Chapter 13: Beware! The Great Divide!
In his training room, Zoro whirled on his lover. "Look, cook, I know you hate to think bad of the girls, but I've known from the fucking start she was a liar! She's a sea-witch! All tricks and flair and lies! She lied to Luffy! The baby isn't his and she got it for her own selfish wishes without even discussing it with him!"
His muscles bulged and bunched under his shirt and he threw the article of clothing aside, going straight to his heaviest weights.
"She hurt him, Sanji! And she didn't even do it for a good reason! You know he would've given her anything if she's just fucking asked first!"
"How do you know she didn't just want to do it for him!?" Sanji flailed his arms. "That was just some whacknut in a fucked up dye job! I could smell the fucking lanolin he used to set the color from across the room! We don't even know who the Hell he was! You're gonna take his word as proof against your Nakama!? What the fucking Hell, shitty mosshead!?"
Zoro gritted his teeth. "Fuck, cook, if I was in his position I'd hide my fucking identity too! He said it was Nami's idea, and didn't you see Luffy's reaction?! He knows her better than any of us, and this seemed like something she'd do to him! It's just the proof of what I've known all along, and yes, she's Nakama and I appreciate her as my Nakama, but I've always known she wasn't to be trusted! She'd do most anything for her goals, including betray her Nakama, as long as it didn't cross her invisible line! She did it before remember!"
Taking a step forward, the blond mimicked him, "You don't think tearing his heart out is across that line?! She may have cut some rather close deals in the past, but she's never outright betrayed any of us!"
The swordsman sat up under the weight bar, snarling. "No, because as long as he's still alive, she can fix it! Make him understand, or something, and yes, she fucking has!"
"Not in cold blood. She's always had a very good reason for doing the things she's done! And it's always brought us things we need. I can't believe after all this time, and everything we've been through you still hate her so badly!" Sanji clenched his fists to either side of his body, trying not to resort to physical violence.
Zoro scrubbed his hands over his face. "I don't hate her! I just can't trust her, not fully, and you have proof! Why can't you accept it?!"
"All we have proof of is that somebody heard the rumors and came around sniffing to see if they were true. For all we know he was here to deliberately start trouble. It wouldn't be the first time, and it won't be the last. Why can't you accept that?" And yesterday had been so good.
"Because it's proof! Luffy's reaction as much as confirms it as true… cook, he sees it as something she would do! We all know how he knows people better than they do themselves sometimes!"
"I swear, Marimo, your level of sunbathing must have gone down because all you're doing is saying the same thing over and over again. It's not going to convince me that some stranger out of nowhere knows more about what's going on than we do. Where did he come from? How did he know Luffy was here? And don't you think it's a little suspicious that he shows up so terribly soon after Franky and Robin? We're a good week and a half's sail from Raftel, and that's using a Vivre Card to get here! If you come by way of Kidd's artificial pose it takes twice that!" Sanji was panting around his cigarette, the smoke coming out in harsh, round puffs.
"Yes it's fucking suspicious," Zoro snapped, eye sparking fire. "Goddamn it I wouldn't trust that asshole's word as far as I could throw the Sunny! But… but I do trust my captain. And I saw that man's words break him. Even if the man was lying, it circles back around to Nami, and Nami betrayed my captain again. Once is forgivable. Twice is unpardonable!"
Sanji couldn't smoke fast enough to calm his temper. "So... so, what? You're just gonna sit here while she's off somewhere none of knows how to find while Chopper and Brook are still in Skypiea and we've got a brand new fuckwad flying Doflamingo's flag picking us off when we aren't looking!? It's like Robin said, if we turn our backs on her, she's as good as dead, especially with that shithead out there!"
"Goddamn it, I'm not suggesting we turn our backs on her, she's still Nakama! She's… she's just not someone I trust anymore." His voice died and calloused fingers raked through moss colored hair. Words were failing him again.
"How is that any different? How can she be Nakama if you don't trust her? And what about the baby? Even if it isn't Luffy's it's still part of our crew. We have to find her! Make her tell us what's going on if that's what makes you feel better. She obviously doesn't want anything to do with that guy, even if he is the father." Suddenly, the chef was quite tired. Drama, he found, was more exhausting than facing the entire populations of Thriller Bark, Punk Hazard and Enies Lobby combined.
Zoro's hand came down to cup the back of his neck and his arm hung down as he heaved a sigh. "She's still Nakama. I'd still give my life for hers. She'll always be Nakama. And, of course the kid's one of us. It'll be a Strawhat, born and true. Look, cook… it's like one of those stupid novels. Where you love someone, but at the same time you know the second you turn your back they'll stab it and run. You can't trust them, but you can't stop yourself from supporting them anyway. I've always been that way about Nami."
Sanji sighed as well and sank onto one of the benches lining the wall. "I just can't help the feeling that all of this is tied together. That it's all part of the same plot, and we're coming into it halfway through. It's like if we don't stick together, everything will be lost."
"Of course we're gonna fucking stick together, cook. When have we ever done anything else?"
The swordsman was exasperated now, and just a couple sentences away from devolving to one-grunt answers. He was tired. He felt like there was an invisible wall between him and the man he loved more than life itself. And it terrified him. It felt like it had back when they fought nonstop and each thought the other one hated him. He knew, in the instinctive way he knew how to hear the breath of the world, that if that invisible barrier was allowed to come back into existence, Sanji would give him up as a worthless lost cause and find someone not so contrary.
On the other side of that wall, swirling within his own mind, the cook's own doubts were starting to resurface. The things about whether he was holding his lover back, and if his dream really was pointless now that they'd sailed all the way around the world more times than he could count. So, he drew a leg up to rest his cheek against his knee, in the way only he could, and closed his eyes, trying to will the tension out of his back. He sighed for a second time, but said nothing to his lover's question. To him, it already felt like the crew was being torn limb from limb.
Zoro moved in, operating on habit and instinct, automatically reaching out for his lover, to massage the tension away. To make him more comfortable. But just millimeters before his callous-ridden fingertips touched the fine black fabric, he flinched back. He suddenly didn't feel he had the right to mess up that crisp suit with his big, clumsy hands.
His fingers curled into fists and he crossed his arms before leaning on his arms on the railing, a noticeable inch of space between his broad shoulders and his lithe lover's that hadn't been there since they first got together.
After a few heavy moments of silence, Sanji climbed to his feet. He watched the floor, lighting a new cigarette. He was chain smoking in a way he hadn't for a very long time. "I think I'll go check on Usopp. He's probably hungry by now."
It was an excuse, a poor, pathetic, ridiculous excuse, but for the life of him, the cook couldn't find a way to close the distance. He felt like he was being repelled, like the magnetism of their bodies, so painfully attracted before, had been reversed. All he wanted was to grab the swordsman by the shoulders and kiss him soundly, but something kept him from doing it. There was something fundamentally wrong there. But still, he lingered near the door, hoping, wishing, praying that the man who'd been his partner even before they knew it would do something to make him stay.
Hands braced on the railing, knuckles white, forearms bulging with how hard he was holding onto it, and his shoulders were so tense it looked like he was going to burst right out of his skin, a pit sat in Zoro's stomach, "If... you want to. I'll... I'll hunt something."
Now that the old thoughts had been unearthed, they crowded his mind. Sanji was so refined. Sanji was sweet. Sanji still had goodness and kindness in him. Sanji didn't need his emotionally stunted dead weight. He was an amazing cook. He made things, he kept people alive—two things Zoro, as a swordsman, was useless for. And it all amounted to something that had been festering since he'd first realized how much he liked the cook: Sanji deserved better than him. He'd never said it out loud. He was selfish, hoping if he never said it his lover wouldn't realize its truth. So, the blond had never known this particular issue, nor had a chance to kick it out of his head.
The cook didn't realize he'd been standing there staring until the cherry from his smoke fell on the back of his hand, which had also somehow lifted as though to touch his lover, but hovered in the air because of the distance. He hissed, and clutched the wounded appendage to his chest.
"Augh!"
The larger man whirled around and his hands were encompassing Sanji's burnt one so fast it was instantaneous. Bringing the hand up his mouth and brushing a gentle kiss against it, tongue coming out to lave the burn like he was trying to lick the pain away.
He muttered, "Goddamn it, cook... you've gotta start getting sturdier cigarettes," He snorted softly as he lifted his head. His lips were just slightly quirked, and in that moment he was every bit Sanji's beloved Marimo. "One of these days that'll happen over a pot of food, cook, and then where will you be?"
"Aho-kenshin," The words were gentle, and affectionate, "You know I never smoke while I'm cooking."
Zoro's eye was soft. "Ah. I forget sometimes, Aho-cook."
The blond twisted his wrist to rub his thumb fondly over the stubble on his lover's chin, drawing an almost purr from the Marimo until the callous of his thumb grated against the multi-hued half-grown beard. Things had been too crazy for the normally well-kept swordsman to have shaved it off.
Strangely enough, the reason he was still clean-shaven had nothing to do with his bushido, but with the fact that around the edges, mostly in a rough line to either side of his mouth, the stubble came in yellow and red—the color of leaves in fall. It betrayed that though he was no older than the others really, his intense physical obsession took its toll on the way his appearance aged. If he lived long enough, his head hair would follow the color change of his beard, but, well, that was a discovery they would only make if he lived long enough. He'd go blond, then ginger, instead of silver or white.
With a frown, the swordsman straightened, a hand leaving his lover's to examine the fuzz across his jaw. "Tch," he grunted. "Need to get rid of this..."
"I like it. It makes you look wise." Tilting his head a bit, the cook smirked, playfully, slipping his hands around the larger man's waist, "At least until you open your mouth."
Zoro snickered. "Well, then it's really got to go if it's misleading innit?"
Sanji chuckled, "Good luck finding the razors then. Next thing I know I'll be creating my latest menu and find baby marimos growing out of my knife drawer."
The swordsman thumbed the hilt of his most temperamental cursed blade. "Mm. Who needs a razor when there's a murderous katana all too willing to get as... close to the skin as physically possible?" Still running on automatic pilot, he dropped a kiss on his lover's cheekbone, just beneath the eye. "Or I'll just ask Franky."
The smaller man leaned into the kiss, the light-hearted banter not enough to chase away all of the demons. His heart ached. The tear in their Nakama was doing things to them, and the very last thing he wanted was to ever feel like there was space between him and the man he fought so hard to get. The change in his rhythm was immediate, and if the energies weren't enough, the way he suddenly clung to his swordsman certainly related his desperation.
He buried his nose under Zoro's ear, "We need to fix this, Marimo. It's trying to tear us apart, and I've almost lost you too many times for that to be ok."
There was a moment of tenseness before, hesitantly, warm, strong arms wrapped around Sanji's delicate waist. "I'm sorry. I don't know how to fight an enemy I can't even touch or identify," he murmured into blond hair, eye closing. "I can feel it. I just don't know how to stop it."
"Then what we need to do is concentrate on the enemy we can touch. Find the bastard that dared raise a hand against our Nakama and filet him for all the world to see." The growl in those words vibrated against the swordsman's neck.
"Turn him into metal shavings and slag," Zoro rumbled his agreement, a steely eye looking out over the sea as if he could project this vicious punishment out across the waves to their intended target.
"Slag's too good for him. That Jaya smallfry is meat to be wasted." Sanji shifted so that he could follow his lover's glare, and gave another sigh, "Now, we just have remind the others of that."
"I wouldn't, Cook. Luffy... he's having another Ace-breakdown. And Robin has left us. Don't. Franky is going to have it hard enough."
"That's my point. Right now, we can't afford to have that kind of breakdown. With a singular target in our sights..." He knew how pointless that sentence was before he even finished it. "We need our navigator. We're quite literally lost without her."
Zoro let out a harsh sound that was partly grim humor and a lot pain. "I know, cook. Believe me, I know. Out of all the crew, Luffy and I know best exactly how lost we are without our navigator."
Out on the Lotus, Franky peered around the door frame of Robin's study. "Babe, we're gettin' ready ta grab a bite of Sanji's dinner, ya wanna eat out here, or come in with Usopp and the rest?"
She looked up from a map, her eyes shaded beneath the hat, and blinked a few times. "...I will eat with you. This is doing me no good."
This was bad. Her eyes were cold and distant, her voice emotionless and disturbingly proper. Ms. All-Sunday. Really and truly, emotions all packed up quietly in a box and locked away. She couldn't afford emotions. Not anymore. All that drove her was a cold fury, a deep-seated anger locked in iron and ice. Proper manners and a tense body, always ready to fight. Her eyes dropped back to the map. 'You're out there somewhere, Mr. Bellamy. Revel in your days, because I'm coming, and when I get there, I come for you.'
"Eh..." The cyborg ran his hand over his head, the hair retracted into a buzz-cut at the moment. The chill running down his spine had nothing to do with the recent refitting to his cola-cooler. "I thought ya weren't gonna bring that out again. We... uh... alright. I'll let 'em know."
She stepped away from the table, face sedate and yet somehow giving a dangerous vibe. "Plans have altered. He has sent an agent to infiltrate, distract, humiliate, and weaken us. I have adjusted accordingly."
"But... aren't ya playin' inta his hands by doin' exactly that? I mean, we all could tell he was at least not tellin' the whole truth. He's some little shit that Bellamy thought could sneak under our guard, I'm sure of it." And here for so long he'd been sure his knowledge of running the underworld of Water 7 was useless.
Those dead eyes looked right into his. "I know quite well Bellamy sent him. His purpose was to drive a wedge between us among the crew. In that, he has succeeded. Temporarily. I suspect he was not counting on the secondary effects, and to take full advantage, which I intend to do, a slight adjustment had to be made. He wishes to manipulate our emotions to control us. I have the advantage over him in that I can remove mine from the equation." She then gave a slight, blood-curdling smile. It could have killed a small animal. "He may fly the flag of the Master Puppeteer, but he is certainly nowhere near his level. Doflamingo, for all his faults, could and did choose to employ subtlety when it would produce the best results. Mr. Bellamy appears incapable."
That chill shook him again, and he found himself wanting to pull his sunglasses on just to handle looking at her. This was what Luffy had seen through to know she was Nakama all those years ago? Where was his flower? For all that he had personally witnessed her capability for murder, this emotionless person seemed like something out of a horror story, more terrifying than anything they'd seen in their travels. And underneath, though he nodded to give her at least some answer, he could only wonder if she'd be able to return.
Ms. All-Sunday's cruel smile dropped seeing the range of thoughts flicker across her lover's face, and she reached up to pat his cheek. "Never fear. All locks have a key."
With that, she floated over towards Sanji's kitchen, mind again picking at the biggest current problem: Where was Bellamy, and how could they find him?
Somehow, the shipwright just wasn't comforted. Flashbacks to his youth made him pause at the edge of the deck, gripping the rail and swallowing harshly. After a moment, he gave in to the impulse to drop his shades, and he silently vowed to destroy that hat the next time she took it off. As far as he was concerned, Ms. All-Sunday needed to die and leave his Bobby alone! So, with a tension in his jaw that he refused to acknowledge he followed her into the restaurant again.