party" was really the proper term for all this chaos. Zoro had just been about to drop the search, to forget about his little plan of talking shit over with the cook, since the track-record so far showed the spindly prick wouldn't give a damn, anyway, when just then, he happened to look out the darkened picture windows, and saw a soft, fleeting glow of orange alight the bottom third of the glass.
And Zoro could spot that particular glow from a mile away, at this point. He'd seen it enough times a day to recognize it.
So, asshole's been hiding out on the fire escape. Should've figured, he thought to himself as he weaved through the flailing crowd to get to the wall of windows and unlatched the glass panel that led out on to the metal landing.
Sanji sat on the dingy couch that Usopp had found for them a few weeks ago. It was ugly as sin, and the prissy bastard had refused to let it stay in the apartment, but free furniture was rare to come by, and Luffy had already fallen in love with it in the ten seconds it sat in the living room before the shit-cook threw a hissy fit, so Zoro had simply lugged the damn thing out on the fire escape, and called it quits.
And that's where Zoro found the blonde; slouched so low in the ratty cushions that not even the top of his head could be seen over the back of the couch, long legs sprawled across the narrow space and resting on the rail of the platform, hands shoved in the pockets of his dress slacks, cigarette smoking gently from between his lips. The black, silk shirt he'd worn to the funeral was unbuttoned at the top, the crisp, white tie now hanging limp around his thin neck. His eyes faced forward, unseeing into the darkened street below, lit only by the dirty yellow tinge of the ancient lamp on the corner. A glass of something that sure as shit wasn't apple juice sat perfectly balanced on one angular knee.
He was the perfect picture of dejected irritation.
Zoro harrumphed, whether to signal his presence, or just to vent his own frustration at feeling the need to jump through hoops for this impossible dick, still slightly unclear. So he moved forward, uncaring if the shit-cook wanted to be left alone, because Zoro had already gone through the trouble of finding his elusive ass, and he sure as shit wasn't gonna give up now.
He sat down at the far end of the couch, swirling his own beverage of choice in its glass once before taking a long sip of it. Then he simply sat back, and looked out over the city. He didn't say a word.
He didn't have to.
Because dumbass couldn't keep his mouth shut to begin with.
"Th' fuck are you doin' here, marimo?"
The voice was quiet and hoarse and vaguely sluggish, and generally sounded wrong to Zoro's ears. He frowned into the darkness.
"Wondering where you ran off to," was his nonchalant reply.
Sanji snorted derisively, obviously not buying the swordsman's interest.
There was a pause then, and Zoro got the distinct feeling that, for once, the cook needed to be coerced into conversation. Usually the fucker never shut up, but he chose now of all times to be difficult.
"So," he started, chancing a glance at the depressed blonde, "is it okay? Them partying like that?" He wasn't just making idle chatter; he actually was curious to know the answer to that one.
"It's fine," Sanji muttered. "They throw a party for everything. I'd feel weird if they did act all uptight and serious."
Zoro nodded; he could understand that. It would be really bizarre if, for once, Luffy and Usopp and Franky weren't doing something loud and crazy, and if Chopper didn't clap and laugh and scream, and if Nami didn't scold, and if Brooke didn't play, and Vivi and Robin and Kaya failed to laugh demurely at them all.
But even though everything else was business as usual, there was something missing: the constant proclamations of love, the twirling, the swooning that followed any look from one of the girls, even if it was Nami's glare.
They were missing the shit-cook. And it was really throwing Zoro off. These assholes had beaten their way of life into him so severely, and it was so utterly foreign from his own chosen lifestyle, that the least they could do was keep up the routine now that he'd finally gotten the hang of it. And so, he decided he was going to force the blonde to get back on track and back to his annoying, preening, chick-worshipping ways.
It was the only way for the universe to feel normal again.
"Zoro," Sanji said just then, drawing the green-haired man's attention back to the execution of his plan. The blonde sighed, and started again. "Zoro…why are you really out here?"
He raised an eyebrow. "I told you, shit-cook. I was wondering where you'd gotten to. Hadn't seen you since we all got back to the apartment."
Sanji lifted the glass of dark liquid, that Zoro now recognized as wine, and looked like he was about to take a drink, but stopped halfway, and simply held the glass to his chest.
"You found me," he uttered, lowly.
"What?"
"You found me. You know where I am."
Okay. Zoro was slightly lost, and Sanji wasn't making sense. As usual.
"So what?" he asked.
"So why're you still out here?"
All right, well that was a legitimate question.
"Look, you seemed to take things kinda badly. I wanted to see if you were okay."
The blonde made an odd gurgling noise, halfway between a laugh and a heavy swallow.
"What the fuck do you even care, asshole?" the blonde spat, and there was so much venom in his tone that Zoro was honestly taken aback.
What the hell was shit-cook so pissed about? As far as the swordsman was aware, he hadn't done anything wrong. So maybe he came off a little brusque, but that was just his style, and Curlicue should have known that by now. But he sounded…kinda hurt. Like he thought Zoro was mocking him, or something. Which was stupid, in Zoro's opinion. If he was gonna make fun of the blonde, said blonde would be more than aware of it.
But still. The slender man seemed oddly gutted by the assumption, so Zoro decided to tread with more care than he really thought was necessary.
Bastard could be such a woman.
"Do you think I hate you, Sanji?"
He'd meant it to be a joke. A statement so totally over-the-top, there was no way it could be taken seriously. Which was why he found it interesting when the slighter man's entire body seized up and his eyes went wide as sand-dollars, and Zoro wasn't sure what the hell his problem was.
Sanji swallowed again, blinking slowly before biting his bottom lip and breathing out a low, scratchy hiss.
"Yes."
Oh.
Well. That was just uncomfortable.
Now Zoro blinked, momentarily stunned and staring at the blonde, who had bowed his head forward, shaking his longer fringe of hair so it shielded his face from view.
"…Are you serious?"
A small nod.
Well. Didn't Zoro feel like an immense asshole? Especially since the cook wasn't really lacking the evidence to support his claim. The swordsman wanted to argue, to prove the idiot cook wrong, that he didn't actually hate Sanji, that he didn't even really dislike him, only ever really got frustrated, and annoyed, and sure, sometimes angry, but that didn't mean he despised the skinny bastard! And he would have pointed all that out. In great detail, so the dumbass never forgot it…
….except that he had nothing to back up his case. More difficult still, since Zoro made it a point to frequently demonstrate how much he couldn't stand Sanji. Why should the blonde believe him? He'd probably think Zoro was spouting bullshit, making stuff up and just saying whatever he thought would get the cook to quit sulking, like the asshole Zoro was. He really couldn't prove anything, in the end.
So Zoro sighed heavily, standing up and moving to lean on the metal rail of the fire escape, taking a long swallow off his drink. He felt rather shitty, all of a sudden.
"Fair enough, I guess," he muttered, trying, and failing, to keep all the traces of disappointment out of his voice.
And he was honestly surprised that it bothered him so much, to know that Sanji thought he hated him. He felt like he'd failed, somehow, at something, and he wasn't sure how he could make it better. Sanji would probably distrust anything he said, pass it off as the swordsman merely humoring him, even though Zoro never humored anyone ever, regardless of the situation, and he felt the dumbshit should have known that by now!
But he didn't, and Zoro couldn't fix it, and it was irritating. He didn't think it really should be. But it was in any event.
He sighed, and tilted his glass back against his lips once more and got nothing but an onslaught of ice, with the last trace of whiskey slipping over his chin and down his neck. He snarled, since this meant he probably had to go back in now, even though he didn't want to, felt that returning to the apartment was admitting some sort of defeat, and Zoro didn't do "defeat." But he was out of booze, and Sanji despised him, so all in all, he figured he should call it a day. Before he managed to fuck anything else up.
The swordsman had just turned away, grumbling and wiping off the trail of whiskey from his throat, when a low mutter wafted over to him on the soft evening breeze, "Hey. Want some?"
Zoro halted, looking up to see the cook holding out the bottle of wine he'd snuck outside, his face still hidden behind blonde and his eyes avoiding all contact. The swordsman remained stock-still, mouth agape and brain sputtering to a complete stop.
Sanji was offering him some wine. Sanji was offering him some wine. In what fucking twilight zone did this shit make any sense?! And should he accept? Did Sanji want him to, or was he just being civil? And if he did accept, should he stay out here and drink it, or should he go back in the apartment anyway? Would things get even weirder if he stayed? Would shit-cook get even more pissed if he didn't? Zoro wasn't really one to speculate on things over-much, and the fact that he was doing it now was annoying as shit, but, well…
…Sanji just made him do annoying shit, it seemed. Like worry. And Zoro never, under any circumstances, ever worried about anything. Ever.
Until now.
But even more annoying than worrying was fucking indecision. So he went with his gut, dumped his mutinous ice over the rail, and moved forward, offering the now empty glass to the blonde, who promptly held up the bottle to pour out the dark liquid, lifting his head only high enough to see what he was doing.
That was kind of pissing Zoro off as well, but he was holding his tongue, since regardless of how utterly idiotic the cook was acting, he had just buried his father-figure, and so was excused from being a moron. To a degree. But, honestly, Zoro could only abide so much before he lost it. He was going to talk to the shit-cook, goddammit. He'd already invested this much effort into it, and he was gonna see this through to the bitter end. Whatever sort of end it led to.
So he reclaimed his seat on the couch, sipping at the wine he didn't actually feel like drinking, but it was his excuse for staying out on the fire escape, and Sanji, at the very least, didn't seem surprised that he was still there. Zoro didn't say anything right away, just tried to provide the stupid blonde with a calming presence, so that maybe, hopefully, the cook would start talking first.
It was startling how easy it was to predict Sanji's reactions.
"How's th' wine?"
All right, not the vein Zoro was actually looking for, but he'd take what he could get.
"'s fine. Not really my thing, but it ain't too sweet. Kinda perfume-y, though."
"Idiot," the blonde mumbled, and there was a bit of the old snark back, and the swordsman never thought he'd feel so relieved to hear it, "It's distilled berries with a dryer, more refined bite. O'course it's gonna be 'perfume-y.'"
"Hey, this is your style," Zoro countered. "Sure as shit ain't mine."
"That's 'cuz you're an ill-mannered, uneducated dipshit who knows fuck-all about good booze and the only reason you've drank cultured-anything is 'cuz I bought th' shit for you, 'cuz God knows, if left to yer own devices you'd be mixin' Jim Beam with Pabst Blue Ribbon and puking yer insides out every goddamn night, 'cuz that's how a 'real man' drinks his booze, shitty marimo-headed, moss-brained idiot!"
Zoro blinked at him, taking a measured sip of the annoyingly fruity wine.
"Feel better now you got that all out, spazz?"
"Go to hell," the blonde groused, with just the barest hint of a chuckle, and yeah, he sounded like he felt better.
About damn time, too.
"But seriously," he began again, voice now pointed and no-nonsense, "you, Roronoa Zoro, are sittin' outside in October, when it's cold, with me of all people, drinkin' wine and makin' small talk. Either you're terminally ill, or somethin's up. Just come straight with me."
Zoro sighed, marveling at how much of a dick he had to be for shit-cook to find this so damn impossible to accept.
"It's like I said earlier, asshole. You looked like hell all day, and I wanted to make sure you were okay."
Something in Sanji seemed to snap just then. Zoro swore he heard whatever it was break from where he sat a few feet away.
"What the hell!" the blonde yelled, suddenly viciously angry, whipping around to glare at him, and the swordsman had seen this coming. "Of course I looked like hell, you insensitive mother-fucker, my fuckin' father just died!"
Zoro failed to point out Sanji's neglect of the epithet foster father.
"Look, I've seen people who've lost family, and they handled it a hell of a lot better than you are, Sanji," the green-haired man went on in his brutally honest way.
The cook sneered at that. "This coming from the man who's so emotionally retarded he can't convey any feelin's beyond annoyed and pissed off, even to his own friends!"
"That's not the point, idiot."
"No, but you're a fuckin' hypocrite anyway!" the blonde screamed, rage seeping out of every pore in his body.
Zoro growled. "I never said you were failing to deal with this, I'm just saying you're doing a shitty job of it! You feel betrayed that he died, and I get that!"
"You don't understand a goddamn thing!"
"So then tell me about it, you fucking moron! If you talk about it, maybe your stupid ass can get over this shitty funk you're in! It's annoying as hell!"
"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU EVEN CARE!?" Sanji bellowed, looking torn and slightly hysterical, fists clenching and unclenching furiously, his one visible eye wide with confusion and sadness and pain and something that looked a bit like fear.
The swordsman exhaled, letting off his excess steam, because he wasn't out here to yell and blame Sanji for anything. Fucker obviously had some issues, and a person can't really be blamed for carrying around some baggage from a shitty life, however frustrating it could be to deal with. So he sighed, and decided to do something that, in Zoro's view of life, was something he really shouldn't ever have to do.
He was gonna have to explain himself.
Fucker made everything way more complicated than it needed to be.
"Listen, cook. Contrary to what you may have assumed, I don't hate you. Sure you're dumb, whiny, and irritate the ever-loving-shit out of me, but I don't hate you. I get pissed at you, yeah, but I get pissed at everyone." He paused, thinking about that for a second. "Okay, so maybe I don't ever get pissed at Chopper, but that's really about it. Even my closest friends in the world piss me the fuck off more than half the time, but that doesn't mean I hate them. And even though I get pissed at you doesn't mean I hate you, either. 'Cuz I don't. Got it?"
Sanji's mouth was pressed in a tight, thin line, face paler than usual, his jaw clenched tight, as though he had a tenuous grip on his control. Slowly he turned away, facing forward once more, eyes staring blindly out over the abandoned street.
Screams of mirth and rage and jaunty music could still be heard from inside the apartment. The party carried on without a beat, and Zoro was grateful for it. He didn't really feel like dealing with a large group of people at the moment. Strangely enough, he was feeling rather foolish all of a sudden.
Huh, he thought, sipping awkwardly at his previously-forgotten glass of wine, never figured this would happen.
He would deny the slight warming of his cheeks until death. Or pass it off as a side-effect of the booze. Even though he never got drunk, or even tipsy. And he never lied. Shit.
"Why?" was the abrupt murmur that barely managed to catch his ear, pulling his attention back to the present situation.
"Why what?" he asked. And now he was avoiding eye-contact.
Shitty cook was infecting him with his dumbness.
"Why don't you hate me?"
Zoro blinked, and turned to gape at the blonde. He felt like he'd done that a lot tonight.
"…What?"
"Why don't you hate me?" Sanji pressed, voice gaining some volume again. "I mean…well, I hate you!"
The swordsman arched an eyebrow. "Really?"
"No."
Slight pause. Ignoring the stupid warmth in his face again. When had this conversation gotten so stupid?
"Why don't you hate me?" Zoro finally asked.
"Because."
"Because why?"
"Because I just don't!" Sanji cried petulantly, and Zoro imagined a pretty amusing pout on his face at the moment. "Is that okay with you!?"
The larger man snorted, hiding his grin behind another sip of wine. "Fair enough, I guess."
"Why d'you keep sayin', 'Fair enough'? What th' hell does that even mean?"
"Oi, oi!" Zoro cut in. "Enough of this shit. I'm the one asking questions, remember?"
"Tch. Whatever, asshole."
Cook was acting like a bitch, but at least he was compliant now. Zoro allowed himself a second or two to marvel at that turnabout before he knuckled down and got to business.
"Now. I get that you feel cheated, or something, since the old man died, but why?" Best approach is the most direct. That was Zoro's philosophy on life. Cut straight to the quick and no room for bullshit.
The sentiment seemed to be appreciated, since Sanji only hesitated as long as it took for him to pull out a cigarette, light it, and take a long, steady draw off it.
"Lots of reasons why I feel cheated. Lot of its got to do with how I met th' shitty old man." He fell silent just then, voice sounding sort of tight, and the blonde quickly took another hit of nicotine for a distraction.
"How'd you meet him?"
Sanji took a deep breath, rolling the cigarette from finger to finger, chewing his lip and seemingly thinking of where he should begin the story. "I worked in th' kitchen of a cruise liner fer a while. It was pretty good work, and they let me sleep in th' hold. Better than th' fuckin' child services." He paused to suck in more smoke and let it out slowly. "Anyway, there was a shitty awful storm one night, and this fucking fishing boat comes outta nowhere, both boats are totally outta control, and they collided. The fishing boat drove a hole in the hull of th' cruise ship and both of them went down. I got knocked unconscious when I fell overboard. It was the shitty old man that saved me."
Zoro frowned. "Was he on the fishing boat?"
"Yep. He was th' captain. He was the only one that saw me fall in, and he went after me. Well," he went on with a sigh, "we washed up on a rock way out in th' ocean. Rocks all along the bottom, too high to climb back up, even if the rocks didn't kill ya on th' way down. No food, 'cept the sacks that the old man managed to grab in the storm. Two apiece. His bag was bigger than mine, 'cuz I was only a kid, and didn't need to eat as much. He told me to sit on one side of th' rock, and he'd sit on the other. We'd give up an alarm if a ship was spotted, but otherwise just ignore each other. So, like any good cook, I rationed out th' food. I had it all planned out: enough food fer twenty-five days."
Sanji's voice went hollow just then, dead and frozen from extreme turmoil, and Zoro had a feeling this story was only gonna get worse.
"I was there for eighty-five days. No one came."
The cook sighed again, shaking his head slightly, trying to drag his mind back out of the past. "Anyway, I couldn't take it anymore, and figured I'd just steal th' old man's food, if he had anymore left. The sack he had was totally full. Looked like he hadn't eaten a thing outta it. I didn't care; I didn't even bother to think it was damn impossible fer him not to 'ave eaten anythin' in eighty-five fucking days. I just pounced on the bag. The old man was saying something, but I wasn't payin' attention, and he wasn't stopping me anyway, so I just tore the bag open, and…"
Sanji broke off again, this time going for his wine glass, which turned up empty. Zoro quickly swiped up the bottle and poured him some more. The blonde sucked down half of it without pausing, and then waggled the glass for a refill. Zoro obliged.
He hadn't anticipated that this shit was gonna be quite as fucked up as it just so happened to be. And he felt slightly like a ridiculous asshole for assuming the shit-cook was just blowing things out of proportion.
A shaky breath, and the blonde was talking again.
"I tore open the bag, and…there was nothing in it. No food. Just some random gold shit and a safety deposit box that'd been cracked open and full of money."
"What'd he eat then?" Zoro asked, frowing. "You said there was no way he could have gone all that time without food, right?"
Sanji nodded. "He ate. Not food, really. He…God, that fucking stupid old man!" The cook gripped his face with one hand and the wine glass with the other. Zoro reached over and carefully but firmly pulled the glass out of his grasp before it broke. Last thing the guy needed was to mess up one of his precious hands.
"Fucking stupid old man," he muttered, squeezing the bridge of his nose and hissing slightly through his teeth. "That fucking asshole gave me all the food, and he…he fucking ate his own leg!"
Peg-leg Zeff, Zoro thought, awed beyond conception and finding himself with a new, immeasurable respect for the veteran chef. That was how he lost his leg. He ate it, so Sanji could have a chance to live. His mind was fairly well boggled by that.
"The old man collapsed," Sanji went on, voice hoarse. "I thought he was gonna die then. He said, 'If I ever get off this shitty rock, I'll use this money to build a restaurant where all the poor bastards of the world can eat their rotten fill.' I told him I'd help him, so he couldn't die. He said I'd never amount to anything, 'n I called him a shitty old man, and that was pretty much it. A ship came that very day. After a stint in the hospital, he used the money just like he said he would, and opened up the Baratie. I've worked there my whole life, pretty much."
The swordsman nodded, even though none of that, while enlightening, actually answered his initial question. But he played it nicer than usual, let Sanji take a break for a second, smoke a bit, take another drink of wine, before he reiterated what he really wanted to know.
"So, I can see how it'd hurt, now the old man's dead, but why do you feel betrayed?"
"'Cuz," the cook grumbled, throat still sounding fairly thick and constricted, "I never got to make it up to him. I can never repay the debt I owe him; not then, and definitely not now. I never surpassed his cooking. The fucking geezer took some of his best recipes with him. Never wrote them down. And now…" he halted, again, rubbing his face roughly with his palms, looking more stressed and frustrated than sad and devastated, "Now, I don't know that the hell's gonna happen with the Baratie. There's a good chance I'll be made Head Chef. Or he'll put me in charge of the new Baratie in Phoenix."
Zoro shot him an odd look. "Isn't that a good thing?"
Sanji sighed, and the swordsman might have detected a hint of that old tried-and-true irritation that he was so good at inspiring. It kind of made him grin.
"It isn't good, 'cuz I want to open up my own place. Have it really, really be my own, not jus' somethin' I inherited from someone else. Not that I hate Baratie, 'cuz I don't. But if the old man actually has it in writing that he wants me to take it, I can't say no. And then I'd be stuck in a mother-fucking rut."
"I can understand that," Zoro remarked, nodding slightly to himself. "I think you'd run a pretty good restaurant."
Sanji turned to look at him then. Zoro wasn't watching, may very well have purposely been staring at the pirate flag wafting in the breeze as a distraction, but he could feel the other's gaze burning a hole in the side of his head. He could tell Sanji wanted to say something, but he wasn't all that eager to hear what, since he kind of guessed it wasn't anything he was really equipped to handle. At least not at the moment.
Whatever Sanji would have said was a moot point.
What he did say, though, was, "Hey. Can I have my wine back?"
Zoro passed it over without looking. He was feeling foolish again, and figured he really needed to have more alcohol in his system if this was gonna continue. So he drained the rest of his glass and poured out another one, noticing with some forlornness that the bottle was nearly empty.
How much had shit-cook drank, anyway?
But Zoro shrugged off the sentiment, yet again figuring Sanji had had a shit day, and really a shit week, what with all the funeral preparations and what-not, so getting drunk was probably well within the realm of things the cook deserved at the moment.
In the meantime, Zoro was patting himself on the back at having successfully done what he'd set out to do, minus the awkward hiccups along the way that he was planning on simply forgetting about. But what with his mission accomplished, he sort of didn't know what to do anymore. He wasn't all that good with casual conversations, especially not Sanji, particularly not a wasted Sanji, and Zoro was more than somewhat out of his element.
But, as fate and luck would have it, Sanji now seemed to be oddly talkative once the initial hurdle of discomfort had been jumped – and the majority of a bottle of wine utterly drained – and that was fine by Zoro.
Spared him the agony of thinking up more random shit to say.
"Still hate th' old man, though."
And that meek, defeated tone, coupled with the sudden sag in the blonde's shoulders and the pain communicated in it all made the swordsman change his tune abruptly. Made him wish the cook would stop talking, would never speak again, because this was shit he honestly didn't think he could deal with. Zoro could not handle Sanji being this sad and depressed. It made him feel completely lost, and perhaps a little dumb, because he wasn't all that good with emotions.
But Sanji kept talking, seemingly to himself, and Zoro felt obliged to listen anyway.
"He was a fucking asshole. Shitty father. Never gave me credit for any of the shit I did right, and kicked my sorry ass around when I fucked up. He'd beat my ass for no reason. Shitty old man. Never had a good thing to say. Never did th' kind'a shit you always hear about dad's doin'. No Little League games. No parent-teacher conference. None of that shit. Never seemed ta really wanna be my dad, y'know?"
And there he actually turned and looked at Zoro, as though he expected the other man to have all the answers to some question he hadn't even asked, and Zoro doubted he had ever been more ill-prepared for something in his life.
So he just blinked, and waited for Sanji to continue with his rant.
He did not. Because, even drunk and unawares, Sanji still excelled at making Zoro's life difficult.
"Hey, Zoro?" he asked, his blue eye droopy with drink and melancholy, "D'you think I was abused er somethin'?"
And the worst part: he was dead serious.
But if he wanted the swordsman's opinion, he was damn sure gonna get it. That was one thing, at least, that Zoro knew for sure he could do. Consolation? Not so much.
Honesty? Without a goddamned doubt.
"Let me ask you something, cook," the green-haired man started, leveling the other with a hard, pointed look, "Do you hate who you are?"
The blonde frowned, seeming a bit mystified. "No."
"Would you change anything about yourself if you could?"
"No."
"Then you weren't abused. And you don't hate the old man."
The frown deepened, looking suspicious and a touch angry now. "How the hell d'ya figure that?"
"You don't hate yourself; you wouldn't change yourself. So you're happy with you are."
"Yeah, I got that, so th' fuck what?"
"So how do you figure you got to be way you are in the first place?"
Sanji paused, expression clearing slightly and giving way to more confusion than anything. "I dunno…"
Zoro sighed. I really shouldn't have to do this.
He resisted the temptation to rub at his aching temples. Shit-cook was such a pain in the ass. Seriously.
"Look, idiot. You got to be the way you are today because the old man raised you that way. Get it?"
Sanji blinked owlishly.
Obviously not.
But Zoro was determined to persevere.
"Listen, cook, 'cuz this isn't that hard. Because of him being a demanding, unforgiving asshole, you're now the best damn cook in the state – hell, probably the whole country, and you don't take shit from anyone. You sure as hell weren't born that way. You became that way because of the old man kicking your ass everyday and pissing you off enough to want to be better than him. And if you think that crazy chef didn't love you like a son, you're a fucking moron."
Sanji's face went gaunt and stiff, his entire body seizing up defensively, and the swordsman was actually expecting it by now.
"Asshole Geezer just thought I was nuisance."
Yes, Sanji's stupidity was something Zoro had already acclimated to.
This time he did rub his temples, and his tired eyes, because really, this was just re-fucking-diculous. How ignorant could one man be and still function enough to breath? It was predictable, sure, but still absolutely astounding.
"Sanji, that old man hadn't touched a thing in your room since you moved out of the Baratie. It's like a fucking shrine in there."
No exaggeration, either. Chopper'd felt like he had desecrated sacred ground when he came to the morning after the party.
But the blonde just pouted and said, "Bastard was just too lazy to clear it out."
All right. Zoro had officially gone over his limit of bullshit. He'd kept strong and lasted longer than he thought he would, but this had seriously gone too far. If the idiot was actively denying the fact that his foster father loved him, when it was so fucking obvious that he did, then Zoro couldn't be fucked to argue with him anymore.
He was done.
"Cook," he said, voice low and lacking any kind of humor or gentleness. "You had a dad that loved you enough to give you everything he had. Gave his own goddamn leg for you. Saved you when no one else would. Worked to make you the best damn man you could be. You should consider yourself fucking lucky. There are plenty of kids who can't boast any of that."
Sanji's face went utterly blank just then, and he stared at Zoro with eyes widened, and it was kind of freaky, and Zoro didn't know what the hell the blonde was looking at him that way for, until he finally though about. Replayed the last thing he said to the cook, the last statement he'd made, and then he looked away fast, feeling beyond foolish now.
He felt pretty damn dumb.
He had not meant to let that slip. He hadn't meant to make this anything to do with him. It was just a negative side-effect of Sanji and his stubborn stupidity, and it was all the cook's fault, anyway.
Bastard had better not say a goddamn word.
"Hey," that fucking voice called again, quiet in a way that was irritating as hell.
Don't say a thing. Don't say one fucking word about it. I swear on her grave that I will murder you if I hear any sort of goddamn pity coming from you, of all fucking people, I swear to fucking --
"Let's go in."
He blinked, thrown off guard and not a little surprised.
Not what Zoro had expected him to say. At all. And he was grateful for it, honestly.
"Yeah," he exhaled heavily, feeling the apprehension and the irritation drift away just as fast as it had gripped him. "Sure, cook."
XXXXXXXXXXXX
"Yeah. Sure cook."
Sanji nodded, looking back at the metal landing, because looking at anything else seemed dangerous. His head was buzzing with more than just alcohol, but he couldn't quite get a grip on what exactly was making him feel so woozy. He'd gotten drunk before and never felt like his veins were on fire. This was pretty fucking new.
It was probably marimo's fault.
Everything seemed to be. Coming out here, intruding on Sanji's personal hell, asking all these shitty questions, forcing Sanji to talk about shit he'd really rather forget, fucking pretending he actually gave a damn. Sanji didn't want to be pitied. Fucking hated being molly-coddled, especially not by someone like the goddamn moss-head. And every time this asshole showed the slightest bit of concern, it always felt like he was just feeling sorry for the cook. There wasn't anything genuine about it at all.
Except that there was.
But Sanji was refusing to admit it.
Zoro didn't care about him. He couldn't. It'd be weird if he did. Sanji didn't want to get all close and buddy-buddy with the bastard. Not that he really knew why, though. There was just something about it; the mental image of he and Zoro just hanging out, going to movies, having heart-to-heart chats; it really freaked him the fuck out. The merest idea of an inkling of a possibility that he could become friends with Zoro made his mind liquefy. So, out of principle and love of his brain-cells, he refrained from ever thinking about it.
Part of him was convinced that it really shouldn't be that big of a deal.
But the other part of him, the vast majority of him, figured it a was a huge deal, it was a fucking mistake, it was stupid and embarrassing and risky as hell, and the worst part was that he didn't even know why it felt like he'd lose all sense of himself and his identity if he let the antagonism slip, even a little.
It made no sense, and he wasn't going to try and figure it out. It was shitty and confusing, and he was drunk, goddammit, and his brain was all soupy and full of whirring noises, and it was making him more confused and irritated than usual.
Stupid, shitty swordsman and all his stupid shitty, confusing ways.
"Oi, cook?" that deep voice suddenly cut through his spiraling thoughts, and Sanji looked up to see the idiot glaring down at him from where the other stood. "You coming, or what?"
"Tch. Fucking asshole," he grumbled before pushing off the couch, and immediately forgetting which way was up. He felt the floor beneath him shift violently, almost like it was a horse trying to buck him off, and the cook tipped forward, arms flailing and throat seized in a silent cry as he stumbled right over the railing of the fire escape.
Or, he would have.
If a solid body hadn't moved with lightening speed directly in front of him, allowing the cook to slam into it as strong arms wrapped around his back to keep him steady. It took a few seconds of blinking and staring at the collar bone of the aforementioned-body before he realized he recognized the scent emanating from it – 'cuz he'd be one sorry-ass excuse for a cook if he had no sense memory – and it was a peculiar scent too. Soap and musk and some sort of tangy smell that conjured the image in his mind of sword blades in pre-dawn light, and around that time Sanji was stuttering and scrabbling for a hold to push away from the solid body with, since he now remembered there had only been one other person out there with him anyway, and goddammit, when was the fucker gonna let him the fuck go!?
Shitty marimo.
"Oi, asshole, calm the fuck down!" that voice barked, and like hell was Sanji actually gonna look at the bastard. "You're shit-faced, idiot, stop moving around so much or you'll fall and break your scrawny neck."
Sanji huffed, since, okay, that was a pretty reasonable concern, given his almost-tumble from a fifth-story fire escape just a moment ago, but he did manage to look as pissed off about it as possible.
"Fuck you, shitty marimo," he slurred, his tongue lazy and practically asleep, which was sort of what he wanted to be at the moment. "I dun need yer fucking help. I got 'dis…"
Sanji shook out of the idiot's hold, held his head up high, and took a dignified step towards the apartment door.
The metal grating of the escape's platform was cold and hard against the skin of his cheek, and if he had less booze in his system, he might have had an inkling of how badly his face was gonna hurt the next morning. Apparently, he also held a clump of black material, which, upon closer inspection during those rare intervals when his eyes were actually looking at the same thing, appeared to have come off the marimo's sweater. He may have remembered flinging his arm behind him in an effort to grab hold of something, but then he was abruptly flat on his stomach, and a bit dazed.
Oh well. Didn't fit the asshole. Too tight. He borrowed it from Ace, anyway.
"Fuck," the swordsman growled, voice closer than Sanji expected it to be. "Portgas is never gonna let me live this shit down. You are totally reimbursing him, you goddamn curlicue."
Hmm…Sanji thought to himself as he sniffed the ripped fabric mindlessly, Shithead only wore it a day, and it smells like him…
"Oi cook, you alive?"
Sanji blinked and wondered vaguely where Zoro was.
"Oi? Cook?"
Not on the floor, or I'd see him. I think. Unless I can't see him. Maybe he's somewhere I can't see. Probably why I don't see him.
There was an irritated grunt, and hands were suddenly grabbing at Sanji and rolling him over onto his back.
Ah. There's the marimo.
Zoro glared down at him, the tear in the sweater just near his shoulder obvious against the white undershirt he wore. He appeared to be kneeling beside him.
"Hey, dumbass," he said, slapping the cheek Sanji hadn't landed on in the fall. "Get the fuck up, or I'm leaving you out here."
Something either in the blow or the idiot's voice seemed to sober the cook up a little, and he blinked back to reality, fixing the moss-head with a glare of his own, and muttering to himself as he rolled over on to his knees.
All right. You're all right Sanji. You made it this far. You can handle standing up. Come on. Don't look like an idiot in front of the goddamn idiot.
He pushed off the floor, sitting back on his knees.
He over-balanced, crashing the back of his head against the metal grating.
He despaired.
Fucking hell! It can't be this hard to stand up! Shitty blood alcohol content!
Sanji sat up slowly, rubbing his bruised skull and thinking it might just be safer to sleep out on the fire escape instead of trying to negotiate with his equilibrium, when he heard a sigh and some heavy footsteps, before large hands wrapped around his arms, hands that pulled and effortlessly lifted him off the ground and onto his feet. Hands that didn't let go until Sanji finally quit swaying.
And yes, he did remember whose hands those were this time, and no, he still wasn't looking at the bastard. The heat in his face could easily be passed off as drunkenness. Like hell he would admit to being embarrassed. And as long as he didn't make eye-contact with the fucker, he wouldn't have to worry about being found out.
But the asshole was looking at him. He could feel those dark eyes trying to bore their way into his brain, but he was refusing to meet the look. Just stared at the ground, letting the hands hold him up for the time being, as he found himself inexplicably tired all of a sudden.
The swordsman sighed again, sounding pretty tired himself.
"Damn useless moron," he muttered, before throwing one of Sanji's arms over his shoulders, while sliding his own around the cook's back. With that, Sanji found himself being dragged across the fire escape.
"Oi, oi, what th' fuck d'you think yer doin'!?" he cried, still managing to be indignant despite everything.
"Sanji," Zoro said, pushing open the glass panel that led inside. "Shut up."
And, for once, he did.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
His brain sort of registered noise. Music, he presumed. Laughter, possibly. He figured the party was still going on, and was grateful for that, hoping that everyone was well enough distracted. He'd hate for his lovely ladies to see him in such a disgraceful state: drunk, helpless and practically draped over the hulking, boorish swordsman as the larger man dragged his sorry-ass through the apartment. It was just too awful a shame to bear.
The big oaf hauled him around the crowd, thank God, stopping to speak to no one, simply making a straight line for Sanji's room. The swordsman maneuvered the door open without jostling the cook too much, as he was practically asleep where he hung over the idiot's shoulder, and flipped the light switch on the wall before ambling over to the bed, and dropping Sanji unceremoniously on top of it, face down. Then he grabbed the blonde's left ankle, raising his foot, and unlacing the ties on his fastidiously shined dress shoes, before pulling it off and dropping it, also unceremoniously, on the floor.
"Fuckin' one hundred percent pure Italian leather, stupid fuck…"
"You say something, Question Mark?" Zoro demanded, and Sanji knew he was glaring, but he still wasn't looking at the marimo.
Said marimo then grabbed his right ankle, repeating the offensive process with the other shoe.
And that was all the courtesy he seemed willing to force himself through, because he straightened up then, and headed for the door, throwing a, "Sleep it off, asshole," over his shoulder.
"Turn th' damn light off, then!" Sanji groused before the other man could get all the way out the door.
"No," the swordsman flatly denied. "I'm sending Chopper in here later to make sure you haven't managed any kind of brain damage. You sure as shit can't afford to get any dumber."
Sanji heard the creaking of the door hinge again as it started to close, and he suddenly called, "Shitty pansy-assed marimo."
Heavy footsteps and the door slamming closed. But the marimo was still in the room. Sanji could tell, because the idiot started shouting.
"What the hell is your problem you stupid fucking bastard!?"
Fucker must've finally snapped…Sanji thought to himself, now duly aware that the scrap of shirt fabric was still clenched in his hand. He sort of wanted to smell it again. See if the marimo scent had gone out of it yet.
"I know you aren't that goddamn wasted! Fucking answer me!"
"Why d'you wanna know…?"
"Because I think I've put up with plenty of your shit for one night, and I'm sick to fucking death of babying your grown ass!"
Ha! So he was just pitying me! I fucking knew it!
Sanji kind of felt like throwing up, but he somehow doubted it was from all the booze.
"Then why'd ya do it fer so long…?" All his words were coming out slow and thick like molasses, and the affect was worsened, since his face was being partially crushed by the mattress.
"Because you'd been through hell this week! I get it, it sucks having to bury someone important to you, that's understandable, but you acting like a mopey fucking bitch isn't really gonna make this any easier to cope with!"
Sanji's temper just about exploded and hit the boiling point in record fucking time. His head whipped up from the bed so fast he felt his neck crick, and he looked at Zoro for the first time in as long as he could remember that night, but he felt the playing fields had finally evened; felt it his right to glare at the asshole for being such an unbelievable prick.
"EASIER FOR WHO TO COPE, ZORO, ME OR YOU?!" Sanji screamed right back, the flash of adrenaline chasing away some of the effects of the alcohol. "I'm sorry if my bad mood has been fucking without your karmic energy, or whatever the fuck it is you bushido freaks have, but it isn't about you, you arrogant, self-centered dick! Are you not capable of looking past your own fucking nose for two goddamned seconds long enough to figure that someone else might be worse off than you?! Fuck you!"
The swordsman's glare narrowed. "And who the fuck are you to assume you're worse off than me? You know fuck-all about me!"
"'Cuz you don't tell me shit!"
"You never fucking ask!" Zoro bellowed, and Sanji might have been slightly shaken by that response. "Why the fuck should I make the effort to spill my story to you when you show no signs of interest? How the fuck does that even make sense?!"
The cook stared up at the larger man still seething contained fury in the middle of his bedroom, and figured his jaw couldn't really come any more unhinged. Or his brain, for that matter. He didn't have a clue what to say, because it seemed like his entire existence these past three months or so had just been proven repetitive and stupid. The words, "So then just ask him shit!" reverberated in his foggy head, in a deep, smokey voice he only vaguely recalled, and the cook honestly felt like a fool. He clenched his eyes shut, wishing everything would go away until he could think clearly again.
There was another heavy exhale; the swordsman sighing, sounding more drained than pissed anymore. A muttered, "Get some sleep, idiot," and retreating footsteps were echoing through the room that was noticeably quieter than the rest of the aparment, and Sanji suddenly felt like he was in prison. A weird vice gripped his chest, filling him with an odd sense of dread, and he wasn't sure on all the finer points, only that, without any warning or explanation, he found himself wanting the marimo to stay. The whole time that he'd been angry at him and yelling at him and thinking hateful thoughts about him…it had distracted Sanji from thinking of the things he really couldn't bear to dwell on. Things he couldn't handle just yet.
And Zoro, probably without even trying, had monopolized Sanji's head with how much he pissed the cook off, to the point that he honestly couldn't think of anything else. And that's what he wanted just then: he wanted all the painful, the dark, the unpleasant to go away for a while. At least until he'd gotten some sleep. And for that, he needed Zoro to stick around.
So when Sanji heard the swordsman meandering past his bed, the cook swung his leg out faster than any drunk person should be able to, and knocked the bastard's feet right out from under him. Zoro hit the ground with a thud hard enough to rattle the shelves on the wall by the door, and was practically spitting rage by that time.
"WHAT THE FUCK, COOK!?"
Sanj's eyes were closed, face pressed firmly into the blanket of his bed that smelled of smoke – both cigarette and grill – and he wondered if he'd ever be able to actually look at the idiot again without feeling that stupid, embarrassed warmth in his face. Wondered if he'd ever stop feeling so damn inferior and mortified, and wondering why, after all this time knowing the moss-head, that he was feeling like this now.
I am a goddamn idiot, he thought to himself, and decided to leave it at that.
"Where th' hell d'ya think yer goin', asshole?" he murmured into the soft material around his face.
A grunt of frustration. "I'm leaving 'cuz you're hammered, you need sleep, and I think we've pissed each other off more than enough for one goddamn night!"
"Look, just --"
But Sanji stopped. He didn't know how to get the words out, or which words he was better off using, or how to keep his face from turning red, or how to stop the tightening in his throat.
He sighed. "I just…I dun' wanna think, okay? I won't…I prolly can't sleep like this, I'll jus' think all damn night long, an'…"
Why was it so hard to make a simple request?
"What the hell are getting at, shitty dart-brow?"
Oh, that was why. Zoro's an ass.
But his voice sounded less irritated than it had a few seconda ago, maybe only mildly put off, so Sanji forced down a swallow and tried to make more sense.
"I want…can you jus' talk? For a while? 'Til I fall asleep? I dun' wanna think, an' if you talk, I dun have to…"
There was a slight pause, more than Sanji expected, at least. He expected the swordsman to fly off the floor, yelling and berating him for asking such a stupid fucking thing, and how pathetic could one person get, anyway?
But no. There was silence on the marimo's end, and Sanji got the crazy idea that he was actually contemplating it. Then he heard shuffling, as the swordsman slowly got to his feet.
Here's where he stomps out, never to speak to me ever again.
And really, Sanji didn't think he should feel so dejected by that. Must be the booze.
"What do you want me to talk about?"
"Anything," Sanji murmured. "Where you grew up, where you went to school, what you did as a kid. Jus'…jus' whatever…"
Some more silence followed. The cook honestly didn't know what Zoro had to deliberate about, but he wasn't gonna snap at the moron; he did want him to stay, after all, and biting marimo's head off probably wouldn't go far in getting him what he wanted.
Suddenly fingers were prodding lightly at his side and a deep voice muttered close to his ear, "Oi, move over, asshole. If I'm gonna do this, I'm at least gonna be comfortable."
Sanji grunted in response, hiding the slight tugging up of his lips in the crook of his arm as he shifted closer to the wall, allowing Zoro to sit down, propped up against the head of the bed, one leg stretched out beside Sanji while the other, presumably, was planted on the floor.
"So," he started, sounding a bit hesitant, and it made Sanji grin further, "Um…where should I start?"
"Childhood," the cook prompted. "Who yer parents were, where you guys lived. That stuff."
"'Kay…uh, then I guess the first thing to mention is that I don't have parents."
Sanji opened his eyes, realizing his bed really wasn't meant for two people, as the swordsman's elbow was nearly touching the crown of Sanji's head, and all he could really see was the place where black sweater met worn denim jeans.
And somehow, he hadn't been expecting marimo to say something like that.
"Are they dead?" the cook asked, deciding a second later that it was probably rude of him.
"Dunno," Zoro said, seeming fairly unconcerned. "Never had any. The earliest I can remember, I was on my own."
"Where'd you live?"
"Some places," was the marimo's cryptic response. "Nothing really worth talking about. Mostly not anywhere that actually had a roof. Like you said: childcare services are the shits."
The blonde nodded, his scalp rubbing against the idiot's arm, and he was a bit surprised when he felt not shirt material, but actual skin.
Must've rolled his sleeves up…
"But that changed when I was around nine or ten," Zoro went on, pulling the cook away from musings on the configuration of the larger man's clothing. "I was wandering around and I came across this yard where all these kids were wearing uniforms and training with wooden swords. I watched for a while, 'cuz it looked pretty interesting. I'd always sort of prided myself on being tougher than the other street urchins like me, so I figured I could probably kick all the kids' asses, and maybe make them give me some food. Sort of my usual practice in life up to that point --"
"Was this all in New York?" Sanji interrupted.
"Yeah. I've lived here most of my life. Anyway, I fought all the kids out in the yard and, predictably, beat the piss out of them. And that's about the time I met this girl. Her name was Kuina, and apparently was the daughter of the guy who ran the sword school I'd stumbled across. They were second and third generation immigrants from Japan, and I guess her grandfather had opened the dojo when he came to America. Well, this girl came out of the dojo just then and challenged me to a duel. I'd never fucking held a sword before, so I went with two, 'cuz I figured two was better than one, which was all she was using. I figured it wouldn't be too hard to win: I had more weapons, and besides, she was a girl."
Zoro paused a minute to exhale, and Sanji got the idea he was grinning. "Bitch totally ruined me."
The cook bolted upright, staring wide-eyed at the swordsman and crying, 'Are you shittin' me?!" He then promptly got dizzy and fell over again, this time his head brushing the mairmo's leg.
"Idiot, don't move around so much!" Zoro growled, large hand coming down heavily on top of his head, presumably to keep him still. "If you make yourself sick and throw up on me, I am wringing your skinny fucking neck, got it?"
Sanji made some pissy sound of affirmation.
"Anyway! No, I am not shitting you, she kicked my sorry ass. Hit me so hard in the face with her bokken, I had a welt the size of a baseball on my forehead. So I lost, and everyone laughed, since I went down in about .4 seconds, and then her dad came out. He seemed pretty amused by it. The sensei offered me a deal then: he'd seen I was pretty tough, and could probably be taught how to fight well with a sword, so he said if I agreed to help around the dojo, keep it clean and fix shit if it broke, I could stay there and eat and take lessons for free. So I took him up on it."
So that's why the idiot knew how to fix the showerhead in the bathroom, Sanji thought to himself.
"I took lessons there for a while, got pretty good at nittoryuu, or two-sword style of sword-fighting. Sensei eventually added another condition to our deal, and said I also had to have a tutor, 'cuz apparently the guy was planning on me enrolling in high school when I was old enough. I wasn't wild about the idea, since I figured that'd make it easy for child services to find me, but I liked eating regularly and sleeping in the supply closet, and I loved training, so I agreed. And the tutoring shit wasn't hard. All that elementary stuff was easy, and I was up to my equivalent grade level in no time.
"And all the while, I was challenging that girl Kuina, trying almost every day to beat her. And every day, I ended up flat on my back with a wooden sword at my throat, and something that'd be bruised bad the next morning."
Sanji snickered a bit at that. "Idiot! Couldn't even beat a little girl?"
Zoro paused, and the cook was reminded that the other's hand was still on his head when rough fingers tugged sharply at his hair.
"OW, fucker, what was that for?!"
"The fact that she was a girl made no goddamn difference, shit-cook. She was better than me. That's all." The tone of his voice had done a complete one-eighty, no longer easy and soothing but hard and edged and no-nonsense.
"Sorry," Sanji mumbled, figuring that was probably a pretty shitty thing to say, and it was horribly rude of him to belittle a lady, anyway.
"S'fine," was the grumbled reply. "So, that was my life for a while. Kinda boring. Nothing really happened, until I'd finally challenged Kuina for the two-thousandth time, and lost for the two-thousandth time. I don't know why it had bothered me so much then, but I guess after losing so damn much, despite how fucking hard I trained, I finally snapped. The sensei had been giving me an allowance for a while, and I'd saved up and bought myself two very real, very sharp katana. And I knew for a fact Kuina had one too. So I challenged her to a duel with real swords. It was my two-thousandth and first challenge."
The marimo paused for a moment, chuckling lightly.
"It was my two-thousandth and first loss, too."
Sanji blinked. "Did you get hurt?"
"No, we knew better than to fuck each other up when we were only kids. That kind of changes when you get older, and you meet people who are more willing to hack off your limbs if it'll mean a victory for them, but when it was just her and me, barely teenagers, it wasn't that serious. It was all about disarming the opponent, as opposed to a KO."
Sanji nodded, this time noting the dull scratch of denim against his head, and reminding himself of where he was positioned in relation to the marimo's anatomy. He sort of felt his face go red. But he didn't move. If Zoro realized how close Sanji was to…certain, more personal areas, he'd probably freak and leave, and more than anything Sanji needed this distraction. So he blushed, and held still, and tried to ignore it.
"Well she beat me. And I cried like the little bitch I was, 'cuz it didn't seem fair, after all my hard work, and all the obsessive training, that I still couldn't beat this chick. And then the damn bitch has the gall to cry herself. She said things like she should be the one upset, since her dad told her women can't be famous swordsman. It was a title only a man could hold, and that as she grew older, she'd get weaker. She told me that, pretty soon, I would be able to beat her, because I would grow into a man. And I pretty much thought that was bullshit, and I told her to quit fucking crying 'cuz she was making me look like a damn idiot. I told her what I thought of her father's shitty philosophy, and told her that one day I would beat her, but only because I'd gotten stronger, not because she had gotten weaker. So, like kids tend to do, I guess, we both vowed to become the greatest swordsman in the world. We were gonna fight each other for the title."
Zoro halted again, and Sanji had the strange feeling that this girl, this part of the story, was a huge catalyst for everything Zoro ever did for the rest of his life. And he was a little afraid of finding out how she affected him that much. Had they dated? Been each other's first? First everything? Had marimo dreamed of marrying her?
"She died the next day."
The cook froze, slowly cocking his head back to look up at the swordsman's stoney face. He wasn't looking back.
"How'd she die?" Sanji whispered.
The swordsman grinned again, but rueful, and looking a little disgusted.
"She fell down the goddamn stairs."
Sanji blinked. A girl who could kick Zoro's ass every single time they ever fought, and a tumble down some steps was what did her in? What the fuck!?
"My thoughts exactly," Zoro muttered, and if he had been less drunk, the blonde might have been a little creeped out at how the swordsman seemed to read his mind.
"Her funeral was in early spring. It was raining like a motherfucker that day. I moved out of the dojo once all the well-wishers had left."
"Why'd you move out?"
Zoro sighed. "Sensei was…sort of fucked up after Kuina died. Not too bad, he was just detached. He couldn't handle having to look out for me anymore after burying his own daughter. You could say he kicked me out. Anyway, he gave me Kuina's sword. Asked me to please carry out her dream, since he knew I could do it, or something like that. So I took her sword and my two and left; used the last of my rat-holed cash to buy a sword case for them so I could carry them around concealed, since they pretty much went with me everywhere I went."
Zoro paused a moment, just taking a second or two to think, before he began again.
"And I was so fucking pissed at Kuina. We made that promise together. We vowed we would fight hard, give our all, and meet each other at the top. And then…nothing. She was gone, and it was just me. With three swords I wasn't totally certain how to use, and a promise that'll probably follow me to the grave to be the best swordsman in the world. She should still be here; I'm convinced of that. She worked harder than me at being the best; I'm convinced of that too. Otherwise, I would have beaten her. So for a while I felt fairly shitty, catching myself thinking that, logically, it would have been better if I'd fallen down the stairs, and not her. But I got over all that eventually. Figured if she ever caught me thinking like that she would have beaten my ass black and blue. So I moved on, and decided that everything I did would be towards that end: of achieving our dream."
Sanji felt like the evening could have probably ended there. He was feeling drowsy enough that he may very well be able to knock off if he tried, and Zoro sounded tired, and the cook was starting to feel that hint of danger and risk again in the air, as though something bad might happen if he kept listening to the marimo talk. As though something the idiot may say could derail Sanji's life, somehow.
But he couldn't deny the sudden spark of curiosity, the want to know more about the marimo's life, because he had a feeling that the story didn't quite end there, that Sanji had more questions he'd like answered, and this seemed like the best opportunity to find some shit out.
That was probably why he found himself poking the swordsman's thigh and murmuring, "What happened then?"
Zoro sighed briefly. "Well, not a whole hell of a lot, honestly. I ended up living pretty much how I had before moving into the dojo: in alleys around the Queens area. I figured I'd keep my promise to sensei and go to high school anyway, even if there was really no reason to. I put his name down as guardian, but had all my info, like grades and shit sent to some abandoned house out in the boonies. I haven't actually spoken to him since Kuina's funeral, but he never made any objection when I put his name down on the forms for school. I'd get to school early, stealing showers in the gym locker rooms, and pilfering food from the cafeteria when the lunch ladies weren't looking. Sort of boring. I worked some random jobs to pay for books and shit. And that was sort of it."
"Weren't you in a kendo club in high school? I didn't even know high schools had kendo clubs."
"Yeah, I kind of started that, I guess," the swordsman said, scrubbing at his hair with the hand not resting on Sanji's head. "There was some pansy-assed martial arts thing that barely even had three members, and they rarely showed up for practices, so I joined, took over, and turned it into a kendo club with a hell lot stricter rules. A lot more people joined afterwards, though, now I think of it…"
"And that's when you met Johnny and Yosaku?"
Zoro snorted slightly, and the cook could hear that grin again. "Yeah. I actually got to know them my senior year. It kind of worked out to my benefit, though. I got two unbelievable friends, and a place to live when we all graduated. Don't really know what the fuck they got out of being my friends. Crash courses in how to administer first aid, or something equally as fucked up."
Sanji frowned, thinking there was probably something he should say to that, 'cuz honestly he didn't think that was really a fair assessment, but his head was too groggy to form words that could get his point across, was in fact too drunk to really know what his point would be in the event he made one, and so just stuck to simple questions.
"And you met that police guy…when?"
"At high school. He was a beat cop at the time, assigned to patrol the school. Make sure fights didn't break out, and stuff like that. I met him when I got in bad with some wannabe gang. By the time Smoker got to the scene, I'd already fucked everyone up. He kinda appointed himself my personal nagger when I was about sixteen. He found out, not sure how, that I'd been living on the street for pretty much my whole life, and he kind of…I dunno, I wouldn't say he felt bad for me, but he kinda had some respect for me, 'cuz he figured I was a tough kid, or something. He never actually intervened in my life; never actively tried to make it any easier, but he…I dunno. I guess he cared. That was all he really needed to do. Just showed that, in his own dickish sort of way gave a damn about what happened to me, and I was fine enough with that. He used to get a real kick out of throttling my ass while he was at it, too."
Sanji snickered lightly at that. "Sounds like my old man."
Zoro laughed too. "Yeah. I guess in a weird way, Smoker sort of saw himself as a weird, antangonistic father-figure-type for me. I didn't mind. Well, I did back then. Now, though, it doesn't really bother me."
There was a brief pause then, and Sanji knew that part of the story was over, because Zoro only told a story in short bursts. It was a little irritating having to ask him questions all the time to get the full tale, since that could only give Zoro the wrong idea that he was interested, even though he sort of was.
"So…what kind of jobs did you have?"
The swordsman shifted just slightly, nudging Sanji's head with his leg as the other's fingers mindlessly drifted down to rest at the base of his neck.
"I've done lots of different shit. Worked for a shipping yard all through high school, and did some apprenticeship work on construction sites. I got my journey-man's book, eventually, which made it easier to find work just about anywhere I went. One of the few perks of working in a Union. I moved out of Johnny and Yosaku's place when I was about twenty; did a stint in the Army for a few years. Let them pay for a little college education, though I never finished. Plus I left the Army the moment I caught wind of Mihawks whereabouts, when I was probably twenty-two. And for the past year, going on two now, I've been moving all over the East Coast, trying to pin the guy down for a duel. And I seem to finally have him here in New York. Which is kinda ironic, I guess."
Another pause. Sanji blinked. "And…is that it?"
"Is that what?"
"Is that your life?"
"Pretty much. Not a whole lot beyond that."
The cook fell silent again, frowning and mulling things over. He was shocked, honestly, to learn of the very few people the swordsman had known. It didn't amount to many, and Sanji found that almost hard to conceive of. All his life, he'd been surrounded by people. And sure they pissed him off more often than not, but they loved him anyway, just like he loved them, and at least he'd never been alone. But Zoro…
…Zoro had always been alone. From his earliest memories on, he'd relied only on himself, with a few brief periods of companionship that only lasted a year or so, compared to the long stretches of time the marimo had spent wandering around in solitude. And he seemed okay with it; used to it, in a way that was both admirable and tragic, and most likely went a long way for explaining how out of place he'd seemed with the new group of friends he'd so recently become a part of. He didn't know how to cope with large numbers of people in his life all at once. And maybe it wasn't that big of a deal for Zoro to share this information. Maybe he really was just unconcerned and indifferent. But it didn't matter.
Somehow, for some reason, it meant something to Sanji that Zoro had told him all of that. He could feel the gratitude, even through the layers of hazy booze in the cook's system.
And it was the booze's fault, really. It was the booze's fault that Sanji slowly pushed himself up to eye-level with the marimo just then. It was the booze's fault that Zoro just happened to look back at him, seeming tired and reassuring and strong, with the barest hint of a grin lifting the corner of his lips. And it was the booze's fault that Sanji lost his balance, elbows giving out suddenly as he plummeted forward, face crashing into the swordsman's in what was more of a head-butt than anything.
But if he was really honest with himself, he'd say it was no one and nothing's fault but his own when his lips, firmly squahed against the corner of the larger man's mouth, pushed out just faintly, lingering in a way that would be almost impossible to explain later, as words softly tumbled out onto the other's skin.
"Thank you, Zoro."
And then there was nothing but darkness and warmth, and strong hands cradling his head.
And that was the booze's fault, too.
Well, you got a bit of a reprieve on this one. Chappie Thirteen is only 31 pages long! Ten less than last time. Seriously, everything after Ch. 11 just balloons out into ridiculousness. It's unbelievable. And yes, Zeff is dead. But just because he died, that doesn't mean he won't show up again! ;D Don't worry, it's not a Zombie!Zeff motif. But it works. And his death was tragic, yes, but it was also TOTALLY NECESSARY TO THE PLOT. NO JOKE. THIS STORY WOULDN'T WORK IF HE WAS ALIVE. I APOLOGIZE IF THIS HURTS YOUR HEART EVEN HALF AS MUCH AS IT DOES MINE, BUT I PROMISE TO MAKE IT ALL BETTER WITH COMEDY AND PORN. I'm good on my word, promise!