Nico Robin knew how to hold her liquor. She'd been drinking her entire adolescent and adult life, and now that she was officially in her 30s, she knew how to handle herself.

At least, that's what she told herself as she helped herself to another gargantuan glass jar of moonshine. It was only her third. Or was it her fifth…?

"We can't thank ya'll enough for getting rid of those bandits for us," said the farmer serving them all another round of drinks and food. "I thought I'd have to sell the farm. Pack up, find a knew life somewhere else."

"Mmhm," his wife agreed. "My family has been here for generations, I honestly don't know what I would do if I had to leave. So many people have tried to help us get some peace, but none of them came through like ya'll have."

A rotund Luffy laughed long and loud. "Are you kiddin' me? I coulda done that in my SLEEP. Those guys were NOTHIN'. Easy-peasy, piece of meat~!"

"Piece of cake," said Zoro, trying to nap in the corner.

"Eh?"

"It's 'piece of cake,' not piece of meat," he continued, eye still closed.

"Why the HELL would anyone want a piece of cake instead of meat?!" Luffy countered, pointing an accusatory bone at Zoro.

"I didn't SAY that, did I? The goddamn saying is 'cake,' not meat, you moron." His eye was open now.

"WHO ARE YOU CALLIN' A MORON?" With that, the bone flew out of Luffy's hands, the target being Zoro's nose.

Zoro dodged it with ease as it whizzed right by his ear and nearly hit the farmer's daughter whilst Sanji was sweet-talking her. Zoro was already preparing his counter attack when Sanji hissed at them, "So help me God, if either one of you gets so much as a grain of RICE in lovely Melinda-chan's hair…"

In an instant, Zoro's anger was now focused on Sanji, "Or what, Ero-cook?"

Robin was trying, really trying, to be alert and awake, but there was something about this moonshine… it was stronger than anything she'd ever experienced, and yet tasted like hardly anything. The more she tried to focus on faces, the more they started to melt and shift. The harder she tried to listen, the more muted and garbled words became.

Time passed. Perhaps it was an hour? Two? Three? The concept of time had left her. All she knew was that she was dreading the idea of standing up. Somehow, though, she made it out of that farmhouse and was able to follow her crew-mates from a distance. She wondered idly if she should be at all concerned with the growing distance between them as she lagged behind the group. Fortunately, her drunkenness made everything a non-issue. Everything was fine. Her legs were buckling. Perfect. Slowly, she was falling. It will be nice to take a rest here. This is good. This… is…

"I've got you, Robin-chan," the voice was soft and kind as he held her at the waist, draping her arm over his shoulder. He smelled like rosemary, wood smoke and tobacco. "We're almost home~"

She looked over at his smiling face, "Sanji-san," she said with wonderment, as if seeing him for the first time after years apart. "It's nice to see you again."

He chuckled, "Always a pleasure seeing you, my dear."

The rest of the trip to the Thousand Sunny was made in a comfortable, drunken silence, occasionally broken up by a drunken Robin's absent-minded, soft humming.

Sanji could've listened to it all night.

"Zoro-san~" she exclaimed as they finally made it to the ship. "Have you done something with your hair? It's very green, more green than normal; I absolutely love it. I… I'm a bit tied up at the moment, as you can see…" Sanji was indeed ushering her along, perhaps trying to save her from saying anything she would regret to her crew-mates in her drunken state. "So, we'll talk about this later!"

"What the shit?" A wide-eyed Zoro mumbled incredulously, undoubtedly knowing as well as she did that the two had never had a conversation longer than two minutes.

Sanji whipped his head around to his moss-headed "friend" with an intense glare that could only have said, If you let one iota of judgment slip from your shitty face while Robin-chwan is vulnerable, I will murder you dead. Zoro merely rolled his eyes and proclaimed that he was going to bed and thrusting his night-watch duties on Usopp (much to Usopp's chagrin).

"Here we are, Robin-chwan~!" Sanji proclaimed as he opened the door to the women's quarters. "You really outdid yourself this time," he mused as he slowly shuffled her along past the threshold and laid her in bed. "I've never seen you drink so much, or so fast."

He grinned, teasing, "Gonna be frank, here; I'm shocked you're still lucid."

"I think you mean, 'impressed,'" she mumbled, rolling around and trying to get comfortable.

"Hm?"

"You're 'impressed' I'm still lucid. Because it's damn impressive. I should be dead," she slurred.

He laughed. Drunk Nico Robin was quickly becoming his favorite Nico Robin. "Yeah, you're absolutely right. I stand corrected."

She started sloppily shaking her feet, "I can't… can you? You know, a hand, please." Removing laced boots while being so close to blackout drunk (and subsequently drunk enough to forget about her Devil powers) was a monumental task she would never conquer.

She barely had to finish her garbled sentence before he was kneeling and removing her boots as requested. He often said he'd do anything for her, and she'd never seen him act contrary to that creed. She admired his steadfastness.

She slowly looked around the room, and scanned the empty bed she usually shared with... "Where's Nami-san?"

"I think she may have fallen asleep working in the observation deck again, Robin-chan. Why, something you need? I'm not nearly as easy on the eyes as Nami-swan, but I'm happy to help if I can." He was near the doorway, clearly not wanting to impose, ready to go and leave her be whenever she said the word.

Robin frowned. She had… problems… with sleeping alone. "Sanji-san," she began, ignoring the question, "You're… good. You're a good person." Stretch. Yawn. "The things you think about me… the person you think I am… that's not me. But you, you're… good." She should absolutely not be saying these things, but with alcohol comes the destruction of walls, and this was the result. She wasn't even entirely sure what she was trying to say, herself, she only knew she felt... it, or something like it, bottled inside and she needed to let it out.

"I'm happy you think so, Robin-chan, I really am." He was strangely touched by her vague ramblings. He cared deeply about what she thought of him, and this was a rare (albeit... blurry) window into those thoughts. He ached to talk to her more, to find out precisely what she meant, but he dared not probe her when she was so vulnerable. A silence passed between them, and he guessed she was probably drifting off to sleep. "I'm gonna let you get some rest," he said, moving towards the door and opening it to leave. "I'll check on you in the morning if Nami-swan hasn't alrea-"

The sight of him leaving, and the knowledge that she would be alone with her unfettered thoughts, ignited a deep fear within her that she typically suppressed. "Wait."

The sharpness of her tone seemed to startle him, so he paused at the door, completely still, and waited, anxious.

"Nightmares," she blurted out. "I… I get… they're horrible… when I'm alone they… I can't… can you… please…?" Speaking of nightmares, blurting out her innermost fears to her nakama was one of them. But it was too late, now. Suddenly she was a child again and everything was on fire. As drunk and uninhibited as she was, she still could not bring herself to say the phrase, "please, stay here with me." All she could do was look into his eyes and hope it was enough.

Sanji met her gaze and never left it. Without a word, he closed the door behind him, and in quick, swift motions he shrugged off his suit jacket, tossed it over the vanity chair, and made his way to her bed. The Sanji everyone was accustomed to, the "Ero-cook," would have surely waxed poetic about how his heart would explode from being so close to her, and exclamations of mellorine would abound. That Sanji wasn't present, and he wouldn't be for the rest of the night. Robin (intoxicated though she was) had just entrusted him with some very sensitive, personal information, and Sanji wanted to honor that trust.

As he slid into her bed, they faced each other. Robin was suddenly overwhelmed with feelings of relief and gratitude, more than she knew what to do with, especially now. She reached out a hand, cupping his cheek, gently running her thumb across his cheekbone. "Thank you," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Just as she was about to pull her hand away, he reached up and took her hand in his, bringing it to his lips, and left a soft kiss on the back. "Anything you need," he said quietly. "I really do mean it."

His lips were incredibly soft. It was criminal how soft they were.

She was very slowly gaining self-awareness, and at this point had gained enough to know she shouldn't keep talking if she didn't want to have the World's Most Awkward Breakfast(tm) in the morning. She gave his hand a gentle squeeze as she smiled and yawned, turning on her side, away from him. "You smell like rosemary… and wood smoke… tobacco… it's nice." Okay, well, her self-awareness was low enough to let one last little nugget slip out, apparently. "Goodnight, Sanji-san."

He softly laughed, turning onto his back, the ceiling of the women's quarters slowly fading to black as his eyes grew heavy. Goddamn, he was going to miss Drunk Nico Robin. "Night, Robin-chan."