Hello everybody,
let's make it short and continue with the second part, have fun ;-)

Bumblebee Gone Astray – Part 2

-Sanji

And that was what he did for the next two days, nothing.

He didn't know exactly what was up with the Marimo, but that idiot had spent the past two days seemingly uninterrupted in his female form, at least whenever Sanji had seen him. Which, admittedly, hadn't been often, mostly only during meals. Zoro hadn't played cards with the rest of the crew, nor had he joined the communal bathing, though he usually rarely missed that, as no one could clean Chopper's antlers as well as he could. He hadn't even come to the galley late at night to pick up his bento for the night watch, as was customary between them. However, it hadn't been on the sideboard in the morning, so Sanji had a theory.

Zoro avoided him. Presumably, he was actually tired of the surprise and discomfort of most of the crewmembers, which was why he now chose direct confrontation, just as he never made a secret of anything. Only with Sanji he made an exception, maybe consciously, maybe unconsciously, maybe whatever.

He didn't care. Either Zoro didn't even notice what he was doing and just avoided him because he unconsciously wanted to avoid an awkward situation, or he deliberately avoided it because he didn't want to have to deal with Sanji.

And in any other topic, that would have been just fine with Sanji. The Marimo was by far the most annoying and exhausting crewmember. But in this one thing... After everything the other had told him concerning Lady Loreen. He didn't know what Zoro's goal or idea behind this whole action was, but he knew he had to seek confrontation. Not the conflict, but conversation.

So he grabbed the bento, which he had tenderly prepared over an hour ago for Zoro to pick it up, turned off the light in the galley, and looked up resolutely at the brightly lit lookout.

"Well, if the dog doesn't get to the bone..." he grumbled, straightened his shoulders, and then walked off.

The picture in the lookout shouldn't surprise him. The Marimo stood on his hands, balancing a huge weight on his feet, bent his arms and stretched them out again, the breath of his voice in the air as he quietly counted along. It was impressive how he trained, Sanji wanted to admit that without envy, but in that form, it seemed almost unreal. The beautiful, long curls were tamed in an almost inconspicuous bun, but a few locks had freed themselves and bobbed with every movement. Sweat dripped down, but Sanji didn't even notice. Zoro's back was turned to him, his bare back, and he was bending his arms for whatever number of times.

Again, perhaps this should not be unusual. Zoro walked around shirtless all day long and especially during such an exercise his usual T-shirts would probably be more of a hindrance, but Sanji didn't care about that either.

He swallowed and averted his gaze, forcing himself to avert his gaze from those shimmering shoulders, that shimmering waist. His cheeks were hot, even though he knew it was the Marimo. But right now...

"What do you want?" came with a rough groan as the other stretched out his arms again, gasping some number that Sanji didn't understand and didn't want to understand.

But he was grateful for the heckling, he felt the tension in his bones, the heat in his face, and not only there. He knew that if this godlike... if the freaking Marimo turned to him, it would all be over. He squeezed his nose shut with his thumb and forefinger, let his fingers slide down – checked them only to be sure, but no blood – and then walked over to the sofa, his eyes fixed on the darkness behind the windows, not wanting to see anything else.

"Bringing you your bento," he said strained. His clever plan now seemed rather naïve. How was he supposed to talk to Zoro about anything when he...?

"I can... get it myself," the other snorted between repetitions.

"Maybe, but..." Oh no, the dark windows perfectly reflected the interior of the brightly lit lookout, he could see the weight, the feet, the elegant legs in the tight-fitting pants, the waistband, just below the belly button and if the Marimo would stretch his arms now, then...

Sanji stared at the bento box. Felt like he couldn't move without something exploding inside him. It was unfair. He had a weakness for the fairer sex, he couldn't help it. He wanted to infatuate these pretty creatures and praise their beauty, there was nothing shameful about that. But now behind him was the damned Marimo, who was supposed to be neither beautiful nor pretty nor whatever, and who condemned Sanji for every little thing as if he were a saint himself. But at the same time, the Marimo was exactly what Sanji adored, and it felt as if he had to defend himself against all the instincts inside him that wanted to desireworship this angelic creature just a few meters away from him.

"You're really... pathetic, you know that,... Cook?" came between loud panting.

Sanji would have liked to jump around and just knock the other one over, but that wouldn't work, not when Marimo was in that body.

"Oh? Is that your thanks for me bringing you food?" he replied weakly, continuing to stare at the bento.

"I can hear your... breath, your heart... beating. I feel the tension... of your muscles. Pathetic."

"I'd rather you were ugly as well!" he snapped and made the mistake, just noticed how he was getting hot, then he already felt the back of his head crashing against the window when his nose began to bleed with the force of a cannon.

"Me too," the other grumbled as Sanji slid down onto the sofa.

"Ouch," he muttered, rubbing the back of his head, but just lying there staring up at the ceiling, that seemed like the safest alternative at the moment. A rumbling vibration told him that the Marimo had thrown the weight to the ground.

"Here, not that Chopper ends up blaming me if you bleed to death." Fabric fell on his face. Sanji sat up and realized that Zoro had thrown a towel at him. He held it to his nose and felt the heat slowly subside. "So pathetic."

The Marimo walked past him and rubbed another towel over his face that hung around his shoulders. Now, thankfully, he was wearing one of his shirts, which looked incredibly huge on this body, almost like a nightgown. Breathing heavily, he also dropped down on the sofa, a good distance from Sanji and the bento box between them.

"You're going to take care of that," Zoro grumbled, nodding over to the trail of blood on the floor.

"As much as you sweat, you might as well..." He had to interrupt himself and pressed the towel to his nose. "You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?"

"What am I doing on purpose?" grumbled the other, who apparently hadn't even noticed that he had given Sanji a lot of insight when leaning forward, almost too much.

"Well, why else are you walking around half-naked? You know very well that I..."

"What do you want from me? It's not my problem if you freak out when you see a bit of skin and..."

"And why else have you been walking around like this for days now? You just want to provoke me so you can tell everyone how shitty I am..."

"That's not true. I'm even trying to stay out of your way."

Sanji froze. So he had done it consciously, hadn't he?

"Why?" he asked, not knowing if he wanted to hear the answer.

"Well, because you're always reacting as pathetically as you did right now and I don't want to do that to myself every few minutes, but you just had to come up here and interrupt my training with your seizure."

"You might as well just transform and then we wouldn't have this problem," he grumbled, getting down on the floor to wipe up the trail of blood. "What? No witty comeback?"

Still nothing came, almost surprised he looked up from the ground. Normally, this wasn't even enough to warm up. They hadn't even really started fighting. But the other sat there, beautiful to look at, his eyes averted, a breathtaking profi... Something was wrong. Sanji found it even harder to read Zoro than usual — not that he usually put much effort into it — but he had a feeling that there was a reason why Zoro didn't keep ranting.

"What's wrong, Marimo?" he asked, kneeling with the bloodied towel on the floor in front of him.

His collar became uncomfortably tight as the other stared at him. Zoro had always had an intense gaze, but those huge, emerald eyes seemed like a wild typhoon, so many emotions trapped deep inside. Sanji swallowed.

"I can't."

"Wa... what?"

Zoro lowered his eyes, and his voice was so unusually toneless and hoarse that it broke the tension in Sanji's bodymind.

"I don't walk around like this all the time trying to mock you or anything. I can't transform. Haven't been able to for days."

Oh... OH!

"Oh, shit!"

A twitch passed over the other's lips. "Tell me about it."

For a moment, they just looked at each other. Zoro didn't grin, as he usually did in shitty situations.

"Why?" Sanji asked.

"I don't know." Zoro shrugged, then averted his gaze. "Absolutely no idea. I trained, as always, and then it didn't work anymore."

Sanji didn't really know much about Zoro's transformations, only that he had to transform into that form no matter what, always after a certain amount of time, and that he hadn't been able to transform in the very beginning.

"Do you think... Do you think it's going to work again sometime?"

"I don't know."

Now it was quiet between them, and Sanji may not have known much about Zoro's transformations and had no idea how to help him, but one thing he knew.

"We have to tell the others."

"What?" Marimo stared at him. "No, that's not..."

"Listen, maybe the others have an idea, but even if they don't, you can't keep it to yourself."

"I can. It's none of their business and it wouldn't do any good anyway."

"Stubborn idiot," Sanji grumbled, switching position to sit on his butt. "How long do you think it's going to take for someone else to notice? The others aren't stupid, you won't be able to keep it to yourself forever. Besides, even if you don't like it, this is very much our business, we're a crew, and maybe we'll find a way to deal with it together and..."

"Why don't you just let me..."

"Besides, what if we are attacked?" He didn't like the way the other was staring at him, and he didn't know if it was because of that body or if that body made it bearable. "You can't deny that it's a risk. We need to at least talk to Nami and Robin about it – the others are idiots anyway so they might not notice – you can't just pretend everything is fine when it's not."

-Zoro-

This is very much our business.

Our.

Our!

Fuck!

He knew what the Cook meant, and he knew he wasn't wrong, but that didn't make it any better.

They should find a way to deal with it together? They? Yet it was he who might have lost his body permanently. Yes, it would be annoying for the others, but for him...

He slammed the weight on the ground and rubbed his face. The sun was in the middle of the sky. After the Cook had visited him the previous evening, Zoro had deliberately stayed up, deliberately missed breakfast, perhaps because he wanted to avoid what the Cook had suggested. Or maybe because he just needed some more time. Mihawk had warned him back then, and he knew it, could feel it, in those bones, in those muscles.

It didn't bother him much that this body was so much weaker than his own. Every body had weaknesses, even his own, every body had advantages and disadvantages, and if the weakness was muscle strength, then one just had to work on it even more, minimize the weaknesses, maximize the strengths, and create a harmonious balance. That's what he'd learned in the two years under Mihawk's guidance. At that time, he had learned that there had been no balance in his own body. He had concentrated on his strength – his brute force – and had lost speed and agility for it. Beginner's mistake. He had maximized his strengths, but his weaknesses had still been weak and at a certain point his strengths, his pure muscle power, his toughness, had not been able to compensate for these gaps, not against such opponents against whom he could not lose under any circumstances.

With this body it was different, different strengths, different weaknesses, and the simple advantage that he had trained this body balanced from the beginning, advantages and disadvantages always in view. That's why, within a few years, he had managed to become really strong in this body. He was actually quite satisfied with the progress he had made. He had gone farther than Mihawk had expected, than he himself had expected.

Actually, it shouldn't be that bad. A different body, a different look, what did he care. It didn't matter. His scars were missing, the signs of his past deeds, but even this body was nothing more than a sign of his past deeds. All of this bothered him, but not enough to really bother him. He would somehow be able to cope with that, somehow make the best of it. It wasn't always easy with the others, but he would probably be able take that issue much better if it wasn't for this one thing.

This body was not suitable for fighting.

In general, that wasn't a bad thing, not every person, not every body, not every mind had to be suitable for everything. But the problem was that Zoro couldn't really do anything else, didn't want anything else. He couldn't be anything else, even in this body.

He was a swordsman, and he knew that he could become one of the best swordsmen in the world even in this body, which was not suitable for fighting. He wouldn't be stopped, even if he could never transform again. But there were two big snags to the whole thing, and while he didn't want to think about one, the other was quite obvious.

Yes, he had accomplished much more with this body over the past few years than even Mihawk had expected, but the truth was, he was far too weak for what lay ahead of them.

He sighed somberly. He didn't want to think, hated that he was always thinking so much now.

But that didn't change the truth. No matter how much he trained, this body developed very slowly. While he had never noticed it in his own body, it clearly showed when Zoro didn't train for more than a day or two in this body. He had to be even more consistent in his training plan, couldn't just replace one workout with another, sometimes make it longer, sometimes shorter, sometimes concentrate more on endurance or strength training. Slight deviations in this body almost automatically meant that its development stagnated. If he was unlucky, he hindered himself.

It was frustrating. But that frustration wasn't the worst part. He could endure this fruitless training, setbacks, delays, blockages, none of this could stop him. But...

"You're pretty mean, you know that?"

He didn't turn around. There was only one reason, the other one was up here. There was only one reason he wanted to talk to Zoro. Fuck!

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Luffy," he lied, bending down for the weight. The dream of the other day came back to him. This wasn't right.

"You do-hoo," his captain replied with the usual pout in his voice whenever he didn't get what he wanted. "At first you didn't want to play catch with us, then you didn't want to play cards, and this morning we wanted to fish, but you were here all day, training the whole time. That's really mean!"

He couldn't even remember agreeing to any of these things, maybe Luffy hadn't even asked him, wouldn't be a first.

"You know I train a lot," he said, "and it has never bothered you."

"Because you've always seemed like you're enjoying it. But since you don't enjoy it anymore, I thought we'd do something else." He almost dropped the weight. Luffy still sounded so sulking. "You didn't even take a bath with us the day before yesterday, and you know how much fun we always have."

"Brook said you'd flooded the library again and Nami had given you a good scolding," he remarked dryly, remembering the previous day's breakfast, to which Luffy just laughed.

"Shishishi, as I said it was a lot of fun." A faint plop could be heard as Luffy simply dropped to the floor. "But it's only half as much fun when you're not there."

Now he didn't sound sulking anymore, but the way Zoro didn't like it.

He turned and looked at his captain, who was crouching on the ground at the entrance, looking up at him. In Luffy's presence he forgot about it, he could do anything, he believed that nothing could stop him.

But right now...

"You don't enjoy training anymore, do you?"

"No."

"And you don't enjoy bathing with us anymore at the moment?"

"No."

"Hmm, sounds pretty stupid when you don't enjoy anything anymore."

Snorting, Zoro forced himself to smile.

"It is." Then he sat down cross-legged opposite Luffy. "Sorry Captain, but I think I'll have to go through this on my own."

"Why?" Luffy looked at him questioningly.

"Well, because..." Zoro opened his arms and pointed down at his body. "This has something to do with just me."

Luffy nodded slowly, following Zoro's gesture for a moment before looking at him again.

"But I don't want you to have to go through anything alone," he said. "That's stupid. Everything is much more fun together."

"This has nothing to do with fun, Luffy."

Now they were silent, as if Luffy were thinking about his words. Then he stood up, paced across the room, and slammed his fist into the open palm of his hand several times.

"Come on, Zoro, get up."

"What's the point?"

He leaned back to look at Luffy, who grinned at him.

"Well, what do you think? You love to train and enjoy fighting against strong opponents. I am strong. So come on, get up." His grin grew. "Stand up and fight me."

It was easy. In Luffy's presence he forgot everything that made him doubt, he could do anything, nothing could stop him, not even himself.

Grinning, he stood up.

"And here I was afraid you'd want to talk to me," he said, tying his hair back.

"Whaaat?" came from Luffy, who grimaced. "No, I'll leave that to Robin. I just want us both to have fun, and if you don't want to fish, you don't want to take a bath, you don't want to play cards, then let's fight, that's always fun."

This body may not be suitable for fighting, but...

"Alright, fine, come here. But don't you dare hold back."

Zoro cracked his knuckles, stretching his head from left to right, noticing the joyful heat rising inside him.

... it was the body of a fighter.

"No, Zoro." Luffy looked at him deadly serious. "Don't you dare hold back!" And then he attacked.

-Sanji-

He didn't know how, but he'd actually somehow been able to convince Zoro that they couldn't keep the whole thing about Lady Loreen and the no longer transforming thing to themselves. After that, however, it had been very difficult to get a hold of the Marimo at all. He had missed breakfast, and Luffy had dragged him in at lunch, but had besieged him all throughout lunch. After that Zoro'd gone back hiding in the lookout for dinner, but this time Sanji hadn't gone along with it and had asked Jinbei to pick him up. Knowing that the helmsman was most likely to succeed with an irritated Marimo, and the presence of their swordsman at the table had proved him right.

He understood that the other was obviously uncomfortable, but it was only a matter of time before the rest of the crew would find out that something was going on; presumably Robin already knew.

So the Marimo was helping him with the dishes, after Sanji had inconspicuously poured Nami and Robin some coffee and tea while the two ladies were still talking. But as Nami checked their course again, he could feel Robin's gaze and knew his suspicions were confirmed. He waited until the door slammed shut behind Luffy, who was declaring in a strangely serious voice that he wanted to take a bath - even though it was very unusual for him to bathe several times a week - then Sanji looked down expectantly at Zoro, who stubbornly continued to dry the bowl in his hand. Damn, it was still hard for him to admit to himself that this was Zoro, even though he knew better. But it was really unusual to look down at him. Not that Zoro did anything to make it easier.

"Ladies, could you spare a moment of your precious time right now?" He turned to the two most beautiful creatures of this crew, forcibly ignoring the fact that the Marimo currently fitted said description far too well.

"What's going on?" Nami remarked, looking up in surprise. "Is it something urgent? I actually want to work on my maps tonight."

Sanji looked at the Marimo again, who seemed to be having a really hard time doing what they had agreed on and continued to scrub the already dry bowl dry.

"I think Zoro wants to tell us something," Robin came to the rescue, causing the Marimo to groan.

"Why, if you know everything already," he grumbled, threw away the kitchen towel, and followed Sanji to the table, gritting his teeth.

"I'm sorry," she said with a smile, "but it would be boring if all of us had stubbornness as a bad character trait."

"I'm repeating myself, what's wrong?" asked Nami suspiciously and crossed her arms, eyeing them seriously.

The Marimo groaned again. "It's the Cook's fault, he insists on talking to you."

Sanji nodded, he did insist.

"Okay? Why?" Nami looked back and forth between them, as if she was expecting a loud argument, which unfortunately wasn't so far-fetched.

Zoro sighed. "I don't walk around like this because I think it's funny. I can't transform anymore." Then he looked at Sanji condescendingly and damn, how that glare became herhim. "Happy?"

"What?" came from Nami worriedly. "You can't transform anymore? Since when?"

"Well, since I've been walking around like this," the Marimo grumbled. "I transformed for some training a few nights ago, as I often do, and after that I couldn't turn back. Don't know why."

She looked at Zoro with wide eyes, while Robin sipped her coffee thoughtfully, her gaze almost absent.

"And... Have you had that before?" asked Nami. "That you couldn't turn back."

"No, not since I..." The Marimo faltered, looking at Nami's cup as if he had something to think about. "Once, briefly, after the Eizen thing, but it was only for a few minutes and after that it worked even better than before."

"Okay." She swallowed and looked briefly for help at Robin, who remained silent, and then at Sanji, who shrugged his shoulders just as helplessly. He had managed to persuade Zoro to talk to them, but he couldn't do much more. His gaze had to say that, because Nami turned back to Zoro with a doubtful look. "Hmm... So I don't really have an idea what we can do now. Unfortunately, I don't know much about transformations and supernatural stuff like that."

"What? And here I thought that for a weather witch like you..."

Without the slightest hesitation, Nami hit the Marimo with her clenched fist, as she would have done any other time after such a comment, and Sanji stared at her, not sure if stunned or impressed. How did she do it? How could she deal with the Marimo as normally as ever, when he looked and sounded like that?

Undeterred, she continued to speak as if the Marimo had said nothing. "You said once that you couldn't transform right from the beginning, um... Can't you just repeat whatever you did back then to make it work again? What... What actually happened that you were suddenly able to do it?"

The Marimo, who had just rubbed his cheek, lowered his gaze and for a moment he was simply silent. Questioningly, Nami looked up at Sanji, as if she expected him to know the answer. He didn't.

"No," Zoro said then, the depth of that soft voice running down his spine like cold ice, "that's not possible."

"What...?"

"It's good that you told us," Robin said suddenly, looking up and putting down her cup as if she had come to a conclusion. "What does Dracule say about this unfavorable situation? Does he have an idea? At least about the cause, if not the solution."

Zoro rolled his eyes. "Why should he?"

She smiled. "Well, he's a smart and well-read man, and he's obsessed with you enough to gather information about anything that might concern you."

The Marimo only hummed in agreement and that actually sounded very strange with that soft voice, then he shook his head. "I don't know what he'll think of it once he finds out. He is unavailable for a few days; I don't know how long."

"Ah, that's inconvenient, of course. It would be very interesting to gain insight on his knowledge of your condition. Maybe we'll come up with something together once we get a little more context." Robin shrugged. "Very well. Then we probably have no choice but to make the best of it for the time being."

The Marimo laughed dryly. "What do you think I'm doing right now?"

"Do you really think it's permanent?" Nami asked, to which the other two shrugged their shoulders and Sanji wondered if maybe Robin knew more than she said. He wouldn't be surprised.

"Unfortunately, in all the books I've read on the subject, I haven't found anything comparable to what happened to Zoro. I don't know if I can find a solution."

"It doesn't matter." The Marimo rose. "There's someone Mihawk can call, but I have no idea if that's going to help. Well, whatever, the Cook wanted you to know, you do now, and so I'm going to train now and make the best of it," he added with undisguised sarcasm. Then, without waiting for any reaction, he left, slamming the door shut behind him as usual.

"Oh dear, not once things can go smoothly, can they? Finally, we have a few quiet days and then something like this happens. Let's really hope that he can transform again soon, would probably be the best thing for him," Nami said before turning to Sanji. "You did well. How did you even manage to persuade him?"

He shrugged.

"I told him the truth, that it's a risk when no one knows. He's stubborn as hell, but that's the kind of thing that works on him." Then he sighed. "However, I have no idea what to do if it's really permanent. At some point, we'll have to tell the others."

"Oh, don't worry about that," came from Robin and she stood up. "I think the others aren't quite as inattentive as we might think. Well, and if he really stays in this form forever, then we'll do exactly what we're doing now. We just make the best of it."